Chapter 42: Faust, The Erudite Devil

There was a bright flash and a soft clatter. 

“What was that?” Dante muttered, eyes narrowing as he stared at the ground. A scalpel lay embedded between his feet, its blade quivering slightly from the impact. He exhaled sharply. He threw that? What a waste.

Faust sprang back, his coat billowing as he widened the gap between them in a single, fluid motion. “That’s impossible! It was supposed to-”

“I’d advise you not to resist.” Dante whipped out the talisman from his pocket. The ink shone between his fingers as he activated the array scrawled on it. The air shimmered with visible distortions as the arrays he had set up and sealed around the hospital compound flared to life. Faint geometric patterns erupted across the walls and floor like spreading wildfire, their light casting dancing shadows across Faust's widening eyes. Though based on the ones used in Beacons, he had modified these to trap anything within the compound that held a high concentration of Cursed Essence.

Technique Infusion, Dante concentrated, feeling his Essence coil icily within him. Indifference.

The technique spread across the barrier like frost – a second skin to dampen its signature so that they were invisible to the Beacons’ detection. “I suggest that you come along quietly, Johann Faust,” Dante said as he reached out for the voice recorder from the table. 

With a loud grunt that bordered on a snarl, Faust hurled another scalpel. It struck the device dead centre. The recorder exploded in a spray of plastic shards. 

Quite the idiot for someone who claims to be enlightened, Dante raised his left hand to his face, fingers splayed. Scarlet leapt onto his eye from his hand, morphing into its Ocular form. The world turned red and sharpened instantly.

One breath.

Dante closed the distance in an instant, his body a soundless blur of motion. ​​His first blow came low and fast – a sharp jab that buried itself beneath Faust's ribcage, driving upward into the solar plexus. The second followed before Faust could even register the first – a harder, twisting strike that crushed the air from his lungs in a single violent exhale. Faust grunted, the sound wet and choked, but somehow his feet remained planted.

Faust lashed out blindly, fingers clawing at nothing but the afterimages Dante left in his wake. He only spun like a wobbly top. 

Before delivering the third blow, Dante waited. Patient. Waited for Faust to lock eyes with him as he lingered for a moment longer in front of him.

Faust took the bait. His pupils dilated in anticipation. He twisted his head, but just like any amateur fighter, his body did not follow that quickly. 

Dante dropped instead, his knees bent, body coiling like a compressed spring as he sank into a low squat. Scarlet responded instantly, peeling from his eye in a stream of liquid crimson and black that wrapped around his right fist. The threads hardened into blunt spikes that encased his knuckles and fingers.

Faust was a relatively short man after all, and his sternum was a bit lower than average. 

The third and final blow buckled Faust. Scarlet moved in perfect sync with Dante’s will. In a flash, he warped behind the disgraced doctor, catching him midair before he could slam into the wall.

“Scarlet – bind him,” Dante commanded, his voice like steel.

Scarlet leapt from his arm in a crimson arc and coiled around Faust's body. The tendrils wound tight, pinning arms to sides, legs together. Dante released his grip, and Faust toppled forward. His face slammed against the table with a dull thud, and there he remained, slouched and trembling.

“How did my technique not work?” Faust spat through gritted teeth, each word punctuated by flecks of blood that spattered across the table's surface. He twisted his head, craning his neck to glare up with wild, bloodshot eyes. "I've heard plenty, and you're famous–"

"Oh, really?" Dante retorted, cutting Faust off. "If you knew, you would not be asking me why your lousy technique did not work."

Faust spat at him, squirming in his restraints. 

He knows of our existence, Dante thought. The information was a stone dropping into still water. But my duty is to find his family members and ensure their safety. Handing down justice and retribution falls outside of my job scope.

“Perhaps I should rephrase my question,” Dante said, leaning down until his face was level with Faust's. “What have you done to your wife and children?”

“It wouldn’t be fun if I told you.” Faust’s modulated voice had become high and scratchy as if he was taking glee in withholding the fate of his family. He let out a harsh laugh, his mouth so wide that his eyes became slits.

Dante pressed Faust's head against the table, gradually increasing the pressure. Faust's laughter cut off, replaced by rapid, shallow breathing that fogged the varnished wood beneath his cheek.

“Stop–”

More pressure. The table began to creak.

Faust hissed sharply in pain, the sound escaping between clenched teeth. “You thought I wouldn’t know that you evacuated the hospital,” he said suddenly. “You operate on too many assumptions, Mr Higashino, just like you always do!”

Faust unhinged his jaw. His bones separated with a wet pop that should not have been possible for human anatomy. He stuck out his tongue. The pink muscle stretched down until the tip made contact with the table's surface. In an instant, they spread to the ground. Stitches zig-zagged across the table and onto the floor. With a shudder, the ground on either of Dante’s feet tore away into a yawning chasm. The weight pulling on his arm disappeared as he dropped Faust – still bound by Scarlet – into the depths below.

“Drats.” Dante sprang from the crumbling ledge, launching himself into open air. He fell through shadow and dust, landing on solid ground with barely a sound, his knees absorbing the impact with practised ease. The emergency light illuminated the basement’s darkness with a sickly green glow. There was a soft ‘whoosh’ as Scarlet wrapped around his arm once more. Red sparks coursed through it and boiled off the blood in a symphony of sizzles. Dante gave it no time to finish preening itself. 

“Twirl.”

