Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The air crackled with power. It jolted through him like so many lightning bolts, coursing along his skin and sinking into his veins, feeding into his brand new demon form. The wings stretched out behind him as he plunged, flying ever closer to the Qliphoth’s trunk and the gigantic hole in the ground, where Hell awaited behind a reddish haze.

And against the darker colour, his father’s leather wings shone, a beacon to track down.

Nero’s gaze stayed glued to them, the bright blue filled with the promise of answers he’d sought all his life--knowledge that might scorch him, but to which he was drawn like a moth. The desire had burned reason out of him. Enough to grab Dante and fling him out of the way, leaving him to deal with the human world. Enough to even forget Kyrie entirely as his boots slapped across the Qliphoth’s ground, soles gripping the edge for one fateful second, wings stretching out behind him as his skin hardened, sprouting ridges and caging a shiny core of power.

Doubts clung to him now, like the hellish mist swirling around his torso and arms and legs, but Nero ignored them. Too late to go back. He snapped his wings further out to slow his descent, and his stomach clenched as the translucent feathers didn’t catch the wind as he’d expected. Nero landed hard, his knees buckling until he knelt on Hell’s cold surface, his dark teal claws spread through strange white grass. The power in his demon form fizzled out in a shower of blue sparks.

His heart thundered in his chest, its beating so loud it made his ears ring. The air here felt heavy, as if every breath required immense effort. Nero stared at his fingers, forcing air in and out, wrestling his senses and thoughts under control. He had made it to the demon world. Dove down in it recklessly without a plan beyond following Vergil and forcing the man to reckon with his path.

At the edge of his vision, a pair of boots waited, turned away. Vergil’s presence pressed at the back of Nero’s mind, a tingling sense of danger he’d first felt in his garage, an instant before he lost his arm in a flare of agony. Nero’s eyes slid to the very human one which had regrown in its place and he brushed the soft grass with it, reveling in the tingling on his skin.

“Are you quite done sightseeing? Hell is no place for leisure.”

Vergil’s cold remark whipped through the air, as deadly as his blade. Nero’s fingers clenched the clump of grass briefly before he leaped to his feet, glaring at his back. The asshole hadn’t even turned to look at him, preferring instead to embrace the landscape before him with his gaze.

“I ain’t sightseeing. I’m--”

Nero cut himself short. No way he was telling this jerk he’d been admiring his regrown arm. Nero crossed them with a huff and tried not to get distracted by the texture of his coat on his bare forearm. Fuck, this would need some getting used to.

Vergil’s fingers curled around the Yamato’s hilt, hanging by his side as if it had always belonged there--and it did, Nero reminded himself, even if it had temporarily sung for him. He cut a sharp figure against the red rolling hills of hell, proud and impossibly distant despite standing only a few feet away.

Questions jostled in Nero’s mind, but now that the adrenaline of battle washed away, he found he didn’t know how to address the man. Vergil, it seemed, did not have that problem.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

Disdain dripped from every carefully enunciated word, and Vergil’s head conceded to turning a few degrees to address him as if even that much was a great boon to Nero. He didn’t want Nero here, that much was obvious, and the certainty seared all doubts away. Fuck this bastard and his prissy arrogance. Who did he think he was? He wouldn’t even be alive if Nero hadn’t dragged a crumbling V down the Qliphoth.

“I don’t quit jobs halfway through.”

Vergil shifted another few degrees towards him--enough for Nero to witness the raised eyebrows. “I seem to recall hiring Dante, not you.”

V had hired Dante, and even though Nero had known that was the same as Vergil, after a fashion--even though he had seen his strange, lanky poet partner fuse back into Urizen himself--hearing Vergil casually speak of himself as V felt like a punch to the gut.

“Yeah, just a hot second before you crawled to my bedside lying and begging for more help.”

Vergil scowled, and a hot wind rose around him, snapping his coat as if responding to his anger. Was he doing that on purpose? Could this bitch get any more dramatic?

“I did not lie.”

“Only assholes think omission isn’t a lie.”

Just his luck to have someone rotten to the core as a father. For the first time since Vergil had appeared before him, Nero’s mind raced through every moment with his near-powerless, crumbling counterpart. Every mysterious exchange, every half-assed meal in the van, every fight together…

“‘I know the demon who took your arm’.” Nero slowed his voice into a mimicry of V’s slow speech pattern before scoffing. “Of fucking course you did. You were lying to me, from Day One and up until the very end, when you promised to tell me everything only to leave out the most important part.”

He had taken the arm, ripped it off in a bid for power, tearing Nero’s confidence and sense of security into tiny pieces. And now that Vergil was whole again, Nero recognized that demonic aura, putting him inescapably on alert. He hated it more than he could explain. Nero stomped right up to Vergil, pushing his pent up frustration into every heavy step.

“Excuse me if I don’t trust you’ll cut these roots just cause you say so. I’m coming.”

Whatever was going through Vergil’s mind, he didn’t deign to share it with his son. Seconds crawled by, and still he didn’t reply, didn’t even express anything beyond a slight frown, keeping everything locked tight. Seeing him so controlled only made Nero want to explode even more.

Then Vergil finally--finally!--acknowledged that they were having a conversation at all. He gave a small ‘hm’, tilted his head in what might pass for a nod to the exceedingly generous, then stalked off. Just like that, he walked away, tailcoats flying behind him as he headed down the slope, his soles vanishing in the taller, cotton like grass.

Angry stupor rooted Nero to his spot as he watched Vergil make his way towards the distant but imposing grey trunk of the Qliphoth. Its roots extended far from the centre, grey-white structures rising like cliffs out of the ground, striated in iridescent pale colours mostly hidden by the demon world’s ambient mists. A large, undulating plain stretched out between them and their goal.

Nero stared at it, his mouth drying, his brain refusing the reality his eyes perceived. That couldn’t be. How was the trunk and root so fucking far away? He’d swear they’d been flying close to it, plunging from the human realm and into Hell. And now his goddamn thing sat at least a few days away? Literally, what the hell?

Worse than this bullshit was the fact the only man who could maybe solve this mystery was stalking away and would scoff at him for asking naive questions and jumping after him if he’d had no idea what to expect. Nero sure as fuck wasn’t gonna give him that satisfaction. He buried the confusion deep inside, pressed his lips shut, and stomped after Vergil.

The burnished red soil under Nero’s boots wasn’t anything he’d experienced before, somewhere between rock and sand, friable yet sticky. It clung to his soles, easily breaking away from the ground, creating an ever-thickening layer of crumbly goop. The air still pressed on his lungs, and if he glanced away from Vergil for a second, it felt as if the man teleported away, the distance between them distorted in impossible ways. Nero had only been in hell for one hot second and he already hated it.

He sped up, eager to be closer to Vergil if only for his senses to settle down and stop fucking around so much. His presence got no acknowledgment. Vergil remained silent, the only sounds from him the tall grass brushing against his pants, the snap of his cloak in the occasional warm gust, and irregular clacking of his tongue, as if a particularly annoying thought had occurred. Nero would have sworn those always came when he accidentally kicked a small rock or readjusted Red Queen on his back--any sign that he dared to exist around Vergil, really. He huffed and made a point of edging closer, just to annoy him more.

It must have lasted hours. Sure seemed like it, anyway, but the grey sunless sky above didn’t help Nero tell time any. He thought the light shifted, but he’d imagined rustling behind them half a dozen times yet never found any demons or been attacked since. Vergil hadn’t twitched at his sudden spinning on himself, hand on hilt, nor commented on it. The silence grated as bad as any comment. At least when he was being an asshole, Nero could retort. Instead he resorted to glaring at the man’s shoulder blades and stomping harder, which only made him feel like a child, which in turn frustrated him more. This whole trip was gonna suck.

“It should have been Dante.”

“What?”

After endless hours of stubborn silence, Vergil had just dropped that on him. No warning signs--not the slightest change in his gait or soft sigh, and nothing as obvious as turning towards him, for sure. Just, bang, talking about Dante. And now he stopped, settling ice blue eyes on Nero.

“He offered to keep an eye on me, did he not? If you feared I would defect or err, then it should have been Dante, here with me.”

“Yeah, cause the two of you have a great track record of not fucking everyone over for a chance to kill one another. Super trustworthy. I would be totally reassured you wouldn’t stop halfway there to duke it out again, leaving me hanging with all the demons up there.”

Something tugged at Vergil’s lips, and for an instant Nero would have sworn it was a smile, but his senses must have been fucking with him again. This dude only smiled when he was plunging a sword through your chest.

“I suppose you have a point,” he said.

Then he started off again, sliding back into complete silence without another word for Nero. What an asshole! They were back to hours upon hours of silent trekking through the underworld, apparently. Ugh. At least they were making progress towards their goal. Or Nero thought they were. The Qliphoth’s trunk didn’t seem any closer, and while the rolling hills had given way to strange plateaus like so many flat mushroom tops to climb down from, it didn’t feel like they moved forward. Every ramp and plateau, every strange motif in the ground… it all looked the same to him, like an endless repeat of a single pattern. But surely they were on the right track, if Vergil kept going… right?

So they walked. They walked and walked and walked, hell’s ambient light shifting from grey to yellowish to a strange purple, its constant mist thickening at times. Maybe that was why Nero felt trapped in a loop: everything was wrapped in this bullshit mist-like substance that didn’t have any of actual mists’ humidity and left his skin dry and tingling. He had no idea how much time had passed since they’d first landed, or how much distance they’d crossed. Both of these things had turned into meaningless human concepts which only the throb in his feet and grumbling of his stomach could track.

Nero ignored another low rumble and leaped down a particularly sharp ledge, to another plateau with a bluish ground marked in strange, darker lines. An actual Qliphoth root clung to its edge, its steep face covered in the now-familiar honeycomb pattern, with a soft, living red light glowing from behind. Human blood, carried all the way into the demon world, still feeding this fucked up tree. Nero scowled at it.

“If you wish, I may use the Yamato to send you back.” Vergil’s unexpected voice snapped Nero out of his thoughts. He turned his glower to him, but the man kept talking--a whole fucking miracle, that many words in a row. “I am not without honour, Nero. I will cut the roots, even alone.”

And then what, Nero wanted to ask. Would he vanish again, abandoning them without a word, his duty accomplished? Would he return to Dante, intent on finishing his accursed business and going for the kill? He’d seemed to accept Nero’s decision that none of these fuckers would die, up on the Qliphoth, but who knew if that’d last? He sure didn’t--he didn’t know anything about Vergil, except that he was his father and a mass murderer, and an arrogant asshole.

He bit back the questions, reiterating through clenched teeth “I’m coming.”

This time, however, Vergil did not simply accept the answer. His brow furrowed and each of his fingers settled around the Yamato’s hilt, one by one. “It is a pointless risk. I can do this on my own.”

“Ya think I can’t handle myself?” Nero’s wings flared behind him as the question burst out, bitter instincts driving him. He’d had enough of being treated like a burden--a dead weight to carry around and protect. He’d trashed this fucker on top of the Qliphoth, and wouldn’t hesitate to give him a repeat performance. “Do I need to beat your ass into submission again?”

Vergil tilted his head up, gaze tracking the shining wings, their light casting a strange glow that almost made him look soft. “You’re a human in Hell.”

How could anyone say that while staring right at his wings? Did these look fucking human to him? Nero snapped them to prove his point and stepped closer, tilting his chin up. “Flash news: some asshole cursed me with demon blood.”

Anger flashed through Vergil’s eyes. “Don’t be childish, Nero--”

“Then stop treating me like one! This is my job and my choice.” He grabbed Vergil’s shoulder and pushed to spin him back towards their goal. Vergil slid backward to allow it, but his gaze never left Nero, who took it as a challenge. “Just shut up and keep walking. I call my own bedtime.”

Vergil’s sharp, mocking exhale sent humiliation burning through Nero. “Do you now?”

Nero’s fist flew, only to pass through the blue outline Vergil left behind. His presence had shifted, reappearing on Nero’s left, and when he spun to face him, his father had slid into a fighting crouch. His power swirled around him, making hell’s mists spin around his long legs.

“It would seem you are no better than Dante when it comes to avoiding a fight.”

Maybe he was just starting to understand why Dante had adopted a strike first, ask questions later with his twin. Every word this asshole uttered dumped gallons of oil on the fires inside of him until nothing but anger occupied his brain.

“Fuck you,” he spat, stalking off. He wasn’t gonna fight, wouldn’t give Vergil that satisfaction. “Let’s just go.”

Nero stomped his way across the plateau as Vergil straightened up. His reply, when it came, was softer than Nero had expected.

“Don’t you have a family to return to?”

For a brief instant, Nero wondered how he knew. Flashes of his offer for pasta returned to him, then, along with the countless times he’d lamented Kyrie’s food while eating cheap sandwiches in the van, in front of V. He hated it, these more intimate bits of his life he hadn’t willingly shared with Vergil--not Vergil his father, at least. For him to use them against Nero--to have the gall to talk about family--Nero spun around, hands clenched into fists.

“Don’t you? Didn’t you always have one?”

He meant Dante. He’d totally meant Dante. Of course he did, who else? Nero had put a lot of efforts into turning their family reunion nonlethal.

Vergil had gone completely silent, his face blank with shock. His thumb ran along with Yamato’s pommel in deliberate movement, the only part of his entire body that moved. Everything else, coat included, had gone stiff and dead, so totally immobile that Nero was half-convinced Vergil had turned into a statue. He’d thought they’d reached peak levels of awkward silence earlier, but every second trickling between them now could only be called torture. Nero didn’t dare move or breathe. He could tell he’d crossed a line and braced for the inevitable impact. He didn’t regret his words, but Vergil might make him.

