The morning of the fourth day was close to being upon them when Sypha started yelling from across the hold.

"Oh! I think I found- Trevor!"

"What?" he shouted back.

"I think I found something!"

"When I say 'what' I don't mean I'd like to ask more questions."

Leon rolled his eyes as Sypha sputtered angrily before yelling at Trevor to get to her. Leon leapt down from where he was on a higher floor; His entrance startled both Sypha and Alucard, who stood beside her. Sypha recovered first.

"This, here," she pointed to a book flipped open in her palms. "It has the beginnings of a spell that some ingenious Belmont was working on."

Leon probably shouldn't have felt pride-he'd had nothing to do with the spell or the attached compliment-but he couldn't help the zing of pleasure which came from the family name being praised. Then Trevor came up the stairs.

"I heard I was a genius?"

"You heard someone in your family got this century's share of the brains," Alucard corrected with a smirk.

Sypha smacked his arm with the back of her hand. "This is exactly what we need. They were trying to take away the castle's main advantage, its ability to move with magic. They were very close to coming up with the spell here."

"It isn't finished?" Leon asked.

"I can do that myself," Sypha said assuredly. "It's based on Adamic structures,though I will need some books in High Remembrance to translate parts of this."

"I'll grab them," said Alucard, nodding. Then he tensed and looked to the bottom floor.

"What?" Trevor asked in a apprehensive tone, also turning.

"The mirror."

Leon shared one quick look with the dhampir before launching over the railing alongside him to get to the artifact. Alucard took one side and Leon took the other, neither needing to communicate with more than their eyes to decide how to handle the mirror. With focus, the castle came back into view, a slight glowing coming from it.

"Sypha!" Alucard shouted, "the lights-!"

The hold went dark. Trevor cursed once but no more before two sets of footsteps joined Leon and Alucard at the mirror.

"Out of sight," Leon whispered. They obeyed him-Sypha beside Alucard and Trevor at Leon's shoulder.

As Leon provided some extra power and Alucard guided it, the mirror flashed once, and suddenly they were seeing into a different space.

Darkness covered most of the room-Leon was grateful for Sypha's quick use of magic in extinguishing their own light sources. The view showed a desk with disorganized papers and books, a shelf which looked dusty from disuse, and glass, likely from a window, glinting on the wall, all bathed in the dim orange glow from a fireplace, Leon was certain.

The one who had presumably activated the mirror walked into the frame for only a moment while heading towards the light at a sedate pace. The young man wore the attire of someone of rank: dark in color except for a red sash at the waist, and shoulder armor in the shape of bat wings-or dragon wings. Leon narrowed his eyes. This man had to work for Dracula. Yet, because his head was shaved, it was obvious he was not a vampire, for he lacked the pointed ears. Was he a thrall? A magician who used evil magicks?

Whoever he was, he spoke casually with a rumbling voice in the background; A voice Leon thought he might recognize.

"I find myself wishing you two were better friends."

Leon's brow furrowed. He turned, only slightly, to look up at Alucard. The dhampir's face was stony, immovable, but his eyes held hints of something else-desperation. Alucard definitely recognized who had been speaking. His father, then; Dracula. Leon turned back to the dim mirror to listen closer.

The two in the room, Dracula and his underling, were discussing another associate, Hector, who would be asking them to attack Braila, as well as one named Carmilla who was gaining potential power in the court. Sypha shifted slightly out of the corner of Leon's eye, seemingly anxious since their army had a specific target. Alucard placed a hand on her shoulder and she calmed enough to hold still.

Dracula appeared to have no preference. "There was a time, when I would relish the details." He spoke about how he used to delight in the plans, how he would strategize and take every single fact into account.

He sounded so much like Mathias in that moment-his victories more blood thirsty and his current outlook more weary-but so familiar. Leon felt his gut clench.

This was Mathias. It was him at his lowest-grieving, tired, angry, despondent, uncaring of anything but his one goal.

"But those times are long gone. Let us just conclude this thing."

Mathias was broken.

Blinking back tears, Leon felt his heart break all over again. Just like when Mathias had turned out to be responsible for Leon's misery and lost love. All of his lost love. Mathias didn't even have the energy to care, to spite his "enemies" for his poor fortune and misery. All that was left was a shell of a man, hollowed out and crumbling.

Leon placed a hand over his mouth to keep his hitching breaths from giving them away. He almost jumped when a hand settled on his back. He didn't look up, just allowed Trevor to offer what small comfort he could.

Two others entered the room soon. One must have been the associate they spoke of, Hector, as he wore the same type of uniform as the first man-apparently named Isaac. Then Hector was also human? The other person was obviously Carmilla. They spoke about exactly what Dracula had been told of earlier.

There were definite politics at play; Unfortunately, Leon had never been invested in the subtle machinations even when he was a highly regarded knight and baron, and he missed a lot of the context which would have informed him who all the players were, and what they might have wanted.

The best Leon got out of it was the vampire-Carmilla-wanting to trap humans, wanting more power. The very thing Leon had accused Alucard of seemed to be in Carmilla's every move. She would be taking over anything she could during Dracula's uncaring state, it seemed.

The two humans in the room either didn't care or lacked familiarity with just how dangerous that could be to their lord.

Either way, there was a new target-Braila.

With a subtle look at Alucard, Leon let go of the mirror and stopped his flow of magic, dim room shimmering before disappearing. The last words of Dracula echoed in Leon's head.

"It doesn't matter. So long as they all die."

Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot!

A little different here, Leon changed up the timeline juuuuust a smidge. We'll see some more consequences of that next chapter. :3c

Please let me know what you thought!╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )╯ I'm excited to finally be getting into more plot stuff, as much as I enjoyed the character focused stuff, and I hope y'all are too. That said, I still love character interactions, so that's not going away or anything. ;3