WAR: WIIGF 24B (Patreon)

Chapter 24 Pt II

An hour of this.

A whole damn hour of leaping between rooftops, and scanning dark piss-stained alleys, had left Kenny seeing absolutely nothing but the usual Blüdhaven bullshit. Just the same dumb drunks stumbling out of dive bars and puking their stomachs out into the gutters. Drug deals — shady as all hell — going down under dying streetlights weren’t what he was looking for and he wasn’t gonna stop it either. I’m not fuckin’ Batman.

Distant screams sounded out in the night; a noise that could have been a mugging, a domestic case, or just some crackhead arguing with a mailbox — he couldn’t tell because he couldn’t get there in time and none of them were what he was looking for in the first place. 

Yeah… He took a hiss of a breath in through clenched teeth. I’m startin’ to get pissed.

The initial rush from the new gear was wearing off, his first solo hunt going so slowly that it hadn’t even gotten out of the driveway yet. How’d Luigi make this look so easy anyway?

That first night hunting with him had made it look so easy. It was like every third alley Luigi took him down, copper eyes almost as bright as his Sharingan, he’d put them right on the path of another newborn. Obviously, the guy had some sort of vampire blood-tracking spell or something but still, Kenny thought this would have been so much easier. Should have waited for Weeg. 

Unfortunately, Luigi had told him to ease up for a little bit. That bell Ken had given him had him locked down tight in his ‘workshop’ as he tried to to understand it. Luigi didn’t even know how to get it to work yet and, from the sound of it, he wouldn’t be done until he could. 

Maybe they weren't out tonight. Yeah, and maybe he'd gotten all this cool new ninja gear just to play dress-up on a dirty roof. Ken threw his head back, groaning through his mask a-

As a scream, sharp and loud, cut straight through the background roar of the Bludhaven night.

It was different from the usual background noise. For one, this one was a lot closer, maybe just a street over.

Definitely no more than two.

On top of all that, it had a ragged edge to it; real, honest-to-god, pants-shitting terror.

With a low growl, equal parts excitement and anger vibrating against his mask, Ken violently tore toward the shouts for help. His movements weren’t as silent as he’d like but he wasn’t trying to be quiet right now, no matter what his ninja instincts screamed at him to do. 

He was trying to be fast.

Sandaled feet cut quick in a flowing rush across the tar-paper landscape.

A massive gap between two shipping warehouses was taken at full speed, Ken not even looking down at the six story drop to the unforgiving concrete below. By the time he took a second breath, he landed on the opposite ledge and caught himself against the gravel, a roll against stones bleeding off momentum. 

Another breath left his lungs as he crept to the edge of the roof, peering down over the rusted gutter into a narrow trash-choked alley.

The scene below was a picture-perfect image of Blüdhaven’s nightlife, as bullshit as it was stereotypical.

A well-dressed white dude, probably some mid-level corporate drone who took a wrong turn out of Downtown Bludhaven, was up against a graffiti-scarred brick wall, blood running down his chin, while another man was half-slumped on the wall next to him. Two guys in heavy coats held up weapons at them, shouting things that Ken couldn’t exactly make out. It looked almost exactly like a standard mugging, the way you got your taxes taken in this zipcode at least.

But something was wrong.

The Sharingan drank in the details, world a crawl as everything resolved into a clear but completely backwards picture.

The "victim” wasn’t.

He wasn’t the victim and he wasn’t scared, either. The lazy smile playing on his face made that explicitly clear, especially as he wiped the blood from his chin.

The two "thugs," on the other hand… 

Yeah, they were absolutely terrified. One of them, a skinny kid no older than Ken wearing an oversized hoodie, was holding a heavy tire iron with hands that trembled so badly he could barely maintain his grip on the metal. The other guy was barely any better as he aimed a bat at the half-slumped man as the second man in the suit stood up straight, face a mask of empty-eyed obedience. 

A thrall. 

Ken’s eyes widened just a bit. The Monster Manual had talked about them; humans hypnotized under blood to follow orders and serve vampire masters. And the best way to free them from that was… to kill the master.

Red eyes slid over to the well-dressed man still leaning against the wall… gray bleeding into the whites of his eyes enough to tell Ken exactly what he was dealing with. Fledgling… fuck! 

Older, smarter, and way deadlier than the half-feral newborns he’d been farming for weeks with Luigi and the Crosscutters.

Fuck. 

Ken didn’t waste another second as he dropped.

His black-clad body took the plunge, a shadow detaching itself from the greater darkness of the roofline. Chakra hardened him almost twice over what he already was, almost four times past where he was a month ago. He landed in a near-perfect crouch right behind the Fledgling, the impact a barely audible thump of sandals on wet pavement.

"Yo," Ken’s voice dragged through the quiet air. "Y’all need some help?"

The Fledgling spun off the wall, a violent blur of impossible speed that would have snapped a human neck. The handsome human face vanished as the predator took over, eyes glowing a hungry red as the fangs slid free from a formerly human-looking mouth. 

The kid with the tire iron screamed, his bigger friend doing the same as the two of them turned his way.Maybe it was the red eyes or the sudden appearance, but they scrambled like rats, bolting frantically over a pile of overflowing trash bags, the kid slipping on wet garbage before disappearing into the night. Smart. The thrall just stood there, eyes empty and dead, waiting for a command from a master that was almost spitting mad.

"...can’t believe he was right.”Ken raised an eyebrow. “Who was right?”The vampire didn’t answer as it hissed again, shaking his head. "So you’re the little ghost who's been making such an irritating mess of things down here.”

Ken just grinned under the fabric of his mask. "Well, I try."

“The Butcher wants you alive…” the vampire finally snarled, shoulders dropping as claws came free from the tips of its fingers, “but what he don’t know won’t hurt him?”

