Moving Devilish Forward by Going up
Dante and the girls were teleported out of the room while carrying the unconscious Branwen who was the prize for winning against the Jester in that short, bizarre battle. They still have questionable thoughts about that mysterious clown, like why he was helping them and why he was giving them random girls?
Just then, Branwen has woken up and jump off with a strong kick on Shizuka's back making her stumble forward.
"Oh, look decided to wake up?" Shizuka asked sarcastically.
"Who are you people and why have you been carrying me?" Branwen demanded with a fierce glare.
"You have no need to be hostile toward us. We're friends and we can help you get out of this tower from danger." Tomoe said calmly, hoping to reason with this woman.
"They're telling the truth! They found me here in this tower too, and we believe that we may have been brought here by the same scarred man though we don't know why." Mirim vouched for them.
Branwen stares at the group for a moment seeing that they don't appear to be evil people as far as she could tell, but there was something about the man in red making her feel little off like he's not entirely a man.
"If you wanna check out my pecks, all you had to do was ask." Dante grinned.
"Focus, Dante." Leina said.
"You said we're in some kind of tower?" Branwen asked as she looks around.
"Yes, this is the Temen-ni-gru, a very dangerous tower full of demons and traps that you'll have to be very careful with every step could be your last." Nanael answered.
"This place does feel dangerous, so my best chance of surviving this place would be to team up with you people if I want to get out of here." Branwen understood that much.
"Glad you know that, now about the scarred man our friend here just mentioned. Did you meet this kind of man?" Leina asked.
"Hmm, a scarred man?" Branwen took a bit of a moment to think about her memories.
"Yes, I have met that man, and he gave me this outfit saying it used to belong to someone very strong like myself, but I felt strange, and I blacked out." Branwen recalled most of that.
"Looks like this guy is going to be one hell of guest to the party. I bet he got something planned for a large group like ours." Dante smirked.
"Then we should get moving. We still don't know much about this tower nor what kind of plan this man or Vergil has in mind." Claudette said.
The group, now adding Branwen among them, continue their exploration throughout the tower as they try to see if they can find something that will let them move forward from here until Branwen spotted something on the wall.
"I wonder if this is important?" Branwen pulled out what appeared to be a Vajura from the wall.
"Hey! Don't pull out anything! We don't know if a trap could spring at us!" Elina scolded.
"Well, nothing is happening right now." Branwen pointed out. Wow, she must've been lucky to pull that weird thing from the wall.
"Hold on, let me see that for a second." Cattleya took the Vajura from the new girl and looked at it closely, and then a lightbulb idea came into her head.
"Come on! I know where this needs to go!" Cattleya said and hurried on ahead of the group.
The rest of the group quickly follow the blacksmith mother all the way to one room where the cage is there but doesn't work, then they head to the mechanism that is supposed to work, and Cattleya is inspecting it and the Vajura making her smile.
"It looks like you found out something." Echidna said.
"That's right, it would seem this Vajura is what we need to get the cage up." Cattleya placed the Vajura into the mechanism and push it causing the gears to turn and the cage to go up.
"Now, we can go see what the thing that cage was keeping from us." Cattleya said.
The group went over to take the mysterious item that is called Soul of Steel, seems pretty important to be kept here inside a cage, but the moment it was taken a demonic barrier appeared at the door trapping them inside.
"Great, I knew this would happen." Elina exclaimed as demons started to appear.
"Does this sort of thing usual happens?" Branwen asked.
"Yes, and we have to kill all the demons in this room in order to get out of this room and move forward." Melpha nodded.
"In that case, I shall fight too!" Branwen suddenly leaped off from the small footing to deal with one demon.
"Wait!" Leina tried to stop her, but it was too late.
Branwen deflects some of the needle attacks from the demon then stab her sword right into the one eye, making the demon scream in pain as she pulls the eyeball out and kicks the demon to the wall and tosses the eye away toward another demon.
"No way, she killed her first demon!" Shizuka was shocked.
"It would seem this girl was already a strong fighter in her own right before being taken here. Better not let her have all the fun." Echidna licked her lips.
The rest quickly got to work on dealing with the demons and it was pretty quick with a large group consisting of the female warriors and Dante together, and Branwen just finished killing her second demon.
"Nice job, you could become a demon hunter when we're through with this place." Dante commented.
