Aaah, I'm so sorry!
I accidentally deleted this chapter three times. I cried. I managed to get it almost completely done one time, but when I switched to work on it from my phone, it loaded on an older version and then saved that over the almost complete one! It probably seems very short, and that's mostly because it is...
As it turns out, I severely over estimated my ability to write this chapter in any reasonable amount of time. I kept getting to the shower, deciding I hated it and then restarting, or forgetting what I'd been planning to write after a specific sentence and then restarting, or, like I said, I erased it. I keep refreshing the page without saving and it's driving me insane. I'm crazy late, as well... I've just not really had the energy... I work for roughly 8 hours a day this summer and a lot of that is really mentally tiring, so I've only had so much energy and time to devote to this a day...
(Yes, I'm full of excuses.)
Yuuki is a surprisingly empathetic character for me to write, as well, and the more tired I am, the less I'm able to be such, so half the time I wasn't even able to write at all. It also turned out rather... strange, I think... That said, in this chapter, I tried my hand at writing Zero's POV! Let me know what you think!
(I'm probably going to go through my old chapters and fix the names, because it's come to my attention that I repeatedly got surnames and given names mixed up? Why didn't anyone tell me I feel so dumb!) The next chapter will likely come out sooner, as there's a bit of canon I can stick in it so beef it up.
Leia, It's nice to see you again! I'm glad to do so! But, I feel like you're giving Yuuki a lot more credit than she really has, though? Don't put the cart before the horse, I think, is the relevant metaphor here. I just don't want you to be disappointed in me or Yuuki.
Kurochach, I poked around a little and I think I know what you mean? Honestly though I don't know how the whole spell works beyond that Yuuki in canon had started to resist it and it was giving her hallucinations and stuff because her vampiric nature was so immature (as in it seemed to have the mentality of a traumatized girl relying mostly on instinct) and it was "devouring" her "human self", and that's mostly from memory. But I'll take your word for it, use my own speculations and run with them!
Tran Nguyen Hanh, I'm glad you reviewed and that you like my fic! I'm doing my best, and hope to continue putting out content you and others will enjoy!
Minnidog118, yeah, Akatsuki was inevitable and thus couldn't catch a break (cough-snitches-get-stitches-cough-cough).
Tenshi-Oujosama, yeah I know what you meant haha... I'm just not completely up to finding any pre-existing/canon Night Class personality quirks, interests and hierarchies, and the conflicting personalities and mind sets of me and the vampires that I can maybe try to understand means my characterization would be sketchy or terribly off, and I don't want to put too much effort into something like that that I will inevitably hate creating / not post / erase completely. Like I've said, if I see an opportunity or think of something, I will post it. Right now I'm seeing what I can do from Akatsuki's POV in an omake, though currently I'm unhappy about it sooo.
006Sam, it's meant to feel rushed and disjointed. Yuuki is sort of in shock, and just got her head slammed into a wall. Her words aren't 100% for Zero, she's partially saying them just to say them.
To that guest reviewer whose review I actually moderated (the first review of which I've done so!) that was a really negative review and while I'm willing to answer some of what you've said, I'm not going to just let you talk to poorly to me and my story, I'm not going to immortalize that review.
I'm sorry that it took me so long to update, okay? I tried to do it sooner. And I've rationalized it to myself, but I'm using Seiren as a precedent for Yuuki's abilities, no matter if in the end I make her a level C vampire or a Pureblood (still not completely decided). I'm not trying to make her a Mary Sue, this is just how I'm writing her. If you don't like it, please stop reading and just go.
She wakes from a dream she can't quite remember, feeling like she's a metaphorical two steps to the left of where she should be, and with a song she can't exactly hear ringing in her ears like a shrill siren.
Blinking fuzzily at the vaguely familiar but dark ceiling, Yuuki decides she's more sore and tired than is reasonable for just having woken up, and then wonders when she'd fallen asleep and what she'd been doing before that. But then she brushes that off, trying to encase herself more thoroughly in the warm, comforting-scented blankets she's currently swaddled inside.
