Dante, The Paladin

'Captain?' Dante thought. He didn't give a speech.

Dante's heart raced as he turned, and saw his brother lying on the ground, in a pool of blood. Standing above his brother was a man with long and curly dark hair, wearing the brigades garb. His eyes were narrow and experienced. Worst of all, he wasn't marked. Dante clearly recognized him as a member of his brigade. Except, Dante couldn't remember his name, or even when he joined. Dante bit his lip in frustration as a stream of blood poured from the cut left by his tooth. It was transparent to him that his ranks had been infiltrated for some time.

His brother wasn't moving, but he knew that he would've used this as an excuse to mock his practice.

'Maybe if you spent less time praying, and spent more time training your troops, you could've noticed this sooner.'

Dante became overwhelmed by his emotions, he charged at the sly man with his shield, but was easily dodged. The man had simply stepped to the side at the last moment, and left his foot stuck out, catching Dante's charge, sending him rolling into the dirt.

"Oh, were you the captain? You two were always together, I could never tell you apart."

His smug words infuriated Dante. He looked up and locked eyes with him. A slight smile looking down upon the defeated Dante felt like a dagger had pierced his body thousands of times. The man flashed an even larger smile, put on the brigades helmet, and vanished into the shouts of the soldiers. More enemy soldiers started to appear unmarked. Either that, or the soldiers were still confused. The advantage of the fight was long lost.

Dante struggled to his feet, his mind racing with a mixture of anger and disbelief. He reached down to his brother, gently placing his hand on his shoulder. A warm glow of light emerged from his hand, and the wounds on the body closed. Still, he remained unmoving.

Dante clenched his fist and turned back to the battle. The number of soldiers had greatly decreased, there was hardly thirty or so soldiers still standing. None of them were marked. Sweeping his eyes over the dwindling number of soldiers, Dante made a split-second decision. Hidden on his him was a ceremonial dagger passed down through his family. Truthfully, his brother should've inherited the dagger, but he didn't care much for the power of the gods and said Dante was better suited it. Without a moment of hesitation, he unsheathed the dagger and with a swift, fluid motion, drove it deep into the ground. Energy poured into his hand through the dagger, and flowed through him in an instant.

Every inch of his being was screeching in pain, it felt like his limbs were tearing themselves apart. The gods that Dante prayed to faithfully day after day had responded to his call, but even this was more than he had accounted for. Dante's vision started to blur, and no matter how much he fought, he couldn't hold his own against this much power. Soon, Dante's vision went black.

Droplets of rain poured from the sky, each bead felt like an arrow piercing his skin. Dante opened his eyes, he was lying on his side on the bloodstained dirt. His sideways view showed nothing but mangled corpses and pools of blood.

He struggled to push himself to his feet, his entire body was sore, even breathing caused an unbearable sensation. He frantically looked around at the now empty battlefield. Every single corpse had been mangled beyond recognition. Just what happened after he used his dagger? He felt the holster on his belt, the dagger already been returned. Dante limped over to the spot where his brother fell. Unsurprisingly, his corpse was gone as well. It was impossible to tell where the remains had gone on the battlefield. Dante fell backward onto the ground. Tears uncontrollably flooded his eyes. His brother and his entire brigade were now dead, and he had no one to blame but himself.

Dante couldn't stay here any longer, nor did he have anywhere to return to. His brigade wasn't particularly high ranking for his nation, however it wasn't the worse. He couldn't return home alone. The best case scenario he returned to being just a regular soldier in part of a new brigade, worse case being they accuse him of mutiny and have him executed. Neither option was what he wanted. Instead, he wandered off into the forest. His meaning in this world was lost to him, but he was determined to find a new meaning.

After all, his brother would've mocked him if he sullied around any longer