Izuku left the temple with his mind swimming in empty buildings, forsaken cloth, and directionless people. The Great Game was sure to bring about change, that much was never a question. He had even imagined that there would be unrest as the only Gods people had known for what was, for all intents and purposes, recorded history died. New ones would take their place, but what would be different? Would the Gods require different forms of worship?
That was something he hadn't thought of before now. Requiring worship was such an odd thing. Certainly, he believed that it was important to venerate the Gods, but he was about to be one of them. The idea of being worshiped made him uncomfortable, but making it mandatory seemed so strange. Could he just not require it? What happened if a God wasn't worshiped? Moreover, if he were the King, what kind of precedent would that set? Could it cause issues with the other Gods?
"He does that," he suddenly heard Iida saying. "Sometimes, when he gets his mind on a topic, he'll start muttering about it. He'll quit eventually, either when he finishes thinking about it or sometime tells him he's doing it."
Izuku clapped his hands over his mouth. "Sorry!" he said, the word muffled by his palms. He had been saying that out loud?! For how long? They must not have heard what he was saying, since they didn't seem angry. Or at least, Iida didn't. He didn't know how Uraraka would take his lie at this point, since they'd only just met.
She giggled at him. "You don't need to be. It's not like you were so loud we couldn't talk or anything." She looked at Iida. "So, what's the plan? You said something about another commitment? What is it?"
"I'm not sharing that at this time. Suffice to say, we are heading further west, and that is all you need to know until we arrive at our destination."
"Don't worry," Izuku said, dropping his hands to show an attempt at a comforting smile. "He hasn't told me, either."
This did appear to have the conciliatory effect he had sought on her. "When are we leaving?"
"At dawn tomorrow. We only stopped for the day to refresh our supplies and acquire some items not found at the last market we visited."
"Tomorrow?" she said. Uraraka looked up at the last vestiges of pinkish red in the sky before night came. "If we're going tomorrow, I have to go say goodbye to someone!" She took several running steps before spinning on her heel. "You should come too! She's a Godling, so you'll have to meet her eventually, right?"
Iida's brow furrowed, but he followed, as did Izuku. "How many Godlings are in this city?" asked the former.
"Well, until you showed up, I thought it was just me and Mina." Uraraka continued walking backwards. "I didn't know about Todoroki until I happened to see Midoriya standing up to him. But Mina's been here for a long time! I'm surprised you guys haven't heard about her. She's been throwing revels every night outside of the south gate for at least a month."
"Socializing was not an activity we partook in today, beyond what was necessary to acquire our supplies."
Once the two of them caught up with her, she turned and began walking forwards again. "Well, maybe you should do that a little. You'd be surprised what you can learn by just talking and listening to the people you see."
Izuku privately put himself in the 'listening' category. Talking was obviously not one of his strong suits. How would he have even begun a conversation that would lead to 'Godling throwing revels' today? It didn't actually matter, of course, but it was ultimately a good thing that Uraraka was joining them, and for more reasons than he had originally thought.
As they passed through the city, he tried listening to the people they walked by, putting her theory to the test. By and large, he learned nothing. At this hour, with the sky tinged with the last rays of a sun that had just disappeared over the horizon, people weren't out on the streets in numbers. Those that were mostly moved with purpose to wherever they were going. Some pairs or trios of people moved and spoke of things that were unimportant or rather personal, the latter instances making Izuku feel incredibly self-conscious of what he was doing and quite guilty. As they drew closer to the southern end of the city, however, more people were heading in the same direction as them. He did hear excited whispers and exclamations about the revel, the drinks, and the dancing, but especially the nymph.
Based on what he gathered from those who spoke of her, the host was likely a flower nymph. Descriptions of her pink skin and strange eyes (and other traits that Izuku preferred not to dwell on, as they made him feel dirty and turned his face red) gave credence to this theory, but they also described horns, which didn't seem right for what he knew of that particular subspecies. It was possible that she was a wood nymph, but the lack of bark in the eavesdropped recollections made that unlikely. He wasn't exactly an expert on nymph physiology, so it wasn't as though his was the final say, but he had learned quite a bit about them early in his employment, when he was enamored with Awata.
They were very near the gate when Izuku finally realized he had been tuning Iida and Uraraka out for some time as he listened to the people around them. Thankfully, the conversation didn't seem terribly important, if it could even be called one. Uraraka was trying to engage Iida with small talk, and the nobleman was proving resistant to her attempts.
Noticing his glance over to them, she addressed Izuku directly. "Hey, welcome back to the land of the living! We kept trying to talk to you, but you were way up in your head." She lifted her staff above her head to emphasize her point.
