For those of you not in the know, this is a spin-off of another fanfiction that I wrote. You don't need to read that one to know this one. It's a Castlevania fanfiction called Not the Intended Use, and it's about Soma using his soul powers in everyday life. In that one, I gave Soma's roommates the names of the heroes of SMT1 and SMT Nocturne, and over time I decided that they were actually those characters. Then the story started going into other SMT characters, and it got to the point where there was an entire chapter about Persona 2. In a Castlevania fanfiction. So after enough people got annoyed with too much SMT with not enough Castlevania, I decided to snap back that fic to only have Castlevania stuff, and made this fanfiction to hold all my ideas that pertain to both game series.

For those of you who do know about Not the Intended Use, the events of that story will almost be the same as that one, but not. This is because I don't want to lock Soma out of the loop for what will be in-story several months (he doesn't find out until after he gets his powers back after Dawn of Sorrow, which I think takes place in winter), but I still like the idea that he's also doing his own stuff elsewhere. Plus, I want to correct some mistakes that can't be fixed in the other fic because the plot depends on those mistakes. The differences will be summarized at the end, and eventually the events will be more or less identical.

I know some of Japanese conventions when it comes to calling people by their name, but I can't discern the nuances. I'll try to use surnames and first names when I can, but no honorifics.

Out of all the SMT 'friends of the main character that he has to kill' (Apocalypse doesn't count because you don't have to kill them), I have to say that I sympathize with Issachar the most. I really feel sorry that he couldn't become a samurai. He's not rejected because he has a character flaw that he has to overcome, a lack of physical or mental strength, or even because he's a jerk or would mistreat demons, but just because he wasn't Chosen. He looks up at the other samurai and wonders, "Why not me?" It's a wrench in the stock plot of 'childhood friends becoming knights/wizards/samurai/whatever together'. He dreams of becoming a samurai, and once that passes, he has no other life than farming. No wonder he read the books.

I've been playing lots of Apocalypse. I'm really hooked. Funny thing happened. I was fighting Mara, which in this game, uses physical attacks only. I didn't bother saving because of the free revives, and then it turned out to be a pretty hard fight. It got worse when Nanashi got charmed and cast Mediarahan on Mara. I decided to throw in the towel and commit suicide by auto battle… and then it turned out that I had Rangda out. Rangda repels physical damage. Turns out, all I had to do was have her be my only demon out, turn on auto battle, and let her and my partners take care of it.

I found something about SMT1 hero appearing in SMT2 as a corpse, but I haven't seen anything about it yet. Could someone tell me where I can find it?

EDIT: Stuff about SMT1 and 2 got retconned. Details below.

Minor edit: I originally made Naoki live in Roppongi, which turns out to actually be a really expensive place to live (and I thought of him as being kind of poor). When I wrote the chapter, I thought that Naoki lived somewhere south of Shinjuku because he had to move north to get to the hospital after leaving the train station, but it turns out that Yoyogi Station is just the closest place and just happens to be to the south. So all I could conclude was that Naoki lives at least far away enough to necessitate a train ticket, and placed him somewhere else.

Supernatural Support Society

Count Dracula. The dreaded King of All Vampires, Ruler of the Night, Enslaver of Souls, Master of Castlevania, and never, ever called the Prince of Darkness. Once known as the tactician Mathias Cronqvist, now a vampire hellbent on the destruction of humanity. Reincarnation could only slow him down. No matter how many times he was killed, he would return.

The Demi-Fiend. Once mortal, he was blessed by the Morningstar to become his champion. He journeyed through a dead world and slew the Fiends, rejected the ideals of others and reconstructed the world.

Adam. An ordinary boy who refused to let his city fall into ruin, and fought those who would do it harm. When he failed, he trekked across the ashes of his home, killing all those who got in his way, and snatched the fate of humanity from the arms of the angels and the claws of the demons.

By a twist of fate, these three shall meet. How will this go? Will they kill each other? Will they forge an alliance? Will they gang up on-?

"You play SNES game on an actual SNES? I've never met anyone else who does that!"

"You're telling me that you walked here all the way from Tokyo?"

"How the hell did you fit an entire cake inside your jacket?"

"I'm an underwear thief."

…You know what, never mind.

It was a warm April day when the first year college students moved into their dorms. Kazuya Suou (A/N not a mistake) had passed the entrance exam to the university known as Haruhata (er, Spring Field) [1] with flying colors.

When Kazuya arrived at the dorm, it was empty. It was a clean, bare room with two bunk beds (that is, four beds total) and three chests for clothes. The room was build to hold two people, but it was made to hold four last year and they didn't bother to take out the extra bunk this year. Kazuya didn't mind; he had spent many of his nights sleeping in abandoned buildings, sewers, battlefields, and on one occasion on top of a giant turtle in the ocean with blanket woven from seaweed.

He planned to unpack his clothes and make his bed, but first, he wanted to send his mother a video phone call about how he got to school just fine.

Half an hour later, he was still messing around on the internet when a guy with white hair and a sandwich came in. "Hello," said the newcomer. "Are you my roommate? I'm Soma Cruz."

"Hello, I'm Kazuya, don't touch my computer and we'll get along just fine," said Kazuya, his stomach grumbling at the smell of the sandwich.

Soma blinked. "So, um…are you saying that you don't mind me calling you by your first name?"

"Not really." Kazuya wasn't called by his surname very often during his adventure. It wasn't safe to use the full name of a wanted criminal when Tokyo was in lockdown. After the apocalypse hit, he gave up his surname and everyone called him Kazuya. "Besides, we're going to be close for the next year. Might as well get it over with."

