As V's brain registered the status message, he sat up with a jolt. His blessing had activated on its own again, this time removing some form of curse. He read the status message again as it faded, "Curse of Overwhelming Violence." His brain struggled to awaken, much as it always did in recent days. As his faculties returned, he realized that The Champion of Violence had to be the source of the curse. He supposed that J did not say at what time Violence was supposed to arrive. By technicality even arriving one second past midnight counted as "three days." His head was pounding, and his ears were ringing. "Hey! Eika ran away! I think I made her angry! Please help, I don't want her to hate me!" Luna's voice drew his attention. It was dark in the hideout, normally they kept a small oil lantern built into the wall lit, but it had not been tended to. V stumbled around, eventually managing to relight the lantern. Luna was standing near the entrance of the hideout; she was wiping tears away with her left arm. Her right arm was hanging limply by her side.
As V moved toward her, he took stock of the room. L was gone, did she ever return after she went out for a run? It looks like she took her sword with her, no surprise there. V's thoughts came rapidly as he tried to piece together the situation. Eika was gone, as was her sling and metal ammunition, however her leather armor was lying next to her bed. As he approached Luna, he could tell immediately that her arm was broken. "I’m so sorry!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "I was just trying to help but I think I upset Eika! She woke up and was making a lot of noise. I thought she had a nightmare so I walked over and tried to pat her head. You know, like everyone likes? And then she yelled at me! I apologized for touching her head but then she pushed me down! I'm so sorry..." She sniffled as V examined her arm. "I don't think you upset her; I think she is angry for a different reason. You just accidentally got in her way. Are you in pain?" he asked the girl gently as he tried to determine how bad the damage to her arm really was. "Hum? Oh yes. It hurts some, I landed on it when Eika pushed me down." V nodded, as far as he could tell the bone near her shoulder had broken. It was not sticking out of the skin or twisted at a particularly strange angle, so if they were lucky maybe it was just cracked or bruised. Either way, she would need healing. Presumably the local church would be willing to help her. As a Champion of Innocence, he hoped that they would assist even if they followed a different primary deity.
He considered his next move as he comforted Luna. If he was afflicted by whatever powers the Champion of Violence wielded, that could mean a few things. First, that it was affecting all champions in the city, the fact that Luna was not affected was not necessarily a counterpoint. She was not affected by whatever force burned Eika when she tried to pick up L's sword, if anyone would not be affected by a force of "Overwhelming Violence" it would be someone of innocence right? Also, it seems to have effected Eika, however, Eika was already cursed as a rabbitkin, and maybe was also a viable target. Alternatively, it effected random people within the city, and he and Eika just got unlucky. There was a third option, a really unfortunate third option. Every single person in the city was targeted by the curse. If that was true, he could not take Luna to the church, nor would having her follow him outside be safe. Whatever the situation in the city was, he needed to find Eika and, perhaps more importantly, L. He doubted he could defeat whatever he was about to walk into on his own. Looking down at the frail fox girl, he guided her over to one of the beds "Look, you need to stay here, and stay quiet. You need to hide here. I think something dangerous is going on." Luna's expression looked troubled "I’m very good at hiding, but I really want to apologize to Eika! I feel so bad for her. She looked so angry..." V grimaced, without Eika here, there was no way he could be sure the girl would not run off on her own after he left. He supposed he would have to take her with him. At-least that way he would know what happened to her. If he returned to the hideout and she was just gone, once everything returned to normal Eika would demand they go search for her. On the other hand, if she followed V, and the worst happened and she died to whatever was going on currently, at-least he would be able to tell Eika, and close the matter, rather than going on a wild goose chase. He hesitated, not liking either option.
"Never mind, it might not be safe to hide here. At-least one other Champion knows where this hideout is. And I uh, don't think you two would get along if you met." Luna nodded and began following V out of the hideout. "Hey, do you think we could get Eika a present before we find her? So, I can give it to her when I apologize?" V shook his head "I don't think we will have time. You need to be as quiet as you can. I think we might need to sneak through the city." The girl nodded seriously, and whispered "You know, I’m really good at sneaking as well. Sometimes the people in fancy clothes would come and beat me with a broom when I was searching the alleys. I had to sneak past them a lot." V sighed silently to himself as he placed his hand on the doorway and slowly pushed it open.
