Zero was dazed, he wasn't entirely present. It was like he was watching everything happen from behind a veil. His father was dead, his neck snapped and arms ripped apart, his mother was half crushed under the rubble of his once sweet home and his brother…brother was the one who…paved the way for this to happen.

He could his mother's voice, begging him to run away, to save himself. It felt like it was coming from miles away. He felt hands on his shoulder and neck; they was harsh and pulled him up in the air. His mind blanks, there was pain but he couldn't exactly feel it. He was…numb strangely. All that he could feel right now was that the world around him was slowly crumbling and blackening piece by piece.

Kiryu Amara was dying, slowly and painfully. 'Damn them! Damn them all to hell!' she wanted to scream, she hated them, cursed them for setting her family up! Her sons, her poor sons! 'Please! Someone, anyone, please! Not my sons!'

Her tears fell into the snow that was dyed red with her blood; she felt so pathetic and helpless, she couldn't save her sons. Please

"Stop, Shizuka. That's enough." She gasped, for a moment all the pain of her crushed body, the situation stopped. It was a male voice so smooth and calm. Just for a moment, she felt a sliver of hope, maybe this man… she shifted her head to try and locate the person who spoke. But her hope died immediately as the monster holding her son spoke up, "Why are you here, young king?"

'NO! NO! NO!' Why was the vampire king here!? Her gaze found him, stepping out of the shadows, he looked young, but even in this half-dead state, she could feel the power rolling off him, the power of his blood. He was walking towards the monster that holding her boy, Amara whimpers at the bitten neck of her sweet son. Her Zero, her kind and gentle boy. He doesn't deserve this! "Curse you, Shizuka Hio, curse you!" she hissed and the monster standing so smug just chuckles at her words.

"Let him go and leave." The boy who now stood just few steps away from Shizuka commands, and Amara wants to laugh and scream and cry but then, her eyes see her other son, Ichiru standing behind the monster that murdered his father and bit his brother, not an ounce of fear on the little face and she wished death would come now. 'How could you, Ichiru?'

The two purebloods stared down at each other, neither willing to give in; their eyes bleeding a vibrant red. Shizuka tries to use her aura to physically oppress the living in her surrounding and Kaname crushes her aura with his own, wrapping it around her body so fast she could barely react. It freezes her movements and her fingers lose their grip on the boy and he slips down, faint at her feet. She forces her jaw to move to speak to the king who was so carelessly showing himself here, meddling in her business.

"I am not done yet, Kuran Kaname. I will have my vengeance, the boy is mine." Her voice was a menacing hiss but the king was not phased.

Kuran Kaname, the young king of the vampire race, just shrugged his shoulders at the woman, uncaring of her anger. "You have the other boy, take him and leave, I will not interfere in that."

Her beautiful features morphed in an ugly sneer, "How dare you…"

He cuts her off, "I set you free from that cage and I can just as easily cage you again. Do not try to fight, you had your revenge. Kiryu patriarch is dead, the matriarch will be dead soon too and you will have one of their sons. Leave." It was a command, one she knew she had no choice but to follow. She was still weakened from her imprisonment and fighting these hunters had taken a lot out of her. And fighting the king, though younger than her, could possibly kill her right now.

His aura receded back into him, freeing her. She nods in acquiescence, stepping back and grabbing the boy standing behind her and dispersing in cherry blossom petals.

Kuran Kaname watched as the boy's mother bleed out slowly, the boy's own eyes were glassy, nearly unconscious. He looked at the mother who was glaring at him, "…I remember… you, it was…you…that day" her voice was shaky rasp. Kaname hummed at her in response and looked back to the boy, he cared not at all about the woman. He could probably save her, but he wasn't going to bother. The woman took her last breaths, staring at her son on the ground and Kaname did not feel an ounce of pity for her.

He stepped closer and crouched down, he reached out a hand and brushed away the soft silver strands of hair from his face; using the other hand to gently shift his face and neck in a better position.

He took a good look at the bite on his neck and suppressed a sigh that built in the back of his throat. The boy would change, most likely but very, very slowly. He should have intervened the moment Shizuka got her hands on him, he finally sighs. He glanced around the property, the manor was half destroyed in the fight and the wards around it were broken too. The hunters would have been alerted by now and on their way. And Kaname could only stall the boy's transformation for now.

He pricked a finger on his fangs, drawing a rune commonly used on newly turned vampire to help them, usually by their sires but since, the boy's sire wasn't him, the rune would only hold for a few years.

He hoped that using his blood strengthened it to at least hold strong until he can change the boy himself. He drew the rune with his blood right on top of the bite marks and imbued it with his energy. The rune glowed a soft red before being absorbed completely into the skin. 'The hunters wouldn't be able to pick up on the rune being on him unless another vampire was foolish enough to tell them.'

Kaname was assured to a degree that none of the vampire society's were stupid enough babble about the king's claim on a boy to the hunters. And his blood and energy will deter the vampires from approaching Kiryu Zero.

Satisfied, he brushed his hand against the sweet face of the boy who was now completely unconscious and stood, creating a small raven familiar and hid it in the nearby tree to keep an eye.

He disappeared into black mist. Unhurried and unworried, he would find him anyway in a few years' time.