This was going to be the last chapter, but it would have been...so long. So it's another one I cut in half. I'll try to get the last chapter out soon to make up for it.

The weird demonic swords and armor burst into lights when we broke them. I guessed that was them dying, if they'd ever been alive, the firefly-like beams drifting off to wherever fake demon spirits go.

So I should have known that the sword lying on the ground was still active, even if its runes didn't glow like those of the others flying around. I should have known. I did know, but I was a little too preoccupied with keeping the last of the things off Vergil while his arm snapped back into place.

Like when Nero had Triggered, the ink burned out of Vergil's hair with every flash of his devil form threatening to take over and tear the kid to pieces. Trying to talk him out of it would have been useless, so I tensed in preparation to intercept. Even without his sword, Vergil could be trouble in a fight. No matter how little I wanted him trying to rip out my throat, I wanted him riling up the kid even less.

Credo was finally getting through to Nero, the fog clearing.

Clear enough to see that odd, prone sword jump up. I'm not sure what I yelled, a warning maybe. My thoughts couldn't line up fast enough to think of what I was saying. Whatever it was, it did nothing. The blade ripped through Nero's side at just enough of angle not to cleave him in half.

I was running before he started to fall, but there was nothing I could do. He seemed to fall so slowly, yet my legs moved just as slow. The room felt deafeningly silent until Yamato flew past my ear, nearly taking it off.

"Damned boy," Vergil said as another blade whipped by, one of the phantom blue ones. Narrowly missing Credo, it jammed into the inner wall of the pit, and with a crackle of blue light, Vergil appeared in its place.

"Wait-wait-wait!" I felt myself yelling as he slipped out of view as well. He couldn't just fall too. That didn't get me anything but closer to a panic attack.

My Trigger slammed into me like lightning through my veins. I didn't feel myself summon it, didn't know I'd had the energy to still use it, but judging by the way my muscles ripped apart with each stride, I didn't.

It lasted only until I barreled over the pit's edge. My shoulder caught the opposite wall before I was bounced back toward the empty grasp of nothingness. I caught a glance of Vergil below me, so I flailed my arms until a scrap of something brushed against my hand. Crushing the fabric in my grasp, I felt a moment's swell of victory; then I remembered I had no way to grab ahold of anything else. We were just all going to fall together.

Alright, not my best plan.

Too much happened at once after that, like everyone had turned to yell at me at the same time. Something tried to break my ankle and rip off my leg just before Vergil's coat tried to tear out of my grasp. I had to shoot out my other hand to regain my grip, and that made him hiss in pain or annoyance, but a weird pop drowned him out. He was damn heavy all of the sudden.

The tail of my coat drifted down and hung around my head, making me realize that I was upside down. We weren't moving anymore, though, so that was… good.

Looking down - or up - I found Dad with one hand locked around my ankle and the other latched to the edge of the pit. "Everyone okay?" he asked through gritted teeth. Agni and Rudra were shadows at the top of the pit, trying and failing to pull Dad up.

"Doing great," I said.

Vergil gave some sort of growl that sounded like a yes to me.

An echoing whine came from below him. "Alright," Credo said so weak and airy that there was no way he was telling the truth.

"The boy doesn't appear to be in good condition," Vergil said, "but Credo has a hold of him."

That was as good as I could have hoped for at that point. The angle didn't give me much of a view past Vergil, but I could see something below us. Red, glowing yet dark. Swirls of the strange light rose from below us like tendrils from some ocean abyss. Though I could see well in low light, I couldn't find the bottom of the pit.

As the red threads drew closer, runes of the same light bled up the walls like a spiderweb of cracks. "Dad," I called, "maybe go ahead and pull us up. As much as I love hanging here, I'm not a fan of the light show."

Maybe it was all the blood rushing to my head, but the air seemed to be pressing down on me with a growing smell of sulfur and rot. My ears were buzzing with a mind-numbing thrum.

"Yes, I'm working on it," Dad said. "The gate won't harm us. I believe it's just reacting to Nero, but give me a moment. I'll just…" His grip tightened with a tug against my leg. The shift swung us all a fraction, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the kid.

