Ebony ichor dripped from a man’s fist as a skinless humanoid crumpled before him. His eyes sank to the heart in his hands, already desiccated and ancient, yet beating nonetheless within his hands.

With a swift movement, he tossed the organ to the snowbank before him. His eyes flickered back, expressing discontent at the vast emptiness he had overcome. Then, he continued onward with a scoff, “Nice try, Inferose. But I’m in here. Just like your sister Crystlung, even if you are stronger, I will have you.”

The air stiffened at his words as the dimension itself roiled with anger. The distant fire raged higher, lighting the morning air with desperation and disgust. Yet no retaliation ensued, for the Inferose had no avatar capable of felling this beast. It had already tried to buy time. It already tried to slay him. And failed.

* A scene on the very edge of the Inferose’s forest.

Dante rolled with the embers of slumber onto his back, the noiseless morning sky burning into his eyes. His eyelids fluttered open, and he squinted from the sudden light.

With a groan, he pulled himself against a tree, resting his back as he observed his surroundings. The first thing he confirmed was Eight’s condition. The boy sat on an opposite tree, staring thousands of miles out, his pupils unfocused and unfettered.

Both their wounds had ceased bleeding, courtesy of Joan’s emergency medication. Though the two vials were all Dante had carried with him from the Starsinger, expended months later. Hemomarat was her invention, and while it couldn’t turn back death, it was damn close.

A mere vial’s worth would clot almost any hemorrhaging, mend bones, and reknit organs. Together with the high-nutritional composite within, the body could handle the extreme acceleration of healing.

As such, the two felt far better than they did before the night of rest. Soreness lingered, and the cold dug deep throughout before the morning roused them, but they could move again.

Eight’s mechanical parts remained unrepaired. He had suppressed them thanks to the flesh above connecting once more. Scars crisscrossed his neck and chest, the Cryo’s clothes long since marred by battle.

After checking on the teen, Dante’s eyes turned to the forest at large. His ears heard not a feather of noise. Not even a falling snowflake. It was as if the Inferose was holding its breath.

The human shook his head and stood. His legs carried him through the snow until he arrived before Eight. A hand flew out from his side, offering help to the teen, “Eight?”

A pair of eyes slowly drifted over to Dante, peering up at him from the alabaster earth. With a sigh, Eight clasped his hand around Dante’s palm, “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. Can’t be awesome without some trauma, right?”

Once Eight rose to his feet, Dante rolled his eyes. He patted the Cryo’s shoulder before Eight could react and strode away.

“Come on. If you want to talk, let me know,” Dante suggested as they continued through the snow toward the distant burning light.

Eight groaned as he followed, ice building upon his feet to create wider shoes. Each step landed upon the snow but didn’t push it down, allowing him to walk easily over the white.

After a few seconds of trudging through the tundra, he finally replied, “What do you mean? Nothing happened back there. Nothing at all.”

The two held a glance for a moment, and both paused in their steps. Eight’s gaze challenged Dante, and this one time, the man withdrew without remorse.

He merely nodded and resumed his step.

As they walked, Dante played with his new Stigmata, Matchlock. It felt like a puzzle piece that had finally interlocked with his soul. A piece of him had arrived at long last.

Again and again, he practiced with it, feeling a fraction of the same fatigue as he did with Reset. This was his. And his alone.

After a few minutes, the familiar headache of using his Tide built up, so he halted the practice. Now was not the time to test his limits. The Inferose surely planned to do that on its own.

Shortly after Dante fixed his Matchlocks back into place with the ideal triggers, Eight hummed for his attention. The blue eyes of the man shifted toward where Eight’s finger pointed.

There, perhaps a half-mile from where they hid last night, a body lay torn apart. Every limb took Dante a moment to uncover, displaced from the body. The two crouched at the corpse, meeting one another’s gaze.

“Not anyone we saw,” said Dante confidently as he trailed a finger over the bite marks.

Eight agreed, tapping an icy stiletto's sharp tip against the dead creature’s forehead. “Yeah. It seems we have company in here.”

