A/N: Welcome to the next chapter of Feathers on the Red Wing! Yeah, power to the Hell-Gates, baby! And remember 'IN DA FACE™' can solve all of your trouble in exchange for receiving ten times more!
For disclaimer see the Prologue.
Izumo Inn, room 205, 8:23
Yesterday was pretty interesting day, so, despite her habits, Miya overslept and now was lazing away in the bed. First there came Uzume's Ashikabi, a man named Dante and they introduced each other. Well, before dinner he was just a little bit of smart-mouth and they talked just for a minute. Nothing she could handle, in usual condition. But then, once everyone except Matsu and Kagari came for dinner, it all had spiraled downhill pretty quickly. Dante was sitting there showing off his naked torso, she was sure that few times he twisted specially to show off his flexible well-toned muscles in sexiest way possible… Damn it, she caught pervy disease. Therefore Matsu needs to get her punishment. Anyway, that was just a beginning! Whenever she tried to discipline him, he only mocked her and looked almost bored on her tries! Looks like Seo's rock only going to be used on Seo and she need a new one, about five times bigger for Dante. He is tougher than Seo, so it's only natural. When he revealed his heritage and weapons Miya was quite surprised, but when she saw the last Devi Arm she almost heard the cries of neighborhood about getting rid of her household because of extreme noise... And that's how he destroyed her favorite ladle! She was trying to get revenge for her poor ladle for three hours, which was very exhausting. In the end the two of them made a full round trip and came to draw for that day. She showed him the room in which he would sleep at the end of corridor and then went to her own bed. She was so sleepy, so that she changed into her purple silk nightgown in a trance and dropped her head on her soft comfy pillow.
Such were yesterday events, which left Landlady of Izumo Inn angry at her new occupant and exhausted her quite much. But after all of that for some reason she had the best night of sleep she could remember in years. Thinking once again contently of this fact Miya rubbed her big, warm, comfy, smooth and tough pillow…
"Wait a second, warm, smooth and tough…" – Miya suddenly froze in shock as she thought about her current sensations. Then she opened her eyes and saw a picture that she thought about. She was hoping that she was hallucinating or still dreaming, but seeing all details of Dante's sleeping face so clearly Miya completely confirmed reality of her current situation. She was sleeping on the left arm of Dante, in his room, while rubbing his chest with one of her hands. On his right side was Uzume, also sleeping and dressed in tiny pink negligee with frills. Miya didn't like to look like hypocrite at all, so she very carefully stood up and silently exited the room. In doing so she missed a moment at which Dante opened one of his eyes and smirked.
When Miya carefully came down to the first floor she released a relaxed sigh. She hunched her shoulders a little and felt herself a bit calmer, until she heard soft male voice.
"Good morning Miya, what were you doing on the second floor?" – Kagari, the last of her occupants, who wasn't at Izumo Inn last evening. It was a slender man of average height with delicate face features, short and messy silver hair, and light brown eyes. He was dressed in black trousers, white shirt with black tie and was holding black jacket in his hand. That man also known as No.6 Homura, Sekirei Guardian with the power to create and control flames. Right now he was surprised to see his Landlady, Miya, a very strict person with fixed timetable as still dressed in her nightgown with slightly unkempt look and walking down from the second floor way past her usual wake up time. He decided to elaborate on his thoughts about this matter until he saw the look in her eyes. Miya stared right into his own eyes without any kind of feeling on her face or usual dread aura when she tries to discipline him or other occupants. To Kagari her eyes looked like an impassive stare of death piercing right into his soul and judging all of his actions in life. Yeah, he was really freaked out at that moment and when she emotionlessly spoke to him he made sure to remember every word.
"Kagari. Forget everything you saw that morning. Forget it." – As frozen in terror and sweating bullets as he was, Kagari wasn't able to move a single muscle until only after a few minutes since Landlady moved into her room to prepare for the day. Then he dropped to his knees and started to breath harshly.
"I thought I was going to die! Okay, Homura, hold yourself together, deep breaths… I need a smoke." – After thinking that he took out a cigarette out of his shirt's pocket with shaking hands and has gone to a garden for a quick fix.
