Work Text:
"So, how’s it going?” Kyrie asked, looking curiously at the gleaming gun-metal bolted to the end of his arm. Nero twitched, taken off-guard by her sudden entrance, sending some screws clattering across the workbench. Kyrie set down a tray of mugs and shot him a curious look.
“Careful!” Nico snapped, thumping a screwdriver against his shoulder. “You’ll ruin the alignment!”
They were in the garage, hunched over the old workbench pushed against the far wall. The table would normally be littered with gun parts, but space had been cleared for Nero to rest the end of his elbow against the open port of the new metallic prosthetic that Nico had been fiddling with over the past few days. “Overture,” she called it. A new beginning. A state-of-the-art partnership between man and machine.
Right now, both man and machine were flayed open under her meticulous eye. Wires and hydraulic tubing spilled out over the table top, uncomfortably vulnerable under the blinding yellow light of the single camplight they’d propped up against the wall.
“Things are going as well as you’d expect. Though the whole thing would’a been a lot easier if somebody had let me use the vise,” Nico muttered distractedly as she peered into the depths of the port on his arm. “Someone hand me the pliers.”
Nero grabbed the pliers and passed it to her, determinedly ignoring Nico's jab. Logically, it’d make sense – it’d be easier to work on equipment that didn’t twitch, or move, or breathe. But part of him couldn’t get past the memory of another vise grip on his arm, like twin bands of steel above and below his elbow…
He swallowed, and his gaze drifted to the far side of the garage. Someone–that is, Kyrie–had made a valiant attempt at cleaning up the mess, but there was no hiding the faded brown stain still on the concrete floor. Despite everything else that had happened in the past month, it felt like part of him was still trapped here, unable to do anything but watch as a stranger strolled into his house, ripped away his arm, and made off with the Yamato.
Which was exactly why he’d convinced Nico to do her maintenance here, where it all began. He couldn’t be weak like this forever. He was going to recover his abilities, and he was going back to Red Grave City and give Dante a good punch for being such a stuck-up, arrogant asshole. No more of this sulking around, licking-your-wounds shit.
“You don’t need to stick around, Kyrie,” he said, finally turning to her. “It’ll probably be pretty boring, just watching us sit here.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine, I don’t mind.” She grabbed two mugs from the tray and passed him one, saying, “This one’s for you. Green tea. I heard it’s good for healing.” She took a sip of her own mug, which smelled suspiciously like coffee.
Nero accepted the mug and took a sip.
Last week Kyrie had fielded a distressed, half-coherent call from Nico about a new demon and a giant tree destroying half a city. Nero had paced in the background, unable to calm his anger and nerves enough to face her and tell her, properly, what had happened to Dante and the others.
A pins and needles sensation took up residence at the end of Nero’s stump, as Nico finally finished up whatever she was doing. She snapped the plates back together with practiced ease. “There we go, that should be properly linked up now! C'mon, test it out.”
Nero stood up and put the mug down. Picking up the proffered prosthetic, he lined the two ports up and pushed them together. Instantly, the pins and needles melted away into the subtle hum of electricity. “Nice, Nico. It’s feeling way better this time.”
“How does it work?” Kyrie asked, fascinated.
Nico grinned, tapping a panel on the back of the hand. “This here’s a mini-generator, it powers up when the arm’s in movement. Ya build up the energy over time, then BLAM! Smash it in a demon’s face. Here, we can give you a little demo. Try it out, Nero.”
“Here? In the garage?”
She rolled her eyes. “Keep your tits on, it’s not like it’s gonna blow up the entire house or anything, yeesh. Well. Not unless you want it to..” She rubbed her chin, looking far too thoughtful for Nero’s liking.
“Alright, alright,” Nero muttered, swinging the arm around to test the weight. Despite his grumblings, he felt his anticipation building. He backed up a bit to put some space between him and Kyrie, twisted his wrist sharply, and–
“Woo! Nice! ”
The end of the hand split apart in a shower of sparks, and white-violet lightning lit up between the fingertips. The whole arm hummed heavy with energy. Nero felt a grin split his face. For the first time in a while, something like hope flared in his chest.
“Finally!” Nico leapt up and stretched. She paused, then amended herself, “I mean, I knew it was gonna work. They don’t call me a mechanical genius for nothin’.”
“It looks amazing, Nico,” Kyrie smiled.
Nico preened. Her gaze drifted down to the tray on the table. “Hey, is this one for me?”
===
Smash! Clang! Clang! Bzzt!
There was a rhythm to fighting, almost like a dance. It was too easy to lose himself in the music of battle, his rational mind sinking into the thumping heartbeats of some ancient bloodthirsty instinct –
Smash! Clang! Clang!
“Hey asshole, over here!”
Clang! Bang!