Except after long, excruciating seconds, the man only hm’d again, then walked right past Nero. Like he was a ghost, invisible and unimportant.

“You just gonna… walk off? Like that?”

Nero had expected an explosion--some sort of rebuttal, at least. He’d wanted one, really. Anything was better than this deadend. Nero couldn’t take countless hours of silence anymore, not when every word spoken could hold answers to questions he’d asked himself all his life. But there was no ripping them out of Vergil. He did not even acknowledge the question beyond a slight stagger in his stride, and then he’d jumped off the ledge, to the next strange plateau and into the next stretch of their trek through hell.

Chapter Text

Hell was kind enough to provide a distraction from Vergil’s bullshit. The demons that had been strangely absent since their arrival in hell materialized as soon as they jumped down the last fungi-like plateaus and into the plain. It wasn’t as flat as it’d seemed from a distance--craggly fissures lined the dry red soil, and at times the land swept up in dunes of a strange teal colour. And crawling out of the cracks and over the ridges were hordes of demonic centipedes, ugly black chitin striated with red while fuzzy dirty yellow hair covered their legs.

“Fucking finally,” Nero said, fingers wrapping around Red Queen’s familiar handle. He had time for a single revving before the demons were upon them.

Nero jumped into the battle, glad for a change to vent some frustration. He met gigantic mandibles with fiery steel, loud scuttling with whooping, and attempts to overwhelm him through numbers with extra arms. Even with his body fully human, the shimmering blue pair appeared effortlessly above his shoulders, grabbing the disgusting creatures and squishing them together. He was a maelstrom of destruction, demon flesh and blood flying with every spin, and the sweet release of exertion acted as a fresh wind on his frustrated mind.

This was what he was good at.

Talking about his feelings and shit? No way. Only with Kyrie. Certainly not with this asshole. But cutting down demons until only ashes were left? For sure. He had mastered the art of revving Red Queen as its blade bit through flesh, causing it to burst into flames, and he could take out demons as fast as any demon hunter out there, Dante included. As fast as Vergil, even.

Probably, anyway.

He was a blur of blue at the edge of Nero’s vision, dancing around the epicenter of destruction his son was. Shimmering blue swords occasionally plunged deeper into Nero’s space, but for the most part Vergil darted in and out, deadly silent and accurate, traceable only through the glints of light of the Yamato’s balde, the bursts of blue from his swords, and the occasional, deep-throated mutter of scum. Nero tried to keep track of him, but he kept losing him--and it’d been the same, atop the Qliphoth. Here an instant, gone in a flash--and each time, Nero’s heart jumped, expecting the Yamato to pierce him through.

It still did now, against all rationale. Vergil vanished, leaving behind a blue outline, and Nero reflexively reached for Blue Rose. He had the gun pointed up, where he could track his father’s demon essence, before he fully realized what he was doing. His finger twitched against the trigger--and a centipede’s mandibule tore through his arm while he was distracted.

Nero cried out, surprise and pain and shame flashing through him. He spun about and blasted the culprit’s head off, leaping into a backflip with the gun’s knockback, landing on a second demon’s squishy head. He glanced towards Vergil, hopeful his mishaps had gone unnoticed. Vergil had five summoned swords above his shoulders, and he sent every single one of them directly into the demon under Nero’s feet while staring straight at him.

He had definitely seen, the asshole.

“I don’t need your help,” Nero spat, his feet landing hard on the ground.

Vergil, whose wings kept him afloat with ease so he could look down on Nero, only stared back. “You looked as if you did.”

“Fuck you.”

He turned Blue Rose on the man again, but there were dozens of these centipedes to kill, so Vergil would probably say some shit about how he wasn’t being productive at all, and Nero didn’t have the energy to deal with that. Apparently, killing demons with Vergil was just as tiresome as walking in god-forsaken silence for hours upon hours--or whatever passed for time in this literal hellhole.

Nero slammed his fists into the creatures, huffing as their chitin broke into tiny pieces and their flesh flattened with a wet sound on the ground. Boy but that felt good. He grabbed two more, and broke into a grin with a surge of sudden inspiration.

“Hey Vergil!” he called out, and his father spun towards him, the Yamato slicing through a centipede, its cut far longer than the blade itself. “Catch!”

He flung both creatures at him, and Vergil scoffed. He twirled the Yamato, bringing it back into its sheath, and the entire blade shone a purplish light. Blue line sliced through the demons midair, cutting them down long before they even came in Vergil’s vicinity.

“Not even a challenge,” Vergil commented.

Nero’s eyebrows shot up. Not a challenge, huh? He snapped his wings, then shot the glorious wing-arms after the centipedes coming for them. He threw each and everyone at Vergil, going as fast as he could, and in a matter of minutes they had thinned the entire crowd, leaving ash and demon blood behind. Vergil hadn’t even moved through the process. His gloved hand had remained on the Yamato’s hilt, the purple glow running up his arms and over his entire body, crackling with power as he sliced the air with one cut after another. A single demon made it closer--one Nero had thrown at high speed straight at him, rather than lobbing it up--and it splashed Vergil with dark blood when he drew the Yamato, cutting it in a single, final slash.

Slowly, in the strange stillness that always followed a fight, Vergil flicked blood off the katana and slid it back into its sheath. He wiped the red stains from his face.

“Not a challenge,” he repeated.

Nero rolled his eyes. He’d come close to getting a flying centipede to the face a few times, and a thin film of sweat covered his forehead.

“Yeah right.” He let the tip of Red Queen hit the ground, unsure what to say now. No more demons to kill. No distractions to keep them away from each other’s throat. “Were they waiting for us? They sure jumped up the moment we stepped onto these plains.”

“Hm.” Vergil turned back towards the flat mushroom-like structures they had just exited, his eyes narrowing. “Demons do avoid territories where something much deadlier than themselves lurk. It is not impossible we’ve lucked out of a far more dangerous encounter.”

“What?” Nero snorted. “I can feel demons. These were empty.”

“Or so we’d like to think,” Vergil said, and boy did Nero recognize V’s cryptic nonsense there. He huffed.

“Whatever. We ain’t in it anymore, and the roots are waiting. Let’s get moving.”

He stalked off, if only for the satisfaction of being the one to do so, rather than having Vergil just quit yet another conversation halfway through. Maybe forcing Dante to give his spot hadn’t been that good an idea. Nero was already tired of all of this and eager to go home. Or eager to see Kyrie and the kids, anyway. More and more, he felt like Vergil didn’t give a rat’s ass about him and it’d been a mistake to come, to hope anything at all could come out of it.

Still, what he’d said earlier was true. He wasn’t a quitter, and the Qliphoth had become his job the moment this fucker had torn his arm away for his shot at growing it. He’d just thought, well… Whatever. Better not to dwell on it, and to focus on setting one foot in front of another, the Qliphoth’s great trunk alway dead ahead, seemingly close and impossibly distant. Vergil followed, footsteps light, almost imperceptible--unlike his demonic presence, which swirl continued to set him on edge, no matter how often he told himself Vergil was an ally now.

Times and again, hordes of demons attacked them, packs of empusas mixing in with riots, or Qliphoth roots bursting out of the cliff-like honeycombed structures they sometimes encountered, snapping forward with dangerous brutality. Nothing truly dangerous, but Nero felt like he’d been walking for days on end, his stomach was grumbling, and these damn critters were all almost boring. They didn’t keep his mind properly busy, and every time he landed a cool hit, he inevitably glanced over his shoulder, to see if Vergil had noticed.

Vergil, when he paid any attention to Nero, only scolded him. “Stay focused, Nero.” or “Behind you.” or even “Is your energy truly best spent admiring my skills?”. Nero hated it, but he hated Vergil’s snippy commentary less than he hated how he couldn’t help himself. He’d fucked the old man up on top of the Qliphoth and that should have been enough, but now that they were fighting together… Ugh. He needed to stop that. The riots had been joined by furies, and Nero really couldn’t afford distractions with those.

They flashed across the plains, blurs of red dust and muscle, their long curved claw flashing in the strange like. Nero sidestepped around a riot, slashing at it with Red Queen before grabbing its tail and flinging it overhead, smashing it into the ground. He leaped as it impacted, pointing Blue Rose at its head and blowing it open in a splash of blood and flesh. By the time he’d landed back on the body, the fury’s claw gleamed red an inch from his face.

Nero dropped down, crouching just in time for the deadly slice to whoosh overhead. He pointed Blue Rose upward and shot, forcing the fury to teleport back, buying himself time to recover and prepare. His blood pounded and he wanted to rush the damn demon, but he knew better. He needed to wait, to watch for the telltale sign of--there! Eyes shining white, claw moving to the right, and then it was gone, a cloud of red dust flying left. Nero counted to one, feet firm into the ground, his senses spread outward as he tracked the flicker demonic essence rushing him. Up and to his left. He spun, and Red Queen’s blade intercepted the claw with a metallic clang. Nero grinned.

The thing with furies was that they never expected resistance, and once you knocked them off balance, they turned into an easy bag of flesh to plummet.

He pressed Blue Rose to its chest, filling the bullet with demonic energy as he pulled the trigger. The blast sent the fury flying, and Nero jumped after it. One arm caught its head, bringing it back, and Nero slashed through the body with a wide swing. They collided, then, but he rolled over the fury, using its descent to bring himself above. Nero slashed again and again, then drove his sword through the demon’s back as they hit the ground, revving it into an explosion of flame, then sliced downward, through spine and leg. The fury’s pain screech ended.

A quick, efficient, and beautiful kill. Pride swelled in his chest and his gaze sought Vergil, eager for a glimmer of approval in the bastard’s cold eyes.

Red dust flicked in the corner of his vision--close, too close--and brutal pain bloomed in his chest as a claw plunged in deep, ripping his side open from belly button to the back. Nero gasped and stumbled forward, a haze covering his sight. He needed to roll, to get out of the way before a second strike lopped his head off, but his muscles cramped and his body refused.

Another sword cut the fury’s claw, the clang of its parry lighter and more delicate than Red Queen’s. Vergil. Of course he’d only seen the second half, Nero thought bitterly.

Still. Vergil had bought him enough time for his powers to surge and healing to kick in. Scales crawled over his arms as he shifted into a full demon form, his flesh knitting back while ridges grew along shoulders and legs. Nero breathed out, raised Red Queen again. The fury was already dead, several pieces of it ashing away from Vergil’s handiwork.

“Do not get distracted, Nero. You could track me; you can track these weaklings.”

Nero could have stabbed him there and then. Fuck him for saying that, and fuck him even more for being right. Too bad they didn’t have time for a fight--not with all the demons circling in on them. Ugh. This trip through hell would take forever, if they had to stop all the damn time to clean out the rabble. At least the battles offered some much needed venting.

Nero threw himself back into the melee, slashing and hacking with abandon, forcing his mind to stay on the task and ignore the pulses of power and movement from Vergil. Blood was streaming from Nero’s wound. It should be closing, but really, he hadn’t been careful with his newfound powers, and between the flight down into hell in full devil form, the endless walk across the landscape, and using the arms to recklessly fling countless demon centipedes at Vergil just to challenge him… he was kinda running out of juice here. The healing just wasn’t coming in as it should. Still, he had no intention of giving Vergil another opportunity to mock him. Stay focus, kill demons, move forward. That was all he needed to do.

He had no idea how long the battle lasted. At times it eased up and they progressed towards the Qliphoth, but these plains seemed like an endless flow of minor demons. Nero and Vergil got into a rhythm, moving around one another with increasingly fluid ease, trying to forge their way forward without getting too stalled.

And then all the demons fled. One moment they were screeching and scuttling and swinging at them, and the next, they all froze for a whole second--long enough for Vergil and Nero to exterminate a few--then ran away.

Nero whooped. Man, but it was fun to see them all turn tail and flee! “Yeah, now you get it, fuckers!” he called after them, grinning, before turning towards Vergil. “Can’t believe they just ran.”

Not a single drop of mirth lightened Vergil’s expression. He stared in the distance--the opposite direction from where the demons had fled towards--and grimaced. “So should we. A storm is coming.”

A what now? Nero glared at him. “Can’t you leave the cryptic bullshit for one second? What storm? Big demon from earlier?”

“No.” The shake of his head could barely be called that. It was more like Vergil had turned his head two degrees on one side, then frozen again. Was he growing paler, or was that just the demon world’s fucked up light shifting again? It definitely had a yellowish glow growing. “I mean it, Nero. A storm is coming.”

Nero frowned and turned his gaze towards the horizon. “Ain’t no clouds here.”

Hell’s “sky” had never been more than swirling grey patterns which grew lighter or darker as time passed, sometime shifting colours in ways he couldn’t have predicted and that sure as fuck didn’t have anything to do with human-world time. But he didn’t think Vergil was fucking with him through cryptic clues anymore. Not the way he’d gone white as bone.

“Yo, dude. The fuck is this storm?”

Vergil’s shaky breath scared Nero more than he cared to admit. It stabbed through him, sending sudden fear coursing through every muscle. Vergil was afraid and, worse, he was letting it show. And even though his next words remained steady, Nero couldn’t get that single, unstable breath out of his mind.

“It is a soulstorm… When too many demons die at once, their souls gather together and sweep through Hell. The ash you see in the human world exists here too, but it is far more deadly. It will erode you until next to nothing is left, should you stay in it.”

