AN. Enjoy.

Standing alone in the ash covered Kiln of the first flame, the Chosen Undead stood tall with his head held high, an indirect finger to all the wretched abominations who had slain him countless times. The Knight donned the fully reinforced armor of the late Knight Artorias, not because it looked badass, but because it had ridiculously high fire defense and his final opponent didn't have the title Lord of Cinder by chance. From a different perspective, one could assume the figure to be the legendary Abysswalker himself, what with the Abyss Greatsword and the Greatshield of Artorias he held. But the truth was always a bitter pill to swallow. Knight Artorias was dead and gone, slain by the very man who now wields his weapons and armor. And now, that very man had slain his King as well. Lord Gwyn was no more.

Contrary to what most would say about the Knight's conquest over the land of the Lords, he felt honored to end the once great Lord's miserable existence. But now he had a new dilemma. To link the fire, or to let it wither away? Linking the flame, at the cost of his life, would prolong the Age of the Gods and end the curse of the Undead, effectively ending everyone's suffering as well. Ignoring it would mean embracing the dark, and ushering a new age, the Age of Dark or what could simply be called, the Age of Man, where he would rule as the Dark Lord.

The Knight had faced countless challenges to get there. He had endured immense pain. He had seen despair, and he had moved on. He had made several friends in his pilgrimage as well. It eased his burdens even by a little. Some of whom were very friendly and he got along well with them, whereas some were just there to back stab him when he least expected them to. In the end, they had all gone hollow.

So, who exactly would he sacrifice his life for? Who was left besides himself? Why should he burn in anguish for the sake of everyone else? Become the nameless hero everyone expects him to be? Why should he become the hapless fuel to the fire which would inevitably fade away? After all, in the end, fire will fade, and only dark will remain.

This was what he told himself. But really, he just like the prospect of having a cool title like the 'Dark Lord' and finally get rid of the over exaggerated 'Chosen Undead'. So, with an apologetic expression, hidden by his helm, the Dark Lord left the last of the dying ember behind his back.

However, what greeted him at the Firelink Altar wasn't the grotesque faces of the Primordial Serpents. In fact, there wasn't even anyone there at all. He turned around to inspect the Lordvessel, and mentally groaned at his bitter luck. Of course it wasn't working anymore.

For a moment there, the Knight contemplated on his future. The idiot of a Dark Lord, forever stuck in the Firelink Altar with a 'Are you fucking kidding me?' look on his face. Ruthlessly, he squashed that pathetic thought down. There was always a way. Always a challenge which took a ludicrously high amount of effort for a pitifully low amount of reward. Nevertheless, there was always a path, just waiting to be found. And if there was no path in life, then there was always a path in death.

He jumped. Jumped into the deep chasm one would call Abyss. Welcoming death as he had done so many times before. Hoping to see the familiar light of the bonfire at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, there were no light this time, only darkness.

The Chosen Undead woke up. Woke up in an alley of all places. The lack of bonfire made him wary but it was nothing he couldn't handle. For a second he stopped to analyze himself. No major injuries, no death in sight, no nothing. Satisfied, he looked around. The dim light of the dawn was restricting his vision, and he suspected himself to be somewhere in the Undead Burg. How he got there was anyone's guess. Sighing to himself, he attempted to equip the Necromancer's Skull Lantern in his dominant hand. Only, it didn't work at all. Frustrated, he tried to remove his helm, which also bore minimum results. Five minutes of patience was all he had, and he ultimately resigned himself to remove it the traditional way, by using his hands. Now helmless, he observed his surroundings. His sword and shield was sprawled on the ground. Picking them up, he tried to unequip the heavy tools of war, which didn't work in the slightest. What in the world was going on? Why couldn't he change his equipment like he normally did? Was this some kind of new system in the Age of Dark?

A cold fear gripped him and he was suddenly glad he was wearing the Havel's ring with the Chloranthy ring, along with the Abysswalker's armor. The first would lessen the burden of the weighty weapons and the second would considerably increase his stamina recovery rate. On hand he had 10 soft humanities, 14 sips of Estus, 47 humanity sprites just in case he ran out of Estus, 8 Green Blossoms, 5 Charcoal-pine resin, and finally, 18 Homeward Bones. He audibly groaned. Why in the world didn't he just use the Homeward Bone in the first place? Things could have been so much easier then.

Pocketing the pile of white bones in his pouch for future use, he put on his helm as the light was slowly getting brighter, hefted his giant sword and shield and walked out of the alley. He couldn't use his other weapons, he couldn't change his equipment, and he couldn't even switch to his secondary weapons. But he was a master at improvising and adapting.

That was what he told himself. But really, the sight of unfamiliar surrounding full of live humans made him scared out of his wits. This wasn't the Undead Burg, the architecture were too unfamiliar. He could see a handful of perfectly normal humans walking about, all of them giving him odd looks and none of which had any sort of armor on. Some were even inside bright looking wheeled contraptions, which were moving on their own. Where in Lordran did he land himself this time?

