#

"This is the law of the Vampire,

as old and as True as the Sky,

the Vampire that heeds it shall Live,

the Vampire that breaks it shall Die."

"Oh," Juuri murmured as she entered the Nursery, stopping in the doorway as she took in the sight before her: Kaname sitting on the rug, cradling Yuki is his lap before the fire as he sang the first of the Teaching Ballads to her.

Despite the fire, the room was cold – Yuki was hungry. Kaname barely had enough energy to sustain his own self, let alone another pureblood. There was a reason no pureblood was a single parent, and that their children were normally born so far apart.

"I remember that lullaby," Juuri continued, sitting down with a soft thwump next to her children, taking Yuki into her own arms and smiling as she felt the tingle of the energy drain. Voracious hunger was a good sign. "It's important, isn't it?" She frowned. "I can't – remember. How did it go again?"

She began to hum the tune to herself, staring vacantly into the fire.

"Dum duh duh duh duh dum dum. Dum duh duh duh duh dum dum." She smiled, pleased – and then began to sing the next verse.

"As the moon, that circles the land,

the law floweth forward and back,

for the strength of the Clan is the Fang,

and the strength of the Fang is the Claw."

Kaname felt an old worry untwist inside him as her dangerously beautiful voice entwined through the room, making the fire a little brighter, the shadows a little darker. Juuri was remembering what she should never have forgotten and under her own power too.

He was not an optimistic vampire by nature. The damage done to her mind was extraordinary, but he had been damaged just as severely once, if not with so much insidious attention to detail. It had taken him a century to recover, a long century brimming over with blood, blood, and more blood, but maybe, well, maybe. It was a good sign at least.

"Tea?"

Kaname accepted the cup from Nancy with relief, turning his mind back to things he could control.

Juuri's eyes followed Nancy back to the sideboard– and Kaname knew what was going to happen before it did. He recognised the look in her eye. Yuki was slid promptly onto his lap with a gurgle, then Juuri was up on her feet, shifting from walking to prowling inside a single step, and Kaname smirked into Yuki's hair.

His pseudo-mother gave Nancy a smile full of intent – and Nancy blushed. Kaname stopped politely ignoring them immediately. He had to do something really extraordinary to get Nancy to blush, why did Juuri get easy blushes - this wasn't fair. His grin widened when Nancy caught him looking as Juuri snagged her by the wrist and tugged her into the corner, pressing her up against the wall and pulling pointedly at the collar of her dress.

Nancy blushed harder and if Kaname had fangs, he'd be showing them as he heard a quick muffled conversation, and then a snick and the scent of Nancy's blood drifting to him. She moaned in helpless delight from Juuri's bite and Kaname cackled.

Providing energy to two children was no joke. Juuri would be feeding from a lot of other vampires to spread the drain, and Kaname was not blind to the few E's who still trickled onto the grounds and never left. Haruka would be taking the brunt of it, his blood undeniably the best thing around, but even he could only provide so much without weakening.

Juuri did not stay long after her snack. She was going to the theatre tonight with the Souens. Social obligations had piled up in her absence, and now she rushed to fill the gap.

Pregnant? Oh no, silly, how could I have been? I was only gone three months. Why? Oh well, it's so hard to keep track of time when you're immortal. I barely noticed the weeks passing to be honest.

Kaname waited until Juuri had left the Nursery, and until his wards silently signalled via colour change that she'd left their outermost perimeter before he pounced.

"Your blood smells lovely," Kaname told Nancy with obnoxious cheerfulness. "Primroses and grass."

"Yes, well," she stammered, flushing again. Blood drinking was supposed to be a fairly private affair and whilst she wouldn't have been embarrassed in front of normal children – Kaname was no such thing, and worse, he was talking about it.

"Thank you," she added, because it was a handsome compliment and then rushed to change the subject, "What language was that, earlier? Enko again?"

"Older."

"It sounded very strange," she continued with an air of desperation.

"It would."

"Will you translate a little for me?"

"No. The Teaching Ballads are not for your ears," Nancy looked a little upset now so Kaname continued, "They're educational, oral history, that sort of thing. Laws, powers, the clans, you know."

"How…practical. I thought it was a lullaby."

"And if we're all killed in a raid but she survives, Yuki will remember these songs and won't lose generations of knowledge. She'll know what powers she ought to have and how to train them, she'll know what all of her instincts are and why, she'll know our history, who hates us, who owes us, how much and why. She'll be prepared."

Nancy's eyebrows raised and she fetched the red ball Kaname had sacrificed to his sister's wavering aim twice before she replied.

"And being killed in a raid is likely, is it?"

Kaname scowled. Vampires liked to think they'd come a long way in civilisation since the Blood Wars, but few appreciated how fragile those ties were.

"Your bite mark is showing," Kaname sniped maliciously.

Ignoring the fluster that caused, he returned his attention to Yuki and determinedly began the cycle again.

"This is the Law of the Vampire

as Old and as True as the Sky."

#

Getting any real work done was impossible now that he had Yuki to raise. He couldn't trust anyone else to do it properly, but Haruka and Juuri had to see her frequently in order to feed her. They came in and out of the nursery at all hours of the day and nights as they obeyed his Compulsion to both take care of her, and entrust her upbringing to Kaname.

After the first time when only the proximity ward – appropriately nicknamed the Squealer – had gotten Kaname down from his tower and into bed before Haruka strode in, Kaname'd reduced his extra curricular activities to the bare minimum.

Discovery meant extinction, but there was too much to be done for Kaname to just abandon his duties.

It was time to delegate.

"Nancy," Kaname snapped, throwing down his research on statutory law, cleverly hidden inside a pink fluffy unicorn toy, with disgust.

