Sorry about the long gap. All kinds of crap hit the fan so to speak. This one was also harder to write for some reason. I hope you enjoy it :) I do want to say thank you to every one who has stuck with me through all of this. I never expected it to be this long (almost 84,000 words without authors notes and over a year in the writing) or this popular (100 favorites and 99 alerts). Ya'll have made every word worth it. Thank you. And don't worry, it's not over yet :)
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"That might actually work," Yuuki said as Kaname finished telling her about "Plan B". "Do you think that you can do it?"
Kaname laughed a little at the doubt Yuuki had about his abilities. "I can do it," he assured her. "But I'm still hoping it won't come to that."
She nodded though she remembered the last time that Kaname had assured her that he could do something and how well that had worked out. Rather than voice her cynical thought, she looked around the clearing that they had decided to set up as a training area. She had originally suggested using one of the larger classrooms but Kaname had pointed out the fact that they were trying to learn destructive magic.
"Kaien will probably kill me if we damage any more school buildings," Kaname had said with a laugh.
She glanced uncomfortably at the dummies they had made from some old clothes and leaves. Even though they didn't look like people, she was still unsure if she could attack them. Not because she was afraid of hurting them, but because every time she had ever used her powers it had been in an emotional state and that was apparently not the right way. She had no idea how she was supposed to access them.
"Kaname?" she asked quietly, trying not to startle him if he was busy.
"Yes," he said turning to look at her over his shoulder as he stitched together another of the dummies. The sight of Kaname with a sewing needle in his hands and a lap full of fabric would have made Yuuki laugh if it wasn't for the question that was weighing on her mind.
"You know how you didn't want the nobles to know that I lost control of my powers?" she began.
He nodded knowing where she was going with this. He had thought of that as well and had weighed the consequences of each. While he didn't intend to engage in full disclosure with the nobles, allowing Yuuki to train with them would reveal the depth of her ignorance when it came to magic, but not allowing her to train with them could potentially, no would, put her in danger when the time for battle came. Given the choice between letting the nobles see a little weakness in their queen and risking Yuuki's life if she wasn't trained; well there really was no choice in Kaname's eyes.
"Won't starting from scratch show them that I have no idea what I'm doing and therefore have no chance at control?" She asked. Again he was pleasantly surprised at how well she planned ahead. He had known that she was smart, but there were many intelligent people he know that were unable to form plans on top of plans based on how things went at any particular turn.
"Are you sure you don't like chess?" He asked suddenly. Her mouth dropped open slightly and she looked at him incredulously. Where the hell had that come from? They were talking about magical training and he turned to board games?
Seeing the look she was giving him, he figured that he might need to give her a little more explanation. "The way your mind works," he explained, "is well suited to chess. You see angles that most people don't. I think it would be fun to play against you. I think it would be a good match."
"Mmhm," she replied skeptically, still eyeing him like he was insane. "I think you're avoiding the question."
"It will show that your control it weak," he replied. "But that is only a small problem."
"Just this morning it was a huge problem," Yuuki interjected. "Hence the lying."
"This morning," he reminded her gently, "we weren't at war. In light of recent events, it has become a small problem."
"I figured that it would now be an even bigger problem," she said softly. At his raised eyebrow she continued, "Well, I figured that since we are at war they would need more than even to see us as strong leaders so they wouldn't question us."
He sighed, she was right. They did need to appear strong, especially in a time of war. "Be that as it may," he said ignoring her look, "you being able to protect yourself is more important than public image is to me. If it will make you feel better, we can work for a while on the basics before we get ready for the meeting with the nobles this evening."
"That would be great!" she said enthusiastically. Even if she didn't believe Kaname's prediction that she would be in danger if she showed weakness, she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of the nobles. She wanted to prove that she was worthy to rule beside Kaname.
"As I told you," Kaname said gently slipping into teacher mode, "All you have to do is think about what you want to accomplish and release the magic to do it."
"But I can't do that without giving into emotion," Yuuki complained.
"Yes you can," he assured her. "The power is there, feel for it. I'll help you. Close your eyes and listen to the sound of my voice." She did as she was told and waited for her next instruction. "Just breath normally. Feel your heart beat. Do you feel your blood moving in your veins?" she nodded, she felt something moving in time to the beat of her heart and assumed that it was her blood.
"Good," he said. "Flowing alongside it is another current. This one will not pulse like the first. Can you feel it?" She thought a moment and realized that she could feel a steady current throughout her body and nodded.
