A Game of Cat and Cat

by Zantetsuken Reverse

When supernatural crime strikes, as a wielder of magic powers, it's your responsibility to fight. If you're an endgame protagonist, a few criminals should be easy, right? Except your powers aren't exactly legal, and the cops are after you. And you're not the only endgame protagonist out there... A tale of cops, crooks, and everyone in between.

9. Chapter 9: Lots of People Talking

I missed the Halloween special because I was busy. I'm not dead. This chapter was originally going to be a short transition, and it just grew from there.

I know I've lied to you before, but this fic won't be abandoned. This time, I have a concrete ending and some idea of how to get to it. I am a slow writer, though, so it will take a while to get through everything I want to include.

I'm trying something new. The chapter footnotes are now at the end of the paragraph instead of at the end of the story. Do you like it, or should I change it back? Should I just have the note immediately afterwards?

EDIT: I have received feedback, and am now putting the footnotes at the end of the story again.

This chapter only focuses on one set of characters because I needed to sync up the timelines; Aoi and Naoki won't be doing anything important until the next morning, and this one ends on a good note at night.

You know what would have been a good idea if I'd just thought of it earlier? In the first chapter, I said that a demon can't refuse payment if it's in a legitimate currency. Then I remembered that in SMT1 and 2, you can't summon demons of an opposite alignment. What I should have gone with is that demons are only required to obey the summoner after accepting payment, but they can refuse payment for theoretically any reason. Since going on strike would get them hauled off as fusion fodder or sold into slavery, they only pull this card for the most important things, like alignment, or if the summoner tries to pay them in junk. Of course, if the summoner is too desperate for threats of dismissal to hold weight, their demons can push them around.

You know what else is a good idea that I'm not using? Naoki's habit of talking to himself is actually his Magatama acting as secondary brains, each with a distinct personality (Marogareh is just unadulterated Naoki, though). It's something that I'd use for a different story, but for this one, I prefer the idea of Naoki talking to himself out of loneliness. Besides, Soma already has a better version with his souls.

There seems to be a lot of Megaten manga being translated lately. Damn, Devil Children is dark. The ending was unsatisfying, though. I want to see the anime more, though; I just like kid's shows like Digimon and Pokémon.

Yay, SMT V's coming out! If I do include it in the story, it'll probably be a while after release, because I still need to work through the plot I'm currently writing, I won't be getting or playing it right away (and I'll need to explore the other paths), I need time to form an idea of what the hero is like, and it's not fair to spoil the game for the rest of you. The allied demon in the trailer looks a lot like Demonoid Akira. And I can see the protagonist being male, female, or neutral, and customization can let you project whatever.

I discovered the Cosmere, and I love it! It really rekindled my love for reading. I think Shallan would be a Wild Card, given how she uses personas to interact with people. For some reason, I imagine the king from Elantris as the king from Disenchantment. There's a religion where the god of life (his real epithet is a spoiler) and the god of death are not only brothers, but the god of life was deified by dying in a particularly heroic manner, and the god of death just didn't die. And damn, I love that expedition to the ancient temple with the hidden treasure.

I'm probably not going to have a time travel loop here, but I realized that if you don't have a time travel password, a computer password will do in a pinch.

Some of you might be wondering why the cast of Persona 2 can use their Personas in the real world, and others might be wondering why they wouldn't be able to. Here is my explanation. In Persona 4 and 5, the heroes are only able to summon their Personas in the Collective Unconscious, and in Persona 1, the heroes need the DEVA system. However, in Persona 2, the heroes can summon all the time, and some Persona 3 cutscenes show daytime summonings (Fuuka is asked to scan for Aigis offscreen during the Yakushima trip, and Chidori's Persona tries to kill her during the day). But since they're only shown summoning when something weird is going on (Sumaru City's rumor curse, and the Dark Hour exerting its influence even during normal time), it's not certain whether they need background magic to summon.

I say that they can always summon in the real world, and there's precedent. Reiji and Toro are both Persona users who work for the same company, and Reiji is unsuccessful because Mot makes people afraid of him, while Toro is successful because Mara induces greed. Maya says Maia has been with her since she was a child, and since she lost the memory of her first summoning and later moved away from Sumaru City, that implies that she used to summon outside of Sumaru City. I will admit this is rule of cool, but I do have a theory.

My headcanon is that Persona only works if the user expects it to work. Since Persona is the power of the mind and soul, it is heavily influenced by the user's mental state. I've said this about other forms of magic in this story, but this is the only one I say might work in canon.

A few chapters ago, I said that Soma divides the world into Normal and Abnormal, and that lots of Persona users share this worldview. For the Investigation Team and the Phantom Thieves, the Collective Unconscious is a place where they're powerful and can change the world, while the real world is where they can't do anything. It's that fantasy of being an ordinary high school student by day, and a magical crime-fighter by night. While this prevents them from using their powers, it gives them some peace of mind; if they're in a no-power zone, they're safe from Shadows.

That aside, SEES does acknowledge in the Arena games that it's much easier to summon a Persona in the TV World than it is to summon during the Dark Hour, so it's possible that the Thieves and the Investigators did try to summon, but hit an unexpected block and didn't push further.

From a broader Megaten perspective, there's even less reason for Persona to work only in certain spaces. Demon summoning seems to work everywhere; Hikawa kills the Gaians with demons before the Conception, SMT4 shows rumors of the Demon Summoning Program working before the demons came, and even though SMT1 has a barrier, the Devil Summoner games (approximately the same continuity) have entire generations of summoners dating back centuries. There are also plenty of humans who can use magic without demons; besides the party members of SMT1 and 2, the alignment healers use magic, and there's even a psychic. Apocalypse shows that the Ring of Gaea can use qi manipulation; Toki can see ghosts, and Mii and Kei can hover.

I don't know if Tamaki and the other survivors of SMT IF still have their Guardians or not. I think of Guardians as actual demons bonding with them rather than the power of the soul itself.

Who knows what:

At this point, every major character knows that the Agency is in town, but only Yoko and the Agency know what they're looking for. Their target is the serial killer, but since Kazuya's demon showed up on camera, they think that the killer is a demon summoner, and so they're technically after him. Every major character so far knows that demon summoning is illegal.

The only people who know that Soma is Dracula are the people who already know in canon. The supernatural community thinks that Graham was Dracula (although no one so far has been shown to believe this).

Kazuya and Soma know that Naoki is a former demon summoner, but not much else because they don't want to pry into his past. They do not know that he is a demon.

Soma and Mina know that Kazuya is a summoner from a parallel universe. They are aware that Kazuya was allied with a rebel leader, but not that her name is Aoi.

Kazuya knows that Soma, Mina, Yoko, and Julius survived the castle of an evil wizard, but not that it was Dracula's castle. Soma told him a half-truth that he inherited his power from his past life as a wizard, and outright lied to him about what his powers are (fire and metal).

Soma knows that Leon Belmont is in town. Kazuya knows that he spoke to a ghost.

Aoi knows that Naoki is a powerful demon who also talks like a summoner. She knows a little bit about the headless body case, and that someone who goes by Hawk is interested.

Naoki knows about Aoi's double life as Madam Pain, that she knows magic, and she's from a parallel world. He also knows that Kazuya is a summoner, but not that he's from another timeline or his relationship with Aoi. He also knows absolutely nothing about Soma.

Another Chapter of Just Talking

"Communication is vital to any collaboration. Too many operations have gone catastrophically wrong because an aggressively moral individual stormed off in protest, someone overheard a snippet of a conversation and ran off before clarification, or a faction representative going through difficult times had failed to find a meeting replacement while they bemoaned their circumstances. However, smoothing out incidents like these will not necessarily ensure clear communication. The most common impediment towards communication is secret-keeping. While it is understandable that everyone has a few Spartoi in their closet they want to hold close to their chest, and some of them might not seem relevant at the time, it is no less frustrating when a catastrophe could have been averted had the secretary admitted that he had once been arrested for a DUI."

Lightning Strike, Memoirs of Aoi Genesis, Governor of Valhalla. The initials DUI had been the subject of much debate over the years, with speculations such as Demonic Underground Incursion, until her husband Kazuya in his twilight years clarified that it meant Driving (a motorized vehicle) Under (the) Influence (of alcohol, not demons)

Not for the first time, Kazuya wished that Aoi was with him.

Aoi was always better at negotiating with humans. They had decided very early in their relationship that she'd do the talking; if he remembered correctly, it was shortly before going through a security checkpoint (was it Gouto's?). It had seemed like the natural choice at the time; from what little he could remember about his childhood, he never had any friends, only fellow nerds in the computer club whom he occasionally rubber ducked, and his social skills only got worse after the nukes. Manners were the last thing on anyone's mind in the human settlements, and years of learning the complexities of demon etiquette were useless in the face of people who thought that pointing a gun at someone and tapping the trigger menacingly was impolite.

It had taken him too long to relearn the basic level of politeness required to function in society. Diplomacy? He could shout and threaten, roll over and beg, or point a finger and run away. That was it.

Normally, sitting at a negotiation table with only a stranger for an ally would be a nightmare. But for now, it just meant that he didn't have to talk until Soma and Mina arrived.

The meeting spot had to be somewhere where the Agency wouldn't see them. After all, Yoko meeting with all four of the highly suspicious characters who just assaulted them would be problematic, to say the least. After some debate, they concluded that the best place was the Mirror World. Of course, since the point was that the Agency wouldn't see all of them in one place, Soma had to ferry each of them to the Mirror World individually. He'd brought Yoko through a puddle in a back alleyway, picked up Julius in his hotel room, sent Kazuya through their dorm bathroom, and was last seen heading over to one of the math building's maintenance closets for Mina.

The only problem with the Mirror World was that anyone inside could still be seen on reflective surfaces. To rectify this, Julius had wanted to meet on a tall rooftop, away from windows, but Soma pointed out that not all of them were parkour masters like him, and even if they were, their reflections would still catch on the windows. So they ended up meeting in a windowless lecture hall, the kind that always had a projector handy and could double as a movie theater.

The three of them sat on the stage floor, a plastic Tupperware container full of double chocolate muffins on the podium. Julius had baked them; they were tasty and moist, but Julius hadn't accounted for the total lack of ambient sound in the Mirror World. It was bad enough sitting in awkward silence, breathing manually and a little too aware of their heartbeats, without the sound of chewing and digesting getting in the mix. Kazuya had eaten two before even he realized that bodily functions here was worse than farting in church (Aoi dragged him to a few Messian services for PR purposes. Gaian ceremonies were more fun; their marriage was Gaian, and the druid discreetly gave them some herbs and choice advice afterwards).

Earlier, Julius had tried to start a conversation with Yoko in a language that sounded sort of like Latin, but Yoko had rebuffed him in that same language. Kazuya guessed that this was a good sign for him; it wasn't going to be the adults ganging up on the kids.

A loud thump made them jump. Kazuya instinctively grabbed his belt for his sword, only to find a disappointingly short kitchen knife in its place (albeit the longest one he could buy without raising eyebrows).

His worries were unfounded when Soma and Mina came in through the fire exit. Mina took her seat right next to Kazuya, as if trying to show that she wasn't afraid of him, and Soma plopped down next to her. Together, the five of them formed a small circle.

Mina was barely an acquaintance, and the best he could say about his relationship with Soma up until the night before was that they lived in the same space for almost a year without incident. A poor substitute for the eloquent love of his life. But they did not abandon him, which was more than what he could say of most of his comrades.

He glanced at both of them. You want to be a lawyer, Soma? Prove it here. You spoke up when you confronted me, Mina. Do it again. I'm of no help on this battlefield.

Kazuya ground his teeth at the thought. You couldn't be a demon summoner, or the only non-caster on a team, without being a little okay with the idea of playing second fiddle to someone else. And yet you couldn't point the middle finger at everyone for making terrible decisions and run off to make your own side without being at least a little hardheaded.

"That's everyone?" said Yoko. Mina nodded. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Soma's head twitched in Kazuya's direction, but he said nothing.

"I'm waiting," said Yoko, arms crossed.

"…We were drunk," Soma admitted.

"I gathered," said Yoko, tapping her foot. She turned to Kazuya. "Do you realize what you've gotten yourself into?"

Kazuya was silent.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" continued Yoko. "Do you know who those people were?"

Soma raised both of his hands. "Hang on," said Soma. "Are you telling us that we've accidentally triggered a massive catastrophe, or are you just asking if we blew the cover on magic to a civilian? Because if it's the second one, he already knew."

The tension in Yoko's posture lessened, but did not fade entirely. "Good. That'll make everything much easier."

Soma blinked. "…We didn't trigger a massive calamity, did we?"

"No, but you've just gotten yourselves into a mess that might turn into a catastrophe," said Yoko.

"…Is a catastrophe worse than a calamity?" said Soma.

"Calamities are worse," said Yoko.

"How do you quantify that?" asked Mina.

