A strong shiver woke Kyali up. The surface she was laying on was hard and cold, a stark contrast to the heat she endured before. But not a welcome contrast; it was cold, far too cold, freezing, and she shivered constantly, uncontrollably. The black layers of her uniform did nothing to stave off the chill, and it occurred to her that her cape was gone and her feet were bare. Her throat felt so dry; no doubt she was very dehydrated. Her body still heavy and weak, Kyali blinked her tired eyes open, half-squinting in the bright light.

(Where am I…?)

Through the fog that lingered in her mind, she registered pale floor tiles, and a shackle on her right wrist, which was attached to a chain that lead away from her field of vision. Oh, yeah, that's right. She had been captured.

Captured.

(Oh, no.)

Her mind flashed back to the images from earlier, her running, fighting, until she was exhausted. Her finally giving out, the vampires leisurely coming toward her helpless form like wild animals after dying prey, the muted voices speaking in a language she could no longer understand. The echoing sounds of her friends' cries. Two words she had been able to decipher from the vampires' gibberish.

Humans.

Dead.

Tears welled up in her eyes once again, unbidden, and a weak, breathy sob heaved from her chest. Kyali attempted to move to shackled hand to wipe the tears away, but only managed to slide it a few inches before the effort became too much, still weary from the earlier events. Another sob shuddered out, in time with her body's shivers. She had failed. All of that effort, running herself ragged so that she was still so exhausted even now, and it was all for nothing.

It had been for nothing.

She had failed. Failed her comrades – her friends – and now they were…they were….

The water cascading from her eyes like thin, salty waterfalls fell down her cheeks and pooled onto the floor. It felt like ice against her skin, making her colder, she didn't register it through her internal agony.

Maybe it would have been better if she had stayed. She should have stayed with them. That would have given them a better chance.

(No), the rational voice in her head murmured. It would have made no difference. Five vampires against five humans; she would have met the same fate has her the rest of her squad. She would have died, too.

But why hadn't they killed her?

The voice in her head gave no answer, but Kyali didn't need one. She already knew. There were only two reasons a vampire would let a human live, would capture them.

But why her?

She lay there on the cold floor, of what she could only assume was a prison cell, half on her back and half on her side, and sobbed all the more, the tears rushing faster and thicker from red, weary eyes.

Was all she did so worthless?

The quiet sounds of the human crying echoed down the stone halls, into the ears those nearby. They soon faded to silence.

A sharp pain in her side jerked her awake. She didn't even remember falling asleep. Her eyes struggled open, and she let out a pain gasp when she was kicked in the same spot once again. The chains that held her clinked softly with the movement from the impact. Everything was still feeling a little bit hazy, which was strange. She didn't know how long she had been here – several hours at least – but she had figured her head would be clearer by now. A pair of light-colored boots filled her line of sight, and Kyali tried to turn her head slightly so that she could see the rest of the vampire and get a better look. When she did, the movement came to an abrupt halt. She only barely managed to turn her head an inch before a sharp pain exploded in her skull and her vision swayed and filled with dancing, black and white sparks.

This was weird. Had she hit her head?

The black and white dots finally dispersed, and the pain in her head toned down to a slightly less intense ache. Kyali squinted up at the figure above her. Well, the part she could see, anyway. Now, instead of just the light-colored boots, she could see the lower part of the vampire's outfit. Light-colored pants matched the boots, above which was a robe-ish…thing – it was hard to tell from this angle – of the same color. Which was so out of style; what did the vampires think it was, the thirteenth century? Although, there was a good chance that this vampire hovering over her, as well as many others, actually were from the thirteenth century.

Light-colored clothing and basic boots, pants, and robes usually – though not always, she recalled – denoted a common vampire, as opposed to a noble. Kyali let her head fall back to its original position. Good. At least that was some tiny, tiny (emphasis on tiny) bit of relief; she did not want to deal with a noble vampire right now.

Like her comrades had.

With that thought, the split-second she managed to distract herself from the graveness of her situation was violently and abruptly ended. Her friends her dead, probably slaughtered by the noble, or nobles, that had stayed behind when the three vampires had chased her. Images filled her mind, and she wondered if it had been painful or swift, if their blood had flowed on the ground and stained the vampire's boots –.

