Chapter 36-
Dion Eumenides was born in a small, wealthy community south of Hilltop. As a child, he held an unconditional and unwavering love for his parents, who had given him so much. He was sent to a high-end private school for gifted students, where he routinely achieved first or second rank in his class. Each night, there was not even an inkling of doubt that he would be treated to a professionally cooked gourmet meal.
Dion’s father was a hardworking banker who had several high-profile clients under his belt. He was away in the city, a several mile trip, from sunrise to sunset every day. Despite having little to no contact with him, Dion still loved him and understood that it was by his own sacrifice that their family was able to maintain their lifestyle.
He had few friends growing up, most of them moving away and falling out of contact. As a result, most of his neighbors were forty-plus years old or couples who had chosen not to have children. Dion realized that in order to be happy, he would need to learn to exist on his own. There was no longer any sadness when someone left him, there was no tragedy.
At the age of thirteen, Dion’s father died of a familial illness, and his life was thrown into chaos for the first time. It was a slow process at the time, a hacking cough when he came home from work, a day taken off, small things. His death was swift and surprising, the illness progressing at a severe rate. Dion fell into a depression and stopped attending school, staying home in his room, where he lamented and prayed for hours that his father’s soul would be taken to Heaven.
One day, he strode out of his room and informed his mother that he would be resuming his studies. Without fanfare, his life began once more, and he worked his grades back up to their original standing. When he passed his classmates, they would apologize and attempt to offer their condolences, but to their surprise, he seemed unaffected by it. He simply thanked them, smiled, and continued on his way.
When he was seventeen years old, Dion had committed to continuing his education at a wealthy university. At the same time, an elderly family friend had invited them to visit her in her last days. Dion’s mother refused to go, as it interfered with a trip that she’d planned earlier.
Dion traveled six miles to visit this friend, now very aged and with death at her door. It was evening when he was suddenly called into her chamber by the woman’s servant.
“Dion, dear Dion…” she croaked out from her pristinely white bed.
“Yes?”
“I need to tell you a secret… Your mother can’t hear...”
He stared at her for a moment, taken aback.
“W-what do you need to tell me that my mother shouldn’t know?”
She took a deep breath, the energy visibly seeping from her body.
“Your father… didn’t die of illness…”
His heart stopped.
“My- what?” The color drained from his face.
“The illness was real…” she gasped. “But your mother… didn’t give him the medicine…”
Dion felt the air being sucked out of the room, it was as if he was standing on nothingness.
“She… poisoned him… for his wealth…”
For the last time, Dion Eumenides’ life was shattered, he entered an unending chaos.
“How... do you know this?”
His voice was calm and quiet, betraying no emotion.
“She told me… while she was doing it… I was her closest friend… and it’s been tearing me apart since…”
The old woman’s face was overtaken by grief. This secret had haunted her for years, and this confession would be her final reconciliation.
“I understand,” he confided in her. “I forgive you for not telling me, I won’t hold it against you.”
He held her hand at her bedside and made sure that she felt his warmth. Serenely, he gazed back at her.
“I believe that you’ll go to Heaven.”
Dion returned home without incident, without outburst, and arrived in the evening.
The instant his foot hit the floor of his home, his heart burst open.
The dam of serenity which had kept in all his loneliness, grief, and bitterness had been unleashed.
He walked to his mother’s bedroom as if he were floating through the air, leaping from step to step. His beautiful blue eyes suddenly gave the impression of the devil himself.
“Dion?” his mother called from her room.
“I’m home, mother,” he replied, throwing her door open.
“Did you give her my regards?” she asked.
“Of course,” he answered, and with one swing of his arm, shattered every one of her ribs.
The next thing that anyone had heard of Dion Eumenides, he was in prison for murdering his mother.
“Did you hear about Dion?”
“How he…?”
“To his own mother!”
“I heard he called the police on himself, and when they got there, he stood outside for them!”
“He always gave me the creeps…”
“Yeah, he barely cared when his dad died…”
Once in prison, Dion delighted in starting fights with inmates, almost taking their lives on several occasions. It was in prison that he was given the ‘X’ tattoo below his eye, a mark that signified he was destined to be executed for his insubordination.
