Flipping the Hourglass

• Last updated: 11/27/2024
• Number of chapters: 2/?
• Word count: 6,533
• Genres: Action, supernatural, comedy
• Warnings: Graphic violence, strong language
• Characters: Alucard/Genya Arikado, Richter Belmont, Soma Cruz, Maria Renard, Yoko Belnades, Julius Belmont, Juste Belmont
• Other Tags: Vampires | Non-traditional relationship | De-aging | Children
• Summary: Soma's first official mission as Arikado's unofficial apprentice goes unexpectedly south when the latter is hit by a curse. Soma is left to try to care for his indisposed mentor, while Julius and Yoko chase after a wayward sorceror.
  Many years ago, Alucard found himself on the other end of a very peculiar situation.

Chapter 2

Soma blinked sleepily as the car turned off; Evidently he’d dozed off during the drive, and he yawned, rubbing at his eyes as he unbuckled his seatbelt. Glancing around at their surroundings, the first thing that met Soma’s gaze was unassuming woods, lit by only a few dim streetlamps.

Turning in the other direction, however, revealed what appeared to be an ordinary, working class Japanese home: plain concrete walls, low sloping roof, small windows, a rickety metal staircase leading up to a second-story entrance. Garbage bins, a lawn chair, some half-dead plants and assorted junk sat on the patio beneath the stairs.

“This doesn’t look like a church,” Soma observed drowsily, as he followed the others out of the car.

“That’s because it’s not,” Arikado answered. “This is ‘Wakaichi’s’ home. According to surveillance, he goes to an izakaya in town at this time every Thursday night. We should have about an hour and a half until he returns.”

“What are we doing here, then?”

“Well, first, we’re going to gather evidence. Then when Wakaichi comes home, we’ll confront him.”

“Hopefully it’ll go nice and easy, and we can let him off with a slap on the wrist,” Julius added in as they approached the house. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll get his act together. If he refuses, we might have to subdue him and take him into custody. I hate that kind of shit; makes me feel like a cop,” he grumbled.

As they climbed the old metal staircase, Arikado sniffed at the air. His lips curved into a wry smile.

“Oh yes, I’m almost certain this is the same man I encountered all those years ago,” he concluded.

Soma raised an eyebrow. “What are you, a dog?”

“I’ll have you know that wolves and domesticated dogs are two different species, thank you very much,” Arikado retorted with an indignant huff.

“He’s never beating the furry allegations,” Yoko sighed. Then, just as she reached the top of the staircase, a look of surprise came over her face. “Seems like the house is warded.”

Julius scoffed. “That’s being generous. I mean…” he reached out to touch the wall of the house. “This would be about as effective as trying to deter thieves with a ‘no trespassing’ sign.”

“It’s probably just meant for ordinary humans,” Arikado explained. “My guess is if we were to try, we’d be able to enter the house without a problem, but we wouldn’t find anything suspicious inside.”

“I’ll take care of that, then,” Yoko said with a nod.

“Wait.” Arikado turned towards Soma. “Soma, why don’t you try breaking the wards?”

Soma blinked in surprise. “Me?!”

“Sure, why not? It’s a good skill to practice. These wards are plenty weak enough that you should be able to do it by yourself.”

“But- But I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even know how you guys can tell it’s warded,” Soma confessed.

Yoko shook her head. “This is why I keep telling you you need to work on training your senses,” she told him in a lightly scolding tone.

“Ugh, but I hate meditation…”

“Don’t worry about it. You should be able to feel this one if you focus,” Arikado assured him. “It will feel something like strings or a veil over the house. All you need to do is get rid of that- Cut it, tear it, untie it-”

“Bop it, twist it-”

“Shut up, Julius. Anyway, the point is, use whatever method feels best to you,” Arikado finished.

Soma nodded, and stared at the house for a moment, reviewing Arikado’s directions in his mind. Humming in curiousity, Soma touched the wall of the house, as he’d seen Julius do before.

