Chapter 65: Asag’s Offer
The silence after Dante’s phone call wasn't quiet. It roared. It vibrated in Dabi’s skull, a physical pressure echoing the frantic hammering of his heart against his ribs. The polished stone floor of Dante’s penthouse felt like ice beneath his bare feet, anchoring him in a reality that had just tilted violently off-axis. Dante’s voice, raw and broken, uttering words that sounded terrifyingly final – I love you. Thankful. Sorry. – looped endlessly.
Adam watched him, the ancient calm replaced by a sharp, assessing focus. "The call ended," he stated, his voice low and devoid of its earlier arrogance. It was a demand for information wrapped in necessity.
Dabi swallowed hard, the lump in his throat jagged. "Yeah. Ended." He shoved the phone back into his jeans pocket, the movement jerky. "Sounded… fucked. Worse than yesterday. Worse than ever." He met Adam’s gaze, the panic a wild animal clawing at his insides, but beneath it, cold fury and determination were crystallizing. Dante’s farewell wasn't an end. It was a declaration of war against whatever had driven him to that edge. "He said… he loved me. Like he was saying goodbye."
Adam’s expression didn’t flicker, but the intensity in his ancient eyes deepened. "He wouldn't vanish after what happened without purpose. Without destination. Where would he go? What would draw him?"
The answer slammed into Dabi with sickening clarity. The visions. Asag. The source. The breach. "The mountain," Dabi rasped, the words tasting like ash. "The fucking volcano. Where Asag’s leaking through. Where he showed Dante… whatever nightmare he showed him." He remembered Dante’s terror, the way he’d clung, the whispered fragments about impossible choices and protecting those he loved. "He’s gone to face it. Alone. The stupid, self-sacrificing bastard."
Adam nodded once, a grim acceptance. "Then that’s where we go."
The air grew thick and acrid long before the jagged fissure came into view. Dante stood at the edge, boots planted on unstable, heat-warped rock. Below, the throat of the volcano glowed a malevolent, sullen red. Not the full fury of an eruption, but a deep, pulsing wound in the earth, radiating oppressive heat that shimmered the air and made breathing feel like swallowing hot sand. The stench was overwhelming – sulfur thick enough to coat the tongue, mingled with the ozone tang of raw, unstable magic and the ancient, dusty scent of primordial stone. It was the breath of the abyss.
He hadn't bothered with glamour. His true form was partially revealed – obsidian horns curling sharply from his temples, casting jagged shadows down his face, eyes burning with an internal crimson fire that mirrored the pit below. His skin shimmered faintly with scales along his forearms and neck, a testament to the strain holding his power in check. He felt brittle, hollowed out. Dabi’s voice, the raw fear and desperate love in his final shout, echoed in the cavernous silence of his own mind, a counterpoint to the dread coiling in his gut.
"You came." The voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It emanated from the fissure itself, vibrating up through the rock beneath Dante’s feet, resonating deep within his bones. It was the grinding of continental plates, the sigh of collapsing stars, layered with an intelligence vast and utterly alien. Asag. "I wondered if fear would chain you to your fragile comforts."
Dante didn’t flinch. He stared into the pulsating glow, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. "Fear?" His voice was rough, scraped raw by the fumes and the echo of his own despair. "You showed me enough to carve fear into my fucking marrow, Asag. You showed me annihilation. You showed me… them… broken." The image of Dabi, lifeless eyes staring at nothing, Adam consumed by primordial shadow, Mammon’s empire crumbling into dust – they flashed behind his eyes, sharp and agonizing. "You made your point."
A low rumble, almost like amusement, shuddered through the mountain. "Point? No, Prince of Hell. I merely presented inevitability. The path laid bare. Your choices, such as they are."
Dante’s fists clenched at his sides, claws digging into his own palms. The heat was oppressive, sweat plastering his dark hair to his temples, trickling down his spine beneath his leather jacket. "What do you want?" The question was a snarl, ripped from him. "What twisted fucking price buys their safety? Spit it out."
The glow in the fissure intensified, coalescing into shifting, indistinct shapes – eyes? Limbs? It was impossible to tell, a formless horror glimpsed through heat haze. "You understand the breach is… insufficient. A trickle where a torrent is required. My essence strains against these paltry confines. I require… amplification. A conduit. A vessel strong enough to channel my will fully into this plane."
