“I shall remain forever in your debt, if only you will examine her pulse.”
“Haah… Miss Shino, I’ve already refused you countless times. How can you still come begging and pleading when I’ve already told you no?”
“I thought it was the duty of doctors to cure people’s illnesses. I tell you that my daughter is gravely ill, and yet you ignore me. This, I cannot understand.”
“...How can you now ask someone like me, ‘possessed by evil spirits’, to cure your daughter of her grave illness? Instead, you should ask for help from your own ‘Deus Come Thus’ in whom you believe so deeply.”
***
“Strange, the things that happen.” The Writer sat cross-legged reading a newspaper at his desk. The winter gloom had slightly parted for the day. The air was crisp and dry with cold, but the fierce wind that had been assaulting the city was nowhere to be found. “I hear they’ve been seeing a ghost near the crossing of Halei Street and Valeigh.”
“Even in the daytime, hm?” Ma’at responded with feigned interest.
“Mhm, though mostly when it rains.”
“Rainy days?”
“They say it wears a raincoat. Curious, isn’t it? If I were dead, the last thing I’d want to do is wander outside on a cold, rainy day.” He adjusted his monocle and blinked twice, his eyes trained on the typed tableau.
“Right, that’s the part of the story that’s unbelievable.”
The Writer finally peered up slightly. “Don’t you believe in ghosts?”
“No,” she replied sternly. “I’ve never seen one, or heard one, so why would I believe in them? But it doesn’t surprise me that you do. Half of your stories are ghost stories.”
The Writer chuckled. “That’s not true. Though, I do adore a tale of fright every now and then. Sometimes a story to spur the heart to action is enough to make this old man feel young again.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she mused. The Writer was quite the excitable person, after all. Even those half his age could struggle to muster up a modicum of his inscrutable energy and passion for the world around him. “A raincoat, though… Maybe someone mistook Sato for a ghost. She’s pale like one.”
A blunt object slapped down on Ma’at’s head as if divine retribution had immediately punished her for her teasing jab. Though, it wasn’t any god that punished her, but the offendee. Sato had whacked her head lightly with the side of her black umbrella.
“Ack!” She lowered her head and raised her shoulders on instinct. A sharp pain shot through her skull and down her neck.
“I heard that, punk.” Sato walked around the office gracefully as if she hadn’t just attacked her friend, then plopped down on the opposite sofa with a satisfied look on her face.
Ma’at stifled the embarrassment she felt upon letting out such an uncharacteristic cry. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? They could be talking about you.”
“I’m not a ghost! Do I look translucent to you?”
Ma’at smiled as a reply quickly formed in her mind.
“Don’t answer that.” She stared daggers at the desert-born mercenary as if she knew exactly what she was thinking. “So, what about this ghost, though? Is it our next contract?”
“No, no. Just a rumor I’d heard on my rare walks outside the confines of the office. It is quite the mystery, however. I’m half-tempted to hire you all myself to figure it out.” This time, he didn’t look up from the paper in his hands.
“No,” Ma’at immediately shot his proposal down. Even if it was merely a joke and nothing more, she knew that enough time and not a soul to silence the curious codger would lead to disastrous consequences. And by disastrous consequences, she meant going on a wild goose chase for hours on end with no overtime pay.
The Writer clicked his tongue, peeking up at Ma’at in slight detest for a second, then hiding once more behind his splayed newspaper.
“Then… no contract today. Phew. I was hoping we’d get some time off,” Sato said, breaking the momentary silence that had engulfed the room. She leaned slowly into the back of the couch, the cushions accepting her in a soft embrace.
Time ticked by. With each passing second and not a word uttered, Ma’at realized just how loud the office clock really was. Well, perhaps it was just all the more noticeable when its surroundings were quieter than normal. Even so, it was irritating. Annoying. She tapped her foot, then lightly scratched her face as she peered into the monochrome walls for the hundredth time. An idea formed. “Sato?”
“Mhm?” the Maiden of the Rain rose to attention and chimed, the peerless violet gems that were her corneas beaming excitedly.
Ma’at looked away, abashed, as if staring into them for too long would somehow give Sato control over her mind. “Would you… like to grab something to eat at the cafe? We could invite Tien.”
