Chapter thirty-three - Medicine will not save a Dead Man

"Please, man! Stop!" cried a voice filled with doom. "I promise, I-I won't do it again!"

A man's slender fingers moved in perfect time like a mortifying clock as his words were draped in insensitivity with his creeping words lingering in the air as he said, "A-A-Ah. I don't think I can do that."

"B-But c'mon, man, do you really need to resort to murder..? Don't you care f-for your humanity?" trembled the voice, his face contorted in scared mockery. He was trying to negotiate his way out of the situation. "Just th-think of the amount of blood you could avoid spilling if you just l-let me go.." the scared voice tried to crawl away slowly but quickly to a more secluded area where he would escape. Wishful thinking.

The man with the slender fingers and black-as-death hair cocked his brow and stood in silence for a while before smiling again. It was quite a pure looking smile, though context always had its ways of ruining perfect frames.

"What's this?" said Tragedy as he shaded his face with his hand like he had just found an undiscovered country. "A scammer is lecturing me? Why, I never thought I would see the day I would be lectured again, and by a scammer at that!" laughed the man. He suddenly gave a dark, hearty grin. "Humanity? My dear Mr. Scammer, you knew very well who I was when you wanted to deal with me, didn't you? It's really no use trying to worm your way out of the hole you buried yourself in."

Tragedy's eyes were as thick and cold as the harsh ice blocks that masked the arctic ground and walls. The poor scammer shivered in his skin, as if he were really in the arctic, and he extended his arms desperately to shield himself from the virgin animosity that was laid before him. His breathing quickened and his demeanour became stiff and pale like a mannequin. It was quite unfitting for his job. Scammers were witty and agile around deals with no fear to hand to the person they were deceiving, so why was Poor Mr. Scammer here sweating buckets? Unsightly.

"Ah, Tragedy," someone clicked their tongue in a hasty fashion. "Quicken this up, would you. His odour is so awful, I think I might have caught something." He coughed and protected his face with his white-gloved hands. It was really pointless as he wore a long beak over his mouth and nose like an alarming plague doctor. Plague doctor's were hardly human. The man's eyes beamed hot rays of hatred and disgust towards Poor Mr. Scammer and was convinced he himself would kill him if Tragedy took any longer to perform the prolonged slaughter.

"Yeah, Yeah. I will, Chisaki. And you.." said Tragedy walking closer to Poor Mr. Scammer. "You know it isn't really the fact that you're a scammer that angers me, you are just a lowly human after all. It was how you daftly decided to scam me of all people. Death played spin the bottle and you ended up being pointed at. There's not much I can say to you. Now..embrace eternal rest."

Poor Mr. Scammer's eyes lit up like blue orbs of emotion and grief and fear and every other wretched thing that flew out of Pandora's box. He shuffled around and his eyes darted around the small warehouse he was confined in to look for some refuge but that was wholly futile as there were two devils standing in front of him. Tragedy's dreaded hums of hell vibrated into Poor Mr. Scammer's ears like a broken spring that refused to stop moving and speaking like the snake that tempted Adam and Eve. His ears were being tempted by Tragedy's hums and that would be his downfall. Once Tragedy had reached him, he quickly grabbed him by the neck and pushed him against the wall with only one hand and zero effort. Tragedy's eyes told a story of excitement and pain that nobody would be able to fathom in the slightest as his eyes mingled deep into his victim's in sadistic torment. Due to Tragedy's hand tightening its grip on Poor Mr. Scammer's sensitive neck, he scratched helplessly at his hands to attempt to free himself but that would not work, obviously. Chisaki's head stayed down in boredom but his golden eyes travelled up to the eyes of the victim that was suffering excruciating pain.

Their eyes met.

"O-O.." choked out Poor Mr. Scammer. "O-..Over..Hau..Hel..p m..e.."

Overhaul kept his gaze strong and rigid as he stared hatefully at the victim, who was clearly crying and begging for his help. Overhaul was not stupid, he understood quite clearly that he was being summoned and that the person doing this had a face that looked like the lilac sky of Tokyo on a pretty afternoon. Though, he ignored the man, for it wasn't in his interests or responsibilities to save the life of a dying man that had played a game of hooky with a demon. Poor Mr. Scammer knew good and well what he was doing when he decided to deal with the devil, that happened to be Tragedy on that fateful day, so why should Overhaul interfere with another man's business? And so, his eyes casually slid to look at the ceiling and stroked his beak.

"Don't look away from me." roared a deep, crazed voice that was the incarnation of a jester drunk with sin. Tragedy cruelly threw the scammer to the floor like redundant trash, leaving him to breathe for a bit. Overhaul saw this and was momentarily confused, but when he saw Tragedy slowly walk towards Poor Mr. Scammer in jovial manner, he was no longer confused.

