Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta: Me
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"Remember?" Kazu asked as they walked off the school grounds and out into the city itself. Soma 'did' mention being about 900 years old, could he have recalled all those years? "How do you handle remembering so many centuries? I can't imagine the human mind being capable of such a task."
Soma blinked in response and looked at Kazu out of the corner of his eye, before his lips curled into an amused smile. "Well to be honest, I don't remember everything, because you're right, I'd probably go mad. Actually I just remember my lessons and classes from those days, and its not something that's been going on my whole life. Just recently."
"Like what? I can't begin to imagine what an education from so long ago must look like by modern standards." Kazu asked, growing excited at the thought of actually talking to someone from so long ago.
Soma chuckled in answer before shrugging almost helplessly, "you're going to find the information disappointing. I didn't opt for the daily education, instead tactical education, alchemy, stuff like that is what I narrowed down my searches to. In doing so I recall the whole day's events, not just the lessons. Also its not as though I remember everything right now, its a day by day lesson session if you will."
"Alchemy?" Mina asked a bit surprised as she heard that, "I thought Europe was against that type of stuff unless you worked directly under the royal family."
"Kinda, my family didn't write anything down, the lessons were passed down orally. Also there were two branches, so those who wanted to turn lead into gold would end up under the protection or service of nobility. My family opted for other things..." Soma explained as they approached a cafe that catered to a lot of the students. "Should we stop here?"
Mina and Kazu looked between each other and after a thought Mina shook her head against the idea. "We're not exactly talking about stuff that should get around you know. Given the nature of the topics."
"The girl has a point, its best not to go somewhere busy, or at least buy drinks that you can carry off with you." Trevor added for Kazu's benefit as he peeped out of the hole in the bag he was riding in.
"Trevor agrees with Mina, and suggested that we can grab and go instead?" Kazu offered on Trevor's behalf.
"Yes, we need to find somewhere that we can let Mr. Trevor out, its not fair to leave him trapped in a bag all the time." Mina voiced as they turned their steps to the Cafe. While a student opened the door to the cafe for Soma as he approached and they walked in after the white haired young man.
The cafe was sizable place, situated to be fast for a student on the dash, and it was easy for the trio to slide into line and look at the menus.
"Good luck rub!"
"I should have kept my nose in this bag." Trevor groaned, causing Kazu to turn and find a pair of teenage lolitas giggling.
"Is... there something I can help you with?" Kazu asked, directing his question to the girls while wording it to indirectly ask Trevor.
"They caught my nose and rubbed it." Trevor grumbled, as he was now forced to keep his muzzle poking out of the bag. At least until Kazu was able to manually move the Belmont on his own.
"Good luck rub of a cute puppy nose!" One girl had a puppy themed outfit on, golden in color like a Labrador's coat with patterns of puppy paw prints and bones across the gown and bonnet. While her friend was dressed in a matching black cat printed lolita and trying to get her 'good luck rub', reaching for the pup nose they saw.
"Yes, when a cute nose comes along! Gotta pet it!" The cat lolita sang cheerfully the pair bobbing to the song the cat lover made up on the spot.
Soma's white sleeved arm crossed into Kazu's view as the Dark Lord proceeded to rub the black clad Lolita's nose, then pushed just far enough in to the little group to rub the gold colored Lolitas' nose. The pair of girls both looked up at him, their eyes growing wide and a light blush crossed their faces. Giggling the girls curtsied for him, as he towered over their petite forms their bonnets hiding their faces and it suddenly looked like a pair of girls being noticed by the local lord. Kazu could only mentally shake his head as Somas' antics allowed for Kazu to discreetly put Trevor back into his bag properly.
Mina gently tugged Kazu to the front so he could make his order while shaking her head a smile on her own face.
"Is this normal?" he asked quietly as the girls giggled and gushed at the chance to interact with Soma. Despite his clothes not being quite on the level to make the Medium think of as 'lolita' style.
"Ever since the first castle, yes, he actually 'will' do this," Mina answered before taking a sip of her drink. "And don't bother paying, Soma just paid for us and those two, so expect them back fast."
Kazu looked amused as he kept his ear peeled for the conversation going on behind him and how the high schoolers sounded excited to be able to talk to Soma. Then again, Lolita was supposed to be based on European fashion... wasn't it? So it made sense that they would be enamored to talk to someone who 'literally' lived through the eras that Lolitas liked to take their dress sense from.
