A/N: Wow! I think this is the longest chapter I've written so far. I hope you like it!
Reviews make me eager to write more. If this is something that you want, please review! :)
Bizarre was the only word Reina could think of to express what the last few nights at Cross Academy had been like. Well, distressing was another one that would probably come close. And foreboding. Not that all her nights at Cross Academy weren't bizarre, distressing, and foreboding, but the last few had been especially so. And it all had to do with the new student with the gray hair and languid eyes.
Maria Kurenai; that was her name, apparently. She was supposedly in bad health (could a vampire be in bad health? Reina wondered,) and had been resting at her villa in the mountains while she prepared herself to transfer to the Academy. She was an aristocrat; she was in both of Reina's classes; and besides that, she was intensely weird. That was Reina's evaluation of her, anyway. She had never actually spoken with the new girl, as Maria, like all the other vampires, seemed content to completely ignore the presence of the lowly common vampire among them. But she watched Maria from a distance, and the foreboding feeling which she felt emanating from the girl continued to put her on edge. Even more frustrating was the fact that she had nothing concrete to base it upon. The girl's behavior was not particularly threatening or suspicious; in fact, it was almost the opposite. Maria Kurenai spoke in a high-pitched voice which belied a kind of innocence, and laughed often- far more often than a regular vampire would, actually. She was almost- Reina hated to think it- kind of perky.
But there was something that Zero had said which had tipped the balance of her usual indifference. The words which he had inadvertently uttered as they stood by the fountain on the night they first saw Maria; two words which made absolutely no sense. As he had looked at the newcomer girl with wild eyes, Zero had pushed his hand inside his jacket to where the Bloody Rose gun was located and whispered lowly, the painful pressure in his voice fissurizing every syllable of the name Shizuka Hio. Reina had to blink before she realized what he'd said, and then she turned and looked at him in utter confusion. The girl in front of them did not have the feeling of a pureblood- what was he doing, why was he…. Just when Reina was really starting to wonder if she would have to stop him from yanking out his gun and massacring the new Night Class student, the girl smiled at them and gave a tiny, disturbing laugh. For a moment, everything was still. When Reina looked again, Zero's eyes were still raging, but he looked suddenly confused, less sure of himself. He could surely sense it too- this girl was not a pureblood. She could not be that woman, Shizuka Hio. And yet, even so….
After Zero had stormed away and the new girl had skipped off the catch up with the other, more quiet Night Class students, Reina had stood alone beside the fountain for quite awhile, listening to the wind.
Reina knew very well that the gray-haired girl was not the infamous pureblood whose name Zero had whispered with such deafening certainty. She did not know why he had said that name, or what he had meant. Even so, figuring that out was now the least of her worries. Because as impossible, irrational, and unbelievable as it seemed, her senses were whispering to her again, telling no lies but only speaking in riddles. And the truth that they told her was that somehow, in a way which she couldn't explain, Maria Kurenai was not alone on the Cross Academy grounds. There was someone else there as well, someone whose presence felt enough like hers to almost indicate a twin- except that according to the official records, Maria Kurenai was the only transfer student who had come to the Academy. What was even more confusing, the 'other presence,' as Reina thought of it, did not have the fullness and vibrancy of a complete other person. It was a very faint sensation on the wind, too vague to even trace its location. She was only able to detect it at all because of her extraordinary senses. And her senses had been right about Zero, after all- it seemed it would be foolish not to trust them once again.
After about a week of silently keeping her eye on the Maria Kurenai during classroom hours, Reina had tried to voice her concerns to Headmaster Cross. Most unhelpfully, he had told her that Kaname was in charge of the information concerning the Night Class vampires, and that she should ask him if she wanted to know about the new transfer student. Reina didn't know if he was being honest, or if this was just another of his diabolical schemes to get her to talk to Kaname. Either way, it wasn't going to work. She would find out what she needed to know in her own way.