Smash! Clang! Bzzzzzt. “Oh shit–”
Wrongfooted, Nero suddenly stumbled as he tried to duck beneath the spinning blades of the Hell Antenora. His boots skidded as the cracked pavement split away under his feet. Rhythm interrupted, he threw up the Devil Breaker just as the cleaver bore down inches away from his face.
It managed to block the blow, just barely, and shattered in the process. Shards of metal scattered in all directions in a powerful burst of electricity that wrenched back his shoulder. He leapt backwards from the explosion, arm tingling.
The demon was still writhing on the ground, and he quickly slashed down with his sword to put it out of its misery. The fight wasn’t done yet though, because another two were leaping down from the second floor of a wrecked shop.
That was fine by him. “Come to join the party?” he called out mockingly, slamming his arm down into a new Devil Breaker. A Gerbera. Good enough.
A vicious laugh burst from his lips as he jumped headlong to meet the newcomers.
===
“What the hell is this?”
“It’s a new arm design, jackass,” Nico drawled, cigarette smoke puffing from her lips as she slouched back onto the couch. “First taste’s free. You should be more grateful.”
“You sure it’s actually an arm? This doesn’t even have fingers .” Nero gingerly turned what looked like a giant drill bit over in his hands.
“Sure it does! They're right there," she said, pointing to the sharp end where three prongs stuck out.
He squinted at the razor-sharp points. “Nico, this is going to shred anything I try to pick up. Or anybody.”
“Good thing you won’t need to pick anyone up then,” Nico snorted. She spread her arms out, gesturing at the smoky twilight view outside of the van. “Look at that, ya think there’s anything you gotta be careful with out there? It’s just rubble and demons at this point.”
“Sure, but…”
“Sure, nothin’!” She took another drag, then jabbed towards his chest with the end of her cigarette. “Ya asked me, a gunsmith , to make you something you could fight with. If ya wanted a normal hand, good enough only to wipe yer ass with, you should’a stuck with what the hospital gave you. That there’s a weapon, a mighty fine one if you ask me.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you’re not gonna appreciate ‘em...”
Nero sighed, “Chill out, I get the point. The design on this one just threw me off a bit, is all. But I guess I can come up with a few good moves with this.” He pointed the arm outwards, imagining the ugly face of a demon on the other end. Gauging the distances.
Nico gave his ankle a kick. “That’s the spirit! Killing shit is your whole deal. You just gotta leave the engineering to me.”
===
A cordon had been hastily set up all around Red Grave City, with a radius that had been slowly growing over the past couple of weeks despite the military’s best efforts. Temporary aid camps and command posts had been set up along the main bridges and highways, only to be taken down and repositioned as the city’s infrastructure slowly crumbled outwards.
Nico had managed to talk them past the three successive checkpoints it took to enter the main city. If the scene outside was defined by barely controlled chaos, then what met them as they’d rolled past the final checkpoint into the city proper was an immediate, almost eerie silence.
No birds. No animals. Just the loud rumble of their van as it had made its way down the streets, interspersed by the occasional shrieking and jabbering of demons. Those, they had made quick work of.
They also managed to come across a few pockets of survivors, at least initially. People stumbling out from the wreckage at the sound of their van, ashy-faced and desperate. Nico elected to deliver them back to the first checkpoint each time. It slowed their forward progress into the city, but somehow not needing to make the journeys as the days went on felt infinitely worse, as the encounters grewer sparser and sparser.
Right now, they’d stopped in the middle of what used to be a busy throughway, now covered in rubble. Nico was studying the one paper map they had, muttering something under her breath about remembering a shortcut. Nero elected instead to stretch his legs, wandering out into the surrounding neighborhood. He had half an idea to look for some supplies, or raw materials for Nico, or maybe a fight. Anything, really. Sitting in a van all day was stifling, but he was also itching to find V again to hear what he'd discovered about the tree.
The house he'd wandered into was missing its front facade, and it was a simple matter to jump from the second story back down to solid ground. He was about to duck into another alleyway when a fresh pattern of gouges across the brick wall caught his eye.
“Huh, looks like a demon…”
He moved onwards, stepping a bit more cautiously than before. If only he still had the Devil Bringer. A pity he'd never quite gotten the hang of whatever Dante did to sense demonic energy. Instead, he'd always preferred to rely on the familiar glow of his arm to warn him when demons were near. Fat lot of good that did now.
Nero noted a few other signs of possible demon activity – a splash of blood here, a partial footprint there – but was about to turn back when a shriek split the air.
It came from his left, maybe a block away or less. He immediately broke out into a run.
Luckily, the streets here were still mostly intact. Vaulting over a fallen bus, he skidded around the final corner to find what were surely the demons he’d been tracking. Bulbous-headed Empusas, just two of them, some forty feet away. They’d managed to corner some people in the far corner of the alley. A brave – or foolhardy – man stood in front, clutching a broken pipe. Behind him looked to be a woman, with a child, maybe two.
