A sheathed stance.
Absolute stillness before eruption.
DDOOOOSSSHHHH!!!
It was loud.
'Steady your breath.'
'Close your eyes.'
'Let go of sight.'
'Let go of sound.'
'When released, it isn't just a strike.'
It is every strike, all layered at once.'
Flesh is not the only barrier it cuts. It severs the very space between breaths.'
OOOOOOOSSSSHHHH!!!
The wind parted...
Riven's body twitched, his hand gliding across Mael's Fang's hilt.
Now.
Time seemed to slow.
Or were they too fast?
Their blades connected in that concoction of heat and rot.
FWWOOOOOSSHHHH!!
Sudden.
Then.
RIP.
RIP. RIP. RIP.
Steel blurred.
He was still in front of him, yet the air behind Drenn split open in lines of silver.
RIP! RIP! RIP!
What came wasn't a single strike.
It was dozens.
Too many slashes to count.
Too fast, or obscure to see.
RIP! RIP! RIP!
RIP! RIP! RIP!
The world stood still.
Only once the Fang was already sheathed...
Click.
Only one the world remembered to breathe...
Only then did time remember to move.
SHHKKKK!!!
A delay spray of blood, or something like it traced through the air.
Steam hissed a loud exhale.
"HRR--" A groan escaped Drenn's charred throat as the pain shot through him.
A strangled noise. Not exactly rage. Not even disbelief.
Realisation.
SHHKKKK!!!
The spray continued and flowed.
That was when his knees shook.
Crrk!
Then the other.
Thud!
Those blackened lines running across Drenn's face seemed to scatter and slightly shake.
That gruesome face seemed stunned, frozen in the moment.
Standing across him his partner also seemed frozen.
Riven.
His fingers wouldn't leave the hilt.
Those purple veins pulsed violently under his skin. They'd spread everywhere like cracks in porcelain.
His breath seemed non-existent.
His bones were trembling.
Across his chest, ran a hot burn; a gash coated with rot and blood. It ran across the boy's chest, a forever memory.
In that heat, the two looked like statues.
SSHKK!
The only continuous sounds were the spraying of blood.
Crrk!
Drenn tried to stand.
His muscles refused.
His skin was blistered and peeling partly, revealing faint lines of invisible blades.
Steam hissed from those lines carved across his body.
Gushhhh...
A soft flow drained from nearly every orfice.
But then... beneath that blistered flesh, he smiled.
A bloody, broken smile.
The first display of emotion apart from rage.
"To bleed out like this... hah..."
The smell of death he'd so been used to, ran strong from his visage.
"Here... in this bleeding forest..."
His voice cracked, as he looked around.
...It didn't look like it had before. The explosions of earlier had ruptured the surroundings trees around them, but more lay off deeper.
The flames, the ruptured stumps coated in red, the charred ground.
This was no battlefield.
It was something else entirely...
"L-Lord forgive me."
The smile vanished as quick as it came.
His voice had lowered, not with fear...
Devotion.
He stared at the display of 'devotion' he'd created.
Was it shame that was crawling through his body like that charred taste?
His eyes then lifted; the furnace embers flickering, seemingly fanning out.
They lifted up to the boy.
Up to Riven.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Rot touched the soil.
"Boy..." he muttered, voice somewhat steady, "don't fool yourself."
"Khcrhk!"
A cough, wet and dark spilt liquid down his chin.
"This strength... mine... it's nothing."
Drip. Drip. Drip.
"I'm no chosen. No saint. Barely an acolyte."
His bony fingers lifted; his hand slightly trembling.
"The Covenant--" his voice dropped, reverent.
"--they wield true blessings. True curses. The kind that don't just uproot trees..."
Drip. Drip. Drip.
His smile returned, cracked and red.
His long figure still tall although kneeling.
His energy still ominous although ridden.
"So know this before I go..."
"More will come..."
Riven just stood there, eyes un-moving; the area around him greyed.
It didn't seem like cold indifference.
Drenn's hand twitched. His gaze lowering past the boy, past the flames... toward the dirt.
Toward the shattered fragments of the medallion.
He took a pause. A much needed one.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
"I curse you."
It was a rugged whisper.
Hoarse. Cracked.
It floated as his hollowed slits turned back to the boy.
The cuts around his body then seemed to tremble.
Vrrmmm.
The low vibration crawled through his flesh.
The wounds Riven had carved; those silver lines across his arms, his chest, his neck, his whole torso; they began to hum.
Vrmm..vrmmm...vrmm.
The steam hissing never stopped.
The blood within his skin boiled, shifting within his own body.
His mouth opened.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
"My rhyme ends here... but my memory remains..." his eyes shifted to the gash carved over Riven's chest; its surface charred and vibrating.
Crack.
A sound ran up his collarbone. Another across his jaw.
"Let that silence follow you...until it takes everything you have left."
Then...
SSHHHRRKKKKKACCKKKKK!!!
His body split.
Not in one clean stroke... but in dozens.
It was an eruption.
Every wound that Riven left, burst open all at once; tearing himself apart.
Rot. Blood. Steam.
Waves of blackened flesh and boiling red sprayed across the ground, hissing as the soil ate it whole.
A diseased heat spread.
HISSSS!!!!
The monster who once stood so tall... had collapsed in a pool of himself.
A quiet fell after the storm.
Yorant fell beside him.
The blade clanged once, then lay still in that blood-soaked soil.
If one listened closely...
Was there sounds of.... weeping?
Riven didn't move. He hadn't moved at all.
But it was then his fingers slipped from his hilt.
His eyes lay half-lidded, unfocused.
A thin stream of blood traced from the corner of his lips, as his eyes stood blood-shot.
Who knew if he was even conscious during Drenn's end?
Maybe he never saw the result.
Maybe to him, this fight had never ended.
Maybe his mind was still lost in that cocoon of blood...
THUD!
His body fell.
Not like a hero.
Not like a monster.
Just... someone crashing into the blood-warm soil.
His cheek pressed against the dirt; his surface vibrating purple.
Was he still alive?
Ding.
Mael's Fang slipped from his palm with a dull thud beside him.
Finally...
It was over.
There was no triumph.
No roar.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Only the sounds of faint drips, rippling the ground.