A/N: Can anyone see this? Do let us know. Feedback is important. Slifer wrote the bulk of this, the absolute madlad, I just helped cook.
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I'm just a humble author trying to make his way in this wild, wicked world, one word at a time.
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Hope you enjoy this chapter, may it make you smile.
"Beware the whisper that lurks in the back of thy mind.
More often than not, it whispers sweet nothings...
..but when it began making sense...
...when it guides thee to action...
...BEWARE."
~?
Guiding Moonlight (Part II)
Maladies were something that Kurama had become intimately familiar with.
Born as a construct of energy with a form that could be moulded through will and time, the concept of wounds or even pain had initially been an unkind novelty that he could shrug off like warm autumn rain. It didn't mean he didn't understand the concept of pain, just that he had experienced so many different forms of it in nearly 1000 years of life that the differences were academic unless it really stood out.
The Gold and Silver brothers eating the meat from his stomach lining from the inside out until he was forced to vomit them out ranked as probably the most vivid pain in his recent life on a 'personal' level.
But in truth, Kurama, mightiest of the Bijuu, was more used to viewing maladies from a second hand perspective and had done so for about a century, ever since a certain wood loving Hokage had let his red haired heridan of a wife onto the battlefield and stuck him with battery duty for the better part of 100 years with scant intermissions of attempting to escape. The great fox would never admit it, but part of the reason why he was able to think back on these times so candidly was how wholeheartedly he had bonded with Naruto. In the olden days there would have been a lot more cussing, screaming and declarations of taking over his Jinchuriki's bodies and murdering all they loved.
He was a little cranky at the time…just a little.
However, while his antipathy for his former jailors had been more volatile than fissioning nucleus, he had done his best to make sure that their bodies stayed in one piece from whatever malady or wound blighted them. It helped that the Uzumaki inherently possessed a reasonably formidable healing factor and vitality to their bodies and spirits that he usually just had to prompt it with a touch of chakra to deal with it. Anything that their bodies couldn't handle then he could afford to be a little more direct.
Broken bones? Send chakra to the wounded area to set the bone and quickly cause the bones to knit back together, chakra transforming to fill the gaps of anything smashed beyond repair, or dissolve a stubborn chip of bone that no longer fit into the hole it had broken away from.
Flesh? Accelerate cell division and use chakra to rejuvenate telomeres so they didn't shorten their lifespan. Again, use chakra to form minor scale patch jobs that healed without a skar.
Poison, just burn it from the bloodstream.
Disease though… disease was tricky depending on what it was. Usually Kurama would just have to boost Naruto's immune system if it was something that actually needed attending to. He wouldn't step in for something as blase as the common cold. Things at the micro scale that affected cells and genetics required a level of finesse that you wouldn't think a 125 metre tall fox capable of. And failing that, carpet bomb it with chakra. If that failed, seek someone who knew what they were doing.
All of this, all of it, went some of the way to describe why Kurama wanted to strangle Melania if he ever met her face to face. Because the Scarlet Rot was a fucking bastard of a disease.
It didn't behave in a way that Kurama had ever seen any earthly disease behave. Instead of working through any mechanism or process that could be codified, it was as if the sanguine coloured soup made putty of the rules of reality in a sickeningly childish way. It would rush in and twist the flesh and mind, conferring malignant states on things that a disease should have no say over. Metal would rust, stone would melt, magical constructs would wither and in their putrefied states spread the rot further, in new ways.
In their time in the Lands Between, Naruto had come into contact with the disease once or twice and the results had been unpleasant but negligible. The metaphysical aspects of the disease were repulsed by their chakra, and the worst had ever come of it was a runny nose that smoked when it hit the floor.
This was different. The Swamp of Aeonia was ground zero for the Rot as the Lands Between knew it, therefore the potency of the affliction was so much stronger than any other. The red mud that Naruto's form now danced across as a whirl of twin blades was pure, concentrated Rot held a shadow of that centuries old great bloom. And with every splash of the rancid muck, every inhalation of the toxic vapours, more and more of the rot soaked into Naruto's body and mind.
Kurama could deal with the body, and already he had purged 70% of the initial blight from his partner's countenance, but that lingering 30% gripped into him like barbed knives and Kurama was having a hard time working them loose. And the longer it took him, the more of this foul stuff piled on.
"I have to keep a constant stream of raw, unfiltered Bijuu chakra running through his body to keep the new rot from leaching its way in while I hit the stubborn parts in new ways that they won't be able to adapt to." Kurama allowed, his voice full of concentration, hands clasped into a Ram Hand Sign, directing lances of golden chakra like the crack of a whip. The skittering squeals of the rot from each element he struck at offered hollow satisfaction, because there was one aspect he could not help with.
The Rot twisted the body and the mind. The only way to hold back the latter was force of will and mental fortitude. Naruto had that in spades, but will could quickly turn into anger, and anger was a fire that could rage out of control.
"Hang in there, Naruto!" Kurama shouted, giving his partner moral support while he continued to purge him of the physical pains.
Naruto did not respond.
Kurama frowned, his dark lips pulling back over his long fangs. He sensed no sign that Naruto had even heard him, only anger that burned hot and righteous.
"Get your head back in the game, Naruto!"
(.0.0.0.)
"That's it Naruto, you're doing great. Drive them back into the muck!"
Naruto did not respond as the words washed over him.
The blonde was a strobing flash of golden light that span with blurs of deep green and white hewed black, whipping out to reduce a shambling creature of rot to mincemeat that was blown away in the small cyclone his swift movements were generating. Aeonia's red muck gleamed hungrily, reflecting Naruto's gold light back at him in mellifluous vermillion. Dark shapes clambered from the swamp, insectoid creatures that let out pained yet joyful cries as they broke into sprints to get to Naruto, like moths drawn to a naked flame. He was the bright singularity at the heart of a black hole, his twin swords the accretion disk that shredded entire star systems to dust; and this black hole was hungry.
The blonde himself though, he was angry, the angriest he had been in a long, long time. And for reasons that he could not quite fathom, he was struggling to think why that was such a bad thing. He stepped forwards, space blurring as he rushed the rotted troll that had decided it was its turn to try and take him down. Both his swords slashed in different directions, the Moonlight Greatsword took the Troll's head while Kaimon split its torso down the middle. The Troll stumbled, its body locking up and spasming, the putrid power of the rot forestalling the realisation that it was dead.
The inky black aura of death licked at the wounds along the great valley that Kaimon had sliced into its chest, the flesh turning ashen and dead as its quivering tissues became still.
'Too Slow' Naruto though laconically, the fact that the headless and listing monstrosity had yet to crumble back into the mud drove his aggravation higher. An aggravation that could only be soothed through wrath. "RAAAAAH!" Naruto howled, a chakra arm expanding from his back with a Rasengan swirling into life in its palm. The ethereal appendage rocketed forwards and drove the fusillade of chaotic chakra into his latest opponent. The Rasengan detonated, enveloping the remains in a bubble of force that ripped its remaining limbs free.