All of this explained why Reina was at that very moment crossing the bridge which led to the Moon Dorm in broad daylight. For the first time in more than a full year, the half-blood girl was at Cross Academy in the middle of the day, when the humans were out. She was wearing her street clothes, and she had waited until all the classes were in session before slipping out of her car and making for the stone-cut bridge. She could not be officially identified as a Night Class student, but sometimes very astute humans could tell anyway. It was the beauty. She did not want to be distracted by eager humans. She was on a mission to find out information- but not from Kaname. She was going to talk to Takuma. And she was not going to ask him about Maria Kurenai.
As Reina approached the gatekeeper, she was surprised to see someone already standing in front of him, someone short and rather skinny. The half-blood girl didn't know whether to feel dismayed or resigned as she strode up to the small figure of Yuki Cross, who was looking at her with big, brown eyes. She knows the truth now, Reina thought, and felt suddenly awkward about how the younger prefect might have taken the news that Reina had been collaborating with her father to conceal her identity from the rest of the school. She cleared her throat to get the gatekeeper's attention, and the man silently nodded her through. He recognized her instantly as a vampire, something which made Reina even more uncomfortable about being here.
"Hello, Reina-san." The older girl was almost relieved when Yuki finally broke the awkward silence. She nodded in return. "Hello."
The two brunettes hesitantly fell into step together as they started out toward the Moon Dorm. Yuki tried a curious smile. "I didn't know that you stayed at the Moon Dorm during the day, Reina-san. The Headmaster said you lived off-campus."
"I do," Reina replied brusquely. Yuki stopped smiling and looked away, and Reina wondered if she'd sounded too harsh. "I mean, I don't live here. On campus. In the Moon Dorm. I'm just stopping by quickly. I have some business here. A small matter."
"So do I," Yuki said, nodding. "Only it's not really a small matter…." She bit her lip softly. "You're in the Night class, Reina-san….and you're –well, I mean- I don't suppose you'd know anything about what Kaname-sama is thinking when it comes to transferring Zero there?"
"Kaname and I are not friends." Reina snapped overly loudly, then forced herself to keep her temper in check. It was probably just unlucky chance that the shy prefect was hitting on all of her sore spots. Yuki Cross was far too innocent for Reina to believe she could be doing it on purpose. "I was not aware that Zero was considering transferring to the Night Class….although I suppose it makes sense."
"Well, he's not. That's the problem. Zero hates vampires- he's not considering going to school with them. Other people are considering it for him, but I think it would be really bad for him, so that's why I'm-um-here. To see Kaname-sama," Yuki rattled off, glancing nervously at the building looming ahead of them. Reina was surprised on several counts, the least of which being that Yuki thought Kaname was the sort of person to approach about something like this. She flexed her fingers gently, letting them round themselves into tiny points at the very end.
"I hate to point it out, but if your friend hates vampires so much, he's got himself a real problem."
"I know." Yuki said quickly. "That's what I've been thinking….ever since I found out. It's just- poor Zero. All this time, I didn't know…. He's been putting himself through all that torture on top of what he already…." She paused. They were at the bottom of the steps which led to the Moon Dorm entrance, the breeze blowing gently around them. Reina could sense that Yuki was hedging around a certain topic, something about Zero, but she kept her face politely indifferent. It was not fitting for her to ask prying questions about Zero's personal life, or Yuki's, for that matter. Her job was simply to provide the blood and leave it at that.
"Actually- there's something I want to say to you," Yuki half-blurted out, wrapping her hands around each other in front of her Cross Academy skirt. "I meant to say it before, but I was so surprised, finding out about Zero and then finding out about you- I got distracted. But….thank you. Really, thank you for giving your blood to Zero. I'm not really sure how you do what you do….I don't know much about half-blood powers….but Zero is my oldest friend. Having him here means everything to me. So thank you for protecting his life, Reina-san."
The little prefect bowed slightly, and Reina felt a bit flustered. She wasn't sure what to do with so much emotion, so much gratitude. "It's fine. Don't worry about it. Thank you for not freaking out when you found out I was a half-blood."
"You're still you," Yuki shrugged, beginning to walk up the steps. "Just like Zero's still Zero. I just understand a lot more now about certain things that I didn't before." She paused, and looked over her shoulder. "And I know how important it is to keep the secret. I won't say anything." Reina stood still for a moment, then followed Yuki slowly up to the doors.
