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Chapter Text

"Oh drunken gods of slaughter, You know I've always been your favorite daughter." Cassandra by Florence + The Machine

It started, like most things did for Dante, with a job.

Cultists had been making a ruckus in the decimated remains of Redgrave City. He and the rest of his motley crew took turns on who filled the jobs there, but somehow, this cult had escaped all of their notice.

Until it was too late.

Dante wasn't too sure what they were aiming for, but he knew it wasn't what they got. Raising demons and forming cults usually resulted in that, in his experience.

What they got, was this:

A Hell Gate they couldn't close.

A legion of demons bent on devouring humans pouring uninterrupted through it.

Dante, his family, and the cultists all trapped by a spell. Inside. With the demons.

Now, Dante and his family were all pretty hot shit, if he said so himself.

But even they had their limits.

The demons went for the cultists first. Unsurprising, really, considering the homing beacon they'd carved into their own foreheads.

Nero and Patty had been the first to jump into the fray, insults and kill counts shouted with glee. The older hunters had followed not far behind, and soon Dante lost himself to the rhythm of battle.

The slice of Vergil's Judgment Cut sang in his ears. The smoke from Lady's rocket launcher drifted to his nose, and the electrifying taste of Trish's lightning spurred him on. Patty's joyous laughter and Nero's snarky mouth made his blood sing in his veins.

But the Hell Gate wasn't closing.

Vergil was typically in charge of these things, wielder of the Yamato and all. He could hardly get close enough to even attempt it, the demon hoard was so thick. Slowly, they carved their way through, no end in sight, and something in the air made Dante's hair stand on end, made his inner demon anxious.

Something was wrong.

It wasn't just that they couldn't escape. The spell the cult had done to trap them all inside could be dealt with after they closed the Gate. It needed to be closed first, or the demons would escape with them. There were too many to prevent it, with no end to them in sight, so they'd decided to leave the spell in place until they were finished.

But something howled in Dante's hindbrain. He could feel his heartbeat heavily in his chest. The wrongness gnawed at him, it's teeth sharp and stinging, dug down into his marrow, a ringing that echoed in his ears. The Legendary Devil Hunter couldn't put his finger on why his instincts were screaming at him.

Then it happened.

It was inevitable, really. Lady was the only true mortal among them, what with Patty being blood adopted. Dante had offered, more than once, to link the two of them, boost her durability and senses, give her any kind of advantage. She had always refused. She'd never said why, but Dante could always guess.

The trauma of her father and his quest for power and strength had carved her up.

But that made her the most vulnerable. Claws and teeth and cruel, cruel mortality crashed down on The Walking Arsenal, and she did not rise again.

Trish's scream was one that would haunt his nightmares for however long he remained alive.

The breath was knocked out of him once he caught sight of what was left of her. Lady was his best friend. She was one of the most incredible people he'd ever met. She was his confidant, his sounding board, she helped him up every single time he'd fallen. She stopped him from killing himself time and time again, pleaded with him to take care of himself. He made sure she was patched up after every job, went with her to her Mother's grave, got drunk with her on the anniversary of Temen-Ni-Gru every year. He told her when she was being self destructive and listened as she cursed every single thing that had lead the two of them to that tower and tore her family apart. They grew up together, shared pizza and trauma and drinks and occasionally beds when they both needed human connection.

And now she was gone, gnawed to a bloody pulp before any of them could stop it.

Rage bubbled in his veins, his chest felt hollowed out, and a terrible feeling settled in his gut.

Dante Triggered and tore viciously into the closest demon.

It went on like that, for a time. He wasn't sure how long had passed. Teeth and claws and the swing of his sword and the bullets from his guns melted into one desperate blur of survivesurvivesurvive. But he would know the next scream that rang out over the din of battle anywhere.

Patty and he had a running gag that when he finally croaked, she would inherit everything. He'd had a little plaque made up for her eighteenth birthday that read Patty Lowell, Demon Hunter for the front door of the shop.

She'd cried when he was finally able to give it to her.

(When he told her she'd inherit everything, he failed to mention that when he died, she would inherit a good portion of his demonic power. He'd managed to configure the blood adoption so that it worked like a witch's bloodline. Transfer all his magic to her upon his death. The spell recognized his demonic half as magic, and would open the floodgates from his demonic core to her. Kinda like a devil arm, but it would integrate itself into her system. She would get a major power boost, Devil Sword Dante would recognize her as the next wielder, and she'd get the shop. It was a win-win, in his eyes.)

Now her curly blonde hair was matted down with blood, and through the throng of demons devouring her, he looked into his daughter's eyes for the last time.

Something in him shattered.

A keening noise echoed across the battlefield that Dante hardly recognized as himself.

Two of the most important people in his life, snuffed out in an instant.

Hate and rage and grief pulsed through him. It wasn't fair. He had finally cobbled all of his family back together. They were starting to get along, fall into a rhythm. Kyrie had enforced family dinners once a week. Nero and Vergil were speaking to one another regularly. Dante and Lady and Trish spent more time hanging out than they had the last few years, soaking in each other's presences after he and his twin had returned from their unplanned trip to Hell. Patty was getting the hang of demon hunting, had started going out on small jobs on her own and flourishing into the incredible woman they all knew she'd be.

It wasn't fair.

Dante blinked back into the moment when the ozone scent of Trish's lightening cut off.

She died with Lady's name on her lips.

He didn't know a person could lose so much in such a short time.

Desperately, he sought out his twin. Vergil, too, had triggered, and he could see the blue glow of Nero's triggered form not far off. Rage and grief mirrored back at the red twin in his brother's eyes. A deep growl tore from his chest, and Vergil answered in kind.

They knew what they had to do without a word.

Together they turned towards Nero, fought desperately towards the only family they had left.

Teeth and claws and acid fell upon him, but the Son of Sparda did not care. He had to reach his brother, his nephew. Needed to make sure they either made it out of here, or he died trying.

But his efforts weren't good enough. He was never good enough.

The blade came from behind. A golden spear that was as big around as his thigh set on a path that neither of the twins could intercept, and Nero could not see.

Dante could hear the tear of flesh and shatter of bone over the snarling mass around him. Could feel Vergil's scream reverberate in his bones.

Devils do cry, after all.

The spear slid into his chest so easily that it dug harshly in the ground, long enough that Nero was stuck on it. He stumbled, a noise of pain wheezed out of him as he jostled the shaft, and sagged like his strings were cut.

Vergil reached him before Dante did.

Both of their Devil Triggers had faded, and when Dante looked away from the demons he was killing, the sight of his stoic brother gently cradling his son's face as he breathed his last made his Trigger fade as well. He stumbled the last few feet to his broken family, and fell to his knees next to his crying twin.

The demons around them never stopped. The small clearing that Nero's death had allowed began to collapse, and Dante knew that death was what awaited them. He closed his eyes as he leaned tiredly against his big brother, forehead dug into his hip, one hand clutched in the tattered remains of Nero's pant leg.

But the pain of being violently dismembered never came.

When he opened his eyes, Dante thought he'd finally, finally lost his mind.

The hoard of demons around them had frozen mid attack. Long limbs and wicked blades halted in their path to carve into the Sons of Sparda.

But that wasn't what caught his attention.

Crouched where the golden spear pierced the ground, was a Goddess. Dante only knew Her as such because it was like all the divinity statues he had ever seen had come to life. A huge hourglass held aloft by strong arms, gleaming golden fur trailed down from the lioness's head, teeth as long as his hand curved wickedly out of Her snout, Her robes billowed around Her with an unfelt wind.

Her golden eyes bore into his very soul. He could not look away. It was as though he could see every moment that had ever happened and ever would happen, every grain of sand in Her hourglass a choice that lead them there, to that very moment. Threads woven together and torn apart and untangled and clipped short. Wind swirled the sands together, danced briefly into the forms of those he loved.

Lady shoved his face away with a mischievous grin. Morrison crowed in victory as he won yet another game of pool. Patty tied ribbons into his hair as he slept on the couch, eyes gleaming. Trish gently caressed his cheek as he lay drunk at his desk. Nero rolled his eyes as Dante told an incredibly embellished story of a recent hunt. Vergil and he lay on the couch, legs intertwined, peacefully asleep together for the first time in decades.

Sparda snatched a young Dante out of the air as he jumped gleefully off the top of a tree. Eva tapped his six-year-old nose with a finger covered in chocolate frosting. Nell shouted at him over another broken gun, cigarette dangling from her lips. Grue watched from the doorway as Dante distracted all three of his girls.

Tears spilled unbidden down his bloodstained cheeks.

Vergil shifted, held the Yamato out with wild abandon. "Who are you," he growled.

"I am the Watcher of Time." Her voice came from nowhere and everywhere, piercingly loud and startlingly silent. "And you, Vergil Sparda, are not who I seek."

Her words shook Dante from his mesmerized staring. He hadn't registered how badly he and his brother had been injured, but as he stumbled jerkily to his feet, the searing agony of torn flesh radiated down each of his limbs. His left arm was broken, and a set of claws had come dangerously close to his throat, instead tearing down from his right collarbone to his left breast. Acid had eaten away at the flesh of his back, exposed his ribcage to the heated air. Vergil fared no better, blood leaked from a slash that had nearly cut off his right ear, a broken leg trembled minutely, and there was still a dagger buried deep in his left side.

"You…" he breathed. Vergil tensed beside him, the white knuckled grip on his sword tightened impossibly further.

"Dante," She sighed, fondness and sorrow and hope etched into Her voice. "My Devoted One."

Confusion crinkled his bloodied brow. "What… what does that mean?"

The blue twin reached out and gripped him, and Dante hadn't even realized he'd stepped towards this impossible Goddess. He felt as though he was at the center of a hurricane, gravity pulled him into Her orbit, drew him in with a sense of home and joy and belonging.

But She repelled him, too. Grief and rage and horror and disgust dug greedily into his psyche, wrapped their cold fingers around his throat. Terror made his instincts scream at him to run. That She was not here to help, only to do further harm.

It was a dizzying miasma of emotions. Dante swayed further into his brother's grip.

Vergil's slick fingers grounded him as they tightened on his shoulder. A pained noise escaped when his thumb dug into exposed muscle.

The Watcher had Her eyes locked onto Dante. "It means that you are my most devoted follower, Son of Sparda." She shifted, readjusted the hourglass on her shoulders. "You and your family have been the only ones to worship me in the Ways of Old in millennia. You, most of all, have dedicated more time and brought more offerings than any other."

"Offerings?" The red twin shook his head slightly. "…you mean the orbs?"

"Yes."

Her words knocked the breath out of him. He stumbled and Vergil leaned more of his own weight against him as they held each other up.

"What is the purpose of showing yourself now?" The blue twin's eyes roamed the demons that stood frozen around them.

"I come with an offer." She tilted her head. "This cult has upset the Balance of the Universe. Their actions have caused what will become the end of this world." Dante's eyes fluttered shut, mouth a grim line. When he opened them again, She still had not taken Her heavy, piercing gaze off of him. "This was not meant to be. Only one of your family was meant to die here."

"Who?"

Her golden eyes shifted to his brother, and Dante took a breath, relief at no longer having Her full attention left him reeling.

"It matters not, in this moment. What's happened here must not come to pass."

Dread churned his gut. The Legendary Devil Hunter knew what his answer would be to Her offer, whatever it would be.

Vergil's arm had slid across Dante's shoulders, and in return he had hooked his own around his brother's waist.

"What are you getting at?"

The Watcher's knowing gaze locked back onto the younger twin. "The offerings you have given over the decades did not just earn you favor, My Devoted One. They allowed me to build up strength I would have otherwise lacked. They allowed me to give you this opportunity." She shifted the hourglass She held once more. Knelt lower, and slid the massive object from Her shoulders to rest on the broken ground. The sands within flowed downward with gravity, but it was by no means smoothly. As he watched, the sands hitched and stopped, reversed and sped up.

"What opportunity," he whispered.

"To prevent this moment, these deaths, from ever coming to pass. To rewrite this story. To rip the corruption out by its roots. To go back in Time."

Twin breaths caught.

Dante squeezed Vergil's hip. "What's the catch?"

She inclined Her golden head. "There are several, I shall not deceive you, My Devoted One. The first is that only you may make the journey and retain your memories. You are the last of Mine still standing, therefore you are the only one my strength may latch onto."

His chest tightened.

"The second is that I can only send you so far back. I am sorry, My Devoted One," and She really did sound apologetic, "but you cannot save everyone. I can only send you back to the first moment of reunification."

He felt himself nod. There was only one moment that truly mattered. "Temen-Ni-Gru."

"Yes," She breathed. "The third is that there are certain events that must stay the same, that must happen. The Qliphoth Tree must rise. The Fruit must be consumed." Her voice took on a tender, sad lilt. "Mundus must have his prisoner. Nelo Angelo must exist. The Emperor must be sealed."

FearangerragenonononotagainPLEASE— rose in his chest, heated where his heart had gone cold.

"However," She said, "these events must only involve a Son of Sparda. It matters not which."

"No. Absolutely not," his brother finally cut in.

But Dante already knew. He already knew his answer. Already knew the lengths he would go to in order to prevent his family from being slaughtered around him.

"Vergil."

The older twin shook his head violently, desperately, and spun to grip Dante by both shoulders, Yamato returned to her sheath at his side and broken leg buckling. "I will not allow you to take my place without a fight, little brother. You do not know the atrocities Mundus will subject you to."

A rueful smile crept onto Dante's face. "What more could he do to me? I've already lost everything in this moment, right here." He gripped his twin's wrists, broken bone grinding against itself. The pain barely registered. The lack of healing didn't matter. "We will die here, if I don't, brother. Nero will stay dead. Lady and Trish. Pa-" he inhaled sharply, "Patty. They all die here if I don't go back. Isn't that worth it? Saving the people we love?"

He looked into Vergil's eyes. There were burst blood vessels in the right one. Tears had cut clean tracks through the viscera splashed onto his cheeks. "Let me be selfish, just one more time."

"This isn't selfishness, this is madness!"

Dante yanked Vergil into a bone crushing hug, careful, so careful to avoid the blade still embedded in him. It was the only thing stopping the blue twin from bleeding out in his arms.

"Your family will be brought back together, Dante. This I can promise you." The Goddess sighed. "But the price you must pay will be great. The Universe must have balance, My Devoted One."

Dante scrutinized Her. Vergil wheezed blood out onto his shoulder.