Neither cared about the dead Dirge. Dante held a mote of concern for a single Dirge, and his flesh was abyssal black, not a light tone of gray. Furthermore, he didn’t believe Astraeus to die in such a manner.

They spoke only about the being that had done the killing. The duo rose a moment later, and they paused after a single step away.

A duet of heads turned back to the corpse.

“A corpse. Hours later. Interesting,” Dante’s observations entered the air. Eight shrugged and went onward.

The cold sapped away their strength minute by minute as the wind picked up and worsened their conditions. Thankfully, both remained resistant to the lower end of temperatures. Between Dante’s minor mastery of Surewinter and Eight’s Tide being Cryo, the two kept their internals from freezing for now.

However, if the temperature dropped further, there would be problems. The air had already plunged ten degrees below zero and continued to sink.

Just as the two shivered, they found the forest growing sparse. The trees thinned out, and after a few more minutes, Dante glimpsed a diner.

His eyebrows rose in confusion and then furrowed in contemplation as he saw the many ancient buildings. Everything seemed constructed in the old style of humans, of his people.

They stopped in front of the diner, seeing a great score of tracks and footprints in the road, diner, and near the nearest house. Dante stood still for a minute, lost in thought, while Eight opened the glass door and strode in.

At least a hundred people? That doesn’t sound right. At most, even counting the Dirge that entered during our scuffle, there would be maybe two dozen people here. Where did they all go? I—

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Dante’s eyes widened as he saw a flash of movement across the street. He ran toward it without hesitation, moving with increased alacrity as he pushed himself with his Tide. Water hurried him along, the growing skill helping him turn the corner of the house.

There, he saw a translucent figure hovering, hiding. It appeared identical to Geist, only far less opaque. If the Anacrux was quartz, this being was frosted glass. The odd thing was, however, that it was denser than Dante recalled them in the past.

It was from his Domain Collapse. A Ghost Of The Damned.

As he recalled his experience with the Caesar, Dante asked him, “Geist? Do you remember me?”

It was a long shot. Geist made it abundantly clear that he was dead. Even so, there stood a chance. The phantom of Arido turned around, squinting at the human.

“Do I know you, human?” Geist shifted backward, careful to not start a fight in his condition.

Dante sighed, for he was right. Whatever form of Geist he had spoken with was not this one. His Geist, the awakened one who offered help and advice, had long died.

Still, Dante knew better than to antagonize the Caesar, even if he was a mere remnant. Geist, while on death’s doorstep, came within an inch of slaughtering Eight, Rasa, and him.

“No. But I know you. How are you in this form? I mean no harm. In fact, I believe we can work together,” Dante raised his hands as he showcased a lack of weapons. His attempt at peace worked, but only marginally.

Geist’s ghostly brows furrowed, and he spoke with caution and a trace of despair, “I am dead. I doubt there is much I can do to help you. Sometimes, Tides and Stigmata can grow more potent after death. In truth, I don’t believe I can be called Geist anymore. I am but a Ghost Of The Damned, still haunting the living.”

The human pursed his lips. The idea of Tides and Stigmata growing stronger upon death made some sense. A Stigmata was the manifestation of the soul, so without a body, the soul would exert more influence. A Tide was a little different, though.

“How do Tides grow stronger after death? And is there any way to bring you back?” Dante asked softly before his voice lowered even further. “Are you still being manipulated by the unknown?”

For a moment, a tiny fraction of time, both the ghost and Dante felt the air vibrate. The ghost contorted as if in pain. Then it stilled. The human stepped back, goosebumps crawling over his flesh, while Geist’s remnant lost some of its opaqueness, turning more illusory.

Both stood silent, shivering from whatever had just occurred. The dead Caesar was the first to recover and practically ignored the tertiary question, “Almost all Stigmata grow stronger in death. The process is called Stigmata Crucifixion. They are how many weapons and tools are created from highly talented corpses. Tides, though...” Geist trailed off for a moment before rediscovering his place. “Tides rely on a synchronization of the mind and body, much like age-old martial arts. Most deaths damage this harmony, weakening the Tide and dissolving it. But what must have happened to me... I must have somehow felt at peace in my death. How interesting a thought... Hmm...”

