Chapter 1: It begins
Summary:
Genya takes up being a history professor to keep an eye on Soma. Soma hates it already.
Chapter Text
Soma’s pretty good at following a schedule, very mindful to be on time to classes. Since the events of the previous year he’s found it hard to adjust. The weight of knowing at anytime if he pushed to the extreme he could lose himself was…terrifying to be honest. He’s absorbed chaos into him, absorbed the darkness and it settles, deep in his heart, waiting. Not only that he’s…honestly not sure how to feel over the fact the souls he’s absorbed are now still part of him. If he thinks of a certain one it’s there. Just *poof* and suddenly he can do the thing. Of course Julius has warned him not to mess with it, nor any other abilities that had been manifesting (abilities that manifested when he was younger, but then seemed to fade, things he never noted or realized until now).
“Good morning, Soma,” Mina’s voice breaks through his thoughts and internal monologuing. Her smile is warm, like the sun and it makes his heart melt just the tiniest of bits.
“Morning, Mina,” he replies back, easily falling into step with her.
“I heard there is a new history professor.”
“That so?”
“Yes. Apparently everyone is going crazy over him, especially the girls.”
Soma didn’t see the appeal, but he had to admit he was curious as to who their new professor was. Was he hot? Would he be mean? Ugly? If he was ugly, then people wouldn't be swooning. So now he's picturing them in his head and then, then he stops.
Soma turns to look at Mina, then, watching her lips, the way her eyes light up. She’s perfect, he thinks. If anyone should go crazy over anyone it should be Mina. Still the protective nature of being her best friend shows itself and he immeditely pushes the thoughts to the side. No, perhaps having people fawn over his only friend would not be good. So he's fine with them fawning over this professor. It's not like they were hot anyway. Probably just average looking adult like anyone else in his country.
Just as Soma begins to settle in his seat once they arrive he stops because he knows that man standing at the front of the classroom.
He knows that face.
Those eyes.
That hair which should be golden, like the sun.
The eyes which should be equally as bright and not the dull gray that they were.
The visceral reaction Soma has as memories flash briefly in his mind’s eye. He, himself, stood infront of mirror. Clean shaven, dressed in robes and furs. He did not look like Dracula, no, but more…close to Genya. Because that who it was. Genya looked like…him? No, not him and not Dracula. The man…the man who would be Dracula.
“Soma?” Mina whispers, noticing the absolute look of shock mixed with horror and something else entirely. Such an intense gaze.
“Yes?” His eyes never left the stone gray which now captured his own. Everyone was staring.
“You’re…um…being watched.”
Oh.
Well.
Fuck.
“S-Sorry,” he mumbles, breaking eye contact and forces more memories away. Memories of Genya as a child who was just so sweet, so precious.
A sudden, empty hollowness before it's pushed back, a guilt he feels that is not his own becomes quickly quelled as the voice speaking to him cuts through the sudden haze--and brings him to reality and away from that dangerous trip down memory lane...memories that did not belong to him. Memories he did not wish to think about in this moment.
“Well, it look’s like we meet again, Mr. Cruz,” Genya says, and he swears he sees the tiniest of smirks on that dumb face. “I do hope you will pay attention instead of staring into space."
Soma wants to scream. Mina laughs.
"end me--" he whines as Genya walks away. This is going to be the most painful school year, he can feel it.
Chapter 2: In which Soma hates history
Summary:
History is boring and Soma hates that Genya is his professor because he just knows this man is trying to make his life hell.
Notes:
Note: The Peace of Augsburg, also called the Augsburg Settlement,was a treaty between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Schmalkaldic League, signed on 25 September 1555 in the German city of Augsburg. It officially ended the religious struggle between the two groups and made the legal division of Christianity permanent within the Holy Roman Empire, allowing rulers to choose either Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism as the official confession of their state. Calvinism was not allowed until the Peace of Westphalia.
The Peace of Augsburg has been described as "the first step on the road toward a European system of sovereign states." The system, created on the basis of the Augsburg Peace, collapsed at the beginning of the 17th century, which was one of the reasons for the Thirty Years' War.
Full article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Augsburg
Note 2: Cardinal Richelieu - Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu, commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religious affairs. He became known as the Red Eminence
Full article: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Armand-Jean-du-Plessis-cardinal-et-duc-de-Richelieu
Bohemia - Historical region in the Czech Republic'
Chapter Text
The lecture hall was a sleek glass-and-metal thing: modern, sharp, and far too bright for Soma Cruz’s eyes right now.
The fluorescent lights above hummed like judgment as Professor Genya Arikado, tall and unflinching, moved a piece of chalk across the blackboard like it personally offended him. He was giving a timeline lecture on the Thirty Years’ War, which was apparently very important and very long and very… war-y.
Soma was not paying attention, naturally because Genya's voice was just very soothing, very monotone and, much like the rest of his classmates, he was not immune to the soothing effect the man's voice had. He was halfway through a canned iced coffee and daydreaming about capstone designs when he heard someone call out.
“Mr. Cruz.”
Oh no.
Professor Arikado didn’t turn when he said it. He never turned. He always seemed to know exactly where Soma was sitting, like a bat with a Wi-Fi connection.
Soma blinked, panicked, almost swallowed the straw.
“Uh… yeah?”
“Could you explain the role of the Peace of Augsburg in escalating sectarian conflict?” Arikado’s voice was measured. Sharp. Perhaps a bit of amusement lacing the words.
Soma’s brain became static, buffering like dial up as he tries to recall the treaty. Parsing memories were hard and even more so when he just did not care for history much as a whole in this time. Of course when he was Dracula, knowing the politics and social shenanigans of the time was paramount. That was then, this is now and he is Soma Cruz not a King of vampires playing politics.
Treaty… Peace… Augsburg… definitely sounds German. Probably in Germany. That’s something, right?
“Uhh… was that the one where… they, uh… agreed to… disagree… very violently?”
A few students snickered and behind him, Mina Hakuba stifled a laugh with her hand and stabbed his shoulder gently with a mechanical pencil. “You’re killing me,” she whispered.
Professor Arikado finally turned. His face, elegant and cold, held a gaze so withering it could probably drop a small horse.
“You will find a quiz on your desk next class,” he said evenly. “Multiple choice. I suggest revisiting chapters two through five. Thoroughly.”
Soma groaned and let his face slide into his notebook. He couldn’t get out of that classroom fast enough.
–
The cicadas were screaming, which honestly reflected Soma’s internal state well most days.
He and Mina walked across the quad, weaving around students eating crepes and lounging on sun-warmed benches. Mina had an iced matcha latte and a soft little grin.
“Don’t take it so hard,” she said, sipping with theatrical innocence. “You’re doing your best.”
“My best is failing a class I basically lived through.” Soma threw up his hands. “Do you know how humiliating that is?”
“Well, technically,” Mina said, “you didn’t live through the Treaty of Westphalia. You were too busy turning into mist and having mood swings.”
Soma stopped walking. “That’s rude.”
Mina giggled. “You used to be Dracula. This is your karmic punishment for all those peasants you cursed.”
“I raised that man.” Soma jabbed a finger toward the history building.
“And now he’s your professor.”
“And now he’s smug about it!” Soma groaned. “He enjoys watching me flounder. I saw him smirk when I forgot where Augsburg was!”
Mina rolled her eyes. “You did call him ‘Alucard’ last week in class.”
Soma flushed red. “It slipped out! His name feels fake. Like a cheap store-brand vampire knock off. ‘Genya Arikado’ sounds like a rejected Final Fantasy character. IT’S NOT EVEN SUBTLE.”
