Title: Visitors from the Future
Genre: General/Romance/Friendship
Rating: T
Pairings: Zero/Kaname
Disclaimer: No, I do not own Vampire Knights. It belongs to Hino Matsuri - I only borrow the characters from the series and use it in my own fic. However, I do own the three original characters & the Fujiwara Clan featured in this story.
Author's notes: I sure hope last chapter is up to your standards, I try to make it as fun as I could … Now on to the next part…a little bit boring, but I would have a bombshell down towards the end of the chapter…
Answer to review by puppetprince: Why not Aidou x Sayori, you asked? Simple, Aidou is a vampire here and Sayori is a mere human. I do not wish to change her into an ex-human because I don't think she would want that either. She's level-head and logical, and besides she knows her role pretty well.
Chapter 49 – Of Dinner Invitations and Party Invitations…
When the twins returned to the Kuran's estate with a smug Kaname and annoyed Zero; they were greeted first-hand by an amused Akane. Within her hands held a note of sort – addressed specifically to one Kaname Kuran.
The note was brought back by Wakaba Sayori whom had visited the Cross Academy for a while to conduct a routine supervision check on the renovation progress, representing 'Fujiwara Corporation' – since the construction company engaged fell under the management of the same organization. Apparently, Chairman Cross had tracked the girl down only to stuff the note in her hands seeking her help in getting the note over to the pureblood prince of the night-class. Once the girl got back to the estate, the note was dump in her lap instead.
Kaname Kuran opened up the folded note and promptly passes it to Zero to read next, the short was short, crisp and direct to the point – seeking both Zero and Kaname's presence for a dinner in the coming weekend. However, in the note the Chairman had specifically mentioned that the twins are not allowed to be present for the dinner. That caused both Kaname and Zero to arch an eyebrow up in surprise.
"Zero, do you have any idea what all this is about?" Kaname asked, the last request from the Chairman seem a little odd and to specifically ban the twins from coming for the dinner was enough to set alarms off in the pureblood's mind.
"…I have a guess, but I need to confirm something with Cross first." That was all Zero was willing to reveal, and with that Zero brought the twins upstairs for their bath and prepare them for bed.
Once Zero and the twins were out of sight, Kaname turned towards Akane for her opinion on the matter but Akane had absolutely no idea this time around.
"I may have arrived from the future, but I don't know each and every little detail of your relationship – okay?" Akane rolled her eyes as she throws to her future adoptive 'father', before turning her attention back to the magazine on hand.
Akane was bored out of her mind, there is no telephone and television in the house – but she gathered this must be due to the fact that nobody had been living here since eight years ago. Okay, correction – there is a television and telephone in the house but with no reception and connection at all, hence it was equivalent to none. Apparently, everyone in the house was so busy that nobody bothered to consider the idea of reconnecting the services to the phone and television set. Knowing that Kaname had a lot on his mind recently, Akane did not bother to bring the issue up to his attention.
Therefore, the sandy-haired girl had taken on to the idea of raiding her cousin mangas collection to pass time or to nick magazines off from the models' pile of leisure materials to keep herself occupied.
Three towns away in the Cross Academy, Kaien Cross was busy placating his hunter friend – Yagari Touga. Thank god, the man has enough sense not to go charging into the Kuran's estate with the idea of slaughtering Kaname Kuran. Apparently, Yagari was contemplating on the idea when the previous memory of what the twins could do during their first encounter wormed itself into his mind. And so, the veteran hunter had ended up stalking back to the Cross residence a little after mid-night that very day, after Zero departed from the residence.
"Touga, quit pacing the floor already. I have already sent a note over to Kaname, seeking his presence for a dinner here on the coming weekend. You can then rant and raved or even threaten him with colourful languages when he arrived for dinner then." Kaien Cross told his friend, inwardly withholding the information that he had also invited Zero along for the dinner. The idea of inviting Zero along was to keep the situation under control, he highly doubted he would be able to keep a murderous Yagari Touga from slaughtering the pureblood if Zero was nowhere in sight.
Yagari Touga was mad, though no longer boiling over with fury like before but he was still displeased by the recent happenings with his once favourite disciple. His mind failed to comprehend the idea how his disciple could change from loathing the blood-suckers' existence to bonding with one of them that easily? Moreover, the blood-sucker in question happens to be a pureblood and that makes even less sense to him. Zero was supposed to hate them all, isn't it?
That was when his inner-voice kindly reminded him of the future trio's presence, and then his face darkens another shade. Now he was blaming the trio for corrupting his disciple, how else could Zero changed from detesting those leeches to liking them even? Frustration at his peak, the veteran hunter stalked out of the place again – he has every intention in mind to go out for some hunting and hoping that the mission could keep him sane in the mind.
