Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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It really wasn't as bad as it had been...
Kazu stared up in a quiet awe at the thoughtforms that chased after the Belmonts, as his mind continued to try and compare what he saw then and now. When compared to when they had access to the castle, it appeared that they had been stripped of their more intense forms. Which was a relief bar none. Thought Forms were manufactured by people, but they never had a physical body of their own, and given what Trevor had spoken of. Undead bodies in the castle would still technically 'be' a body it wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities that the Forms wanted their own corporeal forms.
Without the Castle and Trevor in the distance, the seal looked damaged yet harmless. A sign that the Castle didn't just leave, but left and took what the Forms were feeding off of from it. Leaving a mounting concern about Soma. Reincarnation was all well and good, most aspects of past lives were removed with only the strongest, or most traumatic, aspects echoing into the next body.
But now he had 'seen' the Castle and the effects it had on beings around it. If the castle was some form of a manifestation of Soma's inner workings...
He shook his head and sighed, 'and people want him to unleash 'that' on the world? What is wrong with them?' he pondered as the Belmonts began to form a circle around the priests. A soft subtle glow dusted off of them, floating into the air. A fascinating display given that they were souls without flesh. 'Given the stories Trevor told me lately, I guess it was a bit foolish of me to assume they didn't keep their powers.' Or that holy powers could be transferred into stuffed toys.
Yet that was what was happening. As each Belmont stepped into position their powers flowed seamlessly, linking with each other and forming a ring. Even as combative as Simon was, the hunters' power flowed effortlessly with his kin. 'You're distantly related to these men,' was a thought that whispered snidely in the back of his mind. His own power allowed Kazu to see the men the way that he could occasionally see Trevor. When the man had half a mind to reveal his human soul. Which had always been a bit intimidating, though Trevor often downplayed it as being a woodcutter by trade.
Each of the other hunters, sans Simon, were rather richly dressed, but there was no mistaking how powerful each man was. Those men, warriors, traveled through a nightmare of a castle facing monsters, to face 'Soma'. Keeping the world 'safe' from the forces that Dracula could unleash...
Reconciliation between mass marketing and reality was a thing indeed.
But the Belmonts were accomplishing their goal, as Kazu watched, the Thought Forms began to drift back into the seal. Granted the seal itself, now lacking Soma's attempt at mending it, could only do so much. Wounded space slowly slipping close, and the set of hunters trying to weave a new thread to help that seal stay shut.
'I've never encountered a ghost who had the power they have, and yet they consider 'Soma' a threat...'
And Soma was somewhere in the world apparently motivated enough to rip open the seal and take his castle back.
Without darkness, nothing would rest, without Light nothing would grow. They would refer to Soma as the 'Lord of Darkness' and occasionally the 'Lord of Evil'. Meaning that there was, on some degree, a natural part of the world that Soma was supposed to fill. Yet the evil Kazu felt the night he first met Soma at his apartment was very much a real thing. 'These people went about and caused Soma to flare up and react violently because they want chaos. But Soma doesn't represent 'chaos' just 'darkness'... Is this a western thing I'm missing?' he pondered as he saw in the distance a small bit of gold peering out from the side of the building.
Leon.
He walked out in another little lion kimono, and Kazu wondered distantly if the clothes bothered the man. Slowing him down when he may have wanted to run. Granted Kazu's own sudden first step reminded him that his lungs weren't the only exhausted parts of his body after his mad run up the shrine steps. Nearly taking a knee, Kazu pushed himself on, feeling the numbed pain in every step.
Breathing hard and struggling forward the area the pain was washed away in soft summer shining golden light. Within that light he could see Leon's human soul, standing over the little lion, with the man clad in ancient armor. Half his face hidden by swept blond bangs, yet the one eye that was visible looked proud. 'Leon's their Patriarch isn't he? The start of their hunter bloodline..' Yet Leon didn't glow the way his kin did, and he turned and walked away.
He followed the lion, wondering where Leon would go. The man had portals he could rely on to communicate with those...
The realization made Kazu pick up his pace as he followed the lion along. Past the heated sand garden and around the shrine. Thankfully there wasn't any signs of dead priests or damage, just the shadowed pathways of the shrine. Illumination coming either from the Belmonts or the flames that were slowly fading out at the garden. With only the slight sound of bushes rustling to the right to grab Kazu's attention.
"Sir Leon?" Kazu called out, when he realized the lion was gone from his sight.
"Yes?" Leon's paw suddenly became visible as the lion gave a wave.
