Mhaieiyu

Arc 2, Chapter 14

A Purpose

A cry of boundless rapture boomed from the barely-adult carnivore’s lips; his arms skyward, his sword dripping ooze of pale gold. The divine blood of the Celestials was something sought after by countless — even those whose minds hadn’t broken.

It stayed warm forever. It looked and felt as bright and mellow as the falling sun’s rays on a spring dusk. If drunk, the flavour would enrichen the taster’s tongue and provide a new experience beyond salt, citrus and sugar. Those drained of their magical potential could revitalise their souls like healing scars. Many a myth and truth surrounded the miraculous plasma of the heavens, but a lack of donors and its sacrality made scientific analysis scarce if not non-existent.

And here he was. A promise was fulfilled that gave him a brimming smile so large it wrinkled his full complexion. His hands trembled as he felt the effects of the blood soaking into the bastardised sword. Karma’s body jolted as adrenaline and dopamine pumped ferociously into his system. The rush was so benign. Even when he tried to laugh it came out interrupted and jumpy as he struggled to hold back the immense euphoria and satisfaction raw.

Bathed in the blood of a Celestial; the angel woman whose body could be identified by little more than the greying plumed wings that had been severed in three uneven cuts.

“Lord, oh Lord, what have I done to deserve this?!” Karma shouted, his excitement uncontained. “This endless pleasure and warmth that burns and boils and nurtures and cures and loves beneath my skin! Me — I — we, your lambs! So faithful! So grateful!”

The Manifestation of Lust furrowed a brow and said no with his head. Now that his offender had been mercilessly dispatched, he took idle steps to meet Sagittar’s side, ignorant of how dissociated he looked as he stared coldly at the bloody remains of Erica.

With a nudge against his arm, Vermillion said, “Right. I’m here and we should be alone now. I’ll be gone.”

He walked up to the boat Karma came in and scrutinised its quality. Good wood, albeit somewhat splintered. The floor was stained with Karma’s filth. A glimpse at that made him winge.

“I’ll see you on the mainland, assuming things don’t go tits up," he said, turning to face Conquest. "Try not to die, would you? It wouldn’t be convenient for either of us.”

Sagittar unlocked his eyes from the mangled chunks of flesh that once made a woman. With a tired voice, he said, “Of course… Try not to encourage Bellum to turn you into mincemeat. I would despise the look on Azure’s face if he had to see you as red paste on the floor of his church.”

Vermillion rolled his eyes, dismissing him with a wave. He didn’t need to break a sweat to push the boat. To simply walk near it was enough to unceremoniously force it away from him and into the ocean with a grind and a splash.

“Au revoir,” Vermillion said, easing himself into the craft. Even when his shoes should touch the shore, the water split thinly around his feet and allowed his dry passage.

The sight of his power always astonished and concerned the more thoughtful Harbinger. It’s as if Lust could simply decide what of the world he could be bothered by, and anything outside of his whimsies couldn’t dream to crease his clothes.

Turning to face the ecstatic Famine, who was soaking in the last of his ‘high’, Sagittar raised his monotone voice to say, “Karma, that’s enough. It’s unsightly.”

Karma turned to him then, giving him the look of an excited young boy showing their parent their newest findings. “The Celestial! A Celestial! Truly auspicious this plan proved to be! I haven’t been this full in years!”

Conquest sighed, passing him by with an unhappy slouch. “Hurry up now. I wish to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

Karma left the corpse to join Sagittar’s side, pressed to him like a dog to its owner. “And spoil the fun? To savour is half the course!”

Sagittar put an uncomfortable hand between them and pried him off. “I do not partake in your gory vanity.”

Karma didn’t stop his touch, standing exactly as far from him as he had been instructed. “Of course, of course, but you should! Have you tried ever? To eat? To devour? To drink?”

‘Noire’ looked at him funnily. “Do I live?”

“Yes, Father, but I meant as I have. To truly, rightfully eat?”

Conquest shot Famine’s insatiable, drooling grin a glance. As deluded as he was, the sheer joy he exuded helped soothe his melancholic tendencies. It almost made him smile. “I would rather not sully myself and soak in filth to meet your egregious deeds. But I’ll let you enjoy them, at least. For both of us.”

“But it is not the same!”

“It’s close enough for my tastes.”

“Holy shit… Holy fuck… Victus…!”