Well. That sounded fucking awful, and Nero had no desire to experience it. “Can’t even kill many of the bastards without it coming back to bite us in the ass, huh?”

Vergil didn’t react to the comment. He still hadn’t torn his eyes from the horizon, which was darkening with every passing second. This bullshit was definitely on its way.

“C’mon. Let’s go.” Nero strode away, but it only took two steps for him to notice Vergil wasn’t following. He stopped, a vice gripping his chest. What was wrong with him? Hadn’t he said himself they should flee? “Vergil?”

Hot winds swept the plains, their strength increasing. The yellow glow had turned sickly and brown, and the pressure on Nero’s lungs since he’d landed in the demon world only increased. They couldn’t stay here--they needed to run, and whatever kept his father rooted to the spot, Nero refused to let it win. His arms shimmered back to life and he grabbed Vergil’s shoulder with one.

“Get moving, asshole!”

Vergil startled, gasped, and gripped the Yamato. He didn’t run immediately, taking two steadying breaths first and straightening his shoulders. When he spun on his feet, his composure had returned, a mask of cool determination firmly on. Nero wasn’t fooled, but neither of them had time to waste with questions. They exchanged nods, then sprinted away from the soulstorm.

Nero’s feet pounded the ground, wings outstretched behind him to help him jump over the occasional fissures, his heart beating wildly already. He kept an ear out for Vergil’s footsteps, worried despite himself that the man wouldn’t keep up, that he’d freeze again, and pushed his remaining strength into each lengthy stride.

They needed cover before the storm reached them, but in these barren plains, nothing was less certain.

Chapter Text

Vergil’s skin stung with remembered pain as they dashed across the plains, boots slamming against the friable ground, legs pumping as they leapt over cracks. Instincts guided his steps; his mind had been scattered, blown away by every strong gust, every whiff of the demon souls gathered in a storm, drawing closer. His chest tightened, burning lungs feeling ever smaller as the demons’ presence grew in strength.

For a time, the regular thump of Nero’s steps grounded him into the present. He was not alone, fleeing this storm, and he was not trapped in it once more. Yet Nero stumbled more and more, his strength bleeding out from pointless wounds. Vergil couldn’t fathom how he’d made such a beginner’s mistake. He had seen the height of Nero’s abilities, up on the Qliphoth, and this should never have been an issue. Perhaps the demon world was taking a harsh toll on him--he was more human than Vergil, after all, and had no experience in the infinite ways time and space altered themselves here.

Whatever the case, Nero was failing now. He wouldn’t make it, Vergil knew, not with the storm’s first souls now looming over their shoulders. The skies had turned a burned yellow, and the air left a tangy taste on his lips. Energy crackled, ripples of power saping at his calm, threading a low panic through him. The souls moved about in quick gusts, a darkened mist of pure agony plunging down before curving back up. Their screams echoed through him, some real and close by, others clinging to his memory and tightening his throat, echoes of a pain he longed to forget.

Nero’s foot caught in a smaller fissure, and he plunged forward with a surprised cry.

Vergil’s heart stuttered and cool power flowed through him in response. The pain across his skin intensified as he shifted, as if it remembered the acidic leech of a thousand souls on its scales, how they had eaten away at him as fast as he could heal. Vergil gritted his teeth and ignored it--ignored, too, the sharp jabs of pain through his heels and chest where the very ground had once lanced through him, holding him in place. He couldn’t give in, couldn’t let the past overtake him. He was better than that now, more powerful: he had the strength to protect not only himself, but those he loved, too.

Bright blue flames swirled out of him as Vergil’s full body transformed and four sleek wings spread out. He grabbed Nero, snatching him under the arms and leaping into the air without heeding the boy’s cry of protests. The soulstorm advanced, ever closer, the first souls licking at his clawed toes. Vergil snatched the demon world’s distorted strands of time and space, desperate to slow them, give them a chance to escape. The world shimmered blue around him and he zipped forward, as fast as he could, yet already the storm eroded his power.

He could hear the demon’s shrieks in his head all over again--hear the dead, their weakness, their failures so much like his own. The souls licked his skin like so many whips, flaying his devil trigger’s scales off, slashing through the soft flesh under. He gasped, shaking under the pain, rooted there, eyes burning, tearless. And in the agony was the promise of his future, if he stayed as he was, if he did not take the power offered to him.

“Vergil!”

No, not Vergil. That was a name from the past, one fated to failure. Who even wasted time calling after that pitiful ghost?

“Vergil!”

Nero. That was Nero. Vergil’s entire body buzzed in a low pain, his breath was short, but the storm hadn’t engulfed them--not yet. They still flew, a wall of agonizing souls gaining on them. The screams of dead demons mixed with the howling winds, and already darkness crept at the edge of his vision, memories threatening to take over again. He couldn’t let them. He had fought too hard to piece his life back together and grant himself a future to slide back into the past. Vergil swallowed a sob, struggling to steady himself. He’d held Nero so tight he’d dug his claws into his chest.

“Down there!” Nero gestured towards their right, but it took Vergil effort to focus enough to make out the canyon there. “That cover enough, ya think?”

“It’ll have to do.”

And if it didn’t--if the souls followed them down there--then Vergil would see to it that not a single one of them brushed against the fiery and kind man in his arms. He would cling to the cliffside rock for hours, Nero wrapped within his wings, the torment of a thousand demons wreaking havoc on his own soul and mind, and he would bear it all without hesitation. It didn’t matter if Nero hated him or if they never managed more than a few words without snapping at each other. He was his son, worthy of every ounce of love and protection Vergil had never received or given him, and Vergil could not bear the thought of this ill-advised trip to hell leaving irrevocable scars in him.

Better bear the brunt of the storm again. He had survived it when Mundus had left him staked to the ground at the mercy of its winds; he would survive it again.

Vergil plunged towards the fissure, blue flames trailing him, his resolve as solid as his grip on Nero. The brunt of the storm was upon them now, dark soul mist whipping all around them, leeching at their strength. His mouth dried out, his heart pounding hard and fast in his burning blue chest. A high-pitched keening filled Vergil’s ears and mind, melding present pain and past memories. Gusts slammed into him from all directions and the souls started snapping at his wings, turning every beat into an agonizing struggle. They were… almost… there.

Nelo…

He gasped, the old name echoing through his mind, spoken in a thousand voices at once. Sharp pain spiked through his mind, heels, and heart, old wounds flaring under the pressure of the souls. Wings and shoulder clipped the cliff’s edge as he plunged in, snapping him out of his daze and sending them flying off path. They smashed against the other side hard, plummeting down into the deep fissure.

Souls trailed them, clinging to them downward, and through their constant wails and the howling of the wind, he heard Nero’s hiss of pain. Vergil’s stomach clenched and he wrapped his wings around him--just in time for their path to slam them into an outcropping of rocks. The shock stole his breath, sent them bouncing and flying again. A snap echoed above all other sounds, then the metal clattering of something else falling with them. The world spun and twirled with them, everything moving fast, too fast. Vergil couldn’t feel Nero against him anymore. Where--?

He spotted him, still close, pale wings shimmering to life, pain and fear distorting his face. Spotted the strange glow behind him, too, a turquoise light slipping out of a crack in the wall. A cave. Shelter.

Vergil’s tail whipped out, wrapping around Nero’s chest, and he snapped his wings out. Their flight curved and they swooped into the cave, escaping the screaming souls that had followed them into the fissure. Vergil hit the ground hard, his devil trigger fizzling out, specks of burning pain crawling across his skin. His breath came in ragged gulps and the edge of his sight darkened, exhaustion threatening to crush him out of the world.

The scrambling scuff on Nero’s boots caught his focus, pulling him back into the world. He’d run all the way to the entrance’s edge, one hand holding his bleeding side, but there was nothing to see there but the whipping tendrils of hundreds of souls. But he’d dropped something, hadn’t he? Something metallic.

The sword on his back had vanished.

“D-Don’t go.” He rattled the words out, then coughed to clear the pain out of his voice. “It’s gone.”

“Shut up!”

Something thick had crawled into Nero’s voice, so Vergil didn’t press the point. He pushed himself back into a sitting position, dragging his shaky body towards the wall and resting against the cool stone. Vergil focused on the cold through his coat, trying to ignore the voices slithering in his ears, whispering a name he longed to leave behind forever.

###

Nero stared at the swirling tendrils of black and sickened yellow mixing in the storm, obscuring visibility a few feet out of their cave. He had never heard Red Queen hit the ground. Perhaps she’d done it while he slammed into this refuge with Vergil, or perhaps she never had. Who knew with this fucking place? Maybe the cracks in the ground didn’t have an end and she would be forever suspended mid fall.

Either way, she was gone, and that hurt more than any fury ever could. An aching pit had formed in his stomach, not unlike when he’d lost his arm and the Yamato all at once. But this was worse, in a way, because Red Queen was the only blade he’d had left, and he’d built it himself. It had been his creation--his in every way possible. Losing her felt like losing a chunk of his soul.

This demon world, Nero decided, fucking sucked. He was hungry and tired and bleeding, he’d just had the souls of countless demons crawl all over him and mess with his mind, and now it had taken his Red Queen. Nero kinda wanted to sit down and curl up and not wake up for a good long while again. Maybe he was being childish, and Vergil had been right all along about him coming here. He should have sent Dante and let him deal with all the bullshit.

Too late for that now. Too late to save his pride, ripped into pieces by a fury and his own ridiculous need for approval, and too late for Red Queen. Nero wrenched his gaze away from the whirlwind of souls and edged his way back inside.

Vergil leaned against a wall, eyes closed, his face more drawn and fatigued than Nero recalled ever seeing. He seemed small, all of a sudden, and Nero’s mind shot back to how he’d first frozen, when the storm approached and how… off he’d stayed since. It’d taken several attempts before he’d paid Nero any attention, flying away from the storm, and his breathing had gone erratic. Not to mention the way he’d held onto him… Heat rushed to Nero’s cheeks and he touched the gouges in his chest, still painful from Vergil’s grip.

“So, what the fuck was that?”

Vergil’s eternal frown returned. “I told you. A soulstorm.”

“No, I meant you.” Nero crossed his arms. Vergil had ragged on him ever since they’d started this journey, and he was done with it. It was his turn. “You were… scared.”

Vergil’s entire body turned rigid, and Nero would swear their weirdo cave had gone several degrees colder. He waited for an answer, but Vergil kept his lips stubbornly sealed. Nero gritted his teeth, anger mounting inside. There wasn’t a vault on earth locked more tightly than this man, and Nero hated it.

“Fine, whatever.”

He plopped down where he’d been standing, shed his coat, then stripped of his bloodied shirt to get a good look at the wound. Not that he had anything to bandage it with--he’d left anything remotely like a first aid kit in the van. The cut was clean--Furies usually were--and it’d heal, given time and some rest. Every bone in his body ached. His day had been going on forever, seriously. It felt like the world had spun around several times since he’d last slept. His world sure had been upended several times.

“Guess we’re stuck waiting till the storm passes. Do they last long?”

“I could not tell.”

Could not tell, huh? Now that was one weird way of saying he didn’t know. Nero stared hard at him as if the strength of his glare could tear the words out of him. Vergil had seen a storm like this before, he must have. What else could explain how much he knew about it, and how terrified of it he’d been? But getting anything out of Vergil except demon encyclopedia information or criticism was damn impossible.

“Well. I’m going to sleep. You can take guard duty, Mister Robot.”

All he received as an answer was a slight twinge of Vergil’s nose--a brief curl of disgust. Nero huffed and settled down with his back to Vergil, using his coat as a pillow. For a long time, he played with the frayed edges of the straps that had held Red Queen, intent on ignoring the frequent grumbles of his stomach and the off-putting, sharp breath intakes coming from Vergil, as if he struggled to keep it under control. Nero forced himself not to think about it--not like the man would answer any of his questions anyway--and eventually found awkward, agitated sleep.

He woke up to the soft whisper of stone on steel, a delicate shiink he’d grown intimately familiar with through years of sharpening Red Queen. A sharp emptiness cut through his chest as he remembered the sword’s fate, and for a moment he considered rolling over and returning to bed. He had no idea how long he’d slept, but Hell’s awfulness pressed down on him, sapping at his will to go on.

Yet something in the rhythmic passage of the whetstone that dragged him out of his torpor, the musicality quiet and entrancing, like an open invitation. Nero pushed himself up… and froze the moment his gaze found Vergil.

His father sat against the same wall he’d claimed earlier on, completely engrossed in his work. The sword in his lap, however, was not the Yamato. He held Red Queen with the same reverent care he’d always reserved for his katana, fingers wrapped lovingly around its handle, each stroke of the whetstone steady and precise. And for once, there was nothing closed off about his expression. It was soft and open, and Nero’s cheeks flushed, a stab of ugly jealousy coursing through as he angrily realized this fucker had shown more love for his sword than for him.

Vergil’s hand stopped moving, his eyes flicked up, to Nero, and he closed off once again.

“You’re awake.”

Alarm coursed through Nero at his brittle voice. Blue pockmarks marred part of Vergil’s face, cracks and burns covered his hands, and his coat had grown tattered, as if eaten by acid. Part of Vergil’s hair had grown brittle, too, as if it had clumped together and flaked off, almost like scales ripped off. Nero stared at him, his slowed brain slowly piecing together the puzzle. He turned around, towards the cave opening, and although the storm had diminished in strength, souls still wailed right by the entrance.

