A Game of Cat and Cat Chapter 12: Soma's Halloween, a Castlevania + Megami Tensei Crossover fanfic

Surprise! I didn't think I'd have a Halloween chapter, but then Spooky Month came and hammered me with inspiration. Also, happy (belated) 30th anniversary, Shin Megami Tensei I!

You might have noticed that something is messing with Soma's memories. Specifically:

At the end of the second Halloween chapter (labeled as chapter six), when Soma is talking to Vincent in the pub, something possesses him. The entity threatens Vincent, and adds that Soma won't remember that part of the conversation.

In chapter eight, Soma meets Leon at the roof of his dorm shortly after a rainstorm, but when Soma returns to his room, his coat is sopping wet. He does not see anything strange about this.

At the end of chapter nine, when Soma is talking to his souls, he brings up a question that the entity doesn't like, and his memory is cleanly snipped.

I will explain this in full one day. But for now, I saw space to expand on this.

I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier, but here's how I reconcile 'Soma was childhood friends with Mina' and 'Soma was a foreign exchange student during Aria:' Soma was born in America and moved to Japan as a toddler, where he spent most of his childhood. He moved back to America somewhere around late elementary school and stayed there until senior year of high school, when the exchange program let him go back to Japan.

Also, reconciling Soma's surname; why is it Kurusu in Japanese, but got localized as Cruz? His father's surname is Cruz and his mother's is Kurusu. Soma is legally Soma Cruz in America, but when they moved to Japan, he became Kurusu Soma.

This fic takes place during Soma's first Halloween in America, so he's somewhere between nine and eleven years old. Since he's been Kurusu Soma his whole life, I can see that he'd be a little upset now at having to be Soma Cruz.

Exception Fault

Midnight tolled over the vast plains of Makai, announcing to all of Lucifer's subjects the start of Halloween. A time of joy and merriment, from the raucous pranks and parties held in the mortal world, to the simple pleasures of not having to do any work. In short, a pleasant holiday for all.

At least, all save for a certain clan that dwelled in the Valley of Insight.

A solemn procession drifted across the Forest; the Forest needed no name, for it was all forests where humans feared the dark. Swaying, flickering lights bobbed in the early morning mist, mirroring the stars above. Bright as they were, they illuminated little of the woods; the light they cast merely revealed the shadows rather than banish them. Many an unwary traveler had perished following lights like these, but tonight, they were to mourn a death, not cause it. Slowly, like flame-colored leaves drifting down a stream, the bobbing lights emerged from the foliage.

At the center of a small clearing stood a stone gateway, its doors constructed from iron lace. Rusted, moss-ridden, and aged by rain and wind, the gate would have seemed quite ordinary, save for the four figures carved in the stone. These four figures alone remained pristine in the ancient stone; one glowered with a face contorted with rage, one raised both its arms in the air with joy, one crumpled to the ground in despair, and the last lied sleeping on a pillow of stone.

It was at this gateway that the silent procession met its end. For a moment that seemed like an age, there was no sound save for the wind rustling through the falling leaves.

"It's not too late to turn back," said a low, quiet voice, the kind that only wasn't crying because there were no tears left to be shed. "You don't have to do this."

A firm, authoritative voice this time, one that thought volume could chase away fear. "I've lived a good, long life. If I die now, for a good cause, I'll die happy."

Murmurs.

"You'll be wiped from existence."

"You'll forget."

"There'll be no more you. What pride, what joy will you have, if you no longer know who you are?"

The same loud bark, firmer than teak. "You, then, will be my legacy. All of you."

"But what if we die?"

"Then the world I save is my legacy."

A pause.

"Be proud for me, my friends, for soon I will not be able to feel. And cry for me, for I will not be able to cry for myself."

Soma woke to the lovely tones of the Theme of Final Fantasy. Moaning, he fumbled to hit the power button on Papa's phone, and groggily stared at the time. 5:30. That's fine. I still have a few hours before school…

Oh, right. Soma dislodged the pillow on his head, letting the last of the afternoon light leak into the fort. He grinned. Time to go trick-or-treating.

He'd had it all planned out. He'd finished all his homework during school, part of it during lunch, but he'd also snuck some in during class; either Ms. Doherty didn't notice, or she didn't mind him leaning beneath his desk and penciling in the answers. Then once he got home, he dove straight into his blanket fort for a nap so he'd have the energy to go trick-or-treating all night.