Two years into his sentence, he awoke one night with a start. There was someone in his cell, barely visible in the blackness. Despite the darkness, he was still able to make out this person’s eyes, a shade of red that entranced him and crushed his soul.
That was the night he met The Tiger, and his new life began.
---
The longer Cities of Ash was activated, the more natural laws began to lose grip. Gravity’s hold on Dion was loosening, and he kicked off into the air with grace.
Gallow locked into focus. Dion’s current trajectory aimed him squarely at the top of the pit, where Bleech was still standing. Instinctively, he leapt up to cut his opponent off and protect the boy, jumping at least seven feet.
By the time Gallow had carried himself close enough to Dion in the air, he was behind and below him by a few feet.
“Too slow!”
“[NAVIGATOR]!!”
The Vocation ripped from his body, lunging out and grasping Dion’s ankle, attempting to fling him backwards.
Dion smirked and pulled his leg up, bringing Navigator closer. A swift kick to its head sent it flying to the ground. Gallow grunted as he felt the blow.
“What?” This didn’t make sense. “How did he kick a spirit body?!”
He felt his upward momentum disappear, and the air rushed past him as he fell.
“Navigator hasn’t returned to me yet,” he realized. “I can’t cushion the landing!”
A solid *THUMP* and splash echoed throughout the pit, as Gallow landed with full force into the shallow pond. A moment later, Navigator caught up with him, sinking back into his body.
The attack had also cost Dion the momentum to clear the top of the pit, and he crashed into the curved rock face. It was not nearly as painful as Gallow’s impact, as his gravity had lessened, and in an instant he had already flipped himself around and took off up the wall.
Scaling it in seconds, Dion ran head first up over the rim of the pit, breaking out into the open air.
“Payback time!” he thought gleefully.
He rotated in the air, scoping out the area, only to find that Bleech was no longer in sight. Taken aback, he fell back to the ground, pausing for a second, aware that Gallow would be recovering soon.
Soaking wet, Gallow picked himself up, panting. Luckily, he hadn’t broken anything, but was terribly sore all over.
Catching his breath, the first thought that came to mind was the need to concentrate. Time was of the essence, and he couldn’t waste it thinking about the bruises he’d have in the next few days. Gallow looked up frantically to where Dion was searching for Bleech.
“I’ll kill him!”
Gallow was filled with bloodlust before he caught himself.
“Woah, where did that come from?”
He knew that Dion needed to be defeated, but that momentary hatred seemed unnatural for a single blow. Gallow shook his head, it was getting hard to concentrate.
“I gotta move!”
---
“Stop!”
Susarion paused in his approach, there was still a good six feet between them. Janna, who had been hiding behind Sonsee just moments ago, now ran in front of her to stand between the two.
The older man’s eyebrow raised.
“Stop?”
Janna threw her arms to her sides and struggled to hide her fear.
“I’m not going to let you hurt each other!” she cried.
“Janna?!” Sonsee asked forcefully. She wanted to move her out of harm’s way as quickly as possible. Her eyes darted from the girl to Susarion, but as soon as she rested her gaze on him, she noticed something peculiar.
This man, who had moments before stated his intent to kill her, had now a completely different aura.
“There’s no violence in his eyes,” Sonsee noted. “What happened-? Is it really…”
Her eyes flew down to Janna, still barely holding off trembling.
“Do you realize,” Susarion began. “Why I have resolved to kill this woman?”
Janna’s brow furrowed.
“I don’t care!” she answered. “There’s no need to kill anyone!”
“Oh,” his voice rose slightly. “You should tell that to her. You know, my friend, Fars Chaucer, he was a good young man…”
Susarion began to ramble, his eyes never breaking their intense stare.
“Timid, maybe, but when he needed to do something, he got the job done. No one else respected him, no one but me and the Tiger, of course. The mission he was sent on was of the utmost importance, I know he must have realized that it was his time to prove himself. He was the closest operative at the time, it was like God had wanted him to be at the right place at the right time.
But he’s gone now,” he spat. “And now, I have to be here- and look at you!” His voice was full of seething hatred, like magma bubbling just below a volcano’s surface.
“I don’t care!” Janna almost shouted.
“You don’t care?” he was incredulous.
“It doesn’t make any sense to keep killing people!” she protested. “Even if you killed Sonsee, there’s lots of people who still love her, who would come after you, too! And they’d be hurt, just as much as you are!”
