Discipline 1.1
Do you know what the most annoying thing about fighting the devil was? It wasn't even a strong one. It was stunted. More of an amalgamation of human souls and a chess piece than anything else. The devil had lost its sanity soon after it fled its master. It was more akin to a wild animal than the devil it originally came from. It followed its urges and nothing else.
It was also a pawn.
When I'd learned that, I'd been pissed. It felt like all my effort, everything I had gone through was just pulled out from underneath me. I tried to keep myself calm, but it was obvious to those around me that I wasn't. Asia, bless her heart, had tried to offer me some small comfort. Her words were kind. Freed however, he had just laughed.
The next few days had passed by in a blur.
It turns out that essentially having a homestay underneath the fallen angels' roof wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. That probably was because I didn't see much of any of them. In a word, the time I spent in and around the church felt dead. I was just existing. I'd wake up. Eat. Maybe talk with Asia. Ignore Freed goading me into a fight. Then, I'd try to figure out what to do with my new life. Nothing ever truly came to mind. If I were to think back on it, I was ignoring my most glaring problems. Fortunately, a few of the issues I did have settled themselves.
The first and most pressing was the blessing, curse, whatever you want to call it. I sort of figured out how it works. It was deceptively simple. All it took to work out was Freed's annoying voice, and me finally agreeing to a "spar." Asia had tried to speak up against it. It didn't stop me. I wanted to knock that stupid smirk off his face. He just wouldn't let up. It's like he actively took time out of his day just to come and bother me.
I didn't last long. The man had systematically, and quite vocally, destroyed me. It turns out that fighting someone who had actual training was different than fighting a mostly mindless beast. Freed didn't even have to draw a weapon on me. He'd simply tripped me from the back of my leg with his own, and wrenched my longsword from my grip. In a few short seconds, I was staring down the blade of my own sword.
It was humbling. It was also infuriating. Freed's words didn't help. They were scathing and all too willing to get under my skin. The stray exorcist was good at that. Then, he gave me an offer. Freed said he'd teach me, at least to the point where I wouldn't fall over myself like a bumbling child.
I didn't know why he had even offered. It wasn't exactly in character for him, was it? I could see him wanting to fight me, rough me up a bit, maybe even kill me, but teach me? Never. It didn't make sense. The way he spoke was off too. It felt a little too unnatural, almost practiced in a way.
It put me on edge. Unfortunately, I had no alternative. I couldn't just up and run with the fallen angels and devils lurking about. I wouldn't get very far, even less so with Asia in tow. If I could even convince her to flee with me. I had time to burn. The devils would end up fighting Raynare's group eventually. I needed to be ready before then. I had to at least be able to run, if not fight some of those in both groups.
It was a scary thought. I didn't know how to fight, not really. I liked to think I could throw a fist, swing my sword maybe, but I wasn't ever trained. The only thing I'd even take confidence in was my aim. I'd been hunting off and on when I was younger. It was something my Grandfather enjoyed. If I ended up going toe to toe with one of the fallen angels or devils, I'd probably get creamed. I didn't have anything special. No magic. No Ki. No other mystical bullshit other than the temperamental mark on my hand. Running straight at my enemy screaming at the top of my lungs would just get me killed.
I had to start somewhere.
The first thing he did was teach me to stand right. It turns out something as simple as where you put your feet could be a matter of life and death. For a bit, I had argued that learning footwork wasn't going to help me at all, but Freed had shut that down quick. Having a half-insane prick of a person constantly knock you down with nothing but his bare hands as you tried to attack him with a sword is not fun. It wasn't very hard to understand. He made me lower my body and redistribute my weight. Then, he told me to keep one foot pointed out at him and the other facing the side. Constantly, holding the position felt weird.
After that, and a bit of healing from Asia, he'd thrown me into a "spar" again. It was another massacre. Freed was deceptively quick. He also seemed to enjoy causing me pain. That was evidently clear when each attack I threw toward him missed, He'd take the time to try and break me with his fists. The stray exorcist was good at it. Who knew? I certainly didn't.
