The first thing Gasper noticed after the battle ended was the silence.
The air still shimmering with the residual heat of the violet flames as Jay looked down at the small boy huddled on the cold cobblestones.
Gasper Vladi's face was a frantic mask of crimson as he looked from Jay to the damp patch on his skirt. Shivering from both the autumn chill and the sheer terror of what just happened, the boy tried to cover himself as his small hands trembling.
Lavinia was the first to move. She knelt beside him, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders like a curtain of silk. Her blue eyes were soft and radiating a warmth that stood in stark contrast to the biting night air.
"It's okay," she whispered, her voice a soothing melody. "You're safe now. No one is going to hurt you."
Jay, however, remained standing, his gaze piercing. He wasn't just looking at the boy.
He was analyzing the aura radiating from him. The magical imprint was a chaotic, jarring mess. There was the clear familiar scent of humanity, and also there are metallic tang of a vampire, and something else.
A dark, cloying weight that Jay recognized with a jolt of visceral memory. It was the energy of a Devil. It reminded him Berjequel.
'A devil magical imprint?' Jay wondered, his eyes narrowing as he analyzing the magical imprints and the aura emanated from the little boy's body.
Lavinia helped Gasper to his feet, her touch gentle as she brushed the dust from his shoulders. "Tell us, little one... what is your name?"
"Gasper... Gasper Vladi," the boy stammered, his voice barely a breath.
He looked up at Jay, but the moment his eyes met those dark hazel eyes that felt like they were peering into the very bottom of his heart, he flinched. Jay's gaze was like a void.
Instinctively, Gasper grabbed Lavinia's hand, hiding behind her like a shield.
Jay realized then that he was looming over the boy like a predator. He consciously relaxed his shoulders, shoving his hands back into his coat pockets.
"How is it that you have devil energy within you?" Jay asked. The question was blunt, cutting through the air.
Gasper's bottom lip trembled. "I... I don't know! Those girls, they did something... I was dead, and then I wasn't!"
"Illya-kun, you're scaring him," Lavinia chided softly, giving Jay a pointed look before turning back to Gasper with a smile. "I'm sorry, Illya-kun isn't very good with words. He's actually quite nice once you get to know him."
Jay exhaled slowly and looked away.
"I'm sorry. Let's find a better place to talk."
And with a sudden flicker of purple embers, the space folded around them. The alleyway was empty before the leaves could settle back to the ground.
***
Minutes later, the silence of the alley was broken by the sound of hurried footsteps. Two figures burst into the area, their eyes searching the shadows.
The first was a young girl, perhaps around fourteen years old with striking crimson hair and emerald eyes that glowed with a desperate intensity. Beside her stood a girl with long, midnight-black hair tied in a ponytail and violet eyes that scanned the surroundings in worry.
The figures were none other than Rias Gremory and Akeno Himejima.
"I swear I detected the magic here!" Rias exclaimed, her voice laced with desperation. "Gasper! Gasper, where are you?"
She had reincarnated the boy only a week ago. It had been an act of impulsive pity, she had found him broken and dying after a brutal encounter with an exorcist and the Gremory pride demanded she save a life so crufully discarded. But she hadn't expected the boy to be so traumatized that he would flee the moment he regained his strength.
"There is no one here, Rias," the black-haired girl, Akeno, said softly. She walked toward the center of the alley, her eyes landing on a strange sight.
Among the pristine cobblestones lay several piles of fine, grey ash. Akeno knelt, rubbing the soot between her fingers. Her violet eyes clouded with confusion.
"What is this?" she muttered. "There's no trace of holy energy... but there is a lingering heat. Something turned several high-tier vampires into dust in a matter of seconds."
Rias joined her, looking at the ash with a sinking feeling in her gut. "Did the Church find him? Or did the Tepes catch up?"
"Neither," Akeno replied, looking up at the sky. "Whatever did this... it's far beyond a common exorcist."
***
Far from the dark alley, the atmosphere was much warmer. They had relocated to a small, secluded restaurant at the edge of the city. The interior was cozy, filled with the smell of roasting meat and fresh bread. Gasper sat across from Jay and Lavinia.
Since Gasper was a dhampir not a full-breed Vampire, the cold of the Romanian autumn still affected him, and his previous clothes had been wetted. Jay and Lavinia decided to buy him some clothes and stopped at a local clothier before coming here.
Initially, Lavinia wanted to buy him a dress, but Jay interjected, saying that a boy should not wear a skirt. Instead, he bought Gasper a hoodie, a jacket, and a pair of trousers, with the hoodie in particular meant to hide his pointed ears.
Now, Gasper sat shyly picking at a bowl of warm stew. Jay watched him for a long moment before speaking.
"So, Gasper," Jay began.
"Hiiik!" Gasper's body jolted, his spoon clattering against the bowl.
"Don't be scared," Jay assured him, his voice steady. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to understand why those vampires were hunting you. They seemed convinced you belonged to them."
Gasper looked down at his stew, his hands gripping the table. "I... no. They are bad people..."
Gasper's hands trembled as he held the warm ceramic bowl, the steam rising to obscure his downcast eyes. He began to speak, his voice thin and fragile.
