AN: I swear to fuck. I feel like someone hit the fast-forward button. I uploaded the last chapter, then took a break that felt like two or three days, and then I looked up and realized it was about close to midnight on Friday… ^_^;

As they start heading down a train tunnel, her uncle glances back, "Well, while we're heading off to find the Devil Sword Sparda, Nero will continue making his way towards the Qliphoth, so he should be able to deal with more large Qliphoth roots while we deal with this."

She nods. There's a clot not too far in, but this time there isn't anywhere to take cover. She's not about to get splattered in clot blood though, since for all that she's a bit used to getting bloody, clot blood just seems gross, so she quickly uses a bit of magic to make a shield for them to hide behind before using another Lucifer needle to blow it up. Towards the end of the tunnel, there's a train car and debris plugging up said tunnel, but there is a doorway off to the left. Before they can go through, a type of Demon known as a Brutal Riot appears, though surprisingly instead of attacking it heads through the door itself.

She shares a look with Kazuto and Uncle Vergil, and they begin making their way forward before being interrupted by more Cainas, but it doesn't take long for her and her mate to clean up the weak lesser Demons. Only then do they finally manage to go through the door leading out of the tunnel, which leads down into what seems like more tunnels though these seem to be for power and the like given the various power stations or electrical boxes or whatever they're called. To the left seems to be nothing, so they start heading right, but they don't get far before the ground shakes rather violently.

She turns her face to the side slightly as she looks around somewhat wearily, "What was that?"

Griffon is the one to answer her, "Don't know, but you lot should be careful. Something in here stinks."

She glances over at the bird, which honestly rarely seems to hide in Vergil, which is where the tattoos come from, "It does smell down here, though it's not one I'm familiar with. You know anything?"

He hums mildly, "Not particularly. Just got a bad feeling about this place."

Before she can reply, they come across some sort of… fleshy pod looking thing, and almost as soon as they do, it splits open, and she can't help but scrunch her nose slightly at the fact there are thick ropes of some sort of goop covered in blood stretched between the two sides. She's not sure what it is, but she supposes it's perhaps some sort of transporter, given that three Brutal Riot Demons hop out. Brutal Riots weren't exactly an issue, but they were definitely more difficult than the Cainas and most of the Empusas they've been seeing, with the exception of the Queen Empusa. With a quick look amongst themselves, she and Kazuto take the Brutal Riots while Uncle Vergil slips around to deal with that pod thing.

Thankfully it doesn't take long, and they're soon on their way again, quickly finding themselves in another train tunnel, and another Lucifer needle to a clot later they're going through the gap between the train blocking off the tunnel and the wall that the root had been in.

On the other side there's yet another one of those pod things, and it isn't long before there are more Brutal Riots, though this time there are Cainas mixed in, which makes things a tiny bit more complicated. Not a whole lot, since Cainas aren't exactly that strong but they still complicate things a smidge.

She and Kazuto focus more on just keeping them busy rather than outright trying to take them out as Uncle Vergil takes care of the pod, and only when it's gone do they switch to focusing on taking them out.

From there, there's no clear path forward. Thankfully following the roots blocking them backwards leads to another clot she can destroy with Lucifer, which opens a path for them, though in the next area they're immediately attacked by Pyrobats and Cainas. She takes the bats while her mate distracts the Cainas, though she works through them as quickly as possible to be able to help her mate. When both the Pyrobats and one of the Cainas are dealt with though, some of the smaller Qliphoth needle roots pop up. She leaves the other two Cainas to her mate as she tackles the roots. And on top of that, when the Cainas are dealt with, two Antenoras come out of hiding.

She doesn't know if it's on purpose to try and keep them from getting a break or what, but they barely get a chance to start up the strangely still operational escalator before more Cainas and even a type of phantom Demon known as Death Scissors appear. It's a bit of a weird battle, since they either need to stand up on the sections in between the escalator stairs, or have them pushing them back down as they try to fight. Even then, when they deal with all of them and make it to the top, they find not one, but two of those weird pods that seem to have something to do with the Brutal Riots specifically on the landing.

With two of them spitting out Brutal Riots, she glances at her mate, "Crowd control is kind of my specialty. I can distract them while you help Uncle Vergil with those pods?"

