Rabbit of the Moon: Chapter 14 [DanMachi/Bloodborne]

Chapter 14: A Little Girl’s Request

Run-off waters sloshed underfoot as the next leg of Bell’s journey took him into a damp corridor that stretched into darkness beneath Central Yharnam, transitioning from the aqueducts to sewers.

He was sheltered from the cold by the garbs he’d taken to wear. The material repelled not only the red of the crows and yellow of the corpses that continued persist through rotten blood, but the water pattering down from the roof and splashing beneath his boots.

The lantern that dangled from his belt only provided a little illumination that gleamed off the wet, slime-slickened stone walls. Even so he could see the silhouette of something that lurked behind the veil of mist further ahead. His grip on his Saw Spear tightened as he slowly pressed forward, wondering what beast he would have to kill this time to advance into the Tomb of Oedon….

“WEEEEEEEEE!!”

And then a wet, shrill shriek nearly deafened him as it echoed off the walls, rattling his bones down to the core and making the filthy water beneath his boots shudder. Ears pounding as he clutched his head with his off-hand. He knew that sound, or at least he could match it to the pigs that lived on the farm he worked with his Grandpa on before he came to Orario only a little while ago

So, when the ringing in his ears gave way to the hooves thundered through the water towards him and the growing silhouette, Bell promptly started running the opposite way to avoid being trampled. He didn’t look back as the presence of something massive closed in, instead working his legs as fast as he could to bring him to the mouth of the tunnel. The moment he breached the entrance, then threw himself to the side.

The rushing mass of unshapely, bloated flesh that was the Maneater Boar charged right by. Larger than any man and even most of the monsters he’d faced in the Upper Floors of the Dungeon so far. How something this large had gotten into the city unnoticed was a mystery, but a voracious squeal revealed bloodstained, yellowed teeth with scraps of cloth wedged between them as it swung its head around to face the young hunter—

BLAM!

—and was met with the bark of a Quicksilver bullet bursting on impact as it struck the bulbous part of its head. It stumbled back a step, squealing as it shook off the shot. Then it charged for Bell once again.

Bell stepped out of the way of its charge, water splashing against his trousers as the boar hit the stone bridge hard enough that dust and bits of stone by the ladder were wrenched loose. He got around to the side, tensed the muscles in his arm holding the furled Saw Spear until it felt like they were going to snap, and swung downwards at an angle with all his might. “RAAAGH!!”

The broad side of the swine was torn into by the serrated teeth. Ripping through the hide and letting a loose spray of crimson that buried the fluids already present on the blade and gloves, the impact struck bone and buckled the boar’s knees. It collapsed, shrieking.

Bell unfurled the Saw Spear as he reared back for a thrust with the sharpened tip. He’d seen how to slaughter hogs before; a stun to the head and then cutting open the arteries to bleed it out. But there was no way he was going to be able to roll it over, so he instead tried to stab through its throat by brute force.

The Maneater Boar belched before he could, spitting out a cloud of noxious fumes. It was like acid had been splashed into his eyes. Stinging and gnawing away at them to extent that he couldn’t bear the pain, his thrust was thrown off and resulted in a grazing cut through the back of its neck.

Bell blindly ran out, crying hot tears until he hit a wall and added to the pain. He braced it while hoping to blink away the pain even as it gnawed on the inside of his eyelids. Then he spun so that his back was to the wall and forced his eyes open to see the blurred mass charging him again.

Gritting his teeth, Bell pushed off the wall into a charge of his own. Abandoning the pistol in his off hand, he grabbed the Saw Spear with both hands and dragged it behind him. Though blurred and anguished vision, he saw the saggy, grey flesh closing in and then quickstepped out of the way while swinging the unfurled length of jagged teeth with as much force as he could.

His arms nearly buckled and broke as his weapon found its flesh. Between the strength of its wielder and momentum of its prey, the weapon sheared through the hide, fat, and muscle. The metal teeth cut it from cheek to leg bone before Bell finished the swing with his own power, ripping it forward to take the hind leg out as well.

