Interlude: Interview with a Vampire

No Gods Or Kings, Only Man.

-Andrew Ryan

Once, centuries ago, Alucard had been close to being at peace. He had started to believe that there was, perhaps, something worthy in the world. That he had been wrong about God, and that it had been his own pride and weakness that had led to his people's destruction by his enemies the Turks, and that the only one responsible for his own fate had, in the end, been himself.

It had taken defeat by Abraham Van Hellsing, and the forced servitude under the Hellsing Organization for more than a century, but Alucard had started to change his ways, to want more than destruction and death. He'd even found humans he could respect, and who might be worthy of killing him at long last. He would make his peace, pass on his mantle to Seras, and die knowing that the Hellsing Organization would continue to protect the world under the capable hands of Integra, one of the only humans he'd ever respected. God indeed kept an eye on Alucard, and even if he hadn't earned redemption, at least he had made peace with his maker.

And then all of that had been proven to be a filthy, stinking lie. It was all God's fault. All of it. Or, rather, the Gods.

It had happened when Alucard had at last faced down Alexander Anderson, a human he considered truly worthy of defeating him. Unfortunately, Anderson had fallen short of Abraham Van Hellsing himself. Not because he couldn't have defeated Alucard, but because he had been willing to become a monster himself to do it.

They had stood there, both nearly defeated and dead. Alucard had felt something approaching joy as his familiars were slain, but Anderson had been near death as well. All he had to do was push past his pain, his fear, and become the pure humanity worthy of slaying Dracula, the Prince of the Night.

"Well done!" Alucard had laughed, as he had stood alone, his powerers waning at last with Anderson bloody but unbowed before him. "Well done, Son of Iscariot! You stand before me now, as a man! As I should expect of the Great Alexander Anderson!"

"Yes," Anderson spat. "But you are not the only one with a weapon of mass murder." And he had pulled out Helena's Nail. The relic of the true cross. One of the few things that had the ability to end Alucard, once and for all. His heart had sung with joy.

Which had turned to revulsion when, instead of using the weapon against Alucard, Anderson had used it on himself. He had pierced his own heart with that nail, forsaking his humanity. Alucard had roared with rage and heartbreak to see this man, this pinnacle of humanity, turn himself into a monster. Why?! Why do this!?

Alucard had killed Anderson, and gone on a short time later to face the rest of the horrors in this world. But his heart had seethed with anger. Why would God allow this? Anderson had been a true believer, a true zealot. He'd become a monster for God, not to spite him as Alucard had. What sort God demanded that?

And a short time later, when Alucard had devoured Schrodinger and ended Millenium, he had received his answer.

"There you are," a voice had said as Alucard's senses returned. "About time. Finally, someone capable of helping me shows up."

Alucard blinked to find himself looking up at the face of a white bearded grandfatherly man that glowed with a holy power. His eyes widened in shock. Dead? He was actually dead? That miserable little monster had ended him, Alucard, the Son of the Dragon, the First and True Vampire?

"Well, it seems your little story has finally wrapped up," God said. "Now get up. You have work to do."

"Work?" Alucard had demanded, slowly rising to his feet.

"Oh yes," God said, nodding and pulling out a scroll from nowhere to study. "That damnable Vash the Stampede has put me in charge of the Horror Division, but there are hardly any gods to help run things at all. You're one of the few heroes I have. You finally even made your peace with me back there I believe. I thought that bit with you fighting Anderson was rather poetic, really. The Monster of God fighting the Monster of the Devil. Normally I would have preferred my champion win, but Anderson didn't have the power I need."

"What are you talking about? You made Anderson use the Nail on himself? Why!? He could have slain me! Anderson could have stopped Millenium and me as a man!" Alucard demanded angrily. "He and Integra and Seras could have forged a new world, one where humanity rose above the monsters!"

"Perhaps, but humanity bores me. They're nothing but a bunch of ungrateful parasites. Now come. It's time we finished the onboarding and made you into a proper deity. The others have been slacking off." God told Alcard, turning away and walking off through the endless white landscape, dotted with marble pillars and shrouded in ethereal haze.

Snarling, Alucard and reaching for his guns. He would kill God and- Wait. Others?

Alucard hurried forward, controlling his rage for now. "Who are you? Are you really the being that calls itself God?"

