She let go of her bravado and relaxed her pose, now facing, not that Dante she thought she knew, but a mirror image, distorted yet familiar.

"Hmm...for that.", Enemy said.

Dante lifted his head up, holding his tears without her realizing, "What?"

"The trust part. Back then, I was already inside Hikari. Truth be told, she was confused as hell. It should be no secret that the 'Mellistar' you're talking about was the original 'Dante'. The person that Hikari screwed up falling for. She confused you for his reincarnation after realizing you similar power signatures that she felt on That Day. Not that you could get reincarnated. But nevertheless, she kept on believing. And despite it all, again, at the most critical moment, she was betrayed by whom she thought to be her savior.

"So all this time, this is the reason why?"

"Don't make it sound like something so small. Do you have any idea what it took for her to place her trust in you? The only three she ever trusted before that were Cecilia, Naga and Mellistar. And after millennia, through all the torture we endured, she finally decided to place her faith in you again. I despise watching her get hurt, I've told her so, but she just never listens. I suppose you found out how much of a hardheaded girl she is by now anyway."

"Hmm...if I said sorry, nothing would fix it. What's even the point in this. Crying, slamming desks...what's going to bring everyone back? Guess this is how to make a hero. Blank sheet filled with dread, regret and pain, just to see the redemption afterwards...and I know I ain't even a hero like I thought I would."

"Tell me about it. You wish you were there but even though you could be or actually did, nothing would change..."

"And if it did, it'd be unfair to get what you didn't earn.", Dante finished Enemy's sentence.

They both started deeply into each other's eyes.

"Hmph. Nice manipulation tactics, king of manipulation.", she folded her arms.

"Give me a break. You're more manipulating than I am. Naming yourself 'Enemy' then helping both me and the others. Pick a side already...and what kind of a shitty excuse for name is 'Enemy' anyways?"

"The one I chose to go by. Seems fitting enough."

"Believe me, it isn't. Like at all."

"Well what the hell should I be called then? Something boring like 'Dante'?"

"I beg to differ. At least I don't sound like the bad guy."

"Even though you should. And why do you even care? I was never given a name anyway."

"Seriously? Even Mellistar, same as you, has one? The hell happened to you?"

"At least he popped out of some woman to get one."

"What about you? Parents? Dead or alive? Anything?"

Enemy looked at Dante, "I...don't have any. I wasn't like Mellistar, or you. My biological parents are none existent."

"What? Then how do you even stand here? I get you are supposedly the 'other half' of Hikari like Meli is to me, but Meli still had a background from millennia ago."

"Umm...maybe you should just tell him?", Hikari politely said.

"I swear to god, Hikari! Come on, I've gone this far, ain't it enough?!", Enemy yelled.

"Let me guess, she's buzzing?", Dante asked.

"Long story short, she received a lot more damage than she should thanks to you and now she's buzzing in my head. Pipe down."

"At least now we figured a way to communicate in silence.", Mellistar echoed.

"It is rather convenient, yes. But I still want to know more."

Dante and Mellistar talked together while Enemy and Hikari were bickering once again.

"And you were basically gone since Corosta."

"No other choice, Dante. Without the conductive amulet that Tiki took it was impossible for me to communicate, until the power burst in Dirunon. Ever since that point, your energy overflow feeds me to the point we're I can both communicate and actively regulate it."

"Good. But I'm still seeking answers from both you and especially her."

"I'll answer everything eventually...but her?"

"She's been tormenting me ever since Gladeon died and now I'm stuck wondering why she helped me. I despise being left in the dark...not anymore. If I'm to trust both her and especially Ika-Hikari, I want to know as much as I can. It all starts from her...I'm just done screwing around, Melli."

"And to think you used to smile every so often..."

"Don't start with the pipe dream again. I do what I have to do, I ain't no laughing hero. Besides, I am interested in Enemy specifically."

"Hmm, how come?"