Naruto grinned, the fire of his anger burning brightly and pressing him on, falling upon yet more opponents, some who flew down from the sky or came from under them all. At one time a pair of giant misshapen jaws, twice as long as Naruto was tall, rose from the swamp on either side of him, its twisted teeth parting the muck like tombstones rising from a water logged grave. He was effectively standing in the mouth of a giant submerged beast that had spent who knows how long bloating beneath the rot of this unholy cauldron.
His heart thundered in his ears, gold eyes darting around and quickly came to a decision. As the jaws snapped up like some giant bear trap, he held out both swords pointing to either side of him, skewering the ebony coloured chitinous flesh that made up the fel swamp thing. The red morass at his feet bubbled acidly, a cry of pain from mud thick lungs.
And despite that, more still came. Running from all angles, to try to claw at him, embrace him into their vile covenant and change him into something awful, something that could not tell friend from foe. Naruto grit his teeth and heaved, a bellow tearing forth from his lungs as he spoke the words this whole ordeal had been egging him to say.
"I FUCKING HATE THE SCARLET ROT!"
'Twang'
He did not hear the sound, for it was not a sound, but he did feel it. The grandiose and harmonic vibration passed through him subtly, like the string of a harp had just been plucked by a masterful hand. Its reverberations passed through him from all sides. Naruto's insides twisted and suddenly his body felt hot, in a different way from the warmth he felt when donned in Kurama's chakra cloak. This felt as if certain parts inside his body were quickly heating up and coming to a boil. And across his chest, amidst the black lines of his chakra cloak, the sigils representing the great runes began to glow. Power welled up from within, a strata he had never felt before, urging for release.
Naruto allowed it, letting the power of purest gold exploding from him in a dome that expanded out away from him. It caught the rotted kindred in its expansion, their bodies dissolving the moment they were enveloped. The dome expanded further, causing the charging rot creatures to beat a quick retreat, something about the feeling of the power so anathema to their existence that it scared sanity back into them for a time.
Finally it gave way and Naruto was left, standing in the centre of an island or hard, brown mud, his great runes winking one after another.
A pause passed between them all, an ill breeze flowing across the land. Then the haze descended again, red overlaying Naruto's vision. Almost too quickly, but the anger called, and it sang louder than sense.
"It's something worth hating. A blight upon the land. A tumour unt-" the voice caught itself, "- On order. So thresh them like wheat."
Naruto heard the voice but did not reply, he was riding the wave of his own anger, the thrill of it and Aeonia was proving a mighty catalyst for losing sight on things, what mattered right now was swinging his swords. Slices becoming slashes. Slashes becoming hacks and brutal cleaves.
Plus, why would he question a voice in the back of his head? He'd been dealing with that since he was… was….
Angry.
'Twang'
And down the path he danced, the options forwards slowly but surely thinning to another's tone, and a voice glowing clearer.
"They don't deserve the Lands Between. But you do. With my gentle fingers pointing the way."
(.0.0.0.)
The Carian Manor had never been the most ostentatious seat of royalty in the Lands Between. It had the usual trappings of a place of power and a sartorial elegance that drew the eye but it was positively reserved when compared to the gilded domes and ivory coloured towers of Leyndell or the long lost mega structure of Farum Azula. Years of decay and abandonment had taken the edge off that understated shine and its current debacle was providing an even better case as to why Raya Lucaria was the new capital of Neo Caria.
Rennala floated through the air, flitting between the battlements of her childhood home with her face set in a scowl. Keen deep blue eyes swept over the courtyard she gracefully hovered over, hunting her prey. She spotted something shift in the shadow of a pillar and instantly attacked, the chime of glintstone sorcery heralded the arrival of three magical crests, each spitting a Carian Phalanx carrying a different element. The first fire, the second air, the third lightning. They whizzed through the air, faster than the naked eye could track, shattering the pillars into large blocks of masonry. A grey shadow burst forth, sprinting away even before the tip of the first summoned swords had made it through the pillars.
Gehrman raised his gun, firing a scatter of quicksilver shot at Rennala who blocked it, her fading crests reforming into a temporary barrier that took the impacts. The Phalanxes began to detonate in sequence, first the fire, filling the separated walkway with a globe of flame, then the air to fan the flames, making them turn white hot and channelling them down the hall behind Gherman. He made to jump behind one of the remaining pillars when his eyes widened, the lightning detonation conducting straight to his pegleg and briefly seizing his movements.
'Got you!' Rennala thought as the fire consumed him. Her feeling of triumph was short-lived when she saw a flickering light from within the smoke and dust, a mix of orange fire and electricity.
Not unexpected, her spells were powerful things. The lingering magic in the air would keep their effects going even on substances that couldn't burn. But that wasn't what gave Rennala pause. Her lightning was blue. The crackle there was blue-white.
Flakes of paper filtered through the smoke surrounding the light. Rennala did not wait, she acted, waving her Catalyst through the air and calling up a brace of Azure Commits ready to slag the entire courtyard.
"I CAST YOU DOWN!" A chunk of masonry the size of Rennala's torso erupted from the smoke and dust, flying through the air in the blink of an eye and catching the Fullmoon Queen in the chest. She flew back, her back cracking into the edge of the roof and knocking the wind from her lungs.
Stars burst in front of her eyes, concentration momentarily lapsing and sliding down the wall into the courtyard. She shook her head to get her bearings but there was Gherman, screaming from the smoke like something right out of a nightmare, his Burial Blade wreathed in fire and lightning. Her catalyst came up, catching the electrified flaming blade as its elderly wielder swung it horizontally. Reverberations rattled up and down the royal sceptre from gem head to bladed tip but its masterwork craftsmanship held under the assault even as sparks of lightning and flame spattered the front of the Queen's robes, causing her to let out a snarl and push back against the First Hunter.
"It seemeth thou doth have some manner of cantrip then, it stinks of parchment and ozone." Rennala said through gritted teeth, levering her greater height against the grey haired attacker. The flaming burial blade wobbeld slightly from the pressure Rennala exerted into the blade lock but it held. Gherman smiled thinly at her.
"Hmm, I was not able to bring much on this hunt, but Flame and Bolt Paper seemed a good choice to face those that wield the elements. I'll admit it is not as aesthetically pleasing as your witchcraft." he replied with genuine humility, digging his heels in and bringing the blade lock to a standstill again, the shake leaving the sparking blades.
Had it been under different circumstances, Rennala would have loved to quiz the strange hunter on his unique equipment, whiling away the hours in academic study by the fire and the comfort of her library. Eyes hardening, the Queen of Neo Caria spread her awareness and gently oriented her staff, taking in her surroundings in a magical sense.
