Tekio's scream still echoed in the world's fibers.
Mei remained motionless.
Her golden gaze fixed on nothing—or on everything.
The air around her trembled with tension. Her fingers clenched, her breath held. An animal impulse wanted to run to him. To them. To see. To help. To avenge.
But fear…
Fear whispered like an old enemy.
"What if it's another distraction?"
Fenra had been taken right before her eyes.
Hazau was there, reconstructing himself as if it were inevitable.
The Gate to the Abyss opening, whispering an ancestral end.
And Dan.
And Stella.
Could she really leave them here?
— Mei… — Stella said, taking a step forward.
Mei turned her head slightly, but still did not respond.
It was then that Stella raised her right hand, and in a sharp, silent gesture, a spear of pure light pierced Hazau's body, reducing him to ashes and golden vapor.
A shock in the air.
A gesture of decision.
— Go. — Stella said, her amber eyes shining like compressed suns.
— Whatever is happening with Tekio… you need to be there.
— We are not children anymore.
— We will hold the line.
Mei looked into her eyes.
For a long time.
And she saw.
Courage.
Firmness.
Faith.
Dan crossed his arms, looking at the horizon.
— The city is rising. The Veil is open. And Tekio screamed as if he were breaking the sky…
— You decide now, Mei.
The Empress looked at them one more time, serious.
Silent.
Resolved.
(...)
Dante was rising from the rubble, his body throbbing but recomposing itself.
The Aether flowed better. Akira's body was adapting.
But…
His eyes were fixed on Tekio.
Not with disdain.
But with unease.
With perplexity.
With something close to fear.
"He escaped the Veil, no...He destroyed the Veil."
Dante clenched his fists, feeling his muscles tense.
"I executed the ritual correctly.
The field was formed based on abyssal foundations.
He was swallowed. Isolated.
He shouldn't have been able to move an inch."
But he moved.
And more than that…
— He bent the Veil to his will. — Dante murmured, as if saying it aloud made it more comprehensible.
"It wasn't just resistance. He controlled the Abyss.
And that energy… crimson, negative…
It wasn't Yara's.
It wasn't from the environment.
It was his."
Tekio walked.
Slowly. Bleeding. But with firmness.
With murderous conviction.
Like an animal that has already decided the hunt's end.
Dante took a step back, almost without realizing it.
"He's walking as if I were the prey."
The thought sent a shiver through him.
Him, Dante.
A being molded by chaos, trained in darkness.
Being hunted by a boy.
"And the worst part…"
"He doesn't even seem to understand the difference between us."
It wasn't ignorance.
It was an absence of fear.
Tekio recognized no authority in Dante.
He saw no superiority.
Only a target.
— What are you? — Dante murmured, watching the boy's slow steps.
— What is… inside you?
"You are not just Yara's heir…
There is something more.
Something older.
Something the Abyss itself recognized."
Dante rolled his shoulder, feeling the ligaments snap firmly, the dry sound contrasting with the distant roar of the Abyssal Gate.
— I've seen aberrations.
— I've fought Sifs, Reapers, entities of time… creatures that didn't even know their own names.
— But you…
He frowned.
His gaze, once curious, was now one of disgust mixed with a spark of discomfort.
— …you are a walking error.
He snapped his fingers.
Instantly, fissures of negative Aether opened in the air, releasing invisible cuts that shredded everything in their path. Blades of pure anti-matter cutting even what should not be cut.
But Tekio...
Did not hesitate.
He did not even falter.
His eyes, burning crimson, scanned the pattern of the attacks—like a predator studying prey it already knew by heart.
And then he jumped.
The leap tore the ground. The blades hit him—opened new cuts—, but he pressed forward, crossing the space between them with murderous precision.
Tekio saw a trajectory only a suicidal person would see.
And he appeared before Dante.
— TCH — Dante had no time to react.
Tekio's fist exploded into his abdomen.
A dry, brutal blast.
Dante flew backward, hurled like a projectile. The impact cracked a wall of twisted stone behind him.
