A/N: Warning!
If the chapter title didn't give it away, this chapter's just a little bit...vicious.
That's to be expected, given we're dealing with the Dung Eater here. Dude's a lunatic.
Speaking of crazy times and crazy things...
I'll say it plain, if this email opt-in business with the site doesn't get resolved soon, I'm probably going to retire from this site. It HURTS to say that after all these years; but with this new system, reviews and readers have dropped to an all time low, authors are leaving the site in droves, and it feels like the end of an era. Sometimes the app helps, other times...not so much.
Sometimes the app helps, sometimes it doesn't.
If you're not already aware of it, ever since the 16th of November -more than two bloody months now we've been dealing with this!- you now have to turn ON your email alerts in account settings-MAKE SURE YOU CLICK SAVE SETTINGS!-else you won't be notified when anyone updates. No alerts, no email, no nothing. Apparently that's a thing we all have to do every ninety days or so, now. Alas, not many are aware of it...which is a problem. As things stand this new "fix" as it were, has cut everyone's viewership/reviewers in half because most folks don't know about it. Authors are leaving/quitting because of this.
Sometimes opting in works. Sometimes it doesn't. Really depends. Hopefully the devs can fix tweak/update this system before everyone leaves.
No questions this time. Only story. Alright then, I've kept you long enough. Lets get back to it.
Once more, I own no quotes, references, or memes. Not a wit or a one. NOT! A! THING!
They're all tributes to legends far greater than little 'ol me.
There we go. Disclaimer over. Hope you enjoy~!
"There are some lines one simply does not cross.
There are certain things you just do not do.
There are a few words you shouldn't say.
The Dung Eater has done all of this.
And this? Right here? Right now?
THIS IS WHAT HE DESERVES."
~?
Omen of Rage
He went mad.
Truly there was no other word for it; if the Dung Eater hadn't been crazed before they encountered him then he certainly was now; rather than back down when faced with four powerful opponents -as any sane individual would!- he laughed and threw himself headlong at them, grabbing for anyone and everyone in reach. Naruto found himself jerking backwards despite his better judgement. This wasn't the act of a warrior but a raving lunatic, an accursed creature determined to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible before it perished.
None of them wanted to be touched or otherwise cursed by that...that thing, and so they scattered.
And in his madness, the Dung Eater went for the one person who had already harmed him.
"You took my sword and my eye, woman! I'll have your horns for that!"
He never reached Albedo. Naruto didn't give him a chance.
A hand latched onto lunatic's shoulder, ducked the grasping backhand that followed, whirled now, and drove a Rasengan into the brute's armored back. What should've been a lethal blow -it should have been!- only sent the Dung Eater stumbling forward a few steps with an angry grunt. Naruto regarded his palm with a frown. Strange. Something had resisted him. Weakened the jutsu at the last instant, preventing him from breaking the bastard's armor.
"What on earth...?"
The Formless Mother hissed a warning; he raised his arms on pure reflex.
It saved his life. He never saw the spells that struck him, but he certainly heard the screams, felt the curses sear his palms, sap his strength, and slam him into a wall.
"A pox!" The Dung Eater screamed and yet more wraiths burst forth from his body, countless and innumerable, assailing them in a tide of shrieking wails. "A pox upon you all!"
Through bleary eyes he saw Godwyn burst through it all, eyes ablaze. A blade of purest light sang in one hand, a blazing incantation conjured in the other. A spear of purest lightning shot forth to skewer the Dung Eater in his right shoulder and nail him to the wall. The wretched creature shrieked like a struck pig and tore himself free, uncaring of the bloody wound he left behind. Just as well he did; Godwyn's blade bit through the space he'd occupied a heartbeat before, fiery molten metal cleaving through stone with liquid ease.
Undeterred by his brief brush with death, the Dung Eater tumbled to safety and stabbed a hand into his belt pouch, foul fingers grasping for an item.
They came up holding a strange fleshy, wriggling...thing. Something moving. Something alive, and yet dead all the same.
A pang of dread kicked to life in Naruto's heart.
