Timur guided the two wary Shoguns into a large hallway similar to that found on the Imperial Court’s chambers floors below. However, when questioned, he assured them nothing was going to happen, though neither bought the excuse. All three knew however, the threat that two Shoguns possessed and none would dare take action against them – not that it would have made a difference - especially given their proximity to the Imperial Chancellor himself.

  Caz noted the emptiness within this part of the hallway.

  “No guards, Timur? For a floor holding one of your most important assets?” Caz asked.

  “The server farm, though important, has its own set of failsafes and backups that doesn’t warrant any member’s direct access to the physical location,” he said. “Outside of some vetted patrols, we rarely let people up here. In fact, most of our personnel even know it exists on this floor – something that neither of you should have been aware of.”

  Though Mimi didn’t see him turn around, she felt the silence that followed. He likely knew what she had done here earlier and would try to correct the damage done by the hacking once she and Caz have left the compound.

  Opening a mahogany twin door at the end of the hall, Timur led the two into a room with a set of empty tall seats, circled around an ornate table which held a strange black rock propped up on a stand at its center. Shelves of books lined the walls and tall windows with curtains of bluish gray embroidery surrounding it sat against the far end wall of the room.

  Sunlight poured through at an angle, enough to light the room and half the chairs.

  “Please, sit,” Timur said.

  Caz and Mimi looked at each other, and then at him.

  Timur began walking towards the chairs sitting in the warm sunlight, “This was once a meeting room for city council members long ago. Back then there were only a few of us and the Clan of Tributes was more…aligned with the philosophies and teachings of the leading forces of the city. Council members would occasionally hold meetings here, discussing plan of actions that would further the goal of perpetuating a brighter future for the residents across Neo-Kamakura. These days, unified goals are a hard sought commodity. Council members bicker with the Clans, who in turn fight amongst themselves. It is quite the mess.” He sighed lightly, setting his cane against one of the seats before gesturing for the other two to sit.

  Keeping wary, but sensing no immediate threat, the pair sat across from him, one Shogun on each side, in a triangular arrangement. Mimi and Caz both could keep watch of each other’s backs from this angle whilst keeping an eye on Timur. An unspoken notion, but one that trained hunters often employed when keeping watch of another ally.

  “So these Voices of Madness,” Mimi asked. “What are they?”

  Timur looked to her, mouth moving silently as he thought of his words.

  “Have you ever given a listen to the words themselves before? As Inners, both of you must have engaged with the Voices at least a few times?” he asked.

  He looked especially carefully at Caz. Hunters knew the Voices could affect anyone, though Augmentors like him often got the worst of it, even moreso than Supplmentors like Mimi. He suspected the reasons and will probably get the answer here today.

  Unmoving, Timur couldn’t see what Caz was thinking, and before Caz could speak, Mimi chimed in instead.

  “You know perfectly well the onset of madness accelerates tremendously for those who attempt to probe deeper into the Voices.”

  “Indeed,” Timur replied. “And all that could be made out for most is garbled nonsense, am I correct? Lest you are an Inner who chooses to surrender yourself to its effects in an attempt to hear more? It should be pretty clear what’s causing those Voices if you think about it.”

  “Enthipids,” Caz said casually.

  Mimi looked stunned at Caz, whose veiled face betrayed no expression. However, retaining her dignity, she thought over the words and found that it was true that no one ever questioned what was otherwise a disease of the mind. The ravings of those who had been affected were often dismissed as insanity and sent straight to…the Clan of Voices.

  Timur responded to Caz, “Quite the deduction, Blackbird.”

  “Just something I heard theorized in passing,” Caz responded, thinking back to one of Alyx’s mumblings during her experimentation process.

  Mimi decided to chime in a follow-up.

  “So the Clan of Voices? If the afflicted were brought to their monastaries for cleansing, doesn’t that mean-”

  “No,” Timur interjected. “They only think they see the connection, and they would be right, but they have no basis for believing so because outside of Taysa Polaris, there are no Inners amongst them who could actively receive the Voices. Even she avoids surrendering herself fully to it, knowing the consequences such actions bring. Their idea of Enthipids as deities, that they would speak to worthy individuals, that they would bring salvation to the paupers, the criminals, and the insane – it’s all arbitrary rhetoric started by misguided individuals of a far past.”