Dante’s blood ran cold despite the infernal heat. "A vessel." He knew. He’d known since the visions. The confirmation still felt like a physical blow.
"You," Asag confirmed, the word vibrating with terrible finality. "Your lineage. Your power. Your connection to the infernal currents. You are the key. The only key capable of turning the lock wide enough."
Dante closed his eyes for a second, the image of Dabi’s smile flashing against the darkness. The warmth of his body pressed close. The sound of his laugh. Gone. All gone, unless… "And if I refuse?" He already knew the answer.
The mountain groaned. Rocks clattered down the inner slope. "Refusal is… irrelevant. The path unfolds. The annihilation you witnessed will come to pass. Your human. The First Man. Your pitiful club. All dust. All consumed. Slowly. Painfully. Their screams will be the last music this world hears before silence." The voice held no malice, only chilling certainty. "Or…"
Dante opened his eyes, meeting the shifting, burning gaze within the fissure. "Or?"
"Or you become the conduit. You surrender your form to my essence. You allow me to wear you, Prince of Hell, like a second skin. You become my hand, my voice, my will made manifest." The voice lowered, becoming almost intimate, a poisonous whisper in Dante’s mind. "In return… they are spared. Untouched. Shielded by my… gratitude. Your sacrifice buys their continued existence. Their ignorance. Their bliss."
The word ‘sacrifice’ echoed. Dante saw Dabi again, laughing in the Inferno’s VIP section, unaware. Safe. Alive. The alternative was unthinkable. A void where that light existed. He felt the fragile shell of his control cracking, the demonic power within him surging in response to the ancient entity’s proximity, a dark mirror yearning to merge. His horns felt heavier, the scales on his arms more pronounced, his vision tinting deeper crimson.
He took a shuddering breath, the sulfur-laden air scorching his lungs. The decision was made the moment he left Dabi sleeping. Made when he heard the raw terror in Dabi’s voice on the phone. Made when he realized love, true, desperate love, meant being willing to become the monster to save the beloved from monsters worse than yourself.
He lifted his chin, defiance warring with utter resignation in his burning eyes. "Fine," he spat, the word tasting like bile. "You win, you ancient fucking parasite. I’ll be your fucking puppet. Your meat suit. Whatever grotesque shit you need." He took a step closer to the fissure’s edge, the heat blistering. "But you swear it. On whatever fucking power you crawled out of. You swear you leave them alone. Dabi. Adam. Mammon. The Inferno. Everyone I give a single fuck about. You don’t touch them. You don’t even look at them. You keep your tendrils and your whispers and your fucking annihilation far away from them. Forever."
The shifting glow within the fissure pulsed brighter, hotter. A sense of… satisfaction radiated outwards, thick and cloying. "The pact is struck, Prince. Your loved ones are… sacrosanct. Protected. For as long as you serve."
"Serve?" Dante barked a harsh, humorless laugh. "Get on with it. What’s the fucking price tag today? Besides my soul and my sanity?"
"The vessel must be… prepared," Asag murmured, the voice dropping to a sibilant whisper that slithered over Dante’s skin. "Opened. Made receptive to the fullness of my essence. Your current form… resists. It clings to its own identity. Its… attachments." The word ‘attachments’ was laden with contempt. "This resistance must be… dissolved."
Dante’s stomach clenched. "Dissolved? How?"
The air directly in front of Dante shimmered violently. Not heat haze this time, but a coalescence of pure, dark energy. It thickened, took form – impossibly tall, broad-shouldered, radiating palpable, ancient power. It wasn't truly Asag; the entity remained deep within the volcanic heart. This was a projection, a manifestation sculpted from pure will and shadow. It had the rough shape of a man, but its edges bled into the surrounding heat shimmer, and its face was a smooth, featureless obsidian plane reflecting Dante’s own distorted, horned reflection. Its presence was crushing, a gravitational pull that threatened to buckle Dante’s knees.
"Through surrender," the shadow-manifestation spoke, its voice a resonant echo of the fissure’s rumble, yet intimately close. "Through the obliteration of self. Through… communion."
Before Dante could react, could even fully process the word ‘communion’, the manifestation moved. It wasn't a step; it was an instantaneous closing of distance. One moment it was yards away, the next its massive, shadow-formed hand clamped around the back of Dante’s neck with crushing force. Dante gasped, not from pain, but from the sheer, overwhelming presence flooding him – ancient, vast, utterly devoid of anything resembling empathy or warmth. It was the cold vacuum between stars given sentience.
