A/N: Welcome back! Sorry it took me so long to post this chapter. I just finished Kuroshitsuji: His Butler, Returns and His Butler, Oneshot Love. I'm also working on other stories at the moment and trying to get them done and posted. So bear with me! This chapter is going to be full of surprises! So, here we go! (Btw, spread the love of this story to your friends!)
"Senri, Senri wake up." Ichijo says as he gentle shakes his shoulder. "We made it to the apartment."
Shiki shakes his head a little bit and rubs his eyes. He had slept through the whole wide here. He wasn't like Ichijo, who seemed to not be bothered by the sunlight at all. He looked up to see Ichijo's bright grass green eyes staring down at him; he just shook his head as if he was saying 'okay' and got out of the car.
Ichijo just chuckled a little bit and grabbed their bags from the trunk.
"The manger is already expecting your arrival. Headmaster Cross wants you to call him as soon as you have settled in your room." The driver, Shiki's manger, tells them as they head for the door.
"Thank you. We'll make sure to do that." Ichijo says, turning around and giving a soft smile. He then turned back and caught up with Shiki at the door.
They meet the manager as soon as they walked into the building. The manger had instructed them that they had the whole top floor to themselves, and that if they needed anything they were to call him directly. He walks them up to the top flooring of the building. The manager bows his head in respect, and leaves them alone to unpack their belongings.
"We'll I think I'm going to give a call to the Headmaster." Ichijo says as he picks up the phone.
"Alright, I'll take a shower then since I didn't get a chance to take one this morning." Shiki says. He picked out a set of new cloths sense he was still in his school uniform and went into the shower without saying another word.
After Ichijo heard the shower running, he took out the number that Headmaster Cross gave him to call the personal line. He waited after four rings and then the phone finally connected.
"Hello." It wasn't Cross on the other end, it was Zero.
"Zero, is Headmaster Cross there?" Ichijo asked. He wasn't sure if maybe he called at the wrong time.
"Yeah, give him a minute. He's trying to cook dinner." Zero says. He made it sound like it was a bad thing that the headmaster was cooking dinner. "Did you and Shiki just get into town okay?"
"Yeah, Shiki's manager said that the headmaster wanted us to call him as soon as we got settled in." He said. This was the longest conversation he has ever had with Zero. Hell! This was the longest conversation he had heard Zero ever having.
"Zero! Dinners ready! Is that Ichijo?" Cross yells. Ichijo could hear him over the end of the phone. He heard the phone exchange hands and knew that Cross was on the other end now. "Ichijo?"
"Yeah, I'm here." He says. He was curious to know what Headmaster Cross wanted to talk to him about.
"Is Shiki with you?" he asked, sounding seriously.
"No, he is in the shower. Do you want me to call back later once he was done?" Ichijo asked. Maybe this was something the both of them needed to hear.
"That won't be necessary. You can just tell him as soon as his done." He continues. "Have you looked over the case file?"
"Yes, and I agree with you. There is a high possibility that this is the work of a vampire going to Level E. This matter shouldn't take too long, but I highly doubt that we will find the missing people alive." He says. He hated to admit it, but when it comes to Level E's; they drank first and ask questions later.
"That's what I was afraid of. But that's not the only thing that has been happening in town lately." Cross says.
"What do you mean?" Ichijo asks. He couldn't believe that the Headmaster was hiding anything from them.
"Toga Yagari has informed me that there are some vampires of the aristocrat line have gone missing as well." Cross says. "I'm not sure what to make of it yet. It could be nothing, but I just wanted to inform you about this. Yagari is working on the case, so you may one into him at some point."
"Alright, thanks for informing me. I'll make some calls and see what I come up with." Ichijo says. It was strange enough that humans were going missing, but now there may be a possibility that aristocrat vampires were behind it. "Could they be the vampires that Senri told me about a while back? The ones who can't handle the blood tablets?" he thought to himself.
"Oh, and one more thing Ichijo." Cross says before hanging up.
"What?"
"Keep an eye on Shiki for me. He may not be up to speed since he hasn't done a job like this in a while." Cross says, returning to his 'normal' cheerful self. Only when he talks about hunter business does he ever get series. Even though they were vampires, Cross still cared for his students and Ichijo could tell that he was worried about Shiki.
"Alright, you don't have to tell me that. I'll keep an eye on him." Ichijo says smiling. He already knew that the only time Shiki every left the school grounds were to do his modeling job. Not that there have been other jobs. It was surprisingly quite after the whole Rido Kuran incident. Shiki may not show it, but he is very emotional especially when it comes to a conversation about that. Just as he hung up the phone, Shiki walked out of the bathroom, hair dripping wet.
"What did the headmaster want?" Shiki asks, sitting down next to Ichijo.