Soma nodded. "You can call me Soma, then. So, which bed is yours?"

"I haven't unpacked, and I don't care," said Kazuya. "When Kashima gets here, I'll take the bed that neither of you want."

While Soma unpacked, Kazuya watched for the subtle signs of a fighter. He wondered if Soma was a demon or holy warrior in disguise sent by the Law faction (Kazuya knew that the Law and Chaos sides weren't really 'sides' as much as 'groups of variously connected people with one or a few shared ideals', but in this case he could generalize). He first heard about his roommates on the college web site, which listed their names and not much else. He wasn't really wondering about Naoki Kashima, but the name Cruz worried him. The web site had Soma's surname in both kanji form (Kurusu) and Roman letters in parenthesis. He really should have picked up on the fact that Ambassador Thorman was Thor. At least Yuriko had a decent alias. Kazuya suspected that Louis Cypher was a demon, but couldn't figure out which one.

Naming someone something that literally meant Cross is a dead giveaway, but it is a legitimate surname, Kazuya thought. On the other hand, I've never met anyone my age with white hair. Unusual hair colors tend to be a sign in anime. Even the roots are white, so it's not dyed. Unless he's a natural blonde and I can't tell the difference. "Hey, Soma," said Kazuya in the end. "Is your surname Kurusu or Cruz? The site says that you're Kurusu."

Soma sighed. "If you can say Cruz properly, call me Cruz. Otherwise, call me Kurusu."

"Sure," said Kazuya. "Cruz, Cruz… Am I saying it right, or should I stick with Kurusu?" When Soma gave him a slightly surprised look, he added, "Well?"

"Oh, sorry," said Soma, blinking. "You said it perfectly. It's just that everyone always asks me why I have two surnames."

Kazuya nodded. Years of trying to pronounce the names of his many demons had trained him to pronounce words that most Japanese speakers would have trouble with. Compared to Tezcatlipoca, Cruz was easy.

"…Are you going to ask me why I have two surnames?" asked Soma warily.

"No," said Kazuya.

"Good," Soma said. "I'm going to do the orientation stuff. See you."

Five seconds after he could no longer hear Soma's footsteps, Kazuya started rummaging through his new roommate's stuff. He found clothes. And a computer (one of those newfangled touchscreen laptops; as if gauntlets with keyboards weren't enough). And underwear. And-

"Hi!" said a cheery voice from behind. "I'm Naoki! Which one are you, Soma or-"

The finely tuned fighting instinct that Kazuya spent years sharpening started ringing alarm bells. He sensed a Fiend of otherworldly power. He spun around quickly, picking up an old fashioned shaving razor as his weapon, and swinging it with enough force to decapitate an elephant.

His target, who was several inches (or several feet) smaller than the expected superdemon, just stared at him as Kazuya overswung and fell down. "…Are you a serial killer?"

Kazuya got a good look at his other roommate. He was half a head shorter than Kazuya, who wasn't particularly tall to begin with. He had the physique of a kung fu movie protagonist who had not yet met the old master: scrawny loser. Still, Kazuya knew that he lived in a world where random people on the streets inexplicably could set things on fire with the power of their minds, so he didn't write him off. "You're Kashima, I suppose." He held out his hand. "Kazuya Suou. Call me Kazuya. Don't touch my computer or else. Soma Cruz went out."

"Are we going to pretend that you attempting to kill me with a razor never happened?" asked Naoki.

"Yes," said Kazuya bluntly.

"Okay," said Naoki, who just shrugged as if it really didn't bother him. "I'm Naoki Kashima, but you can call me Naoki. My favorite drink is lychee bubble tea. That's a really nice pair of pants you're holding. Where'd you get it from?"

Kazuya slowly realized that he was holding Soma's pants, and that Naoki thought the chest Kazuya was currently rummaging through belonged to Kazuya. Kazuya also realized that when Soma came back and inevitably opened his own chest, Naoki would ask him why he was in Kazuya's chest, and then Soma would ask why Naoki thought that it was Kazuya's chest…

"I'm an underwear thief," said Kazuya coldly. Years of dealing with people taught him that saying things in the right tone could stop a conversation immediately.

Naoki stared. Kazuya had that effect on people who didn't know him. "Right. If you don't want me to tell our other roommate, you'll have to buy me whatever I want for lunch. Also, never take my stuff."

"Deal."

X

"So, where are you from?" asked Naoki over a mouthful of his second bowl of the most expensive thing they sold in the cafeteria.

"Kichijoji," said Kazuya, quietly eating his yakisoba. "You?"

"Inaba," said Naoki. "Ever heard of it?"

"Does it have to do with sewn-up rabbits?" asked Kazuya.

"Not as far as I know," said Naoki. "I've never been to Kichijoji. Is it nice?"

"Very," said Kazuya. After living through the hellish landscape of Nuked Tokyo, he could appreciate how beautiful and peaceful his hometown was. He could walk down the streets without anyone attacking him. Greenery was everywhere. His mother was very surprised to find that he suddenly loved vegetables. "The coffee there is the best. Do you like coffee?"

"I love food," said Naoki. "I should learn how to cook one of these days. I got a book called 'Cooking sans Equipment, Ingredients, or Oven,' but I haven't gotten the chance to make anything."

"There's a book like that?" said Kazuya. "We're living on our own now, so we're going to get a lot of mileage out of it. I knew that I'd want a frying pan for college, but not measuring spoons. You don't realize what you don't have until you don't have it."

"I know, right?" said Naoki. He stared off into space, creeping out some girls who happened to be in his life of vision. For a moment, Kazuya felt an odd kinship with the boy in front of him.

