In this world, Magic is Everything. All people, all races, are granted with the power to perform mystical and magical feats via grimories, mystical tomes granted to each and every child on their 15th birthday. Those blessed by the mana can have their names written down in legend.
Shattered Grimoires is the work of the mind(s) of Ardere & Shattered Grimoire's staff. All characters and content are copyright their creators, and may not be replicated without their creators' permission. Black Clover is owned by Yuki Tabata and published by Viz Shonen Jump. All images belong to their original owners. The theme you are currently viewing was made by Eliza of ElizaCodes exclusively for Shattered Grimoires.
Riding along the main road into Sosshi on the back of a pitch black steed, Griswold once again made his way back into the town that seemed to be bound to the Black Bulls squad. What with it being located just around the corner, it was a place he himself had only visited a select few times. In fact, he could more or less count the amount of times he had been at the headquarters on one hand. The last time he had been in Sosshi proper, it was when he had been contracted to take care of some “beast” that had been involved in a lethal incident along the very road he currently travelled down. It was during that mission that he had encountered a boy named Koji, who believed himself ready to take things on all by himself, only to almost get decapitated by a duo of angry minotaur.
While that whole day had turned out rather tragic, what with a mage using the minotaurs to cause mayhem for the sake of mayhem, that man was still high on the list of people he wanted to personally chase down and put to justice. And by that, he did not mean by taking him to jail and letting him rot inside of a cell for however long it’d be before they decided it was time for him to go free again. Truth be told, one of the reasons why he never came back to Sosshi all that often, or to the Black Bulls headquarters for that matter was because he believed it easier to just stay away. For whenever he returned, so did the memories of that day, as well as the knowledge of all the things he had killed for the sake of its inhabitants. And while he still believed what he had done had been inevitable, it angered him to this day.
Still, today was supposed to be a relatively happy and upbeat one, as he had heard there was to be a cookout with all the members of the squad. Last time they had all been together in a similar setting, they had been sitting around the fire, eating the rabbits Ivy had caught on her own after roasting them over an open fire he had lit. This time however, instead of making himself useful only for the setting up of the fire pit, he had decided to cash in some favors. Since he had been made to kill a bunch of deer earlier, he had skinned and gutted them on the spot, using the snow to keep the meat nice and cold as he put it all in a few jute bags and tossed them into Nuck’s saddlebags. Before long, he made his way over to the Black Bulls base and left Nuck in the stable. Tossing a bunch of oats into the trough as he took the jute bags with him, he made his way over to the fire pit.
Dropping the bags, he sat himself down in more or less the same seat he had taken when they were last here. There, he would wait for the first people to make their way over to the supposed cookout. Wondering what everyone else was going to come up with, it had been quite some time since he had actually eaten a decent meal that wasn’t just a mug of ale, a loaf of bread and a slab of red meat. Whatever the case, he figured he would find out soon enough.
Post by Malcolm Watanabe❃ on Feb 7, 2022 12:19:51 GMT -5
He walked up on Griswold at the fire pit outside the base, he was already tending to the fire and getting things going as a few other members of the squad were taking care of preparations for food and drink. Malcolm was shirtless today, the mantle draped across his shoulders and looked a bit odd, but he was proud of that mantle. The defacto Black Bull himself Malcolm Wattanabe was not a man concerned with appearances, no he was obsessed with the strength to protect the weak and the downtrodden, the outcasts…the family he had grown for quite some time through thick and thin. Yet here before him was a member that joined the squad and rose up to take life by the horns and had the qualifications to help him…would Malcolm allow this help or would he continue to place all the burden on his shoulders still.
He took a seat at the fire pit and stoked the flames, his chest was rising and falling, even in the cooler weather of winter, he was looking to be right at home…like a beast at its den. His eyes reflected the fire he had his eyes on as he finally threw another log into the warm orange flame. ”I saw your request for Vice Captaincy…do you really feel as though you can lead this squad with your strength…or are you just trying to show off like the others before you?” He asked honestly, there was not a condescending tone to his voice, nor did he actually mock him…but he did not meet the eyes of Griswold…not yet, he needed to hear his words…to bear witness to his resolve before seeing if his body and mind were in the same area.
