As he went through the entrance gate of Santo Cielo, he could see a bright colored red and orange flame and a pool of black smoke above coming somewhere from the middle of the town. He quickly stepped on the gas and the blaring red sports car disappeared in the distance, towards the burning building.
Back in the orphanage, the unit leader and his assistants started to warn everyone to leave. "Everyone, we would like to ask for your cooperation! Please leave this place immediately! Residents, who live near the orphanage, take your necessary belongings immediately and evacuate to the marina bay area until further notice!"
But the firefighters warning were ignored. The crowd started to protest.
"Excuse me, would you please tell us what happened? Why do we have to evacuate?" one of the residents asked
"It's just a simple fire! Nobody lives that near the orphanage anyways! Why do we have to go as far as the marina bay? It's useless!"
"Rather than telling us to leave, why don't you work harder to extinguish the fire?!"
"Yeah, don't be so busy babbling to us that when you realized the whole Santo Cielo had turned into ash!"
The firefighters and the unit leader gave up. They went further away near one of the trucks.
"It's no use, sir. They won't leave!" one of the firefighters spoke up "Let's just tell the truth to them, sir!" the other added. But the unit leader shook his head.
"No, we can't. It would create even more chaos... Besides, I already call a special backup unit. He will arrive in a few minutes"
Just after the unit leader finished speaking, they heard a smooth sound of engine coming. They looked up further beyond the crowds, and saw a white-haired man clad in red driving an AC cobra.
"It's him" the unit leader spoke up.
The man somehow made his way through the firefighters' area and met up with the unit leader. The unit leader took his helmet off and gave a friendly hug to the white-haired man.
"Dante! Long time no see, man!"
"Hey, Enzo. Long time no see too"
Enzo grinned. "Where have you been all these years? You suddenly disappeared from Santo Cielo and leave those poor ladies alone! And my, you're looking dandy all right!" he said, giving him a friendly slap on the back.
"We'll catch up later, Enzo. You can't be possibly calling me all the way here in this kind of place only for an idle chat, right?"
Enzo slapped his head "Aaah, yeah… right, right. We'd better off to business, shall we? Here's the deal, some demons are here inside this building and one of our units got a hunch that those things are the ones causing fire. I heard that you're the right person to turn to for dealing with this kind of err… thing"
The white-haired man, Dante, took a deep breath and brushed his finger on the tip of his nose "Yeah, I can smell it. Wait here and you're your men to keep extinguishing the fire from the outside, I'll go in. Are there any people left inside?"
Enzo turned to one of his men who went inside, his stare already signed enough that he's demanding for answer. The firefighter finally realized, and quickly answered with a nervous voice "Oh! Um, I… I'm not sure, sir … b-but I think saw a few children left… and uh, some were dead, sir. I, uh, reckon that they're being murdered by the…. uh, demons"
Dante's eyes turned wide. He quickly dug through his pocket and throws his black Sony Ericsson away to Enzo, who barely manages to catch it. Had he missed an inch, the phone will land on the wet asphalt-coated ground with a crash and might possibly break into pieces – he knew how brute his old friend could be. The ex-mercenary then grabbed a hose from a fireman, soaked himself wet enough and dashed inside the building.
"Sir! I-is that… okay? I mean, he entered the building without any proper protection!" one of the fireman protested. But Enzo just smiled "Nah, I've known him for years and trust me, he's not an ordinary man. He isn't the type who will die that easy"
Inside the burning orphanage, Dante tried to find his way to reach where the demons are located. Along his way, he found dead children on the floor. From the way they look, they seemed to be brutally murdered by demons. Dante cringed at the sight with disgust and quickly turned away. He pulled out Rebellion from its sheath and continued his search.
"Damn, I have to find them quickly. I hope I'm not too late…"
He then walked further into the building, keeping his senses open so that he'll be ready to attack whenever a demon appears. Just when he was about to go further, he heard a scream. His eyes went wide and he quickly ran towards where the scream came from. Just as he thought – it's the demons. They were apparently attacking a helpless child until Dante came. Blood spattered everywhere, and it seemed that the others were already killed before Dante came. Just as one of them was about to give a final blow to the child, he slides through from the door and kicked the demon so hard that it ended up thrown away to the fire and soon disappear into ash. Seeing that the newcomer is a threat for them, the pack of demons starts to attack. Dante quickly swung his Rebellion and sliced them. After making sure each of them dead, Dante quickly approached the child that was attacked by the demons. He felt his heart burning as if a sword just stabbed through, seeing that the child turned out to be a little girl that seemed no more than four years old, and her shoulder-long hair was completely soaked with blood, making it turn into a blackish red color. He looked around, and saw that the other children were dead. She was the only survivor.
"Hey, are you okay? Can you hear me?" He asked, panicking. He shook the girl a little, and he was relieved to see the little girl's eyes open and she was still breathing. But of course, she was weak and hurt badly. Worried that she might ended up dead if it's too late, Dante sheathed Rebellion on his back, took the girl in his arms and dashed to the exit path.
I hope I'm not too late…
He suddenly stopped when he realized that blood is dripping from her hair and showed a bit of her real hair color.
It was a strand of silver, just like his.