"I'm sure that there's a proper ranking written down somewhere, but I personally think of calamities as worse than catastrophes, and you're changing the subject," said Yoko. She sighed. "I should have known that you wouldn't have listened, Soma, but you too, Mina?"

Mina said nothing.

"Anyways, I—yes, Julius?"

Julius put down his hand. "I'm sorry, but could I get a little background here?" he said. "You know, who's he, why are you in town, what's going on…"

"Yeah, what is going on?" said Soma. He looked to Mina and Yoko. "Come on, we're all thinking it. What are you doing here, Julius?"

"What are you doing here?" retorted Julius.

"I go to school here," said Soma, flashing his student ID.

Julius looked to Yoko for confirmation. She nodded. "…Oh," said Julius. "In my defense, you were the ones who thought it was safer if we didn't know."

"So what are you doing here?" asked Yoko.

"Well, I…" Julius trailed off, and gestured towards Kazuya. "Before we get into that, who is this guy, and why is he here?"

Who am I? There was no easy answer to that question. Who truly knew themselves? Kazuya had been of the opinion that anyone who professed to truly know themselves were either ignorant, delusional, or wise. He had on several occasions espoused a pseudo-philosophical theory about the nature of mankind, strings, and soup, but he didn't believe it any more than he believed in anything he ever wrote for a literary analysis essay. Who was he, but the sum of his parts? If he took away an aspect, was the gestalt ruined, or—?

"He's my roommate, and he supplied the alcohol," said Soma, interrupting Kazuya's thoughts.

Yoko held out a hand. "Yoko Belnades, freelance magician," she said. Kazuya stared at her outstretched hand, wondering if he was supposed to shake it or kneel and kiss it, before she seemed to realize that handshakes were uncommon in Japan. She handed him a business card instead.

"Julius Belmont, vampire hunter," said Julius.

Ah. They were asking about his job. "Kazuya Kawamoto, first-year computer science major," said Kazuya.

Yoko blinked. "First-year computer science major?" she repeated.

Kazuya nodded.

"And how do you know about the supernatural?"

Kazuya opened his mouth, then closed it. "It's a long story."

"We have time."

"No, seriously, it's a long story," interrupted Soma. He turned to Kazuya. "Do you mind if I summarize?"

Kazuya nodded. "Go ahead."

"He's from a parallel universe that went to hell after—"

Julius raised his hand. "Parallel universe?" he repeated.

Yoko tapped him on the shoulder, and they had a short exchange in that same Latin-esque language.

"Ah," said Julius.

"Huh," said Kazuya. He'd been so used to foreigners speaking fluent Japanese in Tokyo Millennium (even the Indian guys who ran the closet Code Breaker casinos spoke and understood Japanese perfectly well, and played up their 'fun foreigner' role for customers) that he'd forgotten that it wasn't a very common second language. "Your Japanese is excellent."

"Kazuya!" snapped Soma. "That's rude."

Kazuya blinked. "Is it?"

"It is?" said Julius, looking back and forth. "Is this some cultural thing that everybody takes for granted and nobody bothers to tell foreigners?"

"Yes, is it?" asked Mina, crossing her arms.

"…Wait, no, not for him," said Soma, sitting back down. "I get that too much."

"Tell me about it," grumbled Yoko.

"What's wrong with compliments?" asked Julius.

Soma sighed. "No, nothing's wrong, just… trials of being half-white in Japan. Or half-Asian in America and Spain."

"Oh," said Julius.

Mina tilted her head. "Come to think of it, why do you know Japanese?" asked Mina. "I mean, I'd get it if you knew the basic phrases, but you're fluent up to 'parallel dimension'."

"Well, after I lost my memory, it turned out that I—"

Yoko crossed her arms. "Are you trying to stall?"

"…No?" said Mina.

Yoko sighed. "Well, it almost worked. We can talk about our pasts later. Do you realize what you've done?"

When no one answered, she continued. "The Agency is in town because of the serial killer on the news."

Mina muttered something under her breath that sounded like, "Called it!"

"What I hadn't realized is that they've stationed a training group with no leads, one that chases anything that moves," said Yoko. "And I believe you just landed in their sights."

Kazuya bristled at the attention, but her eyes lingered on Soma. Curious.

"So you're asking us to lie low?" said Soma.

"Ideally, yes," said Yoko. "But we both know that you're not going to listen. And judging by the fact that you two are here," she gestured at Kazuya and Mina, "you're going to be dragged into this. And Julius… I have no idea what you're doing here."

"I'm not going to stay indoors until you call the all clear, if that's what you're wondering," said Julius.

Yoko shrugged. "It doesn't matter why you're here. I'm not going to turn you in."

At this, the tension in both Soma and Mina's shoulders diminished.

"Really?" said Soma.

Yoko crossed her arms. "Can all of you promise me that you can stay out of the Agency's way until they catch their quarry?" she said. "Would you swear, on your life, that you'd step aside and let the killer roam free?"

Kazuya said nothing. There was always the chance that he'd run into danger tomorrow, but he wasn't going to be the first person to say no.

Neither was anyone else, apparently. The room was silent.

"I thought not," said Yoko. "I gathered you here so we can work together."

Soma blinked. "You're serious?"

Yoko nodded. "If you're going to go off gallivanting again, I'd like to keep you in arm's reach."

Mina let out a sigh. "Thank you," she said.

"Of course," said Yoko.

Julius raised his hand. "I don't think I can help you this time," he said. "I'm here on business, and I don't know how long I'll be in town."

"That's fine," said Yoko. "I'm not asking you to go investigate on my behalf. All I'm asking is that we share whatever clues we discover."

"That's it?" said Mina. "I mean… not that we don't appreciate your help, but is it possible for you to keep us out of the Agency's way?"

Yoko shook her head. "I'm sorry. What do you think it would look like if I were caught leaking my employers' patrol routes? I'd never work again."

"Good point," said Mina.

You put your job over your friends?

"I can still tell you when we'll be investigating somewhere for a while," said Yoko. "If I were you, I'd avoid the hill where we found the headless corpse."

Mina nodded shakily. "Do they think we did that?"

Yoko shook her head. "The evidence is circumstantial. They want you in for questioning, not for interrogation. Still, it's lucky that none of them got a clear look at you." Yoko paused. "The laser on the mountain, though. That wasn't you, was it?"

"Not us," said Soma. "It was like that when we got there. Did you see who did it, Julius?"

Julius shook his head.

"Then I suppose it's a mystery for another day," said Yoko.

Something was wrong. If Yoko is already working with the Agency, couldn't she just go to them and explain?

And then Kazuya realized that he could just ask. "If you're already working with the Agency, couldn't you just go to them and explain?"

Yoko paused a moment before speaking. "I'm not the one who has to worry about them," she said carefully.

Is that a threat?

"…That might have sounded like a threat. It wasn't." Yoko tapped the floor absently; it was not any recognizable Morse code phrase. "Let's just say that not all of us are on the Agency's good side," she said finally. "It's not my place to say more."

Kazuya could respect that. Not that it stopped him from wondering which one. Soma knows too little about their policies; if I were him, I'd try to find out as much as I could. Mina does. But she's a bit too orthodox. Julius, by process of elimination, but that's not proof.

"So what are you after?" asked Mina. "I mean, we know it's the serial killer, but what's so special about them that they had to hire you?"

Yoko sighed. "The first thing you have to know is that the Agency is in the middle of… not quite crises, but two situations that, while nonvolatile, are taking up a lot of their time. I'm not supposed to know about this, but I have a friend in the Agency who likes to grumble with me over drinks. Remember when the Prime Minister had a breakdown on live television after the Phantom Thieves claimed to steal his heart?"

"…Yes?" said Mina.

Kazuya wondered if he should have paid more attention to local politics. It wasn't his fault they were boring. Not nearly as interesting as the new silicon-germanium-xenon molecule that would supposedly make transistors five percent faster.

"That's the less pressing concern," said Yoko. "All I know about the other one is that it's both top secret and not dangerous."

Soma blinked. "How can something be top secret not be dangerous?"

"High government official having an affair?" suggested Mina. "Then again, that's not occult enough for the Agency. They cloned a high government official?"

"They discovered Atlantis?" guessed Julius.

"They're refurbishing Area 51?" said Soma.

"Area 51?" repeated Kazuya.

"Old American joke," explained Soma. "It's a secret government property that everyone knows exists, but not what's in it, so people say it has aliens."

"How can a secret government property be public knowledge?" said Mina.

"You know how in Fallout 3, there's a secret government facility called Raven Rock?" said Soma. "That's a real place."

Yoko shrugged. "Whatever it is, he didn't say. If it's dangerous, he'd tell me."

"He doesn't tell me anything," grumbled Soma.

"Like I said, he'd tell me," said Yoko. "Anyways, the point is that the Agency is overworked right now, so they're willing to put up with a mercenary."

"Ah," said Mina. "But didn't they send him to fight Celia back in December?"

"They did," said Yoko. "One Agent and his four buddies, against an entire cult. Not that we saw most of them, but you get what I mean."

Kazuya made a note to ask about that later.

"The other problem is that…" Yoko broke off. "Do you trust Kazuya?"

"Yes," said Soma.

"With your lives?"

Neither of them were forthcoming.

"Can you at least trust him to keep a secret?"

"Definitely," said Mina.

"Then you should see this." Yoko fiddled with her phone, and handed it to Mina. It was a video, cobbled together from low-resolution security cameras.

Kazuya's blood ran cold.

Fleurty giving a bun to a beggar. Fleurety robbing the supermarket. Fleurety brewing a pot of jambalaya.

"The Agency called me in after they discovered something that nobody wants to fight," said Yoko. "We have a demon summoner on our hands."

X

Naoki ate fried rice for dinner. It was a simple dish, made with only eggs, cooled rice, frozen vegetables, and leftover takeout meats, all cooked in one frying pan and eaten out of a saucepan.

He wouldn't have another physics homework out until Tuesday, which worked well for him. For now, he could watch videos, play pirated video games, and generally relax.

Except he couldn't relax, not when Daisuke's murderer was still out there. And yet, he couldn't do anything about it, at least not until Aoi responded to his email.

Naoki played a pirated Final Fantasy XVII fitfully, not quite able to drop the anxiety building in his chest.

X

Yoko explained why demon summoners were a problem. Soma could barely hear her. Mina had already said the Agency thought they were murderers. Kazuya had proven them wrong, but…

There's no way Kazuya could be behind the murders… could he?

No. He begged for peace before he knew that I could fight. If he were the murderer, it would be much easier to kill us than to keep us quiet.

I doubt it, said Quetzalcoatl. The boss insisted upon the good treatment of civilians. Put a stop to the Lotteries, even after they promised him a cut. And I would like to reiterate that even though I am an Aztec god, I oppose human sacrifice.

Yeah, but it's not like there weren't any other sources of Magnetite, said a Succubus.

Do you disagree? Quetzalcoatl said with a raised eyebrow.

No, I'm just saying your argument is incomplete, said the Succubus. The boss didn't summon us frivolously.

Except for Cerberus, said Arachne.

…Except for Cerberus, admitted the Succubus. My point is that if he's living a normal college life, he shouldn't be using so much Magnetite that he'd resort to killing civilians. And if he did get involved in something so dangerous that he'd need demons, it's probably something that would get lots of people killed, and he's never been shy about scavenging.

Didn't he used to make Fleurety clean his house? said Arachne.

Twas not frivolty. Our former summoner doth dwelt in what was at once a mansion and orphanage, [1], said Kali.

Too big for one person to clean, and human servants have a distressing habit of turning out to be assassins and taking children hostage, agreed the Succubus.

Wait, mansion? Soma blinked. Kazuya never seemed like the type to want a big house. Well, he was pretty sure that everyone fantasized about living in a palace, but going out and buying one was a different story. Especially in what had sounded like a postapocalyptic hellscape.

You used to… dwell in a castle, a Skeleton pointed out.

Yes, but that castle was the source of Dracula's powers. Soma paused. Not that I remember livi—dwelling in it.

His wife was governor, and it came with the job, said a Harpy. The incumbent built it, and it was a waste to destroy it.

Soma blinked. Kazuya was married?

And then he paused again. Wait, if you knew he was your summoner all along, why didn't you tell me?

It doth not suffice to wear the same face and name, Kali said softly. I had mistaken him to be a reincarnation of our former summoner. Twas not worth mentioning; many times have I witnessed a great man reincarnate into a fool, to my shame.

I'm Dracula's reincarnation, and look where that got me, Soma pointed out.

Aye, and yet last I saw Bhima's reincarnation, he was a child psychologist with a manner as meek as a suckling kitten, retorted Kali. I have borne witness to dastards returning charitable, the craven courageous, and the mighty weak. Thou hast retained much from Dracula, but before, thou wert an affable Flemish farmer by the name of Gabriel. Neither thee nor Dracula inherited his love of onions, nor his talent for woodcarving.

Yeah, but same name, looks, and personality? Soma parried.

