Chapter 9: Desperate Struggles

Lucca had managed to jump out of the tower as it was crumbling down. She wasn't very damaged by the blast because her spry legs took advantage of the blast's force to jump away and carry her to safety before she even had time to plan her exit. She jumped to a nearby roof and took cover to try to spy on her opponents, leaning against a wall. Scouting the streets, she spotted a hulking man with an arm cannon and took two deep breaths before trying to snipe him again. She lined up the shot but before she could take it, she felt something pressed against her head and heard a young girl's voice: "I wouldn't do that if I were you, sis, he might get mad, and I don't care to babysit him if he does".

Lucca's blood froze, the girl had a gun to her head. Her mind raced: how could she escape such a predicament? She slowly took her hand off the trigger, still grasping the crossbow with her other hand. "Turn around, sis. And toss that crossbow to the side, someone might get hurt!"

Lucca did as ordered, and the crossbow fired the readied arrow as it hit the floor. This alerted the hulking guy who spotted the two girls in the roof and started walking to them. The girl holding Lucca at gunpoint was probably younger than her, maybe even too young to be among the Bloody Crow's group. She was dressed like a pirate more than a Hunter and had two pigtails on her dark hair. She was only holding a pistol, but her belt held two swords on their respective sheaths, a long one and a shorter one. "Big mistake attacking us, sis. What's yer name?" Her accent was that of a pirate too. This girl probably was part of the ship's crew, Lucca thought.

"Lucca", she said in a trembling voice.

"I never heard of no Lucca", said the pirate girl in disappointment; "Well, I'm V'kebbe and the big feller's Teach! I'm sorry you chose to not stay home during this rainfall, but I hope your Echoes are good! Bye now!"

Lucca sensed she was about to press the trigger and jumped to the side. She wouldn't just die without a fight. The young Yharnamite jumped out of the roof, darting for where her crossbow had been thrown, but wasn't fast enough, and got a bullet in the shoulder as V'kebbe tried to prevent her from escaping.

Before she landed on the ground, she heard two more shots, and felt them hit her back, staggering her and bringing her to her knees as she hit the floor.

"What are you doing sis? You can't run from us, you might as well get this over with!" yelled V'kebbe from the roof.

As Lucca looked to her crossbow, the hulking brute that held a cannon was snapping it in two as if it was a mere pencil. The man had a gigantic muscular build, dressed all in black, with a round black hat and a black torn cape flowing behind him and tied up in the front covering his mouth. His dark hair was long and drifted freely in the night. There was a big sword in a sheath on his belt and a portable hand cannon on his arm. Teach, as V'kebbe had just described him, walked to the kneeling Lucca and picked her up from her neck, lifting her completely off the ground and choking her with one hand that was big enough to wrap around her whole neck. She struggled, grabbing his hand and trying to peel off his fingers; she kicked him everywhere but to no effect. His right hand squeezed her ever harder, and she felt her whole neck start to not resist the brute's strength as the air became increasingly rare in her lungs. As she looked directly into Teach's eyes, she saw nothing but indifference.

Lucca knew she was about to die, having not helped her friends or accomplished anything she wanted for her life. Her resolve wavered, as her consciousness was fading, but her instincts kicked in, and out of her pocket, she drew a poisoned throwing knife she stabbed on the brute's right hand. As she did this, he did indeed drop her, and took a few steps back. Lucca immediately fell down to her knees, holding her severely damaged neck. V'kebbe, however, saw this and jumped down from the roof, taking three more shots at Lucca, with two hitting her in the chest and arm. Lucca felt completely drained of strength, but knew she had to move. A heavy metallic taste infiltrated her mouth; no doubt the blood from her injuries wasn't just leaking to the outside of her body.

As she spit out blood, V'kebbe laughed: "What a weakling! Why do ye even put up a fight? Why go down in pain if ye could have died quickly?"

Teach speaks for the first time: "Her blood's not even good for the Queen, let's just leave her to rot, lest our offer offends!" The hulking man drew a big broadsword he hadn't yet drawn and swung at Lucca with all his strength.

She needed to move, but her legs refused to, so she just used her arms to push herself and rolled on the ground, dodging to the side. The impact of the sword was so strong it even damaged the cobblestone tiles making up the pavement of the street.

Lucca punched her legs, trying to move. It was a pitying sight as the girl was completely bloody, her body shot several times already. "This isn't fun, just kill her!" said V'kebbe.

Lucca looked ahead and realized Teach was putting his sword away again, what was he going to do? Her legs finally mustered some strength and she managed to pull herself up to her feet. It was then she realized Teach was pointing his portable arm cannon at her. "Rest now, young Hunter" whispered Teach, prompting Lucca to run with her last remaining strength, entering a building that was blown away to bits and pieces as soon as she entered. Her body mixed up with the rubble as she was projected across the building and then outside still, so big was the impact of the cannon shot. Blood pooled around her, but her eyes caught a final glimpse of the Lady Maria before they closed; or maybe it was all just her frail imagination playing tricks on her; she thought as her mind went blank.

