Disclaimer: I don't own Owari no Seraph, its plot or characters, or any other mentioned books, songs, or series. They belong to their respective owners. I only own my OCs and the plot that deviates from canon or doesn't exist in canon. This is a non-profit fan fiction just for fun.

To NguyetMieu: Vivian watched only the first season of the anime, but read some more things about certain characters that interested her online (the second season was already out, but she didn't watch it yet before she died in 2018). Nagoya is definitely going to be interesting...

We'll see Shinya's reaction to Vivian's actions in the future, and yes, yes she did compare Crowley to an underwear model ;D The picture of Crowley in a speedo is hilarious btw. Thank you for telling me about it! My life is now complete xD

To Alice Fairchild: I'm happy to hear that! I do try to keep Vivian and her actions relatable and somewhat realistic :D

To Charlotte M. Baldonado: I'm glad you are still enjoying BTW! I hope you'll like this chapter, too.

A/N: I changed the rating of the story to M, so please keep that in mind when you are trying to find it in the future. The majority of you voted that Vivian should keep wearing the canon uniform, a.k.a. the dress, so that's what she's going to do. Poor girl. Thank you for voting!

I'm not sure when I'll be able to upload the next chapter, but I'm trying not to take more than two months to update.

As usual, thank you for reading, reviewing and following/ favouriting BTW! I hope you will enjoy this chapter, too, and leave a review!

Chapter 18 – Different Opinions

Crowley and I climbed up the mountain and passed through a lush forest while keeping out an eye for the small group of humans that was supposed to be hunting here. He was humming a tune that sounded vaguely familiar to my ears.

Where did I...?

"Do you really still care about humans?" the progenitor suddenly asked me.

Crowley had to be thinking about earlier, about the concern I had shown for Ryōta and about how I had interacted with the other humans.

"Hmm... No, not about each and every one of them. But you could say that I have a soft spot for children."

"Wasn't that human you treated almost as old as you?"

Maybe he did indeed know some details about me from Ferid or another source if he was aware of my age. Or had Crowley just correctly guessed my physical age?

My answer to his question was a wry smile. I was more than twice as old as I looked and could have had a child my current physical age by now in my old world if I hadn't died.

"Why do you care about children specifically? Are you interested in their blood?" From Crowley's tone I could tell that the second part was an attempt to tease me.

"I'm not a pervert, Lord Crowley. And do I have to have a reason for caring about the life and death of innocent children?" I retorted.

I knew very well why I still cared about them to a degree; because of my human friends Shinya, Makoto, and Shūsaku. Just like them the children didn't deserve this kind of world.

"Why don't you care, Lord Crowley?" I turned the tables.

"In my eyes humans, no matter their age, are nothing more than livestock. Human life isn't worth much; they all die one day anyway. What does it matter how old they are when they do?" Crowley told me nonchalantly with a small, emotionless smile on his lips.

If I were human, it would have sent chills down my spine.

However, this point of view wasn't new to me after having dealt with other vampires over the past months. Still, to hear the same cold disregard for any human life from Crowley, who had been one of my favourite characters in the series, was rather displeasing and disappointing.

It was one thing to see it in a show where it wouldn't affect me if a kid was killed by a vampire, but another to experience and see it for real.

Would the Thirteenth Progenitor suck my friends dry with that same nonchalance if he ever came across them? Just like Lacus, who had carelessly killed a child by drinking too much of its blood?

"Won't that way of thinking become a problem in the future, though, considering the state of the world? If truly no vampire cares and they just kill and drink from humans as they please, then there won't be any more humans one day. No food supply equals no vampire. Isn't it better if a vampire cares about humans then?" I asked him, feeling a little uncomfortable about calling humans 'food'.

Of course, I was speaking about the normal humans and my friends.

It was hypocritical of me to say that, considering that I'd killed humans with my own hands even though they were from the military I wanted to destroy. But I'd never said that I wasn't a hypocrite.