"That is the flow of your magic," he explained. "Though it doesn't pulse, it is also driven by the heart. That's why it is easier to access when you are emotionally aroused. However, accessing it when it is flowing more strongly is more dangerous, since it is easier to lose control of this stronger current. If you can keep your mind calm, you can access this current at any time. Try it now."
She reached for the current, only to have it come to her before she could reach it. Kaname felt the hair on his arms rise as Yuuki tapped into her powers. She was strong, if only she could learn to harness it. "Open your eyes," he instructed wanting to see if they were their usual wine color or glowing crimson. She opened them slowly, but even before they were fully open he could see the glow of magic in them.
"Pick one of the dummies," he said, "And remove just its right arm." She looked at one of the dummies and focused on removing its right arm. Not a second later the arm in question exploded from the dummy.
"I did it!" she cried flinging her arms around him her eyes going back to their original color.
"Yes, you did," he replied with a proud smile. "But may I ask if that was the arm you were aiming for?"
"Yes," she answered, "why?"
"Because that is actually the dummy's left arm you just blew off," Kaname said with a laugh. Yuuki looked again and realized that he was right. She had blown off what would have been her right, the dummy's left.
"Oops," she said with a smile, "But at least I hit where I was aiming for."
"That you did," he replied. "Would you like to try again?"
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Zero looked around at the gymnasium and was surprised at the changes they had managed to make in the short time they had been working. The space that had once been used for such humiliating practices a dodge ball was almost unrecognizable. The entire floor was now padded with thick blue mats and there were makeshift punching bags hanging along the wall. It almost looked like a real practice area, and it almost made him think that there was more than a snowball's chance in hell of them succeeding.
"I think it will work well," Seiren said suddenly appearing beside him.
He replied with a shrug and a non-committal sound that might have possibly been agreement.
"You don't sound convinced," she stated, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
He sighed. He didn't want to tell her that he didn't really believe that there was hope. He still couldn't see how they were going to train a handful of nobles to fight against hunters who had been trained since birth to kill vampires. Honestly, though he never would have admitted it to anyone and would have killed anyone who said he thought it, he knew that Yuuki and Kuran would be their best bet against the hunters. No matter how well trained they were, there was no way that they were prepared to battle against the freaky powers of the purebloods. "No matter how good the gym looks, we still have to remember that we are still training nobles, not soldiers."
"Oh really?" she asked, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "I think you forget that I'm a noble," she said with a predatory smile. "Do you think you can beat me, mister 'elite trained warrior'?"
"Now I never said that," Zero said backing away from her. He wasn't sure what she was doing and unsure if he could beat her without hurting her, if he could beat her at all.
Her smile widened at the almost panicked look on his face. While she didn't want to hurt him, she was halfway interested in seeing how well she could hold her own against him. A little friendly sparring never hurt anything. Besides, he needed to work out a little of his frustrations from over the past couple of days before he was turned loose on the other nobles.
Her smile only served to unnerve him even further. He continued backing away from her until he tripped over a seam in the mats. "What are you doing?" he asked her when she kept coming.
"I would think it would be obvious," she said with a smile. "I'm picking a fight . . . with you." She saw his lavender eyes narrow as he finally realized what she was doing. He covered up his smirk and held out his hand.
"Help me up?" he asked. She smiled and lowered her hand to do as he'd asked. The moment her hand touched his, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down beside him before pinning her below him. "I can't believe you fell for that. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book," he said, laughter bubbling up his throat at the surprised look on her face.
"I can't believe you would resort to such cheap tactics," she said glaring past him and seeing the headmaster's shocked face over his shoulder. "But you might want to look behind you."
"Like I would fall for that," he laughed. "That is the oldest trick in the book."
"ZERO!" the headmaster called. "In public! I thought I raised you better!"
At his words, Seiren fought the urge to sigh. She had almost put Zero into a good mood, and then the headmaster had to come in and ruin all her work. She didn't really mind if everyone thought they were doing things that they weren't. Her whole life people had thought that she was heartless when the opposite was actually true. But she could tell how much it bothered him. She just hoped that he would keep his temper in check. But judging by the way his eye was twitching, she didn't think that was going to happen.