More than anything else, I could see his arm dangling off toward the abyss. Instead of blue, it glowed the same red as the threads reaching up to coil around it, as though trying to pull him away. I wanted to snap at Dad to hurry up, that there was no such thing as harmless Hellgate, but Vergil snapped at him first. "Father, is there not another way to do this?"

Taking my focus off the pale kid, I realized that we were swinging like a pendulum chained together with tired grips. "Wait," I said as I realized Dad's intent. "Hang on, don't you have wings? Can't you just-?"

"Boys," he yelled up to Agni and Rudra. "Catch!"

As he tossed me upward, I decided that I had a new policy against my feet leaving the ground. The walls of the pit fell away, revealing the dim chamber once again as I tried to twist my feet beneath me. I would have succeeded had Vergil not kicked me in the gut, forcing me to let go of him. The ground smashed into my back, Rebellion crushed against my spine. "Ow," I wheezed when I managed to regain some air.

Trish appeared over me, amusement tugging at her lips. "That looked fun," she said.

"Oh yeah, just a blast." Rolling to my feet, I found Vergil already on his. He scowled at our father as Dad pulled himself up from the pit.

"Really?" Vergil drawled.

"You were all much too heavy to pull up," Dad said. "It was the quickest way."

Vergil had clearly let go of Credo because the poor bastard was lying on his side across the room, his eyes weary and dazed from pain. I guessed that had something to do with his right arm looking like it had tried to detach, hanging at an odd slope from his shoulder. Looked like Vergil had taken out his revenge on the wrong person.

Nero still looked like a goddamn corpse, but he hadn't hit the floor. Agni and Rudra both held him in their arms while barking at each other. "I caught him. You were supposed to get someone else."

"No, I caught him! You should have gotten someone else."

"They're useful as ever," Trish said.

I wasn't sure she had any room to talk since she'd just watched me hit the ground, but I had a feeling that saying anything would earn me more pain than it was worth. I had enough aches already. I didn't need more. "When we get out of here, I'm going to sleep for a week," I said.

Overusing my devil side left me a limping, sore mess, but I didn't have any room to complain when the kid still had a sword through him. All that assured me that he was still breathing was the anguish that pinched his expression.

I hadn't forgotten about Agnus. He must have hoped we all would so that he could slip out the door without notice, but he was still stuck in front of it, caught between Lady's crossbow and one of Kyrie's knives. Lady's permanent expression was anger, but I would never have imagined seeing such rage in Kyrie's eyes. In understood her fury, though. After I made sure Nero survived, I was going to end that alchemist bastard.

Dad reached the kid before I did. "My apologies," he said as he placed his hands on the sides of the blade. "This will hurt." I didn't see Dad move, yet the blade shattered to pieces and burned away in those flares of light. As Nero's closed eyes twitched, a swell of blood poured from his mouth and the wound. He wasn't healing.

"You shouldn't use up your Trigger so readily, Little Prince," Dad said in little more than a whisper as he raised his hand. "But I suppose I would have needed to redo the seal regardless." The dark threads swelled up from the pit like a wave that crashed down around Dad's awaiting hand. He pressed the unsettling power to the wound, and with an agonized gasp, Nero tore back from death's razor edge. When Dad pulled his hand away, the wound was sealed with the same red hide that covered Nero's arm.

"He is okay," Agni and Rudra chimed. "All fixed. Very good, Your Majesty."

I wasn't sure it was quite so simple. Nero still looked like death, so pale that the dark swaths under his eyes were the only color to his face. Agni and Rudra were too small to do anything but hoist the kid up a bit, so Dad pulled Nero into his arms despite the chorus of whines from the little demons.

Nero's eyes were slits so thin that I didn't realize that they were open until he grumbled, "Stop carrying me."

"Very well," Dad said. Turning heel to me, he dropped the kid into my arms. "There you are. Look after him, would you?"

Part of me flashed with fury, knowing he'd tied up my arms just so I couldn't go rip Agnus apart, but I couldn't be too mad when Nero gave a growl as he looked up at me. "Not you."

"Your only other option right now is Vergil, and I don't think you want to go near him."

Vergil shrugged in an attempt to show indifference. I had a feeling his pride was hurt more than anything. Yamato was his sword, the only weapon he cared to use, and it had been torn away by some greater power. I'd felt the pull trying to take Rebellion away too, but Nero must have liked the dark tug of Yamato a bit more when he was losing his damn mind.