The invader opened his mouth to speak again when a thin shaft of blue light erupted from the top of the catalyst, splitting into a string of gossamer thread that linked up with the abandoned yet still present Azure Comets. Gherman disengaged instantly, leaping backwards to get distance between Rennala and what seemed to be a suicide attack. But the Full Moon Queen was not as self destructive as she had once been. She jumped, her feet leaving the floor and became suffused in an aura of expanding silver light, cocooning her in a translucent barrier that was her Moon.
'Fall!' she intoned mentally, immediately the constellation of azure death plummeted towards the ground as compressed magical bombs. It didn't matter how much distance Gherman got, five Azure Comets worth of magical power was about to be released. He still was not without recourse, his hand slipped inside his coat and withdrew something made of a chalky white substance on the end of a chain.
It was a heartbeat too late, the five greenish blue missiles of Carian Sorcery struck the ground and instantly released the totality of their magical payload. The explosions bloomed like blighted flowers, converting the majority of their energy into pure concussive force before melding into one another, increasing the effect by an order of magnitude. The day momentarily shifted to night as the hemisphere of magic heat and force swelled and spread, washing over the entire courtyard in a fraction of an instant, even as Gherman tried to guard himself.
The blast took him, wiping him from the vista before hitting the Carian Manor as a whole. The sections behind Rennala took the brunt of the explosion, stone and mortar was sheared clear and pulverised before the wind of the explosion, which shrieked with a resonant chime instead of a traditional 'boom', totaled that entire wing of the Manor. The other side of the courtyard took it little better, the shockwave shattered the far wall's upper facade like cheap glass, tearing the tiled roof clear in a rain of ceramic shrapnel that was tossed into the air, falling back onto the cracked and blasted ground as a withering hail.
Smoke and dust filled the air in a tapered pillar as the light of day returned, swaying in the artificially created thermals like an ephemeral skyscraper. A single point of silvery white light cut through the grey cloud of grit that grew more defined as the smoke cleared, revealing Rennala's Moon hovering sentinel where it had been before. Rennala looked over the scene from within the Moon, floating on silent cushions of force. The raven haired monarch blinked in curiosity, she appeared to be a little higher than she had summoned the Moon but the curiosity faded as she factored in the fact she now hung over the crater created at ground zero of the barrage.
It was not her most precise work. It was more akin to taking a mallet to a stubborn bug but she had made it work in a way that most Sorcerers would never even dream of being able to do. Usually her Moon was used as a projectile attack and she would only spend nominal time inside of it, but minutely changing its magical composition so it was on the same wavelength as her comets had made it temporarily immune to the shockwave of her attack. She had essentially turned the casing of a weapon into a dugout shelter to protect her from the collateral damage of her own attacks.
Rennala scanned the savaged landscape before her and felt a pang of guilt. She had just totaled a large chunk of her childhood home. She chided herself, the analytical part of her pointing out that there were innumerable other ways of squashing the interloper instead of shock and awe. However, a much louder voice in her head, one fueled by passion and emotion, said that it was totally warranted as recumpence for sending Naruto away. What both voices agreed on, was that she needed to turn her attention to getting Naruto back now that the lank haired menace had been vanquished.
A bolt of grey and black lightning forked from the building's ruins, bearing a fang of keen steel. It launched towards Rennala with such speed that the age old witch queen almost lost track of it, nearly taken off guard. Shock seized as she saw that not only had Gherman seemingly survived but had access to more unique abilities that he had yet to show. Her composure did not break and she was already in the motions of countering. Seeking to block it, Rennala instantly called up three magical crests that fired a stream of small glintstone shards and thin magical beams at the lightning.
Then, to her surprise, the lightning changed direction, forking on a different vector. The three magical circles turned to follow the attack while Rennala called up three more, all six now orbiting her moon in case Gherman attacked her from her blindspot. Glintstone volleys peppered the ground, kicking up puffs of dirt where they struck the ground but again the lightning forked in a different direction, moving to dodge the rain of magical projectiles.
Her eyes locked on something amiss about the scene. The lightning passed through one of the puffs of dirt on its latest sporadic direction change, yet it did not burn. It was cast aside as if something physical had passed through it.
'Surely not…' she thought, an inkling of what was going on taking root in her head. She extended her hand, tracking the path the lightning took and laying a gravity pitfall there. She snapped her fingers and a rain of 'stars' steamed off her Moon's shell, raining down on the lightning from above and causing it to change direction again, passing over the gravity pitfall. Waves of purple light fanned out from the floor, snaring the lightning and while it did not stop it, it was slowed for a fraction of a second. Long enough to get a closer look at it.
Her mouth fell open in genuine shock. A tattered grey cloak, a wide brimmed leather hat and a pair of pale eyes that stared right into her soul. It was not Gherman's lightning, it WAS German himself. Sprinting with such speed and so low to the ground that he appeared even to Rennala's senses as a bolt of grey lightning. She gritted her teeth, intensifying the hail of projectiles trying to skewer or smash the First Hunter as he returned to his true speed, forking again and again. She let magic flow through her eyes, sharpening her senses to their limit and finally Gherman came into true clarity.
His age was no issue, moving with a fluidity and grace that would make trained dancers weep. He snaked around beams of magic with serpentine moments, vaulting over Carian Blades and Axes. he turned in the air, using his Burial Blade to subtly alter the trajectories of anything he could not dodge and with all the subtlety of a cannon firing, went for her.
'Too fast!' she thought, though the intense spellfire did nothing. She had him beaten in raw firepower and versatility but he had speed and martial prowess that made him able to dodge and juke her spellfire. He was close now, too close. 'Too close!'
She had to drop the moon, the explosion would deter him and likely break his speed. She was a sorceress supreme and could hold her own in a melee but blade to blade was never her strong suit. That had always been _'s domain.
A pit formed in Rennala's stomach, suddenly awash with emotion without a source. She was remembering something, and it brought her a profound sorrow that stalled her action just a second too long.
Gherman took his chance, affixing the Burial Blade to its shaft but keeping the blade vertical, he fashioned a wicked glaive and flew at Rennala's moon, driving the weapon forwards with a yell of exhilarated zeal. "SCRAM!"
The tip of the glaive pierced the Moon with a sharp pinging sound, arcs of blue and white magic erupting from the rupture. He would not be repulsed, hoisting his weight and all the speed he had picked up into the thrust and the moon buckled, revealing Rennala with her eyes and arms wide. In a desperate attempt to forestall him for even a moment, the Queen thrust the bladed tip of her Catalyst at Gherman's face, seaking to pierce his skull. Gherman jerked his head to the side, a searing line of pain stinging his face as Rennala upended a wound in his cheek but his glaive was longer and already in motion.
