"Let's see if this beauty can help me with what I plan," Dante said lightly as he swiftly pulled out the Nunchakus.
He began to swing them, and the atmosphere of the place began to grow completely cold. He had known how to use Triple Nunchakus for many years and was as skilled with them as with swords.
He danced with the Nunchakus for a few seconds and finished with a strike.
The strike itself wasn't powerful, but what came after was. The strike was from below, causing two of the three parts to hit the enemy's lower part. However, when he tested it like this, ice pillars magically emerged from the ground.
Dante looked at the sharp ice waves that came out and smiled slightly.
"HAHAHAHA," he laughed like a villain and turned to see Nagasawa, who was standing there, looking at the boy with a mocking expression.
"Carry on, you're incredible entertainment," she said with a crooked smile on her face, struggling not to burst into laughter.
"Wanna talk about entertainment?" Dante asked, and Nagasawa didn't understand what he meant. Soon, he slowly used shapeshifting... and transformed into Nagasawa herself...
He appeared further ahead and looked directly into Nagasawa's eyes, who was slightly intimidated... Well, not exactly intimidated...
'I hardly ever look in the mirror, but I'm pretty hot, huh?' she had this thought as she saw Dante transformed into herself.
Dante realized she was distracted and faced her, laughing lightly. "Fufufu." Nagasawa looked directly at herself and suddenly...
"When we get out of here, I'm going to poison those bastards, I'll put all of them in a poison tub and dunk their heads in ten-star manticore acid, I'll let the insects devour their bodies while they're still alive! I'll kill them all! HAHAHAHAHA," Dante shouted as he grabbed "his" breasts and shook them from side to side, making faces with Nagasawa's face.
Nagasawa looked at that scene... Looked so much that she started to slightly hate herself, but before...
SMACK!
She slapped Dante so hard that he flew almost four meters and returned to his original form, but couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"HEHEHEH!"
Nagasawa, seeing the boy having fun, couldn't resist, and they both started laughing. "FUFUFU," she laughed along with him and approached.
"Shall we go?" she asked as she reached out her hand to help Dante up. "Sure," he said, and they both went on their way together.
Dante spent time explaining what had happened, and Nagasawa was slightly irritated to miss these moments, but she accepted everything Dante said, even finding it surreal the claw marks on the walls and the debris, which made it obvious he was telling the truth. And yes, Nagasawa knew from the beginning that the smell was related to demonic energy, but she wasn't entirely sure.
Now, both were walking silently through the long corridors of this monument, it was like a Dungeon within a Dungeon, something Nagasawa had never heard of.
"Dante," she asked as she looked at his back, which seemed gigantic. The feeling of guilt for being a burden was eating her up.
"Yes?" he asked as he turned to see the woman, who seemed tiny next to him.
'Have I grown?' he wondered as he looked at the woman in front of him. He vaguely remembered that she was taller than him, so why are they the same height? Or rather, why does she seem small? Dante didn't have to think about that now; it was relatively trivial.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked as she held her destroyed arm; she hadn't felt it for hours, but she didn't want to amputate it, as it could be recovered if she went to Linnea or the Busty Elf who manages the infirmary.
"What do you mean? Isn't it obvious?" Dante said as he kept walking, but Nagasawa didn't say anything, and Dante knew his answer was vague; he didn't want to be honest right now.
"Tell me," she confronted him as she grabbed his clothes. Dante had slightly lost the spark with Nagasawa; the imposing woman had now turned into a cute little girl for him, and that was
"I like you," he replied and moved on without giving further details. The milf, however, began to have a breakdown...
"W-why do you like me?" she stuttered slightly, did she misunderstand? Neither she nor Dante knew what all this meant.
"I just do," Dante replied, moving through a different entrance, but nothing really caught their attention besides the cobwebs throughout the area.
"Be clearer!" she slightly shouted, startled, as no one had ever said that to her. Sure, they attempted to court her, but those were just foolish games for marriage benefits for their families.
"You're a warrior, doesn't seem like someone who got everything handed to them and worked hard to get where you are," Dante said without looking her in the eye. "You wanted to sacrifice yourself before, but I know it wasn't because we're your students," Dante said, turning to her.
"You've given up on living, haven't you?" he asked, and Nagasawa trembled slightly; she couldn't deny it.
"The calluses on your rough hands, your robust yet delicate body are your main features. I haven't even thought much about your beauty; that's just a bonus," Dante said, walking on. "I like your dominant personality, even though you're quite cute with me," he added, renewing the torch with fire, illuminating the area more and more.
"W-why..." Nagasawa wanted to understand, but couldn't. Dante then commented, "Don't try to understand, I don't either."
"Valentina raised me as a mother, but I've never seen her that way. She's just mine," Dante remarked.
"Morgana is the same. She raised me as a disciple. I know almost all of her magic, and even some spells she shouldn't know I know. But I can't use them, because my mana is almost null for them. Still, she trusted all of that to me as her disciple. But I can only feel like she's all mine, completely," Dante explained, as Nagasawa saw an obsessive look in his eyes, like a complete abyss.
"I don't understand what I am, why I always attract powerful people to me in every way. I'm just trying to live life the way I am. If I want something, I'll go for it with all my might, even if it means war," he answered, continuing to walk.
"I..." Nagasawa couldn't snap out of her daze; she was completely out of it at this moment.
"I wanted to be dead long ago. My life has been torture," she said, starting to walk alongside Dante.
"I can imagine," Dante commented, getting closer to her.
"No one ever supported me... No one helped me once... I had to learn everything on my own in the Tang Clan," she said with a sad smile. "The instructors beat me every day. I was bullied by the older ones because of the color of my skin," she continued, making Dante visibly uncomfortable.
"You don't have to..."
"No, I want to tell you," she cut off Dante abruptly, lifting part of her robe to show something on her waist.
It was a curved scar over ten centimeters long. "When I was fifteen, I started to become interested in the sword and wanted to leave the Tang clan's arts to become a warrior," she recounted, pointing to the scar.
"My father... he stabbed me with a poisoned dagger. A venom so brutal it broke my pressure points, making me unable to practice martial arts," she said, with a crooked smile.
"That means..." murmured Dante, and Nagasawa nodded. "My core is always forced to compensate for the lack of pressure points. My veins are twisted and shallow because of that. My mana is impure, and my core... it's always at full capacity. All my fights could be the last," Nagasawa explained, walking a bit ahead.
She turned around and faced Dante.
"I've lost everything, Dante," she said with a smile, while closing her eyes.
"I've lost everything... but I don't want to lose my life, Dante," she continued, with tears slightly streaming down her eyes.
Dante approached and hugged her. She sniffled softly as she cried on his chest.
"It'll be okay, we'll get through this," he commented, stroking the long white hair of the tanned woman.
'Now it makes sense why she seems so fragile, with her core slightly broken, any attempt to circulate mana has made her have an overload and faint. Her core is trained to always work at maximum capacity, but if it's cracked... the mana is leaking to her organs or maybe damaging her internally more and more as she tries to survive...
she might not last much longer,' Dante concluded, as he continued to stroke the woman. Dante wanted to ask something, but was afraid, especially of the nature of the question.