“Michiyo, are there any other name people might know you by?” Headmaster Cross asked me as I walked out in my new uniform. I could do without the tie, or the skirt. I liked the male uniforms better. At least then I could hide my knife and my gun in my jacket or vest.
“Probably, but I haven’t used the name in eons,” I said as I stood in front of his desk pulling down the skirt to cover my legs.
“What is it? It’s just for your papers. Kaname-sempai spoke very highly of you and your abilities, which is why you didn't need to go through the entry preparations,” Headmaster said as his glasses galred against the morning sun.
I looked away from him and peered down. Not this again, I thought. “Yagari,” I said as I let out a deep sigh.
The headmaster stopped and looked up at me. “Yagari, like Toga Yagari, the vampire hunter...I mean, ethics teacher?”
“Yes, he was my father,” I said. Then I uttered, “Before the Kiryu incident.”
“Well, what name shall you be called then?”
“Kiryai,” I said confidently. “I would like no relation with my father.” I added, like all the other times when I was forced to give my other last name.
“Let it be that, then,” Headmaster said. He looked up from my papers and looked at me. "Zero will show you around.” The door to his office opened, and the white haired guy from the soirée appeared in the doorway. He was wearing the male uniforms. Is he stalking me now? “Kiryu, you will show her around like Yuki would, won’t you?”
Did he just say Kiryu? The Kiryu family is dead. He, being a retired vampire hunter with a record behind him, should know that.
“Yes, sir,” he said as he motioned for me to follow.
“One second,” I said as I stopped at the headmaster’s doorway. I stepped up to his desk, seeing the nail-like scrapes on the wood and a large crack going down the middle. “Headmaster Cross, where can I put my knife and gun?”
“Wherever you want, I guess,” he said as if he was taken back by my question. I admit that I'm not like other students, but he should know what kind of person I am based on my actual family name.
“And another thing, can I wear the male uniforms?” I asked seriously. I liked Zero’s uniform better.
“No, there is a reason for male and female uniforms. No trying to wear the other,” the headmaster said.
Feeling really disappointed, I asked my final question. “Do I have to stay in the dorms?”
“Do you have another place to go?”
“I can find one,” I assured him.
“Kiryai, stay in the dorms for now until you find another place to live.”
“Thanks, Headmaster,” I said as I walked away. I stopped at the nearest chair and placed my knife in the holster on my thigh and my gun holster in the shoulder holster under the jacket of my uniform.
I looked back up at Zero, who watched me. “I don’t want to be out of weapons if a vampire attacks,” I said as I followed him out the door. Zero just gave me a partial glare and shook his head. I slapped my palm to my forehead, that was the lamest excuse to carry my weapons I've ever given.
“So, what made you come to Cross Academy?” Zero asked as we walked to our first class.
“Kaname talked about it and it sounded great. I wanted to come,” I said. There was another reason I wanted to be here. If there was a retired vampire hunter here, I wanted to continue to train where I know I won’t be attacked by some vampire randomly even if the same retired vampire was wanted.
“How long have you known Kaname Kuran?”
“Five years, I was twelve when we met,” I said as I looked up at Zero. His eyes looked so familiar. All of him looked familiar.
“So, how can you be a hunter when you’ve lived with a vampire?” Vampires, I corrected.
“It’s hard to explain,” I said as I looked around.
“This is our first class,” he said as he opened the door. His glare looked at me. “You might want to check in with the instructor.”
“Thanks,” I said solemnly.
I walked into the classroom. It was the usual classroom. The desks gradually went down and the teacher was at the bottom in front of the black boards. I descended the stairs to meet him. I planned to bow when I saw the teacher but stopped when I saw them. Bowing to that was out of the question.
“New student?” He asked as he scanned me over with the one eye. His eye patch was unmistaken. It was there the last time I saw him and when I actually considered him both father and master.
“Obviously,” I said, my angered tone coming back.
“I never thought I’d see you here,” he said with a sigh after he’d realized it was me. I realized I've changed in the last few years but he could at least recognize his own daughter.