Sonsee was astounded by her desperate plea. In the midst of her monologue, she wondered.
“Would Daso take revenge for me?”
It was a quick thought, one that flashed through her mind for only a moment, but it sparked an understanding within her.
Just like Janna, she didn’t want to continue the needless cycle of hate, but deep inside, she longed for her brother to love her enough that he would be driven to vengeance for her. It was a peculiar feeling, but it made perfect sense to her.
“What I really want,” she enlightened. “Is to bridge the gap.”
It was a simple desire, one she knew implicitly already, but stating it made it real, made it solid, somehow. It had a new meaning. No longer the simple desire for forgiveness, she wanted to surpass that and step into that state of being of familial love.
Susarion took a deep breath and closed his eyes, continually breathing in and out for some time. The scene was quiet as he seemingly reflected in some kind of meditation; the green light of the massive cave glowed and pulsed softly around them.
His eyes opened.
His lips parted.
“Will you move out of the way?”
Janna kept her feet on the ground like a brick wall; she felt like even if someone were to try and move her, she would not budge, her muscles would not push or pull.
“No.”
He was silent once more.
“Very well, then. Why don’t we make a bet?”
…
“A bet?”
He nodded, bending down and picking up a stick from off the ground, and pointed towards the ceiling of the expansive cave.
“You see those bats up there?”
Sonsee looked upwards, where small, peculiar-looking bats hung from stalactites that dripped from the cave roof.
“The bats?” She could barely make them out in the darkness, the soft green light only reached up so far.
“Have you ever been hunting?” Susarion asked, eyes locked on the bats.
“For most of my life,” she replied curtly.
“Good.”
He stretched his free hand out to the ceiling.
“[CHANGING SEASONS]!”
A shockwave erupted from his palm, rocketing upwards before slamming into the top of the cave a good twenty feet in the air. The bats scattered from their comfortable resting places, filling the space above their heads with squeaks and the sound of many wings flapping.
“First to five wins,” he stated coolly. “You get to leave, I get to fight you.”
“Sounds fair,” Sonsee agreed.
“Start on three,” he turned away from her, looking to a nearby hill.
“Your count?”
“Three… Two…”
“Great,” she thought “Just my element.”
“One!”
---
Dion’s fist blasted through Bleech’s head, and the illusion quickly dissipated into light.
“Come on!”
He slid his foot around, whipping wildly to the side, where he could just catch a glimpse of the boy jumping into a thick brush.
Before he could take another step, a bullet whizzed past his ear. The whistling sound was close enough to send a shiver down his spine and lock his muscles up for a moment.
“Hyagh!!” A spurt of anger broke him out of the fear that had seized him.
Skidding backwards, he turned around just in time to receive a blow directly to the face from Gallow.
“I need to confirm this!” the gunman thought as his opponent flew backwards.
“That was a direct hit to his spirit body,” he realized. “He had no defense against it.” This was for certain, there was no reflexive defense, as Navigator had. By the same token, however, Dion had definitely attacked Gallow’s spirit body a moment ago, with a physical kick, no less.
“How is it that he could do that when he doesn’t seem to have spirit body manipulation?” he wondered, knocking the hammer back on his pistol.
“How can a kick with his real leg be a spiritual attack?”
Things didn’t add up in his mind, and he figured it best to end things quickly, firing off another shot in Dion’s direction. The fiery-haired assassin had rolled into the bushes, barely escaping the shot.
Gallow’s eyes crackled with pale blue energy as he activated Navigator for spirit sight. The quick burst gave him a visual on all of the spirits in his field of view. He had already figured that this was a manifestation of the Garden, so he was quickly able to separate the human souls from the pure, flowing stream of the environment.
Bleech was about twenty-five feet away, hiding in the brush. Fifteen feet from Gallow, Dion was close to the ground, running at a nearly horizontal angle on all-fours, but he wasn’t running toward Gallow.
Instantly, he realized what Dion’s game was.
“He’s trying to get Bleech as a hostage- or worse!”
It was not out of the question for Dion to merely kill Bleech on sight, regardless of how young or innocent he was. When bleech had fooled him into attacking a fake, Dion’s eyes shouted murderous intent.
