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Maybe somewhere out there even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one.

- Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening

7 / 26 / 2016

"Joker!"

I awaken to a cat that's missing half its face and the rest of the team submerged in junk piles.

I rise up and out of wherever the hell I'd fallen and reset my broken nose, shooting out the blood that's welled up within.

Cat tells me, "He took her," as I march over to the pile where Niijima's landed, and pull her up from the pile.

Black eye. Blood pooling down the left side of her face. Busted lip and swelled cheek. So dazed she can't even look at me. I lower myself and her, and Victory Cry repairs her injuries in an instant.

When she comes to she throws her hands around, almost trying to push me off as I tell her repeatedly, "Stop, stop, Niijima - Niijima it's me, it's Hikawa, just stop!"

"Wh-what!? What, I, what—!?"

I've grabbed both her arms and pulled them down. "It's okay. It's me. Are you alright?"

She breathes heavy, blinking to clear her eyes, then nodding briskly. Turns away, "The others!"

She gets herself out my grip and runs to Takamaki, while I head on over to where I think I can see Yoshizawa. She's got welts on her thighs and neck - head busted open. Girl's unconscious, so I carry her up from the pile in a bridal fashion. Healing her with Victory Cry as I march closer to the entryway. Undoing her coat I arrange everything such that she's laying safely on a makeshift leather pillow, as comfortably as I can make her, considering the floor's covered in busted toys.

Takamaki is not unconscious, but she isn't doing that much better. Bleeding, her arm hanging over Niijima's shoulders, breathing heavy with cuts all over her costume.

"Thanks for the help, asshole."

I turn to my left and remember that Sakamoto's here, too. Holding onto his arm like it's broken.

"Conserve your energy," says the half-headed cat. "I'll heal up everybody else."

And the cat does, one by one by one.

I take Niijima away from the scene to speak with her privately, for she now looks like a ghost.

"Are you okay?"

"I shouldn't have brought her here," Niijima grunts out. "I wasn't thinking, I just, I thought this was the only way and now he has her, oh God, he has her and it's all my fault—"

"It's alright," I tell her. "It was a fucked up situation all around. Nobody knew what to do next."

"He has her now because of me..."

"Don't apologize, she's still here and she's still alive," says the cat. "At the very bottom, at the end of the maze."

"That doesn't fill us with much confidence," I tell the cat. "And you told us we'd be able to escape in case Dante came up the stairs."

"Well, I suppose he was holding back even more than we thought, wasn't he?"

"Fucking hell."

"She's not dead," asserts Sakamoto. "He wouldn't kill her. That's not his style. If he's still himself, that is..."

"Oh, he is," says the cat. "Sakura's will still hasn't overtaken him. The allure of the Treasure doesn't affect him in the slightest. He's still just fine."

"We can still save her?" asks Takamaki.

"What do you suggest we do next, Sakamoto?" Niijima turns to him.

"Y-you're askin' me?"

"You know this man more than anyone else here. Is there anything at all we can do to salvage this situation? Does he have any weaknesses we can exploit? You've played his games, you must know something."

"He really doesn't... how should I put this?" Sakamoto strokes his chin. "The only thing that could possibly stop him is something stronger than he is. Like, they gotta have enough power to level the world, and that prolly won't even be enough. Dante's pretty much unstoppable in almost every respect. Anyone beats him, he'll just come back better than ever. Unless..."

"Unless what?" I ask him.

Suddenly his eyes widen in realization.

"We have to get back to the real world, now!"

"You have a plan?" exclaims Niijima.

"I-I just might! I have an idea! But we need to get back to the real world for it to work!"

"Are you sure it will?"

"Hell no," he shakes his head. "But you're willin' to take chances left and right. We might as well give this a shot."

I look him right in the eyes. "We're counting on you. I hope this works."

He glares, determinedly. "Me too."

Thirty minutes later.

Yoshizawa mutters this, "Sumire, I'm so sorry we won't be able to go international. I messed up. I messed up bad. I should never have come here. Now I'm going to die because of a video game character and nothing we endured will have ever mattered. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," the whole way down the stairs.

"Ryuji, are you sure this is gonna work?" Takamaki cries.

"Best chance we have," he says, while breathing heavy and sweating profusely.

