An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 14/?
Fandom: 吸血鬼ハンターD - 菊地秀行 | Vampire Hunter D Series - Kikuchi Hideyuki, Vampire Hunter D (Anime & Manga), Castlevania (Cartoon 2017-2021)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: D (Vampire Hunter D)/Original Female Character(s), D (Vampire Hunter D)/Original Character(s), Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/D (Vampire Hunter D), Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & Original Female Character(s), Adrian Tepes - Relationship
Characters: Vampire Hunter D - Character, Left Hand (Vampire Hunter D), Barbarois (Vampire Hunter D), Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya
Additional Tags: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Monsters, Blood Drinking, Blood, Half-Human, Half-Vampires
Summary:
This was not what D expected...this time (and such situations are rare for the vampire hunter) D accepted Left Hand's suggestion to go see a traveling circus. But not very long after that...Vampire Hunter D is forced to start an adventure, this time without going on a paid mission to fight monsters. This time he takes a path that leads him to things he never met and experienced before.
"Let me tell you a story, stranger," the Elder speaks, approaching the dark haired man slowly.
"We are the village of the Barbarois – outcasts and mutants and freaks. This is where, many a century ago, those that society discarded gathered, to be alone together, than apart in the world that so loathed us."
He motions around them, to the village carved into stone. It looks impressive at first glance, like a temple with it's many vaulted doorways leading deeper into the mountain, with the carvings in the rock and machinery over head. The village isn't entirely enclosed – it's pored instead into two jutting peaks, covering almost entirely the sharp ravine that cuts right through the mountain, though whether it was natural or shaped so by tools, is hard to tell.
From the many door ways, windows and peek holes, demons and monsters and mutants watch them. Women with snake's bodies, kids with lizard's limbs, men with more legs than they should... There are people who look like they were made of living shadow, others that seem to be covered in moving hair, there are werewolves and hags and creatures that don't even have name.
"We cloistered ourselves here, where humans would not live, where we'd be free of censure," the Elder continues. "We carved out living out of crude rock and we made a home for ourselves where others would not come. Where we would be safe. There weren't many of us, a mere couple dozen, but we made out way of the world. Anyone would respect that, I think?"
The dark haired stranger says nothing, watching him without expression.
"That was five thousand years ago, when the Nobility started waning and humanity rose to fight monsters," the Elder says and looks away bitterly for a moment. "And for most of those long, long years we've been secluded, with only ourselves to rely on, only our selves for company. And they were good years. Harsh, but we were safe, we were at peace. We could... procreate without judgement."
The stranger's eyes narrow now, watching him warily.
"Thousands of years of seclusion has given us strength like no other," the Barbarois Elder continues. "We have honed our abilities – our demonic bloodlines have risen to sharp peaks of power. Our best manipulate elements as if they were born to them, our best live in shadow like it was mere air to them. Our best can surpass even the strength of Nobles!"
Now there is sound other than the Elder's speech – nervous and tense cheers from the hidden archways and doors around them, as the half hidden people of the Barbarois speak their agreement. The Elder nods, proud and satisfied at the people, and then he turns back to the stranger.
"We, the Barbarois, are strong," he says proudly. "Not even the, tch, new Revolutionary Government the humans set up in the old Noble Capital can touch us. But strength like ours isn't managed by nothing. Nothing springs from void – everything must have a base. And we've had ours, we've perfected it. Now, it is time to add something new."
The dark haired man he's talking to closes his eyes for a moment, his lips thinning in displeasure. "That's why you summoned me here?" he asks slowly, his voice like gravel. "To be a breeding stock?"
"You," the old man says, looking at him almost covetously. "Whatever you are, you are strong. I can taste the presence you put off, a true demonic aura! We've long lost ours, you see, in our program of enhancing select traits some things had to be sacrificed. I can't say any of us is a true demon, not any more, the bloodlines are far too blended – but you... you are a demon, no, not merely a demon. You are a greater demon, aren't you?"
He moves closer to the stranger and the dark haired man opens his eyes sharply. The glow in the shadowy darkness of the Barbarois village – and the old man stops, nervous.
"Please, Great One, lend us your power. Share it with us, so that we may prosper and grow strong!" the Barbarois Elder says. "You're a monster like us, surely you understand our blight? In a world that hates and despises us for our very existence, we must be strong or we might perish at the hands of those who would rid this world of things not like them. Surely... surely you understand."
