Hero of Remnant: Veil of the Aether

by Aetherveil

Following after the events of the Volume 3 Arc, Dante, and his partner Inuba travel across Remnant to make their way to Haven, searching for clues that will lead them to the real mastermind behind the attack on Vale 6 months prior. They will meet allies, both old and new, and face challenging new enemies on their journey. Secrets will be revealed. Continuation of Hero of Remnant.

83. Chapter 83: Dark MoonLight

I lived biches.

Jokes aside, lots of stuff happened, so let me give you the SparkNotes version.

If I didn't mention it before, I've been in Europe living with relatives for almost 3+ years now. Covid fucked me over hard with work, so I was in a desperate struggle to find a new job. Was suggested to me that I go live in Europe with my relatives and try my luck there. Short story long, luck was not good. Worked at a TV News station for more than a year, left because of internal problems (namely people being shitheads and management not paying me four months straight), and tried finding more work.

Failed really miserably in that regard. Afterwards, family drama began stewing for a long while which led to a falling out (they're really unbearably fucking ignorant and pretty damn stupid), where I got blamed for bullshit either not my responsibility or that had nothing to do with me. Essentially I said "fuck you and fuck this" and decided more than a month ago to come back home to the States.

Thus, as of last Friday, I have returned, reintegrated, and most importantly, finished the chapter after what seemed like forever.

Not gonna lie, shit has been emotionally draining.

So yeah, that about wraps it. I've said it one too many times, but I'll say it again anyway. Sorry for taking so long.

Enjoy.

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Chapter 83: Dark MoonLight

«»

---

- Nearly two years ago -

"So in other words…"

"In other words…" The Queen, currently in her human form, crossed her arms, "It can be dangerous, even for you. I know you're the kind of person that cares about others, but please…" She reached a hand out to touch his cheek, stroking it in a loving manner with a worried look, "Be aware of what limits you do have. Promise me that you'll never burn yourself out."

"I'll…" He clasped her hand touching his face, "I'll keep that in mind."

She sighed, certain he would at some point in the future forget her words of warning. Even so…

The young woman glanced down at the ring on her finger, a smile quickly forming on her face as she placed her other hand on her cheek. The Queen was still drinking in the reality that in a few months time, she would be married. Anya snapped out of her daydream when she felt a slight pinch to her rear, making her gasp as she jumped away.

"W-What are you doing?!"

"Ah, well… You kinda had a look on your face that pretty much said 'pinch me, I'm dreaming', so…"

"Y-You..!"

The young woman used her inhuman speed to crash into the devil before he could flee, and after taking him down, she tickled and pinched him relentlessly.

"Take this! And this!"

"S-Stop!" He said between laughs and winces.

"Accept your Queen's punishment, heathen!"

Try as he did, Anya was physically stronger than he was given she was a Queen class. That, and she was really doing her best to keep him pinned to the ground without breaking it.

"Take this! And this!" The girl said between laughs, continuing her "brutal" assault.

Unbeknownst to them, Belîa had entered through the backyard door and walked in on the sight of Anya straddling the devil. However, she did not see the ruthless tickling and pinching beforehand, thus…

The knightess awkwardly cleared her throat with a slightly reddened face, "Er… Your highness..?"

Anya ceased her rampage and froze in place for a few moments, then turned around as if she were a creaky mannequin.

"I-I understand child rearing is one of the duties of a married couple, but…"

"T-That's not it, Belîa! I-I was just tickling him! That's all!"

"That's a dirty lie!" Dante immediately spoke up from the ground, forcing himself to well up some tears, "She… She just came out of nowhere..! Forced me down and..! And..! Tried to rip off my shirt..!"

From what the giant woman could see, his shirt had indeed been lifted above his chest, his well toned and fairly muscular body on display. Aside from being impressed with his physique, seeing the "scene of the crime" was enough to make her look worried.

"M-My Queen…"

"He's lying, Belîa! Honest!" A very flustered Anya professed her innocence, soon turning back to bonk the devil on the head, "H-Hey you..! Don't just say things like that out of nowhere!"

"Gotta live life with a little spice…"

"That's way TOO much spice!" The queen answered the devil.

"T-Then… The two of you were not mating..?"

"N-No, Belîa! We weren't!"

"We totally were. Way to ruin the mood, Jolly Gi-ack!"

Before he could finish, Anya placed him in a headlock to prevent any other words from coming out of his mouth. Strangely enough, he was giggling gleefully now.

"W-Wait your highness! If you squeeze too much, he may go down a dark path and start enjoying it! I've heard of human males who derive pleasure from pain like this! That's why..!"

"He may be a freak of sorts, Belîa, but he's not on that end of the spectrum!" She looked down at Dante, still rather enjoying the situation while making the most of it, "At least I hope not…"

"Spank me harder, momm-eck!" Yet again he was interrupted by the girl.

"W-Will you quit it already?!" She tightened her headlock again, "She's seriously going to start getting the wrong idea!"

Within struggling gurgles, Dante tapped Anya's forearm three times, signifying his surrender. The queen gave a questioning tilt of her head, and the devil reaffirmed by trying to nod, this prompting her to slacken her hold. Inhaling a quick breath of air, the young man sprung up onto his feet in an acrobatic fashion, then leaned backwards as he fell into a chair at the wooden dining table.

"Jokes aside…" He rubbed his neck, "What brings you here on this lovely Friday, Belîa?"

"Ah… Right…"

The Embered Knightess stood up straight, both hands behind her back as she gave her report.

"Worldwide, we've made great strides in eliminating any Sleeper Strongholds belonging to the Fourth King, therefore severely limiting his points of entry anywhere else in the World." The light blonde knightess explained, "As such, his only choice of entry will be at most five kilometers outside of the city through the rift that's steadily been cracking open."

"It hasn't closed in the slightest?" Anya asked.

"I'm afraid not, my lady. Despite our best efforts in constantly swapping out our best mages, we've only managed to halt the cracks from further widening. It will only be a matter of days before he steps through with his forces."

The queen sighed, "I suppose it was too much to ask to completely shut out my father and sneak in from a rift of our own elsewhere…" She then looked to Dante, "How goes the collaboration between Akihito and Blanc?"

"The Eihei Nine and Central Kingdom's R&D Division have been working hard to fuse their respective barrier tech and magics together to set up hybridized 'totems' all around the city that'll reach all the way underground." Dante explained, "From what I've gathered, not only will the city be safe on the surface, but waterways underground will be safe as well, so food and water production will be protected. Worst case scenario, we can withstand a full-on siege for as long as we need to if we need to retreat and recuperate for a while."

"Good." The girl nodded, "Then all we need to do is finalize positions and compensate for quickly moving our armies in the event they attempt to mass teleport closer to the city. Normally I can 'jam' the area to scramble any attempts of usage of enemy teleportation, but if I'm preoccupied…"

"The Kitsukami Clan and Inuba can handle mass teleportation of our forces in that regard." Dante explained briefly, "We just need to hit them as hard as we can as soon as they step through. Wipe out as much of the Lesser force as possible to whittle down their attack force to just their Higher Class. Then, our forces can retreat further to the backline to support us from afar while 'we' take care of the rest."

"Wasn't our initial plan to directly assault the Fourth King?" Belîa asked the devil.

"It is, but we can't expect smooth sailings for a bum-rush right off the bat. Even if it does turn out to be that easy, we shouldn't trust it. Just because we want to crush him as quickly as possible doesn't mean he won't try to do the same either." Dante shrugged, "Our first priority is to deal with whatever comes out of that rift in a manner suitable to the situation. Of course, that's what we need to do if we want to minimize loss of life on our side as much as possible."

"Essentially, we react to the situation accordingly depending on what comes out." Anya said.

"And with our lineup, we can react to just about anything, offensively or defensively. They need to be on-the-fly this time around. Regardless of whatever strategies and counters we make now, we need to be prepared for the possibility we can be countered in return."

"Keep things continuously fluid and in-motion regardless of what we may face. I see…" Belîa nodded, "Should we spread out more evenly then?"

"I would say so, but not too far apart. We still need to be close enough to aid each other as needed." Anya said, crossing one leg over the other, "But I agree with Dante's plan. If we're unable to break through their lines and directly assault my father, then we should regroup and whittle down his forces until it's virtually just him left. We swap out our forces as needed to give people breaks and heal any injuries they may sustain."

"As for us… I think if we encounter the remaining Lords, we shouldn't hold back to conserve our strength. We pull out the stops, even for just a moment, to outright crush them and move on." Dante added, crossing his arms, "Though to make that more realistic… We'll probably need you with us rather than on the frontlines, Belîa."

"Hmmm… I… I'm inclined to agree, but…"

"Our frontline power is already strong as is, especially considering the Eihei Nine and the vampiric Four Night Clans led by Rosswal will be aiding us in the battle as the main bulk of our forces." Anya said, "As I understand, each of the Captains of the Eihei Nine are strong enough to defeat a Lord. The same can be said for the Three Elders, Rosswal, and his sister Sirin. Honestly speaking, Belîa… The two of us could use your help more than the front lines could."

"If that is your wish, your highness, then I will accompany the two of you and ensure nothing stands in your way."

"Excellent." The young queen proudly placed a hand on her hip, "Then this shall be our plan of attack going forward. Any objections?"

"Nope."

"None, your highness."

"Good. Then with that, the meeting is concluded. Unless there's other business..?"

"Er… None." The giant knightess saluted her queen by bending her left arm and bringing it up to her chest horizontally, her gauntlet loudly clanking against her breastplate, "If I may, I'll take my leave."

"Very well. I'll see you in a few days then."

Belîa then nodded and disappeared in a brief flicker of azure flames, leaving just the queen and the devil alone together once more.

"Hey… So… It's pretty much the end of January, right?" Dante asked.

"Well… It is the 28th, so…"

"Er… I was thinking…"

"Something you happen to do a lot of."

The young man smirked with a light scoff, "After all this nonsense is over… Would you maybe want to hold the ceremony on the 14th?"

"Valentine's day?"

"Or you know… maybe in June if you're trying to go with the whole 'June Bride' angle…"

She laughed briefly, "Have you been reading bridal magazines lately?"

"S-So what if I have? I'm just trying to take this seriously, since…"

"I know." She sat in the chair next to him, resting her head on his shoulder, "That's why I appreciate your effort all the more. And to answer your question… I do like the idea of hosting it on the 14th, since it's a day of expressing love and bringing individuals in love together. Maybe we might inspire some other individuals in attendance."

"Maybe. Though… It'd be a little freaky if it turned into some weird, mystic orgy."

"Yes, because of course something like that will happen." Anya rolled her eyes.

"You never know. What if we start giving off some intense, magical pheromones that'll get everyone around us in the mood?"

The girl squinted her eyes, actually considering the possibility of such a thing occurring. She was a Queen Class, and nothing was exactly "impossible". Even something as ridiculous as "mystical pheromones" that would be strong enough to get everyone in the building in "the mood" could actually be possible depending on how heightened her emotional state would be.

As a Queen, she had a "charismatic" effect on those in her vicinity that would either calm their fears, or inspire an intense surge of unwavering vigor and valor to help them fight on. This "charisma" would be especially more potent on those loyal to her. As for those who love her… perhaps the effect was even greater.

On the flipside, she was still a female Dark Entity, and as such, possessed "charming" capabilities similar to the "charming" effects of succubi. Given she was a Queen, well… such "charms'' would be even greater. Aside from her "charisma", this too was "powerful" in its own right. With either, she could convince just about anyone and anything to do her bidding if she so pleased. However, she knew the dangers of utilizing them in such a way, "especially" if she were to "charm" people.

That's why she vowed never to unfairly use such "traits". If she was to gain something, or convince someone, she would do so with her words. Or in some more extreme cases, display her strength as a Queen to make others kneel, should they lean more towards actions over words.

As for love… that too would be accomplished through her own merits.

"Then it'll be a Valentine's day miracle worth remembering." She answered with a faint laugh.

Dante laughed in a manner that could only be described as wicked. In the span of a few seconds, he imagined hundreds of different scenarios, each one over-the-top and wild, the scale of events ramping up and only making him laugh harder.

"Honestly…"

"I'm sorry… The thought of something like that happening…" He pointed ahead briefly, waving his hand soon after as he placed it on his chest, still laughing, "It's too wacky..!"

"A mass orgy at a wedding is only considered wacky in your book?"

The devil calmed himself down, wiping the tears from his eyes with a sigh, "I mean… Eh-heh… It's so unnatural and something so far-fetched that it can't be anything but wacky, right?"

"In a way, you're right, but… Oh, nevermind." She shook her head, "Honestly… What's to be done with you and your sometimes twisted imagination?"

"Tie me up and spa- Ow!" The devil sang in a higher tone as the young girl squeezed his body tightly in a deathly hug, "I was kidding..!" He said in a strained voice.

"Maybe you are, but if people hear that sort of thing, they'll think I'm sort of strange… dominatrix! Or something worse!" She said firmly, still squeezing despite the devil tapping out.

"Sorry..!"

She sighed and loosened her grip, still holding on enough to hug him normally.

"Y-You should know full well by now I'm not that sort of person…"

"You never thought about it? Not even once?"

"Thought about what?"

"Being a dommy mommy?"

"N-No!"

"Come on. Absolutely beautiful, pretty commanding at times, an actual Queen… Never even crossed your mind once?"

…

…

To say she hasn't at least a few times would be a lie. But to preserve the sanctity of her image, she would never admit to it.

"N-No."

"Alright then."

…

…

Maybe she would try it at least once…

Just as the thought popped into her mind, she immediately shook her head, burying her face in his arm. The duo were already "very handsy" with each other as it was, and Anya wasn't sure her heart could handle being even "spicier". Not now, at least.

…

…

To hell with it…

"W-Would…"

"Hmmm?"

"W-Would you like me to d-do that..?"

He was quite surprised by her sudden and earnest question, unsure of what to say at first as his mouth was agape for a few moments.

The devil then cleared his throat as he looked in the other direction, "M-Maybe… once… B-But only if you'd like to…"

She hugged him a little tighter, hiding her face as well, "T-Then… maybe once… after we're married, since… it'll be somewhat fitting…"

"O-Okay…"

And like that, the young couple continued to sit like that in contemplative, awkward silence for a few more minutes, both the Queen and the devil imagining their future together and the certain excitements involved in that future.

---

The young devil was able to relax given that the small aircraft had an autopilot function and had already locked in the coordinates to their destination. Even so, he kept his eyes peeled on the snowy terrain as the aircraft quickly zoomed across the terrain, not taking a single moment to blink.

"...lord?"

He was deep in thought, or rather, sifting through some memories. He was thinking of the few days before the battle, the battle itself, and the dreadful end to it all.

"Young lord."

When he reached the battle between the Fourth King, himself and Anya, he replayed the events like it was a film, slowing down everything to carefully analyze everything. The strength of his magic, the force of his strikes, his various ranges… Anything that would be useful. He wouldn't have as big an army, and his power hasn't returned to its peak yet, so all he had to do was bulldoze through anything in his way.

"Young lord!"

"W-What?! Are we getting attacked already?"

"N-No, you weren't responding, so I thought something may have been wrong…"

"I'm good… Was just deep in my head…"

"Preparing battle tactics?"

"In a manner of speaking… I'm more or less preparing for a future one."

"The battle with the Fourth King?"

"Pretty much…"

"If I may ask… What should we expect from the current enemy?" Xīn Huá asked.

"Don't know."

The martial artist looked at her Wielder with a confused glance, only getting a shrug from him.

"Considering I don't exactly know which Lord we might be up against, it'd be a little pointless of me to hand you the Official Guide. That's why there is no 'sophisticated' plan until we encounter them." Dante explained, "When we land, we tear through whatever's down there. Considering Four Eyes showed that both Grimm and Minor Entities were attacking, I'm certain there'll be an interested third party wanting to join in on the party."

The girl's eyes drifted off to the side for a few moments to ponder his meaning, but remembered certain detailed reports Valâr had relayed to her as her eyes lit up.

"You mean them?"

"They've been staying out of the spotlight for the last while now, but they've been around, watching. Especially one particularly irksome lizard…" The devil rolled his eyes, "Either way, I asked Arkiel to head back to bring over Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Weiss, since currently everyone else are doing missions or other work."

"Would that not be a while?"

"I gave her an Aura Blade to stick into the ground as close to the settlement as possible without getting noticed. So all she has to do now is zip on over, round them up, and zip back to the planted sword."

"While we handle the Lord, they'll essentially cover the rear in the event the interlopers decide to take part in the battle."

"Correct. All we have to do is focus on our query."

Dante looked out the window once more, seeing the settlement in the distance covered by a blue barrier, while explosions and azure flame filled the air outside.

Looks like Belîa is dunking on them hard… And she's probably not even tired yet… I swear, she'd make a T-Rex cry if she glared at it…

Dante smirked as he undid his seat buckle, "Ready to go?"

"Ready, young lord."

"Cool. And I'm not a lord. Just Dante."

"Sorry."

With a brief apologetic bow, her body turned into a burst of Azure Aura and merged with Dante, who then pressed a button on the console to make the cockpit slide back. He then stepped onto the edge of the open cockpit then leapt out, flipping in the air twice as he oriented himself properly, feeling the cold air rushing past his face. Taking a good look at where the azure flames continuously burst, he spread out his arms and legs to slow down a bit and move his body in the direction he wanted to. After adjusting his determined trajectory, he brought in his arms and legs and shot forward like a missile, summoning Navâra to his left hand.

