Moving Forward Chapter 1

He'd gained a little shit in his class today. Well, it wasn't his class, he was just a substitute, but that didn't matter.

The blond turned his head away from the blackboard, pausing in his writing, in order to give a displeased look towards the grumbling student. "Hyakuya Yuichiro, be silent during class."

It was obvious that the dark-haired teen was one of Guren's—even if his consistently bad attitude wasn't a dead give away, the fact that Shinoa was purposefully seated directly behind him definitely was. Though it was refreshing to see the girl again, it had been about a month since he'd last seen her, in a surprisingly similar situation to the one now. Kimizuki was his name if he remembered, he had a shitty attitude too.

The legs of a chair grinded against the floor, an exclamation of both surprise and annoyance accompanying it soon after. Naruto turned once again, finding Yuichiro stood and glaring daggers at Shinoa.

"Hyakuya." He really hated having to call students by their last name, most were only two or so years younger than he was, it was awkward having to play adult for them. Sometimes he missed being a Captain in the Moon Demon Company, he could shout, fight and curse at anyone he wanted, so long as it didn't piss any of the Hiragis or higher-ups off.

"Shit!"

He didn't know how to listen. Naruto had never been one for taking disrespect and not doing anything about it. So, even when Yuichiro had taken his seat and finally shut his mouth, he didn't continue the class, instead slipping the English book shut and placing it on the desk in front of him.

For a post-apocalyptic Japan that had no communication with people who spoke English as their main language, it was surprising how how it had held up and how relevant it still was, despite its difficulty to learn.

"Hyakuya." He'd gained the student's attention this time, almost immediately, but he didn't like the look he was getting. "Come up to the front of the class."

With a grunt and a huff, Yuichiro did as he was told, shoving his hands in his pockets as he marched forward. "What?"

"Get on your knees, Hyakuya, and face the class." The blond ordered with a nice smile. Shinoa looked on smugly, though that wasn't really any different than usual. "You will apologize to everyone, and express how deeply sorry you are for disrupting them and their studies."

If looks could kill, Naruto was sure he'd already be six feet under.

Still stood, Yuichiro's eyes skimmed over the class, twitching when they reached Shinoa. "Tsk." He grumbled, visibly struggling with himself as he got down on his knees and bowed, declaring his half-hearted apology.

Well, it could've been better, but he was satisfied and would have to make do. "Good, you can return to your seat. But if something like this happens again, I'll have you clean every bathroom in the school with your bare hands."

"I hate him!"

He was still mad.

"Who?"

Shinoa was clearly amused, undoubtedly knowing exactly who he was talking about.

That pissed him off too.

"The stupid teacher."

"Naruto, huh."

He wasn't an expert on detecting the undertone of someone's words, but it definitely sounded like she knew the blond personally. "Do you know him?"

"Somewhat." She said, confirming his suspicions. "Lieutenant Colonel Guren is much more familiar with him than I am."

"Huh? Someone like that knows Guren?"

"Of course, but." Her brown eyes flicked over to the door, where the last remnants of the students were leaving. Their teacher had left before class had even ended with the excuse that he had somewhere to be, and of course none of the students kept on with their work, preferring to chatter and mess around. "Shouldn't you be following them and trying to make friends?"

"Friends are the last thing I need."

"Not if you want to join the Vampire Annihilation Squad." She quipped. "The Lieutenant Colonel told me that your family was killed by vampires when you were a child, and that you've had problems socializing since then because you're afraid that you might lose someone dear to you again." Another thing that pissed him off, Guren didn't need to go around telling everyone about his personal life. "You're so scared that you can't bring yourself to make friends, be part of a team, or find a girlfriend."

Yuichiro slammed his chair back and stood up, scowling, and snatched her shoulder. "Don't stick your nose in other people's affairs." He snapped. "Stop talking bullshit and tell Guren to let me join already, I've become strong enough to kill those scum."

"Ah." She smiled, bringing her hands out from behind her back with a folded over note in hand. Her smile wasn't pleasant, and only succeeded at pissing him off even more. "The Lieutenant Colonel knew you would say that and asked me to hand this message over to you."

