I have to say, I'm sorry that this took so long. I didn't mean for it to, and this should have been published like weeks ago at least but my life is kind of busy right now. I reread some of your older reviews, though, especially some of the longer ones and they motivated me to finish this chapter off, even if it doesn't seem like a good ending to me.

Unmentioned in this chapter or the previous is that Yuuki's been training her balance and reflexes to get a handle on them again. I haven't been able to write that out, or write out a resolution to the tension between Yuuki and Zero, so it's just going to stay, I guess, until I can gloss over it or something... You can probably tell I made an attempt, here.

Sorry it's so short, by the way.

Blinking sleepily at Yori as they sit together in the mess hall, Yuuki muffles a yawn into her hand and eats a little more of her cereal. Yori glances between her and Zero, who is sitting some tables away, hunched down like he's asleep, having probably been dragged to the meal by his dorm mates, but says nothing. A quiet conversation starts up nearby, and Yuuki listens in idly, not really interested, but her newly sharp hearing not really letting her comfortably ignore it.

"-are you okay?" She hears someone whisper to her left.

"-fine, just tired," a female voice insists, slow and raspy. Yuuki's head rolls slightly so she can see what's going on over there, and finds the students in question just as one of them sways dangerously in place, swaying out of her chair and onto the ground. Yuuki jolts upright as someone shrieks.

"What happened?" A boy asks as he instantly gets out of his seat, looking back to the girls as two get out of their chairs to crowd around the collapsed girl. Yuuki climbs out of her seat, Yori right behind her, and begins to make her way over.

"I don't know, she suddenly collapsed! Someone needs to take her to the infirmary!"

"Move away," Zero's voice calls, and people begin to back away immediately. "I'll take her to the infirmary," he tells them, bending down to collect the girl into a princess carry. Yori goes around the side of Yuuki, studying the girl as her head lolls, and Yuuki jerks in place at the purple-red marks on the girl's neck, scabs tearing and some blood flowing free. Yuuki hops the table nearest her and makes her way to be in front of Zero.

"Move, please," she calls out loudly, ushering students out of the way as Zero strides forward. She runs to catch up with Zero, trailing just behind as he makes his way to the infirmary in the faculty building some distance away from the mess hall. After they get her situated in one of the beds and brief the on-site nurse, they make their way to Cross' office, knowing that this is going to have to be reported.

"How recent were the marks, do you think?" She asks as they stride down the hallway.

"It might have been last night. It looked pretty recent." In other words, it likely happened on school grounds. So there's either a Night Class student who came back from break early and decided that they were too good to follow the rules, or one of them brought an unknown vampire back with them as a plus one.

There's always the possibility that the student brought the vampire with her, herself- that she met them on break and brought them back with her, somehow. They wouldn't know until they managed to do a wide-spread patrol and incident investigation.

"We're probably going to have to work with some of the Night Class to investigate this," she notes as they make their way into the faculty building and begin to climb the stairs. Zero makes a dismissive noise, and as they get to the needed floor and enter the hallway, they see Kaname in the hall across from them, already opening the door to Cross' office.

Ignoring the "coincidence" for now, Yuuki makes her way forward, Zero already ahead of her, and then they're in the office.

"Eh? Did something happen?" Cross asks from behind his desk, wrapped in a fur coat, instead of his typical many blankets. "All three of you in the same place is usually never any good!"

"There was an incident," Yuuki confirms. "One of the Day Class students collapsed in class just a bit ago. There's marks on her neck implying that she's been bitten by a vampire in the last 24 hours, meaning it likely happened on school grounds."

"Oh, dear," Cross murmurs worriedly. "Is she alright?"

"Zero took her to the infirmary, so if she isn't now, she will be," Yuuki reassures.

"Thank you, Kiryuu-kun!" Cross beams at Zero, who's staring darkly and silently at Kaname from her left as the vampire stands on her right. Purple eyes glance over at him before going back to Kaname.

"I'm sorry, chairman. I should have watched over the Night Class more carefully," Kaname apologizes resignedly.

"No, no," Cross waves his hands with a tentative smile, "we haven't decided if the vampire who did this is from the Night Class. You were called out by the Council of Ancients, Kaname-kun, so don't be too stressed about this, okay? We have the Guardians here to prevent such a thing from happening again." Cross gestures to Yuuki and Zero, and Yuuki tucks her arms behind her back to hide her slightly twitching fingers.

