Your sprite work is excellent, as always!
Means a lot coming from you man!
Today I come to explain how the ceremony to banish the castle was developed:
Many years before 1999, while studying a way to seal Dracula's Castle, Charlotte Aulin realized that banishing the castle with the powers available to humans was an impossible task. Her vast magical knowledge could counter demons and even minor, fallen gods, but it was not nearly enough to counter the darkness permeating the Demon Castle, which at this point was well-known to be a being born out of chaos, possessing power much beyond what any demon of fallen god had demonstrated -- power drawn from the human heart itself.
Charlotte, then, went back to her books. But this time she knew what to look for: A way to call upon the gods. In almost every creation myth, the gods are the only beings who could actually counter chaos and place order on the universe. If there was any power that could counter the Demon Castle's chaotic biology and intent, it had to be of godly origin. If this could not do it, then nothing else would.
Her research led her to recollect an old, forgotten legend from Japan -- There once was a young woman who came from foreign lands long ago, and who had the power to listen to the gods and relay their message to the mortal men. She was known by the japanese people of old as the "Voice of the Gods (神々の声
Kamigami no koe)" and word of her quickly spread across the demon-infested land, as she defended the common people from the demons by calling upon the gods to smite evil with their power. Eventually, the young woman earned great respect from the priests, and as she grew older, her powers expanded, allowing contact with much greater gods than before.
During her life, the woman had learned greatly from her own powers, from their origin to their peak, and relayed her knowledge and the word of the gods unto the priests, becoming a protector of the land until she died.
After the woman's passing, the priests built a temple at the place of her death, which exists to this day -- The Hakuba Shrine. Since then, the Hakubas maintained a special ceremony in honor of Tensho Daijin and her brothers, who, according to the teachings left by
Kamigami no koe, were nearest to mankind during solar eclipses of an specific cycle, mirroring the old legend of Tensho Daijin's coming out from inside the Ama-no-Iwato thanks to her brothers' help.
Charlotte went to Japan, and sought the help of the current head priest Eisuke Hakuba. Explaining the dire situation that Dracula's revival represented to the world, Charlotte convinced the priest, and spent years in Japan learning their customs and methods from him, which were taught by
Kamigami no koe long ago. Together, they planned a ceremony to be held in Romania in August 11th 1999, when the eclipse would bring the gods nearest to mankind -- at which point they would call forth the gods' strength to counter the Demon Castle's darkness, and finally seal its evil inside the eclipse, like Tensho Daijin's own dark intentions had been sealed inside the cavern in the legend.
Details:
OK so, while trying to understand how exactly the castle was sealed, I gathered all the evidence I could find about the ceremony. They are not many, but two pieces of crucial evidence exist:
-In Aria, Mina tells the story of Tensho Daijin's retreat inside the cave "Ama-no-Iwato" to "contain her anger against Susanoo", and eventual return from it thanks to the actions of her brothers. Tensho Daijin is none other than Amaterasu, the Sun goddess, and the story is a real part of the Shinto teachings, being present on the Kojiki, which are the religion's sacred texts.
-In the Portrait of Ruin Timeline, this bit of info is present:
So, in conclusion: They used actual magic which could control the gods thanks to the eclipse. By what Mina says, we can conclude these gods are the same ones from the Amaterasu story (and can even infer Amaterasu herself --
the Sun -- was called to seal the castle). All in all, these gods were controlled by the ceremony (which was probably a summoning ritual) to seal the castle inside the eclipse in a recreation of Amaterasu's retreat to the cave.
So I used these ideas to weave the story behind the ceremony, BUT there is one last detail: Can you guess who "Kamigami no koe" is? She is the thread that connects the whole thing together