Then he remembered the decision he made. This was without a doubt the Age of Man, humans so nonchalantly going about without any sort of weapons and armor being evidence to the contrary. No more self-righteous Gods, no more unspeakable abominations, no more living in constant fear. This was the fruit of his labor. The ultimate reward for all the despair inducing hardships he had faced. All the deaths he had had to endure, which ranged from heroic to downright pathetic. He was finally at peace.

With a full mentality of an inexperienced Deprived finally managing to kill the Asylum Demon, he basked in the warm embrace of his accomplishment, giving an all too popular 'Praise the Sun' gesture to everyone in the immediate vicinity. Right until someone eventually called out to him.

"Excuse me Sir," a middle aged man wearing a dark blue tunic of some sort, with black leggings and a hat called out. He looked intimidated by the delighted undead's visage, nevertheless the man asked.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm the Dark Lord," the Chosen Undead announced in glee.

The scared look on the man vanished and morphed into one of exasperation. With a sigh, he pulled out a small black box from the sash of his leggings and pressed a button before speaking. "Yep, we've got a cosplayer here."

"Sir, I'm going to have to confiscate those." the man gestured at his weapons.

In the past the Knight wouldn't even consider the thought of relinquishing his weapons, no matter the cost. He felt practically naked without them. But now, all his brain registered were the fact that he was the Dark Lord and this all too suspicious looking man in front of him was his subject. So without hesitation, he offered the man his shield. The man held the shield, something even bigger than himself, and immediately dropped it. The shield clattered on the ground drawing everyone's attention.

"Dear God, what the hell is this thing made of?" the man bellowed, clearly astonished by the absurdly heavy shield, even more astonished at the person able to carry it with a single arm.

"The soul of Sif." the Knight in question happily supplied, to which the man introduced the palm of his hand to his face.

"All right, take the shield and come with me."

The man led him through many streets, all in while grumbling about how he wasn't getting paid enough for this job. All the Knight showed was a look of complete stoicism. But in truth, under his helm, he was smiling like a maniac. He was the Dark Lord now. He was being escorted to his throne. His subject tried to help lift his weapons and failed miserably, but it was the thought that counted. All his other subjects stopped their work to gaze at his magnificent self when he walked by. And some were even commenting on how cool he looked, or who he was cosplaying. He didn't know what the term cosplaying meant, but if he'd receive admiration for doing such, then yes he was cosplaying.

"Kazuma, what brings you here?" asked a feminine voice.

The Knight turned around to see a ginger haired woman, clad in some kind of clothing he had never seen before, greet who could only be known as his escort. The clothes she wore were a mix between a blouse, a skirt and some robes.

"Oh, Mrs. Miyamoto. I was just bringing this cosplayer here for some questioning. Just happen to be in the neighborhood," the man, now known as Kazuma replied. "Those weapons look real. So, you get the drift."

The woman, looked at the Knight with a narrowed gaze which turned into a smile, "Well, Mister Cosplayer. You sure are tall."

The Knight had been called many things. Fool, dammed and cursed were the less colorful ones of which, but never had he been called tall. He was always the short one in Lordran. Pitifully, even Rhea was the same height as himself. He looked at Kazuma to see where he stood and surprisingly so, he found himself a handful of inches taller than the man. But now, he had no idea what to say. The woman, Miyamoto had complimented him, something so unfamiliar to him that finding a reply was harder than killing the Taurus Demon.

"And you beautiful," he replied weakly eliciting a chuckle from the woman.

"Well, thank you. That's very kind of you, isn't it a little too early for cosplaying?"

Ah, yes. Those lovely and simple yes and no questions. Oh how he loved the simple mechanics behind them.

"No."

Miyamoto chuckled again, even Kazuma joined in. The Knight didn't know what was funny but he knew better than to question anyone's sense of humor. Some of the people he'd met on his journey just laughed for no reason whatsoever. Scratch that, all of the people he'd met on his journey laughed for no reason at all.

The laughter however, immediately died down when a loud explosion came from a distance. Both Miyamoto and Kazuma stood on attention and started running towards the source of the sound. The Knight, having nothing to do, followed suit. What he came to see wasn't something he'd ever like to witness. Hollows.

A small army of hollows were attacking his subjects. A small army of hollows who had practically no weapons and armor and were using bites of all things to attack. More surprising was the fact that they were succeeding. Some people were being hollow food, whereas some were running away. He was sorely disappointed on his subjects. Didn't fighting back ever crossed their minds? Miyamoto and Kazuma were out of sight, but there wasn't any problem with that. If he eliminated the problem then by proxy, they would be safe.

Breaking out in a sprint, the Knight two handed his sword for maximum damage output. When he was close enough, he rotated his entire body and lashed out his sword in a 360 degrees slash. The weapon that had faced and slain the Lords cut through the simple hollows like a hot knife through butter. One of them were getting too close, so he delivered a shield bash, which knocked it several feet away.

The mowing down of the hollows continued for several more minutes, and he'd discovered that a solid damage to the head was all it took for the hollows to stay dead. He also discovered that these hollows weren't giving him any souls. It was either that, or the amount they gave were too miniscule to ire his notice. In mere five minutes, the streets were full of corpses, the ones which didn't move of course. Even so, there was still no signs of the hollow army's stop. Realizing that he needed to retreat, lest he succumb to getting ganked. He ran away in the opposite direction. Just when he was about to turn a street, he heard a voice calling out for him.