The day continued uneventfully after, but every so often Mina would send him a text, teasing him. He refuses to acknowledge them and leaves them on read, cheeks flushed. Stupid Mina and her cute little laugh and her stupid teasing.
The night followed soon enough and Soma’s desk looked like a tornado had swept through a library and dropped only the worst textbooks. Highlighters, notes, flashcards. One read: “Augsburg ≠ Austria.” His laptop was open to a YouTube playlist titled “Thirty Years’ War Explained (w/ memes)” and he was three minutes into a video that used Sims characters to reenact the Reformation. His eyelids drooped. His head tilted. He blinks and suddenly he’s no longer in Tokyo...he is elsewhere. It’s brief, a flash, but it's enough to jolt him awake again.
He stared at his notes. One doodle of a vampire cat in a Napoleon hat looked back. He couldn’t focus and he knows, KNOWS, this will bite him in the ass (it always does) but maybe he could watch a few silly videos, then he’d study. After all its cat memes, how could one lose track of time??
–
The following day of the quiz finds Soma in a panic as he reviews his flashcards as Mina whispers, “You’ve got this, Vlad Jr.”
Soma groaned. Of all the–Vlad Jr. What even…ugh. Professor Arikado entered precisely on time, long coat trailing, expression unreadable. He moved up each row, placing quiz papers like a funeral priest handing out communion. When he reached Soma, he paused just long enough.
“Let’s see if memory serves you better this time,” he said softly.
“I hate you,” Soma whispered reflexively.
Arikado didn’t blink. “Noted.”
–
Soma slumped out into the sunlight. He looked like a man who had seen things. Ancient things. Mina popped up beside him, sipping a smoothie.
“How’d it go?”
“I might’ve passed,” Soma said. “Or I might’ve accidentally hallucinated a duel with Cardinal Richelieu in the middle of question four. Unclear.”
Mina laughed. “You’re overthinking it.”
“I have anxiety, Mina. That’s my whole brand now. Anxiety and trauma from the castle, from the cult--THEY'RE STILL STLAKING ME I KNOW THEY ARE-"
-
Inside the classroom Arikado sat at his desk in the quiet, sipping black coffee like it was ambrosia with papers spread before him in precise order.
He picked up Soma’s quiz and read it silently, his gaze stopped on the scribbled side note:
“I think I burned a monastery that day???”
A rare, almost untraceable smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“You did,” he murmured. “But it was in Bohemia.”
He wrote in red ink at the top: 79%
Chapter 3: Soft Moments in Time
Summary:
Soft moment between Soma and Mina and then, later, Genya and Soma. Just some bonding, some softness. Because the next few chapters will just be chaotic shenanigans' when Soma joins a cult club.
Chapter Text
The Hakuba Shrine was a peaceful little pocket of calm, just far enough from the train station to discourage tourists but close enough that Soma could get there in fifteen minutes with headphones and a good playlist.
The evening air was warm and golden, the smell of grass and old cedar carried on a soft summer breeze. Soma lay sprawled on a tatami mat just outside the back porch, one arm draped dramatically over his face, the other holding a rice cracker to his lips like a damsel in distress.
Mina sat beside him cross-legged, wearing denim shorts and a shrine maiden top, sipping peach soda from a glass bottle.
“Tell me again,” she said, deadpan, “how your professor is secretly your vampire son.”
“He’s not ‘secretly’ anything,” Soma mumbled from under his arm. “He wears gloves indoors and speaks like an old man unused to modern slang. He might as well announce it with a fog machine and a pipe organ.”
“And you’re sure you’re not just projecting because he gave you a 79?”
Soma peeled his arm off his face just to glare at her. “I raised that man. I taught him swordplay. I tucked him in. I read him bedtime stories about angels and saints and moral relativism.”
Mina grinned. “And now he’s docking you points for not knowing about the Dutch Republic.”
“It’s so humiliating.” He rolled over onto his stomach. “It’s as if you were reincarnated as Athena and Zeus was your gym teacher.”
“Weirdly specific. And also, Athena would wreck dodgeball.”
They both snorted. Mina offered him a sip of her soda. He took it without lifting his head.
“You’re taking it all pretty well,” she said after a beat. “The reincarnation thing. The Dracula thing. The, you know, eternal blood legacy thing.”
Soma groaned. “Don’t say it like that. Makes me sound like a villain in a shōjo manga. ‘Eternal Blood Legacy’ sounds like a perfume Alucard would wear.”
Mina leaned back on her hands, eyes on the dusky sky. “You’re not a villain. You’re just... a fashion student who used to be the literal king of darkness.”
Soma pushed his face into the mat again. “Thanks, that clears everything up.”
“You’re not your past,” she said gently. “You’re Soma. You like koi-themed hoodies and overpriced eye creams and you cried when that one dog in that one ad got adopted.”
“He had a bowtie,” Soma murmured. “He waited three years.”
Mina chuckled.
“See? Completely harmless.” A pause. Then: “But also, you once laid siege to Constantinople with hellfire.”
Soma made a muffled noise of anguish and threw a cracker at her. It missed by a wide margin. She caught it anyway and popped it in her mouth with a wink.
“So,” she said casually, “how are you gonna deal with Professor Arikado moving forward?”
“Ignore him. Avoid eye contact. Get decent grades. Resist the urge to hiss when he walks by.”
“You hissed?”
“Once,” Soma admitted. “It was under my breath, but I meant it.”
Mina leaned over and flicked his ponytail. “You’re so dramatic. You were definitely a theater kid in your last life at some point.”
Soma rolled onto his back again and stared at the sky. “I was the theater. Literally had a cursed opera house.”
“Of course you did.”
A warm silence fell over them. The cicadas had died down. The wind picked up a little.
Soma spoke, voice softer now. “It’s weird… remembering things I didn’t live. Feeling them like they’re mine. I’ll be folding laundry and suddenly I’m in a memory where someone’s screaming my name as the castle burns. Or I’m just… looking at Arikado and thinking I held your hand the first time you saw snow.”
Mina nodded. “Do they hurt? The memories?”
“Some of them,” he said. “Some are beautiful. Some are just loud.”
“And do you ever miss it?”
Soma thought about it. Really thought.
“I don’t miss the throne or the war or the power. But sometimes… I miss the stillness. The way time didn’t matter. I miss being known.” He looked at her. “Not just recognized. Known.”
Mina reached out and squeezed his hand.
“You’re known here,” she said. “You’re loved here. Even if your history grade is embarrassing.”
He groaned and pulled his hood up over his face like a turtle retreating.
“You’re never letting me live that down, are you?”
Mina smirked. “Not a chance.”
-
The presentation was due tomorrow.
The faculty lounge was deserted, lights dimmed to half-power, the vending machine humming like a dying cicada. PowerPoint was open and the formatting was abysmal and Soma Cruz sat at a communal table with his chin in his palm, staring at the screen like it owed him money.
Across from him, Professor Genya Arikado, also known as Alucard, formerly the heir of Dracula, currently the sharpest-dressed man in Tokyo, typed with quiet precision on a different slide before moving to save it and that’s when he sees it:
“You renamed the file ‘DeathByPowerpoint_final_FINAL_actualfinal.pptx,’” Arikado says, amused almost.
Soma groaned. “I panicked, okay? I’m not built for collaborative academia. I’m a fashion major. I bedazzle things.”
Arikado adjusted a slide title and save file. “You also insisted on using Papyrus font.”
Soma narrowed his eyes. “It’s regal.”
“…It’s criminal.”
A beat. Then, unexpectedly, a tiny twitch of Arikado’s lips.
Soma blinked. Did that count as a smile?
