Chapter Text
A light breeze blew across the Romanian countryside. There, beyond a lake, stood a grandiose manor, its striking clock tower illuminated by the setting sun. This was the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and long ago it was home to a terrifying monster. Once, a powerful vampire resided here. His reign of terror was long and bloody, with those lucky enough to not be slaughtered like animals instead forced into servitude for the rest of their lives. His name, now forgotten, once struck fear into the hearts of man simply upon being spoken.
But somehow, years ago, he was defeated, and the mansion, once a fortress of death, was now simply a quiet, old building, slowly falling into disrepair. Though there were occasional stories of people who went near it seemingly vanishing, the Scarlet Devil Mansion would remain outside the minds of all but a select few. Those few were those who dealt with the supernatural, those who fought monsters with their lives on the line.
And those few were those who knew that the legacy of the Scarlet Devil had not ended with his defeat. They knew that the disappearances were not simply tall tales, but the work of the vampire's descendant. A descendant who had been much less proactive about spreading fear and carnage, but was powerful all the same, perhaps even more so. One who kept their company quite small, but no less dangerous than the armies of beasts that their father commanded.
On that fateful summer evening, one of those people approached the mansion's rusty gate. A silver-haired woman, no older than her mid-twenties at a glance, clad in a plain, dark blue dress, walked towards the entrance, preparing to end the Scarlet legacy once and for all.
"Hey, you!"
A green and red figure suddenly leaped over the gate in a single bound, landing in front with a powerful thud. As the dust from her impact cleared, the silver-haired woman saw that the figure was a tall, muscular woman with bright red hair and obviously foreign clothing.
The woman spoke. "I'd guess you're lost, huh? It happens; sometimes folks take a few wrong turns in the forest beyond the lake. If you're looking for shelter, though, this isn't a good place; the mistress absolutely HATES visitors. So you should probably turn around if you know what's good for you." She was surprisingly upbeat, punctuating her remarks with a wide smile.
The silver-haired girl casually pulled out a pocket watch, flipping it open and looking at it without changing her expression. She finally spoke. "Unfortunately for you, I forgot what's good for me a long time ago. You must be the dragon that guards this gate. I believe the name I came across was Hong Meiling?"
Meiling's smile went from a cheerful grin to a smirk. "Sounds like you've done your research, miss. Anyone who's come here with that kind of information is definitely someone with no intention of leaving. So before I crush you into dust, you mind giving me a name? It never feels right burying someone without having some way to refer to their bones."
The silver-haired woman closed her watch, and with a flourish, replaced it in her hand with a knife. "A name? You must be mistaken. I haven't had one of those in years."
"Ooh, a real mysterious type, huh? Alright, suit yourself!" With that, Meiling suddenly leaped forward with blinding speed, before unleashing a straight punch directly to the woman's chest.
At least, that was her plan, but her fist only met air, as the woman ducked the punch. Meiling followed up with a series of lightning-fast strikes, but none of them hit their mark, the silver-haired woman somehow surpassing her speed. Suddenly, Meiling felt a sharp pain in her chest, and she looked down to find the woman's knife buried in her chest. She staggered backwards, and the woman ripped the knife out, splashing blood on the both of them. Meiling looked up at the woman and smirked again. "Ooh, that stings. Not many folks have pulled something like that off. And is that knife silver? You're definitely an experienced monster hunter. Doesn't make much of a difference to me, but the mistress would not be happy to run into something like that."
The hunter gave a sarcastic curtsy. "Thank you for the compliments. I wish I could offer similar to you, but unfortunately your moves are sluggish and easily readable. Clearly you're lethargic and have never put in a proper day's work in your life. You'd be more suited to serving tea, which I believe is the more standard courtesy for guests like myself anyway?"
Meiling's smile faded, and she set her feet into a wide stance. "Alright, now you're pissing me off. Take this!" She began to glow with an otherworldly energy, a rainbow aura building up around her. The earth shook as the energy increased.
Then, in an instant, it all stopped. Meiling stood frozen, mouth agape, her eyes wide. Suddenly, she coughed, spitting out a small amount of blood. She then fell forward onto the ground. Her back was pierced with countless daggers, and the hunter stood behind her, posed casually as if she hadn't moved at all.
