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The world was red.
The whole sky, clouds and the ground was blood-red. The Qliphoth had clawed its way through the city and stained everything it touched. Buildings, streets or rivers, even the air felt red somehow, thick with dust and blood and the scent of things that should never have been alive.
Dante sat alone on one of the colossal roots, elbows resting on his knees. For once, he wasn't sleeping. The city stretched beneath him like the remains of a battlefield after everyone worth fighting had already left. A demon hunter should have been used to scenes like this. A son of Sparda definitely should have been.
Yet all Dante could think about, was blue.
Funny, really. The sky wasn't blue anymore, it hadn't been for days. But every time he thought about Vergil, that was the color that came first.
Blue.
Like a memory worn smooth by time.
Dante leaned his head back against the root behind him. Tomorrow… Maybe tomorrow he would kill Vergil. Again. The thought should have hurt, instead it just made him tired.
God. He was so damn tired.
The first time, he was eight years old, or maybe a little older? The years had blurred together after a while. What Dante remembered wasn't the date. It was the silence. People always imagined tragedy as noise. Screaming, fire, explosions,...
Death.
And sure, there had been all of that. He remembered the flames, his mother's voice calling Vergil’s name. He remembered terror squeezing his chest so hard he thought he would suffocate. But when he thought about that day now, decades later, the thing that remained clearest was silence.
A room.
An empty one.
“Mom?”
…
“Vergil?”
...
And for years, Dante assumed the worst. Because what else was he supposed to think? Their home had burned. Their mother had died. Demons had torn everything apart. And, a long series of hide-Vergil’s-book games had resulted in him not reading enough children books to imagine what a miracle ending should look like.
So Dante mourned.
As much as an angry, lonely kid knew how.
Then life happened. Years passed, he grew taller, got stronger, fight better. He learned how to survive, how to laugh even when there was nobody around to hear it, how to blast rock music and never let the silence creep back in ever again.
The dead were supposed to stay dead. That was the deal. You grieved. You carried the pain, embrace it too if that’s too heavy for you. Eventually it became a part of you.
Not smaller, just older. Like a scar.
And sometimes, though he'd never admitted it aloud, there were days when he didn't think about Vergil at all.
Days filled with jobs and demons and cheap pizza and unpaid bills. Days that felt almost normal. Whenever Dante realized it afterward, guilt followed immediately behind. Because what kind of brother would ever move on?
But maybe moving on was the only thing a person could do. When someone died, eventually you learned how to live around the hole they left behind. Dante thought he had.
Then Temen-ni-gru happened.
People always remembered the fight. The legendary rivalry, twin sons of Sparda crossing blades atop a demonic tower. That was the story.
No, the first thing Dante remembered wasn't that. The truth was simpler. The memory was one second, one impossible second.
Vergil standing in front of him.
Alive.
That’s it. That’s just it.
Alive.
For one heartbeat, nothing else mattered. The tower with countless demons? Don't matter. The years between them? Meaningless. Even reason why don't matter anymore. Just that one impossible fact.
Vergil was alive.
Dante had imagined that reunion a thousand times growing up. Maybe they would laugh, maybe they'd hug, maybe… a kiss from your little brother? Sit down and spend hours talking about everything they'd lost?
Instead, Vergil looked at him like a stranger. And before Dante could even process the miracle of seeing him again, they were drawing weapons.
Typical.
Maybe fate simply hated them. Maybe the universe had looked at two brothers and decided that happiness would be too easy. Dante remembered staring across that rooftop. Remembered the wind, the familiar face.
And thinking...
"He's here."
Everything after that just happened too fast.
The tower, Arkham,... Power.
Always power.
As if they were speaking different languages. As if every year apart had built another wall between them. Dante never got the chance to be happy Vergil was alive. Not really. Because the moment he found him again, he was already losing him. At the end of Temen-ni-gru, there had been a doorway.
Just one step, one decision, and now his brother on the other side.
Dante remembered reaching out, wanting to say a thousand things, but did none. His hand hurt, and he was gone. Choosing hell over him, choosing power over him. Choosing anything but him.
For years afterward, Dante told himself he was angry, because anger was easier. Anger kept you awake at night. Anger left a scar on your palm, invisible but forever awfully hurt. Sitting alone beneath a blood-red sky, he could finally admit something.
The second loss hurt more than the first.
When he was a child, he thought Vergil had died. That was terrible, yet simple. Death was final, merciless, but understandable.
This was different.
This time Dante knew Vergil was alive, somewhere. Breathing, existing, but beyond his reach. Hope was cruel like that. The dead left scars, hope left wounds that forever bleed.