“Did you--”

Nero couldn’t finish the sentence. He must have. If Vergil hadn’t gone out into this storm to find Red Queen, how else would she be there, on his lap? And why would he be so damaged? But he couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t believe the cold bastard who’d done nothing but scold and disparage him since they’d entered the demon world would do this. Red Queen meant nothing to him, and that storm… even now, something haunted passed through Vergil’s pale gaze as he nodded.

“The edge can be restored, but you will want to examine its mechanism after.”

He started sharpening it once more, but there was no way Nero let him dodge another conversation like that.

“You’re not healing.”

“I have, to the limits of my ability.”

Nero absorbed the implied meaning, his gut twisting. It must have been agony, to stay in that storm long enough that Vergil would deplete his healing--not to mention the way the demon souls whispered into your mind, promising weakness and failure. Did they say the same to him, or was that just Nero?

“Vergil--”

“I have no desire to speak of it, Nero.” The whetstone stopped as he snapped, and Nero could see the slight tremble of Vergil’s hands through it. “Please. Some things are best left buried.”

“Riight.” It took all his willpower not to push anyway. But Vergil had just gone through a lot of pain to retrieve Red Queen, and as much as Nero craved to learn more about him, he owed him big time--enough to keep his mouth shut, just this once. “Well. Thanks, anyway. It-it means a lot.”

Vergil’s eyes shut, and for long seconds he remained still. When he spoke again, his voice had fallen into a ragged whisper. “I know the pain of losing one’s companion.”

Nero’s gaze clipped to the Yamato’s handle, and he snorted, pushing all the nonchalance he could into the sound, as though his regrown arm didn’t throb in pain, and his heart wasn’t hammering hard against his chest. “Yeah, you did owe me for fixin’ that one up.”

“Fixing?”

The question came out almost like a strangled gasp, and Vergil’s whole body tensed.

“Ya heard me. The Order had it in bits and pieces. I, huh… restored it.”

Not that he had any idea how, exactly. Really, it felt more like the Yamato had done all the work then lent him its power, but Dante seemed to think it’d reacted to him--or, well, to Vergil’s son. Nero gritted his teeth. Maybe he didn’t have much to do with it after all, but he’d rather think of it as his doing.

“Nero…”

Vergil trailed off, but Nero’s head had snapped up at the sheer level of feelings in his voice. Whatever else he meant to say, the words went unspoken. Nero stared at him, his throat tight, his chest aching stupidly with the desire for the praise or gratefulness he could sense right under the surface. Vergil’s thumb ran along the Yamato’s guard and exhaled.

“Would you… tell me about Red Queen?” he asked. “It is not a Devil Arm, yet it is unlike any blade I’ve seen.”

Was that a compliment? Nero decided to take it as one. Vergil might have been an asshole to him, but he’d respected Red Queen enough to get her out from the storm and sharpen her edge back. Besides, his insults tended to be unmistakable.

“Y-yeah, sure,” he said, cursing himself for the stammer of excitement in his voice. The last time someone had asked him the details about Red Queen, he’d been a teenager still, and it had been Credo. (Nico hadn’t asked. She’d taken the sword and all but dismantled it live). All too aware of the eerie parallels between Vergil and Credo asking about his weapon of choice, Nero moved in closer, leaned against the wall besides Vergil, and reached for Red Queen.

The moment his fingers touched her, tension washed out of his body, and the words came pouring out. For a quiet hour, he forgot all that lay between him and Vergil, his attention completely dedicated to the blade he’d modded with his own hands and loved through the years. Vergil listened, his questions rare but pointed, each a clear mark of interest that sent warmth coursing through Nero.

Chapter Text

The storm still raged long after they’d discussed Red Queen, and even after he’d tried to show Blue Rose to Vergil, too--at which point the questions had vanished, but he’d been strangely polite and allowed Nero to go on without barbed comments about guns on the battlefield. Nero suspected he wasn’t listening anymore, not really, even though he still tilted his head in silent assent at the occasional statements. Vergil felt… elsewhere. His fingers rubbed the Yamato’s hilt in slow patterns, and at times he’d take a sharp inhale, or sigh for no apparent reason. Fighting, perhaps, the strange heaviness that had latched upon him ever since he’d felt the soulstorm coming.

Nero couldn’t help but test the theory, and at the end of an explanation about the double barrels, he added, “and you’re not even listening to me anyway.”

To his surprise, Vergil’s gaze snapped to him. “I am. I simply lack the expertise and interest to contribute, and unlike a certain brother of mine, I do not feel the need to fill every silence.”

Nero couldn’t help his snort. “Yeah, he’s full of hot air all right.” It drew an ever-so-slight smile from Vergil, and part of Nero wanted to keep ragging on Dante just to see more of that. Maybe that had been Vergil’s strategy--an easy deflection. “But no. You were totally off in your own mind. Is it the storm?”

Cold blue eyes studied him, and Nero tensed under their evaluation. He fucking hated being measured and judged like that, and with just about anybody else, he’d have told them to fuck off. But, damn, he couldn’t help yearn for Vergil’s approval. He just--he wanted to know this asshole before he vanished into the world once more, leaving him with nothing but the awful memories of a demon ripping off his arm, Urizen mocking his humanity, and the bitter betrayal of V keeping the truth from him even at the end. Vergil tilted his head and offered a nod.

“It is,” he said, and then, after another long pause, “Your voice… helps.”

“Oh.” A deep flush crept up his cheeks and he cleared his throat. “S’that why you kept Griffon around? Gotta have someone jabbering at you all the time?”

“No.” He did not elaborate any further, not on this topic. “I doubt the storm will abate soon, especially if Dante and his partners are cleaning up Redgrave and feeding it with more souls. There is, however, a network of caverns we could use to continue onward. That is where the soft light emanates from.”

Nero stared towards the depths of the cavern. Hell’s ambient light had been weird as hell from the start, so he hadn’t questioned the strange turquoise that bathed this cavern. Tunnels, huh?

Part of Nero didn’t want to go. The storm still raged outside, and whenever he turned to Vergil, he caught hints of a haunting pain sealed deep within. They’d spoken more over Red Queen than they had in all their time together, and while Nero had done most of the talking, it still felt as if he’d stepped into a new dimension, a bubble in which a different Vergil existed. Somewhere under the layer of assholery hid a man with enough kindness to retrieve his sword from a deadly storm.

He was, however, already receding. Vergil stood in a fluid movement, his tattered coat flapping, and without another look at Nero, he strode towards the tunnels. “If your nap is over, we should move onward.”

N-Nap? Nero’s hands clenched, anger swirling through his body, and he sprung to his feet. Bubble was well and truly pierced now, but he wasn’t gonna let Vergil get away without a piece of his mind first.

“Like you hadn’t need a break too!” he spat. “The storm destroyed you so badly, you couldn’t hold onto your devil trigger. At least I have the courage not to pretend this bullshit didn’t wreck me.”

Vergil’s entire body tensed. He did not look back at Nero over his shoulder, nor did he acknowledge the words for long seconds. And every second weighed heavy on Nero’s heart, filling it with regret and anger. He should’ve shut up and let it slide, let Vergil be snippy instead of shattering the fleeting peace they’d achieved. But god, the man made him so angry with his pretentious calm and judgemental comments. Vergil exhaled--slowly--and even that felt like a mockery of Nero.

“And so you do,” he said, his voice a bag of indecipherable emotions.

Vergil stalked off, letting Nero to guess whether that was supposed to be an insult or a compliment. As his shadow vanished into the tunnels’ low glow, Nero grabbed Red Queen and his coat, flung both on his back, and hurried after him.

###

At first the tunnels of the underworld looked like any goddamn cavern back in the human world, except veins of glowing turquoise shit lined them, diffusing a soft glow along the path. Oppressive stone arched above their heads as they headed deeper into the earth. The jagged and uneven ground under his boots forced Nero to pay attention to his every step, lest he twist an ankle, fall face-first forward, and humiliate himself in front of Vergil again.

An undeniable itch ran along his stomach, where the fury had slashed him earlier--the wound was gone, but he remembered it all too vividly still. He had been so consumed by the need to prove himself he hadn’t been paying attention. Nero’s wings flickered behind him, their blue glow adding to the ambient light, their presence strangely reassuring. It was all so recent, yet these wings reminded him of all he’d accomplished already, of the power and truth that lay dormant within him.

He didn’t have anything to prove, not to this jerk. And now that Vergil had gone through so much pain and trouble to bring Red Queen back to him… Nero suspected his father knew that, too. For once, he was glad for the silence stretching between them and the chance to put the whirlwind in his brain to rest. This shit was worse than the storm outside, like he was pulling at a petal’s flowers going “he cares; he does not care” over and over, unable to tell where he even wanted to land in the end.

Nero rubbed his arm, where a thin line still marked the difference between new and old. The menacing energy swirling out of Vergil had diminished to an ember’s glow, perceptible only because he paid attention, and Nero was stunned by how much more relaxed he felt. Vergil’s demon instinctively set him on edge, its raw power forever synonymous with brutal pain and loss. With it gone…

His gaze strayed to the surrounding tunnel. Turquoise veins had transformed into teal crystals stretching out of the jagged edges on the ground, scratching at his pants and boots as they passed. Some had a slimy white substance clinging to them, and as they progressed further inside the network, that strange substance turned into a membrane running alongside the wall. It absorbed the crystals’ glow, diffusing its own pale light. The result was eerie yet calming.

Then they emerged into an immense cavern, and Nero froze as he took in the sights.

The ceiling reached far above head, its scraggly rocks covered in the white membrane. Here, however, it had lost its slimy quality, instead growing into fluffy clumps that reminded Nero of dandelion seeds. Long strands of them hung from the ceiling, pale white and drifting as if pushed by an unseen breeze. Some strands clung to one another, growing into a stalactite-like structure and reaching almost to the ground. Teal crystals grew here, too, bigger than any of the tunnels, clinging to walls and rocky growth throughout the cavern. Nero couldn’t tear his gaze away from the play of light on crystal and through the white plant-like growth.

“What… What is this place?” he asked, his awe plain in his voice.

“Hell.” Vergil turned back to stare at him, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “It has its charms, at times.”

Nero’s nose scrunched up. “We ain’t sightseeing, or so you said.”

His words were met by raised eyebrows. “Don’t touch anything. Beauty does not make it any less dangerous.”

Nero rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been about to touch some funky hellish white plant, no matter how pretty and soft it looked.

They trudged down into the cavern, Vergil doing his best to pick a path through the hanging vegetation, his eyes unerringly set on the other side of the cavern. Nero squinted but couldn’t see an exit through the curtain of plants, and it occurred to him Vergil had never paused when choosing a path, as if he had the entire layout of these caverns mapped out in his mind. What the hell was up with that? More bullshit Vergil kept to himself?

“Hey--”

Nero never finished his sentence. As Vergil turned towards him, the stalagmite by which he’d stopped sprung to life. It’d seemed like a gigantic crystal, its surface so covered in fluffy white vegetation that the actual teal structure behind was hard to spot--until three vines sprang from it, snapping through the air. One wrapped itself around Vergil’s torso, the second around his left leg, and the third snatched his right forearm before he could grab the Yamato. The air sizzled and filled with a strange stench.

They yanked in unison, slamming him against the crystal, then a creature detached itself fully from the crystal, its chameleon-like body covered in the white stuff. It sprinted to the tip of the crystal, powerful legs tensing for a leap as Nero overcame the shock of the assault.

“Fuck, no!”

He reached for Red Queen as the demon jumped up, its three fingered hand gripping the white strands hanging. It ran right up, lifting Vergil behind it. His father scowled, and shimmering swords sprung to life around him. One sliced at the vine holding his arm, but before he could cut through more, he was pulled into the vegetation. White strands coiled around him, drawing a pained cry, and the rest of his summoned swords shattered. It had taken a split second, and he was already vanishing among the strands cocooning him. The sizzling and stench amplified, burning Nero’s throat.

He sprinted for the crystal, bright wings flaring behind him, one hand revving Red Queen while he clutched Blue Rose in the other. The fluffy strands obscured his view, but he could track the devil’s presence through his own demonic senses and the quick flutter throughout the vegetation. He shot twice, the blast echoing through the cavern, his bullets piercing the curtains, ripping strands apart. One exploded against the rock ceiling, but the other hit the creature’s thigh, dragging a long screech out of it. Nero jumped on the large crystal it had hid against, then upwards, pushing himself higher up with his wings.

He slashed through tendrils of white plants as they rushed for him, conjuring two shuriken of pure blue energy above his shoulders, their dance a quick-darting shields against the assault. The hellish plants recoiled at the flames from Red Queen--all but those holding Vergil, almost entirely covering him now, clinging to clothes and skin alike. Nero,s upward momentum slowed, so he grabbed a handful of vines hanging from the ceiling with his demon arm before he fell back down and swung closer to Vergil. His blade ripped through the strands above his father, burning and slashing most of them. Vergil’s upper body swung downward, most of him held by the legs now.

The stench had grown awful, and Nero’s entire body clenched in strange ways, his muscles tensing but refusing to release. He forced his demonic claw to let go of the strands from which he’d swung, instead grabbing Vergil with both hands on his way down. The white membrane snapped under their combined weight, and they fell back down.

At this height, Nero should have been able to catch himself. He brought Vergil close, hoping to dash for the other side, but his legs cramped as they hit the ground and he tumbled forward, smashing chin-first into the fluffy white substance covering the ground. It burned his skin and filled his lungs, choking him, and for a disorienting moment he knew nothing but pain. The quick tip-tap of feet warned him of the chameleon demon’s approach, yet Nero’s body refused to obey him. Every muscle had frozen in place. He gasped, scrambled for something, anything to stop this, to overcome his powerlessness and save their asses.