"Well, it can't hurt any worse than it usually would to give it a try?" shrugs the cat. "No Maruki. No buffs. None of us are strong enough, not even close. If this works, it works. If it doesn't, nothing's changed."

"And Dante kicks our asses again," I blurt out.

"Probably."

"We're going to fucking die," I say out of sheer exhaustion the second we make it to the bottomland. "We're gonna die."

"I mean... we might not?" Niijima says, also completely lost.

"Don't say that shit, that's quitter talk," Sakamoto murmurs. "We're not gonna die. We're not gonna die. We're not gonna die. Say it with me, and we'll make it. We're not gonna die..."

Sakamoto leads the team forward, carrying a cardboard box in his hands. We're at the entrance of the maze and I think of the various ways we've let ourselves run wild here. He's sweating as he continues reciting his mantra to himself.

I think of everything I've done and was willing to do to Palace Rulers up to this point.

I've been too fucking emotional about all this. Made too many reckless decisions and made them in stupid fucking ways. Shouldn't have brought Niijima and co. here. Shouldn't have allowed Niijima to bring Sakura in here, either. Should have done all this by myself.

What the hell are you saying, dumbass? You couldn't have done any of this by yourself. You wouldn't have done shit.

You'd have killed her and you fucking know it.

As many fucking mishaps you've endured with these people on the way here, things woulda gotten a helluva lot worse had they never been at your side at all. Because you'd have done exactly what you've been doing all this time. You'd have murdered this girl and once that would have happened Kana and Masako would follow you, and follow you, and follow you. Strangle you till you go to sleep, hang off your back or hover over your head. You think it's bad now? You think it couldn't get any worse than this? You can feel her, breathing down your neck. You can feel her claws digging into your lungs. Her legs locking around you, her feet sinking into your guts. You hear Masako laughing loudly, trying to rip open your jaws so she can tear her way right out your mouth. And all this, all this will feel more real, will cause you to bleed and create pains without wounds, even more so than they already do. You wanna grip your throat because you feel it being beaten and swelling from the inside out - you wanna stop breathing because the more you suck in air, the more you feel like liquid mercury's being poured into your chest cavity.

You're using them, all of them, to assuage your own fucked-uppedness and make you just that tiny bit more sane—even Niijima is a tool. A beautiful, painfully moralistic, wonderfully bullheaded tool who is too good a person for her own good. She is here so we can save this person and in saving this person the ghosts will keep themselves away from me, and because the ghosts will keep themselves away from me I'll at least have enough mental fortitude left to devote the rest of my goddamn days to finding Shijima and killing every single last fucking one of them with my bare hands. Yes, I will find and gut and bone and joint these fucking pigs and hang them by their jaws on meathooks in my Kingdom, and Niijima and Maruki and the rest of these fucking assholes are going to help me get to them—

—and then I can disappear from their lives forever, as I should have the day I met them.

"What's the one thing the most evil man in the world, has in common with the kindest man in the world?" From out of the shadows in the maze, he emerges. Sword on back and with that same shit-eating grin I've come to loathe. "By necessity, the both of them only give a damn about themselves, and what they want."

Everyone behind Sakamoto gets themselves ready. Hoping and praying that this plan, which will obviously fail and likely get us our shit pushed in, works against all odds.

"What did you do with Sakura-san!?" Niijima shouts.

"She's at the end o' the hall. Unharmed."

"Why did you take her!?" cries Yoshizawa.

"Cuz I wanted to see what you'd do."

"What!?"

"You only ever really make a choice, when you make it the second time. You decided to do the smart thing and leave me for when you're stronger. But you decided to get a little bold, and bring the Ruler herself from your world into here. Risky business, but success doesn't come without risk. I'm impressed you were willing to go as far as you did. Now. You wanna save this girl, you gotta dance with me. I like it when people try to break the rules, so I'll break a few of my own. Remember how I said, if I touched one of you, you'd all get sent back here?"

"What's changed?" Takamaki snarls.

"Now, I gotta get to you one at a time."

"That doesn't mean anything," I grunt out. "You're fast enough to get to all of us as soon as you decide to!"

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Now, what's with the box of—?"

"A peace offering!" cries Sakamoto. "P-please let us pass. Please don't hurt us."

With Maruki gone, we'd have to deal with a Shadow that's a hundred times faster, stronger, and more resilient than any of us could ever hope to be. None of us was strong enough, and Sakamoto suggested that if we couldn't beat him, we could at least buy ourselves our way in.

