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The body that lay before Eileen is no ordinary beast feast. The wounds are too precise, a body carved up with surgical precision. This poor hunter isn’t dead, not yet. Blood seeps out of their wounds, and their wide, white eyes stare blankly at the rusty sky above. Their time is coming soon.
She crouches beside the body, and upon closer inspection, Eileen finds their fingers missing, unable to hold a weapon. But why? What would be the purpose? No beast would commit this kind of humiliation. A hunter of hunters should lay their prey down with dignity, with the glory of a battle.
This, however, seems to be for recreation or a warning or a different impetus altogether.
“What a mess you’ve been caught up in,” she says in that northern drawl of hers.
The hunter’s face twitches as he looks upon her in her crow mask and her feathered garb. They try to scream, but the gash in their throat prevents sounds other than gurgling. Whoever had done this must have wanted their work found.
“May you find your worth in the waking world.” The prayer is what Gherman’s Doll had said to her all those years ago. It is the perfect send off for all her kills, sparing Yharnham from a new kind of beast–the hunt-spoiled hunters.
As she plunges her Blades of Mercy into this hunter’s chest and twists the hilt to still their heart for good, she sees in their eyes that The Hunt has not had its way with them yet.
The body disintegrates into glowing ash, disappearing as quickly as it forms. “Off to the Hunter’s Dream with ye, then.”
#
Eileen heard from the chapel dweller that yet another hunter had taken up residence in Oedon’s Tomb. Gascoigne had been felled by another hunter, but that’s not the one he’s thinking of. Eileen knows: it can only be Henryk. The two had been inseparable, and she knows of his search for his partner. The nature of their partnership had not been hers to know, not with Gascoigne having a wife and child and her own disinterest in such entanglements. But she did know that to spare his family and those closest to him, he sought privacy in the old graveyard, hoping that it could be Henryk to slay him.
It should have been Eileen, but by the time she arrived, his beastly corpse had been slain with wounds that could have only come from a holy blade. She had arrived too late.
And it seems she is tardy again. Eileen recognizes Henryk among the tombstones in his signature yellow garb. She doesn’t know the other one who wears the horned hat and long coat like other hunters. The newcomer retains their humanity; it's Henryk leading the onslaught.
On one hand, it gives her hope that there are others in Yharnam looking to tame the beastly scourge, whether it be from beast or man. But on the other hand, hunting fellow hunters has the same intoxicating effect as hunting the beasts. With her unique immunity to the madness and the blood craze, she must rescue the hunter from their brethren.
She jumps off the chapel she perches on and rushes forward, blades split. The two hunters fire at each other with messy munitions. Henryk hits the gravestones, the stone splintering. His attention fixates on the hunter. Eileen quicksteps and slashes. Once, twice, and a third time, catching Henryk in a dervish of metal and siderite. Blood sprays and splatters upon her mask. The herbs she collects from the withering gardens keeps the sharp scent at bay. It was a trick from old Gherman; her teacher had a point or two.
The hunter steps forward, attacking with their large, hewn stone. Eileen had exhausted Henryk but the tiredness catches up to her as well. Years have passed since she last awakened in the Hunter’s Dream. There is no respite, no blood vials which can restore that youthful vigor.
But what she can offer is thanks.
As Henryk vanishes to the dream, she takes a minute to catch her breath. “That wasn’t necessary but you have my thanks.”
The hunter nods solemnly, their face imperceptible behind the leather mask.
“You must’ve killed Gascoigne, as well.” It’s not a question. Henryk’s madness could have only stemmed from one grief, one source of indelible pain. “He was falling apart. I’m sure it had to be done.”
The hunter grunts in agreement. Blood splashes against the ground. Eileen cannot determine what kind of person this hunter is without nothing to go off of. But she knows she cannot risk another Gascoigne followed by another Henryk. More death in a city teeming with and ruined by it.
“Try to keep your hands clean. A hunter should hunt beasts. Leave the hunting of hunters to me.” Eileen walks away with a laugh. When had she become so selfish? She might as well be as greedy as the hunters addicted to blood echoes or the monsters meandering Cathedral Ward entranced by blood itself.
There is no glory in her self-assigned work, but it is work that must be done.
#
Her prey had been taken from her again near the entrance to Old Yharnam. This time, their limbs had been cut at the sinew and tendons to be easier to shape into a mockery of the hunter’s mark. Arms bend too perfectly over head while the knees form too right an angle. The victim’s chest doesn’t rise and their dark eyes look at nothing.
This body doesn’t vanish–Gherman had set them free.