Doubt ate at his insides. He's never been good enough before. Never been able to save those he loves when they really needed it. Always too late or too weak or just plain not enough. Maybe, if Vergil were in his place, he would succeed. His brother had always been the one with a plan, a drive, a reason. If Vergil were the one to pull everything together, and all Dante had to do was fall….

"How do you know I'll succeed?"

A smile contorted Her snout. "You're Dante, The Legendary Devil Hunter."

As if that was the answer to everything. Perhaps for this Goddess, it was.

His big brother's arms cradled him so gently. It had been decades since they held each other like this.

It would be decades more before they would again.

Vergil rose from where his face was buried in Dante's neck. Turned to face Her with a familiar look of stubbornness that the red twin had seen on their mother often as a child. "What if I use the connection of the Yamato to send an impression back with him? We are twins, surely I could send something back. Protection, an emotion, a warning. I can't—" his breath hitched. "I can't stand by and let him take my place without doing something. Please."

Dante jerked, and searched Vergil's face. He hadn't heard his brother say please since they were children. The older twin refused to look back at him, intent upon The Watcher, arm still wrapped around him as they stood hip to hip. She hummed, and Her free hand tapped Her chin. "Yes, an impression might work. But it must be strong. Rooted in emotion, in memory. A feeling or belief you can amplify in your younger self, that the Yamato can project."

Without hesitation, The Dark Slayer said, "the trust I have in Dante should do. If he breaks down the right barriers, then my younger self should listen to what he says."

Disbelief rattled through him. He squinted at his twin. Vergil turned back to him. "You know what truth will make me stop to listen to you. You need only to choose when to tell me."

A sharp inhale. "Brother—"

"Dante. If you are intent upon this path, I cannot stop you." The older twin gave a small, bitter smile. "I've never been able to dissuade you. That won't change now. But I ask one thing of you."

"Anything, Verge."

"Don't leave me alone again."

Tears dripped down his cheeks once more.

"I don't— I don't want to. I never wanted to."

His big brother hugged him tight. The scrape of fabric against his wounds forced fresh tears from his eyes. "I know, little brother. I know."

They stood like that, for a while. Soaking in the last moments they would see each other for years to come. Even then, Dante told himself, it would not be the same. They would be changed. Different. Maybe softer, maybe harder. More scarred. But, the possibilities. The implications. They nearly drove him mad.

Vergil would not be unmade, turned into a puppet against his will, forced to piece himself back together atom by atom for years before he split himself in two.

He would get to raise Nero.

Dante would not get to raise Patty.

But, surely, she would be better off, without his presence hanging over her life.

Right?

(He wouldn't get to stick her report cards on his fridge. No Saturday morning breakfast dates. No sundaes when they'd both had a bad day. Her tinkling laugh wouldn't echo through the shop when she watched her soap operas on his couch. He wouldn't be able to drape a blanket over her when she inevitably fell asleep. She wouldn't slip into Hell in order to try to save him. There would be no hugging or tears when he ripped Abigail and Sid apart and emerged victorious.

They would hardly know each other. But maybe. Maybe that was for the best. After all, he'd only ever brought pain to those he loved.)

Maybe the Savior Incident would never happen, with Vergil there. Certainly, it would be changed.

There would be so, so many changes.

A life Dante would hardly recognize.

But they would all live.

It was for the best. If Dante was the one to fall.

With a strength he didn't know he possessed, the younger twin drew away from his brother. "What do I have to do?"

The Watcher of Time smiled, Her wicked canines bared. "You need only take my hand. In order to send an impression back with you, however, Vergil must take the last leap. Create a burst of magic strong enough for you to latch onto, for you to draw back with you."

He felt his chest nearly cave in. He had hoped he wouldn't have to witness his brother's death again.

Acceptance settled fully into Vergil's face. He nodded. They faced each other still. The older twin grasped Dante's unbroken arm. Wrapped his hand around the hilt of the blade in his side. "No—" he pleaded.

"Please, Dante. Allow me to die by your hand once more."

His throat clogged with yet more tears. "I never wanted this."

"I know. But if this is what must happen. I don't—" he swallowed. "I don't want what Mundus did to me to happen to you. But if things must change," Vergil blinked rapidly. His jaw set."I swear. I will look for you. I won't allow you to suffer under his thumb for long. I'm the big brother. It was supposed to be my burden to bear. That you must take it on… it kills me."

"You'll get to kill him, this go around." Dante smirked, if only just. "Make him pay. Make him suffer."

A malicious smile. "I will. Good luck, little brother."

"Thank you, big brother."

And with that, Dante jerked the blade that had bought his twin just a bit more time out in one fluid motion. The pained grunt he released cut him to his core. Blood poured freely from the wound, and the red twin thought he could see intestine start to leak out.

If there were anything in his stomach to throw up, he would've.

He cradled his brother as he collapsed, hot blood foamed at his lips. A punctured lung, probably. Healing factor too stretched thin, injuries too catastrophic.

A small smile settled on Vergil's lips, and with his last breath shoved what magic was left in his body into physical form. The Yamato at his brother's side burst into a shower of magic that coalesced into a single teardrop. Dante dropped the dagger still in his hand and grasped the tear.

Rage clawed at his chest. His heart collapsed and his chest caved in. He couldn't get a full breath. A sob choked him up.

He bit his tongue. Dug his nails deep into his own palm, around the gift his brother had given him.

An opportunity. Trust.

A redo.

He grasped it with bloodied hands.

There was already so, so much blood on his hands.

There would be more still, before he was done.

Gently, he laid his broken older brother on the ground.

Stood. Turned jerkily towards The Watcher of Time.

"I wish there was another way," she whined.

"So do I."

"I'm sorry it must be you, yet again. You've earned your rest."

"Can't imagine it would ever be anyone else."

Silently, She held out Her hand. The fur of Her lioness's head spread down Her muscled arms.

Dante took Her hand.

His vision went white.

Chapter Text

"One of us will be damned. Let it be me. Please, let it be me."

When Dante next opened his eyes, he was falling.

The acidic water of Hell rushed toward him, his Mother's amulet just out of reach, and the thread of magic wrapped tightly around his throat.

It was no surprise Vergil reached the Force Edge first.

His breath caught as he landed, knees bent awkwardly, and the familiar stink of Hell settled quickly into his senses. The cold chain of his amulet hooked around his wrist and horror poured down his throat like tar, thick and choking.

Bloodbloodblood clouded his vision. His eyes darted around wildly. A torn black coat was replaced by singed blue. Sharp, haunted eyes overlapped a frustrated sneer. A ghost overlaid his dying brother with the hurting nineteen-year-old who had just wanted to feel safe. Loss and grief and desperation stilled his limbs, his heart.

"Give that to me!"

His heart thudded painfully back to life against his ribs.

He had just watched his brother die. Yet, here he was, nineteen and whole in a way he hadn't seen in decades and might never be again, if he fucked this up.

"No way, you got your own," Dante felt himself say.

Vergil leveled their Father's blade at him as the stinging water rushed around their ankles. "Well I want yours, too."

The soft admittance caught him off guard. Was he always so resigned?

Slowly, they began to circle each other. Dante didn't have to think hard about how this encounter went, it was seared into his memory. The roar of the falls, the orange tinted light, the squelch as the Force Edge sliced into him, the rocks unsteady beneath his boots.

The sound as the Yamato cut through leather and skin and muscle, as she tore through his palm.

"What are you gonna do with all that power, huh?"

Play the part, find the opening, punch Vergil with the truth, he told himself.

Simple.

Right?

This younger version of his brother was stubborn to a fault, hurting and full of an anger he hadn't been able to see nor understand, at the time. It would take careful precision to throw him off enough to change their places. Thankfully, they had spent so much time sparring in the last few months that he could read the older twin like the back of his hand.

Was Vergil still the older twin? Or would that be Dante? After all, twenty-five years now separated them, compared to the thirteen minutes that used to.

He didn't know, but it made his heart hurt. His twin had never gotten the chance to truly live. Chased, after the fire, by Mundus's spies, then herded into a trap once he'd finally landed in Hell, held prisoner and tortured and unmade for years, twisted up into something neither of them recognized, only for Dante to murder him in cold blood.

It was only in the almost year after they'd returned from destroying the Qliphoth where Vergil had truly lived.

If Dante did this right, this version of his brother would get to live much, much longer.

Play the part. Find the opening. Punch Vergil with the truth.

A ragged breath tore from him. "No matter how hard you try, you're never going to be like Father."

The sneer on the blue twin's face deepened. He had always craved Sparda's approval, even when they were boys. Used to follow the demon around like an excited puppy, when he was home. It was only natural, really. Of course a baby Vergil wanted to be like his Dad, he was famous, he was the Protector of Humanity. For however much Vergil was a Momma's Boy, he preened whenever their Father would brush his hair back and tell him he'd done a drill correctly or pronounced a new word right on the first try.

Yet, as the eldest, responsibility was draped onto his tiny, tiny shoulders. With age, Dante grew angry with their parents, for the expectations they'd laid at his brother's feet.

But their parents were gone, and blaming the dead was never his style.

"You're wasting time," his brother cried.

Their swords clashed, and the red twin's inner demon sang, if only for a moment, if only in grief. Water soaked their legs. Blood slicked his hand as they gripped the other's blade. "We are the Sons of Sparda! Within each of us flows his blood, but more importantly," he smirked, "his soul."

They disengaged, and the thread of magic that crooned of his brother's trust pulsed in his chest, where it had settled, lying in wait.

"You think you need a source of power that isn't already within you?"

The Force Edge sliced where he had been standing just a moment ago.

Vergil squinted at him from downriver. "What trickery are you attempting?"

Jaw clenched, Dante twirled Rebellion in his grip. He was no longer used to her slender edge, compared to Devil Sword Dante's weight, his movements clunky and just a half step out of sync, if only to himself, if only to Vergil. "No trick, brother mine. You don't have a monopoly on brains, y'know."

The blue twin snorted, and Dante caught his Father's blade on the ribcage of Rebellion's cross guard, her skull's eyes glowed an angry red. The skeletal jaws opened in an unending scream once again.

"Brains don't suit you, Dante," he laughed as he leaned in close.

His lungs seized. How long had it been since he'd heard his brother laugh like that? With wild abandon and a hidden joy? An older brother digging a painful thumb into a little brother's metaphorical bruise?

Would he ever hear it again? When they reunited, they'd both be so different. Years and trauma and memory loss would separate them once more. Would Dante even remember the sound of his brother's laughter? Would he remember the silky quality of Trish's hair? How Lady's manicured nails scraped gently against his scalp? Patty's gap-toothed child's smile before she'd grown in her adult teeth? Nero's embarrassed nose rub whenever Dante showed him affection? Morrison's calloused fingers as he drove the two of them to the next job?

Or would Mundus steal it all from him?

"You'll find a lot of things don't suit me these days."

Confusion clouded mirrored blue eyes.

He didn't hesitate. Whipped Ebony out of her holster, and fired several rounds, attempted to create space between them as Vergil dodged right, used his superior speed and got up close again. Drove the Force Edge towards his heart. Dante stumbled. He could hardly breathe, this spectre of his brother had haunted him for so long. Spun on the slick rock, Rebellion scraped against the other blade and sparks flew. Holstered his gun and concentrated.

Drew the feeling of his brother— his forty-four-year-old brother— close, whispered a quiet goodbye. Brought the feeling, the nerve-numbing magic, to the palm of his hand, and with all the strength he could muster, delivered a brutal uppercut to Vergil's jaw.

He felt the threads of time and loss and anger and hurt that connected them blow apart like so much ash.

Felt as new threads reached out and took their place. Hooked burning bright claws into their chests. Linked them together through blood and magic and love and trust.

As the blow landed, momentum carried them violently into one another. They grappled in the water briefly. Disorientation was clear in Vergil's movements, slick fingers unsure whether to punch his brother back or grip him tight and pull him close. They shoved at one another, dunked each of them into the rushing current. His twin's clumsy fingers curled loosely in the leather of his coat. Dante recovered first, ripped away Vergil's clinging grip, threw himself to his feet. Staggered. They were both soaked to the bone. He sputtered, coughed, as the blue twin gasped and wheezed.

"You… you idiot," he panted. "You think Mother abandoned you?"

Disbelief made Vergil's eyes glassy as he jerked to looked up at his little brother, mouth agape.

A harsh laugh clawed its way out of Dante's clogged throat. Tears squeezed out of his eyes as his cheeks scrunched, mixed with the acidic water that carved burns down his face.

"She died looking for you!" His shout bounced loudly off the cliffs around them. His breath shuttered. "Hid me in the hall closet and said she'd be right back." An echo of his Mother's scream rang in his ears, thirty-six and eleven years and mere seconds in the past. "I heard her call for you right as the demons found her. I listened as they tore her apart."

Old, old grief pulsed in his hollow chest. He could feel the heat of the fire just under his skin, his childhood home and Nell's shop both a burning pile of ash in his memory.

Vergil shook his head. "You're lying."

Bitterness colored his voice. "I'm not. Do you remember so little of our childhood? You think she wouldn't have sacrificed everything to make sure we both lived?"

Silence met him. A rumble unbalanced them again.

God, Dante was so, so tired.

"The portal to the human world is closing, Dante."

Vergil was still on his knees. The Force Edge's blade was planted in the rough stone. The older twin levered himself up with it.

"So it is," he murmured.

Once more, his big bother leapt at him, blade poised to kill. Except, it wasn't, was it? Dante knew that form. Could identify it in his sleep, their Father had drilled it into both of them so deeply.

This move was meant to disarm.

He didn't bother to shy out of the way of the sword like Vergil expected, leaned into the edge even, pain and habit grounding him in the moment. Barely flinched as it bit into his side, too used to allowing his enemies to land their blow so he could take advantage of the closeness and kill them quickly. Used the other's momentum against him. Slammed his forehead into Vergil's nose, and blood burst forth. They lurched away from each other. Pain bloomed across his eyes, tore through his gut as the Force Edge was ripped from it.

Another rumble signaled that Dante was out of time.

Ha. Funny, that.

Blood sizzled as it dripped into the water at his feet.

"Vergil…" he called. "Go back to Fortuna, will you? You've got someone waiting for you."

"What are you— How on earth do you—"

"I told you. You don't have a monopoly on brains, brother dearest." Dante tricked in close and swung haphazardly with Rebellion, which Vergil caught on their Father's blade. Crowded close, closer than they'd truly been in years, a hollow smile stuck on his face. "Trust me, yeah? I have a plan."

"What does that— What kind of plan could you possibly be—" he sputtered.

He never expected Dante to roundhouse kick him in the chest, propel him back through the portal just as it was closing, Force Edge and his half of the amulet clutched tight, a bewildered, betrayed look on his bloodied face.

