Devil May Cry © Capcom
Apple Bright
Jason M. Lee
"Unca Behgil, 'ungwy."
Fighting the reflex to correct his nephew's mispronunciation, Vergil smoothly picked Cato up from the play mat and briskly walked towards the kitchen after setting down the papers he had been working on. Dante and Trish were delayed at a meeting with Morrison, Sparda and Lady were out of town on a research trip, and Nero was attending a birthday sleepover. (He had only relented after much pleading from Nero and Sparda pointing out that it would be good for Nero to gain some social experience outside of the family, which Vergil couldn't argue against because logic.) "It is close to dinner time, Cato. However, you may have a snack while I make preparations. What do you have in mind? A cookie, perhaps?"
Cato tilted his head as he was settled into his booster seat, not knowing how it sent his uncle's inner demon almost reeling like how he used to react when Nero did the same thing at around the same age. "No cookie."
Kicking his demonic instincts back into order (Vergil thought he had gotten past that phase, but apparently it was still there), he raised an eyebrow. Nero would surprisingly also forgo the baked sweets every once in awhile. "Interesting. So what shall it be?"
Vergil was sure that Eva would be happily cooing over the scrunched up thinking look on his nephew. "Apple! Do twick!"
Of course. While Dante could do a miniaturized version of Million Stab to entertain, Cato found his Rapid Slash to be more fascinating, judging by the highly enthusiastic clapping and loud "Do 'gain, Unca!"
(Dante later retaliated by stealing all of the pineapple pieces from the artisan ice cream that Vergil had bought from their local farmers market. Vergil returned the favor by adding olives to Dante's serving of spaghetti later in the week. Lady finally won by adding cilantro to the egg drop soup, something the twins absolutely hated but Nero and Cato absolutely loved.)
"As you wish." The silver steel of the knife gleamed alongside the tightly controlled blue lines of energy, efficiently cutting the large apple into pieces sizeable enough where Cato wouldn't be able to accidentally choke on. Internally he preened at the cheering and clapping from Cato as the apple slices landed neatly on the plate in the shape of a lotus flower. To think that one of his attacks would be used to entertain a child - whatever Arkham could say was pointless.
The mouth-filled "fank oo" had him gently head patting his nephew before getting started on dinner for the two of them.
A/N: Part of Johnny Luuu's DMCtober 2020 prompts on Twitter (handle johnnyluuuarts), "Rapid Slash." Follows "Pluck the Vibrating Strings".
Yep, I gave the twins the gene where cilantro tastes like soap and is horrible to them. (Personally, I like cilantro.)