Chapter 4 ~ The Unnamed Feeling

Vergil stopped to see this new demon before him.

It resembled a cross between a person and an eagle: arms and legs that ended in talons, a muscular torso covered in fine white feathers, and wings that extended from both shoulders, feathers both gold and white. A broken set of horns twisted in a thin halo protruding from his dark face. It slightly resembled the fallen he had met inside Temen-ni-gru, though far fairer from his perspective.

'Who's doing this?' he wondered.

The demon yowled at him bloody murder, alerting all the tiny insects that it was there and ready to kill. Proving he was more than willing to step up to the plate, the slayer prepared his sword in a traditional guard stance, knees bent, legs dynamic, arms together holding the blade much as a samurai would. He slowed his breath and concentrated his heart. Settling into stone, in front of him, the Demon cocked its own sword back and the accompanying shield forward.

From its outline emanated a white aura.

'Dante' launched himself forward, Yamato held at his waist, propelling it from the side for a clean slash. He sliced upward, then brought the katana down onto its shield. The blade was almost ripped from his hands as the demon shoved against his weight, leaving him wide open and off balance. Swinging its thick brand, the deceptively angelic being attacked— first across, swiping then downward, and then jumped and came crushing down with its shield. Dante ducked first, sidestepped, and rolled under in response. The man struck again with judgment cut twice, only to connect with the demon's shield once more.

However, this time, he'd weakened the energy-fueled buckler on contact.

The sheer degree of force he applied broke its footing, setting it off kilter. After a spate of teeter-tottering, it managed to dodge a sonic slash in the nick of time. It took a small moment to place distance between itself and the man, weakened and pragmatic. Biding time, the demon remained weary for a small while, staying put until it was the exact right moment. Hyper-focused, they circled one another.

Suddenly, it lunged.

Vergil prepared himself, expecting a conventional charge.

Instead, it vaulted up into the air, twisting and hauling its broad blade outward.

A shockwave burst from the blade, and a long line of grass and sand shattered where the blast connected. Forced back on the defensive, he saw through the dirt further machinations.

It dashed on wings and stabbed downward, breaking the ground where Vergil once stood as he staggered backward. It was then that Vergil felt power flow through him again.

He channeled that, projecting his strength into the katana. Strengthening his stance, he held his ground, releasing a strike through the air that he transformed into a rabid tornado, keeping the demon at bay. Spinning faster and faster, he diced in timed increments till a whirlwind offset its attack, redirecting everything it threw at him away to the right. He was weaker than he used to be, having actually felt the heat of his actions, the heat of his enemy's rage.

So be it.

Shrugging off the demon's attempted strikes, the man straightened himself out.

"Come on!" he yelled, beckoning with his hand.

Once more, the enemy became a blur, soaring towards him. The man dashed forward and struck. Their blades clanged off each other, reverberating through his arms. The strength that both possessed had the tips of the blades grinding as 'Dante' shoved his sword forward trying to shatter the demon's guard. It restrained itself, reigning in any attempts to attack so that the man couldn't end things quickly.

Their blades dragged against themselves, sharpening.

They sailed past one another, and turned around quickly, issuing volleys of sonic slashes. The hunter danced around, making the skill of dodging seem like an art form.

At the same time, he returned the heat in kind, lashing out whenever possible. The thing flinched on each hit and its left arm flayed open during the fray. From its hand, it dropped the shield.

Vergil seized the opportunity, impaling the armor through a crack in the chest. It fell to him, shattered and cracked to the core. Defeat was bitter and Vergil enjoyed delivering it. It began to waste away, breaking apart to ash. In the midst of it all, he caught the scent of something unpleasant, something he thought he finished years ago. He stepped forward past the angel and dragged blade from its chest. Behind him, the monster laid over to rest and became nothing.

He saw a purple color between the bushes, then a familiar laugh that followed.

It flashed in his mind: the ground was shaking, announcing the spell was broken, and he couldn't catch it fast enough.

He was swiped fast and slammed up against his younger brother, and just like that, he plunged into the darkness below.

"Arkham?" he whispered.

And the buffoon revealed himself.

Rage crept upon him so suddenly, and it burst out in hateful power that surrounded him, the man in red bellowing a violent roar as he galloped towards Jester.

