The next morning was slightly more chaotic than usual, as Lady, Trish and Kyrie were preparing to leave just after breakfast to pick up the sisters at the orphanage for the firearms training. Nico, who would be driving, had arrived early to take advantage of Kyrie's cooking—though she hadn't anticipated finding Nero hovering over the stove. She scowled as she leaned into the kitchen. "Aww, why're you cookin' the one time I actually manage t' haul my sleepy ass—"

"Hey!" Nero jerked his head toward the table, where half a dozen children were settling into their seats.

"—orted body parts out o' bed in time to get over here for breakfast?"

Nero scooped some very burnt eggs onto a plate. "You're welcome to cook something for yourself, if I'm not up to your usual standards. The stove's hot."

"Nah, I never cook if I can help it." She wrinkled her nose at the skillet. "What is that, anyways?"

Nero sighed and jabbed at the black crust lining the pan. "It's supposed to be colazione americana. Only I don't quite have that whole fried egg part down."

"Morning," Lady said as she leaned around the corner. "Oh! Hi, Nico. We're ready to load up as soon as we eat." She snagged one of the plates from the counter, then stared at it for several seconds without moving. "Did this used to be an egg?"

"Yeah, I know, cooking is not my strongest skill," Nero muttered, passing out plates to the children. "You can eat around it if you don't like it."

Lady poked at the charred mass with a fork. "What did you fry it in?"

Nero pointed to the skillet on the stove. "A frying pan. What else?"

"No, I mean what kind of fat did you use? Butter, olive oil, lard…?"

Nero blinked. "Fat?"

Lady pressed her lips together in a valiant attempt to keep from laughing, but a giggle slipped through. "Look, we've still got a couple minutes. Shove over." She squeezed past Nero and surveyed the stove. "Oh, I see we're going full American today. You made bacon, too, right?"

"Yeah, on the griddle."

"Bacon grease will do nicely." Lady positioned the griddle over the heat, waited a moment for the congealed grease on its surface to melt, then expertly cracked an egg and split the shell one-handed. "Medium heat, to keep it from burning. If you want it sunny-side-up, you just wait for the egg white to cook through. If you want it over easy, you flip it and give it a few seconds on the other side. For an americana, you don't want to cook it any more than that, because you want the yolk to stay runny so you can mop it up with toast when it runs all over your plate."

At the table, Julio crinkled his nose. "Ew. People actually eat it like that?"

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it." Lady flipped the egg, turned off the heat, then scooped it off the griddle and dropped it onto a waiting plate. "One perfectly-fried egg. What am I bid?"

"Ooh! Pick me!" Nico waved her hand in the air. "I don't wanna get poisoned by Nero's cookin'."

Nero snatched the plate with Lady's egg out of reach. "Just for that, it goes to Kyrie."

"What goes to me?" Kyrie leaned in from the hallway. "Goodness! This kitchen is packed beyond capacity."

Nero quickly added toast and bacon—only slightly burned—to Kyrie's plate and passed it overhead. "Yeah, if this keeps up I'm gonna have to install double-decker seating. Nico, why don't you take your food out in the living room?"

"You want me to eat with… you-know-who starin' at me?" she hissed. "The eggs were bad enough, but that's just plain mean."

"Last I saw, Vergil was headed for the shower. He's not even there."

"But what if he comes back?"

Nero rolled his eyes. "Then go in the garage! Just make some room for Kyrie to get in here, will you?"

Lady collected her own plate and one for Trish and nudged Nico out into the hallway. "Come on. We can go over our checklist while we eat. I'll bring the dishes back in when we're done."

When they'd gone, Kyrie squeezed into the kitchen and accepted a cup of coffee from Nero. "Thank you. Good morning, children." There was a chorus of "good mornings" from around the table, muffled by various stages of chewing. "Remember, you have your after-school activities today."

Rosso perked up at that. "Can I go too?"

Kyrie threw a quick glance at Nero. "I don't think so, Tony. You aren't a ward of the orphanage, so you aren't accounted for in their program." Rosso deflated a little, and Kyrie continued addressing the group. "Now, I'm going to be away for part of the day, so I won't be here when you get home from the orphanage. I'll try to be home by dinner time, but if I'm a little late, I don't want you to worry."

Carlo glanced from Kyrie to Nero with obvious concern. "Does that mean Nero is going to be making dinner?"

"Yes."

Kyle poked at the egg-shaped briquette on his plate. "Could Miss Lady make dinner for us, instead?"

Kyrie suppressed a smile. "No, Miss Lady is going to be with me."

Flavia, who had bravely sampled her egg and immediately spit it back out, looked thoughtful. "We could stay at the orphanage for dinner," she suggested. "Then I could eat with Gigi."

