Okay, I am so sorry for not updating sooner, and I feel really bad because I already had this chapter typed out, I just forgot about it. Sorry. Anyways, I'll make this one really long to make up for it, but I can't give any promises on when the next one comes out.
Disclamer: I'm sorry… I have a confession…. I don't own Vampire Knight or it's characters or events! *Sobs* I am so sorry for deceiving you, because we all know that I owned Vampire Knight at one time. I just lost it to Matsuri Hino over a game of Old Maid. Damn that woman is sneaky…
Oh, yeah. I don't own the song "The Resistance" either. That belongs to Anberlin.
Speak Speak for yourselfYou paper tigersYou crash where you standYou've got a riot on your handsSpeak Speak for yourselfYou paper tigersToo late to meet demandsWhen you've got a riot on your hands
Back at the academy, Tora was instantly rushed to the Chairman's office. Her thin cotton shirt was torn and soaked with blood.
"Get Rima," the Chairman ordered, his attention focused on the unconscious girl sprawled across his desk. Seeing Zero's scowl, he added, "Rima is the best healer we have access to. She's her best chance of survival."
Still frowning, loathing burning hot and fast as a wildfire in his chest, Zero bolted from the room, making his way quickly to the Moon Dorms.
The doorman took one look at Zero's blood-splattered face and clothes, deadly expression, and prefect arm band and motioned him in. The vampires, having scented the fresh blood, were assembled in the living room, situating themselves around the pureblood couple reclining on the plush red velvet couch.
Pain clutched at his heart as he looked at Yuuki. He told himself to remain calm. Yuuki had made her choice, and her choice had been Kaname. She had made that pretty obvious the last time they had spoken. Kaname was fiddling with a piece of her beautiful auburn hair, so long now, after the change. He then dipped his head and whispered something in her ear. Yuuki began to laugh, and Kaname eventually joined in. Oh, God how Zero loved her laugh, even now. Kaname reached for Yuuki's chin and pulled her lips to his in a gentle kiss. When they finally broke apart, finally noticing Zero standing there, so absorbed in themselves that they hadn't even noticed the blood.
Yuuki's eyes instantly shifted from their pretty chocolate brown to a fiery red, and he found that it was easier - looking at her as the demon he had always deplored - it was a little easier to hate her.
"I need Rima," he rasped, his voice rough for some reason, scraping his throat like sandpaper. Come to think of it, his eyes burned a little bit, too.
Shiki instantly stepped forward, protectiveness in every line of his body. It bothered Zero, the way they remained apart even though they both had each other's heart. If Zero could have Yuuki back, even for a moment, he wouldn't let pride or fear of rejection stand in the way of his feelings for her.
"What do you need with my charge, Kiryu?" Kaname asked, his face amused. "And why are you covered in blood? It's making Yuuki dear thirsty."
Resentment boiled in his throat, trying to emerge as a growl. He forced it back. "We need a healer. A girl was attacked by a Level E, and she might not make it."
Rima stepped forward, bowing submissively to Kaname. "May I, Kaname? I want to keep from getting rusty. No one ever gets hurt in the Night Class."
The pureblooded bastard nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, Rima. You may go."
Zero heard the double meaning in his words. Report everything you witness back to me. I want to know if this new tenant will be a worth-while addition to my chess game.
Zero whirled around without the proper greeting and stalked from the room, his back rigid with hate at the pureblood. Rima ran up to him and put her hand on her arm. He wasn't surprised to see that Shiki was following close behind. Zero felt the floor tilt under his feet and the next instant he was in the infirmary. Tora was lying on the Chaiman's desk which had been cleared away to serve as a makeshift operating table for the wounded teen. Her shirt had been removed, and Zero looked away awkwardly, then snapped his head back around in horror.
Dark bruises - some new, some still healing - covered her bare chest and lower abdomen. From head to toe, she was mottled with bruises.
The area around her left eye had turned a pale, delicate purple that got darker the closer it got to the epicenter of where someone had hit her. The streak of blood that had covered her face had been washed off, but her lip was split in two places, swollen and discolored.
She was so skinny, too. Like a skeleton, all bones and angles. Her wrists looked so thin that just a strong breeze might snap them.
The bruising on her neck fanned out over her shoulders and down her arms.
At the junction where her neck and shoulders met were bruises that were even darker than those around them. They were shaped perfectly like purple handprints.
Deep cuts covered her stomach, arms, and legs. They weren't bleeding much, but that only meant that she didn't have much blood left to bleed out anymore.
In the space between her neck and right shoulder were abrasions cast in a feathering pattern over her skin. Only they weren't abrasions at all, they were teeth marks.
Zero nearly gasped in spite of himself and his hands clenched into fists. They weren't marks from a vampire - two small punctures - no, these marks were human.
Zero hadn't seen all of what happened, but, from the different stages of healing, he knew that these injuries couldn't have all happened at once. He wondered how he could have missed this before, but concluded that he had probably been too tempted by her blood to notice. Blood that was now dripping down the side of her neck and pooling in a crimson puddle on the desk around her, flowing in a ruby stream to stain the carpet.
Rima rushed forward, elbowing her way past the Chairman. Zero and Shiki hung back awkwardly, not knowing what to do.
A soft glow came from Rima's hands as she moved them slowly over the girls battered form. Reaching her hips, she froze, her face paling to a deadly white.
Shiki was at her side in an instant. "What, Rima? What happened?"
Zero looked at them in confusion.
"When Rima heals someone, she sees how and when they received the injury," said the Chairman, who had come to stand at the wall next to Zero.
Rima murmured something into Shiki's chest and he looked stricken.
"What is it?" Zero demanded angrily.
"She says that she was raped."
A roaring filled Zero's ears and his mouth dropped open in revulsion. He had heard of vampires who sexually abused the girls they assailed, but he had never actually seen the aftermath of such an attack.
