Bloody Trade Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 5

A black-haired girl in a sleeveless black dress dropped down from the tree, landing at the edge of a clearing. Her red eyes caught sight of the man there, and widened as she recognized him.

“You. How are you still alive?” She asked Matt, one hand on the red hilt of her weapon. “I killed you.”

“You did. I just came back.” He gave her a small smile. “It’s been a while, Akame.”

She tensed slightly as he straightened up.

Matt held up a hand. “Hold on a moment, I’m not your enemy this time.”

Seeing as she made no further move, Matt reached into a pocket with his other hand and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which he flicked towards Akame, sending it to land near her feet. Cautiously, she picked it up and opened it, scanning the contents quickly.

“So you’re with the Revolutionary Army now?” She questioned.

“I’m more of a mercenary. No need to worry about me betraying their secrets to the Empire though, I keep my contracts.”

Akame squinted at Matt, but the man just continued to smile pleasantly. She finally nodded and relaxed, straightening up from her ready stance, tucking the letter away into her own pocket.

“Follow me.”

“Lead the way.”

Akame leapt back up into the trees, keeping a wary eye on the redheaded man. He appeared to have no problems keeping up with her agile movements, easily navigating over the branches she was using to travel through the forest. More than that, he seemed to be faster and stronger than the version of him in her memories.

They cleared the forest and entered the mountain beyond it, passing through a hidden trail to arrive at a cave. There, they were met by five other people. Matt hung back at a safe distance while Akame approached them, handing over the letter to a white-haired woman with an eyepatch. The others, a green-haired teen, a black-haired man with a pompadour, a purple-haired woman in glasses and a tall short-haired blond woman, continued to monitor Matt.

“So you’re our contact from the Revolutionary Army. Well, I’m Najenda,” The white-haired woman introduced herself, “And we are Night Raid.”

Matt nodded. “Name’s Matt. I’m here to give you all a power up.”

“Power up?” The green-haired teen echoed, “You sound like one of those childish fiction characters.”

“It’s the easiest way of describing it.”

Matt pulled open one side of the brown coat he wore, revealing several tools and weapons hanging from the interior. The most prominent one was a strange doll, which he took and held out for the members of Night Raid to see.

“Is that an Imperial Arm?” The man with the pompadour asked. “I know there are some that don’t look like weapons, but what does it do?”

Imperial Arms were relics created on the command of the First Emperor of the Empire in this world centuries in the past, in order to defend his Empire’s existence. They were known to grant their users amazing powers. About five centuries ago, half of them were said to be lost in a civil war, and that gave Matt his cover story.

From what he knew, the Imperial Arms all had some title before the actual name, and he ended up going along with it, referring to the Doll as ‘Blood Enhancer: Hunter’s Doll’. She didn’t mind it when he suggested it to her, so it stuck.

“What it does is to convert one’s kills into power. And it’s not just physical strength,” Matt explained, “A person can become more skillful, or hardier in endurance.”

“Is that true?” Najenda demanded.

“It is. I’ve helped several other divisions of the Revolutionary Army to grow in strength and skill thanks to it.”

“That is something we can never allow the Empire to have,” She griped, “They would slaughter thousands of people just to enhance their troops.”

“It’s not as easy as it sounds. For one, you need a person who can use it. Me,” Matt indicated himself, “The second thing is that the level of growth depends on the strength of the beings killed by the person. So a soldier who only cuts down a few men on the battlefield won’t get as much benefit as a hunter who slays a huge Danger Beast.”

“That means…”

“Yes, the one who would get the most out of this… would be Akame.”

The black-haired red-eyed girl didn’t react even when most of the others glanced at her. She was an assassin, and had slain many for the cause of both the Empire, and now the Revolutionary Army. All of them had blood on their hands, but hers was far more than the others.

“Anyway,” Matt continued, “I’ll only be here for a few days before I move on to the next unit. Perhaps we could even do some joint training to get used to your improvements.”

Najenda nodded. “That sounds good to me. As for the power up, how long will it take?”