But now that she's at least marginally awake, she's all too aware of her clothes being twisted up around her limbs, what feels like an awkwardly shaped nightgown constricting her. Her hair feels like it's tangled and matted to her face and neck, and her fingers ache from how thoroughly she's clenched them in the sheets and blankets. With a muffled, low groan of mingled despair and irritation as the feelings truly begin to bother her, Yuuki extricates herself from her blankets before attempting to untangle her legs more specifically. Her vehemence in doing so, though, sends her toppling over the side of the bed.
Her heart seizes in her chest, the only thing keeping her from smashing her head and, more importantly, her face, into the floor is a hastily thrown out hand which is already going numb from the pressure of it being all that is holding her up.
The effort to hold herself up and catch herself, even, proves to be for naught, though, as the rest of her body follows her head, arms and shoulders soon enough. Her face doesn't hit the ground with much force, but as her shoulders hit first, and then her left hip, they do hit with more force than they would have naturally due to her instinctive flailing to prevent her fall. She whines low in her throat as the impacted sites tingle painfully, the sound unexpectedly high and loud in her ears as she lays half on her side and half on her stomach on the hardwood floor of the room. After a time, Yuuki banishes the traitorous sting of tears in her eyes before flopping onto her slightly tender stomach and then getting up, moaning miserably to herself the entire while.
Stumbling into the pitch dark bathroom is simple enough, despite the fact that her first reach for the door handle comes up short enough to make her stumble over her own feet and the force of her reach, and while her second reach does find the handle in her grasp, she turns out to be much too close to the door, and the wood swings into her face with enough force to make her momentarily see stars, and send her balance off enough for her to actually back up a few steps. Turning on the light is the source of much less injury, though the brightness of the bulb (only one? Weren't there three above the sink?) is just slightly painful to her abnormally sensitive eyes.
She avoids looking into the mirror.
Wrestling her way out of the nightgown without really bothering to see the garment at all, Yuuki tosses it to the floor once free and turns her muzzy attentions to the shower, keeping enough presence of mind so as to use the correct soaps, at least, though the bottles seem smaller than she's used to (the shampoo and conditioner, especially), and something about them niggles in her head. She's almost completely rinsed out the conditioner from her hair when she realizes what's bothering her about the soaps.
They're not hers.
The realization is inexplicably jarring, and her hands, still in her hair, flex and tighten and yank, completely out of her conscious control. She makes a short, high and pained sound that she couldn't have stopped if she'd wanted, and her body tries to move to mitigate the damage before she can think any better of it. She feels her feet moving just as it occurs to her that she's trying to slide into a stance in the shower-
Her feet slip out from underneath her and she instantly goes crashing to the floor of the shower, elbows and head cracking sharply against the porcelain just seconds before her tailbone, shoulders and upper back. Her fingers are jolted out of her hair at the impact at the coast of what feels like entire clumps of hair, her scalp full of searing pain, and she stays completely still for awhile as the shower water pounds down on her lower stomach and thighs, just barely holding back the very strong urge to burst into helpless, furious tears.
She recovers just as the shower water is beginning to cool, getting herself gingerly to her feet as her entire body throbs with pain, turning her attention to finishing her hair. The task seems to be more cumbersome that she remembers it being despite knowing that it isn't, but she waves that off the the hassle of doing so while so sore and tired and contemplates, not for the first time, shearing all of it off at her jaw.
After finishing her shower and hunting around the bathroom for the towels and pajamas she knows she keeps in the cabinets and finding only a single overlarge towel, she wraps herself up in it's fluffiness and turns her attention to the clothes she'd discarded onto the floor.
She pulls up short upon seeing them, however, in confusion. She does not recognize that pile of fabric. Not even slightly. Which doesn't make sense, because she'd been wearing it. It's pale pink, made of a fancy and expensive looking material. It's niceness is ruined only by the wrinkles and very slight rips in it from both her sleeping in it and what she'd done whilst wearing it.
