Genya Arikado lived his live by cycles, since the time he was young.
His mother-a kind and sensitive woman that he still missed so very greatly-had told him of the seasons changing when he was a mere child. Of the constant cycle of life and death, of how everything from the elements to the water they drank flowed into each other. He had listened to her tales, her wisdom, and the wisdom of his father. He had always known how things came and went.
All things but the lives lost.
The Devil Forgemasters claimed to be raisers of the dead, but in truth, they were only mockeries of such things. Armies using bodies, such things could never be human. Even Death itself-the Grim Reaper, the Angel with Black Wings-had only made a deal with his father once his father had collected enough souls to feed the beast. Death hungered for all things, and only let him go on the shortest of leashes.
Genya Arikado followed him, always. As he followed the Belmont clan.
Every century, his father would return to them, tethered on the leash of his dealmaker and clawing his way out of hell for a new chance at life. The Belmonts would come with him, from their quiet homes and mortal lives. Their teeth would be ironed, their eyes hard and their faces set in stone, all of them. Even the youngest Belmonts came with leather skin and armored souls, and Arikado would watch them as they cried-out in voices edged with steel for the night to recede, and for the dawn to come again.
He had journeyed with them, several of them. Richter, Julius, Trevor Belmont. He had watched many more from afar, awaiting should there ever be a time when he was needed to face the darkness himself. They were all born with fire in their souls that he could never understand, but that he so admired.
And so, the cycle would repeat.
Soma Cruz-a child so kind and so good-had been his hope for a very long time. A redemption for a man that he had once known. A man who had loved his mother, a man who had raised him in his arms. But the boy had died a hero, and Death had come for his payment. A soul that still owed the creature much, even the efforts of Arikado and the Belmonts could not preserve the kindness of the child, and Arikado had failed.
And he had failed his father once again.
He retreated for a century in slumber, sorrow overtaking him, for would the love and kindness of his father never return? Was it always destined to be this way-Arikado always failing to save his father, his father always failing to escape death, the Belmonts always failing to end the curse? A constant dance, a never-ending strain, and Arikado-Alucard-always ending it alone.
Perhaps it was his punishment for being born like this. A half-breed, walking without a soul.
He had intended, then, to leave the Belmonts to their fight, and his father to his, and retreat as he had done so very long-ago. Only disturbed when the world would need him most.
And so, he slept for a hundred years.
All things worked in cycles.
"I told you this was a bad fuckin idea."
He hears the voice, somewhere in his dreams. A voice he hadn't heard in centuries upon centuries, and distantly he believes it's another memory, something far beyond the grasp of his fingers in the waking world.
"Oh, hush. He's supposed to be an ally, why wouldn't we want him on our side?"
"I don't know, because he's a vampire?"
"A good one."
"-and we're out to kill his dad?"
"Point, but still."
He opens his eyes, hazily, lids half-fluttering under the coffin buried deep beneath the surface of Japan. There's cracks of light at the edges, the sounds of people moving the heavy surface with great effort. He watches the lid, daring himself to hope, to think this could be more than a dream.
"Come on, help me out, Belmont!"
"I am, can't you use some kind of spell?"
"I'm not that kind of magician, put your back in it!"
Alucard raises a single hand, and pushes the coffin lid off the surface with a small amount of effort. Light pours in, briefly obscuring his vision as he takes in the faces watching him.
One is a man, young. In his twenties, with chin-length brown hair and blue eyes. The other, a young woman with blonde hair and the robes of a mystic, and both are looking down at him.
It's stepping into the past, to the first time he'd known his mother was right, and humanity was worth fighting for.
He stares, dumbly, as the mage turns to her companion, then back to him.
"Alucard-you're Alucard, aren't you?"
Reincarnation, his mind supplies. Sypha, his heart breathes.
"Yes." He says, sitting-up. His voice is silk, unwavering. His thoughts are countless. "You?"
"Trevor Belmont." Her companion cuts-in. "We found you because Dracula is coming back. Are you going to help us, or are we going to have to fight?"
Alucard wants to laugh, wants to sing. Trevor, Trevor, Trevor. Sypha grabs the hunter's ear and pulls.
"Stop that, he's our ally, don't fight right off the bat!"
Sypha.
"I'll join you."
And the cycle repeats.
A/N:
Can't believe like nobody has done this.
Let them be happy.