Belîa meanwhile was decimating scores of Grimm and Dark Entities, dozens either blown apart by the sheer force of her sword strikes, or turned to smoldering ash by her azure flames. When a Major Ursa charged her from behind, and stood up on its hind legs, Belia stood back up herself, almost towering over the creature. As it swiped at her, she punched at it, her smoldering, black bone gauntlet simply burning and blowing apart its arm until she reached its face. Her whole hand grasped almost all of its face before she squeezed, bursting its head between her fingers like a crushed watermelon. Before it would vanish, she grabbed its other arm, set its entire body ablaze, then slung the body ahead as if a catapult loosed a fiery boulder.

Once the blazing body crashed into a sizable group of twenty Grimm and Minor Entities, it then exploded like a devastating bomb, destroying about fifty creatures. The devastation did not end there, for the flames of the explosion fanned out and caught other creatures on fire, making them burn to death rather painfully.

It was after this that the combined forces of the creatures halted their assault against the stalwart knightess, who had exterminated many of their forces either through brute force or her deadly azure flames. Having a moment to herself now, she let out a long exhale, her heated body giving off traces of steam against the cold air and snow. Her empty left hand reached up and wiped away the faint trace of sweat on her forehead, fingers brushing against her horns as they remained there for a time.

In terms of shape, they were fairly normal, but very rare among her kind, emerging from the top edges of her forehead. Others had some sort of twist, or bend, or malformation, but the knightess' black horns were straight and smooth, having a glossy sheen to them as they very slightly folded back towards her head.

They were shaped like diamonds, but the tips were elongated to about a foot long and were flat on the back. It was as if the horns were a part of a tiara, especially considering there were thin black bands stretching from the pointed inner tips above her forehead, moving inwards in a straight line before bending upwards a little and meeting at the center to form a sort of line-triangle that folded against the center top of her head.

On the front side, the horns were four sided, the four edges forming a center just above her wild, light blonde hair. However, those four-sided centers glistened with a mix of azure and black aura, like gems encompassed in thick black edges. In addition, she had two smaller horns that were shaped more like diamonds, and were in line with the outer side tips just three centimeters away from the main horns.

Another aspect her horns had were the traces of wispy black Aura constantly flowing out of them, taking various shapes and flowing differently depending on her emotional state.

People used to say she didn't have "true" horns like a Dark Entity should, and for a time she was ashamed of that fact. Given her larger stature and imposing presence, most would assume she had nothing to be ashamed of. Her more than normal height, her slightly muscular physique, her horns… Despite the impression people had of her, she was actually more emotionally sensitive than she'd like to let on.

Only two people have ever called her beautiful directly, something that stuck with her deeply. One person was the Queen she lovingly served, who particularly made note of how beautiful her horns were. The other… was impertinent enough to call them badass.

…

…

She smirked, eyes trailing upon the remaining masses of Grimm and Minor Dark Entities. In the past, these horns were a part of the shame she felt as a "person", but they were something of pride now.

Her gauntleted hand brimmed with azure flame, where she then rubbed it on the flat-side of her sword, slowly engulfing the massive blade in azure flame.

"Come at me, weaklings!" She roared, making some of the creatures flinch and step back at the sound of her loud voice.

Before any could make a move, a flash of white drew the knightess and the horde's attention to the sky, seeing something resembling a white comet coming down on them. Said "comet" crashed into the front row of creatures with explosive force, kicking up snow and rock as a wide, conical blast of white Aura tore thorough a huge chunk of their forces.

Belîa lowered her arm shielding her eyes, letting out a sigh of relief as she then called out towards the smoke encompassing the area in front of her, "Late! As usual!"

"A badass, is never late, ms. Knightess." A shining white and platinum edged sword cut through the smoke with intense force, pushing away the dust and smoke to reveal Dante, who slung his Blade Navâra over his shoulder, "They arrive precisely when they mean to."

The Embered Knightess rolled her eyes, remembering a certain film series the devil praised to high-heaven and forced her to watch by means of having lost a bet to him. A certain wizard spoke a different, but similar line, and given she too had seen the series one too many times than she would have liked, she couldn't help but feel a slight sense of annoyance.

"So? Who's the leader?" The devil asked as he turned to Belîa, who nodded towards a cliff in the distance.

Dante spun around, narrowing his eyes on the cliff in front of him, ignoring the creatures who heeled in his presence fearfully. Once focused, he confirmed what he was hoping wasn't the case. A pair of figures stood atop, looking down on the settlement, and specifically the devil, with fiery orange eyes full of contempt and disdain.

"Ah shit…"

"In a sense, we've drawn the short straw. However, I would argue we're a fairly competent pair ourselves. Even if their functionality as a pair is near perfect, we should manage." The Embered Knightess said, plunging her sword into the ground to rest her hands atop the pommel, "Rather, I can manage."

"Oho, high and mighty all of a sudden? I'm not so fragile, you know…"

"Perhaps not, but I see the signs of battle on you, and can smell some of your blood."

"Killer fishing trip. Caught a huge ass shark that tried to eat me."

"But of course. Because the terrain surely supports such creatures." The giant woman sighed, "We must clear the rabble before we attend to them."

"Couldn't you have wiped them all out by now?"

"Not without destroying the settlement, and not without expending a sizable amount of Aura. The key was to preserve enough to fight them head on, alone if need be."

"Alright then… Guess I'll take a crack at it."

The young devil cracked his neck by quickly moving it side to side, taking a few slow steps forward as he scanned over the remaining enemy forces. Grimm and Lesser Dark Entity all flinched and cautiously stepped back. Even if nobody else could see it, the creatures could.

Darkness in the shape of a man.

Alright Navâra… Ready to try out our new technique?

*But of course, good Dante! We shall put the very stars to shame with our brilliance!*

He smirked as he twirled his Blade twice, holding Navâra upright before he placed his whole right hand atop the flat side. A faint glow of platinum Aura emerged from his palm as he gently and quickly rubbed it across the sword, her edge shining brightly and brilliantly like glittering starlight. The devil slid his right foot back behind him, bringing his Blade across his body as he adjusted his aim horizontally.

"Starlit Edge."

He quickly slashed outwards with a blindingly fast strike, and instead of the usual torrent or massive, jagged waves of Aura was a very thin, and very long crescent of platinum Aura that swept through the two hundred or so remaining creatures like a flash of lightning. Their bodies had bright, glowing marks of white Aura passing through various sections of their bodies and arms due to the various differences in height, where some could be found at their necks or waists. Two seconds after the wave passed through the entirety of the small army of creatures, their bodies fell apart and exploded into bursts of black dust, their remains drifting away with the cold wind and snow.

Smirking proudly, he slung Navâra on his shoulder and turned around to look at Belîa, where he then quirked his eyebrows twice. The Knightess rolled her eyes as she walked towards him.

"Always the showman…"

"Life needs some excitement, doesn't it?" The devil looked up at her as she stopped at his side.

"In moderation. Then again… you never were one to do things in moderation."

"Yeeeeah, fair point." He answered with a slight tilt of his head, looking up again at the pair on the cliffside, "Well, let's go see if Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum will make things easy for us…"

The towering girl's eyes narrowed in confusion, "Those are not their names."

"Yeah, I know, just… Ugh… Let's just go already…" The devil started walking before he spun around and walked backwards, "Hey, Ray!"

The cat faunus peeked his head out the window of a broken down shack he had taken cover in to snipe any Grimm or Lessers trying to make a break around the sides, eyes quickly scanning the terrain as he found the young devil. He made a shrugging gesture, as if he was asking Dante "What?".

"Need me to come over and hold your hand for a bit to calm you down?!" The devil shouted back.

Ray pursed his lips as he shouldered his rifle, nodding briefly before he flipped off the young man before disappearing into the shack again, likely to take stock of his munitions. Dante smirked and let out a pleased, hearty laugh as he spun around and walked forwards again, skipping upwards briefly as he fixed his coat.

Now that he confirmed definitively who they were up against, a plan was beginning to form.

---

Snow crunched beneath the duo's feet as they cleared the forest thicket, a plethora of large pine trees between them and the settlement.

"I suppose separating them is out of the question?" Belîa asked.

"Naturally. The Felrôka twins may be bloodthirsty shitheads, but they're smart enough to know that once anyone figures out their 'special ability', they'd try to separate them." Dante re-summarized, clenching the fingers of his right hand a few times, "The illustrious Prince and I got lucky last time and caught them off guard for a split-second to drive them apart. And thanks to Anya, we managed to keep them separated long enough to kill them."

"Considering they're likely to bear a grudge, they'll keep the details of their previous defeat strictly in mind, and will do their absolute best to kill us. This won't be like before."

"You've got me and I've got you." He nudged the knightess, "We'll fuck em up no problem. And unlike last time… they'll stay dead for good."

"Soul Destruction… The one Trait that can kill our kind from Knight to King Class… A Trait that is exclusive to Kings. So you did obtain it." Belîa looked down at Dante as they walked together, "How did you manage it?"

"I copied it from Râum after I killed him."

"You killed the Third King?!"

"With help. But he got put back together and is roaming about with an archeologist."

"He's what?!"

"And he's got a kid with him."

The Embered Knightess stopped dead in her tracks, literally speechless at the sudden revelations.

"Dude, you're so out of the loop." The devil smirked, "Either way, he's not a problem anymore. I've got Soul Destroyer, and we can not only kill those dumbass twins, but Ogranîx too. Permanently."

The large woman exhaled sharply as she began walking once again, easily catching up to the devil in a few large strides. The thought of the Fourth King perishing… truly perishing… It brought a twisted sort of joy to her heart. She would have vengeance for her Queen. The young woman knew it was the same, if not more so the case for Dante as well. Whenever talk of the Fourth King arose, she could always feel the dark anticipation in him, something that betrayed his calm demeanor.

It was… eerie how he could do that. Put on a smile, play nice, be polite; in tense or heated situations where the other party clearly crossed a line, he could do all that and more, hiding darker purposes and intentions all the while. The majority would be none the wiser.

If Dante had lived a normal life away from all of this, Belîa would have thought the young man a talented actor.

"On the topic of the twins… How will we defeat them?"

"No choice but to brute force it, really. Axvâz specializes in offense, while Aurîl specializes in defense, however, that doesn't mean Aurîl is useless in terms of offense, or Axvâz is shit at defense. In short, you focus on the dipshit brother and butt heads with him, I'll take on the slightly sensible sister."

Sensible. Belîa could easily contend with the brother, as could Dante. He however decided to go after the sister, for like the Knightess, the devil knew Aurîl was the weakest link, in spite of her strong defense. With his experience, Dante could easily "smell" the weakness in an individual and capitalize on it just as quickly, or brutally. That's why he wanted to eliminate the sister twin first.

The duo stopped meters away from the cliff towering leagues above them, their gazes cast upwards as they awaited the twins to come down. Frankly, the devil was certain Axvâz wanted to look down on them a bit longer.

With his gloating done, the brother nodded to his sister and they jumped down, their descent quick and their landing destructive as they kicked up snow, and even numerous shards of rocks. The dust settled, and both Knightess and devil could see the pair clearly

They more or less looked exactly the same as they did before. Both were of a slender build with alabaster skin, where the brother had a toned build and the sister lean and slightly curvaceous. Some of their other characteristics matched; their hair was a blonde color, although the brother's was short, and slightly spiky on the top of his head, whereas his sister had longer hair that would have reached her waist. Her hair in the back had been tied up, and flared out on the sides of her head like a pair of wings halfway folded in, while her face was framed by her bangs, the ones of the sides of her face draped down past her cheeks, the ends flaring out slightly.

Their eyes were a matching crystalline blue, with even their facial features being similar, albeit the minute difference between male and female.

The theme of their apparel even matched as well, yet still had differences. The brother wore a sort of gray, form fitting bodysuit underneath, the sleeves ending at his elbows with ornate and elegant gold elbow guards, whereas the sleeves at his legs ended just a little beneath his knees. Black robes adorned his waist reaching down to his shins with a triangular cutout in the middle to reveal his legs, an intricate gold band around his waist to hold it up.

His shoulders and arms were draped in black cloth that was split into triangular flaps on his back, with golden arrowheads dangling from the tips. There was also thin golden armor on the top of his shoulders, extending towards and wrapping around the base of his neck. The back of his hands, wrist and forearms were coated with golden metal gauntlets, and his feet were adorned in flexible, gold sandals with straps and golden plates around his ankles and the back of his heels.

His sister's attire more or less matched her brother's theme, only she wore a sort of strapless, gray leotard that left her waist and hips exposed, as well as her shoulders, arms, and entire back. The only straps to be seen was the thick band on her back wrapping around to her fairly ample bosom, and the one extending from the front of her chest in a triangular fashion, wrapping around the base of her neck.

Her gauntlets were exactly the same intricate and elegant gold design as her brothers, as were her golden metal sandals, only hers were long heeled and thick. As for other armor, she had thin golden flaps on her hips, hollowed out triangular flaps wrapping around the sides of her upper thighs, diamond-shaped golden plates covering the sides of her upper arms, and a golden plating around her neck that reached down to cover most of the base of her neck.

She too wore some black fabric, but a lot less than her brother. A band of black fabric wrapped around her upper back, where the ends wrapped around her bosom in an upwards fashion and fed into her golden neckpiece. The other band of black cloth was thinner, but seemingly much longer as it looped through the triangular flaps on the sides of her thighs. They formed a sort of X formation on the front of her upper thighs, feeding into the golden flaps on her hips.

The last commonality in their attire were the black metal, laurel wreath headbands that wrapped around their heads, the brother wearing it in an upper diagonal fashion, while the sister wore it in a horizontal fashion to cover the entirety of her forehead. The design of the leaves though were a bit more twisted, kind of like their personalities.

With the way the two of them looked, one would assume they were a twin pair of dark, Greek gods, given how gaudy yet elegant their attire was.

"Well well, look at this, dear sister. It would seem the Embered Hound is on a stroll with the Black Devil!" Axvâz said with a disdainful scoff.

"It would seem so, dear brother. And I do quite hate the smell of dogs." Aurîl affirmed as she crossed her arms, her expression stone faced compared to her more expressive brother.

Dante smirked as he stepped forward, "I guess you two didn't learn your lesson from last time, huh?"

"Hah! If it was the old you, perhaps there may have been cause for concern!" The brother said, lifting his hand up briefly, "But you're nowhere near what you used to be from what I heard."

The devil did his best to hold back a laugh, his lips twitching slightly.

"Hit some rough patches. Starting over from zero and all that. But I've learned a thing or two here and there. That aside… Shouldn't you two freako's be off in some dark corner somewhere banging each other like a certain pair of Lannisters?" He fired back, "I mean, you idiots are crazy enough as is, but wow, you take freaky to a whole new level."

"Bastard! Don't you dare insult our love like that!"

"Oh, so you guys do fuck?"

Normally I could give less of a shit about something like that, but I need the shithead pissed off. Whenever he gets heated, he slips up. And if he slips up with Belîa… Off with his head…

"Pay him no mind, dear brother. He is only jealous of our love considering he only lays with dogs like that disgusting, ugly giant."

"Hah..?" The Knightess replied in a threatening tone with a tuft of azure flame frome her mouth, a vein throbbing on her head as she shot the sister a deathly glare.

"Alright alright… Now that we got the shit flinging out of the way… Why'd you two break off from the Fourth King?"

The twins looked surprised.

"Come on guys, I act stupid for fun, I'm not actually dumb." Dante raised a finger, "First, I never spotted you two when I first bumped into King Douchebag." He then raised up a second finger, "Second… Why attempt to build an Ascendancy Spire to try and rank up? Unless… loyalties have changed. So why split off? Tired of being under someone else's thumb like a good pair of bitches?"

Axvâz growled as his sister narrowed her eyes, replying with "Indeed, we were unsatisfied with not having freedom, so we wished to overthrow him. Hence, the creation of the spire was necessary in order to slay him so we could become the next King. The Fifth King."

Ranking up would put both of them on the power of a Lord. If they were to ever rank up to be a King Class duo… That'd be pretty disastrous… They thought if they got the Spire running, they could have killed him before he got back to his level of power, which frankly was a possibility. So they kidnapped Ray's sister to make the Spire as quickly as possible without having to waste their own power, selfish shits…

"Pretty ambitious for a pair of losers… Too bad I screwed up your plan." Dante shrugged.

"Indeed… Like the last time, you have become a thorn in our side. That is why… we will eliminate you here." Aurîl said as she swiped her left hand outwards.

A black, ornately decorated, lengthy broadsword trimmed with gold appeared in her hand in a brief burst of black and deep blue Aura.

"And after slay you and your Embered Bitch, we will hunt down the rest of your comrades and rip them apart as well!' Axvâz said, extending both arms outwards.

A pair of large, hollowed out black disks, also trimmed in gold like his sister's weapon, with handles formed out of a burst of black and deep blue Aura emerging from his hands.

The young devil sighed, shaking his head.

"How about you guys just go?"

His question caught them off guard, the twins looking between each other before they looked back at him.

"I mean it. Just… leave. Drop all this shit and go. See the world, maybe forgive humanity while you're at it. Live differently this time and not waste your lives."

"What the hell are you saying?!"

"I'm saying I don't want to kill the two of you again. It'll leave a bad taste in my mouth like last time after learning your story."