The weapon was about to land, impaling the Full Moon Queen when she was surrounded in a white glow and magical particles that radiated. The blow landed, but instead of the meaty squelch of impaled flesh, Gherman's actions were rewarded with a resonant clang of metal on metal. Rennala was sent flying backwards, crashing through what remained of her Moon and skipped backwards, falling end over end and gracelessly ploughing through the ruined section of the Carain Manor. She came to a halt in a skid, her heels digging long furrows in the ground as she panted. But surprisingly, she looked almost nothing like she had prior to the hit. Instead of her usual robes, Rennala was now clad in a suit of close fitting silvery plate armour. It covered her entire body with perfectly accented steel including gauntlets, cestus, greeves and sabatons. It bore a strong resemblance to Moongrum's armour with a blue cape, kama and a red tabard that hung between Rennala's legs.
Her head was now adorned in a full hemet with a metal point, its visor worn up to reveal her face.
Rennala got to her feet, rolling her shoulders and cursing the smarting pain in her abdomen from where Gherman had nearly skewered her. A fate that would not have been pleasant had she not summoned her armour.
"Well now. Armour had long fallen out of use in my time, but to see a warrior queen is a novel balm to these old eyes." A voice called out over the clearing. Rennala looked up, setting her face in a firm rictus when she saw Gherman perched atop an outcropping of rubble, glaive reverted to its scythe form that he rested over a shoulder.
Coiled muscle and tense gait roiled under his weather battered clothes but for now it seemed a lull had fallen over the battlefield, and Rennala took advantage to catch her breath and plan her next move. "T'is not my Royal Armor, for that is style over substance. Thy attack caught me unawares, and t'was all I could conjure in the moment." she called back sternly, engaging him in conversation and giving her more time to plan.
Gherman snorted self-deprecatingly, "Don't sell yourself short. That rain of blue you dropped on me would have caused me serious trouble had I not had this." he said, holding up his hand. A chain was wrapped around his wrist from which hung a round chunk of some chalky material. Carved into the amulet was an esoteric rune that Rennala did not recognise, beating with a red glow. Gherman palmed the amulet, looking at it with nostalgia. "Pthumerian Blood. Heady stuff, able to absorb most wytchlight or whatever your so-called sorcery is made of."
Despite the mocking nature of the words, they were spoken without a shred of malice. Rennala reappraised the gruff old man, it was not that he thought less of her powers, just that he didn't understand them. "Another Cantrip from your home?"
Gherman's smirk turned pained. He looked down at the amulet and squeezed, cruising it into powder that blew away into the wind. "A… student of mine gave it to me. Long ago. But absorbing that blast used up its Blood, so I can't use it anymore. A decent trade to land that hit." There was a wistful melancholy in those words, that told Rennala that there was much to this Old Hunter that had shaped him into what he was now. All that remained was the why.
"Blood? Are you one of Mohg's paleblooded dregs then?" Rennala asked, getting a deadpan stare in response. "Apparently not."
"Quite," Gherman snorted in amusement, buoyed by how Rennala could be both blunt and eloquent when the situation required it. Rennala was quite happy to let him talk, for it gave her all the time she needed. Silently, without incantation, gesture or crest, Rennala began to conjure magical particles at a distance, silently drawing them together behind Gherman. But for this to work she would need time.
She tapped her Catalyst to the floor, taking up an impartial yet imperious stance and inspected the segmented joints of her mailed fist. "To tell the truth, tis been centuries since I last wore this martial raiment. Not since the armies of the Golden Order first rolled into my people's lands." she fixed him with a piercing stare, "So I must ask thee. For what reason doth thou plague my lands now? You claim to be but an Old Hunter, yet the ground rattles to the sound of invaders in my home."
The air changed then, Gherman's lined face shifting like tectonic plates. "The Redmanes are a useful distraction… though I had hoped they would be far more than that." His words were shrewd and low, and Rennala kept her face to match, giving nothing away as she continued to pull magic together behind Gherman. A small and thin needle of glintstone was taking form in the air behind him.
Still, word of the Redmanes set her blood boiling and stomach squirming, adding to the feeling of something being amiss. She had forgotten something, something so important that she had ached to know what it was. "No Redmane would turn arms against Caria. My son's war brothers are without equal or reproach. And yet…"
"There they stand, trying to burn that Academy of yours to the ground." Gherman finished her sentence wearily, leaning on his own scythe like a cane. "When I first met Jerren and his men, I thought they were quite something. Full of vitality and will that I hadn't seen in an age…"
'Jerren!? But…why!?' she wondered, to her perspective she could still fondly remember the old Carian house guest. How Radahn had taken a liking to him and named him the Castellen of Redmane when the castle had been gifted to the budding young general. Often crossing blades along with young Loretta and _. Her heart seized and she had to grip her catalyst all the tighter. There it was again, the void in her memories.
"I had initially thought of them as a band of young heroes but now see that they have become so swept up in their 'adventure and honour' that they are committing atrocities. Jerren is mired in a filth of the brain, an obsession that will bring him no peace."
Rennala bit her lip, she just needed a little more time. "Art thou not the same? Playing to the strings of an unseen muse?"
Gherman paused, taking stock of what to say. "I was sent here to hunt the moon that bewitched the-"
"Curb thine tongue if thou speak ill of mine betrothed!" Rennala barked.
"Aha…" Gherman liked the fire in Rennala's eyes, he chuckled fondly, "Of course. My… patron wishes you removed from the picture. And the moon is a font of madness that can ill be allowed to mingle with great powers. So I do not swing my blades for an Outer God, I do so for myself. To gain my measure of you and decide if you need to die. For that is the hunt. To strike down that which cannot be allowed to mingle with society."
The needle was formed, four inches in length and half an inch thick. A basic construct of glintstone. Rennala had heard all she needed, and while Gherman may have been more nuanced than she originally thought, he still had to fall for her to [protect the ones she loved. "I cannot convince thee to abandon this path?"
"Not until either my death, yours or I pass judgement through my blades." Gherman pronounced.
Rennala sighed. "Then perish."
And the glintstone needle was sent zipping towards the back of Gherman's head.
It must have alerted some preternatural sixth sense the First Hunter had, because he whirled, instead taking the needle in the shoulder with a grunt of pain. The second blood Rennala had drawn from him. She cursed her missed chance for a swift end but resolutely closed her helmet's visor and readied to continue the battle.
Gherman yanked out the needle and tossed it to the floor, jumping into the fray with his Scythe, ready to lock blades with the armoured monarch.
And all the time, the void in her memories never left her mind, nor the pain it brought.
'What hath I forgotten that pains me so?'
(.0.0.0.)