"Thank you, but to be honest. I'm more of a wrestler with some mix of martial arts, but never in my life did I have to fight with a sword." Branwen explained that about herself.
"It feels like I always done this before, but this is the first time I have actually use a sword in combat like that before." Branwen looked at her sword.
"You're not the only one, we all had normal lives before the combat and our past selves being warriors were suddenly thrust upon us out of nowhere, but it also feels… right. Guess you could say it was destiny." Leina smiled at Dante who smiles back.
"Anyway, it looks like you two may have awakened your past selves like I have done the sisters, but I'm still puzzled by that." Nanael said.
"So, what you're saying is that in a pervious life, we used to be warriors together?" Mirim asked.
"Maybe not all of us being together, we never knew you two back then, so this is actually a first for us." Shizuka said.
"But nevertheless, we are all friends here and we're going to watch each other's backs." Nyx nodded.
Dante took another look at the Soul of Steel, thinking back on the place where the path broke off making his group fall down and remember something else there that could be connected to this object.
The scene now changes to where the broken path is and surprisingly, they managed to get there on an invisible path like they're floating in midair.
"Okay, is anything going to question about that?" Nyx asked.
"I rather not or else my head might spin." Mirim exclaimed, feeling a bit scared.
Dante saw the hole on the metal wall making him think of the Soul of Steel and place it inside, this causes the metal locked wall to open up revealing a hidden door.
"Just as I suspected." Dante smirked.
"Oh great, another mysterious room we're probably have to have to survive some deadly traps and being ambushed by demons." Elina complained a little.
"That's life for ya." Dante shrugged before opening the door.
Entering the room call Surge of Fortunes, they walk inside while being on guard at all times despite the room being quiet and Dante spotted the torch wheel that is the same just like the one from that other room.
"(Guess there's one way to find out.)" Dante thought took out Rebellion and start attacking the torch wheel to make all the fire light up.
"It looks like we're gonna have to ride on that platform." Echidna pointed at the platform that just move slightly.
"But will that even carry all of us?" Mirim asked.
"We're gonna have to wing it." Branwen said.
"I like the way this woman thinks." Dante smirked.
"Of course you would." Leina sighed, but she really hopes nothing goes wrong with this ride on the platform.
They were worried that with this many people on the platform that it wouldn't move up with the total weight, but their worries were washed away when it moves up like an elevator.
"Where do you think it taking us?" Leina asked.
"I'm not sure, probably closer to where my brother is." Dante believed.
"Okay, okay, do you think you could get out your guns for the incoming DEMONS FALLING TOWARD US FROM ABOVE!" Elina screamed and pointed at the falling demons.
Dante looks up and quickly took out his guns shooting down some demons while others with long such as Claudette, Shizuka with her kunai, and Nanael making her sword fly in the air take down all the demons that are falling down to ambush them before they could even be a foot above them.
"That was too close!" Cattleya said.
"That was even worse than raining cats and dogs." Mirim said with her body shaking in fear.
"Don't worry, we were able to make quick work with them." Nanael winked.
"I expect nothing less from the Archangel of Heaven." Melpha smiled at her angelic friend.
"Still, that's another surprise that almost caught us off guard if Elina hadn't notice them coming at us from above." Claudette looked at her youngest sister.
"I was just looking up to see how high this thing is." Elina stated.
"Nevertheless, we got through and we can continue on from here." Leina said as the elevator stopped at the floor.
The girls walked out of the elevator shaft finding themselves to be outside.
"So high up…" Mirim gulped as she looks down.
"It's a miracle that we were able to make it this far, I wonder if this tower was based off the tower I heard about when humans tried to reach Heaven a long time ago." Claudette recalled reading about that in the bible book.
"It must've taken a lot of work to build a tower like this for demons to come over to our world." Cattleya commented.
"This is one of the reasons why even all of Heavens fear the demons because of what they're capable of." Nanael said.
They walk over finding only one door that could lead them to the next area of the tower, then Dante decided to do a little something before heading in.
"Dante, what are you doing?" Melpha asked.
Dante didn't respond to the question as he gazes down at the ledge of the floor seeing how high they are and then lets out a spit to from this height.
"Really?" The girls deadpanned at Dante.
"What? I always wanted to do something this like." Dante shrugged.
"Which was disgusting." Elina pointed out.
"And I do hope you remember what we're here for." Leina said.
