V opened his eyes to sullen clouds and ashen rays of light. The scent of smoke and burnt metal tingled in his nose, chased by the slightly more pleasant scent of damp grass. He blinked slowly. The sound of waves rolling in was all around him as if he were afloat in a strange dream. It was only when the chill began to seep in through the back of his coat that he fully realized he was awake again.

He sat up. Looked at his tattoo-covered hands. Patted them over his thin chest. Felt the shape of his face. He was himself—his human self—again.

He clenched his eyes against the gray light and tried to think. He remembered Urizen laying almost dead, the final blow, their re-joining, and then... The top of the Qliphoth. Nero. Traveling down to hell with Dante. Maybe they would find their way back, maybe they wouldn't. Either way, the Qliphoth was gone.

The twitch of a smile touched V's lips. Somewhere, he and his brother were together, reclaiming something that had been lost in their uniquely stubborn way.

So where was this then?

The glint of his cane greeted him as he opened his eyes. He looked again at his hands. They were smooth. No cracks or any sign of deterioration at all. He still leaned heavily on the cane to stand, but it no longer required him to near-exhaust his will on pushing through pain.

"I take it by your uncanny silence," he murmured, extending his arm. "That you have nothing to relay?"

Griffon fluttered down and gingerly took the offered perch. "Not a lot about the situation that makes sense, V. I'm a little lost for words."

"How long has it been?"

"Can't say, I wasn't exactly expecting to return from the dead."

V glanced aside at his familiar. Vergil had never given any thought to the fates of the three, and so neither had he. Until this moment.

"You remember anything?" Griffon asked as if picking up on V's thoughts. "We're already back, I might as well know if we died for shit all."

"...Vergil didn't remember," he answered, not unkindly.

"Eh, I'll take it." He took off, flapping busily to stay at eye level with V. "Wherever we're at, I'm feelin' good about being not dead again, so let's focus on keeping that going. There's not a demon in sight, but the shore's littered with bodies and we might be in a liiittle bit over our heads—check out the smoke factory."

V followed Griffon's gaze out to sea. Between the sunken skeletons of skyscrapers and strange, jutting white pillars, a many-armed behemoth rose from the water. Flames flickered like distant stars from within its frame and sighed black smoke into the sky.

An eye cast away from the waters found the shore just as baffling. Skyscrapers covered in massive trees stretched up behind him. There were bodies, as Griffon said. Some were clad in black, some were naked and so charred that their skin was peeled back. Only there was no flesh beneath. Just bundles of cables in a mimicry of muscle and milky white shells in place of bone. All around were destroyed scraps and dismantled shape. Gears, bolts, and screws scattered across the grass like blood on the floor of an abattoir.

V turned inland, determined to be away from there while the calm persisted.

"Hey!" Griffon called, sailing after him. "You're just gonna leave?"

He glanced over his shoulder and briefly took in the alien scenery again. "A battle happened here involving neither humans nor devils. I'd rather we stay as outsiders."

"Whoa whoa, wait-but what if there's a clue here? Y'know, where we are, why we're here?"

V flexed his fingers experimentally around his cane and took off at a confident stride. "Then we'll return. It seems we have been afforded the luxury of time."