The upper level of the Temen-ni-gru was alive with heat and howling wind, almost as if the tower itself had grown lungs and begun to breathe. Crimson glyphs pulsed across the obsidian walls, and the once-structured stone architecture now resembled the inside of a temple for battle.
Dante stepped onto the blackened stone, Rebellion slung across his back. He cracked his neck once, then twice, looking around.
"Man, this place could really use some AC," he muttered.
Beside him, Saiya emerged from the haze, her slender figure composed and, hand resting on the hilt of her katana. She moved with the same calculated grace as before, but this time, she stood on edge and prepared for anything.
Lady, a few paces back, kept her grenade launcher at the ready. Her eyes swept the shadows ahead.
And then, they came.
From the far end of the chamber, a sudden, violent blast of fire and wind roared outward, followed by the rhythmic pounding of footsteps.
The flames lit the room.
Two towering warriors, one glowing with ember-red heat and the other a deep blue, stepped forward. But what made Dante arch a brow wasn't the elemental auras; they had no heads on their shoulders.
Instead, their swords spoke when they held them upside down and pointed at the ground quite literally. The heads of the were embedded in the hilts of their massive blades, eyes glowing, mouths animated with exaggerated expression.
"WELCOME, STRANGERS!" boomed the fiery blade. "WE ARE THE GUARDIANS OF THIS PASSAGE I'AM AGNI AND THIS IS MY BROTHER RUDRA—"
"AND YOU SHALL NOT PROCEED UNLESS YOU PROVE YOUR WORTH IN COMBAT!" the blue one finished, voice sharp like slicing winds.
Dante held up a hand, cutting them off.
"Hold up," he said, stepping forward casually. "So your heads aren't on your bodies, but on your swords?" He squinted. "That's… actually a neat trick. Creepy as hell, but neat."
Saiya exhaled through her nose, deadpan. "Do you ever take anything seriously?"
Dante smirked, his trademark grin forming. "I take being cool very seriously."
She drew closer, standing next to him, her blade now halfway unsheathed.
Dante glanced sideways, still smirking. "You want in on this one?"
"I want to get this over with," she replied flatly. "You take too long and get too flashy trying to impress yourself."
Dante shrugged. "I don't try to be flashy. I am flashy. And cool."
Saiya tilted her head. "Keep telling yourself that."
Agni cleared his throat loudly. "AHEM! MIGHT WE REMIND YOU THIS IS A DUEL OF HONOR AND—"
"YOU ARE BEING QUITE RUDE IGNORING US!" Rudra added indignantly.
The two elemental swords began to glow with power, their voices rising in agitation.
Saiya and Dante, in perfect synchronization, both snapped:
"SHUT UP."
The twin swords recoiled mid-glow, baffled.
Agni blinked, turning to his brother. "DID THEY JUST—?"
"THEY DID," Rudra replied. "I AM… TAKEN ABACK."
From behind them, a sudden gunshot cracked through the heated air.
Dante's head jerked forward, his body flinching ever so slightly.
A second later, he stood upright again, turning to glare behind him.
Lady, with smoking pistol still raised, gave a slow, annoyed blink.
"Are you two done?" she asked, voice razor-sharp. "Because we've still got two giant flaming idiots to kill. Or do I need to do it myself?"
Dante plucked something from between his lips. He grinned, revealing a bullet clenched between his teeth.
"Alright, boss lady," he said with a wink. "You vampire girl—" he gestured to Saiya.
Saiya unsheathed her blade fully in one motion, the air around her shimmering from the speed.
"After you, devil boy."
With a single nod, the two leapt forward in unison — Dante with Rebellion spinning into a windmill slash, Saiya with her blade flashing like starlight.
Agni roared, "AT LAST! A PROPER WELCOME!"
Rudra echoed, "LET US DANCE!"
The chamber came alive with blood, wind and fire.
Dante and Agni clashed in a flurry of flame, steel, and irreverent laughter. With every swing of the fire devil's blade, the ground burned beneath their feet, but Dante kept pace, diving and flipping through the inferno slashes, his red coat billowing like a flag of defiance.
"C'mon, Hothead," Dante shouted mid-dodge, blasting a round from Ebony, "you gonna fight or just toast marshmallows all night?"
Agni bellowed and lunged, his blade. Dante countered with the Rebellion, deflecting the strike in a screech of steel and sparks. Their weapons clashed again and again, each strike lighting up the chamber like a lightning storm of fire.
On the opposite end, Saiya and Rudra moved like raging winds.
The air screamed with wind pressure as Rudra's gust-forged strikes shattered pillars and gouged the stone floor. But Saiya, calm and, precise, slid through each gust like she was dancing in the eye of the storm itself. Her katana carved the air with surgical precision, slicing wind and devil flesh alike with terrifying brutality.
