Editing BlazBlue:Phase Shift 4 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 4===

In the castle of perpetual night, the Alucard Manor.

Surrounded in rose gardens as far as the eye can see, this eerie, beautiful castle was playing host to two guests this night. Rather than sunlight, pale moonlight was pouring through the large window of one of the countless parlors. The moon was eternal above this castle. It was a quiet, perfectly full moon that simply looked on from above.

Rachel Alucard, the current head of the Alucard family that ruled this castle, was sitting on a luxurious sofa with an ivy design crawling up the sides, wearing a black dress over her small frame.

"Please excuse the delay."

Leading the guests, Valkenhayn had put his butler face back on. With refined mannerisms that didn't quite suit his brawny figure, he brought cups of black tea to the mistress and her guests.

Rachel's white cup emitted white steam that carried the flowery scent of roses with it, and she raised it off the table after giving her glossy golden ponytails a slight shake. Her eminently childlike lips took a single sip of tea.

"Valkenhayn, give it to them."

She gave her order as her blood-red eyes gazed across the table at her guests──Jubei and Hakumen.

That being said, the only one sitting on a sofa was Jubei; Hakumen stood behind the sofa with his back to the wall, standing so perfectly motionless that he could have been a still life painting. Feeling the tension in his companion behind him, Jubei scratched his ears beneath his hood a little uncomfortably.

Hakumen's attitude wasn't the only reason that he couldn't calm down, however. Jubei had gotten quite used to Alucard Castle in his comings and goings in the past, but the castle had shifted into a new phase to suit its new mistress when Rachel succeeded Clavis Alucard as the head of the family, so now everything felt uncanny to Jubei. Even this parlor sofa had been different before, feeling like an old antique from a bygone age, complete with a dusty smell and an austere color scheme better fit for an elderly person than a young girl. He was wracked with an indescribable discomfort being in this place that he once knew well appearing completely different.

"As you wish, Rachel-sama."

At his mistress' command, Valkenhayn went to his disoriented old friend's side, holding a thin wooden box he had brought with the tea. As carefully as he would handle a bouquet of flowers, he gave the box to Jubei.

Rachel waved her finger, and the red rose brand on the box faded away, temporarily removing the seal that her predecessor Clavis had placed.

"...Been a while since I laid eyes on it."

Murmuring nostalgically, Jubei put a hand on the wooden box. Opening the box with a little clattering sound, he revealed the long, black object laying within it.

It was a sword in a black sheath, and its name was the Time Killing Blade, Hihiirokane.

"After retrieving it along with Tomonori, father kept it sealed constantly. He said that it mustn't be lost before the time came to use it again."

The timbre of her words showed that Rachel was reminiscing on bygone times as well.

Rachel and Jubei had both lost people dear to them who were involved with this sword. Rachel had lost her father while Jubei lost his little brother.

"Thanks again, for what happened with Tomonori."

"I wasn't the one to handle the matter. All the more reason to proceed with caution. Especially with regards to..."

"Yuuki Terumi."

Jubei finished Rachel's warning for her.

The last time someone wielded this sword, it was against Yuuki Terumi. The result was that he was sealed in the Alucard Manor for a time, until he had his free will restrained by Nine's Mind Eater.

In place of a nod, Rachel took another sip of tea and placed the cup back on the table.

"Just as you surmised, Hihiirokane is capable of cutting through the Black Beast's spirit and creating a passage inside of it. But before I allow you to depart with this sword, you must commit to fulfilling one more duty."

"A duty?"

Lifting his gaze from the glossy black scabbard, Jubei looked at Rachel.

Rachel looked back into his big cat eye with her own deep crimson ones.

"Killing Yuuki Terumi."

With a frigid voice ill-befitting her youthful appearance, she stated her terms without a hint of hesitation.

Jubei's breath caught in his throat for a moment and his muscles tightened subconsciously. His brother Tomonori had once resolved to kill Yuuki Terumi and took Hihiirokane from their hidden village in order to do it. The young vampire was telling him to take up Tomonori's final mission along with the sword he had held in his final moments.

Staring hard at the black scabbard in the box, Jubei gave his reply.

"So... just sealing him up again while he's still under Mind Eater's influence isn't an option, then?"

"Indeed, obviously not. Father was only able to seal him because his consciousness was completely absent at the time. Tomonori gave his life to make that seal possible."

A tiny bit of sentimentality slipped through Rachel's exasperated sigh.

"Hihiirokane is the only weapon that can kill Terumi, and you are likely its most worthy possible wielder in the world right now. I believe that I can entrust this matter to you."

Rachel's small voice carried a nobility that far exceeded her youthful exterior. The sublime, dreamlike atmosphere of Alucard Castle was certainly not the only reason that it was hard to believe that she existed in reality.

The vampire girl pressed him for an answer with her unrealistic voice.

"The choice is yours to make. Now... what will you choose?"

She was giving him two choices: take the sword, or don't take the sword. If he chose to take it, he would also be choosing to carry on his brother Tomonori's will.

For Jubei, there was no question.

"I humbly accept this charge."

Jubei took Hihiirokane out of the box.

