A Game of Cat and Cat Chapter 14: A Waltz in the Dark, a Castlevania + Megami Tensei Crossover fanfic

149 is my new favorite number. It's prime. I had considered that the number would be 264, which I also like, but it seemed too big. You'll see why I chose that number later.

Yay, Castlevania Nocturne! I was trying to get this out before it did; call it a personal deadline.

Due to the way I wrote this, the next chapter is still being written, but the one after that is complete. And it is long, over twice as long as this one.

A Waltz in the Dark: the Belmont Chapter

"Vampires appear to believe that Hell is located in the sun. I suppose this makes sense; the gentlest sunbeam scorching the flesh of a vampire is not dissimilar to the furnace that refused to burn the righteous. Many who hear this scoff and say that sunlight is harmless (obviously, they never campaigned in the desert), but this is only what we mortals have deemed normal. If becoming a vampire is a sin against God, then sunlight is their Hellfire; daytime, their Lake of Sulfur."

-Diary of Leon Belmont

What makes the Belmont family special? How have they lasted so long through the eras, when so few families stayed together?

The easy answer is that the Vampire Killer only deigns to be wielded by descendants of her love Leon Belmont. There's more incentive to stick together when your prized weapon can only be passed on to relatives. More cynically, the Vampire Killer can only be used by one person a generation, which both simplifies and complicates the succession crisis.

A slightly more complicated answer is luck. Or rather, chance; the former is the probability that your shot hits the target, and the latter is the number of arrows in your quiver. Everyone's luck runs out someday, but family extinction is much harder when someone meticulously records cousins, in-laws, and twice- and third-removeds (whatever that means) in other countries (Trevor Belmont was extremely unlucky to be the last of his line). Belmont women also have a persistent habit of passing their surname to their children, which has the side effect of combating the Galton-Watson process of surname extinction.

If you asked the Belmonts, they would say that what sets them apart is their training, how they pass their technique on to the next generation. Belmonts start training their charges young, don't tax their bodies unduly, and make sure to teach strategy and creative thinking in addition to building strength and agility. This answer is not incorrect, but neither is it informative; indeed, it is not dissimilar to a master chef's 'secret' being patience and a good oven.

More than a few people look at these reasons and try to pick them apart and find the real secret. It can't possibly be that simple; if it was, then why are there so few famous monster hunting families out there?

The truth is that all of these are correct. There is no one secret, just the cumulation of many small things working in tandem. Sometimes, all you really do need is patience and a good oven. Of course, this patience is also the patience to keep practicing with your good oven. The Belmonts maybe have been lucky a long time ago, but they worked hard to make that luck count.

(10:44 am)

"I'm sorry," said the doctor.

The man on the table was dead. His ghost had been floating next to the body for the past hour; Leon had spent that time holding the man's spectral hand, assuring him that his ghost popping out wasn't a death sentence. This was where near-death experiences came from, after all, and any minute now his heart was going to restart, his lungs would inflate through their own power rather than through a shoddy machine, and then he could go back to a real sleep. He'd wake up to his friends crying and shouting how they'd thought he was a goner, they'd promise to treat him to steaks and shochu and beer while the doctor would scold them (via his partner or Madam Pain) and say that he should be put on a low-sugar, non-fried diet, knowing full well that they'd carry him arm-over-shoulder to the Korean barbecue three doors down as soon as he'd be discharged…

"You said I'd live," said the man petulantly. Not that Leon could blame him; everyone was entitled to a little spite after they passed. "You promised."

The doctor shook his head. "I gave you blood, stitched you up, kept you breathing the whole time. There's nothing more I could have done."

"But…"

"Easy," said Leon. Conveniently enough, ghosts could talk to each other regardless of language. "It's all right," he whispered. "Nobody can hurt you anymore."

Well, there were lots of things that could hurt ghosts, but he didn't need to know that right now.

The man stared at him, then threw himself to the corner of the room, wailing all the while. It took time for the newly departed to process that they could no longer return to their bodies, so he wouldn't be leaving any time soon.

"I had thought that it would make it easier on you," said Leon through the din.

"What would?" asked the doctor.

"Being able to see ghosts," said Leon. "Knowing for sure that an afterlife awaits. Knowing that even should you let a life under your care slip away, your patients are never truly lost."

The doctor shook his head. "That's just the conceit of the living," he said sharply. "If the idea of heaven made me feel any better, I'd just let them die." He crossed his arms. "Have you ever been to a funeral for a little girl where everyone keeps saying 'she's with God now?' If I believed them, I'd start killing children before they're old enough to sin. I'd stop bothering with penicillin and go straight to cyanide."

"That's… I suppose that's heartening to hear," said Leon, who had to help bury quite a few children, some of them his own. "I can tell it bothers you, though, having to speak with your deceased patients."

The doctor shrugged. "That part's not so bad. Normal doctors might not hear their patients bitching at them from beyond the grave, but they already get a lot of that from everyone else," said the doctor. He sighed. "Speaking of bitching, I have to tell his coworkers." He cleared his throat, and twitched his head in the direction of the dead man. "Do you mind looking after him for a bit? I can't deal with them and help him along at the same time."

"All right," said Leon.

"Great," said the doctor.

"But… are you not unprotected?"

The doctor shook his head. "You don't need to worry about me. My house is warded against ghosts. Nothing against you, just… I've had to barricade myself against more than a few angry patients."

"I see," said Leon.

"It's hard to eat dinner when someone's screaming at you for murdering them," said the doctor.

Leon nodded in sympathy. "I used to have to kill people twice."

The doctor blinked.

"I had something called the seven-day rule. First someone would call me to deal with a band of bandits raiding their village, then the ghosts of the bandits would start coming back to haunt them." Leon sighed. "Alas, too many villagers suspected that the hauntings were a scam, so I often had to battle the ghosts in secret. I was almost never paid."

"…You've lived a very interesting life, haven't you, Leon?" said the doctor.

"Long, rich, and fulfilling," sighed Leon. "Survived by… I don't know how many descendants I have today. Perhaps you are one of them?"

"Probably," said the doctor.

"That was fast."

The doctor shrugged. "You're what, about a thousand? Statistically, if you have any descendants, you're either going to be an ancestor to everyone or no one. Of course, sociologically, there's a lot of populations that your descendants couldn't have reached, but that's like… well, Japan, not Ireland."

"I have Japanese descendants," said Leon mildly. "That's why I'm here. To visit."

The doctor said nothing. Leon's head drooped.

"…I should go," said the doctor. "Could you swing by the office at… maybe midnight? I should have a last meal ready for him by then."

"Can do," said Leon.

(8:37 pm)

"All right, 149," said Julius in Romanian. "Tonight, we're going to play Keep-Away."

Apprentice #149 nodded.

As distasteful as it was to a man who had lost his name, Julius had no choice but to refer to every candidate by number. Names would have to wait for the second, third, or even fourth round of cuts.

Julius been out of contact with his family for… well, almost his entire adult life, and while this made him impartial on the test front (family infighting gets exponentially nastier when every last one of them knows how to use deadly weapons), he quickly realized it was going to be impossible to remember everyone's name. Learning the names of almost two hundred different people would be bad enough without the repeats. It was one thing to have multiple Johans and Marias, but ever since his 'death', the Belmonts had exploded with Julias, Julians, and Juleses (but never another Julius. Some names were off-limits). It took five variants on his name before Julius realized that he couldn't remember which one figured out that weird trick with the axe.

Of course, 149 wasn't the 149th person he'd tested, just the 149th person on the list. But almost everyone else on the list was busy with school or work at this time of year, and as a Japanese college student, 149 had nothing better to do.

Julius retrieved a gadget from his pocket. "Take this. I'll try to steal it from you, and if I succeed, you'll have to try to steal it back."

149 turned it over. "A clamshell cell phone?" she said. "I didn't know they still made those."

"They don't," said Julius. "We found it somewhere in a drawer back at the mansion. It's not very good as a phone anymore, but the timer still works. It's how we're scoring tonight's game. May I?" 149 handed it back to him.

Julius flicked it open and navigated to the timer. "It's not enough for you to have the phone by the end of the game; we need to know how long it stays in your possession."

"I see," said 149. "So while I have the phone, the clock is running, and if you steal it, you pause it."

If, not when. Julius made a note to write that down later. He shook his head. "It's the other way around. The clock runs when I have it, and you pause it."

"But why? Wouldn't that make it easier to chea… oh. I see." 149 smiled. "It's a trap. A lower time would be better for me, so an unscrupulous apprentice could try to reset the timer. But you're expecting that, so you have some way of knowing if I tried."

"Okay, now you're just showing off."

"But am I wrong?" pressed 149, unchastised.

"Confirming or denying would be a violation of test protocol," said Julius firmly.

149 nodded. "In that case, can I ask why we're using a phone instead of, say, an actual timer?"

"It's a clamshell Nokia," said Julius. When 149 responded with a blank stare, he added, "We do so much falling and striking that it's easy to break the timer by accident. Nokias are… well, not indestructible, but more resilient than a cheap supermarket timer."

"And the clamshell?"

"So we don't press any buttons by accident. That happens sometimes. Spare change and loose coats don't always mix. Here, let me show you how to turn the timer on and off."