Freed hadn't shut up at all during any of our bouts. His mouth would constantly be open barking. Freed had ranted and raved on with his usual crap. One second the man would be giving me advice on when and when not to attack, the next he would be threatening to give me a colonoscopy with a lightsword. He'd also kept yelling at me to keep my feet facing the right way. Did I mention that Freed wasn't a good teacher? No? I didn't think I really needed to.
The mark had come in on our third bout.
He asked me to start trying to draw on the power of my blessing. He said that I was missing something. He thought it would come naturally. It didn't. The words had come after he almost popped my shoulder out of my socket while holding me to the ground. It had brought with it no small amount of anger, but as I struggled underneath Freed's grip, nothing happened.
"What in the hell is that supposed to mean?" I growled.
The pressure on my shoulder disappeared. I let out a low groan on the ground. Slowly, I tried to push myself up. Dull pain arced its way up my right arm. I faced Freed. The man stood there, silently watching me. Was he trying to think up something to say? He had paused like this a few times before. There was something akin to a grimace on his face as he started to speak. Freed was definitely outside his comfort zone. I still didn't know why he was putting up with this farce.
"I don't know." His voice was short. For a second, I thought that was all he had. "I just pull on it. Mine's different though. Holy energy. It's like a...a kind of white ball. I pull out strands of it in my chest. Maybe you could try something like that? You gotta think of something for yourself. It's different for everybody."
It can't be that simple. I thought with a frown. I didn't feel anything different. There was no mystical well of energy for me to pull out of my gut. Nothing magical jumped from my fingertips. I brought the mark up to my eyes. The deadened skull on my hand stared at me, unblinking. I grimaced before clenching my hand into a fist. It couldn't hurt to try.
I imagined it.
First, I closed my eyes. I had to visualize it. There was a pool of water. No, it was a sea. It was an ocean of power inside me. This was stupid. Quietly, I opened my eyes. Freed was silent. Asia was still sitting on her bench at the far end of the room. She gave me a small smile as our eyes met. Right. I could do this.
Again, I closed my eyes
It was a deep frothing blue. I felt a twinge of something. That wasn't right. It was red. An endless expanse of blood. There was something floating in it. They were bleached white. Bones. Not just bones, they were skulls. Hundreds and thousands of skulls. Some of them were humanoid, others not. There were broken pieces of jagged metal jutting up from the depths. Old and decayed weaponry pouted the waters, dripping in a rusty brown to the sea's red. Swords. Spears. Axes. Guns. It didn't matter. It was all there.
It was coming to me now. I felt my face twitch as I continued. Something about this, it felt wrong. The ocean of blood didn't end. My hand felt warm. It was all there, in the back of my mind. It was vivid, like I was actually there. It was like seeing a painting come to life. I was there, yet I was not. It was like I was dreaming, but still awake. I felt like I could reach out and touch the waters below. It was surreal.
There was something in the distance. It was white, piled up high above the clouds. It was more skulls, too many to count. It looked like a mountain, peaking up its head in the distance. There were two angry red suns boiling the liquids below. There was something up there. It looked down at me. They weren't stars. They were eyes. Something pooled in my gut. Fear. It felt like a coiling snake, slowly slithering its way around my heart. Cold sweat built on my palms. It was searching for something. Whatever it was, the being didn't find it. Slowly, It looked away. Relief flooded me. I exhaled a breath I didn't know I was holding in.
I didn't want to end like I did a few nights before. Hopefully, it would continue to ignore me. I still didn't have a very good idea of how all this worked. I couldn't lose control of myself again. I had to stay centered. I wouldn't let some god whip me up into a frenzy. It wasn't going to happen. I let out small controlled breaths. I could do this.
I pushed the being to the side.
Freed said to pull right? That didn't sound quite right. Quickly, an idea came to me. I imagined a faucet holding in the sea. I could see it in my mind. Slowly, I turned the tap. It started with a small drip. Very slowly, it spread out, coming from the mark. My face felt hot. It was almost like a small shot of rosy fire beneath my cheeks. I could feel something warm and wet drip down my hand. I tried for a little bit more. I gasped as heat roared in my veins. It poured like an avalanche. It was too much. It was like trying to fit the entire Earth through a straw. Fire burned my nerves. My hands were shaking. Raw, pure power coursed my veins. My heart rate skyrocketed. I tried to stop it. It didn't stop. I couldn't turn it off. I knew this was a bad idea. It felt like something was laughing at me. I shouldn't have ever gone along with Freed's bullshit. I was going to explode. My head started to hurt. It almost felt like everything was dulled. I wanted to move, to do something, anything at all. My mind was screaming at me to act, but I held firm.
