.11
He would remember that hell came in glass jars. The blood tablets were capsular in shape, cream-colored, with a ridge in the middle. The note that came with the package explained that the tablets had been tested and it was discovered that they were formulated using contraband – blood extracted from a pureblood vampire. The box contained four huge glass jars, each one filled to the brim with the capsular tablets. They were manufactured by the pharmaceutical branch of the Ichijou Group of Companies, and when Zero let go of the note, a sick feeling rose deep in his gut.
I don't know a thing. I have been blinded and kept in the dark. I know nothing. Nothing at all.
They arrived late, too late, by the Hiou estate. Zero could remember that the sun was just setting then, and that the complex of Japanese traditional houses was quiet, almost as silent as the Kuran manor. The servants were all frightened sheep, all of them, huddled as they were by the corners, nobody daring to touch their dying master. Uruki Hiou was lying on the tatami floor, his chest a bloody gaping hole, his heart gouged out. He was choking on his own blood when Kaien Cross got to him, and with his dying breath he gave but one name.
Kuran.
Zero knew then that it would be pointless to go home and look for Kaname there. He and Seiren would have moved someplace else, somewhere difficult to find, and it struck Zero that for all of their intimacy, he knew nothing of how Kaname's mind worked. Seiren was telling him the truth when she told him she knew more of their master than he did, and at that moment, watching Uruki Hiou turn to dust, Zero couldn't come up with anything rational that would explain the murdering spree Kaname had started.
He wasn't surprised when Kaito Takamiya grabbed him by the collar and wordlessly dumped him at the back of their truck, at the compartment especially enchanted to hold vampires in. He was a servant, and at that moment he had to be in custody. He would be asked questions, and Zero wished he could answer, but he had no answers, just thin air.
He was interrogated by Jinmu and his master, Yagari Toga. The hours crawled by in a painfully slow pace, and the questions were all the same. Did he know what Kaname Kuran was planning? Was he somehow ordered to obstruct the Hunter Association in any way? Where was Kaname Kuran? Why was he out now, murdering purebloods as if he had lost his mind? Did he in fact lose his mind for some reason? Where was Kaname Kuran? What was he planning? Whom would he strike next?
"I don't know!" Zero shouted when his patience reached the end. Inside, there was this terrible gnawing. His chest wanted to explode. Butterflies ran amok in his gut, and his hands sweat cold. He felt restless, and he wanted to grab the metal chair he sat on and throw it against the wall just for the sake of something to do. "I don't fucking know where he is, what he's up to, why he's doing all these killings! I don't know! I wish I knew!"
Jinmu was on his feet by then, and Zero understood that the older hunter was seconds away from striking him where he sat. Zero could feel the intense scrutiny from his mentor, the only person who managed to remain calm in the room. Yagari Toga sat motionless, his booted feet propped up against the table as he smoked.
"He's telling the truth," Toga finally spoke. He glanced at Jinmu, and then at Zero. "He doesn't know a thing. You can see it for yourself in his eyes. He's been kept in the dark. There's no point keeping him locked up. We're all busied with this crap that's going on, and we'll need all able-bodied hunters for the days to come. "
It was Eri Touma who first came to their doorstep asking for shelter and protection the same day the noble court of the vampires released the decree that the throne was held vacant and that they were seizing power in the shadow of the current crisis. The little pureblood girl brought nothing with her except the clothes on her back and a brown teddy bear. Judging by her tousled hair and the filth on her clothes, the hunters came to the conclusion that their house had been attacked too, and that she was the more fortunate one, as she had escaped. When Kaien Cross let her in against the majority of the hunters' better judgments, Eri Touma explained that she'd escaped when her brother was abducted by hiding in the broom cupboard for two days, and then she left her home and hid away for a week, before deciding that the hunters' headquarters was the only safe place for her now.
She said that she knew of no reason why Kaname Kuran would want to go after her. However, she also pointed out that her brother struck first in a fit of hubris – her brother attacked Kaname Kuran one evening when the pureblood king was on his way home. But surely, Eri pleaded with them, that did not merit her brother's gruesome death. Kaien nodded gravely after listening to her story, and agreed.
