AN: Thank you all so much for you reviews! I was very surprised to get any, to be honest, since I couldn't update the story for so long, but I'm so touched and happy and I don't know what to say… I love you all T^T.

Don't worry about Zeki. Also, don't worry, for the story will be finished. I have made a commitment to it and I won't stop until it's done 3.

Annnnd, as a bit of advertisement, I just edited a brand new Aidori AMV! Rukain is in the works and possibly Zeki/Shima/something random. :D

Watch it by pasting this link onto the end of the standard YT address, which FF won't let me post for some reason O_o.

/watch?v=DnV6hAPYMkA

Disclaimer: I do not own VK, but let's pretend I do because it's better this way. –cough-

Zero curled into himself a little tighter, fingers digging into the hay beneath him and feeling the sharp sting of it as it reciprocated his touch with equal pressure. He exhaled heavily, throat dry and tight. It was a feeling he was all too familiar with, and one from which there was no respite. Beside him, he felt his favorite horse Lilly shift, tossing her head as a fly buzzed past. The other horses in the stable were nothing more than faded background noise that he heard as nothing more than distant static. Here, now, he was focused on nothing other than the two syllables that had been haunting him for what seemed his entire life.

Kuran.

That name, those syllables, had single-handedly destroyed every possible foundation of happiness. His family. His humanity. His…

He hissed, breathing in sharply as his lungs contracted. He couldn't think the word that made his heart twist grotesquely in his chest. He buried his face deeper in the hay, inhaling the familiar scents there. There was no trace of any other smell here, no reminder of all that he had lost. All that he didn't dare hope to regain, even when it reached out tantalizingly towards him with papery, inked fingers sealed with a single piece of translucent tape.

He hated himself for reading the letters, and hated himself more for responding. Why couldn't he let her go? There couldn't be anything left of the carefree, compassionate girl he had built his whole world around. There shouldn't be, now that she had been infected with those malevolent syllables. Yet, contained within those letters, he had read nothing more and nothing less than that very same carefree, compassionate girl. The only difference apparent in those letters was that now she was no longer free and no longer by his side. Instead, she had been shut deep inside a cage of Kuran blood.

The hiss deepened into a quiet snarl. He hated it. He despised Kaname Kuran and all that he had torn apart by the simple fact of his existence. More than anything, he abhorred the thought of Kaname Kuran touching that small form that buzzed with energy and electric smiles. He abhorred the thought of Kaname Kuran drinking in the sweet, pure flavor of that blood and tasting Zero's own memories.

Lying in the hay, he could feel his body shake with rage and hunger. He wanted to murder the emotions that chained him to the past. He longed for the hunt, the release of all his anger and sorrow. Hunting Level E vampires at night could never fill the hollow void that had clawed its way through his chest, but it could at least temporarily satiate the animal violence that surged through him in her absence.

He already knew, however, that it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Nothing would be enough unless she returned, human and whole, to fill all the holes that had cracked open in his soul.

"Not enough…" He shuddered, throat heaving with a spasm of sudden pain.

"Zero-kun?" came a hesitant, soft voice. Moments later, he recognized the scent. Wakaba.

He took a breath, clamping down on the burning turmoil within. What was she doing here? For a moment, intense fury swept over him. Was there no place at Cross Academy where he could be left alone? Within another moment, however, the intensity settled down to a frustrated simmer.

He sat up slowly. "Wakaba?"

"Sorry for bothering you right when you were skipping class." He didn't miss her dry sarcasm. "The Chairman was looking for you. Please be nice and go see him soon, okay? That was it, so…" She shrugged and turned to go.

"What about you, Wakaba?"

What would Sayori Wakaba think if she saw her friend now? Did she know how deep the Kuran stain ran? The carefree girl they both had known and cared for was now immersed in a chasm of sin that had begun centuries ago. She was born from that sin, and had chosen to return to it. It was woven into her flesh, blood, and bone: inhuman and inescapable.