Sato narrowed her eyes. It was rare, incredibly rare even, for Ma’at to invite them out. To avoid embarrassing her and rending the invitation altogether, she smiled and nodded. “Sure! Should we go now? I think Tien’s still in her room reading.”
“Alright,” Ma’at replied, smiling very faintly. As if the office had been hit by a rogue sandstorm, however, her smile vanished soon after it had appeared. So often it did. But, something else had been the cause. As she rose from her seat, a great thundering cacophony startled them all and shook the building. Glasses rattled. Plates clinked. Chairs topped over, their worn legs unable to withstand the violent aftershocks.
“What in the world was that?” the Writer lashed through his teeth. He threw down his paper and carefully made his way to the edge of the large window that always bathed the office in pale sunlight. He grabbed the wall and peered around it, his singular, squinted eye focusing on a blazing array of colors blossoming further down the street. “Good heavens!”
“What is it?” Ma’at questioned, her emotions restrained. She was deeply focused on the immediate danger.
“A great… a great beast… of some kind. It appears to be… a monstrous hound. It’s on fire, bellowing flames like a demon!”
Through the rumbling, settling glass was the creature the Writer spoke of. Panicked cries could be heard in the distance. A wave of rushing citizens ran from the source of their terror, their suit flaps and dresses dancing behind their backs. The hound itself appeared as an elemental beast forged in flame. Red streaks of fire enveloped its body and came to swirling, wispy black ends as they flowed from its head to its tail. Roaring flames the color of autumn. The color of the leaves that had long faded from Reville. There the creature rampaged and bit at civilians, the crooked trees bereft of its vibrant colors almost appearing to teeter away from its malicious embers. The cobblestone beneath its ashen paws glowed wildly and was caked with black specks falling from the beast. It was roughly the size of a bear, slightly larger.
Running to meet it were several Union soldiers dressed in white, gold and red. One of them was familiar to Ma’at and Sato.
“Come on,” the Sirithisian finally spoke up, her mind catching up to the sudden event that had transpired. “Let’s help them. We might get something out of it.”
“Run!”
“It’s a monster! A monster! Get the hell out of here!”
“Shut up, all of you!” Raphael snapped. He drew his ornate rapier to his side, the clean blade making a ringing sound as if a sting of magic coursed through it. “Run along. The Union’s 11th will clean up this mess. Mevre!”
A stocky man wearing the standard silver Union helm and wielding a long spear appeared at his side. “Yes, sir?”
“What manner of beast is this?”
He teetered his head to eye the hellhound. It was munching on a bystander that had been much too slow to escape its maw. “It may be a vax, sir, though I’m not entirely sure. An elemental beast for certain. I hear vax can appear as large, flaming dogs like this one.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“That so? What do you recommend we do to suppress it?”
“Suppress it, sir? I believe we should kill it now before it harms anyone else.”
Raphael glared at the spearman, then glared at the hound with fierce ire in his eyes. His long, wavy blond hair fell from his head and shoulders like a regal drape. “Answer the question. What would be its weakness?”
“Well… water, sir. Obviously.”
“Any damned fool could tell me that! Nevermind, then. I’ve never lost in a duel to the death, and I never will, even against such a mad creature.” Raphael approached the hellhound with a gallant stride, though a tinge of unease betrayed him in how slowly he inched forward. “Hear me, dog! You face the Captain of the Union’s 11th! Bow your head and be tame… or die where you stand.”
Finished consuming the unlucky civilian now reduced to warm blood and bones, the creature’s head whipped around and it jumped back like a startled fox. It was deft in its movements. It growled, sputtering flame spewing out of its gnarled, volcanic teeth.
“En garde!” Raphael cried, launching forward in a brilliant piercing attack. His red and gold-trimmed cape flowed behind him valiantly. The ringing in his silver-gold rapier grew slightly more audible, almost like a low chime. Flashes of silver and white light burst outward from him for a brief second. Then, it passed.
The hellhound had evaded his technique barely and began to plan its counterattack. With its jaws open and ready to launch its fangs into its prey, it stepped to the side and jumped straight at Raphael with pure intent to kill. To sever his limbs from his body, and to burn the flesh off the broken bones.
To Raphael’s relief, though he would never admit it, his handful of subordinates with weapons in hand came to his aid. Mevre, the spearman, slashed at its head just as it attempted to clamp down on the Captain’s body. The others managed to mildly injure its legs and make some wounds in its torso.
