A/N: No one messaged to say they like Zero, so rejoice Kaname fans! Poor Zero will get no love from Yuki.
Chapter 10: Mystery Woman
Takuma stared at the vampires assembled in his living room, nervous to begin speaking. It was the same group it had always been…minus Seiren. None of them were surprised when she disappeared without a word, thought Takuma couldn't deny he was disappointed to lose her help.
"Well?" Aido asked, placing his arms along the back of the couch and tilting his head back until he stared at a chandelier. "What did you want to talk to us about?"
"I think we should fight for peace between humans and vampires," Takuma blurted, then realized using the words 'fight' and 'peace' in the same sentence probably sounded like a bit of an oxymoron.
Everyone stared at him. Finally, Kain blinked and said, "Um, okay…Why?"
"I think it might help bring Kaname back to us," he explained. His audience looked less then convinced. Even Rima and Shiki looked like they were pitying him a little.
"What makes you think that would work?" Ruka asked, crossing her arms and giving Takuma an unimpressed stare.
"What makes you think it wouldn't?" He replied mildly. "Kaname spent his life working toward peace between humans and vampires. It's something he nearly gave his life for." Ruka's eyes tightened at the reminder. "Fighting for that same cause, for peace, is something we should have been doing all along in honor of Kaname's name. Do you think he's happy that we didn't? That the moment he sacrificed himself, we all dropped his dreams and plans?"
Shiki and Rima met his eyes, but Ruka, Kain and Aido did not. The three of them stared at the ground or their feet, guilty looks on their faces.
"We had to reorganize vampire society before we could focus on something like that," Aido said lamely. They all knew that most of them hadn't truly cared about Kaname's dream. They'd cared about following and supporting Kaname, but the dream could have been nearly anything. What did powerful, long-lived vampires care for humans other than as a source of food and entertainment? Takuma cared, but knew he was in the minority. "If we work toward peace between humans and vampires, between us and the hunters," Aido twitched at the mention of the vampire hunters, "then maybe Kaname will return to us."
Ruka and Aido looked hopeful and Takuma felt a twinge of guilt. He was being manipulative and he knew it. He did earnestly desire to give Kaname a reason to live. He hoped that if they strove to create the type of society Kaname had once dreamed of and worked for, that Kaname would become interested in his dream once again and join them. He knew Kaname would never join them as their king as the others hoped, but Takuma did want to work alongside his friend again in whatever capacity Kaname was willing to give them.
"It would have been a great gift to Kaname if he had awoken to find that we had made progress toward his dream," Ruka said softly, staring at her hands folded in her lap. Her fingers tightened together. "He must be disappointed that we've accomplished nothing."
"We haven't accomplished nothing," Aido said in irritation. "We stopped a group of vampires trying to kill a bunch of humans distract us while they set themselves up as rulers. That counts for something, doesn't it?"
Ruka rolled her eyes. "That's stopping something from happening, not forming a new government, or establishing peaceful relations with humans, or working with Cross to help the next generation of vampires be friendly to humans, or—"
"Fine, fine, whatever," Aido interrupted, a pout on his face as he put his elbow on the arm of the couch and rested his chin in his hand.
"So, you're all in favor?" Takuma asked, cautiously optimistic. "We're all going to work to protect humans and foster a better relationship with them?"
~.~
"Do we really have to do this?" Aido complained, throwing his head back and dragging his feet. "When you said we were going to work for peace between humans and vampires, I thought you meant things like what Headmaster Cross did, not hunting down humans serial killers." Night had fallen and Aido, Takuma, and Kain were walking down a deserted street.
"Of course this is important," Takuma said passionately. "What better way to foster better relationships with humans than to use our enhanced abilities to protect them?"
"Well," Kain began, his voice bland, "there's the fact that no human will ever know we stopped a serial killer. I don't think we can get credit for doing something anonymously…There's also the fact that most humans don't even know we exist. I suppose doing this might get us points with the vampire hunters. If we're lucky."
"That's the wrong attitude, my friends! The point isn't getting credit for doing good deeds, the point is changing our perceptions! You know what they say, you love the ones you serve. If we work to protect humans from threats they can't protect themselves from, then it will help change our attitude toward humans. That's what this is about. We'll be silent saviors in the night! Didn't you guys dream about being a hero when you were little?"
"I dreamed about being world-renowned for my genius," Aido said. "And that's already happened. I've been on TV, remember?"
"I probably dreamed about not getting in trouble for Aido's antics," Kain said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and gazing up at the stars. "And that's one dream that will probably never come true."
Takuma sighed, his shoulders drooping. "You two don't have one romantic bone in your body. Well, I think this is a good idea, so we're going to try it."
"It's not a bad place to start, I suppose," Kain admitted with a shrug. Takuma beamed at him.
A woman's scream rang through the night. Aido perked up. "Maybe if I save her, she'll let me drink her blood." He took off at a run.
"No!" Takuma yelled, chasing after his friend and throwing a disgruntled look at Kain who shrugged helplessly. "That's not the point of this!"
