A/N: Chapter two of four. Again, I will warn about language. What can I say? Those guys talk rough.

Please let me know what you think - I always enjoy reviews.

We all know I don't own this, right?

Mementos and Memories - Part IV

Chapter 2

At the port in the morning, I started glancing around, trying to pick out a man I'd never met, using as a reference a pencil sketch older than myself of an admittedly different man that I also had never met. Life really kicks us in the balls, sometimes. I wished I could've had Dante use some identifying clothing or something, but I'd run out of time talking with him. I shook my head, scanning faces again. When the last of the passengers had debarked, I hadn't turned up anything.

"Damn it!" I swore. I didn't even know if he'd caught this ferry, or if I'd just missed him somehow. Dante didn't know what I looked like either after all.

"Language, kid. What would your mother say?" some guy remarked casually.

I whirled, getting ready to give the guy a piece of my mind, but my comments died before they were formed.

The man who had spoken was tall, broad, and wearing the better part of two or three cows' worth of leather, most of it red. He had white hair, ice-blue eyes, and a smirking mouth. I glanced at the sketchbook in my hand. Given a little age, a different expression, and a change in hairstyle, it actually looked a lot like him. He looked at the picture.

"Hmm, not bad, but as you can see, I'm the handsome one," he said, grinning.

I frowned. He snatched the book, closing it briefly to glance at the cover.

"Oh, I see."

He rifled through the pages to the other picture of my father, the one lounging at the desk.

"Here, kid. See? The handsome one." He grinned again, shoving the book back into my hands.

I looked at the picture again, comparing it to the man in front of me. The little differences between the two drawings fell into place, and so did the answer.

"You're twins, you and my father."

"Bingo, kid. Must've got your brains from your mom, 'cause I had both the looks and the smarts," he replied.

I snorted. "Whatever, old man. Come on, we can't spend all day here at the port." I turned to lead him off, but he grabbed my shoulder.

"Hold it, kid. I want an explanation. You were plenty cryptic on the phone, but I came anyway. How about you tell me what's going on?" He sounded serious for the first time, but I shook him off.

"I can explain when we get..." Get where? I couldn't take him to the house, and any public place would get us unwanted attention. "Get to the cemetery," I finished.

His eyebrows went up a little, but he didn't argue.

I led him to the lonely part of the graveyard where Kyrie's folks and Dad's plot were. He knelt by Dad's stone for a moment, grazing the carved name with his fingertips.

"Your mom do this?"

It wasn't really a question, but I nodded.

"Yeah. She had an amulet buried there, something of Dad's, but," I started.

He looked up sharply. "Amulet? Is it still there?" The sharpness inflicted his tone, too.

I shook my head, a little taken aback.

"No, I have it. Sort of. It's kind of complicated, part of the reason I asked for your help," I told him.

He nodded. "How about you start at the beginning, kid? What do you know about Vergil and me?" Dante asked, curious.

I shrugged. "Mom said that you two worked together, saving people from monsters. I guess she meant demons."

"And other things. We did exorcisms, possessions, curse breaking, and demon hunting."

"Right. Monsters. She told me that he was a good man and a good mate. That he had loved her, and he would have loved me. She told me that he was handsome, and that I looked like him. She told me that he would have jumped to the defense of a friend and protected them, no matter what. She said that he was a fighter, a swordsman. A killer of monsters."

"Vergil tried to keep her from all of that. He thought it would protect her, and his future nestlings. Keep the past from repeating itself."

"Nestlings?" I asked.

He smiled. "It's a devil term for our children. I teased Verge about always using devil terms for things, but truthfully, we both thought about things in devil terms as much as in human ones."

"Right. Mom said your dad was a devil. She didn't tell anyone anything about Dad because she was afraid that everyone would treat me different if they knew I was a half-breed."

"On this island? Hell yeah they would have treated you differently, kid," he laughed.

I grimaced. "Hypocrites. They love Sparda, why should a good man like my father be any different?" I retorted, feeling bitter.

Dante quickly sobered and looked at me curiously.

