A/N - I'm finally finished! This isn't edited much, so let me know if you spot anything that needs correcting.
"What are you doing?"
"Hacking." Kaname replied, distracted, as he copied and pasted his pre-prepared program into the command window. "Is that my tea? Excellent, six sugars."
"Kuran-sama has returned from China, Young Master," Nancy informed him with false pleasantness as she doled out the most passive aggressive six sugars Kaname had ever seen. "If you'd prefer to feed conventionally."
"Juuri needs him more," Kaname said, smirking as he gained entrance to the next level, now all he needed was an email address - a tempting subject line and… he was in.
Idiots.
"I'm sure – wait, did you say hacking? Hacking who, and why? And where did you learn about computers?!"
"Oh, here and there," Kaname held out a hand until Nancy plonked his cup onto it, the other still tapping away. Whilst he adored teasing his beleaguered governess, there were some things he just wouldn't say. I'm from the future, and you call this a computer? Wait until they're all 3D and VR-enabled and even touchscreens vanish in favour of direct mental control. Those took acrobatics to hack.
"Don't get caught – and don't look at me like that. That wasn't an insult, just a prayer."
"Get caught," Kaname hissed in reproof and took a deliciously sweet sip to calm himself. "Get caught. Hmpf."
Nancy sighed and pulled a chair over.
"Do you have a hacker name then, my Lord?" She began teasing and then she actually got a look at the screen.
It was a sign of how her life had spiralled out of control since The Brat entered it that she couldn't muster up so much as a raised eyebrow.
"That's the Elder Council's logo," she said.
"Mmmhmm."
"And that's John the Guard's picture."
"Uh huh."
She gave up.
"Biscuit?"
#
The mighty hunter stalked his prey in absolute silence through the old stone corridors and out into the bright sunlight. No whisper of sound or scent betrayed Kaname as he slid through the world, less than a ghost.
He'd been stalking his prey for a full month, learning the vampire's habits and routine, keeping a watchful eye on every movement. Had that nod been a signal? What about that gesture? Was he writing notes? Did he have a second mobile phone?
Kaname would have preferred six months to be thorough, but he didn't have that sort of time, or a competent minion to set to the task, so a month it was.
John the Guard, formerly in the personal employ of one Asato Ichijo, was taking a leisurely stroll through the formal gardens. In daylight.
"What took you so long?"
Kaname recognised the voice, Hilda.
"It's called taking precautions. What news do you have?"
"Nothing! Haruka-sama barely talks to me anymore. It's always, 'I'm busy darling,' or 'I'll see you at dawn' but even then we only make love before I'm kicked out again."
There was a moment's appalled silence.
"Is that it? For god's sake, Hilda, I'm not your agony aunt. Do you have any idea of the risks I'm taking by being here?"
"Risks? Oh who cares how we're earning a little extra pocket money. They get worse from the tabloids – they're purebloods, John. They know what they're signing up for."
John sighed. "At least tell me you've heard from Red Velvet?"
"She's fine. Said something about a bid on the whole Arkady business, but she'll have more for me next week."
Kaname sat in the shade of a cherry blossom tree, and felt cheated by this whole modern spying business. This wasn't exciting at all, John could hardly be classed as an exotic beauty and the fastest motor vehicle he'd seen was the lawnmower.
Honestly, this sort of drudgery was why he had minions in the first place.
#
"What about the Fly-Spy, has it –
Kaname trailed off to give his wayward minder a pointed stare.
The name was admirably suited to his latest invention. She had no cause to snort like that, and besides, she looked ugly with her face all red, blotchy and screwed up something awful, and were her eyes actually watering?
He continued hastily to spare her the embarrassment of being noticed in such a state, "- learned anything useful about this Arkady contract? We'll be in the black for a decade if Haruka can just get his arse in gear."
The Fly-Spy may have been an unanticipated creation but it was already proving worth its weight in blood so she had no call for this disrespect to his genius.
The only thing he regretted was not being able to remember how he'd done it. He needed more.
"Mara reports little has changed there, we're still waiting upon the Department to make the formal offer before we can submit bids. No one is showing undue interest in the office so far either."
Kaname nodded. He'd sniffed out over a dozen spies so far, but Mara was new to the work, and their enemies would only send their best for this level of corporate espionage. She wouldn't catch all of them – but the Fly-Spy would, and in the mean time, this contract was proving to be exceptional bait for the rats.
