Chapter 8:

Blood Raven

Isendra crouched low as she squat-walked through the underbrush surrounding the burial grounds and Izuku crouched even lower as he followed her. He felt ridiculous waddling along by rotating his entire body with each step, and it was killer on his thighs, but if it kept them both alive and safe, he would suffer through it. He did make a mental not to work on training his legs more though.

Isendra held up a fist for him to stop and he did so. Peaking past her he saw why. A couple meters ahead of them, on the other side of a trench, was a red-haired woman flat on her stomach looking over the edge into the burial grounds.

"Flavie!" Isendra hissed to get her attention.

Get her attention she did, as the woman nearly jumped out of her skin as she spun around with her dagger drawn. The full body deflation when she recognized them and relaxed looked more emotionally taxing than the near heart attack Isendra had given her. After taking a deep breath and putting away her dagger she made a shushing motion, followed by a "get down" motioned, followed by a "Come here" motion.

She was a rather erudite sign linguist.

Isendra went into a belly crawl and Izuku followed suit. He imagined it would have been a very uncomfortable journey had they not found the leather armor in that cave a couple weeks back. But as it was his stomach and arms didn't suffer from the many sharp twigs and hard stones as he crawled over them.

They came up to either side of Flavie and looked over the edge of their cover. Izuku felt bile at the sight which greeted him.

A tree of hanging women stood at the center of a graveyard. Each was strung up by their hands instead of the necks, so for all he knew they could still be alive. But they were certainly suffering if they were. Prowling around their still forms was a monster.

This monster appeared to be yet another woman, but she was much taller than the rogues she overlooked, and she wore a bird's skull for a helmet. The rest of her armor sported bony spikes that he suspected were coming out of her. More disturbing still was red vining mass covering her body that looked almost like higanbana flowers to Izuku, but which he suspected was congealed, tendriling blood. He didn't want to understand what kind of magic this was, but by the looks of the shambling, rotten corpses parading around the graveyard and mausoleums, it wasn't difficult to guess.

"Is that? No, it can't be." Isendra gasped at the sight of the giantess before clenching her teeth in obvious rage. "Damn you Andarial."

Flavie motioned for them to retreat, and they did so, slowly crawling backwards on their stomachs which was an entirely new way of getting around to Izuku. When they got back over the hump behind them, they changed back to walking low to put some distance between themselves and the burial ground. Upon reaching a crop of trees they got right to strategizing.

"We stand zero chance of defeating Blood Raven, even in her undead form." Isendra said outright.

"And yet we must try." Flavie said. "The trip to camp and back would be nearly a week, and by then the prisoners on the tree will be dead and the monster wearing my sister's flesh will have an entire army of undead. We three stand a better chance of defeating her now than the entire camp has against her and the potential army she is rising."

Isendra nodded in consideration at her airtight argument, but it was very much an unhappy nod.

"Wait, those ladies on the tree are alive?" Izuku asked." Are you certain?"

"Positive. Their flesh needs to be tenderized before killing and turning them. The evils would have much more use of undead with the skills of our sisterhood than mindless, shambling corpses." Flavie explained.

Izuku looked to Isendra.

"By tenderize she is referring to a process of torturing a victim's flesh before killing them and reanimating them. Muscles remember, and by damaging the most-used muscles of a warrior you make certain that when they are made undead those muscles remember the combat skills from life." Isendra lectured. "So that when they turned undead, they will be just as skilled of archers as they were in life, instead of cannon fodder like the usual zombie."

That was horrible. That horrifying.

"The problem is I don't know if we have a right to get involved in this." Isendra says. "Our standing with Kashya is bad enough, to deny her the chance to put her best friend to rest will just cause more friction between us. But I suppose it must be done."

"Do you really believe saving six of our sister's lives, putting dozens of our fallen ancestors back to their eternal rest and freeing our greatest hero and Kashya's closest friend from her demonic enslavement will do anything other than endear you to us all?" Flavie countered. "If we succeed here, to any degree, then you will have completely earned her respect and the complete allegiance of the rogue sisterhood."

Isendra stood up a little straighter at Flavie's words and Izuku did the same.

"Will it even get you all to forgive me for nearly burning the entire place down?" Izuku asked.

"No!" Flavie hissed. "Never!"

When her mock venom died down to be replaced by a smirk Izuku realized she was joking, even at a time like this. If she could show sch bravery and levity then surely, he could too.

