Chapter Eighty: Festering

Note: Sorry the chapter was a few hours late. Had to run out and do some last minute grocery shopping in the middle of editing the last few paragraphs, and when I got back to my apartment it was already 7:30! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter! I've been wanting to write this one for a while now! The holiday schedule is in the notes!

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A series of innumerable inconsistencies had led to this moment, each more unfathomable than the last. But this… this was something else entirely.

The hollow, ringing reverberation produced by the pitter-patter of falling water was deafening, at least to the eldest Son of Sparda. Its source was unknown, but with every second it grew heavier and more damaging to the psyche and no doubt the structure they resided in. It had to be difficult for the supports that held this place up to hold sway over that kind of liquid mass. He didn't like their chances. And as if the pillars themselves had heard him and shared the same sentiment, they suddenly gave way. The thick stone structures that held up the heightless ceiling above him split down their carved creases, the weight of what they had to hold proving too much for them to handle.

But as the cracks deepened the pillars didn't falter. Instead, seams of crimson flowed through and from them, cascading downward as though gravely wounded. The rest of the red matter flowed upward in a doubled pumping rhythm as though each post contained its own circulatory system. It was reminiscent of a heartbeat, only with more irregularity. Despite this, there was an apparent strength to the flow of it with no signs of weakness present. But what it pumped towards was completely unknown to them… until the moment that the droplets from above made contact with the bloodied water below.

Large droplets of an uncertain liquid pelted them from above as the eldest of the twins took in his surroundings. Or at least he tried to. There was not really much that he could take in given the circumstances. On one side of the room, the pillars were readily visible, but would lie beyond them on even the far side of the same room was hard to say. It was sort of darkness that seemed to creep on and on forever regardless of how close you walked towards it, and the last thing he wanted to do was become separated from the rest of the group. They stood very little chance against whatever this was if they were not together. Of that he was sure.

And all the while the hot air from the other side of the door never relented, its blistering temperature rising higher and higher until it became undeniably apparent that something truly was breathing on the other side of that door. The rhythm of the pseudo breath was even in rough synchronization to that of the pulsation of the pillars, further indicating that these two structures were intertwined in some way, shape, or form. It was almost as though they were within the center of a massive being that had taken the shape of a structure, and they had unwittingly traveled through its mouth and down its throat into the literal belly of the beast.

But none of that was comparable to the real and very present threat in that room: the broken, mangled, misshapen remnants of what had once been the Devil King himself. The two eyes that saw nothing lingered upon his face and bore into the Darkslayer's very soul, judging him and wearing him down. Looking into the face of his former master would have been grounds for brutal retaliation at one point in his life, and even though he wanted to recoil in physical discomfort the longer he gazed into them, he couldn't will himself to redirect his attention. He felt trapped

The third eye that resided upon his forehead was barely visible as a result of the cracks that formed in his head the higher up you looked, but despite the fact that what seemed to be his brain was exposed and threatening to tumble to the floor, his firey blood quenching in the cool liquid as it dropped from his exposed stone skull. The demon slayer knew just by looking at what remained of this creature that the power that that third eye contained was not lost. And he knew that the damage that it could do was devastating. He had far more experiance with it than he would like.

Vergil recalled with much internalized anguish the number of times he had experienced defeat and agony at the business end of that particular eye, the cylindrical, spear-like rods that it shot out piercing him and pinning him to a number of surfaces in that very room. That was where the majority of the blood had come from, after all. Mundus had taken great joy in attempting to shatter his psyche, but when that didn't work his bones were still available. And unlike his mind, his bones healed quickly which meant that they were always available for target practice. Vergil had never resented his healing factor so much in his entire life, but a little bit of time down here quickly changed that. It was undeniably useful, but there had been many times when he wished it would simply give out and allow him the sweet release of death. That would have been his only avenue of exscape.

"What is he doing here?" Vergil thought to himself as he made reluctant and involuntary eye contact with what remained of his old master. The probability of this particular demonic prince being here at this particular time was exceedingly low, and he quickly came to the conclusion that was most obvious given that undeniable reality. He wasn't here. This was clearly all just an illusion. Even in his sanity spent, brain-addled, utterly deluded state, he was able to clearly understand this fact. So why was it that even though he was being confronted by an illusion of something long since past he simply couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling of nauseous dread that threatened to overtake him and send him careening to the floor in anguish? Why did his blood still run colder than the deepest arctic waters and his lungs forget how to intake air?

