Having been in the Underworld before I should know what it looks like and it shouldn't look like my fucking bedroom from my childhood. The Underworld also has quite a distinct smell to it, one that's between a burning trash heap and something long dead and that is notably missing from whatever this is… Which sure as shit isn't the Underworld, I decide after a good long look around the room. Maybe some weird ass dream but a decisively hard pinch on my forearm dissolves that notion, it assures me that I am very much awake…and very much alone.
I frown as I turn, doing a three-sixty pan of the room—my childhood bedroom—looking for my brother who shoulda been behind me, only he is not here. Not in my bedroom at least. It takes me a moment to realize that I can sense him, faintly, and he is moving towards me.
Whatever the fuck this thing is I'm almost certain that he's behind it—as he had grown the damned Qliphoth on our childhood home's doorstep—and anger swells up inside of me at the thought of this betrayal. I call on my Devil Sword Dante as I whirl around to face the door, just as he bursts through it, only my sword doesn't come. Then there's the fact that Vergil looks nothing like he had on top of the Qliphoth, instead he's a goddamn kid and I…I'm exactly the same height as him.
"What the fuck did you do this time?!" I shout as I launch myself at him, not caring that I don't have access to my Devil Sword, that I don't have any of my Devil Arms—my fists are more that enough to beat my brother's ass—not caring at all that we look like fucking kids, and I just barely manage to catch him on his chin as he twists out of the way.
Vergil reflexively snarls at me, his eyes flashing warily as he takes a step back to put some distance between us. "I don't know all that you apparently think I'm capable of, Dante, but something of this caliber isn't within my abilities," he states in a low, partially growled tone. It sounds just a bit weird cuz he sounds the age that he looks, which seems to be about seven, but there is no mistaking his tone, not with the growl edging it. "And why on earth would I do something that would affect us in such a manner, little brother?"
I know that he's right, on some deeper level, but after everything I've been through because of him, how he had disappeared on me right before we had turned eighteen, after fucking Temen-ni-gru, goddamn Mallet Island and the absolute shit show that we had just gotten through, I'm not letting go of my anger so easily. "Like you ever gave a damn about me, you fucking asshole! All you cared about was getting more power to-"
"Protect you! I did everything for you, Dante! All of it was so I could keep you safe from Mundus and every other demon out there hunting us down because of our father!" He actually raises his voice for once and I'm so stunned by it that it takes me a moment to process the words, to process that in his own fucked up way that he really does care about me. "You were-still are my everything, Dante, and I regret all that you had to go through because I wasn't strong enough."
A disconcerting silence settles over us in the time I am processing—still processing his words, how broken his voice had sounded and the way his expression had twisted with such remorse—and the silence is nearly deafening in its totality. I can only stare at my brother, finding it so uncharacteristic of him—just like the yelling—that my anger slips away, my own expression becoming stricken as all I am left with is confusion and hurt.
"What is going on in here, boys?" The voice that breaks the silence has my blood turning into ice and Vergil is likewise affected, his face going pale as panic blooms in his eyes. Neither of us move because with that voice comes an old, familiar presence that feels suffocating. "Vergil." My brother flinches at the sound of his own name, his eyes going wide as panic becomes full blown fear. "Dante." I find myself flinching as well but I turn to look at what should be impossible.
"Well shit." I can almost hear the grimace that Vergil gives while I stare at our very alive father who is looking between us with a scowl. His gaze cuts to me at my choice of words but I'm not of the mind to give a damn because he should be dead. Or vanished. Or whatever the hell had happened to him. "You know what, Verge, you are absolutely right. You wouldn't do something like this…but Mundus would."
It's like the temperature drops as our should-be-dead-or-something-like-it father narrows his eyes at the mention of Mundus' name, his human form twisting into the demon one that he almost never took around us. "You will start speaking now."
It takes a considerable amount of effort to remain standing in the wake of The Legendary Dark Knight's oppressive aura. There is no thought of running. Fighting him in our current states, with no weapons between us and no access to our Devil Triggers, would be outright suicide and that isn't a thought that crosses my mind either. Instead I find myself wanting to do as he has instructed, as he has ordered us.
