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Silver Sun: Thanks for the kind words, this one is really easy to write at the moment so expect semi-regular updates.
HaywireEagle: Did you only get up to Chp3, or just stop reviewing after that :P?. And yes I imagine the stereotypical Ten-Ten would indeed have a lady-boner for the various weapons of the Souls Series.
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DSM 16
Menma stood in the doorway the Knightess had directed him towards, though he had no doubt he could ask Orange and they faithful, but mysterious, entity would provide the information. It was good to converse with others sometimes.
Sometimes.
He was still wrestling his temper to a manageable degree. Kurama had decided to rest a while, as he was beginning to get bored, so that left the Uzumaki on his lonesome. Stepping into the room fully the massive cathedral-like room stretched out for quite the distance it was littered with men donned in white full body robes, a curved dagger in their dominant hand with a small shield in their off-hand.
Menma began his approach, immediately he noticed these men shifted their bodies to stare at him as one unified force, even those in the back of the room began their way towards those at the front. "You can let me pass or I can incinerate you all." Said Menma, his arm flaring dangerously, they didn't cease as they began to walk towards him, "Last warning." He stated with a tone of finality.
Play Manafest - Impossible
"You've sealed your own fate." Withdrawing his Uchigatana he held it firmly in a reverse grip, lightning began to dance across it. Like a wave of blades and cloth the Painting Guardians descended upon him for each strike he dodged he'd have to parry another, flaring his arm he swung it in a horizontal arc, "Azure Combustion!" He bellowed as a powerful explosion of flames incinerated the squad before him, hopping back Menma quickly caught all of them in his line of vision.
Slsh!
A curved dagger found itself buried in his right kidney, howling in pain the Uzumaki quickly turned and lopped the offenders head off, unfortunately turning proved to be a poor choice as throwing daggers began to sink into the lighter armour that rested on his back, they seemed perfectly honed to bury through armour and into flesh, because that's exactly what they did.
Infusing it with electricity he tossed the Uchigatana towards his attackers, as the blade struck true and buried itself in the chest of a Guardian the charged electricity exploded outwards, making a shower of blood and gore.
Tearing the dagger from his kidney the Uzumaki chocked down the painful heave that left his chest, blood began to pour down his leg at an alarming rate, diving his hand into his pouch he chugged down a whole vial of Estus. The healing properties sealing the wounds but the pain would remain for a while.
"Rasenringu!" He bellowed as the black orb formed in his human hand whilst flames rocketed him forth with via his demonic one, more daggers began to hail down onto his position some digging into, fortunately bouncing off his chest plate, others digging through the thin spaces of his shoulder guard. "Shin Ne!" He ordered them to die as the ball of death came into contact with one, he pressed onwards, hitting the ground running as he began to tear a path right through the Guardians.
Letting the technique go he was given the sight of it exploding with a shocking amount of force, gore painted the ground, Menma turned, his back to the painting, there remained only a handful of guardians, pulling his Claymore free of its sheath he allowed a ferocious growl to slip through his lips, "Raiton: Jibashi! (Electromagnetic Murder)." Lightning funnelling the technique through his sword lightning strikes rained from the ceiling as he pointed the white blade skyward, each Guardian that was struck jerked and twitched unnaturally before collapsing and releasing their collective souls.
End Song
Menma paused for a moment, creating a quick clone to pull the daggers from his back, just before the clone touched his back though he collapsed onto his knees, he'd never really allowed himself to be so damaged, the worst he got was a gash across his shoulder from a lucky katana stroke, the clone fished out an Estus Flask and gingerly offered it to his creator, Menma had staked his Claymore into the tiled floor in order to stop him falling face first, shakily he lifted his demonic hand and took the flask.
The cocktail of adrenaline, chakra, pain and shock was quite a potent one indeed, so much so that his pain receptors seemed to have just shut off as his visioned gained several black spots from the sheer amount of blood loss. Pressing the flask to his lips proved to be a challenged in itself, the first dagger removed made his body jerk, not with pain but due to reflex, the healing liquids were thrown down his throat like a shot of vodka.
Terrible stuff.
"This…Fucking…Place." He panted out, another dagger and another, slowly but surely the silver blades were pulled from his back, each time more blood dripped from his wounds and down his back, and each time he would take another sip from the flask, slowly turning from brilliant orange to the natural emerald green of the glass itself. His body began to be bathed in the healing warmth of the Estus Flask, the essence of a Bonfire in liquid form. "I'll need to put more stock into these things, I might have died straight out if I didn't have them." Said the Uzumaki, his clone had finished pulling the knives out and quietly dispelled as the Master knelt for a few moments to collect himself.
