Dawn: Somehow, at the same time, I am feeling simultaneous disappointment in you guys as readers and just about the best high I've gotten in months. It sends me over the moon that you guys like this story enough to review it so many times (give that button down there a workout baby!~); however, it also depresses me to see that no one has voted on the pool. Like I said, Kat's gender depends entirely on the votes. She's just a girl right now because I'm too lazy to make her a him (for clarity's sake), but since next chapter I'm planning on having her meet Senri Shiki, who grew up with cats and thus knows how to tell their gender for certain, unlike Kaname, who we all know would not know a male cat from a female cat unless it was having sex in front of him.

Kaname: *pouting* I would too.

Zero: Uh huh, sure. *totally not convinced*

Takuma: I can't wait to get my kitty! *closes eyes and waits for magic kitty fairy to come down from sky and give him Kat*

Kat: ... ImmortalDawn18 does not own Vampire Knight, just me and the finer elements of the plot.

Chapter Two: Caught Between His Bloody Hands

"Zero!" Yuki called, running after the pacing hunter, "Zero!" She yanked on his elbow, the first part of him she'd been able to wrap her fingers around, but he didn't move an inch, instead turning one lavender eye towards her, his eyebrow raised in a questioning manner. "Where's Kaname?"

The corner of his mouth fell in a disapproving frown as he yanked his arm free harshly. "Do I look like Kuran's personal GPS to you?" he stated angrily, his guilt over having to pretend to hate the pureblood flaring up at her hurt expression. "Go ask Takuma Ichijo. I bet he knows what the damn leech is up to." What she didn't know was that the hunter and the Moon Dorm's Vice President had been tearing apart the city trying to find the brunet, but to his annoyance, the other vampire had disappeared just as thoroughly as the dew on the grass following dawn.

"I'm worried about him, Zero," she confessed softly. "I know he's perfectly able of handling himself, but he's been gone almost a week now without sending word."

"Yuki," the hunter stated. "Kaname Kuran is a very powerful pureblood. What kind of person, other than me, would really be stupid enough to oppose him?"

She smiled happily at his reassurance. "You're right, Zero," she chuckled, "I don't know what I was thinking when I said that."

It's in your nature to be concerned about the well-being of others, Yuki, he thought to himself. But why does it seem so natural for me, the one who deliberately isolates myself from others, to be in such a panic over a missing vampire? He sighed heavily, his eyes turning fond for a moment. Because Kaname Kuran is special, that's why. He's the first vampire I've ever pointed the Bloody Rose at because I was trained to and not because I wanted to shoot the vampire bastard.

"Hey Zero," she asked, drawing him from his thoughts, "what do you want for your graduation present?"

He blinked, her words reminding him of the upcoming test to become a fully-certified hunter, one he was certain he'd pass with flying colors. It wasn't his first time killing Level Es, after all. "I don't know. I guess I'd want a pet." Lies, the vampire part of him whispered insidiously. You know exactly what you want, and that's Kaname Kuran's dick in your ass with his hand wrapped around your cock and his fangs buried deep in your neck as he sucks your blood from your veins while letting you ride him like you do White Lily. He bit his lips to hold back a moan at the mental image that his imaginings brought, using his silver hair to hide the blush on his cheeks. "Not White Lily though, it wouldn't be fair to her when I graduate from Cross Academy and have to leave her behind because I don't have anywhere to stable her. I guess, if I had to pick an animal, I'd want a dog. "

"Sure," she said, her smile faltering for a moment, glad that he couldn't see her uncharacteristic change of expression, "a dog."

Kaname yelped loudly when he awoke, the fur around his neck bristling as his head twisted around to growl at the source of the pain in his flank. "Kat?" he barked, trying to hide his teeth now that he knew it was only his friend, "What are you doing here? Where are we?"

The tip of her tail drooped slightly in apparent sadness, which she concealed by wrapping the streak of black fur around her paws. "Laertes betrayed me," she mewed, washing the back of a paw as if she didn't care that the only person she'd ever trusted had abused that trust. "He took us to an animal shelter."

Kaname cocked his head. "I thought they separated dogs and cats in animal shelters," he stated confusedly.

"They do," she replied, her tongue now swiping over a claw covered in sweet-smelling blood Kaname recognized as his own, no doubt the reason behind his wakefulness. "I just picked the lock on my cage so I could make sure you were okay. You've been out for about a week now."

"A week!" he yelped, getting to his paws, but a firm paw pushed his muzzle shut, the very same one she had been washing not a moment before.