Moving in a perfectly straight, blurred haze, he lurched a hand back and lead with a spiteful fist. With all the pain in his sickly heart, he connected. The knuckles of his gloved-hand contacted the trickster's jaw squarely, bashing it sideways. Rattling a bit, the clown fell backwards, landing across the field.

"Whoa! Easy there, devil boy," he mocked, falsifying a deep hurt.

The purple man stood unharmed.

"You filth. Why are you still alive, you warthog-faced buffoon?" Vergil questioned, malice in his voice.

"Is that how you greet your old friends? Tsk tsk tsk, I expected more respect," the clown glared deranged. "We shall meet again. Expect no mercy . . ."

And he began to wave goodbye, as though he were leaving, those insane eyes chilling his very soul.

"Hey!" Vergil commanded, projecting another summoned sword from his side; however, upon impact, his body merely swelled and popped like a balloon.

A huge burst of confetti showered the ground.

He stopped, grunting out of miserable pain and placed his hand over his sternum, attempting to calm himself. The confetti seemed to fade away, as though having never fallen. Was it real? Left to question whether the legitimacy of the encounter was genuine, he simultaneously contemplated if the wound was just that severe that he'd hallucinated. Whatever the case, the bastard wasn't worth it. Vergil was well known for his definitive, unforgiving nature, especially to those whom had betrayed him. The trait fueled mutual cruelty between him and his brother.

This reminded the man of so many unspoken words he had.

All the things he could have said to his brother . . . but he had too much pride to do so.

Perhaps it was a fear that it would just seem like juvenile ramblings, that he would come off as some little child begging for mercy.

Children are weak. He was mighty.

. . . Through the forest came the dark childe, confused, broken, beat and scarred . . .

From the get-go, he was already bemused by the nature of this job, and so now, he had confirmed that something definitely strange had occurred here. It was the unexplainable, the kind of thing that existed between the pit of his fears and the summit of his knowledge. And now here, in the darkest place he'd ever known on earth, the fate of his old enemy seemingly came to light, just when he was growing comfortable in the assertion of his death.

He still had time to truly figure out whether it had been in his mind, a byproduct of his torture producing frailties in his mind, or if it had been truly the dead clown.

'Dante' made his way back to the other side, where Lucia waited for him with the group. They were unchanged, still grieving and shocked, though less noisy now.

"Thank you, son of Sparda, for clearing up this part for us," she borderline whispered with a soft chuckle. "Now we can rebuild borders and bring life back here to these parts. You give me hope for full restoration of the forest in future."

Vergil tried to force a smile, but only wound up smirking awkwardly.

"I could've finished them all, but as you wish," he said, returning to a more comfortable scowl. "May I ask a question?"

His Dante impression was particularly bad today.

"Go on," Lucia smiled.

"Are you familiar with the name Arkham?"

Lucia was silent at first, staring up at the sky and flipping the name through her mind for a moment.

"No, I am apology," she answered and gave him a white envelope, "But, here is your payment. Please spending the night with us, to rest a bit from your troubles."

He naturally let out a subdued chortle of his own, "I can't, but that's . . . kind of you."

He'd never truly been treated as anything other than a dog of society in his youth, except by those easily swayed. Manipulations held no interest for him, he preferred to govern through strength alone, it was enough. Only time and maturation had afforded him the eventual respect of particular humankind, the butchers they were. He was a madman to them, and them an insane sovereignty over the hopeless. Perhaps, in time, he'd reclaim his former life, the power he once held.

She seemed disappointed in his rebuff, but resigned.

He waved goodbye.

They walked on, away from him, off to treat their own madmen and exiles. They were like him in that way, stranded out here on this godforsaken rock.

Vergil waited until he was sure no one was there. He gazed up at the dark sky and could see no difference between this and the demons' realm. Something inside him was . . . missing. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, couldn't understand what had been taken away that once he knew, aside from the domination that had left his tired bones. And every time he thought of how he'd gotten here, he kept feeling that unnamed feeling again, coming alive inside him. Once he'd finished with that rag-tag group, an incompleteness, a sense of loneliness settled inside of him. It haunted him, corroded him, choked him.

"You have a sadness clouding your heart, don't you, son of Sparda?"

