[vampire knight] The Men She Has Killed
Fairly AU, with some concepts tweaked, such as the effects of Bloody Rose on humans. (In other words, things I didn't realize I was doing wrong until it was way too close to the deadline to change them.) Yuletide story for thejennabides. Dark fic, damn it.
Title: The Men She Has Killed
Fandom: Vampire Knight
Pairing: Touga Yagari/Zero Kiryuu
Rating: R
Summary: Following the murder of his parents and the disappearance of his brother, Zero Kiryuu is taken into the care of Touga Yagari: a master and a mentor, but not a father. What might have become of Zero if his years as a teenager had not been spent at Cross Academy. [AU][DARK]
The Men She Has Killed
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Zero’s eyes were half-lidded and glassy. He didn’t flinch as a wet cloth was pressed to the wound at his neck. Yagari squeezed lightly; droplets of water dripped down over Zero’s bare skin, mixing with the dried blood and darkening to rusty red rivulets. The boy said nothing as Yagari cleaned and bandaged him, for which Yagari was grateful - even if that were the wrong way to feel in this situation. He gave him his bed and took the couch, without need for blankets or pillows. He didn’t anticipate getting much sleep.
Yagari’s gaze was steady on the ceiling and, not for the first time, he felt more sensitive to the absence of his right eye. Most of the time he could ignore it (it was not an uncommon injury in his line of work, and he felt no regret), but when his thoughts turned to Zero, the room went a bit less three-dimensional.
His parents were dead and his brother was missing. It was a sour, wicked and unfair thought, but the smallest part of him was thankful that, if either of the boys’ lives had to be taken, it had not been Zero’s. (Yagari did not entertain hope that Ichiru was alive, although there was a slim chance. More likely the vampire who had gorged on the Kiryuus had taken Ichiru to devour later.) This was because Zero was the better hunter, had more potential - this, Yagari told himself, and nothing else. He had patience with Ichiru, expected as much effort of him as he did of his brother, but drive could do less than destiny, and Ichiru would never have the skill Zero was meant for. Still, he trained them both, pushed them harder, believed they would go as far as they were capable.
But now Zero was alone, with only Yagari to serve as a poor substitute for family. And what did that mean? Yagari was a teacher, but that did not make him a role model. His lungs were blackened; his language could be coarse; he was almost certain he was incapable of openly displaying warmth, as he felt so little of it already. He deserved to be admired as nothing more than a hunter, certainly not a guardian. He was Zero’s only link to the world now, but it was a weak one, that of a master and a student, that of respect and not love. Love was what Zero needed and what Yagari did not know how to give.
He could provide for Zero a house, food, and his company as it was available. He could train him to take revenge (and the hunter in him said that Zero could go farther now, could reach greatness someday with this tragedy to fuel him), but he could not tell him there were no monsters under the stairs, that everything was going to be all right, the things a child deserved to hear, even the child of hunters.
His lips felt dry and his lungs ached for a cigarette. He wouldn’t go outside, wouldn’t leave Zero in even the most material sense, so he opened a window and flicked his lighter to life. The season was bridging winter and the air felt cold, splintery. There were questions roiling in his head that the nicotine didn’t answer, that he doubted any mortal vice could. And the loudest, above the superficial (what’s his middle name?) to the sensible (will I have to enroll him in school?), was the simplest, the only one he knew the answer to, and the one he wanted most to avoid: Will I have to kill him?
For someone so young, Zero was remarkably adept at dealing with pain. Once or twice his knuckles whitened and his fingers dug into the leather armrests of the chair as the needle buzzed over his skin, over his scars. But otherwise he was placid and still: good traits in a hunter, unnerving ones in a boy. It was unnerving to think of him as more than just a student, now.
“All right!” said the tattoo artist, after the last line of the symbol had been inked. “Pretty badass for a thirteen-year-old!” He turned to grab a mirror but Yagari raised his hand.
“He knows what it looks like.”
The man swallowed a lump in his throat, losing enthusiasm under Yagari’s passive stare, and nodded. He bandaged Zero’s neck and told them both how to properly care for the tattoo, and then Yagari paid. When they left the parlor, the street outside was busy; Zero was forced to walk closely beside Yagari, though he usually kept his distance.
“Sorry about that,” Yagari said, but it was mostly a mutter, “couldn’t find another place that would tattoo you.”
Zero didn’t respond, not that Yagari expected him to.
He had wanted to have the symbol put on him by a professional, a hunter - tattoos such as this were weapons to them, and should have been applied with a precision that bordered on reverence. However, Yagari harboring a future vampire was already frowned upon. It was a risk to take Zero near the association, both for his safety, and because he didn’t want him to feel burdened by the blow Yagari’s reputation was taking. Where he had once been respected and consulted constantly, he was now scrutinized and discussed in hushed tones. But as long as Zero didn’t know, it didn’t bother him as much as he’d thought it would.
“Anything else you want to do while we’re out?” he asked, because that seemed the thing that one should ask a child. His tone was uncommitted and he slightly dreaded what would happen if there was something Zero wanted to do.
