I shifted Yamato in my left hand. The smooth sheathe was sliding in my grip. I adjusted my bandages to make sure that I was not recognizable, and straightened my black coat and the blue vest underneath. I began to pace back and forth, impatiently waiting for the man I was supposed to meet.
I was at one of Cecil's "summer homes" in Newport. It was more like a mansion, in reality. Cecil apparently never visited the place, and he kept few attendants there for maintenance and cleaning. He had inherited it from his father, who had died ten years prior. The house was beautiful, though. It was just outside of town, in the richer part of the county. It had white marble staircases, with ornate railings, and pretty much every adornment you could think of. Tapestries, fireplaces, statues and busts littered the mansion.
After nearly an hour of waiting, I was finally joined by the man who would introduce me to the mercenary world.
He walked into the entrance hall where I was waiting. He was short in stature, and wore a cheap suit and trench-coat. He had a face like a rat, and his nose even twitched like a rat's would.
"Sorry for keeping ya waitin'" He said to me as he closed the door behind him. "You know how it is. One guy keeps you a minute longer than he should, and the lateness snowballs."
"Indeed." I said curtly.
"Ah, well you must be Gilver, right?" He walked up to me, ignoring my impatience. "That's a fancy sword ya got there. Can I see?" He reached down to grab it. Irritated, I shoved the hilt into his gut…as gently as I felt like doing at the moment.
His eyes widened to the size of tea cups.
"I'll take that as a 'no'." He said between staggered breaths.
"Let's go." I said, and walked out the door. He followed, warily, and showed me to a Rolls Royce parked outside. The driver opened the door for the both of us to climb in. It was a fancier car than I'd expect of this man.
"Classy car, eh? Cecil bought it for me a while back." He said, smiling nervously. I just stared out the window.
"We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here…" He said. "My name is Enzo. Enzo Ferrino."
I didn't respond. Enzo was a middle-man, and was just meant to be somewhat of a letter of recommendation for me to the mercenary world. Cecil called him up and practically ordered him to get me in. Enzo seemed to sense my irritation, and stayed quiet for most of the trip.
After about a ten minute drive, we arrived in the slums of Newport. The city streets were littered with trash and steam rose up from the sewers below, dissipating into the night sky. The moon hung unusually low, and the stars where drowned out by the city lights.
It wasn't long before we arrived at our destination. It was the bar called "Bobby's Cellar" where Dante apparently spent much of his time.
Dante
The thought of him infuriated me…But a small glimmer of hope sprang forth in my mind.
What if he joins me? I asked myself, What if he is truly sorry for abandoning our mother? What if he wants to help me gain this power?
NO! I yelled in my head. Dante had abandoned my mother to death, I could never forgive him. He would abandon me in the same way.
Anger raged inside me, rejuvenated by these thoughts. As soon as the car stopped, I opened the door and got out. Enzo came after me, and caught me by the arm. I stopped without looking back. He got the idea, and let me go.
"You can't just barge in there, you know?" he said, "Let me handle this please? Cecil called me for a reason. Wait here."
He straightened his coat and walked down the small staircase in front of us. He opened the door to the bar, loud voices and drunken laughing could be heard from within. He slipped through the door, and disappeared inside. I descended the stairs, and waited beside the door.
A minute passed by, and I heard Enzo's voice call out to me from inside.
"Hey! You can come on in now!"
I opened the door and walked in. It was a pretty typical-looking bar, with mercenaries crowding the tables and counters. Some had mugs of beer in their hands, some had shot glasses, full of whiskey, and a few others were smoking cigars. But they were all staring at me.
I looked around from under my bandages. Enzo stood in the middle of the room, facing the mercenaries.
"This is Gilver." He announced. "I'm told he's a man, but who can tell with all those bandages?"
Laughter erupted from the mercenary crowd before me. I felt no embarrassment.
"He doesn't talk much, "He continued, "But he's looking for work as a mercenary…Someone told me he could put you all outta business."
The room fell silent. Hands reached for guns hidden under tables, and eyes were fixed on me, waiting for me to make the wrong move. I waited in silence for a moment, then spoke.
"I ask one thing."
The silence was practically deafening. No one was breathing. It was perfectly silent.
"I want to fight the strongest man here." I looked around me, searching through them. Dante had to be somewhere. "Let my actions be my resume'"
I drew Yamato quickly, leaving that sweet note hanging in the air.