Infinity isn't just a word, you know, said a Witch. It would be remarkable if there weren't any repeats.

"…And yes, Soma, this is worse than you think," continued Yoko.

Soma blinked, roused from his thoughts. "How so?"

"The worst part about summoners is that they can kill without being anywhere near the crime scene," said Yoko. "Your experience with Celia is the exception, not the rule; she showed herself because she was trying to lure you."

"She could teleport, too," added Julius. "People with escape routes handy are always more reckless. Except for people whose escape routes are blocked." He paused. "That is, people who always have escape routes are more likely to cause trouble, but people who feel like they have nothing to lose are the most dangerous."

Kazuya and Yoko nodded sagely.

Soma nodded. "Do you have a plan to find them?"

Yoko shook her head, worry etched in her face. "I don't have enough information. There's just so much stuff going on, none of us can tell what's relevant. I'll tell you when there's a breakthrough."

It took all of Soma's strength to not let joy show on his face.

"All that randomness might work in our favor, though," continued Yoko. "Do you know the first rule of fighting a demon summoner?"

"Go for them instead of their demons?" suggested Mina.

"Don't break the seals that bind their demons, because the seals also weaken the demon, so you'll have to fight an even stronger demon?" said Julius.

"Look for any grimoire-like objects around in case there's a returning ritual in there?" added Soma.

"Bring a machine gun so you can hit the summoner and the demons without aiming?" said Kazuya.

"All good ideas, but they're not the first rule," said Yoko. "The first rule is simple: never let them know that you're onto them. Otherwise, they can skip town."

Unless they want to keep studying computer science.

"The chaos in the streets is a blessing in disguise, then," said Mina, in a conclusive voice that only highlighted her uncertainty. "The culprit can watch the investigators, thinking they're going nowhere when they're right on their tail."

Yoko smiled. "Exactly. As long as you don't let the summoner know you're after them, you should be able to investigate as much as you like."

What if we pretended that we alerted the summoner, and he ran away? suggested Lilim. Yoko's nice. She'll forgive you.

If we do that, the Agency will leave, and then they'll never find the real culprit, said Soma. Besides, we've already gotten Yoko into enough trouble. If we screw this up, she could lose her job.

But Stepdaddy will—

Kazuya's smart, said Soma, vaguely aware that he didn't know Soma well enough to make that judgement call. He won't get caught so easily. He paused. Wait, you call Kazuya Stepdaddy?!

Mommy said she married him in a past life, before she had us.

"Now, there is the matter of payment."

Mina blinked. "Oh, no, you don't have to—"

"I'm asking you to do my job for me, so yes, I do," said Yoko. "And before you say that you can't take money from friends, I can't exploit my friends either."

There was an awkward pause.

"How about you buy us dinner?" said Soma. "Takeout, say, and I can pick it up through the Mirror World." And we'll always need to eat. Give us money, and we'll either resent you for underpaying us, or feel guilty for being overpaid. Give us food, and we'll be grateful for covering a necessary expense.

"Sounds good," said Yoko. "For the four of you, I'd say… once a week for someplace decent but cheap, or once a month for something expensive?"

"Cheap," said Julius.

"I vote cheap," said Kazuya.

"How cheap and how decent?" asked Mina. "I mean, gift horse and all, but are you talking about chain fast food, or cheap balanced meal?"

Yoko shrugged. "Cheap balanced meal." She took a menu out of her purse; Soma recognized it from a Chinese place that padded its takeout boxes with rice and vegetables, but added just enough meat to be worth it. "I can find a few more menus if you want."

"Sounds good to me, then," said Mina.

"…Not that it matters, but I also vote cheap," said Soma.

"Does anyone have any more questions?" asked Yoko.

Too many.

"Then that's all I have to say," said Yoko. She turned to Julius. "That's why I'm here. What are you doing here?"

"Well, that's because…" Julius gave a wary glance at Kazuya. "Do you know about the Belmont family?"

Kazuya shook his head.

"The short version is that we're a clan of vampire hunters. The long version is…" Julius paused. "Let me think about how to say this."

Julius took out a notebook and began to write. Soma looked over his shoulder, but looking at Julius's writing made his head hurt (and not because Julius had bad handwriting; for some reason, he wrote in impressive copperplate).

Why can't I read this? Dracula was Romanian, right?

Well, 'Romanian' didn't quite exist as a nationality back then, began a Werewolf. As a language, it was—

He was Swedish, actually, said a Valkyrie.

Soma blinked. Really? Never would have guessed.

She nodded. Not that it's relevant. He did know the precursors to the modern form of the language.

Your difficulties are because of linguistic drift, Master, said Stolas promptly. When you were Dracula, you learned several versions of the Romanian language over the centuries. Due to your… jumbled recollection of his memories, you are unable to distinguish between these dialects, and so you are attempting to translate his writing using several simultaneous, incorrect frames of reference. I could translate, if you wish.

That's all right. I just wanted to see if I could read it. Soma paused. So why don't I get headaches when I listen to Romanian?

The pronunciation is too different to recognize. You have listened to several Korean popcorn songs without noticing that some of the lyrics were English.

I don't think pop is short for popcorn, Stolas, said Balor.

Yeah, I think it's short for popery, said a Harpy.

"I am the head of the Belmont clan, a family of vampire hunters," said Julius at last. "Our family… logistics are complicated, but we have branches all over the world." He paused. "That makes us sound like an insurance company."

"How about, 'I have relatives in other countries'?" suggested Yoko.

"Better, and technically correct, but doesn't quite capture the same… what's the word… context?"

"Connotations?" suggested Soma.

Yoko translated the word into Romanian, and Julius nodded. "Yes. Connotations. The other thing you need to know about my family is that we're… there's a lot of us. We're… um…"

"They're basically the Romanian mafia," interrupted Yoko. "The Belmonts have this whole isolated ninja compound where they train, and if anyone tries to leave, they have to promise to keep training their children as a lesser branch of the family. If they don't, they're no longer Belmonts."

"That's…" Mina's eyes widened.

"They're still family," protested Julius. "It's not like we disown them." He took a deep breath. "When I say we're a clan of vampire hunters, we're not exactly a family and we're not a company, either. Everyone in the clan is family, and everyone in the clan is trained as a vampire hunter, but not everyone in the family is a hunter."

Mina blinked. "So… if you have a son who wants to be a painter, he'll be something Belmont, but not a Belmont?"

Julius paused with his mouth open. "Not exactly," he said at last. "It's not that we all have to be vampire hunters as much as we have to be trained as vampire hunters. So if I had a son who trained in childhood but grew up to be a painter, he could still…" he paused again. "Let me back up a bit. None of us use Belmont as a surname. Otherwise, cults could just look us up in the phone book. I get to call myself Julius Belmont since it's tradition for the head to call him or herself that, but I have a different legal surname."

Soma knew better than to ask.

"So my hypothetical son could say he is Something Whatever, of the Belmont clan, and he would be a Belmont, but if he didn't train, he can't call himself one," said Julius.

"Ah," said Mina. "More like a family business, then?"

"Close enough," said Yoko.

"Anyways, you wanted to know why I'm here?" said Julius. He drew the Vampire Killer, and Soma couldn't help but flinch at the sight of the whip that had killed him so many times before. "This is the Vampire Killer, a weapon that's been in my family for almost a thousand years."

"That's not a very imaginative name," said Kazuya.

"It sounds more impressive in Old French," assured Julius. "Don't ask me to pronounce it. Anyways, it goes to the best hunter in the clan. Or at least, whoever was the best hunter when the last wielder retired. Whoever wields it is the head of the clan."

Mina blinked. "What, like the sword in the stone? Whoever can wield the Vampire Killer is worthy of being the head?"

"Arthur could draw the sword in the stone because he was the king's son, not because he was worthy," said Kazuya. "The strongest fighter is not necessarily the best leader."

Yup, there's definitely a story there.

Five bucks he's talking about himself? suggested Agni.

You don't even have money.

Ah, but I do know this one bank account that nobody's looking at…

"Right, so Julius is the watery tart?" said Mina.

"Depends on if the Belmonts are an anarcho-syndicalist commune," said Kazuya dryly.

Soma smirked, and Yoko groaned. Julius looked confused, until Yoko said something in Romanian, and then he also groaned.

You know, you could just take a rock hammer and break up that boulder, said an Alastor. You don't need to keep swinging the Sword Still in the Stone.

"Being the head of a family isn't like being a king," said Julius. "It's prestigious, yes, but it just means that I get the most dangerous jobs."

"Just?" repeated Yoko. "You get the best room in the hideout, sit at the head of the feast hall, delegate all the other jobs, and since you're the only one required to be a full-time hunter, everyone else has to support you if you're out of work."

"…All right, fine, there are enough perks that people want it, but it's not so much responsibility that someone who only knows how to fight can ruin the family," said Julius. "I can't order people around, I can't take someone else's room, and my relatives are only obligated to support me if I can't find any work at all, whether it's hunting or normal work."

He coughed. "But the perks aren't important. What's important is that there is always a Belmont to wield the Vampire Killer against the forces of darkness." Julius was very deliberately not looking at Soma. "My last obligation is to teach the next generation. I'm not so old that everyone has to stop their lives and have a year-long tournament like last time, I have to test each candidate individually. No matter who they may be. No matter where they might live."

Soma's blood froze. "Does this mean…?"

Julius nodded. "There is a Belmont in Haruhata."

X

Aoi had soup for dinner. She'd made a big pot of it a few days before, and ate (drank?) it for dinner until it was used up. Her essay on comparative judicial systems was incomplete, but she had a comfortable buffer between now and next Tuesday, and persisting after several nonstop hours would do more harm than good. Better to let the engine rest.

Now was the time to watch her students train.

They called themselves vigilantes. It was really just a group of kids with lots of drive and no… well, they certainly had direction. The problem was that they had no one to guide them through the rocky, mist-haunted mountain trail that was the path to demon slaying. Worse, it was a trail that most people didn't realize existed. And yet they threw themselves at that trail, even if everyone they met doubted their sanity.

Not that that was a bad thing. Channeling stubbornness—no, this was sheer bloody-mindedness tempered by frustration and confusion—turned it into the kind of red-hot passion that kept starving artists painting in the face of foreclosures, led religious fanatics to charge through the streets without the use of recreational drugs, and drove the engines of anyone who would dare to give up comfort and glory for passion. Much better than the knights she trained in the early years of the settlement, many of whom only joined up for the prestige, long breaks, or to escape the law.

Unfortunately, they also had lives of their own, and Aoi could only see them a few times a week, on evenings. So they compromised by sending her weekly videos of them training.

Today, it was business as usual. Sei was starting to remember to move instead of attacking like a rabid dog, a strategy that Aoi would have disdained even if Sei hadn't been a slender waif. You could always hear a good BAM from Lu when he hit the punching bag, but he had a tendency to freeze when fighting for real. Haya still had trouble sneaking under high-stress situations, and was investing in knife-training; Aoi made a note to teach him how to conceal. Rei knew that she neglected her strength in favor of movement, and sent a video full of strikes and slashes; Aoi would congratulate her, and then add that she shouldn't neglect her strengths, either.

Aoi closed the laptop. After the other night's thrashing, it would be best to avoid the streets, lest her charges attack recklessly out of wounded pride. Satisfy them with training until their confidence is restored, and their level heads with it. Best to meet as soon as possible.

X

Kazuya was terrible at catching lies. It wasn't just because he had trouble reading facial expressions; most people can't detect lies by expression alone. No, Kazuya's problem was that his bullsh—bullskepticism meter was broken.

'Credulous' and 'open-minded' are not two sides of the same coin, they are the same side of the same coin. That coin is a nickel, which could be hated for not being the quarter needed for the laundromat or vending machine, or loved for being the exact amount needed to keep the meter happy while running into the drugstore to pick up a prescription and some candy.

When Kazuya opened an email saying that demons had invaded the world, that little attachment in the corner saved him. That crazy man with the knife screaming at everyone to get away from him was right about the Preta that ripped his throat out. Echo Building indeed had strange and mysterious happenings, Roppongi was full of zombies (and technically peaceful), and someone did try to clone him and Aoi.

In other words, experience taught Kazuya to never waste time saying, 'that's impossible' when confronted with the abnormal. A clan of hidden vampire hunters? Completely plausible in a world where two weird cults took over Japan. His roommate had strange magical powers? Maybe his magic was normal, and the magic Kazuya knew was an aberration.

Kazuya was also terrible at reading the emotions of other humans. It came with spending too much time trying to read demons; the tells for humans and most demons varied so much that trying to analyze humans using a demon's frame of reference gave out some off conclusions.

But Kazuya was no fool. He might not be able to dismiss claims out of hand, but he could see contradictions.

"And why is this important?"

Everyone was too busy talking over each other to notice him. Only Julius was speaking slowly and clearly.

