Chapter 67 – Appearance, my good man
The night was still deep, the silver moon spraying thin whispers of light down on Desde City that did nothing to cut through the thick darkness beneath.
In the Outskirts, where Base Operation Three of the Fangs Sect had once stood, nothing remained but ashes and molten rock still radiating a scorching aura even hours after the incident.
And despite the obvious noise and evidence of destruction, no one in the Outskirts was foolish enough to go looking for reasons.
The people there had long since learned to kill their own curiosity. They knew better than most how that small, giddy feeling of wanting to know things you shouldn’t could end you before you blinked.
Yet sohow, soone was there. Standing in the middle of the ashes and molten rock, entirely unbothered. Bored, even.
A short man — no taller than a hundred and fifty centitres — wearing a white tuxedo shirt, black vest, and a pair of luxurious moccasins. A black hat rested atop his head and a black cane hovered just ahead of him.
A mask — a shy, blushing pink bull — was fixed to his face, hiding everything of him.
And on his right arm, despite his small fra, rested the unconscious body of Horus Skygazer with no apparent effort.
"Good Lord, the sll." He muttered, face scrunching behind the mask as he looked around. "I won’t be able to see anything here."
"Why?" The cracked voice of the grey bird ca as it appeared in a puff of fog before him, wings flapping, its inhuman eyes searching for his.
It found nothing behind the mask.
"A god was involved in this matter." Omar whispered, his voice respectful not out of deference to the bird but simply by his own nature. "The flow of ti here has been greatly disturbed, shattered and broken. You can sll, surely, traces of GeumGeum used in this place. If left unchecked, a Fractured Land may be born here in years, once enough essence has been absorbed."
He swept his eyes across the devastation.
"Whoever is responsible for this rather unwelco incident is a Blessed. And the god behind them cares very deeply for them."
"Who?" The bird asked, wings beating as it circled the unconscious Horus. "Him? Him?"
"Not him." Omar shook his head lightly. "This pitiful, wretched, and most certainly ill old man is not a Blessed. Only a cripple. Only a dying man. Quite unfortunate. No, it is soone else. Most likely the one he was working with."
"Anesthesia." The bird croaked.
"Or, if we wish to be ticulous, Emrys Stormblessed," Omar added, "who may well have acted on behalf of his lover. Love, truly, is a gift from the Lord. A curse too. But I digress...that would not be surprising, would it?"
"Correct."
Omar smiled behind his mask. He shuffled his left hand into his pocket and pulled out a golden pocket watch. The needle was shaking furiously, sporadically, unable to settle.
Proof of soone tampering with the flow of ti in this area. But still, he couldn’t return to Constantine without making at least a little more effort.
’Even knowing it’s Anesthesia and Emrys — the money withdrawn from her account matches the report, after all — I still need to perform this properly.’ He smiled to himself in his gentlemanly fashion. ’Appearance, good man. Always put up a front, as always.’
Decision made, his eyes glowed with an intense white; a colour that slowly spread to encompass the pocket watch.
The space around him wavered and shook on all sides. Then, as if the world were being wound backward, everything began to shift, rolling slowly back through ti toward the beginning of it all.
But his pocket watch shrieked, strained and crackling under the force of moving against a god’s power, however minor a trace it was.
A sizzle of silver lightning erupted from nowhere. He coughed, blood spraying from his lips, and his Skill stopped imdiately.
The grey bird watched in complete silence, cataloguing everything to report later.
’Aye, good man. Appearance well—!’
He stopped. Sothing beneath him was hidden under a layer of ash. It was a necklace.
Omar cocked his head and instinctively reached toward it, fingers brushing the surface.
"Don’t touch!" The bird snapped, and Omar pulled his hand back, genuinely startled.
He looked at it.
"A god is involved." The bird said strangely. "Do not touch anything."
Omar shrugged. He didn’t particularly mind. Appearances were what mattered here.
So he pressed his top hat to his chest and bowed elegantly, Horus still resting in his arm.
"Then I shall go, good man. I need to deliver this old man to the Fog." He said, glancing one last ti around him. "In any case, you have seen what I have seen. You know what I know. But let share what I believe..."
’For appearances, good man.’
His eyes shimred faintly.
"...this was, most likely, the work of Anesthesia and Emrys Stormblessed. All of it points to them."
"Who will you kill?" The bird asked flatly.
"Oh." A card appeared before him, like a Tarot card, showing the face of a young man around eighteen with orange hair and matching eyes. "The bastard son of the Tier Three Jurish Family. A self-proclaid friend and loyal errand boy who rather dotes on Anesthesia and supplies her considerable alchemical materials through his family’s background in the Alchemy Path."
"Good choice."
"My thanks, good man." Omar said. "With that, I bid you farewell."
Without waiting for an answer, he vanished into the night with his cane, still having things to attend to before he could go ho and return to his favourite novel.
’Appearances, good man. It’s all appearances.’
The grey bird lingered for a mont after he was gone. Then it dissolved into a cloud of grey fog, and destroyed the necklace on its way out.
No one wanted an item tainted by a god.
But once destroyed, unknown to everyone, the necklace beca a thin invisible thread, absorbed quietly by the world itself.
...
"Have you found anything about the Goddess who has blessed my son, Red Queen?" Sefira Desdemona asked, floating in a pool of blood hidden beneath the Mansion.
Her red eyes were fixed upward, barely making out the faint red Gate of her Goddess above.
[Nothing yet.] The Red Queen said, making Sefira frown deeply. [She is a reclusive goddess. Such types exist, though they are rare.]
"Then I have every right to be worried."
[A Goddess cannot harm her own Blessed.]
"But she can manipulate him."
[Trust in your son.] The Red Queen whispered. [Did you forget? He is the Last Born.]
"That is exactly why I cannot let anything happen to him." Her eyes went cold and deadly. "He is my last child. My last, Red Queen. Do you understand what that ans?"
[Oh, I know well, my beloved friend.] The Red Queen laughed. [He is the child you carried inside you for three full years. The twins were born and he stayed. Waiting for three years. Your love for him is beyond asure, I understand that completely. But trust in your son, the sa way that madman of a husband of yours does.]
"Don’t call my darling a madman. Would you like to see how mad I can be?"
[Anyone who kills the High Priest of a God inside that God’s own church is a madman.]
"Oh, he simply wanted to marry ." Sefira grinned, proud.
[And now the Church of Death holds a quiet grudge against your entire family.] The Red Queen shook her head. [The past High Priest’s daughter is now the High Priestess. Expect trouble from that corner before long.]
"Let the little girl co." Sefira said, dismissively. She closed her eyes and exhaled softly. "I am so worried about my baby, Red Queen."
[He will be fine.]
"What if that goddess hurts him?"
[Then I will kill her for you.]
At that, Sefira sank lower into the pool of blood, her last words rising like whispers from sothing drowning.
"No." She said. "I will kill her myself."
The Red Queen bared her teeth into a bloody grin, herself moving through her river.
[A Godkiller... oh, how long has it been since one of that stature was born?]
She laughed and plunged into her red river, watching a future drenched in blood spread out before her.
[The Last is indeed Born.]
—End of Chapter 67—
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