Vergil stepped out of the black car and into the cold, wintry air outside, the harsh wind causing his eyes to water slightly. He wrapped his arms around himself to keep warm as he took in the sight of Westbrook School - his new home. A soft sigh escaped his lips, coming out as a puff due to the cold. The young boy turned back to the car when his brother didn't join him on the outside. Vergil frowned and peeked back into the car, seeing his twin still hugging his knees as he had been for the whole trip. "Come on, Dante. You need to get out of the car now."

The younger twin just glared at his older brother, his arms tightening around his legs. "No. I wanna go home. I hate it here."

"Dante, we can't go home no matter how much we want to. Mother wanted us here. It said so in her will," reasoned Vergil, trying to sound as soothing as possible, despite his annoyance. Ever since the demons attacked and killed their mother, Vergil had taken up the responsibilty of looking after his brother. Even though he was only eight and couldn't do too much, he had promised himself to do the best he could.

After glancing pleadingly at the driver and receiving a silent head shake, Dante finally gave in and scooted across the seats and out of the car. He clutched his red coat close to his body, a scowl set on his face. The twins made their way to the trunk of the vehicle, where their driver was pulling out their luggage. Baggage in hand, Dante and Vergil bid their driver goodbye for the last time and quickly trekked up to the entrance of the school where a tall, stern looking woman was standing. Her black hair was pulled back into an extremely tight bun without a single stray hair, even in the howling wind. She wore a long, tan winter coat over her clothes and black gloves on her hands to protect her from the chill.

"Welcome to Westbrook," the woman said as Dante and Vergil approached, her tone crisp and professional. The boy in red glanced back at the road behind them discretely, wanting to just run back to the car and ride on top of it if he had to. Unfortunately, the road was empty now except for a few fallen leaves blowing across it in the wind.

Vergil managed a polite smile. "Are you Headmistress Violet Connoly?" he asked, recalling her name from the numerous meetings that took place to decide where he and Dante would live until they were eighteen.

The woman's steady gaze rested on Vergil first, then shifted to his twin, who was scowling at the ground just a few feet behind him. Once she had gotten a good look at the silver-haired twins, she replied, "I am. Please follow me to my office." With that, she turned on her heel and entered the building.

Dante and Vergil followed her inside, dragging their bags along behind them. They found the headmistress had stopped in the entrance hall and was conversing with a short, balding man with terrible posture. It was easy to see that the man was not at all thrilled about whatever the woman was telling him.

The two adults walked back over to the twins, the man with a bitter expression on his face. "This is Mr. Weitzman. He is one of the janitors of the school and will take your bags up to your dorm," Headmistress Connoly informed her newest charges.

Both Dante and Vergil gave the man a suspicious look before relinquishing their bags to the janitor. The boys watched as Mr. Weitzman lumbered up the staircase that was in the middle of the room. Once the janitor was gone, the headmistress nodded to them and turned to her left, signalling to the boys that they should follow. Dante stared at his brother, his ice blue eyes begging Vergil to just slip back out the door with him and bolt. The eldest twin just shot his sibling a disapproving glare before sliding an arm through his and dragging him through the door in which the headmistress had just disappeared.

The twins entered the office, neither of them surprised at how organized it seemed. The room was circular with a few perfectly placed paintings on the walls. Toward the back in front of a large, rectangular window with deep red drapes, sat a perfectly arranged oak desk, everything on top of it seeming to be strategically placed. Small bookshelves accomodated each side of the desk against the wall, several books crammed onto its shelves.

"Have a seat, please," Headmistress Connoly stated, her voice slightly less formal than it had been so far. She had removed her coat and was wearing a dark blue skirt suit with a white blouse underneath. As soon as the boys had sat down in the two chairs in front of her desk, the headmistress also took a seat in her high-backed chair. "Well, first I wish to say that I'm sorry to hear about your loss and we will do everything in our power to make you feel at home here."

Dante's eyes darkened and he opened his mouth to make a snippy retort, but Vergil shot him a frosty glare that could have frozen his brother to his seat. The boy in red closed his mouth quickly and averted his gaze to the carpeted floor. Satisfied with his brother's silence, Vergil smiled politely at the headmistress. "Thank you. We both appreciate your sentiments."

A small smile made its way to the woman's lips; she hadn't expected an eight year old to have a vocabulary like that or act so mature. She had a feeling that she wasn't going to have any problems with Vergil, but she couldn't be sure about Dante. Dismissing any assumptions she had about the red-clad twin due to the fact he was probably upset about losing a parent, she said, "You're welcome. Anyway, the reason you both are here is because your mother and I were friends when we attended school here and, she asked me to take you both in should anything happen to her."

"This is stupid," Dante murmured, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling through his silver bangs. With a bit more volume and a hint of bitterness in his voice, he added, "I don't see why you're doing this lady. Once you find out what we are, you'll just toss us out onto the street anyway."

"If it's your demon heritage you speak of, I already know all about that, Dante," the headmistress replied shortly. "Which brings me to my next point. As long as you are staying here, it is absolutely imperative that you keep this a secret. There's no telling how the student body and their parents would react to that. While I have been assured and believe you two are harmless, a parent may not be so easy to convince."