He snagged it out of her hand, unfolded it and began to read through:

In the army, there's no use for a virgin who doesn't know the first thing about friendship, comradeship or love. Try to make at least one friend at school and introduce him to me, even though I doubt you'll get through with it.

Twitching, the dark-haired sixteen-year-old crumpled up the paper and slammed it onto the floor with effort. "Damn it." He groaned, panting from a combination of exerted annoyance and embarrassment. "Everyone is making fun of me!"

A thump sounded from behind him, like a body colliding with the cold, hard floor, and he turned to see one of his classmates on the floor looking up at the door, obviously frightened. He was small, and you could tell from just a single glance that he was a wimp. "P-please don't..."

"Haah..."

"I thought I might find you here."

"Don't bullshit me Guren." Naruto snorted, amused. "Someone came up here before, they weren't as quiet as they thought. Who was it? Mito? Shigure?"

"Sayuri."

"Ah." He backed away from the fence overlooking the ruins of what was once Japan and turned to face his former superior. It was kind of disappointing to find out how much the man hadn't changed since they'd last been face-to-face. He was still the same height, those few black bangs of his hair still fell in front of his cold, purple eyes. His black with red Japanese Imperial Demon Army uniform was still the same, too. "Should've sent Goshi." He tilted his head. "Or did you?"

"Who knows."

Naruto rolled his eyes. It wasn't like he'd have been able to tell even if it had been anyway. "You haven't changed. Still won't tell me anything." Sighing, he decided to bring up the topic of why he wanted to speak to Guren in the first place. "So what's the deal with the snot-nosed bag of bad attitude you put in my class?"

"Like you're one to talk about bad attitude." The blond rolled his blue eyes at the retort. "He's important. Important to humanity's survival, to me, and to you, too."

"Oh? Important to me?"

"You once told me that you had a dream that could only be fulfilled by someone else."

"I also once told you that you were that person, and look how well that turned out." He tapped his chest with his finger to indicate the failure, before bringing his arms out to his side and shrugging. "Besides, that was a long time ago. Who's to say it hasn't changed since then?"

"Something like that doesn't just change, nor are you that kind of person."

Naruto huffed and it made Guren smirk, he knew that he'd hit the nail on the head. His former superior had always been like that, able to see through people without any apparent trouble, it was also something that Sayuri and Shigure unanimously agreed on. "What do you want from me, Lieutenant Colonel? Do you need more of my blood?"

The last question had been a pseudo-joke, but he was kind of curious about it.

"No, we still have plenty of that." His eyes narrowed, expression more focused. "What I want is for you to come back under my command, Naruto."

"Still trying to dethrone the Hiragis?" Rhetorical question, he knew the answer to that already. Naruto scratched at the back of his head out of habit. "Either way, the answer's no. I left for a reason."

"You don't think Yu is capable enough."

"Yu?"

"The snot-nosed bag of bad attitude."

"Right." The blond shook his head. "No, I don't think that Hyakuya is capable enough, but that doesn't matter." Maybe it did, and it was probable that Guren knew he was spouting bullshit, oh well. He clicked his tongue. "Hyakuya." He repeated. "Why does it sound so familiar?"

Guren's lips twitched. Was he pleased that the name sounded familiar to him? "The Hyakuya Church."

That's all the Lieutenant Colonel gave him as a final clue, but it was enough. "Oh—that Hyakuya. The one that conducts human experiments on orphaned children?"

"Exactly."

"Is that why you think he's so important?"

"Naru-"

Interrupting the Lieutenant Colonel was an explosion, followed by a loud wooing alarm. "Emergency warning! Emergency warning!" The speakers boomed all throughout the school. "All students and personnel! A vampire has broken out of the vivisection laboratory close to the school!"

"Oh damn."

"Are you going?"

"Do you have to ask?" Naruto sighed. "I'm a teacher here, I'm not going to let it kill any of the students."

"Haha, hearing you call someone a student sure is unsettling."

Naruto shrugged as he made his way past his old superior. "For you, maybe, but I've gotten used to being a substitute teacher."

"All students and personnel must leave the premise at once! Drinking blood will restore its vampiric power, do not attempt to approach it!"