Takuma and Kain reached a small park, abandoned at this late hour, shortly behind Aido. To Takuma's surprise, Aido was standing still, one eyebrow quirked in puzzlement. Takuma followed his friend's gaze to see a small figure clad all in gray standing between a woman in a red dress and a man holding a long knife. A cut ran down the woman's arm, as though the man had been attacking her when the mysterious stranger intervened.
Takuma tried not to be distracted by the enticing smell of the woman's blood, but she removed the problem herself when she took one last look at the gray figure and man with the knife before turning and running.
The gray clad figure dipped downward, swinging one leg out and tripping the man, who Takuma assumed was the serial killer they were hunting. He smelled strongly of human blood other than his own. In a smooth motion, the person flipped to the other side of the killer, kicked the knife out of his hand, then grabbed both the killer's hands and tied them roughly to a park bench.
The figure stared at the three vampires, dark red-brown eyes the person's only visible feature. "The police are already on their way," a gruff voice said. Takuma wasn't sure if it was male or female. "You might want to be gone before that point." With that, the figure quickly disappeared into the trees of the park.
The three vampires stared after her. Aido spoke first. "That was the ugliest outfit I have ever seen. Why would anyone willingly choose to wear such an ugly gray color?" He put his hand to his chin as though pondering the thought. "Then again, maybe his…or her face is so ugly that the gray covering is an improvement."
Takuma shook his head, still surprised at what had just happened. "Who in the world was that?"
Kain shrugged. "I doubt we'll ever know." He scratched his head as he turned toward where they heard police sirens. "Should we get out of here?"
"Yeah," Takuma agreed, his eyes still on the spot where the gray stranger disappeared. "Let's see if we can track down that woman and make sure she gets home safely."
~.~
A week later found the Night Class vampires out again, though hunting a vampire rather than a human this time.
"So, are we supposed to kill this guy, or just give him a warning?" Shiki asked Rima. "I can't remember which Takuma said. I know that Kain has been pushing for us to give warnings first, but…"
Rima shrugged, turning to look at Ruka. "Well, Ruka? This vampire hasn't killed anyone yet that we know of, but he is kidnapping human girls and using them for food."
Ruka flicked her hand in an irritated gesture. "I don't care. Whichever is easiest."
Shiki and Rima exchanged looks. "We're supposed to be leaders for vampire society," Shiki argued. "Takuma wants us to be able to create a new senate, a better senate, and lead vampires to a better way of life. That means there's a right answer and a wrong answer. We need to send a message that attacking humans isn't allowed, but we also need to make sure vampires know we're enforcing those rules before we kill them for breaking them. Right?"
"Why are you asking me?" Ruka snapped. While she had to admit she saw sense in Takuma's plan to lure Kaname back to them by working to enact the dream Kaname had fought for before, it was hard to be motivated when they didn't even know where Kaname was. For all they knew, he was in another country by now and would never even hear about what they were doing. What would be the point of all this work then?
Rima and Shiki exchanged another look. "Then we'll explain things to the vampire," Rima said. "If he hears what we have to say and still doesn't care, we'll kill him."
Shiki nodded his agreement.
Ruka rolled her eyes, annoyed by how devoted Rima and Shiki were to following Takuma's plan for changing vampire society without really knowing how to follow his plan.
Ruka suddenly stopped and sniffed. She smelled vampire and human blood. "This way," she said, turning without checking to make sure the other two followed her.
The three of them snuck up to a building that appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. They were almost to the doors when they burst open and a few teenage girls came running out.
Shiki blinked as he watched the run away. "Did they escape?" He asked, tilting his head.
"No," Ruka said, her eyes narrowed. "I can still smell the vampire. I know he's close by."
Rima led the way into the warehouse. On the other side of the large room, the vampire Ruka smelled was indeed alive and present, but he was strung up on rope wrapped around his arms and chest so he hung from a catwalk above them.
Movement along a side wall caught Ruka's attention. She turned to see a gray clad figure about to leap out a window.
"I don't believe it," she murmured. "The boys' tale about some gray person coming and interfering is actually true?" She'd thought they'd just failed to capture the serial killer and hadn't wanted to admit it.
The figure paused to look down at them. "I'll leave the decision of how to handle this vampire to you three," the person said in a gruff voice, then turned and jumped out the window.
"Well, this makes our job easier," Rima said, watching the dangling vampire with her hands on her hips. "Let's drag him back to the mansion and let Takuma give him the lecture. Then Takuma can decide whether we kill him or not."
~.~
Over the next few months, the Night Class vampires encountered the mysterious person multiple times. In their planning office, Takuma stepped back to look at the many boards on the walls. In addition to keeping track of things like allies, threats, and future plans, Takuma now had a board dedicated to the gray clad figure.
They still didn't know much, but through their short interactions Takuma had been able to figure out that the person was a woman, that she was highly trained, and that she seemed to have a similar agenda to the Night Class. She stopped threats to humans, both of the human and vampire variety, and only killed when necessary. They also knew that she fled the scene as soon as she'd accomplished what she came to do.
She had no scent they could track, which didn't make sense, but as soon as she was out of their line of sight, they couldn't find her again. Part of him hoped she was a powerful vampire helping them from the sidelines, but he didn't have enough information to know one way or the other. Takuma really wished he could make her stick around and talk. He wanted to team up with her.