The Last Strand of Glory (Kiriyama)

[Zorolo]

OoC: And so it begins. ^_^

BiC: The fencer passed through the crowd of people, mostly unnoticed, as he simply walked the world. It had been a few weeks since he'd been back to the Dome, and even longer since he'd seen Selene. He'd simply seemed to have lost all ambition in life aside from living. How in the world could that have happened? He was going to propose to her? How could they have simply started fighting on the dance floor before he had even so much as had a moment to take her hand and ask the all important question.

Zorlo sighed and moved his hand into his jacket pocket, feeling the ring in it. The diamond placed atop the ring sat perfect, the golden band molded perfectly. It was ideal, just like her, and yet... he couldn't bring himself to just give it to her. He wanted to make the perfect setting when he was going to offer her the ring, and yet something had stopped that.

Even so, he couldn't begrudge those people. They were simply settling their own problem. Unlike the fencer, they had served their purpose, and now he had to regain his. Even so, he found a mental block keeping him from that. He just couldn't get over the fact that such a thing could happen on his big night, the one where he'd finally ask her.

He continued walking through the crowd of the city, all the peoples faces he passed seemed to be hidden, and he could no longer really seem to tell if what he was seeing was real or false. After all, he'd spent so much time in the Dome where things were not as they appeared, so couldn't the real world be like that? Zorlo didn't know any longer, but what he did know was that he couldn't continue living like this. He needed a purpose, and just needed something to kick start him up.

For a moment, he stopped and laughed. The Aura Master wasn't quite sure what he was telling himself. How could purpose suddenly find him out of nowhere? That was about as likely as a piece of paper hitting him in the face with it... or would have been, had that not actually suddenly happened.

As the piece of paper hit the fencer in the face, he looked at part of it, getting only the signature: Dante Kaja. Kaja... that Dante? How could that be? How had the Echo found him, or to be more exact, how had the Echo's letter found the green haired man? Suddenly, it didn't matter to Zorlo who or how or why this letter had found him, all that mattered was he see the contents.

A sudden breeze blew the paper away, and the fencer made a mad dash after it. He had to know what was on that paper. Something told him it was very important, and the green haired man couldn't risk losing this chance to gain some purpose back. After all, it may help him to find some of what he lost, and that was worth more then anything else. The fencer dashed after it, moving past the crowd that didn't seem to take any more notice of him then the letter, catching only a few eyes to it.

The fencer ran after the parchment for a few minutes. He evaded hurdles of benches and market stalls, leapt from building to building and finally jumping over the city wall and stumbling into a forest before grabbing the letter and landing face first in the dirt. How sad he must have looked, but he didn't care, he had the letter, and that meant he'd know what was going on. Suddenly, the green haired man heard a light chuckling and his eyebrow raised slightly. Someone was watching him?

Slowly, the fencer moved his head and looked at the figure a few feet from him. His quizzical look soon turned to one of a smile. Dante had found him. How very convenient for the Aura Master, since that meant he'd get the information first hand. "So, what's up, Dante?" Zorlo asked, smiling happily. This could get interesting if it involved Dante.

[Kiriyama]

“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.

[Zorolo]

The fencer sat up and thought about it quietly. It was an interesting offer, that was for sure, but the green haired man wasn't entirely sure what to do at this point. The Aura Master crossed his arms and looked at the ground, trying to figure out what he should do at this time. After all, he had something very important to ask someone... but he was so nervous and worried about asking... he'd go for now and get his mind off of what was bothering him.

The fencer looked at Kaja and thought silently about what he should or shouldn't do. He could help Dante and then return to Selene, and then ask her the major question he desired to ask her. The fencer pressed his sheathed sword against the ground and stood himself up slowly, sliding his sword back onto his belt and zipping up his jacket. There was just two last problems he had to think about.

The first was how long would he be gone? He couldn't leave Cadenza and Zachary together too long... that'd end poorly. Zorlo could already tell the gypsy and the ice innate had a kind of distaste for each other. A kind of dislike, yet respect for one another. They would be fine without Zorlo there, since, after all, Cadenza knew the Aura Master was a busy, busy man. That just left one unexplored problem.

What about the fencer's students? He couldn't just disappear for long periods of time and hope that the monkeys could deal with all of his students... again. It was a tricky thing to do, but the fencer knew this wouldn't take that long. Destroying this Grathos guy's laboratory after Dante's found what he's looking for and the two would be done. Or at least that was the hope.

