Chapter Text
After fleeing from Laterano, with his good head on his shoulders, a title of honor student from his academy days and having memorized all surrounding terrain for his former executor job, Altare travels toward the nearest village in the southwest.
He finally sees some houses from afar, suddenly his body feels like it's going to fall into pieces, having gone through all the bullshit that may or may not be consequences of his own action with full adrenaline pumping, it does not feel good when it dies down.
His uniform filthen with blood of so many people even he wasn't sure how much was his.
Altare sits down, leaning against a stone fence not too far from shore facing the sea, he heaves a big sigh, trying to relax. This is the first time the Sankta sees an ocean, being an honor Lateran citizen his whole life and got heavily surveilled after being a fallen, he has never gone outside Laterano.
It's not what he has imagined it to be, it is nothing like Sieasta or Dossoles' sea he has seen on vacation flyers. The ocean in front of him is so dim, grey clouds covering the sky over his head ever since he crossed the border.
They could be edited, but his ex-colleagues who had gone there said they were eyes sparkling, so he guessed he could take those words.
Then why is Iberia's sea so depressing? he wondered.
He didn’t expect it to be packed with people but having a village so close to the sea, he at least expected some slight traces of human activities. Despite that, the shore is pretty much desolated.
"Oh my. What do we have here?" A sound comes from the other side of the fence. Altare weakly lifts his head to a newcomer, A man with a strange bulky cloak places his hand on the fence, looking down on him, observing his injured body briefly.
"An injured Sankta, this is not what I heard I'm going to find here." Altare noticed the man eyed his horns, looking amused, but to his surprised, said nothing.
The man climbs up the fence and settles on the top, hanging his feet just beside Altare's face as he speaks. "Looking at you, I think I can say you are very lucky I come here today."
His breathing is stable, but there are still some exhaustions in it. He should not spend any energy on speaking, but talking to someone without a sense of hostility sounded too nice to let it slide.
"What do you mean?"
"Of course, you don't know. You Sanktas are too up your own asses to care about the world outside." Okay, now that was hostility, but he was right.
"I apologize."
"Woah. Did not expect that." A soft chuckle rings, the person above him sounds like he's having fun.
"Honestly I don't think I can blame you. Those things are not really known outside Iberia anyway, but since Laterano is our neighbor, I kind of hope you might have some knowledge about them." He speaks as he kicks his legs. Altare flinched a little but was too weak to move away.
"Some might know. But I never have any field operations in Iberia so my knowledge of this country is its terrain at best."
"Hmm. A lagatus."
"An executor, actually. And I think I’m fired."
"Damn. Couldn't tell." Another chuckle from the man. He is a strange one that he can tell. Most people would panic and probably lend out a hand when they see a heavily injured person sitting alone in the middle of nowhere.
Instead, he just chats with him, showing no sign of hospitality so far. Like he wants him to have some fun before fading into nothingness.
"Could you tell me what you meant? The things I don't know."
"No." Not even a single thought, that's fair.
But before Altare closes his eyes to rest, betting if he would be able to open them later, the man interrupts.
"You'll see for yourself. Any second now." He lifts one of his legs, pointing at the sea. Altare watches the shore getting crashed, wave after wave. The man suddenly came down from the fence, walking toward the sea.
He's standing there, as waves wash the hem of his pants. For a second the Sankta thinks he saw something in the water. Something big, too big to be fish, too strange-shaped to be humans.
Altare doesn’t think he has much energy left in him to be moved by any emotion anymore but seeing the tacky cloak of the man start to move and spread, his eyes widened as his breath stuck in his throat.
Those are... hands. Multiples of hands.
One of the hands picks up the strange thing in the sea and places it slightly behind, the hand remains on the strange creature to keep it in place as he picks up another one, grabbing it tight while lifting it up above his head.
Altare doesn’t know if he has lost too much blood and is now experiencing a hallucination, or this was a vision he had before slipping into the afterlife.
The creatures have blue tentacles, not like squid or octopus or any sea animal he knows, they're swarming and disgusting. Their movement made his stomach turn, Altare thinks this might be the most uncomfortable near-death situation he has ever been in.
