Hmhm

Prologue

This was not how I intended for my night to go.

Standing in the remains of a half-collapsed warehouse, a young man clenched his bleeding right arm, staining his pure white coat. Glancing to the right on him he saw an unconscious young man with purple hair, dressed in armor, a large piece of rubble laying next to his lightly bleeding head.

Across from both of them stood several shadowy individuals stood in various places, each holding the weapons that had injured both young men. The still conscious young man and the shadowy people locked eyes, an unspoken message clear as day to all of them.

You attack first, you die.

Tch, so they're not afraid to attack us for it, but none of them are willing to die to get it, big mistake. The teen's right arm wasn't as destroyed as he was leading the enemy to believe. In his seemingly injured hand, hidden from view of the attackers he held a small green stone. He spotted his weapon out of his peripheral vision to the left of him, it had been blown out of his hand mid-battle when someone had set off an explosive.

Dante weighed his options.

Grab his weapon, dash for his friend, use the stone.

No, that would take too long, they'd be on him in a second.

Use his powers to fight back, grab his weapon and fight them off? No, even with his power, fighting these numbers while injured was not ideal, one wrong move and it would all be over in an instant.

His mind made up, Dante flashed his power in his eyes again, making his attackers tense. Perfect.

He dashed for his knocked out friend, pumping all his power into his legs and making a hard leap for him. His opponents were too slow to act with their muscles att tense and their minds having raced for defense tactics when they thought he was going to attack them.

"See ya around!" Placing a hand on the purple-haired teens and clenching the stone tightly in his other, Dante forced all his power into the stone, energizing it. Just as the enemy gathered their will to act the two were gone in a flash of green light.

Chapter I

"Well, this is safe, I think."

Destroyed buildings, carved up roads, tattered pieces of cloth, remnants of children's toys lying about alongside weapons. The desolate state of the place Dante had ended up in with his friend painted the picture of a battle from long ago. Aside from the blood dripping from his arm, there was not a drop of it anywhere among the carnage he could see. The fact that not a single body was in sight was also telling of how long this place had been abandoned after whatever attacked happened.

"Is it wrong that I've, ngh, seen worse?"

Dante whirled around and stared at his purple-haired companion who was slowly sitting upright from the prone position Dante had left him in. The young man dressed as a knight in shining armor brought his hand up and covered the injury on his head, both his head and his hand glowing a light blue as he sighed in relief. "That feels so much better."

"Hmm" Dante merely hummed in response as he watched his friend fall back to the ground in a kneeling position when he tried to stand. "Idiot, your Aura doesn't heal you instantly from such an injury, you still need time to rest." He scolded as he walked over and helped his friend to his feet, slinging one of his arms around his shoulders and picked up his sword.

"Thanks." The purple-haired young man grunted out. "Where are we anyway?"

"I don't know," Dante answered, looking up at the stars that sparkled brightly above. "I studied the sky, none of the constellations we know are up there." The purple-haired boy's eyes widened and he whipped his head from Dante and to the sky.

"Say what?"

"The sky is different, I don't think this is our home."

"How is that pos- wait, did you use it?"

"I did."

The purple-haired and green-eyed boy groaned. "So we can be anywhere! Fantastic!"

"Better than being dead, no?"

"Shut it you."

"Love you too, Nik." Dante grinned slightly he helped Nik hobble over to a somewhat intact house, both taking refuge inside. Helping Nik out of his armor identifying the wounds he had, the raven-haired boy helped his friend into a bed to rest.

"Lay down here for a bit, I'm going to go see what I can find." He instructed with Nik grunting in protest.

"What about you? That cut on your arm looks-" Nik's mouth clamped shut with a click when Dante showed the cut on his arm completely healed, along with the various bruises along his body seemingly vanished. Nik grumbled as Dante gave him a very small grin. "Right right, stupid powers and all that jazz. Just be careful alright?"

Dante answered by taking up Nik's weapon, weighing it in his left hand as he walked back downstairs of the building with a wave of his other hand. Nik grumbled more before laying down, closing his eyes as he let his power, aura, coat his body. "Hm?" Nik blinked an eye open as he felt something pushing against him under the mattress.

