Arcturus slowly rose to his feet as the shadows coalesced before his very eyes. Up from the inky darkness he had narrowly avoided came a creature that surely could only exist in nightmare, towering over the handful of men and piercing his ears with a blood curdling screech. The final toll of the bell had proven even more dreadful than he could have imagined.

As he stared up into those horrid, glowing eyes, the young man found himself wondering more and more if he had simply woken up to a vivid dream. Such a creature could not truly exist in reality, could it? Arcturus did not feel as if he were dreaming. Everything was too detailed, too consistent, yet he could not help but doubt his senses. It was impossible to tell when one was dreaming after all.

It mattered little, however. Dream or otherwise, the horror staring them down surely seemed real enough, and Arcturus could not risk assuming that his mind was merely deceiving him. Terror was driving his feet slowly backwards, his polished boots taking small, unconscious steps to back away from the threat that stood before them. That wouldn't do.

Planting his heels, Arcturus shifted the hilt of his sword back into his hand, his piercing blue eyes glancing momentarily in the direction of the door. They couldn't maintain their defense with this thing behind their lines. Sucking in a deep breath, he forced himself to meet the inky monster's hateful gaze, his piercing blue eyes hardening as that unnatural feeling of lustful rage once again bubbled up within him.

"Look alive!" The officer's voice suddenly boomed forth from his lungs, his commanding tone and foreign accent shouting in defiant response to the horror's scream. Where mere moments before he had been backing away, now Arcturus stepped forward, raising the point of his saber towards the being's chest. "We must kill it as quickly as possible! There is no other recourse!" He continued, although he himself did not attack. Instead he sought to occupy the enemy's attention by placing himself front and center. A direct answer to the nightmarish creature's challenge.

“Pray, forgive me,” Adelicia pleaded sheepishly, withdrawing her outstretched hand back to her chest. She nervously averted her gaze from either hunter and stiffened up. “I did not mean to imply- I meant simply-“

Struggling for words to express herself, she sighed before admitting with a tone of lament: “I- I can’t take this.”

She felt the blood rushing to her rosy cheeks and awkwardly pulled her hood over her head again. How childish she acted again – truly a disgrace to herself and the church. Dignity was one of the chief qualities of her office and here she was, once again, demonstrating all the grace of a little child instead of the elegant resolve a grown woman her age ought to have. Surely the eyes of the hunters were at her now, regarding her with loathing or, at the very least, pity. Perhaps they were inwardly laughing at her, even, just how the orphans had laughed at her in a distant-feeling past.

Feeling her eyes well up again, she hastily wiped the moisture from them and hoped that nobody noticed when she lifted her gaze once more. Much to her relief, Raine and Victor had both stopped paying attention to her, the one retrieving his weapon, the other moving away from her. Legs feeling like lead, she stiffly began to follow the imposing huntsman, still relying heavily on her staff for support. What a blessing, she thought, to have such a thing.

In her efforts to catch up with the hunters, with Raine urging haste and reminding them that other beasts may be attracted to the recent sounds of battle, Adelicia remained nonetheless careful to avoid contact with any and all puddles of blood smeared across the cobbled road in broad strokes like the deranged art of a mad painter. As she did so, eyes focused on the crimson pools that began to dry on the stones, or pooled in the gaps between them, she wondered what it might taste like – the blood of beasts. As soon as the thought entered her mind, she felt the almost instinctual need to recoil, as if kissed by the lash of an unseen tormentor. Forbidden, as many things were. The blood was foul, tainted with rage and corruption. So her church had taught her. But was it truly? Was it really the corrupting agent that clerics were making it out to be? What if it tasted of remorse or desperation? What if it tasted of fear? She had certainly savored that note in her own blood once, when curiosity got the better of her. Her cravings for blood were rarer than most, but she was adamant in her belief that no two doses had ever tasted quite the same.

Suddenly reminded of the situation she was in, and realizing she had stopped moving to stare at a particularly vile splash of blood, she hurriedly resumed following the pair of hunters, gasping a brief apology as she went.

Marcus let out a small grin as he felt his sword slicing a something, accompanied with a whimper. The Beast also loosened it’s grip, probably to change the grip. Marcus’s eyes flashed. The rifle was free and he quickly pulled it out of the hole. The stock slammed to the hole’s edge but Marcus twisted the rifle and pulled it through.

Problem was the sword. Beast had gotten hold of it. And it’s strength of grip was far too great; Marcus couldn’t pull or twist the blade at all. He was about to put his leg as a support at the door, but something inhuman stopped him. He had heard the bell ring a fourth time and the hair in his back had risen as to warn him of dangers unknown to man. And the crackling sound too had sounded ominous.

With a quick glance he had seen a black pool behind him. This wasn’t yet such a worry that needed his attention as he pulled the rifle out. But he felt something coming, rising from behind of him. This had given him a sudden urge to put more strength to pull the sword out of beast’s grasp, but it did nothing no matter how much effort Marcus gave.

And then came the screech. Marcus let got of his sword, which disappeared behind the door. Marcus turned around, distracted by the foul black being, slender and long and armed with sickle that could split man half. Marcus was full of fright, took the rifle in his hands and aimed and pulled the trigger. But it was empty and no matter how many times Marcus pulled the trigger, it never loaded itself.

