Hunter of Zero (Bloodborne/Familiar of Zero) ch. 11

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The light of the lamps illuminated the room. Agnes had completed her final checks before stepping outside to stand guard at the door, leaving Louise and Henrietta alone. Both had changed into something much more comfortable. The Princess sat beneath the covers while Louise combed her hair in front of the mirror.

"Do you really think your familiar will find Fouquet?" Henrietta asked, her voice soft but curious.

Louise paused, considering the question. Then, with a firm nod, she replied, "He is very capable. So yes." Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if she had merely sent the Good Hunter on an errand to fetch groceries instead of tracking down an international fugitive.

Henrietta believed her, how could she not? There had been far too many shattered golems lying in evidence of his skill. If someone had told her about a man defeating such creatures with gunpowder weapons, she might have dismissed it as fanciful exaggeration. And yet, here she was, witness to the impossible. For what were his weapons if not some strange variety of gunpowder arms?

"Your familiar can use magic," Henrietta mused aloud, recalling the exhibition and the vision he showed them. "But he relies on those weapons and melee combat to fight."

"It's the way of his order," Louise explained. "That's what they used to hunt beasts where he's from."

Henrietta's expression shifted, concern flickering across her face. "Beasts? Goodness, what kind of beasts would require such brutal weapons?"

Louise hesitated, her gaze drifting as if pulled to some distant memory. Her mind filled with vivid sensations. she Saw. She Felt. She Tasted. Copper-iron tang lingered on her lips, thick and viscous, red as blood. The acrid incense burning on windowsills mixed with the cold, metallic air beneath a pale, watchful moon.

"Louise?"

Startled, Louise shook her head abruptly, snapping back to the present. "I'm fine! I'm fine!" she cried out, her voice tinged with urgency.

Henrietta blinked, watching her friend closely. "You...you looked shaken."

"I..." Louise faltered, struggling to find her words. "The vision he showed us was just... startling, is all."

She sounded unconvincing, and Henrietta's eyes narrowed slightly. "Really? Just the vision?" she asked gently, her tone careful, probing.

Louise bit her lip, hesitating. Then, finally, she sighed. "Princess..."

Henrietta gave a soft laugh, a knowing smile spreading across her face. "Louise..."

"Henrietta," Louise corrected herself quickly, turning to face her. Her gaze locked onto Henrietta's with a strange, almost pleading intensity. "What would you do if you summoned someone...otherworldly?"

"...Otherworldly?" Henrietta repeated, her brow furrowing in thought. "I...I suppose it would depend."

"Depend on what?" Louise asked, her voice quieter now, almost fragile.

Henrietta tilted her head slightly, considering. "If they were kind to me. And if they were good," she replied simply.

Louise stared at her for a long moment, her thoughts spinning. It sounded so simple, so pure, and yet it felt impossibly far from the truth Louise had come to know. Was he kind? At times, yes. There was a strange warmth in the way he protected her, a quiet resolve in his actions. But the things he was capable of doing spoke of great violence.

"You're speaking of your familiar, aren't you?" Henrietta observed gently.

Louise hesitated, her lips parting as if to deny it, but then she nodded. "They say familiars reflect their masters. Kirche's salamander embodies her fire and passion, for example. But...what does my familiar reflect of me?"

Her gaze drifted to her hands which were delicate, untested. They bore no scars of battle, and yet powerful.

Henrietta hummed thoughtfully, tilting her head. "Well...I don't know much about your familiar," she admitted. "But I do know a great deal about you."

Louise glanced up at her, curiosity and uncertainty mingling in her eyes.

"I know," Henrietta continued, her voice warm. "that you are kind, and that you are good. A familiar reflects their master, does it not? By that logic, I'd say he is kind and good as well."

Louise stared at Henrietta for a moment, then gave a small nod. That answer was good enough, she supposed. Slowly, she withdrew her hands, folding them neatly in her lap. "After Fouquet is retrieved, what do you plan to do, Henrietta?"

Henrietta tilted her head thoughtfully, a soft hum escaping her lips. "I suppose I shall borrow your familiar."

Louise's pink eyebrows shot upward. "Borrow?"

Henrietta giggled, the sound light but purposeful. "Well, he seems incredibly capable, doesn't he? And he possesses such...interesting weaponry. Tristain would surely benefit from his skills. That weapon he used, the one that shot multiple times without reloading, it's unlike anything I've ever seen. Imagine what our soldiers could do with something like that."

Louise and Henrietta both were young girls, that was true enough. But both were noble and royal of a incredibly small kingdom surrounded by much larger powers. Louise knew that if it came down to it, the Royal Army was small. But Henrietta knew more. The chaos and murder spreading around in Albion, the letters that...Wales sent her described an apocalyptic battle between insanity and reason. She shivered just thinking about it.

"Now you're the one staring off into the distance," Louise teased gently, standing up from the vanity mirror to join Henrietta's side.

Henrietta's head jerked slightly, startled from her thoughts. She managed a faint, apologetic smile. "Just worried, Louise. Beyond this business with Fouquet, there is the civil war in Albion. I..." She hesitated, her gaze flickering to the floor.

"Hm?"

Henrietta took a deep breath, then looked Louise in the eye. "Do not speak of this to anyone else. Do you understand?"

Louise blinked at the sudden shift in tone but nodded solemnly. "I won't."

Henrietta's shoulders relaxed, just slightly. "Good. I presume you've heard of the civil war in Albion?"

Louise tilted her head, thinking. She had caught whispers from Albionese students at the Academy; rumors passed in hushed tones but the specifics eluded her. "Only a little," she admitted.