Then came Mallet Island, Nelo Angelo. Dante laughed quietly to himself, a bitter sound. God. What a mess that had been. Back then, Nelo Angelo had felt familiar in ways Dante couldn't explain. The way he moved, the way he fought. Something had tugged at Dante every time they crossed blades. Something old, buried, something he hadn't wanted to examine too closely. Because the answer was impossible, and impossible things weren't supposed to happen twice.
When the amulet fell, suddenly everything made sense.
Far too late.
Sometimes Dante wondered what would have happened if he'd figured it out sooner. Would it have mattered? Could he have saved him, reached him? Could he have done anything?
The older Dante got, the less certain he became. Maybe some tragedies didn't have solutions. Some people were already falling long before anyone noticed. He'd lost Vergil years before Mallet Island, he'd been losing him his entire life.
Nero thought everything was complicated. Cute. Kid had no idea.
Dante rubbed a hand across his face. Nero. Another impossible thing. Another piece of Vergil somehow walking around in the world. The kid deserved answers. He deserved the truth, but Dante had delayed telling him, again and again. Because every time he tried, he ran into the same problem.
What exactly was Vergil?
A father? Sure. Technically.
An older brother? Definitely.
A rival? Absolutely.
A victim? Sometimes.
A monster? Sometimes that too.
Every label fit. None of them fit enough.
How was Dante supposed to explain someone he barely understood himself? How can he explain that loving a person and wanting to punch them through a wall could coexist perfectly? That missing someone and resenting them could become the same emotion after enough years? That grief could survive reunion after reunion?
Nero wanted categories. Dante only had contradictions.
The first time he saw Urizen, he knew, not consciously, but somewhere deep inside, he knew. There was a feeling, a pressure, like hearing a voice through a wall. Distant but still recognizable. Dante had spent most of his life looking for Vergil. Searching crowds, battlefields, memories.
Searching ghosts.
Maybe that was why he always recognized him eventually, no matter what form he wore, or name he used. A brother remained a brother. Even when he became a demon king, especially then, realization hadn't brought relief.
Only dread.
Because by then Dante understood the pattern. Find him and lose him. The cycle repeated so often it felt less like fate and more like seasons in the sun. An unavoidable law of the universe.
Dante stared at the city below. Somewhere out there, survivors were trying to rebuild their lives. Funny, humans were good at that. Rebuilding, starting over, moving forward. Dante had never learned how, not completely. Because every chapter of his life eventually circled back to Vergil.
And now, tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow, he will lose him again. Over and over.
The rhythm had become so familiar that Dante wondered what would happen if it finally stopped. People thought Dante's life revolved around demons, hunting, or Sparda's legacy. It didn't, not really.
A huge piece of his life had been spent chasing a single person, and closure never came. Every ending turned out to be another beginning. Every goodbye turned into another reunion. Every funeral turned out to be premature.
Until Dante no longer knew what loss meant.
The wind shifted. Far above, the roots of the Qliphoth groaned. Tomorrow, the word will return again. Tomorrow, Vergil was waiting, not for reconciliation nor forgiveness. He wanted a fight. After everything, after countless deaths and resurrections and disasters, still a fight. Dante almost laughed, some things never changed. But beneath the amusement was a quiet fear. The kind that settled into your bones. Dante wasn't afraid of dying. No. He feared for something much simpler.
What if this time it was real? that tomorrow ended the cycle?
What if tomorrow, there wasn't another miracle waiting around the corner? No secret survival, hidden return, or resurrection, just death permanent and absolute?
He could survive losing Vergil, he already had, several times. God knew he'd had enough practice. The frightening part was surviving it again. Because every loss took something with it. A little hope, a little faith, now Dante wasn't sure how much remained. For a moment, he closed his eyes.
The Qliphoth disappeared. The city with blood-red sky has gone also.
And he sees blue.
A summer afternoon, two boys, a backyard. Wooden swords surround with laughter. The sound of their mother calling them inside. Just ordinary, the kind of memory that hurt the most because it should have happened a thousand more times. Vergil standing beside him, alive, happy, young enough to still smile without hiding it. Before power, before demons, before everything.
The memory lasted only a second, then it was gone, like always. Dante opened his eyes. The world returned.
Red, broken and real.
Slowly he stood. Sword rested against his shoulder as he picked it up, heavily. Above him, somewhere beyond the twisting roots and crimson clouds, Vergil waited. Maybe all this was the joke. Dante found him and lost him. Maybe that was all they were. Two halves of a story that never learned how to end.
The sky hadn't been blue for a long time. But as Dante started walking toward the final battle, he found himself thinking of a boy beneath a summer sky.
A twin brother.
Who is now alive, just for a little while.
Until he might have to kill him, once more.