Marcus saw the others also in disbelief. But the ill-looking man gained his posture quickly. A roar, a taunt, “Look alive” made Marcus snap out of the panic. His sword was taken and musket was at best an improvised musket. Then he heard a slam behind him; Another hard hit against the door. This was bad, soon it could break and more horrors could come inside. So he released his right hand from the trigger to wave it towards his comrades and yelled: “Weapooon!”, eyes darting between his comrades and the door. A creak marking that whatever hit it was pulling away and ready to hit again...

It was with a sense of immense relief and a deep sigh that Victor retrieved his sword from the ground, feeling as though he regained some of his strength and stability just from holding the weapon in his hand. He straightened back up, already feeling much more like himself again, as he listened to the others speaking, realizing with wonder that he was quite relieved to realize that their attention was no longer on him, though he also realized that he did not feel as fearful as he once had... not a moment ago, and not before the Mad One had attacked, either. Since his back injury against the scourge beast that had been the reason for his becoming a Hunter, Victor had been afraid constantly; afraid of leaving his back uncovered, afraid of others near him turning into beasts... but most of all he had been afraid of losing his mind and himself, of becoming either like a beast or an actual beast. In a way his panic attack from before had been the peak of this fear, the culmination of years' worth of intense dread, yet now he found that he was no longer afraid.
For a moment he was concerned, subtly running his tongue over his teeth to check if any of them – especially the canines – had changed, but he quickly dismissed his worry as merely the latest fit of the paranoia he knew had haunted him in his days as a Hunter. His teeth were fine; if he had changed it was a purely psychological change, much more likely to be a result of the trauma he had just endured than the manifestation of beasthood.
Yet still he could not bring himself to look at his companions, unsure what he was afraid of. What would he see in their eyes? And what would they see in his?

The others seemed to be getting past the sudden fear that had seized Adelicia, mostly seeming content to ignore Victor – something that would have ordinarily angered him, but that he found himself feeling much more willing to accept now – while seemingly quickly agreeing that they should get moving. Adelicia seemed apologetic, fearful and weak as ever, which to Victor was almost as much a matter of course as the fact that the sun would rise in the east and set in the west. Adelicia was no Hunter; Raine and Victor were. People were scared of Hunters. It was merely the way of things; Hunters were powerful, almost demihuman beings that lived for fighting and killing, so it was only natural for a relatively “normal” human to feel inferior and threatened in their presence. Especially when one had just witnessed said Hunters exercise their brutal craft.
I feel... surprisingly calm, he thought, idly using the thumb of his left hand to scoop a quicksilver bullet out of the pouch reserved for them at his waist. Somehow... I don't feel as bloodthirsty as before. How odd. I even know that I'm not at my full regenerative potential right now, since I was still wounded when I gave myself blood treatment and I just broke my hand, yet I feel no compulsion to drink one of my two remaining blood vials. He swiftly loaded the bullet into his blunderbuss, preparing it for another shot. And even with Adelicia right there, I don't want to hurt her. This peace... is strange.

Raine also urged them to hurry, citing that beasts might be attracted to the gunshots, though Victor did not completely agree with his fellow Hunter's assumption. Even if beasts were near enough to hear the gunshots, were not engaged in anything else and managed to follow the sound all the way to them without something else in the crowded city attracting their attention, most beasts would still be unable to reach them. The plateau was raised exactly to isolate it from the area below, and was only reachable by elevator to make it improbable for beasts to figure out how to get up here. True, a fully corrupted scourge beast or – gods forbid – a cleric beast might be able to scale the wall, but how likely was it that one of those was close enough to be attracted by the gunshots?
Didn't we hear a cleric beast howl earlier? Ah, but that's it; it howled, in the middle of Yharnam. There's no way that it wasn't immediately swarmed by Hunters after calling attention to itself like that. It's definitely dead or being killed at this very moment. Definitely.
If anything, Victor figured that the gunshots were likely to have woken up the giant at the bottom of the elevator, which would mean that any beast unfortunate to try to get through would have to go through that, first... and Victor struggled to imagine a beast powerful enough to challenge a church giant. Logically they were safer than ever right now.
Even so he did agree that they had to hurry, just for a different reason. The Mad One was a construct, a bloodwraith called by the will of another; he had never heard of a Mad One appearing on its own. Someone – almost certainly the same person who had left the elevator at the top of the plateau – had clearly summoned this Mad One, and had left it at the elevator to ambush anyone trying to enter the area. The plateau was almost entirely vacant, with barely anyone living up here yet, so there was only really one reason that someone would come here: the clinic.
They had to go, yes, but not for the sake of their own safety; the new Hunters at the clinic were probably in mortal danger, if they were not already dead.

“We should hurry,” Victor agreed with a nod, idly brushing some imagined dirt off the chest of his blood-soaked garb. “The new Hunters might be in danger. The clinic should only be a several minutes' walk from here, to the north. We should run.” He looked in Adelicia's general direction, his focus ending up somewhere to the left of her rather than on her, still unwilling to look at her directly. “Can you manage that, or do you want us to carry you? We could move much faster, then.”

