A/N: Hi all, I'm back with another chapter of The Devil and I definitely had the most fun writing this one out of all the chapters so far (in a loopy haze at 3am, how appropriate). I didn't get that much of a response for the last chapter, so you're getting it at the week mark from the last posting, but thank you to anyone who reviewed or favorited or followed last chapter, I do pay attention to things like that and I really appreciate it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and be sure to tell me what you think of it below! :)

The holiday was brief and pleasantly dull and Zero spent most of his time cooking or training Ichiru, more often than he wished also fulfilling his life's highest aspiration as a shoulder to cry on for Yuki who still suffered from rough nightmares that left her scared and desperate for company.

Ichiru had discovered her issue and had taken to the comforting role with vivid excitement- glad that he could offer his crush solace in her most difficult times.

Zero often left on the nights when Yuki huddled with Ichiru, opting instead to ghost over to the virtually empty Night Dorms and annoy the shit out of his (cringe) boy toy (and yes, that was how he referred to Kuran in his head as it brought him endless amusement).

On nights like those he would cook up a storm in the Dorm's gourmet kitchen (a space he had claimed was his precious and if anyone else ventured into it beside him he would slaughter with no regrets. To which Kuran had replied that Zero would do that to anyone anyway, making the silverette pout in agitation even if Kaname was right.) and force Kuran to quit his fucking brooding because dear God could that male brood nights away like no one else.

And Kaname hadn't really done much else beside brood over his plans, even putting off visiting Yuki, which was unlike him and made the violet eyed spirit concerned and when Zero was concerned he either A) cooked a feast or twelve fit for a congregation of Kings, B) Griped at the person making him concerned to quote, 'quit that shit' or C) an unholy combination of both.

Bet you can guess what it was that he did.

Which usually garnered him the response of a rolled eye or much better, the response of being well fucked till midday.

But he had met his match in stubbornness in Kuran Kaname and thus concocted an overly contrived, overly convoluted plan of how to properly stir him from his emo bullshit.

"Kami, how is a cheerio like Takuma friends with a milk dud like you?" He griped, appearing in a haze of mist behind Kaname at his 'that is mahogany!' desk in his customary 'kiss the cook' apron, spatula in hand as he smacked the pen in the pureblood's own hand away.

The pureblood did not acknowledge him, simply pulling out a flashier, more expensive pen from his desk.

Zero wondered if he kept smacking pens out of his hand whether he would eventually run out and have to use one of the ultra cheap ultra smooth BIC pens they sold in batches of fifty at grocery stores that Kaien raved about or whether he had an infinite amount of progessively pricier versions of the same quil pen hidden for this exact occasion.

"Don't you dare."

Zero pulled back the spatula, chided successfully by the brunet.

He pouted, but after a moment dropped the expression.

"Come downstairs."

"No."

"No?! What the fuck?! I am a god! You're saying no to a god?!" Zero gaped, raising the spatula once more as if to beat the ever loving shit out of the immortal who dared turn him down!

(He may have been listening to 90's single ladies ballads while cooking. Bitch by Meredith Brooks was his favorite.)

Kaname rolled his eyes, "I thought you were a spirit."

Zero swatted the pen out of his hand again.

Kaname pulled out another even more expensive quill pen.

"Ah, come on! I even made a scavenger hunt!"

Kaname looked up at him in mild horror, or the closest his perfect features ever came to the expression anyway (so like, passive surprise on normal people's faces).

"You didn't." Kaname hoped and Zero grinned.

"You'll have to come down to find out."

Kaname turned back to his paperwork, "No."

"Fine. But think of how much chaos there will be in the Dorm when they find all the stolen corpses under their beds and disembodied limbs in their-"

"Zero!" Kaname chided and Zero pouted once more.

"I'll burn the bodies if you come down stairs." He sighed, clearly disappointed.

"And the limbs?"

He frowned, crossing his arms in displeasure, "Fine. I'll burn those too."

Kaname sighed and Zero swatted him on the ass as he stood before poofing away downstairs to welcome Ichiru and Yuki inside. He had even invited Kaien (who he still vowed to kill before he left this body-just you wait) but the ex-hunter had turned him down to annoy the fuck out of Yagari and Kaito, making everyone else sigh in relief.