Behind them, someone cleared his throat. "So you're Kashima?" said Soma. "I saw your picture on your Spacebook account. I'm your other roommate, Soma Cruz. You can call me Soma. If you can't pronounce Cruz, call me Kurusu."

Internally, Kazuya kicked himself. He completely forgot about social media. When he got back from the future, he was dropped into a world where people took it for granted. He couldn't just go and ask someone what Tweeter was. He never bothered to set up any accounts. Checking to see if Soma existed before today would be easy with the internet.

"Hi, you can call me Naoki," said Naoki, oblivious to Kazuya's dark mood. "Nice to meet you!"

Soma nodded politely. "Now then… Kazuya, give me back my underwear!"

X

"Well, that could have gone better," Kazuya said to Naoki later that night. Soma had run off to be with a friend from high school, leaving them alone in their room.

Naoki shrugged. "I don't think that bribing him was the proper response."

"What else would you have done?" retorted Kazuya.

"I don't know," said Naoki. "I would think that he would have asked for something. Ma—money, or something." He then walked towards his bag. "Still haven't unpacked."

Naoki then muttered something under his breath, most likely cursing.

Kazuya went stock still. Naoki was speaking in a demon's tongue. Kazuya relied on the COMP's translator for every negotiation, but the COMP could only translate after the demon spoke a full sentence. Countless times before, Kazuya heard the voices of demons before the reassuringly electronic voice of the COMP chimed in. He didn't trust himself to be able to speak it on his own, but he could always discern basic words like 'macca', 'Life Stone', and 'alcohol'.

Kazuya quickly realized that by seeing Soma as a dead giveaway, he overlooked Naoki as a potential threat. He racked his memory of bad thrillers for how to identify someone as a spy. No ideas came, so he started searching the room for a weapon.

He saw an apple. With the expert aim of a master marksman (i.e. an untrained amateur gunslinger who only got really good by shooting lots of demons under stressful circumstances), he threw the apple at full force at Naoki's head.

Naoki spun around and caught the apple with his left hand, completely crushing it. With the same momentum from the spin, he threw another apple at Kazuya, who moved to catch it in midair. He quickly found that that was a bad idea. Naoki's strength was inhuman. Kazuya's arm was thrust backwards by the strain of the throw, but he managed to hold on.

There was a tense silence. "I really should have guessed earlier," said Kazuya.

Naoki shrugged, his body moving into a relaxed fighting stance. "I guessed it the minute I saw you. You reek of demon."

Kazuya sighed. "I never thought I'd be one-upped like that."

"For a demon, you really-" "Summoners always br-"

The silence this time was much less tense. Naoki broke it.

"You mean that you're not a demon?" he said. "B-but you smell like one!"

"Real rude," said Kazuya, crossing his arms. "I thought you were a Summoner. You're a demon? Interesting." He took out his COMP, put on the headgear, and set it to Analyze.

"What are you doing?" asked Naoki.

"Analyzing you," said Kazuya. The eyepiece said, 'NO DATA.' "So I've never met one of your kind before. Interesting."

Naoki stared at the computer. "People actually use those things? I didn't know they still made computers that old."

"Shut up, it's retro," said Kazuya. He refused to upgrade his COMP when he had the chance for several reasons. First, he didn't trust anyone to not intercept the data transfer for the Demon Summoning Program. Second, it still worked after the ridiculous amount of abuse he put it through and he didn't trust phones to be as sturdy. Third, he had to keep repairing it whenever it broke for whatever reason, and he didn't know how to fix a smartphone. Fourth, he didn't want to spend money on a new one. Fifth, he died because he couldn't summon demons to help him, so he was paranoid about losing it. Sixth, it kept a charge like nothing else. Ever since he downloaded the Demon Summoning Program, his COMP was always at full battery. Kazuya didn't dare to open it up in fear of it losing its charge.

"Since when could computers do something like that?" said Naoki. "This is getting weird."

"What?" said Kazuya, looking at Naoki with his other eye. "You don't know about summoning demons with computers?"

"Summoning demons with computers?" echoed Naoki. "What, chalk and candles not good enough for you?"

"Too messy, can't find a decent virgin sacrifice without getting the cops on my case, and I like having a soul," said Kazuya. "Macca, Magnetite, and Life Stones not good enough?"

"I'd take Macca and Life Stones, but why would I want really magnetic iron?" asked Naoki.

"Don't you… like, need it to retain your physical form in our world?" said Kazuya.

"No, I use food to stay alive," said Naoki. "Human food, not demon food—I mean, I eat the same food as humans do! I'm not a cannibal! I mean, I am a cannibal, because I used to eat demons, but I'm off the-"

Naoki then stared at Kazuya, realization dawning. "You have no idea who I am."

"No, I really don't," said Kazuya. "And judging by your reactions, you don't know who I am, either."

Naoki broke into a fit of nervous laughter. Kazuya just stared. "Oh, darn, I'm paranoid!" he said between giggles. "I thought you were an assassin!"

"Why would I be an assassin?" asked Kazuya, wondering why a teenage boy would say 'darn' instead of something stronger, and then his eyes fell upon Soma's chest. "…I'm not one to talk." He sat on his bed ladder. "Do you know who I am?"

"Other than what you told me, no," said Naoki. "I tried to look you up online, but I kept on getting redirected to news articles about a cop who climbed a burning tree to save the life of a cat."

Kazuya sighed irritably. It was neither the first nor the last time he had to explain this. "That's my cousin, Katsuya Suou. Our dads were brothers, they had a fight, didn't talk to each other for over a decade, and by the time they made up it turned out that they named their firstborn sons after their father."