The shadow-hand yanked Dante forward, off balance, pressing his face against the unnaturally smooth, cool obsidian plane where a face should be. The other hand, equally massive and formed of swirling darkness, gripped Dante’s hip, fingers digging in possessively. Dante struggled instinctively, a snarl ripping from his throat, demonic power flaring – horns elongating, claws extending, scales rippling across more of his skin. He shoved against the solid shadow chest, but it was like pushing against a mountainside.
"Resistance is futile," the manifestation rumbled, its voice vibrating through Dante’s bones. The hand on his neck slid down, fingers tangling roughly in Dante’s dark hair, pulling his head back sharply, exposing his throat. Dante gasped, the vulnerable line of his neck laid bare. "And counterproductive. You agreed, Prince. To save your precious humans. To spare your lover his gruesome end. This…" The manifestation leaned down, its featureless head hovering inches from Dante’s exposed throat. "...is the price. The first payment."
The hand on Dante’s hip moved. It slid around, fingers splaying possessively over the taut muscle of Dante’s abdomen beneath his shirt and jacket, then lower. Roughly, deliberately, it cupped the hard outline of Dante’s cock through the worn denim. Dante jerked violently, a choked sound escaping him – part rage, part shock. "Get… your fucking… hands… OFF!" he spat, thrashing, demonic energy crackling around him, scorching the rock beneath his boots.
The manifestation ignored him. Its grip tightened on Dante’s hair, holding him immobile. The other hand squeezed Dante’s cock through the denim, a deliberate, grinding pressure that was less about pleasure and more about assertion, about violation. "You cling to this flesh," the voice hissed, thick with disdain. "To its desires. To its connections. This vessel must be emptied. Cleansed." The hand on his cock moved, fingers deftly unsnapping the button of Dante’s jeans, dragging the zipper down with a harsh rasp that echoed in the volcanic stillness.
Cold dread, colder than the manifestation’s touch, washed over Dante. This wasn't sex. This was desecration. A ritual defilement. He understood now. Asag needed him broken not just in spirit, but in the most intimate sense. To sever the tether of his physical self, his desires, his connection to Dabi that resided in every nerve ending. To make him a hollow shell ready for occupation.
"No!" Dante roared, summoning a surge of hellfire. Crimson flames licked up his arms, searing towards the manifestation’s chest. The shadow-form absorbed the fire without a flicker, the flames vanishing into its darkness like water into sand. The manifestation didn’t even flinch.
"Pathetic," it breathed, its featureless face still hovering near Dante’s throat. The hand that had opened his jeans plunged inside, bypassing his briefs, cold, shadowy fingers wrapping around Dante’s flaccid cock. The touch was alien, invasive, devoid of any warmth or friction. It was violation distilled. Dante froze, a strangled gasp tearing from him. His body recoiled, his cock shriveling further under the unnatural touch.
The manifestation squeezed, a slow, deliberate pressure. "Your flesh betrays your fear," it observed dispassionately. "Good. Fear is the beginning of dissolution." Its other hand released Dante’s hair only to grab the collar of his leather jacket and shirt beneath. With terrifying strength, it ripped downwards. Fabric tore like paper – jacket, shirt, the thin cotton of his undershirt – baring Dante’s torso to the blistering air and the entity’s gaze. Scales shimmered across his chest and shoulders, his demonic form reacting defensively to the assault.
Before Dante could react further, the manifestation spun him around, slamming his bare chest against the cool, smooth obsidian of its own form. Dante’s breath exploded out of him. The manifestation pressed against his back, its massive shadow-body enveloping him, pinning him. One arm snaked around Dante’s waist, holding him crushingly tight against the unyielding darkness. The other hand, the one that had violated his jeans, now gripped Dante’s hip hard, fingers digging into scaled flesh.
Dante felt the manifestation shift behind him. He felt the terrifying, impossible pressure of something immense and alien pressing against the cleft of his ass, still covered by his jeans and briefs. Panic, pure and primal, surged through him. He bucked violently, snarling, horns scraping against the shadow-form. "Don't you fucking dare! I'LL TEAR YOU APART!"
"You agreed," the voice hissed in his ear, the sound vibrating through his very skull. "To save them. This is the crucible. Embrace it. Or watch them burn."