Beneath his fingers, he felt the rough, warm, slightly humid texture of the concrete wall. At the same time, however, he felt something different: not a physical sensation, yet a sensation nonetheless. It felt like a thin layer of tissue paper covering the house, like a shoddily wrapped gift. No wonder Julius had shown such disdain for the ward.

“Ok, here goes nothing.”

Soma clenched his hands, ripping at the ward as though he were tearing open a Christmas present. He felt it fall away from the house, blowing away in the wind.

“Good work,” Arikado said, with a small-yet-approving smile that made Soma’s heart swell with pride. “Julius, you’re up.”

“Alrighty.”

Julius stepped towards the door, taking Soma’s place. He smirked slightly as he pulled a set of lockpicks from his pocket- only for his smile to fall to an irritated frown.

“Nope, nevermind,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “It’s one of those stupid fancy digital locks. Can’t do anything with it. God, I hate those things.”

“Oh, those are so stupid,” Yoko agreed. “I mean what happens if like, the wi-fi goes down or something, and now you can’t get into your house?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

Arikado tilted his head in dismay, touching a hand to his face. “Oh… And I’m sure if we try to break it by force, it’ll call the police or something…” He heaved a long sigh.

“Wait, but don’t you work for the government?” Soma pointed out, brow furrowed in confusion. “Don’t you have, you know, some sort of official badge you can show the cops to get them to go away?”

“I most certainly do not. The branch of the government I work for is top secret,” Arikado answered.

“That sounds… sketchy.”

“It’s totally sketchy,” Yoko concurred.

Arikado shook his head. “Regardless, think about it rationally. If the police showed up and found what appeared to be several strange, obviously gay foreigners trying to break into a house, do you think they’d accept ‘don’t worry, we’re investigating an evil wizard cult leader on behalf of the government’ as an excuse?”

“Oh… I guess not.”

“Hey, what do you mean, ‘obviously gay’?!” Julius demanded.

Yoko gave him a flat look. “Oh, come on, Julius. You’re wearing leopard print and fitted jeans.”

“What’s wrong with that?!”

“Yeah, I like fitted jeans!” Soma added with a huff.

“Nothing’s wrong with it, I’m just saying, straight men generally don’t like to-”

“Let’s focus on the task at hand. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss fashion later,” Arikado answered. “Does anyone know how to disarm this lock?”

A dance of confused shrugs and apologetic shakes of the head traveled through the group. Arikado sighed once more.

“Maybe an EMP would work?” Yoko suggested. “At the very least, it should take it offline for a few minutes.”

“Worth a shot, I suppose. Not like we have any better options at the moment.”

Julius stepped aside to allow Yoko access to the door. She held out her hand towards the lock; Soma felt the familiar tingle of magic and static electricity in the air, and saw a flash of lightning in the palm of Yoko’s hand.

“Well, the little light went off, so that’s probably a good sign… I think,” she concluded, shrugging as she stepped back.

Arikado nodded. “Thank you, Yoko. And now…”

Stepping up to where Yoko had previously been, Arikado grasped the doorknob. With one sharp, seemingly effortless tug, he ripped the doorknob and lock from the door, filling the forest with the sharp crack! of breaking wood. He casually tossed the newly liberated doorknob aside and pushed the door open, stepping into the house with little hesitation.

“I thought vampires couldn’t enter people’s houses unless they’re invited?” Soma commented.

Julius raised an eyebrow. “And you’re worrying about that now?”

“I’m a dhampir. That rule doesn’t apply to me,” Arikado answered simply.

“And there’s ways around it, anyway,” Julius added. “Open windows, welcome mats, that sort of thing.”

“Wait, wait. I’m confused,” Soma said with a frown as he followed the group inside. “How come you can’t touch running water, and you don’t have a reflection, but you can go out during the day and go into people’s houses without being invited?”

Arikado shook his head. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, we have work to do.”

“Oh, yeah. Collecting evidence, right?” Soma recalled.

“Correct.”

“It’s mostly to scare him,” Julius explained. “We already know what he’s doing, obviously, but if we confront him about it he’s liable to go, ‘but you can’t prove I’m doing that!’ and refuse to cooperate. We want to be able to go, ‘oh yes we can.’”