Soma slid down the banister, landing gracefully next to the coffee table, where his costume lay crumpled into a heap of black cloth. It took a few shakes to get the wrinkles out, but nobody would notice a few wrinkles in black at night.

When he got to the front door, his father was waiting for him. Or rather, waiting for the trick-or-treaters; he'd dragged an armchair and a side table from the living room, so that he could enjoy a book and a mug of hot horchata while handing out candy. He looked up. "Going out, Soma?"

"Yes, Papa," said Soma, putting his arms through the longcoat his parents sewed for him. They'd already taken the pictures and cooed over how cute he was last Sunday, when the costume was finished. "Kaa-san's already gone to work?"

Mr. Cruz nodded. "She'll stopping by the grocery store afterwards, so we're getting eggs."

Eggs meant Soma could finally make popovers again. "Yay, popovers!"

"Be sure to thank your mother when she gets back," said Mr. Cruz, before returning to his book, History of Locks and Lockpicking.

"I will!" said Soma, putting on his shoes. He glanced upwards. His father was preoccupied, muttering something about his grandmother's best steel hairpin, so Soma surreptitiously stuck his hand in the mixing bowl on the ledge—

Soma's hand closed around paper.

In addition to candy, Mr. Cruz handed out little cards with fun spooky facts. It had taken some convincing from Mrs. Cruz to removes the cards with facts like 'According to urban legend, human flesh tastes like pork' or 'Mummies were ground up and used for paint', and instead replace them with cheerier ones like, 'Sir Melion, one of King Arthur's knights, was a werewolf,' or 'Witches played the bagpipes when partying with the Devil.'

"I'm not a fool, Soma," said his father, without looking up from his book. "You'll have to earn that candy. Go out and get some exercise; it'll do you good."

"All right," Soma grumbled half-seriously, stepping out into the foggy, wet autumn air. Behind him, his father's smile inclined just the tiniest bit.

Soma looked at the card anyways.

'Vampires are compelled to count anything thrown on the ground. So if a vampire attacks you tonight, throw your candy on the ground and run. Better yet, if you have Nerds, open the pack and throw those on the ground.'

Soma would not learn the word 'foreshadowing' for a few years, but at that moment, even he felt that this was lazy on God's part.

American school holidays are annoying inconsistent. It's not enough to say that they're built for the needs of adults rather than children; this might explain, say, Christmas and Election Day, but not why President's Day necessitates a long weekend, nor why the day after Election Day requires approximately half the country to stop crying and get back to work.

Halloween is the polar opposite of President's Day; almost everyone celebrates it, especially children, and yet to school the children go. To some extent, this makes sense; it's a chance for children to see their friends in their costumes, and Halloween festivities traditionally take place at night. But at the same time, few can focus on schoolwork or learning on a day when all they can think about is costumes, candy, and monsters.

A few of the teachers put up a valiant effort in the battle for Education; Mrs. Wean handed out the kind of math worksheet in which solving all the problems would decode a spooky phrase, while Ms. Doherty lit jelly beans on fire with Bunsen burners to show how calories worked. Some clung to normalcy; Mrs. Hammerschlag proceeded with her lessons as if nothing had changed, while Mr. Tepper straight up bribed his class with candy if they'd just sat still and didn't talk too loudly. Others embraced the holiday spirit; Mr. Baker challenged the students to create chiaroscuro paintings by using white paint on black paper, which was fun, but not as much fun as Mrs. Porter's lesson.

Mrs. Porter taught English. For today's class, she passed out packets to the class; on the first two pages was a story, and the next few pages were questions. Simple enough, but the next step was the kind that you either hated or loved: arranging the class into the circle, then having each child read a single sentence before passing the next line to their neighbor. Soma, personally, liked it, because it meant he got to inject drama into the room every time he spoke.

Mrs. Porter cleared her throat, and began the story.

Once upon a time, there was a blacksmith known as Stingy Jack. Jack was lazy, but he was also very clever. He often tricked people into doing his work for him.

The Devil was interested in Jack, and one night he went to Jack and offered anything he wanted in exchange for his soul. Now, there are many versions of what Jack did next.

In one story, Jack told the Devil that he wanted apples from a tree down the lane. When the Devil climbed the tree, he carved a cross on the trunk so the Devil could not come back down.

In another story, Jack wanted to eat at a restaurant in town, and asked the Devil to pay for his food by turning into a silver coin. Jack put the coin in his pocket, next to a cross, so the Devil could not escape.