He needed to catch up with him and divert his attention, but in order to do that, Gallow needed to present a greater immediate threat than Dion’s hurt pride.
The brush was thick, and the trees in the area had wide, overarching branches that reduced visibility even further, so firing wildly into the unknown was not an option, for risk of hitting Bleech. He was left with only the choice to rush in himself and try to find an ambush opportunity.
With a burst of energy, Gallow flew into the thick greenery, running through bushes and snapping countless small branches. What he needed at this point was not a silent approach, but to blitz Dion so quickly he would have no time to react properly.
Gallow caught a brief glimpse, through spirit sight, of Dion’s spirit body, and instinctively altered his course, running curving around in an effort to cut the assassin off before he reached Bleech.
Of the three of them, Gallow was easily the fastest using Navigator, but Bleech was the slowest, without the Vocation enhancements or physical prowess of the other two. Gallow needed to use this to his advantage; Dion may have had the head-start, but the gunman should have the speed necessary to catch up.
The instant he saw a flash of red, Gallow leapt into the air, arcing forward through and above much of the undergrowth. In less than a second, the thick brush revealed Dion’s face.
“Gotcha!”
But instead of flying into his enemy to tackle him to the ground, Gallow fell right through him. In fact, there was nothing there.
Landing on his feet, he had barely a moment before Dion came rushing to his position from above. He had kicked off the ground and jumped through the air backwards to where Gallow now was.
With incredible timing, Navigator surged forth and blocked Dion’s falling kick, throwing him off and in the opposite direction of where Bleech was headed.
Gallow stumbled backwards, regaining his footing, in time to see Dion kick off thin air and spin towards him through the air, fist pulled back and ready to blow him away. Gritting his teeth, Gallow met his punch with his own, the only thing preventing a broken hand being Navigator laid over his own fist.
Dancing on the air, Dion threw out a flurry of punches which Gallow parried one-by-one. Each hit was done in a particular rhythm, and once the assassin thought that Gallow had just caught on to the beat, he threw out a kick from the side.
The attack was blocked, stopping its momentum and allowing Gallow to grab his leg and hold tightly. With all his might, he swung Dion around twice before throwing him to the ground hard enough to make nearby twigs shatter.
Not wasting a second, Gallow pulled out his pistol and aimed it squarely at Dion’s head, pulling the trigger.
In the same breath that the muzzle flashed, Dion had disappeared from the ground.
“Wha-?” Gallow could hardly think before a fist came swooping from the side. His defenses were quick enough that despite it resulting in a direct impact, he only took enough damage to be thrown back a few inches without any bones breaking.
Dion stood in the brush, a faint smile etched across his lips.
“I’m curious,” he said calmly. “What do you think my ability does?”
Not hesitating, Gallow aimed another blast at him, but once more, just as the bullet left, he disappeared.
“Do you believe in causality?” Dion’s voice now came from above him. His gaze snapped upward and found his opponent perched casually on a low tree branch.
“What?!” Gallow’s tone carried a new frustration. “I’m not playing games!”
He aimed the next shot at Dion’s new position. One shot, one miss. He had vanished again.
“I mean, do you believe that A comes before B, and B comes before C?” Now the voice was behind him. Whipping around and jumping backwards, Gallow now saw his opponent leaning against a tree.
“Of course!” he yelled. “Of course A comes before B!”
“But what if it didn’t anymore?” his smirk returned. “What if C came before B- Or better yet, if C came before A!”
Gallow’s focus intensified.
“He’s trying to mess with me,” he thought. “I can’t let him distract me until I figure out what his Vocation actually does!”
“You look upset…” Dion tilted his head. His statement was thoughtful, but behind his eyes was a spark of madness.
“All I’m saying is,” he continued. “Maybe, someone could be in one room, and move to another before they even walked through the door. Or maybe you’d understand this one better: maybe someone could be lying on the ground, then up in a tree before they’d even moved from their starting spot. Pretty funny, don’t you think?”
Gallow’s eyes betrayed no emotion. It was critical, now, to refrain from losing focus or letting slip any kind of fear, anger, or self-assurance.
Everything must be by killer instinct.
“So, this may put a damper on your mood,” Dion’s voice rose as his excitement built. “But there’s no way to beat me now- Because C comes before A.”