Scarlet jumped up like an excited child and fully manifested itself. Previously, it had only been restricted to a black smooth tendril, which was adequate for normal circumstances. Dante clasped the thorned handle without fear of pain or reverence for the ancient Regalia – the latter having been flushed down the toilet since day one of their partnership. Numerous spikes adorned the slender black whip, retracting and extending in rhythmic waves. 

Dante cracked the whip and cleared the dust cloud in an instant. There was a smudge of blue and white as Faust burst for the exit, running his hands across the wall. Everything he touched cracked and crumbled. 

Faust’s Cursed Art, just as speculated, could dismantle objects. 

With a roar, Faust slammed both palms against a wall. The entire section shuddered before being ripped free from its foundation. Concrete and rebar flew into Dante. 

Scarlet snapped, and the wall split apart into chunks with a few cracks. Dante rushed past the debris, the pieces bouncing harmlessly off Indifference. He crashed through the caving walls in Faust’s wake, plaster and dust exploding around him.

Dante burst into the waiting area feet first, body twisting in mid-air. A blade whistled past his ear so close that he caught a glimpse of his reflection. 

Ocular form!

Dante’s feet slammed into Faust’s chest with the full weight of his multiplied momentum. Faust flew backwards, crashing into a row of plastic chairs that cracked on impact. Dante waved away the dust, stepping toward where Faust lay like a crumpled rag. 

“Surrender, and this will be easier.” Dante brandished his whip once more.

“Do you… know what an Iron Maiden is?” Faust asked, clutching his chest.

“Is it able to kill me?”

Faust grinned widely. “Why don’t we find out?”

Dante stood in his spot. His peripheral vision detected two walls of spikes surging toward him from either side. He exhaled and let Faust ensnare him. Let the walls close in.

Faust’s hands trembled with excitement as he squeezed them together. The spikes dug in deeper and deeper.

But Faust’s grin died on his face when there was no blood drawn. “I’d have said that this was a generous offer if I hadn’t tried that,” Dante said mildly. “And you should have learnt from the first scalpel you threw.”

Scarlet detached from his eye and, with a slender black tendril, retrieved his sword from his harness. It waved Hollow Sparrow around playfully like a toy. Air rushed into the sword, producing a sharp chirp. 

“Cleave.”

All noise was silenced with a gunshot crack. Faust looked over his shoulder in disbelief as everything he had built was cleanly cut in two. Scarlet returned Hollow Sparrow into Dante's open palm. He walked out of the trap, not a speck of dirt marring his clothes.

“Perhaps the third time’s the charm… Where are they?” Dante demanded, his patience wearing thin.

Faust stared at the ground, chest heaving. Then he looked up at Dante, and something shifted in his expression. “You know,” he said, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, “I heard a fascinating rumour about you, Mr Higashino.”

A wet and bubbling laugh escaped Faust’s lips. “They say you were meant to be an Elder. That the position should have been yours by right.”

Dante’s expression did not change, but Scarlet’s tendril twitched.

“But you lost it, did you not?” Faust’s grin returned, vicious despite his injuries. “Lost it to Felix Lee, of all people. All because of some… what was it? A conviction? A black mark on your perfect record?”

The temperature in the room dropped. Dante’s hand tightened fractionally on Hollow Sparrow’s grip.

“I wonder,” Faust continued, emboldened by Dante’s silence, “does it eat at you? Knowing that someone else sits in the seat that should have been yours? Knowing that every day you serve under someone who—”

“Scarlet.”

The command cut through Faust’s words like a knife. The Regalia surged forward, but Faust was already moving.

Before Scarlet could reach him, the ground beneath Faust exploded. Concrete chunks erupted upward in a geyser of debris and dust.

“Scarlet! Secure him!” Dante commanded, rushing forward.

But Scarlet hesitated — not in disobedience, but in confusion. Dante felt the emotion ripple through their connection, a wordless question. 

Where?

Dante reached the edge of the hole that Faust had left behind. He peered down. The light showed nothing but debris and a spatter of blood painting the concrete below.

Faust had escaped to the second basement.

Dante stood there for a long moment, staring into the empty hole. His left hand drifted almost unconsciously to his left pocket, where a bracelet rested within.

Kazuya’s bracelet.

He and Felix had modified it privately, adding an array to one of the beads, something that neither Kazuya nor anyone else were aware of. It was the same array he had carved onto the replicas of his Regalia, back when they used it as students. If there was trouble, he could activate it. Burn a message through the bracelet directly to Felix. 

Dante’s thumb traced the outline of the bracelet through the fabric of his jeans.

Faust had escaped, demonstrating abilities that exceeded the initial assessment. A decent tactical decision would be to call for backup.

Dante pulled his hand away.

No.

The thought was immediate, visceral, and entirely petty. Dante recognised it as such even as he made the decision. Faust was not strong enough to kill him. The man had thrown everything at him: scalpels, walls, improvised weapons, even that ridiculous iron maiden. He had managed to walk away without a scratch. Calling Felix now would be admitting he needed help. Admitting that he could not handle one murderous doctor with delusions of grandeur.

Admitting that maybe Felix’s position was deserved.

Dante’s jaw clenched. “He is all mine,” he muttered, the words petulant even to his own ears. 

Dante decided he would find Faust. He would retrieve the family members. And he would do it without Felix’s help, without anyone’s help, because he did not lose to people like Johann Faust.

The bracelet stayed dormant in his pocket, its array unactivated.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

===

Dante Alexander Higashino would be at his strongest under three conditions. 

Two were fulfilled.

One was not.