Seraph of the End (rewritten)

1| Livestock

Yuichiro stumbled as he ran towards the orphanage, hands clasped around two smaller ones. He rushed forward, the pitter patter of many tiny barefoot feet over the creaky floorboards and the hasty breaths as he ran being the only thing bringing sound to the barely illuminated night.

"Come on Yuu! Bring them in here!" Akane, one of the Hyakuya orphanage, called, she waved Yuichiro into the office of the owner of the orphanage, the one whom the children knew only as the Hyakuya Director.

Many of the children were scattered about and as one of the three eldest Yuichiro felt some semblance of responsibility with keeping them in order, thus he was helping Akane and Mikaela gather them up.

"Over here Yuu," Mikaela's gentle call guided Yuichiro to almost slam open the door with his bare foot, hands occupied with two unnamed children. He almost dragged them into the corner with a huddle of other children, all various heights and ages, but Yuichiro's gaze was captured in Mikaela's, they would protect these kids.

Vampires had stormed their town just days after a vile plague had sent almost everyone to death, even the coroners who once came in their odd masks to dispose of the bodies. Yuichiro remembered the soulless look of the mask from the day his mother had killed herself, from the day he was sent to Hyakuya Orphanage.

"Demon spawn!" she was raving, pointing a crooked finger at Yuichiro through tears as her body was wracked with tremors and shakes, her husband, Yuichiro's father, calmed her, idly muttering that it would be over soon before he raised a blade meant for skinning towards him. Yuichiro stumbled backwards, his father's cold look forever captured in his mind, illuminated by candle light.

When Yuichiro arrived at the orphanage, the director welcomed him in front of all the children, but Yuichiro could only feel anger when one of the kids reached out to greet him as 'family'. How dare they call themselves his family.

"Nice to meet you Yuichiro! I'm Mikaela!" A blonde-haired blue-eyed boy no older than Yuichiro, eight,  greeted him, but he felt nothing but disdain in the moment, his entire life upheaved, he would never have another family again, never a father, never a mother.

"Family means nothing to me, my mom killed herself while my dad tried to kill me," he spat out, he supposed that was a bit much to share but the boy in front of him, Mikaela, only frowned.

"That must've been terrible," Mikaela paused before choosing to share a bit of his own, "my parents beat me and threw me out of their carriage before I showed up here." Mikaela had a grin as wide as his eyes, Yuichiro was aghast, how could someone smile so brightly after that? How could they ever hope to recover?

"How can you still smile like that?" Yuichiro muttered, glancing around at the other children, muttering amongst themselves with stories of their own torment.

"No one in the Hyakuya orphanage is sad anymore," Mikaela smiled a little wider, as if to make up for the smile Yuichiro lacked in his shaken state, "We have a new family with each other."

"We're all family here, Yuu!" A girl with brown hair piped in, giving him a nickname, he found that strangely he didn't mind. Later he would learn that this girl was Akane.

Yuichiro was snapped from his thoughts at the sound of footsteps gently thudding up the staircase to the room they were gathered in. A voice, loud and commanding spoke out, "You humans have all but wiped yourselves out with these diseases of yours, we're taking protective custody of all of your children."

Bloodsuckers. Vampires. They had finally ascended the steps out of their underground chambers to take control of the lands and claim the throne, only now that the city had but a tenth of its bustling population.