Meanwhile Miya tied her hair and dressed in her usual attire for the day. Just to keep some sense of normalcy after meeting yesterday thatman she has gone off to prepare breakfast after couple of minutes of breathing exercises and short prayer to her late husband shrine. But on the way to kitchen she heard a voice that already managed to become the bane to any semblance of normalcy in her life.
"…yeah, and no olives… Cool. Do you accept cards? Alright, now here is the address… Yeah, I'm waiting for your guy." – That was Dante… talking on the phone… ordering take-out. It took all of Miya's willpower to not go and try to strangle that man for daring to even think that she would allow eating junk-food at the breakfast in exchange for her home-made cooking… or at the lunch… or at the dinner.
"Dante-san, what are you doing now?" – At that Dante turned around and saw Miya looking at him with demure smile, half-lidded eyes and throbbing vein on her forehead. Dante was dressed the same way as at yesterday's dinner – only his ragged pants and his necklace, giving her perfect view of his body. This time she wasn't distracted by his lecherous appearance at all, because no one will disrespect her cooking skills like this, she would make sure of it!
"Oh, Miya, good morning. Nothing is better to start your day than get some spicy pepperoni in your gut, don't you think so?" – As soon as Dante dropped the phone he turned to her with his infuriating smirk. And when he noticed Miya, his smirk got only bigger, as if he was doing it on purpose to taunt her. But she is a proper Lady, so she would give out punishments on her own terms. Yesterday doesn't count. It was her duty to take revenge for her favorite ladle!
"Dante-san, eating pizza for breakfast is bad for your health. We at Izumo Inn care for the health of our occupants. Disregarding that notion will earn you a punishment." – After that Miya brought out her favorite trick, with thick aura of dread and big demonic mask with bleeding eyes and mouth, despite knowing perfectly well that this wouldn't work on this particular man. But for Dante this was not a joking matter. His pizza was on the line and they may even bring it without olives! So he started shaking his head disapprovingly while adorning calm expression on his face.
"Tch, tch, Miya, that's still below eight. But if you insist so much I will show you how it's done." – After that Dante was covered in aura of blood-red color, emanating hatred, bloodlust and despair… mostly bloodlust. His eyes shined with dull red light and behind his back appeared big shadowy demonic figure with eyes shining with bright red light and rows of fangs in its mouth highlighted from inside by dull crimson light. While Dante was staring down Miya, his demonic shadow was staring down her mask. Miya has felt pressure of dread coming from Dante and it was quite a bit stronger than the one coming from her. But she would make it. No one would be eating pizza for breakfast on her watch!
Their stand-off continued for a few minutes. They were staring at each other eyes with serene expressions on their faces, while blinking simultaneously and missing the gathering of other occupants. Matsu, Kagari and Uzume were huddled together in far corner of the hallway and trembling at that display. Someone decided not only to defy Miya, but also to one-up her in intimidation show-off! In their opinion it was one of the most terrifying scenes of the century. Aside from incomprehensible terror there were few thoughts racing through the minds of audience.
"That man is dead… so dead…" – Kagari haven't met Dante before and he didn't want to be a witness to the brutal murder. Oh, thee of little faith…
"There're two of them now… There're two of them now… There're two of them now…" – Matsu was totally terrified and wanted only to get away as far as she could from this competition. Also she wasn't brain-type Sekirei for nothing and suspected what was the reason for Miya's wrath. And she doesn't wish to know what Miya would do with her for giving Dante info on pizza-parlors and one of credit cards made by sucking funds from Uzume's MBI card.
"Wreck-balls… Diamond wreck-balls…" – Uzume was awed by her Ashikabi's awesomeness and, thanks to few tiny upgrades from having benevolent demonic energy coursing through her body, was somewhat resilient to the effects of Death Void's appearance. She was mostly affected due to the force of habit.
Out of five people not a single one moved from their spot. Tension was growing with each passing moment. No one knew how it will end and if Izumo Inn would survive these two coming to blows or if their lovely house would perish in the wake of destruction.
