So I was going through discord, when a person named Everpeach messaged me, asking if this very fic would ever get updated from its one shot form into a full fic. This was on November 19th. I got back to Everpeach on December 7th, saying perhaps, and that the entire first chapter will need a rewrite. So, without further ado, here is the re-written, and soon to be expanded version, of Blood is the Answer.
I have a discord. discord. gg/9ah46GFzbn. This one is a bit dead, so I'll invite ya'll to a discord server I am part of. It's a fanfic server with a couple thousand people on it. discord .gg/wd3tUYWVCd It's got the space in it since FFN is a bit weird about links. If the link says it's expired, either add me on discord (the_commissar13) or pm me here and I'll get you a fresh link and change the ones here.
I do not own Warhammer or Highschool of the Dead.
It All Begins
Hatanaka Daiki had been having trouble sleeping lately. His dreams were full of blood, endless slaughter on a land formed of corpses and brass, the sky a deep red, silhouetting a large castle, where a deep booming laughter echoed over the landscape. That was if he even got to sleep at all.
Walking into school, Daiki stumbled up the stairs to his class. Shido was once again talking to some of his female students, which caused just a little bit of rage to course through him. For some reason, shifty people, sick people, and lecherous people caused these bursts of rage from him lately. He passed it off as him being sleep deprived but a sneeze from Shido caused another pulse of rage. It was really hard to concentrate on class when Shido seemed to fit all three of the criteria to throw Daiki into a rage on this particular day.
Sitting down in his seat next to Takagi Saya, he yawned before laying his head down. The pinkette glared at him for a split second before focussing on getting ready for class. Hirano Kohta looked at Saya dreamily for a bit before being bullied. Daiki got a flash of anger for a second at the actions.
(It's dishonorable to team up on one so weak.)
Daiki blinked at the words that came unbidden into his mind. He hadn't thought of them.
(I suppose it is time for you to know what is expected of you mortal champion of our god. You will fight, you will kill, and you will gather skulls for Khorne's throne. If you decline, your soul will be consumed by the warp.)
Daiki blinked before deciding that he would need to get some sleeping meds on his way home. It was not a good sign that he was hearing voices.
(I assure you, you are not "hearing" voices. We are very real.)
Assuming that you are real, Daiki thought into his head, only a little bit delirious, what could I fight and kill? I'm in a place where killing is only a bit looked down upon.
(Soon Champion. The other three are already moving. The champion to She Who Thirsts is in this very room with you, as is the champion for the Changer of Ways. As for the Plague Father, well, you'll see.)
Feeling a bit silly for continuing to talk to a voice in his head, Daiki sent another question. Who is our god?
Immediately, Daiki's head felt like it was being split open. He gripped the table he was sitting at with such force that it started to creak and groan. A grimace of pain flashed across his face as the images he had seen in his dreams flashed across his vision. Blood flowed in rivers which flowed seas of blood, brass ships doing battle within the sticky mess. Armies of people and creatures clashed together, under the banners of large hulking demons, or rather Daemons. For some reason, it seemed like a big distinction. His vision took him to the large brass castle, passing halls filled with millions of weapons. All manners of killing implements, from rocks and spears, to what looked like a mech the size of a skyscraper were stored in the citadel. Coming to a large room, Daiki's vision was filled with skulls from all manners of creatures. From what looked like human skulls, to weird bug-like skulls, fish skulls, and even some daemon skulls. Daiki's vision went up, realizing that the skulls fashioned a sort of throne. Sitting atop the throne, was a being of such incomprehensible strength, that Daiki felt the pain redouble in his head. The being smiled a cruel smile down to Daiki.
"You've survived. Good, you may yet prove to be worth it."
The vision abruptly ended, causing Daiki to slump forward in exhaustion. Who was that? Daiki thought, mind numb from pain.
(Our god, Khorne, the Lord of Skulls, Blood God, Lord of Murder and the Hunter of souls. God of war, hatred, wrath, rage, murder, blood, strength, courage and martial honor. You have the privilege to be his mortal champion on this plane.)
