Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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"When I was in the true castle, I was fine, just irritated because I was awake again. It was a strange experience, you know how it feels when you're busy doing one thing and suddenly remember you needed to something completely different?" Soma faced the front of the car, but while his physical eyes saw glass and through glass to the garage door, his internal eye saw the past. The stairs and the throne, the rug and walls the smell of fresh spilled blood all of it suddenly went from being just a room in the way to his goal, to home.

Just like that he remembered, oh, this was 'his' Castle, these children were his followers, 'he' was Dracula. But it didn't end just 'there', amid the brief conversation he had with Arikado, the cheeky little child. It was everything else, that really began to come back to mind, reminding him like a picked thread that he had to follow.

Blinding.

His chambers were blinding, dusty as though no one had bother to keep it clean just because he hadn't been in the Castle for a little while. A dusty coat that rested upon everything as though the servants had already gotten lazy due to his absence. The physical structure of the room was bone white, with towering pillars cracked signs of breakage and the stone work of the steps. The momentary distraction had kicked up enough dust before to make it blinding. Like an unpleasant snow storm, since snow was an enjoyment, dust was lazy maids.

There was voluminous milk white fabric hanging from the ceiling in lieu of banners that drifting on either sides of the room with its frayed edges. Stirred by the aftermath of battle it danced on waning winds, while royal shades of lavender fabric webbed out from a skull center piece above the throne. Unlike its white counterpart the lavender fabric stretched out and connected to the corners of the room. The floor was also white like the walls and pillars, but it was covered with a bright vivid red rug, colored in the shade of smeared blood. But it was messy as well, the rug covered the floor, but the path to the throne appeared more like a drizzle of red. A painter who merely worked by pouring paint onto the canvas rather than using actual strokes.

For which he 'could' see this as an attempt to be artsy. Since the red directed the eyes of a person up to the weeping womans' face...

And that was when he finally stopped and took a look at what his Castle had been up to while he had been gone.

He had thought it merely a white wall with a woman's face projected outwards of stone. But now that he stood back he could see that this was a statue of a woman behind the throne, not just a face. Her hair was covered mostly, she wept tears of blood as the source of the carpet as it poured down from her closed eyes, behind the throne and to the ground below. But she also had arms, both raised above her head and nailed together by the skull at the top. Turning it from just a skull to a decorative nail that pinned the woman into place.

Ok, that was a moment to pause. He was certainly a person who enjoyed seeing criminals suffer, but this... this was a strange place between 'yes' and 'no'. He wasn't really into this anymore, he felt a bit embarrassed in fact, as though he had found some embarrassing old photo of him. He felt like he found something he used to do when he, himself, was a child. The love for it was still there, but really, he wasn't so...

Why was he 'here again'? How many times had the humans called him forth? They didn't need him for their extermination, they were doing it quite well on their own. So why not just let him rest? Only... he didn't 'want' to rest, he wanted to leave here with Mina, Yoko and Hammer. He had humans now that he actually wanted to see safely returned to their own lives.

Also, how long was that cheeky child going to just stay in that room? All day?

"Come out Arikado, I know you're here."

The door rose revealing the agent, the agent who had left him with suggestions and ideas about how to transverse his castle. But at the same time, he wasn't 'interested' in being 'awake' he was fine with his modern memories and all this was giving him a mild headache. Memories of his past were starting to beat down on the back of his mind. Memories of his education were starting to clash between tutors and school.

"Why have you forced me to awaken? I was fine the way I was!" he demanded, as the memories of his education conflicted to the point where it was like a pointless argument. The old world arguing for legitimacy against facts of the modern world.

"Yes, you weren't supposed to come to this castle in the first place," Arikado acknowledged.

Shedding light on why the stairs felt so weird when he arrived at the shrine in the beginning, as well as the large bat that had flown to his right. They must have set up barriers for this day, but that didn't feel right, why would the Castle place him at the front gates when he arrived? Why not here? In his own private chambers? Things would have been done with far more speed and efficiency that way. "Than why did you make me come here?" Because it was this cheeky child who told him to 'go to the Master Chambers'.

"Your soul and Dracula's power are one in the same. No matter what we did, this day was destined to come. That being so, I decided to awaken you somewhere I could use 'my' power."

Dracula stood there trying to process that bit of information, it was reasonable and kind of amusing. He could almost imagine a group of people trying to hold a door shut... and he carelessly throwing it open when he walked through. Well that was explained, as well as why he didn't automatically resonate with his Castle when he arrived. Though that sentence 'I could use my power' was strangely endearing. So the atmosphere that he 'had' felt wasn't just his lack of power, or the Castle being sealed. This power was the childs' and it... felt weird and alarming.