Uncle Vergil and her mate murmur agreements. Her crowd control tricks are significantly more dangerous in real life then in virtual reality, for all the obvious reasons, ranging from the fact any attacks towards her that land will actually leave a wound rather than just a pixelated glowing slash on the body, as well as the fact that if things go wrong, there's no respawn. Nevertheless, it's better to take those pods out as quickly as possible, and the best way to do that is to have someone distract the Demons while someone else destroys them. She darts through, going through a rather familiar routine of stabbing at all of the monsters on her way through and drawing their attention, then begins her usual dance through their attacks. Thankfully, even though they aren't just somewhat strong but also decently fast, it isn't long before Kazuto is peeling some of them from her, indicating that he's done, and from there it's a well practiced dance for them to whittle them down.

Her uncle tilts his head at them with an eyebrow raised, "That looked like a trained routine."

She laughs as they head up towards the toll barriers, "It basically is. That's how we fight together in VR. I'm good at crowd control, so I get their attention and dodge, and Kazuto peels them and deals with them in much more manageable, and subsequently quicker, to handle numbers."

Her uncle hums in understanding as they make their way across the platform after the toll barriers, which somewhat surprisingly given how many attacks they've had, don't have any Demons popping out at them. Without them, they manage to head across and up the normal non-escalator staircase up to the surface, though rather than leading there directly it dead ends in a T shaped hallway leading to two other staircases to the sides, presumably meant to be on opposite sides of the road. From the lack of light coming down the steps in that direction, she's pretty sure the one to the right is collapsed, but the sunlight on the left staircase is promising, so they head that way.

When they come out, her uncle's eyes widen slightly, "The Qliphoth had grown this large… How much blood had been sacrificed?"

Tearing her eyes away, she looks around. Off to the right she can, in fact, see the other underground train entrance across what's left of the street, though while there's something of a platform that's relatively intact between the two, it collapses down not far in front of her, and she can easily see that it's far from just that single platform. There are many 'platforms' made from the road and the like. A lot of the buildings on them are surprisingly intact from what she can see of them.

Her attention is snatched away by a sizable number of needled Qliphoth roots punching up out of the ground. With a sigh, since they're more annoying for them than dangerous, she quickly makes her way forward with Kazuto to deal with them.

It doesn't take long for them to clean them up and start heading down a somewhat collapsed road that's basically become a large ramp towards what's left of a stage theater. When they get down there Nero, who's route may have been different but apparently still brought him there, walks up to them and they begin to move forward towards the back of the theater to keep going.

When they get about halfway though, a type of Demon drops down. She scowls when it straightens up. No. Not a kind of Demon. A kind of that bastard Agnus' experiments. It's quickly joined by a group of four smaller, weaker ones.

Nero huffs out a derisive laugh, "Nice, getting the band back together, huh?"

She snorts and eyes them, "These things are abominations we need to destroy."

Nero reaches behind himself to grab his sword, "I thought that was the plan all along."

As they ready their weapons the theater's stage, clearly having become destabilized, starts shaking, before it breaks away from the rest of the theater and begins sliding down the now ramp like collapsed road. With five to four, she doesn't hesitate to snatch up two of the Demons to let everyone else focus on just one. It has the rather nice side effect of Nero, the strongest of them there currently, quickly dealing with the larger one and coming over to take one of them off her hands.

As quick as it is, she finishes just in time to see the walls on the stage crumble, allowing them to see the massive cliff they're careening towards. Without hesitation, they all jump off the back of the plummeting stage, though she does snap out her Angel wings and catch uncle Vergil since his body is significantly more fragile, since while the Angelic and Demonic blood and power he was left with should help make him sturdier, with the way the former has been tearing into the latter, it hasn't really had that overall effect.

Once she's safety got uncle Vergil set on the ground, she really takes a look around. And then up. And up. They're practically at the base of the Qliphoth now. Something that Nero clearly notices as well, "Took us long enough to get here."

Uncle Vergil gazes up at the Qliphoth, "This is where we'll have to part ways."

Nero looks over at him, "How do you mean?"

Uncle Vergil turns to him, "You undoubtedly heard what was said about the Devil Sword Sparda on the radio?" Nero nods, so he gestures off to the right, "The Sparda is off in that direction."

Nero makes a noise of understanding, "Which isn't exactly the direction of the Qliphoth." Then he shrugs, "I'll make my way there anyway, if nothing else I can see if I can't find out something about Dante."

She turns to walk backwards as they head out, "Be even more careful Nero. If things have become dangerous now that the Demons have full access to Earth, that's definitely one of, if not the worst of it."

Her cousin-brother gives her a salute before heading out. They head towards the area Yui placed the aura of the Devil Sword Sparda in, and everything gets more and more torn up the further they go. Eventually, they find themselves at the edge of what's become a cliff, and not only can they sense it now, but the zone of where the sword can be is fairly small now, enough so that Uncle Vergil glances at Griffon, "Fly ahead and see if you can't locate it."

