"You seem to be in a good mood, My Lord."

There was a light chuckle on Aku's side as his eyes narrowed over the cursive letters that adorned the high-quality paper in his hands.

"Well, it just seems like my pen pal's activities keep on getting more and more entertaining," the youngest Founder uttered, lips curving into an entertained grin as he folded the paper and slipped it back in its beige envelope.

Since meeting up with Cordelia and coming to an understanding, both Demons began to exchange letters regularly. It was more of Cordelia ranting and allowing bribes of information in exchange for gifts, but Aku was satisfied with the outcome. Although Aku could spy on the happenings of the Sakamaki manor with the crystal ball gifted to him, there was something different about receiving information from an involved party.

"Father, Father, what are you reading?" Alpha asked, slightly leaning over the table as her eyes shone with unhidden worship. It was a rare event for the twins to be allowed access to their father's tea time, so both children were feeling ecstatic.

"Nee-sama, please calm down," Omega chided, his glassy eyes staring straight ahead as he nursed the cup in front of him, his lips sporting a ghost of a smile.

Aku seemed unbothered by the twins' exchange. He set the envelope aside, sipping on his new cup of tea as he thought back on the letter's content.

"It seems like matters between eldest sons intensified," Aku provided as he set his cup down. Cordelia's letter had put him in a great mood, making him feel magnanimous. The Founder chose to share his feelings with his children.

While Alpha blinked in apparent confusion, her brother mutely hummed.

"Perhaps, Shu Sakamaki and Reiji Sakamaki have begun to argue openly?"

Aku hummed, finding minute satisfaction in his youngest's deduction. He nodded. "Shu made himself a human friend, it seemed, so Reij had him eliminated," the Founder took a sip of his drink, his golden eyes glinting under the shadow of his strawberry-blond lashes as his lips twisted into an amused smirk.

It was amusing to see children destroy one another in a quest for love. One yearned for freedom and friendship; the other craved for his mother's attention and care.

Aku could not empathize with either, since young, Aku always got what he wanted. Be it attention from his mother and later his father (although that was not love) or getting along with his brothers, Aku did not lack both. He did not feel the need to have friends, his diplomatic relationships were superficial enough, and his mother and brothers satisfied his craving for love. With them gone, he might feel empty, but Kagamine compensated slightly, and Aku long learned to be independent.

"A human friend? Won't it die quickly anyway?" Alpha questioned with a slight tilt of her head. "It's better to raise a familiar or something," she muttered, not understanding the need of a friend.

On the side, Omega seemed to agree with her. His head bobbed up and down in a slight nod as he lightly hummed.

Indeed because both were raised in seclusion, away from others their age, and with the single goal to benefit their Father, Alpha and Omega could not understand how Shu would want to befriend something as weak as a human. After all, unlike Demons, Humans were weak and had short lifespans. Befriending one had no benefits apart from short-term returns. It wasn't a good investment.

Aku quietly ignored both werewolfs' talk, favoring his thoughts, his eyes narrowed as he recalled his previous encounter with Richter.

Probably because Aku got closer to Cordelia, Richter's attitude had become much more suspicious. Not to say that the Vampire didn't act suspectly before, but now he was more guarded and vicious in his words and actions.

Aku was unsure whether Richter knew Cordelia was his cousin or not, but he had an inkling that the Vampire believed him to be on his side because he appeared friendly with the woman.

He brought the tea to his lips, the beverage bland under his tongue from drinking too many cups at once.

Nevertheless, there was something about Richter that nagged at Aku's guts, a feeling that the man was much more useful than he seemed and that perhaps he held part of the keys to bringing his Clan back from the ashes.

Aku's golden eyes thinned, gleaming calculatingly.

The next time he met Richter would determine the usefulness of the man. Promises of success were easy, but if Richter wanted to bring the last Founder to his side, he'd need more than empty words.

"Oh my, welcome, welcome, My Lord, please make yourself comfortable!"

Stepping out of the horse-drawn carriage with the help of his escort, child-sized Aku allowed his golden gaze to sweep the orphanage in front of him.

It was an act driven by boredom and curiosity that allowed the First Blood to hide himself with shapeshifting magic and go to the human world to visit one of those houses for homeless children.

With the regal attitude only someone born from the highest nobility could bear, Aku ignored the man welcoming him and walked straight ahead into the orphanage, leaving his aide, Kagamine, to deal with the aftermath.

Aku was there as the child of some powerful Lord looking for a playmate. There were no criteria apart from age range and sex, so after looking around for a bit, the Demon decided on coming to this male-only orphanage. The building was in a good state, as were most of the furniture and clothes. It appeared that funding was not lacking.

The Demon had no specific child in mind as he entered the area. The only thing he wanted was something to make time grow faster. A toy to entertain him, and who knows? Maybe a blood bank if he ever craved a snack during the day. Although Aku was a Founder and not a Vampire or an affiliated clan such as the Bat Clan, he still carried Vampire traits.

In fact, it would be more accurate to say that Vampires carried Founders' traits. Because Founders were the "First Bloods," they represented the highest Demonic existence and created precedents for all other races. In a way, each Clan was but a branch of the Founder Clan.

So yes, as much as Aku could willfully summon wolves to do his biddings like the Wolves Clan, he could also suck out and feed on blood if he felt like it.

Walking around the building and basking in the attention he received, Aku carefully sniffed out the place. With heightened senses, he readily took notice of the smallest groans of pain— seemingly coming from the basement. Humans weren't inherently kind creatures. Knowing that a few, if not all, were subjected to abuse within the orphanage was no surprise. But Aku felt unconcerned for those Human children. What happened to them had nothing to do with him, and so he ignored it.

