Dance with the Devil.
"I certainly did not expect you at this late hour, Vergil."
His name, tossed at him so casually by the regal contralto, managed to take him aback.
The implications behind that served to set him on edge.
"How is it that you know my name?" His question stood on stern, dangerous pillars built by the newfound confusion, shielding the sudden uncertainty he made sure to squash as soon as it thought of even arising.
"That information is irrelevant, at the moment."
"No. I digress."
He assumed a fighting stance, hands on the Yamato's hilt. "And I demand you explain yourself."
Frigid, blue eyes scanned him, then traveled to his sword, as covered by the scabbard as he was covered by a cloak. A smirk adorned the woman's face.
"How very insistent, abomination." There was no venom to be found in the curious epithet she referred to him with, only amusement. She tilted her head, oozing pure arrogance. "But I'm afraid I will decline."
"Then I'm afraid that option is unavailable."
…His speed was unmatched.
Or so he thought.
When Vergil closed the distance between them in an instant, an entire, massive courtyard from the entrance to the center, he didn't expect her to even notice him.
And when he unleashed the Yamato to strike her side, he didn't expect her to draw her sword from its scabbard fast enough to stop his cut.
(Even if she did so, she should have lacked the strength required to halt his attack. Her sword, by all means, shouldn't have withstood the Yamato's unparalleled slash. It could tear anything to pieces.)
And yet, it happened.
The clash of blades, one ivory-colored, the other ebony, startled the wind. Thin sparks escaped the two enemy swords, accompanied by the noise of metal versus metal, their vicious collision under the watching moonlight.
"You are sorely mistaken."
The woman didn't only have the strength required to effectively neutralize his charge.
The woman also had the strength required to push him back, with a flick of her sword, sending him skidding through the courtyard.
He had to bury the Yamato's point straight into the ground to halt himself, but even then, the sheer force of her move carried him back to the school's entrance.
Naturally, Vergil was baffled.
"How?"
A mere human…
"How, you ask? Your confusion is understandable." Her tone was solemn. "I do not possess your qualities, after all, do I? And you were never challenged by a human during those nine years you have been on the run. For such a thing to change now…"
A low growl tore through his throat. There was something about the way she said qualities that unsettled him, as much as the way she called him abomination did, and on top of all that, she knewhe'd been traveling around the world, for how long too.
How, indeed.
"Tell me, how much do you know about me, woman?"
"I would rather not waste time explaining what I know and don't know about you," she stated, as she pointed her dark katana at him. "You are here, you managed to overcome the ones I sent to test you."
"Those soldiers you call students?" he scoffed. "Color me unimpressed. Even enhanced, the efforts I employed to destroy them were proportional to the efforts I'd employ to kill an ant."
He blinked once.
That's all she needed to disappear from where she stood.
"Is that so?"
Her voice was behind him.
He spun with a slash, and the Yamato met her sword once again, right in time to stop her downward strike.
But she didn't stop there.
The woman performed a full three hundred sixty degrees spin, a roundhouse kick directed at the side of his face. He should have sliced her foot off, but her speed only allowed him to raise his forearm near his cheek to protect it.
He staggered.
But immediately recovered, dashed at her, and tried to stab her abdomen.
Her dropping heel put the Yamato on the ground, however.
"That is no good. I promised you a challenge, did I not?" she said, high-heel boot on top of his sword.
The woman kicked his sword back at him, almost as if she intended for him to stop the transversal slash she attacked him with next. He, of course, did so.
An intense exchange occurred then.
The woman leaped back and proceeded to lunge at him with a non-stop series of cuts and stabs; down, up, to the sides, forward…
But all aimed at a specific part of his body, he realized, as he became part of the wild dance, between dodging, stopping, and striking back at her when he could. His stomach, the spot on his chest where his heart was, his neck, his eyes…and that was just the upper body area.
She was fighting with the full intent to kill.
(Hmph! As if she could.)
He brought total focus to his mind.
As soon as he did, he ceased dodging her strikes and focused on parrying them all, advancing toward her with each sparking deflection. His strikes became more frequent, faster, and more aggressive.
The woman was now the one dodging, stopping, and attacking sparingly. As she should be, he thought.
Suddenly, he slid backward, sword sheathed.
A dark-blue distortion showed in the form of an orb around the woman.
It was covered by slashes that were far above the speed of sound.
There was no scream from her as she was sent toward a wall, crashing into it. Her body left the epicenter of cracks on the wall, but before she fell, she stopped herself from hitting the dirt with her free hand.
A hand that was bloody, as bloody as the areas on her legs and arms that the Yamato reached, white and blue clothes full of cuts.
But although the black diamond-shaped bangs hanging over her forehead were messy now, her face was unmarked, and her gaze remained stern as she looked at him.
"I reckon you are the one who sent that letter to me," Vergil said, offering her a cruel smile. "What is your name? I wish to know who the person who foolishly challenged me, and now kneels before my might, is."