Times like this, Kaname loved his work.
#
"Any other news from her?"
Nancy smiled at the question, pleased with the reminder of her success. Mara had been hysterical to see Kaname-sama unconscious, certain they were all going to die for this. The idea of binding her tongue with a Blood Contract had been spur of the moment, but effective. She'd had them on the brain since they'd been her last lesson.
The housekeeper had access to the entire castle, and no one questioned her movements. Mara had been more than happy to ferret out spies once Nancy had explained and they'd built a solid friendship at the same time.
"Only petty things," Nancy replied. Really, it was beneath the Young Master to have to listen to household affairs – but he did insist.
"Such as?"
"A streak of thefts, nothing particularly valuable, aside from a tapestry out of the throne room, and I'm sure that it's only stuck in the laundry room again."
Kaname snorted. The laundry maids were good, but hesitant when it came to risking dry-cleaning chemicals on something so old. Not that Nancy would have minded if that ugly thing had vanished.
"As are the curtains from the art room for that matter. Hilda's been in the wine cellar again and – yes?"
Her charge lurched upright – and his aura, usually so contained was wild with emotion. He looked almost – elated? But she was sure there was dread there too – and it was too confusing. His aura moved too quickly for her meagre talents to make sense of it, and her instincts were useless. They'd done nothing but cower in the corner of her mind ever since she'd learned of Kaname's true identity.
"Those curtains, you mean the silk ones? Twenty foot or so?"
"Well, yes, or there abouts," she smiled with bemusement. Juuri-sama, Nancy would have expected to know and remember the domestic details, but Kaname was always surprising her with the depths of his knowledge on utterly random topics.
"Which tapestry?"
"The Battle of Esh-nun-nah," Nancy carefully sounded out the word. She'd never heard of it before – few could enter the throne room and the name was probably only remembered by that vile tangle of silk.
"Echnu'na," Kaname corrected absently giving the word a much different pronunciation as he chewed on the chilled teething ring she'd gotten for him.
Honestly, Kaname had temper enough after a failed experiment ( or three, but she wasn't supposed to know about the latter two) without adding teething problems to the mix. He'd loudly decried 'this whole growing teeth business' to be downright inhuman and then smirked proudly at his pun, looking to her for validation. She'd rolled her eyes, her charge had a truly awful sense of humour, but it had pleased him anyway going by the child-like grin.
He was a child though – except when he wasn't, and the knowledge of who – and what – he is pressed down on her like the weight of the sky whenever he did something like that.
Echnu'na. A single word, but it was a slap to her face, her carefully constructed reality torn down at the reminder. A battle he must have fought in, except he was what he was, so he must have been in command of it – and won. She had no illusions about what the Blood Wars were like for the purebloods.
Kill or be killed, and Kaname had survived them all.
She loved him, but he was dreadful in the true and proper meaning of the word.
"Nesting."
The grim proclamation was so harsh, so full of emotion that it took a long moment for her to parse it into Japanese, and when she did, she wished she hadn't.
"She's in labour?"
#
It had been inevitable. Of course Juuri would get around to the birth eventually. Females had been doing it since the dawn of time - but Kaname still fretted.
It was a rare time when there was absolutely nothing he could do.
For the pureblood, birth was the sole realm of females.
Like the Heat and the Hunt, Nesting was a time of incredible vulnerability and weakness for Juuri, and that made it a time of ferocious primal instinct.
She would have sought out a good location weeks ago, carefully fortifying it to the stars. Unless Haruka had interfered… no, Kaname could be confident that Haruka hadn't stuck an unwelcome nose into the proceedings since said nose was still attached to his face.
If Juuri was now pillaging the castle for bedding – she must be well into it and deep under that primal call. Any male scent would be considered an attack, as it would have been eons ago when those instincts were formed.
"The Nest will be downstairs," Kaname realised. Juuri would have sought out the safest place, and that meant the Bunker, that underground suite of rooms where they'd all lived last time around, warded to the stars and sunless. "You'll need to keep everyone away from the lower floors."
Technically, they only needed to stay away from one corner, but the Bunker was still a secret, and Kaname saw no need to tell Nancy about it. There was no accounting for suicidal curiosity. If Mara ordered everyone away from a single staircase, then at least a few people would go and see what all the fuss was about – and find Juuri.
They'd either have the best night of their life feasting – or Juuri would slaughter them all in an orgy of gore and violence.
