~Dante Is My Teacher? ~

“Hey, lovely. Who’s coming in today?” I asked as I took a seat beside my best friend Yvonne, throwing my bag carelessly to the floor. Yvonne had always pointed out that I was rougher than the average girl, and though it was true, I didn’t like the reminders anyway.

“I don’t know. They just said over the announcement that Crazy Koby is not here. No one said anything else about who’s coming in for Mythology classes.” Yvonne yawned, stretching her long, beautiful legs that had been a cause of jealousy among many girls in our school.

It was really strange how Yvonne had chosen me to stick by when she was probably the prettiest girl around in the entire school. All the guys wanted her, hungered after her. The girls hated her for her beauty, but what was there that they could do about it? They could not make her uglier.

Beside her, I paled in comparison, but I had my own fair share of admirers as well as eye candies. We steered far away from the A-listers, but never seemed to drop ever to the B-list. In fact, we didn’t belong to any list. We belonged in our own world, our own lists.

“You think it’s going to be some hot new teacher?” I asked back in reply. I had always appreciated a new face, a new body to fantasize over, so it was obvious that my female hormones won out over everything else.

“Or it could be some ugly monster which crawled out of your bed at night and latched on to a host body to manipulate to come to Mythology classes.” Yvonne replied with a grin, watching as my face turned sour. Sometimes, I wondered what it was with Yvonne and monsters under my bed. She had weird fascination about fantasizing about demons and monsters, and how they looked like. She even had drawings of them! Though, I had to admit, her drawing were pretty sharp –if not gruesome and disgusting.

“Whatever monster it is, I hope it’s not that strange man that I met that day. He was hot –I admit –but what is up with his crazy fascination about the locket? You sure you didn’t have it charmed or something? He must be really out of his mind. Really.” I emphasized, remembering how actually normal that guy seemed. But then, all crazy guys wouldn’t admit that they were crazy, right? This guy, on hindsight, was probably the most normal-looking of them all.

The only thing crazy about him was the fact that he actually believed that demons existed, and that my locket could do anything to close some stupid portal to Hell.

I mean, who would approach just about anyone on the street, stare at their locket, then demand that the stranger give her locket to him? Obviously I said no, though I did take into considering that he actually had a sword hanging off his back. I wasn’t sure if it was a real sword –because if it was, he was really really crazy. He was quite hot, though. He had a perfect body tone and ratio, and those lips were cupid-shaped. Aquamarine blue eyes ensnared me, and white hair shone brilliantly under the sun. If not for the fact that he had been a madman.

Of course, when he asked me for the locket that Yvonne gave me only recently for my seventeenth birthday, I said no. He had no rights to ask for the birthday present from my best friend. Why would I want to give anything to a stranger like him anyway?

Then he had taken guns from beneath his trench coat and pointed at me. Guns. In broad daylight.

It was amazing how I didn’t pee in my pants at that time. Instead, I managed to scream loud enough to get unwanted –in his opinion, of course –attention. A crowd began to stall him, so I ran through it as fast as I could, running around town so he wouldn’t be able to track me back home. I didn’t dare to tell my parents about it, but I did tell my best friend about it. Yvonne and I didn’t keep secrets from each other, after all. That was what we swore when we became best friends.

“He’s probably locked up in jail now, kid. What, you want me to sleep outside your door tonight with a shotgun across my lap?” Yvonne asked sarcastically, reprimanding me for my unneeded worry, but who wouldn’t be worried about a madman with guns and swords chasing after them?

The door finally opened fifteen minutes after the bell rang, and the class stopped their mischief, some scrambling to get back to their seats and make a good impression on the new teacher, while others simply strolled back calmly to their seats. Since Yvonne and I were sitting at the back, our view of the teacher was blocked, though I did hear quaint clinks of boots hitting the floor that sounded like our new teacher walking towards the desk.

The class stood up to greet the teacher, and still I saw no man or woman, since the girl sitting in front of me was pretty tall.

“What the hell are you guys standing for? The chair’s for sitting.” A lazy, horrifyingly familiar voice sounded, and I stifled a gasp. I knew that voice.

My classmates stared at each other uncertainly at the weird behavior of this new teacher, and since he had implied for them to sit, they took their seat warily. I remained standing, and for the first time since he walked in, I saw a clear view of him.

