Nero crawled backwards out of the dark, narrow space, dragging what he hoped was the right box. Thick dust tickled his nose, and he resisted the urge to sneeze until he was back in the hallway where he could do so without stirring up more clouds of it.
Lady gave him a curious look as he entered the living room. "What on earth did you get into?"
"The storage closet under the stairs." Nero sneezed again. "We don't get in there very often."
"Evidently not. You have cobwebs in your hair."
Nero swiped halfheartedly at the debris clinging to his head and rubbed his fingers on his jeans before setting the dusty cardboard box on the coffee table. It was sealed shut with layers of packing tape, but Kyrie's neat printing catalogued the items inside.
Their young charge was curled into a corner of the sofa, holding the glass of milk Lady had insisted he drink for protein when he'd refused supper. The boy had said little in the hours since he'd regained three years' worth of memories, and periodically his gaze turned distant and haunted, as it was now. They had tried to engage him in conversation, but not only was he reluctant to speak about what he'd experienced, his memories seemed to be slipping in and out of place: At times he only answered to Vergil, while minutes later he seemed confused as to why Nero wasn't calling him Zaffiro.
As Nero stripped back a layer of the tape, Zaffiro's vacant eyes focused, and he turned to watch what was happening. Lady leaned forward in the armchair. "So what's in the box?"
"Stuff we packed up after Credo died." Nero unfolded the box flaps and tried to suppress the ache in his chest as he looked inside. Stacked between neat layers of tissue paper lay Credo's journals, his Order medals, the reading glasses he refused to admit he needed and only wore when he thought Kyrie wasn't looking… Nero swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat and began searching through the box. "I told you Credo only listened to stuff like Classical music, didn't I?"
Lady nodded. "You mentioned something about it."
"Well, he was kinda hard to buy for, and we were always getting in fights over the stereo, so one year for his birthday, I got him a set of… There they are!" Nero fished a stack of CD cases out of a corner of the box. "I should have thought of this weeks ago. Take a look, kiddo. Is there anything in here you'd like to listen to?" He deposited the discs beside Zaffiro on the couch.
While Zaffiro browsed through the recordings, Nero retrieved his own headphones—Credo's gift to him—and portable CD player from upstairs. By the time he returned to the living room, the boy had selected an album labeled Saint-Saëns Violin Concertos. Nero had no idea who or what a Saint-Saëns was, but he wasn't surprised that the kid had gone for something with violins.
Zaffiro eyed the headphones hopefully. "May I listen in my room?"
That suited Nero's purpose even better. "Sure. Finish your milk and brush your teeth first, though. That way you can just go to sleep whenever you get tired."
Lady watched the boy disappear down the hall. "I hope that music helps him sleep better. He's seemed pretty freaked out all evening."
"Yeah, maybe it will."
"But I'm guessing that's not what you had in mind when you dug out those recordings." Lady cocked her head to one side. "So what was that about?"
Nero scooped the remaining CDs back into the box and dropped onto the couch. "I just thought if he had headphones on, the grown-ups could have a conversation without worrying about triggering some bad memory or other. I feel like I have to tiptoe around him when he's in this state, and I'm not real good at subtle."
"I hadn't noticed that at all," Lady said dryly. "Are you worried he'll go into another shutdown like before?"
"Not to that extreme, no. I think he's probably past that now. He said he's thirteen, right? So he must have been coping on his own for a long time, and I don't think he would have survived this long if he were still that sensitive to bad experiences." Nero leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "But I'm a little worried about how tomorrow will go. That kid down the hall, he has some of Vergil's memories, but he still basically acts like Zaffiro, just a bit older and quieter. We know how to handle him. But if the other shards work like this one did, and give him just part of his memories back at a time, we could be stuck with Vergil from a different period in his life. And that could get messy. I mean, he spent years brainwashed and working for Mundus, right? What if we get that version back, instead of the Vergil we know?"
Lady considered this. "I think it might mess up your bedroom."
Nero blinked. "Come again?"
