It was only after the battle ended and they described the summoned being to Ay’zira they found what it was.
They were called Manflayers. There was an entire species/caste/profession of daemons living in Vanarea, Ay’zira’s home plane, dedicated wholy to slaughtering worthy enemies and collecting their skins as trophies.
Apparently they were so dedicated to the act that none of them actually owned their own skin. There was always a bigger fish to them, and they saw no problems with friendly sparring matches that ended with the victor flaying the defeated.
Ay’zira was absolutely inconsolable over missing out on being able to witness such a glorious warrior in combat. Manflayers - like all the powerful daemons of her realm - were idols to her. Someone that she dreamed of becoming in some distant future.
Now that a rose knight began to slaughter the beastkin warriors with them being able to do little to stop that from continuing on, the shamans decided to summon their equivalent of an angel to fight off the enemy while proving the strength of their god to their wavering allies.
The shamans didn’t even need to point the knight to him. The moment the manflayer spotted the rose knight and realized that he was in for a challenging fight, he almost immediately took off, charging right towards their enemy, his axes raised high, a bloodcurdling scream of bloodlust and joy immediately drowning out most of the noises from the background.
The beastkin and the remaining Ecstasy soldiers that just happened to be between him and the knight have wisely evacuated from there, the battle temporarily dying down at least in their parts of it.
The rose knight met the manflayer’s charge mid-way, thrusting their lance with enough strength and speed for the wind pressure to almost topple several closest beastkin warriors. The manflayer dodges it surprisingly gracefully for a man of his size, using the dodge’s momentum to do a quick pirouette before slamming one of their axes right in the side of the knight.
It reminded Izuku of how the sword dancers fought. What normal person does pirouettes in combat instead of going for more practical moves? Except, here it was so quick and took full advantage of the lance not being the fastest weapon to actually get it done.
The knight lowered their shield enough to protect their right leg from being severed in half, likely alongside their horse. The sound of impact was still deafening, and there was a clear dent in the shield.
Funnily enough, the very ornamental and artistic take on male genitalia ‘decorating’ the shield was just broken in half. Big oof.
Knight discovers that it wasn’t the end of the attack a second later. The giant axes of the manflayer weren’t exactly wieldy when you were pretty much in wrestling distance. The skinless warrior’s solution to that?
He takes advantage of being as tall as the mounted knight he was fighting and headbutts him. The helmet splinters, the knight is pushed back. For a second Izuku thinks that they’ll fall off their horse, but no. They manage to hold onto it, and before the manflayer can attack again, their horse makes three quick leaps away from him.
No, horses definitely don’t move like that. Whatever strange things are done to horses in the Rose Guard’s home dimension in order to make them move like that is something that neither Tomura nor Izuku want to know a single thing about.
The manflayer charges again just as the knight uses their shieldhand to tear off what’s left of their helmet, revealing a face just as beautiful as what most of the servants of Procacitas sported, with short black hair.
The look she gives the manflayer before charging back at him makes it rather clear that she was enjoying this fight just as much as he did.
Battle junkies. Battle junkies everywhere. Then again, Izuku was hopelessly in love with one of them, so he wasn’t in a position to really complain about it.
The knight tried another lance thrust, but the manflayer was waiting for it. He, once again, dodges the blow, this time by jumping sideways before hitting the lance with one of his axes. It’s severed in half, the knight immediately dropping it and grabbing the hilt of their sword.
Before they have the time to unsheathe it, the manflayer is on them, delivering a whole sequence of frenzied blows, forcing them to focus on defense and hold their shield with both hands to withstand it.
That is, until it becomes clear that the shield’s about to break, which is when the horse once again jumps away. The manflayer once again charges in to close the distance, but the knight was given enough time to draw their sword.
The axe arcs towards her head, but before it can split it in half, the scimitar she just drew almost cuts the manflayer’s arm in half, nearly splitting his right biceps in hand. The cut definitely goes all the way to the bone.
Instead of backing down, the manflayer just flexes their bicep, somehow forcing the wound to close by pressing it down with muscles (what the hell, this had to be some sort of regeneration power at play), before promptly punching the knight in the face.
