Darkness.
Dante's mind was a void, submerged in a silence so deep it almost felt solid. No dreams. No thoughts. No body. Just emptiness.
And then—
"Ah, it feels good to stretch."
The Trickster flexed Dante's fingers, rolling his stolen shoulders as if trying on a new coat. A wicked grin split his borrowed lips.
"You really don't take care of yourself, do you? So stiff. So tense. Almost like you don't trust anyone. But don't worry—I'll get everything moving again."
He turned, surveying the dimly lit chamber of the Sanctum Library, his stolen heart thrumming with anticipation.
The seal on Dante's blood was a problem.
A big one.
It wasn't just locking away Dante's full potential—it was locking him away, too. If he didn't fix this soon, there wouldn't be a Trickster left to play games.
Because he was dying.
Gods were built from belief, from prayers, from the stories whispered between mortals in candlelit rooms.
But the Trickster? He had been forgotten.
No worshippers. No myths. No sacrifices left in his name.
And the longer a god was forgotten, the more they withered.
He could feel it now—his life force bleeding away in Dante's body, fading with every second.
But he had a plan.
Step One: Find the Contract
Somewhere, buried in time, the Trickster had struck a deal with the Sound God. A friend. An enemy. A rival in mischief. Their contract was old, but it still held power.
And within that contract was a way to reclaim what was lost.
An artifact. Ancient. Potent. Capable of restoring his life essence.
There was just one problem.
The Sound God was being held captive in the Institute.
Locked away. Silenced.
The Trickster clicked Dante's borrowed tongue, shaking his head.
"Tsk. That's going to make things complicated."
Step Two: Breaking the Seal
The seal on Dante's bloodline wasn't just a minor inconvenience. It was a cage.
It kept Dante's true lineage buried.
It kept the Trickster weak.
It kept power just out of reach.
He needed to break it.
And to do that, he needed Dante's body.
"Sorry, kid," he murmured, stretching his arms. "You're sitting this one out for a while."
Somewhere, deep in the void of Dante's unconscious mind, he felt a flicker of resistance.
A push.
Dante was fighting.
The Trickster grinned. Not yet, boy. You'll get your turn.
But first—he had a god to free.
The Trickster never knocked when entering a place he didn't belong.
One moment, the Institute of Reapers was cloaked in silence—cold halls, candlelit corridors, the distant scratching of quills on parchment. The next, it was alive.
The stone walls pulsed with music, a melody that no one remembered inviting. Golden chandeliers swayed, throwing fractured light across the great hall. Velvet drapes hung where there were none before. The air smelled of spiced wine and candlewax, of warm bread and laughter.
And the people—oh, the people.
Scholars, priests, guards—they were all in the middle of a grand masquerade.
Some swayed in dance, confused but unable to stop. Others raised glasses in an absent-minded toast, trapped in conversations they didn't remember starting. The head priest twirled a woman who did not exist.
At the center of it all, the Trickster strolled through the madness, grinning.
He was dressed for the occasion, of course—a deep red coat, gold rings that glinted like teeth, a mask with too many eyes.
A noble. A jester. A thief.
The guards couldn't question him. Not when they themselves were caught up in the revelry, feet moving of their own accord.
"Drink, my friends!" The Trickster clapped a hand on a guard's shoulder. "It's a rare thing, a night so fine!"
The man blinked blearily, as if trying to resist the enchantment. But the weight of the illusion was too thick, too absolute—the Trickster had rewritten the night, and the world was playing along.
He was already halfway through the grand hall before the first voice of suspicion broke through.
"This isn't real," someone murmured.
A scholar clutched his mask, breathing hard. Then another. A woman dropped her wine glass. The illusion flickered.
Ah, there it is.
Awareness. The crack in the dream.
It would spread fast now.
Which meant he was running out of time.
The Trickster moved faster, slipping through archways, descending spiraling staircases into the belly of the Institute.
Past the archives. Past the reliquary.
Down to where the forgotten things were buried.
This was the deepest part of the Institute, where knowledge was locked away not for safety, but for fear.
Here, the Trickster paused, placing a hand on the cold stone wall. He closed his eyes.
And whispered.
"I know you're listening."
Silence. Then—a shift.
A groaning, like something stirring after centuries of sleep.
The air grew thick with a presence, with countless presences—names lost, stories erased, faces that time had devoured.
The Forgotten.
"I can give you remembrance," the Trickster whispered. "A place in history once more. But first… I need a door."
The response came not in words, but in movement.
The stone walls cracked. Fingers—pale, skeletal, too many—pressed through the fractures, pulling apart the fabric of reality.
A hole yawned open.
Beyond it—the vault.
The Trickster grinned.
He stepped through.
____
The Trickster had many flaws. Arrogance. Impulse. A complete disregard for consequences.
But he also had conviction.
Which was why, standing before the stolen blood of the Sound God, he didn't hesitate.
The bottles rattled in the air as he flicked his fingers, teleporting most of them away—straight to the house where Lirian lived. They vanished in a blink, tucked away where they'd be safe.
That left one.
A single, pulsing vial of liquid divinity.
"No human has survived harboring two gods before," the Sound God's voice hummed from the vault walls.
The Trickster smirked, popping the cork. "Good thing I'm not human, then."
He tipped it back and drank.
The moment the blood hit his tongue, the world exploded.
Sound wasn't sound anymore. It was color. It was weight. The vibration of the vault's walls burned against his skin like fire. The distant clang of guards' boots rang inside his skull like cathedral bells.
The Trickster staggered, gripping his head. His veins felt like they had been threaded with wire, his nerves stretched too thin, his existence unraveling.
But he held on.
He had to.
The Sound God's voice slithered through his mind.
"Borrow my voice, thief. Let the world hear your scream."
The vault doors blasted open as the guards stormed in, weapons raised.
The Trickster straightened, licking the last drop of divine blood from his lips.
Then he spoke.
Not words. Power.
The soundwave rippled outward, invisible but undeniable. The closest guards were flung backward as if struck by a hurricane. Their armor shattered—not from impact, but from the sheer resonance of the Trickster's voice.
Another guard lunged, but the Trickster snapped his fingers—silencing him completely. The man's scream died in his throat. He moved, but no sound followed. No footsteps. No breath.
The Trickster stole his noise.
With every second, the Sound God's abilities twisted further into him.
Frequencies: He could amplify vibrations, making swords shatter mid-swing. Silence Manipulation: He erased footsteps, making himself undetectable. Echo Imprint: The guards struck where he was, but he was already elsewhere—only an afterimage of sound left behind.
But even with these abilities, his body was failing.
He could feel it.
Dante's mortal shell was breaking under the strain. The divine power tore through him like an overcharged engine, grinding his senses to dust.
Too much. This was too much.
The Trickster scowled, clutching his chest. He needed to go.
His fingers snapped one last time—teleporting out.
_____
He reappeared outside the Institute.
But something was wrong.
His legs buckled. His body crashed onto the stone street.
Dante was back.
The shift was sudden, brutal.
His limbs were numb—as if he wasn't inside them. His ears rang with aftershocks of stolen divinity. His vision blurred.
Somewhere, just a few feet away, Lirian's house stood. But Dante barely registered it.
He took one breath.
And collapsed.
His body hit the ground, unconscious.
Lirian's name was the last thing on his lips.