Dream

by isabella1320

*Sequel to Rose* After finally reunited to her son, Rose's time of peace was quickly cut short when she was recruited by one powerful entity to embark on a mission to save the world she knew of. As much as she wanted to leave her past behind, Rose quickly learnt that it was not easy enough when she faced the man whom left her behind long ago.

1. Chapter 1

"This is not what I have in mind when you said you want to fix the crisis of your identity."

Nero said when he was sitting in the basement of his house; drawing the sigil and ancient spells on the floor with white chalk with Rose; while Kyrie was upstairs and tucked the kids in their sleep to make sure they did not disturb or saw this ritual they were doing.

"I thought that we would have to meet some big shot and have a long, boring talk about how you popped out of after twenty years and still looking young." Nero sighed. "Not in the basement writing on the floor with chalk made by animal skull and the heavy smell of agar wood flowing everywhere."

"Shut it, Nero, this is so much more awesome. I have never anticipated in any of this magic ritual." Nico said when she was holding an incense burner made by copper. "Hey Maraka, where do I put this?"

"It will be in the middle of the star, Miss Goldstein." Maraka said when he saw Lady coming down. "Lady, what a lovely surprise to see you here and join us."

"I am not interested in getting my memory wiped away so yes, of course I have to show up." Lady said when she looked around in discomfort. "But all of this reminding me of my father rituals things, so could you just hurry up?"

"I am sorry about this but powerful magic like this take time and efforts to make it right. But I will sure to pay in mind to hurry this for you."

"Whatever." Lady said when she sat on the chair with her beloved Kalina Ann strap in. "So this magic of yours, does it require any kind of sacrifice?"

"No, I and Rose have enough magic energy to get it done. Even if our strength is lacked, which I highly doubt, we could borrow some from Nero himself."

Nero shrugged lightly when he erased the pattern on the floor and wrote it again as Maraka light up the candle around the room.

"No one will get harmed when this magic get done, right?" Lady said when she cleaned her gun.

"No, they will have like a small confusion, like a sense of dejavu before they continue with their life." Maraka said. "Besides, Rose had been missing for twenty years; most of the people knew her probably have already forget about her, this spell is just to make sure they stayed that way. The main things we need to erase are records about her like books, certificates and writing paper that stored in media. We needed to make sure it was all erased so that Rose could get accessed to her inheritance without a single problem."

"Okay, I think we are all done here." Maraka said when he looked around. "This should be all good to go. Now Rose, do you have that photo you took about the time you are missing?"

"Yes, here."

Rose said when she handled Maraka a small photo of her. He took the photos before snapped his finger, the pattern on the floor light up with the golden light as fire of the candle grew stronger as purple smoke started to come from them. Rose waved her wand lightly as she sung out a small lullaby, softly and gently.

"Oh Lord of the Forgotten, I invite you here for your feast to the memory of mine in the mind of other. Please, eat on my memory of these livings outside of this house but please, spare the one inside for they are the one I wished for my memory to stay longer. Please, claim the memory of those outside but let the one in this house to fade in their own way."

As Rose chanted, the purple smoke turned into a hooded form. Nero blinked his eyes when he tried to see the face under the hood, but each time he blinked his eyes, he kept on forgetting the face underneath it as his memory kept on slipping away from his mind. He could hear Nico hold her breath when the entity reached out it skinny arm as it took Rose picture from Maraka hand before completely disappear.

When the entity completely gone, Nero let out a small breath as he rubbed his head lightly. Lady held tight on her gun when she asked:

"Is that over?"

"Yes, it is. As we are speaking now, the memory of Rose is slowly disappearing from people mind as well as any record she had."

"You could say I was reborn in this world again."

"Yes, and this is the person you needed to contact in the morning to get everything you need to be existed in paper again. He should be finished your paper in a few day then all of you inheritance and assets should be transferred completely to you."

"Thank you, Maraka." Rose said. "So in the meantime, I should not show my face out of the street and crowded place for at least 24 hours, right?"

"Yes, you shouldn't." Maraka said when he picked up his jacket before he turned to Lady. "Lady, allowed me to escort you to your home?"

Lady said nothing when she nodded her head. After an odd time of silent, Nico finally found her voice again when she said:

"That is so damn wrong." Nico puffed out. "Oh my god, how can I forget his face? It was so weird, I mean I looked straight at his face and I cannot remember anything about it. I knew it should be memorable but I can't remember anything. This is my first magic ritual, and I can't even remember the best part."