Back at the Academy things had taken a turn for the wondrous. Both the Floating City and Academy propper had been shielded within the great concentric domes of water that formed the Curtains of Tranquility, preventing any direct penetration into the heart of Neo Caria. However, the change had happened so quickly that some of the inhabitants still rushed around, confused as to the sudden change in the air.
Melina winked her lone unsealed eye in curiosity, looking at a shaft of light coming through a skylight. Naruto's first yet youngest charge was in a wood panelled former classroom that had been retrofitted into a somewhat cosy living room in the forward campus buildings. Milicent and Sellen joined her, each with their own looks of intrigue or weariness. They were watched over by the Radagon's Red Wolf and the dithering but otherwise uncompromised visage of Irina who wrung her hands. She had been leading the trio of young girls in a lesson in etiquette when they had felt the change.
"What on earth is going on?" Milicent asked, looking towards the door. The room had no windows save for the skylights up above that gave them no clue as to what was going on. And something was definitely going on. There had been a distant explosion that echoed over the lands followed by the sounds of many people running and yelling through the halls. Melina, ever the adventurous little girl, had initially wanted to bolt out and find out what was going on but Irina had managed to keep her contained for now. It was quite amazing how her soft voice could keep the rambunctious girl contained when Naruto and Rennala at times could not.
Melina held up a hand to cup her ear, listening deeply, hearing the sound of "Water?" she said, her dainty eyebrows rising in confusion.
"Of course," Sellen smacked her elfen face, shaking her head to chide herself, "I felt the flow of magic change in the air. R- I mean, Mother," she began, still getting used to referring to the woman as her mother but at least no longer seething at the prospect, "Mother or Ranni must have brought the wards up to a wartime setting. Which means someone is attacking the Academy."
"Who would do something like that? The Queen and Lord Naruto haven't done anything to rouse such ire," Irina wondered, looking around furtively, her blindfolded eyes providing no answers.
Milicent paled while on the other end of the scale Melina looked elated, beginning to animated shadow box, as if preparing to smack these unknown invaders herself. Milicent however remained still, her eyes lost their focus and stared dead eyed into space.
The sound of footsteps approaching the door caused most of the to turn to the sound, guarded and weary. The Red Wolf stalked to the front of the group, putting itself between them and the door protectively, its eyes fixed on it as a low growl rumbled from its throat.
The handle turned and Sellen let out a sigh of relief when a familiar Iron helmet poked in through the door. "Oh, it's just Boggart."
Boggart twitched, the face behind the mask likely rankling at the semi calm dismissal of the little Sorceress. "What'cha mean it's 'just me'? Little minx!" he barked, coming into the room fully and immediately the amused look of relief on Sellen's face thinned at seeing he was armed. "Everything okay in here?"
"Oh, Boggart!" Irina said, making her way around the armchair she had been leaning against towards where she heard her fellow resident's voice. "Thank goodness you're here. What's going on outside? It sounds like mischief most foul."
The blackguard sheathed the short sword he was carrying, smoothing his clothes down even though Irina was unable to see the sign of nervousness.
A scoff echoed over the room, "An attack, obviously. Probably one quite bad if the Wards have been brought up to full." Sellen mused. She looked at the shaft of sunlight that Melina was so interested in and noted that it had been hewed blue with a shimmer of refracted light. She frowned as it occurred to her how poor things must be going.
Her words were met with a nod from Boggart. "Raiders of some kind if what Moongrum said was right when I passed him on the stairs. Ranni doesn't want to take any chances so she'd turned on those bloody waterfall things," he said, drawing a small noise of worry from Irina, now worried that the Lunar Princess was placed into such a demanding position. "I came to make sure you lot were okay."
Irina blushed at the brash blackguard's words, which the shadow boxing Melina thought was very cute. Sellen shook her head and Milicent… "Mili?" Melina said in a voice no louder than a whisper. Melina was still staring off into space silently, and while that was disconcerting in its own right Melina began to notice a twitch in her face, like paralysed muscles were trying work through a seizure to express something. "Mili, what's wrong?"
Oblivious to the conversation between two of her charges, Irina gestured towards where she thought the door was. "Well, if that's the case I suggest we barricade the door and hold down the fort until the crisis has passed."
"You could say that again. And here I was hoping I could just get through today without some of that blonde bastard's bollocks being dropped on my head." Boggart began looking around the room for anything large and heavy, settling on a tall oak dresser that he began to push, its feet scraping on the wooden floor. "Close and lock the door, get a seat under the handle if you can."
Melina came to the front of her red headed sister, looking into her gold eyes and knew instantly something was deeply wrong. Those twin auric orbs were frantically looking around the room as if seeing spectres in every shadow. Melina held out a hand and touched Milicent's shoulder, only to recoil when she felt something shift beneath the skin. Milicent's eyes glowed with a sapphire coloured intensity before narrowing to slits, then let out a scream that split the air.
Everyone instantly moved to the girl's side, Milicent hugging herself and clawing at her little gown. "Ahhhhhhgggghhhhh," she violently smacked at her own chest, trying to claw at her skin, the veins in her face engorning from the pressure of her blood. "Nooooooo, away, away!"
Sellen got to her first, grabbing both of Milicent's wrists and holding them away from her, she nearly lost her grip when she felt the squirming under her skin but held firm. "Milicent, tell me what's wrong." she asked, getting no response beyond more screaming. Irina tried to reach out to help but Sellen hissed, "Keep back, Miss Irina, there is something amiss here that you are ill suited to attend."
Irina looked unsure but the sureness with which Sellen had pronounced her words cowed her to letting the sorceress handle it.
She set her blue eyes to meet Milicent's gold, not knowing what she was seeing. "Milicent, I can't help me if you don't talk to me," she said, gritting her teeth at the effort it took to stop Milicent from powering out of her grip and hurting herself. She needed something to ground her back to the here and now, even if it meant she had to take a leap of faith. She took a deep breath and barked out a curt and concise shout. "Apprentice! Get a hold of yourself!"
The other girl's eyes darted around the room for a few seconds more before clarity suddenly broke through her fugue state, pupils dilating and finally seeing who was in front of her. "Sellen?" she said horsley, her voice sounded exhausted. The movement under her skin bled away, still present but massively reduced.
Letting go of her wrists, Sellen held Milicent by the shoulders and nodded once to her, as if agreeing to not address the compromising state her sister had just been in.
Melina walked up, adding to the moment with a hug, "What's wrong, Mili?"
Milicent swallowed thickly, looking between her two concerned sisters and the equally concerned adults. "The rot… it's awake. It calls to its kin, to my kin… my sisters have come."
Boggart looked at Irina who frowned worriedly, there remained silent as the three girls talked. Sellen took the lead.
