Chapter 49: A Dragon's Fear
"I am Sânge, the Blood-Dragon Slayer."
Macbeth and Jezran looked up at him, standing on the ledge of the crater. The blood-speckled wizard smirked arrogantly down, and offered a low bow.
"As you may have guessed," he continued, "I am the right-hand man of the King of Diamonds, and I have been tasked with the honor of draining every ounce of blood from the bodies of one Macbeth, and Jezran Excalibur." He righted himself and met Macbeth's eyes—red on red. "It is my understanding that you enjoy a bloody battle, yes? I have heard as much from Giseld."
Macbeth glowered at him for a moment, before a dark smirk touched his own lips. "Seeing someone like you crying out in pain would definitely ease my boredom."
"We are cut from the same cloth, it would seem." The white-haired mage gave a nod of approval. "I too relish the suffering of powerful opponents." He jumped into the air, as red wings of blood extended from his shoulder blades. "In that case, let us commence at once."
"Remember your end goal, Macbeth," Jezran said quietly—reminding him not to forget that they were here for the protection of Dreamer and Syllest, not for sadistic kicks. Still, that didn't mean Macbeth couldn't have at least a little bit of fun.
He sidestepped another slash from the dragon-slayer, as he dove from above, with outstretched wings. The wings dematerialized quickly, as Sânge turned to kick upwards toward Macbeth's head. He ducked and struck toward the dragon-slayer's stomach, just to be blocked by his knee. At the same time, Jezran raised a hand to karate chop the back of the man's neck. Sânge blocked with his forearm, before jumping in midair and spinning to kick the old man.
The three of them continued in this martial manner, delivering punches and kicks, which Sânge expertly blocked and avoided. The fact that one man could fend off both of them, already spoke of his power and skill. Once Sânge realized he wouldn't have an opportunity to strike while defending, he leapt back into the air and flew upward.
"Blood Dragon Roar!" He opened his mouth wide, baring both white fangs. Immediately, red liquid gushed from his mouth at impressive speed, toward Macbeth. The reflector-mage's eyes widened, but he was quick enough to reflect the attack back at the other man. The stream of blood turned and shot at Sânge. There was enough fluid, at enough force, that it would have drowned its target if he hadn't reflected it back. Now, that blood drenched Sânge's white clothes, skin and hair. There was a strange bubbling sound, as the dragon-slayer's mouth opened and he began to ingest the blood, like Natsu would with fire.
He wiped his mouth and grimaced. "Consuming one's own blood is less than pleasant," he hissed.
"Where is Resmond?" Macbeth asked, evenly, his eyes narrowed at the now dripping figure that hovered above.
"In case you had not noticed, Macbeth," he outstretched his arms and gestured at the crater, "the King has moved on. You fell into his trap."
The dragon-slayer rose a hand, blood gathering in the air around his fingers in droplets.
"Blood Dragon Bleeding Bullets!" His hand swished as he threw the droplets of blood toward the two men. Macbeth curved the trajectory of the blood so that it shot into the crater wall behind him. Jezran expertly dodged, zigzagging at surprising speed between droplets.
Sânge dove at the old man. Jezran immediately blocked his hits. Suddenly, the older man's fingers pressed into the dragon-slayer's neck. He cried out in pain and jumped away, clutching the spot where Jezran had struck.
"You have an impressive storehouse of magic, dear me," Jezran said, eyes scanning over the other man. He began to discard his coat and mask. "You dragon-slayers do seem to have unnatural reserves of magical energy. You are a first generation slayer, are you not?"
Sânge winced at the residual pain he still felt in his neck. "I was sired by a dragon, indeed," he said, through gritted teeth.
"Yes, I see that." Jezran rolled up his sleeves. "I have traced your magical energy. Were you a second-generation slayer, dear me, there would be a well of energy in your solar plexus, stomach, if you will. However, as with Natsu, Gajeel, and Wendy, your energy is expelled equally through specific points in your body. Primarily, your eye, nerve cleft, radial nerves, and tarsal bones."
Sânge raised his eyebrows as Jezran approached slowly and calmly, hands behind his back.
"I will spare you the details of magic flow through your vein and artery structures, though it is quite fascinating given your blood magic, dear me."
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Jezran was behind the dragon-slayer. He made a quick jab to Sânge's lower back, and another to his tricep. The slayer cried out and jumped back, gasping for breath.
"H-How…" Pain was reflected in his red eyes. Macbeth watched from a few feet away in amusement. He had never seen the true extent of Jezran's abilities.