"Gai-Sensei would be disappointed in me at the moment." He murmured quietly, standing up he slid his blade into its sheath, walking back across the cathedral he retrieved the Uchigatana, sliding it into the black sheath hung horizontally across his waist.
Turning back to the painting he approached it, idly noticing something in the corner of his eyes, approaching the hollowed out corpse situated in the corner of the room he knelt before it, grasping the white sprite that hovered over its chest.
Abruptly he was assaulted by the weight of a whole set of black armour, a great sword and a tower shield, a little taken aback by what was kept in the sprite he dumped it onto the floor, pulling a scroll from his pouch and began to pile the collection of metal upon it.
"Not exactly an everyday occurrence."
"TAAAARKUS!" Text exploded on the wall surrounding the body with the name repeated in various sizes.
"Care to explain?"
"Many of the past Chosen held a fondness for the one named Tarkus, their combined will has bled into your world, to show how much he meant to them all." Replied Orange.
"Wow…huh, guess I missed out, huh?" He replied with a shrug, walking towards the painting, idly running his azure blue fingers along the frame as he gently strode towards the middle. His eyes rolled up as his took in the sight before him, the painting of a frosted over stack of ruins that were one no doubt a towering keep with a rickety iced over bridge leading up to it.
It was quite nice on the eyes, nothing to really get overly excited about but still, nice.
Something caught his eye, a twisting spiral, a dull purple colour, this clearly didn't belong on the painting, approaching it Menma was slightly weary as it reacted to his presence, an invisible force quickly thrust him forward, head first into the spiral, sucking him into the painting.
Painted World of Ariamis.
Cold air was the first thing he noticed, the howling winds below him and the sharp feeling of ice attempting to grow upon his skin, scowling he glanced around before blinking, "I'm in the painting…And here I thought there'd be a hidden door behind it, didn't think it'd be the door itself." He rumbled lowly stalking forth off the bridge and up a frosted path, his boots making the snow crunch with each step, a low Caaw! Alerted him to the presence of a whole murder of crows, each of them staring at him.
Holding out a hand he smiled slightly as one landed upon his wrist, stroking the black bird's breast with a single azure finger he let a small laugh pass through his lips as it idly pecked at his armoured hand, "Well at least the inhabitants aren't too bad, hmm?" He asked, not getting any other response than another call of the Crow as it fluttered back to its spot.
His heart jumped a little as he realised that it was perched upon a spear, normally no big deal right? Well this spear had a group of Hollows impaled on it, their bodies covered with snow, but his sharp eyes locked in on the slightest of twitching they did.
"It seems I spoke too soon." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Still haven't found anywhere to have a bath. Fuck I smell like crap." He cursed and continued up the path, almost reflexively his fingers dipped by his side to ignite the Bonfire that rested before the keep's main entrance.
Sitting down he produced his empty Estus Flasks, holding the two emerald vials up to the flame he smiled gently as some of the flames were sucked into the lidless vials and turned to the familiar glowing liquid he was acclimatising his taste buds too. "Still can't believe it tastes like apple juice, I mean what are the odds?" He said happily, the fact his second favourite drink was something he could symbolically drink constantly here was a quiet reminder of his past, his memories.
Water being his favourite as nothing could really beat a simple glass of water, it didn't really need a taste because of the fact it was already pretty friggen excellent.
"I wanna get through this place pretty quickly…I don't really like the idea of staying too long…" He said, not really knowing how exactly he would get out, he'd just have to try going every direction until he found something or someone who knew the way out, and if all else failed he'd reverse summon himself to Tsuki's location in Darkroot.
"Alright, go time." He said, getting back to his feet, he wreathed himself in a cloak of flames to keep himself warm, the soft touch of the blue blaze was comforting, if nothing else. As he stepped up the snow covered steps of the keep he was immediately greeted with a Deprived Hollow, clothed in naught but a brown rag and wielding a broken straight sword.
Menma merely raised a hand and punched its head clean off, crunching snow alerted him to the right and he immediately sent a quick stream of flames towards the direction, incinerating two more Hollows of the same nature as the first. Shaking his head he entered an underpass, a wooden door surrounded by the stone of the tower above him, pushing on it he noticed the resistance, "Locked. Oh now however shall I get through here?" He asked himself with little to no emotion showing, the only visible one being slight irritation.
Rearing a fist back he punched the wooden door in, flying directly off its hinges and across the courtyard, Menma immediately noticed the mass of souls that flew into his Sign, and the sound of a destroyed statue, "Sorry whoever's statue that was, unless it was Gwyn then 'Suck a dick you fucker' is a much more apt phrase."
All in all, good day so far.
End of Chapter.