Chapter Text
The Castle they were in wasn't His castle.
It was a copy. A shadow built on stone and magic, a profane imitation of the throne the world had learnt to fear. Dark towers cut the sky like lances, crimson stained glass reflected the moon that seemed far too close, and corridors breathed as if there were lungs hidden behind the walls.
But Alucard knew.
Even without the true Dracula’s Castle having fully awakened, even before its foundations could breach the rift between the world of men and the abyss, he knew.
The Night had found its king.
And the king used the face of Soma Cruz.
Yoko Belnades was thrown against a column with enough force to split the stone behind her back. The air left her lungs in a mute scream. Her staff almost escaped her hands, but she held on on pure instinct, her fingers trembling around the enchanted wood.
“Yoko!”
Alucard advanced, his sword shining in the cold light.
Soma, no, not Soma, turned towards him.
The movement was small, almost lazy.
Still, Alucard’s blade found only shadow. The body before him disappeared into dark mist and reappeared at his back, a pale hand grabbing him by the shoulder before he could react.
“You remain fast, my son.”
The voice was Soma’s. Young, familiar, wrong.
But, below it was another: deeper, old, satisfied. A voice Alucard had heard in nightmares and memories, in burning rooms, in open tombs, in the laugh of a father that refused to die.
Alucard spun his sword backwards, slashing the air.
Dracula stepped back just enough to dodge. The smile on his face didn’t belong to Soma.
“And still you hesitate.”
Alucard didn’t answer. He didn’t want to.
From the other side of the hall, Julius Belmont rose from the rubble, the Vampire Killer cracking in his hand like living thunder. Blood ran down his forehead, from a cut over his eye, but his shoulders were steady.
Hurt, Exhausted. But still, for a moment, he seemed bigger than the castle itself.
“Soma!” Mina wasn’t there to call him. Not this time. So Julius shouted for her, for all of them, for whatever shard of the boy that could still exist in that body. “If you’re in there, fight!”
Dracula turned to face him.
The smile was gone.
For an instant, only an instant, something wavered in Soma’s eyes. A tremor, an echo. The memory of a name.
Then the darkness was back.
“He fought”, said Dracula. “It was quite moving.”
Julius tightened his grip on the whip.
Yoko got up with some difficulty. A rune circle appeared under her feet, spinning in gold and blue. She knew she wouldn’t have many chances. The dark energy around Dracula smashed her spells before they could be done, as if the Night itself had learnt to hate the name Belnades.
Still, she raised her staff.
“Alucard!”
He understood without having to look.
Julius struck first.
The Vampire Killer ripped through the hall in a straight line, its tip surrounded by sacred fire. Dracula raised his hand to stop it, but, with a flick of his wrist, Julius changed the direction of the whip at the last moment, dodging his arm and striking his chest.
For the first time that night, Dracula stumbled.
Yoko shot her spell.
A circle of light exploded under his feet, binding his shadows to the floor. Alucard advanced next, his sword aimed for the heart.
Dracula laughed.
The darkness surrounding his body opened like wings.
Yoko’s spell ripped apart and Alucard’s sword was deflected by a shadow blade. The Vampire Killer returned to Julius’ hand, but it was too late.
Dracula moved.
It wasn’t any movement that human eyes could see. In one second he was at the center of the hall. In the next, he was before Julius, a hand closed around his throat.
The impact ripped the air from the hunter. His feet left the floor.
“Julius!” Yoko shouted.
Alucard tried to run towards him, but a shadow wall rose between them, made of distorted faces and hands that extended from the void.
Julius grabbed Dracula’s wrist with one hand. With the other, he still held the whip.
Dracula raised him higher.
“The latest Belmont”, he said, savoring each word. “How many times has your bloodline hurt me? How many times have you removed me from my throne, turned me to dust, denied me the world that was mine by right?”
Julius tried to breathe. The sound that left his throat was rough, broken.
But he smiled.
“I’m not…alone”
Dracula frowned.
Julius’ free hand closed around something hanging from his neck: a small silver cross, old, worn by time and battles. For an instant, it seemed like just a relic. A souvenir.