Godwyn struck down at it for a crippling blow, only to find himself rebuffed by a wall of deepest darkness. It surged forth like the tide, ripped him from his feet and sent him sprawling into Albedo, casting them across the chamber.
"Fool!" The Dung Eater cackled at their plight. "I am blessed by a power far beyond your comprehension! The Moon itself has smiled upon me! Its power is mine!"
"You dare speak such heresy?!"
Ranni shrieked her defiance and raised a hand, brandishing her staff with it. A wave of blue light slammed into the soulless creature...only to sizzle harmlessly against his thick armor.
"I am beyond you now!" He rounded on her to cast more curses her way, forcing her to conjure a barrier just to defend herself. His spells tore right through it and left her buckling with a scream, one he laughed over anew with all the glee of a mad child. "All of you! I have seen the truth of the world in all its wretched glory, the illusion that is this life! You are nothing to me! Naught but-ugach?!"
Naruto had only just begun to right himself when he saw the blade burst from the Dung Eater's chest. His curses fizzled out. The ghastly object he held fell from his fingers to land upon the floor with a wet splat and tried to crawl back toward him.
Thrust into him from behind, Albedo twisted her blade in the wound, smiling softly.
"It seems I was too gentle with you, before." She crooned in his ear as she dug the blade deeper into his flesh. "Perhaps this time I should take your other eye and that wagging tongue of yours besides...?"
"Wench!" The Dung Eater backhanded her away with a heavy gauntlet strike. "You shall take no more from me this day! You...YOU!" Naruto righted himself a heartbeat later and that glassy eye focused on him again, to the exclusion of all else, paying no heed to the wounded woman now sprawled at their feet. Just as well, too; it gave Albeod a blessed chance to retreat while that mad iris locked onto him. "You...I know you."
"Yeah?" he turned his head and spat a bloody gob. "Feelin's not mutual."
"Oh, yes." The Dung Eater bent to retrieve that wretched, wriggling Talisman from the floor. It wriggled up his wrist, and slithered into his wound, much Naruto's disgust. "It is you. The one who was promised."
"..."
In his peripherals, Naruto surveyed what remained of his allies. They looked about as shaky as he felt.
Godwyn was trying to set a broken arm, Ranni was still shivering under the curses she'd been struck with, while Albedo had propped herself up on a wall to recover from the nasty blow she'd taken. They'd be fine, he was all too certain of that; but they needed time to recover. Time they wouldn't have if the Dung Eater went after them. Whatever he had been empowered with blocked or lessened their techniques. But he'd still taken a foul wound when Albeod stabbed him. Which meant...
'Well, if jutsu won't work, I'll just use my bare hands...
"You...you're the one they told me to kill." Still he Dung Eater grinned at him through broken teeth. "Oh, yes. I've defiled so many now, trying to lure you out. More than I can possibly remember. How many could you have saved?"
The inquiry turned Naruto's heard cold. "...what?"
"So many fled from me," the murderer tittered. "And yet none escaped. Because you were trapped down here. Can you hear their cries, I wonder?"
Naruto didn't want to. He knew better; that he was being baited, goaded into something foolish. But he didn't have a choice. Now that he'd been made aware of their plight, his eyes were opened. He'd sensed an air of malevolence around the Dung Eater from the beginning, the very moment they met, but in sensing it, he misunderstood. In his hubris he'd thought it merely the thoughts of one man.
He'd been wrong.
Now he understood. It was more than that. So much more. The cries came not from the man himself, but all the souls around him, every man, woman and child he had defiled. he listened to the souls, heard them scream, begging him for death, for release. It was too much. So much pain. So much death. Dozens? No, hundreds. Thousands! Surely one man couldn't kill so many. But he had, hadn't he? All these and more. He gripped his ears and when that didn't work his head now, desperate to shut them out. But he couldn't. How could one man -monster!- do such a thing...? It wasn't right! It wasn't fair...! It...!
A red haze fell over his world and he felt something he hadn't in an age.
An odd, eerie feeling, hammering alongside his heart.
Rage of Omens.