Invalid? Victor thought confusedly, awkwardly shooting a glance at the woman while trying to not look at her. He wondered if the suggestion had offended her somehow, as if them carrying her would have belittled her somehow, which he supposed might have been true. Being carried like a child probably would not exactly be the best thing for a person's pride... it was just unfortunate that pride got in the way of practicality.
He hoped that them taking a little bit longer to get there would not needlessly endanger the new Hunters at the clinic, but ultimately their mission was to protect Adelicia, not the Hunters. The Healing Church could always make more Hunters – a small injection and a nap, and anyone could become one – and there were more of them at the moment than he figured there had ever been, but Blood Saints were rare, took years to nurture, had a high chance of failing, and a single saint could invigorate and empower many Hunters to perform beyond their own powers. The special properties of Adelicia's blood, from what Victor had heard, were probably especially valuable... for more than one reason.
Victor licked his lips at the thought, feeling somewhat hungry. He decided that once they had gotten their hands on the new Hunters and gotten them and Adelicia to somewhere more defensible, he would have to find something to eat before joining the hunt. He was in the mood for a nice, bloody steak.

“As you wish,” he agreed, averting his gaze from her entirely. The urge to run as fast as he could flooded his being, urging him to rush ahead with everything he had and participate properly in the hunt, but he resisted the urge and instead set into a measured jog, moving north parallel with the guardrail marking the edge of the plateau. As Hunters he and Raine could keep up that pace indefinitely if need be, and both could easily double or triple that speed before starting to tire themselves, but they had to match their pace to Adelicia's. If she could not keep up they would have to slow down...


A few minutes later the trio arrived at the northern end of the plateau, their path further north blocked by a building perpendicular to the row of dwellings that had filled the area to their right, at the eastern edge of the city. It was merely a single-story building with wooden walls and no windows, and – worryingly – an empty or unlit censer beside the door. To their left, past the edge of the plateau, was an even longer fall than where they had ascended with the elevator; looking down, it seemed that it was probably around an eighty meter (262 feet) drop to certain death, and the environment down there looked a lot less pleasant than it had at the elevator, with it being mostly ruins, trash in the streets and a general state of disrepair.
It took a moment before Victor realized what he was looking at; they had gone far enough north to be above the unclaimed parts of old Yharnam, which still bore the scars of the plague, the purge and the Night of the Blood Moon it had had to endure. It was a dangerous place to be, especially on a Night of the Hunt. Another reason to keep one's distance from the edge.

The door to the clinic had been left open, he saw, which deepened his worry... and from the inside, he thought he heard sounds of a struggle.

As the group hustled onward to their destination, Adelicia’s delicate condition made itself plainly apparent – doubly so when contrasted to the near endless vigor of the hunters. Cheeks aflush, she attempted to keep up with them as best she could but they, inevitably, had to further slow their pace to accommodate their charge. Physical exercise was a thing she hardly ever had partaken in, with the vast majority of her preceding years spent in isolated studies, musky lecturing halls and, indeed, half-conscious on laboratory seats. Even simple, menial tasks like washing and cooking were taken care of for her and she had hardly needed to lift a finger for anything. While afforded to her at a great cost to her humanity, this luxury now became her burden as her knees buckled beneath her.

When finally the group arrived near the clinic – not that Adelicia recognized the building by its exterior appearance – she all but collapsed onto her staff, leaning more heavily against it than she had earlier, wheezing for breath. The voice of regret questioned her decision to decline being carried, after all. Whilst doubtlessly undignified, perhaps it would have been the more prudent choice given her appalling condition. Wiping the sweat from her brow on the sleeve of her robe, she steadied herself just enough to take in the environs in the first place.

Although the unassuming structure ahead of them appeared to be what they had came for, it was not the clinic that attracted her gaze initially. Instead, she felt drawn to gaze upon the ruined vistas of Old Yharnam: an apocalyptic still life that hid a teeming hive of vengeful pariahs and blighted beasts. The scorched remains of the old city told a long and tragic story. One of a malignant disease cured by the uncaring flame, of a population culled twice and of survivors made into refugees and outcasts in their own homes. It was a story that Yharnam should never be allowed to repeat. That was Adelicia’s wish; and her blood would be the key to make it so.

“I take it,” she addressed the hunters, her throat feeling quite parched, “we’ve arrived? This clinic is humbler than I had thought.”

Slowly shuffling over to them, it was only then that she realized the incense burner lay cold by the open door. Naïve as she was to the ways of the world, even she realized that this could hardly be construed as a good omen. And when a worrying soundscape escaped from within that yawning doorway, her face grew paler yet.

“Are we too late?”

The nightmarish creature that emerged from the black, inky pool occupied all of Joseph’s attention; neither the continuing struggle by the door, the shouting of the other men in the room nor the thrashing of the beast outside could pull him away from those white eyes. As far as he was concerned it was only him and the foul creature in the room alone.

It almost resembled a rotting corpse, aside from the fact that Joseph doubted this thing had ever been human to begin with. It was too tall, too scraggly and thin, like a scarecrow brought to life and filled with vehement rage; rage that it now unleashed in a high pitched howl that sent shivered down his spine. Joseph gripped his spear harder, knuckles turning white with the intensity of it, as he contemplated driving the weapon through the things chest. With its mutilated body however, covered in the scars of previous injuries and battles, there was no guarantee that his modest spear would even be able to kill the thing.

The shout from the person next to him made Joseph jump, the sudden and authoritative roar breaking through his haze of fear and bringing him back to reality. Yes, they had to kill this thing; there was no other choice if they wanted to survive this night. Mustering his courage Joseph lunged forward, dashing past Arcturus to close the meagre distance between himself and the creature before thrusting his short spear towards its chest. If the thing had a heart then the attack might kill it and if it didn’t then hopefully he would at least push the monstrosity back and off balance.