And so, he clenched his fist, raised it to chest level and grinned as wide as he could. All Might smiled in the face of danger. All Might made those he did evil feel weak and those who do good feel strong with his smile, and he would do the same.

"Let's go! We have to save those nice ladies. They don't have to suffer anymore, because we are here!"

They both nodded and got to work planning. Now that they had decided on what to do, they had to figure out how to do it.

"Izuku isn't ready to fight enemies like this yet, so his priority should be to sneak around and get to the prisoners." Flavie said.

"He is small, nimble and brave. I have full faith in my apprentice' ability to reach them unseen and free them. It will be our job to battle Blood Raven and draw the zombies towards us." Isendra agreed. "If the six of them join the battle we may have a chance."

"We already have several advantages that add up to a great chance of victory that you seem to be discounting." Flavie consoled. "In addition to the possible backup of six of our best, we have the element of surprise and the knowledge that Blood Raven is still a new undead, and thus weakened from as strong as she was in life. We are not battling the heroine who helped defeat diablo and free Tristram of his horrors."

Diablo? Tristram? Heroine? He'd have to ask for lectures on history from Isendra in the future. During their long walk through the wilderness.

"Then it is settled. you and I shall make battle with Blood Raven while Izuku frees your sisters. Then with the sister's aid we either defeat Blood Raven or flee to come back with reinforcements." Isendra decided with a nod.

Flavie reached into her belt and pulled out a hatchet which she then handed to Izuku.

"But I don't have any training with it." He complained.

"You will not be using it to defend yourself." Flavia informed him. "I have faith that you are just as capable of chopping rope as you are wood. Your job is to remain unseen, sneak past the undead, which should be an easy enough task, and free those ladies hanging from the tree."

Okay, that made more sense.

"You are more than capable of outrunning zombies." Isendra told him. "Even if you are seen, advance on anyways. Just do not get surrounded. You will be leaving us in a few moments and circling all the way around to the other side of the burial grounds. We will count to one hundred. When the count is finished, you will know based on the sound of battle."

Izuku nodded with every word as he fastened the hatchet to his own belt. It was such a simple plan, a simple course of action. Somehow, that simplicity made it feel all the more likely to succeed. It played to all of their strengths.

"I think you should actually go with him, at least part of the way." Flavie suggested. "You go to the right corner of the south side while I go to the left, we can cover each other and provide more points of distraction."

"That is good. Yes, that decreases the amount of trouble Izuku has to deal with and splits the enemy forces further." Isendra agreed. "If we stay together then Blood Raven only has one target, split up she has two. Should one of us fall we still have a chance. Should both of us fall Izuku will be in the clear to free the six and get them out. Two lives for six is a fair deal."

Geez that was morbid, what happened to the levity in the face of fear?

"Shall I go now?" Izuku asked.

"Yes." The two women said as one.

Isendra and Izuku took off to the right, moving carefully but quickly. With purpose. It was only a few dozen meters alter that they were due to split up. But before he continued on his own Isendra grasped him by the shoulder and looked him in the eyes.

"Be safe, not brave. Keep to the tombstones and underbrush. Most importantly, think things through before acting and should worst come to worst leave us behind and flee back to camp as fast as your little legs can take you." Isendra ordered. "If all else should fail you must survive tonight and get back to the encampment. It is vital that they know and send everything they have if we do not succeed."

Then, she ushered him away.

From there his feet took him. He ran at a crouch, keeping his spine curved and head down and staying close to the trench and the bushes growing from the swales on the outside. He wasn't even out of breath by the time he turned left onto the north side, nor was he out of time when he reached the center of said north side.

As he had when they found Flavie, he crawled along the ditch on his stomach until he reached the far swale and peeked over.

Everything was the same as the first time, but now with the anticipation of knowing what happens next. He cursed himself for not keeping count in his head, so he had no idea how much time he had left of the one hundred seconds. But when they ended, he got a very clear signal that it had.

Isendra had clearly been training since the fight in the cave, for the firebolt that collided with the undead Blood Raven exploded on her back with much more force and a much louder whoosh sound than the ones he had seen before. He was genuinely surprised it didn't sprawl the demoness out on her butt. But it did get the attention of Blood Raven and every shambling zombie in the graveyard.