"You can hear them, can't you?" The Dung Eater grinned at him through chipped teeth, heedless of the hate in his eyes. "All those souls. You could have saved them. But you didn't now, did you? You were too busy with your filthy kingdom and your filthy WHORE-
He was still speaking when clenched knuckles thundered into the side of his face. Naruto watched it all unfold in slow motion; his fist smashing into the filthy man's cheek; barreling by, rippling his unsightly visage like a stone flung into an empty pond. The Dung Eater's head snapped to the side. Three teeth whistled free before momentum carried Naruto past. His sword hissed free and swung down immediately thereafter, slashing so hard that it physically shattered just above the hilt even as he cut into his foe.
Someone was screaming. Who? Who was it?
.
..
...oh.' A distant, dazed part of him realized. 'Its me. I'm doing that.'
"Ha!" The Dung Eater brayed happily, swaying on his feet. "There he is! There's the monster-
Not sated, he slammed the broken hilt into his sash and rounded on him again with an outraged snarl.
No more words! Too much talk! Not enough bleeding!
Naruto swung for the fences again.
Metal buckled beneath his fist. The Dung Eater folded over the arm, now buried in his torso, but only for a moment. Spitting and slobbering he lurched up at him, clawing for his face. A bruising headbutt stunned him and sent him tumbling down to the ground. Naruto caught the back of his head as he fell, reared up with the abomination's skull in hand, howled, and smashed his face into the ground. Once. Twice. Thrice now. A fourth time for good measure. Scarlet stains spattered the filthy cobblestones, rendering his nose a red stain upon the floor.
And still the Dung Eater laughed.
Naruto grabbed him by the shoulder, and rolled him over, intent on silencing that laughter forever.
"Wait!"
Someone grabbed at one of his arms fro behind. Tried to reel him in. Prevent him from going any further. He drove a bony elbow back and was rewarded with a crunch, punctuated by a yelp of pain. The hands fell away, but his moment of inattention cost him dearly; because the Dung Eater was rising now, trying to roll over-
Unacceptable. Mongrels must remain on all fours.
He planted a boot between the brutes shoulders and pushed. Down the Dung Eater went again. A vicious kick righted him onto his back once more Another kept him there. Unwilling to give him another chance to rise or worse, he dove on the lunatic, grabbed him by the throat and held him fast.
From there...he began to squeeze.
Flailing fingers fumbled at his face, seeking purchase, trying to gouge out his eyes even as he strangled him. Naruto felt his temper spike to new heights. The gall of it all. Even now the bastard tried to taint him with those twisted hands. No more. He twisted his head, opened his mouth, felt something enter it and-
CRUNCH.
He bit down with all the brutal force his Omen body possessed.
Warm fetid blood splashed across whiskered cheeks. The Dung Eater recoiled with a startled shriek.
Naruto spat three fingers in his face and hunched over him with a wordless hiss, glaring into his eyes. He'd be certain this was the last thing he saw.
"Nephew, no!" He could hear Godwyn shouting at him to stop, but the words were distant, faint, muted as though spoken from a great distance. "This isn't who you want to be!"
Yes. It was. This was him. Exactly who he wanted to be in this instant. There could be no sparing someone like this. The dead cried out for vengeance. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Evil for evil. He doubled over the dung eater and glared at him, refusing to even dignify his protests with so much as a sound. The lunatic gasped at him, lone eyes rolling in his head as he rasped out his final breaths. Here at last he saw the truth of him; the reality of the man he'd tried to provoke. That ruined face twisted with a new emotion-one foreign to him.
"There it is." The Formless Mother hissed deep within him, savoring the Dung Eater's final moments. "That's the look. The same one his victims wore. Fear. But he doesn't get to go yet." he felt her presence reach out and seize the psyche of the addled man pinned beneath them. "His punishment must be more severe."
Incredulity reared its ugly head and Naruto balked. "He should die!"
...death is a release, my dear champion. Would it not be more painful to have him suffer for all eternity."
The Dung Eater felt Her touch and recoiled. "No! Get out of my mind! Out! Out of my head!"
His fingers tightened around the madman's throat, drawing a wheeze from his victim.