The beast whipped around again in response, its burning tail clotheslining most of its attackers in one fell swoop. They fell onto their backs hard, scorching bits of ash and dust burning through their thick undershirts.
“Damn you all! Useless pups. I’ll handle it, so stay back!” Raphael cried again, his immense pride dooming him. Even he realized how foolish he sounded, but he would never stop parading around his arrogant persona. It was what made him, him. At the end of the day, he really would rather die than reveal the black hole of fear that threatened to swallow whole the false lionheart.
“Captain! Move!” the spearman shouted.
His attempt to save Raphael was too late. As soon as the lavish man heard Mevre’s warning, he was already in harm’s way.
The snarling beast wreathed in hellfire lunged toward its enemy once more, its fangs like rows of disjointed knives. Time seemed to slow. They moved through the cool air, undeterred by anything, ready to turn Raphael’s heart to mincemeat and his ribs to dust. Closer and closer they came. Ever nearer. Death had come for him, and there was nowhere to run. No time.
Yet, the fangs were stopped. A blade as dark as night, entirely unlike the Union weaponry he knew all too well, flew through the air like an expertly crafted paper airplane and lodged itself firmly in the hound’s jaw. Blood filled its mouth. The stench of iron filled the air, its only contender being the intense smell of burning skin. The beast let out a whimpered cry and flew with the blade, stumbling backward and kneeling slightly with its front right leg.
“Perfect throw,” Tien remarked. She held onto her suitcase’s handle tightly, just in case. She didn’t… couldn’t fail anyone else. Though she cared for the Union very little, she wouldn’t let any lives be squandered due to her inaction. Never again, as much as she could help it.
The Maiden of the Rain immediately followed up on Ma’at’s sudden strike. As if performing an elaborate dance, she carried her umbral umbrella through the air in swirling flourishes before spinning around and pointing its wet end straight at their foe. Murky, azure rainwater sprung up from her dance and coalesced at the weapon’s tip.
Fwoom!
Her umbrella’s canopy clicked and opened with a whooshing sound. The conjured water shot out in a torrent in that moment like a firehose, drenching and pummeling the beast with deadly precision. It tumbled further down the street, millions of droplets following in its wake.
Raphael was both stunned and disgruntled. He and his knights climbed back to their feet with grunts full of ache and bother.
The flame had been extinguished. The hellhound was no more than an oversized wet mutt, its hide barely able to conjure a meager spark. It was then when Ma’at, Sato, and Tien gazed upon its coal black fur and its rageful eyes that a voice rang in their minds. For Sato, the voice was even clearer, as if it were being played directly in her head. Its every spoken syllable dripped with blazing fury.
Dispassionate action is meaningless.
There is only rage; that is what the good doctor drove into me.
The fire of life will consume all, leaving nothing but charcoal and ash as the remainder.
Sato winced and grabbed her head with her free hand in agony. It felt as if every neuron in her brain had been set aflame. She groaned, and the world around her began to dim.
“Sato? Are you alright?”
“Is that… an Enigma?”
Faint voices and distant cries echoed into whispers. The voice grew louder. The hellhound’s eyes burned brighter, filled with autumnal conflagration.
I am not so dull as to be lost entirely.
A thread that binds me still yet binds you; I can see it dangling from your beating heart.
You know whom I speak of, that who we wish to burn!
A dazzling microcosm of crackling sparks echoed from the hound’s innards. They smelled and sounded like firecrackers being set off on a summer night. Finally, the creature reignited itself. Beautiful flames like leaves turned orange burst to life across its hide. It snarled, then barked, then bit the air. Embers popped off of its body. It heaved, though its breaths were virtually non-existent.
“Enigma or beast… they’re all the same.” Ma’at threw her right arm, the one that once held the sword she threw, to the side in a meaningful gesture. On cue, the noctite blade lodged in the hound’s head came to life again and began to rip through the creature’s maw, sawing through the tendons.
A terrible roar filled with anger and misery let out from its bleeding mouth. The hellhound charged Ma’at instinctually, blazing flame rolling off of it like waves. The fire encroached upon the nearby buildings and offices, scorching the outer walls and burning any wooden railings and signs to a crisp. Some nearby had their clothes catch on fire, the Union knights dropping everything to help them.
