Emil

  Above his head, the distant sound of heavy rain stampeded against the roof of the subterranean chamber. The noise was muted, but the intensity of the downpour loomed like an oppressive presence. He furrowed his nose, irritated by the disgusting stench permeating the air. Waters raged in the background, surging through the meandering passages of this vast underground sewer system. Their turbulent movements, backed by the rain outside, produced a melodic echo resembling the somber song of sirens.

  The Canticle.

  Emil finally understood the significance of its name.

  He rolled onto his side, every inch of his body protesting as he combed over the rubble from when he blasted open an entrance to the Canticle from the surface. The stabbing pain in his ribs was becoming unbearable. The deep lacerations in his arms still throbbed and bled in the darkness.

  But the most pressing wound was on the side of his torso. The attack that he took from Melody right before he brought both of them down into the Canticle was gushing blood. The warm, viscid sensation drenched his fingers as he hovered over the gruesome cut.

  In the back of his mind, he wondered how he was even alive. Sure, an Exalted constitution made him sturdy beyond normal human limits, but these injuries felt excessive.

  He pushed the thought aside. As he was now, dying would be a reprieve from this agony. Indulging in the idea too much might actually make him lose his edge.

  Emil fumbled through the pockets of his torn clothes until he found what he was looking for. A syringe. His final dosage of Steiger’s infamous drug concoction. It was composed of pain killers, stimulants, and some sort of formulation that eased the symptoms of Overclock. Everything that a battered Exalted needed to continue fighting.

  Whoever made this must have also been a madman.

  Miraculously, the syringe survived the fall. Practically, it made sense—there was no point of creating a combat serum if its container couldn’t hold up during Exalted combat.

  Emil plunged the needle into his arm. Shockingly, the monster in his head didn’t react. It was silent. Reticent. A testament to how exhausted he must have been.

  As his agony dulled, he moved to address his injuries. He had staunched the bleeding somewhat using Bulwark, but stone wasn’t exactly the best material to stitch together a frayed torso.

  Thankfully, he dove into the Canticle for a reason. With a roof over his head, he finally had shelter from the unyielding rain.

  Emil took a deep breath. The darkness of the Canticle was hiding him for now, but Melody was no doubt close by. Activating Blaze would give away his position immediately. He had to be prepared to fight.

  With his mind steadied, he directed his hand at the deep wound on the side of hi torso. Blaze flared. The flames burned voraciously, cauterizing the serrated flesh within seconds. The smell of burnt flesh prickled his nostril. He barely registered the pain thanks to the concoction of drugs flush in his veins.

  Melody emerged from the shadows of his flames.

  For a moment, they stared at each other in silence. The heavy patter of rain echoed above. The waters gushing through the Canticle blared with an orchestral flare.

  Emil realized he wasn’t the only one who was half-dead and littered with injuries. Melody looked battered. The descent into the sewers hadn’t been kind to her.

  Even so, her small lips never ceased to smile.

  Melody Lain.

  An eccentric second-year at the Academy.

  A dangerous member of Vigil.

  And Emil’s sworn enemy.

  There was no need for any more words to be exchanged. The bloodlust in the air made things abundantly clear—one of them was going to die here tonight.

  This was no longer about the safety of the Isarelle civilians, nor stopping Vigil and the Thanatos inmates from attempting to escape the city.

  Emil had only a single fixation. He was going to erase the ugly stain on his perfect record. He was going to undo the humiliating loss that she dealt him at the Clash of Dawn banquet. He’ll justify his vicious obsession for the past month. He’ll kill her. He’ll prove his value again. And he won’t be invalidated.

  I won’t be denied!

  The Canticle chimed with the cackle of a madman. Blaze burst into a monstrous conflagration as the flames roared like the maws of a demon.

  The air around her shuddered. Blaze opened its jaws to feast—only to be repelled by an invisible barrier of wind protecting Melody’s vicinity.

  “Fragment!” Emil yelled.

  Melody tried to move out of the path of the stone missiles, only to find her legs suddenly locked by stone shackles. Emil hadn’t wasted a second. When she revealed herself, he had discreetly sent mana into the ground near her position.

  Unable to dodge, Melody raised her left arm instead. Mana Arts enforced the limb as she willingly threw it into the path of the oncoming missiles. Stones ripped through her flesh. With her legs bound by Bulwark and her Gift repelling Blaze’s advance, she was suddenly left with little options.

  Emil pressed his advantage.

  Stone protrusions erupted from the ground from all cardinal directions. Simultaneously, Blaze’s advance intensified, applying further pressure onto her wind armor. The flames seemed to shriek in delight, emboldened by the weakness of the prey. Like a symphony, his Gifts worked in perfect unison to take down his foe.