He kept his hands at the ready but casually neglected to face the voice.

In fact, it was as though no one had spoken to him at all, he stood unchanged.

"Have you come to ruin my solitude? Or are you just another one of these monsters in disguise?" he said.

An old woman approached him, using an old, rotted walking stick to aid her precarious limp.

"My name is Matier," she replied with a familiar gentleness. "Surely you do not take me for a monster."

'Matier' . . . Mother.

Vergil let a sadistic smile leak across his lips.

"'Mother' . . . A mother is to be loved," he cocked his head to the left to face her, his troubled face bathed in shadow. "I don't love you."

The words were biting.

"I wouldn't expect you to, but you are an honorable man, no?" she told him.

"Perhaps," he replied. "If I only I could say the same for others."

The sounds of nature were all that followed them. They stood staring down one another, held largely in the grasp of a larger miasma, the curse of this land still present and weighing heavily upon them. Not for nothing that he didn't at least try to kill anything he saw that was not an innocent creature, he was certain this forest would never be free till the lord over this hex had been destroyed and his base of power depleted and drained. Such was the nature of monstrous men and demons of the fall, they were all-powerful till a hero came knocking.

But the age of heroes was no more.

"You think all others you face are monsters . . ." the old woman chuckled, though it was unclear if it were healthy for her. "But we are all monsters here, childe."

The man's face grew sullen as he took in her words.

"I suppose," he said. "The blood on my hands cannot be washed, just like the mistakes of you and your people."

He was angry, but that feeling was misplaced and uncertain.

She recognized that expression on him.

The woman had seen it hundreds of centuries earlier.

"Your father had the same look when his comrades died during the days of the great war," her remark was taunting, gloating. "He wasn't always certain of himself."

The half-breed frowned at the mention of his father again, and so he sighed lifeless, "Kindly refrain from sullying Sparda's memory. Foolish nostalgia is but another form of weakness."

"But, even a devil may cry when he loses someone he loves," the old woman told him. "The hell of this place was once his home, as were many lands that he sought to preach his kindness. You're only a shell of him, a shell of her, a shell of him . . . a shell of you. Through time, you will see. I bid that you might yet learn to cry."

Vergil didn't feel like talking anymore. He raised the back of his hand and signaled her off, then walked away without a word.

As mothers do, she let him go . . . without a word.

He continued his lonely walk till there was another silent, empty clearing within the forest. This one was serene, and somewhat more overgrown than the other patches previously, filled with thorns and gracious sand turned to crust. The Cambion gazed behind him one last time to make sure the woman had not followed him. His sharp hearing couldn't detect her footsteps, or any sound at all.

"Good," he said to himself.

He took a breath and his chest expanded.

Four wings appeared from his back. He still possessed a humanoid face with glowing, crimson eyes, black downward horns protruded from the sides of his face. Sprouting a pair of twin red blades from his forearms, they appeared flowing like a flame, crafted from his own spirit. He grew taller too, the size of him rivaling a great bear on its hind legs. He rose at least ten feet. Along the stitching, the wings and various spikes ran in careful alignment of the shoulder blades. Clothing became flesh and merged within him, none left whatsoever on the outside save for armor of a black craft.

In the moment before his judgment, he refocused on the matter at hand.

Crouching, Vergil slowly exhaled. He propelled himself to the sky glorious as an eagle.

The slayer soared until he was high enough to see the wide sea beyond the trees.

He was ready to return home, perhaps continuing this little experiment; however, these recent events had shaken him. Energy flowed through him in this form, and while he was once feeling weak, he felt comfort in this returned strength, the spark of something she'd said that had been troubling him. Seemed to be a natural continuation, or an old recollection, familiarity fueling his reform.

. . . Back in the city

Bounty-hunter Lady leaned on a crate in the shadows of an adjacent street, almost hidden by the car nearby. Her arms were folded across her chest, right hand holding her chin, and wearing 'round her neck a special necklace her mother made for her as a child. It was a specialized jewel, almost a broach, almost many things, peculiar in craft and style. She wondered the origin of the gem. It seemed to glow brightly and pulse whenever it came in close contact with foul devils, alerting her to unnatural presences often.

It served the job.