"Because." Vergil thought to himself in undeniable irritation, his frustration with himself evident. He lacked the capacity to even try and contemplate how insane he must look at this point. And he certainly couldn't even try to pretend that he cared. "You still… You have to admit it to yourself at some point, don't you. And will you let that stop you from protecting them? You know they stand no chance against him… You certainly didn't. Well, except Dante but… No. Especially not alone. And they have no idea what to even expect. They don't know what they are up against. But you do."

His mind started to drift for a moment to all the possibilities. There were so many things that could go wrong here. And in a strange way he couldn't imagine things having gone worse than this. But then after a moment, a nudge brought him back to his senses, even if only slightly. And then a second prodding tap dared to actually attempt to grab his attention. Forsaking the entire situation he was in momentarily, the legendary Dark Knight's eldest son snapped out of the daze he was in and turned and made eye contact with his strangely persistent botherer. And for reasons he couldn't quite process, he was actually surprised to see that it was Dante, and that Dante seemed to see the exact same thing that he was seeing. At least he hadn't gone completely mad, left alone to fester in his own grief within the confines of his own illusion. That would have been so very like Belial. A fate worse than death. Perhapse he would even use it against V as a means of attempting to blackmail him into submission, his freedom hanging in the ballance.

"I… What exactly happened to him, Dante?" Vergil said almost breathlessly, clearly unsure as to how to process what he was seeing. He'd never seen Mundus in a state so unbecoming of his position. He'd clearly been badly injured by something, and it certanly handn't been him. He didn't even have any memories pertaning to this. Where had Belial conjured them from? Had he seen this first hand? "My memory of many of the events surrounding my death can be patchy at the best of times… But I distinctly recall him being much more intact than this. Is this how he looked before he met his end?"

"Yea, more like "What didn't you do to him, Dante". Dante said, scratching the back of his neck before putting his gun away and drawing his blade. It hummed in the darklness, eager to draw the demon king's blood for a third time. How fitting that the evolved form of the blade that had struck him down the first and second times should be the one to end him once again. "After I realized I'd, ya know… killed you… I kinda went berserk and, well, that happened. That wasn't the only trick that he pulled but… well, I didn't really have anything left to lose at that point, ya know? So I just went all out. I had some help finishing him off, but this? Yea, I think I was actually trying to destroy him more than I was trying to just kill him at that point. After what he did to you I just… "

Dante knew that there was more to that story, but mentioning Trish right now probably wasn't the best idea. And it hadn't occurred to him until then that he'd literally never talked about Vergil's death with him before. It might not be a good idea to do so within Belial's domain, either. But it still needed to be said either way. It was one of the things that weighed heaviest on him, even to this day. The passage of the years hadn't made things any less painful, and having to look at Vergil and remember that things had come to that between him was physically painful at times. He wished that he could just take it all back and they could start over, but he wasn't sure that death was something they could just forget or forgive and move on. It never had been.

Nero looked at his uncle and father as he approached, V in tow behind him. It was best to stay together, but now he knew that what Nico had said about having been told by Lady that Dante had killed Vergil once was actually correct, he wasn't sure how to even begin processing it. And whatever this demon was that was prying itself off of the throne on the other side of the room had tricked Dante into doing it? Just how powerful was this thing, and what had it even done that for? And how had Dante been deceived into doing something so fundamentally self-destructive in the first place? He didn't seem like the type to be easily tricked. So much more about his uncle made more sense to him now that it threatened to physically give him backlash, even if he now had more questions than answers.

"Wait, so if he's dead then what the fuck is he doing still breathing and moving around?!" Nero asked, suddenly coming to the realization that something about that didn't make sense to him. If his uncle had basically destroyed this guy years ago by the sound of it, then there was no reason for him to still be moving around, right? After all, Dante was good at killing things. Really good. So good in fact that he'd never seen anything he'd fought aside from his own brother even so much as stand a chance against him. So how could this thing still be moving and even thinking about starting a fight with them? Was it undead or something?

"Because this is an illusion," V said as calmly as he could manage, the shifting environment that they currently occupied making doing so difficult. He wanted nothing more than to go through that door and get this over with, especially if this was just a taste. Neither he nor Nero had been able to see the illusion initially, and the prospect of Belial making individual illusions that only specific people could see was enough in of itself to send him into a barely concealed panic. "They can be very convincing. Take my word for it. I have prior experiance."