"Ahaha... Sorry. I, uh, was trying to listen to people around us like you said, and... I guess I forgot to listen to you?" He felt his ears burning slightly.
She seemed oddly excited. "Oooh! What'd you learn?"
"Nothing, uh, nothing much. Just... That Mina is a nymph. Probably a flower nymph, if I had to guess, but the fact that she has horns is... a little odd? I guess? Based on what I know about them, anyways."
"Well, we're almost there. You could ask her yourself!"
They heard the revel before they saw it. As they approached the gate, singing (drunken and otherwise), music, and the low buzzing of a large number of people speaking in the distance could be heard, growing louder by the step. Passing through it, the mass of revelers was immediately visible. Gathered in a crowd off the main road were several cheap cloth pavilions, under which were tables and seating. While one would generally assume they were there for people to eat, nobody at the tables had a dish, though many appeared to be drinking. Past the pavilions was shifting mass of dancing people, barely visible due to the ring of onlookers surrounding them. The sounds of music drifted from the gathering, played by unseen instruments.
"That's... a lot of people..." Izuku swallowed. It wasn't as though he hadn't ever been to a festival, or even just around large crowds. The gathering before him was more intimidating for reasons he didn't fully understand.
"Come on!" Uraraka said. She grabbed Izuku's hand, causing greater discomfort and a bright flash of red across his face (both of which went unnoticed by the other Godling), and hauled him towards it. He looked back to Iida for... Something. Some kind of support, or a reprimand to respect Izuku's space, anything to change the circumstances he found himself in. However, his friend just smiled good-naturedly and followed at his own measured pace.
The globe-headed staff proved a useful tool for breaching the fringes of the revel. When she first raised it, some part of Izuku expected her to bring it back down to swiftly beat people out of the way. The thought was unbidden and confusing; though he hadn't known Uraraka for long, he doubted she would do such a thing. No, what she did was use it to gently touch a woman on the back as she said, gently but with considerable volume, "Excuse me!" Once the first foothold was made, the staff parted people like a boulder parted an oncoming river. It probably didn't take as long as it seemed to navigate through the crowd. He felt mildly claustrophobic throughout their transit, but the barrier of people couldn't have been more then five deep, even if it was tightly pressed.
After they had entered the revel proper, they began skirting around the dancers. Uraraka was looking intently into the group, apparently sure that this was the correct place to search. Izuku realized she was right when he began to catch flashes of pink through the gaps in the press of bodies. It seemed like she was moving around quite a bit, as the sightings always seemed to come from a slightly different direction.
Uraraka let go of his hand. "MINA!" she yelled over the noise of the revel, jumping and waving her staff. "MINAAAA!"
For the briefest second, a pink head bobbed up from the center of the crowd, looking in their direction, before it sank back into the mob of dancers. Uraraka's first name was shouted back over the noise, and after nearly half a minute, she had finally worked her way free of the group.
Izuku had been ready for her to be attractive. She was a nymph, after all; a plain nymph still outshone a pretty human by a fair margin. He hadn't been prepared for how attractive she was, however. Her mode of dress left little doubt that the unsavory comments he had overheard were true, which brought his face back to the color of a tomato without delay. Rather than dressing in any normal fashion, she wore a green tunic sized for a man three or four times larger than her like it was a dress. One arm was in its very baggy sleeve, while the other joined her neck in filling out the collar. Because of this, the hem came down to her knees at an angle. A well-worn belt around her waist (or where you'd expect the large man's ribs to be, were he wearing it) kept it from billowing like the oversized garment it was. She wore no shoes, and the only other adornment to be found were a series of brightly colored flowers woven into her hair. They appeared to have two layers of petals, with the inner layer being a bright pink to match her skin and hair, and the outer layer the soft blue of a clear sky.
The thing that caught him most about her appearance, however, was her eyes. In stark contrast to the bright coloration of the rest of her body, her eyes were black and amber. Izuku had seen a few nymphs in his life – there were a couple that lived just outside Shizuoka – and many illustrations, but he'd never seen one with eyes like that. He found it hard to look away.
A sudden rap against his shoulder brought him back to the present. He looked and saw Uraraka withdrawing her staff. The nymph – Mina – was looking at him with an eyebrow raised. It occurred to him that someone had probably asked him something.
And he hadn't noticed.
Because he was staring.
Great way to make a first impression.
"Uh, what? Sorry? I, uh... Didn't catch that?" he said. It was at this moment his mind chose to register that his face was still flushed, which made the problem worse.
"I asked if you saw where Iida went," Uraraka repeated.