He hadn’t changed a single bit. Red trench coat was still there, the white hair still shone perfectly. He still had that unshaven quality to his face, and he was still wearing those fingerless gloves. The only difference was that he had no sword on his back this time, but I couldn’t be sure if the guns were there.

“Sit, girl. Have you ears?” He stared straight at me when I realized I was the only one standing and staring at him. What was he doing here? I bit my lips, tried to hide my shiver of fear and sat down cautiously. Yvonne tried to get my attention at the side, worried about what had me so stiff and frozen, but I just wouldn’t pay any attention to her. I was still staring at him, watching him stare back at me.

In his eyes, it said clearly that he was here for me. But why go to such extent? What exactly did he want from me? Was he going to kill me? My heart pounded like crazy, and I wished that I had just stayed at home today.

“Yeah, so your previous teacher Koby didn’t come. I’m subbing for him. Call me Dante. Today, we’ll be talking about demons, so take out pen and paper, and listen to me.” He said, still sounding lazy and as if he had just awoken.

“But, Mr. Dante, we were halfway through the Greek mythology. Besides, it is not stated in the examining syllabus that we would be studying about demons.” Our class manager stood up studiously, reporting what he knew.

“Then forget the Greek mythology. They changed the examining syllabus, so shut up. Besides, why learn about something as fucking boring as that, when you can learn about something that can potentially save your life. Demons are everywhere, kid, and you guys have absolutely no idea how close they are to you.”

“But demons do not exist, Mr. Dante. This is why this is a mythology class?”

“Think what you will, kid. I’m teaching you today about the different levels of demons today so listen up and listen well. By today, give me an essay complying everything that I will be teaching you. You should know how to identify the low-level demons, and you should know where to hit them to turn those bastards into ashes. Sit down.” Mr. Dante shot back, and our class manager sat down quickly, unsure of what to make of this eccentric teacher.

What could he mean by a change in the syllabus? The syllabus for mythology classes hadn’t been changed since at least five years ago, and it wasn’t set to change until two years later! Things were going crazy here, and there was no one to stop Mr. Dante from getting worse. Rather, no one dared to.

For some strange reason, his laziness, his words seemed to strike something in the rest of the class, and the general mischief I knew that was famous from this class didn’t show as Dante grabbed a marker from the table and turned his back on the class.

I breathed a tiny sigh of relief when his back was to us, scribbled a quick note and passed it to my best friend, who didn’t understand why the hell this substitute teacher was acting so cocky, and why I seemed to fear him so much.

He’s the guy who wanted the locket. He’s the madman.

I reported to Yvonne, watching as her eyes grew wide upon reading my note. She made eye contact with me for a moment, looked at the sub who hadn’t removed his red trench coat yet –and didn’t seem to be planning to anytime soon –then took a pen and scribbled on it quickly.

You sure? He looks kind of hot. And not crazy.

Exactly my sentiments. He was a total chunk of hotness –and I knew perfectly that some of the girls in our class were already checking him out –but it didn’t change the fact that he had threatened me, and then pointed guns at me. This guy was a freak, and if he came all the way here for the locket, he was really cracked in the head.

Exactly! But he’s crazy, Yv. I swear to God, he’s a mad man.

I passed it back to Yvonne, but the paper was intercepted halfway by a muscular arm, snatched by quick fingers that shocked me. A deep sense of fear churned in my stomach when I looked up to see the madman holding up the paper to his eye level, aquamarine blue eyes scanning it quickly.

He looked at me, then at Yvonne. Eyes stayed on Yvonne for a long time, and then came back to me. I got the feeling that he was staring more at the locket around my neck than actually staring at my face, and resisted the urge to self-consciously cross my arms across my chest.

“A mad man, girl? Trust me; you haven’t seen half of what madmen can do. Take out your notes and copy that down. You and your friend will come find me after school today, and we will talk.” Mr. Dante crumpled the paper in his hand, didn’t give us a second look, and walked back to the front of the classroom.

Yvonne and I exchanged looks, knowing that we were screwed.

******************************************

“Demon Number 7. Lust. Some appear as succubus or incubi. The rest just look like fucking hobos with overflowing garb and werewolf claws and feet. You see one of them, stop moaning and fucking your partner, because you get their attention; you’re screwed. Girls, unless you want a demon baby dancing in your stomach, then you better run like hell when the incubus comes in. Sure, he looks hot and he’s got a dick bigger than any imagination you can come up with, but if you have him between your legs, you should either put a gun to his head, or yours. Guys; I know, I know, the sight of her gives you an erection so big that you’d probably think that you can’t wind back down. She looks really nice on the bed, but when you start to straddle her and push in deep, you’re going down a one way road to hell, buddy.” Dante reported, tapping at the luscious figure of a woman he had drawn on the whiteboard.

