A/N: For those that have already read chapter 5, no part has been changed. I'm updating this just to say this once, and only once: This is not Emiya. This is Emiya Alter.
He's not called Alter in the story because the characters of Fire Emblem have no context to base him from the orignal Emiya. I've already changed the summary to reflect this weeks ago. This is the same for the reviews, where numerous people have pointed it out, and nobody seems to read them. The title as well is Altered Emblem, which should have been a dead giveaway.
Again. This is the last time I will address this.
Finding the Archer was a trial in itself. Despite Byleth knowing that she could talk with him in her head, the man had refused to reply to anything she said. Instead, she had been forced to wander around, hoping to find a glimpse of him.
More than once, she'd asked a student if they'd seen him. More than once had they looked at her like she was insane.
Byleth considered the possibility. She was, after all, chasing down a killer to ask about the voice in her head.
In the end, she did find the man. It had taken the whole day, but now, she could see him walking almost lazily.
"Oh? I didn't think you'd come near me of your own volition." The Archer smirked. His clothes were soaked in blood, and he hadn't bothered to wipe it clean. He held out his arms as Byleth approached him.
The blue haired woman, and she guessed anyone else there, was disgusted as in one of the man's hands was a ring of ears, in an macabre facsimile of a keyring.
She could feel her own stomach roil in disgust. She'd seen brutality before. She thought she'd seen them all. Once more, her thoughts were proven wrong.
The Archer went too far.
She knew for a fact that those were the ears of bandits. Proof was usually required for certain jobs. In the case of a contract against bandits, the client would normally ask for proof of the death of their leader. Most bandits wouldn't likely let anyone close to their leader without a fight, so the death of the leader likely meant that the contractor had gone through all the other bandits.
In most cases, the bandit leader would be taken alive, not for altruistic purposes, but as even more proof that every single bandit was taken care of.
Instead of doing that, the Archer had opted to kill every single one, and mutilate their corpses for seemingly nothing. The Archer didn't need proof. He hadn't taken a job, after all.
It was terrifying, disgusting, and overall, the man was someone that Byleth would never have thought to associate with.
Yet here she was.
"Well, I haven't all day. Speak." The dark skinned man grinned at her. Byleth scoffed in repulsion. Swallowing her bile at the absolutely horrid smell of rotting blood, she looked at him straight in the eye.
"Sothis. You called her a Goddess Core." It pained her to talk to the man. The idea of her students being in the same vicinity as him was a tough pill to swallow.
Had he been anyone else, he would've been driven out on his first day here. Garreg Mach and its inhabitants were no strangers to violence - being the site of an academy that taught its students how to fight would do that.
Indeed, when word had reached the students of the Archer's deeds, more than a few had attempted to evict the man. None were successful. Instead, all that accomplished was more than a few broken bones, and a sneer of contempt thrown their way.
Byleth learned of that entire debacle after the fact. Had she been there, she liked to think that she would've jumped in to protect the student. And to berate them afterward. While the idea behind it was noble, and one she fully supported, she knew for a fact that no student here was a match for the Archer.
She didn't even think that the entire student population ganging up on the man would be enough.
The Archer exuded a confident, deadly aura that Byleth had only seen a few times. Those few times were when she and the other mercenaries had fought particularly difficult foes, and had resulted in them taking more losses than ideal.
It all stemmed from the fact that the man was something that a lot of students here aren't, and hopefully never be. A killer. A true, cold blooded killer, who would mercilessly cut down anyone that stood in his way.
It was a wonder that Caspar only suffered those broken bones.
Byleth shook her head. She was getting off track. She needed to focus. For both Sothis and her own sake, as much as it pained them, the Archer was the only one that knew anything. Or, at least, seemed like he knew anything.
Byleth hoped that the man wasn't just blowing hot air.
"Haven't they told you that curiosity killed the cat?"
