Moving on


Stiletto heels clicked loudly as she had made her way down that snowy bridge, ignoring demon corpses. Her hips swayed sensually, ever alluring.

The greatest advantage to photographic memory was that even the slightest and dumbest facts became engraved in her mind.

She had been clad in white and gold, royal and elegant, yet deadly and sensual. She paid no mind to his mocking laughter and claims of how 'white was not her color'.

Hm.

No. Dante was right. If she was honest, the demoness didn't consider herself a fan of white, and she knew that it didn't suit her in the slightest. Exceptions could happen if a certain situation required it, and the Fortuna incident had been one of those situations.

Trish always loved dark colors the best, black in particular. Black, black, black. It was such a pity those people had to wear such atrocities...

Didn't you know? The color of a woman's clothes can tell a lot of things about her.

A woman, clad in black, the picture of perfection. At the same time, she's the picture of danger in a physical form. It was fitting for the Black Angel itself.

It was because of her being used to wearing her usual, tight fitting, black leather clothes that all of the white made her feel strange. It wasn't fitting of her character at all. It wasn't a wonder why Dante burst into a fit of loud cackles when he first saw her. She considered herself lucky that she wasn't all white, otherwise she would have never heard the end of it from him. The sudden image in Trish's mind of her with blonde hair, pale skin and wearing white clothes was enough to make her grimance, followed by a snort of disgust. In the beginning, she knew that the annoying, pain in the ass half devil wouldn't let it go she would be wearing white clothes. She made it clear before she started that she would be a beautiful woman with black skin. She would be the embodiment of lust. Only then would she be able to put up with that she had to wear white, the color of virgins.

Wait.

No. That's not good, either.

Images of Dante came to her mind again -most of them involved him laughing his head off, again-, and she inwardly facepalmed. The Dante inside her head was right, too.

Those oh-so-catholic clothes wouldn't help her gain a status on an order full of frustrated menthat fast. Sparda, no matter how valuous, wouldn't be enough.

A perfect human with perfect, puritan clothes wielding Sparda would be an outcast. That sounds way too perfect to be true. The only female of the order -or one of the very, very, very few- with a legendary sword...

She had to be intelligent. She had something she could use to her advantage, and was it so bad? She forgot about obscene stares and made her alter ego perfect in her own way.

They would never notice her.

They never did until the end. After all, staring at her breasts and tights was much easier. Who would care about the origins of the new one with such tentative views?

She had snickered to herself at the memory, and guess what? She is snickering now at that, about how the old man hadn't even done a thing to stop her, ignoring the bewildering stare from the teen before her. Back then, when she was wearing white instead of black, the sniggering was short lived.

The clicking of the heels stopped, and her breath held for a moment of tension. There, in front of her, she saw him.

She had smiled to herself as she had eyed her young prey for the first time.

Fresh meat.

She was not talking about the meat under her heels or the meat splattered on her clothes.

"I owe you thanks."She had said sultry, not bothered by the mess behind her, as she made her way to him, breasts bouncing.

He had taken his time to reply, a nonchalant expression on his face, not seemingly impressed at her display of stylish, sexy violence.

Hardy. I like that.

He had lowered the revolver, slowly. When he had looked at her, her predatory smirk had widened, and when he started the conversation, she couldn't help but come in closer.

"Are ya new? I haven't seen you before." The little one, Trish had noticed, felt a bit... ah, what was that?

Embarrassed. He had avoided eye contact with her like the plague.

"I am new." She had got closer to him. "I'm Gloria." She winked.

He had turned around, away from her and her eyes.

"So you're Nero, right? I've heard rumors 'bout you."

He moved uncomfortably, avoiding her piercing eyes. "And who hasn't?"

Definitely cute.

She hadn't given up, and whenever he turned around so she couldn't see his face, she would stubbornly move towards him so she was positioned in front of him once again. She would keep harassing him, observing and memorizing his features.

Nero is stubborn too, and he had been as such back then, constantly turning around so he could avoid her, facing north for a second, then facing east for another second or two, then west, and then he settled in south.

He's still stubborn.

"So what's the deal? Where are they comin' from?" he had asked in the end, changing the subject, folding his arms.

She narrowed her eyes. "It's strange," she had said as she twirled one of her blades playfully, "no matter how many you kill..." she bent down, spreading her legs brazenly wide for her to hid her weapon and for him to see. "...more will come."

As she had expected, the teen just couldn't tear his eyes away from the show.