Warmth bloomed in his chest, a central and fiery core igniting under the pressure. Nero’s muscles responded, a ripple of energy passing through them as they shed off the paralysis. Scales ran along his arms, growing out in ridges on his shoulders then reaching back towards the glowing core at his chest, covering it in a protective layer. Power thrummed through him in its purest form, and for a split second Nero was stunned by his own inner strength.

Then he felt a vibration in the air--a tendril slapping downward--and he snapped back into the fight. He rolled to the side, dodging just in time, and found the demon rearing above him. Nero grinned and sent three shurikens flying into its chest before springing back up, Red Queen in hand. He triggered the exceed mechanism as the sword plunged through the demon and brilliant flames burst out of Red Queen, burning through the fluffy white stuff that had covered its skin and leaving only charred flesh behind. Nero pulled back, spun, and lopped its head off.

It didn’t stop the white strands from coming. Several flew for him, forcing him to dance back then cut through with blade and shurikens alike, keeping him moving and dodging without pause. And while he was busy dealing with their bullshit, they’d covered Vergil all over again. Nero’s stomach twisted and his anger surged, blue flames swirling around his feet briefly. He grabbed the vines midair with his demon claws, tearing them from ceiling and ground and nearby rocks alike before using them as whips against others. Red Queen flared as he spun, clearing off everything around him in a circle, and he sprinted off, scooping Vergil off the ground with his demon arms.

Vines snapped as he kept running, and Nero brought his father close, wrapping his wings around him to shield them both as best as he could. The white tendrils whipped at the back of his legs and shoulders, leaving burning lines across them, but Nero didn’t slow down. He crossed the gigantic cavern, spotted a small tunnel on a ledge, and leaped to it. A whole curtain of white plants waited for him there, but power thrummed through him relentlessly, and he easily carved his way with a series of spinning shuriken.

Even with the cave behind, Nero kept running. He ran until no membrane covered the walls, until his hardened skin turned soft again, until his lungs and muscles burned and every step turned into a stumble. Then he collapsed to his knees and set Vergil down, to look at him in the hesitant glow of teal crystals and his own blue wings.

Pale blue eyes met his, awake and filled with pain. Vergil didn’t move or speak, but Nero didn’t need to ask why: that shit had paralyzed him, too, before he’d pushed through with his devil trigger.

Vergil didn’t have that, not anymore--not after he’d spent every inch of energy venturing into a storm of demon souls to retrieve Nero’s sword.

Guilt surged within him, but Nero shoved it back down. No time for that shit. White membrane still clung to Vergil’s cheeks and neck, running over his shoulders then down his body. And… what the every loving fuck was that lump near his sternum? Nero’s hand glided over the bundle of white membrane almost a foot long, thick and glistening in the light. A soft glow emanated from inside, pulsing in a hypnotic cadence. Inside, he could almost distinguish a dark, growing shape.

A rattling breath escaped Vergil, and the shape plunged down. Into him. Disgust roiled within Nero, a powerful wave of nausea coiling through him. He fought it off, plunging his fingers through the membrane and ripping it off, ignoring the burning sensation against his palm. Under--right in Vergil’s chest--was a hole, fist-sized, and burying into it the tail of a larva creature. Nero gritted his teeth and plunged down, grabbing it. Warm blood and flesh pressed against his fingers as he squeezed the slippery demon so reminiscent of niddhog parasites, and he ripped it out of Vergil with a scream of frustration. The horrible bug squirmed in his grasp with a high-pitched screech. Nero flung it against the wall, and blasted it into tiny chunks of flesh with Blue Rose.

Silence returned to the tiny tunnel. Nero heaved, his ears ringing from the screech and gunshot, his mind buzzing from the brutal turn their trek through Hell’s tunnel had taken. But this was no time to rest. Vergil still bled by his knees, a thin and useless blue outline at the edges of the hole in his chest the best healing he could provide for himself. Nero’s bloodied hand hovered above the hole aimlessly for a few seconds, then he shed his coat and shirt, using the latter to staunch the blood. He didn’t have shit for proper bandages, but surely Vergil’s healing would return soon enough? He just needed time, and to not die until then.

Nero scooped him up, using his wings to carry him while he kept applying pressure, and he eagerly put some distance between himself and that accursed cave. By the time he hit the first crossroad, Vergil squirmed ever so slightly in his arms. Without a clue about which path to take and exhausted to the bone, Nero slammed his ass on the cold stone floor and set Vergil down. He bundled the man’s coat under his head, then removed his shirt from the chest wound. The blood had slowed to a trickle, and the blue light of Vergil’s power had grown stronger and steadier, sending a wave of relief through Nero. The fucker would make it through all right.

“Dangerous was the understatement of the fucking year,” he said, bringing his knees to himself.

Vergil closed his eyes. His fingers twitched, stretching out… for the Yamato? Nero studied the forced, erratic movement, and yeah. He sure was trying to touch his katana’s pommel. Part of Nero wanted to snap. The Yamato hadn’t just saved his fucking life, and he was right there, but then again… Vergil had always sought it out when on the verge of death, hadn’t he? Even to the point of tearing off Nero’s arm. It took all of Nero’s control to gently bring the Yamato closer, until Vergil managed to clamp long fingers around its pommel. Relief washed over him, softening the hard edges of his face, and he stopped moving.

Nero stared at his own fingers, on an arm that had been missing, and demonic before that. The Yamato had felt like an old friend, its energy swirling in recognition at his touch, leaving him with a strange yearning. He shoved his hand in his pocket and huffed, unwilling to dwell on that particular feeling. The Yamato wasn’t his, not anymore, and from the way Vergil had reached for it right away, it would never be. At least he hadn’t lost Red Queen.

Exhaustion weighing his shoulder, Nero set his back against the tunnel wall, set the sword by his side, within easy reach, and started a long watch over Vergil’s rest.

Chapter Text

Nero had an easy time telling when the paralysis flushed out of Vergil’s body. He started jerking in his sleep, gasping as if in pain or terror, muttering garbled words that, when decrypted, left a cold sweat running down Nero’s back. No one had told him shit about Vergil’s past, but hearing his father’s usually steady voice moan “Mundus” in abject terror gave his imagination more material than he cared for, especially when followed by a broken whisper of “Dante”. For all that he’d wanted to know more, Nero suddenly found himself wishing he could disappear--just vanish into the ground until Vergil got a hold of himself and didn’t let so much shine through unwillingly.

Whatever nightmares clung to him only got worse. His demonic power swirled up in erratic waves, sometimes triggering a partial transformation. Nero’s heart hammered as scales ran up the side of Vergil’s face only to disappear an instant later, or as blue flames formed into a white horn, crumbling right after. Through it all, Vergil never released the Yamato, even if the jerking movement slammed its sheathe against the ground a few times. His tail eventually grew from his back, curled around his own chest, and remained there, its presence seemingly steadying him.

It hadn’t moved by the time he woke up, painfully long hours (two? Ten? Who knew in this hellish place) later. The tail twitched then curled tighter, and Vergil’s hand released the Yamato to touch it. That drew a frown out of him, and his eyes fluttered open. Nero cleared his throat, words refusing to make it past his lump.

Vergil rolled onto his back, then into a sitting position. He touched the white membrane on his cheek and it crumbled under his fingers. Heavy silence stretched between them as the fingers moved from there to the hole in his vest and the red scar underneath. Nero wondered how much he’d felt, while paralysed, of the larva digging through his flesh.

“Ya good?” he asked.

“I am now.”

He pushed himself up and to his feet, only to waver on his feet. Nero leaped up and caught him, hands on his elbow and forearm. Vergil stiffened under his touch, yet his tail slunk around Nero’s leg to steady himself. Nero’s cheeks burned at the touch and proximity, but even as Vergil levied a cold glare at him, he didn’t back off.

“Don’t bother with the lies,” Nero snapped. “I ain’t taking your shitty aloof act after I saved your life and watched you call for mommy in your sleep, asshole.”

What colour Vergil had vanished from his face, and his tail whipped away from Nero’s leg, snapping it on its way out. The pretend-glare turned into a real one, its iciness beyond anything Nero had experienced. He’d fucked up, he realized, but he didn’t know how to take it back and rewind. Vergil shrugged him off, snatched his coat off the cavern’s floor, and turned towards the two tunnels branching away.

“The Qliphoth’s roots are nearby now. This is almost over.”

No need to be a genius to hear the underlying ‘I will almost be rid of you’ under those words. They tore through Nero, leaving burns more painful than anything the white tendrils had ever managed.

“Great! Then you can go off, explore whatever hellish landscape you fancy, and get the peace you so obviously fucking want.” And he wouldn’t have learned shit about Vergil, except that there was something to learn beyond ‘shameless mass murderer’, and that only made it worse. Nero grabbed his stuff. “You’re right. Let’s get this job over with.”

He had plenty of people home who’d be eager to see him return. Kyrie had to be sick with worry, and for all her infuriating teasing, Nico had lodged herself permanently in their family dynamic. Not to mention he apparently had a shitty, distant uncle to give a talking to, too. Who cared about Vergil? Nero had managed without him all his life. He could do so again. He could.

Nero stalked down the leftmost path, only to whirl around when Vergil’s voice followed him with “it’s the other way”. He stomped right past him, into this other tunnel, and continued without another word.

Vergil followed, a ghost, his footsteps a whisper across uneven stone. The path curved upward, and variations in its steepness became the only marker of passing time and progress. Memories of his watch over Vergil clung to Nero’s mind, an endless loop of the brief window into his father he’d been gifted. He’d be mad at himself for shattering his rare opening if he had any illusions Vergil would’ve shared shit about the nightmares obviously haunting him.

The silence trailed them both, and in it, Nero’s anger only festered. Didn’t he deserve some answers? How much of his life had been spent seeking them, praying for them? How bitterly ironic, to have knelt in an orphanage quietly asking Sparda, of all people, why he couldn’t have parents like so many other kids, only to find himself some twenty years later discovering that the answer amounted to “because Sparda’s own son was a grand fucker who’d ditched him”? But that wasn’t enough. Nero still craved answers. He needed to know Vergil, because maybe… maybe if he did, he could finally understand what to make of himself, of the demon inside and all that had happened to him.

Nero spun around, stopping so brutally that Vergil almost slammed into him.

“Why?”

The word tore out of his lips, ripping his throat and heart out with it. He hated the quiver in his voice, the way his entire body shook. He should have walked on, buried all of his shame and confusion and craving deep, deep down, where no one could witness it--where no one would hurt him with it. Too late for that now.

“Why won’t you tell me anything? You just clam up--hiding behind glares the way Dante hides behind smiles. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Vergil’s eyes narrowed and he leaned back, as if to escape Nero’s proximity. “What is there to say, Nero? There is little I wish to share, and even less you wish to hear.”

“I--”

Nero’s brain shut down for a few precious seconds, scrambling for a proper answer. Vergil used the opportunity to try and bypass him, but while Nero’s mind moved in slow motion, his body certainly didn’t. His wings snapped out, blocking the way before pushing him against the wall.

“Fuck you,” he said--always a good start. Part of him wanted to punch the still-raw scar where a demon larva had tried to dig through Vergil’s chest mere hours ago, to hurt his father until he listened at last. “You don’t fucking get to decide what I wanna hear. Don’t you… don’t you care, even a little?”

Vergil tilted his chin up, his lips pressing into a thin line. He wasn’t gonna give in. He didn’t give a shit, not at all. Nero’s fingers tightened, but under his anger, tears surged, a mounting wave he couldn’t stop. The first hit his eyes, blurring his sight. It was pointless, all pointless, and even with Vergil right there, he would forever remain in a limbo. His blue wings curled back around him, undeniable proof of his demonic heritage, of all that he’d hated and feared for so long. He hadn’t wanted any of this bullshit, but he was stuck with it, struggling to figure out what it meant for him. Despair grafted onto his anger, roiling within Nero until it needed an outlet.

“I just--I need you to tell me who I am.”

Stunned, quiet silence followed. Nero wished he could take the words back, erase them from existence before they hurt him.

“Is that why you came?”

Somehow, despite being shoved against a wall, his demonic energy all but depleted, Vergil made Nero feel small and weak and ridiculous. Perhaps it was less Vergil himself, and more how every word smashed straight into Nero’s heart. What did it matter? Nero hissed, but Vergil pressed on.

“You followed me into Hell for answers. About yourself,” Vergil repeated, and this time his tone betrayed incredulity. He pushed himself off the wall, straightening to his full height, and a strange thickness laced his next words. “I have none for you, Nero. All I truly know is pain--whether to deflect, inflict, or endure it. But you know who you are.” His fingers reached for the blue wings and hovered near their feathers, so close to touching them. Their light shone bright in Vergil’s eyes. “If you didn’t, you would never have awakened this.”

Nero recoiled, terrified at the pride that had seeped into Vergil’s voice. He’d transformed in a moment of despair, when he’d had nothing left but his resolve to save everyone. How did that help? What was Vergil even saying?

“I-I’m not a demon,” he stammered, slinking backwards.

“Not only.” He dropped his hand and brushed past Nero, who let him escape this time. “Not only…”

The sudden softness of his tone and the vulnerability embedded into it left Nero breathless. He wanted to crack open Vergil’s skull and hear all the thoughts whirling in it. He never would, though, would he? In the end, he had learned one thing about Vergil: he was proud and private, his walls made of ice so thick Nero’s fire couldn’t melt it. It was time to move on--to suck up his bitter disappointment roiling and do the job he’d come for.