"I applied pressure to your left kidney and your musculo spiral nerve. I believe your arm is completely useless now, dear me."
Sânge grabbed his left arm in shock. His eyes widened in panic when he realized that it hung limp, unable to move.
"You see, dear me. My magic allows me to track magical energy from a distance. It also allows me to track weaknesses in my opponent's body. I can see your flow of energy through your pressure points, and I have the ability to stop that flow."
Sânge's wings flapped as he tried to take to the air again, but Jezran moved in another flash. He dropped the toe of his boot on Sânge's foot, at the same time pressing two fingers against the side of his neck, and another two fingers into his sternum. The slayer's wings evaporated and he collapsed to his knees with a broken cry.
Macbeth continued to watch, his tongue drawing along his lips as he watched the pain being inflicted on their enemy.
"Dear me, young man." Jezran stood in front of him, hands behind his back. "It would do you well to tell us where Resmond has gone, or I will continue to incapacitate the medians in your body."
The blood-soaked man gasped for breath.
"Very well. I am no fool." His body shook. "I know when I have met my match in battle."
"Excellent," Jezran nodded, seriously. "Then—"
Before he could finish his sentence, Sânge lunged at his legs. From the sleeve of his undamaged arm, a blade, made from the fang of a beast, slid into his palm. Jezran moved to get out of the hold at once, but his sharp movement caused Sânge's blade to slice against his thigh.
Jezran stumbled back and clutched his thigh, as blood began to soak the fabric of his pants.
"You are not the only educated man in this room," Sânge said, as he rose painfully to his feet. He slid his tongue along the side of his blade, tasting Jezran's blood. "I've severed your femoral artery, which means that, in approximately four minutes you will have bled out completely."
Jezran clasped his hand over the wound, applying pressure.
"That is," Sânge limped forward, "you would bleed out in four minutes, were I not here to speed up the process." He extended his hand and his fingers curled forward. Jezran gasped in pain as the blood from his thigh began to drift toward Sange's hand. He gathered a handful of floating blood and drank it from his cupped hands. The air around him began to glow red, as this blood fueled his dragon-slayer magic. Jezran fell to the ground, his face quickly turning pale.
"Ah, yes. My blood is boiling now," Sânge's eyes were wild. He rose his hands into the air and cried out. "Blood Dragon Boiling Rain!"
The air seemed to grow hot, as a cloud of blood formed above them. Droplets of blood rain began to fall, scalding hot. Hot enough to burn holes in the earth where they landed.
Jezran looked weakly at the cloud, lifting an arm as if to shield himself. Before the blood could fall on him, however, it was reflected back. Macbeth's hand was outstretched, his magic creating a shield around Jezran to protect the man from the attack. This left himself vulnerable however, and he winced as burning blood melted tears in his clothes, and left burning cuts and welts on his skin.
"How very noble of you," Sânge stepped forward with a smirk. The injuries he'd sustained from Jezran seemed totally healed now, as if consuming blood had overpowered him. He strode forward, toward Macbeth. The blood rain continued to fall, burning Macbeth but not affecting the other man.
Macbeth stood tall and still, despite the burns. He met the eyes of the dragon-slayer's. Blood red—blood reflected in their eyes—blood everywhere.
"You're making a mistake," Macbeth said.
"Oh? I hardly think so." Sânge continued to walk forward, eyes locked on his. "Are you not Midnight of Oracion Seis? Are you not the true face of terror?" His tone was condescending. "I expected a challenge from such an infamous villain. It must be true," a fang-toothed grin, "the Princess and her surrogate mother have turned you soft. Such a pity." He held up red-stained fingertips, signing another attack. However...
There was the loud tolling of a bell, that rang in his ears as he stared at Macbeth.
"What is that?" His eyes widened as the booming sound continued to toll. In front of him, Macbeth's lips were pulled back in a wicked grin, his narrowed eyes just as vicious as Sânge's. He held his hands out, trembling with excitement, and threw his head back to laugh.
"You want to see the true face of terror, do you?"
The blood rain stopped as Sânge lost focus. His breath caught in his throat as the man in front of him began to transform. The walls of the cave turned red, dripping with thick blood. Macbeth rose, body cracking and twisting, growing until he was the form of a massive demon. The dragon-slayer stumbled back.
"Not so cocky now, Sânge?" Macbeth's voice was distorted, followed by a demonic laugh. "I want to hear your screams. I want to hear a lullaby!"
