Code Vein Fanfic

I'd say that seeing the Dried Up trenches is much different from the one in the game and that it doesn't do it justice cuz real life is different yada yada or some other crap, but this damned place deserves no justice.

It Fuc*ing Sucks!

Literally! "Ugh!"

"Oh, God! The smell." Yami's face scrunched up once we got near our destination and Oliver visibly recoiled with a disgusted groan.

"How are you doing?" I labored a question through my involuntarily cramping face to check on Io who I saw halt for half a second.

Just thinking about how much of this sickening stench my mask is preventing from actually reaching my nose made me want to throw up.

"Not a problem." She assured me. Her expression was rather blank instead of her usually aloof demeanor.

"I would normally tell you to get used to it and just suck it up, but with Adam here, we can go back to the base as soon as we reach a mistle." Yakumo's relief quickly spread to the party. His and Louis' reactions to the putrid smell were almost nonexistent.

What kind of places did they go to for them to not even flinch at this hideous sight and reek of cadavers?

"You're welcome," I said once I received the puppy eye stares from the duo.

"And you better learn to be grateful, we won't be seeing these anytime soon in this area." Yakumo said after walking near the cliff that led to the dead red coral land and crouching down near Louis.

"The hinges won't be giving up on us for now. Seems good for use." The researcher finished inspecting the government issue ladder.

"If this place was more alive, I would've appreciated the change in scenery." I sighed, looking down the cliff with the city in ruins behind me.

Honestly, we've barely set foot in the place and I already hate it. No just the smell, but the feeling of it.

The city in ruins at least looked like humanity was doing the next to impossible just to remain head above water with their facilities and the general image of a tragedy unable to fully bring down humanity.

But… this is simply gut-wrenching.

The uneven land brought up by the thorns of judgment stretched on for miles as the little visible water was cut off since the red mist stopped anyone from leaving the city.

A great number of ships and other man-made structures hung from the spikes standing taller than anything that used to be present here, a reminder of a calamity still present. They indiscriminately stabbed anything that happened to be above them at the time.

And the sickening smell permeating the air wasn't just the result of the now red dead coral that had a myriad of colors once, it was also a result of the thousands of corpses from the aquatic life and passengers in the ships decaying on it for years after the spikes surged from the earth.

Their remains are still here… people just died here, away from anyone who could offer them a proper burial.

Just… there… laying there in a place they thought they knew suddenly being turned over, on the drying coral that desperately tried to survive as much as they did. Everyone fruitlessly struggled as little to no help could be given to most people who found themselves in the city, much less to those who found themselves in a new dying ecosystem seconds after the great collapse.

This was just the smell of death and decay.

"Adam." Io gently squeezed my hand, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Getting out of the comfort zone is what matters most if we are talking about growth. Let's go." Yakumo and Louis waited at the ladder as the latter held it in place just for extra safety.

Right, no time to mourn for anyone now. I have to continue with my mission, then I can be sad all I want.

Wait, Yami would usually go first as he can sense enemies in the area… but I have his Blood Code too now.

Ichos. That is what Ren called it as Yami had no idea what to name it.

Yami's head snapped in my direction just as mine did toward him.

""Not goin' in first!""

""Rock, Paper, Scissors?!""

""Alright then!""

But you know what, being with this company makes this place suck a little less.

"Suck it hahahaha!" Yami relished his win as I walked to the ladder.

Never mind, it still sucks.

Having these special eyes and his Blood Code, one would figure that I would've won. But it turns out that my Ichos Blood Code is not as polished and my eyes can't make up for it in this situation.

Maybe, if he wasn't wearing gloves I could have seen the skin, tendons, and muscle contraction patterns to predict his move but this wasn't the case.

"Let's get to it then." I took a deep breath… bad f#cking idea!

"Ugh. let's just go down." I shook the dizziness that the smell induced and began my descent, Io followed me right after… and I'm suddenly not in a bad mood.

Anyway, after getting a nice view on my way down, I finally set foot down on the dead coral and immediately used Ichos to check my surroundings, which caused a secondary effect in my chest. A feeling of an indistinct lump telling me that all of my previous blood codes will be temporarily off the menu.

My already keen sense of awareness became increasingly sharper. The ichor in my body activated into a gift that spread all over my being and caught any vibration in the air. A seamless transition from a liquid in my veins to an external sensation that spread around me, my very being the catalyst of such a miracle.

"Let's see!" The sound of my voice immediately spread sound waves around me, just like how a sonar uses a wave pulse. The other small sounds that my body naturally produced did help just as well, making the small vicinity around me just a bit clearer.

Ichos is one of the gifts that I've had the hardest time getting used to as I can't simply just get accustomed to the sound of my blood running through my system every time I use it. But Yami has helped me adjust to such a big shift in my awareness slowly with each use.

Even slight changes as my chest's simple movements as I breathed through my mask made small ripples that spread further, smashing against my surroundings, helped and further detailed the terrain around me.

