A/N: Okay, so I'm behind and am just getting around to typing this chapter at like, 8:00 pm… oops, it's okay, I'm catching up, slowly but surely… Anyway, I'm super duper stoked cause they announced DMC5 at E3! *slight squee* I mean, holy hell! Nero what happened to you?! My coworker and I were theorizing about it at work today :3 I really hope it doesn't throw off my whole thing that I'm trying to write up with the DMC timeline but I'll adapt and retcon if I need to, ooh, I'm so excited, at least I have Vampyr to tide me over for a bit until then… speaking of which, I'm gonna write this up so I can play more of that.

Disclaimer: no own.

Lake Hylia

"Link wants to know if you can fly us upstream to the Zora domain." Midna translated for the canine who just nodded solemnly. Dante looked at the distance that he'd have to take them and realized he could only see part way up the stream and turned back to the imp

"How far is it?" he asked, she looked at Link who gave the best wolf approximation of a shrug. The half devil sighed

"Maybe if I had my power stones here but I left them with Nero, he needed them more than I did." Dante said, remembering how useful that flying one had been when fighting a possessed helicopter. Good god did he lead a strange life… Link simply tilted his head, not following what the hunter was going on about.

"The answers probably not, and I don't want to drop you and kill the 'chosen hero' by accident just because I couldn't haul his heavy ass." the teen growled at him and Midna was about to translate and Dante just laughed

"I think I got the gist of that one. Do you want me to bust the door down of this house so we have someplace warm to sleep?" he asked, gesturing to the funny house behind them. Link shook his head.

"There's a spirit who's hiding from the monsters in there." Midna explained. Dante raised the equivalent of a brow in his demonic form.

"Does he mean us?" he asked and the imp shook her head

"They can't see us," she pointed to the monster a few islands away "but they can see them." the monster had grabbed one of the reeds and was blowing into it, making a strange sort of music. Dante hmmed, so some of the monsters liked music… his thought trailed off when an enormous, monstrous bird flapped down from the sky and the monster hopped on the saddle that was placed on the beast's back. Link snarled and took off toward the monster. Dante shook his head, swearing under his breath and followed suit. He looked at the monster in the beast's saddle and took to the sky, slashing a devastating blow to it with Rebellion. Link pounced as it hit the ground, not even allowing it time to stir as he closed his teeth around its throat, wrenching his head for good measure. The beast whirled on Dante but before he could take it down, Midna floated up to it, her hand hair-thing grabbing the reins as she spoke to it in a language that neither Dante nor Link could understand. A moment later the bird settled and the imp grinned down at them.

"I think I found our ride upriver." she said. Dante laughed

"Great, we'll be travelling in style!" he joked. The bird swooped and snagged the hero, who didn't look at all pleased by their mode of transportation but didn't squirm as Midna directed the beast to the mouth of the cave that lead upriver. Dante darted ahead of the pair, being the smaller and more maneuverable of them. As they started up the cave he saw a handful of monsters, though a few shots from Ebony and Ivory quickly took care of that. One of them escaped his attention just long enough to fire off an explosive arrow to one of the rocks overhead, causing it to crumble and fall and for Midna to swerve the bird out of the way.

"Watch it!" she shouted.

"Sorry! Doing the best I can!" the half devil called back, firing several times at the next few monsters that he could see. "Not my fault you picked literally the largest thing you could to try and bring through here." he could practically feel the glare directed his way. Thankfully they could see the exit and swiftly broke out into the Twilight beyond. The bird quickly dropped Link at the nearest spit of land and flew off.

"Yeah thanks to you too!" the hunter yelled after it, he looked back to the teen who was shaking his fur out and trying to get rid of the feeling of grimy claws on his shoulders. There was another house up here, more normal looking than the one down on the lake. A spirit sat outside this one as well. Link squinted and she came into focus, reminding him of the shopkeeper who sold lantern oil in Farron Woods.

"So… can we spend the night in this house or is there a spirit hiding in this one too?" Dante asked, he was getting tired after hiking for miles, nearly getting burned alive, cliff diving and flying up a tight ass crevice to get back up the river. It wasn't the most exhausting day that he'd had, that title definitely went to the Temen-Ni-Gru, but this ranked on the top twenty, that was for sure. Link looked at Midna, who then conveyed his thoughts.

"He says there just a shopkeeper there, she looks tough enough to handle some ghosts borrowing her bed." the imp translated.

"Fantastic." Dante sighed marching ahead, fully okay to freak this poor shopkeeper out if it meant that he got to sleep on a bed in a warm house rather on the cold hard ground.

A/N: Alright, I really want to make dinner so I'm gonna wrap it up!

Till next time,

-Winged Element