"H-How..." Meiling coughed as she dropped. As she lie, drifting out of consciousness, she managed to ask one more question. "You're... you're not human, are you...?"
The hunter smirked. "I get that a lot. But that's another mistake from you. I am quite human."
"But..." Meiling couldn't finish her sentence as she passed out.
The hunter turned around and walked to the mansion's large gate. She broke the rusted lock with a quick motion, then walked to the mansion's door and did the same. She walked inside, the large door slamming behind her as she stepped into the darkness.
The first thing the hunter noticed was the smell. An unpleasant mixture of mildew and blood assaulted her nose as she crossed a large, empty foyer. Dim light streamed in through the windows, giving her just enough vision to see the thin layer of dust that coated much of the room. The only thing that kept the mansion from being indistinguishable from any dingy shack was the size.
At the other end of the entrance hall were a large set of stairs with a handful of doors on either side. A more inquisitive person would likely have explored the doors first, but the hunter was on a mission, and she knew that her target would likely be waiting in a room near the top of the building.
As she crossed the hall and began the long ascent, the hunter mused. The head of the descendant of the Scarlet Devil would fetch a high price; she'd likely be set for many, many years if she was successful. She could find herself a house, in an isolated spot, and cut her contact with other people to a minimum, as she had desired for most of her adult life at this point.
Though she was most certainly human, it had been a long, long time since anyone had treated her like one for an extended period of time. Even before she developed her unique powers, she had been an outcast for plenty of reasons. Sometimes she talked too little. Sometimes she talked too much. She always seemed to say the wrong things. Certainly, a girl her age was not supposed to be so interested in knives, according to the adults around her. She got scolded for expressing her feelings, and she got scolded for not expressing her feelings. Even her parents, who she had given little thought to ever since she left home, always seemed to regard her with a strange, detached pity.
And then one day, as a young teenager, she found herself pushed too far. Words she couldn't even remember, admonishment for mistakes she didn't understand, they all led her to scream out the word "stop" in a fit of panic and rage... and stop it did. Everything stopped, except for her. All of those who refused to understand her, the world who shut her out, frozen in place like an uncanny diorama. And so, with a new world open to her, she did what she had wanted to do every time one of those situations found her.
She left.
In the frozen time, she simply walked to her home and entered her room, and sat alone in silence, as she had so desperately needed.
Eventually she was found, and she returned to that life, a life surrounded by those who refused to understand, those who saw her as a creature poorly attempting to live as a human being. And in response, she tested the limits of her new abilities, finding them to be far beyond her imagination. In the end, she used them to escape her old life, slowing her aging to avoid becoming too attached to any single group of people.
And as those with strange, inexplicable power often were, she was eventually drawn to dealing with the denizens of the dark, making a living through hunting deadly creatures. It wasn't something she enjoyed, but not something she disliked, either; it was simply a fact of life. Food cost money, after all, and no other job allowed her to work with her own methods with as little contact with those who would ruin her mood as possible. Still, it was enough of a struggle that she'd be relieved to finish off prey this notable and take a long break, by herself, without the voices of those who'd reject her constantly ringing in her ears.
The hunter paused a moment. Every now and then, something in her heart wondered if she had truly given up on being understood, if living out the rest of her life by herself was the only answer for someone like her.
She continued up the stairs. Now was not the time for doubts like those.
One by one, her steps echoed across the silent manor as she climbed her way to the top of the large staircase.
After what seemed like forever, she reached a landing which opened into a hallway. The hallway was lined with doors, all slightly open, providing views into long-abandoned rooms. At the end of the hall, a large, ornate set of double doors stood. This was clearly where she would find her target.
The hunter crossed the hall with a number of brisk steps, opened the doors, and stepped inside.
The hunter had never been in a vampire's bedroom before, but her expectations certainly weren't met with the sight she saw illuminated through the dim light from the hall, and a few streaks from the setting sun illuminating tiny patches of the floor through holes in the curtain.
For one, it was a lot pinker than she anticipated.
Rather than the dark, gothic decor that one would expect from a deadly master of the night, the frilly four-poster bed in the center of the room seemed much more fit for a little girl, as did the small clothes scattered all over the floor. Perhaps...
Ah.
Poking from under the covers was the head of a young girl, no older than ten years old at a glance, with blue hair and a pink nightcap, sleeping peacefully.
