Chapter Text
2 years ago/Royal Capital
Crusch Karsten, or Queen Crusch walked down the royal halls of the palace, guard say on either end as she made her way to the throne room. She had gone through a lot in her stay as Queen, she had won the election, by a landslide after he victory over the white whale and then the defend of the Archbishop of sloth at Alarm village, that was the name of the village was it?
The sky crackled with lighting as she turned her head out to the halls windows watching as it began to rain. She still had a lot of work to get done, from discussing the annual tax rates and fixing them, to sorting out the royal army for more activities against the witch cult. The witch cult attacks attacks grew bolder by the day, and she had a hutch it was due to the loss of the Archbishop of Greed and Sloth.
They where growing desperate and desperate people do stupid things. Crusch mind was not helped by the fact that light continued to crack as well as thunder so close to the royal palace. Though she had been assured the more violent than usual weather was not a bad omen. Crusch sure hoped not, she strolled down in her royal garments to the throne room.
She entered it with the same stride she always had. She had to look presentable. She had already had to look plenty so for the meeting with emperor Vincet of Vollachia and she had more foreign affairs to deal with after that meeting a week ago. Tensions where still there with Vollachia but with the witch the witch cult growing she doubted either her kingdom or the Empire woild be ready for war.
If it came she was sure Vollachia would collapse like a stack of cards before Lugunica, they where already crashing economically and a war was the last thing they needed.
Crusch sat on the throne the guards in the throne room bowing in her presence before assuming normal formation. The captain of the guard the respectable all be it often drunk Heinkal Von Astrea briefly whispered in her ear about the witch cult raiding another village near the capital. Another issue to deal with, the queen could only groan internally.
There was no one to see her today, at least among those who came to petition the throne as so often they did. Back to the matter of the witch cult Van Astrea family (Mostly Wilhelm) had of recent proposed a rather new and unorthodox method of stripping the witch cult of their ability to organize. That being the containment of one of the witches themselves.
They where of another plain entirely so at first Crusch thought such ideas ridicules though through one of the ancient rites used to combat the witches before they where banished one could contain a higher being within a mortal vessel forcings its consciousness to bend to the natural order instead of the the unnatural and divine, if you wanted to call what gods did.
Though said host, vessel would have to be pure enough. Still despite the growing pressure from the Cult Crusch was not to go blindly trusting in this method of entrapping a witch in a human or demi human host to break the cults resolve or to stop the gospel and whatever else the witches had granted to the cult from working. The idea was too risky to implement....yet.....No what was she thinking.
She was too distracted to notice one of the guards walking up to her, her mind to fogged by her own thoughts and plans for the future. So when the guard was just some several feet in front of her she paid him no true mind only raising her eyebrow as if to ask what he wanted or had to say, the other guards seemed unusually laxed, in fact an air of relaxation that was unnatural-
She felt something go through her stomach and notice a blade stabbing through her flesh. She had been in her royal regalia not her usual armor as she was not on campaign so she was physically defenses to any physical attacks outside of dodging and blocking. Not like she got the chance. Crusch collapse onto the throne bleeding as the guard raised his sword. before being skewered by the others.
Subaru's vision blanked out her eyes opening and closing
"How....."
"Witch cult! The witch cult have infiltrated the guard!" a panicked voice, most likely Heinkal barked.
She heard the clashing of swords, her vision blanking out slowly.
Felix should have been by her side today where was he now....
Had they.....
She didn't have time to think as she blacked out
Present time/ 10 years after Subaru's escape from the dungeon
Subaru felt a fire in his brain as he took his first step into the remnants of the Royal capital. Well outskirts the Royal capital, the buildings where still first story ones with single floors however they had been seemingly eroded through time. Vines and overgrowths grew while Subaru could see a few lit street torches and lamps in the distance though they where infrequent enough that they where not a good light source.
The moon was more preferable but it was already beginning to fade and he had a week more more before it turned into a new moon. Subaru took his steps through the capitals stone roads, his leather boots covered in grass and some dirt. He briefly ran them along the stone roads to shake off some dirt before continuing on.
The city was decaying before his very eyes, its buildings looked like they where in eternal suffering as some had completely collapsed in on themselves. The capital felt lifeless, a fact made little better by the fact he had arrived to the capital at night time. His objective was straight forward, he'd made his way to the royal palace and kill the archbishops inside.
Subaru could sense his authority react positivity to the sheer amount of witch cult energy and presence of all seven sins the palace had. While some of the archbishops where dead for good that didn't mean their influence didn't linger. It was a slow and poisoned lingering that would take quite some time to remove. He would also need to find any survivors within the capital, the capital had already been eroding for some months and had not seen any repairs since its fall to the cult.
Had the cult truly wiped out all inhabitants or where some still living off what little could be found in such a lifeless hell. Subaru continued his musing as he wandered deeper into the dead cities outskirts. The wind continued to to perform its haunting toon along the lifeless city, while some rubble fell down from abandoned buildings.
Subaru passed by a skeleton on the road, a demi human one. God knows how long it had laid their. Subaru's necklace, the one the Stranger had offered up still glowed slightly pulsing even as Subaru's nerves felt a little calm. He would die, he promised himself that. Subaru paused his walk his kind fading out back into the past briefly.
