53. The Garden
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V told Luna to keep her eyes closed, and led her out of the house by her hand. After they had moved away from the location the children had attacked him, he whispered "You can open your eyes now. Be careful and silent, it’s awfully quiet around here. There might be something stalking the streets." He could see the statue garden from his location, but he was hesitant to cut across the street. The chaos of the city had clearly reached this part as well, windows were broken, a body, V was unsure if it was alive or dead, was laying against a house. Yet, there was no movement on this street, or as far as he could tell, the street over. It was strange, suspicious even. "Hey look! A gold piece!" Luna wandered slightly out of their hiding place, over to a piece of gold that lay in between the cracks of the cobblestone. "Hey get back-" V called to her as she bent down to pick up the shiny coin. The hair on Luna's head swished as something streaked over her head and embedded itself into a wall further down the street. V could not see what it was, it had flown by too fast and traveled too far, but he was fairly certain it wasn't anything good. He ran and tackled Luna, grabbing her as he rolled behind some fallen boxes. "Someone or something has their sights set on these streets. Keep down." Luna nodded, holding the golden coin she had picked up before V grabbed her.

There was no sound or any other way to identify where the projectile had come from. He might not have even noticed it if Luna's hair had not moved as it passed over the top of her head. If they were going to search the statue garden for Eika, they would have to cover about ten more yards, after that they should be out of sight of whoever or whatever was watching this street. Without knowing where the projectile was coming from, what sort of projectile it was, or even who/what was shooting it, V had little in the way of options. He could grab Luna and sprint, hoping that he was fast enough to outrun the attackers aim. V switched to Divine Weapon Master and changed his Agility to S, couldn't hurt right? He took a few deep breaths, preparing himself. Moments before he grabbed Luna, a man ran screaming from the hedges of the statue garden. It looked like his eyes were gone, but it was hard to tell. His entire face had been torn to shreds. That was V's chance, as soon as a projectile hit the screaming man, V would sprint the distance to the statue garden. Without a sound, something small penetrated the man's head clean through, and continued flying some distance down the street. V grabbed Luna and moved as quickly as he could, as he sprinted, it occurred to him that the man with the missing eyes was running away from the place he was currently running toward.

Moments before crossing the hedges, something went through the armpit of V's shirt, missing his chest by the merest fraction, leaving a red scrape on his skin. As he looked down, he caught a glimpse of the feathers of an arrow as it left the new, small hole in his clothes. Apparently, the person firing arrows not only re-loaded and re-aimed at lighting speed, but also pushed arrows to their limit in terms of speed and durability. It was also relatively dark in this part of the city, adding to the impressive nature of the bowman. Luckily it seemed as if their aim was not perfect as it had missed his chest. As they burst into the statue garden, V immediately stumbled over a dead body. Looking down, he did not recognize them. They were not wearing the attire that the priests and attendants of the garden had been, he wondered what had happened to them. He faintly heard someone screaming in the distance, on the opposite side of the stone garden.

As they carefully navigated the dark hedges, statues, and garden, Luna tugged on V's shirt and pointed. "That is kind of scary right?" V followed Luna's gaze.  Inside one of the bushes, a few yards away from them, two large eyes peered out, glowing with the reflection of the moon. V whispered as he pushed Luna behind him, and tried to move further away from where the creature was. "If we don't go near it, maybe it will not attack us..." Luna nodded, and followed V. As V kept one eye on the bush and one on the path ahead, the eyes vanished and the rustling of the hedges and plants could be heard. Still on his guard, V pushed forward. As they got closer to where he heard the scream, he started hearing other voices. "Yes! Feed the heretics to the great beast!" "Are you ready to pay for your sins?!" V furrowed his brow, he had seen groups working together in this chaos, but normally they were incoherent and entirely focused on finding the next person to kill. The voiced he heard indicated a much higher level of organization then he thought possible under the curse of the Champion of Violence. Perhaps he had just gotten unlucky and ran into the least coherent ones? Perhaps as the curse grew stronger it allowed for greater organization? V was unconvinced on either account, but if Eika was indeed somewhere around here, and was in trouble, V suspected she was a part of whatever was going on up ahead.

V navigated as silently as he could toward the group creating the noise. He had so far determined that there were only five or six distinct voices calling for things like "feed them to the beast" and "sinners must die" and all that. If it was six "normal" people he could probably kill them without too much issue. V had given up on the notion of mercy since saving Luna and dealing with the band of murderous children. On the other hand, if there was a reason they seemed ever so slightly more organized, it might be a problem. V could think of one person who could organize a bunch of insane people. A certain champion who had power over people’s hearts. "Another one for the beast of the garden!" They called again, and a women screamed. "Get going or we will use the fire again!" A sobbing, screaming women burst into the hedges not far from V and Luna's position. Part of her head had been burnt, her clothes had been torn off and she had been branded with some symbol V had never seen before. It appeared as if her hand had been tied to a dagger. She ran wildly deeper into the statue garden, waving the dagger in front of her frantically. As her screaming started to distance itself from their position, it suddenly went silent. V looked at Luna, who was also looking up at him. "Stay close, I’m going to try to see what is going on at the other side of this area."