At this sight, some would have second thoughts. The hunter, however, did not. She simply produced three knives with a quick flourish, and threw them all straight at the girl, without changing her expression in the slightest.
The gruesome wounds that one would expect did not come to pass; instead, a cloud of bats suddenly appeared from the bed, dispersing across the room, leaving the bed empty save for the knives embedded in the mattress.
The bats swarmed upwards, eventually converging on top of the bed's canopy. They joined into a dark mass, which formed the shape of the girl, dressed in a full pink nightgown. Her piercing red eyes, sharp fangs, and the batlike wings protruding from her back betrayed her true nature.
This was the vampire.
A smirk formed on her face. "Oh me, oh my. It's been a long, long time since any inhabitant of this mansion has been targeted by a hunter, much less Remilia Scarlet, queen of the darkness. I suppose dear Meiling has been doing an excellent job. Congratulations to you for, I presume, defeating her, by the way. She's quite strong, you know."
The hunter looked up at Remilia. "If she's what passes for strong in this household, then the most difficult task I will face tonight is cleaning the blood from my knives."
"Ah ha ha ha ha! Your confidence is just so charming, human. It's been a very long time since a human overestimated themselves like that in my presence." Remilia rolled her neck a bit. "Still, it's been a while since I've seen this much energy in my breakfast. I'm sure your blood will be quite flavorful when filled with the panic of your final moments." Suddenly, with blinding speed, she rocketed from the bed's canopy, slamming into the ground with a force strong enough to shake the windows. Surprising her, though, was the fact that the hunter's neck was not in her grasp.
"A-hem."
Remilia turned around towards the source of the sound, only to find the hunter sitting on top of the bed's canopy, in the exact same pose Remilia was only seconds earlier.
Remilia was shocked for barely a millisecond before her smile returned. "Well, well. It's been a while since I've met someone who could match my speed. Perhaps you're not human after all?" She rocketed up towards the hunter, swiping with her sharp nails, only to grasp nothing but air once again. Flying above the center of the room, she saw the hunter leaning against the room's door, arms crossed.
"If I had a coin for every time someone accused me of not being human, I'd be rich enough to not need to collect the bounty on your head, Scarlet."
Remilia dove towards the hunter again. This time, her attack was not only dodged, but countered, as a powerful kick from the hunter sent Remilia flying into the far wall. She reoriented herself and stood on the ground.
"A sellsword, hm? Pretty common motivation for what I'm now seeing to be a very uncommon human," Remilia chuckled.
The hunter shook her head. "The money is but a means to an end. All I desire is personal peace." In two quick motions, she threw ten knives directly at Remilia.
"Well, you won't find that peace with a slow attack like that!" Remilia moved quickly to the side, out of the flight path of the knives... only to grunt in pain as one of the knives pierced her wing.
Confused, Remilia looked around, only to find that the knives, rather than flying in a straight path, had somehow been redirected all over the room.
The hunter smiled. "You really are quick. I had to take some guesses there. If you were any other creature I've killed, you'd have been pierced by the other nine as well."
Remilia smiled back. "It seems speed isn't your only trick."
"It's bold of you to assume that speed was one of my tricks in the first place."
Remilia's smile dropped. "Cryptic, cryptic. Still, if we spend the rest of our time focusing on speed, this will take all night. My patience is thin as soon as I wake up, you see, so I hope you won't mind if I simply remove you from anything resembling existence with my lovely Gungnir so I can get on with my evening." After saying this, she raised her hand in the air, and a giant glowing red spear appeared in her grasp.
The hunter raised her eyebrows and smiled. "You're going to use a spear on an opponent you haven't even managed to scratch? It's an inspired approach, I'll say that much."
Remilia shook her head. "Oh, despite the shape, Gungnir is not particularly interested in precision. In fact, any human even remotely near its flight path or impact point would likely be reduced to dust. No matter how fast you are, it won't be enough if there's nowhere for you to escape to." She pulled her arm back. "Goodbye, human!" she yelled, hurling Gungnir with all her might.
With a mighty crash, the spear, glowing with an otherworldly energy, blasted through the bedroom doors and screamed down the hall, leaving only scorch marks and a few chunks of wood.