"Mister Cosplayer, over here."

The Knight turned to the direction of the voice to see that it was Miyamoto, wielding a spear. She beckoned him to follow and entered a house. The Knight followed her, hoping for a bonfire to be inside. With his luck, he doubted there to be one.

Inside the house, there were several other people. Some were sobbing, whereas some were arguing about their situation. No one besides Miyamoto had even noticed him. Shouldn't they at least have a glimmer of hope at the sight of their Lord? The Dark Lord pondered on the best way to be a people person.

"Those who get bitten, turns into one of them," a young man shouted out and argued on about how they should be cautious. The others just agreed in a hopeless manner, their mind probably too stressed by the prospect of their neighbors trying to eat them.

The Knight for one, was in a world of his own. It wasn't the fact that his subjects were so pathetic that troubled him. No, the fact that he was their Lord and he had the responsibility of protecting and leading them that bothered him, for he had never lead anyone before, always being the lone wolf. How was he supposed to lead them when he didn't know right from left? Fortunately, Miyamoto was a natural born leader and took hold of the situation before it could escalate to a full blown panic.

"We need to barricade the doors and windows and make as little sound as possible. Their sight is horrible, but their sense of hearing is probably heightened to compensate for it."

Everyone listened to her like a herd of sheep and did as she instructed. The Knight realized that Miyamoto clearly knew what she was doing. He contemplated on making her the captain of his army once they were through with this situation. She was charismatic and wielded a spear, just like Ornstein. But 'Dragonslayer' clashed horribly with 'Miyamoto'. Perhaps he should make an exception.

Occupied by his thoughts, he didn't notice until the room was nearly vacant. Miyamoto being the only one besides himself, who was surprisingly giving him a proper bow.

"Thank you for your assistance", she said appreciably. "If you hadn't held them back on your own then we probably wouldn't have survived. May I have the name of our savior?"

The Knight could clearly see the look of hidden sadness in Miyamoto's eyes. The same look that Sieglinde possessed after she had had to put down her own father. Who knows how many of her friends and neighbors she had had to slay today, nevertheless she was putting up a brave front and he could do nothing but honor that, even though the a part of his mind was screaming bloody murder at her for not knowing him.

"I'm the Dark Lord."

For a second there Miyamoto stood in shellshock silence, then she burst out in laughter. She laughed so hard that the other denizens of their impromptu abode started to give her weird looks. Finally stopping after one of her neighbors scolded her to keep it down, she wiped a tear of mirth and looked a little livelier than before.

"Thanks Mr. Dark Lord. I really needed that"

The Knight had no clue of the origin of her amusement but decided not to ask, lest the jolly mood be dampened again. Which reminded him of someone.

"What of Kazuma?", he asked and Miyamoto visibly deflated on the spot. With a sad expression, she shook her head. He got the unspoken message. Kazuma wasn't the strongest, but he meant well. Trying to carry his weapons even when no one else thought of the notion. The Knight silently prayed for him.

"Rest up my Lord, you've already done enough for us", she added teasingly, trying to lighten up the mood again.

Of course, undead required no rest, no sleep, no food, no nothing. All they ever needed were those tiny lumps of black sprite called Humanity, otherwise also theorized to be the Dark Soul. However, since he was so complacent on the acknowledgement of his new title and distraught over the death of one of his loyal subjects, the Knight complied with Miyamoto's request and sat in an empty room reminiscing on his experiences, something he always did within the protective layer of safe haven called the bonfire.

The Knight didn't know how much time had passed as time was meaningless to an undead, but the sun was high in the sky when Miyamoto popped her head in the room.

"Oh, it's just you", she said and proceeded to sit beside him. The Knight noticed that she had a definite scowl on her face.

"Ugh, I don't know what to do. I'm worried about my daughter but I can't leave to go find her. These people will get themselves killed the very first moment I leave," she groaned in displeasure. "You know, mother's love."

No, in fact. If the Knight once knew of a mother, the memory of it was too far gone to even envision.

"Anyways, what's up with the weird armor? Where'd you get something so lifelike?"

"I purchased them from a peculiar man named Domhnall," the Knight answered with a smile, remembering the odd man's weird antics. "They were relatively costly, but well worth it"

Miyamoto sighed. "I guess anything is well worth it when the world is ending. Either way, we need to help each other and bunk down until help arrives."

The Knight took Miyamoto's words in high regards, but to bunk down till help arrives? He was getting edgy from the passive state he was in for the past few hours and the thought of waiting for help only heightened his claustrophobia. He wanted to get out of there, but responsibility to his subjects as the Dark Lord was tying him down. A responsibility he could not abandon unless-

"I'll find your daughter and bring her here."

It was ingenious. The responsibility over a single child weighed less over the responsibility over a large group of people and he could explore this new environment to its fullest too. His absence might be missed by his subjects, but Miyamoto was enigmatic enough to take care of that.