"No!" Scipio shoved his plate away and slammed his shoulders back against his seat. "I don't want to go to the orphanage."

Flavia turned to him in disbelief. "But… Gigi is there now!"

Scipio rattled off something in furious Italian before shoving away from the table and leaving the room. Nero couldn't catch his words, but their effect on Flavia was instantaneous: Her lower lip began to tremble, and tears welled in her eyes. Kyrie hurried to comfort her, but glanced back over her shoulder at Nero. "Could you…?"

"On it." Nero ducked out of the kitchen and headed for the boys' bedroom. Scipio was already scrunched at the far corner of his bunk, arms crossed, expression stony. Nero sat on the next bed, keeping his posture casual. "So. Family reunions not your thing, huh?"

Scipio said nothing. He glared harder.

"Yeah, I get it. Sometimes there are people who do things that really hurt you, or make you angry, and it's hard to get past that. It's even harder when it's your family. It feels like they betrayed you." Nero shifted so that he was leaning against the head of Rosso's bed, mirroring Scipio's position. "But the problem is, it's not just about you, and how you feel about it. Because you may never want to see Gianna again—and I can't blame you for feeling that way, I know how it feels to get left behind—but I know you care about Flavia."

Scipio remained silent, but he was watching Nero now, his face reading less open hostility and more uncertainty.

"See, something kinda like this happened to me, too. There was this guy I knew—he was kind of like a… a mentor, you know, somebody I looked up to. He helped me out a lot, and I wanted to earn his respect. Make him proud of me, I guess. But after a while, I found out this guy had a brother. Now the brother, he was a pretty awful person. He did some bad things, and he… stole something from me. And I couldn't forgive him for what he did to me." Nero flexed the fingers of his right hand. "To tell you the truth, I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive him."

Scipio had given up any pretense of sulking and was staring at Nero in rapt attention.

"But what I came to realize was, I couldn't have it both ways. See, I still wanted the first guy, that mentor, in my life. He still mattered to me. But he also cared about his brother, and he wasn't going to give him up just because I had a problem with him. Even though the brother and I didn't get along, I realized it wasn't fair to put all the pressure on the first guy to try to keep the peace between us. So I had a choice to make: Could I learn to tolerate someone I was angry at for the sake of someone who was important to me? Or was I so angry that I would give up someone who mattered to me just to keep that other person out of my life?"

"What did you do?" whispered Scipio.

Nero shrugged. "I decided holding on to my anger wasn't worth losing someone I cared about. So I learned to live with the brother. I haven't forgotten what he did to me, and I don't know if I'll ever really trust him, but we have a kind of truce now. And that guy I looked up to? He's a lot happier now. Because he cared about both of us, and he didn't want to see us fighting, either."

Scipio looked down at his hands and said nothing.

"Here's the thing." Nero turned to face Scipio squarely. "I'm not gonna tell you that you have to forgive Gianna. That might happen some day, or it might not, but you can't force it. I won't even tell you that you have to go see her. If you really don't want to go to the orphanage, you don't have to. But I will say this: Flavia's the one caught in the middle. She loves Gigi, and she loves you, and if you try to make her pick sides, it's only going to hurt her more. Maybe you're not ready to give up your anger and try to get along with Gigi, and that's okay—but maybe there's something you can do that would make it easier on Flavia."

"Like what?" Scipio mumbled. He looked miserable.

"Like… maybe you could go to the orphanage with the others, but just tell Sister Benedicta that you don't want to spend more time alone with Gigi just yet. You can be in the same building without talking to her, right?"

Scipio nodded.

"So maybe you just try to coexist for a while. Be in the same place at the same time. That way Flavia can spend time with both of you, and she doesn't feel like you're cutting her out of your life. What do you think?"

"I think I can do that." Scipio slowly uncoiled from his balled position. "If I don't have to see Gianna, I can go there."

"Okay. Good call. You let me know how it goes, okay?" Nero stood. "Now I don't want to rush you, but you'd better hustle, or you're going to be late for school."

Scipio collected his bag, and Nero hurried him out into the hall—where he nearly collided with Vergil, who had apparently finished his shower. Surprisingly, Vergil stepped back out of their way without so much as a disapproving glare.

"Oh, good," Kyrie said as she saw them heading for the front door. "The others just left, so you'll be able to catch up with them at the corner. You have your lunch? All right. Have a good day!" She waved farewell to Scipio, then closed the door behind him. "How did that go?" she asked Nero.

"I convinced him to go to the orphanage for Flavia's sake, but he is really not happy about having Gigi back."