"Relax, I know why we're here." Dante said.
The big group of demon hunters enter through the door right into a room with only one door ahead of them, there are also two large statues with a single chain wrap between them in front of a large metal door.
"(Another big door, and it doesn't look like we can use Dante's sword to get through either.)" Leina thought wondered how they're gonna get through there.
"Look, brother! It's been ages, but we finally have company!" One voice said.
"I see that!" Another voice responded.
"Who's there! Reveal yourselves!" Branwen demanded, looking around to search for the source of the voice.
"We must entertain our guest!" The second voice suggested.
"Look, above the statues!" Leina pointed at each of the statues noticing one large shadowy figure on each statue.
"So, they saw us coming." Claudette said, but mostly surprised that these demons didn't attack them straight away unlike the other ones they fought so far.
"You're right! We have to be gracious hosts!" The first demon agreed.
"What should we do?" The second demon asked.
"How do I know? We need to come up with something!" The first demon pointed out.
"They… trying to think of something to do with us?" Leina was confused by these demons being a little nice while Dante was getting bored of this and let out a sigh.
"Brother, one of the female guests is confused and the lone male is sighing." The second demon noticed those two.
"Oh great, they're good with observing." Nanael said sarcastically.
"What is she confused about? What is SIGH?" The first demon asked, being confused as well.
"Well, a sigh is when"
"Enough already!" Dante yelled at the two demons, getting really impatient here.
"How long are you two gonn keep carrying on like this? In case you didn't get the hint, I'll spell it out." Dante said.
"Dante, wait! Maybe we can reason with these demons!" Leina believed there might be another way.
"Excuse me, but I can tell that you two are really nice demons. Nicer than the ones we met along the way here, so I was wondering if you both would be so kind to let us through and maybe we can work something out after we finish our business in this tower." Leina tried to negotiate with the pair of demons.
However, Leina is about to learn the hard way that just because these demons are a little different than the average demons doesn't mean they're gonna let them pass.
"Our job here is to guard this door!" The first demon said as he stood up.
"That's right! We cannot let you pass!" The second demon vouched while getting up as well.
"Seriously?" Leina gasped.
"It was a good try, Leina." Melpha comforted the first girlfriend of Dante.
The two demon brothers now reveal themselves to be no ordinary demons for the bodies are carrying the real ones being literally living demon swords.
They're names are Agni & Rudra. Both swords possess the same design, being wide, curved blades resembling the classic fictional depiction of an Arabian scimitar or pirate cutlass. However, Agni and Rudra, rather than being plain blades, are comprised of a curved support to which a series of backward-pointed segments each with its own rear-sloping cutting edge are fixed, forming a vicious serrated design that is somewhat reminiscent of a spinal cord. They are colored for their respective element, Agni orange for fire and Rudra turquoise for wind, though on both the cutting edges of the blade segments are bare metal and the guard, grip and pommel gold. The talking heads are mounted at the ends of the pommels of the two swords, and the guards of both are round and plain.
"Wait, if the demons are just swords, then what's up with the bodies holding them?" Nyx asked in confusion.
"No times for questions, here they come." Branwen said.
Both demon brothers charge at the group with the blades ready to strike, most of them dodge while Cattleya stood her ground to hold back Rudra though she did get push back about ten feet.
"Impressive, never have I met such a human with incredible strength to halt my charge." Rudra was impressed with this one.
"Never underestimate the power of a mother!" Cattleya declared as she pushes Rudra back and begins the battle with him.
Elina and Nyx attacks Agni together with the former attacking him with a barrage of spear strikes while the other is blasting some fire at him, but surprisingly, Agni is able to defend well against Elina's attack and deflect her away and withstanding the fire attacks that he isn't getting burn at all.
"Please, allow to show you real fire!" Agni swung the blade unleashing a flying cut attack that is literally on fire forcing Nyx to brace herself though she got blown away.
"So much for them being nice." Nyx exclaimed.
"Guess we really got no choice by to fight." Leina sighed.
"Don't worry, babe. It was awesome of you to try." Dante complimented her before charging at the twin demons.
KO a new chapter is done and hope you all enjoy it!
Dante and the girls have arrived at the room with two certain demon swords who seems nice to guests, but they are deadly serious when it comes to their job of guarding the door that leads further into the tower and what may lie beyond.
KO comment, favorite, and follow through of how this story will go!