Servants of God

Vatican City, Rome, Italy
August 25th

The priest entered walking through the main entrance of the Vatican Museums, next to him was his faithful and inseparable leather briefcase. The place was much quieter than usual, today the entrance was completely forbidden to visitors and tourists due to serious renovations and that the Vatican church was taking advantage to record a promotional video in relation to a mass with a huge Gregorian chant choir, almost 2 thousand singing priests were preparing to sing in unison. Father Alejandro Del Toro from Spain was not one of them, but he still arrived at the box office and presented his identification, unlike the others he mentioned that a certain Anderson had called him to appear there that day, the lady at the entrance got up from her desk and took a book, from it she took out a sheet of paper, She read its contents in silence, only to burn the page just after finishing, then returned to Father Del Toro and told him to wait a moment while the head key keeper Niccolò Gasparri arrived to guide him through the place, this surprised the father, for it was not every day that a legend offered to give him a private tour. While the father waited he sat down on a nearby sofa and watched the TV on, as if it would be otherwise they were broadcasting the mass that would soon be celebrated nearby, in St. Peter's Basilica, where the Pope would be present, but despite Father Alejandro Del Toro being a priest of the same church, this only annoyed him, there was no way there could be so many coincidences together.

A few minutes before the mass officially started the guardian of the keys appeared, next to him came four soldiers of the Guardia Svizzera Pontificia, all four were armed with their heavy assault variant and their red uniforms, but you only had to look at them for a moment to see that these were not the normal guards, one of them had a big scar on his face, one of them was missing an eye, they were almost as tall as Del Toro himself, and even had a similar build, these were experienced warriors, one of them even wore an Allience medal, showing that he even fought as a soldier in the Continental war as a regular soldier, something that the real Swiss guard would never give up. The guard urged Father Alexander to follow him into the museum, two of the guards walking in front, the other two guarding the back. After walking up the famous spiral staircase of the Vatican, the Gregorian choir began to sing majestically, its sound filling every corner of the sacred city.

Each time they traveled further and further inside the museum until they reached a section restricted to the general public, the head keykeeper took out his huge set of keys and from memory took out the correct key to open the door leading to the Apostolic Palace, they continued on their way after closing the door again and one of the guards stayed behind to guard it. The trip continued for several minutes, in which not a single word was said, the only sound that accompanied them was the constant knocking of keys from the huge set of keys that the head key keeper of the Vatican had, about 300 keys of all sizes and weights accompanied him on this occasion, after reaching the end of a long corridor they arrived at another door, this time it was the entrance to the Archivum Secretum Vaticanum, one of the most important libraries in the world, as well as the most restricted of the same, but the journey continued yet another section, to the archive of treasures, a place where hundreds of artifacts were kept from all over the planet, from all civilizations, from all mankind, some gifts of kings, others cursed possessions torn from evil, others sacred weapons waiting to be used, another imposing door protected the entrance, another padlock, another key that the guardian used, another guard that stayed behind protecting.

They were now in a special section, the Fortitudo Venatorum Dei, a highly secret place founded even before the Vatican itself, it was the home of one of the most secret jobs that existed in the world, the very place where errors of the past were created as the inquisition as an extension of the power that lay within these walls, an organization without a name, the last line of defense against an evil that humanity did not even know. Every person who even knew of the existence of this place was someone who had sworn to give his life battling against the countless enemies of mankind, a line of warriors who had protected humans from things that were not. Werewolves' heads were displayed in some of the display cases, sets of spears that were rendered unusable by the many fights against vampires in the past. The only place in the world where there were statues dedicated to people who died in complete anonymity despite giving their lives defending the weak, the founder of the Belmont, the long family of hunters, the simple human Morris that God sent to kill Dracula, the twin Mayan warriors Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué who assassinated the Lords of the Underworld, Urakaze the hunter who gave her life facing an evil Goddess, Ali ibn Abi Talib for his duel against the evil Desert jinn Horseman in the Arabian desert or Maria Schneider member of the German resistance who fought against the Ahnenerbe during World War II to prevent the Nazis from obtaining dangerous secret artifacts. And despite the importance or secrecy of the place, today was full of the best hunters that the church had managed to contact and bring, with a single purpose, the simple fact of making an appearance, none of them were really doing anything, some were playing cards, others were watching TV, some were talking among them, the idea was simple, to mask the person who had really been called among dozens of decoys. Father Del Toro thought that this was where he would be told the details, but he was mistaken, the keykeeper insisted that he follow him to another hallway, to a place even deeper.