Daiki nodded absently, finally being aware of his surroundings once more. Saya was in front of his desk, looking down at him with a small hint of worry. Why would she be worried? It's not like I'm dying. Finally hearing things again, he heard Saya speak.
"You need to go to the nurse's office now. Before you bleed all over your desk."
Reaching a hand up to his nose, Daiki felt a small river of blood flowing down his nose and onto his uniform, staining it in blood.
(He cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it flows.)
Really helpful, thanks.
"Yeah, I'll head over right now."
Attempting to stand from his desk, Daiki ended up ass first on the ground as his exhaustion from sleep deprivation and the pain in his head reared its head. Saya sighed and with the help of Miku Yuuki got Daiki back up. From there, they helped him walk down to the nurses office. They stopped on a stairwell so that Saya could yell at Komuro Takashi for being an idiot. When they finally made their way to the office, Nurse Marikawa Shizuka took one look at Daiki and demanded that he be put in a bed. He had apparently also left a trail of blood from the classroom to the office, which would make Daiki low on blood. Daiki could barely tell what was going on around him, so he sat down on a bed and yawned. The nurse then spent about five minutes reaming him for not sleeping enough while she treated him. None of that helped his growing headache.
The last straw for him, was when the PA system came on, the beep to signify it was on made Daiki go from pissed off, to boiling over with rage.
"Attention, all students! Violence has broken out on campus! Students should evacuate the campus according to their teachers' instructions. What? No! Get awa-" She was cut off as she was killed. The PA had remained on the entire time and now the PA system was blaring the sounds of flesh being ripped from a still living person.
Chaos was the outcome. People ran for their lives, pushing others to get away. For Daiki, He simply grabbed the broom in the corner of the room, kicked the broom head off and snapped it into two sharp sticks. Flipping them around in his hand, Daiki half stumbled, half walked to the door. He stuck his ear to the door, hearing the panicked yelling from people on the other side. Looking around the room, Daiki could see one of the people in the room was dead on his bed. Walking over to the corpse, Daiki felt a jolt of rage at the dead person for being sick. Saya and Yuuki were both panicking in a corner while Shizuka gathered medical supplies with the help of a boy that was in the room. Daiki's rage came to a head when the corpse in the room stood up and started to shuffle towards Shizuka. Giving an inarticulate cry of rage, Daiki charged the abomination and stabbed it in the chest, pushing it back. Blood sprayed onto Daiki but it kept coming. Everyone in the room noticed the commotion and saw a person, who for all intents and purposes should have been dead, walking. Daiki stabbed again, this time with both sticks. It kept coming. Giving another rage-filled yell, Daiki stabbed upwards into the thing's brain from the bottom of its jaw. It finally stopped moving, but Daiki kept stabbing it in the chest, blood spraying over his already bloody uniform and face.
(Good job, your first skull taken for Khorne. And without help too.)
Fuck off.
(Of course, but before I go, I have a task for you.)
Daiki seethed, his pain making his short patience non-existent. What. Is. It.
(kill 100 beings in Khornes name. You already have 1, so good job. Here, we'll even make an interface off of the "games" you so love to play)
[Blood for the Blood God]
[The slaughter pleases Khorne, but the plague walkers are ruining the view, eliminate them]
Objectives:
Kill 100 beings in the name of Khorne (1/100)
Bonus Objectives:
Kill them all within the school(1/100)
Kill at least one regular human
Kill 5 special plague walkers(0/5)
Kill the Champion of She Who Thirsts (Shido)
Kill the Champion of The Changer of Ways (Saya)
Make the Champion of She Who Thirsts your servant
Make the Champion of The Changer of Ways you servant
Secret Objectives
?
?
?
Rewards:
Small regenerative factor, an enhanced ax from the Brass Citadel.
Bonus rewards:
Increased Stamina
Increased Strength
Immunity to diseases (excluding this plague)
Immunity to mind control
Immunity to magic
Blessing of Slaanesh
Blessing of Tzeentch
Secret Rewards:
?