"Join my army of the dead!'' Blood Raven's voice, as loud as Isendra's firebolt but as calm and steady as if she had spoken it from two feet away.

As one the undead turned and like a colony of ants filed towards his master beside theirs.

Izuku nearly leapt over the swale to charge for the tree before remembering Isendra's words. Thinking things through, he realized there could easily be other zombies lying in wait. Either because they were deaf and didn't know a battle had begun, or because they had been programmed to never leave their post no matter what happened around them. And so, he remained hidden, crawling on hands and knees to the nearest tombstone.

He looked over it and checked both ways as if expecting a freight truck to Isekai him again but spotted no lookouts or guards in the next leg of his journey so he sprinted to a gap between two mausoleums up ahead of him. As he did so he paid attention to the battle south of him.

For an undead abomination this Raven sure ran fast. She was already nearly upon Isendra when Flavie finally joined the fray and put an arrow between her shoulder blades to go with the nice third degree burns Isendra had gifted her.

Checking the way in front of him and finding it clear he made a beeline for a gravestone absolutely covered in thorny branches. His kept his arms around his head to let his leather armor protect him from the thorns. They did their job and when he was safely inside of them, he felt every hair on his head stand on end as bright white and blue light filled the horizon.

Peeking over this new headstone he saw waves of lightning arcing from Blood Raven to the handful of zombies that had been closest to the southeast end. the former slowed from the arcing electricity flowing through her body, the latter fell in piles of ashen bone.

Izuku couldn't stop the fist pump he made at the sight of the battle going well but did manage to choke the hoorah threatening to come out of his throat.

By now Flavie had gotten the attention of Blood Raven's army and it split up to pursue both Isendra and Flavie, leaving the prisoners completely unguarded. The plan couldn't have been going more perfectly, but he didn't let it get to his head.

Looking both ways one last time he untangled himself from the branches and sprinted to the last tombstone between him and the concrete separating the tree from the graves.

Right beside him was a pile of bows and full quivers, along with daggers, potions and the other personal effects of the rogues hanging from the tree. What torture it must have been, to see the means by which they could defend themselves so close at hand, yet so far. His opinion of demons descended further with each new cruelty he witnessed from their hands.

Ignoring the gear for now, he glanced past it to get a good look at the survivors, he could see they were doing their best to stand on their toes to relieve the stress from the ropes around their wrists. The one nearest him was trying to take advantage of the commotion by fighting against her bindings, and though she was red in the face from the exertion she made no progress. The woman next to her, on the other hand, was bleeding from countless wounds and seemed to be unconscious, if not dead.

Before daring to sprint the last of the way forward Izuku looked behind him to make sure nothing was going to blindside them from the north. Finding the way back and the way forward clear he thanked whatever gods Isendra worshipped and took off.

He withdrew both his dagger and his axe before sprinting towards the nearest struggling rogue.

She hardened her face and straightened at the sight of him running at her with weapons drawn but that war face dissolved into a smile of pure relief when she recognized him, and tears flooded her eyes. He ran right past her, dropping his dagger at her feet in a manner that guaranteed she saw it. From there he climbed up that tree so fast you'd think he had a monkey quirk. Shimmying up the branch she was on, he righted himself into a seated position, his thighs clenching the branch as tightly as his glutes could manage, and he swung his hatchet with both hands.

That one strike severed the knot and dropped her to the ground, where she fell into a crouch and snatched up his dagger in a single motion.

"You go clockwise!" He yell-whispered as he reached out with his left hand to the next branch.

He didn't watch to see her move along but did hear the sound of his blade tearing at the bindings of her most injured sister. He focused all of his attention on hacking at the knot on the next branch. Doing it one handed while steadying himself with the other meant it took him a few swings, but soon enough he had freed the second rogue and she fell too the ground.

"Get your weapons!" He yell-whispered at this one.

She didn't nod nor acknowledge him, merely sprinting towards the pile of gear that had been stripped from them.

He shimmied back down his branch to cross over to the next one but by the time he got there the first woman he had freed was already slicing the bindings on her wrist and he opted to climb back down and ready himself for a fight. The last one he'd freed returned by the time his feet met the ground and she was handing out bows and quivers to the still standing rogues.

"Young Midoriya, help Alexis if you have any healing salves or bandages." The first rogue he'd freed ordered as she slung her quiver over her shoulder and notched a bow. "Maria, guard them while we provide aid to Isendra and Flavie."