The first floor lounge of the Moon Dorm was dark and quiet, but not entirely empty. Sprawled out on one of the richly dressed couches in the center of the room was a tousled blonde head and a languid body. Clear blue eyes opened as the two outsiders walked through the doors, and Hanabusa Aido stood up slowly, wincing at the sunlight they let in. Yuki smiled naively and stepped forward, and Reina felt the sudden urge to pull her back. She had heard stories being traded among the other Night Class students about Aido, including that he was not as fastidious as the others about following the rules against drinking human blood. When Aido saw who was following Yuki in, his expression quickly changed from annoyance to dark anger. "Why are you here?" he snapped, narrowing his eyes at Reina.
The half-blood girl scoffed, brushing aside his glare. "It doesn't concern you, Aido. I'm certainly not here to see you."
He hissed as he stepped closer to her, twitching his fingers at his side; the fleshy digits were rapidly morphing into unyielding claws. "You poisoned me with some sort of serum on that night. I don't know how you dare-"
"Oh, I dare. I dare very much. I'll do it again anytime. Although next time I suggest you look before you leap, so you won't look as stupid when you fall."
"You dirty low-breed!" Aido growled in a voice that would have been frightening if she had been a human. Yuki took an alarmed step backward and bumped into her. "You might as well turn around and get your ugly face out of here right now, because I won't let you get within twenty feet of Kaname-sama's door. He's resting. As if bothering him at school wasn't bad enough…."
"I'm not here to see your precious pureblood," Reina snapped scornfully.
"I am." Yuki's steady voice from behind her surprised her somewhat. Although the little human was obviously intimidated by Aido, she seemed to grow braver at the mention of Kaname.
The blonde vampire didn't look any more pleased at this announcement. "And why do you think you can just waltz in here and see Kaname-sama whenever you please?"
Yuki flushed slightly, inclining her head toward the ground. "I-I don't think he'll mind. It's very important. And Kaname-sama is kind…."
"To you, yes," Aido replied as Reina laughed lowly in her throat. "I can't understand why he cares so much about you, shows you so much consideration. Both of you." He declared, sweeping his eyes across the pair of them. "It's really….pissing me off, actually…."
He took a step forward, and Reina prepared to spit out an acidic reply. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Yuki cried out very close to her ear. The half-blood girl automatically assumed a fighting stance while glancing up and down the little prefect, trying to assess where she was hurt. She didn't seem to be injured, and there was no smell of blood, but something clear and shining had attached itself to her foot and was crawling slowly up her leg. In another moment, Reina recognized the crackle of forming ice.
"Hanabusa Aido, let her go!" Reina demanded, feeling her stomach begin to twist in knots. Aido smirked and took another step forward, his ice crawling further up Yuki's leg, immobilizing her above the kneecap. Yuki struggled and gasped at the cold, her shaking hands reaching behind her to clamp onto Reina's arms in order to keep her balance. Reina stepped forward as well, blocking off Aido's advance with her shoulder. The small prefect was the very same height as her younger sister.
"Tell me…." Aido demanded lowly, staring straight past Reina into the eyes of his prey, "What are you to Kaname-sama? Why does he care about you so much?"
Reina wouldn't have dignified the pretentious idiot with an answer, but Yuki seemed to be hoping she could still salvage the situation. "It's not like that!" she insisted fearfully, still tugging at her captured leg. "Kaname-sama saved my life ten years ago from a vampire who had gone berserk. That's why…."
"Oh?" Aido raised his eyebrow in surprise, but he did not dissipate his ice. Reina would have been surprised as well, if she had not been furiously debating the best way to extricate Yuki and herself from this situation. She could destroy Aido's ice mentally, but that would require power beyond the level of an aristocrat. If she displayed that power, her cover would be blown. We should never have come here, Reina thought, angry with herself for getting involved like an idiot. Then she glanced at Aido's golden-blonde hair, and an idea fluttered its way to the surface of her mind.
The vampire glanced searchingly over Yuki, seeming to decide that she was telling the truth. "That still doesn't justify it…." he murmured in dissatisfaction before turning his poison eyes on Reina. "And you?"
