The Chessboard

Chapter 1: Apertura


She passed one after another, the pages of an old book. She kept her eyes fixed on the worn yellowish paper of the grimoire that she was reading with total interest. A frivolous smile appeared on her lips.

Meanwhile, the rain fell outside, blurring the only window in the room with tiny drops that slid down the glass. The blond-haired woman watched it in silence, sitting in one of the chairs around the tea table. The aroma of peach delighted her before she suddenly closed the book and drank a careful sip of the steaming cup of European porcelain.

"A storm is coming ... and it seems it will be strong." She said loudly to herself as if she was the only one in the room, which wasn't entirely true. "I thought you liked this kind of weather, didn't you, Angelo?"

"Don't speak to me as if I was your disciple, Valeria." Countered a young boy who suddenly appeared in one of the empty chairs, with a small smirk.

"I'm not doing so." She said resting the tea cup on the small wooden table next to the book. She gave a sly look to the younger. "I'm just trying to be nice."

"...Sure..." He closed an eye. "Be 'nice' all you want, it won't make me forget anything." He glared, eyes cloudy. "... ...And incidentally, I already heard that the son of Sparda broke the fortress of Fortuna, killing his holiness and several servants of Mundus..." Angelo's smirk grew considerably. "Doesn't that mean that you will become the new mistress of ceremonies at the death of our priest? My, my... what a sweet coincidence, don't you think?"

She replied with a hearty laugh as she crossed her legs. "How harsh, how rancourous. I told myself that someone like you was the best company I might have for tea. I won't get bored at all. And what of it, hm? I'm sure you don't mind at all, about me being the heiress of the order. ...Or do you? Go ahead and say it out loud~, you and I know too well about the situation which we are now in, so there's no need to pretend between us." She sniggered.

"..." The black haired boy said absolutely nothing, maintaining a haughty look as he waited in silence for an explanation that could answer his question: why did she summon him, anyway?

"I love the way you're so insightful, Angelo. That's why I'd like to talk with you about a certain topic in question, even if you don't want to nor like me."

"And what kind of business could our new mistress have with me, hmm?"

Valeria twisted her smile so it would match with the permanent smirk that decorated the face of the younger slayer.

"Even though you have a vague idea of what I want to do, you still dare to ask me? You will never cease of surprising me." She replied visibly amused.

"..." Angelo remained silent for several seconds, considering his response. "...I see... so you finally decided to advance your move..." he finally said, seeming to understand the situation. "I doubt Mundus will be very happy about that... but you don't give a shit about it, right?"

"My, my..." She cackled with great fun. "You didn't need to reply me like that… what a harsh person you are..."

"Are you sure you will have enough with using me as an executioner?" He asked, ignoring Valeria's mocking. "The chances of finding that woman are very close to zero, and let me remind you that this is one of the many reasons why we have continued to fail again and again."

Valeria's bold expression hadn't faltered once before now, she seemed to enjoy herself even though her companion was constantly putting obstacles to her not-so noble intentions. Yes, you could even say that she, somehow, seemed to have fun.

"You're right…" She nodded. "She is a very clever fox who has denied the inevitable for a very long time… no matter how many times we went after her, she would just run away and that's all." She poured more tea into the fancy cup until the dark and smoky liquid overflowed. "Tell me Angelo… What should I do to trick a wily fox?" She drank the liquid in one but careful gulp.

"...Even though I'm now starting to hate with all my heart your stupid riddles, I think I'll follow your game for a little while longer..." He sighed, closing his eyes as the blonde woman looked at him with amusement. "Perhaps the key to get her lies in the fact of making her come to us. Getting her attention will do the trick..." He reasoned. "Those are your thoughts, right?"

"The game will start very soon..." She answered deterring the question, but Angelo took the small smile that remained on her lips as a 'yes'. "...And why don't begin it with all the pawns ready, hmm?" Both of them started laughing loudly and ominously. "We will surely find her, I can tell."


"Can you turn off that damn music and listen when I'm talking, Dante?" Lady gave him an icy stare from the front seat while making gestures of annoyance, but Dante, greatly amused, ignored them while he followed the rhythm of the frenetic melody with his foot. In his right hand he carried a portion of his favorite food, pizza. Lady sometimes wondered if he really never came to hate said food.

The song that played on the jukebox pierced her eardrums considerably, and she wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day she had a headache. Of course, that fact only increased the terrible desire she had to kill him right there, but that wouldn't benefit her in the future, so that was basically why she was making the great effort of contain her anger and not riddle with bullets the demon that sat in front of her and dared to smile arrogantly. Clearly, if things weren't like that, Dante would have a beautiful and bloody hole adorning his forehead by now.