“Let’s just fuck up this goddamn tree.”

###

The Qliphoth beckoned him.

Every time his soles touched the ground, energy pulsed outward, a quiet shockwave which echoed back at him, guiding him towards its heart. The low thrum of power within him since he’d first eaten the fruit grew, vibrating with increasing intensity, dizzying him. Energy crackled within Vergil without pause despite his exhaustion, driving him ever forward. White roots ran along the tunnel walls as he pushed on, growing thicker and more numerous as the slope became steeper. Yet even as Vergil pushed forward, his mind remained behind him, on the stomping boots that trailed him.

I need you to tell me who I am.

How could he? He did not know Nero, had not even known of him until Dante had slapped the truth in his face. And now the young man dogged him for answers, baring his own fears and needs with a raw honesty Vergil couldn’t handle. No good could come out of this, not for Nero, and had Vergil not hurt him enough already? The more Nero pressed for him to open up, the more overwhelmed Vergil felt. He longed for the simplicity of fighting Dante--swords clashing against one another, pathetic bullets flying for Vergil, witless japes being met with cold scoffs. These, he knew how to handle in the deepest reaches of his soul. Nero, however…

He wanted Nero to be happy, and every moment spent together in Hell proved he was the wrong person for it. It seemed only anger and frustration emerged from their brief moments together, and Vergil clung to their discussion of Red Queen as the only exception. The price he had paid for it, however… The flight down that fissure was a blur of needling, constant pain, of voices in his mind reopening every wound, whispering of names and defeat he’d needed gone so badly, he’d tried to rip out of himself with the Yamato. They clung to him now, and crushed under their weight, Vergil struggled to recover and replenish his energy.

Yet Nero had smiled, and for a brief moment, Vergil had forgotten the haunting pain.

Yellowish light splashing across the cavern dragged him out of his thoughts. Their tunnel had turned into a pile of strewn boulders, and above them the ground opened in a jagged hole. Roots clung to its edges, iridescent colours playing across them in the demon world’s uneven light. Vergil leaped from one boulder to another until he found the surface again.

He froze there, paralyzed by the sight more firmly than by any demonic venom.

The Qliphoth had grown around them, great white roots circling their holed exit and caging them in a single wide area flanked by the massive trunk. Tinier black branches rose all across the space, twining into themselves to recreate scenes Vergil had buried deep within--here, the wall of his childhood home, a torn couch by its window and a woman’s body before it, her hair mimicked by thin roots; there, a bustling waterfall, its edge lost to a cliff, a single figure standing before it, broadsword at the ready. And carved into the trunk loomed a gigantic face in the style of ancient Greek statues, and Vergil’s ground tilted under him, his sight blurring out as his body screamed for an escape. Malevolence roiled out of the face, he was certain of it, and the sickening vertigo only worsened when his gaze fell to the large root-formed hand hovering above an armoured figure, the downturned horns all too familiar.

Still, the Qliphoth beckoned him on, pulling at him.

Vergil strode forward, and with each step the roots climbed along his legs, grasping at him, welcoming him back. His ears rang as he cast his gaze across the scenes before him once more. This was who he was. The horrors of his life on display--every step leading him to seek the Qliphoth’s power, to consume its fruit as Lord Mundus once had.

And yet, so many were missing. Where were the countless nights as a child, crawling through mud and clutching the Yamato, desperate to escape demonic notice? Where was the first time he’d been caught and beaten and slashed into a mangled ball of agony, death crawling into his body until his skin turned to hard scales, his own claws grew, and he exterminated every demon around in a gruesome bloodbath? Vergil had lost count of the number of times he’d dragged himself away from the brink of death, yet as each memory bubbled to the surface, the Qliphoth’s roots responded, stretching and folding on themselves to paint the bloody events midair.

The waterfall scene transformed, leaving his battered self on the underworld’s flat plains, Mundus’ three orbs floating, and from it the desperate, heedless battle, the broken defeat and subsequent torture. Spikes through his body he could feel now, holding him at Lord Mundus’ mercy or keeping him in the soulstorm.

This was why he had needed the power. The Qliphoth had beckoned him forward to show him his truth, to remind him of the one lesson life had hammered into him: power was everything. Without it, he could not protect anything. How could he have forgotten so quickly what weakness would bring him?

“Vergil!”

Nero.

Vergil turned back towards the entrance. The Qliphoth roots had snapped onto Nero’s legs, digging into his thighs. Several had latched onto Red Queen too, and Nero struggled to unsheathe it. He stared at his father, anger and fear burning in his blue eyes.

“Is this not all you asked for, Nero?” Vergil asked with a sharp gesture at the countless examples of his past spread around them. “You wanted to know. This is what made me; this is who I am.”

Life had hammered pain and defeat into his soul, but he’d had enough. As long as it existed in the human world, the Qliphoth could feed him. He had found his power, had fought so hard for it, and he would not relinquish it. What if slicing through the Qliphoth’s roots destroyed the effect of its fruit? Was that a risk he could take, to once more become weak, unable to defend himself? He had seen where that led him, in the tunnels they had traversed--without his demon’s power, he would perish.

“You’re afraid.”

Nero’s flat voice took him aback, and his following frail, barking laugh shook Vergil to the core. He sneered, an easy denial on his lips, but Nero pressed on.

“You are. Who wouldn’t be, with these nightmares?” Black roots immediately whipped for his raised arm, tangling with it and bringing it down, covering the hand holding his gun entirely. Nero pulled pointlessly against them, but more and more of them grabbed him. He snapped his gaze back to Vergil. “Ya don’t have to be afraid. Just don’t leave us, Vergil. We’re family. We’ll protect you.”

Family.

Had family ever protected him? Sparda had vanished, his mother had died, and Dante…

Roots and branches creaked behind him in a rhythmic pattern, boots slamming against the ground, and through the Qliphoth’s presence, he felt the recreated Nelo Angelo rush forward, the murderous intent directed at Nero clear through their link. This boy was a distraction, a weakness to erase.

Something snapped within Vergil, a warmth blooming where Nero’s palm had slammed into his chest at the top of the Qliphoth, when he’d interrupted Vergil’s murderous rush for Dante. The soft, calming feeling remained a rare experience, a shining bead of respite in a life of pain. Vergil recalled the most recent instances with unwavering clarity, however: Nero’s promise that no one would die, and the sheer strength of his love and determination elevating his demon form into raw, honed power. Vergil’s own devil bloomed in response to the memory, washing away his exhaustion.

Cold power flooded the clearing, freezing it in time. Vergil moved through the space with all the speed he could muster, knowing his strength already at its limit, depleted from his painful hours in the soulstorm and the recent healing from that larva. As he sprinted in an intercept course between Nelo Angelo and Nero, he clutched the Yamato and sent its edge forward, to slice through the Qliphoth roots holding his son. His mind buzzed as the world fought against his control, pulling at the strands of time to resume their course, but he held on, pushing his body and will to the limit, gritting his teeth as pain flared through him. Vergil skidded to a stop right in front of the root-built Nelo Angelo, legs spread wide to absorb the shock, and he rose the Yamato.

Time slipped away from him, and the knight’s greatsword slammed into his blade. The ground cracked under his heels as he held on, legs and arms straining, accumulated exhaustion threatening to undo him. Vergil tightened his grip on the Yamato, and glared back at the simulacrum of who he’d once been, broken and defeated. Mundus had used his pain to force him into submission--exactly as the Qliphoth was doing now, appealing to his past to guide his actions.

No more. He would find other ways to nurse his pain, other ways to heal.

“My life is not yours to use,” he growled, “and my son… my son is not a weakness to erase.”

Power surged through him, lightning through his body as he released it all. The Yamato sliced through the roots, and a loud, ear-piercing screech echoed through Vergil’s mind and all around him.

Chapter Text

Nero’s chest squeezed with primal fear as raw power washed out of Vergil, his instincts dogged by memories of a demon ripping his arm off and of the deadly fighter he’d battled on top of the Qliphoth. He strained against the roots holding him, his heart hammering, his entire body covered in a cold sweat. Nothing but pain and suffering ever followed that particular cold, whirling power.

This is it, he thought. He was going to die.

Had Vergil ever meant to slice the Qliphoth’s roots, or had he been lying from day one?

Blue lines appeared, criss-crossing the Qliphoth’s roots holding him, slicing it into a hundred tiny pieces and freeing him. He stumbled forward with a gasp, unhooking Red Queen and catching himself with it through muscle memory more than anything else. He was alive, and fine. Vergil hadn’t--it was all right, he wouldn’t--it was all in his head, he needed to calm down. Shaking, his body trembling, Nero lifted his head, he found Vergil firmly between the Qliphoth’s creations and him, the Yamato holding strong against the root-made angelo’s sword.

“My life is not yours to use,” Vergil growled, “and my son… my son is not a weakness to erase.”

Nero could have died from the shock of hope slamming into his chest, leaving him breathless. “My son.” He gaped as the Yamato sliced through the angelo, and the world shattered around them.

Every sculpted scene of Vergil’s past burst into dust with a long screech, leaving a darkened cloud over the clearing, obscuring Vergil from him. The domed ceiling above split, becoming roots with multiple pointed edges, all of which plunged down into the fog. Nero’s heart jumped at every consecutive boom of deadly spike smashing into the ground, then a blue shimmer appeared above, preceding Vergil’s body by a fraction of seconds. His father spun on himself and the Yamato sliced through the two vines diving upon him from above. Vergil did not see the third rise from under, snapping upward, its hooked end harpooning his thin leg and yanking him down.

“Like hell you will!”

Nero dashed forward, his wings snapping into existence with such force they raised their own cloud of dust. His entire demon form followed, summoned with increasing ease every time he reached for it, and with it came a clear perception of every demonic aura and shape in the area. Red Queen sliced through the root long before Vergil hit the ground, its location as obvious as if no cloud of dust floated above, and he extended a wing up. Vergil’s back hit it, and his father rolled with the wing’s curve, landing effortlessly on his feet--and then he was leaping back into the air, an endless whirling of cuts, some from the Yamato, others conjured through the sword’s power. And while Vergil destroyed everything raining from from the net above, Nero ripped through the roots emerging from the ground.

They worked in perfect synchronicity, acutely aware of each other’s movements and of the roots flying all around. More than once, Nero spun around with Blue Rose to shoot down a spike coming for Vergil’s back, blasting it into oblivion, and Vergil himself sometimes descended in a brutal downward cut, slicing off roots whipping towards Nero. The danger cleared, Nero would launch him back upwards, his demon wings as adept at propelling Vergil up as they were at tearing roots out of the ground. They needed no words, dancing together with an ease Nero had never known.

The cloud of disintegrated Qliphoth roots settled as silence fell over the clearing, its ground strewn with bits of roots of all sizes, some sliced perfectly clean and others burnt by Red Queen’s fire. Vergil landed next to Nero, his leg still bleeding, his chest heaving, his skin pale. He hadn’t transformed during the battle, limiting his powers to what the Yamato could give him--aside from the initial blast of frozen time, at least. Even so, he wavered, his eyes glazed from exhaustion.

Nero reached out, grabbing Vergil’s elbow to steady him. “I got you.”

Vergil’s weight increased as he leaned into the support. “Thank you, Nero.”

His gaze swept through the empty clearing, where once so much of his past had been exposed. Nero had wanted answers, but not like that--not forced out in a grotesque display, like a sideshow to gape at. Horror spread through him at the memories he’d witnessed, but he pushed it away, clinging to Vergil’s growled response at the Qliphoth’s obvious intent to kill him. His son.

“Are you, huh--”

“I’m fine.”

Nero let it go. Vergil’s tone didn’t leave much room to debate, and he didn’t know what to ask, exactly. He was too flustered Vergil had rushed to his defense when an instant before he’d seemed ready to let the world burn again, that he’d called him his son with such intense, undeniable love in his voice.

Vergil untangled himself and strode towards the thick white roots erected around the clearing like walls and set his palm against one. His frown deepened, he tsked, then he turned towards the trunk. That ugly-ass greek statue face was still in it, its eyes bearing down upon them. Nero hated it. He didn’t need to know who this fucker was--something about it seeped evil.

“I can no longer sense the structural composition of the Qliphoth,” Vergil said. “I suppose it is… unhappy with my decision.”

“This thing got a mind?”

“After a fashion. It is a primal form of demon, and as such it seeks to feed upon lesser entities and humans. But unlike many, the Qliphoth tree attaches itself to a more powerful demon which can provide that nourishment, and it responds to its command. It serves until it has gorged itself enough to produce the fruit.” He stepped closer to the trunk, his entire body tensing as his gaze found the face on the trunk. “Eating the fruit… it breaks the dependence, but the link never entirely vanishes. It remembers me--remembers Urizen, really--and it remembers its previous host.”

“Ain’t that--”

Nero cut himself short. Trish had been crystal clear about the Prince of Darkness consuming the Qliphoth’s fruit to raise to power. The big evil vibe from that sucker’s face in the trunk made sudden sense, but if it’d appeared there, formed alongside the depiction of Vergil’s memories… Fuck. Nero had barely had an instant to absorb the horrible scenes created before his eyes, but he knew Vergil had been in hell before, and he’d witnessed the deep scars it’d left in him. He had met Mundus, and it’d fucked him up big time.

“Let me at him.” His voice turned rough, almost a growl, and his fingers tightened around Red Queen. “I’ll smash his face in.”

