[[Author's note- As I have been on a writer's kick like I haven't been in ages now, I am aware I am writing this incredibly quickly. Make sure you don't miss a chapter in amongst my constant updating through. I like my small details to have epic payoff =P ]]
"I've spoken with the groundskeeper. It has been set, we may bury your mother within our cemetery," Kyrie said, returning to Dante and Lucia, the latter giving her a half-hearted smile.
"Thank you," she said weakly.
The three were gathered in a small gathering space within the Fortuna Opera House, a place Kyrie had seized as her base of operations. Much of the former rule of The Order of the Sword had been dismantled since its last leader was defeated more than a decade before. The citizens of the city struggled for a time without any true government, but soon managed to settle on new elected officials who cut all ties back to The Order. Their previous monuments and hideaways were mostly broken down and given little mind to.
"And now," Dante sighed, "You deserve to know… What this whole thing has been about." All was quiet as he looked down and began his summary.
"Do you remember what Conquest called The Plutuson? The 'Crown Prince of Hell'? That's not an inaccurate way to put it… As you already know, my father rose up against the emperor of Hell, a great, powerful demon named Mundus. Mundus had several names and titles… The Prince of Darkness, The Devil King… And Pluto."
"A particular group of Mundus's fanatics knew him particularly by that last name… Some of them settled on a distant island called Mallet, but some found their way here, close to The Order of the Sword, a society who worshipped my father as a God. The two cults raged and warred against each other for some time, until in a great attack the group of Mundus worshippers were buried under the lava of a volcano eruption."
"But some of them survived," Kyrie said coldly. "Survived for centuries down there, pleading with their dark lord for strength… No outsiders were allowed and they never dared leave, waiting for their master to come into their presence."
"But… But centuries?" Lucia asked. "How could they keep having children?"
"Don't linger on that question too long," Dante said. "I don't think you'd really like the answer…"
"They just prayed and waited… Mundus promised them one day, he would make one of them his mistress, that one of them would bear a son who would slaughter the dirty worshipers of Sparda who had buried them, and all others who refused to bow to the tricloptic freak."
"Kyrie called me and some others in when she discovered The Order had known about that prophecy… That we should enter that ancient underground and ensure their plan would never come to fruition."
"Well that's what we did… We were confronted by a number of beastly inbred cultists, caught somewhere between man and demon after all they did to themselves with the power Mundus gave them… We got through a lot of them, fighting them off inside a giant chapel to Mundus in the city's center… It all seemed too easy… But we never would have thought just how late we were…"
"The chapel was covered in long dried blood… That was when we should have known… The Plutuson had been born years before we arrived. In his first minutes out of the womb he slaughtered everyone present at his birth. His mother. A high priest. Everyone. He was already so powerful… But he was just waiting. Waiting for a day his father foretold, when the Son of Sparda would come… That killing him would mark his rise, his ascension, to overtake the human and demon worlds… I managed to defeat him that day and toss a wrench in old man Mundus's plans… But at a terrible price."
Dante looked down, trying to keep himself together as he continued, "I'm the only one who made it out alive… My partners… Trish and Lady, I know you know about them… Gone. Killed minutes after he made his entrance." Lucia held a hand to her mouth in shock. "They didn't even give him any challenge… He ran them right through… Just like Matier."
"And Nero-" Kyrie tried to say.
"Nero lasted the longest," Dante said, barely able to do so. "We tried to fight him together… But even Nero didn't stand a chance… I had to throw everything, and I mean everything at him… Blasts from Lady's old launcher, Nero's gun and sword… I only finally beat him because I took my father's sword from Trish, even then only causing a few injuries and forcing him back through the gate, using the old thing to seal it shut… The devastation was horrible… Blood was everywhere… There… There wasn't even enough left to bury." He bowed his face fully into his hand as Lucia just stared at him, jaw quivering.
"I never wanted to go after these things again… Not after all I had lost… My parents… My brother… I thought I'd finally found a new family in those three… But that too was just wrenched away from me… I gave Kyrie some old things to remember Nero by… I took Killina Anne and integrated some pieces of Trish's pistols into my own, so I'd have my own keepsakes… Then I just went back to the shop and waited. Waited for death to come take me."
"I didn't even want to come to Dumary to stop Arius… But I wanted to be sure that monster wasn't involved anywhere… And he wasn't."
"My… My God Dante," Lucia said weakly. "I… I had no idea."
"Don't try to apologize," Dante said. "After all that… Getting out there… Working with you… It was the closest thing I had to feeling like myself again."
The three sat quietly for a few minutes, Lucia trying to accept the tale, Dante and Kyrie trying to force themselves to acknowledge it again.
"But it seems in spite of my best efforts, he's making his grand return," Dante said under his breath. "And if that's the case… I think it's clear there's only one way that we can respond."
