Chapter Text
That had been all. The grayish ground at his feet, covered in ash and blood. Limbs, both human and demonic, scattered everywhere; that girl would have loved it. She would have made another one of her works of art out of it. Perhaps a custom weapon for that woman, or some gadget that could pass as a fashion accessory for the demoness. She would have crafted another of her inventions—a new devil arm for the child, one that would fix everything.
But none of that could be. Now, everything was gone.
He couldn't say when it was that everything went so wrong. Ten years of peace, ten years in which they let their guard down, years that he used to ambush them. One by one they fell like flies. Insignificant. Weak.
The children, then their mother. He witnessed the gunsmith's death at the hands of her greatest creation, just to buy them a little more time. He saw the deviless's sacrifice to save his son's life, saw how her face was disfigured by the flames that consumed her. Then the lady fell; he didn't even have time to tell him. He watched as every member of his family fell, one by one.
All of it—every death and sacrifice, every life—in vain. That had been all.
His son perished in the most vile way possible. His screams of agony, crying out for him, would haunt him for all eternity, branded into his brain like a hot iron.
Just as there is no reason for power if you have nothing to protect, can it be considered a victory when there is no one to share it with, when everything you fought for is gone?
Vergil cradled his brother's body—or what was left of it—whispering that old lullaby their mother used to sing to them on the nights insidious nightmares wouldn't let them sleep. He sang it over and over as his brother's final request; he sang it while the shine in his eyes slowly faded, sang it through sobs. He hadn't been able to weep for a single death in his life. He didn't weep for his mother, he couldn't weep for his own death, and he couldn't weep for his child's death either, because the situation forced him to move forward without looking back.
"Verg... you're crying."
He combed his little brother's hair, once as white as his own, now stained with his own blood.
"Even devils cry."
With his last remaining strength, his brother smiled: "Not devil. You…my brother."
How foolish his brother was. In that desolate wasteland, the wind blew, and his little brother had always been stubborn about wearing his shirt and jacket wide open. It was his duty to ensure his brother's well-being. He buttoned his brother's shirt and zipped his coat up to his chest to keep him from catching a cold.
Foolish brother, who could sleep on rocks instead of using a bed. He made sure to prepare a worthy place where he could rest in peace. He carried him like those nights when he would arrive so drunk alongside the ladies that they lacked the strength to make it past the sofa. What a hassle those nights were, where he had to take charge of carrying everyone to a worthy place to lie.
What wouldn't he give to have one more night like that?
Back at the van—the only thing left of young Nico, which had somehow survived the entire apocalypse—Vergil slumped into the seats. Words couldn't express how he felt: that hollow void inside burning him from within. He couldn't scream; he couldn't cry. To say he was exhausted would be an understatement.
He looked around. On the passenger seat lay the remains of a motorized sword; on one of the pieces of furniture, a pair of broken sunglasses, a used lipstick, and at the back, a couple of devil arms hanging alongside a statuette.
The man walked over to the old jukebox, which for once offered no resistance when turned on. He picked one of the tracks and closed his eyes; that way, he could pretend he had arrived before the rest of them. He could imagine they had gone out for food and he had decided to stay inside the van waiting for them after an exhausting mission. He could tell himself that the scent of gunpowder was still floating in the air, mixed with sweet perfumes, the smell of cigarettes, hot pizza, and beer. But the moment he opened his eyes, all those sweet, foolish thoughts would vanish, and the truth would whip him like a lash.
Red Queen would never be repaired. Those glasses would never be replaced. That lipstick would never see its end. No cigarette would ever be lit inside the van again.
They would never return home with pizza and alcohol to celebrate a victory.
Vergil started the engine and drove to what was left of the shop.
He saw the havoc wrought by the Qliphoth. He saw people gathering to save the survivors. Once they returned from the underworld, his brother had forced him to take part alongside him in the people's efforts to rebuild the city. An act of expiation for his sins.
Now, only rubble remained left and right, foundations exposed; no trace of bodies or survivors. White ash rained down from the sky as a sinister substitute for the snow that had once existed and covered the roads. Everything was gone.
He parked the van. Vergil sat for a few seconds with his hands glued to the steering wheel, mentally preparing himself for the ruins he was about to enter. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of an open pack of cigarettes next to Nico's favorite lighter. Vergil stared at them; a strange idea crossed his mind, born from an old memory.