A few days later and more baffling news reached the hunters – Hanabusa Aidou's father had been killed by Kaname Kuran too, and that Hanabusa was taking over their family's estates and businesses as a result. That one Zero absolutely did not understand. From what he knew of Aidou, he'd always followed Kaname around at school, besotted with whatever the pureblood was doing. Kaname was displeased with the unwanted attention but never sent Hanabusa away, although he did berate him now and then. But that was it. Zero knew Hanabusa was loyal to his master, perhaps even more than he was.
Zero tried to get himself in one of the hunting parties sent to look for Kaname's whereabouts, but his master was on to something, and refused to give him authorization. Zero was furious. He wanted answers, and he knew he would never get them while he was forced to stay put at headquarters. That didn't work with Kaname, and never would. If one wanted answers from Kaname Kuran, you had to go after him. Waiting for him to explain was a fool's hope. Zero's questions would remain unanswered, unless Kaname himself would come here again.
When the first leaves started to fall for autumn, Sara Shirabuki now turned up on the door, with her entourage of formerly human girls and a person Zero never thought he would see with her – Takuma Ichijou. But the Takuma Ichijou that entered the building was different from the Ichijou that Zero remembered from school. The Vice President of the Night Class had been a lively person, not this dull, grave and sorry-looking creature.
He's on a leash, Zero thought as he watched Takuma follow Sara obediently inside. On a leash held by her, and he cannot break free.
"I fear for my life," Sara told them. "Kaname Kuran is going after me next, I am sure of it. I do not wish to die like old man Hiou, or Izaya Shoutou." She paused, and her lower lip trembled. "Or my fiancé Ouri. I do not wish to meet my end at his hands."
Whispers arose among the hunters, and many exchanged incredulous glances. Zero pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning on and parted the crowd as he went forward. He stood in front of Sara, and he could not help but look her from head to toe.
"Where is your proof of this murder?" Zero said. "An errant imputation will not help in these troubled times. We have direct proof Kaname committed all the other murders, but the one you lay now before us has none."
A flicker registered in Ichijou's dead green eyes.
Sara could not answer immediately, and Zero decided that made her the untrustworthy one. But she drew herself up. "I just know it. He killed Ouri too. I know it."
"Knowing does not mean certainty," Zero shot back.
She allowed herself a faint smile. "Valiantly defending your master, are you…?"
Kaien Cross spared him the need to answer by stepping between the two of them. "Very well. On my authority as the president, we will grant you temporary sanctuary within these walls."
Yagari Toga looked furious, but whatever it was he wanted to say, he kept to himself for now. Zero watched as Kaito and other hunters led away Sara and her entourage.
This can't be good. I can't know what's happening if I remain cooped up here any longer. I have to get out and find him myself, that bastard.
He felt Bloody Rose react to his feelings then, and Zero had to grab his right arm to stay the vines from twining up his sleeve.
"You're giving yourself away, Zero."
He turned and found that his master had stayed behind, and was now watching him.
"If you're not careful, you'll be back in the interrogation room again, this time with torture until you give us the answer you're hiding."
What?
Toga stood before him and stared him down. Zero met the gaze steadily, holding his ground.
"You've been drinking his blood, have you?" Toga asked the question as quietly as he could. "And because of it, you have grown attached to him. Don't lie to me, stupid apprentice, I'm no idiot. The killing intent that drove you from the years past is gone from you, I can see it clearly. You've let your anger go. And now something else has taken its place. Something that can destroy you completely if you acknowledge it."
Zero could not say anything to those words.
"I hope that you won't go here one day looking the same as that poor vampire Sara Shirabuki's got with her. There's nothing sorrier to me and more deserving of death than someone whose mind has been taken over completely by a different kind of bloodlust. You get that through your thick skull, Zero."
The backpack was small, but Zero decided it would do. He moved about purposefully in his quarters, packing some clothes into the bag, alongside some clips of bullets and whatever food he could find. He pulled the zipper shut and swung the bag onto his back when the door opened and light spilled into his room. Zero whipped around and found his mother standing by the doorway, a confused look on her face.
"Zero…? What are you…?"
He couldn't look into her eyes. Zero dropped his gaze.
"I can't stay cooped up here, mother. I have to go. I have to find him, and ask him why he's doing all these things myself."