Hiding behind a tree pale in the face was a young human Syndie—the last survivor of the coastal assault—working as quietly as he could to tourniquet his leg. He grit his teeth and sucked in air at the pain. The sight of his absent foot made him turn his head away and whimper.

With a shaking arm, he put his lips near a device on his wrist, speaking with a stutter. “Head office, do you hear me?”

The minute of radio silence that followed felt eternal. His breathing was quick. He had lost too much blood.

Finally, a crackled voice emitted from the communicator. “Copy. Report.”

He closed his eyes in relief. “This is… This is Sargeant Two-Forty. Cassidy. It’s over, the shore’s gone.”

For a few seconds, nothing came.

“I repeat, this is——”

“We heard you. What does that mean?”

The soldier struggled not to raise his voice. “We’ve been wiped out. No effort. It’s serious.”

“Wiped out?! Already?!”

“I’m the last man standing. Shit, barely standing. Left leg got blown past the… Oh, shit! Past the shin.” Saying that made him choke. “Oh, Goddess... We’re fucked. We’re so fucked.”

More silence. A different voice came. “Try to keep calm, Sargeant. We’ll send someone to collect you.”

“M’am, I’m bleeding. I doubt I’ll make it.”

A distant noise made the ground shake.

A buzz distorted the communicator’s sound. “What did they send? Give us an estimate.”

“Three men,” the Sargeant said.

“Just… three?” she asked.

“Famine was there.”

“Oh…”

He shook his head. “No, he didn’t do a thing. We just… We just exploded.”

A third voice came. A younger gent. “Exploded? How?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t get a chance to see what happened. I managed to escape the blast radius, but I’m still down. I think I heard Erica a few minutes ago.”

“The Brigadier's still alive?”

“I don’t know. I can’t hear her anymore.”

“Perhaps she escaped,” they said.

“I don’t think so,” he said, feeling weak. His body tensed as he poked around the bole. “I think she’s dead.”

The ground started to shake as a great many somethings trampled the hill that walled off the southern end of the coast.

“I heard something,” he said, closing his eyes and resting his head against the trunk. “Fuck. Fuck, I hear something. I think I’m dying.”

An older man got on the line. “Soldier, keep it together, we need more information.”

“They’re coming. They’re coming. Oh Goddess, tell my wife I want to call the baby Serenity. Tell her I love her.”

Leaves began to shift and the dirt started to leap. He took quick breaths, barely hearing the communicator.

“Don’t give up yet,” the Syndie quartermasters said.

“Tell her.”

“We will, but we’re sending someone over. Don’t fall asleep.”

“It’s too late,” he said.

“Sargeant!”

Nothing.

“Sargeant, do you copy? Do you copy, Sargeant?!”

No matter how much they called, the messages were left unanswered. Half a minute later, the radio channel declined as the line was severed. The communicator was destroyed.

♦ ♥ ♣ ♠

Tokken sat on a tough bed covered with a thin paper that ripped under him as he shuffled about on its cold surface. The clothes that he had been made to change into were so far from weather-appropriate. Autumn had already settled and the leaves that couldn’t be salvaged through artificial means dried and fell.

The lad shivered a good bit, but the doctor he had been left with either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. She moved about to and fro, gathering tools, writing things down, walking in and out. Her patient felt a tad neglected.

“Okay then,” she said, not looking away from her papers. “Busted lip. Bruised eye… These are kindergarten injuries.” She stopped, pointing a pen towards him. “You said you had chest pains?”

Tokken felt like he was being held at gunpoint. He swallowed. “Uhm, y—yes. Fely said I had a broken rib.”

“...Ah, shit.” The head nurse facepalmed. After setting her things down, she sat down in front of him and wasted no time putting her cold, gloved hands under his gown.

Tokken inhaled sharply.

“Does it hurt?” she said.

“No,” Tokken said.

“Then stop with the funny noises.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just... freezing.”

“Mhm.”

The lad watched her work on finding the fissure. Judging by the teen’s tense shifting, she could triangulate his injury in seconds. He was about to complain when she prodded the damage but his face was singed with a ruthless slap across the cheek.

“Victus, what——?!”

“Eyes up here,” she said, pointing towards him and her with a speedy index finger. Tokken hadn’t even gotten a chance to see the gap in clothing under her neck from her constant movements.

“You didn’t even blink!” he snapped, met by deaf ears. “Careful…!”

