Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Small, quaint, it was less office space and more a off to the side place for private reading or tea.
There was a window for fresh air, with some pleasant flowers in a vase on a small table meant for tea and cookies. In the drawer was a bible and a box of tissues, as well as a cozy blanket that was folded and hung up behind the door. It was meant for quiet counsel and had only two chairs, both which had been in use by Julius and Dionysus. When they had looked for somewhere that didn't wasn't recently used as a bloody battle field.
Both men looked up at the sensation of power that drifted away from them earlier as it now approached. Julius recognized the power he felt approaching as did Dionysus given how the man looked up from the chair he was sitting in. Though the former, current, pope's expression held thoughtful curiosity.
"That is how it feels to be in the presence Arikado," Julius explained.
"The sensation of the Vampire Prince," Dionysus elaborated his expression introspective at the sensation. When Dionysus visited the docks as a child, when he stood next to the massive cruise liners, the sheer weight and mass of the behemoths had always made him really feel his smallness. He watched Julius stand up and step out of the room.
"Alu-Arikado. I wish the Vatican was in a better state," Julius could be heard speaking from the hallway.
'Alu-' Dionysus noted the slip up but brushed it aside.
"As would we all. Yoko is with Pope Alexander, and I have been told you are keeping company with Benedict, yes?"
"Yes, though he's still 'Pope Dionysus to me," Julius sounded ruefully.
"Has there been any movement against him?" Arikado asked, the Dhampire sounding ever the same as he did when Dionysus was alive.
"No, but I would be a fool to believe it won't happen. Though would it be possible that, due to being a former Pope, he can't just be silenced like the other thralls?" Julius asked.
'I could be killed out of hand?' Dionysus thought to himself in something that probably would have been alarm once upon a time. Someone just having a kill command on another's life was quite upsetting. Something that made Dracula's power over his forces horrifying, his ability to just rip control over one's autonomy and he could turn 'anyone' to a Dark Child. Given the status of the Belnades and the acknowledgment that witches existed... Well the church had been wrestling with the subject of if Witches were considered human or Dark Child.
There had been a pause outside while Dionysus pondered over the past when Arikado finally answered. "I am unsure, it would be a question better suited to Dracula actually. Though now that he is aware of the situation he could just as likely be enforcing a hold on such a command."
"I see, the office we were in isn't meant for three people, if you wouldn't mind going to the larger one. I'll go get Dionysus," Julius offered.
Dionysus didn't really think about it, he merely stood up and walked out before some passive part of his brain started screaming. 'You were overhearing a conversation with your vampire senses! Idiot go back in!'
Horror and shame filled the man as he took sight of Julius and Arikado. The Black Clad prince was already walking towards the other side of the hallway to a door leading to a large meeting space. Julius stood between them, his foot raised mid step, while looking only passingly surprised before nodding.
"I guess you're still getting used to what you are now..." Julius noted with a passive stroke of his beard. 'I suppose he needs to be taught about his vampire abilities now that he's out of the vault.'
"Pray forgive me, I meant no disrespect I just heard..." Dionysus blurted out in distress as the weight of what he had just done embarrassed him. One would have thought he had been raised in a barn!
"None is taken. As how humans see time, however; you've been sequestered and had no teachers," Alucard replied humorlessly. He strode into the larger office as indifferent as the dusk. The meeting room was sizeable, with a long table and multiple leather chairs placed around it. Suitable for conversations, meetings, and a Soma plush doll sitting unmoving at the head of the table.
'Father...' Alucard had to bite back the word with his fangs as the doll sat there. By its own nature it was compelling Alucard to focus on it. It wasn't moving like normal, but its aura and scent was enough to serve its duty as a decoy for Soma.
"What... oh what an adorable doll," Benedict's' voice oozed with the tone one expected of someone entranced by the toy.
"It is a decoy from Dracula, please if you could avert your eyes," Alucard suggested. Were he not on the Vatican grounds he would have just pushed Benedict's gaze away as he had enough power to do that. But here?
"A... decoy? But its adorable..."
'He sounds like Yoko.'
Alucard wanted a frustrated sigh, but it required the effort of inhaling and the reason for doing so was beneath him. So he resigned himself to approaching the chair to move the doll out of Benedict's line of sight. The doll faded on its own, its vacant stare locked straight ahead and no apparent insipid signs to get under Alucards' skin.
