Disclaimer: Capcom owns DMC and its characters. This version of Alastor's/Ifrit's personalities are mine. R for language.
A/N: Trish is remembering what Dante said after Griffon's death.
Trish left the coliseum with a lot on her mind. Dante's unprompted speech had struck a chord, as well as make a magnificent jumble of her emotions.
"...His heinous ways make me sick, killing even his own, like they were nothing..."
And why not? An Emperor was practically divine. Whether he was one of the Fallen was irrelevant; an Emperor had every right and right over everything, living or no. Would a human allow a beast of burden to continue serving him if it was lame? No, of course not.
Griffon served loyally enough, but his failures had crippled him. Would a human allow sick crops to grow among the healthy ones? No. Griffon failed, which meant he was weak, which meant he must be culled from the strong. His death now made it possible for a stronger, more capable General to rise and make a name for himself. It was all for the betterment of the Devil Kingdom. It was natural, and therefore made it right.
"He's the one that took the life of my mother, my brother. I'm sure of it."
Dante had spoken with the same conviction of someone who's doubts had been lifted after long years of searching. Trish pictured his eyes in her mind as he firmly gripped the pendant about his neck. She had imagined the gravity of insight passing between those determined blue eyes into to the garnet stone in his hand, empowering it. An absurd notion, of course; it was just a rock. And then she went on to imagine the sound of his fate swing shut like a gigantic pair of steel doors...
Hm. Now he knows. My master murdered his family, and now he knows. Why does this bother me? It's not like I give a rat's ass what he does with this information, and there is nothing he can do that would matter in the long run. Oh fuck...
She was deliberating again. Damn it, she had thought she was over this issue! And the migraine rooting between her eyes wasn't much fun either. She tried to ignore both but only succeeded against one.
Suddenly unable to keep still, she pushed off the bookshelf she had been leaning against, and began a restless pace in the darkened library. The book she had dropped earlier lay demolished in her path. On impulse she scooped up most of the text before tossing it carelessly into a corner.
"My mother always told me my father fought for the people. He had courage and a righteous heart."
Serpent Almighty, now that one had nearly floored her! Luckily, she had managed to keep herself upright while fixing her expression into a credible display of neutrality, thus saving herself from a possibly fatal session of Q and A. The corners of her mouth quirked up in a thin, humorless smile. The idiot. No, maybe that was too harsh a term...better to say he was totally oblivious.
Courageous? Righteous? Well hot damn, man, let's bring out the bubbly and celebrate because Daddy's a whoop-de-freaking saint! No really, it was so paternal of Sparda to raise a family when a fallen angel and all of Hell were baying for his bloody head on a bloody pike!
Trish hadn't understood Dante then and she didn't understand him now. In fact, he had puzzled her ever since the first night they met. He was right to venerate an incredible devil like Sparda, but to go on and say he was a benevolent, virtuous defender of humanity and good, a loving father with little to no fault, was a bald-faced lie! Had to be. Sparda had been a devil, first and foremost. Just hearing Dante mislead himself like that....it was painful.
The smile fled from her lips. Loosely crossing her arms, Trish slowed her nervous steps to a more leisurely speed. At least rationalizing away his words had calmed her somewhat.
He should be cursing his father for all his grief, not Mundus. No one rebels against the Emperor and lives for very long, even the Legendary Knight must have known this. The day he dared to dream of his family-to-be was the day he sentenced them to death. Oh yeah, great role model, Dante.
After a few minutes spent finally cataloguing her thoughts on their proper shelves, Trish came to the grudging conclusion that, despite whatever faults she saw in him, Dante had proven time and again he was an intelligent fighter.
Brave too, in a gung-ho, smart-ass sort of way. The nut.
He was prideful, but not blinded by it. Persistent when he set his sights, but clever enough to persevere against steep odds where any lesser being would have called it quits from the start. Still, in the end, none of this would save him. So, he was destined to die ignominiously on a forsaken isle, just as her master predicted? Tch! What a waste of a powerful bloodline. It was shameful.
Trish let her lids slide close, a frown on her forehead as she slowed her already unhurried stride. Pause. Pivot on left heel. Stop.
"In the name of my father, I will kill Mundus!"
Oh please... It was presumptuous to think anyone could. Vengeance against Mundus would only earn him certain death. Whether he suffered at all in the end depended entirely on the Emperor's disposition at the time. But that's only if Dante survived the last of Mallet's little surprises, at which point he'd have to gain access into Hell, fight off its varied denizens, bypass its many wards - all this without getting hopelessly lost - find, then storm the throne room, which ultimately amounted to death in the name of a memory.
The very idea of dying for an intangible goal was so totally alien to Trish, that it was difficult to feel anything but detached curiosity beside the doubts. Her ken never pursued revenge against another unless they could profit from it in some material way.
But not him, why is that? He has the blood of the devils...
A leviathan groan coursed from one end of the library to the other and beyond, the sound like a sonorous ring that was as primordial as it was unearthly. It lasted mere seconds, then silence. Scrutiny forgotten, Trish jerked her attention everywhere she could, hoping to spot the threat first. Nothing happened. Nothing came at her. Nothing, for five heartbeats and counting. It was as if the strange wail had sucked within it all sounds inherent to the world, leaving behind the gift of absolute silence. Something prickled her need to make for the exit. Now.
Backing toward the double-doors, Trish suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. At that moment, thick, malicious taint saturated every book and shelf, every granule of dust and stone, down to the molecule. The sheer strength of it made her skin itch and sting. Realizing she wasn't going to get out in time Trish clenched her jaws and grimly waited for the unknown. Eyes of cool blue became smoldering pits of sulfurous yellow.
And then the library fragmented like crystal, and exploded.