"All right, Dante, I'm ready to go whenever you are ready to depart," the Aura Master said as he cast a smile. "It is time that we get going then, right?"

OoC: Sorry it is so short, but, like I told you last time, I don't really have much to do. ^_^

[Kiriyama]

“Yep,” Dante replied, snubbing his cigarette out on the palm of his hand. “The lab is somewhere in the Oripawn Mountains. Grasthos had a habit of placing his laboratories in places that people weren’t likely to go. A desert, a remote island, you get the picture.”

He turned and looked up. The horizon West of them was dominated by rocky, ice-laden peaks, just past a small expanse of forest. According to the map inscribed in one of the late Death Dealer’s journals, those were the Oripawn Mountains. Most maps referred to them by their newer name, adopted around five hundred years previously, the Peach Mountains.

Grasthos himself thought that calling them the Peach Mountains was absurd. He decided to place his final lab there, nonetheless. Kaja recalled what he’d read in the Dealer’s journal.

~

“The Oripawn Mountain range is where I’ll build it. Peach Mountains, pfft. No peaches have grown there in at least twelve decades. Calling it by that name is bastardizing all that the range once stood for. Anyhow, I think this lab will be entrusted to Toka. He’s been *****ing about how he needs a lab of his own, and I find myself agreeing with him.

I figure giving him the lab will lead to some interesting creations. His roots may be in necromancy, but he’s shown a great deal of capability when matters pertain to Tainted Element. I’ve seen him utilize his necromancy skills in conjunction with what I’ve taught him. Iruki and Shanz are perfect examples. They were once upper demons working for the original Gorin, but now they’re something far better.

Imagine a creature that is made completely from ash, the particles bonded together to form bodies. Now imagine that ash being capable of dispersing into a cloud and killing a man by inhabiting his lungs and reforming from the inside. Excellent creatures. Their capabilities seem to be degenerating, however.

First that Nenet woman burned them to death. Toka revived them and their Tainted Element gave them their ash abilities. Since then they’ve had encounters with Dante’s allies, a ninja by the name of Nenshou, and Dante himself. The last time I saw them, they were barely capable of fighting.

I’m encouraging him to get to work on his latest idea. Harvesting Tainted Element from pre-existing elements seems pretty primitive, especially when he could simply use Echo Side, but it does seem to work. He’s got an interesting list of people he plans on making into primitive echoes. Just by looking at the list, I can tell that this will be great.

Now then, to finish things with Dante. He’s learned how to cultivate his own Tainted Element, and will become a neo-echo if he gets any more…”

Primitive echoes. That’s what Dante was afraid of. Would his own use of Tainted Element make them stronger, as the substance had done back when he was a normal echo? Or were they too primitive to absorb the Taint from unnatural sources?

Whatever the case, Kaja set out for the mountain range without another word. It wouldn’t take too long to get there so long as there was nothing that would impede their progress.

~

“They’re near,” the necromancer’s voice echoed, causing the forest-bound creatures to stir. Before they had been great threats. The demons were capable of matching Dante when fighting together, and the hulking creature was more powerful than either of the demons individually.

Toka would be lying if he claimed to believe they would stand a chance. Iruki, Shanz, and #2 hadn’t fought Kaja in quite some time. From what he’d heard, the echo became a neo-echo, and then somehow managed to fuse with Echo Side itself. He alone would’ve been able to kill the trio.

To make matters worse, the fencer was with him. The fight wouldn’t be too long, but at least the trio would cost them enough time for the necromancer to escape from the lab. Let the primitive echoes deal with Dante and Zorlo. Arius alone was almost as powerful as the fencer, and Mateus would provide a psychological advantage over Dante.

“After all,” he scoffed, cutting the mental link to his minions, “Gorin and Dante both have enough memories of their original form to remember their mother abandoning them. Discovering what became of her after that, and facing the creature… That’s going to be priceless.”

He almost lamented the fact that the God of Wrath wasn’t with the fencer and the Tainted Incarnate. Oh well. Gorin would be destroyed in time, and his son would serve his purpose. Just so long as things went the way Grasthos had predicted.

Toka stepped out into the sunlight and pulled his cloak around himself tighter. He really should see Cross. Adam had as much to do with the late Death Dealer’s plans as he did.

