A/N: WARNING!
THIS IS PART OF THE "NOT GOING HOME" SERIES!
Thus, this story has a more lighthearted take on the events of Bloodborne; i.e. a certain mad blond taking it upon himself to save just about everybody he can while have a jolly good time. If you're not at all familiar with the game, then you'll be hopelessly lost. Call it a crack fic, call it a parody if you will, but this tale has a purpose, and that's to make you smile...
...and bring some light and levity to Bloodborne.
Everyone's been asking for this, so I thought I'd oblige.
Furthermore, "Fleeting Smiles" got jack-all of a response; thus, I took it down.
Suppose that's what I get for trying to write a pure Dragon Age story. I'm going to rework it from the ground up and post it as something else. But anyhow, on we go.
Today I stared death in the face.
And I laughed.
Ha! Had you going for a moment there, didn't I? That's right, I've finally discovered the emotional trauma otherwise known as Bloodborne AND IT IS BEATING ME INTO THE GROUND. I fear its driven me quite mad, dear readers. Hmm. Perhaps that was the Blood Starved Beast and Vicar Amelia. OR THAT BASTARD WITH THE GATTLING GUN? Darkbeast Paarl? I could list any number of bosses or other enemies that have me dashing my head against a wall, but damn is it satisfying when I finally beat them.
And with Sekiro on the horizon...
Consider me excited.
I own nothing~!
"Beasts all over the shop. You'll be one of them...sooner or later...
"You mistake me, good father. I'm not a beast at all."
"Hrmmph. Then what the devil are you?"
...devil? Yes, that sums it up."
"You must be joking."
~?
Hunter
So.
Bloodborne.
I think I finally found a world too mad for me, strange as that might sound.
For the less intrepid of the genre, this game -this world!- is a realm of Lovecraftian horror that would make Edgar Allen Poe drool. Long story short, you're a Hunter. Supposed "savior" of Yharnam, tasked with hunting the beasts that so plague it. Yet for every beast you kill, you only make things worse.
MUCH worse and I didn't even realize this until I was three bosses in!
There are no good choices here. No matter what you say, what you do do, whom you fight...well, just about everyone has a bad time by the end. I felt horrible playing it, brilliant though it was. Really, whoever made this game has a serious death fetish. You know you're fucked up when a freaking dimension-hopping deity takes issue with your work.
That badass hunter you just cooperated with against the Cleric Beast? KILL HIM!
So you wanted to be nice and save that little girl? TOO BAD!
Wanna help her sister? TOUGH LUCK!
And those are just the immediate examples that come to mind! Needless to say, I took issue with that, right quick! Its as if this game literally EXISTS for the sole purpose of getting your hopes up, of believing you can actually help other survivors you come across, bring them to safety and then, surprise SURPRISE you're responsible for their inevitable descent into madness-and-or-death!
Noooooo no no no!
I do not accept this! Not at all!
Nope! Not in the least! I ain't having that shit!
Unlike a certain game *cough*Dark Souls*cough* I feel slightly less inclined to limit myself as wholly as I did back then. And why should I? Why should anyone play fair with all manner of eldritch abominations and old gods wandering the streets. Screw playing the game, I'm diving right into the world itself, madness and all, consequences be damned. As a wise man once said: "Kill who needs killing and save who needs saving." God that sounds corny.
After all, its Not My Hunt...
...but I'm going to enjoy it all the same.
And wouldn't you know it; I know just where to start!
(...0o0o0...)
The ax descended mercilessly.
An executioner's weapon through and through, it served its master in stoic silence, uncaring as he slipped further and further from the realm of man with every stroke. The beast beneath offered no protest as bone broke and sinews shattered; its body was already long since dead. Yet still the hunter did not relent, striking out time and time again, carving the corpse to pieces. Blood splashed across his bandaged face, spattering his faded vision in scarlet relief.
A heady scent pervaded the air when he brought the ax down again. Once. Twice. Thrice. Here at last, he paused.
What was that smell? Gascogine frowned. Inhaled.
Ah, the sweet blood, how it sang to him.
'Its enough to make a man sick.'
Nearly blood-drunk in maddened euphoria, the thought actually made him laugh. He knew something was wrong with him, that he shouldn't be like this, that he shouldn't be here, but in his frenzy he simply couldn't bring himself to care. There was only the hunt, only the blood the blood the bloodbloodblood...
A pebble struck the back of his skull, jolting him-however briefly-back to reality.