"Me?" She looked at him with mild confusion. "No, he just wanted to talk to you. I'm nothing more than the messenger."

"Yeah, I know, but…"

He shook his head slightly, fighting down the chaos of his mind. Wouldn't the Chairman tell Wakaba that Yuuki would be here, within a few mere miles, all too soon? The thought sent him momentarily spiraling down into a tunnel of dark hatred and crimson thirst. She was coming… Coming… He braced himself against the wood of the stable. He had to stay focused.

"Zero-kun… Is something going to happen sometime soon?" he heard her ask.

He had to give Wakaba credit. She was oddly observant. He stood, glaring at her with a brusqueness that indicated their conversation was over.

"What?" he demanded with evident hostility. Beneath his glower, he thought the words angrily at her: Leave me alone.

She sighed. "Never mind, you can tell me later." She reached into her pocket and tossed a white shape down by his feet. He watched it arc across the floor, striking the floor an inch away from his shoe. It took enormous willpower not to flinch away from that rectangle as if it was a tiny flame of hellfire. "Also, this arrived for you. It's not nice to litter, so you should pick it up."

His eyes narrowed. He had already read the words before. Held that small shape in his hand and breathed in the agonizing scent. The familiarity of the handwriting had been like a knife slicing through him, because it and everything it represented was a gross specter of the object of his adoration. The only girl he'd ever…

Again, he choked at the mere thought of the word.

He eyes clawed upwards from the sinister black of his mind. "I don't want it."

"Because she's a demon, right?" Yori raised an eyebrow, her mouth twisting downwards in clear disagreement.

He scowled, "You don't know…"

"I don't know what?" She folded her arms. "I, for one, don't think Yuuki has changed much. She's still Yuuki. I'm not going to stop being her friend just because her diet has changed."

"You say that because you knew her before," his tone was a warning. "But vampires-"

"Vampires," she interrupted, tone matching his in strictness, "are no different. At least, not in the ways that count. Ai-" She cut herself off for a moment, eyes widening slightly. His heightened senses caught the brief increase in her heart rate, but it only lasted the barest of seconds. In another beat, she had recovered and continued, "I really think you should give her a chance. Besides, Zero-kun, is she really any different from you?"

"I don't need a lecture." His words were clipped, quick and heavily punctuated as he held back the force of his ire.

"Alright, if you have it all figured out, then. Bye." She began to leave this time, but paused at the entrance to say, "Oh, and Zero-kun, the other horses are scared of you. Try to tone down that glare of yours at least a little bit, okay?" With that, she promptly made her exit.

He glared after her for a long moment, feeling his irritation flare up and then recede again to a dull whirring in the back of his head. The envelope on the ground stared up at him expectantly. He glared at it, too. Then at Lilly. The horse snorted, pawing at the ground.

"What?" he snapped.

The horse made a sound suspiciously like an exasperated sigh.

He glanced back down at the envelope. "A vampire and a human are not the same." After a moment, however, he looked at the horse, eyes shadowed with doubt. "What do you think?"

Lilly nudged his shoulder, responding to the softer tone of his voice, and he couldn't help but relax a little, leaning his head against hers for a moment before leaning down to collect the square of paper. He quickly stuffed it into his pocket, trying to ignore the wide, attentive gaze of the horse.

"It isn't good to litter," he muttered under his breath by way of explanation.

The horse continued to watch him as he strode away. His fingers never left his pocket, where they remained cradling the envelope within.

AN: It is, however, good to litter as long as they're reviews. :D –hinthint- -winkwink- -nudgenudge-

Also if any of y'all are VK authors, link me up to your stories. I probably won't read them until I complete this story because, even though I have the story mapped out already, I don't want to be influenced even a tiny bit. However, once the story is done, I want to read FF like crazy so I need some good ones, and especially ones by anyone who has left a review 3. I want to return the favor at some point! :3