A Devil May Cry Story

Before the Reunion

-And the rest is silence.
These words echoed through the lobby now empty of any other life form. What was a symphony of unnatural roars, gunshots and sword clanks was now only silence, while the warm bodies of foul beasts laying on the ground would soon become cold. The blood on the walls and the sword. The guns smoking and empty.
This was his personal pleasure. Everybody had one, a personal motivation to move forward. Most of the time it's the hope for a better future, which brings people to say words like "I hope everything will be alright". Hard to understand those people. Hope is inactivity. If you're inactive, you let fate deal with it, with good possibilities to be hit by it and by all the demons it brings along.
Sometimes it's the passion about what we do. For the man in red, it was the relationship between noise and silence.
Noise is always positive. It carries troubles, issues, foul beasts. It means that whatever is happening, he's part of it, that he's doing what he loves more than anything else in the world. Noise is the harbinger of his opportunity to return to feel alive.
Out the noise, enters the silence. The calm after the storm.
After a gig, silence always leaves a sense of satisfaction, and the noisier the better. Sometimes everything ends in a matter of seconds, a couple of bullets followed by some strikes of his sword and nothing and no one speaks anymore, leaving the one who shot and stroke rather disappointed. Little noise means little difficulty, which means little challenge and everything ends with boredom, lots of it. But not that time.
The scarlet blood was dripping from the point of his sword staining the floor recently waxed. Non-human meat pieces were on top of tables, and chairs, and other furniture of the room, and on one of these was sitting the young man.
He was admiring what he had done while holding by the horn the head of one of the creatures he had beheaded. Its skin was almost non-existing, the skull was red and it had an expression of terror engraved on its face due to the sudden death. He looked at it for a few seconds, thinking about that monster and his cruel fate that decided to put it against him, and whilst he was lowering the arm, gazing at his work that bordered on art, his expression changed. A smile appeared on his face.
-Dante! Where are you? Are you... are you still alive?- said the short and chubby young man, wearing a flat cap, and a long coat.
-More alive than these guys here, that's for sure.
Dante, son of a woman named Eva and of an unspeakable father, had chosen the harsh path of hunting and killing of demonic beings as a profession. His interlocutor's name was Enzo Ferino, both friend and mediator between him and the mercenary world.
Enzo was walking through the lobby, avoiding the mess on the ground (blood puddles and the fresh demonic meat pieces), and with the terror of drawing the attention of any demonic being still alive that Dante may had, possibly, forgotten or avoided to kill.
-They're all dead, don't cower like you always do.
-Hey! I don't go around armed head to toe and I don't survive if my heart gets stabbed!
Dante laughed.
-You know, you could have avoided all this disaster.- said Enzo adjusting his hat -I'm afraid what our client is going to say when he'll discover that he'll have to restore the lobby even before the hotel's opening!-
-He should have called someone else, then. Maybe someone who would have got himself killed immediately, or someone who would have risked to compromise the rest of the building as well.- Dante looked at Enzo annoyed -Now, shut up and get paid.
-Provided that he doesn't change his mind, considering the status of the room.- replied Enzo heading towards the exit of the lobby in the same way he entered it.
-Hey! Catch!- said Dante tossing the demon head to him. Enzo, after realizing what he just caught, threw it, shocked. This caused sonorous laughter from his friend.
Enzo said nothing else, he knew it would have been useless. He just left Dante to what remained of his work worthy of a splatter movie.
Dante stayed there for a few seconds, then he stood up and walked to the exit. He managed to get away from the hotel without being seen by anyone, and he chuckled when he saw Enzo getting yelled at by the owner. Dante's fight was nothing special, in comparison.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The sun was getting low, the shadows were growing bigger and bigger and they offered a good hiding place for the blood-stained Dante and his weapons, while also avoiding the man-made lights. The demons' attacks were becoming increasingly frequent, and with time the weaker demons would have become fewer and fewer, making room for stronger demons and harder challenges. Dante was looking forward to it. He just hoped that the civilians would be able to escape in time.
Regarding his business, he had yet to find a name. Enzo was the one dealing with the clients, but "Dante and Enzo" was not a good name, it just meant that there were two guys named Dante and Enzo.
They were in need of a good name, a captivating one that could convey what they offered.
-I'll never find a good name for this joint.- he grumbled as he entered the building.
He took his sword from his back and tossed it to his left as if it was a common cloth, did the same with the jacket on the hanger and then he laid the two handguns on the desk. He sat on the chair behind it and laid his feet on it, the hands behind his head. The exercise done minutes ago made him hungry, so he picked up the phone and dialed the number of his favorite pizzeria.
-Yeah, it's me... the usual. Put it on my tab, and hey! No olives. Leave it on the table.
Dante remained on the chair for a few minutes, and then the phone rang. Dante hit the desk with his foot, causing the phone receiver to fly in the air, and then he grabbed it.
-You have no idea, no.... idea... of the problems I had to face in order to convince the guy not only to pay us, but to not sue us.- Enzo sounded tired.
-You're right, I don't, but I know you succeeded.
-Yes. But there is something I have to talk to you about. It's very important.
-Can't it wait? I was going to have a shower.
-No.- Enzo seemed distressed, somehow. They often had differences of opinion, but business was going so well, with all the good executed and paid gigs, they were able to get over any quarrel. But this time... it seemed serious.
-I think we should be doing business separately, for a while.
-What, you want to slay demons on your own?- Dante acted surprised -So you're not the coward you always appeared to be...-
-Do you have any idea what it's like to face a furious client that sees the damage you cause with your personal touch?- his voice was shivering, as if almost in tears -Do you have any idea how many times we were to the point of closing because you can't curb your weapons? I don't know how long I'll be able to do this... People talk. There are those who won't hire us because they think that a demon haunting a building is not a big deal, if compared to how much they would be paying to fix everything! They would rather hire newbies just because they will be killed doing the job, so they won't have to pay them. And I can assure you it's not just rumors!-
It was clear that seeing so many demons hadn't been therapeutic for someone like him, who was neither bravery made flesh nor capable with weapons. -I made my decision. Please, respect it.-
There was a few seconds of silence from the demon hunter.
-Do as you please. But you still owe me a pizza. You know how I like it.
-So... are we still... friends?- his voice sounded relieved.
-You said you wanted to do "business separately", didn't you?
Enzo chuckled. -Yes, you're right.-
-I'm taking a shower, now. I have already called the pizzeria, go pay them afterwards.
That news wasn't shocking to him. He had always imagined Enzo wasn't happy every time they completed a job, he always had something to say about how Dante used to create more problems than there already were. He couldn't, however, say that he was wrong. Dante's only objective was to fulfill the mission and have fun while doing it, and it was true that chandeliers often fell, that walls got filled with holes and that place reeked of blood for days. To reduce the number of demons on the loose, even if just one, you could risk doing some damage, in his opinion. In the past it has happened that he prevented damages, but it was to do a service to penniless people. They didn't deserve more problems to where there should be solutions.
At some point, whilst the boiling water was coming out the pipes, a sound echoed through Dante's office.
The incessant ringing of the phone.