OOC: I realize Iruki, Shanz, #2, and Toka haven't appeared in my work for some time. I'll PM you with the details on the trio waiting for Dante and Zorlo.

[Zorolo]

The two walked silently into the forest. The forest itself was odd, brimming with an unorthodox magic about it. The fencer had sensed Tainted Element before... but this was unlike anything he had felt. Dante was made of the stuff, but then what kind of Tainted Element was it that lived in this forest. The green haired man looked around for a bit, trying to sense what it was that was bothering him, but found nothing.

"Something... is strange here..." Zorlo said, looking around, trying to figure out exactly what it was that was strange.

"Yes... I haven't felt those three powers in a long while," the Pure Echo stated as he cracked his neck and looked around.

"Three? You mean those powers belong to people?" the fencer asked. The powers seemed to fill the whole forest, not so much a specific area.

"Of course," Kaja responded, holding his arms out to the sides. "Even though we've walked right into a trap," the former god stated, not flinching in the least.

The green haired man closed his eyes and focused. He saw it now. Thousands of tiny particles were hovering around them with that strange energy. Stranger yet was the massive, bulky force not too far away. "What are these three?" the fencer asked as the mass of ash suddenly rushed them.

No sooner did the ash begin its assault did a red barrier rose, followed by a small vortex of red lighting that spit out two figures into nearby trees. "Those two are Iruki and Shanz. I'll deal with them. The larger force is called, simply, #2. You can handle him. This shouldn't take too long," Dante said as he stepped forwards.

"Got you," the fencer stated as he burst off towards the large mass of Tainted Element. After only two or so minutes of running, the green haired man found himself face to face with a giant, troll like monster that seemed to simply look down upon him. "What an uncouth, simple creature you are," the green haired man responded without really much thought.

The giant monster roared and stepped forwards, spawning a giant club out of thin air and swinging it down towards the fencer. The Aura Master smiled as he raised his hand and intercepted the club, although it did drive the fencer slightly into the ground. The monster pushed with all of its might to overpower the fencer, but gained no ground. "Sorry, #2, but I cannot be stopped here. I promised I'd aid Dante, and that I shall. Please, step aside."

When the beast did not oblige, the fencer was left with only one option: Destroy the creature.

[Kiriyama]

It’d been a while since Dante saw Iruki and Shanz. Running through the grass and evading trees, he thought about the last time he’d seen them. He had been a normal echo then, and had a little bit of trouble fighting against the duo.

He looked down at his hands. His right thumb had disappeared above the joint. Dante had been dissolving back then too. As a normal echo, the merge between his existence and Tainted Element hadn’t been perfect. Kaja still had the hole in his chest that formed shortly after he met Isis. Back then it was as large around as a coin. Now, it was a fist-sized hole straight through him.

“I’ll need to make this quick,” he said to himself, slowing down. They were near. “Just defending us back there took out a chunk of my thumb. If this takes any more than a minute, I could lose my hand…”

Dante stepped into a clearing and stopped. The two tainted demons were waiting for him, as he’d expected. Iruki held a massive broadsword in his clawed hands, while Shanz was twirling a spear himself. Both had twisted grins on their red faces.

“Dante,” Iruki, the only one of the duo capable of speech, said. “We haven’t seen you in so long. Was that any way to treat old friends? Just blasting us off into the trees? What would Nenet think if she knew you were being so mean to everybody upon your return?”

The Tainted Incarnate stood still for a moment, the icy breeze blowing his hair about madly. When he finally did move it was slow and dreamlike. The whole world seemed to sit still as the dark man made his way to the center of the clearing, his weary yellow eyes trained on the winged beings standing before him. For the first time in their undead lives, the duo felt cold fear traveling up their spines.

With their torn wings and dirty armor, their squirrelly eyes and death grips on their weapons, Dante thought that they looked exactly how he felt. They were tired, battle torn, and on-edge. They needed that which had eluded them since long ago, when they were soldiers of the original Gorin. They needed the bitter-sweet embrace of death.

Well, he would be the one to give it to them. Kaja stopped five feet away from the pair and sighed. He took no offensive stance, nor did he brandish any weapons. All the same, his presence began to terrify his old foes.

“You two,” he said, finally moving to brush his hair out of his eyes. The simple movement caused both of his opponents to flinch. “How I pity you… And yet, I envy you at the same time.”

