Hangman Chapter 23

Chapter 23-

The bladed edge raced towards Sonsee’s heart. She sensed the presence behind her; time slowed. She watched the knife near her body, closer, closer, unbearably close. Her pulse leapt, a bead of sweat formed on her forehead.

Then it was still.

Her hand was wrapped around the attacker’s wrist, both of their arms trembled, trying to overcome the other in strength.

“Got you!” she exclaimed. Her elbow crashed into the empty space beneath the head, where the midsection would be. She couldn’t turn her head to see her attacker, but she felt a mass move at the point of impact. She’d landed a direct blow to his stomach.

The eyes of the attacker, still largely obscured by shadow, widened in pain as he fell back. Sonsee turned to make out his appearance, but as she spun around, all she caught was his mysterious form disappearing, submerging into thin air as if he was diving underwater.

Frantically, she looked about for the assassin, but she could only find confused stares from passengers, none of whom had seen the struggle.

By instinct, she reached for the collapsed spear at her side, but stopped herself.

“I can’t brandish a weapon on a public train like this-” she realized. If a native woman suddenly took out a spear in a train car of only white Andeidrans, she’d be tackled and tried at the nearest convenience.

“I need to get back to Gallow and Bleech- and find Janna, if I can!”

With a clear mission in mind, she dashed out of the car in the direction she came.

---

Fars Chaucer hit the ground, disappearing from the woman’s sight. He rolled out of the way, making sure not to bump into any of the nearby passengers. When he was able to focus again, he watched her run out the door on the opposite side of the car.

“Why is she moving in that direction-?” he thought. “If she wanted to stay safe, she’d get closer to one of the people in this car… unless…!”

He stealthily tumbled forward to his feet and chased after his target. Curiously, the other passengers did not notice the door opening and closing. Fars burst into the adjacent car, which housed the sleeping quarters and was not populated at all. He just managed to see the back of Sonsee’s leg turning the corner to the staircase that wrapped up to the top level of the car.

“[PANIC SWITCH]!” he activated his ability, reaching out in her direction. A shimmering tunnel extended down the length of the car, curving around the corner to catch up to Sonsee.

---

Sonsee had just made the turn to run up the staircase, but suddenly found herself looking at a wall.

“What-?! That’s impossible!”

She looked around frantically, and felt a presence from behind. Sonsee instinctively picked one foot off the ground and let her other knee buckle, allowing herself to spin and fall backwards in time to dodge the lunge of Fars’ knife. She hit the ground and threw her leg out to deliver a heavy kick to his gut. Fars recoiled from the impact.

“Oh jeez, oh man!” he began to panic. “This is how it goes, doesn’t it? This is how it goes, of course!”

Every life Fars Chaucer had ever taken was under the coaching of someone else. He was at the unfortunate crossroads of being both cruel and cowardly, he was definitely the least appreciated of his team.

Fars lost his grip on the knife and clumsily attempted to snatch it as it fell, only managing to fumble his way into cutting open his suit arm and the subsequent skin underneath.

“[PANIC SWITCH]!” he shouted, trying to get out of the situation. The invisible curtain enveloped him once more, and he vanished from her sight.

She scrambled to her feet, grabbing her collapsed spear. Before she straightened it, however, she took pause.

“Are those-?” she heard the sound of footsteps thumping away from her and around the corner. As the invisible assailant fled, she watched drops of blood appear on the carpeted floor. Pondering this, she looked behind her and saw that the staircase was behind her once more.

“There’s only one thing to do,” she resolved herself. “I won’t let that man hurt Janna, I’m doing this myself!” Sonsee took off in the direction of the blood stains.

---

“Oh- oh man!” Fars had run into an empty room and was rummaging through the luggage of whoever was unfortunate enough to be staying there. He yanked out a heavy white nightgown, ripped off several layers of fabric from it, and quickly tied a bandage around the wound on his right arm.

“It’s nowhere near fatal,” he analyzed. “I managed to miss a major artery, but I still shouldn’t move it around too much.” Fars looked back at the door, which he had locked upon finding the room open. There were two bunk beds mounted to the wall on his left, and a dresser with a mirror placed at the back alongside a leather chair, both next to the window overlooking the passing terrain. He took a sigh and began to collect his thoughts. His eyes wandered downwards to the floor, where two small bloodstains had soaked into the carpet.

“Wait,” he realized. “The whole time, was I-?”

The pull handle of the door shook as someone on the other side tried to pry it open.

“Oh- oh no!”

---

Sonsee discovered quickly that the door was locked tightly. Its shaking, however, clued her in on a different way to get in.

There wasn’t much room in the skinny hallway, but she was able to pull her well-toned arm up to her face, shoulder facing the door, her fist clenched. With a crash, she brought her arm down on the thin wood, shattering a hole in it accompanied by splintering wood. The size now halved, she slammed her knee into the center of the remaining bottom half, smashing it as well.

She was greeted by the room seeming to cave in in her direction, stretching from the center. Her reflection, much larger than her actual appearance, was also standing in front of her.