Ichiru and Yuki coughed through the hazy smoke that still hung in the air from his teleportation (not normally part of teleportation, he just like it for effect sometimes).

"Nii-san, are you alright?" Ichiru asked, stepping inside and laying his hand over Zero's brow, sharply pulling back as if burned a moment later.

"You've got a fever." Ichiru said.

"That explains why I keep hearing you speak with Billy Crystal's voice." Zero drawled, flitting away to the kitchen to get the food out of the oven.

"Is that part of the Stirring?" Yuki asked Ichiru and the younger brother shrugged.

"I-maybe? He got like this a couple weeks before I left with Shizuka. It passed about a day before Shizuka attacked the Kiryu's."

He sighed, his brow furrowed in concern for his older brother, pulling Yuki to sit in the dining room at the only made up table among the dozen that lay within the room.

Kaname appeared in the doorway a moment later and then Zero appeared carrying a covered cake in hand, sitting it down in the center of the large round table, waving his hand over the empty table to summon the food.

It came at his command and he sat, "Serve yourselves whatever."

Yuki and Ichiru were too busy gaping at the table to begin- who makes this much food for four people?

"I do. Now quit your gaping. You both look like blowfish."

Kaname sighed, "Is there even any food left to be cooked for when the others return?"

"No. No there isn't." Zero drawled, "You've made me very anxious with your Edward Cullen mood swings. This is the fruit of what you planted."

No one commented on how he would have had to have read Twilight to be able to make references like that.

"I don't think that's the proper idiom." Kaname nitpicked and Zero shrugged, "I don't think you should be annoying the person who has cooked all of your meals for the past week."

Ichiru and Yuki ignored the two in favor of digging in, filling up two plates each before the elder two glanced away from their stare off.

Kaname was the first to glance away, having noticed the silver haired spirit's eccentric mood days ago- he didn't trust Zero at the moment, he was erratic and distracted, his personality excited but fraught with a lower hanging element of danger. It was as if the elder Kiryu was on drugs but when he had questioned it he had woken up with the bloody disembodied head of a horse in his bed the next morning, while he was still in it, mind he didn't want to experience again if he could help it.

He glanced at Ichiru and the younger twin sent him mouthed words of encouragement, It will pass.

He almost never spoke to the younger Kiryu, but he trusted his words since Ichiru had grown up with the spirit as a brother.

Dinner was quiet, Yuki and Ichiru too busy stuffing their faces and Zero was too busy staring down at his food, his expression disgusted.

Kaname spoke to Yuki whenever she would take a break in between eating and refilling her plate and he could spot the distracted look in his unwitting sister's eyes, noted the heavy bags under them, haphazardly concealed with makeup.

Zero stood several minutes into the meal, his eyes somewhat glazed until he shook his head and stepped away from the table, leaving the room without a word.

"Has he done this before?" Kaname asked and Ichiru nodded.

"Yeah, but only once as far as I'm aware of. He rode it out last time over the course of a month but was fine after- went back to being himself like nothing had ever happened. It was weird but no one else noticed as my parents didn't stick around long enough to notice anything wrong most of the time.

"He barely ate last time. Has he been eating what he's been cooking? He hasn't at the Chairman's." Ichiru asked, his lips drawn in a frown.

Kaname sighed, "He spends almost all his time in the kitchen and usually drops by sporadically with food."

"Where's he putting all the food he's making then?" Ichiru wondered, "Last time he used to beat Kaito black and blue in training until Kaito tapped out and then he'd take his stress out on trees."

Yuki leaned back in her seat, "He used to volunteer at soup kitchens on breaks. He could be dropping it all off there."

Ichiru nodded, "Probably that then."

They all sighed in exhaustion and a few minutes later Yuki and Ichiru left. The food on the table disappeared as soon as they all had stood from their seats and so Kaname found himself in his bedroom, hearing water running in the bath.

He pulled off his jacket and walked into the bathroom to find Zero in his feminine form, skin red from the heat of the water.

"Zero?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you alright?"

I should not be so concerned for him, Kaname thought, This is just temporary and when Yuki reawakens I'll have to keep my promise to her.

