Underneath the Moon is Where My Secrets Lie

Chapter Twenty-One: The Battle Continues

     "I meant it wholeheartedly," he grinned again, his smile echoing a promise, cracking his neck.

     "Are you drunk or something, to not understand where you're at right now?" I exclaimed, shocked. "Your arrogance levels are pretty high - I mean, I already knew that, but they're soaring to new heights."

     "Want to know why I apologized?" he asked.

     "Why?"

     "Because I'm sorry for what I'm going to have to do to you, but at least I've given you a fair warning, right?"

     "Don't - "

     He yanked his knife right out of the wall.

     I flexed my arm as it shot into my cowl, dragging out with it my mercury daggers.

     His eyes widened slightly as he saw what he was up against.

     "Got any gasoline?" I questioned. "I just need to know, because I'm about to light this match up, with you as my fire-starter... and as my fire ember."

     "You sure? I hope your match is waterproof, because I have a feeling that you're gonna throw your  fire to the Rain."

     I scoffed at that, knowing that our wordplay was already weak.

     I watched as Emeran Rain threw the knife that was in his hand, his midnight-colored hair brushing against his metal-shouldered and metal-hooded cloak.

     I blocked it easily against my long mercury blades, watching as his cockiness vanished.

     "Trying to dispose of me quickly, huh?" 

     I dashed toward him, expensive mercury meeting steel.

     He darted backwards, placing the knife back in one of the pockets in his cloak. From his belt, he unsheathed a long sword.

     Emeran slashed out at me, and I felt a slight tear in the side of my cowl.

     "How dare you."

     His grin grew wider, a teasing expression lingering on his face.

     "It was such an expensive cowl. Oh, I suppose that I can always just stitch it up with waterproof black thread," I reasoned with myself out loud.

     I found myself lunging into Emeran's space, and I found an opening unintentionally left open for me, and I dug with my right blade into the skin of his ribcage. My dagger passed through his cloak and tore through an expensive, green leather vest, and into an alcohol-stained white undershirt underneath.

     "I see," I managed to croak.

     I yanked the blade out and prepared to strike again, but Emeran took that moment, even so as he let out a pained screech, blood dripping down his clothes, to make a long gash in my left shoulder.

     I gritted my teeth, screaming through them at the searing pain, and I felt my own warm blood as it pooled in my cut. As I pushed on, dark blood spilled over my side and front.

     Bloodlust and fear shone in those cruel blue eyes.

     That's when he took another lightning-fast opportunity to cut my neck.

     Thankfully, I ducked, so his blade only scratched - hard - into my left cheek.

     He'd cut where it'd scar if I didn't use my healing abilities.

     I licked at the blood that dribbled down, tasting only warm salt and metal, smelling a strong scent of copper. 

     What a taste - and a mark - to remember him by.

     I grabbed his shoulder as I plunged my knife deeper into Emeran's ribcage. I felt it go right through his body, and I heard another sound of tearing fabric as I pushed downward.

     He spasmed underneath my grip.

     I then recoiled back as a sudden burst of pain exploded in my right leg.

     I heard Emeran gasp, and then dark blood dripped down his mouth in a small, almost undetectable line. 

     A stream of it suddenly spouted out of his mouth and onto my clothes - and, onto the wall.

     And practically everything else.

     My leg buckled underneath me, and Emeran and I both fell to the dirty tunnel floor.

     Emeran Rain released a choked cry.

     I exhaled sharply, and then I screamed as waves of pain, agony, and words slowly drowned me, shoving me deeper and deeper as I continued to submit.

     I fought back against myself, and I vomited on my left.

     I swallowed the mouthful of blood that came afterwards.

     I panted, waiting for him to attack me, my world spinning.

     I lay down, and that's when I realized that the poison that my dagger emitted - not to mention Emeran's blood loss - was slowly killing him.