It was already too risky for Kaname to tempt fate that way. Juuri must have no distraction.
More of their kind died to childbirth than anything else.
Juuri had survived it last time… but ripples in a pond.
If he hadn't accidentally weakened Juuri, if raising him hadn't taken too much of her energy, if she was strong, if she was ready, if he hadn't altered something without even realising it… it would all go as well as could be expected for a pureblood.
If was a vile word.
"Where's Haruka? Has she gone for his blood yet?"
One last pure feeding for an energy boost, and then Juuri would barricade herself inside her Nest. She'd emerge with a child, or she wouldn't emerge at all and there was no telling how long it would take.
Kaname would feel a thousand times better if Juuri had a Matron or Wisdom to attend to her – but the Kuran Clan was too small, their only female was Juuri. Who was the nearest female relation to her? Kaname hastily consulted the genealogies with the ease of one whose race spanned eternity… Shizuka Hio.
She was still in her cage, Kaname mused – he really must do something about that- and regardless if she hadn't been through this herself yet then she wouldn't be any use, and Juuri wouldn't stand for it without months of prior persuasion that Kaname hadn't even attempted.
Haruka wouldn't have permitted it. Kaname scowled. Blood traitor.
Undoubtedly the tradition was too unrefined and violent for Haruka's new human sensibilities, never mind the fact that it might have saved the life of his so-called greatest love and child. Why did he think it had become a tradition anyway? Vampires were too pragmatic to do things without cause.
He wondered how Haruka was justifying Juuri's current mood of feral savagery to himself.
Would he say all women got a bit angry when the time came? It was only natural to go and guard the border instead of staying to hold her hand or whatever humans did, never admitting that his dearly beloved wife wouldn't even recognise him right now, and would cheerfully eat his heart for the boost of power if she got the chance?
Kaname smirked at the image; A better death that he deserved.
"He's leaving," Nancy replied, confused as she tapped her earpiece, "Should I call him back? He'll want to be here I am sure, I can ring down to the gate – "
"Don't be ridiculous," Kaname cut the air with a sharp, if still pudgy, hand, "he has better things to be doing."
"But, but," Nancy blinked in confusion, "He's the father," she replied carefully, " I'm sure it was different in your time, but it's an important bonding moment, the connection -"
-and that was where Kaname drew the line.
"Oh for fuck's sake," he never swore – and the impact of the curse was indulgently satisfying. The air shimmered with the intent of it, and it was lucky he hadn't used anything more specific. "For the last bloody time, we are vampires. Not human. Vampire. Stop applying the meaningless psychological drivel of an entirely separate species to us. It does not work. They are not our cousins; they are our prey."
Nancy was pale, and had to swallow twice before she could speak. Kaname did not feel the slightest bit guilty, only impatient.
Yuki was nearly here!
"I apologise," Nancy murmured softly, her body language switching instinctively to meek and submissive at the realisation of his anger. "I meant no offense, Kuran-sama."
"It is not your fault that you were not taught correctly," Kaname allowed finally, and took a breath before explaining in vague terms – he wasn't going to give away the secrets they'd kept so long.
"She is pureblood. This is something she must do alone. She has fed from Haruka, and now Haruka will guard the border – if he has any sense – whilst Juuri continues. The only thing you need to do is clear the lower levels, and as much of the house in general, paid leave for everyone, and inform the guards that any Level E's who arrive are to be allowed in without any fuss."
"I will do as you command," Nancy ventured carefully, still woozy from the mental backlash of his anger, "but everyone will be curious about an order like that."
Now that was good, practical, sense at last.
Kaname considered it for a moment, balancing the nature of vampires against the truth. "Allow the rumour to be spread around that, growing tired of the reports of E's in the area, Haruka sent out a general Command for them to come to him for ease of execution. They are not to interfere, he wants to play – and imply that it's safer if they remove themselves from the area."
Yes, that ought to do it nicely. With luck, most of the staff would decide to take a spontaneous holiday, and a little cruelty on Haruka's part would help boost his reputation where his internalised racism had ruined it.
"May I ask why you want those creatures to come here?"
There were a thousand ways to answer that; Kaname cast his mind around for a technical truth that wouldn't reveal too much.
There were many reasons why Purebloods let their pets devolve into Level E's after all and it wasn't negligence – no matter what the Hunter Association would like to think.