The situation began to worry Father Alejandro Del Toro, the place was already top secret and there were strong security measures taken, but today the precautions were already extreme, the fact that they were not using the main conference room and instead they would continue walking even further inside, passing even the Divine Providence, the only complex machine known to mankind that was not built by anyone ever, the journey continued its way even deeper into the forbidden labyrinth of the necropolis, a place founded to always remain a secret, created when the first Christians fled and took refuge in the deepest caves to escape the constant Roman persecution of the early days, this one, unlike the one under the basilica, had been dug in the utmost secrecy, built under the idea of continuing the hunt even if the Roman church itself no longer existed and was persecuted. It was in these walls that the first crusade was secretly planned to be used as a shield to hide the demon hunt that was ravaging the region, the last time it had been used was when a group was organized to fight Dracula in his own castle, only to be surprised by the news of his death when they arrived on the scene. One more door, one more key, the last of the guards guarded the door from the inside, the keeper of the keys followed the path and opened the way to one more forbidden section.

The Atrium Artefactuum Ex Anomalorum, where all the objects of unknown origin were kept, a couple of mysterious crystals, comet stones, things created from unknown elements were still some of the simplest things kept here. Other more important artifacts were here such as the AEXA-2357 or better known as King Arthur's Sword, Excalibur, which had managed to be recovered from the island of Avalon before it was rediscovered and renamed the Isle of Man in the middle of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Another was the AEXA-1326 or Dragon Stone, a red crystal said to be able to control dragons at will, which had been brought back as a treasure recovered by the Great Samurai warrior, as a reward after traveling to another world and saving him. One of the strangest was undoubtedly the AEXA-0001, known simply as the Katana, this was not really the first object ever found, but simply the date of its possible construction dated before all the others, combined, nothing else was known about it, it looked like a simple Japanese katana, of quite modern manufacture which surprised the blacksmiths of the island came to make designs similar to this sword without any intervention, It had been discovered among a couple of ruins in Mesopotamia by an Egyptian pharaoh, he himself was buried with it and the sword was locked up with him until almost 4 thousand years later when a group of Germans of the Ahnenerbe sent by Heinrich Himmler found the tomb and took its contents to their country to give them to Adolf Hitler himself, But on their way they were attacked by Maria Schneider who managed to steal the swords and then secretly deliver them to the Vatican to avoid a major calamity during the war, the sword has never been restored but is still in pristine condition as if it were newly built.

One more door at last marked the end of the trip. The old Keykeeper took from one of his pockets an envelope sealed with wax, in the image could be seen the seal of the Pope's ring. The magic seal was broken and from the envelope he took out a last key invoked for a single use, the same was spent right there and then and the keeper instructed Father Alejandro Del Toro to continue inside on his own, indicating that he would come for him in 2 hours later, when the mass that was being celebrated would be over. Del Toro stepped confidently inside, not even turning to see the door slam shut behind him, or the huge and complex clockwork mechanism completely sealing off the only access. A flame lit the room, the room was nothing complex, it was just polished stone walls with a few chairs and tables carved from the floor of the same material, the secret was in its walls full of inscriptions and magic circuitry, all built with a single purpose, to protect and hide any information that was discussed in it. Someone was already waiting in the room, the mattress and food reserves and the portable toilet indicated that he had been locked in there for several days, once again with the aim of disguising the visit or that the two men had met to talk. Valerious Van Helsing was not even the leader of the mysterious organization, yet he worked directly under the orders of the higher hierarchs, the mission he had been given was simple at first until it reached the current levels of concern.

"Valerious Van Helsing? really?"
"I thought we agreed that we clearly couldn't stand each other the last time we see each other?"
"Is being here an invitation to close our little spat?"

"Del Toro, today I am speaking on behalf of the Pope."
"Something as low as a quarrel has no place now, much less with the weight of events."
"If accepting my defeat will calm you and extinguish our feud then that is what I will do."
"I accept my defeat completely"

Alejandro Del Toro immediately realized that the stakes were indeed serious if his eternal rival decided that their feud was no longer important. The father immediately dropped his rivalry as well, he wanted to hear exactly what was going on, for being in this room was in itself a sign of the high level of the problem they were facing.

"Please elaborate on what it is all about."

"It started some time ago, the Sessho-seki, the stone where the evil Goddess Tamamo-no-mae had been sealed a thousand years ago, was found split in two after a stormy night."
"As you might imagine, this triggered a high alert in the Onmyoji Association of Japan."
"We also sent our agents to help in the efforts to combat this evil."
"But the strange thing is that nothing happened, no matter how many days passed, there was no attack."
"Nervous the Onmyoji began to search for the goddess themselves."
"It was only until Xian Fang reported the presence of the beast that they were able to locate the goddess."
"The family of the Urakaze huntress was the first to move."

