A/N: Things are about to get intense for Ichijo and Shiki. With all the missing people being abducted and the suspects probably being aristocrat vampires falling is bad enough. Now, they have Yagari following them and working on the case with them, and now running into Aido and Akatsuki! What are they doing there? And does Kaname have anything to do with this?

"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 is the one behind this!" was all Ichijo could think of.

"Ichijo, and Shiki. It's been a long time." Akatsuki says, being the first one to speak up. He looked over his two former classmates, not surprised about them being here.

"Not really, it's only been a couple of months or so. Though, it does feel like a long time, doesn't it?" Ichijo says, keeping his face cool and serious. He looked over at Shiki and saw that he was holding his arm, trying to keep it from shaking. "Why was he afraid?" he thought to himself. "I ask again, what are you doing here?"

"Relax Ichijo!" Aido says, stepping closer to them. "We are all on the same side here. We came because we heard about the missing people in this town and thought we'd check it out."

"That's not usually your job Aido." Ichijo says, stepping in front of Shiki. "And besides, you hate the day time. Kaname told you to come here, didn't he?" he asks seriously.

Aido and Akatsuki look at each other for a minute, and then Akatsuki sighed. "You know Kaname to well Ichijo. Yes, Kaname did send us here to check things out. He was wondering what was happening; more towards the aristocrat vampires going missing than the humans. We didn't know you would be here." Akatsuki says; he looked over past Ichijo and towards Shiki. "Are you investigating the humans going missing?"

"Actually, we are investigating both. We believe that the aristocrat vampires that went missing are attacking and taking the humans that went missing. We are working with Yagari on the case." Ichijo said. He didn't want to mention Yagari, but if it would make them leave sooner he would say anything at this point.

"So there is a hunter working the case; sucks that it has to be Yagari." Aido says, folding his arms in the back of the head. "Alright, we'll go." He moves towards Akatsuki and pats his shoulder. "Let's go." he whispers and walks off.

"Take care Ichijo, and you to Shiki." Akatsuki says, glaring over Ichijo to look at Shiki. Then he turns and disappears alongside Aido.

"Hey! What happened to the vampire?" Yagari yells from behind, finally finding them. He stops and stares at the two of them. They were surprising quiet and the brown haired one look like he was shaking.

"We took care of it. We couldn't tell if it was a Level E or an aristocrat vampire. We'll have to investigate more." Ichijo says, turning around to look at Yagari.

"How's the girl?" Shiki asked, speaking for the first time since they ran into Aido and Akatsuki; although his voice was a little shaky.

"She'll be fine. She's going to make a full recovery." He says, surprised that a vampire actually cares if a human was alright or not.

"Alright then, I guess we'll end it here for today." Ichijo says, walking over and placing his hand on Shiki's shoulder. "We should probably head back to the apartment and tell Headmaster Cross about our findings." He gives Shiki a soft smile and the two of the head out of the alley.

"We'll meet at the same diner we did today for further investigation." Yagari yells to them, as he watches them leave.

Ichijo just waves back at him. He didn't know if Yagari notice Shiki's condition. All he wanted to do was get Shiki back at the apartment and calm him down. "What made Shiki so scared back there?" he thought to himself. Did he miss something before he showed up?

ΩΩΩ

For the whole ride back to the apartment they sat in complete silence. Ichijo kept staring at Shiki and it seemed like he had calmed down a little bit. Shiki was just staring out the window the whole ride back, thinking about something that Ichijo couldn't comprehend. Something happened in that alley before he had gotten there, and he wanted to ask him what that was.

When they got back to the apartment, Ichijo grabbed a glass from the manager and took it to the bathroom. Her poured some water into in, and then added two blood tablets into it. When he came back from the bathroom, he saw that Shiki was sitting on his bed rather than his own. He sat down next to him and handed him the drink. Shiki took it and only took little sips from it.

"What happened?" Ichijo finally asked. Shiki didn't reply and the two sat there in silence for a minute. "Senri?"

"That was going to be me." Shiki finally said. "If I didn't sense Akatsuki's presence, I would've ended up like that vampire and be burnt alongside him." He gripped the glass so tightly that it broke and the contents in the glass spilled all over the floor.

"Senri!" Ichijo yelped. He grabbed the handkerchief from his right inside pocket and started cleaning his hand. He looked into Shiki's eyes and saw that there was nothing but fear in them. In all this time of knowing him, he had never once seen such fear in Shiki's eyes before. This in turn; made Ichijo fear for his friend.

"Akatsuki was going to kill me alongside that vampire." Shiki says, now staring blankly at Ichijo.

"I'm sure Akatsuki didn't mean anything by it. Of all of us, you had the sharpest senses. He probably didn't sense you like you did him." Ichijo says, trying to comfort his friend. Ever since Shiki was a kid he had never been a fan for fire; being around Akatsuki when he uses his powers often made Shiki uncomfortable. "Since I told them Yagari was working with us we probably won't see them anymore." Ichijo, now sitting next to Shiki, took his hand and started licking the rest of his blood off his hand.

Shiki just starred at Ichijo, not even stopping him from licking the wounds on his hand. His friend may be trying to comfort him, but it wasn't working. He can't forget the look on Akatsuki's face when he set that vampire on fire. He also kept looking back at Shiki, as if he knew something that he didn't. Once Ichijo was done licking his hands, he took it his hand back and cleaned up the mess on the floor. "I just want to get this case done and over with." He says.