Julius fiddled with it and let 149 mess around with the buttons. "And for how long will we be doing this?" she asked.

"Until I say it ends."

149 nodded. "Indefinitely. A test of pace as well as skill."

"And before you think of any clever solutions, keep in mind that this is a test of your skill, not of your ability to find loopholes," said Julius sharply.

149 cocked her head. "Define 'clever solution.' Is dirty fighting not family tradition?"

Julius shook his head. "Those qualify as skill. Traps, feints, low blows, they're all genuine… no, that's not quite right, either. The clever solutions I mean are still clever, but… it's hard to put it into words. Or all in one category."

"Could you give some examples?"

Julius took in a deep breath. "One of your cousins pretended that he broke his leg on a fire escape, and when I came over to help, he shoved me off."

"Luring demons closer by feigning weakness or injury is a legitimate technique. Why was it wrong for him to use it here?"

Didn't even bother pretending to be appalled.

Julius knew what she was getting at. "If you're so smart, you tell me."

149 paused. "The distinction is similar to that which exists between strategy and perfidy. A demon would draw near with the intent to cause harm, but we both know your concern is genuine. It's an abuse of the safety buffer inherent in the testing framework, as well as your trust. Taking advantage of an enemy's weakness is strategy, but taking advantage of their mercy is a war crime."

A tad verbose, but not wrong. "But that's not all. One of your nieces hid the timer in a wall instead of keeping it on her person, which I didn't realize until I caught her. I don't deny that was clever, but she had to do the whole exercise over again."

149 nodded. "Keep in mind the intent of the test, not merely the given objectives," she said. "This is a test of how to hunt and evade, not how to hide an artifact. Whether it would have worked in real life is irrelevant; the problem was that your ability to measure her skill was compromised."

"And someone who shall not be named hid the timer in her bra," grumbled Julius. "And before you ask, once I realized that it wasn't in any of her pockets, I told her to take it out or she'd be disqualified."

"Ah. That's just common decency."

"Indeed." Julius stretched. "Any questions?"

"Just one," said 149. "Is magic allowed? Is it treated as part of the skill, or does it violate the intent?"

Julius sighed. "No magic tonight, or on any other preliminary test exercise. You wouldn't believe how long we had to debate that point."

149 sighed. "They're my family too, Uncle. I can imagine."

"Almost five hundred years."

"…I will admit I did not expect that," conceded 149.

Julius shrugged. "We can trace it back to Trevor trying to figure out which of his children should inherit the Vampire Killer. Admittedly, Trevor only had five children to choose from rather than the hundreds we have today." He stretched. "Like I said, the problem is finding the balance between fairness and cunning. Is it unfair to deny mages their natural advantage? Or is it unfair to pit non-mages against mages? What do you think?"

149 paused. "Give me a moment," she said.

"Don't look for the answer I want," said Julius sharply. "Tell me the answer you think. Say it in Japanese, if it's easier," he added in Japanese. Less time to translate, less time to dress up in pretty words. Will you try to assert your own magical skill? Or try to downplay it in hopes of seeming more egalitarian?

"They're both unfair, perhaps in unequal amounts, but even if you could find the side that was less unfair, the unfairness wouldn't cancel out," babbled 149. She paused. "That… might not have been grammatically correct."

"…Not the answer I was expecting," admitted Julius. "The rationale for the current compromise is that magic is a supplement to your arsenal, not a replacement. It doesn't matter if you can call the sun from the heavens; if you can't jump or dodge, you shouldn't be testing."

"And it evens out in the final cuts?" said 149.

Julius shrugged. "Too many factors at work. Just do your best and remember the rules."

What Julius didn't say was, 'the next heir isn't necessarily the best fighter.' Not in the sense of 'strength is obsolete in the modern day;' the clan head was still expected to be a warrior first and a politician second (or third, or even not at all). No, once you sorted out skill, you had to see who had enough heart. The words tasted cliché in his mouth, but there was no getting around it.

Julius wasn't just picking an heir; he was training one. Training a weak or clumsy student was difficult, but doable. Training an unreliable or unmotivated student, on the other hand, was beyond even him. If they couldn't motivate themselves, if they couldn't stomach dirty work, well, no amount of talent could save them. His current pet peeve was vicarious living; too many candidates had decent to excellent skills but were only in the running because their parents told them to sign up.

Besides, the ages of the candidates ranged from fifteen to thirty; it wouldn't be fair if the students who could only train after school had to compete with the career hunters.

"Like you said earlier, the point isn't to show that you can hide the timer from me," said Julius.

"Fair enough," shrugged 149.

"On the other hand…" He withdrew a flask from his pack. "Three doses of potion. I will not judge on how many you have left at the end of the test."

149 took the bottle gratefully. "If you knew my cousin had this, then how did he trick you?"

"Always better to err on the side of caution," said Julius brusquely. When someone needs help, you don't stop to think. For someone as strong as Julius, it was better to be gullible and led into a trap, than to be cynical and leave an innocent to die. Wounds healed, his conscience didn't. "Any more questions?"

"I have none," said 149.

Julius passed her the timer. "In that case… let us begin. You get a one-minute head start."

(8:44 pm)

"…And that's when I had come to terms with the death of my cat," said the ghost of the Yakuza.

"I see," said Leon. The ghost of the Yakuza had led him to the closest place where he felt safe, which was the public park. Even Yakuza liked playing on swing sets, apparently.

"Of course, I never could replace him," continued the ghost. "A life is unique, even the life of an animal. Which is probably why when I was in eighth grade, I saw this bear cub, and…"

(9:25 pm)

Julius had to admit that 149 was good. The test had been running for over half an hour, and he still hadn't caught her.

Within the first five minutes of the test, she had confronted him head-on. Julius had taken this for simple impatience and responded to her weak strikes with a vicious series of lashes, until he realized that he was breathing much harder than she was. She'd then dropped her token resistance and ran, leaving Julius to follow with leaden arms.

Julius grinned. This was the kind of trickery he could get behind.

She'd lured him to the old part of town, where alleyways ran crooked and windows were barred and shuttered. Julius dropped into the maze of alleyways, scanning for hiding spots. 149 should be here somewhere; now, would she ambush him out of paranoia, or hide in one place? He couldn't judge which option would be objectively better; only the execution matt—

"Help! Uncle, please help!"

Little girls did not approach strange men in the middle of the night, especially not strange foreign men. Not unless this was an emergency.

"My big brother, he… he's not waking up!"

Wouldn't it be easier to call an ambulance?

Yes, but I'm here, and the ambulance isn't.

"All right," he said. "Lead the way."

Julius let the girl lead him further into the alleyway, his hand not leaving his whip. If he discovered that 149 had asked or, God forbid, hired this girl to distract him, that would be grounds for instant elimination. Cheating would be bad enough, but involving an ordinary person was against the rules.

Soon enough, though, he found that the girl wasn't lying about her brother. She had laid him out on his side on top of a bundle of flattened cardboard boxes, cocooned in what looked like a whole rack of clothes lifted from the flea market. Julius quietly approved; the ground was a heat sink, and even a sheet of cardboard could protect you from losing valuable body heat.

"Let me see," he said, and knelt. "…Kazuya?"

Indeed, it was Soma and Mina's new friend, looking battered and feeling cold to the touch. Unwrapping the cocoon revealed soaked and towel-dried hair, as well as—

"Where are his clothes?" said Julius. He wasn't completely naked; a pair of wet boxers protected his modesty, although not much else.

"Soaked," said Kazuya's sister. "I took them off so he wouldn't get tei taion-shou."

"Tei taion-shou?" repeated Julius. The Japanese phrasebooks he'd used had only taught him common medical phrases like, 'I have a cold,' 'My bones hurt,' and, 'I do not have Coronavirus.' "What does that mean?"

"It's…" the girl paused. "When you're so cold your body doesn't work right."

"Ah," said Julius. "Hypothermia," he said in Romanian.

"Yes, hypothermia," she repeated. "Tei taion-shou. Can you help him?"

Julius examined him closer. No visible injuries. Breathing and pulse were steady, which was unusual for an unconscious hypothermia patient, but still a good sign. He was shivering, which was also a good sign, but…

"Does he really have hypothermia?" Julius said to himself. Well, it's not like treating him for hypothermia would hurt. He placed heating packs around his chest.

"What happened?" said Julius.

The girl flinched.

"You're not in trouble," said Julius gently. "I'm not going to tell the police anything. But I need to know what hurt him. I can't help him unless I know what I need to do."

"…He got caught in the rain," admitted the girl. "He was jogging, felt hot, and took off his clothes. Then it started raining, and he was already exhausted from running, so… he passed out."

Oh no.

Well, as my grandmother always used to say, you can't go wrong with a potion.

Julius reached into his pack for the healing salve. Salves were slower and less efficient than potions because they were applied topically rather than orally, but since you can't choke on them, they were perfect for treating the unconscious. Most solo hunters didn't bother with them, but they came in handy for training.

Kazuya groaned, but didn't wake up.

Julius started rummaging through his bag. "Come on, what else do I have… Antivenom, anti-curse… ah."

