Bloody Trade Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 4

“Oi oi oi oi!” The grey-haired man yelled, hefting his heavy weapon, “Just what’s with you, huh?!”

He swung the three-bladed scythe, letting it fly further out by the cable at the end of its handle. Moments before it made contact with its target, a length of black metal flicked upwards, deflecting it off-course.

“Tch! Enough with the games already! Are you intending to fight or not?!” 

“Oh, I am intending to fight.”

Matt advanced slowly, his cane aimed directly at the man while his body was turned sideways, reducing the amount of openings for his opponent to target. Meanwhile, the other person had pulled his weapon back by its cable, catching its handle in his hand.

“Fuck! Fine, I’ll come to you then!”

“That works too.”

The two fighters lunged at each other, their weapons meeting in a furious clash of metal. One fought wildly, seeking to wound by any means necessary, while the other was methodical in defense, countering every attempt with pinpoint accuracy. Within the first few moves, the grey-haired man understood that Matt was better at close range, and sought to disengage. He leapt back-

“Aw, tired of dancing already?” Matt’s voice spoke from behind him as he landed.

“How-?!” He reflexively swung his scythe around, but failed to land a hit. “Illusion techniques?!”

CRUNCH

“Good guess, but no.” Matt pulled back his weapon, its tip stained with blood.

“FUCK! THAT HURTS!” The man swiped with his weapon again, but once again missed.

Rather than press the attack again, Matt took several steps back, now putting himself at mid-range, where he stopped and stared at his opponent.

Despite the nearly pulverized foot, the scythe user didn’t take his eyes off Matt either, nor did he struggle for balance. So he got a clear view when Matt brought the tip of the cane to his mouth, and took a lick of the blood left on it.

“You… hey, I just noticed!” The man pointed at Matt with his free hand. “You smell of blood! Are you like me? A follower of Jashin?!”

“Jashin?” Matt echoed the question. “Fuck no. I’m not like you, Hidan of Yugakure.”

“Oh, so just another greedy bounty hunter then!” Hidan scoffed, “Then what’re you licking my blood for? Trying to scare me or something?”

“Oh, no. Just like you have your Curse technique, I’ve got my own.”

Hidan tensed, because Matt just revealed that he knew about Hidan’s usual method. Now it made sense, why the redhead had been fighting so defensively this whole time. Unlike the other bounty hunters who were willing to take a few wounds to land a decisive blow on his vitals, and learning the mistake of doing so, this person was taking precautions to prevent it from happening in the first place.

And that wasn’t all. His opponent was also saying that he had a similar technique, one that involved consuming blood? Hidan’s gaze dipped slightly to focus on Matt’s feet, watching for any sign of making a sigil like he did for his religious ceremonies.

“Mm, good quality. I think I can make use of you.”

“Make use of me? You fucker, you’re just another greedy asshole, thinking about exploiting everyone! Jashin will punish you for your blasphemy!”

Hidan threw his scythe forward, but it fell short, its blades digging into the ground. The motive behind it was revealed as Hidan leapt forward, pulling on the cable to propel himself at Matt faster. His other hand pulled out something from behind his back, which extended to reveal a collapsible spear.

With a click, the cane shifted into its whip form, and Matt whirled in place to build up momentum, unleashing it in a vicious arc.

To his credit, Hidan reacted quickly, grabbing the handle of his scythe to pause his forward motion, while he deflected the whip’s attacks with his spear. Even when it forced him to evade upwards into the air, his nimble movements helped him avoid any further injuries.

“More tricks!” Hidan cursed as he landed back onto his scythe.

“You think?” Matt’s voice said from behind him again, but he kept his eyes on the redhead in front of him.

“I’m not going to fall for that illusion again!”

THUNK

He staggered forward as something punched into his left shoulder from behind. A downwards glance showed a thick red bolt as the cause. Releasing his hold on his scythe, he reached up to grab on it and pull it out-

THUNK THUNK THUNK

Several more red bolts stabbed into his body at the other joints, interrupting his movements. Hidan turned his head slightly, and caught sight of Matt standing there, a reddish crossbow mounted on his arm. The other man had no expression as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Blood Manipulation: Binding Thorns.”

