It's from when I saw Huntik episode 43 that this story has came to my mind, so I decided to write what could happen in next episodes of Huntik. This fanfiction may contain spoilers and is not suitable for delicate hearts.
She feels a heavy load in the head and a burning pain in the chest, her tired eyes are fixed on those yellow flowers, which appear to be the only thing that still keeps her tied to reality. How life can change over a handful of hours, upsetting the very concept of existence?
Zhalia is in her room: she has just finished a workout with Harrison and is lying on her bed. Puffing, she asks herself how long she will be infiltrated in the Blood Spiral. Suddenly, a trill awakens from his train of thought: "That phone, it cannot be!", she says, realizing that the sound comes from the phone that Metz had secretly given her to communicate in case of urgent emergency. With trembling hands, she answers the call, and here it is the German's vibrant voice that says: "Dante was injured in a serious battle with Rassimov, you'd better get here in Venice." The seeker feels a shiver run down her spine and with a faint voice replies: "I'll be there in a couple of hours, it is too late, isn't it?" And as she pronounces the last words, a node shakes her throat and tears start to fall from his eyes. Metz sighs, and with the same monotone he says: "Do not worry, Zhalia ... We'll wait for you."
Without even realizing it, guided more by instinct than by reason, Zhalia manages to escape from the base of Blood Spiral and takes the first flight to Venice. An hour and a half later, a taxi stops her in front of the hospital of the Huntik Foundation. Waiting at the entrance there is the mentor of Dante looks terrible: his face is marked by suffering and his clothes are all wrinkled. "... Zhalia," he calls her in a faint voice, without looking into her eyes. She is anxious, and without further ado, asks the man to take her to Dante. The seeker surrounds the girl's shoulder with one arm and nods his head to follow him. They take an elevator and descend to the basement levels, then, after a long corridor, they arrive in front of a white door. "Here we are," communicates Metz, increasing the intensity of the hold on her shoulders. Zhalia is agitated, and finally opens the door and she can see Dante is at the center of the room and is sleeping ...
But why there are all those people around him? Why is everyone looking at her with those eyes full of compassion?
She just moves a few steps to get closer to the seeker, the present people dodge and let she pass ahead: it is only then that she notices something that drops her to her knees on the ground, without even realizing it. Dante is not resting on a bed: his body is in a coffin, motionless.
"It is not true ... it can not be true! Not Dante! I was told that he was wounded ... he is ... he's sleeping, he's just sleeping! ", Her words are broken by crying. She stands up and leans over the seeker's body, stroking his red hair: "You're only sleeping, aren't you, Dante? Now you are tired, but then you'll wake up, won't you? ". The girl's eyes observe carefully the seeker's face, composed in an expression that seems really quiet as he's resting, her trembling fingers caress his profile, and a desperate sob explodes from his chest when she realizes how cold it is his skin: and so it is true then, he is gone, he left her alone.
She feels her body falter under the weight of that shocking and unacceptable truth. At that very moment two strong arms are holding her. "Zhalia, I couldn't save her," says Lok, desperate. The seeker tries to articulate a few words, but the pain she feels in her chest is so breath-burning in the throat, so she can only reciprocate the embrace of the young Irishman.
Zhalia's eyes are fixed on his beloved Dante, she looks at his body cold and still, those strong hands that used to hold her gently and make her feel protected, those golden eyes that reassured her with every look, now closed forever, those lips that smiled to her and turned to her words full of hope ... In the coffin it's lying the only man she ever loved: it is for him that she has changed, thanks to him she has become a better person, and to defend him and their future that she decided to infiltrate the Blood Spiral. It was so difficult for her to spend all that time away from Dante, but she was promising herself that when the whole thing would be over, she would finally tell him she loved him and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. And now that he died by Rassimov's hand, while she, oblivious, played at a baby sitter for Harrison, now she cannot help but wonder what sense was her sacrifice. The future for which so much she had fought would never come, and Dante wouldn't be close to her anymore: the only thing she can do now is just kissing his cold lips for the first and last time, while she bends on him and, heedless of the people around them, whispers to him: "I love you, Dante, I have always loved and will love you forever" and then she touches his mouth with hers.
The air around her is saturated with the penetrating odor of incense, the priest's baritone voice is speaking from the pulpit about salvation and eternal life, but Zhalia's gaze is fixed on the cloud of yellow gerberas and freesias that covers Dante's coffin: they're deep yellow as the color of his eyes, as the color of his inseparable raincoat. At the center of the flower arrangement it stands out a black edges frame containing a picture of their team of seekers captured a few days after the defeat of the Professor: all four of them were so happy and had such a serene expression as they got close to pose and capture that moment that was making them feel invincible. Who would have imagined that within a few months, everything would collapse into chaos and that he, Dante, would have paid the highest price. And now he is gone forever, and she, unable to bring him back, won't see him anymore. Zhalia has no more tears: she shed all in those hours of blind desperation. She just wants to touch again that face, she wants that Dante address to her one of his sly smiles once again: she would do anything, she would tarnish herself with the worst sins, even fall and burn in hell for eternity, only to have his lover again, next to her. She even envies those flowers that lay on his coffin because they can stay close to him: one day if she will reborn, it would be enough for her being like a flower curled up next to him, to his heart.
When she met him for the first time, she was alone against the world: fighting against all, hating and showing contempt to everyone, but instead she felt a huge void in the heart that caused her to suffer and cry in secret.
For her, who was without a past and without a name, Dante looked like a flower too bright, unattainable, but he held out a hand and smilingly said: "There aren't things like a world without a future." The words full of hope and love for life that he has left in her heart grew strong, but now that he's gone, Zhalia is no longer able to look ahead.
It will be so hard to be alone in that big house they shared: how she would like him to come and find her once again in the cold and sleepless nights that await her. If he will be with her, everything can only be good ...
She lost again all that was dearest to the world, and remained alone again: it seems that everyone she loved is doomed to disappear, and now she is no longer even able to cry, all her tears have dried.
While his heart is burning with pain, unable to find a consolation, the seasons continue to change, indifferent, and even if it continues to cling to memories of good times they had together, she knows that she couldn't return at that time anymore.
Dante closed his eyes forever, and even if the world continues to move forward, the sadness in her heart will never disappear: for Zhalia, time has stood still when he is gone.
Now that the cold and still body of his love lies forever in the grave, Zhalia knows that she will keep on living of those moments when she held close to her heart that flower called "Dante": this is the only thing that she can think about as she holds tightly in her fingers until they bleed a rose as crimson as the seeker's hair. She swipes with her lips the velvety petals of the flower and places it on the coffin of his love just before his tomb is closed permanently, "You are my irreplaceable flower, Dante," she whispers, hoping that wherever he is, he can hear her.
When I was writing this fan fiction I didn't know what will really happen in Huntik and what will be the accurate circumstances of Dante's hypothetical death and if Zhalia will be there when he dies. Tomorrow here in Italy the episode 50 – relating to Dante's death – will be broadcasted and I'll know what really happens. I hypothesized that Zhalia isn't with Dante when Rassimov kills him: she will know about what happened to the red hair seeker only when Metz phone her.
The title of the fanfiction is in Dutch, Zhalia's home language: I translated it with Google translator and should mean "You're my irreplaceable flower".