She didn’t seem to like it. But despite her nose being completely shattered and her skull likely getting at least a few cracks, she easily blocks the follow-up axe blow with her shield.
Before retaliating by headbutting the manflayer.
The man is stunned, but less by the damage and more by sheer audacity that trying to headbutt him required. He wakes up a moment later, jumping back to avoid the scimitar’s swing that would have likely chopped his head off.
Makes you wonder how high the ETL of those two are.
Yep.
Also I take back everything I thought about that knight after realizing what sort of crest she was carrying on her shield
She knows how to fight
Yes, she is holding back a guy that looks uncomfortably similar to Muscular, even if she seems to be losing the fight.
“She is winning, Izuku.” Uraraka corrects while quickly glancing towards the shamans. Who, indeed, seemed to be panicking. The fighting around them died down, with the exception of the clash of titans, both sides cheering on their champion, with some of the beastkin taking advantage of that brief lull in hostilities to evacuate their injured. “You forgot that the muscly guy is in their spiritual form, not a physical one.”
Oh
Ah, crap
He’s running out of time, isn’t he?
She is only fighting him to stop him from going full monkey on other Ecstasy soldiers, and stays defensive to draw out the fight
The time’s on her side
That’s when they discover that the manflayer was also aware of that fact. His last charge is interrupted as he stumbles forward, collapsing onto his knees, as if he suddenly ran out of power. He is still trying to stand up when the knight closes in for a finishing blow.
There is more to Nine Hordes than just Saevius, the god of rage and war. There is also Dolositas, the goddess of cunning and deceit. The knight is reminded of that fact when the manflayer suddenly jumps forward, revealing his moment of weakness as a feint.
That their enemy completely fell for.
Manflayer’s battleaxe strikes the shield bearing arm of the knight right by their shoulder right before the knight can block it with their shield. It then promptly cuts through the armor, flesh and bone, completely severing off their limb before plunging into the flesh of their mount.
Judging from the horse suddenly collapsing onto their stomach and their hind legs going limp, their spine was definitely a goner.
The knight shrieks in pain and shock, but manages to retaliate with a swing of her scimitar that decapitates the manflayer. Then again, he was probably about to despawn, his final charge being his way of not leaving the fight empty handed.
His body and weapons collapse onto the ground, rapidly turning into a multi-coloured liquid that quickly begins to soak into the ground.
The beastkin side - that to this point was loudly cheering on the manflayer - goes quiet. The Ecstasy soldiers erupt in loud cheers (even if most of them are rather muffled).
And that’s when Uraraka is suddenly showered in blood.
While the fight was raging on, it moved from the center of the formation to a place slightly behind the beastkin line. The knight’s mount has collapsed with her back turned towards most of the beastkin warriors. And while the beastkin happened to be (mostly) petrified by the champion of their god falling in battle, the same couldn’t be said about Uraraka.
She - while under boost from [Bloodrage] - storms towards her, past shocked beastkin, before grabbing the top of knight’s head and pulling it back. Izuku gets to see a close-up of the knight’s shocked face before Uraraka crudely slits her throat with the blade of her sword.
A second later, Uraraka is sent flying by an elbow blow from the knight’s surviving arm that hits her squarely in her side. However, the deed was done.
Whatever inhuman vitality kept the knight alive after losing her arm (the bleeding from which was rapidly stopping before Uraraka did her thing), couldn’t deal with two major injuries. She tried to grab her throat in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, but without one hand it was a futile endeavor to begin with.
The moment she clearly goes limp and leans forward, still sitting on her saddle but clearly going unconscious, the beastkin spring to life.
It took them a while to realize what happened. The beastkin saw their gods-annointed champion fall, and wavered, likely on the verge of rout or at least beginning to fall back. Then, however, some completely random no-name looking like a rookie warrior with next to no experience came out of nowhere, unleashing the blessing of their god and promptly using it to finish off the enemy champion.
