Chapter 27-
A thin smile curled at one side of Eroh’s mouth.
“Oh? Is that so?” He gazed down at Gallow and Bleech, both struggling to stay conscious on the ground. He quickly sized up Ansel and considered his odds against the man.
Ansel took a step toward him, the boards of the porch creaking beneath him. Eroh maintained an aggressive stance, legs spread and hips cocked to the side, arms bent in front of himself.
Ansel continued his approach with a brisk pace, ready to swing his axe as he closed the distance between them. Eroh knew that the woodcutter wouldn’t begin suffering from the effects of his passive poison until after he was within striking range, which the assassin estimated from a rough approximation of the axe’s length. He tensed his body and prepared for the attack.
“Two more feet and-”
Within five seconds, Ansel had crossed the line and swung diagonally from his waist. Eroh dodged to Ansel’s right, avoiding the slash and now in a favorable position. The woodcutter’s arm was fully extended outwards, and he was left unguarded. It was a textbook example of a sloppy attack, Eroh was practically served a kill on a platter.
Toxins dripped from the assassin’s right hand, which now raced towards Ansel’s heart. It was corrosive enough to pierce the flesh and burn away his inner organs; a civilian casualties weren’t covered in his orders, but he didn’t mind too much.
Suddenly, Eroh was blasted by a blinding light. His eyes, which had adjusted to the dense night of the forest were abruptly blown out, even his nerves of steel weren’t enough to mask the very human reaction of utter daze and bewilderment. He wobbled and lost his footing in the middle of his attack, a moment later he felt an intense, scorching heat. The assassin quickly straightened himself out; his vision was swimming with streaks and swirls as he attempted to acclimate himself. A few seconds later, he was able to see that Ansel and himself were surrounded by a vast, arid desert. Dunes of sand rolled for what seemed to be miles, yet he could still see the cabin just fifteen feet away.
This was all Eroh was able to take in of his surroundings, because he was quickly faced with the reality of an iron spearhead racing toward his chest. He instinctively dodged out of its path and jumped backwards. With the distance he’d created, Eroh discovered that the person at the other end of this spear was a young native woman.
“What?” the question raced through his mind. “Was she part of the group as well? What kind of a party is this?”
Suddenly, he felt a thudding pain which resounded from a single point in his chest. He gripped it and realized that there was a hole in his leather vest; the spear had made contact, and the fact that he was unable to realize this until after the fact did much to annoy him.
This whole altercation had taken less than ten seconds, he knew that his passive poison would only begin taking effect after a minute. His was a strong fighter, but he didn’t keep any external weapons or supplies on his person to keep as lightweight as possible; against two armed opponents he ran the risk of being seriously outmatched if he continued to engage them head-on.
The light was still blaring overhead from an indeterminate source, it could have only been the work of a Vocation. Whose ability it was didn’t matter as much as getting out of its range, he knew he had an advantage lying in wait.
In a split-second, Eroh had turned and was sprinting away from the scene. As he left the area, trees seemed to materialize in front of him, he was finding the edge of the ability’s range. He leapt upwards and began quickly scaling the branches of a nearby pine, jumping around from tree to tree.
“Let’s see… let’s see…” his eyes were intently focused on finding a specific sight.
“Ah!”
---
As the assassin jumped around the trees, Sonsee struggled to lock onto him with Vanishing Point. He was simply moving too swiftly and was already back under the shroud of dark.
Suddenly, from behind her, she heard a faint voice.
“Sonsee…”
She looked back to see Gallow, barely awake. His eyes were glowing a faint blue.
“Sonsee… by the stream…”
Her eyes jolted wider and she turned her attention to the direction of the stream which ran beside the cabin. Taking a few quick paces to see around the cabin, she caught Eroh landing by the water. Ansel followed her line of sight.
“There!” she called, her arm stretching out in the assassin’s direction.
“[VANISHING POINT]!!”
---
Eroh, crouching down, felt an unexpected rush of energy as the world around him disappeared. He looked up to see only the native woman, reaching out towards him. Without warning, he was sucked in her direction at an incredible speed. The spear, held in her right hand, was poised to stab as soon as he emerged from the ability.
As the curtain of void was torn from where she stood, the world reappeared. Sonsee’s spear charged towards Eroh, but he kicked upwards and knocked it off its trajectory. Ansel swung the axe at the assassin, but he deftly rolled from the spot he was now laying on. He gripped the spear just behind the tip and held it in place.
“Ie!!” Sonsee yelled. It meant ‘you!!’ in her native Atamape; the slip in language seemed to arise from sheer frustration and exhaustion.
“Wait!” Ansel cautioned abruptly. Sonsee looked at him angrily for interrupting her.