A secretary knocks on the door, and they all turn to look as the slim man enters the room after a confirmation comes from Cross. He blinks nervously at them, looking like a cornered animal wary of being rushed at any moment, but brings Cross a few pieces of paper tucked inside a manilla folder before fleeing the room. Spotting the infirmary crest on the front of the file, they all wait patiently as Cross opens the file and reads through the paperwork before speaking. Zero turns away to stare straight ahead.

"The girl who fainted from anemia doesn't remember who sucked her blood, or that her blood was even taken at all. She is apparently rather distressed with the injury on her neck, as she hadn't noticed it before now. There is little doubt that the girl's memories and mind were modified by a vampire."

"Which means that the vampires in the Night Class are suspects," Kaname notes in a low voice. "The only ones that would be able to modify memories so well would be the noble class, and the Night Class consists mostly of nobles." Kaname continues to stare at Cross. "I understand that you do not want to suspect your students, but you are too lenient at times."

A hand suddenly drops down onto her head, and Yuuki jolts, eyes widening at the familiar gesture.

"Don't worry too much about missing this," Zero's voice is calm, comforting and, she suspects, meant to be teasing. "It isn't that you're incompetent, it's just that this opponent is rather skilled."

"Who said anything about incompetent?" Yuuki demands, offended, turning towards Zero and lifting a hand to touch the fingers atop her head lightly, almost disbelieving that they're there. "You're implying that this is somehow on my shoulders, too! You're a guardian as well, you know? Not that you've been a very good one, lately!" She feels a little lighter than before at this little bit of levity from Zero, but then Kaname speaks up from behind them.

"Just to remind you, Kiryuu-kun is also a suspect." Zero removes the hand from her head, and the both of them turn to stare at Kaname, Yuuki feeling more than seeing Zero go rigid behind her. "You're a rare sample of a vampire hunter who has become a vampire. I wouldn't be surprised if you have any special abilities."

"I don't recall having any special abilities," Zero responds in a careful tone. Cross stands from his chair, hands planted on his desk, and Yuuki glances between Zero's wide-eyed but blank face and Kaname's neutral one, which somehow looks more cold than anything she can really remember right now.

"Really? Maybe you subconsciously attacked a human, yearning for her blood…" Yuui bristles at Kaname's leading tone, and her mouth runs away from her.

"Kaname! That's out of line!"

"It sure sounded like he thought I attacked her," Zero mutters, and Yuuki twitches, lifting a hand to point at Kaname's face.

"Do you truly think Zero would attack someone like that?!" She demands, and Kaname's expression sours in such a subtle way that if she hadn't spent so much time studying it, she wouldn't have been able to tell; his eyes turning away from her own, and his jaw flexing just slightly. Cross is saying something to the side, but she can't really hear him right now. Her back straightens and her hand lashes out to grab ahold of Zero's, grabbing onto him firmly and turning on heel.

"Yuuki-!" Cross manages to break through the blood rushing in her ears, but she ignores him.

"Our investigation starts now!" She declares, dragging Zero from the room bodily. "Don't resist, Zero, let's go-"

"Hey, Yuuki," he sounds exasperated, but she doesn't let up and he doesn't make her let go, trailing along behind her docilely.

"Come on!" She turns a little then, just before getting out of the room, looking at Kaname with a stern expression. "Until you accept that what you said just now is complete garbage, I won't acknowledge you at all!" She then turns away and leaves the room, feeling inexplicably relieved to have the idea of ignoring Kaname with an excuse to do so.

They're almost at the end of the hall before she releases Zero and a presence swells up behind them- Kaname, most likely. It isn't until they're a few floors away from Kaname that Zero speaks up.

"'Won't acknowledge you at all', huh?" He asks into the quiet. Yuuki avoids looking over at him, her face a little hot, though from what emotions, she can't tell.

"He cares about that sort of thing, I know he does. And he's been acting harsher and harsher lately. It isn't called for," she responds. She tries to remember what she might have done before the Shizuka incident if this had happened then, but she can't. Her memories seem farther and farther away with every day that passes, not that it's such a bad thing- it's actually familiar, in a way. She remembers what she has to.

