The Last Strand of Glory (Kiriyama)

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.

“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.

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. ^_^

“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.

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.

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.

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.

“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…”

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

“Hello there,” Yeit said in an joyous tone, his eyes trained on Dante. “How good of you to-”

Mateus suddenly shoved him across the room and glared at Dante. Kaja found himself getting uneasy in her focus. Something was odd about this woman. It wasn’t her strength, or her beautiful appearance, or even the fact that she was wielding a bow that was larger than she was. The hatred pulsing from her was amazingly strong.

“Arius,” she said, catching the scythe-wielder’s attention without shifting her gaze from the Tainted Incarnate, “I want you to take care of the green one. The echo is a part of him. You know who I mean.”

“Gorin?” Arius inquired, looking at Dante. Basalt was silently staring at Kaja, and Yeit was glaring daggers at Mateus. Zorlo and Dante remained where they were standing and waited for one of the primitive echoes to make the first move.

Mateus nodded and started to gather crimson particles in the middle of the bowstring. The particles united to form a crude sphere, and then stretched into the form of an arrow the size of Zorlo’s blade. This deadly weapon remained trained on Dante, who had yet to create a weapon to defend himself.

Arius suddenly darted across the room and swung his scythe in a wide arc, which the Tainted Incarnate and the Aura Master nimbly dodged, each making their way to opposite sides of the room. Mateus followed Dante with her bow whilst Basalt and Yeit followed him with their eyes, Arius going after the green-haired man, as he’d been instructed. He was normally the leader, but he knew of Mateus’ hatred for the God of Wrath all too well.

Mateus released her arrow and hit the Tainted Incarnate point-blank in the chest. The projectile tore straight through and stuck out his back, causing a smile of triumph to spread across the woman’s face. The smile turned to a scowl and a primal scream of anger when Dante merely absorbed the attack into his being, healing the hole instantly.

“I don’t know what your grudge with my past life is,” Kaja said, generating a simple katana, “I assure you, though, that I had little to do with whatever I did to you.”

Mateus’ eyes glared at Dante with even more unsettling hatred. She dematerialized her bow and replaced it with a spear, keeping her focus on Kaja. Finally, she couldn’t contain her hatred with her eyes any more. “You didn’t have to, you illegitimate ****! You ruined my life! It’s your fault I died and became an experiment! I never should have slept with your father!”

Her words struck the Echo Incarnate with more force than anything he’d endured in his lifetime. He felt his grip on his sword loosen momentarily, and that nearly cost him his life. While the words were still sinking in, another primitive echo made his move.

Basalt, who’d been quietly watching until now, suddenly leapt onto Dante’s back and wrapped his arms around the Echo Incarnate. His hands crossed Kaja’s chest and latched on painfully. Dully, in the back of his mind, the victim wondered why the primitive echo’s palms had barb-laden suckers.

“What-” Dante finally managed to say. His words were cut off when he felt a sudden powerful draining effect. It felt like his very essence was being concentrated into his chest, leaving the rest of his body too weak to function. His legs failed him, leaving his assailant to hold him up while he absorbed the energy through his hands, causing the appendages to pulse with crimson light.

“Get off of him!” Mateus shouted, flinging her blade into Dante’s chest and out Basalt’s back. The bald echo unlatched his hands and let his prey drop onto his face. Basalt’s wound healed instantly and he laughed, the crimson glow diminishing.

“He’s just bursting with the Taint!” Basalt backed up until he was standing alongside Yeit while he made his proclamation. The two looked at one another and then switched their focus to Dante once more. They started to slowly advance upon him with hungry gazes.

“Stop it now,” Mateus commanded, avoiding raising her voice this time. She generated her bow once more and pointed it at them menacingly. “He’s mine. Neither of you are to touch him. Leave now, before I decide that he’s not the only one I’ll be killing.”

Her subordinates gave each other another quick glance, as if to affirm that they had the support of the other. Neither one wanted to die though. They grudgingly stalked off, leaving Mateus and Arius to have all the fun.

