Chapter 61: Winter (IV)

Honor, the word lingered over Dante like a ghost, a shadow that never left him. He remembered the days in the Bamboo Fields, where the sound of the stalks bending to the wind mixed with the echo of his father's lessons.

"Honor is what sets us apart from animals," Render would say, his deep voice like thunder, while making him repeat the footwork steps, one by one.

The memory wasn't painful just because his days were monotonous, but because of the man's face in his mind. The Sergeant, a man with yellowed teeth and the breath of cheap brandy, pointing his fat finger at his face.

Even though his eyes remained open, staring at the first snowflakes falling over Kappz, the words from almost a decade ago still lingered.

"You'll never be anything. Nothing." The spit flying from his mouth as he yelled still felt real. "You'll die before you even become someone, you little shit."

The Sergeant's crooked smile wasn't one of joy but of satisfaction. A wolf that had fed, letting the blood drip from its mouth. And that was how it ended, when Dante stained his teeth with his own blood.

Dying with a smile, was that a reason for honor?

"I found you."

It was Meliah Jones. He wore a long coat, different from what he had been wearing in the previous weeks. He had realized that the cold was worse than he imagined, one he couldn't completely hide from behind his machinery.

The Industrial Sector had sheltered them for too long, spoiling them. Not that Dante cared. He just wanted to remain alone in his solitary watch.

"The intention was to be alone." Dante leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. "What do you want?"

"I thought I should talk to you. Clara told me all the resources that were collected were thanks to you."

He sat beside Dante, ignoring all the warnings to keep his distance. Dante doubted he could even read; he chuckled to himself. It wasn't his habit to order someone to leave. He just didn't want to mix Clara's requests with anything else.

"Talk to me. Well, go ahead. What happened? Is your brother okay?"

"Actually, he's getting worse." The elder Jones pulled a cigarette from the inside pocket of his brown coat and placed it in his mouth. He lit it with a lighter. Dante hadn't seen one of those since the capital. "He's getting worse day by day. The fever won't break, his fingers are getting darker, and we have no conventional way to treat him. I tried, really, I talked to Antton to get some of that blue paste they use to seal the wounds of slaughtered animals, but he refused too. Said I'm living with the enemy."

Dante let out a low, almost inaudible laugh, like the snap of a dry twig underfoot.

"He's not wrong, is he?"

"Enemy or ally, everyone wants the best for the people they protect." He extended the lighter when he saw the cigar in Dante's fingers. "Want one? I still have another."

Accepting the lighter, Dante lit his cigar with a light drag, exhaling smoke through his nose, disappearing into the cold winds.

"I like to say I have my own enemies," Meliah continued, looking into the distance. "I arrived here with Degol a long time ago, but I never expected we would come close to taking the entire Industrial Sector. The Felroz weren't easy to clear out. And then there's Sharm, that nest..."

The two fell silent. What Meliah wanted, Dante couldn't say. Making small talk was something he enjoyed doing with Tecno or Freto; even in those chaotic days, they were sublime friends.

He felt safe walking beside them. Now, in Kappz, Dante didn't know if what his heart was telling him was aversion. Here, everything was... too peaceful.

You'll never be anything. You'll never do anything.

"Dante?"

He looked at Meliah after getting lost in thought again.

"Sorry, I was thinking about something else." He lowered the cigar. "I may have been a little rude with my words last time, but I won't change my stance. I don't care where you came from or what you've done. Honestly, I'm not one to judge what you think is right or wrong. I just want to know if you'll help while you're here."

"Of course I will," the response came with a tone of disdain and a hint of anger. "I know my brother is going through something I can't just fix, but I won't sit around doing nothing because of it. I know very well what..."

"Stop talking for a bit."

He didn't expect him to actually stay quiet. Dante stood up with a slow, almost lazy movement, arching his back until he heard the soft crack of his vertebrae. It wasn't a gesture of comfort but of a man preparing to carry yet another burden of his choices.

"Clara asked for a furnace. She wants to heat the sixth floor while cooking the meat Luma sold. That furnace, I couldn't find it anywhere."

Meliah didn't disagree with the assumption; in fact, he remained very composed.

"This isn't a place that would have a furnace. At most, in restaurants, but my brother and I cleaned them out. When we were setting up the refinery, we took everything we could from here."

"And now, we have nothing." Despite his discontent, Dante remained relaxed. "Let me guess, you knew she wanted a furnace, and you know where one is. You also know this will cost me something, which is why you came to me."

From the surprised expression on the other man's face, Dante knew he had hit the mark precisely.

"How do you... know that?"

"It's no different from when my sister wanted something from me but didn't want to talk to our parents." Talia would always come to him in the middle of the night, asking him to get something for her from outside, but their mother never let her go because it was too dangerous. The memory made Dante smile. "In this case, you want something Clara can't know about, and you came to me for it. What is it?"

Meliah lowered his eyes. He tried to hide his discomfort, but his restless hands betrayed him, trembling slightly as he struggled to find the right words.

"It was a few months ago. A lot of people said they saw a group walking outside Kappz. They weren't from here, nor from GreamHachi, they were from outside. I... met one of them, a very old man, who said there was an object that could cure all diseases, made of something called Cosmic Energy."

With each passing day, Dante was more certain that they knew little about Cosmic Energy. A people who didn't prepare for battle but for survival. He sometimes forgot that fact.

"A healing stone, huh?" Dante didn't dismiss the information. "And what's its name?"

"He called it Ma'ns Pessas. I didn't quite understand, I admit. He spoke another language, but his daughter, a little girl, said it had another name." Meliah paused and took a deep breath. "The 'Lunar Stone.'"

Hadn't Vick mentioned something about that stone before? Dante furrowed his brow, carefully pulling the memory. In the Research Center, he clearly remembered the words:

"Active sensor emissions detected inside the building. Proximity required to activate tracking protocol. Initial target: Lunar Stone."

So, was that what this was about?