It was simple really, their plan. They wanted to kill the second princess and frame the fifth, destroying the truce between two nations.  

"This country will fall! I SWEAR!" He screamed as James ignored him. 

With the originally curiosity dampened, James sighed as he picked up the knife from earlier and slit his throat. 

'Justine, you may want to cremate him.' He spoke. 

'Alright.' She replied, taking over, a fireball appearing in her hand without hesitation.

However, as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared as Virtla took control. 

'Eh? You're going to protect them?' Justine asked, confused. 

Shaking his head, Virtla answered, "Food." 

'What….?! Food?! No no, you can't eat them! That's weird!' Justine hurriedly shouted.  

'As if burning them wasn't….' A certain someone muttered. 

'Ah, Justine, you don't know?' James asked. 

'What am I missing here?!'

'Virtla died after eating the limb of a human visitor, the guy fell in in a drunken stupor.' 

'Is-is that so….but!' 

'It's okay, I ate human meat too.' James shrugged, 'it tastes, decent, I guess?' 

Suddenly taking back control, Justine shrieked, 'I refussseeeeeeeeee!!!!!' As she set three of the bodies on fire continuously. 

'...' 

'Food!' 

'I wanted one of those! I need to try out my Magic! Jussssstiiineeeeeeeeee!!!'

——————

After knocking the bewitched princess, James went on to roughen her up as well as himself, mysteriously saying something about training.

Picking her up easily, he carried her back to the academy. 

Afterall, this body of theirs was quite strong for some reason, carrying a little girl was no hard feat. 

 Entering through the gates with watchful eyes on them, he headed straight to the clinic, handing her over. 

"Sorry to trouble you, please take care of her, we were attacked." 

"I-I see, please place her down on that bed while I heal her." The doctor spoke, his hands reached forwards as he chanted a spell. 

"Aqua heal." He finished his spell as the water covering her body glowed brilliantly, causing her wounds to disappear. 

"How about you?" The doctor turned to ask, pointedly looking at his wounds. 

"It's alright." He simply said as he left.  

Unfortunately when they returned  it was already late evening, and tomorrow was dark magic class. 

Dominon had already woke up as they carried her back, his presence radiating self-loathing. 

Such an armature mistake, something he, of all people, shouldn't have committed. 

Clenching his fists, he took over at night as the others were asleep and started to properly train this body of theirs, following the childish, weak, lenient training of this academy won't get him back to the heights he had reached in his past life. 

Holding his body in the planking position for over a minute, his teeth clenching and in clenching as his determination burned, he continued working to late night. 

Sleeping for only four hours, the weary body of theirs left for breakfast. 

Picking healthy options for his breakfast, Dominon sat at a table at the corner. 

'A~ah, it feels so sore, what did cha do with it?'

Suddenly, an awkward silence befell them as Dominon stayed silent. 

'I-it can't be! You lost our first time?! I called dibs already!' A certain perverted playboy screamed. 

'Oh my! You perverts!!! All men are perverts!!!' A girl shouted, her hands covering her red cheeks.  

'…calm down, both of you, he wouldn't do such a thing, and if you've forgotten, this body's five years old, it's impossible.' James sighed at the conclusion they've jumped to. 

'You'll never know!' 

'Nothing is impossible in life!' 

Sighing himself, Dominon shut out their voices before standing up, returning the tray as he did so,  showing the hint of courtesy no other soul did so.

Entering the class right on time, he again, sat at the corner, the black clothing he chose to wear extremely inconspicuous as he strayed away from sunlight. 

Quickly, the teacher arrived with books and papers in his hand as he started checking the attendance. 

Slowly as names were called, it came to his name, "Virtla?" He asked, looking around. 

With a shrug, his pen crossed out the box next to his name as he sighed, "Haughty princes, huh."

"Teacher." He called out, scaring the class. 

"When did you enter!"

"Ghost! Ghost!" 

Wearing a shocked expression himself, the teacher looked down and ticked his name. 