The scythe struck hard with the fencer's blade as he stared at the man. "What luck, I get to fight the strongest guy here. You're absolutely pulsing with power," the Aura Master mused as he braced the blade of his sword as it screeched against the tip of the scythe blade. I need to be careful though. This guy is stronger then I am. I'd have been better off facing that guy with two swords or the bald guy. Even so, this will be a good challenge.

The fencer, thinking quickly, pushed his sword to the side, deflecting the primitive Echo's blade. The green haired man didn't hesitate as he thrust his sword forwards, but found his foe had more skill with the rather odd weapon he used. The scythe's shaft moved quickly and pushed Apollo's blade away from the warrior's body, and followed up with a quick thrust of the butt of the weapon to the Aura Master's chest. The fencer stumbled back slightly, happy his armor had taken some of the blow.

This guy had a great deal of strength, there was no doubt about that at any point in time. Arius held the shaft of his blade with both hands, one halfway between the bottom and the center, and the other halfway between the center and the blade. A very well placed position for both attack and defense, no doubt. That, perhaps, was why the fencer was having so much fun here. Strong foes with strange weapons made life fun.

Arius spun quickly, slashing the curved blade of his scythe towards the fencer, who merely stepped back to avoid the attack. The green haired man slashed quickly, but wound up having his sword being blocked by the handle of the scythe. The two warriors pressed their weapons against one another and the primitive echo moved quickly, pushing Zorlo's sword away and swinging his weapon. The scythe blade moved close to the fencer's face, cutting his cheek slightly.

The two leapt back and smiled. "This is getting good," the fencer stated as he began to prepare his next attack.

"Yeah, you're right. What say we turn this up a bit?" the echo asked as he swung his scythe, throwing a crimson colored crescent wave horizontally towards the fencer. The wave was wrapped in an odd, crimson lightning. The Aura Master guessed that the attack was a wave of concentrated Tainted Element.

The fencer moved quickly, cutting the blade of Tainted Element in half quickly slashed horizontally after cutting the blade and throwing his own wave. "Aura Slash!" the fencer said as the wave of green energy moved towards Arius.

The Echo moved quickly moved and cut the blade of aura in half. "Nice move. You're not half bad," the man commented with a smile and a slight laugh.

"And you're not a flunky like the two guys that left. This'll be fun," the fencer stated as he spun his sword once around his finger, moving it back into combat ready stance. "Let's go," the fencer said as he struck again.

“When Toka informed me that my son had been split into three beings, I didn’t think I’d find any of them,” Mateus said, kneeling next to Dante and aiming the bow at his head. He was still too weak to stand, let alone fight back. “But now one of them is here now…”

“The ***** abandoned us!” Gorin shouted in the back of Dante’s mind.

“Of course I did!” Mateus shouted at the Tainted Incarnate. Perhaps she could tap into the psychic connection between Gorin and Dante. “Your birth cost me my entire life! I was shunned by my family and friends, and kicked out of Heaven!”

She looked down at her dark form and scowled, saying, “Now look at me. I’m a primitive echo. Grasthos created me when he was still trying to perfect Echo Side. You were the first, and last, echo created through Echo Side, aside from the echo Grasthos created of himself. I believe you met and killed that.”

As if the emotional blow of finding his mother wasn’t enough for one day, Mateus’ words brought up an idea that served as another blow. The Grasthos he killed was an echo. What if he’d separated into three beings, just as the original Gorin had done? That could mean that his enemy was still alive…

“Forget Grasthos,” Gorin said. Grasthos was another hatred shared between Gorin and Dante, so it came as a surprise to the Tainted Incarnate. He understood what his other part meant, after a moment. Grasthos wasn’t of concern right now. The woman holding a bow to his head was. “Kill the *****. Blow her head off! Stretch her limbs until they tear!”

Dante snarled and forced himself to stand. Mateus fired, forgetting what had happened earlier, and Kaja merely absorbed the arrow. He struck out with a single fist and knocked her across the room. Normally, he was against harming women. He could make an exception in this case.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get a chance to continue the beat down. Arius, formerly focused on Zorlo, suddenly darted away from his battle and caught his fellow primitive echo.