A thought came to my head.
The mountain was a throne. Everything I had seen in my head and experienced back in the abandoned store came back to me. I looked up. Broken skulls littered my field of view. They were too many to count. There was so much strength in me, yet it was so hard to control. It felt like I was trying to hold back the tide. Breathing hurt. Nothing about this made any sense. It didn't match up with anything me or Asia had found. Most gods wouldn't give out a blessing like this, especially without saying a word to the one they claimed. It was odd. Extremely so. There had to be something we'd missed.
We had tried looking into what god had blessed me to the best of our abilities, but it didn't go very far. Quite quickly, I narrowed it down to some kind of war god. Asia had argued against it, but I knew it was true. Nothing else fit, the pure unadulterated violence from before couldn't be anything else. It was overwhelming. Like a storm of blades and blood peering down at me. Ares had been the go-to, but after speaking to Asia, something didn't quite feel right. The motifs didn't add up. That, and the Greeks hadn't been up to such things in many centuries. There was something about an edict given down by Olympus, but Asia didn't know any of the specifics. We tried a couple of others, but nothing really fit. It felt like I was missing something, something fundamental.
I asked myself a question.
What kind of god did I have sitting in my head?
Everything in there was filled with nothing but violence and bloodshed as far as the eye could see. I felt something pull me. Suddenly, My breathing picked up. I could see everything and nothing at once. I found myself above the clouds, looking down. It wasn't a sea. It was a river, a raging torrent of blood feeding itself towards the mountain of skulls. I could see plains of red far in the distance, small things danced on them. They were fighting. I felt small, insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I was hyperventilating. I could feel something, silent and cold bearing down on me. Why was it doing this? I was going to lose myself. I was on my knees. I tried to move. I couldn't open my eyes. I could feel the mark on my hand. It was leaking hot fresh blood. Something poured itself into my mind.
It was an answer.
Flashes of great battles burned away within my mind. I could see men of all ages and ethnicity fighting to the death. They were all screaming. Cities burned. Children hid in the dark. Mothers cried holding dead sons. Desolation raged among the stars. I saw myself among them. I held countless weapons in my hands. They were formless, always changing. The places were too. Some of them were vaguely recognizable, but most were alien. I saw myself burst forth from a dirty trench rifle in hand. Machine gun fire tattered my body. It flashed again. Suddenly, I was in some kind of pod dropping from the sky. I had red armor covering my chest. I felt my lips curl into a smile as the noise of my weapon roared to life. The sword had teeth. It was overwhelming.
There were other things there too. Crooked, even more evil things. For a moment, I saw the horrors of war. It was appalling. I saw two smoldering red eyes. They pulled me in, glittering like rubies all the while. The thing, the god was garbed in smoldering black Armour. Was it on fire? I couldn't tell. It was filled with spikes and horns, like a mangled wall of metal meant to cause pain. Black smoke seemed to billow out from it as I watched. It had no face. No voice. No human-like features whatsoever except for those glowing red eyes. It didn't say a word, yet I could understand it all the same.
I was powerless to resist as it reached out towards me.
It was old. It came before all others. It was alone at first, but it knew. It always knew. Before man was, it waited. It was the ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. They came to be, useless pitiful things. It would teach them. It would arm them. It would show them. It was almost time. It was a long night, but the day that came after would burn brighter than a dying star.
It had slept long enough.
A man slew his brother with a rock. The thing smiled. Another looked into his neighbor's bowl. It beamed. Gold glittered in man's eye. A small laugh bellowed into the dark. Kings and Queens came. Dynasties formed. They ended. Fathers and Sons stood pitted against one another. Men riding horses raided villages. It was awake, but it still wasn't enough. It had savored them, like a fine red wine. It was never enough. It always wanted, it always needed more. It knew how to do it. It didn't care where it came from, he had to have more. It would have more. Nothing could deny it its due.
