02-16-2016, 07:51 PM
Once again, the sun fell down to pass the barrier between land and sky in the west. This time, the brilliant shine of the sunset illuminated yet another catastrophe in the distance; yet more of the island crumbled and evaporated, waters churning and disappearing.
Before, it had been a sight one could only imagine to witness up close. Just earlier in the day, however, Dante, sided by his two young allies, had bore witness to the event further up close. The unrelenting crack and shatter of the firm earth, the collapse of it and the sea into simply nothingness - it actually didn't prove as mystifying to watch while it presented an immediate, frightening threat. Worst of all, there seemed to be no relent in sight, as yet larger shelves of dirt and bedrock tore apart and flung themselves into the void, as if all the quakes and calamities before had been mere child's play.
So they had ran, as fast and as far away as they could manage- and then somehow even farther than that. After Desco passed on the greaves to Dante (they seemed a bit large for her or Ururu anyways), the half-devil found himself weathering the cross-county effort with minimal effort. Even more strangely, his companions shared his apparent stamina.
By the time they had finally exhausted themselves, the ragtag trio had moved practically halfway across the island, the terrifying collapse little more than a memory behind them. It was about that same time that the robust gold shine upon the relic armor completely faded away, making the greaves look plain and worn (yet that unmistakable weave of power still remained, if faint). Their tremendous sojourn had been achieved with the magic within that armor, Ururu seemed to reason- with little other explanation available, the three agreed.
---
The rest of the day had otherwise been slow and quiet. For the better, perhaps, what with all the magic, destruction, and chaos so far actively working to toss the champions around like fruit in a blender. A break to simplicity for a few hours would prove refreshing and therapeutic in those circumstances.
The young ninja had none of it- when she wasn't frequently scouting around on the alert, Ururu was probing her stolen archaic books and insisting the other two kept watch. Dante couldn't even begin to read the little-girl-shaped demon and her eldritch backpack, her being too impossibly innocent and insistently meta. That, of course, left Dante to stew in his own thoughts for a while.
Not healthy, considering the current state of his mental structure.
"Where are you going?" Ururu spoke at the Son of Sparda when he sat up and attempted to leave their campsite. She spoke without looking, in the same tone of voice a mother would use to reprimand her son for sneaking out of the house. With her childish pitch, however, Dante had none of it.
"I'm just gonna be right back-"
"Where are you going? Answer the question," the pre-teen shinobi grilled Dante intensely. The mercenary seethed through his teeth- was this kid for real? Was actually putting up with this right now?
Don't answer that, you.
Oh, come on.
"Like, five minutes away. You won't miss me."
Ururu finally looked, staring daggers into the man. "You are wearing our relic, I'll remind you." Dante rolled his eyes in absolute exasperation. Like she had even helped.
"You're too young to be my mother, kid," the nephilim waved off his companion, turning to leave again. He passed Desco, who was lounging perched on her lizard-like tail, and within a minute he was over the next hill.
---
"Hey, Dante!"
The half-blood merc flinched at the sudden attention-grabbing exclamation from Desco. After the initial shock wore off, he let loose a muted sigh at the realization. Dante had really hoping that he wouldn't end up caught like this, in such an inappropriate position. He hadn't even been given the chance to cover himself, as the violet stands of flesh clamped around the box and whipped it away.
"What?" Dante could only reply dumbly, stuck in his revealed sitting fetal position.
"Hi!"
He groaned in defeat. All the devil hunter could ask for was maybe even ten minutes of privacy, and yet Desco managed to so very frequently pry upon Dante and his nerves. What made the man so apparently attractive to the demon girl, considering she was far too young to understand anything strictly mature?
...wait. During that incident with the dumbass trickster god- had she seen Dante's devil form? Or, rather, had she actually witnessed the transformation that she could connect the dots with?
"What are you doing hiding under a box?"
"...Nothing," Dante replied, looking somewhere between fed up and brain dead. Certainly not thinking about the Hollow trying to wear down his spirit, or the bossy ninja girl and overly cheery demon girl he had inadvertently teamed up with, or the sheer ruinous spirit of this event, or even the slight possibility that maybe Kanda had lost. "Nothing at all."
Desco seemed to judge the half-blood's blankness for a moment, then accepted the answer with a giggly smile. "That's funny! Ooh, can Desco try it?"
"...what?"
"Can Desco try the box? Just like how you were doing it?"
"Uh..."
Taking the twisted expression of confusion for a 'yes', Desco manipulated Yogsothoth's purple limbs to position the cardboard contained right over her body. She sat down, curling up with her tail and her scrunched-up demonic extension, and then a decisive motion retracted the tentacles, letting the box lower over her lowered form. It took a bit of adjustment to accommodate both Desco and Yogsothoth, but soon enough the box was laying as overturned and still as when it had still been atop Dante.
Several awkward seconds ticked by, and the devil hunter's face made no sign of changing. Then, the self-proclaimed final boss announced, muffled by the cardboard, "Weird... but fun!"
Whatever.
Dante finally pulled himself to his feet, and ruminated upon other thoughts. The surrounding landscape revealed nothing of interest, just a slight plateau upon the southeast corner of the island. It was troublesome, somehow, because Dante felt as if there should be something here when there clearly wasn't. That happened to be part of the reason to get away from Ururu; he could guess that even a young ninja like her would rightfully be aggravated over whatever was meant to be in this place and yet proved to be nowhere in sight.
And then, in that moment when he stared at the illusory night sky, Dante felt it. An overwhelming aura that poured into him, as if the cover of darkness had prompted its existence. Now, he was all but certain that something appeared here, however it had been before. Without a second thought, the nephilim jogged back to where he had set up camp with Ururu.