The snap of magic reverberated in the younger twin's bones.

His breath rattled dangerously in his chest.

There. The impression of his brother was delivered. Their positions had been switched. Ten years too late and in a way neither of them ever predicted.

Vergil was in the Human World, and Dante in the Demon World.

…He was truly alone, for the first time in a long time.

A sob bubbled up. Rage died a cold death in his gut, doused by relief. He did it. Now Vergil just needed to play his part, and Dante his. And in about ten years, they'd see each other again.

Or maybe in twenty-four, depending.

It was never clear how much of Nelo Angelo's memories his twin retained.

Either way. Dante would see his brother again. His family would live. She had promised him. They would find each other. Nero would get to be raised by his Dad instead of by freaky cultists who worshiped his Grandfather. Patty would find her Mom and hopefully, this go around, stay far, far away from the Demonic World.

Vergil would get to live.

All he had to do was fall.

It was all worth it.

It had to be worth it.

A snarl from closer than he expected startled the Legendary Devil Hunter. Instinct drove him into the acid water as claws filled the air where his head had been.

A flash of three glowing red eyes over the demon's spiked shoulder.

It seemed Mundus wasted no time.

Well, Dante would just have to give him a show, wouldn't he?

He stabbed blindly upward as he dunked beneath the water once more. The air was knocked from his lungs, and the acidity of it burned his eyes. Blood tinged his blurry vision. The shape above him collapsed to the side, dead.

Water splashed as Dante yanked himself upwards. Gasped for breath.

God, it had been so long since he felt this out of place in his own skin.

It didn't matter. None of what he felt mattered. He just had to avoid the Emperor for as long as he could, and when he got caught, like he knew he would, he'd just have to do his best to last as long as Vergil had.

After that?

Well. His twin had never said how he'd pieced himself back together, After. Dante'd have to figure that out on his own. But he was used to puzzling his way through things. It wasn't like anyone after his parents was kind enough to teach him in any way other than brutal and bloody.

A roar in the not-far-enough-away-for-his-liking-distance sent goosebumps down the Son of Sparda's spine.

Time to get a move on.

Dante steeled himself. Stood at the edge of the cliff, and murmured a quiet, "let's rock and roll." Allowed his wings to shimmer into existence. The updraft from the waterfall caught him quickly, and he spiralled upwards with a few leathery beats. He hadn't flown much in his regular Devil Trigger form, Before. Fear of someone seeing him and the struggle to reconcile this form as just another version of himself instead of a monster he became kept him grounded. But the longer he spent around Vergil, the easier it became. He didn't see his brother as a monster, and they were twins, so he couldn't be a monster. Right? Or something like that, anyway.

Absorbing Devil Sword Sparda had helped as well.

But now he was stuck in his lanky, skinny, nineteen-year-old body, malnourished and only fully Awakened for less than a day. His muscle memory was shot. His speed practically nonexistent. He frankly kept expecting his reach to be longer, the growth spurt he'd hit after his Awakening hadn't hit yet.

He soared over the craggy gulch he and Vergil had landed in. Movement far below him caught his attention, and he squinted. Allowed his heightened senses to slit his pupils to see better in the dim not-sunlight. Noted the swarm below, and dipped off to his left.

If he could avoid running into any other demons, he might have enough time to build back up some of his strength. The trials of the night and bone deep, gut wrenching guilt both had weighed him down in his fight with his brother. He'd hardly slept, had been stabbed numerous times, climbed Temen-Ni-Gru thrice. He was hungry, aching, and grieving.

If he couldn't rest enough, he wouldn't be able to avoid capture for long.

But this wasn't his first trip through Hell.

He'd done this song and dance before. He was old hat at this, now. Knew how best to mask his scent, how to find the trickiest hiding spots.

All he needed to do was take the demons that hunted him out on a merry little chase. Kill them as he could.

Allow himself to be herded into a trap.

Face Mundus once again.

But this time he wasn't twenty-nine and bitter and full of the blind rage that had been unlocked at Vergil's death. He was young, and exhausted, and resigned.

Easy pickings for the Emperor of Hell.

Sulfur hit his sensitive nose, and he cringed.

Beneath him, the landscape peeled away like rotten flesh. Strips of desert and grassy plains and boiling lava and howling snow stretched as far as he could see.

In all his wanderings of Hell, there was never an end that he could find. It just… kept going. Maybe that was part of what kept the population of demons so high. They had more than enough room to spread out, despite the fact they preyed on each other and humans alike.

Regardless.

Dante could feel the moment his pitiful leftover demonic energy drained out of him. His wings shimmered out of existence, and gravity wrapped it's demanding chains around him. The sudden downward fall left his empty stomach far behind, and he flailed as the wind spun him around.

Caught sight of where he'd probably land.

He was headed straight for a forest.

It was better than a lava pool, at least.

The rush of wind screamed in his ears. He hadn't realized how little energy he'd had left, the kiddie pool that he'd had at the beginning of everything was a drop compared to what he'd been able to draw upon even a year from now. Yet here he was, falling like a meteor to the forests of Hell with nothing but his rage and grief to lift him up and warm his cold, aching heart.

His ears popped at the change in pressure, and Dante finally maneuvered so that he wasn't flailing in a tailspin. Watched as treetops sped up at him, and at the last second, flared the last sparks of his demonic energy. The brief jerk as his wings snapped back into existence was enough to kill off the momentum that would've otherwise turned him into a smear on the ground.

Instead, he crashed through several layers of leaves and branches. Broken bark sliced him up and stung his already oversensitive skin. He hit the ground hard, bounced once before he left a Dante-shaped groove through the ground. Saplings broke beneath him, and he felt as several small branches and twigs pierced his skin.

When he finally came to a stop, the dizziness forced him to lurch to his side and vomit. When he was done, nothing but bile dripped from his lips. The disgusting taste grounded him as he spat, collapsed back again, and closed his eyes. Panic chilled his fingers, and the Son of Sparda laid still as he tried to catch his breath.

He didn't even realize he was sobbing until he tasted the salt of tears on his lips, where it created a terrible mix with his brother's blood that lingered on his face and the stomach bile in his mouth.

Watcher, I hope you're paying attention, he thought deliriously. This is who you chose?

A soft breeze ruffled his damp hair.

Yes, it crooned. You are.

His tears dried up slowly. Grief and bone deep exhaustion wrapped around him like old friends.

Okay. Okay.

He'd succeeded in the most important part of his plan. His brother was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid, far from it, really. Vergil had always been the smarter twin, able to focus on their schoolwork and picked up reading far faster than Dante had. So he had confidence that he could read between the lines of his parting instructions. No need to worry, to feed the anxiety in his gut of the blue twin immediately opening a portal with the Yamato back to Hell.

Besides, he half expected that the Yamato wouldn't let him.

In the brief time he had used her, the Yamato was willful and demanding of him, aware he wasn't Vergil or Nero, and pissed that he was even holding her. But she hadn't spurned him, a shared sorrow at the loss of her last wielder kept her from it. The two of them were the only ones left in the world who had known Vergil before Nelo Angelo, the only two left to keep his memory— his real memory— alive. So she'd allowed him to use her, for a time, before he'd given her back to Nero.

There was no one else who either of them wanted to have her, in the end.

But the magic that his forty-four-year-old brother's death had conjured had left a lingering pulse in his veins. The knowledge that the Yamato would guide him, push him and berate him if he thought about ruining Dante's hard won plan settled into him.

Vergil had always listened to her better than him, anyway.

Yeah, his brother would be fine, back in the Human World. He'd always been more interested in knowledge and books and poetry, inherently human things, than Dante had. He had been more interested in performing each kata perfectly, in the way scales crawled across Sparda's skin, in the thought of magic.

Really, it was a surprise that he'd been the one in the Human World, the first go around.

Vergil may have been more comfortable with his demonic instincts, but that was only after his unmaking. Dante had initially rejected his Father's heritage, but it suited his personality much better.

He didn't know how long he laid there, dirt and grime pressed into his skin. He must've drifted off into some semblance of sleep, because he startled awake when a twig snapped to his right.

Threw himself up and out of the him-shaped hole in the ground, and bared his sharpened teeth, a growl started up in his chest.

It seemed he wouldn't get much of a chance to rest.

Oh well. He'd never done well with being left alone with his thoughts, anyway.

"Son of Sparda… Traitor's blood…" echoed, hissed, snarled, from multiple points in the dark trees that surrounded him, and Dante braced himself for what was to come.

Chapter Text

"When you split me and my brother in the womb, you did not divide us evenly. He got kindness and I got longing. He got complacence and I got ambition. I want to kill him sometimes. I think sometimes he wants to die."

Vergil knew something was wrong the second he and his brother landed in the Demon World.

It wasn't the fact that he could sense eyes on them, watchful, waiting, hungry. It wasn't that he was exhausted, pissed at his brother for his uncooperativeness, or filled with a resigned anger at Arkham's betrayal, despite the feeling that it was coming.

No, something was wrong with Dante.

The shift in his twin, gone from cocksure and annoyed to wild-eyed and frenzied, gave him pause. It happened in a blink, one moment they were falling through the portal, each after their own goals, and the next Dante's gaze bore heavily into him. Like… like he was seeing the blue twin for the first time. Which didn't make sense, when one considered they'd been chasing each other all godforsaken night.

His laugh had morphed from the easy, confident bell it was to a bitter, feral thing.

But he couldn't focus on whatever had caused this change in Dante.

His skin crawled, now that they had entered their enemy's domain.

They needed to get out of here.

Quickly.

Vergil didn't think Dante understood the importance of removing themselves from the closeness to their Father's greatest foe. But he watched as his brother cataloged their surroundings, could see him absorb and file away the information of just where they were, plain as day.

It didn't matter if his twin knew they were being watched, all that mattered was getting what he'd come for.

But the watchful eyes he'd felt since the day his whole world burned down to cinders had turned away from him, their intensity still there, but focused on something else.

Or, someone else.

Dante.

Absolutely not.

Vergil sneered. Panic and a protectiveness he'd shoved downdowndown for years finally rose to the surface. Under no circumstances would he allow their Father's greatest enemy to lay his terrible claws on his little brother.

The golden boy protected once again.

It didn't matter.

Dante had only just awakened his demonic inheritance, the burning bright edge of his presence licked at Vergil like flames. The intensity had startled him, but he truly expected nothing less. They were twins, of course like called to like.

His baby brother's taunting words only spurred his desperation on.

The burning of the water they'd landed in was nothing to him, used to the sting of heat beneath his skin ever since the fire. Dante may have been the one inside the manor, but Vergil had watched as everything he loved had gone up in so much smoke.

Eyes on him drove him forward, intent on regaining the other half of their Mother's amulet. His movements were slowed, exhaustion and weariness weighed him down. As their blades clashed, Vergil noted the hesitation in his brother, the way he met each blow but couldn't meet his eyes.

Confusion grew into doubt in his gut.

Determination had lit a fire in his brother, before, as he climbed the tower and fought the demons, as they were both lead astray by the clown. But now, Vergil thought it had grown a desperate, frantic edge.

Could he know that Mundus hunted them?

From what he could tell, Dante had only been dealing with the regular harassment of demons recently, not having been hunted down throughout child and teenage hood. That wasn't to say his brother didn't struggle, wasn't forced to fight tooth and nail for everything he had, just to survive.

But he wasn't hunted. Wasn't chased, half a step ahead of claws that burned and teeth that ripped and a haunted snarl of Sparda Kin, Traitor's Son, Blood Heir.

Vivianna had once called him a half feral street rat, a giggle on her lips as her ice cream dripped down her fingers.

He'd taken mild offense, but really, she wasn't wrong.

Unimportant.

What was important, was attaining the Perfect Amulet, wielding the Force Edge, and convincing Dante to join him in his pursuit of power, if only to free themselves of Mundus for good.

His brother would see, one day, why it was important.

Dark brown hair flashed through his mind, and his jaw tightened as he dodged a swing from his twin's sword.

(He wondered, idly, what Vivianna was up to. It had been over a year since he'd last seen her, schooling and an internship with the research department of The Order of the Sword had taken up much of her time. So much so, the Son of Sparda didn't think she'd realized it had been weeks since he'd returned, longer than he'd ever stayed away. But the raising of Temen-Ni-Gru had consumed all of his own time, and the last day he'd spent with her had been interrupted more than once by Mundus's cronies.

Perhaps his absence would draw them off, he told himself.

Yes. Until he was free, he couldn't risk her safety. She was one of the few who'd looked at him and seen the survivor, seen his thirst for knowledge, hadn't shied away when he'd been too blunt or rude or demonic. Had held out her hand and given his attitude right back to him, a wicked smile on her face and a sharp intelligence in her eyes.

So he had to keep her safe.

He had to get stronger.)

When Dante taunted him for wanting to be like their Father, he almost snapped right there. He wanted that no longer, he only wanted to be free of the pervasive sense of eyes, the constant reminder that he was hunted, that they both would be, for the rest of their lives. He was tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of wishing things had gone differently.

Tired of the people he grew to care about being put in danger just by his existence.

Dante would understand. Dante would see, with time. There was no other way forward, they had to seize as much power as they could.

Eyes, eyes, eyes, and Vergil could wait no more.

"You're wasting time!"

Once more they struck at one another, equals and mirrors and brothers, brothers, brothers.

"We are the Sons of Sparda," the red twin snarled. "Within each of us flows his blood, but more importantly, his soul."

The knowing smirk on his little brother's face just pissed him off. "You think you need a source of power that isn't already within you?"

It was said with such conviction, a knowing lilt. Disappointment that made Vergil's heart hurt where he'd buried it deep in his chest, content to pretend it didn't exist at all.

Suddenly, the Yamato sang to life in her saya. An urgent song, an edge of panic. She bellowed in his mind, so loud that it was a wonder that Dante could not hear her.

"What trickery are you attempting," he said, as his sword pleaded with him to listen.

He didn't understand.

Why had the Yamato chosen now to make her opinion known? He'd thought they were on the same page, connected by the soul ties of his Father and himself, imbued with the demonic energy of them both, bond forged by constant attacks and an understanding that they needed to be stronger.

He lunged again, but his twin slipped just out of reach.

That was different, too. In the tower, Dante had been brazen and a show off, twirls and leaps and flips all strung together in a display of flexibility and flourish that was almost distracting.

But here, in this battle, he'd kept himself contained, jerked out of the way by mere centimeters, spun on his heel with a grace he hadn't shown before. His movements, while different, were also just a hair delayed, just a touch off. Was it hesitation? Was it doubt? Did he see what Vergil had been saying all along, and just didn't know how to voice it?

