Greetings! I made some minor corrections in the previous chapters, I believe they are now more pleasant to read. From 14 chapters I did the correction to 15 in total and also fixed the errors in Chapter 2 regarding Alucard's eyes, which are not gold because he was using the illusion of 'Genya Arikado', but black eyes. Soma never saw Alucard in his real appearance.
Since I know Castlevania's base story was inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula, I also relied a little on it to write one of Mathias's memories that is described here in this chapter, fusing it with certain events from Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.
Enjoy!
Chapter 06: Leon
The Belmont mansion, they discovered, was relatively large, with two floors and about fifteen bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, a library, a small gallery with a nice collection of armor, shields and old weapons, a mini chapel for prayers and outside the property was also built a large swimming pool that was covered due to the intense cold of the season of the year.
Soma and Mina took advantage of the tranquility of the next morning to walk alone in the corridors of the mansion and talk in privacy while Julius, Yoko and Alucard had gone to the nearby village to buy provisions for the week.
The priestess frowned thoughtfully.
"Do you think the ritual affected you so much that your body slowly began to transform?"
The man nodded.
"I wasn't indisposed yesterday, Mina... I simply put the food in my mouth and I could not eat anymore, I felt an inexplicable repulsion, but today it didn't happen at breakfast, as if it were a slow and sometimes inconstant change; I also feel that my powers that had weakened five years ago are now coming back to me, and I gradually find myself a little stronger, although I have not tried to use them yet to not attract the other's attention."
"But Soma ... Your body was exposed to the very black energy of chaos... it could even have absorbed something of it, reason to your powers returning, but ... would that be capable of transforming you into a vampire again?"
"Yes, it was how I managed to transform in the past... when I was Mathias Cronqvist..." The silver-haired man stopped, the words that came out so sure and revealing from his own mouth had surprised him greatly, and he felt like another small piece of the big puzzle that was his life came to fit.
Suddenly worried, he stared at the young woman.
"This is bad... If I eventually become a vampire it will be impossible to hide it, Mina! There must be some way to stop this or to extract the energy of chaos from my body before it's too late!"
"Or... find some way to hide it..." The priestess give her friend a meaningful look. "You told me that Mr. Arikado is a dhampir, half human, half vampire, and that how we see him now is not his real appearance."
"That's correct."
"He certainly uses some magic or a powerful spell that helps him disguise. If he can do it, nothing prevents you from doing the same."
"It must be a spell... work from Yoko, no doubt," Soma muttered with grave certainty.
"If it's really her's, then you should not worry, I'll find out in time to help you if this extreme measure is needed, Soma."
He glanced at her in disbelief, she laughed lightly and winked.
"I may have forgotten to mention that I'm learning some little magic tricks with Yoko... Others I consult her books without her knowing, but that's beside the point, so don't worry, at first, this it's a situation under control."
The silver-haired man shook his head and couldn't help but laugh.
"You're getting as impossible as she is," he teased and Mina just smiled innocently in response.
Both friends proceeded along the hall of the first floor where most of the different rooms were located, since the upper floor of the mansion was only formed by the fifteen private bedrooms.
At one point while Mina observed some of the decorations on the wall, Soma glimpsed a beautiful wooden door full of engravings and carvings that reminded him of Julius briefly mention it the night before as the entrance of the chapel. Feeling strangely attracted, the silver-haired man approached, touched the knob with his right hand and without hesitation he opened the door and entered...
The reserved room of the small old church of the village was partially immersed in the shadows, the only source of light being a small candlestick whose three candles burned its flame ceaselessly. Its golden light shone on the large crystal cross set in the center of the altar.
The man with long black hair, aristocratic features and intense blue eyes watched the two priests with great fury.
"... I am sorry, Lord Mathias ... But suicide is unquestionable ... The soul of your wife has already been cast into hell and her body cannot be veiled within the holy church nor buried in sacred ground."
"Your mediocre and ignorant fools!" The nobleman shouted feeling his body shaking with the overwhelming hatred that was overpowering him. "Elisabetha received a false letter from our enemies telling her I was dead! She left for the village in an act of desperation!"
"Yet she knew of the plague that had spread on the village and condemned herself with the disease that consumed her life. She committed suicide, leaving the security of your house to throw herself into a place that already has been devastated by the devil... I'm sorry, but the church will not do anything for her."
"Is this the judgment of God for whom I have spent my whole life serving?! For in the only time that I ask for something in return, for mercy, to only show me THE FACE OF DISDAIN?!" Mathias bellowed and pushed the two priests who fell on the ground deeply frightened.
The nobleman looked at the cross on the altar and was overcome with great anger. He took it in his hands and threw the cross violently on the ground, breaking it into a thousand pieces...
Soma retreated, trembling and shaken, blinking, his blue eyes staring at that moment into a simple little chapel of prayer, well lit by the pale light of the sun that entered through the window. It was completely empty.
Mina, sensing his startle, touched his shoulder.
"Is everything okay, Soma?" The silver-haired man didn't answer.
Suddenly he turned and walked briskly down the hallway as the priestess followed him as she could, trying to keep up with his long footsteps. Soma returned to the entrance hall of the old mansion and went up the staircase that led to the second floor. His attention immediately settled on the large frame, and his eyes met his old friend's eyes.
The images flashed through his mind, but to him it seemed as if he was reliving each one of them as the memories of those remote, distant and forgotten years began to come back to him completely...