Immediately it was obvious that the situation topside was dire. First the smell of smoke and blood filled the air. Second was the noise, even from the outskirts of the city along the walls, V could hear the chaos, screaming, crying, clashing of metal, grinding of stone and snapping of wood. He looked up, it was still night time, or perhaps extremely early morning. The moon still drifted lazily over the night sky. The next thing he noticed was that the keep in the center of the city was engulfed entirely in green fire. The blaze must have been twenty or thirty stories high. Well, he would not be going inside there. It was lucky that the green fire only burned champions, and not oxygen or anything else really, otherwise the city would have already been destroyed. It was clear by the light that other smaller, and more normal, fires had cropped up in various spots around the city. V crept toward the nearest city streets, hoping to get an idea on the exact situation. What he saw confirmed his worst fears, people were in the streets breaking property, fist fighting each other, a few of them had weapons. Most of them were screaming or growling incoherently. As he observed them, he had a few moments of regret for the city. Not specifically the people he was watching, but the city as a whole. He had grown a little fond of it, he had always liked big cities. J had indicated that somehow, he L and Eika were the city's only hope at avoiding total destruction. Perhaps it was because he was able to shake off the curse? He resolved to kill the Champion of Violence, both for himself, and the city.
"Everyone is acting very crazy." Luna whispered as V plotted a course toward the entrance of the city, he figured the best course of action would be to first attempt to secure an exit strategy. If the front gate was collapsed or otherwise unusable, he would need to find another option. In the worst-case scenario, they would have to flee the city. V nodded "Shhh, if they hear you they will attack you. Someone is making everyone go crazy. Just like Eika." As Luna watched the chaos, she furrowed her brow. For the first time since meeting her, an ominous feeling drifted off of her. The hair on his neck stood on end, looking back at her, she seemed deep in thought, her eyes glossy. "It’s a bad man. A bad man is making everyone angry and mean. They are hurting people they love." her voice has started to get louder than V would have liked "Please keep your voice down." Luna did not respond for a moment, before she looked at V and place her hand over her mouth. "Oh! Sorry. I... I think Eika needs our help. I think she went after the priest lady who told the story." V considered Luna's words; the women was the most recent target of Eika's anger. Perhaps the curse had driven her to seek the priestess out? He did not exactly wish to trek across the city, all the way to the statue garden, but Luna said Eika needed help. She was a Divine Oracle after all, and to be honest he did not have a better idea on where to start searching. He weighed the options, hunt down Eika, or secure a way out of the city...
V's mind worked overtime as he attempted to keep aware of every single noise, every single smell, every single shadow in the city as he smuggled him and Luna from street to street. Getting to the statue garden was not going to be easy. It was in a highly central part of the city. Even the outskirts were absolute madness. They only made it a few streets over when a group of three women stopped them. "Men! I HATE THEM! Look! he has a tiny girl as a pet! HE'S A MONSTER!" The lead woman gestured to her companions. "Let’s roast his balls over a fire!" The women charged at V, they appeared to be simple townsfolk. Only one of them was even wearing proper clothes, the other two were in their nightclothes. The lead woman was wielding a large kitchen knife, one was simply using her fists, which where bleeding, and the third was wielding scissors. As they charged V, Luna tried to call out to them "No I’m not a pet! I don't think. I mean I guess he feeds me and stuff but that is just him being a nice man! He’s not the bad man that is making you do this!" Luna's pleas were about as effective as using an egg to break down a brick wall. Her words did not even penetrate the women's ears. V did not really... want to stab a bunch of random crazy women if he did not have to, but he could not spend all night trying to trip them up and knock them out. As the women neared him, he suddenly remembered that he was in a world in which most people in the city had extremely low basic abilities compared to him. Even a lousy Divine Class is still a Divine class. V quickly dispatched the women, kicking them against the wall of the a nearby building. He thought he had used enough force to keep them down, but not kill them. Unfortunately, he was incorrect. The lead woman rose back up, coughing blood. "See?! He loves beating women! WE MUST SAVE THE GIRL!" She charged again at V as her companions pulled themselves off the cobblestone. As the woman neared him, he shrugged and kicked her right knee as hard as he could. A horrid crunching noise followed as her knee joint bent the wrong way, and she collapsed. No gasps of pain or cries of anguish passed her lips however, and she kept trying to drag herself toward V.