“Your hand…” Ansel whispered. “Why is it wet?”
Now that Eroh was back in the intense light, the water drenching his hand was acutely noticeable.
“Oh, you want to know what I was doing over there?” he snickered. “That stream is filled with toxins that will kill most of what lives here and anything downstream- whatever survives will be contaminated to spread to anyone unlucky enough to catch it!”
“What have-” Ansel was filled with dread and anger. “What have you done?!”
“The toxins can’t be filtered out at this point,” Eroh continued. “The only way to prevent that from happening is for me to consciously deactivate my Vocation, ya’ hear? If I’m dead, I can’t turn it off, ya’ see?”
Ansel’s grip around the handle of his axe tightened.
“Turn it off,” he commanded in a gravelly tone.
“Alright, alright,” Eroh replied nonchalantly. He knew now that he had the advantage, and he would keep an iron grip on it. “All I need you to do is make a decision.”
He leapt from his crouching position and landed two feet away before raising a finger at them.
“One,” he explained. “You give me the kid over there, no questions asked, and as part of the agreement, I won’t kill him, ok?” His eyes glanced over at Bleech’s unconscious body.
“What?” Sonsee whispered under her breath, full of fear.
“Two,” he continued, raising the second finger. “You give me the other guy, ok? Whichever you choose, I’ll release my ability in the stream.”
Sonsee and Ansel glanced at each other, worry and bafflement dominated their expressions.
“I’ll give you as much time as you need to consider,” Eroh added. “As long as I do it within the next five minutes, the damage to the ecosystem should be minimal.”
“Ansel, I…” Sonsee dragged the words from her throat. “I don’t even know where to begin… Do you even want to make this decision?”
“Sonsee, if that poison spreads, it’s going to kill the wildlife, it’s going to go into the plants, and it’s going to infect people miles away from here,” Ansel’s face and tone were grim. “I don’t want to have to do this, but we need to give something up for the greater good.”
“I…” Sonsee couldn’t form an argument against him, and let out an exasperated sigh. The sunlight continued to beat down on them.
“Theoretically,” he offered. “No one has to die.”
“Are you saying we give up Bleech?!” she cried. “He’s a child!”
“He isn’t going to kill him!” Ansel shot back.
“Even if he isn’t lying about that, you don’t know what he’s going to do with him!” Sonsee was growing upset, sweat was forming on her brow from the heat.
“Look, I’ll…” Ansel motioned with his hand and the desert around them disappeared, enveloping them back into the darkness of the forest. Immediately, the cool air felt refreshing on their skin.
“I don’t know- I don’t know what to do…” Sonsee felt frozen in place. She began to cough, bringing her arm up to her mouth. Eroh looked on, his arms folded, a strange expression across his face, like smugness and ruthlessness.
“Okay,” Ansel tried to reason. “Why don’t we-” he was interrupted by a coughing fit of his own. A moment later he was joined by Sonsee, who suffered a second one.
“What in the-” the woodcutter looked about the environment in confusion.
“Is the-?”
Ansel raised his foot and planted it firmly in the ground in Eroh’s direction.
“Ansel?” Sonsee asked in between coughs.
A painting suddenly materialized in his hand, from where she stood she could make out only that it depicted a lean, dark-skinned man in shorts.
“[OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES]”
Sonsee’s eyes widened.
“What are you?”
In only a second’s time, Ansel had closed the gap between himself and Eroh.
---
“What in the- when did he become so fast?!” Eroh narrowly leaned out of the arc of Ansel’s axe.
“You… Bastard!” the woodcutter growled, flipping the axe in his hand and bringing it back around for a follow-up. Again, Eroh hopped just barely out of the swing. Ansel lurched forward for a third strike, this time swinging upward and keeping his arm bent as he extended the blade as far as possible.
“He’s keeping his posture close and guarded,” Eroh realized. “He’s even avoiding straightening his arm so I can’t redirect his attack!”
The assassin was only able to respond by leaping away once more into the forest. Before he knew it, he was running side by side with the woodcutter.
“He caught up already?!” Eroh’s attention was grabbed for one second too long, and he ran headfirst into a tree, bouncing backwards from the impact. The only option left for him was to jump into the branches to escape the impending swing of the axe.
He had scaled the tree and just barely traversed to the adjacent one when beams of light engulfed the area.
“What’s this guy’s Vocation?!” the thought screamed through his mind. A second later, Ansel was before him in midair, having surged up suddenly to his level. Before he knew it, the blade of the axe was approaching his face. With split-second reaction speeds, Eroh leaned towards the attack and brought up his right arm to hold the handle back from flipping around.
