1. Vitreous Collision

Life's not only a bed of roses. It is full of thorns as well.


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10 hours ago

It was a paradoxical thing when he, a vampire, thought himself in seventh heaven. From a simple human's point of view dark creatures such as himself had to roast in hell. Anyway, he thought all along that humans followed too many delusions in their short lifetime.

It was like heaven: Finally he was able to fall onto his bed, drifting off into his sacred sleep, soundly and gracefully as he usually would do. And for everyone's sake, he earned it after being awake for freaking forty-four hours and on his toes.

But he realized fate cheated on him as someone obviously insane banged the door open.

Aidou buried his head under his pillow; he instantly knew dreamland was out of his reach. "What is it?" He mumbled grumpily against the sheet. With no doubt, he'd kill this person if he had enough energy to walk straight. He figured he would just have to remember the face and defer the pleasure.

"Kaname-sama has another task for you, Hanabusa."

Scratch the last train of thought. Why, why on earth had it to be one of the very few persons he wouldn't (and couldn't probably too) obliterate so easily? If it had been Kiriyuu Zero, the despicable prefect – well, he could expect not one hint of mercy or sorrow afterwards. Aidou groaned.

Even if he inwardly wished for a bloody massacre, the look he shot his cousin Kain Akatsuki was nowhere near impressive deadly. Yet, Akatsuki was used to his moods and therefore didn't work as an applied standard.

That was lucky. Less relieving on the opposite was that despite his dedication and loyalty to Kaname, just now, he wanted to freeze him over sooner or later. Didn't he do everything for him? Didn't he get all the damned jobs done he was asked to do? Hell, yes.
Didn't he swallow the watery miscellany which was to substitute the blood of the living? And how! Hell, yes, he did. He should be thanked with a lifetime of free time without stupid rules to obey. In the end, what did he get for his devotion? Obviously not what he needed right now. Not that he needed a hand patting his pretty head in praise. Uh, that appeared rather gross ...

Sleep. He needed freaking time to sleep and recover when he began to ponder on this kind of stuff. "A-ka-tsuki." He whined in a sing-song voice, routing his fingers through his hair. "I don't want to. I don't want to. I just don't." With each syllable stretched long his pout deepened.

"Come on." His cousin sighed. "I don't want to remind you, but it is your fault that you've volunteered. Though, even I have no idea why you did. " He left his place at the door, hands nonchalantly in his trouser pockets, approaching his own bed opposite to Aidou's with long strides. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes wary. "Hanabusa, don't tell me you've angered Kaname-sama again."

Before Aidou blinked twice, his blanket was gone and his head suddenly resting on the bare bedsheet. Nap time was over making him almost grab his tousled blonds strands again to tear them out one at a time. "Hell, no!" The blond rubbed his eyes extensively and reached for his coat instead. "Ah, at least I don't remember."
A darker shaded spot on the cloth captured his gaze for a second before he blew the dust away, nauseated. Those croaking Level E's weren't even worth half the attention needed to crush them – which was little with his kind of special abilities. "I'm going", he said in the doorway. His voice came out muffled as he stifled a big yawn behind his hand.

"Be careful." Akatsuki called after him.

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"Come out, you damnable freak!" Aidou stepped over the next threshold of this excuse of a house. His feet moved soundlessly on the cracked oaken floor. The three-storey building was on the border of collapsing just above his head. With a little luck on his side, it'd be crushing the trash, too.

With a couple of hours already passed, it had become impossible for him to show patience in luring the left ex-human vampire out little by little. Killing his companion had been so easy; she had been given the final blow like a wake-up call. It was like, "Good thing you never got the chance to become my fan, that would have ruined my image.", and bang! – she crumbled into dust in no time.

The male one seemed to have retained bits of human intelligence. He hid himself for almost an hour now, while he let his snickering reach Aidou's ears. A trap, he was aware of it. It simply sucked.

He yawned and gave the dead woman some credit. She had done the right thing, sleeping deeply when the midday sun shone bright before the day turned into afternoon. And he, the aristocrat, envied her, a creature which equaled the dirt under his shoes. The world was so wrong these days. Vampires weren't allowed to suck blood, a pureblood had an affinity for a human girl and he graced the earth with his presence in the middle of the day. Wrong, damnit!

"Ah, shit." He cursed, quickly raising a hand to his nose while the other fished for a handkerchief in a pocket of his coat. A strong smell was caught in his nose, anything but a humanly positive one.