There was a shrieking roar and the swirling of hot air. A shape circled them, the silhouette of a winged beast.
"Kobolse?" Sânge's eyes went wide. He turned, desperately, eyes following the shadowy shape. "Kobolse, is that you?!"
The shape materialized before him. A purple-scaled dragon, with red eyes and no pupils, red claws and matching twisted horns. "It is I, my son," a rumbling voice responded from the belly of the creature.
"Mother!" He began to sprint toward the dragon, arms outspread, eyes shining with tears. But before he could reach her, a heavy set of claws pinned him to the ground. Her red claws tore through his stomach and chest, holding him to the earth below. He sputtered blood, gasping for breath. "Mother, why?"
"You disgust me," the dragon hissed. "So weak." She picked him up, like meat on a skewer, and growled in his face. "That is why I left, you insolent cretin. How could I be proud of such a disgrace for a son?"
"Kobolse…" Sânge whimpered, tears streaking his blood-stained cheeks.
"You think that having a blood lacrima implanted in you will make you strong enough?" She threw her scaly head back and cackled. "You will never be strong enough to earn my love!"
She dissolved—her body turning to blood that splashed to the earth below. Sânge dropped, waist deep in the pool. He desperately cupped handfuls of the blood, sobbing as he did so. "No! Kobolse, please do not leave me again! I will be strong enough!"
Macbeth's demon-laugh resounded off the dripping walls. "How's this for terror?!"
There was a buzzing sound. The blood around Sânge dissolved, revealing the old corpses of animals, crawling with maggots and flies. Sânge gagged and leapt back, against the chest of a man. His appearance was ragged, hands dirty. He reached for Sânge, who cried out and ran in the other direction. He found himself trapped in a room with dirty walls and a stained floor. His red eyes grew more and more wild. He placed a hand over his nose and mouth.
"Germs," he gasped. "Get it away from me! Filth!"
"That's what you're afraid of?!" Macbeth cackled loudly, the sound grating and booming. "How pathetic!"
A crowd of people surrounded Sânge. Sick, coughing, unclean people.
"STAY AWAY!" He lashed out. "Keep your filth away from me!"
The crowd of people closed in on him. He shuddered in disgust and fear, suffocating in the stench of disease and uncleanliness. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The world was going dark…
Suddenly, the black diamond broach he wore pulsed darkly. He blinked, and the illusion around him crumbled. He was in the diamond cavern, with Macbeth's hand closed around his throat.
In a flash, his bloody claws slashed across Macbeth's face. The illusion-wizard released him and jumped back with a wince. Sânge jumped back, as well, chest heaving for breath.
He touched the pulsing diamond. "You saved me, Your Highness…" The broach glowed darkly before the energy around it dissipated once more.
Macbeth touched his face, where three long gashes now bled. He gritted his teeth, his own eyes now wide with fear.
"It seems I underestimated you, Macbeth," Sânge said, still panting. "Your illusion magic is second to none." He outstretched his hand and began to summon forth the blood that drained from Macbeth's cheek. "That is the best you can do, however, is it not?" He licked his fingers when Macbeth's blood reached them. "You have no offensive power—only reflections and lies."
Macbeth clasped his hand over his cheek, as if that could stop Sânge from draining him.
"Invading one's personal thoughts and extracting their fears is positively despicable," the dragon-slayer hissed. "And it is hardly in good sport."
Macbeth's knees began to shake, the blood loss quickly getting to him. Still, he managed a mocking laugh. "Fool."
"Pardon me?" Sânge's eyes narrowed, pale lips turning down in a scowl.
"You actually believe Resmond has a blood lacrima that he'll give you for serving him? You're just as stupid as the snake-woman."
Sânge bared a fang. "I have seen the lacrima myself. It exists, and it will become mine."
"It must be nice to live in a delusional dream-world," Macbeth laughed again, though he had been brought to his knees.
"Sh," he snapped. "Die an honorable and quiet death, Night Terror."
The blood continued to be pulled from Macbeth's wounds to be gathered in Sânge's hand.
Someone sneezed.
The sound distracted Sânge at once. He jerked his head and looked over his shoulder. There was Jezran, standing weakly on his feet.
"Excuse me," Jezran said, politely. "It seems I've gotten a cold."
"I thought I killed you, old man," Sânge hissed in disgust.
"Fairy Tail members do not go down so easil—ah-CHOO!" He sneezed into his hands. Sânge's face contorted.
