Clean Hatred

Disclaimer: We do not own any of the already-established settings, characters, or other affiliated subject-matter recognizable from any of the Devil May Cry games. They belong to Capcom, Sony, and their affiliates. So please, don't sue us, you won't get more than twenty bucks collectively.

Author's Note from Luna Angel: Sorry this is a day late. Sol and I are taking advantage of our chance to actually converse face-to-face and working on Chapter 11 and ideas for the rest of the fic. I apologize sincerely for forgetting to update. Not much else to say, enjoy the chapter and I'll see you in 8, since Sol wrote the next two.

Chapter 5

Dante growled and tossed his cue onto the pool table, barely registering the sound of protest Vergil made when the cue disturbed his shot, sending the three-ball rolling down the table, knocking aside the five- and six-balls on its way.

"Hey!" Vergil cried angrily, glaring at Dante. "What the hell was that for?"

"Two weeks," Dante muttered loudly. "Two damn weeks, and not one word about anything and certainly not about their mother," he exclaimed, gesturing wildly at the two girls playing cards on the sofa across the room.

Liara looked up from her hand at the commotion, frowning at Dante in concern, but Adara's triumphant yell drew her attention to the pile of cards in front of her.

"Yes!" Adara cried, slapping the final card from her hand on the discard pile.

Liara looked at the two Ace-King-Queen runs and the set of tens her sister had put down, then at her own chaotic hand, and finally at Adara's smirking face. "What the…?" she murmured, confusion covering her face. "How the hell do you do that?"

"It's a gift," Adara responded lightly with a playful grin. "And I do believe that's another win for me. How much is that you owe me now?" Adara laughed as she heard Liara's soft growl. "Maybe we should consider a different game next time?" she asked, her eyes sparkling at her sister in mirth. "The Rummy gods don't seem to be smiling on you lately."

"Yeah, yeah," Liara grumbled, beginning to gather the cards into an orderly pile.

Adara helped her absently as the two of them listened to Dante's angry rant.

"It just doesn't make any sense!" Dante was exclaiming, well into his groove now. "She can't have vanished off the planet! Someone must know something, but wherever the hell they are, they sure aren't talking! And it's beginning to piss me off."

Vergil interrupted before he could once again start in on the futility of their search so far. "Calm down, Dante. It's not as if we're doing nothing. We are looking, and in the meantime, Adara and Liara are both safe, something which wasn't guaranteed before they met us. The rest will work itself out. As you pointed out, she can't have disappeared, so sooner or later, someone will know something."

Seeing Dante was about to start yelling again, Liara looked at Adara with a slightly worried frown.

Adara rolled her eyes and nodded vaguely, shaking her head with a tolerant smirk when Liara practically threw the cards down before pushing herself to her feet and moving over to Dante. She watched with an unreadable expression, her head tilted slightly to the side, as Liara placed her hand gently on Dante's elbow and began trying to calm him down.

"Calm down. You're trying the best you can and you know it." Liara soothed.

Dante stopped his tirade for a moment and looked at Liara's chest, "Sorry I'm just… frustrated…" he replied, trailing off a bit.

Liara removed her arm from his elbow and lifted his chin until his silvery-blue eyes met her own cerulean blue ones, "My eyes are about a foot north."

Dante gave her a smirk. "Couldn't help myself."

Liara blushed a bit but her flushed cheeks quickly faded back to their normal color. Vergil just rolled his eyes while Adara stared in utter disbelief at Dante's advances on her sister.

Adara shook her head violently to snap herself out of her reverie and returned her attention to the cards still spread out in front of her, beginning to collect them again. She leaned down to pick up a few strays from the floor, but a hand beat her to them, and she looked up at Vergil as he straightened slowly and held them out to her.

"Here."

She just stared at him for a moment before hesitantly taking them from him. "Thank you," she said with a shy smile, before ducking her head and beginning to organize the haphazard pile of cards in her hand. She valiantly tried to ignore the movement of her end of the sofa as Vergil sat down, the cushion she was sitting on rising slightly as his weight shifted the balance. Instead of looking up again, she simply turned another few cards, trying to get them to all face the same direction.