There was a pause, a beat of silence in which both vampires seemed to understand that this would not end until one of them destroyed the other. This was about revenge, and Yuki was a casualty. Aido made the first move. He took a breath, and instantly his ice swept out across the wooden floor like a crystal tsunami, freezing everything it touched. Reina had no time to do anything but leap in the air, the ice following her and drawing crazy, tree-like formations in the middle of the room. Yuki shrieked as she was engulfed up to her neck, and Reina's focus narrowed down to one thing; she had to hit Aido hard enough to break his control. She hooked her arm around one of the ice spires and slid down it, landing in the corner by the empty fireplace. Before Aido could box her in, Reina pushed off and shot across the newly frozen floor with inhuman grace, dragging her clawed hand against the wall. A second later, she had reached the other side and every curtain in front of every window had been torn away from the glass. Golden sunlight blazed into the room and lit up the ice in a blinding display of brightness.
Reina knew that Aido was an aristocrat, and as such, sunlight could not seriously hurt him, not even sunlight magnified by his own ice. However, the pampered little princeling was clearly not used to being uncomfortable, and the sudden appearance of the light shocked him. He howled and threw his arms over his face, stumbling back into the banister. Reina could hear Yuki's frantic grunts as the prefect strained to get her body free, and while Aido was stunned, she pushed off from the wall and careened in for the final blow. She slammed into Aido and they rolled over once. Reina felt a bolt of fire sear across her stomach, from her naval to the bottom of her breast, but she didn't look down to see the blood. She grabbed Aido by the lapels of his shirt and leaned into him as hard as she could, shoving him against the nearest wall. The next few seconds were a bit surreal. One moment Aido and the wall were there, the next moment the plaster had caved in as easily as the opening of a mailbox slot, and he disappeared into the building's inner darkness with a tremendous crack. Behind her, someone screamed. Reina whirled around just in time to see the ice spires collapsing into spears and pointed shards, the ice floor cracking as if by an earthquake, and a small, short-haired figure flailing about desperately as the ice sloughed off of her, about to fall into a forest of glassine needles. Reina growled hysterically. "God dammit!"
The next few moments were rather unpleasant, and if Reina had been given an option, she would have preferred to forget them forever. They involved diving through a merciless shower of icicles, hitting the ground with a burst of blood and a tearing of flesh, and tumbling uncontrollably across the floor with a terrified human wrapped protectively under her body. When they finally hit the opposite wall and everything stopped moving, Reina wanted to just lie there and go to sleep for a while. But she couldn't close her eyes- Yuki was gasping for breath and seizing in her arms, it felt like Reina had dislocated all four of her limbs, and the clumsy bumps and gratings which she heard coming from within the gaping hole in the opposite wall meant that Aido had not been completely knocked out, either. They had to get out of here. Later on, Reina would fight Aido until they were both either satisfied or unconscious, but not while there was a fragile human in the room. Reina pushed herself up on one arm, and suddenly there were new noises coming from the second floor of the Moon Dorm. Panting, she turned her head just far enough to see Kaname Kuran running down the stairs into the battle zone. Of all the things she could have thought in that moment, it crossed her mind that she had never seen the pureblood run before. He stood at the bottom for a moment, assessing the damage with red eyes. With a slamming of doors and a flurry of feet, he was joined by the rest of his loyal followers, as well as a sizeable group of other Night Class students. For the first time in her entire existence, Reina felt something like glad to see them, as long as it meant that the fight was over.
Everyone was talking at once, but they all stopped as their sensitive ears picked up the sound of two ragged breaths coming from the corner of the room. The next moment, Kaname's tousled figure was bending over them, and it was as if he couldn't see the utter mayhem all around him. His eyes were glued to the tiny human in Reina's arms. "Yuki! Reina, is she hurt? Whose blood is this?"
Reina sighed, and winced as the pureblood insisted on gripping her shoulders and turning her over. Two dozen pairs of red vampire eyes were staring their way. "Mine, bastard."
"All right. We'll take care of it. Let her go now, Reina, we'll take care of her. Let her go, Yuki. It'll be all right."
