[A/N]: I am literally just pantsing right now. I have no clue what's going to happen o_o


A weak smile graced her lips as she looked up at him. He returned it and gave her hand that he had secured in his grasp a squeeze, as if to tell her that all would be just fine. With his free hand, he brushed strands of her hair out of her face, after which she thanked him. Her voice sounded raspy from disuse.

The tender moment was interrupted by the door that someone opened, slamming it against the wall. Both occupants looked up in surprise, only to relax when they recognised the intruder.

"Ah, Dante," James greeted the newcomer, "what are you doing here?"

The devil hunter looked as though that should have been obvious. After glancing around, he realised that perhaps it hadn't been that obvious after all. "Has she gone to the toilet?"

"Who?" After a moment of confusion, James corrected himself. "Oh, you mean boss! I haven't seen her all week. The last time was when we got kicked out of the hospital. When she left I had actually presumed that she'd go straight to you... You mean, she didn't?"

"Nope." The puzzlement remained as both men stared at each other.

Then, all of a sudden, a thin voice floated through the air. "Maybe something's wrong?"

As if James had forgotten her existence, he turned back to his girlfriend, waving his arms about in a frantic manner.

"Don't you worry about your sister! She's fine. Dante will make sure of it," he said, trying to reassure her. He shot a look at the half-demon that spelled many painful things for him if he didn't comply. "Won't he?"

The man in question raised an eyebrow, almost challenging the boy to try and harm even a white hair on his head. Just to please the woman in the room, he nodded. "You can count on it."


Blackness all around her. Shadow lurked wherever she looked. For a moment, she wondered whether she was having that dream again, but when her eyes adjusted themselves to the lack of light, she realised she sat in a small room.

Handcuffed to a chair.

Naked.

And drugged. Thankfully, too, for she didn't want to know what her reaction would have been to everything had she not felt the vaguely familiar drowsiness keep her from completely resurfacing into consciousness.

Still, she wasn't so far gone yet that she did not recognise the urgency of the situation. She remembered fainting all of a sudden after being grabbed. There had been several more times she woken up before, though she couldn't remember much, if anything at all, of those moments.

She tried to move about and found that the cuffs tying her wrists to the back of the chair had been closed too tight to allow her to slip out of with ease. She could always break her thumbs, especially while she still happened to be drugged, but the uncertainty of people who might be nearby stopped her from doing so just yet. If she were to escape then she didn't want to get recaptured.

With her eyesight completely adjusted to the gloom surrounding her, a quick look around taught her more than just the size of the room. It had no windows, and a light bulb hung from the ceiling. Its switch was situated next to the only door to the room. Her chair had been placed with its back to the opposite wall, so the door was right in front of her. Tilting her head to the side and trying her very best to ignore the loud, sluggish noise of her heart beating inside of her head, she attempted to discern any sounds from outside of the room. There appeared to be no traffic and no people nearby, but she couldn't be sure whether she was just too far gone to notice or whether the place had actually been deserted.

Before she could plan any further, however, her eyelids grew heavy. Her body suddenly giving in to euphoric bliss, she sagged forward with such force that, chair and all, she toppled over. She fell in a spiralling manner, somehow managing to land on her shoulder instead of her head. The drugs that filled up her system prevented her from feeling any real discomfort, and so she drifted off to sleep again.


Scratching his head, Dante stood before the house, waiting for the door to open. When it remained closed, he looked around to see if there was anybody nearby before digging up the key she had given him a while ago. Whether or not she had planned on having him return it he had no idea, but for now he would make good use of it.

Once inside, he closed the door behind him, making not a single sound in the process of doing so. Then he tilted his head and listened, despite the fact that he already knew nobody had been inside this building for approximately a week. He could still hope, couldn't he?

When, as predicted, silence greeted him, he decided to venture further into the house. Just to be sure. Who knew, he might have grown old all of a sudden and lost part of his senses. He was no longer the youngest man around, after all.

He found the kitchen as he had expected it: clean and deserted. Not a single dirty dish in sight. The garden hadn't been set foot in for a few days, either. On his way up the stairs, what little hope he had secretly been harbouring slipped away, like ashes falling through fingers.

Dante placed his palms against the wood of the door, hesitating before pushing it open and entering the bedroom. The memory of his previous stay still managed to sting him, even though he could understand her point of view. He had also known why she had tried her best to keep her feelings hidden from him, but that hadn't been of any help in that moment. He had never hated himself more than in those few seconds of hesitation on her part.

It surprised him how much power she held over him, even though she herself didn't realise it. As he made his way into the room and looked around to find it as he had expected, he almost thought it funny how naive someone like her could be. He continued to walk until his shins hit the edge of her bed. Somehow the sight of it surprised him; she had put clean sheets on it since the last time he had been here, all signs of use gone. Almost as if what had happened in the past hadn't taken place after all; the wiping away of memories. As if this hadn't been the place where her words had almost crushed his heart.

Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, Dante once more concentrated on the situation at hand. She had found her answer, or so James had seemed to imply when he told Dante that she had wanted to meet him. He knew she wasn't a coward, that she wouldn't hide away from him because of something like this. Which meant that her absence couldn't be her own doing.

Now Dante had to admit that his first theory had been right. Either some criminal had really bad timing, or Atlas had managed to get a hold of her. He must have gotten rather desperate, to make such a bold move in broad daylight. And then again, perhaps they should have expected something like this. They had gotten rid of his demon slaves, after all.

The devil hunter pulled out his phone and began to search James's number.