They thought that it would never end, until there was a knock from the Inn's entrance. In this terrifying silence it sounded like thunder, startling audience, yet gaining no reaction from the competitors. Or that was until they heard young male voice.
"Pizza delivery! I have four extra-big spicy pepperoni without olives for Dante-san." – At hearing that Dante lifted his own oppressing aura. Though his shadow was still as intimidating as before, and still scarier than Landlady! After all of visual effects on Dante disappeared, he addressed everyone.
"Oh, pizza came! Hold the fort for me, buddy." – After that he slapped shadowy figure on the shoulder a couple of times and have gone to open the door. After hearing slaps audience got surprised enough to partially replace their fear of Miya with that. But not completely and there still was a demonic shadow in the room. So for the couple of minutes nothing changed, until Dante came back, holding the stack of four pizza boxes on his left hand. He was opening the uppermost with his right hand and checking contents with satisfied smile, taking deep sniffs from time to time and releasing happy sighs after each one.
"Mhm, spicy pepperoni without olives, life is officially good. Thanks for the help, buddy." – After that he high-fived his shadowy helper while walking beside him. The loud sound of their hands slapping and disappearance of Death Void brought everyone else out of shock, while Miya turned off her own intimidation aura and hanged her head in defeat. But suddenly she sprung back up with image of fire burning in her eyes.
"You shall have your victory today, Dante-san, but this is far from over! No proper lady shall lose to such an uncouth and troublesome man as you, and I will make sure that you would be thoroughly disciplined." – Yeah, Miya definitely not a person to easily give up, even when she is clearly outmatched. And the audience of this stand-off… They sweat-dropped at rapid changes of usually serene Miya's expression from defeated to a bitter acknowledgement, then fiery determination, and, for the last, gleefully sadistic. Each of them had their own thoughts about this.
"Fuck it all, I'm too tired for this shit, I'm going to sleep…" – For Kagari this situation was clearly troublesome and totally not his business. So he has gone off to his room with image of pure exhaustion in his posture.
"It's like a soap opera… merged with horror show, but still this would be fun. I wonder what Dan-tan will do next and how Miya-tan would take it… Ufufufu…" – Matsu was tearing apart between the ideas of enjoying the fireworks and building a nuclear bunker in preparation for them. She was coming closer to the first. Time would show if that was a wise decision or not.
"That was so cool! And we got pizza, yahoo!" – Uzume was very optimistic about everything. Also she came to conclusion that her Ashikabi can be scarier than her Landlady. Earlier thoughts of anyone being scarier than Miya were considered sacrilegious, now it was a proven fact. Also, Dante is too awesome to just try and scare the crap out of her for his own amusement and some other petty reasons. So everything was looking up on this morning!
The rest of the breakfast was peaceful. Miya, Matsu and Uzume joined Dante for pizza breakfast. Even though Miya didn't like the taste of defeat, flavor of pepperoni managed to offset it nicely. Matsu silently hoped to see continuation of fireworks, while dreading it at the same time. And Uzume simply enjoyed eating pizza together with Dante. After she fed him one slice from her hands Miya didn't release a single twitch of her eyebrow, so she stopped that. Strangely, it wasn't fun enough without Miya's reprimands.
After breakfast, where all pizzas were eaten (full circle for each one, Dante was staring accusingly at girls, but didn't say anything) everyone got to their own business. Matsu hid in her dark room together with her monitors, Miya started on daily house chores and Dante with Uzume came to her room.
"Well, Dream Girl, I'm going to use that fun little thingy and get myself new clothes for today. You know, demonic express is such a low-class thing, I didn't even have a chance to pack my toothbrush." – While saying that he was putting on t-shirt that Uzume got him yesterday and showing plastic card he got from Matsu. It was quite tight-fitting, perfectly showing his muscles, as if he wasn't wearing anything. Seeing that picture, Uzume drooled a little and didn't answer him. – "Hey, Dream Girl, don't fall asleep on me. What are you going to do today?"
After that Uzume snapped out of her day-dream and focused on Dante. She embarrassedly giggled a little, while rubbing behind her hand with one of her hands. After that she realized that Dante asked her a question, to which she didn't answer. She gathered herself and spoke.