Eroh’s left hand shot towards Ansel’s face; the woodcutter’s left hand likewise slammed upwards into it, flying outwards. Eroh’s attack was completely redirected and Ansel’s arm slid up the bottom of his, the woodcutter’s fist slamming into his face.
Eroh went flying backwards, but managed to grab a branch, hanging from the support of the thick wood.
“What you just saw,” Ansel explained, landing on a branch himself. “Was the speed of the fastest man in the East, the sun on a beautiful spring day in a Klouvian countryside, and the climbing skill of the Godan mountain monks.”
Eroh’s brow was furrowed in distress and anger.
“My Vocation, Other People’s Lives, in action.”
“Awesome.”
In an instant, Eroh was flying through the air, having flung himself up and over the branch.
“[LULLABY]!!” A concentrated stream of venom shot from beneath his fingertips, launching eight total in Ansel’s direction. The older man leapt away as the streams burned straight through the trunk of the tree.
They parried attacks, back and forth as they jumped from branch to branch; Ansel swung at the assassin, Eroh would narrowly avoid it and respond with a slash that left trails of liquid venom in the air. The sunlight which still streamed down caught the venom, which glistened in an oddly artful way.
Eroh’s arm flew out, his elbow bashing Ansel’s arm. The assassin’s other hand followed-up, scratching his opponent’s chest, ripping open his shirt.
Ansel didn’t break a sweat, bringing his leg up and slamming it into Eroh’s stomach, knocking him into a tree. A painting appeared in the woodcutter’s hand.
“The Chitzamahe tribe, known for mixing snake venom into their food to build up a near complete tolerance to all forms of intravenous toxins.”
“What?” Eroh rasped.
“Your venoms are useless against me,” Ansel explained.
“Alright, then,” Eroh laughed. “I’ll just burn straight through you!!” He leapt at Ansel, and the two commenced swiping and dodging once more.
This rhythm of battle continued for some time as they flew through the air, until Ansel suddenly disappeared.
“Huh?” Eroh went on high alert, his senses as sharp as ever with the amount of adrenaline running through his body.
“Listen… listen… he’s here…”
…
When Ansel was visiting a small island in the South Eastern corner of the world, known as Sensen, his guide introduced him to a man who claimed he was able to completely mask his appearance. Vocations which utilized abstract space or energy typically came coupled with the spirit sight necessary to perceive these things, and as Ansel had already developed his Vocation at this point, he was able to see that this man’s talent was actually a special ability. When he followed a specific breathing pattern and focused himself, he completely shrouded his soul, likewise masking his presence and any sounds he would make to alert someone. It went so far as to make one’s mind not register him as being there at all if they were not aware of him prior.
…
This was the memory he now channeled with Other People’s Lives, descending from above, completely unseen, unheard, and unsensed. The sound of the axehead arcing through the air was all that was audible, and it came far too late. The blade connected straight with Eroh’s body, knocking him off the branch he was perched on.
The assassin slammed into the hard ground below with a hard thudding sound.
“Uwagh!”
The wound on his back was light thanks to his clothing being weaved from galvanized steel, but blood still seeped from the right shoulder to his left hip. He staggered to his feet as Ansel landed effortlessly in front of him. The pain in Eroh’s chest was immense, the fall had undoubtedly broken more than one bone.
“Hey, hey!” he called, raising his arms in surrender. “I give, I give, I’ll release it, as long as you let me go!” He pleaded, a sudden fear overtook his expression.
“Don’t give me that…” Ansel’s voice was more full of cool detest than outright anger, as it had before.
Eroh chuckled. “How did you tell? I’m curious.”
“The memory of the desert was a lot of energy all around, when it was cleared and the clutter was gone, I saw the gas in the area. That poison comes from your soul, you know that?”
“I’m well aware,” Eroh replied calmly and smugly.
“But when I saw the stream, there wasn’t a trace of your Vocation in there,” the woodcutter continued. “It was all a distraction- the poison in the stream, the ultimatum- just to buy time for the gas to affect us.”
“Wow, you’re pretty perceptive, huh?” Eroh said in a disaffected tone.
“You must have broken a rib or two on the way down, so I don’t think you’ll want to put up much of a fight,” Ansel threatened, before taking the first step towards him.
“[LULLABY]!!!” Eroh shrieked suddenly, his left pointer finger snapping down to point at Ansel. He felt the venom bubbling behind his fingernail, the familiar sensation.
A snapping, cracking sound rang out.
A boom resounded through the forest.
A hole opened in Eroh’s left hand.
“What the hell-?” his voice shook and turned into a warbled scream. “AAAAGH!! UWAAAAAGH!!”
He leaned back in pain, looking at the wound, his head turned to the right. Behind his hand was a small blonde girl, standing in the clearing in front of the cabin, holding a rifle in her thin arms.