The words were a brand. Dabi. Safe. The image of Dabi’s lifeless eyes flashed again, extinguishing Dante’s resistance like a bucket of ice water. A sob, raw and broken, tore from Dante’s throat. He stopped struggling. His body went rigid, trembling violently, but he stopped fighting. He pressed his forehead against the cool shadow-arm pinning him, squeezing his eyes shut. For Dabi. For Dabi. For Dabi. The mantra was a shield against the horror unfolding.
The manifestation’s hand on his hip moved. Dante heard the rasp of his own zipper being pulled down further. Felt cold, shadowy fingers hook into the waistband of his briefs and jeans, yanking them down roughly over his hips, exposing his ass to the searing volcanic air and the entity’s intent. The vulnerability was absolute, humiliating.
He felt the immense, blunt pressure again, pressing insistently against his entrance, still shielded by the thin fabric of his briefs. Then, a tearing sound. The briefs ripped apart as if they were tissue paper. Cool air hit his exposed hole. Dante flinched violently, a whimper escaping his clenched teeth.
The pressure returned, direct now. Immense. Unyielding. It wasn't shaped like a human cock; it felt like smooth, cool stone, impossibly large, radiating that same ancient, alien power. It pressed hard against Dante’s tight ring of muscle.
"No lubrication," the voice observed, a detached clinical note amidst the violation. "Pain is… clarifying. A reminder of the fragility of flesh. Of the necessity of surrender."
The pressure intensified. Dante braced, every muscle in his body locked in terrified anticipation. He felt the impossible stretch begin, the burning tear as his body was forced open by something fundamentally not meant for it. He bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood
The invasion was excruciating. Cold, impossibly rigid shadow forced its way past Dante’s clenched ring of muscle, tearing tissue with brutal, unyielding pressure. A ragged scream ripped from his throat, echoing off the volcanic walls, swallowed almost instantly by the fissure’s hungry rumble. Fire lanced up his spine, white-hot agony radiating through his pelvis, his guts twisting in protest against the violation. His claws scraped sparks from the smooth obsidian manifestation pinning him, finding no purchase, no weakness.
"Fucking… STOP!" he howled, thrashing against the immovable shadow-arm wrapped around his waist. His demonic strength surged, scales flaring brighter crimson along his back and shoulders, horns lengthening and sharpening in defensive fury. It was useless. The shadow absorbed the surge, dampening it like water soaking into ash.
"Resistance prolongs the inevitable," the manifestation hissed, its voice a vibration against his sweat-slicked back. It pressed deeper, that cold, immense shaft stretching him impossibly wider, the burning sensation intensifying into a deep, grinding ache that felt like his bones might splinter. "Embrace the emptiness. This vessel requires purification. Every anchor to your pathetic existence must be severed." The hand not pinning him snaked around his hip, cold shadow-fingers wrapping around his flaccid, traumatized cock, squeezing with deliberate, crushing pressure. Dante choked on another cry, his body convulsing.
He felt impossibly full, stretched to tearing, his body invaded by an ancient, alien presence that cared nothing for his pain, only for conquest. The manifestation began to move. Not thrusting, but slowly withdrawing that cold, immense intrusion almost completely before ramming it back in with devastating, piston-like force. Each inward drive scraped raw nerve endings, the lack of lubrication turning the slide into a searing agony. His cock remained limp and painful in the shadowy grip, a cruel mockery of arousal.
"See?" The voice scraped against his mind. "Flesh yields. Spirit breaks. Your defiance is meaningless noise." Another brutal shove buried the shadow-cock to its root, forcing the breath from Dante’s lungs in a strangled gasp. He tasted copper – his bitten lip bleeding freely. Tears of pain and utter humiliation mixed with the sweat streaming down his face, dripping onto the manifestation’s obsidian arm. The rhythmic violation continued, a cold, mechanical rape designed to shatter more than his body. It sought the core of him, the part that loved, that raged, that was Dante. For Dabi. The thought was a desperate talisman against the soul-crushing violation. For Adam. For the fragile world he’d built. He forced himself to go limp, accepting the invasion, the agony, focusing only on that singular purpose: their survival. His surrender felt like dying.