The man finally gets away from the sea, another creature drags behind with the other two in his cloak hand. How many hands does that cloak have anyway? He's seriously too tired to count.
"What the fuck are those?" Altare asks as the man walks back to the fence, he doesn’t even know if he himself meant the cloak or the tentacles things in them.
"Why do I have to tell you?"
"At least confirm to me that I really see them as they are and not my mind playing sick tricks on me."
The man stops from climbing the fence and leaning against it, three cloak hands with creatures raised high. One of the creatures dangling from one hand, being dragged and grabbed by only in the tentacle part. "What do you see?"
"...Disgusting blue tentacles with weird ...head"
"Then you are absolutely right. Congratulations. You are still very sane." He starts climbing the fence again with the help of remaining hands. Did he also use the cloak earlier?
"Please, hold on a second." He musters all his strength reaching for the man's cloak, stopping him from getting over.
He knows now that he's dying, with how bloody his clothes were he hasn't realized how much blood he has been losing until now. He really sat down just to take some rest before making his way to the village.
But at this moment, his vision begins to blur, his breathing is so soft he doesn’t know if he really even does breathe at all. The man definitely knows what he's about to ask.
"No."
"Sir, please. I cannot die now." There is still something he needs to do. Someone he dearly needs to see.
Silence falls around them, he keeps grabbing one of the fingers of his cloak. Altare doesn’t know how long had passed, probably just a minute, but even a second felt like eternity to him.
"What will I get from helping you?"
"Whatever you need."
"Now that's a heavy promise. You sure you're not gonna regret it later?"
Altare scoffs, what’s the worst thing one person could do to another, if he is truly going to help him, he can manage whatever comes after. "I do not see how being able to breathe another day is anything regrettable."
"I can kill you and sell your body to black market. Or experiment on you and make you suffer from constant living hell."
"I am very confident in my strength and fighting skill. You can never lay a finger on me if I were even slightly recovered."
"Huh." The man crouches before him, a sly smile on his face, looking at him with very much interest.
“Was that a threat, angel?"
"A warning should be more appropriate."
"I can kill you right now, you know?"
"Then you will accomplish nothing." The man bursts out laughing, a sincere laughter, not psychopathic like he expected.
"An Interesting one aint’cha? Very well. I like you a lot."
He fishes out a syringe from inside his cloak, yanking his arm, stabs the needle and injects some red liquid. Altare doesn’t even have time to oppose. "I'm not going to just bring you to a comfortable fluffy bed. You will help me. Now."
An instant rise of blood pressure caught him off guard, suddenly his heartbeat fastened, his head became blank for a few seconds. Altare starts coughing, probably spitting out some blood, his hand clenching his own chest so hard he might rip his heart out. He doesn’t even have enough air to let out any scream.
After some time, his heartbeats didn't slow down but the coughing stopped eventually, he let out a shaking groan but later gained stable breathing. His body no longer limbing, he can feel strengths in his body, his whole body's muscles thumping to be used. Altare lifts his head up, a wide grin plastered on the man's face, his eyes sparking so suspiciously.
"Thought you wouldn't make it there."
"What did you just..."
"Epinephrine." He’s nowhere an expert in medicine but he’s sure what happened just now was NOT an effect of Adrenaline injection.
The man lends out his hand, surprisingly, his own hand and not the cloak, and Altare quickly grabs it. His grip is too strong than he wanted it to be.
He stands up with no problem, his head cleared, his body feels so light like he could just hop and then float into the sky. It feels amazing and that terrifies him.
"That was NOT epinephrine." He watches the man climbing the fence, watching over in case he falls, then he begins to climb.
"It wasn't. But your pretty brain could never understand, and this world is definitely not ready for my innovations."
"Right." With his vision cleared, though his mind feels like being infested with millions of shapeless worms, he can finally examine the strange man. The man's tall, taller than Altare, dirty blond hair with a weird ring-shaped just on the right of his head. His clothes were mostly purple with only contrast was his light khaki pants. His elbows up half of his palms covered by some kind of armbands. And of course, the tacky cloak. With fully functional hands. Those should be the most shocking thing he has seen today but the tentacles fellas really stole the show.
