The city was raining.
It wasn't a chaotic or violent storm, but that slow, persistent rain that seed to drip from the very sad sky. Valentina walked through the streets of the Vampire Kingdom, hiding her presence with her blood-red umbrella open, standing out among the gray and black tones of the morning. She wore polished leather boots and a high-collared red coat, and even with the cold cutting through the air, her expression remained serene, firm, as always.
She wasn't just a powerful woman. She was the leader of Hellsing... the guild that, for many years, had maintained balance in areas where chaos threatened to bloom like an army. A na that echoed among adventurers, rchants, kings, and thieves. A woman feared... by everything and everyone... a demon in its purest essence, an existence that inspired fear. And, above all, soone who always knew how to see what others overlooked: the dormant potential.
That was why she was here, walking through forgotten neighborhoods, surrounded by rust, chimney smoke, and the muffled cries of children growing up without important nas or influential surnas.
She was searching for sothing... or rather, soone. But she didn't know what or who. She just... felt it.
In the past few months, Valentina had visited twelve orphanages. Twelve. In each of the cities, whether in the human world or the supernatural, she t the young ones, spoke with the caretakers, observed carefully how they acted, how they thought, how they looked at the world. So were intelligent, others courageous. Many had sad stories enough to write books. But none of them had sparked that "instinct" she trusted so much. None of them carried that fla.
Until one morning, her maid suddenly appeared and inford her.
"My lady. That 'Margaret' you said was useless sent a ssage... it seems soone abandoned a child, one of your type... Red-haired with sharp eyes." Skyla inford, bowing.
Margaret was from a small orphanage Valentina had visited three weeks ago. An elderly woman who wore floral dresses and always slled like chamomile. Sothing Valentina hated with all her might. But at the sa ti, it wasn't as if she could just ignore it... She had been searching for so long that she decided to give this woman a chance.
So, she decided to go.
The orphanage was an old, poorly maintained building, surrounded by a garden of almost dead flowers and a rotten wooden fence. Children played with rag balls and handmade dolls in the small courtyard. There was sothing painfully honest about that place. It was poor... but not broken.
Valentina entered without ceremony. Her presence imdiately drew attention. Children stopped playing in the rain. So stared at her with curiosity. Others, with fear.
"Thank you for coming so quickly." Margaret bowed quickly, trembling, just feeling Valentina's gaze pierce through her. She wasn't there to wait long. She had things to do.
Valentina questioned without much ceremony, she just wanted to et him already. "Where is he?"
The woman smiled with more tenderness than she should have. "He's upstairs... only a few weeks old, healthy and strong, even though he was abandoned on a rainy day, he didn't catch a cold or die. The person who left him here probably didn't care much if he would live or not."
Valentina raised an eyebrow. "He... is just a baby?" She asked, after all... she had made it clear that she wanted a boy of five years or older... After all, how could she, a Primordial Vampire who had fought in countless wars, be a loving mother? She had that idea firmly embedded in her mind.
"Find him." Valentina ordered, and Margaret eagerly nodded and ran upstairs. "Skyla." Valentina spoke through the door. "Yes, miss."
"It's a newborn." She comnted.
"And?" Skyla questioned.
"How do you an, 'and'?" Valentina said, "I'm not good with children."
"You should have thought about that before wanting to adopt, don't you think?" Skyla asked, completely breaking her master's composure. "Oh, you..." She began, but stopped as she heard Margaret's footsteps approaching.
Valentina lifted her face and saw Margaret descending the stairs with the baby in her arms, lifting his head slightly to let him see Valentina as well.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she ca face-to-face with the baby. He was small, very small, and cute, of course. But his eyes... his eyes almost scread to be adopted, or rather, to go with her.
She looked directly into the child's eyes, his penetrating and deep gaze slightly enchanting her, and he... didn't look away for a second. The longer she stared, the more intrigued she beca.
"Lady Valentina, this is the baby who was abandoned recently, as I inford you. I thought he might fit your criteria. I hope you're interested in adopting him," Margaret said respectfully, and the baby looked back at the woman with curiosity that startled her for such a young age, as if he understood what they were saying.