"You don't know, kid? Didn't your mom tell you? Unless Vergil never told her," he mused.

"I already told you what Mom told me!" I exploded. I was tired of Dante's games already.

"She was afraid, afraid that being some devil's grandson would make everyone hate me, so she never said anything else about a dead man she loved to protect a living son she loved!"

I was angry, hurt by this guy so casually dismissing Mom's efforts to protect me. He shook his head, bringing his hands up in surrender.

"Kid, you don't understand. Sparda is my father. Not some anonymous devil: Sparda was Vergil's and my sire," he explained.

Shock flooded my thoughts. The savior? Sparda, whom everyone revered? He was my devil grandfather? I looked back at Dante, who nodded.

"See, kid? Although your mom was probably better off not knowing. Imagine what your childhood would have been like being the living heir of their precious savior," he said, gesturing towards the rest of the island.

I shook my head, unable to even imagine it. I thought back over our conversation instead.

"What did you mean by the past repeating itself?" I asked him.

"For being a bunch of Sparda worshippers, you don't know much, do you?" he quipped. "Our mom, Vergil's and mine, that is, was killed when we were young. I thought my brother had died too, but that wasn't the case. It took a lot of reconciliation before Vergil and I could work together, though."

He frowned, and I wondered if there was some sort of a story there. "That's not important, now, though." He looked back at me, clearly changing the subject.

"So, you don't know much about your father. Do you know how he died?"

"Mom said that she lost him, not that he'd died. She said that he was lost to her while on a case, protecting a little girl from a monster," I said.

"That's true enough," he muttered, looking faraway again.

I frowned, but he sliced the air with his hand. "Maybe later, kid. Tell me about Jade's disappearance, and why she hasn't tried to contact you or me in eight years."

His tone was serious again, and I winced.

"I don't know. I was ten at the time." I gave a humorless sort of laugh. "The anniversary is just a few weeks from now, right at the time I'll graduate from Academy."

" 'Academy'? Sounds pretentious," he snorted.

I glared at him, but he rolled his fingers, gesturing for me to go on.

"I had just met a new teacher at Academy, a knight called Agnus. He was supposed to be giving me some sort of psych evaluation, so he could start teaching me various control exercises for my strength. He asked me all kinds of questions about my parents, what kind of incidents I'd had, whether or not I liked the devil part of me, and the things it could do."

"Are you sure these people don't know who you are?" he queried.

I shrugged then continued. "I got into a fight when I started school, and with the damage I did to the kids, it was pretty obvious that I wasn't human. Mom had some sort of discussion with Sanctus about me, and I started Academy at five. I was ten when I met Agnus and Mom disappeared." I paused, thinking about one of the last times I had seen Mom.

He frowned and rolled his fingers again.

"It kind of bothered me. Mom asked me what was wrong," I started, remembering the scene.

"What's wrong my angel?" she grinned, and I turned to look at her, still scared.

"I, I started some new stuff at Academy today. I don't like it, and I don't like the teacher."

She frowned, concern in her face. "Why? Did something happen?"

I shook my head. "Not exactly, Mom, but I had to do a physical, and Sir Agnus, the teacher, he asked me weird questions, and did stuff, said stuff. He said he was testing my psychological profile, but it seemed like he was just trying to piss me off."

"Language, Nero."

She always scolds me about my language. I scowled, but didn't argue with her.

"Sorry, Mom."

"What kinds of things did he ask?" she asked carefully, like she was afraid of giving something away.

"Just weird stuff. About my father, you, how I felt about my adoptive family, Fortuna, fighting. He wanted to know if I liked fighting, or if I had ever been really mean to anyone, or hurt anyone."

"What did you tell him?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I told him I didn't know Dad, that he'd died before I was born. I said that I loved you," I felt kind of embarrassed admitting that; I hadn't felt embarrassed then, to him, but now, to her, "that I thought Credo was the best, and that Kyrie was my best friend."

I felt more embarrassed admitting that, but I hadn't want to tell him that I was in love with Kyrie. Mom got this pained expression, laying her hand on her heart. I wondered if she was thinking about Dad.