Seeing the immobile body of Lucca made the memories of her beating and humiliation come flooding back to Maria. The memories of the Vile Blood she was tricked into consuming. The Bloody Crow was responsible for her pain and now he was causing it to yet another young Hunter. She would not allow it, she thought as she planned her counter-attack.

In the meantime, Ludwig kept baiting an ever more frustrated Ayla into wasting her energy attacking him. He could sense the others getting impatient, especially with her inability to land a hit. The two were fighting at a standstill when the second cannon shot was heard. Which distracted Ayla and made Ludwig think it was the time to stop beating around the bush. He was worried about his friends, even if he was way more outnumbered than them.

With another dodge to the side, Ludwig let Ayla's blade slide across his and then pushed on his blade to throw the woman off balance after her swing. However, instead of taking a regular swipe at her, like he had been doing the entire fight, he attuned his Holy Moonlight Sword and shot a blast of energy directly at Ayla. Ludwig wasn't super used to using the Moonlight blasts in battle, but at point blank range, there was no way he would miss. The blast hit her with full force and sent her flying into a nearby wall with a loud bang. The impact splattered blood all over the wall and clearly broke a lot of bones on the woman's body. However, the move stunned even Ludwig by leaving a gashing wound that almost covered her torso from top to bottom; a wound that let out blood profusely… Not even Ludwig expected such damage. After a few seconds stuck to the wall, she toppled over with a completely shocked look on her bloodied, unmoving face.

The other three Cainhurst Hunters were taken back by this move and each drew their weapons. Victor had a Reiterpallasch, Marle had a pair of small curved daggers and Janus had what looked like a Workshop Threaded Cane. Ayla, lying on the floor without being able to move, had most of her bones broken, but was still able to utter a few final words before fainting: "Bastard! You'll pay for this!"

Victor, the apparent leader of the group laughed: "Too late to be making empty threats, my girl, we'll take this from here!" Ludwig realized his time of fighting one-on-one was over, as he readied his blade close to him.

"So, I guess this is the famed Holy Blade? Our spies have reported about it, shamefully there wasn't much to say about its owner, but we've already seen you fight, and you wasted your trump card on your very first opponent." said Janus mockingly.

"Might as well give up. We'll of course be taking the Blade…" taunted Victor.

Ludwig's heart raced at the thought of losing his weapon and it being taken by these Hunters, but calmed himself down by thinking he'd be too dead to care if it actually happened. He did think it dumb to care more about the weapon being in someone else's hand than about his possible death though, but his random thoughts were quickly stopped when all three Hunters dashed for him. "Come get it!" yelled Ludwig just to try to psych himself up.

Attacks came from all sides, as the Cainhurst Hunters perfectly worked together to attack one after the other. Victor poked Ludwig from the front with his Reiterpallasch, a kind of Estoc with a gun attached, while Marle, who hasn't once addressed Ludwig or uttered any words, dashed around him and attacked the Cleric from his back with a swipe of her daggers. Defending from a poking weapon was a piece of cake for the giant Moonlight Blade, but dealing with attacks coming from both sides was virtually impossible. Ludwig tried rolling away when Marle attacked, and did manage to avoid both her and Victor, but was immediately slashed on his right arm by Janus' extended Threaded Cane, which he was using as a slashing whip made up of tiny blades.

The wound wasn't deep and Ludwig ignored Janus' attack completely, deciding instead to charge a beam he fired at Victor and Marle, who both quickly jumped out of the way, predicting what he was going to do before he did it. The blast hit the wall of the house Ayla had crashed into before and the entire wall crumbled, burying her in rubble. "That's the wrong opponent, good Hunter!" teased Janus with malice.

Ludwig felt out of his depth. How could he fight three opponents at once? How could he try to isolate them? Was it even possible to trick three people working together against him? That's when he remembered Amelia was waiting for them to wrap this up and looking out for possible reinforcements. Distracting her away from her mission was risky, but fighting three enemies at once wouldn't really work out for him. There was little choice left.

Although he rarely used it, Ludwig always had a regular Hunter Pistol with him. He grabbed said gun and took a random shot at his enemies to try to hold them back before he started running for Amelia's location while reloading. He needed a plan, she couldn't be caught off guard or she'd just be in more danger than he is, but how could he warn her without letting his pursuers know someone was waiting to back him up?

He had barely started running when all his enemies started shooting at him too, hitting him in the back with three shots. He flinched and stabbed his sword in the ground, hiding behind the giant blade. They weren't just going to pursue and he couldn't outsmart them, which meant he had to be stronger, endure their attacks and overpower the three of them. Ludwig closed his eyes as he hid behind the sword and his enemies spread out around him again. They were on quite a wide street for such an old part of town, and he could see Janus in front of him, while Victor and Marle approached from the sides at close to 90 degrees.