Her morbid train of thought was quickly shattered when the vampire above her gave a harsh bark. So, the vampire was male; that was one mystery solved. It sounded like a command of some sort, if the tone of voice was anything to go by, but she wasn't sure who it was being directed at. Which was silly, she thought, as reason made its way to her brain; there were only two people here: herself and the vampire. A light-colored boot collided with her, surely bruised, side for a third time, and Kyali let out a weak, raspy cry at the pain. The vampire continued to speak. His tones alternated between commanding and questioning, and she slightly squinted in confusion. What was this vampire trying to do? Why was he talking to her like this?

Then it occurred to her. Of course. She was being interrogated. She was a prisoner now, a prisoner and member of the military, and the enemy side surely wanted any information she could give them on the Army's plans, movements, developments, numbers.

Which wasn't information she could give, even if she could speak the language; she was just a regular soldier, and only those higher up on the leadership ladder – of which she was not even on the first rung – would be privy to that kind of intel. Especially since the number of soldiers was constantly fluctuating, and any plans were given to those below on a strictly need-to-know basis; and a simple, routine scouting trip did not count as needing to know any major military strategies or developments. There was one exception, one that she was certain only applied to her, but of course that was not something the vampires would be interested in, or even know about.

Be that as it may, the longer they thought she could give them information, the better. As long as she still had something of use to them, there was a better chance of them keeping her alive. Or at least, not killing her any sooner.

At her silence – the vampire had paused in his barking for a few seconds – said vampire shouted again and punished her with another swift kick. This one hit higher than the last one: right in her stomach. A grunt escaped from her lips, and she coughed harshly several times, trying to get back the breath that had been knocked out of her lungs. The vampire over her said something else, but before he could do anything more, she heard the door to her cell open. Hinges creaked somewhere away from Kyali's line of sight, and she heard overlapping footsteps clack on the tiled floor.

A new voice spoke up, this one distinctly female. Kyali blinked when the voice reached her ears. It sounded like a child, no more than ten or twelve years old. But when the first vampire spoke back to her, the change of tone was drastic. His volume lowered, and he sounded respectful, reverent even – and even…even a bit of fear quivered in his voice. A question of who this new vampire-child was flickered in the back of her mind, but she did not dwell on it. She would find out soon enough, most probably.

The conversation between the child-like sounding vampire and the male continued for several minutes. For this, Kyali was grateful. It gave her relief from the beating and a chance to catch her breath. She slowly took air in and let it down, hoping the increased oxygen would help clear her still somewhat-muddled head. Disappointingly, it did not. Still, she continued to quietly take deep breaths, until she heard someone's footsteps move. The vampire the sounds belonged to moved their boots and swished their robes into her line of sight, stopping next to the first vampire. This one positioned themselves slightly closer to her than the first. The other two vampires stopped talking, and the new vampire asked something to the first vampire (the second vampire is also a male), to which the first vampire gave a reply.

Now Kyali dearly wished she knew what they were saying.

Male vampire number two spoke once again to male vampire number one. After a pause, in which Kyali assumed that the first male made a gesture to indicate an answer, the second turned his attention to her, barking out something in the same tone as the previous interrogator. Kyali said nothing. Upset by her silence, the vampire put his left boot over her right arm and applied steadily increasing pressure. He spoke as he did so, tone low and menacing, and there was no doubt in Kyali's mind that he was threatening to maim her if she did not cooperate.

She sucked in a sharp breath in fear – she did not want to feel that kind of pain she had fractured her arm once when she was a child and (no please no not again) – which aggravated her parched throat and sent her into a fit of coughing. Kyali curled into herself as best she could. Chains clinked as she moved her left arm to hold it against her chest and close to her mouth, coughing into it, tears springing into her eyes at the exertion. Finally, the coughing subsided, and Kyali caught her breath.

Toward the end of the fit, the child-like vampire spoke up, and the second male removed his boot from her arm with a hmph. When Kyali was breathing normally again, the childish voice spoke up once more, ending her words with a sharp tone of command. One of the male vampires gave an answer, before directing his attention to the human female in front of him. He spoke to her again, his tone rough and questioning, and she was kicked smartly in the thigh – she whimpered in pain – for her lack of compliance.

And so the interrogation went on; for every time a demand or question was answered in silence, Kyali was rewarded with a painful kick somewhere on her body. No doubt she would bruise spectacularly. At one point, one of the vampires grabbed a handful of her long, black hair, gripping it at the back of her skull, pulling at the roots painfully and jerking her head back and forth sharply. Pain exploded behind her eyes at the sharp motion, and she gasped, then whimpered, her vision swirling once again. A voice spoke, and her head was dropped back against the cold tile.