Yet again the twins were baffled.

"Oh yeah. I know. I know why the two of you hate humans so passionately. I know that five hundred years ago, the two of you were nobles whose house fell into ruin, made into slaves after your family was slain. I know the two of you were cruelly tortured, and that in the end, it was all so you could be given as 'delectable' offerings. In the end, all that happened was that the two of you made your suffering and their evil your power, hence your rebirth. Knowing all this… I wanna give you guys a chance. So pack it up and go."

Axvâz began laughing in a manner that could only be described as unsettling, while Aurîl glared daggers at the young devil.

"We do not desire peace, feeble devil! Talk of the past as you like, but we will never forgive humanity!" The brother spoke, his voice almost booming over the snowy terrain.

"Indeed! We will not rest until the humanity of this World… of any World, is put to the sword!" The sister spoke, taking a stance.

Dante inhaled deeply, his exhale of warm breath puffy with hazy white vapor.

"Too bad there won't be any graves for you idiots…"

The twins charged first with vicious roars while the devil dashed ahead after them, Belîa closing in from behind. Dante clashed with Axvâz first, smirking as he forced them to spin around before the young devil immediately pushed away and went after Aurîl, which caused her to stop dead in her tracks as she prepared to meet him head on. Meanwhile, her brother had to contend with Belîa, whose physical strength far outmatched his own.

She wasn't as fast as he was, but her strikes were still deadly; all it would take is one clean hit from the Knightess, and he'd be finished, regardless of how durable he was and his protections. Vâz had to dodge every strike by leaping or twirling over her massive sword, or taking steps back to stay outside her range. Just as problematically, her armor was thick, which made his physical counters a mere nuisance to her at best.

As for his twin, matters were far more balanced. If there was one thing Rîl noticed off the bat, it was that he wasn't sloppy like he was before. He was much sharper, fluid, and precise with his movements and strikes, and his control of power was far better. He wasn't swinging wildish, instinctual haymakers like he used to. His technique was actually superb. With all that in mind, she could tell he still wasn't taking her seriously yet.

He didn't need to.

While she was a little bit stronger and more reactive than last time, she wasn't putting up too much of a fight that required him to fight harder. But like her, he was simply testing the waters for the moment to see how much she improved her physically, and was waiting for her to use her magic, which was her "stronger suit". And so when he started pushing harder, she finally started to mix magic into her attacks with her limbs. Blackened fire, ice, and lightning emerged in various intervals, either through her free hand or her usage of her feet when there was less of a risk to lose either leg.

Navâra made it easier to slice through Rîl's magic that was Dark infused, considering the Blade was Light based. Even so, her flow was still hard to interrupt, and mere scrapes were starting to become more solid hits. Granted, it was minor damage at best, but the twin sister was starting to get quicker and more accurate, even incorporating some of her spells, like her ice, to use as a shield. She even coated her hand to use it as a sort of parrying gauntlet to glance blows. However, its defense was feeble when coming into contact with the devil's sword, and regenerating it was starting to become tiresome.

"Brother!"

Having his attention grabbed, Vâz dodged another strike from Belîa and lunged backwards, his sister doing the same with Dante. The twins' backs gently met together as they spun around, the two high-fiving each other as their weapons were swapped between each other. This immediately caught the Knightess and the devil's attention, as they had now swapped opponents. What made matters worse was that their styles of attack had become different too, making it difficult to counter their hits with their new patterns.

Tch! Annoying bastards actually wisened up! This isn't gonna be as simple as I thought…

---

"Why are we patrolling this spooky side of the mountain?" Nora asked her group of friends as they left the airship.

"Because there's a chance someone will come up this way to attack Dante and the others from behind while they're fighting." Jaune answered, the group feeling a faint tremor and seeing bolts of lighting in the sky, "Even if nothing shows up, us being here will let them fight without worrying about anything else, and they can get things done quicker."

"And once they win, we can fly in to help them out afterwards." Weiss said as she looked up from her Scroll.

"Wouldn't things go faster if we helped them?" Ren asked, checking over his weapons.

"Normally we would, but as Dante himself said 'This is a battle between freakishly scary monsters, so it should stay that way so no one else gets hurt', or something like that." Weiss answered, "And before you get any funny ideas, no, it's not because he doesn't trust us. This isn't a kind of battle we're ready for yet, so he doesn't want us needlessly getting hurt."

"Wow Weiss, you sure have been defending him a lot recently." Nora said with a sly smirk, quirking her eyebrows a few times.

"N-No I haven't! S-Shut up!" The once heiress chased after the bubbly ginger, trying to silence her.

The two young men smirked at the sight, Ren soon sighing as he looked to his friend and leader.

"Are you alright with it?"

"Hm? Alright with what?" Jaune asked before realizing what he meant, "Oh. I mean… Maybe if it was ages ago, then no, not really. To be honest, I only recently came to terms with the idea that she doesn't like me like that, no matter how much time goes by. Besides… I…"

…

…

He cut himself off, a memory flashing through his mind for a few moments as he stopped in his tracks.

Jaune then placed his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest confidently, "Like people say, there's always different fish in the sea! I'll get there one day, soon enough!"

Ren was caught off guard by his answer, but smiled nonetheless in the face of the blonde knight's positivity. Soon after, both of their attentions were drawn to Nora and Weiss, who had stopped in their tracks and remained silent as they kept their eyes forward. Rushing forward, they stood at their sides, and soon after saw what the two young women did.

A figure was approaching from the distance, heading directly for the group, hands tucked into the pockets of his pants. He wasn't dressed very warmly, wearing only a pair of black jeans, gray boots, and white button up shirt with shiny black metal buttons. His sleeves were rolled up above his elbows, revealing that the interior of the fabric was black, whereas his shirt had longer than normal lapels, also black.

His hair was black and had thin spiky clumps that were swept back, save for his short front bangs that covered some of his forehead. The color of his eyes were blood red, but his pupils were slitted. On the right side of his hip was a sort of longsword, yet its design was eerily strange. The scabbard for starters looked to be made of black bone, as was most of the hilt and guard. "Most" was in reference to the fact that the cross branches, handle, and the section connecting the guard to the blade look to be made of deep red, thick muscle fibers. The tips of the cross guard had black bone shaped like arrows, while the handle had two sections of black bone with imprint four finger grips, while the pommel also had a black bone arrowhead.

A bead of sweat dripped down Jaune's forehead as he gulped, remembering the last time he fought someone of similar characteristics, both in appearance and aesthetic of his weapon.

The man stopped a few meters away from the group, narrowing his eyes before he pulled a Scroll out of his right pocket. Looking down, he swiped a few times, finding a specific image before he looked up, specifically staring down the blonde knight.

"So… You're him, huh?" He said in a disappointed tone, "You look weak as shit. How'd a complete dip like you kill Nîlaq?"

"I… don't know who that is…"

"The bastard in the forest. You know who I'm talking about, since you flinched like an idiot when you saw me. Look closer at my face, dipshit. Don't lie to me and say you can't remember."

Taking a more careful glance at his face, he did seem familiar. He looked almost exactly the same as the person he fought with using abilities similar to that of a Grimm in the forests of Anima on their journey to Mistral, and he used the word "person" very loosely. When the fight got more intense, his appearance looked even more like that of a Grimm.

"I remember…"

"Like I thought… So, how'd a weak shit like you manage to kill my brother?"

"Hey, who're you calling weak, you jerk?!" Nora shouted as she unholstered Magnhild.

"Shut it, woman. I'll kill you after I'm done with him." The man pointed to the girl, who growled at him, "Have you made peace with the gods, you blonde bastard?"

Ren and Nora looked to Jaune, who had his eyes closed as his hand rested on Crocea Mors' pommel. He slowly inhaled before exhaling, eyes snapping open as his hand shifted from the pommel to the handle, gripping it tightly.

"I don't know what to believe in, higher power or otherwise. And there's still a lot of things I'd like to do, so… I'm not keen on dying just yet." Jaune said, locking eyes with the man, "That's why… could you just turn around and leave? Please?"

A vein throbbed on the man's head, "Hah..?"

"That man, your brother… He tried to kill me. And there wasn't any other way around it except for one of us leaving. Maybe you'll hate me for the rest of your life, and I'm fine with that, but… I don't want to die, and I don't want my friends to die. So can you please just leave us alone?"

"Fat chance, human. I went through a heap of shit looking for your dumb ass all over, so I'm not going anywhere till I scatter your bones in the tundra!" He pointed to Jaune, "This ends when you stop breathing."

The blonde knight sighed, drawing his sword and extending his shield as both he and his friends took their stances.

The man snarled with a faint smile, "I take all four of them on, and I'll take things too seriously and kill them way too quickly. That's why you're taking the princess, Eibâl. She's more to your 'tastes' anyway."

Before anyone could react, a thorny, black robed figure emerged from the large conjoined shadow of the group, crashing into Weiss as it flew away with her further in the distance, leaving behind an inky black trail in the air.

"Weiss!" Jaune shouted.

Distracted, he didn't see the man close the large distance between them in an instant, but he had enough time to put his shield in the path of the man's kick. Despite this, he was sent flying a good distance, crashing into some trees. Despite their initial shock, Ren and Nora quickly started attacking the man. Even with their nice balance between speed and power, the man simply dodged and twirled around them, keeping just out of range with almost perfect spacing, all while keeping his hands in his pockets.

This started to frustrate Ren, whose StormFlower guns quickly turned pitch black and merged with his arms, forming twisted, black, segmented armor that covered the entirety of his hands and arms. StormFlower's blades initially stuck to his forearms and had been elongated to cover the entire length up to his wrists, his strikes dramatically increasing in both strength and speed. Aside from the surprising increase in ability, the man had noticed his sclerae had turned pitch black, encompassing his magenta irises.

He smirked evilly at the sudden change, finally taking his hands out of his pockets as he started to make an effort to block Ren. Even with his increase in physical abilities, the man was practically laughing him off. Nora had butted in shortly, changed as well with black sclerae encompassing her irises, only she had thicker plating of twisted black armor covering her arms and legs as they steadily crackled with pink bolts of Aura. Her weapon had turned black, and became slightly more twisted while maintaining some form of elegance to it, but anytime she missed a swing of her hammer, she shattered and splintered the ground beneath her.

Not long after, she tried using this as a tactic to put the man off balance to allow Ren a lethal strike, but sadly, the man jumped up and stepped on her hammer, while catching Ren's hand. Wasting no time, the man kicked Nora's head with a sweeping kick, spinning around as he tossed the young man in his grasp at her, the duo crashing into each other midair. Before they hit anything, Ren protectively grasped Nora and spun them around, taking the brunt of the damage as they crashed through a nearby pine tree.

The man scoffed as he turned around in time to see Jaune had crept up on him, but he knew the blonde had been sneaking up on him, no matter how hard he tried to silence his steps. The knight's stab was easily side-step, as the man noticed his opponent had changed as well. The white of his armor was pitch black with a glossy shine, retaining the good trim, while his white sword and shield had also turned black, matching his armor with the golden etchings. His shield was smaller too, and had shifted to form around the top of his left forearm with the tip folding over his hand, likely to make it easier for parrying and incredibly painful jabs.

For the most part, Jaune was holding his own. He was still taking hits, but he wasn't backing away. It was irritating to say the least for the man; sure, he wasn't hitting Jaune with his absolute full strength, but most humans would have died by now. It seemed like the trio's minor transformations not only enhanced their attack power, but their durability as well. Until now, the red eyed man was simply dodging them, but he was starting to get irritated with how persistent Jaune was, and so decided to catch his blade. After all, it was just a human's sword.

This line of thinking would soon prove foolish.

As soon as the man put his palm in the path of Jaune's blackened sword, he was surprised when it didn't come to a full stop, and left a deep cut. He then took a step back and did a quick backspin kick, but Jaune's shield reverted to its normal shape as he sheathed his sword and took the full force of the kick, only sending Jaune skidding back on his heels about a meter. This would prove to be a mistake, for as soon as the kick meant to sever his lower half made contact with the shield, the "force" seemingly "bled" into the black and gold metal, making the shield have a faint white glow.

With enough space between them, Jaune slowly drew his sword, and as the blade was slowly drawn, the white glow drained into the blackened blade as the knight raised the sword above his head. Then, he swung it down full force, the slash emitting an arcing wave of force and Aura. Yet again the red eyed man planned to stand his ground and defend, raising his arms in front of his face in an X-formation. The arcing wave of force and Aura crashed into him, making him skid backwards an inch as his forearms had now been cut up slightly.

Lowering his arms, the man examined his fresh wounds, noticing that while the cuts were long, they weren't that deep. Secondly, his wounds weren't healing. He scowled as he looked up at the knight, scoffing.

"I guess I know now why my brother died to a human like you. That form, that sword, that attack… No normal human weapon can so much as scratch us… So where'd someone lame like you get power like that? A weakling like you definitely wasn't born with that power."

"Who knows? Maybe I earned it." Jaune replied, wiping away some blood from the corner of his mouth.

The man narrowed his eyes on the blonde scornfully, noting that Ren and Nora had joined his side, eyes still full of determination. By now, they should have been dead, or at least despairing, but these humans… They were still full of hope. They still wanted to fight him.

It was beyond annoying.

"Alright then, humans… Seems like you're not the regular trash I usually deal with."

As he said this, he slowly drew his sword, revealing that the straight blade had been made of blackened bone as well, having only one sharp edge with the tip being a slanted, razor-like edge. The man raised up his sword, making the trio raise their guards in preparation for an attack. However, they were completely bewildered when the man reverse gripped his sword, grasped it with both hands, and plunged it into his chest.

Amazingly, even though they heard an "echoing" thud, no blood splattered from the self-inflicted wound. The man only looked up at them as the air trembled from the immense pressure emanating from him, his ice blue colored Aura violently bursting around him before turning pitch black with an icy blue outline, which steadily covered his entire body.

"Bûreal Requiem!"

The black and ice blue Aura exploded outwards like an icey blizzard, obscuring the vision of the brave trio for a few moments until they saw the man once more, now majorly transformed. His body from the neck down had been encompassed in sleek, black-bone armor, which twisted and spiraled around his limbs. He now had white-bone, long, sharp claws for fingertips and the tips of his toes, where he had some white-bone spikes layered and folded against his back. On the underside of his arms were large, scythe-like white blades near his elbows, each blade having an oval-shaped notch near the base of the blades, where the tips also faced towards his upper arms.

Most of the center of his chest had been exposed, where the armor flared out in white fabric, tattered, long lapels. His hair had also grown a bit longer, reaching his shoulders, but the top of his head sported the skull of a Sigma Beowolf, sleeker, more elegant, and vicious looking, minus the lower jaw.

"You all seem like the kind of bunch that's seen their fair share of hell, and because you survived each time, you've gotten bolder, hopeful." The man said, raising his hand and clenching it a few times, "I don't know if it's because you trash made it on your own merits or not, but now… its just you three… and me." He extended his hand towards them, the trio peeking through his fingers, "I'll absolutely crush all of your hopes."

They ignored his brazen declaration, the man flashing a toothy smile to reveal all of his teeth had become sharp and pointed. He then clenched his fingers without making a full fist as his ice blue and black Aura shimmered around his body, the man then releasing a terrifying, ear-piercing howl that unleashed powerful shockwaves from where he stood all around him, kicking up heaps of snow and breaking off many branches from nearby pine trees.

Jaune's eyes immediately scanned the area around him, noticing there weren't any peaks long enough in their immediate vicinity to cause an avalanche, or at the very least a deadly one. A moment's distraction was all it took for Jaune to receive a heavy punch to his shoulder, knocking him into the snow covered ground meters away. The man immediately kicked away Nora and "playfully" exchanged rapid blows with Ren, their armored knuckles violently clashing and creating heaps of sparks. Unfortunately, the young man was eventually overtaken by his foe's tremendous speed, and was assaulted by a vicious flurry of punches before taking a spinning sidekick to his chest to send him flying through some pine trees.

Nora was charging at the man, building momentum as her body crackled vibrantly with pink and black Aura. The man was mildly interested in what she could do, he swept his arm up to create an incredibly thick wall of ice between them. The young woman bulldozed through it easily, making the wall, and the subsequent dozen that dared stand in her path, crumbling entirely as she roared at him. To repay her eagerness and fairly amusing display of power, he reared back his right arm as she reared back Magnihild.

As both fist and hammer collided, a devastatingly powerful shockwave blasted through the area that blasted a few trees with enough force to make them topple. The man then relaxed his arm to let Nora fall towards him, only for the man to use his immense speed to deliver a blindly fast round-kick to her head that made her fly in Ren's direction. The red eyed man then extended his left hand, clutching it with his right arm as he pointed his claws in their direction. The veins on his fingertips pulsated visibly before his claws shot out like a super sonic shotgun blast.

Ren and Nora were still picking themselves up, too late to notice the sudden attack, but thanks to their leader, a black greatshield stood in the path of the claw projectiles, crashing into with great force to create a huge cloud of snow. As the cloud dissipated, Ren and Nora looked up to see blood dripping down on the ground, afterwhich, their gazes trailed up to see a still standing Jaune keeping the shield steady, which had suffered four punctures on the edges. As a result, both of his thighs had a small hole each, as did his shoulders. The last claw had barely missed its mark, grazing Jaune's right side, but still leaving a very noticeable, long scratch on the section of his armor covering his ribs.