Remilia walked to the now-empty doorway and surveyed the damage. "Oh dear, what a mess. Getting that fixed will take ages. Though it seems the spear dissipated before it reached an outside wall, so there's no immediate danger... Perhaps I can get away with leaving it as-is for now. It's not like I have many visitors, after all. The worst I'll get are some smart remarks from Patchy, and she doesn't need an excuse for those anyway HURK."
Remilia let out a grunt of pain and confusion before realizing she was pinned to the wall of her room, a knife piercing each of her wings. She made an effort to transform into her bats, but somehow it didn't work. She looked at one of the knives and realized. "Of course it's silver. I don't know why I even tried, really." She turned her head forward, to see the hunter standing in front of her. "Very good, human. How did you do that, anyway? I was sure you had no time to escape."
The hunter casually flipped open her pocket watch. "An error in judgment, really. I have all the time I could ever need, and more. In fact..." The hunter appeared to teleport to various spots in the room in a few seconds. "I have complete control over time itself. Surely you can understand how such a power would leave your defeat inevitable."
Remilia tried to smile, but it was more a grimace. The knives in her wings really hurt. "And you still claim to be a human. How curious." She dropped her head. "Now, finish me off, human. No need to drag this out any longer than you must."
"Hmm... I'd rather not, but thank you for the offer."
Remilia looked up. "Pardon?"
The hunter closed her watch, and put it in some unseen pocket with a single movement. "At some point during that fight, I decided not to kill you. So, I won't."
Remilia laughed. "Well, then, I suppose there's something you want from me. The legends are true, after all; I have the power to alter fate itself. I could grant you any wish a human could desire. Speak it, and it shall be yours."
The hunter shook her head. "No, I don't need anything. In fact, I'm more interested in what you need from me."
Remilia let out another chuckle, which morphed into a cough halfway through. "What could I possibly need from a human?"
"Well, for starters..." The hunter trailed off.
Suddenly, Remilia found herself on the floor, no longer pinned to the wall. The knives were gone from her wings, and the spots where they had stabbed were covered with fresh bandages.
"...you probably needed some medical attention," the hunter finished.
Remilia simply gawked at that, so the hunter continued speaking.
"Furthermore... this house is a mess. Dust and dirt everywhere, your clothes are all over the floor of your room, and the smell is simply rancid. I would expect a high-class lady like yourself to have servants to attend to this sort of thing, no?"
After a few seconds, Remilia found her words. "My... my father had servants, but they died a long time ago, and I never hired any new ones. The servant quarters lining that hallway have been empty for years, and then excuse me what in the hell are you wearing."
In the middle of Remilia's sentence, the hunter had gone from a plain blue dress to a classic maid outfit, complete with apron and headpiece. She smiled and spoke. "How would you like to have a maid to help around your mansion?"
Remilia's jaw dropped. For a few seconds, she was silent.
Then, she laughed. She laughed hard, for a long time.
Catching her breath, she wiped a tear from her eye. "You are, perhaps, the most interesting human I have ever met. At this point, I think I'd be a fool not to take you up on that offer. Very well; I hereby appoint you as the head maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, miss..." She trailed off. "Excuse me, just what is your name?"
The hunter's smile faded. "I haven't had a name in a very long time."
"Tut, tut. Well, I can hardly just call you 'human', now, can I? Let's see... I believe bestowing you a proper name is within my powers. A name is a fate, after all, and fate is well within my purview."
The woman smiled again. "Do your worst," she said cheerfully.
Remilia closed her eyes. Though there was no physical change in the room, there was a shift in the mood that would undoubtedly be noticed by anyone there. "You shall be known as... Sakuya Izayoi."
The woman tilted her head to the side. "That's... Japanese, is it? What does it mean?"
Remilia shrugged. "Good question. I don't speak Japanese."
The woman sighed. "I suppose I'll have to research that, then. It is undoubtedly my name, though. I am Sakuya Izayoi."
Remilia clapped her hands together. "Excellent, excellent!" She walked over to the hole where the door to her room once stood. "Now, come with me. We have something very important to do before you get started."
"What's that?"
Remilia smiled. "Why, you have to meet the others, of course!"
The woman did a double take. "O-others?"
Remilia went on, ignoring her question. "Though I suppose you've met one of them already. We should still update her on the situation, I think. Now let's go, before we waste moonlight."
Remilia walked out of the room, and the hunter... no, Sakuya Izayoi followed behind her.