Dante took more steps forward, catching everyone in the room unaware. He finally reached an old broken jukebox across the room. With blades riddling his body, he pointed to the sky in a dramatic flair. At many points in the motion, blades began to fall off his body.
"Lets get this party started!", he exclaimed as he used his other hand to press one of the tracks on the box.
Moments passed. Nothing happened. Dante began to press down many more times. Still nothing. The demons finally snapped out of their confusion and began to scream. The ones with scythes still in their hands began to charge at Dante.
"Well, looks like we gotta do this the old fashion way", he rolled his shoulders back, the demons were mere moments away from striking him once again. He struck his hands together, interlocking his fingers directly in front of his face. In the instance right before he was punctured with even more blades, he pushed his arms outward, cracking his fingers.
Simple Domain: Style Amplification!
Crazy!
All of the demons were immediately pushed backwards. The room was filled with the steady beat of intense rock music. A dark energy filled the entirety of Dante's body. Huh? C-rank already? The hell did I do? I'm just standing here, Dante wondered. The blades in his body slowly began to fall out and hit the ground, his wounds slowly healing themselves.
Energized by the raw amount of power in his system, he ignored this irregularity. He would rather enjoy this than waste precious seconds. He could feel the Ranking depleting. It wasn't cool to wonder and plan. It was cool to do. Dante stepped aside and narrowly dodged a scythe aiming for his face. As he stepped, he extended his arm outward. The creature caught on his arm in a clothesline as Dante squeezed the beast with all his might.
The blades that remained in him pierced the body of the monster, draining it of life. As he felt the thing die, he reached down into his holsters, grabbing Ebony and Ivory. He readied the pistols, white and black in luster, and pointed them at the ground.
The creatures stood from their place on the ground, picking up their blades. A closer look from Dante revealed they were boney, hardly flesh-covered amalgams of human corpses that were wreathed in dark cloaks. A dark cloak of Miasma emanated off of his skin, ebbing and flowing to the beat of the rock music. Slowly, with intent, the aura began to move from his skin towards his pistols, latching on and transferring like a sickly parasite.
Gunslinger Style!
The demons readied their weapons and began to charge at Dante once more. Hell Caina, he thought. As multiple of the Cainas reached their scythes back to attack, the pistols, now coated in the dark miasma, hummed with power. Dante pulled the trigger of the darkest one, Ebony, while crossing that same arm down across his body. A beam of power shot out downwards and diagonally from Dante, sending his body flying upwards in a spinning motion, barely dodging the scythes.
Badass!
Dantes body brimmed with even more energy mid-twirl. The beat of the music became even louder. The windows began to shake as the power chords became even more intense. The shot was so powerful it kicked him all the way out of the building, through the hole in the ceiling. He angled his spin in a way that twisted him upside down as well. As he reached the peak of his flight, he extended both pistols downwards towards the ground.
Rainstorm!
A hail of empowered bullets rained down. Thousands of pops and cracks sounded as bullets left the chambers of the pistols and cracked against the skulls and bodies of the demons. The force of each blast made Dante float just a little longer in the air. The closer he fell to the ground, the further outwards he extended his arms until he was fully blossomed, spinning and firing bullets like a whirlwind of death. Finally, moments before he touched the ground, he flipped his stance, landing gracefully on his feet.
.....
Am I dead? Kazuto opened his eyes, slowly. Moments ago, death rained down on him to the beat of hard metal. Finding refuge under a pool table was the best he could do. A thick cloud of dust and debris filled his lungs. Every cough cleared a small amount of air in front of his eyes. The visage of the Daemon Spade look alike, Dante, appeared in the distance atop dozens of mounds of flesh. He stood completely still, holding his pistols in a seemingly unreadied position.
Kazuto scurried out from under the table, desperate for an anchor of safety. His feet shuffled and slid along the already dirty floors from various blood and viscera, at one point falling on his jacket, smearing it in brains. He picked himself up and ran towards Dante. "Wha-. Hell. What was-. Holy shi-". Kazuto stopped mere feet away from Dante. He had drawn his black pistol and aimed it right at Kazuto.
Dantes hair fell in front of his face, his expression unreadable. Kazuto trembled in place, "Please, I-".
Dante fired. Kazuto's heart stopped. In just an instant, he braced for the release of death. The bullet made impact. The sounds of a shredding skull and melting flesh sounded in Kazuto's ear. He turned to see the face of a monster collapsing in on itself.