The boy said nothing, merely stared straight ahead and gracefully avoided colliding with a clumsy passerby.
“All right,” he said. “Back to the house, then.”
Yagari eventually decided to home school him. Zero had no interest in other children or in the prospect of making friends, and Yagari didn’t feel it was his right to force that on him. He knew he was doing very little to actually improve Zero’s situation, but at least he stopped it from becoming worse.
Between training Zero as a hunter and teaching him, Yagari had less time to track and execute vampires. In his foolish youth, he had scoffed at hunters who put their family before their trade - many of the top names, with dozens of kills to their credit, shrunk into anonymity shortly after marrying or having children. Years ago he had vowed that wouldn’t be him, not Touga Yagari. He would become the best and stay that way, and people believed him - impassive and unfeeling as he was, when would he ever start a family?
A year passed, and by then he was no longer the top ranked vampire hunter… and by then, he was almost okay with that.
Zero grew up faster than Yagari expected, faster than he was really comfortable with. He waited for the Talk, waited for Zero to show interest in girls as all fourteen-year-old boys did, waited for this to somehow help the boy, because for God’s sake he wanted the kid to be happy now, and what a strange feeling that was. But Zero didn’t mention girls, or even look at them very often on the few occasions he went out, and when lightly (and somewhat awkwardly) prodded he monotonously responded that he didn’t care about sex, he cared about killing vampires.
Yagari was alarmed to see shades of himself in Zero, and it occurred to him then that even if not all his past decisions had been wrong, perhaps some of them hadn’t been right.
It was the first time he felt so shaken, the first time in a long time the world went flat before him again, and so he left for a day to visit an old friend. Kaien Cross was running a school, one where vampires and humans co-existed - a concept Yagari was wary of. Kaien, too, had a child that wasn’t really his, but he considered Yuuki to be his daughter, whereas Yagari wasn’t quite sure what Zero was (but knew he was not a son).
“Poor Kiryuu!” Kaien lamented dramatically, avoiding the real issue as usual. “He should meet my darling Yuuki! So cute! How could he not be interested in girls then!”
What Kaien was really proposing was enrolling Zero at Cross Academy… and that was out of the question. There were vampires, and even if they were restricted to the Night Class, their stench stuck to the shadows. He wouldn’t put Zero through that.
When he returned, it was late, but Zero was awake, reading. He looked up, and though his expression was static, Yagari knew he was curious.
He didn’t mention Kaien, or his suggestion.
There was a store of antibiotics and painkillers in the bathroom, but Yagari kept the blood tablets in the kitchen. There really was no appropriate place to put them: in the cupboard, in the fridge, with the spices. For lack of anywhere better, they stayed at the bottom of the fruit bowl (which rarely had actual fruit in it). Neither Yagari nor Zero ever talked about or mentioned them. Instead, Yagari periodically checked and refilled the case, so that Zero would never have to ask - and Zero, in turn, only took them when Yagari wasn’t there to see. They were just another reminder that Zero’s life would have to end before long.
Yagari had expected Zero’s body would start rejecting them, but the reality was harsh when it came. Yagari was reviewing reports from the Hunters Association (ones he’d had to get with a little blackmailing and palm-greasing), looking for clues leading to the whereabouts of Shizuka Hiou, the vampire who had killed Zero’s parents, when there was a crash in the kitchen. He walked in to Zero collapsed on the floor, heaving, tablets spilled across the counter between bits of broken glass.
Bloody Rose was always with him, and Yagari approached Zero with her in his hand, safety off. What was necessary was obvious, it was what he had known for years: when Zero thirsted for blood, kill him. But things with him were never that easy, had only grown more complicated in the years he’d looked after him… so he hesitated.
“Shoot me,” Zero said. His voice was heavy and desperate; Yagari held Bloody Rose tighter. “I don’t care if it means I can’t kill Shizuka. Just don’t let me become like her.”
To see Zero transforming into the monster Yagari had dedicated his life to hunting was sickening, but not as sickening as putting a gun to the boy’s head, as the thought of pulling the trigger. His sigh was heavy as he holstered Bloody Rose and plucked a shard of glass from the counter, gingerly so as to not cut his fingers.
“What are you -”
“Don’t leave bite marks,” Yagari said without inflection, as he rolled up his sleeve.
“I’m not going go… drink your blood…” The disgust was evident in his tone.
Yagari was not much happier to be doing this, but Zero couldn’t die yet - he couldn’t go without really living for something first, even if it were revenge on Shizuka. Zero was muttering things, more venomous and more indignant, but Yagari drew the glass across his forearm, cringing from the depth of the wound. A thin ribbon of red bubbled up, and within seconds Zero’s lips were around it. The vampire in him couldn’t resist, even if the human wanted to.
In his ferocious hunger, Zero had Yagari pinned to the floor, legs on either side of him; Yagari just laid back and closed his eye, tried not to think about the reality of the situation: that this was not the last time Zero would be feeding on him, that he would be allowing a vampire to feed on him.
