Chapter 10: Turning the Tide

Janus grinned creepily as he watched Marle quickly regain her composure after losing an arm to Ludwig's attack. Not taking his eyes off Ludwig and Amelia, the man grabbed a blood vial and injected it into her stump shoulder with force and disdain. The blood running out of the wound slowly began to diminish and Marle finally spoke pulling down her mouth covering: "Don't heal it, fix it!" Marle's face was horribly disfigured; her mouth was missing a big chunk of skin exposing her teeth completely. It wasn't a new wound, but likely a battle scar from long ago. Whatever it was, it only added to her imposing, scary figure.

Janus nodded and started waving his hands around, which created the same effect as the barrier from before. Except this time the red particles that seemed to make up the previous barrier flowed around him instead of grouping together. Ludwig and Maria saw the particles fly towards Marle's wound and also towards her severed limb, which was lifted off the ground and transported through the air as if floating. Ludwig knew something was off, so he threw a quick throwing knife at the limb, making the particles drop it and splatter on the ground as if they were normal blood.

"What is this sorcery?" asked Ludwig apprehensively.

"Don't be rude, my boy, or you might end up getting a crash course in it…" says Janus, lifting his hands and shooting faster moving particles of blood out of them.

"He's using his own blood as a medium for manipulating things around him, who knows what it can do!" yelled Amelia.

The particles shot through the air in the direction of the bodies of Victor and Ayla and both of them slowly rose up back to their feet. It was a most grotesque vision for Ludwig, as both adversaries displayed severe wounds and both their faces had blank, vacant eyes combined with expressions of pain and agony. The particles of blood flew around the two as they clumsily started walking towards Ludwig and Amelia; Victor's body was actually barely a body, with how cleaved in half it was; his intestines dangling from his abdomen wound. Marle took the opportunity to inject Janus with a blood vial.

"He is probably relinquishing his own body's blood to keep his meat puppets in control", whispered Amelia in Ludwig's direction.

He nodded and answered: "I'm really glad you're here Amelia! We need to kill him fast, can you cover my back, please?" Amelia nodded back with conviction, trying not to be fazed by the grotesque image in front of her.

Ludwig shot a blast of Moonlight energy at Victor's body, and dashed towards Janus himself. The Moonlight blast tore through the flesh and actually separated the left part of Victor's cleaved torso which, however, kept floating around him, guts spilling out and dragging along the floor. There was no flinching from the dead body, but Ludwig dashed around it, avoiding a much slower attack from Ayla's body and ran at Janus, with his sword ahead of him. With his legs back to full force, Ludwig propelled himself, sword in one hand, leading the way in a powerful dash Janus didn't bother to dodge. The Cainhurst Hunter merely folded his arms bringing his meat puppets to him immediately, far outpacing the speed of Ludwig's thrust attack, which ended up stabbing both bodies as they stood in front of Janus as a wall of meat and blood. Ludwig was surprised with how fast the bodies were pulled in front of him, but as he looked at Ayla's body right in front of him, sword going through her chest, he realized she was still alive and had just been awoken by his blade. Her face was a mix of confusion and pain and her eyes didn't know where to look, she was likely unable to move her body or even use all her senses, but that mattered little, her expression faded as she quickly died for real.

"You monster, what the hell are you doing?!" yelled Ludwig at Janus.

The man smiled again and spoke back calmly: "I am fighting for my life. Aren't you? Aren't you a Hunter? Willing to survive, no matter the cost?"

Marle spoke, once again as she stood by Janus' side: "She was weak and got defeated, we were never taking her back with us, even if she was still alive at the end of the night!"

Before he could say anything, Marle's severed arm flew at Ludwig with extreme speed while holding one of her blades. Amelia tried to stop it with a knife of her own, but missed. Ayla's body reached for the handle of the Moonlight Sword stabbed on her chest, wrestling Ludwig for it and preventing him from just dodging the disembodied arm. The knife hit Ludwig on his left shoulder, leaving the knife carved on it again.

"A little déjà vu?" jested Janus as Marle finally left his side, dashing towards Amelia.

As Ludwig wrestled with Ayla's dead body pulling itself to him, carving the sword deeper and deeper inside its flesh, Victor's body actually split into two parts connected only by his intestines; a grotesque figure of a man with half a torso bound by extended guts to a floating half torso with no head or legs, but holding a sword with its one arm. Amelia almost puked at the gruesome sight, but quickly had to sidestep from an attack by Marle, who tried to slice at her horizontally.