More bullshit, and Guren undoubtedly knew that, too. The truth was that teaching a bunch of civilians was all he had to fall back on, aside from crawling back to the army. A little over four months prior, Hiragi Tenri had forbade him from leaving the walls of Shibuya again under the excuse that he was nothing but a civilian who required protection, not that the General needed an excuse to get what he wanted.

It did make perfect sense, though, he'd been a Captain and the information on how the Japanese Imperial Demon Army worked alone would be enough to attract the attention of vampires—and it had. News of a lone ex-Captain of the Moon Demon Company out in the ruins, alone, didn't stay quiet for very long.

He pushed the door at the bottom of the stairs open, moving past and ignoring the screaming students as they bolted for the closest exit.

Numerous assassination attempts had been made on his person, but he'd managed to come out on top every time, decapitating his would-be killers after the fact and mounting their heads on their own weapons. At first, it had been in an attempt to send a message for them to not bother him, but they had kept persisting and it soon became a pseudo-trademark and force of habit.

But then he'd been forced back into Shibuya by Hiragi Kureto and his squad under his father's orders. Kureto was a nasty piece of work, an asshole who pushed his rank and powerful family name wherever he could, as well as someone that both Naruto and Guren shared a mutual dislike for.

Several gunshots resounded throughout the hallways and he fastened his pace.

The blond had considered attempting to escape multiple times, but threw the idea out the window each and every time, even an attempt to leave Shibuya without permission would result in him being hunted. He'd already lived like that for nearly a year with just vampires, he didn't need the army on his ass too.

Turning the corner, he was met with a single body laid out on the floor, unmoving. Was he dead? Maybe, but it wasn't exactly easy to tell. It was a vampire he was dealing with, they weren't ones to paint the walls with the blood of their victims, that would be such a waste. Moving past it, he made his way into the classroom. His classroom.

"A kid?"

That had been the first thing he noticed.

A cute, brown-haired girl was unconscious on the desk up the front, and one of his students was near the back, shivering so much it looked like he was going to piss himself from fear. There were three others, all grouped together in a mound on the floor right next to the windows.

The furthest from him was that smart, cowardly kid—Yoichi?—who got bullied, and was always one of the highest scorers on tests. On the ground in front of him, missing an arm, was a little girl—pink hair, red and slitted eyes. A vampire.

Then, of course, there was Yuichiro. Sword in hand after a clean strike, presumably after having cleaved the vampire's arm off below her elbow.

The vampire moved, snatching her severed limb and clipping it back on in record time, before thrusting her other towards Yuichiro's neck.

"Ah." It didn't reach him in time, and she instead lost the limb all the way up to her shoulder, her legs and recently attached arm soon following. Before she could even so much as grind her teeth, she was forced into the corner of the room, back to the wall, little more than a stump of flesh. "You hesitated, Hyakuya."

"Naruto?"

"Sensei, to you." The blond reprimanded, bending down and offering a hand to Yoichi who gladly accepted it. "All you've got as a weapon is flat steel, no demon inside of it. You should have taken her other arm instead of conversing with Saotome here. Vampires can only reconnect what they've lost, not regenerate them back."

Yoichi smiled weakly. "Thank you, sensei."

"No problem." Naruto turned his attention to the little girl in the corner, her blood oozing from where her arms and legs used to be. He bent down to her level, smiling at her seething glare. "You've been a bad girl today, they won't take you back for experimentation now. But maybe that's a good thing." His lips thinned. "How old are you anyway? Two-hundred? Three-hundred?" She sneered, her mouth remaining shut. "Older? Really? You don't look it."

A few quick-paced footsteps made the blond take a glimpse behind him. Yuichiro was raising his sword, getting ready to decapitate her. "I hope today was worth dying for, Vampire."

Whether it would actually work or not was up in the air, most vampires would survive the removal of their head from normal weapons, and on the other hand he'd seen some of them just drop dead from it. Granted, the ones who'd died had been pretty weak. Either way, it was detrimental to what he wanted to try.

Yuichiro swung.

"Stop that." The blond twirled the hilt around with his fingers, shoving the tip of the blade deep enough through the floor so that it could stand on its own.