Hence, a family-sized box of pizza. Eight slices, each the size of your forearm. Pepperoni, beef, and cheese. Stuffed crust. Steaming, almost like it had come right out from the oven. Niijima and Takamaki with the napkins and ketchup packs in-hand, respectively.

I walked myself into traffic the second I heard it, Niijima and Yoshizawa having to pull me back before an oncoming truck could splatter my insides upon the gravel.

It was the stupidest fucking idea I'd ever heard.

But it was perhaps our one and only hope.

But it isn't going to work.

I see it in his fucking eyes, he's looking at us like we're fucking stupid simpering little kids, of course it's not going to work. Now he's going to kill us all and it'll be my fault because even though Sakamoto came up with the plan, he wouldn't have had to if I had never brought him and Niijima and everyone else here to solve my goddamn problems for me, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know I should have died ages ago. I can only pray we die quickly, painlessly—

"You got me, kid. I'll give you that," Dante laughs, taking the box of pizza. "Go right on ahead."

Everyone just blinks at him.

Turns to each other.

For nobody actually thought this'd work.

"Y-you mean it?" asks Sakamoto.

"Stuffed crust?" Dante smiles, "If any of you were in my world, I'd hire you right on the spot. Maybe in a janitorial position, I dunno."

"Can we please go without you attacking us!?" cries Niijima.

Dante inhales two slices at once and we don't know whether to be impressed or to be even more horrified. "Mmm, I guess I can give you a five minute headstart."

"Five minutes?"

"S'all you're gettin—" stuffs his face with a third slice, gulping it down, "—starting... now. One switch left. Do your best."

Holy shit.

It actually kind of worked.

We now have a window.

"ONE MORE SWITCH LEFT, LET'S GO!" I bellow out, summoning Hell Biker as I dash forward.

"I am the smartest man on the goddamn planet—"

Niijima summons her Persona, "Skull, get on!"

Given that this wretched little place is a maze, I'd have advised everyone to split up and run through in pursuit of the lever or door. But we have the cat with us, so pathfinding would be much less of an issue than it would be otherwise. It'd be irresponsible to split up into teams - even if only to buy us some time before Dante kills us all, we don't have a way of contacting each other to recoup. And given the fact that Dante is absurdly fast with or without buffs, splitting up won't even buy us that much time before we're all sent back to the front of the maze. We have only one shot and now Sakura's on the line, too.

We reach the second lever with no trouble, except for the fact we spend one and a half minutes at the very least, of the five minute headstart reaching it - even as fast as our Personas carry us. But the Cat's tracking clears up-

"Door's open! We can go now! I can feel it, path is clear in my head! Sakura's there!"

"COME ON!" Niijima cries out.

And we get there. We rush forward, Niijima and I on our bikes as the others ride their own Personas in these narrow fucking hallways - we ride on forward to victory, to freedom, to saving Sakura and getting as far fucking away from Dante as possible.

The opened door fills us with a hope that means nothing until we find Sakura wherever the door leads us to -

"Sakura-san!"

Sure enough, she's lying in a small bed. The room we've found her in? A bedroom, dark and unlit. A closet in the corner, a desk across from the closet in another corner—the desk has a key lying carelessly in the middle. A TV on the far left of the room, sitting atop a table with a few video game consoles, disc boxes, and cartridges beneath. In the middle of the room itself is another Will Seed, the one that was inside this pyramid from the beginning. Window outside shows nothing but night. Sakura sleeps calmly, peacefully, as if drugged into this state.

"A Manikin?"

"No," says the cat. "This is her. A hundred percent. There's a Manikin over there, though."

At the foot of the TV lies a little baby girl with black hair, dressed in a pair of orange pajamas. Sleeping on her side, on the floor. A controller in her hands. Manikin of a child Futaba Sakura. Non-hostile? For now, anyway.

I saw shades of this room, when Maruki and I saw the Will Seed in the Sphinx. Sakura would play games here, with her mother. Beneath the TV lays a disc casewith an imposing man in red standing in the front, pointing his gun at me as the title blares Devil May Cry. We get out of here because there's no time to check the Will Seed for spare memories. We can only bring Sakura out of here as fast as possible.

Before I can even bark out orders, Niijima grabs the key off the desk—with nothing more to do I shuffle my arms underneath Sakura's body and carry her.