Expression determined, the man squared his shoulders and raised the pipe to strike at one of the demons. Shrieking, the demon met the blow with its claws, knocking it out of his hands. The man stumbled backwards as the Empusa raised its other forelimb for a followup blow.
“Watch out!” Nero yelled, channeling all his forward energy into a massive leap. He threw out his right arm – and faltered, remembering too late that he’d left all his Devil Breakers back in the van with Nico.
The Empusa’s forelimb swung down. One of the children screamed.
Nero reached for his gun instead, squeezing off three shots before landing heavily on the pavement. The demon in front stumbled back, a good portion of its head exploding in a shower of gore. The final shot had hit the other demon’s shoulder, wounding but not disabling it. Nero charged with Red Queen, spearing it in the abdomen and tossing it back. A couple more blows finished the fight, both demons dissipating into nothingness.
He panted, head cocked, but couldn’t sense any other demonic energy in the area. Well, if the gunshots hadn’t drawn any others here, then there probably weren’t any other demons nearby.
“Dad! Daddy!”
The woman had released the death-grip she’d had on her children – two girls, he could see now. The younger one dashed to her father, where he lay half curled on the ground. His hand was clamped over a rapidly-growing red stain on his side, and he tried weakly to push her back and hide the wound.
The older girl hovered just behind, as if afraid to get too close. She turned soft brown, pleading eyes to Nero, hands shaking. “Please, help us! You can do something, can’t you?”
The woman – mother, probably – knelt down beside the man and grasped his hand. She’d also given Nero a look, this one filled with fear and a horrible understanding. Wasting no more time on the one-armed stranger, she softly caressed the man’s face, quietly whispering something to him. The two girls pressed close to her on either side, trembling.
The man’s lips moved once, twice. His eyes slid closed.
Suddenly sick, Nero cast around him for a pay phone. He spotted one at the next intersection up ahead, and wasted no time making a quick phone call to Nico with his approximate location.
The family was silent when he returned. They huddled around the slowly cooling body, a trio of statues, as motionless as any of the withered human husks that still littered the city.
“I called my partner, she’s going to take you guys out to safety,” he said quietly.
At first he thought maybe they hadn't heard him. But after a long pause, the woman looked up at him, lips twisted in a vague approximation of a smile. “Thank you for saving us,” she said brokenly.
===
Later, after Nico had left with the family for the nearest checkpoint, Nero had taken Red Queen and a full magazine of Devil Breakers and scoured the neighborhood for demons. He found nothing.
He punched a wall until his knuckles bled. The pain lasted for just a second, before the bones in his hand set themselves and the skin sealed back up again, leaving no mark behind.
===
The night after their first successful test of Overture was a quiet one. Nero found himself sitting on the bed, wrapping an old towel around the base of his stump as Kyrie was going through her nightly routine in the bathroom.
The shit they don’t tell you, he thought sourly, fumbling one-handed to tie the towel up at the top so it wouldn’t get loose overnight. He’d discovered exactly how cold a block of metal fused to his body could get, that first miserable night in hospital after it was installed. He’d spent it curled up under paper-thin covers, shivering from pain and cold in turns. Not only that, all the upgrades Nico had made since then to the base port had left it heavier and bulkier. More resilient for fights maybe, but not exactly suited for comfort. No way was he going to risk leaking gun oil all over his and Kyrie's one good set of bedsheets.
He growled in frustration as his left hand slipped on the knot for the upteenth time. This wasn’t supposed to be difficult.
“Let me help with that.”
Kyrie’s soft voice washed over him as she gently knocked his clumsy fingers aside and grasped the ends. A couple of deft twists and the towel was tied firm. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Thanks,” he muttered , embarrassed. He fought the urge to pull the blanket up to hide the rest of his shoulder from view.
It was illogical. There was nothing there she hadn’t already seen. After all, she’d been the first to find him collapsed in the garage, when his arm was still spurting great gouts of blood. In fact, she’d tied the tourniquet. She’d been there to see him sulk and pace after the first disastrous fight with the demon, and was there when he and Nico went over the hospital’s schematics for the prosthetic port, arguing over all the enhancements that’d need to be made to install a grappling hook add-on.
Kyrie patted his cheek, smiling as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. “It's probably just the angle that's tricky for you. You’ll get the hang of it soon.”
Something twisted in his chest. He didn’t want to get the hang of it soon. He wanted things to go back to normal. He wanted his arm back. Without it, he was just…
Dead weight , Dante’s voice whispered in his ear.
But Kyrie would be sad if he told her that, so instead he put on a rakish grin, tipping his head back against the headboard. “And miss my chance to get taken care of by my very own sexy nurse?” Maybe a more audacious joke than he’d normally make, but Kyrie’s scandalized gasps made it worth it, quickly dissipating the moody atmosphere. Chuckling, he raised his left arm over his head to defend himself from the pillow Kyrie tossed at his head.
