Bloodborne

Laurence used some sort of magic, foreign to Karla. "I wasn"t only transported to the past. I was transported to a magical realm," she thought as she dodged the spears that were flung her way. She was an excellent fighter as well. The villagers used their fishing harpoons as weapons. Their barbed poles were as deadly as the shafts. Karla had to be extra careful while dodging and counter-attacking.

"What the h.e.l.l is happening here? Aren"t we committing cold blooded ma.s.sacre here?" Karla could only think this much as she fought off waves of scaly villagers. She had to push them back, in an attempt to give Lady Maria enough s.p.a.ce to kill those giant shark creatures. She had a hard time already fighting that one shark.

The beast didn"t really look like a shark though. But that was the only name Karla could come up with when they showed up. The one Lady Maria fought held an anchor on one hand, using it as a weapon. For a giant beast, its movement was surprisingly fast. One time, the shark jumped at the lady with such speed that it almost crushed her under its weight.

Karla was almost affected by the attack as well. Fortunately, she jumped to the side right at the moment when the shark came sliding her way. Even as the beast slid down the slippery ground, it flailed its arms around, hitting everything that stood on its way. That helped trim the mob that was attacking Karla.

She had already run out of bullets. The other hunters were busy killing monsters. They had no time to throw some bullets her way. She used her Saif as best she could, switching between the contracted and elongated forms. Lady Maria had cut off one of the bipedal shark"s legs when Karla had reduced the numbers of a.s.sailants to ten. The square had been painted red. Scaly fish men were scattered all over the place.

Heads rolled.

Arms were cut off.

Shots boomed with thunder.

The grim reaper danced that rainy day. His scythe spilled guts on the floor. Gehrman had finally managed to kill the shark. He immediately moved towards Laurence, killing all the villagers that surrounded him. Lady Maria thrust her sword between the shark"s eyes. Her silver blond hair was wet and disheveled. She re-arranged her hair, nodded at Karla who had just finished off the last villager, then ran towards Gehrman.

The Old Hunters didn"t waste time talking or expressing their astonishment at the monstrosities they met. Karla felt like nothing could surprise those people. Laurence blinded the shark with some type of spell, allowing Gehrman to deal the finishing blow. The four hunters stood alone in the square. Rain continued to fall, washing the sin away from them.

"What in the G.o.ds name did we do?" Lady Maria looked at Laurence and Gehrman with reproachful eyes.

"We did what was necessary. These villagers will never allow us to reach whatever they"re hiding." Laurence retorted, angrily.

"So we murdered them in cold blood. That"s your answer to everything now, isn"t it?" Karla could feel the tension between the two rising again.

"We murdered them," Laurence stressed out the "we" part. "No one forced you to be part of this. We attacked and you followed."

"I had to defend myself against their attacks. You were the ones who forced them to though. Don"t you dare turn the blame on me for this one." Lady Maria"s tone was cold, a bit threatening as well.

"You heard the lady you brought along," Gehrman said. "Yharnam will fall if we don"t act quickly. How long do you think we can hold against this curse my lady?"

Lady Maria shot a cold look at Karla. She felt her hair stand on end when her eyes met the lady"s. "What we did here couldn"t be avoided I guess," she said after a long silence.

"More of them will come to bar our way. My lady, this is war. We need to ensure our survival. If they really have a pregnant Great One hidden here, we will have a chance at halting the curse," Gehrman"s words aimed to comfort the troubled fair lady.

"My spies never lie. She even risked her life to get us this crucial information," Laurence was restless. "Can we move now? we haven"t got all day."

"My lady, we can"t keep talking about this forever. The sun will soon set, and more monstrosities will show up. We don"t even know if we"ll live to witness dawn. It"s a sad world. Sacrifice is necessary."

Lady Maria sighed, looked down then moved forward. She didn"t say another word. Karla looked at the tall lady, feeling bad for her. "Morality is dangerous when you"re playing G.o.d," she thought as she followed the three hunters. She quickened her pace then walked beside the sulking woman.

Gehrman and Laurence followed behind. They walked in silence, observing their surroundings. Rain continued to pour. Karla finally had some time to reflect on what had happened. "I had a bad feeling before we left the city. I now see what my instinct was trying to tell me." She hoped against hope that this was the only bad thing that would happen that day. The feeling didn"t leave her though. She still felt her heart tighten every time she thought of what just transpired.