It's also definitely not a nightgown. It actually... looks more like a dress?
She bends to lift the dress into the air to look it over, trying to see if a better perspective will jog her memories any better.
It does not, and after awhile of baffled staring, she decides to just deposit it into the hamper with the rest of her clothing. When she turns back around to leave the room, she sees the mirror, remarkably un-fogged and still too far to reflect her image at her.
She doesn't want to look into it. Something in her chest aches at the thought of looking into it.
But that's dumb, there's no reason for her to be afraid of her reflection. So with a resolute huff, Yuuki squares her shoulders, puffs her chest up and approaches the mirror.
That feeling of everything being off increases to hair raising levels as she stares herself in the mirror and finds absolutely nothing off. Something in her subconscious insists that her reflection is wrong, but she can't see anything different. Her hair is the same waist-length dark reddish-brown, though it's slightly darker because it's wet; her eyes are the same reddish-brown color; her skin is still just as pale, though a little flushed from the hot water.
Nothing is different.
But her skin is crawling with unease, and so she leans closer to the mirror over the sink and studies herself even more closely, trying to find what is so unnerving about her reflection that she's just missing, apparently. The more she sees nothing wrong, the worse the feeling gets, and so she leans even closer, searching somewhat desperately for what's unsettling her so.
She only actually sees it because she's so close to the mirror, honestly. But her eyes aren't the same. It's such a small, subtle difference, but the shade of her eyes is different. Instead of being more brown than red, her eyes are more reddish-bronze, now, with threads of amber near her pupils. When she'd been farther from the mirror, it had only been a shade of difference, but since she'd been so intent on that "off" feeling, she'd noticed it right away.
The feeling persists though, and so she leans back slightly to look herself over more thoroughly, looking for any other difference that might have passed her notice.
I'm... I'm forgetting something. Maybe I should ask nii-sama-
Her thoughts scramble into immediate, dissonant chaos, her vision going white as she stumbles back a startled step.
When Zero finally manages to peel Cross away from himself, insisting that Yuuki is in his room, and if she wanted to see him, she'd leave and go to him, he enters his room and expects to see the girl sleeping in his bed like she'd been over the last day and a half. Despite the darkness of his room, which had been intentional on his part to protect her undoubtedly sensitive eyes, he sees that she is clearly out of bed, his blankets strewn half over the bed and half over the ground.
Her scent is still present, still fresh, the scent of something sharply blooming, and an old pile of fallen leaves, and he can hear the slowed heartbeat of a vampire is audible in his bathroom. He hesitates in approaching the bathroom door, knowing that Yuuki doesn't have any clothes and probably showered while she was in the bathroom. He doesn't particularly want to go in and possibly see her undressed, but that sends a spike of shame through him, as Yuuki had always been willing to help him when he was dissociating, even if he was in the bath or in the shower. She had, in fact, saved his life a few times when he'd nearly drowned, and helped him dress more time than he will ever admit to.
So he contemplates just leaving to go and collect some clothes for her, which would undoubtedly include getting her unmentionables for her. With a frown and a small head shake, he goes instead to his own dresser and digs out some of his own clothes, knowing that she doesn't mind wearing them and in fact sometimes prefers to do so. She'd never explained that to him, but from what he could tell from various bouts of people-watching, girls wearing the clothing or close friends seemed to be a fairly common thing.
He knocks gently on the bathroom door, not wanting to hurt her ears with an unexpectedly loud sound, calling out as he does so, "Yuuki?" Yuuki doesn't respond to him, only silence greeting his call. There's a moment of indecision on his part before he opens the bathroom door, sliding into the bathroom door and flicking his gaze to Yuuki quickly, prepared to look away if there's too much skin on display to his eyes. She's wrapped in a towel, though, so his eyes remain on her as he studies her more thoroughly.
She's standing just in front of the mirror, looking as though she'd been pushed and barely caught herself, her expression shell-shocked and unstable, body frozen stiff, locked in place. The expression on her face is uncomfortably familiar to him, though. He'd seen it on himself plenty of times when he'd been younger and just recovering from the trauma of that night.
