A/N: Sorry about the wait. You can yell at me if you want. I'll smile and tell you it'll be okay.
Thanks for reviewing, my lovelies.

zee2themax
Futakomori Akemi
Ms. Irony
Pulchritudo in omnia
Minikitteno5
Mysticbreez
YukinaTheSoulReaper
Ria-The Ninja of Time
Juno Tartini
Inperfection
animelover1993

You all are just my favorite people. Seriously, I suck at getting back to my reviewers now because I'm an ass, but just know that if you review, I know you're there. Seriously, don't feel like I don't notice. I love you all for it!
And thanks In the Willows for your words as well!

Vampire Knight © Matsuri Hino!

These Wooden Ashes.
Hanabusa Aidou / OC
Chapter Six

Chesa Rebun was a simple girl. She liked it that way. She lived the simple life, the simple works- the simple people and the simple things.

But deep down, Chesa craved something in which no other in her simple life had. She wanted it bad- she had a need for it.

She craved the complexity of another individual.

Now, Chesa knew that these odd wishes and needs were... for lack of a better word, odd. Especially when spoken aloud. And maybe they weren't even that weird, just when put into words. The girl didn't want her life to be a maze.

She wanted to work out another maze, for someone else.

And for Chesa that had always been an unattainable, ludicrous dream.

Now?

Not so unreachable after all.

/~/

"Hanabusa."

"Yes, Chesa-chan? I see you have finally dropped that distasteful honorific! How wise of you to do so~!"

"... I think the situation at hand calls for such measures. Now, will you step out of there so we can speak of the matter at hand!"

At the small girl's shrill call, blue eyes merely blinked and a smirk curled those devious lips of said vampire. Placing a languid step forward, Hanabusa shrugged those shoulders of his and kept that smirk in place.

"I don't see what the trouble is…"

Chesa clenched her fists against the wooden table at which she was seated.

"It is unsettling to see you in a coffin."
"Hm…"

The blonde smiled at her ironic tone.

It was days later that Chesa had welcomed Hanabusa back into her shop. She had brooded for days over this sudden revelation- that vampires existed, lived and breathed and mingled within their society. It took her days to accept the fact that there were things she would always be ignorant to, that she would always be at some disadvantage, and that-

-her Father was not returning to her.

Now there they were, Hanabusa stepping from one of Chesa's creations that leaned against the wall, and Chesa, seated with her legs crossed at a simple table. In her simple shop.

With a not so simple creature.

Boy.

Whatever.

Bringing her hand to mess with her unruly onyx locks, Chesa sighed and scrunched her large grey eyes. She was tired, and quite frankly, more than a little disconcerted. Maybe she could even call herself a bit…

Terrified.

After all, the boy who had taken to sauntering over towards her, seating himself across from the girl with those beautiful blue eyes blinking at her, those thick lashes casting a look of unadulterated innocence-

"Stop doing that!"
"Hm?"
"That! You… look so unsuspecting! It's utterly macabre!"

Hanabusa merely laced his fingers and leaned his elbows on the table, inching forward with his eyes glued to the petite girl before him. She was flustered, unnerved, and he could tell that there was fear. Her eyes, resembling glassy yet murky marbles, wavered when they connected with his striking blues.

He studied her with a peculiar spark in his eye. He took in her appearance- her attire, which consisted of a simple grey cardigan, yellow button up, and a mid-thigh skirt. Her socks were pulled up to her shins, her shoes discarded to the side.

She was a simple girl, appearance-wise. She wasn't anything special. She was pretty.
But her looks hadn't caught his attention before. Her convenience, at first, but then…
She just became so damn interesting.

"Tou-san was murdered."

"It must have been difficult to examine your own Father's body," murmured Hanabusa, knowing when to stop with the teasing. He felt as if this girl should have had his undivided attention.

So he gave it.

Swallowing thickly, Chesa took a moment to get her words to escape her tightened throat.

"Yeah. It was."

Silence.