After a thorough inspection that lasted about fifteen seconds, she stood up, spun around, took a file from the table and walked off.

Tokken was baffled. “My prognosis?” he called.

“You’ll live,” she barked back.

With that, the door slammed shut behind her, leaving him to his lonesome. Victus, he missed books. He could actually enjoy solitude again if he did. The clinic wasn’t silent, at least, as he could make out the voices of the many working on the rescued Zwaarst children if he strained hard enough.

Tokken heard Chloe’s voice among the ruckus and doing so made him feel at peace. But to think of what those children might’ve gone through made his heart weep. To lose one’s family had to hurt more than he could imagine. And yet...

“Where’s my pain? Where’s my grief?” he thought. “Was I just too young when it happened? Too old?”

Tokken contemplated for a moment, trying in vain to understand the hollowness in his soul. Devoid of emotion he was not. Fear still swelled within him, as did the pressure in his skull for having found himself here, and just what punishment might arise of his attempted escape. Chloe’s voice didn’t sound distressed. Nor did Mumble’s.

“Wait.”

His eyes shot open as he tried to hear through the noise again. There, his ears welcomed the sound of a raspy, high-pitched voice amid others. He couldn’t believe it. Mumble was helping those children too. The young lad who had spent a good minute with his shoe on Tokken’s hair was speaking to the victims of a misfortune the teen couldn’t even begin to grasp. And still, Tokken was useless. Even as a victim of violence, he was nothing more than a burden. To his friend? To the Facility? To everyone, perhaps?

“No.”

There was a difference. Be it as it may, his purpose had been provided. His own wishes were still there in his mind, floating aloft, but that wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be compared to his purpose as a living being. His parents hadn’t the time to tell him when he was a boy. His grandparents had kept the concept to themselves, be it to protect him or out of disagreement with the finite result. But that didn’t matter now. He finally understood that his birth wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t have been ‘someone else’. This was ‘him’. ‘Tokken’.

“And I have to spill the blood of…”

The Guardian. Emris.

“But wait, I... “

The problem is, he knew who the Guardian was. The same man that saved him and Chloe once, a few weeks back.

“No. No, it’s what I was meant for,” he concluded. “But is it the right choice? Goddess, Goddess…. Give me some guidance!”

But how could he ask Victus for help? She made the Guardian. She made everything. To ask guidance on whether to destroy her own creations would be a stretch.

“Shit!” Tokken squealed as his head was pushed aside and a needle entered his shoulder. “What are you——?!”

“Vicks, kid,” the nurse chuckled. “You’ll reach the moon soon enough if you’re so high up in the clouds.”

“Couldn’t you warn me?” He spoke weakly as he tried to ignore the feeling of fluid injected into his blood.

“I figured if you were already distracted, I’m doing you a favour. There,” she said, extracting the syringe from his skin. “Not so bad, now was it?”

“I… I guess not.”

“...You sure? You’re kind of staring off into space right now.”

Before the nurse could stand he took hold of her arm tightly. The tug was a surprise as she was halfway through standing up.

“Oi, kid, do I need to call someone in?” she said, annoyed that he just sat there, looking at nothing. Seeing him stiff as a corpse undergoing rigor mortis left her a tad disturbed.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“You’re ballsy.”

“Please.”

“Adelaide. Adelaide Roche,” she said, whipping her wrist from his grip.

He looked up at her. Watching through his eyes, as if behind a tiny window, the head nurse could faintly see him struggling to swim in an endless lake. Doubt.

“My name’s Tokken. Tsuki.”

Adelaide took a cautious step back. “I know who you are. You have the heirloom, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

Although she did worry about the lad’s strange behaviour, Adelaide frowned as she recognised the scene. The sight of a crumbling boy; almost a man but still not having been given the chance to really grow. The woman sat on her knees in front of him, being careful not to make any sudden movements.

“Want to…” She cleared her throat. “Want to explain what has you so worked up, kid?”

He looked away. “You don’t look old enough to call me that.”

“We aren’t the same age, but fine. Junior.”

Tokken exhaled slowly, his hand making the sound of moving leather as it closed into a tight fist. “I’ve never known what I was supposed to be.”

“Care to be a bit more specific? My legs are already aching over here.”

He looked at the doctor, and then at his bed. He pat the space next to him invitingly.

“I’ll refuse that offer, thanks. Don’t want to be a blood donor for that purpose,” Adelaide said, earning a frown from him.

