Covered In Blood And Surrounded By Spirits (Hellsing CK2 Organization Quest)

"Fine. We can't let Millenium keep that sort of firepower. Takauji, can you assist him? I don't want anyone running around without some back-up." You order. On the other side of the radio, Kagutsuchi barely gave a second thought before he dropped the radio and started running in the direction his power pulled him in, as Takauji shrugs and pursues. You sigh at his haste, but realize you can't do anything about that right now. You'll just have to hope they can make it work somehow.

When Zorin Blitz was a little girl, she wanted to be God.

When she was very little, it's because she wanted to make things, like her papa. But as she grew older, she realized there were already plenty of things in the world. The world didn't need new things, it needed less things. The world needed something to grab the disgusting and inferior things in the world and weed them out. The world needed an angry God, and she was always angry, so why not?

Then she grew up, enlisted, and Millenium made her into God. For a moment, as she plunged someone into a nightmare of her own devising, she owned their world. She was their God, the angry deity that took their miserable and unworthy lives. She may have taken orders, but that meant nothing to what she knew in her heart. To every one of her victims, she was God. But now, she knew better.

A fist of fire passed through the head of a Nazi with the ease of a knife through butter. Her foot snapped, ripping the head of an Iscariot priest clear from his neck. Fuck that illusionary God bullshit. How egotistical she had been, to compare herself to what she is now! Fire runs through her veins, and every thump of her heart sends it bursting out just a little more. This power, the feeling of being fire and destruction incarnate. She wasn't Millennium anymore. She was fire, and fire didn't take orders from mortals.

She'd start with this fucking blight of a city. Then she'd walk across Europe, burning everything in her way, until she got to Israel and killed all the fucking jews! Then the ragheads, then the orientals, and then she'd loop around and kill the fucking negros too! It might be harder to find all of the gypsies and the gays, but fuck, she'd give it her best fucking shot! An angry God, destroying everything wrong with the world. And when she stopped, the world would be pure. The world would be better again.

"Zorin Blitz." She looked over to see the jap that she had taken this power from, staring at her. His face and body were roadmaps of burns, the man himself looking as if he had been left on the grill too long. She sneered at that thought, that he hadn't had what it took to wield this power and it had burned him. What a waste of a God.

"Ah, it's you again, jap! Come to fight me again? Well I'm stronger than ever, so good luck getting this back! You don't deserve it anyway, you useless fucking God!" She screamed at him in rage, feeling the power pressing against her chest, begging for release. It was thudding inside of her now, rattling against the container that was her body.

"I don't need to fight you for it. I thought I did, but I see the truth now. You can't contain the power you hold. It keeps rising, but your body can't keep up. Look at yourself, Zorin. You think you killed all these people because you wanted to?" He says, gesturing to the piles of burning bodies littered around the public square. "You killed them because you need to be unleashing your power, or it burns inside you and burns you alive. Even now, as you stop killing for only a few moments to speak with me, your body burns. Look at how your skin blackens as you hesitate." Zorin ignored the burning feeling across her skin as she snarled in return.

"Shut up! You can't handle this power! You waste it, you never deserved it! The world needs an angry God, I need to be an angry God! You don't have what it takes, so quit talking and give me the rest of it!" She screamed wildly, leaping at the motionless fire god. He steps to the side, allowing Zorin to go flying past him and crashing into the street in an explosion of fire and heat.

"I've suffered for that power. I've crawled across the bodies of friends and the worst of the filth for it. Pain without end. Why do you cling to something that hurts you so? I hold you in the highest contempt, but I pity you. You're just an animal, in the end." He says, looking almost sadly at her. Zorin only screamed in response, leaping once more at him. This time, he met her mid flight.

Zorin: 73 Vs. Kagutsuchi: 59

Unfortunately, he didn't quite have the strength to match her raw, bestial rage, and ended up falling to the ground with Zorin above him. From there, she screamed and started raining blows on the fallen god, who defended as best he could with raised arms. One hand managed to sneak through Kagutsuchi's guard, snapping him straight in the face, and surprising him enough that three more punches pummeled him in the face and sternum.

Zorin: 44 Vs. Kagutsuchi: 88

"ENOUGH!" Kagutsuchi shouted, and a wall of flames exploded from his body, sending Zorin flying. Kagutsuchi shot to his feet, flames around him pulled into his body as his wounds healed. He dashed forward, slamming a kick into Zorin's midsection and sending her skidding across the road to slam into a half melted car.