The youngest member of the family felt himself die a little inside at the realization that their opponent could create illusions so convincing that they would even stop their father dead in his tracks. He knew that was possible. After all, Vergil had lost to him in the past. But the idea that some of them could see the illusion while others couldn't make things several thousand times worse, as far as he was concerened. And could he make them appear different to one another as well? Could he turn them against one another? There were simply too many variables in the situation, and until he had some concrete facts to work with, he was just going to have to work off of the assumption that everything could go wrong all at once.

"Belial fashions his nightmares off of the negative experiences of those he seeks to destroy. He sees no point in attempting to fight an opponent that he can simply make destroy themselves." The Darkslayer said calmly, not at all helping to ease Nero's anxieties. It was a simple truth of the matter, as awful as that truth might be. They had known this to some degree before coming down here, but seeing it really did make it worse, didn't it? It seemed that all of them would be worse off by the end of this in some way, shape, or form.''... He has much to work with on my behalf. He always has. I sincerely doubt he even had to look into my mind this time to create this illusion. A quick glimpse into Dante's mind was probably all it took for him to find the details he was searching for. Or perhapse he saw this himself."

As they turned to look back at the demon that had now managed to almost pull itself loose from its confinement, Dante turned and looked at his older twin. It probably wasn't very easy for Nero and V to be able to tell that Vergil was deeply unnerved, but Dante could tell from a mile away. Even in this vast, impenetrable darkness, he could tell that his brother was trembling ever so slightly and that he seemed almost short of breath, a reaction that probably came from years of neglect and abuse at the hands of this wretched being. And perhaps it was only the angle, but he got the impression his pupils had dilated slightly more than they needed to, even in this kind of darkness. His eyes were certainly open slightly wider than they normally were, even if he had totally averted them and seemed determined to look down at the floor instead. He couldn't make eye contact with him, it seemed. And he wasn't too suprised by that. It made sense.

He had seen what Munduus had turned him into; how he had corrupted him and broken his spirit until he had been forced to serve him against his will. He had defeated him. And even then he was sure that Vergil had rebelled against his will. It was what his brother did best. He didn't yeild to those he hated under any curcomstances. So to know that this was still something that was so fresh, a wound still open and bleeding. To know that he still held weight over his brother in any way at all... It made him hate Munduus more than he ever had before.

"Illusions only have the power we give them over us, Vergil. They aren't real, even if what makes them so painful is." Dante said quietly in an almost hushed tone, exhaling slowly to avoid sighing and giving off the wrong impression. This was something that they didn't have the time to fully discuss right now, but it was something that he needed him to know, even if it led to more problems than solutions. He was long overdue to say it for both of their sakes, even if it did open a can of worms that he wasn't ready to handle right now. He just hoped that it wouldn't serve to do more harm than good. Vergil was already pretty close to the edge. He didn't want to kick him bodily over it and back into the abyss that he'd clearly worked so hard to claw his way back out of. "He's gone. He can't hurt you ever again. You're free now and he's dead. You never have to do anything because of him again. He can't force you to do anything against your will anymore, you know that, right?"

Vergil didn't answer. In fact, he seemed to physically recoil at the very mental image that that statement had just conjured up in his mind, hiding within himself. That experience had been a lifetime ago for Dante, but for Vergil… those wounds were still bleeding. Time had flowed differently for him down here, and every slow, agonizing second of it had been hellish beyond comprehension. From the point of inception to the moment he had taken his last breath, every interaction had been filled with debasement, defilement, and denigration; what little honor and pride he still possessed stripped away from him layer by layer like so much earth beneath flowing water. It seemed that whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, he was still coping with the trauma of his past. And that was something that would probably never relent. It was not a simple thing to move on from that level of trauma. He had spent half his life in that dreadful situation, and he wasn't sure when the moment that he could say that he was truly living again would ever come, if at all. Maybe pain just didn't work that way for him. But either way, he couldn't abandon any of them at the moment when they most needed him. He wouldn't even consider it. He was many things, but a coward was not one of them, and it never would very idea of abandoning V and Nero to a similar fate at Belial's hands; of leaving Dante to protect them alone… The fury it awoke within him was almost enough to burn away the complex cocktail of emotions that he felt brewing in the pit of his stomach every time he looked up and saw the shattered, broken, illusionary remnants of what had once been the devil king who had enslaved him. Even if only for a moment. And perhaps a moment was all that he needed.