"Jaune!" Ren and Nora shouted.

"I'm… alright..!" He strained.

Looking down, he could see shimmers of white Aura already starting to work on repairing the holes that were put in him fairly quickly. It was incredibly uncomfortable feeling his muscle fibers and flesh putting itself back together, the feeling akin to bundles of long worms wriggling under thick sheets of plastic until the sensations disappeared moments after along with the wounds.

So he was right…

His mind quickly took him back to a conversation he had with Dante a few weeks ago.

"You know, I think out of everyone, you have the biggest advantage when it comes to the Pseudo Shadow Skin." Dante explained after he wiped some sweat from his forehead.

"How so?" Jaune asked after sipping some water.

"Well, aside from your new ability to store kinetic energy in your shield and unleashing it through your sword, I think your Amplifier Semblance gives you a huge advantage." The devil quickly sipped some water from his own bottle, "The Pseudo Shadow Skins are an almost perfect mimicry of my Shadow Skin, however, compared to a monster like me, you guys are human."

He sighed as he wiped his face once more with a towel, setting it down on the bench as he looked down at his hands.

"I've gotten to the point where my body is barely affected by the strain anymore, but you guys don't heal like I do, nor do you have the advantage of being born with insensitivity to pain like me. Your bodies will seriously hurt like hell and be immensely fatigued, if not hurting really badly if you use it more than you should."

"So… What? Because I have my Amplifier Semblance, I can heal away the strain on my body?"

The young devil smiled, "That's definitely one of the advantages."

Jaune looked over at the smirking devil, their eyes meeting.

"I have a theory… that your Semblance might even be able to affect your Pseudo Shadow Skin, and push the limits of what you can do even further."

The blonde visibly brightened up at the idea, but refocused when he saw Dante raise up a finger.

"Should this be the case, you need to keep in mind one, simple fact. You are still human. Even if this power can help you push past your limits even further, there is always the possibility that forcing yourself too far might break something that can't be fixed, unless of course, Inuba is present, but you won't always have that luxury."

"Meaning if I try to do something like a super punch or a slash, my arm could explode or something."

"Pretty much."

"So, how's that an advantage if I might hurt myself beyond what I might be able to fix with my Aura and Semblance if I attack?"

Again, Dante gave his friend his trademark smirk.

"Who said anything about attacking?" He punched his fists together, "Instead of attacking… why not become an immovable fucking mountain?"

Jaune smirked at the idea of "becoming an immovable fucking mountain", coming back to reality as he felt the cold air nipping at his skin. Dante's theory proved to be correct in that the blonde knight's Semblance could synergize with his Pseudo Shadow Skin in that it could push his physical limits even further. Instead of attacking, he focused his efforts solely on defending, and while he did take damage in the end, it was mitigated enough to not result in him having his limbs blown off by the red eyed man's attack. Even so, the pain was so instantaneous and extraordinary, Jaune didn't have time to scream, and even passed out for a few moments.

"Looks like I mocked you a little too heartlessly, human." The man said to Jaune, whose shield had reverted to its normal shape, "I'm amazed you're still alive, with all your limbs intact no less."

"I guess I'm just built of sterner stuff…" Jaune panted rather heavily, still trying to catch his breath.

The man scoffed, the fingertips of his clawless hand throbbing as new sets of claws set in. Then, he clenched his fingers save for his index finger, and pointed it at a stone cliffside in the distance off to his side, a small "boom" being heard as the claw shot out. As soon as the projectile made contact, a fairly huge radius of the cliff had shattered as if a rocket had struck it, huge chunks of stone crashing into the snowy field.

"Don't be so arrogant, human. I hit you with four out of five of those. You should be thankful for the miracle wherein I didn't turn you into a nugget of meat. Maybe you are tougher than I gave you credit for initially, but it doesn't change the fact that your body has taken significant damage."

…

He was right. Even if his wounds had healed, the pain still lingered. And if the fight went on for much longer…

…

"Regardless… We don't plan on dying anytime soon. Right guys?" Jaune asked, as Nora and Ren stood back up at his side.

"Yeah!"

"Undoubtedly."

The red eyed man laughed, "Alright, humans! Show me what you're really made of before you die!"

---

Eclypse's eyes snapped open, immediately checking her surroundings to see the space was virtually pitch black, save for the shimmering surface water beneath her armored feet. In the distance was a rectangular structure of white light, the "entrance" she needed to go through.

"Guess I made it then…" The Blade said as she stood up on the tips of her toes and interlocked her fingers above her head, stretching, "It's honestly kind of goddamn scary when he predicts this shit…" She spoke before she started walking, let her arms drop to her sides.

Her black armor "clinked" faintly with each step she took, echoing throughout the darkness as she quickly walked ahead. When she touched the small wall of light, she immediately passed into it, coming out on the other side. She was instantly met with biting cold and squinted her eyes slightly as she took a look at her new surroundings. An icy terrain, wilted trees, and… a huge, elegant castle of snow in the distance.

Another oddity to take note of was the sky. While it was all around dark skies, half of the sky was full of beautiful Aurora Borealis, while the other half was a black and red, inky darkness, each pushing against each other in an effort to overpower each other.

"Huh… So that's how a 'takeover' looks like when a Nightmare Grimm worms its way in…" She crossed her arms, "Uhhhh… Let's see… What did that stupid book of his say..?"

While Eclypse may have had her existence stripped from her, she was still able to "stay connected" to Dante, like a phantom, only completely intangible and invisible. As such, some of the things he read were some of the things she read as well, minus the sciency stuff. Thus, now that she was here, she was recalling her Wielder's Grimm Studies classes, specifically the studies they conducted on Nightmare Grimm.

"I've gotta find the 'center' of this dream, and go to its deepest depth to kill that fucker. But if I wanna make things easier… I should find Weiss."

She sighed, lowering herself as she placed her hand on the ground. The world around her seemingly vanished into nothingness, along with the majority of sounds around her. Then, a pulsing ring of white rushed past the Blade, locating her target. Now that she was locked in, she dashed forward with a slight "booming" noise, gliding over the snowy terrain as the world "became whole" once more, keeping the estimated epicenter in mind. As she approached quickly, she could hear Weiss in the distance, only her voice sounded… younger.

Lo and behold, Eclypse saw a child-like Weiss in the distance, trying to fight off… toy-soldiers?

Unexpected, but whatever. Simple enough.

Eclypse summoned a copy of herself in Weapon form as she glided over the terrain, raising her sword across her body as it flourished with a small torrent of platinum Aura. In one fell swoop, she decapitated all the soldiers, spinning into a sliding halt as she swiped outwards, making her sword disappear.

"Alright then, Ice Princess, let's kill that thing and-"

"Stay away!"

"Huh?"

"Just get away from me, you weird shadow monster!"

What the hell has she been smoking?

"Hey, shrimpy princess."

"S-Shrimpy?! How dare you-!"

"Shut up and make me an ice mirror or something so I can see myself."

The small Weiss hesitated for a moment before swiping her rapier upwards, sending out a thin sheet of slicing ice right out of the ground. Eclypse only giggled briefly before easily side-stepping the attack, straightening her right hand to make it knife-like before swiping down, cutting the sheet with the most minimal effort. The startled little girl stepped as the Blade slid her hand under the severed sheet in the air, sweeping it up and bringing it up.

"Huh… How about that…"

What she saw in her reflection was essentially the entire shape of herself, but in the visage of a spectral, faceless, black entity, only with perfectly circular, platinum eyes that glowed, and a thin zigzag line for a mouth that also glowed the same color. Compared to what she saw with her own eyes, she also saw an inky black darkness oozing from her entire being.

Did it sense me and changed Weiss' perception of me to make me an enemy in her eyes? Or is this what I look like if I enter someone's mind or dreams?

As Eclypse was contemplating, Weiss had already started running towards the massive castle of ice in the distance. Seeing no use in further contemplation, the Blade dropped the sheet of ice as she leaned forward and blurred out of sight in streaks of inky black shadow, reappearing directly ahead of an unaware Weiss that was busy looking over her shoulder. As soon as the little girl looked ahead, her face crashed into a squatting Eclypse's huge bosom in a way that could be described as a person's head gently colliding with an airbag. However, unlike being in a vehicle, Weiss was immediately bounced back into the ground by the large, springy, and perky peaks, yelping as her rear hit the ground first.

Seeing as she had nowhere to run, she raised her hand up defensively and whimpered.

"Relax, I'm not gonna eat you or anything."

"Y-Yeah right! You can't fool me! There's no way you can have those stupid, fat, weapons of mass destruction unless you eat precious little girls like me!" Weiss pointed to the Blade's large chest, making her smirk, "You're one of those demon things or whatever!"

Well, I guess considering how much I "devour" my Master, being compared to a succubus is actually pretty accurate.

"Trust me. I'm a nice demon that doesn't hurt little children."

"Yeah?! Then what kind are you?!"

Seems she has no memory of me now that she's been reverted to child form.

"I'm the kind of demon that punishes other demons, and really nasty adults. Besides…" She stood up, towering over the small Weiss that took a step back, "I was sent here to help you."

"By who?"

"By the handsome and brave prince, of course."

"Nuh uh! Handsome princes don't have weird shadow demons working with them!"

"Oh, but of course they do. Especially the evil ones." She smiled, her zigzag mouth opening to reveal the glowing platinum Aura and maw of sharp teeth, "But you see, a nice and good prince tamed the naughty thing that I am, and in return for him using my services, I get to see the wide, beautiful world."

Weiss was seemingly contemplating everything she was told, and wondering whether she should place her trust in Eclypse.

"Look… Right now, we're trapped in a dreamworld. A Nightmare Grimm is trying to make you its food. If things go on without having done anything, you'll die. You might not know me now, but I'm your best bet of making it out of here. If you die, the prince will get mad at me."

She extended her hand to the small girl.

"So you coming, or what?"

After having made a blunt, but fair point, Weiss placed her hand in Eclype's, who pulled her up and cradled her in her left arm.

"Nice. Now listen, imma speedrun this bitch since I'm a bonafide, certified bad bitch."

"W-What?"

The woman sighed, "In short, me stabby and kill things super quick as we fly, you do the rest when we get there. Got it?"

"What do you mean I do the-? Wahhhhhhh!"

Before she had the chance to say anything else, Eclypse was already gliding over the snowy terrain, the tips of her toes barely missing the ground as she dashed towards the castle. Creatures of snow and shadow rose up to stop the Blade with the screaming Weiss in tow, but she bulldozed through them like a speeding bullet tearing through sheets of paper. The small Weiss had one arm looped around her "savior's" neck, and eventually had to use her other hand to cover her eyes in the face of the numerous body parts flying apart.

At this point, she was just a participant waiting for the crazy roller coaster ride to end.

And eventually, for they had crashed through the doors of the ice castle, Eclypse slaying anything in her path with extreme prejudice, no matter how evil looking or big the enemies were. After that and a bit of running, the Blade slowed her furiously fast frenzy, coming to a stop as she stood before a pair of huge double doors.

"C-Can I open my eyes now..?"

"Yep." The woman said as she put the small Weiss down, "You'll go back to normal when you go through these doors. Now listen carefully… The thing on the other side of these doors thinks you're an easy meal just because he's a Nightmare and you're a human."

"You're not coming with me..?"

"I can't. Your 'perception' of my 'being' is currently too skewed for me to go beyond this point into the depths of your 'soul'. But…" The shadows seemingly formed four streams, bundling together in Eclypse's right hand until the final shape took on the form of a black tiara, "If you take this with you… it'll make you strong in your time of need."

Weiss grabbed the black metal tiara and immediately placed it on her head, getting a thumbs up from the Blade as she walked over and kicked open the double doors.

"Now get going." She turned around as she slung her sword over shoulder, "Remember, you're stronger than it is. So don't be afraid."

With a brief nod, Weiss hurriedly walked inside as the doors closed behind her, but as soon as they snapped shut, she was her original self again in the blink of an eye. She spun around and reached out, but quickly realized that now she was on her own, and thus turned around to confront the seemingly endless darkness around her. Strangely enough, even if the space was pitch black, she could see herself perfectly, her body having a faint glow emanating from it. The girl clutched her Myrtenaster tightly, nervously looking around as she soon heard "rushing" noises around her.

A slash grazed her right arm, yet instead of simply standing there in shock, she immediately swiped in the direction she thought the attacker rushed past her based off of the "drag" of the attack. Dante once mentioned in a pitch black environment like this where visibility was nill, one way of handling it was when attacked, react as quickly as possible based on the "path" of the attack. However, if the foe was using ranged attacks, this tactic would not work as well, especially if she had no grasp of how confined or expansive the space was. Even so, within the next two "scratches" she received, she finally landed a hit, but judging by the feeling, she only managed to cut fabric instead of flesh.

A surprised, but playfully deep laugh echoed in the dark all around her, and shortly after, all pretenses were dropped, and Weiss was attacked from multiple directions in a matter of seconds bringing her to her knees.

"Poor little human heiress… All alone…"

This time she summoned her glyphs and shot out winding rays in multiple directions, briefly giving her more visibility, yet hitting nothing in the process.

"Family that has no love for you…"

Another attack of rays where she briefly caught sight of the robed fiend, and lunged forward with a blindingly fast stab, only to miss as darkness filled her sight. A slice to her back followed with a slice to her right arm, and another swiping attack missed by the once heiress.

"So called 'friends' that despise you…"

A heavy blow to the head made her stagger backwards, but using the momentum, she twirled into a spinning slash, once again cutting fabric, but drawing black blood as well once she looked at the tip of her weapon.

"But most heart rending of all…" Something heavy crashed into her back, which based on the feeling, seemed like two feet that pushed her face first into the ground as a chilling whisper echoed in her right ear, "A man who will never love you like he does the others."

[Haloweak] Narwhal (Punishing: Gray Raven OST)

She yelled loudly as a glyph appeared next to her, briefly summoning the Shadow Skinned Dante for one attack that landed a clean cut to the robed fiend's chest, who jumped off of Weiss to disappear into the darkness once more, his echoing laugh louder than before. Her Aura had shimmered around her body before flickering away like a dying light, the young woman pushing herself off the ground as she took steady breaths.

"You will be especially delectable… Schnee…"

"Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not looking to be anyone's desert."

I say that, but…

…

…

Eclypse said it was a dream world, right? Then all I have to do… is wrest as much control from this monster and make him regret making me its target!

Weiss stood up entirely, several glyphs appearing around her as she waved Myrtenaster like a conductor's wand, guiding the glyphs upwards high above to find a ceiling, where she then stretched them out as wide as possible. Now, the massive room was well lit, leaving no corner to hide in as she eyed the robed miscreant, a white bone mask resembling a wilted flower and a single red eye orb in the center.

(1:30)

"There you are, you creep!"

Having full line of sight now, the huntress dashed forward with blinding speed, her stab barely missing as the fiend pulled two black bone daggers and tried to stab one in her back. She deftly spun out of the way into another swipe that scratched the bone mask, where she then rapidly stabbed at him multiple times. He started off arrogantly dodging them with ease, but Weiss had been getting faster, forcing him to take further strides backwards and start using his daggers to block and parry.

Thoroughly surprised, the robed menace leapt back meters away from the young woman as thick and massive black vines with white thorns began to protrude from the ground. Pointing forward, it commanded them to shoot the thorns like high impact projectiles, making Weiss dance around them. She did so flawlessly, summoning glyphs between each dodged attack to shoot out more volleys of winding rays, some of which were dodged, or grazed him. Now that Weiss could see again, her attacks were practically on point, and each volley corrected the margin of error, making the fiend use the vines as cover as they were quickly whittled down.

"ENOUGH!"

The masked attacker roared as dozens of more huge vines rose up from the ground, sprouting wall to wall as they surged forward to swallow up Weiss, once again putting her in complete darkness.

(2:55)

She struggled, but she could break free. She tried to muster her Aura, to make a glyph, but it would only flicker faintly before fading.

"I can't..! I can't…"

It was getting harder to breathe, and she could feel the thorns digging into her from various angles.

"I won't..! Not like this..!"

The struggle was in vain.

…

~Calling it quits already, Weiss?~

(3:21)

Her eyes snapped open as she heard Eclypse's voice clearly in her head.

"No!"

~Will you run away?~

"I won't!"

~Are you just gonna sit back and take it until you're dead?~

"Not ever!"

~Are you gonna stand around and cry waiting for someone to save you?~

"Never again!"

~EXCELLENT! Then go forth, and trample him until there's nothing left like a real queen!~

As Eclypse's voice vanished, Weiss could feel something rising within her as the darkness crept onto her majestic form, shrouding itself around her. On the outside, the air had become colder and colder until every vine in the room was frozen solid and both the walls and fiend caked in heavy frost.

(3:51)

The vines shattered into diamond dust, revealing a standing Weiss gripping a blackened Myrtenaster with a thicker, longer blade, tightly. Elegantly twisted, black metal gauntlets and greaves adorned her arms and legs, as translucent, sparkling veils emerged from the hem of her skirt and various edges of her clothes, with two thin veils emerging from the back of her shoulders. The back of her right hand had a multitude of thin, slivers of various colored crystals, her long hair now in waist-length flourishing twintails tied up behind the back corners of her head, leaving the side and front bangs to encompass her face. The black tiara on her head shimmered faintly before her eyes snapped open, her irises now a pitch black as she raised up Myrtenaster in an outwards sweeping motion and swung down.