Even if he had thought that they had time to spare to discuss the topic – which he was certain they did not – Victor probably still could not have provided any comment more constructive than the shrug he performed now when it came to the appearance of the clinic. It was not as though he had been explained... well, pretty much anything about the technicalities of what was happening or what this place was supposed to be. He was “just” a Hunter, after all.
There was a reason that Moira and her followers had gained such traction even from the simple concept of Hunters being treated well. While Hunters were objectively superior to humans, including those who had sampled lesser blood treatments, they had always been servants to the Healing Church and subject to the will and commands of the vicars and the clerics, with the only real exception being the First Hunter of the order who, as the highest among Hunters, served the vicar on par with the clerics. The rest of them were basically soldiers, dispensable infantry units to be wielded by anyone associated with the church, who were expected to hunt and nothing else, least of all ask questions. Besides the First Hunter there were no real ranks among Hunters; a Hunter was a Hunter, and that was that. Hunters might choose superiors among themselves based on seniority, prowess or, as was the case with some faction leaders, ideological vision, but all Hunters were the same to the church.
The clinic... a shrug was a good way to summarize Victor's thoughts on that. It was not as though the clinic was subtle, being obviously different from the other structures on the plateau and being the obstacle that created the dead end of the street it was on, but there was certainly no visual indication of its purpose was. It was remarkably unremarkable, one might say. The fact that in was in use despite being in an almost entirely unpopulated area was also strange... though he figured it did make some sense to not create new Hunters in close proximity to where ordinary citizens lived. But then why was the clinic obviously abandoned? The censer was unlit; if the clinic had been manned in any capacity, someone would definitely have lit the censer when the bells had marked a Night of the Hunt. The church had treated these people, let them begin their metamorphosis, and then just... left them? It was not as though Victor, or Hunters in general, had been babied during or after their transformation, but at least there was usually a person nearby to remind them who, where and what they were before sending them off to hunt.
And why send Adelicia to this particular batch, too? he wondered, growing increasingly paranoid about the entire affair the more the thought about it. I mean, obviously her “blessing” is meant to get them addicted to blood only she – and thus the Healing Church – can provide so they're guaranteed to be loyal, but why these Hunters in particular? Hundreds of Hunters have been unleashed without such measures of control, so what makes these ones so special?

The Blood Saint's last sentence was somewhat more relevant, and also raised some very important questions.
“'Too late' would be total silence and nothing but corpses left,” he told her, painfully conscious of the seconds ticking away with every word he spoke. “The noise means someone's still fighting.”
He turned partway to Raine, frowning while avoiding looking at either of his companions. “We can't leave the saint alone, and we can't bring her inside. Too dangerous. One of us has to guard her, the other heads inside.” He reached into one of his pockets and swiftly produced a shiny coin. “Flip a coin to decide?”

The Mad One stared at Arcturus with its blank, lidless eyes, breathing excessively heavily for how little it was doing, its breath hissing as it passed through its gritted, inhuman teeth. Its rage was unmistakable, yet for some reason it seemed to hesitate. It seemed to focus entirely on Arcturus for a moment as if somehow spellbound by his words, before turning its head to glance at Marcus with similar fascinated curiosity when he declared his need of a weapon.
Then Joseph took action and actually attacked the confused beast, successfully plunging his spear into the Mad One's rib cage... only for it to instantly whip its staff into his chest, the weapon moving suddenly and with blinding speed, striking him with enough force to knock him back into several cots, causing those to fall over and a couple of still-unconscious Hunters to crash to the floor.
As dark blood poured from the Mad One's wound, however, something strange happened: all over its body, the grim scars it wore seemed to start glowing in shades of red and purple, starting with the ones on its torso and quickly spreading to its limbs, and the glow of its eyes shifted from pure white to bright crimson.
Completely ignoring the wound that would have been immediately lethal to any being not carrying the Old Blood, the creature abruptly leaped toward Arcturus, its arms poised to attack broadly from both sides at once. It did so in eerie silence, producing nothing but the sound of its breath whistling between its teeth.

Marcus never got the weapon. The being despite it’s rage hesitated, looked it’s surroundings. Being was between him and the rest of the… patients. Throwing a weapon or other sudden movement would perhaps provoke it. Perhaps that’s what they were afraid of. Marcus cursed.

His comrade made an effort though. He took a firm stance, few running steps and came behind the sick man. Everything was sudden after that. He heard the spear hit the chest. He saw the being grip it’s cane firmly and swing it with such a force that his companion actually flew backwards. Behind them cots and patients were hit by this cannonball of meat and patients, cots and such fell on the floor. The Beast’s cane itself was, surprisingly, still intact.

Being’s scarred body, or rather it’s scars, started to glow red and purple. Arms, legs and chest and head. Everything. Marcus knew nothing of arcana or these beings, so this could mean anything dangerous. He couldn’t take steps backwards due to door and the beast’s waiting, ready to grab him and thrust it’s claw through his chest. But the glowing being was turned backwards towards Marcus. so he took a solid grip with his two hands from the barrel of the rifle. He had no sword nor bullet. A sneak attack wouldn’t be effective, but he had to try.