It's an unwelcome sight to see on Yuuki's face, and he doesn't quite understand why that expression would be on her face.
"Yuuki?" He circles around to be in front of her, depositing the clothes on the sink counter before he bends slightly to look more directly into Yuuki's eyes, repeating the call. When she doesn't respond, doesn't even seem to see him, he lifts a hand and waves it in front of her eyes, trying to jog her attention closer to the present. Her pupils constrict sharply at the movement, and they follow the movement, but he can't see any recognition in them. Throwing caution to the wind, Zero drops a hand onto her shoulder.
Yuuki drops like a stone beneath his hand, and he scrambles to catch her before she can get hurt, yelping her name involuntarily. He manages to catch her in time, and he hoists her into a princess carry, deciding that staying in the bathroom isn't quite what he wants to do right now, as the humidity and brightness will likely not help the situation at all, so he exits and deposits her into his bed. She's still dripping wet, everything about her damp so she'll likely soak his bed, but that's not what's important right now.
Upon releasing her, one of her hands lash out to catch one of his wrists, holding him in place and finally focusing properly on his face,
"Ze-Zero? I remember. I- Kana-" She trails into what sounds like several sentences at once, talking over herself with increasing panic and upset, until Zero, grasping at straws, decides to try her surest usual de-stressor, grabbing a hold of her and reeling her close to him in the tightest hug he is able.
Her hands grip onto the back of his shirt immediately, and if she wasn't holding him so tightly, Zero might've released her in surprise when she bursts into loud, heavy tears. But when his hands instinctively move to release her, Yuuki makes a foreign, pitiful sound and grips onto him even tighter and so he obligingly re-tightens his hold, worried for the girl he'd pretty much adopted as a little sister without his full, conscious permission.
He'd teased her about it before, them being siblings, but it feels a little too real right now for him to say it was only a result of him teasing her, or him only going along with her when she'd suggested them being siblings.
Not that he's going to ever admit that aloud to anyone. Except maybe Yuuki.
"I-" Yuuki hiccups the word a few times before managing anything coherent, pressed tightly into his sternum, "I remember, but I don't understand! Why-?" She breaks off there, her tone making something unpleasant swell up in his head, not that he reacts on that. Yuuki doesn't want or need him to break things right now, or go out to attack someone, even if it's on her behalf.
"Yuuki." It's a struggle to keep his voice level and calm, but he manages, not that Yuuki really even seems to see him. He looks down at her a little helplessly as she continues to cry and babble nonsensically.
"I-? Nii-?" Her voice cracks into a high, distressed whine that very thoroughly slams his usually semi-dormant vampiric instincts spinning into a new and unfamiliar direction, prompting him into actually dragging the towel-clad girl completely into his grasp and pushing her head against his throat. It's an instinctual thing, completely foreign and detached from/to his conscious mind, but it actually makes Yuuki relax and breathe a little more deeply and easier, though she continues to cry and her heart-rate continues to be fast.
"Yuuki, can you hear me?" He decides to speak up finally, feeling that she might be able to hear him better now that she's not stumbling over herself in fits of emotion. "Breathe with me, it's going to be okay," he insists as she continues to sob.
It takes an uncomfortably long time for Yuuki's crying to stop, though her breathing remains rough and fast.
When she stops crying, it's all at once.
... Her head hurts. And so does her chest, her lungs and her mind. She feels wrung out and wound up and- it hurts.
But Zero's hugging her, so it hurts slightly less than it did when he hadn't been. At first, it had made everything worse, because it had been such a long time since she'd been so kindly touched (hadn't it?) and it was so unfamiliar (right?) that she'd almost been afraid. But then she remembered it was Zero that was holding her- Zero, who she'd been helping heal and who she'd been living with; Zero who she'd been forcing into physical contact for years; Zero who she trusted; Zero who's her brother.