Aidou tightened his eyes in vigilance as he caught a glimpse of a figure on the other side of the paneled room hushing around a fallen ceiling beam which obrstructed the passage to a hallway because of its lopsided position. The shadow moved further out of his sight, probably taking the stairs. First, he mistook it for the Level-E, however, when he heard it dashing up the stairs he followed silently at a smart pace. Catching up remarkably easily, the noble vampire saw –

"Yuuki-chan?"

He froze in mid-step. What the …? It clicked audible in his mind as he jumped to conclusions.

Cross Yuuki. A Level-E. Air overflown with a striking smell.

Of course he recognized the scent of her blood. Muttering more curses, he darted after her. The sound of her footsteps and more fierce noises led him directly onto the third floor. Aidou grinded his teeth at the intensive smell as he went through the only open doorway; it was like he jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

Yuuki was lying below a smashed window. The sight made him throw caution to the wind since he knew that a badly hurt Yuuki was not one bit of a pleasant thing to Kaname. The handkerchief still pressed against his nose to avert further temptation, he checked on her; to his discomfiture the girl was bleeding more than he'd assumed. He averted his gaze hastily to the empty room and came to realize that the culprit was gone.

Great. Plain great. It flashed through his mind that Kaname-sama would be on the verge of strangling him.

After flipping his cell phone open, he called Akatsuki who merely promised backup before he hung up on him. Aidou snorted, his blue eyes sparkled angrily. That bastard is gone and I'm stuck in this bloody room to babysit the stupid girl. He couldn't imagine someone would actually allow the naïve Cross Yuuki to slay a Level-E, so why wasn't she at school like she was meant to be at this time of the day?
He took off his coat, threw it over the fragile girl on the floor and slumped down against the wall across from her where he was able to watch the surroundings while he waited for the others. His constricting throat as well as his antipathy hindered him from doing more than just that.

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It took about fifteen minutes until they arrived. Aidou heard a car's engine skidding to a rough stop and supposed the driver had been ordered to go at top speed. It was not like he was unhappy about that – some more minutes withstanding the temptation to lick the inebriating blood off her skin might have driven him insane to the border of succumbing. Most likely his brain was already damaged, imprinted upon her fragrance. His throat felt sore, his hand automatically clung to it.

Akatsuki and Kaname found him in that significant posture. While the former took a wary stand in the doorway, the pureblood headed towards Yuuki and bent over her, his face stern while he stroked one loose strand off her face and scanned her state with his eyes. "Aidou, what happened?" Kaname's voice was velvet as he lifted her into his arms, but the demanding tone was undeniable.

Aidou's eyes opened slowly. He'd closed them in the attempt to block out the picture before him. "When I arrived, Yuuki was already like this and the target nowhere in sight." He stated as he got up leaning on the panel with his side. Things were going to be settled, but the pureblood didn't look as if he was about to punish him for Cross girl's bad luck. Good for her. "Why did she try to hunt the Level-E down? She's not part of the Vampire Hunter Association or anything, is she?."

"The chairman wasn't informed of her trip either, so we won't know as long as Yuuki is unconscious." Kaname's forehead creased slightly before he continued. "Aidou, you'll finish your assignment. Catch that Level-E alive if possible, he might know something. "

He bowed, a good pretense to hide the un-willingness reflected in eyes. "Yes, Kaname-sama."

The pureblood turned with Akatsuki following in his shadow. "We're leaving now, I expect a full report later. Don't disappoint me, Aidou." When they passed the door, his cousin gave Aidou a long inquiring glance. Even without that hint, he'd have known that there was something odd.

"Of course not, Kaname-sama." He answered into the vacant room. Even if Kaname didn't hear him, the blond was sure that it was out of question for the highest of vampires that he didn't obey, that he was even able to draw himself from the authority in his eyes. Aidou gave in on this; no matter how worn out he was, any task given by Kuran Kaname took priority.

But there appeared a problem: even so, he was annoyed at actually having to search for that lowly creature. On top of this, his senses were tingling because of the still blood-stained air hanging in this decrepit house. How was he meant to trail the beast by scent when his delicate nose was led astray by an unseen red cloud?

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Aidou leapt from the window sill where the Level-E had broke through after his encounter with the Cross girl. Light-footed he hit the ground of the backyard between even more trash and dust. Somewhat clearer air washed over him, easing the tension in his chest like he'd been drowning and suddenly stumbled across the water surface.