"Lord of The Forgotten has that effect on you." Rose said when she patted the tanned girl shoulder lightly as they headed upstairs. "Come on, let me show you some book talking about him. Maybe it would ease you up."

As Rose gave Nico some books about the entity before let the engineer go back to her home, Nero just let out long sigh which making Rose had to pay some attention to him when she came to him:

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just not feeling that good." Nero said. "I mean, when I met with that guy, I felt the same way that I did when we were in the Trap. Weak, Powerless and Completely..."

"Useless?" Rose said when she poured out a glass of water before gave it to Nero. "Trust me, I know the feeling."

"How do you dealing with those things like that? Just casually call them out and face them, yet knowing that compare to them you are so insignificant, small and powerless again them."

"Because we are not." Rose smiled lightly. "We are as mortals matter, Nero. I mean if we are not, why did the First King of Demon just have to choose a helpless girl to give her a golden heart contained the power of his own? He knew that he didn't have the power to break away from his father upcoming punishment, so he ought to find the outside help. Even a powerful god have to seek help from a couple of mortal like us to get his freedom, how can you think we do not important?"

Nero let out a small grunted of something like an agreement when he rubbed his head before he bid Rose goodnight, making her waving back to him. She looked around before decided to take the trash for Kyrie, the poor girl was nervous when she heard there was a magic ritual under her basement so she completely forgot her trash day duty. Rose let out a slight hum when she finish dump the garbage, but then halted at her feet.

Rose turned her head back when she saw the street light flickered, the wand within her hand felt colder suddenly when she saw a figure stood on the opposite of the road. Rose looked around, it was late in the night and no one was out, especially when nighttime was the time for low level demon to take a stroll out. Not that would be a problem with a Devil Hunter lived right here, but still, the street was clear from normal people which made the perfect situation for non-normal things to meet and talk.

"So you come to take your bone back?"

Rose said when she walked to the man who was leaning the wall. He was wearing a dark sunglass with an expensive black suit with a top hat. Death surely got a taste in fashion, Rose thought when the man smirked lightly:

"Keep it and consider it is a reward for your family dedication of cleaning that woman's mess."

"Umm, thanks." Rose said when she took the wand back. "So why are you here? My family didn't do anything that insulted the Death, right?"

"No, it's actually because I needed a favor from you?"

"Me." Rose said when she pointed at herself. "What can I do for you? I mean, you are the embodiment of the Death itself, I don't think you need anything from a mortal like me."

"That is where you are wrong, dear." The man chuckled when he gestured his arm out for her to hold. "Can we take a stroll together?"

"Okay."

Rose said nervously when she wrapped her arms around his. He felt cooling, like the feeling of the wind of autumn blew through the face but not the ice cold from the ice cube. Rose looked up him when the man said:

"First, I would like to apologize for intruding your privacy but I may have overheard your conversation with your son about mortal and gods like us." The man hummed lightly. "You are right and wrong the same time."

"About?" Rose asked carefully.

"Mortals are important to us, there are things that we can do and they can't as well as there are things mortal can do and gods can't, not if we wouldn't want to violate the rule of the universe and destroy everything that father had built."

"And where I was wrong?"

"That you are a mortal." The man smirked at her. "You are a bright child, surely now, you should know that your body felt different. The power running within your body so strong to the point it shouldn't, and you could sense things that other couldn't. Or more correctly, mortals couldn't."

Rose hands slightly shaken when she let the words sinking in. What he said was true, at first she thought it was just an after effect of getting out the Trap after staying in there for so long. But it had been almost half a year, and she was still feeling it.

"Right now, the word that describes you best would be immortal. Not mortal, and yet the same time, not god. The in - between, and therefore, you could do things that both side can't."

"Does that mean I will never die?" Rose asked.

"No, my dear, everything dies. God, mortal, immortal, and even this whole universe will someday perish. For the Death shall claim it all." The man said darkly, making Rose shivered despite it was still quite warm outside.

"It's okay, dear, you have been a good girl and I come here with good intention." Death said smoothly. "If you could help me with this favor of mine, I will let you can choose whenever you could die. If you don't want to die, then I won't come and claim your life. If you want to die, than you can die a very peaceful way. It's a deal that many dream of."

"For real?" Rose asked in shocked.

