"Go to the clocktower when the hour hand points to the twelve."

"You mean at noon, or midnight?" Jonathan asked, not sure whether to be suspicious of or surprised at the ease of the request.

"Yes," Wind replied.

"...Okay." Jonathan blinked and headed out of the room with Charlotte.

"Remember, this is training to defeat Brauner!" the ghost called after them, almost too cheerily.

Jonathan and Charlotte just glanced at each other as they left.


"It's going to be a little while before noon..." Charlotte noted as they approached the top of the Tower of Death, near where the clocktower was situated.

"Yeah, I was just going to sleep until then," Jonathan said, entering the nearby safe room. He went and sat up against the wall, closing his eyes.

"What? Isn't there anything else you could do?" Charlotte asked, sounding surprised despite the hunter's statement not being particularly out of line for him.

There was no response.


Time to take out Dracula! Jonathan thought to himself as he headed down the stone hallway. Not even two steps forward, however, he encountered a sizable group of multicolored, caped twins. Aside from the color variations, they all looked exactly alike.

The hunter was met with a chorus of, "Well met, friend." Apparently they all sounded the same, too.

"...Hey there," he said, a bit hesitant due to the oddity of the situation. They all turned from him and faced forward, Jonathan joining them.

Well, I guess we'd better move out, he thought to himself, heading up a short stairway into a parlor of sorts, lit by extravagant looking chandeliers. Before him stood a suit of armor, carrying a sizable knight's lance in one hand, and what one would presume was its own head in the other.

He leapt forth and struck the head, knocking it from the grip of the armor. Instead of falling to the ground, however, it flew off into the air in odd arc, swerving unnaturally through the air as the armor shift into a battle stance.

Jonathan ducked sideways to dodge the armor's thrust before getting in a few hits in on the flying head again. He glanced backwards to see all the Alucards standing idly in the doorway, chanting "Impressive" at his strikes.

The hunter dodged backwards and called out to them. "Over here! Aren't you going to help me?"

The chant quickly turned to "All yours". Jonathan stared at them incredulously, the distraction proving damaging as the Dullahan hit him solidly in the back.

They all shouted "No!" in response as Jonathan got back to his feet, before returning to "All yours".

What, they aren't going to fight...? Ugh. The hunter rolled his eyes as he finished off the opponent. "Impressive" was echoed several times after this, but the words were empty as they clearly weren't actually helping Jonathan.

Jonathan couldn't believe he was even waiting for the Alucard group. All this way, and not one of them had helped out even once; yet now he was waiting above a room filled with Medusa Heads, making sure they all got up safely.

There was quite a bit of "No!" and "My apologies" between them as the group finally made their way up.

"Okay, let's go," Jonathan said, a bit wearily, heading up the steps.

"All yours."
"All yours."
"All yours."

Jonathan stopped before a plate of pizza lying conveniently on the stone landing. "Here." He swung the Vampire Killer forward and destroyed the false covering on the wall, revealing an additional plate of Quiche. Whatever that was.

"Thank you" was said repeatedly was the reply as the Alucards picked up the food and ate it. The Medusa Heads had been quite a trouble for some of them.

The opponent in the next room caused Jonathan to groan. "A Final Guard...? I'm not going to get any breaks, am I..."

Predictably, the Alucards piled up in the doorway chanting "All yours".

It was a long and arduous process for the vampire hunter, as each each strike from the Vampire Killer barely even dented the armor, much less cause it to flinch.

Each attack would be praised with a series of "Impressive!"s from Jonathan's followers. Each failed dodge, "No!" Any time between those was filled with "All yours". It was wearing on Jonathan's nerves when he finally did the armored knight in.

"Finally...I guess that's why there called 'Final' Guards," the hunter said sarcastically as he continued forward, Alucards in tow.

"Another one?" Jonathan couldn't believe it. It was as if some malicious entity had designed the castle specifically to be annoying for Jonathan this time around. Some entity with a white trenchcoat and a magic book.

The Alucards filed in and, seeing the threat before then, leapt up onto a safe ledge and began the usual "All yours".

"Okay, fine! You're going down!" Jonathan shouted heatedly, rushing the armor with Vampire Killer at the ready. In a great show of anti-climaticism, the hunter ran forth and held his whip outwards, letting it dangle limply where it continued to do damage. "How do you like that?"

Unfortunately, in his zeal, he failed to notice the Final Guard preparing a counterattack of its own. The sword didn't hit him, but the forward step the armor took while slashing certainly did, hurting as much as the blade might have.

Moving quickly, Jonathan scrambled to get to a safer position, sighing in relief as he managed to reach the doorway. He turned and look towards the back of the Final Guard, realized he had somehow gotten past it. Wait, this'll make it an easy kill!

He moved forward again and began attacking the armor's back, where its ability to respond was very limited. Then, quickly as the first, he had another epiphany. What am I even doing? I can just keep going now, and don't need to worry about those other guys!

Jonathan leapt backwards again, hearing the "Impressive" and "All yours" coming from the group on the ledge. He brushed some of his hair aside and smirked. "Later!" With that he turned and headed towards the keep's final approach.

The Alucards slowly fell silent, the "All yours" fading into a silence as they watched Jonathan leave them behind.

"No!" the first said, turning to the others.
"No!"
"No!"

Jonathan chuckled to himself as he climbed the red-carpeted staircase. His 'allies' had really been asking for it, after all.


"Jonathan, get up!" Charlotte practically shouted at the hunter.

His eyes snapped open and he jumped to his feet, looking around as if expecting to be under attack. "I wasn't–! Huh?"

The mage rolled her eyes. "You almost slept through it. It's almost noon, and I'm not waiting another 12 hours to do this."

"Oh, right," Jonathan said in realization. "Okay, let's go then." The pair then headed out of the room and into the main clocktower room, where they saw the large clock across the way approaching noon.

"Good, we got here in time."

They stood around for a few seconds until the hands hit noon and a telltale gong resounded twelve times.

"All right, time to head back," Jonathan said nodding, and the two turned only to find their exit blocked by an unexpected obstacle. A glowing, onate-looking door, to be exact.

There was a pause as Jonathan and Charlotte looked to one another, before the enormity of the problem dawned upon them like sorrowful aria.


"Jonathan, get up!" Charlotte practically shouted at the hunter.

His eyes snapped open and he jumped to his feet, looking around as if expecting to be under attack. "I wasn't–! Huh?"

"You slept through it! It's past noon!" Charlotte didn't look happy, for obvious reasons.

"I, uh...oops? Sorry?" Jonathan tried sheepishly. "Uh, I think we probably shouldn't go in there, anyway."

His partner looked at him, her expression changing to confusion. "...What? Why?"

The hunter was silent for a moment. "I–" he drew out the syllable as he tried to figure out why, in fact, he thought so. "–am not really sure..."

Charlotte sighed. "Well, I guess there isn't much point in going there now..." She began heading towards the exit. "Come on, let's go find something else to do."


The clocktower glitch strikes again? Good thing there exists 'reset'.