Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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"We could try 'Jingle Bells?'"

"Too happy..."

"Holy Night?"

"Nothing calm going on right now..."

"Away in a manger?"

"... its not hard... We can keep the song going without Father Agosti..."

Juste's ears twitched as he heard the boys in discussion, because Yoko had created his plush form 'for' Christmas, the music performed was something he easily recognized. Listening to the boys trying to think of ways to help was enough to turn the corners of his doggy mouth up.

"It would seem the boys are settling on a song to perform for the room." He noted when he froze as he remembered something more recent.

"If that's the case we better move," Richter warned as he began to squirm for release from the girl latched on to him.

"Oh maybe he might change?" Numerous boys quickly picked up on the Belmonts trying to extract themselves, so they moved a few of the chairs for the four...

"Oh for pity's sake do they think we change into teddy bear sized bears?" Simon growled.

"Sunbears are a thing..." Christopher noted when he saw Tony's complete apathy to the performance.

"I will throw you into the sun, you..." Simon began when the some of the choir, skipping uniformity, began humming. Without a piano or triangle to help them find their octave they resorted to the childish limits of humming. The innocence of their voices began sweeping at the taint of despair that had hung as a funeral shroud over the Vatican.

It brushed like a feather duster, lightly sweeping over the four as the children began to find their octave. Something that would be harder without the full choir, not all ranges would be covered, but it was pure, innocent and felt too much like someone had just shoved a pepper grinder right into all four noses.

Three fake furred heads turned as one and saw Father Agosti's expression of awareness.

Simon began lifting his hand slowly to the bottom of his chin, only to get punched in the back of his head by not one, but two, doggy paws as grandfather and grandson shut him down. Not that Christopher noticed, the boys began to shift fully into song once they found their center. While it was good and all, he couldn't help but worry as Tony began to shrink in on himself. The boy was covering his ears and his shoulders were hunkering down.

Yet before Christopher could even take a step, the feeling of sneezing assaulted his senses. Richters' description was detailed enough to know that he was likely turn into an actual bear. 'Away in the Manger' a simple enough song for the boys to sing filtered the negativity out of the air. Christopher began rubbing his nose uselessly as he stood there.

"Oh that's the pain... Dracula's a sadist to make us feel a need to 'sneeze' to change," Richter grumbled while the children began whispering in excitement.

"Well, considering the old wives tale was that a sneeze was a soul attempting to escape a body and these are not our actual bodies..." Juste pointed out, his voice pinched in pain.

"That is not helping..." Richter argued while they stood loosely surrounded by the children.

"This better be worth it." Simon growled as he tried not to writhe in the agony of needing to sneeze.

"To see you as a sunbear? Very much," Richter retorted in some form of amusement as he noticed the growing absence of Christopher's voice. "Christopher? What troubles..." Around the bear's head, Richter could see the back of Tony. And that wasn't... "Is he unwell? It can't be the song could it?"

It was a bit frustrating, the boy looked distressed from the way he was sitting. With the children singing there was no way to try to help the boy either. 'Oh please let the children understand that he needs help..." With that Richter began motioning haphazardly with his paw for Father Agnosti to look towards Tony.

The man turned, and there was some enlightened expression in the man's face that darkened it. His body expressed a disheartened posture before he pushed himself to his feet, there wasn't much left to see as that feeling grew to this itchy type of sting. The world turned dark as all four began covering their noses.

"Oh dear Lord, I don't think breathing in the heart of a pepper could be worse..." Juste groaned as his nose went so far in it was completely inverted.

"What is fire? A pleasure compared to this pain," Richter whimpered.

'I will not whimper. I will not whine. I am The Belmont! I Will Overcome!' Simon chanted in his head as he rubbed at his face. Eyes were burning, nose was flared to the point he didn't quite get the reason why the thread for his nose wasn't popping...

"Why can't this just happen? Why this unnecessary build up?!" Juste argued uselessly as he laid down and just shoved his face into his hands. "We know its a sneeze that releases the spell!"

"Tony, you've gone through so much, you've been such a brave boy. Its o..."

Confetti.

Everywhere...

"Ooooooo..."