There was so much she wanted to say, but she found it hard to form words. She didn't know whether to be tactful or just be blunt as possible-

To hell with it. Her Father had been murdered.
There was nothing tactful left to say.

"I don't know how you vampires kill- hell, I don't know how regular humans kill. It's a dirty and morbid topic that I hate to care for! I examine bodies, for God's sakes, yet I cannot see a pattern with murder! And now, I hear that vampires exist, and I automatically think of the blood just… gone from victims!

"This doesn't make sense to me! Just last week," Chesa took a breath and struggled with her cracking voice. She failed, causing her slim fingers to dig into the wooden surface on which they lay. Hanabusa, now frowning with a displeased air, waited for the small girl to get out what needed to be said.

For her sake.

"J-Just last week, three bodies came in to me with… bite marks. They were drained of any blood in their system. It was just gone! And now I know… what did it. But what I do not understand, Hanabusa, is the event of Tou-san's death! Who would kill my Father! Why… would such a thing happen!"

Why did Tou-san send me to Cross-san?
Who, or what, killed Tou-san?

"Am I… next?"

"No."

That one word was spoken with such deliberation and promise that it had Chesa's distressed eyes scrunching even more as she stared down at the table's surface, nails digging into the wood.

It hit her then.

"I've been staying in a house in which a murderer could reach."

Her Father had died in his bed, mutilated.
And she hadn't even thought of the danger to her.

"He wouldn't have gotten to you."

And this statement, these words spoken with such sincerity, caused her big eyes to finally meet her companion's. Hanabusa was staring out the window to the side, but the look on his face said his whole being was in this conversation.

Chesa was quiet for a moment, then, "You don't know that, Hanabusa."

The blonde's lips slowly tipped, and he gazed at her through the corner of his eye. Upon seeing her deep frown, brows pulled and lips almost trembling, the gorgeous boy turned fully back to her.

"Then there's really only one thing to do."

…

"I was afraid you might say that."

/~/

Hanabusa praised himself on his wit. Clever- that would describe his schemes. He didn't dislike manipulating people, and so maybe he had made a small hobby of it…

But it seemed a bit hard to swallow to watch Chesa heed his words with not as much as a verbal lashing in return.

Sure, she was a bit cautious, maybe even wary, but she wasn't resisting much.
He couldn't tell if that was what he wanted, or what he needed.

Watching her pack her bags was by no means any sort of qualm for the blonde vampire. Those were his intentions all along, after all.
Get her out of that damn house- shop, morgue- whatever. It would be the death of her.

Literally.

But seeing the normally soft smiled girl look around her now emptied space with such forlorn emptiness…
Hanabusa came to feel an emotion called guilt.

He was ripping her away from her passion.
Her creations and her… uncanny extra-curricular.

But she couldn't stay there any longer.
After all, her Father had been murdered by what seemed to be a level E. The scent matched no other. He couldn't let her stay there. It had been difficult enough to keep a vague watch over her as it was.

He couldn't continue to leave Cross Academy's grounds unreprimanded.

And he certainly couldn't just leave Chesa Rebun unprotected. Her Father had been quite the hunter- she could've been a target.

She could've been next.

Yeah- that was his reasoning. Saving an innocent.
By no means did Hanabusa Aidou merely want Chesa in a reasonable amount of distance away. In a place that he could call relatively safe and he could keep a generalized eye on her.

Hell.
He was digging his own grave.

"Hanabusa," her small voice called out. His striking eyes flew to the girl's form, seeing a simple suitcase in her grip. In her other hand, he spotted a small chain- a necklace. His eyes trailed to hers, seeing those clouded orbs staring straight through him.

And at that moment he realized that he hadn't fooled her at all.
She knew what was happening.

"I'm ready."

He could only nod at her double meaning.
She held out her hand, reaching for the boy.

And he took it, gripping her hand with a tightness that she didn't mind.
Security.

Cross Academy, huh.

"Thank you, Hanabusa."
His fingers only tightened in their hold.

So maybe my story is moving slowly, and I update at a sluggish pace.
Sue me.
But you can also review. You know.

-Mel