Dantega:Volume 1 Chapter 4

(PART 3)

“Princess!” shouts Niomyo, in pain from simply being near the scene in front of her.

“She passed out Rage.” said Napoleon as he tries to keep a calm demeanor even though he himself is shaken deeply by what he is seeing.

“She’s fine, this is a common effect to an innocent person experiencing an overload of evil energy like this. You two are probably still conscious because of your past battles.”

Rage’s eyes are set on Ubica, he didn’t bother to see if Trojia was actually alright or not.

“Napoleon, carry her and get away from here, I have to stay behind.”

“Understood.”

Napoleon uses the last of his strength to lift Trojia off the ground and onto his back.

“Let’s go!” he shouts to a downed Niomyo.

“I-I can’t move...”

BOOOOOOOOM!!!!

A massive shock wave rips through the buildings surrounding the center where Ubica and Nero are. Windows are exploding from all around and shards of glass are slicing through the air in a tornado like gale. The framing of the buildings are now falling apart and flying into the night sky with intense speed; the large two towers are taking the full brunt of the force and are swaying awkwardly back and forth while breaking into pieces.

And then....

CRAAAAAAAAASHHH!!

The two towers fall to the ground, and pieces of the buildings litter the area after the collapse. Jagged pieces of metal, stone and glass point dangerously in thousands of different directions. Lung ripping debris is dropping down on the center and through the alleyways of the other half downed buildings.

Napoleon is covering Niomyo and Trojia with his body as a natural reaction to the sound of the blast. He then opens his eyes and wonders how in the world they are all still alive. The two towers that fell were less than a hundred yards from the alleyway that they are in, it's only natural that he would think they should be dead.

Napoleon looks to where he last saw Rage and sees that black clouds surround him, he is standing as if nothing had happened. After glancing in other directions he realizes that all of them are completely surrounded by black clouds as well.

“What the hell just happened!?” shouts Napoleon.

Rage’s voice is unwavering when he says, “See for yourself.”

The clouds disperse and disappear. The sight that Napoleon witnesses is that of absolute destruction, the scene is like the aftermath of an atomic explosion. Only rubble remains of the tall buildings that once surrounded them. Through the debris one can only see the dark silhouettes of the jagged broken mess of the former structures through the smoke.

“You have just witnessed a small extent of Ubica’s power.”

"There’s more!?” Napoleon shouts in shock.

Looking carefully enough one can see a man standing amidst the chaos, it’s Ubica.

Ubica raises his hand and with a swift move of his arm, the debris that pollutes the air gathers rapidly into a tornado like ball and disperses into the sky.

“My city! No! My beautiful city!” shouts Nero, his voice raspy and dry as though the air was sucked out of his chest along the remains of this once bright city.

The mass scale of the destruction is seen clearly under the light of the three moons.

“It’s been so long since I have demolished someone’s pride like this.”

“HHRRAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!!!”

Nero whales in pain, initial shock has suddenly worn off and now he can feel the damage that has been thrust upon him by Ubica’s attack. Where his right arm once was is now a bloody stub of flesh that reaches all the way to the joint of his shoulder blade.

“So despite the barbed wire that you can make out of your blood, you’re still able to feel pain huh?.”

“W-Wait Leader! If you are back to normal you should want to help me!”

“Help you? Have I ever really helped any of you?”

"B-But what about those humans!? Aren’t you helping them?”

“In a lot of ways I’m no different now than I ever was… it all benefits me in the end.”

“How!? How can doing this give you more than being our leader!?”

“Because I want something different now.”

“Graaaaccckkkkk!”

The bones in Nero’s right leg splinters and corrode through his skin. The muscles shred slowly and his whole leg is contorted into three different directions, it is truly a ghastly scene as he writhes in pain.

“Your presence here was meant to get in the way of it, for that I won’t forgive you.”

“Amazing... Ubica isn’t even moving and he is causing so much damage.” Napoleon says in awe.

He and Rage are standing with a barely conscious Niomyo leaning on his shoulder.

“Against someone weak like that, his mere presence alone is enough to kill.” replies Rage in his usual stern voice. “Now you see why I have been trying to reap his wretched soul ever since he escaped from the eternal lake.”

“Is he really that big of a threat?”

“He is, if he loses himself completely to Dantega, he alone is the biggest threat to everything and everyone. I can’t risk that, he must be destroyed before he fully awakens. While he is still weak... I’ll have no choice but to end it here if this gets worse.”

“...Dantega?”

The body language of Rage changes into that of absolute determination.

A shiver rolls down Napoleon's spine when he considers how powerful Rage must be if he can say in such confidence that he can defeat the monster that has completely obliterated numerous large buildings with one wave of a hand.