(4:08)

The simple, wisping flick of her weapon unleashed a torrential, hellish wave of black, jagged ice that shot forward with blinding speed, jettisoning the masked fiend through the walls of the ice castle until he crashed into the ground outside, tumbling around like a freshly chopped log. He continued rolling until he crashed into a huge boulder, looking up soon after to see the transformed Weiss standing on a thin sheet of ice high above him.

Her index finger and middle finger brimmed with red energy as she rubbed them across the blade of Myrtenaster, coating it with fiery energy before she raised it up. Dozens upon dozens of huge, black and orange, flaming orbs formed before they rained down on the huntress' attacker like a hellish barrage of missiles. He fled for his life, barely avoiding both direct hits from the orbs or their disastrous explosions. Black lighting with faint glows of yellow then rained down from the heavens, intensely electrocuting the fiend to a complete stun before chains of hard-light wrapped around his body, followed by thick plates that molded to his body to truly trap him.

His body was then outlined in black, the gravity around him seemingly nonexistent as he floated high up into the air, soon coming to a halt meters away from Weiss. The attacker could only object in harrowing shrieks and yells until he made eye contact with the young woman, his lungs freezing up when he saw her look at him.

The way Weiss looked at him was in such a scornful, silent manner, that it was as though she were staring at utter trash.

(5:04)

Eyes widening, he was then launched higher up into the sky, various colors of energy brimming in Weiss' right hand before she rubbed it once more against Myrtenaster's blade. With multiple flicks and swipes, she began her symphony of hellish doom; fire, ice, lightning, wind, rock, hard-light, volcanic, gravity… Every element that "resided" in her right hand had manifested in terrifyingly black forms through each movement of her weapon, and crashed into her ensnared enemy, creating a massive, hellish orb of constantly chain reacting elements until all that could be seen of the elements was a single, perfect orb of darkness.

(5:32)

The orb then exploded like a massive bomb, unleashing both an expansive aurora of multiple colors, and an intense force that swept through the confines of the dreamworld.

(End Song)

The immense blast revealed the simple truth shortly after as cracks formed in the sky and everywhere else. The "dreamworld" was just a manifested, dome-like subspace with a three hundred meter radius, which allowed that "thing" to use the power of a Nightmare Grimm without having to enter a host.

Weiss sighed in relief as she floated down with the help of the wind she mustered through a flick from Myrtenaster, her feet touching the snowy ground once more as she staggered backwards, luckily finding a flat rock to sit on and rest. Flicking her right hand, a thin, reflective sheet of ice floated in front of the huntress, showing her form perfectly in the "mirror" she made. She glanced over her hands and feet, then noted her "new" twintails hairstyle, wherein she moved her head side to side to give it a good lookover.

She smirked with a shrug. Afterall, she looked good with pretty much any sensible hairstyle.

Then, she closed her eyes and focused, searching deep "within" and finding the newly kindled "power" within her. It was… different than what she expected. It made her feel warm and happy, a heat rising in her chest and cheeks as she buried her face in her flourishing twintails to hide it.

"So this is what it feels like…"

She hummed softly before giggling happily, only interrupted by the faint explosions and tremors on the other side of the mountain. Opening her Scroll and checking the map, she could see she was taken a mile away from where Jaune and the others were fighting. Inhaling deeply before letting out a long exhale, the once heiress rose to her feet and closed her Scroll, twirling Myrtenaster in her hand twice before she took off towards the battle, gliding over the snowy terrain with blindingly fast speed.

"Hold on everyone…"

---

Ren and Nora were desperately trying to stand their ground, trying to lockdown the transformed man, but he was proving to be far too fast. He was effortlessly dodging and countering them, but he decided to play their game, remaining in the general vicinity as he played with them. He kicked Nora out of the way swiftly with a rapid side-kick, where in the same motion he transitioned into a sweeping kick with the same foot. Ren did the typically right action by jumping up to avoid the sweep, but this would prove to be a blunder on his part. Instead of leaping away, he made himself an easy target for the man to grapple and then spin around like an advertisement sign, the young huntsman's head crashing into the ground after five spins before taking a stomp kick that sent him flying meters away.

Jaune, battered and beaten like his teammates, charged in, and the red eyed man gleefully dashed at him head on. The knight however stopped mid charged and brought up his shield, allowing his attacker to crash into it claws first. The intended effect should have sent the boy flying, but he was firmly rooted into the ground, not budging an inch to the man'a surprise. After a brief struggle of strength, Jaune managed to rip his shield free, making the man stagger backwards on one foot with outstretched arms. With his opening in clear view, Jaune abused his power and Semblance to temporarily increase the speed and strength of his swing, managing a long, diagonal cut across the man's chest from his ribs up to his shoulder.

The shocking surprise of taking damage was only brief, for the red eyed fiend then sported a twisted smile with a snarling chuckle. On the same one foot he was standing on, he twirled backwards twice and recovered his balance, setting down his other foot.

"Heh… You're not so bad, human. Let me guess, you're one of those hardworking types, huh?"

Jaune didn't answer, and focused his Semblance to heal his painfully throbbing arm, a result of abusing the mix of two powers. The damage was seemingly bad considering it was taking longer than usual to heal.

"You must be if you held on this long."

Ren and Nora were down for the count, their transformations undone as the young man lay unconscious with Nora struggling to crawl over to him. They took too much damage, and yet still persisted until in one form or another they did some damage to the man. They didn't have Jaune's advantage of healing quickly, so for now, it seemed as though he was on his own.

Taking a deep breath Jaune exhaled slowly before sporting a fierce glare, charging ahead at the gleefully laughing fiend. He focused his swipes on speed, knowing his sword could easily cut the red eyed man's flesh with a clean cut, so he changed his shield to its smaller form for parrying, and used his Semblance to temporarily fortify himself whenever he was wide open to attack. He was desperately trying to not abuse the mixture of powers on instinct, but his opponent was much faster than he was, dodging all of his attacks.

It was by no means an even fight, for he was taking much more of a beating, but it wasn't as if progress was nill. Counter sweeps after taking a hit was becoming pure instinct, and allowed Jaune to get in some nice cuts, even if they weren't all too major injuries to the red eyed fiend. Even with his superb endurance currently, he would still lose in a battle of attrition. He needed to bait his opponent with an opening too good to resist.

And so as they continued their furious exchange of blows, the young huntsman intentionally misstepping to throw himself off balance and stagger forwards, prompting his opponent to take a swipe at him with his sharp claws. As planned, Jaune found his footing and thrusted forward towards his opponent's throat, but the man moved off to the side just enough for the young man's sword to graze his neck, where he then spun around Jaune and grabbed his shield arm.

The huntsman was pulled towards him, but bent his sword arm in order to try for an upclose stab, only to have both arms caught. Noticing he was rearing back his head, Jaune did the same as the two fighters headbutted each other with intense force, a small gust of force emerging from the clashing of heads. The knight's head was the only one to bleed however as blood poured down his face, the two locking eyes.

"You've got some serious balls, human." The man smirked, "Anyone else's head would've caved in."

"Too bad, huh..?" Jaune managed to speak out, eyebrows twitching alongside the throbbing pain he felt in his forehead.

The red eyed fiend chuckled as he leaned back, making the huntsman think he was about to butt heads again, but was instead pulled forward and tossed away. He landed on his feet, but he was immediately under assault once again, this time his opponent striking even faster than he did before with a raging flurry of punches that battered against Jaune's shield. Having minimalized visibility, he couldn't react in time to having his shield pushed outwards, opening him up to the vicious flurry of strikes that trailed up and down from his body to his face, all while the man laughed gleefully.

He reared back his arm, making to deliver the final blow, but the knight had enough strength to raise up his shield and block, the impact sending him flying backwards off his feet and into a huge boulder, making him cry out painfully before he dropped onto the ground. His opponent waited patiently, watching as Jaune desperately tried pushing himself off the ground, only managing to get up to one knee as he hunched over, panting heavily.

"You're spent, human. You've got nothing left in the tank."

Jaune looked up at him, or rather he glared at the red eyed man, which sent a slight chill down his spine. Not out of fear, but pleasant joy.

"Most humans I run into die too quickly or try and run away. But every now and then, there's guys like you and your little friends that can fight like a bunch of fucking maniacs! And it's those kinds of fights that are the absolute shit! No fear, just a bunch of guys with some screws loose beating each other down until nothing's left!"

"We are afraid..."

"Huh?"

"You think…" Jaune stabbed his sword in the ground, using it to steadily stand back up, "we aren't scared..? Of course we are… We definitely are… But… we aren't gonna just sit back and let you kill us… Even if it means we lose or we die… We'll fight with everything we have until the end."

"Oh? So if I said I liked you enough to let you run, but you had to leave your friends behind to die, you'd turn me down?"

"Absolutely."

"Not even worth thinking about?"

"Not in the slightest, asshole."

The red eyed fiend smirked a toothy grin.

"What's your name, human? You're the first one worth remembering in a hundred years, so I'll honor your struggle in some way, at least."

"Jaune Arc, with Nora Valkyrie, and Lie Ren."

"Arc, huh..? No wonder… Hah..! Fine then, Jaune Arc! Die well!"

The next few seconds went by agonizingly slow, as if time were moving slowly. He could see his opponent abnormally clearer than he did the entire fight, which seemingly was an effect of what he was experiencing and possibly the man moving slower so the huntsman could clearly see his end. At best, he could block one more time. Although his Semblance and Aura closed his wounds and healed up most of his fractures, his body was aching terribly from head to toe, and his legs felt like they were jelly. Even his fingers had gone numb, which made it hard to tell how hard he was gripping his shield. Yet he squeezed as hard as his brain told his fingers to, just to make sure he'd hold onto his sword and shield.

It sucked that this was going to be the end, but what else could be done?

…

…

Self-reflection, he figured. Or rather, things he wished he had done or did differently.

For starters, he never really apologized to one of his best friends after they got into it deep in the woods of Anima. He felt… lost, and sometimes insanely jealous. He could do things he never could or would ever be able to do. Even at Beacon, he was a lot more popular than he was, had better grades, was the better fighter… Everything he did, he was just better.

His explanation? He just worked as hard as he could. It wasn't bullshit either, for Jaune saw how his friend slaved away for hours on end doing his work or projects. He could have ignored the young man, or bullied him or laughed at him like a lot of other people did. But he never laughed, never mistreated him or kicked him around like he was trash.

He was his friend, and always had his back, even if it meant trouble for him. Jaune just wished he could have said sorry before now.

Lastly…

…

…

Lastly, his biggest regret.

He definitely had feelings for her, but he never felt like he measured up, or was any good, even if she accepted him despite his faults and failings. He didn't want to be a disappointment to her, or have others make fun of her just because she was with him. But all of that was just stupid, childish nonsense. They were things that never mattered in the first place.

He regretted not being able to go after her or stopping her, and…

…

…

He regretted never saying he loved her too.

Five meters until contact.

His arms and legs throbbed with a horrible pain, but he raised up his sword and shield, and slid his foot back to assume his stance. If this was going to be his final stand, he'd use his attacker's arrogance against him. If he was going to die, Jaune was definitely going to make sure to stab him in the heart as well.

Three meters.

Two.

…

…

Something broke the sound barrier behind the young huntsman, or rather behind and above him, crashing in between Jaune and the red eyed fiend, who leapt backwards a huge distance as a blind of snow powder obscured his vision. The knight stumbled backwards on his rear, both out of shock and pure exhaustion, eyes darting around before falling onto a thin, slender object a few feet ahead of him.

Sticking out of the ground was an elegant spear made purely of white metal, the base below the blade having an imprinted handle-grip of gold with intricate etchings and patterns. The rather long, shortsword length spearhead had slight, long notches on both sides of the blade near the handle, straightening out into a perfectly elongated triangle, the sharp edges thickly lined in gold, leaving the center wholly white like the majority of the entire weapon.

There was something strangely familiar about that spear given its design, which with all the other parts of the weapon, looked as though it could transform into a sort of sword.

A figure landed in front of the spear with a soft, yet forceful thud, kicking up a bit of snow as she grabbed the spear and pulled it out of the ground.

Jaune's eyes trailed from the weapon to the young woman standing in front of him, the afternoon sun gleaming down upon her, as if she were some warrior goddess with a perfect and immensely attractive, slightly muscular physique, standing tall at a perfect six feet.

Her legs were adorned in elaborate and elegant white armor, with gold, wavy etchings that started below her mid-thighs before continuing down into her high heeled black boots trimmed with white. She also had a pair of white thigh armor of similar design that began mid-thigh and ended slightly above her knees, which were covered in diamond shaped white metal knee guards. The top portions of the thigh armor, however, were slanted downwards slightly on the inner thighs, revealing a pair of glossy black thigh highs.

From what could be seen, she had also been wearing an elastic, black, A-line mini skirt that showed off a good deal of her thighs. A red sash was wrapped around her skirt, the fabric slanting diagonally from the top right, covering most of her left thigh while completely covering her left waist and hip. Two gold metal bands wrapped around the sash, held together by a small, gold metal, circle plate on her right hip. One band rested perfectly horizontal on her rather wide hips while the lower band slanted downwards on the left side like her sash's fabric. An end flap of the sash had been looped over the back right of the upper metal band, flourishing outwards in a wide fashion, making the sash overall look like a half-waist cape as it covered most of the back of her right leg, reaching down to the center of her calf.

Her body was adorned with a thin, white metal, elegant cuirass molded to her form, also sporting thin gold etchings. The cuirass only reached down to cover her upper back and just below her large chest, leaving the entirety of her waistline, stomach, and lower back exposed. Upon closer inspection, one could see that beneath the armor, the warrior wore a sleeveless, glossy black form fitting top, where the tight fabric peeked out a little beneath the bottom of the armor, her shoulders, and the lower base of her neck.

A quick look just a little bit lower, and one could see a thin, gold, herringbone pattern chain wrapping around her waist, hanging just below her navel. Resting above the shoulders of her cuirass was more red fabric that wrapped around to cover the top half of her cuirass and back beneath the hood. However, the fabric spread out towards her left arm to completely drape over her shoulder, back, and most of her upper arm, where a small and thin, white metal and gold etched, three segment pauldron had been affixed atop the shoulder area of the red fabric. Her upper right arm and shoulder were practically bare, save for the thick, white metal bracelet on the upper half of her arm.

Black sleeves adorned her arms, reaching just above her elbows, whereas the fabric had tightly clung and covered the back of her hands and her wrists, keeping her palms and fingers completely exposed. Two white metal, elegant and elaborate bracers with thin gold etchings completely covered her forearms and the bottom of her elbows, offering just the right amount of protection she needed.

A gold metal choker adorned her neck just beneath her throat, the front center slanting downwards slightly to take on an arrowhead shape. A small, diamond-shaped emerald was slotted at the center of the tip, glistening slightly. A white metal faceplate shaped like a stretched out kite folded against her face to completely cover it, with four vertical, thin and evenly spaced out lines of gold running down the mask from top to bottom.

Long, vibrant, and slightly wavy white hair flowed down past her shoulders, her slightly voluminous side bangs framing the sides of her face and draping all the way down towards her chest. Her front bangs had been parted towards the left, likely just above her eye if visible.

Underneath her slightly voluminous hair, a view from the side of her head showed she was wearing a thick, white metal circlet with thin lines of gold etching spanning the entire accessory, the metal on the top and bottom sides shaped like sharp crested waves of water as it likely covered the entirety of her forehead. A pair of thin golden chains adorned the bottom sides of the head circlet between the waves, drooping down slightly beneath her ears with small, teardrop-shaped emeralds dangling from the centers of the droops.

A white dipylon shield with thin lines of wavy gold etching covering the entire front of the shield rested on her left forearm, its size big enough to completely cover her torso. The shield had a razor sharp, gold trimmed edge all around it, lining even the inside of the two small, half circle gaps on the edges of the shield.

The young woman was indeed breathtaking to behold, and definitely the fitting image of what one could describe as a beautiful warrior goddess. Seeing her stunned Jaune so greatly that he practically forgot the pain wracking his whole body.

She turned her head back towards him, leaning in slightly as if she wanted to go to his side, but moved no further. The young woman's hand firmly gripped her spear even tighter, where she then promptly turned around and twirled it twice. Letting the shaft slide down her palm, she grasped the imprinted handle near the base of the spearhead, the long shaft collapsing into the handle in a brief flourish of white sparks to turn the spear into a sort of xiphos, a short sword.

Then, she looked dead ahead at the red eyed fiend and began walking towards him slowly.

[GhostFinal] HIKARI (Punishing: Gray Raven OST - 九龙环城)

"So another one showed up, huh? Makes no difference to me!"

The man reared back his right arm as he brought up his right leg, then darted forward with blinding speed to punch the young woman.

(0:12)

The white haired warrior deftly ducked the punch, bashing her right shoulder into his stomach to send him flying backwards a few meters before dashing forward herself and trying to slash his neck in a fast outwards swipe. The fiend leaned back enough to only get the equivalent of a papercut to his throat, wherein an absurdly fast paced clash of claws and sword and shield occurred.

While the man was highly agile and quick, his strikes were wild and only within reach of his hands and feet. The young woman was faster, stronger and definitely more accurate, for with each exchange of blows, she had managed to cut either his arms or legs while continuously pushing him back and keeping on him, giving him little time to fight back at his own pace. There was a moment where he could leap up into the air, rearing back his left arm as his claws glowed ice blue, where he then shot downwards like a bullet.