"It isn't like that's anything new," Zero says, sounding a little confused. "You'd think that you would give him a little lee-way," he comments then, voice changing into something strange. Yuuki hunches her shoulders a little.

"An accusation like that was uncalled for, and serious. He can't just say things like that," she refuses. "You aren't the one who did it, you have yourself handled." He says nothing, and she stuffs all her negative emotions back, finding something new to focus on. Those emotions won't do her any good right now, especially because there's so many of them. They fade quickly, and she crosses her arms over her chest, finally glancing back at Zero. "Let's go talk to the victim again."

"She should still be in the infirmary," Zero offers after a moment, speeding up just enough that he over takes her completely. She huffs a little and hurries after him as they go down the hall towards the infirmary doors. Opening them, Yuuki just behind him, reveals a scene that is very much unwelcome.

"Hm? Yuuki-chan and Kiryuu-kun," Ichijou Takuma greets them, standing up from where he'd been crouched in front of their probably very impressionable victim. "You came to talk to this girl, didn't you?" Something about his tone makes her uneasy even though its only friendly, if not a little overly so. Her eyes flick over the room to take in Rima and Senri near one wall, Souen and Kain out the window, Souen's leg just about inside from where she'd been climbing in.

"None of you are supposed to be on school grounds right now," Yuuki's voice is strained, she notices, and that anger comes back yet again. "You're also very much not allowed in the infirmary, as you know!" The day class girl holds a bouquet of roses close to her chest, and Ichijou ignores her as he bends back down close to the girl.

"I'm sorry for asking you so much… Are you okay?" He asks the girl, and Yuuki grits her teeth as Zero stands silently next to her.

"Yes… Sorry I couldn't be of much help," she comments, blushing and earnest, a bandage visibly wrapped around her neck.

"Take care, then," Ichijou comments, smiling at her.

"Thank you for the flowers," the girl says, standing and bowing slightly at the waist with a flustered smile on her face before turning in Zero's direction. "Thanks for carrying me, Kiryuu-kun. It was... just anemia, so I'll be alright, now… I always had such a bad impression of you, but you're actually a good person," she offers with a smile before turning and leaving. Yuuki stares after her before turning attention back towards Ichijou as he speaks up. She wants to follow her, to question her, but she cannot leave these vampires unattended in the infirmary.

"She said you're a good person, Kiryuu-kun. Now if only you didn't frown so much and smiled more…"

"Good person?" Rima parrots uncertainly in the background.

"I don't know," Senri's reply is muffled into his palm.

"What are you guys doing here?" Zero asks, and Yuuki's stare flicks back to Ichijou.

"That's right, why are you here? You're suspects as well, you know," Yuuki echoes, eyes sharp on all of those in her sight line. Souen finished climbing into the room, and Ichijou smiles wide enough that it closes his eyes with a small laugh.

"We are? Thanks for letting us know… But, we were sent by Dorm Leader Kaname as a detective group for Justice. Our name is…" Without opening his eyes, Ichijou turns his head aside and continues to speak, "what shall our name be?"

"I don't care," Kain answers, "I didn't even know we were a detective group."

"Anyway, we were asked by Kaname to investigate this, for our Honor."

"When. When did he ask you to investigate this?" Yuuki demands, something sour in her stomach. Kaname already knew about this? How?

"Then you believe everyone here is innocent," Zero comments suddenly from near the door, and Ichijou laughs a little, this time sounding slightly uncomfortable.

"Probably. I did call Aidou, as well, but he never showed, and we haven't seen him in awhile…"

"He's been acting strange lately, actually," Kain pipes up reluctantly from where he's leaning against the window frame, one of his hands cupping his chin.

"Yeah, and come to think of it, he does have a previous offense like this, as well…" Souen says thoughtfully, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall. "Of biting someone, I mean."

"Then, is the culprit Aidou-san?" Shiki asks, leaning forward in his seat. Yuuki glances over as Zero turns to leave the room, and he waves her off. She frowns as he leaves, uncertain about remaining behind by herself but not actually able to leave the vampires in the infirmary unattended. Once he's gone, she turns back completely.