While Julius took the dolls presence in stride, hoping it signaled that Soma's health was improving that he sent the doll so far from the castle. Soma was still ring bound, but it was fractured and without knowing the rules 'of' the ring. It could be losing power as much as making things worse. 'But I'll hope its getting better.'
After all, Pope Alexander could not make a trip to the Castle with its tendency to warp normal humans. True the castle had been patient with the kidnap victims, 'that's right... the castle is no longer connected to Chaos... The castle brought those kidnap victims but changed no one who came against their will. So either the castle won't change people who wish to stay who they are. Or the castle can 'not' change the resistant because now it is a creature of Darkness not Darkness 'and' Chaos...'
Or Dionysus could do it himself if he was still considered Pope in the eyes of God.
All three men took seats in the room, Alucard sitting at the head of the table and positioned so he was facing between the two other men.
"Do you recall how exactly or when the rituals began to turn you?" Alucard finally asked, eyeing both men though obviously it was Benedict that he was more focused on.
"I've had a long time to think on that." Dionysus began before shaking his head. "I don't know what one event might have done it. After you visited to inform us of Julius' victory, we waited to celebrate with him. Of course family comes first, we told ourselves that Julius must have gone home to celebrate. Over time I just took to waiting up at night, and I think that was what got my attention first. I was awake until far into the night without fatigue. Yet falling asleep around dawn and struggling to stay awake. It was the sleep and the slow realization that it... to step into the sun tingled in this strange way.. I had this momentary insane thought that I 'was' being turned into a vampire at one point. Thus I took an intentional walk out into the gardens at noon fully expecting to ignite like any other vampire."
"Only the sun burns Vampires who have taken an innocent life, that you hadn't meant you would still be able to walk in the sunlight," Julius amended. "But granted the number of vampires who are in that particular pool is still very small."
"Indeed," Alucard mused as he sat there. 'I only know of bites being the method of transformation, though Brauners' ability to just 'become one' is bothersome. As well as increasingly peculiar. How can he, and he 'alone', have the ability to become a vampire without a parent or magical device?' Millions had died over the century who had faced the loss of children, however; they had 'not' just randomly turn into vampires.'
Dracula, thus Soma, possibly could have the answer to that question. Which meant getting that accursed ring off his hand and the time he needed to recover. 'If there is something that can just randomly turn someone into a vampire... Father may have made such a thing out of passing humor...'
"What type of reaction did the Cardinals have when they realized you stopped aging, or being well human?" Julius asked.
Dionysus was quiet for a spell before he found the words, "they were as they should be. Kind. We have struggled in the past few centuries to move past the cold view of the world. Struggled to move past the 'us versus them' mentality that has been a bedrock of our faith. It is not easy, all three of us can attest man's need to be the golden child of their parent. When that parent is God though... such were the thoughts I got lost in while locked in the vault alone and isolated as I was. With the shelves and rows of history that I was exposed to."
The man shook his head before sighing, "we 'had' to be the voice of God, no better than the oldest child. We didn't understand the designs or wishes, we merely made the rules up as we went along and we have hurt so many people. Man struggles to coexist with each other, and the realization of the Dark Children... So when I was turning, my Cardinals took to hiding my 'condition'. Touches of make up to appear older, 'rumors' to spread that my health was in decline. I was an old man, these things happen..."
"And you did not think to reach out to me?" Alucard asked evenly, "a message from the Vatican would not be denied in the Diet Building."
Dionysus flinched with regrets before shaking his head. "I wanted to in the beginning, but my Cardinals advised against it. We have asked for centuries too much of you and the Belmonts. Originally out of arrogance true, while self aware that we lacked the power to deal with Dracula. Generations of my predecessors saw the clans as just tools of divine justice. Not people. Now, to ask you to kill and permanently banish your father? We acknowledge that had we been a faith of genuine love and mercy the witch hunts would never have existed. In a sense we were the cause of your mothers' death and now sought your aid in your fathers. No, I was still myself. I had not lost myself to the devil. So it was for the best to allow you time to yourself."
Emotions coiled themselves in Alucards' stomach at the unexpected admission to his mothers' death. Indeed if the church had not made it a point to demonize women for seeking higher knowledge his mother would have lived. True there had been priests who had a kinder view of women, but as with history. The kind were often silenced from history and only those who rose their voices for hate were recalled.