The ghost spoke quite unlike the Geist Dante once knew. It differed from the bloodlusted maniac who vied with Thanaris for power. He was... an old man, more willing to delve into careful thought than violence.

Again, Dante knew there was something cataclysmically wrong with the Lightsea and the Dirge. However, in order to not anger Geist or the unknown being who must have tried to react earlier but failed for some reason, the man refrained from mentioning his part in Geist’s death.

“That is interesting. But is there a way to return you to life?” Dante’s question was genuine. While Geist might have committed countless atrocities in life, he was not the same man now. The human found his wisdom and experience in the Lightsea essential to his survival and growth.

Geist shrugged, floating closer to Dante. As he neared the human, the phantom halted, contorting his see-through head and opening his misty maw, “You. Why do you make me feel calmer? So interesting. I’ll do what I can to help you, human, As long as you do one thing for me.”

With a nod, Dante agreed to, at the very least, hear the request.

“Make me a pond. Lily pads and a terrace surrounding it. I do not wish to return to life. It was... restrictive in many ways...” Geist’s lips curled slightly, and both understood what was shared. “Promise me this harmony, and I’ll help you how I can. But I can’t do too much, or else I’ll fade. I need time to reconstitute.”

The second Dante prepared to nod his head, a voice boomed from behind him, “He’s still fucking alive!?”

Behind the human, Eight dropped his plate of food, rushing toward Geist with twin-fang daggers of ice. Before he could reach the undead Tide, Dante shouted and moved between them, “Stop! He’s not a threat! And he is dead. This is just his post-mortem Tide.”

Like an ancient Buddhist repeating a mantra, Geist corrected Dante, “Revenant Tide.”

“Right. Revenant Tide,” Dante waved his arms, calming Eight after only several attempts at an explanation. Geist prepared to run, his illusory body rising.

Eventually, the Cryo relented, cursing as he stared down at his ruined food, “Fucking bastard. So hungry,” Eight headed back to the diner but not without tossing out a middle finger. “You owe me new innards.”

The demand only made sense to Dante, and the human shrugged. Then, he finally promised Geist, “Yes. I’ll make you that paradise. So what can you do?”

A long, curved, and maniacal smile inched over Geist’s face before it fixed itself. Then, the being of Revenant Tide ballooned with Arido, mist drifting from the creature in every direction at once.

“What can I do? Hmm... Call me Eidolon,” spoke the being as it held up an illusory palm, inspecting itself. “I possess all the abilities of my living self in terms of Arido, though at a smaller scale. No Stigmata, either. Can’t see through objects or into people anymore. Don’t expect me to stand up to Thanaris, but I could probably handle a ‘Thema if I’m careful.”

Dante nodded, welcoming the remnant of Geist to follow him. The two wandered around the buildings, investigating them as they spoke about the dimension they were in. They tossed ideas and thoughts back and forth about the nature of the challenge and their next steps until they found Eight back at the diner.

The boy patted his stomach, stepping away from the chiming of the glass door with a relieved smile. A sigh released itself from the confines of Dante’s lungs while Eidolon hovered beside him.

Eight lifted an eyebrow, pointing at the phantom, “So what? Is he just gonna float around like that? A little eye-catching, don’t you think? Also, aren’t you starving?”

The dark-haired human glanced at his newest companion. He gave Eight’s idea a nod and asked, “Could you shrink? Or become harder to see?” Dante then turned back to the teen. “No. I’ve gone far longer without food. It will only dull my senses right now.”

After a shrug, the Cryo threw up his hands. He had never met a man more bizarre in his life, at least from what he could remember. So, he merely waited, watching as Eidolon’s illusory form began to twist and distort.

“Yes. I can condense myself. How about this...?” Eidolon’s figure, with just a single moment, transfigured into a fishing rod. A chorale of laughter emerged from Eight, the boy nearly falling on the ground.

Meanwhile, Dante rubbed his jaw, utterly surprised by the shift. Though, it was not for the better.