“I won’t… cut you…”

She raised her hands innocently. “Sorry, but I’m not the type to take those sorts of risks. Carry on.”

“If you insist. Say, what is a ‘Tsuki’ to you?” he asked.

Miss Roche took a moment to answer that question. “Suspiciously lucky?”

“What role do they fill?”

“A tense political one. Used to, anyway.”

Losing his patience, the teen shot daggers at the lass. “Stop tiptoeing. Where did their importance come from? What did they actually do that was so important?”

Adelaide looked uncomfortable. She was unsure whether she was even authorised to speak on the matter. Pulling Tokken’s ear closer with a painful yank, she whispered, “To serve as a bridge between us and the Crimsons.”

Tokken pulled back. “What…?”

“It’s what I understood, I suppose.” She shrugged, leaving the boy to tend to her work.

“Don’t you walk out on me!” Tokken said firmly. “I won’t be having this endless void of information forever!”

Adelaide stopped and sighed. Turning to look at him from the corner of her eyes, she said, “Their greatest purpose was to serve as a pathway to connect us to the demons of the Badlands. And vice-versa. That's their magnum opus. Something we really didn’t need.” She tapped her papers together. “It was enough to tell us not to mess with them.”

“Vice-versa? So you’re telling me my family did serve them?! That’s absurd!”

With a haughty tone, she silenced the teen with a kick of her heel. “Your grasp on reality is none of my concern. I’m way too busy for this.”

“Where are you going?!”

“I’m sending someone else.”

“But why?!” he shouted.

“Because,” she said without looking back. “You reek of Dark Energy.”

The door slammed shut behind her, leaving the teen speechless. His tongue felt like it had been ripped from his mouth. Tokken didn’t get a fair chance as he thought. He was already scum from the moment he was born. He just looked at the floor and succumbed. All that mattered is that he succeeded in doing what he needed to and getting it over with. Maybe that would make the void of worthlessness in his chest dissipate. He could experience proper grief, ring himself dry and then, only then, feel true happiness.

♦ ♥ ♣ ♠

The jeep picked up speed naturally as Emris floored the pedal from the stiffness of his legs. He held onto the steering wheel tightly, making sharp turns and skidding the wheels multiple times throughout the journey. They were headed for the western wall of the city. Goddess knows where they were going.

Emris’ head swung, lightheaded, and his eyes blinked. He licked his lips, slack-jawed. When he glanced at Holly, he could see the discomfort in her eyes, shifting in her seat as she tried to cope with her life hanging from a dry twig.

“So help me Goddess if ye pull that trigger, Meschae,” Emris said, his defiance muddled with worry and malaise. He could hardly bring himself to look in the rear-view mirror.

Meschae spoke with a slur. “Now, don’t be gettin’ cocky, ya foxy fooker. Real misfortunate it’d be, w’un’t it?” he said, chuckling with a cough as he pushed the barrel harder into Holly’s neck.

Emris’ head swivelled and bobbed, ill with unease. “Meschae, I’ll——.”

“Shut it. Saints, ya eat people, Em. Stop gettin’ so fretted over one, yeah?”

“She’s…” He looked at her. He saw her gag in repulsion. “She’s my daughter.”

“Eh, by technicalities, but you didn’t fock a rabbit, now did ya?” Meschae said with a wide grin, waving his pistol left and right.

“Meschae, drop the gun. Let’s talk. She ain’t involved.”

“Lass got involved, din’t she?”

Emris bit his lip. He was supposed to bring Holly from danger, not to it.

“Look, just say the word, I’ll do it.”

“Sure. Park over here and kill ya’self, yeah?” he joked, leaning back into his seat. “Don’t make me a fool Em, ya cunnie. I’ve half a brain but we’re all at wit's end dealing with your ugly shite mug. 'You'll do what I says’. You and ya pride? Yeah, right. Fookin’ rats to poison. I ain’t bitin’ shite of yours.”

Emris inhaled through his nose and exhaled, trying to maintain control.

“Give us a right up there,” Meschae said. “Ya know, you might not have had a rabbit in bed, Em, but you sure scored a sweet lil' pupper. What were the kiddies called? Kits? Pfft, like kittens?”

Another drunken laugh.