He breathed deeply when he made his way over low wood laths to a side street. The former owner must have misinterpreted the object of a fence, but whatever. Aidou sighed as he turned the corner. It was not his mission to bring good taste to unworthy people who were probably and hopefully already dead. He had to –

"Stop right there, vampire."

He looked up, taken aback by the offensive view of a silver muzzle pointed at his face. "Eh?" It took him a moment to comprehend the situation and a second one to find the right words to form. Even if it wasn't the first time, the impudence of this guy made him boil with rage each time anew. "Kiriyuu Zero! Fuck off, bastard." He grinded through his teeth. "Why is it that all you prefects keep getting in my way today?"

"All...? Yuuki was here? What did you do to her?" Zero inquired, strengthening his grip around the weapon with his left hand. The skin over his knuckels seemed white next to transparent. "Spill it. Now."

Aidou waved his hand in a dismissive manner. What a nerve the bastard has! "Why would I tell you, Mr. Prefect? It's not like I'm the culprit – since it's her fault that the Level-E escaped after he'd hurt her." He tried to skirt the silver haired boy, however having the muzzle of the Bloody Rose hovering five inches away from his face restrained him from getting his way. He frowned.

"She's hurt? What's with the blood all over you?"

"Kaname-sama has already taken care of her." Aidou said icily. The hue of his gaze matched his voice. Kiriyuu was beyond wrecking his nerves acting so unaffected by the intense and clear message in Aidou's grimace.

The prefect's eyes rested somewhere greatly beside his head.

"That Level-E?"

"Which Level-E? There was just one left. Since when do you have responsibility of an exhibition?" But the blonde's head followed in direction, dissipating his quite illustrative thoughts of congealing Zero into a stiff column of ice. It fits his attitude, Aidou found. The derisive curl on his lips died away as his eyes caught sight on his actual target.

The ex-human snickered, his unkempt hair bordering his face, causing the blotched jacket to fall from his madly trembling shoulders. He moved from his spot on the metal banister of a outside staircase, suddenly crushing Aidou with bone-wrecking force to the ground. He twisted and lurched on the dusty earth, his hands – scratch that, his claws dug in Aidou's clothes, ripping and tearing it and landing rare scratches.

"Get the hell off me, scum!" He hissed when he finally shoved the vampire off with unusual brute force. It crashed into some metal trash bins on the opposite walls of the alleyway, the shrill sound echoing in his hears. "Disgusting," was all Aidou commented while he straightened up. He shot Zero a murderous glance. "Shoot him already, hunter." He said mockingly.

Besides arching a brow Zero remained motionless a few steps away from him. For god's sake, was the boy good for anything except scowling?! Aidou huffed.

The Level-E crawled out from under the pile of trash – right where it belonged in his opinion. With one look Aidou froze the creature. When he he had been younger, he needed to point at the targets or sometimes even missed them and froze a servant instead. It didn't happen too often as he learned control quickly and used the ability to his amusement. At that time he'd collected ice sculptures of birds, squirrels and such; glittering like diamonds on his shelves and caught in the moment for eternity. They were tokens of the accuracy of his ability, marked his genius all the more.

The ex-human was nothing like that. Even encased in ice, his grimace was unmistakably ugly.
For once in the last two days some luck decided to shine upon him like the late afternoon sun and spared him some shreds of usefulness in form of Kiriyuu Zero. With a shot of his Bloody Rose he smashed the vampire to pieces. Not that he would ever admit that loud; a noble like him didn't dirty his hands or mouth about such things. But wait, the vampire being dead was not of help …

"Oh dear god, great job, Kiriyuu-kun! You finished him off single-handedly. I wonder why I should've caught him alive. Is it perhaps - just maybe - because he's hurt Yuuki-chan?" Aidou paused. "That is like – wait, there is no comparison to your exultant attitude." He didn't conceal the irony in the affected tone. It dripped from his voice like the frazzles of ice that he shook from his clothes. "Let me get this straight: You rendered it impossible to interrogate him." A lecture from Kaname-sama about his duties, his behavior and stuff, save it for good, that was something he didn't want to endure in the near future, thank you very much.

"Whatever, vampire. Why don't you go out of my way and back to school? You have classes soon, don't you?" Zero glanced at the sky meaningfully which was mostly orange tingled with purple shaded clouds, the color shift darker the nearer the horizon was.