She looks upon this felled hunter with pity. If this is how they will be buried, with their bodies mutilated rather than lying peacefully beneath the open sky, Eileen would rather them be subjected to the blasphemy and disrespect that is the immolation in Yharnam. Turn the flesh to char and ash if it’s to be left in such a state.
Whoever this other hunter is, they relish in the hunt itself, but not with the same keen madness as her typical prey.
Eileen’s next mark is in the Grand Cathedral. She must race to get there, else this wandering murderer might rob another hunter of a peaceful death beneath the vast sky.
#
Among the broken stones of the Grand Cathedral, beneath the moonglow and the scant candle lights, she sees a figure in crow garb like hers against the altar. The decayed, beastly skull purportedly belonging to the first vicar himself, Laurence, had been disturbed once again. First to usher in nightfall, next to bear witness to inhuman hunger.
The crow imposter has their lips pressed into the deceased hunter’s neck. They drink and sup from it as one would a fruit, sucking out the blood. The Vilebloods of Cainhurst were a myth, at least in Eileen’s time, a rival reviled by the Healing Church. She didn’t wade into their politics, but this Bloody Crow has waded into hers.
He lifts his head, the bottom of his iron mask dipping with blood. The rest of the armor belongs to the fabled blood consumers.
Eileen jerks to a shot to the shoulder. He doesn’t give her a chance to consider where she stands on the issue. It is kill be or be killed, and he moves with a speed she can only consider supernatural.
In fact, she recognizes the technique in which he disappears into a column of smoke, reappearing several paces to the side. It is one of Gherman’s old techniques, the ones he left behind to his apprentices–an advanced form of the quickstep which had kept surviving during her violent time in this nightmare.
He shoots, and she dodges. The pistol also comes from the workshop. For the first time, she regrets abandoning her mastery of it.
For every step and slice forward she takes, he retaliates with a bullet. The sword itself seems to feed on his blood, as he staggers with each activation of it. She had never heard of a tool fueled by blood. But there are many things she hasn't seen in this world.
The spectacle she wants to witness least is that of an aged hunter slowing down to an enemy much older and more powerful than she can even comprehend. Her Blades of Mercy come short in their attacks– she comes short. Not fast enough, not clever enough, not strong enough. Perhaps she can weaken this opponent and soften him for the next hunter of hunters. She chuckles at the memory of telling the newest hunter not to follow in her footsteps.
She took a mantle that had no protocol for its inheritance. The first hunter of hunters is no match for this mockery of her work. The disgrace coursing through her is not enough to correct her poor form, her inability to wound or mark this dangerous enemy.
The tip of his Chikage catches her low in the hip and slices upwards. The cut goes too deep. She falls on her side, dropping her swords as the muscles in her arms weaken from this fatal wound. Blood spurts from the gaping hole in her chest. This is where she will meet her end–alone and in pain beneath a stone ceiling, and no hope for eternal peace.
The Bloody Crow crouches beside her and drags his finger in the puddle. A black tongue darts from beneath the mask. She cannot see his features through that iron cage. There is no expression to read.
But the gestures never change. He steps back and bows low, as if honoring her. He turns around and returns to his other victim.
With her last remaining strength, she abandons her Blades of Mercy and drags herself to the Grand Cathedral steps outside, leaving behind a sticky trail of her own blood.
#
Thin clouds veil the stars, but at least she can see them. If she were to become a victim of the Bloody Crow, at least she will die with the peace of being used for artistic mutilation.
She rummages through her cape to find a blood vial. Years have passed since she felt the need. But with the holes in her shoulders and the gaping hole in her stomach, there’s no fixing it.
“Oh, is that you again? I’m afraid I have made a bit of a blunder. I’m just going to have a short rest.” The blood vial feels heavy as the sensation disappears from her fingertips. ”No more dreams for me. This is my last chance.”
The new hunter looks down the trail of blood into the doors of the Grand Cathedral.
“Turn back,” Eileen barks with what remains of her strength. “This is my score to settle.”
There is no obeying Eileen. The hunter walks along the bloody trail and disappears inside.
She cannot even lift herself enough to turn around and yell at them. Even from what little she can see of their features, they are too young to be taking on such a burden. No one should be taking on this errand if they lack the constitution, and she doesn’t know anything about this novice.
Alas, with her waning strength and the stars glittering above, it is no longer her concern.
Her eyes shut. She no longer hears the thudding of Cathedral Giants’ footsteps nor the violence taking place within the Healing Church’s hallowed halls.
Off Eileen goes to rest.
There will be no home for her to return to. No more dreams. No more nightmares. Only the freedom that comes with respite’s deepest abyss.