His little brother had always struggled with his words. Needed time and patience to finally verbalize what he was thinking and feeling.

"No trick, brother mine," he sighed, exhaustion clear in every line of him, and wasn't that something, that Dante might drop the charade of nonchalance in favor of what he really felt, for the first time since they'd laid eyes on each other over a year ago. Then a half-hearted grin, small and reserved, found it's way onto his baby brother's face. "You don't have a monopoly on brains, y'know." The tone was all confidence and reassurance and bravado, so incandescently Dante that he couldn't help a snort of amusement. Couldn't help the laughter, the indulgence of joy in spending time with his reckless twin once more.

He sped in close, was unsurprised when Dante blocked his swing, and laughed right in his mirrored face. "Brains don't suit you, Dante."

Resignation flared in blue eyes, as he murmured back "you'll find a lot of things don't suit me, these days."

Vergil cocked his head slightly, narrowed his eyes. He didn't understand what his brother was talking about. From what he could tell, the other twin had stayed relatively the same, soft-hearted and unruly and constantly searching for excitement.

But he could examine it no more. The itch of watchful eyes had slid back onto him, if only for a moment.

Movement followed by gunfire from Dante's customized weapons forced him back. He threw himself to the side, danced just out of the line of fire.

This farce needed to end. He could feel the threadbare strings that connected the Temen-Ni-Gru to both worlds stretch taut, ready to snap at any moment. Mundus's eyes had once more stuck to Dante, the feeling of his slimy, hungry, vile attention focused on his unknowing twin ratcheted up his heart rate more than anything else in this night of frustration.

(Its supposed to be him. He's been the hunted one, the watched one. He's the older brother, the Heir Apparent, Sparda's Eldest. Mundus had never shown an interest in Dante before. So why now? Why here?)

Finally, he leapt at his little brother once more, fear and irritation lined his bones as he swung their Father's weapon.

He didn't expect how easily Dante caught the blade on his own sword. The sparks flickered around Rebellion's angry eyes, as if in accusation, as if pleading, the sister to his own soul-blade screamed and screamed and screamed. He could hear it, just faintly. Wondered how loud it was to his little brother, if it mirrored the screaming that had risen in the back of his own mind. If it really sounded like the grief he could feel like a hot spike in his chest.

The Yamato screeched in his ear, pain and itsokay, and don'tworry, and thiswillonlyhurtamoment stuttered his heart.

Shock and agony radiated through him as Dante's fist connected with his chin. A warmth that wasn't his own blood as he bit his tongue flooded him, desperation and listenlistenlisten and DanteDanteDante wormed into his brain. The deep seated rage that bubbled lowly in his gut at the cruelty of the world was smothered by the cold realization that his brother loved him, wanted to protect him as badly as he wanted to protect his baby brother, trusted him implicitly. He felt as his brother's demonic energy reached out, wove the two of them together like stardust, forged them together with bloodied hands and an iron grip, linked their cores with a magic he hadn't felt since their Mother died.

Couldn't help but reach out with his own want, his own love, his own trust. Relief at no longer being alone made him nearly sigh. Alleviated some of the haunted, sick feeling in his gut. This was his baby brother, his twin, the mirror to his soul, the only one who'd ever understand what it was like to grow up in Sparda's shadow.

He didn't feel it as they collided, landed in a heap in the acidic water. Panic and heartache and old, old hurt pulsed searingly in his veins. Confusion tried to make him push Dante away, but a sense of loss, of rage, of grief, of mineminemine instead stilled him, unsure.

When the red twin threw himself upwards, tore away from him, the look on his face, the blood on his teeth, the burns in his tear tracks all brought a terrible, gut-wrenching horror down on Vergil's brain.

"You… you idiot. You think Mother abandoned you?"

He reared back, shock jarred his thoughts to a screaming stop. Rage and indignance and ofcourseshedid, ofcourseofcourseofcourse hollowed out his insides, turned his heart to ash, stuck like rot in his throat.

The hysterical, distraught laugh that ripped from Dante wasn't one he ever wanted to hear again.

"She died looking for you! Hid me in the hall closet and said she'd be right back."

The tone of his twin's voice was something he hadn't heard in eleven years. It was reserved for when they'd truly fought as children, yelled insults and words meant to cut and scar. "I heard her call for you right as the demons found her. I listened as they tore her apart."

Vergil could see the panic as it rose in his twin's eyes, the way pale blue that matched his own shifted into a darker hue, the reflection of a fire long dead shone in them, and the way the other's breaths rattled his chest made something clench in his heart.

"You're lying," he said weakly. Begged, really, unable and unwanting to see a truth he'd already known but rejected all the same.

(The same way Dante had rejected their demonic heritage. They really were just mirrors, weren't they?

He'd known, in his heart, that his Mother was dead. Hadn't known until years later that his brother survived. At the time, the knowledge sunk into him like knives. Of course Dante survived, their Mother would've done everything she could to make sure he did, fought with tooth and nail and every drop of magic she'd had.

It never even occurred to him that she would've gone looking for him.

Perhaps it should've.)

"I'm not. Do you remember so little of our childhood? You think she wouldn't have sacrificed everything to make sure we both lived?"

No. No, no, no. This wasn't right. Abandonment had wrapped its comforting hands around his small, child's shoulders so often, in the last eleven years. Loneliness had become his cloak, he and Yamato against a world that wanted them dead, that rejected them, a world where even his Mother had chosen his golden boy little brother over him.

There was no way his Mother had died with his name on her lips, when he'd been just outside, a call for her and his brother on his own.

And Dante, left behind by a dead Mother and a brother he'd thought devoured, in a home that'd burned to ash around him.

Golden boy no more.

Perhaps. Perhaps things could be different, after all.

A rumble shook their battleground.

The need to leave and the ugly, noxious sense of eyes on them both had not stopped.

"The portal to the Human World is closing, Dante."

He stood.

Please. Please come with me, don't leave me, staystaystaystaystaystaystaystay—

"So it is."

Hurt thrummed in his gut, a sense of dread made his hands shake. They needed to get away from Mundus's domain, away from the edge of danger. If Dante was so intent on fighting him, he'd just have to knock him over the head and carry the both of them out of this place.

He lurched at his little brother once more, intent on an exit plan that involved the both of them. Drew upon the last vestiges of his demonic core, scraped the bottom of the barrel.

His breath caught, when his stupid, reckless, foolish little brother leaned directly into the blade's path instead of the side step he should've done. Tears sprung immediately to his eyes as Dante broke his nose, the salt of his brother's tears mixed horribly with the bitterness of his own. Instinct drove him off, a hand clutched his aching face.

Barely had time to recover when— "Vergil," Dante huffed, "go back to Fortuna, will you? You've got someone waiting for you."

Vivianna.

Panic flooded his entire being.

If his brother knew about her, Mundus certainly did.

He thought he'd done so well, concealed his presence in her life so thoroughly.

"What are you—" he tried to deny. "How on earth do you—"

"I told you, you don't have a monopoly on brains, brother dearest." Dante's sudden appearance in his space overwhelmed him immediately, barely gave him a chance to catch the half hearted swing of his brother's sword. The emptiness that had entered his usually exuberant twin's eyes scared him down to his bones, sent a chill down his spine, ripped his heart violently into his throat. "Trust me, yeah? I have a plan."

Dante was the worst planner Vergil had ever met in his life, and that was saying something.

But whatever magic that the red twin had conjured before stayed his knee jerk reaction to reject the notion. The Yamato whispered to him, trust and love warred with the panic that had blinded him. "What does that— What could you possibly be—"

The impact of Dante's boot with his chest broke four of his ribs, his sternum, and clacked his teeth together so harshly he was sure at least one of them cracked.

But the damage, the pain, meant nothing to him in that moment. Nothing, compared to the heartrending realization of what his little brother had done.

The frayed strings of magic that kept the portal between Worlds open snapped, and a terrible, bone deep sense of wrongness crept gently, lovingly, into every crevice of his awareness.

He skidded across the rough stone, his chest tight and full of broken glass. As he slammed into the wall, he gasped, blood thick in the back of his throat, the salt of his tears on the air, and the clarity of the Human World bit into him.

The sensation he'd grown used to for eleven years, of being watched, of eyes that glowed with malice, with greed, had stayed in the Demon World.

Stayed on his baby bother.

A harsh sob worked its way past the lump in his throat.

The kernel of relief that had bloomed at its absence was swiftly gobbled up by the assurance that Mundus would kill Dante.

Trust me, yeah? I have a plan.

Abandoned once again.

But, that wasn't true, was it? Dante had said so.

I never wanted this, his brother's choked up voice whispered in his ear.

He'd never been abandoned. Not by choice, not willingly. The image of his Mother, half devoured and burned and deaddeaddead, the way his twin must remember her, assaulted his brain.

Sorrow and disbelief and denial left him a sobbing, tear stained mess on the floor of the chamber.

Laid there, huddled against the stone, Vergil could do nothing but think. Absorb the information his stupid twin had given him, the horror of what Dante thought he could possibly accomplish, stuck in the Demon World under the Emperor's cruel gaze.

There was never enough time, though, because once again the tower shook with a dangerous intent.

He needed to get out of here.

Where would he go?

Go back to Fortuna, will you?

Vivianna.

He didn't… he didn't know if she would want to see him, again. They had begun to drift apart, their own bullheadedness and drive and wants had taken up every scrap of time they might have been able to spend together.

But. But his brother had known about her. Had said that she was waiting for him. How the red twin had known that, he couldn't parse.

He'd have to ask her, when they next spoke.

A strength he didn't know he still had left in his leaden limbs forced him to his feet. Yamato crooned in the back of his mind, tried desperately to soothe the howling, violent hurricane in his chest where his heart used to be.

Stumbled, lost and aching and everything he'd set out to accomplish shattered at his feet.

No grasp of his Father's remaining power. No Perfect Amulet.

No little brother.

The wrongness that had wormed its way into him as he collapsed through the portal settled quietly into every fiber of his being.

It was supposed to be him.

But, it wasn't.

A glint from the rubble, and the rocket launcher that Arkham's daughter had been using caught his eye. He didn't know what possessed him to pick it up and sling it over his shoulder, but he did.

Perhaps he'd be able to return it to her. He hoped she'd at least accomplished her goals. Hoped that something came from this night of failure.

The open air barely registered to him, so caught up in the emptiness that filtered out everything that mattered. But when his eyes landed on the figure that stood, arms akimbo, surveying the destruction around them, something unfurled in him. A respect for her drive, her unbending will to do what she must. He'd kept an eye on her throughout the night, despite Arkham's attempts to distract him.

The disturbance of his footsteps startled her, and she whipped around. Her face morphed from acceptance to confusion to anger. A gun jerked from one of her many holsters, its barrel pointed unwavering at his forehead.

Not like it would do much, anyway.

"Where's Dante," she said, voice like steel.

His own stuck like poison in his throat.

He held out her prized weapon to her, a peace offering and an answer both.

A moment of silence, then she reholstered her gun and reached out with both hands, took the massive thing from him and cradled it close.

"Where's. Dante."

Wrongwrongwrongwrong—

A breath.

"My stupid little brother decided he'd try his hand at killing demons on their own turf."

She squinted at him, and his gaze trailed from her judgment off to his left.

"Then why are you here?"

A question he wished he knew the answer to.

"Dante decided for me that I wouldn't be joining him."

Vergil did not know why he was telling this mostly stranger these things.

He looked up into the darkened sky, gray clouds scattered and the hollowness inside him reflected back.

"The portal is closed," he said pointlessly.

The feeling of eyes on him returned, and his skin began to crawl, but it wasn't The Emperor. The gaze belonged to mismatched eyes that felt as though they were taking every piece of him out to examine and then put back.

"Are you crying?"

His hand flew up to his cheek and sure enough, once more mixed with the viscera on his skin were fresh tears.

God, he was exhausted.

"…devils never cry," he found himself murmuring.

The woman pursed her lips and rocked back on her heels. Tilted her head. Said, "…I see."

And she did, he knew.

"Maybe, somewhere out there, even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one, don't you think?"

Her words rippled through him. He was so used to loss. Used to the isolation he had curated around himself. But this fresh wave nearly crippled him.

"Perhaps," he said.

The creeping feeling of demons slid over his senses.

He almost left, content to let this woman kill the useless things that had clawed out of the woodwork of the tower.

But a rage bloomed inside him, cloying and familiar.

He was sick of loss.

"Looks like we'll be busy a while."

He straightened.

"So it does."

Together, they launched into battle. It was a simple, almost soothing thing. He hardly had to think about the motion of swinging his sword, the Yamato an extension of himself in all the ways that mattered.

He couldn't bring himself to wield the Force Edge again. Panic and DanteDanteDante made his chest tight. The blade would forever be incomplete without the amulet they shared, without half of the gem and half of his soul.

Trust me, yeah? I have a plan.

Vergil lost himself to the act of killing. It was so simple. But he found himself keeping an eye on the woman, cut down blades that were almost too close to her fragile human skin, and in return he could feel her pick off the enemies in his blind spot, could feel the whoosh of air as bullets missed him by inches, only to explode in the flesh of a demon who had been about to swing at him.

When it was all said and done, the woman sighed. Stood from where she'd slumped against the ruins, and held out a hand. "My name's Lady. Don't forget it."

Confusion scrunched his face. But he didn't have the energy to question it. He grasped her hand, and the spark he felt at the contact almost made him jerk back. It felt like something had clicked into place, a small piece of a puzzle he couldn't hope to complete on his own. "Lady, then."

She put her hands back on her hips. "So. What now?"

"I… don't know."

Red and green eyes roved their surroundings. Truly, the destruction was impressive. It would take a while for Redgrave to rebuild this section of city, if they even chose to.

"Dante has— had—" hadhadhadgrieflossnotagainpleasepleaseplease— " a home, a few blocks away from here. I'll go there." His eyes cut to her, considering.

It… may be good to have an ally who can hold their own, even if she was horribly human.

We are the Sons of Sparda. Within each of us flows his blood, but more importantly, his soul.

You think you need a source of power that isn't already within you?

…Their Father must've seen something in humanity that made him want to protect it. Dante must've seen it, too, to make him want follow in Sparda's footsteps.

Perhaps, with time, Vergil might see it as well.

Long brown hair flashed in his memory again.

Vivianna was his first friend, and her humanity was part of what drove her to reach out to a wild boy with a sword. So… humanity couldn't be all bad.

