Author Note: Chapter edited by Dark Phyre - thank you for your hard work.
Chapter XI
One hundred and fifty years ago…
"No, I won't. I would never agree with your decision, Mother," the red-haired woman yelled. For the past few months, her parents wanted her to do things she never wanted to do. She always obeyed them in the past, but this request she would never grant for them.
"Anya," her mother tried to convince her only child that her solution was the best one "You're old enough to realize your role in our society, and you have responsibilities. For your own sake, I advise you to do what we want you to. Act like a real pureblood."
"No. This is about my own happiness, and I want to be the one to decide, not you, or the council. I won't agree with your request. If you insist on the matter, I'll run away."
"If you ran away, then we would find you and drag you home by force."
"That's only if you find me."
Two days later her mother found a note written by her only daughter, announcing that she had indeed run away from her home.
Thirty years later…
"My my, I knew I would find you here." The one who spoke was a noble vampire, around forty years old (in human years). "It took me three decades to find the prodigal daughter of the Cold clan. I came to take you home, my lady."
Anya looked at the man in front of her. She knew his reputation – he was called The Stalker in vampire society - he was the vampire sent to deal with the troublesome ones. He rarely failed in his missions. But the vampires he dealt with until now were at the same level as him, and Anya's level was different from the rest.
"It's an honor to meet you, Stalker-san. Unfortunately, you will be returning home barehanded. I will never go with you."
The vampire had tried to use his unique abilities on Anya, but the troublesome abilities had been easily annihilated by her stronger power. Anya used more force than necessary, and had knocked the one called The Stalker into unconsciousness.
Anya had taken her leave, happy that she won another battle with her stubborn mother.
Twenty years later…
"Hm…what have we here; another dog who came to drag me home? I guess my mother didn't learn her lesson after all."
"Anya-sama, your parents are worried. In these last fifty years you have done things a pureblood wouldn't normally do. I am afraid you've brought shame to your family name. Please come home, and comply with your mother's wishes."
"She sent a polite one now," Anya laughed." Did she think I would return if I was asked nicely? I won't return until she gives up on those absurd ideas of hers."
"Anya-sama, I tried to get you to come back without the aid of force. Please forgive my following actions."
Suddenly the vampire used a whip of light to try to catch her. When the whip touched her skin it burned, and poison swiftly spread throughout her body. Anya felt dizzy, nauseas. She had no other choice than to use her full power, and she sent that servant to her death.
Present day…
"Walter, I told you to prepare our luggage. Don't stand there and do nothing. The clock is ticking. We cannot waste another minute."
"My lady, what is going on? Why do we need to leave in a hurry?" His lady's behavior was strange. She had been fine up until she received the visit from that hunter. Immediately after his leaving, his lady had become agitated for some reason.
"She knows I am here, and she sent him to bring me back. I will not return home, and do what that woman wants me to do."
"My lady…I do not understand. Why should he bring you back, and who's 'that woman'?"
Anya turned to face her faithful servant. "I am talking about my mother. This time, she sent a hunter to bring me back home. I should have known that this was her doing. She told me she would drag me home by force if she had to. We need to go before the hunter finds out the truth behind his mission. Go and prepare our luggage for our departure. We're leaving tonight."
He just arrived at home when his phone rang. He picked it up without looking at the screen.
"Yo, stupid apprentice! I heard you had some problems with your mission." Zero knew the voice very well; it was his shiso – Yagari Touga.
"I heard some things about my mission as well. Like how this whole mission is a farce and I am not here to kill her, but to stay around her, and bring her back to Japan when I'm ordered to. What's going on?"
"You don't need to know all the details, stupid apprentice. Just do what you're told."
"I will find out eventually. Anya doesn't know why I was sent here for whatever purpose, but sooner or later I will find out."
"You talked about your mission with her? You told her you're there to bring her back to Japan?"
"Yes, I did. I just returned from there. I will visit her again later, and talk more about it. Maybe we missed something."
"When you told her about it, did she talk and act normally, or was she uneasy about it?"
"Now that you mention it, she wanted to get rid of me. Basically she showed me the door, and this is strange for her since she's taken a liking to me."
"You stupid apprentice, she tricked you. She knows why you have to bring her back to Japan. I bet she's going to try to run away while we're speaking. Go and arrest her, and bring her back to Japan!"
"Hey Shiso, what's going on? Why should I bring her back to Japan?"
"She ran away from home one hundred fifty years ago. Since then, her family has sent multiple vampires to bring her back, but they all failed. For one hundred years, she couldn't be found. When her family had clues of where she could be, they decided to ask for the help of the Hunters Association. Stop wasting precious time. I bet she's trying to run away. Go and arrest her!"
Zero threw the phone somewhere on the bed, and left in a hurry. Considering her strange behavior he needed to run like the wind. He would not fail in this mission.
When he arrived at her mansion, the lights were on, and he could sense agitation inside. He took two steps further, and the door opened. In front of him were two people with luggage in-hand.
Anya was too agitated to sense his presence while she was still inside. When she saw his form standing meters away from her she stopped breathing. She couldn't say a word to him.
"I see that I came in time. If I had been five minutes later, you would have run away with no trace, isn't that right, Anya?"
Zero moved toward a mute Anya. When he was in front of her, his hands went around her waist and he kissed her lips. Her shock was too big to respond to his action. Behind Anya, Walter spoke no words.
A click woke Anya from her trance. She found her hands cuffed.
"What are you doing, hunter-san?"
"I am doing my job. I received orders to stop you from running away, and bring you back to Japan."
"I won't come. If I return, she will force me to marry some man that I don't even know. I refused to do before. I had escaped twice, and the third will be the same." She wanted to rip the cuffs apart, but she couldn't feel her power.
