Chapter 10:
Vergil thought over what Mia told him. It soon became obvious that no matter how much he wanted to know what actually happened, who murdered Eva; he couldn't until they find a way out of the room they were trapped in. His attention focused back to the part of the ground where faint words were craved. Two simple sentences were written, it read: "Light brings the truth. Darkness brings lies." Like a detective, he looked around his surrounding, scanning the area thoroughly without missing the tiniest detail. The words could not be referring anything else other than the dark shelves. "There's still something I don't understand," Mia spoke up after piecing together the information in her head. "If I was the cursed one, why didn't I go unconscious instead?"
"I think it works if the curse in some way relates both of you," Vergil replied, holding back the irritation caused by all the explanation he had to go through. Normally he wouldn't be so agitated. But all he wanted to was to get out of the room and talk to Rei. "The spell was something like: As long as you live, Rei will be in an eternal sleep. Technically, it could curse either of you." His cool glance shifted back to the puzzle the instant he finished talking.
"Thank you," Mia said in a small voice, realising her own clumsiness. She blushed a little for not being willing to thank him until then. As she expected, he didn't say anything back. Her irritation began to boil up at his lack of response, but she fought to push it out of her mind. "What is this?" she asked, crouching down next to him. She read the words on the floor and frowned. "Not another puzzle I hope."
"You may want to bet on that," Vergil said. He noticed her dislike in puzzles. "Your sister handles them well."
"Rei is smart," Mia said quietly. "I'm the dumb twin I guess," she shrugged and looked away, as though she didn't care. "You are a twin too so you'd know. There's always the smart one and the dumb one. Everyone can tell who the smart one is." She turned back to him and forced a smile.
Vergil felt a small sting of regret for acting impatient only a while ago. Regret was a feeling he almost never came across. He always thought through things carefully before he acted so he never needed to regret anything. Besides, she thanked him for the very first time.
"This has to mean the shelves," she pointed at the engraved words, changing their topic.
Vergil gave her a slight nod to indicate agreement. Though there were insufficient clues given, out of the hundreds of identical drawers that surrounded them, there seemed to be only one that would point them to the correct path. That was the reason he hadn't touched any. Another reason why he hadn't done so was because they gave him a bad feeling. There was no guarantee what would happen after they solve the puzzle. He certainly hoped it lead to a way out. Another thing that appeared significant was the way the clue was written. The words were not ordered like sentences found in books and other publications. They were scrambled in a way that was comprehendible yet unorderly at the same time. The two sentences were placed apart from each other. Words were separated and scattered like bricks placed on different rows on a wall.
"I wonder what happens if we picked the wrong drawer?" Mia spoke his thoughts.
"I have a feeling we may not want to find out," Vergil said and began to focus his mind on the relation between the word placement and the drawers. Mia cupped her chin in her hand, staring at the words.
Though he had a twin himself, it didn't cease to surprise Vergil how different Mia and Rei were. Unlike Rei, Mia was much more readable. Her expression told him she was thinking other things that were far from happy. It didn't matter to him before, but for some reason he thought he'd rather see her smiling.
Wanting to divert her from her thoughts, Vergil searched for another topic. "From what you've said, you have met my mother," he said to her.
Looking up to him, Mia replied. "Yes, when I was very little."
"How did you meet her?"
"It was thirteen years ago-" Mia began and stopped as soon as she did. Vergil raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh I feel like an old lady for always starting out like this," she complained, smiling at her own amusement.
Dante held Rei to him until she stopped crying. As much as he didn't want to seen as taking advantage of her while his brother wasn't present, he desperately wanted to comfort her. He had feelings for her, and so did Vergil. Partly, he was angry at Vergil for not willing to show affections to her, because he was afraid it would only bring danger to her at the end. Dante thought perhaps Vergil was right. Nonetheless, he knew in his heart, he just wanted to protect her.