One of the first things any Belmont or Belnades learned in magic class* was that magical energy was the same as life force. Casting spells wasn't dangerous as long as you only skimmed off the excess; if you felt tired, stop immediately. In most cases, you'd knock yourself out before you'd kill yourself, but that distinction was moot in real life; after all, falling unconscious in the middle of the battle was usually a prelude to death.

*[But not the first thing, which was usually to call your teacher sir or ma'am instead of Uncle or Auntie, or in some dreaded cases, Mom or Dad].

In other words, using a mana potion was a valid (but expensive) way of quickly restoring someone's stamina. Julius dutifully poured a potion of concentrated magic onto a rag, and started to rub the boy at vital nodes. It was hard to tell in this light, but he seemed to look better.

"Is he going to be okay?" said the girl.

"Should be," said Julius. "Are you?"

"Eh?"

"You're soaked, too," said Julius. He took off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. "You're a great sister, looking after your big brother like that, but you have to take care of yourself, too."

The girl gingerly accepted Julius's long coat. She was so small, Julius guessed that it would trail the ground as she walked.

"Don't worry about getting it dirty; it's been through worse," said Julius.

She zipped it up, looking vaguely like a chess pawn. "You want this back, right?"

"Leave it on the roof of his dorm," said Julius. "I'll pick it up tomorrow."

He looked around. Best not to let 149 meet Soma's friends. "I'm going to call an ambulance. Can you help me carry him to the street?"

(10:01 pm)

After that distraction, Julius didn't expect to find 149 so soon. But he did; she was waiting for him atop a high building.

"Not a bad plan, making me climb," said Julius.

149 cocked her head. "What happened to your jacket?"

"Used it to make a decoy," Julius lied. "But you didn't even see it. I'll get it back later."

"If you say so," said 149, drawing her whip.

"A lesson," said Julius, drawing his. "You lured me here to tire me. Did you realize the limited space?"

"Of course I did," said 149. "Which is why—Wait, do you smell smoke?"

"This had better not be a trick."

"Who would admit to that?" said 149. She stowed her whip and looked around. "I was going to jump off and force you to follow. But this takes priority."

Indeed, Julius could smell something burning. Normally, he'd think this was just another consequence of living in a city; people burned things all the time. But the overpowering smell shouldn't have reached this high up…

Julius squinted. "I see smoke."

"I'm going in," said 149.

"Wait, wh—"

But 149 had already leapt from the building.

(10:15 pm)

"Which was, of course, when I realized that I really liked hurting people," said the Yakuza.

"I will admit that I understand that feeling," said Leon. "Although do you derive satisfaction from successfully performing an attack, or watching another in pain?"

The ghost was silent.

(10:20 pm)

For all her talk, 149 didn't run very fast. Even tired, Julius caught up to her within a block of the burning apartment.

"You do realize that we could just leave this to the fire department, right?" said Julius. "There's no need to perform a daring fire rescue."

"I suppose not," said 149, unwrapping the rain-dampened cloth around her face.

Julius sighed, and turned his back on her. "You know what, you get another one-minute head start. It's not going to count towards your total score."

"I see."

Julius paused. "Shouldn't you be, you know, running?"

"Nothing wrong with using my head start as a break, is there?"

"I suppose not."

Julius sat down next to her and peered into the night. Things seemed to be under control. The fire trucks were already spraying water through the broken windows, and the usual crowd of onlookers and evacuees were standing or sitting behind the line. Apron-clad workers from the convenience store were passing out blankets and hot drinks to the evacuees, and there didn't seem to be anyone left in the—

"Help!" A man was leaning out a window on the highest floor of the building, too high for the trampoline to be effective. "Help!"

149 stood up. "I think that's a—"

"No, wait." Julius gaped. "Dario Bossi?!"

"…Should I know who that is?" said 149.

Julius stood up, making sure his bottle of holy water was in place. "International serial arsonist," he explained. "What most people don't know is that he inherited pyrokinetic powers from Dracula. I fought him once."

"What's he doing here?"

"No idea," said Julius. What could he possibly want? All that's here is…

Soma. Mina. Yoko. Me.

"We're putting this exercise on hold," said Julius, preparing to spring. "Give me that cloth. Stay here. I'll face him."

"Wait!" cried 149.

"I fought him once, and I can fight him again," said Julius brusquely. "Don't stop me."

"No, not that," said 149. "Look."

A team of firefighters was marching into the building.

Julius's blood ran cold. "Oh no…"

"We need to stop them," said 149. "Do you have a plan?"

"Get him before they find him," said Julius.

"But if they don't find him, they'll keep looking," said 149.

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"…You're not going to like it."

"Humor me."

"I make the fire worse," said 149. "Emergency services are supposed to give up if the risk is too great."

"But you'll never know if someone's going to try to be a hero," Julius pointed out. "And what if their communication equipment fails, and they never get the order to leave? If they die, then—"

"I told you, you weren't going to like it," said 149 meekly.

Julius looked around. "We don't have time to debate," said Julius. "Stay here. I'm going in."

(10:29 pm)

Doctor Dude and Mr. Addams hadn't lived in Japan for very long, and the smallest things still surprised them. Reusable tableware in takeout, for instance. Annyeong Barbecue delivered their takeout in ceramic bowls, along with metal chopsticks and the expectation that they were to be returned at earliest convenience. The plating was also much nicer than they'd expected; colorful vegetables nestled around thin, fried slices of beef, the whole bowl crowned with a fried egg that the doctor knew would be just runny enough in the middle.

All this attention to detail and concern for the environment was certainly appreciated, but this bowl couldn't be eaten as it was. At least, not by the intended audience.

The doctor slid the back of a wide spoon beneath the perfectly fried egg, then transferred it to a clean plate. One by one, he then plucked the beef slices with the chopsticks and set them down next to the egg. The vegetables followed suit, in the best imitation the doctor could make of the original pattern, until all that remained was the bed of rice (lightly soaked in the beef's juices). After fetching the paper bowl, the doctor lifted the takeout bowl to scrape the rice into it, paused halfway through, and put it back down. He scooped it out instead; it would have been nice to say that he hadn't left a single grain of rice behind in the ceramic bowl, but some of the rice clung to the spoon and when he tried to scrape it off with the chopsticks, it stuck to the chopsticks instead. He eventually gave up on the rice and turned his attention to carefully replating the vegetables, the beef, and finally the egg. The result was messier than the original; he knew he had poor plating skills, but that was no reason to get sloppy. A lack of skill was acceptable; a lack of care was not.

The doctor picked up the filled paper bowl with both hands and laid it on top of a thick clay tray he'd bought just for this purpose. Two napkins and a pre-snapped pair of disposable chopsticks were pulled from a drawer, then laid at its side.

"Here's to you, sir," he said aloud.

The whole meal, utensils and all, was then set ablaze, until there was nothing left but spirit and ash. The spirit he laid on the altar in the corner; the ashes he would throw away when cooled.

Mr. Addams whistled from the doorway. "I'm impressed," he said.

Doctor Dude shook his head. "Please. My plating isn't that good."

"Not that. I'm impressed that you didn't eat any of it," said Mr. Addams.

"What, are you hungry?" said Doctor Dude.

"I'm not, but you should be," said Mr. Addams. "You hadn't eaten anything since breakfast." He paused. "You did eat breakfast, right?"

"…Was it bacon and eggs?"

Mr. Addams sighed. "I can't eat bacon, remember?"

"Right. Kosher. Sorry."

"I thought you were going to get dinner there," said Mr. Addams. "Why didn't you?"

"I couldn't order for myself," said Dr. Dude.

"According to what rule?" said the assistant.

The doctor shrugged. "I don't know. Felt like it would have been insulting if I'd left his last meal as an afterthought. Buying two bulgogi bibimbap bowls and giving him one isn't the same as buying one and giving it to him."

Mr. Addams paused. "That's… arbitrary."

"If it feels right, it feels right," said the doctor.

"If you say so," said Mr. Addams dubiously. He withdrew a takeout menu from his inside jacket pocket. "So… I'm getting Chinese. What would you like?"

(10:32 pm)

…five, six, seven… there!

Julius kicked down the door. "Dario Bossi!" he roared.

Dario threw his hands up and cursed in Italian. "And now you're here!" he added in English.

Now, it is worth noting that Julius does not speak English particularly well. Other than his native Romanian, Julius had only studied two languages in earnest: Russian and Japanese. While Julius had picked up some English on his travels, it was mostly things like, "Where is the train station," "How much is this meal," and, "I demand to speak to a lawyer!"

"Why you in… um… Japonia?" Julius managed, drawing the Vampire Killer.

"Che palle!" Dario shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. "I [unknown word] to get away from you [unknown word]! You think I wanted [unknown phrase] ever again, after that [unknown phrase] in [unknown word, probably Russia?]?!"

"I… um… fight!" said Julius.

Dario cocked his head. "You don't speak English, do you?"

Julius stared blankly as he tried to parse the negative in that sentence.

"Madonna," groaned Dario. "Do you speak Russian?" he asked in Russian. "Of course. You're old, so Romania would have been part of the USSR when you were born. You have to know Russian."

Julius blinked. "You speak Russian?" he said in Russian.

"Of course I speak Russian!" shouted Dario. "I speak seven languages! You think you can be an international serial arsonist if you only know Italian?!"