V struggled for a time, but climbing one of the statues, he was able to get a better view of the situation that was occurring a few yards away from him. Three men and two women stood around a group of bound townsfolk, some of which were wearing the priestly attire V had witnessed before. On a dais made of broken wood, a women sat upon an upturned barrel. A large tiger stood next to her on her right side, and a strange... watery... looking thing that V could not identify fanned her with a large green leaf. This was notable due to the fact that the leaf was much larger than anything in the statue garden, or anywhere in the city for that matter. She pointed to one of the prisoners "That one next! He stinks like broken promises!" The men and women swarmed the bound individuals, extracting one of them from the group, ripping his clothes off they brought him over to a brazier that had various iron fragments and tools setting in it. Both the captors and the prisoners had the same unhinged gaze that everyone in the city held, but the women with the tiger seemed in full control of her mental state. Well, she was obviously insane, just not in the same way as everyone afflicted by the curse. At-least it was not T… The prisoner screamed and tried to escape as they branded him and held his face close to the fire. "Enough! Leave some for the great beast of the garden!" V scanned the prisoners; he did not see Eika among them. A thought crossed V's mind as he climbed down from the statue.

"Luna, they are going to send another person soon. We have to see what happens to them." Luna nodded "This is all very terrible, isn't it? Are you sure you can stop the bad man doing all this?" V nodded "I will stop him or I will die trying." Luna's rather placid expression had ever so slowly been turning into a strained one over the course of the night. V felt bad for her, she clearly did not have the capability of absorbing everything happening around her, but it was starting to wear on her. V told Eika he would take care of the girl, and he was a whole lot of things but he always tried to keep his word at-least. V covered Luna's eyes as they followed the man who was forced into the garden. This time they had armed him by jamming a spear through his hand. The man's ability to scream or cry seemed to have failed him, and he simply blubbered incoherently as he stumbled around the garden, broken. After a few moments of this, V noticed the large glowing eyes peer out from the bushes again, this time they followed the man as he stumbled about blubbering. The eyes moved closer, and suddenly the eyes, and the creature they belonged to were upon the man. V could not make out all of her features in the dark, but her ears were unmistakable. Eika clawed at the man’s face with one hand, the other held one of her small metal balls she used in her sling. She smashed the ball into his right eye socket. As the fight started to leave the broken man, she bit his nose off and started choking him with her leather sling. Silently Eika brutalized the man, V made sure to keep Luna's eyes covered during the display. After the man stopped moving, Eika jumped back into the bushes, disappearing. "Luna, did you wake me up right away? When Eika ran out of the door I mean." Luna shook her head, "No I waited a while. I did not want you to be angry as well! I tried really hard to open the door, but I could not do it with only one arm. So I waited at the steps until I was very very worried, and then I called you!"

V moved back toward the entrance of the statue garden, the only way to "recover" Eika was to hope that the dredge collar she was wearing, along with the slavery contract, was enough to subdue her. He had no way of dealing with the situation otherwise. He wanted to be out of earshot, mostly, of the tiger owning women and her band of cronies. He had no way of knowing what was going to happen when giving Eika orders, he did not need them hearing him and making the situation a million times worse. "Eika?" He called out to the dark garden. Luna looked around, not having seen the murder of the man she had yet to learn of Eika being in the garden. "Oh, you think Eika is around here? Well, it's kind of crazy around here, she will never hear you if you're quiet! Hey, Eika!" Luna called loudly. V clasped his hand over her mouth, "SHHHH! Remember everyone who wants to kill us? You need to keep your voice down!" Luna nodded "Oh right..." She mumbled from behind his hand. However, Luna was right, it did get Eika's attention. Her eyes glowed in the darkness, not far from them. "Eika. Come here." V ordered firmly. What happened next was... interesting. Eika's body carried her forward, her dredge collar glowing, however she was tearing at her collar the whole time with her hands. It was a strange sight. "Stop struggling." V ordered. Eika resisted at first, but the collar's glow intensified and Eika's motions stopped. "Follow me." V figured simple commands were best given the circumstances. As Eika fell in behind V, he was able to see that she had taken a lot of damage. A few small weapons were still sticking out of her. A small dagger, a piece of glass, and various other sharp objects. "Oh no! it’s terrible! What did they do to you!" Luna's face was drawn up in a gaze of profound sadness as she ran over to Eika, trying to help her. V grabbed her and pulled her back, as Eika swiped at Luna. As Eika moved, the collar flickered a little, before both Eika and the collar returned to normal.

"Do you think she is still angry at me?" Luna asked, tears starting to appear in her eyes. "I’m so sorry for bothering you!" Luna started to cry. V tried to silence her. "No. She’s not angry. It’s the bad man remember? He is making everyone crazy." Luna wiped her nose "Really? You think Eika will like me again if we kill the bad man?" V nodded and looked at Eika. He was not a big fan of the collar's glow flickering, and Eika being able to resist its power, enough to swipe out at Luna. There was no way he was going to be able to watch Luna, Eika, and every other problem going on at once. Sighing he took out the small vial J had given him. It said it would cure curses, right? He had intended to use it on L, as she was more important in a crisis then Eika, but his only other option would be paralyzing her with the poison he had gotten from the Champion of Life's bugs. If he did that, he would have to stash her somewhere and just hope she was not discovered, and that was not really a good option given the situation. She also needed at-least basic medical attention, he could do that while she was paralyzed, but the other issues still remained.