Griffon flaps his wings a little more vigorously as he straightens out of the lazy circle he'd been flying in, "Yeah, yeah."

It doesn't take long for Griffon to return, and Uncle Vergil tilts his head at him, "Did you find it?"

Griffon stops to hover a few feet in front of him, "Uh, well, I-I don't know what I found, but, uh… I think I saw some Demons dancing?"

She gives Griffon a deadpan look, "And it didn't occur to you to see what was going on?"

Griffon lands on Uncle Vergil's outstretched arm and his feathers ruffle in agitation and his voice gets defensive, "I think they were excited, so it's probably over there. It's dead ahead from here."

She tilts her head, "And you didn't look around to see if you could find it and see if you were right?"

Griffon's feathers get even more puffed out with his agitation, but Uncle Vergil interrupts, "It may not be a confirmation, but it's a decent lead. And besides, even if there's something else going on causing them to act that way, when we get there we'll not only find out what's going on, but it should also let the Demon Detectors narrow in further."

She eyes the massive ravine in front of them thoughtfully, "How far is it?"

Griffon turns to her, "Huh? Oh, well. You see that big round topped building in the distance? They were at the base of that."

She shakes her head and turns to her uncle, "I know you're big on dignity, but if it's that close, it'd be easiest if one of us carried you and we just flew over. Unfortunately, since we'd be flying we wouldn't be able to piggyback, which means we'd have to carry you in our arms, even if that may be a bit embarrassing."

Her uncle shakes his head, "This is a full blown Demonic invasion, and it can't be too much longer before the Qliphoth Fruit is done. Dignity and embarrassment has no place in current considerations."

Kazuto steps forward, "I get that you guys don't like me much since I'm in a relationship with the beloved baby of the family, but given that Marzanna is more agile and better at aerial combat, it'd be better if I carried you so she has her hands free in case we run into trouble on the way."

That seems to give Uncle Vergil pause, and she feels a flicker of nerves. Just because the situation had the silver lining that it seems to have helped with him accepting her mate doesn't mean he's all the way there yet. After all, if you help someone take the first few steps of a mile, the help doesn't automatically mean they're at the finish line.

To her surprise however, when her uncle opens his mouth, it's neither him brushing past the pause like it hadn't happened, nor him grudgingly accepting, "Mm. Dante and I haven't been very fair to you, have we? In Dante's case, he's just being a stereotypical overprotective father. It's nothing personal, he just doesn't like the fact you have the power, if not the motive, to break his daughter's heart. I've been even less fair though, since I don't like it because you're her soulmate." He glances at Griffon, "It has been pointed out to me, by someone who knows all of it best though, that disliking you out of a weariness of the same thing happening to Marzanna that happened to me if her own soulmate dies isn't fair to either of you. Especially since at the end of the day, if she was fated to die regardless, I'd prefer all the agony of losing Iina over never having had her in the first place. I owe you an apology for how I've been towards you."

Kazuto blinks rapidly at him, surprise clear on his face, "It's fine." Then he looks down with furrowed eyebrows, "I mean, I absolutely understand where you were coming from." He flicks a quick apologetic glance towards her, "I don't think it ever came up, but Marzanna almost died at the end. I didn't have to go through all the agony and madness you did since she survived, unlike you did, but just from what I felt in those frantic moments when I thought she was going to die… Well, it may have only been the tip of the iceberg, but I understood where you were coming from after Eva told me what your problem with me was." His expression pinches, "Especially since it happened because she put herself in front of a blow meant for me." He laughs a little as he looks back up, "Although, I guess telling you that last part may undo some of the progress we've made."

Uncle Vergil gives her a sharp look, "It hadn't been mentioned, no." Then he shakes his head, "But if she hadn't gotten in between you and that blow and you hadn't survived, it would've just brought on the very thing I've been fearing. Namely my niece having to go through the same thing I went through, so even if I'm certainly not happy about it… No, I can't say it undoes everything." Then he shakes himself, "Anyway. We need to get going."

Kazuto nods, "Right."

And there's still so much wrong with everything that's happened, and if the price for Uncle Vergil not being ripped in two and actively dying and everything that had come from it was him taking longer to accept Kazuto, she'd have gladly accepted the due, but she can't say she's displeased from the silver lining that's come of this mess. All of the silver linings actually, since there's other things like the magical world's medicine becoming fully available to the non-magical world, the cruelty towards dragons the UK branch of the Goblins were practicing being brought to attentions that had the authority to stop it, Yui being well on her way to being acknowledged as a sentient being, and numerous others.