"You know," a rough voice chimed as he turned to face his attacker, "Never really understood the fascination with blood. I mean, I expected it to smell bad...but up close? Dear god! How do you stand it!?"
By contrast this one actually looked like a beast.
Clad in bloodied black leathers he walked boldly forward, uncaring of the corpses, nor the scarlet stains at his feet. At first glance he wore the shape of a man, fair of face with whiskered cheeks, blue eyes, and bond hair matted with bits of drying viscera. Yet the crimson horns jutting through that hair told a tale all their own. He bore down on him in stoic silence and Gascoigne turned tense, blood singing at the prospect of battle. He was utterly, unequivocally, rejected.
For the fresh-faced lad swept past him without so much as a passing glance-no further discourse-and knelt before one of the corpses.
One of them wore a red jewel brooch.
The sight stirred something in Gascoigne; a faint feeling of sentiment that was swiftly swallowed by the blood. Should he know her? Should he...remember her? Should he? He felt that he should, as if...there it was again. Teeth like a thousand invisible knives gnawed at his ear, burying rational thought once more.
He couldn't remember.
"Jeez," the young man murmured, hands ghosting across her torn form. "You really cut her up, didn'tcha? She's barely breathing. Still, nothing I can't fix...
He needed to remember!
Something bade him to be still as the hunter-beast?-worked, his fingers pulsing a faint green. As he looked on her wounds her began to mend, stitching themselves shut beneath the strange healing pulses pounding from the blond's palms. Here breath, once little more than a whisper, gradually steadied and grew stronger as the seconds dragged on.
The sight brought him...not peace, because Gascoigne could never truly be at peace, but it eased the tension in his shoulders, a tension he hadn't been aware of. A starburst of pain exploded behind his skull and he staggered, a hand rising to clutch at his face.
Why...couldn't he remember?
Ah, but the stranger was rising now, and his crazed gaze shifted towards him once more. A flicker of something furious and dark and so very, very angry danced through those azure orbs, gone before he could grasp at it, a writhing worm in his grasp. Clawed, bloody fingers twitched restlessly at his sides, curling into cold fists.
"Well?" the intruder inquired, jamming one such hand into his pocket. "Go on. Say your line. I'm waiting."
"Beasts all over the shop." he growled back. "You'll be one of them...sooner or later...
He wasn't expecting laughter.
"Aha! There it is! Gotta loved scripted dialogue." came the rejoinder. "You mistake me, good father. I'm not a beast at all."
Pearly white teeth flashed back at him in a mad grin; one wholly devoid of sanity and reason. The beast within recognized this and bridled against it, causing him to bare his teeth in a snarl. Dangerous. This was no mere beast; nor a hunter, even. This was something else entirely and by the blood, he didn't know what it was.
"Hrmmph." he scoffed. "Then what the devil are you?"
The Hunter tilted his head, considering him.
...devil? Hmm. Yes, let's go with that."
Slim shoulders rolled in a shrug.
"That, or Naruto, I suppose."
An increasingly small part of Gascoigne-that tiny indefatigable part of his bloodied soul that still clung to sanity like a drowning man cast into the sea-saw the danger and growled a warning. He mustn't fight this creature this...thing masquerading as a man. He wouldn't simply lose the fight; he would die-would be slaughtered. But the blood didn't care. It demanded violence and death from Gascoigne and would not be satisfied until it had acquired them.
"Ha!" a harsh laugh burst out of him. "You must be joking."
The whiskered warrior didn't waver. "No. Not about this. For once, I'm actually serious."
Perhaps, had he been possessed of a full set of wits, the mad hunter might've been given pause there.
Alas, in his bloodlust, he flung caution to the wind and readied his weapons. Much to his chagrin the stranger merely plucked a ruined hilt from his belt and slung it over his shoulder. It might've been a saw cleaver. Once. Now it resembled little more than a curved rod bearing the torn remnants of what was once a blade. He intended to fight him? With that? Imbecile. Even in his blood drunk state realized just how utterly stupid it would be to fight with a broken weapon.
They broke off to circle one another, hunter and prey. But which was which?
Circling low in his mind, the Beast strained at its leash.
Rip and tear.
"I'm not here solely for your sake, you know." the young man interjected amicably as their ill-fated dance drew closer to the inevitable center. "I happened upon a little girl who begged-begged, I tell you!-me to find her mother. Helping you is just a happy coincidence of that...that, and I kiiiiiiiiiinda want payback for the way you thrashed me when I was playing the game."
