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Kiriyama · #2 [ ] 08-27-2007, 10:20 PM

“The usual,” Kaja replied, looking up at the sky. “Sky, clouds, some birds. Maybe two angels fighting to the death somewhere.”

He shrugged and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes, returning his focus to the fencer. The echo’s note turned into a purple flame and disappeared, leaving no trace of its existence. Kaja jammed his hands into his pockets.

“Don’t worry about the note. All it had was an arrow pointing in my general direction,” Dante said, pulling a cigarette out of his left pocket and a lighter from his right. He stuck the cigarette in the corner of his lips and lit it before continuing. “There’s something I’d like your help with.”

“Yes, whatever you need,” the fencer responded, sitting up and crossing his legs. Kaja could hear his heart thudding loudly. From chasing the note? Or, in some odd way, could he tell that the echo wasn’t here with good news?

~

Dante, sitting in his study and double-checking some of Grasthos’ notes, heard a knock at his door. Knowing that he wouldn’t be having any visitors (The side-effect of having one’s base of operations in the middle of the desert of course), he could easily tell that his imp had returned.

“Come on in,” he said, burning the Death Dealer’s notes on the corrosive effects Tainted Element had on souls. “Wipe your feet off first. I don’t want any dirt getting in the way of the fire.”

At about two feet tall, the demonic being wasn’t very imposing. As he opened the door however, Kaja felt a sense of dread. For a moment the goat-horned creature seemed to grow to massive proportions, the area behind him consumed by flame.

“Sir,” it said, returning to what the echo knew was its real size and appearance, “I’ve done everything you asked me to. The package has been sent, and I have the other item in my pocket.”

He pulled a small bullet from his pocket and rolled it across the room. There was no way he’d go anywhere near Dante nowadays. The echo’s pure taint made him feel like his head was caught in a vice every time he was in the black-skinned man’s presence, and the feeling only grew with the lack of distance.

Kaja got out of his chair (Enveloping his chair and desk in a purple flame as he did so) and picked the bullet up. If the smith he’d sent the imp to had done his job right, the virus would be tempered into the steel. Perfect for killing anything immortal.

“Thanks. What about the other errands I sent you on?”

“O-Oh,” the imp stammered, his secret hope that Dante had forgotten shattered instantly. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I couldn’t find Mister Latio or Miss Isis. The only one I could find was Miss Nenet, and I’m not sure you want to know how she’s doing.”

“Mmm?” Abaddon asked, traversing the length of the room and towering over the imp before he could finish blinking. “What do you mean?”

“Well… She’s fallen in love, gotten pregnant, and will soon be engaged to Mister Elrick the Red, an underling of Kenjin’s.”

Dante’s eye twitched. Had he heard the imp correctly? He grabbed the small being and lifted him up to eye level. His snakelike pupils bored into the imp’s own, causing the miniscule demon to soil himself. The vice like grip he’d felt on his head from being a room’s length away from the echo had increased to an ungodly level.

“I’m s-sorry,” he said, shifting under Kaja’s gaze. “She s-seems happy, at least.”

Dante dropped the imp and dismissed it with a casual wave, knowing that he wouldn’t see it ever again. Apparently, he wouldn’t be seeing Nenet either. It pained him to know that she’d gone behind his back and found a new lover, but part of him was happy for her. At the rate he was corroding, he wouldn’t be around much longer anyhow.

He turned and looked back at his study. Surrounding the ashes of his former chair and desk were two bookcases full of Grasthos’ notes. Dante pulled out his lighter and concentrated, manipulating and copying the element of flame with his own Tainted Element. The purple flame spread around Dante, burning everything but him, and soon consumed the whole tower.

~

“I won’t go into any details right now, but I recently learned that the man who created me used three labs for his research, two of which are gone now. I need to go to the remaining one if I’m to find a way to stop the Tainted Element in me from corroding my soul and destroying me,” Dante said, “However, I’ve found that fighting causes me to dissolve faster. Since I’ll undoubtedly have to kill some of Grasthos’ experiments at some point or another, I was wondering if you could come to lighten the load.”

He’d asked the question, and the stage was set. Unfortunately, he knew there was no way to stop himself from dissolving. He just needed to make sure that this lab was gone, along with all proof that Grasthos, echoes, or Tainted Element ever existed.

“Your false hope astounds me,” Gorin’s voice chided, echoing in Dante’s mind. “At the rate you’re going, you won’t even be able to use that bullet on me.”

“Who says it’s for you?” came Kaja’s reply.