Chapter Text
Crushing power swirled atop the skyscraper's helipad, rising sweeping gusts of wind with it. Nero's muscles hurt from one too many battles—one too many wounds. He'd fought his way to the top with Lucia, striking down everything from floating skulls to a fucking demonic tank, including a wide variety of goat demons, but Arius' hordes had been relentless. By the time they had reached the helipad on top, Nero was bleeding from several small cuts and three long gashes in his side from powerful claws. This shit hurt like hell, and he was in a foul mood.
Then he saw this Arius, with the villain goatee and skull-frilled sleeves and evil cigar chewing, and Nero lost the last of his patience—not that he had any to begin with. They’d climbed all this way for a fucking clown? This dude looked like the make-believe Mundus kids dressed up as in plays about Sparda’s defiance, not an actual powerful sorcerer. Even with all the power crackling around him, Nero had scoffed and levelled Red Queen at him. His pale grey wings shimmered behind him.
“Dontcha think it’s a lil’ early for the whole Ruler of the World cape?”
Arius’s well-trimmed eyebrows arched, and he cursed Nero with an evil cackle. “And who will stop me? A defect and a child?”
“A defect?” Lucia echoed.
Nero didn’t spare her or the word more than a passing thought. He revved the sword, great flames springing to life with his anger. He wasn’t a child, and this fucker was about to learn it the hard way.
He rushed ahead, sword blazing before him. Two women-shaped demonic constructs stepped forward to meet him, but he tucked into a roll to the left, dodging a first swipe of their blades—curved swords not unlike Lucia’s—then sprang back up and past them, never slowing down. Arius plucked his cigar out of his mouth and threw it down, stomping on it right as Nero took his first swing at him.
A black portal appeared around the sorcerer, engulfing him. As Arius vanished, Nero stumbled, carried forward by his momentum. Small tendrils reached out of the portal, closing down on his arms, pulling him in. Cold sharp pain coursed through his body, slicing at every muscle and nerves, blurring his vision until nothing but darkness and pain remained. Nero gasped, out of breath, his throat shut tight by shards of icy agony.
Then the portal spit him back out. He slammed on the concrete floor, rolling off, dizzy and throbbing. The whole world pitched as he fought for balance, and in the long second needed for him to regain his bearing, another cold circle of darkness appeared under his feet. Nero leaped up, drawing upon instinct and reserves to summon his large blue shield under his feet. Spikes of void sliced up just as it appeared, slamming into the shield. Nero’s feet landed on the inside of it, relief curling in his stomach at the deadly strike he’d just avoided.
A crystalline crack echoed across the helipad, then a black line spread across his shield. Power pulsed, and it exploded right under him, sending him flying back once more. He barely heard Arius’s ugly cackle through the ringing in his ears. Sight blurred, muscles cramped from pain, Nero struggled to keep track of his surroundings. He brought a knee under him, gritting his teeth against the pain, ready to push himself back to his feet through sheer willpower alone if needed. The concrete under his palms shimmered with power, growing darker and colder by the second. Nero hissed as spiky tendrils sprung out, snapping around his wrists and legs, ensnaring him. And Red Queen had landed a few feet away… Nero pulled and kicked at these bullshit tentacles, swearing when they tightened. A quick look up warned him Lucia had gotten flanked by both secretaries and Arius. She wouldn't last long alone, and he couldn't fucking free himself.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck."
The secretaries plunged on Lucia, and three pairs of near identical twin blades met in a flurry of strikes. Sparks flew as Lucia spun about, and it struck Nero how different she moved—how much more fluid, purpose imbued into every parry and every strike. Her soul shining through, he couldn't help but think.
A soul didn't give her the advantage in such a fucking stacked battle, though. The secretaries worked seamlessly with one another, scoring tiny hits on Lucia, winding down her battered body even more. She replied in kind, but she already struggled to keep up—then Arius raised a hand, palm outward, and black tendrils sprang out of it, grabbing her arm long enough to prevent movement. Cutlaseers sliced through her midriff and leg, and Lucia stumbled with a ragged, angry cry.