Vergil turned to him, genuine alarm plain on his face. “Please abstain from rushing the family’s ages-old enemy, Nero. Even weakened, he--” What smoothness he’d managed to conserve at the start of his reply broke off. Vergil covered it with a light cough, then gestured at the face carved in the Qliphoth. “Nevertheless, as this face is not his true form nor his current body, and since it’d appear our best course of action is to slice through the base of the trunk itself, I suppose we can allow ourselves some catharsis.”

Nero’s frank laugh bubbled up. For all that his answers skirted around the truth of his pain, Vergil still allowed way more of himself to shine through than he had mere hours ago, and it left Nero giddy. He loved the hint of dry humour under his serious tone, and even though he didn’t understand what had changed--what had broken Vergil’s icy walls--he was glad for it. He clamped his hand over Vergil’s shoulder, unable to find words to reflect his joy.

Hordes of empusa crawled over the Qliphoth’s roots, their legs click-clacking with every step, interrupting their moment. Nero and Vergil shifted, their backs leaning against one another, their swords coming up.

“Company,” Vergil announced.

“Oh, good! Wouldn’t want our little walk to the trunk to be boring, huh?” He traced the path towards it with his eyes, taking in the thick roots and crevices between them, and a grin broke across his face. “Race you to it?”

Vergil’s soft chuckle held a hint of challenge in it. “Do not fool yourself into thinking recent exertion will slow me down, Nero. Competition fuels me.”

Nero’s wings stretched behind his back as he smirked. “See you at the finish line, old man.”

He dashed off right away, the soles of his boots slamming into the demon world’s friable ground, his wings at the ready. Grinning, Nero half-turned to look over his shoulder and wave at Vergil--and stopped the cheeky move halfway through. His father was already gone, a blue outline the only proof he’d stood there moments before. Nero laughed, glad for a challenge, and sought him out as he ran. Flashes of light against steel caught the corner of his eyes, and he spotted Vergil’s dancing form running along the roots on his right, empusa skittering closer to crowd him. A rain of shining blue swords appeared, impaling each demon as Vergil ran past them, never slowing down.

Nero snorted. If only he had a Punchline to ride to victory! But that arm was all normal now, so he’d have to get creative with the two new ones. He flung one out, snatching a flying empusa from midair as he jumped, bringing its squishy body right under his feet. It screeched as they both hit the ground, the slime of its bulbous abdomen allowing it to slide easily. Nero skated on it, leaping the moment it slowed down.

By now the creatures had swarmed the clearing, providing him with ample stepping stones to grab, yank up, and jump from. A quick snap of wings reestablished his forward momentum whenever the continuous creation of a path midair broke it, and at times he even dragged himself forward with a particularly fat flying empusa. The speed of his flight and satisfaction of demon bodies squishing under his boots left him exhilarated, laughing and whooping all at once.

His path took him in a straight line towards the first ridge and flat ground while Vergil’s forced him to deal with the twists and turns of the surrounding thick roots, sometimes leaping up from one to another, or speeding up a steep incline to get out of a crevice. In the end, Nero slammed down on the first flat stretch just as his father appeared there, his quick teleport bringing him up from below.

Their eyes locked for a brief moment, and they hit the ground running--but not for long.

A deep shadow covered them instants before an empusa queen slammed into the path before them, sending dust and shards of rocks flying. It reared backward, its two scythe-like arms raising as it prepared to slice down on them. Vergil flung himself into a duck-and-roll, lightning-quick and graceful, while Nero kicked up. He cleared the death swipe, landed on the scythes, and leaped upward again, propulsing himself above the queen’s head. Red Queen burst into flames as he twisted mid air, landed on the demon’s shoulder, and slammed his blade through the chitin hide. Nero revved the sword further with a raw scream as he slid down the queen’s back, holding on tight as it trashed in pain. As soon as he neared the ground, he pulled out and somersaulted away, landing behind it and on the path again, the queen dead behind him.

Vergil, who hadn’t bothered to go in for a kill, had already put some distance between them.

A dozen empusa blocked his way, but he sped right to them, long strides turning into skips and spins as he joined the fray. Not an inch of strength went to waste as he danced his way through, using both the Yamato and its sheath in a whirlwind of precise strikes. It wasn’t the first time Nero witnessed swordsmen who made blades seem like extension of their bodies, but Vergil took it to another level, creating edges way past Yamato’s physical reach, leaving a painting of blue lines and red splashes where he passed.

As Vergil pushed the Yamato’s sheath through an empusa’s open guts, Nero belatedly realized he’d gotten so entranced by the dance he’d slowed to a jog. Fuck. And all that was left between them and the statuesque head in the trunk was a steep, thick root wrapping around it. Nothing to really slow him down.

Except the moment Nero sprinted off again, he gained ground on Vergil. There was a new heaviness to the man’s strides, a fatigue Nero didn’t have to fight yet. Adrenaline pumped through him as he pushed his body further, taking the rough incline without pause. Vergil’s head twitched, a sure sign he’d heard Nero coming up behind him, and a last, desperate push of power washed out of him. Time slowed, the world all around him pausing. Nero slammed his will against Vergil’s, too familiar with demonic pockets of slowed time to let it affect him. He met almost no resistance--damn, but Vergli really was at his limit--and shattered it.

His counterattack was immediate: he flung a wing towards Vergil, claws stretching out as they reached for his leg. Vergil spun away from it, the dodge an easy task for him, but the slight delay was enough for Nero to sprint up to his side as they crested the root’s slope--and get whacked hard by the Yamato. It slammed his breath out for a split second, just long enough for Vergil to get ahead once more.

Nero growled, and as his father reached for the trunk, head turned back to smirk at him, he let his wing-arm fly again. It hit the face right as Vergil’s fingers alighted on it, digging into it without restraint, and a second later he’d joined it. Vergil stared at the blue claws, eyebrows raised, but Nero interrupted before he could edge a word of protest.

“Gonna argue they ain’t a part of me?” he asked.

Vergil’s mouth closed back, but a soft interior chuckle washed out of him. He leaned against the statue, his grip on the sheathed Yamato loose, his shoulders slumped, and closed his eyes, more relaxed than Nero remembered ever seeing him. Warmth spread through his chest; Vergil had never hugged him, or told him he cared or loved him, but if ever there was a sign of trust from someone so guarded, this had to be it, no?

“A draw, then,” Vergil said, and Nero burst out laughing.

“Sure. I’ll take a draw.”

###

Nero felt like the world should have changed after that confrontation down below, in the awful clearing filled with Vergil’s nightmares, yet the two of them once more wound up standing in heavy, awkward silence. Nero had given Blue Rose a thorough check-up, even though it’d gone through rougher battles than the recent ones. Once every inch of it had been inspected, he’d set it back into its holster and pretended to have a vested interest in the tears of his cloak. It was boring as fuck, but surely Vergil would eventually say something.

Instead, his father stared at the clearing below, now filled with empusa corpses and dusted roots. A few demons still miled within it, but they didn’t seem eager to pursue. Probably the stench of their dead comrades strewn about. Vergil seemed completely lost in the scene, and Nero wondered what went through his mind. At length, he tore his gaze away from it. The moment his blue eyes met Nero’s, however, he turned his head and body away, casting his interest on the hideous face sculpted in the trunk.

Fuck, but he sucked at this. Not that Nero was much better. He had no idea what the fuck he was supposed to say.

“Trunk?” he suggested, cause they still had a job to do, and that’d be a thousand times less awkward than whatever the fuck they were doing now.

Vergil’s fingers fluttered to the Yamato’s grip. He exhaled slowly, brushed the pattern of the hilt, then lifted the sheathed katana and extended it in the space between him and Nero. Offered it to him.

“Wh-what?” Nero stammered and stepped back. A vice tightened around his lungs, all his doubts and fears pushing his breath out. The dark blue sageo wrapped over Vergil’s hand before falling towards the ground, drifting lightly in an invisible wind.

“Can Red Queen slice through the entire trunk in a single cut?”

Vergil damn well knew she couldn’t. That thing must have been fifty feet across! Yet his smirk and tone betrayed no real mockery, and Nero could not escape the implication he should use the Yamato instead.

“Why me? Just do it.”

Vergil’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his brow furrowed. Nero’s mouth dried as his father stared at him, his piercing gaze taking him apart--evaluating, judging, assigning worth. Fear and anger coiled at the bottom of his stomach, tension building with every passing second. Part of him yearned to grab the Yamato and claim it once again, to feel its perfect balance in his hands and the flow of cold power buzzing through his body. The other knew how little control he’d had over the sword compared to the deadly precision with which Vergil wielded it and refused to humiliate himself with the attempt.

At length, Vergil lowered the Yamato, letting it fall back to his side. “I see.”

I see? What did that even mean? What had he seen? Vergil turned away from him, his slight downturned mouth and the slump in his shoulders betraying… disappointment? Nero’s heart clenched and his face burned, but he couldn’t find any words until Vergil added in a mutter.

“I must have misread…”

The Yamato slid out of its sheath, its blade glinting in the changing light of the sky above, where deep clouds whirled around the Qliphoth’s trunk, layers of dark grey and dirty pink forming hiding away the rip leading to the human world. The building tension within Nero exploded, and he grabbed Vergil’s shoulder, yanking him.

“Misread what? Use your words, old man. I can’t read your fucking mind.”

Vergil tensed under his grip, his power flickering up--and even diminished, the flare of dangerous energy set Nero on edge again. Still, he refused to let go without an answer. His fingers dug in deeper, and Vergil sighed.

“The Yamato was passed on to me by Sparda. And from me, it found its way to you. I expected…” He trailed off and turned the Yamato’s blade, looking at his reflection in it. “Do not trouble yourself. You have no obligations to it.”

“Wh-what?” He must have misheard. Or Vergil hadn’t meant to imply what he had. “Y-you wanted me to use the Yamato… ‘cause I’m--”

He couldn’t finish. The words ‘your son’ lumped in his throat, clogging it. How strange, that it’d felt easier to fathom when Vergil scoffed and mocked him. Each of these subtle acknowledgements knocked him off balance, sending his thoughts and heart reeling with possibilities he should know better than to consider. The cold asshole he’d followed into hell wouldn’t transform into a doting, kindhearted father just because he’d scraped out a modicum of respect for Nero. Vergil shrugged off Nero’s hand, stepping away from him.

“Forget it,” he snapped.

Vergil whipped the Yamato in front of him, his legs spreading out as he faced the gigantic depiction of Mundus in the trunk. Tiny black roots and thicker lines created a relief so detailed and life-like it made Nero’s heart pound. At his side, Vergil’s power swirled, the exhausted flames of it slowly building, tiny wisps at his feet churning as he gathered what remained of his strength. Nero frowned at what little of it he perceived; this had nothing to do with the brutal power he’d exhibited atop the Qliphoth.

“Vergil.” Nero’s throat felt like sandpaper. He slid around Vergil and stopped right by the Yamato’s lifted blade. “I’m just… no good with it. Not like you.”

He couldn’t meet Vergil’s eyes. All this fucking energy spent trying to prove himself, only to admit that in the years he’d possessed the Yamato, he’d never truly figured out how to use it. He could draw on its power, sure, but his pathetic doppel-helper didn’t compare to the shit Vergil pulled off with it.

Vergil tilted his head, and although no smile touched his lips, something changed in him--eyes slightly widening, a softness to his brow. “I could…”

He didn’t finish. Nero’s heart pounded as he mentally completed it with ‘teach you’. That was what fathers did with sons, wasn’t it? They passed down their knowledge, once inherited from their own father. But Vergil wasn’t--he’d ditched Nero more than two decades ago. Nero had needed to beat some respect into him. Surely he wasn’t truly thinking of this.

Nero didn’t lift his eyes, pretending he hadn’t heard. It’d hurt less to let it slide than to risk an official rebuttal and have Vergil confirm he hadn’t meant that at all.

Then the Yamato’s blade slid within view, sheathed and held reverently within Vergil’s hands. With a little kneeling, he’d be like a fucking knight presenting his sword.

“I will guide you, if you will let me.”

Nero stared at it, his ears ringing as much from the words themselves as from the hesitant, fearful tone Vergil had uttered them in. He heard in it the very fear of rejection that had gnawed at Nero from the start, fuelling his anger. And he couldn’t help but think Vergil was right to be afraid. He’d abandoned him as a child, tore his arm off in his own garage, lied to him as V and almost killed him as Urizen, mocking his humanity every inch of the way. Nero had every reason to walk away and ditch him, leaving him to rot in the consequences of his own awful decisions.

He just… didn’t want to.

And ultimately, was that not what had guided him down into Hell, risking a world of unknown dangers, following after a man whose very presence set his nerves on edge, haunting pain drifting out of his memories, clogging his senses? He could not walk away from this twisted relationship, not until no doubts were left in his heart that it’d be impossible to smoothen it back into something better, something rewarding and fulfilling. It might never be the father he’d dreamed of as a child, praying on his crummy orphanage mattress, but that was fine. Nero thought of their spontaneous race up to Mundus’s likeness and their quiet hours talking about Red Queen. He’d be happy with more of that, really, if he could have it.

Vergil’s pale eyes met his, and Nero’s throat tightened at the softness there, the hope. He wasn’t the only one who’d be happy with more of that, was he? Warmth spread through his chest as he rested his hand on the Yamato, wrapping his fingers around the sheathe.

“Y-yeah, sure,” Nero stammered, and his own hesitation angered him. He swallowed hard and added more firmly. “Show me the tricks, old man.”

