A/N: Alright, so one chapter wasn't enough angst for the muses. They demanded I continue, so I did. There should be one more chapter to this to finish it off.
Laryna6: Yes, I was trying to allude to Sparda/Eva, I'm glad someone picked up on that. And I do like keeping an air of mystery in the fics... thank you!
Alcapacien: Eheh, thanks. I re-read it and I kept thinking I made Vergil a cry-baby, but then I remembered I didn't care.
PoutyKitten: Aww, I used to be like that when I first visited I really hated reviewing, but I got over that eventually. And don't worry, there's a steady supply of these coming. The plot bunnies ATTACK! Thanks for the cute review! It made me smile.
Veronica & The Tyrant Hamster: I'm glad you both liked it. You guys always help me write more!
Sam Valentine, Bustahead, kkkd, AnalisDestiny, and Yasmine: I'm glad you all liked it (and that it made a few of you cry!). Thank you for all of your wonderful comments.
And thanks to anyone else who read this! Now, on with Part 2!
The day was old and the night was young. Sunset had just begun, painting the sky a slew of colors, chasing away the blue of the day. It was a nice day to live. A nice day to die.
It was a cloudless sky, and the faint echo of stars was starting to appear. The sky seemed empty, however, as it became darker. A new moon tonight. Just stars, alone in the night sky. But who really cared, nowadays? No one notices little things like the sky. In a city as big as this one, no one has time for second thoughts. A small, busy little city that was crawling with people during the day and completely devoid of life at night.
Well, human life, at least. The horror stories that were passed down through the ages always had truth in them. Demons, monsters, ghosts, witches…. They always come out when the sun is gone. And that's why Vergil was out here in the dark, alone, traveling along deserted roads. He was waiting for the demons to appear.
He looked up at the dead sign of Devil May Cry.
The building was in shambles. No one had been there in years. A shame, really. When it had still been in business, Dante had taken such good care of it. Almost like a child to him.
Although the blood that splattered the walls from his collected heads was a bit distasteful. Of course, Vergil had always found Dante to be vulgar. Booze, girls, sex… that's what his twin had been about.
"I'm absolutely crazy about it!"
He had always been most compassionate about his business of hunting devils, though. Nothing ever took priority.
For most of his life, anyways.
All because of the loss of their mother. It had never been for father, really. Not in the early years. For some reason, Dante had always denied the existence of their father. Was it because Dante felt Sparda had abandoned them? Abandoned Mother? Vergil's brother had told him how he had walked in on Eva sitting alone on her bed, crying silently. She never liked to cry in front of her children. But after the loss of Sparda, maybe she had stopped caring. Not for her children, of course. But for her modesty and pride. Or maybe she had never seen the young devil walk in on her, because he had always silently closed the door and left.
That's when Dante had started hating Sparda. When he realized that the demon had hurt her, hurt Mother. But he, being a child, did not understand why Sparda was gone. He never tried to understand.
But it would be soon, now. He could faintly hear growls echoing from down the darkened road.
Then a ping in his head told him this was the moment.
"Come out. Don't lurk in the shadows like some lowly creature."
And he did come out, power radiating off of him in blood-red waves. His leathery wings rustled behind him, folded up tightly against his back. Red scales covered his reptilian body, black claws clicking on the cement.
"A son of Sparda, reduced to savaging. What would Father say?"
Dante growled in response to that hated name. Vergil wasn't surprised, really. Even in this state, that name invoked hatred.
Vergil laid a hand on the hilt of the Yamato, as Dante flexed his black-clawed hands. "See what has happened to you, Dante? You rejected your demonic blood, and it decided to take over. Why didn't you accept it like I had?"
There really was no point in talking to the beast, but Vergil continued anyways. He wanted the shell of his brother to know why he was going to do this.
The demon grinned at him. "Theboy was weak." It spoke in a gravelly voice, very different from his familiar twin's. Obviously, the demon in his blood had become its own personality.
Vergil thumbed the hilt of his sword, clicking it out of the sheath, ready to be drawn. "He may have been ignorant, but he was not weak. No son of Sparda is weak." Vergil may have once been willing to kill his brother, but by all means, he had never hated him. It was more like… envy. He had always believed Eva loved Dante more than himself. But it didn't matter anymore, not really. She was long dead and not even her clone could copy her love. "You never did understand why I wanted power, dear brother."
"Your brother exists no longer," the demon said, shuffling his wings as he stroke a claw down his stomach. "He has given up; gone to sleep. Submitted to me. I was the one who killed your lover. That is why you are here, are you not?"
The question made Vergil's jaw tick. He had since then tried to numb his emotions, and it had worked, by all means. He no longer felt anything, like before when he had been so keen on gaining power.
"You know," the demon started, circling Vergil, "he wanted her too. Thought of ravishing her all the time, stealing her away from you. He never understood how his cold-hearted brother had roped the heart of such a girl, and why he had been so keen on keeping it."
"He thought that about every woman he saw." Vergil replied softly.
"The boy had a particular interest in her," The demon began. "That's how I got into him, really. His obsession over how you had beaten him, how you beat him in everything. But particularly how she fell in love," – he said the last word with obvious disgust – "with a dead-hearted hybrid like you. He never understood."
This time the Yamato was in his hand, the silver glinting dully under the streetlights. The demon's eyes glowed red. "Tell me one thing…" he was still speaking softly, but his heart had become full of rage from this damned demon's taunting. How could Dante have given up? He had never let something get him down, he had never given up. "Why did you give in, Dante?"
The demon laughed and flexed its claws again, ready for bloodshed. "He couldn't resist because he denied my existence. I drove him insane." And he shot a claw forward, ripping into Vergil's shoulder easily before he could make a move. In direct response, Vergil wrapped his back leg around the demon's front one, locking him close to his body. He turned and drove Yamato through the demon's shoulder, blood trickling in a fast stream down the blade.
"Why don't you let your own demon out?" the soulless body of his brother leaned close, breath tickling Vergil's face.
Vergil gave a small smirk. "I don't need help to finish you off."
The demon scraped his hand down Vergil's stomach, slicing through cloth and flesh with a paper-ripping sound. "Denying your demon, too?" He grinned, and a forked tongue shot out and back in.
The wounds mended easily enough since they were merely scratches, but it still took some of Vergil's energy to do so.
"Now what kind of brother would I be if I let the other side of me do all the work? If I must kill Dante, I will do it with honor." And he brought his left foot up to the demon's chest, kicking off and slinging Yamato out of that scaly skin, blood splattering the street in a wide arc.
The two combatants turned to face each other, staring each other down with confidence. In a mirror-like gesture, they both charged at the same time, and the fight had officially begun.