A/N: Four months? Urgh, I'm sorry! ;A; At least I didn't give up, right? :D If I could complete this chapter is because of the song 'Flowering Night' (Touhou) and also the game (EoSD, to be more precise)~~~~ :3
Benifuku: I'm so glad this story is one of your favourites :D It made me smile when I read it~. Thank you :) And don't worry, because I will never quit this story and the pairing is still the same, DantexLady~ :3 Valeria is selfish, she is a villian, but I think nobody is more of a villian than anyone, so I don't consider her the true mastermind... ...And also, you will probably hate me at the end of this chapter... probably. I agree with your opinion about Trish. I think she should have more fics about her (and only about her, I mean). Sorry for this choppy reply and the late update ;A; And of course, thank you for reviewing and sharing your opinions and reading this. Your constant support warms my heart and makes me smile~ :3 I hope you like this chapter and I hope to see you here again :D Also, take care and cheer up~!
The Chessboard
Chapter 9: Aggiornamento
Mundus roared.
The demon lord tried to hit Dante with his wings, but the hunter dodged them and kept on advancing towards him. When he was going to charge at Mundus, said demon unleashed another storm of lances over the son of Sparda before he could even touch the barrier with the blade of Rebellion. The hybrid proved to be much more faster than them, as he was able to dodge most of them. When the scarlet demon was alarmingly close to him, Mundus tried to use a punch to crush him like an insignificant cockroach, but again, Dante dodged the massive stone fist and leaped at it, landing on the appendage. However the devil moved his arm frantically until Dante fell over.
The man with the red coat quickly recovered and stood up. Without losing a second, he lashed out a huge black slash with Rebellion, sending it to Mundus.
The slash hit the barrier that protected the hell emperor, and once again, it didn't have much of an effect. It seemed to be weakening it, yes, but it was still there and it didn't seem like it was going to break any time soon.
Irritated, Dante turned into a demon and flew towards the angel-like demon who sneered at him. With Rebellion –and occasionally with his claws- he began to hit the barrier as hard as he could. The sound of glass breaking was like music to his ears, but it wasn't enough at all. Dante had to back off a few times, for Mundus wouldn't let him break the magic that protected from him and made him almost impossible to kill. The hybrid was forced to fly away from him more times than he expected when the colossal demon had tried to grab him with his massive hands.
When Mundus grew tired of chasing him, Dante resumed his work, now shooting at it with both his twin guns. His movements were so fast and he was firing so quickly it looked like a rainstorm of bullets.
In response to Dante's attack, Mundus raised each of his hands, and a large red sphere formed in the center. Bolts of red lighting connected swirled around it, and then, he sent it to Dante.
Dante flew down to dodge the sphere, but it seemed to follow him, as though it were a Russian missile. He swirled and twisted in the air, trying to get rid of the ball of white light as Mundus and his minions looked at the show with amusement.
In the end, Dante ran out of energy and the ball hit him, throwing him away from Mundus, making him revert to his human form and causing him to land onto the floor with a loud 'thud'. Panting and cursing under his breath, Dante began to stand up.
Something that bothered Dante was that every attack that was aimed at the demon emperor was blocked by one of those annoying barriers that the Nero-wannabe (or was it a Vergil-wannabe? Dante was not sure about it, he seemed more like a bizarre mix between the kid and his brother) created to protect him. Also, he couldn't focus properly on doing a powerful attack, since that other demon, Oray, was constantly throwing arrows at him, thus making it almost impossible for him to parry the arrows while trying to parry Mundus' attacks while trying to break that annoying barrier.
"What's wrong, sonny? Is old age catching up to yoooouu~~?"
Oray's annoying voice was making Dante's head spin. He turned his head to glare at him, but couldn't say anything as another series of red lances were thrown at him. As he tried to avoid them all, he fired his guns like a madman in an attempt to weaken the barrier more.
In response to that, a few purple arrows were thrown at him to make company the red lances. The areas that were hit by the arrows became paralyzed and he swore he saw them turning black.
Dante realized that when it was a bit too late and landed on the floor against his will.
He tried to move, but he was unable, and the only thing he could was emitting a growl and then a hiss as he tried to stand up. Mundus' took advantage of that and, with a smirk, he began to create a sphere of white light that would surely turn the hunter in nothing but ash.