Yet another story says that Jack was a thief who was being chased by the villagers he robbed, and he met the Devil on the road while running away. Jack persuaded the Devil to turn into a silver coin to pay for the goods he stole, so that when the coin vanished, the villagers would fight over who stole it. The Devil thought this was a wicked plan and agreed. Once again, Jack put the Devil in his pocket with the cross, and the Devil could not escape.

In all versions, Jack told the Devil that he would only let him go if the Devil promised to never take his soul. No matter how many evil deeds Jack did, the Devil could not take him to Hell. [1]

Jack lived a long life, playing mean tricks on people wherever he went, until at last it was his time to die. But when he knocked on the gates of Heaven, they did not open for him, because Jack was not good enough to enter Heaven. And when Jack tried to go to Hell, the Devil himself locked the gates.

Jack pounded and pounded on the gates, begging the Devil to let him in and give him shelter. But the Devil made a promise, and would not let Jack in.

Even though Jack made a fool of him, the Devil felt sorry for Jack. The Devil also liked tricking people, so he knew what it was like to have a trick fail. So the Devil gave Jack a single ember from the fires of Hell to light his way.

The fiery ember burned Jack's hands, so he carved a pumpkin into a lantern and put the ember in the pumpkin. Stingy Jack became known as Jack of the Lantern, or Jack-o'-Lantern.

Unable to go to Heaven or Hell, Jack-o'-Lantern wandered the earth for—

Soma cut off.

"Forever," Stella Hall helpfully provided.

"I know what forever means!" Soma hissed back. He looked back at the page. 'Unable to go to Heaven or Hell, Jack-o'-Lantern wandered the earth forever, playing tricks wherever he went.' There. All words he knew. All words he'd said before.

Why can't I say it?

The stares began, and soon, they would evolve into trading knowing looks. From there, there was nowhere to go but titters, and perhaps true mockery. Soma took in a deep breath. There. If he didn't say it, he'd always be known as the weird, foreign kid who didn't speak English.

In a hollow voice devoid of all the plomb he had delivered up until then, Soma recited, "Unable to go to Heaven or Hell, Jack-o'-Lantern wandered the earth forever, playing tricks wherever he went."

Mrs. Porter nodded. "Three, two, one, and…"

"THE END," the children chanted as one.

But it wasn't. Not for Jack. That's what forever meant, wasn't it? Doing the same things over and over while the world changed around you. You start seeing the same faces over and over, but never the same person twice. Those icy blue eyes watch you forever…

The bottom fell out of Soma's stomach, but he forced himself to sit still.

Soma went trick-or-treating alone. This might have shocked many parents in this neighborhood, but kids much younger than Soma could run around on their own all the time back home in Japan, and Soma's parents hadn't seen fit to change that. Besides, Soma didn't really get along with the other kids. Too loud, too foreign, too—

Soma shook his head. No. Not tonight. Tonight, he was Robin, hero of Fire Emblem Awakening and Soma's main in Smash Bros. And everyone liked Robin, right?

Well, not the scores of people handing out candy who'd thought he was Jotaro Kujo. Or Setzer from Final Fantasy VI. Or someone from Kingdom Hearts. Or—

Oh well, they still liked the costume, Soma thought as he sat on someone's steps, munching his way through a pack of malted milk balls.

You'd think that grownups would be worried about a boy all on his own, but his mother told him that most adults only saw what they expected to see.

"People aren't sheep," she'd said just a few days ago. "Anyone who tries to tell you that either thinks too highly of themselves, or is trying to trick you. People aren't dumb, either. At least, people being dumb doesn't account for everything in the world. But the most important thing to know when you want to break the rules is that people are preoccupied."

"Preoccupied?" Soma didn't know that word.

Soma's mother rearranged her words in her head. "Grown-ups always have something on their minds. Maybe they need to remember to get flour from the store, maybe they're trying to solve a particularly difficult problem at work, or maybe they have an appointment that they can't be late for. Even if they notice you doing something you shouldn't, most of the time, they won't bother to stop you. They think they have more important things to do."

"You stop me from doing things all the time," Soma protested.

Mrs. Kurusu nodded. "That's because I'm your mother, and that's my job. If someone thinks it's their job to stop you, they will. But that also means that if someone thinks it's someone else's job, they'll assume that it'll be taken care of." She sighed. "That said, if you do something that's too dangerous, like try to climb on a roof, any responsible adult will stop you."

Then she'd given him the usual safety lecture on not talking to strangers, only going for houses with lights on, and making sure that there were always other kids around—especially since it would look more suspicious if he were the only one around.