"It should be no mystery that our powers are alike. If my mediocre detective work tells me anything, is that I could use what little Hikari forces out of her to discoverer something more about this mess...god...my head is still fuzzy. I remember now, but it's all still blurry."

"It will all come with time. And about Yuno...can you remember what you told him through me?"

"Hmm. Yes...but it changes nothing."

"Wait, you...you meant it?"

"It's not an emotional outburst, Meli. Be logical. We're you in my position, despite it temporarily being tunneled, what'd you do? What would you say? We're not the same, but the bottom line is still there."

"I understand...and I, and Yuno, will do our best to make that change."

"Be my guest. Oh, and, he's not listening now, is he?"

"He's blocked off completely. He is your Guardian, not 'another half' like me. So long you wish to block him, he will stay out of it."

"Good. I don't want anyone meddling in my business."

"But Dante-", Mellistar was interrupted.

"Enough. I need some peace...please."

"I...I understand.", Mellistar faded away.

Dante looked on a little longer at Enemy bickering with Hikari, cherishing the few moments he still remained silent.

"You're literally riding on the slim slice of kindness I've got left!"

"I am trying to make you feel better for once! C'mon, open up! You know you see something in Dante, not Meli, but this Dante! Just that little bit you see, cherish it!"

"I'm literally about to rip my eyeballs out. Before stabbing both my eardrums."

"You'll still hear me though..."

"Oh for the love of- I stuttered! That's just it! A small stutter! And the reason I haven't killed him yet is purely you!"

"But...back at that dungeon he went with Anya, I didn't even notice your awakening. And yet, when I woke up...he wasn't dead. Dante hadn't developed his abilities back there either!"

Enemy stuttered, "Ah...s-shit."

"Ha! Busted!"

"Hraaagh!", Enemy slammed her head on the table, full force.

Dante awkwardly looked at enemy, raising his eyebrow while his head was still resting on his hand, now bored of the long wait.

"So...uh...", Dante tried to awkwardly talk.

Enemy pointed at Dante, head still pinned on the table, "Not a word, otherwise I'll make sure you trip down the god damn stairs."

Dante closed his mouth, not wanting to provoke the awkwardly pissed off Enemy for more than he had to."

"Pretty please.", Hikari said with a begging voice.

"I will stab my pinkie toe naked on the table side and jump rope on BUILD bricks. Can I do that instead?"

"But that'll mean I'll hurt too..."

"Fair point. But anything else?"

"Ok, I swear, I swear. This tiny little thing left, and I'm done. For real, for real. Besides, he'll take it to the grave, I'm sure he will! And the only other one who knows it is me!"

Enemy pondered for a long moment before exhaling deeply.

"I'll make sure he takes it to the grave.", she mumbled.

"So...", Dante tried to talk again.

"Just...just give me a moment."

Enemy got up and went by Dante, forcefully yanking the door out of wall it was pinned on. She proceeded to slam the door back in its original place, completely shutting the room once again. She then dropped on the chair in front of Dante once again and looked him right in the eyes.

"You say one word of this to anyone, your head will be in that 'anyone's' mailbox the very next day, got it."

"Fine by me. Now if this will give me any answers at all, shoot away. I'm all ears.

Enemy exhaled and grunted, "Ok...let's start. If there's any moment in my life I'd like to forget, it's my birth. I was never normally 'born'. I am the physical manifestation of pure power. Power surging from...the Abnormal String. I was both accidentally made and latched onto Hikari when she first entered the Abnormal String herself."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"What even the hell is that?"

Enemy sighed, "Of course he'd ask that. Alright. Simplest explanation so get ready. There's 3 levels. First is the Quantum Irregularity, or Imaginary Sea. It's named as such because there's everything in there, but at the same time nothing. You'll float as if you're in water, but you'll never drown...well, relatively speaking. It's...weird to explain. That was when my first inception came to be. The Quantum Irregularity is filled with all sorts of matter, you'll see chunks of metal, all sorts of things and there's two directions to go. Up or down, but regardless, it won't look like you're heading to either insane depths or near surface and the lighting will consistently stay the same to support it. Presence of oxygen is there, though there's several other things there. That...it was hell. My first hell...when my body first formed after Hikari's body when she passed through it, I always kept breathing and drowning.