He narrowed his eyes at angelic demon (oh, the irony) and tried his best to stand up to avoid the attack, and then charge at him again with all his strength…
… …
Probably, if not surely, that would work and-
"Attack you too!"
Faster than wind, than sound, than everything, the sphere was released along with a few more purple arrows. It created a great explosion, and they couldn't see anything for a while due to its destructive power.
However, Mundus was still not pleased.
He hadn't heard the wonderful sound of flesh exploding, nor agonizing screams…
And that was just unacceptable.
An outrage.
And he wouldn't let that happen.
The fog of dust cleared out.
There was a huge crater where Dante had been standing, but there was no sight of him, and instead-
"You look different since I last saw you, Mundus~. It's been a long, long while… It's a pity, really, that I had to see your ugly face once again."
If Mundus had been a human, his face would have turned red in irritation. His eyes narrowed into slits and his colossal form trembled in a failed attempt to contain his anger. Oray and the Vergil-Nero replica and even Dante shared the Emperor of hell's shock.
"You… …! How dare you…!"
The muffled roar that came from Mundus resembled the one of a feral, angry dog.
Trish gave them a side glance and smirked, twisting a handful of her hair between her fingers. As she did so, she began to move away of the crater towards Dante. "You seriously are like a kid. Did you really think we would leave you on your own?"
"You don't listen very well, huh?" Dante sighed.
"Did you really expect me to?"
"Actually not, not really."
Trish was going to say something more –her lips were parted and she emitted a low sound that slightly sounded like 'I'-, but she was interrupted;
"You little pest! How did you get here?.!" Mundus roared, and before she could reply to him with a witty comeback, he continued; "Aaaaaaaaarg, who cares?.! It doesn't matter! Oray!"
When he heard the emperor's voice, calling his name, Oray quickly readied himself for an attack, and as he pulled back a bowstring that quickly appeared from thin air, there, a dazzling violet arrow was readied. It emanated a black aura of malice, a very, very notorious black aura that swirled and sometimes disappeared to reappear again.
His actions were so quick Dante could only yell at his companion, wide-eyed as he moved his arm to grab Rebellion from his back; "Watch it!"
Closing his eyes, the shape-shifter demon released a single arrow. The black and violet arrow drew a beautiful pattern of dark mist as it flew, aiming for the blonde in the black leather clothes.
Oray was good at aiming, and no one in Mundus' army could block Oray's shots.
No one could escape them, and their strength could pierce almost all –he still needed to improve that ability, though- physical and magical defenses, capable of bringing disease.
Dante couldn't react in time, and when he already had the sword in his hand, ready to be used, there was a small purple explosion and a splat-like sound he didn't like one bit.
… …But if he wasn't much mistaken, he did also hear something 'break'.
To his surprise, Trish was... Trish was fine.
"You're useless without me, aren't you~?"
…And then there was laughter coming from above.
Dante and the unscratched Trish looked upwards.
Elegantly looking down upon them, Angelo stood on top of an angelic statue with a cruel smile on his lips.
"Dante, it is for me a pleasure to show you my wonderful plan B." Trish gestured her hand to the direction where Angelo was standing, talking in her usual breathy tone as if she hadn't been close to die.
Then, the man jumped from the statue and landed on the floor.
If Dante wanted to say something, that mattered very little, because Mundus' voice interrupted the triumphal scene.
"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!" The group turned as Mundus howled and spread his once-white wings, which now were stained with blood. "I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you! Miserable, worthless bugs! Not a hair of you will be left in this world! I will turn all of you to mush!"
With that statement, three different barriers materialized from thin air: A golden one that covered Dante and Mundus, a red one that covered Trish and Oray and a purple one that covered Angelo and his other half.
"It seems you have mistaken of group, Ange. That memory of yours sure is messed up. C'mon, come here and beg for our forgiveness." He showed him a feral smirk. "You're still in time."
"No." Angelo summoned a spear from midair. "And it isn't messed up at all." And then he launched himself across the room at his carbon copy.
At that moment there was a loud 'sving' and a crash, as Angelo's spear arced through the air only to end up smashed into the floor.