“Morts, you missed a spot here, mate. Och, but she is a beaut, too. I’d bed ‘er,” the Crimson said, reaching forward again to grab Holly’s head, thrusting the pistol into her temple. She could only shriek and follow his grip. Meschae watched Emris’ veins pop from his head with a bastard’s smile. “Would ya mind, Em? If I screw ya so-called daugh'er’s brains out right here?”

Emris’ teeth snapped together and ground as loud as a clunking locomotive engine. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, staring Meschae right back with the anger of a challenged father — literally biting down his impatience. Cars around them honked as the jeep failed to go in a straight line.

Meschae’s smile dropped.

“Oi,” the Crimson said. “Don’t fookin’ look at me like that, Em. I’m dead serious. Dead’s what she’ll be if you keep doin’ that shite, heard? Heard?!”

Another deep breath. The steering wheel began to deform under his grip.

“Meschae, drop her.”

A shuffle in the back came as the intruder brought his face close enough to the front to be seen in Emris’ peripheral.

“Hey, Victus leech, do I need to snap this hare’s neck like fresh game for ya to un’erstand me?”

Emris’ eyes glimpsed at Holly. She returned those short looks with a nod.

Meschae’s voice cracked as he shouted, “SPEAK!”

Immediately, Holly yanked herself from Meschae’s grip and dropped her head under the dashboard, covering her skull with her paws. Before the Crimson could react, Emris reached over to her and shielded her with an arm, and in the same motion, spun the wheel as far right as it could go — sending the vehicle over a pedestrian walkway and down a level of stairs, rolling once into a tucked away alleyway and colliding with a concrete wall at moderate speeds; all this in five seconds or less. To everyone inside the catastrophe, everything went black.

A cloud of smoke settled on the roof—or rather, the floor—of the mangled vehicle as the inside flooded with grey emissions. Emris choked and wheezed, coughing the crap out of his lungs and reaching for the door. Of course, the opening mechanism was completely busted, which left him with no option but to pry the metal apart with raw force.

In the meantime, Meschae too stirred from the bash, dropping a hand on Holly’s headrest. By then, Emris had hammered the door open, crawling through his torn seatbelt and dragging himself through the shards of glass and sharp steel edges.

“Saintess Vicks!” The muffled input of someone outside the ‘accident’ called. Emris couldn’t see through the haze, and frankly, he couldn’t care less. The pain of glass cuts mauling his flesh burnt in more places than he could deduce.

His low groans were accompanied by those of a second man in the wreck. His reckoning could wait. Dragging himself to his feet, the Guardian took a quick look at the overturned jeep, supporting himself on a hand as he made his way around the opposite side. The vehicle was inclined in such a way that Holly’s end was raised higher in the air. Emris bit his lip as he thoughtlessly put his fingers through the window and pulled. The tips of his fingers locked on the door, and with a leg on the chassis, he pulled.

“Ya fookin’... Ya’ve gone and done really cocked up now,” Meschae said from within. His voice was groggy. Emris could tell he was still recovering.

Suddenly, a ball of orange-yellow light permeated through the smoke as a dancing blur, and in little time, the air began to heat up. Emris tightened his grip, lacerating himself even further and creaking the wasted metal. He felt a bump collide with the door.

“That’s it, lass!” Emris shouted, compelling another bash. And then another. On the fourth kick, the metal bent and gave way, allowing the door to be thrown open.

Emris reached in and nabbed the Lypin as quick as he could before she cooked, pushing back a few steps before falling on his ass.

“Shite…! Are ye well, buttercup?” Emris said, his voice devoid of wrath or coarseness. Small embers had formed on her fur, and he made quick work of patting those away.

“Yeah, I think I’m okay. Do I have all my limbs? I didn’t wanna look,” she said, not nearly as panicked or hurt as he expected.

Emris smiled. “Ye’re in one piece.”

“Thank the Goddess. No more sudden road trips, Em! I’m serious!”

“Aye, think I’ll be good for a while too.”

Their chat was cut short as the smoke began to accumulate around the vehicle well beyond what the damages therein should cause. Even ten feet away the car felt like standing next to an open oven. It wasn’t long before the whole jeep was set ablaze.

“Shite, Holly…” Emris warned, holding her paw tightly as he tensed, ready to stand against his wounds.

“Ya went and pissed me off right and proper, di’n’t ya?” Meschae said, his burning silhouette visible through the fire. “All ya had to do was fookin’ drive, Vessel.”