The areas surrounding Cross Academy became a hotspot for vampires - not the nobles, who mostly kept to the school grounds, but the Level E’s. That there were so many was suspicious to Yagari, as humans could only be turned by purebloods, of which there weren’t many. He had a hunch that Shizuka was somehow responsible for this, at least in part, and he suspected Zero shared this thought.
They took up eradicating these Level E’s. It was disturbing for Zero to look into the face of what he would soon become, but it was necessary. Yagari didn’t dare think it wasn’t, didn’t coddle him, because those frenzied red eyes were the future staring back at both of them, and they couldn’t be avoided. When the time came, both Yagari and Zero had to be able to accept their roles as murderer and victim, and assign them correctly.
The town nearest to the academy was often visited by members of the Night Class: vampires of noble and pure blood, but vampires nonetheless. Though Yagari disliked it, they were capable of handling any Level E’s in the area. There was no need to subject Zero to their presence or their scrutiny, and it was doubtful Shizuka would chance hovering so near anyone that might recognize her. Instead, Yagari and Zero paid for hotel rooms in other, smaller villages, and kept their ears on the alleyways.
One hunt was particularly unpleasant: it was only a child, thirteen at the oldest, with feral fangs and wild eyes. He lunged for Zero first, but gave pause, and for a moment appeared almost curious. Yagari could see the trepidation in Zero’s face, the disgust that he had been recognized as a brother to this demon. Bloody Rose screamed a single sharp note that reverberated against the church walls long after the vampire withered to dust.
After that, Yagari slept even less than before. He used his spare hours to contact Kaien for information the Night Class students may have gathered in the town outside the academy, information they were reluctant to give up. (Threatening their lives was base and pathetic, but Yagari told Kaien he would come down there and pick them off one by one if necessary, consequences be damned. That was enough to spur him into serious action.)
Soon, Zero began to hunt alone. He reasoned that his connection to the Level E’s gave him an edge that made Yagari’s presence unnecessary, when he could be doing more damage elsewhere, getting twice as much done as before. Yagari agreed because from a strategic standpoint it made sense, but he wanted to say, Your connection is to me, not those things.
The words didn’t come out, not even later that night when his blood was rushing down Zero’s throat.
Kaname Kuran was the one to contact them about Shizuka, the night of a school dance. It was ironic that she, the embodiment of Zero’s hatred, should present herself at something so vapid. There was a servant with her as well, masked and silver-haired. The possibility that it could be Ichiru sent a pang of wicked fear through Yagari, like a knife twisting in his gut. He couldn’t imagine what it did to Zero.
They took a taxi. Yagari flicked ash out the open window, but even the wind rushing in could not relieve the stiff air. The driver shifted uncomfortably and only tried to start conversation once, hesitantly, and was quickly silenced by Yagari’s glare.
The implications of the night extended far beyond Shizuka. From what Kaname had told him, he did not fear for himself, or even the students especially (he said he did, of course, but that was only polite). He had some concern for the chairman’s daughter but thought he would be more than able to protect her - so he really had called for Zero’s sake, then. Charity from a vampire.
Yagari took a long drag as the taxi whined to a halt outside the academy gates. He paid the man, who seemed relieved to drive off, and then he entered the grounds with Zero. Their stride was slow but there was tension coiled in every muscle, waiting to spring. Neither spoke a word.
They stopped outside the Moon Dormitory (Kaien really did lay it on a little thick, Yagari thought). Yagari unholstered Bloody Rose and held her loosely in his palm, offering her to Zero.
“Switch me guns.”
Zero looked from Bloody Rose to him, surprised. “Master, I can’t -”
“Just for tonight,” he said, brushing off Zero’s uncertainty. Make it the last gun you’ll ever need.
After a long second, Zero nodded and took the gun, placing his own pistol in Yagari’s hand. He tucked it inside his jacket as they entered.
The hall was elegantly draped in white silk, with instrumental music playing softly. People were gracefully swirling, dipping and dancing, impervious or just ignorant of the two who had just entered, neither in formal dress. A dark-haired teenager, strikingly handsome and almost ethereal in his smooth gait, approached them.
“Welcome, Yagari, Kiryuu.”
The soothing fluidity of his tone put Yagari on edge, and he could almost feel the unease and repulsion coming off Zero.
“Kuran,” he replied, tone dour.
“If you’ll follow me.” And he turned from them, to lead them up a flight of stairs and into a hallway where the music was nothing but the faint whisper of violins.
“Informant,” Yagari whispered to Zero as they ascended, to answer the question he knew Zero was struggling not to ask.
“I’m afraid the matter has become direr since you were contacted,” Kaname told them, wisely avoiding his own name, sensitive to Zero’s distaste. “Last we heard, Shizuka and her servant had separated, and were both somewhere in the building.” His voice darkened. “Yuuki Cross has gone missing.”
“The girl will be with one of them. If you’ll take the top floor, Kuran, Zero and I will -”
“I’ll go alone,” Zero cut across him. There was a hint of desperation in his words.
“No,” Yagari said, not looking at him, “you won’t.” He ignored the slight inquisitive quirk in Kaname’s expression and continued, “We’ll check the rooms on this floor. Unless you’ve already…?”