“That, and we’ll want to confiscate anything that he might be using in his scheme,” Arikado added. “I don’t think it’s all that likely this time, but in cases like this, sometimes there’s magical artifacts involved. There’s even some objects that have their own wills, and can possess or otherwise influence their holders.”

Soma shuddered at this idea, but gave no comment. “So I guess we’re supposed to search the house, then?”

“That’s right. If you find something suspicious, let me know. And take a picture too.”

Soma hummed in thought, glancing around the room. It seemed to be a fairly ordinary living room, with a TV, an old landline phone, and some admittedly rather European-looking decor, but nothing of particular note, as far as Soma could tell; Judging from the way Julius and Yoko glanced over the room in disinterest before hurrying into the rest of the house, they felt similarly. Arikado, however, raised his phone camera towards the couch, prompting Soma to tilt his head in confusion.

“What’s suspicious about the couch?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing, it’s just ugly,” Arikado answered casually. “I’m sending a photo to Richter.”

Soma raised an eyebrow. Were all vampires so particular about furniture, he wondered? Or were Arikado and Richter just weird? Although he recalled Arikado saying once that Richter got his passion for carpentry from his father, the oh-so-mysterious Juste Belmont, who seemed weirder and weirder with each passing mention of him Soma heard.

Leaving the question of vampire home decor and Belmonts behind, Soma followed Arikado and Yoko into what seemed to be the bedroom, while Julius went into another room.

The bedroom, much like the living room, was fairly unremarkable: an unmade bed, a pile of laundry, a closet with some boring suits, a cluttered desk and a bookcase. Yoko and Arikado immediately gravitated towards the bookcase, so Soma decided to check out the desk.

As he approached the desk, Soma heard Yoko give a surprised gasp.

“Alucard, look at this! It’s an antique copy of Wilhelmina Vondergheist’s 1603 treatise on spatial manipulation magic!”

“That hardly seems relevant to the subject at hand.”

“Oh, it’s not, I just wanted to show you because it’s cool,” Yoko admitted. “I’ve been looking for this book for a while!”

Arikado raised an eyebrow. “You can’t keep it, you know.”

“Why not?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Arikado retorted. “You’re the one who was just saying that what we’re doing is sketchy. Now you want to commit a robbery?”

“We’re already committing a robbery. We just broke into this guy’s house,” Yoko pointed out.

“We’re only taking what we need as evidence. Not picking and choosing for fun.”

Yoko shook her head. “Either the guy’s forfeited his rights by violating the social contract, or he hasn’t. Theft is theft, Alucard. Either it’s fine to rob him or it isn’t,” she insisted.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing here,” Arikado proclaimed, narrowing his eyes at Yoko. “You’re trying to disarm me with moral quandaries and logical fallacies, so that I’ll give up and just let you do whatever you want.”

Yoko fluttered her eyelashes, lacing her fingers beneath her chin and tilting her head in false innocence. “Is it working?”

“No.”

Yoko let out a whine. “Fine, but I’m at least going to take a look at it while we’re here. I’ll put it back.”

“Fine, whatever,” Arikado sighed. “Soma, have you found anything useful?”

Soma blinked, having momentarily forgotten his task, too distracted by whatever the hell Arikado and Yoko had going on. “Uh, let’s see…”

The desk, too, seemed rather average, covered in assorted writing instruments and electronic cables and half-empty coffee cups. Nothing seemed at all remarkable- until Soma spotted a familiar object in the midst of all the junk. A small, spiral-bound book with a woodcut-style illustration, cover slightly frayed and coffee stained.

“Well, looks like this guy uses the same planner as Yoko,” he observed, flipping open the cover. “And he also doesn’t do his dishes enough.”

“Oh, the Witch’s Datebook? A lot of people use that,” Yoko replied. “It’s convenient, since it keeps track of moon phases and saints’ days and things like that.”

Soma hummed in thought as he idly flipped through the book. After a few pages, it suddenly struck him that something about the notes written in it was… Odd.