The armorer's boisterous laughter echoed in his memory as he pulled a cigarette from the box. Both she and his son had laughed so much on that occasion, to the point of tears. A bitter memory now, for entirely different reasons. With the click of the lighter, the tip flared up. Vergil took a deep drag, just as the girl had taught him back then, and then exhaled the smoke.
A solid second of silence and quietude. Vergil continued until he had finished the entire cigarette.
"Still tastes like shit," he declared to nothingness. Now he had no one to laugh at his reaction, no one to scold him for choking on the smoke. Nor would he have to worry about sleeping on the roof as punishment.
Vergil stowed the pack and the lighter in his pocket and prepared to step out. As he passed the table where Lady's broken glasses and Trish's lipstick rested, his good judgment told him to leave those worthless objects alone; bringing them was inefficient and meaningless. Nevertheless, he took them and tucked them away before stepping down.
Before him lay the remains of his brother's business. The storefront was destroyed, the famous neon sign fallen and shattered alongside a good portion of the debris. Vergil had the decency to enter through what remained of the front door, as if that ritual might somehow preserve the dignity of the place.
Inside—if it could still be called that despite the fallen walls—was no more comforting a sight than the exterior. Half the building was destroyed; his brother's prized pool table stood no chance against the rubble, and the jukebox had finally met its end. Vergil picked up the hat from among the debris. He wiped the dirt off it as best he could; it was Morrison's hat, his brother's loyal informant. He didn't know what became of that man after the last time he saw him, but he harbored no hope that he was still alive.
In the center, covered in dust and debris, stood the wooden desk that greeted everyone who entered the shop. Surprisingly, it was still standing, as was the photo of his mother on it—its glass and frame ruined, but the most important part, the only memory left of Eva, intact. Vergil carefully extracted the photo, clearing away the shards of glass before they could damage it. He took it in his hands, walked over to the only sofa that had survived, swept the dust and debris off the seats, and sat down.
His mother's face—ever beautiful and pristine, frozen in time in that image—looked back at him. Once again, Vergil had failed. He couldn't protect anyone; not even with all his power, at the very peak of his capabilities, did he manage to protect them. What was the point of all that power if it was useless? His only rival, his equal, had fallen. He had no legacy to surpass him or to protect.
Was his mother some oracle from the goddess's temple, or did fate simply enjoy laughing at the curious choice of names their parents had made? Were their destinies sealed the day their names were spoken? Dante, the poet, traversed hell itself, passed through purgatory, and reached the blessed heavenly realm, while Virgil could only watch from afar as his companion ascended to heaven. Virgil—the one who remained in hell, the one whose soul would never touch that realm.
Was it decreed that Vergil could never know happiness?
He didn't know at what point tears began to stream from his eyes; when his throat constricted, he didn't care either. Nothing mattered anymore. Everyone—Dante, Nero, Lady, Trish, Nico, every single member of his family, of that strange family his brother and son had allowed him to be a part of; Kyrie, Julio, Kyle, Carlo, Patty, Morrison—every single one of them was dead.
There was no dignity to maintain, composure didn't matter; no one would see him in the middle of that destroyed room, clutching his mother's photo to his chest. There wasn't a single soul nearby to judge him for breaking down right there, in that place he had called home. Vergil slammed his fist against the floor, cursing everything through frantic sobs until his throat burned. He cursed himself for having been so stupid his whole life. For every hug he refused to give his family, for every "I love you" he never uttered, for every time he isolated himself from the rest out of cowardice, for all the moments he missed in his stupid pursuit of power, for not taking his hand that day.
Vergil wept oceans; he wept every tear he had refused to cry in his life. And then, he laughed. An uncontrollable laugh. Laughing and laughing like a madman while tears continued to roll down his face. He laughed at how pathetic he must look at that moment. A devil that laughs and cries. A pathetic man who lost everything and clings like an idiot to meaningless trifles. He was crying in the middle of Devil May Cry. The epitome of irony.
Once he was physically unable to cry any longer, he collapsed to the floor like dead weight. No thoughts. No emotions. A complete void of everything. One he hadn't felt since his time as Nelo Angelo. Dead inside.
Vergil closed his eyes and let his consciousness fade into nothingness as well. If he died or was killed, it made no difference; there was no point in living in a world without his family, without his brother.
Vergil opened his eyes again. Everything remained the same as the day before; he was still lying there on the floor amidst the remains of Devil May Cry. Gray clouds drifted through the sky like birds of prey above him, stealing the color from the objects around him, leaving a dull atmosphere in his surroundings.