They worked in companionable silence for a while. Arikado fixing the citations, Soma picking out color palettes that wouldn’t burn eyes, but slowly, as Soma scrolled through images of war-torn maps and timelines of crumbling empires, something heavy began to settle in his chest.
He could feel the memory of it: of ruling, of falling, of people kneeling and bleeding and praying and none of it belonged to this body, but it was his.
He broke the silence without thinking.
“…Is it weird for you?”
Arikado didn’t look up. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Me. This. Us.” Soma gestured vaguely at the air between them. “The fact that I’m... me, but I’m also him. That you’re here, teaching history, and I’m the reincarnation of the literal King of Darkness trying to pass midterms.”
A pause.
Then Arikado said, quietly:
“Yes. It is strange.”
Soma swallowed. “Do you hate it?”
Finally, Genya looked at him. His face was unreadable, but his voice, always carefully tempered, softens when speaking to him in moments like this.
“No.”
The word hung in the air, startling in its simplicity.
“Then how do you…how do you look at me and not see him? Not see the man who...” He trailed off. “Who raised you? Who you vowed to kill. Over and over and–”
Another pause.
Arikado’s eyes were sharp, but not unkind. “Because you’re not him.”
“But I remember. I remember the castle. I remember you. I remember holding your hand on cold nights and teaching you to read by candlelight and watching you sleep in a throne room that echoed like a crypt.” His voice shook. “And now you give me Cs on annotated bibliographies.”
Arikado tilted his head slightly, unreadable and then, gently:
“That life is gone. That man is gone.” He leaned forward, resting folded hands on the table. “You are Soma Cruz. You have a heartbeat. You wear jackets with too many zippers. You’re bad at citing primary sources. You love Mina. And you try very, very hard to be good.”
Soma’s throat tightened. “So you don’t see him at all?”
Genya’s mouth twitched again. “I see echoes, but I don’t live in them and neither should you.”
That landed. Hard.
Soma looked away, blinking fast, pretending to adjust the projector settings just to give his hands something to do, but then, with a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, he said:
“So what, you took this job to inspire young minds?”
Arikado arched a perfect brow.
“The university offered decent pay. Access to certain documents and it seemed prudent to monitor the reincarnation of one of history’s most volatile figures.”
Soma raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”
A long beat.
Then, with the faintest trace of wryness:
“…And perhaps, I admit, there is a certain appeal in watching you squirm over coursework.”
Soma laughed and Arikado allowed himself a smile. Just a small one. Just for a second. It made Soma’s breath catch. Did he just catch Genya SMILE, smile?
Soma looked at the glowing laptop screen again, at their half-finished title slide, at the little blinking cursor between their names.
Arikado | Cruz. History of Power: Legacy and Rebellion.
Soma murmured, “This is really weird, huh?”
Arikado folded his arms. “Unquestionably.”
They sat in silence again, but now the silence wasn’t heavy. It was easy.
–
The university was quieter now, Soma had left after it reached 7pm, far later than he meant to stay. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead as Arikado walked the hall. His footsteps echoed: clean, steady, precise. He preferred it like this. No students, no chaos, no demands. Just long corridors and locked doors and time to think.
Time to remember.
He carried the lecture notes under one arm. The symposium slides had been saved twice—once on the hard drive, once to a drive that could survive accidental black hole summoning (experience had made him cautious). Still, the weight he carried wasn’t the documents.
It was Soma’s voice. That unguarded, aching question:
“Do you hate it?”
Arikado had answered with care, as he always did, but it hadn’t been a performance. Not tonight.
He didn’t hate it. He couldn’t.
Genya paused in front of a window overlooking the quad. The city glittered beyond the campus, pulsing with life. Human life. Messy, fleeting, exquisite.
He used to watch it like one watches a fire: too bright to touch, but these days…these days, it felt warmer.
Soma Cruz had changed everything. Again.
He’d known, of course he’d known, the moment that boy was born. That unmistakable energy. That slumbering power. The Organization had flagged him before his first birthday. Arikado had monitored the case quietly, watched from a distance, always ready to act.
He hadn’t expected this.
He hadn’t expected the boy to be kind. Or awkward. Or passionate about layering mesh over denim or to call him out with zero hesitation when his lectures dragged and he definitely hadn’t expected Soma to look at him, not like an agent, not like a stranger, but like someone he’d once known and say:
“I remember teaching you to read.”
That memory was sharp.
It had come back in flashes. Pale hands guiding a tiny finger across a yellowed page. A voice: his father's, soft for once, sounding out syllables from a Romanian manuscript. The faint heat of a hearth burning blue with unnatural flame. The way the candlelight had caught in the glass of his father’s eyes. Like mirrors.
Like his own.
He saw it in Soma’s now.
The echo...
The weight...
Yet Soma bore it differently. He hadn’t been shaped by endless war, by betrayal, by hunger. He was fragile, but not weak. Clumsy, but not cruel. He wanted so badly to do the right thing.
Even when it hurt.
Even when it made him feel like a man who didn’t belong to himself.
Arikado exhaled. Just once.
He leaned against the window frame, letting the city blur behind the glass. The lights, the motion, the strange poetry of it all.
He was not a man prone to sentiment.
But tonight… Tonight the world felt a little softer.
He had said the truth: “You are not him," but he hadn’t said the rest.
You are better.
Better than Dracula had been. Better than any of them deserved and maybe… maybe that was why he had taken this job.
Not just to monitor. Not just to prepare, but to witness.
To watch this boy stumble through lecture halls and cult plots and keep choosing kindness.
To see what it looked like when legacy didn’t win...
A quiet click broke his reverie. The door at the end of the hall opened. A janitor blinked at him, surprised to see a teacher still lingering.
“Arikado-sensei?”
“I was just leaving.”
He straightened, adjusting his coat. Walked away with practiced grace. As he passed a bulletin board, a flyer caught his eye.
TUPIC: Tokyo University Paranormal Investigations Club “Ghosts, Energy Fields, Love, and Pizza Thursdays!”
It was aggressively glittered. Someone had drawn bat wings on the logo.
He rolled his eyes.
Chapter 4: Soma Joins a Club
Summary:
Soma needs to join a club because Genya and Julius think it'd be good for Soma, to help him feel something akin to normalcy, since well, Soma is not normal and never will be anymore. Mina is excited and Soma gets recruited for a Paranormal Club. It's chaos.
Notes:
A note I forgot to mention: None of these are chronological order, these are written sporadically and take place over various points of time. Your lovely OCs at the bottom of this chapter <3 Takeru is going to cause problems and Soma is going to start realizing perhaps becoming dracula 2.0 might not be a bad thing, especially when Takeru starts to annoy him.
Chapter Text
The quad was crowded with club tables. A chaos of banners, chalk art, enthusiastic upperclassmen shouting over each other, and the kind of social energy Soma found personally offensive.
He adjusted the cuff of his sleek black turtleneck, kept his sunglasses on despite the overcast sky, and let Mina drag him from table to table. She was the only reason he was even here, well that and Genya and Julius told him it would be good for him. She twirled between booths with a delighted hum, already balancing a handful of glossy flyers.
“I joined the botany club,” she chirped, flipping her honey-brown hair off her shoulder. “And the cooking one. We’re doing edible flowers this month– if I don’t burn the dorm down.”
Soma snorted, faintly. “You? Burn something? That’s more my territory.”
“You do make toast aggressively.”
He rolled his eyes, but her teasing made the air feel lighter.
Still, no club called him. None of the “Swordplay Society,” “Creative Writing Coven,” or “Historical Reenactment Duelists” sparked even a flicker of interest. Just more noise in a life already too loud.