"We should interrogate him. Find out who gave him that relic."
"I...!" The Dung Eater whimpered as astral fingers pried open his mind. "T'was a hooded shadow! They said they understood! They promised me power! I knew not their face!"
...he was telling the truth. That much he could sense. It was tempting to press him further, to grind more words out of him, but that wasn't what the frenzied dead wanted. So long as he lived so did they-bound to this realm by his defilement, by his very life force. They couldn't wait any longer. Most were maddened already. Even filled with rage as he was, he wished for their peace. Let them go to their rest. He could find his answers another way.
"Enough." he decided. "We're killing him. The cycle ends here."
...as you wish." She didn't sound much pleased, but she didn't challenge him either.
In that instant the Dung Eater rasped a word, two syllables babbled past his bruised lips:
"M-Monster!"
Oh, that was rich. Monster, was he? There was only one monster in this room and it wasn't him.
Naruto squeezed one last time with his hands and, heedless of his companion's palpable displeasure...twisted. An awful crack pervaded the air as he broke the Dung Eater's neck. In the same instant the Formless Mother yanked at the miscreant's soul and shredded it to countless pieces. Any lingering spell of curse the madman might've left behind shattered the moment his spirit did; his control over the spirits broken as surely as his psyche.
As one, countless voices cried out in relief, made free from their torment. It was the sweetest of music to his ears.
Naruto stood with an effort, hands trembling, ears still ringing.
There. The deed was done. He felt no guilt. Only release.
Albedo reached him first, quick to latch onto his arm, and quicker still to check him over for wounds and any lingering curses that might've clung to him. Finding none, she drew a clean cloth from her satchel and began to clean clean his face, fretting over the mess he'd made. No words were spoken between them. None were needed. Her smile was enough.
Others proved more...critical of his accomplishment.
"You witless oaf!" Ranni's staggered over, clutching her ribs, and belatedly he realized she'd been the one he elbowed away earlier. "Now we'll never know what he knew!"
"Yet we have the artifact he stole." Godwyn righted himself with a sigh, holding that foul wriggling thing in his good hand. "Though I too wish you had given us a chance to question him...
Naruto quirked a blond brow their way. "He was too dangerous to be taken alive."
"Forgive me," Godwyn relented under his stare. "I dislike killing and my health is not what it once was. Nevertheless, you slew a great evil here today. The world is well to be rid of his ilk."
Naruto huffed to preserve the ruse. "I didn't do it for you...
"Yet I thank you for it all the same-
"Oi!" a new voice pierced the din behind them. "Quit yer jawin' and lemme outta here already! Bastard had me locked up!"
The voice had come from the very same cell the Dung Eater had stood before only a few minutes prior.
Godwyn and Ranni exchanged a baffled look. The latter found her voice first.
"I believe someone is speaking to you, nephew...
When no one made a move towards the cell, Naruto realized the onus of choice had been thrust upon him once more. Rolling his eyes, he stalked over to the door, grasped the bars and wrenched it clear off its hinges. He saw a hunched shadow stir in the darkened chamber within.
"Ah, fresh air!." the voice came on again. "Smell was startin' to kill me by itself...
Soon enough he himself staring at...
.
..
...a short blue man?
"Thanks for savin' my bacon back there." They drew themselves up with a grunt and stumbled to freedom. "I owe ya one. Although," said man leaned forward to squint at the blade hilt jabbed into his sash. "Sorry to say that old swords of yers is wrecked beyond fixin', though."
Naruto blinked the last of the omen rage away from his eyes. His sword? No, it was a lost cause. A quick glance confirmed it. He'd swung too hard and too fast, and subsequently the blade had paid the price. A shame. It hadn't been the best of blades, but it had served him well. He couldn't quite hide his smile as he stowed his ruined tool. "And you would know this how?"
"Weapons are my life's work." the short man grinned. "You need a proper one, ya sonuvabitch!"
Something in the dwarf's crude speech heartened him. He spoke plain. He liked that. "You're an unconventional weaponsmith, aren't you? Bit of a foul-mouth too."
