-§-Chapter Two-§-

"Is it true what you are saying? I'm not...real?"

"You are very much real right now. Flesh and blood. It's just that you are...made up. Let's not talk about it here. People would question this if they heard anything I just said."

Vanessa gripped his wrist and began to pull him away from the crowds around them and stepped onto one of the escalators that rode to the fourth floor. They stepped off and she led him to one that went one more floor higher before he saw that there were several elevators waiting on floor five. Before he could open his mouth to ask her any sort of question, she stopped them in front of one of the elevators. There were a few more people waiting at the elevator, waiting to get into the device. Zero recognized a few of them as ones who had not heard of a shower. He swallowed hard to distract from their stench.

When the elevator finally opened, Zero saw there were so many bodies in the small space that it made him physically back away from the situation. Vanessa's hand, however, was still clenching his wrist and she pulled him into the space, the same small bit also being occupied by the cosplayers without hygiene. Zero gnashed his teeth in self-control and waited as Vanessa pressed the button for floor thirty-six. Random sets of numbers were pressed as well and the elevator heaved as it ascended high above the ground.

Conversations erupted as people tried to talk to each other about the event they were attending. From what Zero caught, apparently one of the "panels" some were attending was being rescheduled due to someone's health. This conversation, he noticed, seemed to captivate the girl he was with, her attention focused on the discussion. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a fairly stocky character give a rather curious leer at the girl Vanessa. Glaring at the man, Zero subtly stepped in between the view of the man and Vanessa, a sign telling the man that he was not welcome to look at her that way. The man narrowed his eyes a moment before turning his attention onto a rather busty girl who flaunted her figure with a small top and shorts barely long enough to be decent in public.

After letting so many of the passengers off at various floors, it was just a few people left on the elevator. Zero actually felt relieved when some of the dirty beings departed onto floor twenty-three. He still kept an eye on the shady character that was looking at Vanessa as they stepped off the elevator at floor thirty-six. As the doors closed, the man looked at Zero and flipped him off. Zero's only rebuff was one he knew really wasn't going to work, but tried anyway; he opened his jacket to reveal the Bloody Rose. The doors closed as the man's eyes got large with astonishment and Zero felt himself smile.

Vanessa pulled a hotel key the size of a credit card from her bag and used it to gain access to the hotel room. The door opened and she pulled Zero in behind her, slightly hesitant for what she might find. The room was empty, to her relief, and she closed the door when they were both in. Zero just stood there as Vanessa went to her bag on the floor next to the pull-out couch with a sleeping bag rolled up waiting to be used. She threw her pillow onto the floor away from Zero, who had barely enough time to see anything on the pillowcase. As she rearranged things in the room, Zero noticed that there was enough baggage in the room to suggest she was not alone; at least two other people were using the room as well.

She shifted her sleeping bag over to one side of the pull-out couch and offered Zero a seat. He declined at first, but when she began to pull things out of her bag, he decided to take a moment and accept her generosity. As he sat, he kept looking at her bare shoulders and a surprising feeling wrenched deep in the pit of his stomach and he shuffled out of his jacket.

Vanessa was startled when she felt something heavy and warm fall onto her and she noticed that it was his warm jacket that had been tossed onto her. She looked up at him in confusion, shaking the jacket from her shoulders.

"Please put it on. It's a little off-setting when I have to see you looking so…indecent."

Slowly, Vanessa pushed her arms through the sleeves of the jacket and felt the warmth from the previous wearer still lingering in the fabric. She clenched her jaw and pushed the thought from her mind, replacing it with thoughts on ideas of how to go on with this situation. In her bag was the pass she had just gotten from the pre-register line and had been on her way to pay for her ticket to the charity dance being held at the convention. Looking down at herself, she understood why he had this reaction; she was not as dressed as she normally would during a convention, making it a little off-putting in her appearance. It was already too late to go down to the admission stand and buy a pass for him.

She knew now that she was going to have to miss the charity ball. Yes, it was for a good cause, but this was more important than hanging with her friends and having a good time.

Knowing this, she pulled her pass and her cell phone from her bag and wrote a text message to one of her friends at the convention with her:

'srry I could not make it to the dance w/ u guys. not feelin good. hope u have fun!'

She sent the message and looked up to see Zero looking puzzled at her. Vanessa looked down at her phone and back at Zero, hinting his confusion at her device. She closed the phone and set it in her lap, waiting for the response from Cassidy, the receiver of the message. A variety of replies flashed in her thoughts, all either upset or overly-exaggerated thankfulness.

"What is that?" Zero asked, his confusion only expressed through his voice.

"My phone," Vanessa hesitated, unsure of his question.

"Oh. We don't use those at the Academy. I've rarely seen one wherever I go. It looks a lot more…advanced…than I remember."

"Well, this is America in a technical day and age. You're bound to see things here you wouldn't back home."

"Yes," he mused, thinking about the dirty cosplayers and busy place of the convention.

"You might not want to include this place in things you wouldn't see back home," she broke into his thoughts. "This is very rare in this area; it only happens once a year. The same goes for other places."

Vanessa's phone began to chime to the tune of the Italian version of Maru Kaite Chikyuu, the theme song from Hetalia: Axis Powers. Zero just looked at her as she flipped open her phone and pushed buttons. He saw her face remain calm as she sucked in a breath and pushed more buttons and flipped the phone closed. She set it in her lap again and looked at him looking at her.

"They wanted to skip out on me, but I told them to go on ahead."

"I see," he nodded, his voice cold. He did not care about that at all.

Vanessa shrugged. "All the same. So I figure you want to know why you're here," she leaned back onto her hands, looking at Zero with her brown eyes glowing in anticipation.

This got his attention and remembered that was why he allowed her to bring him up to her room. Of course he wanted to know why that at the moment he was going to see her again, he was sent off to a strange place where people are coarse and girls dressed scantily. Was there a reason he was transported here? To meet Vanessa? Or was it because of his being a Hunter?

"To tell you the truth, Zero, I really wish I had the answer to your question. The thing is, I don't know! I wish I did. I wonder if it has anything to do with you being at the soiree and seeing Yuki again."

At that, he started. "Don't use her name like that!" he shouted, angry at the girl for using her name in that manner.

Then again, could Vanessa have been right?

~~Sorry I haven't been able to present to you all another chapter in this fiction! Now that it is here, I would appreciate any and all reviews. Also, there is a poll on my page that I ask you all to look at. It involves this story and I only ask that you maybe leave a vote to help me decide on my next plan of action. Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed this fiction!