  Melody roared. A violent tempest burst from her body. The squalls annihilated everything in her immediate vicinity. Blaze was snuffed out. Bulwark’s stone missiles and protrusions were shattered. The stone shackle around her legs broke. All phenomena were dispersed in an instant. Even the walls of the Canticle shook precariously as though on the verge of collapse.

  Emil barely managed to stay upright. Bulwark covered his body with armor and rooted him in place.

  In a split second, Melody removed her impediments. All of Emil’s advantages were gone. The battle had been reset to zero.

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  She vanished from sight.

  He leaped back, predicting an attack at his blind spot. Instead, Melody reappeared inches in front of him. Blaze lunged. The flames bared its fangs, but her wind immediately halted its advance. Undaunted, Emil sent mana into the ground. The earth shook with the rise of stone protrusions. But before they could fully materialize, Melody stomped down herself. With Mana Arts, she crushed the stones beneath her foot before they could become a threat.

  Shit!

  In an instant, all his counterattacks were stopped. Melody swung. Her arms were a blur, sharpened by mana into a wind blade. Blocking was futile. The penetrative prowess of her Gift would cleave through Bulwark’s armor like butter. Desperate, Emil lashed out with a kick as he leaned back. His foot collided against her side, momentarily knocking her off center. Her arm arrived shortly after. The wind blade drew blood as it dug a line down the length of his chest. Emil twisted his body in a last-ditch effort, narrowly avoiding fatal damage to his heart.

  The ground beneath him writhed as he tried to retreat. Melody wouldn’t allow it. She relentlessly clung to him like a leech, refusing to yield her unshakable advantage in melee. A stone protrusion struck her blind spot, staggering her for a second.

  “Avernus!”

  He drew an outrageous amount of mana and threw it onto the ground. The earth trembled as Bulwark tore the floor of the Canticle apart. Blaze followed, sending a scorching wave of heat into the ruins. The Canticle glowed red. Blistering steam rose from the evaporated rainwater, occupying the space between him and Melody.

  Avernus was an incomplete ability that he had been working on to alter his surroundings to his advantage, but he used it here out of desperation. He needed to buy time.

  The screech of wind echoed from down the path. Melody was already using her Gift to push away the steam. The ruined path between them would be trivial for her to cross. She would be on him again within seconds.

  What more do I need?!

  He finally created a situation where he could use both of his Gifts freely. He was orchestrating Blaze and Bulwark in sync. The versatility and lethality of his Gifts had never been greater. He was at the current peak of his abilities.

  But it wasn’t still enough.

  One thing was made abundantly clear through their past exchanges—he was horribly outmatched in close quarters. With Mana Arts and her Gift, Melody was a monstrous physical combatant. Her speed allowed her to cling to her opponent and evade attacks at range. Her mastery of Mana Arts gave her unparalleled strength and durability. And her unnatural mana capacity and tolerance ensured that she wouldn’t descend into Overclock even with repeated invocations of Mana Arts.

  She has too many tools to negate my strengths at range.

  I have to best her in melee.

  But he lacked the mana capacity to use Mana Arts. Emil thought he had leveled the playing field in close quarters by unlocking Blaze. But his flames were currently being suppressed by Melody’s winds. The attack that he had built his reputation upon as a Steiger Cleaner was suddenly useless.

  For the first time since he was implanted with this wretched Gift, the flames gnawing on his body felt feeble. Weak. The incongruity was unsettling. How was this possible? This Gift was the source of his nightmares. This was the flames that consumed all of his childhood friends in the slums. The conflagrations that upturned his entire life. The thing that turned him into a monster. The ability that allowed him to hunt other monsters. It couldn’t have been so easily extinguished, so easily suppressed. It—

  It finally dawned on him. A moment of clarity. Blaze flickered as though acknowledging his own realization.

  I still don’t think of it as mine.

  Despite living with this Gift through hell and back, he never thought of it as a part of him. He was always considered it a separate entity. It didn’t belong to him. It was a borrowed ability. A power forced upon him against his will. Subconsciously, he rejected it.

  After all, who would want the ability that murdered their friends? Every time he used the Gift, he saw his friends being devoured by hellfire. That traumatizing sight was forever seared in his mind. It was the type of memories that veteran warriors drank to forget. Using Blaze forced him to remember. To relive the wretched past.

  But was it truly just that?

  Was Blaze really a shackle? Seeing the tragedy of Isarelle forced him to re-evaluate. Without Blaze, he would have been no different than the Ordinary civilians cowering in hiding or buried as a corpse beneath the rubble. He would be powerless. No agency. His fate left to the whims of the Exalted. Was that what he wanted?