A fishing rod? How... No, that makes sense with the ‘paradise’ he wants. He looks like a tool forged from a slain Dirge. A Life-Echo. Astraeus talked about these ‘Echoes’ quite a bit. In fact... Eidolon might just be an odd one.

Dante’s thoughts rushed through his mind before he accepted the change. He reached forward and grasped the handle of the fishing rod before setting it against his tattered pack. Eidolon seamlessly settled into it and attached to it without issue.

Eight’s childish chuckles continued, but the human didn’t take it as lightly. He glared right at the Cryo and hissed, “Give him some respect. He’s with us for now, whether or not you like it. Get your shit together.”

The words sobered Eight right up. His liveliness vanished, and he stood up straight. Frost gathered on his palms as he stared into Dante’s eyes with a challenge.

“I know you’ve been through some shit. I tried to give you some help. But we don’t have time for mental breakdowns,” Dante declared as he lifted one hand toward the burning, distant sky. “We must reach that before anyone else and find our crews.”

The conjured ice vanished with a shiver, and Eight sighed. Then he smacked his hands together. No apology came from the teen, but that was enough.

Three set off for the Inferose’s core, heading up a snowy hill. However, after just a few moments, they found tracks in the same direction. Dante kneeled, listening to Eidolon talk. The apparition rambled about how he hadn’t seen any other living creatures since he had entered. All he knew was that Hana had entered since he discovered the Inferose from sensing another ghost’s death.

Dante’s expression hardened as he counted up the footprints and tallied who they belonged to. Rejo, Talander, Sonna, and Astraeus all had unique ways of walking.

The Araki stomped without care, his feet larger than average, while Dante recognized Talander, an Irgen, from Claudius’ crew. The tail was unmistakable in the snow. Sonna’s lightweight nature kept her from sinking deep while her lithe form separated her from Astraeus, who did the same with help from his Tide.

After cutting out those footsteps he knew and those he didn’t, he continued breaking down the rest. In mere moments, he identified Rosa, Claudius, Joan, and even Lucius’ shambling form. He managed this by splitting up the numbers.

Four old sets walked in one direction and five in another. With Astraeus and Rejo being in the group of five, such was trivial. However, there were three more tracks.

An even older pair of footprints rushed toward a separate route toward the blazing center. The only duo Dante could imagine within this world were Hana and Melody.

The size of the trails also added up in his head. A little more diminutive than average.

However, the final trace stumped him. He discerned it to be recent. At most, an hour or two old. Dante had barely missed them. The man brought a hand to mouth, gnawing on a nail as he fell into thought.

Which one? Judas? Or the mysterious man? Perhaps even someone else? Hmm... He seems to follow no one, treading his path straight for the core. The better question is, who wouldn’t move like this?

Dante recalled the unknown figure’s movement and capabilities. Then, he compared it to the fathomless Judas while outlining it with a finger. His gut spoke, and so, too, did he, “It’s the man who shot you, Eight.”

A clap resounded as the Cryo crafted dual daggers, already prepped for a battle. The Hydro beside him shook his head, rustling the teen’s ripped suit, “No. We won’t find Friday on our own. Go to your crew. That’s their tracks. I’ll return to mine.”

“What about killing him together?” Eight questioned Dante with a dangerous glint in his eye. He was pondering violence at such a minor inconvenience.

In Dante’s mind, Eight’s condition was deteriorating. Fast. However, he didn’t show an ounce of such thoughts to the young man and instead said, “We will. But not just us two. Find Claudius and tell him who is here. About this... Friday and Judas.”

Eight’s ambition deflated as he exhaled, already walking toward the four lines denoting his crew. With a grumble, he said goodbye, “Fine.”

Dante waved back to him, pivoting to jog toward his crew. It had been a long time since they last seen each other. He wondered what they would think of him.

How they would react to his reappearance. They had been together longer than he was with them by a whole magnitude.

Would he fail to fall back into his own crew?

He shook his head. Two of them were too predictable.

Rejo and Joan wouldn’t change just like that. Especially not his favorite mercenary.

Without thinking about such things any further, he sped up, hurrying to meet with his people. He had much to tell them and much to warn them about.