"You know the rules; you can't know and they can't know," said Julius. "Yes, I know. No, they don't. That was in response to your question, Mina. I mean, my answer to Mina is yes, and my answer to your first and second questions, Soma, was probably, of course, and Yoko, Dacă puteți citi acest lucru, aveți prea mult timp pe mâini—"

This went on for a while. The whole conversation was full of euphemisms, significant raised eyebrows and strange gestures, scattered with random Romanian sentences, until they seemed to remember that Kazuya was here.

"Is it all right if we discuss this in private?" said Mina. "I think that we—"

"No, he has a right to know," said Soma. His hands trembled. "I… I haven't been completely honest with you, Kazuya. I told you that my powers were fire and metal? That… that wasn't completely true."

Everyone looked at Soma. Yoko's mouth was open.

"I…" Soma gulped. "My real power is to absorb magic. Permanently." He held up his hand, and a femur appeared in his hand. "Mirrors aren't really on theme, are they? I…" He paused again. "I… um… remember how I was trapped in the castle of an evil wizard? I… I absorbed dark magic from that castle. And the problem with dark magic is that it almost always comes from killing or suffering, so even though I didn't hurt anyone, anyone who can sense it thinks I did, so…"

Ah. "You're the one who can't go to the Agency," said Kazuya. "If the Agency caught you, they'd think you were behind the kidnappings. It's circumstantial evidence at best, but if they don't find the real culprit in time, they'll arrest you so they won't lose face."

"…You don't have a lot of faith in the justice system, do you?" said Mina.

"No."

And what did Mina say? You of all people should know that the Agency doesn't arrest people for magic. You, of all people.

The tension lifted. Soma nodded. "Yes. That's it."

Then why didn't you tell me yesterday?

…Would that be a good move? It could have come across as a lie to get me to sympathize with you. And let my guard down.

…Oh god, that's what Naoki did.

"Prove it."

Soma blinked. "Prove what?"

"Prove that you have dark magic."

Soma blinked. "All right, but… give me a minute; I have a lot of these… got it. I'll need some of your blood. Not much. Is that all right?"

Kazuya nodded.

He took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and turned out his pockets. "See? Empty."

"…Are you going to pull a rabbit out of them?" said Kazuya.

"Nope," said Soma, pulling a cat out of Mina's purse. It meowed before vanishing. "What's this?" He motioned towards Kazuya's head, but stopped when Kazuya flinched. "All right then. Mina? What's this behind your ear?" He drew a red handkerchief the size of a towel.

"…Wait a minute, does 'dark magic' not mean what I think it does?" said Julius.

"No, I just didn't want to get blood everywhere," said Soma. He reached into his coat and pulled out a knife. With one smooth motion, he cut his palm and bled into the red cloth.

"What are you doing?!" shouted Kazuya.

"Don't worry, it's—"

"Palms are sensitive! If you need to draw blood, cut your shoulder!" [2]

"…As I was saying, I'll heal. Now I'm going to bite your shoulder."

"What?"

"You wanted a demonstration, right? Look at my teeth." Soma opened his mouth wide, and then closed it (no staining, healthy gums). Then he opened them again, and—

Those were fangs.

Before a second thought could reach him, Kazuya grabbed the kitchen knife and drove it into Soma's chest. Soma, however, was much faster than he expected, and leapt backwards, turning a fatal stab into a glancing blow.

Not that Kazuya didn't move, either. Stab, retreat. When you're a fragile human, dodging is more important than getting in a good hit.

Only a knife, no gun, no demons. Exit's right there, but he's between us, so make a run for the stairs—

What the hell am I doing?!

"STOP IT!"

Mina stood up—but her outburst wasn't directed towards Kazuya. He looked around. Julius had drawn his whip, and Yoko had produced several nasty-looking icicles, all trained on him. Kazuya had expected her to stand in their way, but she was standing sensibly to the side.

Instead, Soma took the honor of covering Kazuya, standing right in front of Yoko and Julius, facing them with arms spread wide. "It's all right," he said. "We're all friends here."

Friends. Kazuya knew that he should have felt some warm and fuzzy feeling. Instead, shame and bitter anger welled up from his gut.

Stop it. Yoshio dived in front of Nebiros knowing that he was going to kill me. Soma knows his allies won't hurt him. That's not the same thing at all.

"I'm sorry," said Kazuya, dropping the knife.

"No, it's my fault," said Soma. "I should have been clearer." He made his way to one of the benches and plopped himself down. The gash in his chest knitted itself back together, and so did his shirt for some reason. Soma held up his palm. "See? Healed."

"Couldn't you have done that instead of taking my blood?" said Kazuya.

"Yes, but you wanted to see dark magic," said Soma. Mina shot him a glare. "…Although I guess I could have just shown you the fangs. But hey, look! American pennies!"

Soma thrust his hand into his pockets and pulled out a fistful of copper. "…Yeah, it's kind of useless. If we were in America, I could at least dump it in a tip jar."

"Copper is one of the more useful metals," said Kazuya firmly. "Microbes die faster on it, so we can melt it down for medical tools." Then Kazuya remembered that he wasn't in postapocalyptic Japan anymore. "…If we ran out, somehow."

"Pennies mostly zinc, you know," said Yoko. "They're only plated with a little bit of copper."

Mina stared at her. "And how do you know that?"

"I sometimes use coins to aim lightning, and it's good to know how conductive they are."

"Plated zinc is even better," said Kazuya. "With alternating layers of copper and zinc, we can make a Voltaic Pile battery. Small amounts of free electricity, right there for the tak—"

Soma tossed a penny in the air, and shot a bolt of lightning at it.

"…I think Voltaic piles can hold charge, too."

"So you believe me now?" said Soma.

Oh, right. Dark magic. "Yes. No wonder Julius's family is after you." He tilted his head. "Are you a vampire, or can you just turn into one?"

"No, it's just a bit of transformation magic," said Soma.

Note to self. Ask Soma if there's any danger of absorbing magic from the Demon Summoning Program. Also, grill Naoki about summoning.

Soma sat back down. "Long story short, Julius and Yoko understand that I'm not evil, but we're not sure what the Belmonts and Belnades clans would think of me. So they promised to hide my powers, at least until we can figure out how to tell their families."

Kazuya blinked. "Wouldn't it be easier to confess? If they knew, that's one red herring out of their way, and one vampire hunter out of yours."

Soma shook his head. "No, it's seriously almost impossible to prove that I didn't kill anyone for these powers."

"And the word of the head of the clan isn't enough?"

"No," said Julius bluntly. "I told you, it's not like being a king. There's… politics."

"Kings still have to deal with politics," said Mina.

"You know what I mean," said Julius. He sighed. "It's more complicated that I care to discuss right now. My relative doesn't know who you are, and to protect their identity, I cannot tell you who they are. I don't know if they suspect that you're in town, but I also can't ask without arousing suspicion. Let's just leave it at that."

"But—"

"I have nothing else to say," said Julius firmly.

There was silence.

"Can I ask a different question?" said Mina.

"Go ahead. You won't know if I'll answer unless I ask."

"So, uh… how do you know Japanese?" said Mina.

"That, I can answer," said Julius. "After I lost my memory in 1999…" He turned to Kazuya. "Do you know of Castlevania?"

"The fortress of forests?" translated Kazuya. [3]

"…No, but I see where you're coming from," said Julius. "Fortress from Castle, Forest from Sylvania?"

Kazuya nodded.

"It's the name of the castle of the evil wizard," explained Soma.

Yoko blinked. "Evil wizard?"

Soma shrugged. "It's accurate. He was evil and a wizard."

"Yes, but I would think that most people would have started with 'vampire'," said Yoko.

"…A vampire who was also an evil wizard?" said Kazuya. "Isn't that just a lich with flavor text?"

Mina snorted. "…Sorry. Just… thinking of Dio Brando as Voldemort."

Soma blinked. "I mean, that's legit, but… why not Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee as Saruman?" He paused. "Wait, Christopher Lee was Saruman."

"I would have gone for Leslie Neilsen," said Yoko. When everyone stared at her, she said, "Leslie Neilsen? The doctor from Airplane? Don't call me Shirley? Come on. None of you have seen his movies?"

"I know who he is, I just… really? Leslie Neilsen?" said Soma. "Is it the hair?"

"And what does this have to do with knowing Japanese?" said Mina quickly.

Julius sighed. "In 1999, I fought the evil vampire wizard, and… nope, I can't take it seriously. Can we just put a name to him?"

Kazuya raised his palms. "Let me guess. Strigoi? Kudlak? Imported Vetala? Something I've never heard of?"

"I… we're not sure what he is, other than vampire sorcerer," said Yoko. "But I do believe you've heard his name."

"I doubt it," said Kazuya.

"His name is Dracula."

"…Of course he's real," said Kazuya. That is, Vlad the Impaler was a real historical figure who—

"And no, he's not Vlad the Impaler," said Yoko. [4]

"How did—"

"Common misconception," sighed Yoko. "I've had to correct a lot of people. And yes, we have proof. Vlad III gave medals to two of our ancestors for slaying Dracula." She jerked her head towards Julius. "Personally, though, I blame pop culture. That's where it really comes from."

"It's our fault, too," said Julius. "We opened up some gaping plot holes."

Kazuya looked back and forth. "…You're going to have to elaborate," said Kazuya.

"Have you read the book?" asked Yoko.

"No."

"I'll give you the summary later," volunteered Mina. "The book really happened. Mostly. Bram Stoker was a friend of one of the survivors, he had writer's block, his friend told him the story, and then with the permission of the other survivors, he turned it into a book. The book isn't completely accurate, but that's mostly because Stoker had to extrapolate from bad or incomplete information. The survivors lent him their diaries, but Stoker couldn't read Dutch, so there's hardly anything from Van Helsing, and Quincey Morris's family seized his possessions after death, so the only thing Stoker got out of him was a handful of telegrams."

"Stoker also had to cut out some sensitive information about the Belmonts," said Julius. "Like how Quincey Morris was descended from the Belmonts, and he killed Dracula with this whip instead of a knife."

"Not to mention all those scenes at the end where the protagonists randomly inherit large amounts of money," said Yoko. "He figured it would be best not to mention the magic candles that just dropped money when you blew them out."

"The journals were edited, too, but mostly to make them novel-worthy," said Mina. "Almost all the dialogue is Stoker's work. Otherwise, it'd just be lots of 'he said, I said, she said.'"

Kazuya looked at Soma. "What? I haven't read it either," said Soma.

"You're not even curious?" said Kazuya.

"…I've seen a little too much of the real thing," said Soma delicately. "Anyways, Japanese?"

Julius nodded. "To make a long story short, Dracula is the ancient enemy of the Belmonts." Yoko coughed. "And the Belnades. He rises every century, and in 1999, it was my turn to slay him." He gestured towards Mina. "With the help of the Hakuba clan, we sealed the castle away into the eclipse, which allowed us to… um… let's just say it helped, and leave it at that. I don't want to get into the mechanics."

"Understandable," said Mina.

"The battle with Dracula was long and hard, but I ultimately emerged victorious. However, I…" Julius's hands began to shake. "I lost my memory in the battle. I woke up alone in a hospital bed, without any idea of how I got there. The only keys to my past were these relics," he held up some crosses and a copy of the bottle he threw at the Agents last night, "my fear of Dracula, and the fact that I was multilingual. I didn't forget that I was Romanian, and it wasn't surprising that I knew English, but one day, I discovered that I could read Japanese. Naturally, I thought that Japan held a vital clue to my past, so I spent years learning the language so that I could one day return and rediscover my past."

Julius sagged. "Of course, since I had no passport, I had to hitchhike my way here. And searching an entire country didn't help at all, especially when I'd never been there. It was a miracle I found your shrine in time for the eclipse."

"So you learned Japanese from Mina's family?" said Kazuya.

Julius shook his head. "Of course not. I only knew them for a few weeks. It turned out that I really liked manga when I was your age, so I tried to learn Japanese so that I could read more of it."

Kazuya continued to stare at him.

Julius blinked. "…That might sound like sarcasm. It isn't."

"No, that makes sense," said Kazuya.

"Can I ask another question?" said Soma. Julius nodded. "How did they lose you? You had all that backup, and Arikado was there, too."

Julius sighed. "It's a… stupid story. All of us did what we thought was the right thing, but I got screwed over by bad luck. Just because I didn't carry my wallet into battle…"

"Who carries their wallet into battle?" said Mina.

Everyone but Julius and Mina raised their hands.

"A badge and ID card makes it much easier to explain things to police," said Yoko.

"I lived as a nomad for a while, so there's not many options there," said Kazuya.

"Where else am I going to put all the money?" said Soma.

"Not the bags of money. Your wallet," said Mina. "Didn't you leave it with me back in Castlevania?"

"Well, yes. It isn't easy to replace an American driver's license in Japan."

