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The night stretched endlessly over the shattered remnants of Castlevania City, its jagged spires clawing at a sky bruised with nightsade blue. Gabriel Belmont, now Dracul, the Dragon, sat atop a crumbling parapet, his dark armor glinting faintly under the moon's cold gaze. Beside him, Marie, ethereal yet anchored to his side, hugged him softly, her presence a tether to a humanity he no longer fully claimed. The events of Lords of Shadow 2 lingered, the bitter taste of a victory that felt more like damnation.
Dracul's eyes, glowing faintly with the curse of his vampiric blood, traced the constellations above. "The stars mock us," he said, his voice low, a growl tempered by sorrow. "They burn eternal, while we drown in shadows."
Marie turned to him, her hand hovering near his gauntleted one, touched close enough to stir memory. "You always looked to the sky, Gabriel, even when we were young. Searching for answers. For God. For peace."
He laughed, a hollow sound. "God abandoned me. Peace is a lie. And Gabriel..." He paused, his jaw tightening. "Gabriel is a ghost, Marie. I am what remains."
She shook her head, her brown hair catching the moonlight. "You're still him. Beneath the blood, the rage, the darkness. I see you, Gabriel. I always have."
Dracul's gaze dropped to the ruined city below, where the echoes of his battle with Satan still lingered in the scorched earth. "You see a man who slaughtered his own son. Who tore the world apart to save it, only to become its monster."
Marie drifted closer, her voice soft but unyielding. "You fought for love. For me. For Trevor. For a world that didn't deserve you. That hasn't changed."
"And yet, here we are. You, a fresh and bones spirti, bound to me by some cruel jest of fate. I, a creature neither living nor dead. What is left, Marie? What do we do now?"
She looked skyward, her eyes tracing the same stars he had cursed. "We endure. We find meaning in the moments we steal from eternity. Like this one."
Dracul followed her gaze, the weight of her words settling into the cracks of his broken soul. The sky, vast and indifferent, seemed less mocking now.
Driven by a longing that transcended his cursed existence, he leaned toward her, his lips brushing against her form. The kiss held the weight of their shared past, a fleeting warmth that defied the cold reality of their separation. Her eyes widened, then softened, a silent acknowledgment of the love that still bound them.
They sat in silence, two lost souls under an endless sky, bound by love and haunted by loss, as the world below whispered of battles yet to come.