"I don't care. Give me answers or you'll regret it." The professor glared at the man as hard as she could. She knew, no matter how good she was, she wouldn't be able to take him. The sheer presence that he had was beyond that of a blustering fool.
She couldn't threaten him, not normally.
"If you don't, I'll cut off the contract. Right here, right now."
The man only smirked at her, his amusement clear to anyone looking, "It's not like you have the ability to do so. Feel free to try."
He was right, and she knew it. The mark on her hand was not normal. In the time between having it appear on her hand and now, she'd done nearly everything she could think of to get rid of it. No matter what she did, no matter how much water, scratching and in one instance burning she did, the mark stayed on, not a single deformity on it.
Still, one last option was always available.
"Cutting off my hand would do it." She tried to project as much confidence as she could. She didn't actually know if it would work - the mark was clearly magical in nature. Who was to say that it wouldn't reappear on another part of her body if she did cut off her arm?
She didn't let any of that doubt appear on her face. Byleth knew for a fact that she did it flawlessly. Her poker face was one that not even Jeralt could crack, and the man had raised her since she was a child.
It paid off.
The Archer's amusement cracked, staring at her with a scowl on his features, "You wouldn't."
"I can and will. Unless you answer." She didn't have to lie about that. As much as she feared losing her hand, she would rather lose a hand than be left in the dark. Especially when it also included leaving Sothis in her perpetual silence.
Even though the girl was, right now, nothing more than a voice in her head, Sothis was her friend. She didn't have very many of those. The students of Garreg Mach were too formal, in the realm of student and teacher.
Good people as they may be, there would always be a rift between them, if only because of their status. In the future, perhaps they'd be closer that Byleth would wholeheartedly consider them friends. That future was not now.
No, now, Sothis was her friend. A friend that needed help. Help that only Byleth would be able to give. If the price to help was her hand, then so be it.
It all came down to her gamble. If the Archer truly didn't care, then he would scoff at her and let her cut off her hand. That he hadn't already done so verified her suspicions.
He needed the contract.
When they first met, the Archer was in a bad state. Wounds that they wouldn't be able to treat without a dedicated healer. And yet, the moment that the contract was supposedly formed between them, he had been miraculously healed.
That event, as well as the subsequent conversations she had with him, had her conclude that the Archer needed her to stay alive. He was taking 'mana' away from her, whatever that was, and was using it to heal himself. More than that, he was possibly using it to fight whatever bandits he came across.
He needed her. Unfortunately for the Archer, as far as she could tell, Byleth didn't need him.
"Tch."
The Archer walked past her, the squelching of his boots echoing in the hallway, "Walk with me."
Byleth stared at his back as he went further and further away. The floor behind him trailed with dripping blood. She saw him turn back and raise an eyebrow, "Well? I thought you wanted answers?"
The professor started walking forward, taking note to avoid the blood as much as possible. Distantly, she felt bad for the cleaning people. She knew first hand how difficult it would be to clean blood, nevermind that the man tracking it was spilling it everywhere he could.
"I won't bore you with what I've already told you." The man started. Around them, a sea of students parted in their way, more than one ducking away with a hand around their mouth, "So let me get straight to the point. You're wondering if that girl really is a Goddess? The same one that the Church was supposedly blessed by?"
"I am."
"Then yes, I am nearly completely sure that that is the case."
"But how can you be sure?" Byleth snapped at him. In her head, not a single sound could be heard from the girl in question, something that worried the blue haired woman, "You're talking as if you know this first hand, which you've already admitted to not having!"
"I admitted to not being a Goddess. I am hardly a woman." The Archer snarked at her, "But to answer your question, I have, in fact, met individuals with Goddess Cores." He didn't say anything else. Byleth didn't need to hear more, just his entire personality was enough to gauge a guess as to the fates of those people.
"That still doesn't make sense." Byleth glared at him, "I was born, Jeralt is my father. If I was the host of a Goddess, then why would I need to be born in the first place? For that matter, if you're here to kill me, why haven't you done so?"