(0:35)

He punched the ground, creating a blinding snowstorm as he quickly dashed around the woman, lunging out of the blind to strike at the back of her head. She spun out of the way as her sword transformed back into a spear and delivered a crushing smack to his back, making him tumble forward a bit before leaping back into the whirlwind of blinding snow.

He would repeat this same tactic but in varied attacks and intervals, steadily increasing his speed with each pass until he was bouncing in and out of the blind with lightning fast speed. And yet, no matter the speed and his visibility advantage, the warrior countered him flawlessly with her shield and weapon, swapping in between spear and shortsword as the situation called for it. As the blind began to vanish, the man attacked from above with a diving kick, only for the young woman to step out of the way, grapple his leg with both hands, and toss him head first into the ground before delivering a crushing stomp kick that sent him flying through three trees.

(0:57)

The man roared loudly like a beast as he jumped back up to his feet, blowing apart the large trees around him from their trunks, colossal chunks of ice rising in the air above him. He swiped one claw at her and one massive chunk flew at her, but the woman rooted her feet in the ground, made her weapon take on its sword form and sliced through it in one single, powerful slash, immediately slashing upwards to cut the second boulder. The third one, absolutely massive compared to the other two fell towards her, her weapon taking on its spear form before she threw it with all her might, the resulting sound like cannon fire as the spear completely obliterated the massive chunk of ice.

The red eyed fiend looked at her with utter disbelief, the visage of her mask falling upon him as his blood ran cold for the first time in his life. He roared like a beast once more as pillars, spikes, and chunks of ice began to form out of the ground and surged forward with great speed.

(1:19)

The young woman dashed ahead undaunted by the barrage of deadly ice, leaping, dodging, slashing and stabbing her way through the "impossible" and deathly terrain. She easily tore through the icy deathtraps and blocks with her weapon and crushed them to dust with her shield, leaping into the air with a split kick that shattered two blocks before she landed on a small chunk of splintered wood, using it to sled down the artificially created terrain. Eventually, she came across a huge wall of ice between herself and her enemy, but instead of faltering, she leapt from her makeshift sled like a bolt of lightning, shield raised in front as she punched through to shatter the walk entirely, coming face to face with the bewildered fiend.

(1:40)

Heavily cut up and startled, he swung wildly to no avail as the young woman parried him, her weapon and shield shifting to her back. From there, she brutally struck with ferocious speed and power, punching and kicking him with enough force to leave deep dents in his body. Off balance, the young woman's sword flew into her hand in spear form as she swept the man's feet from under him, his body and head upside down in the air.

(1:49)

With her back turned, her spear turned back into its sword form as she brought her weapon across her body, its sharp edge humming with a pure white glow before she lashed outwards across his neck, unleashing a peerless, thin wave of white.

(1:52)

As the wave shot out and briefly vanished, the man's headless body crashed down in front of her, the woman standing up straight as she looked upon his lifeless body to ensure his total death. Then, the "warrior goddess" looked behind her, spotting the ragged Jaune leaning against a tree a hundred meters away. In one powerful leap, she landed a few meters in front of him, steadily walking until she was within arm's reach of him. Both of her hands reached up, grabbing the sides of the mask as it popped off with a small metallic "clink". Her white hair suddenly turned a vibrant red, and as she lowered the mask, the blonde knight could see a familiar face, and a pair of lovingly bright green eyes staring back at him with a warm smile.

(2:14)

"Hello again…" A familiar voice squeaked out.

Tears began to well up in his eyes at the unbelievable sight in front of him, his hand reaching out to touch her face. She gently reached out, bringing his hand to her cheek with a shuddering breath of her own, holding on firmly. Just as much as it was to confirm for her that this moment wasn't a dream in the afterlife, so too was it to confirm for Jaune that she was really there, and not some hallucination.

"P-Pyrrha..!" He cried out, breaking down into tears completely as he hugged her tightly.

Tears welled up in her eyes as well, quickly returning the hug with a firm embrace of her own as she cried out a name she desperately wished for.

"Jaune..!"

(2:36)

Their tearful reunion was soon joined by Nora Valkyrie, bawling her eyes out as she jumped on Pyrrha's side to latch onto her, an action that should have moved her from place if but a little. Chuckling briefly, her and Jaune's arm wrapped around the crying Valkyrie to bring her into their hug. Ren was not far behind Nora, and staggered near the group between Nora and Pyrrha, resting a hand each of their shoulders. His eyes twitched before tearing up as well, lips pursed tightly as to not let out a cry, for he feared he would not stop.

There in the icy terrain, the four youths cried their eyes out due to the unbelievable state affairs, holding one another tightly as the biting cold remained absolutely meaningless to them. They didn't want to let go of Pyrrha, for they feared if they did, she would suddenly disappear. The same could be said for the red haired huntress herself as she held on tightly enough, praying deep within her mind that this wasn't some wild dream she was experiencing.

By whatever happenstance… by whatever miracle that was produced today, the four youths had been unbelievably reunited with one another, JNPR made whole once more. And for a time, they had no intention to move from their spot, wanting to remain in this sweet embrace for a bit longer.

(End Song)

---

Dante took a heavy kick to the face, sending him rolling on his back a few dozen meters until he crashed into Belîa, who placed herself in his path to stop him. The impact was powerful, making the Embered Knightess slide back on her heels a bit of distance until coming to a complete halt. Both were a little out of breath as she helped him back onto his feet, the fairly ragged pair glaring back at the twins smirking at them. Although they weren't in as rough condition, it was still very clear that they too had taken their share of hits given that their clothes were a little dirty, torn, and bloodied, either by the blood of Dante and Belîa, or their own blood when they had been a little too careless.

The same could be said for the young devil and the knightess.

"How fare you?" Belîa asked, placing the devil tucked under her arm down onto his feet.

"Peachy." He replied, rolling his shoulders as he spoke softly, "Now would be a great time to stop holding back, you know?"

"Yes, of course. And I suppose I should obliterate the village as well?"

Dante growled silently, not out of anger, but because she was right. Belîa was by all rights extremely powerful, even for a Lord ranking 2nd under Obani, the only Lord who could potentially rival a King Class, but only under a full moon. The Embered Knightess, however, held no such convenient power, not without immense risk to others.

"Assuming you don't need to go Wrath Form, how many more meters do you think we need to reach a minimum safe distance?" He asked her.

"Judging our current distance from the mining town… Possibly two hundred meters?"

"Let's shoot for three hundred to be totally safe. After that, we push them hard enough to roll up their sleeves and-"

A sudden pang ran through him, more specifically his heart, eyes widening suddenly. Then, the corners of his mouth twitched, soon enough forming a rather eerie smile on his face as an equally disturbing, silent laugh escaped him. It was a laugh and a smile that made the twins jump slightly as they instinctively took a step back, Belîa doing the same out of instinct as she felt her blood run a little cold.

Amidst the sudden feeling that ran through him and his rather silenced, eerie laughter, he bolted upwards a little with an "Ah", then slapped the side of his face with his free hand to bring himself back to his senses.

"Eheh… Sorry about that…" He apologized as he rubbed the back of his head with a rather normal smile, "Suddenly felt a little happy about something…"

The brother twin's left eye twitched, "Happy..? Have we finally scrambled your foolhardy brains?!"

"No way!" The devil waved off with a pleasant and non-threatening smile, "You guys are weak as shit! There's no way you could do something like that to me!"

The brother growled and took a step forward, only to be stopped by his sister's hand as she shook her head at him.

Smart girl…

…

…

He looked off towards the left mountainside, eyes softening as he placed his left hand over his heart, smiling faintly with a lowered head and closed eyes. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled and looked back up at the twins, then moved his left hand behind him to lightly tap Belîa's armored sides.

"Second half, jolly giant. This is the moment we dunk on these clowns." He looked up at her, "Ready?"

"While I have faint understanding of your terminology, yes…" She looked up from the young devil straight ahead at the twins, "I am ready!"

(Jujutsu Kaisen OST - REMEMBER - Various Artists Topic)

The duo fixed the twins a glare as they menacingly walked forwards, their bodies ablaze with platinum and azure Aura.

"Hah! You lowly trash think you can win?! Fools! This battle was decided the very moment you encountered us!" Axvâz shouted at them, eyes wide with fury at their audacity.

"My brother speaks true. Your fate has been decided. Your stories end here." Aurîl spoke in a calmer tone, her stoic expression remaining unchanged.

"Like I said, all bitch talk, no substance!" Dante shouted back with a toothy grin, "If I absolutely murder you two shits, that makes any ambition you've ever had even lower than trash!"

(0:33)

Just as the brother was about retort, any further conversation had been completely cut off as soon as the young devil made a beeline for them, laughing like some deranged maniac all the while. While clearly disturbed, the brother immediately recuperated and ran at him to intercept, disks ready to slice open the devil's stomach. As soon as he got close however, Dante immediately leapt over Axvâz's head, who spun around to only eat the sole of the devil's left shoe as he darted off his face directly for Aurîl.

(0:41)

Before he could call his enemy a "bastard", he was immediately under attack from Belîa's deceptively fast and powerful swings of her massive sword. Having taken things more seriously, Dante was proving to be a rather terrifying menace with his wild swordsmanship and laughter, pushing around the sister as she took to strict defense. Strangely enough, instead of pushing his advantage, he blew past her backwards, with Belîa doing the same thing as their backs collided in the air, their bodies spinning around to switch foes.

(0:58)

The Embered Knightess chased after Aurîl while Dante went after Axvâz, and initially, their swap proved to be a good tactic, for the twin sister could barely block Belîa's sword, much less her punches, kicks, shoulder bashes and knee strikes. The twin brother was proving to have trouble with Dante's seemingly relentless attacks, constantly swapping between Navâra and Eclypse to throw him off with the variance in power and speed.

But the twins had their own new tactic, their weapons swapping with the other in instantaneous bursts of deep blue and black Aura. Like that, the knightess and the devil were now on the defensive, as each twin used the swapped weapons very differently than the other, assaulting them with varieties of dark elemental magic, once again gaining the upper hand.

"How is that, trash?!" The twin brother shouted at them, "You call us weak… BUT!"

Dante took a heavy, black ice slash across his body, shattering his defensive mechanism and drawing blood, while Belîa was subject to a blinding fast attack from the magic infused disc weapons, which ricocheted off each other and her armor to strike multiple times and shatter multiple sections of her armor.

"YOU TRASH WERE TOO WEAK TO PROTECT AN EVEN WEAKER QUEEN!"

Both warriors had been heavily injured, knocked off balance, and were seemingly about to collapse.

(1:34)

In that span of time, the duo saw a vision of the Queen they both served and loved, her visage immaculate and kind. Within that brief flicker of memory… she smiled at them lovingly.

(1:41)

The pair's eyes snapped open with a startling, shared fury, both stomping their feet down so as to not fall as they "rebutted" with blood curdling roars and devastating headbutts to the twins' faces, stunning them at the sudden recovery. The attacks that came after clearly broadcasted their seemingly maddening fury and passion, their strikes even faster and more powerful as the magics used by the twins were shattered or blown through as if they were nothing. Both brother and sister did their best to still their shared, sudden fear, but against the raging tsunami of platinum and azure blue, their offense crumbled.

Their respective Auras devoured the twins' dark magic like bloodthirsty demons, relentlessly pushing the twin's further and further back. They were almost helpless to properly fight back, as now they were the ones now bloodied and cut heavily, their gaudy garments now even more tattered and messier. The relentless Aura based attacks were letting up as Belîa and Dante continued onwards with up close combat once again, only it took the duo singular, heavy sword strikes to knock the twins off their feet.

To Aurîl and Axvâz's surprise, they collided into each other harshly backs first, both shocked by the development as they desperately searched for their respective opponents.

But it was too late to do anything about it since their injured arms were still healing.

(2:25)

Dante and Belîa were already within striking range, and from the perspective of the twins, time moved slowly as they watched their enemies' swords flood with platinum Aura, and blaze azure blue like wildfire, the duo inching closer with terrifying and seemingly booming steps. Their swords passionately ablaze and readied, Belîa brought her blazing sword outwards across her body before raising it overhead, while Dante remained in a lower posture with his sword behind him, turning his wrist and angling his sword for a vertical strike.

For the twins, the world suddenly went black.

(2:34)

A loud grunt escaped the devil and the Embered Knightess as they swung their swords full force, their Auras unifying in a manner that absorbed all the color in the world around them for a brief moment to leave it in total darkness before exploding in a brilliant cross cut of platinum and azure blue, the duo passing through the twins.

The twins cried out in agony as their lower halves had been so brutally and painfully separated, but out of fear of imminent death, they focused all their regenerative power to reattach themselves to their separated lower halves.

(2:47)

As they looked up, Axvâz and Aurîl were under merciless assault once more, the young devil and knightess making every effort to keep the twins bunched together. Dante had swapped to Xīn Huá, his greaves and gauntlets, and was taking quick and focused potshots at each of the siblings' weak points on their bodies to stop any chance of them defending themselves. Mixed in with the heavy and extremely concussive force of Belîa's brutal punches to their faces or chests, she was constantly pelting each sibling in quick succession with disorienting and heavy handed punches that shattered their durable bones and their skulls, blackened blood painting the giantess' hands constantly as thick pools of blood trailed behind the rampaging duo.

Devil and knightess worked flawlessly with one another, switching and interweaving positions between each other to immediately strike after the other or to quickly compensate for a potential window of opportunity. They gave no quarter to the twins, treating them as nothing but punching bags.

With the agonizing "samsara" of healing followed by heavy damage to their bodies and brains, Aurîl and Axvâz may as well have been inanimate objects, for the constant agonizing pain and brain damage left them unable to think throughout their immense suffering.

Soon after, Dante and Belîa ceased their onslaught, syncing up with each other as the devil reared back his right fist and the Embered Knightess her left, their respective Aura's flourishing around their fists. Each then took a powerful stride forward and loosed their punches.

(3:38)

Fists collided with the twins' faces for another devastating hit that momentarily caved in their faces before sending them spiraling backwards into the cliffside. Like missiles, Aurîl and Axvâz shot into the overarching cliff of stone with tremendous and explosive impact, causing many loose boulders and chunks of rock to collapse down upon them. As the rocks fell with light tremors, so to did the immensely huge piles of snow fall from high above, creating one massive burial mound for the Dark Entity twins that dared to cross the devil and the Embered Knightess.

(End Song)

---

Dante plunged his sword into the ground to lean on Eclypse with a heavy sigh, wiping his forehead and the corners of his mouth with the back of his left hand.

Guess I didn't have to break out The Seeker's armor for this one…

Looking over, he could see Belîa was having a hard time sitting up straight before falling forward from exhaustion, most of the armor covering the front of her body having crumbled away. The young devil immediately shot forward and towards his right, placing most of himself underneath the knightess to keep her propped up. By some misfortune, or rather fortune, given that Belîa was much taller than him and had… much larger "proportions" than the vast majority of women, the entire right side of his head had slightly sunk into only "some" of her left breast.

…

…

The sensation was heavenly, but now wasn't the time for admiring peak beauty.

Coming to her senses shortly after, the knightess sighed in relief as she fell to one knee, the rest of her armor vanishing like azure sparks as it allowed Dante to shift his face from a rather "sensitive" place to underneath her large arm to help keep her as upright as he could. The poor girl had been fighting endlessly before now against hordes of enemies, and in their earlier scuffle with the twins, she shielded Dante with her body a few times. Despite her protection at some intervals being unnecessary, the thought counted tremendously.

Still, had she made full use of her powers, she would be far better off. It was clear she thought of the villagers in the distance and the impact it would have on them had she truly "taken off the gloves". Even with a safe distance determined between them, the risk was still present of her going "berserk", which would have been very troubling to deal with. Thus, like a true, thoughtful knightess, she kept her power in check, and secured victory without casualties to her comrades or civilians.

"P-Put me down…"

"What? Why?" Dante asked, looking up at her.

She was clearly flustered about something, and it didn't take him long to remember some of his past conversations with Anya.

"Oh shut up about it, will you? You're not that heavy, even with the armor on."

He felt her arm tightening around his neck, which made him think that if it were anyone else, their head would have burst like a watermelon.

"That was a compliment..!" He replied in a strained voice, her arm loosening up a bit soon after.

The pleasantries ended soon after, for the collapsed mound of rubble exploded like a geyser, the two twins panting heavily as they escaped their burial, their skins and their ragged clothes drenched in their own black blood, while some limbs were either completely gone or in the process of straightening out. One of their special traits was a sort of "emergency repair" when in close proximity to one another; their wounds would quickly close and heal up, but more internal damage such as organs and blood loss weren't as quick a fix.

Axvâz staggered onto his feet when his legs had healed, and he immediately eyed Dante, who gently let go of Belîa.

"Stay down. I got this." He said as he took a few steps forward.

"Now is not the time for-"

"Relax. I can handle the rest." He cut her off, "I'm holding all the aces currently, you know?"

She growled slightly before she bowed her head, taking deep breaths to quicken her recovery. Dante in the meanwhile kept an unguarded stride forward, playfully swinging his arms side to side before he stopped a few meters away from the siblings.

