The oppressive air thrummed with a familiar, suffocating tension. Burtu watched them, a silent, unsettling amusement etched on his face. The urge to flee, to abandon the bickering duo, was a desperate, clawing thing.
But the memory of his sudden descent, the chilling image of Lezschill's hand tearing through his chest, was a visceral ache, causing him to subtly rub the phantom wound.
"Look, killing me won't do you any good," Marichi's voice was a low hum, defying the blade kissing his throat.
"It might soothe that godawful ego of yours----"
SWISH!
Jorel's blade sliced the air, a whisper of honed steel, a hungry ghost aiming for Marichi's face. Marichi became a blur, a fleeting shadow, the cold kiss of the metal missing him by a breath.
"What is your name, peasant?" Jorel's eyes, cold as winter moonlight, pierced him.
"I-It's Ten," Marichi stammered, the dagger in his hand held aloft like a hesitant shield. He exhaled, a sharp, tremulous sound.
I don't want to kill him…
No… Not like this.
His jaw locked, muscles coiling as his body subtly receded.
"Ten…"
"And what do you have against me?" Jorel pressed, his voice laced with the brittle edge of impatience.
"Come on… Just say it." He smacked his lips, a sound of frustrated anticipation.
Ever since I met him, he's just been attacking me, as if I've offended him.
Truly ungrateful, and I've been the one protecting him all this time from that irritating Lezschill!
Jorel agitatedly waved his sword, a silent challenge in the restless air.
Marichi's eyes remained wide, unblinking, his lips a thin, unyielding line. He stared at Jorel, a quiet defiance burning in his gaze, words trapped behind a clenched jaw. But within, a hot, ever-growing rage simmered, a furnace stoked by Jorel's oblivious taunts.
What do I have against you?
What I have against you, is that you're nobility. Yes, the cursed nobility! A scourge on humanity with their nature.
Marichi's face flushed, muscles bulging beneath his skin as a grim smile stretched his lips, teeth gritted beneath the cloth.
"You are all the same," he muttered, the words a venomous whisper, yet vibrating with an unseen intensity.
"And you prove that to me with each passing second!" His voice clawed at the air, dragging with a raw, unbridled hate.
"Prove what exactly?" Jorel, genuinely bewildered, lowered his sword slightly, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"I have nothing to prove to you. You are worthless," a subtle, cold smile bloomed on Jorel's face.
This kid…
Burtu thought, a muscle twitching in his jaw, bristling with irritation.
I wish he was the one that died instead of Ceas.
He pictured a kind but weathered, bloodied face of the right stagecoach driver with red spikes that protruded from them, while a faint, melancholic smile touched his lips.
"Okay, I think I've had enough of your bickering." Lezschill clapped his numerous hands all at once, the sound a deep, resonant boom that vibrated through the very ground.
"I don't even know why I allow you to even have them in the first place." He rose, one hand planting firmly on the ground, drawing every eye in the room to his looming form.
Yes… Finally.
I didn't want to engage with Jorel…
At least not now…
Marichi exhaled, a shaky sigh of relief, though his grip on his dagger remained so tight that warm blood began to well and drip from his palm onto the floor.
Lezschill stood, black blood oozing sluggishly from various points on his body, as he stretched, his muscles rippling with a weary, alien grace. "Well, no point anymore now."
"Time for you all to die. It's been fun, I guess." Lezschill's lips curved into a chilling, predatory smile, and an immense, primal pressure descended upon them, igniting every fight-or-flight instinct. The air grew heavy, thick with an unseen dread that coiled around their souls.
"W-Wait, wait." Marichi's hand fluttered downwards in a frantic, desperate gesture.
"Why do you truly want to kill us?" His voice was strained, a thin thread of fear.
"And what was the thing that Burtu was so afraid of earlier?" he added, glancing quickly at Burtu.
"Well, I might as well humor you, but not too long now." Lezschill grunted, a sound of mild annoyance hidden behind a chuckle.
"You people are the first to have stepped into my half-lit zone for a long time." His voice deepened, the words resonating with an unseen, ancient weight, echoing like a tolling bell from forgotten abysses.
"H-How long?" Burtu's voice was a mere whisper, trembling uncontrollably.
"I don't know, maybe years, could even be days." He shrugged, a casual gesture jarringly out of place, belied by the ominous implication of his words.
"But it did feel long enough." His eyes seemed to sink deeper into their sockets, a pained, dreadful sound accompanying his words, like grinding stones from a forgotten, cyclopean mill.
Marichi, Jorel, and Burtu were left speechless, frozen in place. All three stared, rapt and terrified, at the harbinger of death before them as he slowly continued walking.
