FOUND her.
Kouya quietly hid behind a large tree, his eyes locked on a young girl playing in the park. The girl had flaxen hair and large chestnut brown eyes—in all likelihood she was the target. Kouya compared a picture of the woman the Blue Coven scumbags had kidnapped and experimented on without permission with the little girl.
Azusa Saito. Age 4.
Alias: Snow White.
A young girl created with the blood of the Ancient.
The girl in his report kicked a pink ball to one of her friends.
This is a story that took place thirteen years before Azusa was kidnapped.
✦ ✦ ✦
THE day was unbearably hot, as though nature sought to convey the coming summer. The young man hid his characteristic red eyes behind contact lenses and donned a short sleeve shirt and casual slacks. His slightly longer-than-normal hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. No matter how you looked at him, he was a normal human. However, he was actually a vampire.
Kouya Doumeki—he appeared to be in his early-twenties. Kouya had been moving around the past several months on orders he received from his father Akashi, Patriarch of the Red Coven.
His orders were:
“Find the girl with the blood of the Ancient before the Blue Coven and take her into custody. Capture the man with her—Shinji Saito—dead or alive.”
“Take her into custody? Who are they kidding? This is more of a kidnapping,” Kouya grumbled to himself, recalling his orders.
The search began the day after Yayoi and Shinji vanished, but several years passed without finding them. The Red Coven Patriarch grew impatient and selected his own son, who he took pride in being the strongest of all the vampires in his coven, to take over the search. He made the right choice—Kouya finally grasped the whereabouts of Shinji Saito, the man who had disappeared with the girl’s mother. He also determined the girl was living with him.
Guess I should report back soon.
Kouya hadn’t reported their whereabouts to Akashi yet. Having no definite proof Azusa truly possessed the blood of the Ancient was one factor, but the main reason he hadn’t was because he had reservations about destroying her peaceful life and entrusting her to the two-faced cunning devil he called father. But not reporting back and leaving her be could lead to a far more miserable future at the hands of the Blue Coven.
Kouya had investigated the Saito household a few days earlier to discover she dearly loved Shinji Saito as a father. They lived with Yayoi who she considered her mother as well. The family of three got along very well. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy their family. But that was possibly an inevitable sacrifice for her future safety.
“Oh, hey, Mister! Please get my ball!” a girl called out just as a pink vinyl ball bounced at his feet. Azusa Saito ran over to him as fast as her little legs would take her.
Shoot, I didn’t plan on letting her see me, he thought, but it was too late for regrets.
“Thank you very much!” Azusa bowed her head after he threw the ball to her. She turned around to run back to her friends, but tripped over a root and fell magnificently on her face.
“Gah!” she cried out in a weird voice.
“…Are you okay?”
Is she going to cry? What should I do if she does? Kouya was at his wits’ end on how to handle a crying child. Azusa suddenly popped up off the ground and flashed an angelic smile at him.
“I’m okay!”
“I see…”
Noticing the fair amount of blood oozing from her knee, Kouya stopped her from running back to her friends. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around her knee. Azusa patiently let him tend to her.
“Have your dad look at it when you get home. He’s a doctor, right?”
“Why do you know that, Mister?”
“…I heard about it from someone,” Kouya answered—not like he could honestly admit he found out during his investigation to kidnap her.
“Cool! Daddy’s famous!” Azusa grinned happily. Kouya’s heart stung at her innocent smile. “Thanks, Mister!”
He felt a little guilty watching her run toward her friends. He quietly decided to abduct her in a week’s time, internally apologizing for the crime he had yet to commit.