This was not part of the intel Yoko had given him. Then again, he supposed that when you're trying to find how effectively a man can kill someone with fire, details like whether they can say 'pass the salt' in Russian were unimportant. Dario must have been smarter than anyone had given him credit for. Then again…

Julius cocked his head. "So you didn't know that the ritual to seal Castlevania originated in Japan."

"The what?"

"Or that Soma is Japanese."

"He is?!"

"And that I'm here."

"I know that now," Dario whined.

"Of course, there's no way that you could possible know that—"

Julius threw his knife mid-sentence, which embedded itself in Dario's arm. Dario responded by shooting a wave of fire at him, which Julius dodged by dashing towards him diagonally, giving him space to lash with his whip—

Dario and Julius had only fought one time before, and Dario had trounced him. But that was when Celia had bound the fire god Agni to Dario's soul, which Julius considered to be cheating. Shortly afterwards, Soma had stolen Agni from him, dropping him back to normal, whatever that was. While Julius didn't have much of an idea of how strong Dario was supposed to be, he knew how he fought.

It hadn't taken long for Julius to figure out that all Dario had going for him was firepower. He'd never needed anything else, not until he fought Soma. Oh, he'd played around with his powers, which was probably why he figured out how to do the flame-teleport trick, but he'd never needed to improve.

Julius had known several people who were like that. When people coasted along on their natural talent, you had to see who they were when they couldn't. Would frustration overtake them, or would they grit their teeth and try to rise? When he'd told that to Alucard, Alucard had given him a strange look and suggested that he reread the Jackie Chun scenes from Dragon Ball.

Now that Dario wasn't hopped up on Agni-juice, there were only two factors. The first was whether Julius's skill and experience would outweigh Dario's natural firepower. The second was…

"You're slowing down, old man," said Dario. "Smoke getting to you?"

"Give up," coughed Julius. "You haven't hit me once."

"Why you—"

Julius sidestepped another blast of fire, which smashed against a wooden cupboard, igniting it. He had to finish this fast. The more he dodged, the more dangerous this room would get; thankfully, there was less fire than before. There had to be, if… everything… was getting so… dark…

"Uncle!"

(4:39 am)

… be okay, Julius. Just breathe, and you'll feel better. Ah! You're…

Julius woke up. Something plastic was covering his face, and when he turned around, he saw IVs coming out of his arms. 149 was asleep on the bed next to him, looking sooty but otherwise unharmed.

He lifted his right hand. He had felt something pressing on it, as if it were dipped in chilled honey, but the sensation had vanished.

So… what now? Were you supposed to call the doctor if you woke up from a coma? But Julius couldn't shout, not like this. And there wasn't a buzzer or anything. So was he supposed to just lie there and—

Heavy footsteps stomped through the hallway. A wave of dread washed over him, screaming at him to—

Run. Get away. Hide.

But he couldn't.

The door opened, and a man in a lab coat walked in. There wasn't anything visibly abnormal about him; maybe he was a bit pale, and that face mask meant Julius couldn't check for fangs, but none of that explained why the sight of him made his heart rate explode—

The man's eyes widened, and he rushed to Julius's side, dropping a clipboard in his haste. Nothing he did to Julius was wrong; maybe he was a little too rough when checking his pulse, or he shouldn't have shouted too loudly next to a patient, but that was just normal negligence. None of that explained the oppressive aura choking the air. It was furious, terrifying… and familiar.

The doctor's head snapped to his right. "What?" he said in English, apparently to thin air. "What do you—" He continued to argue with something Julius couldn't see, pointing and sweeping his arms. "…You're right." He turned around and left, leaving Julius to breathe again. What was that all about?

Soon after, someone else came in.

"Ko…konichiwa," he stuttered. "I speak a little Japanese. Do you?"

"Yes. Where am I?"

"Hospital."

"Rather small and dingy for a hospital," said Julius.

"Yes. Very small hospital. There is only doctor and there is only me."

Julius rearranged this information. He was reasonably sure that most textbooks didn't teach people how to say 'back-alley doctor,' 'illegal clinic,' or 'sir I can tell you are clearly a member of the Yakuza.' But he was sure that everyone spoke the language of 'too desperate to care.' "Am I okay?"

"I do not know. I will know." The man checked the machines, and then examined Julius. "No bad. Hurt? Anywhere body hurt?"

"Nowhere."

"…I will be here again."

The man left, and returned with a cartoon poster of the human body and a capped pen. "Where hurt? Up, down, left, right?"

"Nowhere hurts," said Julius. He paused to arrange his words. "I feel good."

The man nodded. "Use air," he said, tapping the oxygen tank connected to Julius's mask (at least, Julius hoped it was oxygen). "Use lots of air."

"Yes. How is she?" Julius pointed to 149.

"She is better than you."

"Good."

"You want water? Food?"

"Water."

The man fetched him a paper cup of water, which Julius drank gratefully. "More water." He fetched him another cup, and Julius drank.

"You must sleep," said the man. "If you cannot sleep, do you want to watch… um… anime?"

"…Just let me sleep."

(5:41 am)

"I was afraid you wouldn't make it," said 149 in Romanian. "It was lucky they had oxygen."

Julius had fallen asleep, and then woke up to 149 sitting next to his bed, drinking canned corn soup (while Julius wasn't usually sure whether soup was eaten or drank, he was sure that the kind that came in a soda can was drunk). She'd gotten one for him, which he sipped gratefully.

"Underground clinics tend not to be well supplied," agreed Julius. "So why did you bring me here?"

"It was closer than the hospital," said 149.

"And you didn't think to call an ambulance?"

"…No," admitted 149.

And you went straight to the fire, without thinking there would be firefighters. You're not used to being able to rely on public services, are you? In that case…

"What first aid did you perform on me?" asked Julius.

149 blinked. "Other than getting you out of the fire, I applied some healing salve and every anti-poison spell I knew."

"No CPR?"

"You didn't need any."

"Why anti-poison?"

149 shrugged. "Carbon monoxide poisoning is still poison. Poison-cure spells are a universal antidote; if it works on both a scorpion's sting and a snake's fangs, why wouldn't it work on smoke?"

"Good point," said Julius. "And what happened to Dario?"

"He got away," said 149. "It was you or him."

Julius had to agree with that. "What were you doing inside the building, anyways?" asked Julius. Don't tell me you were trying to rescue me, or you thought you could face Dario al—

"Rescuing the firefighters," said 149 promptly. "They shouldn't have been there at all. What would have happened if they had burst into your fight?"

Not… well, not the worst answer. "That was reckless," he scolded.

"So were you," said 149.

"You have your whole life ahead of you. Don't throw it away."

"And you're the only person who can pass down the Vampire Killer," retorted 149. "If you died, the family would go to war with itself."

"…Fine. All life is valuable, especially your own, so you should take care of it," droned Julius. I'll have to think about this when I'm not in a hospital bed.

There was a pause.

"You speak English, right?" said Julius.

149 nodded.

"Tell them I want to get out of here as soon as possible," said Julius.

149 blinked. "Why? I know it's not the nicest hospital around, but—"

"Something's not right about this place," said Julius. "And I don't intend to stick around to find out."

"…All right," 149 relented. "Even if you're wrong, you clearly don't feel safe here, and you can't rest if you're afraid. But if you're going to leave, I'm walking you home."

Julius stared at her. "…You're not getting more points for this."

"…I can't respond to that without making it sound like I'm angling for more points," admitted 149.

"How so?" said Julius, and then it hit him. "No, I get it. If you said the points didn't matter, then it would sound like you're feigning indifference to seem more heroic and win my approval, and I'd see through that. But you obviously can't say that you want more points, either."

149 nodded. "So just buy me lunch tomorrow, and we can forget about all this, okay?"

Julius nodded. There's something about her and a need to avoid debts. Now, is that a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing?

"I will, however, tell the doctor," said 149. "I don't want to scare him by helping his patient disappear."

"…Proceed."

149 left, and Julius heard a long conversation from the next room. She emerged shortly afterwards. "He says he strongly advises you not to leave, but he also says that he can't actually stop you from doing so," said 149. "Also, avoid secondhand smoke and excessively hot or cold air, eat lots of vegetables, and make sure to check in on—I mean, he asked me to make sure to check in on you."

"Good," said Julius. "Then let's get out of here."

(6:12 am)

149 made good on her promise. She'd called a cab (a few blocks away from the clinic, at the secretary's insistence), offered Julius her shoulder on the way out, and shouldered him all the way to his hotel room. There were some whispers and stares directed towards the young woman escorting a possibly drunk foreign man to his hotel room, but Julius ignored them. There were more important things to deal with.

Julius slammed his head into the pillow. Birds chirped outside the hotel room window, a lovely treat for people who wake up before dawn, but a mocking reminder of lost time for night owls and insomniacs.

Before he could resign himself to Morpheus's embrace, he'd have to make sure his schedule was fixed. He texted 149 in Romanian, Training is cancelled today, for reasons that you are no doubt aware.

Julius burrowed under the covers and tried to sort out what the hell he saw in that clinic.

(7:33 am)

"He must really mean a lot to you," said the doctor.

The doctor and the secretary should have gone home hours ago, but they'd stayed late to watch over Julius. Then Mr. Addams fell asleep, so Dr. Dude decided it was easier to stay in the office and wait for him to wake up than it was to lug him all the way back to their apartment.