"I am God. The God of Horror," the white bearded man agreed absently. "And you are now my newest lieutenant. Alucard, right? Or do you prefer Vlad Tepes? We'll need to get that right on the paperwork."

"Paperwork. You are going to make me one of God's own lieutenants… with paperwork? Don't you know that I kill the men of god, and spread fear and panic wherever I go?" Alucard demanded, fighting back anger and revulsion.

"Yes, that's what makes you such an excellent choice for a deity of horror," the White Bearded thing calling itself God replied, still not fully paying attention to Alucard. "Ah, here. Kyubey will finish your onboarding and explain things. I'm going to deal with that damnable atheist once and for all. Turning him into a little girl didn't sort out that salaryman. Well. Let's see how they like me making someone else my champion."

Alucard jerked as God simply… vanished. He was there one moment, then another, gone. And Alucard was standing in the white mist, with a small creature with red eyes and long, strange ears. It was about the size of a cat, but was clearly some sort of monster.

Hello! The thing, Kyubey Alucard supposed, spoke directly into his mind using some sort of telepathy. Welcome to the Divine Division of Horror! Through your actions, you have ascended, achieving Apotheosis. You are now a god of Horror. Congratulations!"

"God of Horror." Alucard said flatly. "You're telling me I'm God now?"

That was the most vile, horrible thing he could think of. His life of utter sin and destruction, and he was rewarded by becoming God? He might have accepted that he'd been able to redeem himself and enter the afterlife as a human, as asinine as that would have been. He'd rather just return to earth and fight alongside Seras and Integra again. Maybe then he could find a human worthy of killing him, or perhaps, simply exist as humanity's champion. A monster fighting monsters.

No, no, not God. You are a god. The boss you just spoke with is the God of Horror. We're just his subordinates. Or you will be, once you make a contract with me!

"And if I do not desire to be a deity?" Alucard growled, looming over the smale creature.

It smiled up at him, but it's unblinking red eyes were empty and full of nothing but the endless void. Then I eat your soul, and we destroy your world and start over again! We really do need more gods, and you're a reasonably suitable candidate. But if you refuse, we'll just end you and your world as a failed experiment.

The thought of a simple cessation of existence galled Alucard, especially one at the hands of this vile creature. And to have his world erased for his own sins… that was even worse. "You'd erase all of reality? Just like that?"

No, just yours. A world like that, one designed to produce a proper god capable of helping run the division takes a lot of energy. Letting it go to waste would be a shameful increase in entropy, but sometimes it can't be avoided.

"I see. And why do you wish to make me into a god?" Alucard asked, considering his options.

That's easy! To spread horror! You enjoy that, don't you? You made a lot of horror happen while you were in your world, it was quite yummy! You see, us gods of Horror need terrible things to feed on to live. That's why I make Magical Girls in my world; Through their contracts and by becoming witches, they experience unimaginable horror. A pure, pristine form of energy that our division runs on. Our boss needs that to get power, and it's from him that we get our own abilities. Without Horror, our Division would cease to exist.

Rage, rage beyond anything Alucard had ever felt, burned in his soul. So. God was real. And he had been wrong. It wasn't that God didn't care. God did care, very much so it seemed. Only, God didn't care about his followers in the sense that he loved them, or sought to make the world a better place. Oh no. God was really just the devil, a worse one than even Alucard. And to God, his worshipers were nothing but food and chattel. But he didn't feed on devotion, praise, or even good deeds.

Of course not. It all made too much sense. The reason the world was so cruel, so unjust, so utterly terrifying, was because God fed on causing pain, and suffering, and anguish.

But Alucard would not let his anger rule him. He'd gotten past that centuries ago. The Hellsing family had seen to that. So he tamped it down, and forced himself to continue speaking to Kyubey. After all, Alucard killed monsters. And it seemed heaven was full of them.

After that, Alucard signed the contract, and became a god. He was tasked with overseeing worlds, and causing the maximum amount of horror and pain for their inhabitants in new and creative ways so that the Horror Division could grow and multiply. He spoke with the being who called himself the "God of Horror" many times, and confirmed his belief that he was nothing but a cruel, malevolent, and petty tyrant who sought only to bring woe to his worshipers.

Personally, Alucard preferred to think of him "Being X," as the so-called "atheist" did. This was a poor soul that the God of Horror was currently fixated upon. Some fool that would neither bow and worship, nor give in and weep in horror and fear. It was the sort of pettiness Alucard supposed he should have expected of God.