Death throes followed as Bell then stumbled away from the boar, leaving it to bleed out as he found another wall to put his back against. Only when he felt the echoes flowing into him did he drop the Saw Spear into the water and pull off his backpack, where he kept a cloth inside along with a canteen. Necessities for an adventurer, Eina had told him.

They provided relief as he poured the clean water over his eyes to wash out the acrid particles and dried his face. Then he picked back up his Saw Spear, reloaded his Hunter’s Pistol, and gave the massive boar a final glance before he pressed on into the tunnels that had apparently been its lair. It was there he saw just what it had been fattening itself up on—corpses of other people, including another hunter.

“Grandpa always said pigs would eat anything, but still…” Bell searched the gnawed corpse and came across another badge. It looked like a saw. He put it away and then moved onto the other one, where his gloved hands brushed over something beneath the half-bloated body.

It gave him a similar feeling to when echoes were flowing into him, only concentrated at the point where he touched rather than being taken into his body. He lifted the torn cloth and found a droplet that refused to fully harden or dry out, making it somewhat gelatinous and malleable. Was this what Gehrman mentioned before? He decided to ask the veteran later as he stored it away.

Then he moved on.

[R-M]

Bell was greeted with a slaughter when he finally reached the Tomb of Oedon.

It was a graveyard of barren dirt and mangled trees, a chill permeating the air starved of light as the oil lampposts were dimly-lit and the towering buildings that laid beyond the outer gates cast an eerie shadow over the enclosure that hid the evening sun. Headstones were placed without regard for order or respect, erected in seemingly random ways that left them cluttered as they leaned in exhaustion like the stone monument that was in the center of the graveyard, worn down by its timeless vigil over the amassed dead that laid beneath the surface.

The scent of blood hung richly in the air, stemming from the bodies of the recently dead. Men who were once among the living joined the long-time residents in pieces, butchered with their limbs strewn in random directions and their blood bringing vibrant splashes of color to the worn stones, parched dirt, and thirsty bark.

“Hah. Haaaah. Hhhaaah.” The wet, sticky sound of meat being pounded was padded out by the sound of heavy, hard breathing that made Bell’s stomach churn as he spotted bloodied steel being raised and then slammed down. A hunter with his back facing the novice to the Hunt finished striking at a corpse once he’d severed the head, a final splash of the lifeblood to decorate the half-cape he wore.

Then he stood straight, the scarf around his neck caked in dirt and blood swaying its frayed and torn ends as he spoke. “…Beasts all over the shop… You’ll be one of them, sooner or later…”

The blood within Bell’s body froze in place and his heart stalled as the man with gray hair slowly turned his head, the light of the oil lamp catching the white of the bandages over his eyes and beneath his hat. The knot in his gut tightened as the man let out a half-snarl while he baring his teeth, his raspy and haggard breath coming out as a plume. Recognition moved the young hunter’s lips as he muttered, “Mister Gascoigne?”

He found himself frozen like a deer in the headlights until the veteran hunter raised his pistol. Then he threw himself to the side as the trigger was pulled. What should have been a single Quicksilver bullet was broken into a wide-spread that patterned the stone arch by where he stood, bursting on impact.

Bell scrambled to get back up as he noticed the man now closing the distance, axe in hand. He tried to call out to him from beneath the bandana covering his mouth. “Wait, I’m not a beast! I’m a hunter like you!”

The man’s response to that was to bring his bloodied axe around for Bell’s neck. It caught the steel of the Saw Spear as Bell raised it in defense, being all that saved him from losing his head. Even so, the impact of the blow shot through his arms and made them buckle as he was sent staggering to the left and off-balance.

Bell barely had time to get the Saw Spear and his balance back up as the axe came around again. The blow was even heavier this time, resulting in blooming sparks and jolting pain. His arms were nearly jerked from their sockets while his weapon was sent flying from his grasp.

He could hear it land somewhere to the left, but he didn’t have time to look as Gascoigne chambered the axe for a follow-up. The primal fear of death drove his feet and threw him backwards. That was all that saved him as the cleaving swing that would have split him right down the middle to hit the ground hard enough to throw dirt askew.

“Please, stop!” Bell half-cried as he got back on his feet and stepped back only to feel hard bark against his back. “I came here because your daughter—AHH!”