"No signals..." Dante muttered as he stared down at his Scrier, the communication and information device used widely back where he was from, when no signals, wifi, radio, or the like turned up. "Well, better than not trying." Tapping a button on the transparent screen of the device, Dante began broadcasting a message on all signals he had access to.

"This is Dante Chloris of team DN broadcasting on all channels. I repeat, this is Huntsmen Dante Chloris of team DN broadcasting on all channels, if anyone is hearing this please respond, our coordinates are -"

A distant screeching roar cut Dante's message off, making his whole body tense from the ends of his hairs on his head to his toes.

Dante would never admit to being afraid of things, but he wouldn't lie if he did, and whatever had just pierced the night air, making hundreds of birds fly away into the sky in fear, had sent terror down his spine. Shivering himself free of the fear that had gripped him and looked into the distance, towards a mountain the horrid sound had come from. Whatever had made it, he hoped it stayed far away from where he and Nik were.

Sighing and repeating his message again before setting it on a loop, broadcasting to the entire world for whoever was near to hear the young man set about exploring the ruins of the village he had teleported himself and Nik into. He noted that a lot of the damage done involved piecings by something large, and scratch mark akin to animals all around the place. The fact that many possessions of families still remained in the village pointed that to whatever had attacked the village was animalistic in nature, people raiding it would have taken everything if they had won this thoroughly.

He eventually came across a map, a world map from the looks of it in a building he could only surmise was the school of the village. Seeing crude drawings of what he assumed was the class on a chalkboard with names above each stick figure sent a pang of sadness in his heart. Scooping the map up and leaving the building after grabbing a few books he began reading what he could.

Thankfully wherever they had ended up, the people wrote in the same language as they did.

"Well, we're not in Crysta anymore, let alone Shelter if this map is real," Dante muttered to himself as he studied every inch of the map as it described how they were on a world called "Remnant", and specifically a continent called "Anima" which was home to the Kingdom of "Mistral". It seemed there were several other continents that each housed a single Kingdom, all but one to the top left of the map. It was a blackened looking land that looked not unlike that of a dragon with its wings spread.

Flipping the map over, he found a more local map printed on the back.

"Kuroyuri huh? What an interesting name.."

"DANTE!"

Nik was in a panic, struggling to get down the stairs of the building he had been resting in, a book clenched tightly in his hands as he forced his sluggish body to try and stay balanced as he stumbled his way down, groaning as he fell on the last step. D-Damn it. His vision was blurry, the blow to his head still not fully healed.

With a grunt, he forced himself back up, he had to find Dante and they both needed to get as far away from this village as fast as they could.

The book he had found under the mattress of the bed he was laying on had informed him of things that could only exist in nightmares, and the chilling roar he had heard not to long ago solidified that the nightmares the book, the diary, had spoken of were real.

So clad in his armor and carrying his shield, ignoring his pain, he forced his away out of the house, stumbling onto the desolate street in a panic.

Looking around he spotted his friend, staring at something in his hands.

"DANTE!"

His shout seemed to have grabbed his friend's attention and Nik hastily hobbled his way towards him.

"Nik? What are you doing out here, you need to be-"

"We need to get out of here! Now!"

Dante blinked in surprise, he had rarely seen his friend panic before, much less suggest they need to leave while in such a bad state.

Before he could reply, a chilling howl filled the air. At the same time, both the boys felt shivers course throughout their bodies as their eyes widened.

Dante was the first to react, spinning around and readying Nik's weapon as he faced the main gate of the village. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see a large shadow that was slowly making its way towards them through a fog that had come seemingly out of nowhere. As the being came into view, Dante found himself rooted to the ground.

Easily the size of a house, the shadowy being emerged from the fog, walking of four legs of death. With skin darker than the night sky, and white bone-like material jutting out or curling around its body in various unnatural manners, both Nik and Dante found themselves staring into brilliant red eyes marred by the pure killing intent and hate that filled the ruby jewels. A malformed humanoid merged with the horse-like monstrosity sat on its back, swaying in a manner akin to a person stumbling around on the verge of death. Bribcage and arm bones strained against the tight skin of the creature as it took slow, heavy steps towards the only two humans in the area.

Both the travels felt their hairs stand on end as it stopped, its front right hoof slamming against the ground.

And then, it screamed.