"Valerious, please I don't need the whole story, please summarize."

"They were completely destroyed"

"Bad preparation maybe? What about our agents? Do they need reinforcements?"

"They were not destroyed by the Goddess, they were simply killed."
"One of the surviving members of the family sent a message seeking confirmation from Divine Providence."
"The machine reacted by giving a positive"
"The family was almost destroyed for going against the CSS who had already informed their refusal to the extermination plan."

"THE CSS WAS ON EARTH?"

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"The message was certified as coming from Urakaze itself."
"Which is a huge exception to the natural order of things."

"Mr. Valerious, please go on and be as detailed as possible."
"You were right to mention that it is important"

"Because of what happened I was assigned as a special investigator, so I am trying to find out more about it."
"But unfortunately my findings only reveal even more troubling information."
"I have managed to interview every surviving member of the Onmyoji hunting family."
"One of them revealed that the mission to eliminate the Goddess Tamamo-no-Mae had been canceled by the CSS herself for fear of retaliation from an individual who is currently living next door to her."
"At first I thought it would be a certain Adelis, the coordinator of the Alliance during the war, who is currently living in Japan."
"But no, it seems that it is another kitsune who lives next to her, a white one, albinism apparently"
"Considering all this, I managed to get in touch with one of the great warriors, Samurai, to keep a close eye on the two and report everything she could about them."
"She reports that the two girls are not doing anything out of what two normal girls would do."
"So she says that the two of them are just living like humans and that's it."

"So if nothing is happening why are we having this conversation so hidden?"

"That's exactly the problem, nothing has happened."
"Neither the evil Goddess attacks nor the angels take her away from here!"
"What do you think that means?""
"What if that the CSS message tells the truth?"

"Both the angels and the Goddess do not act because they are even more afraid of the that white kitsune!"

"Exactly"
"This is a serious matter"
"The end of the war, the Empire attacks, the Cacique identifier appears and now an unknown mystical creature that a goddess and angels alike feared walks the earth freely for who knows how long while we were ignorant of its existence."
"What a year we have had"

"I understand the level of magnitude of what we are facing, but if you have called me it means that you surely have a course of action, don't you?"

"What we must do first is to find out as much information as possible about this unknown white kitsune."
"But luck plays in our favor"
"Mrs. Adelis, the woman with whom both creatures live daily, works in a military base in Tokyo."
"There's is a Catholic church nearby where the believing personnel attend mass every Sunday."
"Adelis and her family with whom she lives have been sighted there several times so I believe it is a regular point of visit."
"So we are planning to move you to this small church to support the observation work being done."

"You called me and brought me all the way here just to tell me what to do as a father in Japan?"
"Isn't all this level of precautions exaggerated?"

"I'm not done talking yet."
"I know what I'm about to say sounds like heresy."
"But I remind you that our oath has been to defend humans from any threat unknown to them."
"And that includes the angels themselves as well."

"What are you talking about Mr. Valerious?"

"An unnatural creature, a wicked Goddess walk free"
"The angels refuse to do the work that falls under their jurisdiction."
"This very room has been created thinking that one day even the CSS will abandon us and we will have to prepare against them."
"I believe that day is now"
"In spite of all the technology that an organization like them could have, it is impossible for them to listen to us right now with all the magic spells, the mass offered by the Pope, the Gregorian chants."
"All this has been put in place to hide this conversation."
"Do you understand the level of trust we are placing in you Father Alejandro Del Toro?"
"We cannot let something as abstract and unnatural in modern times of science as an evil Goddess, of an Eastern religion for worse, walk free, even if it has the permission of Heaven itself."
"Even Xian Fang is predisposed to do something about it, according to her words she used her magic to make a prediction and none of them are favorable to the humans"
"You are the best hunter alive and unlike the great warriors, one who we know is completely loyal to our organization."
"Your duty is to find a way to take down this Goddess and the white kitsune."
"But do not be foolish, only act when the timing and preparation are right and ensure complete victory."
"Go and work together with Sakura and find out everything you can from them, but you are independent to act on your own, do whatever is necessary."

"Yes sir"

"Take everything that you think will be necessary, our support to the cause is total, all our armory is open for you."
"Before you leave, you will be offered an evil day hunting rite, to be performed by the Pope himself"
"And remember, this conversation never existed"
"Not even if the angels ask you during your final judgment."

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