Luke led the two of them toward the Hyakuya Orphanage.
Before they even got close, Mika smelled the fragrance of blood, and his breathing instinctively quickened. Mika glanced at Luke leading the way up front but said nothing.
Arriving at the entrance, Yuichiro found it a bit strange.
"Where are the guards here? Hey, are you just going to walk straight through the front gate?"
Luke didn't answer Yuichiro's question, simply walking inside on his own.
Left with no choice, Yuichiro could only follow Luke into this courtyard that felt both familiar and foreign.
Mika felt a pang of bitterness looking at the transformed courtyard, and Yuichiro's expression wasn't great either.
Mika twitched his nose and looked toward a corner of the courtyard. Several corpses lay scattered there; it seemed Luke had dealt with them before they could even sound the alarm.
Yuichiro hadn't noticed them; in the moonless night, he didn't see the pile of bodies.
He just found it strange—where had all the guards gone? The unease in his heart became increasingly apparent.
Luke, however, opened the door to the building without any hesitation.
Yuichiro wanted to warn Luke to be careful, but the empty corridor kept the words in his throat.
Mika and Yuichiro could only follow closely behind Luke's heels.
Yuichiro was afraid of being discovered and didn't dare speak up with his questions, while Mika kept smelling the scent of blood coming from various rooms, suppressing his restless body.
They didn't walk far down the corridor before Luke stopped at a room door.
"This is it—the laboratory where our dear Imperial Demon Army conducts its mysterious experiments."
Yuichiro's brow furrowed. He didn't know about any mysterious experiments by the Imperial Demon Army; he only knew that this used to be the orphanage's cafeteria, the largest room in the entire building.
Luke took a step back, clearing the way, and stood to the side with his arms crossed.
"Mika, want to open the door and see for yourself?"
Mika felt apprehensive. He slowly placed his hand on the doorknob, took a few deep breaths, and then slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open.
As soon as the door opened, an indescribable smell of chemical agents flooded the three of them's nostrils.
"Cough, cough! What is this weird smell? It's so pungent!"
Yuichiro quickly covered his nose, waving his hand in disgust to clear the air, but it had no effect. That unspeakable stench continued to assault Yuichiro's olfactory nerves relentlessly.
Although Mika had already smelled it at the door, once it was opened, the scent surged forward like a shaken bottle of cola being uncapped. Mika also instinctively frowned and covered his nose.
"Go in and take a look."
Luke's voice came through, sounding a bit strange and muffled.
Mika turned to look and found that Luke had produced a gas mask from somewhere and put it on his face.
Yuichiro noticed this as well.
"You're too cunning! Are there any more?"
Luke pointed to a small shelf nearby.
"There's only one left. Which of you wants it?"
Then, as Mika and Yuichiro politely deferred to each other, Luke impatiently snapped the remaining gas mask onto Mika's head.
Mika could only accept it.
Entering the room, the most striking sight was over a dozen experimental tables. Each was surrounded by various instruments, tools, and a mess of different medicines.
Furthermore, people were lying on seven of the tables. They appeared to be teenagers, all still in a deep sleep.
"Hey, how are you? Wake up!"
Luke turned to look and saw Yuichiro holding the body of an Imperial Demon Army researcher and shouting.
"Did you kill him?"
Yuichiro's gaze was fixed intently on Luke.
Luke rolled his eyes, speechless at the hot-headed idiot Yuichiro.
"If you knew what he was doing here, I don't know if you'd have the nerve to question me. Take a guess—what are these people lying on the tables doing here?"
Yuichiro stood up and looked around, and Mika also observed carefully. They didn't know why these people were here, but they could tell that none of them were in a good state.
Luke didn't keep them in suspense any longer.
"As you can see, these children are all test subjects for the Imperial Demon Army."
Both Mika and Yuichiro couldn't help but frown, a bad premonition rising within them.
Luke walked to the nearest test subject and casually sliced open the boy's clothes with a nearby scalpel, revealing his body.
Yuichiro stepped forward to look and felt his scalp go numb.
"How about it? Feel like your brain is trembling?"
