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“Can you still fight?” Vergil asked as he turned to face you, brows furrowed and that near-permanent scowl against his lips at seeing you kneeling. To most anyone, he would have looked annoyed, but you had known him long enough to see the concern in his gaze as well as hear it in his words.
“I’m…I’m good,” you answered, doing your best to catch your breath. The area still wasn’t secure, and you would be damned if you let those monsters continue to wreak havoc any longer.
A massive horde of demons began to overtake the populace nearly three towns over, not an odd occurrence, but definitely more on the rare side. There were stragglers, sure, and no doubt some still found ways to get through, but such a large group was almost unprecedented after the year or so of relative peace from such a large-scale attack.
Fighting off such numbers was wearing you thin, unfortunately, and you were barely holding out with being bombarded in such quick succession. You weren’t out of practice, not by a long shot, but you were still damnably human, your trembling muscles and slightly blurring vision attesting to that very fact, and Vergil could tell you were nearly at your limit.
There was obvious doubt to your words on Vergil’s end, his features shifting minutely to express such a thing. With a short sigh, he began to move toward you most likely to help you stand. What he failed to notice was the multiple portals spawning behind him, allowing demons to trickle through.
You gasped sharply, stumbling into a standing position.
“Vergil, behind you!”
He turned abruptly to block the incoming attack, Yamato having been unsheathed at a speed your own eyes could barely make out. Without missing a beat, he was on the offensive, moving in to attack while you readied yourself for the few that slipped by.
Without your knowing, however, several more portals opened up behind you, allowing another onslaught of demons to come through and surprise you from behind. You were just able to dodge several attacks, rolling out of the way of several bladed weapons and sharp claws intending on landing a blow. The planned attack was proving too much for your tired body to handle, however, and with little more than a few half-hearted swings of your sword, you were being overrun by demons.
You screamed as talons embedded into the flesh of your shoulder, panicked eyes catching a glimpse of several weapons rising at once as the sound of a deafening roar echoed through the air-
There was a flash of vivid blue, and then the wailing of multiple demons as they fell and disintegrated around you. It took your eyes a moment to adjust to the massive demon before you, its back facing you as it stood amongst the ruin of the demons that had been surrounding the area, the horde teleporting all around you no more. Its wings were extended, startling and glorious amongst the falling ashes of your enemies.
So startled and amazed by the sight before you, you hadn’t even realized that you weren’t the least bit scared of this demon, and there was a good reason as to why.
“Vergil?”
The demon looked over its shoulder, its features hauntingly beautiful in a way, despite all the harsh angles and sharp teeth. He was fearsome, no doubt, and you would be lying if you said you didn’t have a momentary fight-or-flight feeling in the pit of your stomach upon seeing him, at first, but even you could sense the difference between him and other demons.
You knew Vergil.
Mindful of your wounded arm, you stood on trembling legs and rounded Vergil, his eyes tracking your every move. Facing him didn’t help solidify your suspicions of who he was, but the way he gazed at you spoke volumes. Though you were aware that Vergil had a demonic side, you had never seen it, before. There had, apparently, never been need of it since you two had been together, fighting alongside each other nearly seamlessly for almost a year.
Had he not triggered into the demon before you, you would surely have met your end.
With a soft gaze, you moved closer, pausing for only a moment when Vergil shifted to angle himself away. He was nervous, it seemed, and the thought of him being so around you, of all people, was rather endearing. Was he worried you would be frightened of him? Maybe a small part of him was afraid of what you thought of his demonic side, and that thought alone made perfect sense as to why you had never seen him like that, before.
You pressed on, reaching out slowly to take hold of his massive hand and pulling it toward you, inspecting the armored plating along his arm and the claws upon his fingers before resting your palm against his.
“Well, would you look at that,” you said, looking up and smiling gently, “our hands still fit together. That’s good to know, don’t you think?”
For a moment, Vergil seemed stunned, or maybe you were just looking a bit too much into his lack of movement or reaction. He began to shift once more, leathery fingers curling around your hand in a careful grip. You grinned at the action.
“See? It’s perfect.”
You winced suddenly as a sharp pain registered within your shoulder. In the blink of an eye, Vergil was back to his human self, brows still furrowed and frown still present on his lips as he moved closer to inspect your wound.
“You are ridiculous,” he said, though there was no real heat behind his words. If anything, he seemed amused, if still a bit concerned.
“But you love it,” you said, earning the smallest of smiles that quirked the side of his lips just so. His smile never failed to send your heart aflutter.
Without realizing it, both your hands shifted against each other smoothly until your fingers could slide between his. A perfect fit, all the same.