“We should probably go,” he said to her, his focus shifting back and forth between Zorlo and Dante. “He’ll die soon anyway. Basalt absorbed quite a bit of Tainted Element from him. The bald bastard probably increased his lifespan by a year or so, and shortened your son’s. Let’s go now. We can find your son’s other incarnations and kill them, okay?”

“Fine,” Mateus begrudgingly agreed. “When we find the others, do you promise I can kill them?”

“Cross my heart, if I have one, and hope to die,” Arius replied.

The two disappeared in a flash, and Dante collapsed to his knees. They were right. He didn’t have much longer to live. He felt hollow inside… and cold. For some reason, he found the coldness more disturbing than the emptiness.

“We’re done here.”

"So, there wasn't really a way to restore you so you could live on, was there?" Zorlo asked with a slight sigh. "If that were true, you should have simply told me. There is still one way left. There is one ace in our hole that can be drawn from," the Aura Master said as he smiled at Dante. "Master! I need your help!" the fencer yelled upwards as a blue beam of energy shot down, shattering part of the ceiling and forming a white Neko with a triangular hat.

"What do you need," Kurenkento asked as he smiled at his former student, flexing his long fingers. The Neko demon stood nearly a foot over Zorlo, and his dragon scale vest had a single puncture mark in it.

The fencer smiled as he pointed at Dante. "My friend here is slowly dissolving, and I was wondering if there was anything you or Cenarius could do to help him," the fencer stated surely as he stepped towards the fencer Neko.

"I'm not sure that Cenarius or I can do anything, but I'll bring you both here so we can at least ask," the cat warrior stated. "Step into this beam and you'll both be brought to the temple. From there... well... we'll see how it goes."

Zorlo nodded to Dante, who slightly nodded back as the two stepped into the bright blue beam of light. A bright flash filled the room they were in and vanished. The two were gone when the flash finished.

o=)----------In Cenarius' Temple----------(=o

The Tainted Incarnate and the Aura Master appeared before the mighty form of Cenarius, who stood nearly eight feet in height. The mighty centaur opened his eyes and stood up to his full height, looking down at the two. "What is this blaspheme!" the God of the Ethereal Forest asked in pure annoyance.

"Master Cenarius, my friend here-"

"SILENCE!" the god yelled as he pointed his branch arm at the fencer. "How dare you bring such an... an abomination in front of me!"

"Master, what do you mean?" the fencer asked as he stepped back, taken aback by his Master's tone.

"How dare you bring someone I told you to destroy before me?! I command you now to destroy this being!"

"Master, he is no longer Gorin, the God of Wrath. The two are separate, and Dante needs our help!"

"I shall never help that being! Beings like him are only dangerous to our power!"

A brilliant, purple light shined down as a small, petite figure standing only about five feet tall, holding a bow about six feet tall, appeared before the god. "My son, how dare you speak to your servant in such a way. He comes before you, asking help, and you denounce him without so much as listening? What has happened to you?"

Cenarius grunted angrily. "It is because of people like that thing that gods are being destroyed! The Echo and their creators are undermining us! We must destroy them all!"

"This was never about Gorin, was it? This was about destroying what you fear will destroy you! Master, you've lied to me for too long. I can never forgive you!" Zorlo stated as he drew Apollo from it's sheath and readied for combat.

"There is only one way to settle this," Elune, Goddess of the Moon and mistress leader of the pantheon of the Ethereal Forest shot an arrow clean through Cenarius' heart. "You've taken your immortality. Now then, if you can destroy these mortals without your immortality, I may give it back to you, but I think they'll best you. You'll regret your betrayal to your servants," Elune said as she floated upwards. "I'll watch this battle. Fear not, mortals, you have more friends then you know."

"Dante, I'm sorry," Zorlo stated as he readied himself for combat. "Mayhap we'll find something when we've destroyed my former Master!" the Aura Master stated.

