Cloth Stained Red

The Start of It All

Cold air can feel like fire in your lungs.

At least, that's what Scaramouche thought. Thick frozen air stuck to his inhales like hair to a balloon, sending pricks and flashes of pain through his body. Additionally, the air around him was cracking with bolts of lightning, the crisp smell of burning following his wake. He wasn't sure if it was his clothes or his hair that had caught fire, but he didn't particularly care. None of that mattered at the moment; his main goal was to escape. Escape Inazuma. Run. Because if--no, when the Tsaritsa found out about his heist. When she found out he stole the Gnosis from her. He would be a dead man, no doubt about it. Stealing from her Majesty was treason; a punishment worse than death. His life being placed in the hands of Il Dottore. Her Majesty's favorite Harbinger.

Il Dottore was a nuisance. An absolute disgrace to the Fatui from Scaramouche's point of view. The fourth Harbinger was a mad scientist, to explain it simply. He tested his new "projects" out on anything and anyone. He replicated some of the most dangerous technology to ever exist—technology that had been consumed and contorted by time itself. He manipulated the beasts into the dumbest acts, attacking humans without so much as an inkling to who was an ally and who was a foe. Ruin guards, as they had been so appropriately named. The wretched things always got in the way, no matter what happened. There was no way to permanently disable them; others always filled their places. They were a nuisance to their society, but for some reason, they were Il Dottore's pride and joy. Which, of course, meant they were the Tsaritsa's pride and joy as well. In turn, it was every Harbinger's duty to leave them alone or face the wrath of the Tsartitsa. How pathetic.

Shaking his hat off his head, the covering falling onto his shoulders, Scaramouche pushed onwards. With every tap of the hat against his shoulder blades came the motivational mantra that forced his feet forwards. Move like lightning. Swift. Unstoppable. Uncatchable. Move till you can't breathe, because if you slow down, you won't be breathing when the Fatui find you. While that wasn't really threatening, the promise of having his power stripped away was... well, to put it simply, a great motivator. If going from powerful to literally dead at the hands of a dreaded scientist wasn't good motivation, then what is?

If anyone saw the running man with purple hair, they didn't stop him. Strange, but the Sixth chose not to put too much stock into the oddity. It was possible that word of his robbery hadn't been published yet, and so no bounty had yet been placed upon his head. The Tsaritsa might not get wind of it for another couple hours, even. So that meant Scaramouche had to use his borrowed time to hide. It was cowardly, and he absolutely detested the thought of it, but the only thing he didn't want to do more than hide was to die. It didn't sound too fun, especially at the hands of the Cryo archon and her insane dogs.

It seemed almost unfair that he, a failed puppet of the Electro archon, was played by his strings by the Cryo ruler. He had so much potential to be so much more. He could have ruled Inazuma, had the Raiden Shogun's experiments been successful the first time. But here he was, a Harbinger on the run from the entire battalion of the Cryo country. It was a fate that was so avoidable, had he just been good enough.

"Halt!"

Ah, and here it is. The calls of his crimes. A bounty over his head, most likely. Faster than he had expected, but there was nothing he could do about it other than revise his plans.

On the bright side, there was something that the Tsaritsa didn't account for: his ability to harness the Gnosis. True, he had never used one before, and there was no user guide for it. Even as the Shogun's replica, he hadn't made it far enough to ever actually hold it or learn how to make use of it (Not to mention that the Shrine Maiden, Yae Miko, had had it for a long, long time). However, when a dog is cornered, it doesn't take much for it to improvise and lash out. Surely it couldn't be that hard to use?