"Oh no, I can't let you go out there on your own," she said. "You don't have to do anything like that."

"You don't trust me?" the knight questioned, confused on why she would bring up a task and quickly abandon it.

"No," she protested. "You were about to sacrifice yourself to save us all. You have my trust. It's just that Rei is my daughter. I can't put anyone else's life in danger when she's my responsibility."

The Knight deemed it unnecessary to mention that he was slaughtering all those hollows just for the heck of it. But he was genuinely taken aback by her response. Everyone who was anyone only deemed it necessary to speak to him to further their own goals, even the ones he considered friends, excluding Solaire of course. Yet Miyamoto was denying his services even though it was so blatantly available. His respect for the spear wielder rose yet again.

"It is my own decision to go," the Knight proclaimed, standing up to his full height, effectively leaving no room for any arguments.

Miyamoto pouted, a facial feature that was too foreign for him to understand, "Now you're just trying to act cool. All right, if you really want to go then take these."

She presented a small lifelike portrait of a girl with features similar to Miyamoto, in a white blouse and a green skirt short enough to be considered non-existent. She also had black leggings which stopped in the middle of her thighs and her hair was done up in a half ponytail. Whoever painted the thing deserved an award. But in his thoughts, the respectable Miyamoto's daughter looked like a-

"This is her picture. She's on the other side of the river, in her school," she unrolled a large sheet of paper which revealed to be a map and pointed at a spot. "Here, that's where she is"

The Knight was gaping, under his helm so it went unnoticed. Not at the lack of modesty of Miyamoto's daughter, but at the sight of the map. A map, something so simple yet so useful, in his journey at least. Oh, how some simple scribbles on a piece of paper could have saved him from a lot of extremely painful deaths. But now that he had one, a part of himself felt like he was cheating, but it was brutally decapitated by his self-preservation instincts. So joyful was he in the prospect of having a map that he accidentally missed out on everything Miyamoto had to say. Probably something important, but he had a map, something even better than the Master Key. Any advice she had to say fell short compared to that.

"Hey," she called out to get his attention. "Thank you for doing this. It means a lot to me."

The Knight just bowed at her and left on his way, giddily clutching the map. It was only when he was out of sight that she realized that she didn't even know his name. In her haste to reach her daughter, she had all but sent a stranger to find her. Hopefully her antagonistic daughter would peacefully comply.

The Knight slowly made his way towards the direction Miyamoto had pointed in hopes of finding a river. Two hours of searching later, he found the river, but crossing the river was still evident. He had noticed that there were a considerably low number of hollows in the area, this could partly be because of the fact that they were all attracted to sound, and there was a loud sound of someone's voice coming from upriver.

"Please stay calm, the police have it under control," the voice said.

Regardless of his better judgement, the Knight decided to check it out. Cutting down any hollow who came in his way, he was finally able to see a giant bridge, and a large amount of people gathered at his side of the bridge. The voice, he noticed, was also coming from the large gathering of people. He assumed them to be some sort of army to combat the hollows. So with his head held high, the Dark Lord walk through the crowd, earning a myriad of expressions from his subjects. All ranging from shocked to downright terrified. One man was pointing what looked like a large rectangular rod at him. A woman was accompanying the man. She looked scared as well, nevertheless she gulped down her fears and confronted him.

"Sir, what are your thoughts on this pandemic infection? And what do you think of the blockade?" she said on a small spherical ball supported by a rod and pointed it at him.

The Knight had a general idea of what was causing all this pandemonium. Why the hollows were preying on the humans, how hollows suddenly had the power of the dark hand, and how a human free of humanity turned hollow instantly but he didn't say any of these. He would have simply ignored the woman entirely, but sighting the fear etched on everyone's eyes, which obviously did not in any way made him smile like a lunatic, he had to commend her for her bravery. The woman had asked about his thoughts on the matter, so he truthfully answered.

"I don't care."

The woman, and most of the people who got attracted by the strange armor all gawked in disbelief. The Knight however, was done with the questioning. Without warning, he started heading towards the bridge, for he had nothing more to say. Crying about his problems never helped him and it was always better to just ignore the complicated 'hows' and 'whys'. Sure, he had a Great Lightning Spear with Kaathe's name written on it but it wouldn't be prudent to tell the whole world about his desire to electrocute the toothy serpent.

The base of the bridge was covered with a large number of people, all shouting and protesting for the bridge to be opened. They all inadvertently shut up and parted ways when they saw the Knight's intimidating visage. Further in, it became apparent that people were getting treated for injuries and such by healers. The Knight would loved to have used his miracles for their sake, but alas, he didn't have any talisman as a catalyst.

"You, the guy in the armor. Stop right there," a young man, garbed in the same clothes as Kazuma shouted.

The Knight ignored him. He didn't want to be reminded of Kazuma's fate but as he reached the bridge, he noticed that a lot of people had the same clothing as Kazuma. Perhaps he was part of a covenant. The Police covenant by the sound of things.

"Sir, we cannot let you pass," an old looking man, who looked to be the leader of the covenant stopped him. "It's too dangerous on the other side."