"Oh, well, I still need to get some materials and new leather for repairing your coat. I think I can make it as good as new by the end of the day." – At that she gave him victory sign with bright grin. And Dante nodded with his own grin.
"Nice. Uzume, you really are a Dream Girl. Want to go out now together, or do you need anything else?" – After that Uzume shook her head and continued her previous speech.
"Sorry, Dante-kun, I need to check your coat out for the damage." – At that Dante nodded and moved closer to Uzume. And when he placed one of his hands on her cheek she felt herself melting in his touch. And then it was followed by a kiss.
Uzume thought that the time when she winged herself on him felt incredible, but it was nothing compared to this kiss. In her bliss she didn't notice how she clasped her arms around his neck, or how she opened slightly her mouth allowing Dante to play with her tongue, or how he moved both of his hands to massage her back slightly. She just felt so good, as his power washed over her.
While Dante was also quite enjoying the process, he didn't blank out nearly as much, taking notice of how wings of white light, looking like they were made of wide silk ribbons slightly swaying in inexistent wind. Also there were sparks of red electricity running through her wings, which he recognized as his energy in her system. After little less than a minute they separated, though they were still holding each other in embrace.
"By the veil of my contract, My Ashikabi's nightmares will be dispelled." – In a light trance Uzume recited her Norito and after that her wings disappeared. She was smiling at Dante.
"Will there always be lightshow with a kiss?" – Dante silently asked Uzume a question at which she lightly giggled.
"Yeah, it sure will." – After that they just stood there for a few more minutes, just like that. With a sigh Dante broke out from her hug and exited the room. Uzume pouted at him, but he just waved his hand with a little smile on his hand. When Dante closed the door behind him, she sighed and smiled contently. – "Well, I guess I need to fix my boyfriend's clothes. Let's do it!"
After a few more minutes, on the streets
"Well, I'm on the streets. What's next?" – After silently saying that Dante took on a thinking pose. After a few minutes he clicked his fingers. – "Strawberry sundae break! Now, to find me a nice place…"
And so Dante started to walk around the city, looking for a nice place to sit back and eat a couple of strawberry sundaes. While on the way he looked around the streets. Advertisements of food, beer, new mark of diapers… Yeah, lots of junk today is getting advertised. Well, back in the nineties it also was like this, just less space was used for that. Much less. Like damn, whenever you look, you would see a new commercial. Dante didn't pay this much attention yesterday when he was bringing Uzume home or running away from Miya, but now, when he is bored and there is no hot chick cuddling up to him or chasing him with a sword out… He got a freaking headache.
"Damnit… I feel myself old as dirt. I definitely need strawberry sundae break!" – Saying that Dante once again psyched himself up and continued on his way, ignoring colorful and plentiful boards on buildings' walls.
After about an hour he didn't find any place where he could get a strawberry sundae. This was madness! No demons to kill, nagging Landlady (though it's kind of fun to mess with her), Vergil once again got lost somewhere, no strawberry sundaes and all of that while he is sober! That's it, if he wouldn't find himself a strawberry sundae in next ten minutes, he goes to closest bar and get shit-faced drunk.
While thinking like that he almost missed two girls that were – what a surprise! – advertising a café. Few facts made these two stand out: gathered crowd of onlookers, sexy maid outfits and they're twins. Well, also they're Sekirei, but that was hidden fact. These two looked absolutely the same except for two details. First, one on the left was wearing magenta colored maid uniform and one on the right dark-violet in color. And second, girl in darker outfit got massive knockers, unlike her twin with modest-sized chest. The shared parts of their looks included long black hair in the same style, amber eyes, average height and sharp face features. All in all they looked quite stunning. But something about these two bugged Dante, so he closed his eyes and concentrated for a couple of moments. As soon as he done that he felt their energy signatures clearly, they were unlike others he felt before. It was like they were in a process of digesting a meal, while it left slight traces…
Then he got it. It was how Sekirei winged by pureblooded humans felt, because on average human energy was much less potent than devil energy, they dissipated it quickly inside of them and it boosted reserves of their own energy in a way that eating healthy meal would help a starving person to gain strength. But devil energy behaved more like a complex of a healthy diet, exercise and rest under supervision of personal trainer. At first they would feel the same and with work both can bring great results, but the longer it should go on the more stark differences shall be. At least it was like this according to Dante's meager experience and extremely experienced gut senses, but who knows. While Dante was going through his thoughts, he managed to come closer to these girls.
