A scream echoed through the void. Blood splattered against heated pavement, red pooling on black asphalt.

Chiori!

Five monsters, red eyes gleaming like demonic creatures of the night. But this was the day time, the sun shining bright and burning down on them. They did not belong here, unnaturally crawling out from their underground lair to invade the territory – the home – of humanity.

Another scream – deeper, hoarser.

Akimamoru!

Thud. Splat.

Panic filled her veins, coursing through them like rivers of lava. Her grasp on her weapon tightened in her shaking hand, and she placed herself in front of the fallen, beside those still standing.

In the path of the monsters.

Their eyes glowed and their mouths widened, showing off parallel sharp, white fangs – shining blades meant and set to devour. Menacing laughter mocking the weak ones who would stand up to them, as if to say "You cannot withstand us. You cannot escape."

More red painted the air and fell to the ground. Wails and shouts vibrated through the atmosphere, punctuated by scrapes and clangs.

Pain seared like fire, metal biting through flesh like butter. White blinded her vision. A high pitched ringing chased out all sound.

Black. Then a chaotic haze of peach and porcelain and tan, black and green, and angry red. Hands grabbing and pushing.

A desperate, shrill cry. Go! Run away! I'll hold them off!

But they did not run away. Whether they chose not to or the monsters did not let them, it could not be told. The ancient creatures of the night pounced on the young citizens of the day. Hands turned into claws, faces became snarling, dripping snouts, skin became fur. Claws and teeth tore through flesh, and fear-filled and agonized screams and shrieks were the only sounds that existed. Black and green and brown were swallowed by red.

The monsters chased after her, and she ran. She did not make it far before her feet would no longer move. They just stopped, as if frozen, rooted in place by some unknown force or invisible restraint.

The street disappeared, replaced by an infinite world of black in all directions. All that she could see was herself.

Wide eyes looked downward, to the tip of a blade protruding out from her chest. Trembling hands lifted; they were covered with blood. The deep red liquid coated her skin completely, though there were no wounds from which it could be coming from, dripping from her hands and body in large droplets.

Then she was facing upward from the ground. A furred demonic creature had morphed into human shape once more, and filled her vision. It looked down upon her, looming over her, white teeth, luminescent in the field of black, grinning down, and it held a bloody, dripping sword directly above her, the tip of it pointing down and ready to stab.

The monster's voice echoed in her ears.

Did you really think you could do something?

The sword plunged down, impaling her. A long, loud shriek pierced through the darkness.

Then, nothing.

In its owner's slumber, a hand gripped one belonging to a blue-eyed halfling. After a breath, the hand gripped back.

The human girl's fever refused to leave. By mid-morning of the next day, it had significantly lowered so that it was no longer cause to worry, but Mika could still feel the unnatural heat that emanated from the girl's skin when he touched her forehead with ungloved fingers. At least the medicine was working, albeit frustratingly slowly.

Her clothes had gotten damp with sweat during the night. He'd had to call the women doctors again to bathe her again and change her into a fresh set of pajamas, which, to Mika's relief, was not hard to find.

The girl had not woken up, at least not while he was there, since yesterday evening. Nor did she move in her sleep; each time he had come to check on her, she had been in the exact same position as the previous time.

Well, that was not entirely true. The girl had moved, slightly and only once, when he had been sitting beside her during the night. He had decided not to think much of it, simply returning the gesture until the fingers had loosened of their own accord.

After giving her more medicine and water, the blue-eyed vampire now sat beside the bed – he had not yet put the chair back in its original place -, watching the human as she slept soundly. He wondered what kind of dreams she was having, if any.

(I hope she recovers soon.)

Mika knew he had to be patient, but part of him was chomping at the bit to be able to go ahead and just ask the girl – to explain the situation to her, and find out whose side she was on.

Of course, she would be on the human's side for now. As much as he hated the humans for what they were doing to their own kind, how greedy, how manipulative the race was, he couldn't blame the girl who was now sleeping on the bed in front of him.

The vampires certainly weren't people she could side with, monsters as they were, how they had no qualms with slaughtering humans and treating them like animals fit for nothing but being their food. She was a human as well, and it was neither wise nor desired to be a loner in this cruel, death-ravaged world. The girl didn't have a choice.

But Mika would now provide her with a new one. He didn't want to be enemies with this girl. Despite that fact that he was a vampire – which made him an enemy by default, in human eyes – by all intents and purposes, he and this girl were not. They both had been used and wronged by humans. They were allies in that.

At least, that's what Mika hoped.

It would have to wait, though, until the girl was better. Maybe his taking care of her would open her up more to trusting him. Not that it was the reason he was doing so, but it would a nice secondary result, Mika thought.

Speaking of which.

He still needed to go do some research on this "eczema" that the forms said this girl had. The rashes on her skin didn't look particularly bad, at least not to him, and he had to make sure it stayed that way. He took one last look at the human girl before getting up from the chair and turning towards the door.