Who 'was' Arikado? He didn't know the man, yet he felt this strange well spring of emotion when he thought on this power.

At that time in the Castle he had been confused, he knew there were emotions, but he didn't understand them. There was too much going on in his head for him to bother with his emotions as well. Over time he had finally come to put a name to that emotion, pride. He felt proud of what Arikado had done, but it felt far away too awkward at the time. He didn't know who Arikado was even now, but at least he was no longer as confused by it. The man was a Dark Child and served to help the Belmonts, so it would make sense that he needed to be protected.

If Soma gave in again then Arikado needed to be there to help the Belmonts, especially now that Julius was so old. "It wasn't just one memory, or just 'Oh I'm Dracula'. No, it was the awkward feeling of seeing the Castle, how I should dress given my station, then remembering the servants. I was half way through the Castle before I had to physically stop myself because I was starting to go back in time. The memories kept trying to come up, trying to remind me of the past, of who I 'am'."

Leon looked up at Mathias, utterly silent while taking in all of this. Hearing Mathias' thoughts unfiltered like this was important, perhaps there was something that even Mathias missed?

"As I was racing though the castle, I realized I had to stop trying to remember. I had to force those memories to be silent because..."

Leon's ears wiggled as he waited, Mathias had paused and his expression was incredibly retrospective, as though trying to remember a specific moment. The young man had grown still, only the occasional head tilt as though observing whatever was on his mind from a different angle. Though Leon 'was' curious as to what caused Mathias to stop trying to remember his past.

"... I had to force those memories to be silent because..." Soma repeated, letting the words out finally helped clarify a few things in his own mind he found. "I wanted to be me... They started clashing with my current memories, and I know that sounds weird. But it was like comparing apples to oranges, I have one very, very long series of experiences in my life. Yet I now have this one, and they were, I was afraid they were about to start conflicting with each other."

Leon's ear twitched then grew still, as he found himself actually thinking that out and found himself nodding slightly from it. Comparing life in those long passed days to this life would be problematic. Comparing childhoods, upbringing, but... it couldn't have been better than it was now? Leon was fairly confident that the illness that took Lady Elizabetha's life now had a cure that would have saved her. Would this 'not' be the better life?

Then it occurred to Leon that it was probably what happened. Mathias started comparing and found this life to be the superior one, hence not wanting to remember the past. But this was just as good as it was bad, he didn't know Alucard was his son. Explaining just 'why' Mathias had lashed out the way he had, there had been no warning. Choosing to ignore his past did not negate the fact that the past existed. His son was harmed, he rushed to defend his offspring without fully understanding why, and now had to live with the consequences of that action.

This wasn't going to improve either, because Mathias was a genius tactician when in full awareness of his abilities. Cutting off his past, meant cutting off a good portion of his own abilities leaving him in this vulnerable state. Which undoubtedly gave rise to Fortner's cult; power or no power, abilities or none, Mathias would have put things into play long before going to the Castle.

Leon had seen the level of complexity that modern people Mathias' age dealt with. It was simplistic, almost childish, with machines that did more of the thinking than people. Social interaction was almost negated completely by cellphones. Cues and nuance was lost often on people because they were 'not aware of the world around them'. Mathias was literally being coddled to stay dumb, while a fertile mind rich with strategy was left unused.

On the one hand he would be a great help to those looking for these Cultists. Only because of how he was managing things, it meant he could possibly be too emotionally fragile. Since the one thing everyone seemed to agree on was that Mathias could not handle himself when bad things happened to Alucard.

"You remember... me?" Leon asked, after all Mathias never reacted to being called 'Mathias' by him, even though his modern name was 'Soma'. Did he remember 'Mathias' as his name? Was he just tolerant of it because it was Leon? Was it because he remembered Leon? Or was this one of those ancient memories?

"Yes and no... I've been trying to remember the Alchemist lessons I was given back exclusively and that's been kind of shaky. You... You were a kid when we met? I remembered that some time after I started trying to remember those lessons. You kinda fell into my lesson because... because you..." Mathias answered as his eyes focused on that memory trying to recall the blond. "Bored, that's right... you were bored and looking around because you just found out I lived there. You wanted someone to play with you..." Mathias gave a small bark of a laugh before reaching out and ruffling Leon's mane the way he had when they first met.

He wasn't a kid though, and now his mane was a mess again. Causing Leon's mouth to go straight as he reached up and tried to get his mane back under control. He got a softly chiding scold from Mathias about being too fixed on his appearance. But Mathias gathered him up and began fixing the mans' mane again, with Leon placed on Mathias' knee.