"DAMN IT!" Angelo cried, enraged, as he tried to tug his spear free from the ground.
His copy cackled at him.
"My, my. If this is all you have to offer me, then this will end sooner than I expected…"
"Shut up!"
"Then come, show me what you got! Surely, after all these years, you must have learned a few new tricks, right?" The replica said, euphoric, summoning spectral swords towards the man who was dressed in black.
Meanwhile, Dante was laughing and shooting at Mundus, making impossible acrobatics to dodge the angelic demon's dark spheres as he did so. Sometimes Dante hit the barrier repeatedly and got burnt, and Mundus used that as an advantage and attacked him by sending beams that he couldn't really dodge and left him momentarily paralyzed, just like now.
Dante hissed as he tried to move, which proved to be futile. Mundus smirked and reached his colossal hand to grab the paralyzed demon hunter and then proceeded to strangle him. Dante coughed and gagged and began to feel he was running out of air, something that pleased the prince of darkness to no end. His eyes were turning red and his face pale. He was twitching frantically and a red sphere surrounded him now and then as his form changed partially into one of a demon.
With a muffled roar, Dante turned into his demon form and exerted force to break free from his grasp until Mundus couldn't keep with it anymore, just like always happened; in the end, Mundus always opened his hand and let him go, so Dante, his prey, always escaped skillfully and quickly.
Dante landed and rolled on the floor, firing his guns rapidly at him. The bullets were very small and they didn't seem to be hurting Mundus a lot, but they were annoying him, which was something for Dante, at least.
When he more or less recovered, Dante jumped and dashed towards Mundus' arm. The demon shook his arm in an attempt to get him off of it, but Dante jumped to his other arm and then, before he could crush him with his other hand, he jumped again, landing onto his shoulder. After that, Dante turned into a demon once again flew towards Mundus' chest, positioning himself in front of him as his trusty sword began to glow in scarlet as black mist swirled around it.
Once it was fully charged, he threw Rebellion at Mundus' chest, causing him to scream in pain as it thrust deeply into his flesh.
The hybrid flew towards his back and got his stained sword back, and then he landed on the floor, behind of Mundus.
"What's wrong? You tired already? We've just begun!"
The ground trembled beneath him as Mundus roared and turned backwards.
From the left of the chamber, Trish smiled and cackled as she watched Dante fight and dodged Oray's arrows.
"It seems you haven't lost your physical form even though you've been living with humans." He said with narrowed eyes, trying to fake a composed state even though it was obvious he was disappointed and enraged because of the fact that none of his arrows had damaged her a lot.
"Or maybe it's just you getting old. How long has it been? Last time I checked you were like… what? 6000 or 7000 years old? At your age you should just sit down and read history books and rant about how much you hate Sparda and organize tea parties. Things like those~."
Oray snapped his fingers and summoned a golden bow. He quickly readied an arrow, aimed at her, and chuckled darkly as his eyes narrowed even more than before; "Don't get too cocky, incomplete, useless thing!"
His bow released the arrow which was aimed at her. It crawled down as it drew a soft, curved line trajectory and pierced Trish's chest.
The agonizing scream made Angelo turn his head to his left, but he was quickly brought to earth when his foe tried to finish him again. A burst of purple shot forth from his once-blue sword, turning into a stake-like weapon. Angelo ducked clumsily due to the fact he was distracted and exhausted, moving behind of him. The blade stuck into the wall in front of him. A few strands of his hair were cut in the process, though.
His counterpart's attacks were becoming much more brutal than they were before, and he wasn't a demon, so his healing ability –a spellcard he used very often, a present from Valeria so he didn't die in his first mission and always carried inside his pocket, along with the chalk- was a bit ineffective.
"You do realize what will happen if you kill me, right?" He asked him as his weapon tried to injure the other man but failed and ricocheted about the golden walls of the barrier.
"I'm reckless enough to forget about the consequences."
His carbon copy cackled at him, but didn't look like he liked foe's recklessness. "And what changed your mind, huh?"
He snapped his fingers and, in front of him, black swords –that looked more like knifes- appeared. Then he grinned and sent them to the black-haired man.
Whilst he was able to dodge a few, the others he couldn't dodge hit him repeatedly in different parts of his anatomy, leaving black, rotten-looking marks.