"There you go," grumbled Julius. "I told them, where there's room for a wallet, there's room for a cross, and that cross saved my life." His fist tightened. "When the castle crumbled—yes, it does that every time Dracula is killed—it scattered the survivors across the countryside. Not far; we estimated a five kilometer radius, but it dropped my comatose ass in a river, where a farmer found me. Good old Mr. Moraru." He sighed. "Fished me out and put me in the only bed in the house. And when some highly suspicious characters showed up on his doorstep, obviously criminals or government, he was brave enough to lie to them. Then he brought me to the hospital as his nephew Stefan."

"And they didn't even check the hospitals?" said Mina incredulously.

"Of course they did," said Julius. "Except since patient confidentiality is a thing and they only looked like government, all they could do was go to the front desk and ask for Julius Belmont, which didn't work because, well, Stefan Moraru. Once I woke up, Mr. Moraru told me what had happened, and urged me to leave the country as soon as possible. So I hopped on a boat to…" Julius paused. "What is Japanese for Turcia?"

"Turkey," said Yoko. "He went to Turkey."

"Yes, there," said Julius. "After I was sure that I'd dodged the KGB, I lived as a vagabond for about twenty years, until I made the jump to Japan. And the rest is history." He stretched. "Now, what about you?"

It took Kazuya a while to realize that Julius was talking to him. "What about me?"

"Where are you from? Where did you learn to fight?"

Total silence reigned as Kazuya sorted out his thoughts.

"Can I answer for him?" said Soma at last. "It's not a secret. No offense, but you're a little long-winded."

"Go ahead," said Kazuya.

Soma nodded. "Kazuya is from an alternate timeline that split off at the latest in 1999." Julius stiffened. "And as far as we know, there's no evidence that this has anything to do with you fighting Dracula."

"I didn't know he was real until today," said Kazuya.

"Exactly," said Soma. "Long story short, his world's version of Stephen Hawking built a teleporter network. Somehow, it malfunctioned, and broke the barrier between this world and the world of demons… worlds of demons?"

"Worlds," said Mina.

"Worlds," said Yoko.

"Worlds," said Kazuya.

"Worlds, then," said Soma. "Demons started flooding in, the military panicked, and the whole country turned into some kind of postapocalyptic hellscape. That's where Kazuya learned to fight."

There was more silence.

"And that's it?" said Julius.

"No, but it would take too long to explain everything, and I don't know what's relevant," said Soma.

"And how did you come to this world?" said Yoko.

"I have no idea," said Kazuya.

"So how did you apply to college, with no legal identity?"

Kazuya blinked. "Never mind, I misunderstood the question. One day, I woke up in the body of the Kazuya of this timeline." He shuddered. "I know there's a moral dilemma here. The Kazuya of this world might be dead, and I killed him."

"…I understand," said Yoko. "As long as you didn't do it on purpose."

"Does…" Soma broke off. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but… does your family know?"

You do realize that not answering is the same as saying no?

Kazuya nodded. He couldn't deceive his mother. She'd lost her only son, and pretending to fill that gap in her life would only make things worse. Many tears were shed that night. In the end, she'd said that whatever world he was from, he was still her son, and she loved him.

He was still trying to figure out how to break the whole demon thing to her.

"One last question," said Yoko. "Do you think that what happened in your timeline could happen here?"

Kazuya shook his head. "My world was destroyed because of several highly volatile circumstances. The specific events that led to a nuclear disaster are…you didn't mention the nukes, did you?"

Soma shook his head.

"Well, there were nukes."

"North Korean?" asked Yoko.

"American," said Kazuya.

Yoko sputtered. "I'm sorry, America nuked Japan?!"

Kazuya nodded. "With their troops still stationed in Tokyo. I'm willing to chalk it up to the launch codes being given to a terrible ambassador rather than it being the collective decision of the whole country. For some reason, the ambassador was Thor, Norse god of thunder."

Mina blinked. "How is that even possible? Did he replace the real ambassador?"

"I don't know. Most people don't keep track of ambassadors. Do you know the name of the current American ambassador?"

"Suzume Imai is the ambassador from Japan to America, and Elliot Fitzherbert is the ambassador from America to Japan," said Soma promptly. [A/N None of them are real people].

"…All right. But most people don't know the names of ambassadors off the top of their—"

"Lavinia Stoica." said Julius.

"…Seriously?"

Julius shrugged. "To be fair, I've been to the embassy."

Kazuya blinked. Should I know this? Is it normal in this new wor—

"No, ambassadors aren't common knowledge," said Soma. "But you should at least know who the last Prime Minister was. And no, I'm not talking about the one who had the breakdown."

"…I never did thank you for that," said Kazuya.

"Any time," said Soma.

"Anyways, America isn't nearly as nuke-happy as it was in 1999," said Kazuya. "The Cold War and mutual nuclear annihilation was still fresh in everyone's minds." [5]

"Eight years seems a little excessive, though," said Mina.

Yoko shrugged. "Eight years of peace doesn't cancel out fifty years of everyone expecting America to nuke the USSR."

"Does forty?" said Kazuya.

There was silence.

"If it makes you feel any better, I think Cold War paranoia is over," said Mina. "They'd nuke us for new paranoia."

"Fair enough," said Kazuya. "I don't think things would get to that point, either. Most of the panic was less about… it was less about invaders and more about the fear of the unknown. There's a difference between being invaded by… say, Canada, and being invaded by space aliens. Either way, we wouldn't be happy about it, but with Canada… no, with the space aliens, we'd be panicking over space diseases, the prospect of aliens enslaving us, what strange powers and technologies they have, what else is out there, etc. Even if demons aren't common knowledge, you at least have the Agency. The government in my world had no idea what to do."

Yoko nodded. "Knowledge versus fear. A tale as old as spies."

"It's much easier to face a demon when you know they're not immune to bullets," said Kazuya.

"…I was going to tell you this story about how two of my ancestors rallied a city of civilians against hordes of monsters and armed them with just salt and holy water, but that's even better," said Yoko.

"The last piece of the puzzle is Stephen Hawking," said Kazuya.

"Isn't he dead?" said Mina.

"He is, but that's not the point," said Kazuya. "I didn't know much about my world's Stephen Hawking, but what I do know is that mine was more of an engineer and a programmer than a theoretical physicist. I don't know if someone could use your Hawking's notes to make the teleporter, but that's because I don't remember what he did in my world, and I don't understand what he did in this one."

"Let me check the internet," said Soma, taking out his phone. "Black holes, singularities, quantum space properties… oh, and he appeared on Star Trek and the Simpsons."

"Wait, how are you getting internet?" said Mina.

Soma shrugged. "Magic. It doesn't have to make sense."

"People can see us in mirrors, right?" said Kazuya. "And we can see other people? That means that light can move between worlds. And since light is (technically) an electromagnetic wave, radio waves like wi-fi can move through mirrors, too."

Soma looked around the room frantically. "There aren't any around here, are they?"

Kazuya pointed at the projector. "There's a few in the lens. And I think the lights use reflective metal in the housing, to make them seem brighter." At this, Soma sagged.

"But if light passes through a mirror rather than reflecting, wouldn't that change the image?" said Mina. "Unless it somehow inducts new waves instead."

"Wouldn't induction cause the parent wave to lose energy?" said Kazuya.

Mina shrugged. "Maybe the mirror magic takes that into account? Unless it only applies to mirrors that are close to us when we're inside. Or, since perfectly reflective white bodies don't exist, maybe the absorbed light already passes into the mirror world and we don't notice because it's part of established science?"

"But wouldn't we still detect energy lost through heat?" said Kazuya.

"Depends on how accurately we can measure heat and light," said Mina.

Soma coughed. "We can experiment later. Do you think anyone could use your Stephen Hawking's work to make a teleporter?"

"Um…"

Nobody answered.

"In that case, I guess we can mark that one off the list," said Soma. He paused. "I think we should have started with that."

"No, it's good to know that people like us make a difference," said Yoko.

Mina looked around. "Does anyone else have any questions?"

"Can we take these home?" asked Soma, pointing to the muffins.

"Go ahead. I can always make more," said Julius.

Soma nodded. "I have more plastic containers at my dorm," he said. "So I take Kazuya back to the dorm, pick them up, come back here, and split the rest five ways. How many muffins does everyone want?"

After some debate, they all came to a reasonable split.

"Any other questions?" said Mina.

Nobody said anything.

"In that case, Yoko, Julius, can we talk?" said Mina. She turned and nodded at both Kazuya and Soma. "In private?"

"Sure," said Soma. "I'm taking Kazuya first anyways."

"I'm not doing anything tonight," said Julius.

"I have to be back by eight," said Yoko. She paused. "Does time move differently in this world?"

"It doesn't," said Soma. "I would have warned you if it moved faster, and if it moved slower, I'd be in here all the time. Let's see…" He checked his phone. "It's 6:14. How much time do you need?"

"Is thirty minutes okay, Yoko?" said Mina.

"Fine by me," said Yoko.

"In that case, let's sync our timers for twenty-five," said Mina. "And just so we're on the same page, you enter the Mirror World when the timer's up."

Kazuya blinked. Why is she avoiding Soma?

"All right, twenty-five minutes starts in three, two, one…" Soma stood up and put his phone in his pocket. "Shall we?"

And why doesn't he care?

X

[A/N I give up. I can't write a Texan accent. Let's just say that Leon has a Texas drawl that doesn't extend to his vocabulary]

"…And that was when my eighth great-grandchild learned that she had a talent for blacksmithing," said Leon.

"I thought women couldn't be blacksmiths back then," said Doctor Dude.

Leon shook his head. "If their husbands died, they could take up the trade." He paused. "Am I boring you?"

"No, no, go on," said Doctor Dude, pulling skewers of sliced bread out of the campfire. The park was closed that day due to police inquiries, so they made do with the fire pit in the apartment. Talking to thin air in front of a fire had drawn stares from the other residents, but his partner had explained it as a Christian ritual. Only one person had the gall to accuse the Westerners of being wrong about their own religion, but Mr. Addams had somehow managed to convince her that it was a reenactment of the Binding of Isaac. Or at least, she realized that neither of them knew the other's language well enough to have a proper debate, and gave up.

"I don't suppose you'd like to hear about how my descendants moved to Japan?" said Leon.

"No, go ahead," said Doctor Dude.

"Alrighty then," said Leon. "This was long before the Iron Curtain fell, around… when was that war? Ah, yes, the one with the Axis powers…"

Doctor Dude had taken Leon for a young man at first sight, possibly an international student at the local university. His gentle insistence that he was a knight from the Middle Ages had seemed like a way to cope with his tragic death, something that the doctor had seen too many times. It was inevitable in his line of business.

But once Doctor Dude got him to talk about his family, Leon changed. His golden hair silvered and thinned, his calloused hands gnarled into bony sticks, and his polished armor and surcoat turned into a thick, woolen tunic and oiled cloak. Still, the most dramatic change of all was the beaming smile that stretched across his wrinkled face, basking in the glow of secondhand pride.

"So, uh… awkward question, but why do you have that accent?" said Doctor Dude.

"Accent?"

"Why do you sound like you're from Texas?"

"Oh, yes," said Leon. "I learned English from my descendants in Texas."

Doctor Dude nodded, and generously buttered two slices of toast. He placed one on a paper plate, another on a metal plate, and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on both. "Cinnamon sugar toast. The second-best way to enjoy cinnamon." Then he dropped the paper plate into the fire.

"Hm. How does this work?" said Leon.

"You've seen grave offerings, haven't you?" said Doctor Dude, watching the butter bubble. "When objects die, they leave behind ghosts. They don't have enough will to last long, unless another ghost claims them."

"Yes, but I doubt that's the only way to destroy it," said Leon.

Doctor Dude shrugged. "How else? Is a jenga tower dead when you knock it over? If you make a spaceship with Lego and take it apart, where did the spaceship go? Does a rusty sword cease to be a sword? No, if you want something dead, you burn it." He paused. "I suppose you could let it rot, but if you don't catch it right when it stops being food and starts being mold, it'll go to food heaven. And I guess you could dissolve it in acid, but hydrochloric acid isn't something you can just buy at the supermarket."

Doctor Dude poured himself a cup of water. "Sorry I can't do anything to drink," said Doctor Dude. "Most liquids don't burn well, even with paper bowls and cups. I'd try alcohol, but Mr. Addams is on the wagon, and I'd rather not tempt him."

Leon's brow creased. "What wagon?"

Doctor Dude paused. "It means he used to be a drunk, but now he's avoiding alcohol," he explained.

"Good for him," said Leon.

Doctor Dude poked the charred bread. "I think it's done," said Doctor Dude. "I'd grab it for you, but I don't have ghost tongs, and I'd rather not start tomorrow with first degree burns all over my hands."

Leon gingerly picked up the toast, and bit. Pearly tears moistened his eyes.

"Are you alright?"

Leon nodded. "It's delicious. Just… I haven't eaten anything in centuries. It's… too much."

Doctor Dude nodded. "Then let's start with something blander. Toast or bread? Butter or no butter?"

"Bread, no butter," said Leon. "Although, there is one thing I'm confused about."

"Oh?"