(Better get on that.)

Kyali opened her eyes as full awareness returned to her. She was lying down on a bed, positioned on her back on top of the bedspread. A soft, red blanket covered her body, and with a brief inspection, Kyali realized she was no longer in her military uniform. Instead, she wore what appeared to be white pajamas, with long pants and a long sleeve shirt, which had frills around the ankles, wrists, and collar.

The majority of the fog in her mind had lifted, but some still lingered, an insistent veil of haziness that refused to go away. But at least she was awake enough this time to have a better look at where she was.

Still too tired to really move, she let her eyes wander around the room, and quietly took in her surroundings. She was in a bedroom, if the fact that she was in a bed was anything to go by, and it certainly didn't look like a cell. The room was far too furnished for that; there was a clock high on the wall directly in front of her, and a quick scan from left to right revealed a nightstand with an electric lamp, as well as a few comfortable-looking armchairs in the corners.

Just where was she?

However, there was a more immediate matter that reared its head.

Her ankles itched. Itched like mad, so much it was an overwhelming feeling, that called for her to scratch them right now. The skin on them was so dry, the rashes that encompassed them even more so, and they had no problem rudely letting her know. She whimpered the sensation, and moved to do something about it – the only thing she really could do.

She knew she should ignore it, lessons of don't scratch it, it will only make it worse having been drilled into her brain over the years. But she had to; it was just too much.

Kicking off the blanket from around her feet, Kyali struggled to lift herself into an upright position. Her body was still very weak, and it was harder than it should have been to perform the simple action.

With quite a bit effort and a series of grunts, she finally succeeded in sitting up, bracing herself on the bed with her right hand and reaching with her left. The red fabric of the blanket slipped off her torso and folded haphazardly in her lap.

Finally, fingers reached red, dry skin, and she scratched at the itchiness desperately. Her fingernails were long, jagged, and broken from lack of grooming – she really should have cut and filed them before patrol that day, but that was neither here nor there – and from clawing at the stone tiles when she was fevered in the prison cell.

So aggressive was she with her attempts to calm the itching that skin scraped off her ankles and collected under her nails as she scratched one, then the other. She couldn't help but pant in relief as she dug into her rashes. Where she scratched, the rashes began to bleed, a small amount of blood welling from the shallow wounds. It smeared small lines along her skin and tinted the dead cells under her nails with red.

The incessant itching finally came to a stop. Kyali pulled her hand away from her bleeding ankles, sitting back up and wincing at the sight of the wounds she had made and blood underneath her fingernails. Scratching felt wonderful while she had been doing it, but now her rashes stung and ached.

Arms feeling wobbly and worn out, her vision swam slightly, and she felt dizzy from the sudden exertion. She had to lay back down. She closed her eyes for brief moment and lowered herself back onto the pillow.

To the raven-haired girl's dismay, the relief did not last for long. Just a few moments later, her right ankle started to itch again, with the same ferocity as the first time just seconds before. She let out a punctuated groan in frustration. Tired out already, she simply bent her knee to bring her ankle to her hand. Her jagged fingernails dug once more into dry skin, on an unwounded spot that soon turned bloody as well.

The door swung open suddenly. In marched a blonde teenage boy wearing a strange, white military-style uniform and cloak, trailed by two women dressed in what seemed to Kyali to be white doctor uniforms. The women's red eyes flashed in her direction, revealing them to be vampires. So she was still with the vampires.

That was a worry to dwell on more fully in-depth later. Right now, her ankles burned badly and still itched. She had frozen for a split-second at the opening of the door, but now she went back to scratching at the rash.

The boy vampire took one look at the damage and barked an order to the women in Japanese, and the two immediately went to the foot of the bed, getting out from a bag what looked to be cloth bandages and other things. One reached and took a hold of Kyali's right ankle and pulled it from the girl's frantic scratching, while the second woman started treating the left ankle.

"No!" Kyali whimpered weakly, her voice catching on a small, dry sob. She tried to bend her knees and pull her ankles free from the female vampires' grasp, and reached her hands toward them to stop the horrible itching. But the vampires' hold was strong, and her struggling did nothing to loosen their grip as they continued their ministrations. She hissed in pain.

It hurt.

The reasonable part of her brain knew that they were only cleaning and tending to the wounds she had given herself. But reason was drowned out by the feeling of burning and how even the slightest of touches against her raw skin was painful.

White clothing came into Kyali's view. The blonde vampire had come closer to her and now caught her wrists in his hands. He lifted himself onto the bed, right knee bracing on the edge then swinging the left knee over her body to settle on her other side. He sat on top of her, straddling her waist and blocking Kyali's view of the women working at her feet and redirecting her focus to himself.

The boy rested one of her arms on her stomach and held it there with his forearm. He then took her other hand in his, and with his own bare hands and nails, began clipping Kyali's fingernails. Not bothering with the blood and dead skin caked underneath, he broke them little by little, in small increments, in a curved line at the quick; not too far to be painful, but short enough that it rendered her nails utterly useless.