As he lunged to action, beast too lunged towards the sick man. He was armed with weapons, but beast made attack from both sides with the wild movements. Marcus roared and while dashing pulled his rifle high. He swung down, rifle’s stock acting like a hammer, aimed to the beast’s right knee. To harm it, to distract the being, to make it's landing unsuccessful. He was prepared to strike the being again if the hit was successful.

Bizarrely, Marcus' blow to the creature's knee proved quite devastating. As the stock of his rifle made contact, the entire middle section of the Mad One's leg seemed to shatter like brittle stone, unleashing a small shower of tiny fragments of bone and flesh, a puff of black dust and a splatter of blood, all while the now-severed calf and foot went its own way from the rest of the body.

But though it had suffered grievous damage, the Mad One was still mid-leap and mid-attack, meaning that the wounded leg did little to hinder its current actions. It was timing it so that its arms would converge on Arcturus about the instant it would hit the ground, putting its entire weight into the attack.

Everything happened so quickly.

Arcturus could feel his heart pounding in his chest, excitement coursing through his veins as he stared down the much larger creature. Whatever it was. He could hear the voice of the man by the door calling for a weapon, could see the movement out of the corner of his eye. The knowledge that one of their number was lacking a weapon made him anxious, and so he followed its distracted gaze, laying eyes on the darker skinned man who was holding a rifle. A rifle? Even without ammunition or an affixed bayonet, the experienced officer considered that a perfectly suitable armament. He had seen many a man struck dead by the stock of a rifle.

Before he could say anything, however, the man standing beside him took the initiative and struck true with his spear. An excellent strike by Arcturus' estimation. This seemingly did nothing to stop the shadowy being, however, as it almost instantly reacted by swatting the spear wielding man aside. Were adrenaline not keeping his mind sharp he surely would've been dumbstruck by the sight. As the horrifying thing seethed before him, its wounds glowing with impossible light, Arcturus let out a slow breath as he once more met its chilling gaze. Only now those nightmarish eyes had shifted to a blood curdling red. A color that he might find pleasant were it not filled with such malice.

It was reflex that drove the young man's response to the creature's vengeful attack. He almost moved before it did, anticipating that it would be too swift to react to, fearful uncertainty pushing him into an instinctive retreat. The movement he had intended to make was a leap backwards, filling the space he gave up with a powerful downwards strike from his saber. There was no way he would be able to back up quicker than it could advance, after all, so he sought to answer its reckless lunge with a punishing blow to the head as it pursued him. His intent did not survive contact with the enemy, however.

As he willed his body to move Arcturus felt something rush through his body. It was a sensation similar to the unnatural rage that lurked just beneath his thoughts, similar to the sensation he'd felt when he had driven a spear through the grotesque hand of that filthy beast. It was an exhilarating sensation, and as he followed through on his movement he was surprised to find that he had moved much further than expected. When his boots touched ground again, his sword hand already raised and ready to strike, he was unexpectedly out of the creature's reach.

The stock of his comrade's rifle had claimed their quarry's knee, shattering it in an unnerving manner.
His heart was pounding in his chest, his mind was racing as it processed what had just happened, and beneath all that he felt an unfamiliar urge.
It was crippled.
Victory felt one step closer.
Arcturus didn't take the time to dwell on his situation. Instead he dashed forward again, his saber flashing in a vicious flourish as he closed the distance. This time when his boot touched the ground it was with an aggressive stomp, planting his feet as he spun his sword out of its flourish into a powerful downwards slash. An attack meant to forcefully strike the inky nightmare in the head while it was prone.

Though Arcturus unintentionally triggered the power of his new blood and quickstepped away at the last moment, the Mad One still completed its attack. Raking the air with the claws of its left hand and smashing at nothing with the staff in its right hand, both hands converged in front of it, meeting no resistance and finding no target, meaning that there was nothing to receive the force it had put into the attack. Lacking its right leg from the knee down it had no way to compensate for its forward momentum, and momentarily it stumbled forward onto its hands and knees. Had any of the Hunters been close enough, this moment of vulnerability could have been the ideal moment for a visceral attack, but alas, as it was the Mad One recovered quickly and none of the Hunters were within arm's reach of the creature.

Seemingly unbothered by its missing leg or the bleeding stump left of it, the Mad One finally made a noise; a whimper, though far from one of fear or pain, but rather the whine of eagerness, like a dog begging for food or anticipating to play. Its head whipped back up just in time to watch Arcturus quickstep once again, closing the distance he had just created between himself and his adversary.
The monster had just enough time to part its terrible jaws and produced the first note of another inhuman shriek. Then Arcturus' sword found its mark, splitting the Mad One's head down the middle and instantly silencing its nightmarish cry. Arcturus would doubtlessly feel the strength spent on this move, quickstepping twice in such a short span of time, but perhaps it was all worth it as the creature's limbs went limp and its body slumped nervelessly to the ground.