Silence. And then his mother entered the room completely and peered up at him.
"…What makes you think he'll answer you, Zero?"
"He'll answer me," He replied. He will answer me. He won't hide this from me. He told me why he turned me, and after that, I don't think he'd hide anything from me now. "I know he will."
"You're not yourself, Zero, look at me. Look at me!"
Reluctantly, he did, and met his mother's gaze. They stared at each other in silence, and slowly, she let his arms go.
"I don't understand," she said softly. "He matters to you…? This same person who turned you…he's important to you now."
Zero grit his teeth and gave the acknowledgement, that small thing that he knew he would probably regret forever. "Yes. I have to find him, mother."
He wished he did not have to look at her face then. She didn't understand, and she probably never would. But nonetheless she stepped aside, much to his surprise. He walked past her and out the door, but she pulled his sleeve and stopped him.
"Wait, you cannot go without authorization."
She fumbled in her pockets and handed him her hunt order. Zero took the paper, speechless.
"Go and find your master, Zero."
He squeezed his mother's hand and nodded. "I'll come back. I promise."
Zero was halfway up the stairs that led to the main lobby when the alarms sounded, signaling a breach. He tried to run for it, but the emergency lockdown had started and ended before he could reach the doorway, and with a clang, the fortified iron grilles closed off all entries and exits separating the upper floors of the main building from the basements. Cursing, Zero backtracked and looked about, thinking furiously. He dashed and went to find where the Touma girl was hiding, almost sure that his master would already be there.
Why are you doing this now, Kaname?
Most of the hunters would be by the upper floors now; the lockdown was also implemented to deter Kaname from reaching the lower floors, especially the dungeons. Zero ran for one of the elevators and hurriedly pressed 3B, cursing softly as the doors slid shut, and the elevator started its descent underground.
He had Bloody Rose out and ready when the elevator doors hissed open. Already the red emergency lights were on at this part of the headquarters, and Zero was sure that it would be the same for the lower floors. He advanced slowly, keeping his senses attuned, intent on getting to the room where Eri Touma was being kept.
Why are you doing this?
His own footsteps sounded oddly to his hearing. He didn't understand a single thing of this event. It was a new scheme, something else that Kaname had planned, and judging by the way he was kept out of the loop, he wasn't intended to be part of it. But Zero knew he would not let himself be kept out from this one; if Kaname succeeded with whatever bloody end he planned, the only path open to his master would either be execution or suicide. Zero could not fathom why Kaname was hell-bent on careening toward such ends. He knew nothing. And every passing second he was aware, and he hated it even more.
The smell of blood flooded Zero's senses, and it came suddenly, startling him. Blood had just been spilled. Zero shifted into a run, Bloody Rose's vines trailing in his wake, writhing around him and twining up his arm. He rounded the corner, and found that Eri Touma's door had been ripped from the walls.
He had half a second to realize that Takuma Ichijou was standing outside as a look-out before he raised Bloody Rose and attacked, the vines forming the maw of a gigantic wolf and smashing into the noble, burying him in all the thorns and getting him out of the way.
Zero skidded into a halt and looked within the cell. Sara Shirabuki had just consumed herself the heart of the Touma girl, and the girl's body was crumpled by her feet. Her mouth and hands were a bloody mess.
The murdering bitch, was Zero's immediate thought as things clicked inside his head. Ouri's murderer. Hanadagi's murderer, most likely. And now, murderer of the last member of the Touma family.
"Bloody Rose!" he cried, and a huge tangle of vines separated themselves from the group that kept Takuma Ichijou at bay, and went for Sara Shirabuki.
The woman exploded into a swarm of black widow spiders and scuttled all around the floor, avoiding the thrashing vines and getting away. With an angry snarl Zero gave Bloody Rose a yank, and the vines left Takuma Ichijou on the floor, his body covered in wounds where Bloody Rose pierced him and drank his blood. He was unconscious. Zero then raced after the spiders, Bloody Rose attacking as he willed it, and the vines impaled as many scuttling spider they could reach, squashing them like the bugs that they were, and they exploded into digusting gobs of blood on the floor and walls.