He was stronger now. He could defeat him.

Still unsure as to how to process everything that was going on, the Darkslayer turned to face his opponent, looking up slightly as he took a deep breath and inhaled the darkness around him before exhaling slowly. He then drew Yamato from its sheath again, the blade glistening in the dim light. He would end this here and now.

Dante came to stand beside him, saying not a single word but making his intentions known as Nero and V both flanked Vergil on his opposite side, unwilling to allow him to fight this part of his past alone, even if it was only an illusion.

"Last time you avenged me. This time I am owed my vengeance." Vergil said under his breath and a tone just allowed enough for his brother to hear him, his conviction evident. He needed this more than the devil prince Belial might have realized. Disillusion stood no chance against the unyielding power of the combined might of their family, and so long as they stood together, they would not fail. "Even if this is just an illusion, I will destroy him. I have to."

"And if he can't shake the darkness then maybe I can be the light." Dante thought to himself as he stood shoulder to shoulder with his brother. They could defeat this illusion. It probably wasn't as powerful as the real demon it was based on anyway. This would be a good warm-up before they took down the real thing. "Maybe I just have to realize that he's in the dark and that I can stand in the dark with him. If I can't bring him into the light, then maybe I can bring the light to him."

"Man. I gotta say, you sure as hell don't know how to stay dead. Maybe this time when I send you to hell we'll draw ya a map." Dante said to almost clenched teeth as he prepared to face off agains thim, his own hatred overflowing in its own way. He had not forgotten the hate that he felt towards the devil king for what he had done, and this illusion was going to feel the full force of it. They couldn't risk going all out on this opponent, but they were still going to make it suffer. Any destruction of a part of Belial was going to help in the long run, so maybe it was best that they get this over with quickly. It might even be cathartic. The clock was ticking after all. "I told ya to say hello to my son for me if you ever met him, but maybe it's time you said hi to both of my nephews instead."

Nero and V nodded in agreement, the youngest member of the family drawing his blade and revving the chamber that injected the fuel into it, the blade glowing red hot as he stood at his father's side as V redied himself. He didn't need to know what happened to him in detail to know that it had been heinous and that this particular demon deserved to die a gruesome death. If it had done those horrible things to his uncle and father and helped set them down the path that had led to so much pain between the two of them, and there wasn't enough pain he could inflict upon it, and one glance at V was all it took for him to know that his older brother agreed.

They were going to destroy this thing once and for all. And then Belial was next.

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HELLO EVERYONE! QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT!

I will be taking a break for christmas week because were gonna be super busy! That being said, come back on New Years Eve for something special over in Saudade! I think your going to like what I have planned! I also have my Tumblr and Discord info in my bio of AO3 for you, so please feel free to get in contact with me over the holidays if you like! I will still be checking comments here on A03, too! I might not have any chapters, but I sure as hell don't mind talking with any of you! You are all wonderful, and your the reason this seriese has made it to ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAMN CHAPTERS AND OVER 520,500 WORDS! That's a totally of 1156 words! For context, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is 1136 pages. I just… I can't believe your still here with me. I'm genuinely touched! From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

We will resume our normal schedule as of Wensday January 5th, 2022, but again, we will have a chapter of Saudade on Friday, December 31st! Wow, that's weird to say. 2022…

Hiraeth might be drawing to a close soon, but don't worry, we still have some lose ends to wrap up. I did mention some things a long while back that still need to be addressed. I'm looking forward to next year. Seriously, I have so many wonderful things to write for all of you! I hope you are not bored of reading my work just yet hehehe! But first, we have to take care of Belial, see what happened with Sirrus and Magnolia's sisters, find out if Patty and Nico and Kyrie are okay, check in on Lady, Trish, and Lucia… and see what Morgan and Brenowin are up to. I hope to have you all along for that journey next year! As long as you keep reading, I'm happy to keep adding to this universe! Your the reason I write, and I have at least 4 side projects that tie into Hiraeth and the larger Soliloquy Saga planned for next year, so your about to get hit with a truckload of variety! The multiverse is expanding, and I couldn't be more excited! I hope you are, too!

Take care and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, no mater what you celebrate or if you don't celebrate at all! Everyone is welcome here! I hope you see you over on Discord, and I'll see you all again soon! Take care!