Chapter 2

Broken glass littered the old wooden floor of Devil May Cry. Dust gathered on the long abandoned pool table, dying the green surface white. Empty beer bottles and cans lay carelessly strewn about the whole building, nestling amongst decaying pizza boxes, their contents barely discernible, attractive and appealing only to the flies that buzzed constantly about the agency. Rats seldom visited, but only because of the fact that a stray cat had decided to make the agency it's new hunting ground.

The agency was a shadow of its former self. It had once looked efficient, a true place of business, where money had been made by the thousands. Now however, the agency could barely be construed as an office. It really did seem as though it would barely be able to stay active and would barely be able to keep up the payments for a few days more before the whole business, if it could even be called that anymore, inevitably collapsed.

This was misleading to say the least. The payments were easily met and there would be no problems in keeping up with those for a while yet.

It appeared as though the agency was not the only thing that had changed. The man who owned the agency was no longer the man he had been before. Gone was the youthful carefree appearance, gone was the laid-back attitude, gone was the garishly long hair. Whereas the agency had become a shambles, everything about the son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda had become somehow more refined.

His hair, before unkempt had now become styled into something that kept it's own fashion. It was unique, unique but good. It suited him well. The torn clothing had been replaced by garments that were immaculate, that were taken care of in an almost obsessive fanatical manner. The sloppy brown leather boots had also been discarded for a pair of more refined professional ones, that were black and shone and reflected the light.

Yet clothes and hair were not the only things that had been drastically altered as time went on. There was something about the hunter himself that had changed, whether it was an irreversible change no one did know, nor could they possibly ever hope to find out.

For even Dante's personality itself had somehow become somewhat more cultured. Well, that was the wrong word his friends used. What would have been more accurate is to say that his personality had become more reserved, more contained. Before, he had been carefree about life in general, had told people that he had better things in life to think about rather than such menial things like where the next meal was going to come from. When questioned or criticised about his appearance, he would have simply laughed and scoffed and said the same thing that he would have said to anyone who could even be bothered to tell him that he looked like a disgusting slob. An undeniably attractive but hideous slob.

'My appearance? I have better things to care about. Appearances aren't so important, are they?' Yet, despite his motto at the time, he had always ensured that his place looked habitable, looked presentable and somewhat homely.

Now though, that had all disappeared. That great appetite and love for life had all been hopelessly destroyed and swept away. Dante no longer seemed to care about much, the light in his eyes had become dull, and there always seemed to be a terrubke pain in them that none of his few friends could ever possibly hope to figure out, or understand what the cause of it was. They could only watch helplessly as Dante continued to stumble on through life as though he was something not alive but not quite dead either.

Another thing that had changed about Dante was the fact that he had become more and more aware of his appearance and did all he could to keep himself looking immaculate and well groomed. A complete reversal of the way things had once been. Now his place was a shambles and he was utterly flawless in looks and clothes. Sometimes, his friends felt that it seemed as though it was all that he had left to care about. None of them ever realized that it was closer to the truth than they thought.

He had also become more reserved, but not by much. He was still prone to bouts of cockiness, was still more than able to trash-talk with the best of them, and was still able to cut anyone down to size with his insults. When it came down to cussing, the man was nothing less than a legend. But there was still the disturbing feeling that something was painfully lacking about his whole demeanor, that there was something not right, that he was still too quiet, that he still wasn't the Dante that his friends had known before.

But what they didn't know was that Dante felt as though it all belonged in a time that was long since past, that it no longer had its place in his present life. It belonged to better, brighter times, that had known evil but had recovered, had recovered almost instantly to his eyes.

The door to his office was pushed open suddenly and the much changed man stared at the wreckage of his office dispassionately. He sighed as he made his way to his leather chair, the only thing that did not have rubbish on it. He opened his top drawer, his eyes softening slightly as he stared at a brown fingerless glove that had a tear on the palm of it, the cut perfect, with no hint of fraying. It was perfect, utterly flawless and clean.

For some odd reason, it always gave him a strange sense of comfort, that all that he had witnessed before now had really happened. He had watched Vergil fall, he had fought with him three times. He had bumped into her five times, had fought her twice, once near a pool of her own father's blood, the second time in the library. He had been given her most treasured belonging and he had returned it to her, as well as giving her another gift, just as precious and sacred. His respect for her.

No…no…no…stop this madness, Dante. Don't think about her. Stop doing this. Stop doing this to yourself. Stop torturing yourself like this. What good will any of this do, really? But as soon as Dante thought this, he had already come up with a reply. Because I want to know…no...I need to know that all of this really happened, that it is not just some figment of my imagination or my mind playing tricks on me. He sighed softly to himself at that point as he stared about at the horrendous mess in his office, as he stared closely at the blood staining the walls as it had dripped from the heads of demons that he had killed in the past. He watched as a fly buzzed about, feasting on the remains of a particularly ancient slice of pizza. Perhaps it would have been better if none of it had ever happened. If Vergil hadn't turned to the darkness, if our parents were still alive. If we were never cursed with our powers. Maybe it would have turned out differently, had I never met her.

Why did he continue to sit here, in his leather chair, day after day, and wait for the phone to ring? Dante knew the answer to that question but did not dare to answer it, knowing that it would sound foolish even to himself.