He could feel it then. The Tainted Element in their bodies was almost visible to him. His eyes changed to a crimson shade, and he could see it then. Every individual cell in their bodies was radiating a misty red light. He could smell it as well, the kind of scent that one could never quite identify, and hear it. The taint seemed to hum in a voice that was both horrific and alluring.

Dante could feel it too.

“You pity us?” Iruki replied. He couldn’t stop staring at the Oblivion’s red eyes. If he could find the will to break his gaze away from his opponent’s, he would have found that his associate’s eyes were trapped as well.

“Yes,” Kaja replied. The taint surrounding the demons started to quiver. “You two have died more times than I can count, but he always brings you back. Each time you lose a bit more of yourselves. He’s the only one getting anything good out of this.”

“And,” Iruki said, “you envy us?”

Dante nodded and grabbed the clouds of taint with a mental arm. The clouds felt cold and clammy. He closed his eyes and sighed.

“Yes. I envy you because you can finally die now, while it’s not yet my time.”

He tightened his mental grasp, causing the duo to scream in agony. The taint bent to his will and started to tear away from them and flow into the Tainted Incarnate. Iruki’s eyes popped under the pressure and his skull began to slowly cave in. Shanz was much more fortunate, his head caving in instantly.

Dante began to suck away the taint even faster. Shanz slowly imploded until his entire being had been forced into crumpled ball of flesh, while Iruki was again less fortunate. He continued to scream as his ribs crackled and popped. Kaja saw, with morbid envy, that the demon’s chest was caving in.

“Make it stop,” Iruki begged, his teeth popping between words. It took all the strength he could muster to avoid screaming. “Please. It hurts. It hurts so-”

Bad? Much? Whatever word he was going to finish that sentence with, it never passed his cracked and bloody lips. Instead, a torrent of blood came gushing out. As his chest finally gave way, the air forced out of his lungs caused the blood to turn into a bubbly froth. Finally, mercifully, he died.

“Rest in peace,” Dante said, shifting the remaining taint to dissolve their remains, molecule by molecule. “Poor, poor, lucky bastards.”

He turned and left the clearing, leaving the site where he‘d destroyed a major part of his life. Iruki and Shanz had helped the old Gorin, had reappeared under Toka’s control when he met Nenet, had fought with all of Dante’s friends and allies at least once. They had been there to mark many turning points in his life. Their destruction, perhaps, meant something.

Of course, Kaja had no time to think over this matter. He needed to focus on the here and now. The past and future were irrelevant.

[Zorolo]

As a single hand held the massive club back, the Aura Master pulled his left arm back and took aim as to where he was intent on striking. This would be short and sweet if the fencer didn't it properly, and if not, this would just be annoying. Slowly, the green haired man's fingers closed into a fist and their mark seemed to close to miss. In an instant, a force strong enough to create a powerful gust through a part of the forest erupted, followed the hurtling #2, which slammed through a tree as if it wasn't anything at all.

Some blood coated the fencer's fist as he looked at the point of impact, and then at his nearly defeated foe. Well, it would have been nearly defeated, but as the troll beast stood up, it seemed to regenerate. Although all of the creature's wound did not heal fully, it did heal enough to allow the giant to stand. The fencer slid his feet to the side and braced them as his fists rested just above his knees. Another good chance to test out the Zero Shift.

"Zero Shift!" the fencer yelled as a powerful pulse wave erupted from where his body had been, and only a slight shadow his his body appeared to be moving. As if one near fatal punch hadn't been bad enough, a second powerful punch echoed against the troll's stomach and sent the giant skidding back on his toes. The tainted project fell over, clutching its chest in pain as it looked up at the green haired man, the two almost even in size like this.

The Aura Master merely smiled as he normally did and bent down to #2's height and spoke: "If you don't mind, I'm going to be going now. I no longer have any business fighting you, so have a good day."

With those words, the Aura Master stood up and began to walk towards where Dante had been. The fencer didn't even need to worry about this creature, since it seemed to pose little to no threat.

Suddenly, a powerful roar echoed through the wood and the giant troll beast stood proud, brandishing a spear that quickly aimed for the fencer's body. A ring of metal sounded out as the green haired man was pinned to a tree by the large spear tearing, from the way it looked, into his abdomen. The troll creature smiled down at the smaller warrior, who now seemed to be dead.

