Lucien woke up early in the morning, and the first thing he did was drink morning coffee. Drinking morning coffee was a ritual and the most important tradition to him. Traditions were like Holy Decree to the people of Aeon House.
Another tradition for Lucien was morning training with his katana. He did it every day to keep himself in good shape. Now when he didn't have any of the Royal Guards to train with him or his mom to train with him, he could only do some shadow training.
His morning training took around two hours. He practiced basic stances at first and then proceeded to more advanced ones.
After finishing his morning practice, he went to the 4th Ward. This Ward was for ghouls uninhabitable. Together with 1st, 2nd and 3rd were too uninhabitable for all ghouls because they were close to "the main nest of doves".
It took some time for Lucien to find the exterior entrance to the HySy ArtMask Studio. It was located in some back alley, where everything was sprayed with graffiti. On the exterior was one smaller wooden banner with a HySy mark on it. Lucien opened the door and went downstairs, where the entrance to the shop was located.
The entrance to the shop was a very small and narrow place, lit only by a bright red light. The door was made from a combination of wood and some iron. It looked nice and a glance. Lucien entered the shop and saw its entire beauty.
The floor was practically a chessboard with black and white squares pattern on it. In the middle of the room and beside the walls were big glass showcases with some masks displayed. On the wall, masks were hanging, and some of them were scary, like from a horror movie.
The main designer Uta was nowhere to find.
"Nec possum tecum Vivere, nec sine te."
Screamed Lucien at the whole studio. He knew that Uta was here but probably was crafting some new masks and listening to music through the headset. So he said one quote that would bring him here for certain.
"I can live neither with you nor without you."
Said another voice coming from the backroom. The tall, lanky young-looking man appeared. With black hair styled into an undercut. Various tattoos covered his arm, and a sun tattoo covered his entire left pectoral region. His eyes were like those of a kakugan, black sclera, and red iris. Clothed in a gray tank top underneath a black wrap sweater, along with harem pants and sandals, he also wears a black necklace with round, white gems hanging from it.
"Hello, Uta-san."
Greeted Lucien politely. When Uta saw Lucien, he expression remained the same, but he knew who he was. As Uta worked with Aeon House for a very long time, he knew the inheritor from the first glance.
Lucien also knew Uta had a personality like this.
He has a very nice way of speaking and seems to be friendly. His expression almost never changed, but he had an amusing way of teasing people.
Of course, he has a sadistic and savage form from his youth, but it appears that he left those ways behind him as time passed.
"Lucien-san, welcome to my shop. Come to the back room to sit."
Lucien followed Uta to the backroom, and both of them sat down on the chairs. The backroom was actually Uta's real workplace. Here was his workplace, his table, and sketches of masks. Lucien fleetingly looked through all sketches before looking at Uta.
"Here, this is my gift to celebrate our first meeting and to the beginning of our friendship. From this day, we are friends."
Said Lucien with a smile as he took out one blood essence refined from agents of V. Blood essences refined from ghouls could be eaten by ordinary ghouls too.
"Thank you, my friend. How was the journey?"
Said Uta with his expression unchanged, even though Lucien would swear that he saw a faint smile on his face. He took the pearl-sized blood essence into his hands and closely examined it. He had seen it before, but it never stopped intriguing him.
That bloody red color and that vibe if given.
"Good, but I was ambushed by three members of Vasuki as soon as I left Helter Skelter Bar. Fortunately, they were just cannon fodder."
Uta just listened to Lucien's talk, but he reacted to the Helter Skelter Bar. It was a place where his friend Itori was running. Seeing Lucien's facial change when he mentions Helter Skelter Bar, he knows that Itori already got some bargains from him.
"How was she?"
Uta was curious about Lucien's meeting with Itori. Because of her friendly and unrestrained nature, she was a very interesting person. Another thing was that he knew what kind of person Lucien was from talks with some people from Aeon House.
"It's good to have someone like her. She is a funny person. In my homeland, nobody is like her. Everyone is just focused on martial arts and fighting."
Said Lucien with a somewhat sad voice.
"That's good to hear. She is a good person. By the way, Souta is planning to make a move soon, did you know? The game is starting."
Said Uta, but this time with a rather more serious voice than usual.
"That's good, then. You, with Clown, try to create the biggest chaos. More destruction and chaos, easier for me to hunt for Washuu and Vasuki."
Explained Lucien his newly made plan to Uta. It was a simple plan but effective. He just needed chaos everywhere to hunt for some Washuu Clan members or Vasuki agents quietly. And who could be better to create chaos and destruction and a bunch of psycho-ghouls called Clowns.
"And try to keep an eye on him. That man is scheming something big."
Uta nodded his head, and then both of them talked about the situation in Tokyo for the past several years. A most notable event was the 4th Ward Clown Investigation which happened seven years before.
This was basically a three-sided war between the Commission of Counter Ghoul, commanded by Arima Kishou, ghouls of the 4th Ward and finally Anteiku, commanded by Yoshimura alias Non-Killing Owl.
"Lucien-san, you should take a look at one man called Kanou Akihiro. He is an associate of Clown, and he is researching something called ghoulification surgery and the process of turning ordinary humans into ghouls. I only heard that Souta talk about him being hand-to-hand with Washuu Clan on some experiments."
Lucien frowned at hearing this. Kanou was a huge threat. Not because he could fight or he was strong, but because he was practically a genius who researched the ghoulification process and created many artificial one-eyed ghouls.
"Let him be for now. Uta-san, could you make me a mask? I even have some sketch here."