For a moment he thought that he would lose his unshakeable cool and rant or run around the room or break something or shoot - shoot someone. He didn't know who. But he didn't. He remained frozen in place, hardly breathing as the shock of the realization filled him.
She was just so… small. So fragile, like if he moved too fast she would fall to pieces. She was obviously malnourished, too, from the way her bones could all be seen and counted clearly, like skin stretched over a skeleton. He could count every one of her ribs.
But Shiki wasn't finished yet. "It was… her father, and this wasn't the first time. It wasn't the only thing he did to her, either."
Zero made a choking sound low in his throat. Her own father…
But Rima was healing again, and Zero watched in sick fascination as her skin knit back together at the deepest points. The bruises faded a little, but didn't vanish.
The second she was out of the danger zone, the two Night Classmen vanished, leaving Zero and the Chairman alone with the cataleptic girl.
"Zero," the Chairman said wearily, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. He looked older than he really was, the distress of the awful event taking it's toll on the former vampire hunter. "Fix up the extra bed in your room and bring her there for the night. Just… comfort her, if you will. God only knows how much she'll need it if she wakes up. I'll take the patrol for you tonight. Try not to drink her."
Zero glared at him, his icy violet eyes cold at the suggestion that he would even consider doing something so traumatic to someone who had already gone through such an ordeal.
He set her on the spare bed in the guest room. Well, technically it was his room. He had moved out of the Sun Dorm, preferring instead to stay at the Chairman's house. It was quieter there, and he had a room all to himself.
Well, he amended as an afterthought, at least I had used to have a room to myself.
Zero piled all the blankets he could find on top of her comatose form after seeing her shiver. She curled onto her side, tears leaking from her eyes.
He clenched his fingers, relieving the moment he had killed that monster who had dared attack this girl. Hadn't she already been punished enough? What curse had been laid upon her for her to deserve such a fate as this?
His hand began to tremble as he remembered that deadly night nearly seven years ago when that pureblooded leech had killed his family and sunk her fangs into his neck, the sickening burning as the toxin had entered his bloodstream.
She whimpered in her sleep and Zero felt the knot in his stomach twist tighter. She gripped her neck with one hand, the other tucked into her side. Seeing that she was drawing deep, jagged scratches in her own neck, he gently pulled her hand away. Her skin was frigid. It was hard to believe that anyone that cold could still be amongst the world of the living.
Her eyes, red from crying, but still as electrifying as he remembered, snapped open and focused on his face. She jerked to a sitting position, her golden eyes wide, her hair plastered to her face by her tears. For a moment he was reminded of White Lily when she was startled, but the moment passed as the look on her face changed to one of pure terror.
She jerked away from him, tearing her hand from his grasp and scrambling to get into the corner, as far away from him as possible. Worried, Zero could only watch helplessly as she struggled to jam herself into the corner to make herself a smaller target. Her hand was back to her neck again, as if she thought if she could just press hard enough, it would heal and the pain of the memory would fade.
Zero wanted to track down the monster who had done this to her and make him pay. He would hunt him down like the dog he was and show him how it was to be the victim, see if he enjoyed his style of hunting. When he was done with him Hannibal Lector would curl up in the fetal position and cry for his mother.
Then her tears began again, and all his violent plans for revenge crumbled. Well, not crumbled, exactly, just pushed to the back of his mind.
"W-who are you?" she whispered, her voice so soft that he had to strain to hear it.
"My name is Zero," he said in his softest, most non-scary voice. "You're at the Cross Academy."
She nodded and relaxed just the slightest bit. The tears were still coming but she seemed to be able to recognize the difference between him and that… Zero craved his death so savagely that it rang in his ears and coated his tongue with a rusty, coppery flavor.
Her expression was just so… terrified, so shattered. It looked like she had lost something, lost a part of her. It made him want to murder someone. Or comfort her. Impulsively, he reached out his hand to her.
What little calm she had previously had vanished and she let out a bloodcurdling scream, pulling her knees to her chest and burying her head in her hands.
Zero jerked back as if he had been burned, horrified at her reaction. "Sorry! It's okay," he murmured, trying to do something to calm her down. Or at least get her to stop making that awful keening noise. "No one is going to hurt you. You're safe. You're safe. You're safe," he found himself repeating it like a sacred mantra.
It seemed to help, a little, though she was still cupping her neck so tightly with her hand that her knuckles were white and bloodless.
Moving slowly so she could see his every movement and intention, he gently placed his hand over hers. Her eyes widened immensely, and she flinched, but didn't scream. He took her small, fragile hand in his and replaced it with his own. Her skin felt like silk beneath his fingers.
He looked her straight in the eyes and spoke softly, like you would to a wild animal if you didn't know how it would react to you. "No one here will harm you," he said slowly. "I will be here to protect you for as long as you need me. Sleep now, Tora."
Her jagged breathing slowed, leveling out to a more rhythmic pace and her eyes slowly closed. She yawned sleepily.
Zero went to remove his hand, but she grabbed onto it with both of hers and her eyes popped open again to focus on his face.
"Stay," she ordered, her tone slurred.
Zero sat down on the bed next to her, and she snuggled up next to him, sighing contentedly.
He watched the lightning of the storm play over her weary face until he fell asleep by her side, to forever watch for her, her silent, brave Vampire Knight.
Tiger, Tiger burning bright.
In the midst of the , Tiger, eyes of gold, Tiger, Tiger steals your , Tiger, heart of fire, Tiger, Tiger your on a wire.
Tiger, Tiger needs to reign, Tiger, Tiger stalks the rain. Tiger, Tiger comeback is near. Tiger, Tiger strikes the fear.
Tiger, Tiger comes out to the essence of a dark, dark day.