Not if Yuki wants Ichiru-kun, a thoughtful part of him drawled, Then you won't have to part with him.

But did he want to remain with Zero? Both of them would live eternally unless destroyed beyond measure (if that was even possible for the spirit to be destroyed), and he had only ever thought that he could love Yuki for that long.

But each day with the silverette was new and fresh and Kaname knew that with him at his side every new day would taste of a new adventure and that thought appealed to him beyond belief. Eternity could be quite boring without adventure after all and he was not beyond craving such things.

Did he care about Zero enough to want him for that long?

He saw the silver haired hunter relax further into the bath and he knew that the answer was yes.

It may not be love- at least not yet- but the spirit was easy to care for when he wasn't putting up a front.

Kaname pulled off his shirt and pants, approaching the bath to run a hand over the stubborn cheekbones of the prefect, garnering a pair of violet eyes to glance his way.

Zero pulled away and stood from the water, hair slick with water weight.

He stepped out of the bath and up to the pureblood, running his hands over the vampire's chest and up to his neck, his feminine form's breasts pressing into the brunet's heated skin as he pulled him down into a kiss.


The Night Class returned two days later, the Inner Circle among the first to arrive back.

Zero had seemed to come back from his irregular persona- much quicker than Ichiru had thought he would and the younger Kiryu spent his time trying to make sure his older brother was in fact alright.

He didn't ask what had ailed him- "Hocus Pocus Spirity Bull." Zero had answered.

They didn't bring it up again and school came back into session and soon they were back to prefect duties and boring classwork.

But it all came to a screeching halt when Zero was left alone with Yuki to patrol one night, Ichiru having to go into town for errands for the Headmaster.

"Zero?" She whispered beside him as they perched atop a roof across from the Night Class' classroom, a perfect view of the Inner Circle being offered to them.

"Yes?" He whispered back, teasing softly to try and ward off her sinking emotions.

"I-Can I tell you something?" She asked and he glanced at her, eyes flat, but not cold.

He nodded.

"I've been dreaming- the dreams, they haven't stopped. But lately I've been dreaming of this woman who looks like me except she's not me and I think she's m-my mom except how can she be? Wouldn't she have come for me if she were?" She glanced away from him, breaking eye contact, to look down at her hands.

He glanced at the Night Class.

The resident pureblood was suspiciously missing.

"I don't understand," She said, "I think the dreams are from before Kaname-senpai found me. I think they're not dreams, I think they're memories. But they don't- they don't feel like my memories? But they must be, right?"

Zero wrapped an arm around her, pinching her softly and knocking her unconscious.

"You're right. The seal is breaking." Kaname said after a moment and Zero sighed, standing up to face him.

"She needs to be awakened. It just keeps getting worse." He stated as gently as he could.

"It's too soon."

"It's not going to go away, Kaname! This is a problem that won't disappear anytime soon!" Zero snapped, his fists clenching- he was concerned for the petite female, she was a part of his family here and he would not back down from this.

"Zero.." Kaname growled in warning.

His aura was darkening and Zero knew this would be an argument that would carry over days till the pureblood saw reason.

"Kaname…" Zero growled right back.

"No,"

"Yes! She needs to be awakened, Kaname! You know what's at stake here!" Zero sighed, "She could lose her mind if the seal breaks on its own."

"Don't you think I know that?!" Kaname growled low, neither could risk alerting the Night Class.

"Juri wanted her to be happy." He said softly after a moment.

"I just want her to have as much of a chance to be happy as she can." He murmured, running a hand through his chocolate lockes, "Once she's a pureblood she won't be able to come back to this."

Zero pulled back, stepping back and picking up Yuki.

"I'm sorry, Kuran. But I don't think we have a choice here." He sighed, "I'll take her to the Chairman's."

He disappeared into the night with Yuki in his arms, leaving the pureblood prince atop the schoolhouse roof, his perfect features contorted into that of a man who faced making a terrible decision that could drive the one he loved away.


A/N: Questions for ya'll- What do you think of loopy Zero? What was up with that do you think? Any predictions? How do you feel about our much beloved characters in this story? Let me know below! Thanks for reading! :)