"How do you mean?" asked Leon.

"Your hands never left his," said the doctor. "The second you came through the wall, you were on your knees, whispering to him."

"He's family."

"All of them?"

Leon shot him a pointed look. "It's love. Don't test me."

"…All right."

They sat there in silence.

"Answer me this, though," said Leon. "Why was he afraid of you?"

The doctor shrugged defensively. "I have never seen him before in my life."

"Maybe so… do you have an identical twin brother, by any chance?"

"Well…"

The door opened.

"Someone's here to see you," said the secretary, rubbing his eyes.

"Is it the copper babysitter?" said Doctor Dude.

"It's Agent Fireball, yes," said Mr. Addams.

"What does he care?" said Doctor Dude. "Nobody uses their real name here anyways. Does it really matter which fake name I use?"

"…We're not having this discussion again," said the secretary whose last name was not actually Addams. "Just get out here."

The doctor stood up. "Who's hurt this time, anyways? Hotshot? Opera Blue? Get-Off-That's-Expensive?"

"You… might want to see this for yourself."

TO BE CONTINUED!

Incidentally, Dario was ranting in English, "I came here to get away from you freaks! You think I wanted to see any of you ever again, after that fiasco in Russia?!"

A note on languages: Soma is fluent in English, Japanese, and Spanish.

The way I interpret things, every conversation in Aria of Sorrow was conducted in Japanese except for the ones with Graham and Hammer; Soma spoke to them in English. I can also see that Mina and Hammer might have tried to talk to each other, but neither are fluent in the other's language, so it took a lot of miming and drawing. In Dawn, Soma speaks English to the cult and Hammer, and Japanese to the rest of his allies.

Since Dario is supposed to be an idiot, I was wondering if he'd be able to learn English as a second language well enough to argue with Soma. I still liked the idea of him cursing in Italian, so I toyed with the idea of him being American with an Italian grandmother before deciding that a polyglot who's otherwise a dumbass was funny.

If you noticed, Doctor Dude's assistant seems to change names a lot. That's not a mistake; it's actually spelled Addams, but since nobody but the doctor has seen it written down, their narrations spell it Adams.

Omake 1: Pine

Picture a forest. Bigger. Bigger.

Picture not a cluster of trees, but a land of trees, blanketing the hills and valleys in a tangle of soaring trees and rising shoots. A sprawl of greenery bounded only by the mountains and sea, not hemmed in by roads and buildings. Patches dot the sea of trees, marking the settlements of budding humanity.

The girl who would become Agent Pine (or to Dr. Dude, Get-Off-That's-Expensive) crept into Auntie's cave, her face covered in mud. She had been crying, but the mud was too thick for tears alone to dislodge.

"Small Tree!" cried Auntie. "Come in. Have a seat!" Auntie wiped the dirt off a flat stone bench.

Small Tree sat on the bench, and Auntie gave her a steaming cup of soup. It was made from the crushed, dried berries of a nutritious plant, the stalks of which were used as fuel for the fire, along with boiled bones and fruit. Their society had not yet reached a point where they could farm tea.

"The other children teased you again?" said Auntie.

Small Tree nodded, but didn't say what they said. Her saying it would only make it true. Instead, she drank her soup. "Tell me a story, Auntie." Auntie's stories always made her feel better. Auntie used to travel from village to village, trading her special brews and soups. Her bad back prevented her from carrying the pots nowadays, but every day she honed her craft. Small Tree listened to everything, from the time she climbed the mountain where the sun rose to find the end of the world but instead discovered another mountain range on the horizon, to those little songs she hummed to recall the exact proportions of her recipes.

"Today is a special day," said Auntie. "My secret project is done."

Small Tree looked up. "Really, Auntie?!"

Auntie nodded. "Come here."

Auntie led Small Tree to the back of the cave, where a large table covered in a tablecloth sat.

"There's nothing there," said Small Tree.

"Nothing on there, but what about underneath?" Auntie swept aside the tablecloth, revealing something that Small Tree had never seen before. It had, in fact, never been seen before in the whole world.

"I call it—Truck."

Of course, this was not the actual word Auntie used, which was 'wheeled table'. But it was the first machine in the world to use rotational force to move heavy loads, and if that wasn't a truck, then what was?

"Wow!" cried Small Tree. "Auntie, you made this?"

Auntie nodded. "We can use it to move things from place to place much faster than carrying," she said. "Put some jars on it; we'll take it to the village!"

Small Tree helped Auntie stack pots and jars, some full of alcohol, others empty in anticipation of receiving grain, ginger, and other goods. Normally, she carried these for Auntie by hand; would it all change after today?

While we think of a truck as something to ride, this was little more than a table with wheels in place of legs. Small Tree pulled from the front and Auntie pushed from the back, much like two people carrying a heavy wardrobe.

How could they have expected this? This was the very first truck, the very first thing with wheels that didn't make pots. Their experience with inertia was largely intuitive, not experimental. The jars were so heavy, there shouldn't have been a need to secure them to the truck.

Either way, when the pair guided the truck down a slope, a jar slid from the truck and crashed into Small Tree; Auntie immediately let go of the truck so she could run to her niece's side, allowing the whole load to slip free—

Small Tree was dead before she hit the bottom of the slope.

A man was laughing. That was the first thing Small Tree noticed.

She opened her eyes and sat up. A vast field of white flowers stretched in every direction, opening to the starry night sky.

"No, it's just… I'm sorry, a truck?" said a voice behind her. "The same day you invent the truck, you invent vehicular manslaughter."

Small Tree turned around. A man around her father's age was lying on the grass. Clad in garments as white as the flowers around him, garments the villager weaver would not be able to create in ten years' time, she knew this could not have been an ordinary mortal.

"Are you God?" asked Small Tree warily. While God have been kind to her village, you couldn't exactly be comfortable around Him.

The man cocked his head. "…Kinda? I'm not supposed to be here, but the answer to the question you're asking is… probably no."

"That's not very helpful."

"I get that a lot."

Small Tree lay back down. "I'm dead, then." Somehow, she felt like she should have been sadder. "Will Auntie be okay?"

"She should be," said not-God. "Right now, she's probably bawling her eyes out, but she's tough. She'll be okay someday; just not today. But that's good, isn't it? She wouldn't be this distraught if she didn't love you."

"That… that really doesn't make me feel any better."

"I also get that a lot."

The pair lay in silence. Small Tree curled up into a ball.

"So…" said Small Tree, to fill the silence. "What was that word you used earlier? Vehi… vehi… something manslaughter."

"Yup," said the man. "You're world's first victim of vehicular manslaughter."

"And what does it mean?"

"It means that someone hit you with a truck without meaning to, and now you're dead," said not-God.

"Huh," said Small Tree. "How is there already a word for that?"

"There's lots of words for things that haven't happened yet," said not-God. "I'm waiting for the world's first death by defenestration."

"De-what?"

"Being thrown out a window."

"How can you die from being thrown out a window?" said Small Tree. "They're not very high."

"Just wait until you see buildings with multiple floors," said not-God. "But that's not the point of me being here. In honor of you being the first person ever to be run over by a truck, let me grant you the traditional reward."

Small Tree cocked her head. "How can there be a traditional reward if this is the first time it happened?"

The man waved her off. "You'll see. You know about other worlds, right?"

Small Tree nodded. "Doesn't everyone? The gods came to this world from another." She'd often wondered about what lay beyond the forest; what did Auntie see from atop the mountain where the sun rose? It wasn't enough to simply hear what she had seen.

"Well, I happen to have the power to send you to other worlds," said not-God. "You're what? Twelve?"

"Fourteen."

"Too young to die, is what I'm saying," he said. "The way I see it, you have two options. Stay here, accept your death, and wait to be reincarnated. Or I can send you off to another world to live out the rest of your life however you want."

That alone sounded like everything Small Tree ever dreamed of. But… "Wasn't… wasn't the original world of the gods ravaged by disaster?" The thought made Small Tree shudder.

"…You could say that," said not-God. "But it's also impossible to visit that world. And not even I would dump a child in the middle of a warzone."

"A what?"

Not-God stared. "…You're lucky," he said. "So, how about it? A world beyond anything you've ever seen awaits."

Excitement swelled in Small Tree's heart. "I accept."

"Then come," said not-God. "You have everything you need."

"I… I do?" said Small Tree. "I know you're not talking about the things I was carrying, so are you talking about my talents? I'm good at climbing trees, and I can read faster than the other children my age, but how's that going to help?"

The man's only response was to laugh. He laughed and laughed, as a bright white light blurred Small Tree's vision. Suddenly, she felt as if—

Small Tree threw up.

It was night. The ground was as hard as stone and twice as rough, and yet it was as flat as a sandy beach after a wave.

Small Tree walked around. Even though it was nighttime, she could see perfectly well. Tall, thin trees glowed in the dark, illuminating a land of cut stone. Rounded sheets of ice sat on walls, ice that she couldn't see through, but instead reflected everything perfectly. Behind walls that seemed to be carved from a single tan stone, she could see houses taller than any she had ever seen before.

She looked up, and shuddered. Where were the stars? The moons? All she could see were a scattering of faint pinpricks, and a tiny crescent peering over a cloud.