The bolts exploded into thorny spikes, some of which extended into the ground to anchor there, but most of which dug into Hidan’s body. The leverage was too disadvantageous for his muscles, and left him unable to move. He strained and struggled, but the thorns held him fast.

“Gah! That hurts a lot! You fucker!” He could still speak, and began cursing the other man. “Dammit! When I get out of this, I’m gonna chop you up into pieces, burn them into ashes, and grind them into dust!”

“Stubborn, aren’t you?” Matt remarked as he approached.

“You bastard!” Hidan’s neck cracked slightly as he twisted to look over his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, this will be quick.”

Matt flicked his hand, producing a sharp knife from nowhere. 

“...oi, what are you planning…”

Four cuts were made in an instant, before Matt dug his fingers in and pulled. Hidan’s blood splashed across the ground, followed by several pieces of flesh that were trimmed away from Matt’s target. Reflected in the watching purple eyes was the sight of a still-beating heart placed inside a storage tube. Despite being separated from a body, the organ continued to beat normally.

“Gaghk!” Blood gushed from Hidan’s mouth as he tried to speak, “Give me… blergh… back my… hurghk… heart!”

“Hmmm…” Matt hummed thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Nah.”

He turned and started walking away.

“Where are… you… going… you bas…tard!” Hidan writhed against the thorns helplessly, “Come… back! Mother…fucker!”

Instead, the figure of the redhead wavered and vanished. The thorns would eventually break down and release Hidan, but by then, Matt was long gone.

…

“So this is the remains of the Village Hidden in the Whirlpools…” 

A redheaded man carefully made his way through the ruins, testing the ground in front of him with a cane as he did. It was slow going, but it served a purpose; it reduced the chances of him missing anything, and also presented a facade of innocence to the hidden observers. Occasionally, the man would pause to examine some of the markings and carvings, sketching them down into a notebook.

“What do you think?” One of the watching ninjas asked, peering over the edge of a window as their observation target having a break for a drink of water, “He seems rather harmless to me.”

“Don’t let your guard down. You never know whether the person is a trained infiltrator who can keep up an act for a long time,” His partner advised over the radio.

“Even if he has a red right hand as such an obvious characteristic?”

“...” The silence was enough to answer that question.

“Why are we here anyway? This place has been picked over so many times already. First the invaders, then the scavengers. We haven’t had any incidents from this place in more than two years already.”

“Enough already. You’re in the middle of a mission. Continue watching him.”

The ninja grumbled under his breath, but did as he was ordered. Currently, the redheaded man was continuing on, heading towards one of the larger buildings that was still intact.

“Say, the Uzumaki clan have red hair, right? Do you think this guy might be one of their descendants?” The ninja suggested.

“Unlikely. Quite a number of people have red hair. Even in our Cloud Village.”

“But it is possible, right?”

“...could be,” His partner conceded.

“Do you think it might be worth catching him for interrogation? He’s just one man, so it wouldn’t be strange if he just vanished, don’t you agree?”

“I don’t.” The partner answered harshly, cutting the idea off completely. “What is the target doing now?”

“He seems to be exploring the…” The ninja checked his notes and map before continuing, “Old Archives building. Looks like he’s picking up random junk to inspect before discarding it.”

“Keep watching. Do nothing else.” His partner instructed.

“Yes, yes…”

The ninja continued to watch, wondering just what about the man was causing his instincts to flare up, despite everything he had done so far being totally ordinary.

“Wonder what he finds so interesting about all that useless junk…” He murmured to himself under his breath.

Unknown to the ninja, Matt’s eyes were seeing an entirely different scene; pools of blood echoes, still lying there waiting for someone with the ability to gather them up to come along. Though most of it had dissipated over the years since the destruction of this place, enough remained for him to collect quite a bit of it.