"You arrogant..! Bastard..!" The brother said as he forcefully popped his shoulder back into place, rolling it around slightly, "You dare..! Play around..!" He then forcefully pushed the underside of his jaw to push it back into place, "While we still draw breath?!"

"I mean… I kinda slapped the shit out of you two jokers with my smoking hot, beast of a companion, so…"

"Enough of your jokes, coward!"

Dante looked surprised before taking a look around, then looked back at the twins before pointing to himself with a questioning stare.

"You fool…" Aurîl said as she stood up soon after, "rearranging" her own damaged body, "You've but won the first series of bouts. You will not leave here alive. You told us to run, but you may as well flee yourselves, just like how your coward Queen fled many times before."

…

The young devil stood completely still, the corners of his mouth twitching until they formed a wide smile. Muffled chortles escaped him before he slapped a hand to his mouth to cover it, hunching over until he could no longer hold it in. Loud, howling laughter like that of a madman escaped the devil, echoing over the tundra as the twins took a step back in response to the unnerving laughter. Faint chills ran down their spines as they watched him slap his knees multiple times, his maniacal laughs seemingly piercing their very beings.

Even Belîa could not help but be subjected to an incredible sense of unease that swarmed over the entirety of her body, fidgeting anxiously in her place of rest.

Dante's laughter inevitably died down, the devil taking a deep breath as he wiped the corners of his eyes and steadily stood back up, his smile vanishing as soon as he locked eyes with the twins.

"Run? Did you… just tell me… to run?" He asked them.

Axvâz gulped rather nervously, trying his best to maintain the facade that he wasn't unnerved in the slightest, something his sister failed to do.

"I, should run? Where exactly should I be running to? And most importantly…" Dante took a deep breath before shouting, "WHY SHOULD I?!"

As he shouted loud enough for the heavens to hear him, his voice had a distorted, hollowing echo that seemingly shook the world, which was accompanied by an equally ferocious, draconic roar from his Aura. At the same time as he shouted, his form had instantaneously been entirely encompassed in the armor given to him by The Seeker, only it was completely transparent and formed out of his platinum Aura, lasting only for a moment before vanishing as his shout ended.

In the moments his voice had "hit" the twins, it was as if the world went entirely black, an empty void encompassing them. Immediately after the void took them, their flesh had been entirely rent from their bodies, their muscle fibers and blood decaying instantly shortly after to leave nothing but bare skeletons in the darkness, their screams unheard.

That was what they perceived as his shout reached them.

In reality, Axvâz and Aurîl had remained completely frozen like terrified children, both of them sporting wide, fearful gazes. Unlike her equally trembling brother, Aurîl had been brought to tears, hyperventilating in a panicked manner whilst daring not to move more than necessary.

As for Belîa, the unease she felt multiplied tenfold as she broke out into a cold sweat, an intense pressure weighing on her for the brief moment the young devil shouted.

What… What was that just now..?! That presence… That wasn't just that of a Dark Entity..!

Dante placed his hands on his hips with a sigh, "Since you dumbasses really didn't learn your lesson from last time… allow me to hammer in your mistakes before we end this."

He raised up his right hand, making the twins flinch fearfully in anticipation of an attack, making the devil smile.

"First mistake. Making me your enemy and thinking you could take me. I'm not the same 'pushover' I was last time, nor am I helpless to fight on my own." He said raising one finger, then raising another, "Second mistake. Only two of you trying to take me out? Fucking insulting."

Axvâz was debating retreating to the village with his sister to quickly kill a few humans to "refuel", but with the capabilities Dante demonstrated, it would be impossible, much less with his sister in tow.

"Third mistake. Thinking you still have control of this battle."

The brother flinched at Dante's words, glaring at him with a low growl.

"You really think I wouldn't figure out that you'd bolt for a quick snack? Get serious man." Dante raised up a fourth finger, "Final mistake? Trash talking Anya. She was an amazing person, and would have made an excellent queen. Since you're so keen on trashing her… let me trash something you cherish in return."

The devil then extended his arm towards the twins, palm facing them as he curled his fingers inwards slightly. Axvâz crouched low, getting in front of Aurîl to shield her from whatever attack was to come.

Regardless, it would be in vain.

Dante then turned his hand over, palm facing the air as he both thrust his arm upwards slightly and clenched his fingers in a tight fist, a sound like that of heavily shattering glass emerging from his grasp alongside a brief burst of platinum Aura. Axvâz's body tensed up as he heard multiple sounds of swords piercing flesh, but looked down to see he was unscathed. His eyes widened in realization, spinning around quickly as he felt his heart sink.

Aurîl was gasping for air, her body a pincushion for numerous Aura Longswords piercing her body from various angles; her chest, her stomach, her shoulders, her back, arms, legs… There was no point left untouched by the glowing swords, the sister coughing up heavy amounts of black blood as she weakly raised her head to look up at her brother. Time seemingly moved slower than usual as he bolted towards her, reaching his hand out towards Aurîl as she tried to do the same.

Dante unfurled his fingers, pinching his thumb and index finger together before loosing a loud, echoing snap. As soon as Axvâz was close to grasping his sister's hand, the Aura Longswords in her body glowed more vibrantly until they became a blinding light.

A light that exploded like a bundle of grenades, creating a blinding white cloud of smoke that consumed both twins. Out of the smoke flew a few things, namely rock and snow, but a "piece" flew out towards the young devil, landing on his left shoulder. When he looked down, he saw it was a slender hand from Aurîl, slowly crumbling apart into blackened ash. With a click of his tongue, he casually brushed off the disintegrating hand, fixing his gaze upon the smoke cloud and waiting patiently.

Belîa was between bewilderment and… being impressed with the never-before-seen effectiveness of Dante. The previous times she had seen him fight, he was a little sloppy, and some of his fights were drawn out. Now? He was demonstrating greater control of the battlefield, and this time, to a rather terrifying extent, hence her initial unease.

The Embered Knightess couldn't help but feel that attack just now was excessive, if not somewhat cruel.

As the smoke cleared, Dante could see Axvâz kneeling a bit further away, his clothes and skin adorning more burns. In his arms, he was cradling the top half that remained of his sister that was riddled with smoldering, gaping holes, which struggled to regenerate. Her entire lower half had been completely blown away beneath her ribs, and she was missing a hand. Tried as her body did to regenerate with their shared special trait, it was stopped by the platinum Aura smoldering her wounds.

Her brother was on the verge of tears, and she could no longer speak to tell him to fight on and kill Dante. Thus, in her moments before death, she raised up her remaining hand and jabbed it into her chest, punching past her own rib-cage as she firmly grasped what she was looking for. Pain had flooded her senses so horribly that she could no longer feel it after a brief moment, and in a swift motion, she ripped out her still beating, blackened heart, her arteries visibly snapping apart with violent gushes of black blood.

And so with Aurîl's final act, she shot the hand holding her heart into her brother's chest, fusing it with his own in a final, brilliant flash of dark blue and black Aura. With her final, wordless request, her hand fell limp to her side, her body disintegrating at a quicker rate until naught but black ash filled Axvâz's palms, steadily slipping away between his fingers and into the wind. As if the reality of the situation finally caught up to him, black tears dripped down from his eyes, his shuddering breaths soon becoming blood-curdling cries of agony that echoed across the tundra. With his cries, dark blue and black Aura steadily enveloped his body, forming thin, twisted black armor.

Belîa struggled to get back on her feet, only to be stopped by Dante's hand.

"What are you-?!"

"Just sit this one out. I told you I had this, didn't I?" The devil told his long-time ally.

"This isn't the time for acts of bravado, you fool! He's Ascending!"

"It isn't an act, and I know that, it was within expectations." Dante sighed, "I was saving up for this exact moment. Knowing him, any notion of a retreat, strategic or otherwise, is out of the question now that I exploded his sister. His sole focus will be to fight until he kills me or I kill him."

The devil glanced over his shoulder, giving the knightess a thumbs up.

"I told you I was holding all the aces, right? So let me four-of-a-kind this dumb bitch so we can go home and eat something, yeah?"

Belîa didn't know what else to say at this point, and was taken aback by his casual attitude. He was far too calm in the face of the current situation. Did he truly have this under control to such an extent as to not be concerned?

Without another word, Dante stepped forward towards the surge of dark Aura, keeping his eyes focused on the despairing torrents flooding out on the snowy terrain, quickly melting the ice.

Seeker, if you would please…

As he made his plea, his body was quickly shrouded in black Aura, tightening around him to form dark armor gifted to him by the Seeker, her "blessing". As his imposing form grew distant, Belîa felt… something strange from him. Seeing that form gave off the "feeling" of a powerful Dark Entity, but…

It gave off the feeling of something more, something… foreign.

As the devil approached, the torrents died down to reveal a transformed Axvâz, his body adorned in thin, spiraling, twisted black armor with dark blue accents. His head ornament had become twisted, horns sprouting from the sides of his head resembling a ram, only after four coils, the horns curved inwards towards his head before curving outwards slightly. His eyes glowed with a vibrant dark blue, his mouth a maw of numerous jagged teeth, the inside of his mouth a glowing furnace of dark blue.

"Kill… Kill..! KILL! I'LL KILL YOU, BASTARD!" The brother shouted, his voice hollow and echoing with rage, "My sister..!"

"Was a dumb bitch, just like you." Dante cut him off, taking up one of the many stances Xīn Huá had recently taught him, "I don't give a damn about either of you or your stupid feelings. So come at me, and let's end this stupid bullshit already."

His casual, callous tone stunned Axvâz into silence for a few seconds before roaring loudly like some mythical beast. He dashed and closed the distance between them in a second, ready to punch the devil's head off his shoulders with his newfound speed and power. Instead, his punch was slapped aside by Dante's clawed armored hand, as if swatting away a sheet of paper twisting in the wind. The parried punch was immediately followed up with a crushing punch to Axvâz's armored face, cracking the armor with the swift and powerful punch.

The brother would punch and claw and kick at Dante like a wild animal, doing his best to absolutely murder the young devil. And yet, none of his attacks were getting through. The devil was easily blocking or moving aside his enemy's attacks, being mildly cautious all the while he kept beating the brother like a drum. He was a Lord Class now, but his new power was juvenile at best, not to mention that he was emotionally compromised to an extreme extent, throwing any sense of strategy or rationality out the window.

It was for this reason that Dante wanted to kill Aurîl first.

Compared to her brother, she was leagues above him in rationality. If he killed her brother first, she would have been emotionally distressed, but she wouldn't have been irrational. In her brother's current situation, she would have kept her cool to some extent, and taken her time to experiment and orient herself to her newfound power. Not to mention, she would have retreated if needed, and would have bided her time to "attack" Dante another time, and would have tried to hurt him in other ways.

Compared to her brother, she would have been a much larger problem to deal with.

Now Dante was simply going through the motions, keeping checks on Axvâz's attacks and only noticing that his strength and speed were increasing in noticeable bumps every minute. As to any other demonstrations of power, there were none. He was too much like a wild beast now to try and see what new powers he might have gained from his sister's Soul Succession.

He was easy prey.

With no need for further observation, Dante finally began to step up his efforts, moving from defense to direct, crushing counters, each of his attacks cracking the brother's armor and focused on his chest, arms and head. After a few more swift and crushing blows, the devil started to chip away huge chunks of Axvâz's armor, stripping away most of his chest armor before intentionally clashing fists, breaking not only the armor, but also the twin brother's fingers and most of his arm. Another punch, and another arm was shattered, black blood spurting everywhere.

Now "armless", Dante took advantage of the situation by grabbing Axvâz's neck and began pummeling the juvenile Lord's face in, shattering his head armor and horns. Even after his head was completely stripped of armor, the devil continued to pummel the brother, caving in his face a few times. Having caused extreme damage to a vital part of his body, Axvâz's regeneration was focused on explosively healing his head and brain, leaving his arms useless "noodles" that were healing at a slower rate.

His raging cries were eventually silenced, his pain overtaking his rage.

Now that he was "broken", the twin brother was tossed up in the air before taking a crushing sidekick to his chest, feeling as though tons of stone had fallen on him and crushed his organs, making him vomit up large amounts of black blood as he flew backwards like a rocket. He crashed into the cliffside behind him, bouncing off of it harshly as he then crashed into the ground face first. He was struggling to breath, and his arms had barely been healed to allow him to push himself off the ground.

But he would have no triumph.

Now completely stripped of his armor, as soon as he looked up, a now normal Dante stepped on the top of his head and stomped his face back into the ground. With tremendous effort, he slowly raised up his head, locking eyes with the devil in a scornful glare as he growled.

"My..! My sister..!" Blackened tears flowed from his eyes once more, "You piece… of shit… Aren't you… supposed to be a hero..?!"

…

Dante looked at Axvâz dumbstruck, genuinely amused beyond belief as he began chortling, then hunched over clutching his sides, laughing as though he had heard the funniest joke in his life before he leaned backwards, letting his howling laughter echo across the tundra. The twin brother's tears continued to flow, a plethora of emotions hitting him all at once, but of them all, fear and confusion flooded over him in the greatest quantity as he heard the roaring, mad laughter of the devil.

Then, he suddenly stopped laughing, "Hero?" he asked, eyes staring up at the sky before falling on the brother.

He then lifted his foot up before harshly stomping Axvâz's head back into the ground.

"Now who the fuck went and told you something so silly?"

The twin brother could only cast a sideways glance from the ground, eyes still wide and confused as he saw Dante hunching over and resting his forearm on his knee, putting extra pressure on the Dark Entity. The way the devil looked at him… It was as if he were staring at something lower than trash.

"You do a few nice things, you get called a hero. I swear, they give that title out to anyone these days…"

"You think… you can fool me?! I know… what they call you..! I know… what they still call you..!"

Another harsh stomp to the Dark Entity's head.

"I could care less what they call me. Frankly, I've given up on correcting that nonsense ages ago, so if they want to call me a 'hero'..." Dante made a silly face while also making air quotes, "that's up to them. One thing you can be certain about though…"

He pushed down on his foot harder, rubbing the soles of his shoe in harsh side-to-side motions.

"You'll never see me call myself a hero. Ever."

As he said this, Axvâz gave up all resistance, resigning himself to his end. He was done, he was beaten.

"Well… Let's hope you and your sister understood the pain and misery you caused others. Cause if you two have been killing with reckless abandon, then clearly you haven't until now." Dante shrugged, "I mean, I'd get it if you killed everyone involved in torturing you two, really I would. Hell, I wouldn't even bat an eye. But every other human being guilty by association? That's pretty stupid, if not unfair."

Black aura covered the entirety of the leg Dante was using to step on Axvâz's head, taking on the shape of the entire leg piece of The Seeker's armor.

"Either way, all the shit is coming to an end now."

He raised up his armored leg to crush the twin brother's head, but he still had some fight left in him, dodging out of the way and pushing himself back up to his feet. He threw a punch, only to collide with Dante's own fist. The Dark Entity staggered backwards as few steps, four of his finger's absolutely mangled. He expected Dante to keep up the attack, but instead, was surprised to see him standing still, making a finger gun towards Axvâz.

"Bang."

As soon as he said this, two hardlight spears skewered his legs, one through his right thigh, the other through his left shin. The spear rooted the bastard in place before a soft metallic ring chimed through the air.

Before Axvâz could react to anything else, a white metal sword pierced his heart from behind, stopped by friction before the pure white blade finally ruptured all the way through.

The sword was stained with Axvâz's black blood as he struggled to draw in air. A certain blonde cat faunus casually stepping out from behind the Dark Entity with a sigh Ray rubbed his index finger across the flat side of the blade, staining it with some of the inky blood.

"War isn't in our nature, you know." The Chroma commented, calmly stopping just in front of Axvâz and looking up into the Dark Entity's eyes. "But after you took my sister, we agreed to make an exception."

Solara wasn't far behind her twin brother, the girl looking far angrier - and rightly so - as she kicked Axvâz in his right leg, shattering the hardlight pinning it and knocking him down on one knee.

She didn't say a word and nor did she have to, the hostile glare she gave the Entity spoke a thousand words all in one.

Ray walked backwards towards Dante, shortly followed by his sister as he pointed at the twin brother and the sword jutting out of his chest, "You can keep that, shit-head. I made it just for you." He said as he stopped next to the devil crossing his arms with a smirk on his face.

Axvâz, choked on his own blood as he struggled to move forward, only managing to reach out with his unbroken hand as his body began crumbling apart into black ash. Unable to move forward, he let out a hushed cry, his voice disappearing into the cold wind until his body completely broke apart, Ray's sword dropping into the snow.

The devil reached out a hand, a devilish, spectral hand of platinum Aura shooting out to grab the sword, which then retracted to him while placing the sword in his hand.

"I believe this is yours, good sir."

Ray looked at the sword and the weapon's pristine blade before nodding toward it. "I wasn't lying when I said I made it for them. Check the edge. You won't find any marks."

Dante glanced over the entirety of the weapon, seeing no warping in the sword and no chips or dents on the sharp edges. Normally, a Dark Entity's skin of that caliber wouldn't be so much as scratched by any kind of weapons of mundane making. Still, he was a bit disappointed in being unable to see how the sword would affect a Dark Entity's Shadow Skin, much less one belonging to that of a Lord. Knowing it could cause them harm was still a good result, even if they were weakened.

"I noticed. You added some of that 'special crystal' I gave you?"

"It's at the core, but that wasn't all I added." Ray replied with a nod reaching a hand out to take the sword. "Got some of our own metal in the alloy that works well against these types of bastards."