The surrounding material squeezed me up, it was as if the sea itself was rejecting me or something. Thanks to Obsulyte, or whatever, I always kept bursting a huge ray of energy outwards, forcing the material to back off so that I could breathe. Like you, if my, or any Obsulyte users emotional state riles up, it becomes more u stable. I lost track of time...not that I had any. Moment in and moment out, I'd be chocked, then released, then chocked again. That was the only thing I remember from my 'birth'...and I wish to forget it."

"Holy shit...maybe...maybe there is a reason behind you being such an asshole after all. Makes sense.", Dante sarcastically remarked.

"Oh, shut it. What do you know?!"

"Relax. Now, I need to know more. Treat this as a moment of sincerity and truce, I will respect you like you did me to share our pasts. Just this once. So I want to know everything, because I refuse to be left with half assed information, again."

"Fine by me. It was Hikari's idea anyway, so I don't care. But everything after that, I will conceal. That is after we got out of there, obviously. All these names and explanations were done by the pervert Drima in the next room, while I explained the situation of those areas and he researched them, telling us after. Even he doesn't know how I was there, and sure as hell no one, not even Hikari herself, will know what happened after. So?"

"You've got a deal."

"Get ready for a long story. So after that kept happening again and again, I one day saw something different...something horrifying. It was just...black. Nothing. Just an endless spanning of darkness and nothing else. I call it The Void. It appeared to be where the Quantum Irregularity ended...and it was another hell. As soon as I entered it, I was faced with nothing but darkness. I kept falling as I kept rising. I didn't know where to step or where the enemy was...because I saw them there. Shadowers. More than I killed in my entire life. More than everything ever seen before. But they were sort of...incomplete...they were all mushy and decaying, in some form of plasmatic state, just incomplete. They'd hurt me but I never bled out. Everywhere, there was no light, no time, no nothing...just a void. After a long time passed there too, I saw it one day. After fighting numerous Shadowers, I saw one of them stuck...stuck in a crack that emitted light on the floor. I managed to kill it with my bear hands before I kept punching at that crack...I wanted to leave...I wanted to escape. It must have been hours? Days? I don't know...I kept punching the god damn thing till it finally broke...finally, I saw light again. I started falling down, but I didn't care. It felt safer than wherever I was previously. I crashed down onto some solid block. And then I saw it...the Abnormal String. I have no idea how to give it to your pea sized brain to understand it, but simply put, it was weird. No space, no time, but both were there. I could see for miles but there was a wall in front of me. I looked down one side to see an endless pitfall and solid ground on the other side. I don't even know what that thing was...but I was away from those shits. I walked into a wall and as soon as I pressed my foot on it I was walking on said wall. I quickly realized that gravity was as jacked as everything else there...kind of like being in a matrix of sort. Like the Quantum Irregularity got a more solidified form, much like our world but without the physics. I looked at a girl laying on a field full of roses, which sprouted from some metal based cubes. Weird once again, but if I were to guess, both the Abnormal String and the Quantum Irregularity would be connected in some way, so the organic matter that created me must have created the roses and the metallic matter must have solidified onto those floors and cubes floating around. I approached her, only to realize who she was...she was me. Through the metals and reflections in the Abnormal String and the reflections in the Quantum Irregularity, I knew exactly how I looked like before seeing her. It didn't take long for me to realize the fact that she was responsible for it. Then, for the first time since I exited The Void, I heard voices. Surprise, surprise it was Mellistar fighting off Makaro and Kikaro. I don't remember much from that point onwards, but the general gist of it is that I woke up in Zero, thinking I escaped hell, only to find a new one. And yes, I was aware of Hikari's presence from the start, and she did the same."