His words turned into a frantic cry as he spun on his foot and got behind the tree. The gnarled, dense wood twice as thick as Bell shook as it caught the blade, albeit only after it managed to bury itself all the way to the back. The fact that he managed that with a single swing of the arm said everything that needed to be said.

Before Gascoigne could jerk it free, Bell broke into a sprint towards where he heard his weapon fall. It was somewhere between the haphazardly placed headstones and the monument slouched over in the ground like a weary sentinel. He made it halfway there when the sound of the tree cracking and collapsing behind him left him to glance back and then shout as he twisted around and brought his arms up in time to intercept the Hunter’s Axe.

“AAHH—” His brief scream was drowned out by the headstones shattering as his shoulder-guard plowed through it, leaving him to tumble forward and land face-down. Glass shattered as he hit the ground hard enough to bounce before he came to a stop at the foot of the monument. Everything hurt, the broken fragments from the hand lantern buried into his waist and the world bending and swaying as groaned softly.

Bell’s fingers twitched, revealing his hands were still attached. The forearm guards stopped him from losing his arms, but that only meant that instead of being cleaved in two he was sent flying instead. He poured whatever strength he could into them as death closed in with weapon raised to fire the Hunter’s Pistol he somehow managed to keep a grip on and the Quicksilver bullet caught the veteran hunter in the chest, leaving him to stagger.

The young hunter took the chance to liberate his vial injector from its holster and then drove the needle straight into his body to let the blood vial do its work. His vision cleared to the dark hues of the world around him and enough strength returned so that he could get back on his feet and run as Gascoigne threw himself forward with the axe to try and split him in two again, cutting down into the base of the monument. He nearly stumbled over his feet to get to the Saw Spear, taking its metal shaft into his grip and holding it out with shaking hands as the man jerked his axe free and slowly rose back up to his full height.

“Please, stop! I don’t want to fight! I—”

“RAAH!!” The words were drowned out by the roar of the man as he went back on the attack, whipping around his pistol and pulling the trigger. Quicksilver barked out of its mouth and the metal sprayed out.

“Ugh!” Bell lurched, forced to his knees as it caught and ruptured inside his thigh and abdomen. He only saw the axe, stained with blood that was meshed with stone dust, splinters, and dirt, as it came around in a blur.

Then there was pain as it found his unprotected neck at last.

[R-M]

Bell awoke with a jerking motion, instinctively clutching his neck. When his fingers found it was still attached, he let out a sigh and then fell to his knees as he took in his surroundings. He was in the Hunter’s Dream once more, having suffered the first death of the night.

He’d been killed by the person that he’d been asked to find—a man much stronger than him, relentless and brutal. No matter how much he’d begged, his words just wouldn’t reach him. Then that only left one alternative and the very thought left him frozen when he considered what that would mean for the Little Girl.

The Plain Doll naturally inquired into his silent dismay from her perch by the stairs. “Are thou not well, Good Hunter?”

“I… I’m fine,” he lied, rising to his feet. He needed to see Gehrman before he could do anything else. Maybe he would have a solution.

He began to ascend the stairs when the mewlings of the Little Ones reached his ears and he remembered the badge he’d found. He fished it out and then gently tossed it to them, only for the emaciated limbs to snatch it and then dunk it into their bath. A light haze wafted up from the surface but he passed up the chance to peruse the new weapons and instead made his way up to the Workshop.

The aged hunter stared up at a weapon that hung high on the wall until he noticed Bell. His seasoned eyes took in Bell’s appearance and a sound bubbled up in his throat. “Ah, I see you’ve found yourself proper Yharnam Hunter attire. It was made for new recruits who joined in the Hunt under Ludwig’s banner. Freedom of movement while keeping the blood away.”

“The person they belonged to had died and I needed something to wear since my own were soaked.” His throat felt tight, so he took a moment to swallow after admitting his theft and looked down to see the garments were cleaned of the grime and filth, holes from where the bullets had punched through patched. His armor was still battered though, untouched by whatever magic of the Dream had mended them.

“You’ve no need to feel shame. In taking up the Hunter’s task, it’s natural that the tools of the fallen be put to use,” the elderly hunter assured him. “Did fortune favor your search for bloodstone?”