After all, humanity and Sparda's love for it was what brought he and his twin into this world.

"You're welcome to come along. If you want."

Lady's attention zeroed in on him. Narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

The blue twin snorted as a memory came to him, unbidden, of Dante somehow riding the motorcycle that he knew Lady had arrived on down the side of Temen-Ni-Gru. "Consider it payback for my foolish little brother wrecking your motorcycle." His eyes flashed. "But don't expect anything more from me."

She let out her own snort. "We'll see, demon boy. For now, I'll consider anywhere I can sleep comfortably a debt repaid."

He nodded, and turned in the direction he knew Dante's home was. Hopefully it wasn't part of the destruction.

Chapter Text

"Something clear and merciless, like glass, or a scream, or the first morning of an unwanted resurrection."

Dante's shop was… somewhat salvageable, at least.

Sort of.

He thought.

…He'd slept in worse places. Really.

Vergil and Lady stood there, her arms crossed and his shoulders slumped, both their heads tilted to the side. The front had collapsed, the roof half way caved in. When they glanced at each other, the woman shrugged, and he sighed through his nose.

They picked their way carefully inside, dust kicked up around their boots. She insisted he go first, "just in case, you could survive getting hit with a boulder, right?"

The Son of Sparda ground his teeth.

The rubble had at least spared most of the loft, surprisingly, and the small seating area beneath it.

It was safe enough that they could pass out on his secondhand couch and in his secondhand bed, after they'd aired it out as much as they could manage. Vergil didn't know how long he laid there, in his brother's bed, surrounded by his scent, gunpowder and cleaning oil and a low, omnipresent sorrow. Dust and debris burned his nose alongside it.

(Certainly, it was dust, and not tears.)

Didn't know what to do about the empty alcohol bottles that littered the floor both in what was left of the lobby and the bedroom, or the light that filtered through the massive holes in the walls and roof. Couldn't bring himself to do more than lay there, chest constricted by a storm he could hardly name.

When he woke, he hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep. The sun was still up. Or, he'd slept through to the next day.

It didn't really matter which.

His eyes landed immediately on an empty bottle of what looked to be vodka, within an arm's reach of the bed, and rage brought a fire to his veins. How dare Dante make decisions for him. How dare he take away everything he'd been working towards. How dare he make demands of him.

Trust me, yeah?

How dare he leave his big brother alone again.

Cold guilt put out the fire in his heart, and Vergil closed his eyes again. Took a deep breath, and almost choked on the rot in the air.

Good god, was that him?

He took an experimental sniff. Reared back.

…Hopefully the pipes hadn't been too damaged.

Disgust forced him up, drove him to his brother's fractured closet. Light filtered down through a chest sized hole, the matching one in the floor just to the left on the inside. There was at least one basket of clean laundry, haphazardly filled. The debris had only settled on the top most items. It seemed laundry was something his brother hated to do as much as he did.

Dante's lack of a shirt made just a bit more sense.

He rummaged around a bit more as dust motes danced in his face, and managed to pull out two towels he deemed clean enough. Hesitated, and then pulled out a second set of clothes. Clutched the items close, and stepped around the broken bedroom door. Shambled downstairs to the small bathroom, also somehow mostly intact. Lady continued to sleep on the couch, arm thrown over her eyes and a relatively clean blanket tucked around her. Wiped the dust off the counter, and laid both sets down. An experimental twist of the shower knob revealed that the pipes were still in usable order, at least.

Waited, to see if the water would heat up. Was unsurprised when it didn't, considering the power was out. The blue twin shrugged to himself, and stripped out of his tattered, horrendously smelling clothes.

There was no saving them. He'd probably end up burning the lot.

He'd try to save his coat, at least. He'd started to learn a few spells, the last year, and one to rid the grime from it was filed away in his memory. Maybe he'd try it later, when he felt less like he'd clawed his way out of his own grave.

The options in his little brother's bathroom were abysmal. A single bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. Also unsurprising, really, when Vergil considered the amount of money his twin would've had to shell out to purchase the building and the upkeep of the bills.

How he'd gotten that much money to begin with, he wasn't sure. He… wasn't sure about much of what had happened to his brother in the years they didn't see each other.

Guilt wracked him again when he realized his actions destroyed the one thing his twin had managed to claw back for himself in the last eleven years.

He really was the worst big brother, wasn't he?

The sudden need to throw up drove him to finally step into the frigid stream. The cold shocked his system, and he stood there for a moment, relished in the feeling of running water and the chill up his spine. Usually, he hated the cold, but there was no helping it here.

Besides, he deserved a little bit of punishment, didn't he?

Mechanically, barely a thought involved, he scrubbed down, dug harshly at all the stubborn bits of dried demon guts and blood that flaked off of him. Unfocused his eyes, had to, or else he'd think too much about how some of the blood was Dante's, some of the pink water was the last bits of his brother left to him, once again left with nothing but a sword and guilt and shameshameshame—

Moved on to the shampoo, and it took three turns of washing and rinsing to get the strands to unclump from each other.

When he finally felt clean again, skin scrubbed near raw, he stepped out and dried off, dressed quickly in the tee shirt and sweatpants he'd grabbed. With any luck, there would be enough water left for Lady to shower as well, should she so choose.

She'd woken, while he showered. Was sitting up on the couch, blanket draped around her slight shoulders, and a battery powered radio in hand. The dials spun under her calloused fingers, static briefly interrupted by a man's voice.

He didn't bother to pay attention to what the reporter was saying. It was likely a local station, updating the citizens of Redgrave on the destruction, how long power would be out, where to go in the meantime, how to volunteer for clean up and where to find the dead and missing.

Things Vergil had no use for.

Mismatched eyes glanced up at him as he wandered over to the wreckage of Dante's desk.

Much of the lobby was a pile of debris, but it looked like some of the drawers and their contents were in enough pieces that he could dig through them. Dust coated his boots once again, as he began to sift through the broken wood and concrete.

"Towel and clothes in the bathroom, if you want to try the shower."

A considering silence.

A snort.

"Yeah, if you left any water for me, demon boy."

Vergil didn't deem that with a response, only kept his eyes trained on the crumpled and singed pages of paperwork he had found in one of the piles.

The bathroom door closed with a click, and he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Continued to gather the remains of his brother's things.

Contracts and what appeared to be legal licensing caught his attention, surprise in his raised brows. It seemed Dante was at least trying to be organized.

A business card with the name J.D. Morrison and a phone number in bold font fluttered out of the pile, and he picked it up. A strange feeling purred in his gut, one he didn't have the energy to identify, and he made sure to pocket the card.

As he sifted through the remains, the tinkling of broken glass stood out. Not surprising, but the source, once he found it, was. A broken picture frame lay beneath some of the bits of wood, and the dusty image of his Mother's smiling face froze him to the spot.

How long had it been since he'd seen an actual photo of her? When he fled their burning home, he'd only had the Yamato in hand, presumed everything else was lost, everything that mattered, mother and brother both. But, here he was, a surviving picture of her, one he knew his Father had kept on his desk upstairs, clutched in his shaking hand. A little piece of her left to him from a brother who'd done the only thing he knew how to do: survive.

Now, here he sat, surrounded by the sad remains of the twin who gave up everything for reasons Vergil couldn't fathom.

Trust me, yeah? I have a plan.

Foolishness.

Here was the thing: Vergil's abandonment issues did not start the night of the attack. In fact, they didn't even start with his Mother.

They started with his Father.

Really, Sparda was the root of so many aspects of his life. Sins of the Father are the sins of the son, and all that.

The demon had left them on a sunny day not long after his and Dante's seventh birthday. A short trip, he'd said. You won't even know I'm gone.

Behave for your Mother, okay, boys?

As the days turned into weeks turned into months, he could see the strain on Eva. Could see the worry that she tried to keep hidden from her sons. Every time he or his twin asked when Father would come home, asked if she'd heard from him, if he'd returned while they were out playing.

Then months stretched into a year with no word from Sparda, and both boys had given up asking, glum and angry and unwilling to hear another excuse from their Mother.

Vergil had taken on the responsibility of ensuring the strain on their Mother was lessened. Dante hadn't understood, at the time, that their questions hurt, that each time it brought sadness to Eva's eyes. So he'd taken it upon himself to stop the questioning, an elbow to the gut or a nudge to the shoulder each time he could sense one on the tip of his little brother's tongue. It had started more than one fight between the two of them, and the disappointment and exhaustion on their Mother's face at that had ultimately been what got Dante to stop.

The day he accepted that his Father was gone, that he wasn't coming back, wasn't coming to save them, was the fire.

For, surely, surely, if their Father still remained, if the Legendary Dark Knight still lived, he would not have allowed such a thing to happen.

Regardless, Eva's death left a scar on him that he'd rarely let himself examine. He'd assumed she and Dante had been killed by the demons before the fire was set, and that was why no one had come for him. But, when he learned of Dante's survival, he began to doubt. What had truly happened? Had Eva snatched up the only son she had eyes on, and fled with him, presumed that Vergil had perished? Had she hidden Dante and herself away? If his little brother was here, but their Mother was not, what had happened?

Did it really matter, in the end?

Abandoned, whether it was willing or unwilling. Either way, he was alone.

(That was nothing to say of the hurricane that raged in his chest at Dante's choice to boot Vergil back into the Human World and plunge into Hell by himself. The choice to leave him alone again. Was there something so wrong with him that none of the people he loved could manage to stay in his life? Father, Mother, and now his twin. Not even the other half of his soul wanted to stick around.

Only one of those was a willing choice. Only one was truly on purpose. But did it matter, how he ended up alone? Was he cursed to always be left wanting? Was the burden of being Sparda's Son so heavy that he must bear it alone?)

His brother's ability to pinpoint that insecurity made him chafe. Twins they may be, their parents had always doted on Dante just a bit more than him. Be a good example for your brother, he could remember hearing from both of them. As if the thirteen minutes he was older was enough to give him the world weary wisdom of age.

You're the big brother, its your job to take care of your little brother, yeah?

In the end, Dante's child's joy had irritated him. Had driven them apart, in a way, before the fire. Vergil so caught up on the perceived responsibility of being the older sibling, and Dante not understanding what had happened that his twin didn't want to play with him anymore.

Look where that had lead them.

An exhausted shutter hit him, and he wiped as much of the broken glass and dirt off the picture as he could manage.

The water cut off, and Lady exited the bathroom shortly after, skin just a bit red as she rubbed a small hand towel through her damp hair. His twin's clothes were big on her, but not by much. Actually, they were a bit tight on himself, now that he thought about it.

Concern crept coldly into his lungs.

He squashed the feeling with a vengeance.

A silence settled between them as she sat back down on the couch.

"Well. We'll have to wait for the clean up crews, but I think its safe to say this place is toast."

Irritation flared to life in his chest. But… she wasn't wrong. This whole section of city was likely to just be demolished.

He sighed, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Looked at the picture of his mother again, and felt a hollowness empty out everything else from his chest.

"I hear Capulet City is pretty infested with demons," Lady said. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, irritated. He didn't have it in him to play games.

"I bet they could use a few good demon hunters. And I've already got a safe house set up there."

Vergil shifted to squint at her. "Why."

A delicate shrug. "It's not pity, if that's what you think." She turned to her right, looked out past the front half of the shop into the street, where the sun shone brightly and off in the distance he could hear locals calling out to one another. "I think we made a decent team, is all. And us demon hunters have to stick together, don't we?"

The blue twin pursed his lips. She made a decent point. But, he wasn't sure if that's what he wanted, wasn't sure what would happen when he returned to Vivianna, wasn't sure of anything, for the first time in a long time.

The only thing he did know was that his brother loved him. And in the end that's what drove him away.

"I'm not Dante."

"I never said you were."

He hummed. There were very few people that had met both of the twins and immediately recognized how different they were, despite how outwardly they showed it. At first, neither of them had minded, it meant they could switch places rather easily, if it was anyone other than their parents. But even then, Sparda and Eva couldn't always tell, when they were being sneaky about it.

As they aged, they'd begun to grow into different people, find different interests, different styles, different wants.

Now, Vergil thought he'd give anything for he and Dante to want the same thing again.

"I have business to take care of elsewhere. But…" he sighed. "I'm not opposed."

Lady nodded. Stood, and wandered over to where he was squatted, sifting through the debris. He'd started a pile of what looked like important paperwork, intent on rescuing as much of Dante's things as he could before the inevitable collapse. Her mismatched eyes trailed over what he'd already sorted, and she grabbed the single pen that he'd found. His brows scrunched, and she held out her hand, waited.

When he didn't either take it or give her something, she rolled her eyes. Knelt down next to him, and dug until she found a magazine. Made a face at the scantily clad woman on the torn page, but laid it flat regardless. Scratched out an address and handed the scrap to him. "The address, when you decide to pop back up."

"…Thank you."

The Son of Sparda stared at the note, confused and oddly touched. It had been a long time since someone had given him something with no obligations behind it. Even longer since someone had put faith in him that he didn't think he deserved. He put it in the same pocket as the business card.

"Now," she said. "Let's see how much of Dante's stuff we can salvage, yeah? You can even keep it at my place until you finish up whatever business you have to go do."

He nodded, and they ended up grabbing an empty laundry basket from the bedroom. The fact his twin owned more than one surprised him, but, he supposed, he didn't know much about Dante in the first place, so he had no right to judge.

They filled the whole thing with paperwork and a few knickknacks. The old school rotary phone survived, so it went in as well. When they trudged upstairs, Lady took one look at the mess of dirty clothes and said, "I'll let you handle stuff up here."

Vergil barely heard her. Barely heard her footsteps as she retreated downstairs to do who knew what. Barely made it back into the room he'd passed out in without looking too closely. His chest was tight, his throat burned.

There was a cork board on the far wall with papers pinned chaotically all over it, a small cup of pins waiting to be used on the dresser beneath it, and another framed photo next to it.

Twin smiling faces, both smudged with dirt, looked back at him. They were maybe six, each held a rose in extended hands towards their Mother, Dante mid jump with the other hand on Vergil's shoulder. Eva was halfway through a laugh, hand almost to the rose he held out to her. The sun shone above and the garden of the manor was blurred in the background around them.

He knew that photo. That was Mother's Day. The last one before Sparda disappeared. He'd been the one to take the picture.

The tears that slipped down his face shouldn't have surprised him, but here he was again, crying for reasons he'd denied to himself for so long.

He rubbed his eyes viciously.