Cold.

She was so cold. And so tired.

(Make it stop…please.)

Her body trembled almost indecipherably now, different from the powerful near-convulsions that shook her body when she first awoke in this place. The pain in her head dulled, and her vision righted itself, albeit some of the haze still remained. She blinked her eyes slowly, trying to clear fog, but to no avail.

Just like this interrogation, like her failed attempt at helping her friends, it was pointless.

One of the vampires said something; her mind was still so dazed that she couldn't even make out the sounds, only the tone. Finally, Kyali spoke. Her voice was a quiet, halting rasp against her dry throat; she was thirsty…so thirsty….

In perfect English, she breathed out, "I don't…speak…Japanese."

"Nani?"

The voice that sounded like a little girl rang through the room, incredulity filling it. Footsteps clicked on the tile floor, and black, high-heeled boots came into Kyali's view. The owner of the voice crouched in front of her, and the human's vision was filled with a cascading waterfall of pink hair. A small hand took hold of Kyali's hair and tilted her head back. Red eyes studied dark brown ones, as if trying to discover some secret from them.

"Nani?" The child-like vampire repeated the question, her stare boring all the more into Kyali's glazed eyes. Kyali recognized the word. She knew it from somewhere. It meant…it meant….

"I-I..." she tried to say.

"Krul-sama."

Another voice, a male, interrupted. The child-like vampire broke her gaze and turned her head toward the speaker. Words were exchanged, the pink-haired vampire alternating from looking at the speaker to back at Kyali. At some point, the grip on the human's hair was released, and the vampire stood up and walked away.

Everything from then on happened in a haze to Kyali. She thought she heard people talking and moving about, their voices going in and out of focus, just like the cell she was in. She thought she drifted in and out of awareness, but she couldn't be sure if she actually lost consciousness, or simply wasn't paying attention. As it was, paying attention was a struggle, and she didn't bother herself with the effort.

She felt hands take hold of her, and she vaguely registered that she was being rolled to rest fully on her back. Something pressed down on top of her, squeezing against her sides, but no painfully so, and putting pressure on her shoulders. Then something pressed against her lips, and a warm, unidentified liquid filled her mouth. It tasted metallic, like…like blood.

She didn't want to drink it, but she had no energy to resist. The liquid pooled at the back of her throat, and she reflexively swallowed. Immediately, muscles she didn't even know were tense relaxed. Lethargy flooded Kyali's veins and took over her limbs, and her eyes felt even heavier. Her stomach ached slightly from the foreign blood inside it.

The pressure was removed from her mouth. A few moments passed in silence as the vampires waited for something to happen.

Nothing did.

There was a flurry of movement, which was unnoticed by the human in the room. The next thing Kyali new, more blood was being forced into her mouth, and a larger amount of it than before. Kyali was forced to swallow several times in succession. With each gulp, she could feel herself growing weaker and weaker, to the point that a hand was placed on her cheek to keep her head from lolling to the side. The flow stopped, and she coughed and gasped when she was finally allowed to breath. The ache in her stomach was now on the border of painful. She hoped this was over.

(Please…let that be it...)

It was not over.

Blood was forced into her mouth again and again. Again and again, she was made to swallow the foul substance. The ache in her stomach turned into full-blown nausea, her insides cramping painfully, and she had to fight to keep her eyes open. Despite the low temperature of the room and surface she was laying on, she felt heat build in her limbs.

She knew this feeling; it was all too familiar. For a moment, her mind flashed back to those times, the situation now different, yet similar.

They had tried to change her, too. And it, too, was pointless.

The blood source against her mouth was taken away – which time this one was, she could not count – and she whimpered.

"Please," she begged, barely louder than a whisper, her body quivering. "Please…no more." Kyali felt sick, and all she wanted to do right now was sleep, sleep.

Voices and footsteps once again reached her ears, but this time no one was forcing blood down her throat. The movements faded, and the sounds turned to silence.

Kyali, still very much a human, let her eyes close, shielding her from the brightness, and slept.

- Author's Note -

And, here's chapter 2! Thanks for reading. Please leave a review, and feel free to ask any questions you may have. I'll answer them to the best of my ability, unless it's a major plot point and/or something to be revealed later, in which case you'll just have to wait and see.

Oh, and I don't own Seraph of the End in any way, shape, or form. Dang it, I could use the money... Oh, well.

'Til next time

-Sky