Naoki whistled. "I went to elementary school with a Naoki Konishi. But we're getting off topic."

"Yes, we are," said Kazuya. "So you have no idea who I am, and I don't know who you are. I'm a demon summoner, and you're a demon."

"That just about covers it," said Naoki. "Also, I have no ill intent towards you or to humanity in general."

"Same here," said Kazuya.

There was a long and awkward pause.

"… You know, if we don't tell each other right now about who we are, why I summon demons, and why you're one, we're just going to think the worst of each other," said Kazuya. "As you can imagine, I hold contracts with demons, but I don't trust them. As a demon, why do you think I summon them?"

"Off the top of my head, you sold your soul to a demon for immortality, to marry the most beautiful woman in the world, and to get revenge on a girl whose advances you spurned and her boyfriend whom she manipulated into beating you up," said Naoki. "Oh, and you summon demons with a computer because the internet is haunted. What about me?"

Kazuya snorted. "Well, when I think of a demon in college, I think that you're an immortal demon trying to study philosophy so that you can incite chaos in the proletariat and encourage a Marxist uprising."

Naoki burst out laughing. "Actually, I'm a physics major," said Naoki. "I was expecting you to think that I'm an immortal demon who for some reason looks young enough to be forced to go to school by the laws of the modern era. No, I'm actually genuinely 18."

Kazuya whistled. "Ironic," he said. "I'm 66."

"What?" said Naoki.

"I'll put my chips on the table if you do the same," said Kazuya. When Naoki nodded, he started to speak.

"Two years ago, in the year 1999, I was sixteen years old."

"But it's 20-"

"Roll with it. I was sixteen years old. One day, I got an email from someone I didn't know…"

Kazuya's story was an… interesting one. He had survived a nuclear apocalypse and reforged the city of Tokyo alongside his love and his dog. That is, his love and his dog were two separate people, named Aoi and Pascal.

After ensuring that humans would rebuild from the ashes, Kazuya decided to make a new city. Aoi had suggested Neo Tokyo, but Kazuya vetoed that because naming a city after one that was infamous for exploding was probably bad for morale, even if no copies of the manga survived. He couldn't come up with a good name, so he held a ballot and Valhalla won. They then made a democracy. It wasn't a very good one and it was much slower than the previous anarchy, but it organized the labor force and stopped people from wasting their time worshipping fossil idols instead of getting stuff done.

However, since the point of the government was to make an organized and free society, the Messians quickly exploited the system to take over. They built Tokyo Millennium and the Center, and relegated Valhalla to a district. But even though they hated Kazuya, they decided to let him stay in control of Valhalla for decades because he was still the guy who a) built the place with demons, b) was an infamously powerful warrior who slew both Lucifer's demons and the Archangels, and c) had both Gaeans and Messians on his side for not letting the other side win, d) still had a number of powerful demons at his side, e) his policy of not taking any shit from the Center meant that the Center didn't have to worry about 'undesirables' and could focus their time and funds on more important things, and f) he knew Vahalla the best anyways.

Eventually, Center decided that they had gained enough influence to assassinate him without retaliation. They knocked him out with sleeping gas, stole his COMP, and then blew up the cave he was in. Even though he was wounded, he survived the explosion. He spent days wandering the cave, delirious from thirst and hunger. He remembered thinking that he couldn't take it anymore, but then everything blanked out.

And then he woke up in his room. It was a bit like the Pensives exiting Narnia, sans wardrobe and plus number one cliché. His COMP was on his desk. He checked his computer, which had no record of Stephen's emails, and his mother was still alive.

Kazuya wanted to believe that everything was a dream, so he didn't bother to check for signs. Still, they kept on popping up. Besides the fact that he remembered everything up until his agonizing death by thirst, he quickly found that he managed to jump to the position of 'most fit person' in gym class, that everyone who ever tried to pick a fight with him suddenly had very easily breakable bones, and that he couldn't see any girl in his year attractive without seeing them as younger than his eldest grandchild. The fact that the date had jumped ahead over thirty years also qualified. Also, he couldn't remember the names of his classmates, or even what book they finished a week ago. He was forced to admit that it wasn't a dream when Pascal started talking to him.

Pascal told Kazuya everything that happened after his death, including the fact that his successor was the woman called Madam, the Coliseum having murder be a normal part of its operation [2], the coming of the Messiah (who was a weird kid named Hawk who turned out to be Aleph), and then Valhalla being swallowed by Abaddon, which was weird because the last time he checked, Abaddon were small enough to fit inside most buildings. Aleph let Pascal join him for a while, before fusing him with another demon. It was usually a roulette of which demon's mind became dominant [3], and Pascal lost. He then woke up with Kazuya, back in his original husky body. That is, he was a Siberian husky instead of a lion thing that Kazuya was pretty sure was better described as 'Chimera' than 'Cerberus'; Pascal wasn't very fat. [4]

The next thing that Kazuya did was try to look up Aoi in the phone book. Except he didn't know her surname. She never told him before the nukes hit because she was afraid that her family would be targeted if they were overheard, and she forgot after she reincarnated. If Gotou couldn't find her among all the other girls named Aoi in Japan, there was no way that Kazuya could. Even worse, Kazuya wasn't even sure if she would remember him at all. Death didn't stop her, but in this timeline, they never met.

Given that Kazuya's stash of weapons still existed, along with the Demon Summoning Program and all of his demons, Kazuya figured that he had to fight something sooner or later. When absolutely nothing happened, Kazuya decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and started to enjoy a world where he wasn't responsible for anything other than himself.

