Okay, so, for about a month, now, I've been debating with myself the right way to go about this scene. Which pisses me off, because it means I'm second-guessing myself and I wasted too much time on the "not the finale/end/owarino chapter".

So the outcome, regrettably, illustrates this internal conflict. (I very deeply want to hurt Kaname in almost any available way, but hurting Yuki is almost out of the question, and I'll only tentatively bring Zero out from the "Dark Side") In conclusion, I'm happy with it because it's basically what I wanted, but angry for the same reason. Some part of me just had have pity again... have to stop that... on top of that, it's rather short... ugh.

お楽しみください。S'il vous plaît profiter. Por favor, aproveite. Bitte genießen. Si prega di godere... Please enjoy.

Pain flared up again in the brunette's gut, and he sagged over the dash. Then, the hunter gently pushed him back into his seat, startling him out of a pleasant daze as he reached for the glove box. A wallet and car manual fell out, the light coming on shortly thereafter,

"Shit," he muttered, not bothering with them as he searched. When he came away, he held the notes on their target, scrawled lazily in a little brown book. Kaname winced as he bent over to retrieve the wallet. The leather was well-worn and ripped here and there. The stuffing was stained a rusty brown in some places, and he wondered if his friend had nearly lost it in a scuffle. Noticing the man in question was quite enrapt in the notes, thumbing through with a dogged expression whilst greedily inhaling, he opened the flap and looked at the cards, how much money the man kept on him, and came upon the picture packet. Empty, it stood stark and ghostly in a place which clearly had many memories engraved on the surface. Pulling out cards to look at them, he spied one from a hotel, then another, and another.

"… Do you keep all hotel receipts on you?" Astonished, he saw they went back at least nine months, if not a year. He hadn't realized they'd been so many places. By the time he looked up, Zero was watching him in amusement, fingers lightly holding the cigarette as he took a last drag, long and deep. He exhaled,

"I find they make good reminders of what I'm here for."

"Hunting or continental breakfasts?" The man stared at him unsurely, a wizened smile on his face. Had Kaname truly just made a joke? The pause was lengthy but fruitful,

"I don't typically eat breakfast," he jerked the seat back and laid down with a grunt, "you should know that by now." The pureblood grunted in reply. He saw cards for beach hotels and numbers for scummy holes-in-the-wall, torn pieces of paper with numbers yanked hurriedly across them. One stood out, and he froze, nearly dropping his cigarette on the leather. The wind had seemed quite light, but now buffeted his ears. It drowned him until he spoke, voice shockingly clear to him,

"You kept Aidou's phone number?" The hunter didn't speak for a moment, making that drag last as long as he could before he entered the danger of choking, and exhaled with a

"Yeah. Ichijou's and Kain's, too. What of it?"

"Theirs aren't in here." Kaname clutched the wallet in one hand and placed the other on the driver's door, looming over the hunter with a shell-shocked look and heaven at his back,

"Zero," he said, deep voice solid and imposing, "what did you do to Aidou?"

The man looked directly up at him, still smoking, unfazed. His eyes, normally alight with insult or gentleness grew dead. He was on lock-down. Softly, and to Kaname, derisively, he said,

"Absolutely nothing." Bile rose in the pureblood's throat and his fingers dented the door. He grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and dragged him up to punch him, but crumpled in pain when the bastard touched his abdomen just lightly and held him as he gasped, tone somehow serene. The pureblood felt as if something was about to claw its way through chest case and out his eyes.

"Kaname, breathe."

The pain was immense. He was going to die, surely. It crept up to his heart and quickly spun around it, constricting it, piercing it. Was this how Shizuka had felt? The hand gripping the wallet loosened and went for the man embracing him, instead. His face became wet with sweat and he panted, fingers nervously latching and releasing the soiled tank top, groaning and twisted, shrinking into a ball.

"Di... Did you do this?" He asked, voice intimidating as a moth, now.

"No, Kaname." The man didn't listen to him, beginning to panic and fidget more aggressively. He held onto him, wondering how far it could go. He looked up at the brilliant desert night sky and savoured that whimper, damaged ears so attuned to it. Smiling, he spotted an arm of the Milky Way. What would be the outcome of this particular plan, he wondered without panic. He held the skittish body tighter,

"Did you po... poison me? Did you put a bind on me?" He should have realised sooner that his zeal for making the poor smart bastard miserable might kill him one day.

"Did you do the same to Aidou? Was it a cover-up?!" The hands began to grow claws, and the stars mesmerised him. His flesh was pierced as the man grew rambunctious, animal. As he looked up, something began to hit him in small waves. They grew and he slowly smiled broader and broader. The sky assured him that everything should be alright; that all he'd worked toward in his life would finally be awarded to him. He caught from the corner of his vision the brunette slowly going into his defence-mode, a ballistic, red-eyed beast with murder written on his mouth. Kaname could not see the brilliance and beauty of his plot, unfurling cosmically for them. His grief was driving him mad. Zero looked up as far as his neck could bend, ears finally dropping that celestial voice as it turned into a growl, and the wind played over his face coolly, comfortingly.