“You scoundrel,” she admonished, a smile flitting across her lips. She reached over to retrieve her pillow. “What am I going to do with you?”
He lifted his face and made his best attempt at an exaggerated duck face. “Kiss me, I hope.”
Shaking her head, Kyrie leaned in. Just as their lips brushed together, though, she paused. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
She pointed at his upper right arm, where angry streaks of red zig-zagged up to his shoulder. “What happened here?”
He winced, half turning in a vain attempt to hide the still-healing burns. “Just some kickback from the new arm. We're still calibrating the power, but it's all figured out now, don’t worry,” he hastily tacked on at the end, seeing her expression turn from curiosity to worry.
Kyrie hummed. “So it’s fixed now? It’s not going to flare up again in the future?”
“Nope,” Nero reassured her.
“Okay,” she said, searching his face as if for traces of a lie. “Okay, that’s good.” A brief pause, then she suddenly heaved a sigh, slumping down to rest on his good shoulder. “I wish you’d tell me these things, Nero. I worry, you know? We all do. It feels like things have been moving so fast, and now everything’s on your shoulders…”
He looked down at the top of her head, auburn hair gone amber in the soft light of the bedside lamp. He swallowed past the sudden tightness in his throat. “I know it’s been a lot, and without you I would’ve gone crazy already,” he said. “But somebody needs to go back, to find Dante and kick that demon’s ass. There’s a whole city suffering because of it.” It and the Yamato , a voice in the back of his mind whispered. He was pretty sure the demon needed the sword to raise the tree that was currently wreaking havoc.
“I know,” Kyrie murmured sadly against his collarbone.
If he’d only been stronger, he thought. If only he’d managed to fight the demon off in its weaker state…
Even after lights were off, with Kyrie curled up against his side, Nero couldn’t help but spend sleepless hours staring up at the ceiling of their cozy bedroom, thinking about the thousands of people across the ocean who just had their lives thrown into chaos.
===
“Nico, what the hell is this ?”
“A new arm design! First one's free. You should be more grateful–”
"Sure, but." Nero paused. "This has got to be a joke, right?" He shook the device, hoping a piece or two would fall off and give him an excuse to hand it back. Regrettably, the Goldstein craftsmanship held firm.
"What? Don't knock it 'til you try it, buddy." Nico waggled her fruit at him disapprovingly, before peeling it and taking a huge bite. "Plus those Redgrave grocers back there were just beggin' us to take all those bananas off their hands. Turns out, no one wants fruit in an apocalypse."
Nero gave the prongs a dubious spin. "Not sure if I would, either."
===
As it often did, the entire Qliphoth matter ended in a whirlwind of events. Between the discoveries that Dante was still alive, that Vergil was his father, and that both of them fucked off again to the underworld for the forseeable future, Nero had almost forgotten about the minor miracle of his arm reappearing.
Luckily, the young orphans he and Kyrie were taking care of had enough wide-eyed excitement to go around.
“Wow, so it just came back?” Julio, the oldest, gasped, prodding the palm of Nero’s hand curiously. Nero curled his fingers to gently fist bump him. “Does it feel weird?”
Maria stayed quiet behind him, but her eyes were nonetheless amazed. Carlos on the other hand peered over the arm of the couch, frowning suspiciously. “My book says that only lizards and starfish and worms and stuff can grow bits of themselves back,” he declared. The boy had started a wild animal obsession a few months ago, and it didn't seem like it was going to end anytime soon.
“Gross! Nero’s not a worm!”
Nero sighed, having heard enough lizard jokes from Nico on the ride back to Fortuna to last a lifetime. “It’s…uh. It’s a new technology. Really new, no one’s written about it yet.” He turned to address the older foster child. “And it doesn’t really feel that weird. Mostly it’s just like having my hand back.”
Julio raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You mean the scaly glowy one?”
“No, uh. A human hand.” Nero floundered. “Like, a normal one. Before the scaly one, it looked just like yours or Carlos'.”
Luckily, Kyrie chose that moment to enter their living room, wiping her hands with a dishtowel. “Dinner’s ready, guys. Go wash up and set the table. Let's give Nero some breathing space, I’m sure Nero’s still tired from his trip.”
Reluctantly, the three kids left the room, and Nero could hear voices start up in the kitchen as they jostled for turns at the sink. “Thanks,” he sighed. “I forgot to plan out what I was gonna tell ‘em.”
“I haven't seen them this excited in a while. I think they were worried about you.” She closed the space between them, reaching over to lift his hand up to her eye level. “So it’s really back to normal now?”
