On the top deck of the helicopter looking down, Dante found himself in a dilemma deeper than any other. What to do and where to go, who to trust, and who to blame, all while witnessing the rising stress of everyone on board about the events that were about to unfold. Worse yet, after this fight when he wished to leave, what was there left of him to do, other than blindly follow the obvious route of seeking out his remaining family? A family that never knew up until this point what had transpired in the attack that happened on the same day he was born. Hanging over the railing, Magi slowly approached him and snapped him out of his thoughts, trying to converse with him in the same calm manner that Isabella had somehow successfully done before.

"Feeling worried?", Magi made an awful start.

"You didn't just dead-ass approach me with that starter, right?", Dante immediately got annoyed, "Chit-chat with me before this starts, and you'll be the first casualty of this battlefield."

Magi got annoyed herself, "Hey, dick, I still am trying here, ok? God, you're impossible when you wanna be."

"It's bad enough that we're missing one of us in this. Don't make me make it two."

"Look, ok. I just wanted to check if you're good and ready to go, I know you're strong, and I know you'll do it, all of you, Gates or no Gates."

"Good, you did your motherly duties, hope that makes you feel well enough to piss off now. Bye-bye.", Dante tried his best to shoo her away.

"You level with Isabella beautifully, I don't understand-", she was interrupted.

"I leveled with Isabella because she could have very well been a case similar to me, a victim of someone else's portrayed kindness, because I'm beginning to really not like any of Hikari and her band of delusional followers. There was somewhere to level with, and that's it, because mind you, she tried to bloody kill me, and I'm not getting that close to my enemies. That said, where do I level with you, exactly? Screw right off. You burned my home to the ground, you made sure my mother was left for dead and then you raised me to 'make amends' for all that? Let me give this to you straight, I despise you and Drima for the aforementioned, along with screwing with my brain after. The fact that you, both of you, have your head between your shoulders right now is the greatest type of thanks I can give you for 'not killing' me."

Magi scoffed, "You might be underestimating us there, kiddo."

"No, I never underestimate my enemies if I don't wish to die. I'm simply disrespecting you."

"Look, I just wanted to tell you that you'll do great and all that, encourage you. Nothing more...nothing less."

"And that's because you're dying, isn't it? Along with Ana.", Dante coldly said.

"What? How did you-", she got interrupted again.

"And then you lecture me about underestimating. You thought that I wouldn't start taking notes on what my Obsulyte does? Ever since I downed that botulinum toxin and lived to tell the tale, I started taking a lot of those notes. My Obsulyte is just that, poison. The same poison that didn't kill me, under a different form, spreads and erodes to kill others that it's not native to. It heightens their power like a drug while eating them inside with permanent scars. Do you want to know how I know? Because Cecilia had the exact same thing, which is exactly the reason why Viola wouldn't have lived for long after she got accidentally hit by her that one time, the full extent of that poison manifesting in one final high in Dirunon. Although, saying she'd survive the suicide run that Terna told me is already big to begin with. And Ana suffered that too, didn't she? The difference here is that you, unlike Ana, are worth more to me dead than alive. This is the one death I won't try to prevent, and just like Cecilia, I hope it really stings in the end, making you want to scream while the pain makes you unable to."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Hearing those words, stunned briefly as if she was trying to cope with the pain of a knife running through her heart, Magi could do nothing more but step away from the top deck. Only heard by her, in a normal tone of voice with only hatred running through every word, she was truly paralyzed in this situation. What could she say and how would she argue? Truly, everything happened word for word, there was no winner and everyone lost something more than the person next to them, their life at best and their will to live at worst. She knew that the hatred would run no matter how she pleaded, and seeking the same sort of happiness she was once denied, in this case, was but an impossibility.

Although Dante was briefly thinking about descending to the helicopter's lower floor, he instead firmly held his position afterward, agitated in more ways than one would imagine. Still, with poise centered around what he knew of him, Yuno approached shortly thereafter, knowing full well what had transpired as she saw Magi going away.

"Alright, what did you do now?", Yuno asked, hiding the fact that he knew as he made his approach.

"Enough is enough. You're useless to me since you can't summon weapons now anyways.", Dante walked away, Yuno's attempt being a complete failure.

Not quite dangerous, but dangerously unpredictable, Dante walked away as he left Yuno in total awe. More and more, ever since those events transpired in Dirunon, and as the days went on, he had to relearn all he knew about Dante, and as soon as he did, he'd have to do it again if he wanted to level with him. And now, with his one link that actually made him a Link starting to shatter, the entire system he thought he could hide behind was collapsing and leaving him in the dust.

Going down, in a bit to get away, he sat right before Tiki and Terna, who were both silently talking and reviewing a plan Tiki had laid on a device in front of her. From the far left side, near the back door, Isabella was looking out the windows as her eyes then laid on him, calmly approaching after she found the opportunity to do so.

"So, have you reviewed the plan?", she asked.

"What plan? It's as simple as it gets. We move cohesively, and we jump that large monster on the first chance we get. You expect me to lay out a plan when I'm both not given enough details to go off of, other than 'Big Monster'?", he angrily said, still annoyed about the facts that transpired before.

"Fair enough.", she ignored the attitude, "We do what the military wants, and then go from there. Luna should join us too, and based on what Drima updated the database with she is...strong. Really strong."

"Another weapon to use if you ask me. Better, so long as she's on our side, I guess we have a better chance. Have you been able to talk with Hikari yet?"

"Losing access to the gauntlets made it impossible to communicate with her, let alone switch with her. This has to do with the Abnormal Space, for sure, but I can't fix it, not right now."

"They're probably going to hand someone like Yuno an Obsulyte-infused weapon too. Otherwise, he's pretty useless. I thought there'd be more links to go around at this point, but I guess that's a lie too."

"Links popped up to hold the world coordinates of each individual they're linked to. If a world is still out there somewhere, a World Core, like what I had in me, is shared with them, but only they can navigate it. They've been getting exceedingly rare as more worlds died...had I had to guess, it's because whoever came here didn't exactly come from a world still standing."

"So you have a World Core?"

"That I do. But navigating back to my Earth? Impossible. I don't know how to use it, other than storing actual memories of the world as a whole."

"Yuno was from Mellistar's world? Or something like that, otherwise the link wouldn't exist. Interesting...did he actually get the wrong guy too?"

"I suggest pondering about this when a monster the size of a skyscraper isn't an imminent threat.", Isabella sighed, "If only Luna wasn't so eager to put things back in order."

"It is what it is. Not like we will up and die without a fight, but again, when there's nothing we can do about it, or currently don't know to do about it, it's better to just shut up and do what we can right now instead."

"An accurate tongue twister.", she felt the rumbling of the helicopter as her body became lighter, "Guess that's a landing. We're here."

Dante got up, "Alright...here we go."

With them finally landing down and the door dropping, they found themselves walking into the same fields again, albeit with a different atmosphere running throughout the air. Though the sun had barely risen itself, the restless defenders of Victoria were up and moving, having scattered themselves throughout the field as they prepared to face the imminent threat that would befall them. This time, this fight, would be much, much more than what had previously only been an issue running among them. The lives at stake and the monsters in question were anything but able to be dealt with with their original numbers. And it was a bulwark that raised itself to the skies, unavoidable and casting its shadow ever more above them.