The man picks three black sheets from the ground, the cloak hands place the creature down one by one, he spreads the sheets covering each of them. Those things are still alive, not so lively that they could hurt any of them or make an escape but incredibly disturbing to see. Altare squints his face as the sheets lumped from any movement of the things under.
The man kicks three covered up creatures in his direction. "Carry these and follow me."
Not waiting for any response, he strides past the Sankta, heading to the village.
Altare looks down to his first task. These tentacles are definitely going to bother him, but the main problem is he doesn’t know how to properly carry three living creatures that are almost his size.
He sees the man getting further and further, with no other option he gathers two of the sheets with one hand, covering more than half of his body and half of his vision, while dragging the last one behind.
Altare quickly follows up. The path is rough and bumpy, he almost trips for the eighth time until both of them stop a few meters before the village's entrance.
The man turns his head, observing the sheets in his hands, gesturing at some tentacles that were exposed. “Cover them up. Don’t make them look suspicious.”
Three chunks of sheets with sizes of human teens are already suspicious , Altare thinks, that’s all he can do anyway. He sighs, bouncing the sheets in his hands, adjusting what those have slipped off, he refuses to drop them on the ground and figures a way to hold all of them again.
He notices that the man already walks off without him, he doesn't often judge people but, god, this man is a huge pain in the ass.
As he follows, he assumes the scientist, he can feel horror creeping on his back, because the building they are heading to has the huge word ‘INN’ written at the front.
“You are not from this village!?” He yells. Almost drops the things in his hands. And honestly, right now he wants to.
“Of course not.” He answers nonchalantly, pushing the door and strides inside, he sees the man waves at the person inside which he guesses might be the owner of this inn. So he was at least welcomed in this village? He doesn't know if that’s going to remain the same if the owner knows this man is about to bring three monsters into his establishment and god knows what he’s going to do with them.
Altare adjusts the sheets in his hand and carefully enters the door. He halts at the look of the man behind the counter. He looked terrified, the sight of strange sheets in Altare’s hands seems to make his blood run cold with how pale his face has become. The Sankta bows his head a little, trying to be polite, but he is sure that as he is seen walking behind the scientist, the owner is definitely not going to like him.
He sighs when he notices they both are not going up the stairs because he physically cannot use them right now, instead they walk toward the back. The man unlock the door and walks in with Altare immediately squeezes himself in, he just wants this day to finally be over.
“Oh my god” The words come out of his mouth even without him realizing. He almost throws the sheets and slumps on the floor, the effect of the so-called adrenaline is still there but he is incredibly mentally exhausted, he just wants to sleep the day away.
“Don’t relax just yet.” The man says as he sat down, he was engrossed in a couple thick stacks of paper and some tools on the writing table. Altare looks around, this room is quite big for an inn of a small village, a queen sized bed. He looks back at the man’s back, he hasn’t taken off his cloak which Altare guesses it was because whatever that makes those hands be able move.
“Why?” He asks, leaning back, using his hands supporting his body in a leisure gesture.
“You are not serious. That head of yours really is there just for decoration, huh?” The man let out a loud scoff, then turned his whole body toward him with a first aid kit. He sits down in front of him, his cloak hands slumped on the floor behind.
“Take them off”
“…Excuse me?”
“Take your clothes off. I need to check your wounds” He hesitates a little, getting injected with a homemade adrenaline that is absolutely not what it was claimed to be one by possibly a mad scientist, could you blame him if he’s a bit skeptical.
Still, he has no other choices. Altare slowly undresses himself, as his upper uniform is removed and oh …, he is dumbfounded.
“...I should not be alive” His wounds are open and bleeding like waterfalls, God, he wishes he was exaggerating.