  “Madness begets violence and rationality,” Mimi said, seeing a few cases before of civilians assaulting and killing others in their madness in the past. Early cases, Mimi realized, that set the foundation for modern aversion to the disease entirely.

  Without the Clan of Voices’s formation at the time, Neo-Kamakura couldn’t have avoided the inevitable bloodshed which resulted when dealing with the afflicted. These days, rather than being treated as marked individuals to be put down, they’re treated as lost souls whose hearts can only rest in ease upon offering themselves for cleansing at the monastaries. However, from what she knew, those individuals were never heard from again. Fanatics would say the cleansing process cured them and they were reintegrated back into society, but most hunters knew better. What happened to the afflicted was no different from those who had been marked. Given that even the Clan of Voices hesitate to admit the actual Voices of Madness as something sacrosanct amongst their circle, Mimi found it ironic that they based their entire religion on the concept of it.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “And how are you so sure then?” Caz said, responding to Timur, whilst leaning back on his seat. Being a large man, it wasn’t easy for him to adjust to furniture of this size. This is why he often preferred couches over seats. It didn’t help as an Augmentor that a majority percentage of his body was grafted Bastion metal, but he ignored that for now.

  Timur looked to Caz, and gave him a knowing smile, as if this entire interaction was to be expected. Mimi however, followed up with Caz’s questioning.

  “Yeah. How exactly does your previous Clan of Tributes who supposedly carries no hunters within its ranks – let alone any Inners – understand what the Voices really are?” Mimi knew the Clan lied about its hunters, as most hunters did, but even she and Reina had to admit that they had never witnessed the implementation of Inners amongst the Clan, who were often the most affected when it came to the Voices.

  “Well, the answer was quite simple,” Timur responded. “It’s because we do carry such individuals, Ms. Rainsong.”

  She shot up from the seat right at that instant. Though she wasn’t a fervent advocate of rules and procedures, even she, as a representative of one of the hunter Divisions of the Clan of Venerers, can’t let such blatant violation of the law slide.

  “Calm down, Mimi,” Caz said, and the air became tense. “Let him finish.”

  “Caz, you can’t just let him get away with doing this,” Mimi said, as she readied herself to take Timur in for questioning.

  “Ms. Rainsong, when did I ever say the Inners I carried were hunters?” Timur responded.

  Mimi reacted as he expected. She looked from him to Caz, who didn’t move an inch from his chair, and back to Timur. Her face scowling, he realized he had a point, and that she wasn’t thinking rationally today, given how strange the events of the day were, and decided to sit back down.

  “Continue,” Caz said, waving for Timur to continue.

  Timur nodded, clasping his hands together.

  “Inners, do you wonder why they are the most affected by the Enthipid’s Voices?” he asked. By wording his question that way, Mimi started to see a bigger picture in her mind unfold.

  “Wait…the grafting process?” she said.

  “You’re almost right,” Timur started. “The grafting process gives hunters like yourself superhuman abilities by taking powers directly from the cores of the Elite Enthipids you’ve killed. And it is precisely only these Elites who have been seen in battlefields who seem to display aspects of greater intelligence and strategy on the field. Do you know why?”

  “Because they’ve been communicating with each other all this time,” Caz realized, and shifted in his seat the first time. “We are donning the literal bodies of fallen Enthipids.”

  “And by doing so, we become conduits for the Voices. Elites attempting to reach out to other Elites.” She looked at Caz, “We’ve become proxies for the Enthipids who used to inhabit these bodies.”

  “Not just the bodies,” Timur added. “The Johrei specifically, and the cores which hold them. For that is the force that gives Enthipids their abilities, and their lives.”

  “I’ve heard something similar before,” Mimi said quietly to Caz, omitting Alyx’s name. “Her theories might be right.” Timur looked at them with unchanging expression, though something about their current exchange peaked his interest. Mimi was leaning in, whispering something to Caz, who looked back at Timur.