"And this connection. Do you think they can sense you in turn?" she asked, desperate for details. While the majority of her sorcery studies and experimentation was based in the field of logic, she knew better than to cast out esoteric connections like this. After all, the Rot could be seen as one collective being with a myriad of vectors, vectors that could be tracked. Or perhaps she just didn't want to admit that she trusted her sister and apprentice implicitly and the last remnants of her old pride were stubborn.
Red hair bobbed sadly, Miliceint cast her mind out along the sanguine stands of rot at the base of her mind. Most often than not she never had to deal with them these days, barely even aware they were there, but now they writhed and through them she gained a skein of presiance, like peeking through a bramble thick hedge into the wider world beyond. Four 'blooms' were very close, growing closer with a slow but sure march. "They're inside the Academy."
"What!?" Boggart yelped. He kicked the dresser he had been pushing in turmoil, "Some bloody protection those waterfall things ended up being!"
"They're meant to mitigate an invading force, they haven't been fine tuned to take out select individuals that hide their identities, nitwit!" Sellen chided him as she rubbed circles into her sister's arms. "Is there anything else you can sense?"
Milicent focused on the vague awareness, and found that she could. It was far further away and far more indistinct but much much bigger. Like a dawn through the mist, the radiance obscured but its monstrous might still burning through. There was a warmth there that she recognised, but it was hewed in peels of potent anger, and around it she heard the rot scream before falling silent.
"Father…father is angry."
Both adults shivered at that, the simple words carried a foreboding to them that made each feel as if someone was walking over their graves yet unmade.
"All the more reason to block the door!" Boggart said, beginning to push the dresser again, "Give us a hand, Miss Irina!"
"O-oh yes," Irina replied and felt for the dresser, letting herself be guided into the right place by Boggart. She pressed her back against the dresser and added what strength she could.
Sellen helped Milicent clean her tears and offered soothing words as she snuffled, adding to the grunts of exertion from the two adults.
But one in this group was silent. And instead of her usual peppy and quixotic adorable energy, Melina was disquietingly focused. Her hands were slowly balling into fists, as pudgy as they were, a wrathful look that unknowingly mirrored her father's clouded her face like a deadly tempest. People had come and attacked them in their home. People had come here with the intent to hurt her family and those they protected, to ruin the work that they had put in enough to make her father, her sweet papa, so furious that he could be sensed from the other end of the continent.
Radagon's Red Wolf turned to look at her, its ears pricking up, feeling a presence that was familiar to it, the physicality of his first and original master for which he was named. Such was the intensity that when Melina walked towards him he did not resist when she climbed onto his back and clutched his fur as if it were the reins of a burdened beast.
"Melina?" Milicent said, noticing the change in her sister.
She looked back at the redhead with a blank look, her face set in a thin line and for a moment, Milicent could have sworn a phantom overlaid Milicent, two faces overlaying hers, much older and regal and full of righteous anger in their gold eyes that were so much like hers. She blinked and the phantoms were gone, and Melina's face flashed into a smile.
"I'm gonna go beat up all the meanies who want to hurt my sisters." she said almost conversationally before kicking her heels into the wolf. It reared up and howled, scaring the pants off of the adults before it charged for the doorway, smashing the door to splinters as it galloped through it.
They all shared a look before Sellen took Milicent's hand and pulled her towards the door, "We should not linger. That door would not have been able to hold back the Kindred of Rot, so we best make our way to somewhere a bit more secure."
Irina looked conflicted, swallowing thickly before finally saying, "Queen Rennala's apartments then?"
Boggart stared open mouthed from behind his mask before drawing his shortsword and taking point, "Keep close."
(.0.0.0.)
The halls of the Raya Lucaria were chaotic and noisy, far different from the usually scholarly silence that had filled them for centuries even before the Shattering.
The refugees from the Floating City and riverside were being shepherded into the halls and classrooms that could hold them by the members of the militia and men at arms under the direction of Moongrum and Blaidd who remained in the Floating City, intent on coordinating the evacuation efforts and taking the fight to any of the attackers who managed to make it through the maze of paths.
Men and women shouted and cried while people attempted to calm them that the Academy was safe. The armed men were going from room to room in small five man squads, making sure to find rooms that would be best to host people and not wanting bottlenecks in the passage of people. A crush was the last thing they wanted.
They were caught unawares when the ground was suddenly shaken by an explosion far below, the ground trembling for a moment and dust falling from the arched hallways above them before settling. What passed for an officer amongst the Militia dispatched a small squad to go investigate the cause, sending them down the stairs into the dimly lit underbelly of the subterranean floors. At first everything seemed normal until they came to a room that looked as if it had been hit with a small scale hurricane. Its furniture had been knocked and shattered to the floor and the entire far side wall had been desecrated, a smoking hole punched in the masonry that appeared to come from the outside.
The leader of the five man squad walked towards the hole with a lit torch in hand and his sword in the other, seeing something silvery glitter from within the passage that expanded beyond.
A series of sharp whistles reached his ears as a dozen arrows flew from the hole, a throwing knife wizzing out and hitting the leader in the leg and causing him to cry out with pain, a fate that matched the other four who collapsed to the ground in pain. But before the leader could fall to his own knees he suddenly felt a strong hand lock around his throat and squeeze. He wheezed and sputtered as he was lifted into the air and forced to look into the visage of his attacker, a red hood obscuring his eyes and an unkempt white beard covering most of his face.
"Where is Sorceress Sellen?" Witchhunter Jerren demanded in a no nonsense tone. The man he was holding attempted to stab at him with his sword but Jerren disarmed him with a flick of his Zweihander, the longsword the militiaman carried clattering the floor. Beside Jerren, his twenty best men filed passed him and into the storage room where Radahn's secret entrance had ended up at. They had not had the luxury of his General's Gravity Magic so had to rely on a jury rigged blasting charge to get through the wall.
Gasping for air, the Militia lieutenant jerked in the castellan's iron grip, foam at the corners of his mouth and eyes turning bloodshot. Jerren lightened his grip a fraction, allowing precious air back into his prisoner's lungs that he drank in greedily. "Y-you-ghk- mean the… Princess?"
A vein popped in Jerren's temple and the his grip on the Neo Carian's throat became vicelike. The man struggled, kicking against Jerren's chest to no avail before finally he passed out and Jerren stalked forwards, murder in his eyes. He would spare this one, as he was likely under this mad place's spell, but anyone who stood to defend these evil witches would be cut down without a moment's remorse.
Little did Jerren know, he was not the only one running amuck in the Academy's innards.
It began as nothing more than a whisper, a breath of a rumour that there was fighting going on in the halls. It was dismissed as hysteria conjured up by idle hands and fear. But then militia patrols began to stop checking in. The distant sound of steel on steel and screams of pain began to echo through the halls, growing closer to the hastily designated refugee areas. Until finally a name was put to the cause, one that sent shivers down the spines of all who heard it.