Quietly, he packed up the image and took the papers down off Dante's wall. He glanced at a few of them, hand written notes in what wasn't his twin's writing, pages torn from books and newspaper clippings all folded neatly together. There were a few paperclips mixed into the things from the desk, so he could clip them all together to prevent them from fluttering around.

Then he turned to the dresser. Hesitantly, the Son of Sparda inched the top drawer open, fear of what his brother might have hidden made him grimace, the magazines from downstairs flashed in his mind.

But nothing jumped out when it was finally opened all the way, and when he peered in, it looked to be just a combination of socks and underwear. Relief settled briefly into him, but he still opened each drawer with careful precaution.

When he found nothing but band shirts and sweatpants, he sighed. Pulled a scarce few out. Several had holes in them, and a few of the sweatpants had holes in them as well, mostly in the knees.

Vergil's heart clenched at the visual reminder that his twin was barely scrapping by, just like he had been.

He threw them all in the empty basket they'd collected, and moved on to the closet, stepped around the dirty clothes and empty bottles that took up a considerable portion of the floor. It was less packed, jeans and winter clothes hung up to conserve space in the dresser, most likely. A torn overcoat similar to the one Dante had been wearing was the only item he deemed worthy of holding on to.

Somehow, he ended up sitting on the dusty floor, back pressed into the side of the bed and the overcoat draped over his lap, knees bent halfway. He dug his head into his hands, pressed the heels of his palms into his sore, damp eyes. Gripped his hair by the root. The swirling mass of rage in his gut had nowhere to go, only further accentuated the denial and emptiness that warred in his ribcage. He could feel the void where his heart used to be echo into an abyss, could feel the tingling numbness reach out to his extremities, the cold, howling wind that blew through his mind.

Trust me, yeah? I have a plan.

There was no way Dante survived Mundus alone. Vergil would've struggled, inevitably lost without any kind of boost in power, and he'd been more settled into his demon half than Dante. The Emperor would not stop until either Dante was dead, or… something much, much worse.

Fearrageterrornotmybabybrotherpleasenononononono—

Suddenly the need to retrieve his brother was all consuming. He stood in a flash, reached for Yamato where he'd laid her on the bed, and the moment his skin came into contact with her she shocked him.

What the fuck.

He jerked back, disbelief and betrayal in his veins.

Yamato had never spurned him before.

Again, he reached for her, and this time he was able to wrap his hand around her grip. Her resonating voice echoed in his brain, the connection between them sung of sorrow and anger and thistimethistimethistime and lovetrustlethimdothis and staystaystaystaystay.

He didn't know what she was talking about, but he could parse that she wouldn't help him in his half cocked plan to plunge back into the Demon World and hunt his stupid little brother down.

With that final denial from Yamato, Vergil slid back down to sit on the floor, his baby brother's coat in his lap and a cavern in his chest, and he cried. Cried for the Father who disappeared and never came back, cried for the Mother who gave her life for her sons, cried for the little brother who decided he would be better off dead than up in the Human World with him.

Cried until he had no more tears left to give.

"You can have my heart, if you have the stomach to take it."

Footsteps crunched on broken twigs and stray rocks. The sun was low in the sky, near sunset, the bugs had started to emerge and the nocturnal animals just about to wake. Trees built a smattered wall between him and the brightness that reflected off the ocean waves and into his eyes. The small clearing he waited in smelled of his preferred brand of cigarette as he lit the fourth one since he'd arrived.

It was unlike Vivianna to wait this long, once he'd signaled that he was back.

They used a frankly convoluted system, but it was worth it to keep her parents in the dark, she assured him. A coin left in the bird bath below her bedroom window signaled that he was waiting for her out in the forest. A stuffed cat perched on her window sill meant she had prior obligations and would come when she could.

There had been no such cat in her window, in his brief glance as he'd flipped a quarter into the shallow water earlier this morning.

So. Where was she?

After he and Lady had packed up as much of Dante's things as they could, he'd sliced a portal to Capulet City. She'd navigated them to her safe house, which turned out to be a second story apartment. They'd collapsed onto the floor of the living room, where nothing but a coffee table and single overstuffed armchair occupied it. When his stomach had growled, she'd laughed at him, but they both rose to raid the cupboards.

When they found no more than a can of chicken noodle soup, Lady sighed, and volunteered to grab them food. She'd been gone for almost an hour, and the whole time Vergil sat, stock still, staring at the two baskets full of his brother's things. He couldn't bring himself to sort through them just yet.

If he did, if he allowed himself to delve into his brother's privacy in that way, then it was real. Dante was really, truly gone and Vergil was left to pick up the pieces once more.

So he left it all in the baskets for now.

After they had scarfed down an impressive spread of pizza and wings, Lady had returned the favor of a place to sleep. He'd used the spells he could remember to clean his coat, and had even offered to clean Lady's armored jacket and leather holsters, which she accepted. He'd also cleaned both of their boots. The rest of their clothes had been left behind in the wreckage.

When the sun had barely risen above the horizon, the Son of Sparda had finally given up on any more rest, and quietly made his way out of the apartment and down into the alley. There, he cut a portal to one of his own safety caches, an abandoned warehouse about a hundred miles away, and picked up a few items of clothing that actually fit him.

Slipped into the convenience store around the corner, and used the meager money he had to pick up a pack of cigarettes. He'd smoked the last of his pack as he waited for Arkham to retrieve Dante, on top of Temen-Ni-Gru. It was a disgusting habit, according to Vivianna, and she used to curse up a storm every time she could smell it on him, but she relented so long as he didn't light up in her vicinity.

Which is why he usually didn't smoke in their meeting place, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and all that. He'd at least waited a few hours until he'd finally broken down and opened the carton, the craving for the nicotine buzz in his lungs an all consuming one.

But it had been a while since that as well.

Still no Vivianna.

…Perhaps Dante had been wrong after all, and she wasn't waiting for him. Too much time and too many arguments in their last few months may have soured her on their friendship, after all.

But she was his best friend. One of the few people he trusted implicitly. They were friends and co-conspirators long before they'd developed into anything romantic, and even then, half the time they spent together was them sniping in turns.

Vergil wasn't sure if romantic was even the word he would use. They'd explored, as many young people do, and come out the other side closer than before. Continued to see each other, even. If he was honest with himself… he missed her terribly. Their trysts had been… exhilarating.

He'd thought she enjoyed it as much as he had, but now he began to doubt, the longer he paced back and forth waiting for her.

Finally, a shift in the shadows and a heartbeat in his ears, albeit one he didn't recognize.

Whoever had come here, it wasn't Vivianna.

Still, he stood his ground. Whoever had come may be able to give him information, regardless.

He narrowed his eyes when the figure finally stepped into view. A woman for certain, though the hood on her head obstructed any identifying features. It was only when she reached up to remove it and was already looking directly at him did he recognize her.

Marigold. Vivianna's childhood friend and neighbor.

She must've seen him this morning. Perhaps she'd even removed the coin from the birdbath, and that was why his friend had not come yet. Or, maybe, she didn't want to see him, and had sent her friend in her stead.

"You look like shit," she spat, anger in her stormy eyes.

Ah. Yes, he'd forgotten how much they did not like each other, for a moment. They had refrained from arguing on the rare occasion they saw each other with Vivianna, but without her there to mediate, he knew it would devolve into a shouting match soon.

He sighed, took another drag, and breathed out a lung full of smoke.

God, he was so, so tired.

She crossed her arms.

"I've seen better days," he admitted.

She hummed, her lips pinched in dissatisfaction. "What are you doing here? You haven't been around in over a year." She cocked her head. "Why now?"

Suspicion had him narrow his eyes again. "Its none of your concern. Where is Vivianna?" He huffed, and turned his gaze towards the ocean to his left. The cigarette still burned in his hand. "If she didn't want to see me, she didn't have to send you to scare me off."

Marigold's silence drew his attention back to her, and the disbelief looked genuine on her face.

"You… don't know. She didn't tell you?" The woman shook her head, and reached to steady herself on a tree. There was precious little space between them, the clearing only scarcely big enough for two people comfortably. Muttered, mostly to herself, "of course she didn't. When would she have had the chance?"

Vergil scrunched his brow. Something was wrong, clearly. Anxiety churned in his stomach, his heart beat picked up. "What are you talking about? Tell me what?"

"Vergil… Vivianna died five months ago."

His entire world came to a crashing stop. Again.

Denials surged to the tip of his tongue. There was no way. It was impossible. But… if Dante knew about her, that meant Mundus did. If demons had found her, Vergil would never, ever forgive himself.

The cigarette slipped from his numb fingers. Marigold cursed quietly, stepped toward him and crunched it out amongst the leaf litter. "What are you— are you trying to set the forest on fire you idiot—"

He didn't hear her. Rage once again filled him. But it still had nowhere to go, only settled into his bones, morphed into a painful, sticky ball of sadness in his chest, where it would fester and fuel him both. He thought he was sick of loss before, but this?

This one last death might break him.

"Vergil? Hey, asshole?" Marigold waved her hand in front of his face. He swallowed thickly. Took a shuddering breath, and slid down to sit at the foot of the tree he'd collapsed against. The bark dug painfully into his back, but the blankness that had settled over him blocked it out. His chest was tight, and he couldn't get a full breath in. The lack of air made him lightheaded and dizzy.

"Shit. Hey, breathe with me okay? In… and out. Yeah, just like that."

Marigold at least had the decency not to touch him. But she did kneel by his side, spoke to him until he could get a full breath past the tightness in his throat, the tears lodged in it like stone.

Once Vergil could breathe without worrying about passing out, she said, "by the Savior. You really did love her, huh?"

"I… I never told her I loved her," he whispered.

The woman sighed. "For all your lack of communication, she knew." A huff of disbelief. "Somehow, she loved you back."

Another denial fought to be free of his chest, but he couldn't allow it.

Tears slipped freely down his face, and he remained silent.

That seemed to unnerve Marigold, though, because she began to fidget.

"What else is wrong? You're not usually this… easily upset. Not—" she sighed, looked down, and squeezed her fingers together in the fabric of her red dress. "Not that loosing Vi is easy for either of us."

He was suddenly, viscerally reminded that while he and Vivianna had known each other since they were fifteen, Vivianna had dragged Marigold to their meet ups often enough that they knew each other decently well. He'd thought, for a time, that they could be friends, too. But their relationship had stayed one of mutually assured destruction. Still, she was the only connection left to his best friend.

She loved Vivianna as well.

"I… my little brother died. Two days ago," he said, stilted.

It was the first time he'd said it out loud. The first time he'd acknowledged out loud that his baby brother was as good as dead.

"Oh, shit." This time Marigold did reach out and touch him. Gently, she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I'm really sorry to hear that, Vergil."

And she really did sound sorry.

Maybe they'd misjudged each other.

He laughed, just on the edge of hysterical.

Embarrassed at his display of vulnerability, he cleared his throat, and stared directly ahead, into the nothingness of the forest. "How?"

The woman pursed her lips. Sat down across from him, legs sprawled, and smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirts. He extended his legs so that they were just a hairs breath away from touching, hands held idly in his lap, Yamato settled on the ground to his right. The dying sun glinted off the water one final time before they were plunged into the darkness of night.

They had both grown since they'd met as awkward fifteen-year-olds. Before, all three of them could fit in this clearing, when Marigold and he could be convinced to be in each other's company. Vivianna always had a way of making them behave, her ability to tease them both a gift. Now, at nineteen, the two of them were huddled close, loss and death and rage and love linked them together irrevocably, their mutual affection for a dead girl the only thing that kept them tied to this place, this island.

A deep breath, and Marigold once more turned his world upside down.

"Well, the first thing you need to know is that she was pregnant, and he's yours."

Chapter Text

"I've got eyelids heavy enough to break diamonds, You pray for sound and I pray for silence, Damn right faithless, I can't deny, You'll find me with half a mind to get violent, Oh it isn't over 'til I say its over, And oh, my little angel sitting on my shoulder, So give me the edge of a blade and a time and a place, And I'll leave them gold and pushing up boulders" -Look To Windward by Sleep Token

Water rushed by his unfocused eyes with a quiet babble that Dante didn't think he'd ever hear in a place in Hell.

Not all the water in the Demon World was acidic or poisonous, it turned out.

There were deadly little buggers in the water that wasn't though. Of course, there were demons that had adapted to live in the acidic water too, just like regular animals in the Human World.

The wonders of evolution.

But the cool relief of the creek that he'd discovered washed the blood and gore from his cracked, torn up hands.

Dante'd lost his leather gloves not long ago, had finally given up the ghost and tossed them when he had tried to block a blow from the tail of a demon and one of the spikes along it had stabbed straight through his palm.

Maybe the scent of his blood would force some of the demons on his trail to peel off and leave him alone, if just for a little while.

His inattention almost cost him, but movement in the shallow water caught his eye. Long, sinuous body, scales the color of the dark sands beneath them, what must be a demonic fish opened its mouth to take a chomp out of him.

A low, throaty growl slid from him, and the demon turned one of its bright orange eyes upward. The Son of Sparda bared his pointed teeth at it, and it jerked before it darted away, a light ripple against the flow of the current the only sign it had ever been there to begin with.

Exhaustion sagged his shoulders. Hung his head, and he sighed. Shook some of the excess water from his hands, and reached up to rub at his face. The coldness of his hands was a balm to his feverish skin. The sticky quality of the bits of viscera still on it made him grimace. Scratched at it with his blunt nails, dragged his hands down his cheeks and then dipped them back into the water to rinse them again.

Dug sharply, painfully, at the blood beneath his too human nails, and reached up again to pick more of the grime from him.

The water dripped red from his hands.

The moment of reprieve didn't last long.

On the third pass of trying to rise his face, a demonic presence strong enough to catch his attention crept up to his left.

Dante closed his eyes, and breathed deep. Stood painfully from the crouch he was in, and settled Rebellion against his shoulder. Gripped Ivory with white knuckles.

No rest for the wicked, it seemed.

"Damn, a guy can't even wash his face without you fuckers butting in, huh?"

A low chuckle answered him. "Not if you're the Traitor's Son."

The voice sounded like gravel.

"Man, you guys gotta get some new material, that line is getting boring."

The demon shifted, hidden between the trees. He turned with it, kept it's hulking form in his eyeline.

"The Emperor awaits your answer to his invitation, half breed. It's impolite to keep him waiting."

Soft humming lilted in his ear.

A chuckle surprised the both of them. "Why would I care about being polite to him? He's been a terrible host since I've been down here. Would not recommend to friends or family, y'know?"

An answering chitter passed through the trunks. "He may grant you mercy, if you give in. Wouldn't that be nice? A moment's rest?"