"I just mean in the worst case, we might have to… contain him, one way or another."
"You think we can?" Nero frowned. "Look—if you ever repeat this, I'll deny everything, but it's very possible a younger, well-rested Vergil can kick my ass. I've only really fought him once, and that was after he was already worn down from fighting Dante, and when we stopped fighting he wasn't exactly down for the count, you know? I got the upper hand for a few seconds, and then he and Dante left to deal with the Qliphoth. If he'd kept fighting, I honestly don't know how it would have come out. And if he's even younger and in better shape…"
Lady held up a finger. "Hold on, there. You're thinking in human terms. Devils gain power as they age, remember? Vergil is far stronger at forty-five than he was at twenty-five. So is Dante. Trust me, I know from personal experience. Today, Dante could probably snap my neck with a finger-flick, but I fought him seriously when we first met, and he wasn't nearly that strong. I even held my own against Vergil, then. And I'm pretty sure you're a tougher opponent now than I was at nineteen."
Nero was staring at her. "Wait, you fought Dante and Vergil? I knew you met them then, but…"
She laughed. "What, you thought we just exchanged pleasantries and became pen pals? Dante and I didn't exactly start on the same side. And Vergil was working for the man I'd set out to kill. We all tried to kill each other at some point."
"Wow." He shook his head. "I knew you were tough, but now you're just plain scary. You sure you're totally human?"
"So far as I know. Turns out I have some priestess heritage on my mother's side, but so far all that's gotten me is a bayonet through the hamstring." She traced the scar on her leg. "Though I suppose that's partly Sparda's fault for sacrificing my ancestor in a ritual."
"Sparda." Nero recalled the conversation he'd had with Zaffiro earlier in the day. "I hate to say this, but we may have to make Vergil an honorary member of the asshole-daddy club."
"Oh?" Lady's eyes widened. "I thought Sparda was the great hero who saved mankind?"
"Maybe he was, but he sounds like a crap dad. Apparently when Vergil was little, Sparda handed him the Yamato, told him it was his responsibility to protect his family because he was the firstborn son, and then disappeared. It was before their mother died, so Vergil can't have been more than six or seven years old. Can you imagine telling a kid Kyle's age that he's responsible for defending his entire family?"
Lady gave a low whistle. "That would certainly account for some of his hangups."
Nero nodded. "I'm pretty sure he blames himself for not protecting his mother. Even though he wasn't even there at the time, according to Trish. And even if he was—he was only eight. What could he have done against a horde of demons?"
"Nothing." Lady sighed. "I went through some of that after my mother died, because I was away at camp when it happened. It took me a long time to accept that I probably couldn't have stopped it even if I'd been there. And I was older, and knew how to look up terms like 'survivor's guilt' and figure out what was going on with myself. A child that young wouldn't even realize that what he felt wasn't rational."
Nero slumped lower and tipped his head back to rest against the sofa cushions. "Sometimes I just want to punch the whole world in the face. Too many kids have to go through too much shit they don't deserve, and it just keeps being passed down, parent to child. If we could somehow guarantee just one complete generation of happy kids, I bet we'd solve all the world's problems within a century."
Lady watched him for a moment, then laughed softly. "I get it now."
Nero rocked his head sideways to look at her. "Get what?"
"What Kyrie sees in you." She nudged him with her foot. "You've got the tough-guy act down, but inside, you're about as edgy as a marshmallow."
Nero rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he huffed.
Lady just laughed.
The next morning saw them once again gathered in Nero's bedroom. Zaffiro, wrapped in Nero's threadbare bathrobe, hovered uncertainly beside the bed. The bowl with the two remaining fragments of Nilepoch crystal sat atop the mattress.
"Are you sure you don't want something to eat first?" Nero asked.
The boy shook his head. He'd sipped a glass of juice at Nero's insistence, but hadn't touched the omelette Lady had cooked. "Maybe that's for the best," Lady murmured. "Depending on how this goes, it might be better if he doesn't have a full stomach."