With much prodding from Kaname, the two females released each other and Reina allowed the pureblood to carry the shivering human away in his arms. He vanished up the stairs, holding her with great care, and Reina would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't been bleeding from the forehead. Just typical, go off and leave the wounded one behind. The other aristocrats were still staring openly at her across the sunlit floor, but it was apparent that none of them wanted to pain themselves by crossing through the light to reach her. Reina didn't need them, anyway. She lay still in the shadowed corner and waited for her wounds to heal, using all of her concentration to keep her half-blood essence held back within her skin. Now was not the time, not now….she finally allowed herself to close her eyes.
Reina jumped when she felt someone pulling at her hair, and almost slapped him before she realized that it was Takuma. The pale-haired vampire sat back on his haunches, squinting slightly against the uncomfortable light of the sun. His hands working deftly, he dragged her wild mess of hair away from her face and neck so he could look over them more thoroughly. He was speaking, but it took a moment for his words to register. "….Reina? Reina-san? I know it probably hurts, but you can't just lay there, Reina-san. You need to get up and run some water over those cuts….get some new clothes….can you sit up? Reina-san?"
More to stop Takuma's prodding than for anything else, Reina heaved herself into a sitting position. She could feel her body begin to heat up as it began the process of healing itself, the lighter-colored vampire hovering near her side. Reina blinked and looked around, finally understanding the blatant alarm on everyone's faces. The lounge looked like nothing she could ever imagine. Furniture was thrown over and every window-curtain was ripped down. There was a long gash running all the way along the west wall, and a huge hole punched in the north wall. Shards of ice were everywhere, and so was her blood. There was blood frozen in ice and ice covered in blood. And then there was her, as well; she must look a real wreck. Just then, another loud crack rang out, and Reina leapt to her feet in alarm and stared over toward the wall. Kaname Kuran and come back down the stairs, and he seemed to have announced his presence by slapping the face of his renegade subordinate as hard as he could. Aido, who had just crawled out of the wall, was clutching his cheek with a look of wounded shock; Kaname was standing over him, looking as though he would never smile again. Reina was sorry that she'd missed seeing the blow delivered. Her body chose that moment to remember its own pains, and she staggered against the wall. She felt a long-fingered hand grip her shoulder from behind. "Reina-san, would you kill me if I tried to carry you up the stairs?"
She gazed at Takuma emotionlessly. "Yes."
The vampire boy shrugged, a flicker of his old cheer returning. "We'll just have to go the slower route, then." Slinging her least-injured arm over his shoulders, he began to lead her through the sunlight toward the main staircase, vampires retreating left and right as they approached. All but one- Kaname walked at her side up the stairs, much to Reina's annoyance. She did not need his help. At the top, Takuma waved him off briskly. "You go and take care of Yuki, Kaname. I'm sure you can do something for her. I'll make sure Reina-san is all right."
"I'm counting on you, then," the pureblood murmured, before disappearing down the hall.
Takuma turned and led Reina off in the other direction, walking slowly for her benefit. "How are you feeling?"
"It's healing," she muttered darkly, turning her head to look back toward the stairs. "Shouldn't we…."
"Kaname has already called the headmaster to have someone sent in to clean the lounge. The rest of the students will be cleared out momentarily," the blonde vampire assured her. "If you wouldn't mind my asking….what on earth happened?"
"Aido happened," the half-blood growled, brushing her hair out of her face impatiently. "He attacked us with his ice. He was angry….some stupid thing about Kaname that I didn't really understand."
"Aido goes too far. He is a bit of a drama king." Takuma admitted, pausing at his door to turn the handle with his free arm. "He admires Kaname very much, and he tries to show him true loyalty, but half the time he ends of creating more trouble for him instead of helping."
"He's an idiot," Reina sighed, gazing into the neatly-cut shadows of Takuma's room. The bed had a canopy, and there seemed to be huge stacks of books on every surface large enough to accommodate them. "He knew that Kaname thinks of Yuki as a favorite. We had a whole conversation about it when we met him in the lounge. And then he just turned around and attacked her! Who tries to appeal to somebody by threatening the safety of the person they value? It's ridiculous!"
