Serena woke up to the sight of Dante sitting on top of a tree branch over head. He seemed to be lost in thought since that day that they had gone to the morphing tower. It had been three days since then and he had still shown no sign of recovering from his discovery.
She sat up before jumping on top of the large tree branch he sat on. After walking closer to him, she sat down by his side before speaking to him.
"Good morning, Dante. How are you feeling?"
"I feel pretty much the same", Dante said with a forced smile. "I think that I know what to do to feel better though."
"What is it?", Serena eyes widened a bit.
"I just need to move around the Garden. Maybe it will make me feel better."
This was something that she had not expected him to say. Looking at him with a little bit of shock, Serena nodded her head showing her approval. On seeing this Dante stood up before tagging her with his Speed marker.
"What was that for?", Serena asked as she stared at the red tag that the Speed marker had left on her. Funnily enough if she was asked to describe it, she would say it looked just like a thumb print.
"I wasn't planning on walking on the floor."
Dante had lost the speed he had acquired from the High Fracture three days ago. Apparently it disappeared whenever a day was over. He had come to this conclusion after testing it on Serena within those three days. At the moment, Dante wanted to explore the Garden by jumping from branch to branch. Serena knowing this only told him to be careful as he explored the place. Even though she knew he was doing this to avoid her, the last thing she wanted was for him to meet a creature worse than the worms they had fought previously or meet Mia and Ren.
"Don't worry, I will be careful", Dante stated before jumping from the branch he was currently on to the next.
Looking at him jumping from branch to branch, Serena could not help but hope for him to return without any form of surprises. When Dante had disappeared from her sights, she turned her attention to more pressing matters. She had to find out their next course of action. Whether she wanted to admit it or not they could not stay in the Garden forever. If they were to stay there, they were most likely going to bump into Mia or Ren.
Dante moved quickly through the trees at high speed. The combination of Serena's speed with the Quick ring had given him incredible speed. Sure he was still capable of doing all of this with the Quick ring, however he had to be cautious. The Quick ring made him fast enough to keep up with Serena but sadly it did not make him faster than her. If he was to meet Mia, he would most likely be put at a disadvantage in speed as Mia was faster than Serena.
Moving swiftly from branch to branch, Dante observed his environment carefully as he moved. From the corner of his eyes he had seen a figure which caused him to stop dead in his tracks. On closer observation he had realized that this was someone he did not expect to see in a place like this. The long black hair, the structure of this person and the necklace on her neck, it had to be.
"Cory? Cory!", Dante exclaimed as he jumped towards her direction quickly.
As he gave chase, she disappeared like a ghost from branch to branch giving a large distance between themselves each time. On seeing this Dante could not help but wonder why she was avoiding him so much.
"Cory, wait! Why are you running away from me!?"
Dante increased him movement speed at that moment as this enabled him to gain on her faster. After about twenty seconds he had caught up to her, but to his greatest surprise she had vanished just as suddenly as she had appeared. Dante gasped for air as he came to a stop. Apparently chasing Cory at such a fast pace had left him out of breath.
"Cory! Cory!", Dante shouted at the top of his voice while still trying to catch his breath.
Why did she run away from him? Was she afraid of him? Was something after her? These were the questions that ran through his mind as he tried to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why she did what she did. Seeing that he could not come up with one, he began to cry. All the grief he had kept within him for those three days came out in the form of a loud cry followed by a flood of tears. He had finally accepted the one thing he never wanted to accept. Cory was gone and there was nothing he could do about it.
Dante eventually stopped crying and decided to sit down on the tree branch he was currently on. At the moment he had no energy to move around anymore. After about twenty minutes, strange sounds had began to erupt from a location close to his.
'Is that the sound of people talking?', Dante wondered as he looked for the direction in which these sounds came from.
Believing that he had found it's location, he jumped swiftly towards it. On getting there he saw Cory who was currently standing over a branch and looking down at three individuals who were walking by.
"Are those human beings?", Dante asked himself the obvious.
On a closer look he had realized that all three of these people were male, however one of them had their hands restrained. Dante did not dare to approach them though as it was only logical that they were under Ren. Serena had made it clear to Dante that humans that he would cross paths with were most likely people who were under him. In order to find out more about these people, he decided to eavesdrop on their conversation.
"Please, I will do whatever he wants me to do! I promise!", the binded man spoke in desperation.
"There is no use begging now, Ren has already spoken", the man by his left side responded in a uncaring tone.
On hearing this, Dante realized he was right, these people were really under Ren.