"I'll get you back for my arm, Healing Church bitch!" yelled Marle as she dashed after Amelia.

"Don't underestimate me because I'm wearing Church clothes!" yelled back the Vicar as she did all she could to dodge the attacks coming her way.

Amelia knew her enemy could probably outmanoeuvre her easily, but was confident she could take on her opponent after she had lost an arm. A Hunter's biggest strength is adaptability and having only one arm meant Marle's options for attacking or using extra items were severely limited. Fearing swinging the whip around would create openings for attack, Amelia kept her Threaded Cane as a cane and decided she was going to try to bait an attack she could just punish with a straight counter. Marle saw through it, though, and dodged Amelia's poking attack with swiftness, slicing her arm and making her drop her weapon.

"I'll cut off your arm before I let you die, bitch!" gnarled Marle, "I'll beat you to death with it! I'll make you regret being born!"

Amelia could see the malice in Marle's eyes, her creepy, disfigured smile sending a chill down her spine. She was clearly outmatched.

A few streets away, Maria was still engaged in duel with the Bloody Crow. She could feel his power diminished after she stabbed his shoulder, but she couldn't relax. From the corner of her eye, she could see his two companions traversing the rubble of the recently destroyed house, and making their way towards Lucca's body. She knew they were going to finish off whatever possible life she could be holding on to. She pondered the risk as she deflected yet another blow from the Crow's Chikage. If Lucca was alive, Maria was her only hope of surviving, if she was dead, Maria would be risking her life to save a dead body, which was just useless. Time seemed to pass at slow motion for Maria as she saw V'kebbe take yet another step, ever closer to her fallen comrade. She closed her eyes as the Crow once again swung his sword and dashed towards him at the highest speed she had ever reached.

Maria's Art of Quickening exceeded the Crow's and she seemed to vanish into thin air as his attack was about to connect. Everything slowed around her as she twisted in mid-air and hit the Crow with an attack from both of her separated blades. Her enhanced perception allowing her to attack exactly where the man's armour plates connected, slicing the connectors with one arm and the tiny breach of exposed flesh with the other, slicing his belly. It was just a superficial wound she inflicted, but she felt herself grow past her previous limits and knew this was the precise time she got the upper hand on her enemy.

Moving past the rubble of the blown up house, the hulking Teach looked over to the duelling pair, trying to see past their speed, and understand who was winning, but it was beyond his abilities. V'kebbe, however, didn't pay attention to Maria and the Crow as she walked to where Lucca's body was, half buried in rubble. Lucca had no movement; her arm laying outstretched as most of the underside of her body was buried in rocks big and small. "Wish I could say it was fun, sis!" says V'kebbe, pointing her gun at Lucca's head, and squeezing the trigger.

As the gunshot echoed through the street, Teach looked astonished at V'kebbe. She had missed, for she had been rammed from above by Maria at an extremely high speed. Maria had leapt through the air and plunged both swords as she landed feet first into a V'kebbe caught completely by surprise. The impact alone would have sent the girl crashing through the street, but as the swords ran through her, she was skewered and fell to the ground with the full force of the blow and of Maria's weight on top of her. The impact was so strong the cobblestone of the ground cracked under the attack's weight, and V'kebbe's blood splattered all over the floor like a dropped paint can. She was dead. Teach took a step back as he saw his companion be completely destroyed in one hit and lifted his canon halfway towards Maria, but hesitated. The woman was crouching on top of V'kebbe's mangled body, but her face was staring right at him. Moonlight glinting in her eyes. The man's eyes locked onto hers and he could not look away from her menacing, mesmerizing look.

Without looking away from Teach, Maria rose, taking both of her swords out of V'kebbe's body, and putting them back together into the unified version of Rakuyo, joined at the hilt. He was shaking more and more as she took her first slow step towards him… and another… and another. Teach took another step back and felt his back hitting the wall behind him, sweat running down his face. "N-No, s-stop!" he gasped out in panic as he lifted his canon at her, but with a swift movement she threw a small knife into the canon, hitting it precisely, and making the entire arm canon explode and throwing the hulking man into the wall next to him as his own arm exploded into tiny bits of flesh as well.

