Random Curiosity

Summary:

With the dangers of Zero being a vampire, the chairman gives Yuuki a bracelet that can let her subdue him if she brings it close to the crest on his neck. This is the condition that Kaname set to let Zero stay in the Day Class, and Zero is okay with it. The following day, Yuuki’s class gets a new teacher - a man named Yagari Touga. Zero is surprised to see this person and ends up leaving class before it even starts. Yuuki chases after him, and, at the school gates, the two are met by the chairman who sends the two on an errand in town. They end up making a stop at a cafe, and Yuuki tries to find out if Zero knew that teacher, but before he can tell her, they are interrupted by the waitress who mistakes Zero for a member of the Night Class. This bothers Zero to the point that he goes outside because he realizes that he might smell like a vampire too now, and it is at this point that he suddenly senses something. It causes him to run off, and when Yuuki emerges from the cafe, Zero is gone.

Yuuki searches around town for Zero and pauses only when she accidentally cuts her arm on the railing of a rusty staircase. While she’s standing there, she suddenly gets attacked from above by a vampire, and she’s barely able to defend herself with her pole. When the vampire tries to lunge at her a second time, Zero shows up to protect her. He doesn’t immediately kill the Level E vampire though, and it is Night Class member Ichijou Takuma wielding a sword who actually does that deed. Ichijou’s appearance is capped off by him telling Yuuki to come to the Night Class dormitory tonight if she wants to know why they took care of the Level E. Both she and Zero show up that night, and Zero first gives Yuuki a gun to shoot him with for when he loses his humanity and goes on a rampage. Though Yuuki understands and accepts how he feels, she also says that she doesn’t want to think that that day will come, and she tries to get Zero to promise that he’ll resist it so that she won’t have to use the gun.

Zero and Yuuki are met by Aidou and Kain, and the two lead them to what turns out to be Ichijou’s birthday party. Yuuki, however, quickly gets to the point by asking about the Level E, and Aidou explains that the Level Es are not the same as the vampires of the Night Class. Vampire society is ruled by a handful of purebloods and nobles, and though everyone in the Night Class is a noble or higher, there are a lot of ordinary vampires under them. Further down the hierarchy are ex-human vampires, and at the very bottom are Level Es - ex-human vampires who have lost control over themselves. It was actually, Kaname who sent Ichijou to hunt the Level E today, and he now appears before them and has Yuuki sit down beside him. After asserting that being with him is the safest place for her, Kaname explains that ex-human vampires shouldn’t have been created. Back when the battle between vampires and vampire hunters was at its height, vampires dragged humans into this by trying to use them for combat. Since then, vampires of nobility have controlled the ex-human vampires, and they have to kill them sometimes.

Having listened to all this, Zero insists that it’s the vampire hunter’s duty to hunt vampires, but Kaname counters by questioning why Zero didn’t kill the Level E earlier. He suggests that Zero might have pitied the Level E, and this infuriates Zero to the point that he pulls out his gun and points it at Kaname’s head. Kaname diffuses the situation by taking responsibility for what he said, but what Zero did angers the other vampires who revere Kaname because he’s a pureblood. Yuuki is surprised to learn that Kaname is a pureblood, and she admits to being a little scared of him, however she isn’t able to say much more because Ichijou then turns everyone’s attention back to his birthday. Zero eventually runs out of the party because he gets sick from watching some of the vampires suck on each other, and after Yuuki goes after him, Kaname asserts that she’ll come to him sooner or later. Yuuki eventually finds Zero by the pool with blood tablets on the ground beside him. Unable to control himself, Zero is attracted to Yuuki and almost bites her neck, but she flings them both into the pool, and he returns to normal. However, when the two emerge from the water, Yagari Touga suddenly appears and shoots Zero in the shoulder. He comments on how he’s shooting his student with his gun, and a shocked Zero refers to him as his teacher.

Well that was a nice cliffhanger spot to end the episode on. For a moment there, I thought Yagari Touga actually killed Zero. That of course didn’t happen, but all of it highlights how, despite his overabundance of angst, Zero’s character has the interesting conflict of being apparently trained as a vampire hunter while also being a vampire himself. That’s portrayed as mostly a bad thing - and in the case of facing his former master, it probably is - but I have to think that there are some benefits to being both an ex-human vampire and a vampire hunter, like strength, healing, etc. The story probably won’t go down that path until we learn some more about vampire hunters and more conflict is shown between the vampires and hunters. On a related note, Yagari Touga reminds me a bit too much of Van Helsing.

What bothers me about this episode is how Kaname (and the purebloods in general) wields so much power over the other vampires. He’s basically sitting on his throne during the party, having just chosen Yuuki as his queen, and the only discontent is towards Yuuki rather than him. Aside from saving Yuuki multiple times, he hasn’t really proven that he deserves to be the king, and I find it unsettling that everyone just does what he says without ever questioning him. I wonder if something like that will ever come into play or if the Night Class will just continue following his every command.