When he let go of her, she was still shaken by what he believed to be an illusion. He told her about what happened from the time they were separated in the castle's gallery up until falling off the collapsing tower. It wasn't easy since he could hardly hear himself with all the voices playing in his head like an extremely unpleasant radio station. For a few times, he wasn't sure if he said what he wanted to say and ended up repeating the previous sentence. Rei gave him puzzled looks whenever he did so, but other than that she sat and listened without saying anything.
When Dante finished, Rei let out a long sigh. "So much happened while I was asleep," she looked into the mist, which cleared considerably even though they could still see nothing but whiteness. "Your brother has a motivation for wanting to kill Mia." She clenched her fist, a pained expression spread across her face.
"How do you know my mother, Eva?" Dante asked, studying her reaction.
At first, Rei hesitated. She closed her eyes and opened them again, staring straight into his. "The first time I met her was thirteen years ago. At that time, Mia and I were separated from our mother. Remember what I told you and Vergil a year ago, when we first met you?" Dante indicated he did. She continued. "My mother's family carries a mortal priestess bloodline. Traditionally, only one person in the family, a woman, will inherit that power. It is a power passed from mother to daughter. As priestess, she guards the knowledge of how to connect the human and demon world. The priestess is quite harmless really. Her power alone can't open the portal to the demon world. But it's a different story when one has twin daughters."
Dante remembered the story well. The past of the twin sisters was central to the events that occurred a year ago. Her childhood was not any happier than his was. He reached out, taking Rei's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. In return, Rei gave him a smile to indicate her appreciation.
"Twins were looked upon as omen. My maternal family believed we would some day bring destruction to this world. That's because with two of us we could open the path to the underworld. Some wanted one of us to be killed to make sure that never happens. Most wanted both of us killed just to be safe. One day, when our father wasn't home, they came and kidnapped the three of us. We were locked up in a vacant house we have never been to. My mother, Mia and I were put in different rooms of the same house."
"My relatives didn't leave us unwatched. A few people were given the duty to guard us. I could constantly hear the guard walking past the other end of the door. Again I'm not sure why they didn't kill us on the spot. My best guess is they hadn't finalised the decision on what to do with us, my uncle was especially against the idea of killing us. Then the night came. From a distance, I could hear the faint sound of Mia crying. I was too young to know what was going on. All I knew was I couldn't stay here, or bad things would happen. That was when someone sneaked into the room where I was kept. That person smashed open the window in the quietest manner. It was a lady dressed in black from top to bottom. She indicated to me she wanted me to be quiet."
Dante looked at her questioningly. "Was that…" he began.
"Yes, it was Ms Eva. Back then I didn't know, of course. I think I scared her because I didn't back away or appeared frightened when she came to me. I asked her who she was. She told me her name was Eva and she came to rescue Mia and me. The guards were overconfident. So we were able to sneak pass them without much difficulty. It wasn't hard to find where my sister was held. Basically, her constant crying led us to her. I could never forget how happy Mia was when she saw me. Ms Eva gave her a friendly hug and held her for a short while. She told us she would get us out right away. When we asked her to rescue other mother too, she fell silent. She was a beautiful person, yet at the moment her face was so sad. She shook her head apologetically. She said she came too late. Our mother was gone." Rei took a deep breath, then continued. "We were reunited with our father. From that day on, we spent our lives avoiding my mother's relatives. They hated us enough to regularly send people to hunt us down." She turned to face Dante with a soft expression. "I didn't know Ms Eva was your mother."
While Rei recounted the events, Dante had to concentrate very hard to listen. It built up to a small headache. Realised that Rei was looking at him, Dante nodded understandingly. "That's all right. There was no way you could've known. But how did my mum find out about you? How did she know you were in trouble I wonder?"
"Ms Eva said my mother was somehow able to contact her. I think my mother wanted Ms Eva rather than my dad to come save us because my dad was being watched, and Ms Eva wasn't."
As though someone turned the volume up, the voices in Dante grew much louder – it was screaming and yelling at him. A throbbing pain surged through his head. It came so suddenly it brought him on his knees.
