Anyone less than two miles away would've thought all the noise was due to the possibility that the wildest party ever was raging and trying to set the new world record for most fireworks. Anyone unfortunate enough to be passing by the street where the noise was coming from would've seen a red figure dancing around while demons tried to catch it only to have their corpses rain on the ground. For Dante and his crew, however, this was the best field day they'd had in a very long time. The Meister's skill was far beyond what the demons could handle, of course; he even stopped for a moment to tauntingly tie his boots while a barrage of pink lasers went through the horde that surrounded him.
"I'm getting bored," commented Dante while he fired countless rounds from Ebony and Ivory at a demon in front of him before quickly blocking an incoming attack from behind with Gilgamesh. "How much further?"
"About a quarter of a mile," responded Artemis. "The pooch said the bar's name is 'The Bloody Palace'… of all names."
"Of all names, indeed," commented Rebellion, who was now in his Meister's hands and sending a wave of energy directly ahead. "If it turns out Trigon is in charge of the other Bloody Palaces we've gone through, I'm gonna get a haircut."
"Aww, then I hope he's not," said Nevan. "You do look good with long hair; doesn't he, Artie?"
"Quit flirting and prepare some Kablooey darts, Artie; I need to snipe some bombs here!" shouted Dante excitedly. He could see five or six Hell Wraths approaching slowly, their orange sacs glowing dimly but noticeably. He aimed his silver gun at each of them, firing an orange dart to each monster. Artemis set them off while Dante passed next to them, making the demons explode loudly, but Dante blocked all the blasts at once using his Royalguard technique.
"Royalguard is broken," muttered Agni.
"Not as broken as the new DLC characters for Smash, though," replied Rudra. "Those counters are OP. I hope they at least nerf Corr—"
"Speaking of counters," intervened Dante, passing through several monsters at once after parrying an attack with a forward palm strike. "How many demons have we taken out so far?"
"275," answered Lucifer. "Can't we just get to the damn bar? We did leave some business unattended in Death City."
"Stein said he'd call us if he needed our help," said Revenant. "I say that three three-star Meisters with their own Death Weapons should be more than capable of handling that brat."
"That brat has Yamato, Beo, Edge and extreme power," reminded Nevan, who was now in Dante's hands and sending bolts of electricity through all the surrounding demons. "I hope Stein and the others take them all down."
"Uh, Dante?" said Rebellion. "Should we tell them?"
"Tell us what?" asked all the other weapons in unison. Cerberus barked questioningly.
"Why did you have to do that, Rebellion?" asked Dante lowly while doing a complicated pirouette in mid-air and impaling a large demon with Lucifer's red blades.
Dante had finally returned home, smelling of booze and cheap perfume. Beowulf was sitting at the kitchen's counter, awaiting him.
"Heya, Beo," said the white-haired man with a smile. "Had fun with Artie today?"
"Dante, I'm sure you know that Ebony and Ivory ran into Yamato earlier this week?" said the silver-haired man, not returning the gesture.
"I heard something, I think," replied the Meister, making a confused face. He wasn't completely sober, obviously. "Rebellion told you that?"
"Yamato called me earlier today. He knows my phone number and called me to say 'Bless you' after I sneezed." Beowulf's face showed worry. "He's watching me, Dante."
"It's not you he's after, though," intervened Rebellion, emerging from his room with his phone in hand. "Kid called and said he ran into him, too. He said Yamato wants 'a hearing' with Black Star cause of the Madness of Power thing."
"That's just great," muttered Dante, slumping on the apartment's couch. "Whaddaya want me to do about it?"
"Obviously, stop him," replied Beowulf, shocked at the news. He turned to Rebellion and asked, "Wasn't Yamato supposed to be with Nero?"
"Kid said Yamato mentioned something about 'not needing each other anymore' or something like that," answered the black-haired man. "If Yamato has no further use for someone, we both know what he'll do, Dante."
"Son of a bitch…" muttered the Meister. "That kid had potential, and Yamato just killed him…"
"We have to stop him, Dante," repeated Beowulf. "If he's watching me, that means he wants me to help him win over Black Star."
"Why would he want Black Star?" asked Dante. "The kid's good, though not great, so what use could there be for him—? Oh, no."
"'Oh, no?' What the hell does that mean?" asked the scarred man, looking at his white-haired Meister and black-haired Weapon partner.
"Don't tell me he wants to resurrect Ver—?" said Rebellion, looking at Dante with fear.
"Knowing him, it's the most likely option." Dante shook his head violently, as if trying to shake off the alcohol in his system and sober up. "I can't believe it…"
"Is this about the rumors of Yamato sucking or stealing souls, or something like that?" asked Beowulf, remembering the hearsay about his former teammate.
"Yes," answered Rebellion. The trio stayed in silence for a minute, thinking. Finally, Rebellion offered a suggestion. "How about you go with them, Beo?"
"What?! I thought Dante was the drunk one here?" said the scarred man, looking horrified. "Why the hell would I join them again?!"
"To stab them in the back, I guess," said Dante with a hand on his chin, thoughtful. "I guess we could pretend you betrayed us to go with them."
"What the hell does that mean?! What about the others?" Beowulf's pupil shrank, and his silver eye gleamed in terror.
"Well, if we pretend you don't know about Yamato and make sure the others don't tell you, then I guess we could give the appearance—" said Rebellion, but Beowulf interrupted him.