Soma had taken her lessons to heart. It hadn't taken him long to notice that most adults were too busy wrangling their own kids to pay attention to him, and the ones handing out candy wouldn't think anything was strange as long as he looked like he was hurrying after a larger group.

He'd gotten a pretty good haul so far; his pillowcase was full of chocolate, fruit gummies, and nerds. Soma didn't particularly like nerds except when he just wanted sugar, but if vampires were real, there wasn't any harm in throwing nerds at them. But it wasn't really about the candy; it was about the primal urge to run around outside on a chilly autumn night, shouting away the little death of nature.

Soma rounded a corner, candy sack in one hand and cardboard sword in the other—

Simon Newell was there, flanked by his friends and someone's parents.

Soma ducked into the nearest backyard before any of them saw him. Not because Simon was a bully, because he wasn't. There wasn't a hint of malice in him. He just… knew what was best. For everyone. He'd scolded Soma on his first day for eating his cookie before his sandwich, told the teachers when kids started waving sticks at each other when pretending to be wizards, and stopped people from crossing the street on red lights even when there weren't any cars around. Soma knew Simon was a decent kid, but that didn't mean he had to like him.

If Simon saw Soma going out at night all alone, he'd insist that he'd come with him, to stay safe, and of course the two grown-ups would agree, and Soma would be herded along with kids he barely knew and didn't like, plodding along in preset paths instead of wandering the night, leaping through shadowy yards and fields, free as a…

Soma was lost.

Okay, maybe slipping through the night like a wraith sounded more fun in my head.

To his right were more houses, but to the left was a dark expanse of trees and foliage, visible only by the distant lights of houses on the other side. Soma could hear the faint gurgle of water, possibly a stream.

Everything everyone ever told Soma told him to follow the path with the houses (especially Mina's mother, who climbed mountains at night to do miko things, and knew better than everyone else what dangers lied in dark forests). On the other…

When am I ever going to get a chance like this?

Soma's cardboard Levin Sword had a working flashlight for a handle, so he'd still be able to see where he was going. And his neighborhood was bounded on most sides by major roads, and on the last side was the town, so he could find his way home just by walking in one direction until he bumped into something he recognized.

Soma stepped forward, and the dark green expanse welcomed him.

It was not strictly necessary to leave through the third-storey window. Window exits carried risks of their own; besides detection, suspicion, and the fact that windows don't lock from the outside, popular consensus is that falling three storeys is not anyone's idea of a fun time. But drama ran in this family, and what escape was more dramatic than a window exit?

Well, maybe crashing through the front doors on a stolen motorcycle, cops and hounds in hot pursuit. But while that was dramatic, it wasn't fun.

The thief's clothes, designed not to drape or drag, were stuffed full of ill-gotten gains. Had anyone informed her of this, she would have protested; all of her gains were gotten through skill and talent! The jewels were artfully swiped from the soil of a potted Sand Pear plant, without disturbing the little tree in the slightest. The corporate secrets, copied to a miniature hard drive concealed in her wristwatch. And the cursed medallion with a half million-dollar bounty… well, she had to admit that one was legally purchased from a thrift shop with the contents of her change purse.

The only piece of loot the thief wasn't proud of was the small memory stick at her breast pocket. It was chock full of secrets that governments would kill for—no, governments already killed people* for stupider reasons**. Secrets that governments would accept slightly less favorable trade conditions for.

*See: War, Warfare.

**See: Jenkins' Ear, War of.

Treachery always looked like easy money, but the real cost would always be more than what a mere thief could afford. She crushed the drive.

Pockets full of loot, Mrs. Kurusu leapt from the open windowsill.

Soma was shivering, but he did not care. This was an adventure, a lark, a new space to explore, or to simply exist in. When he'd first moved to these American suburbs, he'd been excited to see that no matter where he looked, the horizon was laced with trees. At the time, he'd took it to mean that his neighborhood was surrounded by a massive forest, and he'd find it if he walked far enough in the right direction. Several miles and one highway overpass later, he'd realized that there was no forest, just lots of house plots with trees. Which was… pleasant, he supposed, but disappointing.

Still, there were little pockets of wood here and there, parks and fields, or simply spaces between houses too small for a new plot. Not nearly the same as the mountains he'd climbed with Mina and his family back at home, but a break from the endless parade of houses upon houses.

This little wood was bigger than Soma had guessed; those house lights in the distance had seemed at most like a block away, but he still hadn't—

The glowing rectangles began to move, and with a crushing sense of dread, Soma realized that those weren't house lights.