This had how the entire lesson had gone on. He had just drawn every single one of the demons, with a very artistic hand, and made them seem so alive that I was even freaked out by some of his drawings. But every single thing had been drawn with such clear and crisp detail that I weren’t sure at all if he really was just crazy, or if he had just an amazing imagination. But he had prattled on –every single detail about these ‘demons’ and he seemed so sure of himself.

“How do you get rid of these little fuckers? Easy. They try to fuck you? You do what you do best to perverts. You break their little fucking counterparts. Girls, you like to knee guys in the balls? Well, here’s your chance to do it legitimately, and as hard as you can. If you can, break those two nuts off. For the guys, you don’t have to be gentle. Just knee her too. Succubuses are generally harder to kill, but hey, if all else fail, just get a knife. They turn to ashes when they get the knife in the heart, or if their little counterparts die. Guns don’t work well on them, so don’t try. I once fought a damned fucking woman, and she just wouldn’t eat my bullets. Stupid little fucker tried to rip off my pants, but she wasn’t going to get to enjoy little Dante anytime soon before I put my sword through her.”

One thing I definitely noted was that Mr. Dante’s speech was as vulgar as a drunken whore, and he didn’t seem to mind about it, despite the fact that he was in a school, teaching seventeen year olds. Of course, we understood that he wasn’t trying to teach us how to curse and swear, but it was an amazement how he could manage to insert the word ‘fuck’ in his explanation so cleanly.

“Take that down, kids. Number 7 is probably the hardest for you teenagers with raging hormones to kill –especially the guys who can’t keep their dick in their pants.” He concluded quickly on the demon he named Lust, turned around, and began drawing again.

No one had said a single word since he started about the demons, and even some of our classmates were beginning to get a little interested in demons. It turned out that Mr. Dante knew a lot about demons, and though we weren’t sure if he was just cuckoo in the head about making things like this up, it was interesting about how he put his words into describing the demons, and how well he drew them out.

Even I could imagine the demons he drew, doing whatever he described with his colorful language. Demons, in my opinion, were definitely notches better than some boring Greek Gods. Still, we were sure this wasn’t part of the syllabus at all, and no one could fathom why we were being taught this crap.

Mr. Dante stopped suddenly in the midst of his artwork, turning around to face the class again. Then, without preamble, he flicked his wrist, and the marker came flying at such a speed, you would have thought that the projectile was fired from a gun. The impact of the butt of the marker hitting Lionel, the sleeping boy, on the forehead was so loud that it almost echoed in the classroom.

“You wanna die, kid?” Mr. Dante asked dangerously, but he didn’t even frown.

“Um…… no.” Lionel replied, since he was used to being caught by teachers for falling asleep in class.

“You want a demon in your bed, kid?”

“No?”

“A succubus, to be exact?”

Lionel looked around, unsure of what exactly was happening, and why Mr. Dante was asking him such a weird question when he had said he didn’t want a demon in his bed.

“Um… no. I told you.”

Mr. Dante took another marker from the table, uncapped it and continued drawing.

“Then stop dreaming about one. I can smell your erection from here.”

The entire class turned to watch Lionel turn red –and it became obvious. It wasn’t weird for someone to have an erection in class –not anymore now. But the fact that Mr. Dante knew? This guy was more than a mad man…

The freaky guy continued drawing and refining is art piece for a few more minutes, but stopped suddenly without preamble. He didn’t check the time, didn’t check the clock. He merely capped his marker silently, dropped it carelessly back on the table and leaned against the side of the table.

“Yvonne and friend, meet me after school.” Mr. Dante reminded, meeting my eye for a moment, and then turning away. I noted that he refused to meet Yvonne’s eyes.

All the while, Mr. Dante didn’t check the clock. He waited for another five more seconds in silence, and then made to move for the door, which opened at the same time that the bell rang.

“Dante, when have you picked up your IQ? When Lady told me you came to school today, I was sure Vergil whacked some form of sense in you. How was class? Did you teacher puke blood?” A woman with a voluptuous figure strutted in, and a few guys whistled before them could help it. Even I had to do a double-check on her ample breasts and the way she was showing them off.