Marle and Janus used their guns to shoot at Ludwig, while Victor used his Reiterpallasch to shoot. He endured as the shots hit the attuned blade, but got shot on his left arm, as the sword couldn't hide his entire body. That's when the two diagonally approaching enemies jumped towards him. As they tried to slash down at him, Ludwig tipped the blade of his sword forward only just slightly, and shot the strongest possible blast of Moonlight he could create at the floor below him. The solid ground of cobblestone cracked as Ludwig was propelled back with the blast and debris flew all around the blast area. Ludwig endured the blast back as he was ready for it, but Victor and Marle were blown away completely because they were caught mid-jump by the shockwave, each of them smashing into the houses surrounding the path with minimal damage. Janus however was unaffected as he put up some sort of red barrier in front of him that almost looked like it was made of blood particles.

Ludwig didn't try to run this time, he jumped back into the fray, dashing straight in the direction of Victor, hoping that killing the guy that looked like the leader would demoralize the others. As Ludwig ran, he charged his blade again and fired it at the ground behind him, propelling him forward at an amazing speed. The jump allowed him to roll in mid-air and swing down at Victor, who was still recovering from the blast, cleaving him from the side of his neck all the way to his abdomen. The Cainhurst Hunter died on the spot, his body twitching as his blood sprung out of the gaping wound, covering Ludwig from head to toe.

Ludwig wasn't about to let the small victory stop him, but as he was turning to face the others, he immediately felt Marle's blades pierce both his shoulders. She had rushed to him, not even flinching at her companion's death; shattering Ludwig's expectations. The woman twisted her knives in Ludwig's shoulders, suddenly making him feel like his arms weighted multiple tons. He didn't know what to do, but the woman's knives were so short that she was basically standing immediately next to him, so he decided to head-butt her, which did surprise her and made her fall back, leaving her with a bloody nose and her daggers stuck on Ludwig's shoulders. Although he could barely keep a hold of his sword with his right hand, Ludwig tried as hard as he could to reach for the dagger on his right shoulder using his left hand. He did manage to grab it and pull it out, throwing it on the floor, but he could no longer lift his arm to attack anyway. His breath was irregular; his blood was dripping down his arms. He had to lean against a nearby wall just to be able to stand. He was done.

Janus stopped for few seconds looking at Marle, probably checking what she was doing next, but then turned to face Ludwig. He swung his Threaded Whip at Ludwig, who instead of raising his sword, had to hold on to it and crouch behind it to avoid getting it. That's when Marle dashed forward and rolled on the floor, grabbing the dagger Ludwig had thrown away, using her left hand, which she raised to attack him. Ludwig prepared to be hit, but felt no blow.

Instead, a series of connected blades wrapped themselves around Marle's entire left arm, carving themselves in her flesh, and not letting her swing at Ludwig. It was an extended Threaded Cane, in whip mode, and it belonged to Vicar Amelia, who was on a nearby roof using her whole strength to hold back Marle. "Run away!" she yelled at Ludwig in a desperate voice while throwing a Molotov cocktail at Janus who was just preparing for a rescue. Although Janus swiftly dodged back to avoid the flames, this created and opening for Ludwig, who instead of running, took a hold of his sword with both arms and used all his remaining strength to swing at Marle.

Ludwig's speed and power were severely diminished by all his wounds, but a swing from such a weapon at such close range would kill anyone without some sort of armour. Marle wasn't about to let herself be killed though, so she reacted fast by spin jumping in the air, twisting her whole body, which dislocated her arm and made Amelia's whip blades carve even deeper in her flesh. This move did allow Marle to get out of the sword's way, but her entangled arm couldn't accompany her moves and was swiftly cut off by Ludwig's sword, as it missed the critical hit on her body. Just as the severed limb was amputated from Marle, blood gushed out, covering the already blood-soaked Ludwig.

Marle dashed back a little closer to Janus holding her gory stump. The arm was almost cut clean-off and the blood kept gushing out of her wound. Amelia recoiled her whip discarding the severed arm to the floor and jumped down from the roof, quickly injecting Ludwig with a Blood Vial to try to get him to recover from the lighter wounds. "Are you ok? You were making a lot of noise, I had to come check on you all!"

"Not great, but thanks, I thought I was done for!" let out Ludwig, as the rapid-Healing Blood made its way through his body. The blood worked quickly, sealing his wounds and filling him with an elation incomparable to anything else. This is how it always was. The ecstasy of the Hunt grew more and more with each subsequent heal until a party was victorious at last. Ludwig stood up straight and felt his arms' strength return, raising his attuned sword and resting it on his shoulder as he stared down his two remaining enemies.

In another nearby street, an enraged Maria wondered how Ludwig was doing and was getting antsier and antsier about not being by his side to help with the remaining enemies. Her mind also wondered about the hostages, the boat and Amelia, but she knew her first step was to turn her own battle around. A battle that was about to get two new opponents added to it.

The two hostages had indeed been left unguarded in the horse cart and one of them was getting nervous at all the fighting sounds. After much clawing at the bag over his head, the man managed to remove it, even though his hands were still tied to the horse cart itself. As he looked down the street at the sounds of battle, the scared scholar caught the glint of Ludwig's Holy Moonlight Sword, and its light gave him back his hope.