Striding over to Credo, Dad helped the struggling man find his feet again before snapping his arm back into socket. Credo's hiss of pain turned into a sigh of, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Dad said too sincerely. "That leaves one more issue then." The calm kindness of his expression seemed to fall away like a mask as he turned on Agnus. I'd seen plenty of powerful demons in my time, and they always looked down on everyone with haughty contempt, like we were all bugs under their feet. I'd never seen Dad wear that expression until he stared down Agnus at that moment.

"I do not want an explanation, only clarification," Dad said, a rasp of fire in his voice. "Do not talk more than necessary. I have no patience for you."

After a dozen blinks, Agnus managed a shaky nod.

"You used the power of the seal, my power, and you impressed it upon this boy. Am I correct?"

Dad's claim sounded like nonsense to me even after Agnus stuttered out a confirmation. I would have believed that Dad had slept around before I would have ever considered something like that as an option. Humans couldn't control demonic power, and they certainly couldn't contain that much of it within themselves. Seals sapped a great deal of Dad's strength. I'd seen him create one before, and he was so weakened afterward that he just lay in the grass for hours while Vergil and I whined about being bored.

I looked down at the kid to see his reaction, but I wasn't sure if he even heard what was going on. His head was resting against my arm, and he was watching his clawed fingers curl and uncurl as his arm rested across his stomach.

"Then," Dad continued, "you took advantage of the weakened seal to pull demon souls through and bind them to those objects, yes?"

"Well, I had to use a conduit that would allow for proper stabilization-"

A shift of Kyrie's knife shut him up long enough for him to notice Dad's tapping foot. "Yes," Agnus spat.

"That was foolish," Dad said. "I'll have to reset the seal now. Weak as it is in its current state, a powerful demon could easily break through, and that would mean the end of this city. You think you can control demons just because you were able to command those weaklings? You know nothing."

"Hang on," I said. "You can't just skim over all the stuff about the kid because you understand what's going on." Dad raised a brow but didn't interrupt as I took my turn at questioning the alchemist. "Wasn't Nero a little kid when you turned him demonic? How would he have possibly survived that much demonic energy?"

Agnus smirked through his contempt. "Nero was born demonic. You're correct to say that children wouldn't survive. None of them did, so I had to change tactics."

If I hadn't been holding Nero, I wouldn't have had the strength to finish listening to his explanation. Kyrie was so horrified that she took a step back from him, but Lady reaffirmed her grip on her bow with a snarl.

Agnus kept on with that same smile. "Even strong men were often overcome when attempting to bond with demonic power, but I learned that the best way to ensure success was to impress a very small amount of it on a child still developing. Of course, then the mothers were the trouble, dying off before the child could be born." He shook his head and gave a sigh of disappointment, as though he were talking about any banal thing and not human life, the sick bastard. "The only thing special about Nero was that he managed to survive past his mother's death. Once I thought he would be stable enough to survive it, I began trying to give him greater power, but Credo put an end to that. A tragedy, really. He could have been-"

"Enough," Credo said. His voice sounded calm, but it was clear from the storm in his eyes that he was anything but.

Nero remained quiet in my arms, his gaze heavy and empty, but I felt a pull as his claws curled into my shirt. He seemed to press himself closer. I found myself wishing that the pain had knocked him out a long time ago.

Credo staggered over to his fallen sword. It scraped across the ground with a screech as he dragged it up to his side. "I have three final questions for you," he said as he stepped toward Agnus. "Answer them wisely if you want a chance of surviving any minute more."

Though Agnus tried to keep his scowl, I could see the coward trembling. "What?"

"One, who were Nero's parents?"

"How should I know?" Agnus scoffed. He certainly wasn't going to earn himself any favors. "I'm sure his mother was some whore like the others."

Credo brought the tip of his sword to Agnus's throat, and the alchemist's anger vanished, his lip quivering. Kyrie and Lady took it as a sign to step back.

"Two," Credo continued, his voice louder. "Will all of that damned power you gave Nero overwhelm him in time?"

"I cannot say for sure. The experiment isn't over."