“I thought it best to wait for assistance,” he said. Yagari understood: Kaname had truly wanted this opportunity offered to Zero, but he was obviously irritated. Yuuki Cross must only have disappeared recently, or else Kaname would not have waited. Kaname informed them that dorm room doors were kept unlocked during dances, for inspection reasons (there was security monitoring the guests, entrances and exits, to prevent thefts; they had passed them on their way in), and they parted ways.
“I want to go alone,” Zero said when Kaname was out of hearing distance. He sounded impatient, the thought having been on his tongue since Yagari first refused him. “I can handle her.”
“And her servant?” Yagari began walking, leaving Zero no choice but to follow. He wouldn’t leave without Yagari’s permission. “These aren’t Level E’s. This is a pureblood, and at the lowest a Level D vampire. You’re not going alone.”
“You think I’m afraid -”
“I think you’re too eager to die with her, and it’s making you stupid,” he said frankly, and opened the first door along the hall, knowing fully well Shizuka would not be behind it. Almost begrudgingly, Zero opened the door across from it. That room was empty as well.
“What matters is that she dies. If I go with her, it’s not important.”
“I’m not leaving you.” He strained to keep emotion from perforating his tone, and didn’t look at Zero when he said it. It was easier to remain neutral when next he spoke. “This conversation is over. Now concentrate on finding her before Kaname does.”
They checked the remaining rooms in silence. Yagari had just checked a vacant room and anticipated the click of Zero closing the door across from it, but when it didn’t come, he turned. Zero was standing there, his hand stiff on the handle, looking in on a girl in a pink dress lying unconscious in the lap of a pale-haired woman, her lips hovering above the girl’s throat. Yagari’s blood turned to slush in his veins.
Before Zero could draw Bloody Rose, there was a blade to his neck. Instantly Yagari was there, arm over Zero’s shoulder, placing his own gun to the servant’s head. It didn’t matter that he recognized the grey in his eyes.
“Zero?” Yagari asked.
It took him a moment to answer, and the hesitation hurt. “Do it.”
Ichiru’s eyes widened, and Yagari shot. Ichiru fell, blood reflecting the moonlight in an expanding halo. He wasn’t a vampire.
There was no time to contemplate what this meant.
Shizuka screamed, immediately abandoning the girl she was about to feast on, lunging for Ichiru’s body. Zero had Bloody Rose in an instant, put to the back of Shizuka’s head, gunmetal grey against sickly silver. Hysterical, the woman shook Ichiru’s body, muttered things, shivered with tears.
Bloody Rose was steady, but Zero’s free hand was shaking. Yagari’s pistol was at his side, prepared to be raised but not kept at the ready. It was a sign of trust. Both he and Zero knew that Shizuka’s blood could save him, and even if part of Yagari wanted that, prayed for that… Zero hated vampires, and himself. Yagari had never taught him to do otherwise. It was his failing and his punishment to watch Zero kill his one chance at life, as incomplete a life as it would be.
Shizuka shifted, to turn and attack Zero. Yagari forced himself not to point the pistol and shoot her himself. His lungs burned, his eye stung.
Bloody Rose sang murder songs out of key, the same note over and over and over and over, until there was only the click of the empty magazine, and Zero standing over her scarlet-stained body. Yagari felt Kaname’s sudden presence in the doorway - he must have started toward them when Yagari’s first shot rang - but kept his eyes on Zero, who was heaving with the terror of vengeance realized.
A soft smile crossed Shizuka’s lips, and then her cheeks became pallid and sallow, her eyes milky white. Her face and hands decayed, her kimono sinking in on a rapidly dying body. And then, like every other vampire, she was dust.
Kaname entered the room like a ghost and took the girl into his arms, mindful of her. Her skin was flawless ivory - no marks, scars or blood.
“You saved Yuuki,” he said. The sorrow in his tone suggested that he knew Shizuka’s death signified nothing good for either of them. “I am indebted to you. Thank you.”
He was gone.
His connection to the woman who had sired him severed, Zero collapsed, shaking violently and growling in pain. Bloody Rose fell from his hand, landing softly on the orchid obi.
“Zero,” Yagari managed to say, and that was all.
His head lowered, he knocked Bloody Rose toward Yagari. Slowly, Yagari picked her up; she was heavy with the weight of all the years he’d known Zero. From the inside pocket of his jacket, he took out a single bullet and loaded it into the gun’s chamber. He kept his eye only on Bloody Rose, as though he were readying her for just another hunt, not loading the bullet to end everything.
By the time he closed the chamber, Zero’s breathing had calmed. He stood up, and the look on his face was resigned, eerily accomplished.
“We can wait,” Yagari said, not knowing how to ask Zero to wait, beg him to wait, or even why he felt that way.
Zero shook his head. His eyes were glassy and half-lidded, so painfully familiar that Yagari wanted to go back in time, back to the little boy with bloodstained skin and fix everything, like he now knew he should have. Wanted to go back and be someone worth living for.
But then Zero’s eyes closed, and possibility was eclipsed, and though it was sad it was serene. “Thank you, Master.”