"Oh, I... No, I didn't. Um." It was an excellent opportunity to look anywhere that wasn't at Mina. The dancers were still dancing, the drinkers still drinking, and the onlookers still onlooking. Iida was nowhere to be seen.
He felt a soft sensation brush up against his back. It was like a breeze, but... different, somehow. A breeze without wind, maybe? When he turned around, Uraraka was floating ten feet into the air. "I see him!" she said. "He's still by the pavilions!" She sank down to rejoin them.
Mina grinned. "Well, let's go! Do you guys need food?"
Uraraka shook her head. "Oh, no thanks. We just ate."
Mina gave her a suspicious glance. "And you ate enough during the day?"
The Godling of Magic nodded, to which Izuku furrowed his brow. Hadn't she said she skipped lunch?
"I don't know, the look on your sweetheart's face makes me think you're lying."
Uraraka's face quickly matched Izuku's. "What? No, he's not... I just met him today! It's not like that!"
"Oh, Ochako, that's adorable!" Mina gushed. "Just met, and you two are already so close? A little blossoming romance between Godlings?"
While he choked on his tongue, the blushing girl stomped her foot. "Mina, stop it! I've known him for less than a day, and we're not involved! He's not even the Godling, that's Iida! And I'm not interested in him, either!"
The nymph's expression faded quickly, as did her interest in Izuku. "Oh. Well, that's no fun." She sighed. "Come on, let's go sit down, then. We'll get you guys something to eat, since you're clearly dodging that subject." With a swift heel turn, she began moving towards the tables.
As they followed, he whispered to Uraraka, "I'm, uh... Sorry about that."
She pouted slightly. "It's not your fault. She's acted like that every time she's seen me with a guy."
He kept quiet, not sure how to respond to that.
"She's really nice, though. I don't exactly have a lot of money, so sometimes I've had to skip meals in order to pay for a room. That's actually how I met her... I had heard about the revel and came to see if I could get something to eat here. When we realized we were both Godlings, we became friends pretty quickly. And she always makes sure I have enough food."
"Yeah, um, speaking of food... I haven't seen anyone with any here."
A secretive smile crept onto her face. "Well... You'll just have to see."
Somehow, that felt ominous.
Getting back to the tables was much easier than getting into the ring, as people parted for Mina without any prompting. Several men tried to approach and speak to her, but she rebuffed them quickly.
"Which one is he?" She called over her shoulder.
"Uh... Hey, Iida!" Izuku waved to get his companion's attention.
He lifted an arm in response, but before he could speak, Mina said, "Hey, get us a table!" And broke from her course to approach a heavily populated area littered with kegs spent, tapped, and unopened. As the rest of them sat down, she swiped three mugs from a collection of similar ones. Ignoring another man, she returned and placed one of the mugs in front of each of them.
"For someone who has been throwing a festival in all but name, you seem terribly disinterested in your guests," Iida observed.
"Oh, sure," she said. "I mean, I was happy to talk to everyone who showed up in the beginning. I've always loved learning about new people and places. But, after a while, every conversation seemed to end with an attempt to get me in bed, so I stopped talking to men."
It was an understandable reaction. "Why keep doing this, then?" Izuku asked.
"Because it's fun," she said noncommittally. Without waiting for a further response, she held a hand above Uraraka's mug. A syrupy teal liquid began to pour from her open palm, filling it in a matter of seconds. "Who's hungry?"
Neither Izuku nor Iida responded, looking at the brimming mug with suspicion. Uraraka, however, picked it up and began drinking without hesitation.
"What is that?" Iida asked.
"I call it Nectar. I can make all sorts of different kinds. It's the power I get from my mantle. As long as it comes from a plant, I can create it, mix it, whatever you want to call it." She held her hand over her mouth and a similar liquid, though more yellow, fell into it. She swallowed and grinned. "Never have to worry about food around here! Or drink, if that's what you prefer. Either of you drinkers? I can do alcohol, too."
The possibilities paralyzed Izuku. Anything that came from a plant? His mind raced with the applications of such an ability. From medicine to food to poison to alcohol, the varied things that could be created on a whim...
"What's he doing?" Mina asked, a hint of revulsion in her voice. She turned so that her bare shoulder was farther away from him.
"Nothing nefarious, I can assure you," Iida said, saving Izuku from his own rambling explanation. "Midoriya is an intellectual and has a tendency to retreat into his thoughts, often not realizing he's doing so or that he speaks aloud."
Uraraka's eyes snapped back open and she nearly slammed her mug on the table. "Oh my Gods! I'm so sorry, I didn't introduce you all!" She took a moment to wipe her mouth. "I'm sorry, I keep doing this today. Uh, Mina, this is Izuku Midoriya and Tenya Iida. Midoriya, Iida, this is Mina!"
