Title: Manifesto Waltz
Chapter One: The Mark
Auther: XkeiSava
Fandom: Devil May Cry
Type: General Fiction
Characters: Reba, Vergil, Shadow-man, Shawn, Zero, Dr. Jarad Strong, Jody
Word Count: 3787
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Reba's life was normal for her standards up until the night she recieved The Mark...
Author's Notes: Fanfiction - that means this may not follow the storyline and some of the concepts may be different and therefore I will not put up with bullshit. Get used to the fact that I do not possess Capcom's natural magick powers to spit out an amazing DMC story with ease. I'd love if I could. 99 Reba, Shawn, Zero and several other concepts are mine, though the DMC concepts are not. Bow down to Capcom sick sweins. Oh and the title for the fanfiction is the title of a song by Moi Dix Mois. I just think the song works for it.

Reba woke abruptly to the darkness of her room. She couldn't place why she'd awoken, but the panic still coursing within her implied a nightmare. When she was unable to clam down, she wondered further.

A sharp scent of something burning caused her to quickly climb across her bed to the half opened window. Down below - not more than a couple feet seeing as her room was on the first floor and it wasn't ground level - two figures were fighting one another. She guessed that this is what had woken her. Nearby, a small fire blazed. One of the men had silver hair that stood up on end and another too shrouded in darkness to see.

They both paused and stared up at her as she toyed with the lock of the screen. Before she knew what was going on, she'd been pulled through both glass and screen, then found herself being restrained by the shadow of a man - he was just barely solid, he really was a shadow - and a blade was pressed to her throat below her voice box. The silver haired on laughed, "What makes you think I care about an insignificant human girl?"

Her captour laughed, "I don't think you would. Look a little closer..."

Reba hadn't a clue what was going on or what he was talking about, but she needed to get out of there somehow. Struggling only caused his grip to tighten and the sharp edge of the blade to press harder almost making it through the skin. The other man's icy glare flashed with something she couldn't quite see due to her lack of very good farsightedness. Reba guessed it was fury.

He narrowed his eyes at Mr. Shadow angrily, "Still do not care..."

Mr. Shadow flinched his brows slightly, "Fine then."

Without warning, she was spun around to face him and the long dagger sliced up her chin and sideways over her right brow. It was so unexpected to her that she couldn't even feel the pain for quite a while.

She was pulled away as the dagger was about to sink itself nicely into her chest causing her more confusion and her head to spin. She was surprised to see Mr. Silver swing her by the wrist against the building in which she'd been taken from. He fought of the shadow with a finely made nodachi down the alley until she could hear no more sounds. Allowing a mild amount of blood to drop from her face, Reba crawled forward cautiously and visually searching for them.

Making her way slowly to her feet, she was almost knocked back down from Mr. Silver being suddenly right in front of her.

"Girl! Your name, please!" he ordered harshly as he grabbed her shoulder to steady her.

Keeping her eyes on his to prevent her head from rolling back, she could feel more pain burning and spreading at the edges of the wound. It took a good amount of strength to speak, "Reba..."

He glance back up at the window and said something, but Reba couldn't hear it. She felt herself slip from his grip as the ground stood up and slapped her. The last thing she remembered was silver hair, blue eyes, his long, blue coat and her name...

"Rebeckha!"

She felt like she couldn't answer. She heard her name several more times before she opened the eye that didn't hurt so bad only to shut it again in pain. Sunlight flooded through the window and suddenly she wondered why she'd moved her bed there. Then she remembered it was because she had trouble getting up in the morning. The morning...

Reba shot up, the heat causing her to sweat severely the only thing she needed to know what time of day it was. Suddenly, her head sent millions of pain signals throughout her body. Her fingertips and toes felt numb.

"What happened to your face?!" her brother, Shawn, demanded, panic written in his features and obvious in his voice.

What happened? Her face? Seeing her confusion, he handed her the purple, stand-up mirror from her bedside table. She found herself at a new focal point on her face; a giant gash from chin to right brow. The thick scab clotting the blood signaled that it happened during the night. Still, it took her a while to realize that that "dream" had been more than just a dream.

Placing the shock on her expression as just that and not realization, Shawn put a hand on her cheek, "You're so cold...and you window..."

"What about it?" as if she needed more confirmation of the events that had taken place the night before.

"We found you on your bed bleeding like that and your window broken in. Zero called the cops; they're down there investigating."

