The tremble in Dante's arms hadn't vanished. His legs still felt like they could give at any second. But his eyes were steady, locked on Isamu, unwavering.
For the first time, he saw the cracks.
Not just in Isamu's stance, but in his rhythm. The brute force was still there, the flames still raged, but the precision? The edge? It was slipping.
Dante remembered his friends words, cutting through the haze like a lifeline, "You've gotta find your own rhythm."
He breathed. Cold air in. Fire all around.
"I'm not here to match your heat," Dante muttered, lifting his blade. "I'm here to put it out."
Isamu's scowl deepened. "What'd you say?"
Dante didn't answer.
He just moved.
A quick step. A faint. A flicker of frost across the ground. Not to finish it, yet, but to bait him.
It worked.
Isamu snarled and lunged, blade swinging in a heavy arc, fury crackling behind the blow. "YOU!"
Dante sidestepped again, narrowly, letting the blade slam into the ground where he'd just been. The stone shattered, fire geysering upward, but it didn't hit him.
Last time he overcommitted, he lost balance...
Dante spun back in, slashing low, ice forming jagged trails behind his strike. It scraped across Isamu's leg, not deep, but enough to sting.
"Quit dancing around, coward!" Isamu barked. "Stand and fight like a real warrior!"
Dante locked eyes with him, and smirked.
"You first." Taking a page from Rika's book, taunting him.
Isamu took the bait again, his temper boiling over. "Someone as weak as you doesn't even deserve to speak to me!"
He came down with another crushing blow.
But Dante was ready.
He caught the strike, not with strength, but timing, blade-to-blade, parrying it wide. He didn't retreat. He pressed.
Now it was his turn.
Dante surged forward, strike after strike, a flurry of cold steel crashing against fire. Sloppy? Maybe. Desperate? Definitely. But relentless. Measured in its chaos. He didn't need a perfect blow, just one clean shot.
Ice coiled at his feet as he pushed Isamu back, step by step. Isamu tried to recover, to anchor down, but Dante didn't let up.
And then.
Crack!
Dante reeled back, and drove his fist straight into Isamu's jaw. The impact echoed like a gunshot. Isamu reeled, dazed.
Dante didn't wait.
He slashed again, pressing the opening, then flung out his palm and froze the ground beneath them, a slick, glimmering sheet that spread like frostbite.
Isamu's boot slid.
He stumbled.
Dante shot forward.
Blade drawn, eyes blazing, ready to end it.
But-
"I WON'T LET YOU!!"
Isamu roared, slamming his blade into the ground as a detonation of flame burst outward. The blast ripped through the hall, shaking the very foundations. The explosion raced down corridors, through windows, knocking guildmates from chairs and sending mages scrambling for cover.
The heat was unbearable. Smoke clouded everything.
Rika resting in her room felt the rumbling. "OH GODS!" She shouted. She used her boomerang to lift Con into the air retreating from the blast.
Toni carrying Nanami away from, the blast everyone retreats.
For a moment, there was no sight. No sound. Just the aftershock.
Isamu stood, chest heaving, sweat pouring from him as he scanned the wreckage. "Where are you, coward?!" He shouted into the haze.
Then, a glow.
The glow shocking Isamu to his very core.
A soft, steady blue shimmer, cutting through the dust and flame.
A sword. Radiant. Alive with power
Dante stepped forward from the smoke, battered but unbroken, frost dancing around his shoulders, trailing from his boots. His blade pulsed with a deep azure light, something more than just ice, resolve.
His voice was calm. "I remember everything now."
Isamu blinked. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Dante lifted his weapon. "From the moment I left home. Every voice that said I wasn't enough. Every mistake I made. Every time I was left behind."
Memories surged through him, Kaito's hand on his shoulder, Nanami's quiet encouragement, the laughter of his team, the sting of every failure.
Every word.
"It's ok to freeze up."
"You're trying to be Kaito."
Just find your rhythm."
"You can fight Dante."
The words surged into him.
"I'm not here to fight you, Isamu," he said, light gathering around his blade.
"I'm here to surpass you."
Isamu stood frozen, "he was supposed to be nothing, but thats...."
The weapon pulsed, and unleashed.
A Weapon Arte, unlike anything he'd done before, erupted from the blade, a spiraling arc of ice and force. It howled forward, carving a path toward Isamu.
The fighter's eyes widened. "No, I wont lose, NOT TO YOU!"
He roared, striking with his own Weapon Arte, flame igniting in a roaring inferno. His blade crackled with heat, streaked with crimson lightning.
The two artes collided.
And for a moment, it was even.
Then Dante felt it. The power in Isamu's swing, the sheer weight of it, he was stronger. Fiercer. Maybe even better.
But Dante clenched his teeth, muscles screaming, and thought of Kaito.
Of catching up to him.
Of standing beside him, not behind.
He pushed forward.
Screaming, pouring everything he had, and more, into the strike.
The clash cracked, shattered, then broke.
Dante's blade cut through.
It tore through Isamu's defense, through his weapon, through the dueling hall itself.
The walls split.
The ceiling groaned.
The entire guild shook as a blinding line carved the room in half. Dante had cut through the entire building!
Silence.
Then.
Thud.
Isamu fell to his knees, sword broken, body scorched. He collapsed forward, breath rasping.
Dante stood above him, blade lowered, his body barely holding together.
But he didn't fall.
He looked down at the defeated warrior, eyes calm.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
He turned, the glow of his sword fading.
"For being my stepping stone." Dante says as he's climbed higher.