Soma looked behind him. Tiny balls of fire hanging in midair like candle flames. When he looked forwards again, the square and rectangular house lights had relaxed into familiar shapeless fire. He was surrounded.

Soma hefted his cardboard sword. As an afterthought, he opened a pack of nerds and scattered them all over the forest floor. Nothing happened.

"Who are you?" he said in a quavering voice. Despising his shaky voice, he roared, "What do you want?!" with more courage than he felt.

The largest of the lights, which Soma had taken for two windows and a door, widened into two semicircular eyes and a carved, crooked smile. In a flash of fire, the previously unseen lantern it carried ignited, and Soma could finally perceive its true form.

A Jack-o'-Lantern hovered at eye level, carrying a glass lantern. Someone had seen fit to drape a tiny cloak over it and crown it with a shoddy witch's hat, which struck Soma as a fire hazard. Its wedged eyes narrowed as it saw Soma.

Soma held his ground. How do you react when magic turned out to be real? He wasn't scared, but… Do you jump for joy? Deny that it's real?

And then the Jack-o'-Lantern yelled something in a language he couldn't understand, and hurled one of the fireballs at Soma, barely missing his face.

Well, I guess that solves that problem, said a tiny voice in Soma's head, one that wasn't screaming in terror.

Soma ran. He scrambled over rocks made slick with wet leaves, tripped over knobby tree branches that he might have seen if the sun were still out, and doused his ankles once or twice in foul-smelling mud. The world's evilest Halloween decoration floated lazily in pursuit, shooting fireballs and yelling what might have been insults if Soma had any idea what it was saying.

There is no victory in retreat, another part of Soma quoted. Retreat is a sacrifice to the Adversary; while it may seem acceptable, maybe even palatable at first glance, it will come at a heavy cost one day. Even the mildest, most painful victory is preferable to the most meager of concessions; the difference is who is in whose power, and that power makes all the difference. Retreat is gilded loss; little good will come of it.

Where did I get that from?

Probably manga.

Good advice. Don't be a coward.

But all I have to do is keep running! I'll run into the sidewalk and the houses eventually, and then I'll be—

Safe? Will this thing stop chasing me if it sees other people? It's not like it's a—

When Soma tripped over what felt like the fiftieth rock that night, he had enough. He yanked the largest rock he could lift out of the ground (one that had seemed the size of his head, but was in fact closer to both of his fists put together), and charged at the demon pumpkin.

"Leave me alone!" he roared, swinging his new favorite rock in an upwards arc, slamming it against the grinning face—

The rock struck true and hard, smashing the pumpkin like an egg used to break another egg. Chunks of orange flew everywhere like projective vomit after too much candy corn. The hat, cloak, and lantern toppled to the ground, leaving only the flame-

No, not a flame. No flame would be a perfect sphere, nor would it burn so bright and red, shimmering in the fading sunlight as if carved from a ruby.

Come…

Return to me…

Time slowed down. The world paled in the face of that shimmering ruby light; what could be more important than this? After all, Soma had been waiting his entire life for this. After years of wallowing in apathy, he could finally, finally, be whole agai—

"No."

The voice was Soma's. It was undeniably Soma's. But Soma had never spoken with such certainty, such authority…

"A clever trap," the voice continued. "A shame I'm never far away."

With a whisper rather than a bellow, Count Dracula returned to the world.

Across the ocean, in a place that was technically tomorrow, Aoi Miyama froze. Her spoon full of pumpkin soup slipped back in the bowl.

"What is it, Ao—"

Aoi grabbed her father and shouted, "Something terrible is happening!"

One of the first signs of demon possession is vocal change. Not a simple change in accent, nor the use of uncharacteristic growls or screams, but pitch, tone, pace, rhythm… the whole quality of the voice changes. While one might think that using the same vocal chords makes it easier to imitate the host's voice, the opposite is true. It's hard enough to mimic the voice of another using your own vocal chords; trying to adjust for a stranger's increases the difficulty tenfold.

When Dracula spoke, the vocabulary was his, but the voice was Soma's.

"I am no innocent," Dracula said to the flickering light softly. "But the boy is. Do not have him suffer on account of my crimes. Go back to your mires, Stingy Jack, and tell your other selves to leave him alone."

The soul hissed like a teakettle.

"You felt it too, did you not?" said Dracula. "He is dead. You do not have much time until his works on this world are undone. Perhaps this is the last year you can attempt this."

The hissing faltered.