"Wh-"

"Shh." Naruto interrupted. "What were you thinking Hyakuya, swinging a sword around like that? It's dangerous, you could have taken someone's eye out." He couldn't help the smug feeling at the younger teen's flabbergasted expression. "Go sit down in the corner and don't move until I say so."

"W-what are you doing?!" Yuichiro snapped. Naruto blinked. "Why are you protecting the vampire? I was going to kill it!"

"With this?" He tapped the hilt of his student's blade. "Maybe, but I'd prefer you didn't."

He could almost hear the teeth grind in frustration. "Why?"

"Hey." Instead of answering, he decided to demonstrate. The vampire was blinking every now and then, was she trying to stay conscious? Well, it didn't seem as if she'd had any blood to get her power back, so maybe severing all of her limbs hadn't been the best of ideas. "Would you like to live?"

Yuichiro sputtered incoherently, but the substitute teacher shushed him.

"No."

"Are you sure?" He leaned back behind him, picking up her right arm from next to the leg of the desk, figuring out which one it was from the thumb placement. "You don't sound completely sure." Naruto pushed her pink hair out of the way, moving her severed limb to her shoulder. It twisted a bit, the skin on both ends reaching out and latching back on to reconnect itself. "You'll work for me, of course, but I imagine it'll be better than dying with your last choices in life being failures."

Her arm, hand and fingers all moved, responding perfectly to her commands, as if it had never been severed in the first place. "Work for you?"

She didn't sound approving of the notion, but it was better than a sneer, or being spat on, rather, which a few of the other vampires he'd given the same offer to had done. Disrespectful shits. "Yeah, only some light stuff—killing vampires, monsters, generally just helping me with people I don't like—ah, you'll need to be able to cook, too."

"Sensei." The blond perked up, hearing Yuichiro's voice calling him by his proper title. He would have thought that the teen would have preferred to tell him to fuck off than actually listen. "You're not seriously considering going through with this are you?"

"No, of course not." He responded. "There's nothing to consider. If she accepts, then she lives. If she doesn't, then I'll kill her here. Why?"

"She's a vampire." What a boring response. "And how many people do you think had to die today because she escaped?"

"I can probably count how many with my fingers, so not too many, but that doesn't matter." Yuichiro was far from looking happy, but the teen's feelings on the matter were irrelevant as far as he was concerned. "What matters is her usefulness. Even if she can only kill a single enemy, don't you think that's better than what would have been nothing?"

"But even still-"

"Be quiet, Hyakuya. If you want to kill her so badly then you can try, but you won't be able to until she refuses." Naruto turned his attention back to the bleeding, probably half-dead little girl. "You've had enough time to think now, what's your answer? You should probably answer quickly, Guren's squad won't be too far off, and if he decides that your prompt execution is more important than my needs, I don't know if I'll be able to keep you alive from the five of them."

"I can't cook."

"Then you can learn."

"Humans will call for my head."

"If they find out, sure. So don't let anyone know."

Her protruding fangs bit down on the outside of her lip, she shifted slightly with her arm, her red and slitted eyes surveyed the bloodied area—jumping from limb to limb.

"And what's happening here?"

Shinoa's head popped out from behind Guren, ever the smug one.

Naruto stood and faced the Lieutenant Colonel, opening up his palm as dark wisps of smoke began to emanate, elongating outwards a little over twenty inches in length, solidifying into a glinting steel blade, a thick fabric around the hilt and a sturdy guard. "I'm just waiting for an answer."

"Oh?" His eyebrow cocked in amusement and twitching smirk began to put the blond at ease, he didn't seem serious. Even so, he didn't drop his guard nor his weapon, just alone Guren was very dangerous to anyone he considered an enemy, infinitely more so with his squad at his back, which just so happened to be the case. "Is that a fight you're looking for?"

"Me?" He brought up his arms, shrugging actively, aware of Yu flinching out of the way so he didn't lose an eye from the flailing sword. "But I'm just a lowly substitute teacher, there's no way I could ever fight someone like the Lieutenant Colonel."

He got a flat look.

Goshi poked his head through the door, pipe in mouth, exhaling smoke. "There's no need to be like that Naruto."

When Guren's squad, plus Shinoa, began to move further into the classroom, he tightened his grip but otherwise remained still.