“Same here,” I said dryly.
“Still not going to talk to me?" When I said nothing to him, he said, "I see that. What name are you going by now?”
“Read the paper and you’ll find out,” I said as I turned to the class as the bell rang.
“Class, we have a new transfer student,” he announced. “Her name is Michiyo Kiryai.” He said the last name slowly.
After that, I took a seat. It was at the top of the room and at the other side, where Zero sat. The less I see of him, the better. I drifted off during class and thought about what the headmaster said about Zero. What was his last name? It can’t be Kiryu. The Kiryu family died when that damn pureblood went berserk. I mean, I was there, I watched as Zero and Ichiru's parents were murdered and Zero and Ichiru watched. After that, they were presumed dead since they went missing.
When class was over, I followed Zero. I didn’t like following him like a puppy. I had my own life to lead, revenge to exact, and the truth to find.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of the Kiryai family being vampire hunters,” Zero said after his glare went from ahead of him to me and back again.
I argued with myself about telling him the truth or not. Seeing that he is another hunter, I decided.
“Actually, it’s not my real last name. I came up with it in honor of my best friends and their parents,” I said quietly. “They were some great hunters.”
“Yeah, they were,” he uttered. They were? How does he know? Then he added, “Why don’t you use your real last name?”
“For personal reasons, one of which is that I don’t want any ties to my father,” I said, with an annoyed tone as I mentioned my father.
We stopped at a fountain. He stopped in the shade and I stopped in the sun. He stayed frozen for a little bit until he snapped around to face me and grabbed my left wrist. He unbuttoned my black jacket and white shirt sleeve cuffs. He shoved both the sleeves up and twisted my arm to find the scar. It was like he knew exactly where it was. When he found the thin white line, he traced his thumb over it.
I remembered that day like it was yesterday.
“Ichiru, careful,” I called in a loud whisper as we ran to our place in the woods.
“I’ll be fine, Michiyo.” Ichiru gave me an assuring smile as we tried to keep up with Zero. Ichiru was always happy and smiling all the time even though his health wasn't the best.
Zero was a fast runner and a killer hunter. He passed everything with flying colors, and his aim was dead on. The moonlight shined through the cracks the trees made and lit the trial. Even though Zero carried the weapons, he was still the fastest. I was the second fastest. Ichiru kept up but he was slowly slowing down more and more, his health was getting to him again.
We arrived just as the midnight moon was high. Zero had that smile on his face that made me think that my aim had to be as good as his was before we could go to bed. He handed me the knife and told me to throw it to the target on the tree. I threw it and it was dead on. Zero and Ichiru laughed when they looked at the target.
“I have been practicing,” I said with a triumphant smile.
That night went on like every other night, practicing like no tomorrow. Zero and Ichiru were trying to give me the same lesson their parents gave. It all came to an end when Zero and I were sparring. I jumped and a sharp stick flipped up and gashed my forearm. I held in the scream as the pain tormented me. Zero held me down as Ichiru plucked the remaining wood out of my wound. He took out the first aid kit. We took the contents from the one in the house.
“The pain went away some,” I whispered. Ichiru brought out the rubbing alcohol; my eyes widened. “The pain came back.”
Zero and Ichiru smiled. They quickly disappeared before one held my arm out, and the other dumped some of the stinging liquid onto my deep wound. I held in the scream and let it sweat out. I blew on the wound to make it stop stinging quicker.
“At least the worst part is over,” Zero said as Ichiru grabbed the bandages.
“You’re telling me,” Ichiru said as he started to wrap it. “You were making some funny faces, Michiyo.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I looked at the wrap job Ichiru did. “I guess I will be wearing long sleeves for a bit, huh?”
“Yeah, Mom and Dad will kill us if they knew what we were really doing,” Ichiru said.
“Imagine what my father would do to you guys. I mean, he likes you guys and all but…”
“Yeah, we know,” Ichiru said with a smile.
Zero was the one who remained quiet after the stinging vanished. It was like he blamed himself for what happened to me.