Still looking at Izuku with suspicion, Mina returned to her previous position in her seat. "Uh... Hi."
Izuku muttered a greeting back before looking away. It probably wasn't helping anything that he had been staring at her when he first saw her...
"If you don't mind my asking, what is your last name?" the nobleman inquired.
"Don't have one." He could still feel her looking at him. He wanted to run and hide; the embarrassment was almost too much to bear.
"Oh! My apologies. Is this conventional for nymphs? I will admit to a lack of education on the matter."
"Dunno. None of my family has last names, and I spent more time trying to learn about humans than I did with other nymphs."
"I see." There was a brief pause before, "Well then, Miss Mina, if it isn't too much trouble, I would like to sample some of this Nectar."
"Sure!" Her gaze finally shifted, and his presence felt less inherently shameful. There was a faint smack as the first of the Nectar hit the bottom of the mug, but it was quiet as it filled, like pouring honey. That consistency actually seemed about right, from what he had seen of it earlier, now that he thought about it.
"Hm. It's actually quite good. I wasn't sure about it when I first saw you producing it, but –"
Screams began to come from the direction of the dancers, and the music stopped abruptly. Izuku's eyes snapped up from the ground – he noted that, for the briefest moment before she turned to see as well, Uraraka had been giving him a concerned look – and focused in on the origin of the screams. "What the...?"
People ran in droves away from the revel. Most were running towards the gate, and therefore towards the pavilions. What they ran from wasn't clear. Everyone at their table stood up, tensed and ready for something, but unsure what to do.
"We should move," Iida said. "We're liable to get trampled if we don't move with the crowd, and whatever is causing this, we need to move towards it."
"I can float us over there," Uraraka offered. "Get us above them. We'll be able to see what's going on and get there faster."
He nodded. "Good. Let's do that. Miss Mina, are you able to fight?"
She snorted. "Of course I'm able to fight. I'm not helpless just 'cause I'm a flower nymph, you know."
"Uraraka, if you would please bring Miss Mina and myself, we can respond to whatever this is."
Izuku balked. "What? What about me?"
"You are not ready to fight. Go back to the inn and await my return."
"I'm not just going to –"
"What you are not going to do is nearly get yourself killed like when you stood against the Godling of War."
"Uraraka," he pleaded. Clearly, Iida wasn't going to listen.
She finished her quiet chanting, and the three of them lifted off the ground. "Sorry, Midoriya," she said. "If you can't fight, I'm not going to help you get hurt." Before he could rebut her statement, they shot out the back of the pavilion, rose above it, and were gone. Moments later, the first of the runners began to stampede through the area.
"I'm not just going to sit here and not help," he growled to himself. Izuku jumped up on the table to get himself out of their path, bringing a chair up with him. "GO! RUN!" he yelled. "TO THE GATES! GET INTO THE CITY!" With wild gesticulation and repeated commands, he kept the tide moving in his desired direction and a sufficient distance from him that the table wasn't knocked over. It was an eternity of waiting, but after two long minutes, enough people had run that he could make headway towards the former site of the revel. Wielding the chair by its back, he ran out to see what was going on.
Dozens of skeletons and bodies in various states of decay walked under the moonlight. Groups of revelers were being kept from escape by encroaching undead all over the grounds. Iida danced deftly through the ones nearest him, shattering bones with heavy swings of his sword, nothing like the elegant movements he had taught Izuku for fighting more conventional targets. Uraraka was still airborne, making sweeping motions with her staff. Zombies and skeletons alike were thrown aside by some unseen force, though they were rarely felled by a single swipe. Mina slid over the ground, leaving a trail of Nectar in her wake as she slung it into the adversaries. Those that were hit lost whatever surface the Nectar came into contact with as it ate through their flesh and bones with a speed that was, quite frankly, terrifying.
He had gawked for too long. People were in danger. Running forward, he let out a mighty yell and brought the chair down over a zombie with its back to him. It collided harshly with the ground, but attempted to rise again. He smacked the edge seat against its head, crushing it with a sickening noise that nearly made him vomit. He tried not to look at the wet stain on the wood as he continued on, utterly destroying a skeleton's ribcage with a heavy horizontal swipe. Its limbs scattered and ceased moving.
The recovery time from this blow cost him as something bit into his side. He moved away from it as soon as the pressure started, but felt a warm trickling nonetheless. A spear-bearing skeleton advanced on him, jabbing again and again, trying to force him towards its allies and keep him from using his improvised weapon. He dodged, panicking. The sound of footsteps behind him indicated that his time was running out. Perhaps Iida had been right...