"…" Kaien Cross stared as his old pal stalked out of his front door, and sighed inwardly in response. He could only hoped that his friend could be calm enough to go through this coming weekend's dinner without blood-shed occurring. Zero might not have openly admitted it, but that foster son of his would make his life a living hell if anything unfortunate were to befall Kaname Kuran in any sense. Not to mentioned, he would have a whole cohort of aristocrats' level after him if their 'prince' were injured or anything…
Ichiru Kiryuu stood in front of the gates leading up to the house that the Kurenai's resided with conflicted feelings warring in him. The last time he was here, Shizuka-sama was with him but now only he remained.
"Ichiru-san…?" The servant whom opened up the gate greeted him, jolting him back to reality.
With a nod, Ichiru Kiryuu stepped through the threshold and made his way into the western style building in front of him.
"How is Maria doing?" Ichiru asked, directing his question to Maria Kurenai's parents.
"She's still having a high fever, just three hours ago her temperature spike and went up another notch. The only thing she said was your name, so we decided to call you over – hopefully it will set her mind at ease." Maria Kurenai's father responded, addressing Ichiru on behalf of his emotional wreck wife.
Ichiru nodded, as he followed the servant's lead to the girl's room. The room was brightly lit by fluorescent lights; the curtain was drawn as usual. Maria Kurenai laid on her bed looking flushed from the fever she suffered, and fidgets in her sleep – probably suffering from night-mares. Ichiru sat his katana by the side of the cabinet situated next to the bed, as he took a seat gingerly by the sleeping girl's side.
His eyes soften visibly as he reached a hand out to test out the feverish girl's temperature. Martin Kurenai, the father of Maria's was right – the temperature was indeed high to a level that would sends normal humans into a panicky stage. The nightmares obviously only worsen the situation further, but it seems like Ichiru's presence did helped in some ways. At least, Maria Kurenai's trashing stance was put to a stop once Ichiru's hand was laid upon the girl's feverish forehead. Several minutes later, the girl's breathing patterns calmed and become peaceful.
"Well… at least the nightmares were eased." Ichiru commented to no one in particular, as he took on the role of changing the pads on Maria's forehead to keep the temperature down throughout the night.
Maria Kurenai regained her conscious state sometime in the middle of the night, peeking through her heavy eyelids she was met by the sight of Ichiru tending to her sickly self attentively. For the briefest moment, their eyes met and then Ichiru said something about urging her to sleep and that he would stay until she'd recovered. The rest of the night, Maria Kurenai slept peacefully like a baby – no more nightmares haunting her. Whether or not was it due to the silver-haired teen's presence by her side, nobody knew for certain.
Creeping out to the balcony of the room, Ichiru pulled his mobile phone out from his jeans pocket and give Matsushita Ayano a call. The girl was initially adamant on following him out here, but he managed to dissuade the girl from tailing him and instead send her off for another errand.
"Ayano, I know it's late – but can you cancel my following appointments for the next one week or so? I have got something else to attend to; those that cannot be postpone or cancel out – please check with my brother and see if he could attend on my behalf." Ichiru instructed, careful to keep an alerting eyes on the sleeping girl.
"Will do, I'll see what I can do about the appointments. Is that all?" Matsushita Ayano asked, stifling a yawn as she responded into her cellular phone.
"Yes, that will be all – do update me once everything has been arranged." Ichiru answered, before ending the call on his side.
After ending the call, Matsushita Ayano took a glance at her wrist watch that she had placed on the bedside cabinet every night before going to bed.
"…Fancy him to call me at mid-night, I'll just wake up early tomorrow and check his schedule. No point making re-arrangement now anyway, since most business partners are probably asleep by this time." Ayano muttered aloud, before going back to sleep.
The following morning found the two human girls frantically making calls to cancel appointments on behalf of Ichiru Kiryuu, and the elder Kiryuu twin making re-arrangement on his personal schedule to fit his younger twin's appointment into his own.
"Wow… what's happening here, it looked as though a tornado had just swept through." Ichijo Takuma interjected when he walked past the dining room heading for the kitchen for a drink of water.
"Ichiru was held up at the Kurenai, so we are busy re-scheduling his appointment for this week." Zero responded simply, without a bat of his eyelid.
"Speaking of which, who's in charge of Ichijo Enterprise now that Ichiou is no longer around?" Matsushita Ayano suddenly voiced her doubt across to the vice-president of the night-class.
"Eh… I supposed that would be me?" The green eyed blond blinked in surprise before responding hesitantly.