As for Alucard, he rose through the ranks quickly. He knew quite well how to cause horror and pain, and did so. He felt no pity for these poor humans. Instead, he wished for them to overcome their trials. For Alucard sought a way to end their suffering.

You see, Alucard had learned Horror was not the only division of heaven. There were others. Worlds that were full of love in the Romance Division, or those full of laughter in the Comedy division, and hundreds of others. At first Alucard had been bitter and resentful his life had not been lived there. But then he realized something; Those Gods were just the same as the ones in Horror. They lived to cause laughter or love, not because they cared about those in their worlds, but so they could feed on it. Oh, they could have destroyed the Horror Division, it was actually rather small and out of the way, shunned by the other Gods and gods. But they didn't. Because they were perfectly content to let a few mortals suffer so their fellow gods could feed.

Which meant one simple thing: They had to die. All of them. They were not gods. They were monsters. But to kill a monster, you did not send another monster. Alucard might be able to kill the other Horror gods, but he would swiftly lose to more powerful deities in other divisions. No, Alucard didn't need a monster.

He needed a man. Or, rather, a girl. That "atheist." Tanya Von Degurechaff she was called now. A little girl, trapped in a horrible war. But she kept her focus. She was determined to kill God. And Alucard was in a position to help her.

His greatest aid was that the God of Horror was lazy, extremely so. He put off more and more of his work onto Alucard, who was quickly becoming the most powerful god in horror. He even put Alucard in charge of Tanya's world, to torment her more effectively, and in charge of interdepartmental communications. Effectively, Alucard had become the Head of Horror, in function if not form.

Which was how Alucard met perhaps the God, or rather, Goddess, he hated most, outside of his own division. Haruhi Suzumiya.

She was everything a God should not be. Lackadaisical. Petty. Uncaring. And willing to subject those under her to endless humiliation. Granted, she did not torture them as the Horror Division did, but her supposed "slapstick" was painful and humiliating, even killing those she thought of as being deserving of her wrath. She claimed it was to bring laughter, but in its own macabre way Alucard saw it as just as horrifying as anything in his own division.

Which was why it was oh so sweet that it was her who sent out a missive asking for a collaboration

You see, Alucard needed a way to destroy the other gods. He couldn't simply start killing off his own division himself, nor could he attack other gods openly. He was stronger than most, but not all, and invariably if enough deities worked together, he'd be laid low. But the same didn't hold true for mortal beings, or at least non-divine ones. Gods had no power over beings not in their own division. So, Alucard needed a way into another division.

Enter the Isekai Quartet Initiative. Isekai was a fad amongst the gods, of sending mortals from a world without magic or very little, into a fantasy realm. It could have been a way to create powerful champions to defeat the monsters that threatened humanity, but instead it was just a sort of joke that gods played on mortals to feed off their emotions. There were several Isekai worlds under Alucards control, and he carefully selected a batch to present to Haruhi as choices for her scheme.

Her plan was to send all of these beings to Highschool and have them interact with one another. She planned to turn it into a farce, but Alucard had deeper intentions. He wanted to make sure Tanya went, as she had the most potential to become a mortal free of all shackles, who would stop at nothing to kill the gods and free humanity once and for all. Alongside her, Alucard also submitted two others. The first was a boy named Subaru Natsuki, who was also plagued by the gods. He was weak willed, but perhaps one day he could find the drive to destroy the gods forever. The other was Naofumi Iwatani, a man who had suffered every indignity, and who would be dead set on destroying the gods, if he could be properly guided to that conclusion.

There were a few others mixed in, and Alucard sent them off to Comedy, hoping that Haruhi would be so foolish as to accept his offer.

To his shock, not only did she accept, but Alucard had been the only one to respond. Apparently, Comedy was considered to be, well, a joke, and working with them as lowering oneself to a base level. But Haruhi was delighted to be working with Alucard, though for all the wrong reasons.

"This will be great!" Haruhi laughed when they met together at a neutral location, a world that seemed to exist just for the purpose of deities across divisions talking with one another. It looked like a great hotel on a small world of boring cityscapes and parks, clean manicured, and harmless. It was populated only by angels and servants, and had no mortals upon it. What a waste. Somewhere like this would have been a pleasant place for mortals to live out their lives. It made Alucard think of Integra, but he steeled himself and pressed on.