An E was a fallen low blood, a vampire in their most primitive state. Their blood turned wild – and it tasted like the old times. When vampires hunted unrestrained across plain and forest, when society, civilisation, didn't exist, and they were free to just be.
There was something particularly vital about the death blood of a being; that last gasp of life; the final spark; the last light - it had a lot of poetic names. On the right night, it satisfied the soul-deep thirst for blood just exquisitely.
Right now, that was the only blood Juuri craved. It wasn't extravagance, or fun, it was essential.
This wasn't going to be a human birth with all and sundry gathered around her spread legs to tell her when to push.
She had the daunting task of sparking life in a new immortal, and it would not, could not, be easy. The Mother demanded a balance and that meant sacrifice.
Birth, sex, pain, blood and death – these were the pillars of the Old Ways.
"She'll need a lot of blood," Kaname explained lightly, "it might as well come from vampires who were going to die anyway, Juuri won't have much control right now, so…" he gave a careless shrug as if to say: what can you do?
#
Juuri's presence vanished from Kaname's senses an hour after the last car thundered down the drive. It was time. She was in the Bunker, and it was do or die.
Kaname performed a quick patrol to calm his nerves, Nancy carrying him, as Kaname reassured himself that all was most definitely well. They were down to a skeleton staff, and he'd caught Hilda gossiping over Haruka's 'urges' so the cover story was as solid as it was going to get with only ten minutes to plan.
He wished he were tall enough to wield a sword, just in case.
Rido was still out there after all, and Juuri's vulnerability would call to him like nothing else, not even Haruka's still beating heart laid out fresh and bloody on a mithril platter.
He lingered at the top of the staircase that led to the lower levels, longing for the nerve to venture down. Surely, Juuri's subconscious would recognise him as kith and kin? His blood scent was clearly that of a Kuran…
Yeah no.
Maybe his Fly-Spy could take a peek…
Bad vampire.
Her senses would be hyper vigilant; His creation untested. She'd know, and then have to stop the feeding, the wailing, and the gnashing of fangs to come and relieve him of all his limbs to make a backrest.
"I've never seen you so impatient," Nancy mused from her rocking chair, needles clacking as she knitted something pink and fluffy, because she'd learned passive-aggressiveness somewhere.
"My instincts are so confused," Kaname admitted, flopping down onto his back. "I should be guarding the border with Haruka, yet I know I'm too young to be anything but a weakness, but I'm not and I miss my sword." It made no sense; his body was too immature to produce the hormones behind said instincts.
"It's been three nights," Nancy told him, as if he hadn't been counting the nights-days-hours-minutes-seconds. He knew Yuki's birthday from the last time around, but that meant nothing now, even if he assumed it was accurate the first time around.
"How does sleep sound?"
"No!" Kaname snarled, jack-knifing upright instantly. "I'm not tired."
Her needles click-clacked again, mockingly.
"I'm not." Kaname insisted, knuckles clenching around a hilt that wasn't there.
Click-clack.
Kaname gritted his teeth, and his frustration only spiked. Teeth, not fangs.
"Let's go to the archives," he bit out, as he distantly sensed another Level E stumble onto the grounds, "I might as well get some work done."
"As you say, Kaname-sama," Nancy chirped agreeably.
Sometimes, he really hated her.
#
Haruka's office was too protected for Kaname to enter without an explicit invitation. Every descendant had used that room, and they'd layered in ward after ward on top of Kaname's own. Couple with the security cameras, laser grids, pressure sensors and a whole lot of devices he'd never seen before, it was too risky.
The perfect son did not go snooping. Avoiding making Haruka suspicious was too important to the agenda.
Kaname had never given up at the first setback, and it had taken him two nights to discover the existence of the archives. Every system had a weakness, and theirs was that the office was too small to store the copious amounts of paperwork that a multi-million international company generated.
The archives were not nearly so well guarded.
He'd given the rest of that week to fixing the hole in the security, so that no other enterprising vampire could hurt the Clan, and then set to reading.
File by file, Kaname flicked and scanned his way to getting a grasp on the family's less physical assets and recent history. Haruka's memories were incredibly useful, but rarely had the younger male thought about bond number 0z5HT7GV4E held with Silver Circle Insurance of Germany, or the strong box (7DSB309) rented out from the Royal Mint in Cardiff– and those were only the assets that came with paperwork.
