In The Abyss As A Toon Character

Dante flexed his shoulders, narrowing his eyes as he faced Fang Shan. He could try to fight him; in terms of sheer strength, Dante should be superior, but something was telling him that he still had a trick up his sleeve.

Fang Shan watched Dante's antics with mild amusement, then leveled his sword, "You are the most annoying woman I have ever met, and I've met Kaiden." With a fluid motion, he vanished, appearing at Dante's side in a lethal blur of blue energy.

Dante didn't think-- His body moved instinctively, twisting and stretching out of the way as Fang's blade slashed past his neck with the air whistling from the force of the swing, "Oooh! Someone has a fancy!" he jeered, bending his body at an impossible angle to avoid particular brutal swings.

Whenever it was impossible to dodge, he countered by sprouting multiple hands from his sides and flicking out various colorful weapons. A banana whirred past Fang Shan's face, a rubber chicken bounced off his shoulder, and confetti exploded around him, briefly blinding his vision.

Fang Shan weaved through the ridiculous onslaught with mechanical precision, each one of his strikes growing faster and more deliberate. He was slowly adapting to the silliness "Third Revolution--"

In a sudden shift, Dante's cheerful grin vanished, changing to a cold, calculating glare, "Do you realize that I'm still using love and hate, right?" Cracking static shivered for a heartbeat before a massive pink laser with a dark contour annihilated Fang Shan, leaving the ground scorched and barren, with a smoking crater marking where Fang Shan had once stood.

Dante cracked his neck and exhaled dramatically. "Stay like that for a second while I figure out how to kill ya for good." Dante's gaze snapped toward Katley, who was almost recovered as she gulped down another pill from a bottle of dubious origin.

Dante's clothes changed into a stereotypical lab coat with oversized glasses. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an impossibly large, humming machine with spinning gears and blinking lights.

"BEHOLD!" he shouted, striking a ridiculous pose and a funny accent, "The De-Goofinator™. (Totally not related to Doofenshmirtz, lawyers stay away.)"

Dante slammed a giant red button without even a chance to retaliate. The goo-like substance that had been since the start shielding her trembled violently, screaming in harrowing pain before collapsing into a humanoid form.

The creature stumbled forward, with its newly formed limbs trembling as it screamed in rasp terror, "FNAG HSNA! FANGNHSANH! FHANH!" It horsily cried as it saw the pink demon, "PLEASE GET ME INTO YOUR IMAGINARY WORLD. I SWEAR I'M GOING; THIS PINK DEMON WILL KILL ME

Katley yelled loudly to the air, "Fang Shan, don't be an asshole, and save her!"

Fang's disembodied voice echoed in the place, thanks to his abilities, "If it gets lost in the imaginary world, that's not my problem. It's still experimental."

The atmosphere shifted, the crushing weight pressed down on the battlefield as if the air was preparing for something catastrophic.

Dante's playful smirk slowly faded as his instincts turned once more to warn him. 'Since I got this form, my sixth sense hadn't activated a single time yet... you tell me, this guy has a way to ACTUALLY kill me?'

Without hesitation, he summoned a glowing heart-shaped shield, shimmering with pink pulses, and wrapped it tightly around himself. At the same time, inky-black hands of hate curled and snapped around his form, creating a stark contrast to the loving shield.

Fang Shan's voice rang out, cutting through the tension like a blade, "Mathconstruction: Imaginary equation, Fractal Boundary.

The air trembled, and reality itself fractured. Shards of the world splintered away like a shattered mirror, exposing an infinite void beyond. The good that had moments ago asked for salvation was ripped from existence, with its final screams lost in the nothingness.

Dante's gaze darkened even more, losing all its cheerfulness. He split into two identical copies, one of them stepping forward to fight against the limit breakers while the second one said with an unnerving calmness. "Cogito ergo sum… I do not think; therefore, I do not am."

Before Dante, the scenery shifted. The air felt neither hot nor cold, but it carried the weight of a dream wobbling on the edge of collapse. He stood in front of Fang Shan, with the two of them sitting across each other in a strange subspace.

A black-and-white void filled with faint, floating equations and fractals spiraling endlessly in the background accompanied them as witnesses. Dante lounged on a chair in a familiar pose, legs crossed, head tilted, and softly smiling, tapping his fingers on the table between them.

Fang Shan sat across from him at a black table that seemed to have materialized out of nothing. His posture was composed, back straight, hands resting lightly on his sword, "What do you want in this interlude?" he asked.

Dante's usual grin was gone, replaced by a neutral, almost cynical expression. "How strong are you?"

Fang Shan's demeanor sharpened further, and his lips curled into a faint smirk. "Oh, this?" he asked, gesturing vaguely to the fractured world he had left behind, "Did your senses tell you it could kill you?"

Dante nodded once, "Yes." He gestured vaguely to the equations floating around them, "Pretty sure you didn't get all this from a self-help book."

Fang Shan exhaled slowly, with his smirk growing into something more self-assured. "It's an ability I dislike," he admitted calmly. "I only use my cultivation and some techniques I've picked up. The system blessed me with this, sure, but I find it 'bland' to say the least. There's no challenge when everyone else is so weak."

"Booooooring," Dante drawled, slumping dramatically in his chair. "Where's the passion? The sad backstory to explain your bullshit powers?"

Fang Shan chuckled, "You seem desperate for a connection. But tell me, are you asking because you care or are afraid?"

The shift in tone was subtle, but Dante caught it, "Afraid? Nah, I'm just Curious. You don't meet a guy like you every day." He leaned forward, playing with small hate hands and heart-shaped figures, "What's your deal, really? Why are you fighting me? Like, specifically me?"

Fang Shan chuckled with a light tone slicing the menacing, coupled with an expression of mild disdain. "Because you are a target. It's as simple as that. Katley tells us where to go, and we get paid to eliminate threats like you."

Dante pressed, with soft but insistent tone, "And...?"

"And…" Fang's eyes gleamed briefly, "I appreciate fighting strong opponents. It sharpens me and challenges me, but it's rare to find someone worth the effort."

Dante smiled back with an unsettling sharpness, "So it's all business and pleasure with you, huh? No deeper meaning? No tragic motivations? You are just here for a good time and money?"

The faint screams of a girl with otherworldly hair echoed in the distance. Both of them paused, turning their eyes to the source for a moment, but neither moved.

"..."

For a moment, neither spoke. The equations around them seemed to slow, the fractals twisting more deliberately as if the space itself were holding its breath.

Dante tilted his head, his grin widening, "I don't feel it, but… are you an aspect?"

The question caught Fang Shan off guard, letting out a small booming laugh, "No. I'd never bow to a god; my talent is enough, and I refuse most of the help of the system and their so-called divinity."

Talk-nojutsu!" Dante took a deep breath and said an incredibly rapid-fire stream of words, "You-seem-like-a-nice-guy-maybe-you-and-I-aren't-so-different!-Wanna-be-friends-and-help-me-kill-that-orange-nuisance?"

Fang Shan got up from the chair and changed his slightly charred attire, "I'm not going to get persuaded just because of a pretty face and some faint words; if you aren't going to say anything else important, then I might as well continue and kill you.

Dante stared blankly, his mind briefly derailed by the sudden warning that flashed across his consciousness: "WARNING: YOUR BODY CORRUPTION LEVEL HAS REACHED--"

He took a deep breath, appreciating the view one last time before he said, "Bet."

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authors note:

The end is near...