Chapter 145: A Vampire Family Portrait Can Only Work as an Oil Painting
Ross had no real grasp of how wild a chain reaction his actions had set off. But even if he had, it wouldn't have changed much. Everything eventually circled back to his position as spectator anyway.
With Illumi redirected and out of the picture, Ross settled back into the rhythm that had become his life at the Spirit Wave Style dojo: Nen training during the day, video games at night.
As for where Dracula had taken his wife and the child he had collected along the way, or whether the Zoldyck family had actually moved against the Phantom Troupe, Ross couldn't get reliable intelligence on either, and wasn't eager to try. If the real instigator was ever traced back to him, he would be dropping into a full-scale group aggro situation.
The dojo itself had seen some changes. Foot traffic had picked up slightly.
Beyond the permanently resident old woman, and Ross and Yusuke who were there for training, there was now an additional presence. More precisely: an additional demon.
Yukina sat quietly in a corner, pouring freshly brewed tea into ceramic cups and setting them on the low table, watching the two Spirit Wave Style disciples getting beaten as part of their training.
Yukina was staying at the dojo temporarily.
As someone with virtually no combat ability of her own, but who was indirectly carrying a fortune's worth of Ice Tear Stones in her body, Hiei couldn't leave her anywhere without being on edge.
At the same time, Hiei had paid an extreme price to plant the Jagan Eye, a steep drop in his own power alongside severe physical pain, and had taken on an additional vow as part of it: he could never acknowledge her as his sister.
After considerable thought, Hiei had swallowed his pride to an extraordinary degree and gone to Genkai, the name that made even demons who moved freely through human society flinch, and asked her to take Yukina in temporarily.
Genkai agreed. Yukina stayed.
Of course, Kuwabara had also started showing up at the dojo with alarming frequency after that, purely to spend time near Yukina. This drove Hiei, who occasionally dropped by to check on his twin sister from a distance, to the edge of drawing his sword every single time.
What Kuwabara found interesting, though, was that despite knowing there were two other young men at the dojo, he had zero concern about either Ross or Yusuke developing any kind of feelings for "his" Yukina.
Yusuke needed no explanation. The only thing standing between him and Keiko was the two of them both being technically adults, and both families were already treating each other like in-laws. From Yusuke's mother's perspective, she would have been fine with it even if something happened ahead of schedule. After all, she had been roughly the same age as Yusuke and Keiko when she was pregnant with him.
As for Ross, Kuwabara could honestly say this was the first time in his life he had witnessed what could only be called console-sexual orientation.
Console as in game console.
Outside of basic human needs, Ross's life had been completely occupied by Nen training and video games, with not a single gap left for anything else.
His eyes held nothing but a burning devotion to playing games, with no room for anything else whatsoever.
That said, Kuwabara couldn't entirely stop worrying, because there was still the possibility that Yukina might develop feelings for someone else. So he was showing up practically every day to make his presence known, which had led Wing to comment more than once that for someone with the exact same swept-back hairstyle as Zushi, Kuwabara was turning out to be an extraordinary romantic.
But as the saying went: persistence breaks through even the coldest heart. Kuwabara's relentless, unwavering nearness was genuinely beginning to create tiny cracks in Yukina's long-frozen interior, the kind of heart that had been sealed by years of captivity and the isolation that came with her clan's nature.
Though the precedent of Ice Maiden unions with outsiders ending badly was something drummed into every woman of the clan without exception, and Yukina, born as the twin of the cursed child, had received an especially extreme version of that upbringing. Kuwabara, a pure-blood human, had a real way to go if he was serious.
Two weeks after Ross helped the actual landlord send Illumi packing, Ross was eating dinner in front of the TV when an email from Killua arrived, with a photo attached.
He opened it and stopped.
Because what was in that photo was a family portrait that was unusual in every possible way: the subject matter, the medium, and the people in it.
What filled the frame was not a photograph. It was an oil painting done in a realistic style, framed to look like one.
Dracula occupied the position of the household head without any question, his expression carrying a dignity with just a faint layer of warmth underneath. He stood at the back and center of the group, looking straight ahead. He appeared to have aged not a single day, as if he had eaten a desiccant.
To Dracula's left stood the head of the Nostrad crime family, Light Nostrad, trying to project authority but coming across as slightly ridiculous when framed against Dracula, like a monkey in a crown. By rights as Dracula's father-in-law, he should have been at center. He neither dared nor could manage it.
To Dracula's right stood a white-haired vampire with features that looked like they had been made from the same mold as Dracula in his youth: Alucard. The expression management was impeccable, but Ross caught a faint trace of something called resignation underneath it.
The object of that resignation was almost certainly Neon, who had changed into a full aristocratic dress and was seated in the front center on a chair, somehow projecting the bearing of an established lady of rank despite being unmistakably a teenage girl.
Had Alucard actually called her "Mom" yet?
On Neon's lap sat Alluka and Nanika, both smiling. The face in the painting was split down the middle, half Alluka and half Nanika, clearly an artistic interpretation of their shared existence.
The pair were holding the hand of Killua on their left, who looked thoroughly stiff.
Anyone seeing this portrait for the first time would almost certainly describe it as one strange family.
Though setting aside Light, the ordinary crime boss who stuck out as the one human element, the rest of the group had an oddly harmonious quality that was hard to argue with. Killua in particular, that silver-white cat-soft hair was practically identical to Dracula's and Alucard's.
Ross noticed, though, that one person was still missing from this portrait. Dracula's first wife.
Had Dracula simply not gotten around to looking for her yet? Had the second wife said no? Was he waiting for the right moment?
The email contained one line of text.
[Alluka and Nanika are very happy. Far happier than they ever were in that prison of a home.]
Nothing about himself. Nothing but pure tender love for his younger siblings.
What Ross found himself curious about was how Killua had ended up in contact with Dracula's group. Had the two families made direct contact? Or had Killua been brought along the same way Alluka had been, without being given much choice?
He thought about it briefly. Then decided not to ask. He sent back one reply.
[You're the big brother. Look after them.]
The faint smile on his face as he hit send could only be described as aunty energy. He reached over and idly flipped channels on the TV remote.
What came up was an international news segment.
[The fourth prince of the Kakin Kingdom's entire private collection has vanished. A bounty of two billion jenny per individual thief has been placed on the entire group responsible.
The royal family has also announced that anyone who can provide confirmed information on the whereabouts of any single item from the collection will receive a reward ranging from one million to ten million jenny upon verification.
The following is the list of missing items:]
At the same moment, in a restaurant that had become part of the small village forming around the outside of Castlevania, Kurapika was eating with his second master in their usual way when the bar's public television caught his eye. A brief flash of an image: scarlet eyes floating in a jar.
He was on his feet before he had finished thinking about it.