"Miyamoto sent me", the Knight said. It was always better to handle matters peacefully if possible and the widening of the old man's eyes said that his decision was right.

"Let him pass," he ordered at the protest of his men. "Detective Miyamoto sent him. It must be something important."

"It is," the Knight agreed, yet again applauding his future Captain. It was a miracle for him to not know of her if she was this popular. He should really talk more rather than giving simple 'yes' and 'no' replies.

The blue clad members of the covenant reluctantly let him pass and he walked over to the other side of the bridge, all in while cutting down any hollow who got attracted to the clanking sounds his armor made.

The hollows were pathetically weak, and he didn't understand how anyone could be defeated by them, but his ease in mowing them down may attribute to his weapons and armor, or the fact that he was the Dark Lord. Yet he knew a disadvantage when he saw one. It was getting dark and he had no means to navigate in the dark. In point of fact, he couldn't even navigate in the light, the map being too foreign to understand. He should have listened to Miyamoto after all. Fortunately, there was some voices coming from a big wheeled contraption, and they didn't sound hollow.

The large white contraption had several humans inside who were indulged in numerous acts of debauchery while a man was giving some speech about new world and angels. The Knight didn't judge them, he too had done some questionable things to survive. Namely, wearing Quelaana's unbelievably poison resistant dress to traverse through Blighttown and the shear humiliation of running into Shiva on the way. He didn't want to disturb them, but he had little time on his hands. Sheathing his sword and shield on his back to look as nonthreatening as possible, the Knight lightly knocked on one of the glass planes. Immediately, everyone in the contraption ceased their activities. The man who was previously giving a speech did something with the contraption and the door leading inside opened.

"Welcome," the same man greeted him. He tried to give a welcoming smile, but failed horribly. He looked terrified to say the least. "Welcome to our sanctuary."

The Knight nodded and entered. The first thing he noticed were the clothing of the fairer sex in the group. They were the same as Rei's. Regrettably, he didn't get the chance to applaud his good fortune.

"My name is Shido," the man introduced himself. "As you can see, I've established this sanctuary to ensure that we, the chosen ones, live past this righteous purge of human kind unscathed, so that the future of humanity stay intact and unblemished."

The Knight stayed silent, but he did not like this at all. To begin with, he was the one who had established this sanctuary, not this rip-off, though the indication if Shido was talking about the Age of Dark or simply the group intercourse eluded him. Either way, he did not like it one bit. Moreover, even though he liked his new title as the 'Dark Lord', he was in no hurry of abandoning his former title as the 'Chosen Undead'. And there can only be a single chosen one, and it certainly wasn't this Shido guy.

Simply speaking, this was Trusty Patches all over again, and he knew from sour experience that he should never trust a guy who calls himself trusty.

A girl having the same sort of attire as Rei but lacking the unusual leggings came up to him and winked flirtatiously. The Knight turned his head towards the girl, who can only be described as a beauty, but hidden by his helm, his eyes never left Shido. Like he expected, the outlandish man gave a wide mirth and there was only one thing left to confirm his suspicions.

"What does Shido imply?" the Knight asked.

The man in question looked surprised at the completely irrelevant question, but answered nonetheless. "The significance of the name Shido is rather simple. A man with the heart of a lion."

Any notion of receiving the Knight's trust flew out the door and the next thing the lion hearted man heard was the sound of a gauntlet clad fist impacting his face.

"Shido-sensei," the occupants of the contraption shrieked and one unnaturally blond male tried to tackle the Knight.

A simple kick later, the blond boy was sent flying. No one else tried to stop him. The Knight grabbed the provocative girl by her arm and dragged her outside.

"Yuuki," the occupants of the contraption shouted, but the Knight didn't stop, not by his own will, or by someone else's as no one dared to challenge him.

Dark Lord he may be, but even he had an indescribable urge to impale potential back stabbers. The only reason Shido was spared was because he was taking something or rather, someone as compensation. For all he knew, he was doing the girl a favor.

The girl known as Yuuki was hesitant at first, but quickly changed her mind when they started to see an abundant amount of hollows, most of which were now headless. She silently followed him wherever he went. But the real problem was slowly approaching as the manifestation of utter darkness, and since he didn't have any Skull Lanterns or Sunlight Maggots on him, he had to find shelter for the night.

And shelter he did find, in the form of a rather nicely fenced house. The fences were high enough to make it difficult for even Silver Knights to climb through and sturdy enough to probably survive a Capra Demon's onslaught. Unfortunately it was locked. But coincidentally, Yuuki happen to have the Master Key, in the form of a hair pin.

The Knight checked all the rooms, which had nothing living nor dead within them. He beckoned the girl inside and nearly jumped in terror when the room suddenly brightened considerably. A quick observation exposed an almost hidden contraption in the room which adjusted light. It was Yuuki who found the mechanism, but strangely so, she was not in the slightest gloating about it. The thought that she wasn't doing a victory dance for finding a hidden mechanism made him appreciate her more, effectively reminding the Dark Lord on how pathetic he used to be.