Her eyes turned crimson eyes, and locked on Rudra's sword-head.
"You are… impressive," Rudra said, clearly struggling to keep up. "Rarely have I seen such."
She vanished mid-strike, appearing behind him in a flash of motion and driving her blade along his flank before disappearing again.
A second slash followed.
Then a third.
Then ten.
By the time Rudra turned to counter, she was already gone, standing across the chamber, panting softly.
Dante laughed mid-parry with Agni.
"Look at you," he called out, dodging a fireball. "You got some style after all, vampire girl!"
Saiya wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and smirked.
"You weren't lying, devil boy."
She narrowed her stance again, sliding one foot back. "Now watch this."
In a blur, she became a crimson streak, racing forward through both Agni and Rudra, her sword striking with speed and precision too fast for the eye to follow. The brothers staggered, both reeling from a dozen pinpoint strikes.
Dante gave an exaggerated golf clap.
"Not bad," he said, his grin widening. "But I can do better."
Saiya caught her breath, rolling her shoulder. "Then be my guest."
Dante's hand reached back.
In a sudden blaze of blue and white light, the triple-headed nunchaku, materialized in his grip.
He whipped the weapon once, sending a chilling wave of frost across the room. The flames died. The wind stilled.
The air turned cold.
The nunchaku flared with radiant energy as Dante spun the triple-chain weapon around his body with elegant precision, the speed forming a glowing circle of icy light.
Agni and Rudra stared, their sword-heads blinking in unison.
"That's a Devil Arm!" Rudra exclaimed.
"The aura… it's Cerberus'!" Agni added.
"You not only defeated him, but made him submit to you?!"
"You remind us of Sparda, boy," Rudra said in awe.
"Yet… you also smell like him."
Dante smirked, the ice-blue glow reflecting off his eyes.
"Yeah, I get that a lot."
And then, without another word, he charged.
His speed tripled.
Agni's fiery blade clashed with Cerberus, frozen sparks exploded.
Rudra countered from the side, Dante blocked, pivoted, and struck both in a flawless, stylish combo that fused martial grace with explosive power.
Cerberus twisted through the air like a living thing, reacting in rhythm to Dante's every movement. Wind and flame howled, but Dante was the eye of the storm, parrying, dodging, flipping, grinning.
In a sudden burst of movement, he knocked both weapons skyward, the great elemental blades spinning in the air.
Then he turned to Saiya.
"I'm gonna borrow this."
Before she could speak, Dante had snatched her katana.
In one smooth draw, time seemed to pause.
The next moment, he vanished.
Flash.
Flash.
He reappeared behind the towering bodies of Agni and Rudra — both headless devil bodies frozen mid-strike, their torsos cleaved through with thin, glowing lines.
The swords clattered to the ground a second later.
Then their massive bodies fell, defeated.
Dante sheathed the katana slowly, turning with a confident smirk.
"So… how was that?"
Saiya opened her mouth to reply.
But Agni's sword-head coughed. "That… was a wondrous fight."
"We have not battled like that since Sparda himself," Rudra added. "Tell us… are you his descendant?"
Dante shrugged. "Son, actually."
The elemental brothers glowed with joy.
"Then allow us to lend you our power, Son of Sparda."
Dante raised a single finger. "Ok, but only on one condition."
The swords tilted. "Yes?"
"No talking."
The brothers nodded together, their eyes flaring, and in a flash of light, the swords shrank, morphing into a pair of compact twin short swords devil arms, humming with elemental power.
Dante caught them midair, twirled, and sliced a stylish arc through the air.
The fire and wind swirled parted before him.
He grinned, satisfied. "Jackpot."
" So how was that?"
From his hands, the sword hilts spoke again: "Wonderful."
Dante sighed and bonked the twin hilts together.
Clunk.
"No. Talking..."
Silence.
"Better."
Saiya approached and reached for her katana.
Dante handed it over with a smirk. "Here you go."
She took it, inspecting the blade. "Thanks. Do that again, and I'll stab you with it."
"I believe you."
She turned, unaware of the tiny, almost imperceptible crack near the blade's core, an invisible fracture left by Dante's overwhelming demonic energy and strength.
Lady stepped up beside them.
"You two done showing off?"
Dante twirled his new blades before they disappeared in his hands. " Oh I'm just warming up."
Lady gave him a dry stare. "You have Devil Arms? and two now to be exact."
Dante blinked. "What's a Devil Arm?"
She groaned. " You don't know what they are, and your hear swinging them around like Bruce Lee. I will tell you later. Or ask Jasen that's more up his alley anyway."
She turned toward the next chamber.
"One more guardian before We meet Vergil. Let's move."