?
?
What. The fuck. Was all that Daiki could think. This was not what he signed up for. Where was the decline and accept button? Apparently he didn't need one because it was auto accepted by voice in his head.
(You would do well to just follow along with these quests. The penalties for failure are all death. So are the penalties for declining.)
Because of course they were. This was shaping up to be a hell of a day. Feeling someone touch his shoulder, he snapped out of his mind and flinched. Looking up, he saw Shizuka looking at him with worry. Her lips moved but he couldn't hear a thing she said. Standing up, he swayed a bit and stumbled forward, almost falling over. Shizuka caught him and kept speaking but he still couldn't hear anything.
Knocking on the door made Daiki stand ramrod straight as he advanced towards the door. Dropping one of his improvised weapons, he opened the door, going behind the door with his weapon ready to skewer any plague walker that walked into the room. It wasn't a zombie that walked in, but several people. He briefly recognized Takashi, Miyamoto Rei, and Kohta, but was mainly focussed on Busujima Saeko. Her uniform was stained in blood, her bokken dripping drops of the crimson liquid on the floor. Zoning out as he listened to the dripping, he was surprised when he was tapped again.
"Hmm?"
"Introduce yourself stupid!" Saya shouted at him.
"Hatanaka Daiki, 2nd year," was his curt reply.
"Great, now we can head out."
Daiki nodded, not really caring where they were headed, so long as at the end he could rest. Lurching forward, Daiki exited the room first, immediately attacking the first plague walker he saw, the sharp stick going straight through its skull. Letting the corpse fall to the ground, Daiki marched forward, killing everything in his path. Quickly and efficiently. The random guy that was in the room with them ran ahead to the teachers lounge, and screamed in pain. Immediately after opening the door, a plague walker had fallen on him, biting his shoulder. Daiki ran towards him and quickly killed the plague walker that was on top of the kid. Turning to the door, it appeared empty of threats. Looking down at the guy who was going to die, Daiki simply had one question.
"Do you wish to die a human, or an abomination?"
The guy seemed to be too terrified to answer straightly so Daiki reiterated his question.
"Do you wish to die a human, or an abomination?"
"H-h-hu-human, p-please."
Without another word, Daiki stabbed his stick forward into the guy's head, giving him a relatively quick death.
Hearing a ping, Daiki raised his head only to see a screen in his face.
Bonus Objective Complete!
Your reward: Increased Strength will be collected upon completion of the quest.
Sighing to himself, Daiki walked past the door to the lounge only to stop as Saeko stopped him with an arm on his shoulder.
"Wait for a bit, we need the keys."
"Alright," Daiki said while absentmindedly nodding.
Saeko let go of his shoulder as Takashi walked out of the room, looking at how Daiki and Saeko were close together. He seemed only a little bit jealous, but it didn't register to Daiki due to his adrenaline high, headache and exhaustion.
Continuing on, Daiki cleared the way down the halls to the ground floor, where the bus was located. They ran into some more students on the way, but Daiki never bothered to learn their names, only robotically moving forward. Eventually, at the end of the stairs. They ran into a little bit of a problem. That being the massive horde between them and the door outside. Daiki tensed as rage pulsed through him at the sight. So many.
Staring straight ahead, he was surprised when Takashi walked into the horde to see how they would react. The plague walkers only reacted to sound, so when Takashi threw a shoe he found on the ground, all of the plague walkers went towards the sound. The sight of them shambling away did sooth the rage a bit, but not nearly enough. Continuing the march down the stairs the reverberating sound of metal on metal broke Daiki's unfocused walk, causing him to stumble.
"Run!"
Daiki heard the yell come from Takashi but took a bit to actually get to running, leaving him at the back of the group. Becoming more and more fatigued, Daiki slowed down from a run to a jog, breathing heavily. The hordes of plague walkers were starting to close in on Daiki and the people in the back, being the new group they picked up. Daiki growled in anger and stopped running, his breath coming out in rasps. He turned around to face the horde, rage spiking up at the being shamblin towards them.