Startled, Rei called out his name. She kneed down to observe him. "What's wrong?" she asked, confused and afraid. She put a hand on his back in attempt to comfort him as much as she could, knowing it probably did little to ease the unknown pain he was experiencing.
With his left hand, Dante held his head and supported himself with the other. He could no longer hide the noises from Rei anymore to keep her from worrying. Rei's green eyes were filled with concern, they were asking him to tell her what was happening. "It's the curse," he finally said, grimaced as another wave of pain rushed into his head.
"But," Rei staggered, perplexed. "I thought you said I was the one who was cursed?"
Before Dante had the chance to tell her he thought all four of them could be cursed, he saw a glint of silver in the mist. It looked awfully like the kind of light reflected from a sword's blade. Without thinking, he pushed Rei away from him. He rolled away himself, and drew out Rebellion from his back as he scrambled up to his feet. His head hurt like mad, but he had to ignore it. He looked up to see who the attacker was. Even before he saw the face, he had an awful feeling that he knew whom he would see in the illusion.
There was no mistake - it was Vergil.
"Oh. Hey Verg," Dante greeted weakly. Of course, he didn't believe it was really his twin. Vergil's face was stiff as stone, showing no emotion. He positioned himself in a stance, his right hand reached for the hilt of the sheathed sword. With astonishing speed, though not a speed unexpected to Dante, Vergil struck. Dante was more convinced it was an image of his twin he was fighting against. The Vergil he knew wouldn't start a fight without telling him the reason.
Being his twin, Dante was more aware than anyone how fast Vergil was, and how deadly Yamato was. He stayed clear from his brother's blade while thinking back to any weaknesses Vergil had. Not daring to take his eyes off the battle, Dante hoped Rei was staying as far from them as she could. He was only distracted for a millisecond before Vergil disappeared from his sight. Dante spun around agilely, holding Rebellion horizontally and positioned it above his head. His prediction was right. Vergil came down from the sky and the blade of the two swords of demon knight Sparda met each other, producing a high-pitched screech. Vergil pushed his blade towards Dante. Gritting his teeth, Dante pushed back just as hard. He could scarcely believe how realistic it was to him, not like Mia's "death" didn't seem real enough.
The clash of swords reminded Dante of practicing his sword skills with Vergil at the back of their house. Only with this, Vergil was not holding back the slightest; his strikes were more lethal than ever. Dante remembered some of his twin's weaknesses. The only problem was he was always fast enough to see them, but never fast enough to physically respond.
The pushing force was suddenly lifted away, causing Dante to stumble forward. Once he regained balance, his blue eyes scanned around for any signs of Vergil. Dante readied Rebellion when he saw him coming from his left.
A ripping pain flooded into his head. He felt like someone was trying to crack his skull open. The last one was bad enough. This felt ten times worse than it. His sword fell out of his hand and landed with a clear sound. He found himself not able to focus at all in the pain. Out of nowhere, a slender arm wrapped around him tightly, holding him close to her.
After Vergil's appearance, Rei watched the fight between the two brothers from a distance. She tried to use her power despite knowing it will draw more demons. To her surprise, her power failed her for the first time. Perhaps all they were seeing was really an illusion, she thought. She was angry with herself for not being able to be more helpful. All she could do was stand near and watch. Her younger twin Mia would have come up with a way to help at times like these.
Rei saw Vergil closing in Dante, who dropped his sword, leaving himself vulnerable. If Mia's death was real, she couldn't stand losing another person important to her. As fast as her legs would carry her, she rushed to where he was and threw her arms around him. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blade's fatal cut. To her amazement, Dante picked up his sword and blocked the coming katana at the last moment, just when she thought they were going to be cut into pieces.
"Stand back," Dante said to Rei, while pushing back Yamato single-handedly with his sword. Letting go of him, Rei swiftly walked away from the two. Though not as much as before, his head was still hurting terribly. It took a great deal of effort but at least he managed to focus. Rats, he cursed. He had lost sight of Vergil again without realising. Dante understood well Vergil was faster and stronger than him even when he was in top-notch condition. He had only a very small chance of defeating this image of his brother – and he had to be very lucky as well.