"You've already lost, Zorin! As long as there are flames for me to feed on, I will never die! But you can only go on so long before the power inside of you consumes you! This isn't a question of who will win, you Nazi bitch, it's a question of how long it will take for you to die!" Kagutsuchi shouted at her, Zorin's furious scream her only response. Once more she rocketed out from where she fell, streaming towards Kagutsuchi with a trail of fire like a missile.

Zorin: 33 Vs. Kagutsuchi: 80

As soon as she was in range, a kick from Kagutsuchi slammed into her jaw, sending her off course and flying wildly into the side of a building. Then Kagutsuchi is on her once again, slamming a knee into her sternum, a blow that drives the breath from her body and breaking the bones in her chest, A silent gasp emerges from her mouth as the orange glow erupting from her mouth and eyes illuminates a face in a rictus of pain. But Kagutsuchi gives no quarter, pulling Zorin from her crater in the wall to slam her onto the pavement, where he begins to punch until Zorin stops moving.

Kagutsuchi heaves a breath out as he watches blood erupt from her mouth, knowing that her lungs were likely filling up with blood as he watched. Her limbs were burning away to nothing, and it wasn't going to be long before she was dead. She had no fight left in her. This was the end.

"But… But I was an… an angry God." She coughed out, unbelieving. She was the angry God she had always wanted. The one she had begged for when she was small. She couldn't lose… It wasn't Papa's fault he did it… Who will punish…

"No you weren't." Kagutsuchi says as the life finally leaves her body, and she begins to crumble to ash. "You were just angry." and that's all he can say before the other half of his power, freed from Zorin's body, slams into his chest.

"AAAAAAAAH!" Kagutsuchi screams as it course through him. Power… power like he had never known was in his veins. He could feel his body shifting, his flesh becoming divine once more. For once, there wasn't any pain. Tears leaked from his eyes as he realized that there wasn't any more burning rooted in his flesh. He was reborn.


"Huh. Talk about a growth spurt." Takauji says, looking up to the ten foot tall god standing next to her. Kagutsuchi looked down at his newly made form, and nodded. The gauntlets would take some getting used to, and the tattoos seemed a tad bit unnecessary, but for the first time in his life, he was whole. And he was strong. With a wave of his hand, all the fire in the square was extinguished.

"Hmmm. So it would seem." And his voice was deeper. This was definitely an improvement. "Thank you for your help, Takauji. I am in your debt." He said, giving her a small bow. Takauji grinned, but there was a tinge of nerves to it.

"Oh, my big friend, a debt is a dangerous thing for a kami such as yourself to offer a kitsune. I didn't do much, and you had it in hand. You sure you want to burden yourself with a debt? You might regret it someday." Takauji told him. Kagutsuchi shakes his head.

"I was at more of a risk then I led on. I was provoking her to get her to destroy herself faster. Pretending she was doomed to lose was one of those tactics. Besides, I owe you and every member of the Renko family. For more than just this moment. So accept my favor, fox, and let's go end this horrid night." He tells her. Takauji relaxes slowly, then nods.

"Oh yes. I'm sure dear Kochika will be… overjoyed, at this development. Now let's go kill some fucking Nazis."

AN: Don't really like the 3d style of the picture, but the look was too good. Anyway, next update will actually have a vote, promise.

You couldn't tell when you noticed, but it was without fanfare. There was simply a moment that the gunfire, the sounds of screaming and violence, and a hundred other things just stopped. And you looked up from the map your soldier had handed you to find the world had frozen into a horrifying, beautiful painting. If you had any artistic talent, you would have stopped to try to capture the moment, stuck in a perfect, tranquil stillness.

But then it stopped being beautiful, as you looked around and saw everyone around you just as frozen as the landscape. Your soldiers, dutifully preparing for the next battle. Integra, Seras and Captain Pip gathering together to strategize. Everyone around you, stock still. You moved to inspect them, and tried to figure out what was happening. Time freezing for everyone except you was impossible. Unless a Deity at the height of its power was acting to do so, this could not be the case. So an illusion, trapping you in a moment of time to incapacitate you. Possible, but turning around and seeing your own body hunched over a map showed you the truth. Astral projection then. Someone lifted your soul out of your body, and now you were left free floating as a ghost.

Touching your real body gave no results, nor did resuming your original position. So it looked like your return to the physical world was forbidden for now. The only solution would be to find the source of this magic, but that could take forever if you had to search the entire city. Luckily, your arm was already glowing with a harsh golden light, a feeling of hatred leading you to a spot deep in the city. The fact that the divine power in your arm hasn't already broken this spell on you makes you doubt that this is anything the Nazi filth brought to the field. And the hatred radiating from it helps enforce the idea that Denbe is looking to talk.