"In that case, kindly look over this four folders – please try to ready it by three month's time. If you have no idea what's going on, I would suggest for you to speak with your family attorney and your grandfather's company legal advisors. I know your utmost priority was to assist Kaname Kuran, but if you decided to wind up Ichijo Enterprise – kindly check if the Kuran are willing to take over the company. The four folders of documents I've just given you are ongoing business proposals between 'Sakura Co-operatives Limited' and Ichijo Enterprise. Do think it over and inform the relevant parties of the final outcome." Ayano said, as she promptly pushes the folders into the green eyed blond vampire's hands.
Ichijo Takuma froze, he might have been his grandfather's sole beneficial party but he had absolutely no idea on how to manage a business. Akane Kiryuu took one look at her cousin's dumbstruck look, and slapped her hand on her forehead.
"You didn't bother paying attention to your teacher's words when you were home-schooled, am I right to say that?" Akane questioned, in a mocking tone of voice as she addressed her cousin.
"…" Ichijo Takuma could only nodded dumbly in response, he never paid much attention to the business factors in his grandfather's work and now it's coming back to bite him in the ass. The only thing he paid attention to was his grandfather's issues relating to the council, anything else he did not bother to pay attention at all.
"…Ayano-san, I'm afraid – we need to organize a crash course on business management for Ichijo Takuma down here." Akane announced, despite knowing for a fact that a certain pureblood by the name of Kaname Kuran was directly behind her when she said that.
"Akane, what is going on down here?" Kaname Kuran takes a look at his childhood friend's pale ashen face, and questioned.
"Your friend over there have been spending too much of his time aiding you, and following your orders around that he totally forgotten about his own family business to attend for – in the case of his grandfather's death. Now I understand that you are sorting through the Kuran's family business as of current and most of the funding for the Ichijo Enterprise was actually from the Kuran's fortunes. Therefore there are two options available now, either you – Kaname Kuran took over the business of Ichijo Enterprise under legal terms; or he would need to learn his ropes in business management – getting in professionals to sort out the financial disputes between the Kuran Incorporation and Ichijo Enterprise." Akane pointed out, objectively and factually.
"While on the subject, how is the restructuring process for the council coming along? Are you going to be the one handling the major issues of the council, since no one has been appointed as the Chairman to be the over-all in charge? The Hunter's Association are more or less done in their restructuring and re-grouping process, it would not be long now that they started going up against the vampire council – again." Zero kindly reminded, shifting his attention away from his personal schedule for a minute.
"…" Kaname Kuran felt the start of his headache building up, and then he shifted the whole group of people into his Study. There, he pour himself a drink from his bottle of brandy to relax his mind before plunging himself into the discussion of his current ideas in mind.
"If I may suggest something…?" Akane interrupted the pureblood mid-speech, and gained herself several pairs of curious eyes.
"The Kuran's businesses from what I know in my time were mainly centred on import, export of crude oil, petroleum – more towards the energy related sectors in the industry. The Ichijo, on the other hand, relied on telecommunications; information technology and other technologies related industry to generate income. The Aidou were mainly dealing with the management of blood bank, and medical sectors – blood tablets were manufactured in their factory. The Akatsuki operated privately managed hospitals for the vampires' society, and the Souen works together with them.
So I gathered the best thing to do now is to sort out the businesses handled by Ichijo Enterprise, separating out the sectors properly. Then get in professional to do a calculation of the money used by Ichijo Asato to fund for his business, and also to calculate the current fixed and liquid assets of both companies. In the meantime, Ichijo Takuma needs to learn the ropes of managing a company. I believed Kaname-sama would be swamped with council related issues and managing his own family business to fully take over the Ichijo Enterprise at this point of time." Akane concluded, pinching in her own opinions to the matter at hand.
"Pray tell, whom do you suggest for the job then?" Zero questioned the sandy-haired girl, who on earth would be the most ideal person to stick their nose into the Kuran-Ichijo business?
"I would suggest getting an outsider to do the job, there's something called outsourcing – you know? These professionals they handled accounts of various companies at the same time, and they charged the company at a reasonable rate and saved the owner of the business the trouble to employ a whole team of internal accountants to do the job." Akane inputted.
"Surely, you don't mean…" Ayano started warily, but was met by Akane's smirk in response.
"My cousin would kill me, you know? She set up the company with her friends with the intention to break away from the clan and now you want me to rope her into this?" Ayano mumbled under her breath, as she reached for her cellular phone placed by the side of the coffee table she was using as a work desk temporarily.