"What do you say?" I pointed my sword at the crowd, scanning the tables, and chairs. The mercenaries were confident, and bravely stared me down. Only one of them had his attention on something else.
That man sat at a table alone, gnawing at a chicken leg. His black, fingerless gloves were dripping with grease, and the table in front of him had a pile of discarded chicken bones.
He wore a long, red leather coat, with silver buckles and black accents. His vest was leather as well, and sported many silver clasps in the place of a zipper. His pants and boots were also black, and were nearly as messy as his hands. His most prominent feature was his silver-white hair.
Dante
"You." I said aloud to him as I walked over, "I believe you're the strongest one here."
Dante chewed on his food for a moment. He swallowed and flashed me a smile, grinning despite his face being covered in greasy chicken. He wiped his face with the back of his gloves and picked up another leg with his right hand.
"I'm in the middle of dinner," He said with his usual cocky tone, "Go sit down and think it over, newbie."
He twirled the chicken leg that was in his left hand, mocking my own brandishing of my sword.
I promptly lashed out with Yamato, slicing the chicken leg cleanly right above his hand. Dante didn't even flinch, but he stopped eating and slowly turned to look at the leg in his left hand.
"It should be easier to eat like that," I said to him, mockingly. He tossed the leg aside and looked up at me, his blue eyes staring into my own.
"That's pretty good, newbie." He said to me, smiling. He stood up, wiping his hands on his pants. "Its about time someone good with a sword came along." He reached behind him, and picked up an unusually large sword.
Rebellion.
I smiled faintly.
The sword was just as I had remembered it, though perhaps a little longer. The blade was not nearly as big as it was when my father held it, but it was still large. It was perhaps four feet long, and four of five inches at its widest point on the blade. The skeleton on the cross-guards was the same, with its closed mouth and horns, and the cross-guards themselves were angled towards the blade.
As soon as he picked up Rebellion, the bar patrons grabbed the tables and chairs and moved them into a circle around the two of us. Each one of them was practically pressed against the wall, giving us as much room as we needed.
I readied Yamato, commanding the space between Dante and myself. Dante was relaxed, with his sword at his side. We circled each other, guessing our opponent's next move.
The bar patrons were eating up the tension. Many of them were smiling, knowingly.
Without warning, I struck out at Dante. He blocked it with the flat of his blade, and knocked it out of the way. He slashed at my right side, but I deflected it to the ground. Our blades were but blurs in the air as we continued the deadly dance. Each sword stroke was blocked or countered. The sound of ringing steel filled the room. Sparks flew from our colliding blades, and the grins around the room were ever-widening.
Dante swept Rebellion upwards, knocking Yamato out of my hand. My blade stuck into the ceiling, with its bandage-wrapped hilt pointing straight down. Dante stopped, and laughed.
"Aw…" He mocked me, "Sorry about that! Are you gonna go home and cry to your mommy now?"
I said nothing in reply, but instead charged right at him, weaponless. He slashed at me with Rebellion, perhaps hoping to take off my head. I ducked, and swept his legs out from under him. As he fell to the floor, I kicked Rebellion out of his hand, sending it flying towards a wall. It stuck itself into the wall right between too mercenaries. They looked at each other over the blade, and shrugged.
Dante scoffed at me, and smiled confidently.
"Well I guess we're even!" He assumed a fighting stance and beckoned me with his right hand. "Come on!"
I darted forward, meeting his confidence with my own. I swiped my left leg at his side, he blocked it with his right arm, and struck at me with his left. I dropped to the floor to dodge it, and tried to once again sweep his legs out from under him. He jumped, and kicked down at me, I rolled out of the way.
Dante's form lacked finesse. It was comparable to that of a street-brawler, and was very direct. The contrast could be seen by the onlookers as we continued our fight. Dante's brawling against my near-elegant form.
"Say, you're pretty good." Dante said, but oddly without his usual sarcasm.
We blocked, and dodged, again and again. Just as with the sword, no real blow had landed…until…
I kicked him square in the chest, sending him flying back into an empty table. Mugs of beer tipped over and spilled their contents all over his hair and jacket. Frustrated, he stood up, wiping the liquid off of his face.
