"So what now?"
Edgar tilted his head in his brother's direction. "What do you mean?"
"Well, how about an update or something?"
"There's less than ten of us and about five million of them. Would you like an abacus?"
Terra wanted to go back inside. If there was anything she hated more than listening to her two favorite brothers bicker, it was having to listen to the endless groaning of the dead down below. And while it was true that the east parapet of Figaro Castle was comfortably beyond any of their reach, it didn't make the view any more easier to behold. When she thought she was able to make out a single familiar face among them - some savage-faced teenage girl with paint on her clothes and blood on her face - she put the looking glass away for good.
"What's doing this?" she heard herself ask, trying to keep her emotions in check. "A necromancer's spell, some botched alchemy experiment? Why are they even coming here?"
"Memory, probably." Edgar took the looking glass from her and glimpsed the undead hordes for himself. "Instinct. This used to be a place of gathering, somewhere that was important to them."
"Get down of your high horse there, brother." Sabin took his turn with the lens, straining to make out an indistinct shape soaring along the distant horizon at high speed. "I'd say it has as much to do with the gambler's airship than anything. All that streaking across the sky is just as easy a way of telling them where we are as any other."
The others didn't reply. It was just good to know that their gambler friend still had his flesh intact.
Meanwhile...
This was going to be one hell of a party.
Dante could already feel adrenaline make the muscles of his arms and back quiver with anticipation. His fingers might already be clicking back the hammers of his patented revolvers if his gaoler hadn't already confiscated them from him. He never cared much for the way these humans thought things out. He had slain one of their own, it was true, but it was also unavoidable. Did none of these peons realize yet that the walking dead were absolutely beyond reason or mercy? Were they really so blind as to everything that was happening out there?
Bloody, apathetic mortals. He had no sympathy for them at all.
He could have quite easily broken free of the cell which now held him captive. There was no secret to it, not for a half-demon like himself. Still, if he got out now, not only would he have a tide of rotting corpses to deal with but there'd also be that king and his ragtag group of friends. Not that they'd pose any real problem, but he still might need them to keep the heat off of his own hide.
Just let them all come to him, he thought vindictively, the living for his assistance, the dead for their release. It was all just Vergil's way of testing him, keeping him cooped up while someone else had all the real fun. It seemed as though the more times he died, the more strange and sinister these crucibles of worlds were becoming.
Have you begun to tire already, brother? Have you truly become so rusty that you can't even pull the wings from dead flies anymore?
Dante kicked himself up off the ground, his coat spinning around him in a crimson vortex. One gloved hand rattled at the bars irately while the other beat back the long, platinum hair from his agitated face.
"Tired, ha! I haven't even broken a sweat yet, brother. Come on, then! Let's get this party started!"
The voice in Dante's head kept its lunatic calm.
Yes, brother. Let us do just that.