His legs falter. They feel week and they couldn't support him anymore. It was then, probably, when he realized that the spots that were paralyzed were the spots that had been hit by those swords.
He fell to the floor, on his knees, and he couldn't help it.
Angelo tried to get to his feet, but his movements were slow, laboured, and his legs didn't want to support him, so he shakes and stumbles, clumsy as a newborn deer -and he remembered, then, that he wasn't always like this.
The demon kicked him in the gut and then posed his feet on top of him, pinning him on the floor.
"I wanted to ask you… I don't know what trick you used to escape from the theatre, but that's irrelevant. Why is it that even though you could have escaped by hiding or by staying away from this matter, you took the risk of appearing again? … …It can't be that you came back just to help those two little pests, right?"
"… …Well… who knows?" He replied him with a cackle of his own.
"Why did you suddenly start to act so mildly? Your change of heart … … …That's what I wanted to ask."
Another cackle. "Because I'm fickle. I thought you knew that already?"
"You're tiring me."
More swords were summoned, and he could not avoid them. They pierced Angelo's body multiple times from both sides. They made a squeaking sound and tormented him.
"When it comes to you, there's no way it was a whim. …Hey, what changed you? I only stop so you can answer my question."
"… … …If you want to know, then you probably should do like Sparda, and waste a few thousand years to reach the answer." As he laughed, blood ran down his mouth, nose, and head. "What's the point in living if you're nothing but a dusty, broken phantasmagoria?"
Swords were summoned again, and they pierced his body again and again and again… The intense pain they caused ran in conflict with their beauty to the eye.
The devil bringer's human form was beginning to lose his patience.
Angelo coughed and grinned at seeing the distressed face of his foe. "Y'know, not answering what he is asked is also one of the pleasures of an evil demon~."
"Hm... Hmp.. Hahahahahahahahah~" The laugh was meant to have humour in it, but it didn't. It was empty and it only showed how inpatient the other man was. "Of course, of course, you don't have to answer. After all, that way I get to torture you!"
As he spoke and laughed at him, Angelo began to look for the chalk in his pocket, and when he found it, he began to write on the floor as he stared at him.
"What if I don't let you?"
His 'twin', as he called him before, ignored his last statement and looked at him with a smirk, watching how he slowly died –the color on his face has gone already-, but he pulled back when he felt the power that was being emanated by him –the last burst of energy that his body had-.
At the same time, blue spears, bigger than the ones he usually used, appeared around his copy. It was almost impossible to count them.
The collected expression on his face twisted horribly. "You wouldn't dare..."
"Try me."
"Stupid! Reckless creature! If you kill me, you kill us all! Don't you understand?! DON'T!"
The summoned spears placed themselves around him, moving in a circle-like pattern. There were seven columns with thousands of spears in each of them, glowing faintly.
…Finally, the spears plunged onto him, without giving him time to react and with an agonizing scream, he disappeared as the spears destroyed his flimsy existence.
Not that Angelo cared a lot.
He was beginning to lose consciousness for the third time in that day. His eyes were closing themselves against his will due to exhaustion. His breath came out as short, painful gasps.
His head lolled limply against his shoulder, and everything he saw before the blackout was the barriers breaking and then a white flash.
It was raining again.
Lady was beginning to get tired of the awful weather.
The petite woman with the dark hair heaved a sigh as she entered inside Dante's shop.
As usual, everything was a complete mess, and the local seemed to be about to fall apart. Dust covered all of the furniture, and Lady wondered when the last time Dante actually cleaned his place.
Lady wandered around the room while she tried to whip out her phone. Once her hand found it, she stopped and remained there, frozen as she dialed Dante's number.
Her heartbeat quickened and she felt a knot in her stomach when he didn't reply her call. Or rather, her calls.
That hadn't been the first time she had called him -first to his shop's number and then his mobile phone's number, and after thirteen missing calls, she started to think there was something off.
Snapping her phone shut she glared at the device, even though the fact that Dante left without saying a word to her wasn't the object's fault.
She really was angry with him right now, but not in the usual way she was used to; she had been angry with him before -so many times she had got tired of counting-, yes, but it was because of him annoying her just because of boredom or because of his arrogant cocky behaviour or because of his filtry dialogues and teasing.