"-not him," Kain is saying, and she thinks back on the last few minutes.

"I don't actually think it's Aidou," she decides to speak up, gaining instant attention, "he was with Zero and I all of these last two days, practically." It had been a trying two days, but he'd not wandered off or stepped out of line too far, surprisingly, once they'd agreed to not take him back to the Moon Dorms. He'd not have had the chance to wander off and assault some Day Class girl last night.

"With you-?" Kain speaks up, staring at her with something complicated in his gaze before he cuts himself off.

"Ah, that's one worry dealt with, then!" Ichijou says in a brightly relieved tone that Yuuki can't tell the sincerity of. Yuuki eyes him for a moment and then decides to speak up as the room falls silent.

"Can you tell me what that student told you before we got here?" She asks, sitting on her anger again as she circles the vampires and heads to the nurses desk, unlocking the filing cabinet with the code she'd long since been given as a school Guardian and Prefect, flicking through the files until she finds the correct one, which is the most recent.

"Of course, Yuuki-chan! Nakamura-chan has been feeling rather faint lately, but hadn't actually noticed any soreness or injuries. She also told us that she couldn't remember how she'd gotten bitten, or if she'd met anyone rather… draining, lately." Eyes skimming over Nakamura Isane's recent medical file, Yuuki sees that Nakamura had reported recent troubles with headaches, faintness, memory lapses and soreness of her extremities.

Given the listed extremities, Yuuki can understand why she didn't mention it to Ichijou- her legs and thighs, as well as her torso. Yuuki's mouth pinches at the implications of all of the injuries stacked together, and her stomach twists. There's a note on the sheet saying that the bite marks are both fresh and old, meaning that they'd been repeatedly opened and reopened.

Closing the file, Yuuki puts it away and walks across the room quickly.

"I need to go. All of you, leave," she commands quickly, trying to shoo the vampires from the infirmary.

"Eh? What's wrong?" Ichijou asks as he resists, Souen remaining by the wall. The only ones who move to do as she asks are Shiki and Rima, but they can't actually leave, as Kain remains right where he is.

"Nakamura-san might be in danger, I have to go!" She insists, shoving him with as much strength as she can manage to push into her arms. "If you continue to resist, I will pull out my anti-vampire weapon, and knock you unconscious," she grits out.

"Yuuki-chan, may we come with you, in case the vampire does appear?" Ichijou asks as he finally allows himself to be pushed across the room. Souen perches herself on the window sill and allows Kain to assist her in climbing completely out, and Shiki and Rima both follow her out, though neither receive help. Yuuki herds Ichijou out the window and climbs out after him, closing the window behind her and then turning on the spot, orienting herself in place until she's pointed in the direction of the female Sun Dorms.

"No, go to your dorms until I come for you," she insists before taking off. A nagging feeling in the back of her head tells her that they're following her anyway, which is. Annoying. She can't exactly stop to make them leave, though. The safety of the students is her priority, which means she's racing against the clock, here. She'll just have to talk to Kaname about getting them better in line, eventually. Maybe.

She gets to the Sun Dorms and circles around the building, pulling the Artemis Rod out of her sleeve and internally heightening all of her senses to hyperactivity, trying to pay attention to as much at once as she can while also trying to filter out the vampires behind her. It starts to give her a headache almost immediately, which isn't all that surprising, but it does what she intends for it to do.

Is that… Kaname? She frowns, rounding the final turn to come across the back of the Dorms. Yuuki's expression sours as she catches sight of nothing in sight, the scent in her nose being that of Kaname and something else just beneath. Internally, she recognizes that Kaname ramped up his scent here for some reason- marking territory, or hiding something?

Holding her weapon at the ready and ignoring the words of the Night Class students behind her as they try to insist that 'Kaname-sama has been here, so Nakamura-chan must be fine!', Yuuki circles the back of the building, looking around carefully. She searches for any sign of the vampire her intuition insists was here despite that she sees no sign of one, but finds nothing but some shoe prints in the ground and slight scratches in the stone of the building, neither of which tells her anything.

"Is everything okay, Yuuki-chan?" Ichijou asks from behind her, and she feels every hair on her body stand on end, muscles tensing up.

