As Dracula landed in his ancient castle, the air shifted. Veins slithered along the cracked stone walls, pulsing like living things. The pillars — tall, cracked, eternal — each told stories of ages lost. The castle itself felt less like a place and more like a memory carved into reality.
Cradling Lazarus in his arms, Dracula walked the endless hall. His cape trailed behind him, brushing over a long, blood-red carpet that stretched toward a door that never seemed to come. And yet, suddenly — without warning — it stood before him.
Massive. Wooden. Yet gleaming like polished gold.
Dracula raised his hand, magic swirling at his fingertips. The doors groaned as they opened, their ancient hinges weeping under the weight of time.
Inside lay a library.
No — a cathedral of knowledge.
Books towered endlessly, their spines stitched with forgotten languages and blood-bound spells. Scrolls, crystal archives, relics from empires long buried. Equipment, both arcane and mechanical, cluttered the space — old as time, new as dreams.
Dracula walked in silence until he paused before a particular book. No title. Just black leather, aged and cracked. He pressed it forward gently.
Click.
A hidden wall shifted.
Behind it — a room.
Dark. Silent. Waiting.
Dracula stepped in and whispered, "This is your new room, child. The place where you'll grow into the world-destroying vampire you're meant to be."
He turned to Lazarus, still in his arms. "How fascinating… A newborn with the mana capacity of a second-class planet mage. No — maybe even third. Yet you have no sun to orbit… no warmth to guide you."
He stared deeper.
"You saw your mother die. I turned you. I bit your neck and made you one of us — yet you didn't cry. You didn't scream. You just… watched."
Dracula tilted his head, amused — but disturbed.
"So emotionless. So still. Like a corpse pretending to live. You were born moments ago, and already you're hiding it. Already sealing it away."
He leaned down, eyes glowing crimson, his voice a whisper sharper than blades.
"Well then, Lazarus… I will mold you. I'll carve you into the ultimate weapon. Cold. Unfeeling. Absolute."
A grin spread across his face, monstrous and regal.
"The boy who should have wept, watched instead.And the silence in his heart grew louder than any cry."
The Saintess held Alucard close, crying her eyes out — like a tsunami ready to swallow the world whole. Her tears fell not just for the mother who had died… but for the life this child had been born into. She wept from the bottom of her heart, begging for forgiveness — begging the twins' mother to forgive her. Her voice cracked, full of guilt and love, "I swear… I'll raise him right. I'll make him a holy knight… a righteous one. One who protects, not destroys."
She hugged the newborn tighter, and Alucard cried with her — his newborn wails so sharp, they felt like they could shatter glass. Each tear from his tiny eyes carried a pain too heavy for words, too cruel for someone just minutes into life. In the blink of an eye, he had lost everything — his mother, his brother. All he had left was the warmth of a woman weeping for sins not her own.
The Saintess looked down at him, heart torn, voice shaking, "Your fate is worse than death, my child."
Alucard cried until his voice gave out. His little chest rose and fell, struggling for breath. His eyes dried like cracked sand, the tears long spent, but their message still clear — sorrow deeper than words could carry. And finally… sleep took him.
The Saintess held him in silence, cradling him as if he were the last hope left in a dying world. She looked at his sleeping face — so peaceful, so innocent. Yet behind those closed eyes was pain already etched into his soul. "You've suffered so much… and you're still so pure."
Behind her sorrow-filled eyes was a storm — a pain that no spell, no sword could ever heal. But nothing hurt more than the wound of failing to protect Lazarus.
Still, she held on.
"Sleep, my child," she whispered, kissing his forehead. "I'll make sure your life isn't only pain. I'll bear the weight with you… so that your fate won't feel like a curse."