So, what if I made a distinction between normal humans who didn't deserve to be killed and the soldiers who were my enemies? I was simply doing what was right in my opinion.

That small smile remained on Crowley's face. "You're over-dramatising things a little, Vivian. Even now there are still seven hundred million humans around worldwide, which is more than enough for all of us. And humans reproduce fast, so we don't have to fear that we ever run out of human blood."

He continued as he leapt over a fallen tree, "Even in the 14th century, when human population was at an all-time low due to the Black Death and didn't exceed three hundred seventy million, there was still enough livestock for consumption."

"Nowadays there are also more rules in place. In most territories we're not allowed to drink blood directly from the source; we do it only on the battlefield or while collecting livestock. And most of the time we don't even kill the humans we drink directly from. They only die from blood loss if they are too weak to cope with it."

"..." I saw the cold logic behind his statements but didn't like it and frowned.

"We barely kill any humans and even if one or two measly humans die, it doesn't matter at all," he concluded.

"What if that one measly human life belonged to one of your human friends, Lord Crowley?" I shot back, thinking about the sparse information I had of his past.

He blinked at me. "I don't have any human friends."

"Please, you can't tell me that you've never had any human friends in the past, Lord Crowley. Or that their deaths didn't matter to you back then."

Was I being too forward? Maybe, but I was trying to get to know him and find out what he wanted from me.

The other vampire didn't smile anymore and appeared pensive. "...That's long in the past."

I eyed him more closely. "And yet you still seem to remember them, after more than seven hundred years."

The Thirteenth Progenitor glanced at me with an expression of mild incredulity. "How did you come up with the time frame of more than seven centuries specifically?"

It wasn't hard to explain that away without revealing how I actually knew about him, because several things had come to my notice that I could use for my explanation. It also didn't escape my notice that Crowley had completely changed the topic.

Maybe his human friends were a sore spot for him and he didn't like speaking about them or his human past. It was understandable considering how they had died – either during the Crusade or through Ferid's hands.

Well, at least we weren't talking about blood or discussing the worth of human life anymore.

"There were several clues." I held up one finger. "Earlier you hummed the 'Palästinalied' by Walther von der Vogelweide if I'm right, which is a Kreuzlied that was written at the time of the Fifth Crusade, around the years 1217 to 1221."

I had only recognized the melody because I had once written an essay about it in my music class. A lucky coincidence but useful nonetheless.

Crowley looked at me as if I had grown a second head but seemed... sightly pleased by my knowledge. "Oh, you recognized the song? Not many have heard of it or Kreuzlieder in general, especially not nowadays."

"The history of music is a topic I'm quite interested in." I had not only learned about it in my past life in school and university but had also spent my free time in this life to research things and topics that intrigued me. "And history in general, too."

There were a lot of history books in Sanguinem's library.

"What other observations helped you to estimate my age?" Crowley prompted me.

I held up my second finger. "You talked about the Plague of the 14th century as if you had witnessed it with your own eyes. With these two observations alone one can guess that you're around six hundred to eight hundred years old, but there is more than that."

Crowley told me to continue. A third finger was added to the two others. "The style of your uniform reminds me of what Knights Templar were said to have worn – white mantles." I approached him and pointed at the buttons, or rather, the symbol on them, on his uniform with a smile.

"So does this type of cross. The Knights Templar have only been active for about two hundred years, starting from the early twelfth century if my memory serves right, so that was another clue. If you were a Templar in the past, it would also explain your unusual athletic build for that time period – it's the result of sword training from a young age and participating in battles. I doubt that a mere farmer would have had a build like you."

Thanks to my enhanced eyes I had spotted the cross symbol on his buttons when I was staring at Crowley back in Sanguinem. No idea if they'd been there in the series, too. I couldn't remember such miniscule details.

But I did remember that Crowley had been a Crusader, a Templar, according to the series, and had read up about them and human history some time in the past months out of curiosity and boredom.