"Look, there's just one problem here though," Haruhi said, looking over the paper with the three chosen worlds of Alucard's over. "When I found out I was going to work with Horror, I thought there would be some cool monsters! But this is all boring! The closest thing to a monster are Rem and Ram, but they just look like cute girls! I mean, that's hot, but where are the real scary stuff! You know, something big and tough and mean! Skeletons, and vampires, and multi legged freaks! That's what horror is, right?"

"Well, I hardly thought a group of disturbing beasts would be appropriate for a school setting," Alcuard said calmly, flipping through Haruhi's own suggestions. He froze suddenly, and if he had been human still, a drop of cold sweat would have run down his back. "What is this? You're including gods in this...event?"

"Yeah, Aqua's a goof! Plus, she'd way over react if she saw literal monsters!" Haruhi cackled.

"She is not the only one. Who is this 'Ristarte?'" Alucard demanded coldly, tapping a finger on another world's description.

"Oh, she's pretty funny too. Totally in love with Seiya. I figure I can trick her into banging him and she can spend a lifetime as a mortal. So don't worry about them," Haruhi said dismissively. "Look, either you bring some cool monsters to the table or I'm calling this off. Don't you have something interesting?"

Absently, Alcuard reached into his stack of secondary options and selected one at random. He glanced at it, then slid it over to Haruhi. The Overlord world was a disgusting perversion, one he hoped to cleanse one day. But Ainz and his cronies did fit the descriptions of monstrous in both appearance and character.

"This Aqua and Ristarte. Will their memories be wiped?" Alucard asked Haruhi, keeping his voice calm and professional.

"Huh?" Haruhi looked up from the Overlord paper and shrugged. "I mean, if Ristarte manages to trip Seiya into bed, yeah. But not Aqua, unless you can arrange someone to seduce her. Believe me, I tried. I thought Kazuma would totally go for her and she'd be into him, but instead they're hetrosexual life partners or something. He's with Megumin, can you believe it? That stupid pedo-NEET."

Alcuard did not give a good goddamn about who was sleeping with whom. But this Aqua could be a problem. He looked at her sheet more carefully. Then he smiled. Hated the undead, did she? Well. That could have some potential. She seemed rash and unintelligent. If she attacked Ainz, Alucard would have his pretext for the coming war. It was a problem that she would remember these events, and working with the Horror Division would give her power over its inhabitants. But that would just mean she would need to be eliminated first. And if Ainz or his subordinates survived, they'd likely bear her a grudge. Excellent.

As a bonus, Tanya already hated gods. Having a fool of a goddess like this around her would be the perfect way to further mold her into the weapon Alucard needed.

"Alright, these guys work," Haruhi declared, slapping down the Overlord paper and grinning. "So, I've already got the Highschool world created, when can you teleport your people in? I was thinking we just send them these big red buttons, and trick them into pressing them! That would be hilarious!"

"That's fine," Alucard agreed, hiding a smile. "How long do you think this will last?"

"I dunno. Until it's not funny anymore. Or until everyone learns a valuable lesson. Hopefully your people can just relax and have some fun! I feel bad they're stuck in the horror division. You guys aren't too hard on them, right?" Haruhi asked, sounding almost concerned. Alcuard knew it was a lie, a facade. No god cared about humanity.

Save for him.

"Oh, I'm sure our heroes will enjoy themselves," Alcuard said, smiling politely at Haruhi and avoiding showing his fangs. "I know I will."

The Isekai Quartet experiment only lasted a few months, but that was all Alucard needed. He spent the time well, planning and preparing. He even checked up on Seras and Integra. They were doing well, as Alcuard had known they would without him. But their world was still vulnerable, and horrors still ran through it. For now.

Alucard would find a way to free those he cared for from the bondage of gods. The only part he regretted is that it would mean he would have to die as well. Ah well. It was for the best. He was, after all, a monster.

He just had to make sure that Tanya Von Degurechaff didn't make the same mistake that Anderson had. She would be worthy.

She would be his Godslayer. And her last victim would be himself.

But her first would be the very God that had plagued Alucard for so long. It was almost time for Being X to die. And then, Alcuard's crusade would begin in earnest.

Author's Note:

Hopefully that answers some of the questions I've gotten about why Alucard is doing what he's doing. I don't think he's terribly OOC to want to see what he sees as monstrous petty tyrants all exterminated, especially not when he's doing it for his friends in the Hellsing Organization.