“This is like before!” Already planning on a retaliation, she ducked back and pivoted on her foot, out of the way of the door. From seemingly nothing, Fars materialized, pouncing forwards with his monstrous knife outstretched.

“I’ll tear out your throat!!” he screamed in his mind.

Completely missing her, his point pierced the wall opposite the door. He hung for a moment.

“O-oh… Oh darn it!”

He turned his eyes over to Sonsee, who was already standing in a fighting position, glaring at him. A second later, her fist collided with his frantic expression. He jerked back, pulling his knife from the wall.

“Oh, but I did the concave trick! That’s one of my best!” he shouted, upset and not caring about what information he divulged.

“The same lame trick,” she replied. “Isn’t going to work twice.” She paused for a moment. “It didn’t even really work the first time,” she added.

Fars steamed and leapt at her, but Sonsee already had her hand at her hip, and whipped out her spear.

“It’s over for him!”

The spear stopped. Fars was clutching the closest possible segment of the weapon to the actual metal point.

“He- he caught it?”

The assassin gazed at her, half of his face was suddenly covered by an impenetrable shadow, but his eyes were bright with cruelty.

“[PANIC SWITCH]...”

He slipped into thin air, and Sonsee suddenly felt a powerful tug on her spear, pulling her forward. Less than a second after being knocked off balance, she felt a horrific pain open up in her side.

She howled in pain as Fars flashed back into existence. His hand was on the knife buried into her.

“What are you gonna say now?! Huh?! What?!!” he shrieked at her.

Sucking in gulps of air, she opened her palm towards him.

“[VANISHING… POINT]...!”

His world darkened and he was suddenly thrust backwards at high speeds, hitting the ground confusedly. He looked up to see her stagger into the room.

“What does she think she’s doing?” he questioned, getting to his feet. He sprinted down the hallway, covering himself in his shroud of light and picking up his knife.

He turned the corner and saw her standing with her back to the entrance, looking out the window.

If she was going to die, she wanted to do so gazing at her beautiful countryside. Even if she had had her land taken from her, even if it was a violent and unforgiving wasteland, it had a special majesty to her, irreplaceable.

Fars’ foot touched off from the threshold. His blade was held high and pointed downward, poised for a crushing, brutal kill. He flew through the air, his moment. Every insult behind his back was to be washed away. The old Fars Chaucer was gone, the new one had emerged from his husk.

“My… time!!!” his eyes were wild with a frenzy that came from the smell of blood.

He flew through the air, closing the gap between them.

…

……

………

Sonsee an inch stepped to the side.

“W-what?”

Fars overshot the leap and crashed into the dresser, twisting his ankle as he hit the floor.

“What the hell?!” he demanded feebly. He clutched his ankle and breathed in sharply. “How did you even know…? You can barely move!”

Sonsee, holding her wound doing her best to ignore the pain, grimaced down at him.

“You said something about concave?” she started, smiling. “I learned about concave and convex one time, you helped me figure out your ability…”

Fars’ jaw quivered. Had he really given her the key to beating him?

“Your Vocation makes mirrors, or manipulates light like a mirror does, right?” she continued. “You did that trick earlier by making a concave mirror, where the light reflects into a single point in front, so it distorts as it bends inward. If I’m right, then you hide yourself by making a kind of convex reflection around yourself, splaying the light outwards so far so that anyone else would see the image behind you?”

He couldn’t speak, her observation was on point.

“But-” she gasped as another surge of pain pulsed from her injury. “There’s a tell to it: in a convex mirror, images always look smaller than they really are.” She glanced up, Fars followed her gaze to the dresser he was up against. On top of the dresser was a large, flat mirror.

“N-no!” he exclaimed.

“If I have a reference from a mirror without distortion,” she elaborated. “I can see exactly where your cover is messing with the light.”

His eyes widened, his jaw opened wide in terror.

“[VANISHING POINT]!!” She held out her hand, and with the other threw out her whip; it connected and straightened into a proper spear. Fars was pulled toward her, speeding directly towards the point.

The man was impaled directly through the stomach, piercing multiple internal organs and spurting blood around the room.

Sonsee held him for a moment, feeling the life slowly drain out of his body. With a weak voice, he began to speak.

“Oh… oh jeez…” he whispered into her ear. “You know, my Vocation isn’t a combat type, right? That’s why I was given that knife, that was a gift from-” blood gushed from his mouth. “...From the Tiger…”

“The Tiger?” she asked quietly.

“A weak power, like mine, needs something to supplement it…” he continued, without answering her question. “The others have Vocations made for killing, that’s why they can do it so easily… but me… I’m just a joke…” he trailed off for a moment. Sonsee thought that he had died until his voice suddenly came back.

“But I guess that’s something...”

Fars Chaucer died with a small smile on his face. Perhaps it was his final way of coming to peace with his existence, all of his failures and weakness. A jovial, spiteful ending, spiteful only to the world.

…

A shrill scream rang out behind Sonsee. She turned her head, with some difficulty, to see a blonde white woman standing in the shattered doorway, absolutely terrified.

“Uh oh.”

The room’s owner was here.