Some of them even contained remnants of the destroyed clan’s sealing techniques, corrupted and fragmented as they were. It would take some time for Matt to parse through those and come up with something workable that he could put to use, but given what he knew of the deeds accorded to the people of the place, the possible benefits were great.

Pausing in the shadow cast by a pillar, he took out a book and began flipping through it. He was searching for the faces of the ninjas who were observing him.

“Let’s see… hmm, nope, not in the bingo book of bounties. Lucky them.” Matt shut the book and tucked it away, continuing on like everything was normal.

In a different spot, he paused next to a collapsed wall, bracing himself against it to take off and shake out a shoe as though a rock had slipped inside. Sure enough, two tiny black rocks dropped out, bouncing across the ground to roll underneath some collapsed rubble. 

With their attention fixed on the man, none of the watchers noticed the rocks breaking in half, releasing the red fluid within. The controlled blood came together, and began flowing in the direction of the hidden vault that previous visitors had overlooked. It moved swiftly, guided by the will of its controller who had learned of the vault through eldritch methods.

However, just as it was about to slip through one of the cracks in the masonry, a brief surge of energy flashed, reducing the manipulated blood to dried dust.

Some distance away, Matt clicked his tongue. He was taking another break, in order to properly control the blood.

“Guess it wouldn’t be that easy… Perhaps it needs someone with related blood…” He twirled a pen in his fingers. “But where should I search?”

When Matt finally left two days later, having the place as much as he could without alerting the surveillance he was under, it was with apparent empty hands save for the notes he himself took. The observing ninjas wrote a report to their superiors to notify them that all was well, and ceased their watching of the stranger.

Back in the Bleed, Matt got to work on deciphering the puzzle hidden in the blood echoes. He had a bit of experience with doing so, but he wasn’t entirely confident he could pull it off on the first try.

The Messengers helped raise the pedestal in the center of the magic circle, a bowl bearing a white curled bud on top of it. Matt waved his red hand over it, linking with the energies sleeping within. Doing so caused the plant to bloom, unfurling to look like a glowing wax cup with long sprouts around its edges.

He continued holding his hand over the small cavity in the center of the plant, and wisps of red energy began to drop down from it, coalescing into a crimson pool. After a while, he closed his hand, cutting off the flow. Despite the surface of the pool being still, something seemed to writhe beneath its surface.

“Let’s begin.” Matt said to himself.

It was slow work; some of the echoes had mixed together, requiring careful examination followed by extraction, separating out the dregs that were too degraded for repair. Of the viable ones, some were too complicated for him to work with at his current level of skill, so he put those aside for later. That left those that he could work with, and that was when things got harder.

Gestures that summoned sigils to charge the liquid with energy, chanting of arcane words that caused it to swirl together or separate, additions of activators to the mix, Matt went through multiple methods to analyze which components reacted to which method. That made it easier to piece the right ones together, though some combinations were not always the right ones. Still, he continued to work with and manipulate the blood echoes. All to repair the vestiges they contained, and extract the secrets that lay hidden within.

“Never thought I’d be doing data recovery work… this really is hell, isn’t it?” He muttered to himself.

Some of his investigation into the ninja world revealed that the corpses of ninja could reveal village secrets. Hence rogue ninjas were pursued by hunter ninjas to properly dispose of their bodies, preventing any such secrets from being revealed to outsiders. Perhaps that was something he could look into exploring later.

Matt reached out for another tube of activator, only to grasp empty air. 

He stared at the empty test tube rack, before sighing again. Deeper this time. With another wave of his hand, he extracted the echoes from the plant and stored them away into multiple smaller vials. Before he could ask, a small storage cabinet appeared from the ground, carried by the Messengers.

“Thank you,” He told them as he placed the vials within, “Gotta go to the Gaol to restock.”

A pair of Messengers emerged next to the cabinet, offering a rebreather mask. Matt picked it up and put it on his face.

“At least it’s better than revisiting Yharnam.”

Afterword: Muse ran out towards the end, but I thought it did a pretty good job up till that point. As for future worlds… well, that really just depends on my muse.