"Did they steal light from the sky?" she said to herself. Part of her marveled at the ingenuity of this world, but another feared it. Who would dare steal light from the world, light that shone upon man and god alike? Light that—

Small Tree stopped. Different world, different gods. This was not light spawned from the noble sacrifice of a dead goddess.

She looked down at the hard, rough ground, and up at the smooth, bright trees. This earth wasn't hers. Neither were the trees. The rain here would merely be water falling from above, not a reunion between the brothers of water and weather. She shuddered again. Ancestor's tears… if it rained here.

She was the only one who carried the blood of her ancestors.

Small Tree fell to her knees, as she realized that she was now completely alone.

But… houses meant people. Were they humans just like her? Or were they people with strange features, people who could do incredible things like walk on air or—

Something rumbled. Small Tree looked around, then scurried up the nearest tree.

A monster with huge glowing eyes growled down the path where Small Tree had been walking. It stopped about ten feet from where she was hiding.

"Looks like my talent for tree-climbing did come in handy," she said to herself. "Is that what not-God meant when he said I already have everything I need?"

Then she summoned a spear of ice and shot it at the glowing monster.

Let us skip forward a bit. The driver's insurance technically covered being speared by a gigantic icicle, but gigantic icicles were not exactly common roadside hazards in subtropical Kyushu. The driver pursued the claim with photographic evidence, the insurance company assumed it was an elaborate scam, and the Agency picked up on the situation. Upon investigating, they found a homeless girl walking from town to town, one who roasted birds and small mammals. While this alone was not particularly unusual, her peculiar way of hunting without spear, sling, or arrow certainly was.

Once they got the report, it only took them around a week to find her. After all, this was before the… Situation stole all their time and resources.

"You really don't have people who can do this?" said Small Tree, picking at a bowl of katsu-don with chopsticks of ice. Technically, police weren't supposed to give people food during interrogations, but it wasn't really an interrogation, and she just looked so small and hungry… "Your world is weird."

"We do," said Agent Fireball. "Not many, though. How many people can summon ice like you?"

"About half the people in my village," said Small Tree. "The other half can use fire."

"Why?"

Small Tree shrugged. "Genetics are weird. The god who made my ancestors could do both, but apparently not even he knew why it split like that." She cocked her head. "What about the god who made yours?"

"No god made us," said Agent Fireball. "We just kind of… appeared." Despite the evidence of gods, Agent Fireball still believed in evolution. That said, there wasn't a Japanese myth that explained where humans came from.

"Huh," said Small Tree. "How does that work?"

Agent Fireball did his best to explain the theory of evolution to a girl who claimed to be from a world that by her description was probably somewhere in its stone age.

She stared back at him, fascinated. "That's incredible!" she said.

"Do you understand what I just said?" asked Fireball.

Small Tree nodded. "Whenever something reproduces, there's a tiny chance that their children will have a gene that's different from their parents. With a lot of things over a lot of time, you might get an animal that evolves into a human."

Something struck Agent Fireball as odd. "How do you know what genes are?"

"Grandfather taught me."

"And who taught your grandfather?"

"…God?" said Small Tree.

Seeing as this would go nowhere, Agent Fireball switched tactics. "What do you know about genetics?"

"Everyone's made of these tiny things called cells, and they tell each other how to make you," said Small Tree. "When two people have sex, their children's cells are a mix of their parents'. But if two people are too closely related, their children's cells turn out wrong and they might be born deformed."

Agent Fireball sighed. "Let me get this straight," said Agent Fireball. "You don't know what mirrors are, you just saw the invention of the cart, but you understand cell theory and genetics."

"…Yes?" said Small Tree.

Fireball sighed. "Let me ask you some questions. What color is my shirt?"

"Blue."

"And what color is that plant?"

"Green."

"Can you read and write?" he asked.

Small Tree nodded.

"Could you write the answers to my questions on here, please?" he said, passing her a large white leaf and a stick.

The man called Fireball asked her more questions, none of which made sense. Well, she knew what he was saying and how to answer his questions, but not why he asked them.

When they were finished, Fireball simply looked at the paper and frowned.

"Do you have any questions for me?" asked Fireball.

"What is vehicular manslaughter?"

Fireball stared. "It's when someone is driving a vehicle in a manner that is somehow illegal, hits someone else by accident, and they die."

"Huh," said Small Tree. "And defini… defene…defenistriton?"

"Defenestration?"

Small Tree nodded.

"It's when you're thrown out of a window."

"And can you die from that?"

"If you're high enough, yes," said Fireball.

"What is the highest window you have ever seen?"

"That would probably be the Tokyo Skytree, so… I don't know how tall that is off the top of my head," admitted Fireball. "It's as tall as some mountains, I know that."

"Who would put windows on a tree?"

"It's… it's not a literal tree," said Fireball. "It's just a very tall… house. How do you know those words, anyways?"

"That guy I met who wasn't God told me that I was the first ever victim of vehicular manslaughter. You know, the one who sent me to this world?"

"…I don't know how to respond to that."

"And I don't know how to respond to that, either," said Small Tree.

There was an awkward pause.

"Do you mind waiting here?" said Fireball. "I need to talk to my partner."

Agent Fireball slipped outside the room, and into the next. His coworker and sometimes-partner Agent Mist was waiting, having heard the whole conversation via one-way cell phone call.

"This doesn't make any sense," said Agent Fireball, sitting down. "I don't think she's lying, but…"

"You don't believe her," said Agent Mist. "Why not? I understand that you recently took in another young woman who claimed to be from another world."

"Wolf didn't speak Japanese," said Agent Fireball. "This kid, she didn't just speak perfect modern Japanese, she knew loanwords. She knew colors, cell theory, all kinds of things that shouldn't have existed. Look at this." He showed Agent Mist her answer sheet. "She says she was run over by the first cart, but look how many kanji use the radical for 'cart.'"

Agent Mist examined the paper. He was right.

"There's something not right about this," said Fireball. "Where could she have come from? Why did she come here?"

"Does it matter?" said Agent Mist.

"What?"

"Does it matter if she's from another world, or if she simply believes so?" he said. "A child with strange powers appeared under unusual circumstances, with no apparent family. She has nowhere to stay, and nowhere to go. Is it not more important to help her than to deny her words?"

"…Good point," said Fireball. He stared back at the door. "What are our options?"

Mist paused. "We cannot remove her memories of the supernatural. If she truly is from a village where everyone knows magic, there would be nothing left."

"And we don't know where she comes from, so we can't send her back," said Fireball. He sighed. "She knows too much, she can't go back, and she has nowhere else to go. Normally, this would be the point where I'd try to recruit her, but she's fourteen years old."

"You gave your card to that boy with Yuki-Onna's blood," said Mist.

"That's different," said Fireball. "I told him to give me a call when he's eighteen."

"He has a home where he can wait," said Mist. "She does not."

"Mist, I'm not going to browbeat a child into our organization just because we find her existence inconvenient!" said Fireball. "She has her whole life ahead of her; we can't just decide her future for her!"

"Then bring her here. Ask what she wants."

"…Fine."

The agents stood up, and they returned to the room with Small Tree. But she was gone.

Small Tree wandered Japan, righting wrongs and making friends, all while staying one step ahead of the Agency. For some reason, her adventures were neatly divided into weekly increments, and almost all the inciting events began on Sunday mornings.

Agent Mist the shapeshifter pursued her across the land. Despite his stoic appearance, he was a braggart; why else would he boast about how he tracked her down by her muddy footsteps, by the way she stood out in a crowd, by the rumors that spread about her ice powers? Once she heard him brag, she would never make that mistake again. Occasionally, there would be some drastic world-threatening event that would require her to team up with him, and there might be a temporary truce, but by the end of the week he'd go right back to chasing.

One cloudy morning in Nagano, something was different this time.

"You're new," said Small Tree.

"No, it's me," said the man. "Fireball? I'm the one who asked all those weird questions."

"…I don't remember."

"I'm not surprised," said Fireball. "It's been a few years. You'd be sixteen right about now, wouldn't you?"

"Seventeen. I was born in the ninth month, so the first day of the month is my birthday."

"Ninth month?" said Fireball. "Out of how many?"

"Twelve."

"And the new year starts in?"

"The middle of winter."

Fireball threw his hands up in the air. "Your world has seven moons! Why do you have the same calendar system as us!?"

"Oh, now I remember you!" she cocked her head. "Where's Mist, anyways?"

"He said he had to go do something important, and asked me to cover for him," said Fireball. He sighed. "And he knows I've been waiting to watch the eclipse for ages." He looked around. "Let's have a truce. This is the first solar eclipse of the century—I mean, the first total solar eclipse that takes place in Japan."

"Really?" said Small Tree. "You've over a third of the way into the century, and it took you this long?"

"Right, seven moons," said Fireball.

"And yours is tiny," said Small Tree.

Fireball sighed. "Anyways, truce until… let's say noon. The eclipse is supposed to peak around ten, and I'm going to go watch."

Then he turned around and left, leaving Small Tree to stare after him.

In preparation for the eclipse, Small Tree had climbed the east side of a mountain until she could see the sun, then climbed a tree so she could see even higher.