"Well, old friend. Let's find out what the fuck you're doing." You say to yourself, and start walking. After a certain point, you start flying instead. It's strange, but you feel more peaceful than you have in a long time. The familiar hatred and disgust rises up within you every time your gaze falls on more of The Major's disturbed cannon fodder of course, but you feel above it. As if you're detached from the whole conflict. You wonder if this is an effect of astral projection, or just part of being put under a spell by the Buddha himself. Either way, you're feeling… something.

You find him in a deserted city square, cars smashed into the sidewalks as if they tried to clear the streets and empty the lanes. At the center of the square was another bodhisattva, this one fat and asleep, a book with burning pages dangling in a tenuous grip from his hand, as if it was about to fall. Like the others, it's face is chipped and broken, with black veins swimming through its skin. This one had a further disgusting quality in the morbid quantities of flesh sagging off it's body. And between you and the ruined teacher was Denbe, looking not a day older than the last time you had seen him, meditating.

"Denbe. What are you doing? What happened? Why the fuck are you here, fighting for Nazis of all things? What happened to all the shit about being the Buddha incarnate and all that, when your teachers are corrupted and you, the Buddha himself, are sitting in a burning city full of dead innocents? What. The fuck. Happened!" You shout at him. Okay, so maybe you weren't feeling very peaceful. But at least you weren't punching him in the face with the arm of a goddess off the bat, so clearly you were being lended some otherworldly restraint at the moment. Denbe opened his eyes slowly, and looked up to you.

"It is good to see you again as well, Kochika. It feels strange that I would be trusting someone so susceptible to their own instincts with such a delicate task, but this is what our current situation has reduced us to. And perhaps I am being sentimental in calling you a friend, even in our predicament. So, may I speak to you as a friend? If you would afford me that honor, I would answer any question you may pose. I would do the same if you were to refuse of course, but I admit I am in dire need of a friend." Denbe tells you, bowing his head slightly in respect. You huff a bit, but ultimately sit across from him. If it wasn't for almost everything going on around you, it would be like old times. But you had the power of a goddess pulsing hatefully in your arm, Denbe was a pseudo god, and the two of you were ghosts sitting in the middle of a frozen city pillaged by undead and magical Nazis. You supposed it was nice to pretend regardless.

"Well, friends then. In that case, I have to ask. What happened to you, Denbe? I know this isn't something you would want for yourself. What did they do to you? How did they do this to you?" You ask him, concern etched across your face. Despite everything, Denbe was a friend. Whatever Millennium did to him, you doubt it was pleasant. Denbe, for his part, gritted his teeth before sighing.

"I… the first thing you should know is that the Buddha is not a being of great power or combat ability. The Buddha is a teacher. The Buddha has a complete understanding of everything in the universe. The ultimate wisdom. So despite the lack of true power, the Buddha cannot be threatened by anything of this universe, and don't you dare start in on that statement. It's too much to possibly explain, and frankly, I'm not sure I still can explain it. Anyway, Millennium has in its employ a creature that is beyond such things. Dead, alive, within the cycle and out of it, a creature that flits between the spokes of Saṃsāra. I could not touch it, for I could not know it, but it could touch me. And it did."

"Machines stabbed into my body. Pins and spikes and chips uncountable, and in the end, I could not control my own body. Their hideous, disgusting Doctor, the madman who claims to practice science, he took over my body, used it like the most finely tuned puppet in the world. And in the end, even my mind was taken from me, and I found that the brain itself, the physical organ that is, was outside of my control. Now all this is left of me is what you see before you. A ghost, unable to do anything more than ride along as fools and monsters pilot the vessel of wisdom on this mortal plane. It's horrifying, disgusting. And I am no longer eligible to wield it. I have lost Enlightenment, Kochika. It is misery." Denbe tells you, spitting out the last phrase with a hatred you had never seen Denbe possess in all the time you had known him.

"I'm sorry, Denbe." You say stretching out a hand to cover the bitter monk's own. "Why didn't you call to me sooner? You know that I would have come for you if I had known." Denbe sighed, nodding his head.

"I know. It's why I am trusting you now. To be true, The Buddha was blind to the threat, even as he was entrapped. He couldn't conceive of what was happening to him. A cruel irony. And by the time I was capable of understanding what was happening, the mad doctor had taken control. The only reason I managed to reach out to you now was because the doctor's control has slipped for a moment. Something has distracted him from his task, and in this moment, I have achieved the slightest hint of power. Enough to reach out to you. Once this moment ends, I assume that his safeguards will shut me in again, but at least I can deliver my request unto you." He tells you, smiling slightly and gripping your hand.