The woman who had retrieved the bows, Maria, walked with Izuku to where the most severely injured of the rogues had been left on the ground in a recovery position. Upon reaching her he dropped his pack and began rummaging around while Maria notched an arrow and turned her back to him in order to strike down any would-be attacker.

The symphony of bowstrings snapping and arrows whistling through the air told him that the army of undead would soon be greatly diminished, and with it Isendra and Flavie's workload. The unexpected success was making his heart pound faster in excitement than horror ever had.

Izuku took deep breaths to steady himself as he dug up his waterskin, bandages and two of the red potions he had been given by Isendra. Then thinking on it he also grabbed one of the blues.

Turning Alexis over on her back he surveyed the wounds. They were not fresh, but they were also not fatal or even bleeding deeply. Each cut had been deliberately made to avoid any veins or arteries, and certainly didn't touch any of the major ones. He checked her inner thighs, neck, armpits and shoulders meticulously and found they they were unharmed.

The cuts she did have were all shallow, but they were numerous. Criss-crossing her calves, thighs, biceps, traps, pectorals and even her face.

Tenderize indeed.

Akara had warned him about the dangers of using healing potions on old, unclean wounds. The risk of infection for new wounds was nearly nonexistent, but ones that had been open for hours exposed to the air, dust, dirt and other elements? Closing those with a potion was tantamount to killing the victim outright because you wouldn't be able to clean the wound later. And if he forced any down her throat to replenish her lost blood, he risked them all bleeding again which would make working on them harder.

His mind went right to the nail polish remover he had scavenged from the swamp months ago, but this was unhelpful as he had used it all to start a fire that first night. He didn't have anything else with disinfecting properties and he cursed himself for not taking up Gheed and Warriv's repeated offers of drink. They had all found it odd that he wouldn't touch beer or wine, let alone the vodka and brandy the two men somehow managed to smuggle in. He made a mental note to buy an entire wineskin of Vodka next time he saw Gheed. Hell, he ought to buy honey while he was at it for the same reason.

He scoured his brain for anything at all he could use to clean the wounds before pouring the potion over them, but the only thing he could come up with was...

"Fire!" He gasped to himself.

He looked down at his hands and without putting a single additional thought into it he took action. His fingers erupted in the blue glow of mana and he wrapped them around Alexis' ruined calves. Careful not to actually touch her wounds, he placed his thumbs and fingers at the edges of her wounds as evenly as he could. It took all of his concentration and willpower, but he commanded the dancing mana to glide over and cover every millimeter of the deep cut on and once he achieved full saturation, he ignited it with a thought.

Even unconscious she gasped as he seared her flesh closed, he merely gritted his teeth and did his best to muffle his own scream as his fingertips suffered the same fate as her muscles and tendons. The smell of burning human was not a pleasant one but he was too single-mindedly focused on his mana to care.

When the wound was fully burned to what would be considered a third degree he reached for the closest vial of red potion and, realizing he really ought to have opened them before ruining his fingers, bit the cork off and poured a small amount into his free palm before dipping the fingers of his other into the pooling red liquid. He repeated the process with his other hand before finally pouring the liquid on Alexis' cauterized wound.

Akara's first rule of providing medical aid was to make sure you yourself are safe and in good condition before tending to others. It reminded him of airplane emergency procedures.

With that done Izuku uncorked the other two vials, even though the first was still two thirds full. He just wanted to be prepared before he ruined his fingers again. By the time he finished properly setting up his work area this time, the calf wound was completely shut, but the scar left behind was deep and ugly. He hoped she would forgive him in time.

He mentally registered the approach of something big, glowing and red from the opposite end of the graveyard to Isendra's World War One re-enactment. He also registered Maria calling out for help dealing with it and her sisters coming around to encircle him from behind.

Izuku dared to turn around and look past the circle of archers to see what was approaching from the north.

Skeletons. A horde of skeletons, each armed to the teeth and led by a glowing crimson pile of bones with a mace larger than Izuku.

They were all fast moving, at least in comparison to the zombies, but his half-circle of archers remedied that with a barrage of what could only be described as ice arrows. Each impacted center mass in their sternums.

They didn't seem to hurt the piles of calcium walking towards them, what with them having no flesh to pierce. It did, however, slow them down. A thick covering of ice sprouted from where the arrows struck, freezing their joints shut and stopping them in their tracks. The small army still advanced, fighting against the cracking ice covering them as they moved.