"These are magic cuffs; it restrains the power of a vampire. You cannot get away this time."
"Please let me go! I did nothing wrong. I have the right to decide for my own happiness, not having others choose for me. They will force me to marry a man that I have no feelings for. Please let me go!"
Zero didn't like what he heard about her being forced to marry against her will, but he had a job to do. His job as hunter was above everything else. He would bring her to Japan, and she would accept her own fate.
"I am sorry, but my job is my job. We're going back to Japan."
However, the other vampire, Walter, couldn't stay still and see his lady suffer.
"You heard the reason for your mission, and you heard her pleas for you to let her go, but you still refuse to set her free. I won't allow my lady to return to a place where she will certainly suffer. What you two shared in the privacy of her chambers wasn't enough for you to release her now?"
A part of him wanted to let her go, but at the same time, a part of him existed that was very much against it.
"Anya, advise your servant to behave, or else he will become a pile of ashes. We will leave for Japan today."
"I will come with my lady. I won't leave her alone."
"Do as you like."
The news of Zero catching Anya, and bringing her back to the land she was born and raised in reached Japan.
However, one man wasn't very happy with the sudden return of the silver-haired hunter. And now he was in need of a shelter, a place where he could hide.
To hide in one of Hunter Association's rooms was out of the question. It would be the second place that Zero would be looking through, after his house. So he decided to hide at one of his vampire friend's, and he chose his adoptive daughter.
"Yuki-chan, please I need your help!" He was inside Kuran's mansion, on his knees, pleading for shelter. "Kiryu-kun found out why he was sent to UK, and he's returning home, and he's very angry with me. Earlier on the phone he said that the first thing he was going to do when he landed in Japan was to find and kill me."
"Chairman, what did you do for him to have such a horrible idea in his head?"
"He found out that his mission was a farce, and he was sent there because he fitted the profile, and now he wants to kill me. Yuki-chan, please hide me from him. I would be so invisible that you wouldn't even notice my presence."
"I need to talk with Kaname. He's not home right now, he had somewhere to go, but he will return any minute. Please take a seat, and wait for him."
Suddenly Cross Kaien regretted the moment he lifted his sword and attempted to kill Kaname. He put all his hopes in Yuki's power of persuasion.
The flight from London to Narita Airport, Tokyo took twelve hours, and another three hours with the train. In those 15 hours, he thought he was going to suffocate. He had on his side a very smiley Maria – she found out what was going on, and she had enjoyed a fit of laughs -, a pureblood vampire in sufferance, and mad in the same time, and a servant who constantly threw him deadly glares.
If looks could kill, he would have been dead fifteen hours ago.
He was relieved with each hour that passed, his torture time would come to an end, and he would be free to search for the man who was guilty for his predicament – Cross Kaien.
When they stepped out from the car, he had a duty to hand Anya over to the ones who ordered her arrest, her parents. He saw a man, and a woman next to his shiso. Both of them had the same red hair as his female hostage.
When Anya saw her parents standing near a car, with wide smiles on their faces, she stopped her steps and tried to run away, but her attempt failed. She was literally dragged by Zero until they reached their car.
"Shiso, here she is. I brought her back the way you requested."
"You did a good job, stupid apprentice."
Anya's mother ignored the conversation of the two hunters and headed towards her prodigal daughter.
"Anya-chan, you've become so beautiful. Being a prodigal daughter did you well after all. Mommy missed you so much!" She hugged her lost daughter, and whispered in her ear: "I guess I won the game we played in those last one hundred fifty years after all. Mommy found a very good husband for you. You'll meet him soon."
"Don't be so sure about it. I'll run away at the first opportunity I get, just like last time."
But her mother brought no attention to her daughter threats. Instead, her gaze stopped on another vampire, Walter.
"And who is this young man? Is this man your butler? The one you turned into vampire ten years ago?"
"Mother, he's Walter, my faithful servant. He will always stay by my side."
"Oh…you have good taste. He will be a servant in our house, and his job will be to take care of you. Now, we need to go home. Mommy wants to show you the new wing of our mansion – it will be the place you will reside until your wedding."
If Anya's guess was right, her mother had prepared a place from where she couldn't escape. If she stepped inside that wing, her fate would be decided. She needed to get away before she was forced back home.
But luck wasn't on her side anymore. With those cuffs around her wrists, she had no power, and her attempts to escape were all futile. And the moment her feet touched the floor of the new wing, the doors were sealed behind her.
She saw others coming in and out of the wing, but only she wasn't allowed. The seal was made specially for her. Now, she had to find a way to break the seal.
Like how he promised over the phone-line, he started to look for the man responsible for his predicament. The first place Zero searched for Cross was in his mansion. Unfortunately, he couldn't find him. Based on the scent he felt inside the mansion, he could tell that the megane-man hadn't been there in the past twelve hours.
His second option was the Hunter Association. He burst into the president's office with the hope to find him there. But all he could find was his former training partner, Takamiya Kaito.
"He's not here. Yesterday he told me he was going to take a short vacation. Yagari is replacing him during his leave. I am here in Yagari's place because he went to fetch you."
"Do you know where he went? He's not in his home."
"He didn't say where he was going, and honestly I don't care where he is. But maybe he's crashing with someone he knows, and who would allow him to visit for a while."
Zero had two good ideas where Cross could have been. He just hoped he wasn't in Kuran's mansion. Maybe he didn't hate Kuran Kaname anymore, but they certainly weren't best buddies. The King of Vampires wouldn't allow violence to occur in his house, or on his lands.
Zero decided to have patience, and wait for the perfect moment to strike. He was going to kill the man who awfully liked to play pranks on him.