Screaming would have been nice. Some form of terrified reaction to four stuffed animals becoming their very real animal selves. Sure two were just dogs but they would still be big and fierce. Then there were two massive bears. The colors were as off as expected of manufactured bears, but when Simon lifted up his hand and showed those monster huge claws, longer and thicker than some of the kids palms. Or when he began to grin revealing these rows of sharp teeth.

Screaming would have been so proper, natural. Self preservation would have kicked in and the kids would have gone running.

They oooo'ed instead.

Something that pulled Simons' elation at those sharp blades on the ends of his fingers back. The three of them started to look around them. Looking for panic, silent fear, 'anything'. The boys knew about Richter, so the dogs could be forgiven. But everyone else...

"My Lord they look even more broken..." Richter felt mortified, the boys who had been singing stopped and only they looked excited. Truly excited to see the four transformed, the others it was off in a way that made the Belmonts feel uncomfortable.

"If you had been my teddy I bet you could have beat the bad people away!"

A pair of arms had latched about Simon's side, drawing the mans' attention downward towards this curly blond haired girl. She looked at him with her eyes shining in such a way that he remembered the first time Yoko had created him. Then the second, and third, and all the other times that Simon would be called upon by Yoko.

"Damn right I could! But I'm sure your bear could have too if it had been real," Simon answered as he reached down with his paw, easily big enough to crush her head. It was awkward to pat her on the head, his paw had these thick course pads and his claws were massive. But he patted her as more children began to approach.

"He's talking!" one of the kids noted.

Small arms wrapped themselves around the dogs' necks, pulling Juste and Richter into tight hugs as the children sobbed. 'Maybe they hadn't fallen apart yet,' Richter was left musing as he was mobbed by children crying into his fur. The kids started begging the Belmonts to protect them from the 'bad people'.

"They don't understand the thralls... My word, they don't 'understand'. How have they been holding it together in a church with clergy dressed like the very people who..." Richters' voice, clear to the others just sounded like a dog trying 'to' talk to the kids. Confirm to the kids that they were safe.

Christopher made his way to the Father and Tony, carefully picking his way around the children, many who were patting his thick, shaggy, brown fur.

Father Agosti was still talking Tony, his eyes glancing to the side when Christophers' shiny black nose appeared in the peripheral vision.

"Tony?"

Despite the clear inflections to suggest the bear was saying his name, Tony didn't react. So Christopher reached down and began pulling the chair around to face him. It moved as easily as a sheet of paper, reinforcing to the man the difference between the toy bear and the real thing. He could smell the salt in the tears on Tony's face, the flavors of a ham sandwich that the boy must have had for lunch. Reaching out he placed his hand, this massive affair when compared to the child and closed his hand just enough so his fingers lightly touched the boy's back.

'What happened son? You were so full of life even during the Thralls' attack, even when you went home to your family...'

Movement as a man versus a toy bear versus a real bear was strikingly different. He felt this heavy weight all about him that was clearly the fur and the muscle was incredible. But there was also lack of refinement, bears had fingers while toys did not. Yet his long sharp claws made closing his fingers to form a fist was probably going to stab him in the wrist. Saying nothing of what it would do to a young boy.

Christopher awkwardly managed to get his legs under him so he was sitting on the ground before he gathered the boy up in both hands. Tony didn't react to being lifted into the air, maybe he didn't even notice or care. But his legs weren't going to stay bent as though he was sitting and it must have registered in passing in his head.

Tony looked at him, just this blank stare where the hunter could see his own reflection in the boys' eyes. His face, once soft round shapes and colors was now sharp, shaggy and dangerous. Big friendly eyes were small, dark and intense. For a moment he had a passing concern he looked too scary.

"Mr. Christopher?"

The man slowly nodded forcing a smile into the corners of his mouth, all the while hoping it softened his more formidable face. Yet there was no softening the boy's shattered expression. "I'm a loser Mr. Christopher... I couldn't save my sister."

The other three Belmonts noticed the stillness of the room around them, every child had froze and seemed to be listening. A room of ice as thin as a razor and more sharp than a vampires' fang.

Christopher had no way to convey words and was starting to debate if he could put the boy on his lap when the words began to tumble out of Tony.

