FanFiction:MHQ:To Hunt A Man Chapter 16 - Today's Failure

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Previously: MHQ: To Hunt A Man Chapter 15 - The Real Monsters

Language Warning

It has been a couple of days since the fight against M at the tower. The people of Atakaze Town heard the building crumble all the way from there and sent out help. Thanks to this, Kreuz and his friends were able to get back without much trouble.

Most of their injuries weren’t very serious. They were able to be treated relatively quickly. That is, except for Annie. She sustained a serious injury to her face, specifically her eye, so she must remain in the infirmary. The others have come to visit her so she they can talk. It was just them in the room.

There was a lot to talk about, but yet no one said a word. No one was sure where to begin. Rebecca was nervous. She was shaking a bit, and fidgeted with her hair.

Blue, as always, was the first to break the silence. He looked over to Annie and said “The bandage over your eye makes you look like some kind of pirate.”

She cracked a small smile for a quick second.

Rebecca finally spoke, “I guess I can’t really put this off anymore huh?” Everyone looked towards her, but didn’t say anything. She gulped before continuing. “The place I come from...we’re people that-that can transform...into monsters.”

She flinched, expecting an angry response, but everyone else still remained silent. If anything, Blue was on the edge of his seat. She breathed deeply before continuing.

“M had stolen an artifact that had been sealed away. When our leaders learned of this, I volunteered to go after him. Long story short, I messed up and almost died for it. And that’s when i ended up in the forest.”

Kreuz scratched his head. “Wow. That’s uh, that’s a lot to process.”

Rebecca began to talk a mile a minute. “I know, and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but I never wanted you to find out in the first place. When you guys offered to come with me I was hoping that it would be enough so I didn’t have to reveal this but everything was going wrong and you guys almost died because of me and-”

“Hey hey hey calm down for a moment.” Kreuz interrupted as he put his hands on her shoulders. “Relax, we didn’t almost die because of you.”

Rebecca nervously nodded her head before continuing. “I’m so sorry I kept this from you all, you trusted me and I just-”

Kreuz shook her a bit. “Rebecca listen to me, it’s fine. Really.”

Sky stood up. “Really, I just want to know why you couldn’t just blast M before.”

“I can’t use these abilities for too long, I’ll exhaust myself.”

Kreuz finally let go of her shoulders as everyone went silent again. He says its fine, and that isn’t a lie, but this is all still a lot for them to handle at once.

Rebecca suddenly grabbed onto Kreuz’s arms and pleaded with him. “Please you guys can’t say anything about this to anyone.”

“Probably shouldn’t have been talking about this in an infirmary then.” Blue said. Sky then kicked him.

Kreuz was reassuring. “Don’t worry, you can trust us.”

She smiled at him.

A bit of time has passed and a doctor entered the room. “Miss Annie, how are you feeling?”

Before she could answer, Blue interrupted. “You should’ve put more emphasis on the ‘are’. You know, because she looks like a pirate? How ARGGH you feeling?”

The doctor had a confused expression. “Are you sure you want him in here?”

Annie was finally able to respond. “Yeah he’s fine. Blue shut the hell up.” Blue pouted in response. “Anyways, I still feel pretty dizzy.”

The doctor looked over some paperwork. He seemed to hesitate for a second. “That is probably going to keep happening for a while.”

“Oh wonderful.”

The doctor continued, “The Dragon element is still being researched of course, but it seems to affect people mentally and neurologically. You took a good hit in a bad spot.”

Annie sighed and laid back in the hospital bed. “So how long is this going to go on for.”

The doctor remained silent, prompting Annie to sit back up. She’s getting a bad feeling.

He finally spoke again. “It’s very likely that this problem will continue to affect your brain and not go away. I cannot medically clear you to resume hunting in this condition. I’m sorry.”

She jumped out of the bed and yelled, “WHAT!?” As she got up, she had to hold her head and grab the side of the bed, as she almost fell over.

Rebecca helped her lay back in the bed. Despite the shock and the anger in her voice, it’s obvious that she’s still out of it.

“There’s just, nothing else we can do. I’ll give you all a moment.” With that, he left out the door.

The air was heavy. Annie didn’t know what to think. After everything her friends had gone through for her, she’s just supposed to hang up her bow now? All she could do was cry.

There isn’t anything the others could say to console her, and they know it. But it’s heartbreaking just sitting back and watching this happen.

“Well fuck that, you can still hunt anyway, it’s up to you if you want to put yourself in danger right?” Blue tried to cheer her up.

Kreuz was quick to shut it down though. “Dude, the Guild would get pissed about that. She could get in some serious trouble.”

“Well uh...at least we’re not dead?”

Blue tried his best to help her look on the bright side, but unfortunately words won’t be enough to fix a broken dream.

That night, Kreuz had a strange dream. He was surrounded by nothing but a purple mist, but it felt like someone was staring at him from all sides. He heard whispers all around, but he couldn’t speak himself.

A hooded man approached him. The man grabbed hold of Kreuz’s hand. He felt cold. “You...will be the bridge to the truth….” The man’s voice was scratchy. He sounded old.

He released Kreuz’s hand and faded into the mist, leaving Kreuz bewildered.

He jolted awake in his bed. It was morning, so he decided to get up. But something was wrong. He felt something in his bed. Panic immediately ran through his mind. That old guy from the dream isn’t here is he!?!? he thought.

Kreuz slowly removed the sheets, afraid of what he might find. He peeked under and saw...an egg?

Meanwhile, Sky and Blue were already awake and eating breakfast. Kreuz entered the room with the egg carried under his arm. It was about the size of a small dog.

“Which one of you assholes put this thing in my bed?”

The other two looked at each other before Sky answered. “Uhh, I actually don’t think it was either of us. There was some creepy dude stalking around here this morning. I went to confront him, but he just booked it into the woods.”

Kreuz immediately thought back to that dream again. “Oh jeez. Hey guys?”

He proceeded to explain about the dream. This lead him to believe that maybe the egg has some significance. Or maybe it’s just a dumb prank. The dream seemed like too much of a coincidence though, so Kreuz decided to treat it like an actual egg for now. Blue and Sky think he has lost it a bit.

A little later in the day, Rebecca has come to visit them, with some upsetting news of her own, at least for Kreuz. She has revealed that she has to go back to her home for now.

“What, you’re leaving already? What about our date?” Kreuz’s reaction got a laugh out of Blue, who is still teasing him about this.

“I know, I’m sorry. But I need to update Miss Veila about M.” Rebecca paused and smiled for a moment. “I promise I’ll visit soon though.”

“Yeah, alright.”

She giggled a bit before frowning again. “I...really can’t thank you guys enough. For everything.”

Blue groaned. “Hey don’t get all sappy on us, we don’t do sappy. Usually.”

She laughed again. They all shared a group hug.

Rebecca stared at Kreuz for a moment and blushed really hard. She then suddenly turned away and hurried off. “Bye” was all she said as she nervously left.

Kreuz seemed sad, and Blue started to tease him again. “What’s wrong, you didn’t get to kiss your furry girlfriend goodbye?” This must have been peak comedy for him, because Blue caused himself to fall to the ground from laughter. Kreuz kicked him. Really hard.

Sky facepalmed. “Come on, we should go visit Annie.” And so they did.

It was a rough time in Atakaze Town. They really didn’t accomplish what they were sent here to do. In fact, they still don’t really know why they had to come here. On top of all that, M managed to escape to who knows where. Maybe they’ll never see him again and it won’t be their problem anymore. After all, he flew away on a Wyvern that can take him anywhere in the world. But fate has a funny way of working out, doesn’t it?