"I'm going to free you, Denbe. These monsters won't win, I'll make sure of it, and we'll bring you home. I promise you that. Nothing's going to fucking stop me." You tell him, feeling a snarl rip through your face as you think on exactly what you're going to do to these fucking nazis when you finally get your hands on them.

"No, Kochika, I don't want you to free me." Denbe tells you, shaking his head. "I need you to kill me."

"What?" You hiss, shocked into tension as his words register. "Denbe, I can't kill you. You're my friend. Maybe an old one, but I'm not killing a friend. That's not how I operate and you know that. When a friend is in trouble I save them, not put them down. I won't kill you." Denbe shook his head frantically as you spoke.

"You don't have to. Have either of your daughters do it, and congratulations on that, by the way, you have a beautiful family."

"Denbe, don't-"

"They're both strong enough, and I'm sure you have plenty of warriors with you strong enough themselves. You've always been great at that, rallying others. A magnetic charm and passion that made others want to follow you. A strength that can't quite be identified."

"Stop this, I won't-"

"You will find my body here in this square. The bodhisattva behind me, you will have to defeat him. But he specializes in attacks on the mind, so as long as you stay strong of will you will defeat him with ease. And strength of will is something you have always had, so I have no doubt-"

"-wasting your time. Nothing you say will-"

"-that you will not struggle against him. My body is mortal, so all you need to do is-"

"-convince me to kill you, in the name of the kami-"

"-strike it down like any other enemy, please I-"

"-get a hold of yourself! You don't need to-"

"I LOST IT, KOCHIKA!" He shouts at you, rage filling his face and tears bursting from his eyes. "I was given Enlightenment! I knew the world! Its greatest happiness and deepest sorrows, revealed to me. Peace, true and doubtless inner peace were mine, and now I have nothing but the hole it once occupied. You said that you would bring me home, but I have no home any longer. I have found all I ever searched for, and now it is forever out of my reach. As long as I live, I shall never achieve it again. Do you understand that, Kochika? There is no coming back. No return for me, the Failed Buddha. If you do not kill me, I will have no choice but to shame myself, and return to Saṃsāra. This is not a choice of what my fate shall be. It is a choice of what you will do for your friend." At this, he seized your hand and pulled it close to his chest as he beseeched you.

"You're not killing me, Kochika. You're setting me free, in the only way that matters." He tells you, his tears still streaking across his cheeks. You gape at the emotion in his voice, the desperation in his grip on your hand. Closing your mouth, you gulp and shake your head.

"I'm sorry, Denbe. I'm sorry this happened to you. You should have had your peace." You tell him quietly. Denbe snorts, than laughs out loud, wiping away his tears.

"On that, we can agree." He tells you, his smile fading away into nothing as you stare at each other. "I suppose that it is your choice, in the end. Keep in mind my request. One way or another, we will meet each other again as friends. I have enough wisdom left that I can promise you that." He tells you. You're about to reply when he waves his hand to stop you. "We've said enough I think. Now is a time for action. It's been a pleasure, and an honor, Director." He tells you with a sad smile. And then the world snaps into motion again, leaving you staring at a map surrounded by allies, your mind reeling.

"Director." Integra speaks from behind you as she strides toward you. "Any ideas on our next move? The teams clearing through the city seem to be doing well. Should we continue with our efforts there?" She asks. It's Integra of course, so you doubt she's really asking as saying you should do so, but you push that aside for now.

"Perhaps. But I've just learned some… crucial information on an important Millennium asset. We'll need to strike immediately." You tell her, looking in the direction of the square that you had seen Denbe in.

"Oh? What is it, and who would you recommend assigning?" Integra asks. You wrack your brain. Technically, anyone strong of will could get past the bodhisattva, but Denbe was still technically the Buddha. Somehow. You were tempted to be there, just to do it yourself. Denbe had spoken to you, and you alone. It felt wrong otherwise. And you could always rationalize it by saying your arm was the only thing that could rival the power of the Buddha. That might not even be a lie.

In the end, it's your choice.

Who do you send to go deal with Denbe?

[] Write in

What do you do with Denbe?

[] Honor his request. Denbe deserves to go the way he wants to.
[] Fuck that bullshit. Go and yank out everything they stuck in him. Revival by force sounds good to you.
[] Go find the Doctor himself. It leaves a Nazi-controlled Buddha on the field, but if there's anyway to save Denbe for sure, it's going right to the source.

Finally, how should the rest of your forces act?

[] Continue clearing the city. It's worked so far.
[] Consolidate. The best choice now is to find a hill to fight on, so to speak, and to hold it until Kagutsuchi or Alucard find their way back.
[] Write in

AN: hi