He saw two boys who had just met, watching each other, then they shook hands in greeting. From an early age they had become inseparable friends. The passage of the years solidified this friendship, in their eyes they were the same, they were brothers.
They became knights of God at the same time, going through the arduous tests and being consecrated with their conquest; one was extremely well known for his bravery and combat skills, the other for his great intelligence in battle strategies and vast knowledge in the art of alchemy.
Separated, each stood out to all with great notoriety, together with their combined forces, no army was able to defeat them.
Mathias Cronqvist married Elisabetha around the same time that Leon Belmont became engaged to Sara Trantoul.
A little time passed and then everything collapsed around them both.
Elizabetha, afflicted by a serious disease that devastated some villages in the region, died, and he, dominated by mourning, fury and hatred, used his knowledge of alchemy to deepen research into black magic, where he learned how to invoke the power of chaos and through it transformed himself into a vampire and vowed that he would use his eternity to curse the God who had abandoned him and his wife.
He convinced Walter Benhard to kidnap Sara, so that Leon could defeat him and with the soul of the vampire, he could improve the power of Crimson Stone, and uniting it with Ebony Stone, eventually he would conquer the throne of Eternal Night.
His initial intention never was to kill Sara, but he had admitted to himself that at the time he did nothing to interfere with Walter's plans to transform her. As Master of Alchemy, he was aware of the sacrifice necessary for the birth of the whip that his friend, years later, with great irony named Vampire Killer, and yet...
He did nothing to stop it.
Then, when they met for the last time, Mathias had stretched out his hand to him, and offered.
"Then come with me. I will give you eternity, too."
Leon, incredulous, stared at him motionless, filled with fury and the sense of betrayal.
"You wretched fool. Is this what the woman you loved would have wanted? The Mathias I know would not have loved such a woman."
"Elisabetha was a kind honorable woman. She was concerned only for me to the very end... That is why I hate Him! Am I wrong?! Did you not defeat Walter with hatred in your heart, too?"
The vampire replied, raising his voice.
"Yes. I'd be lying if I claimed otherwise. But defeating him... No, preventing others from suffering the same cursed fate... That was Sara's dying wish... Granting my beloved's wish. that is all I can do to prove my love to Sara."
Leon looked at Mathias with deep sadness, and his voice faded with the night breeze.
"Eternity without her would be nothing but emptiness."
"Leon…" The vampire whispered and shook his head slowly. "I thought that you would understand…"
Mathias stepped back and looked at the window, watching the sky gradually brighten. He spoke to the other man.
"Dawn is coming... Farewell, Leon."
The vampire left, disappearing into the shadows that still lingered in the forest around the castle, but even as he drifted away, he could hear the oath of the one whom he once thought of as a brother, a cry that echoed loudly in the deep of his soul.
"…I will never forgive you!... From this day on, the Belmont Clan will hunt the night!"
Soma closed his eyes and leaned heavily against the wall next to the staircase, ran his hands over his face feeling a deep sadness crumble over his soul. Mina standing beside him, touched his shoulder gently and the silver-haired man took a deep breath, trying to get his head back in place. He glanced at the priestess and gave her a faint smile, trying to show he was well, although what he had remembered had stirred deeply inside him.
The silver-haired man looked at the frame once more, his blue eyes dark with contained emotion.
At this very moment the front door of the mansion opened and Julius, Yoko, and Alucard entered the old building carrying bags of the purchases made in the village.
Seeing them, the witch's face brightened.
"Soma! Mina! I brought some things from the village that I think you will like!"
"Seriously?" Mina asked with great curiosity and Soma, partially recovered, likewise looked evenly at the woman with long blond hair.
"Yes! Come on, I'll show you!" Yoko called and Mina was the first to walk down the staircase.
Julius, next to the witch, looked at the frame of his ancestor and his attention fell on the silver-haired man and realized that Soma was staring at him with a grave expression and blue eyes filled with a shadow and something else that he could not identify at the moment. The hunter frowned thoughtfully and kept his silence.
Soma slowly started to walk down the stairs following Mina, his mind still focused on the Belmont clan and Julius.
The silver-haired man deeply lamented the events that had taken place in the past and which had led him and his brother creating a war between them. A war that would last until many centuries later. And even so distant, those sad images filled his heart with longing and also remorse for he had greatly cherished the sincere friendship he had with the other knight and it was by his own attitudes, his choices in a moment of hatred and pain, that he had put aside all what they had for a revenge that was never fulfilled, but that only seemed to make the following centuries into more terrible and empty years.
He still could not quite remember what had happened after that night, but remembering all the life he had spent as a human made him look at Julius with a heart full of regret. For the past five years he had developed a beautiful and sincere friendship with the current heir of the Belmont family, something that came to them both so naturally and reciprocally that he had surprised the hunter himself, who in time came to open up and trust the other man and minimize the fact that his friend is the reincarnation of the lord of darkness.
Only at that moment Soma realized that his natural and genuine friendship with Julius was due to the hunter, unconsciously, remind him of Leon, their personalities were very alike.
The silver-haired man was filled with sudden apprehension, for he greatly valued the friendship he had developed with the hunter and feared what might happen if Julius would ever discover...
Soma stopped abruptly that line of thought, and watched in silence as Julius and Alucard wandered off together to another spot in the mansion.
Gazing at them at that moment, he made up his mind to finish once and for all the war that had arisen between him and his friend's family in respect for Leon's memory and his friendship with Julius at the present time, even if the hunter would never know.