Nero suspected there was more to his reticence. He had seen the boy's hungry gaze fixed on the food, but since waking Zaffiro had remained quiet and withdrawn, and seemed almost suspicious of the adults in the house. He had stayed well out of their reach for most of the morning, and had even locked himself in the bathroom to change into the robe. Apparently the memory of being Vergil—and whatever hardships or betrayals that had encompassed—was beginning to supersede the memory of the time he'd spent as Zaffiro.
But Nero couldn't spare the time to regret the disappearance of the child he'd known; the morning was wearing on, and they had no idea how long the next transformation would take. If Lady's estimate about the size of the crystals were correct, Vergil still had more than thirty years' worth of memories to regain. "Whenever you're ready," Nero told Zaffiro at last. "Touch the smaller piece first, like before. We'll stand over here in case you need us."
The process began much the same as it had the previous day, with the crystal sublimating and some strange power spreading visibly beneath the boy's skin. Once again he huddled on the floor as his body transformed, groaning in obvious pain and variously clutching at his head or torso. Gradually his hair changed length, his limbs grew longer, his body thickened, and his exposed chest and calves swelled with muscle. At one point, Nero thought he saw a shadow of stubble appear and vanish from his cheek. His body was clearly maturing, edging inexorably toward adulthood.
Other marks began to appear on his body, as well. They flickered and faded so quickly that Nero didn't recognize them for what they were at first. "I guess he had to learn all those sword skills somewhere," he observed after a few minutes.
"What?" Lady, who had been lost in her own thoughts, looked at Vergil. "What brought that up?"
"Those bruises, or cuts, or whatever they are. See there, on his chest?" He pointed as a slender gash appeared and healed almost immediately. "Looks like he took some hits. Maybe during training."
"You think that's his body remembering being injured?"
"Well, he's aging at the same time, so maybe it's just running his body through everything that happened to it. The Nilepoch was called the Life-Stealer, right? Maybe he's getting his whole life experience back, wounds and all."
Lady crossed her arms. "That's a disturbing thought."
"It's no weirder than anything else that's happening right now."
"No, I just meant…" Her eyes flicked to the remaining shard. "What Trish told us."
"Oh." Nero swallowed. "Yeah, I see what you mean. He's got a lot to live through."
"Maybe it won't be that bad." Lady's arms cinched tighter across her chest. "It's just history, right? It can't really hurt him."
"Like the memory that put him in a catatonic state for days?" The hair on the back of Nero's neck prickled, and he and Lady both jumped as a surge of demonic energy encased Vergil's body in blue lightning. For an instant, he looked different—a devil form Nero hadn't seen before, slimmer than the one he'd faced atop the Qliphoth and lacking the dragon-like wings and tail—and then the image was gone, back to a writhing human figure caught somewhere between youth and adulthood.
The full change took a bit longer than before, but this time Vergil's recovery was much faster. After a disoriented moment or two on the floor, he rose gracefully to his feet and swept the room with a cold gaze. His eyes flicked from Nero to Lady. Perspiration beaded on his skin, a remnant of the grueling aging process, but he stood erect, weight balanced on the balls of his bare feet as though prepared for a fight.
"Welcome back," Nero began.
"Back?" The word was clipped and blade-sharp.
"Hoo, boy," Lady muttered sotto voce. "This ought to be fun."
"Fun?" Nero took his eyes off Vergil to glance at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I've met this one before. Or at least pretty close." She addressed Vergil. "You're what, eighteen? Nineteen years old?"
"That is no concern of yours." Vergil's eyes narrowed. "How have you brought me here, and what have you done to me? Speak."
Nero's eyebrows shot up. "Wow. Really?"
"Yeah, I forgot to mention he was a total prick at this age." Lady's eyes roved over Vergil's figure. "Hot as hell, though. Damn. Not sure how I missed that the first time around."
Nero rolled his eyes, but he couldn't deny her assessment: Vergil's muscular, well-proportioned frame managed to make even Nero's tattered bathrobe look regal, and his chiseled face could have sold anything from perfume to luxury watches. Only the arrogant sneer contorting his mouth marred the effect.