“Nah,” Dante said, laughing wearily. He held his arm out and tried to summon a sword for himself, but found that he didn’t even have enough energy left to generate a weapon. He turned back to his green-haired ally and continued, “Nothing’s going to help me. To be quite honest, I’m glad.”

“Glad?” Gorin’s voice asked. The Perfect Echo thought he heard some worry in his other third’s voice. Kaja smiled weakly at the thought. Gorin, worried about his greatest enemy? That was unheard of. Yet, as Dante stood with his life dwindling, the God of Wrath was indeed worried for him. “What do you mean, ‘Glad’?!”

“Yes,” Dante replied, temporarily forgetting Cenarius and Zorlo. Everything but his conversation with his other self seemed trivial in that moment. “I’m sure you know of how my life’s fallen apart because of you. When you were still inside of me, I exiled myself from everybody that mattered. Now, they’re no longer here. I’m dying and I have nobody left to protect.”

Dante was still focused on speaking with Gorin when the fight started. He dodged as many attacks as he could and fought back with what little strength he had left, and his blows were predictably useless. The echo could tell that he was weaker than he’d ever been.

“Ah. You always were the protective one. Remember the Original One?” Gorin asked. “I was the dominant personality for the most part. Oblivion War, fighting Harges, all that stuff was all me. You didn’t start to take hold until near the end of our life. Of course, then there was all that **** with that virus, and Tokumaru killing us…”

“Is there a point you’re trying to get to,” Dante asked, cart wheeling away from one attack, only to be struck and knocked back by another, “or are you just reminiscing for the sake of reminiscing?”

“I’m trying to say… Well, since you’re dying and all…” The Tainted Incarnate could easily tell that Gorin was having trouble saying whatever it was he was trying to say. After a brief pause, the God of Wrath finally made his point. “We didn’t really have a lot of time to balance our personalities out when we were part of the Original, and… I guess that’s why I hated you. That, and I was stuck inside of you for a bit, but I can forget that for now. Dante Kaja…?”

“Yes,” Dante replied, “Gorin Kaja?”

“Seeing as you were just as much a part of the Original as I was, you’re the only person in this world I really have any respect for. I still hate you, but… I’m sorry I ruined your life.”

That was the last conversation Dante and Gorin ever had…

"Well, then shall the fates guide you," the Aura Master responded to Dante's words of being glad. "I'm glad I stand beside you one last time, then," the fencer stated as massive, golden wings emerged from his back and the golden Ancient Aura began to dance around the fencer's body. "In this realm, I have power beyond power because I can use my Ancient Aura with no strain, as you recall, my former Master."

The god moved forwards slightly, his arm of thorns twitching at the power as he tightened his hand and held out his palm, aiming a bit of power from his Ethereal Nature element towards the fencer. "I gave you those powers. Now you're using them to oppose me. What chance do you think you have, little human?" Cenarius asked as a cannon like blast exploded from his palm and rushed at Zorlo in the form of a green sphere.

The green haired man moved his sword upwards, blocking the blast. As the Ancient Aura and Ethereal Nature clashed, power rushed from the focal point, causing the Fencer of Tasogare's hand to shake. With as much force as the green haired warrior could muster, he pushed the blast away and charged at the centaur. the Aura Master burst into the sky and quickly slashed his sword, throwing an Aura Slash, only to have the attack swatted away nigh effortlessly by the God of the Ethereal Forest.

Cenarius quickly retaliated with a power blast of nature energy, which Zorlo used his wings to help him evade, although only barely, and the fencer rushed forwards. "Foolish mortal, what do you hope to gain from this?!" the god barked as his arm of bramble and the fencer's blade clashed. Ancient Aura and Ethereal Nature energy danced around the clash as the two powers pushed against each other, but the advantage seemed to live with the god.

"I hope to free this realm from you. Even if I can't save Dante..." Zorlo stated as power began erupting from the fencer's blade. "Even if I can't live to see you defeated!" the Aura Master continued as even more power appeared from him, focusing on the blade of his sword. "Even if I destroy this temple, I'll make sure you can no longer commit atrocities as you have!" the green haired man said as a massive flash of golden flame and green energy filled the room.