I could also tell that there was another sonar just like me, that person is obviously Yami from above. Good thing that he has better control so our senses don't end up clashing with each other accidentally.

I felt the small tides of water clash against each other between the fissures in the land, I sensed the salty wind of the dark sea smashing against the many contours of the lifeless coral. Oddly shaped due to the passage of time and bad weather. A few other structures whose density didn't match the coral, perhaps metal due to their quick transmission of my waves.

Others were a bit more hollow. They could be bones…

Io's weird, indiscernible presence suddenly became much clearer as she stood in front of my kneeling body. Guarding me from any harm. She stood with an impeccable stance and a vigilant gaze as her sole focus became my well-being.

It didn't even take longer than two seconds before I made an accurate image of our terrain.

"Two o' clock, behind the middle pillar. Shoot." I informed Io, who immediately leveled her bayonet, shot toward the coral structure to my right with a bone-chilling lack of hesitation, and gunned down the lost once its cover was destroyed.

Dang, didn't have time to fu#k around and just found out.

It's great to have her full trust from the start so we don't have much to work on teamwork.

Absolutely murking anyone on command is a skill I never thought I would value this much in a partner.

Alas, this world seems to change people.

"I'm glad there aren't many to welcome us." Oliver arrived shortly after, followed by Louis, Yami, and Yakumo in that order.

"The soldiers and thralls will thin down the further we go," Louis moved forward and looked at the numerous hills and splits in the dead land before picking a direction, "but that is when we will see Coral Demons."

Since this place was just a port, having only had fishing ships and few for cargo, this place hasn't been used much as a base not only for the smell but also because of the unstable terrain.

The few soldiers and thralls that we will encounter are just stubborn or unlucky people who thought that anything of value was here. Not that they were wrong since there is a blood spring, but the danger around it wasn't really worth it without an idea of where to go.

"When will we encounter these monsters, though? After the first mistle?" Yami questions from the back as we get into formation.

Yakumo answers beside him, "They do wander a lot in the center of the trenches, but we will meet some before the first mistle."

And he was right. This place was rather deserted and lacking in anything but corpses… Lost, be it thralls or those animal experiments, weren't as abundant as one would've thought.

The further we advanced, the less we saw of our enemies. I would usually welcome such a scenario, but the feeling of anxiety within my gut was becoming heavier by the second nonetheless. I would like to think of it as paranoia, but I knew better than to not be alert in this place.

And that clearly reflects on the group as well. There was no witty commentary. Yami and I were completely on guard, and the usually tall and confident Yakumo was taking it slow with very little advice given, only the ones needed to deal with the terrain.

You know, I thought I knew what an apocalypse was when I saw the city before… but this place made it crystal clear how wrong I was.

It wasn't about some monster being on some shady corner waiting for the moment to scare you.

Truthfully, the lost became more of a comfort to my mind that there is something to fight and stop seeing the remains of people clearly left and right. While I once stood on the structures of a falling civilization, now I was standing on their corpses.

Maybe, because he could even see it all in much better detail, Yami found himself simply looking on forward accompanied by a solemn expression.

I began to understand how wrong I was to be afraid of a monster rather than the lack of one. The results of not fighting a monster that filled you with fear were more horrifying…

And, thinking about it, the people in this city are basically unaware of the outside. I know that there is hope and can just move on, but to them, it isn't as such. Honestly, the idea that there might be nothing there to fight for… I respect them for still picking up a sword.

We all carefully headed forth to our destination. It was climbing coral that resembled hills or made our way around its steps to walk through tunnels once used by fishes as their homes.

Aside from those detours, climbing and jumping was a good way to describe our journey up until now. Ships and thorns weren't, in fact, as much of an obstacle. It was the other way around, the dried coral that had decayed and fallen apart was.

I get why Yakumo said that this was my test run. He and Louis already knew the path yet I took the front following their directions. This place wasn't made of solid concrete or metal forged by humans to sustain tons of weight. It was the carcass that was once a living ecosystem fed and molded by sea life.

By using my Ichos, I had to diagnose every ledge and platform to be fit for traversal. Hundreds of pounds of equipment being supported on my two legs required me to be careful of my every step in the decaying environment.

Yami, as he has better expertise over his own blood code, warned me of obstacles I had difficulty measuring the solidity of.

Although I couldn't just ignore how horrible this place was due to my hightened awareness, I had people with me to keep my head in place.

I was here to improve my Blood Codes usage as I've finally acquired the ones to fit my basic needs. Close and long-range combat, maneuverability, and scouting.

Although the ones I've been working on since I came here were those last two, since conflict is needed for the first one… and that changed soon.

Sooner than I thought!

"What the actuall- UGh!" A horrifying maw with rows of teeth attempted to bite my face off.

Sparks flashed as the serrated teeth grinded against the handle of my halberd like a chainsaw attempting to cut everything in its way, a set of sunken red eyes staring right into mine.