"Alright." He started after finishing attendance checking, "My name is Damien Asmodoes," he greeted with a swish of his tail, "Call me Mr Asmodoes, I will be teaching you dark magic." 

'Hey, he looks demon-ish, look at those horns!' Justine commented. 

'That's not a word, ya know?' 

'Bah!' 

"Dark magic, is extremely simple, there are multiple uses to it, you can darken an entire area, you can also use it to corrode enemies. For the first effect, why would it be useful? Visual advantage is an extremely important thing, for some people, if you can't see the opponent, you can't hit him, racial flaws are an important thing."

"For the first lesson, we will be attempting to create a dark energy ball, if into contact with enemy, it will corrode their meat, unless they have a certain amount of resistance to magic, or they can physically stop the corrosive effects." 

However, at that moment, instead of getting fired up like every other student, Dominon sighed before leaving the class, without his shadow even spotted once.

Classes were fortunately not compulsory in this place, all but the physical exercises class, however that didn't mean one could enjoy the glory of being in this prestigious academy, the yearly examinations which had a round robin competition between children of the same age and theoretical examinations were extremely hard, those that failed to meet expectations immediately expelled regardless of status and potential. 

'Hey! What did I say about good impressions!' James reprimanded. 

'…it's a waste of time, I'll train this body and make my poisons.'  He answered with a shrug, flying towards the library. 

Just like that, they spent the rest of the week alternating between training their magic, their body, crafting poisons and dolls. 

And every subsequent week, was similar in its own way, except James went on playing around with other children and Justine stopped attending classes. 

As for physical education, Dominon took the initiative for training. 

—————

In a blink of a eye, seven years passed, currently, the twelve year old Dominon stood above the defeated child, the side of his lips ever so slightly curved. 

"The final winner of the Red Cohort Battle assessment is Virtla Asgera!" Someone announced. 

Jumping off the battle platform with a flap of his wings, he was met with six children of the same age. 

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Five of which were James's toys, which of course included the princess, and the last one their biological Sister. 

Nothing happened much in these seven years, except that Virtla's Mother have birth to another girl six years his junior. 

Similarly, that child inherited solely from Mother, but without a hint of purple in her features, causing her to be disliked in the country. 

Not only did she seem like a bastard child, she was born under the unfavored fourth princess. 

Luckily, she wasn't born on a day like Virtla's the day of death, but on her birth date, she was the only delivered child on that day, every conceiving woman treated with so much care in fear for a sudden birthing. 

Though their first time meeting their biological Sister was a weird one, with Justine crying out, "What's this?! So soft?!" As she picked her up while the other souls panicked. 

Regardless, their life was rather boring, but they enjoyed the tranquility to some extent, but after today, all the students of their batch could start doing tasks. 

"Brother!" His Sister, Citra, called out as she hugged his waist. 

Instantly, the originally black feathers turned to white as Virtla welcomed his Sister. 

Somehow as he kept his dislike for everyone, his Sister and Mother was an exception. 

Patting her head, he gently released her hands and spoke, "How's your tournament?"

"I won! Third place!" She beamed as she snuggled into his embrace yet again, "I did well!"

"Yes." He said as he pulled her away again, "Big day tomorrow, go play with your friends." 

"You're going to be busy?" 

"Yes, assignments." 

"….Alright then." She said with a pout as a thick root came from beneath her, pushing her up to his height, allowing her to give him a kiss on the cheek before the root disappeared and she ran off. 

'A pity we're related……' Keith commented with a sigh. 

As she ran off, the second princess made her way to him, "We've already taken a elimination task on the outskirts of the farming area outside of the city." She reported with a big smile. 

"Beast type?" James asked as he took over. 

"A single fire fox, he's been straying from the inner parts of the forest and came to the farmlands, burning crops and eating livestock, it seems to be young and the task is only F Ranked, the only problem would be its speed." 