It was our secret. I wore long sleeves and jackets until the wound looked like some scab I could get from playing outside. I don’t think they ever found out what really happened. It isn’t like Zero, Ichiru or I wanted anyone to find out either.
“You have the scar,” Zero uttered as he looked back into my eyes.
“Yeah, it was a deep cut,” I said. “My friends felt so bad about it, too.”
“Yeah, we did,” Zero said. “You still practiced even though it sometime hurt.”
“Yeah,” I finally remembered those eyes and that hair. They were all to familiar for me not to catch. “Ichiru,” I uttered.
“What?”
“You’re not going to fool me this time, Ichiru.” I said, not even paying attention to the tattoo on his left side of his neck. Ichiru did this before. He was parading around like his twin brother. After a few times, it gets annoying. He would do the same thing too. “You’ve pulled the Zero thing before.” Ichiru, in the past few years since the incident, got stronger than his youth. Part of me didn't want to know how.
“You knew Ichiru was alive?”
I stopped, turned around, and looked at him before I could say another word. “Yes,” I said. Usually, Ichiru would have started acting himself, but his eyes were sincere. “You didn’t?”
“I did,” he said. He scanned me and stopped at my eyes and scar. I could feel his eyes staring at them. “I thought your last name was Yagari.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Not anymore, I changed it when I was twelve.”
“You’ll always be Michiyo Yagari to me,” he said with a hint of a smile.
“You are Zero Kiryu,” I said as I swung my arms around him. “I thought they were lying.”
I felt Zero’s hands on my back. My past is here. Nothing else matters. At least I don’t have to avenge Zero; I just have to avenge his parents and kill Ichiru for lying to me again.
“You are alive,” Zero whispered as he hugged me tighter.
“Of course I am.” I answered immediately thinking, you’re the one that saved me that night.
“Where are you staying?”
“Um, I believe you heard Headmaster Cross. I have to stay in the dorms. I don’t really want to, but I have to. I have no other place to stay.”
“Stay with me. I am living at an apartment. I could use some company when I am there. I mean, I hunt at night.”
“I am fine with that. I am used to it. Kaname was gone all the time, and all I did was train.”
“No wonder you have the killer instincts like me,” Zero said with a small smile.
“Yeah, you were my inspiration.” I took out the gun I had hidden in my jacket and showed it to him. “Look familiar?”
“You? Not at first. You got your hair cut off,” Zero said, completely ignoring the gun in my hand.
I almost forgot the last time Zero saw me was when my hair was mostly one length, wavy with naturally curled ends and to the middle of my back.
“Yeah, I wanted to. I was talking the gun.”
“Hardly.”
“I took it from your place after what happened when we were twelve. Your dad engraved Kiryu on it.”
Zero took the gun from me and looked at it. “Now I remember it. It was going to be mine when I was done with training and hunting on my own.”
“Yeah, I took it to remind me of what I wanted to do.”
“What was that?”
“Avenge your deaths. You won’t believe what happened after…” My voice faded. I wasn’t going to mention the name of that damn pureblood that ruined our lives forever.
“Yeah, with our names engraved on here, I would keep to my promise too,” Zero said as he handed the gun back to me. “I wanna see your aim.”
I smiled deviously. “Don’t worry,” I said with a smile, thinking back to times of sparring him. “I’ve been practicing.”
Zero looked around with a small grin. “You better get to class. I’ll go and talk to the headmaster about getting you out of the dorms and to the apartment. I’m sure he’ll let you. Headmaster is kind of a push over.”
“Yeah, I got that vibe.” I said as I stepped toward the rest of the people. “Do you know where I go?”
“Yeah, just follow Yori. She’s the human from the vampire party. You’ll recognize her right away.”
“Okay,” I said with a smile. I was still nervous about finding her. “See you later, Zero.”
I ran up to the girl I remembered from the vampire party when I was security detail. She was just passing as I looked to the crowd. She looked the same as I remembered her. Does she always look that sophisticated and classy?