In the same way, he ignored how his nephews got tormented by his cousin.

It was enough for Aku to extend a helping hand once or twice, children's minds were the easiest to twist around, and with a bit of magic, Aku had no troubles bending others to his will.

With his now tiny legs carrying him, he arrived in one of the many inner courts. The smell of blood intensifying the closer he got, as well as the whimpers that accompanied them. It was the peculiar blood that attracted him.

It was one of the rarest types out there, with a fragment of the Human population having it. As humans would come to call it, the Bombay type was a blood type resulting from generations of incestuous practices. It was a rare delicacy made rare because of its precarious ways of creation and because the rate of mortality of people carrying such blood type was high.

Aku's golden eyes, a shade slightly dimmer than usual to seem goldish brown and more human-like, traveled the inner court before zeroing on the group of children and the raven-haired boy on the ground. He couldn't make out his face correctly because of the children in front of him, but Aku could guess most of the boy's features.

He appeared short, either from malnutrition or genetics. Aku guessed it was both; incest could do this to you. His hair was deep ebony, not very well maintained judging from the splits Aku spotted with his heightened sense of sight. But those were details that Aku did not care for. What mattered was the malleability of the kid, his taste, and his eyes.

The Founder gently tilted his head, eyes narrowing to catch a glimpse of the boy's eyes.

He grinned.

Clear blue. An almost crystal color.

Aku already possessed different shades of blue in his collection. Still, none of them appeared quite as straightforward as this one, especially considering the fact that the boy got subjected to bullying and probably abuse daily.

The thought of those eyes cleansed of abuse sent a shiver down Aku's spine. How beautiful could they be?

With a one-track mind, Aku ignored that while he would take the boy away from Human abuse, the treatment he would receive within the Demon world would probably be worse.

"Kagamine," he whispered.

There was a breeze, and not even a second later, the said Shadow Demon stood by his side, a disoriented orphanage manager a step behind.

"Yes, My Lord?"

Aku's chubby finger extended to point at the group of children that had yet to spot them.

"I want this one."

Kagamine's wine-colored eyes lowered themselves to look at the children. He minutely paused, gaze traveling from one to another as his nose picked on their smell. Shadow Demons descended from Vampires and therefore shared their affinity to smell blood and its fragrance.

"Very well, My Lord," he complied, not asking which boy Aku referred to. A simple whiff of blood and look at their eyes was enough for Kagamine to determine which child his master wanted. Kagamine knew Aku's taste too well to be mistaken.

"Fantastic!" Aku grinned, his face morphing into an expression of childish delight as he clapped his hands. "I'll look around some more, take care of everything," he ordered before walking away, not minding that he hadn't greeted his future 'playmate.'

The orphanage wasn't all that big, soon Aku had seen most of it. He walked to the most fringe location of the orphanage, another small court hidden behind thick bushes, and met another child.

It was a boy with a thin body and blond curly hair of surprisingly good quality. And like the other boy Aku decided to take, this one had a pair of beautiful eyes. A glassy blue shade, limpid eyes whose fragility was enhanced by the tears that bordered them.

The child was crying.

Not that Aku cared, he was much more interested in how the kid kept on bringing his hand closer to his teary eyes before retracting them in fear— yet the perseverance did not fade, and his fingers grew closer to his ocular globe each time.

There was a pause on Aku's side, a moment to realize what the kid was doing. Was he—

"You," he called out, making the boy jump in fright and hurriedly pull his hands away from his face. Aku strode over, ignoring how the kid trembled, fear painting his face and reeking from his body.

"Ah— I—"

Aku's hand casually extended to graze the boy's terrified face. It probably had to do with the clothing. It was apparent Aku did not belong to the orphanage but an influential noble. The boy was afraid of slighting him and getting scolded. Aku found the way the kid shivered cute.

His fingertip gently traced the edged of his eyes, lingering around the rim and brushing against the blond lashes. "Were you trying to gouge your eye out?" he hummed, his hand not leaving the boy's face as he felt him stiffen up under his touch.

"I— No, I—"

Although annoyed by the stutter, Aku found himself too enthralled by the look in the boy's eyes and decided to spare him of his annoyance. His golden eyes stared straight into the pair of glassy blue eyes, leaving the blond mute.

The boy swallowed, biting at his lower lip before tears wheeled up in his eyes.

"If— If I don't, they'll sell me!"

"Oh?"

It probably had to do with the fact that Aku wore the skin of a child because, despite the unfeeling tone of his voice, the boy carried on.

"I— I have to—" the blond breathed. "If— If I'm ugly, then they cant! They won't—"

Aku swept his gaze over the boy's face, acknowledging that he wasn't bad-looking. He was too focused on his eyes to look at the overall product properly.

"Then, you don't want your eye anymore?" Aku asked, like the devil's whisper, his voice coiled around the boy's heart and mind squeezing them and locking oxygen out to make him the most vulnerable.

"Y-yes."

Aku grinned.

"I'll help you then."

Without a wave of his hand, a soundproofing barrier erected itself around them, and he plunged his fingers into the boy's eye socket, gently plucking out the eyeball. He could have cast a numbing spell on the boy, but hearing the cries that came from the pain was much more entertaining.

Creating a jar from thin air, Aku carefully placed the glassy blue orb, not forgetting to cast a conservation spell beforehand.

His eyes drew themselves to the agonizing kid on the ground, he hummed. "You can't die now. That would be a waste of your other eye," he reminded. Aku casually crouched down to the boy's level on the ground. He waved, and the jar disappeared.

"Do not move," he ordered, making the boy's body still. The Founder brought his hand to cover the child's empty socket, quickly healing the wound and easing the pain. "This is payback."

And with this, Aku went away, leaving the child to pass out.