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His childhood home stands almost entirely in front of him. When columns of fire swirled around him, the day his mother died, he didn't intend to stay there until the end and miraculously watch the rock settlement survive.
Time cured all traces of Mundus' vermin. Not only did the soil survive possible erosion: the vegetation flourished. The same trees nearly consumed by flames three decades ago are more alive than ever and the path to the main entrance intact.
He hadn't had the time to notice those details the last time he visited. Circumstances are different now. However, he remembers with guilt the not-so-subtle exit of his demonic half after his birth. The entire front of the house suffered.
A large hole exposes the interior of the front part, where there used to be a stony wall and a wooden door, keeping the place in a moderately acceptable state.
With more calmness than before—his life not hanging by a thread and without despair leading him to split in two—he moves forward at a relaxed pace, crossing the darkness with the same normality that is given to daytime walks in those romantic novels read by his mother. He smiles, happy for the vibes of the place and its ability to spark fond memories in that moment, even as a whirlwind of misery continues to swirl in his heart.
His footsteps cease in front of the family photograph, twisted at an off-balance angle above the fireplace in the living room. Time seems to have gnawed at his father's face, quite the opposite with his mother, Dante and him.
If he had paid illustrious attention to the portrait, instead of turning his back on it on that first day of May, would he have turned back? Would that need to attain the greatness of his father have ceased and he contemplated following his mother's kind path? Had he gone in search of the only tie he had left in this meaningless world?
"The would-have is irrelevant now," he surmises. All the adversities he faced led him to Dante once again and, despite the fatalistic circumstances, to his son.
While he and Dante returned victorious to the surface world, unlike his brother, Vergil did not expect a warm welcome from anyone. He was the author of the havoc wreaked on Redgrave, of the collateral damage that claimed many human lives.
With what face would he face his own son?
Even if he considers Dante's invitation to his business, to his life, what did he expect from it? He would also have to deal with other familiar faces, more collateral damage.
The demon in the guise of her mother.
"Lady."
He doesn't know Trish and doesn't know what the demon's reaction would be in a supposed reunion. Instead, he knows Arkham's daughter well enough to intuit a missile receiving him from the Devil May Cry building.
Who, in their right mind, would accept the presence of someone who caused so much pain?
Only Dante has been able to do so.
"Maybe he's a fool for it," thinks the semidemon. An idiot for trusting him after the history of chaos it cost the world to let him live.
But the situation with Dante is different. He's his brother.
Trish and Lady are ships from another sea.
While he didn't end their lives, he subjected them to worse torture by using them as the nucleus of Artemis and Cavaliere Angelo.
He knows that feeling, the helplessness first-hand that comes from time tied to the strings of Mundus... when he was Nelo Angelo, the imperfect puppet.
He knows how they feel and would do about it, because if he had Mundus in front of him, he would kill him.
His train of thought is interrupted by an intrusive presence. He automatically unsheathes Yamato's blade a few inches with his left thumb. The metal produces a gliding sound on the spot.
The intruder's feet creak and betray his advance into the house. Vergil vanishes into a flash of blue before being detected. A fraction of a second later he reappears in front of a destroyed pillar, taking the vantage point behind the unknown individual.
Vergil perceives no demonic blood or the essence of any power that could pose a threat.
A mere human.
Either way, he lunges at the figure at superhuman speed just as it sets its sights on the family portrait in the living room—at least what's left of it—resulting in Vergil towering over it, his weight imprisoning it on the carpet that covers the floor in front of the fireplace.
It can not fail Yamato's trusty blade grazing the enemy's jugular, closing the situation with a flourish.
The first thing Vergil's inhuman eye glimpses under the gloom of darkness is a pair of two-tone eyes staring back at him in surprise. His ears pick up the excitement in the woman's heart rate and the dilation of the eyes reveals the fear.
That's it. Fear. He's flattered that he doesn't lose his touch.
So why does he feel a hint of disappointment squeezing his chest?
One blue-green eye, the other red. Short dark hair, unruly ends, a fringe covering her forehead. In this position, looking at her closely, he realizes that, apart from the features denoting maturity, nothing has changed. She's the same silly girl who dared to face him in the Temen-ni-gru.
However, he realizes that the disappointment lies in Lady's reaction. After two decades, he expects more.
They're not exactly the definition of "old friends," but there's a short history. Even then, Vergil already knew who she was from the moment she set foot on the tower.
Rebellious to the bone. Reckless enough not only to cross the horrors of the tower and survive the attempt, but to challenge him; or stupid enough.
"What are you doing here?" Vergil asks, stern and demanding, still on top of her and not removing Yamato from her neck.
He feels her tense up. He is even able to feel both of her hands kneading into fists. Soon her face becomes hard. Dilated pupils lose volume and become sharper, close to becoming thin lines like a cat concentrating on its prey.
