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Clang! CRASH!
The whistling sounds of swords clashing into another echoed throughout the dark and eerily silent void. The only sounds to accompany the brother's feud was the soft humming of the Demon Gate and the rush of a waterfall, pouring into a somehow darker void: The Demon World.
Still, even after both brothers had suffered through countless wounds that would have killed a regular man ten times over, did they fought. When both were battered and exhausted from their previous encounters and fight against Arkham, they still fought.
It was like something inside of Dante yelled at him to fight Vergil, like it was his sole purpose to fight his brother. There wasn’t even a shadow of a doubt that his brother reciprocated these feelings, too. One of the few things the twins had in common other than their looks.
With a massive swing, Dante managed to knock Vergil onto his knees. Vergil’s head hung low, practically in the water as he struggled to gather his breath again.
“Am I…” Vergil raised his head a bit, “being defeated?” Dante knew that the very aspect of losing not only in general but to his brother agitated his older twin. After all, he had been giving Dante a good ass-kicking all night this far.
“What’s wrong? Is that all you got? Come on, get up, you can do better than that!” He jutted his chin upwards.
Vergil took a few quiet breathes before he pushed himself upwards onto his two legs, groaning out loudly in pain. His body protested not to fight further; he couldn’t take any more hits. Yet he stood, prideful as ever.
The place shook as a small earthquake had hit them. “The portal to the Human World is closing, Dante…because the amulets have been separated.”
“Let’s finish this, Vergil. I have to stop you, even if it means killing you.” He sounded so sure of himself, and yet he couldn’t help but feel sad. Was he sorry that his brother could die at his hands, or was he sad because they wouldn’t be able to fight any longer? He wasn’t so sure, and that made him feel uneasy.
Vergil raised the short sword, the very sword that was the catalyst to this tragedy: the sword their father had used. He swung it behind him, the sword hissing through the air. Vergil rushed ahead, motivated to finally put his brother in place to let him know who the real Son of Sparda was.
Dante dashed ahead, Rebellion trailing behind him.
Everything felt like it was in slow motion. The suspenseful pitter-patters of their feet crashing into the rushing water below them and both brothers are letting out a war cry.
Vergil lifted the sword, preparing to strike it down upon Dante. But Dante was quicker. He swung his sword cutting through Vergil vertically. Blood sprayed in an arc, and both went deathly still.
Vergil fumbled, the short sword falling from his grasp and embedding itself into the river’s floor while his amulet flung off his neck.
He coughed loudly, painfully, and reached desperately for his amulet.
“No one can have this, Dante.” Vergil walked backward, clutching his amulet close to him protectively. Being defeated by Dante wasn’t as bitter as Vergil had thought it would be. He took pride that he broke his brother and rebuilt him to be stronger, to have more power.
“It’s mine; it belongs to a son of Sparda!”
Dante slowly turned around, his eyes growing wide with the realization that Vergil was shuffling towards the edge of the waterfall, and willingly.
He rushed forward, stopping mere inches away from Yamato’s tip pointed directly at his Adam’s apple.
“Leave me and go, if you don’t want to be trapped in the Demon World. I’m staying; this place was our father’s home.” Dante couldn’t believe what Vergil was saying. Leave him alone, when he was the only remaining member of his family alive?! No, Dante couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
Vergil leaned backward and started to fall.
It all felt like it was in slow motion again. Vergil was slowly falling into Hell, and Dante was desperately reaching out to grab him to pull him up. They could talk this through, couldn’t they? Neither of them had to die. Neither of them had to be alone-
Yamato sliced across his palm effortlessly, and the small recoil from the injury bought Vergil enough time to fall from the edge.
Dante watched helplessly as his brother plummets into the darkness, into the Demon World, feeling as weak and helpless as he did when his mother stuffed him into a closet before she died moments afterward.
Dante stared down at his gloved hand in disbelief. Blood pooled around the rapidly healing cut, and his glove sliced perfectly across his palm — a testament to how sharp Yamato’s blade was.
His head wracked with numerous emotions ranging from anger, pity, sadness, and numbness. But there was one thing that Dante couldn’t shake the thought of.
Had Vergil protected him as their mother did when he fell into Hell?