Ah.
I see.
It… It all makes sense now.
Everything makes sense.
Mid-air, I changed the destination of my leap, still ignoring the pain that coursed through my ribs as I outstretched my palms, hurling toward the spiff's face.
The spiff still imperfectly hid Its four eyes with Its limb nets, barely hindering the flow of Its dripping blue blood that made a mess of the ground below.
I arrived a few inches away from its face. And immediately, I grabbed onto both yellowish, maggot-like nets with my outstretched palms. Tightening my grip around it as a strength fueled by an otherworldly feeling made its way through my veins.
The nets were as strong as metal. No, they felt stronger than that.
Oh, but at that moment, I didn't bother. The happening of the solid, metal-like nets scratching and inconveniently pressing against my palms didn't dare surface in my mind.
My legs dangled freely in the air.
Eventually, I bulged my biceps, gritting my teeth as I used all the strength in my upper body, pulling my lower body upward.
That action itself sent deadly shivers toward my lungs and my ribs. Shivers that morphed into echoes of brain-shocking pain.
But I endured it all.
As I ignored the blue liquid that dripped from Its eyes, uncomfortably trailing into my arms that rested in my coat, I finally saw the spiff eyeballs to eyeballs.
"What…" My voice began to rumble. It came out of my mouth almost unconsciously, tearing the elastic boundaries of my throat, resulting in a low-pitched reverberation. A rasping voice. "Did you just say?" I asked. And the intonation with which I asked the question conveyed every ounce of the feeling that bubbled through my entire mind and body.
—"..."—
It offered no real response. Instead, It's three working eyeballs widened. They enlarged. And the thick veins that were once bountiful in those dark yellowish eyeballs seemed to diminish.
Its hostility had evaporated at that moment, replaced by a calm, sinister feeling that emanated from its widened eyes.
That feeling… I knew it all too well.
The feeling of amusement. Pure, utterly belated amusement.
My heart thrummed, and somewhere within me. Somewhere deep down within me, a thin string was cut.
A thin string that always held my mind together. That always kept my murderous intent in check.
My jaws quivered as I clenched the nets tightly. More tightly.
I wanted to break those nets, to tear them off.
"Do you find what I asked funny?!!!" I screamed at it. My throat expanded once more, veins gathering round them, outnumbering the bulged veins on my forehead. And as I roared, saliva escaped my lips, tainting the already desecrated face of the spiff.
To my rage-fueled roar, the spiff uttered no response.
That was until it began to chuckle. That same chuckle.
That same fucking chuckle.
Its laughing?
I took my gaze away from the spiff, gazing upward at Mangé, who still stood on the spiff's head, stunned in place.
His face was riddled with the grim realization of the darkness slithering under all that had occurred, and all that was still occurring.
His face was frozen, suspended in continuous contemplation.
But even as he stood there like a statue, his hand that gripped his pistol never unclenched his weapon as it remained pointed at the spiff's head.
Then, as his frantically moving eyeballs wandered left and right, they finally met mine. And as they did, they widened subtly and narrowed back almost immediately.
His green gaze had been tainted by confusion, mixed with anger, and painted by sadness.
But still, they held true. And they read my own narrowed grey gaze.
As soon as Mangé saw my gaze, he understood my intention.
No, he felt my intention. He felt the intensity of it because at that moment, my Te flared subconsciously, actively corrupting the temperature and the air in the room.
Mangé slowly shook his head.
Mangé waved his hand, gesturing to me that I shouldn't do what I will definitely do.
His lips moved in a slow fashion, and his words unfurled, cutting through the silence brought by the bemused spiff.
"Don't, Stel. Don't. We still have things to ask him."
Fuck that.
I took my gaze away from Mangé and once more focused on the spiff.
Seeing the utterly amused expression on the spiff's disgusting face, a smirk danced on my lips.
It wasn't a smirk of happiness, nor of satisfaction.
It was a smirk of prophecy, and that prophecy was a tender whisper that floated in the air:
I am going to kill you right now if you don't talk.
"This is your last chance," I spoke. Somehow, I had managed to speak with a low voice, devoid of the rage that plagued me. Somehow I had managed to…
"What the hell did you mean by that?"
What made the whole situation more dangerous, not for me, but for the spiff, was the fact that my voice was no longer loud.
It was now calm, surprising even me.
Finally, the spiff's mouth moved.
And a rapidly evolving dread consumed me as I coldly fathomed the incursions of what Its possible confirmation to my thoughts could be.
—"It should be obvious, no? You thought you had a mole in our Orned Gang."— Its words seemed more focused on Mangé than on me.
—"This is why I said you don't know your place, Hawk Eyes. The Orned Gang has been in existence for decades, ruling the backlands even before Cyclo or the other female human gang that grew to a major gang became a thing."—
—"Germaine is our mole in your gang. Germaine is the one who gave us information on sipratite, your so-called key. We also instructed Germaine, as your 'right-hand' man, to recommend the 'mole' you hired to infiltrate our ranks. Hahaha! In perfect summary,"— It's voice dropped low, —"You Cyclo lots are done for. Your base is probably being raided by the 'absent' leader of Orned and a couple of our members as we speak."—
My furrowed brows loosened, my quivering lips paused their trembling, leaving my mouth half open as I stared into the spiff's eyes.
This is bad.
This is… Really bad.
Echoing and cutting through the stormy haze of increasingly spiralling problems was an endearing, "Ha!" uttered by Mangé.
That single auditory gesture carried the weight of all we both felt at that moment.