As the lights faded, the fencer slid down the marble wall he had, consequently, cratered in the clash of powers. Cenarius had changed his target to the echo now, who evaded and tried to counter attack, but to no avail. Zorlo placed his hand on the outsides of the wall and lifted himself out, looking up at the god from where he stood. Blood ran down the green haired one's face, and his body shook a little from the pain he was in, but still, he had enough of a will to fight to not allow things to end like this.

"I won't lose!"

Power surged from within the pendant around the fencer's neck, pulsing strongly off of him as the green haired man leapt forwards, his wings extending to their full length and allowing him to fly. Suddenly, Aura Lightning rushed from the fencer's pendant into his eyes, turning them golden with power. Aura Lightning danced around the fencer's body, and lightning bolts formed inside of his wings, removing his fathers and making his wings somewhat solid.

"I'll use this power to cleanse you from this world."

Zorlo opened his right hand towards Cenarius, who was still focused much on Dante, and unleashed a powerful blast of Aura Lightning towards the God of the Ethereal Forest. A pulse and a massive shaking rocked the temple as Cenarius was blasted into the wall by the massive burst in power the green haired man had just gained. However, the god recovered quickly and fired off a blast of energy, but it was quickly met by an orb of Aura Lightning, causing a massive clash of power and causing the temple to shake.

When the lightning and the nature energy finally ceased their dangerous dance, the fencer and the god were striking at each other. The green haired man's sword slashing dangerously with Aura Lightning dancing upon it as the centaur struck with his bramble arm, filled with his legendary power. With each charge of the Fencer of Tasogare, the god struck back, and a powerful pulse of energy filled the room, shaking the temple at its very foundations, risking to tear it apart. Finally, the two force were locked, Zorlo's sword and Cenarius' arm, and power shot everywhere from the the two.

Finally, a second flash erupted, and the image of the Aura Master was present soaring through the air, his power completely run out, as he flew towards the wall again. "I don't think so!" a voice called out as it appeared and caught the green haired man. The Neko fencer, Kurenkento, had saved his former pupil, and smiled under his triangular hat at his now former Master. "I'm not gonna let you kill Zorlo."

"Oh, Kurenkento, and what makes you think you have the power to do otherwise?" the God of the Ethereal Forest asked angrily.

Apollo flew silently through the air, landing next to the wind Neko as his feet set down. The Neko-demon placed his pupil against the wall and the two smiled at each other. "Master... thank you..." the wounded fencer said weakly as his Master smiled and stood up, turning towards the god with a stern look of focus as he wrapped his hand around the handle of Apollo.

"I know I have the power to defeat you, since Zorlo's already weakened you greatly. Now then, for the finishing blow!" Kurenkento said as he held his sword in front of himself and smiled. Wind picked up in the room almost fiercely, as Kurenkento held the sword and readied to strike. "Hurricane Slash!" Kurenkento yelled as he swung his sword and released the attack, throwing a massive hurricane from around Apollo's blade that soon had swallowed Cenarius up.

The attack quickly went to work, cutting the God of the Ethereal Forest into ribbons, and after that, into small pieces, and then even smaller as the attack raged on. Kurenkento raised his hat slightly, revealing one golden eye as the attack settled and ended. After the Hurricane Slash had ended, all that was left of Cenarius was a ball of green energy, the one that normally hung off of his bramble arm. The Neko demigod stabbed Apollo into the ground and looked at Zorlo and Dante.

"Thanks, you two. Without your help, there wouldn't have been a way to defeat him. And Dante... I'm sorry I can't help you more."

From a bright purple flash, Elune appeared again and smiled at Kurenkento, strangely happy. The Neko turned towards her and looked in slightly shock as he revealed one golden eye and one red. "Kurenkento, you and your pupil have done very well. My son had let his heart become corrupted by evil, and now he has paid the price for it. Although my heart weeps for him, I am also relieved that a new ruler can take his place. Kurenkento, please take the orb and gain the power."