Kyrie nodded. "He hardly said a word to her yesterday. Losing both his parents, and then having his sister leave a few months later… I think it made him very angry and very bitter."

"But not Flavia?"

"No, Flavia was overjoyed to see her again. I'm sure the past year was hard on her too, but she was only three when their parents died, and there's a certain elasticity that children have when they're that young. They're more adaptable, in some ways. She didn't seem to blame Gianna at all. In fact, she didn't want to let her out of her sight. I had to peel her away at the end of the session."

"Maybe she was just afraid she'd disappear again." The clock on the mantel chimed, and Nero twisted to look at it. "Hey, you guys had better hit the road if you're gonna be at the orphanage on time. You got everything you need?"

"I hope so." Kyrie retrieved her coat from the closet, and Nero held it for her as she shrugged it on. "I put our lunches in the van first thing this morning… Lady said she'd taken care of the safety equipment… What am I forgetting?"

"To relax and have a good time." Nero turned her around by the shoulders and kissed her before opening the door to the garage. "You be safe out there."

"I will. Stay out of trouble while we're gone."

Nero laughed. "I'll be cleaning the house all day. How much trouble can I possibly get into?"

"One never knows, where you're concerned." She winked and hurried out to the waiting van.

Nero waved at Lady in the passenger seat, waited for the van to pull out, and closed the garage door after it. He went back inside and took a moment to appreciate just how still and peaceful the house was. He knew there had been a time, that first year after Credo died, when the house had always been this silent, but he couldn't begin to remember what that had been like. Ever since the orphanage had reached capacity and they'd taken in Julio, and later Carlo and Kyle, it seemed the walls of the house had quaked with the children's boisterous energy. And now it wasn't just the children, but Lady, and Trish, and…

Nero glanced around the empty living room. Where was Vergil, anyway?

He heard a rattle from the direction of the kitchen, and followed it to an astounding sight: Vergil, the long sleeves of his turtleneck pushed above the elbow, was washing dishes. "Oh… uh, hey," Nero stammered, "you don't have to do that. I can get those."

Vergil set a plate in the drainer. "Lady mentioned a certain… standard trade-off, I believe she called it. I haven't contributed to the food preparation; therefore, I am discharging related duties."

"Wow." Nero retrieved a towel and began to dry the dishes. "That was probably the most long-winded 'you cook, I clean' in history." He set the dish into the drainer and reached across with his right hand for the plate Vergil was rinsing.

Vergil opened his mouth to say something more, but just then his eyes fell on Nero's extended arm, and he froze. A second later he put the plate into Nero's hand and returned to his task as though he had never intended to speak.

Nero waited for the rebuttal he was sure had been on Vergil's lips, but it never came. They finished the dishes in silence.

The first half of the day was blissfully uneventful.

At Nero's behest, Lady had picked up a couple of cheap jigsaw puzzles at a resale shop for emergency entertainment. Shortly after breakfast, one of these went to Rosso, with instructions to assemble it in his bedroom. Given how little Lady had paid for it, the puzzle was likely missing a few of its five hundred pieces, but Nero guessed that the boy wouldn't figure that out for at least a few hours—and Rosso had never yet met a puzzle that didn't captivate his full attention.

Leaving Vergil to entertain himself with the books he kept digging out of the boxes in the garage, Nero determined to get through as much housework as possible before Kyrie came home so he didn't to leave her to face unfinished chores while they were off hunting the Nilepoch for the rest of the week. He cleaned the bathroom, swept the laundry room and dusted the bedrooms before lunch. After a pause to assemble three sandwiches and consume one of them, he scrubbed all the kitchen surfaces and wiped down the cabinets. He was just starting on a deep clean of the oven when he heard the front door open.

Nero rocked back on his heels as Julio entered the kitchen. "What are you doing here? I thought you were going to the orphanage after school."

Julio wriggled out of his backpack and deposited it on a kitchen chair. "I dropped the others off there, but I have a test tomorrow and I need to study. It's quieter here, so I can focus better."

"And… you actually want to study?" Nero stared at him. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with the real Julio?"

Julio scowled. "I don't want to, but Coach says I need to bring my grades up if I want to be on the team next season."

"Oh, right, I forgot about that rule." Nero stood and stretched. "I had to do some scrambling myself to stay on the football team. Second-year Italian nearly got me booted."

Julio's eyes widened. "You were on the football team? You never told me that!"

"Yeah, well, it was only for half a season. I was a mid-year replacement for a guy who broke his ankle."

"Aw. You didn't try out again the next year?"

Nero shook his head. "By then, I'd enlisted in the Holy Knights. The Order frowned on their recruits taking time off from training for school activities."