"Open your mouth." V ordered. The collar's light stuttered, but after a moment, Eika obeyed. V rushed to pour the vial into her mouth. Anticipating her resistance, he was able to catch both of her hands, and wrestle her to the ground. Holding both of her hands, and with his knee on her chest, he called to Luna "You have to pour this in her mouth!" Eika's collar started blinking as she thrashed against V. He wondered if the dredge collars could explode. He encouraged Luna to pick up her pace. After a few moments of struggling, Luna managed to pour the liquid into Eika's mouth. Luna was crying and muttering "Sorry" the whole time, but she did get the job done. Luckily Eika was acting feral, and simply accidentally swallowed while she was fighting V. He was glad when she suddenly relaxed, he was not sure he could keep her at bay for much longer. Between the curse of Violence, and whatever her deal was, she was fighting against him with considerable strength.

"Eh? What was Eika doi..." Tears suddenly erupted from her eyes as pain overwhelmed her. Well, at-least V was fairly confident that the curse was gone. As Luna patted Eika's head, V quickly checked the street that he had come from initially. A few people wandered the street in a rage filled daze. It seemed as if the sniper, such as it was, had moved on. V walked out into the street, "Hey! I had sex with all your wives! And uh. Husbands. I guess. Also, uh, I ate your pets." He loudly called out, as the smattering of people in the immediate area angrily responded and charged him, he readied himself. As they were not coordinated, and often times ended up attacking each other as they rushed V, he easily killed them all. "Stay Close to me." He told Luna as he went back to pick up the sobbing Eika.  He carried her into one of the abandoned houses and sat her down on a cushioned chair, attempting to not put her weight on any of the weapons still inside of her. "Luna, can you try to find if they have water in the kitchen?" Luna nodded and wandered off, looking through cabinets. V ransacked the rest of the house. He gathered up a bunch of clothing. Returning to the first floor he found Luna trying to hand Eika a puffy pastry she had apparently found. "This might make you feel better! I had one once but it was moldy. It was the best thing I had ever eaten." When V walked over Luna pointed to large barrel in the kitchen. "I think it has water in it. I don't know why they have a whole barrel of water..."

Rummaging through the kitchen V found a cast iron pot and filled it with water. "Stay here, watch Eika. Scream really really loudly if someone other than me comes to the house." He handed her a knife he retrieved from the kitchen "If you can, try to cut these clothes up into wide strips. Luna nodded "Uh... is this stealing?" V shook his head "No, I’m fairly certain the people that owned all of this are dead." Luna nodded "Oh that's good. I don't really want to steal stuff."  V took the pot outside and set it down in some of the burning wreckage of what was once some form of horse drawn carriage. While he waited for it to boil, he quickly ransacked the nearby houses. He had found some type of liqueur in the house he had left Eika, but by the smell he doubted it was strong enough to act as a disinfectant. Every so often he would go outside and call out to any wanderers who had gotten closer to the area Eika and Luna were. Inside the third house he discovered something that smelled like fire and looked like whisky, he doubted he was going to find anything stronger than this in commoners houses so he headed back to the house, checking the pot of boiling water he had left outside the door.

He examined the strips Luna had cut. It was a shoddy job but it’s not like they had time to do a good one. He wondered to himself if Luna had even held a knife before today. Also, to be fair, she only was working with one good arm at the moment. Washing his hands with a small amount of the whisky substance, he placed the strips of cloth in the boiling water, after a few moments he removed them and placed them on some of the wood that had been reduced to a charred lump, hot enough to dry them, not hot enough to combust them. He was no doctor, but he assumed wood that was previously on fire was sterile. More sterile than anything else around anyway. V carried Eika outside to where the bandages were drying, setting her down nearby. He also grabbed Eika's leather sling, and folded it a few times. As Eika was currently incapable of responding to requests, he commanded her to open her mouth, and placed the folded leather in between her teeth as her collar glowed softly. "Eh? Are we feeding Eika leather?" V shook his head. "No, this is going to hurt like the devil. The sling is to stop her from hurting herself." Luna clearly did not understand, but did not inquire further. He doused his hands in a small amount of the alcoholic substance again. First, he figured he would remove the glass shard, none of her wounds looked horribly deep, she just had a lot of them. He grabbed it and gingerly removed it from her flesh. This next part was going to be rough. It would have been nice if Luna was strong enough to hold Eika still, but that was not going to happen. After the shard was out, he did his best to rinse it with the alcohol. Her wounds were filled with dirt, and garden detritus, and almost certainly other people’s blood. The sounds Eika made could only be described as squeals, mercifully it seemed like she lost consciousness after he removed the second item, a metal shard of some type.   

 

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