He finally saw it, there, cradled in the arm of the Milky Way, vast and beautiful, endless and eternal, and his smile disappeared. A feeling of very base, very primitive evil overtook him, its vile reptilian nature trying to coax out of him what it wanted. But he felt desolate of emotion, even the rage and joy of revenge he'd gotten from Kaname. No matter how much that petty evil inside of him tried to justify his doings, he felt he'd wronged everyone. Particularly Yuki. How could he have taken her for granted? How could he have gone behind her back and stolen from her such a vital comfort? Every plan he'd made to hurt gave way to a new guilt pulsing through him, filling up every cave and dark, jaded little nook inside of him. His blood rushed through his veins and then flowed generously from him. Heaven looked so beautiful, so unreal and forever. All colours of the cosmos splashed across an infinite black canvas. His heart was ready to burst with what he felt for Yuki, and more deeply, his brother. Never had he felt such self-disgust and, as he imagined all of them while Kaname began to rip through him, peace.

He kept his eyes open as long as he could, back straight as he held himself against the claws and fangs tearing him down to Hell where he belonged.

With his life as compensation, let his plan be fulfilled, but let Yuki remain happy.

-

When Kaname woke up, he was naked. He pushed his hands into the rocky sand and gripped his head, body sticky and crusted all over. The night had turned cold and he stood, tipsy. The scent of blood invaded him, but he was sound, unaffected by it. He felt normal for once and replete, vindicated of the emptiness and worry. He felt fine. The smell was Zero's, though, and he was covered in it. He looked around, but couldn't see the car. Had they fought? Had he injured him and run off? His memory was gone. He began panicking wholeheartedly, focused and purposeful. What in Hell had he done to Zero?

He tried to catch the sound of that strong heart, beating along the breeze like a faint war drum, but it was only him and the brush swaying in the night. Trepid, his limbs shook and he tried to call out, but his shouts were swallowed by his agony as something erupted inside of him. He fell to the ground and held his belly, hot and pained, fingers trembling as he threw his head back and wailed. Oh, God, what had he done?! He prayed through his suffering that the hunter had managed to fend him off and flee. That he was alive. Then, he scented more blood on the breeze, saturating it with fading warmth and the aftermath of malicious intent.

He pushed one foot down, curled and sticky in the sand. He screamed. Had he bathed in Zero's blood or just made rain of it? The other slowly stood him up and he arose, the tight knot inside of him snapping in places. He tried to walk, and faltered with each step in unreal pain. So he ran.

He bolted and manoeuvred around bushes and scrap, feet hitting the ground in longer and longer intervals. The pain inside of him grew astronomically, until he felt it ripple bursts throughout him. The freezing air bit him through the wetness, encouraging the adrenaline. He flew across the desert, a falcon with purpose, until he saw the rest stop, and ran faster, over a dune... and saw the car and the ground around it. He walked, now, steps halting in disbelief but urged by curiosity and horror. The blood beneath his fingernails squelched as he made fists, mortifying him. Zero's body was gone. Blood was splattered everywhere, thicker than normal. Dehydrated. Unhealthy. The blood of a dying man who drank, smoke, fought cannibals and monsters and still had the energy to hit a brothel before coming back and visiting his personal 'call boy'.

Kaname walked up to the car, almost tripping over a seat he must've torn out earlier. He looked on his disbelief, touching the door where he'd bent the metal in fury, seeing a shred of a pair of pants paper-machéd to the dash, a boot tucked down by the gas pedal, laces caught up in it.

He had completely consumed Zero. Down to the bone and marrow. He brought a hand to his mouth to stifle a heave, but stood almost motionless. Gripping the door harder, bending it, his hand was pierced by a bone shard. He inspected it and plucked it out, recognising it immediately as being A: a fraction of a metacarpal and B: indeed, Zero's. It burned his hand, buried slightly in his palm. He pushed it in a little deeper, but his skin tried to push it back out. He wanted it to stay in. He wanted for the sake of his sanity that some piece of the man remain tangible. He wanted an illusion that everything might be okay, that somehow he'd only torn off an arm, and that he'd find and rescue the crippled bastard somewhere out in the desert, resuscitate him, and haul him back home, keep him locked away so that he couldn't be hurt worse. His hand kept rejecting the bone shard, so he swallowed it, almost instantly vomiting because he knew the taste and it made him feel so fresh. So free of all that had held him down or taunted him.

He got on his knees and rested his head on the door, a part of him wanting to die, a part of him wondering if there were any more 'leftovers', and a rather unstable negotiation between the two wanting to lick up every last drop of blood and keep Zero with him forever.

He didn't breathe until morning, hoping he might die quickly enough, but the brightness of the sun made him gasp, and he had no choice but to get up and find a phone. How the Hell could he tell Yuki about this?