"Go home. Enjoy your freedom. I will not pursue. Your revenge will remain unsatisfied, but you leave with your… sanity." It would not be wise to use the word he intended.

The soul did not move.

Dracula sighed. "It's just as well that you attacked me on this night of all nights," he said, ruffling his hair. "The night where Dracula is but a costume, a tale, a sham man on an electric screen. A ghost story you tell children to frighten them, not the monster you desperately hide to ward them from fear. A night where my name does not belong to me, a night when anonymity sets me free."

Dracula held up his hand. "But Dominance… Dominance is always my power. Leave."

Dracula pointed towards the glimmering red soul. It took a mere push to send this soul back to the Forest; after all, they were both standing in one of its branches. A mere twig with a single leaf, but a branch nonetheless.

In the meantime, what shall I do on this night of freedom?

Dracula gazed sadly at the rising moon, and began to walk towards home. "My other self is still but a child. His sense of self has yet to grow, and my presence weighs heavy on his psyche. Although I am free on this night of all nights, I cannot have him suffer on my account. I suppose I should—"

Dracula fell into the creek. He picked himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. "I suppose I should learn how to operate a washing machine," he muttered.

Aoi removed her blindfold, and looked down at her newest ink painting. On the right edge, a tree in full bloom scattered its petals. In the center, a field laid fallow, weeds poking up in the dust. And on the left, the top half of a rabbit poked its head at the falling petals. Its lower half was missing.

"I think that's a cherry blossom tree," said her father.

"Could mean the ephemeral nature of life," said her mother.

"Or how you can't have cherries right now," said her little brother. "Cherries in summer, flowers in spring." He blinked. "Hey, maybe it's spring in that picture!"

"A fallow field in spring," said Aoi. "A lost chance, death where there should be rebirth."

"Or something needs to stay dead for a while longer?" said her mother.

"And the rabbit," said her father. "A sacrifice?"

"One half a rabbit, and the back half taken away," said Aoi. "It can't poop, I see."

They all stared at the painting.

"It's… cryptic," said Aoi's mother. "But you haven't been wrong yet. We'll figure it out."

Aoi shivered. "We don't have a lot of time, I—" She bolted straight up. "It's gone. I can't sense it anymore."

"You think it fled?" said Aoi's father.

"No, it's almost as if it… resolved itself?" said Aoi. "But why?"

"Something else must have got to it first," said her mother. "Speaking of which, you two had better get to school." [2]

Soma woke to the lovely tones of the Theme of Final Fantasy. Moaning, he fumbled to hit the power button on Papa's phone, and groggily stared at the time. 7:00. Ugh, school. Just five more minutes…

Oh, right. Soma dislodged the pillow on his head, letting a tiny beam of moonlight into the fort. He grinned. Time to go trick-or-treating.

Soma slid down the banister, landing gracefully next to the coffee table, where his costume was neatly folded. Soma grabbed the warm, black cloth and breathed in the aroma of freshly dried clothes.

Mr. Cruz nodded. "She'll stopping by the grocery store afterwards, so we're getting eggs."

Eggs meant Soma could finally make popovers again. "Yay, popovers!"

"Be sure to thank your mother when she gets back," said Mr. Cruz, before returning to his book, Burglary and You: How to Defend your Home from Thieves.

"I will!" said Soma, putting on his shoes. He glanced upwards. His father was preoccupied, so Soma surreptitiously stuck his hand in the mixing bowl on the ledge—

Soma's hand closed around paper.

In addition to candy, Mr. Cruz handed out little cards with fun spooky facts. It had taken some convincing from Mrs. Cruz to removes the cards with facts like 'Accused witches were forced to confess under torture, and then repeat their confession while not under torture' or 'Ghosts wear white sheets because those are their burial shrouds', and instead replace them with cheerier ones like, 'There is a cowboy in the novel Dracula' or 'Old Nick is a nickname for the Devil, while Old Saint Nick is a nickname for Santa Claus.'

"I'm not a fool, Soma," said his father, without looking up from his book. "You'll have to earn that candy. Go out and get some exercise; it'll do you good."

"All right," Soma grumbled half-seriously, stepping out into foggy chill. Had he been a little less eager in his quest for candy, he might have noticed the dazed look in his father's eyes, or perhaps the bandage on his hand.

Blissfully ignorant, Soma read the card anyways. 'Jack-o'-lanterns were originally carved from turnips.'

He put the card down. Who cares about turnips? He's going to get candy!

TO BE CONTINUED!