A few minutes later, sensing the quiet, Desco peeked her head out from under the box to wonder where Dante had disappeared to.
Before, it had been a sight one could only imagine to witness up close. Just earlier in the day, however, Dante, sided by his two young allies, had bore witness to the event further up close. The unrelenting crack and shatter of the firm earth, the collapse of it and the sea into simply nothingness - it actually didn't prove as mystifying to watch while it presented an immediate, frightening threat. Worst of all, there seemed to be no relent in sight, as yet larger shelves of dirt and bedrock tore apart and flung themselves into the void, as if all the quakes and calamities before had been mere child's play.
So they had ran, as fast and as far away as they could manage- and then somehow even farther than that. After Desco passed on the greaves to Dante (they seemed a bit large for her or Ururu anyways), the half-devil found himself weathering the cross-county effort with minimal effort. Even more strangely, his companions shared his apparent stamina.
By the time they had finally exhausted themselves, the ragtag trio had moved practically halfway across the island, the terrifying collapse little more than a memory behind them. It was about that same time that the robust gold shine upon the relic armor completely faded away, making the greaves look plain and worn (yet that unmistakable weave of power still remained, if faint). Their tremendous sojourn had been achieved with the magic within that armor, Ururu seemed to reason- with little other explanation available, the three agreed.
---
The rest of the day had otherwise been slow and quiet. For the better, perhaps, what with all the magic, destruction, and chaos so far actively working to toss the champions around like fruit in a blender. A break to simplicity for a few hours would prove refreshing and therapeutic in those circumstances.
The young ninja had none of it- when she wasn't frequently scouting around on the alert, Ururu was probing her stolen archaic books and insisting the other two kept watch. Dante couldn't even begin to read the little-girl-shaped demon and her eldritch backpack, her being too impossibly innocent and insistently meta. That, of course, left Dante to stew in his own thoughts for a while.
Not healthy, considering the current state of his mental structure.
"Where are you going?" Ururu spoke at the Son of Sparda when he sat up and attempted to leave their campsite. She spoke without looking, in the same tone of voice a mother would use to reprimand her son for sneaking out of the house. With her childish pitch, however, Dante had none of it.
"I'm just gonna be right back-"
"Where are you going? Answer the question," the pre-teen shinobi grilled Dante intensely. The mercenary seethed through his teeth- was this kid for real? Was actually putting up with this right now?
Don't answer that, you.
Oh, come on.
"Like, five minutes away. You won't miss me."
Ururu finally looked, staring daggers into the man. "You are wearing our relic, I'll remind you." Dante rolled his eyes in absolute exasperation. Like she had even helped.
"You're too young to be my mother, kid," the nephilim waved off his companion, turning to leave again. He passed Desco, who was lounging perched on her lizard-like tail, and within a minute he was over the next hill.
---
"Hey, Dante!"
The half-blood merc flinched at the sudden attention-grabbing exclamation from Desco. After the initial shock wore off, he let loose a muted sigh at the realization. Dante had really hoping that he wouldn't end up caught like this, in such an inappropriate position. He hadn't even been given the chance to cover himself, as the violet stands of flesh clamped around the box and whipped it away.
"What?" Dante could only reply dumbly, stuck in his revealed sitting fetal position.
"Hi!"
He groaned in defeat. All the devil hunter could ask for was maybe even ten minutes of privacy, and yet Desco managed to so very frequently pry upon Dante and his nerves. What made the man so apparently attractive to the demon girl, considering she was far too young to understand anything strictly mature?
...wait. During that incident with the dumbass trickster god- had she seen Dante's devil form? Or, rather, had she actually witnessed the transformation that she could connect the dots with?
"What are you doing hiding under a box?"
"...Nothing," Dante replied, looking somewhere between fed up and brain dead. Certainly not thinking about the Hollow trying to wear down his spirit, or the bossy ninja girl and overly cheery demon girl he had inadvertently teamed up with, or the sheer ruinous spirit of this event, or even the slight possibility that maybe Kanda had lost. "Nothing at all."
Desco seemed to judge the half-blood's blankness for a moment, then accepted the answer with a giggly smile. "That's funny! Ooh, can Desco try it?"
"...what?"
"Can Desco try the box? Just like how you were doing it?"
"Uh..."
Taking the twisted expression of confusion for a 'yes', Desco manipulated Yogsothoth's purple limbs to position the cardboard contained right over her body. She sat down, curling up with her tail and her scrunched-up demonic extension, and then a decisive motion retracted the tentacles, letting the box lower over her lowered form. It took a bit of adjustment to accommodate both Desco and Yogsothoth, but soon enough the box was laying as overturned and still as when it had still been atop Dante.
Several awkward seconds ticked by, and the devil hunter's face made no sign of changing. Then, the self-proclaimed final boss announced, muffled by the cardboard, "Weird... but fun!"
Whatever.
Dante finally pulled himself to his feet, and ruminated upon other thoughts. The surrounding landscape revealed nothing of interest, just a slight plateau upon the southeast corner of the island. It was troublesome, somehow, because Dante felt as if there should be something here when there clearly wasn't. That happened to be part of the reason to get away from Ururu; he could guess that even a young ninja like her would rightfully be aggravated over whatever was meant to be in this place and yet proved to be nowhere in sight.
And then, in that moment when he stared at the illusory night sky, Dante felt it. An overwhelming aura that poured into him, as if the cover of darkness had prompted its existence. Now, he was all but certain that something appeared here, however it had been before. Without a second thought, the nephilim jogged back to where he had set up camp with Ururu.
A few minutes later, sensing the quiet, Desco peeked her head out from under the box to wonder where Dante had disappeared to.