𝕭𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖎𝖊𝖉 𝖇𝖚𝖙 𝖀𝖓𝖇𝖗𝖔𝖐𝖊𝖓

Confederate

A/N: Filler chapter and the perfect time to showcase Alfred and Dante's friendship, and an extra detail about our protagonist, which will be important later on.

The bad feeling did not subside. In fact, it worsened the further and longer he walked.

If the Choir was here, who else could be?

He did not want to think about it. He walked further, past the docks to the west side of town.

He switched clothing and weaponry in a nearby alley. From his old Hunter Garb, he switched to a Byrgenwerth student's attire which he customized to have a small coat, and he gave his Holy Blade to the Lone Messenger in exchange for the Blade of Mercy and the Chikage.

Compared to most of the weapons he wielded, the Blade of Mercy was compact and could fit inside his coat, and would be his trump card.

If it came to that, which he doubted. He has yet to encounter a Hunter who could handle the Blade of Mercy's speed.

Dante stopped for a second to think about what he just thought about. Eh, maybe the Bloody Crow. And Lady Maria. And Gehrman.

The Chikage would be the weapon he would draw first, so he looped the sheath in his belt and kept walking.

No one took notice of him. That's good. As he continued moving west of town, less and less people walked the streets and less and less buildings were open.

As he passed one of these closed-down building, a hand came reaching out to him. Not a small, human-sized hand, but a Great One-sized one with four fingers.

He backpedalled out of the hand's path. It might as well have been see-through, with how the building seemed to be more prominent than the hand itself.

It promptly vanished.

After that happened, Dante's breathing suddenly became unstable. Oh Kos, what was happening? How did they get here? He stumbled backwards, and fell against a nearby wall.

Suddenly he was back in the Nightmare Frontier again, with the strange giants throwing rocks at him and the even stranger Kos knock-off creatures spitting acid at him. He remembered being burned to death by the Amygdala's laser beam. He started to shake violently.

Then suddenly he was 15 again, and scared for his life. He was 15 when he signed that contract and it was all downhill from there. He remembered being mauled to death by a Scourge Beast in that clinic, alongside a few other deaths.

The shaking did not stop. His mind slowly began to spiral.

'Someone... help me... Master Gehrman, Mom... anyone please... I'm scared...'

Dante never realized he started sobbing.

—

A few minutes later, Dante finally found his old courage and slowly rose to his feet. Not much time had passed, and he looked around to see if anyone saw him.

Lucky for him, no one did. He wiped away the tears, and kept walking. He shook his head and mentally slapped himself.

The first and last time he broke down like that was when his mother died due to the ashen blood and he promised himself that would never happen again.

This world had softened him up, and he was naive to think that the Great Ones would be unable to follow him. He was really stupid to think that. As he sunk deeper into his self-hatred, he heard voices ahead and it snapped him back to reality.

"Get that drunkard!" His grip around his Chikage tightened. The sounds of fighting were suddenly very close. He crouched down. "Sorry boys, but no means no."