Vergil stood up from the floor. There was nothing to do. Trying to clean up the shop would be a waste of time. From one of his pockets, he pulled out the last vestiges of his family: Ebony and Blue Rose. He sat there like a small child, admiring Dante's and Nero's handguns.
Blue Rose still bore Nero's blood on it, leaving the imprint of his hand. Vergil traced the outline of that mark with his fingers—the memories of his last words. How cruel life was, that he would never know what his son's first words were; yet, he witnessed his very last breath.
"Dad," was the last thing Nero said before expiring beneath the blade of Yamato in an act of mercy.
In the cylinder, one last shot was ready to be fired.
Ebony, on the other hand, had been an absurd whim Vergil wanted to indulge before burying his brother. By chance, whenever Dante shared one of his twin pistols with him, Vergil always ended up using Ebony. He had asked him if he had a specific reason for doing so; Dante would just shrug and say it was unintentional. Thus, in the makeshift grave he built for him, Dante lay with Ivory close to his chest, while Vergil deliberately took her sister.
For once in his life, Vergil had no plan. He didn't know what to do or how he was going to go on. He saw no path forward from where he stood. Was this how his brother felt when he freed him from Nelo Angelo, thinking he had committed fratricide? So desolate—was that why the shop looked and smelled the way it did when they reunited?
It took Vergil forty years to fully understand what his brother had felt because of the poor choices he had made in his life.
Once again, he lay in the remains of a home that had been destroyed by Mundus's minions. Once again, he walked away from it, but not before searching every small nook and cranny he could in search of some small hope, some forgotten survivor who had managed to make it through. He knew there was none—there was no way—but he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
Vergil climbed into the van, ready to leave that destroyed city beyond salvation. Where to, he had no idea; perhaps he would find some remote corner of the earth that hadn't been destroyed.
Inside, he quickly noticed the sound coming from the jukebox. Although he didn't remember turning the device off, Nico had never modified it to run independently of the van's power.
He approached cautiously; he couldn't sense any demonic presence possessing the apparatus, nor any enchantment upon it. An eight-bit melody repeated incessantly, as if the record were scratched. When the singer's voice came through, the track stuck on the first three words of the lyrics: "Will you listen—" over and over again.
Perhaps it was merely a mechanical malfunction of the machine, Vergil concluded. He turned around to start the van when a hideous screech emitted from the machine. The song had skipped ahead. The record repeated four words: "Damn, faithless, can't deny" over and over again.
The man stepped closer. Such interference was not due to a mechanical failure; now he was certain. He unsheathed Yamato and aimed its edge at the jukebox: "Show yourself."
The entity responded to him: "I am the god of the gaps." "The fate of the fallen, nobody knows where I came from."
A supposed deity. There were few entities that could be considered such. "What do you want?"
It could very well be a trick, he knew that well, but Vergil had nothing left to lose.
The entity communicated again: "Oh, it isn't over 'til I say it's over." The song skipped forward to continue the response: "So give the edge of a blade and a time and a place, and I'll leave them cold and pushing up boulders." The song looped back to the beginning, to the eight-bit melody.
Vergil brought the edge of his blade closer to the device, desperate for clarity: "Who are you?"
"You used to know me well," the entity answered.
A deity he knew. Several demons had been worshipped as gods by humans due to their domain and power. All of them had been overthrown previously, or his brother had finished them off. The clumsy attempts of lesser beings after his return had been quelled between the two of them. Nothing remarkable.
An electric current ran down his spine. A fleeting memory of a figurine he had seen as a child in his father's study. He had never asked; it wasn't something that captured his curiosity back then. However, that occasion hadn't been the only time he saw that image. The Temen-ni-gru, Mallet, and even Fortuna—an idol repeated time and time again.
At the back of the van, at Nico's workstation, the figurine of a lion-headed goddess was glowing.
He had never questioned the presence of that piece in the van. It was there before him and remained after everyone was gone. He attributed it to the armorer's innate oddity or to some previous job of his son's. Now, that question could not be answered, but it wasn't what mattered.
If his memory served him right, the statues of the Goddess of Time functioned through a blood sacrifice. This situation was... intriguing. Vergil drew his sword back from the jukebox; instead, he cut the palm of his hand with his blade as he advanced toward the figurine. A clean, deep cut. He dragged his hand from the head to the feet of the immortalized goddess, bathing the idol in his blood.