She shakes the thought off as her mate picks up her uncle, turning back towards the cliff and pushing her wings out. After her mate does the same, they both take off, and it's only a minute, maybe two before they're landing on the large platform the 'dancing' Demons are on.

She's a little irritated that all it takes is a glance in the direction they seemed to be gazing in, though it was admittedly a little difficult at first glance to tell given how warped their bodies are and the way they're moving around so erratically, to confirm that the Devil Sword Sparda really is here.

Griffon huffs, "You see what I mean? This is some kinda ritual shindig." Then raising his voice a little and clearly not talking to Uncle Vergil anymore he calls out, "You guys got the dance fever for the Sparda, don't you?" Hearing him, they stop their 'dancing' and turn to them, immediately becoming hostile, causing Griffon to continue, "Whoa, easy on the dance floor there, partner."

Uncle Vergil takes a step forward and begins to lift his cane, "We'll be taking that back." He points his cane at the Devil Sword Sparda, at 'that' then lowers it, twirling it in a single circle before tapping it on the fingers of his other hand, "You know your endless worshiping isn't making the Sparda any happier."

The Demons, a type she's vaguely familiar with at least enough to know that they're looked down on in Hell, so much so they aren't even given a name, lunge for them. She immediately twists out of the way as she pulls out and switches Shuraba to Osiris, slicing off the massive arm that comes out of the back of the one near her on the tail end of her turn as it goes by. She switched to Aquila as it rears up with a pained shriek, tossing them into its back to buzzsaw through it, then calling them back when they burst out of its chest. It drops back down to all fours and whirls towards her, and she switches to Arbiter as it lunges, cleaving into its face.

It drops like a sack of rocks and disintegrates. Once it's down, she turns quickly towards her mate and uncle, only to see Kazuto already sheathing his swords as he watches Uncle Vergil finish off the last of the three. She blinks, then switches back to Shuraba and sheaths her.

Uncle Vergil glances up at the Devil Sword Sparda, then over and points, "That's a large Qliphoth root blood clot."

She blinks and looks to where he's pointing. With a shrug, she tosses a Lucifer needle, then makes a magical barrier about a foot from the clot before detonating it. Immediately, the entire thing starts to die and crumble, and apparently the root was holding it up as the building the Devil Sword Sparda was lodged in collapses with it, dropping the blade to the ground.

Uncle Vergil walks over to it with her and Kazuto, and they stop by its side, and Uncle Vergil's brows furrow, "The problem. Is that just picking this up can be nearly impossible if you don't have a certain amount of strength. And I don't mean the muscled kind."

She shares a glance with her mate, "Well, Kazuto has the highest physical strength here with you weakened, but I don't know if he's the strongest in the ways that matter to the Sparda."

He glances at them, "Mm. It is a more normal kind of heavy as well, so he may as well try."

Kazuto shrugs, then leans down and wraps his hands around the grip. He huffs out a heavy breath as he heaves it up, "I know what you mean. Its physical weight isn't too bad, at least not with my Nephilim physiology, though I know for a fact just that alone would have been too much for me before I bonded with Marzanna, but there's… a different kind of weight. And that's way heavier."

Uncle Vergil hums, but before he can say anything a growl behind and to the right of them draws their attention to Shadow standing on the edge of the cliff, looking back at them. Griffon twists in the air to face Shadow as well, "It speaks."

Shadow turns back to the cliff, looking down at something. They make their way over, and a gasp rips out of her and tears appear in her eyes the moment she sees what Shadow was looking at. It's probably a good thing Kazuto had been the one to pick up the sword, given that without any input from her, her hands fly up to cover her mouth.

Dante.

Her dad. They'd found him.

There was some sort of statue? Of Angels? Which would be ironic. Or maybe it was grim reapers? She doesn't like the implications of that one. She's not sure which it is, but her dad was in its arms, covered in blood and unconscious. Hopefully. If he wasn't unconscious then that meant he was…

She doesn't even really think about what she's doing as she hops down to his level and rushes over to him, tripping over her own feet as she struggles to keep them under her in her haste. She can hardly see through her teary eyes as she pushes his hair, dyed completely red with dried blood, out of his face. She barely holds back a sob of relief when she feels the faint brush of air from him breathing out run over her arms.

She blinks rapidly, trying to get the tears from her eyes so she can see properly. A hand suddenly clasps her shoulder and squeezes, causing her to jump and whirl around. It was Uncle Vergil. Kazuto was standing behind him, staring with wide eyes. She hadn't even heard them jump down behind her. Vaguely, distantly, even though it's coming from her own head and it's her own thoughts, a stunned murmur runs through, 'Dangerous. Wouldn't have known a Demon was coming if I was paying that little attention to my surroundings…'

Her Uncle squeezes her shoulder again, and his mouth opens and she forces herself to focus to make sure she hears him, "Move for a moment. I need to get him down and lay him out to check him over and make sure he's alright."