The man groaned loudly in pain after his arm was pulverized, grabbing his sword and pointing it at Maria, who was still staring him down with a terrifying look. He didn't know what to do, he had heard tales of the Lady Maria of Cainhurst, and knew there was nothing he could do against such an opponent. As Teach's thoughts wondered if she had beaten the Bloody Crow, she disappeared. It was a mere blink of an eye; but she was gone, nowhere to be seen.

Teach looked around searching for Maria, his eyes stopping at the sight of V'kebbe's mangled body. That's when he felt the wet drip of blood running down his clothes. He gasped for air, but couldn't get any, which made him panic. Dropping his sword to the ground, Teach lifted his remaining hand to his throat and felt his own blood flooding out of it. Trying in vain to hold back the very life that was escaping him, he felt more and more like he need air, inhaling harder and harder, but no air reached his lungs. Instead of air, he was inhaling his own blood, drowning while standing; feeling the sinking feeling of vertigo as his heavy body tumbled to the ground on its back. The moon watched over Teach as he choked on his own blood, his body twitching and his mind growing increasingly numb. His last thought was of Maria. After countless years of battles and surviving by the skin of his teeth; after many enemies defeated and killed in the name of his Queen, he would die from an attack he couldn't even see coming. His enemy didn't utter a single word at him. He never even mattered. The skill gap between them was so profound that she never even gave him a second thought. His eyes slowly clouded as they looked blankly at the moon reflected on the pool of his own blood, but his death reached him only after he was consumed by absolute despair.

There was no time to check up on Lucca. Maria ran as fast as her legs would carry her, her other companions had been without her far too long. As she jumped from street level to a nearby roof, she could hear the tiles cracking on another roof behind her, the Bloody Crow had likely healed and was giving chase, just as she had hoped. She was afraid running off would leave him alone to finish off Lucca, but he had taken her bait and whatever fate had befallen Lucca, she now had a sliver of a chance to live.

As she rushed ever farther, Maria reached the street where she had left Ludwig, seeing the destruction and dead bodies scattered about. The mangled, bloody bits of the Cainhurst Hunters littered the street as a bloody Ludwig was pinned down by Janus' blood magic. Janus waved his left hand as the magic encircled and hit Ludwig as if the air itself was punching him, while his Threaded Whip constricted Ludwig's sword, preventing the Cleric from waving it around. Ludwig had just freed the sword from the grasp of Ayla's body by exploding Moonlight around it, tearing the dead woman's form to tiny gory pieces alongside Victor's body. That didn't faze Janus though, before Ludwig could recover and find his bearings, Janus had locked his weapon around the Moonlight Blade, making sure the Cleric couldn't go on the offensive again. Ludwig tried the same move, but a weapon from the workshop wouldn't blow up in the same way as a fleshy body, and he was struggling not to lose his grip on the Moonlight Sword as it was pulled from him.

Maria quickly noticed Amelia was also there, hiding behind a wall. Her white church garb almost turned completely to a reddish pink. She was visibly wounded and her enemy was just standing on the other side of the wall, holding her dagger weapon and stepping on what looked like Amelia's own Threaded Cane.

Assessing the battlefield as fast as possible, Maria reacted in a split second, propelling herself from the roof directly to her enemies on street level, Rakuyo back to its split mode. She crashed from above into Marle, plunging each blade down on each side of the woman's neck, skewering her and making her fall to her knees, almost as she did V'kebbe. The swords plunged into her body were fatal, but Marle didn't die instantly. As the longer blade of the Rakuyo hit the ground and held her body on its knees like a stand, she still had strength to look her killer in the eye, with an evil glare Maria returned in kind. As the Lady of the Astral Clocktower removed her swords from Marle's body, her blood shot to the sky and sprayed on the surroundings, making the woman crumple to the ground, bleeding to death while staring Maria in the eyes, not able to utter any words. Marle lifted her hand one final time, not able to hold onto the knife she was wielding, but clearly trying to threaten Maria with it before she actually died.

Amelia looked over from the wall she was hiding behind and saw Maria, which prompted her to smile in relief. "Sorry to have kept you waiting!" says Maria, as she attaches both blades and prepares to dash towards Janus. Amelia expects Maria to dash and help Ludwig, but instead she quicksteps back away from where she was standing, and the Bloody Crow lands on the exact spot, sword first, creating a crater with the force of his attack.