"The metal definitely held up with the crystal at the core, since…"

…

Since it's a crystallized piece of her power…

"Suffice it to say, I very much hope you keep the design to yourself. I can't even begin to imagine if this got mass-produced…"

"Prismatic Steel is not easy to make. You remember my last sword. That was a walk in the park in comparison." Ray commented. "Mass-production simply isn't possible. So we're safe."

"Ah, family secret technique." Dante tilted his head upwards slightly, "Awesome. Makes me wonder what you'd make with a piece from my armor, but… something tells me it'd be safer as a 'collaborative' effort between us, if ever the chance arises."

Ray shrugged, sheathing the sword as he did so. "I'm open to the idea, I'm sure there's some things I can teach you. But if you ever need an Aura bomb like the one I had before, give me a whole bunch of Dust and a week. Expect some protest from Nira though."

"Dude, I am the bomb. Literally and figuratively."

"Yeah..." Ray smirked before pocketing his hands. "That was a good explosion. Even I have to admit that."

The devil was visibly beaming with a wide grin and a puffed out chest, only to get a slap from behind his head that face-planted him into the snow.

"You fool. Don't act so arrogantly." Belîa towered over the two of them, now in her dress attire and leggings instead of her armor, "It's unbecoming."

The young devil pushed himself up from the ground, shaking his head rapidly to get the snow out of his hair.

"I have my right to be a smartass occasionally!" He said before brushing the snow off his slightly ripped shirt, "Slapping the shit out of me aside… How'd the last while go? She tuck you guys in at night alright?" He asked Ray, nodding towards the immensely tall knightess as she began stretching the devil's cheeks with her hands.

Solara stepped up to them, having been staring intently at the remains of the Dark Entities responsible for her imprisonment for a little while.

The rage and resent in her violet eyes had all but burnt out by now, the girl taking a deep breath before looking up at Dante. "It went as well as you'd expect. We did what we could to be productive, but…"

The girl stopped to look toward the village.

"This place is a little lacking in useful resources."

"Yeah no, it went great, Atlas sent some jarheads, we talked things over smoothly, just wonderful stuff." Ray followed with a slight lilt in his tone, closing his eyes as he gently rocked back and forth on his heels.

"There was cursing. And threatening of projectiles impacting kneecaps." The Embered Knightess sighed.

"Oh, don't forget the chaingun, that was the fun part." Ray added casually, "You'd think for highly trained officers, they'd have considered not falling for some very old bait and switch maneuvers."

"As you can see for yourself, I'm debating whether your antics of the past or theirs was more… stressful, to say the least." Belîa crossed her arms, "At the very least, they were more manageable when it came to dinner..."

"Your girl can cook Dante, I'll give her that." Ray said as he finally stood still and looked toward Dante and Belîa. "At least when she isn't breathing down my neck."

"My duty was to protect you, Ray Chroma. And that especially pertains to the potentiality of blowing yourself up."

"With what? There's nothing here but tundra and forest." Ray bit back lightly.

"If the madman next to me can create a so called 'microwave gun' using the actual components from microwave appliances, I could only fear what plans you had for the toaster oven when you were giggling rather ominously as you were tinkering with it."

Ray didn't blink. "The heating elements were stripped so I could keep my coat warm. Do you realize how cold it is out here?"

"Yeah, she's not entirely tech-savvy unless it comes to cooking and home appliances." Dante explained to Ray, "And I admit, the microwave gun idea was a bit… extreme, so she's a bit on edge whenever science guys like us tinker with stuff."

The knightess sighed as she remembered that rather terrifying event.

"Well, I guess now that the twins are dead, you guys can do your own thing now. Except for Atlas getting on your ass for whatever reasons, I don't think you've gotta worry about anyone coming after you guys now."

"I've a feeling we'll bump into each other again." Solara commented quietly, mirroring her brother as she placed her hands in her pockets too. "But I would like to see home again."

Ray wordlessly nodded to that.

"Well, want me to arrange a ship for you guys, or-?"

Before Dante could finish his sentence, both he and Belîa jolted upwards at the sudden feeling of a new presence, spinning around and standing in front of the Chroma twins defensively as they froze in place.

The Husk had arrived, standing a huge distance away from them.

She took no notice of the group of four and slowly knelt down, reaching her hand out to Axvâz's remains of black dust. The dust shifted quickly soon after, four streams meeting in the center as the dust took on a black, moon-shaped crystal, floating gently above her palm. As she stood up, she turned towards the group, a black, sun-shaped crystal in her other hand before she brought both crystals towards her chest, which "merged" with her own black, crystalline body. This time, there was no mask to wear, and thus, it was clear as day to see.

Her face was exactly that of Anya's, only the "skin" looked like smooth white porcelain as her messy, long white hair flowed gently in the wind along with her black cloak. Her black sclerae and shimmering crystal irises stared at them, scanning each person.

"Would anyone like to explain exactly what the hell I'm looking at?" Ray asked tentatively as his fingers reached back and clasped the hilt of his sword.

He didn't draw it yet, but he was ready for a fight if it came.

"Anya…" Dante said in a tone softer than his usual, slowly stepping forward.

The Husk's eyes darted from the last of the group directly towards the devil, narrowing her eyes on him in a… studious manner. His general shape, his face, his own white hair…

…

His bright, sky-blue eyes, narrowed and struggling to contain a cacophony of emotions.

She knew nothing of him. Not his name nor what he "was". And yet… the power radiating from him was… a familiar sensation, along with something else deeper "inside". But his eyes… Looking into them made her feel something… foreign, a slight heat rising in her chest when she heard him say that name.

"..."

Her mouth opened, but instead of words, a hollow, echoing static noise emerged. She knew not what words she wished to speak, only that she attempted to formulate a reply. What that reply was is something she did not know. She heard him speak, and thus imitated his action.

"I'm over here..! I'm here!"

He reached out, and The Husk flinched, raising a hand as a bolt of blackened light shot out from her palm in an instant. Dante's Threat Tracer ability moved to defend him against the bolt, platinum Aura beginning to form around his shoulder to protect him. But before the Aura could gather completely and solidify, the bolt passed through the momentary gap, piercing his flesh and passing through his shoulder entirely.

Pain flooded his senses as he cried out briefly, gritting his teeth as he grasped his shoulder. The flesh was struggling to close itself, revealing glossy, black bone underneath where he was struck along with a white-hot glow. From behind, everyone could see the hole put through the devil, and the bone deeper within.

He stepped back, still gritting his teeth as he did his best to minimize the pain he was feeling.

"H…er…e…"

He looked up, and the pain suddenly vanished.

"He…re…"

The devil saw that The Husk's face was scrunched up slightly, her arm trembling as the corners of her eyes twitched.

"Here…" It called out, its voice still hollow and echoing, but very much like hers, "Over… here…"

His eyes went wide as he watched it struggle to lower its arm, her other hand gripping her wrist tightly and desperately trying to force it down. Then, he ran towards her, the pain in his shoulder irrelevant as he rushed ahead. This was his chance.

And yet, even this hope was dashed.

As he approached, an oval shaped rift of black and white energy appeared behind The Husk as she staggered backwards towards it, still keeping her arm lowered. She was halfway through by the time Dante had gotten closer, the young devil reaching out to her to try and grab her hand. But before he could grab hold of her, she had sunk into the depths of the rift, which quickly closed after her complete entry.

He stumbled forward after failing to grab hold of her, falling to his hands as they sunk into the snow. Because of his insensitivity to pain, he couldn't feel the biting cold of the snow covering his hands, and even if he could, the sensation would have been blocked out by the violent warmth building up inside him. The sound of the wind faded as all he heard was a faint high pitched ring, his eyes closed and lips pursed together as he raised up a hand, half heartedly swinging it up and down, as if he were deciding whether or not he should let out his overboiling frustrations.

…

…

Regardless of how mature he acted or presented himself, he was still young, and at times gave in to the impulses of young man.

Thus, without so much as screaming like he so desperately wished to, his wavering hand finally went full force and began hammering away at the ground beneath the snow, breaking off huge chunks of rock and snow that flew all around him from the impact zone of his raging fist. Some of those shards flew towards his face, cutting his cheeks, lips and even nose. He didn't bother to use his Aura to shield him, for it was pointless in the face of his regeneration, which healed his wounds shortly after.

Though he did not yell, his fist spoke very clearly for him, along with his darker shade of platinum Aura flourishing from his body in flaming wisps. A minute or so later, he finally ceased his tantrum, leaning back as he looked up at the sky, the sun setting steadily behind him in the distance. He inhaled slowly, then exhaled as he calmed down.

Is it too much to ask to stop getting kicked in the head for once? Is it too much to ask to live my life selfishly? Once in a while, things just don't entirely go my way. How did that crazy bastard Denji put it? When shit keeps piling up, "it's like a hamburger made outta crap", or something like that?

He sighed, propping up one knee before he stood up slowly.

I have no idea what the hell is happening, but if I wasn't sure before, I'm sure now. It's her, only…

…

…

Where did she go just now? From the looks of it, she didn't go willingly. Did she get pulled away forcefully by something or someone else? Or as she is now… Can she only manifest in the World for a short time only to get pulled back to wherever her Domain is now? In either case, what can I do? What do I need? Do I need some sort of power, or a tool? Or..?

…

…

He felt a heavy unease set upon his mind, predicting a larger headache down the road.

Great… Looks like I might have to rely on that shifty bastard… He knows things I don't, said he was an "observer" or something. If that's the case… who's to say he doesn't have some idea of the current predicament? Or maybe…

He felt a large hand pat him on the top of his head.

"Have you calmed down?" Belîa asked him, looking out across the tundra with him.

"Have I ever not been calm?"

Her grip tightened as her fingertips began digging into his skin, "Need I regale you one of 57 stories in which you weren't calm?"

"Only 57?" He smirked.

"Don't be so smug about acting like a troublemaker, you fool." She slapped the back of his head, "I… I didn't believe it when you told me back then, but now… What do we..?"

"We get her back."

"How?"

"I don't know yet."

"Wha-?!"

"Doesn't mean I won't find out how. Fact is, this is something new, or relatively new." Dante waved his hand in front of him where the rift previously was, "Usually a rift leaves behind a closed up dimensional tear that will disappear overtime, but can still be accessible by someone that's both powerful and knowledgeable before it does. But whatever she used completely eliminated the tear or any trace of it."

The only theory that made sense was that this was specifically done in order to prevent anyone from following immediately after initial entry, as well as preventing any potential invasions. In his adventures, all "tears" sealed themselves up after an hour, ten minutes, or even a minute. But this one disappeared entirely as soon as The Husk traveled through it, something he had never seen before.

On the topic of The Husk herself…

…

…

"I don't think we'll be able to effectively lock her down if she tries to escape, so we need to either latch onto her or forcibly keep the rift open as she's going through."

"That's fine and all, but… what will we do afterwards? How do we help her?" Belîa asked, resting her hand on his shoulder.

"I don't know yet, jolly giantess." The devil said as he reached up and patted the hand on his shoulder, "That's what I need to consult about. It's her, but… not entirely her. She's managed to reconstruct a body, that much is clear, but out of what? Was the process complete, or done quickly and imperfectly? Is it affecting her memories to the point it's not entirely her? Or is there something else out of whack that we can't see? Fact is… we're in completely new territory here, and my dumbass needs to study up."

"Who do you plan to ask? As far as I know, there are no mystics in this world that can offer valid insights into this phenomenon."

"Maybe not, but we have our lovely scribe to contribute whatever she can. Not to mention…"

As troublesome as it would be, Valâr called himself an "observer" that has seen many things. If he could produce numerous bodies to slip in and out of at his convenience, then he had to be privy to other phenomena. Question is, what would he ask for in return?

"I've got a guy I can possibly talk to."

"If you say so." The Embered Knightess sighed, turning to notice the approach of the twins.

"Something on my face?" Ray asked almost instantly, lifting his voice in a lighter tone before dropping it into one laced with sincerity, "Looks like you've got another problem on your hands, Dante."

"It's personal, too." Solara observed, taking a step toward Dante.

"Looks like it…" He closed eyes briefly, breathing out before spinning around on his heels as he titled his head with a wink and brought his hand towards his face to make a sideways peace sign, "But we'll make it through with pluck and luck!" He said in a rather over-enthusiastic tone.

The twins regarded one another with a mutual uncertainty before they turned back to Dante wearing unconvinced expressions.

Ray stepped up toward Dante, leveling his violet eyes on the boy's bright sky blue irises. "Cut the shit, mate. You need help."

"Mental? Cause I'm kinda too far gone for any professional help."

"Does it matter?" Ray asked with a sigh.

Damn… The Taro idol pose usually works…

The young devil stood up straight as he placed a hand on his hip, "Considering your biggest problem is taken care of, aren't you guys keen on, well… I don't know, going on vacation? Or home, or whatever?"

"I stated clearly that I'd like to see it again, but if things get worse than they already are, I might never get that chance." Solara spoke up with a graceful poise, "Our family's not new to getting our boots on the ground when the going gets tough."

"That, and like you, we know more about crap like this than almost anyone else you'll find." Ray added, drawing attention to the sword on his back.

He drew the blade and promptly planted the tip into the ground between him and Dante, extending a hand out in offer.

"Wouldn't things be much simpler if people like us and the company around you stuck together?"

"Well, yeah, obviously." He replied with a brief wave of his hand, "But… are you sure? Like really sure? Aside from the fact we're dealing with a bigger threat on our end, there's likely something else coming Atlas' way soon enough. That aside, this is your guys' chance to… I don't know, get out if you have other plans. I get this isn't your first rodeos or anything, but…"

"Stop being foolish." Beliâ bonked the top of Dante's head with the bottom of her fist, "Aside from the fact they're experienced and knowledgeable, they're offering you assistance, which with their skills, can prove to be very helpful to our cause."

"The fact of the matter is, everyone wants to be able to go home, but these beings are just gonna keep coming unless we break their chain of command permanently. We can't go home if we have no home to return to." Solara stated confidently, not mincing her words in the slightest, "You seem to know what you're doing, mostly, and you need people you can consistently rely on."

"We can fill any role you throw us at, and despite your best effort to pretend you don't want our help, we're going to offer you the choice anyway." Ray once again stuck his hand out toward Dante, resting his other on the sword by his feet.

I know all that, I just don't want…

…

…

He found himself remembering Anya's words in the past, and more recently Inuba's, both of which scolded him for "doing everything on his own". Really, all he wanted was to take as much of the burden as he could so that those he knew wouldn't be as troubled. Better yet…

…

He didn't want to see others die because they wanted to help in return.

…

"Well…" The devil said, rubbing the back of his head, "I guess I gave fair warning…" he said, extending his hand to shake Ray's, "We can discuss at a later time what we can have you doing, but for now, we need to get back and reorganize. When I go see my guy, we'll meet up."

"Glad you saw reason. We were only giving you the illusion of free choice, I know where your base is." Ray shook Dante's hand in return with a firm grip, sliding a smirk his way as Solara came up behind him. "And how to get inside."

Cheeky shit…

"Let's hope you can say that if you meet the terrifying dragon guarding the place."

Kiana's small, but she's growing and learning quickly. Not to mention… she's pretty strong for a toddler.

"My diplomatic skills are not to be trifled with." Solara calmly spoke as she lifted Ray's sword from the ground and twirled it playfully. "Besides, anywhere is better than here right now. It's still no less colder than it was when we arrived."

"I guess the apartment we're staying at is just as good a place as any. Just in case though, be careful when going out." Dante cautioned, "Me and my people have been working with the Ace Ops for some time, and I don't know if they'll take you in for anything else."

"Ace Ops are good, I'll give them that, but we can hold our own." Ray took his sword back from his twin before sliding it back in the blade's scabbard. "We'll lay low until we're needed. A scrap with them is not worth the trouble right now. Provided we're not under supervision."

"Nah, I trust you guys." The young devil waved off, "So I guess we'll go back together then?"

The twins nodded together, adding to their already synchronous nature. "The sooner, the better."

"Right… Let's make sure the townspeople are alright first, then we'll pack up and go. Sounds good?"

"They should be alright, but we can go door to door, if necessary." Solara replied and beginning to walk in the direction of the village. "I trust you can clean up the mess here in the meantime?"

"Yeah. Not a whole lot, but… Maybe I can snag something to study back home."

"Save some for me!" The blonde catgirl called out as she carried on walking, Ray looking toward Dante with a shrug before her took off after her.

"I suppose I'll go with them to make things move along quicker." Beliâ said as she walked ahead a few paces, stopping to look back at the devil, "Will you be alright on your own?"

"What are you, my mom?"

She smirked with a small huff, "Don't take too long."

"Yeah yeah…"

As the Embered Knightess walked off towards the mining town, Dante turned back and looked out across the tundra once more, the sun having almost set behind him.

I'll find a way. I promise.

---

Again, sorry for the long wait. As a consequence, I tend to make the chapters longer in order to compensate for lost time. As a benefit, you guys get more bang for your buck, or whatever the phrase is. Either way, again, very sorry for the long absence. I'd do "updates", but doing that fucks up the chapter order, so I don't do it. But yeah, that's about it from me for now.

If you have questions, ask them anytime. I will try to answer them without spoiling anything.

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With that, I bid you all an excellent week/weekend, and remember... be kind and excellent to one another, stay safe, and stay healthy.