"Wow. So he's really going to do that, huh. It has truly been a while." thought Overhaul with a cough and a scoff. Poor Mr. Scammer was on the floor greedily gasping for air to make his lilac face turn back to the dirty cream color is was previously. He thought that Tragedy was going to spare him, he really thought that Tragedy had flung him to the side because he would be used as an assistant later on. He honestly believed that he'd been cast away only to be brought back. How very wrong he was. When Tragedy finally got a little closer to his victim, he just stopped and stared at him. Tragedy's face was no longer filled with insanity, it was no longer annoyed, it was no longer childish, it was no longer angry. His face was instead painted to look like a blank, expressionless canvas with no care in the world. For a few seconds, Tragedy looked regretful and scared..maybe a little ashamed. Though, 'twas not a fear or regret for his actions but a fear and regret for his life. He was scared of himself. But his demeanour switched swiftly again like a snake would transform its scaly coat. It was with that blank face that Tragedy made Poor Mr. Scammer stop breathing. It was so abrupt that Poor Mr. Scammer didn't have time to breathe!

Then, Tragedy let him breathe again. Then he took his breath away. Then let him breathe. Then took the air away. And so on, he played back and forth with the victim's lifeline like a yo-yo. The more Tragedy did it the more his mania crawled back to him like a loving dog that missed its owner; so much so that he had to cover his mouth and stop his giggles from exploding onto everyone else.

"You are a sick man, Tragedy." commented Overhaul with his legs crossed and a fist rested on his cheek glancing at the monstrosity unfolding. Tragedy finally stopped to stare at his foot and his hands were in his pockets with his head cocked to the side.

"Hm." said Tragedy as he finally stole all of Poor. Mr Scammer's oxygen supply. "I guess so."

Tragedy shut his eyes for a few seconds in silence after taking the man's life. He was left feeling empty, like a guitar that had played every song in existence with it's few long strings. The songs that he, the guitar, had played were ones of sorrow and mistrust. Songs of hatred and betrayal. And finally songs of descened rebirth. He breathed in heavily before going to lean on a wall. The air was so very bitter and so very metallic with the new scent of blood sticking to it and travelling down both Overhaul's and Tragedy's tracheas. The air they breathed was thin and reluctant to help the both of them live after what they had done, but the air continued to obey the laws of their gallant Mother Nature regardless of their thoughts.

"Chisaki.." said Tragedy in a glassy, dazed kind of way without looking at anything in particular. "Don't you hate how disgusting humans are? How they take the precious, hidden components of their lives for granted. How they will take in the air that was bestowed upon this earth for humans but contradict themselves and fill it with their soppy negativity and grief. Look, Chisaki. Look at that white butterfly. Its wings are quietly fluttering about in a room of dread. What do you think would happen if I made the butterfly stop right above that pool of blood? Would the butterfly cling to its purity and not stain itself red, or will it became infatuated with the scent and quiddity of death and taint itself red? It's kind of like you and me, Chisaki."

Overhaul thoughtlessly looked at Tragedy with nothing but questions dancing about in his brain.

"Has the bastard finally lost his mind? Like you and me, huh." thought Overhaul with his eyes fluttering.

"I'm sure you didn't call me over to speak of the ways of a butterfly, Tragedy." he asked in speculation.

"You're right. I called you here to talk about the League of Villains. They're a strange bunch and they have piqued my interest." replied Tragedy regaining his usual devilish manner. Like a broken lightbulb would light up again, his eyes began to ignite a flame of deranged delight. Overhaul sat up meekly as a dot of heed began to grow within him. He knew who the League were but he didn't think much of them, now that All for One was dead. To him they were just a group of misfits. Bandits, even. They were nothing special, so what of it?

"Go on."

"Well," smiled Tragedy in a way that made his prominent canines show. Tragedy's tongue loosened as he somehow began to tell a tale of the League and how ultimately strange but interesting they were. He talked about the events that commenced in Hades, the way Izuku sliced up his opponents and that awesome face he made. He went on about how the League committed acts of terrorism at random with their powerful members and how they had gained the upper hand in many ways after acquiring Izuku. Tragedy had deep rooted connections that allowed him to know the members of the League, hence he knew of Izuku's arrival. But that was it, Tragedy never got the details of what went on in the League. He was only given very vague amounts of information, even if he killed and threatened the connections he had, they were loyal to their betrayal and were willing to die for such as well. What was so special about Faceless that made the League finally pull up their socks and get on with their work of destruction? What was so frightening that his connections would die to keep their lips sealed? Smarts, Quirk? It was all very exciting and the air of excitement blew onto the flames in Tragedy's eyes.

"So, that's why. I guess..I guess I'm a little interested in these horrendous chronicles of yours. But for fuck's sake, throw out the corpse of that scammer. It's smell is so pungent." whined Overhaul with a scowl.

"And if I don't?" teased Tragedy as he too, leaned his fist on his cheek. "Will you throw me out of my own warehouse, Chisaki?"

"Keep talking like that and you'll end up like Poor Mr. Scammer over there." retorted Overhaul, annoyed. Tragedy tightened his gaze like he tightened the grip on Poor Mr. Scammer's neck.

"No, I'd rather end up like that white butterfly. Either of its fates are fine; I don't mind if I stay white or red." he replied.

Overhaul then looked at Tragedy in dismay.

"You really are a sick man, XXXXXX."

Tragedy's blood ran cold and he nearly stopped his own breathing at the sound of his name being called. So out of the blue.

The strumming of the strings in your heart will soon snap, shall we end it here?