I check the timer on my phone. Two and a half minutes, with another two and a half minutes to spare. I face Niijima for just an instant as we walk on out of the room, at each other's side, and for just an instant I let myself hope that somehow we'll be able to make it back without Dante on our backs.

I tell myself to stop hoping for things, because guess who's right where we need to be?

"What the hell!?"

"Exactly."

Three shots fired from a white revolver is enough to make us scatter.

We realize too late the Cat's head has been blown open and now it's dead on the floor of this godforsaken place—it should come back in a few minutes, but do we even have a few minutes?

He stands there, monochrome guns in either hand, red coat billowing as he steps forward. He looks at me in particular, even as he sheathes his guns and grips the hilt of his blade. Everyone disperses and Dante brandishes his blade then, charging directly for me as I throw Sakura's body to Niijima—

CLANG

I manage to block his blade with Satanael's.

"Hasn't even been three minutes, asshole—"

"Yeah, but the pizza has an aftertaste."

I get a migraine that'll last for the next three weeks non-stop, as I command Satanael to go at this fucker as fast as possible. My Persona doesn't loose his rifle because Sakura's still in range—Satanael just slashes at Dante with a blade that moves so quickly I'm exhausted in three seconds.

These attacks will do nothing to him, so I have no idea why I'm even doing this—maybe I just want to hurt him, land at least one wound, but I'm not even getting that. Dante just parries Satanael's attacks with his sword-arm without even looking at me or my Persona. It'd take me probably my whole life to reach that level of dexterity with a blade that large, and he just twirls it around like it's a part of his body. At some point our blades lock into each other's, and I'm certain that if he really wanted to, he could cleave right through and cut me up right on the spot. I've almost certainly not gotten strong enough to even withstand one of his attacks - and I'm nowhere as fast as I need to be to block him like how I am now.

He punches me in the face with a free hand and my Persona's blade loses ground. Once he does so, he unsheathes a gun and fires six times into Satanael's chest, causing him to burst in black shards and causing me unconscionable pains in my torso—before I can summon my Persona again he punches me with a free hand in the stomach, twice in a row. Uppercut immediately after which arcs my head to the ceiling. Leg sweep which trips me up and sends me crashing down on my side. Time it's over, head's too much of a mess to concentrate on summoning any Persona at all. Eyes bleeding. Three of my teeth loose.

"No teleporting this time, kiddos," he laughs. "Things get real right here, right now."

"Johanna—"

Niijima tries to do the smart thing—run back to the entrance with Sakura hanging off her back, riding her Persona through the paths in the maze from which we'd come, all the way to freedom. But you don't summon a magic bike outta nowhere without drawing attention, and Dante catches wind of it so quickly I'm sure if he isn't stopped we're fucked—

"Blackbeard!"

Lightning comes down from the heavens and very nearly fries both myself and Dante—I'm fortunate to have moved outta the way in time, but Dante isn't. Not that that matters—though his coat is burnt and a little singed along the edges he's otherwise unharmed. Sakamoto grabs a steel pipe from the piles in the floor and runs over to Dante while screaming. Doesn't get him far at all. Backhand sends him into a wall.

Dante rushes onward but Takamaki's Persona dashes into him shoulder-first, and it very nearly causes him to budge. One shoulder barge from him to Salome's chest and Takamaki feels her sternum cave in, even though no bones are broken whatsoever.

"Cendrillon!"

Again, massive steel blades come down, but they come down faster now, so fast not even Dante gets out of the way in time. They dig into the lapels of his coat, because Yoshizawa knows if she can't hurt him, she might as well keep him from getting to Niijima.

I turn to Takamaki and we both nod.

"Salome!"

"Satanael!"

Hellfire and cannonbolts rain down upon Dante, the force of a thousand pounds of lead from the underworld joined with a geyser of flames that would cause sixth-degree burns in seconds. Sakamoto pulls himself up from the pile and quickly gets the message, calling upon "Blackbeard!" once more.

Cendrillon piles on dozens more swords at the spot where Dante remains standing as Blackbeard hurls hail wrapped in thunder. The sight is a massacre that causes the floor and the junk lying on the floor to crater and burn and crack in two right then and there. His body, we see in flashes of lightning and shadows in flame, for the smoke and debris we kick up throughout this mess obscures us from him. We pool our efforts into making sure this one asshole dies and stays dead and we try so goddamn hard our noses bleed and our eyes very nearly bulge out our heads from the strain. We can only hope that by the time we're too tired to go on, his skin is stripped down to his bones.