The vampires wrote down historical events more objectively, which made the books quite interesting to read.

I wondered whether I would have been able to figure out Crowley's background with just my own observations.

Maybe, maybe not. I felt like a Sherlock Holmes with a cheat sheet.

Crowley smiled and appeared impressed. "I was indeed a Templar once who was foolish enough to go on a Crusade. Did you figure all of this out just by looking at me and being around me... or did Ferid-kun tell you about my past?"

"No, he hasn't mentioned you..." I trailed off. "You must be close to Lord Ferid if you refer to him in such a familiar way even if he has a much higher rank."

Of course, I already knew about their relationship, that Ferid had supposedly turned Crowley into a vampire, but I hoped I would get an explanation for why exactly Crowley was here if I gave him a few prods.

"Hmm. Well, you could say that." Crowley ducked underneath a branch, but I didn't have the same problem. "So staring at me and my chest earlier actually did have some purpose, huh?" he asked wryly, changing the topic once more.

"...If you don't want to be ogled, you shouldn't show so much cleavage, Lord Crowley. It's rather attention-grabbing," I defended myself, slightly embarrassed and not having expected to be called out on my creepy fangirl-staring in Sanguinem.

However, I only managed to make myself feel more embarrassed because of what had slipped out of my mouth.

The former crusader chuckled. "Eh? That's the first time someone said something like that to me."

I could imagine. Who would want him to cover up?

No one, including me.

That chiselled chest would make Michelangelo weep with joy. Even though I wasn't able to feel more than a little fondness and some fascination for him – exactly what I'd felt about the character Crowley in the series – a girl could still appreciate a nice view.

If Crowley and I had met as humans, I might have developed a crush on him since he was just my type, but not like this. Despite his suave nature that I quite liked, Crowley thought too much like the other vampires, which didn't sit well with me, and my own atrophying emotions made feeling anything more than a little fondness for him impossible.

I was about to say something else, when I spotted several broken branches on the ground to my left, as well as trampled grass.

"Look, Lord Crowley, these could be human tracks," I stopped and pointed at what I'd discovered.

"Oh, you're right. They lead further west..."

It wasn't long before we found the first human teen, who was a girl around my physical age. She was startled by our approach, because she'd been preoccupied with preparing a new trap for rabbits, but showed us in which direction we could find the others.

The girl was uncertain what to think about our appearances, having no clue that we were vampires because we had simply told her that we would explain why we were searching for them and who we were once we were in the company of the others.

She appeared to sense that we were not quite normal, though. Crowley and I didn't make a sound while we were walking through the forest and didn't get out of breath when the path became steeper, unlike her. Plus, Crowley was probably the first adult she'd seen since the apocalypse.

The rest of the group had a similar confused reaction to us as her, which turned into weariness and suspicion once Crowley had explained everything.

"If they don't come with us willingly, we'll either have to scare them into submission or take them with us by force... Hmm, I am getting a little hungry," the progenitor told me in a low tone when the humans didn't immediately agree to follow us.

"Can I talk to them for a second?"

"Sure."

I stepped closer to the group.

"So... you're really vampires?" one of the three boys inquired when I was close enough, apparently deeming me more approachable.

"That's right."

They exchanged more unsure glances. "We have to give you our blood?" the human from before asked.

"Yes, you do. In return you'll get shelter, fresh clothes, water and food, and you won't have to fear getting attacked by Horsemen anymore," I repeated. "Ryōta, Shin, Ami and all the others are already waiting for you at the helicopter."

Bringing up some familiar names might convince them to follow us without protest.

"She's talked to them..." one boy murmured.

"But... we'll have to give you our blood. A-are you not going to kill us sooner or later?" the other girl in the group was unsure.

My gaze met hers and she visibly flinched. "What's a little blood in return for protection and food? And if we wanted to kill you, we could have already done so on the spot and wouldn't try to convince you to come with us."

I couldn't tell what would happen to them later, though.