Something rose on Kazuto's skin. Fear? Adrenaline? His hair stood on end. Dante had already begun firing on other monsters that were beginning to surround the two once more. Kazuto was left standing alone in a crowd of monstrosities. Two of them, rising from the pool table he hid under a moment ago, raised their weapons.
.....
Twosome Time!
One of Dantes favored techniques of his Gunslinger style. Using Ebony and Ivory in a separate conjunction to fire in two different directions at once. In exchange for losing the raw power benefit of both pistols firing towards one target, Dante receives a boost in his accuracy. His weapons flew around, guided by an innate sense granted by Simple Domain. From an outsider's perspective, Dante was seemingly firing off each pistol in a random direction. At times he would point Ebony under his crotch while Ivory through his armpit. Yet every shot still landed. Hell Cainas jumped off of furniture, trying to get just a little closer to Dante. Every time another dropped, they attempted a new strategy.
Crazy!
Too long, Dante thought. Performing the same action, no matter how effective, would ultimately reduce his cursed technique output if done for too long. He needed to find the Hell Gate that was flooding such a countless number of demons however. Dante needed something fast with the ability to survey a large area. Dodging a scythe launched at his head, he snapped his finger.
Trickster!
The range of his Simple Domain expanded tenfold. Hell Cainas jumped back as the beat of the music reached them. One of the demons, farthest away from Dante and all the way across the bar, opened its mouth in shock, not realizing the death sentence it had signed. In an uncountable second, the image of Dante disappeared. The rock music continued, and as it hit an accent, Dante reappeared with Ebony loaded into the demon's mouth. Dante pulled the trigger, but by the time the bullet had reached the ceiling, Dante had already Dashed across the room, towards the previously discarded slice of pizza. The Cainas scattered relentlessly across the room, searching for their target.
A burp alerted them to Dantes position, all the way to the roof, through the hole. Sticking out of his mouth was a moldy crust. His feet remained separated, with one in front of the other as he placed his left hand behind his back and used his right to taunt the remaining creatures.
Enraged, two more began to charge. Less than he expected but he could make it work. They leaped up to his position, one ata time. His leather shoe deflected one of the blades from the side and he slammed the weapon into the ground. He charged towards the disarmed demon and grabbed it by the cloth it wore. He maneuvered the thing until it took the entire brunt of a sharp attack from the other charging Scythe.
The armed monster cried for its brother as Dante tore the rest of the black cloak from its body. More Cainas had joined him on the rooftop. He dashed past the beast and right towards the center of the dozen or so attackers. He had the perfect plan. He dove right into the eye of chaos wrapped in the old bloody cloth. Multiple scythes swung down and pierced the small black cloak.
A lifeless lump hit the ground. One of the Cainas continued to ravage the body of Dante until it realized that he wasn't in there. In a confused daze, the creature tore at the cloth until it saw the mass hiding within. Four grenades.
KABOOM!
Dante applauded. Trickster always worked like a charm. He looked up and from this position, he spotted it, a thick pulsing aura from North of the building. The Hell Gate. Things are about to get nasty, holding his hand to his chin, deep in thought. The Cainas had begun to climb on top of each other, hoping to let some of them reach their prey.
Dante focused his power, releasing Trickster Style and condensing his Simple Domain to a much shorter radius. He encanted, "Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."
Nothing happened. Dante snapped his fingers once more. "Damn!" Dante warped away once more as the Cainas finally reached his position. He needed that gate closed. Hell Cainas were some of the weakest demons, dropping with an unimbued shot from Ivory, but their strength was in numbers. Time to finish this, he thought, B-rank should be enough.
OPEN!
….
Mythic pull! Kazuto thought as his pool clue slammed into the head of one of the monsters. It had completely blocked the attack of one of the blades just moments prior. Kazuto had pulled an SSR level item, surely. A pool cue that could pierce the heavens.
A power chord sounded, different from the rock beat that had been there before. The monsters all shimmered, like something had affected them. Kazuto looked up, seeing Dante, standing with an electric guitar, bathed in moonlight. It felt like something should've affected him as well, but somehow he avoided it.
Dante began to shred an intense rock anthem. Monsters began to pool into the bar, is he purposefully attracting them? This was even more than had appeared initially. It seemed like it would never end. Kazuto's pool cue wouldn't help here; he needed to run. Kazuto hadn't noticed Dante having warped away. He gripped his pool cue tighter and ran towards the back of the bar, to a set of stairs.