“I was the teacher, Trish. I’m on a job, so stop butting in on my work. I need to pay off my debt.” Mr. Dante granted in reply, pushing the lady aside as he made for the door, but she stepped back into his line, ignoring us entirely.

“This coming from the man who eats nothing but pizzas? Devil May Cry has been pretty boring today. Vergil’s going to kill himself if you don’t come home.”

“What for? To let him kill me?”

“You know he can’t, or Daddy Sparda’s gonna be pissed.”

“Shut up, bitch. I’ve had one hour of lesson, and that’s all I’m going to take for today. No Vergil, no Lady, and definitely no you. Besides, I’ve got a demon to kill and a gate to seal today.”

With that, Mr. Dante walked out the door, and the woman followed behind him.

Yvonne and I looked at each other. He wasn’t the only crazy one. Apparently there was a woman along for the ride too.

**************************************************

“Sister, you need to chill out. It’s going to be okay……” Yvonne tried to comfort me, but the voice faded away when we opened the gym doors to find the lights dimmed, and only a man standing in the middle of it. In one hand was a sword that was almost half his height, and in the other hand was the familiar shape of a familiar gun.

It was natural that I freaked out a little at the sight of gun-tottering Mr. Dante. He was going to kill us!

I tried to pull Yvonne out, but someone blocked me from behind and instead pushed us both forwards.

“Hey girls. How has the day been?” The woman who had walked into our classroom now ushered us in, closing and locking the gym doors behind her, effectively trapping us in the gym. Yvonne was staying bravely silently, holding on tightly to my hand, but I was beginning to tremble. Whatever Mr. Dante was going to do here, I wasn’t going to like it.

“Ahhh, Yvonne, and the girl with the locket! It’s nice to see you girls again. Happy to see the mad man?” Mr. Dante spread his arms to show welcoming, but the effect was ruined with his threatening sword and gun.

“I doubt anyone would ever be.” Yvonne said bravely, still holding on to me, as if telling me that she would be here for me. For the moment, I thanked the Gods Yvonne was with me. I wouldn’t know what to do without her…

“You can drop the act, pretty girl. It’s just you, me, Trish and your friend here.”

“So can you, Mr. Dante.”

The teacher shrugged, and I chanced a look at my best friend. What were they talking about? Did Yvonne know this guy?

“Yvonne?” I squeaked quietly, but Mr. Dante was the one who answered me.

“Tell me, girl, did you listen to my lesson today? What did I say about demon number 4?”

Demon number 4? What the heck was he talking about? I vaguely remembered something…

“Pride?” I chanced a guess, earning a whistle of commendation –in which I wasn’t sure if I should feel happy at.

“Yes, Pride. Do you remember their characteristics?”

“They… usually hold a disguise, some which may last for years? They are the least detectable, and easiest to hide amongst a crowd. They take breaks between their kills, some taking years in between. They kill by manipulating the mind. They control minds of prideful men, and send them to their deaths using many different ways. That is why they are so difficult to find –the deaths seem natural, and they are able to hold disguises for long.” I recited as much as I knew from my memory, and it seemed to impress both adults as I heard soft clapping behind me.

“Clever girl. You have passed the first test.” Mr. Dante complimented, and I wasn’t sure if I should take it with joy.

“Ask me a question, Mr. Dante. I’ll answer you.” Yvonne said with a smile that said she was confident. I knew that smile –I saw it often when Yvonne dealt with other bitches trying to diss her for her beauty.

“That is not needed, is it, Demon number 4?” Mr. Dante asked as his partner walked from behind us to his side, guns in her hands.

“I have to prove myself to one such the likes of you, don’t I, Mr. Son of Sparda?”

I gave Yvonne a look at her strange determination to prove this madman something, before I realized that her nails had grown longer –her hair too. Someone grabbed my hand and dragged me away from my best friend, and I didn’t resist as I watched her grow hairy, blonde hair turning black. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, my mind returned to the drawing that Mr. Dante had done for Demon Number 4, remembering how it looked like.

“Oh my god, oh my god. Sweet Jesus, is that…” I couldn’t help but exclaim as Yvonne completed her –it’s? –transformation and I was brought by Dante’s lady friend to his side.