They discussed the topic once more.

"Are we done here now or do I need to make an example? I want to return to the helicopter." Crowley was getting impatient and was now standing closer to them from one second to the next.

Whatever the humans had felt before changed to fear at the sight and sudden proximity of the physically intimidating vampire.

One of the boys looked like he wanted to run away, but I held him back by the shoulder before he could take a step.

"Don't," I warned him before I turned to the others. "Do you want to stay here in this town forever and live in constant fear that the Horsemen will get you or risk that you will starve once you run out of supplies?" I asked, eyeing each one of them.

"...No," one of the girls whispered. "No, I don't want that... I don't want to stay here or have to do this anymore," she threw the dead rabbit she'd been holding to the ground.

"Suzu-chan..." the other girl said.

"Come on, Kana-chan. There is nothing left to lose."

Oh, she was wrong about that. She could still lose plenty, but I didn't say it out loud because I was trying to convince them to come with us quietly.

In the end all of the teens followed us to the helicopter without protest.

Crowley and I joined Ryōta, his brother and a few other humans in a card game after I'd convinced the progenitor. He was bored anyway.

Some of the guards were giving us slightly confused looks as we continued playing with the humans. The other teens and children were watching our group curiously as well. I had no idea what Crowley was thinking about fooling around with the humans he saw only as cattle but didn't bother asking him about it.

It would only destroy the mood.

At some point he left us, eyeing one of the other humans at our camp with thirst. Without needing to be prompted, Ami's older sister followed him to the edge of the make-shift camp and offered him her blood for saving her earlier.

It wasn't hard to tell that she was scared of but also a little enamoured with the Thirteenth Progenitor, because she'd been staring at him the whole time he was playing cards. He accepted her blood and thankfully didn't drink enough to kill her.

The last game at sun down was an all-out challenge between Crowley and Shin, the last two in the game. Shin got extraordinarily lucky and won against the Thirteenth Progenitor.

I rummaged through the bag I'd used to store the games in to retrieve...

"Pikachu!" Shin and Ami cried as I held the plush up as if it was Simba and I Raffiki, and threw Crowley a smug look that said 'I told you so'. The redhead merely shook his head in disbelief.

"Here, Shin. This is your price for winning a fierce battle against the big bad vampire. Be proud of this victory."

The boy took the plush toy with a huge smile. "Hehe! Thank you, Lady Vivian!"

"Why am I being labelled as the 'big bad vampire'?" Crowley complained playfully after the humans had left us.

I shrugged. "It made the whole thing sound more dramatic. Besides, it's not wrong from a human's point of view, is it?"

"Well..."

At sundown we packed up.

"Those humans were quick about giving up their freedom," Crowley commented as the group of teens who had gone hunting entered the helicopter. They were the last ones. "Well, it's better if they accept their role as our cattle fast."

"Please don't call them that, Lord Crowley," I protested as I closed the door with the press of a button and started the helicopter.

"But that's exactly what they are to us – livestock. Don't you drink the blood of children in Sanguinem as well?" Crowley pointed out, and I avoided his inquiring look, feeling ashamed and guilty about it.

"...I don't have much of a choice if I don't want to become a demon," I said quietly after some hesitation.

Once again I felt like such a hypocrite because yes, I did have a choice once. I could have chosen to die as a human... if Krul had let me die.

And now I couldn't go more than three days without blood before the craving for it became so painful and maddening that I was willing to attack the children in Sanguinem for it.

"You don't have to explain yourself. It wasn't an accusation. All of us are doing the same thing for the same reason, after all."

In order to survive and keep our sanity, we were preying on humans and their blood.

"That doesn't make me feel better about it," I mumbled.

"Do you still feel as if it is a sin to drink human blood?"

He hit the nail right on the head. Why did Crowley have to ask such personal questions? Then again, I had done the same.

"...Do you?" Why were we even talking about this topic?