#2 spawned a club and held it high, ready to crush the small fencer again. The toothy smile of the monster didn't cease, and a flash was all the time the fencer had to react to the massive club moving. Thing seemed bad, but they turned out to be quite good, as a small hand moved to the side and indented the club as the wooden weapon was completely stopped.

"That was too close," the fencer said as he placed his other arm around the spear and pushed it out slowly, revealing the metal armor the tri-tipped spear had met with. "Now then, if you don't mind, I've got something I must do," the Aura Master stated as he pushed both of the trolls weapons away.

"Watch carefully, for this shall be the last thing you ever see again," the fencer stated as his body vanished and the sound of an unsheathing sword was heard. In mere seconds, the Aura Master appeared behind the creature, sword drawn and covered with some of the giant's blood. The green haired man walked silently, cleaning off his blade as the monster's head split into four pieces and fell to the ground.

With that fun event over, Zorlo now looked for Dante. The two had to meet up before the continued. God knew what else would happen before they got to that lab. Also, the fencer felt an unknown want to meet this Toka person. Something about him needed dealing with, but the fencer didn't know exactly what.

[Kiriyama]

“Nice implosions,” Gorin commented. Dante didn’t bother trying to cut their mental communication. It felt somehow soothing to talk to another piece of the original god. “I see you still have a penchant for them. Just like the old days, wasn’t it? Though I think we were more into impalement back then.”

“Whatever,” was the Echo Incarnate’s reply. He trudged through the dense foliage without paying any attention to his surroundings. As long as he was seeing green and brown, he hadn’t accidentally walked out of the forest.

Kaja continued like this for roughly five minutes before stopping to lean against a tree. Zorlo was likely to be coming in that direction, so why bother traveling more and wasting energy?

“Good to see you take care of Iruki and Shanz,” the God of Wrath said, feeling chatty.

~

Several hundred miles away, a tattooed god stopped to admire the work of the third part of the trio. Men, women, and children were scattered about the street in various positions. Gorin found a few to be boring and unoriginal, (“Who still thinks it’s original to pin a corpse against a wall via a stake through the throat?” he questioned.) others were unique enough that the dark god found himself somewhat jealous.

“Nice,” he said, staring at a particularly gruesome kill. A woman had been fleeing with her baby tightly held against her chest in an attempt to protect it. A single spear had been driven through the woman’s back, emerging from the baby’s own to pin them against a wall. By the looks of it, the woman survived the initial spearing and made a feeble attempt to detach herself from the weapon.

Another death actually managed to make Gorin wince. A man was impaled on a lamppost, anus-first. His mouth was stretched to an inhuman width in order to accommodate the light itself, which was sticking out a few inches past the man’s face.

“Well,” he said, resuming his link with Dante. All the carnage gave him an urge to outdo Chovex. “Have fun with whatever you’re going to do. If I have time, I might come and kill you. Don’t get your hopes up though. I’ve got a massacre to outdo and some women to screw. Tchao.”

~

“Tchao,” and the conversation was over. Dante sighed, feeling lonely without communicating with his other. The two, along with Chovex, formed the original Gorin. Maybe he was homesick? Kaja shook his head violently to dispel the thought and stood up.

“Dante,” came Zorlo’s voice. “Are you over here?”

The fencer stepped out from some bushes and walked over to his ally. Dante didn’t say a word to him, simply turning in the right direction and continuing on his trek. Unlike Gorin, he didn’t feel very chatty at the moment. He felt downright sick.

“I could never go back to the way we were. We enjoyed so much violence,” he thought, pushing a low tree branch out of his way. “Then again, Chovex and the current Gorin are causing more damage than when we were together. At least when we were together the killing instinct was somewhat lessened by my conscience.”

A tree was in his way now, and he knocked it down without a second thought. He needed to finish everything before he had a chance to reconsider the path he’d chosen. If it would save him a few seconds, the tree’s life wasn’t in vain.

“Then again, the original Gorin started a massive war. More people died from that than Chovex and the current Gorin combined,” he continued, trying to kill the thought of rejoining them before it could grow. “And he raped that Amanda woman. She suffered so much after that. Only sixteen, and she had a liter of eight children. Seven of them are dead now anyway.”

