I apologize for the hiatus: I got busy this year, but in trying to bring back my stories, one writing session at a time
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The still air of the colossal room was warm and humid from the constant blood flow from the mounds of corpses that lined the room. The coppery smell, faint due to how often the young hunter had to deal with the stench, gave Izuku an indistinct moment of nausea, something he hadn't felt in a while. As he gazed down at the severed head of the once-great hunter Ludwig, he felt a twinge of pity. This man had given up much for the sake of the hunt, and yet here he lied, a head in a festering lake of blood.
The bodiless head held his gaze, its voice quiet compared to the loudness it had displayed during their battle "Good hunter, have you seen the thread of light?" the low rumbling of the man's voice echoed from the open mouth, hardly moving. "Just a hair, a fleeting thing it was. Yet I clung to it, steeped as I was in the stench of blood and beasts." Its eyes looked into Izuku, seeing past him as its gaze seemed to miss him and see something more.
"I never wanted to know, what it was. I didn't." Its voice was sorrowful, yet as it gazed a wicked smile slowly grew in its misshapen mouth. "But now I see, what guided me in times of sorrow and fear, was the same that resides in you… It's yours to take young hunter, take it, my guiding moonlight, and make sure my stalwart hunters continue the hunt of righteousness and faith."
The head breathed out, the skull's flesh falling still and its eyes closing in an unattractive way, like watching an ever-watchful gargoyle close its eyes. The hero of Yharnam, a man tasked with protecting everyone and everything as the church's rigorous hand of justice, was reduced to another casualty.
Izuku walked towards the sword that had fallen from the hands of the beast, its cold steal wrapped in white cloth that seemed to keep the blood on the ground away from its shining metal. And grasped its firmly wrapped hilt, and the bright cyan light enveloped the cool steel in a flash of moonlight. Its blade shimmered in the darkness of the room. Izuku felt a shiver as something inside him writhed with a benign hunger: the edge seemed to waver for a moment. Before it stabilized and glowed brighter, the razor edge of the blade gained jagged, saw-like continence while the flowing white lines along the flat of the blade burned with an ethereal light that added an unnatural warmth to the air around it.
The air around Izuku lost its luster as the tang of copper; the stench stripped from the very existence of the air around him. A cool feeling entered his mind as warmth enveloped him, heating him down to his bones. "My child, has thou found my gift?" Flora's voice was soft, a hint of emotion present. "I remember placing that in the path of a human of great worth, a human that could fight off the scourge my kin have sought upon the city… A shame is true that it ended up in the prison of the bloodthirsty."
"What even is this weapon mother? It… It is incredible… the craftsmanship of the blade and the fact that it can be enhanced by arcane manipulation… the possibilities!" Izuku's voice peaked as he ran the current of energy between him and the blade through his mark, and the bright cyan shifted to a deep royal blue, the white lines that ran on the flat changing to a flaring crimson.
A soft, admiring chuckle rumbled through Izuku's head, "Thou art adorable my little green youngling: mayhaps the lesser one Ebrietas was worth letting into the dream after all. Your skills in the arcane have amassed quite well." Warmth flared on Izuku's cheeks and ears as Flora kept talking, "At the very top of this building, an astral clock tower is guarded by a fearsome hunter, the top apprentice of your own master Gerhman. Do not be surprised if you die many times to their blades. But the tower holds writing in the language of the great ones. Learn them all."
"A-a okay! I will Mom! Love you!" His ears were seared as he rushed up the staircase, only to remember his mom was in his head and chuckling softly to herself.
"Be careful my little pupae, and I also find love for you too." A sweet tone coated her words. And like a summer's breeze, the warmth was gone, along with the stench of blood and viscera returning as Izuku entered a prison-like area.
After a quick fight with some patrolling cathedral mob, Izuku was left with the eight cells and the staircase on the other end of the hall. One kick to the wooden doors, and most fell; their inhabitance, if hostile as all of them were, were killed quickly and looted. However, one door headed down a stair to another doorway. A kick didn't even damage the door, but a voice echoed from the room behind, "Are you a hunter? Well, that's very odd. Do you hear the toll of the bell little one?"
A few moments passed before Izuku responded, "I… No? Am I-i supposed to or… or is this like some kind of crazy person game?
"Crazy?... *sigh* Very well. The beasts you seek will not be found here, young hunter. Go back to your hunt, and if you have the chance, put this night behind you. Places like these are better left untouched, secrets better left alone… Only a fool would so brazenly roam…" A heavy implication floated in the air between the two on either side of the door.
Izuku spoke calmly through the door between them, "I can't do that. My mother asked me to take the head of the Orphan at the end of this nightmare. Sorry." He let out a shaky breath. "If- if you're threatening me like I think you a-are. Th-then come out of that room and f-fight me!"
The voice behind the door turned sour, spiteful to a point of bitterness, "I gave you an out little hunter, turn back, or risk hearing my bell…"
The change in tone startled the young hunter, but it was to be expected, "I-I'll take my chances." Izuku hurried up the staircase back to the prison section, then headed up further.
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Izuku's scythe dripped with the blood of the church's clerics charged with defending the large stone altar. They put up a better effort than most, but Izuku was on crunch time. He had no idea how long he had been in this world. What if it was past the UA entrance exam, and he had to become a vigilante?... That actually wouldn't be that bad. Shaking his head, he walked to the altar: The depiction of a surgery carved in stone. The chest cavity and cranium open of the one operated on gave Izuku pause.