"Did Yuki-san come to see Kaname?" Takuma asked, leaning her against the wall while he rummaged around in his dresser drawers. Reina nodded, her body growing warmer by the second. "Did you come with her? That's probably why Aido was angry. Not that you deserved to be attacked for it, but walking into a pureblood's dwelling unannounced and demanding to see him is something that is….generally not done in the vampire world."
"I have no interest in seeing that arrogant bastard!" Reina exclaimed, annoyed that this was the third time she had had to explain this today. "I came to see you about a certain matter. I just happened to run into Yuki on my way in."
"To see me?" The pale vampire straightened up in surprise, arms wrapped around a pair of soft linens. "What for? Wait- before you tell me, you might want to go into the bathroom and wash your cuts. Put these clothes on, too. The maid will kill me if she has to scrub blood out of the carpet."
Reina accepted the clothes much like she had taken the new uniform from him earlier, and retreated into the bathroom. She made sure the door was good and locked before removing her torn and bloody clothing. She didn't think of Takuma as a closet pervert, but one could never be too sure. She looked down at the clothing in her arms, and saw that it was a set of very smooth, dark blue pajamas. Placing them carefully on the counter, she picked up a folded washcloth from the rack and began to run it under hot water. The sink was porcelain; the counter was marble; the bathtub was vintage, with actual clawed feet. Her body was almost finished healing. Most of the cuts had vanished, leaving only blood behind. She could feel the ice needles still embedded in her skin actually melting inside her, which was the strangest feeling in the world. Only the blow which Aido had landed upon her stomach was still leaking blood. It was almost the same place in which she had struck him during their last battle. Tit for tat. They were even now. Blood from the wound had splashed onto her bra, and Reina tugged it off and dropped it into her pile of shredded clothes on the floor. Slowly, she ran the washcloth up and down her wound, thinking nothing, closing her eyes until she felt the heat dissipate. When she opened them, the skin was smooth once again. She had been lucky. She'd suffered many wounds, for sure, but none of them deep.
Smooth, dark blue fabric slid over her head, and she was surprised to find that it fit. Takuma was not that much bigger than her, after all. She wadded her bloody clothes up and made sure the bra and washcloth were well-concealed inside before opening the door and stepping back out into the room. Takuma was sitting on the edge of his bed, and he had pulled out a chair from his desk for her. Reina drifted slowly over and stood behind it. "I'm afraid I've quite ruined your washcloth."
"That's all right, I have plenty." Takuma smiled carelessly and indicated toward the chair. "You should sit. I'm very curious as to what it was that brought you all the way out here in the middle of the day."
Reina slid onto the cushioned chair, dropping the bundle of clothes on the floor underneath it. "Shizuka Hio," she stated flatly, and saw the aristocrat's eyes widen ever so slightly.
After a moment, he cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his hair. "Pardon me for asking, but how do you know that name?" he murmured quietly. Reina blinked. She was going to have to hedge around this without revealing Zero's secret.
"The headmaster told me….about a pureblood who went mad and- broke the code," she murmured back. Without meaning to, she realized that she and Takuma were both leaning toward each other like small children discussing a secret.
"That's right," Takuma nodded seriously. "Usually they say it's bad luck to even speak about her, but after what we've been through today….I don't know that things could get much worse, unless the roof were to fall in on us." He took a breath. "What do you want to know?"
"Who was she?" Reina moved her hand along the width of her stomach, where the cut had been. "What happened?"
Takuma drew in another breath, as if preparing to plunge into icy water. "Shizuka Hio….was a pureblood princess who was born into rather….unusual circumstances. She grew up without either father or mother, due to a strain of mental instability in her family which made them unfit to care for her and eventually led to their demise. From the moment of her birth, she was kept locked inside a special isolation cage, for her own safety."
"Wait, what? How is it legal to lock anyone inside a cage, much less a pureblood? And for life?" Reina blurted out, blinking rapidly.
Takuma nodded his head slowly. "Supposedly, it was to protect her. The aim was not so much to keep her in as to keep the rest of the world out. It was thought that if she could be separated from the pressures of the outside world, she might be protected from her parents' fate. But I….I rather think that the mental strain of years of isolation was probably a major contribution to her eventual….madness."