In the craze of its charge, as it neared the Sirithisian bracing for impact, Raphael had already started his mad dash toward the Vroque trio. With a poised rapier in tow, he stopped abruptly before the hound’s side and performed the same attack he had tried before.
This time, however, he was successful. Brilliant blinding light let out as he seemed to dash forward in an instant, his rapier proudly pointed upward, through the beast’s side. Tar-colored blood dripped from its razor-sharp edge. Raphael had cut the hound’s stomach. Drained of its vital liquids and filled with excruciating pain, it fell to the cobblestone with a loud thud.
With the creature’s mental attack also subdued, Sato made one last move to fully suppress the enemy. She drenched it in water once more, the flames dissipating just the same as before. With nothing left, not even a single spark, the hound laid down, defeated and dying.
Ma’at called back her blade. It ripped through the hound’s jaw and threw its hilt right into her hand perfectly in a tight grip. Air escaped her lungs, the imminent danger finally subdued. “I’ll kill it.”
As she raised her blade to deal the finishing blow, Raphael’s rapier met it in the air, barring her from the execution.
“What’s your problem?”
“I…” He paused to catch his breath. Exhaustion weighed heavily upon his words. “I can’t allow you to kill this one. The Union has requested that we bring it into custody.”
The grumbling, labored breaths of the beast could barely be heard beneath the fur and raven-black coal.
“Why!? It almost burned everything on this street to the ground!”
“It is important to the Union,” Raphael argued. He lowered his rapier, cleaned it on his sleeve, then sheathed it as if he had zero concern now that she would try to kill the creature. “I don’t have the full details either, Vroque lackey.” He coughed, still somewhat exasperated. “We will pay for your help in suppressing it, however. That much is fair. Now, leave. We’ll handle the cleanup.” He waved them away.
Sato was unconvinced. Her eyes dug into him, violet shards stabbing his weary heart. “No… there was something he said.”
Raphael raised an eyebrow, surprisingly concerned for the woman’s sanity. “He…?”
“Your Union masters are collecting Enigmas, surely you know that. I don’t care why. But he mentioned a doctor. Did a Union doctor work on this man? Was he taken in by someone recently? Someone named-”
Ma’at was about to interject, confused about her colleague’s sudden rambling questions and ranting when they would be compensated for their on-the-spot contract, when an older man wearing a large cloth overcoat, suit and tie approached them. He wore steel wire rounded glasses that held two shimmering lenses. The countless fires the hellhound had left behind painted them crimson.
“Excuse me, but I believe this is my patient. I was performing an examination on him when he suddenly… transformed and tried to attack me. It’s my fault, I should have paid more attention to his mental state. And, consequently, my operating room is mostly constructed out of wood, you see. It has since burnt down.” He spoke matter-of-factly, as if his woes were not his own. Both his hands were settled loosely in his coat pockets.
“I see,” Raphael replied. “You can be on your way, then. We’ll clean this mess up, then send someone to do a full investigation on the matter promptly.”
“Ah, you’ll be wanting my name then, yes?”
Raphael nodded as if he had fully thought the matter through. He did not. “Mhm. Right. Go ahead, I’ll remember your face and name.”
“It is Ryosai, Dr. Ogata Ryosai of the clinic in Indigo District.”
The Union Captain nodded affirmatively. “Memorized. Thank you, Doctor. Now, you may leave. A Union official will come and find you soon.”
The doctor’s creased eyes closed as he bowed in acknowledgement to Raphael, then reopened and glided across the Vroque trio for but a blurred moment, no longer than a brief picture; a photograph. A pair of familiar, violet, rain-stained eyes stopped him dead in his tracks, as if frozen on the spot. He did a double take, blinking rapidly before walking toward the raincoat-wearing woman in haste. “Shino? No… Sato? Sato, is that you?”
Sato’s gaze did not falter. She stared at the man as if he were the devil himself, as if he were the source of all the evil in the world, as if the hound that lay dying had come to life in the form of one wretched old man. Then, the light returned to her eyes, and her disillusioned stupor receded into one of understanding. A small, forced smile found itself on her bright lips. “Yes, it’s me. It’s nice to see you again, Doctor.”