"So this whole thing started off there?"

"The whole world burning itself?"

"From the things you told me, one thing stuck out most. Shadowers in The Void. If it's a sandwich type thing where we've got The Quantum Irregularity into The Void into the Abnormal String and you saw Makaro, Kikaro and Mellistar duking it out in the Abnormal String...then that means that they must have also had an entry point. But instead of getting in from the Quantum Irregularity, they must have somehow managed to access the bottom of the sandwich, the Abnormal String directly. If that's the case, then that means that the reason behind the Shadower surge is the fact that there's now the breaking of The Void you caused to get out of it that they can use to escape it and a break in the Abnormal String that everyone else used to get to Hikari."

"But...that's impossible. The Shadowers I fought in The Void were similar, but not nearly identical to these ones here."

"You also said that the Quantum Irregularity is like the Abnormal String but more liquid. If the row is from the Irregularity, to the Void and then the Space, then that means that it may also represent the three states of matter. Gas for the Quantum Irregularity, liquid or semi liquid as it was drooling plasma that formed the Shadowers in The Void and then finally solid for the Abnormal String. That would make sense, because if the others entered the Abnormal String from the world directly, then that means that the sandwich of these 'realms' begins as nothing and then gradually solidifies the closer it gets into our world, then becoming what we actually exist in at the moment."

"Holy shit...then that actually means that the reason behind the increasing Shadower attacks might be...that?!"

"It's plausible, yes, but it's just theory crafting. All this recent bullshit about wars, gods, celestial beings and power beyond imagination sounded too wild for me to believe. Add to the fact that the source behind their thinking was a message saying 'trust me', I struggled to believe it. I'm just looking at the best possible explanation so I can get to the root of the problem instead of continuing to wildly flail around like a moron. That said...I'm not glossing over your story. But...I'd like to know more."

"Like I said, that's confidential. Not even Hikari knows it, and she never will for the most part, since I'm blocking her off the way you do to Yuno."

"Why do you not want her to find out even? You are living in her body, so might as well explain to her what you're all about."

"Some things...are better left secret.", Enemy sighed.

"Sure...like everything that was kept secret from me all this time. At this point, I'm convinced that secrets pave the way to true hell."

"Not like you have much to keep from me anyway. I know you better than you think...you were with Hikari all the time anyway. Funny to think the class clown would turn out to me a sad, miserable creature."

"Still remember that. Hah.", he scoffed, "Not like like some shitty jokes for riding the schools back as a kid are going to paint your character. Besides even back then...it appeared that I couldn't joke about much after awhile."

"That is true...whatever happened that made that innocent kid become like this? Training with Cecilia to become a sacrificial lamb for the Silverlances?"

"Mmm. I guess you could say that. Though the story isn't that simple to begin with. Even then, I wouldn't be able to tell you for two reasons. One being that it's obviously all coming back to me at once and I need time to sort it out."

"And the second one?", Enemy curiously asked.

"I don't want to."

"Seriously?"

"Oh yes. You're limiting what you share with me, so I guess I'll just do the same. Eye for an eye. And don't bullshit me about 'eye for an eye, the world goes blind'. It's natural, don't you think? You hurt someone, they'll hurt you back. That's it."

"Hmph. Maybe you're not as moronic as I thought of you to be."

"As for now, I need to forward my theory to Drima, see what he can make out of it with the intel he has. And...check on the others."

"That too. I forgot to ask...why do you care about them? Or do you even care?"

"Hmm...the honest answer?"

"That's what me and Hikari both want."

"Despite the lies you told me and probably her...fine. Honestly, I don't care. They should've detached from me when they had the chance. This sick twist of fate only brought them back to me. The only reason I want to check on them is because I don't want a bunch of innocents hurt by me at my worst state to be partying with the worms."

"You sick, heartless bastard...", Enemy gritted her teeth.