He soaked in the warmth of her grasp. “I mean, the fingers all move and everything, so that’s nice. I can feel things, too. Well, kind of…” he searched for the words. “When I touch something, it kinda feels like I’m reaching for it through a layer of cotton stuffing. Hot or cold, soft or hard…it’s there, but…distant.”
"Oh," Kyrie frowned. "...Is that normal?"
He tightened his grip on her fingers and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “No idea. Still, I’m not gonna complain. I got my hand back, didn’t I? Not to mention a couple of spares.” He concentrated for a second, and the blue outline of hands briefly popped into view above his head before he let the energy dissipate.
Kyrie's eyes widened. She ran her fingers through the space where the ghostly hands had been, watching motes of blue light run through her grasp. “Well, big boy. With so many hands, washing the dishes after dinner should be a breeze." She said, pulling him up. “Come on, I’m sure they’re finished with the table by now.”
“Alright, alright,” Nero smiled, following her lead. “Let’s get going.”
===
On one of his rare days off, with both Kyrie and the kids out of the house, Nero decided to find the limits of his new arm. Driven purely by scientific curiosity, of course.
He sat in sweatpants and an old T-shirt in the garage. The space was now slightly cleaner than before he and Nico had left for Red Grave City for the second time, on account of him and Kyrie actually taking the time to tidy it up. He was tempted to crack open the garage door for some nice cross breeze, but decided against it. Damned if he was going to be messing around with his demonic abilities right out in the open. Their neighbors usually gave their house a wide berth, in part (well okay, mostly) due to his reputation, but there was no need to add fuel to the fires of gossip in Fortuna.
The arm looked real enough, even when held up against the lamp. Fingernails, creases, even fingerprints could be discerned when he looked closely. For all intents and purposes, it was his hand again, minus most of the sword calluses he’d built up over the years.
…Damn, hopefully he could build those up again soon. He hadn't needed to worry about it for a while. The Devil Bringer had practically been one huge callus, and the breakers were, well, metal. It’d suck to be back to breaking open blisters in the middle of battle.
It took barely a thought to dematerialize the arm, returning it back to the familiar bare stump that ended just above his elbow. The thing took slightly more effort to rematerialize, but not so much that he could feel a drain on his energy or anything like that.
He made a fist. It felt the same as always. He could feel the vague pressure of his fingertips digging into the palm of his hand, but not much more.
Before he could second-guess himself, he reached for the Red Queen and ran his hand over the sharp edge. At first, it was just a thin line of pressure along his palm, but then that dullness burst into pain as his skin split along the blade.
He held his hand up, watching the cut seal itself back up with unnatural speed.
“Huh.”
He knew he healed quickly, but didn’t remember it being this fast. Acting on impulse, he reached for the sword with his other hand, biting back a curse when a sharp sting drew across his left palm. The pain this time felt clearer, somehow. He held both hands side by side in front of his face, and watched the injury slowly disappear.
They looked the same. The blood still felt like blood. But was the hand really his ? Maybe it was some demonic projection, the best approximation his new power could come up with. Maybe he really did grow it back, like some new lizard-limb, but fucked it up somehow. That would be just like him. Or maybe he’d actually lost his real arm five years ago to that rampaging demon in the woods, before he’d ever met Dante or learned the truth behind the Order.
The Devil Bringer had looked exactly like his final trigger form. What if that was his true form, and everything else just a paper-thin costume to be cut away and discarded when the time was right?
God, if only Dante were back. Nero had a lifetime of questions built up, and no one to ask. If only he could dig into the skin and muscle and sinew and rip the answers straight out of his own flesh.
Abruptly, he froze, Red Queen poised across his right arm, sharp edge pressed against his skin. He set the sword down with a clatter.
Fuck. What was he doing?
Hands shaking, he grabbed a towel to clean the blood off his hands, then wiped down the blade. He put everything away, making sure the garage was left just as it’d been before, and went back inside the house.
TV, now there was a good idea. It was Sunday, so surely there would be something mindless to binge on until Kyrie and the kids came back. Preferably something with explosions. This stupid existential crisis of his was going to have to wait for another day
===
Half crushed by a ceiling beam and struggling to breathe, Nero reflected on the life decisions that brought him to this point. Maybe, he conceded, chasing a demon headlong into a crumbling building hadn't been his brightest moment.
He’d been up since the ass-crack of dawn, ferreting out the various demon mobs that had taken residence in the industrial sector of Red Grave City. Maybe it would’ve been more suited as a two- or three-hunter job, but no one else was in Devil May Cry when the call came in, and he didn’t feel like waiting up for them and risking the demons slipping away.
Even now, months after the Qliphoth fell, the city was rife with them, stalling most of the reconstruction and recovery efforts. As the apparent son of the guy that fucked up the city in the first place, he felt uniquely obligated to do his part in clearing out the infestation. That Morrison promised a hefty payment for his troubles was just the cherry on the cake.
In retrospect, perhaps he’d been a bit cocky.