  “Imperial Chancellor,” Caz addressed formally. “My friend here has an inquiry, regarding your knowledge of these matters. How do you know it’s the Elites specifically who have been reaching out to us? No hunter in their right mind would ever graft the bodies and cores of weaker Enthipids, so how could we know they aren’t just as affected by the Voices as we Inners are?”

  The implications of this question were twofold, Mimi realized. Though Caz is asking about Inners utilizing Standard-grade armor, she realized that Augmentors still need the cores of Enthipids to fully utilize Enthipid abilities, just as Supplementors do. Augmentors without the cores were essentially just stronger hunters, and no one in their right mind would commit to grafting weaker Enthipids onto themselves, when donning such armor would leave you at a disadvanage during the hunt against any Division hunter or Elite Enthipid in the Fringe.

  Plus, cores only appeared on Elite Enthipids so in practice, it wouldn’t make sense to own an Enthipid core unless the hunter has already successfully hunted an Elite. To don the armor of a Standard, and keep the core of an Elite, instead of donning the armor of the Elite, it was an irrational notion. Yet…it was precisely this notion which prompted her question, as she needed to know more about what comprises the Voices of Madness.

  “You asking me for her sake?” Timur added. “You’ve always been the one to guide conversations. Fine. I’ll let her know as well.”

  “As well?” Mimi asked. “What does he mean, Caz?”

  Timur stood up from his seat and began unbuttoning his shirt. Mimi looked to Caz, and then back at the Imperial Chancellor, confused. However, her confusion lasted only for a moment as she witnessed a dim, pulsating heart, lying at the center of a black, metallic chest.

  “You’re an Inner…,” she muttered.

  “Not just any Inner,” Caz added. “An Enhanced.” Mimi was still stunned, and if not for her shock, she would’ve had some questions for Caz about his calmness in this situation. She didn’t even think of this possibility.

  Even rarer than Augmentors, who grafted the bodies of Enthipids onto themselves, and Supplementors who only grafted the cores, Enhanced were essentially full Enthipids in all but name – humans who have given away everything in exchange for power…and who have never failed to succumb to Madness and death by the hands of their fellow hunters.

  “How are you still sane?” she asked.

  “Because,” Timur said. “I am an Inner who holds the core of an Elite, and the body of a Standard. I am an incomplete Inner, and a monster forged from the amalgamation of two separate Enthipids. In my entire life, I have only heard the Voices once, in the beginning.”

  Silence followed momentarily.

  He grafted weaker armor and an Elite’s core? Mimi thought. But what does that accomplish? Why commit to something like that?

  Augmentors were known to be stronger versions of hunters who don the armor normally, and they were able to switch cores, giving them access to multiple abilities. Supplementors could utilize cores to a greater level than hunters who used them on weaponry, and could switch armor to those of different types such as speed-types, strength-types, etc. However, they weren’t nearly as proficient with those armor abilities as Augmentors were.

  In the end each Inner, at the cost of a bit of their own body, gains abilities far more proficient than those of your everyday hunter with equipment. Enhanced however…they were known to exceed in powers and abilities in a manner far greater than those of any other Inners. However, there was no flexibility, as they were stuck with singular core and armor abilities. Even so, in theory, the trade off was worth it, if not for the inevitable onset of Voices which drove the Enhanced to madness – a grim reminder of hunters’ early history.

  Barring the Imperial Chancellor’s apparent sanity, why did he choose to don weaker armor in conjunction with a core ability? It puts him on par with the average Supplementor in utilization of core abilities, but without the added benefit of exchanging Elite-grade armor sets which granted him additional armor abilities? In addition, the armor would be weaker in general than that of Elite armor, even if grafted on. It made no sense to her.

  “How am I still sane?” Timur repeated Mimi’s question from earlier. “By all rights, I shouldn’t be. But the Voice I heard in the beginning, was as clear as any human in history had ever heard them and it told me…”

  The sunlight poured through the room in line with the movement of the sun in the sky.

  “It told me I was unworthy of blessing. That I would never undertake the journey, as my predecessors had before me.”

  “Predecessors?” Mimi asked, and the three people in that room began a conversation afterwards into the deep unspoken history of Neo-Kamakura.