His former superior flicked his attention over to the student behind the blond. "Yu." He said. "What's it like being at a normal high school? Lost your virginity yet?"

"Gck." Said sixteen-year-old choked on his own spit, stomping forward into the middle of the classroom in order to scowl at the officer, red-faced. "I don't need that crap!" He snapped. "And I don't need friends, either. I took on that vampire-" He jabbed his finger in the direction of said vampire. "-and I would have gotten her if the stupid teacher didn't interfere."

"Yes."

"Hm?" Ignoring Guren picking on Yu for the time being, Naruto twisted his attention down to the pink-haired vampire. She was glaring at him, her red eyes having begun to dull, but at least she didn't look like she wanted to remove his head from his shoulders anymore. "What?"

"Yes." She repeated. "I'll work for you."

"And cook?"

"A-and cook."

"Good answer." He smiled, dropping his sword and letting it impale the floor much like he'd done with Yuichiro's, getting down and collecting her left arm as well as her severed legs, setting them down closer to her. "Before that." He said, extending his hand, little finger poking towards her. "Make me a promise. Promise that you won't disobey an order, no matter what it may entail, and make your words here today void."

"This is stupid." Grunting, she brought her arm forward, extending her own little finger to wrap around his. "I promise."

Soon after that, with the blond's aid, all of her limbs had been correctly reattached. Even still, even after having regained the apparent full functionality of all her limbs, her eyes remained dull without any sign of getting better. "Ah, blood." Shoving his collar to the side, he moved forward and hovered his neck not far from her mouth. "If you still plan on living, then dig in."

Naruto flinched when her fangs dug into his neck almost immediately, feeding as if she'd been on the verge of starvation. He could actually feel how much blood was leaving him at such a fast pace. Though if he was honest, the amount she was taking wasn't exactly surprising, she'd had all of her limbs severed and undoubtedly lost a lot of blood. If it had been a human, they'd have died within the time she'd been incapacitated.

A vampire's endurance really was something to marvel at.

"Kinky."

"Shut up Shinoa." He felt the little girl—his subordinate now, he supposed—disconnect from his neck, her head rolling back and colliding with the wall, eyelids shut and her breath light. She was unconscious. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, oh." Naruto stood and faced Guren, not liking his amused expression for even a moment. Sayuri, Shigure and Mito were all behind him, remaining silent, while Goshi had taken both Yuichiro and Yoichi around to the back of the classroom, talking to the teens about his latest lay, going into vivid detail about the way she moved her hips and moaned. "You're not going to kill her."

If Guren were to make a move, then Naruto would have to snatch his blade from out of the floor, though it didn't seem like he would need to.

The Lieutenant Colonel's eyes flickered over to the unconscious vampire, lingering for a few moments before returning to land back on the blond's. "No, I'm not." The man had won, and they both knew it, his smirk was seriously starting to get on Naruto's nerves. "But if you don't want anyone else finding out that you're protecting an escaped experiment, then you'll rejoin the Vampire Annihilation Squad."

"Wha!" Yuichiro's voice shouted out, very obviously annoyed at the Lieutenant Colonel's words. "Why does someone like him get to join but I don't?"

"I told you before, didn't I?" Guren sighed, scratching at the back of his neck lazily. "You haven't even tried to make a single friend yet. Someone who can't even do that can't work in a team, nor do they belong in the army."

"You're not one to talk about teamwork." Shinoa quipped, hands behind her back, cheeky smirk firmly set in place. "You're the worst out of everyone here."

"Did I ask for your opinion?"

Well, at least there was that—Shinoa. Without much effort, she would always manage piss Guren off. "Fine." He said, dragging attention back to the topic, just as the Lieutenant Colonel was about to tell his grayish-purple-haired underling to go die somewhere. "I'll rejoin, as soon as the teacher I'm replacing returns."

Guren was smooth with words and could lie to just about anyone's face without them catching on, but this wasn't something he'd twist words for—he'd put his faith in the man, again, and believe that Yuichiro was capable of fulfilling his dream.

For that, he was willing to throw away his reasons for leaving his superior's command in the first place.

Chapter 1 done!