He shoved the thought out of his mind. He wouldn't die here. The implications of an undead Godling aside, he wasn't done. Izuku moved to the side around the next lunge, utilizing one of the movements he had been taught. The chair was no sword, but it could still be used to block. He used the momentum of his movement to spin slightly, bringing the seat up between him and his attacker. A solid thunk rang out as it bit into the wood. He twisted it, catching the spear between the legs, and pushed. The spear was forced down, and he dropped the chair as he jumped forward with his arm drawn back. With all the might he could muster, Izuku forced his fist into the skeleton's skull.
All the might he could muster, Izuku quickly realized, was probably not the wisest thing to do. The bones shattered underneath his knuckles. Fragments exploded out in all directions, and the back of the skull flew away. With the magic binding it together sufficiently disrupted, the abomination fell apart just like the previous one.
"Can't do that again, what if someone saw..." he muttered. The sound of another footfall behind him reminded him of the danger he was in, and a hand grabbed his tunic as he spun around. The stench of rotting flesh filled his nose. He kicked at the zombie's leg. His tunic ripped as it fell. Izuku grabbed the chair again and brought it hammering down into its body. The sound of shattering wood filled the area as it came apart, leaving the only the back in his hands. Undeterred, he slammed it into his opponent several more times before it stopped moving.
Izuku spared a moment to check the area around him. Iida and Uraraka were freeing a group of trapped people from the last of the undead that harassed them. Mina was moving rapidly around two groups herself, melting any assailant that drew too close to them while keeping out of reach. The group Izuku was heading towards was still in danger, and there were more besides that had nobody to help them yet. He swallowed and tried to steel his nerves. There weren't enough of them, but they had to do what they could.
Somewhere behind him, from the city, a horn sounded. The guard must be mobilizing. He looked down to try and find a replacement weapon. Besides the scattered pieces of chair, all there was was the spear.
He had no idea how to use a spear.
A chair leg was kind of like a club, though, and a club wasn't shaped too differently from a sword.
He picked up a rounded leg from his former weapon and ran forward. He fell on the monsters from behind, splattering rotten brains and smashing dried bones. He tried to measure his strength, to not reveal his mantle's influence by striking a blow too mighty for his mortal arms, but it was hard. His heart hammered in his chest, and only-barely-controlled panic encouraged him to hit as hard and fast as he could manage. "Run!" he yelled, having made a small passage through the oncoming enemies. He threw his body into a skeleton that came at him with an axe, as he didn't have time to bring the leg around and honestly wasn't sure he could parry a blow without injuring himself. They hit the ground and its bones broke under him.
He scrambled back to his feet. "Run, go! I'll protect you!"
The people listened, starting with a middle-aged man sprinting through the opening. Izuku sprung as soon as he had passed, a two-handed blow destroying the arm of a zombie that reached for vulnerable prey. The others followed behind him, fleeing to the safety of the city.
A female voice rang through the air above them. "What utterly useless peons!"
He spun and looked up, seeing a young blonde woman gliding down from the top of a lonely tree. Her red dress fluttered as she touched down, looking around the grounds. As she licked her lips, Izuku noticed her crimson eyes and pointed fangs. The part of his mind that was closer to animal than man whimpered and whined for him to run, instincts recognizing a predator immediately.
"You there! Pinky!" she called, turning and pointing a clawed finger towards Mina. Now able to see her back, Izuku recognized with stomach-clenching terror that her dress was originally white.
Mina slid to a stop, registering the new arrival. When she did, the vampire let out a twisted giggle. "C'mere! You've got something that belongs to me!"
The Godling slung more Nectar at surrounding undead. "I don't know who you are, but I've got nothing that doesn't belong to me!"
The vampire produced a knife from somewhere. "Yes you do! He said that your mantle is mine!" She sprinted forward at an inhuman speed. "So give it! It's mine, you can't have it anymore!"
Izuku watched Mina shoot a glance to each side of her. Iida and Uraraka had turned and were moving to join her, but more monsters were closing in on the remaining civilians. He saw her face change as she made a decision. "If you want it, you'll have to come and get it!" Nectar exploded out from her feet, propelling her backwards. She turned and raced away from the city, away from the people, from her allies, and from the dead. The vampire followed, steadily gaining on her as the two moved slowly out of sight.
"Midoriya!" Iida called. "What are you doing?! I told you to go back to the inn!"