"Oh, there she is," he says to himself. A part of the girl he met is revealed. Aversion suppresses fear. And oh boy, Vergil is a master of disdain.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she demands in response, arrogant in a sense that is annoying and exciting to Vergil.
"Certainly her manners don't match her name", the semidemon thinks of Lady's foul vocabulary, hardly surprising to him, given her long history of friendship with Dante.
"In case it's not obvious to your poor intuition, it's my house", Vergil declares.
He means to say so many things, demanding answers, asking her what the hell she's doing in a sacred place, how she —a mere fragile human— managed to fathom all the obstacles her father put so much effort into when he built the place.
But the organized repertoire of words to employ seems to vanish along with his calculated discourse.
The arrogance in Vergil's voice manages to ignite Lady's anger and, apparently, her cheeks as well. It's not the semidemon's intention, but driving her mad just like she is doing to him, it’s starting to get fun.
"Get your stupid sword off my neck!" says Lady, writhing in a futile attempt to break free, only to come to the realization that the subject is like a rock that won't give an inch.
"Katana," Vergil clarifies, withdrawing Yamato without breaking eye contact with the irritable woman, not even during the inherent ritual of resheathing it with the care and calm intrinsic to the act of threading a thread through the opening of a needle.
"You fucking asshole”.
"How original. I see that your time with my brother didn't do any justice to your name, Mary..." The semidemon scoffs, with a tone especially sarcastic and annoyed to Lady as he mentioned her birth name at length.
It’s set up.
All hesitation leaves the woman, so that past interactions remain a joke, a warm-up to bring out the true claws.
"Say that name again, and I'll be sure to give you a real reason to wish you had stayed in hell", she threatens.
There is a fierce twinkle in her eyes, charged with latent danger and a determination that promises violence and torment.
For a couple of seconds, Vergil lets his guard down unconsciously, lost in a strange cloud of fascination with the darkness shining brightly in her, present even in the peaceful sea of her right eye.
He finds her... beautiful. And he's baffled by it.
That little hesitation is enough for Lady's boot to hit Vergil's shin, and he loses his balance.
The escape plan backfires, as it only causes the semidemon to drop his full weight on her. Their foreheads collide in a sharp thud, both wrinkling their faces in annoyance.
"You! Foolish gir…woman!" Vergil complains in a breathy hiss.
"Bra-vo!" Lady begins to exclaim, and clears her throat as she realizes that maybe she sounded like the damn jester of her father. She modulates her voice and continues: "It seems that the insult has evolved”.
He instinctively leverages and rests his weight on his left forearm, seeking for balance.
Their faces are dangerously close. Their gazes connect in a silent challenge, the game of seeing who is the first to step aside. None of them give up. They are too stubborn and haughty to give ground.
Again, is not his intention, but he's affected by the accidental proximity. Lady's hands trapped in his chest, bent on the task of pushing him away, ignite a spark that the semidemon seeks at all costs to drown. When a spark turns into embers, it is more difficult to extinguish.
He's confused. His inquiring mind lacks reason to explain why he finds himself in this way, or rather, he avoids it. Maybe the answer makes him uncomfortable.
He thought he knew how to act and feel when he came back from hell. He thought he knew everything because he experienced it with Dante during his fruitful sojourn down there. But, if he doesn't know how to feel about this woman right now, an old acquaintance —perhaps more than anyone else in this world besides his brother—, he’ll be lost in front of his own son.
Lady, on the other hand, feels that her heart is going to burst. She has the urge to run away. Let the earth swallow her right now! "I'm going to kill him... and then Dante. And I'll stick a missile in both of their ass…" she thinks.
She finds herself in this situation because of Dante.
Come to think of it, when the bastard asked her to do this "gig" for him, it sounded quite suspicious. Things began to smell worse when he told her that the place was a "sensitive" matter to the family, so he avoided Nero's intervention.
"Oh, and please try not to destroy the place while you're facing the demon", Dante warned, though it sounded more like a plea. Dante never begs. “He or she may be stubborn, but that building is special”.
She even left her trusty and improved Kalina Ann on her motorcycle out of respect!
She should have known! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
The giant stone statue with the characteristics of Sparda had given her a bad feeling a few minutes before. It stood stern and gloomy at that hour in the dark, nothing like the statues of Fortuna City that portrayed him as a majestic hero.
And the spooky way of breaking through...
Her nose can still detect the foul smell of blood boiling in the square compartment, providing enough weight to reveal a narrow portion of the secret access under the statue. She barely remembers having room to get in, but adamantly refused to repeat the disgusting process a second time.
How had the imbecile above her managed to avoid carrying that rancid, foul-smelling vomitous smell? She is aware of the teleportation abilities granted to him by Yamato, but, even if he didn't cross the same path as her, it had been a week since Nero sensed the presence of the pair of idiots back on the surface, since Dante walked through the doors of the business that she and Trish had kept going for months.
Dante stunk that day, in the most disgusting sense of the word.