Ichijo bent down and hugged Shiki after he was done cleaning the mess. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you anymore Senri. I'm not going to let the past repeat itself." He promised Shiki.

After they cleaned up the mess and Shiki calmed down, Ichijo called Headmaster Cross and told him everything, including about Akatsuki and Aido.

"Akatsuki and Aido were there too?" Cross asks, as if not hearing it the first time.

"Yeah, they were the ones that killed the vampire today. They said Kaname was the one who ordered it." Ichijo says, he was on the phone while Shiki was going over the case file they got from Yagari.

"Was Yuki with them?" he asks, worry in his voice.

"No, neither was Ruka. It was just them two." Ichijo says. He was pretty sure that they weren't even in town. Kaname probably heard about the rumors and ordered the two of them to check it out.

"Alright, it was right for you not to tell Yagari you ran into those two. We need to solve these cases first before we deal with them." Cross says. "Keep me posted."

"Yeah, will do." Ichijo says, hanging up the phone. He lied back onto his bed and looked up at Shiki. "Did you find anything?"

"Maybe," Shiki says as Ichijo sits up. "All of the humans had nothing in common, but the vampires do. They were all last seen leaving the night club a block away from the diner we went to this morning." He takes some of the photos and shows them to Ichijo.

Ichijo carefully looks over the photos and see the sign for the night club. "The Night Hub?"

Shiki looks up at Ichijo. "You know the place?" he asks.

"Yeah, it's one of the places my Grandfather bought out when it wasn't doing so well and possibly going out of business." Ichijo says. He had been there once before he entered the academy. It was full of aristocrat vampires who knew him pretty well. "We should tell Yagari about this tomorrow and check it out." Now that his grandfather was dead, he didn't know who was running what.

"Yeah, we should probably get some rest." Shiki said, closing up the case files and going over to his bed. He turned off the light next to his bedside and crawled into his bed. "Night Takuma."

"Night Senri." Ichijo says. The Night Hub wasn't one of Ichijo's favorite places to go. He didn't tell Shiki, but he was dreading tomorrow.

ΩΩΩ

The next morning, Ichijo and Shiki got up early enough to meet up with Yagari at the diner. The sun wasn't out at all, which made things easier for Shiki to handle the daytime. The two of them were the first ones to arrive at the diner, and they just ordered coffee until Yagari should up. When the waiter dropped of their coffee, Yagari had just walked in and found the two.

"Another person went missing last night." He says, taking the seat across from them.

"That was faster than I had expected." Ichijo says, drinking the last bit of coffee he had. "We think that The Night Hub may have something to do with this. It's full of aristocrat vampires and it's also the last place the missing vampires were seen."

"Alright, let's go there." Yagari says, standing up and heading for the door.

Shiki looked over and Ichijo and the two of them just shrugged it off and followed him.

The night club was open 24 hrs. a day and it was a club for both humans and vampires. Though, most people don't know that the club is owned by vampires and that it's mainly for vampires. They kept it open for humans to come in to keep the cover going, but since Ichiruu Ichijo had died, some things may have changed.

There weren't many people there and most of them were humans. Ichijo knew the guy who was tending the bar, and he was a vampire. The bar tender bowed his head in respect and should them the way to the back.

"Where is everyone?" Ichijo asked. Yagari looked around while Shiki kept close to Ichijo.

"Not many vampires come in during the day." The vampire said, not looking up to them.

Once they got to the back room and into the alley way, the vampire went berserk and attacked Yagari. He pulled out his shot gun and shot a couple of rounds at him. The vampire easily dodged it and attacked Ichijo. Shiki bit into his hand to draw blood and started whipping at the vampire, trying to keep it away from him. The vampire turned and stopped for a second, staring at Shiki. "Rido Kuran." It said, and attacked Shiki.

"Senri!" Ichijo yelled, trying to get to his friend. But two other vampires should up and blocked his and Yagari's way.

Shiki, still fighting the bar tender, was caught off guard when another jump him from behind and stabbed him in the back. An immense, sharp pain took over his body and he dropped to his knees, watching as Ichijo and Yagari trying to get to him.

Ichijo watches and the two vampires picked up Shiki and carried him off. The other two vampires knock him and Yagari back and disappeared along with the other and Shiki. Ichijo tried to go after them, but Yagari stopped him. "Let go of me Toga! They took Senri!" he yelled, trying to fight him off.

"I know! But they took him alive, which means they want him alive. Besides, we don't know where they went. We have to call Cross and tell him what happened." Yagari says, trying to stop Ichijo from doing something stupid.

Ichijo looked at Yagari, then back in the direction they ran off too. Shiki's blood and stopped spilling and there was no means of following them. He sheathed his sword and nodded his head. "Alright, we'll do it your way." He says.

Yagari just nodded his head, and started walking out of the alley. Ichijo looked back at the blood stain that was left behind from Shiki's wound. He had failed in protecting his friend and now he was gone missing as well. But what really bugged him was that the vampire called Shiki Rido Kuran. "Could they have been his left over followers from before?" he thought to himself. Whatever the reason it didn't matter, all Ichijo cared about was getting Shiki back. No matter the cost.