Lady heaved a long sigh.

"There is this girl who was killed a few days ago," she said as she left over the wooden desk in front of her a small piece of paper with some notes written in it. "…And other people who disappeared weeks ago have now appeared dead in different parts of the city."

Dante took the paper from the desk with his free hand while the other was still holding the piece of pizza he was eating. His left foot was still kicking the ground, raising a little dust in the process.

"Her mother hired me and showed me the research that she made on her own about this incident. It proved that a demon was the main focus in this subject, so I recommended you myself." She said before he would ask her -if he were really going to ask her.

"And now I am the one who must find and kill the demon that did all that, right?" He asked, showing that, despite the loud background music, he was listening to her.

"Exactly."

Dante left the paper on the desk -Lady doubted he had the time to read it properly- again and raised an eyebrow as he gave a slight bite to his pizza. His expression was pensive and, actually, that was a good sign, because it meant that he was considering her offer, that he was thinking about it. …After all, Dante didn't know when he was losing a good job and since she was familiarized with that sort of stuff, that made her a reliable person in that area even though she usually… well, 'tricked' him with the payment of her jobs.

"You said that other people besides the daughter of this woman also disappeared weeks ago and now were found dead, right?" The brunette nodded and, with her approval, Dante continued. "How many people died? A lot of them? A few?"

"…Well," she began. "If I'm not mistaken, the average number of people killed so far would be around twenty-three."

"Huh?" Muttered the stunned demon, leaving his routine piece of food in the greasy box with a sudden loss of appetite. "Don't you think that's too many?"

"Of course, that's why I gave you this job, after all." The huntress leaned further into her seat and gave him a mischievous smile. "Because you will accept it, right?"

Again, Dante returned to remain silent with a serious expression, though not for too long. She was totally unaware of what was going through his head, but she soon saw the half-demon smiling mischievously at her as he put his legs over the messy and dusty desk.

"Babe, as long as you come with me, I won't have any objections." He finally said, breaking the silence between them, adding a flirty wink that made the brunette demon huntress roll her eyes in frustration. Typical.

"Okay, okay then. Tomorrow we will inform the customer." She said with emphasis. "I pointed out the direction and also the time when I decided to talk to her about it on that paper, so you better come there soon." She said, but Dante seemed to be more entertained looking at her cleavage than listening to her. "No need to tell you what I'm gonna do to you if you're late."

Dante raised his hands in defeat, smiled with arrogance and, for the first time in all day, looked into her eyes.

"Definitely, not necessary."

And then Lady got up and walked towards the door as Dante's eyes observed with delight the movement of her slender legs. The half demon smiled with amusement at the great views that the brunette gave him now from behind. How many times had he fantasized about explicit and obscene things with her that even the naughtiest person in the world would blush just by thinking about them? Many times, a lot, actually. Not even the fingers of both of his hands could count the times in which he had to take cold showers because of those fantasies or because of her opened blouses. Sometimes, if not almost always, Dante thought of her as someone more important than a partner in the business or as someone who occasionally came to troll and bitch at him and take his money.

Unfortunately, that feeling wasn't reciprocated in the same way by Lady. In fact, a single act or comment from him that promised something more than just a simple relationship between the two of them was received by Lady with overwhelming anger, and then he ended with his face riddled with bullets.

Her violent attitude had never managed to stop his attempts to seduce her, anyway. No matter how much ammunition she emptied into his head or how many punches he received from her, he kept trying, and his permanent grin every time she was beside him was the irrefutable proof that he was certain that, one day, she would fall into his arms. It was only a matter of time, of course.

...Now that he remembered all his failed attempts... Today it was raining, a lot, too much for comfort, and the wind, even though it wasn't as strong as to take down someone of his size, could be mistaken by the ones of a typhoon. It was surely a windy rain. And besides, it was getting late...

"Do you really want to go now, with this entire storm dropping out?" The mocking voice of the platinum haired hunter was heard in the tense silence before the woman had the chance of opening the door to get out from there.

"I can take care of myself." She said turning her head toward him, holding the handle of the newly fixed door.

"But it's raining a lot and you didn't even bring your bike with you." He smiled wickedly. "I wouldn't forgive myself if you catch a cold."

Lady rolled her eyes again at the constant obstacles that Dante was putting on her.