Tekio fell to his knees. Blood streamed from his chin, his torso, his leg. But his eyes still…
…shone.
Red. Foul. Unbreakable.
"He doesn't care."
"He keeps going."
"He keeps going."
"Even here... he keeps going."
Dante spat blood. For the second time.
Now, his face was still. Serious.
He rose slowly. His back creaked. His jaw cracked.
His voice, once mocking, was now a thread of contained poison.
— Damned brat…
His eyes narrowed. No longer with arrogance.
But with analysis. Attention. Perhaps... respect?
"Every blow from him is a sentence."
"He doesn't fight to win." "He fights to extinguish."
"As if nothing else exists." "As if his own death were just a detail."
"As long as he takes me with him."
He felt the Abyssal Gate vibrating behind him. The dark energy flowed back into his body—reviving techniques, memories, ancient fragments of power.
But even the Abyss…
…did not silence the presence before him.
Tekio was still there.
Bloodied.
Limping.
But with his eyes fixed on Dante, as if the whole world were that enemy and that single moment.
"I've broken your bones. I've cast you into darkness. I've torn your flesh."
"You should have fallen."
"But you crawl back..."
"Like a possessed animal."
"As if the pain doesn't matter."
"As if... seeing that woman die... awakened something worse."
Dante closed his hand. Tightly.
His fist cracking the air around it.
"This isn't just Yara." "This is something ancient." "Something buried in him... perhaps something that was always there."
And for a moment—
— just a brief moment —
Dante didn't know if he was still the one hunting Tekio.
Or if Tekio was... hunting him.
The wind ceased.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
The ground—already completely shattered—seethed with remnant energy. Shards of stone floated in the air, being consumed by black particles emanating from Dante's back like ashes in the wind.
He rose slowly… and he was different.
The wounds had vanished.
The dried blood, the fractures, the deep cuts… all had healed. His skin now pulsed with living energy, the Aether around him swirling in dark spirals.
Dante rotated his wrists. Turned his neck with cracks. Felt the flow in his chest, his muscles, his veins.
And smiled. A calm smile. Almost cruel.
— Hm… I think I'm almost complete.
He looked at his hands, opening and closing his fingers.
— Perfect connection with the Aether… natural conduction of the environment's energy…
— And soon, very soon, my black flames will be back too.
The smile turned to scorn.
— Experimental combat concluded.
Ahead, Tekio could barely stand.
His breathing was a succession of dry sobs. His hands trembled. His skin was torn, bathed in blood. His eyes half-open.
Dante looked down at him, as one looks at a defeated enemy.
— You put up a fight. But it's over.
— Not even with Yara will you get up again.
— You are on the brink of death, boy.
— And I am perfect.
Silence.
For a second, the world seemed to fade for Tekio.
He did not hear.
He did not see.
He was sinking.
Into the dark.
Inside his own soul.
Yara tried to reach him—but she was not the only presence there.
Something moved.
Something ancient.
Primitive.
It wasn't Yara.
It was part of him.
It was him.
A scream tore through the internal silence, piercing the dark.
And exploded outward.
— SHUT UP!! — Tekio roared with all the strength that still existed in his body.
His aura… changed.
Crimson again.
Denser.
More alive.
More aggressive.
His wounds began to close on their own.
His blood burned within his body, as if it had become fuel. The electricity returned to circulate, but now it was like a roar of red thunder—chaotic and untamable.
Dante took a step back. His eyes narrowed, surprised once more.
— …That isn't Yara.
— That is you.
He frowned, trying to understand.
— Or rather… is this what you absorbed from her?
"Am I fighting something that was dormant inside this brat?"
Tekio raised his gaze. His crimson eyes burned with a fury so intense they seemed to set the air on fire.
And he ran.
Dante did not retreat.
Now, with almost all his power back, his body moved with perfection. He spun in the air and launched a sequence of ethereal cuts, sharp as dimensional blades.
They hit Tekio.
Cuts pierced his chest, his shoulder, his leg.
A beam of shadowy energy struck him squarely, launching him like a missile into the rubble of a destroyed building. The impact caused the structure to collapse, a rain of stone and metal.