Coral Devils are the new enemy we would be fighting the most in this new place. These humanoid monsters standing above two meters seem to have mutated in a way to live underwater and their serrated shark-like teeth were some solid evidence that they are predators in the sea.

They had some webbing between their fingers and some sharp claws which helped them navigate the dark waters. Not to mention their flexible armor that apparently consists of some kind of coral plus the seaweed they seem to use as camouflage.

Seeing that the coral monster was about to use its claws to open my stomach once it stopped munching my weapon like a dog, I sent vibrations to my halberd caught between its teeth to loosen the grip and jump back while pulling it, slicing its jaw muscles in the process.

"GRdheuj…." It gave me an incomprehensible growl as when its claws only slashed the air. Its jaw was hanging on a small muscle string attached to the side of its face. Giving me a beautiful view into its mouth that I hope I can forget before going to sleep.

Io came to the rescue by gunning down my opponent, turning one of its legs into mush and it just tanked the other bullets by curling into a ball.

Even then, the crimson-looking devil fell on its two hands and dug the remaining leg into the dead coral before kicking with all of its strength, falling back into the dark sea it leaped from before ambushing me.

The few bullets that Io lodged into the lost as it attempted to escape didn't seem to do as much as ticklet. Even with its guts spilling out, it went on its merry way.

"Seriously, so annoying." I groaned as I used Ichos and could see how it went deeper and deeper before finally disappearing from my senses. I could sense that there was utter chaos deep into the water… the fact that there is an extensive amount of sea creatures with a BOR parasite having their own food chain down there is something I would like to think of later. I had enough nightmare fuel with the red devils.

These lost have quite bizarre behavior compared to the ones on land. Something that screamed 'Juzo Mido was here' to me and I don't like it. They didn't look like soldiers at all. They didn't have blood veils or revenant weapons, well, some of them do but they are rare, and they have no masks to cover their ugly faces.

Their head is exposed so one can see their fish-like teeth and their skeletal face that resembles an oni of Japanese folklore. The coral armor around them can not only protect them but also grow horns or even weapons which they can just jank out of their skeletal cortex and swing around.

Weirdly enough, the red devils have some weird luminescent veins running through their armor, making them a bit odder than the rest of the monsters I've seen. Maybe a feature needed to hunt in the abyss like the water below the ground where my feet stand.

And worst of all, despite standing taller than anyone in the party and being faster and stronger than normal lost, they also have the brain to act as hunters. We haven't had a single direct confrontation since we encountered them.

It has been ambush after ambush.

The reason we haven't lost the battle of attrition is that they need overwhelming firepower before making a dent in our team's structure. We have the luxury of just plowing through this place's challenges because of the mistle that can send us back to the home base. So there is no need to sneak around as much as Yakumo and Louis did in their last expedition to this place.

Plus, as much as it is mentally taxing to be on guard every waking second we are in this place, we can make rotations, just like now.

"Don't let the waves disperse after the first attack," Yami commented as we changed stations and I began to take the tank role, " don't just let them concentrate at one end, let them flow in the weapon, not just shoot them through it."

I nodded, "Easier said than done when they aren't your natural counter, they seem to be able to minimize damage from my Ichos." They appear to have some kind of resistance to waves. Yami doesn't have much trouble as his control is already superb, so the only thing that hinders him is that he consumes more ichor than usual.

This is the most I've seen him consuming ichor cartridges and absorbing blood with his veil.

"Well, you are here to improve, aren't you?" He smiled back as we set into our new formation after he has replenished his ichor. "The best way to improve is to do so at the expense of almost having your face chomped off. It will make you advance leaps and bounds!"

"Any motivation is good as long as it keeps you focused." Yakumo agreed with a nod as he approved of my posture once I began using my strengthening blood codes.

I sighed and we adventured forth. After the encounters we have gone through, the words 'this your test run' really began to sink in as Yakumo wouldn't let me forget it.

Given that I had the gifts to cover all the basic bases, Yakumo hasn't wasted a single second when it comes to teaching me everything he knows about combat. Be it advice when he is in the back or pretty much showing me how to properly swing a heavy weapon when he takes the front.

I have become a damage dealer using only Ichos with the advice of Yami, used Yakumo and Oliver's blood codes to take the role of the tank as the former wouldn't let me take a step without the proper posture, and used Yami's blood code again as a support, though with less stabbing involved.

The constant ambushes, enemies resistant to most attacks, and unsteady terrain that requires your sole focus to not end up in their territory wasn't pleasant, but my one complaint and rapid growth said to Yakumo that I wasn't being pushed enough. Seriously…

Ichos can be divided into reconnaissance and into offense in my early expertise. And they are already hard enough to handle.

Then there are Atlas and Berserk blood codes belonging to Yakumo and Oliver… they are easy to use, but for Yakumo who has been on the battlefield since he was a wee lad, a less-than-perfect posture to him is downright atrocious.

"Huff, let's keep going!"

"Not with that stance!"

"Goddam-"

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Word Count: 3,358

To be honest, once you think about it, this place is quite a nightmare.