"What time is it?" she couldn't see the clock from the oncoming migraine, but the heat and sunlight told her to was almost midday.

"Almost eleven. You can't leave. The paramedics wanted to check out your injuries and speak to you," Shawn stood.

"Fine..." Reba laid back down and awaited her door to open again.

No more than two minutes passed and a man with long, dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail was asking questions from the end of her bed. She didn't know why, but she felt frightened at merely the thought I explaining what had happened. Who'd believe her anyway?

"You mean you don't remember anything before waking up just now?"

"I told you; no."

"That wound may have caused short term memory loss then. It looks powerful enough," he began to reach over to brush his thumb over it, but thought better and stopped, "Did you feel uncomfortable in your sleep?"

"Sort of...nothing out of the usual though. I have violent nightmares," at least she wasn't flat out lying...

"Hmm, perhaps you did it in your sleep rather than someone else coming in..." he scrawled on his clipboard.

Reba finally made out the letters on his nametag, 'Dr. Jarad Strong.' It suited him, she thought. He was strong looking, for a doctor. It was almost like Zero's build; not body builder, but still enough to make it seem like he'd never lost a battle. She didn't even notice that she was zoning out while trying to find adjectives to describe their build. Dr. Strong was waving his hand in front of her.

"Rebeckha..." he was looking concerned.

"Huh? Oh, I was thinking..." she stared at the space between the wall and the floor behind him.

"About?" he seemed curious.

"Trivialness, say, when are we going to be done? I'm missing school..." Reba was not a geek and did not enjoy school in the least, but it was often times a good excuse to get out of situations she didn't want to be in.

"Oh, you might not return there for the rest of the week. There's the matter of how extensive your injuries really are and then the police report you might have to file. The investigators are baffled by the situation."

"Why?" Reba was getting a bit nervous.

"They found a pool of your blood down there. As if you might've been kneeling there..." he explained.

"What?" she knew why it was there, but had to keep up her clueless act in order to get out of this, "How will I file a report about a situation I don't even remember happening?"

"Well, hopefully the short term memory loss is temporary..."

She interrupted him getting angry, "And if it does not?"

"Then your brother and others may have to keep a closer eye on you," he couldn't understand her anger, "Why are you getting upset?"

"Because, I don't want to deal with this! How would you feel if you woke up like nothing was wrong, when really you slept through your world collapsing around you?" she was getting good at this.

Dr. Strong was taken aback by this, but soon nodded, "I understand...well, that's enough questions."

"Good," she glared at the photos on her wall instead of at him.

"I'm going to subscribe some painkillers for your wound after we've run a full examination in the hospital. Would it be okay if I had a small look now?"

"I don't care," she held as still as she could so that he could lean in and run a gloved finger down her face along the gash. Strong warned her before pressing his finger on it to estimate the depth.

"It's deep, for a face wound, but still less than an inch."

"Stitches?"

"Oh yeah. Big time..." Strong nodded solemnly.

Reba then gave him a surprise; she smiled ecstatically and stood up on her bed, "Well, then lets get this show on the road." She almost regretted it feeling the headache worse now, but still managed to stagger off and down the stairs into the ambulance to the hospital.

Her first day back at school. That meant that she'd missed almost a week's worth of work. That's why Reba would've rather she bled all over her desk than miss it. Missing school wasn't worth making up afterwards. Word of her "attack" had spread all over town - let alone all over school - and she was immediately bombarded with questions before she made it even a block from school.

People she didn't even know felt it their obligation to ask the story and make sure she was alright. She knew all they wanted was the gossip material, so she made up a different story every time someone asked. Reba was going to have fun watching people squabble over which story was true and doubted anyone would come to confirm it either.

Teachers were kind enough to just ask if she was alright. At least they sincerely seemed to be worried about her. She didn't really expect otherwise seeing as she was the school's top writer. The teachers worshipped her since she won that contest three years in a row, soon to be four.

Finding her place at her first period desk, she ignored the whispers of her name and the questions shot at her from all directions. Their English teacher came in and reprimanded them for "bothering her" and explained how they were only making the wound worse. Well, the headache was getting worse seeing as she told her brother she'd taken the painkillers when really didn't.

It became difficult to concentrate on school work around third period. Her Oceanography teacher let her lay her head down a bit while jotting down some notes every now and then. By seventh period she just wanted to stab herself to death.