"I'm sick and heartless? Did I not warn them? Clearly too? I remember that I specifically told them to get out of my way and then additionally gave them very hostile innuendos to do so. It's my problem, not theirs to solve it."

"They did it because they care? Has that crossed your mind?"

"Caring for something that doesn't care for itself seems like a crude cycle to want to get yourself into, no? You can't help what doesn't want to be helped, so you're best off leaving it as is. The way I see it now, I have to carry this weight around like I'm that kid in school, not liked but wanting to force himself into a group just for the sake of camouflaging normality."

"And then you're straight forward asking me for the reason behind me wanting to kill you?"

"Of course. I needed to hear you say why you were playing with your food, rather than masking it with your bravado. After all, you were tormenting me in my enigmatic nightmares for awhile, correct?"

Dante got up and moved towards Enemy, dropping her stance and entering an alerted position as he approached right next to her chair.

"Friendship and romance are relationships that in my eyes also deserve the 'eye for an eye' treatment. They exchange relationships. You give a kiss, you get a kiss. You give a gift, you receive a gift."

"You give a beating, you get a beating.", Enemy angrily said avoiding eye contact.

"Correct. So in a friendly gesture, let's exchange favors. I'll give you a favor and you'll give me a favor."

"What kind of favor would I give to an asshole like you?"

"Ehm. I will do you the favor of not actively pinning down and slaughtering neither you and especially Hikari, Magi or Drima for the lies and the gaslighting they put me through up until this point, like I was some sort of puppet for them to play with. Same goes for a beating to everyone else, who I know that they already knew something and referred from telling me up until we came here. You already had a conversation with them, no? Otherwise, it's unlikely that most of them would agree to trust you as the main component in the amateurish operation you set up in Dirunon."

Enemy gritted her teeth, "What do you want...in return?"

Dante sighed, "If I ever lose control again, or try to hurt anyone, especially Hikari and everyone else...kill me. No hesitation. You will completely ignore whatever sympathetic bullshit Hikari spits at you and you'll focus on driving whatever sword, lance or spear you morph into my throat and end it right there."

Enemy paused briefly as she struggled to comprehend the contradiction between the two parts of the deal offered before her.

"So. Do you accept the exchange in favors?"

Still stunned by the difference of intent in his sentences, she looked at him in the eyes, only to then realize even further as to the reasoning that was created in his offerings.

"I...accept."

"Hmm. Good.", Dante walked to the door.

He easily grabbed the pinned door and yanked it to the side, opening the gap once again and pinning it on a nearby wall.

"Oh and...do yourself a favor and drop the tough bitch act around me. It won't work anymore. I know for a fact you ain't afraid of me."

Enemy snapped out of it, looking forward away from Dante, "Hah. Is that what you think? What makes you say that?"

"For one, you'd maintain constant and hostile eye contact with me. But you're not. For two, you would try to find a weakness to pursue me with, but you realize that you can't find any. Aren't I a hero? Powerful, heartless and with nothing left to lose. Even those fears you'd capitalize on in my nightmares and real life are rapidly diminishing. I'm even struggling to realize if it's me you're afraid of, or the reason that I don't care anymore?"

"You have a third one?"

"Yep. You wouldn't be clutching on your weapon so hard from me merely approaching your side, unless you were piss scared of what I was about to do. Funny how the table turns, huh? I'll check on Tiki. Don't be late, Drima's whole information sharing gathering is going to take place after and something tells me no one is going to want to miss it."

With that, Dante walked out of the room to leave behind a yet again, stunned Enemy. She looked behind her as she proceeded to look down on her waist, morphed Wing Of Aether at hand and fist clenching tightly. In another fit of rage, she flipped the table upside down, as she breathed heavily. Finally, after relaxing enough, she looked back outside and reminded herself of the deal she had accepted. Her conflicting emotions. She knew neither his intentions or his stance between them all. But one thing was certain to her...she had just lost control of what she so tightly held on to for so long.