"Yes, Young Master?" Nancy appeared, bouncing Yuki on her hip.

"Our in-house lawyers. Can they be trusted?"

Nancy and Mara wear becoming quite skilled at ferreting out secrets, with a few months of experience under their skirts and a host of gadgets to play with.

"It depends on the lawyer. Do you need a solicitor or a barrister, or do you need an entire firm? Which area of law do they need to specialise in?"

Kaname sighed. These were the times when he missed his own era. Back then, he hadn't had a problem a claw, a vial of poison or a pretty vampire couldn't solve.

"I need a corporate solicitor to dump this mess on." Kaname paused thoughtfully. "Pretend I said delegate."

"Yes Young Master," Nancy said blandly.

"And whilst I'm at it," Kaname mused, "I need someone else who specialises in wills and trusts, and possibly a third for family law, all with barristers in case any of it ends up in court."

"Yes, Young Master."

"Oh, and make sure their secretaries can be trusted as well. Also," he added, on a roll, elegantly ignoring Nancy's sigh, "find out which one of them is the most ruthless conniving bloodsucking vampire you've ever laid eyes on."

Nancy coughed.

"Excepting me," Kaname acknowledged with a dignified smirk, "and then find me blackmail on them."

"Yes, Young Master."

"You may give me Yuki and go."

"Such a kind and generous master I have," Nancy smiled tightly, eyes laughing at him as Yuki reached across his lap for the fluffy pink unicorn.

Kaname ignored her and turned his attention to the bigger problem.

"This is just embarrassing," he told his tiny, tiny, sister. "Yuki, I'm putting my foot down. You do not want photos of you holding this monstrosity to surface in a thousand years. Put that down. Here, let me introduce you to Mr Red Ball the eighty-sixth. I promise you'll have much more fun with it."

#

Yuki was the break he'd been craving ever since he'd realised his ultimate fix-it had fucked him over sideways.

She was real. Kaname only had to look at her to find a measure of peace. She wasn't dead. She wasn't insane. She wasn't sealed. All of it screamed I can still fix this, and he found himself sleeping more, laughing more and eating more.

"Kaname-sama?" Nancy called, "Mina-san is here for the Young Mistress."

"Let her in."

Haruka's Shadow was pale; clearly not a night out of the birthing nest herself, and Haruka was not with her. She knelt too carefully to not be in pain, in front of Yuki, on both knees, placing a bundle of red blankets in front of his sister.

Ah, this was good he thought as he recognised the situation, another move towards a better future. Kaname scrambled backwards so his own aura couldn't interfere with the bonding process.

Yuki blinked at the offering, and crawled clumsily over. Kaname could sense her childish curiosity and smiled as she poked at the blanket as if it were a new toy brought for her amusement.

"Young Mistress," Mina said quietly, "I present to you my daughter, Yori. If she pleases you, our Clan will begin training her to become your Shadow."

What in the Night?

Kaname peered over Yuki's shoulder – and yep – those eyes looked familiar. The body was still wrinkled from birth, and the hair was too pale, but the aura, Kaname recognised its foundations. It was faint, not yet enriched with a real personality or emotion but the echoes were there.

Yori – Yuki's childhood friend. The human girl.

Yuki babbled nonsense, clapping her hands and smiling in the fashion of infants. Only Kaname could sense how her aura expanded over Yori's, one becoming helplessly attuned to the other.

Mina saw only Yuki's babyish pleasure, and relaxed as the new Shadow was temporarily accepted. She bowed reverently, and made as if to take Yori away.

Yuki screamed.

Even Kaname flinched away from the sheer volume, throwing up a quick shield to protect the windows and hastily gestured for Mina to give Yori back. Once the newborn's aura was within Yuki's tiny range once more, she settled down and resumed her babbling. He ought to have expected that, really. Purebloods were possessive creatures, and Yuki had already decided that Yori belonged to her now. She'd need time to adjust.

"I'll take care of her for a while," Nancy promised Mina as she helped the other female up. "You go have a lie down, let them play for a bit. No, really, it's no trouble. She can't be worse than these two."

Kaname ignored that to dredge the very depths of his memory. This wasn't right. He knew his mind was screwed up from Haruka's attacks – in both timelines – but they'd targeted his earlier memories, not his ability to form new ones. The years in the Academy were as clear as crystal to him even though he no longer understood the decisions he'd made then.

Yori had been human.

He'd kept a close eye on Yuki, naturally, and Yori had always been there – ever since that first primary school. They'd attended everything together, schools, clubs, holidays, everything. Kaname had seen her, spoken to her, heck she'd been in a relationship with Aidou for years before the world went to ruin. Kaname had walked in one them at it more than once – mainly so that he could tease Aidou – and he'd scented her blood plenty of times from it.

She'd been completely human.

Speculation was useless. He turned to logic. If Yori was a child of Mina, then she'd been a vampire in the other timeline too. She would have resided here for years. They would have bonded then as now. Yori would have been here when Rido attacked.

Ah ha. Juuri then, Kaname guessed. The seal was an advanced working which limited the number of those capable of it. Haruka had left the house as soon as he sensed Rido's presence on the ground - They'd fought outside and neither had returned – and that left Juuri.

Trying to protect her child somehow? Ensuring her Shadow went into hiding with her? It made a twisted sort of sense, Kaname supposed, assuming you were bat-shit-insane. How had Yori gotten out of the manor? How had she been inserted into Yuki's life?

Somebody else had to have survived – and Kaname would likely never know whom, or how, he realised with furious exasperation, despising Haruka all over again.

He hated unanswered questions.

#

A/N - So, I'm mostly sorted out now and am writing regularly again. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this one :)