Raine did not seem too fond of the idea of deciding which one of them performed which necessary task with a coin-flip, but ultimately he simply told Victor to just do it. He flicked the coin hard with his thumb, sending it spinning rapidly several meters into the air, both of them in unspoken agreement that this was probably the most efficient way to go about. They could discuss it, or one could just go and consequently force the other to stay, but Victor remained deeply conscious of the sounds coming from inside the clinic and the urge inside himself to move, kill and hunt. Flipping the coin, he reasoned, was the quickest, fairest way for them to decide, wasting as little time as possible while also creating as little hostility between the two as they could manage.
“Tails, I go,” he announced, looking up at the coin – visible at this point only as a rapidly blinking light as the shiny piece of silver continued spinning at least several times a second, seeming to hang still for a moment at the peak of its flight – before he took a step backward and threw his hands to the sides, keeping himself as clear of where the coin would drop as possible. It was customary among Hunters to do coin-flips this way, letting the coin hit the ground rather than catching it as “normal” people usually did. Humans occasionally made the mistake of trying to flip a coin with a Hunter, which almost always resulted in the Hunter winning, since they could use the power of their blood to boost their senses and reflexes enough to count the revolutions of even the fastest spinning coin and thus reliably catch it at the exact moment when they would win. With two Hunters, who were both presumably aware of the inherent unfairness of a Hunter's ability to decide the outcome, they both knew that the only way to make it fair was to allow the coin to hit the ground.

The flickering light of the coin plummeted, hit the ground on its edge with a strangely satisfying noise, and bounced off the cobbled street, launching away from Victor and toward the edge of the plateau. For one incredulous, infuriating moment Victor actually thought the coin was going to bounce again, go through the guard rail and disappear into the wasteland of Old Yharnam below, but mercifully it settled before then, still a little over a meter (3' 4”) from the edge. Raine, being the one out of the two closest to where the coin had ended up, went to check the result of the coin flip.
Victor blinked and furrowed his brow, suddenly and irrationally bothered by something as he watched Raine head over and crouch by the coin. He felt the hairs standing on the back of his neck and his arms, and his heartbeat quickened for no particular reason as he was gripped by an urgent sense of danger. His eyes started shifting rapidly, his gaze going everywhere to check every conceivable angle of approach and hiding place, but aside from the signs that someone had entered the clinic, there was nothing to worry about. Yet the instant he looked back at Raine, the feeling of impending disaster returned tenfold, making his eyes widen in panic as he sensed something.

He was about to call out to Raine – probably around the same moment when Raine would have announced the upward-facing side of the coin – when the something happened. Raine's crouching form suddenly and unnaturally stood back up perfectly straight, arms down his sides and legs together... and then he floated off some four meters into the air, struggling, growling and swearing at whatever force was manhandling him like that.
Victor quickstepped forward, propelled by the desperate feeling that had been building inside him this entire time – accelerating to high speeds in an instant, covering the distance between himself and where Raine had just been in a blur and then stopping as instantaneously as he had started – and slashed at the air below Raine, hoping against hope that his blade would find whatever was holding his companion and ideally making it release him. His sword met no resistance, however, so he slashed again to the right, then to the left, before taking another step closer to the edge and swinging his weapon wide at the guard rail, before finally quickstepping backward, retreating to Adelicia's side.
Victor watched, confused and desperate, as he panted heavily from the exertion; not only the quicksteps, but the final swing of his sword had all been done with the aid of the Hunter's blood, which in turn inflicted quite a bit of fatigue on him. He needed at least a few seconds to recover; if he tried using the blood again it would only get worse, until he would be actually incapable of activating the blood for a while. He thought he saw a faint trace of the something that was attacking Raine, little more than a faint haze and a hint of movement, but just from that he could tell that whatever it was, it was huge. Whatever this invisible monstrosity was, it was bigger than any living being Victor had ever seen before. If he had to guess at why he had been unable to reach it with his sword, he figured it must be sitting past the edge of the plateau, possibly sitting on the side sheer wall itself.
Raine, still suspended in mid-air by whatever extremity of the phantom assailing him, was enveloped by a misty, pale-bluish light, subtle at first but growing quickly in intensity, until the Hunter was completely hidden by this eldritch phenomenon... and when the light faded, Raine was gone without a trace, leaving Victor staring incredulously at where he had just been.

Bluntness and morbidity; alas, the hallmarks of many a hunter. Victor showed an aptitude for both when he begrudgingly explained that they were not ‘too late’, as it were, though perhaps soon. She disagreed with his assessment and grimaced in his direction, finding it difficult to suppress the wave of empathetic sorrow and open revulsion she felt in regards to the situation. No, as far as the young blood saint was concerned, they were too late: if battle had already been joined, then they were too late to stop it. Combat was a consequence of failure, not some trial to be passed.

Her displeasure only grew when next, Victor suggested flipping a coin to decide who would venture into the fray, and who would stay behind with her. It was subtle, perhaps, but his wording still made his feelings – and perhaps Raine’s, also – obvious to her. One of them had to guard her, whilst the other simply went inside. The one was a duty – the other a matter of course. As she watched their ritual with a dejected frown, she wondered which facet bothered her more: whether it was the renewed proof that hunters craved the shedding of blood so much that they would be unable to come to a consensus over who got to do so without resorting to a game of chance, or whether it was the dawning realization that they must look at her not as a person, but as a mere burden, an inconvenience to be dealt with as swiftly and discreetly as possible so that they might rid themselves of her. She did not like to entertain either notion and, watching the coin roll towards the cliff’s precipice, she felt that these things said less, perhaps, about the two hunters before her and more so about the society and tragic circumstances that shaped them in the first place. Sullenly, she watched Raine head for the coin which had come to a halt not far from the edge, beyond which the ruins of Old Yharnam still belched columns of smoke whose origins it was best not to contemplate. It could not be denied: The city was sick and had been for years. Whatever tragedies had haunted its opulent spires and fog-drowned streets, its people had learned nothing from them. Surely, she could not be the only one to see the truth?