It was a god of man. He was them, and they were him. It was war. It was bloodshed. It was violence given form. The blood would continue to flow. It was inevitable. Skulls. It wanted skulls. It was the-
"You'll kill him!"
I was ripped from the vision to the sight of worried green eyes in front of my face. Blood dripped down my face. A small hand gripped my shoulder. The mark on my hand was weeping blood. Questioningly, I thought, Asia?
She was shaking me, tears were in her eyes. What happened? Freed was watching me from a distance. I couldn't see any emotion in his face. His lips were pulled back, baring his teeth. Freed's eyes were pin dots. They had a razor-sharp gleam. They looked dangerous. His sword was billowing out a long blade of white. Its point was out toward me. His nose was broken, smashed flat against his face. His cheeks were scratched, bleeding. I felt something gummed up underneath my fingernails.
I thought, How? A bitter taste was on my tongue. I grit my teeth. Dammit. I thought. I'd lost myself again.
Freed stomped forward. I couldn't tell what was going through my head. I tried to move. Pain raced up from my gut as I did. I let out a few curses and gripped my stomach. My shirt had a hole in it. It looked like someone had burned me. I looked closer. I had a hole in me. Fuck. It was only about an inch or two wide, but I couldn't tell how deep. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt that bad. In fact, as I looked down, I could feel the pain quickly fading away. The wound sizzled.
Asia wailed, "D-Don't do it. Mr. Freed you're going to kill him!" She stopped, taking the time to stand in between us. She was trying to protect me. It was cute, if entirely useless. "You two don't need to do this anymore-"
"You don't tell me what I can and cannot do woman!" Freed snarled. He used the word as an insult. Asia let out a yelp as he pushed her out of the way. I had barely a second to react before he was on me. I flinched. The sword never came down on my head.
Freed stood there, looking me over. I could see his red eyes drifting over my stomach before he slowly leaned down. Freed was smiling. It didn't hurt. Confused, I grabbed at my shirt. I quickly pulled the cloth up to reveal my stomach. It was a slightly-pale white with a red blotch in the middle. He had stabbed me, hadn't he? It didn't even hurt that much anymore. It was painful and sore sure, but it wasn't debilitating.
Then, it clicked. I'd healed from the wound. The sizzling almost prickly feeling from before wasn't from the wound itself. Interesting. The area felt numb, sensationless. It only took a few seconds, but I could move it again. Carefully, I flexed the muscles on my stomach. There wasn't any pain at all. I felt fine. The red was slowly fading to white. A few thoughts ran through my head, as a dull silence captivated the church.
Freed roughly pulled me to my feet. Blankly, I peered around the room. The church had needed a remodeling before but now? It wouldn't be worth the effort. There were scorch marks still burning on the floor along with a newly broken pew. It looked like something large had crashed into it. I wondered if that something had been me. All around, I could see new debris and holes which had been made not only into the floor but the walls as well. It looked like we had let loose two bulls in the place, and they decided to fight each other to the death.
Turning to Asia, Freed roughly grabbed her arm. I could see the pain in her eyes. Asia tried to pull back, but she didn't have the strength. Freed had a manic glint in his eyes as he ordered, "Heal me."
Whimpering, She complied. A soft green glow came over Freed's face. The cuts and scratches slowly melted away. His nose snapped back into place. I walked over toward him, anger pooling in my gut. He had no right to treat her like that. Especially, after Freed used her like a bag of free healing potions whenever he needed her. I went to grab him. It was hypocritical of me I know, but that didn't change my thoughts. If I was a better man, I'd have gotten her out of this long ago. I couldn't risk it though. I didn't even have anywhere to go, not yet anyway.
Asia was too nice, too innocent to deal with all this. She didn't deserve to have that fear in her eyes.
