Prologue: The Theft

Fourteen Years Ago

The scent of cherry blossoms drifted through Tokyo General Hospital's windows, a cruel contrast to the sterile smell of antiseptic and fear. Kael Memoriam moved through the corridors like smoke, his supernatural senses attuned to the symphony of human suffering that sang from every room.

He paused outside the pediatric ward, drawn by something unusual—not the sharp, acidic taste of fresh trauma he typically hunted, but something richer. More complex. Like aged wine compared to bitter medicine.

Through the glass, he saw a small boy curled in a waiting room chair, his eight-year-old frame shaking with silent sobs. Dark hair fell across his face, but Kael could see the tracks of tears on his cheeks, the way his small hands clutched a wilted flower crown made of daisies and roses.

"These are from Grandma's garden," the boy whispered to a nurse who knelt beside him. "She taught me to make them. She said... she said I was her little prince."

The nurse's expression was kind but helpless. "I'm sure she'd be proud of you, Akira-kun. You're being very brave."

But Akira wasn't feeling brave. Through the thin hospital walls, Kael could taste the boy's emotional landscape—layers of grief and confusion so intricate they made his demonic nature sing with hunger. The recent loss of his grandmother, the only person who'd truly understood him. The fresh wound of his parents' divorce, finalized just yesterday. The deeper ache of feeling different, wrong, like he didn't fit anywhere in the world.

And underneath it all, something that made Kael's centuries-old heart stutter: pure, unconditional love. The boy's capacity for love was extraordinary—for his fractured family, for his deceased grandmother, for the nurses who spoke gently to him, even for the wilted flowers in his hands.

Perfect.

Kael materialized in the form of a young doctor, his appearance carefully crafted to inspire trust. Kind eyes, gentle voice, the sort of face that had fooled thousands of victims over the centuries.

"Hello there," he said, kneeling beside Akira's chair. "I'm Dr. Memoriam. Are you waiting for someone?"

Akira looked up, his dark eyes swimming with tears. "My grandma. She was sick, and mama said she went to sleep forever, but I don't understand why she can't wake up."

The raw honesty in his voice made something twist in Kael's chest—an unfamiliar sensation he quickly pushed aside. "That must be very frightening for you."

"Everyone keeps fighting," Akira whispered, fresh tears spilling over. "Mama and papa fight about me. They say I'm too... too different. That I don't act like other boys. And now grandma's gone, and she was the only one who said I was perfect."

He held up the flower crown with shaking hands. "She made this with me yesterday. She said I was her little prince, and that someday I'd find my own prince to dance with. But now she's gone, and mama and papa don't want me, and I just want the hurting to stop."

Kael's breath caught. In three centuries of feeding on human misery, he'd never encountered such pure, devastating honesty. The boy's pain was exquisite, but it was wrapped in such genuine love that it burned to touch.

"Would you like me to help the pain go away?" Kael asked, extending his hand.

Akira stared at the offered hand, then back at the flower crown. "Will I still remember her? Will I still remember that she loved me? Because she's the only love I've..."

The question should have been easy to answer. Kael had stolen thousands of memories without a second thought. But something in Akira's eyes made him pause.

"You'll remember the important things," he said—not quite a lie, but not the truth either.

Akira's small hand slipped into his.

The connection was immediate and overwhelming. Memories flooded through the touch—not just the recent trauma, but everything connected to it. The divorce proceedings where his parents had fought about his "strange behavior." The confusion about why he felt different from other boys. The fear of being rejected for who he truly was.

But also the memories of his grandmother's unconditional acceptance. Her gentle voice explaining that love came in many forms. Her hands guiding his as they danced in her living room. Her fierce protection when others criticized his gentleness.

Kael should have taken it all. That was his nature—to consume completely, to leave nothing behind but blessed emptiness. But as he touched the edges of the boy's capacity for love, something inside him recoiled.

Instead, he made a choice that would haunt him for fourteen years.

He took the pain but left the love—not out of mercy, but out of a hunger he didn't understand. The trauma memories were sustenance, but the love memories were something else entirely. They were beautiful, warm, addictive. He wanted to carry them with him, to study them, to understand what it felt like to be loved so completely.

When he released Akira's hand, the boy blinked in confusion.

"I feel... empty," Akira said, his voice hollow. "Like something important is missing."

Kael stood quickly, already beginning to fade back into shadow. "Sometimes healing feels like loss at first. But you'll be stronger now."

As he dissolved into darkness, Kael carried with him the weight of Akira Sato's stolen memories. The boy's pain nestled against his supernatural heart like a warm coal, and for the first time in three centuries, Kael felt something other than hunger.

He felt the echo of love—not his own, but close enough to fool him into believing he was capable of the emotion.