So you can imagine how we must feel when nothing happens to him at all.

He rushes to me from the cloud of smoke we wanted so desperately to have been destroying him in. Lifts me up in the air by my neck, and throws a single open palm into my stomach. I fly back so hard I'm embedded into the brick of the wall behind me, and I'm sure my spine's entirely demolished—for a good twenty seconds, I cannot find it in me to walk or think straight.

But I can see just fine. Worst of all, I can see that we haven't even caused anything but tears in his coat.

Next up is Sakamoto, who receives a chokeslam which renders him unconscious. Yoshizawa doesn't fare much better, for in an instant Dante dashes right on over to her and swiftly chops her neck—thankfully he doesn't behead her, but he does knock her out clean. Takamaki volleys more bursts of flame, out of desperation more than anything else, and of course he cuts through the fireballs as they fly at him in mid-air. Flurrying his coat he runs up behind her and brandishes a gun, mashing the butt into the back of her head. She crumples as well.

Guy turns to me, smirking. "What now? Is the Devil's chosen just gonna sit there and watch all his friends get decimated by a half-breed?"

VICTORY CRY.

My spine reconstructs itself as I reach my arms out to the bits of the wall that haven't caved in, and I use that to propel myself forward. I stumble a little but my nerves repair what a hospital visit won't, and in seconds I'm standing again. I spit out a tooth and I'm just about to say Satanael once more—

BOOM

It hits me, for I've been too drowned out by the fight to really pay attention to anything else outside of here. I hear a pounding noise. Brick and mortar and glass, smashing to pieces. One after another. Sound's so loud I can hear it through these cement walls, feel the ground beneath my feet tremble. They get so loud I fear they might be right next to me now. Which they are.

BOOM

The wall in front of me caves open, boulders and brick and mounds of stone flying at us in clouds of rubble. A walking atomic storm creates craters in the ground, the path behind her marked by broken-open walls. The blue flames covering her whole body die down 'til they're just coating her hands. Niijima glares at Dante, eyes burning — though they're typically a reddish-auburn shade they are now a dazzling neon shimmer, just like her hands. When she speaks it's like seven thunders have all uttered their voices.

"Get away from them."

"I don't sense her," Dante smiles. "You got her out. Nice!"

"JOHANNA!"

Bright and blue and blazing and I'm sure I've developed some form of cancer again, world all but shifts as Johanna charges right for Dante, burning nuclear flame blazing ever brighter the more it comes and all Dante does is bring his blade down the second before it hits him—

BOOM

I'm stirred awake and I see clouds of all-consuming smoke.

I pull myself up like I've had the worst nightmare of all time, except this isn't a nightmare whatsoever.

The piles of junk that had been strewn about on the floor, since the beginning? All rendered into ash, for at least a thirty-foot radius. World's turned black and any sconces that provided lighting on the walls have died. Leaving me in a world covered in irradiated smoke that fogs my vision. I see a shape lying on the ground next to me and I dare kneel to see what or who it is.

"Niijima..."

Unconscious. Covered in soot. Lying on her side, exhausted. Her eyes are half-lidded and when she breathes she wheezes, so I pull her right up and hold her in my arms.

"D-did we... do it...? Is he...?"

"I...," I look around, see no sign of him, "I-I don't—"

She then closes her eyes, and her limbs drop down, and she drifts away in my arms. Blood streams from the top of her head down to her jaw, covering her right eyelid, and the sight of her so limp and lifeless and dead stirs memories, memories of a corpse in my bathtub that I could do nothing for except—

"Niijima? Niijima!"

And I shout VICTORY CRY in my head, or at least I try to, because I get the VICTORY out but then I hear— "Calm down, she's okay."

"What—!?"

Face is kicked and I collapse to the floor, next to Niijima's unconscious body and whatever's planted itself on my back feels like a lead weight.

"I'm impressed, kid. Really I am. You managed to lead this motley crew of misfits all throughout this place. Gotta tell you…I'm glad you didn't give up when I kicked your asses just a few hours ago."

"You were holding back... the whole fucking time..."