"Of course." The Death said smoothly. "Like I said, you have been a good girl and I love giving good girls the reward they deserved."

"May I know the favor first?" Rose asked.

"Of course, it's only normal for you." The Death said. "Let put it this way, when the First Born died and emerged with his Father Light, the fragment of his essence flying through the fabric of time and space and causing tears to the barrier of this universe. I have agents that are fixing it, but still when it came to some special jobs, it required the person whose on duty has a little bit more qualification on something like honesty, sense of righteous and self-control."

"I thought to be an agent of Death would have those things first?"

"True, but to be an agent of Death, they would have to a mortal first. And every mortal have regret in the past, something they wanted to change whether they admitted or not." The Death voice became a little more harden. "And I can't allow to have anyone even have the slightest chance of going back in time and change the past, causing the fabric of time to be destroyed."

"So you want me to time travel?" Rose asked. "Wow, that is crazy, even for my standard and I have like really high one."

"The world is bundle of surprise, my dear." The man chuckled. "But with everything you can pull through in the Trap, I believe you are capable of handling this job."

"So why do you need me to time travel? Was there something wrong in the past?"

"Like I said earlier, the barrier of the universe had been tearing by the First Born essence therefore; some nasty creature from different universes had found their way in here. Sure, most of them can be handled by my agents and even some mortals themselves. But there are some that are quite formidable that needed someone with high skill set. And then there was the fact that it happened even in the past and agents have that skill set and not working on more important task are all have a slight chance of altering the past. So I sought out your help, as you are the one whom I find to be the most persistent about keeping the history straight."

Rose nodded in understandment. If anything in the past changed, she would never met Nero again, never got out of the Trap and had a chance to start to life. Heck, even there was the chance that Nero wouldn't be born or alive if she messed things up. So Rose truly did not want anything to change.

"What is the time in the past that I need to travel back?"

"The incident of the Qliphoth Tree in the Red Grave city." The man said. "When the Hell Gate opened with that scale; it made the barrier of the universe slightly weaker, more unstable and easier to be ripped by the First Born essence. You ex-lover is truly a mess to deal with, making me and my agent jobs a lot harder since as we are speaking now, there is an agent heading that way on the tower that he raised."

"To my defend, I was young that time."

"Aren't we all?" The man hummed. "Your mission is to sealed the hole of the barrier and kill all those beasts that break through it, without making anyone notice and or any changes in the history."

"The part go unnoticed would be quite hard, considered if they are strong as you said, I don't think I could just fight without creating a mess around."

"I got that taken care of." The Death said. "But it is you that is the matter. If you can keep yourself together and not trying to reveal yourself or do anything stupid despite whatever you see in there, then nothing would slipped out of the way. But if you can't..."

"I wouldn't." Rose said.

"I hope so, because changing the past is something very tempting. Almost like a forbidden apple of lust."

Rose blinked when she saw that they had already circled back to Nero's home. She let go of the man arm as feeling the cooling leaving her arm and replaced with the warmth. Rose then smiled when she said:

"So I guess I have to see if I could fight against it this time."

"I am glad to hear so." The Death said when he took a small bell put into her hand. "When you are ready, just ring it and you will be on your way. But make sure, not taking too much time. As the time effect like cements, they take time to mold but when they are set then it's too late to do anything."

The golden street light flickered again, and the man disappeared into the thin air just like the way he came. Rose hugged her arms lightly when she headed back to her son home alone.

...

"So you talked to the Death, agreed to time travel in the past about a year ago to kill beasts from another universe from destroying the world." Nero took a sip of his coffee, then another sip, and another sip before he said. "Damn, I need more coffee."

"Here." Rose said when she brought another cup of coffee for Nero. "I thought that I should inform you first to you know, in case of not seeing me around for a few days, you wouldn't think that I got dragged into some hellish limbo by some old god."

"This job sounded dangerous. Are you sure it's okay to do it?" Nero asked.

"I will be fine." Rose said when she grabbed a knife. "Watch."

As Rose slit her hand with the knife, a dark crimson wound appeared on her palm but there was no blood flow from it. Instead, the wound was quickly healed as her hand became normal again.

"So, yeah, I don't think I can die easily anymore." Rose said. "Something to do with the fact I got out of the Trap and being brought into life by a God himself."

"Hmm, I figured." Nero said when he saw Rose's eyes widened. "Call it instinct or something, but I think I could feel that there is something in you changing when you got back here. It's just felt weird and strange, I mean I could feel that you are still human and yet the same time, I am sure that you are not like an ordinary human anymore."