If Vergil didn't make an appearance on any of those days in Devil May Cry. Where did he take refuge? How did he manage not to smell like hell right now?
Wait a second, why the hell does she start digging? She can't be more careless about what the idiot does or doesn't do.
"I don't know what the hell Dante was thinking when he dragged me here, but as soon as I see him..."
"Do you think I'm enjoying this, woman? I don't know what kind of twisted and bad-tasted joke is this..." Vergil mutters with a hint of annoyance and continues, "but I swear I'll go impale him myself with his own sword, just after I fill him with mirage blades until I get tired of it".
"I never thought I agreed with a sociopath like you, but I second the motion", she answers.
At least the tension manages to dissipate in a moderate amount. Except for the fact that Vergil was still on top of Lady.
Later, in Devil May Cry, a placid Dante, lying languidly in a chair with his feet on his desk, is about to take a pleasant bite of pizza, when he is approached by a certain blonde-haired femme fatale, clearly annoyed.
"Are you serious?" Trish demands, snatching the greasy treasure from Dante's hands, but not without a "Hey!" of protest. “Did you send Lady to Redgrave? Right into the lion's mouth?”.
"Relax. She's fine”.
"Are you sure your common sense didn't stay in hell?", she replies exasperatedly and slams her fist on the desk. Dante doesn't flinch one bit. “You sent her to meet the guy who put her inside a fucking artificial demon!”.
"That was half of him. You forget that V is part of Vergil as well”.
When Dante makes a deliberate gesture of grabbing another slice of pizza from the box on his desk, it flies off to the floor by the woman’s hand.
"If anything happens to Lady, I swear you—"
"I feel Vergil's presence approaching", he interrupts abruptly.
Seeing that any attempt to enjoy his cheese and tomato delicacy is fruitless in the face of Trish's anger, he simply shakes his hands and crosses his shoulders, without leaving the comfortable position.
"Now I remember… just before I came, Lady asked me where you were", says Trish thoughtfully, her hand on her chin. “So… why?”
"Why is Vergil coming here?"
"No!" she mutters, clearly frustrated by Dante playing dumb, "Why lie and send Lady on a false mission to meet Vergil?”
The last thing Dante wants is to hint at his reasons, but seeing that Trish wouldn't leave him alone...
"I thought maybe they could get over their differences", he shrugs.
How to explain? It sounds silly out loud, but he's looking for a way to reform his brother's life.
The mixture of disappointment and sadness he saw in Nero the day he himself walked in through the doors of his business, after Vergil refused to follow him when they returned from the underworld... It just squeezed his heart.
He would never say that out loud.
Dante knows that Vergil is stubborn. He can't tear down his brother's insurmountable walls on his own. What better way to weaken them than an explosion of broad magnitude? Lady is that element.
Who knows? Perhaps a moderately well-known face would entice Vergil to come out of his self-flagellating bubble.
He knew Lady wouldn't hold anything back. Not a single complaint. She would spit all Vergil’s truths at his face and come out of it unscathed. In any case, if Dante noticed lewd intentions on his brother's part, he might show up there in the blink of an eye.
It's funny how a productive meeting in hell with Vergil connected them more than ever.
Putting it to the test was fun, as sending Lady there wasn't a hunch. Dante knew exactly that Vergil was there. Dante knew precisely what he was feeling, drowning in a silent melancholy.
Damn! He even knew the right moment Lady arrived, for her brother's melancholy lethargy changed to a distracting annoyance.
He's not sure if Vergil is aware of the level of that connection, but if not, he'd soon find out. And he would most likely fill Dante’s ass with summoned swords for it.
"Differences? Are you serious?" Trish replies, rolling her eyes.
"What?"
"I don't know what you're trying to do, but she's going to kill you", the blonde replies, still standing in front of the desk. Her anger is suddenly replaced with an amused tone. “Oh, and I know she doesn't celebrate that shit, but she's going to keep in mind that today is February 14th while she's beating the shit out of you”.
"Wait a minute... You said she asked you where I am”.
"That's right”.
"And Vergil is on his way, though he can arrive in an instant with Yamato”.
"I guess. What do you want to get at?" Trish asks, feigning insanity as she finds something very interesting in looking at her manicure.
"Who's playing dumb now?" he thinks.
Before they can get to the obvious point, he hears the roar of a motorcycle outside.
"DAAAAAAANTE!", shout two voices in unison, behind the doors of Devil May Cry.
Trish takes that rampage as a farewell signal and pats Dante on the shoulder before flying away to the building's alternative exit.
"Uh, oh”.
Perhaps Dante's plan went too far. Bridging the distance between Vergil and Lady was achieved, somehow... with Dante being the object of a common revenge, apparently.
Lady's explosion knocked down a bit of Vergil's wall. It could have been a nice touch that someone had warned Dante that the rubble would fall on him.
In such a situation, even a devil may cry.
The end.