He suddenly stopped. Seven were dead. One was alive. What about him? Unlike his siblings, the remaining child was pure. He was kind, caring, and absolutely hated violence. Such a child was defenseless against the various forces that were likely to try and use him. That’d been already proved by Gorin and Shinu.

“Zorlo,” he said. The green-haired warrior stopped next to Kaja and turned to look at him. “When I die, would you please take care of the boy? I’m afraid he won’t be able to take care of himself…”

[Zorolo]

The fencer continued walking, passing by the Echo and moving on forward towards whatever his destination was, although that was vague enough to give the fencer an idea. A very bad sense of where he was, but still, a sense of where to go next. It wasn't like Zorlo needed a guide for everywhere he went; after all, he'd found his way to some interesting places by wandering, not getting lost.

Meanwhile, the Aura Master continued to ponder what Dante had asked him to do, and something about the reply struck the fencer as too hard to say no too. It wasn't like the green haired man would say no to an offer like that anyway, mostly seeing how extremely righteous it was to protect a friend's child... and the fencer couldn't ignore they why to this problem either. "Of course I'll keep an eye on him," Zorlo stated as he continued to walk.

"Thank you," Dante started as he began walking again. "Oh, and Zorlo," he continued, the fencer turning his head to look.

"Yeah?" the green haired man looked with a casual smile on his face as he continued to wander forwards.

"You're going the wrong way," the Echo stated, and as the fencer continued to walk forward, not looking at where he was going, managed to walk into a tree.

"Grr..." the fencer stated slightly as he turned from the tree and watched as the Echo Incarnate walked off in the proper direction. Again, Zorlo hadn't been lost, he had merely been wandering. Only fools got lost, the fencer merely had lost his current path by some outside force that he couldn't explain. It probably had something to do with Karma, or something like that, but the fencer didn't know. Anyway, now that he was on the right path again, that meant it was time to find where they were going.

As much as the Aura Master loved forests, something about this one seemed to be tainted. It was not the lingering Tainted Element either, but something a bit more basic. The forest held a deep rooted anger, or so it seemed, towards something. Whatever this unending hatred was, the fencer couldn't be sure, but he greatly desired to get away from it. He'd not be driven mad by such a simple thing, nor would it kill him. After all, the fencer still had things left in life to do.

[Kiriyama]

Whilst Zorlo was oblivious to the source of the forest’s anger, Dante knew all too well where the anger’s roots lay. He hadn’t realized it before, but this wasn’t any forest. Grasthos picked the Oripawn Range for one reason: To taunt him from beyond the grave.

“This is the forest where she left us, isn’t it?” he asked, picking up his connection to Gorin. Though the dark god was in the middle of a particularly fun massacre, he stopped to speak to his soul.

“Yeah,” he replied, for once speaking to Dante as an equal, for he knew that his soul had just as much hatred instilled in this place as he did. “It’s a little smaller now, as you can see. Damn loggers. I made sure to kill all the lumberjacks when I visited last week.”

The Tainted Incarnate silently nodded, morbidly agreeing with his fellow third. Loggers had no right to cut this place down. It held more memories than human lives were worth. All the nights they, as the original Gorin, were forced to hide in dead trees to avoid the deadly nighttime animals. The countless days of starvation, sickness, loneliness…

“I’ll let you take part in her torture if I ever find her,” Gorin continued, feeling Dante’s thoughts shift towards their only memory of their mother. Their oldest memory was also their worst, filled with more pain than any others. The one time they were truly clean, innocent, defenseless… And she’d cast them out as an abomination.

“Thank you…”

Gorin’s soul truly meant it. His pocket-bound hands clenched into fists. Both the mind and the soul thought of her, recalling her appearance based on what little memory they had of such an early time. Dante in particular was surprised to find that he could remember her as accurately as he could. Her image was clear, as though he’d seen her recently, when he knew he hadn’t seen her in twenty years.

Their mother had flowing snow-white hair, an attribute that’d been passed down to their original body. Her eyes were a stunning emerald shade of green, and they held a mix of innocence and wisdom. She was wearing a simple white dress in their only memory, with two slits in the back for her magnificent wings.

Such an image would bring thoughts of peace and serenity in the minds of most. For Dante and Gorin however, the image was tainted. Before she left them in the forest her eyes, so full of seeming-care before, betrayed only malice. Her sweet face was contorted into a scowl as she carelessly dropped her baby into the ravine that cut through the woods.