"And it's been like this for two years," Kazuya finished. "Any questions?"

"Why would you name your city after the afterlife of eternal fighting in one of the few religions that did not believe that their gods would live forever?" asked Soma. "If you're aiming for a peaceful haven, that just sounds weird."

"Guy has a point," said Naoki.

Kazuya grunted. "Look, it's because-"

Kazuya and Naoki both did a double take. "How long have you been standing there?!" shouted Kazuya. Next door, someone yelled at him to be quiet.

Soma let out an irritated sigh. "How did you not notice me? You looked straight at me. You stared at my bare chest!"

"Yay, I'm not the only one who likes going around shirtless!" said Naoki.

"I was changing out of a wet shirt!" snapped Soma. "Julius's bath gets freezing. To answer your question, I came in when you were talking about how you're a cannibal."

Both Kazuya and Naoki's jaws dropped. "So…"

"You're a demon and a demon summoner," said Soma. "It's fine; I'm not one to judge," he added, raising his hands. "I'm the soul devouring reincarnation of Count Dracula, who is totally not Vlad the Impaler. And all I want is a normal life."

Kazuya gave Soma a wary glance, but Naoki whistled. "That sounds much more interesting than my story."

"What are you, exactly?" asked Soma.

"I'm a normal guy who was turned into a demon by Lucifer and then asked to kill a lot of demons with skulls for faces and steal their light fixtures," said Naoki. "But you go first."

"All right, then," said Soma. "Remember that eclipse last year? The first one of the twenty first century?"

Kazuya's brow furrowed. "I thought that the first one was in-"

"I don't interrupt you, you don't interrupt me," said Soma. "I'll take questions afterwards. So yes, the first total solar eclipse of the twenty first century was in September of last year…"

After running through Castlevania, Soma had lost all of his souls. Well, most of them. It later turned out that the Galamoth soul was still with him, but since it was on all the time, he completely forgot about that one. He figured at the time that by destroying Chaos, he lost Dracula's power. He was still his reincarnation, but he no longer had the Power of Dominance. For several months, he treated the run as just another event in his life that happened, but didn't really affect the rest of it.

And then in early March, he had to run through Celia's castle. He was thankful that he had college entrance exams over with. Unlike the last time, Soma knew that he would probably get attacked eventually, so he kept a tighter grip on his souls. After school ended, he started getting curious about using them, resulting in odd shenanigans. His high school roommate started calling him to ask about his diet and if he was too poor to afford real food.

"And I just came back from learning how the Mirror World works inside Julius Belmont's bathtub," finished Soma. "Now you can ask your questions. Yes, Naoki?"

"Why do you have two surnames?"

Soma facepalmed. "My mother is Japanese and my father is Spanish; I was born in Spain but raised in Japan, I moved to Spain for junior high school, I came back to Japan for an exchange program in high school, and now I'm in a Japanese college. Cruz is my legal surname, but the Japanese form is Kurusu. Any relevant questions?"

"I'm pretty sure that 2035 was not the first total solar eclipse of the century," said Kazuya.

Soma responded by looking up 'solar eclipses of the 21st century' on his phone. Every page disagreed with Kazuya. Normally, Kazuya didn't agree with the majority and instead did what he thought was right, but he decided to concede the point the exact dates of celestial events.

"That's still really weird," said Kazuya. "I distinctly remember doing a report on them in grade school."

"Maybe it's because you're from an alternate dimension?" suggested Naoki.

"Might be," said Kazuya.

"No more questions?" asked Soma.

"What's your major?" asked Naoki.

"Law," said Soma. "I know, evil lawyer-"

"Aha!" shouted Naoki. "Only the most evil vampires major in law!"

Soma and Kazuya just stared. "I actually understood that reference," said Kazuya.

"I'm not a vampire, just the reincarnation of one," said Soma, who had no idea why a vampire would study law.

"Never mind, then," said Naoki. "You have something to say, Kazuya?"

"So you're basically enslaving the souls of dead monsters," said Kazuya flatly.

"Well… yes," said Soma, a bit startled at the sudden shift in personality.

"At least I got their consent before killing them by fusion with other demons," said Kazuya. "I did think of them as fusion fodder, but at least it wasn't a one sided contract."

"Technically, I didn't even have their consent half the time," said Naoki. "Some were practically drunk when they agreed. That's why you shouldn't drink and forge contracts with demons."

"You're kind of like a reverse Faust," said Kazuya. "He got powers by giving his soul; you get powers by taking the souls of others."

"That's more like a non-reverse Mephistopheles, isn't it?" said Naoki.

Soma coughed. He probably wasn't thinking about it before, and he was suddenly forced to confront an uncomfortable level of moral compromise. "Are you done, or can we listen to Naoki now?"

Kazuya and Naoki shook their heads, so Naoki began his story.

"So last year, the world was destroyed… you're not going to interrupt me?"

"Obviously, the world still exists, so it couldn't have stuck," said Soma. "Go on."

"All right then," said Naoki, a bit disappointed. "So my two friends and I went to visit my teacher in the hospital…"

Naoki's life changed completely after resetting the universe. It wasn't just the fact that he cheated on his exams by making the universe (and university, haha) accept that he got perfect scores; it was… well, everything.

The first thing he did was try to block the memory of the Vortex World. He broke off contact with Chiaki and Isamu because he couldn't stand seeing them and remembering what they did. They saw each other every day in class (plus, Isamu lived next door to him in the high school dorms), but Naoki always brushed off their attempts at conversation. They did worry about him, but they were soon distracted by college entrance exams. Naoki maintained a healthy relationship with Ms. Takao.