"I told him about the fight I'd had before I joined Academy. He wanted all the details. I kinda lied, told him I didn't remember much, but he pressed me for everything he could. I told him that I wasn't mean, and that I didn't want to hurt people, I wanted to protect them."

I looked at my mom. She always went on about how she wanted me to be like my dad, the good man that he'd been, protecting people.

"He did make me angry, Mom. And I, I got this weird feeling when I got angry. This shaky, electric feeling in my arm. I grabbed it, and he noticed. He looked at me in this way. Like a snake does a rabbit. He scared me."

I was angry that he'd made me afraid.

"I hate being scared."

She nodded at me, offering me a hug. I hesitated, not wanting her to be worried, but I saw a flash of panic in her eyes. I was afraid that if I didn't allow her to comfort me, she'd be more worried. I walked into her hug, and later, when she didn't come back, I was glad that I had; it was the last hug I ever received from my mother.

She mentioned casually to Credo at breakfast the next morning that she'd like to talk to Agnus. He frowned. "I suppose you can try, Jade, but as I told you last night, he's just kind of like that. I'm sure he didn't mean to frighten the boy."

"I wasn't frightened!"

He smiled at me, a little too indulgently for my liking. It was that indulgence that kept me from going to him later with my problems and suspicions. I would always remember that indulging-the-boy look on his face at the last breakfast we shared with my mother.

"Of course not, though I'll admit I was afraid of the man when I first met him."

"Can you arrange it, Credo?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Jade. I'm running some exercises with the graduates in Mitis Forest today. If you'd like to wait until next week, I certainly could."

"No, I'll just go to Academy. I suppose if nothing else, I'll talk to Sanctus. His Holiness was the one who arranged for Agnus to do these lessons, so I'm sure he'd like to know if there are any issues."

"Indeed," Credo agreed.

"I don't know if she went to Academy or not, because I left with Credo, and she took Kyrie to school. I never saw her at Academy, and after she didn't return, no one at Academy said they had even seen her. I know Credo talked to the secretary, Agnus, and Sanctus personally, but no one could verify that my mother had been there."

"So what does everyone say happened?" Dante asked.

"Some say that some demons might have gotten her; there were a bunch of bold attacks going on then. Some argue that she skipped out on me, tired of all the trouble I caused her." I started holding up fingers as I listed theories. "Natural accident, gotten lost, more theories even more far-fetched."

"Got lost?" he smirked.

"Yeah, well, it was fairly well-known that she frequented the woods and park around this cemetery."

"Frequented enough to get lost, huh?" he ribbed.

I lost my temper. "I told you none of it made sense! What do you want me to say?" I snapped.

He put his hands back up in surrender. "Take it easy, kid..." he started.

"My name's Nero, old man, use it!" I barked.

He eyed me seriously and I noticed that cold, steely look I'd seen in the drawing of my father come into his face. I shuddered despite myself, remembering that he was a half-devil, my father's twin, and not a man to be pushed too far.

I thought I heard Blue's voice laughing at my fear, and steeled myself, meeting Dante's gaze. He broke into a grin, the cold gone from his eyes.

"Damn if you aren't just like him, kid!" He laughed hard, before sobering again. "So your mom went missing. Did they search for her?"

"Yeah. They never found her; it gave fuel to those rumors about her leaving me," I answered.

He nodded. "Why not call me then, when she went missing? I might have been able to find her, or at least figure out what happened to her." His question was reasonable, but I winced; part of me believes I'll find her alive, even now.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I guess I didn't think about you. Mom had mentioned an uncle once or twice, but you weren't really part of the equation, you know?"

"Why now, kid? Some new lead on your mom? You said you thought your mom and dad were involved in what was going on. What's going on?" he pressed.

"I guess there's something else I know about my father, Vergil, that I need to tell you before that," I said slowly.

He frowned, but nodded.

"When I was little, before I started school, I used to have these dreams. These dreams are some of my earliest memories. I never told anyone about them, not even Mom."