The night wind swept past.
On the rooftop hundreds of meters high, jet-black hair cascaded like a waterfall, dancing in the wind, growing along a graceful curve and transforming in the blink of an eye into a form-fitting black leather bodysuit. The exposed skin of her back glimmered faintly under the moonlight.
The woman pushed up the black-framed glasses on her nose. Beneath her feet, dozens of demons turned to ash and scattered on the wind.
She watched as the distant Silver-haired man carried away the exhausted, unconscious youth. Her luscious, alluring red lips curved slightly upward.
"What a delightful little fellow."
She licked her red lips. Her high heels stepped onto the edge of the rooftop, and her form dissolved into countless pitch-black feathers, vanishing into the vast night.
"According to our station's latest report, the disaster that occurred a few days ago at the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane was a rare geological subsidence event."
"The incident has currently resulted in 1 death, with dozens injured to varying degrees. Relevant authorities are still conducting further investigations regarding the specifics..."
"In addition, seismic activity has also been detected in suburban areas. Citizens are advised to minimize outdoor activities in the near future..."
The Host's mellifluous broadcast voice drifted intermittently into his ears from the television.
Sephirot only felt his eyelids were leaden, his whole body sore and aching.
He slowly opened his eyes.
What came into view was not an unfamiliar ceiling, but a familiar face.
"You're awake?!"
Patty's usually meticulously groomed face looked weary, her blonde hair disheveled.
Sephirot rubbed his groggy head and propped himself up to sit.
It seemed Vergil had brought him directly back to the Agency.
"How long did I sleep?" he asked.
Hearing this, Patty suddenly put on a stern face and looked at him seriously. "Ten thousand years."
Sephirot paused mid-motion and glanced at her. "And you're still not dead? What a miracle."
"Bang!"
Patty hammered a fist against Sephirot's chest. "Get lost! You wake up just to piss me off!"
Sephirot feigned pain, clutching his chest. Just as he was about to retort, he was cut off by a voice from the television.
"We interrupt with breaking news!"
"Last night, a military base somewhere on the East Coast was attacked by a mysterious knife-wielding man."
"This is already the 16th vicious assault targeting the military this week..."
The television was broadcasting aerial footage shot from a Helicopter.
The entire military base looked like a sliced cake. The smooth concrete ground was crisscrossed with bottomless fissures.
In the upper right corner of the frame, a blurry, dark silhouette captured by surveillance was also displayed; under the moonlight, the man's coat billowed, a Tachi gripped in his hand.
Sephirot looked at the familiar figure, and the corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch upward.
Wasn't that Vergil?
From the description, he'd thought it was some mysterious masked man.
But still, how did this person, who had always pursued only power, end up clashing with the military?
"Stop watching. Big bro's doing it to avenge Patty."
A careless voice came from the left.
Sephirot turned his head to see Dante reclining in a chair, his feet propped up on the office desk.
"When you were raising hell in the asylum, a few grunts also came over to join the fun, trying to snatch the little lady away."
Dante toyed with the coin in his hand, tossing it high into the air before catching it steadily.
"If you hadn't pressed that damn communicator that night, you'd be in serious trouble."
"Vergil's actions only represent his personal stance."
"Sort this out yourself, and soon. Don't keep expecting us old-timers to clean up your messes."
"If Patty gets dragged into this crap again and gets hurt, I won't mind beating you up first."
Hearing this, the smile faded from Sephirot's face.
He looked at Patty again.
Patty met his gaze and forced herself to stay composed as she smiled. "What are you looking at? I'm perfectly fine, aren't I? Those guys didn't even touch the hem of my skirt before they were taken care of."
Sephirot looked at the girl's weary face and said nothing.
He had been far too careless.
When those mechanical monsters attacked him in the outskirts last time, he should have considered this.
He had repeatedly destroyed the bases they had poured so much effort into building. The grudge between the two sides had long since become irreconcilable.
If they couldn't do anything to him, they would take their resentment out on the people close to him.
If he had stubbornly refused to press the communicator that night, or pressed it just a little later, then the consequences...
He dared not think further.
"I understand."