Silence.
But not for long.
The crimson energy tore through the debris with a blast.
Tekio emerged from within the dust cloud like a beast escaping its cage.
His skin cut.
His face dirty.
But his eyes…
More alive than ever.
The lightning around him now had a different frequency. It vibrated with hunger. With hatred. With something beyond reason.
And he ran again.
Even being cut, even being pierced, he did not stop.
Dante narrowed his eyes. His hands began to burn black. The black flames—finally—returned, like snakes emerging from his soul. The old power resurfaced.
He launched a wave of flaming cuts.
Tekio did not dodge.
He plowed through the attacks.
Bleeding.
Until he got so close…
…that Dante had no time to react.
— CRIMSON ECLIPSE!!
Tekio's fist, covered in distorted energy, collided with Dante's fist, now sheathed in the black flames of ancestral Aether.
The impact was not a sound.
It was a collapse.
A force that exploded the ground, the sky, the pillars, the structures, the very lines of the world.
The ground folded like paper.
Both were thrown to opposite sides.
A crater remained at the center.
On the edge of the newly created abyss…
Tekio panted, his fist broken and his knees failing.
But still standing.
On the other side…
Dante rose slowly.
Now serious.
Truly serious.
— You…
— …are truly irritating me.
And both knew:
the next exchange would no longer be for testing.
It would be to kill.
Tekio panted.
On his knees, his arms trembled. Blood stained every thread of his clothing, streamed from every cracked rib, from every cut that would no longer close. The crimson aura still vibrated… but his pulse was failing.
Dante, ahead, rose in silence.
The wounds on his body were gone. His skin regenerated. His muscles firm. The Aether flowed like an obedient river, responding perfectly to his command. He rolled his neck, his spine cracking with a slight smile.
— Let's see if you can handle this, brat.
Five black claws formed around his fingers—simple. Sharp. Relentless.
With a gesture, he launched the claws at high speed.
Horizontal and vertical cuts crossed the field in near-invisible patterns.
Tekio tried to raise his arm.
Tried to dodge.
But his body… did not respond.
The claws struck his chest, shoulders, legs.
They did not pierce deeply—but they severed his tendons with precision.
Total incapacitation.
Tekio fell.
His face pressed against the ground.
Blood forming a small river around him.
His breathing weak.
Almost extinguishing.
Dante walked over to him.
— Do you know why I hate you?
His tone was calm. Almost didactic.
But something in that gaze… burned with revulsion.
— You have no right to exist like this.
He kicked Tekio in the stomach, coldly.
— You are weak.
— Incomplete.
— Impure.
— And yet… you dare face me.
— You dare scream. You dare resist.
He crouched near the boy, his voice low, venomous.
— I've seen heroes. I've seen monsters. I've seen legends.
But you… are an irony of fate.
— A soul that does not surrender.
He smiled with scorn.
— And I hate that.
He stood up.
Raised his arm, ready to drive the Kusarigama down for the last time.
But then…
A presence arrived.
Strong. Sudden. Burning.
The air trembled like glass in flames.
Dante looked over his shoulder.
A figure appeared on the horizon, between the ashes and the red sky.
Slightly wavy red hair at the tips.
An upright posture.
A serious, incredulous face.
Mei Nuhay.
— A… Akira…?
She took a step forward.
Dante turned completely.
The body he used was Akira's, and no matter how much the black aura enveloped his countenance, the face… was still his.
Mei narrowed her eyes.
Her heart beating faster.
She felt the destroyed field.
She smelled the blood in the air.
And Tekio.
Fallen.
Bloodied.
She screamed:
— AKIRA!!!
Dante remained silent for a moment.
And then… he smiled.
But not like Akira.
Like Dante.
Mei froze.
Something was wrong.
— …You are not him.
Dante's eyes shone with profound black.
— But he is mine, now.
And the world exploded into silence around Mei.
She gritted her teeth.
The heat around her began to rise.
Golden fire dripping from her palm.
Her gaze… boiling with hatred and confusion.
To be continued...