In fact they were speaking in English and trying to sound like what he guessed was 'proper' English ladies. Which was entertaining to watch and listen to them as his order was made, as it was to hear Soma easily answer questions. Especially since Soma was dropping the Japanese so completely and utterly that there wasn't even an accent.
"Dracula was a noble, so it makes sense he knows how to return to the role he lived for ages," Trevor pointed out, peeking from the bag while keeping his nose safely within the bag.
There was a line growing, and Soma smoothly redirected the girls to the reason they even entered the Cafe, before giving the pair a brief nod and walked to the door. With Mina trailing behind and so they took up less room. It was amusing to be sure, and as soon as Kazu got his drink in hand he followed the pair while the girls behind them went to place their orders.
Mina couldn't help but feel like Soma was pretending to be on some type of lackadaisical vacation, indifferent to the world around him. While it 'was' true that, since the Castle, Soma had opened up more and been more willing to engage the world around him. This wasn't the same and it was setting off alarms in her head. Soma never scanned a room when he entered it, in fact all day he had been almost blatantly on the search for someone. And she could only figure it was Arikado, whom she had not seen either for quite some time. An absence that clearly bothered Soma into switching from passive to actively searching the older man out.
When Kazu caught up with the pair, they stepped back out under the afternoon sky and Kazu, once again, was struck again at how out of place Soma felt. Not just with the clothes, which was excusable, but his mannerisms with strangers, his general aloofness. With all of that, Kazu began to feel a deep sympathy for the reincarnated Dracula. He was in a new life, a new body, a new part of the 'world' and he couldn't seem to shake his old life.
Sure he wasn't trying to drink anyones' blood or be a global threat, yet he was still a person trapped outside of his own time and place. Perhaps that was why he willingly engaged the two lolitas in the Cafe. It gave him a moment to at least pretend he was in a somewhat familiar place or lifestyle. Despite the feeling of evil that he always gave off, or the darkness that seemed to shroud him like a death cloak, Somas' behavior never raised any flags.
"We can go to the park or ride the bus to the shrine Mina lives at," Soma suggested as they stood on the sidewalk, drinks in hand and a city to explore.
"I want to go to the shrine," Trevor voiced from the bag. "I want to check out what Sophia saw, and if its true that there's a portal open there now that leads back to the Castle itself..."
"Shopping, I need to get better clothes for Leon!" Mina announced with determination causing Soma to look at her in quiet concern, and amusement.
"You're playing 'dress up' with Leon?"
"Well I can't just let him walk all over the place naked, now can I?" She pointed out pragmatically.
"... I'm wearing fake fur..." Trevor huffed, the tips of his ears coming down at the statement. "Its not like we're a bunch of raging nudists, my wife says I manifest fully dressed."
"What on earth are you going to make Leon 'wear' is my concern," Soma said as snickers were trying to escape his voice.
"Well that's where you come in!" She chirped out when a pair of newly familiar voices called out from behind them.
Turning around the pair of Lolitas came almost, if not for their drinks, skipping after them with their eyes beaming with excitement. "Thank you for the drinks, that was very kind of you."
Somehow seeing a pair of young lolitas' trying to speak English 'and' give themselves a European accent was reaching new levels of amusement and some decent cuteness. Which apparently Soma acknowledged with a faint smile as well as he continued to play along. Which ended up including pictures now that they were outside.
"How can a vampire even show UP in pictures?" Trevor asked as he tried to peek out of the bag without revealing his muzzle.
Mina just looked amused and even took a few pictures of the trio as well when something seemed to enter her thoughts. "Say, do you know a place where a person can buy clothes for a stuffed toy?" She asked, before searching pictures on her phone. "He looks like this."
"Oh? Hmmm?"
The two lolitas huddled around the phone and began studying the picture, which was interesting to see with their bonnets in the way. "Oh yes, there's a shop that carries doll clothes, the owner even makes customs, though they can get pricey depending on what you're looking for."
"Yes, his wife runs the shop and he makes the clothes, but he just makes stuff on slow days when the whim takes him as well. So depending on what the little lions' size 'is' its possible that they already have something."
"They have a different full set on display every week for sale. Its always different, and they're one of a kind since he makes it by hand."
Soma backed up and quietly stepped next to Kazu before saying in a soft voice, "I'm going to go and break into Mina's room. I think I need to rescue Leon before he finds himself a fashion model. You in?"
"Yes," Trevor automatically spoke up despite only Kazu able to hear him.
Not that Kazu was going to argue, and the reasoning made an amazing amount of both 'sense' and amusement. He began to back up slowly along with Soma as Mina began to ask about clothes in general. Those questions that made him realize that she apparently had very specific ideas fashions she had been planning. Trying to imagine a lion dressed up like a little emperor was interesting to say the least, the mental image alone worth a laugh.