"'Course I was. I wanted to see what you'd do. And you didn't disappoint."

No point in summoning Satanael. I'll lose.

Awfully hard to talk with someone pressing down on your center of gravity, from behind. But I have to try. "Let. Us. Go."

"It's my job to keep this place up-and-running. Give me a good reason."

"What the fuck do you want from us!?"

"What do I want from you?" Dante gives a jovial smile with the harshest eyes imaginable. "Nothing, really. You're just an easy target. You in particular, especially. After all…you're the weakest out of everybody on your team. You sold your soul to the Big Guy, and have enough power to blow up a monster thrice your size in an instant. You're willing to bleed and burn to get what you want, and that kinda recklessness is something everybody as crazy as you needs to survive, in this kinda world."

"Get the fuck off me and let us go—"

"But you're a coward, kid. Hate to say it."

"Shut the fuck up—"

"You're the kind that thinks power is everything. There's so much you can do, but you're too afraid to even try being anything more than what you say you are. You're so afraid you have to have your friends with you every step of the way. But hell, it's a start I guess. But do I see you keeping this up?"

"LET ME GO YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT I NEED TO SAVE HER!"

"No," he grunts, kicking me so hard I all but fly into the wall behind me, which has been weakened such that bricks fall and pelt me. "No, I don't see you keeping it up at all. I see you falling back into the same trap people like you fall into, all the time."

In sheer blind hate for the creature standing before me I rush in to punch him, thrice across the face, four times in the abdomen, and each time I do my hands shatter more and more. One punch from him and I'm back on my knees again, coughing blood out my mouth.

"See? You're angry at me because I'm tapping into everything you don't wanna listen to. I know all your secrets, kid. I'm like six steps ahead o' you. Mind games!"

I summon Satanael and fire at this prick and he dodges every shot and he kicks me upside the head. I feel my face being speared, because I see Dante impaling Satanael right through his skull and all I can do is scream because I've been stabbed in the face with a blade that's as big as my skull is—and he whirls around and squats down and looks at me disappointedly.

"I know someone like you. Or at least...I knew someone like you. You lose something precious to you...and then it feels like nothing else matters until you get enough strength to never lose anything again. What are you so afraid of losing, kid?"

"RRRAGGHHHHH!"

I rise and tackle Dante then, shoving him to the ground and smashing at his face with utterly broken hands. The more I punch him the more the bones in my palms splinter, but the more they splinter the more I throw them forward. A dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand punches, I don't know—by the time it's over half my fingers are gone and my palms are bent into themselves. Dante's face bears no bruise nor scarring—all the blood that's been spilt is mine. And there's a lot of it, everywhere.

Dante raises his brow. "You done?"

And I collapse, falling down on my side into piles of ash.

I breathe through cracked ribs. I see through eyes that just wanna be closed forever. I see Makoto Niijima, lying unconscious on the ground right in front of me. I try crawling over to her but I lose all energy the second my hand grips the brick.

Suddenly a green light flashes overhead. In seconds my bones repair themselves. My fingers regenerate. My teeth set themselves back in place and all the wounds that poured over my face seal up entirely. None of this is of my free will.

"Have a few spares. Good to see it works on humans." He sits me back up, and though all my wounds are healed everything on me still hurts. "Easy there. I'm sorry for hitting you and your friends a bunch. But I was losing you. Had to get your head on straight. Let's get your girl in the room. It's where all your other friends are."

"Wh...what...?"

He carries Niijima over his shoulder, wandering over to the bedroom containing the Will Seed.

Everyone's lying unconscious, in the room that Futaba Sakura had been kept in. All of them, lying against the wall, sleeping while sitting upright. Takamaki nuzzling Sakamoto's shoulder. Yoshizawa lying on Sakamoto's lap. Sakamoto himself snoring his life away. The cat's opened skull lying in Takamaki's lap, the rest of its body practically draped over her leg. Everybody's covered in ash. Dante lays Niijima in the bed Sakura had been in, and turns to me as I trail slowly behind him, too exhausted to stand upright. Carrying a green star in his hand he fills her with the same kind of light that healed me just moments ago.

Dante lets me go to her. I kneel down and grasp her hand, and I think to myself how happy I am to see that she still breathes. I think to myself how she could have died multiple times throughout this fucking mess. How she and everyone here have done so much, for my sake and for Sakura's—while anything I've ever done has been purely for myself.