That would have been fine, except Naoki had other matters to deal with other than his relationships. He had gotten pretty good at fine-tuning his massive demonic strength for things like opening doors and holding eggs, but sometimes he was careless.

"I used to persuade bullies not to beat me up by giving them things, but after getting annoyed with demons not giving me binding contracts for that, I suddenly saw it as grossly unfair," said Naoki. "So I tried asserting myself, so they tried to teach me a lesson. The next thing I knew, there was a knife stuck in my throat, my hands were ripping out someone's large intestine, and I was kneeling in a pool of gore. The only survivor was screaming his head off. I healed them just in time. If that guy didn't wake me up, they would have died. You know how in manga the delinquents follow the guy who beats them in a fight? That's not true. They called the cops on me. They actually called the cops on the guy they tried to mug. They admitted that they were mugging me, even. I was detained for a while, but they let me out on lack of evidence. Daisuke clearly didn't have a hole the size of my fist in his chest."

Soma and Kazuya were speechless. Soma was determined to not be like Dracula by refusing to fight humans, and when it was inevitable, trying to get them to surrender. Kazuya had a higher kill count than the average soldier before he was old enough to even enlist, but he justified himself by saying that it had to be done. Hearing Naoki talk about finding it hard to not kill people was… disturbing, to say the least.

"I managed to get off, because they couldn't prove that they were injured, but it was a killer on my reputation," said Naoki. "Sure, I was the wimp and the gofer, but at least I was accepted. No one treated me like a ticking time bomb. After that, everyone thought that I was a serial killer. Whenever they thought I wasn't listening, they'd say that it's always the quiet ones. Whenever I asked them anything, they'd pretend they didn't hear me and just scamper off. Isamu and Chiaki's sympathy was even worse. The more I pushed them away, the more they were convinced that something was wrong with me. It's true, but I can't tell them…" He choked.

"Have you considered therapy?" asked Soma.

Naoki shook his head. "Telling people about how I'm a demon is probably the worst thing I can do. Even if I left that out, confessing that I killed my classmates would get me arrested, patient confidentiality be damned."

"You told us," said Kazuya, not unkindly.

Naoki's head suddenly jerked up. "I did just tell you all my innermost feelings, didn't I? Wow, and here I thought that I was this super hardcore demon."

"I killed my best friends," said Kazuya suddenly.

Naoki and Soma both stared, eyes wide. "You didn't mention that," said Soma.

"I thought it was too personal," said Kazuya. He was staring right between Soma and Naoki, but he wasn't looking at anything. "I had three companions who journeyed with me. Aoi was the last. The first two were named Yoshio and Takeshi. Takeshi fused with a demon for power, and he joined the Cult of Gaea. Yoshio died, but God brought him back to lead the Messians. They both wanted their groups to rule Tokyo. I didn't. In the end, they stood in my way. I killed them."

Soma didn't know how to react in this situation, but Naoki nodded seriously. Soma could only sympathize; Naoki understood. Soma coughed. "Besides, well, being Dracula, I really don't have much to offer."

"That's good," said Naoki. "Being normal keeps the rest of us sane. At least, relatively normal."

"Never thought I'd hear that," said Soma. "But you've never seen me truly angry before. Yes, I was angry at you for stealing my underwear-"

"That was an accident," said Kazuya, putting up his mask quickly, speaking without a hint of shame in his voice. "I was looking for evidence that you were an assassin. I figured that your drawers would be the best place to look."

"Too bad, everything's hidden inside my coat," said Soma, taking out a giant sword, a gun, and-

"How the hell did you fit an entire cake inside your jacket?" Kazuya had expected Naoki to ask that, but since Naoki didn't, he had to.

"You know, I never asked myself that," said Soma. "I'd always have just enough space for one more thing. The fact that I could carry around piping hot tea without it spilling or even getting lukewarm should have tipped me off."

"Maybe it's because you're the reincarnation of a vampire, which is a type of demon?" suggested Naoki. "I mean, after I became a demon, I suddenly had the power to store things in spatial distortions." He waved his hand, and a soda appeared. "I woke up in the morgue with nothing but the clothes on my—there weren't even clothes on my back. I was just wearing a pair of shorts and shoes. My jacket and shirt were gone! Ha. But I really wanted change for a drink when I got to a vending machine, and pop! Exact change in my hand. Pity it was broken, though."

"That is ridiculous," said Kazuya. "I believe you, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous."

"So you survived a nuked Tokyo without a bag of infinite holding?" said Soma, taking out a gigantic axe and carefully cutting the cake into neat slices. "That's incredible. I couldn't even survive two hellish castles without this coat of mine."

"Actually, I didn't," said Kazuya. "See this computer? The Demon Summoning Program was originally a teleporter program. It can be used to store stuff in… somewhere. It doesn't work with living things. We tried with mice. They died, and no one could figure out how. They were still edible, which was good." [5]

Soma froze. The axe vanished into thin air, much to Kazuya's relief. "You ate mice?"

"We ate everything," said Kazuya. "We cooked demon meat."

"You cooked demon meat?" repeated Naoki.

"Are you squeamish, too?" asked Kazuya. "Then again, you're a demon too, so it would be cannib-"

"I didn't even bother to cook it half the time," said Naoki. "I just tore out the soft bits and dug in. That cookbook I bought has nothing on me!"