"Answering a question with a question, huh? No, not anymore, but it felt like that in the beginning." He was quiet for a few moments. "That girl earlier killed a rabbit without a second thought to eat it, because it was lower in the food chain. Humans consume animals that are weaker than them all the time, so why shouldn't we do the same with humans, creatures that are weaker than us?"

"Because humans are sentient beings, capable of the same thoughts as you and I, and we were once humans ourselves," I retorted.

There was a cold hard truth in Crowley's words, but I couldn't completely agree with him.

"You are still young and haven't been a vampire for long, therefore you still cling to what you know from your life as a human, but in time you will come to understand why livestock is not equal to us and why humans are better off as our cattle," Crowley began, further confirming that he was aware of my background.

"You will witness how they always repeat their foolish mistakes and never learn from their history. You will see how humans kill each other because of their own selfish desires, sometimes in the name of a god, or for their own justice, and how they don't care if they destroy the rest of the world due to their greed. I've seen it happen with my own eyes over and over again. Sooner or later you will agree that they are better off being livestock under the rule of us vampires."

What was it with progenitors and their prophecies about my future? First Ferid and now Crowley. Was I really going to turn out like all the other vampires?

And there was something else – I didn't see humans as cattle, but...

I tilted my head in partial agreement. "In the past years my opinion about humankind has changed a little, not only because I've read a lot about human history. Some of them have been too power-hungry and as a consequence the apocalypse was brought upon us all and innocent people had to suffer or die. The megalomaniacs who are responsible for this and the current state of the world are the ones that must be eradicated. Down to the very last one," I declared with a dark look.

"Hmm~, I didn't expect that you would agree with me to some degree. You sound as if it is your personal goal to kill those who are responsible for the apocalypse. Is that out of a sense of righteousness?"

"Does true righteousness even exist, Lord Crowley?" I repeated wryly. "No, I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I am righteous by wanting to rid this world of certain individuals. It's mostly for my own self-satisfaction that I want to tear that human garbage into teeny, tiny pieces. They are at fault for ruining my life and the lives of many others, so I'm going to hunt that vermin down and make sure that they suffer before I send them to the next world."

How bloodthirsty and vindictive my plans for those scientists and soldiers sounded when I said them out loud. Ah, the irony.

"Wow, I'm surprised to hear that you're harbouring such a deep grudge against some humans after you treated the livestock so nicely," Crowley remarked.

"The humans we collected today are victims in this whole matter, too."

This mindset was the reason why I could kill soldiers from the Demon Army without remorse but didn't want to harm one of the normal humans that didn't belong to the JIDA.

"Victims, huh?" the Thirteenth Progenitor repeated.

I personally escorted Ryōta, Shin, Ami, and her older sister to Niall's territory, the Yokota Air Base. The other helicopter had stopped in Hachiōji.

Niall's subordinates led the humans away to their new quarters. I'd already said goodbye to them and hoped that they would fare well here. I couldn't do any more than that for them.

After Niall had greeted Crowley and me and we'd talked for a bit, the progenitor used the opportunity to have a training fight with me. Crowley stayed in the area and watched our spar that went on for quite some time.

Afterwards, Niall offered us each a glass of blood that we both accepted. The tree of us conversed about the fight, my skills, mistakes, and different sword techniques until early in the morning.

"I could continue your training. My territory is in Nagoya, so it isn't that far away from Sanguinem," Crowley finally proposed to me when we were on the way to the helicopter.

The other guards were already waiting for us on the hangar but no one dared to say anything about our tardiness. Besides, we had all the time in the world.

The former knight's offer came as quite a surprise but I wasn't disinclined to accept it, because I still wanted to get to know him and I did need a teacher.

"That would be pretty neat... I'll have to ask Krul for her approval, though."

Crowley was part of Ferid's faction, after all, and might use this opportunity to try and extract more information from me. Krul might not like that, even though it could also enable me to figure out what exactly Ferid wanted from me in turn.

