Spoilers for Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight Guilty TV.

Via Vincio: The Braided Way

By Gabihime ( gabihime at gmail dot com )

2 - We walk a dusty path.

-

Once upon a time there was a goose-girl who was born a princess, but left her mother to go on a journey to a far kingdom where she was to become the wife of a king. Her mother gave her many precious things to take on her journey, but the most precious was a little cloth with the mark of three drops of her mother's own blood.

"This will protect you," she said, "When I cannot."

So the princess set out with her treasures and a chambermaid as a companion.

After they had traveled for a while, the princess was beset by a great and terrible thirst, so she asked of her maid, "Pray get down and fetch me a drink?"

But the maid said, "I shan't. I'm not your servant, and I don't believe that you're a princess at all. If you want a drink, get it yourself."

So because the thirst was terrible, the princess was compelled to dismount her horse and find a drink herself.

-

Zero stood looking at them for what seemed to be the sum total of all the ages of man, then he bent down and picked up the muff at his feet.

He wasn't wearing a coat, a cloak, or even a jacket, as if he had the bare will to disregard the chill in the air, to entirely ignore it because it wasn't immediately pertinent to the situation. He was bareheaded and his breath steamed faintly in front of him. Bloody Rose was holstered under his shoulder, in a plain and visible harness. Yuki could not help but wonder if the Chinese authorities had not challenged him over his handgun. She didn't know what rules applied to vampire hunters, particularly those that crossed international boundaries. But then she had no passport and Kaname seemed confident in his ability to whisk her around the mainland with no consequences, so maybe everything was different, depending.

She didn't know what they would have put on a passport anyway. She could not produce a vampiric birth certificate with her biological parents listed, and although the headmaster had legally adopted her, she did not know if her birthdate ten years previous would really suffice for the authorities, whoever they might be. She did not look like a ten year old girl, and she did not always remember to answer when she was called Kuran princess, and would have likely just haplessly ignored anyone attempting to call her Kuran-san, assuming that they aimed to talk to Kaname. She felt like Yuki Cross, despite the heavy guilt that told her that she was dishonoring and disrespecting the parents who had died to protect her.

She supposed if there had been a passport, it would have been filled with entirely fabricated information. Maybe it was the same for Zero.

Yuki hung, still supported by Kaname's arms, although as he resolved that she was no longer in danger of splitting her head open on the stones and brick, he eased them into a more practical position, keeping one arm reflexively curled around her waist.

"Kiryu-kun," Kaname spoke evenly, "What a pleasant surprise."

Zero's expression did not change. He looked down at the muff in his hands and then turned it over once before turning his attention to them again.

"Maybe," Zero answered noncommittally.

Yuki could feel the tension singing in the air, and from the corner of her eye she could still see Seiren crouched, waiting for a word from Kaname, and she also felt with a sickening surety that Zero would not hesitate to draw and shoot her, if she moved.

"Zero," she said, trying to keep her voice cheerful and steady, a desperate attempt to avert bloodshed with honesty, "I'm very happy to see you."

He turned the muff over again before responding.

"Is that so?" he asked, and seemed utterly disinterested.

"Of course!" she answered peevishly, her momentary irritation with Zero being Zero toppling her discomfort. "I've never been away from home for this long before!"

I've never been away from Zero this long before, she thought, but did not say.

"I see," he said flatly.

She felt like throwing something at him, but worried her violence might be misconstrued by Seiren, who was probably still waiting for any indication that it was fair game to jump on Zero. Besides, she didn't have anything to throw, except for the stones that made up the long wall.

"I worry about you," she explained, rolling her eyes. "I bet you've been sleeping through all your classes, and scaring all the girls." At this she stopped and her brows kit, and she turned her head to the side before asking, "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"Aren't you?" he asked shortly, turning the question over on her.

"Um," she said, because this was not something she had really considered.

"Yuki is taking her lessons with us, currently," Kaname answered.

Fortunately, she did not wonder aloud, I am? and so perhaps much embarrassment was averted. Zero however, did not really seem convinced.

"And who's teaching her?" Zero asked tersely, and Yuki sensed him tremble without really seeing it.

"I am," Kaname answered deliberately, and Yuki could feel his arm around her waist tense briefly, and then relax.