“Yori, right?” I asked as I caught up to her.
The girl I was trying to catch up to stopped and faced me.
“Yes?” She scanned me over, looking at my face. I realized my hair was completely up instead of the half up one. “You were that girl at the party.”
“Yes, so were you,” I said.
We started walking to class.
“I was wondering,” Yori said. “Why were you there? I mean, I know Kiryu is a vampire hunter.”
I looked at her. She knew he was? I thought humans, well normal people, didn’t know vampires or vampire hunters existed. The Assoiciation and the vampires made sure that idea was comeplete myth when vampires came to be..
“I'm a hunter like him,” I said to her as we meandered through little spaces people made.
“You are?” She sounded shocked. “I am surprised.”
“Why were you there? I don’t think you are a vampire, and I know you aren’t a vampire hunter,” I said as we got into the classroom we were supposed to be in.
Yori looked to her books she’d just sat down on the desk and smiled. Her cheeks were turning pink. “My best friend, Yuki, she was there. I had to see her again.”
I gasped a little. “You mean, she’s a vampire?”
“When we met, she wasn’t. She was just Yuki Cross, the headmaster’s adopted daughter. Now that she’s a vampire, I don’t get to see her anymore.”
“Yuki,” I said thinking about the party and how there was a high profile murder there after I left. A pureblood was the one murdered. “That name sounds so familiar.”
“I wanted to see her so someone got me in.”
“Who? I don’t think any of the vampires would let you in for anything,” I said, remembering how Kaname and the Aido and Kain families handled humans.
“A new student teacher, Takamiya; he teaches ethics. He is the one that snuck me in. I don’t think Zero was too pleased with it, like he ever is,” she said as we sat down.
“Kaito,” I mumbled as I rolled my eyes. “He would do that.”
“That’s his name?”
“Yes, I kind of grew up with him until I was twelve,” I said as I looked at her.
“Wow, isn’t he older than you?”
“Yes.”
“What about Zero? Did you know him?”
I stopped and thought about that question. I was going to immediately say yes. I knew him really well. He was there all the time, so was Ichiru. I grew up with Zero. Did I know him? Definitely. I knew when he was mad at our parents for not letting me train at the Kiryu place. Zero and Ichiru were safe.
“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “He and I grew up together.”
“So, I got to know this for me,” Yori said as the doors opened one last time. “Did Zero glare all the time?”
I thought even more about that. Zero did seem to glare more than I remembered. He seemed gloomier than I remembered Zero ever being. Growing up, he was more upbeat and caring. Like I witnessed just minutes ago when my scar was taking us both back to a “better” time even though it didn't seem it at the time.
“No,” I said with a smile, “that’s new.”
The class started and I felt someone sit behind me. I started to pay attention a little to make it look like I wasn’t interested in anything else. When the teacher’s back was turned, I turned around to figure out my own mini mystery.
I did a double take when I saw him. So he does go to class. He already looked bored with everything. I wanted to stay turned around when I knew it was Zero and not just my eyes playing tricks on me. If I had any problems with my work, like there never is, I could always take it with me.
During most of the class, I let my mind wander. I was wondering about Ichiru mostly. If Ichiru wasn’t playing Zero, I figured out on my own that Zero got a tattoo and Ichiru didn’t have one. Where was he? I haven’t seen him in at least a good year. Since I figured out Ichiru was still alive and roaming around with that woman and perhaps going to this school, I would think Zero would have told me if he was still with her.
My mind wandered from Ichiru to Kaname since purebloods were on my mind now. I wondered why I was taken in by him. He found me, offered me my life, and let me do anything I pleased within reason. When he wasn't around, he sent me to live with the Aido family. They treated me the same as Kaname did. I wondered who Yuki was to him. If she was a human, then Kaname bit her. That means she’ll end up on the list. Zero would know, wouldn’t he?
When class was over, I said good bye to Yori and waited for Zero.
“Zero, where are we going now?” I asked him as we walked out of class together.