She didn't know how many times she had woken up in the meantime, but this time she was able to pull her mind out of its slumber because something had changed. She no longer lay on the floor, and it seemed that she had company.

The Chief stood before her, holding her arm in one hand and a needle in the other. He had wrapped a piece of cloth around her bicep and now busied himself with finding a vein in which to insert whatever drugs he had at his disposal. The pathetic light bulb didn't help him at all, but he seemed to be in a patient mood.

With her system no longer supporting any substances that didn't belong there, she could see her surroundings with surprising clarity. Whatever panic attempted to bubble up, she squished violently before it could take hold of her.

On the other hand, she now felt the weariness in her body. Her mouth was dry and it hurt to swallow, because she hadn't had a lot of water to drink since being captured. Next to that, her stomach had given up growling in hunger, opting to preserve the energy that would have cost for other things.

Chief, or should she say Atlas, noticed that she had opened her eyes, and his lips turned into a smile. It was such an affectionate yet sad expression, as though he were taking care of a sick loved one. Administrating a necessary evil for the greater good.

Behind that look, however, she could see his eagerness burning at the prospect of having her awake and, for now, fully conscious. He wanted her to be frightened, or at the very least angry. Perhaps even confused, or shocked. He wanted her to ask questions; questions any normal person would ask in a situation like this. 'What are you doing to me?' 'Why are you doing this?' 'What's going to happen to me?'

But she remained silent and calm, watching his movements with a calculating gaze that, for once, caused him to feel uneasiness at her presence. At seeing him falter for a split second, she had to do her best to hide her smugness. How did he like it? The shiver that ran through his body, the hair on the back of his neck raised?

Acting as if nothing had happened, he replied to the inquiries she never made. "I bet you're wondering what I'm planning on doing."

He waited a short while, hoping for some kind of reaction from her as he continued to twist her arm this way and that, though she didn't give him this pleasure. Her other hand had remained cuffed to the chair, but she doubted she even had enough energy to free the arm that Atlas held in his hand.

Of course she hid this fact from her captor and simply continued her stony glare directed towards him, which caused him to get on with whatever he planned on doing. "I thought of raping you, but found that I'd have to involve someone else for this, which would've been a hassle. You humans are so squishy, I can't understand how your race is doing so well, overpopulation threatening the planet and all that."

His next pause only lasted a few seconds. He had already stopped hoping for a reaction.

"Then I wondered whether I should just cause an overdose, but that seems like a very... ordinary way to go as a human. Plus, I wonder how much pain one would actually go through. And then there's the problem of the chance of survival being too large. Then perhaps I should just give you too much of this shit so that I can bring you back. That would be rather uncomfortable, but say that you're lucky, or unlucky, whichever you prefer, and do die in one go. What a dilemma."

Then what did he plan on doing now? She couldn't stop herself before the question had been asked in her mind, and she began to burn with both curiosity and fear. He obviously wanted her to suffer after everything she had done, but what use could keeping her drugged possibly have?

The demon had finally found what he needed, plunging the needle into her skin and inserting the drug into her system. She hoped he would continue talking, so that perhaps he would reveal something else. But he remained silent, placing the needle to the side and watching her reaction as she could already see the effects it had on her vision.

He began to click his tongue, almost in disappointment. "It surprises me to find out that someone like you has done this kind of thing before. I wonder what that boyfriend of yours will think when he finds out that you haven't been the good girl you always claimed to be."

Squeezing her eyes shut, she couldn't defend herself against the wave of panic that washed over her now that her mind had been altered like this. The thought of Dante finding out about that part of her, of which she wasn't exactly proud, combined with the danger of the situation took over. She began to struggle against her bonds, against the demon's hand as he tied her other hand to the back of the chair as well, but her movements became sluggish and delayed. Chief even chuckled at her attempts, before he got up and left.


His eyebrows dipped down into a frown, Dante felt his frustration grow with each passing minute. He stood in front of the house which James had told him should have been the demon's home, but that, too, was empty. He hadn't even tried to hide his presence from any potential monsters, had thought that would make the whole thing easier. Yet here he stood, outside once more after having combed through the entire building several times, his investigation fruitless. There hadn't been any basements, no hidden doors, no garden in which a bunker of sorts could have been built. The neighbourhood consisted only of other houses which all looked the same, and Dante knew for sure she couldn't be anywhere nearby. He had made sure of that.

But she had to be somewhere. She couldn't have vanished into thin air.

That thought stopped him dead in his tracks.

What if she had?


The very moment she woke up once again, her mind was set on escaping. She didn't want to remain here any longer than necessary, especially now that Atlas had revealed that, whatever he planned on doing, it would be painful. A fog remained behind, covering her mind, and for this she was glad as she brought her hands together and tried to reach out for her thumb. She didn't give herself enough time to think this through, wanted to get out here as soon as possible, and so she began to pull and twist her finger, trying her very best not to think of what she was trying to do.

Even with the drugs making everything seem far away, the sudden pain caused by the dislocation made her yelp, tears gathering in her eyes. She forced herself to take deep breaths, to stop the world around her from swirling about, though she didn't know if that was even the fault of her thumb.

When she felt steady enough, she carefully slipped her hand from the cuff and got up at once. She didn't bother investigating the room before making her way to the door, albeit a bit unsteady on her feet, for you knew that you wouldn't find anything of interest. Escaping was her priority, and if she could find something for her finger then that would be a nice bonus.

Impatient, she opened the door as quick as she could without making any noise, but the sight before her forced her to take a step back. Wherever she was, this place couldn't possibly be considered Earth.

This world had literally been turned upside down.