It happened in the span of half a moment, a fraction of a drawn breath as she anticipated Zero moving to pull Bloody Rose and stumbled forward, out of Kaname's arms and into the lonely, chill ground between them, knowing that she was a stupid girl and would only make everyone unhappy, knowing that she might take both the bullet of Bloody Rose and Seiren's blade, not out of malice or because of intention, but because she was always idiotically getting in the way.

But she knew, just as she had known when she had been given the choice by Shizuka Hio.

If the choice is for Kaname to be hurt, or for Zero to be hurt, I would rather it be me who breaks.

"Seiren," she heard Kaname hiss sharply, heard only because she had shut her eyes tightly when she had spread her arms between them, as if she were still a small girl and could resolve a playground dispute just by wailing until the fighting stopped.

She was still for a moment, listening to her heartbeat, then she opened her eyes slowly and found Seiren still crouched, having moved, but having been called down, and the barrel of Bloody Rose a delicate chill near the lobe of her ear. She heard the hammer ease back, and then felt him brush her hair as he reholstered his gun.

"Yuki," she heard Zero mutter, "You're -- "

Having momentarily defused the situation she laughed weakly and leaned down to pick up her muff, which he had dropped to pull his weapon. She turned to look at Kaname who was silently watching her, then turned to look at Zero who was characteristically frowning.

"I know, I know. I know all the things that I am: selfish and stupid and mean. I'm sorry, but I'll keep being troublesome and getting in the way. I don't want anyone to be hurt. Not Zero, or Kaname, or Seiren-san, or anyone." And then she smiled, "And I know I'm a terrible person, because right now I'm happy. I'm happy that we're here together right now. Kaname and Zero," she shook her head, "I'm sorry. I'm just happy."

"Don't apologize," Zero said, and it was hard and abrupt, like a commandment from heaven. He turned his back on them. "You shouldn't have to apologize for being happy."

"I feel like I should," she began uncertainly.

"Because you're stupid," he said, and put his hands in his pockets.

"I'm stupid," she admitted, "But let's not fight."

"If that is what you desire, Yuki," came Kaname's calm reply. She could feel that she had hurt him and that he sought to conceal it. She moved to go to him.

Zero turned his head to watch her move, then turned his face away again.

"So be it," was all he said, and then walked away, back in the direction that he had come.

-

In the early morning, after they had boarded the train at Beijing, Yuki excused herself from company and went to sit in the dark of their cabin alone. Aido and Ruka had been high strung for most of the night after finding that Zero Kiryu had paid Kaname an unwanted visit while they had occupied themselves in the village, looking at curios. This had done nothing to assuage the sick and building guilt that pulled at Yuki from all sides. She had done something wrong. Kaname had been hurt. Zero was unhappy. Everyone was distressed. She was selfish. She did not want to see anyone, so she had quietly curled up in the bed with her giant panda and squeezed it hard until she exhausted herself, and then lay very still.

She had intended to remain alone with her worry and her guilt, but Kaname had been watching her closely all night, and seeing her excuse herself, he waited only long enough to pay cursory respect to her desire for privacy and then retired himself.

After he left the company, they all sat around in the club car staring moodily at one another until Aido tired of this and felt he had to make some sort of fuss to feel better about the situation. He did not want to think he had been remiss in allowing Kaname and Yuki out of his sight, thus perpetuating this standoff with an unwanted party. The truth of the matter was that it was mainly because he was likely to follow them anywhere, even into inappropriate situations, that Ruka and Kain generally endeavored to keep a respectful distance, and to keep him on a leash. They all knew that Seiren shadowed Kaname at all moments, and they never lingered at any measurable distance.

But Zero Kiryu had been upon the two of them, pulled a gun on Kaname, and then sent himself away all in the span of about four minutes.

It left them all feeling stung by inadequacy.

"I can't believe that Kiryu still has the gall to point a gun at Kaname-sama," stormed Aido, and then felt stupid and small for having stated something so dreadfully obvious. He poked irately at his juice cocktail.

Kain shrugged. "I can," he answered simply.

"He deserves to be torn into pieces," continued Aido shrewishly, because as Zero was not present he was a very convenient target. "A vampire hunter vampire who has no respect for blood or birth, no respect for the fact that he was granted the privilege of continuing to live -- "

"Kaname-sama does not want him torn to pieces," Ruka interjected sharply and Aido crossed his arms to sulk.