"Be quiet!" she hissed, yellow eyes gleaming in the dim. "Do you want me to get thrown out?" He glared at her in a silent answer, but she still waited a moment for him to better compose himself before pulling her slender paw back through the wide chain mesh of the door. "Anyway, you're actually in the quarantine part of the shelter. Apparently you reacted badly to one of the injections the vet stuck you with during the obligatory check-up when Laertes brought us in."

"Why aren't you in one of these then?"

Smugness radiated off her fur as she proudly stated, "Because every time anyone would come near me, I'd claw at them. It didn't take long for the humans to get the message. So long as they leave me alone, I don't scratch them." She examined his cage lock critically for a long moment before she reared up, one black paw resting on the cold metal siding for balance while the other skillfully assessed the security of the small lock. "Hmm, small thing, more complex than the joke they put on mine but only two tumblers at most. It won't be all too hard to open. I'll have it gutted in five minutes, ten tops."

Kaname lay back down, his muzzle resting on his front paws as he watched her work. My name is Kaname Kuran. I'm a pureblood vampire. I am 18 years old by human approximations and attend Cross Academy's Night Class, an elite program specifically for vampire nobles and presided over by me, the sole pureblood on campus. The person I love most is Yuki Cross and the person I hate most is Zero Kiryu. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly; he felt as if he'd forgotten something. "The person I think of as my brother is Takuma Ichijo," he blurted, tail thumping once against the ground at the successful recall, yet there was no sarcastic answering remark from the cat. He poked his head out of the opened mesh door, hesitant to leave such a valuable ally, but since it was likely she'd simply wandered off on her own, he jumped to the floor and began looking for a way out, following the smell of the other animals here.

Suddenly, a pair of cold hands closed around his belly, lifting him up, and he couldn't contain an undignified yelp at the sudden loss of linoleum from underneath his tender pads. "Aw look," a male voice declared in what could only be labeled as a squeal, "isn't he adorable?" The dog had to repress the urge to bite the man's arm, if only so that he wouldn't drop the significant distance to the floor.

Calloused fingers eased him from the first man's cold grip, supporting his weight much more comfortably, his hands covered with fingerless gloves that smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, even though the grasp should have been much more precarious as he was raised up to stare into a single blue eye, the other concealed beneath a black eyepatch. "The physical appearance of the dog does not determine his suitability as a pet," the black-haired man stated dryly, his cigarette, unlit, bobbing in his mouth. "However, I doubt he will make an unsuitable companion for my stupid pupil."

"Ooh, put him in the carrier, Toga. I'll go fill out the adoption forms." The dog winced slightly at the increase in pitch of the voice of the first male, his ears clinging closer to his head now.

"Yeah, I know, Kaien can get a little excited as far as his adopted children are concerned," Toga admitted to the little puppy as he gently set the animal down on his paws in a roomy white and red dog carrier, "but he does mean well, even to his precious 'Zero-rin'."

Zero-rin? Kaname thought to himself, sitting down in the confined space and letting his tail tap against the sides thoughtfully. Could this Zero-rin be the same Zero as Zero Kiryu of Cross Academy?

Toga sighed, closing the door and disappearing from view, though judging by the way his voice floated to Kaname, the human was leaning against the wall somewhere to his immediate left. "Still, I guess I'm glad Zero's going to be your master and not Kaien. If I got a call about a month later with him crying his eyes out and bawling that you had died, I honestly don't know whether I'd strangle him over the phone or wait until he held your puppy funeral to do it."

Zero's going to be my master? Kaname bit back a harsh snarl, not wanting to ruin his chances of going back to Cross Academy if this was the same Zero he thought this was. How ironic that my worst enemy will become my best friend. I guess I should be grateful he doesn't know who I really am, otherwise he'd likely toss me right back out again on my cute little furry ass. The pureblood blinked at that, the rest of his mind finally catching up with his musings. Wait, did I just call myself cute? He resisted the urge to bang his head into the side of the carrier. Judging by the way his thoughts didn't quite feel like ones he'd normally have, he figured he'd had enough brain damage to last him through this adventure. He lay back down, his tail curling around his body as he closed his eyes so that he could catch up on some sleep he'd need in the very near future, absently wondering exactly what had happened to Kat that had caused her to disappear so suddenly.

Kat twisted her lithe little black-furred body around, glaring at the edge of her long tail as it curled back and forth lazily mere millimeters from the ground. She cocked her head though as no chocolate-brown dog appeared behind her, confused as to exactly when Kaname had left her. Her ears drooped sadly as she let out a plantative mew of "Kaname?" She planted her paws firmly apart, this time mewing much louder. "Kaname!" He... he really did abandon me, she realized forlornly, her head lowering as she began padding down the dirty alleyway once more. What exactly was it that I did wrong? Her ears perked up at the sound of woofing. "Kaname?" she called, desperately wanting to believe it was her canine companion. Instead, the creature that came around the corner was a hulking beast of a dog, its shaggy fur seeming to be a midnight black just like her own, but its ears were folded over themselves, unlike Kaname's, which were pointed like her own. "You- you're not Kaname," she stuttered, backing away warily as the fur of her tail flared up like a bottlebrush, trying to make her look bigger, though she was still nowhere close to the size of the dog.