“No… I will not—will not let you take my home.”
Her tanned skin glowed, white light spreading under the surface, coursing through her as she tilted her head back. It erupted from her in feather shapes, slicing through the black tendrils and exploding outward in a shockwave that knocked back the secretaries. Great white wings spread out on each side of her as her body shifted and grew, talons and beak growing until she reminded Nero of avian demons.
“Nous sommes les anges gardiens de cette île,” Lucia said, a melodic vibration to her voice transforming it almost into a song. “Et tu n’y es pas bienvenu.”
Nero didn’t know shit about French, but he did catch ‘angel’ in there. Had Sparda blessed her too, then? Her mother had fought by his side, hadn’t she? But she looked nothing like Nero did; if anything, her angelic form seemed closer to Credo’s—pure and graceful where he turned into a destructive monster. And his… he hated what it did to him, how that cursed sword changed more than his body. Nothing angelic there.
Lucia’s white light cracked and shattered Arius’ tendrils and she leaped up, ten shining feathers flying out of her and embedding themselves into the secretaries, staggering them. She snapped her wings out, hovering for a second above, her majestic form a beacon of hope against the darkened sky and swirling reddish clouds. Then she dove down, teal blades of flame at the ready, intent on Arius’s throat.
Hope, Nero found out, was a fickle and traitorous thing.
As Lucia plunged down, two tubular appendages topped with gnawed teeth burst out of Arius’s shoulders, striking upward to meet her. She flipped and sliced at one, but the other bit into her flank, where her skin had just closed over the secretary’s cut and remained a featherless patch. It yanked her down, smashing her hard against the ground, directly into the pool of darkness. Lucia’s light dimmed as the portal sucked her in partly, and she struggled against its bonds. They tightened on her as they had on him, and her angel form flickered in and out until it vanished completely. Arius laughed and lifted her up with a flick of his wrist.
“Did you think you could defeat me, who created you?”
He stepped closer, reaching up to grab her chin. The two secretaries flanked him, removing their masks and revealing similar faces—traits sharper, less human somehow, and red hair cut short at their ears. Lucia said nothing, yet Nero saw how she arched backward, tensing within the bonds of Arius’s magic. Above their heads, the red swirling clouds formed a perfect circle crackling with energy—Argosax’s binding, unravelling.
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking you belong with them, little defect,” Arius said. “Everything that belongs to the devils will eventually revert to its original form. Sooner or later, so will you.”
What the fuck did that even mean? Nero’s anger swirled as Lucia muttered a trembling “N-no…” He’d had enough of this bullshit. That wasn’t how it worked! Being a demon or belonging to one, it didn’t make them dangerous, didn’t mean they’d turn on their friends. Sparda had defied his heritage and blessed them all. Hadn’t he? Nero gritted his teeth, pulling against the darkness holding him, his hand itching towards his hip—towards the power he so hated, but so desperately needed.
His fingertips brushed against the Yamato’s pommel and demonic energy flowed through him, hungry and eager. The sound of screeching steel filled his mind as his skin hardened into thick scales and sharp ridges, slicing through the binds of darkness. Nero drew the blade fully, a pale steel blue light glowing off it, and his entire perception of time and space shifted. The world slowed and twisted, an amalgam of auras of power and the enthralling scent of blood mixing together, beckoning him. All of it, his for the taking. His veins pulsed with need—for battle, for blood, for power.
My turn now, whispered a jagged, distorted voice in his head.
Nero grinned and stood up. “My turn,” he said, a similar echo to his own voice.
He wrapped the entire world around himself, twisting through layers of time as he sprinted forward, the Yamato shining bright in his hands. Shimmering steel shards danced around him, spinning in a destructive protective shield, acting with a mind of their own as Nero rushed Arius—the biggest source of demonic energy here. He could take it down first; the others would bend to his power.
