And I have returned at last with an update. Booyah. Go me...ahem. Given that I have time and a desire to write, I should probably be getting these up more often cuz I now have my own comp and can't be kicked off.

I have to say BIG BIG BIG THANKS to all the reviewers. Damn. For something that started as just a random battle with the Sparda boys, I am incredibly surprised and thankful for all the reviews I've been getting for this.

You guys ROCK!

Anyway, hope this is somewhat worth the wait.

Enjoy.

One Will Fall

Chapter 6: Amnesia

The alarm clock blared off and on for half an hour before the sleeper button just wasn't a viable option anymore and Dante finally answered the clock's irritating beep with his fist. Like hell he was going to let a piece of machinery dictate his actions. He wasn't getting up any time soon. His pounding headache, aggravated to the max by the alarm, told him as much. He turned over and was just drifting back to sleep when a ringing began. He flipped over angrily, swinging his fist back at the alarm clock, but realized as he opened his eyes a crack and saw the smashed buzzer and clock face, that the alarm was very much dead. It had lost the battle with his fist very quickly, but the ringing was still going on.

Dante scrunched his eyes, grimacing as his head told him he had moved far too quickly given his state, and he slowly sat up, looking around him, figuring the ringing must therefore be the phone—which had to be somewhere on the floor considering his bedside table was empty, save for the broken clock and a lamp.

His room swam when he opened his eyes full and he fell back onto his elbows, feeling the solid bed rock as if he were floating on the sea. Through his hazy stare, he managed to make out the shining cans of 40s on the floor. His headache must be due to a massive hangover. Wonderful. He didn't even remember having drunk a thing; not that he expected to anyway. Happy hour was always a bit foggy.

Not really able, or wanting to get out of bed, Dante was glad when the phone stopped ringing. He wouldn't have to sift through clothes and garbage on his bedroom floor to try and uncover it after all. He dropped his elbows and flopped back onto the pillow, noting again that fast movements were not advisable. He let out a deep sigh and shut his eyes, sinking his shoulders into the mattress, getting comfortable.

The phone rang.

"GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING HELL!"

Dante shot up from the bed, keeling over onto the floor, wishing in an instant that he'd stayed lying down, or had at least used his "indoor" voice. His ears rang and he grumbled low as he rummaged around for the phone cord. His hand clamped around a wire and he yanked hard, meaning to pull the jack from the wall. Instead a lamp came crashing to the floor. Wrong wire.

"Fuck." Dante growled and the phone rang away. He angrily tried to haul himself up off the floor and his hand landed in a pile of clothing and slid off something hard and smooth. The ringing stopped. He fingers closed around the phone's receiver, which he'd knocked off the hook and he raised it to his ear, falling back to rest against the side of his bed, his head on the mattress
"What?" He asked in a clipped tone.

The person on the other end gave an annoyed sigh and launched in on him. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WHAT'? I have been trying to call you for three days, Dante. Where the HELL have you been?"

Dante grimaced and pulled the receiver away from his ear momentarily, gripping his forehead as the pain intensified and then dissipated back to an annoying throb. Three days? "Who is this?" he asked, his brow furrowed. Apart from recognizing a woman's voice, he had absolutely no idea who was yelling at him.

There was silence on the other end, the woman apparently at a loss for words out of angry disbelief. "Who is THIS?" She asked slowly and finally, her voice rising at the last word.

"Christ yeah," Dante said in growing annoyance. "Are you my fucking echo? Who the in the hell is this?"

"WHO IS THIS?" The woman shouted. "I leave for a couple days and you already forget about me?"

"Forget about you?" Dante did have to admit that the voice was familiar, though it had a harshness to it that he didn't recognize, or had rarely heard before. "I know you?" he asked wearily, wishing the woman was speaking much softer to him.

"Of course you know ME. Gods. What's wrong with you? Have you been drinking?" she asked in an accusatory tone.

"No," Dante said quickly and then he remembered the cans. "Well…maybe," he corrected. "I don't know. Probably…Possibly. It's a possibility, I guess."

"So you don't know."

"Um…No?"

"Is that a question?"

"No. I mean—I don't know if I've been drinking. I can't remember."

The woman snorted. "Great. I leave you for three days and you decide to go on a bender."

"Hey," Dante snapped. "I wasn't on a bender." He tried unsuccessfully to convince himself that he hadn't been drinking. The theory was hard to dispute. He WAS having trouble remembering anything besides his own name. Even his room, he suddenly realized, was a little foreign to him. "Three days?" he asked, more to himself, than the frustrated caller.

There was a sharp sigh on the other end of the line. "Yes. Three days, Dante."

Dante blinked, focusing his gaze on nothing in particular as he looked towards the wall from his bed. "Three days," he repeated. "But I don't remember anything."