And then, she thought (considered) that maybe... ...
Her body tensed sharply and she turned extremely pale.
It couldn't be... That... would be impossible, right?
...
...
Dead?
She couldn't imagine life without him. Dante couldn't be dead. They had known each other for too long, been through so much, too much... She couldn't help but feel sad at the thought of him dying, and she hated to admit that she had become fond of the half demon.
While she kept thinking and glaring down at the mobile phone, she realized there was something on the desk that she hadn't noticed before.
Lady put her mobile inside a pocket of her shorts, made her way to the desk and grabbed what seemed to be a white envelope. It looked new, due to the whiteness, smell and texture of the letter. She narrowed her eyes at it.
The emblem of the order of the sword was drawn in it, and there was a red sealing wax with the same symbol.
With a sigh, she proceeded to open it and read the letter's contents.
The chamber was, without a doubt, a bloody mess.
There was fresh blood all over the place. The walls had been destroyed and it was a miracle the room hadn't fallen down yet.
The glorious chamber that held Mundus captive was only a ruined, once-fancy room.
The glorious, angelic statues that were placed around the circular room that was filled with silence were nothing more than a crumbled, haphazard mess of white stone.
A pained howl escaped from his lips as he tried to contain the pain. Everywhere hurt: his head, his limbs, his arms, his lungs... He couldn't move. He could only lay there, bleeding to death.
He was scared.
There was someone holding him close, pressing him against their chest, so close he could feel their heartbeat pounding in his ears.
...It was Trish, who was pressing his body close to hers, warming his cold, bloodied skin.
He shuddered.
"Are you alright...?"
Angelo shook his head slightly.
"N-No..." He whispered quietly, but Trish heard him.
"Hey you..."
She frowned and looked at him hesitatingly, and he closed his eyes and leant into her embrace, waiting for the inevitable.
Angelo didn't want to die, but he knew he wouldn't be there for much longer; his body was already falling apart.
"Ange..."
Her voice faltered. His pitiful form was too pitiful for her to stand. It was strange, because if this had happened a few hours before, she would have watched this scene whilst eating popcorn.
As he pushed his pain aside, Angelo grinned and spoke back;
"You shouldn't feel guilty..." He said, his voice even quieter than usual. "It's... not your fault. You were... just..."
It was getting difficult for him to speak. He was going to die soon, but... Perhaps that's fine. His existence was similar to Nero's... Vergil's... and Nelo Angelo's... He was already dead, since the very beginning.
Trish couldn't find the strength to say something other than the obvious, so she remained quiet, pondering. A part of her thought it would be easy just to run, but she wouldn't run away. Not this time.
Running away was a childish thing to do, and it wouldn't fix anything. She knew.
Trish was not a child.
She was a grown woman.
She sighed. "I... I don't know much about you. Actually, you seem like a moronic jerk who thinks of himself to be very clever-"
"Thank y-you…?"
"-And it might not mean very much... but I'm sorry, about everything. This shouldn't have ended like this." says Trish.
He was going to say something, Trish knew, but Angelo was unable to do so, because he had another fit of cough, and when he tried to speak again, he found out that he couldn't speak anymore.
Trish looked at him, her eyes never leaving his.
The wounds hurt.
Hurt.
And Angelo realized. Maybe it was too late, but he realized it all the same. They were all broken parts of one person. He, his twin, and that sassy human, created to be just tools. They're not real at all.
He was already dead.
"...And I think this can be forgiven." Trish's voice was now an echo.
Angelo coughed more blood.
His time was already running out.
But that was alright. It was more than enough...
Because he might just have found out what it means to be 'real'.
It was time to be put to sleep and become a pile of ash.
A/N: Aggiornamento: Adjournment. When a game is suspended but it is continued at another time.
Don't put that face. You saw it coming. Now, the next chapter will have a lot of Lady and Dante moments, and also Lady-centric moments, so the fillers are over~~~~~~~~~ :3 (I think... ;A;) Urgh, I have the feeling I rushed the battle scene D:
Thanks for reading and for the alerts and that stuff :) As always, all kind of support is loved. Merry Christmas to everyone~~~~ :D