The woman's words shocked the fencer Neko, who looked in awe for a moment before nodding and moving towards the glowing green orb. The wind Neko extended his hand and wrapped his hand around the green orb. as his hand grabbed it, green power erupted from it and covered the son of Macha. The power encased the Neko for a few moments before revealing his new, full god form.

Kurenkento now wore a full suit of dark green armor, save for his head, which was still adorned with his strange, triangular hat. The Neko's eyes, which had normally changed colors now had irises split down the center, the left half of each eye gold, the right red. In his left hand, the Neko God held a sheathed rapier, with a hand guard similar to Zorlo's, except made of bramble. The new God of the Ethereal Forest drew the sword partially and looked at the glowing, bright green blade. "Well, I guess that makes me the new God of the Ethereal Forest."

Elune smiled at the new god. "Yes, that is true. You are the new lord of this domain. However, I think you should thank those two. If not for them, you wouldn't have defeated my son."

Kurenkento walked over to Zorlo, who waved him closer. The fencer whispered something into his Master's ear. The Neko nodded. "Anything else?"

"Yes... I think... we need to go back to the mortal plane now. I'll see you later, Master," the fencer stated as both he and Dante were covered in light and vanished.

o=)----------Some Place at Sunset---------(=o

The sun began to dive lower beneath the horizon. The high cliff over looking the ocean with a beach below it seemed an oddly fitting place. The grassy field beneath the fencer and the Echo made the green haired man feel a little bit better. "So, you wanted to talk?" Zorlo asked Dante as he looked at the Tainted Incarnate, pondering what the dark man wanted to talk about. No matter what it was, the fencer felt pained. Things in the world wouldn't be the same before long.

“Yes,” Dante said, sitting with his knees hugged to his chest. His yellow eyes stared at the setting sun, and he likened it to his own fading glory. The sun would be seen again, unlike himself. The final act in the play of his life was about to come to its conclusion.

Like any good man, he wanted to leave something in this world. The only things that proved he’d ever existed were the memories others had of him, and he knew that it was likely some of those would fade. He was particularly afraid that TDC and Isis would both forget him.

TDC barely knew him, so it was very likely that he would forget the dark-skinned man. Isis knew him quite well, and was easily his best friend. The goddess was bound to live for thousands upon thousands of years after his death however, and time was one of the most effective tools that fate used to wear away memories.

He found, with some revulsion directed towards himself, that he didn’t really mind if Nenet remembered him or not. Of course, she’d found a better paramour in Elrick the Red, and any fond memories she had of Kaja were likely to be replaced with memories of her soon-to-be-husband, regardless of how Dante felt about her remembering him or not.

Then there were his other allies. He believed that Latio, Erebus, Naomi, and Zorlo wouldn’t be forgetting him any time soon. Gorin, Toka, the prototype echoes, and all the other enemies he’d made during his life wouldn’t be forgetting him either.

It seemed he was set as far as leaving an impression on the world went. Though he had no material possessions to pass on to any heir, the memories looked like they were going to last. Memories were probably better than material goods anyhow.

“Zorlo,” Dante said. He had a few oral messages for his green-haired friend to give those that he cared about. These were things that he’d decided to avoid putting in the invitations to his funeral. “I’ve just got a few messages I want you to pass on to some people, and a little advice for yourself. Okay?”

Zorlo looked at the pure echo, smiling. “Okay. What is it you wish to tell me?”

“Well,” Dante replied, “first of all, tell Nenet that I’m happy for her, and I hope she lives a long, happy, and healthy life.”

“O… kay,” the green-haired fencer said.

Dante continued, “And, if you ever meet Isis, tell her that I really did care about her, as much as she may think otherwise. And if things had gone better, then I probably would have felt the same way towards her that she felt towards me.”

Zorlo gave the echo a slightly confused look and said, “I see. I'll tell her, should I see her, whomever she is.”