Kain leaned back in his chair and watched the Chinese countryside slip by them, then stated, "What could we have done, even if we'd been there? Kaname-sama intends to handle this in his own way. We don't know what he's thinking. I think we should leave it in his hands. When he needs us, we'll know."

"It's difficult," complained Aido, and then sighed and leaned forward on his elbows. "It's difficult not being able to do something."

"You just want to rush in on a white horse and shatter anything you think is making him unhappy," observed Ruka, who gazed into her tea as if she might tell their fortunes. She looked up at him critically. "Particularly when it is also making you unhappy. When has that ever pleased Kaname-sama?"

Aido leaned his forehead against the cool finished wood of their table and grunted, "That's why I'm not doing it."

-

The rails made a soothing rhythm that was not unlike a heartbeat, even, steady and comforting. In the cool darkness, in the room they kept as theirs, it could pull away all his troubles if he listened to it while she lay close to him, and he could twine up the sound of the train's heartbeat with the sound of her heartbeat and her breathing, with the sound of his own. But this morning it was not so.

As Kaname's eyes adjusted to the darkness he found her small body on the bed, still wearing her clothes from the night previous, on top of all the covers and curled against a panda bear that had come from a gift shop in Jinan. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and folded his hands in his lap.

"Yuki," he found his voice lower and more strained with emotion than he intended, so he mastered himself and steadied it before continuing. "You'll catch a cold if you sleep on top of the blankets in your clothes."

She said nothing, but he knew she was not asleep, so he leaned over her and brushed the hair away from her neck.

Her eyes were closed, but they were closed too tightly for her to be at peace.

"What has upset you, Yuki?" he asked, his voice low, "Tell me. Whatever it is, it will be changed."

This was something he believed, although to believe it cut open something in his gut. If she required anything for her happiness, he would provide it, even if the thing she required was his absence. He would make himself give her anything, no matter what he wanted, no matter how he felt, because he loved her, and this, he thought, was the greatest expression of his love: to lie down naked and unresisting before her, and let her walk over him with bare feet.

"I upset me," she answered unsteadily, rubbing one fist against her face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you when I did -- when I did what I did. I didn't think. I just did it. I just did it without thinking. I didn't want anyone to get hurt."

"That is because you have a kind heart," Kaname answered her quietly, pulling her fist away from her face. "I'm not angry. You do not have to apologize to me for being yourself. I want Yuki to be Yuki."

"I hurt you," she insisted, "I never want to hurt you, Kaname." Yuki could feel it hanging in the air between them, although he would not say it, refused to recognize that it even existed -- "But I couldn't think of anything else to do -- "

"You acted rightly," he cut her off firmly, but softened his voice by touching her face with his fingertips. "If you had not acted, then ultimately, you would have been hurt, and this is not something that I will allow."

"I love you," she shouted at him breathlessly, as if it were terrifying for her not cry it out, strange and half-crazed -- terrifying for him not to hear it at that pale, burdened moment -- as if it were a small light to ward away monsters in the dark. Her cry was muffled by the bear she buried herself against, but plain enough to hear to someone listening.

For a moment it was still, and there was only the sound of her ragged breathing. She raised her hand to touch his, lying delicately against her face like the brush of feathers, the touch-cognition of desperate, voiceless wonder. After a tentative, exploratory touch she laced her fingers through his and tried to regulate her breathing.

"I don't want the things that I do to make you unhappy," she tried again, softly.

"Nothing you do could make me unhappy," he answered, and this, in a way, was not an untruth because he believed it was so.

She shook her head against the mattress.

"What are you really feeling right now?" she struggled to drag his fears and wants out of him, rolling away from the bear so that she could look up into his face.

"Yuki," he answered softly, and his eyes shone faintly, like light through pyrope, "I love you."

"Kaname," she murmured in thready, hypnotic response, and then he leaned over her and pinned one arm over her head by their laced fingers.

He was slow and deliberate as he kissed her, controlled, feeling the curve of her lower lip against his, tasting its fullness slowly with his tongue until she whimpered and her lips parted, and he found her tongue as warm and pebbled as wet fruit. He felt her put her other arm around him. Her touch was light, her fingers painting nonsense patterns against his back. When her tongue grazed one of his fangs he drowned on the the warm thread of her blood, and after that, he lost all sense of time.