Dante rolled his eyes and started firing.

He missed the stars.

When he and Vergil were little, they used to stargaze out of their shared window. They did this when one or both couldn't sleep, or when a nightmare woke them, or just because. Redgrave was a fair distance away, but the light of the city didn't obstruct the stars too badly, constellations still visible as the Earth spun on and on.

Sparda used to tell them that before light pollution was at its worst, you could look up and even see the Milky Way.

When their birthday would roll around, their Mother would point out the Gemini constellation, delve into all the mythologies behind it, tell stories and use silly voices, and it never failed to make both he and Vergil look at her in awe.

After the fire, on their birthday, Dante would find somewhere he could see the stars clearly, and look for the zodiac that supposedly ruled over his life.

He didn't put much stock in it himself, but he knew there was a certain magic to it, if one looked in the right places.

Still, it was the one small indulgence of the past he allowed himself on their birthday every year. Outside of that, he'd never celebrated again. Found no reason to, no parents to blow out candles for, no brother to share it with, no home to return to. Just the sad remains of a childhood that was burnt to the ground because of who their Father was.

Hell had no stars.

No twinkling lights to lead the way, no North Star to guide him. Just the perpetual light of a nonexistent sun that shrouded everything in a sickening gray.

Dante couldn't remember the last time he'd stopped and just looked up, into the night sky and its millions of possibilities, or at the clouds that floated cheerily by in mesmerizing shapes, or the colors of the sun as it rose and set, vibrant reds and pinks and oranges and yellows and violets.

Now it would be decades before he would again.

He continued on.

Boots on the ground, stuttered and clumsy, frenzied and madcap, running and running and running and runngingrunningRUNNING—

A shriek to his left, and he swung Rebellion with rash abandon, carved the demon at the other end, horned and bulbous, from shoulder to hip, and it burst disgustingly.

Another noise to his right. Dante pivoted, snarled back, fangs bared, and fired off a shot from Ebony. That demon, too, exploded in a gross shower, its acidic blood bubbled against his exposed skin.

The pain didn't even register.

These were yet more demons he'd never seen before. He'd thought he'd seen pretty much everything Hell had to offer, but it seemed Mundus had a talent for pulling new and horrific enemies out of nowhere.

Fuck, how long had he been fighting? How long had he existed from one moment to the next, from the swing of his sword to the blast of his guns to the pounding, frantic beat of his heart?

Dante didn't know, but it felt like it had been an eternity. Eyes unseeing, dry and burning, he killed and killed and killed. Every type of demon he'd ever encountered sought him out. A low growl had rumbled from his chest for a long time now, a warning and a comfort both.

The trap Mundus had set for him wasn't far off. The Son of Sparda could feel it, the way it beckoned to him, sweet and honeyed. A soft hum, pitched right around where he could remember Eva humming as she cooked dinner, a lifetime ago. It sung of rest, of shelter, of comfort. It begged him to come closer, insisted he would be safe there, evoked such a deep want in him.

It had always been difficult for him to resist his Mother.

Was this the same trap that had been set for Vergil? Had the Emperor crooned to him, lured him in after weeks or months of running, with the promise of safety? Of rest?

After so much running, even the strongest person could hardly resist the safety of their Mother.

…Anyway.

Enemies in his immediate vicinity finally down for good, Dante leaned heavily against the rock face to his right, and turned to face the edge of the cliff he'd been walking along. The not-smeared-with-demon-guts part, at least. Not-sunlight kept everything half lit. He squinted. Somewhere out there, Mundus waited for him. The storm in the distance danced violently with lightening, wings and teeth and claws vague shapes in the towering, illuminated clouds.

That was where Mundus intended to corral him.

Still, somehow, Dante had the will to resist the lullaby of his Mother's voice.

The thought of how the Emperor knew what she sounded like drew horror to the surface.

How long had he watched them? Had Sparda known? Was that why he had left and never returned?

So many questions that they would never know the answers to.

The Devil Hunter wiped a hand down his face, practically ripped the strands of hair that hung in his eyes out by the roots. A frustrated snarl left his lips. All he'd truly done was smear around the blood that coated his hands.

(There would be so much more blood before he was done.)

His legs faltered, and he skidded down into a seated position, huddled against the rock. Rebellion sang down their connection once again, settled at his side as she tried, desperate, to drown out the lure set for him. Closed his eyes, and sighed. His beloved blade's screaming song was a balm to his ruptured soul. Throat tight, he rested his elbows on his bent knees. Tilted his head down, laced his fingers together at the back of his neck, and was tiredly surprised when tears splashed into his lap.

God, he didn't have time for tears.

Still. It was just him and the demons out here, and he'd killed all the ones he could feel in a mile radius. So there was no one to scream and laugh about the Son of Sparda curled up, teary eyed, as he listened to the echo of his Mother singing for the first time since her death.

Grief, grief, grief, so much grief he could hardly hold it all.

Grief for a Mother that he couldn't save, child's hands clutched tight at the blinds of his hiding spot. Grief for a Father who promised to return and never did. Grief for a brother who'd chosen death over learning how to live. A mother figure in Nell and a friend in Grue, ripped away from him because of his heritage.

(Grief for a life that no longer existed, a home that had slipped through his fingers, the sands of time a brutal, unwavering demand. If he thought about it for too long, it would cripple him. He would be able to go no further. Best not to think of it at all.)

It saturated every part of him, soaked into every decision, the foundation of the entirety of his life. How does one build a life on the constant mourning of lost loved ones?

Dante couldn't ever really figure it out.

But, oh, how he tried.

It was just, after he killed his brother, blood dripped from his hands and stained everything around him redredred. Better, then, that he hardly live at all, that he avoid the urge to reach out and spread the stains of his sins to those who remained.

Lonely, yes, but necessary. His small family didn't deserve to suffer for his existence.

"You sleep coiled; tightly wound. Hands are fists beneath pillows, clenched above cotton sheets. You are at war, even in your dreams." -Rest Achilles, the world will wait

Terror drove Dante up from the curled position he'd fallen asleep in, Ebony clutched tightly in hand.

He didn't mean to sleep, but he was so tired.

The dream had been so sweet, too— notes of Patty's teenage laughter, Lady's raucous storytelling, Trish's snicker. Vergil's rare chuckle. The shiny quality of Kyrie's smile as Nero tried to impress her. Morrison's quiet, comforting presence. Even the smell of Nico's cigarettes.

Memories he might never make again.

Rage sat low in his gut, patient and hungry.

A screech echoed across the ether between Dante and what would be his doom.

Time to get a move on.

Barely a thought to spare, he lunged up and over the rock he had rested against. If he headed in the opposite direction of the trap, maybe he could buy a bit more time.

(As if he wasn't already on a borrowed limit.)

Red, red moss squished beneath his boots as he ducked into a forest. Branches reached out like hands that tried to hold him in place. He shrugged them off, and quickened his step.

The deeper he went, the darker it got, the trees grew taller and taller, their leaves a canopy overhead. Soon, he could only see because of the demonic eyesight gifted to him by his heritage. This, he supposed, was what it was made for.

Gnarled roots made his path convoluted and tricky. Once in a while, between the typical browns and grays, the Son of Sparda could swear he saw mottled white, pale blue cracks split through it— or a flash of black and a glimpse of eerie red.

Trish had mentioned that Mundus had consumed the fruit of the Qliphoth, that it had aided him in his ascension to the throne of the Demon World. Perhaps he had wandered to where that tree had been planted, deep in the thicket.

Or maybe he had finally lost his mind and started hallucinating.

He trudged through the wide trunks, an occasional new tear in his coat courtesy of the fact that everything in this fucking dimension wanted him dead. He was already without a shirt, nineteen and a dumbass, and he didn't want to wreck his beloved coat any further. Then he'd be truly exposed to the elements, that last layer of defense stripped from him.

Frustration burned across his jaw, and he ground his teeth.

Another branch reached out to lay its black, clinging vines upon him, and he whipped out Ivory to dispel it. The bang of the shot ricochet in his ear, and in a fit of desperationrageplease, Ijustwanttogohome, homedoesn'texistanymore, he fired off several more, blew a hole in the plant matter that stopped him.

Breath wheezed out of him, the effort and precious little demonic energy he had left wasted.

Dante leaned over to catch his ragged breath, but the wriggling of the severed vines caught his eye. Followed the movement up, to the hole he just carved.

There was light on the other side.

Swiftly, he lunged through before the hole could close.

Tumbled ass over teakettle into a mess of more roots. But, there was something familiar about these ones.

Blackened bark, burst capillaries that he knew once glowed crimson, a slice of mottled gray, spikes once poised to skewer now soft with rot and age.

Once he came to a jumbled halt, he glanced around. Panted as he absorbed his surroundings.

That. That was one fucking big Qliphoth Tree.

Before him stood the twisted, rotted out remains of what must have been the tree that the Emperor had planted, as thick as a football field and broken jaggedly maybe a thousand feet upward.

Humidity was thick in the air.

Nothing but the roots—branches?— of the tree grew within what must be a several hundred yard radius, a small valley of rolling, wooden hills. Even then, it was as though the surrounding flora had grown into a wall to keep the demonic tree contained. The vines he had tumbled through grew rapidly back together behind him.

Trepidation brought him slowly to his feet.

Could this be where Vergil had found the seed for his Qliphoth Tree? The decayed remains of what must've been Mundus's rise?

Dante swept his eyes around him. There was nothing save for the Tree. Took a tight breath, and fed a trickle of his demonic senses outward.

No demons that he could sense at all.

He shrugged to himself. Might as well check it out.

Carefully, he picked his way through the network of roots, one eye trained on the sky, the feeling of being exposed prickled across his skin, and the other on his steps.

The song of his doom lessened the closer he got to the husk.

What a wild thing.

A crack in the base between two of the twisted trunks, just big enough for him to slip through, stood out. The dangerous path to it tried to claim his ankles, the rotten roots made for a poor terrain. A breeze blew across, lifted his hair from his face and billowed his coat slightly, brought a chill to his skin.

He hurried up.

The scrape of splintered wood across his chest stung as he shimmied into the remains.

Light danced through cracks in the spiraled trunk, the blank sky a circle above him. Slowly, the Son of Sparda turned to take in the inside. What looked to be blood streaked down the curves, like it had been filled then drained, but the stains of each life taken remained. The tips high in the air like broken teeth, as though the whole structure was the jaws of a monster—or monsters— as it rose from the depths to consume everything in its wake.

The center was just hollow. No sapling growing, no seeds laying around. But… there was something in the air. An electric feeling, an almost vibration. The thump-thump-thump of a beating heart. Soft earth within smelled rich, ready to burst forth with life once more.

Yeah, the seed must be here. Dante could almost taste it, the call, sharp and full of temptation on his tongue.

Now wasn't the time, though, still twenty-four years too early. A small shake of his head, a quiet notyetnotyetnotyet, a soonsoonsoon, and the sensations receded, the calm before a tsunami. He hadn't realized how overstimulated the tree had made him, the drive to find the seed and plant it nownownow buzzed in his chest, lingered in his numb fingers, pulsed behind his eyes.

Not. Yet.

He shook off the dregs, syrupy sweet.

Glanced around. Wandered over to a random place in the wall, and ghosted a touch along the bark. It was thick, maybe a few feet, heavily tangled together; a sturdy deterrent against any who tried to carve through.

It would provide good enough cover for now.

Didn't help that there was no ceiling.

But he could feel no demons anywhere near here. Maybe this was a cursed land, even to demons, the rise of a cruel Emperor who wanted only death and destruction, the beacon that would consume everything in its path, drain the lifeblood of everything and never be satisfied.

Or maybe every drop of latent power had been drained after over two-thousand years, and there was nothing left for the tree to give, save for the Seed itself.

Was that why the forest had walled the Tree and its roots off? When he and Vergil had struck down their Tree, it had taken weeks to hunt down every last scrap of plant matter. They had severed the trunk, yes, but the branches and roots needed to be culled as well. Rip the corruption out by its roots, the Watcher had said.

When the time came, that would be the easy part. Dante was relentless. Lazy, yes, but as long as there were demons to kill, people to save, a family to return to, he would not stop.

His family was waiting for him.

Regardless, he might as well attempt to rest while he had the chance.

"Your body is a temple, but your holy wounds are aching."

Screaming and screaming and screaming. Voices he didn't recognize moaned harmoniously in pain, the scrape of claw against bone. Teeth that gnawed on sinew and flesh. Buildings twisted up and windows shattered, streets cracked and pipes burst. The hot sun beat down overhead, wisps of clouds not enough cover. Roots tangled in his chest, reinforced his brittle bones, replaced his veins and arteries and organs with their ravenous mouths. Blood flowed into his dying body, what had once sustained the lives of millions in the city now a necessary sacrifice to bring him truly back to the land of the living.

He woke with a start. Lurched to the side. Threw up stomach bile.

Tears wet his cheeks, carved lines through the blood and gore that clung to him. Tickled his nose as they dripped down it. A single sob escaped before he could tamp it down.

Hunched on his knees, he dug his fingers into the dirt beneath him. It felt the same as when his claws ripped into flesh, soft, spongy, easily split with a sharp enough touch. Shook his head wildly and scrambled backwards, until his back met the rough surface of his shelter.

Tried to calm himself. The aching of his chest and tightness in his throat didn't help.

His nails bit into his palms.

Was… was that what was in store for him?

The deaths of millions, just to bring him back to a life he'd barely lived in the first place?

He spiralled.

Did he deserve to be saved? Once Vergil killed him— Nelo Angelo— whatever— was there a point? The Watcher said the Tree must rise, the Fruit must be consumed, but did it? If he didn't do it, would another just do it instead? Someone who wouldn't care about the lives that would be ended, the blood spilled?

Even his apathetic twin had cared to an extent.

All those lives. Families and children and miles and years of community, destroyed. Just for him.

He leaned over and threw up again. Well, more like dry heaved. There was so little left in him, he didn't even have bile to expel. Could still taste it in his mouth, the acrid, bitter feeling mixed with the ashes of a life he'd tried and failed to live.

The siren song of the Qliphoth Seed warbled to him again.

He needed to get out of here.

Maybe it was time to face the music after all. Bite the bullet and just submit to the years and years of torture, the unmaking. The brief release of death that awaited him.

Stilted, the red twin rose to his feet. Braced himself on the trunk. Fisted his hand against the bloodstains. Put one foot in front of the other. Made his way back to the small entrance, and clawed his way back out into the open, exposed and alone.

Exhaustion draped over him, heavy on his shoulders, bowed his head low.

