Here we go folks, it wasn't during spring break, but it is a new chapter! I hope you enjoy it.
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The three hunters walked in silence towards the Hunters Association headquarters. For Zero it was an angry silence, still indignant over Kaien's blatant favoritism (as he saw it). Kaien was silent because he was trying to figure out what the meeting was about and think steps ahead of any topic it could be about. Yagari was silent, because that's just the way he is.
Finally the silence was broken by Kaien who accidently asked aloud, "What could this be about?"
"I don't know," Zero snapped. "But it damn well better be good."
"I can actually see you telling them that," Yagari laughed slapping Zero on the back.
Zero glared at him in response. "I just might!" he yelled. "They didn't even give us proper notice."
"Zero," Kaien said gently, "Tread carefully today. I'm not sure what they want and I don't want to see you get hurt."
"Like they could," Zero sneered.
Yagari laughed in response to the boy's bravado but Kaien stopped walking and turned to grab him by the shoulders. "I know I'm not your father," he said his voice sincere, "but please listen to me. You are good, but we are going into a room full of people who are also good. They can hurt you and despite the fact that you are a hunter, you are also a vampire many of them would kill you with any provocation whatsoever."
Zero slapped Kaien's hands away and turned his head as the cursed word fell from his lips. Even though he knew it was true, it stung to have it thrown in his face that his hold on his birth-right was only tenuous. Despite what he wanted to think there was not a world where he actually fit in. To the vampires he was a Level D, to the hunters he was a vampire, and though the humans didn't know there was anything wrong, he didn't fit in there either.
Kaien felt his hands clench with the desire to reach out to the young man again. He sighed and turned to continue their walk. I'm sorry Zero, Kaien thought even though he didn't say it. Even if I know that they are wrong to think the way they do, it's how they think and if I have to hurt you to protect you, I will. Once more silence resumed, and this time was no more comfortable than the first. In this new silence, they continued walking to the meeting that none of them actually wanted to go to.
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Yuuki awoke a few hours later with a smile on her face. She had been having a nice dream, but she wasn't sad to see it go since the reality she awoke to was even better. Her smile turned into a full blown grin as she snuggled against Kaname. She opened her eyes as she felt and heard his laughter rumble through his chest.
"Would what you are smiling about so early in the morning have anything to do with what made you laugh last night?" Kaname asked softly in case she was only smiling in her sleep.
She laughed a little in response and at the renewal of the mental image from the night before. "No," she replied, "but that is still the funniest thing I have thought of in a while."
"Now I have to know," he insisted. "What was so funny?"
"You have to promise not to get mad," she replied propping herself up on one arm to look him in the eye. He raised an eyebrow in response and wondered what she could possibly say that she thought would make him mad. He nodded his promise and waited for her to speak. "Well," she began again, "I kinda forgot that you know how to teleport—which you have to teach me how to do, by the way—and was trying to figure out how you and I were going to get back to my room and had the mental image of you streaking through the headmaster's house and getting caught." By the time she finished speaking she was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.
Kaname looked at her, blinked a few times and then joined her in laughter. "Oh, my!" he said pulling her to him. "My dear girl, you have a very active imagination. But even had we resorted to streaking, we would not have been caught."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked him wondering if this was just bravado or if he actually meant what he said.
"Because," he replied with an evil smirk, "I'm a wise and ancient vampire with lots of tricks up my sleeves." She smacked him with the back of her hand and rolled her eyes at his answer.
"So what's the plan today, O wise and ancient vampire?" She asked with a laugh.
He instantly sobered, "Well, you and I need to get our stories straight about what happened to you yesterday. I don't want the nobles to know what actually happened. They just know that you were injured but they don't know anything else. Once we've figured out what we want them to know, we will have to talk to the night class that were there and know the truth and tell them what the official story is. Then we will have to find a place to hold council and tell the rest of the nobles what happened."
"That is a lot of things to do," Yuuki said looking dazed. "Why can't we just tell them the truth? It would be easier to remember."
"Because," he said gently, stroking her face, "our world is one of power. If they feel that you cannot hold that power in your own right, you will never be safe."
"But why does it have to be that way?" she asked her face falling slightly.
"That's just the way it is," he answered.
"But," she insisted, "We're changing the way things are, why can't we change that?"
