Pain coursed through Vergil's body,
unrelenting, corrosive. It gnawed at his very identity, threatening to strip
him of everything—memory, pride, dignity. Mundus had corrupted his being,
reshaped him into a hollow shade, yet his will endured. He was still the son of
Sparda. No matter how far he had fallen, no matter how weak his body had grown,
he would not allow that accursed tyrant to stand taller than him, even beyond
the grave.
Every step was torture. His boots
struck the ground like iron anchors, dragging him down. His gloves pressed on
his hands as though forged of chains. Flesh, bone, spirit—everything was
deteriorating, but the call of the blade urged him forward.
Just a little longer, Yamato whispered. Just a little more.
Through blurred vision, Vergil found
himself at the threshold of a garage. A voice reached him—a young man's, calm
and curious.
"You, uh, you need something?"
Vergil's instincts flared. Demon
blood. But diluted. Half-human. It mattered little. Strength was what mattered,
and strength was what he lacked. He had no time for duels, no time for honor.
He needed the sword.
"What is it, you hungry?" the boy
pressed, casual, unknowing.
Hunger. The word meant nothing. Vergil
had long passed beyond mortal needs. What remained was the void: endless,
bitter, suffocating. An abyss that reflected his failures back at him. His
mother's face lost forever. His brother's strength, gained without sacrifice.
Would things have been different had their places been reversed? Could he have
saved her? Could he have been the stronger twin?
It mattered not. He had been powerless
then, and he was powerless now. Powerless to save her. Powerless against
Mundus. Powerless to free himself. All that mattered was power—and his humanity
chained him from grasping it. Humanity was weakness. Humanity had to be
discarded.
"Well, you're in luck, pal," the boy
said again, still smiling, "'cause food's ready, and Kyrie always makes too
much."
The blade was here. Vergil could feel
it. Hidden, perhaps bound to the boy. When the boy turned his back, Vergil
considered striking, but the weapon did not reveal itself, yet it was on his
person. Troubling. Then—he saw it. Not as a blade but fused into the boy's arm.
His heart quickened. Yamato was his by right. He would tear it free.
"You see something you like?" the boy
asked lightly.
Fool. To turn one's back on an enemy. Caution
served no purpose if he fell before taking the blade. Vergil surged forward,
strength returning for an instant as he cast the boy aside.
"I'm taking this back," he growled.
Pain surged with the motion. Blood
filled his mouth, choking him. Time… I am running out of time. He called
Yamato to guide him, cutting reality open with desperate precision. A way back
to ruins of his home.
But the path betrayed him.
Instead of his childhood home, he
stumbled into another realm—desolate, rotting. The sky was a sickly shade of
red like an infected wound. Had he fallen so far that he could not even command
Yamato's will? No. The blade was still singing, but it sang a song of distress.
His memories were unraveling. He could no longer remember home, for he had
buried it beneath grief and failure.
Yamato had taken him to a ruin, what
looked be a church on a small hill surrounded by tombstones. Virgil had trouble
breathing for he felt a revolting presence close on him, so pungent the scent
was that he that Vergil almost considered shutting off his sense smell.
Insects scuttled forward, tall, thin
and twisted, wielding jagged spears and what looked to be priestly hat. Demons
he assumed. Their stench was unbearable. With a single unsheathing of Yamato,
Vergil cleaved the air, scattering them like ash to the scorching winds. Filth.
Nothing more.
Ahead, the ruins of the church loomed.
Charred stone. Shattered icons. The air smelled of death and rot, and Vergil no
longer bothered to breathe.
"Dante…" he whispered. Memory struck
him like lightning—the portrait of a family lost, the fleeting image of joy
that once existed.
He stopped before a broken statue,
Yamato steady in his hands. "Sparda… once separated the human world… from the
demon world… with this blade." His voice wavered, heavy with despair.
"Then I… should at least… be able to
separate the man… from the demon."
With grim resolve, he plunged Yamato
into his heart.
Time seemed to come to halt in that
moment, a moment of suspension. For just a morsel of a moment Vergil felt peace
for he could felt nothing else. Yet he knew that this moment of clemency would
not last and whisper left his lips, "…heavy chain,
that does freeze my bones around!"
A cold fire ripped through him as the
separation began. Humanity torn from demon, his soul split and Yamato fractured.
He had not purged weakness. He had divided himself.
"…Curse you, Mundus," Vergil rasped as
the last of his strength fled. "To bring me so low."
The world dissolved. Yet in the fading
darkness, he saw them—two figures.
The frail human.
The strong demon.
And then—a third.
A girl, writhing in pain. Her voice
cracked like dry wood: "Ah…Ahh…Nggh…Who's there? Well, it matters not. If you
are wise, you will leave immediately. My flesh writhes with scarlet rot. It is
a curse. Not to be meddled with by man."
A curse. Vergil looked at her—fragile,
decaying, yet fierce. A flower blooming in a volcano, petals withered yet roots
clinging still. Strength flickered in her, silent but unyielding. She reminded
him of himself.
The demon half recoiled from her
presence, threatened. With a fragment of Yamato, forged into a cane, Vergil
struck the earth and cast the demon half into the abyss.
"One problem dealt with," he muttered.
His gaze returned to the girl, and he faltered.
That reflection of strength, that
haunting familiarity but he couldn't focus on her yet there was still the human
half to deal with. He looked around and saw just the ruins. He felt an uncertainty
creep up his spine as the confusion began to subsume his being.
"Who am I?"