9th Bullet: Liar, Liar - The Truth is Desired

2 hours before Janda's arrival.

Uvo and Akio entered the Morgue grounds. Their horses galloped and halted, shyly neighing at the ominous and cold presence of the house of the dead, refusing to approach any further. Akio knew of this particular Morgue. It was shanty and crumbling due to the overwhelming source of Death Matter, it being one of the biggest sources of Death Matter in the whole of the Afterlife.

"Hey, Akio," Uvo said, "do you think Janda'll be really mad at me after ditching him? He's really good at revenge." His dismounted his stead and brushed his long black cloak, gold lining decorating it to show his Lieutenant status. 

"Elliot will be fine." 

It serves him right after all, she thought. Akio did the same and unholstered her Death Arm, gripping it with vigilance. "I'll stand behind as back-up while you go in as the main force of attack."

Uvo didn't even bother listening before lugging the huge gatling gun of a Death Arm and walked up to the doors without a care. She groaned before stepping in behind and close.

"We should get some food after this," Uvo said. He pushed the ginormous doors open, the groaning of the hinges sounding. The whole building was empty and mist buffeted the lobby with a dominating eeriness. There would usually be a row of spirits, ghosts and such lining up or bustling with coffins on their backs but none of that happen. The large red-carpeted staircase was empty. The towering halls contained no life and, well, it was a ghost town.  "Empty as hell..." Uvo scratched his head and observed for anything. "I was thinking we go to Ricky's tavern again or we go look for some place else."

"Where's Yanasa?" Akio asked, ignoring Uvo's hungry belly antics. The manager, Yanasa, was the head of the Morgue. Everything went through them, quite literally. At specific times, the clock would chime to signal the new set of work to be done. And the clock's location? Yanasa's head. Odd fellow but so was the Afterlife. 

Uvo murmured something before sighing. "Something's obviously up. Or maybe they're avoiding me? Am I that much of a troublemaker?"

That would be rather obvious, Akio thought.

"Shall we split up?" she asked. "Perhaps the enemy has the staff captured?"

"Then splitting up would flat-line us. The best we can do is to search the whole building."

"But, sir, that would take us forever. They could be dead by then."

"Or they could be dead now and we could never know. Leg up, now, corpses ain't gonna find themselves." Uvo was already going down the misty halls and Akio reluctantly followed him. The red carpeted floors stretch from everywhere. It was as if blood was flowing through the whole place, veins in a body. The carvings and shavings of the large windows sills with slight touches of gold showed the outside of the Morgue, the swampy and murky environment seeming to swallow and overflow the whole place. 

It was almost impossible to see anything remotely readable in the establishment. The paintings were rich, gothic and quite peculiar. Akio never stood fine art due to her usually being a numbers person. She preferred to take comfort in logical stuff than rather purposely confusing questions.

"It's getting kind of cold," Uvo muttered. "I wish they had a warming system or something."

Akio simply ignored Uvo's complaints and continued analysing the structure, searching diligently for clues. Absolutely nothing out of place was found. The mist only made things more difficult.

"Hey," Uvo called. "If you keep going silent you're gonna make me go crazy."

"Lieutenant, please, focus."

"There's nothing to focus on. This whole place is shrouded in mist."

"Then maybe you should take off those sunglasses." She rolled her eyes.

"Hey, now," he held his shades, "I love these things. They don't come off, even when I sleep."

Akio made a face. Uvo had never shown his eyes at all and it forever stayed that way, as far as she could remember as a rookie. 

After clearing the east wing, nothing but coffins and rotting corpses, creaking halls, a cold incinerator and other paraphernalia in which Akio couldn't understand, they ventured to the west wing. They checked the rooms filled with jars, canisters and graves in the process of being inscribed. Each room was cluttered yet organized. The contradicting west wing gave nothing to offer for a clue except even more mist. The wooden doors groaned and a slight breeze touched their necks. 

A loud clutter sounded.

Akio armed herself and Uvo turned his head to the sound of the noise. It came from one of the rooms far in the halls.

Akio moved forward. “Stay alert.”

“I’m always alert,” Uvo said. “I’m alert enough to know this is where people get dramatically separated before something terrible happens.”

“…Then stay close.”

"Ah! You care. I knew you weren't some emotionless bag of meat."

Akio's refrained herself from talking back and continued to drift herself closer to the room. She could see from the space under the door that the mist was birthing from here. As she ventured closer, she heard strange sounds. She heard knives gently slicing flesh, a drumming of the heart, metal gently clanging against each other and slimy liquids sloshing like a creature was being born.

She charged through the door and aimed her Death Arm at the shadow and mist filled room. A chain leapt out through the fog and Uvo pulled her out the way.

"Fire!" Uvo commanded.

Akio did exactly that and shot blindly in the unknown room. They heard metal, flesh and wood get struck. Uvo grunted and ran away, pulling Akio along with him. Chains flung out and tried to latch onto the Killrights. Uvo pushed Akio forward and spun himself around to face the metal snakes. He slapped each chain away with astonishing speed.

"Akio! Retreat!"

Akio kept running, looking back to see her Lieutenant fighting with all his might. She suddenly halted herself. No. She wasn't going to run away. She had to fight, it was her duty as a Killright. Uvo was getting overwhelmed and she must assist him.