Eighth period finally rolled around, thankfully, and it was a study hall day. She found herself a nice, empty and quiet corner to isolate into and became invisible. Her invisible gauge must not have been working that day, because people insisted on migrating into that corner and questioning her once again. It was all she could do not to strangle them all.

It was just then that she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Reba spun on her seat hitting some of the people around her, and then held her head in agony. The gash was burning profusely and the gauze was soaking up only as much as it could.

People backed away and their study hall overseer ran across the room to see what was going on. Everyone was panicking and Reba couldn't do anything but stare at the figure out the window through a blood-soaked filter. She thought she heard her teacher say something about calling an ambulance, but she was too drawn by icy eyes to really know.

It was then that a thought occurred, 'I really should've taken those pills…'

She could feel Shawn and Zero's presence. It was something she'd been around so much and had grown so used to that she knew when they were near. 'Why are they in my study hall?'

There were several things that Reba realized then, like the fact that it was silent and she was laying on something that might be a bed. When she opened the eye that hurt less, it was completely dark and she was in her room. There was new, clean gauze covering a good part of the right half of her face. She noticed a slightly bloodied band around her arm where an IV needle may have once been. Her body ached endlessly.

Reba slid out of her bed. She was either heavier or weaker because her knees buckled and she almost fell, but held herself up on the edge of her desk. A long list of profanities flowed from her as she made her way to the door and followed her senses into the living room. Shawn was passed out on the couch while Zero flipped through the channels in disinterest and boredom.

"Reba!" he stood, "You feelin' okay?"

As he approached her, she continued to watch Shawn's breathing as he slept, "What happened?"

"We don't really know. People must've been crowding you too much because you had a spazz attack and started gushing from the face…" his large, soft blue eyes reminded her of what she'd seen through the window of her school.

"How long was I out for?" she rubbed her left temple.

"It's been two days since it happened."

Somehow the concept of being out for two days seemed unreal to her. What had gone on within that time period? It happened Monday, so that meant it was already the end of Wednesday…or Thursday. What had been staring at her?

"By the way, Rebez," Zero said in a bit of a lighter mood, "You've got loads of love in the kitchen and on the answering machine."

She gave him a look, "What?"

He pressed playback on the answering machine and she heard one of her friends' voices wishing luck and health. The voices got less familiar as the recordings ensued. They all said the same thing like they'd all gotten together and assigned words from the dictionary and thesaurus to each person. Sometimes, they sounded forced, like they had to do it to be popular. Then came messages from teachers and hospital orderlies – a lot of which she either didn't know or didn't remember. The click ending the messages brought her back from her subconscious.

"Go to the kitchen and…" Zero was interrupted by someone knocking at the door. He shrugged, "Go see. I'll get the door."

Reba mimicked his shrug and did as he asked. On the counter by the sink were countless gifts waiting for her; wrapped presents, balloons – most with words like "Get well soon" – ribbon, fluff, her favourite colour purple and so on. Something caught her eye more than the rest of the gifts. It wasn't something particularly attention grabbing, but it had that effect anyway. Picking up the small, wooden box, Reba made to open it, but was foiled in her plan when someone called to her from behind.

"Yeah?" she droned a bit annoyed.

"Ooo! You're just starting to open them, aren't you? Open mine first!"

Reba sort of smiled at her friend's optimism. Jody hugged her from behind after Reba stealthily slid the box into the large pockets of her Tripp pants. She just realized she'd been wearing the same clothes for almost three days now. Thankfully, Jody's body-spray overpowered her own body odor.

"I need a shower," she stated.

"Alright. I'll carry all this stuff to your room for you then, okay? I want to watch you open them all!"

Jody's smile brought her mood up a small notch and she was suddenly grateful for her presence, "Okay, thanks. See you in a few." She picked some clothes from her closet and made her way to the bathroom. Immediately after locking the door, she leaned back against it, removed the box from her pocket and opened it. Inside was a strange looking necklace. The charm had a stone in it that resembled a ruby, but she knew it wasn't one. A year of earth science had taught her that much. The chain was golden and cool to the touch. It felt pleasingly strange in her palm, as if pulsing slightly. Her heart sped up a bit…

'Fuck…' she dropped the necklace feeling all the blood rush to her head and seemingly boil. She stared at the necklace then moved to the shower and turned on the water. Barely giving the necklace a side glance as she removed her clothes, Reba busied her mind on cleaning herself rather than who the necklace had been from and why they'd given it to her. It just didn't seem like a get well gift to her.

