The birds are chirping and the sun was shining. It was a seemingly perfect morning in Santo Cielo. People were visiting the orphanage that burned down last night, leaving bouquets of flowers as a sign of mourning. The local paper had put the incident on headline, saying that there are no survivors and the cause of the fire is demon attack. Enzo finally decided to let the media know the truth, but what he didn't understand is, Dante specifically requested him to say 'no survivors' even though there is one – and she barely managed to.
After giving a final inspection and declared that the fire has been totally extinguished, Enzo made his way to Santo Cielo Local Hospital. His unit members said that after he rescued the child, he went with the ambulance. It's just odd, he thought. He knew that Dante is a great person with children and have soft spot on them, but not this fond. Usually after a mission, Dante would just go get the pay and leave. But many years had passed since he met him the last time, and he didn't know what happened to him all those years. All he heard is that he had some kind of paranormal detective agency and specialized in terminating demons.
When he arrived at the hospital, he asked the front office about the girl that was brought in last night, and he was told to go to the children's wing in 3rd floor. Using the elevator, he made his way to the 3rd floor and managed to find his way to the children's wing without asking the nurse. Just as he thought, Dante was there on the waiting area with a cup of coffee on his hand, and his red leather coat was draped over his unique-looking sword that was set leaning on the chair next to him – probably to avoid unnecessary attention because nobody in their right mind would bring that kind of thing to a hospital, and to the children's wing to boot.
"Hey" Enzo greeted him. Dante just grinned at him and waved his hand to reply his greet. Looking by the witch hazels below his ice blue eyes and his drowsy face, he can easily tell that the ex-mercenary has been staying up all night. He then sat next to Dante and sighed. Both men had a busy night, but at least Enzo managed to catch some sleep, while Dante clearly didn't have any sleep at all.
"Where's the girl?" Enzo asked
"Still in the intensive care unit. I haven't seen her since last night"
"You should get some sleep, you know. You look so messed up"
Dante sighed and leaned back on the chair "I know… I've been trying to, Enzo. But I can't and I don't know why. It's weird, I've never been sleep deprived because of no particular reason"
"You're worried about the girl?"
"I… I don't really know, man… But if I am worried, I'm not worried about her being able to survive or not"
"Then what are you worrying about?"
Dante didn't answer. He just sipped his cup of coffee and sighed again. Enzo wanted to ask, but he decided not to and changed the topic instead. If he couldn't convince him to rest, then at all he could do for his old friend right now is to make him ease his tense a little with a light conversation.
"So yeah, where have you been all this time, Dante? I've never heard from you anymore after you left Santo Cielo"
"Well… I'm just too busy working as a demon hunter all these years. You know how I always attract trouble, right?"
"Hahahahahahah! Still the same old Tony Redgrave I know!"
The two men laughed, "Oh come on, Enzo… cut the Tony crap! Anyways, how about you? Last time I was here you were still a mercenary agent playing with the ladies. How did you ended up becoming a firefighter?"
"Well, uh… shortly after you left, there was this massive operation in this town and all the mercenaries were caught and thrown to jail. I was caught too, but I was lucky enough to get out after two and a half years… some of our old pals weren't lucky enough, though. Most of them ended up with death penalty – you know how most of the mercenaries in this town act, right? It made our friends back in Bobby's Cellar look like saints! So yeah, I was allowed to get out but only if I agreed to work for the community… that's how I ended up becoming a firefighter"
"Whoa, you made a lot of progress in four years, man! You can tell that I'm really proud, right?"
"Thanks, man. Oh yeah, I even got myself a wife and we're expecting twins!"
"Whoa whoa whoa, congratulations man! So who's the unfortunate lady, huh? Lemme guess, Marina Bay Bar's Nancy Thurman?"
"Now Nancy Ferino, jackass"
"You lucky bastard, how the hell did you get such prima donna like that?! Watch out, now Dante's back in town and she might wanna catch up with some old sweet romance…"
"Hey! Dare to lay a hand on Nancy, and you'll find your dick with holes in less than twenty-four hours!"
"Easy, pal. I won't lay any of my hands on her, sheesh! Can't you take a joke?"
"Yeah yeah, I trust you. Besides, if you meet her now you'd prefer to see someone else! She's not the same old Nancy you used to play around with, now she's Nancy Ferino, I tell you! Nancy Ferino!"
"What's the difference?"
Enzo thought for a while, and finally spoke up "She's a pregnant woman now"
And they both laughed again. Both finally realized that even after those years, nothing had really changed. They were having fun talking about the past from way back when they were still in Bobby's Cellar and catching up with the present and Enzo told him about the wedding. The conversation was cut when a nurse approached Dante
"Excuse me, sir. She's awake now and you may see her"
Dante stood up "Oh…alright, thank you. Let's go see her now, shall we Enzo?"
"I'm sorry, sir. But the doctor only permits one visitor for her now. She still needs plenty of rests"
Dante and Enzo looked at each other "You go see her, Dante. I'll just watch your stuff here. Besides, I need to see some other doctor from the morgue soon… gotta do some incident reports about last night"
"Alright then, see you later"
"See you later, Dante"
But when Dante was about to go with the nurse, Enzo stopped him "Hey, wait! You uh, forgot this"
Enzo dug through his pocket and gave Dante's Sony Ericsson back to the owner. After saying thanks slightly, he ran back to the nurse and followed her while Enzo sat back on the waiting room chair next to the covered sword.
After a few minutes walking down the halls and corridors, the nurse finally stopped in front of a door and opened it for the devil hunter "Here you are, sir. Please remain quiet because the doctor is still inside doing some check-ups. If there are any questions you would like to ask, you may ask the doctor or me"
"Alright, thank you nurse"
As he stepped in, he prayed and hoped that what he saw that night was just a hallucination. But apparently, his prayers weren't answered by God. The first thing he saw when he came into the room was a girl sitting straight on a hospital bed…
…With a shoulder-length silver hair and a pair of ice blue eyes, staring back at him.