"Yeah. I think you've made that pretty clear by now, Hero."

"Hero?" Dante furrowed his brow.

The caller was obviously exasperated. "You really don't remember anything, do you, Dante? How many brain cells did you kill when you were drinking?"

"I didn't drink!" Dante was almost certain of that now. Yes, his head throbbed, but it just didn't feel like a hangover. And besides, his bladder wasn't on the verge of exploding, so he must not have consumed very much alcohol. And three days of it would more than likely have caused him to live beside the toilet. He didn't feel sick; achy all over, but not nauseous. "I didn't drink," Dante repeated more calmly, more certain of his statement. "I didn't."

"Oh. So now you're sure," the woman said shortly.

"Yes."

"So you know you didn't drink. But you also don't remember what's been happening for the past three days. What's wrong? Did you finally get lost in your own little world, son of Sparda?"

Sparda Dante scowled—this woman had to stop whipping off names on him. "Look Babe," he said testily, "As much as I love being bitched at over the phone by some anonymous woman who seems to think I know her, I would much rather ACTUALLY know who you are if we're going to continue this happy little discussion. So let's just cut the PMS fest for a sec so I can at least catch your name."

The woman on the line huffed loudly into the phone. "This is Tr-" The name was cut off by a dial tone.

"Hello?" Dante shouted at the buzz and then slammed the receiver down, this time managing to pull the right cord out of the wall. "Thanks for calling 'Tr,'" he muttered. "What the hell was that all about?" He growled and got up, shuffling through the mess on the floor to the bathroom. The tiled floor was cold but he ignored it and bent over the sink and splashed water in his face. He looked at himself in the grungy mirror. His eyes were slightly sunken and his lips were chapped. He dragged his fingers through his mussed hair and they got stuck. He winced and untangled himself, knowing that besides suffering from memory loss, he'd at least seen better days.

"Man. I look like shit," he commented as he exited the bathroom and shivered, feeling a draft from the window. He rubbed his arms and noticed that everything seemed a little breezier than usual. He looked down and scowled. "And I'm naked," he stated rather matter-of-factly. "Why does it not surprise me that I don't remember why that is, or why I didn't notice until now?"

Dante rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh, looking around for clothes. He glanced at the ones on the floor and turned his nose up at them. He moved to the dresser. Of course the drawers were empty. It seemed all the garments that were in them had somehow managed to migrate to the floor. The devil hunter slammed a few of the drawers shut and turned his attention to the closet where only one outfit hung on a sagging metal hanger.

"What in the hell…?"

He lifted the hanger off the bar and brought the clothes to the bed. Laying them down, he got a better look at them. These are mine? He raised an eyebrow and took the red pants of the hanger and held them up to himself, checking the length. They look like they fit…He checked all the other garments in a similar fashion before finally deciding they were fine to put on.

After slipping everything on from the hanger, he went to the bathroom and looked over his appearance as best he could in a mirror that only went to mid chest. The cold floor reminded Dante that he still needed something to wear on his feet, but he was satisfied overall by the clothes, though they did seem a kind of odd attire for strolling around in public or shopping for groceries. But they felt comfortable and somehow right, so Dante didn't harp over the look. Besides, he had to admit that he looked and felt remarkably kick-ass in them.

He walked back into the bedroom and found what he was looking for stuffed in the back of the closet; a slick pair of black leather boots. He smiled and stuffed his feet into them, leaning off his bed to lace them up and then he stood, shaking himself off. He grinned again. Yeah. He felt good. And the headache was thankfully going away. Either that, or he was feeling better enough to just ignore it.

Moving out of his room, Dante stopped dead in his tracks and his jaw dropped to his shoulders. He gaped around the front room he'd walked into, his wide, pale eyes passing over the weaponry mounted on, and jammed through demon heads as sort of hunting trophies on the wall.

"What the fu…" he trailed off, moving closer to a specific sword hanging on the wall; a large black pendulum blade, veined in red. Immediately the name Sparda snapped to mind and Dante blinked in surprise, running his hand along the smooth blade. The son of Sparda... He grabbed the hilt and scooped the weapon off the wall, his gaze sliding over the surface of the blade. He tilted it towards the light to see its glisten and raised it up and down a few inches, feeling its weight. He swung out his arm and spun on his heel, doing a 360, slicing the blade towards the floor and lifting it just before it hit. He stood again and whipped the sword through the air, making figure eights in front of him, watching the blade move. This felt right too—and all too familiar.

"This is some freaky shit…"

Well that's it for now kiddies. Don't worry, the Sparda boys WILL be reuniting, but first poor Dante has to remember who the hell he is…how sad. And then we can get back to the brotherly love and battle sequences from the previous chaps.

So Stay tuned for more. And of course:

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