"Would you be checking on the Castle?" Kazu asked, wincing at the breach of proper protocols for manners.
"Yes." Leon answered as the young spirit speaker approached.
"Sir Leon?" Mina had been understandably alarmed when she heard her mother start screaming. She had snatched him up into her arms as she took off out of her room, leaving Leon observing the array of spirits tumbling over each other. A wave of spirits that were coming from outside and were visible to even those who didn't have an ability to see spirits.
'Lady Elizabetha I believe something may have gone wrong...' Leon couldn't really abandon Mina and the women of the house. Not that he could do much, but at a time like this...
Minas' grasp on him was tight, but she wasn't shaking, leaving him pressed up against her chest. Thankfully facing outward, he could see the spirits as the power from the castle was peeled away from them. Revealing forms that, lacked the malevolence that came with being merged with the castle. But they were still a threat, even to Leon's untrained eyes.
'Hm, my kinsmen would know better than I, I suspect. But I do not think this is beyond anything that the priests here can handle...'
Leon pushed his way to another small clearing, well for him it was a good size, but by the noise that Kazu was making. Not so great for still human sized people. Turning around he found the young man doubled over as he tried to follow Leon. Earning a small smile from the former knight. "Grounds cleansed?"
Kazu blinked down into the darkness and nodded, where what little he could see from the moonlight showed him Leon.
"Good." Leon walked over and extended his hands out, this area was so small that it only really fit the small lion. A perfect place really for a private conversation with the Lady of the Castle. The pair watched as the air shimmered where Leon's paws made contact, warm light flowed outward as it wavered into view. Revealing a small study with walls of stone with a sizable bookshelf right up against it. The light of the room suggested a warm fire with the center of the image rested a comfortable looking couch. Resting upon the rich red fabric furniture was Soma, looking to be in some mild form of pain with his breathing slightly labored.
Along with an elegant chair pulled so close their armrests touched, immaculately groomed and seated was, Arikado, reading a book. It was a picturesque scene if not the laboring breathing or the occasional page turning.
"Good evening?" Leon called out in politely, immediately getting Arikado to straighten up in his seat. The Dhampire checked the room before his gaze came down towards the ground where the small lion plush stood. His gaze narrowed speculatively with only the faintest of resignations in his gaze.
"One of Yoko's?" Alucard noted.
"Leon... He's an old friend of mine," Soma clarified in a sleepy voice not even opening his eyes. "Mind your manners..."
"Friend?" Alucard repeated, ignoring for the moment that he was literally being instructed to behave.
'Well this isn't going to be good, Lady Elizabetha explicitly asked that I not bring her up,' Leon thought to himself.
Alucard eyed the image before him, wondering how Yoko managed to put a friend of Soma's inside a plush doll. While developing a passing, but growing, concern for who 'else' was in that plush patrol of hers.
"Ah... Forgive me for interrupting... but is Soma going to be ok?" Kazu's voice floated out from beyond the image of the small lion.
Alucard couldn't see the child, but he recognized the youths' voice readily enough. The spirit seer younger brother of Yokos'.
"His condition is tolerable at the moment, where are you?" Alucard asked, swapping to Japanese for the youth. All the while he sat there quietly observing the strange manifestation in the castle. "And how is this lion talking?"
"Well, Yoko made T-Ralph and Snuggy, the lion was a gift to Mina," Kazu explained, his tone reeking with attempted deception. "As for where we're at, we're at the Hakuba shrine, where um... The seal is kind of just at loose ends at the moment." Kazu reported politely, "the city lost power for a bit not long, and the corruption I noticed on the shrine grounds has left with the departure of the Castle, sir."
Alucard frowned at the lion who was gazing up at him, it was dressed in a kimono of somber reds and blues, which Alucard would expect a young girl to do. Only there was no such thing as a 'self aware stuffed animal'. Artificial Intelligence was one thing, but for one to exist in the size of a stuffed toy lion? Even if Soma had 'not' spoken up Alucard could only think this was a possessed item and not safe to be around.
But Soma had addressed the lion as an 'old friend' and Soma did not have any real 'friends' in his modern life that could be referred to as 'old'. In fact the only 'friend' Alucard knew his father to have was Death. An oddly absent Death for that matter...
"Who are you really?" He finally asked only to hear a soft 'tsk' from the side.
"I didn't raise you in a barn I suspect..." Soma grumbled as he began trying to pull himself up from the couch. His ringed hand was numb to the point he just had to assume he grabbed the back of the couch properly. His vision flared a vivid gold, before a mundane gray washed over the world, with darkness dropping over his vision.