Vision blurred as he stumbled his way back towards the treeline.

Rebellion's song crooned to him, once it finally registered in his frazzled brain. She sounded so sad, so reluctant, so angry. The injustice of what has been done to him, of what will be done to him, reflected a thousand times over in her glowing eyes. Notfairnotfairnotfair, she sang, whyisitalwaysyouthatmustsuffer.

He didn't know how to answer her.

They would both be shattered soon, anyway.

Pain burned his eyes, and he refused to cry over things that had already happened and he could not prevent.

But Rebellion had been the only one by his side for years before he'd found Lady, and his family began to grow again, little by little. Even as Tony Redgrave, Rebellion had been at his side, albeit silent and guarding.

To watch, helpless, as she's shattered once more, to feel the connection between them pull tight and almost completely unravel….

There were sacrifices they would both have to make, in order for this plan to work.

It didn't mean that it wasn't going to fucking hurt.

Acceptance wasn't an easy thing. But if it meant that he took his brother's place, that Vergil would live a full, good life, that his family would thrive, then he could accept that he would suffer for it, in the end.

Once he made it to the treeline, he didn't even need to cut a hole in the vines that held the Qliphoth prisoner, they just parted for him, an invitation and a warning.

He swayed once more into the dark, dread a painful chill up his spine, and grim determination sealed the cracks in his psyche.

He was so, so exhausted.

The gentle call of his Mother's voice started up again.

He walked toward it.

Masks and layers had always been Dante's preferred method of deflection. If he was obstinate enough, prickly enough, mean enough, then others would leave him alone. They wouldn't dig down into his molten center, where nothing but sorrow and self hatred lived.

A joke here, a funny comment there. A subject change, a disengagement when things got too close. Pushed away those who cared for him, didn't understand how they could.

But they did. Somehow.

Even when he'd gone nuclear, pushed the big red button to allow his life to fall into shambles, drank and drank and drank until the ache in his chest where his heart used to be hurt just a little bit less, until he was all out of tears to cry, until the oblivion of sleep didn't seem so daunting— nightmares and dreams both a horror he had to force himself to endure.

Dreams hurt him more, in the end, their joy an illusion he would never be able to feel again, with his brother's blood that dripped from his hands.

But then, against all odds, Vergil lived.

They had fought. Oh, they had fought. Decades and trauma and resentment built up and up and up, until it all came crashing down on them in one horrendous argument where they'd hurled insults and accusations and blame, at the end of it left with nothing but heaving chests, no masks, no layers, just two traumatized boys who loved each other but didn't know how to say it.

A sob from Dante had broken the silence, broken the dam, and Vergil had lunged forward, clutched him close, and they'd both dissolved into an ugly, crying mess on the floor of the lobby sometime in the middle of the night, the beginning of reconciliation and the mourning of a life they could have had, if things were different.

All that work, undone.

But here he was. A life traded, given freely. Offered, even.

He hoped, in the end, he and Vergil were able to reconnect, able to be brothers again, the ease that had flowed between them a dream and a wish and a reality.

They both just needed to play their parts, first.

"Golden child, / Lion boy, / Tell me what it's like to conquer.

Fearless child, / Broken boy, / Tell me what it's like to burn."

Demons once again pinged on the edges of his awareness, vile and familiar and watchful.

They stayed there, no longer driven to hunt him down, direct him forward. Just gathered, silent, respectful of the claim Mundus had laid to his flesh.

Pride kept his head held high, rage set his jaw. Revenge propelled him.

(Mom, I'm so sorry—)

Eyes watched from the shadows as he walked, calm and collected, into the trap set specifically for him.

Dante was tired of beating around the bush.

Forest turned to sheer cliffs to dry plains, a desert parched and begging for blood to water it. The howling winds of the storm ahead sliced through him. There was anticipation in the air, the knowledge that Mundus was going to take his revenge out on Sparda's Son.

The Traitor's Kin, come to die at last.

Except Mundus wouldn't kill him.

Dante would only die by his brother's hand.

The humming hit a crescendo.

That settled his blaring nerves, the tremble in his hands faded away, the reminder that while he would lose to the Emperor, would be subjected to torture beyond anything he'd experienced before, be taken apart again and again and again, Vergil would be his savior, his liberator. His big brother would come for him. No matter what happened, in the end, his brother would break the chains that entombed him.

Vergil would come.

He would.

He promised.

(But not this Vergil, not this version of his twin, one twenty some years in the future and deaddeaddeaddeaddead— blood coated his lips— Nero's blood on his hands—)

Dante took a breath, and stepped into the swirling storm.

The silence jarred him. What he thought would be a chaotic battlefield wrought of lightening and smoke and enemies that tore at him, was instead the calm glass of a shallow lake, ruins littered as far as the eye could see, the dim sky replaced by a void that shone from nowhere and everywhere.

He didn't know what he expected, but it wasn't the polar opposite of when they'd fought the first time around— in the future?— a calm lake and a starry sky instead of fire and brimstone.

(He missed the stars.)

He glanced back, and the entrance he had stepped through, the low hanging mist and cloud cover, was gone. Vanished like it hadn't been there in the first place.

No backing out now.

At what appeared to be the edge of the world stood a chillingly familiar figure as tall as a skyscraper, stone skin smoothed to near perfection, wings held relaxed and casual. Mundus was turned halfway, attention seemingly on another portion of the ruins.

The fact he looked like what so many human religions assumed angels looked like was not lost on him. Maybe there was something to say about the mirror of heaven and hell after all.

Cautious, Dante unholstered Ebony and drew Rebellion, took a few steps to the right, slid just barely into Mundus's peripheral.

The Emperor turned further toward him, glanced out of the corner of his three eyes. Disregarded the piece of stone he'd been examining, tipped it carelessly out of his hand to shatter loudly and spray broken bits in a wide arc.

One piece tumbled until it landed in front of Dante, large enough that once it came to a solid stop, the red twin huffed a quiet laugh and placed his foot onto it, heedless of the ripples in the water around his boots, leaned forward and swung his blade to sit across his shoulders.

"Come to die at last, Traitor's Whelp?"

The echo of Mundus's voice brought back the rage he had so carefully cultivated, the boiling magma of his hatred a ready well.

"Nah," he laughed, "come to kick your ass, more like."

A smirk grew on the Emperor's face. "I admire your confidence, misplaced as it is. You have left quite the wave of destruction in your wake." The sound as stone screeched against stone rang out, as Mundus tilted his head slightly to the side. "You have defeated some of my best creations."

Satisfaction at the dent he'd been able to put in the armies of Hell bloomed in his chest, the strangeness of praise from his greatest enemy ignored in favor of the anticipation that sang in his veins, the vibration of a good fight, a hefty battle, made him almost giddy.

He smirked. "Broken toys don't tend to pose much of a challenge."

Mundus smiled.

"Then let me provide one for you, brazen child."

The Emperor moved.

Dante dove to the side, narrowly avoided a bright beam of demonic energy that shot from three red eyes. Rolled, soaked his dirty jacket and pants in the shallow lake. Shook the excess water from his limp hair on the way back up.

Threw Rebellion up in a front guard to deflect the line of stone projectiles that hurtled at him. Splintered chips peppered his face, opened slim cuts on his cheeks that healed as quickly as they formed.

Another flash of red, and a searing, sharp magical construct pierced the meat of his right thigh, carved out most of the bone. The magic shattered, left a hole in him that poured blood down his leg, dripped into the water. Pain raced up his hip, his spine, felt as his leg hung on by the threads of muscle and skin alone. His demonic energy made a desperate attempt at healing the gaping wound.

It would not slow him down.

But, fuck, was he already exhausted.

Three swift shots from Ebony found their homes in Mundus's face and chest. The impact seemed to focus the Emperor, though. The giant narrowed his glowing red eyes, eyes that haunted his nightmares and dogged his every step for years.

(Eyes that would never leave him, now.)

Mundus waved his left hand, almost casual, flippant.

Stone pillars rose from the glassy waters. Aimed like they had a mind of their own, tried to pin him, a bug on display. The red twin pivoted on his good leg among them, used the momentum of one to avoid another. Flipped and spun between them, a deadly dance where one wrong move would turn him into a Dante-shaped pancake. Slung Rebellion onto his back, and unholstered both of his favorite ladies.

Agony burned the nerves in his leg as the bone snapped back into one piece. As flesh started to regrow.

He continued to dodge and weave.

Kept the Emperor in his sights. When the stone around him allowed a clear shot, Dante fired as many times as he could manage before he had to twist away again.

Finally, one of the pillars came straight up at him, and Dante used the momentum to leap up above the petrified forest they had created. Unfurled his wings, Triggered in full, red motes of familiar magic a brief comfort.

Rebellion screamed in the back of his mind.

Laid down a seal of Royal Guard to propel him further, conserve as much of his energy as possible as he launched himself fully at Mundus. Two powerful beats of his wings allowed him to slip out of the way of another wave of pointed demonic energy. Skittered his gaze across the Emperor's form, and a curl of satisfaction unwound in his gut when he realized he'd left a decent amount of damage, pockmarks and craters from Ebony and Ivory slow to seal together across the giant demon's skin.

Big and Ugly sure wasn't smiling now.

Good.

"Be still, worm. Accept your defeat with grace."

A guttural laugh burst from Dante's throat. "What, and make it easy? Nah, you'll have to catch me first."

Stone eyes narrowed, and a series of slim, snake-like marbled protrusions rose from the ground beneath him. Too fast. One pierced the membrane of his wing as he tried to dodge, leathery skin parted with ease by the pointed end. A grunt slipped past his snarled lips.

He shoved the bright flare of pain to the back of his mind. Locked it in the chest where he kept all the hurtful things.

Whirled his sword from his back, shattered the rock in his wing and shook the appendage out with a rough flip. Red eyes stared impassively at him.

The Son of Sparda growled, low and angry.

Mundus lifted another hand, and with a speed he didn't expect, backhanded Dante out of the sky.

He hurtled downward, a meteor that refused to burn up.

The shallow water did nothing to break his fall, only sprayed in an impressive plume around him alongside the gravel sand that made up this place, as he skidded away. He wheezed out an agonized, wet breath, ribs broken on impact and the slowly closing hole in his leg collected its own pool of sharp stone, ground into the half healed flesh.

Spit blood into the water as he heaved to his elbows. Gripped Rebellion in a clawed hand.

A flash of red. Demonic energy pierced his back, slid easily through the center of his chest.

Punched the breath violently out of him.

Dante's eyes flew wide, mouth agape. Burningburningburning scattered through him, radiated across his shoulders, down his limbs, strangled his throat, faded his eyesight briefly to black. AGONYAGONYAGONY as his body tried to reconnect either end of his spinal cord. Numbness fluttered down his legs. Couldn't feel his icy fingers.

His lungs burned, shards of his broken ribs had plinked into the water beneath him as the energy evaporated, still frozen up on his elbows. His Devil Trigger had slipped out of his grasp, mind too stretched thin to keep it up.

Crimson blood sluiced from his chest.

Still, underneath the agony, rage simmered. He would not go down easily. The Emperor would not win this battle unscathed.

Disjointed, weight held up mostly by his blade dug into the ground, the Son of Sparda rose to his deadened feet.

A broken, feral growl reverberated through the hole in his chest and the blood thick in his throat.

His hands shook.

Mundus stared down at him, victory in his hateful eyes.

The demon reached down with his right hand, but the limb never made it to its destination.

As it neared, Rebellion sang. She cleaved off Mundus's pinky, ring, and middle fingers, and the digits rained broken stone down around him.

His beloved blade lost her battle with momentum partway through his pointer finger, and she was wrenched from his hands as the Emperor reared back.

A roar echoed around him, muffled his hearing briefly.

But he wasn't done.

Not yet.

Sealing magic had always come easily to him, second nature, and while his body may yet be nineteen, Dante remembered everything he'd learned into his adulthood.

He lurched toward the mangled extremities, as blood poured out of him.

Screamed, as he collapsed next to them, and ripped up every bit of magic he had left inside of him. Swirled it into a complex set of alternating seals, three for each finger. Interlocked each of those sets at random, broke the key to each one into pieces, and wrote them into each other, so that one could never unlock all of the pieces at once. Compressed his awareness downdowndown into the pinprick of detail, looped the elegant magic in on itself over and over and over.

Pulsed his lifeblood into the seals, and finished it off with a breathy laugh.

Collapsed, spent, vision grayed, the dregs of his demonic energy the only reason he was awake at all. There was not enough left in him to heal the injuries he'd sustained, so the brutal impact fractured his awareness, dug the sharp gravel into his half missing thigh, knocked loose more pieces of his delicate ribcage. Splattered the dark water into the pink tissue of his exposed lungs.

Mundus howled in the distance.

A grin stayed on his face as he faded in and out.

The only thing that dimmed the victory in his veins was the tug and snap, the frayed and cracked connection to Rebellion, the blade imbued with his very soul, as the Emperor plucked her from his fragmented hand and crushed her slim edge into so many pieces.

Another scream was rent from him, the pain of the separation layered over the physical pain he could no longer ignore, the white hot edges of his sternum and the minced flesh of his leg a constant companion now.

Every breath felt like it could be his last. Shallow and half choked on blood and water both.

Demonic healing could only do so much.

His heartbeat stuttered in his ears.

Maybe the Watcher had been wrong after all, and Dante really would die here.

The very air around him heated up, past what would have been pleasant and straight into searing magma. Mundus had ceased his roar, the loss and sealing of his fingers an injustice that could not go unanswered.

Even the Emperor, for all his power, could not grow back severed fingers.

At least, the cambion hoped so, since he'd sealed them away.

Before he could drown in the frigid water, more of the thin stone beams raced toward him. They found homes easily enough in his disfigured flesh, spiked out to hook further into his mangled body. Dante could barely hold up his head, as the marble pulled him up like a marionette. A puppet forced to dance for a cruel master.

There was so much pain, the fresh wave as he was moved forced tears from his eyes, dripped down his bloodied face, added a salty sting to the gaping emptiness of his chest.

"Awe," he panted, "need a little ha-hand th-there, buddy?"

Incandescence painted the Emperor of Hell's face.

The Son of Sparda took a quiet pride in that.

"Insolent boy. Look what you have been reduced to. The Blood of Sparda, tainted by such weakness." He bared his teeth down at the red twin. "I had originally planned to kill you and hunt down your brother. He showed much more promise than you. But," a feral grin that spelled nothing but further pain for Dante grew, "I think you'll do just fine."

A strangled chuckle left his lips.

"Bring it on, fuck face."