"For the thing that's affecting your friend, that's Oku," Lezschill said.
"Well, that's what I call him anyway."
"Hey! Oku is our friend!" A child-like voice, clear and innocent, arose from Lezschill's very being, but it was abruptly cut off, swallowed by something vast and dark.
"We can't even see Oku, so shut up!" Lezschill's usual, older voice boomed, sharp and frustrated, asserting dominance.
"W-What?" Marichi stammered, his voice thin and reedy with fear as he slowly, almost imperceptibly, began to retreat.
"What the hell is Oku?" Jorel butted in, a confused anger simmering beneath his words.
"Oku is our friend!" The child-like voice erupted from Lezschill again.
"He kept us company when there was no one there, he's very nice." Lezschill's child-like voice persisted, a fragile echo.
"Just shut up!" Lezschill's usual voice took command once again.
"Oku did nothing for us!" He slapped himself, some of his many hands recoiling as if struck by an unseen force. His hands then restrained him, seeming to fight each other in a grotesque struggle.
Doesn't exist?
Burtu suddenly walked in front of both Jorel and Marichi.
"What do you mean doesn't exist?!" He shouted, his voice raw.
"I was hit severally by it, the pain I felt." Burtu groaned, the memory a fresh agony.
"Surely you can't be taking the word of this crazed lunatic." Jorel pointed his sword at Lezschill, who seemed to be hitting himself with his own hands.
"Your so-called Oku also did the vile thing of attacking me." Jorel's voice, pissed and mocking, dripped with disdain.
This Oku… It did seem that it hit Burtu.
I could just think that he truly doesn't exist, because it could just be that nothing could have hit Burtu.
He did get punched right through his chest, something that I don't even know how he still looks alive.
His chest even looks as if it never happened.
Marichi glanced at Burtu's exposed chest, clean without a wound, only slight hair covering its surface.
He might just be seeing things as per being "healed."
But Jorel does seem to know what they're talking about…
His eyes also glanced at a furious Jorel who snarled at Lezschill, then at him.
So, maybe…
Marichi's mind eased into the thought, then he grabbed Burtu's shoulder.
"What?!" Burtu rudely snapped his neck back, his body recoiling in frustration.
"You know what…nothing." Marichi removed his hands from Burtu's shoulder.
"Are you kidding me now?" Burtu grunted, then subtly recoiled as he noticed the cloth above Marichi's face.
Why did he…
Burtu thought.
"That reminds me of something." Burtu's body seemed to relax.
"Why the cloth above your face? You didn't have it on before." Burtu asked.
Damn Burtu!
Marichi cursed in his mind.
"Oh it's just in case for…" Marichi's speaking dragged out as his eyes darted around for an answer. They then stumbled on Lezschill, still fighting himself, rolling around with black dust emanating from him, a sinister, amorphous cloud.
"It's because I was affected by some type of black dust in the air." He quickly corrected himself, his voice suddenly stern.
"There was a dust in the air that made plants to grow from my group's heads." Marichi's voice was threaded with dread, even to the point of bending his head down and clenching his fist.
"But you didn't wear it before, it was when we came up here." Burtu said, his eyes narrowed, while Jorel watched with his sword still gripped tightly.
Shit! Think Marichi!
A lone bead of sweat traced a path down his temple.
"Yeah I did because I immediately saw that same black dust here." He said, his voice subtly shaken.
Then Burtu and Jorel's eyes soon widened, the muscles on their faces relaxing, their lips slightly parted in dawning horror.
"What?! And I was so close to him!" Jorel exclaimed, sweating bullets.
"I-I can't turn to a plant." Despair hijacked Burtu's eyes and voice.
"And my c-chest." He muttered, slowly falling to the ground.
"Wait…and you couldn't say that earlier?!" Jorel's tone quickly rose, sharp with accusation.
You should give it a rest!
I wonder how you're even still talking after what you've went through.
Marichi thought, his right eyelid twitching, his back slightly hunched.
Jorel tried to move towards Marichi but quickly stopped as he felt a sharp, agonizing pain course through his body, causing him to hunch over, gasping for breath.
There…
The pain should be catching up right now.
Marichi coldly looked at Jorel's bent over back.
But that reminds me.
He then faced Burtu.
"Y-Your group…" Jorel forced himself to speak, gulping in air like a tired dog, but was quickly ignored by Marichi.
"Burtu…" Marichi softly said.
"How exactly didn't you die?" He said, his face a complex tapestry of calm worry and confusion.
---The end of chapter 31---