Cleanliness made her feel cold. Scrubbing the layers of dead skin, dried blood and such off took down her weight and she felt vulnerable. At least she didn't smell anymore.

Jody smiled when Reba walked in with a towel wrapped around her head, dressed in a pink Zero t-shirt with a pink-and-black striped shirt underneath, matching Tripp pants that were zipped off into shorts and black ankle socks with neon, glow-in-the-dark stars. She'd actually made an effort to put on her 22m. bullet collar, corresponding bracelet and all five rings. Reba returned the smile in the form of a smirk, "Bored yet?"

"Never boring with the constant worry of you over my head…"

"That so?" she rubbed the towel against her platinum-blonde hair to dry it, "Well, I guess worrying is good for something."

"I guess," She spotted the necklace around Reba's neck she'd never seen before, "That one of the gifts?"

"Huh?" Reba followed her stare to her neck and didn't remember even picking up the necklace. Perhaps she was losing her mind, "Oh, yeah. It's probably from Shawn or Zero."

"You don't know?" she raised a brow.

"Didn't come with a card. Just came in the wooden box, here," she tossed the box at Jody.

"Hmm, it's pretty," she was commenting on the carved in design of what looked like a phoenix.

"Yeah, I thought so too," Reba finally found the brush she'd been searching the room for – right on her desk – and ran it through damp hair in front of the mirror. She watched Jody's reflection in the mirror.

"You should blow dry it," she commented, "It'd look better."

"Now, sweetie, you know I'm not going for looks here. Especially not now," Reba chuckled a bit at her own silliness.

"Hehe, well, I think you wouldn't look like you're wearing a big sign on your forehead saying 'fuck you' if you tried to go for looks once in a while…" Jody offered an unsure smile.

Being friends since almost birth – Jody had been a year ahead of her – they were pretty much open about everything. Even when it came to how bad the other looked and their opinions about one another. The only opinions that really mattered to Reba were hers, Torrin's, Shawn's and Zero's. Nobody else mattered to her.

Reba shrugged, "Maybe when I get better I'll try it."

Jody giggled, "Yaaay! And I'll help!"

"Ready to open those gifts?" Reba crawled up the end of the bed and sat opposite of Jody. Jody bounced and clapped happily. 'Guess that's a yes…' she mused in mirth, "Which one was yours again?"

"This one," Reba was handed a wrapped present and a card in a purple envelope. She opened the card first not at all surprised to see how funny it was.

"'Ten reasons why I got you this card'?" The corners of Reba's lips curled up a bit and she raised her brows, "'The voices'…hearing voices are we, Jody?"

"Maybeh!"

Laughing a bit, Reba ensued to unwrapping the present. She found in her hands a large box of pocky and the special edition Silent Hill DVD. Jody grinned when Reba couldn't contain her excitement over the gift, "And that's not all…" she opened her skelanimals tote bag, pulled out a hat of some sort and placed it over Reba's head. It was a black beanie with kitty ears, eyes, nose and whiskers. Reba looked at it in the mirror on her nightstand and meowed like a kitten, "Yay!"

"Next one! Next one!" Jody clapped and bounced on the bed happily.

"Alrigh', alrigh'," she placed the gifts and card from Jody on the desk chair. She grabbed at a random present and tore the paper off. It was the bullet belt she'd wanted from Hot Topic forever. Torrin, a friend even closer to her than Jody, was who the card said it was from. She gave Jody a grin and replaced the studded belt she'd been wearing with the bullet one, "Being injured just keeps getting better!"

Jody laughed, "I guess that's good! Hey, you think you're up for a car ride after opening the rest of these?"

"Yeah, I think I'll be fine. You know car rides make me feel better anyway. Have a certain place in mind?" she idly opened another card.

"No…I just know you love car rides."

Reba laughed at the card, and then looked at Jody with a smile, "Let's visit Jeffry!"

"I was hoping you'd say that," Jody looked sad, but happy as well.

Jeffry was her youngest brother who'd been killed. Nobody knew how or who, not even why. But Reba could tell Jody was scared for her. Losing her might cause Jody to lose her world. That was Reba's purpose in life; 'I will live for my friends, though they would not for me.'