When a girl is carried into the hunters association terrified and covered in blood, Zero and Kaito take it upon themselves to find the vampire responsible for the tragedies in this girl's life, but could they lose more than what they bargained for.

SilverMew22 does not own Vampire Knight

AN: This is rated T at first but may change to M for blood, death and maybe a curse or two in later chapters. This starts after Yuuki is turned into a vampire and Zero starts to live in the chairman's old apartment/reunites with Kaito Takamiya, but old characters might appear but it's mostly about Zero and Kaito.

Chapter 2 Confrontation

Zero Kiryuu listened to the movements of the girl, as she put on the spare clothes from behind the door.

He searched his coat pocket for his blood tablets to sustain himself before he had to speak with her.

"Give a knock on the door when you're finished."

Zero heard a quick knock, then the sound of feet retreating from the door.

With a sigh and blood tablets ingested, he turned the handle and pushed through the door.

A girl sat on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs back and forth as she stared at the ground.

Zero closed the door and walked towards the girl causing her to flinch and cringe with every advancing step; making him feel a bit guilty, for putting her through the horrors of a vampire once more.

Zero sat down on the bed, at a distance from the girl and turned towards her.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

She looked at him and into his amethyst colored eyes, which held kindness and honesty.

"I'd like to know what happened to you, why you were covered in blood?"

Zero spoke in a kind and gentle voice, causing the girl to give him a questioning look.

'She still doesn't trust me... well, I couldn't really blame her.'

Zero sighed and dug into his pocket to retrieve his blood tablets, he turned away from the girl as he uncapped and poured out a hand full of tablets to consume.

After he had swallowed a hand full of tablets, the girl asked him if it was medicine, surprised by her sudden choice to interact with him, he said yes.

The girl eyed the small box with suspicion as if she were trying to piece something together. She knew something about him wasn't right and it scared her.

Zero never meant to scare her with his condition.

"...Blood Tablets, he called them Blood tablets..."

The girl whispered more towards herself than to Zero.

Shocked at how she could know this type of information, as new questions plagued his mind, about her involvement in the massacre that had just taken place.

"Who called them Blood Tablets?"

Zero questioned her a little too strongly, making her flinch.

He then realized that he didn't even ask her for her name before he could know what happened to her, he had to know who she was first.

"What's your name?"

Zero walked in front of her, causing her to look at his shoes, rather than the floor she had been trying to stare at, to avoid the hunter's gaze.

Zero sighed as she turned away to look out of the barred windows.

It was as if she were an animal trapped in a cage, now that he thought about it, she kind of was.

'She doesn't even know where she is or why she is here.'

Zero gave a saddened sigh for this girl's situation.

"When can I go home?"

The girl stared Zero down as if he were her captor and the reason for her being here.

"You need to tell me what happened to you so that we can catch this bad person and make him pay for his crimes."

Zero stated with a hidden desire to kill and seek bloodshed, from any vampire he could get his hands on.

"You mean... you're going to kill him?"

She spoke in a soft voice with regret for something she had no control over.

'So this was how these people operated...than if I don't say the right things, is it possible that I could be next?'

The mere thought of this made her shiver and hesitantly swallow a lump forming in her throat, in front of the silver-haired male, causing him to cast a look of worry.

Zero had to look towards this girl for information and yet she looked at him as if he were the one who killed all those people. Well maybe if he reasoned with her and told her the circumstances, she would disclose some useful information.

"This person is nothing more than a beast in human form, a beast who has committed the crime of killing innocent humans in cold blood".

Zero looked at the girl to see if any of this was sinking in, but she merely stared at the blank wall opposite of her as if it would open up, and be her escape away from this place.

With a yet another sigh, Zero walked over and placed his hand on her small shoulder, making her flinch but he needed to get information, just not with force.

Zero grimaced at the thought of hurting a human for personal or professional gain, even if it gave him a good reason to kill one of those bloodsucking bastards.

"You need to help me catch the person who did this."

Zero was careful not to pull her deeper into the world of vampires, but he knew he couldn't keep it up forever if he really wanted answers.

"...Um, excuse me...mister...when can I go home?"

Her soft voice reached his pale pierced ears as he gave a sigh.

"My name is not, mister."

He tried to slightly mimic her voice, which made her cover her mouth as she giggled, hiding her smile from his view.