"Oh." Rose said in a small voice. "Anyway, since it was involved in the past, I need to know the exact detail of what happened at the Qliphoth tree from the moment it was raised until it got cut down. I will pull down from internet the newspaper and video clip about those things later, but first, I need to you to tell me the details and important things that you could remember since you were actually there. Of course, after you there will be Nico to fill the blank too."

"Okay, let me see."

Nero said when he tried to remember the details and event of the Qliphoth. Truthfully, he didn't really want to remember about all those pain and emotional coaster in there but with his mother needed his help to save the world, Nero found it hard to say no to something like that. The talk lasted longer than he anticipated when Rose asked about the small, tiny details that he didn't think that it matter. But then Rose remind him about the butterfly effect, when one single misled thing could lead to a disaster. It wasn't until noon that they had to finish when Nico bashed in to take him to a job outside of the city. To which, Rose tagged along with him and brought her home made lunch box for them.

"I hope you like my lunch box."

Rose said to Nico was chewing on her food when Nero was fighting a bunch of demon. The sound of muffle brash and Nico thumbs up to her was her replied when Rose sat on the passenger drinking her smoothies.

"Hmm, Nico, do you know much about the incidents in the Qliphoth tree? And 'V' as he called himself."

Rose asked casually, like it wasn't matter much. Both Nero and her agreed that the whole ordeal with the Death and travel back in time should just kept in silent, as the gravity of those knowledge would trouble life that normal people like Kyrie and Nico a lot without having any good at all.

Knowledge is power, and power come with a weight and price.

That was something both Nero and Rose knew too well.

"I guess you are curious about the human half of your ex huh?"

"Yeah, 'V' wasn't the most creative fake name. For a guy love literature and poem, I thought he would be more imaginative in those leagues."

"He recited poem all over the time. Like when he was fighting, talking and walking around with that blue chicken of him."

"Vergil when I knew him didn't recite poem all the time"

Of course, there was sometimes he read for her to put her into sleep. And then, there were the times when he whispered poem into her ears when they did that. Rose used to thought that it was normal until Variet laughed at that and tell that it was actually considered to be kind of a kink.

"Again, except the fact that he dressed like a punk and became a version of an emo Shakespeare all the time, are there anything else?"

"He had these really cool tattoos looking like marks that I think connect deeply to his demonic familiar. He let me took some picture of it, you want to see it?"

"Oh, show me."

As Nico took out her own book, Rose saw a lanky young man with long black hair and green eyes who were half sleep when he took out his arm for Nico to take picture.

"Oh wow, Nero wasn't kidding when he said V and Vergil looked really different. I don't think even his mother could recognize him like this. No wonder with that fake name he could fool his own twin. But Hallelujah, what a piece of cake he is." Rose said when her eyes lit up with fascination. "You talked about his familiars; I wonder where the familiars all are now, when V is gone."

"Dunno, but probably dead since that blue chicken is nowhere to be seen or heard. And let me tell you, that thing is loud."

"Seemed like despite hating noises, V or Vergil always surrounded by noisy people." Rose said when she looked at the young man. "You have more pictures taken at the Qliphoth tree?"

"Not much, I aren't there to take photos. But I will see if I could get you something more."

As Nico stumbled to find in her stack of paper, Nero had finished with the Devils as he breathed out slightly with blood and dirt slightly stained his clothes.

"What are you doing?"

"Finding notes about the Qliphoth for you mom." Nico said when she picked out a small book. "Oh here Miss K, this is my report about that time. Everything I met in there is written down here."

"Oh this is wonderful. Thank you, Nico." Rose said when she flipped the pages. "Talking about that, Maraka just sent me a message about another group of demon popping up in somewhere near here. Could we check that out? He said he will pay for it."

"Sure, it's not like Nero over there is exhausted or anything."

Nero gave Nico a side glance when he happily ate his lunch box made by Rose, not that he never have one but with Kyrie busy with the kid and all, it had been a long time since a proper meal at work. As Nero glanced at the table, there were some photos showed a gothic young man. He supposed if she did this, then they would definitely cross path.

The job that Maraka gave them was quite easy, but Rose observe it with the intense that he found quite strange. And there was the fact that despite they looked really like demons; Nero could feel that they are not.

"Are they...?" Nero asked when Nico dropped them at his house.