Eclipses weren't uncommon back home, for the reasons Fireball had suggested. She remembered crying at her first solar eclipse, because it was nighttime when it shouldn't have been, but Auntie had told her that even though the light of the sun was gone, the other six moons were watching over her (well, there had only been four, because the water moon hadn't risen yet and the plant moon was also a new moon, but she got the idea).

Small Tree shuddered. All these years, and she still thought of her world as home.

And where would the other six moons be? It's not enough that the sun's gone, but—

Footsteps interrupted her thoughts. She looked down, and saw Agent Fireball holding several grocery bags. In accordance with the laws of cinematography, either a baguette or a daikon radish should have been sticking out of one, and since Fireball always obeyed the law, there was a baguette in one and a daikon in another. He looked just as surprised to see her as she did him.

"…I'm not following you," said Fireball. "I just like watching things like this away from other people." He sat down at the foot of a tree and started to unpack what appeared to be an early lunch. "The truce is still in place. I'm not going after you until noon."

"…Okay," said Small Tree.

They sat in silence as the sky darkened.

"…You're shaking," observed Fireball. "Are you okay?"

"…The goddess of light can't see us," muttered Small Tree.

"What?"

"Her eyes are gone."

"I would have thought that you knew what eclipses are," said Fireball. "They're when the moon passes between the earth and the sun."

"I know, but… it's more than that," said Small Tree in a small voice. "The gods of my world aren't here. They never were. I'm all there is of my world. I'm… I'm alone."

Agent Fireball had never been particularly religious, but he knew that it could be a comfort for people who were. "Tell me about them, then," he said. "Spread a bit of your world into ours."

Small Tree looked down at him. "You'll listen?"

"Of course."

Small Tree nodded. "Long ago, eight gods came to this world, fleeing a disaster," she recited. "Nobody knows what it was. However, although they were safe from the disaster, this new universe was empty. There was no light, no earth, neither water nor wave. Just an empty night sky, stretching forever and ever. Without food or water, the eight gods would surely starve to death.

"Two of the eight were brother and sister. The sister could not bear to see her little brother starve, and so she killed herself so he could eat from her flesh."

Fireball dropped his chopsticks in shock. "He ate her?"

"There was nothing left," said Small Tree. "He would surely die without her sacrifice."

"I… I mean I guess I can understand that," said Fireball. He loved his brother, although he had never given serious thought on whether he would die for him. But something was bothering him about the story, even more than the cannibalism aspect…

"Naturally, her little brother was devastated," said Small Tree. "His big sister had just died in front of him, for his—"

"Stop!"

Small Tree looked down. "Are you okay?"

Agent Fireball was shaking. "Yes," he said. "Just… please. Give me a moment." He took a swig out of his thermos, not tasting any of the boiling hot tea. "I'm… I'm fine. Continue."

Small Tree decided to skip the part that described how he hugged her corpse in silence, unable to cry. "Her brother took her soul, and turned it into light for the new world," she said. "Her spirit permeates the whole world, so all light is part of her."

"That's… oddly romantic," he said. Then he paused. "As in, in the spirit of the romanticism movement, not as in romance romance."

"The sun shines upon us during the day, and the moons and stars watch over us at night," said Small Tree. "Even during an eclipse, the other six moons shed their light." She curled into a ball. "But she's not here. Your light has none of hers. I'm all there is of my world."

Agent Fireball looked down. She wouldn't appreciate the tea, not at the temperature he drank it, and certainly not after he put his mouth to it. "…Do you want some of my dango?"

"…Please." She dropped down from the tree and accepted a stick.

They sat in silence as they watched the daytime sky darken and darken, until a black sun shone upon the land. Fireball and Small Tree watched in awe, until the sun was freed from the moon's shadow.

"Feeling better?" asked Fireball when the sky lightened to blue once more.

"Much," said Small Tree. "Are you?"

Fireball nodded. "I might never see that again."

Small Tree looked back at the sky. "I see what you're trying to say. I may have left my world behind forever, but I have my memories. I have myself, I am myself, and that's not going to change."

"…I didn't mean any of that, but good for you," said Fireball.

"You know, I would never have been able to talk like this to Mist," said Small Tree.

Fireball shrugged. "Agent Mist is not the best conversationalist."

"You can say that again."

They ate in silence.

"Why are you chasing me, anyways?" said Small Tree.

"Why are you running?"

Small Tree shrugged. "There's a whole world out there, and I want to see it. Everywhere I go, I see people who stay in their hometowns their whole lives. I don't want to be like that. I was like that when I lived in my world, and look where that got me."

"You could see the world with us," said Fireball. "If you joined the Agency, you could see… well, maybe not the world, but Japan."

"And what would you have done two years ago?" retorted Small Tree. "Would you have locked me away in a school?"

Agent Fireball said nothing.

"Nothing to say to that, then?"

"No, you're right," said Fireball. "…Kind of. Even if you had stayed, we had no idea what to do with you." He sighed. "You had no idea what was normal, so you couldn't go to school without blowing your cover. We couldn't recruit you because you were too young; even without child labor laws, I'd just feel bad deciding your career path for the rest of your life."

"I would have been a farmer if I hadn't come to this world," said Small Tree. "Does that bother you?"

"…It wouldn't have been in my hands," said Fireball. "Then there was the possibility that someone could teach you how to function in modern society. But who could do that? I work full-time, and so do Mist and my wife. The Agency can't legally require its employees to adopt someone, and they wouldn't teach you for free. There really wasn't any good way to help you."

"Then why didn't you just let me go?" said Small Tree. "I'm fine on my own."

"You couldn't keep your powers a secret," said Fireball. "Part of our job is to keep magic a secret, and if you couldn't hide on your own, we couldn't leave you alone."

Small Tree shrugged. "I haven't used ice in front of other people in years," she said. "Not since Mist pointed out how conspicuous it made me."

Fireball blinked. "He told you that?"

Small Tree nodded. "He kept saying how he tracked me by listening for rumors of an ice witch. So I stopped."

"…No. He didn't. He couldn't have…"

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"No, that's not what I meant," said Fireball. He stood up. "You've fought Agent Mist before, right? But every time, you've managed to get away."

Small Tree nodded. "That's right. He's easy to distract."

"How often?"

"Maybe I'd see him one day a week, or two if it's particularly strange," said Small Tree.

Fireball froze. "He reports monthly encounters."

Small Tree stared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Fireball looked around. "Let's find somewhere less flammable. I want to spar with you."

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm starting to suspect Mist's intentions."

The park had a decorative fountain pool, which had been drained for the winter. Full of black grime that would be cleaned before spring, it was the perfect cover for Fireball's magic.

"A fire talent, are you?" said Small Tree.

"If that's the word for it," said Fireball.

Small Tree smirked. Mist's powers were hard to counter because they were unfamiliar, but fire? She'd played with fire talents as a child; heck, her favorite game was Melt, in which an ice talent would make a chunk of ice and reinforce it while a fire talent would try to melt it. There's no way she would lose to someone who—

Five minutes later, Fireball had her pinned to the ground in a side four corner hold. Small Tree tried to blast him with ice, but his fire canceled out her cold.

"Do you yield?" said Fireball.

"I yield," said Small Tree. Fireball released her. "But let's try that again."

Fireball stretched. "All right."

This time, it only took him four minutes to grapple her. After that, it was three, three, and two.

"That's enough," said Small Tree. "I know when I've been beaten." She dusted herself off. "I didn't realize you were that much stronger than Mist."

Fireball released her, and shook his head. "Mist is much stronger than me."

"What?"

"You're not bad," said Fireball. "You're good for your age, but only that. The only reason why Mist might not have been able to take you down faster than me is that he's not trained in nonlethal takedowns, and he wasn't interested in hurting you. But he had time. Much more time than I had." Fireball sat down. "If my suspicions are correct, Mist was holding back. He never intended to catch you."

"But… why?"

Fireball shrugged. "I have no idea what goes through his head. Let's go ask him."

To make a long story short, Fireball was such a good detective that they found him by the next day. He had holed up in a hotel in the next town over; it was well into the afternoon, but he had still buried himself underneath the covers.

"What do you want?" he muttered from underneath his den of blankets and pillows.

"Have a good break?" said Fireball.

"Just let me sleep," groaned Mist.

"Answer my questions first," said Fireball.

Mist sat up, rubbing his eyes. He hadn't even bothered to remove his clothes. "I see you brought our runaway as well."

"Nice to see you, too," said Small Tree, crossing her arms. "Is what he said true? Have you been letting me go?"

Mist's face turned to look at Fireball, but his eyes hadn't yet adjusted. "What are the terms?"

"I let you go back to sleep."

"Not enough," said Mist, collapsing into bed.

Fireball raised three fingers. "Threefold. I won't ask why you needed me to cover so bad, I won't tell a soul that you ditched work, and I'll even help you write the report."

"…Fine," said Mist, sitting back up. "What do you want to know?"

"Were you letting me win?" said Small Tree. "This whole time, could you have captured me?"

Mist nodded.

"Why?"

"To teach you," said Mist.

"Teach her what?" said Fireball suspiciously.

"Exactly what you teach your students," said Mist. "How to stand on her own in this world." He stared back at Fireball. "The Agency only pursues those who cannot hide their own secrets. You wanted her to be able to choose between a normal life and one with the Agency. She couldn't two years ago because she knew nothing of this world. Now she does."