Vergil merely flicked his eyes to Lady before shifting his gaze back to Nero. "You will answer my questions." His lips tightened in concentration, and a luminous blue sword shimmered into existence over his shoulder.
"Oh, hell no." Nero's spectral hand shot out and crushed the summoned blade into shards of light. "You jack up my bedroom with that shit, and I will kick your ass all the way back to Red Grave."
Vergil's eyes kindled with sudden interest. "So that is your power. I can sense that you aren't entirely human. Who are you?"
Nero swallowed. It should be a simple answer, but how would this Vergil react to the truth? Even the one he knew had seemed dismissive of him at first, and he had to assume that he wasn't even a twinkle in this younger Vergil's eye yet. Still, the man who would one day be his father was staring at him expectantly, and maybe the truth would help rein in his belligerent attitude. "I'm your son."
Vergil's face went blank. For a few seconds Nero wondered if the revelation had somehow short-circuited his brain, but he could see the minute shifting of Vergil's eyes as they took in Nero's features and white hair. A mask, then. "Explain."
Lady barked a laugh. "I know you're young right now, but you can't be that young."
The flash of Vergil's eyes toward her was as blue and nearly as deadly as one of his summoned swords. "I am well aware of the biological process—just as I know that I could not possibly have sired offspring a decade before I was born." He flicked an eyebrow at Nero. "Give or take a few years."
Nero could see Lady preparing for another volley, so he cut her off. "Short version: A demon de-aged you, and we're trying to get you back to normal. These crystal pieces contain the time and memories that were stolen from you. You've absorbed two of them so far. We're hoping that this last one contains enough power to return you to your proper age."
Vergil's eyes fixed on the remaining shard with chilling intensity. "Uh-oh," Lady said dryly. "You used the P-word. Now there'll be no stopping him."
"Wait." Nero extended a hand, and Vergil tensed as though to counter an attack. Nero raised his palms in a gesture of peace. "There's something you should know first."
Vergil didn't relax his stance. "Speak."
It was difficult not to answer his hostility in kind, but Nero forced his voice to stay level. "Right now you're still missing something like twenty-five years. When you touch that thing, you're going to recover the memories from that part of your life, as well."
"Your point being?"
Nero glanced at Lady, but she tensed and looked away. "Look—the next few years really suck for you," he said. "Like, the worst-days-of-your-life kinda suck. You'll live through it, but getting those memories back may… hurt."
"It matters not," Vergil replied without hesitation. "If this power is mine, I will reclaim it."
"Yeah, I kinda figured you'd say that." Nero sighed. "Just… take it easy, okay? Don't freak out on me, or hurt yourself, or anything."
"Hurt myself?" Vergil scoffed. "You must truly have a low opinion of me."
"Just the opposite, actually, but it's starting to slide the longer I talk to you." Nero gestured to the bowl. "Knock yourself out, hotshot. We'll be here when you wake up."
As promised, Nero stayed through the whole of Vergil's transformation, though Lady excused herself once the screaming started. Nero knelt nearby, hating that he was powerless to relieve Vergil's pain as he thrashed against whatever invisible enemies persecuted him. He knew from Trish's confession that Mundus had used Vergil's own memories to torment and manipulate him, but it was clear that his captor had reveled in physical torture as well: Illusory wounds opened and closed on Vergil's chest, blood pooling in the cavities before vanishing beneath ropy scars. The skin of his hands and feet was flayed away. Deep fissures gouged his face from hairline to throat. Vergil's unseeing eyes flickered from blue to red, and veins of some demonic power pulsed violet through his pallid skin. His flesh cracked, crumbled and re-formed, reminding Nero of the way V's body had broken down near the end of his life. Had that, too, been a shadow of something Vergil had previously experienced?
After more than an hour of agony—when his voice had gone raw from screaming, and droplets of sweat and tears dotted the wood planks around his body like rain—Vergil sagged against the floor, mercifully unconscious.
