Hide-and-seek

'Do you know what life is, demon? According to my father', the ten-year-old said quietly, the barbed words tripping over his disused and swollen tongue,' life is a game of chess, where one manipulates knights and bishops and all sorts of higher powers to keep themselves alive.'

'...really, now?' The demon quirked a malevolent eyebrow, even as a condescending smirk spread across his pretty face: dark and sweet and oh-so-slow, like so much spilt molasses. Such an expression hardly made a verbal retaliation necessary, but failing to respond would be downright rude.

'But what do you think?'

Ciel considered. Scowled. Swiveled his unusual eyes from one corner of the corpse-filled pentagram to the other.

'I think Vincent Phantomhive was a fool. If life was like chess, then he would not have died', the boy spat, simple and succinct.

'But life is not like the game of chess at all. Chess has rules and regulations, set punishments and rewards. Reality does not. The masses masquerade as tokens, and so we will act accordingly: exploiting them however is necessary to achieve my goal. But do not forget, demon, that we are playing a different game. A childrens game, one that lacks a universal convention. A game that will allow me to find the one who has wronged me, and avenge myself fully upon them.'

'Oh? Is there such a game?'

'Hide-and-seek.'