“A demon. Demon number 4, to be exact. How are you doing up there, sweetness?” Mr. Dante tilted his head to make eye contact with the hideous thing that looked like an overly hairy, overly large cat.

“Do I get my A, Mr. Dante?” I heard the distorted version of Yvonne’s voice saying, and I had no idea that demons could speak.

How could she have been a demon? Yvonne had been my best friend since young. She had grown up with me; she was practically my childhood friend! I knew Yvonne lived with her aunt and uncle… were they demons too? But Yvonne had never tried to kill me yet; nor shown any sign of maniac-murderous intent. But which demon would walk out on the streets with the word ‘demon’ labeled on their heads?

“You’ll get an A for disgusting me out, darlin’. What are you supposed to be? An overgrown cat?”

“Pride! Mundus bestowed this body to me; don’t you dare insult me!” Yvonne screamed, and that thing disappeared so fast that I almost could see a silhouette of where it was a second ago.

“You might want to look out, sweet baby.” I heard Mr. Dante’s voice right beside my ear, and jerked as I was dragged behind, a claw hitting the ground only inches before my foot. I screamed, but my scream was drowned out by gunshots that came from a familiar gun over my shoulder. Bullets hit the demon, and I screamed again at the thought of that thing being Yvonne.

“Don’t! Don’t hurt her!” I couldn’t think of anything else as I grabbed the gun over my shoulder, pushing his aim haywire.

I wasn’t trying to be a hero, but I knew that Yvonne had been my best friend all these years. She had been nothing but an angel; demon or not, and I wasn’t going to let some Dante person ruin it. So what is she was a demon? She hadn’t killed anyone, and didn’t seem to have planned to kill anyone yet.

“Stop shooting at her! She has done nothing wrong! She didn’t choose to be this way!” I shouted, spreading my arms wide as if it could stop the two gun-tottering adults from arming her. But I had to do something –something for Yvonne.

There was a period of surprised silence, in which my teacher and his sidekick actually lowered their arsenal and gave me raised brows.

“But, my lovely girl, I did choose to be this way. You are terribly mistaken; I chose you only because I needed someone to cover me. Who would want to stay and befriend a girl like you? I just had to use you to hide me from demon hunters such as these two. But you have passed your usefulness. Like the many others I have put down, it is time for your turn.” I heard a mocking voice behind me, and something hit into my side.

Pain spread like wildfire in a dry forest as I flew across the gym. I crashed into the wall, and as I slumped limply against it, fighting the waves of unconsciousness threatening to crash over me, I saw Mr. Dante charging towards what was once my best friend with his sword. His companion was gone –not that it mattered to me.

I closed my eyes and resigned to my fate.

I had been backstabbed, and this was my punishment.

**************************************

The first thing that came to me was the fact that the room smelled entirely like manly sweat, sex and strong cologne.  All in all, it was an overpowering smell, and I wondered if I would fall back into unconsciousness at this nasal assault. The second thing I realized was that I felt something binding my upper body tight, and when I tilted my head to look down at my body, sure enough, there were tight bandages around my chest. Apparently whoever who bound me was skilled at bandaging, and I wondered who could be the one doing it. I sucked in a gasp before I could help it, thinking of Mr. Dante, and then groaned in the pain that it caused me.

The door to the room opened.

“You’re awake. Great, now I can have my room back.” A familiar voice said, and I sat up immediately, crossing my arms over my bandaged chest, and then falling to the side when the movement pulled on the wound at my side that I don’t remember having.

“Chill. I didn’t see anything. Besides, even if I wanted to see something, I would just get Trish to fuck me. Anyway, it was her that dressed your wound. I brought you here; she did the rest of the magic work. You wanna thank; thank her.” Mr. Dante raised both hands in surrender, not taking another step in despite the fact that this was his room.

“Where am I? What happened?” I pounced on the chance to interrogate him.

“You are at my home-cum-office, darling. Welcome to Devil May Cry. You were swiped at the side by the demon, crashed into the wall and fell unconscious. By the way, I took your locket to send the demon back to where she belonged.”

I was silent for a moment, unsure of how to ask, unsure if I even wanted to know the answer at all.

“What… happened to Yvonne?”

Mr. Dante leaned his back against the doorframe, crossing his arms.

“Back to hell. Your locket was the key to breaking her seal to this world. She felt threatened when she heard I was coming into town, so she gave it to you as a present, since no one would suspect a girl innocent like you. She used you to mask her presence, but she didn’t count on the fact that I could just sense her like a blip on my radar when I go demon.”