The sorcerer flung Lucia away, sending his two appendages to meet Nero. Pathetic, the jagged voice echoed within, and all of his spinning shards converged on Arius’s tentacles, slicing them into ribbons as Nero dashed through, rippling with power. A primal cry rose from him and he brought the Yamato down into a powerful diagonal cut, spun on himself, and slashed again and again and again. The blade slid through skin and muscles and bones with ease, its glee pulsing through Nero.
He barely saw Arius fall, out of breath, light-headed from the dizzying rush of power, from the singular taste of victory and dominance. This was everything.
Nero spun towards the secretaries, and in but a few seconds, they lay cut to pieces on the ground. He scoffed. What a waste of his time. Above him, another even greater power emerged. Wind whipped through long white hair as he lifted his head, a dangerous smile curving his lips. Finally a challenge.
“N-Nero?”
Lucia’s voice felt distant, distorted. A worm’s voice, unimportant. If she bothered him again, he could kill her, too, rip her into—no. No. Nero slammed down on the thought, fear and disgust swirling within him. This sword, this fucking sword. He couldn’t lose control, could not slip away and sink into the power. Nero stumbled and fell to his knees, sharp stabbing pain bursting through his skull.
Give in to me.
He couldn’t—wouldn’t. Nero fought the impulse to revel in his power and shed more blood, tightening control over his own body. His head pounded and he could barely see the ground before his eyes.
“Nero!”
His name travelled miles to reach him, Lucia’s French accent fading towards the end, the quality of her voice changing. Softer, a little more nasal, familiar but unplaceable. The pain receded, leaving numb blankness behind, nothing but the foreign feeling of arms around him, a chest against his back. Brittle words whispered in a cold room.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
and tomb-stones where flowers should be.
Senseless words, yet Nero relaxed, certain that everything would be all right now.
###
Lucia stared at Dumary Island’s receding coastline, her eyes affixed to the brownish line of land in a determined battle to keep them from trailing the plumes of smoke rising from her home. The quiet splash of water against their boat didn’t register, buried by echoes of the battles just fought, demon shrieks and human screams mingling in her ears. Tears pricked the corner of her eyes. The remembered smoke, she told herself. She blinked them away before tucking loose strands of bright red hair back into her braid.
She had failed. Decades of training under Matier as a protector of the island, yet at the first true sign of trouble, she had failed.
Her right-hand fingers clutched the hilt of her cutlaseer as if there were still demons to kill. She wished there was. Anything to release the pent-up anger and unleash the power crawling under her skin, pounding in her veins and mind. A devil’s power. Lucia gritted her teeth against the thought, Arius’s last words worming their way into her way.
Everything that belongs to the devils will eventually revert to its original form. Sooner or later, so will you.
As if she was doomed to shift, to betray and kill those she loved. Those who had loved her. Lucia’s gaze tore away from Dumary Island, now overrun with demons of all stripes, and let it settle on the old woman at the ship’s bow, wind tinkling in the bronze belts holding down her scarf, her whole body resolutely turned away from their destroyed home. Matier had been part of Vie de Marli even longer than Lucia—centuries ago, she had helped Sparda defend it—yet she did not even glance back at her home. Lucia wished she had that kind of strength.
“Sorry we didn’t save shit in the end.”
Nero’s voice startled her. The teenager had stomped up to her, white hair smattered with blood and dirt, his creamy Order outfit torn and burnt by the recent battles. When she had first seen him three days ago, she had thought him much too young. Was that truly the Order of the Sword’s best? A child, overeager and arrogant? If so, they were in no better shape than her own clan, who had called upon them for help.
His chaperone—a woman with slim shorts, a white jacket, and more guns on her person than Lucia had ever seen in one place—seemed much more capable, and Lucia had tried to focus her attention on her. The teenager had bristled at that, told her off with more swear words than Matier usually tolerated under her roof, then stomped away.
It had been a rocky relationship from the start, but Nero’s battle prowess had forced her to reevaluate her preliminary estimation of his skills. He had cut through demon lines with ease, flames dancing along the groove in his sword as he revved its strange motor, his footwork quick and secure, his shimmering blue shield sparing her from dangerous injuries more than once. Matier had said he truly carried Sparda’s blessing, and that she could see why the Order had deemed him a worthy heir. Nero had balked, but she saw it too, now.