No self-respecting beastkin warrior could run away after this. Either because it would mean spitting in the face of their gods (whose theurgy it was that saved the day) or because it would also mean looking like a complete loser baby in comparison to the rookie warrior who moved when they dared to be afraid.
They fell at the Ecstasy soldiers with double their usual ferocity and even more bloodlust-filled howls just to make up for this moment of weakness.
And just like Lorae predicted a few days ago, the Ecstasy promptly broke. They had their fun battling the beastkin thus far, but it was clear that they were going to lose and that meant that it was time to accept a completely different form of fun.
Most of the remaining Rose Guard soldiers began to drop their weapons and either surrender or run away. Leaving the gore munchers to curse their cowardice as they were then taken down, one by one, alongside the languide juggernauts.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Especially the latter needed to be completely swarmed by their opponents, made to fall onto the ground and then picked out of their armors. Their armors were so heavy that immobilizing them and tearing at least some of it off was the only way to kill them.
Needless to say, the battlefield turned into a complete chaos in a matter of seconds. Uraraka didn’t get to see that, the injury she sustained (together with a backlash of quickly interrupted [Bloodrage]) making her black out.
Tokage, however, did. And she did her best to wade through this mess to get to Uraraka and to check on her. But it was easier said than done.
She almost got to Uraraka when she suddenly found herself facing one of the Rose Guard soldiers.
And four beastkin that were busy tearing off her armor.
Oh for fuck sake, really?!
Like, I get it that it’s a thing, and I can’t expect a barbarian tribe to have the same morals about it as us, but c’mon
… yeah.
Setsuna Tokage completely freezes for about three seconds. She was a hero trainee, yes, and she knew how she should have reacted, but… if she tried to stop it, they could as well just beat her up, she had little hopes of winning 4-on-1.
Should she just go around them instead or…
She is saved from having to make any decisions by a veteran beastkin warrior appearing out of nowhere and starting to hit the beastkin involved in the situation with the blunt side of his sword while yelling at them to stop wasting time because they have to capture or kill as many of the enemies before they can retreat to the mines.
Which wasn’t exactly the best reason and way to stop an attempted gangrape, but at this point in time and space, Tokage would take it. And be extremely grateful for it.
The fact that the captured soldier looked disappointed by the intervention has only made it worse by adding an element of morbid hilarity to what should have logically been a depressive and shocking moment.
She quickly sneaks by the whole scene, glancing at it one last time to see the veteran ordering one of the injured warriors to tie the captive and lead her back to the camp before running after fleeing enemies.
“Urgh, sometimes I fucking hate this world.” She says to herself, only Izuku and Tomura hearing her.
Reasonable.
Yeah
She makes it to Uraraka, checks up on her and then decides to quickly carry her unconscious body away from the battlefield. It was enough fun for them for the day.
***
While the rout started from the Ecstasy infantry on their side of the river, it quickly spread. The skirmishers fighting beside them were the first to go, the ghouls and sword dancers that managed to survive until now quickly realizing that if they stay around, they’re gonna get surrounded.
Izuku could imagine sword dancers being interested in going through the experience of being completely encircled by their enemies, if not for the cynocephalii. Who would just straight up tore them to shreds. And even then, some of them were clearly into that.
Even thinking about it made Izuku desire a quick shower.
With the enemies on their side of the river going into full rout, the Ecstasy soldiers on the other side were faced with the prospect of being flanked. Or, worse, of the enemies pursuing their fleeing allies all the way to the mines, and thus cutting them off from it completely.
So, they’ve tried to retreat. And there is no maneuver more dangerous in battle than an organized retreat.
With the beastkin breathing down their necks, the retreat quickly began to turn into a full rout. Ecstasy needed a true miracle to turn it around. And they received none.
The battle ended with the beastkin’s full victory. It was rather bloody, with between fifty and one hundred of their warriors dying and one to two hundred receiving various non-life threatening injuries.