He felt like he had been punched in the gut by a wave of emotions as he lifted the sword, thinking of his brother's lingering regrets contained within. Rachel's condition was convenient for him, really. He had secretly wanted to take revenge for Tomonori all this time, if only he had the chance. Skillfully grasping the hilt with his big cat paw, he drew the blade from its scabbard. It shone with an unbelievable sharpness as it caught the light from the antique golden chandelier.

As he returned it to its scabbard once more with a crisp click, Rachel studied him closely.

"...I see. In that case, I'll prepare one more weapon for you, Jubei."

"Another one?"

"Would you be interested if I called it something like an extra special item, perhaps?"

Seeming briefly like a mischievous child, Rachel's lips shifted into a cold smile.

"The eye of the man who cut Yuuki Terumi and observed his spirit."

The man who recklessly tried to take Terumi on all by himself, but didn't have enough strength to see it through, and was killed by Terumi instead.

"You don't mean..."

Jubei took a long, hard look at Rachel, his eye wavering as he tried to call her bluff.

The truth came in words, however, through Rachel's rose-red lips.

"Indeed, I'm referring to Tomonori's eye."

Hakumen had left the parlor and was currently walking alone through the castle, looking for a certain place.

He walked below the cold stone wall surrounding the castle, down a long flight of stairs. The candle-shaped lights ensconced here and there in the wall were woefully unreliable as light sources, and stepping into the spaces between them was like walking through the darkness of a bottomless swamp. Nonetheless, Hakumen's steady pace showed no hesitation, fear, or doubt, as if he could always see where he was placing his feet no matter what path he might be walking. He alternated between walking through the swamps of darkness and the ponds of light as he marched on.

The young vampire princess had taken the cat and the wolf somewhere else in the castle. Their goal was to transplant the eye of Jubei's brother, Tomonori, into Jubei. What they called an 'eye' was not in fact an eyeball taken from Tomonori's corpse, but rather an artificial eye based on it. Rachel had said that Yuuki Terumi could not be killed unless his spiritual body was cut down along with him, and according to her, Tomonori's prosthetic eye would be able to observe Terumi's spirit.

Jubei had agreed to this plan quickly. With just as little hesitation as when he claimed Hihiirokane, he decided to accept his brother's eye. He must have felt very strongly about his departed younger brother. Hakumen couldn't imagine what sort of emotions that sword and that eyeball must have been stirring up in the cat-man's heart.

All he could think was that that is what brothers should be. His thoughts on the matter never formed into such coherent words as that, but he believed that to be true.

His unerringly uniform footsteps came to a halt as he arrived at the small, hole-like space at the bottom of the very long staircase. This was the very deepest point in the entire convoluted, maze-like Alucard Manor.

The first thing he saw after descending the seemingly endless passage was a solemn pair of tightly shut double doors that were so incredibly sturdy looking that they seemed like they had gone to sleep at some point and would never wake up again. Hakumen stepped in front of them like they were drawing him in, but he did not reach his hands out and try to open them. There was no need for him to open the doors, because there was nothing behind them anymore. All that was left was the memories and sentiments that Hakumen had abandoned.

This was the final place that Hakumen had visited when he was still a person with a different name.

"...Nii ...hng."

He would always remember something when he came here. His final memory from the time axis he originated from, from before he put on the white mask, when he had been someone with a different name.

Something thick and scorching hot like lava whirled about. A single man fell into a wide-open cauldron like he was being pulled into it, the light coming from the depths of the cauldron reflecting off of his white hair. His red jacket fluttered in the hot wind.

The man, together with a dainty girl, was run through by a massive sword. The two were inseparably bound to each other as they fell deeper and deeper in.

The Hakumen of the past followed after them, but he couldn't catch up. He watched as the two people pierced by the sword were swallowed up by the fiery cauldron. And eventually, Hakumen saw the man and the girl melt together into one...

──and become the Black Beast.

"...Nii-san."

Since there was no one around to hear him, who knows if that mumbled word ever left his mouth.

He had remembered. Seeing what Jubei was going through had stirred up his memories. Memories of his brother. He wondered what the man he had once called his older brother would think if he could see him now. If he was more pure like Jubei and cherished his brotherly bonds, he wouldn't fight this battle. After all, the enemy that he was trying to slay was his brother.

"...Foolishness."

This time, Hakumen's voice rang clear as he spoke to himself.

The final battle loomed before them, and here he was drowning in nostalgia over a brother who he had forgotten he had an attachment to. He was being far too meticulous, like he was trying to show off. No matter how many armies he commanded or how many weapons he collected, in the end, he wasn't fighting to save the world.

Everything he did was for himself. He was fighting for his own desires, impulses, and sentiments. He was fighting for his instinct to not let the world be destroyed.

Suddenly, he felt the presence of someone moving above him. It must have been Jubei. It seemed that the transplant had been completed, which meant there was no need to waste any more time in this castle.

Getting in touch with who he had been when he was still human and drowning in self-inflicted torment made for a poor way to kill time.

"So long."

Quietly uttering some parting words, Hakumen turned his back on the past and returned the way he came.

All that was left was darkness, silence, and cold, like the bottom of a well that even ripples couldn't reach.