Blood.
Daiki stepped forward a step, back hunched a bit as he started muttering under his breath.
"Blood. Skulls. Souls. Kill. Maim. Burn."
(Blood. Skulls. Souls. Kill. Maim. Burn.)
Taking another step and bringing his weapon up, Daiki started to get louder with his chanting.
"Kill, Maim, Burn, Kill, Maim, Burn."
(Kill, Maim, Burn, Kill, Maim, Burn.)
Killing the closest plague walker, Daiki's chant became an enraged scream as his rage boiled over.
"KILL MAIM BURN KILL MAIM BURN KILL MAIM BURN"
(KILL MAIM BURN KILL MAIM BURN KILL MAIM BURN)
Blood splattered on Daiki's face as he kept tearing into the hoards, a small pile of corpses at his feet. Blood pooled on the ground, dripping off his hands and soaked uniform. His enraged state seemed to give Daiki more energy. Every kill, another dose of power to continue the slaughter. The more Daiki killed, the more came from the building. His screams became manic as everything came to head at once. He stopped chanting, but the voices never did. The more he killed, the louder they became. Daiki didn't know how much time had passed, all that mattered was the blood. Eventually, he was stopped by Saeko, who had to drag him from the fight, and bring him into the bus, dripping with blood.
Calming down a bit as he sat down inside, he looked out to see Shido and several of his students rushing towards the bus. Growling at seeing Shido, he stood up again. Rei was yelling at Takashi to leave Shido behind while Yuuki was yelling at them to get him onto the bus. Daiki broke the argument by pushing Yuuki towards the door.
"You want to be with that thing? Then go and greet it. It will not be coming on this bus or I will kill it."
Yuuki looked into the bloodshot eyes of Daiki and thought better of her argument. Takashi wheeled on Daiki, yelling at him that killing was bad, but Daiki wasn't listening. Turning to Shizuka, Daiki was already in the process of asking her to get the bus moving.
"We need to leave."
Shido meanwhile was getting closer. Takashi, in an effort to stop Daiki from leaving a person behind, took a step outside and hollered at Shido to get moving. Growling, Daiki grabbed Takashi by the back and yanked him back into the bus.
"Marikawa-san, we are good to go."
Rei immediately agreed and added her agreement to Daiki's words. The bus doors closed as Shizuka drove off, running through several of the plague walkers in the way. Finally relaxing, Daiki slumped onto the floor, eyes getting heavier as he drifted into his first undisturbed sleep in weeks.
I told you he would be useful.
(Of cOurSe ChAmpIon. I sTand coRreCted.)
Saya sighed with a small self satisfied smile on her face. Sure, the voices were weird, but so far had proven to be useful. The only issue she had with them was that they really seemed to hate Daiki for some reason. They wouldn't explain why, only saying that he was "dangerous," and would end up killing her. She doubted it considering the only people he had killed so far had been a scared person he had mercy killed, and some scum. Honestly she would happily keep him around just because he wasn't so squeamish as to not kill when necessary.
(You wIll ComE tO reGreT tHis whEn hIs PatroN tEllS hiM to KilL You)
You still haven't told me who his patron is. I get that you have this whole stupid mysterious guide thing going but honestly it comes off as you being an idiot who doesn't know.
The voice didn't respond. Of course it didn't, it always happened when she made a good point. Helping lift Daiki onto one of the bus seats so he could rest well, she mentally and physically cringed at the smell of rotten blood. It seemed to seep into his very being as his uniform was thoroughly soaked in the stuff. Saeko surprised her by lifting Daiki's head and sticking it on her lap. Looking at Takashi who gave Daiki a not so small glare in both anger at his actions and jealousy at his position. Sighing to herself at his stupidity because he had a girl who liked him right there, she sat down in the seats across the aisle where Daiki was sleeping. Seeing as most of the people in the bus were starting to go to sleep, she layed down and nodded off herself.