"Bah!" came the grunt. "I ain'ts like my brother. Says it the ways I sees it."
"You have a brother?" Hard to imagine another one like him.
"Eh," a blue hand waved in dismissal. "Sindri's a squeamish little bugger. Don't much like touchin dirty shite. S'why I'm down here rummagin' around for materials, not him."
"What manner of creature are you?" Albedo sniffed, then leaned back from the man and his acrid stench. "Some kind of...dwarf?"
"Aye, I'm a dwarf yer ladyship." the short man squinted at her. "Name's Brok. Ya really ain't never seen a dwarf before?"
Her wings twitched happily. "Lady?"
Aaand just like that, the surly old dwarf won her over.
"Well, yer definitely one of the prettier Omens down here. So?" his gaze swept back to Naruto. "You want me to fix ya up a weapon or not?!"
...he did truth be told. But what manner of weapon would suit him? Not a sword, that was for certain. He could conjure spectral weapons well enough thanks to Morgott's teachings, but they would only last for an instant. No, he decided, best to have something that would last. Stand the test of time. A spear or lance were brittle and would prove like to snap. What wouldn't?
The answer came to him in a thunderclap.
"Brok, was it?" He offered him his and with a rueful smile. "...alright. I'd like that very much."
"Got anything in mind?"
He paused. Considered. Decided. "I would prefer an ax. If you could enchant it with frost, that'd be great."
"Great!" the dwarf clapped his hands. "I've got just the thing." He darted back to the cell which, Naruto realized, wasn't a cell at all but a crude forge of sorts. He hadn't been able to tell with the fire extinguished. It came back to life now, bathing the room in a ruddy red glow as Brok went to work. "You two sit tight. And don't go makin 'pig eyes at my spot here! I saw it first!"
Naruto guffawed outright, finding himself fond of the dwarf already. "Don't suppose you could craft us some armor while you're at it...?"
"Depends." Brok grinned. "Got anything to trade?"
Naruto opened his cloak on one side, revealing some choice material he'd foraged just this afternoon.
The dwarf whistled. "Well ain't that a hoot...? Gonna need more metal than that, though."
Naruto eyed the Dung Eater's body. "Melt his armor down, then. You'll have plenty."
"Aye," Brok's grin turned feral. "Suppose I would. Seems fitting. It'll be good as new. None of that awful shit color to it. Deal!"
"I'd like for Albedo, too."
...sure," the dwarf shrugged. "Why the hell not? Gonna need her measurements though."
"Begging your pardon my lord," Albedo coughed politely behind him before he could continue. "Your...family seems to be having another argument."
"Again?!"
Brok waved a hand. "Bah! This'll take some time anwya. Go chat with your godly friends. You know where to find me."
Indeed they did.
Ranni was raging again when they finally caught up to them. She'd drawn Godwyn down a side passage when they weren't looking; now she seemed intent on having it out with him over something or other. At first he couldn't rightly hear her as he drew near, so heated were her words. Her voice soon put paid to that.
-is a brute!" she hissed furiously at Godwyn, stabbing a finger into his chest. "A savage! And you would unleash him upon the Leyndel?"
His uncle's face remained impassive. "I unleash nothing. And you would do well to remember your place, sister."
Her pale visage closed down. "As you wish. But know this. There will be a reckoning.
He lifted his chin. "When that time comes, I shall pay the price in full."
She reared back. "You mean to sacrifice yourself for his sake?"
"Such is the duty of the strong. We must protect the weak."
"That boy is ANYTHING but weak-
"She's right, you know." Naruto raised his voice, making his presence known. "I'm really not."
"Enough." Godwyn shot Ranni a cross look. "We did not come here to quarrel...
He trailed off, clearly searching for the right words.
"Your aunt is somewhat...cross, due to recent events." He found them quickly, much to Naruto's chagrin. "With the Dung Eater's death we lost any chance of knowing who supplied him with that Relic." Godwyn blew out a sigh. "There is a possibility of a spy in our ranks, yes, of treachery perhaps, but we knew not who to trust...until now."
Ranni stomped a foot but didn't dignify his words with a response.