"Wanna get something off your chest?"

My teeth chatter as I clutch her hand even tighter. "I'm a failure."

"What else is new?"

"Every time I try to do something good for people I fail. Or I make things worse. Or I drag them down to places they never should've come close to, to begin with. I can't help anybody. I'm only—if, if ever I try to help people I fail. I just... I'm the Devil. How could I ever be of use to anybody?"

"So just 'cause you're the Devil, that means everything you do will lead to disaster? Sounds like the perfect excuse to be an asshole to me. I mean, I'm half-demon. I still try to be nice. Most of the time."

"You're a fucking video game character."

"Now that's just racist."

I get up and shout right in his face, "SHUT THE HELL UP—"

He flicks my forehead, causing me to rear back. "You shut up. You sound like a little kid. No. Worse, you sound just like my brother."

"Fuck off."

"Fine. You're the Devil. You sold your soul and now you're his manifestation on planet Earth. Hallelujah God help us all, the Anti-Christ has come and he'll kill everybody and anybody in the whole wide world. But aren't you supposed to be big on choice? And free will? I'd assume that's why he chose you in the first place."

"This isn't a matter of choice—"

"You know you're talking stupid. If there's anything at all you do have control over, it's yourself. You can't control what people throw on you or what people do to others—but you can control how you react to all that. You're telling me the only choice you can ever really make is to do terrible things to people? That you've never done a good thing for anyone in your life, that actually made things better? Then why do your friends even follow you like they do?"

"They only joined up with me to save Sakura."

"Oh I'm sure that's part of it. I'm sure another part of it's 'cause they're scared of leaving you by your lonesome. That girl—the one with the bike, the one who punched me. You care about her, don't you? You care about her so much you rammed one of your demon-things into me when I so much as got close to her. You think she wouldn't do the same for you?"

"She..."

She would.

She absolutely would.

She just did...moments ago.

"Aww. Little Lucifer Junior's scared of losing his friends." He stands up then, latching his blade on his back. "You are gonna lose 'em, you know. Long as you keep at it those kids'll slip right through your fingers. I don't know who hurt you, I dunno what compelled you to sell your soul. But none o' that matters. You're gonna go down this road, at least know what you're gonna leave behind."

I get up, glaring at him all the while. Hands tremble because I don't know if he wants to fight me, if I can even fight back. "Was all this just to knock some sense into us?"

"Hey, you're the one callin' himself the Devil. I wanted to see how far you'd all go to save this girl. Wanted to see if you had the strength and the heart. And you do. You and your friends, you got heart, kid. Open it up a little more and maybe, just maybe, you won't lose them. And stop crying. Not around me. Devils never cry."

I'm about to tell him I'm not crying, but I've got streams comin' out my eyes and I rub at them furiously once I let myself feel them. "So what now, are we gonna—are we gonna fight again?"

"Fight. Is that what you call the last ten minutes?" he chuckles. "I think we both know how that would end."

"So what now...?"

"I'll let you go. Once all your friends wake up, that is."

"Okay."

"And I'll help you."

"You'll what?"

Whirls around to me. "You wanna steal the Treasure. You went to great lengths to get this far. Would be a shame if somebody got in the way of all your progress. I'll help you. If..."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I growl.

He pulls out a golden coin from his hip pocket. "You guess heads or tails correctly."

"Can't you just let us—?"

"Guess correctly and I help you," Dante says. "Guess incorrectly...and I leave you to her mother."

All our efforts. All up to chance.

All up to hope.

Here goes nothing. "Heads."

Faces me. Coin on index finger and thumb joint. Coin flips before I can even call heads or tails. I look at the coin as it flips, carefully and precisely—I let go of fear, I let go of anger, I think of what I'm looking at right here and right now. Coin's golden. Twirls in the air. Time seems to slow down, just for me. Or maybe that's just adrenaline keeping my nerves on unbelievably high alert.

And I see.

And I realize it's too late for us if I'm wrong.

Coin lands in the palm of his hand.

Emblem that pops up is a silhouette of a girl, waving a pair of guns around.

"Looks like it's your lucky day, kid."

"You fucking bastard. The coin was double-sided."

"Well, it's a good thing you picked heads, then," he pats me on the shoulder.

.

.

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Final chapter for the arc coming next.

Happy New Year, hope you like it.