Luke made a joke as he asked Yuichiro.
Yuichiro nodded. There was hardly a patch of healthy skin on the boy; he was covered in needle marks and traces where tubes had been inserted.
"This one is a subject with poor experimental adaptability. He needs multiple injections of medicine every day, or he'll die from the experiment. I shouldn't need to tell you how painful that is."
Neither Yuichiro nor Mika responded, but their deepening scowls made it clear their moods were far from good.
Luke moved to another boy and sliced open his shirt as well.
"Oh? His adaptability is actually quite good; he doesn't need reagents to stay alive. But the level of adaptability only determines the success rate—whether it will actually succeed is an unknown."
Mika couldn't help his curiosity and asked.
"What is this experiment for?"
Luke gave a cold laugh.
"To create angels—Seraphs!"
Mika was stunned. Seraph? He remembered Lady Krul mentioning more than once that he was a Seraph.
Luke saw the surprise in Mika's eyes and struck while the iron was hot, continuing his questioning.
"Do you know what the requirements are to become a test subject?"
Both of them looked at Luke blankly, waiting for the answer.
"You have to be a test subject of the Hyakuya Sect first before you can become a test subject for the Imperial Demon Army."
This information exploded over Yuichiro and Mika's heads like a clap of thunder.
"The Hyakuya Sect?"
Yuichiro's gaze was vacant. Though he didn't know what that organization did, combining Luke's previous words with the name made it clear—it definitely had everything to do with the Hyakuya Orphanage!
Mika suddenly realized something and asked urgently.
"Luke, are you saying..."
"Everyone who escaped was subjected to these experiments, including Sachiko. And Sachiko clearly failed the experiment."
Yuichiro couldn't accept it either, muttering incessantly.
"It's impossible. That idiot Guren couldn't be that kind of person..."
Mika's fists clenched until they creaked, his heart filled with hostility toward the Imperial Demon Army that had harmed his family.
This was the conclusion Luke had reached by combining the original story with what he had seen upon breaking into the Hyakuya Orphanage today.
Of course, he knew that Guren was likely conducting the experiments on the Hyakuya children behind the backs of his superiors, but he needed to radiate Mika's hatred toward the entire Imperial Demon Army.
However, Luke rubbed his chin, some doubts in his heart still unresolved.
"It's a bit strange. For such an important experiment, why is the security so weak? And besides, a survival rate of six out of seven is way too high. What's going on? Is my deduction wrong?"
Luke shook his head and spoke to the two emotionally distraught boys.
"Let's leave here first. Yuichiro, are you coming with us?"
Yuichiro stood up in a daze, as if all the strength had been drained from his body.
"I'm going to find Guren and get an explanation. This is absolutely impossible!"
Then he ran straight outside.
"Yu..."
Mika was worried Yuichiro might be in danger and wanted to chase after him, but Luke grabbed him and shook his head at Mika.
"Don't chase him. Guren won't do anything to Yuichiro. We need to leave here first!"
...The Hiiragi Family.
"Marshal, it seems we've lost contact with Experimental Site Two."
A member of the Hiiragi Family reported to Hiiragi Tenri.
Hiiragi Tenri looked up. Combining the news of the Vampire attack on Shibuya First High School today, he considered the possibilities.
"Send three Vampire Extermination Squads to check it out. Although the experiments there aren't very important, we can't let the Vampires look down on us!"
"Yes!"
At that moment, a young man with a lazy, nonchalant air nearby spoke up directly.
"Marshal, just stop the experiments over there. Our Seraph Experiment technology is already incomplete. Those subjects who haven't undergone the Hyakuya Sect's experiments have no chance of success. You might as well give the funding to our squad!"
Hiiragi Tenri just gave him a sidelong glance, and the youth sheepishly turned away, pretending he hadn't said anything.
Looking at Hiiragi Seishiro's behavior, Hiiragi Tenri felt disappointed. Fortunately, this guy's combat talent wasn't bad, so he wasn't a total disgrace to the Hiiragi bloodline.
You will get 90 chapter ahead for this fanfiction.
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