That was when the glitter hit.
Literally.
A flyer smacked him in the face.
He blinked, slow and unimpressed, peeling it off. “What the—”
“YOU!” A voice like pop rocks and raw espresso rang out.
Soma stared. The man beaming at him had tight pants, tighter mesh, and his whole upper body sparkled like a disco ball at war. Purple and black split-dyed hair fell in dramatic waves around an undercut, and he was wearing platform boots that gave him serious height—even taller than Soma’s 5’9".
“You’ve got spooky vibes,” the stranger declared. “Join my club.”
Soma opened his mouth, shut it again, looked at Mina with a look of 'are they serious?'
She shrugged. “You kinda do have spooky vibes.”
“I am not joining a club because someone says I give off ‘spooky vibes.’”
“Too late,” Takeru grinned. “You’re mine now.”
—
TUPIC. Tokyo University Paranormal Investigations Club.
Soma had tried to ghost them– pun not intended, but Takeru somehow found his dorm number. Sent him sparkly reminder cards. Showed up at his History class once. (Genya raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Soma nearly screamed.) So, against his better judgment and in a haze of academic exhaustion and emotional burnout, he showed up.
Room B-213 was an old, unused classroom. It smelled faintly of dust and lavender incense. There were beanbags in one corner, three battery-operated candles flickering on the windowsill, and a ouija board already set in the center of the room like a centerpiece.
Pizza sat on a desk with snacks: gummy worms, pretzels, and Capri Suns.
Takeru welcomed him like they were old friends. “You came! You’re officially one of the weirdos now.”
Soma adjusted the collar of his long coat and looked for an escape. “Regretting it already.”
Ten people total. Mostly curious freshmen, a girl in a frilly gothic dress, and someone who brought their own EMF detector and kept waving it like a wand. The meeting began with a brief introduction: Takeru forgot to actually give his name until someone asked and then straight into “summoning night.”
“The spirit of Aiko Fujimura!” Takeru announced with dramatic flair. “She died tragically in this very room in 1982. We are going to reach her.”
Soma sat with his arms folded, watching the others shuffle into a circle.
Someone handed him the ouija board planchette. He didn’t want to touch it, but didn’t want to look more haunted than he already did, so he sighed and rested his fingertips lightly against it.
The circle began to chant.
The lights dimmed (because Takeru had hooked them to a dimmer switch) and the fake candles flickered harder in response for some reason, but Soma let his eyes drift closed none the less. Not because he believed this would work, but because if it did and if anything actually listened...
The room went cold suddenly and Soma's eyes snapped opened. Beneath his fingers, the planchette shivered: Then it moved. A slow, uncertain scrape. Then a twitch. Then it jolted sharply toward the letter "H" and Soma felt it. A ripple. Like Chaos breathing behind the veil. His whole spine stiffened and he saw red for half a second.
“Nope,” Soma said, standing up so fast the chair nearly toppled. “Stop. That’s enough.”
Everyone blinked, confused. Takeru blinked harder. “Dude, we just got to the good part.”
“There’s something else,” Soma said shortly. “Something you didn’t invite. Shut it down.”
Takeru whistled low, impressed. “Oooh, so you are sensitive. I had a feeling.”
“I’m not sensitive,” Soma snapped. “I’m traumatized.”
He left before they could ask more.
–Two days later.--
A knock on his dorm door. Takeru.
Wearing sunglasses indoors. Chewing bubble gum. Holding a duffel bag full of salt, EMF meters, and what looked like holy water in a Hello Kitty thermos.
“We’re going to a haunted graveyard tonight,” Takeru grinned. “And you’re coming with me.”
Soma stared. “Why would I ever agree to that?”
“Because your aura is screaming, and you’re weirdly hot in a ‘dark sorcerer’ way, and honestly? I think we need you. Also I bought extra pizza rolls.”
Soma closed the door in his face.
Five seconds passed.
Then another knock.
“I KNOW YOU’RE STILL THERE.”
Mina texted him moments later:
Mina: pls go. he’s going to camp outside your door.
Mina: also he bribed me with mochi
Soma sighed, deeply.
“Fine,” he muttered, pulling on his coat. “But if I get possessed, I’m blaming everyone.”
----
Chapter 5: Bestie Date
Summary:
Soma and Mina share a quiet date. Just wholesome fluff. We love a good situationship.
Notes:
This is all I have written thus far, and will be updating this when I can. For now, please enjoy this wholesome, but sweet little moment. This is set probably a few weeks into Soma settling into the...loudness that is the paranormal club and he is a tired little bat, so Mina decided this, this is what he needs: Sweets and her presence.
Chapter Text
It was the kind of afternoon that wrapped the city in honeyed warmth and soft sun slanting through leaves, with a breeze just cool enough to ruffle Soma’s silver hair as he and Mina strolled side by side toward a tucked-away little café near the river. It was quiet here, cozy in a way the rest of campus never quite managed to be.
Mina picked the café, a pastel-painted hole-in-the-wall with white tables and a handwritten chalkboard menu out front. The kind of place that smelled like cardamom and flour, like cream and sugar, like safety. Soma opened the door for her, the chime jingling gently. He was still in his usual covered layers: black turtleneck, long pants, soft-gloved hands, but his posture was relaxed. His eyes, once sharp with exhaustion, now seemed a little brighter. A little softer. They took a seat near the window, sunlight casting dappled patterns across the table. Mina leaned in, eyes shining with mischief.
“Okay,” she said, “no monsters, no lectures, no weird spiritual energy. Just you, me, and that giant slice of strawberry cake I saw on the counter.”
Soma smiled, genuinely. “Deal.” And then, with just the faintest blush: “But I want a bite of your matcha one too.”
Their drinks came first, an iced yuzu soda for her, a lavender milk tea for him and they chatted in easy, flowing rhythm. Mina told a story about a classmate mistaking holy water for an energy drink in which Soma nearly choked on his boba. She laughed so hard her shoulders shook, and his smile lingered long after.
Later, as they shared cake with forks crossing like swords in a miniature, sparring session for the best piece—Mina reached across the table and brushed a crumb from the corner of his mouth.
“You look lighter lately,” she said, quietly. “It suits you.”
Soma’s hand found hers beneath the table, fingers lacing together. “You help,” he admitted, voice soft. “More than you know.”
And just like that, the whole world slowed around them. Time stitched with laughter and sugar and the silent understanding between two people who had grown up alongside each other, now growing into something new. Something tender. Something real. For once, there were no echoes of darkness. Just warm light and Mina and the way Soma looked at her like she might just be the only thing tethering him to this world.
Chapter 6: Graveyard Shenanigans
Summary:
Soma absolutely hates his life and he hates Takeru and his sparkly glittery ass and he most certainly did not agree to have something lurking at the edge of his mind, pushing against the summoning circle made with crude symbols and even cruder butchering of...whatever the hell Takeru was spouting from that old book he carried. This takes place directly after chapter 4 and is Soma's first club outing outside of the campus.
Chapter Text
The graveyard was colder than it had any right to be. Soma shoved his hands deep in his coat pockets, glaring at the cracked headstones like they’d offended him personally.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. He’d said no at least seven times, but Mina bribed him with her best puppy eyes, and Julius had warned him that if he didn’t keep an eye on Takeru, “something catastrophic will happen, and I will hold you responsible.”
Now he stood in the damp grass, watching Takeru whirl around in mesh, glitter, and platform boots like he was leading a rave for the dead.