Naruto had an inkling of his own. He didn't much like where this was going.
"We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the two of you are innocent in this, if nothing else." Godwyn prattled on. "There is something I would ask of you, the both f you," and didn't that just set off every alarm in his head, "But first I would have you understand things."
Albedo beat him to the punch had to ask. "Do you suspect Morgott and Mohg of treachery.
"No." the answer was swift. Decisive. "They cannot venture above as we do, and even projections have their limits. They would have been sighted in the city otherwise."
Naruto felt his shoulders sag. "You want something else, don't you? Out with it.
"I would ask for your help once more." Godwyn turned to face him fully, face resolute. "Come with us to the surface. Aid us in the finding the one responsible for this, so that we might avert a catastrophe. Do this, and I swear you need never return to the underground again; what's more, I shall see every Omen treated with decency when I take the throne. You have my word."
Naruto reeled a little, head spinning at it all. "You're offering an awful lot there...
"I wish to prove my sincerity, is that so wrong, nephew?"
Ranni huffed. "Do as you like. I care not a jot."
"She really does." Godwyn said, drawing an outraged squawk from the redhead. "Pay her no mind."
"Godwyn!"
Ignoring her his uncle pivoted.
That same, sunny smile flashed forth once more.
He offered him a hand. "Well, nephew of mine? What say you?"
A/N: Ah, sweet catharsis...and an introduction to the second arc.
Well? Should this be a story? Yay or nay? Your input determine's this story's fate~!
Once more, we're sticking with the now infamous "Embers" rule for this particular story, and others.
If folks don't like this, it won't be continued. Meaning that if the story itself ain't popular? Well, it will remain, but it won't progress. I'm working two jobs -might need a third soon!- so I barely have time to write; as such, I cannot afford to write something folks don't enjoy. So by all means, speak up! Your voice matters! Make yourself heard! As ever, reviews are the fuel that sustain me. Without them I cannot write a single word. Simple as that. Working nearly all hours of the day keep me absurdly busy, and I can't bring myself to write something folks don't like.
Aaaand there we go. As ever, reviews keep me alive. Without them, I cannot write. So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...
...Review...Would You Kindly?
Here, have some previews.
Some are the same.
And as ever.
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
HERE BE SPOILERS!
(Preview)
"Take him to the surface?! Never! I will not allow it!"
Ah, dear Morgott. Stubborn to the end
Godwyn had found his wayward brother at last. He almost pitied him. Morgott had always been stubborn, even when they were children.
"I have mother's blessing. It will be done. Worry not, it will only be for a short while."
The lie came to his lips all too easily.
"The most terrifying force of death comes from the hands of men who just wanted to be left alone."
Leyndell was just so...bright.
Its people, less so. Men and women scorned his every step.
"Control that boy. He intrudes upon things he does not understand."
Nice statue.
"That is your grandmother. Queen Marika, the Eternal. You'll meet her soon.
Marika leaned back. Blinked. Blinked hard. "I'm a grandmother? Why was I not told of this?"
Her gaze locked onto Naruto.
Wuh-oh.
"Why are you crying? This is your doing. You said it yourself; you'd rather feel pain yourself than inflict it. You choose to be neutral.
But you know what happens when you play both sides?
In the end, everybody loses.
This is the result. You've learned a lesson few seem to grasp. Sometimes, to protect one thing, you need to have the resolve to let go of another. You're not weak. Break your chains. Even if your decision is wrong, its your decision. You started this, after all."
I'm not wrong. What's wrong is this messed up world! And I'm gonna fix it.
"Maul! Savage! How many times to I have to tell you?! Don't harass the newbloods!"
"Don't dig too deep, lad. You might not like what you find down there in the shunning grounds."
I know what the caravan awoke in the dark.
Shadow and flame."
So this is what sunlight feels like. So much better than a projection...
She sat beside him. Her land came to rest over his. "What happens now?"
EDIT: Hey, you made it! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was a blast to write.
Looking forward to chatting with you all when I get back from work~!
Seriously, writing only to receive silence hurts. It hurts alot.
Tired,
~Nz.
R&R~!