Chapter 107: 107 – The Burning Heart

The vast majority, Strolvath struck down personally, caving in their weakened chitin with the strength of his clockwork leg.

All the while, he just kept playing his music, sing-screaming the lyrics to a song that he rarely had reason to perform for anyone but himself. They were lyrics to a song the man in the photo had once played for him, bastardized to now express his own frustrations. Accusations and screaming declarations of his murderous intention, sung with the same breath as lofty claims of his intention to defend his home country to the bitter end.

The blaze in his gut traveled upward, turned his deep tenor to a screaming roar as Strolvath let loose all inhibitions. He was not only not trying to control himself, but actively stoking the flames of his own emotions to fuel the sonic inferno that stood between him and the slavering locusts. The Brass Eye came alive from the energetic runoff of his performance alone, and it saw not fear, but seething hatred among the locust-men, even as raging soundwaves ripped them apart.

Strolvath lost himself in the music, progressively transitioning from the lyrics and melody of one song to another, freely altering the words and chords alike as his murderous whim demanded. Hive after hive, locust after locust, he marched on through the chamber and ripped apart with sound all who stood before him, be they Drone, Warrior, or Doorman.

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Makhus had spent the day in a state of self-induced frustration. He used every spare moment he had to practice out back, to polish his swordsmanship and attempt Fog-breathing. 

Hours upon hours of effort, yet no success. Not even a wisp. 

Then, a commotion - a distant shout, a blood curdling cry for help of the sort he would’ve ignored on any day other than this. There came another, a little closer this time. It was none of his business, an occurrence that was to be expected at a tumultuous time such as this, but something deep inside wouldn’t let him leave it be. 

On this evening, in the wake of the approaching storm, Makhus felt an uncharacteristic sense of motivation. He was no fool - he knew to obfuscate his identity if he were to do something like this. Thus, he took the emergency gas mask from the laboratory before he left, sweeping up his hair as he strapped it on so it would seal properly.

War-knife at his side and a desire to seek out combat in his heart, Makhus slipped into the back alley right next to Riverside Remedies to begin prowling the elaborate network of narrow alleys that all wove throughout the old city. Wordless yells and panicked footsteps occasionally broke the silence of night, reverberating all throughout and guiding his pursuit.

A small part of him hoped the belligerents to be locust-men that he might have an easy justification to exercise violence, but he knew it to be utterly unreasonable. When at last he turned that fateful corner from beyond which he heard two sets of rushing footsteps, he found himself faced with the exact opposite of what he’d expected.

All he could discern of the one being pursued was their body shape and skin tone, these being a willowy frame in a dress and a distinctly Grekurian bronze tone respectively. She hesitated at the sight of him, only to run past a moment later. The Pursuer that now came to a dead stop before him was, on the other hand, far more familiar. 

He was damn-near a mirror image of Makhus - his skin was snow-white, his raven-black hair tied into a tall ponytail, and he wore the distinct martial-arts uniform emblematic of a now-extinct Fog-breather family. The uniform itself was just a wide-sleeved shirt and loose trousers that were tied down at the ankles, but it was abnormal enough to be recognizable.

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In the Pursuer’s hand, there gleamed a long sabre with an oval guard, and despite his calm facial expression his blue eyes glimmered with a murderous rage. At first, his stare followed the escaping woman. Then, it snapped to Makhus.

“What’re you waiting for, killer?” he asked with a voice soft as silk and as venomous as arsenic. “Aren’t you out here to purify our city, just as I? If we don’t go after the foreigner, she’ll get away.”

There was not a splinter of verisimilitude to his false line of questioning - the Pursuer’s well-trained gaze picked apart Makhus’s tense stance in moments, he knew the swordsman-alchemist wouldn’t let him continue his pursuit. With a sharp breath in, his face twisted into a snarling grin and Fog poured between his gritted teeth.

“Which family did you study under, before the draft?” came another question, the Pursuer slowly approaching. When Makhus gave no answer, the last vestiges of false benevolence vanished from the man’s face. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he growled. “You’re just another race traitor.”

The Pursuer surged forward, trailing Fog as he lunged at Makhus with a straightforward slash. 

A step to the left, a thrust past the Pursuer’s blade. Makhus felt his sword stick - the Pursuer had grabbed the blade, and with a sharp yank pulled Makhus towards him in an attempt to get him to impale himself.

It was dishonorable, it wasn’t what he’d been taught, but Makhus defended himself with a forceful front kick to his opponent’s gut. The Pursuer let go, stepping back with a wheezing exhalation of Fog. 

Before he could inhale again, Makhus stepped forward and placed a shallow cut across his chest. A grave insult to his skill, a wordless declaration of, “I consider myself so much better than you that I won’t even take the opportunity for a killing blow.”

Combined with the dishonorable strike he’d used to get this opportunity, it was like he’d just spat in the Pursuer’s face. In reality, Makhus had used the brief moment to mutter a technique under his breath, “S.S.S.S. Arts: Sensory Enhancement!”

Invoking it to its fullest potential he felt his eyes dilating, his ears filling with ambient noise, the air currents moving past him, all the while his body’s reserves of Rubedo burned away to fuel it. He had perhaps half a minute at most before he made himself fall unconscious - an eternity in a swordfight.

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