Thinking for a while, he nodded, "Then I'll rest up, go with me tomorrow at dawn." He said as he petted her head. 

—————

The next day, the two of them met up, it wasn't that James didn't want to bring the other five children because he didn't want to share the rewards, but he wanted to test some things out. 

However,Tang Xin was quite strong herself, carrying the assumption that she had to protect Virtla with her life, she trained and trained the past 7 years extremely diligently. 

Besides, there was also Keith's army of dolls, each only the height of his arm with the total number of twenty, they were kept in a spacial ring the king had given to them as a gift for being outstanding in their cohort. 

Inside, there were also multiple weapons Keith and Justine crafted together, like clawed gauntlets for Virtla, twenty miniature bows for the dolls and a big one for Keith, swords for James and knives for Dominon. 

As for Justine, she preferred not to. 

With Tang Xin following behind him, he easily reported their motives for leaving the academy grounds to the Guards before entering the city. 

Quickly reaching the outskirts of the farming areas, they easily located the targeted Farmland, somehow the owner here had been targeted by the fire fox, and only his land was affected. 

"I killed a fox recently, it wasn't a beast, just an animal but I didn't expect it's child to be a variant beast!" He had angrily explained. 

With a shrug, Dominon took over and cloaked himself with his magic before visiting the areas the fire fox had been spotted at, the outer parts of the forest. 

With the princess sprinkling fragrant meat around, it was not Long before the hint of its tail was spotted. 

Immediately throwing one of his knives, Dominon pinned the ends of its tail to the tree, but before he could run towards it, the fox struggled free. 

Noticing its assailant, it growled as a fire ball came from its open mouth, aimed at Dominon.  

As he dodged the attack and snuffed the small fire it had caused, the fox had already ran away. 

'How fast~ Have fun, Domi~' a lazy voice cheered from his mind, causing a vein to appear at his forehead. 

'My turn.' Virtla muttered, his instincts running at full force due to the fox. 

Equipping the custom gauntlets, he smirked as he tested the feel of them, this would be his first time using it. 

Leather bound with sharp tips at the ends of there his finger tips would be, sharp hooks from the back of the Palm all the way to his elbow, it was quite the powerful thing. 

By pulling a small lever hidden in the space between his thumb and his index finger, the claws would extend outwards, and by moving his fingers in a certain, set fashion, the hooks on the gauntlets could extract and retract. 

He could claw with the sharp ends and mangle flesh with the hooks. 

Though Keith had done the work requiring precision, Justine was the one designing it, saying something about her otaku-times have paid off. Whatever that was.  

'Don't shred the fox! I really want to try out my magic!' A worried voice sounded. 

"I'll try."

'What try! Don't do iiiiiiiittttttt!'

Sniffing the air, he easily picked up the fox's scent, it was a rather smoky smell. Fortunately, this body seemed to be built to perfection, their senses ten times better than humans and on par with beasts. It was just like this body was built  for battle. 

Tracing the fox carefully without making noise on the forest floor, he found its den, a small cave  hidden between the rocks  and covered by the surrounding vegetation.

The fox was obviously inside, seemingly licking its wounds while it fed the other kits. 

It seemed that it lived with the male fox that fathered it along with its siblings, and due to its variant body, it grew faster and larger, causing it to assume the role of feeding and protecting the young. 

'I want them all, don't kill them!' Justine spoke, struck by the cuteness of the baby kits. 

'No, kill them! I want their bodies!' 

'They're mine!' 

'They'll die in your hands anyways! Remember Waffles?!' 

'That was in my past life! I was hungry!' 

'Asians eat everything! Virtla, give them to me!'

'Shut up, the two of you!' James scolded, unable to bear the rowdiness.

As they quarrelled, Virtla had already dug into the small cave, forcing the kits and the Firefox to back track into the cave in fear. 

In annoyance with a vein on the verge of bursting on his forehead, he retracted the claws as he grabbed the fire fox who had been firing fireballs his way.