She had seen its full, terrifying strength atop the skyscraper, when the power rolling out of Nero had matched even the growing presence of Argosax in the portal forming above—when he had put a brutal end to Arius and the secretaries, only to collapse an instant later.
“You saved her,” Lucia said, her eyes still on Matier. “She is the clan’s soul.”
Nero huffed and crossed his arms. “Mission was the whole island, not a single spiritual granny.”
Lucia’s stomach twisted in anger. Spiritual granny? She shot him her coldest glare and tilted her chin up. “You would choose rocks over people, then?”
“No, I—” He huffed and gestured at the darkened sky above Dumary Island. Reddish streaks often crossed the smoke, marking brand new portals to spew demons into the world. “I wanted both, damn it. It’s cool that we got some of your clan out, but this ain’t getting us anywhere. We save a smattering of lives while demons keep destroying everything, and every day there’s one more of these big powerful fuckers claiming a corner of our world. It sucks.”
Lucia studied him, quiet for a time. Nero had waded into the fight without hesitation, declaring with arrogance he’d keep their little island “spanking clean of demon asses”. Instead, they had met hordes upon hordes of demons, the endless waves taking their toll and eroding their energy long before they reached Arius. It hadn’t stopped Nero from bad-mouthing the sorcerer, promising him his shitty plan was over. Lucia had almost believed him, at that moment—her heart had filled with hope as she watched the wind snap into his blue scarf and spread his coat about, and pale sharp wings had appeared at his back. Sparda’s Chosen.
“You want to be a hero,” she said.
He flinched, and his earlier pout hardened into a proper scowl. “It’s not about want. Sparda picked my sorry ass for some reason. I got all this power, so I gotta do it—I have to protect those I can. It’s my job.”
Was it that clear cut for him, then? His powers dictated his role, and he had no choice in the matter. But if that was true, then would her demon origins also inevitably control her future? Nero stated his destiny as if nothing could be more obvious, yet a hint of resentment had snuck into his tone and his fingers twitched away from his katana’s pommel. He had only touched the blade at the end, when all had seemed lost, and Lucia could not help but think of it as a malevolent saviour. She would be dead without it, yet the Nero fighting with it had been a completely different person, shedding off his youthful eagerness to replace it with deadly efficiency and a barely controlled bloodthirst. Was that her future? Did Nero also belong to demons, or was it only the Yamato?
“Jobs pay,” Lady interjected. She had been in the captain’s cabin until recently, buttering him up as thanks for waiting for them despite the overflowing demon portals.
At first, Lucia couldn’t decide if she was glad Lady had set up an escape route for them, or angry she’d arrived late in order to do so, potentially making the escape necessary. But Lady’s lateness had more to do with defending the village from demons while everyone embarked on fishing boats to sail to safety than with securing their own lives. People over rocks, always. And yet, one had to wonder if Argosax would have ever made it out of the portal with the deadly mercenary by their side. If Lady had any regrets about her decision, however, she didn’t let them show.
“What you got, kid, is a whole lot of responsibilities. Ain’t the same.”
"We're all born for a reason."
Nero pushed the words through gritted teeth, like sounds he'd heard over and over and learned to parrot. Lucia couldn't tell if he was clinging to them or fighting the urge to reject them. She hadn’t been born, however. She had been created, and she would not comply with the reasons behind that unless fate forced her to.
“Birth is but one block of who you are,” she said.
Lucia’s gaze returned to Dumary Island. Home was another of those blocks, and hers was gone now. It left a hollow within her, the block ripped away brutally, its jagged edges so sharp they might never heal. All of her life, she had been trained to defend this small piece of land, her powers honed for that singular purpose. She’d learned to love its jagged cliffs and rocky beaches, to soak in the sound of waves and the constant wind pushing at her braid, to taste the salt on her lips after a day training outside. Vie de Marli had been her whole life; she understood all too well what Nero meant, by “it’s my job”. To her, it had been a calling, a sense of purpose of which she was now bereft.