Henrietta nodded grimly. "Well, the truth of the matter is that the Royalists are losing," she said, her voice low. "And they are losing badly. The Reconquista's armies swell with each passing day. The Royal Armies are powerful, yes, but their common ranks are thinning. Day by day, fewer answer the call to fight."

Louise frowned, her brows furrowing. "But Albion is a powerful kingdom. Surely they can hold their ground?"

Henrietta shook her head. "Albion was powerful. But power means nothing when your people turn against you. The Reconquista has gripped the commoners of Albion in a frenzy. Land, wealth, all to be distributed to the lower classes. They promise that, and the destruction of the nobility."

Horror gripped Louise. She thought of it, the established order overturned by commoners of all people. The arrogance, the sheer blasphemy!

Henrietta was not finished however. "Have you heard what they do to nobles who refuse to join them?"

Louise shook her head, her stomach twisting at the ominous tone in Henrietta's voice.

"They drag them from their manors." Henrietta whispered, her voice shaking slightly. "They humiliate them, strip them of their titles, and then...they execute them in the streets. Entire families, Louise. Men, women, and children. All butchered in the name of their so-called revolution."

Louise's eyes widened, her hand flying to her mouth. "That's...horrible."

Henrietta's hands trembled as they gripped the folds of her blanket. "Wales..." She paused, her voice breaking slightly. "Wales fights with everything he has, but how long can he hold out against an army of his own people?"

It was there Louise understood why Henrietta asked for her familiar. And as a good Tristainian, she would answer the call.

"I will speak to him about this when he returns," Louise promised. "Tristain must be ready."

"Thank you," Henrietta smiled. "I hate that I have to ask you, Louise, but in the face of the Reconquista and their sick ideology, I worry for our country. Tristain is ill-prepared should we come to war with these monsters."

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"It is in our firm belief," Oliver Cromwell began, his voice rising above the murmurs of the assembled crowd, "that the King, who has absconded from his royal responsibilities, has forfeited the divine mandate by which he ruled. A king who lets his people starve while his court feasts, who clings to the skirts of the Romalian Church, perpetuating oppression in the name of false piety, is no king at all. He is a tyrant. And tyranny is not the will of God."

The crowd in the grand hall, a mixture of commoners, disillusioned nobles, and clergy who had broken from the Romalian hierarchy, listened intently.

Cromwell's piercing gaze swept over his audience, ensuring all eyes were on him. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men are God's children. All men are created equal under His watchful eye. The nobleman and the commoner, the farmer and the lord, all share the same flesh, the same soul. When we kneel before the Almighty, does He weigh us by our titles? No! He judges us by our deeds, by our righteousness, by the purity of our hearts."

A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd. Some nodded fervently, others clenched their fists in solidarity.

"For too long," Cromwell continued, his voice hardening, "the nobility has used their titles and their birthright to lord over the common man. For too long, the Romalian Church has twisted the Word of God to justify their own power, their own wealth, their own sins. They claim to be the voice of the Divine, yet they are deaf to the cries of the hungry, the poor, the downtrodden!"

He paused, allowing the anger of his words to settle, to take root in their hearts. Then, in a softer tone, he said, "But no longer. No longer will we allow the chains of nobility and false religion to weigh us down. No longer will we allow the Church to dictate the will of God to us when we can find it in the Good Book and in our hearts. We are no longer subjects of kings and bishops. We are servants of God, and Him alone."

The crowd erupted into applause, but Cromwell raised his hands, commanding silence. His expression darkened, his voice lowering to a dangerous growl.

"Many have called us heretics, my brothers and sisters. But no, it is not us that are the heretics....but them!"

The hall fell deathly silent, the weight of Cromwell's accusation hanging in the air.

"Do you know whyyyyyyy?" Cromwell drawled.

"Why?" someone in the back cried.

Cromwell's face went red. "Decadence, an understandable falling. Oppression of the common man, a sin we can remove. But one thing they are guilty of, one thing that their blasted bloodlines cannot remove is because they have committed the greatest sin: the elves still live!"

The crowd growled. Cromwell grimaced. May God forgive him for uttering their name.

"These so-called rulers," he spat, "turn their eyes away from the heresy that festers in the east. They allow the knife-eared bastards to live unchallenged, to spread their lies, their magic, their defiance of God's natural order! They make peace with the enemy of mankind, and for that, they are no better than the elves themselves."

Anger rippled through the crowd, growing steadily louder as Cromwell's fury mounted.

"The elves," he continued, his voice rising to a fever pitch, "are a plague upon Halkeginia! They mock God's creation with their unnatural magic, twisting the world to fit their heretical whims. They claim to be superior to mankind with their glamour, with their immortality, the arrogance! They preach no gospel, worship no God, and yet they dare to call themselves masters of the Holy Land! The very land they STOLE from us!"

The murmurs exploded into shouts of anger, curses spat into the air. Cromwell slammed his fist against the podium, his voice booming over the chaos.

"When we finish with the Romalian Church and the false kings, we shall turn our righteous fury upon the true enemy, the knife-eared heretics! The pointy-eared bastards who defile this world with their very existence! We shall march upon their whimsy forests where they frolic and we shall cleanse them from existence in the name of God Almighty!"

The crowd erupted in a deafening roar.

"FUCK THE ELVES!" someone shouted from the back.

"FUCK THE POINTY-EARED BASTARDSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" Cromwell and the crowd screamed in unison, their voices shaking the very foundation of the hall.

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A/N: Funnily enough, I did not have to change anything. And yes, the main villain in Albion is legitimately named Oliver Cromwell.

On to IRL matters, power has been restored and so is internet. I am very much safe, and so is my family. I cannot say the same for the rest of my island. Updates will now resume normally, however.