“Please…” he whispered. “Please no…” All at once Subaru was yanked backward, the air being forced out of him as he slammed against the cell bars.
The bars burned into his skin as they turned orange and burned him, his back horribly burned and scarred as he felt a hand grab him and toss him across the ground. Subaru coughed out blood, he didn't even register what his interrogator was saying before he was throw against the cold stone wall. More blood flowed from Subarus mouth and his burns made sickienng popping sounds as his burned back hit the cold stone wall.
"Lay my curses all to rest make a mercy out of me." Subaru silently mumbled, his minded wandered back to the dungeon. He had still yet to fall apart.
He was still being pulled and thus his feet dangled as the force held him up. It hurt! To be continuously pulled with something blocking him from moving, it was like something in him was being ripped from his body! Felix was bending his body, subaru felt his body be like a puppet on a strong as Felix bended his blood and then muscle tissue to move in one direction.
"Lay my curses all to rest make a mercy out of me." Subaru prayed silently as he clutched the glowing necklace.
He didn't even need to hear to know someone was approaching him. He unsheathed his sword and slashed off their hand, the witch cultist in purple robes fell down screaming in agony. A scream that echoed through the this outskirts block. Some more witch cultists, planning his ambush emerged armed and ready from the abandoned houses.
One charged him though he slid back as the blade tried to slash his chest. He front kicked the man as he tried to swing again then elbowing the witch cultist trying to get behind him in the neck making the man lose his breath. A female cultist tried to throw daggers at him but thankfully his armor took most of the hits before Subaru then rushed her.
She panicked trying to retreat but he had sloths hand reach out and grab her by the arm and throw her across the ground before his sword swung and slashed the final attacking cultist across the face. The mans head was cut partially in the, the nose underneath the robes was definitely cut open as mucus and blood spilled out as the man fell down on the floor bleeding out and screaming.
Subaru slowly walked to the witch cultist he'd elbowed in the neck, the cultist back tracked trying to stumble away only for Subaru to use sloth once again to grab the man and throw him into a broken down cart knocking him out for good. He left the man with the cut off hand be, someone would have to announce his presence after all....That is if the Cultist didn't bleed out.
Subaru slowly took off his helm taking a breath of fresh air before coughing a bit, some blood trickling from his lip as he felt his body weakened briefly before the Ex-Knight stood up once more. The backlash from using his authority was lessening, it wasn't as bad as the last time he'd used it for combative purposes. His internal organs burned just a bit.
He needed to lessen how much he used sloth during combat. Subaru swung his head back a bit as he slowly regained his posture. He brought the helm back on his head as he began his walk once more deeper into the cities outskirts. There was once more a haunting silence that echoed throughout the entire city, the screams of the wounded witch cultist slowly disappearing the deeper he wandered in.
He stepped on a twig on the floor and it made a painful snapping sound that echoed more through the city than the painful screams of the cultist that had tried to ambush him.
*SNAP*
Subaru looked at Julius with eyes wide, the pain still pulsing from his back and through his torso. His hand had been completely snapped, broken, and bend. He didn’t resist. Julius grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the hallway to his regular cell. No it was the solitary ward, a very cramped cell. Subaru could do nothing as he was thrown in and the door was shut, a chair holding it shut.
“Think about what you’ve done, Pride,” Julius hissed. He listened to Julius fleeting footsteps before he felt himself be surrounded by darkness, he couldn't see and the walls were so close and tight, they pressed against his body as he struggled to move.
That day, learned a new thing about himself
He was claustrophobic
1 year ago
"You....forgive me....do you.....grandpa...."
"I.....didn't....mean to kill grandma....."
The city was falling apart and Wilhelm looked at his chained grandson, he was bleeding tears of pure blood and asking him a simple question, one a child would ask. Had Envy's locking within his mind truly reduced the sword saint to such childish questions. He was nothing like Theresia but maybe it was because he was his own person.
No ridiculous!
Reinhard had killed her.
His Grandson had killed her!
But looking at his grandson in such a pitiful state, chained up by chains of divine magic meant to contain a vessel, a vessel now in a great day to day struggle for the control of his own mind. More tears of blood flowed free on the ground and Wilhelm took a step back to prevent his shoes from being bloodied. Wilhelm felt himself going paler.
He....that was a child.....
Oh....Dragon.....
Why had he suggested.....
He had......
What had he done........
"I'm so sorry Reinhardt......I'm sorry.....I forgive you...No you don't need it....You didn't deserve this...You don't need my forgiveness...You never did anything wrong......there where better ways....." Wilhelm muttered a tear flowing from his own eyes.
Wilhelm watched as his grandsons tears stop flowing, he looked like a little boy now, not the 25 no 28, he'd even forgotten Reinhardt's actual age, Wilhelm clutched his face. He just looked like a scared little boy. Wilhelm wanted to throw up or say something but his body remained frozen, he couldn't speak, he had a mouth and he wanted to Scream but he couldn't.
Then he watched his grandsons eyes close.
When they opened they where no longer blue.
They were pitch black.