"My parents tried to hide my sister in my room. They had hoped she'd stay quiet if she saw my stuff... She was going to turn two..."

The lap was meaningless, Christopher put the boy to his chest and let the child have whatever sorry excuse for a shoulder a full grown brown bear had. He held the boy against him, fighting to not hug the boy 'tightly'. As a bears 'tight hug' was going to snap the boy in two and send him to his sister faster.

With that the trauma that had been dammed up inside exploded forth as the children began recounting their nightmares. Mothers, fathers, older or younger siblings murdered in front of them or where it could be clearly heard or seen. Faithful pets butchered, some devoured by thralls tearing through the houses, even a few house cats became food for trying to save the child.

Simon's head lifted up, his ears went forward and started to wiggle as his growing outrage took over. At his side, ensuring both dogs were on the other side, Elmo was fairly clinging to Simon's own furry body. He wasn't screaming or crying, and realistically he had no further family to lose, the whole room was just him... "Shit now all these kids are like Elmo. How the hell can they stomach being in a church when it was Thrall clergy...?"

Juste's own naturally upright ears were stiff as he looked about at all these children recounting, and seeing Richter giving doggy hugs became his own cue.

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Alucard strode through out the church, past the library and down various corridors until he reached the familiar hallways of the living quarters. Most of the suites were filled, he could hear through the doors the sounds of fervent prayers in some, weeping in others. There were phones ringing in rooms that were silent, and Alucard was left pondering if those were the suites belonging to the thralls.

Could family, unaware of what had happened to their loved ones, be trying reach those self same people unaware of their violent ends?

At the end of the hallway Alucard walked up to the door that lead into Yokos' room and gave a swift single knock on the door. Inside he could hear her, the creak of the chair as she stood up, yet he heard no accompanying sound of felt on floor. So the toys were not in the room.

There was a stiffness to her breathing while she was opening the door, likely fighting the congestion caused by crying. As the door opened he could see the deep red around her eyes, yet not the spilled tears. She moved aside allowing him to enter the suite and there were no tissues laying about, it looked mostly undisturbed really.

"Yoko."

"So many kids... And they stacked them like... Like pallets, like disposable..." Yoko shut the door and leaned against it with all the energy of someone fighting gravity for ages.

"Yoko." He repeated more firmly as he turned to face her, there were chairs, but sitting was more his fathers' place.

"I know its not my fault. I didn't know, I wasn't in charge of anything that would have let me cross their paths... But I've heard some of what happened to the choirs, there are priests and nuns taking calls from their families. But Al there's 'so many rooms' that the phones won't stop ringing..." Yoko was staring at the floor off to the side as though in the weave and dyes she could unravel the universe.

"Yoko, what you are feeling is normal." He pointed out. "Portions of the world has numbed itself of the pains of its brethren but they are of the old guard. You and the others of the current and future generations are showing a restoration of such emotions. Mass murder is not merely the 11'oclock news to yourself."

"I'm a 'hunter'." She argued.

A pleasing sound to know there was fight left in her, "you are a 'witch'. Nothing more, my Fathers' duty would have kept this from happening had he bothered to do his due diligence. As such though because he was sealed it likely would have been my place to ascend the throne and follow the correct course. But I have neither the interest or desire to flog myself over missteps taken, all I, or any of us can do is stop it from continuing. I have eternity to lament my sins, you. Do not."

"I'm sorry..." Yoko replied as she dragged herself across the floor to stand before him. She repeated the words over and over in anguish. Her head dropped down, resting against his chest, higher than most of the other women hunters, another sign of the changes between centuries. Child like and frightened, her voice pleaded for comfort, even if the person she was pleading to was absurdly ill equipped.

"As you wish my lady." Alucard answered, unmoving as she wrapped her arms around his waist and just hid from the somber, pious lines of her bland room. There was too much to do for these mortals, the damage was so extensive. Yoko, herself, would never be able to live long enough to see things restored to their true and rightful place.

While off in the Pope's personal Suites.

"Now you're being a good boy," Soma mused and settled in to sleep now that his son was doing 'as he was told'. Children. Honestly.