The world around him vanished in the blink of an eye; he stood in an endless dark void.
"Firstborn of Sparda," a deep voice called to him from nowhere. "You have answered my call."
"Did I have any other choice?"
The deity chuckled. Before him, it materialized into a humanoid figure.
"Why have you summoned me?" the half-demon pressed.
"Retribution." The deity's voice was imposing without needing to be raised. "They have attempted to play with my domains and get away with it. This slaughter was not destined to happen. I demand retribution."
Vergil turned his back on it: "I am not the one you seek. I am no hero, nor was I the fool responsible."
"I am aware. Your brother lies dead. As does your bloodline. And I know who the architect of their deaths was."
The demon in blue glanced sideways at the deity, his hands ready to draw his weapon.
"I can fix it," the deity offered him.
"I will not be your slave."
The deity laughed again. "Nor do I wish it. Avenging your people, honoring the fallen—I can grant you that."
Vergil faced the goddess: "What is the price?"
The body formed by the superimposed impression of various human figures pointed at his sword: "Power."
Sparda's son immediately pulled his sword away. "Not your father's. The former champion of humanity has paid his own price."
"Why do you need it? Are you not more powerful already?"
"You speak truly; I do not need your power for myself. This is the price for a second chance; I have already been told to you. Give me the edge of a blade, a time, and a place."
When he looked down at the hilt of his sword—the one his father had bestowed upon him, his most loyal companion—and he couldn't help but think of his son. What was the point of so much power if he had nowhere to use it?
At what point did everything go so wrong? Was it that morning before the first attack, the previous month, or the year before? Perhaps it all started on that tragic day—or was it even earlier, when his father left?
Perhaps...
Vergil extended Yamato toward the deity: "The day we were born. Our father's manor."
His mother had always told them, "The day she brought them into the world was the most chaotic day of their lives." She was giving birth while a raging, unnatural storm battered the grounds outside. Their father wasn't with her; he stayed outside defending his lands from any invader who dared set foot on his domain. When he returned, he was greeted by two tiny pink bundles crying at the top of their lungs.
His mother hadn't exaggerated; it was undoubtedly the storm of the century. He was soaked from head to toe, struggling to push forward against the wind and rain on that uneven terrain. The cold chilled his bones to the marrow. His body could no longer endure the inclemency of the storm, and he fell to the ground shivering. He hadn't even been there for an hour, and death was already preparing to claim his life.
A snapping branch alerted him. By reflex, he reached for his sword at his hip; desperation consumed him when he didn't feel it. He fumbled through his pockets until he found something else.
"It’s useless. The gunpowder must be wet by now." Out from behind the bushes stepped a man as tall as a mountain. The legendary Sparda, in the flesh.
He could feel his gaze analyzing him, deliberating whether the human before him was a threat that had to be eliminated on the spot or just a poor devil down on his luck. What a pathetic sight he must have been for Sparda to ignore the weapon aimed at his head and pick the man up as if he were a ragdoll.
"You look unwell," he noted as he slung him over his shoulder like dead weight. "I’ll take you to my home. In this rain, you will only catch pneumonia."
His instinct told him that wasn't true; his coughing fit reminded him of something the goddess hadn't specified. When she referred to his power, she meant all of his power, including that which was his by birthright. Now his body was mortal and fragile like that of any human, because that was what she had turned him into: a complete human.
'Well, I’ll be damned,' Vergil thought. If he had a coin for every time he had been turned into a human because he didn't think for more than two seconds, he'd have two coins.
Three, if he counted that competition with his brother to see who could last longer using only one of their halves.
"What is your name, stranger?"
"I have no name. I am but two days old."
The two of them fell into a deep silence. Somehow, his bad joke managed to elicit a laugh from Sparda.
"I underestimated you if you are able to quote Blake even in your state."
How frustrating not to be able to rub it in his brother's face that it had been—no, was—a good joke. And he dare to call him gloomy... dared to, he reminded himself.
At some point along the way he lost consciousness; the last thing he managed to glimpse were the lights of the mansion in the distance, distorted by the water falling over his face.
Beneath the master bedroom lay the guest room that his father used to reserve for the few visitors they had. As a child, he hadn't understood why he used that specific room when they had others. Now it made sense; nothing happened in that room without Sparda's privileged hearing picking it up.
Now, the privileged one was Vergil. Through the feverish haze, he managed to hear the crying of two newborns—Vergil and Dante.
"I won't lose this time, brother. I swear."