The dread sigil of Mount Gelmir. 40 men strong and armed to the teeth.
Militiamen, Knights and even men and women who wished to defend their families ran from their rooms and the order was given for the people to evacuate to the higher reaches of the Academy. There had been no major deaths yet, but they did not wish to become fish in a barrel for the Recusants that had somehow got in while the Queen and King were away.
"Go, go, get to higher ground!" a knight ordered a family, making sure their son did not trip on the stairs as they scarpered to rise up to a safer area. That was the sixth family he had evacuated in so many minutes. He turned looking for more when a swirl of grey cloth exiting the doorway to the room caught his eye. "You there, don't run off!" he shouted, running towards the door, he turned, seeing the last of a quartet of hooded individuals walking down the hall away from them. "Stop!"
Coming to a stop as one, the four did not turn to face the knight who stormed towards them, annoyance in his eyes but care in his heart. He reached for one's shoulder, "You really shoudn't b-ghn!?"
Pain exploded into his gut with stinging agony, filling his abdomen with white hot torture. He slowly looked down and was confused to see the spearhead of a long shafted weapon dug into his stomach, a wicked halo blade under it. The one holding it turned to half profile, revealing a smiling face before the Halo Scythe was withdrawn in a clean pull, snagging his gits out as it came. They spilled onto the floor with a wet slap and the knight collapsed to his knees but felt his assailant grab him and bring him gently to sit against the wall.
"Shhhhhhhh," the hooded figure hushed, pulling back her hood to reveal of shock of crimson red hair, her eyes hidden by a white bandage. "There is nothing to fear. The pain is a blessing, a sign of things to come."
"Yes yes, of wondrous things. Of sweet odure and scented mildew." said another in a singsong voice.
"Of an age where our mother wakes and blooms thrice, bringing the world true horror." said the third, her face at the first's shoulder, looking down at him with a smile.
"And once the world knows true horror," cooed the fourth and final member in the youngest voice, "then they can join hands in the gift of rot."
The first leaned down, holding out her arm and opening her gloved hand as if to show the dying man something, in her hand was a scarlet flower that glowed as it bloomed from her palm. "A gift we give to you, to celebrate our coming reunion." said Mary, the eldest sister. And with a mania of sweetest innocence, she pushed the rotted bloom into the Knight's open guts, and watched him begin to change.
(.0.0.0.)
A whip of Kurama's chakra cracked against a barb of the rot, loosening one of the last remaining elements of the accursed divine plague from Naruto's body. But the success brought the mightiest of the Bijuu no pleasure or contentment. His vulpine maw was pulled back in a snarl the likes of which he hadn't worn in a few years since that debacle on the moon with the descendant of the Sage's brother.
This was of a much less grandiose nature than fighting a mountain sized golem of moon rock but was far too close to home for Kurama to feel anything but vivid discontent.
Kurama had succeeded in repelling almost every single physical symbol and symptom of the Rot and whatever was getting in, was rendered down to nothing more than a prickling of the skin. He had told Naruto that his work was nearly done and he could safely leave the Swamp of Aeonia, setting to the much simpler task of getting back to Liurnia. But Naruto had not replied to Kurama, continuing to hack and slash away at the beasts of Rot that now ran in fear from him, tearing across the land and launching waves of green and black energy from his twin swords.
He had tried again and again to talk to Naruto to dissuade him from his wrathful dirge, but Naruto remained trapped in his tauper. Something was definitely amiss, because he had not seen Naruto in such a rage since the days when he had yet to give his chakra willingly.
The situation was markedly different in that Naruto's anger was entirely personal, stoked to hysteria by the mental effects of the rot and perpetuated by whatever power coursed in from the Great Runes. In fact, the longer Naruto fought the more prominent the Runes became, Kurama felt them growing in brightness. He sat up and looked at the portion of the floor where Naruto would usually appear when he entered the mindscape.
Etched into the floor were the Great Runes that Naruto had come into possession of with Godrick's anchor rune in the middle. Usually they remained inert chicken scratches on the floor but now they glowed hotly, gold light filling the usually pleasantly dim mental plane.
"Damn eyesore," Kurama growled, closing his eyes and shaking his head. The time for half measures had passed, his concern for Naruto's degenerating mood and lack of responses had thinned his patience to the point of no return. "Get in here, Naruto!"
Kurama exerted a concentrated 'hook' of focused intent on Naruto, aiming to forcefully drag him into the mindscape to give him an earful. This wasn't like when he usually prodded Naruto's consciousness and the blonde let himself be pulled inside to talk face to face. It was more akin to the direct yanks at his waking mind when he needed to drag his Jinchuriki in for a word, usually to roar at them to give up their bodies. It was brutal, direct, but it could not be refused.
That line of thought guttered and died when the collection of runes carved at Kurama's feet exploded with energy, a crackle of brilliant gold lightning and sparkling stardust striking out towards Kurama. The fox brought up his arms to guard against the unexpected event, the light striking his crossed forearms and sending him back a dozen metres with a grunt.
"What the hell?" Kurama openly shouted, having no need to keep his reaction internal. The orange fur covering forearms smoked subtly, singed by the searing hot power but he was otherwise unscathed and far more interested in the pillar of light that now lit up the entire mindscape like a sun.
It shimmered and coiled in a helix that rose unending into the dark sky of the mental landscape. It was not a uniform column of energy but undulated and shifted, dark voids filled with heat haze and stardust filling in the gaps that showed up between the individual threads of light. No. Not threads, Kurama realised, strings.
He scowled at the tacky gold light source and stalked up to it, rearing back a clawed hand and slashing at the tower, expecting a reaction and prepared. A massive shower of sparks flowed from the point of impact but Kurama did not retreat, grinding his razor sharp claws against the gold strings seeking to snip them at the source. Surprise took him when he felt more than just searing power crackling out from the compromised pillar of string, he felt emotions from them, ones that he realised were neither his nor Naruto's.
Imperious gloating, ambivalence, aggravation and indulgent exaltation vibrated within every single string, until finally he heard it.
Twang
The musical note rushed through Kurama, snaking up his arm from where his land gripped some of the strings, the gossamer strands pulsed with renewed power and finally repulsed Kurama's hand.
He looked between his smoking claws and the helix of light and he felt his ire rise to a fever pitch. He recognised this power, even if his time in contact with it amounted to a single conversation felt second hand through Naruto's senses. "Cursed Outer God! You take advantage of my partner when he is at his lowest!?" Kurama roared, rising to his full height and extending both sets of claws, his nine long tails fanning out behind him. The mindscape shook with the force of Kurama's titanic bellow, now charging at the helix of strings and seizing ahold of the tower, ignoring the energetic feedback that spat lightning and celestial energy against him like hot oil from a skillet.