"Greetings, sir, come today to the opening of our new café!" – Busty girl in violet gave him a pamphlet while addressing him and smiling. Well, business is business, so Dante took that thing, even though commercials irritate him as of late.
"Sure thing, Ladies. Do you serve strawberry sundaes there?" – At that he made sure to give them his most charming smile. Even if they're taken, they're hot twins, damnit! As he guessed (he was hoping to be wrong) they didn't pay to him any attention, except for polite smiles and answer from second girl.
"Of course, sir, as a qualified family establishment we got wide variety of desserts' choices, including strawberry sundaes." – At that moment she redirected her attention from giving out balloons to him. So as not to be rude he thanked her.
"Thank you, Ladies. I will definitely visit your fine establishment." – After that Dante gave them an elegant (somewhat) bow and has gone to mentioned café.
There, when he entered, were quite a lot of customers, but there still were enough empty seats for him to get comfortable. Soon the moment of truth will come. And on that moment hangs a great decision. Should he get shit-faced drunk and face the music, or maybe he could accept this city as his new base of operations – with all of its boring and fun moments. For now fun moments prevail, but until he finds Vergil and some demons to kill these moments wouldn't last. Nothing gets blood flowing through your veins as a good fight from time to time. But now, he must ascertain something as important as previous two tasks. In some matters that was even more important. And, thinking about that he made his order.
"Now, let's do this…" – Such were the thoughts of Dante as he looked at a big portion of strawberry sundae, standing before him on the table, with a look of absolute concentration. After that he took one spoonful and looked at that as if trying to make a spectral analysis through his eyes. And finally, he tasted his treat.
"Appearance… check… strawberries… check… syrup… check… ice cream… check… temperature… check…" – After running these thoughts with spoon still in his mouth Dante slowly moved his lips in a big widening grin.
"The best freaking sundae I ever tasted!" – Such was his exclamation and it caught attention of few other visitors and couple of employees. – "Looks like I'm going to be a regular here."
In a few minutes Dante exited the café in much better mood than before. And like that he was walking through the city streets. And while doing that he appeared in deep thinking.
"Now I've got my strawberry sundae break, what was there next? There should've been something important…" – While walking and thinking like that Dante looked on himself.
"Damn it, I don't look stylish at all! I need to fix that and quick." – With that thought in mind Dante has gone off to look for a clothes store. After some time he found big mall, which suited his needs just fine.
After about an hour he came out on the streets with completely new look. Now he was wearing black tight-fitting turtleneck, dark-red vest closed by few leather straps instead of buttons with high black collar, black leather gloves, dark-red and less baggy than before pants and black leather boots coming little below his knees. (A/N: his anime outfit without coat) In his right hand he was holding couple of bags thrown over his shoulder.
In less than a minute of him walking the streets Dante stopped when a limo pulled over right next to him. When there opened a window closest to him, he whistled.
"Well now, as soon as I get a wardrobe change, Ladies start to pick me up from the streets. I always knew that good style can create miracles." – Such was a reaction from Dante at seeing an attractive grey-haired woman looking at him from a limo. Even though, she looked clearly older than him, that didn't decrease her attractiveness. Hearing that, she scoffed at him.
"Don't flatter yourself, lover-boy. Now hop in, we need to talk." – Seeing no apparent reason to decline, Dante opened one of the doors and settled himself comfortably across from the woman. Dante idly determined that she was wearing lab-coat over business suit, which hid her figure rather well, even though she has good figure and a C-cup at least. After limo started to drive she continued to speak.
"You made quite an impact with the Director when you shut him off so abruptly yesterday, Dante-san." – That was the first thing that she told him. In response to that Dante only raised an eyebrow. Not getting an answer from him, she sighed and elaborated her statement. – "CEO of MBI, Minaka Hiroto, he was talking to you through a TV?"