Her protective cowl attached to her poncho covered her head and shrouded her cheeks. As the moon dwindled behind the clouds, she stood, silent and still.

It was rare for her to rest her chin like that, especially if she was holding her knife under her sleeve. Which, Lady was. The point of it laid less than an inch from her exposed throat.

She held herself at knife-point.

Others might've wondered why. After all, even people such as her were not immune to accidents. But Lady was different, no ordinary gal.

Resting her chin on her strongest arm was an act of deception designed to fool enemies – but she also took a dark delight in courting danger. It became part of her nature, the adrenaline coursing through her veins, and so she sat with her chin in her hand, on watch, and waited. In an alleyway not so far lurked a fellow by the name of Joseph, or at least thats the name 'he' gave himself. He wore a tattered shooting jacket and a broken straw hat, and he was studying a pocket watch lifted from a gentleman not moments ago. Instead of wearing what was neatly made, he stared into it longingly, as if it held some other grand purpose, a purpose lost on the world at large.

The pocket watch was almost exactly an hour behind true time.

Oblivious to that fact, he snapped it shut, thinking himself quite the dandy man. Just anything functional would work for his tastes.

Next, he eased himself out of the alleyway, looked left and right, then made his way into the dying day of the slowly emptying street.

As he strolled, his shoulders hunched and his hands in his slummy pockets, he glanced over his shoulder to check that he wasn't being followed.

And?

. . . Nothing.

Satisfied, the stranger continued onward.

He lit a cigarette with a match and, rather than put it out, he threw it into an open dumpster. The small light sparked flames and smoke, but he just walked on. He didn't care, he wasn't in the business to understand what a fire that close to a building would do anyway, he was only interested in hedonism. A thundering bang startled the slovenly rat, but it came from one of the tenements above. He looked up and adjusted his hat back out of his eyes.

Puffing on his cig, he tried to get a good look.

No one stood near him, either on the roofs or behind him.

Must've been some poor bastard putting a shell in his mouth.

So, he turned to go. In the same moment, the mist ahead of him billowed, and out of it came the eery figure of a woman in a white dress. Her hair was black as ink, it had the exact same consistency too. Behind this mop of oil was a warped face that shouldn't have existed. Its eyes glowed ominously blue and a massive, swollen tongue burst from its mouth, distorting the jawbone itself that surrounded it. It hung down an entire foot from her face, several inches thick, and it drooped acid saliva across the tar ground. The woman herself was sickly, covered in burst pustules and translucent flesh. Veins pulsated with black blood and more of these warts continued to break open as the tongue wriggled around, almost uncontrollable.

He stood paralyzed, unable to think or move.

The tab fell from his mouth and danced on the greasy pavement.

Before he could try to break free of the paralysis, the creature lunged at him and its bony fingers clasped onto his arm, attempting to drag him back into the alley. Lord knows what unspeakable horrors it would force on him with that horrible organ in its mouth. Only, instead of striking out, his assailant loomed the ugly tongue closer to his face. A knife bolted into its forehead, and suddenly, he heard another gunshot. It tore through the side of its tongue, macerating a portion of the flapping, oversized entity.

Blood flowed across the cold cement and he stumbled back on his ass. He used his hands to prop himself up.

A hail storm of bullets focused on the throbbing tongue tore it apart completely, and eventually, it fell to the ground lifeless, barely any part of its head left remaining.

Eventually, it just wore away into a black ooze. A bit of the reflection off the black top invaded his eyes.

There stood his Lady in black, preventing Joseph from an escape. He looked up and saw her and every alluring bit of her skin.

Humans tasted good.

"Hello, Joseph," she sarcastically smiled. "I need you to answer some questions."

She scowled at him, a glint of hatred simmering beneath the surface of her emotionless face.

Those mismatched eyes spoke of a personal tragedy, a tail uncensored by the mouth's funny quirks.

"What makes you think I'ma talk?" his accent was ghetto, and his eyes glanced all directions possible, before he shouted loudly, "Someone help! She's try'na to kill me!"

He unexpectedly zoomed to his feet and booked it for the safety of the light.

Lady swept the demon's legs from beneath him and slammed his face to the filthy cobbles. She crashed on his haunches and grabbed his shins, pinning the demon in place with the pain in his knees.