“Okay, everyone, circle up!” Takeru sang, waving a Hello Kitty thermos like it was a holy relic. “Tonight, we call forth Aiko Fujimura, the tragic beauty who—”
“Tripped down a flight of stairs in 1982,” Hiroto muttered.
“DON’T ruin the drama!” Takeru barked, pointing at him.
The “ritual” began. Salt circle? Crooked. Symbols in dirt? Wrong. Candles? Already sputtering out in the wind. Soma stood stiffly at the edge, arms folded, his face set in an expression of long-suffering doom.
Then the air shifted.
He felt it first: a weight pressing against the edges of his consciousness, like someone testing the locks on his soul. Cold flooded down his spine.
“Shut it down,” Soma snapped.
Takeru beamed. “Oooh, spooky boy feels something!”
“I said shut it down!”
The planchette on the ouija board twitched violently. The dirt shivered. A ripple of something dark crawled under Soma’s skin, reminding him of Chaos, reminding him of the times he’d almost lost himself.
Mina reached for him, worry in her eyes. Julius straightened, already muttering about how he needs Genya to pay him more for taking this job on (I am to busy to play baby sitter right now). Julius grumbled. Too busy his ass—
A shimmer broke through the circle.
Everyone braced. Takeru threw his arms wide, dramatic as ever. “Yes! Spirit of Aiko! ”
A crab crawled out of the dirt.
A glowing, translucent hermit crab with hollow sockets where eyes should be. It scuttled toward Soma, stopped at his feet, and raised its claws in victory.
The silence was deafening.
“…What,” Soma said flatly.
The crab clacked its claws like pompoms.
Mina slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Yuzuha doubled over immediately, wheezing. Hiroto muttered, “That’s it? That’s the big ghost?”
Julius pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should’ve stayed home.”
Soma just stared down at the glowing crab, which circled him once, then plopped itself stubbornly by his shoe like it had claimed him. He sighed. Long, deep, and with every ounce of a man who had accepted his fate.
“Hard mode,” he muttered. “Always hard mode.”
The crab clacked again, louder this time, as if cheering.
And just like that, Soma had a new… companion. The presence he felt during the summoning faded, but now he had to wonder. What exactly was it? This was the second time he felt it. The first time was in the classroom when Takeru had started to chat and now this. Whatever it was it seemed when Takeru did anything it responded. Which is something he would need to bring up to Julius. He didn't want to cause issues and he was worried.
Because of course Soma would be worried: He did not want a fourth repeat of what happened and the Grimoire incident still had him feeling a way because he realized how easy it was to slip and that...that spooked him.
An insistent clicking and clacking of claws alerts him and he crouches down, poking the ghost crab. What even was a hermit crab doing being buried in this part of the graveyard anyway?
Chapter 7: Beach Day
Summary:
The beach was loud with laughter and gulls, sunscreen in the air, and waves breaking in steady rhythm. It should’ve been simple. Easy. Normal.
Soma Cruz hated it.
Chapter Text
The beach was loud with laughter and gulls, sunscreen in the air, and waves breaking in steady rhythm. It should’ve been simple. Easy. Normal.
Soma Cruz hated it.
He stayed back on the sand, planted firmly under Mina’s striped umbrella. His long black sleeves clung to him even in the heat, collar stiff at his throat, every inch of him protected from the sun like he was warding off an attack. Mina sat beside him, sunhat tilted at a charming angle, smiling as she reapplied sunscreen with breezy determination.
“You’ll get used to it,” she teased gently. “The ocean isn’t out to get you.”
Soma’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.
Because when he closed his eyes, it wasn’t laughter and gulls he heard, no no~ it was the roar of rushing water, the crack of ice tearing the sea apart. He could still feel the pressure of Rahab’s massive body surging below him in that endless black. The monster’s chilling breath, freezing the surface beneath his feet. The cruel seconds of stillness before it broke the ice again and again, shattering the only ground he had.
That fight hadn’t ended when the monster dissolved. The memory still hunted him whenever he smelled brine or heard waves.
“Somaaaa!”
Takeru’s voice shattered his thoughts. He was halfway down the beach with Yuzuha, Hiroto, Mina, and a handful of the other Paranormal Club members, already shrieking and glittering like he’d been born from seafoam. “Come join us!”
Soma waved him off without looking. Mina going to them in the midst of his trauma induced flashbacks made sense, she knew when he was ready he’d seek her out, and he’s already assured her during this trip he won’t take offense if she wanted to enjoy time with the club too.
Now Soma just had to breathe.
He told himself he was fine. That the shadows pressing at the edges of his mind weren’t Chaos rising again, just his own fear gnawing at him, but still… he sat stiff as driftwood, nails digging into his palm as he watched the others splashing, laughing, diving into the surf without hesitation.
“Normal,” he muttered to himself. “Just one normal day. Is that too much to ask?”
For a brief, precious moment, it almost seemed possible. The warmth of the sun on his legs, Mina’s laughter blending with the wind, the salty tang of air that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He let himself lean back, let his eyes drift shut.
And that was when it happened.
The sand shifted beside him. A faint shimmer.
He opened one eye and groaned.
The ghost crab.
It clacked its claws like pompoms, circling his towel proudly.
“Oh no,” Soma whispered.
Yuzuha spotted it first, doubling over with laughter as she tried to shout, “It followed you here?!”
Hiroto shielded his eyes against the sun. “Wait– does the crab… travel?”
“Bro, you brought your own haunting on vacation!” Takeru cackled.
Mina pressed her lips together to hold back a smile, but she failed, giggles spilling out as the crab clacked louder, spinning circles around Soma like a one-crustacean parade.
Soma stared at the sky, deadpan, wishing the sun would just swallow him.
“…I hate my life.”
The crab cheered.
—
The beach ended without incident. No monsters, no cursed summoning, no sudden collapse of reality. Just sunburned freshmen, sand in everyone’s shoes, and Soma muttering his way through a shower later that night as the ghost crab attempted to crawl into the dorm sink like it had rights.
For a few days, life returned to its default: lectures, homework, Mina’s cheerful texts, and Soma staring at the ceiling of his dorm, restless, heavy with the press of something he couldn’t quite name. A darkness brushing against him like static, never enough to consume, just enough to remind him he wasn’t normal. Couldn’t be normal.
It made focusing harder. His mind slipped back too easily into the waterlogged corridors of the Abyss, Rahab’s shadow passing beneath him, ice splitting beneath his boots. He’d blink, and suddenly five minutes of class had gone, his notes trailing into nothing.
“You’re spiraling,” Takeru declared one night, bursting into Soma’s dorm uninvited with a flash of glitter. “And that’s my thing. So I’m kidnapping you.”
“What?” Soma said flatly.
“Karaoke.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I hate my life.”
“You’ll love this, promise.”
It wasn’t what Soma expected.
Takeru booked a private room at a neon-lit karaoke joint, ordered enough snacks to feed a small country, and shoved a mic into Soma’s hand before he could complain. The walls pulsed with pastel lights, plates of fries and gyoza steaming on the table, pitchers of soda fizzing at their side.
Takeru went first, of course, belting out some over-the-top J-rock anthem with so much commitment Soma actually forgot to be annoyed for three minutes. Then he shoved the mic toward Soma.
“No,” Soma said.
“Yes,” Takeru grinned.
“I’m not.”
“Do it. You’ll feel better.”
Soma glared at him, at the screen, at the ridiculous pop ballad highlighted in bold text. He considered walking out. He considered telling Takeru to shut up forever.
Hesitantly, muttering curses under his breath, he started to sing.
It was awkward at first. Rough even, but the melody pulled him in, and the words found him, and for the first time in months he wasn’t thinking about monsters or the weight of a crown he didn’t want. He was just a twenty-year-old in a room with bad acoustics, singing like no one else existed.
