"God… Damn…it…"

Leaning against the metal cage surrounding the arena, Riot cranked his neck as he swallowed air like a suffocating man. In a different corner of the cage, Oliver lied on his face, completely motionless. The only one standing as if it doesn't matter was Dante.

"Can't you… can't you take it easy… for once?" Riot complained. "These things… they aren't meant to be rushed, you know?"

"We don't have time." Dante replied.

"We aren't goddamn clankers like you! We get tired!"

"... you can rest for the night."

It should be obvious that one can't achieve the highest form of martial arts in a couple of weeks, but what choice did he have. Knowing what he now knows, Dante was in an even more of a rush to increase his power. The fight against Kaiser Tigris played a big role, too.

It was almost as if his rise to Level 6 mattered so little now. In the end, his need for power didn't decrease in the least.

"C'mon, man. Give us a couple of days." Riot hung his head. "I already told you to get someone else to play with. I'm getting too old for this."

"You're barely thirty." Dante said.

"Thirty!!?" Oliver jumped up in shock.

Dante understood Riot's point. Even if the wall of muscles didn't get tired, sparring against him repeatedly would eventually get stale. Things were different when he was going against that old homeless man. The hobo seemed to know various styles of martial arts and switched between them frequently, making it so Dante could never get used to his moves.

'Too bad he kicked the bucket.'

Guns made most martial art obsolete a long time ago, and with everyone relying on behavioral matrixes these days, it was difficult to find opponents to practice against. Riot still refuses to say anything about his master and the place he trained in, so for the time being, Dante was left with no choice.

A beam of light fell from above as Dante left the arena, drawing his attention to the hole in the ceiling. Yesterday's events played in his mind. Things were going pretty well until that blonde bastard came along, and because of him, Dante lost his chance to invite the werewolf to train with them. He was willing to bear the disgust of dealing with Genomes if it meant making some progress, but alas…

~[ ]~

To clear his head, Dante took the Raven and went out for a ride. Remaining focused had been difficult throughout the day, starting from when he had that talk with Finn. A part of him wanted to go check on the boy, but a different part urged him to forget it, reminding him again and again that he didn't have the time for that.

'Yet you have the time for pointless rides.'

Just as the clock was about to hit midnight, a message reached him, the notification almost sending him off the road.

[Larry: Your implants are here.]

'That was fast…'

For a moment there, Dante thought the Doctor was referring to the rewards Dante had ordered for his subordinates, but then he remembered something from about a month ago. Giving it some thought, he type a response.

[

Dante: Do you have the time for a quick swap?

Larry: Goddamn it.

I knew you would say something like that.

Everything is ready so just hurry up.

]

Dante smiled to himself and went on with his ride. Soon after, he went into an underground tunnel, hiding from the eyes following him around. Equipping his oni mast, he activated Silent breath and disappeared. At the same time, he summoned his robot clone and sent him back with the Raven.

Crossing the city by jumping between roofs had its own appeal, but Dante was just taking a shortcut and had no plans of enjoying the experience. He reached Hollowgrid in just a couple of minutes and sent Larry anther text, telling him to open the blast door to his Workshop. Only once he was inside did Dante dismiss his mask and reveal himself.

"Don't know what's worse, you being invisible or the way you teleport in." Said the doctor. "I'm starting to understand where you got the Gost name."

"Yeah yeah, you know how it is." Dante said. "No one harassed you about it, right?"

"They sure tried. The Clinic has been bugged, and they tried to get the data from my Daedalus. Good thing I planted a dummy beforehand."

"They really are a pain in the ass." Dante said.

It doesn't take a lot of guessing to figure out which doctor worked on his implants, so Larry being targeted wasn't out so strange. It would have been a problem if he was taken away, but from the looks of it, they're planning to keep watching for the time being.

After taking the accursed laser bath, Dante went into the operation room an immediately walked to the boxes placed on the workbench near the operation table.

"As you have ordered," Larry opened each box one after the other. "Two Titan Lung XIII, two Titan Pure Bloods VI, and one Titan Guts XIII."

Dante looked over the implants, feeling a hint of excitement an a whole lot of disappointment. For a very long time, buying Titan Forge implants had been his dream. The pinnacle of military class bionics, the kind that could turn a normal man to a high Level cyborg—once he had a full set, he would be ready to go after Paragon and claim his revenge. That had been the plan once. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Obviously, things have changed since then. Suzuka's custom made MBIs surpassed everything sold on the open market, and the Ares implants he got weren't that different from their Titan Forge counterparts. By all means, Dante should have no reason to purchase the expensive implants, but he decided to do so anyway.

If there were any ways to improve his cyborg body, Dante was prepared to take them. That is why he arranged to replace his lower grade bionics with better versions. Though all of his implants repair themselves over time, decreasing the chances of them being damaged in battle was obviously the better choice.

"By the way." Pulling down his surgical mask, Larry gave him a tired look. "Have you decided what you'll do with the old implants?"