"Tell me what I want, pain stops: real simple," she growled. "What did you do with those women?"

"I know two things! A: They're dead, and B: They was pretty well endowed, not sure I know- Ack!"

She bared further down on his legs, forcibly pulling them farther back than his human form could bend, and so he stopped speaking. Then, she used her thighs to flip him over onto his back and slammed her right boot into his chest as she pulled her weapon, Kalina Ann and pressed its barrel at his face. The blade on the bazooka's end touched his cheek and effortlessly sliced his skin open. The pain of it stung, it had been freshly sharpened and consecrated.

The barrel only covered the left side of his face, and he could see her clearly with his right eye still, same old emotionless face.

"Now, 'little devil,'" Lady grinned, spitefully demeaning him. "Why don't we start over? What did you do with those women?"

"All right, all right already! I'll talk," squirmed the demon, the edge of the attached-bayonet digging further into his flesh. "I-. . . I traded their souls to a major player downstairs, someone famous! I don't know his name! He gave me a fair deal, some land and some power, a nice few pints of blood."

"What's his name," she commanded him to say.

"I told ya, I dunno!"

She dug that blade in harsher, jaggedly dragging the edge as it began to saw into his cheek bone. He screeched in horrible, inhuman tongues. His squalid screeches reminded her of Joe Pesci, oddly enough. Of course, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Dante knew that better than anybody, and she was responsible for it. As a legendary son, he was a peculiar target for other creatures. It wasn't uncommon that other monstrosities would cannibalize the overall species. Maybe he'd grown tired of always having to fight.

She didn't want to think about him anymore today.

And then there was this mongrel she was dealing with. Disgusting runt, he'd had a reputation for feasting on the flesh of children. The deaths, the dope, the guns, the rapes . . .

She didn't letting anyone know he should absolutely die right here and now for the pain he'd caused.

There were always rumors, but human laws kept her from truly putting an end to him, since he masqueraded as an insane homeless man. Further and further the weapon's edge drove through him. Calming himself as much as he could to form full thoughts, he finished his answer.

"Gah! I dunno what his name was, I don't know! He called himself Jester, that's all I know, I swear!"

Her eyebrow twitched.

Jester.

Was that the same? No, couldn't be. Had to be someone else, Jester was a common derivative pseudonym after all. She changed her grimace to a smirk of satisfaction and released the blade from his cheek, a deep smoking gash left behind. As soon as she did, the man's body began to stretch and change, his arms growing abnormally long with claws outstretched and cherub wings from his back. Hearing those tendons rip, torn up inside him, it quickly lost the illusion of humanity, Joseph becoming its true self.

The creature reached for her with its grotesque limbs, but Lady barely managed to dash back.

The head grew deformed, becoming larger and larger, wriggling tentacles growing from its demonic countenance still 'Joseph's' face no longer remained. Both eye's fused to become one ginormous retina. She continued to step away, taking measured steps from the grisly creature as it swiped its linguini-limbs at her face. It was larger than it looked, yet stretched and still incapable. The claws missed her by a strand of hair.

Instead its hand continued past her and struck the dumpster fire it had caused, clumsily hooking its malformed paw into the green metal. She hefted Kalina Ann upon her shoulder and took aim. It struggled and suffered as it attempted to rip the limb free. The flames spread across its flesh and it screamed horridly. A bray of a pig left those lips, squealing blackened disgrace before coming to sense a shift in the weather.

Turning its head, 'Joseph' gazed upon that infernal barrel.

She pulled the trigger.

Flying forward, the missile tore into its only eye, and the malevolent creature blew apart in brilliant orange fireballs. Scraps of its head barely survived.

From the center, detached wings smacked the ground sloppily, blood boiling where it spattered, and wreckage was all that was left. Some shit stuck on the darkened wall.

"Idiot," she whispered.

A moment of weakness befell her knees, and she heaved a long breath. Dread infected her mind, the thought that someone had taken that name again.

Just when she thought her life was coming together, finally moving on and up-up-and-away, she'd inhaled another cup of poison. Every time she thought of that, an image of her mother flashed in her mind, her cold corpse laying in the back doorway, stabbed and gutted. It wouldn't leave no matter how hard she pushed. He'd followed the woman and delivered the final blunt blow to the head.