Now rocking like a sailboat in stormy waters, Nero is surrounded by a large puddle of his own blood on the marble ground. Ubica sees this and mocks him, “I wonder how much you can withstand before you bleed out?”

Nero has rolled on his stomach and is motionless.

“.....”

Ubica looks agitated at the fact that Nero has passed out from shock.

But then, a soft laugh is heard. “Kuffuuuuuhhahaaaahhahaa.” the laugh becomes loud until it turns into a roar, “DON’T THINK YOU HAVE WON!”

With a splash sound, the blood puddle that is surrounding Nero begins to shake, and from it spews hundreds of knives hurling toward Ubica’s body and face. In an instant the red diamond sword that was on the ground a few yards away appears in Ubica’s hand, and with a simple wave the projectiles are scattered off into the distance.

Seemingly all were dispersed when Ubica clicked his tongue bitterly.

“Tch.”

There is a twelve inch knife protruding from his body just above the naval area. Nero’s face turns raw with excitement.

“Heheh, it’s over Leader.”

“..?”

“Naturally, I can oxidize the ferrum in your blood as well!!”

The knife in Ubica’s stomach melts away into a silver liquid and has entered into his bloodstream. The natural form of iron in its purest state is even softer than aluminum, so it takes little heat to melt it into a liquid. After it combines with carbon it begins to take its hardened form, and once it reacts to the air it will oxidize and solidify. Each one of these steps, though minuscule, can be found naturally in a human body, thus Nero is attempting to virtually turn the insides of Ubica into raw steel.

However...

Nothing is happening, Ubica is still standing with a thin grin on his face.

“WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING!?” shouts a desperate Nero.

“I told you didn’t I? I don’t have a human heart, my blood is cold.”

Nero instantly knows that his plan isn’t going to work, in order for Iron to flow through the bloodstream, the blood must be warm enough to keep it in liquid form. His plan was to carbonize Ubica’s iron once his own blood began flowing through Ubica's veins. But instead, the wound instantly clotted, thus making this an impossibility.

“On any other person that would be an instant death. I commend you Nero, you have gotten quite strong.” He takes in a slow breath and sharply exhales as he shoots the injured man a cold glare. “But I'm tired of looking at you.”

Ubica swings his sword horizontally towards the ground. A slicing wave of wind rips through the marble ground and shoots rapidly into Nero’s upper left thigh and shoulder, a wind trail of broken ground and blood is sprayed outward in a gale so strong it splits a massive gap into the rubble a hundred meters away.

“GUUUAAAAAAHHHHHCCKKK!”

After the dust is cleared, Nero is lying prostrate on the ground no longer in the form of a human. Both of his arms and left leg are gone, and the one remaining limb is a tattered and broken right leg.

“Uhhaaa Leader... please... show mercy.” Nero begs as he coughs out blood.

Ubica walks closer and is now standing just a few feet from his head.

“There’s no mercy for traitors who’d turn their sword against me.”

“PLEASE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!!!” shouts Nero with all of his strength.

Without a shred of emotion, he quickly inserts his sword into the open mouth of Nero.

“Gbbllkkkkkkk!!!”

Ubica slams the tip of his sword through Nero’s mouth and out the back of his head into the marble ground. The sound is truly disturbing as it goes through his throat, brain and skull, the sound similar to a large cockroach being stepped on.

The battle is over, Nero is beyond dead. Ubica is standing over his body as though he were in contemplation: he shifts his gaze toward the night sky and remains that way.

“This is the moment of truth. If he can’t control his power here and now, I’ll have no choice but to eliminate him.” says an onlooking Rage postured in a battle stance.

Napoleon and Niomyo can only stare in shock at what they had just witnessed.

“Such brutality... and against his own comrade.” Napoleon says, a cold sweat falls down his temple.

Niomyo, who might as well be paralyzed by Ubica’s presence is somewhat thinking the same thing, but her thoughts land on the person most important to her, (I can’t let princess Trojia get involved with someone like this!)

Each second feels like minutes as the watch on in angst.

Then suddenly, Niomyo regains the feeling in her body and can now move. “Huh? I’m back to normal.”

The migraine that plagued Napoleon is gone as well.

Rage returns to a relaxed stance and says, “Good, he’s back.”

Niomyo breathes a sigh of relief when the thought of Trojia pops into mind; she turns her head toward the direction where she was laying on the ground and sees her princess looking confusedly at Ubica.

“What? What in the world happened here?” Trojia asks as she awakens to the sight of utter destruction, nothing but rubble, pillars, broken glass and blood fill her view.

“Ubica?”

“Princess don’t look!”

Niomyo tightly hugs Trojia, trying to shift her attention elsewhere but Trojia’s eyes are fixated on the bloodied Ubica who is staring aimlessly at the sky, surrounded by rubble and standing over a brutally massacred body in which Ubica’s sword is still protruding out of its mouth.