"…You truly have not been in this country for long, have you?"
He scowled. "What is that supposed to mean?"
She glared at him.
A shockwave burst from her. He crossed his arms to shield himself from it, and was pushed back, utterly startled, eyes closed. This pressure…
He realized his mistake only until he opened his eyes and saw her black katana flying to his face like a projectile. His hand rose on instinct, Yamato ready to deflect.
The woman had other plans.
At a speed so high she became a blurring white line rushing through moonlit grounds, she closed in to him and caught her sword before it collided with his.
Then, she slashed.
Vergil hopped backward, but too late.
As soon as his feet touched the ground again, a horizontal incision showed on his cloak, across the chest, and the stinging sensation of his skin and flesh tearing arrived.
When he brought his hand to his chest, warm, visceral wetness welcomed him.
When he looked at his palm, he saw crimson-colored puddles on it.
He felt his wound close immediately, but what just occurred would remain in his mind.
"My name, is it?" he heard the woman ask, and he looked back at her. She stood at her full height, almost as tall as him, but even then, she dared to look at him over her shoulder.
"You shall know it when this fight is over."
"Hmph."
Vergil decided it was time to say goodbye to the cloak; it'd only hinder him against an opponent who could wound him.
He tossed it aside as soon as he took it off himself, and with his two hands wielded the Yamato vertically, handle at chest level.
"I can work with that. But I also wish to know how it is that you know mine…"
It had been a while since his heart beat so fast, a while since the adrenaline poured through his veins with such intensity.
"When I defeat you, you will tell me. You will answer all my questions."
The woman stared impassively. Her eyes seemed to wander to his hair for a fleeting instant, and then they returned to him.
"Very well."
She proceeded to copy his stance. Her form was nothing short of perfect, he noted.
"Should you defeat me, I will comply with your request."
"Far from a request, woman," he corrected, as his legs tensed. "It is a command, and rest assured, you will heed it."
She said nothing in response. He said nothing else.
The two rushed toward each other at speeds that should have been impossible to achieve, and once more, their blades collided.
-Two Hours Earlier.-
There are more.
There was no denying it.
The dead Fury turned into dust, but the scent, the background growls, and demonic chirps that were all too familiar to him remained. He flicked the Yamato, shaking the blood off it.
He sheathed the katana, although he doubted it'd stay within the scabbard for long. The overall hostility he sensed when he arrived was unchanged.
To the naked, unskilled eye and ears, the surroundings would seem vacant, a ghost town embraced by the night.
Vergil knew better. In fact, he knew that those crude, emetic eyesores that attempted to be buildings had people in them, he could hear the snoring and occasional footsteps if he focused.
And yet…
(They were sealed away and starved, cannibalistic within the confines of their horrifying homeworld. The beasts that could somehow cross the line between Hell and Earth yearned for nothing more than to taste human flesh once again.)
They weren't attacked.
There were no screams to be heard, no cries, no useless pleas. He couldn't hear houses getting destroyed, and there were no signs of a fire.
His calculating gaze drifted to the lifeless human on the dirt. Then, what about you?
Vergil's stare abandoned the corpse when he heard a whispering growl come from the darkness between two buildings. He was greeted by the sight of glowing orange eyes, a creature moving warily, shrouded in the pitch-black shadows.
When it crept out to the street for him to see, he recognized the three gruesome imitations of human faces on the creature's head, the exoskeleton, those raptorial claws that acted as the forelegs.
Empusa.
The demon seemed to consider him for a moment, wary. How long has it been there?
Once it saw no movement on his part, it encroached on the human corpse. The pincers on the exposed jaw closed hungrily on the flesh. The sack in the creature's abdomen began to fill, glowing red.
And Vergil reflected on this.
"You lurked in the darkness, near clearly frail constructions full of people to devour, but never barged in to attack them?" His gaze narrowed. "You waited, instead, for a single prey to come to you in the street."
The corpse's skin slowly turned gray.
Vergil lost interest in it and looked at one of the houses, brows knitted in a frown. "I count four humans and an animal inside there. A banquet for you, right? If you followed your instinct, I wouldn't be hearing their heartbeats, right? I would be hearing you feast inside that house, not here."
When he gazed back at the Empusa, the human had become a withered husk of what it once was, his blood sucked completely. The creature stepped back from it, and stared at Vergil, head tilted.
"You know they are there, do you not? So what could have made you settle for blood already shed, for less nourishment?" Vergil questioned, more to himself than anything.
The Empusa didn't understand, but he understood it was still hungry when it snarled, and zeroed in on him, claws ready, pincers eager to taste flesh.
"…Perhaps you are just dumber than the rest of your species."
Vergil unsheathed and sheathed his katana.
The Empusa's large head rolled near his boots, as the creature's body collapsed.
But he still harbored doubts about the poor buildings surrounding him, and the reason why that Empusa refused to go after the prey inside.