Julius saw the flicker of color in Alucards' eyes, deep blue to ice to gold... "You meant well I admit, but Valencia was around and still active. She is not a Belmont but I admit I'm pretty disappointed that you would skip over her like that." Valencia wasn't a mother yet, Yoko was born years later, but the description of Dionysus' turn made it sound like he changed during that window so... Why?
"We didn't. We tried to get in contact with the Belnades clan, but we were told that the witches clan wanted nothing to do with 'us' without the appropriate corresponding Belmont." Dionysus replied as he recalled that disappointing letter he received.
"What?!" Both hunters reacted, Julius straightened in equal measures of disbelief and disappointment.
"And yet Yoko lives here," Alucard added, his golden eyes starting to narrow.
"Yes, Donald, my Cardinal of External Affairs was handling it. He tried calling only to be rejected, he and I worked on crafting emails and hand written letters but..." The man shrugged helplessly. "He went about contacting the Belnades who had taken over producing the holy oils for us, but being male. He had no way to reach the witches either... Yoko, in fact, was my last charge I gave to Alexander in a letter. I instructed him that if a Belnades ever approached the Church to make sure they were stationed out of here so we would not be denied access to the clan again."
"Valencia was the head of the clan at the time, her mother was her adviser and I know for a fact they wouldn't refuse a call." Julius shook his head renouncing such a thing. "I know it was years ago but is there any chance that Donald is still alive?"
"I'm afraid not, you remember him right? He was ancient even by 'our' standards. I honestly was encouraging him to step down and retire."
"I had little to do with the man," Alucard recalled, "but I faintly recall the notification of his death."
"I grew very weak suddenly. I would eat and nothing had flavor there was concern that I had contacted an illness and then as I was.. well 'napping'..." Dionysus recalled. "I had been moved off to the more remote suites with only the same group of people attending me every day... The way Juste found me was my lot in life until all this..." He gave this weak gesture with his hand to reflect the whole area. "Being moved and sealed within the Vault, surrounded by the antiquity of the world leaves one a lot of time to think... But I don't know where or who the blood came from that they took to feeding me with." The man shuddered, the words warbling his last phrase, "but when I realized what I 'had' to have..."
"But there is no clue what turned you, it may have been something 'within' the Vault itself, given the churches tendency to take religiously revered items in the way one picks a tomato off a shelf in a store." Alucard acknowledged, "So how is the status of the Vault?"
"After the fight?" Was Julius sole answer earning a small nod from Alucard.
"I will not speak further on these matters until I have returned to the Castle. The walls have ears here, and I do not trust who could be listening." Alucard finally decided, "while at the Castle I will be researching if it would be safe for you to leave the grounds here."
"That would be for the best, during the height of what I experienced, the Vatican is being transformed in some aspect like the castle. The plan appears to be trying to get the Vatican to properly 'live' and see him as its master..." Julius agreed a suggestion that did nothing to improve the dhampires' view of the situation.
"It would explain why you are still here Benedict, the Vatican would need to constantly keep you in its walls. Just as the Castle needs Dracula," Alucard explained. "A pity the fool who plays this game doesn't realize that regardless of 'who' or 'how' you were sired. You both bow to my father as do all the Dark Children. At both best and worst he could pretend that you 'have' such power over the Vatican and humanity will react accordingly."
"One of my priests... and now one of Alexanders..." Dionysus let his head sink into his hands as he processed the horror. "The blood bath... I would 'love' to believe that we have moved past the time of witch hunts and such persecutions. But it doesn't take a scholar of history to find how the suffering during the Potato Famine was 'handled' or anything else since our more 'intellectual' times. I won't ask how you can ferret out this traitor. Only that you do. I will aid in whatever capacity I can as well."
With his head down he couldn't see Alucard's quiet nod of approval or Julius' own scratching at his beard.
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"Trevor..."
"Yes..."
"You know this is a pet free apartment correct?" Kazu asked completely nonplussed.
"So I've been told..." Trevor replied rather proudly. So proudly in fact that his doggy body was showing it with him openly panting, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth and his tail making a very obvious rhythm on the floor. "However; until my terms are met I am not changing myself back."
"Terms? For what?" Kazu asked baffled.
"An onigiri."
"What." Kazu was trying and failing to grasp what he just heard. Food? Really?
"Its been ages since I ate and I want to sample one you have in the fridge. I'm not asking for a four course meal. Just let me have one..." Trevor pointed out...
'He 'IS' a dog... or been one for far too long...' Kazu thought to himself as he went to fetch.. sigh