Vergil nodded in agreement. The gazes of both the headmistress and the elder half devil fell on Dante when he didn't show any sign of assentment, or even if he'd heard what the woman had said. Feeling their eyes burning holes into him, the younger twin finally rolled his eyes and gave a slight nod.

After standing up from behind her desk and smoothing out her skirt, Headmistress Connoly moved to the front of her desk. "Right. Now, shall we head to your dorm to meet your room mate?"

Dante and Vergil shared a befuddled look at the mention of a room mate before standing and following their headmistress out. They were led through countless hallways and up several flights of stairs before finally reaching their destination. The twins waited at the foot of some stairs that led to a door while Headmistress Connoly rapped on the door. After a few seconds, the door opened, and the woman beckoned for the twins to join her in their new room.

The room was rather large and was well-kept. The only furniture that filled the room were three twin-sized beds with a night stand near each one. Three dressers also lined the the right wall. There was a door that presumably led to a closet in the far left corner and a window on the back wall that gave a superb view of the grounds.

"Well boys," the headmistress began, ushering them further into the room rather than standing in the doorway, "this is where you'll be sleeping for the duration of your stay here." She then directed their attention to the white haired boy who was sat on the right-most bed. His eyes were light blue, much like Dante's and Vergil's, but he looked to be a few years younger than them. But, what was most fascinating about the boy was his right arm: the skin was glowing a soft blue and was covered by what looked like red armor. "This is Nero. He will also being staying in this room with you."

Before anyone could say or do anything else, Dante had practically leapt across the room at Nero and grabbed his arm. "Whoa, cool!" exclaimed the red half demon as if he had just received a new toy. "Does it do anything?"

Nero, whose eyes had widened to about three times their normal size at Dante's attack on his devil bringer, yanked his arm out of the boy's grip and hid it behind his back. "I- I don't know," he answered timidly, moving as far away from Dante as possible whilst remaining on his bed. If there was anything he was self-conscious about, it was easily his demonic arm.

With a sigh of exasperation, Vergil pulled his brother off of Nero's bed and sat him on the middle bed. "Stop being so insensitive, you idiot."

"There you go being bossy again..." growled Dante as he pulled his red coat from his torso.

Noticing that Vergil was about to yell at his brother, thus prolonging the argument, the woman still standing in the doorway spoke again. "Before I let you three get to know each other, I have one last thing to tell you. Since we operate on a high school level, obviously eight year olds wouldn't be able to attend the regular classes. So, until you are old enough, I will be teaching you everything you need to know as I have done with Nero for the past few weeks."

"Okay, thank you headmistress," the blue devil said loudly before Dante could protest.

The woman smiled slightly before turning and leaving the room, closing the door behind her. The room fell into silence, save for the sound of Vergil removing his own blue coat and sitting down on his bed. Feeling awkward, Dante finally piped up. "So...Nero. How old are you?"

"Six," the youngest replied shyly, still hiding his arm behind his back. Finding it weird that his new room mates weren't treating him like a freak, he decided to ask a question of his own. "Why didn't you get scared when you saw my arm? People normally do..."

"Let's just say we've seen things like that," said Vergil as he dug one of his favorite books from one of his bags. "We're half demons."

Nero's eyes grew again. "I thought I was the only one like this." Grinning, he returned his devil bringer to his side, not feeling ashamed of it anymore. "So do you guys have super powers or something?"

Dante leaned back so he was lying down with a smug smile, placing his hands behind his head. "Well, we do heal really fast. Me and Vergil were fighting one day and I pushed him. He hit his head on the corner of the table and started bleeding. Mom starting freaking out when she saw he was bleeding but then the cut healed up a few minutes later. We tested it on me before we went to sleep one night and the same thing happened."

"Wow that's so cool." Nero's expression suddenly became thoughtful. "Do you think it's the same with me?"

The eldest devil glanced up from his book and narrowed his eyes at his younger room mates. "If you're going to test that theory, let it happen naturally. Don't let Dante help you."

Nero agreed to these terms, but Dante of course was less than pleased. "Aw, c'mon. The most I would do is bite him hard enough to make him bleed or stab him with my fork at dinner..."

"No." As if to show that that was the end of the matter, Vergil buried his nose in his book again.

With a groan, Dante stared up at the ceiling. "You're going to make this whole thing so boring for me, aren't you?"

"If by that you mean making sure you don't get us kicked out, yes, I am." Vergil snapped his book shut and set it on the bedside table between his and Dante's beds. He then stood up and smiled a little at Nero. "Can you show us around?"

Extremely excited that he had someone around here his own age, Nero nodded quickly and hopped off his bed. He grabbed his sling that he had hung from the edge of his headboard and slipped it over his devil bringer. When the twins both gave him questioning looks, he said, "I have to keep this hidden so I don't scare people." He moved to the door and pulled it open, grinning widely. "Let's go!"

Vergil joined the younger boy at the door and glanced back at his twin. "You heard him, Dante. Let's go."

Even though he knew getting a tour of his new home would be a lot more entertaining than lying on his bed and counting the dots on the ceiling, Dante let out an annoyed sigh and stood up. "Fine. But only because I don't want to get lost in this place." Vergil and Nero just rolled their eyes at this, and the three exited the room.