"Though that name you keep using to call me by, I remember you called me that when you first arrived at Kazu's place... Now you know why I let you call me that." Mathias answered the unspoken question, explaining the reason he tolerated the name at all.

"Bothers you?" Leon asked, watching as Mathias rolled his eyes.

"'Mathias' is better than 'Batty Matty' which Yoko now uses as her way to text message me. This is the only thing I missed from the past. People didn't come up with new ways to nickname you."

"Batty Matty..." Leon covered his eyes with his paws, when Mathias was finished he essentially performed a walk of shame back to the drivers' seat. Because of course, vampires and their ability to transform into a bat...

"I didn't remember you at first, but I did remember people addressing me as 'Young Master' and by that name... So you calling me that just tells me roughly where you are in my past life. Unlike all the other Belmonts where I never bothered to originally learn their names. That you remember my real name told me that you know me from before I even became 'Dracula'."

'That' was the Mathias he remembered. Taking in the world around him and making the connections, the speed of thought that had been vital to their missions back when they worked together. Only, as Leon settled back in the 'drivers seat' and turned to look up at Mathias, he found a strange sense of anxiety in the pit of his 'stomach' area, there was just something that didn't sit right. Mathias had a look in his eye as though he was recalling something and Leon didn't want to distract the man.

Soma lifted his hands and began to exam them more intently, watching the way the skin folded when he closed his fingers. "I've been doing some light research on the recent murders, and I've found a series of patterns that I find worrisome. There's just a large problem with me going further with my research..." Soma admitted as he dropped his hands and leaned back in his seat.

As he sat there he suddenly shifted so he was sitting a bit side ways so he could face the drivers' seat. "I remember how it felt to shift back into a vampire from my time in my Castle, but I also have begun feeling that way again. When I had and used the succubus soul I drank blood, and I remember how it felt to be a vampire again. Needing only blood to survive, but I could replace that easily by using a different soul. Now I can't, and instead I've started getting thirsty but water hurts to drink. Eating isn't as bad, even fruit juice is fine, but I never feel full..."

He left the sentence hanging, but it was fine, Leon was already alarmed at what he had been told.

Mathias was turning back into a vampire.

'Great, wonderful,' Leon thought to himself as his gaze traveled over to where the ring Mathias wore rested. Once Mathias put his hand down, Leon made an effort to reach said ring, going so far as to lightly bop it with his paw.

"Hm? Oh that, I have to wear it because I cut off a Cardinals' hand, it seals up my powers so I can't use it. Its as annoying as its overly rich looking too, I can't take it off at all either, here," with that Mathias took hold of the ring and began trying to pull the thing off.

Watching Mathias struggle momentarily against the ring, the corners of Leon's mouth began to dip down into a frown. His paw felt dirty touching that thing, and that didn't fit right in his mind. If the ring came from the Church how could it make his paw feel like it was coated in dust?

How could he even 'feel'?

Leon quickly began brushing his paws in an effort to get the dust feeling off while Mathias gave up on removing the item from his hand. Looking up at Mathias, Leons' frown still planted on his face he finally asked, "Ring cause... Change?"

Soma blinked at the lion before looking down at his own hand, a small frown crossing his own face. "I don't see how, its just meant to seal up my powers and it came from the Church, the Pope sealed my powers himself..."

"Power stuck?" Leon asked, granted magic wasn't his forte at all, but he felt like something was seriously wrong. Sealing Mathias' powers was one thing, but if he was turning into a Vampire... "Human after... Castle..."

Mathias seemed about to explain when he was caught by the question and grew quiet.

It 'was' a reasonable question, Soma had still be seriously fuzzy brained for an extensive amount of time. Even when Arikado escorted him, he wasn't feeling up to a trip to the Vatican at that time. From what he had learned in the aftermath of his fall in the false Castle, he 'had' been exuding some traits. So it was possible that he 'had' succubus still 'on deck' if one would. "I guess, I mean I wasn't really clear minded on about what was going on..." He noted quietly as his focus settled back on the ring in question. "But the way I am when I am in a vampire state should be a constant, not something that just stops and restarts. I'm not a computer, I can't be reset or rebooted... " He pondered before sighing in frustration and leaning back in his seat. "And yet another reason why I need Arikado back. He was actually paying attention to his surroundings at the time, unlike me..."

"Restart? Reboot?" Leon questioned, his head tilting slightly to the side and pulling Mathias' focus back on himself.

"Yeah, oh... I mean, if I was using the Succubus power, then I shouldn't be able to step out in daylight at all. Yet I can, albeit its growing unpleasant the longer I go..."