(Couldn't it hear them? Couldn't it smell them? Impossible.)
It had to be something else.
The odd feeling he had when looking at those houses couldn't just be his imagination.
"An Empusa came into contact with the presence."
"Spare me the details. Where is the nearest queen?"
As it turned out, there was something off with the houses.
Vergil confirmed this when he stretched his arm toward a cracked window, trying to touch it.
A sudden barrier sparked blue, and his hand bounced off it, almost hard enough to make him step back.
The barrier then faded from sight. He knew it to be there still, however; all those little lights sparking from time to time around the house were a dead giveaway, the field riled up by his meddling hand, no doubt.
(He wasn't unfamiliar with the use of occult tools such as these. He'd used them a fair amount of times in his life, whenever the need to rest became inevitably unbearable but he couldn't afford the vulnerability of it.)
"Interesting."
The number of humans that were aware of the existence of demons was much lower than it should have been. The number of humans that knew the methods to defend themselves from those demons? Even lower.
But no barrier was perfect. He knew this from experience.
"I wonder…" He drew his sword and aimed it at the house.
He listened to the heartbeats of the family inside, listened to their breathing, what would be exposed to danger and certain death should he slash. The Yamato itched to cut through whatever stood in the way.
…
"Perhaps not."
He retrieved his sword.
There is no need.
But he didn't sheathe it. He smirked instead.
"What?" He gazed behind himself. "Don't tell me you truly hoped for me to leave the dinner served for you…"
The countless Empusas that had gathered in the street watched, expectant insects. He faced them fully. "Hunt your prey on your own if your wish is to feed, lesser beings."
Six…seven...eight…nine.
There were nine.
An Empusa roared and lunged at him. When it got close enough, Vergil shoved the Yamato up the demon's mouth, piercing the head from the inside. The Empusa twitched one last time before hanging limp from his sword.
It didn't deter the others, however, from rushing to him.
This was so beneath him, to fight with the demon equivalent to ants and cockroaches.
He whirled his sword, spinning the Empusa hanging from it to hit the three ones that darted to him at the same time. The strike stunned them, and he used that moment to slam the Yamato's scabbard against the dirt road.
The ground shattered across the street, and the impact produced a shockwave that lifted not only those three Empusas, but the remaining five others who were on their way to him, to the air.
At that very moment, the first Empusa he killed turned to dust.
The timing was perfect.
"Two practice cuts are all you are worth…"
He dashed under and past the Empusas, moved all the way to the other side of the street in the span of a microsecond.
Once there, he put his Yamato inside the scabbard.
And it was then that the blood burst from the Empusas, showering the road as the mutilated demons crumbled over it. He was pleased to see how clean the x-shaped cuts that disfigured them were, and he basked in such pride until the beasts faded away.
But, still, he felt as though he was forgetting something…
He remembered what it was when he heard the animalistic, shrill scream, and he looked at the sky to see the massive source covering the moon.
Ah.
(They were never alone. Wherever the vermin roamed, a queen had to be nearby. They existed to support her, after all.)
…of course.
Vergil leaped to the side, right in time to avoid the monster lunging at him.
His ears vaguely noticed the sounds of power lines above the houses getting torn, the electricity that escaped them.
The beast's landing behind him was thunderous, blowing away every grain of dust on the road until a broad cloud of it was created, the street enshrouded by it. When he turned around, it was all he could see.
He'd been about to clear it up when massive raptorial claws full of spines pierced through the dust and toward him. He ducked under them, and when the next swipe at him came, he met it with the Yamato.
The dust cleared up instantly, and the exposed cranium of a face atop at least ten meters of pure insectoid, demonic armor greeted him.
"You lost your lackeys, bug." Her body was white, he noted. How convenient, no sucked blood inside that body. "The hive mind let you know that, didn't it?"
The queen snarled, and let her other set of claws fall on him. He stopped those firmly with the Yamato's tough scabbard. When it realized it wasn't getting to him with the claws, the queen readied the enormous pincers on her head and attempted to bite him.
Wrong move.
Vergil's spinning overhead kick slammed the queen's head against the ground, hard enough to crack those human-like skulls on its head. "The Furies couldn't match my speed. Your moves are much slower than theirs. No matter how hard you try, you can't hurt me."
The claws fell limp over the dirt.
The queen let out pitiful wheezes.
Vergil brought the Yamato's point near the demon's huge head, right above a glowing crimson eye.
"Your armor will not save you either. You shall die."
And so he lowered his sword.
"…The queen Empusa lasted only six seconds?"
"…Unexpected, to say the least."
Author's Note:
Thanks to kerrowe and Null for the reviews! I greatly appreciate it!
Vergil's a walking insecticide here. Those Empusa queens are so sturdy in-game, but I always assumed Vergil could eliminate them easy and quick, as he does with almost everything that opposes him.