“Thanks for taking care of the forest. Keep it up,” Dante told Gorin. The echo and the fencer emerged from the forest, almost immediately reaching the base of the mountain range. It didn’t take them long to find a path, and they were soon on their way.

[Zorolo]

The fencer followed Dante along the path, thinking about something himself. The forest seemed to pulse with great hatred, anger, and a kind of loneliness. The green haired man would have simply disregarded these feelings, however, something seemed to prevent that. A dark feeling traced the Aura Master, but rather then fight it, Zorlo allowed his dark half a few moments, opening up the link between their minds.

You know what this awful feeling is, don't you? the green haired man asked as he kept his eyes on the path, walking without a change in his step. If the dark one truly knew, perhaps he'd share this truth with the fencer, and even if not, the fencer might have a better understanding.

You could say that... the dark one spoke out. Shinu's weakening state, along with Zorlo's break from any connection to the dark one made it hard for him to maintain a strong voice in the fencer's head any longer. Aizi told me, once, when we passed through this forest, that a god had been born here. I headed to the Dome recently, and decided to look into the notes, to see what I could find. However... what I found shocked me a bit, I must admit, the Master of Darkness stated, coughing a few times.

Oh, and what is it you learned? the Aura Master asked as he continued to walk, watching as the laboratory drew closer. What would happen when they got there? Would they find what Dante was looking for, or would Zorlo and Dante only find more despair here? The fencer tried not to think about that right now, and merely continued walking along the path.

The original Gorin was born left their. I sense that Dante knows this, and I know that whoever built that place knew it, somehow. The few notes I could find were few and far between on the matter, but still, I felt you should know. Slowly, the dark presence began to fade, but stopped after the fencer's question.

What will become of you, Shinu?

The dark creature merely laughed. My fate is similar to Dante's, except I'll become darkness instead of Tainted Element. Also, mine will take longer to occur, so don't get too relaxed. I'm intent on killing you before I am reborn! the Master of Darkness stated as his presence fully faded.

Zorlo began to laugh uncontrollably at that statement. Despite how much he disliked Shinu, the dark one was still the closest thing that the fencer had to a family besides Selene. The Incarnation of Tainted Element looked at the fencer and raised an inquisitive eyebrow to the fencer. The green haired man lowered his head and smiled at Dante. "Don't worry about it. Let's just get this over with," the fencer stated as the two stood at the entrance into the laboratory. The time to find out if what Dante searched for was here or not began now.

[Kiriyama]

The lab was quite a bit different than Dante had expected. Judging by the last two labs, Kaja thought it’d be larger and built into the mountain. Instead the lab, a bomb-shelter of sorts, was situated on a part of the mountain that’d been ground into a flat plateau.

“This is odd,” Dante said, placing a hand on the heavy doors. “I expected the lab to be a bit larger. Maybe hidden, somehow. This is right out in the open though. Whatever they stored in here, they aren’t in a hurry to keep a secret…”

The Tainted Incarnate punched a hole in the door and stepped inside, creating a small ball of tainted fire in his outstretched palm for light. He’d stepped into a single hallway that led to an incredibly heavy door. This next one would take a bit more effort to punch through…

~

“What was that noise?!” a girl cried out. Her violet eyes shifted towards the door. Something was coming. Was it good? Bad? Were they going to be freed or experimented on? The girl nervously licked her lips and clung to a larger man with black skin and raven hair, similar to herself.

“It’s okay Jeze,” the man said, wrapping his arms around her protectively. His eyes, also violet, were trained on the single door. Their fellows, previously sitting around the room in various positions and talking amongst themselves, joined them in staring at the only exit.

The entire group could hear a pair of footsteps drawing nearer. Despite being over a foot thick and infused with Pure Element, to which every Echo is allergic, the door was unable to hide any sounds on the other side. Some of them could even hear the duo breathing.

“Do you feel that?” one of them, a tall and slender woman with crimson eyes and her hair tied into a braid, asked. She knew that most of them wouldn’t feel the Tainted Element emanating from one of the figures. Most of them only knew what little Tainted Element that’d gone into their creation.

The one who’d been standing behind her, a primitive echo with short hair and lime green eyes, stepped to her side and looked at her. Despite being a tall man himself, she dwarfed him by at least two inches. She was taller than all of them, actually. And much older.