Vampires were long used to navigating the human world's complex bureaucracy, and many, many companies existed whose sole purpose was to pass assets from one century to the next, disguising that the same person had held them for the past two thousand years. Or forging paperwork to prove the history of a painting, or a stack of gold bars carrying the Rose Crest of the Kurans, into something humans would believe, and that didn't touch on the network of false identities.
The more he read, the more he realised how thoroughly Ichio had screwed him over last time.
Kaname knew he hadn't been in a position mentally to do much but obey Haruka's garbled Commands for Yuki – but every time he ran up hard against evidence of his forced-negligence, the way he'd been made into a saboteur of everything he believed in – it ached with a litany of what if, what if, what if.
He was too pragmatic to blame himself for events outside of his control, but he had betrayed his creed. He'd had, and still had, responsibilities to his race, to the Old Ways, and his Clan. Haruka had made him a traitor – and that could never be forgiven.
If he'd been in his right mind, Kaname would have learned about the new currency, this strange new concept of money held in abstract form only. He'd have studied laws, and economics and business until he could swim through paperwork like a shark.
Instead, he'd been a jellyfish, drifting with the tide.
Kaname'd noticed the missing artefacts and the books; because that was the form of wealth he was used to. He hadn't noticed the missing bonds, policies, or overseas accounts. He hadn't looked, either. Ichio had been careful to keep him rich enough that Kaname had never needed to investigate. He had enough money for everything he wanted, so what reason did he have to get suspicious?
Ichio wasn't a vampire to let an opportunity pass him by, and with his guardianship of Kaname, he'd managed to purloin hundreds of millions that Kaname hadn't realised he owned. Assets had been liquidised, stocks cashed in, and a plethora of accounts hadn't been signed over upon his majority.
Kaname had used to spend entire years contemplating where Ichio found the resources to go poking into what he shouldn't have known existed. Squads of vampires had spent months investigating paperwork during the war. There had been forensic accountants in the dozens assigned to the task so Kaname would know where to send the saboteurs.
He should have just targeted himself.
Fucking Haruka.
#
On the twenty first of June, just as the moon was rising, Juuri prowled out of the Bunker with vicious satisfaction, her eyes glowing a gorgeous red and a babe cradled in her arms.
The re-emergence of her aura, had both Haruka and Kaname speeding towards it, and both let out heartfelt sighs of relief.
She'd survived.
"Kaname," Juuri purred, glowing eyes locking onto him, she bent forward slowly, "come and meet your new sister, hold her carefully now, I need a moment with your daddy." She rotated her head to stare at Haruka without moving any other muscle.
"A girl?" Haruka muttered as Kaname toddled forth and let Juuri 'show' him how to hold a baby properly. He had barely a fraction of her attention; she was deep under the call of the wild, and her animalistic body language was a clear sign he needed to hurry and get out of here.
"Look after her for me," she ordered.
"Yes, mummy," Kaname said sweetly, as his eyes roved over her face, it was irritating to discover that a baby looked like a baby, indistinguishable from all the other babies of the world. "Mummy, what's her name?"
"I think –" Haruka began, but Juuri interrupted.
"Yuki," she rumbled, giving her daughter a violently indulgent smile.
"Yuki," Kaname breathed, a swell of relief crashing over him. Yuki, Yuki, Yuki.
"Off you go now," Juuri waved a hand vaguely, her starving eyes now focused intently on Haruka's throat, and Kaname blanked his face as he noted how the pulse pounded with the attention. "I'll be up in a minute."
"OK," Kaname sing-songed, and hoisted Yuki up into his arms. She was incredibly heavy for his young strength, but he managed, knowing exactly what was going to happen behind him.
"Juuri – are you – "
"Hush mine own," Juuri's tone was dark and seductive, and Kaname toddled faster, trying to erase it from his memory as she continued behind him, "I have need of you. Come. Now."
There was a whip-fast lashing of cloth, and the unique groan of skin surrendering to fangs – and then Haruka's blood was in the air.
Juuri sighed, and must have pulled out to bite anew because that sound came again as Kaname started a brisk jog up the stairs, Haruka keened loudly, and Kaname gave up all pretence and started sprinting for the nearest hidden passageway.
Nancy was waiting in the nursery. She took one look at the new-born princess and beamed.
Kaname allowed Nancy to hold her, grateful that Yuki could start draining the 'C now, and contented himself with watching.
It really was Yuki, Kaname was sure – and this time, he would not fail her.
#