Laying his weapons beside him, the Knight sat down on a rather comfy looking red chair which could also double as a bed. After two minutes of sitting, the Dark Lord conclusively affirmed it to be his future throne as it was the most comfortable chair he had ever had the pleasure to sit on.

"So, you want to do it on the couch", a sultry voice echoed from his back. The Knight never liked anyone behind his back, but stayed his hand, for he knew it was Yuuki. He turned around to see one inordinately erotic Yuuki, with nothing covering her body while generously giving a rather seductive pose that he had only envisioned in his fantasies when he was being engrossed by Gwynevere's portrait, and then the Silver Knight hiding in the corner had to come and backstab him.

This time there was no Silver Knight, this time it wasn't his fantasy either. Eyes glued to the beauty before him, the Dark Lord managed to blurt out, "What are you doing?"

"What do you think?" she purred like a cat.

The Knight knew full well what she was doing and the ever opportunists Chosen Undead part of him was urging him to plunge attack the Gaping Dragon. However, now that he had another title under his belt, one which was on par with the Lords, he had responsibilities, obligations, commitments. And most importantly, his knight honor. Well, what was left of it after a few rounds with the Asylum Demon evidently.

The lack of answer was making Yuuki angry, the pose she was giving really did look hard to maintain. Yet, the Knight didn't answer, for he had no idea what to say. If you don't know what to say, then don't say anything.

"Well?" she asked and finally broke off from her posing. "You don't have to pretend. I know why you brought me along. I'm not an idiot."

Now, the Knight was very confused. Just how in the world did she know about his intentions? When did she find out? Why was he thinking about the 'whys' and 'hows' now? Taking his own advice into consideration, the Knight got up from his comfy throne, dubbed the couch and fully faced her.

"Very well," he announced. If Yuuki was to help him then he could at least give her the courtesy of knowing why she was here, considering the fact that he had forcibly dragged her away. "This is why I brought you along."

Yuuki looked confused by the sudden reply but quickly readied herself for the next ordeal. Only, she looked even more confused when the Knight abruptly pulled out a map and presented it to her.

"I cannot understand this map. I was hoping that you'd assist me with it."

"Eh?" she pronounced with her jaw wide open. "You brought me along just for that?"

Ah yes. How easier it was to answer in those simple 'yes' and 'no' words, but since the Knight had mentally vowed to be more talkative, he resisted the urge to give out his usual answer.

"What else did you have in mind?"

Humiliation, something he faced on a regular basis and so, was completely indifferent towards it. But not everyone was as unresponsive to it as him. Unfortunately, he had to find that out the hard way. The Knight wasn't one to notice much of a woman's expressions, explicitly because most of his life revolved around anticipating his opponent's next move, but the look of utter mortification on Yuuki's face wasn't overlooked as she abruptly grabbed her clothes and ran away out the house in tears.

"Wait," he called out, but to no avail.

Hefting his weapons, the Knight dashed towards Yuuki's immediate direction. However, the girl seemed to be much more knowledgeable on their environment than himself, coupled with the lack of lighting and he had lost her. But never one to lose hope, he ran around in random directions hoping to get lucky for once in his miserable life. A scream, unmistakably that of Yuuki caught his attention and he cursed at the irony of the situation. Making a mad dash towards the source of the scream, the Knight came to find the girl in a rather compromising position. Fortunately, the ones pinning her down weren't hollows.

Six men of various shape and sizes stood over her. Some had some sort of tribal marking over their skin whereas some just looked plain, excluding the insane look in their eyes. Yuuki, who seemingly dressed herself in accordance to fleeing was yet again half way through being forcibly undressed. They all stopped at the sound of his armor clanking from the shadows. One of the men had some sort of Skull Lantern with him, which he pointed at the Knight.

Despite the situation having no relevance whatsoever with the murder of Anastacia, the Knight had a prickling feeling that the psychopath Lautrec had his way with her before finally doing the deed. But even after reviving the poor Fire-keeper, he didn't have the heart to ask her. But it didn't take a scholar to figure out what had happened, what with her unreasonable desire to die. So even though the men before him were humans, they were clear as day sinners in his book.

"Release her and I shall spare your lives", the Knight bellowed in a threatening tone. A lie as he would make sure the sinners were all dead by his hands, but it was always fun to show off his authority as the Dark Lord.

The men merely laughed hysterically, after which one of them pointed some sort of crossbow at him. The crossbow was missing its bow but taking chances wasn't in the Knight's book so he blocked his body behind his gigantic shield. A loud sound signified the release of the projectile which bounced harmlessly against the enormous shield. The Knight didn't give the men a moment off respite as he broke off in a sprint. He scoffed at them, being stupid enough to stand so close to one another, as if sticking together would make them stronger. If anything else, it would only take a single swing to cut them all down.

A 360 degrees slash later, four of them were sliced in half, completely divided by their midriff whereas two managed to jump out of the way in the last second. One of them, a bald man with strange markings on his head grabbed Yuuki and held a knife against her throat. The Knight realized that he was about to make a threat, but had apparently fell short with a sword protruding from his head. His expression looked almost funny with is eyes and mouth wide open.