In his defense, the warehouse had been fine before they'd entered it. Mostly. He’d chased down the Blitz through the empty loading dock, catching up just as it had taken cover in one of the old warehouses. The enclosed space still shouldn’t have posed much of an issue, except that the demon's stray lightning blasts hit a few too many load-bearing beams and had brought the whole roof crashing down on their heads.
Maybe the demon had managed to take itself out with this move? With his luck though, he knew better than to hold his breath.
The skeletal remains of the building’s rafters creaked ominously above his head. He strained his ears but could hear nothing else aside from his own ragged panting. The impromptu skylight let in streams of light that created puddles of light here and there across the dust-strewn floor. Nothing moved. Yet, anyways.
Gingerly, Nero twisted to the side, trying to dislodge some of the debris. He gasped as the movement shifted something unpleasant in his chest. No blood at least, that was good, but there was definitely a broken rib or three. He couldn’t feel his leg either, but he hoped that problem would fix itself once he got out.
At least the motion had helped him free his arms. He stared mournfully at the remains of a Devil Breaker hanging limply off his wrist. He wasn't sure where the other two he'd had on him were, but chances are they were now scattered beneath a few hundred pounds of concrete and metal all around him.
“Nico’s gonna kill me.”
Nero began the slow, agonizing effort of digging out the rest of his body. He was halfway through when he felt his hair on the back of his start to stand up. He froze. “Oh shi–”
An ominous red glow was his only other warning, but the rush of adrenaline it gave was enough for him to wrench himself out from under the debris. A burning pain lit up his leg and he fell to his hands and knees.
This turned out to be a good move, as a beam of lightning pierced the space where his head was just moments before.
Stumbling sideways, he blinked the spots out of his vision. Damn, he needed to get moving. To do that, first, he needed to fix himself up. He reached for the core of energy that fueled his devil trigger and felt…nothing. Fuck. Had he really used it all up in earlier fights?
Too late for regrets now. He spotted the handle of the Red Queen sticking out of a rock, halfway across the room. Too far to reach at the moment, but luckily Blue Rose was closer. Making a clumsy dodge as the Blitz began bouncing around the room, he scrambled for the gun and checked the cylinder.
Two more shots . It would have to be enough. He sighted down the barrel, following the demon’s frenetic movements around the room before firing once. Blam!
The dual bullets caught the demon mid-bounce, throwing it off its momentum. It staggered briefly, entire body dimming for a moment.
"Guess they didn't exactly call you the brightest bulb in the room, huh?" he could resist snarking.
The demon just shook itself and bunched up its muscles, readying itself for a charge.
Nero gritted his teeth. He cursed his injured leg for hampering his movement. He wouldn’t be able to dodge in time, but one more shot should take it out.
The Blitz leapt forwards. Nero fired. The bullets must have hit, because the demon lurched in midair and landed roughly just to the side of him, kicking up a spray of rocks. Nero tried to dodge to the side, but his bad leg collapsed under his weight again. The demon writhed jerkily, electricity snapping through the air.
Half-blind from the light, Nero squinted past the quickly-deepening red glow in time to see one of the massive arms come for his head. With no other choice, he threw up Blue Rose to block the blow.
It happened almost in slow motion. The claws came down hard, knocking Blue Rose away easily, sheer momentum driving it down. He watched as blood sprayed where claws met flesh and felt a familiar, crunching pain searing its way up his arm, past his elbow.
Nero barely registered the demon’s follow-up blow, which tossed him aside like a rag doll. He hit the wall first, then the ground, and couldn’t find the strength needed to peel himself back up. He stared sightlessly at his arm.
A puddle of blood was slowly forming beneath him, and beyond it, he could see walls of his garage closing in. The Yamato…His arm…that fucker had taken it! Just grabbed it, and ripped , and he’d been helpless to stop it.
The light from outside the garage door was glowing a deep, threatening red. He felt cold, a bone-deep heaviness weighing down his bones.
The demon had just strolled in. How could he protect anyone if he couldn't even put up a decent fight? He was weak, too weak to keep his family safe. But at the same time, too stubborn to stay dead when the consequences finally reared their ugly head. Forever stuck toeing the line between human and demon, afraid to commit too deeply to either side lest it locked him into something he could barely understand.
Pathetic. The glow from outside began flickering, in and out, like a heartbeat.
Wait, why was the sun flickering?
The world faded away from him just as the Blitz finally self-destructed in a riotous ball of flame.
===
Crunching sounds, near his head. A distant roar of an engine. Consciousness washed over him in waves, along with a vague sense of foreboding.
Something didn’t feel right. There had been something he still needed to do…the tree? Ah, shit, they were supposed to still be heading for the tree, weren’t they? With Dante missing, it came down to him to fill in as best he could.
He muzzily registered a dark figure approaching, silhouetted against the deep lilac sky.