Alucard already had switched his focus to Soma the moment the Dark Lord spoke, allowing him the disheartening view of Soma blacking out before finishing either sitting up or speaking. Catching Soma before he unelegantly dropped on the couch a small frown crossed his face as he lowered Soma. Behind him he could hear the lion calling out 'Mathias', a name that caused Alucard to glance back.
"True name," Leon explained while Kazu gave a soft tsking sound of his own in the back.
"His hand looks bad, what's going on? Mr. Arikado, sir?" It wasn't just the ring either, Soma's whole aura, that presence of evil was flaring in bursts.
"He shattered the seal that the Pope placed on him, as well as the restraints I had as well," Alucard answered, barely restraining his irritation. Soma was always as pale as he could naturally be without looking ill. But now he was of a pallor that, be it not for the fireplace, would have alarmed the two semi visiting guests. While the servants were off to collect what they could to try and help ease Soma's increasing discomfort. "Such actions have consequences."
"It doesn't look right though," Kazu noted nervously. "His aura has been evil aligned since I met him on my birthday. But, auras don't flare or react the way it is now... though I suppose he's never acted in an evil manner either so there's that..." Kazu knelt down in the tiny spot, it left little room for Leon to stand. But at least with Mr. Arikado, he was facing someone who 'would' interact with him and not someone who clearly didn't like him.
While the chill of the night air gave him moment to pause and shiver. Not wanting his voice to tremble when he was talking to the Agent. "Ah is my sister ok? She's there right? She might be able to explain it better..."
"She's with Julius, can these portals also be used to travel from the Castle to the shrine?" Alucard finally asked, with Soma once more laid properly on the couch, he was free to stand up and turn to his 'guests'.
Leon shook his head, "no. Communication only."
"Peculiar that the Castle would do such a thing now, and you said you were?" Alucard replied, displeased that the castle had given itself more anchors at the shrine than needed.
"Leon Belmont." Leon replied, and was taken aback now that Alucard was facing the portal directly, by just how much Alucard looked like his father. He had to metaphorically hold his tongue as the dhampire gave his full attention. From the dark hair, to the suit, Alucard bore such a heavy resemblance to his father.
"Belmont? I know of a Leon," Alucard replied. In fact it was the only Belmont that he knew of that preexisted his encounter with Trevor. The other Belmonts he missed while sleeping were another matter. "And you some how ended up in one of Yokos' little magical experiments..." He mused as he returned to his seat.
"No. Intentional." Leon pointed out, unsure of how much he could even bother revealing.
"The Castle kinda made this happen, the shell came from it, not a store..." Kazu explained, and was grateful for Leon's confirmation nod. "He had a voice box installed, and he's been trying to get the voice to work regularly. But, ahh forgive me..."
"Forgive?" Leon turned around to look up at Kazu, his head tilting a bit to the side. "Why?"
"He spoke out of turn, I was not addressing him. I'm sure you must have realized by now that the Japanese are very formal." Alucard explained, switching back to his native language out of a suspicion that Leon would understand it better.
Leon nodded holding up his hands as an expression of regret, "Box unplanned."
Alucard appeared to have some level of trouble deciding how to treat the lion before him. Soma had claimed friendship, and enough of his old memories restored that... Well his request wasn't one that Alucard felt justified in ignoring. Still... a 'toy' lion?
"Very well, if you have a question about the status of the Castle I will answer what I can. However; I have not left Soma's side so my information will be the second hand information from the servants." Alucard finally spoke breaking the near silence of the room, only the snaps and pops of the lit fireplace providing background noise.
Leon glanced up at Kazu, 'I can not really ask the questions that I wished to, but I'm sure you have a few...'
Kazu blinked before pointing to himself in surprise watching as the little lion mouth dipped into a smile.
"Go ahead. Spirits," Leon politely encouraged.
"Um... well, I haven't seen any of the dead around. As you know normally Ralph helps me block out a lot of the spirit activity. But there isn't any now, those I allowed into my vision because they weren't really a 'distraction' are gone. While the nature spirits are still here, um is everything ok with the Castle?"
"No, the castle is not 'ok'..." Was all Alucard replied quietly. The boy knew nothing of his family traditions, and ignorance promised he would not snoop into things that would see him dead. Yet... Soma had bestowed Alucard the permissions to the Castle. Allowing him to rule as his father's proxy and the hunters in the lower regions were taking longer than expected.