Suddenly, he seemed focused, and his stance altered. He was definitely more serious now, and it reflected in his defensive stance. His eyes stared into mine, and didn't look away. We stared each other down for what felt like minutes. Enzo was sitting at the sidelines, looking very excited. He reached for a beer, but accidently knocked it off the table.
Slowly, it fell to the ground.
Dante lunged at me, throwing his fist in front of him. I dodged, and countered, jabbing away at his side. He took the hits, but threw an uppercut towards my jaw. Before it could connect, I manipulated it to the side and knocked him back with my other elbow.
He slid back, towards his sword. I looked around me and found Yamato stuck in the ceiling behind me. Dante pulled Rebellion out of the wall just as I jumped up to grab my blade. We turned towards each other, and slashed with our swords.
The mug hit the floor, shattering into a dozen pieces.
Dante's blade and my own were locked together, both of us pushing forward. Yamato against Rebellion, Dante's strength against my own.
He kicked at my leg, catching me off guard. We pushed off, and once again stared each other down.
"Come on," He said to me. "Is that all you got?"
I smiled.
Dante's left hand twitched, I could tell he was looking for a new way to fight. My suspicion was confirmed when he drew a handgun and aimed it at my face.
A large man stepped between us, throwing his hands in the air.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" He yelled, "Enough!"
I looked at the man inquisitively. He was a heavy-set man, likely in his fifties. He wore a stained apron, and carried himself with authority.
"If you mess up my bar any more, I'll ban both of you!" He told the two of us, "Swords, fine. Fists, great. But no guns!"
Dante spun his gun in his hand and holstered it. The man walked over to the counter and picked up two shot glasses.
"There's only one way to settle this," He set the shot glasses down on a nearby table. Dante immediately understood, grabbed a chair and sat down at the table.
"Is that it?" I asked him, cocking my head to the side, "Do you forfeit?"
"No way!" Dante answered, "Bobby here just changed the rules."
The man must have been the bar's owner, since he shared the name-
I didn't have much time to reflect on that, since the crowd grabbed me and shoved me towards the table. They sat me down in a chair and placed the shot glass in front of me. The crowd formed another ring around us, cheering us on. Bobby walked over with a large keg, shouting like a boxing announcer.
"Here in Bobby's Cellar, how do we settle fights?"
"WE DRINK!" The crowd shouted.
"Drink what?!?" Bobby asked them.
"BOOZE!" The cheered. Bobby scoffed.
"Booze? I've got oceans of the stuff! What do you want??"
"BOBBY'S VODKA!" Pandemonium ensued. The crowd went into a frenzy, and I was left quite confused. I never had participated in any drinking at all, and I certainly didn't know much about the forms of alcohol other than beer.
I figured it was a drinking game, like the kind I had observed at various pubs and bars around the city. This particular one was somewhat of a duel. Whoever drank the most, without passing out, won.
Bobby stood next to us, and set his hand down on the table.
"Ready…" He said. I readied my glass awkwardly, still staring Dante down.
"Set…." The crowd was finally silent.
"Go!" Bobby slapped his hand on the table and backed off. The crowd started to cheer yet again.
Dante started off like he was drinking water, drinking one shot and going for another.
I tried the same, but coughed as the liquid burned my throat. I slowly finished the rest of it, and winced as it continued to burn.
I could hear the people around me growing impatient. Dante was drinking faster than ever, but I was unused to this method of combat.
"Too slow!" A man shouted behind me
Someone grabbed me from behind, and pulled me to the ground. Dozens of people held me down as someone forced a funnel into my mouth. They began to pour the burning liquid down my throat, nearly drowning me in the fiery fluid. I felt my strength failing me, and my mind wandering. It wasn't so bad, after all. I felt peaceful, and decided that I might as well drink.
The crowd backed up from me, giving me a look at Dante. He just finished his 30th glass and stood up, cheering along with the crowd.
"Tony! Tony!" The crowd chanted, "You are the greatest!"
"For that?" he asked humorously, "I'm doing the whole keg!!"
He climbed onto the table, grabbed the half-empty keg of vodka and poured it into his mouth. He emptied the entire thing, and threw it aside. He jumped off the table, and Bobby went to his side.
"The winner!" He shouted, grabbing Dante's arm and holding it up in the air, like an announcer at a boxing ring.
"Tony! Tony!" They continued to chant.
The sound of the chanting grew quieter, and the room faded into darkness.