"Oh good, they can't be stopped. I should have assumed as much." V muttered to himself. With the lead woman now at a crawling pace, he was able to grab Luna and escape the crazed women. He encountered a few more similar situations as he navigated the streets. A man who thought V was sleeping with his wife, a group of seven people who claimed he had stolen all of their children, a woman who claimed he had killed her father and husband, and a few silent attackers. Most of them he had to break the legs of, it was either that or kill them. V chuckled to himself darkly, if everyone wakes up from this, they are going to wonder who was going around the city breaking everyone's legs, whoever invents the wheelchair, or had magical leg healing potions is going to be making a lot of money. Assuming the city is still standing. As he neared the statue garden, he was confronted with a group of nineteen children. By the look of things, they had just bashed the head of several adults in using rocks and various debris. The leader of the group was a human boy by the look of things. Covered in blood and ash he raised a short sword he had somehow acquired. "Kill the adults! They use us as slaves!" The boy pointed his short sword at V "Look! He has a slave girl! See my friends!? KILL THE BAD MAN!" V did not like this. There were a LOT of children in front of him. "Luna, run. Run into that building over there." He pointed to a building which had had its door bashed in at some point. Luna hesitated for a moment but ran. V had noticed two things about the people he was fighting as he traveled through the city. The first, and most relevant thing, was that they were getting stronger. Every group of people he met seemed to be stronger and faster than the last. Their resistance to damage, or at least their obliviousness toward damage, was also increasing. He assumed this was a side effect of the curse, that its effect on the people was increasing over time.
Even so, he was still able to easily deal with a few adults here and there. However, he was no longer confident he could outrun children while carrying Luna. So, the only remaining option was to fight. The problem with that plan was simple. Nineteen children rushing him at once was too many to dodge. Even a bird will fall to a legion of ants, and he hated to say this but the power gap between him and these children were much closer than ants and a bird. There was simply no way he was going to get out of this only breaking a few legs. He dodged the lead child, kicking him backwards, knocking over a few of his companions. The rest dodged out of the way and continued to charge, V grabbed a nearby wheel from a destroyed cart and threw it toward the oncoming children. It exploded on impact, likely destroying that child's midriff, and sending shards of wood into the others. Somehow, one of them had snuck up behind V and jumped on his back, stabbing him between the gaps his leather armor with a pair of scissors. V swore to himself as he grabbed the child off of his back, throwing her toward the rest of them. At this range, the force at which the children collided with each other was certainly deadly to at-least one of them. And then the rest of the children were upon him. V resolved then and there that he was not going to die to a gang of insane children. He did not love the idea of killing them, but if the other option was to die under their assault. Well, he knew which option he greatly preferred.
Luna waited inside of the building V and indicated. She liked this; it was safe in here. The sound of the city was less intense and it was dark and easy to hide. She crawled underneath a table. "Ah this is a nice table." she whispered to herself. While she was waiting, she saw a dolly a few feet away from the door to the kitchen. She crawled on the floor toward it. "Ouch!" she forgot her arm was hurt, and had put weight on it. After readjusting herself, she moved forward. "Oh cute! it’s a little monkey. It looks so happy." As Luna grabbed the doll and started to dust it off, she had a thought. "I should see if the person who owns this is hiding around here. They probably miss their dolly!" Luna stood up and started exploring the house, looking for whoever once owned the stuffed doll.
Back outside was a horror scene that would have most people on the ground sick. V examined the carnage around him. Only a few of his attackers would survive the night. Many had perished outright; some would die from untreated trauma. The worst part of it all was even with lethal wounds, they still tried to drag themselves toward V. The fight was not so difficult once he stopped holding back. It was a shame it had to come to this. Covered in blood, V entered the house Luna had run to. He did not see her, so he figured she must have gone upstairs, or perhaps to the kitchen. He suddenly heard a thumping noise upstairs. "No sir! I was just trying to find... Ah! No don't grab my hair please!" V charged up the stairs, guided by Luna's exasperated words. "Ah! Stop! I don't like this! Why are you doing this!" As V crashed into the upper bedroom, he arrived to see another crazed man grabbing Luna by the throat, he had lifted her off the ground and brought her face close to his. He was muttering incoherently as Luna pawed at his hand with her good arm. V's tolerance for this entire situation had run out. He stabbed the man through the heart, careful not to go far enough through to hit Luna. For a few moments, the man did not falter, but eventually he collapsed, dropping Luna. V tried to stop her from falling on her damaged arm, with limited success. "Thank you for saving me!" Luna got off the floor and hugged V, seemingly oblivious to the blood covering him, "That man was also not thinking clearly! I... I think we need to stop the bad man who did all this soon! You can do it right?!" V patted Luna on the back as she hugged him. The adrenaline coursing through his veins, the smell of the ash and fire, the screams of the dying and the insane, the stink of blood and bile; all of it filled his brain and he rested his hand on Luna's head. "Ya... Ya Luna, I’m going to kill the bad man." Something deep within V shook slightly at this proclamation.