"THAT'S IT!" Zero yelled seeming to erupt from the ground and before Seiren could stop him was nose to nose with Kaien. "I am SICK of EVERYONE thinking that we are having sex. You, Yagari, even Kuran gave me a superior, knowing look. It's pissing me off! Especially you! You saw me and Seiren in bed fully clothed, but Kuran and Yuuki in bed—with him at least partially naked—you are perfectly ok with. Even though I can assure you that they are having sex."
Kaien looked like Zero had slapped him even though no one had touched him. Seiren was equally as shocked. Even though she had known that the two purebloods were romantically involved, yelling it that bluntly at her father . . . she had known that Zero was rash, but that was just cold. Kaien backed slowly away from him looking defeated.
Zero realized that he had said more than he meant to as well. "I'm sorry," he said suddenly. "I didn't mean to say that. I was mad."
"Does that mean it's not true?" Kaien asked in a small voice. He knew that Yuuki wasn't really his daughter and that she and Kaname were engaged to be married, but he hadn't thought that she was having sex. He also knew that she was a teenager and he had heard that was what teenagers do . . . but he just couldn't reconcile the idea of the little girl he had raised doing that.
Zero took a deep breath. He knew that it would be kinder to lie to the headmaster, but he respected him too much to do that. "No," Zero said quietly shaking his head. Kaien nodded sadly and turned to walk out the door.
"Damn," Zero sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"Why would you say that?" Seiren asked him harshly.
"I . . . I don't know," Zero said. "I was mad, and it just slipped out."
She made a disgusted noise in her throat. "You need to learn a little more self control," she snapped. "That was cruel and uncalled for."
Getting called out by her, with all the stress he was currently under caused him to lash out at her. "What do you know?" he snapped. "As you keep reminding me, you're a noble vampire. You haven't had to deal with the pitying glances from that man as you grew up. With knowing that he knew that someday he would probably have to kill you and seeing that in his eyes. With the way that he tried to get close to you, but never let himself get too close."
"I'm sure that was difficult," she said trying to pacify him. She may not have gone through that exactally, but she knew what it was like to be an outcast. She was too high up the ladder for most of the nobles to be willing to spend time with her and too low for the purebloods to spend time with her. She was a social outcast even though she was well blooded. Her existence had been a lonely one.
"Oh," he snorted sarcastically. "I'm sure you understand perfectly."
His dismissal of her feelings stung deeply and she reacted out of instinct. "You're right," she spat. "I don't understand." He looked smug until she continued speaking. "I don't understand how you can have such complete disregard for the man who took you in and loved you like a son despite the fact that he knew what you were and that it meant that he would someday be responsible for ending you. That is something I can't understand." With her last word she walked past him out the same door that the headmaster had left through moments before.
Once she left Zero sank to the ground. He realized that he had been a complete idiot. He had just hurt two of the people who cared about him the most in the world. And for no apparent reason, except his own anger. He had no idea how the hell he could fix this one. The only word that came to his mind as he sat alone in the gym was, "shit."
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Well there it is Y'all. I actually meant for it to be longer, but ran out of time. That last scene was really hard to make work out, I'm not sure that I like it. . . but whatever. Tell me what you think about it and other things. If enough people like it, I will keep it, if not I may re-write it and repost this chapter later. As always thank you for taking the time to read, favorite, review and put this on story alerts. You all keep me writing
Till next time,
Stickdonkeys
Now for the fun shout-out section!
Thank you to Lady Amira II, branster921, TheLostLittleDevil, Frenchie121, girlfun, for adding this story to their favorites, and a special thank you to Sofia Dragansti for being the 100th person to favorite this story.
1234567: See, more story for you!
God of all: Thank you, and here's a new chapter :)
Avneging Neko: I'm glad you like that comparison. And a truce. . . nah! Where's the fun in a truce? Isn't it though?
Cosmic-lover: Zero, pacience. . . not really two words that belong in the same sentence, unless "has no" is the connector. . . but maybe after this little outburst he will learn to channel it better. She had been too calm in my opinion and it was high time that she had an outburst of some kind. And Zero just seemed like the right person to have talk sense into her. Come on, Kaname ALWAYS has a plan. . . or three. But despite his cool exterior, he is still human. I hope that came across in this chapter. And poor Zero and Seiren. . .
DON"T STOP WRITING: I will try, thank you for your encouragement!
Fimrl: I'm glad that you love it. :) I hope you enjoyed the new chapter as much as you have the story so far. Thank you! I was hoping to stick close despite all the crap I have put them through.
AKILAH: I will do my best :D