As for Ecstasy, no one managed to count their full numbers. However, the final tally of the daemon bodies carried into the Dungeon (took them a few days to get that done) included 227 Rose Guard soldiers, 6 Rose Knights, 16 Rapturous Brutes, 35 Sword Dancers, 23 Frenzied Bloodletters, 96 Gore Munchers, 20 Languid Ironclads, 8 Moraverian Alchemists and 45 Ghouls.
If you added the ones that got captured alive by the beastkin, you were going to reach about 600 total casualties. Out of about 700 that the Ecstasy was starting the battle with.
The Ecstasy has lost the battle hard, their prospects of managing to hold the mines not looking great.
Izuku, however, didn’t really think about any of the implications of the battle. As Ochako regained consciousness soon after returning to the Dungeon, and it didn’t take a lot of time for Himiko to show up too.
***
“Izuku, be honest with me.” Uraraka says, Izuku opening his eyes just to look at her face. “Am I a weirdo? Am I going native a bit too much?”
“Weirdo?” Izuku replies confusedly. “Why would you be a weirdo?” He just doesn’t get what brought the question.
“Well, I came back from spilling a lot of blood on the battlefield and immediately dragged you to bed.” Uraraka replies. “I’m not sure if that doesn’t make me a weirdo. Or, even worse, a bad person.”
They were in their bed, naked, Uraraka partially wrapped around Izuku. When she raised herself up a little to be able to look at him properly to have that talk, she exposed enough of her body for Izuku’s face to start changing color as his eyes tried to stick to her face.
Fun. She loved teasing him a little bit in private, his reactions were just so… genuine. It was just nice to see how attractive she was to him.
“Well, were you in the mood for… errr, t-this because of spilling blood?” Izuku asks. Uraraka does a quick soul searching and shakes her head. “Then I think that it’s fine. You’re just riding down an adrenaline high. In a way that’s p-p-p-pretty n-normal, for a-a-as long as you d-don’t g-get too f-far.”
He stutters badly by the end, because Himiko took that moment to raise herself up a bit - as she was lying at his other side the whole time - before reaching over to Ochako and giving her a kiss.
Right in front of Izuku.
He still has no idea how to process all the mixed signals that his body is giving him when it happens.
“Don’t be a dummy, Ochako-chan!” Toga lets out as the kiss ends. “If you like it that way, what’s the problem? It’s not like anyone’s hurt or anything, right?” She still wasn’t super sold on the concept of ‘hurt bad’, but her two cuties were, and so she decided to make some concessions. “So if you want to top a day of fighting and making other people bleed with some hot bedroom action, just do it!”
Uraraka glances at Izuku (who is completely out of it due to what he just got to see) before sighing loudly.
“If you two are planning to be my shoulder angel and devil, I should be lying in the middle.” She replies while shaking her head a little. Then she returns to lying down, wrapped around Izuku who, ever since her love confession, has become her favorite body-pillow.
So warm and comfy.
Himiko is getting pretty close to matching him on that field.
“I actually feel k-kind of bad about not b-being there.” Izuku suddenly says, drawing Uraraka’s attention and making her open her eyes. “I saw you f-fight through your e-eyes, and you were super cool, but you’ve also gotten i-injured and…”
“Izuku, don’t.” She says as authoritatively as she can, making him immediately stop speaking and look at her in shock. “There was no risk of us dying.”
“You were pretty badly injured.” Izuku counters. “Himiko almost died a few times as well, and while I know that it wouldn’t be permanent, I still…”
Uraraka gently but firmly puts a finger on his lips, making him stop.
“Izuku, when you saw me injured and pinned down, you leapt at a giant robot and blew it to shreds, without a single conscious thought.” She says. “At the USJ it was your idea that saved Tsuchan and Mineta-kun from the villain. Then, when Aizawa-sensei narrowly saved Tsuchan from almost being turned to dust by Shigaraki, you didn’t waste a second before trying to punch him away, despite knowing that it would leave you crippled and surrounded by villains. And then you almost broke yourself, once more leaping into the fray when All Might was about to be killed by Shigaraki and Kurogiri.”
“Well, I had to do that, because he…” Izuku tries to speak, taking advantage of Uraraka’s finger briefly pulling up, but she once again presses it down, silencing him.