Oblivious to the terrible premonition Victor had been feeling up to this point, Adelicia was rudely awakened from her musings Raine was, bizarrely and inexplicably, lifted into the air by an unseen force. She felt almost comically reminded of how he looked a bit like a cat one would lift by her neck, with the limbs hanging downward. The impression was quickly gone, however, when she put the image into perspective and pictured just what monstrous size a hand would have to have had in order to do the same to a human – and the fact that it was happening before her very eyes. Much like Victor, there was nothing Adelicia could do, or think to do, other than watch with horrified bewilderment at what was happening to their fellow hunter. It was witchcraft – heresy even. Whether by an invisible hand or by forces not of this earth, something was happening to Victor that could not be explained through mundane means. Of all supernatural happening, seeing a man brazenly defy gravity was perhaps not the most disturbing and yet, Adelicia felt her blood freeze in her veins. As if Victor’s terror were contagious, she too felt an overwhelming sense of wrongness and, for lack of a better term, otherness wash over the plateau. There was a presence here that was far greater than any of them, than any hunter, than even Yharnam. Greater and older. It was alienating, horrifying – and somewhere, distantly familiar.

The bizarre feeling that made her skin crawl, her knees buckle and her lips tremble conjured uneasy memories of dark curtains concealing cracked windows in far-flung dwellings on Hemwick Charnel Lane, of unseen stares hidden by lavishly patterned blindfolds worn by men of science, of ominous, distant drumbeats in the night and tonsil stones shrouded in black cloth on chapel altars. None of these memories directly related to one another as they raced through her mind yet, somehow, she felt that there was something that tied them all together. It was not a specific thing or person or even causality. Frantically, she tried to think of an answer, her breath becoming rapid and labored. Why were these things entering her subconscious in response to the spectacle before her? But no answer availed herself to her, save for one: It was all the same feeling. Estrangement, apprehension, terror. An oppressive fear of the unknown tinged each of these recollections equally and sowed the seeds for her to begin understanding that the things that happened in Yharnam were not merely the result of neglect or misfortune – but that all of it happened for a dreadful reason.

As the dreadful scene came to its conclusion and Raine was swallowed whole by a thick swirl of pale blue light and smoke, Adelicia felt her consciousness slip from her, like a rug pulled from under her feet. Swaying drunkenly, she soon stumbled and fell uncontrolledly towards the uneven cobble road.

It was Hunter doctrine to be active rather than passive, to always act rather than react and take the initiative rather than wait, which was one of the main reasons that the old Hunters frowned upon the use of shields. Even now this philosophy remained so ingrained in Victor that he could feel his entire body vibrating, his limbs twitching nervously as his instincts called him to action... yet for all that his body wanted to move, his mind had no idea where or how to do so. The faint haze he had seen for a moment had faded almost immediately, leaving him nothing but assumptions as to where this entity was. He could catch his breath and then move in again, attacking everywhere at random in the hopes that he happened to eventually cut the thing that had taken Raine... but then what? With how big, powerful, and quite frankly alien this being seemed, the thought of killing it by just swinging his sword randomly was nothing short of absurd. The most likely outcome would be that he was taken as well, leaving Adelicia all alone.
What had happened to Raine? What was the thing that had grabbed him? What had it done to him? Was he still alive? Had it eaten him? Was he right there in front of them, only now as imperceptible as the one that had taken him? Had it sent him somewhere else? What was this thing? A beast?
No, that last thought was pointless; even Victor knew enough to recognize that this specific act was not the work of beasts. This was arcane. Otherworldly.
Something from another world, he thought, gritting his teeth as he held himself in place, trying desperately to think of somewhere to aim the aggression building inside of him. You hear about things like this, but... to actually witness it...

Victor had been aware of the saint swaying next to him, his paranoia prompting him to visually confirm that the movement he was sensing was indeed her about once a second, but it still came as a surprise when he abruptly registered a bigger movement as she started to actually fall. His body fully primed for action the Hunter reacted instantly, dropping his sword and quickstepping to cover the distance between them in a heartbeat as he slipped his left arm behind her from her right, gripping her left shoulder, all to stop her from falling...
and then he immediately recoiled, letting her fall the rest of the way to the ground as he staggered away from her, desperately grabbing his right wrist with his left hand, hunched over and grimacing in fear, rage and hunger all at once. That had been way too close! He had only realized that his right hand had grown bigger, each finger had sprouted a claw, and was moving to plunge into the woman's deliciously soft, warm insides at the very last moment before it would have been too late. Even now he had to struggle to stop himself from rushing over to maim her; her state of total vulnerability was just too inviting.
She's not even conscious! She wouldn't resist at all! he thought, disgusted with himself for feeling such things in the presence of a person he was responsible for, and who arguably did not deserve his hostility. The so-called visceral attack was a dangerous power indeed, especially given how hard it could be to resist doing it.
Hunters were supposed to hunt, after all, not protect; they were killers, not babysitters. He could not imagine how Hunters with children of their own managed to avoid killing their own spawn, defenseless little bundles of meat that they were.