"Behind you," Yuuki screamed and the Knight mentally cursed at his blunder. Instantly turning around, he stared at the end of the same unusual crossbow which was too noisy for what it was worth. The final man, fully clad in black and having a rather uncouth facial hair pulled the trigger with a grin. The Knight found out that the unfamiliar crossbow didn't fire bolts the hard way. Then again, he never learned his lessons the easy way.

His helm flew as the force of several tiny pebbles impacted hard against it, some even piercing his face. He fell back and lied motionless. The man laughed out loud and grabbed Yuuki's arm.

"Come on Bitch," he snarled as he proceeded to drag her away, much to her hesitation. He didn't notice the motionless body take out a green flask and take a large gulp of its golden contents. So focused was he in leering at the poor girl that he didn't even feel the sword pierce him until it was sticking out of his chest.

"Next time, make sure that your enemy's dead."

The Knight pulled the, now lifeless corpse, away from Yuuki and kicked it off his sword. His face, still caked by the blood of his now healed wound, was annoying him. So he wiped them off with the cloak on his armor, making the cloth on his chest become red among the blue clothing. But he didn't have to worry about it as a sobbing Yuuki, fully drenched in blood, which was really putting it lightly, embraced him in a tight hug, effectively turning his entire armor crimson with life fluids. Hesitantly, he returned the gesture, contemplating if it was worth the hell he'll have to go through later to clean the armor up.

"We need to leave," he whispered. "The noise will no doubt attract all the hollows."

She silently nodded and followed his lead.

The Knight hoisted his weapons before grabbing the unusual Skull Lantern. Whatever anyone had to say, he actually considered this encounter lucky. A Skull Lantern was what he required, he actually got what he wanted for once. Next he presented the strange crossbow to Yuuki, who looked extremely surprised as the gesture.

"You sure you want to give that to me?" she asked in confusion.

"Of course," the Knight replied without hesitation.

"Won't you use the gun yourself?"

"I prefer bows."

The girl took the crossbow with shaky arms and with what looked like a genuine smile, gave the Knight his helm. It just lost its appeal in the blood and grime.

"You look like a foreigner," she said as the Knight put on his helm. "Who exactly are you?"

"I'm the Dark Lord."

For reasons unperceived by the Knight, Yuuki gave the same reaction Miyamoto gave when he introduced himself.

"I'm Yuuki Miku," she introduced.

"I know."

"Well?" she looked at him expectantly, which did nothing to lessen is confusion. "What's your name?"

The Knight's eyes widen in disbelief. No one had ever asked for his name before. Everyone referred to him as the Chosen Undead, which had become so familiar to him that even his own real name eluded him. What the hell was his name again?

"Call me Oscar," he said, mentally berating himself for using his very first rescuer's name. "Just Oscar."

"Thanks for rescuing me, Oscar," Yuuki thanked while looking at anything but the Knight. He decided it to be unwise to ask if the red on her cheeks were actual blood.

Yuuki guided on with the Skull Lantern in one hand, and the gun in the other whereas the Knight simply followed. She was more familiar with the environment so he had decided to let her take the lead. Strangely so, the sound of their scuffle with what Yuuki named 'the Yakuza', didn't attract any hollows. The strange covenant of dangerous murderers, as she had described them to be, the Knight made a mental note to find a way to exterminate the covenant on a later date. Either way, the hollows were getting drawn to some other sound if they weren't ganging up on them already.

"Here," Yuuki stopped in front of a small building with a symbol of a cross above a sign which labeled 'Pharmacy'.

"This isn't the place," he grumbled.

"I need to get some things so shut up"

Somehow, Yuuki was more conversant with him now than before. The Knight had no idea why, but didn't fuss about it. He'd find another way to get his throne somehow. Inside the so called Pharmacy were shelves full of colorful items, nothing resembling a hollow thankfully. Yuuki made a beeline to one of the items and skillfully started opening the container. She threw the outer layer of the container, took out something small from the pack and popped it into her mouth. Curious, the Knight picked up the discarded outer layer and read the words written over it.

"Contraceptive Pills," he voiced out his thoughts and received a glare from Yuuki. He didn't know what the term meant, but he wasn't very keen of finding out.

"I'm going to clean up so wait outside."

The Knight did as told, the memory of his companion's shame still fresh on his mind. With nothing to occupy his time, the Knight took it upon himself to rid the streets of all the hollows. He was thankful for the unusual torch keeping the area lit, street lamps as Yuuki had stated. They could have been a godsend inside the Tomb of the Giants. Unfortunately he didn't have such good fortune.

He was also rather exasperated at the lack of lethal things in his surroundings. Sure he hated hollows, demons, gods and those wretched abominations Seath called experiments, but the lack of challenging opponents were making him feel bored. For the first time since he was locked away in the Undead Asylum, he actually felt bored. Everything was interesting in Lordran, for everything had the desire and the potential to see you dead. Now, it felt like the desire was there, but the potential was sorely lacking.