"Of course it was!" the half-blood girl exclaimed indignantly. "My God, is there no common sense to be found within the vampire world? What were they thinking?" She took a breath, and reminded herself that she could not change the past. "So then what happened?"
"This is where things become a bit murky," Takuma rolled his shoulder back, glancing toward his curtain-covered window. "Shizuka Hio escaped, and for awhile, nothing was heard from her. The vampire council was very displeased, of course. But things were quiet for a time, and then-"he wrinkled his brow gently. "Then there was some activity underground. I couldn't tell you exactly what, but it involved the Hunter Society. And then….the next thing I knew, all anyone could talk about was how Shizuka Hio had gone mad and killed three members of the Kiryu family. It was a huge incident. All of the treaties which we'd managed to drag out with the Hunters over the years were nearly invalidated-"
"What?" Reina demanded loudly. Her voice shot up several octaves, but she was too much in shock to notice. "She- she killed them? His family? Zero's family?"
"Yes, didn't you know? I don't know how you can't have heard about that," Takuma replied in surprise. "His mother, his father, and his twin brother. The body of the brother was never found. Zero Kiryu was the only survivor."
There are real nightmares in this world, Reina thought as she stared at the shadowed wall. That's why…. But it explained so much which she hadn't understood before. Takuma waited politely for a moment, then seemed to take her silence as an invitation to continue. "That was the last that anyone I know of ever heard of Shizuka Hio. I suspect she went back into hiding. After that incident, she was put on the Hunters' execution list as a dangerous and unstable vampire. They haven't caught up with her yet, although I suspect it's not for lack of trying. The Kiryus were very well-respected within their own circle."
Reina bit her lip with fanged teeth. Her mouth was suddenly dry. "And Maria Kurenai? The new student?" she asked brusquely.
Takuma looked surprised at this statement. "She is a distant relative of the Hios, although I don't believe she would have ever met Shizuka. She is not a pureblood; her closer relations have traces of human blood in their veins. I didn't know you knew that."
"I didn't. I….I've got to go." Reina stood up abruptly and grabbed the wad of clothes underneath the chair. She turned toward the door, then turned back around as another question sizzled across her mind. "Hey, Takuma? In your opinion, if Shizuka Hio were to come to this Academy….not that she would do that, but if she did….what would she be after?"
The light-blonde vampire furrowed his brow again, placing his hands on either side of the bedcovers. "In my opinion….there are only two people that might draw Shizuka Hio to this Academy. Zero Kiryu and Kaname. She might want to challenge Kaname for his power, or she might want to finish what she started with Zero. However, with the way this Academy is set up, it would be impossible for her to sneak in here unnoticed. So please don't worry about that, Reina-san."
"I'm not worried," Reina mumbled, plucking at the dark blue pajamas.
Takuma stood up and advanced a step forward, gazing seriously into her face. "I'm not sure why you're so interested in Shizuka Hio, but you should know that Kaname knows more about these things than I do. You should ask him sometime. I'm under the impression that he wants to talk to you as well."
Reina growled. "I'm not that interested."
"I know you don't like Kaname, Reina-san, but he's really not the person you seem to think he is. You don't know all the work he does to keep things together at this Academy."
This sentence seemed oddly familiar to Reina. She grunted and turned toward the door. He followed her to open it for her. "Hey, Takuma?" she asked again as he put his hand on the handle. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why he was so irrationally nice to her, against societal values and social mores and probably plain common sense as well. However, she found that she couldn't phrase the words in a way that didn't sound stupid. After a momentary silence, she pressed on. "You've been very….helpful. Before I go, is there anything else you can remember about Shizuka Hio, anything at all? It doesn't have to be important."
Takuma pinched the bridge of his nose, the same thing her mother did when she was trying to recall a memory. "….There is one other thing," he said finally, "but like you said, it's probably not important. Shizuka Hio was engaged at one point to another pureblood. But they never married."
"Who?" Reina asked, wondering who would be sadistic enough to marry a woman in a cage.
"His name was Rido Kuran."
Reina nearly choked on her next breath. "Kuran? Kaname's….father?"