Only by keeping his distance, breathing deeply and forcing himself to calm down did Victor succeed at returning his right hand to its human appearance, though this accomplishment did earn a sigh of relief. Not that the situation was resolved, only salvaged for the time being; he was still faced with the conundrum of having to ensure Adelicia's well-being without brutally murdering her by accident.
“Saint?” he called nervously, staying a couple of meters away. “Adelicia?”

Marcus fell to his right shoulder after his attach, but kept his sight on the beast. He watched in amazement the summoned demon’s actions. No matter the shattered leg, it still kept on fighting on. Pain should have been unbearable and stability lost, but it was not offended by such actions.

As he rose up, he was more amazed by the actions of the sickly man. He saw him land after taking leap backwards and could swear he saw, for a mere second, a grin, a thrill, eye glaring like determined to see the beast dead. A whimper from the beast, as to say “I missed? How?” as the sickly man made a dash forward and brought his sword down on the beast’s head. Beast let out another noise, this time a screech inhuman that Marcus felt like his heart would freeze. So inhuman, so unlike anything he had ever heard, voice from his nightmares and beyond.

And then the demon fell silent. Limp. And fell down. Marcus stood there for a second, amazed. Then he remembered. “The door… Door!” He yelled as a warning to the sickly man, and turned around. He looked at the door, then at the sickly man. His comrade had gotten a strike, Marcus was afraid if he was alive any longer. But he didn’t have time to go and take care of him.

His rifle was not good enough a weapon, he was afraid that the stock would loosen up and gun break or the barrel would bend. He took a look at the cane that the beast had. It had made an impressive mark on the floor with the attack he had done and it seemed to be of high quality, hopefully not hollow as the rifle. In normal situation he would have rushed to grab a sword or an axe to hack the beast and the bell ringer. But he couldn’t trust that he had time to do so, leaving the sickly man alone against the enemies on the other side. Rifle on his left hand, he reached to grab the weapon from the screeching demon...

About at the same time as Marcus retrieved the Mad One's staff loud, rapid footfalls could suddenly be heard growing louder quickly, consistent with the sound of a heavy entity running toward them at significant speed. A mere couple of seconds after the first audible footfall, as the sound seemed to come from just the other side of the door barring the Hunters from the rest of the world, the same heavy mass slammed into the door hard, causing the door actually break in two, the top third of the door swinging slowly inward while the lower two thirds, which seemed to barely be holding together, wobbled unsteadily. One last kick from the assailant outside dealt the final bit of damage, shattering the part of the door that was still closed and sending a hail of splinters and wood into the room.

The creature that entered through the doorway – sideways and in a light crouch to fit through it – was tall, broad and lanky, of a similar structure to the eldritch creature the Hunters had already fought but wider and visibly more muscular. It had features that suggested it had once been a man, walking on two legs and wearing the drab clothes of a Yharnam citizen, even though these clothes were all obviously much too small for it, wielding a meat cleaver in its right hand and the sword it had just taken from Marcus in its right. Even so this man was clearly thoroughly claimed by the scourge of beasts; aside from his size, the beast-man was also covered in coarse brown fur, his joints had started to restructure and become more bestial in nature, his fingers and bare feet – which now more closely resembled wolf-like paws – had grown murderous claws, just as his mouth was forced into a permanent scowl by the growth of over-sized fangs above and below.
He growled hungrily as he scanned the room with his beast-shrouded eyes.

“Hurt,” called the hoarse man from the outside, apparently content to wait outside for his fellows to do the fighting, “not kill. Take Hunters.”

The world revealed itself through a foggy blur, its shapes uncertain and details erased. A great, orange light glared through the haze like a merciless god, causing the young saint to blink in a struggle to avoid being blinded further. She wondered why her bed felt so hard and unyielding and why her limbs ached so. She could not remember hurting herself in the previous days, after all. Stirring from her spell of unconsciousness, Adelicia fumbled with her hands and feet and felt only further confused when she began to realize that she had apparently gone to bed fully clothed. Stifling a yawn, she wiped her eyes and blinked away the last traces of sleep – and felt amazed when she discovered that she was not in her bed chamber at all but outside in Yharnam, on the street no less. Frowning in confusion, she lifted herself into a sitting position and surveyed her surroundings; it was only when her gaze fell on Victor that she felt context and understanding become one.

“W-What happened?” she stammered, still struggling to remember what exactly had happened to her to cause this lapse in consciousness in her. Thinking about how she got here, all she could remember was the terrifying encounter with the Mad One and loose remembrances of traversing the streets with her two companions. Two companions: Victor and Raine. Blinking again, thinking she might still be affected, she looked about herself but failed to find any trace of the latter. “Where is Raine?” she asked, her voice quivering with concern. Perhaps, she thought, he had already gone inside the clinic where some sort of struggle had ensued. It occurred to her that they had tossed a coin to determine what to do, after all – but could not remember the outcome, for some reason.

Somewhat embarrassed at her present condition, she rose to her feet once more, picking up the now-dented censer-staff from where it had crashed against the soil. Its robust construction had barely permitted any real damage to be dealt to it, with most of the harm being some of the silvery coat being scratched off. Dusting off her skirt, she was about to approach Victor but something about his demeanor made her hesitate. Perhaps it was the labored breath, the look in his eyes, or something subtler still emanating from his aspect – whatever it was, she felt her terror in him renewed on a level she could neither rationalize nor deny.