The man stands up and faces Maria, removing his sword from the ground. "Congratulations on wounding me and killing so many of my comrades, I see you have an impressive group here, but it stops now!" says the Crow in a condescending voice. He sheathes his Chikage and holds it close to him, dashing towards Maria, who dashes back, getting further away from where Ludwig is fighting, trying to keep her distance. It is at this moment that the Crow dashes for Amelia instead, in a bid to kill the Vicar and inflict to Maria's group the same thinning of numbers that she had just inflicted on his. The Cainhurst exile's heart races as she adjusts her path, dashing ever faster, growing ever so slightly once again, and getting between the Crow and an astonished Amelia.

The attack of a sheathed Chikage is likely powered by the blood on its hilt; this was the case for this exact attack, which Maria barely managed to block from hitting Amelia. However, the attack of a blood-coated blade isn't limited to the blade itself. Maria did manage to block the Chikage's blade, but the blood coating it, made it longer and gave it an added effect. As the blade was blocked and forced to stop, the blood was propelled forward with the force of the attack and hit Maria, damaging her as if it was burning her skin like acid. Amelia didn't know what to do as she saw her friend get it to save her. It was her first time seeing the Bloody Crow, but she had heard the tales, she knew who he was simply from looking at his helmet and cape. She felt fear… For herself and for Maria.

It is then Maria pushes the Crow's blade away and swings the Rakuyo vertically, like a rotor blade, making it impossible to get any attacks in, as she walks towards the Crow.

"Speed isn't enough to beat me, comrade!" says the Bloody Crow as he breaks another bone and dashes away.

"Help Ludwig, I need to kill him here and now!" Maria yells at an astonished Amelia as she dashes towards the Crow, engaging in another dance of swords.

Amelia nods and takes this as an opportunity to run in Ludwig's direction. Maria was right, he needed help; his fight against Janus already was going on for too long. Rolling on the floor, she picks up her Threaded Cane and then prepares a Molotov cocktail as she runs; lobbing it against Janus who dodges easily, but is forced to let go of Ludwig's sword. Ludwig catches his step and his breath before hurling a beam of light at Janus, who hides behind a wall to avoid the attack. Finally joined by Amelia, Ludwig feels relieved; as does she. Amelia has multiple cuts from Marle's attacks all over her body and Ludwig still has a dagger stabbed in his shoulder, but they can't help giving each other a nod and a smile. The relief is short lived at the bodies and body parts lingering on the battlefield all rise and fly towards the pair, smacking them with blunt force. It's no longer an elegant puppetry of manipulating a shell of a body, but a mere hurdling of body parts with no apparent strategy other than to tire the pair out and maybe inflict a wound of two.

Janus was impatient, he was scared of Ludwig's range and power and didn't want to risk a hit from his sword. All he could do to keep the two enemies from attacking him was to throw all the bloody meat he had at them. These were the bodies of Marle, Victor and Ayla, or what remained of them. He could not focus to make them hold weapons, but he was counting on the dismembered ones to wound them with their broken bones.

It did happen, as half a ribcage stabbed into Ludwig's back, making him drop to a knee. Amelia had changed her Threaded Cane to a Whip, trying to knock body parts out of the air before they hit them, but could only avoid one out of around every four blows, as they were coming from each direction. The two were hit constantly, as a cloud of suspended blood formed around them, like a cocoon. The iron smell turned to and iron taste as they breathed the suspended blood. Soon all the meat hitting them became mush and only the bones remained on the ground, along with a defeated Ludwig and Amelia.

Janus was victorious, but he had used too much blood from his own body, and he too collapsed to his knees holding his extremely unsteady breath. He reached around for a blood vial but he let them slip off his hands due to how weak he was. The fight had exhausted almost all of his stock and he was scrambling to grab a vial and inject himself.

Ludwig, still grasping the Moonlight Sword, knew it was his chance to get up, but his body didn't move. It was then he saw Amelia bite her finger as she laid on the floor next to him.

"I… I can't go on any longer my friend… F-finish this, for both of us!" she said, barely getting the words out, as she put her bloody finger in his mouth.

He had no idea what she was doing, but he could feel some of his strength return, and that was understanding enough. Ludwig let Amelia's blood flow into him, and when he felt capable, he got up, looking at his now passed out companion. In the distance he saw Janus get up too, throwing away an empty Blood Vial. Time to finish the fight.