"If you used fire to sacrifice the bread so I could eat it, but you also used fire to toast the bread, why didn't I get untoasted bread?" said Leon. "For that matter, wasn't bread cooked in fire? Why don't I get raw dough?"

"That's… a good question," said Doctor Dude. "Want to try?"

They experimented. It turned out that the ghost of the object passed on in the state it was in immediately before it met the sacrificial fire, so they could pass Leon toast, raw dough, and bread.

X

Soma led Kazuya through the campus maintenance tunnels. Even though Soma took care to find a route without any mirrors or glass, there was still the danger of being seen by someone carrying their phones. Soma's solution was… novel, to say the least.

"You're sure this is going to work?" said Kazuya, adjusting the hood of the dark, billowing cloak. It brushed the floor as he walked with a ragged edge that Kazuya was sure had been carefully cut with the pair of Goodbye Puppy™ safety scissors that he kept on his desk.

"We'll only know if something goes wrong," said Soma, fiddling with the plague doctor mask he'd improvised with toilet paper rolls, dental floss, and black paint. He had about a foot on Kazuya, so his cloak didn't drag nearly as much. "But yeah, this ought to spook the onlookers."

"What about phone cameras?" said Kazuya.

"We don't show up on camera for some reason," said Soma. "Mina and I checked."

"I feel like every villain from Scooby Doo," muttered Kazuya.

Soma shrugged. "If a few people think our school is haunted, that's still better than them recognizing us."

They walked in silence, until they reached the History building.

"Soma."

"Yes?"

"Your power is to absorb magic," said Kazuya. "Is there any danger of absorbing my demon summoning ability by accident?"

"No," said Soma immediately.

"Why?"

"I can only absorb magic from something that's been alive," said Soma. "Demons, yes. Plants, yes. The undead, yes. Buildings… well, the consensus is that Castlevania is practically alive. Machines, no. I can't absorb magic from your computer."

"Then what about Naoki?"

Soma stopped walking. "No," he said. "I can't do it by accident, and even if I did, I never know what I'm going to get."

"I see," said Kazuya. "And why don't your friends want you listening?"

Soma turned around to face him. "That's a rather personal question, isn't it?" said Soma sharply.

"I'm still asking," said Kazuya, unimpressed. He'd endured far worse than scorn from friends.

"…It's not that they don't trust me, it's that they don't trust anybody," said Soma at last. "All of them, they're descended from ancient clans of vampire hunters, shrine clergy, magicians. They have secrets they've sworn not to tell outsiders. I'm not so arrogant that I'd ask them to spill for me."

"Even if it's important?"

"They'd tell me if it's important," said Soma firmly.

They walked in silence again, until they emerged from the History building.

"You trust your friends," said Kazuya. It wasn't a question.

"With my life," said Soma.

"I'm not sure if I envy or pity you," said Kazuya.

The air blazed with heat. No flames appeared, but the stagnant air took on the odor of hellfire: burning oil with a pinch of sulfur. Soma stopped in his tracks and glared at Kazuya.

"All right, I've just had about enough this," he snapped. "What are you trying to get at? If you want to tell me something, just say it! If you can't tell me anything, let me know! Don't just drop cryptic hints and expect me to take it as an answer!"

Something stirred in Kazuya's sea of memory. Before he could snuff it, the little spark bubbled to the surface, igniting the dead brush of forgotten memory, memories he'd locked away and—

It made sense, on some level, that Takeshi's blood smelled like worm. He'd stolen what was at the time Kazuya's strongest demon, and didn't care that it was a larger version of a creature sadistic children would pick out of the dirt and squish.

It also made sense that the carpet, formerly bright blue, was now a dirty red. The Gaians deliberately desecrated the halls with the blood of their enemies, partially out of symbolism and partially out of spite.

The distant, clinical part of him recalled something called shock. Not like electric shock, which was more like paralysis, but medical shock, when the brain shuts down and leaves everything to autopilot. It was a common sight in this war-torn land; widows and widowers, orphans, and those who lost their children would wander in a daze, with people taking care that they wouldn't wander too far.

What a strange thing to remember. After all, there was nobody around except for him, Aoi, and his demons. And obviously, there was nothing in his arms. Cradling absolutely nothing…

"Kazuya… Kazuya… KAZUYA!"

Kazuya blinked. The bloodied, polished walls of the Basilica vanished, replaced with the soundless stretch of grass between buildings. Soma's anger had evaporated, leaving only concern. "Are you all right?" He'd retrieved a paper bag and a water bottle from somewhere in his pockets. "Here, take these."

Something must have shown on Kazuya's face, because instead of moving towards him and handing him the bag and water, Soma held them out and motioned for him to come.

Kazuya gingerly plucked the bottle from Soma's hands and drank. "…I had friends once," he said quietly. "Friends I trusted with my life. We were all we had left." He swallowed the water without tasting it. "It wasn't quite a betrayal," he whispered, his words like a roar in the silent world. "We decided our values were more important than our friendship. They joined the factions, killed anyone who got in their way. I had to stop them, so I…I…"

I killed them. The unsaid words hung heavy in the air. -

Soma's worry turned to horror. "I… I'm sorry."

They said nothing more for the whole journey.

When they got back to the dorm, Kazuya went straight to the basement. Intellectually, he knew that nobody would judge or blame him. But the part of him that kept him alive, the part that snapped at him that he couldn't let his guard down for a minute, and to never, ever show weakness, drove him to seek isolation. He motioned to summon Pascal, but stopped. Comfort wasn't what he needed right now.

For the first time in decades, he cried for Takeshi Fudou.

X

Yoko could lose her job.

The words echoed in Mina's mind.

How could I have been so selfish? I wasn't trying to help, I wasn't trying to save anyone, I just went because I was curious. What's best for her, and all of us, is to lie low and—

Mina stopped. Be reasonable, Mina. Pessimism and realism aren't the same thing. The disappearances are probably supernatural, so the cops can't handle this. The Agency's been here for ages, and they haven't had any luck yet. And since they think Kazuya's the culprit, they'll be distracted by his trail, so it's up to us to find the real killer.

"…Mina? Mina."

Mina blinked. Yoko had been calling her name for a while. "…Are they gone?" said Mina at last.

"I think so," said Yoko. "Is there something bothering you?"

Mina nodded.

"Look, I know I said that you'd know that I'm not after Soma because Julius isn't, here, but—"

Mina shook her head. "I'm not worried about that," she said. "If you really were after Soma, you wouldn't have used Julius's absence as a proof, and Julius wouldn't have shown himself so easily."

"Oh. Good," said Yoko. "But seriously, are you okay?"

Mina nodded. "Nothing's upsetting me right now," she said, choosing not to spill her anxieties. "But I do have a question that's been bothering me. And since it's about Dracula, I couldn't ask Soma."

Julius nodded. "Well, you're talking to the experts."

"Good." Mina took in a deep breath. "What makes Dracula… special?"

Yoko blinked. "What do you mean by special?"

"It's… I guess what I want to ask is how he became so powerful, but that's still not quite it," said Mina. "It's more like… have you ever played Final Fantasy IX?"

Julius nodded, but Yoko shook her head.

"There's a boss named Beatrix, and she's supposed to be the strongest knight on the continent," continued Mina. "She does live up to her reputation, and she wipes out the party when they first meet."

Yoko and Julius waited patiently for her to continue.

"I…" Mina took a deep breath sorted out her thoughts. "What always bothered me about Beatrix is that I never saw a reason for her to be as strong as she is. She lives in the starting part of the map, where the monsters are weakest, and the other knights in her kingdom are pathetic. Since nobody's even close to her level, she can't improve by sparring, so she can only train with practice swings. I'd understand if she were a war hero, like General Leo or Sephiroth, because they'd have to fight enemy soldiers all the time. But her kingdom hadn't been to war in her lifetime. It just felt like I was missing something.

"That's what's bothering me about Dracula. There are tons of other vampires out there, but why is Dracula the only one I've ever heard of? Why is he alone so powerful? Why haven't we seen any other magical castles of doom that regenerate every century? Why is he the only one who can tap into Chaos? What makes him the Dark Lord?"

Was that a stupid question? Mina cringed.

There was a long pause.

"Ah," said Yoko. "I see what you mean. You're asking two different questions here, and we only know the answer to one. We know why he has the reputation he has, but not why he's strong."

"Aren't those the same thing?" said Mina. "I mean, isn't he famous for being strong?"

"Not quite," said Yoko. "He's mostly known for what he did, but he couldn't have done it without being strong. It's… it doesn't mater how strong he was, only that he was strong enough."

"That's just quibbling," said Mina.

"Not entirely," said Yoko. "Do you know why Dracula is famous?"

"Um… there was something about the book being placed in the public domain in America, which made it cheap to adapt to the stage—" She stopped when she saw Yoko's expression.

"…I admit I could have worded that a little better," said Yoko. "Disregarding pop culture, why did Sypha, Trevor, Grant, and Alucard kill Dracula six hundred years ago?"

"Because he tried to kill everyone in Wallachia," said Mina automatically. Then she realized what she had said. "Which is completely out of character for a vampire. Vampires kill some people, but they need human blood to survive, so killing everyone would be counterproductive. Dracula was mad with grief, and didn't care, but no other vampire would even try."

"Exactly," said Yoko.

Mina crossed her arms. "So he's more famous than any other vampire because he did the most damage. That does make sense, but what made him stronger than the rest in the first place?"

Julius coughed. "That's a good question, but let's clear something up first. Vampires aren't as strong as you think."

Easy for you to say.

"And no, that's not just because I'm a professional," said Julius. "It's more of…" He and Yoko exchanged some words.

"Have you ever heard of survivor bias?" said Yoko.

Mina nodded. "It's when a trend appears to be bigger than it really is because we don't see the failures. Like how music and movies weren't necessarily better back in the day; they used to produce about the same amount of garbage as we do today, but we only record and remember the hits."

"Like that," said Julius. "You only hear about vampires who make trouble, or at least the ones who are strong enough to be worth mentioning. Vampirism does make someone stronger, but not so much stronger that they can overpower more than one person at a time. Most vampires these days don't live by the first and sword."

Mina tilted her head. "So you're saying that 'stronger than most vampires' doesn't mean much?"

"You said that Beatrix was the strongest knight in Alexandria?" said Julius. "This is like calling her the strongest person in Alexandria."

"All right, fair enough," said Mina. "But that still doesn't answer my question."

"It wasn't supposed to, but I had to give you context," said Julius. "Dracula is the strongest opponent the Belmonts have ever faced, and he was a vampire. But it was not his vampirism that made him formidable. It was his magic." He turned to Yoko. "Do you mind explaining this one?"

Yoko nodded. "The short version is that few of Dracula's powers stem from vampirism, and nobody knows for sure where he got them or how they work. The Belnades and Belmonts have been studying him longer than anyone else, and we barely know what's going on. I think it's safe to say that this is why nobody else has become as powerful as him. At least, not through his methods."

"Celia's cult tried to make a new Dark Lord," countered Mina.

"Celia got herself killed trying to raise a Dark Lord, Dmitri lost control of his copied power and died, and we believe the rest of the cultists were only there to be fleeced," said Yoko. "I think it's safe to say that they didn't know what they were doing."

"What happened to Dario?"

"Booked it the moment Soma stole Agni's soul. Never thought he'd be the smartest person in the whole cult." Yoko took out another sheet of paper. "Here's what little we do know about Dracula's powers."

At the top of the page, she drew two columns, one labelled 'Powers' and the other labelled 'Why?'. Under 'Powers', she wrote aloud, "Mass summoning of monsters. Repeated resurrections. Chaos. Whatever the hell it means to be the Dark Lord. Castlevania. We have seen eldritch locations before, but we don't know how to make them. We know what he can do, but not why."

"Wait, vampires don't usually come back to life?" said Mina.

"Not if you finish them off properly," said Julius. "And yes, we've tried something new every time."

"Castlevania doesn't just revive Dracula," clarified Yoko. "It resurrects everything in the castle. We used to think that he summoned new demons every time, but Christopher Belmont had the misfortune of braving Castlevania twice. Many of the monsters he'd slain were rather verbose in their desire for revenge."

"Huh. I think Soma said something about that once," said Mina.

Yoko continued her notes. "Here's what little we know about where he got his powers." Under 'Why', she wrote 'Red Rock', 'Dominance', and 'Chaos'. "Julius, do you mind telling Mina about the legend of the Red Rock?"

"Red Rock?" repeated Mina incredulously.

"Do the words coccumque bis tinctum lapis mean anything to you?" said Julius. [6]

"Red Rock it is, then," said Mina.

"One of our oldest legends says that there were two ancient magic artifacts that granted power to vampires," said Julius. "There was one called the Black Rock, which made it always night around a certain forest, without killing any of the plants. Dracula has the Red Rock, which lets him command Death. The reaper, not dying," he clarified.

"There is one theory that Death brings him back, but it doesn't explain the hundred-year cycle, or why he let him come back as Soma," said Yoko.