"You do realize I am supposed to know already? Ebby and Ivy passed the news by text." The grey-haired man shook his head. "Besides, do you expect them to believe me to be so shallow once I 'find out' and 'run away'?"
"Ah, you know how they get," said Dante. "We'll just pass them the idiot ball and see them play with it…"
"I admire the faith you have in our friends…" muttered Rebellion, half amused, half offended.
"But Yamato will kill me when he sees me again!" Beowulf seemed to be pleading for mercy from his Meister. "Even if everything goes well on this side, I highly doubt he'll just let me join him…"
"I'm pretty sure Edge will tag along, as well," mentioned the bespectacled man. "I could call him and tell him to go get you and then both of you will go after Yamato."
"Yeah, that sounds like a great plan," snapped the red-clad Meister sarcastically. "If Trish finds out, she won't let me hear the end of it."
"Like how we're doing with 'YOU FUCKED A CAT' to you?" chuckled Rebellion. Dante's eyes gleamed red as he glared at the raven-haired man. Rebellion rolled his eyes and asked, "So did you finally get closure with her, or…?"
"What I can't believe is how stupid y'all were to fall for that stupid plan," said Gilgamesh while Lucifer was laughing to tears. The rest of Dante's weapons, save for Rebellion, were sitting on the floor with shamed expressions.
"I guess they held the idiot ball for longer than we expected," said Rebellion while cleaning his glasses. "Not even Artie could see through the gaping hole in our plan…"
"I trusted you, Rebellion!" shouted the purple-haired woman, embarrassed. "I can't believe you and Dante would just play us like that!"
"I guess… we are stupid," commented Ebony, looking at her sister. "To think we knew Dante well enough to know when he's lying to us…"
Even Cerberus shared its partners' feelings. It whimpered with all its three heads looking down and its tail between its legs. Revenant started scratching the blue dog's back and said, "Well, no use feeling down about it now… We have to let Beowulf do his job, right?"
"Yes, we do," replied Gilgamesh, still smirking. "That hot piece of ass will get all our help once we get back there, ya hear?"
"Yeah, we hear," replied Nevan, who was examining her nails, seemingly bored. Maybe it was because she didn't spend much time with the crowd until recently, but she wasn't surprised to know that Dante would have things running in the background. She then added, "Now, can we get to Trigon already? I have a date with Spirit later."
"You won't go out with that loser," said Dante with a chuckle. "He's a cheater through and through."
"Well, that's a disappointment," muttered the red-haired woman honestly. She joined her fellow weapons and entered her Weapon form. Dante gathered his armory and entered the Bloody Palace.
Soul was sitting in Black Star and Tsubaki's couch with his hands on his face. He and Maka had spent the last few nights there while their apartment was being slowly repaired with Dante's earnings, and the couple was hoping the apartment's owners would return of their own free will. The white-haired boy sighed. Maka entered the living room, buttoning up her coat.
"Are you okay, Soul?" asked the pigtailed Meister, worried.
"I'm scared, Maka, even though it's not cool to be…" replied the red-eyed Weapon. "This is Black Star and Tsubaki we're fighting."
Maka sat down beside him and hugged him tenderly. "I know, Soul," she said with a sniffle. "We have to talk some sense into them… I don't want to fight them, either; they're our best friends!"
"This is all that stupid Yamato's fault," said Soul, returning the gesture. "I'm gonna kill him for what he's done to our friends."
"You don't mean that, Soul," said the green-eyed girl, looking at her partner worriedly.
"I wanna take his soul and chew on it slowly right before his eyes," replied Soul, clenching a fist. "That bastard's done too much wrong in the world. He has to pay."
"I know… Stein and Kid will be there too, so at least we have a fighting chance…" Maka held her partner tightly, and a tear escaped from her eye.
"Dammit, Black Star, why do you always have to cause so much trouble?" muttered Soul, who was also starting to cry. The couple started to cry in each other's arms, worried about their lifelong friends and cursing the man that was ruining their happy lives.
Death the Kid was looking at himself in front of his bathroom mirror when Liz stepped in.
"You've been here for ten minutes, Kid," said the tall blonde. "Are you sure you're ready to face Black Star?"
"To be honest, I'm not ready at all," answered the Shinigami. "We've prepared for this and made a few contingency plans, but I'm still worried about what will happen."
"Black Star is our friend, though," said the girl, crossing her arms. "The least we could do is bring him back to return the favors we owe him."
"That's what scares me," said Kid. His face was paler than usual, and his forehead showed beads of nervous sweat. "Black Star is strong enough to defeat me and bring me back… I'm not sure we are, to do the same…"
"We have to be, Kiddo," said Patti, also entering the bathroom. "We need to stop him, for his sake."
"Tsubaki, too," reminded Liz. "The poor girl is always getting dragged by Black Star, wherever he goes. We need to save her, too."
"For Black Star and Tsubaki, then." Kid raised his fist. "We have to win."
"Yes, we do!" agreed the Thompsons with a nod.
Sorry we took so damn long to publish this chapter; we hoped to publish it sooner, but you already know how college works (if you don't, I'll just say it's a bitch). At least we managed to post it now on Spring Break, though. Anyway, the story is slowly drawing to a close! Will Dante triumph over Trigon and his Bloody Palace? Will our Shibusen heroes bring back the great Black Star and Tsubaki? Will Yamato be stopped? Stay tuned for another chapter of Kishin May Cry! Leave comments, opinions, etc. in the reviews! Have a happy Easter, for those of you who celebrate that sort of thing.
-Klaus