There she laid, clear as day, eye's empty of all human feeling and her skin so cold. Blood flowed out across their floor . . . only loneliness remained.

"Mmmm," Mary grumbled, grasping the side of her temples, hopeless. "Leave me be."

It settled for the time being and she wondered aloud if her life would ever return to normal. For days, Lady wondered if she should've told Dante about how she felt, but she merely brushed it off for the time being. This was her own dilemma, she wouldn't trouble him now. No more would she accept his help, not after so long and all that time spent trying to forget. If not today were she ready, then she'd never become able to stand on her own. Perhaps the reason the name nagged her so much, more than usual, was that Dante had brought him down in the end, leaving for her only lonesome leftovers. She was left feeling empty, Arkham's broken form screaming no before the shout of her gun cut him off . . .

There wasn't any satisfaction about it anymore.

It was certainly disconcerting. More digging, definitely more digging was needed.

Lady dusted herself off lazily and returned to her home. The air echoed from the clap of her shoes on those old streets. It was empty. Everything . . . was empty.

. . . Years and unmarked houses long ago, where passion once lived, a mind fragile stirred . . .

Lady sat and listened to the rain outside.

The living room was cozy and a well-lit a fire crackled in the chimney in front of her. Rain drops drifted down the windows, distorting the outside view.

The glow of the lights seemed brighter than usual behind the rainfall.

"Is it about your father?" Her mother asked as she put her arm around her shoulder, curled together on their old woolen couch.

The mere mention of her father brought Mary a serious fright, although she was good about masking her expressions from her mom. She knew her mother remained loyal to him, no matter the action taken. However, the pounding of her heart would always give her away. It was too loud. So, her mother would always hold her closer. She was a kind woman, if not too entirely aware.

"Yeah . . . he's not himself anymore! He keeps-. . . reading those books, barely speaking to us," she paused for a moment. "I see the way he looks around, it's like we don't matter. We're lesser than him."

Mary stopped when she felt her mother's warm hand grace her cheek.

"Oh sweetie, don't say that. Your father can be . . . a difficult man. But we have to look past that. He's a good person and he loves you," her words were so comforting.

Even if they weren't true.

But inside, the soothing nature of her mother turned to bitter resentment towards her father.

Lady grit her teeth.

She still loved him, trusting that clear face was still easy. He was just having a problem.

But wait a moment . . .

"What do you mean 'we'?"

"Uhm . . ." Kalina stammered trying to come up for an explanation. It was just a small slip, but so revealing.

. . . She should've learned right then and there, life was stable only in fleeting moments . . .

Then the bastard killed her, just like that.

Using her blood for his dark rituals. If only she had been a little older, maybe, just maybe, she would have been able to stop it. Lady often felt partially guilty for her mother's death, the lone survivor of her family still cursed to walk the earth. And all of her frustrations were taken out on those ugly demons that still plagued humanity, walking about as if someone forgot to tell them they were a dying race. The violence kept her sane . . . for a time.

She left her modern leather couch. Walking around this hollow existence that served her— the kitchen was pristine, filled with the newest 'stuff.'

Odd trinkets filled the small cooking area, all of them pointless. They came with the lease somehow, it was a good deal, but she never used any of it. Maybe she would start soon. She didn't know. Lady drank some cold water from the sink and plodded back to the living room a short few feet. Many people thought that she was a perfectly strong, fearless woman. Her old feminist friends dubbed her an archetype to aspire to. A bounty hunter to end all bounties. The one who wouldn't let anything get to her, but . . . she never was. And she never would be. It was only a mask she used to protect herself, so she wouldn't fall apart. At the seams, she was about as well-put-together as a tent city. That's how it was, that was what let her pull the trigger, putting that bullet into her dad's skull. Hunters like her were the rusted knights of this city today. But, that was too short-lived to even have the time to adjust to it.

If that was him, it was her birthright to take him out, to slay the priest one final time.

Somewhere, he was lurking, and somewhere, she would find him. It would be different now. He was still only human.

She could be obsessive. She needed a distraction.