"Did no one teach you to sneeze into a tissue? Are you a lowly farm animal?"
"Excuse me, dear me," Jezran wiped his nose on the back of his hand, which only served to traumatize the dragon-slayer even more.
"Filthy!" His attention was completely diverted away from Macbeth now. He was too busy staring in horror at the sneezing old man.
"It seems strange, dear me, that your magic is such a gross business, and yet you are so uncomfortable with germs." Jezran limped forward. Sânge swallowed and put his hands out defensively, as if to ward off evil.
"Untainted blood is not gross!" he snapped, as if this were obvious information. "It is clean and pure. Your disgusting bodily excretions are not to be compared!"
"Dear me, I do apologize," Jezran sneezed loudly again, and this time blew his nose into his hands.
"Ill-mannered piece of garbage!" Sânge was trembling in a mixture of terror and disgust.
Jezran limped another step toward him.
"Stay away, diseased swine!"
Jezran coughed without covering his mouth. Sânge held a blood-stained handkerchief over his mouth and gagged.
Jezran coughed again and spit a wad of mucus on the ground. This act caused Sânge to stumble backward and trip…
Right onto Macbeth's flying carpet.
The dragon-slayer's face turned blue. He collapsed into a completely incapacitated puddle and puked off the edge of the carpet.
Macbeth stood shakily from where he was knelt beside his pack. He smirked victoriously, but winced when the action tugged on the gashes on his cheek. He and Jezran looked at each other, both of them pale-faced and speckled in blood. In fact, the entire floor of the crater was now stained red, and Sânge's previously white hair, skin, and clothes, were now all scarlet.
"Good thinking, dear me," Jezran gave a weak, mustached smile.
Macbeth smiled back. "I've spent enough time with Gajeel to know about the dragon-slayer's greatest weakness."
Motion sickness.
Sânge groaned.
Jezran sat with a thud on the soil and ripped a strip of clean fabric from under his jacket, to tie around his bleeding thigh. Meanwhile, Macbeth folded his arms over his chest and glared at Sânge's useless form on his carpet. "Pass me some rope, Pops," he said, without looking away from the blood dragon-slayer.
Jezran tossed a rope from Macbeth's pack. Macbeth unraveled it and was about to tie it around Sânge's wrists when something dark caught his eye. It was the black diamond broach the other man wore, pulsing once again. He narrowed his eyes and examined the thing. The pulses were increasing in frequency, until they were a rapid beat.
Through his gagging and groaning, Sânge managed a defeated laugh. An eerie, cold sound.
"May your blood seep into the core of the world."
Macbeth's eyes shot wide, pupils retracting in horror, as the diamond suddenly stopped pulsing, and dark energy bundled around it.
"Jezran!"
He turned on his heel and leaped toward the older man, but it was too late.
There was a deep silence—as if all the air and sound in the world had been absorbed into the black-diamond broach. An infinite pause. An eternal darkness.
Then, the explosion.
Shattering black diamond that tore through the walls of the cave. An eruption, cataclysmic in proportions. From the snowy sky above, the mountain could be seen collapsing, bursting, erupting like a volcano—but from its spewing mouth was not the red of lava, but the red of spilled blood. The shockwave shook the mountain range, made the village homes tremble.
The village chief made a sign toward the heavens, as stone and diamond began to rain from the sky.
"Respondeat superior," he whispered.
As the dust settled and the debris fell, the snowy wind continued to blow, as if unaware of the catastrophe. It did not pause in its endless dance with snowflakes. It twirled them in a darkened sky, tossing and spinning. And among the snowflakes, floating in the hands of the playful breeze…
A card. It was torn and spattered in blood, and depicted the cartoonish face of smiling woman with eyes like cherry blossoms.
The card drifted down on the uncaring breeze, and settled lazily in a crack of stone.
There was silence.
A/N: Well, I'll take it as a good sign that I didn't lose any followers after introducing my own dragon-slayer. ;) I was hoping that by now, you guys would be invested enough in the story that it wouldn't be too disappointing. And hopefully now that you've seen Sânge in action, you might be that much more open to the character. I'd love to hear your opinions!
QuestionablyCapableGhoul, I'm glad you caught on to the name! As far as Middream... My, my, aren't you readers impatient! You didn't expect an assassin to start snuggling and smooching all that soon, did you? xD Don't worry, the sexual tension will only continue to grow. Which means teasing fluff scenes await, mixed in the chaos of the Black Diamond mysteries.
Thank you all, again!