The piercing pain seemed to know how to cooperate with Vergil. It almost always came in a timing way too conveniently for him. Every time Dante's head hurts, Vergil appeared out of the mist, looking for opportunity of an opening. Dante escaped the first few strikes with minor injuries. He was positive who he was fighting was not his blood-bond brother. Vergil would never fight like this. He would never sneak up to an enemy and take him by surprise.
Feeling a presence behind him, Dante spun around, gripping hard on Rebellion's hilt. He felt a familiar ripping pain from his left arm. Vergil's image had sliced it deeply, almost down to the bone. Blood ran down his arm freely, dripping onto the ground below. His knees buckled involuntarily and had to use his sword for support. He heard Rei screaming his name. Turning to her, he noticed she had a hand over her mouth. Her beautiful face was as white as sheet. The cut hurt so much it was beyond his imagination. He thought he might faint before he could scream in agony. He didn't understand. Like in a dream, one should not feel pain in an illusion. Something wasn't right.
Ignoring the pain the best he could, Dante took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. In order to test if what they were seeing was real, some people pinch themselves. If it hurt, it was real. If not, it was a dream. An idea formed in his mind. There was something he hadn't tried. His hand dug into his jacket's pocket, pulling out a pocket knife that he always carried with him. With his thumb, he flung out the small blade.
Then, he jabbed it into the back of his other hand.
As though a gale blow away the mist, everything was gone – everything except Dante and Rei. There was no mist, no Vergil, no dead Mia. Moist air from the sea blew on their faces. Night insects were busy chirping their songs amongst the bushes that surrounded them. They were in the courtyard of the castle. Despite they were clearly still stuck within the castle, it brought them great relief to know everything they experienced in the past hour wasn't real. The voices were still bothering him, but they were less noisy.
Brushing off the tears on her face, Rei ran to Dante. She cried more tonight than she ever had in her lifetime. The blood on his arm was gone, disappeared without a trace and so was the cut. However the pocket knife went through in his left hand. The tip of the knife came out from his palm. She told him to sit down while she tended his wound.
Carefully, Rei took his injured hand and held it in front of her so she could get a good look. Considering how deep the knife went, it impressed her that he wasn't trembling. She understood the logic behind his act without having to ask. They felt pain because the illusion was so powerful it made them think it was real. On the contrary, true pain was not felt in an illusion, but it was the key they needed to break through it. "I'm going to pull it out now," she said to him, referring to the knife. Dante gave her a nod. As quickly as she could, she pulled out the knife. She saw him wince. Some blood followed the blade as it came out, but it was nothing serious. She ripped out a long piece of cloth from the hem of her white dress. Carefully and skilfully, she used it to bandage his hand.
When Rei finished, she sat down beside Dante. Now that she finally had the chance, she asked him what was wrong with his hearing. He told her he was unaware of the curse on him until it grew loud. From then on he began to suspect something.
Rei was worried at first. It concerned her more that he didn't tell her about it before. Nonetheless, she was glad to hear the noises weren't bothering him as much. "You're right. It was an illusion. I'm sorry I doubted you."
"I guess I can think about forgiving you," Dante rubbed his chin in consideration, and then grinned. "If…"
"If?" Rei smiled, leaning closer to him. Gentle sea breeze blew up strands of her long hair, playing with it mischievously. The white dress that was put on her fitted her body figure liked a glove on hand. She looked breath taking in the night.
Dante wanted to ask her for a kiss. He knew it wasn't the time to ask something like that. It's not that he wasn't prepared to be turn down, he didn't want to make it difficult for her to reject. Changing his mind, he said. "I want you to cook a meal for me." He thought she looked slightly disappointed when she heard.
"Deal," Rei said, giving him a broad smile.
Author's note: This chapter turned out to be quite long when I finished writing. I tempted to split it, but I think it's better to have it the way it is. My friend told me the minimum word for a novella is 20000 words. I guess that makes this fic sort of a novella. Hope you liked it. Reviews would be very much appreciated.