"Oh. Yeah, from what you told me, they seemed kinda strict, with they way they dressed, and everything." Julio began unloading books and papers from his bag. "Speaking of which, I saw that old guy again today."

Nero blinked. "Old guy?"

"The one I saw at the park, before. You know, you said he was probably a lonely old man, and the hood was an Order thing? I've seen him around a few times since then."

"Oh, right, the guy with the cowl." Nero frowned. "But you weren't at the park today, were you?"

"No, we passed him on the way to the orphanage. I would have stopped to talk to him, but I had all the kids with me."

"Huh." Something nagged at Nero's memory. "Are you sure it was the same man?"

Julio shrugged. "I think so. He's always dressed the same, and he uses a cane. I don't think there would be two people exactly like that."

Cane. The missing piece snapped into place. "Son of a—" Nero caught himself just short of releasing a truly profane outburst and smothered the words into an inarticulate growl. He seized Julio's shoulders and met the boy's wide, startled gaze. "Listen: You see that man again, you stay way the hell away from him, and you call me right away, okay?"

"O-okay," Julio stammered, "but why? Who is he?"

"That's what I need to find out. There's a chance he could be responsible for some recent demon attacks around town."

"Demon attacks?" Julio's eyes stretched even wider. "Crap. And here I was feeling sorry for him."

The phone rang then, and Nero released Julio's shoulders to answer it. "Hello?"

"Nero!" He recognized Sister Gratia's frantic, breathless voice. "We need you right away! The demons have returned!"

Nero swore under his breath. "I'm on my way." He slammed down the receiver and bolted from the room. It wasn't until he'd retrieved his gun from upstairs and returned to the ground floor that he caught sight of Julio's anxious face, framed in the kitchen doorway. From farther down the hall, Rosso had emerged from the bedroom and was watching with undisguised curiosity. Nero would have liked to explain the situation, but time was critical. "You two, stay here. Julio's in charge. I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?"

Julio gave a tight nod. "Okay."

Nero ran for the front of the house. Given the increasingly dangerous varieties of demons that had been appearing lately, he couldn't risk any escaping into the city. He wanted backup in case one slipped past him. "Saddle up," he said as he swung into the living room. "We got demons to kill."

Vergil set aside his book. "The Nilepoch has returned?"

Nero shook his head as he pulled on his coat. "There's another pack at the orphanage. I'm guessing these were summoned by the same bastard who did the last bunch." He adjusted the coat over Blue Rose's holster, then glanced at Vergil, standing in apparent readiness. But something was missing… "Damn! I forgot. You need a sword."

Vergil held out his hand. A coil of ice-colored flame gathered in his palm, then swirled outward and solidified. When the cool light faded, the Yamato's distinctive sheath rested in Vergil's fingers. "I think this one will do."

"Holy shit." Nero stared at the all-too-familiar weapon, and a phantom tingle ran through his right arm. "You had that all along? I thought it must have been destroyed when the Nilepoch zapped you!"

"It takes far more power than the Nilepoch possesses to damage the Yamato." A shadow flicked across Vergil's face, but before Nero could wonder about it, the expression vanished. "This blade is bound to my soul. When I was struck unconscious, it merely returned to its passive state."

"You mean you… absorbed it?"

"In simple terms, yes."

"Huh. I thought only Dante could do that." Nero retrieved Vergil's overcoat from the closet and tossed it to him. "Here."

Vergil snatched the coat from the air with one hand. "I acquired this skill long before Dante did." He cocked his head at Nero as he donned the garment. "As did you, if I'm not mistaken."

Nero had never connected Dante's ability to summon his sword from thin air with the fact that his own arm had housed the Yamato for years. "Yeah, well… my arm absorbed all sorts of random crap. Anything with arcane power, really. It wasn't exactly the same thing." Discussing his arm with the man who had torn it off wasn't exactly a comfortable topic, either. "Besides, it's not like I can just whip Red Queen out of nowhere."

"That's because your sword is not a Devil Arm. Weapons formed from a piece of a soul can be linked to your own. Human-forged steel cannot."

"Well, I'm sure as hell not trading her in for a more portable version." Nero jerked his head toward the door. "Let's move. The girls have got the van, so we're on foot. Unless…" He glanced toward the garage. "How pissed do you think Lady would be if we borrowed her bike without asking?"

The corners of Vergil's lips twitched in a faint approximation of a smile. "I won't tell if you won't."

Author's Note:

Urizen dematerializes the Yamato and absorbs it in DMC5, so I'm assuming Vergil has retained that power along with SDT. There's also some evidence in Deadly Fortune that suggests that Vergil's soul is linked to the sword. (If you squint.) :)