"I heard of cold blooded ma.s.sacres happening throughout history. I never thought I"d witness one. h.e.l.l, I"ve even been part of it." Karla tightened her grip on her weapon. Her hands hurt from wielding that weapon for so long, fighting horde after horde of scaly villagers. "I thought I was paying for the crime of abandoning my family to their morbid fate."

Karla didn"t notice that she was walking, head down. To the men walking behind them, both ladies seemed to sulk together as they walked side by side. "If Yharnam was my punishment for abandoning my family, what would my punishment be for killing so many innocent people today?"

She knew full well that she was defending herself. But another Karla, vicious and reprimanding, was nagging at her. "Life is a series of choices. You only lie to yourself when you say you didn"t have a choice."

"You chose to let the princess have her lover f.u.c.k her without reporting it to your liege."

"You chose to run away after her murder. You could have faced punishment. Your family would have suffered the consequences, but perhaps they would have lived."

"You chose to serve Francis."

"You chose to come to escape your past and travel to Yharnam."

We reap what we sow. Never had this saying been more accurate for Karla than this moment. "Life is about the choices we make," she said in a hushed voice. Lady Maria gave her a fleeting glance. "Perhaps our choices were made out of necessity. But we actively made them. If we don"t accept this fact, we cannot live the present moment without constantly punishing ourselves." She looked at the lady who was now intently looking at her.

"It wasn"t your fault that we killed so many villagers today. It wasn"t their fault either," she said, pointing at the men who walked closely behind them. "Our choices were somehow made for us. The church decided to use blood to heal people, but it came with unexpected side effects. You are only attempting to right the wrongs. Something I never tried to do. The choice we made today was influenced by the decision to use healing blood.

"My lady, don"t blame yourself for consequences you couldn"t avoid." The group was slowly approaching the sea sh.o.r.e. "In my native country, people spoke about causality. I never gave it a serious thought until today. The consequences of today were influenced by choices made long ago. Sometimes, those choices weren"t even ours. Their effect however, falls on us." The n.o.ble fair lady silently listened to Karla, nodding at her words.

"The Yharnam I came from was the result of the choices you may have made today. Perhaps you have a chance at changing that today. I do not know what caused Yharnam to fall to such a state. But if master Gehrman says that there"s hope to save the city, I say we should take that chance. How worse can it get anyway? The city had already fallen to the beastly scourge. If we can change the future today, we"ll alter the future in a positive way."

"Perhaps you"re right," the lady melodious voice reached Karla"s ears. "We"ll see this through, then I"ll help you get back to where you"re from."

"When," Karla corrected. "And thank you my lady, I"m not even sure I want to go back there."

"Weren"t you the one speaking about causality? You cannot escape your past. You can only stall it before it comes crashing back on you."

Karla looked down. Mud filled her boots. Her feet made squishy sounds as she walked through the muddy terrain. "I"m good at giving advice, but bad at following them," she said after a while.

"Perhaps it"s time to follow your own advice for a change. Don"t you have someone you want to kill?" Lady Maria asked.

"He"s too strong. He was as fast as you and master Gehrman."

"Someone from your era knows the art of quickening?" asked the first hunter. He had caught up to them to moment he heard Karla"s last sentence. Gehrman and his student revealed concerned looks. "That"s impossible, I never taught this technique to anyone but the lady."

"We can speculate all day about this," Laurence intervened. "But I don"t think any of us can come to a conclusive answer. We have more pressing matters to attend to."

"You are right," Lady Maria said. "I don"t like what we"re doing here. But what"s necessary isn"t always pleasing."

"Your captive"s words have really changed your mind about this," Laurence observed. They had been walking up a hill when they finally reached a cliff. "Look over there," Laurence pointed down towards the sh.o.r.e. "Can you see the creature down below?"

Karla"s heart raced, her head throbbed. She clutched her hair and screamed at the top of her lungs. An intense pain made her lose all her senses. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pound at her head until the pain subsided. But she couldn"t do any of this. She suffered too much to be able to move a muscle. All she could do was pull her hair and wail like a wounded beast.

She finally lost her consciousness and fell to the ground. "Looks like someone has experienced insight for the first time," Laurence kneeled and checked Karla"s pulse. "She still breathes. Let"s rest here for a while. It won"t be long before she wakes up."