He didn't answer. He was stuck in his mind, trying to make an impossible decision. There already weren't enough of them to save all of the people here. With Mina gone, more would die, but her leaving was the right choice. It prevented Iida and Uraraka from being distracted from the revelers while they tried to help her. The same should hold true to Izuku, but could he just leave her on her own? Could she beat a vampire by herself? Could he risk letting her try? But if he went after her, that left only his friends to save everyone else. Even with the guard coming, more would meet their end before the fight was over. What was more important? Saving innocents, or saving a Godling? Could one life outweigh all of those others?
He was running after her before he had finished consciously making the decision. It made him sick to his stomach, but Mina was more important. If she died to the vampire, then the vampire would be a Godling. That would cause more death and misery in the future, far outweighing the cost in lives now.
He desperately hoped that Iida and Uraraka, both of whom were yelling at him to stop and come back, would be able to save them all. He lied and told himself they would, that the guard would arrive in time.
He was getting better at lying. He was able to force himself to believe it enough that he didn't feel like vomiting anymore.
Izuku's lungs burned as he followed the trail of Nectar. It must have been minutes that he had been running. He had never thought of a minute as a long time, but he was swiftly learning that while running for someone's life, anything more than a few seconds was an eternity. The revel was far behind him, and his quarry not yet in his sight.
For as hard as his breath came, he didn't feel the same pains in his limbs. In fact, a part of his mind realized that he hadn't felt the telltale aches he'd been developing since he attacked that first zombie. Not willing to devote precious brainpower to something that didn't matter at the moment, he chalked it up to the power his mantle had gained and kept running as fast as he could.
After another torturous half minute, he crested a bluff and saw them at the bottom. Mina stood still as the vampire, her hair having fallen out of its buns, walked slowly towards her. Izuku immediately recognized what was happening. He had read that looking into a vampire's eyes gave them power to paralyze your body, and the two of them were certainly locking eyes.
As he started sprinting down the hill, he had an idea. Izuku hopped onto the Nectar trail. His balance didn't prove up to the task for long. He slid halfway down the hill before tumbling head over heel the rest of the way down. The pain in his side from where the spearman (spearskeleton?) had stabbed him intensified, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it had ripped further open.
When he stopped that bottom of the hill, he wasted precious seconds reorienting himself. Rising to his hands and knees, then unsteadily to his feet, he shook his head to correct his swimming vision. When he finally was able to move forward again, he saw that the vampire was dangerously close to Mina, mere steps from her. He'd never make it in time.
There was only one option. He switched his makeshift club into his left hand, drew his dagger, and then gripped it by the blade like he'd read. Drawing his arm back, he then threw it as hard as he could, willing it to find purchase in his target before she could reach hers.
He ran after the flying blade as soon as it left his hand. He watched it rather than his destination, seeing it tumble end over end through the air. His heart flew as he realized that his aim was true.
His technique, however, was not. While tumbling end over end was not an inaccurate observation of the dagger's travel, it would be more accurate if the fact that it also rotated and turned as it flew was mentioned. By the time it hit the vampire's arm, it was so off of its original course that the flat of the blade was what made contact.
Gods, at least nobody else watched it happen.
The impact was a serviceable distraction. Her gaze flitted down to see what had struck her, and Mina's body exploded into motion. She flew backwards, and this time the Nectar that came from her feet was the same kind she had been attacking the vampire's servants with. The bloodstained dress lost a good portion of fabric as it was spattered with the acidic substance, but the beast herself was not laid low by it. She sprung backwards as well.
There was a brief moment where Izuku feared his dagger would be destroyed by the nymph's escape, but he almost immediately wished that it had been. Somehow, with some unseen motion, the vampire had managed to bring it from the ground to her left hand, her right already occupied with its own knife.
"What?! What are you doing? Go away! This is between me and the Godling!" The vampire took a moment to look Izuku up and down. "...No, stay! You're cute. Let me finish up with her, and then we'll talk."
His skin crawled. He gripped the chair leg in both hands. "No way. I'll give you one chance to run, vampire, but after that, you're as good as ash!" He pointedly looked at her hands. He wouldn't get trapped by her gaze.
Mina slid to a stop next to him. He hadn't been able to tell from a distance, but she was bleeding from both arms, a leg, and a stab wound in her shoulder. "Thanks for the help, but do you really think you're going to be able to get that through her heart?"
"Hey! You stay away from him, he's mine! I saw him first!"
"No idea," Izuku said. "We'll find out, though. Keep on the other side of her. She can't defend from two directions at once."
The vampire dashed forward, blades readied.
She nodded. "Good thought." She moved back the way she came.