By the end, Takeru was clapping wildly. “See?! That’s what I’m talking about!”
Soma sank into the couch, ears red, a plate of fries in front of him. “I still think this is a trap,” he muttered, but there was no bite to it. His chest felt lighter. His laugh came easier.
For a little while –just a little while– he let himself enjoy it.
When they left, Takeru slung an arm around his shoulders like they were childhood friends. “Told you. You’re stuck with me, Cruz. No brooding alone allowed.”
Soma looked up at the neon sign blinking overhead. He exhaled, long and slow.
“Maybe joining TUPIC was the worst mistake of my life,” he said, half-serious as he glanced at Takeru, glitter still smudged across his cheek, grinning like an idiot.
“…Or maybe it was inevitable.”
And for once, that didn’t feel entirely like a curse.
Chapter 8: Warehouse
Summary:
Soma's very tired and whatever has been itching at the back of his mind finally shows, and Soma's come to the conclusion that something else may be going on, something deeper and all he wants to do is scream, because fuck him of course. He's Soma Cruz, why wouldn't he be able to enjoy something silly as a haunted warehouse without becoming more?
Chapter Text
Soma had enjoyed three quiet days before Takeru appeared in the quad waving a crowbar like it was a parade baton.
“There’s an old warehouse by the river. Totally haunted. You and me. Midnight.”
“No,” Soma said flatly.
“Yes,” Takeru grinned, grabbing his sleeve.
“I’m not– ”
“I brought snacks.”
“Why do you think snacks are the solution to everything?!”
“Because you keep showing up.”
And that was the truth. Against all better judgment, Soma did show up. Not because he trusted Takeru’s instincts, but because he didn’t, because the gnawing in his chest told him this wasn’t just another of Takeru’s half-baked adventures (although he wished so badly it was)
The warehouse loomed by the river like a carcass, its windows shattered, doors chained but rusted. The kind of place kids dared each other to enter, the kind of place Soma already knew too well: empty buildings that weren’t empty at all.
Inside, the air was colder. Stale.
Soma felt it immediately: that ripple of wrongness only here, it was sharper. Hungrier.
Takeru’s flashlight beam jittered across the walls as he whispered, too excited to notice. “See? Haunted. I told you. Don’t you feel it?”
Soma clenched his fists. “Yeah. I feel it.”
And deep in his chest, a thought he couldn’t quite shake: It always leads back to you.
The warehouse was wrong the second they stepped inside. Not quiet, exactly, but hollow. Every footfall rang too sharp against the concrete, as if echoing into a cavern far deeper than the walls allowed.
Soma hated it. The air stank faintly of brine and rust, but underneath that was something worse, a rot so cloying it crawled into his teeth. He knew this smell. He had walked through it once before. Corpses. The Abyss.
Takeru, of course, acted like it was a game. He swung his flashlight in lazy arcs, his voice bouncing against steel girders. “Bet you five bucks this place has a hobo ghost. The real tragic kind, you know? Perfect karaoke partner.”
Soma shot him a look. “Not funny.”
Takeru slowed when the light hit the far wall. Something was moving there.
At first it was only a smear of deeper black against shadow. Then it bulged, pressing outward as though the concrete were a veil stretched thin over something vast. For one sickening instant, Soma thought he heard it breathing—a wet, ragged exhale that made the dust curl in frantic spirals.
And then it showed its shape.
A giant, mottled limb clawed against the inside of the wall. Flesh and bone layered like patchwork, veins bulging. A human face–half-formed, screaming–pressed against the surface, stretching the stone until the features warped. Beneath it, another. And another.
Soma’s breath vanished. His stomach dropped with the force of memory: the floor of the Abyss cracking under his boots, soft and crunching all at once with corpses so tightly packed they became hard. The stench of rot. The sight of Menace rising from Dmitrii’s ruin, stitched together from the agony of countless souls.
“No way,” he whispered. His knees trembled. “Not here.”
Takeru’s grin had fallen off entirely. He stared, jaw tight, like he couldn’t even joke if he wanted to. “...Soma. What the hell is that?”
The shadow pressed harder. A skeletal jaw, lined with teeth like splintered glass, pushed through the wall. Its gurgling moan rattled Soma’s bones.
Something in him cracked.
“Why?” His voice came sharp, wild. “Why does it always follow me? I wanted a normal day. Just one! Now this? This nightmare again?” He laughed, high and brittle. “I can’t even breathe without it dragging me back under!”
The shadow twitched, its heads writhing against each other as if feeding on his despair. Takeru reached for him, half a step closer. “Soma, hey, listen– ”
“Don’t touch me!” Soma snapped, hands trembling as dark light sparked at his fingertips. The air quaked with the raw pressure of his power, shadows curling up the walls.
The warehouse groaned, concrete cracking. The bulge swelled outward now too. Menace’s torso strained to emerge, ribs slick with rot and fused corpses clawing over each other. The sound was enough to twist a man’s stomach.
A sharp voice cut the air.
“Soma.”
The pressure shattered like glass.
Genya Arikado stood framed in the broken doorway, his silhouette stark against the moonlight outside. His eyes burned in the dark as his voice cracked through the roiling energy: controlled, commanding, utterly unshaken.
The wall rippled. The shadow froze, shuddered, and then recoiled violently as Soma’s power, pulled taut by Arikado’s seal, slammed it back. With a final shriek of teeth and bone, Menace’s outline collapsed into smoke.
Soma sagged, gasping, sweat dripping down his face.
Takeru stared between the two, eyes wide. “What the hell was that? Who are you people?”
Arikado cut him a glance sharp enough to silence him. Then he stepped to Soma, his voice softer. “You nearly let it through. Tell me– what have you seen these last weeks?”
And Soma told him. The slip-ups, the strange shadows, the way chaos clung to him like a curse. Takeru’s reckless pushes into places they shouldn’t be. Even the gnawing feeling of being hunted.
Arikado listened with grave patience, only his stillness betraying the weight of what he heard. When Soma finished, silence pressed heavily.
Finally, Arikado straightened. “You’ll stay with Julius for now.”
“What? Why?” Soma’s voice cracked.
“You need protection.” His eyes narrowed just slightly. “This was no accident. The Abyss doesn’t open itself without a hand behind it.”
He did not explain further.
Takeru bristled. “Hey, you can’t just lock him up!”
“You will stay away,” Arikado said sharply, his gaze freezing him in place. “This is no game for you, Takeru.”
And so, for a week, Soma found himself sequestered in Julius’s care. The Belmont heir did not ask questions, nor did he coddle. He simply carried on, cataloguing relics, scanning documents into the digital archive, his presence steady as stone. Soma spent most of it lying in Julius’s bed, staring at the ceiling, the phantom stench of corpses still lingering in his nose.
Every so often, Julius’s voice drifted across the room without looking up from his work:
“You’re safe here.”
Soma wasn’t sure he believed it, but for the first time in days, he closed his eyes and slept.
—
The Belmont hold was nothing like Soma’s dorm apartment. It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t cozy. It wasn’t much of anything except stone, wood, dust, and the faint smell of oil from lamps that Julius still preferred over fluorescents… but was quiet.
That first night, Soma had curled up on the heavy quilt in Julius’s spare bed, eyes burning from exhaustion. Sleep refused him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the wall of corpses, the writhing heads, the moment Menace nearly broke through. His skin prickled with phantom heat. His throat still caught with the memory of shouting, Why can’t I have one normal day?