Gascoigne struck out at the blond in response, burying his heavy ax into the trickster's skull.
Rather, that was his intent.
Instead the young man bounded away, hands over feet to effortlessly alight upon an overturned gravestone and Gascoigne was left with his weapon wedged against the earth. With an irritated grunt the hunter ripped his tool from the ground and shifted it to a two-handed grip.
"Oho!" the blond beamed. "Breaking out the big guns, are we?!"
Gascoigne's blunderbuss barked angrily, sending Naruto skittering away like a drunken spider once more. "Stop running!"
Incredibly, he did just that.
"C'mon, then!" the newcomer beckoned, crooking his fingers into a fist around his ruined blade. "If you want to do this old school then we'll do it old school! I'll beat the sense back into you if I have to!"
When the blood-drunk hunter surged forward in retaliation to this verbal jab, Naruto's broken weapon rose to meet his. Remarkably it held up against his ax. In the gloom, he thought he caught a flash of white upon blood crusted steel, the younger man's smile gleaming like paleblood, mocking him. He immediately repaid it with blood, breaking through his feeble defenses, slashing a thick red line across his chest. His smile didn't waver in the least. Then an armored knee cannoned into his chest like the boot of an angry god to drive the wind from his lungs. Pain howled to life in him and he rent the blond's shoulder in kind.
For the first time since they'd met, his opponent stopped smiling.
"That," he hissed around a mouthful of blood, "Actually hurt. "Actually hurt a little. Hope it was worth it."
Time blurred as they rained down blows on one another, mighty blows rending earth and flesh alike without thought, without care.
"I'm here to save as many as I can, while I can, whenever I can." he spoke loudly yet slowly between each of their blinding clashes, as though he were educating an ignorant child. "Once I've done that, I'm going to have words with whatever passes for a god in this world of yours. Then?" his head tilted, regarding him like so much meat. "I'm going to turn this world to ash. But you're too far gone to understand. Although...
His gaze slipped past him as he dodged an overhand swing to fall upon the still-prone figure in the distance.
When next he spoke, a thread of mockery weaved itself into the tapestry of his tone. "Tell me, what kind of madman tries to kill his own wife?"
With that, the last fetter of self control slipped from Gascoigne's grip.
The Beast slipped its leash and he lunged, roaring.
It was a very nice leap all things considered; one that had crushed countless enemies before it. Leading with his ax, he was certain that it would eradicate the prancing fool before him. Thus it came as quite the surprise when a clawed fist thundered into the side of his jaw mid-leap. His head struck an upturned gravestone, white-light shattered behind his rheumy vision, and quite suddenly he found himself sprawled on his back. To his credit, Gascoigne immediately writhed back to his feet, fully prepared to pay him back a hundred fold...
...when he tried to rise, his foe merely brained him with the rod again.
Dazed, he crashed back to the earth, cradling his head in his hands.
"Now, then." a low hum rose in his ears, soft and menacing.
Too late, he saw Naruto looming over him. Smiling.
"Hold still while I fix your everything!"
A/N: If there's one thing that truly tugged at my heart strings it was the fate of Father Gascoigne and his family. I mean sheesh things just snowballed spectacularly the moment I fought him. Poor bastard killed his wife, his daughter got eaten by a pig, and then the other daughter commits suicide.
I am a horrible person and I feel horrible for killing him.
Don't we all? I'd love to hear your thoughts~!
So in the Immortal Words of Atlas...
...Review, Would You Kindly?
And enjoy the previews.
Potential ones!
Hope they make you smile!
(Previews)
"OH YEAH!"
"Moonlight scents!" Iosefka yelped as someone barreled through her door. "What is the meaning of this, good sir?!"
"Nothing much, just kidnapping you before some crazy bitch turns you into some eldritch abomination."
...what?"
"Right, kidnapping you now! Off to the cathedral ward!"
His companion merely sighed. "Just bear with it, he's always like this!
...you DO realize my daughter used to be an Archdemon. And you've just pissed her off. Sweetie, play with the nice man for a bit, would you?"
Brangaine chirruped happily.
"Riiiiiight. You're obviously less than trustworthy. Stabbing you now!"
"Giant beast girly says what?"
Amelia actually paused.
...hrrr?"
Then a wave of golden light surged over her twisted body.
"My answer? Oh, that's simple. I have it right here!"
One finger rose in a saucy salute.
...well! Now that's just rude."
"A corpse should be left well alone."
"A corpse should not be talking in the first place!"
R&R~! =D