Kaja lightly smacked himself in the forehead. The Fencer of Tasogare had never met Isis, so there was a little clarifying to be done. “She's a tall, winged woman. As for Latio, whom I know you know, just tell him that I was proud to have known him. That's it as far as messages go.”

“Okay. And if I see Latio, given he doesn't try to shank me again, I'll tell him,” the Aura Master said. Dante laughed at this remark and stuck his hand into his pocket, feeling for the ring.

“Alright, now for the advice,” he said, pulling the ring out and looking at it. He turned it around in his fingers for a moment before flicking it off the cliff and into the ocean. “You see what I just did? I don't want you to have to do the same thing with the ring in your pocket.”

He was referencing, of course, the ring that one of his spies told him Zorlo had bought for Selene.

“If you're thinking about proposing to a girl, then just do it. Time is like sand, my friend, and you've only got a limited amount. Make the best of it before it slips through your fingers.”

Zorlo laughed and said, “I"ll keep that in mind. Anyway, it's hard, you know. I never have time to propose, much less think of what I'm going to say, you see.”

“Don't think about it. Just do it. Spontaneity doesn't always equal mediocrity. A simple, ‘Will you marry me?’ is just as good as any pre-thought speeches or grand plans,” Dante replied.

Zorlo chuckled at this. “I'll keep that in mind. As for you, what will you do now?”

Kaja sighed and said, darkly, “I assumed it was obvious.”

Just like that, the entire atmosphere seemed to change. Dante’s eyes took on the appearance of a man preparing to be led to his own execution, and the air between the men grew heavy with sadness. Even the red horizon seemed to grow just a bit depressing.

Zorlo looked grim as he lowered his face, allowing his eyes to be veiled by shadow. “I see. I'm sorry. I wish things could have ended on a more positive note then.”

“It's okay. I'm just glad I managed to do something productive before I went,” the Tainted Incarnate assured his friend, standing up and brushing himself free of any grass that had decided to follow him.

“Want me to finish up that Toka guy for you?” Zorlo offered, “After all, he's still alive, even if he's cloaking his own movements.”

“You can if you want,” Dante replied. His thoughts started to shift to Toka’s master then. “There's a much more serious threat than him left, though. Toka's nothing compared to this other guy.”

Zorlo looked up slightly. His arched eyebrow seemed to be the epitome of quizzical looks. “Who do you mean?”

“The guy behind it all. The master manipulator,” Kaja said, “Grasthos. He probably uses a different name now, though. He was the one who taught Toka everything he knows, as well as creating the original echoes, including myself. I thought I killed him a while ago, but one of the primitive echoes brought up a very good point. If the original Gorin separated to create me and three other entities, who’s to say the original Grasthos didn’t?”

He looked at the horizon and paused to remember his slaying of the echo before continuing with, “The Grasthos I killed was an echo, after all.”

“That's... not a good sign. It means there are two beings out their possibly more cruel and wicked than Gorin,” Zorlo said. “Not a pleasant thought. Possibly more powerful as well.”

Dante yawned and said, “Yep. Mercutio probably knows who those beings are.” He then looked at Zorlo and added, “You haven't met Merc yet, of course. I assume somebody's already told you of him though?”

He, of course, already knew that the being known as Master had already told Zorlo of Mercutio. Zorlo didn’t seem to remember at first, though, as he shook his head and said, “Who's this... ‘Merc‘... wait…”

The fencer blinked and told Dante, “A being called Master said something about some guy named Merc. Who is he? Master was... skimpy with details. He fled without kicking my teeth in.”

Kaja laughed and started walking away. “You'll find out soon enough. He's going to be in charge of my funeral,” he said.

Zorlo’s response was a simple, “I... see…”

The Tainted Incarnate smiled, continuing to walk, and related his final words to Zorlo. “Goodbye Zorlo. Have a nice life.”

“Well, I'm sad I shan't see you again. However, it seems I've got my own path I must walk now. Farewell, Dante,” the fencer said. With that, he began to walk in the opposite direction. The sun finally set.