The only other time turnips were mentioned in this fic was in the last chapter, when Soma mentions a recurring dream where Death serves him a plate of roast turnips, saying that it's the secret to immortality. Normally, I'd leave this as breadcrumbs for the reader, but since this fic is serialized and I go months between updates, I decided to point it out here.

Soma's parents are professional thieves. As of the present, he still doesn't know what they do for a living. Also, Dracula did not turn Soma's father into a vampire; it's just that his form of mind manipulation requires blood.

I doubt that most elementary schools would have homework due the day after Halloween, but it added a little bit of flavor to Soma's plans.

Fun thing when writing this:

First draft: Let's make Soma dress up as Robin from Fire Emblem! They both have white hair, and even if Soma's not old enough to play Awakening, he'd know him from Smash! I did the same thing with Roy when I was his age. And Soma gets his first taste of wearing a longcoat!

Then: Oh god that makes so much sense. Both Soma and Robin spend most of the game opposing the vague threat of a dark god, not knowing that they're the dark god all along!

[1] Stingy Jack's stories: There's at least one version where Jack uses both the coin and apple tricks; Jack asks the Devil to be left alone for one year after the coin, and for ten years after the apple.

Also, in the 'actual' story, Jack sold his soul for a last drink at the tavern, not a meal at a restaurant; the teacher figured it would be safer to censor it a little for children.

There also seems to be a recurring theme across cultures where a clever hero traps the Devil, and makes him promise to never take them to Hell. For example, in the Blacksmith and the Devil, the smith asks the Devil for the power to stick things together, and then sticks the Devil to his anvil. He gets to Heaven anyways. There was also one with an old woman with the power to keep people from climbing down her trees without permission, and she traps Death that way.

There's also a similar Irish folktale called The Three Wishes, and it's great. I read it in Irish Fairy & Folk Tales collected by William Butler Yeats when I was a kid, and when I started looking for other stories about Stingy Jack, I was wondering why this one didn't show up. Turns out it's about someone named Billy Dawson (not to be mistaken with real-life songwriter Billy Dawson).

Billy Dawson is a smith and a drunk, and he gets three wishes after he shares his fire with an old man, who turns out to be a saint. He asks for three things to be enchanted: anyone who lifts his sledgehammer has to keep swinging until he says otherwise, anyone who sits in his armchair can't get up until he says otherwise, and any money that enters his purse can't leave without permission. Naturally, he uses each of these to trick the Devil into letting him get seven years of wealth, three times. After he dies, he's been too evil to go to Heaven, and the Devil refuses to let him into Hell. But rather than giving him an ember, the Devil takes revenge by setting Billy's nose on fire, and that's where the Will-o-the-Wisp comes from.

That's just the summary. The full story is hilarious; St. Moroky yells at Billy for picking such stupid wishes, and Billy's like, "Crap, can I change that back?" St. Moroky yells, "I'm Saint Moroky, you idiot!" and whacks him with his cudgel. Billy has a cordial first meeting with the Devil, where they have a conversation about how Billy is not wearing pants. And Billy's long-suffering wife Judy repeatedly hits Satan for interrupting one of their fights.

[2] Aoi's prediction: At the start of SMT1, Aoi leads the Resistance because she foresaw a great calamity (nukes). This doesn't come up afterwards, so I think only that life had precognitive powers. Also, to be clear, Aoi here isn't the Aoi we know in the present; the Aoi we know from SMT1 replaced this timeline's Aoi later.

The intended meaning was: Cherry Blossoms means spring, the fallow field was just a field, so together they mean Springfield. In Japanese, Rabbit is Usagi, and cutting the word in half gets Usa. So the meaning of the painting is Springfield, USA, the city where Soma lives. But nothing important comes of it, since Dracula leaves on his own, so I just left it as an unsolved mystery.

OMAKE: Candy

Eight minutes to seven.

Dracula hugged his knees atop the mattress that served as the foundation for his blanket fort, and took a deep breath. "Costume is washed, dried, and folded on the coffee table. Alarm is set. I showered off the mud. All I need to do is implant a suggestion to go to the north side of town rather than the west, so that nobody thinks I came to the same house twice. After all, I…"

Dracula's gaze fell upon the improvised candy sack. "What do I do with all this candy?"

Put it with the candy to give away? Hide candy among candy. But his later self would notice that the candy bowl was full of candy that his parents did not purchase.

Hide it somewhere in the house, in the hopes that his later self would find it months later and assume he forgot a hidden stash? Too risky. It assumed his later self would not poke around for several months.