Yagari nodded, didn’t trust himself to speak, couldn’t see in shapes or forms or backgrounds - just Zero, and Bloody Rose between his brows.
Like all things, it began with blood, and it ended with dust.
Title: The Men She Has Killed
Fandom: Vampire Knight
Pairing: Touga Yagari/Zero Kiryuu
Rating: R
Summary: Following the murder of his parents and the disappearance of his brother, Zero Kiryuu is taken into the care of Touga Yagari: a master and a mentor, but not a father. What might have become of Zero if his years as a teenager had not been spent at Cross Academy. [AU][DARK]
The Men She Has Killed
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Zero’s eyes were half-lidded and glassy. He didn’t flinch as a wet cloth was pressed to the wound at his neck. Yagari squeezed lightly; droplets of water dripped down over Zero’s bare skin, mixing with the dried blood and darkening to rusty red rivulets. The boy said nothing as Yagari cleaned and bandaged him, for which Yagari was grateful - even if that were the wrong way to feel in this situation. He gave him his bed and took the couch, without need for blankets or pillows. He didn’t anticipate getting much sleep.
Yagari’s gaze was steady on the ceiling and, not for the first time, he felt more sensitive to the absence of his right eye. Most of the time he could ignore it (it was not an uncommon injury in his line of work, and he felt no regret), but when his thoughts turned to Zero, the room went a bit less three-dimensional.
His parents were dead and his brother was missing. It was a sour, wicked and unfair thought, but the smallest part of him was thankful that, if either of the boys’ lives had to be taken, it had not been Zero’s. (Yagari did not entertain hope that Ichiru was alive, although there was a slim chance. More likely the vampire who had gorged on the Kiryuus had taken Ichiru to devour later.) This was because Zero was the better hunter, had more potential - this, Yagari told himself, and nothing else. He had patience with Ichiru, expected as much effort of him as he did of his brother, but drive could do less than destiny, and Ichiru would never have the skill Zero was meant for. Still, he trained them both, pushed them harder, believed they would go as far as they were capable.
But now Zero was alone, with only Yagari to serve as a poor substitute for family. And what did that mean? Yagari was a teacher, but that did not make him a role model. His lungs were blackened; his language could be coarse; he was almost certain he was incapable of openly displaying warmth, as he felt so little of it already. He deserved to be admired as nothing more than a hunter, certainly not a guardian. He was Zero’s only link to the world now, but it was a weak one, that of a master and a student, that of respect and not love. Love was what Zero needed and what Yagari did not know how to give.
He could provide for Zero a house, food, and his company as it was available. He could train him to take revenge (and the hunter in him said that Zero could go farther now, could reach greatness someday with this tragedy to fuel him), but he could not tell him there were no monsters under the stairs, that everything was going to be all right, the things a child deserved to hear, even the child of hunters.
His lips felt dry and his lungs ached for a cigarette. He wouldn’t go outside, wouldn’t leave Zero in even the most material sense, so he opened a window and flicked his lighter to life. The season was bridging winter and the air felt cold, splintery. There were questions roiling in his head that the nicotine didn’t answer, that he doubted any mortal vice could. And the loudest, above the superficial (what’s his middle name?) to the sensible (will I have to enroll him in school?), was the simplest, the only one he knew the answer to, and the one he wanted most to avoid: Will I have to kill him?
For someone so young, Zero was remarkably adept at dealing with pain. Once or twice his knuckles whitened and his fingers dug into the leather armrests of the chair as the needle buzzed over his skin, over his scars. But otherwise he was placid and still: good traits in a hunter, unnerving ones in a boy. It was unnerving to think of him as more than just a student, now.
“All right!” said the tattoo artist, after the last line of the symbol had been inked. “Pretty badass for a thirteen-year-old!” He turned to grab a mirror but Yagari raised his hand.
“He knows what it looks like.”
The man swallowed a lump in his throat, losing enthusiasm under Yagari’s passive stare, and nodded. He bandaged Zero’s neck and told them both how to properly care for the tattoo, and then Yagari paid. When they left the parlor, the street outside was busy; Zero was forced to walk closely beside Yagari, though he usually kept his distance.
“Sorry about that,” Yagari said, but it was mostly a mutter, “couldn’t find another place that would tattoo you.”
Zero didn’t respond, not that Yagari expected him to.
He had wanted to have the symbol put on him by a professional, a hunter - tattoos such as this were weapons to them, and should have been applied with a precision that bordered on reverence. However, Yagari harboring a future vampire was already frowned upon. It was a risk to take Zero near the association, both for his safety, and because he didn’t want him to feel burdened by the blow Yagari’s reputation was taking. Where he had once been respected and consulted constantly, he was now scrutinized and discussed in hushed tones. But as long as Zero didn’t know, it didn’t bother him as much as he’d thought it would.
“Anything else you want to do while we’re out?” he asked, because that seemed the thing that one should ask a child. His tone was uncommitted and he slightly dreaded what would happen if there was something Zero wanted to do.
The boy said nothing, merely stared straight ahead and gracefully avoided colliding with a clumsy passerby.
“All right,” he said. “Back to the house, then.”
