"Do you ever think about your birth parents, Nero?"
"No, why would I?" He did, quite a bit, actually, but he didn't always, or rather he hadn't until a certain old man had showed up and made him ask questions that he hadn't asked since he was a child.
Back then, like most orphans, he had wanted to know about his parents, why they had given him up, and other things like whether or not they had wanted or loved him. What kid in his shoes hadn't wondered that at some point at least once? But as he got older, he had decided that he didn't need or want anything to do with them, because they hadn't wanted him, even if…even if he liked to think that there was some secret reason why his birth parents couldn't keep him, why they had left him at the orphanage all those years ago when he was just a baby.
Sometimes it was because they died, which was a likely possibility, and one he had considered before. Others it was because they had wanted to protect him, to keep him safe, because they loved him, but shit happened. If anything, that summed his life up pretty accurately.
Had parents, but shit happened. Got adopted into a great home with nice people that treated him like a son, but shit happened. Used to have a normal looking arm that didn't fucking glow whenever demons were near, but shit happened.
Had a brother who was also kind of a like dad, but shit happened.
It didn't help matters that Dante's arrival in Fortuna that day had signified the end to whatever fucked up sense of normalcy he had, had. His brother, Credo, had tried to kill him, died,and left him and Kyrie alone.
…Well, not alone, alone in the sense that they had each other, and Nero sure as hell wasn't about to let anything happen to Kyrie; he couldn't bear to lose her too.
But Dante had set off a chain reaction, and shit did happen. Nero remembered when, after everything was said and done, how the hunter had given him his brother, Vergil's, sword, Yamato, a powerful katana that had once been used to seal off the Demon World from this one, and had said shit like how it had needed to "stay in the family", fucking implying that he…that they were family, unless the old man was being philosophical or some shit, but Nero doubted it.
Right, he had thought at the time. Related to that good for nothing geezer? No way.
And yet…he couldn't deny the similarities between them, the white hair, the blue eyes, how — cringe — similar they were personality wise. At one point, Nero had even entertained the notion that Dante might actually be his father, but ultimately reached the conclusion that he wasn't. Brother? Nah. Uncle?
"…There ain't nothing to think about."