“You then broke your own body, multiple times, just to not only win your fights in the Sports Festival but also to help Todoroki-kun.” She continues on. “Then it’s the Training Camp, when you bravely fought Muscular, the meaner cousin of that daemon we saw today. Then Kamino. Then, you know, Overhaul, whom you battled against in what was the most epic hero versus villain fight I’ve ever seen or heard about.”
“S-so?” He asks, taking advantage of Uraraka inhaling.
“So, you have nothing to prove.” She informs him. “I know that when need be, you’re a total badass. And I know that you love me. You’re thus not only free to but also encouraged to just… take the backseat. Relax a little. Have some fun in your free time. Cheer at me as I improve my somewhat lackluster combat record from Earth and help me get as strong as I can possibly be. But do not feel bad about not joining me in a fight, alright? Keeping you safe is a part of my job, and the moment you actually get to fight someone, it’ll mean that I’ve failed.”
She doesn’t add it, but Izuku taking said backseat, and not relentlessly endangering his own life every twenty minutes or so, would also be a welcome change. She knows he’s brave and heroic, but c’mon. He was going too far way too often.
“A-alright.” Izuku stutters a little, before getting himself together. “I guess that makes sense. But I still think that it’d be awesome to be able to fight side by side with you, you know?”
It’s really hard to be stern with a person that you want to hug and kiss with all your heart. Alas, Uraraka perseveres.
“I know that it would be awesome.” Uraraka agrees with him. “But just because it doesn’t happen, don’t feel bad about it, okay? I don’t think that I’ll be able to truly enjoy fighting if I know that you’re feeling bad because of that.”
“Alright!” Izuku nods quickly a few times. “I’ll try. Still, you were awesome today! If you didn’t charge when you did, the beastkin might have suffered even more casualties! So, you saved a lot of people! Even if, well, I don’t really think that they’re particularly good people.”
“Yeah, I heard about it from Setsuna.” Uraraka sighs. “Let’s just… be happy that none of it is happening in the place where we’re the ones setting up rules. So, in the Dungeon. None of that ‘when in Rome, do what Romans do’ bullshit! We set up the rules in our house, and we’re going to make people pay for breaking them!”
“Alright.” Izuku nods quickly, looking surprisingly motivated before giving her a slightly mischievous smile. “I’m kind of looking forward to telling the captive daemons that they’re now in the timeout corner for their little parties.”
Ochako imagines telling an entire group of Rose Guard soldiers that sexual abstinence was now going to be a Dungeon-enforced policy, and they literally can’t have sex anymore because they literally can’t disobey a dungeon servant.
Oh, it was going to be sweet.
So, she grins back at him. And then, when she sees the almost heartstoppingly cute smile he gives her in return, she promptly kisses him.
Toga is briefly forgotten, but she doesn’t mind. While the two of them had their little talk, she was lying beside them, her head resting on Izuku’s arm, Himiko observing her two cuties being just… so sweet together that she could practically feel the diabetes and the tooth decay setting in.
She wanted to hug them, but she also didn’t want to interrupt their moment.
***
Maybe an hour later Izuku returns to the Core, leaving Ochako and Himiko to lounge in their bed a bit longer. In his opinion, they definitely earned it.
Did I miss anything?
Not really
The beastkin chased the Ecstasy leftovers back to the mines and escorted the captives back to their camp
They are now busy gathering up their dead while pillaging whatever they can from the battlefield
First corpses (mostly of Ecstasy demons) were already brought to the Dungeon and assimilated by me, Elder Anaya relayed to us through Compress that they’ll sort out their own dead and hand some of them to us
… why are you so helpful all of a sudden?
There’s no deeper reason to that
You figured out that if you’ll be so helpful I’ll be spending more time with Himiko and Ochako, meaning that you’ll be free from me more often?
… fuck you, Midoriya
Izuku was so satisfied with figuring out Shigaraki’s game plan that he failed to ask where Spinner was and what Compress was up to.
Just as Shigaraki hoped.