Fireball made a strangled choking noise. "So this was your solution?" he said, aghast. "It was too inconvenient to take her in normally, so you made her a runaway for two years?!"

Small Tree shook her head. "I made myself a runaway. If anything, he enabled me."

"How is that any different?!"

"Free will."

"…Fine," said Fireball. He glared at Mist. "That still means you wasted Agency time and resources."

"The Agency has enough time and resources," said Mist fate-temptingly. "If it's to train someone lost in the world, they can spare a single agent."

"…I think I remember why I don't like working with you."

"I'm right."

"That's not what I said."

Mist turned to Small Tree. "Now that you know the truth, what do you want? If you leave, I can simply say that the trail has gone cold, and you can live the rest of your life as you want."

"I…"

What did Small Tree want? Her life had been a lot of fun these past two years. It had been a good run, and people had been kind to her. But you couldn't live like this forever. People had taken her in because she was a lost child, but would they extend the same courtesy to an adult woman? She didn't fear the cold, so she had little need for clothes and blankets, but everyone needed food and water, and it was getting harder to beg.

Besides, Mist had started to interrupt a lot of her job prospects; she used to be able to get money for odd jobs, but recently he had…

Wait, she could just ask him. He was right there. "Why did you start blocking me from getting jobs?"

Fireball glared at Mist, but Mist shook his head. "Do you know what sex is?"

"It's what people do if they want a child," said Small Tree. "Or for fun."

"…Oh," said Fireball. "I see." He backed off.

"You see what?" said Small Tree.

"And do you know what prostitution is?" asked Mist.

Small Tree shook her head. "Is it another way of killing people?"

"…For now, let us say that I had reason to suspect that many of those people had ill intentions towards you," said Mist. "And there would be many others."

So she couldn't stay on the road like this.

But she didn't want to settle, either. Throughout her travels, she had seen so many people unhappy with where they were, but unable to leave. And that was even when they had what they called an education, which she heard was like torture from the other kids her age. She didn't have one, she might not have been able to get one, so would she be stuck on the bottom rung of society for the rest of her life? She might as well keep wandering; she might not have money, but she'd still be free.

But then…

"Tell me… what does the Agency have to offer?"

It all worked out in the end. Somehow.

Small Tree agreed to join the Agency, and due to her circumstances, became the youngest person ever to join their training program, beating out the future Agent Seal by almost a year.

In the meantime, she'd need a legal identity. Agent Fireball had arranged for one; he and his wife agreed to adopt her, although since they both worked full-time, they didn't have time to raise her. That was fine by her; she'd been living on her own for so long that she couldn't remember what it was like to be raised.

"Now is the question of your name," said Fireball. He wrote her name down on a piece of paper. "This is how you write your name, yes?"

'Small' and 'Tree'. "Yes."

"In Japan, this is your personal name. But you also need a family name. Would you like to use mine?"

Small Tree shook her head. "I have a family. They're not here, and I may never see them again, but they're still my family."

"I see," said Fireball. "What name would you use to describe them?"

Small Tree paused. "I am from the village that dwells in the forest."

Fireball wrote that down. "Lastly, your codename. This is the name you will use for Agency operations."

"Like what?" asked Small Tree.

"Like Mist, or Colt, or Fireball…You didn't think Fireball was my real name, did you?"

"…I did."

Fireball sighed, and opened something on his computer. "Whatever you pick has to be short, it can't be the name of a preexisting agent, and it also can't be a curse word or a… a grammar word. I also reserve the right to veto any name even if none of these rules apply."

"Did someone try to be Agent Who?"

"Worse. Agent The."

Small Tree's thoughts flashed to the trees whose bark kept her fed even on the loneliest of nights, trees that grew green even in winter.

"Pine. Call me Agent Pine," said Small Tree.

"Pine is a good name." Agent Fireball wrote it down. "Forest-Inside is your family name, Small Tree is your personal name, and your codename is Pine. Is that correct?"

Small Tree nodded.

"Then welcome to the Agency, Saki Moriuchi."

Incidentally, the driver never got his insurance claim.

Notes:

Moriuchi means 'inside the forest', and you can get Saki from 'small' and 'tree' (although there's over a hundred kanji combinations for that name). Throughout the story, even though the narration (and her aunt) referred to her as Small Tree, it would still have been pronounced Saki.

Agent Mist is Arikado, but I couldn't think of a good way to make it explicit. For some reason, I find it difficult to write Alucard's dialogue. That's why he hasn't appeared in the story yet; it's not that I dislike him, it's that I can't figure out his voice. I think the best fanfic characterization of Alucard is from EmeraldTrash666's Vampire Richter AU, where he is just Some Guy who's trying to get by like everyone else.

Agent Pine is one of two agents who were reverse isekai'd, the other being Agent Wolf. Originally, Wolf was the only one, but then I came up with another world for a reverse isekai that didn't work with my idea for Wolf (which is why Pine hasn't appeared until this chapter).

The inspiration for Pine was children's adventure anime where the heroes fall into another world and explore; I was thinking of Digimon, Mӓr, and other anime from before the isekai boom. They seemed to focus on how weird and beautiful these new worlds were, and I wanted a character who saw our world the same way. Then I straight up turned her into the heroine of a Saturday morning anime (well, Sunday in Japan), complete with bumbling pursuer.

A lot changed while I was writing this. Originally, Fireball was supposed to adopt Pine at the start, but then I realized that my inner child would have hated that. I would have wanted to see an anime where the heroine had an adventure and wandered the land, not one where she's immediately shoved into school and everyday life. Then I figured that Fireball and Mist/Arikado would make good bumbling antagonists, but I wasn't happy with making them completely incompetent just to satisfy the narrative, so I had Arikado stealth mentor her by pretending to be incompetent.

Worldbuilding Pine's original world was fun. Can you guess where it comes from? If so, at what point did you figure it out?

Omake 2: Blood and Sacrifice

Although Fireball's detective skills were good enough to track down Agent Mist within a few hours, he was still in the next town over. So there he was, in his car, with Saki in the passenger seat.

"So," said Fireball. "Did that story just end there?"

"Which story?" said Saki.

"The one about how light came to the world," said Fireball. "What happened to the other gods?"

Saki took a deep breath. "After the creation of light, Light's brother realized that he had all he needed to fill this empty void. So he turned upon the other six gods.

"First, he slew the woman who would become the goddess of plants in her sleep. The man who would become weather witnessed this crime and cried out, so Light's brother killed him, too. But it was too late; the last four had risen.

"Weather's brother, who would become water, fought bravely to avenge him, but fell to Light's brother. The woman who would become earth cast spells and charms to protect the last two, who were the youngest, but she too was slain. Then he—"

"Stop!" said Fireball. He took another sip of boiling hot tea. "I'm sorry, but… continue."

"…I'll skip ahead, then," said Saki. "Light's brother took the souls of the seven and created the universe. From the first, he had already drawn light, so all would be guided by his sister's gentle hand. With the second he drew earth, stone, and metal, and from it he formed the land. With the third he drew water, and created all the great oceans, rivers, and springs that nourish the land. With the fourth he drew weather and wind, to move and drive the water and earth; it is said that since weather is the older brother of water, they are reunited in rain. With the fifth he drew plant life, to spread a carpet of green across the land. With the six he drew all manner of beast, bird, and fish, to populate the world.

"But before Light's brother could draw upon the seventh soul, whom he had loved above all else save for perhaps his sister, he realized he was all alone in the world. So he wept, and begging forgiveness, resurrected him."

"So he resurrected him, but not his sister," said Fireball.

Small Tree shrugged. "Everyone asks that. Auntie said that even if he had revived his sister, they'd still die anyways without food or water."

"True, true," said Fireball.

"When the last god came back to life, he was not happy. For seven days, his fury boiled the seas to nothing, scorched the forests to deserts, and then melted the deserts to glass. For seven nights, his sorrow froze all the water in the skies, chilled the lifeblood of all beasts to ice, and turned the oceans into vast waves of wandering snow.

"For all this time Light's brother groveled, a day and a night for every death, before the last god was appeased. Calm once more, the last god begat humanity."

Saki stretched. "Light's brother is known as the Creator, because he made the world, but he is also simply God. The last god is called the Ancestor, because all of humanity are his children." She turned to face Fireball. "Well, you aren't, but I am. It's also acceptable to call him The Father or Mother, or the Progenitor if you really want to sound fancy."

"And that's how the world was made?" said Fireball.

Saki nodded. "Grandmother used to say that all that's bad in the world is because God murdered the other six. Six dead gods make up the whole world; they were all good people, so everything in the world can be used to help people. But five of the six died bitter deaths, and that grudge stays in all things that hurt. The earth crushes, water drowns, weather destroys, plants poison, and animals maul. The only exception is light; since the goddess of light died selflessly and without bitterness, light can never harm us."

"Hm," said Fireball. "Does evil stem from the weight of God's sin, or the grudge of dead gods?"

"Sorry?" said Saki.

"It's nothing," said Fireball. "You should probably write these down. So… any other stories?"

"Well, Auntie had a song so she could remember how to make her special brew," began Saki. "First, boil a hand's worth of water…"