"There's nobody here," Souen says in a tone that sounds close to complaining as Yuuki turns sharply on heel to stare at the vampires who are around her in an arc. Senri and Rima are second closest to her, Ichijou being the only one closer to her, but they're not looking at her in the way Ichijou, Souen or Kain are. They glance at her on occasion, but don't hold her eyes or stare at her expectantly. "What's the problem?"

"You. You need to leave." Yuuki grits out in as smooth of a voice as she can manage with every muscle of her body feeling close to snapping with the tautness in them. It comes out as not-a-threat, which is good, but it does come out in a lower register than she'd expected to hear out of her own mouth.

"Eh-?" She cuts Ichijou off with a sharp horizontal move of Artemis, the move short and abrupt.

"No. You need to leave. Go to your dorms." She manages to get out, this time her voice seeming somehow inhuman. Ichijou twitches but his eyes show confusion, Souen the same. Kain, Senri and Rima react more noticeably, though, straightening up where they're standing and eyes turning in her direction immediately.

"We probably should, actually. To… let Kaname know what we'd found out," Ichijou says after a second, looking uncomfortable despite the smile still on his face, though that quickly drops into something like concern. "Will you be okay if we leave back to our dorms?"

"I'll be fine," Yuuki returns tensely, watching as he nods and leaves, still looking uncomfortable. Souen and Kain follow him quickly enough, and Rima and Senri linger only long enough to nod their heads at her before leaving. Yuuki stares after them for a little while before searching the area once more, collapsing Artemis once more and scanning the ground and nearby brush a little more carefully than she had before.

There's signs of bone-white ash lingering on the edges of the nearby brush, still trying to float away. Yuuki frowns and reaches out to collect some between her fingers, feeling its texture and finding it familiar.

The vampire had been here, but they'd been killed. Likely by Kaname.

Yuuki looks up the side of the building to see all the windows closed, most of the curtains drawn. With a sigh, she turns to leave the area, making her way back to the nurses office to make sure she'd left everything in order. She's not going to search out Kaname right now, and not by herself, at least. She doesn't trust him enough for that anymore, and besides that, she's supposed to be ignoring him for now.

Sliding the door open to the nurse's office quietly, Yuuki steps into the room carefully, eyes roaming the area. Still no sign of the nurse, but the window remains closed, at least. Eyeing the occupied bed with its curtains drawn by the back corner, Yuuki decides to give them their peace and privacy, moving to lock the window and then turning to the nurse's desk, opening the filing cabinet and making sure she hadn't wrecked it's organization system.

The file she'd pulled on Nakamura is slightly crooked in place, the papers inside visibly out of order, and she rights that before she hears something behind her, coming from the bed she'd been ignoring.

"Yuuki-!" There's a clatter of noise, a rustling of blankets and she turns to see a hand through the curtain, gripping it's fabric. With dawning realization, she pushes the cabinet closed and approaches the bed, peeling the curtain back and sticking her head inside. Finding Zero in the bed isn't surprising, his eyes wide and slightly glowing, one hand reaching up to cover his face, his legs drawn up slightly. He's breathing heavily, and Yuuki imagines she can hear his heart beating loudly in his chest, and as she speaks up, his entire body shakes slightly.

"Zero? Why are you here?"

He stares at her with an expression she can't quite understand, his eyes wide and pupils blown out, the red in them fading quickly away. He lifts one of his hands out to her, and she doesn't hesitate to place her own into it, worried for her brother's mental state right now.

"Yuuki…" His fingers wrap tightly around her wrist as soon as it's in his reach, and he pulls her towards him. She doesn't resist the desperate tug, angling her body so she will be able to sit on the bed and won't just fall on top of Zero, and once she's closer to him, he lifts his arms to wrap them tightly around her. "You're alive," he whispers, almost silently, one hand pressing into the back of her head as his own face presses against the curve of her shoulder.

His hug tightens even further, and Yuuki feels like her ribs and lungs are being compressed, breathing becoming slightly more difficult than is comfortable. She doesn't say anything at first, but as his grip continues to get even tighter, she realizes she has to say something before she gets accidentally hurt.