“When did we get back- no! He was leading me back here the whole time?! I thought this was a group of four! That damned bird! I’ll skin that f*@#!& thing!!!”
A painting materialized in Ansel’s hand.
‘Harris Bergeron, The Strongest Man In The World… What a pleasant man as well, I expected to be intimidated by him, but his kind presence made him a great drinking friend.’
The axe came down. Like a streak of light, it cut clean through the steel mesh of Eroh’s shirt and ripped into his right upper bicep. For the first time in years, his alabaster white flesh was opened, the muscle tore, the bone shattered, until in a flash the blade was on the other side.
“GHEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” Eroh shrieked like a monster out of a children’s fable. His left arm was almost completely sliced off, only hanging on by the strand of a thin tendon.
He grabbed his loosely hanging arm and ripped it straight off, accompanied by a sickening *sclurch* and the squirting of blood. Black spots were growing on the limb and covering it, a faint black haze emanated from the pores.
His eyes were steeled, he flung the arm at Ansel with an incredible force, his rage was incalculable.
Ansel stepped out of the way in time, but the arm easily flew another ten feet, where Sonsee-array was standing. The limb crashed into her, disintegrating and releasing a disgusting black smoke into the air. She cried out and reeled from the hit.
“What the hell was-” Ansel couldn’t finish his sentence before Eroh cut him off.
“Lullaby’s final necrotoxin- Disintegration!” His eyes were wild, his black lips curled in a mad smile. He was losing his mind to cope with the unbelievable pain.
“Bye-bye! I think I’ve had enough of you people!!” He was practically giggling.
“You!” Ansel turned back, but the assassin was already gone.
---
Sonsee was lying in the cabin as Janna performed a rudimentary toxicology checkup- mostly consisting of a series of questions.
“I mean, I don’t feel anything immediately wrong,” Sonsee explained nervously.
“He called it a necrotoxin,” Janna reiterated. “That’s going to eat away at your flesh unless we can get you medical attention from a real hospital!”
“But they’ll arrest me if I go into a town or a city, I’m a wanted criminal!” Sonsee argued.
“It’s better than you dying!” Janna pouted and put her hands on her hips.
“Wait, wait,” Ansel interjected. “No one in any hospital is going to be able to treat that.”
“Huh?” Janna was visibly confused.
“Neither of you have spirit sight,” he explained. “Right now, I can see Disintegration inside of you.”
“With spirit sight?!” Sonsee was now even more anxious. “Does that mean this is-”
“It’s a spiritual poison,” Ansel finished for her. Through his eyes, a black cloud was slowly filling up her body, getting closer to her core.
“It’s going to overtake your entire spirit, and choke you out, eat you away.”
“W-what?” Janna shook with fear.
“Janna…” Sonsee offered. “It’s going to be ok…” She looked into the young girl’s eyes. She’d been so brave earlier; when the adults had gone out to confront Eroh, Ansel cursed that there wasn’t enough time to get his gun. When the woodcutter occupied the assassin, Sonsee had run into the cabin and told Janna about the gun. Her father had taught her how to fire a shotgun, and she was able to carry the skills over, properly loading the weapon and removing the safety. It was a sheer miracle that she managed to strike Eroh’s palm so dead-on.
“How do you know that?” the girl quivered. “What are you going to do??” She had become attached to Sonsee and Gallow in the wake of her father’s death; the four of them together made a strange kind of family, and the threat to that was shocking and scary.
The native woman couldn’t offer anything in reply, she only stared into Janna’s eyes with a very motherly kind of warmth
“There’s one possibility for you to save her.”
The two of them stopped and gazed at Ansel.
“About two days journey from here, there’s a woman who lives at the foot of a mountain. She’s a kind of sage, or a medicine woman.” He looked down at the floor. “To be honest, I don’t really know what she is, I’ve tried to use her memory with my Vocation, but it’s impossible.” He turned his head back up to affirm in them.
“I believe that she’s some kind of powerful Vocation user. I came to her with a simple leg injury, and she healed it in seconds. There are stories about her from the people of the countryside, about a kind of witch or spirit who lives at the base of the mountain in a shack, they go back to two hundred years ago, when this region was colonized by the Hope.”
There was a moment of silence between the three of them before Sonsee broke it.
“Do you really think that this woman can heal me?”
He looked into her eyes with determination.
“I can’t guarantee, but it’s your only bet.”
Sonsee returned his stare, before looking over at Gallow and Bleech, who were sleeping soundly after Janna checked their breathing to ensure they weren’t experiencing damage to their lungs.
The native woman turned back to him.
“Then we leave in the morning.”