The stranger says nothing and the silence that follows the elder's passionate speech is tense and uneasy. In that silence, the demonic presence wrapping around the dark haired strange seems to swell and pulse, licking at the air around him, making it seem thick with malice.
"No," the stranger then says and pulls out a gun. "I think not."
-
Vincent Valentine had been asleep when he'd been summoned. It had been one of his longer stretches of sleep; judging by his stiffness upon waking up where he wasn't supposed to be, it might have been centuries since he'd gone to his most recent stone coffin, to wait for the world to pass him by.
That is more or less what he does now. The world has already left him behind long ago, centuries ago, maybe millennia, back when he'd buried the last of his old companions. He hadn't made the effort of making connections after that – knowing he'd eventually just loose them too. There was no point to inviting such pain.
When there is no one and nothing to hold you to the present, time moves faster – which is just as well. It would take the end of the planet to erase his now meaningless existence on it's now seemingly vacant surface, and the sooner he gets there, the better.
Though of course the planet isn't vacant. The times he glimpsed it between bouts of long sleep Vincent had seen it grow and recover and by now it is flourishing. Where there had been empty plains, forests and orchards and endless farm fields now grow. Where before there had been mere ramshackle villages trying to scrape a living out of the parched earth, there are now cities full of life – and flowers.
It is everything Avalanche could have hoped for. Vincent can appreciate it too in those terms, as ancient dream come true. But it is hardly reality to him.
His reality is a world ravaged by cruelty and malice, his reality is a small handful of people who'd reached for him in the darkness and pulled him out of it with their, then, foolish optimism and determination. His reality... is buried long ago into graves that had by now been lost, along with histories of those who'd been buried in the. No one remembers Avalanche, or Cloud Strife – they don't even recall Sephiroth, or ShinRa. Even the Meteor is ancient history now, perhaps a mere myth.
Vincent sleeps and pretends he too can forget – until he's woken by the feeling of his body being torn apart by a feeling he can't recognize – but the beasts within him can, waking from their slumber in rage and irritation.
Summoned..., they growl at him. Who dares, who dares, who DARES...
And they remember their reality before him. The howling void of what Vincent can only interpret as being Hell, where they'd been before Professor Hojo had started tinkering with summoning materia to further his experiences. Some had been there for eons, others for only handful of years – all of them, in their own way, had been suffering. That had been an existence of endless pain and burning. Punishment, maybe, Vincent used to think. That was what the classic hell was, after all – punishment for sinful souls.
Some of them – like Galian Beast and Chaos – had been summoned countless of times, and they remember the fury of it every time. The tearing agony of moving between dimensions and realities and the outrage of being commanded by beings they saw lesser than them. The others, Death Gigas and Hellmasker, both much younger souls than the demons, knew less by experience, but they'd been together for long time now – stories and experiences had been shared.
Before Vincent, the Galian Beast had oft been summoned to do meagre, meaningless tasks like slay humans, or to fight in wars that weren't his. Used as little more than attack dog and tool, he'd both enjoyed it for the destruction he could wreck and hated it for the humiliation it was every time.
Chaos, a much older and much more powerful demon, had it worse still. He'd been summoned to share his power, more often than not – to imbue demon's aura on objects or weapons. Sometimes he, like Galian Beast, had been summoned to perform tasks, but more often it had been to cast curses, to grant power, to grant wishes as if that was one of his powers. A tool for finer purpose is still a tool.
In Vincent they have a prison they can't escape and they hate him for it – but in Vincent they also have a respite and in their own way they appreciate it. Trapped in their host, they cannot be summoned to do menial tasks and lower themselves to command of creatures so much lesser than them. In Vincent, they were imprisoned – and free.
Or so they thought.
The summoning tears Vincent apart and his demons' outrage wraps him like a cloak, thick with malice and fury.
- - -
So I started writing the hopefully eventually Vincent x D thing but I’m not sure about how I like this approach, so, here’s half of the chapter and depending on how people like it I’ll post the full first chapter on ao3 or just scrap it and try another approach.
Every once in awhile you come across a movie that really excites your creative mind. There is something refreshing and different that really sticks with you long after you watched the movie. Recently, I have watched the original Vampire Hunter D, and I was immediately immersed in this post-apocalyptic world. The anime classic has inspired many sequels, including Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust,…