"Nope, little kitten," the thing snarled dangerously, its pace slow and measured, very much that of a predator who didn't feel the need to properly chase his prey because he was absolutely certain he would capture it no matter what happened during the hunt, "I'm Grim, and I've come to reap your soul."

Frightened, she whirled around and fled, her long black tail streaming out behind her and creating a significant amount of drag, even as her ears were pushed back against her head. There were many roles Kat had had to play during her time in a feline guise, but prey had never been one of them. However, her body instinctually knew how to evade her pursuer, instincts navigating her through the maze of streets just as surely as if she had grown up on them instead of having only encountered them a matter of hours before.

"Zero," Kaname hissed, his crimson eyes narrowed dangerously at the shivering boy at his feet, "why are you giving up so easily. Fight, Zero, fight!" The hunter shook his head, his silvery hair falling over his lavender eyes but proving unable to disguise the flare of life and emotion inside their depths. "Fight me, dammit!" he cried, grabbing the boy by the throat and pinning him to the wall.

Zero cried out when he hit the hard plaster, but he didn't falter in his convictions. "I can't, Kaname! I won't fight you!"

That caused the pureblood to pause. "What did you say?" he asked, almost in disbelief.

"I said," the exhuman stated slowly, "'I won't fight you.'" He leaned his head forward, gently licking a line along Kaname's neck as if to reinforce his words. "I don't want to hurt you, Kaname, not when I love you so much."

The Level A vampire laughed cruelly, pulling away and letting the Level D fall to the ground, the vampire hunter pushing himself up slightly with watering eyes as he gazed at the other male whose body was starting to be concealed by mist. "Then why are you giving up on me so easily?"

Dawn: *yawn* Mmmmmm... I wrote this during my entire Friday of school and then all afternoon at home. Now I just gotta read through it one more time before I put it up...

Kaname: I thought you didn't like Friday and Saturday updates.

Dawn: Yeah, well, I lied.

Zero: *facepalm*

Takuma: Please review since it gives Dawn the encouragement she needs to both finish this story and write it faster!

Kat: And if you don't review, at least go do the poll! Please please please, I don't want her asking Kaname what gender to make me!

Kaname: *looks up from molesting Zero at mention of his name*

Zero: *escapes while he has the chance*

Kaname: Get back here! *chases Zero*

Dawn: I WANNA BE PART OF THIS TOO! *chases after Kaname*

Kat: *sigh* After this is basically review-answering, so if you don't want to read any of the rest of this, be my guest. Dawn won't hunt you down and tear your guts out.

Takuma: *facepalm* Anyway, until next time, readers!

Review answering:

Felixia: Thanks for mentioning not wanting Zero to spill his guts to his animal friends. I was gonna have him do it, but I have something MUCH hotter and blackmail-worthy planned for him now. And you'll notice Yuki will also make an appearance next chapter, but there is a hint as to what's going to happen when she meets dog-Kaname. So you're busybodying and butting into my plot plans actually helped me out, so thanks!

Chyrop: Thanks for the compliment, and I agree, Kaname has definitely more of a cat personality, but since I think Zero's more likely to be a dog person, that means that he's gotta be a dog (plus we all know having Kaname out of his comfort zone is hilarious). But yeah, Zero's really the only one who takes Kaname off his pedestal, something I fully endorse, even if it means dragging him off by his balls...

ElheiM: Wow, thanks for all the compliments about the story and making Kaname a cute puppy (we all know the idea of having puppy Kaname is just so adorable!), and as for his breed, well, I kinda haven't figured it out exactly yet, but I do know it's something with more pointed ears. *sweatdrops* Anywoo, Kat is quite snobbish, but it's because of her past, and then as for Kaname's memory loss, let's just say it gets pretty bad. Did you notice his selective memory has changed?

Love332: YAY MORE COMPLiMENTS ABOUT THE STORY AND PUPPY KANAME! *smiles* I did try to make him cute. After all, it would be funny for tough old Zero to have a soft spot for an adorable little puppy (and very likely, knowing the hunter like I do... *shifty eyes*). And yes, Laertes turned on Kaname and Kat, but it's for plot purposes, so everything works out!