Epilogue Mikaela's Story
Every time Mika closed his eyes, he saw it - the time he had spent with his family. Not with his birth family. With his true family.
The life they led probably counted as nothing short of horrible. All of them were either neglected by their parents, or subjected to violence, or abandoned, and after that, even the world collapsed, and they got locked up in a place without a future, forced to live every day under the vampire reign, side by side with death, and eat garbage-like food.
No one was there to protect them. They were only children, yet they had to huddle together in order to desperately try to survive.
And yet, every time he shut his eyes, Mika always saw his family's smiling faces behind the closed lids. Saw Akari's smile. And the toothy grins of the smaller kids. And Yuu-chan, who was also there, by Mika's side, watching the rest with a troubled face. Yuu-chan would always say that he had no family, yet he never failed to be kind to all of them, and at the end, cried for them, even saying that he had finally found his family.
And yet, what had he done. What had he done.
It had been 2 years since then. 2 years had passed since Mika got separated from Yuu-chan and turned into a vampire.
In these 2 years, he hardly talked to anyone. He simply had no one to talk to. Since he was surrounded only by vampires.
Ah, no, there were humans, too. The humans that were kept as livestock. But the eyes the livestock regarded him with were those of someone seeing a monster. Seeing a subduer, a ruler.
To make it even more unbearable, when Mika himself saw humans, his appetite got stimulated. He wanted to drink human blood. He craved it. Hungered for it. Lusted after human blood to a vulgar extent.
Denying drinking it to himself was an exquisite torture. But he had managed to avoid drinking human blood so far. The Queen that turned him into a vampire was providing him with her own blood, so he hadn't been degraded to a monster sucking human blood yet—
But for how much longer would it still work...
"...Yuu-chan," Mika mouthed, close to a moan.
And yet, despite everything, he still had hope, because Yuu-chan was alive. Despite the blunder he had made. Even if he himself had been reduced to such a vile monster, to him, there still was—
But that was when his thoughts were rudely interrupted.
"Hyakuya Mikaela," someone called him.
It wasn't Yuu-chan. It was a voice from the world of reality where Mika lived at the moment.
Mika opened his eyes. And when he did, the same old world that was under the vampire reign, with vampires calling the shots, was around him, unchanged.
Still, if anything had changed, it was the fact that he no longer was livestock locked up in an underground city; he got to see the sky now.
He was dressed in a white military uniform made exclusively for vampires; and at his waist, there hung a rapier that sucked the blood of its wielder, also developed exclusively for vampires.
"Hey! Listen to me, rookie!"
A vampire that formally was Mika's superior was apparently saying something, but Mika didn't really listen. Neither had he any desire to.
It was raining. A really heavy shower, at that. The sky was pitch black, and it was impossible to tell if it was day or night right now. Military aircrafts flew across the dark sky, bombing the earth beneath.
This place was a location somewhere in the Eastern Europe. Allegedly, dangerous humans - livestock - not knowing their place, yet again carried out experiments that could end the world. And the vampires came to wipe them off the face of earth. To keep the world in peace and order, as it went.
"I won't hold back on the account of you being a favorite of a noble person!" Mika's superior raised a fist.
Mika just gazed at it. The falling raindrops. The fist being brandished.
All of that looked to him like it was happening in slow motion. To him, who was no longer human. To him, who had been given the blood of the 3rd progenitor, Krul Tepes.
Mika could probably count the innumerable falling raindrops now if he wanted. The shades of light and dark were distinguishable to him with clarity. And he could also hear sounds acutely. Ever since he had become a vampire, everything about the world became beautiful to his eyes - except that he stopped caring about everything save for blood.
That was what despair was.
No, he still had some humanity left. He wanted to see Yuu-chan. To see Yuu-chan once again.
If Yuu-chan survived outside, somewhere in this crazy, wasted world, Mika wanted to reunite with him as a human once again. Not for the sake of blood. Neither for the sake of satisfying his appetite. For the sake of saving Yuu-chan, saving his family.
"Look at meee!" The superior yelled angrily.
His fist was about to connect with Mika's cheek. Before it could, Mika caught his hand and glowered at him.
"Are you disobeying me, bastard?!"
Shut up, you ugly bloodsucker. How about I just tear off your arm?
Mika tensed his arm, holding the vampire's hand. The superior hardly felt the pain of it, he knew. The vampire's sense of pain was dulled. But if Mika put more power in his grip, he would be able to tear the entire arm off.
The superior glared daggers at him. "Let go of my hand. I'll kill you."
No, for this guy, it was impossible. And the guy himself had realized the fact by now.
But just then...
"Hey, enough. The humans are your enemy. So don't waste the time on worthless squabbles in this terrible rain," a voice said.
It made the superior turn around swiftly and straighten his back. "Sir, my apologies, Crowley Eusford-sama."
The name made Mika lift his head and take a look. He saw a tall man with red hair, likely belonging to the noble class.
For this mission, a few nobles were brought in to participate. But it wasn't like Mika had any interest in them, in any case. As far as he was concerned, he couldn't care less about what the vampires did.
An even higher ranking vampire said from behind Crowley then, "Okaaay, let's do this~ Kill all the humans who experiment on the Seraph of the End. Everyone, are you ready?"
It was none other than Ferid. He was the one in command of this time's operation.
Ferid stared at Mika. And grinned. Mika didn't look him in the eye. There was no need to. But Ferid still approached him.
"Hello, Mika-kun. I see you were assigned to my unit."
"..."
"It has only been 2 years since you became a vampire, no? Have you become accustomed to it yet?"
"..."
"If there is something you don't know, you can always a—"
"Shut up."
"...Fufu, I shall guide you. As your elder. Ah, by the way. Would you like to come to my mansion once this mission is over? I will tell you about my past—"
"Not interested," Mika said curtly.
He wasn't the same as he was back then. Back when he was but livestock kept alive for his blood only.
"Oh really. I think it would be a story of great interest to you though... But well, let's finish the mission first. Crowley-kun."
"Mm?"
"Let's begin."
"Yeah."
Crowley raised his hand up, then lowered it down.
It had become the signal for the vampires to start annihilating the human organization located in Europe.
And on that day, I had come to see with my own eyes how ugly and how conceited humans were, conducting the forbidden experiments.
It has been two years since then. I have yet to drink human blood. My physical growth has yet to stop. And this is the story of vampire Mikaela, 14.