Eat the evidence? Wrappers and such can be hidden in someone else's garbage. But too much sugar would make him sick.

Dracula sighed. His later self was still only a child. He didn't know when too much was too much.

Still, so much sugar in one bag. A treasure scarcely recognized in this strange world of now. Dracula's instincts yearned to hoard it like his namesake, but could he not indulge in his wealth?

Dracula tore open a tiny kitkat packet and took a bite…

THE NEXT MORNING

"Kaa-san, my stomach hurts!"

"Well, Soma-kun, you shouldn't have eaten so much candy!"

"But I didn't! I only have a few pieces, like you said!"

OMAKE: The Sabbath

(An excerpt from a plot I plan to write far in the future, after I conclude the current storyline)

"I'm back."

Gas Mask had returned, plastic shopping bags dangling from his arms, looking for all the world like a child who had come back from a tour with the Golden Ticket (that is, a child who didn't suffer any kind of ironic punishment for their hubris). "I've got mochi, eel onigiri, tonkatsu bento, Pocky, those coconut buns you like so much—"

"Gimme!" said Cat Man, dislodging a radish and some cereal on his way to the melon mochi.

"Miscellaneous savory breads, some sweet ones, and of course, rice, seeds, water, flour, cream, sugar, and that other stuff you asked me for," finished Gas Mask. "Take your pick, Soma."

"Um…" Soma gingerly reached into the bag and picked a curry bread at random. He took a wary bite. Rich, spicy chicken met his drooling mouth, hot but not too oily, balanced nicely by the soft, sweet bread.

"You like it," said Gas Mask. It wasn't a question.

"You know, this is the second-best thing I've eaten during a kidnapping," said Soma.

Cat Man stared back at him. "You've… you've been kidnapped before?" he said with… genuine worry?

"How is this the second-best thing?" said Gas Mask, arms crossed.

"Well…"

FLASHBACK

Flames licked the stone walls of the desecrated church, casting dancing shadows across the remains of the hall. Soma lay on his back, lashed to what was once the altar.

"Now," called the head cultist. "Bring forth the sacrifices!

Howls and cheers erupted from the black-clad crowd, uncannily similar to the ordinary sort of howls and cheers one might find at a sports bar or a pep rally.

"I have brought the heart of a virgin, unsullied by the touch of woman!" called one cultist. "Our Dread Lord shall surely be satisfied with such a meal!"

Whoops of joy split the air, reminding Soma uncomfortably of a tie being broken in the home team's favor.

"I have stolen a wafer of Communion," announced a second cultist. "The Body of Jesus Christ shall serve Our Wicked Master!"

Soma winced as the cultists screeched their glee, all too similar to excited teenaged girls attending a boy band concert.

"And I brought challah."

Silence fell.

The head cultist rubbed her forehead. "Brother… oh, Brother Brimstone…" she said, the quiet patience in her voice giving way to a moan. "This is a Sabbath."

"And this is challah," said Brother Brimstone, on the edge of indignance. "Look, Mother Maximus, if you wanted a disgusting orgy where Sister Sulfur plays the bagpipes while we eat toads and snakes without salt—lovely rendition of Night on Bald Mountain, by the way—then tell us that we're having a Black Sabbath, or a Witch's Sabbath. But if you send everyone a mass text saying, 'sabbath on Friday,' I'm going to assume that we're celebrating the Jewish holy day of rest. Hence, challah."

"Why would we celebrate the Jewish holy day of rest? This is Japan!"

"I don't know, why are we celebrating the European Black Sabbath? Besides, we're not even that good at it." Brother Brimstone pointed to the organist, Brother Revelation, who was milking as much panache as he could out of an organ that hadn't been tuned (or cleaned) for decades. "Don't you recognize Iron Man? Just because the sheet music had Black Sabbath on it doesn't mean it's supposed to be played at a Black Sabbath."

Brother Revelation stopped playing, and Soma imagined him to be red in the face underneath the mask.

FLASHBACK END

"…And Brother Brimstone ended up dunking the whole thing in the dark chocolate fountain, so it would be black challah," said Soma. "It was pretty good."

Gas Mask looked back at the bag of storebought treats. "…All right, I can't compete with fresh bread."

Cat Man stood up. "Screw that, I'm making eclairs!"

(Fun fact: During the Early Modern Period at least, witches were accused of stealing Communion for use in dark spells. And yes, bagpipes featured in Witch's Sabbaths, along with witches eating toads and lizards without salt.)