His thoughts were abruptly broken by an odd sound. The sound was getting louder by the minute, a sound similar to that of something vibrating intensively. Finally, the Knight saw the object of his ire. It was some sort of demon with bright lights for its two eyes, and unluckily for him, it was heading his way at an alarming speed. He had just enough time to two hand his shield and brace himself when he made a crash collision with the demon.

Contrary to what the Knight expected, the impact sent him flying several feet away, his shield getting separated from him midflight. His stamina was completely drained and the result had him struggling to move his body. Coincidently, a hollow happen to be there and to his utter horror, right in front of his manhood, the one portion of his body which wasn't armored. He desperately tried to shove it away, but his hands were too numb to yield any results. Moreover the hollow wasn't even female.

The Knight finished praying to every deity he knew and realized that half of them were slain by his own hands. Closing his eyes, he awaited the inevitable. Death by castration. The sheer humiliation of this caliber was too much, even for him. Fortunately, the hollow bit down on his inner thigh, saving him from a life of shame. As expected, his number of soft humanities started to decrease.

He gave the biggest sigh of relief he had ever given in his long and miserable life and used the pummel of his sword to crack open his assailant's skull. To his horror, his soft humanities kept decreasing even when the hollow was killed. No wonder everyone who got bit turned hollow instantly without going through the hollowing phase as an undead. Hastily, he grabbed a humanity sprite and crushed it, absorbing the dark soul contained within which instantly healed all of his injuries and stopped the descent of his soft humanities.

In his moment of haste, he heard several voices. All conversation about him, yet no one approached him.

"Is he alright?"

"What's with the armor?"

"I'm so sorry…"

"Did you see that? He got bit."

"Don't go near him. He might turn any minute"

"What's he doing?"

The Knight couldn't see anything with the demon's bright eyes focusing on him. The voices though, he heard with crystal clarity, yet all his mind registered was the green monster before him. Relief of not having a weighty shield as well as relief over his manhood's safety washed over him and he glared at the monstrosity before him. Sure, lashing out in fury was a shortcut to death but he was a hair's breadth away from being brutally castrated. Nothing went beyond that.

Two handing his sword, the Knight crouched and prepared himself for one of the more ludicrous moves the Abyss Greatsword offered him. Mimicking the late Knight Artorias, he jumped towards the demon and summersaulted in midair while using the momentum of his spin to focus every bit of his weight on his weapon as it came down on his opponent. His sword slid through the head of the demon with ease and the voices around him were suddenly in pandemonium.

"The engine is finished! Shizuka-sensei, Grab anything useful."

"How the hell did he do that?"

"Grab Alice."

"What the fuck are you doing?" a spikey haired boy shouted from beside him. The boy had a gun pointed at him whereas the voices he heard indicated that there were others as well.

It was just in his luck to run into some members of the Yakuza covenant again. The Knight lashed out his hand and caught the gun and yanked it towards himself. Spikey apparently had the weapon fastened to himself and swiftly followed suit. The Knight kicked him, which broke the strap and sent the boy flying.

"Takashi," several voices shouted out. The Knight however, didn't stop. He pointed the gun at a chubby boy and pulled the trigger. But the projectile didn't fire as intended and he simply opted to throw it at him. The gun impacted with Chubby's face and he fell on his back.

A girl with long purple hair holding a stick, dashed towards the Knight. The girl had the similar clothing as Rei and Yuuki, but he knew better than to judge on that fact. He had after all, killed countless Silver Knights all in while donning their own garb. Purple swung her stick, and the Knight tried to retract his sword to block. However, his weapon was seemingly stuck in the demon, which on a closer look revealed to be a wheeled contraption.

Purple apparently, was really good with her stick, and the error of the Knight was thoroughly explored with a swing that knocked off his helm. It was the second time his helm was knocked off. Suffice to say he wasn't happy. Grabbing Purple's stick mid-swing, he punched her in the gut, effectively sending her to join Spikey.

The Knight held his makeshift weapon and anticipated an attack coming from behind him. Indeed a disturbingly familiar girl was thrusting a spear like gun towards him. He rotated to the left and the blade stabbed empty air. Not one to stop his onslaught, the Knight used the momentum of his spin and swung the stick right at her head.

"Rei," Spikey shouted and the Knight was finally able to remember the girl.

Nevertheless, he couldn't stop his momentum and opted to release the stick before it could make contact with the ginger haired girl's head. Unfortunately, he forgot to account for his hand, and Rei was sent sprawling on the ground.

The Knight stood in shock at what he had just done and he hoped Miyamoto's motherly love wasn't as good as she told him to be. A barrel of a gun pressed against his head. Chubby had apparently gotten his bearings and took advantage of the Knight's immobile state.

"Don't move," he shouted out in a compelling tone, though the broken nose gave off the image of anything but.

"Don't move," a feminine voice that he knew all too well shouted out as well. Yuuki's gun pointed directly behind Chubby's head. The Knight was seriously wondering why she was taking her sweet time when he could have used her help.

"Don't move," Rei growled out too, and pointed her gun at Yuuki's head, all in while tightly clutching her right cheek.

Suffice to say nobody would be moving any time soon. The Knight groaned. Things just got way too interesting for his liking.