“The Tainted Element,” he said, shifting his focus from her to the door. “It’s very strong. Whoever this is has more Tainted Element flowing through him than all of us combined. Even more than a complete echo, actually.”

“Perfect,” a shorter man with long bangs said, grinning with a mouth full of razor teeth. “If we consume him, our life spans will increase drastically. How long did Toka say we’d live without any outside sources? A year? This man could give us lives longer than the average ‘Human’.”

“Yeit,” the shorter-haired man said, turning his attention to his fellow. “We never proved that. We-”

“Shut up!” Yeit interrupted. He walked over to his fellow primitive echo, ignoring the others completely, and grabbed him by the collar of his plain black shirt. None of the others reacted. Yeit was always the hothead of the group, and was the third-strongest behind Mateus, the tall woman, and Arius, the man he was accosting.

“Let me go,” Arius said, maintaining a look of indifference. “Focus on the people heading towards the door. Once they open it, we’ll either kill them and flee, or simply flee. I, for one, am more focused on getting out of this hellhole than getting Tainted Element.”

“Hey,” a bald primitive echo, Basalt, said. “They’re right on the other side now! Shush!”

Yeit grumbled incoherently and let Arius go, turning back to the door and joining the others in producing weapons. Jeze and the man who’d been holding her, Psalm, both generated simple swords, neither one much of a fighter. Mateus summoned a bow, Basalt a spear, and Arius a scythe.

Yeit followed the example of many of the others, many of whom he didn’t know or care about, and generated dual katanas. The entire group was completely silent, waiting for the door to open…

[Zorolo]

The fencer followed Dante down the hall, listening to the whispers that echoed through the hall. Something was in this building, and the green haired man didn't know exactly what in the world it was. Still, the Aura Master knew that whatever was lurking down here wasn't friendly, most likely. Well, that didn't matter right now, all the fencer knew was that he was in their territory, and that was dangerous. The green haired man stopped when the Tainted Incarnate did, and watched as the Pure Echo examined the door.

The fencer closed his eyes and allowed the spectral world to open up to him, trying to gauge exactly what was behind this door. Aura danced around the green haired man. The life of the outside world emitted with great strength, and the powerful energy blazing from the man next to the green haired warrior was almost all encompassing, but at the same time, not overwhelming. The fencer had to focus if he truly wished to know what lay in wait for them, and whatever it was, it didn't seem to be weak by any means.

The green haired man's eyes opened in shock quickly, but he closed them and focused again. A large number of creatures made of the same thing Dante pulsed with were behind that door. Of them... "Okay, behind that door, there are about thirty things made of whatever you're powered by. Of them, most of them aren't threatening at all. However..." the fencer stated as Dante looked at the door.

"I know. There are four powers behind that door that aren't weak at all. The amount of Tainted Element of all of those things isn't anything near my power, however, so I don't think we need to worry," Dante stated in a calm tone.

"Yes, however, one of them is about as strong as I am normally, and two are stronger then I am. One of them is really, really strong. We should be careful. I'm not quite sure what we're up against."

The creature of Tainted Element rubbed his hand against the door and sighed. "I also can't destroy this door. It's a foot thick of steel, probably on each side, with a nice foot thick layer of Pure Element. Pure Element is poisonous to any creature made of Tainted Element. I couldn't break this door if I wanted to."

The fencer raised an eyebrow. Tainted Element, Pure Element, this was all so confusing. He figured better to ask and understand then not. Actually, better to not ask questions and just get this over with. "I've got this," the Aura Master stated as he removed his gauntlets and fastened them tightly to his arms. "Stand back, this could get ugly."

Zorlo clenched his fist tightly and began to glow lightly with a green tint. In mere seconds, the fencer's fist glowed strongly with an emerald green flame around it. The fencer rested his right hand on the door, pushing slightly against it as he punched the door with his sword arm hard, shattering the wall into thousands of small shards that quickly scattered into the room. "Now then, to see what's-"

The fencer was stopped as a rushing hoard of countless beings rushed past the the Aura Master himself and Dante, both of which finding themselves unable to do anything but avoid being trampled. A few minutes of this past, and finally the building was clear, with the exception of four others. "Well, looks like they were expecting us," Zorlo joked as he drew Apollo, getting ready to for what was to come.