6 1
(A.N. I don't remember what happens in each chapter so for this mass release, I'll be titling them with numbers)
Ever since Diluc had become engaged to Momo, his life had been flipped upside down. She transferred to his school so they could spend more time together, Inko was shocked to find that her son was engaged to a girl she had never seen. Izuku was kept in the dark, it might've fed into his self-deprecating attitude, so Inko and Diluc kept it from him as well as they could.
Diluc had also made some progress on Dark Souls. Last night, he was able to get Iudex on his last couple of breaths but was killed by the black mass before he was able to kill him. He was sure that tonight was the night he'd be victorious.
Rather than becoming stronger, Diluc was fighting better instead. He'd had a couple run-ins with 'Kacchan' but always won without using any effort what-so-ever. There was no way a stupid child could beat someone like Diluc.
Diluc got ready to sleep. These days, as soon as he woke up, he put in some earphones and listen to music to calm himself down. It was an effective strategy to calm down after dying multiple times.
He drunk some water and tucked in. Without delay, he immediately went to sleep and woke up at the bonfire again.
He made his way to the boss room, killing the grunts along the way. Thankfully, he had always been able to collect his souls after dying, he had saved up a whole lot considering he kills a couple grunts before re-attempting each fight.
He walked into the room while collecting his souls from the floor, he felt a pure energy moving inside him. Iudex started the fight with a sweep of the halberd that Diluc effortlessly dodged. He had not died to the suit of armor since his first three times, he had always died to what comes after in recent days.
They exchanged attacks, Diluc would dodge the sharp object with all but a strand of hair of space in between the two. He attacked the suit of armor in its weak spot, the head. The fight continued, simple counterattacks and dodging forces Iudex into the next stage of the fight.
Black mass shot out of every gap of armor and Diluc instantly realized that this is where the true fight begun, thankfully, he hadn't taken a point of damage fighting the suit of armor and was at top shape to fight.
The tendril whips shot at Diluc, he dodged with difficulty and attacked where he could. He had discovered that no matter how many he bashed into paste, they'd always regenerate until exactly 6 tendrils were battle-ready.
Diluc's club and the creature's many tendrils continued to cross paths for hours. Many times, the black mass almost penetrated his vital organs although Diluc was able to slightly shift hid body in order to narrowly miss death.
There were also many times in the fight where Diluc was almost certain of his victory only to have it stolen from him unexpectedly.
He was repeating a strategy that had never failed him before. After getting close enough, he'd throw his club towards the black mass which would cause it to hit it and freeze for a second.
This second is usually what separates a good fight with the black mass and a bad one.
However, something unexpected had happened instead. The black mass morphed into a donut like shape that allowed it to dodge the club. The club flew off the cliff with nothing to stop it and Diluc was left without a weapon.
Seeing his weapon leave him, Diluc knew he was boned. The 6 black tendrils kept lunging towards his vitals, although none hit their mark, his body was slowly becoming riddled with cuts of varying size.
He didn't have nearly enough time to drink any estus flasks so he kept getting edged closer and closer to his death.
With his health bar slimming and his death imminent, Diluc was about ready to give up. He didn't have a way to defend himself nor did he have a way to gain a way to defend himself.
The black mass pushed him closer and closer to the edge of the cliff, looking behind him, Diluc saw a very painful death. One where he would be constantly hitting the side of the cliff as he fell further and further down, gaining more and more damages as he goes.
However, with this fear of death, also came a stroke of brilliance. A last resort.
Steeling himself, he dodged 4 out of the 6 tendrils and allowed the last two to impale him in non-vital areas of his body. DIluc instantly felt his health drain at a rapid pace, with only 20 vitality, he wasn't able to endure objects completely passing through his flesh and guts.
With his remaining strength, he tried his best to judo throw the black mass off the cliff. However, Diluc wasn't very familiar with judo, also, his target was a mysterious black mass inhabiting heavy medieval armor, it hardly budged.
In a 2nd last resort, Diluc gave up on the judo throw and settled to just take the creature with him. Finally, he was able to feel the creature budge, in fact, it was coming with him.
In a panic, the creature punctured Diluc with the rest of its tendrils. However, that only offset it's balance even more. Diluc's life was already forfeit, in fact, he was already dead. However, the black mass wasn't able to be saved.
In a last-ditch effort, the creature detached its tendrils so Diluc's corpse would no longer be deadweight and would no longer be able to restrain its tendrils.
Instantly regrowing the tendrils, the creature immediately shot them into the ground to catch itself. Unfortunately for the black mass, the top of the cliff is made up of simple soil and its tendrils didn't go deep enough to catch its weight. The soil unearthed and the black mass accompanied the creature in its adventure down the cliff.
Meanwhile, Diluc woke up back at the campfire. He was happy with the result. Either the boss was dead and he was victorious or he had a new way to defeat bosses in the future, or at least this boss.
He skipped happily to the boss room, killing grunts effortlessly along the way. Entering the boss arena, he saw... nothing. It was an empty room, no black mass, no suit of armor. Diluc won his first boss.
He immediately celebrated by collecting his souls that were lying on the floor and dancing stupidly as he made his way to the fireplace that was now in the center of the room. He noticed his soul count had increased greatly which had further intensified his desire to dance like an idiot.
He lit up the bonfire and ceased his foolish dancing. He lied down on the rough ground and looked towards the barren sky. It was a depressing blue with clouds littering it. It wasn't beautiful at all but it did nothing to dampen Diluc's mood.
However, even though this excitement, he didn't neglect looking back on the fight and learning from it. He knew better than anyone how he only won through luck. It was a complete hail mary attempt that somehow came out successful.
Something still bugged him however, his strategy to throw the club had never been dodged by the black mass before but it was able to during the last fight. Was he overly blatant about it or was it able to learn from previous attempts? Diluc had a lot of thinking to do.
After some time, he got up and was ready to go to firelink shrine. He had enough brooding over his lucky success and decided to advance forward. However, just as he was about to push open the large doors to leave the first boss area, he woke up in his bed back in his child body.
Feeling quite annoyed that his motivation to advance was thrown away, he pushed himself out of his bed and forced himself to crawl to the bathroom to do his teeth. Thankfully, today was Saturday which meant that he didn't have to deal with going to prison with children.
He went to the living room and found Inko watching a drama on the T.V. while Izuku had a bit too much fun eating All Might cereal. Seeing that Diluc had woken up, Izuku greeted him with a small wave while he kept gobbling down his cereal and Inko greeted him with a "Good morning, sweetie". At the same time, she pulled out her phone from her pocket and Diluc received a text as he went to the kitchen to fetch himself some cereal.
On his phone read a text from "Mom" reading, "I hope you don't mind but I booked you with a psychologist. Hopefully, he can help you with your quirk? If you don't like it after one session you don't have to do it again but I'd like you to give it a try." she then rambled about how much she loved him and so on.
Diluc simply replied with a "*Thumbs up* Love you too mom" and put away his phone while he finished making himself some hot chocolate. He came back into the living room where he sat down and drank his hot chocolate and reluctantly ate some All Might cereal. He completely despised the fact that All Might was peering into his soul as he ate but he couldn't deny that the cereal tasted good.
(A.N. If I didn't make it obvious enough, it's basically cereal that's shaped like many small bite-shaped all might's. The hero business has gone out of control.)
Soon after he started eating, Izuku finished. He quickly sped up the stairs so he could continue watching YouTube clips of All Might. Inko turned to Diluc.
"I hope you don't mind but I booked the first session for today." She spoke. Diluc reluctantly nodded as he realized that he could no longer laze around the whole day today.