  No.

  Never again.

  Emil refused to be weak.

  Receiving Blaze turned him into a monster. An aberration. A living blasphemy.

  But maybe that was okay.

  Because it gave him value. It made him irreplaceable.

  “Fine, I guess you’re a part of me,” he muttered to himself.

  The flames around his body flared with a renewed glow. The ambient temperature intensified, but the feeling was warm. Pleasant. Not scalding. No longer did it felt like his body was on fire. Instead, a friendly warmth wrapped his body like a coat. He felt strong. He squeezed his hands, relishing in the newfound source of power. The heat warmed his weary body, letting his blood circulate and encouraging his muscles to contract. He was engulfed by a cleansing sensation. The wounds on his body slowly cauterized, burning away the impurities accumulated from the repeated fighting.

  Blaze was reforged.

  At the same time, Melody blew away the last cloud of steam created by Avernus.

  Their eyes met for a split second until she once again vanished from sight.

  “Incinerate!” Emil ordered.

  The newly forged Blaze bloomed in all cardinal directions. He spread the scorching flames in a wide radius while his eyes darted the vicinity for perturbations. Melody had to use her Gift to repel the conflagration’s advance.

  As expected, his flames found resistance near his left blind spot. Without hesitation, he swung. Blaze spontaneously ignited to produce a localized explosion behind his arm. The force sped up the delivery of his punch. Melody materialized. Her face was smeared in shock as she twisted her body to avoid Emil’s pre-emptive strike. Without missing a beat, she immediately spun around and carried momentum into a roundhouse kick.

  Emil ducked—the air whined above his head. Thanks to Blaze’s new enhancement effects, he could finally keep up with Melody’s tempo. She was already winding up for the next attack. She stepped into a right hook empowered by Mana Arts.

  Boom!

  Pain drilled into his fingers as their punches collided. His stone gauntlets fractured, but he immediately reformed them. The combination of Blaze’s strengthening and Bulwark’s protection gave him just enough to content against Melody’s Mana Arts. He had finally evened the playing field in melee.

  Melody giggled ecstatically as she realized his change.

  “Yes! Let’s waltz!”

  Wind and Mana Arts.

  Blaze and Bulwark.

  The clash of phenomena raged inside the Canticle. The walls of the sewers shook from the ensuing violence. Emil blanked out. He was locked in trance. The exchanges of punches, kicks, and phenomena were too fast for a conscious mind to keep up. He reacted and moved on instinct, trusting in his Gifts and the foundations of his Steiger training. Bloodlust clouded the air. Tension stretched taut. A single misstep would be the cause of someone’s demise.

  Emil’s limbs were suddenly to grow heavy. A vestige of pain crawled into the back of his skull. A sign of Overclock. He was close. In truth, he was barely keeping up. Despite his revelation with Blaze, Melody was still just a bit stronger and faster. He was only bridging the gap in their abilities with technique and instinct.

  His ragged breaths echoed in his head. He blinked. Sweat drenched his eyes. Another deafening set of attacks collided. How many times have they exchanged fists? He felt the reverberations screech into his bones. He stepped into the follow-up, desperate to match Melody’s tempo.

  “…!”

  Somehow, he was off-balance.

  Huh?

  Time slowed. It took a split second for his mind to realize what had happened. In the midst of all the lethal attacks being thrown, Melody had managed to sneak in a regular punch into the mix. Emil’s eyes and senses were so honed in on reading the flow of mana that he was practically blind to a normal attack.

  What a freak.

  Honestly, who in their right mind would dare to launch a regular attack while exchanging lethal blows? It was insanity. Border line suicidal. But because it was unthinkable, it worked.

  With his balance disrupted, Emil was ill-positioned to counter Melody’s next attack. Meanwhile, she was already about to pounce. Wind blades materialized in her hand as she leaned in to deliver the killing blow.

  “Sometimes you have to take a hit to dish one back.”

  He was sure Hortensia’s favorite line didn’t apply for taking lethal attacks. And as much as he detested the young lady before him, he wasn’t keen to die just to kill her.

  And so, he improvised.

  The Canticle suddenly went dark.

  Light ceased to exist.

  Since their fight started, Emil’s Blaze had been the main source of illumination within the underground sewers. Realizing this, he simply deactivated Blaze. The flames spluttered out in an instant, leaving the subterranean chamber in an ebon veil.

  Melody hesitated—suddenly robbed of her sight and her foe’s position.

  But Emil had no such limitations.

  “Trace.”