Once they were all even, she quickly slid them back inside their battered box, before trying to find something else to occupy herself, other than thoughts of her mother, the overwhelming presence beside her, or the obvious flirtation her sister was engaged in with Dante. The thought that filled her mind was, if possible, even more unwelcome, and she barely managed to suppress her groan as a most unwelcome voice entered her head, the sickeningly-sweet, patronizing tones of Magda, her neighbor at their last apartment. If you're not careful to stop driving these men away, dearie, you're going to end up an old maid, all alone, just wasting away. If there was anything she needed less on her twentieth birthday than the inane observations of a senile old woman, she didn't know what it was. The only thing that made her not kill Magda for her comment was the fact that she was in the process of moving when it was made, and that Magda didn't know anything about the circumstances of the break-up between herself and Andre. And that hitting an eighty-year-old woman was generally considered wrong, and it wouldn't be a fair fight anyway.

This rationalization didn't make the words hurt any less, however, especially when Adara herself often had trouble imagining having anyone else around when she was older. The cranky tabby that often starred in her dreams didn't count as company, and didn't even really enjoy being her pet, judging by the large scratches that adorned her forearms and face in those same dreams.

Adara shook herself violently again to dislodge her own feelings of self-pity, forcing herself to focus on the ongoing conversation between Liara and Dante. She smiled genuinely at the conversation, glad that at least one of them seemed to be enjoying their birthday.

A faint crash reached her ears and she perked up, her head turning toward the door, before returning to the other people in the room. Vergil and Dante had immediately moved for their weapons, their hands pausing once they had them. A second, louder, crash spurred them to strap them on, and caused Liara to move a few steps back, obeying the silent demand from Dante to get behind him.

Adara stood and moved to stand beside Liara, as Vergil moved a few steps closer to the three, and they all stood staring at the door.

A third crash, closer still, drove the group into action, as Dante and Vergil moved in unison to the door, heading out into the street.

A softly-uttered oath drew Adara's attention away from the rather large group of demons heading toward them down the street and onto Vergil. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him, having never heard anything so crass pass between his lips. The word was more suited to Dante, and was, in fact, echoed by him moments later.

Liara grabbed for Adara's hand without looking, and they entwined their fingers nervously as they alternated their attention between the two sword-bearing men in front of them and the advancing demons.

A wordless communication seemed to pass between the two brothers and they moved in unison toward the demons, brandishing their weapons threateningly.

The battle began rather suddenly, in Liara's opinion, as Dante leapt toward the nearest demon, bringing his sword down in a violent strike. The demon retaliated, and the fight was on.

The twin, silver-haired forms moved in a strange mirror of one another, seemingly unconsciously as they moved through the oncoming herd, taking out demons right and left. But for every one they killed, another came forward. Their frenzy seemed to be having no effect on the swarm's numbers, and the longer they fought, the angrier they became.

Both of them had glowing red eyes by the time they could see a significant decrease in the numbers surrounding them.

Amazingly, the battle seemed to end as suddenly as it began, the oncoming demons simply turning and leaving, without an obvious reason.

Dante finished off a final demon with a single shot from Ebony, placing it back in its holster carefully and glancing around at the chaos born of the altercation with a slightly satisfied expression. He smirked to see Liara finishing off a stray demon who had managed to get past himself and Vergil.

Vergil dusted off his coat as they moved back toward the girls, a small smile pulling at one corner of his mouth at the expression of utter disgust on Adara's face as she looked at the demon remnants on her clothing before he could completely repress it. By the time she looked up, however, it was gone, and his face was set in its usual stoic lines.

"Well, that was… suitably disgusting…" Adara said with a slight shudder.

"Yeah, though it was fun," Liara responded, giving a teasing smile in her sister's direction.

Adara's lip quirked upward slightly in agreement, but she didn't say anything in response.

"What was that?" Liara asked, looking up at Dante.

"Dunno," he said. "Just a random demon attack, for now."

"What happened?" Adara asked. "Why did the rest of them leave?"

Dante merely shrugged and made his way back into Devil May Cry.

Adara frowned at his back, while Liara and Vergil followed him. "Why is it I'm the only one who seems concerned about this?" she muttered under her breath, shaking her head and casting her gaze upward before shrugging and following the others into the office.