Once the nail completely snapped off, he deposited it on the pant leg of this thigh and moved on to the next finger.

Ankles mostly, though not quite, forgotten, – she could still feel them being wiped off and then coated with something, which made her wince and grit her teeth as the burning sensation intensified – Kyali watched him as the vampire boy carefully clipped her nails. The grip in which he held her hand and pinned down her other arm was light. Kyali blinked slowly as it occurred to her how gentle he was being, and she couldn't help but question it. It confused her; it didn't make sense.

"Why are you being so kind to me?" The girl asked softly, her voice still weak from disuse and tiredness.

There was a pause where the boy didn't answer. He silently finished clipping her ring finger, then her pinkie finger. Finished with that hand, the blonde set it down on Kyali's stomach and moved on to the next hand, picking it up with an equally gentle grasp. Then, in a low, quiet voice, he spoke.

"Why should I not be kind to you?"

…what kind of question was that? The answer was obvious, wasn't it?

"Because…we're enemies."

Another pause. He focused intently on clipping the nail of each finger, his eyes not moving from his task. As he did, Kyali could feel her ankles being wrapped in something that felt like soft, cool, silky cloth. When he was finished with her second hand, he laid it down to rest next to its counterpart.

He then looked her in the eyes, and Kyali was almost startled by the brilliant blue, even though she had seen them before this moment. When he opened his mouth to speak, his fangs showed, leaving no doubt that he, too, was a vampire.

"We are not enemies."

The boy then brushed the nail clipping off of his thigh and into his cupped hand, and climbed off her.

"Wha…?" Kyali began to ask, completely and utterly startled.

("Not enemies"?) What did he mean? How could they not be, with the vampires terrorizing humans and treating them like cattle, on top of which rested the fact that there was a war going on between their kinds.

She ended up just blinking at him, dumbfounded beyond words.

The female vampires came into Kyali's view once again. They had finished treating the rashes on her ankles, and they were now just standing at the foot of the bed, presumably awaiting further instructions. The blond vampire said something to them, which Kyali took as him dismissing them, since after nodding and saying something back, one picked up a bag and both left the room. The door shut quietly behind them.

The vampire boy watched them leave, and wiped the fingernail clippings into something that's hidden on the other side of the nightstand - a trashcan, Kyali assumed. He then came back and sat on the edge of the bed, turning his head to look at her.

"How are you feeling?" He gestured with his head toward her now-wrapped ankles. "Does it hurt?"

"It stings." Kyali answered, her voice little above a whisper. The rashes and wounds on her ankles stung and throbbed dully with uncomfortable heat, but that was something she had grown accustomed to, having lived with that condition for as long as she could remember. The burning was bearable now, and would go away with time.

At least they weren't bone dry anymore, and no longer itched.

"I'm sorry." The boy said, his tone sincere.

Kyali managed a small smile at his unexpected show of genuine concern. "It's alright. I'm used it."

The blond vampire gave a slow, slight nod. "How else are you feeling?"

Her reasoning kicked back into gear at the question. She figured he was asking about her other physical ailments – she'd had a fever, she remembered, and had been dehydrated and hazy-minded.

"I'm okay. Just tired." She replied.

He nodded again. "That's good. Are you hungry? Thirsty?" Kyali shook her head minutely against the pillow. The only thing she felt right now was tired.

"Well, you still have a slight fever." He stated. The blond vampire rested the backs of his fingers softly against her forehead for a moment, before pulling them away.

"My name is Mikaela. You can call me Mika. What's your name?"

…she was pretty sure "Mikaela" was a girl's name. She refrained from commenting on it, though. There was a high chance he had been teased about it as a child – however long ago that had been for him. In either case, she didn't want to do the same.

"I'm Kyali." She answered.

The vampire boy, Mika, nodded. "Kyali," he repeated. "I'm glad to meet you, Kyali." His tone was soft and sincere.

Kyali could not say the same, given the circumstances, so she just gave him a tiny smile in return.

"Get some rest, Kyali." Mika said, before moving to get up from the bed. "I will return soon."

"W-wait." She called out quickly, surprising herself. Mika stopped and turned to look over his shoulder. "You said…we aren't enemies. How…?"

The blue-eyed vampire directed his gaze downward for a moment, pupils moving back and forth as if he were thinking about something. He then sighed, looked back up, and gave her a small smile.

"I'll explain later. For now, just get some rest, alright?"

Kyali nodded. Rest sounded good. She could already feel her eyes getting heavy with sleep. She watched his back as he left the room, the door closing and locking with a series of clicks.

(…he's a weird vampire.)

-Author's Note-

And here's another chapter. They finally are introduced to each other!

Yes, that was a nightmare. Poor Kyali.

...and no one answered the question about the profile thing.

I do not own Seraph of the End, whether it be the comic or the manga, in any way at all.

Please leave me your comments and questions.

Until next time,

Sky