She bolted back, firing shots at the chains. She shoved Uvo out of the way and the chains pierced through her body, blood spilling and dragging her into the room. The door slammed and a scream sounded. 

Her scream.

He yelled and barrelled into the the room, the door turning into splinters. He needed light or something to clear the mist or lots of wind. He did exactly that. He shouted a battle cry, the pressure in the room shifting and dispersing the mist to reveal the perpetrator and its disgusting work. 

The room was splattered with blood and flesh. There was a table carrying a corpse of a young malnourished boy. His legs was gone and his jaw was ripped off and his chest had a gaping square hole. A pair of gloved hands hovered over and the hands belonged to a barely recognizable human. His flesh was rotting and his hair was falling. He was missing an eye and wore a surgical mask but it looked as if it was ran over in dirt. Everything about the creature was dirty, skinny and it seemed everything skin related was about to fall off. The whole room smelled awful and the barely lit candles were revealed further some sort of incubators. The shell was made out of what seemed like scabs and there were scabs around the face of the victims as well. Boils and pus poured out of the gaps of the scabs, an even worse stench punching his nose.

"What the hell are you?" Uvo asked with revulsion in his voice.

"Uvo Ursus..." the creature replied in a raspy and slightly choked voice. He raised a finger at him. "You're quite filled with life, aren't you?" He wheezed. "I've heard stories about you and your overwhelming strength. I wish to study you and your Death Matter." He pushed the corpse off the table. "Please, lay down so I may examine you."

Uvo didn't have any sort of quips or joy at all. He simply revealed his Death Arm, a gatling gun almost the size of Vadars' Death Arm, and unleashed a blazing turret of bullets. Suddenly, large green tentacles erupted from its back, twice of the size of his own body, protecting him the bullets and smashing Uvo into the wall. The Desperado howled in pain.

"Please, stop, you're hurting me," the Desperado said. He crumpled to the ground and groaned. The tentacles twitched and twirled and eventually retraced and shrunk into his body once more. His battered cloak was shredded and clinging onto his body. After a while of groaning, the Desperado hobbled and over and dragged Uvo into an incubator.

A mist figure began to form and stood, body and face covered.

"You take a while to kill your victims, don't you, Khasta?" the figure asked. "So you're not going to study him."

"I don't like those who struggle against my studies. He'll be a good source to feed from."

"You can keep to your weird experiments. I don't care. Just get what you want for the boss and leave."

"What I want isn't exactly easy to find. It's a type of evil that can only be found in the most righteous of hearts. Too bad this stupid child doesn't have it, it would make my search my easier."

"What kind of evil is that?"

"Something only the Devil could have... but for now, Janda Elliot." Khasta immediately shifted the conversation to the task at hand. "Where is he now?"

"He's close. For now, hand me the female Killright. I'll fake her death and you may do whatever you want with her later. My illusions are so realistic, he'll never notice the difference."

Khasta eyed the figure. "I must say, tread carefully. One wrong slip-up and you'll be in trouble. Children of the Oasis are hard creatures to study. Their curiosity and their hidden genius should not be trifled with. If he discovers the truth, his aquatic abilities shall punish you. Heavily."

"Don't underestimate my lies. Only those who I chose may know the truth."

                                                                                 ♱♱♱

Currently.

Janda crept into the building. He waved his hand in the lustrous mist and turned to see Daxmen shivering.

"You okay?" Janda asked.

"I'm fine," Daxmen said.

"You can have my cloak, you know." He took off his cloak and tossed it on Daxmen's head. He turned and followed the mist, breathing in the cold, rainy smell and the growing smell of dead bodies. It was a Morgue, it was expected. What interested him was the mist itself. Daxmen hurried over.

"Could we take a break or something?" the Gravedigger asked, hugging his shovel. "Maybe we can just sit down, talk and, you know, get out of here? I mean, it's reasonable right especially since we saw that dead body. Who was that lady? Do you know her? Janda, please, I'm scared. I don't wanna be here." Tears started to well. Daxmen clutched Janda's cloak wrapped himself in it. "Can we just talk about that armband? Yeah, we could do that instead and just leave this place maybe. I don't know. Janda? Janda? Please, say something.

"Shut the hell up," Janda said. He turned his body around and kicked Daxmen. The boy was sent tumbling into the ground. He had a nosebleed and he was crying.

"Stop it!" Daxmen shouted. He was really crying now.

"Release Akio and Uvo right now," Janda commanded. "I won't ask again, Desperado."

Daxmen's crying turned into a drowning laugh like some kind of masochistic dying in the water. "Elliot... I underestimated you. I assume you knew this whole time."

"Of course I did." Janda tapped his overthinking noggin. "Your story didn't make sense at all and on top of that, the Morgue doesn't hire outsiders to dig graves, they have a staff to do that. You're a really poor liar. Also, Daxmen? Mendax? Liar? Obvious as hell."

"It's too late!" Daxmen said, beaming. "Your friends are with Khasta right now. The lady Killright is probably having her body dismembered right now. Child of the Oasis, you're through."

Janda's raised his arm, his armband drawing in the mist and Mendax faded away. Janda bolted to the source of the mist, summoning his Death Arm.

"What a pain..."