Chapter Text

Vergil’s heart jumped when Nero clasped his fingers around the Yamato. The longer the silence had stretched between them, the more certain he grew that his offer would be met by an angry rebuttal. The chasm between him and Nero could not be bridged by a simple race--and whose fault was that? He could not expect to be well-received--he did not deserve it, either.

That didn’t stop Nero from accepting, and in his shock, Vergil held onto the Yamato for a minute, reflex and fear steadying his grip until he forced it to relax. Even once gone, his fingers curled into the air, responding to the part of him screaming in alert. The Yamato had been with him through so much, and its absence left him vulnerable, unmoored. How often had he clung to his cane as V, wishing for the katana instead?

But it was in Nero’s hands now--his son, who had restored it, safeguarded it. Whom he had promised to teach. Who wanted to be taught, to learn from him. Vergil closed his eyes, desperate to settle the whirlwind of emotion threatening to spill out of him. Joy and pride pounded in his heart, but raw fear tightened his stomach and dried his throat. He was not a teacher, had never really been a father either, and he didn’t know how to approach this. If he failed…

What if he broke this tenuous connection? Nero had wanted to know him, to be with him, and it had felt so impossible to let him close, at first. Too dangerous. Life had left him with nothing but sharp edges, and he’d sliced through his son too often already. Distance protected them both, he’d reasoned, and every battered part of him had agreed, eager to hide. Yet here they were, and somehow… somehow Nero kept finding him, drawing him out, extending a hand and holding on tight when Vergil dared to accept it--and with every instance, it grew easier, simpler.

“Vergil?”

Nero’s voice drew him out of the panicked swirl of feelings. He dropped his hand and breathed in deeply, calming himself.

“Apologies.”

His gaze flicked from the Yamato to the trunk, Mundus’ awful face looming over them. His heart pounded still, coils of pure horror tightening in him at the sight, making his head fuzzy. Would there ever be a time in his life the Prince of Darkness would not conjure such abject fear in him within him? Vergil hated the idea he’d forever be plagued by it, that these scars would remain, a defeat he could not escape. But enough of that. This wasn’t Mundus, it was the remnants of a gross attempt to capitalize on his trauma, and it needed to be destroyed along with the Qliphoth.

How did one explain the Judgement Cut, however? The technique had become an instinct, born of sheer willpower, and he struggled to describe what he knew subconsciously.

“The Yamato responds to will,” he started, and inwardly he could not help but think Nero would have no problem with that particular aspect. “It is not bound by time and space, and its edge can extend past its physical form, or multiply within a split second. You could cut the trunk with several strikes or a single, big slash.”

Nero’s frown deepened as Vergil talked. His fingers hovered around the Yamato’s hilt without touching it. “You just sayin’ I can wish for it and it’ll happen?”

“No.”

What did Nero think this was? Blowing candles on a cake?

“Then what?” Nero snapped.

Vergil hesitated. He had no idea how to explain. He had long since mastered that art and did not need to think about it. “You apply your will. Visualize. Direct. You do not even need to draw it out, though for a cut of this magnitude, an actual slash will help power the technique.”

“Right, whatever. I’ll just try.” Nero huffed, but his hand hovered above the Yamato’s hilt a moment longer, hesitant. It would not do, if he had no conviction in his own capabilities.

“Be firm, Nero. You have it in you.”

Nero’s gaze flicked to his, and a watery smile crossed his lips. With a deep breath, he grasped the hilt of the Yamato.

Blue flames burst from his hand, running across the sheathed blade as power washed out of them. The Yamato responded to Nero’s grip with uncharacteristic eagerness. He’d never seen her create fire before, yet as it climbed up Nero’s arms, dancing around him, Vergil could not help but find it a fitting response to Nero’s passion. His son smiled, his body relaxing as the Yamato’s power coursed through him and his blue eyes turned honeyed gold.

“Visualize, huh?” he said, turning his body towards Mundus’ face. “Let’s cut this fucker down.”

Except he didn’t. Nero stared at the tree long and hard, and while Vergil could sense his power fluctuating, no thin blue lines appeared through the trunk. Nothing moved safe for a breeze rising around them, snapping their coat. Frustration pulsed out of both the Yamato and Nero, and Vergil frowned.

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“Obviously!” Nero glared at him, and Vergil’s breath caught as power washed out of his son, responding to the anger. “It’s not like your mumbo-jumbo was super clear. This just ain’t what I did with it.”

Vergil tilted his head to the side, studying him. He had always considered this one of the Yamato’s most basic techniques as it’d been one of his first, but that did not seem true for Nero. “What did you do with it?”

Nero gave him a little prideful sniff, chin up. “This.”

Power burst out of him, manifesting in a shockwave that sent Vergil sliding back a few feet, an arm raised to protect himself from the sudden wind. Blue light washed over his face and he gaped as his eyes found the source. Above Nero stretched a beautiful demonic apparition reminiscent of his son’s true demon form--downturned horns, great ridges on the shoulders curving downward in a protective cage around his chest, scaled arms and clawed hands. It was translucid and unmistakably born of the same power as Vergil’s doppelganger, but only the upper torso loomed over Nero. It held a bare Yamato, ready to strike.

The wind died down. Vergil stared, speechless. How long had he needed to master the doppelganger? Years? And Nero had started there? He moved closer, extending a hand towards it but not quite touching. Nero waited, tense, and Vergil forced his hand down.

“It’s… stunning.”

“It-it is?”

Surprise and hope laced Nero’s voice. Vergil tore his gaze from the shimmering blue form to stare at him, and found a shy smile and wide eyes half-hidden under an attempted scowl. As if he didn’t want to let his eagerness through. Vergil found himself wishing he would have, that words of his could ever bring a true, joyful grin on Nero’s face. Still, he had obviously made him happy, even though Nero chose to guard that particular sentiment--a decision Vergil could not fault him for.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I assume its katana is as deadly as the Yamato’s edge?”

“It cut plenty of demons into pieces,” Nero confirmed.

“Then you already know how to visualize the Yamato out of its physicality. At its core, this is how you summon the one in its hand.” Vergil looked at it again, amazed at the reproduction and the sheer power vibrating out of it. And Nero pretended he was no good with the blade! But this wasn’t the first time he dismissed his own strength, turning to him for answers he already held. “Nero… If the Yamato’s power manifests in different ways under your hands, that does not make them lesser. You do not need me to guide you in this, no more than you needed me to tell you who you are.”

Flat silence welcomed his words. Nero’s shoulders slumped, and the doppel over him lowered the sword. His son stared at his boots, his blue flames lowering.

“You don’t mean that,” he mumbled.

Nero’s quiet, defeated stance burned through Vergil, leaving him distraught and angry. How utterly ridiculous, that he should doubt himself to such an extent. Vergil’s fingers slid under Nero’s chin before he understood what folly had overtaken him. He lifted it, turning Nero’s head towards him, and his throat dried as Nero’s lips parted--he’d gone too far, presumed too much. But Nero didn’t say anything, only stared, so Vergil forced his next words out, raw and low.

“I do.”

Nero’s cheeks turned a deep shade of pink and his lips pressed together, forming a wobbly line. He swallowed hard and Vergil released his chin. Energy crackled between them. His heart pounded and his hands shook. A wrong move, the wrong word… anything could ruin this, so he said nothing more.

Nero cleared his throat. “Th-thanks. Anyway…”

He turned firmly towards the Qliphoth’s gigantic trunk again, and Vergil stepped back to give him space. Nero’s grip tightened on the Yamato’s handle and he shifted into a fighting stance, shining golden eyes tracing his target--Mundus’s hideous visage. His power pulsed, and with every wave, the demonic doppelganger behind him grew in size. Wind spun around them as it extended, bigger and bigger, stretching up into the sky, a gigantic manifestation of his son’s power. Its light pierced the ever-present clouds of fog hanging over the demon world, a cool crisp blue glow that brought a quiet joy to Vergil’s heart.

Nero drew the blade in a single, fluid horizontal cut. The doppelganger followed the movement as the Yamato sang with pleasure, and the enormous blade swung above their head, slicing through the Qliphoth with graceful ease. For a moment it hung there, a clean, thick blue line crossing the two eyes set deep into the trunk, the entire world unmoving. Even the wind had dropped, and they held their breaths.

The ground rumbled under their feet, a low growl gaining in intensity. The bark cracked and popped around the line, its iridescence turning into ashen white. Nero’s helper vanished as the colour spread upwards, crawling up towards the sky and the human world, the Qliphoth’s trunk drying out.

Soon, it spread downward, too, and Vergil snapped out of his daze. They were standing on a root--it wasn’t safe.

“Race you back down?” he asked, his voice far calmer than his speeding heart.

Nero’s sharp laugh dragged a smile out of him. “You bet! Ain’t gonna end in a draw this time.”

It wouldn’t, no. Exhaustion had turned Vergil’s legs to lead. But it didn’t really matter: he had found the first competition quite enjoyable, and the pleasure of watching Nero in action would lessen the inevitable sting of defeat.

Without waiting--without even reclaiming the Yamato--Vergil dashed down the Qliphoth’s dying roots.

###

Ashes and dust buried both of them under a thick layer by the time they stopped running. There hadn’t been a clear finish line, not that having one would have made a difference to the end result. Nero had hit the ground first, but when he’d turned around and noticed Vergil’s quickly-diminishing pace and unsteady balance, he’d gone right back. Races weren’t fun if neither of them made it to the end, and Vergil had been burning through his powers and energy without pause for a long time now. He didn’t even protest when Nero slipped under his arm, half-steadying, half-carrying him towards more stable footing. Neither of them spoke until they’d left the area far behind and found a safe cliffside--as much as such things existed down here--to rest against.

Vergil had tilted his head back, eyes close, every inch of his body relaxed and unguarded once more. He had yet to reclaim the Yamato, and somehow that felt even more significant than lending it to him in the first place. The katana rested on Nero’s lap, vibrating as if it was a purring cat. To his surprise, it had felt thrilled to be in Nero’s hands once more and readily lent him its strength. Maybe that’s what Dante had meant, when he’d talked about the Yamato’s reaction to him. The damn sword had always known.

“You gonna sleep here?” Nero asked, half-convinced Vergil had already checked out.

Blue eyes peeked from under heavy eyelids. “It would not be the first time.”

“Yeah, but…”

Nero looked at the quickly disappearing tree, then at the Yamato on his lap. Could he do those portals too? That big ass cut had taken a lot out of him, leaving his mind buzzing. He might not be on the verge of collapse like Vergil, but he doubted he’d learn anything new in this state.

“You want to head home,” Vergil stated.

Nero’s stomach tightened. He did. He wanted a bath and a proper meal, and the sun on his skin as he walked outside. More than that, though, he wanted to hold Kyrie and hear her laugh as he kissed her neck, to sit by her side on a quiet Fortuna beach as they watched the stars, to crawl down into the kitchens in the middle of the night and find her there already, similarly awakened by their shared nightmares and grief. He’d had a life. It was full of ups and downs, but he’d rather enjoyed it, overall.

“Don’t you?” he asked.

Vergil tensed, his head turning away. “I have no home to return to. Ours burned when I was a child, and I’ve not had one since.”

Nero smiled despite himself. How could he not? Vergil would never have told him while they walked the caverns, and now it’d slid past his lips without hesitation. “Then it’s about time you make one, no?”

It was an invitation, and Vergil heard it. His gaze snapped to Nero and he studied him. Evaluating again, yet Nero no longer felt judged or diminished by it. He let Vergil choose his words, tampering his impatience. In the end, no words were spoken, only a quiet hm and a nod. But that was enough--more than enough. Nero jumped to his feet, walked to his father, and extended a hand to him. Vergil accepted, a soft smile illuminating his face and softening all the edges. When he was standing again, Nero offered the Yamato back.

Vergil reclaimed it with solemn slowness. “You said… not to leave you.”

If he was afraid, yeah. Not that Vergil would admit to it. He didn’t need to anymore, either. Nero knew what hid behind Vergil’s arrogant sneers and cold glares, so instead of pressing the point, he clamped a hand on Vergil’s forearm.

“You never answered my offer for pasta.”

“For…” Vergil’s eyes widened as he remembered, the rest of his question trailed off into shocked silence. “N-Nero…”

“Just say yes, Vergil!”

He didn’t. But he didn’t say no either. He stared long and hard at Nero, then the Yamato slid out of its sheath with a soft whisper. Vergil’s power swirled, a quiet stream he pulled around himself and towards the blade, and with practice elegance, he traced a cross into the air and opened a portal towards the human world.

Nero grabbed his hand, a childish joy shooting through him at the glimpses of green grass and dark grey clouds. To his surprise, Vergil squeezed his fingers and moved before he did, pulling Nero along with him and into a wide field of grass. The demonic ash vaporized as the dim sunlight touched it, burning it away from their hair and clothes. They were both bloodied, tattered messes--especially Vergil, whose face and coat had seen the soulstorm from up close--but Nero didn’t give a fuck. He flopped down into the tall grass, dragging a surprised Vergil with him.

Everything felt lighter and better here. He could breathe, and blades tickled his neck and hands harmlessly, and the clouds above had nothing alien and disturbing to them. Nero stared at them, at how banal a cloud grey sky this was, and he laughed at it.

A second later, a softer, disbelieving chuckle joined him. The unexpected sound filled him with warmth, yet he couldn’t help but notice the way it choked and wobbled. Nero didn’t need to ask why. He kept his gaze up, losing himself to the greyness above and leaving his father to his quiet, private tears.