Izuku jumped forward into as wide a gait as he could. His enemy was fast, but she had closed much of the distance by the time Mina had started moving again. She hadn't fully corrected to head the nymph off when Izuku got in range. He managed to land a solid hit on her back with the leg, but she flowed with the strike and rolled. He staggered back as the cloth of her dress flew up in his face, and pain blossomed in his gut as a dagger punched directly under his ribs. He swung blindly, and under normal circumstances, likely wouldn't have hit her. However, she failed to immediately remove the blade. Izuku realized it was his dagger when its curve caught against his bottom rib. The pain was immense, and he made a strange, coughing gasp. The chair leg was already swinging, however, and the delay was just long enough that her hand wasn't able to withdraw. The impact drove the tip of the dagger higher within him, and the scream that left his lips was barely recognizable as his own voice. He felt her wrist crack under his weapon more than he heard it. With his vision no longer obscured by her petticoat, he saw her dodging globs of Nectar.
His vision blurred for a moment, and Izuku realized that he had probably lost more blood than was strictly safe. It was a good thing that his dagger was still in him – he'd read in a book once that not removing the weapon would keep the blood mostly inside. Well, it'd slow down the loss, at any rate. There was also internal bleeding to worry about.
He shook his head and staggered forward, intent on remaining in the fight. He saw the vampire lick a bit of blood – his blood? – off of her hand, and she froze. She turned to face him with a manic glint in her eye, and he stopped.
Shit.
"You... You taste... absolutely divine," she said in a low, husky voice. "I've never tasted anything so sweet, not even the nymph!" In an instant, she crossed the distance between him. He desperately fought to move, but his body wouldn't respond. "Oh, darling," she purred, "I was going to play with you, but I can't help myself. You're so delicious, I need you! I need to have you right now, every last drop!" She bared her fangs, and Izuku tried to scream before the end claimed him. All he could do was watch as she moved to bite him.
The bite never came, however, as a thick, viscous, sickly green fluid covered her entire face with a wet smack. "Hey, bitch, you forgot someone!"
Izuku thought he had screamed before, but the wail that left the vampire's lips was unnatural. He staggered back, the eye contact broken, and watched as the Nectar descended into her skull, eating through her eyes. Her tongue disintegrated in her mouth. She spun around, which caused the majority of the acid to schluck off her face, before shooting off into the distance. Her gurgling scream trailed behind her as she raced away from the fight.
A burning on his chest caused him to panic. Some of the Nectar that had come off of her was eating through his shirt and had made contact with his skin. He raised his hands to try to bat it off, but Mina slid up to him first. "No no, don't move!" She slammed her Nectar-covered palm into his chest, and the burning stopped getting worse. It still hurt, but at least he didn't have to worry about losing his heart or lungs to a wayward glob of acid. "I am so sorry," she said. "I didn't want to hit you, but I couldn't let her eat you, you know?"
"No, it's fine," he rasped. It was a little difficult to breathe, between the running and the bleeding and the dagger in him.
"Where are you bleeding? I can stop it."
"Left side," he said.
"I see it." A warm, gooey feeling covered the wound. It vaguely stung. "That'll keep the blood in until we can get you to a healer. Let me just..." Her hand went to his dagger.
"No! No, leave it. Might... If we move it too much, it might get worse."
"You have a knife in your chest! We can't just leave it there!"
"I... I think it's the best thing we can do. Just... I need to get to a door. Can you help me? I'm... My legs are... a little unsteady."
"If you say so," she said. Concern colored her voice. She grabbed his arm and pulled it around her shoulder to support him. "But what do you mean, a door?"
"It's... I have a magic key. I can get to a healer, I just need a door with a lock."
They started moving as quickly as they dared back towards the city. The dagger didn't hurt any less as they continued, but he figured that having the dagger there would invite less bleeding than having it not be there, provided they didn't upset its position.
"What about your cuts? Shouldn't you cover them?"
"Already have," she said. "I can make Nectar anywhere on my body. Don't worry about me."
He nodded. "Okay." After a brief pause, he added, "I'm glad you're safe."
She snorted. "A human runs out to fight a vampire with nothing but a chair leg, walks out of the fight with a dagger sticking out of his chest, and he's glad the mostly-fine Godling is okay?"
Izuku laughed, which hurt immensely. "Uh... Yeah. That's about it."
"You're a weird guy, uh... Sorry, what was your name again?"
"Izuku Midoriya."
"Izuku. Right. Sorry, I... I wasn't really listening when Ochako introduced you. I'm really sorry, I just assumed that with the staring, and you being a human man..."
The blood rushed to Izuku's cheeks, which was probably a good place for it to be, all things considered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be... creepy. You just.. your eyes are really pretty." Interesting. The word he had meant to use was 'interesting.' More blood away from his wounds was good, though, right? "Sorry, I... I didn't mean to say... I mean, they are pretty, but I didn't mean to say that..."