"Line our skulls with eyes." Izuku chuckled and checked the skull of the stone cadaver, a perfect slot for the eye pendant. With little to no zeal, Izuku slotted the eye into the cranium: and the large stone altar shook. Thick lines of dust began dancing in the air as gears long forgotten began to wine and lurch into a lethargic motion. Izuku would have ridden the altar up if he didn't know better; Yharnam holds all its greatest secrets in places no one would look.
He stepped off the alter as it rose into the air, dust and old worn shards of stone raining down from the sky like a pissed off snow storm, but as Izuku had guessed, up came another altar, with a cloth-bound skull sitting pristinely in the middle point. Something important, so Izuku snagged it… kleptomania… he'd have to kick the habit someday.
Izuku also rode the secondary altar down and found a chest with another type of cannon, which was nice. But finally, after collecting all the things he thought he could find, Izuku rode the main altar up into what he could only describe later as a hellish recreation of a hospital and insane asylum.
He stepped out, echoing voices speaking in fathomable sentences and yet soft and sad, about water; alas about the lack of understanding… Then he heard it.
Drip
Drip
Drip
Izuku's mind forced itself to stay composed, but he didn't pay attention as he ran up the large spiral staircase in the middle of the unbelievably tall tower-esque structure. People, but also not, ran at him, their heads bandaged and engorged. A constant foul stench of puss and blood got stronger as he ran past: he couldn't bear to kill them.
One strapped to a chair spoke to him, but his hurried steps drowned out their please for… brain fluid? He ran, up the elevators he went, past countless sad and rage-filled patience Izuku's heart beat faster as he pulled a lever;?wooden and stone gears yelled out in a cacophony of agony as the entire spiral staircase rose dozens of feet into the air, lining up a stair with the large golden doors, an exciting from the hellish existence that was the sanitarium…
Izuku's heart dropped as he stepped out of that golden gate, from the stale air and blood-soaked walls of a lost and broken congregation of people. People subjected to who knows what, what torture that his mind could comprehend couldn't scratch the surface of the implements he found in that dusty hall of antiquity. But here, right outside, sat a lonely, disgusting, and discarded garden of sunflowers. Sunflowers grow abnormally, just like the tall, mutilated, and misshapen human-Esque creatures that surrounded them. Their chests were too wide and concave in places that I shouldn't have, large bulbous growths lined every surface of the many tall creatures that stood around, their torsos angled, as if looking at the flowers, yet the action itself was an imitation. Like a residue on the mind of the creature, from when it needed to look at pretty things.
It had been a while since Izuku had felt his stomach flip around and get queasy, but the sheer amount of agony, the patients, and these creatures resonated was suffocating. He let out a resigned sigh, his shoulders slumped and his hands loosely held onto his scythes hilt. He knew these creatures wouldn't take long to slaughter, but it would be tiring to do so. Not due to their size, their speed as they slowly lumbered their way through the misshapen flowers showed they were not going to challenge him when it came to movement. But it would tire out his heart, having to kill such… such useless creatures.
He regrouped his scythe, the deadly edge brought back into confident hands, and Izuku sprinted toward the first three failed creatures. He opened with a large horizontal swipe, the blade cutting through the weak knees of the lanky but bulbous creatures. Sprays of vibrant silver blood flew as shards of bone and tendon were ripped from their once-permanent homes. Izuku felt his mood drop as he bisected the creatures. There was no excitement in this fight. He brought up his hand and called upon the blood in his body, wounds opened up along his arm, and red ichor began to flow out, collecting at his fingertip. In mere moments the next few fell as volleys of arcane blood pierced through them.
The failed monstrosities began to raise their arms, beckoning to something, high amounts of arcane began to filter through the air, but stopped as Izuku dived the final one. He let out a sad sigh and lit the lantern near him. He hated killing those things.
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(Flashback)
Izuku was starving, a constant, knawing thing that threatened to eat him away till nothing remained but a husk. He sat in the ally between his school and one of the apartments that someone he would never know lived in. He couldn't bring himself to move his limbs felt weaker than they ever had before. The lunch staff stopped giving him the scraps after lunch a few weeks ago, even though it tasted bad and likely was far older than they said it was. It was food.
The young boy let out a weary cry as a cat stalked towards him, feral as they were when they were born. Its hair was matted and muddy, cuts marred its body, and a large festering burn mark licked its face. It came close to him and sniffed; its ears pulled back, and its fangs bared, glinting in the dull light of the alleyway.
The cat leaped at Izuku why he didn't know, nor would he find out. Because after being bit and scratched, Izuku's body managed to gain the strength to barely fight back. And even as he was weak and weary and hurting, he managed to hurt the cat enough for it to run away. Leaving him once again alone in the ally.
This turn of events turned into a regular as time went on, till Izuku found that the cat no longer came near him as he hid down the loathsome streets. In fact it seemed to hide from him. That didn't bring him pride or joy at being safe from at least something. If anything he felt greater pity for the cat.
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I apologize for the hiatus, I have had a lot of stuff happen recently. And I am also sorry for how short the chapter is, the next one is going to be big.