"Where are you getting at?" She asked while puffing angrily.

"Well, you could stay here and wait for the storm to cease." He rose from his seat and approached her. His smile widened significantly and, of course, the brunette huntress didn't like it one bit. "I promise that I will behave myself for most of the time."

Lady placed her finger on her lips, pretending that she was considering Dante's offer.

"…Hmm, let me think about it… no."

"Ouch, that hurt me, Lady." He said as he propped his hands on his chest, making a dramatic pose. "You just broke my heart into thousands of tiny pieces, you know?"

"I have no time for your bullshit, Dante."

…And as if the weather wanted prove her right, at that moment, just when the huntress slammed the door shut, there was a huge lightning that, by the thundering sound that it made, seemed to hit nearby. After that, Dante found himself all alone in the dark, because thanks to that lightning, the lights had gone, along with the stereo, which had fallen silent at the end of the song and all it could be heard was the relentless sound of the falling rain. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, the half demon made his way to the desk of his office and took the paper that Lady gave him for the job. Then, thanks of his heightened senses that were more developed than the ones of a human, he could read the annotations that the huntress wrote there even being in total darkness. The street, the house number of the customer and the time in which he had to be present were recorded in a quick and nearly illegible handwriting, characteristic of Lady. That made him grin madly, because in his imagination, and if he took things out of context, it seemed as if he and she were going to have a date.


Sitting on a filthy stool, the golden-haired demoness looked with boredom the dusty and dirty bar counter in which her arms were resting at that moment. In the background she could hear the constant bellowing of some mercenaries that were on the verge of reaching the state of coma. The mercenaries that didn't have any trace of shame or pride that dared to look at her naughtily and even make obscene gestures to her that she completely ignored, because if she didn't, she was sure she would have reduced that local into ashes and rubble by now.

And speaking of the local… Dear God, what a place it was… For starters, the infernal tavern was small, very small, which facilitated that the smell of snuff, alcohol and sweat mingled with each other, forming a new type of scent that just the act of smelling it produced headache. At least, as a consolation, she was already used to it, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't unpleasant at all.

Then, most of the 'wildlife' that swarmed through there was… Well, 'unpleasant', and the worst thing of all was that it was increasing; veteran mercenaries were running short and the amateur ones seemed to emulate the same behavior of those annoying drunkards. In other words, there wasn't a middle point.

All those facts made her grow moody at times, and her concerns and conspiracy theories about the latest incidents occurred in the city also pissed her off. Although she was actually very close to Devil May Cry –only a few miles away from there- and nothing bad should happen, she still had the strange feeling that something was not quite all right, and that bothered her… But well, what the hell, it was natural to think that things were not going well considering the situation which they were now in, because in those moments, the entire population of the city thought like her, because things had taken a strange and twisted path.

The city, which had remained at a level of standard demonic activity, now showed a rate that exceeded the normal. Many people, from what she had heard, were terrified by that fact. There were even people who said that currently, the number of demons in the city exceeded those that had once been in there when the Temen Ni Gru was raised, and that's saying a lot considering the catastrophe that it resulted, with so many deaths and so many failed evacuations.

And that's why Trish wanted to return to the city, return to Devil May Cry. She wanted to know if everything was okay and if Dante had a vague idea of what was happening, because it didn't matter how many questions about that matter she asked or how many attempts to get information she made; she still had no answer.

"My, my… You look worried, dear. What's going through your pretty head?" Asked a voice whose owner hadn't been noticed by her at first, but when she lifted up her eyes to locate him, she found him right in front of her. He was a young man with black disheveled hair, possessor of two powerful and haunting green eyes, a gaze that spoke for itself. Trish smiled, pleased to see him.

"Hey, Thomas." She said in a way of greeting. "Where the fuck have you been all this time? I was beginning to think that you had fallen off the toilet."

"Always so vulgar…" replied the bartender, laughing, visibly amused. "You know, when it makes this kind of weather for such a long time, people as wimpy as I often catch colds of epic proportions. I thought someone like you could understand something as simple as that, but perhaps that saying about blonde women is true, anyway."

"Heh, here I am, worried about you, and you're making jokes about the connection between the color of my hair and my intelligence." She said acting like a victim. "How cruel… I thought we were friends."

"And we are, dear, and we are. Don't you remember that time when you got so wasted that I had to take you home before you had the awesome idea of climbing one of the tables of the bar and try to dance like a pole dancer?"

The demoness laughed at the vague memory of that night in which she managed to beat Dante's record of getting drunk in less than ten minutes.