Mina laughed. "Don't worry about it. That's better than the compliments men usually give me, and frankly, I don't mind a compliment from a guy who nearly killed himself to try and help me."
"Well, that's good. I'm sorry, I really did mean to use a different word, but I think the blood loss has made me, uh... A little delirious."
"Okay, are you going to make it? I'd hate to have you die on me on the way back, and we have a long walk ahead of us."
"Yeah, I think I'm good. Or will be. Just... the sooner we make it to a door, the better."
They walked in a companionable silence for some time before she spoke again. "Why did you come after me? I mean, she was clearly a vampire, and that Tenya guy said you couldn't fight."
"I need to..." That was almost bad. "I just... I want to help people. I want to... to make the world a better place. World can't be better if we have a vampire Godling. And... If I didn't help you... I mean, I guess Iida or Uraraka could have, but they were busy with the undead, and someone had to stay to help the revelers. But... It's not like I only wanted to help because you were a Godling or anything, you seem nice... And I mean, if Lady Midnight chose you to be her Godling, there's... You're clearly the best choice, so... Honor the Gods and all that, right?" The explanation was rambling and didn't entirely make sense, even to Izuku. Plus, it still kind of sounded like he only cared about her because of her mantle.
"You realize that you can't see the world become a better place if you die, right?"
"I... If I don't see it... I mean, it'd be sad that my mom wouldn't know what happened, but... Better world is a better world, whether I'm there or not." It did raise the very valid concern that if he died on the way back, that vampire would still be a Godling. Best to keep his blood inside.
"What is your problem? You are missing, like, all of the self preservation instincts humans are supposed to have."
"Iida says he doesn't think I feel fear." He hadn't meant to say that out loud, that was supposed to be in his head. "I mean... I think I do. I get scared a lot. But my body moves by itself sometimes, so I guess I'm not always, uh... driving the cart, so to speak. I do things without thinking. It... Huh. Both of the times I've nearly died have been due to that, kind of. But it's worked out so far, so..."
Mina gave him an incredulous look. "You are something else, Izuku. Just when I thought I'd learned everything about humans, too."
"Nighteye told me once that every day you don't learn something new is a day that you wasted your time," he said blearily. It only occurred to him afterwards that Mina likely had no idea who he was talking about, though she didn't comment on it.
He could see a tower in the city, far in the distance. When he registered what it was, he smiled. It felt like they were going to make it after all.
There we go! Now we're back on track. I had a lot of fun writing the fights towards the end, even if they did end up going a bit faster than I originally intended. But hey, I'm still stretching my wings again, so it'll (probably) get better as I keep writing them!
Now that we've got some more Godlings in the mix, I want to tell you guys about a little side project that I'm planning. Sometime in the next few weeks, I'm going to release a new story that's just a collection of one-shots about how each Godling's initial meeting with their God went. The purpose of this is to give you a little more context on each character, what's going on with them, why the are the way they are, and also let you meet all the Gods, since Izuku probably isn't going to speak to many beyond Yagi and Grandmother directly. These will only cover Godlings that we've met in the main story so far, even if it is brief, so your first experience with each Godling will be here. They also probably won't be as long, probably trending between 3-6 thousand words, maybe more if I'm particularly vibing with the story. They will also feature lore corners! These ones will be a bit more of an in-depth look at the God featured in that chapter so that you can learn a little bit more about them. Since Izuku obviously won't be appearing anywhere in the side story, I've decided that today's lore corner will be on Yagi.
Yagi the All Mighty
Major Purviews: Justice, Strength, Rulership
Minor Purviews: Nobility, Guards, Retainers
Worshippers: Most people, but especially judges, city guards, and kings.
It shouldn't be surprising that the King of Gods is also regarded as the God of Kings. Yagi's status as the King does not command complete loyalty from his subjects, but does empower him to pass Laws that all Gods must abide by. Breaking a Law is very difficult for a God, and even if they manage it, to be discovered in doing so is to invite disaster in the form of Yagi's wrath, not to mention the enmity earned from the other Gods.
Just about every settlement in the world has at least a shrine to Yagi somewhere within its borders, though most manage at a humble chapel if not a full-blown temple. His name is not invoked on a daily basis by most, but physical strength is not all his purview encompasses. Any time one experiences hardship in life, a prayer for strength to endure through it can be made. Whether or not the God answers is often unknown, but when one makes it out the other side, a small offering is made all the same.
Interestingly, while not all judges are priests, all of Yagi's priests are regarded the world over as judges, and may arbitrate any case brought before them if true legal proceedings are unavailable.