-

When he had left them the night previous, Yuki had been consumed by the terrible feeling that Zero had deserted them, a feeling that she was ashamed to have because she thought it was not right to have it, not fair to have it. She attempted to pretend her feeling was something different than what it was, that it meant something different than what it did, and so she made herself sick and worried and swallowed by guilt.

However, this singular fear was laid to rest shortly when Zero appeared before them at eight post meridian the following night, a nonchalant presence in the dining car, just another passenger -- one wearing an openly displayed firearm.

He sat down at a table, without invitation, next to Yuki, who had been poking thoughtfully at her fried duck with a fork. Kaname said nothing.

When Zero had the audacity to sit down, Aido abandoned his tenderloin and stood up irately.

"This is a private dining car," he insisted.

Zero didn't turn to look at him, but simply answered, "That's convenient."

Ruka's knuckles whitened on her dinner knife, but she made no other indication that she even recognized that Zero was in the room.

Kain glanced up at Aido, cast a look over at Ruka and then lightly touched her white-knuckled hand with his fingertips, shaking his head once before drawing away and leaning back in his chair to see what Kaname would do.

Aido remained on his feet, but as his fuming didn't seem to be accomplishing anything, at last he stuck his nose in the air with fine indignation and made a noise of ill content, just so Zero would be forced to acknowledge that he was not welcome among them. Zero ignored him, and Kaname seemed unlikely to say anything, so at last Aido sat down again.

Even after she had gotten over her immediate surprise, Yuki could not help but exclaim, "Zero! What are you doing here?"

That he was there in the dining car with them seemed an impossible thing, like sitting down to eat with Santa Claus or the Pumpkin King, but Zero just shrugged.

"Getting something to eat," he motioned to her duck, which she had abandoned in her amazement at his second coming.

"When did you get on the train?" she asked, her brows knit. It seemed incredible to her that he had followed them so closely, that he had boarded and ridden the same train, and yet she had not noticed him. But then, she had been preoccupied, thinking of Kaname, being with Kaname, worried, Zero, but Kaname, Kaname --

"At Beijing, same as you," he answered shortly.

"Why haven't I seen you on the train before now?" she asked, leaning forward on her hand. She did not really expect him to answer her questions, which likely had obvious answers. In another time he would have hit her on the head lightly with a composition book and suggested she figure it out for herself. To her surprise, he answered her like they were nice people who were sitting and having a nice dinner, not like she was just Yuki, who could be ignored and put off when it suited him. This made her happy, because she did not like to be put off.

"Because I'm not traveling first class," he suggested, and abruptly waved over a waitress who had appeared at last at the end of the car.

She smiled a little, and waited while he ordered something small from the menu. After the waitress had gone, Yuki turned her head to the side.

"You're following us?" she asked, still expecting him to give her a brush-off answer, something non-committal, a half-truth to cover his discomfort.

But all he said was, "Yes." It was short and brusquely offered. He provided no further explanation.

Her heart moved into her throat for a dizzying, confused moment, but then she struggled to make sense of his answer. He had been sent by the Association to watch them, or by the headmaster, who wanted to check up on his only daughter. He had come to dispatch some important information. There was someone dangerous on the move, and only he knew about it. Ultimately it did not matter at all what the reason was, not really. Zero was there, and that, she found, was better than him not being there, no matter the reason. Perhaps the only things that moved them together were accidents of fate. She was grateful for them.

"In that case, we're going to Haerbin next," she attempted to make pleasant conversation, "I've never been so far north."

"I haven't either," Zero said, and that was all he said.

The conversation might have fallen off, had Kaname not calmly interjected, "It's a beautiful city. It's the season for ice sculptures. If Yuki likes, you are welcome to join us, Kiryu-kun."

In some ways, Yuki was completely artless. She had no way of covering what welled up in her heart, and cried out, "Really?" before flushing and forcing herself to look at her plate.

Zero looked at Yuki, who would not look at him, and then looked at Kaname, who returned his gaze intently until Zero shifted his attention to Yuki's abandoned dinner.

"I think," he said slowly, "That I will."

At this Yuki looked up at him and smiled, open-mouthed and heedlessly gleeful, riding an elation high that had no use for sense or reason. Then she turned to Kaname and shared her smile. Kaname smiled back faintly, until she looked away from him, and then he stared at Zero again intently.

Zero rattled his knuckles against the tabletop once, then tapped the edge of Yuki's plate with an insistent finger.

"You should eat your dinner," he recommended absently, "Before it gets cold."

-