“You and I are going to the headmaster’s office. He wants to see both of us,” Zero said as we walked toward the office, I think we came from at the beginning of the day.
“So, why do most people fear you?” I asked when I noticed people staring at Zero with fearful eyes. I thought being a vampire hunter did it to him, but I could be wrong.
“Disciplinary committee,” he said plainly.
“I want to be on that. If it means getting out of class and being like you, I want it,” I said as I sighed with boredom.
“You sure? You’ll have to work with me and carry weapons. Knowing you, you probably haven’t had any weapons on you since we were twelve.”
“Hello, I carry your family’s old gun and a knife on me all the time,” I said as we got to the headmaster’s office.
“Oh yeah,” he said.
Zero knocked on the wooden door and we slowly walked in. Zero walked in first and I followed him. The headmaster was seated behind his desk, waiting for us.
“Kiryu, Kiryai, I hear you both wanted to talk to me,” He said as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Yes,” I started. I walked right up to his desk and pressed my weight on my hands that were planted on the desk. “I want to be a disciplinary committee member like Zero.”
Cross’s eyes widened. “Are you sure you want that responsibility?”
“Yes, it’ll give me more training for my vampire hunting, and I want Zero to train me.”
“How do you know Zero?”
“She’s a Yagari, remember headmaster. Master’s daughter and I have grown up together. It isn’t like I haven’t trained her before.”
I looked back at Zero. He was slouched in a chair with his arms crossed. He still had that glare. I wondered when he acquired that.
“Fine, you start tomorrow,” Headmaster looked at me with a smile. “You’ll be taking over the position my Yuki had before she left.”
Now, on my list of things to do is figure out whom the hell this Yuki person is and why she is so important to people around here.
“Thank you,” I said as I stepped back.
“Is there anything else you want to talk to me about?”
“I want Michiyo to live with me in the apartment,” Zero said before I could even get a sound out.
“What, Kiryu?”
“I want her to live with me in the apartment you let me live in. I can train her there, she can watch the apartment when I am not there, and it’ll just be easier.” Zero was running out of reasons to let me room with him.
“Zero, are you serious about this?” Headmaster asked him. The glare from his glasses was almost blinding me from the sun.
“Yes, I am,” he said seriously. “If you want me to graduate, I want her with me.”
I know it’s been odd seeing him for the first time after five years, but there was something off about him. He’s changed somehow. Was it the vampire aura about him that makes me think he’s changed? Or was it something different?
“Zero, I know I sound like a broken record, but are you sure you are ready for this even after Yuki and Kaname?”
Zero paused for a second. It was like he was trying to remember whatever is meant by Yuki and Kaname. What happened to Zero here?
“Yes, it’ll get my mind off of eliminating all the purebloods,” Zero said as he slammed his hands into the wood of the desk. Somehting about that last sentence made me think Zero was lying his mind off of eliminating the purebloods.
“Then it’s settled,” Headmaster said. He pushed his glasses up more. “Michiyo, you have my permission to live with Zero and be a disciplinary committee member like him as well. I am sure Zero'll show you the ropes. Won’t you, Zero?”
“Yes,” Zero said with almost a smile.
A smile widened across my face. “Thank you, headmaster,” I said as I turned to Zero.
“You’re welcome, you start right now,” Headmaster Cross opened a drawer to his desk and took out the armband Zero wears. He felt the fabric and handed it to me. “You might need this.”
I slipped it on my arm and looked at myself through the window just behind Headmaster.
“Come on, we start watching them right now,” Zero said as he tugged at my arm.
“Thanks, Headmaster,” I called as Zero guided me out the door.
I followed Zero down the hall until he stopped just outside another door. He turned around and faced me.
“Training starts now, you know,” Zero said with a small smile.
I smiled deviously. “I'm ready for this. I had to psych myself into going into that vampire party, this is nothing.” I assured him.
Zero gave me a quick smile before opening the door. “Just follow me,” he said.
“I know, I’ve followed you before.” I said, remembering all the times I tried to keep up with Zero as the three of us ran into the woods to train me.