"And it still doesn't explain how you can kill Death," said Mina.

Yoko tapped 'Dominance'. "Then there's Dominance. We don't know where he got that power or why he's the only one who has it, or even why Soma inherited it. Since we only knew the basics and we didn't have a test subject, it was easy to blame it for everything. Dracula blighted crops? Stole the soul of a plague demon. Raised the dead? A necromancer, or just a bunch of zombies." She sighed. "And then Soma came along and ruined half our theories." She muttered darkly in Romanian.

"Yoko?" said Mina.

Yoko blinked. "Right. And then there's Chaos. We know absolutely nothing about it," said Yoko. "Apparently, it's the malice in human hearts." She clicked her pen and wrote, saying out loud, "What does that mean? Why does it need a host? Why did it choose Dracula? Does the Dark Lord need to be chosen by Chaos? Why is the Dark Lord the opposite of God? Who was the Dark Lord before Dracula? We don't know any of these things."

She sighed again. "That's the best we can do, I'm afraid. Does that answer your question?"

Mina nodded shakily. "I think it did. Thank you."

They sat in silence.

"So… do you want to play Go Fish?" said Julius, taking out a deck of cards.

"Sure," said Yoko.

"All right," said Mina.

They played.

"So, uh… one last question," said Mina. "You didn't tell us your legal surname because Soma was here, right?"

Julius cracked a smile. "My name is Julius Velthomer," he said with visible relish. [7] It sounded a little stilted, as if he'd had to practice in front of a mirror.

"If it's all right with you, I'll be returning first," said Yoko.

"Go ahead," said Mina. She turned to Julius. "You can go ahead of me. I'm not doing anything else."

"No, you have school," said Julius. "I have nothing else to do and a deck of cards to do it with."

They played until the timer went off. Soma returned shortly afterwards, cloak and mask in hand, and as agreed, picked up Yoko. When Mina's turn came, she waved goodbye to Julius.

Once they left the building, Mina stopped him. "We need to plan our next move. All three of us."

X

Whenever a new Agent is recruited, the first question they are asked (well, besides 'what is your name', 'how do you write your name', and 'how many nipples have you got, laddie') is what they think is the Agency's most important job. Most say that it is fighting monsters or protecting the innocent. Those who suspect a trick question say that it is maintaining harmony between the natural and supernatural. Others say it's maintaining the lie that the world is normal. All grand goals, but not jobs.

In Agent Fireball's opinion, their most important job was sorting the wheat from the chaff. Not just chaff like ordinary criminals dressed up as monsters, but wheat where the bank robber was a latent magician who thought their newfound powers made them invincible, or the drug dealer who didn't miraculously never get shot, they were just a zombie who could ignore pain. At least, that's what he told himself whenever his coworkers or bosses asked him to look over their reports, or take overtime and look at a crime scene. He'd been a cop before the Agency picked him up; he hadn't been a forensics officer when he started, but he was just as good as one now.

He finished signing the memo on the arson, and stared at his newest trouble.

On the surface, it was nothing new. Mysterious death, decapitation, body dumped on a hillside. He'd seen every one of these details before, but not together. It was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle after your toddler niece tossed in half the pieces from the other ten sets and choked on a few for good measure.

Agent Fireball sighed, and flipped to the autopsy.

Every Agent fell into one of two traps at the start of their career. The first was forgetting that they were occult police, trying to solve the crime on purely mundane terms, and shutting down the moment they encountered something they'd been raised to think was impossible. Agent Fireball had been one of those rookies. The second, more common trap was fixating a little too much on the occult aspect, to the point where the sheer variety of magic paralyzed them. A murder where the victim was found caked in glowing mud could be a sea spirit made from bioluminescent plankton, a ghost that sprayed ectoplasm all over the place, or an elaborate hoax involving green glow-in-the-dark powder and a very strong flashlight. An effective Agent had to climb out of those traps and teeter somewhere in between.

Not even supernatural criminals could hide every trace of their crimes. In fact, supernatural criminals tended to leave more behind, since they assumed that the police would simply stare goggle-eyed at their handiwork and give up. That was why Agent Fireball had signed a request for info on recent gasoline robberies. Whether the spark comes from a lighter or from a contract with the spirits, fire needs fuel, and very few fire wizards are powerful enough to burn down a modern metal-and-concrete building with magic alone. And in the event that there was something that didn't leave any mundane traces, it would leave plenty of magical ones, and Fireball could easily pass the problem down to an expert.

The autopsy revealed that the victim had died between two and four in the morning, after both the flash of light (12:21 am) and the drunks (1:16 am). The heavy rains had washed away most of the blood, but the police had traced the murder to a nearby alleyway. It couldn't have been a better spot for a crime; a bend made it invisible from the street, and the surrounding buildings were a bakery, a clothing store, a garage, and a bookstore, all businesses that close for the night.

Agents Reaper, Lily, and Dragon passed by the site of the dump at 1:41 am, and there was no body then. They had (unsuccessfully) chased the drunks down a rocky goat trail, and on their way back, decided that it wasn't necessary to brave the climb, and instead went around the long way to the normal hiking trail. This walk took them around the hillside, and Agent Reaper should have spotted it with his night vision. While Agent Fireball knew that most people didn't pay attention to their surroundings, they'd also added that they were keeping an eye out in case the drunks were hiding.

An early morning jogger discovered the body at 4:32 am. He had mistaken the corpse for a drunk, and ran over to help before this poor soul contracted hypothermia. Then the jogger realized that the stranger was not only missing a pulse, but a head. He called the cops immediately.

Agent Fireball doubted that the drunks were responsible. Anyone who willingly returned to the scene of the crime to dispose of evidence of a second crime would be incredibly stupid. Granted, they were drunk, but even a panicked drunk would do something stupid in their haste to get away, not return.

He moved on to the part that described the victim. No signs of a struggle, no marks on the body that could have plausibly killed him. The decapitation was messily done, which was no surprise. While he had little firsthand experience, he read somewhere that the guillotine was invented because execution by axe or sword required multiple agonizing strikes. The decapitation likely took place after death; adrenaline in the face of certain death made the body surprisingly strong even in the face of a gaping neck wound, and if the victim hadn't fought back, there would at least be some kind of injury from running away.

Fireball suspected that the victim's neck was cut with a sword or knife (that wasn't a cleaver). It was hard to explain to amateur cops or people who didn't work in butcher shops or kitchens, but the neck looked like it had been sawn with a non-serrated blade (Agent Fireball always kept stomach tablets and plastic bags to crime scenes).

That was the how. The why could be anything.

A murder with no sign of injury. Ominous enough; it's much easier to kill someone through the body than try to hit something squishy on the skull. Something was special about the head. It sent a message, just one that Fireball didn't recognize.

A decapitation that took place after death. Without the head, identifying the body would be much more difficult. Not impossible, but more time and resources than the average crook would be expected to have.

A body dump on an open field, a field right next to the woods, no less. Usually implies that the killer wanted the body to be found. A classic gang tactic. And yet, no head. What was the point of showing off a body if nobody could tell who it was?

Of course, there were always the standard excuses for inexplicable phenomena. Crimes of passion. Elaborate misdirection. And as always, occult reasons.

Occult reasons were Agent Fireball's greatest weakness. He had plenty of experience with mundane crime, and he'd been on the receiving end of several occult methods. But reasons… it could be sacrifices to a dark god, a cruel but necessary ritual the ensure that the world doesn't end, or even because of a convincing fake spell found off the internet. Too many possibilities for his liking.

Normally, he would call in one of his colleagues. But head office had been swamped with the fallout from the Phantom Thieves and the… Situation (you could always hear the pause and the capital S); half the agents were working overtime on those, and the other half was trying to fill the gap. Training groups weren't supposed to be one person managing twenty, and Agent Fireball was sure that his colleagues were faring no better.

None of Agent Fireball's charges had any idea what was going on. To their credit, they had asked Yoko and done some independent research, but none came up with anything more substantial than 'one head is lighter than a whole body, so the summoner could have used it instead'. That was true, but getting away with multiple murders is usually more difficult even if you only had to carry a couple dozen pounds at a time.

Well, Yoko was an expert in real magic. Fireball had shallow but broad knowledge, but he too dealt with real magic too often, and lost sight of…well, not reality. He and Yoko were so immersed in reality, they lost track of fantasy, an affliction that affects far too many people. At times like these, you needed an expert who knew not how magic worked, but how people thought magic worked.

Like every good cop, he had informants. "Hi, Hijiri. Remember how you asked for weird murders? Well…"

X

Mina didn't like swimming in the ocean. Oh, it wasn't because she was a bad swimmer; she used to race 200-meter butterflies in high school (she usually came in close to last, but anyone who can swim 200 solid meters of butterfly was worthy of respect). And she didn't mind frolicking along the shoreline or treading water, either. She just didn't like swimming the racing strokes in the ocean.

Most of the beaches Mina visited had cloudy, sandy water. Even with goggles, you couldn't see the bottom. The waves could be carrying sharks, stinging jellyfish, or any kind of trash. The lifeguard could be screaming at you to get out of a riptide, and you'd never notice them. Of course, Mina's rational mind told her there was nothing to worry about, and yet she worried all the same.

Being in the Mirror World was just like swimming in the ocean, sans sand and sharks. She had that same feeling, claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time, that there was something lurking just out of sight. It didn't help that the Mirror World sometimes reflected changes in the real world, so huge trees would sway soundlessly in the wind, and the crossing lights would flash on and off without the familiar beeps.

It would have been unbearable without someone else around.

After Mina admitted this to Soma (who said he didn't mind the atmosphere), he said he'd ask his other roommates to let her stay in his room while he dropped off Julius.

Unfortunately, Soma's other roommate spotted them before they could warn him. He fell out of his chair, but Soma quickly removed his mask and waved frantically. The roommate calmed down, but he shot a dirty look at the ceiling for some reason.

"Mina, this is Naoki, my roommate," said Soma after they crossed over. "Naoki, this is Mina, my friend."

"Pleased to meet you," said Naoki cordially. He had a low, quiet voice.

"Likewise," said Mina.

"Just as a heads up, Naoki already knows that Kazuya's a summoner, but he promised not to turn him in," said Soma. He looked around. "Where is Kazuya, anyways?"

Naoki shook his head. "I don't know. His coats are all here, so he's still in the building," he added.

"It's alright, I can text him," said Soma.

Naoki nodded silently.

"I'm off, then," said Soma, and he flashed into the mirror. Mina waved him goodbye.

Naoki went back to whatever he was doing on his computer, but he kept glancing at Mina as if she were about to pounce.

"So," said Mina, sitting down on the ladder for one of the bunk beds. "How did you get mixed up in all this?"

Naoki took out his earbuds. "I don't want to talk about it," said Naoki, in a tone that was too casual to not be forced.

"Okay," said Mina.

There was an awkward pause.

"I'm sorry, that was rude," said Naoki. "It's… I don't mind demons or magic or ghosts, and I'm fine with talking about what I know, but I… I've been through a lot, and I don't want to talk about how I know it."

Mina nodded. "Actually, I've been wondering if you could help me with something."

Naoki stiffened.

"I… I think I'm going to be in a lot of dangerous situations from now on," Mina continued. "I'm not going to go looking for trouble, but I think I need to learn how to protect myself against monsters. I'm a miko, and I've got my bow, but that's not really a self-defense weapon."

"I… don't think my skills are applicable," said Naoki nervously. "Why don't you ask Soma or Kazuya?"

"Kazuya's a summoner, and I don't think they do a lot in the way of physical combat," said Mina. "And Soma… he's, um…" Mina raised a hand above her head. "He's over a foot taller than me and weighs something like two hundred pounds. What works for him might not work for me."

"Then I don't think I can help you, either," said Naoki. "I used to be a demon summoner."

"Oh," said Mina. It was incredible how quickly you could get used to something like this. "Do you know anyone else, then?"

Naoki shook his head. "The best I can say is that running can save your life. Get a good pair of shoes, take them everywhere."

There was more silence, but less awkward this time. They had said everything they needed to say, and now they could move on with their lives. Naoki had returned to his game, Mina started playing on her phone, and neither of them as much as glanced at the other until Soma returned.

X

"Who is Celia?"

Kazuya had been crying. It didn't show on his dead expression, but his face was red and swollen. Soma decided not to press the issue, and answered his question.

"Another illegal demon summoner, one who actually killed people for Magnetite," said Soma. "She tried to lure me for my powers back in December. Ended up getting killed by something she summoned." Which was true; after all, 'summon' could also mean something as mundane as 'call someone to court' or 'telephone a friend and ask them to enter your evil castle of doom'.

Kazuya nodded. "And what did you call us here for?" he asked Mina.

"The murders," said Mina. "You heard Yoko. They think you're responsible."

"I heard," said Kazuya. There was a pause. "You don't think I did it, do you?"