The relief of that realization had sent all of her pent-up frustration and stress and pain spewing out in tears. She'd tried to explain to Zero, but it hadn't exactly worked from what she'd been able to hear of herself over the blood rushing through her ears. Her thoughts are cycling in rapid circles so much that her head is throbbing.
She's divided. On one hand, she wants her brother. She wants Kaname with a childish fervor, wants the brother who helped her with her nightmares and played games with her and told her stories of the outside world. But on the other hand, she already has her brother. Zero is here with her and he's making a noise she remembers her father making when he held her after a bad dream and it's absurdly comforting.
She doesn't want Kaname! Doesn't want him! She can remember what he'd done now and she doesn't want to forgive him for that, doesn't want to see he who sentenced her brother to a slow and spiraling death.
Her tears stop before she even realizes it, her throat aching and her eyes sore, her breathing slowing down and her heart beat slowing down.
Zero's holding onto her very tightly now, and that noise is vibrating his throat which she's pressed against, and she feels her face starting to crumple again more insistently, feeling like she wants to cry but not feeling anymore tears coming. She presses her closed eyes against his skin more closely, hoping that it will help the feeling.
She can feel her two sets of memories struggling. Between Kuran Yuuki and Cross Yuuki, the attachments and emotions fighting for supremacy. It doesn't feel like she's going to disappear, and she knows that the fight will end in favor of Cross Yuuki, but for now, it hurts.
"Breathe deeply," Zero's voice seems to come from far away, muffled but insistent, and she tries to do so. Everything seems distant and out of her control, but she feels Zero inhaling, and it's somehow easier to breathe with him than it is to breathe alone.
"Zero," her voice is so quiet she barely hears it, high and warbling, "Zero, I remember everything and it hurts... I was right about being a Pureblood... Kaname's my older brother, but I don't-"
She chokes on the words, emotion swelling again, and presses back close to Zero.
"Yuuki," Zero tilts his chin down so it nudges her head slightly away from him, arms just barely loosening, and she whines but moves back away.
The distance provided lets her wrap her head around the fact that she's wrapped only in a towel, and she feels her face start to heat up. One hand reaches back blindly as she becomes aware that she's practically naked in Zero's lap, and the instant her hand comes in contact with the comforter on his bed, she yanks it down and swaddles it around herself, wiggling off Zero's lap and into her cocoon. There wasn't anything sexual or uncomfortable about being in Zero's lap, honestly, but staying there didn't seem wise now that she has herself under control.
"I... I'm going to go and take a shower, okay," Zero tells her, taking in what little of her face is visible from inside her cocoon, and she nods at him exaggeratedly so the movement is clear. With a hesitant look, he straightens up to a stand and then moves towards the bathroom before pausing. "I laid out some clothes for you on the-" he cuts himself off, moves into the bathroom and then comes back out with a pile of clothes. "Here are some of my clothes for you, but you're free to go and get your own from your room."
She nods again and doesn't move until Zero's in the bathroom completely. Standing with the blanket still wrapped around her, Yuuki waddles over to the pile of clothes and picks through them. There's a black button-up shirt, a pair of Zero's pajama pants, a tank-top and a pair of boxers. She blinks at the articles before getting dressed without complaint. If the boxers got uncomfortable, she would just go to her own room and change into an actual pair of underwear. But once she's dressed, she stalls, eyes locked on the nightstand.
There's the Artemis Rod on the nightstand, with Zero's blood tablet case on the stand next to it, as well as Bloody Rose.
She reaches for it automatically before flinching back, listening to the shower in the bathroom starting up as her eyes remain on her weapon. She knows it isn't likely to reject her- Bloody Rose hadn't ever rejected Zero even since he'd totally turned and the gun was vicious-, but she was still afraid. As she extends her hand out again, she hears a small clink just as her hand is about to touch the metal. There's something like a match being struck, a click and then a hiss, before there's a blinding flash of lightning and magic, the air smelling like ozone and heat, sending her head spinning dizzily. She cries out as her legs go limp, her eyes and wrist burn and her ears hear only a high pitched tone.