“I think so.” Bell moved over to the table and set his backpack down onto it. Then he fished out what he’d found and set them down next to his broken weapon. The sole exception was the Tiny Music Box, forgotten in his desperate attempt to survive. She said they used this to remind him, didn’t she?

“Yes. These are Bloodstone Shards,” Gehrman said as he wheeled himself over and peered at the white and red stones with a helix in the center of each. Then he touched the droplet that Bell had pocketed. “And a Coldblood Dew. We can repair your weapons with these if you crush the droplet to take the echoes into yourself.”

Bell took the droplet between his gloved fingers and then put strength into it. The droplet broke open and then the light, misty feeling of echoes flowing into him followed. It was a piddling amount compared to that which was left behind at the site of his death, but it was better than nothing. “What now?”

“Now you fortify it.” Gehrman placed three of the shards he’d gathered onto the broken Saw Cleaver. “Here. Extend your hand over them and will them into it. The Dream will do the rest for you using the echoes you’ve taken in.”

Bell did as told and held his hands over the broken steel that had snapped. The weapon had carried him throughout his first attempt and helped him prevail against the Minotaur that had killed him. It was his carelessness that left it in this state, so he silently willed for it to be made whole. Willed for the shards to be one with the weapon. For it to be stronger.

The echoes within him began to bleed out like a crimson mist that circled around the weapon and shards in response. Bloodstone shattered into dust that mixed in with the haze and both sank into the Saw Cleaver. It snapped back into its original state as if by magic, the only visible alteration being a slot that had formed at the base of the steel.

“There we are.” Gehrman lifted it up and tapped the handle against the workbench. Rather than the sound of wood-on-wood, it sounded more like metal striking wood. “The moment bloodstone gets introduced into the material, all of it becomes harder. Sharper and more suitable for the Hunt.”

“Is that normally how that works?” Bell asked. He’d never seen a blacksmith at work, but he had the distinct impression that it wasn’t like this.

“The true method takes much longer,” the aged hunter explained. “In the early days of the Hunt it was much rarer to find these materials and hunters had to make do with what they had—wood and steel with some exceptions. This Saw Cleaver is a relic from that time, an older model rather than the more recent one. But the first hunters knew how to refine the technique they had and learned to be agile since those who never took a claw never needed blood to heal. Then, and only then, did it become a matter of making sure that the weapon could keep up with them.”

There was almost nostalgic look on the veteran hunter’s face as he spoke. But as quickly as it came, it vanished. He turned the weapon in his hand and held it out to Bell. “That should serve you well enough for now, but larger beasts will no doubt prove difficult should they arise. Remember to keep your steel sharpened and seek out larger shards and chunks.”

“I’ll try…” Bell took the weapon into his grasp with some hesitation. If his weapon was repaired then he had no excuse not to set out again, following the same path he did until he returned the place where he’d met his demise. He would try to reach the hunter again, this time with the music box.

But… what would he do if it didn’t work? Gascoigne didn’t seem like he would just let Bell walk past him to get into the Cathedral Ward through the Tomb of Oedon. And leaving him alone if he was truly blood-drunk meant more people would be in danger. But what was he supposed then? Kill him?

If I did that, what will I tell his daughter or wife? Bell felt sick to his stomach at the thought. What would I tell Hestia?

“Is there something that still troubles you?” Gehrman asked.

“…There’s a Hunter who’s blocking the way to the Cathedral Ward,” Bell confessed. “He has a wife. And a daughter who’s waiting for him to come back. I don’t want to kill him if I can help it.”

“I fear your kindness is misguided if he has gone mad, young hunter,” he said. “No Hunter desires to become that which he once hunted. But as the years go on some succumb and become beasts. And beast must be hunted.”

Bells lips pressed thin. He already knew that some people became beasts when drunk with blood. He knew that. But Gascoigne couldn’t have been that far gone if it had only been hours since his daughter last saw her parents. “I think he can still be reasoned with.”

“You are free to try,” Gehrman said. “That is a luxury that you have that others do not. But should you find that words will not reach him, then show him mercy as only a Hunter can and free him from the shackles of his own making.”