Yagari eventually decided to home school him. Zero had no interest in other children or in the prospect of making friends, and Yagari didn’t feel it was his right to force that on him. He knew he was doing very little to actually improve Zero’s situation, but at least he stopped it from becoming worse.
Between training Zero as a hunter and teaching him, Yagari had less time to track and execute vampires. In his foolish youth, he had scoffed at hunters who put their family before their trade - many of the top names, with dozens of kills to their credit, shrunk into anonymity shortly after marrying or having children. Years ago he had vowed that wouldn’t be him, not Touga Yagari. He would become the best and stay that way, and people believed him - impassive and unfeeling as he was, when would he ever start a family?
A year passed, and by then he was no longer the top ranked vampire hunter… and by then, he was almost okay with that.
Zero grew up faster than Yagari expected, faster than he was really comfortable with. He waited for the Talk, waited for Zero to show interest in girls as all fourteen-year-old boys did, waited for this to somehow help the boy, because for God’s sake he wanted the kid to be happy now, and what a strange feeling that was. But Zero didn’t mention girls, or even look at them very often on the few occasions he went out, and when lightly (and somewhat awkwardly) prodded he monotonously responded that he didn’t care about sex, he cared about killing vampires.
Yagari was alarmed to see shades of himself in Zero, and it occurred to him then that even if not all his past decisions had been wrong, perhaps some of them hadn’t been right.
It was the first time he felt so shaken, the first time in a long time the world went flat before him again, and so he left for a day to visit an old friend. Kaien Cross was running a school, one where vampires and humans co-existed - a concept Yagari was wary of. Kaien, too, had a child that wasn’t really his, but he considered Yuuki to be his daughter, whereas Yagari wasn’t quite sure what Zero was (but knew he was not a son).
“Poor Kiryuu!” Kaien lamented dramatically, avoiding the real issue as usual. “He should meet my darling Yuuki! So cute! How could he not be interested in girls then!”
What Kaien was really proposing was enrolling Zero at Cross Academy… and that was out of the question. There were vampires, and even if they were restricted to the Night Class, their stench stuck to the shadows. He wouldn’t put Zero through that.
When he returned, it was late, but Zero was awake, reading. He looked up, and though his expression was static, Yagari knew he was curious.
He didn’t mention Kaien, or his suggestion.
There was a store of antibiotics and painkillers in the bathroom, but Yagari kept the blood tablets in the kitchen. There really was no appropriate place to put them: in the cupboard, in the fridge, with the spices. For lack of anywhere better, they stayed at the bottom of the fruit bowl (which rarely had actual fruit in it). Neither Yagari nor Zero ever talked about or mentioned them. Instead, Yagari periodically checked and refilled the case, so that Zero would never have to ask - and Zero, in turn, only took them when Yagari wasn’t there to see. They were just another reminder that Zero’s life would have to end before long.
Yagari had expected Zero’s body would start rejecting them, but the reality was harsh when it came. Yagari was reviewing reports from the Hunters Association (ones he’d had to get with a little blackmailing and palm-greasing), looking for clues leading to the whereabouts of Shizuka Hiou, the vampire who had killed Zero’s parents, when there was a crash in the kitchen. He walked in to Zero collapsed on the floor, heaving, tablets spilled across the counter between bits of broken glass.
Bloody Rose was always with him, and Yagari approached Zero with her in his hand, safety off. What was necessary was obvious, it was what he had known for years: when Zero thirsted for blood, kill him. But things with him were never that easy, had only grown more complicated in the years he’d looked after him… so he hesitated.
“Shoot me,” Zero said. His voice was heavy and desperate; Yagari held Bloody Rose tighter. “I don’t care if it means I can’t kill Shizuka. Just don’t let me become like her.”
To see Zero transforming into the monster Yagari had dedicated his life to hunting was sickening, but not as sickening as putting a gun to the boy’s head, as the thought of pulling the trigger. His sigh was heavy as he holstered Bloody Rose and plucked a shard of glass from the counter, gingerly so as to not cut his fingers.
“What are you -”
“Don’t leave bite marks,” Yagari said without inflection, as he rolled up his sleeve.
“I’m not going go… drink your blood…” The disgust was evident in his tone.
Yagari was not much happier to be doing this, but Zero couldn’t die yet - he couldn’t go without really living for something first, even if it were revenge on Shizuka. Zero was muttering things, more venomous and more indignant, but Yagari drew the glass across his forearm, cringing from the depth of the wound. A thin ribbon of red bubbled up, and within seconds Zero’s lips were around it. The vampire in him couldn’t resist, even if the human wanted to.
In his ferocious hunger, Zero had Yagari pinned to the floor, legs on either side of him; Yagari just laid back and closed his eye, tried not to think about the reality of the situation: that this was not the last time Zero would be feeding on him, that he would be allowing a vampire to feed on him.
The areas surrounding Cross Academy became a hotspot for vampires - not the nobles, who mostly kept to the school grounds, but the Level E’s. That there were so many was suspicious to Yagari, as humans could only be turned by purebloods, of which there weren’t many. He had a hunch that Shizuka was somehow responsible for this, at least in part, and he suspected Zero shared this thought.