"…You win," said Soma, looking like he was trying hard not to throw up. "Don't say any-"

"Once, these angels ambushed me when I was starving, and instead of punching them, I grabbed one of them and took a bite out of her-"

Kazuya wasn't sure what happened, but one moment they were all sitting on their beds, and then Soma was standing next to Naoki with his arms folded. There was an apple shoved in Naoki's mouth. "Quit it!" snapped Soma. "Or do you want me to tell you about how I devoured the soul of a ghoul, which allows me to eat rotten and maggoty food with no side effects?"

Naoki took the apple out of his mouth. "How did you do that?"

"I can stop time," said Soma.

Naoki pointed at Soma. "So you're a law major vampire who can stop time! You've got to be evil!"

"I haven't actually done any evil acts," said Soma. "The worst thing I ever did as myself was indirectly make a guy commit suicide by beating him in a fight." When Kazuya raised an eyebrow, Soma quickly added, "It's not as bad as it sounds! Besides, he got better."

"Never mind about you being normal, we're all a bit twisted," said Kazuya.

"Did you really want someone to dump all your issues onto?" grumbled Soma. Then a pang of regret and revelation struck his face. "You couldn't," he said in a softer voice. "I have Mina. You have your dog, but he's your dog, Kazuya. Naoki, you had no one. I'm sorry, you guys."

Naoki shrugged. "Talking to both of you made me feel better, actually. We should do this more often."

For a second, the three strangers felt kinship with each other. Naoki was the only one who wasn't human. Kazuya was the only one who wasn't their age. And Soma was the only one who had emerged from his ordeals without having to completely rethink morality. But all of them were alike.

"Did you just cut yourself more cake than us?" said Naoki.

"…Maybe," said Soma.

"Gimme!"

"No! I bought that cake!"

Kazuya sighed. This was going to be a long year.

OMAKE

"Kazuya?" asked Naoki late that night.

"I'm trying to sleep," grumbled Kazuya.

"I can't sleep with this on my mind," said Naoki. "It's just one question."

Kazuya sat up. "What is it?"

"Why do you curse in the name of hell?" asked Naoki. "I stopped after I became a demon. A demon shouting, 'Oh my God' is just strange, and I don't consider hell to be, well, worthy of cursing over. It's why I say darn and gosh all the time. It's annoying, since I want to save the real curse words for the next apocalypse, and all of the medium level curse words are religious. Saying 'sugar' and 'poot' all the time doesn't cut it."

"You do realize that 'darn' and 'gosh' were invented by children to avoid having their mouths washed out by their teachers?" said Kazuya. "Same with 'gee whiz.'"

"Oh, da—I mean, oh, crap," said Naoki. "At least I didn't go with 'By Jove.' I can't remember if I really offended the Greek/Roman gods by killing some of their number."

"Naoki, remember. We're speaking Japanese. We're not actually swearing by heaven and hell. Our culture isn't Christian enough. We're using Japanese swears."

Naoki stared. "Oh. That makes me feel much better. Yay, I don't have to hear anyone swear in the name of-"

Soma slammed open the door, shut it, and then yelled, "Dios Mio, Kazuya!" At least, he started with Kazuya's name. After that, he burst into a rapid stream of Spanish expletives, which, more than likely, contained many religious swears.

"You swear in Spanish?" asked Naoki.

Soma stopped to turn towards Naoki. "My father swears much more often than my mother, and I moved to Spain in middle school. Besides, they're much more satisfying. Anyways, Kazuya, GIVE ME BACK MY-"

"This is going to be a long year," moaned Naoki.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[1] The city and college are named Haruhata and Haruhata University respectively. Yes, I translated it directly from Spring and Field. Yes, I have no background in Japanese.

[2] Changes between SMT 1 and 2: I doubt that blood sports are good for the postapocalyptic reconstruction environment, so I doubt that Kazuya endorsed them. Fighting tournaments are good, but killing is counterproductive.

I thought at first that the six statues in the Coliseum meant that the tournaments were a recent invention (especially since you meet a bunch of the former champions), but then I read that Okamoto fought against Feather Adonis (also, Haneda was Feather Adonis, but since he's hanging around in Valhalla even after his business went bust, I don't think he can go to the Center anymore). So now it's revised. I say that SMT2 takes place more than 50 years after SMT1, and Valhalla was completed 30 years after SMT1. 20 to 30 years is a decent time frame for there to be seven champions, if the championships take place every few years.

There's a guy who says that tournaments are becoming less frequent, which would imply that they're scheduled often enough for him to notice. I think that while the championships are every few years, there are lots of fights year round. Gladiators win points by winning and taking their opponents' points, and then the eight people with the most points by the time of the Championships are sorted into a standard eight person matchup. Aleph was behind by a few years, but caught up by fighting lots of people and edged into the top 8.

Wikipedia says that the idea for the gap years between SMT1 and 2 was compromised as 'several decades' after Kaneko wanted to make it 10 years but someone else wanted 100 years. Megaten wiki says that it took at least 30 years for Valhalla and the Factory to be completed. At the start of the game, there's a news broadcast about a 78 year old man who worked for 50 years. Since starting work at 28 seems a bit late for the apocalypse, I think that that old man didn't get a chance to work until then; he was an apocalypse survivor and scrounger until they started to rebuild right after SMT1. That's my justification for saying that SMT2 started about 50 years after SMT1.

The remake has a scene where Alfred says that he worked for Kazuya when he was young, which implies that Kazuya is around his age. Alfred looks in his sixties. I decided on Kazuya being in his sixties because it seemed like a reasonable number, and I said that he can't fall in love with any girl his age because he sees teenagers as his grandchildren's peers. On a side note, I think that it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that the Hero died not that long before SMT2.