Speaking while keeping his eyes on the crackling fire, he thought deeply about all of the things he had done recently, things that had left a mark. About a year ago, he had decided that he wasn’t the right fit for the Crimson Lion squad, and after discussing the matter with Hania, he had decided to drop out of the magic knights entirely and focus on finding what was important to him. For the longest time, that had been something as simple as just getting stronger and making money that he could send back to the Cromwell farm. Believing he owed it to them after they had more or less adopted him into their family after his own had been made to disappear from the face of the earth along with everything and everyone he had ever known, he had come to know the struggles of the commoners in the Forsaken region through them.
And perhaps he had gotten swept up in that too deeply, for after the things he had learned from Hania about how some nobles would not come after you themselves but would pay people to go after your family instead, and learning from Lydia how the correctional facilities along with the justice system really did not do much to actually change most of the hardened criminals and murderers while the richest among the rich would never see a jail cell from the inside due to their connections, it had brought about a lot of changes within him. Someone who had started out wanting to create a better and safer place for the poor and the downtrodden had effectively allowed himself to turn into a murderer, one that decided for himself whether people deserved to go to prison or if they were too far gone.
“I’m planning on disappearing for a while after the cookout. After Aamon shattered my blade, after seeing the extent of my power, I need to go back to the basics. It’s why I’ve decided to take this new heirloom deep into the shadow region, training myself back up from scratch and learning to wield this blade a whole lot better than the previous one.”
Having come to the realization that he had steered incredibly far from the path he had originally been set upon when he had been left in this world alone, the one that had been saved by a family of farmers and wanted to become a magic knight to do right by them, perhaps it was for the best that the battle tower had happened. Because the realization that he needed to do things differently had come to him the moment the black blade of Feardèanamh shattered in his hands against a superior force. As time had progressed, he had seen that not all nobles were bad, so the singular distaste towards the lot of them was unfounded. But that had never kept him from raising his nose and looking in the other direction when he had to deal with them, at least until they proved themselves willing to aid the people of this country.
In so doing, he had gotten onto the path of change, a path of self-improvement that required some rather drastic steps to truly materialize into being. And by drastic steps, he meant venturing into a place that was entirely new to him with nothing but the clothes on his body, the sword at his side and a bedroll. Believing that going back to the basics as he had been taught when he was still a child would likely force him to confront the things about himself that he no longer needed as they just got in the way, which would be particularly true if the place was anywhere near as dangerous as he had been told it would be. Of all the magic zones near the land of Clover, it was said that the volcano and the shadow region were among the most dangerous, but that the latter of the two had been brought about by unnatural, demonic means. And since Aamon had been responsible for the initial breakthrough, perhaps it was in the shadow zone that he might finalize the process.
“So while I feel like my current strength is more than enough to handle most of these hoodlums, I need to strengthen my mind before I’ll fully be ready. At least that’s my take on all of this. What do you think?”
Post by Malcolm Watanabe❃ on Feb 21, 2022 16:38:17 GMT -5
Hearing that he was not entirely sure of all this himself was oddly…reassuring to hear and Malcolm chuckled as he sat down at the fire and took a few shelled pecans from his pocket and cracked them and as he deshelled the nuts he threw them into the fire as he partook in that bounty of the earth. When Griswold laid it out that he planned on disappearing for a while due to Aamon shattering his blade, Malcolm wanted to laugh it off, but he knew that this little wolf pup was starting to grow so he did not say a word for now and just listened to his explanation. When he mentioned the shadow region Malcolm nodded his head. ”Check in with Zaven Blake, the Golden Dawn captain, that is his domain…he will likely know some good hunting spots…if you go there without telling him though…don’t be surprised if he gets a little hostile…that land is his for a reason after all.” Malcolm ate a few more pecans, and the fire that they sat at was starting to have a better flavor about its smoke…almost like the nuts he was not tossing the discarded shells of were even stronger than normal pecans.
There was an odd silence and Griswold did not speak for what felt like five minutes or so and Malcolm was growing bored of this, not that he had a short attention span, but he was the definitive Beast Aura user and he…well he did not like to be tied down to one thing for long…that is why he fit in so well at the Black Bulls. Then as Griswold said his final piece, Malcolm stood up and sighed as he knew he could not force the test,, but he was annoyed at the fact that he was going to be out some yul for the celebration feast of a new Vice Captain. ”Ya’ know…it's quiet around here, and I could use the extra space you keep making the fire pit here for more of a training ground. So when it’s convenient for ya’ come see me and next time I will put your ass into the ground for wasting my yul.” Malcolm was an understanding individual, even if he did not seem as such. He was giving Griswold to go out and train before coming back to face him. They would still feast tonight and when the Wolf returned, then he would be welcomed with open arms and balled fists ready to test his mettle.