"If we want to keep power, we cannot try to change that. We will have to have enough power to force others to follow our rules and if they think that either of us is weak, they will rebel at the first chance they get," he explained.
"So that means that I have to manipulate people just to survive?" Yuuki asked feeling her stomach tie itself into knots at the very idea.
"Not manipulate, necessarily," he comforted pulling her to him again, "you just have to control what information you share. You have been doing it for years. Did you ever tell that friend of yours that the night class was made up of vampires?"
"No," she replied indignantly. "That wasn't my secret to tell and would have hurt all of you and her."
"Exactly," he said. "This is the exact same situation. If you tell them everything and are completely honest with them, it will potentially lead to another war between the purebloods, or even the nobles and us. More people will be hurt."
"I don't want that," she replied slowly. "So all I have to do is withhold certain information? I can do that." He smiled at her bright, almost enthusiastic tone and wished that he could share her enthusiasm but he had a feeling that things were not going to go according to plan.
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Kaien stopped short of passing through the gates of the association. He really didn't want to go, but he knew that he needed to know what they were thinking about. Besides, they already thought that he was little more than a traitor to them all for associating so closely with vampires by allowing them to attend his school. They only refused to call him on it because of his legendary reputation as a harbinger of death.
Yagari and Zero walked in as thought they owned the place. Sensing the reluctance in the older man, Yagari turned back around and clapped him on the shoulder. "You're here," he said almost gently, "you may as well go in. You can't protect her from out here." Kaien sighed and patted the other man's hand before he followed him into the association compound.
They rapidly caught up with Zero and were walking beside him when they entered the associations main headquarters. Kaien glanced warily around, he hadn't been in here since he brough Yuuki to look through the archives. That alone made him nervous since he was sure that word had now spread that the girl he had brought was actually a pureblood vampire. And he was traveling with a vampire-hunter and his ex-mentor.
Though he didn't think that any in the association would risk attacking the three of them together, he still wanted to keep an eye on people so that he would have some idea who to watch out for if the three of them got separated. A few of the people milling around waiting for the meeting nodded or gave him a small smile, but most of them looked at him impartially or shot him sidelong glances and whispered to the people around them.
True, they could just be talking about the fact that a couple of legendary hunters had just entered the room since there were people who he didn't recognize in the room, but the way he saw it in his current suspicious state of mind was that they were talking about the fact that his daughter, a pureblood, and her brother had gone on a bloody rampage. In reality it was a mix of the two.
"Well, now that we're all here, let's begin," a deep voice called from the shadows. "I'm sure you all wonder why we called you here today." He paused for effect as he stepped out on the balcony. "We called this meeting because there are two major problems that have arisen in the leadership of two of the worlds we operate in."
His words were greeted with mumbling as the amassed hunters wondered what could have happened that was urgent enough that the association vice-president felt he needed to make an address.
"The first of these things only indirectly affects us, as we have no idea how this will all play out in the end. The vampire council is no more," he declared holding his hands up in an attempt to silence the roar of noise that followed his statement. The general reaction was confusion, why would that have happened and who could have been powerful enough to do it?
He allowed them to talk for a while before cut though their chatter, "We know this because the president of the hunters association was there negotiating with them when it happened. "
"Well, then where is he?" someone demanded.
"Who did it?" called another man next to Kaien asked aloud before nudging him and adding in an undertone, "Too bad it wasn't me."
"The president is dead, he was destroyed along with the senate," he paused again to let the outcry die down again, rolling his eyes at how long this speech was taking. "The culprit," he yelled over them, "is none other than Kaname Kuran."
The headmaster felt as though he had been punched in the stomach, he glanced at Zero and saw panic in his violet eyes. They both knew what the next words were going to be before they were said.
"We will take this murder as what it is," the vice-president continued, "a declaration of war. This uneasy peace is over, vampires and hunters are now in a state of open war." He looked directly at Zero and Kaien as he finished her pronouncement as if daring them to challenge him.
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Seemed like a good place to cut this one. Sorry for yet another cliff hanger :) but I do have a good reason for this, without them it is hard to get the next chapter started.
As always, thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, or alerted this story so far. Ya'll make my day.
I hope you enjoyed this new instalment, please leave a review if you have time and feel so inclined.
Stickdonkeys