Yoko’s calendar book, from what Soma had seen of it, largely contained notes like “Exorcism at Shimada house, 3:00,” or “Mani/pedis with Mina!! ♡ 10:15.” The sort of things one would expect to find in a planner- i.e., notes on the owner’s upcoming schedule. This book, on the other hand… Soma frowned, taking a closer look at some of the dates.

February 8th - 2 years

March 1st - 7 years

March 22nd - 3 years

What was he keeping track of, Soma wondered? Anniversaries? A countdown to something? He kept reading.

April 5th - Only 6 months. Need new sources.

April 26th - 4 years

May 17th - 25 years. Great!

Soma turned the page, only to find nothing. It seemed that only days past had been filled, with days yet to come remaining empty of any personal notes. Strange…

“Hey, guys. Come look at this,” he called, waving the book in Arikado and Yoko’s general direction. “The notes in his calendar are weird.”

Arikado frowned, quickly taking the book from Soma. He thumbed through it as Soma had, a thoughtful look on his face, before nodding.

“This is only a guess, but I think it’s safe to assume that this is a record of the years he’s siphoned off people’s lives,” he concluded. “Notice how all these entries are recorded on Sundays.”

Soma’s eyes widened, as the gravity of the situation hit him once again. Despite the relative simplicity of things compared to what he’d been through in the past- despite the ease with which Arikado and the others approached the current mission- people were still being hurt.

“How old is this guy, anyway?” Soma wondered.

Arikado shrugged, as he took out his phone to snap photos of the pages. “Hard to say. At least two hundred, and I think he’s probably younger than me, but beyond that I don’t know.”

“Found something else you might want to have a look at,” Yoko called from her place at the bookcase.

Arikado immediately turned towards Yoko. “What is it?”

“There’s a few pages of hand-written notes in here,” Yoko answered, holding up a sheet of paper from the book she’d been examining earlier. “I can’t quite read them, though. They’re written in, like… some kind of ye olde Romanian.”

“I see. Well, lucky for you, ‘ye olde Romanian’ is my native language,” Arikado said with a hint of amusement. “Let me take a look.”

Soma blinked. It was easy to forget that Arikado, with his crisp suits and leather-encased iPad, had been born in the medieval period.

The papers Yoko handed to Arikado certainly looked old and European- seemingly parchment, rather than being made from wood pulp or rice. A number of expressions crossed Arikado’s face as he read.

“Well, this is certainly interesting. They’re notes on chronomancy,” he realized.

“Chronomancy? So does it explain how he’s making people younger?” Soma asked.

Arikado shook his head. “Not quite. It’s not so organized as that. These seem to be sort of vague notes, largely related to the book they were stored in- like he was exploring concepts of spatial magic, and how they could potentially be applied to time as well,” he explained.

“So then these are probably from an early stage in the development of his technique,” Yoko realized. “Which means we get to keep the book as evidence, riiiiiight?”

Arikado abruptly shut the book, tucking it under his arm and turning on his heel. “Let’s go check in with Julius.”

Yoko pouted, but nonetheless followed Arikado. Soma raised an eyebrow.

“What’s with you and that book, Yoko?”

“It’s just really hard to find! And it’s the best source for studying teleportation magic. The train’s gotten so expensive these days,” she sighed.

As they returned to the living room, Julius emerged from the room he’d been in. “Oh, hey. I was just looking for y’all. Find anything useful?”

“We found some chronomancy notes, presumably related to whatever spell Wakaichi has been using to de-age people,” Arikado answered. “And some books on immortality and whatnot.”

“And a planner where he wrote down how much time he’s collected,” Soma added. “What about you?”

Julius held up a file folder, and some loose papers. “A bunch of clerical stuff regarding the church. The deed to the building, member registration, stuff like that.”

“Sounds like we’re in good shape!” Yoko said with a satisfied nod.

“Indeed,” Alucard agreed.

“So what do we do now, then?” Soma asked.

“Well, only one thing left to do.” Arikado sat down on the couch, crossing one leg over the other, folding his arms casually and looking towards the broken front door. “Now, we wait.”