I could see the way Credo's jaw clenched as he fought to keep his calm, so I gave him a proper answer for my own satisfaction against Agnus. "The kid is unstable, but he's not anywhere near beyond help."

"He can learn to control it," Vergil added, startling me. "He will have to work for it, and he will never not be dangerous, but I do not believe his demonic side has a greater will than his own."

"He shares our power to a degree," Dad said with a hint of a smile. "That makes him one of mine, and I would never allow one of my own anything that he could not sustain."

Nero gave a soft sigh that Credo echoed. The relief on the man's face lasted only until he turned on Agnus once more. "Three, where are the royal family's rings?"

"His Holiness keeps them, somewhere in his study I believe. He wouldn't tell me something like that. Why are you asking me?"

"Fair enough," Credo said. The tip of his sword drifted down a fraction before he rammed it through Agnus's chest. Surprise widened my eyes until Credo hissed, "Did you really think I would ever consider letting you leave here alive?" Agnus couldn't respond, struggling for air as he gargled his blood. When Credo tore his sword free, Agnus dropped to the floor. The light faded from his eyes within moments.

"Perhaps it is unfair of me to take this vengeance from Nero," Credo said as he flicked the gore from his blade in disgust, "but I will not let your cowardly blood stain his hands."

I might have applauded him had my hands not been full. Nero gave another sigh, and I glanced down to find a weak smile on his lips.

Perhaps we could have learned more from the alchemist, but I couldn't bring myself to mind his death. Even Credo looked content, and my brother didn't appear angry to have lost his kill. Rather, he looked far too happy about the boy in his arms.

I was still debating how I would return the favor of having my arm broken. I would have to wait until the boy was more lucid. He was lucky it had mended without needing to be rebroken, or I wouldn't have been able to catch him and his guard as they fell.

"How is your arm?" Father asked as though reading my thoughts. His expression was far too pleasant for someone who'd just witnessed a murder.

"Fine. Were you really aiming to kill the boy for it?"

That did trouble him, his eyes darting to their corners in shame. "I would not have killed him, no, but I would certainly have injured him."

"I'll fight my own battles, Father," I said as I stepped past him.

"I'm certain you can, but anything that involves you or your brother becomes a battle of mine. I'm afraid you cannot dissuade me on that matter."

No, of course not, and I wasn't going to try. Even with him behind me, I could feel him grinning at my lack of response. He didn't need to brag.

Credo was dealing with his own nuisance - my brother. "Must you hold him like that?" Credo said as he stalked toward Dante.

"What? It doesn't bother you, does it?" Dante crooned, curling Nero closer to himself. "I wasn't going to just leave him on the ground."

The movement roused Nero enough that he opened his eyes just to glare at his captor. Credo matched the expression until he gave up with a sigh and threaded his fingers through Nero's hair before gently knocking their foreheads together. "We'll go get your rings now," Credo said as he pulled away. "We've spent far too much time here."

Nero could not meet his gaze, eyes locked on his fidgeting hands. "I'm sorry," he said. Though I'd heard him apologize before, I still found it unnatural. His weakness and weariness made him seem like a child. Credo did have a habit of treating him as one.

"There's no need to dwell on it," Credo said. "You're back to yourself now, and we'll make sure something like that doesn't happen again."

Shrinking back from his guard, Nero's voice thinned. "No, I'm sorry… sorry I took the throne from you."

Credo's eyes bled to emptiness, and I felt surprise cross my features for an instant. The boy knew. He knew and he was...apologizing for it. For someone so straightforward, I could never seem to get a handle on him.

"I'm so sorry," he continued in a whisper. His eyelids fell against his every attempt to hold them open. "I took everything from you. You should have told me. If I'd known-"

"You hush!" Kyrie cried as she stormed over, waving her knife like an extension of her wagging finger. "Don't you try to take the blame. No pity parties allowed. I'm tired of it. Everyone is okay, so we're going to stop moping now."

Her argument managed to drag a smile out of Credo. "It's not your fault," he said to Nero. "Please don't ever think that it is. Do not feel guilty for something that was never in your control. Perhaps I should have told you to save you this worry. I'll explain properly later. Just rest for now. We will take care of things from here."