“Thank you, I appreciate the gesture, and promise I’ll pay you back. Feel free to take it out of my monthly pay, I barely use it anyway.”
Speaking in a sincere, yet still fairly monotonous manner, he thought ahead as to what was coming, as well as all of the things that had already come to pass. By this point in time, Griswold still had not heard from the knights that had ventured out to meet Asmodeus, and with Lilith still being in the witches forest, there were still a lot of uncertainties in the world. And with the devil they had spoken to after Aamon had been beaten, him wanting to become a Vice Captain seemed like such an empty thing to strive for. In a world that could be swept away by forces beyond his understanding, forces even more powerful than an Archdemon that had taken various powerful royal knights, among which a squad Captain and holder of the Salamander, a Vice Captain and two members of the Black Bulls, it all almost felt pointless.
But that was yet another reason as to why he needed to go away from it all for a bit, to go to a place that had apparently been created thanks to the demons as well, a place of perpetual darkness that was supposedly growing at a slow but steady rate to envelop more and more land as it did. If he could find a way to get closer in terms of power to the Captains and Vice Captains of this land, it also meant that he might be able to stand his ground and put a dent in the power of a devil. And as long as he could find some way to carry his weight in the battles that were still to come, battles that possessed the potential to change the state of not only their country, but of the other countries around it and maybe even the world, that would be good enough for him. For now at least.
“When I come back, I’ll try to make this test worth your time.”
1 MONTH TIMESKIP
What might have felt like no time at all to some had felt like the better part of a year to someone like Griswold after all of the things he had seen and been put through. Finding that the shadow region possessed a bunch of threats that had more than likely migrated to that place, he had more or less forgotten to check in with Zaven Blake. That said, he had not gone out there to seek out society and the civilized places, instead going out there in a way that meant he was the only person to rely on. Because the more people that knew where he was, or that he was even there, the bigger the chance people might come looking for him and get into trouble themselves once he went dark for a few weeks. With that not being the kind of thing he wished to have to live with, the Captain being the only person he told about it seemed like the best possible idea.
Because after the time he had spent in the battle tower where they had defeated Aamon and managed to push back the shade of a devil, he himself had been feeling fractured. While nowhere near as broken as his trusty sword, he could tell that something was not so much missing from him, but more like something had been added. For quite some time, he had been incapable of figuring out what this was up until the moment came where he had been forced to fend for himself and adjust to living in an entirely new setting: a place that knew no natural light. This forced adjustment, paired with him having to learn how to wield and entirely different type of weapon had inadvertently brought out the thing that had been wrong about him, causing his very grimoire to evolve into something else entirely.
While he could still feel traces of his cosmic magic, it was something that had made way for not one, but two new avenues of magic: Beast Aura and Wind. With him not knowing a damn thing about the difference between air pressure and wind, Griswold had no idea he was dealing with the former, rather than the latter. Strangely enough, when he first brought about these new forms of magic, his mind had gone back to the time where he had first tried out to become a member of the Black Bulls, when Echo Jaeger had told him that he was not blessed by the mana. Still not sure what exactly that meant, he felt like that was no longer the case these days, as Griswold had never felt stronger than he had been feeling ever since he wandered out of the shadow region and got a good night of sleep in a warm bed.
As he had promised, once his month of training had concluded, he was going to be going to the Black Bulls base to meet up with the Captain again for the sake of taking the test. With it being a requirement for a promotion to Vice Captain, which he felt was something he wanted to reach so as to make his time as a knight feel like it had been leading up to something, the black knight arrived at the base for that exact reason. While he was still getting a better feel for his new grimoire, Griswold had at the very least managed to get a decently firm grasp on some of his spells to the point where he could probably offer up quite a bit of resistance in a fight. That, and his new blade had become something he could come to rely on quite well without it being as likely to break as Feardèanamh.
Setting foot onto the terrain of the bulls, it was clear that the Captain had made no jokes about the fire pit was now less of a fire pit and more of a training ground, which would undoubtedly serve as the place for the two of them to take whatever test he had to take. Not kidding himself into believing this was going to be anything less than a spar, he just hoped that such a spar was not going to end up in most of the Black Bulls Headquarters being broken down into nothing more than rubble. But, as with most things regarding the squad, he figured that the Captain would know what was best. Believing that that man would have sensed his approach by this point, with him having made zero attempts at hiding his presence, it was probably not going to be taking long for him to make his way outside and greet him.