It takes awhile before her ears stop ringing and her eyes are willing to see again, her body collapsed onto the ground. As soon as she is able, she investigates what the hell just happened.
Her wrist stings as she lifts it to eye level and stares in blank confusion at the subjugation bracelet on her wrist that she totally forgot she was wearing. To be fair, it was spelled onto her wrist, so it was mostly just there. The metal isn't hot to the touch, isn't sparking, but the charm where the spell is centered remains stuck to the Artemis Rod until she yanks her hand sharply, making it detach with a sharp, metallic snap.
She stares at both Rod and bracelet like they're going to kill her for a few seconds before there's a crash in the bathroom and then Zero comes hurdling out of the room, towel wrapped around her hips and dripping soapy water everywhere, looking more than a little panicked as he stares at her.
"What'd you just do?!" He demands.
"I- I didn't do anything ! The bracelet and Artemis just reacted to each other by themselves! Why, what's wrong? What happened?" She hadn't thought that Zero would notice anything from in the bathroom, what with the door closed and the shower running.
"You disappeared," he explains with wide eyes. "You were faint before, because you're still turning, but now you're completely gone," he explains. Yuuki puzzles that over for a second before realizing what he means and turning slightly widened eyes to the bracelet around her wrist.
"Do you think the suppression bracelet is... suppressing me?" She questions slowly, shaking her wrist and letting the metal chime lightly as it reflects the little light in the room, looking for any physical sign of a spell at work. She sees nothing, which isn't surprising, but when she looks up at Zero, she certainly sees his towel starting to slip as he stares at her bracelet as well.
"Ah! Towel!" She yelps, slapping a hand over her eyes reflexively. She hears Zero swear and then scramble to catch his towel seconds before she hears him running back into the bathroom to presumably finish his shower. She peeks towards the floor once the door's closed, finds none, and then lowers her hand to stare at the bracelet again.
It doesn't feel or look different, and she herself doesn't look or feel different, either. With a curious expression on her face, Yuuki sits down on Zero's bed and crosses her legs, placing her hands over her knees and searching out the vampiric energy she'd discovered the night before she'd gone to confront Shizuka. When she finds it, she studies it cautiously. Back when she'd still been, for all intents and purposes, human, it had been shallow and spread thin all throughout her body, concentrated mainly over her heart. Now that she's beginning to turn into a vampire, or is already a vampire, she isn't sure right now, it seems denser, though still widespread, with a heavier concentration in her chest.
It takes some effort to move the energy of her own accord rather than simply allowing it to pulse inside of her, but once she gets the hang of it, she slides a portion of it more fully down her arm with the bracelet, pushing until it comes across the bracelet to examine it.
It's very defined to her vampiric senses, feeling both freezing and scalding, and acts like a dam. A small trickle of her energy will seep past, but a large amount won't go through. She can tell she could force through it, but that same sense tells her that to do so would completely break the bracelet and cause something like an explosion, and she isn't 100% sure her body would make it through that unscathed, not to mention anyone nearby.
When she opens her eyes, she finds that the exercise was more tiring than she'd expected, with a gnawing hunger beginning to work it's way through her lower stomach, her throat feeling rough. She can't tell if it's her body's first want for blood since that night, or if she's just wanting actual food, but she doesn't want to ignore it, just in case. So she fishes out a few of Zero's blood tablets just in case, tucking them into the chest pocket in Zero's shirt before approaching the bathroom door and tapping on it lightly.
"Zero, I'm going to go and get some food," she explains before walking out of the room. The hallway is empty, and from what she can hear, the house is otherwise quiet. It sounds like Cross is in his study, flipping through papers, and as she walks down the hallway, she comes within visual distance of a window and guesses the time to be sometime in the late afternoon.
She enters the kitchen with a shrug, stomach rumbling, and starts to dig through the fridge for something she can make quickly and easily.
July 30th Edit: I went back and changed "akatsuki" to "kain" in previous chapters. Please tell me if you see anything notably out of order, as my documents aren't 100% labelled correctly.