Eleanora looked at my eyes with a strong conviction, she wasn't going anywhere either this time around, and had decided to stay at my side wherever I want, whatever I did.
"That's a relief. With you at my side things are way easier." I said.
"I-Is that so? I always thought I was a burden back then… It took me a while to become strong enough to be useful…" she sighed.
"Eleanora… You've never been a burden to me." I said.
"E-Eh?" She muttered, as I looked deeply into her eyes.
"Never say that again… You're my partner… the one that has always stood at my side." I said.
"You're also… my partner too…" she said.
"You don't know how happy I felt after I summoned you… I had taken it for granted that… I would never be able to see you again." I sighed.
"A-Asmodeus…" Eleanora said, blushing more.
She suddenly hugged me after I uttered those words, rubbing her face against my chest… I couldn't help but pet her silky red hair.
"I've always wanted to hug you… … We never had the opportunity back then… Even if your body is different… I can see it in the shape of your soul, you're still Asmodeus…" she said.
"Of course I am… You've also changed a bit yourself, haven't you? Now you're all small," I laughed.
"I-I'm only the same size as you!" she defended.
"Haha, you've become cuter." I said.
"C-Cuter…?!" she asked in surprise.
"Sorry… Anyways, doesn't being children again take you back?" I wondered.
"Yeah… Back when we were children in our previous lives?" she asked.
"That's right…" I sighed.
It has been thousands of years since then, but I can still vividly remember the slums of the planet I was born on. A planet where only the most trashiest of people around the star system lived.
In these slums is where I was born. Finding myself alone since I was only a toddler. The first thing I felt back then was… thirst.
I was a Vampire child from the beginning, not a human turned into one.
I never got to meet my parents, nor know of my past, I only knew I thirsted for blood above all else.
I had begun to move myself since I was a tiny baby, moving my small hands, my nails grew black claws that helped me crawl more easily.
My vision developed very quickly as well, and my sense of smell too.
I even remember those first days of consciousness, and how hungry I was.
I couldn't find anything to eat, nor anything to sate my thirst.
Any normal children would have died, but because I was a Vampire, my body was naturally resistant to hunger and even pain, I was able to endure it for days until I finally found something, a black rat.
That first prey I had… a black rat.
It was the deciding factor, my first fight for survival, and the thing that taught me the flavor of blood.
I fought against it at the same time it fought against me. It didn't feel intimidated by my small appearance, in fact, it saw me as an easy meal.
It had tried to devour me too, it was hungry, just as much as me.
I remember the pain of its bites, how it even tore apart my flesh when I was just a child.
I guess it was like my baptism in battle. Since then, my life has been one battle after the other, all of it for survival.
When I defeated it and crushed its neck, I drank its blood, so warm, so sweet, so tasty… it brought me a new world of experiences.
My wounds regenerated after I drank enough blood, but I had to always hide in the trash when the light of the sun emerged in the day. I had adapted to a nocturnal lifestyle, hunting rats for days, months, even years.
I was constantly running away from trouble. Thugs at every corner of the slums, their targets were always people weaker than them, and children in the slums were the most abused. Without strength to fight back against adults, they were robed all the time, often kidnaped, and sold as slaves on a daily basis too.
You never knew what could happen to you. I would usually wake up finding a group of people trying to kidnap me for being a rare specimen. I had to fight for my life and couldn't even rest most of the time, even hiding inside the trash was not enough sometimes, I had to fight back.
And when I finally took the lives of other people was when I tasted an even tastier blood, and when I kept killing more while surviving, while enduring horrendous wounds that pierced my lungs and made my intestines blow out of my stomach, I kept drinking blood, drying them up like mummies.
One day I found one like me, however.
That day was when the world I was living began to slowly change.
Before that time, my world was filled with mist everywhere. Everything was covered in a thick layer of mist. Any other living being that came into contact was an aberrant beast within the mist.
I was living in hell, a hell where I would never wake up from, until I found someone that was different, someone weak, about to die, just like me.
It wasn't aberrant, but weak… and somehow, pity and empathy emerged in my primitive mind.
I had slowly become less than a wild beast and had begun to develop my thoughts more deeply.
Eleanora, a little half-Vampire child was starving in the streets, covered in wounds, back then, she looked like she was only bones, about to die.
I could have easily just killed her and ate her… but I couldn't bring myself to do so. Something inside of my told me: "she is like me"…
I brought her to safety in that day… and I gave her blood, I shared with her the rat blood I had, the first few drops were like an ambrosia for her. Bringing life back to her dried out body.