As he yielded, truly yielded, a terrifying shift occurred within the manifestation. The cold, shadowy substance composing the invading shaft seemed to dissolve, turning into liquid obsidian that poured into him, flooding his torn channel, seeping into his very tissues, his bloodstream. It was a violation deeper than physical, a chilling invasion at a cellular level. Dante’s scream turned into a guttural, inhuman shriek as the ancient power surged up his spine, flooding his nervous system, crashing into his mind. His eyes, burning crimson just moments before, flickered violently. The red dimmed, replaced by a sickening, pulsing amethyst light that bled into the sclera, consuming the whites. His horns darkened, became more jagged, crystalline. His scales hardened, turning obsidian-black, reflecting the fissure’s glow with a cold, alien sheen. His thrashing ceased abruptly. His body went unnaturally still, held upright only by the shadow-manifestation, which now seemed less substantial, its energy flowing into the vessel it had forcibly prepared. The last vestiges of Dante’s awareness were drowned in a vast, cold ocean of alien consciousness. Prince of Hell. King of Nothing. Dante was gone.
That was the moment Dabi, Adam, and Sapphire burst onto the volcanic ledge. Dabi led the charge, eyes wild with fear, breath ragged from the punishing climb through the sulfur-choked air. Adam moved with preternatural grace, his ancient face set in stone, radiating focused power. Sapphire, eyes wide with shock, scanned the scene, her sharp intake of breath audible over the rumbling earth. They skidded to a halt. Dante stood near the fissure’s edge, the shadow-manifestation dissipating like smoke around him, absorbed into his transformed body. He turned slowly, unhurriedly, to face them.
His eyes glowed with a deep, unnatural violet light, devoid of any recognition, any warmth, any trace of Dante. Dabi’s heart plummeted into his boots. "Dante?" he whispered, the name catching in his throat.
The entity inhabiting Dante’s body tilted its head, a gesture that was utterly alien on his lover’s familiar features. A chilling smile touched the lips, devoid of humor or humanity. "Dante is… occupied," the voice said. It was Dante’s voice, but layered with that ancient, grinding resonance, the hint of volcanic rumble underneath. "He is the vessel now."
Adam stepped forward slightly, placing himself subtly between Dabi and the possessed prince, his own power a barely contained hum in the air. "Asag," he stated, the name dropping like a stone into the tense silence. "Release him."
Violet eyes flickered lazily towards Adam. "The First Man graces us." The smile widened, showing too many teeth. "Release? No. He came willingly. Offered himself freely." The possessed gaze shifted back to Dabi, pinning him with an intensity that felt like physical pressure. Dabi flinched under that cold, alien stare. "To save you," Asag-Dante continued, the voice dropping slightly, emphasizing the word with cruel intimacy. "His desperate little human. And you," the violet gaze slid to Adam, "The meddlesome relic. And the rest of his fragile, fleeting attachments." The head tilted again, appraising them. "He bartered his body, his power, his very essence… for your continued, insignificant breathing."
Dabi’s fists clenched, knuckles white, fury warring with soul-crushing despair. "He wouldn't… he couldn't agree to this!" he spat, taking an involuntary step forward. Adam’s hand shot out, a gentle but immovable barrier on Dabi’s chest.
"Oh, but he did," Asag-Dante purred, taking a step towards them. The movement was unnaturally smooth, predatory. The violet eyes never left Dabi’s face. "He knelt before the inevitable. Accepted the invasion. Bore the pain." The voice lowered to a whisper that crawled over Dabi’s skin. "He screamed your name into the void as his body was split open. Such… devotion." A cold, hollow laugh escaped the possessed lips. "His sacrifice ensures the pact. You are… untouchable. For now." The violet gaze intensified, boring into Dabi with terrifying focus, drinking in his horror, his grief, his rage. "Enjoy his gift. This borrowed time."
Adam remained rigid, his own ancient power radiating a silent warning. Sapphire stood frozen, her hand hovering over a concealed weapon she didn’t draw. They all felt it: the overwhelming, crushing aura emanating from the possessed prince, the raw power of the ancient entity now housed within the King of Hell’s form. Fighting here, now, was suicide. And pointless. Dante was gone. Swallowed.
Asag-Dante’s smile vanished. The violet eyes swept over them one final, dismissive time, lingering longest on Dabi’s shattered expression. Then, without another word, the figure turned its back on them. It walked deliberately towards the fissure’s edge. Not jumping, but stepping onto the searing, glowing air above the molten heart as if it were solid ground. It descended slowly, deliberately, into the pulsing red maw below, vanishing into the infernal glow without a backward glance. The ledge was suddenly silent except for the mountain’s deep, hungry rumble and Dabi’s ragged, broken breathing.