Mission 11 – The payment

Nero woke up in an undefined place, lying in the big pile of snow in some valley between buildings. He was mad again. Every time he was starting to accept this cunning witch, she just had to pull off something like this. He couldn't get her way of thinking in any way. Nobody could, probably.

"Ah, that bitch… I didn't even…" but he couldn't finish complaining, because he suddenly got hit. By a snowball.

"Ha! Look Verg! I got a drunk guy! 10 points for me!" Nero wiped the snow off his face and looked at the boy, pissed. He was wearing jeans, red t-shirt and… white hair…

In one second he sat straight and hid his arm under his coat. And then he realized he doesn't have a coat, so he just put it deep in the snow. "Hey, I'm totally sober. And I can fight back you know?"

The boy started to laugh as he launched another snowball which was dodged this time. Nero grinned and his opponent attacked once again.

"Hey Dante, what the hell are you doing?" the identical boy, in a blue shirt this time, appeared from behind the building.

So it is him… And his twin brother. Is this boy the original owner of Yamato? What a weird luck to run into them so fast…

"I'm fighting a drunk guy!" the boy in the red shirt smiled widely at his twin and threw another snowball, but Nero dodged it again.

"I'm not drunk!" he said while throwing some snow at the kids. Dante burst with laughter again and hit him in the stomach.

"Too slow!" he yelled, trying to mimic his opponent and ran away. His brother followed him soon enough.

"H-hey! Dante!" The guy stood up with his right hand under his shirt and run after the boys. And then, he suddenly felt a kick. Somewhere, where he would rather not feel it.

"What do you want?" Dante smiled innocently, like he has never done anything.

"You…" Nero started to get really pissed off. How annoying of a brat could this guy be?!

"Hey, you asked yourself for this one. Right, Verg?" the boy suddenly turned to his brother, who only nodded. The older guy just sighed, trying to remain calm.

But what do I want anyway? I don't really have anything to do here now, anyway…

"Alright, whatever. I'm not in the mood." And he just turned away.

Dante wasn't so eager to let him go now though. "But you wanted something right? You seem nice enough. Do you want to play with us maybe?"

Nero turned and looked at the boy, who was smirking at him. "I think I've got better things to do."

"One round. You versus me and Verg."

"I'm done playing, I'm going home." Vergil suddenly started to go away.

"Okay then, it's just me and you. What do you say?"

The look on his face… What the hell is this kid up to? "… I think I'd prefer not. And you don't know me, so how can you be so sure that I don't want to hurt you?"

"I won't let you." The boy seemed really confident "But it's not fair that you know my name I do not know yours."

"I'm Ne… Nick." The guy stuttered a bit.

"Okay! Then we've got a minute to hide. You lose if you get hit. Clear?" Dante was already fired up and Nero, couldn't help it and smiled at him. He had to admit, it was pretty fun to watch his partner like that. He even thought he's sweet until he remember where he had kicked him before.

"…okay. But don't you dare to cry if I hit you too hard."

"Hey, who do you take me for?! I don't EVER cry!" The boy turned around angrily and with that said he started to run off somewhere. The other player was quite confused, but he had only one minute, so he immediately started to look for some good places to hide.

Where am I anyway? I don't know this place… He thought while walking around. There was a lot of buildings around, but they looked more like small houses than blocks of flats. He soon found his way to the main road, but there weren't too much people around. His time was running short and he had realized that he's wide open here, so he returned to the alley. But he actually didn't have time at all and he didn't even realize when a snowball flew right next to his head with an extreme speed. Nero instinctively turned around and he wanted to take out his sword, but… then he realized that it's just a game and he do not have his Red Queen anyway.

He started to look around in search of the boy, but he wasn't visible. Soon another snowball was aimed at him, he dodged it and immediately started to run in the direction from which that hit came. After few another successful dodges he found Dante. In the window of the house in front of him.

"How the hell did you get there?!" He shouted, but the only answer he got was another bullet. The hunter barely got away from that one and tried to form a snowball, but it was quite hard with only one hand. He should have prepared some beforehand…

After he finally made it (with a distraction from above, of course) he stopped at the middle of the alley. His opponent was grinning at him with a snowball in his palm. It was about who will be the first one to throw, though Nero was, in fact, in less comfortable position. They both prepared, and when they finally threw …

The snow blasted in the air.

The guy covered his eyes for a second and Dante was gone. He cursed silently and tried to find a door to the place he was in.

But before he could do that, he first caught a glimpse of a red shirt, running past him. Then it suddenly halted, turned to his rival and threw a snowball from a surprisingly short distance. Nero crouched, grabbed some snow and threw it right in the kid's face. The boy sat on the ground from the shock.

And then he suddenly started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Nero asked, quite exhausted from all these dodges he had to perform. And the position of his Devil Bringer started to get quite uncomfortable.

"You're not bad. I like you."

These words were just so honest that they have stroke the devil hunter quite hard. It felt somehow good, even though he was just a child…

"Of course I'm not bad. You're far too young to beat me just yet." Nero answered remembering how Dante outwitted him the last time they fought. Damn Devil Trigger…

"Just you wait, Nick." The boy smiled at him once again and stood up.

"You will probably need to wait longer than me…" He muttered to himself and returned the smile. "But you'll get your revenge sometime."

Then, suddenly he got hit in the back. Damn, how, who…?

And he turned around to see exactly the same face, as his precious opponent. But it wasn't Dante.

"Verg, so you decided to join after all?" The boy behind him ran closer to his brother.

"No, mum said that you must go home. It's late." He said and started to walk away. His sibling sighed and smiled at Nero again.

"See you later, Nick!" He waved and followed Vergil home.

"See you later, Dante."