Quick summary of from the timeline that I didn't know existed: Right after SMT1, the survivors of Tokyo formed a new government. The floodwaters mostly receded by then. Because the fair government allowed legal social mobility, the Messians took over and made it a theocracy, cracking down on all opposition. Then they made Tokyo Millennium on the old Basilica, and then they made Valhalla and the Factory. Lots of people started migrating to Tokyo Millennium because the outside world was practically uninhabitable, which leads to the present.

I'm a bit skeptical on how word of mouth got out about Tokyo Millennium, but if there are robots running around, telecommunications shouldn't be that hard.

My last draft was more or less the same, except I said that the Messians made their own government instead of taking over the old one. I also said that Kazuya couldn't find anyone outside of Japan because it was too far to travel.

[3] Demon sentience and fusion: I took a cue from Devilman, which I feel was the inspiration for demon fusion. The fight with Siren mentioned that when two demons fuse, only one is dominant.

[4] Chimera/Cerberus: Yes, I know that the designers consciously took a cue from the author of Digital Devil Story, and this isn't a jab at them.

[5] Demon Summoning and Item Summoning: The Digital Devil Story novels say that the program works by translating summoning rituals into program commands. That makes sense, but the SMT version says that Stephen accidentally summoned a demon while making a teleporter. So now the SMT Demon Summoning Program is a modified teleporter. It tracks the location of the demon inside the Abyss, and teleports it to and from the user's location. I gave the program infinite item storage as well, because otherwise you'd be carting around piles of weapons while fighting demons. Item storage was originally a scrapped program for the teleporter, but it was too useful to toss and was tweaked. The teleporter was originally made by having someone move from their starting point to a storage dimension, and moving from the storage dimension to their destination, but the storage dimension was unfit for human habitation. The end result for the teleporter made a tunnel appear from the start and end points.

Even thought the game models don't reflect this, I made Demi Fiend Naoki Kashima short and scrawny (prior to becoming a demon) because I consider him to be the physically strongest character in this story and I think it's funnier if he's smaller.

Even though the names come from different sources, the Hero is Kazuya, the Heroine is Aoi, the Law Hero is Yoshio, and the Chaos Hero is Takeshi. I chose the ones I liked best.

Guess which infamous evil vampire Naoki is referring to. The law major vampire.

Also, while Naoki's hometown is Inaba, he went to high school somewhere in Tokyo.

Changes from the other fic: Kazuya, Naoki, and Soma all know about each other's powers. Also, the events of Aria and Dawn are closer together. The eclipse of Aria took place in the September of 2035, in Soma and Mina's third year of high school. Soma had his birthday in October and Dawn of Sorrow took place in March (technically still winter), so while he's 19 and the year is 2036, he's still in high school (if 19 is too old for third year high school in Japan, let's say that it's because he moved and got held back in school due to cross country kerfuffle). The introduction of Dawn does claim that a year passed; even though about six months passed, it's a new year. In the other fic, Dawn took place in December of 2036, and the story took off right after he came back to college. The Ghoul soul and its applications were tested a bit earlier, and the two people Soma bet with were his high school dorm roommates. The Paranoia soul was tested the day they moved in.

Also, I moved the date of Nocturne back a year because I misunderstood something. Chiaki mentions that she's worried about graduation, which made me think that it was the end of the school year. But Hikawa says that it's April, which is the start of the school year. I don't remember making any dates, but the bit about the universe reset making the 'present' skip to after exams was made with the end of the year in mind. So now, Nocturne happened during the April of 2035 instead of whenever I placed it. The day when Naoki, Isamu, and Chiaki visit Ms. Takao is now on the exact same date instead of several weeks afterwards. I thought that it was the end of the year because the three of them know Ms. Takao pretty well, but Japanese schools have teacher go up with the same classes.

I was this close to making Kazuya, Tatsuya, and Katsuya separated siblings by divorce because Kazuya only has a mother, the Suou brothers only have a father, and there was an interview where Kazuya's parents were said to be separated… but then I realized that it would really screw up the sibling dynamic. The Suou brothers' father went to prison, and if their mother is still alive, most likely had to live with her. If Kazuya's mother is their mother, then the three brothers would probably be close enough for Katsuya at least to mention Kazuya. Making them cousins makes them distant enough. SMT Hero and the Suou brothers are related because I was new to the fandom, I'd mistake Kazuya and Tatsuya. Please don't hit me for that.

Another minor thing is that Kazuya started the first game at the age of 16, not 15. This is because Apocalypse's Diamond Realm DLC shows all five main characters alongside each other with the same art style. I chalked up the age disparity to differing art styles at first, but not anymore. I think that everyone looks older than Nanashi, and Flynn looks like the eldest (though it might have to do with living a life of hard labor). Naoki is firmly established to be a third year high school student as above, and Aleph is less than two years old (I'd say he's intended to be 19, though). Kazuya is the only one who can be affected in this case. I think of Nanashi as just turning 15, and Kazuya has been 16 for more than a few months. Plus, I think of the first SMT game as taking place over the course of over a year (from the hero's perspective).

As I mentioned above, the Demon Summoning Program works differently now. I originally used Nakajima's version (turn every summoning ritual into a set of computer commands; the demons aren't stored inside the computer, but the rituals are), but now I made another version (the program teleports demons to the summoner's side; the demons still aren't stored inside, but their location and tracking data is) since Stephen and Nakajima had different encounters with demons. Nakajima sought them out with recorded rituals and built the program based on those. Stephen accidentally summoned one with a teleporter, and modified the teleporter to summon them.