"Margaret, you recently received a blessing in disguise," Valentina said as she approached Margaret, who felt a chill down her spine with each step Valentina took.
"Let hold him," Valentina ordered, and the elderly woman reluctantly handed the small newborn to her arms.
"Hm..." She carefully examined the little boy with her eyes, feeling as if she was undergoing a very difficult test—the re act of holding a child for a woman who had decimated armies was... too much.
The woman embraced him, feeling him entirely. For a mont, the baby closed his eyes and relished in the warmth. 'He's really warm...' She murmured.
'Right, it'll be him...' Valentina thought, then looked at the elderly woman.
"Margaret," Valentina said while holding the child. "This should be enough." She handed a small piece of paper she took from her coat.
It was a check made out to her, the amount? Around two hundred gold coins, which for common folk was essentially becoming rich overnight.
"Yes!" Margaret exclaid, almost falling to the floor from so much... euphoria. Calling it joy was a bit of a stretch. Upon noticing Valentina's gaze...
"Uh... yes, Lady Valentina, thank you for your generosity," she corrected herself with a smile on her face. Valentina assessed the elderly woman as she turned and left through the front door.
"Let's go, little one," she said as she exited the house.
However, her attention was abruptly torn from her thoughts when Dante's voice, with a mischievous smile and a playful tone, cut through the silence of the room.
"So, you adopted just because you were feeling lonely and no man could give you any pleasure in company?"
Valentina swallowed hard. The provocation in his words wasn't new, but the way he said them—so direct, with a lightness in his voice—sent a shiver down her spine. There she was, lying on his chest, naked, with the warmth of his body intertwined with hers. They were no longer mother and son in the traditional sense, not anymore. Their relationship had transcended the lines of what the world called morality. They had found sothing much deeper and more complex, sothing that defied what was expected of them.
Valentina didn't move imdiately. She knew how much Dante liked to play with words, especially when he wanted to understand her more intimate motivations. However, her response was softer than he expected.
"Hmm, do you think that's it?" she asked, her voice carrying a mix of weariness and sothing deeper. "Do you think loneliness was the only reason I got close to you?"
Dante looked at her, his penetrating gaze searching for more than just a simple answer. He knew there was sothing hidden there, sothing she hadn't fully shared yet.
She sighed, as if weighing her words carefully. "I didn't need another man, Dante. Loneliness is a feeling that doesn't vanish with any kind of company. It wasn't a lack of pleasure that brought to you, it was sothing more… genuine."
Dante leaned in slightly, curiosity reflecting in his eyes. "Genuine, how?"
Valentina looked up at the ceiling, her mind drifting for a mont into the mories of a distant past. "I've seen so many things in my life. I've seen so much suffering, broken hearts, I've seen how cruel, selfish, or weak people can be. I didn't want to live in a world where only power and pain were all that existed."
She looked back at him, her eyes now softer, more vulnerable. "You… you showed sothing different, Dante. You didn't care about what others thought. You didn't care about titles, or what was 'supposed' to be. There was sothing about you that told maybe the world wasn't so bad after all."
Dante smiled, that smile she always felt was a little more sincere than it should have been. He lifted a hand and touched her face, his fingers gentle, almost reverent. "So, you found a mirror in ?" he asked, the teasing now replaced with a softness she hadn't expected.
"Yes… maybe that's what you were, Dante," Valentina answered, her smile widening. "You showed that I could look at the world with new eyes, without carrying all the weight of pain and loneliness."
They fell into silence for a mont, just watching each other, as the words lingered in the air, with a aning neither of them wanted to fully admit. They were two beings so different, but at the sa ti, the connection between them was undeniable, complex, and unique.
Finally, Dante spoke again, his voice softer now, almost a whisper. "So, I was the answer to your loneliness… but you were the answer to my pain."
Valentina looked at him, feeling the weight of his words. They weren't just mother and son. They were sothing much more than that. Sothing that defied all definitions, all expectations.
"I was the answer to sothing you didn't even know you were looking for," she replied, with a lightness in her heart she hadn't imagined feeling.
"You get sexy when you're philosophizing, you know that?" Dante murmured, as he gently ran his fingers through her hair.
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