"And where do you both think you're going?!" Mina suddenly called out, turning to face the pair of guys. Before they could even turn around, as though she had some secret sixth sense when she was about to be ditched. She stood there bracketed by the pair of Lolitas who were also looking at the pair, well Soma, rather expectantly.
While Soma sighed in a soft type of defeat, though he gave a defiant, "I'm going to rescue Leon from the fate of being a Fashion Model. He deserves better than... well what ever it is you're planning!"
"Oh hush Soma, he needs something wearable!" Mina countered, crossing her arms and throwing a determined look at the teen.
"And have his poor paws shoved through sleeves too small because they're bigger than his arms?" Soma sniffed in mild disdain before turning around. "I have more respect for the poor child than 'that'."
"Child?" Kazu asked quietly, amid head shaking and amusement, as his mind kept going on about how this was the middle of a perfectly normal, beautiful day and this conversation was taking place.
"I remember him, but he's a child in my memories, a little boy maybe six years old or something," Soma explained. "Nice child, very friendly, but I'll probably remember more as time carries on, because our families are friends." Soma elaborated with a faint smile and casting a glance behind himself.
Yep, all three were following him with dogged determination.
"Soma, what type of job do you have?" Kazu asked, curious at how Soma was able to easily afford five various drinks without knowing who got what and or the cost. Especially since the girls mentioned that the outfits were going to be pricey. Meaning that a Miko in training probably didn't have the funds to make such purchases.
Which left Soma.
Soma gave him an amused side glance with a smirk on the corner of his lips before he shrugged. "Same way that the Bearmonts have amassed their wealth. When you travel the Castle there are candles and other items that, if you risk breaking them, sometimes produce bags of money. Funds that transforms into whatever is the monetary amount that is used in the country. So between my Castle and the other Castle I went through?"
"Wait..." Kazu turned to stare at Soma in wide eye amazement, "going through the Castle gets you to become a millionaire?" And the smug nod from Soma made him shake his head in amazement. Explained how his mother was always covering his costs for living in Japan through out his life. "But... how many times has Yoko gone through the castle?"
"She went through my castle on her own, but at the second castle she stayed at the front of the Castle and I paid her to fuse my souls to my weapons." Soma explained with a faint shrug, "she got hurt in the first castle and Julius got worried about her. So unless she has a partner at her side the whole time, she doesn't go through the Castle. Hence when I snapped she traveled with Julius and Arikado to find me."
"Snapped, essentially, when you gave in to your darker emotions," Kazu asked, seeking the clarification. It still just boggled his mind as he walked along this clean sidewalk, past shops and road signs and just average Japan. And here was this guy who was over 900 years old, and was just shrugging off the fact that he was nearly killed not that long ago comparatively speaking. The casual disregard for his own life making Soma an overwhelming enigma.
"I don't remember the details anymore, but when those memories 'first' woke up? I remembered everything for that brief time, and I remember dying. Did it a lot actually, so it's no skin off my nose to talk about it." Soma explained as the wind picked up coos about maybe putting Leon in a Japanese Emperor outfit. Just thinking of that poor plush doll trying to walk while under so much fabric, while Soma didn't care for the rest of the clan. Well, Leon was a friend and just didn't deserve that much work just to move one foot.
"Leon is doomed isn't he?" Kazu heard Trevor bemoan from inside the bag and it made him slightly chuckle.
"If the two of you 'can' free the Hunters, what will happen to their souls? I mean they've been forcibly pulled out of the afterlife, will they have to stay on this plane like the others?" Kazu asked thinking of all the souls he had already dealt with growing up.
"Others? The only time I've seen ghosts have been when I've been in the Castle. Not that I ever actively 'sought' spirits out before or after the Castle." Soma asked as they settled to wait at the bus stop for the ride to the shrine.
"Yes, well you don't see many here because the spirits are tended to properly, but outside of this country," Kazu explained while the girls joined up and he suddenly found himself in a quandary regarding the topic and the two high schoolers.
"Are you girls going to be ok with traveling with us? I'm feeling like we're kidnapping you via Mina's curiosity," Soma asked out of actual concern over the fact that these students 'were' following the trio and weren't even friends. There was a level of casual disregard for personal safety going on and there was a part of him worried that it was because of him. Vampires had their allure after all, and Soma was still a 'Vampire' Dark Lord, even if he was currently human.