“Oh. Very fast, actually. Who would like to go first?” He looked around expectantly.

“I’ll go last.” 

Akame’s declaration drew looks from the others, but they didn’t object. Matt wasn’t surprised either; she had her suspicions about him, and chose to go last so that at the first sign of anything suspicious, she would kill him.

The members of Night Raid came up to him and introduced themselves in turn, and he made them touch the Doll, empowering the parts of themselves they wished to see strengthened. Naturally, Matt absorbed some of their accumulated blood echoes as a tax.

The man with a pompadour was the first to accept, boldly coming forward to touch the Doll without any fear. His name was Bulat, a former Imperial Army officer nicknamed the Hundred Men-Slayer, whose fighting skill was well-known. He greeted Matt like a friendly buddy, and thanked him for increasing his already prodigious strength even further, with a bit added to his speed.

Seeing that there were no problems, the others stepped forward as well. 

Sheele, the purple-haired woman went next, though she tripped over her feet, forcing Matt to catch her with one arm. She thanked him, and asked to have her dexterity increased, to compensate for her usual clumsiness. Noting the giant pair of scissors she carried with her, Matt asked about them. Her weapon was able to cut through anything, so strength wasn’t that necessary. He suggested enhancing her speed a little as well, and she agreed.

The green-haired teen with goggles on his head was Lubbock. Following Sheele’s example, he revealed his Imperial Arm, a spool of wires he could manipulate with incredible skill called Cross Tail. Matt could tell just how much blood had soaked into the metal strands, and through that, understood how Lubbock fought with the weapon. Dexterity and speed would enhance his skill with them, but the teen asked for some enhancement to his endurance.

The blonde in a tube top’s name was Leone, cheerful and friendly in personality. She claimed that she was the team’s investigator, using stealth to spy on their targets to confirm their crimes, which explained why she had less blood echoes than the others. However, the faint smell of lingering blood on her hands told Matt that she could fight as well as the rest of them. For that, he enhanced her endurance, to better withstand the wounds she would incur in combat.

Instead of Najenda next, Matt was introduced to a pink-haired twintailed girl carrying a large rifle, who showed up from the side. Mine was a sniper, and had been kept in reserve just in case he proved to be an enemy, as a hidden blade to Akame’s obvious one. Since she rarely fought on the frontlines, Matt recommended a speed boost for her. It was also possible to enhance her firepower, and she leapt at that chance.

“How is that possible?” Najenda asked curiously, “Mine’s Imperial Arm Pumpkin shoots stronger when she’s in a pinch, but you can make it so that she normally shoots with more power?”

“I can,” Matt confirmed, “It’s not a physical trait, but it’s still a trait that the Doll can enhance.”

“I see.”

After Mine, he continued with Najenda, and finally Akame. With the number of kills under her belt, Akame had a staggering amount of blood echoes to spend. Since the red-eyed assassin’s Imperial Arm Murasame killed with a single cut, she didn’t need that much strength. Instead, she further enhanced her already prodigious speed, with some focus on elevating her dexterity as well.

Matt hid his glee at gaining all these blood echoes for himself, tucking the Doll back under his cloak. “That’s everyone, right?”

“It is.” Najenda looked at Lubbock, “Prepare a room for him.”

“Aye ma’am!”

The next few days passed quickly, as Matt engaged in training sessions with the members of Night Raid. They didn’t take long to acclimate themselves to their improved abilities, many of them pleased at the improvement. The only one who didn’t show any emotion was Akame, who continued to keep a watchful eye over the redhead.

She approached him one night when they were alone, to try and understand the mystery.

“How did you come back to life?” Akame asked him directly, “There are no Imperial Arms that can bring back the dead.”

Matt gave her a sad smile. “A curse. And I’m trying to break it.”

She touched the hilt of Murasame, but he just shook his head, rejecting the silent offer because it wouldn’t work. Akame looked at the man in silence for another minute, then nodded and left.

Matt’s departure from the base was a quiet affair, the redhead covering his features with a hooded cloak and vanishing into the forest, seen off by the few members of Night Raid who were present in the base. 