Julius never asked. He simply moved about the house in his heavy boots, the rhythm of drawers opening and shutting, the scrape of a chair against stone, the hum of his computer as he slowly transferred another archive of relics to a cloud drive.
It was only when Soma turned over for the hundredth time that Julius’s voice carried across the dim light:
“Sleep.”
Something in his tone wasn’t soothing, but grounding. Soma shut his eyes, clenched his fists, and, somehow, sleep finally came.
The days blurred.
Julius rose early, lit the hearth, brewed coffee that was strong enough to wake the dead, and buried himself in the relics. Ancient whips, tattered scriptures, fragments of blades. He handled each one with reverence but not sentimentality, cataloguing them with calm precision before locking them away.
Soma drifted. Sometimes he watched the fire crackle. Sometimes he dozed. More often he sat in silence, staring at his own hands.
Every so often Julius would break the silence with something that sounded like an order but felt like care:
“Eat.” “Drink some water.” “Walk a few laps of the hall before bed. Don’t let your muscles waste.”
Not once did he speak of Menace, or of Arikado’s decision.
At night, when Soma’s breath would catch in the dark, Julius would glance over from his desk, voice soft
“You’re not there. You’re here. You’re safe.”
And somehow, the words held.
—
By the fifth day, Soma had settled into the rhythm. The fear was still there, coiled under his ribs like a sleeping snake, but Julius’s steadiness dulled its bite.
Which was why it hit harder when he noticed the absence.
Takeru’s absence.
No jokes. No reckless grin. No warm hand tugging him along into something stupid just to make him laugh. The silence where Takeru would have been started to itch, until Soma found himself glancing toward the door whenever footsteps echoed outside, half-hoping, half-dreading.
On the sixth night, Julius set aside a heavy tome, rubbing his temple. “You’ve been pacing for an hour,” he said flatly.
Soma froze. “…Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” Julius’s eyes, tired but steady, flicked to him. “You’re restless, and that’s perfectly okay”
Soma nods, moving to Julius who outstretched his arms for the other. Soma quickly curled onto his lap, shoved his head under Julius’s chin and clung close to him. He wished he had his parents, but they were busy and this…this was not something they would understand or know how to help. It’s fine, Julius was enough. He was always enough.
“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”
“Sure, but don’t hog my covers or I will kick you out of my bed.”
Soma chuckles, and feels the tension relaxing. Julius was so good to him, he wished he wasn’t such a burden to the older man.
—
The next morning, Soma was sweeping.
Julius had gone to the cellar for an hour, leaving him alone in the main hall. When the door rattled, Soma’s heart leapt and sank at once. He opened it to find Takeru– disheveled, determined, dark circles under his eyes.
“Soma,” he hissed. “You didn’t think I’d just let them lock you away, did you?”
Soma’s chest tightened. Relief, fear, anger… he didn’t know what to feel.
Before he could speak, Julius’s voice rumbled from the hall behind him.
“…You shouldn’t be here.”
The tension snapped taut.
Takeru’s jaw clenched, but his eyes never left Soma. “I don’t care what your Dracula-knockoff boss says. I’m not leaving you alone in this.”
Soma, caught between them, realized something cold and inevitable:
Normal life was already gone.
Chapter 9: Understanding
Summary:
Genya's feeling a way about a certain cult and a certain someone who has become closer to Soma is setting off alarms, but can he really be upset, when this is the first time in a good few weeks that Soma seemed calmed and...happy. Except Mina weighed on his mind, even though Soma seemed to have moved on. Genya did not.
Notes:
LOOK FAM three UPDATES. lol I actually had 7, 8, 9 and 10 all written, but I felt bad for Soma so have some comfort <3 i rly love the ghost hermit crab. my fave character thus far. 10 is being edited currently!
Chapter Text
The semester had rolled on, weeks stretching into months with no new horrors clawing at Soma’s throat. Arikado’s quiet watch still lingered, Julius’s stern shadow pressed close, and Takeru was monitored more tightly than Soma himself. After the events of the hold where Takeru had found them ( apparently Soma had not been aware that Takeru somehow found the hold that was rebuilt years ago) Julius had made an offer: No more summonings, no more going into places alone. If the paranormal club were to go anywhere either himself or Genya would go as insurance, because Takeru’s penchant for danger was becoming a hazard to not only Soma, but others. Of course the club only grew, and Takeru agreed because with it growing and shrinking randomly they could no longer do spontaneous trips.
So it was agreed and Takeru flew back to Japan with Soma and Julius.
Still, Soma found himself tired. Classes drained him, even when he tried to care. The club outings, once a steady rhythm in his life, felt like hollow movements, his body present but his spirit elsewhere. Between it all, the weight of what he carried pressed on him, silent and constant.
That was when he saw her.
Mina.
Standing on the corner just outside the campus gates, sunlight cutting across her hair, her smile familiar and grounding.
“Hey, Soma,” she said, lifting her hand. “Walk with me? I was heading to the store.”
He blinked. “Mina?”
“Yes?”
Something in her voice made the back of his neck prickle, but it was Mina, wasn’t it? The softness in her eyes and the casual way she shifted the strap of her bag. Everything lined up so perfectly it left no cracks and gods, he was tired. Tired of doubting, tired of holding himself together–
“…Nothing.”
They walked the narrow stretch of street toward the convenience store, their shadows long in the late afternoon light. Mina talked about little things, nothing pressing. How quiet the shrine had been. The way Tokyo’s heat seemed to linger longer every year. How Soma felt about the special treatment of Julius and how cool was it to see the Belmont hold–
He tried to listen, but each word came to him muffled, like he was underwater. His chest felt heavy, his limbs slow. Only at the mention of the Belmont hold did he even perk up, because didn’t Genya assure him that if anyone asked he went back to his parents for a bit due to an emergency? Slate gray eyes looked at her for a moment, but Mina was not looking at him.
She was looking at the bracelet around his wrist, the small talisman that Arikado had reforged into something he could wear without drawing attention. For the first time, her smile dimmed, only faintly.
“So… you still wear that thing, huh?”
Soma tugged the sleeve of his hoodie over it without thinking. “Yeah, I mean after all we know what would happen, you most of all. That’s why you keep blessing it”
For a flicker, there was something sharper in her eyes: something not Mina like at all and then it was gone, smoothed away as though it had never been. Soma files this away as just a play on his exhaustion and a trick of the fading light of the sun. Maybe classes had made Mina also a bit spacey, why else would she ask that?
The store trip was thankfully calm and he came away with far more than expected. Canned boba,multiple boxes and bags of candy and gummies, some cheap instant curry. Mina teased him; he grumbled back, half-smiling. On the surface, everything was normal.
Yet the walk back felt off. The streets are too quiet. The shadows too deep. The air prickling like static at the edge of a storm–
When they reached his dormroom apartment building, she paused, tilting her head. “I should go,” she said lightly. “Don’t let me keep you from resting.”
“You sure? You came all this way.”
“I’m sure.” Her hand almost brushed his sleeve again, hovering at his wrist before she pulled it back, quick and deliberate. Then, softer, almost like she meant it: “Take care of yourself, Soma.”
He nodded, too weary to question it.
By the time he stumbled onto his couch and set down his bag, the room was already tilting around him. He curled into the cushions, clutching his un-opened drink like an anchor, and fell into sleep before he could kick off his shoes.
Across the street, the glamour rippled. Mina’s smile dissolved, her features twisting into those of a stranger cloaked in white.
The cultist lingered for a moment, staring at the windows. He had been an inch away from unfastening the talisman, from cutting the seal that kept Soma balanced on the knife’s edge between man and monster. An inch away from fulfilling the promise of his Order: that if God was to be light, then there must be darkness equal to it.