They took up eradicating these Level E’s. It was disturbing for Zero to look into the face of what he would soon become, but it was necessary. Yagari didn’t dare think it wasn’t, didn’t coddle him, because those frenzied red eyes were the future staring back at both of them, and they couldn’t be avoided. When the time came, both Yagari and Zero had to be able to accept their roles as murderer and victim, and assign them correctly.
The town nearest to the academy was often visited by members of the Night Class: vampires of noble and pure blood, but vampires nonetheless. Though Yagari disliked it, they were capable of handling any Level E’s in the area. There was no need to subject Zero to their presence or their scrutiny, and it was doubtful Shizuka would chance hovering so near anyone that might recognize her. Instead, Yagari and Zero paid for hotel rooms in other, smaller villages, and kept their ears on the alleyways.
One hunt was particularly unpleasant: it was only a child, thirteen at the oldest, with feral fangs and wild eyes. He lunged for Zero first, but gave pause, and for a moment appeared almost curious. Yagari could see the trepidation in Zero’s face, the disgust that he had been recognized as a brother to this demon. Bloody Rose screamed a single sharp note that reverberated against the church walls long after the vampire withered to dust.
After that, Yagari slept even less than before. He used his spare hours to contact Kaien for information the Night Class students may have gathered in the town outside the academy, information they were reluctant to give up. (Threatening their lives was base and pathetic, but Yagari told Kaien he would come down there and pick them off one by one if necessary, consequences be damned. That was enough to spur him into serious action.)
Soon, Zero began to hunt alone. He reasoned that his connection to the Level E’s gave him an edge that made Yagari’s presence unnecessary, when he could be doing more damage elsewhere, getting twice as much done as before. Yagari agreed because from a strategic standpoint it made sense, but he wanted to say, Your connection is to me, not those things.
The words didn’t come out, not even later that night when his blood was rushing down Zero’s throat.
Kaname Kuran was the one to contact them about Shizuka, the night of a school dance. It was ironic that she, the embodiment of Zero’s hatred, should present herself at something so vapid. There was a servant with her as well, masked and silver-haired. The possibility that it could be Ichiru sent a pang of wicked fear through Yagari, like a knife twisting in his gut. He couldn’t imagine what it did to Zero.
They took a taxi. Yagari flicked ash out the open window, but even the wind rushing in could not relieve the stiff air. The driver shifted uncomfortably and only tried to start conversation once, hesitantly, and was quickly silenced by Yagari’s glare.
The implications of the night extended far beyond Shizuka. From what Kaname had told him, he did not fear for himself, or even the students especially (he said he did, of course, but that was only polite). He had some concern for the chairman’s daughter but thought he would be more than able to protect her - so he really had called for Zero’s sake, then. Charity from a vampire.
Yagari took a long drag as the taxi whined to a halt outside the academy gates. He paid the man, who seemed relieved to drive off, and then he entered the grounds with Zero. Their stride was slow but there was tension coiled in every muscle, waiting to spring. Neither spoke a word.
They stopped outside the Moon Dormitory (Kaien really did lay it on a little thick, Yagari thought). Yagari unholstered Bloody Rose and held her loosely in his palm, offering her to Zero.
“Switch me guns.”
Zero looked from Bloody Rose to him, surprised. “Master, I can’t -”
“Just for tonight,” he said, brushing off Zero’s uncertainty. Make it the last gun you’ll ever need.
After a long second, Zero nodded and took the gun, placing his own pistol in Yagari’s hand. He tucked it inside his jacket as they entered.
The hall was elegantly draped in white silk, with instrumental music playing softly. People were gracefully swirling, dipping and dancing, impervious or just ignorant of the two who had just entered, neither in formal dress. A dark-haired teenager, strikingly handsome and almost ethereal in his smooth gait, approached them.
“Welcome, Yagari, Kiryuu.”
The soothing fluidity of his tone put Yagari on edge, and he could almost feel the unease and repulsion coming off Zero.
“Kuran,” he replied, tone dour.
“If you’ll follow me.” And he turned from them, to lead them up a flight of stairs and into a hallway where the music was nothing but the faint whisper of violins.
“Informant,” Yagari whispered to Zero as they ascended, to answer the question he knew Zero was struggling not to ask.
“I’m afraid the matter has become direr since you were contacted,” Kaname told them, wisely avoiding his own name, sensitive to Zero’s distaste. “Last we heard, Shizuka and her servant had separated, and were both somewhere in the building.” His voice darkened. “Yuuki Cross has gone missing.”
“The girl will be with one of them. If you’ll take the top floor, Kuran, Zero and I will -”
“I’ll go alone,” Zero cut across him. There was a hint of desperation in his words.
“No,” Yagari said, not looking at him, “you won’t.” He ignored the slight inquisitive quirk in Kaname’s expression and continued, “We’ll check the rooms on this floor. Unless you’ve already…?”