Many spiders still managed to flee to safety, and far ahead Sara Shirabuki reformed hastily. Zero felt satisfaction to see that she was wounded, but her wounds were superficial and would not stall her. She dashed off round the corner ahead, and Zero followed her, and Bloody Rose's vines regrouped and writhed behind him.
He rounded the corner too, and ahead was a dead end except for a vent. Sara was trapped. Zero raised his weapon and the silver vines surged forward, pulling Sara into their thorny embrace of death…
But to his horror, the moment Bloody Rose started to drink Sara's blood, the vines blackened and writhed, and Zero felt poison inside his system. Laughing evilly Sara grabbed the vines by hand and tore them off her, and they fell to the ground and they dried up and died. Pain attacked Zero from inside, making him fall to his knees, and black veins started spreading up his arm, crawling up, up, to his neck.
He gasped out blood and Sara kicked him, making him fall flat on his back. She had one foot on his chest; her shoe's deadly heel aimed exactly where his heart would be.
"The Ouri family was the only clan who could nullify another vampire family's abilities," She laughed silkily at him. "Not even the Kurans came up with a counter to this power. And so I have the upper hand here, you understand?"
She shifted her leg, and Zero knew that she planned to destroy his heart with her heel, and then she would walk away as he turned to dust. But out of the corner of his failing vision he could see blood pool and drip down the air vent behind Sara. The blood writhed up and Kaname reformed his upper body out of it, the rest of him remaining as grisly tendrils of red connected to the crimson river.
Sara sensed it too, and she gave a widening of her blue eyes and whipped around, just in time as Kaname gave Artemis a swing, and the blow was clean and quick, and Sara's head was severed from her body, fell to the floor and rolled. Her headless body thrashed about aimlessly, almost gruesome in its clumsiness.
Zero gasped, the poison blood reaching far into him by now. He sensed Kaname somewhere above him, and he smelled his master's blood. Soon he felt the hot trickle of blood being offered into his mouth, and he eagerly parted his lips for it. Kaname had picked him up and cradled him close, and was now giving him blood through a kiss.
Slowly, the pain started to retreat, and subside. Zero's vision started clearing, and when it did, he saw his master peering down at him. For the briefest of seconds, nothing else mattered to Zero then. He reached up a hand and touched Kaname's cheek, and Kaname leaned close to his hand, almost nuzzling his palm.
"The murdering bitch," Zero croaked painfully. "She was responsible…!"
"I know," Kaname replied simply. "But she has poisoned you, and you will need rest. I have done the best I can for you."
His other hand grasped Kaname's shirt, and his purple eyes widened.
"No—you have to get away from here—you have to-!"
His master turned his gaze elsewhere, and Zero was suddenly aware of the presence of a lot of hunters in the vicinity. Kaname let him slip down slowly from his arms and onto the floor, and Zero, unable to move, watched as Kaname got to his feet and let Artemis fall from his hand too. He heard his master Yagari Toga's voice, followed by gunshots, and Kaname took the bullets squarely in his chest and he fell, and Zero screamed soundlessly, and the world was lost in darkness.
He opened his eyes and could remember staring up at the white ceiling, and his nose registered the smell of antiseptic next. His legs felt leaden as well as his left arm, and he couldn't feel his right arm at all. For a while he lay there, not understanding a thing. And then he remembered.
Yagari Toga's voice.
Gunshots.
Bullets.
Kaname falling.
With a burst of strength Zero sat up on the infirmary bed, gasping for breath. His mother, who had been sitting watching over him, was easily on her feet.
"Zero! Zero, thank god, we thought you wouldn't wake up!"
She hugged him to her, and Zero could not do anything, his mind waking up completely and processing things in a rush of adrenaline.
Kaname. He had to find his master. He had to know that his master was still alive.
"How…" he managed. "How long have I been…?"
"Two days," his mother replied as she cupped his face. "All that poison in your system, we really thought…"
He decided then. But he couldn't let his poor, sweet mother know. He held her by the wrists and looked at her face, committing it all to memory – her lavender eyes, her silver hair, her small and perfect nose.
"I'm fine, mother. I'm all right now."
I have to find him. And then…to whatever happens to us both now.