"His uncle, actually," Takuma corrected in a tone that seemed like he wanted to put some distance between the family relationship. "But it won't do any good to know that now. Rido Kuran disappeared well before his fiancée ever escaped from her cage. Unlike her, he has never surfaced since. I think he might be dead. But don't ask Kaname about that. He doesn't like to talk about his family."
"Right," Reina murmured softly. She sighed and shook her head, staring at the dark wood paneling of the door. All this new information was congealing in her brain, too new and too strange to fit into any of her pre-created categories. "Well, I'd better go. By the way-" she plucked at her dark blue sleeve, "these are silk pajamas."
"I know. I'm glad they fit you." Takuma replied comfortably.
"You're really going to let me walk off wearing your silk pajamas? There's no guarantee that I'm not going to get attacked again on my way out of here." Reina said, raising her eyebrow.
The aristocrat laughed warmly. "Most of my clothes are silk. You can keep the pajamas, I've got plenty more. Housekeeping always complains that I leave my clothes lying out, but when they're made of silk, they can't really be called dirty, can they?" Once again, he beamed in a dazzlingly non-vampire-like way.
"You're giving me your silk pajamas," Reina repeated, still a bit incredulous. Damn rich people and their drawers full of expensive clothing…. "Are you sure?"
"Of course! I hope you like them!" Takuma opened the door for her, then touched her lightly on the shoulder as she stepped through it. "Are you feeling well enough to make it back to the school campus?"
"Yes," Reina said. There was a long pause as one set of her deeply ingrained habits waged an intense internal battle with another. "Thanks." She nodded and breezed out the doorway, surprised that the effort involved in the uttering of a single word could feel like more than it had cost her to push a raging vampire through the wall. The hallways were quiet again. Reina took the back way out of the Moon Dorm, not wanting to have to walk back through the disaster area that was the lounge. She wondered what was happening to Yuki and Aido, but she knew that she was better off allowing Kaname to deal with those affairs. She had just made it to the door which led out into the terraced gardens when she sensed a presence behind her. Her fangs and claws were out before she even whirled around.
Akatsuki Kain backed up against the wall, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. His face wore a look of apathy mixed with slight annoyance. "Hey, slow down there. Take it easy. I'm just here to deliver a message from Kaname-sama."
"What?" she snapped aggressively. She knew that this vampire was the cousin of the one that had just attacked her. Who knew whether they'd been planning it all along?
"He wants you to know that the abandoned building next to the clearing where you usually park your car is now being occupied by the new night class student, Maria Kurenai. She requested to move there for the time being because she didn't feel secure in the Moon Dorm." The redhead rolled his eyes and continued. "He would also like to request an audience with you sometime in the near future. He says 'at your convenience.' Also…." Akasuki Kain rubbed the back of his neck, as if resenting the words he was about to say. "He says to be careful. That's all."
"All right," Reina said in a level tone. The two vampires stared at each other for a moment longer. Akatsuki Kain smirked.
"Nice pajamas."
"Go to hell," Reina snapped, before storming out the door and proceeding to fume down the path and across the bridge that led away from the Moon Dorm. If she had her way, she would never come back.
All the curtains were drawn across the windows of the old abandoned dormitory as Reina approached her car, as expected for a building that contained a vampire. Still, she could not shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Even stranger was the sense that there was more than one person within the building. In fact, unless she as mistaken, it now seemed as though there was another extra presence alongside that of Maria Kurenai, bringing the grand total of unexplained auras up to two. What the hell?
Reina knew better than to barge in and find out for herself, especially after the day she'd just had. Still, she didn't realize until she'd gotten into her car and driven away that the foreboding feeling emanating from the building was now enhanced by the fact that the woods around it had fallen completely silent. Where there had once been a cacophony of birdcalls filling the spaces between the trees, there was now only a blank kind of darkness which seemed to negate all light and sound. Reina didn't know what to make of it, but as her car crunched across the grass, the wheels churned up a multitude of snow-like petals which had been lying amongst the green blades. It took a moment for her to recognize the surprisingly pale pinkness of cherry blossom petals, blooming out of season.