"Zero, you're making it hard to breathe," Yuuki speaks up, slightly strained. "I'm alright to hug you, but you have to let up a little." He doesn't seem to hear her, so she tries his name again, not that that works, either. She decides to pull on his hair to move his head instead, her other arm lifting up to wiggle between them and press against his chest. "Zero, you're going to hurt me!"

That seems to do it, his head and torso obligingly moving away from her, his arms loosening but not really letting her go.

"Yuuki?" He sounds more coherent now, at least, as he blinks and looks her in the face. Yuuki releases his hair and drops her hand from his chest, holding her hands slightly out to the side, not quite sure what to do with them right now.

"Zero, are you okay?" She asks, staring into his slightly wide eyes as they become more lucid than they'd been before as the seconds progress.

"Yeah," he tells her after another moment, face hardly changing and lips hardly moving with the word. She frowns a little, studying his expression, before a small bloom of relief relaxes her face into an expression she thinks might be a smile, though she's not entirely sure.

"Ah, that's good," she sighs, deciding to drop her hands onto his shoulders, "I was worried, you know? It sounded like-" Zero lurches in place, moving forward towards her. His nose brushes around her cheek and then his head plants itself into her neck, forehead pressing into her throat and nose near her collarbone.

"I'm sorry-" Zero cuts himself off and his hands release her from their hug to grab onto her shoulders as he moves back away from her, face serious. "I had a weird dream, and I wasn't fully awake yet."

"I guessed," Yuuki admits, feeling a little out of her depth. "You were pretty surprised I was alive, so I'm guessing I died in your dream?" She asks carefully, actually kind of worried about that dream.

"... Yeah," he nods and looks away from her. "We need to talk, Yuuki."

"About what?" She asks, trying not to let her dread show, because those words aren't ominous.

"Cross knows what happened to Shizuka, and he's hiding it," he reveals to her, and her heart feels like it's stopped in her chest. "He told me. In a round-about way, but he told me."

"He… knows?" Yuuki can't feel her body, her mind tumbling over itself as shock begins to set in, trying to connect dots that she can't find to one another, theories and emotions bursting into existence before fading back, sliding away from focus but not from existence. Her brain feels like it's moving too fast but also too slowly, everything coming in and out of focus at random. "Why am I not surprised?" Her voice sounds strange. Distant.

"Yuuki," Zero's voice is muffled, and Yuuki can tell she is jolted a little but she can't feel it. She doesn't- she doesn't know how to deal with this. She knows that Cross has been acting strangely lately, acting in the shadows with Kaname, and she's not truly surprised, but- she hadn't expected for him to so blatantly endanger Zero for Kaname's sake. Was it for Kaname? For something else?

It feels like something in her chest is shrivelling up and dying. Going foul and falling silent.

It hurts to love someone who apparently has priorities that don't include Zero, and her by extension.

"Yuuki," Zero's voice is firm, but she can't move. Her thoughts are spiraling further and further into increasing unintelligible chaos. "Yuuki, can you hear me?" She tries to speak, but her throat won't move, so the sound that comes out as a strange, garbled moan. "You need to breathe, okay? I'm right here, try to calm down."

Is she breathing poorly? Why did he say-

Cross is abandoning us? Why is he-? Cross? Father? Why? Her heart and head hurt and her vision goes dark with blackened static, everything coming in and out of clarity with each individual heartbeat. Something is achingly familiar about this, and it makes everything worse because she doesn't understand why and Yuuki closes her eyes, trying very hard to focus on the feeling of breathing.

Inhaling and exhaling, focusing on it with as much energy she can dedicate to doing so, helps her calm down remarkably well, but there's still a disconnect feeling that's taking up most of her attention, so she continues to try and breathe herself back into existing.

"Can you hear me?" Zero's voice prompts a jerky, barely-a-movement-at-all nod. "Just breathe, okay?" She nods again, trying to resurface from where she'd started to sink down. She hates- hates that she keeps breaking down when anything bad happens or comes to light, but it feels like everything is just piling and piling and piling up, and she feels like she hasn't had a chance to really breathe in so long.

"I'm- I can't- I'm sorry that I keep-" she can't really get the words out, but at least she's not hyperventilating or crying.

"It's alright, Yuuki, I get it," Zero tells her, dropping a grounding hand onto her head. "You just have to keep breathing."

Keep breathing. She can do that.