"Yes. Can you sense it?"

"Only when I fight them." Nero said. "They felt like demons, but not like the demons that we normally faced."

"Maraka just texted, there is a bunch of them appearing in all over the global, but Red Grave seemed to be the focused target." Rose said. "He had already put on the job for Lady and Trish as well for some other people he knew, but he wondered if you could travel there and stayed for a few weeks to clean up for the heavier duty as he said."

"Heavier duty?"

"It means that some of the creature can only be killed by a specific set of people. Like the agents of Death or people who was blessed with the heart made by The God of Demon himself."

"I see." Nero said. "Guess you and I both have to deal with those things."

"Great power comes with great responsibility."

"Did you just quote Spider-Man?"

"Yep, I love that movie." Rose giggled. "And James Franco is hot."

As the next couple days both Nero and Rose were all busy up to their neck as he had to go and slayed down the extra-universe creature; Rose had to do all the research as carefully as she could about the Qliphoth accident at Red Grave. It wasn't easy to stomach it as thousands people died, more loss their homes and family as it was nearly one year and the Red Grave city still not recovered from this yet.

"God, Vergil, what the hell were you thinking?"

Rose said when she take out a moment of break from her laptop and grab a glass of water. She checked the time when she pressed on her phone:

"Hey Nico, how is everything going?"

"Everything is okay, but damn, this place is swarmed with demons, Miss K. If it wasn't for that friend of yours called us soon, these nasty things are gonna get to the city and kill a bunch of people."

Technically, Maraka was her great great great great grandfather, but their connection was so long that he could just be friend.

"Okay, I am glad to hear things are fine now. Is Nero there?"

"No, he just went out after on phone with Maraka, saying about doing something more heavy lifting."

"Oh, okay, tell him to call me when he got back." Rose said. "Or text will be fine. Just tell him to let me know that he is okay."

"Ok, Miss K."

Rose let out a small sigh when she came of out the balcony and watered her plant. She was currently staying at a rooftop apartment of a building in Fortuna that was passed down for her instead of staying in her old home. Rose decided that she would sell it to Maraka and packed her things to live in another place as the house got too big for just her to stay and Rose couldn't bear to live at a house where her grandma was killed in a sacrificed ritual by her dad.

Rose sighed when she shake her head, she didn't like where this headed to. Too much negativity, it was not good when she was about to head on an important mission.

Maraka gave her some tips about time travel, as he himself had done it a several time as an agent of Death. Like time itself had the ability to heal, so as long as she didn't cause too many ripple effects, it should not be able to affect to the future. Also, the magic that the Death casted on her was meant to make any soul immediately forget Rose when they see her as well as undo any damage to the surrounding. Of course, if the damage was somebody's death then it couldn't be reversed. Death would never step on his own rule, even if it meant destroy the barrier of time.

"Hmm, I wonder if I should just go now." Rose said when she saw the bell, she felt liked she was well inform enough and prepared to face whatever throw at her. "At least just wait until Nero called back then."

Rose shrugged before she went to bed. The next time she woke up, she heard the phone ringing into her ear.

"Hi mom, I just called to tell you that I am fine." Nero said, his voice slightly out of breath. "I am about to head back to motel to take a nap, just so you know."

"I am glad to hear that. And Nero." Rose smiled lightly. "I love you."

There was a moment of silent on the other side of the phone, Rose could almost see Nero nervously scratched his head over the phone at the sudden words when she laughed lightly:

"Just rest Nero, you have a long day after all."

Rose hung up the phone, her smile still on her face when she opened phone to check the pictures that she took over the past few months. There were a lot of fond memories, Kyrie's birthday, their gathering at Julio soccer game, their family photoshoot and some of the time they went out for a picnic to clear their mind.

These memories were her motive, her reason and her string to bind on this life.

Rose sighed when she went and changed her clothes before prepare her breakfast, even though her body didn't need to eat much she still enjoy her three and sometimes four meals per day.

Rose looked at herself in the mirror, as she was wearing white button up shirt, black rain coat and a pair of black of trouser along with an extremely comfortable ankle boots. It was something that simple but still looked good, although Rose didn't think it mattered since anyone saw her would forget immediately. But still, she still liked being pretty even if it meant to go on a dangerous mission.

"So vain."

Rose thought amusingly to herself as she held the bell on her hand before she shook it lightly as a shadow engulfed her completely.