Chapter 4

At the Hunter Association:

Kaien Cross is lying down on a bench in his cell. Next to him is a stack of manga, and a box of pizza. Yagari peeks in through the bars and asks, "So, this is the punishment you get for not obeying orders? Being forced to do no work and having time to read?"

Kaien flips a page in his book. Without looking up, Kaien responds, "My choices were to kill my sweet children Yuuki and Zero or to take a vacation. I think the choice was pretty easy to make. What do you want, Yagari? I'm up to the part where Hajime is about to declare his love for Yuuna."

Yagari throws a pen across the cell through the book Kaien was holding. Kaien inspects his now damaged book and sees that the pen punctured Hajime's smiling face on the cover. Yagari then asks, "So, where can I find Kaname? He is the reason for the war. And the fact that you are not injured means that you know something the rest of us don't."

Kaien peaks from behind his book and responds, "Well, Kaname was not the one who gave the orders to kill Yuuki; he only put Zero's name on the list. He is either looking for Yuuki or he is looking for the person who put Yuuki on the execution list."

Yagari responds by banging on the bars with his fists. In between the loud banging, Yagari complains, "You idiot! Tell me who changed the list already!"

Kaien then pulled out the pen from his book, wrote on a page and ripped the page out. After throwing the crumpled page to Yagari, Kaien sternly and uncharacteristically said, "Be careful, I told you already what I knew." After winking at Yagari, Kaien proceeded to fall asleep with the book over his face. Yagari opened up the paper and then laughing thought, "You son of a b*tch, Cross, that's how you are guaranteeing Zero's safety? I guess you are not an idiot after all."

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When they reached the safe house, Zero started dusting off the main table in the kitchen. When the table was clear, he pulled out a stack of papers from his bag and motioned to Yuuki to sit across from him. "Tell me what you know of Kaname's last movements," Zero asked.

Yuuki was too busy watching Zero's lips move to properly hear what he was saying. When she realized that Zero had asked a question, she took a good guess as to what he had asked. With a soft and sad look, she said, "Whaaat? The last time I saw Kaname, he was killing Aidou's father. I have no idea why Kaname or anyone else would want both of us or anyone else dead. Why don't you tell me what you know about the war?"

Zero shook his head. "I have no idea what started this. All I can guess is that Sara started making her move. I was getting ready for work when I got news of the war."

"So how long do we hide here?

"We can hide here for a long time, I think the only person who knows and can sense where this place is is Yagari. Well, the only good part of being a vampire is not needing food… I'm going to go through these Hunter reports to see what info I can get. Want to help, Yuuki?" Zero started to separate the pile into a big pile and a smaller pile.

Yuuki reached over and grabbed the smaller pile. "I would be more insulted if I waited for you to give the small bunch, so I saved myself the trouble." She then punched Zero on the shoulder.

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A few hours later, it was dark, and Zero was asleep on the couch, with papers all around him. Yuuki tiptoed over with a blanket to cover Zero. She covered him up to his chin, folding the blanket over his broad shoulders, and her hand brushed by his soft silver hair, which was covering his face. She started to move his hair, to see him better. She started thinking, "It takes a war for us to be friends again, huh, Zero. I missed you so much you know." Without realizing it, her face was now very close to Zero's. After what seemed like an eternity of staring at Zero, she, bargaining with herself, thought,
I can take what I want and he is sleeping anyway…
With a feather-light kiss to his warm lips, she quickly turned around to walk away, hoping Zero wouldn't notice what happened. She ignored the soft moan she heard from Zero, it was probably nothing….But while walking away from Zero, one of the papers caught Yuuki's eye, and she then started shaking Zero.

"Zero, wake up!, I found something!"