"Alright, but we're going to have a talk about all this." Whether convinced or worn out, Nero compiled and let himself slump into some form of sleep.

Just to ensure that this trip couldn't reach any lower point, Trish made herself known again, peering around Dante's shoulder. "You've exhausted poor thing," she said. "Tell me, Your Majesty, if his power is that of the seal, couldn't you use him to reset it without straining yourself?"

Father jolted at my side as though he'd been struck. "Absolutely not. That would kill him. You should know that."

"You think so?" She hummed with curiosity. "It was just a thought. I was wondering if you might be able to take some his demonic energy away since it troubles him so much."

"Who is this woman?" Credo asked.

"Oh, this is Trish," Dante said with a smile, as though we were all supposed to be friends. "Trish, this is Credo. He's Nero's guard dog."

"No, that is us!" one of the obnoxious twins cried. I wondered if they realized what a low status they'd given themselves.

"And I'm Kyrie," the girl said with a curtsey of what was left from the skirt of her dress. It seemed she'd cut part of it off. "Nice to meet you, Trish."

"A pleasure."

Paying them no mind, Credo's eyes narrowed more the longer he looked at Trish. "Oh," he said to her smirk. "You're the rat, aren't you? I thought you looked familiar. Sanctus mentioned you."

Her smile only grew at the accusation, and a twinge of annoyance clawed at my chest. For someone who'd never given us any useful info, she'd gotten found out rather quickly. The only positive to using her as a spy was that it had gotten her away from the castle at times. Perhaps that was why Father let her take the role.

"You have more important things to concern yourself with right now than me," she said. "There happen to be some guards out in the main room who are rather upset about us being here."

For once in her life, she was trying to divert attention away from herself. She must have done something that would draw our ire.

"That's unfortunate," Father said. "Then we've been found out. I suppose we have been rather loud."

"But what's holding them back?" I asked. "Are they waiting for us to come out?"

Cerberus appeared in her hand as she twirled the weapon. "They're a bit stuck at the moment. I also put up a wall of ice to keep any stragglers from coming through. I thought best to hold them back until we took care of the more pressing issue."

"All these disloyal dogs," Dante muttered as his eyes flicked to Cerberus. He could never keep his weapons to himself.

"Can you really complain about disloyalty when you're holding someone who's tried to kill all of us?" I asked.

When he broke into a grin, I braced myself for something stupid. I was still not prepared.

"You've stabbed me and Dad before too, and we still love you."

"Ugh." Enough of that. I sought a change of topic. "What are we going to do about these guards? We won't endear ourselves to anyone by fighting them."

"How many of them are there?" Credo asked. "I don't wish to spill any blood." It seemed Agnus no longer counted.

Trish's head listed to the side. "Oh, I'd say ten. I suppose they were only expecting to deal with two intruders so that must have seemed like enough."

"Two?" Credo echoed.

Pretending not to hear him, Trish took to examining her nails. A scowl sank into my expression as I came to understand her meaning. The guards were here for Nero, not the rest of us. They may not have even realized that we'd broken in, but Trish must have let them onto Nero's trail. She was likely the one to lead him here as well. Nothing good came of her.

Dante broke the silence with a sigh. "Well, I don't want to have to kill anybody. Maybe they'll think better of fighting all of us." Despite his calm tone, his gaze was sharp as it cut toward his retainer. He must have realized her err as well.

If Father noticed as well, he gave no indication. "I must fix the seal before I do anything else, so I cannot join you for the moment," he said. "Credo, these men are under your command, correct? Perhaps you can dissuade them."

"Technically, yes," Credo said, "but if they're under orders from Sanctus, it would be a challenge. They're far more loyal to him than me, and not unfairly so. I've never been much of a general to them. My duty has always been to serve the prince. Still, I'd be willing to try anything to avoid a fight." His shoulders sank. "I'm exhausted."

Though I wouldn't have said it aloud, I had to agree with him. The hectic fight and having to heal had worn me thin. My eyes stung with growing weariness.

Trying to convince the guards that we, tired and damaged intruders who had trapped them in ice, were actually in the right would have been near-insurmountable, but we had two trump cards to make up for it. One was the boy, of course, if we could rouse him enough to have him introduce himself as their divine prince. The other was simpler.

