Satoya's eyes narrowly opened and closed, before opening completely. His body was still in pain, pain in every part of his body including his head. He attempted to move his head to see where he was, and without a surprise, he was still inside the abandoned city, simply the specific location was changed. He was sitting up against a wall outside of a run down hotel. The hotel entrance itself was closed behind furniture that isolated the lobby from anyone.
"Oh shoot, you're awake." Shizune's voice called, so Satoya turned to her, she was also sitting next to him. She still had her crowbar, which now unfortunately seems to be badly damaged.
Satoya held up his hand, and noticed a band-aid slapped onto his wrist. Why is there a band-aid? Did someone like.. Put it there? And why? He thought of the band-aid, until he heard Shizune giggle ever so slightly.
"I found a band-aid in my pocket, I don't know where and how it got in there.." She shrugged, usually she isn't the type of person in the Satoya gang to have anything of "medical" for example medicine or well, bandages or band-aids, those items are generally carried or brought by Rayna—which of course mostly stemmed from her rich parents and being able to afford all of that.
"So you just slapped it on my wrist?" Satoya pointed to his forehead which had some blood on it from a couple cuts. "You could've placed it somewhere more convenient and helpful.."
"Ah who cares!" She laughed, she slowly pushed herself up, and did a small stretch, grabbing the crowbar off the wall, and walked around.
"Did Zykar get away?" Satoya asked, he looked up toward Shizune who was walking in a circle with her crowbar poised onto her shoulder. Shizune raised an eyebrow, looking back at him in a confused way. Surprisingly the light pole she was standing under was still working, which made her expression very readable. Satoya found it quite odd on why she was the only one with him, and lastly, why out of everyone, why someone let her be the one to "guard" over him while he was unconscious.
"Oh that guy? Yeah it was super weird, we saw him without his arms, like a lot of blood was gushing out of his right arm, his prosthetic cyber arm thingamajig was also gone, vanished from thin air!" The way she spoke wasn't very expressive, which reminded him that she was a very, "plain" individual, although he cannot be the one talking.
"Did he get away?"
She placed her crowbar on the ground, using it as a walking stick, and replied, "Isaac and I tried to, well, "apprehend" him until we saw that Ludwig guy appear out of nowhere blocking some spear dude's attack.." She kicked the gravel beneath her, until she pointed up with a glowing expression, "and oh right! That spear dude carried Zykar and ran away into the forest!"
"Ran away?" Satoya questioned, he found it strange on why the retreat, until he remembered the most plausible reason was because of Ludwig's presence.
"How was Ludwig?" He continued, he was curious about what he had missed after being knocked out by a very sheepish and pathetic punch that somehow was enough to even put him unconscious.
"He was quite injured, his shoulder had a pretty nasty cut on it, but he took a short glance at you. And he nodded and then ran toward a different direction."
"Can I—"
Shizune held out her hand, gesturing to him to stop. "Shut up, you ask too many questions." She interrupted abruptly. Satoya was offended, however had other problems to deal with, and that being, his whole body was in insurmountable pain. He looked around, attempting to distract himself from the pain, and noticed that there was a fire ahead, the color of the fire was quite peculiar, as it was in this light purple hue.
"Ahem, also forgot, Ludwig "asked" me politely to look after you." The very sarcastic tone she said "asked" hinted to him that she wasn't indeed asked politely by Ludwig, and from his interactions personally with Ludwig, he knew for certain that there was no way in hell he would ask anyone something.
A loud shriek shook the entire abandoned city, this shriek was from no ordinary animal. From the distance, Satoya saw something he could only think of as an unholy entity perching itself on the tallest building it could find.
"Oh shit that's an Iya." She bent herself forward, using her hands to get a better look. Her face went from intrigue to exhaustion, as she spun around to look at Satoya, her face was reading "you better not ask what the hell an Iya is."
During Satoya and Shizune's somewhat calm conversation, near the vicinity of the monstrosity, Ludwig was seen sprinting throughout the main blocks of GeraldTown, his left shoulder had a pretty severe wound, but he never shifted his gaze from the monstrosity howling on the highest floor of the tower. There was another man leaping from building to building, wielding an odachi, this man was wearing the same uniform as Ludwig, however unlike his, the man had plating on his sleeves. This man was an upper ranked individual, who is in the Regulator ranks of the Semi elite, the rank exactly above Ludwig's which was S rank.