"We're like the bestest, bestest friends, aren't we?" She said while laughing along with him.

…And it wasn't a lie, of course. Trish established a good friendship with Thomas, who proved to be more sympathetic than the bar owner, who was just as rude as the specimens that frequented that place. Seeing him again after so long really made her day, or at least slightly. Besides, it was always good to talk with him, and not just for having a laugh, but also for business topics, since Thomas usually informed her about rumors he occasionally heard in work while serving beers and other kind of alcoholic stuff to mercenaries. …in that moment, the blonde woman needed urgently that kind of information, something that could answer her concerns.

…Thomas noticed it, though. The disturbed face that she made when they stopped laughing at the same time was like an open book to him, reading it with ease.

"…But you surely didn't come here today to see my ever so beautiful face or to chat with me, did you, Trish?" Touché. He hit the nail on the head. "What has upset you this time, hmm?"

"…I …I was just thinking…" The demoness supported her right fist on her cheek with a thoughtful gesture, heaving a sigh in the process. "There has been a lot of demonic activity recently, more than usual… Then there's this issue of the missing people that were found dead, their bodies all mutilated, which it's a great proof that something's off, but even so, the demons that I found and killed so far were too weak to do something as brutal as that… Well, it's weird." She concluded with a frown.

"Ah, yes…" Said the waiter while nodding. "I've heard about it on the TV. The murders." As he spoke, Thomas took a glass and a bottle at his feet and then poured the liquid in the glass container and handed it to Trish. "Now that I think about it, a guy walking around here also complained about something like that, more or less…" He put the bottle of liquor on a shelf under his feet and then rested his arms on the bar in a casual and friendly pose while continuing his dialogue. "Apparently, he was assigned a work of extermination in the outskirts of the city, nothing unusual, apparently."

"And then?" The blonde asked, raising an eyebrow before taking a sip of her drink.

"Well," he continued, "recently, perhaps a few hours before, he returned wounded, saying that he had seen a man among all that demonic chaos without even flinching."

"A man, you say…?" She asked. Thomas nodded.

"His fellow companions didn't seem to believe his fantastic story but, maybe, you will appreciate better this story, since you have seen stranger things than them."

…A man, heh? Trish thought that, maybe, he could be a demon in human disguise, and that would explain, somehow, the great demonic activity in this city. Something was commanding all these creatures to kill humans, and that something could be him, with the purpose of, perhaps, conquering the human realm or perhaps to gain power or something like that… Whatever it may be, the demoness had to communicate this to Dante, especially if things were coming to such extremes in which each passing day, the population of the city decreased dramatically, regardless of their gender and age.

"…And then, did I clarify your doubts, perhaps?"

"Hmm?" His voice was heard as an echo that broke all her train of thoughts. Trish came back to reality and looked at the black-haired man who smiled at her with complicity. "Oh, of course, Thomas." She said sarcastically with a smile. "You are pure love."

Trish drank the liquid from the glass in one gulp and quickly pulled out from the tight pocket of her trousers the money she owed to the waiter for her consumption.

"Perhaps, another day when I'm not too busy, I may enjoy more of your moronic company." She said with amusement from afar as she made her way to the exit door. "See you another day, little asshole."

And then she left, slamming the door shut.

Thomas, meanwhile, resumed the tasks he'd been performing before she came to talk with him with a long sigh, putting the money in the cash register and then serving the customers that were stacked across the bar. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at the situation, Thomas didn't have much work that day; the place was emptier than usual. His boss would certainly be pulling out his hair for all the losses of money that it was causing that rainy day, but on second thought, what hair would he be pulling out if that disgusting fatass was bald? The waiter smiled, amused by that thought.

Following the routine of his work, Thomas went to serve a client who sat in one of the gnawed stools on the other side of the bar. He seemed tired... or bored, just by looking at the way in which he sat… or maybe a mixture of both.

"Well, well… It seems we have a new face around here." He said with a raised eyebrow. "What do I serve thee, boy? I don't have all day."

The customer, with black hair and blue eyes, showed him a cruel smirk.

"Actually, I was already going to get out of here." He said with a tone of amusement, a deranged smirk on his lips.


A/N: Well, chapter one is finished. If you see some kind of orthographic error or typographic error, please let me know it, since English is not my maternal language. All kind of constructive criticism is welcomed. Thanks for reading.

* "Apertura", means "Opening". In the terminology of chess, the Opening is the beginning of the game, the first moves. Ah~, I feel so pedantic.