Freed turned to me before I could touch him. I could see something on his face. It was a mixture of amusement and...I think longing, anger maybe? I couldn't quite tell. With Freed, nothing was ever simple. He was a broken man, and it showed. Whatever the look was, it was perverse. His lips were drawn back into a sneer. I could see him cocking his chin up at me in some kind of awkward attempt to make himself look bigger than he was. Asia took a few steps back. I could see her quite literally quaking with fear. He held out his sword to me.
"Let's go." He waved his sword at me. His face finally settled down. Anticipation was all over it. Freed opened his mouth. "Do it again fucker. We're having a rematch, now!"
I realized I wasn't holding my sword. Freed charged anyway. It would take me a few burning wounds to figure out that I could only heal myself after dealing a similar amount of damage. In the fight after that, I'd learned that trying to draw too much on that well of power wasn't the best idea. I had to limit it. Keep it flowing enough that strength filled my limbs, but not much more than a trickle. If not, I might black out. At worst, I'd attack the thing nearest to me in a blind rage. If the mark was starting to bleed, that was a bad sign. That's just one of the perks of having a war god in your head I guess.
I think I knew his name too.
The realization came to me numbly. I didn't know what to think about it. In concept, the very idea was absurd, but that was just my life now. It was just one absurdity after another. I was reincarnated into an anime world after all. Eventually, I'd have to get used to it all.
His followers, those men, the wars, everything. It finally matched up. They'd been screaming the god's name like a cacophony of rage, letting out an agonizing yell into the dark. I even saw myself doing it. I saw myself killing, fighting, and pillaging lands unknown. My face twitched. It was fun. I had burned entire villages to the ground, simply for the heck of it. I was enjoying myself. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. It wasn't me. It was all pointless, bloodshed without a cause. It didn't matter though, not to it. Nothing else mattered to that god. It all stuck with me, fervently burning a hole in the back of my head.
Blood. It wanted blood.
Not being from this world, I shouldn't have thought my power wouldn't be either. Asia and I had looked and looked to try and find out anything about the mark on my hand to no avail. She had even reached out to some of the local exorcists in an attempt to get some information for me. We'd gone on a wild goose chase all the way from Ares to the more obscure Neto. It was all pointless though. It wouldn't matter if I had access to this world's version of the Library of Alexandria.
The god that had marked me was not of this world, and I don't think he was really of mine either.
Small glimpses of an old tabletop game came to my mind. I hadn't ever played it myself, but the memories were there. The background and lore were just too interesting to ignore. Especially, after seeing some of the animations that had popped up online. Unfortunately, the wargame-like way of playing the original tabletop game just wasn't appealing to me.
I had the mark of the blood god on my palm. For better or worse, Khorne had claimed me. I had no idea how, but he had. I guessed other universes existed too. Either that or the warp did in this one. That was a whole can of worms I did not want to try and open. It didn't matter though. I knew what awaited those who held that particular god's mark. I was fucked, one way or another.
I got something out of it all though. The sword, it wasn't for me. Memories, not my own, flashed in my mind. Everything was painted red. An axe. I wanted an axe.
AN: I'm back! Work kinda kicked my ass this week. I got home, made dinner, and went to bed. Shit sucked. That's life though.
This chapter kinda kicked my ass too. I wanted to just jump into the action and to what I had planned for the next arc. It didn't work though. I had too many loose ends that needed tying up, so I ended up with this. I think this chapter mostly worked as a setup for me to jump off of. I needed some time to pass, and I also needed to start giving Jack some development at the same time.
He now knows who gave him the mark. That was something I debated putting into the last chapter, but it didn't fit in with Jack as a character. He doesn't really know much about Warhammer other than snippets of the lore he's seen online. Even then, he doesn't have a photographic memory either. The mark itself isn't exactly what you'd see if you brought up Khorne's Wiki page. With how I pictured it, it looks pretty different than the one you'd normally see associated with him. I leaned into the skull motif pretty hard in my description of it.
The next chapter will either be up tonight or sometime this weekend. Most of the chapter is already written. It was what I originally planned this one to be, but thought I needed to expand on it a bit. To give you all a bit of a teaser, Jack hasn't just been sitting around waiting in the church. The world's been ticking on around him whether he's interacted with it or nor. I'll leave it there. Until then...
~ciao