Frankly, Kaname was surprised they didn't execute him on sight. He took four bullets to his chest, and each one cost him a world of pain, and nullified all of his healing abilities in an instant. It was futile to fight, and when he fell to his knees the hunters surrounded him and took him away. He had been in this cell since; a fortified chain clamped around his neck and fastened to the wall, where a hunter's restraining charm was currently active.
The two days passed him in silence and solitude, and he sat down by his corner, lightly fumbling with his chain. He knew the hunters weren't stupid, and they placed him in a dungeon where there were no doors and no guards, just the chain and the restraining charm and a five-foot thick metal door for company.
His work was done, and he had ceased caring what the vampire society would do for him now. He sat there, waiting that his fate this time was certain. He could almost taste his death; it was so near. It would be a decapitation for him. A hunter stake through his heart, and then a decapitation. And here it was that his road would end.
Finally.
He turned his head when the metal door's inner workings sounded, to eventually give way to a resounding clang as it hissed open. Kaito Takamiya entered his cell, his arms raised. He looked furious, and then a hand clutching Bloody Rose gave him a swift blow to the nape, and he crumpled down without a fight, unconscious. Kaname stared in silence as Zero entered his cell. His servant moved with purpose, approaching him, touching the chain that bound him as if studying it intently. And then Zero murmured some incantations, and the restraining charm faded and dissolved.
"Close your eyes," Zero told him as he'd stepped back and raised Bloody Rose.
Kaname turned away briefly and there was a bang, and the chain fell away from his neck. It left a nasty red welt around his throat.
"Come on, get up," Zero said, holding him by the hand and attempting to pull him up.
"Where are we going?" Kaname asked quietly, his eyes intent on Zero's face.
"I'm taking you out of here."
"And go where?"
"I don't know. Somewhere safe."
"There is nowhere safe in this world now for me. You know this."
"Shut up and cooperate with me here, Kaname. Get up. For christ's sakes, get up."
He didn't move. He could see Zero gritting his teeth. His little hunter reeked of anger and despair. And something else more passionate.
"Come on, Kaname!" Zero pleaded.
He grasped Zero by the chin, and made the hunter look him in the eyes. "Do you understand what you're doing, Zero? If you let me out here, you will spend the rest of your life running. What of your parents?"
There was no answer, just this definite set to Zero's jaw and the sheer determination in his eyes. He was throwing everything away, at that moment, for him. Kaname did not let go, but instead grasped Zero tighter.
"You don't know how tiring it is to run, Zero," He continued. "One can only run so far, and for so long. Even your strength will not last."
"I don't care why you killed all of them," Zero hissed. "I don't fucking care. Fuck all the treaties, fuck all the laws, I will not lose you here. I don't care. You don't have to explain."
Kaname felt his resolve start to waver. But he would not let this festering weakness best him again.
"Go with me, Kaname," Zero was pleading with him now. "Go with me. We'll find somewhere-!"
He loosened his grip, and slowly shook his head. In Zero's eyes he saw heartbreak.
"I'm not going, Zero."
"You have to go with me, Kaname, because I lo-!"
He had a hand over Zero's lips, stopping the words before they got out. Kaname did not need to hear those three words. If he heard them, he would be giving name to his feelings, and once he gave name to his feelings he would acknowledging it, and the weakness it brought. His resolve would fall apart completely, and he would remain here…nothing but a piece of scum capable only of obsession. He did not want to hear it. He refused to hear it. He would have none of it.
He allowed himself the faintest of a smile. "I did not expect you to feel this way. But it seems I have miscalculated. But I will not let you follow this path, because the ones purebloods get attached to get destroyed in the end. And so I am…picking up the pieces for you…now."
His eyes glowed red as he activated the spell, and bound Zero to his place, there on his knees. Kaname shifted, wrapped his arms around the silver-haired hunter and closed his eyes.
"Such a sweet sorrow you are. If only I had known you earlier. But there is no other path for me now, except the end."
Blood started to trickle down his forehead. In his arms, he could feel Zero struggling with all his might. An anguished cry escaped the lips of his hunter, yet Kaname was an impenetrable wall, and would not budge. More blood trickled from him, and soon pooled on the floor around them, staining their clothes.
"And so now," Kaname said, his lips touching Zero's ear. "I ask for your forgiveness."