“I thought it best to wait for assistance,” he said. Yagari understood: Kaname had truly wanted this opportunity offered to Zero, but he was obviously irritated. Yuuki Cross must only have disappeared recently, or else Kaname would not have waited. Kaname informed them that dorm room doors were kept unlocked during dances, for inspection reasons (there was security monitoring the guests, entrances and exits, to prevent thefts; they had passed them on their way in), and they parted ways.
“I want to go alone,” Zero said when Kaname was out of hearing distance. He sounded impatient, the thought having been on his tongue since Yagari first refused him. “I can handle her.”
“And her servant?” Yagari began walking, leaving Zero no choice but to follow. He wouldn’t leave without Yagari’s permission. “These aren’t Level E’s. This is a pureblood, and at the lowest a Level D vampire. You’re not going alone.”
“You think I’m afraid -”
“I think you’re too eager to die with her, and it’s making you stupid,” he said frankly, and opened the first door along the hall, knowing fully well Shizuka would not be behind it. Almost begrudgingly, Zero opened the door across from it. That room was empty as well.
“What matters is that she dies. If I go with her, it’s not important.”
“I’m not leaving you.” He strained to keep emotion from perforating his tone, and didn’t look at Zero when he said it. It was easier to remain neutral when next he spoke. “This conversation is over. Now concentrate on finding her before Kaname does.”
They checked the remaining rooms in silence. Yagari had just checked a vacant room and anticipated the click of Zero closing the door across from it, but when it didn’t come, he turned. Zero was standing there, his hand stiff on the handle, looking in on a girl in a pink dress lying unconscious in the lap of a pale-haired woman, her lips hovering above the girl’s throat. Yagari’s blood turned to slush in his veins.
Before Zero could draw Bloody Rose, there was a blade to his neck. Instantly Yagari was there, arm over Zero’s shoulder, placing his own gun to the servant’s head. It didn’t matter that he recognized the grey in his eyes.
“Zero?” Yagari asked.
It took him a moment to answer, and the hesitation hurt. “Do it.”
Ichiru’s eyes widened, and Yagari shot. Ichiru fell, blood reflecting the moonlight in an expanding halo. He wasn’t a vampire.
There was no time to contemplate what this meant.
Shizuka screamed, immediately abandoning the girl she was about to feast on, lunging for Ichiru’s body. Zero had Bloody Rose in an instant, put to the back of Shizuka’s head, gunmetal grey against sickly silver. Hysterical, the woman shook Ichiru’s body, muttered things, shivered with tears.
Bloody Rose was steady, but Zero’s free hand was shaking. Yagari’s pistol was at his side, prepared to be raised but not kept at the ready. It was a sign of trust. Both he and Zero knew that Shizuka’s blood could save him, and even if part of Yagari wanted that, prayed for that… Zero hated vampires, and himself. Yagari had never taught him to do otherwise. It was his failing and his punishment to watch Zero kill his one chance at life, as incomplete a life as it would be.
Shizuka shifted, to turn and attack Zero. Yagari forced himself not to point the pistol and shoot her himself. His lungs burned, his eye stung.
Bloody Rose sang murder songs out of key, the same note over and over and over and over, until there was only the click of the empty magazine, and Zero standing over her scarlet-stained body. Yagari felt Kaname’s sudden presence in the doorway - he must have started toward them when Yagari’s first shot rang - but kept his eyes on Zero, who was heaving with the terror of vengeance realized.
A soft smile crossed Shizuka’s lips, and then her cheeks became pallid and sallow, her eyes milky white. Her face and hands decayed, her kimono sinking in on a rapidly dying body. And then, like every other vampire, she was dust.
Kaname entered the room like a ghost and took the girl into his arms, mindful of her. Her skin was flawless ivory - no marks, scars or blood.
“You saved Yuuki,” he said. The sorrow in his tone suggested that he knew Shizuka’s death signified nothing good for either of them. “I am indebted to you. Thank you.”
He was gone.
His connection to the woman who had sired him severed, Zero collapsed, shaking violently and growling in pain. Bloody Rose fell from his hand, landing softly on the orchid obi.
“Zero,” Yagari managed to say, and that was all.
His head lowered, he knocked Bloody Rose toward Yagari. Slowly, Yagari picked her up; she was heavy with the weight of all the years he’d known Zero. From the inside pocket of his jacket, he took out a single bullet and loaded it into the gun’s chamber. He kept his eye only on Bloody Rose, as though he were readying her for just another hunt, not loading the bullet to end everything.
By the time he closed the chamber, Zero’s breathing had calmed. He stood up, and the look on his face was resigned, eerily accomplished.
“We can wait,” Yagari said, not knowing how to ask Zero to wait, beg him to wait, or even why he felt that way.
Zero shook his head. His eyes were glassy and half-lidded, so painfully familiar that Yagari wanted to go back in time, back to the little boy with bloodstained skin and fix everything, like he now knew he should have. Wanted to go back and be someone worth living for.
But then Zero’s eyes closed, and possibility was eclipsed, and though it was sad it was serene. “Thank you, Master.”
Yagari nodded, didn’t trust himself to speak, couldn’t see in shapes or forms or backgrounds - just Zero, and Bloody Rose between his brows.
Like all things, it began with blood, and it ended with dust.