And yet, he hesitated.
The boy looked so tired. So worn. So… human.
With a flick of his sleeve, he vanished into the deepening night.
—
Soma woke to the soft buzz of his phone on the nightstand. He rubbed his eyes, still caught in the fog of sleep, and glanced at the screen. A message from Mina: “Can’t wait to see you tomorrow! Feeling so much better 😄”
Something didn’t sit right. His chest tightened, a prickle running down his spine. She had looked… different last night. Not Mina. Not really. His mind churned as fragments of the previous evening replayed.
By the time class rolled around, Soma’s focus had completely abandoned Genya’s lecture. The teacher’s voice droned over the lead-up to the Great Battle of 1999, but all Soma could think of was the not Mina who talked with him, who was with him during his classes they did share, though yesterday was the first time she actually talked to him in the whole week, but it wasn’t uncommon since they both were busy. University plus her job at the shrine as she works to take over for her father–
He barely registered Genya’s gestures until the class ended. He lingered behind, papers clutched nervously, and approached the history teacher.
“Genya… did Mina… did she miss classes this week? Was she sick?” Soma’s voice trembled with the edge of confusion.
Genya blinked, adjusting his glasses. “Sick? No, she’s been here every day, Soma. Why?”
Soma swallowed hard, unease gnawing at him. The pieces didn’t fit. Something was off.
Later that afternoon, the paranormal club gathered in the usual meeting room, their chatter bright and energetic. Takeru’s grin was as wide as ever. “Ramen! Let’s go over what we want to do for the next few days while slurping noodles! Who’s in?”
Soma groaned but allowed himself to be swept along. Maybe a little fun would keep his mind from spiraling.
The ramen shop was… quirky. Paper lanterns swung gently, painted with playful ghost faces. Small wind chimes jingled every time the door opened. Oddly, the place had the faint sense of being haunted.
The ramen shop itself was tucked into a narrow alley, its glowing paper lanterns swaying like lazy fireflies. A handwritten sign above the door declared: “Spirit Ramen – Satisfaction Guaranteed (Possession Optional).”
Takeru led the charge inside, beaming like he’d uncovered buried treasure. “This is the place. The most haunted noodle shop in Tokyo!”
The group slid into a booth, the wood creaking under their weight. The atmosphere was cozy yet strange. Every so often, the ceiling lights flickered, and one of the wind chimes tinkled as if touched by invisible fingers.
Their menus came on their own, literally. The stack of laminated cards slid across the counter by themselves, fanning neatly in front of each member.
“Poltergeist waiter,” one girl whispered dramatically.
“Service here’s faster than delivery,” Takeru quipped, earning a round of laughter.
Soma just sighed, but the corners of his mouth twitched.
The food arrived steaming hot, bowls balancing precariously as they glided across the table on unseen hands. Chopsticks lifted from their paper sleeves and lined themselves up neatly. It would’ve been eerie if it weren’t so comical, especially when one rogue pair began poking at Takeru’s hair like a curious cat.
“Hey! Hands off the merchandise!” he yelped, swatting at them.
Half the table dissolved into giggles.
Then, in the corner of Soma’s eye, he spotted it: the faint shimmer of a tiny hermit crab crawling along the edge of his bowl. Its shell glowed faintly, translucent, and it wiggled its claws in a little wave as though to greet him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Soma muttered.
The crab’s ghost sneezed, or maybe it hiccupped, sending a puff of steam into the air. Then it tumbled straight into Soma’s ramen with a splash, vanishing inside the broth. A beat later, noodles began swirling in circles, lifted by some unseen force.
“Oh no,” Soma groaned. “He’s haunting my dinner.”
Everyone erupted with laughter.
The crab popped back out, now riding a fishcake like it was a lifebuoy. It scuttled across the table, leaving tiny wet footprints that evaporated seconds later. Takeru made a grand show of saluting it. “A brave warrior of the sea, returned for one final feast!”
The shop itself seemed to join in on the joke. Soy sauce bottles toppled over only to right themselves again, napkins flapped like little flags, and the wind chimes rang every time someone slurped too loudly. Even the lanterns swayed as if chuckling.
For the first time in weeks, Soma felt something loosen in his chest. Still felt the gnawing unease at Mina’s text, but here, in this ridiculous haunted ramen shop, surrounded by laughter and spectral antics, he could breathe. Even if only for a little while. He’d have to remember to tell Genya and Julius about this place, because he thinks they would get a kick out of it, but wasn’t it Genya’s job to keep an eye on things like this? Still he supposes the shop was harmless and the owners were an older couple who clearly had become used to the occurrences and so long as they respected whatever spirits were here, they did not mind so long as those spirits also respected their business and didn’t drive customers away.
—
The days that followed were, mercifully, uneventful. Soma attended classes, drifted in and out of conversations with the club, and even found himself laughing at a few more of Takeru’s antics. For once, there were no shadows flickering at the corners of his vision, no whispered promises in his blood.
Genya did not forget, though. He never did, not when these things keep happening to his charge.
In his office, tucked away in a nondescript government building, he leafed through stacks of reports that had been piling up. Most of it was bureaucratic noise: mundane paperwork, half-baked witness accounts, superstition but one folder made his hand still.
Cult of Light Activity.
The name had been buried after Celia Fortner’s death, the cult fractured, supposedly scattered. Yet here it was again, their numbers tripled, their message now spreading like fire in Tokyo. The reports spoke of fervent gatherings, clandestine rituals, a call to arms that echoed disturbingly close to the rhetoric of Graham Jones.
Genya exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. So this is where it begins again.
He flipped to the next page, scanning field notes. That’s when he saw a familiar name buried in the margin of an incident report: Takeru Fortner-Jones.
The pen slipped in his hand.
He sat back, eyes narrowing. Fortner-Jones? The last name wasn’t one Soma or the others would’ve recognized—it had been filed under another, an alias. But the truth sat stark on the page.
Takeru. Son of Graham Jones, who once preached the word of chaos as gospel and Celia Fortner, who had led the cult of light until Soma himself ended her schemes.
Two legacies bound together in one boy who now laughed and joked at Soma’s side.
Genya tapped the report against the desk, mind racing. “I am not paid enough.”
It was not the first time he’d seen Soma unsettled: grief, pressure, the constant fear of what he carried– but this was different.
Mathias had chosen his damnation, had courted power and sacrificed everything on the altar of his own grief. Soma, by contrast, had been burdened. An unwilling vessel, shackled to chaos through no sin of his own.
Yet… power did not care whether its vessel was willing. Chaos pressed against Soma’s heart every moment of every day, whispering of release, of fury, of destruction. A slip: born of stress, fear, or rage could give that voice a foothold.
Genya had seen it in his eyes before: the shadow of an anger that was not his own.
He would not allow it to take root.
So he began to dig further
The incident with Mina troubled him deeply. The records confirmed her attendance, yet witnesses described her as uncharacteristically quiet, pale, subdued. Too subdued. If Soma had spoken with her and believed her real, yet Mina herself sent a contradictory message, then something had walked in her skin. Something practiced.
And it all linked back to the cult.
The reports on his desk showed their numbers swelling, their reach spreading across Tokyo.Their proximity to Soma was no coincidence.
Nor was Takeru–
“I really do not get paid enough,” came the soft voice. He would need to alert Julius, and perhaps they could place a few undercover agents posing as teachers or staff. If the cult was active again– well it’s better to be prepared this time, because he will not risk Soma again.
Syncoir on Chapter 3 Fri 03 Oct 2025 01:26PM UTC
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