"Valerie and I... we weren't like the other vampires," Gasper whispered. "In the Tepes castle, if your blood isn't pure, you aren't a person. You're a mistake. They kept me in the sub-basement, away from the moonlight. They told us that the sun would hate us even more than they did."
He looked up then, a small, jarring smile touching his lips. It was a forced expression, meant to hide the tremor in his voice, but it only served to highlight the hollow look in his eyes.
"Valerie was different. She was the daughter of the King, so she lived in the main castle, but she was a half-breed too. She said that even with her status, the others whispered behind her back. She was lonely... so she would sneak down to my cell. She brought me food, books, and sometimes her own clothes to make me dress up with her so we could pretend to be twins. She was the only person who ever looked at me like I was a person." Gasper said.
Across the table, Jay remained perfectly still, but the air around him began to hum with a low, dangerous frequency. He stared at Gasper's tragic smile,
'He's just like Vali,' Jay thought. Trapped by the weight of a lineage that only sees them as tools or stains.
A child never chooses to be born, yet they are so often the ones forced to bear the weight of existence simply for having come into the world.
Without Jay moving a muscle, the water glass in his hand began to glow with a faint violet hue and in the next moment both the cup and the hot black tea within it evaporated into a rising mist.
Surprised Lavinia and Gasper.
"Keep talking, Gasper," Jay said. His voice had dropped an octave.
Gasper flinched at the intensity but saw that Jay's anger wasn't directed at him.
"I was the one who decided to run. I couldn't take the basement anymore. I worked up the courage to tell Valerie I wanted to leave, and she... she didn't try to stop me. She even helped me. She used her position and knowledge of the castle to get us past the inner gates and into the forest."
He swallowed hard, his eyes glazing over as the memory shifted to the blood on the cobblestones.
"But then that man appeared. The Exorcist. He didn't care that Valerie and I was just a kid. He just called us 'filth' and swung his sword. Valerie stood in front of me... and suddenly she pulled out this golden cup. A chalice that shone like a fragment of the sun. It felt so warm and everything went white."
Jay and Lavinia exchanged a sharp, knowing look. There was no doubt now. The mentioned golden chalice was one of the thirteen Longinus, the Sephiroth Graal. The same thing that bring Glenda here in the first place.
"The exorcist didn't care," Gasper continued, his voice shaking. "He lunged for her, and I... I couldn't let him. And the last thing i remember are the coldness of the sword."
As the boy recounted the sensation of the blade piercing his chest, his breathing became shallow. Lavinia immediately stood up, moving to the chair beside him and pulling the small boy into a protective hug.
"She helped me and i couldn't even protect her," Gasper sobbed into her coat.
Jay stared at the boy.
"You are brave, Gasper," Jay said, and he meant every word. "Don't be ashamed of that. Running away from abuse takes courage in itself, and you even sacrificed yourself for the people you love. You are braver than most people… even me." His voice softened at the last words.
Courage was not the absence of fear. It was choosing to act despite it.
'And yet...,' Jay thought as that night resurfaced in his memory,
'I am nothing but a coward.'
Gasper went on to explain that after that moment, he suddenly found himself alive again, waking in an unfamiliar room where two devil girls greeted him.
' Reincarnated devil, a Peerage,' Lavinia realized, exchanging a brief glance with Jay. Now it made sense. That was the source of the devil energy they had sensed within Gasper.
"After that, the vampires started chasing me," Gasper continued softly. "And thanks to you, Illya-san, Lavi-san… I'm safe now."
With those words, Gasper finished his story.
" Then this war is a complicated three way war. " Jay leaned back in his chair, his mind racing.
His gaze darkened. "The Slaughter of Suceava wasn't random act of killing from them, It was retaliation. If Valerie awakened the Graal to save you and believed you died… that grief would have been unbearable."
He exhaled slowly. "The Tepes faction likely used that moment to justify the massacre of the Church's base in Suceava."
Gasper shook his head frantically. "No! Valerie wouldn't do that. She's kind. She's the kindest person I know. She would never ask for people to be killed."
"I know, Gasper," Lavinia said softly, patting his head in reassurance. "Illya-kun is only speaking hypothetically. It may not have been Valerie at all. Others could be using her power for their own ends."
Jay fell silent, turning the thought over in his mind.
' Was it the Graal? Was that why holy power no longer affected them? If that's true… then what is the full extent of its capabilities?' He thought. Thinking about it is pretty scary.
Lavinia had said that the Sephiroth Graal was a device that governed the laws of life and death. But that description was maddeningly vague.
She looked at Jay, her expression grave. "If a Longinus like the Graal has emerged in the Tepes Faction, then the status quo is gone. The Carmilla Faction will be forced to respond, and the Church is probably already on its way."
Jay nodded. What had started as a search for Glenda had transformed into a three-way Holy Grail war between the Church, Tepes Faction, and Carmilla Faction.
'What does Glenda want to do with the Graal, anyway?' Jay wondered. Then he looked at Gasper and spoke.
"Gasper," Jay said, his voice firm but no longer intimidating. "Can you guide us to the Vampire world."
Gasper looked at Jay, then at Lavinia. He felt the warmth of the hoodie, the weight of the warm food in his stomach, and the lingering sense of the purple flames that had saved him.
"I... I'll try," Gasper said, nodding slowly.
"I'll show you the way to the castle."