When he left Laterano he was already bleeding horribly and he was sure he was on his dead bed at that fence, more blood lost should have led him to the spirit realm. Yet he spent probably an hour walking and carrying three creatures while having constant blood loss, but right now he still feels very alive. Altare takes a look at a shirt he just removed and realizes how bloody it is. It looks so heavy from his blood that got soaked in that he is terrified of why he did not notice this earlier. This is probably why the owner was so pale.
“Is this because of your drug?” He almost choked seeing the gaze of the scientist. The blond man eyes his filthy body with strong fascination, his grin is scarily wide, he can feel chills run up his spine.
“You are really, really interesting.”
It’s getting harder and harder not to be vary of this man that Altare may or may not willingly signed a verbal contract with. “Some explanations would be appreciated.”
“Oh, you will get more than some, trust me.” Altare watches the man reach into his cloak again and now he is considering whether rather he used the strength he got from the drug and escaped or accepted his fate. Honestly, both options most likely have him end up dead.
Another syringe whipped out, probably knows what he thought, the hands cloak basically wraps him in place with another drug injecting into his arm right after once again. Altare isn’t sure what has changed inside him or if there will be any soon.
The longer it gets the more anxious he becomes. A sound of bandages rustling against each other brings him back from paranoia land. This man is really tending his wounds.
“What was that just now?”
“TXA”
“And what is that?”
“It will stop your bleeding. Don’t worry, this one was made according to medical procedures.” He finishes the last bandage and starts undressing his pants. Altare flinches from the sudden touch on his legs but soon calms down, they might not be as bad as his whole upper body but the soaking sensation hits him in the head that his legs are probably not in the best shape. He’s a little embarrassed however, being almost completely naked in front of a stranger.
“So the adrenaline from the beach wasn’t.”
“Depends on how you see it. I have some knowledge about medicine so technically everything I make is within the medical procedures.”
“Right…” He feels a little relaxed, probably because of the drugs, he really doesn’t want to find an answer anymore. If this man were a puzzle he would be an overcomplicated one that you could finish every piece and be completely wrong.
“Was that all you wanted to ask?”
Altare’s eyebrow raised, after realizing he almost let out his laugh, maybe he can play with his head a little. “Let me think first, there has been a lot happening since I met you.”
“It’s probably just 3 hours max, you are just fucking stupid.” There’s an obvious frustration in his voice, he clicks his tongue, yanking the bandage, tying it too tight than he should.
“Then please enlighten me, what are those that my stupid pretty head cannot understand.”
“You have to beg me more than that.” Somehow this man’s ego is even greater than an urge to present himself. After a moment of silence, without either questions or begging he waited for, the blond shot him a glare. The wounds tending goes on longer than he expected.
“Hey!”
“You’re like a 10 year olds child.”
“Then I’d be the smartest and greatest 10 year olds ever.” Altare sighs, he feels so tired talking to him, today is such a long day and his body probably finally realized that.
“Who are you?”
“Ha! I’m glad you asked!” He speaks as he jumps from the floor, medical tools scatter all over the place. Golden pair of eyes looking down on the injured Sankta, the cloak spread like a snake spreading its hood, his real arms open wide, presenting himself. Altare weakly lifts his head, almost faint from the slight movement.
“My name is Magni Dezmond. The ‘Great’ Magni Dezmond.”
Dim greyish orange light of early dusk only passes through the gap between each hand, somehow highlighting his smug face. The soft light stabbing his eyes as his vision begins to blur.
“Remember it well, angel. You are in the presence of the greatest alchemist to ever exist.”
And at that. Everything goes dark.
…
The hands drop along with his shoulders. His drugs worked quite well to his surprise, though he cannot deny that those things being this effective mainly was because this dying Sankta was, legitimately, straight up built different. The blood loss was just insane, his external wounds look horrible and he’s very positive that his internals were also nowhere near better.
Magni expected this man to be dead right after he injects the epinephrine but here he is collapsing from exhaustion and some side effects of relaxant.
He stretches his arms and twists his torso with a loud groan. The tingling sensation from the ports on his back sends chills through his entire body. The alchemist only watches the naked figure of his next guinea pig in silence.
“Sankta, huh?” The word came out as a whisper. Somehow, an heretic like him seems to never escape the holy people.