"Hey Ludwig! Ya think I can slash that thing from here?" He spoke in a charismatic tone, he was also smiling noticeably. He looked down to him to see Ludwig running at full speed into a starlit gate that he opened. I can't with this guy, flexin' his Verity on us common folk… He scoffed.
On the highest point of the tower, another gate opened, Ludwig stormed out, and swung his sword at the head of the creature. Up close, the creature resembled a human, although this "human" had scales of a serpent, claws and fangs of unnatural size, a pulsating heart positioned in where the head of the former human should've been.
"This Compass Treaty fool! He should've known the consequences of using a Wrehtched blood vial!"
Wrehtched blood vials are a liquid drug contained in a vial, and, like the namesake, holds the blood of a Wrehtched. Wrehtcheds are an otherworldly entity that self replicate at random, and in truth, they are said to be kindreds of an unnamed Ancient Crucible, the capabilities are often too overwhelming for any Regulator to handle. However with each replication, the strength degrades, so the RC often requests a nearby Elite rank, and if desperate, a Requiem rank to take care of it before it replicates. Wrehtched blood, when consumed or injected into the body, gives a surreal feeling of intoxication and ecstasy, but in several seconds, their bodies will contort itself into an Iya. The term: Iya, originated from a man named Heinlight Iya—A peasant of the 4th Capital's Cervantes country during the 4th disaster, who was the first ever recorded case of a human being consuming the blood of a Wrehtched.
There is unfortunately, an even worse variant of this drug, conceived by a single man with the name Saeonius Roland during the 8th disaster 430 years ago. This version of the vials are called Diluted Wrehtched blood vials, the reason why they are called diluted is primarily because Roland used his own cerebrospinal fluid to dilute the blood of it. The diluted form delays the transformation effect of the normal vial. Overdosing on this speeds up the transformation by an unknown multiplier, however, the transformation is exponentially more gruesome, resulting in an Iya that is in most cases, more powerful than regular Iyas.
The creature Ludwig is fighting, for example, is an Iya. Yet back to matter, Ludwig's blow was blocked by a claw of the iya, the size of the single claw was nearly as tall as him. A single swoop may be lethal, but he still manoeuvred his way, and forced the iya to fall off the tower. As the Iya was descending off the tower, Ludwig leapt off, positioning his sword down toward the heart. The fall took almost a minute, with the Iya crashing into the ground causing a cloud of dust, and the blur of Ludwig soon followed into the cloud.
While the cloud was still lingering, Ludwig hurled into the air, landing onto the ground. He wiped the blood off of his face, and still held out his sword. A couple seconds later, the semi elite rank Regulator jumped down beside him.
"Did ya kill it?" The Regulator asked, waiting patiently for the dust cloud to clear up. But Ludwig remained focused, he was unsure if the blow was adequate to kill it. What he was sure was, he penetrated through the pulsating heart of the Iya.
Behind them, several people's footsteps frantically arrived, subsequently the sound of panting and exhaustion.
"You guys are really unathletic…" Isaac smirked, he was still breathing somewhat heavy, yet unlike the others he was still standing upright, with the others having their hands on their knees in fatigue.
Edward swore, "shut the fuck up Isaac! You athletic freak!" Edward is someone who rarely goes outside to exercise, as he was usually in his room studying at home. Isaac guffawed, calmed down and asked, "So who's that samurai guy?"
"That guy's a semi-elite rank named Sendo Kanasawa, he rescued us while we were captured by TCT soldiers." Edward replied, turning off the safety of his pistol.
Johnathan conceived a smug smile, "Rayna called him hot." He claimed, which prompted Rayna to threaten to stab him while denying the claim.
Lastly, Edward shifted his focus onto Ludwig, asking him a fairly simple question, "why the absolute hell did you ask us to come? That right there is an extremely mortifying Iya.." Sendo stared at Edward, then to the others, then back to Ludwig who was side eyeing him menacingly. Sendo took a deep breath and sighed, "Ludwig wants ya'll to distract it while we find a openin' to kill it...'"
"YOU GUYS WANT US TO DISTRACT… THAT?!" Rayna gasped, her mouth gaping open, her eyes darting from Ludwig to the Iya that is now making an even more threatening shriek that up close sounds like a mix between a howl of a wolf and the cry of a falcon.