"No," said Soma. "You tried to talk us down when you could have sent Cerberus at us, long before you know I had powers. If you were the murderer, it would have been easier to just kill us and feed us to your demons."

Kazuya shook his head. "No, it wouldn't have. I'm your roommate, and I'd be the last person who saw you. The bruiseboys would have my Gulliver in a knapsack in an instant."

There was an awkward pause.

"That demon, though, was that you?" said Soma, as if Kazuya hadn't said anything.

Kazuya nodded. "I told you I used a demon to get my money back from that scammer."

"And your plan involved robbing a grocery store?"

"No. I pay a flat rate per summon, so I made him do my chores, too."

Mina coughed. "Could we get back on topic, please?"

Kazuya nodded. "Go ahead."

"Before we can proceed, I need to ask you something, Kazuya." Mina took in a deep breath. "Let me be blunt here. We know that it's not a summoner committing these murders—well, at least, it's not you—and it's our responsibility as good citizens to warn the Agency that they're on the wrong track. Now, are you so good of a citizen that you'd throw yourself on the Agency's mercy by telling them false alarm, you're the summoner?"

Kazuya glared. "No."

Mina nodded. "I didn't think so. And we're not such good citizens, either. If we can't testify, then it's our responsibility to search for the killer in their place. Are you in?"

Soma nodded. We should have been on this case from the start.

Kazuya crossed his arms. "I'll do it, on one condition," he said. "When we catch the real culprit, we pin my crimes on them. Are you okay with falsifying evidence?"

"…Is anything I say going to change your mind?" said Mina.

"No," said Kazuya bluntly.

Mina shrugged. "They're killing people anyways, and that's what's illegal." She paused. "Then again, we don't have any proof that they're not just kidnappers. What if it turns out that they never killed anyone?"

"We'll burn that bridge when we cross it," said Kazuya. "There's got to be at least one murderer we can blame."

"Then it's settled," said Mina. "Now… when are you free?"

"I have lab on Wednesdays," said Kazuya.

"I have a paper due next Tuesday," said Soma.

The rest of the conversation was scheduling, which need not concern us.

X

Meanwhile, the murderer and the accomplice were sitting in their apartment, eating (drinking?) soup.

"Wow, you're right," said the accomplice. "This is like eating a swamp. But… a spicy, savory swamp." The accomplice took another slurp. "I never thought I'd eat a meal where the vegetables taste better than the meat."

"I'm glad you like it," said the murderer, scooping out a dumpling and chewing. Both of them had rolled and shaped the dumplings before boiling them in the soup; this one was shaped like a canoe. "I always found the potatoes strange."

The accomplice grunted. "I like potatoes."

"In soup?"

"Have you ever had garlic-potato soup?" said the accomplice.

"That's different. That soup is made from potatoes. This soup is made from vegetables, and the potatoes were added for carbs. Potatoes in garlic-potato soup give it a smooth, thick texture. Potatoes added to soup are gritty and somehow un-potato-like."

"If you don't want them, I'll eat them."

"Go ahead," said the murderer, scooping out the potatoes and dropping them into the accomplice's bowl.

X

By the time the three of them figured out a time that would work for all of them, it was late. Soma walked Mina home, this time through realspace. The Mirror World was creepy enough when it was light out; it was terrifying in the dark.

When Soma returned, Kazuya had left a bowl of hot pumpkin soup on his desk. It was delicious, even though Kazuya seemed to think that boiled Coltunasi was a good replacement for dumplings. [8] He took a shower and crawled into bed.

Soma stared off at the ceiling.

All of you, he said to his souls. How do you feel about serving me?

There was a lot of background chatter.

Why are you only asking us now? Erinys asked warily.

Soma shrugged. I haven't met a demon summoner until last night. A decent one, I mean.

And you want to feel like you're the bigger man, don't you? Werejaguar growled.

When Soma said nothing, a Student Witch jumped in. We're here because we wanted to be, she said reassuringly. You're not strong enough to steal our souls, just accept them.

Soma blinked. But…this is your soul we're talking about, I—

You'll understand one day, said a Witch. I sold my soul long before you or Dracula came along. My world was just a tiny village in the middle of nowhere where everyone hated me. You'd do it too, if it meant freedom.

When you slew me, you gave me a choice between two prisons, and your mind was more palatable than the seal, said Agni. I don't get very many chances to see the world. Dario only showed me the castle, and my last two hosts both died before they could see much of anything.

We've been stuck in that damn castle for so long, anything else is welcome, said the Skeleton Farmer.

Going with you was a valid way to leave our contracts, said a Succubus. Celia was… not unskilled, but she was a terrible summoner. She summoned most of us because she wanted rooms full of monsters, not because she needed our skills. You wanted us, you appreciate us, and you listen to us. That might not seem like much to you, but it's everything to us.

Whether you believe it or not, you are Lord Dracula, said the Waiter Skeleton. I am your loyal servant, milord.

I'm not, grumbled a Valkyrie. I came to pick up some warrior souls, and the castle's magic trapped me. You're pretty much my ticket back to Valhalla. If you die as Soma Cruz, I can go back to Valhalla. If you go back to being Dracula, that's just back to square one.

Dmitri left, said Soma. He paused. Come to think of it, there is something bothering me about Dmitri, thought Soma. What did he say, again? Something about Ari—

Soma froze. His eyes shone with an eerie red light. Raw magical energy surged from within, twisting itself into a complex spell—

And then it stopped. Soma blinked brown eyes. Come to think of it, how did Dmitri escape from my hold?

I believe that he duplicated the Ghost's power to separate soul from body, said Stolas as if nothing had happened. All of the souls were used to this. Any attempt to call attention to it was futile, since another spell would erase those memories.

Huh, said Soma. Good to know. After a long, hard moment, longer than he would care to admit, he asked, Hey, you guys? If any of you want to go free, Yoko's in town. She can free you.

Let me think about it, said Valkyrie.

Soma blinked. Why? Don't you want to go home?

I do, but… a tingle of shame ran down the Valkyrie's spine. Home's not the best place to be right now. From what I've heard through the grapevine (yes, I can still get news), Odin's gearing up to reclaim a new world.

And you don't want to fight?

The Valkyrie shuddered. Not on this battlefield. Demons like me can die, but we always come back to life eventually. This time, we're facing someone who can claim the souls of anyone who dies on his territory. Human, demon, god, if they die there, poof, instant mind wipe, and they're his.

And how is this any different?

Dracula let us keep our personalities and will. We couldn't leave, but at least he had the decency to let us hate it. The Valkyrie sighed. I want to keep being me. Don't get me wrong, I want to go home eventually. But right now, this isn't safe. Maybe I'll take you up on this offer one day.

If you say so… anyone else?

There was a faint murmuring.

In that case, good night.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[1] Kazuya and Aoi living in a mansion and orphanage: That's Madam's mansion in SMT2. The orphans are just offscreen when Aleph comes to visit. I was on the fence about this one, because it seemed like a cheap way to make Kazuya and Aoi sympathetic, but since the alternative was having a huge mansion all to themselves with a slum right next door, I let them keep the kids.

[2] To draw blood, cut your shoulder: If you need to draw blood, please do not listen to the internet fanfiction writer. According to TV Tropes, you shouldn't cut your palm because the hand has lots of sensitive nerves (but people do it all the time in movies because it's easy to fake for camera). I've had blood drawn before from the vein inside the elbow, but I figured that while nicking a vein would get you lots of blood, doing it without clean needles or bandages wouldn't be a good idea. I picked the shoulder instead because that's where I've had most of my flu shots. My real suggestions for drawing blood would be to either wait for 'discount virgin's blood', borrow some dental floss, or try to get a nosebleed.

[3] Castlevania, the fortress of forests: the word Transylvania is Latin for 'beyond the forest', so I guess Castlevania would be a castle in the forest, a forest so thick it's almost a castle, or a forest full of castles? Kazuya translated the English word Castle into the Japanese word for Fortress because of a fanfiction I read years ago. It was a Yugioh/Harry Potter crossover, where either Marik or one of the Bakuras got a pet cat, and said he named it 'Bandit' (in English) because it was English for 'Thief' (in Ancient Egyptian). I thought it was interesting how the translated word was a synonym, so that's my inspiration.

[4] Not Vlad the Impaler: I'm not making this up. Even outside of the Castlevania-verse, Dracula is not Vlad the Impaler, just named after him. In the book, Dracula is proud of his Szekely (Hungarian, and descended from the Huns from the east) heritage and rules a spot in Transylvania, and from what I could glean, Vlad the Impaler was ethnically Romanian, ruled Wallachia, and apparently hated Hungarians. Bram Stoker apparently just picked the name Dracula because it sounded cool and was the name of someone who tortured lots of people, and that's all the historical subtext in the book. Vlad the Impaler is never mentioned.

[5] Cold War: For context, Shin Megami Tensei was released in 1992, the year after the Cold War ended, and likely began development during the Cold War.

[6] Coccumque bis tinctum lapis - This is actually Google Latin for Scarlet Stone, but Crimson translated as purple instead, so I went with scarlet.

[7] Julius Velthomer – I had a running joke in a previous fanfiction where Julius Belmont's relatives were named after Prince Julius's family from Fire Emblem. In Fire Emblem, Julius is the prince of Granvale, but his father was the duke of Velthomer who married into the royal family.

[8] Coltunasi in pumpkin soup: Coltunasi is the Romanian version of pierogi. I once had pumpkin soup with boiled potato varenyky (the Ukrainian version) instead of dumplings, and I absolutely recommend it.

By the way, Soma's souls have never met Naoki. That would make everything too easy.

Most theories in this story, I really believe, and they grow the plot organically because I explore their ramifications. Theories like these include character personalities, why people hate demon summoners, and how the Agency is run. Other theories are only there to speed the plot along, and I build them around a desired outcome while trying to make them as reasonable as possible. I couldn't let Mina hand Kazuya over to the Agency, so I had Soma's souls act as witnesses to his deeds. If I wanted the Agency to catch Soma and Kazuya, I would have said that Soma got lazy and stopped platforming as soon as he learned how to turn into a bat.

This theory is one of the latter. If Soma's souls recognized Naoki, then the story falls apart. For instance, why didn't they warn him sooner? With Kazuya, I shoehorned in the excuse that they did recognize him, but mistook him for a reincarnation, which was neither relevant nor remarkable. With Naoki, he can't be a reincarnation because the Conception was only two years ago, and it would be important to warn Soma that he's a powerful demon.

Here are my excuses.

As a rule of thumb, demons can't usually tell humans apart, so they'll only recognize summoners they know for a while (read: didn't use for fusion fodder right away). This especially goes for Naoki, because he doesn't have the tattoos anymore. It's possible for some of Soma's souls to have seen Naoki before, they just don't recognize him.

Kazuya had a longer career as a demon summoner than Naoki, and so picked up and retained more demons. This is the only theory I think is reasonable.

The demons in Aria died with the rest of the world during the Conception. They would have come back eventually, but they missed the whole thing.

The demons in Dawn got cut because of the Demon Compendium. The Compendium doesn't just summon a demon with those exact skills, it's the same demon every time. It also stops anyone else from summoning that exact same demon, so Celia couldn't summon the demons Naoki registered. The way I played Nocturne, I wouldn't bother recruiting and raising a new demon to maturity more than once, so almost all of Naoki's demons are either on the Compendium, or were fusion fodder.

OMAKE #1 Julius's alternate backstory

"So, Julius, how did you go missing for over thirty years, if Arikado is so competent?" asked Soma.

Julius sighed. "All right, on the night before the raid on Dracula's castle, Arikado and I had a talk…"

FLASHBACK

"It's just…weird, you know?" said Julius Belmont, nineteen years old. "This… literally my entire life has been leading up to this day."

"Are you nervous?" asked Alucard.

Julius shook his head. "Well, of course I am; I'm not stupid enough to not be afraid. But I'm just scared of what's next."

"What do you mean?"

Julius went silent for a moment, drinking his soda. "Who am I, if I'm not the Belmont heir? Who are the Belmonts, if we're not the warriors who slay Dracula? What am I going to do with my life? Is this going to be the most important thing I'm going to do with my life, and it's all going to be downhill from here?"

Alucard put a hand on Julius's back. "I had those same questions, long ago," he said. "After I slew my father, I thought there was nothing left for me but eternal slumber."

Julius blinked. "I said I was scared, not suicidal."

"Apprehension is normal," said Alucard as if Julius hadn't said anything. "I suggest you go see the world for yourself after the battle ends. I will explain to your family."

Julius stared. "Are you saying that I should go find myself or something? But I have—"

"The Belmont family can take care of themselves. No one will blame you if you take a vacation." Alucard slipped Julius some money. "Take this. If you run out, I'm sure that a strong young man such as yourself will have no trouble finding a job."

Julius's face lit up. "I won't forget this, Alucard."

FLASHBACK END

"Arikado never forgave himself for that," said Julius.

Soma stared. "…No wonder he always wants to know where I am."