"The headmaster told me that there seems to be some aristocrat vampires who have seemed to have gone missing. He doesn't know what to make of it, but I think that they are the ones you told me about." He says, taking the tower from Shiki's hands and putting it onto his wet head.
"The ones that can't take the blood tablets?" he asks, he didn't even protest. He didn't bother to dry his hair since it never bothered him, but Ichijo would get made and dry his hair for him.
"Yeah, Toga Yagari is working on the case, so we may run into him." He says, he never told Shiki, but he enjoyed drying his hair. "Did you look over the case Senri?"
"Um…yeah, before we got into the car. I think we should check out the areas where the missing was last seen." He says, taking the towel off his head and tossing it onto his bed. He grabbed the sword and tossed it to Ichijo and he grabbed his trench coat and tossed it on as well.
"Keep an eye on him?" Ichijo thought to himself. Shiki looked like he had just done a job yesterday and was ready to go again. Not like someone who stayed inside a house for a few months.
ΩΩΩ
After they left the apartment, Ichijo and Shiki went to five different locations where the last five missing victims had last been seen. They didn't find much, and what they did find wasn't very useful. They didn't smell blood, which lead them to believe that they were taking alive. After checking the last site, they decided to get something to eat and went to a shop close by. They ordered themselves some coffee and some sweets to snack on.
"Drinking coffee and eating sweets, something I never thought I would ever see in my lifetime." Toga Yagari says, he grabbed a chair from another table and sat at the end of the booth that the two of them were sitting in.
"Mr. Yagari. Headmaster Cross mentioned that we would run into you." Ichijo says, motioning for the waiter to bring more coffee.
"Yeah, he told me the same. Though, this isn't a matter for vampires." He says, taking a drink.
"Last I heard, the Hunters Association is a little short hand since Kaname and the others went missing." Shiki says, not even bothering to hide anything. He stayed his normal emotionless self when other people are around. Especially with those he didn't like.
"And I wonder who's fault that would be." He says. While trying to take another drink, the cup he was holding broke into pieces in his hand. He looked up to see Ichijo was glaring at him and Shiki was turned the other way, looking out the window.
"Rido Kuran was the one who put the Academy and the Hunters Association in disarray." Ichijo clarifies. It had took a long time for people to accept that Shiki had no part nor did he want any part of Rido Kuran's plans, and that he was forced to be a puppet. It had also taking Shiki sometime to recover being possessed by him and stop blaming himself for what had happened. He looked over at Shiki and saw that he was now looking at him. He just smiled at Shiki, showing that everything was okay. He could see a small smile form on Shiki's face, making Ichijo feel a little better.
"Well enough about that, what do you have?" Yagari asks, wanting to compare notes. He told Ichijo and Shiki what he had come up with about the other aristocrat vampires and the missing people.
"In other words we all agree that the missing aristocrat vampires could be responsible for the missing town's people." Ichijo says, summing up all the information that the two groups have collected so far.
"Like Shiki said, most likely they can no longer take the blood tablets and are slowing falling downwards. Though, I'm surprised that its aristocrat vampires falling to Level E." Yagari says, folding up is hand on the table thinking of the possibility.
"It's a rare occurrence, but it isn't impossible. They were simply to drawn to drinking blood from normal human beings and couldn't take the tablets. The real question is where they are taking them and if they are even alive." Shiki says, not looking up from his cup. Then, he got riff of a sweet smell coming from outside. "Ichijo!" he yelled, standing up fast and heading for the door.
"Yeah, I smelt it too. Blood." Ichijo says, grabbing his rapped up sword and swinging it over his shoulders and rushing out the door, Yagari following behind.
The three of them rushed down to the streets and turned right into an alley, where the found a vampire drinking the blood from a teenage girl. The vampire saw them, and dropped the girl and ran off.
"Mr. Yagari, stay with the girl!" Ichijo yelled, following Shiki down the road, already following the vampire. Yagari did as he was told and helped the girl.
Ichijo followed Shiki who was way ahead of him. Shiki may not have been the strongest, but he was the fastest among them and he was catching up to the vampire. Ichijo tried to keep up, but he had lost them. Then, he heard a blood curdling screaming coming from a block away.
"Senri!" he yelled out when he thought he had found them. When he stopped, he saw Shiki standing still watching the vampire's body go up into flames before their eyes. Then, it turned into dust before their eyes. On the other side of the alley, stood two people one really tall the other a little shorter. They came closer into the alley and into the light.
"Aido and Akatsuki? What are you doing here?" Ichijo asks, standing there in shock alongside Shiki. The four of them stood there in complete silence, not knowing what the other was thinking or what they were going to do. "Please, please don't tell me Kaname isn't behind this!" was all Ichijo could think of.