"Eh..." he had stammered as his cheeks acquired a furious pink tone of color. At the same time, he averted his gaze from her.

How cute. Not much, but enough for her to notice. She doesn't need much of a reaction to notice if something in someone's persona has changed or not. Practice. Second nature, you could say.

Years in the human world meant nothing to a demon, and Trish hasn't forgotten about her days in the demon realm yet (but she hopes she will). She studied what bothered him, what made him curl his lips in distaste... After him, everyone was just easy to read.

The kid thought she hadn't noticed, and she knew he'd been doing his best at covering the blush. He had blushed and turned his head around, tearing his eyes away from her teasing, playful ones, and from her tights. Right then, as he made his way to the Castle and bid her farewell, one word had managed to become clear inside the blonde's mind:

Beautiful.

Ha, he was, right? He was beautiful, and she meant it. How could she not mean it?

He had been beautiful too, but he had never liked to hear her (or anyone's) opinion about him, and he sure as hell wouldn't had liked to be called 'beautiful'. She wouldn't say that aloud anyway. Not even teasingly.

That strange, pale kid is so much like him it makes her giddy. He's charming and definitely nice (nice in Trish's standards), but necrophiliac she is not. The memory of him, the old times, made her back up a bit. Just a little. Even still, she still has an urge to pull his cheeks, run her hands on his chest, and claim him as her own before he died of embarrassment (or before she had the feeling she was making out with a corpse). Whatever came first.

Dante had noticed it too, during that peculiar journey months ago. She knew. That's why the boy has Yamato in his possession now. That's why she's back to Fortuna.

The way his hair would slick back when a rush of air came at him, or the way he would get angry. Something as simple as the white of his hair and the baby-blue of his eyes made Trish like him all the more.

Yeah. She likes that kid. She likes the way his eyes shine with arrogance and joviality, the way nothing fazes him too much and the way his body was oh-so-sensitive to the point he wouldn't want anyone to hug him or simply nudge at his arm. That wouldn't stop her. It never would.

She has mixed feeling about the way he's so disturbingly like him, yet so different. She likes it, even though that also works as a turn off and it's a can of worms. She doesn't like it when he's quiet or that azure blur coming from his demonic arm. That buzz of power emanating from him is like candy and it can make her lose control, and she doesn't want to lose it in front of him so early. It reminds her of unpleasant memories.

"Cha' aren't a talkative little'un, hm?" she says in a breath, red lips forming a wide smirk that showed sharp fangs.

In her real form, blonde and clad in black, he doesn't know her, yet she still can make his cheeks turn red by just batting her eyes. She could still make him blush even after the months that had passed and as a total stranger to the kid's eyes. Heh. Dante thought he was gay...

She feels compelled to 'awww' at the boy. He really was a small, sassy cutie.

For now, he says nothing, and maybe he's considering if she's an enemy or a stalker. Stalk is such a bad word… She prefers to say 'exhaustive researching of an individual'.

It's not 'stalking' (again, Dante laughs hard in her mind). Was it so bad for her to care about him? She really did, and no. No.

He wasn't a replacement.

Oh. About that girl? She's not afraid. He will get tired of this new prude toy he has now. He's just in denial. Trish will win. She knows she will. She's vibrant, she's sensual, she's joyful, she's young yet womanly and she can understand him and won't judge him. She won't be afraid of him, which is quite different from the dead girl he holds close to his heart... She's so much better. More importantly, she's ageless.

She's not fitting for him. Young love is so blind, but he will see it Trish's way, eventually. Young and inexperienced, he doesn't quite know what he wants. She will make him see.

Without love, it cannot be seen. The blonde can wait for his eyes to open and she has her ways to make that happen.

Eternity is so long, after all... The girl won't stand a chance. Even if it sounds cruel, it is the truth.

"Say, hadn't we met before?" she hears him say, finally after some moments of utter silence, as he plays with the revolver in his right hand.

If only you knew...

She lost the right to be 'the perfect, elegant lady in black' the moment her angel vanished and her master tried to get rid of her. The title was long gone, but it clings to her like an annoying fly. She doesn't want to live for a memory.

Move on, that's what they say. Trish has already found that someone who could be able to make her.

For him, she can endure wearing white more often if he wants her to, since it seems he likes it quite a bit. Every once in a while, at least. It'll be hard, though; old habits die hard, but that's how life works, right?

Love truly is blind. Then again, wasn't that too much of a big word?