Nero gingerly brushed sweat-drenched hair back from his father's slack face, finally restored to its normal hue rather than the sickly gray his flesh had turned in the throes of his metamorphosis. The scars covering his body had vanished somewhere along the way, while the skin had gradually roughened and acquired its familiar creases. This was the Vergil Nero recognized, the one he'd fought atop the Qliphoth, the one who had led Dante to the underworld and then followed him back home. This was his father as he knew him.
Only he'd never really known him, had he? He'd certainly never known about any of this.
Lady reappeared when there had been silence in the room for several minutes. "How is he?" she asked softly.
"He's out of it, for now." Nero shook his head. "I bet when he wakes up, he'll try to pretend none of this ever happened."
"Can you blame him?" Lady wrapped her arms around herself. "The way he sounded… I wouldn't want to talk about it, either. Or even think about it. I can't imagine what he's just gone through."
"Yeah." Watching the change had given Nero the barest idea of the agony Vergil had experienced, but he knew the visible physical effects were by no means the worst of what he had suffered. "I'm not sure what we'd say to him, even if it did come up."
Lady brushed Nero's shoulder. "How are you holding up?"
Nero shrugged. "I'm not the one who just had to relive years of torture and slavery at high speed."
"No. Just the one who witnessed it."
Nero's legs were growing stiff from crouching, so he rocked back to a sitting position. "Trish told us what he went through, but just knowing about it isn't the same as seeing what it did to him. For someone who's normally so…" He gestured with his hand.
"Stoic?"
"I was thinking 'emotionally constipated,' but yeah. Something that could make even him lose control like that is just…" He shivered. "I mean, what does it take for that to happen? What could even do that to him?"
Lady nodded. "Vergil may be lacking in the humanity department, but he's always been strong. Trish said it took a lot to break him, but the very fact that a demon exists that could is pretty terrifying." She knelt beside Vergil and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. "He's feverish."
"His body's been through a lot. Aging that fast, plus all the trauma. Think we can get him on the bed?"
They lifted him together, Nero taking most of Vergil's weight, and soon had him positioned on the mattress. Nero was tucking a pillow beneath his neck when Lady giggled. "What?" he asked.
She combed Vergil's loose hair forward with her fingers. "Look, it's Dante."
Nero knew he shouldn't laugh—knew his father would probably murder him for laughing—but with Vergil unconscious and his face fully relaxed, he really did look like his twin, more than he ever had when he was awake. "Now all he needs is a magazine over his face."
"I could get one from downstairs. We could take a photo. That's blackmail material, right there."
"No, thanks, I don't actually have a death wish." Nero shook out the quilt and draped it over Vergil's body. "I wonder how long he'll stay out."
Lady shrugged. "They've always been fast healers."
"Yeah, but Dante spent a whole month unconscious after that first fight with Urizen. I mean, that would have killed most people, so I guess it's still relatively fast healing, but it doesn't give us a reliable estimate." Nero sat on the edge of the bed. "Look, I'll stay with him, if you've got something else to do. No reason for both of us to sit around up here."
Lady glanced toward the door with clear longing. "Actually, I wouldn't mind putting my feet up for a few minutes. With everything that's been going on, I'm still a little short on sleep."
"Go for it." Nero waved her toward the stairs. "There's nothing else we can do for now, except wait."
"Okay. Shout if you need anything."
When Lady had gone, Nero stared down at Vergil's still form. "That just isn't right." He swept Vergil's hair back into its usual style. "You should be grateful Nico isn't here. She'd never let this go." He imagined Dante raking his own hair back in a mockery of his brother's style, or Trish smirking at the resemblance, or Lady snapping a photo for posterity. "None of them would. Good thing I've got your back, huh?"
After several minutes, Nero yawned. Perhaps Lady had the right idea; they should take advantage of any chance to rest. If Vergil stirred, Nero would be here to help him, but it wasn't as though staring at him would improve his condition.
Stretching out on the other half of the bed, Nero closed his eyes and focused on the sound of his father's shallow breathing to assure himself that everything would, somehow, be all right.