None of it followed a train of thought. The actions that the man had taken, when he'd all but said that he'd murdered those who had a Goddess Core in the past, were anything but in the realm of common sense. If anything, they went directly against his apparent goal.
"Contrary to what you may believe, I'm not here to gut you." There it was again, that infuriating smirk that screamed that the man knew more than he let on.
"I don't believe that." Byleth was unconvinced, "You're an unrepentant murderer. You've killed nearly a hundred people with no remorse."
"And you haven't?"
"I was a mercenary. I killed to feed me and my allies."
Her response only brought out a laugh out of the man. It was grating to the ears, not how the actual voice came out, but by its tone. Hollow, but with a hint of hysteria.
"And you think you and I are any different?" He looked at her, his eyes oddly golden, a look of utter fascination in them.
"You and I couldn't be more different if we tried." She sneered at him, the action foreign and yet felt so right.
"That you can't see it is all the sadder. All I've done these past months is keep my source of sustenance alive."
"What, through the butchering of human beings?" Never would she have thought that the words, in the context that they existed in, would spill from her mouth.
"Yes." There was a vicious grin on the man's face, "Perhaps I can elaborate in a way that my Master can understand, hm? What I've done isn't me going on a rampage, as some people might think." At that, the Archer took a lazy glance around.
They were already in the courtyard, and several students were watching them with wary eyes. At the dark skinned man's gaze filtered through, the students, regardless of their noble status, fled quickly.
"It's simply the most efficient method available to me."
It took a moment for the implications to rear their head for Byleth. And with a start, she realized what the man was talking about, "You're insane."
"Am I really?" With a motion of his hand, the ring of ears came up, "Fear, terror, hesitation. My methods, barbaric as they are, have cultivated those feelings throughout the local bandits. Even today, the number of attacks near the monastery have reduced. Only the most foolish attack nowadays."
Fear to keep people in line. It was a concept that Byleth understood quite well. She'd had to do it before, when people who didn't know any better refused to listen.
"You said it yourself, then. Only the most foolish attack, so in the end, your methods didn't work."
"Oh but they did." The area they were in was getting more and more familiar, "See, there is only one thing greater than human fear, and that, Master, is human greed. The bandits you've seen recently are the ones that have been promised a sum of money that overrode their base instincts. Ergo, the attacks here aren't the work of some opportunists, but a targeted harassment by a third party."
The Archer opened the grand doors leading to a certain room. In that room, stood Rhea, her eyes closed in prayer, before they slowly opened to the sight of the bloodstained man.
The Archer lifted the ring of ears. With no other words, he unceremoniously dropped it to the floor with a wet splat. The dark skinned man turned and left, leaving Byleth and Rhea to stare at the mess he had made.
With a long-suffering sigh and a gaze of disgust at the floor, Rhea looked Byleth in the eye, "I hope you know what you're doing, Professor."
'I hope so too.'
With one last nod at Rhea, Byleth turned and followed the man, "Enough of that. I need answers about the Goddess Core."
"I've already given you all the answers you need. You just need to think about them some more." He scoffed, "Aren't you a professor? Thinking should be in the job description."
The Archer sped up and turned the corner. In the span of the second it took for Byleth to reach said corner, the man was already gone.
WIth a silent scream of frustration, Byleth hit the stone wall. Her fist hurt, but it was better than the conversation that they had.
She could at least glean some information, that much was a relief. The Archer wouldn't kill the students here, as that would jeopardize her own safety, as insane as that sounded. That he was concerned when she threatened to cut off her hand meant that whatever mana was, he needed it to survive. Either nobody else produced mana, or he hadn't found anyone else, meaning that Byleth herself was an important piece.
She had gotten answers, yes, but not to the ones that she wanted, nor even asked.
This time, when she screamed, it was to the disturbance of more than one classroom.
Commissioned by: Oliver vasquez
A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.
And a special thanks to: Oliver vazquez, brutalcrab and Tassimo.