Then it shone.
Not like a candle.
Like the sun itself.
Dracula screamed.
The sacred light exploded between them, nailing into the body of the vampire like invisible chains. The hand around Julius’ neck loosened, but didn’t let him go. Soma’s face contorted, divided between pain, fury and the shadow of an ancient horror.
Julius spat blood.
“Run!”
Yoko didn’t budge.
“Julius, no!”
“RUN!”
His voice echoed through the hall with the authority of all the Belmont that came before. It wasn’t a request. It was the last order.
Alucard grabbed Yoko by the arm.
“No!” She tried to set herself free. “We can–”
“We cannot.”
Alucard’s voice was low.
Yoko looked at him and saw the answer in his eyes.
They could fight. They could die. But they couldn’t win. Not there. Not now.
Julius kept the cross raised, the light burning his own hand, his teeth clenched while Dracula was wailing against the miracle that kept him bound. The Vampire Killer was on the floor, close but not too close to save him.
For a moment, Julius looked at Alucard. There wasn’t fear in his eyes.
There was urgency and trust.
Alucard pulled Yoko back. She sent one last magic spell, opening a light rift on the shadow wall. The two ran through the corridor while it trembled around them.
Behind them, Dracula roared.
The light of the cross started to fail.
Yoko looked over her shoulder one last time.
She saw Julius still being held by the throat.
She saw Dracula tilt his head, his face burnt by the sacred light, his eyes taken by a furious red.
She saw the vampire’s hand go through the chest of the last Belmont.
The scream died before leaving her mouth.
Alucard pulled her through the passage in the same instant that Dracula’s laugh filled the castle.
There wasn’t anything left of Soma in that laugh.
The passage closed behind them, and the last thing Yoko heard was the sound of laughter mixing with the sound of squelching flesh.
Then the castle was left behind.
And the Belmont bloodline ended.
Not very far from there, in a forgotten area of the city, there was a house the maps didn’t register.
It wasn’t big. It didn’t bring attention to itself. It was tucked away from the main streets, surrounded by trees that were too old for that neighborhood. Its windows were always closed and it had an old gate taken by rust. Anyone that passed there would only feel a sudden need to keep going, to not look twice and to forget the building even existed.
It was like that for centuries.
The Belmont manor didn’t only hide from people’s eyes.
It hid from people’s memories.
In the lowest floor, below old wood, consecrated stone and alchemical circles written before many nations got their name, Rinaldo Gandolfi opened his eyes.
The flame of the candle before him went out.
For some seconds, the old alchemist didn’t move. He remained sitting before his table, surrounded by bottles, scrolls and instruments that no modern lab would know how to name. His hand laid over a circle etched in silver, where small droplets of dry blood formed a line that crossed generations.
One by one, the marks had shone through the centuries.
Starting with Leon Belmont.
Then his children.
Then the children of his children.
Hunters, warriors, heirs of an oath born of grief and fire.
Now, the last mark went out. And no other followed.
Rinaldo closed his eyes.
For almost a millenia, he expected never to feel that.
He expected that the plan would remain buried. That the first promise would never have to return to correct the failure of the last.
But the Night had won.
The old man got up with some difficulty. His bones complained, despite the alchemy that kept them alive for much longer than nature would allow. He passed a hand over the table and took a black key, made of iron, silver and something older than both.
Then he looked at the wall on the back.
There, behind the timeworn tapestry, there was a door without a handle.
Rinaldo got closer.
The door recognized him before the key touched it.
Seals awakened on the wood. First in blue, then in golden, then, at last, in deep red.
The color of a broken promise.
Rinaldo rested his forehead against the door.
“Forgive me, Leon”, he whispered.
Behind it, in the depths of the Belmont manor, something answered.
Not with words.
But with a beat.
Weak.
Distant.
Like a heart that shouldn’t exist anymore.
Rinaldo squeezed the key in his hand.
“The last drop of your blood has fallen”
The door started to open.
“Its time to awaken.”