"So, uh, this might sound crazy but we were forty-three years old about ten minutes ago." I'm not sure I should say much more than that just yet, especially considering what we had just left behind us and the fact that Vergil had been the primary cause of it. Despite how hurt I am, how confused and conflicted I am over the fact that he had been trying to protect me, I cannot bring myself to reveal what he had done—none of it—to our father. Whatever this is I cannot betray my brother. "And you and mom have been dead for thirty-five years."
There is a moment of breathless silence as father's energy bears down on us even further, making both of us drop to our knees and I'm almost certain that this is how we'll die. In the blink of an eye, however, it lifts away from us completely and I suck in a lungful of air before I even attempt to stand again. My brother is pale and shaking when I glance over at him and I am hit with the sudden urge to go over to him.
I hesitate, biting at the inside of my lower lip as I watch Vergil for a few seconds before I return my attention to father. He looks between both of us with his pupil-less gaze, the scarlet slits that make up his irises burning bright, and then his expression starts to soften as he resumes his human form. "Start from…the beginning."
We sit in silence afterwards, the echoes of our painful past replaying in my mind as I numbly lean against my headboard while Vergil has chosen to sit on the foot of the bed, refusing to look in my direction. This silence is somehow worse, but then maybe it's because my thoughts are so loud, louder than they've ever been, and I want nothing more than to disappear in this moment. I want them to be quiet, like how Vergil and our father is quiet, before they swallow me up.
"You were-still are my everything, Dante, and I regret all that you had to go through because I wasn't strong enough."
Why do those words resurface now? Why do they crowd out the rest of my thoughts? I don't want to think about them, I don't want the ache that they bring to my heart, knowing that if things had been different, if I had maybe tried a little harder, if I had been stronger too, that maybe I could have taken that fall with my brother. That I should have taken that fall with my brother. My own everything, my other half that I had to kill with my own hands.
"This changes things." Father finally breaks the silence, though it's not much of a reprieve from my thoughts, and I shift my focus onto him. His expression has darkened again, pale blue eyes like chips of ice as he regards both of us. "I will gauge your skills and then from there I will start training both of you…after today. It is your seventh birthday after all, and your mother has been working hard on the preparations for it." He gives us both another look, eyes a glowing crimson. "So you both will be attending and you will not speak a word of this to your mother. Ever."
I rather not go but there is no getting out of this. "Yes, sir," I half mutter, and Vergil echoes me a half-second later, his voice much clearer than my own. I give my brother a passing glance, meeting his gaze for a brief second and my thoughts seem to grow significantly louder.
"You have an hour, so use that time to get ready and do not be late." With those words our father takes his leave, and then it's just me and Vergil.
"Dante…" I slide my gaze back to Vergil, a smile slipping in place as I regard him while trying to ignore his words from earlier.
"Dad told us to get ready for the party so we shouldn't waste time, big bro." My smile and words seem to be convincing enough, even if I feel like I'm seconds away from letting this mask crack, because Vergil doesn't say anything. He just looks at me a little too long before he climbs off of my bed and starts for the door.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," Vergil says softly as he reaches the doorway, pausing slightly to glance back at me.
"What for?" I almost snap the question out, my voice not completely level, and Vergil gives me a look of curiosity. Shit.
"Didn't you want to keep an eye on me, Dante?" Oh. "And we need to talk anyways."
"There's nothing to talk about and there's no point in keeping an eye on you," I state a little too quickly and Vergil merely arches a brow. "Look, we're here, we're seven years old, and mom and dad are both alive. There's no sense in dwelling on the past." I want to mean what I'm saying, I really do, but Vergil seems to buy my excuse at least. "I'll see you at the party," I add, before he can say anything else, and I give him another smile.
"If you are certain." He gives me another look filled with curiosity then leaves, pulling the door shut behind him, once I give a nod. My heart gives a slight lurch and I have to suppress the desperate urge to follow after him. He's not leaving, not like before.
"Fuck," I mutter and flop down onto my back once I'm certain Vergil isn't lingering outside of my door. My eyes sting and my vision blurs slightly, making me give another curse as I furiously rub the forming tears away while trying to tamp down on my emotions.