I gasp, heartbeat beginning to pick up when I realized the severity of what he had just said.

“You are… a demon?” I shrieked the last two words in shock, and his protest, which I was sure was coming from his lips, was interrupted by a loud gunshot that exploded blood from Dante’s forehead, causing the man to lose his balance and fall to the ground, unmoving and lifeless.

I screamed. No one had died in front of me before, and definitely not so brutally. How could the bullet have come? Where did it come from? Was Mr. Dante going to die just like that?

“Relax, darlin’. He’s a half-devil, so I killed him for you.” The woman commonly referred to as Trish stepped over Mr. Dante’s body with one of her guns smoking.

“You didn’t have to kill him!” I screamed, still unable to get past my hysteria. Give me a break; I was just a sixteen year old kid who didn’t believe in demons. Now I had Yvonne gone, and my teacher dead, and I was wounded in god-knew-were with a gun-tottering woman who shot people without second thoughts.

“But he’s a demon.” Trish shrugged, giving the body a solid kick as I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see the scene before me, and struggling to breathe properly with my crazy heart palpitations.

“But he didn’t do anything wrong!”

“He lied about the dressing you part. He stripped you to the bone, filled his eyes with your image, and then got the bandages on. Still a good demon now?”

“Then lock him up!” I exclaimed. Were all demon hunters like them so condemning? Just because he answer to his male testosterone meant that he was a bad demon? It would have been good to just call the police and somehow have him locked up, right?

“And let him escape and rape me? No thanks.” Trish shrugged, keeping her guns.

A strange cough filled the room, and then there were expressive cursing.

“Fucking demon. I didn’t do anything to you, woman.” Mr. Dante’s voice was a growl as he slowly picked himself up while I gasped again. How could he have…?

“Oh yeah? How about the times you forced me to fuck you?” Trish didn’t seem surprised at all as she walked over and flicked him on the forehead, as if she were reprimanding an insolent kid.

“You were willing! Besides, I was horny and you were the closest thing to a woman around here!”

“Then go out to a strip club! I’m not your sex toy.”

“You don’t have to, now that I have her,” Mr. Dante tilted his chin over to me, and I crossed my arms over my chest even tighter, “Besides; you weren’t so good on the bed anyway.”

Mr. Dante replied her in a condescending tone, and it definitely pissed the woman off. She raised her guns, and before I knew it, lightning began charging her weapons. How could that have…. Unless she…

“You’re a demon too!” I exclaimed, breaking their imminent argument and pointing at Trish accusingly.

She turned around. “Remember what you said about just locking Dante up instead of killing him? Because I hope that applies to me as well.” She confessed with no problem, as I saw her in a new light.

Demons. I was in a room with two demons. God help me, I was stuck with demons.

“Now, don’t you go all Jesus-y on me. We are not exactly Christians, but we don’t run from crosses, so you don’t have to try pulling a cross on me.” Mr. Dante fiddled with the wound on his forehead, and before I knew it, he had plucked the bullet from his wound with no difficulties.

“Can I go now? I want to go home.” I pleaded, hoping it would get through to them that I didn’t want anything to do with them anymore, and I just wanted a break.

Apparently, they didn’t get it.

“We can’t. Yvonne’s return to Hell was noisy and destroyed half the school. Students were evacuated and we extracted you and got you out from the rubble. Your parents were contacted and they know of your injury. At the moment, they are in Australia, managing their business and are going to attend a forum that spans at least a month long. Your aunt –your legal guardian –can’t be contacted at the moment. You are staying with us until your parents get home.”

I stared at the two of them. “You have got to be kidding me. I barely know the two of you!”

“It takes time, darling.” Trish smiled, but I wasn’t made happier by that.

“But you two are demons!”

“I’m half.” Mr. Dante put in, but it didn’t matter.

“Still demon! I can’t live with you two!”

“We live like humans. Well, at least I do. Dante would have died long ago of obesity and cancer from his pizza and alcohol diet.”

“What happens if demons attack this place? Where is this, even?”

“A few streets from your school. We’re going to have you learn to defend yourself against demons.” Dante shrugged, rubbing the blood from his forehead.

“How?”

He grinned, and I was suddenly afraid of what he might suggest afterwards.

“I am your teacher, right?”