After a moment, Sephirot said calmly.
Dante watched Sephirot's reaction and let out a light chuckle, as if seeing right through what was on his mind.
"That expression suits you much better. Your debts are yours to collect."
As he spoke, Dante casually picked up a wooden box from the desk and tossed it to him.
"This should contain some things you've been wanting."
Sephirot caught the wooden box.
When he opened it, half a spear lay inside. The spearhead was stained with blood that had long since dried.
But if one sank their focus into it, a faint golden light could be seen coursing through that bloodstain, as though it possessed life.
The Spear of Destiny.
This holy relic, after so much circling around, had finally ended up in his hands.
And beside the spear, several pristine, flawless white feathers were placed.
Sephirot's heart stirred.
These must have been feathers he accidentally sliced off Gabriel when he used the Yamato's Rapid Slash. He hadn't expected Dante to pick them up as well.
"I figured as much. You brat went to all that trouble, it had to be for these things."
Dante snorted with a laugh. This little punk had been trailing behind him since he was a kid. Those petty little schemes of his couldn't fool his eyes at all.
"And Satan?"
Sephirot closed the wooden box and asked.
He remembered very clearly.
Before he lost consciousness, this Lord of Hell had already been sent flying by a single punch from Dante, who had activated his Devil Trigger.
It didn't actually become a Devil Arm, did it?
"That fat bastard got a beating from me and was tossed right back into Hell," Dante said. "If I actually killed it, Hell would be in chaos again for a while. Then all those little demons would come flooding into the human world and stir up trouble. I'd have to work overtime. Too much hassle."
Sephirot nodded and set the wooden box aside.
With a top-tier holy relic like the Spear of Destiny as the main body, combined with the jumbled assortment of corpses and materials he had previously tossed into Silent Hill...
Could he ask Nico to forge him a custom Devil Arm?
The thunder sword was useful, but in the end, it wasn't truly his.
Dante rose from his chair and stretched languidly. "Alright, idle chat's over. My stomach's been protesting for half the day now."
With that, he ambled leisurely toward the door.
As he reached the door, his steps paused. He looked back at Sephirot and revealed a grin whose meaning was unclear. "Right, remember to pay this month's electricity bill for the Agency."
"And the dining tab I've racked up for the next several months, settle that too while you're at it."
"Bang!"
The door slammed shut.
Before Sephirot could react, a waft of fragrance rushed toward him.
Patty threw herself into his arms, her hands locking tightly around his waist as she buried her face against his chest.
Sephirot's body stiffened. His hands hovered in midair, unsure where to place them.
The two of them had grown up together in the Agency since childhood. Bickering and roughhousing were the norm between them. But defenseless, intimate contact like this? This was a first.
He could feel Patty's body trembling slightly, along with her warm and rapid breathing.
After a long while, Sephirot's body relaxed. He gently patted Patty on the back.
"Don't be afraid. It's all over now."
Sephirot didn't know what to say, so he could only soften his voice as much as possible to soothe her.
"I'll kill every last one of those bastards."
Patty said nothing. She only held on tighter.
Outside the door, the sunlight on Red Grave Avenue was just perfect.
Dante leaned against the wall, tilting his head up to look at the sun in the sky. A smile spread across his face.
The warm sunlight spilled over his weathered, world-worn face, tinting even the slightly unkempt stubble.
Listening to the young voices murmuring inside, Dante slipped his hands into his pockets, turned, and walked into the shadowed alleyways beyond.
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES — CROSSOVER GUIDE
Some references in this chapter come from source universes that may be unfamiliar to some readers. The notes below provide the context needed to understand them without leaving the page.
CHARACTERS
The mysterious woman (identity unconfirmed) — The woman on the rooftop is not named in this chapter. Her description (jet-black hair that transforms into a form-fitting black leather bodysuit, black-framed glasses, red lips, platform high heels, and the ability to dissolve into pitch-black feathers) strongly matches Bayonetta, the protagonist of the Bayonetta video game series (an Umbra Witch whose magical suit is literally woven from her own hair). Her identity is not confirmed in the text and will be noted once she is named or identified in a later chapter.