"Oh, you mean that totally talentless TV-host? Yeah, his show was so boring and I didn't found a remote. So I had to deal with TV-set. My bad. That was a reflex." – At the end of his speech he raised his hands eliciting a small chuckle from woman across him.
"Yeah, he can get that reaction from people. I'm Sahashi Takami, head of the Sekirei Plan. Minaka is my only superior in MBI." – After she introduced herself Dante still had the same impassive look as ever. Really, there is not much they could do to him, if anything. The only problem would be Dream Girl, he feels himself attached to her even if they didn't spend a lot of time together. But if they would be stupid enough to threaten her, than they would find out why no one messes with him except his friends (It's called friendly teasing in pretty wide definition of words)… And demons. Demons are pretty stupid when it involves him.
"Ho? And what Miss I-am-almost-head-of-super-corporation would want with one modest me?" – Dante didn't change his posture or expression at that. As before, he was lounging on his limo seat with his legs crossed and stretched, his arms thrown over the back of the coach-like seat. Seeing that, Takami scoffed at Dante's laid-back attitude in this situation.
"Cut the crap, from what we managed to notice from your short talk with Minaka you're anything but modest. He didn't have the time to tell you all of the details. Have you spoken to No.10 Uzume about Sekirei, Ashikabi and Sekirei Plan?" – While at first Takami glared at Dante, that didn't get any kind of reaction from him. He looked bored at everything. While Takami was asking him her last question, she was frowning at him being also insufferable, kind of like her Boss, but spewing much less crazy bullshit. Instead of that he is concentrating on corny jokes.
"Aliens, lovers, till the last one standing remains. Or something like that." – Dante waving her off was quite irritating. But dealing with Minaka could be much more annoying, so Takami held herself back with trained expertise. After taking couple of deep breaths she took out and lighted a cigarette for herself.
"In a nutshell… yes, though you forgot a secrecy part. I would like to know what your plans with Sekirei are. You see, me and that crazy bastard Minaka don't have the same opinion on the matter of Sekirei. For him it all is just a sick game that he enjoys. For me it's a colossal work to integrate Sekirei into human society, which was mostly ruined by Minaka. And then we have you… You're completely unknown person, with incredible physical abilities, who happens to be one of the new Ashikabi. That's all we got on you so your appearance in the Plan may have great consequences. If you don't like, how Minaka treating Sekirei, then I could help you. So what do you say?" – While that speech made Dante contemplate a few things, that was still a lot to take in, even though he already was neck-deep in this situation. But his gut feeling was silent, so even if she was bullshitting him, she was a master of the art. And that would be the first time someone managed to completely bullshit him, at least without Dante suspecting anything.
"I don't trust you, but you don't look like you're trying to pull my leg, so I'll bite. For now my only plan is to make sure that Dream Girl would see the end of this whole mess. Well, at the moment I'm in the good mood, so you're lucky. I may help with some troubles for rather simple fees, if I would like your request." – At that Takami raised an eyebrow. Something bugged her about his attitude, but she would need to find out more about him before coming to a conclusion.
"So you're a mercenary? I can deal with that." – At that Takami nodded and took out something out of her pocket and then threw it at Dante. He easily caught that object and looked at it. It was a calling card. – "Once you get yourself a phone, contact me and then I would be able to give you a job. For now, stay put."
After that car stopped somewhere close to Izumo Inn. Once it stopped, Dante opened the door and exited.
"Hey, Dante." – After that he looked at the limo for one more time. – "Take care of her."
Once Takami said her parting words, limo sped off towards city centre. Dante held a small smile at his face.
"Yeah, maybe I really would take your job offer."
A/N: Aaaand here is the wrap. I know that there are not enough action scenes, but what can I say? The plot for now thickens, devil brothers get to know random and not so much characters and simply to have fun. But for how long they could get to experience calm days?
And yeah, I know that in Izumo there are only four rooms on the second floor, including Matsu's hideout, but adding one room and Matsu's plot to have some money for life is not taking it too far, I hope.
As always, leave your reviews, they're lifeblood of this story and me!