"You should reveal your status," I said to Credo, whose eyes went wide at the notion. "You have the proof. Retrieve the paintings."

Credo couldn't seem to comprehend the notion, shaking his head as his eyes darted along to the hectic rhythm his thoughts. "Are you insane?" he managed. "They would never believe me, and even if they did, that could place me back in line for the throne."

"And wouldn't that be better?" I asked.

I must have flipped the world upside-down for the confusion that settled on his face.

"Surely you've noticed that Nero doesn't want the throne," I continued, "and he shouldn't have it. The idea terrifies him, and he has had no proper training for the role. If we go through with this, he will be king by tomorrow. Stress and anger set him off so easily, and he will have that in spades as king. Even ignoring his inability to control his demonic tendencies, he knows nothing of diplomacy or tax or law. You may not know much more, but of the two of you, you're far more clear-headed. Do not delude yourself, Credo, you would make the better king."

Credo placed a hand to his head as though that could hold him together. "I gave up the throne twenty years ago. I promised it to Nero. I swore. I cannot take that from him too."

"He told me that all he's ever done is fight," I said. "That's all he knows how to do. If you care for the sake of your country at all, you will have him present you as the true king. The people will believe the word of their false god. And then we do get our miracle ending. The prodigal son returns." With a princess as a possible bonus, though that was up to Kyrie and would be a more difficult sell.

For all the stress I'd given Credo, it was nothing compared to the way he flinched against Nero's sudden intrusion. "He's right," the boy said, his voice still so thin that it might break at any moment. Though his gaze remained heavy with the pull of sleep, he was able to keep his eyes open. It seemed he'd never been unconscious. "I would be a terrible king. I don't know anything. I've only ever talked to a handful of people. All I'm good at is killing things, even when I don't want to." A forced smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he flexed his demonic hand. "If you don't want to be king, Credo, I won't make you, but you would be better at it than I ever could be. Either way, I think I could convince the guards to back off."

A few breaths passed as Credo searched his charge for something that I couldn't find. Nero remained still, calm, and quiet. For some reason, I disliked seeing him that way. It pulled against my sense of reason. The boy was supposed to be trouble at all times.

"Do you want to be king?" Credo asked, finally breaking the discomforting silence.

"No," Nero said. "I don't think I've ever wanted it."

Credo gave a nod as he slipped off his rings. Holding them in one hand, he held up the other. "Give me your left," he said.

Nero moved as though in a dream, slow and distant. When his hand came to rest in Credo's, the guard slipped one ring onto Nero's first finger, one onto his third. "Then let this be your role for now," Credo said. "I will not force you to take any path. After tonight, you can be whomever you wish, but for now, be my knight, and I will be your king."

"I swear," Nero murmured. "Dante, you can put me down now."

"What?" Dante feigned a gasp. "You don't want me to carry you out to see them?"

"Shut up." Nero's ringed hand curled into a fist. "It would hurt a lot more now, so let me down."

"Kid, I'm pretty sure a baby could hit harder than you right now." Dante let the boy slide down to his unsteady feet. Though he kept a hand on Nero's arm long enough to ensure he wouldn't fall, Dante behaved himself for once and let go.

"Glor- Trish, do you still have my mask?" Nero asked.

"Oh, are we going to do a big reveal?" Her smile was as untrustworthy as ever, and the mask appeared between her fingers. Where she'd kept it hidden, I didn't want to know. "Should be fun."

Perhaps the boy was getting off easy by passing the throne off to another. I'd never had such an option. Yet, I believed Nero would have taken his place as king without hesitation had Credo, or perhaps even any of us, told him to do so. Even after he slipped the mask on, I could see guilt behind his eyes. That one moment of admission, of truth, had destroyed twenty years of work on all sides.

He shouldn't have felt guilty, though. The change was for the best.

Though I didn't end up writing a proper pairing into this fic, I'd like to do alternate endings/epilogues for any pairings that people might have wanted to see. By any pairing, I mean Nero is my fandom bicycle so I'll write him smooching any boy. I've had a few Dante/Nero requests, so I'll do one for that. Let me know if you want to see any others. The girls are all dating each other, so they can't be with the boys, sorry.

Special thanks, as always, to my reviewers!