"Do you feel it?" asked Sirzechs, his voice calm but probing, as though nudging at something Dante hadn't yet grasped.
Dante didn't answer immediately. His mind was whirring, caught in a haze of confusion and introspection. What was he supposed to feel? A sword was just a weapon, wasn't it? Cold steel and handled wood, nothing more.
But then, his fingers shifted instinctively around the hilt. And it clicked.
"Can you feel that sword in your hands?" Sirzechs repeated, his gaze sharp.
Dante raised the weapon, its weight humming through his arm like a long-forgotten memory returning home. The blade didn't feel foreign or awkward. No, it felt familiar — as if it had always belonged there, as if his body had been waiting for this moment of union.
It startled him.
He'd never trained formally. In the past, anytime he play-fought with sticks or toy blades, he was the first to get smacked or clock himself trying something flashy. Yet now, this sword in his hand felt like an extension of his will. Muscle memory that didn't exist was suddenly manifesting like a second nature, as though awakened by a dormant force inside him.
"I can," he finally said, eyes narrowing with thought. "But only when I focus. It's like... my telekinetic abilities don't just lift or shield. They tune into... aptitude. Skill. Like my body recognizes what it's supposed to do the moment I pick something up."
Sirzechs nodded thoughtfully and turned back to the weapons rack. With deliberate care, he selected a longer weapon — a sword-spear. Seven feet in length, it had a wide double-edged blade that transitioned seamlessly into a reinforced handle. The grip was detailed, showing designated placements for a range of stances and attacks.
"Few have mastered this weapon," Sirzechs said as he offered it to Dante. "Its form is demanding, unwieldy to most."
Dante took it in both hands.
And something shifted.
Where others might have seen complexity, Dante saw function. The moment he wrapped his fingers around the grip, his brain exploded with a map of movement, angles, defense lines, weaknesses, compensations, and kill-zones. The weapon spoke to him, as though whispering its purpose, its potential, its power.
He was aware of every ounce of wind passing across his body. Of every blade of grass shifting beneath his feet. Of Sirzechs' breathing to his left. He could feel the field.
This wasn't just telekinesis.
This was intuitive aptitude. Weapon mastery distilled into instinct.
He tested the sword-spear slowly, at first. A broad sweep across the air. A close-range jab. Then a long-range arc with a turn of his body. He shifted grips from mid-blade to base handle, adjusting seamlessly, each transition like fluid motion through water. Then came the twirls — rapid, controlled, elegant. One-handed spins followed by quick changes in direction, as though the weapon were dancing in his grasp.
Sirzechs, watching silently from a few feet away, was slack-jawed.
"Dante... are you sure you haven't trained in swordsmanship?"
Dante shrugged, not even winded. "Pretty sure. I mean, maybe I used a stick once or twice camping as a kid. But I sucked at it. Never handled a real blade before today."
Sirzechs blinked, then ran a hand down his face in disbelief. Whatever was happening, it went far beyond talent.
Dante continued spinning the weapon, more confident now. He was a blur of motion, testing the sword-spear's reach, its leverage, its center of mass. Then, acting on impulse, he did something new. He stepped forward and swung the blade rightward in a wide arc with his dominant hand.
But just before the motion completed, he let go.
Sirzechs' eyes widened.
Instead of flying off uselessly, the weapon twisted mid-air, orbiting Dante like a controlled tornado. The blade spun a full revolution around him, a halo of steel, and then — with surgical precision — he caught it behind his back and rose with it in a two-handed upper slash.
CRACK!
The air burst apart with a sonic boom, the pressure wave flattening nearby grass in a ringed shockwave.
Sirzechs stood rooted to the spot, staring at the young man before him with a mix of awe and disbelief. His lips curled upward in a small, stunned smile.
Dante's eyes shimmered faintly with blue light, the sword-spear now pulsing with the same energy.
He wasn't just gifted.
He was born for this.
"Holy... shit. Did I just do that?!" Dante shouted, breathless, as he stood at the epicenter of the devastation he'd just unleashed.
All around him, the once-pristine training grounds were obliterated. Shredded grass swirled in the air like confetti after a war, and the dirt beneath had been gouged in jagged lines that radiated outward like the spokes of a shattered wheel. In his hands, the sword-spear still pulsed with latent energy, faint arcs of lightning snapping off its tip like a caged beast reluctant to calm.
Dante turned, eyes wide with disbelief, to find Sirzechs staring at him in silence. The usually composed elder Gremory brother had the expression of someone who had just watched a natural disaster take human form. His crimson hair was tousled, his cloak slightly singed, and above his head hung what could only be described as a literal storm cloud. The static charge in the air made it hum ominously.
"What's wrong with you?" Dante asked, still riding the high of the moment, his voice tinged with curiosity and the faintest shade of guilt.
Sirzechs didn't respond. He merely stood there, deadpan, eyes slightly glazed as if his brain was trying to reboot. The dejected, almost haunted look on his face spoke volumes. It wasn't that Dante had done something wrong. It was that he had done something too right.
Ignoring the thundercloud looming over Sirzechs, Dante glanced down at the weapon in his hands. The fusion of blade and spear shimmered faintly with inner power. He ran a thumb along its edge, marveling at how effortlessly it had responded to him, as though it had been waiting for him all along.
He smirked.
Oh yeah. He really liked this.
In fact, he might have liked it a little too much.
There was a thrill still buzzing under his skin, an addicting rush of control and chaos, like he'd just discovered a part of himself he didn't know existed—and now that it had been unleashed, it didn't want to be caged again.
He turned back to Sirzechs, eyes gleaming with that dangerous spark. His smirk widened into something a little more wild, a little more wolfish.
"So... what's next on the menu, Cap'n?" he asked, voice calm but laced with an unsettling excitement.
Sirzechs inhaled deeply, as though trying to breathe in every last ounce of patience he had left. He had dreamed of this—having a younger sibling to teach, to guide, to mold into someone greater than even himself. He had imagined patient days, long talks, measured progress, and maybe even bonding over quiet lessons.
But Dante Vale Gremory had just shattered that illusion like glass underfoot.
A prodigy. An overachiever. A storm masquerading as a student. And worst of all...
Sirzechs wasn't entirely sure Dante needed any training from him.
With the gait of a man who had just lost a dream and gained a headache, Sirzechs turned slowly, his steps heavy and slow, almost zombified.
"Just... follow me," he muttered, voice hollow and world-weary.
Dante watched him shuffle away, eyebrow raised, the grin fading into a more puzzled expression. He looked around at the carnage he'd caused, then back at his weapon, and then toward Sirzechs' retreating figure.
His arms lifted halfway in a shrug, confusion wrinkling his brow.
"What the hell did I do?"