Chapter Text
"Dialogue"
Thoughts
It's strange. Zero sways feeling like he is on a boat. He stands in a long hallway, staring at the wall. Are the shadows…moving? Wobbling? Why is it so foggy? No, not fog? Smoke.
…
…
Wait, what? Zero starts, like he just snapped out of a trance. The hallway begins to fill with smoke which can only mean one thing. Fire.
He doesn't know where he is. There are portraits of people on the wall, but he doesn't recognize them. One thing is for sure, this is not Cross Academy. And it's also not the Kiryu estate either. But that doesn't really matter at the moment. Zero races down the hall, toward that light which he now identifies as a raging fire. Did everyone make it out? Is someone trapped? Where is Haruka and Juri? Are there children here? How did the fire start and why can't he hear any alarms or sirens?
…
Wait, who? It just suddenly popped into his head. His thoughts are jumbled. Something feels off, foreign. Zero reaches the end of the hall and stops at the top of the stairs. Apparently, he was on the second floor. Looking down, he pauses. Is that Kaname? With a scythe? Squinting in the smoke, he recognizes it as Yuki's anti-vampire weapon.
"Wait," Zero calls out, it's hard to recognize his voice. Is there an echo? "Stop." He realizes there is someone laying at Kana- no, that man's feet. "Stop!" The man brings the scythe over his head and strikes. Everything goes black.
"Zero!" He startles awake, sitting up, gasping for air. "Hey, are you alright?" He looks up from where he was napping in the grass to find Kaito Takamiya staring at him with an odd look.
"Umm, yeah, fine. Just a weird dream, I guess." Zero responds as he stands and brushes himself off.
Kaito isn't convinced. "Riiight. Was it a nightmare? You seem kinda shaken. You don't usually react like this, you're usually in control, even if someone surprises you while you're sleeping."
"Whatever. We have a mission, right? Some Level E's in the next town over? Then let's go."
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Zero sits in an old library, located in the Kiryu estate. He is visiting his family for spring break. Or that's what he told everyone. Honestly, it has been serval months since his mission with Kaito and he has had several additional weird dreams since then. It's almost midnight. He has no idea what he is even looking for.
He sighs, leans back in his chair, and considers the idea that maybe he is overreacting. Dreams are strange and often don't make sense, so he should stop trying to make sense of them. Zero considers turning it in for the night, but he feels this weird pit in his stomach. Do you ever get a feeling of dread? Not about the future, but dread for something that has already happened? Something that may have changed your whole life and you can never go back to the nice life you had before.
"Wow, that got dark fast." Zero admits out loud to himself. "Maybe I should just talk to someone about it. Maybe it's a spell or backlash of a spell that I did wrong?" He looks at the old, tacky lamp on the desk beside him and remembers how the shadows swayed in the light of the ever moving fire. "What was it again? Yuri? Naru? Haru? Oh, Juri and Haruka!" He remembers those names from the first dream. "Well, it's somewhere to start, I guess," and he gets back to work.
-The next day-
"Haruka and Juri? Yeah, I know them." Zero looks at his mother as they sit on the couch while his father and brother are out of the house. After some basic hunter training, Ichiru decided to live at home and attend a nearby school to "know what it's like to be normal." Zero, on the other hand, continued to train, eventually learning under Toga Yagari and attending Cross Academy at the request of a family friend, Kaien Cross who is essentially his adopted father.
"Really? I couldn't find records of them." After struggling for the rest of the night, cooped up in the library, Zero gave up looking for the names and asked his mother the following morning. Well, kinda morning. After staying up so late, he ended up sleeping through his alarm on got up at 11.
"Well, yes. Where did you hear about them? You see, they aren't in our records because they are not hunters. They're purebloods. Haruka and Juri Kuran." His mother answered. Zero's brow raised in surprise. "They are Kaname and Yuki's parents. You know them, right? They attend Cross Academy.
"Oh, yes. Yuki and I are friends. And Kaname and I are, umm." His mother simply smiled as he struggled to define his relationship with Kaname Kuran.
"Well, I was actually friends with Haruka and Juri. Would you like me to tell you about them?" Zero felt the sting of guilt, knowing that the Kuran family was all but wiped out, and how he accidentally reminded his mother that her friends are dead. But he had to figure this out
"Yes, tell me."
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- Meanwhile -
Kaname signs and continues to go through stacks of paperwork in his dorm room, using it as an excuse to procrastinate on what is actually bothering him. There's no denying it, something is missing. But how do you know what you've forgotten when you can't remember? Kaname signs again and pulls out an opened letter from a drawer. It contains a photograph and several official documents from both the Hunters Association and the Vampire Council. The first page is titled:
Kiryu-Kuran Contract
How did he not know about this? An agreement between his family and a family of hunters? It would not be so surprising in this day in age where there are some vampires and humans that are actively trying to get along. However, it seems that the contract was first established hundreds of years ago. Maybe even 1,000's of years ago.
And then there was the photograph. It showed his younger self standing in between both of his parents. This would seem normal except for the fact that young Zero was also in the picture, standing right next to him. If the contract is real, then it is plausible that there was some sort of meeting between the families. This is probably the first time he meet Zero and learned of the contract. The problem? He doesn't remember any of this. And he should. He was clearly old enough in the picture. And it's obviously extremely important.
Kaname had been running scenarios through his head for the last week, ever since he received this letter. A head injury? He dismissed this fairly quickly. It was extremely unlikely for a pureblood to lose their memories over an injury. Even if he had, his parents would have noticed the discrepancies and filled him in. Had he blocked it out of his memory for some reason? Or… there was one more explanation. It was the most likely and, unfortunately, the most problematic. Someone purposeful tampered with his memories and hoped he wouldn't notice. After all, how do you know what you've forgotten when you can't remember?