Leaving the fighting to the adults as they turned the battlefield into a casual shooting range he turned back to Alexis and got back to work.

This time he turned his head to bite down on the collar of his leather shirt as he burned his fingertips and cauterized Alexis' wound. He repeated his earlier action of pouring the red potion into a pool in his palm to soak his fingers in before applying it to Alexis' calf. And so he worked, painfully, meticulously. His work an all-consuming inferno in his mind as his fingers went completely numb from the repeated burning and healing.

He fixed up both thigh muscles as the screaming of the rogue sisters, moaning of shambling undead, and screeching of flaming arrows filled his ears. The exhaustion, mental and physical, of using so much magic so deliberately was wearing him down. Supposing he was running out of mana he reached for the blue vial and dared to risk a sip despite his last experience with the stuff.

As soon as the blue, minty liquid touched his tongue relief and strength returned to him, along with the now familiar burning sensation of mana coursing through his body, though now it was less painful and more soothing.

With that done the healing he could do for Alexis was finished and he poured some of both potions down her throat. His hope was that with her legs healed she could escape the graveyard by her own power and heal the wounds of her upper body later. Preferably with access to a disinfectant that didn't require him to melt off his fingernails.

For a split second he worried that taking the blue and red potions back-to-back could have unintended side effects, but that worry vanished as the wounds on her face and upper body began to bleed. This would normally be a bad thing, but they weren't bleeding because they had been reopened. They were bleeding because she had more blood in her body now. The correct amount of blood.

When her eyes snapped open Izuku wasted no time.

"Alexis! We have to move now. I have healed your legs and I need you to use them." He instructed.

She was visibly delirious and clearly hadn't understood a word he had said. He knew his efforts had been wasted and there was no chance of her getting out of there by her own power.

He felt the excess mana caused by the potion swelling up painfully within him and knew he was close to suffering the same "mana attack" he had when he'd drunken it in that cave with Isendra, so he resolved to spend it as quickly as possible. He turned around to see the horde of skeletons were mere meters away, nearly upon the rogue sisters protecting him. The effects of the ice arrows had diminished in the moments since they were struck, but the white sheet of ice still covered every bone. That suited his plans perfectly.

He sprinted forward to join their semicircle and let go. He let all of his mana flow forward out of his body, and it seeped into every stone, nook, cranny and abdominal cavity in the ten meters in front of him. From there, he simply flipped a switch in his mind, as if striking a match, and all was fire.

Pop physics quiz. What do you get when you supercool hundred-year-old bones then rapidly heat them?

The entire lower halves of every single skeleton shattered. From the Tibia to the femur to the pelvis, and when the upper bodies fell to the ground they too were consumed by the unrelenting flames. All save the crimson glowing one who, though bereft of legs, crawled forward with hands and elbows. When he was all but a meter away and ready to bear down on him all five of his lady companions stepped forward and kneeled down to hold their notched arrows inches from his face.

All at once they let loose and Izuku heard the shattering of bone indicating his skull was no more. He couldn't actually see it, what with five full-grown women occupying one square meter of space between him and the now headless enemy. But his imagination filled in the blanks.

Not even a second passed by before he felt the full-body exhaustion of his entire mana store being depleted all at once and felt himself falling. When his entire vision filled with white light, he feared that his life had come to an end and squeezed his eyes shut. When the sound of crackling lightning filled his ears along with it, he realized he was still alive. Oddly, the pain of electrocution failed to materialize, so he dared to open his eyes.

Beautiful, arcing lightning flowed across the entire graveyard, outright vaporizing every single remaining zombie but failing to so much as singe a single plant, tombstone or person. The arcing lightning, pure white instead of the white and blue Isendra could cast, filled him with a sense of relief, like the moment before sleep took you after a day of herd work.

"Ooooooohhh." Blood Raven's soft, beautiful voice filled his ears yet again, filled with that same relief he felt.

Her thankful moan was followed by one last gasp of air and the lightning subsided, leaving them in a silent graveyard with the smoldering remains of the undead army.

The all stood there as even the insects and wind went silent. And then, all at once, they cheered, whooped and wept in joy at the end of the battle and disbelief at all of their survival. Izuku did all three and did so louder than anybody else.

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