Aidou scrapped an insulting retort for once, instead he called his driver and left the prefect with the remnants of his kind. "Jerk," he muttered under his breath. Other rampant terms flashed in his mind and made him smirk on his way back.

He didn't even bother to go to the Moon Dorm after he got out of the car. Aidou took a short cut through the woods and entered the towering academy building without attracting any high-pitched screams of female Day Class students. As supposed, Kaname was in the infirmary along with Chairman Cross, both on each side of Yuuki's bed. The girl was pale and breathed slowly, either she slept or was still unconscious.

"Kaname-sama, Chairman." Aidou waited till their eyes were set on him and chose his words carefully. "The vampire was killed by Kiriyuu Zero. I didn't have the chance to interrogate him."

The Chairman leaned back. "Too bad. We'll have to wait till my cute Yuuki wakes up."

"Very well, Aidou. I have one last favor to ask of you, after that you are dismissed from tonight's classes." The pureblood passed the blonde a neatly folded piece of paper from the side table. "It looks like Yuuki wanted to meet a friend tonight at the lake. Make sure that the girl goes back to her dorm. She's Yuuki's dear friend, so you're responsible for her safety."

In his eyes it read: The girl is untouchable. Even if you're near her she's behind the glass panel. There are two rules: Don't bite her, don't make advances to her. Do you understand?

He nodded shortly. Ugh.

"Yori-chan is such a nice girl. She shares a room with my Yuuki and has never raised trouble or anything." The chairman extended his song of praise about that girl on how excellent her grades were, her flawless manners. Aidou decided to take flight before his ears went deaf, exhaling deeply as he leaned against the cool glass of a window opposite to the infirmary room. To him that girl sounded rather plain, then again except for Yuuki with her delicious blood all of the Day Class girls seemed plain. But anyway, after this last job was done, he would be free to sleep straight, all the more reason to make his way outside now.

He unfolded the note and skimmed over a few lines of different writing. One could only be called a scribble while the other was without frills, just tidy letters on a piece of paper, so it was no enigma to figure out which writing belonged to the klutzy prefect.

"Let's meet tonight, Yori-chan. We haven't talked in ages."

- "Don't you have to patrol?"

"Zero skips all the time, it won't hurt if I miss an hour. There's something I need to tell you."

- "Then, at the usual spot by the lake after you've kept our fellow female student population at bay? And we have to keep the curfew in mind, Prefect Cross Yuuki."

"Yori-chan, if you're with me, forget the curfew. I'll bring you to the dorm safely."

- "You said it, Yuuki. I'll remind you if that gloomy person behind us finds out."

"Don't worry about Zero. Let's just meet tonight, okay?"

- "Yeah."

Usual spot by the lake? What kind of description of a place was that? Was he meant to run around the whole lake? Aidou snorted. He pushed the big door of the school building open, descended the stairs two steps at a time. No big deal with only four steps existing. Fucking boring, no challenge at all.

Stupid girls, stupid Kiriyuu, stupid Level-E, stupid tasks, stupid sun, stupid Kiriyuu, stupid day, stupid Kana…
No, stop, he did not want to think that! Of course not.
Never would he dare to think something like this. No, he wouldn't. Who knew if the dorm leader might find out? Then Aidou was sure he was screwed. But sometimes it was as tempting as the forbidden fruit of blood. But he was a genius, a master of self-control.
A master of fooling himself.

He would better hurry up if he ever wanted to drop onto his bed. His feet hit the forest floor at a lower frequency as his strides became longer, the sounds of his steps decreasing until you couldn't draw a distinction between the usual evening sounds in the forest and his running. Some twigs brushed his face but he didn't care. Besides his advanced powers of a noble he liked the supernatural speed the most.

Glancing through the skyscraping trees as he started in a circle around the lake, he looked out for the girl with sharpened senses. Now that he wasn't surrounded by ecstatic fragrances but with a bunch of animal and vegetation scents, his senses worked just fine again. It was his nose that picked up the outstanding human presence only trees away.

The momentum fooled him as he skidded to a stop. He faltered through some pines towards a fair haired girl. He didn't stop. He couldn't. Instead he collided with the big-eyed girl, crushing her fragile figure under him.

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Puh, this is quite long, but since I had to make up for the tiny prologue, I guess it's fair. What do you think about it? Opinions, mistakes - I'm curious ;)

And shame on me! - I nearly forgot to thank you all for reading and reviewing on the few lines of the prologue. Thanks to you I was grinning (madly) all day long. So, again, thank you very much.