“V…?” He tried to croak. Hold on, just gimme a minute . He needed to get up.
His limbs didn’t seem to want to respond. And where was his sword?
The figure stopped, not too far from him. He heard a voice say, “Shit, shit, hold on – Trish! Lady! I found him!”
Who are you calling for? He wanted to ask. They’re gone .
He tried to say as much to the figure, but couldn't quite muster the strength to do so, and fell back into the dark.
===
In fourth grade, their class had put on a school play. An ill-thought out musical rendition of The Ugly Duckling. It was supposed to have been a big deal, he remembered, because all the parents were gonna come see it. They spent a month rehearsing it.
Nero’s role had been as one of the trees. It had no lines, which suited him fine; all he had to do was wave his arms around a bit in one of the scenes and make some wind noises.
Kyrie, as one of the only ten-year-olds who could actually hold a note, played the ugly duckling. She had two costume changes and three songs, an ambitious role for a fourth-grader. Near as Nero could tell, though, she was a natural on stage.
Night after night, he stood in the back of the stage in the itchy tree costume, and watched the other animals of the forest come out and make fun of the ugly duckling for being so stupid-looking. It was all just an act, he knew, but part of him couldn't help but fantasize about knocking back the bullies, telling them that Kyrie looked and sounded fine the way she was. That she was far better than they could hope to be. That her soft heart and quiet demeanor didn’t mean she was dumb, or a pushover like he sometimes heard the other kids sneer behind her back.
It was precisely those qualities that caused her to reach out to the lonely, standoffish orphan boy at the back of the class, and it was a hidden core of steel that led her to stubbornly remain friends with him, despite everyone else warning her away.
Kyrie hated it when he picked fights with the other kids though. Still, he was loath to let them get away with making fun of his only friend. Maybe it’d landed him in trouble with the teachers more than once, but he didn’t mind. It wasn’t like his reputation could get much worse.
The play closed with a heart-warming scene with all the animals realizing that the ugly duckling wasn’t actually a duck after all, but actually a beautiful swan. They all joined hands and sang about acceptance, or forgiveness, or something. Nero had usually tuned out by this point, daydreaming about the walk back home while halfheartedly executing his one-two step bit of the dance number.
They were pulling off the costumes and putting props away on the last day of rehearsals when Kyrie came up to him. She held up a white feather from her swan costume with an oddly determined look, as if she’d just made an important decision.
Struggling with the zipper on his suit, he shot her a quizzical look.
She reached over and stuck it in his hair, right above his ear. White on white. "Look," she declared triumphantly. "It matches."
===
Nero woke up with a start, instinctively reaching for Blue Rose. He made it halfway to sitting position, before his various aches and pains decided to make themselves known.
He bit back a curse and collapsed back on what he now realized was a black leather sofa. He frowned up at the pattern of cobwebs and water stains that dotted the ceiling of the Devil May Cry office. Someone had thrown a blanket over him.
His entire body ached as if he’d been hit by a truck, but nothing in particular stood out. That was probably a good thing. He wiggled his right leg first, then his left, feeling only the slightest lingering soreness in one of them when he moved. Likely not broken, then. Next came his arms. Biting his lip, he tried to make a right fist, then a left…
Searing pain ran up his, but the limb numb at the same time. No movement, as far as he could tell. Wiggling his fingers likewise returned the same sensation. Heart sinking, he tried to keep the worst-case scenarios from swamping his imagination. He had to keep an open mind, he told himself. Maybe it wasn't that bad. He just needed to get a grip on himself. A second passed before the word choice sank in, and he nearly burst out a laugh.
Well, he'd gone through this once. It couldn't be any worse the second time around.
Stiffly, he pulled both arms out from under the blanket. With only a moment's hesitation he raised them, holding them up to his face.
Oh.
The relief that washed over him was immediate and overwhelming. He covered his face with his hands – both of them – and let out a helpless giggle.
The bandages on his left hand brushed against the stubble on his cheeks. They ran elbow to fingertips, tied tight to immobilize his fingers and prevent him from aggravating his injuries. He could feel a twinge of pain as he pressed his palms into his eyes, but nothing more.
What a roller coaster of emotions. The sudden flood of adrenaline left him shaky, and the giggles gradually turned into a strangled sob. Shit. What was wrong with him?
Distantly, he heard a door open and close. Moments later, he felt fingers run over his hair and gently draw his hands away from his face.
“I am very upset with you, you know,” Kyrie said sternly, leaning over him. She let the silence stretch for a moment longer, then sighed, tipping her head down to press a gentle kiss to his mouth. “But I suppose that can wait until we get back home.”
Nero blinked owlishly up at her. Dark shadows ringed her eyes and her hair was falling out of its braid in wisps to curl around her face. She looked tired.