.....
Crazy!
Nevan. A Cursed Tool shaped to the form of an electric guitar. Within the body of the instrument, was another secret. Obtaining the tool required sacrificing a large amount of cursed energy. Luckily, Cursed Tools didn't necessitate having energy to expend.
The Gate pulsed intensely, like an adrenalized heartbeat. It lay in the middle of the street, a dark open tear in space. Cainas began to pour out by the tens, perhaps eventually by the hundreds. He couldn't allow so many to flood the streets, especially without a Veil in place. The attention that would place on his bar would be far too annoying. Dante wasted no more time and jumped off the roof of the building. At the peak of his leap, he hit an intense rockstar pose, using the guitar as an air skateboard.
He hurdled towards the ground, pouring the energy he had left into Nevan. Just because Cursed Tools didn't require cursed energy didn't mean they couldn't utilize it. Moments before he hit the ground, he strummed an intense power chord. The shockwave pushed everything around him backwards, creating a ripple in the horde of Hell Cainas and allowing him to linger in the air for just a moment. The pavement cracked, street signs bent, and hydrants pulled away from their anchor in the ground. Dante landed, and as he did, he spun the guitar so that he held the neck in both hands. Heaving it over his shoulder, the body extended outwards and a massive blade protruded out of the side, a scythe of his own.
….
A massive boom knocked the power out. Kazuto had found a fire escape upstairs and used it to flee to the side of the building. All the lights shut off at once, the loose metal of the fire escape groaned and heaved. Kazuto was going to fall. The grate from under him fell through. As he hurdled to the ground, Kazuto's fear was followed by an additional feeling of strength.
Kazuto landed on one of the demons, and luckily not one of the sharp ends of them. The demon looked at Kazuto, and while having no face, it was extremely pissed off. It raised its scythe immediately and swung right at his head.
Faster than Kazuto has ever moved, he picked his Pool Cue from the ground and blocked the strike by shoving the cue horizontally into the body of the weapon, holding the blade back inches away from his face. Kazuto never imagined himself as strong either, so why was he suddenly able to hold a monster back with force? The beast roared in his face, saliva and blood landing on his cheeks and mouth. In disgust, Kazuto picked his leg up and kicked deep into the creature.
It flew.
Much farther than the monster must have expected. Much farther than Kazuto had expected. Other demons caught onto what was happening. Roughly 3 of them noticed Kazuto and began to charge at him. He could feel his heartbeat in his hands, pulsing against the pool cue. He could feel a sharp jab in his mind, like a literal laser focusing itself on the monsters. His breath steadied. There was something…
All 3 monsters reached Kazuto and swung their scythes back.
The patterns
Kazuto ducked, narrowly dodging the attacks. The monsters on the outside hit each other with their attacks, their long reaching blades working against them. But the one in the middle wasted no time in preparing his next attack.
Up from the center. Kazuto moved to the left, dodging the monster's next attack, a spinning slash from the center, swung upwards. Now a swing into my neck, he was right again, hitting the ground perfectly in time.
These timings, these patterns…Reapers? An enemy from Daemon Trigger. Very similar in appearance now that he had taken the time to think about it. The attack chains were exactly the same as the game as well. Reapers had 3 combos, each relatively simple as they functioned as low-ranking monsters. Which meant the Reaper that just attacked him would have opening frames right…
A spinning combo, one spin slash, Kazuto leaped back, …another, Kazuto ducked, ready. The finisher, different from the last. Finally, he leaped to his left to avoid a final upward slash that utilized the momentum from the previous two spins.
NOW!
Kazuto swung his pool cue right into the Reapers head. The skull exploded into dozens of pieces. The shards scattered so violently, Kazuto's face became scratched from fragments of bone flying towards him. He fell back, stumbling.
He did it. He beat a Reaper…IRL. The remaining two monsters hesitated a moment, their silhouettes becoming a blur. Kazuto's heartbeat pounded, louder than ever, in his ears. What's happening?, he thought as his breath took far longer to catch than it should've. His answer lied in the dripping noise to his left. Blood was leaking onto a puddle. His blood. He remembered when the Red Rocket monster had stabbed him…had he been bleeding that whole time?
He fell back against the building wall. He was in an alleyway again. Hordes of the monsters pooled the streets, as the remaining two Reapers were the only outliers from the crowds movement. They seemed to be focused on something.
R-RRRIINNGG