A Precious Thing

They say that there is always a part of a lost one that will always live. In nearly every movie I saw when I was a child, the hero would be told the same message over and over again. "They haven't left you, son. They never will. They'll always live as long as you remember and keep them in your heart. They live on inside you."

If that really is the case, then why do I feel as alone as I do now? It's been twenty years since you left me with nothing but my mother's death acting like a blot on my soul. And as for my father…well…I don't even know for sure whether he's alive. We always simply assumed; we never actually had any proof.

If he is alive, then what would he think of me now? What would he say, to see how I live my life? Would there still be some part of him, some demon inside him that would revel and feel pride at the fact that his son is reverting to darkness? That I live the same bloodthirsty life that he once lived, in a time long since past? Or would he cry, in seeing how his blood carries only the ferocity of demons, but none of his values?

I suppose he would cry to see me now. He would cry to see how I have sided with the enemy he fought against. But he would probably be driven to hysteria to know how I am plotting my brother's death at this very moment.

It's so ironic, that when I was born, Sparda must have looked upon his two sons with great pride, a smile pasted onto his human-loving face. How ironic it is, that if he is still alive and he was watching us now, the memories of the joy that we brought him as children must seem so very distant.

Or rather, the joy you had brought him as a child…

I had never been able to make our father smile in the same way that you had done. He loved us both equally, yet all the same, he treated us with some sort of difference.

I wonder…

Had things been any different, and if our roles in life had been reversed, would it be you standing here in these shadows? Would you be plotting my death as I stand here and plot yours? Would it be me standing in the light, for the cause of a sullied human world? Would it be you following the path of the dark to avenge one who's soul was so pure, so perfect?

There are none who know my last thoughts as our father gazed upon our faces one last time before he left us.

I wondered if I would ever see him again.

And I swore that if I did…I would make him smile, just as you had done so many times before.

It's so strange, yet almost sad and fitting in a way, that you are the means by which I keep my vows to our father, who I believe to be dead.

After all, when I send you to your grave, he will smile to see you again.

He will smile.

And then cry when he understands that blood was spilt in order for your meeting to take place.

And you say that devils never cry…