Phantasia

“Ever since we’ve started realising stuff’s been happening he’s been getting distant,” she said, “I think it’s got something to do with his…” She couldn’t find the right words to describe it without it sounding goofy, even though she was talking to some kind of magical creature, “I don’t know what it is – that ‘power’ of his…”

“You mean like when we found him surrounded by unconscious bodies?”

Katrina had almost forgotten Phantasia had been there when she’d found Dante in the Godhand manor. “Yeah, that. I don’t know anything about that sort of thing. I know it scares him, and every time it’s happened we’ve all forgotten most of it. Like everyone’s turned around and said ‘oh, it’s just another Dante psycho breakdown again’. I thought maybe that’s what he wanted it to be…”

“Ooh, I never thought of that!” said Phantasia, her white eyes lighting up with new ideas, “I told him it was all true! No wonder he won’t talk to me any more…”

It hadn’t really occurred to Katrina either: the last couple of weeks had been filled with strange occurrences and Dante would be having a hard time dealing with them, what with his mind being unaffected by the hallucinations. “Yeah, guess he’s accepted it or something,” she said, “I wish I knew what was really going on in his head though. What is that power? Is it normal?”

“I don’t think so…” replied Phantasia, her bluntness not helping Katrina’s mood, “But I don’t know much about these things. We should try asking Faye!”

Katrina nodded, but her mind was wandering. So those powers weren’t normal. They weren’t just something normal people had in the outside world. Dante was different. And what would happen to him if those powers continued to eat away at him? She couldn’t help but remember the auragraph of the Patriarch, with his inhumane spirit manifesting as a nightmarish nebula. Was that why Dante didn’t want her to auragraph him? Did he have a similar aura? Was he a demon?

“What’s going to happen to him?” she cried, “Is he going to turn into some kind of monster? Is it going to take over his mind? Why is this happening to Dante? He doesn’t deserve it after all he’s been through! What if…what if the illusions are protecting him? And then if we destroy them he remembers something he shouldn’t and turns into something you have to kill?”

Phantasia was silent. Was she contemplating the possibility? Would she, a non-human, be capable – willing even – of stopping Dante? Of killing him? Katrina found herself struggling to hold back sobs as the thoughts welled up in her mind.

“I wanted to protect him,” she said, “I tried to understand him, but I can’t even help him…”

Phantasia turned away. Didn’t she have an answer? Was she going to abandon the situation? Abandon Dante? Then the door opened and Faye slipped in, her expression unreadable but her lapis lazuli eyes fixed on Katrina’s. Had she overheard everything?

Chapter 46
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