"Technically, she's not helping the clan business. The Kuran and the Ichijo are stand-alone, with no relations to the Fujiwara in any way. Besides, the Fujiwara have their own team of accountants at their disposal so they probably would not be using your cousin's company for service anyway. The Ichijo and the Kuran, on the other hand, needs to conduct major restructuring in the company. Who knows what the hell had Ichijo Asato being doing by managing the Kuran incorporation all these years.
It's better to get an outsider to sort things out, and with Ichijo Asato's tendency to dabble in shady areas - I think your cousin is a better choice then some poor innocents' humans out there. At least, she knows what she's dealing with – how does a five years permanent contract of using her company's service sounds?" Akane suggested, without bothering to ask for permission from her cousin.
"Fine…I'll ask her out for a chat, and then we see how it goes from there." Ayano relented eventually, inwardly hoping that she would not be subjected to her cousin's rant when she called the said person up in a little while time.
The next few days that follow are quite hectic for the green eyed blond vampire, poor Ichijo Takuma was forced to go through the boring and mundane classes of business management with no one but one Zero Kiryuu for company.
"Why isn't your twin going through the crash course too?" Ichijo Takuma questioned, while on his way out from the business college building situated within the compound of Fujiwara Gakuen, on Friday's afternoon. Never in his life would he thought that he would be asked to attend morning classes, and while it was something new to him – the lessons are making him utterly bored.
"Ichiru already completed the course or at least part of the course, before his departure with Shizuka Hiou. He was deemed unsuitable by Master Touga to be learning the ropes of hunting, so my mother gets in a home tutor to teach him a thing or two relating to business related course such that he would have something to do at home while I'm out hunting with my master." Zero responded his tone flat making it hard to discern his current feelings to the topic at hand.
"Oh…"
"Yes, oh… now hurry up and get back to the Kuran's estate already. Ayano's cousin would be dropping by today for the discussion, no? I believe Kaname would appreciate you being there when the guest drop by." Zero interjected, leading his way to the limo sends over by the pureblood to pick them up for home.
When Zero arrived back at the estate with Ichijo Takuma in tow, he was caught off-guard by the number of apprehension stares directed his way. Feeling unnerved, he questioned.
"What's with all that staring about?"
"…" Nobody said anything, until Akane took it upon her-self to hand over an invitation card to Zero before scramming for cover behind a highly amused Kaname Kuran.
Zero took one look in the pureblood direction, before shifting his eyes over to Yuuki – the girl was fidgeting uneasily. Akatsuki Kain was standing stiffly by the side, and Aidou Hanabusa seem as though he wanted to say something but was forbidden to do so by someone – most likely Yuuki or Kaname, Zero surmised.
Taking a deep breath to brace him-self for what was to come, the silver-haired teen flipped open the card and read its content.
To: Kaname Kuran & Family,
You and your family are cordially invited to the engagement party of my daughter – Maria Kurenai, and her fiancé – Ichiru Kiryuu on the 20th of April, 7.p.m. at our humble abode. Do call the following number: 000-1121-8899 to RSVP for the event.
Thank you and we look forward to seeing you and your family at the event.
Regards,
Martin Kurenai.
Zero Kiryuu stared at the card, disbelief apparent on his features – his twin disappeared for nearly a week and dropped this bombshell piece of information on him without any warning in advance? Sure, he knew his twin and Maria Kurenai shared a good relationship between them but still… engagement?! What the hell was going on now?!
The curious Ichijo Takuma peeked at the card content over Zero's shoulder, but once he registered what was written in the card – he started to inch away from the silver-haired teen lest he ended up caught in one of the teen's explosive tantrum.
"Erm… Zero, are you okay…?" Yuuki started to speak up apprehensively when she noticed her friend's odd silence and calming demeanour.
"I am fine, Yuuki – please kindly call and inform them of the number of people attending the party. Exclude the twins from it, but I would be going. I would very much like to find out just how exactly did Ichiru ended up engaging himself without the slightest hint of warning to me – his very own twin." Zero spoke calmly, but inwardly he was seething.
Even the invitation card was addressed to Kaname, and his twin did not bother to get them to send a separate invitation for him. Obviously, Ichiru had deemed it enough to put the term '& family' behind Kaname's name and that it would automatically extended out to him.
'Ichiru… just you wait, I would be sure to invite the Chairman along for the party. He is in a way, considered family too – right? I would have invited Uncle Satoshi along but I didn't think he would want to go…' Zero thought inwardly to himself, making a mental note to broach the subject to Kaien Cross during the dinner the following night at the ex-hunter's residence.
Date started: 24/1/2013
Date completed: 25/1/2013