Wait? Ken blinked, Sharingan tracking the sudden shift. “The Butch-”

The Fledgling attacked, violently interrupting Ken’s surprise in a blur of motion that would have been near-invisible to a normal human eye.

But to the Sharingan, it was a slow, highly deliberate dance of violence. 

He saw the lunge as soon as the vampire's feet kicked off the ground. Claws lunged out, all of them aimed directly at his throat; ten points of death fixed right at him.

Ken sidestepped with a grunt, pivoting on the ball of his foot. Claws sliced clean through the empty air where his jugular had been a split second before. The force of the swing came with pure wind, an audible whoosh as one hand nearly took his hair along with his neck. Jesus…

A hand went to his hip, Ken’s eyes narrowed as the straight blade slid free. A cold line of steel caught the dim light of the alley, sword flashing as he slapped the other clawed hand back. “Too slow.”

That was bullshit and he knew it.

This thing… Ken bit back a grunt, blocking slash after slash after stab after stab. Is too fuckin’ fast! Faster than any newborn or neonate he’d ever faced, tougher and stronger too; much more than the mindless, starving trash he'd been cleaning up with Tyke and the crew. the thing knew how to use all of that too and, more than all that, it was already making him sweat. “C’mon! That your best?!”

The Fledgling didn't care about the taunt, either of them.

It came at him again, a furious whirlwind of strikes swiping for his face and chest and especially what was right in between. Gritting his teeth, Ken met each one, the heavy clang-clang-clang of steel on unnaturally hard, dead flesh echoing brutally in the brick-lined alley. 

The blade cut fast where he could, thin lines of sluggish dark blood appearing across the vampire's forearms.

Even still, it wasn't biting deep enough.

C’mon! Ken kicked off the wall, a quick burst of chakra to his soles for a wall-run that sent him flipping cleanly over the vampire’s head. He came down hard, blade flashing bright in a vertical slash. His aim was true, a direct cut to separate the head from the neck, but the vampire was already turning. 

Ngggh! A bone-rattling shock went up Ken’s arms, tremor jarring all the way to his shoulder socket as he grunted out loud. The vampire flashed teeth his way in a smile as wide as its fangs were sharp, steel directly against his forearm as it held the blade from going any further than an inch or two deep. 

“You little shit!” It hissed at him again. “I eat wannabe slayers like you for breakfast!”

“...you eat shit?”

Ken ducked another slash, darting back with a laugh as the fledgeling hissed.

The human thrall chose that moment to make its move.

It stumbled forward, a heavy length of rusted pipe swinging Ken’s way in a clumsy uncoordinated move. Fuckin’ meat shield! He knew the whole purpose of the thing was to distract him but it didn’t help to know that when it was still working.

Ken grunted again, disengaging from the Fledgling's lethal lashes to deal with the new problem lumbering his way one more time. Damn it, can’t just kill that guy! For one, he was under mind control and, for two, he was still human. Probably. Ken stepped inside the clumsy swing of the pipe, the butt of his blade lashing out. A sharp solid impact cracked out directly against the side of the thrall's head and the man crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap, his pipe clattering away into the shadows.

It took barely a second to take care of the guy.

But one second was all the opening the Fledgling needed.

A fist like a solid cinderblock slammed directly into Ken's ribs.

Pain exploded wide and clear, enough to instantly steal all the oxygen from his lungs and send him skidding backward across the wet asphalt. His mouth opened, a raw gasp of air rushing in as he felt something crack deep under the muscle. Motherf—

A blur was immediately on him, the vampire pressing the advantage as its red eyes burned bright. "MEAT!"

Ken gagged, spitting a mouthful of hot blood and saliva inside his mask. Fuck this. His hands came up. Boar. Dog. Bird. Hand seals rushed past as quickly as he could make them, fingers a frantic blur of motion even as the fire in his broken ribs screamed at him.

"Fūton: Byaku Kanpuu!"

A massive cone of dense misty air erupted from both of his hands, a sudden shocking blast of arctic cold hitting the humid alley air. The Fledgling hissed in shock, stumbling backward as the icy wind blasted right into its face. A crackling layer of white rime instantly frosted over the vampire’s expensive suit and exposed skin both, the sudden temperature drop freezing the moisture in its dead joints.

It was the only opening Ken needed.

He pulled one hand back and let it fly, his sword launching out. He didn't bother to aim at the vampire, his aim higher and at a far easier target; a dangling rusted piece of the fire escape ladder bolted to the wall to the vampire's left.

A metallic clang rang out loud and sharp, almost a gunshot in the alley. The noise instinctively drew the Fledgling's eyes for a single second.

One second was all the opening Ken needed.

Ram. Tiger. Bird. He dumped it.

Ten, twenty, thirty percent of the chakra he had left; all of it dropped directly into the fire that burned bright in his palms.

"Katon: Enshō!"

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

Drew Blood – 200 NP

Kill your first Fledgeling

[ROLL: Perfect Parry – Street Fighter] – 300 NPA normal parry is the simple deflection of an enemy attack to defend yourself and open up their guard for a counter attack without taking the brunt force of their attack with a block. Difficult, but worth it. Like countering, this isn't that. Upon purchase, you gain the ability to perform a "Perfect Parry". This is the act of waiting until the exact moment before the enemy's strike would land to bring up your block against the attack. This technique allows you to dramatically weaken or even outright nullify attacks and damage that may have ordinarily knocked you out or killed you. This high risk, high reward defensive ability is incredible strong, but as you may expect, a mistimed parry would have you take a potentially life risking attack head on, either unguarded or with your block taking the full brunt of it.

Nexus Points: 250