She
She was the reason for my existence and had been since she was a tiny thing no bigger than the height of my knee to my foot. She was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen and was the mirror of her mother, Juri.
I remember, as though it was yesterday, the day of her birth. My father and I had stayed out of the room where the birth was to take place. My mother was tended to by a midwife fiercely loyal to the Kuran clan.
A part of me had been afraid that the birth of my parents' biological child would change the way that they felt about me. However, my mother, the most gentle of women, had sensed my fears and had allayed them.
"Kaname," she had said, seeing the way I was staring at her one dark evening while we waited for my father to return from a trip. "You're going to be a wonderful big brother to your baby sister."
I had frowned at her, not convinced. Though I knew my position as future head of the Kuran clan and a vampire clan at that, there was still enough of the child within me to feel the insecurities of a normal human child at the birth of a much awaited sibling. "I'm afraid, Mother," I replied. "I don't want to lose you or Father."
"This is a difficult time for you, I know, Kaname; there is so much at stake for our family. But I know that you are a good person and I know that there is no way that you could possibly act in any other way toward your little sister."
"How do you know it is a girl?" I asked; my mother had always seemed to have a sixth sense about important things and I had always wondered how she did it.
She didn't answer me directly; she just smiled secretively in that way that women do and jumped slightly as the baby kicked, almost as though she knew that they were talking about her.
"Give me your hand, darling," she said, holding hers out toward me. I placed mine tentatively in hers and absently noticed that her hand was soft and cool to the touch.
She placed my outstretched fingers on the gentle mound beneath her heart and I waited, not sure for what.
I stared at her stomach in wonder as I felt the child within kick vigorously at the cool touch of my hand. "Mother," I breathed; I lifted my other hand and placed it next to the other. I leaned forward as I felt the child kick strongly again. I placed my head on my mother's stomach, between my outstretched fingers and turned to the right so that my ear rested there.
My eyes closed as I concentrated and I breathed in sharply as I felt the intelligence that emanated from within. "Mother," I said again and lifted my head toward her. "She..."
"I know, Kaname. She loves you already. This life will not be easy for you my son, or for her, but you will both be able to rely on each other, as your Father and I always have."
She smiled at me sadly and I wonder now, as I have many times during the intervening years, whether she knew that her life, and that of my father, would be abruptly shortened only a few years later.
I had vowed that day that no matter what the cost to me, I would protect my sister with my life and I would die before I let anything happen to her.
"Kaname-sama."
I looked behind me; it was Kain. "Yes, Kain?"
"It is time, Kaname-sama," he replied, bowing slightly at me.
"Very well," I replied, nodding.
I looked again out of the window at Yuki as she tried vainly to herd the many girls from the day class as they waited desperately for a glimpse of the night class students.
"Yuki," I whispered painfully then turned, my face again a blank mask and made my way out of the classroom, following my fellow night class students out of the building.