“Birth’s a shitty block to build anything upon,” Lady said. “You don’t get to choose it, and more often than not, it just fucks you over down the line.”
The bitterness there spoke of lived experiences and Lucia remembered Lady's initial reaction upon learning Arius had created her. She’d snorted, “so your dad is a sorcerous piece of shit who’d destroy the whole world in a bid for power? Welcome to the club, Lucia. Glad y’all at least fucked him up good.”
It had not stopped Argosax’s return and the thin veil separating Dumary Island from the demon world was ripped into shreds, but the sorcerer himself was dead. Small consolation, that. Lucia needed to cling to what silver lining she could find before the exhaustion and despair crawling over her settled into her soul.
“If you’re all done being philosophical,” Nero said, “we gotta figure out our next step. Island’s fucked, but you’re alive, Lucia, and so’s your clan soul or whatever.” He pointed a thumb towards Matier. “There’s still demons to kill.”
“My next step is to get paid,” Lady pointed out. “Contract said Arius, not Argo-whatever-the-demon-lord. Order wants me to go back in there and kill the big demon, it’ll have to shell out some extra. But honestly? Even with your stiff-ass brother to back us up, I don’t think we’d have the firepower to take this one on, and I don’t take contracts that’ll get me killed.”
Lucia stiffened. She hated the way Lady had said it, but she hated that she was right about Argosax even more. The great demon had emerged from the portal, a bulbous mass of bloodied flesh out of which sprouted vaguely animalistic heads and limbs. Claws had torn through the sky, then a huge gaping maw had pushed out of the portal, followed by a scorpion-like tail. The latter had smashed downward, stinger aimed straight for Nero’s chest. Her heart hammering, Lucia had reached within herself for the last of her ephemeral strength, transformed, and flown up to catch it midway, barely mustering the raw strength to stop its descent. It wouldn’t have lasted, had a rocket not exploded into the base of the tail a second later, quickly followed by two more into the gaping maw. Argosax had retreated momentarily as Lady came running forward, smoke still drifting up her weapon.
“Get the kid, I’ll take his swords. We’re getting the hell out of this island.”
Part of Lucia wished she had argued, at the time, but exhaustion had blocked the words into her throat. She had known it was desperate even then, had felt Argosax’s raw power vibrating into her arms as she’d caught his tail. There would be no victory for them that day and they needed to flee.
They had barely leaped off the building when Argosax had shot a great white beam into it, exploding the entire skyscraper behind them. Eyes fixed on the horizon, she could almost still see the building where it used to be.
“It’s over,” she whispered, her shoulders hunched.
Nero stomped down. “No it isn’t. I ain’t admitting defeat!”
“You were unconscious. You did not feel its power,” Lucia countered.
“Maybe not, but ya know what? Credo always says it’s not over till we’re all dead.” He scratched at his nose, then his hand drifted down, close to his dangerous katana. “If I can’t defeat Argosax, then I can’t take on Mundus either, can I? So I don’t care what it takes. I… I’ll find the power I need. I have to. To protect everyone.”
Everyone. As if that was possible at all. So many had already died on Dumary Island before they could get to the boat, torn to shreds under demon claws. Her home was smoke and blood now, as were so many others, and this child pretended to protect everyone? Lucia unfurled from her seat, standing tall over the teenager. She had held onto his bloodied body as they had ran back to the coast, every new scream tearing through her, every pile of rubble they sprinted past a new stabbing wound in her heart. How many could she have saved, if she’d dropped him? It was hard, so hard, not to question her decisions, not to blame him for deaths he had never provoked.
“It is too late for everyone,” she spat, and the depths of her own bitterness surprised her. “My home is dead, its people torn to shreds and devoured by demons, and they will remain so whether you become strong or not. ”
Or whether she did. But Lucia was not ready to admit that. She buried the thought deep beneath the anger and the guilt and walked away—from Nero’s stunned gaze, from Lady’s arched eyebrows, but more than anything, from the crackling sky above Dumary Island and the devastated land she should have saved.