Some time later, he was back in the Bleed, with his red hand held over a large stone bowl unloading the large quantity of blood echoes collected from that business trip out. However, he kept a little part of it within himself. More specifically, a portion of what he had collected from the members of Night Raid. 

Turning his hand face up, Matt closed his fingers, drawing upon mystic energies to transmute the memories within those echoes. A red flash lit up the room for a moment, before he opened his fingers.

Lying on his palm was a round medallion bearing the symbol of Night Raid, an owl partially obscuring a round moon. With no change in expression, Matt tilted his hand, letting the medallion slide off his palm and fall into the stone basin.

-where spindly-fingered hands caught it.

The Messengers crawled up from the bloody pool, their gaping faces peering closely at the medallion that was now in their grasp. After a few moments, they nodded and sank back to where they had appeared from. Within the writhing pool of blood echoes, images of the assassination team’s flickered.

Matt was about to examine what new offerings were now available when a bell’s chime alerted him to another waiting customer. With a sigh, he decided to postpone that for later, and went to see who had arrived.

“Well, about time,” The white-haired man standing in front of the counter commented, “Thought I would be waiting forever.”

Of the customers who visited the shop, the ones that Matt bothered to remember the names of were either distinctive enough to stick out in his memory, or came regularly enough to achieve the same. This person was one of the rare few to fall into both categories. His smell indicated a non-human ancestry, and the long red coat with the broadsword hanging off its back was thick with the smell of demonic blood, fitting for someone in the demon hunting career.

Matt didn’t retort about how barely a minute had passed since the bell rang. “Nice to see you again, Dante,” He greeted the half-demon evenly.

“Makes one of us.” Dante hopped up to sit on the counter, turning his head to keep Matt in view, “How’s business going for you?”

“Better than yours, I bet,” Matt snarked back.

“Hey, not all of us have a shop that they don’t have to pay upkeep on,” Dante ran a finger along the counter and examined it, “Not a speck of dust. Man, I wish I had your housekeeping service. Mine charges way too much for a shoddy job.”

“Maybe that has something to do with how you come back from your jobs to leave a mess all over.” Matt held up a hand to stop the other person from retorting. “Alright, that’s enough teasing. What brings you by?”

“Came to check out if you’ve got any new tools. Got any new guns?”

Matt thought of a weapon wielded by a twintailed sniper, and smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

In another world, a young boy with a scar on his forehead thought back to the strange man he had met before the start of the school year. The reason for that was the recent events on Halloween, when he had heard a strange voice saying that it smelled blood. He and his friends, who couldn’t hear what he had heard, followed the voice and found the caretaker’s cat in a state of petrification, hanging beneath an ominous message written in blood. That, combined with his improved speed and magic skill, had caused the memory of the man to surface in his mind.

That man had said that people who visited his shop had bloody fates, and that statement carried worrying implications for the boy. However, given the general mood of worry hanging over the school, and the lack of answers coming forth, the boy decided to take a risk and write to the man. With a quick excuse to his friends, he headed over to the Owlery, where his white-feathered owl flew down to land on his shoulder.

“Hi Hedwig. Can you take a letter for me?” He asked the owl, who nipped him on the ear in response, but didn’t fly off.

Pulling out a quill, the boy began to write his message.

‘Dear Mr Hunter, this is Harry Potter. We met when I accidentally entered your shop through the Floo.’ 

He paused as he tried to figure out how to phrase his question, before deciding to write an account of what he had experienced, followed by a request for help.

‘I don’t know what to do, but something tells me you can help. If you can, please send a reply back.’

Having finished writing, the boy tied the message to the leg of the owl, and let her fly out from the window. It was a great distance from where the castle was to London, so it would take some time before he got a reply.

Afterword: Hit a writer’s block in my other fic, and decided to revisit this one. A little bit more exploration of the abilities available to Matt. As you can see, he can produce his own version of the Hunter’s Badges from Bloodborne, unlocking access to certain universes’ equipment through that method. As for what he can do with them… well, that might come later.