Zero plopped himself on the old and worn out bed, making the legs of the girl and the bed, shake and sway.

"It's Zero Kiryuu and the man who brought you here was Kaito Takamiya".

He held his hand out to the girl.

"So what's your name?"

She started to speak to the hunter, but she never dared to look directly into his light lavender eyes.

He sort of scared her in some way, not only because he was a stranger, but also there was something off about him, especially about how 'nice' he was trying to be.

'It's like he is trying to get something from me, but hide something from me as well...' She thought.

"My name is... Ai Hayashi."

The girl stated to the hunter, as she stared at the floor, with nothing more than the thought of just wanting to go back home...no, her old home, before her aunt took her in because her mother had lost her mind...well that's what her cousins told her.

"Hayashi-san, what happened to you, do you remember anything at all?"

Zero asked in concern, but the girl merely shook her head and said no to the silver-haired hunter.

"What about earlier that morning, did anything come off to you as... strange?"

He hoped she would remember something... anything that would lead to the vampire who killed all those people.

"Um...I remember some things before I went into the alley...but I'm not sure if it's important..."

She wanted to tell him something that would allow him to release her from this scary, Gothic styled place...

'Where am I anyway?'

"Tell me anyway, what you did before you went into that alley...why did you go into the alley in the first place?"

Zero was more concerned than intrigued about the fact that such a meek little girl, would want to venture alone into an alley.

"I think some guys from my school, might have been following me?"

She told the hunter before he began to show even more concerned that she would have expected from a stranger.

"Why were they following you, Hayashi-san?"

Zero asked as he dug into his coat pocket for his blood tablets but never took his eyes away from the girl.

They rattled so loudly in the small box; that the very sound of the small pills against the box's walls, seemed to almost echo off the walls of the quiet room.

This room was so void of any noise or life, that any sound could catch Ai's fleeting attention.

"Um...are you okay Ze-I mean mister?"

She asked in concern after he tried to swallow half a hand full of the tablets, which rested on his palm before he cupped his hand over his mouth to force the rest down.

He parted his lips to let out a harsh breath of dissatisfaction, from consuming the dehydrated artificial blood.

After he had his daily dose of tablets for the moment, he spoke to the girl in an inquisitive tone.

"Why do you keep calling me Mister?"

It was as though his name was a curse to her, which she cautiously tried to avoid tainting her lips.

"Should I call you Kiyruu or Zero then?"

She spoke in a hushed whisper as if she had been scolded.

"Yes, Hayashi-san."

He got up from the bed making it bounce and squeak a little from his weight and walked in front of the girl to get a better view of her dark toned, innocent face before she tried to look away.

"Those people from my school, don't really like me because of some girl who doesn't like me too...she usually calls me Baka-Usagi, I think her and her friends sent their boyfriends after me, since they followed me on the train, then outside... "

She looked to the hunter for any signs of sympathy but he only looked content so she carried on.

"Then I thought, maybe if I went a different way home, they wouldn't follow me...but they did..."

Her tone became sad and mute because of those dreadful memories.

She tried not to remember the way they shoved her against the cold, hard, brick wall, of an abandoned building.

How they laughed and taunted her when she fell and cowered in a fetal position.

How they took her bag and spilled its precious contents on the ground, as she covered her eyes in distress.

...But then, above all of that, she heard the sound of blades raking against a wall.

She could distinguish every crack and grove they passed over.

...tap

...screech

...tap

...screech and then...

...silence.

After that, she heard nothing but she did feel a strange presence like something was smothering her... like a force, which made it hard for her to breathe.

Then the feeling of a warm, wet liquid rained against her, like waves of an ocean that she could not escape from out of pure fear.

She stayed completely still, hoping that she could avoid being swallowed up, just like the cruel boys before her.

She tried to pry open her eyes but the blood-sealed them shut.

Not even a scream, only the sound of gagging, choking, and wheezing as the sounds of bodies hitting the ground like dominoes, one after another, after another, like a hypnotically, deadly rhythm, that left her counting the seconds, until another body hit the cold cement, then silence took over once more.

So she waited, as the blood dried and became like paint against her skin.

...Waited, for the warm liquid that surrounded her body like a lake, to go as cold as ice and stop flowing past her.

...Waited, for someone to find her and take her away from this nightmare.