Claws dug deep into the bands, attempting to push the attacker away every time he dig his razor edged digits deeper into the metaphysical matter, seeking to rip it from where it bore into Naruto's soul.
A great presence passed over Kurama's senses and Kurama's blood boiled at its closeness, unsurprised when he heard a familiar aloof and imperious voice speak.
Cease thine intervention, tailed one. I am doing what I should have done long ago and setting my Beast on the path he should have walked instead of taking pity on the whore's offshoot.
Tightening his grip on the strings, Kurama growled at the voice, just as arrogant as he remembered it. "You foul up my partner's soul by being here, you overly sanctimonious despot! What have you done to Naruto?"
The voice made an approving hum, preening at the fox's aggregation and anger. Revelling in the discontent of a lower lifeform.
The Mendicant Lord's Anchor Rune once bore my direct touch, rendered deadened by that foreign blade of Destined Death. But landing in the heart of the rot offered a splendid opportunity, to retie those severed strings in the moments his constitution was weakened.
"You're the reason he can't hear me!" Kurama accused, ripping a string loose and chomping down on another bundle of the stuff with contempt.
Indeed. Deafening him to any distractions but my grand designs. And lacking the wits to realise the voice he hears is the one he has stubbornly refused to obey. The fingers pluck the strings, and the Beast shall be a Beast, free to bring down the world and rebuild it as one with true order.
The words were spoken with such belief and dripped with self love so great it made Kurama want to retch. Instead Kurama dug his heels in and clawed and chewed at the helix, glaring into the sky far above. "His name is Naruto! He is not some beast to be sicked upon that which displeases you for not perfectly dancing to your tune."
Desist from this pathetic rebellion, tailed one-
"MY NAME IS KURAMA! MIGHTIEST OF THE BIJUU! AND SO HELP ME I WILL RIP YOU FROM THE SOIL OF HIS SOUL LIKE A WEED AND CAST YOU INTO THE VOID!" Kurama raged, the tone and actions of the incorporeal being driving him utterly up the wall. He renewed his slashes and bites, attacking the pillar of light to seemingly no effect. Gritting his pointed teeth, he struck out with his tails, the nine long appendages locking around the tow and holding it still, pulling it in reverse as he continued to hack and scratch at it.
And this time, his attacks did tangible damage to the divine filaments. Where once only sparks and shocks of hot energy returned from his strikes, now stray strings were knocked loose from the tower, cleaved of their connection to Naruto. It would take a lot of work, but he would not rest until he snapped this link once and for all.
As he worked, arms a blur of tooth and claw, Kurama became aware of something bizarre. Information was beginning to trickle into the back of his mind, growing steadily more defined with every clump of string he knocked loose.
Emotions.
Intent.
A name.
Not a title, but a name. And with that name clutched deep in his mind he yanked and chopped, working to save his partner from the inside out. 'You will never be a mindless beast, especially not to a false god.'
[LINExBREAK]
Azure blue met brutal grey as Gherman blocked the weight of Rennala's latest overhead strike on the blunt side of his scythe. She channelled more magic into it, increasing the width of the Carian Greatsword that covered her Catalyst, a minor shift in orientation sending the translucent blade scraping along top of the scythe until it caught on the weighted end of the shaft where it intersected with the Burial Blade. The scythe was wrenched to one side, causing Gherman to withdraw before his opening was left exposed for too long. Rennala capitalised, dismissing the greatsword to reorient the much shorter and easier to control catalyst before reforming its spectral covering, doubling it in length and width and launching a horizontal slash at Gherman.
The First Hunter cursed loudly, dropping to his knees and letting the sword pass over him, launching a crescent moon wave of blue energy into the forest behind him that they ran and battled through. He sprang to his feet and sprinted towards her, his clothes billowing around him like a spirit.
Rennala waved her catalyst, a chime of magic making Gherman instinctually change direction to avoid more spellfire. She smiled behind her visor, for the move had been a faint. The energy wave of her slash cut int the trunk of an ancient oak behind the hunter, the massive tree creaking before beginning the slow, pendulous fall towards the whirling attacker.
Splintering wood was hardly a subtle sound and Gherman clocked the shadow of the falling tree as it fell towards him. He turned to the side, sharply turning on his good foot and using the force to swing his scythe in a vertical arc, slicing through the tree before it could hit him. His advance was however broken, so when he returned to look at his target he inhaled sharply as she drove the bladed tip of her catalyst into the soil, his sixth sense telling him to get high as fast as possible.
"Fly," she said, her voice echoing through the visor of her helmet as she pumped magic into the floor. The ground shook with a sudden sharp tremor before sharp and thick glintstone crystals quickly burst from the ground in front of Rennala as a wave of stalagmites, rushing towards Gherman who turned tail and ran, springing up into the trees to avoid the tidal wave of spikes. "Thou cannot run! Come, Oathsworn wolves!" A dozen translucent direwolves faded into existence beside the Full Moon Queen before bolting for Gherman, hopping off the tops of the crystal spires to snap at his heels.
He booted one in the face and skewered the second through the skull with his pegleg. Gherman broke the Scythe and began to pepper Rennala with shots, using the trees to cover his movements, a lucky shot impacting on her Pauldron. She pressed a hand to the hit. Feeling the cracks in the silvery plate and took stock of the situation. She had the ranged advantage but the skill of the First Hunter kept her on her toes. She could not afford to engage him at close range lest he slip her guard and deliver a killing blow before she could recover… but there was also the matter of the void in her memories.
'Tis suicide to engage him in a melee, but when I do, I feel the itch in my minde recede. The more I fight, the more I learn what I have forgotten.' Rennala thought, and against her better judgement, she took to the sky and closed the distance, she had to find where spellfire met bladework, 'Oh light of the moon, guardian shine to the Carian lineage, return to me what I have lost, and guide my love back to my side.'
To be concluded
A/N: Boo, cliffhanger jumpscare for the spookiest month of the year! I kid, I kid. This is the second part of this 'act's' three part finale and as you can probably tell things are getting a little interesting. The Greater Will takes affirmative action, there is battle at the heart of Neo Caria and everyone's mind is a little scrambled. And is the Greater Will really all it seems!?
Mayhaps.
Realtalk this 'event' was originally penned by Slifer before the DLC dropped and we found out things in the lore of Elden Ring that we couldn't have expected, so the greater size is to account for story rewrites and the like. Part 1 focused on Naruto, part 2 on the Neo Carian front and the Finale will bring it all together with stunning revelations et al. Expect much more Naruto next time and mark your calendars for the 27th of November folks for the big finale of an angry fox themed ninja and a grouchy old man with a pegleg.
And there you have it!
Hope you enjoy this chapter; we worked hard on it!
Looking forward to chatting with you all later~! May you have a great day!
R&R~!