"The queen is your sire, isn't she?"

Judging from his expression that didn't show disbelief or surprise, Crowley already knew that, so I nodded in answer to his question.

"After this mission I'll be staying in Sanguinem for a while, so we can start your training right away if you want," he offered.

"That sounds good, but I'm not going to return to Sanguinem with you now, Lord Crowley. I have another mission to complete, so I won't be back until the day after tomorrow."

I pulled out Krul's signed and folded mission letter from my new, small back pocket, that was fastened at the back of my sword belt, and gave it to Crowley.

He quickly read over it. "Oh? What kind of mission is this? A solo mission? There are no mission perimeters written down."

"Yes, it' a solo mission. The details are confidential."

I didn't trust him enough to tell him that I'd be searching for my human friends. For the same reason I'd labelled it as a solo mission.

Who knew if he'd follow me if I didn't. That was a risk I wasn't willing to take.

I didn't know what Ferid had told him to do, but I was sure that I was the reason Crowley had participated on this mission. Maybe the Thirteenth Progenitor should find out the identities of my friends.

Crowley lifted one of his brows. "I see. Will you find your way back to Sanguinem on your own?"

"I will. I'm a big girl, Lord Crowley," I reassured him playfully.

"You could have fooled me. Big girls don't carry around weird yellow mouse plush toys," he teased me.

"Hey! Pikachu and Pokemon in general is not just for children!"

The progenitor grinned at my indignation. "I beg to differ. I'll see you in two days, Vivian."

After Crowley's goodbye we parted ways. I waited until the helicopter was out of sight before I left the air base myself.

Shinjuku and my former home were about fifty kilometres to the east. I'd check the area again before I started to search for Makoto and Shūsaku once more.

Today was a Friday, so I didn't want to miss the opportunity. Maybe Shinya still came by on Fridays, although I hadn't seen him on the two Fridays I'd visited Shinjuku in the past months.

I reached my destination around sunrise. I'd already pulled the hood over my head, not only because of the irritating sunlight but also to hide my face. I couldn't afford to be recognized by any of the Demon Army's soldiers I might come across.

Like usual, I was travelling on foot in this area. Anything else was too loud and would draw too much unwanted attention. The sound of a car was like a signal flare in this destroyed world.

I searched the area around my former apartment and spotted a small group of soldiers that was watching the building again. Nothing new there.

I slipped in and out of the shadows as I changed my place of observation and kept a close eye on my surroundings. Nothing happened while the hours passed.

Shinya wasn't here.

When I decided to change my vantage point again, I chose to stay on a rooftop of one of the taller hotels in the nearby area.

It was further away than the other vantage points I normally occupied and closer to Shibuya than I liked, so I needed to be extra careful with the Demon Army's stronghold at my back, but I wasn't opposed to trying a new perspective.

About a street away from the hotel something on a rooftop gleamed in the sunlight.

That was the only warning I got before a bluish glowing projectile almost hit me. No, it would have hit me if I hadn't evaded it just in time with a jump to the right.

I drew and activated my sword on autopilot and immediately needed to use it when another soundless attack came from behind. My blade sliced through the image of a tiger with a bluish glow that vanished afterwards.

A white tiger.

The manifestation of the demon that had attacked me took the form of a white tiger with blue eyes.

My breath hitched and all my thoughts seemed to come to a sudden stop, but I didn't have much time to stomach this discovery and what it meant.

I whirled around and defended myself against another attack I'd sensed coming. Just as I cut through the blue magic bullets, I let my eyes roam over the building in the direction where the sharpshooter must have taken cover.

It didn't take me long to spot him on a rooftop even if there was quite a distance between us.

There, pointing his rifle at me, was Shinya.

A/N: Dum-dum-dum. Dramatic music starts playing. Sorry about the evil cliffhanger... It just happened. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

How will Shinya react to Vivian once he recognizes her? Find out in the next chapter(s)!

Review? :D