From the Cradle to the Grave

"You were quite the swordsman, and the marksman, might I add." At that, the Dante in the picture changed to a boy, a few years older, curly black hair hanging down the back of his neck. In his hands was a rifle with a scope at the top. He sat atop a rooftop, aiming at a plastic target in an alley below. The target was in the process of falling. "Quite the marksman," Arrow murmured this time, almost as an afterthought.

The scene changed to a grisly photo of Dante on a hospital stretcher being wheeled to an ambulance on the road in the middle of a desert wasteland filled with people and death and corpses and weapons and explosions. Dante's left arm below his shoulder had vanished, leaving behind a stump and pools of red blood. He had been sedated and serenity decorated his visage, painting a peaceful picture amidst the carnage of the battlefield.

Dante shrank back into the couch, as if he could blend into it and turn his eyes away from the sight. But it exploded in his head and wormed its way down to his metal left arm, returning the feeling. "No," he whispered.

"It's okay," soothed Arrow, "it'll be over soon. Next slide, Jerry."

The next picture showed an older, colder Dante amidst a dozen soldiers, all of them wounded or dead. Dante did not bear a single mark. In his hands were two long swords, gleaming metal sheathed in blood.

"Dante, I need your attention for this," Monsieur Arrow chastised as Dante grinned. "Now, what are you doing in this picture?"

Dante thought for a moment then turned to Monsieur Arrow with a proud smile and said, "Fighting."

"No, Dante. You are not fighting." The next slide showed the aftermath of the chaos, the corpses and limbs that had been torn from their respective bodies hanging from the alley walls. Blood painted the scene in garish shades and looks of surprise and anguish and rage mixed together on the soldiers' faces as they embraced death. "You are killing."

The next slide showed a similar scene, only this time in a small sake shop in Japan. A child, her pigtails sticking in a puerile fashion from her head, looked at the scene from the broken doorway with her thumb in her mouth. "I think you killed seven men that one time," Arrow said, spite filling his voice. "And you did not reach your target for the next several weeks."

The next picture displayed the arms and legs that hung in a haunting fashion from the ceiling of a small stone cathedral in Palermo. The stained-glass windows were all shattered, now resembling the jagged and unforgiving teeth of a dragon. "Only five this time." More and more disgust entered Arrow's eyes with each holographic image. Another picture appeared, this time the face of a beautiful young woman with shining white teeth and eyes the color of a clear summer sky. Her brown hair complimented her ebony skin, the proudest shade of chocolate.

The image reminded Dante of something, someone, who had looked totally different, someone he loved, someone he had hurt, someone now a part of him, forever.

Asia.

"Pretty," Dante said in infantile wonder.

"Yes," Arrow said sadly. "Her name was Maria. She was supposed to be my wife. We were engaged and about to marry." He eyed the exposed portion of Dante' s metal arm with revulsion. "She was human, you know." He returned to the image. "When Marshall Joven Sixen was assassinated, she was appointed as counsel leader in his stead. She was your target." He remained standing and looked down upon Dante.