Rage sees this and says, “Napoleon, escort these two back to the hostel. We can’t have Ubica ever find out that they have seen this.”

Napoleon regains his calm demeanor and replies, “Understood. You have my word.”

He and Niomyo have to drag a reluctant Trojia from the scene, her eyes are still stuck in the direction of Ubica, her mind wondering just what in the world happened.

Rage walks to Ubica’s side and asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Perhaps guilt? No... I don’t know what it is.” replies Ubica with a blank look on his face.

“Don’t come back to the hostel looking like that, you’ll scare everyone.”

“I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Will your wounds heal by then?”

“Heh, of course they will, I am a monster after all.”

Rage faintly smiles and blows air out of his nose as he walks away through the rubble and disappears in the distance.

Ubica is sitting alone on a piece of the broken building, his glance happens to hit something in the rubble and finds that there is a tattered arm hanging out of it. He double takes and looks closer and makes direct eye contact with the eyes of an unfamiliar head that has been severed and pressed between two large pieces of building.

He hangs his head low as he puts his hand over the hole where his heart should be, he then murmurs to himself, “This is guilt after all… I wonder how many more people I’ve just killed?”

Dawn has arrived, the sun has barely peaked over the horizon. Shops in the town are beginning to open for business and people are roaming the cobblestone streets trying to find the best early deals on fresh bread, fish and other goods. It’s as if they don’t even notice that in the center of their town lies a mountain of rubble where numerous and large buildings once stood. One can only assume that they either don’t care, or they were expecting this to happen eventually. In Purgatory, deities come and go quite often and claim land, villages and cities, so it is not all that rare to see something one day, and have it be gone the next.

In the empty lobby of the hostel sits an exhausted Trojia, she has been up all night since the incident waiting for Ubica’s safe return. Trying not to panic she takes deep breaths, but not a second goes by where she doesn’t think about how hurt he was, and how he was covered in blood. With her eyes stuck on the front entrance she sees a shadow of a man appear; Ubica walks through the front door with his head hung down. He is cleaned up and is wearing a different set of clothing, a black hoodie with a fur laced hood covers a long sleeved white v-necked shirt, and tightly worn gray pants are atop of white slip-on style shoes.

The change in apparel is the least of Trojia’s worries; much to her surprise Ubica seems like he is completely unharmed.

“Ubica!”

Ubica’s head jolts upwards, he shows her a happy expression and then looks away quickly.

“...You should still be asleep.”

“I couldn’t possibly sleep when you have been gone all night, I was worried!”

“Sorry about that.”

Trojia is flushed red, in her relief she walks to Ubica and puts her hand on his chest. She thinks to herself, (I can’t let him find out that I saw everything... but I wonder if he’ll lie about it if I ask?)

Ubica feels troubled by her touch and says, “Listen Trojia, you really should go to back to---“

“Why did you run off last night? Where did you go?” she interrupts.

".....”

After a few moments of silence Trojia says, “You won’t tell me..?”

“I can’t.” he replies, his eyes shifted toward the wall.

Trojia again becomes silent, if one fell, a pin drop could be heard in the empty lobby.

In the silence she remembers a conversation that Ubica and Nero had earlier in which Ubica said that he doesn't have a heart. She wonders if it is true or not and she presses her palm in the middle of his chest.

(Nothing?) she thinks to herself in surprise, there is no inkling of a heartbeat coming from Ubica. (There’s no way... I could swear I’ve heard it before.)

Ubica is growing increasingly uncomfortable and gently pushes her away. “If you don't mind... I'd rather not have this conversation right now."

He moves her to the side and tries to walk away, but his back is embraced tightly.

“You don’t have to shoulder your burden alone, you know? I can help you.” she said with a cracked voice.

“It’s not the kind of burden that can be shared."

Her grip gently loosens before she slides off his back and collapses on the wooden floor with a loud thud, Ubica quickly turns around and sees Trojia lying motionlessly on the ground.

“Eh? Trojia!? Hey!”

Ubica shakes her a little, when she doesn’t move he begins to feel panicked at the suddenness of her collapse. But seeing that she’s breathing fine, he realizes that she’s just passed out in exhaustion.

With a sigh of relief, he lifts her into his arms and walks toward the large couch in the middle of the lobby, after laying her down softly, he takes the new hoody with a fur hood off of his back and places it on top of the nightwear she’s wearing.

After watching her sleep for a few moments, he presses his hand on his chest and with a light smile says, “That gave me quite the scare… that emotion, it’s almost like having a human heart for a moment. ”

He looks up at the ceiling blankly, and with a sigh he shuts his eyes and begins to sleep.

First Contact: (END)

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