“You’re…here,” Nero said dumbly, staring. He realized abruptly that the last time she’d looked this exhausted was all the way back during the Qliphoth incident. She wore the exact same pinched expression back then as he and Nico loaded their gear into the back of the van, preparing to meet V in the heart of Red Grave City.
“I am,” she agreed simply. “Thank Nico, she drove me all the way out here.”
Nico’s voice piped up from somewhere behind him. “Thank nuthin’! I would’a gone crazy if I had to spend another second in this place.”
“Thanks, Nico,” Nero said, head twisting to find her standing by the front desk.
She waved off the thanks. “Speaking of, now that you’re up, I’ll be heading out to deliver to the other gals the cut of the payment we'd promised.” With that concerning phrase, she picked something up and crossed through his field of view. It looked like she was balancing a briefcase in her arms along with an alarming number of what looked like demon parts.
Nico stopped just in front of the front door. “By the way, you owe me for this one," she tossed out sourly. "You know, all you had to do was call me. ‘Hey, Nico, I’m getting my shit kicked in by a big meanie demon! Please come and help!’”
Nero sputtered instinctively. “Hey, I was doing fine on my ow–”
“If you say ‘ on your own ’, I’m gonna come over there and punch ya. You’re lucky Morrison called us, and we managed to find you in time before the other demons had themselves a little toasted Nero snack.” She sneered, turning away and pushing through the front doors. “Don’t you dare get yourself blown up like that again.”
Then she was gone.
Nero winced as the doors slammed shut, slowly pushing himself up. Kyrie joined him on the couch, taking over the space previously occupied by his legs. He leaned his head against her shoulder. “How long was I out?”
She sighed, twining her fingers in his hair. “A few days. Nico called me three days ago, and we arrived here the next morning. It was…tense.”
“I’m sorry for worrying you guys,” Nero said quietly. “I thought I could handle it.” Kyrie’s grip tightened on him briefly.
“I was so scared,” she confessed. “All that blood, and you just wouldn't wake up…it was like something out of a nightmare. I thought I’d lost you.”
“Kyrie…”
Her fingers picked at the edge of the blanket. “you know, it was tough after Mom and Dad died, but we all managed to get through it together, you and Credo and I. Then when Credo died, and our town was in ruins…you were there too, helping me keep it together.” He felt her lean into him, pressing her face into his hair. “I don’t know what I’d do if one day, you died too.”
To his horror, she began to cry.
"Kyrie, I'm not gonna die," Nero said, trying to sound reassuring. "Look at me, I'm still here, aren't I?"
It didn't seem to be working. Kyrie mumbled into his hair, “I know you’re tough, but this job keeps taking chunks out of you. And every time I have to watch you pick yourself back up and dive right back in...” She trailed off, voice wavering. “I have this fear, sometimes. That one day, I’ll pick up the phone and learn that something horrible has happened, something you couldn’t bounce back from. That you’d died, alone and far away from everyone, and there was nothing I could do to protect you.”
He shook his head. “I’m supposed to be the one protecting you .”
“Then who’s going to watch your back?” Kyrie demanded, gesturing at the current state his body was in. “Supernatural healing only gets you so far. You’re not invincible, Nero, and I don’t know why you always expect yourself to be."
Nero stared at his lap, where his two hands curled around each other. Dante was invincible, he thought, and Dante had entrusted the surface world to him. What was the point of this monstrous strength, if he couldn’t even get rid of one or two measly demons?
His fingers twisted together. Human, demon, human, demon, separate but indisputably part of the same whole. They'd gone through a lot of changes over the years, from flesh, to Devil Bringer, to Devil Breaker, all the way back to something like flesh again…
Each version of them was a part of him, extensions of his body. He’d hated all of them at one point or another. For being too weak, or strange, or fallible. Too alien for normal life, but frustratingly imperfect as just a tool of combat. A misfit, caught between two worlds.
Kyrie's hands wrapped over his. "I don’t know what to do," he told her, honestly.
She clasped his hands tightly. "We can figure that out, together as a team. A team that communicates with each other, and watches each other’s backs. But since I can’t follow you into battle, I need you to promise me that you’ll do everything you can to come back to me at the end of the day. No more going it alone, Nero. Can you promise me that?"
He thought back to their school days, where she’d long ago stuck a feather in his hair and declared him a baby swan in a world of ducklings. Years later, she’d reached out again, brushing past all his fears and anxieties to grab the devil hand he'd tried desperately to hide away. He thought about the others who'd reached out over the years – Credo, yes, but also Nico, Dante, Lady, Trish, hell, even Morrison.
He imagined having to watch Kyrie battle demons night after night, heedlessly throwing her body between danger and the things she wanted to protect. He thought of the poor man bleeding out in the street in Red Grave City, and the broken expressions of the people he'd left behind.
He met her steely eyes. "I will," he said, and meant it.