In the moment, to herself, she pondered over giving all her weapons a proper cleaning. It'd been awhile, her mother's weapon notwithstanding. She knew that everything was still in the best shape it could possibly be in. This was more of a battle against certain compulsions. Though herself as human as they come, darkness followed her plenty. If the bullets were the proper type, the ordinance to blow away the larger targets and such would come naturally.

A list of methods and what she'd learned through experiences ran through her mind. She'd come farther than any other human could.

Lady checked the weapons stored in her belts one more time. She had many. Before she chose to go back out in the street she grasped her berettas.

She'd probably hunt more just to calm her nerves.

There were a few places she had in mind.

Going to the front door, this time, the woman chose a pair of black tennis shoes, perfect for walking around. Her boots were nice and all, but she needed a rest for her feet today. She was normally used to the heel pain, conditioned not to feel any ache, and yet today they seemed to be sore. The boots may not have been practical for everyone, but she loved them anyway, they fit her style. Lady took a deep breath one more time, sighing slowly, meditatively. She held the key and turned.

The scarred maiden wandered carefully.

Alone in a deathly silent street, everybody inside their homes, away from the recent rain, she jogged. With the expectation of the occasional pedestrian with an umbrella, it was a virtual ghost town.

She rounded right toward a residential district, where a certain variety of demons usually roamed.

There were lots of empty storage units and an old block of abandoned homes that were rusted by the adjacent sea, left pickled and specked with brown rot.

The rain drops occasionally fell on her cheek, leaving that unmistakable petrichor around her. She saw the beach in the distance. The night air appeared to be quite welcoming now. A pantheon of stars shined brightly for her to see, gleam by the dark ocean, the cloud-cover shrouding whatever discernible horizon there was in hues of grey and black. The sky resultantly appeared midnight blue, toned to a near-black glacial presence. In its own, it was beautiful.

Usually, the stars served as omens. That was what local folklore tended to ascribe anyway, that something evil was soon on the horizon.

She hoped so hard it wasn't. That was the last thing anyone needed right now.

And here Lady was anyway, on a normal, uneventful day, feeling paranoid. Frazzled. Alone. Losing sleep.

The cool night breeze flew through her black hair, ocean spray thankfully calm with the wind. She removed her shoes from her feet and placed her toes in the damp sand. The woman laid down without much care. Clothing could be cleaned. She shut her eyes, allowing her troubled soul a moment of mirth. She could hear the waves roll along the shore, peppering her soft soles with foam every time the tide broke. A distant ship's wood sleep of times long passed sailing through her thoughts, a life of yonder peace and free-blowing gold, an old dream of her childhood's soft longing.

She stayed like this for a long, long time.

After the symphony of the night had settled in, her serenity ceased.

She pulled herself up to sit and gazed around. She wasn't sure how long she'd been unaware of her surroundings but it must not've been very long. The new dawn's light could be seen in the distance, growing clear and evermore bright. It was strange. Lady was sure she was exhausted, yet sleep was evasive, there was something inside that didn't sit well, clawing at her mind, haunting her. She was drawn to the emptiness. To this very day, she continued to imagine what her life could have been, what everyone's lives might have become, if her father had just never become fascinated with Sparda.

She leaned forward and rested her chin on her knees, wrapping her arms around her bare shins.

With those moody eyes, Lady stared out into the bleak horizon, not wondering what was beneath those black waters, wondering instead what laid out beyond those clouds.

Where had her Dante gone? Why wasn't he around anymore?

Instead, there was that stranger who sat at his desk, wearing his face.

Why couldn't he have just stayed here? With her . . .

To Be Continued

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked this. I want to give Lady more focus as I view her as a very important character, and kind of the anchor to Dante's modern persona. So I'm taking a look at her personality more deeply, what she's like behind closed doors, her feelings about her past and so on and so forth. I think it fits for her and it's interesting. I hope you all agree with me here, lol

Song used for inspiration was: Can't Sleep - by Kryptic Minds. UK electronica artist, pretty good influence for the darker ominous feel of dark empty streets, and its sung by a woman named Alys Be, I think. Mondo props to her, she's awesome ^_^. So it's kinda perfect for Lady's mindset here, and I really tried to capture the darkness inside of her mind by upping the intensity of what she's feeling and thinking.

Anyways, thank you!

And thank you Angel Wolf for helping me :)