She nods dumbly and pushes herself to her feet, almost collapsing again on relief-weak legs before stumbling out of his way. She ends up only a few feet away, and Kazuto moves forward to let the Sparda rest with its tip on the ground as he holds it with one hand and wraps the other arm around her waist. Uncle Vergil manages to get her dad off of the statue and lays him flat on the ground to check his condition.

Griffon, landing opposite Uncle Vergil with her dad between them, says in utter disbelief, "I- I- I don't even have the words. I- He's alive. He's alive!"

Uncle Vergil continues looking over her dad, "The Devil Sword Sparda was concealing Dante's presence." He finishes up looking him over, and climbs to his feet and moves over to her and Kazuto, "Its aura would have hidden Dante's weakened one, any Demons that got near would have certainly sensed it and gone for it, completely unaware of him being entirely vulnerable less than fifty feet away."

Griffon shakes his head, "How does one friggin guy have so much luck, huh?!"

Uncle Vergil takes the Sparda from Kazuto with both hands, then turns back to her dad, dropping his cane, which he'd been heavily leaning on and starts back over to her dad. Griffon looks up and starts frantically looking between Uncle Vergil and her dad, "Uh, Virgil? No, no, no, get a grip on yourself now, c'mon, don't let your lost soulmate madness come back now of all times!"

That snaps her out of her numb shock and right back into the moment. But. She's seen hints of it at flair ups. Never full blown fits of madness, but hints, and even then there has always been a hostile edge to his energies, both Demonic and Angelic. She senses none of it now. She makes a snap second decision to trust her uncle, and tightens her hold her hand has on the one Kazuto has wrapped around her -when had that happened?-, when he starts to take a hesitant step forward.

When he gets above her dad's head, she notices Shadow slink up to Uncle Vergil's side, tail raising above him like he's getting ready to attack, while Griffon continues to panic, "Vergil? No, no, no…"

Uncle Vergil lifts the Sparda above her dads head, and Shadow's tail becomes that drill-like shape he uses for some of his attacks as he watches the tip of it like a hawk, and Griffon jumps up to hover in the air, "Don't do it, Vergil! No, no, no!"

He stabs down, and her dad's eyes snap open and he jerks his head out of the way. He stares up at Uncle Vergil, who smiles, "Figured if you'd been out for a month nothing but your survival instincts kicking in would wake you." He glances over at Shadow, "Thank you for being on standby just in case, but he dodged so you can relax."

Her dad blinks up at him, then his eyes go wide, "Vergil? What? What happened to you?"

He barks out a rough laugh as he plonks himself on the ground, seeming to be out of breath, "Long story short, I got captured by Mundus, he decided to see if space was the only thing the Yamato could cut through, and cut away my pure Devil side. None of the impurities from other Demonic species, no Angelic blood, and even my human emotions. That Devil that kicked your ass was my pure Devil. I'm the rest."

Her dad sits up with a grunt, "For a second there I thought I was about to get shish kabobed."

Vergil huffs, "I know how stubborn you can be. I thought it might be the only way to wake you."

She sniffles, trying to keep it quieter so as not to interrupt, but her dad clearly hears. He turns to her and blinks quickly, before getting a small amused grin, "You just let him stab at my head? Because I know Vergil and there's no way he told you what he was doing beforehand."

She sniffles again, "He didn't have any of that hostility in his energy that he gets when he gets a flair up, and I noticed Shadow off to his side staring at the tip of the Sparda."

Her Uncle hums, "Shadow being more instinctive and primal lets us communicate mentally. I asked him to push it off course if Dante didn't wake, since I don't currently have the strength to divert at the last moment myself."

She stumbles towards her dad, losing the fight with relieved sobs as her eyes water again. She vaguely hears Kazuto murmur a cleaning spell right before she finds herself pressed into her dad's chest, one of his arms wrapped tightly around her, the hand of the other brushing through her hair.

She hardly hears Uncle Vergil in the background, "As I've said. It's been a month since you fought my Devil, so we weren't even sure if you were alive, since the Demon Detectors couldn't pick you up. Though admittedly part of that is that the Qliphoth is twisting the energies too much to get a solid ping unless it's close, and even then, your usual luck means the Sparda landed near you. Which may have hidden you from us, but it also concealed you from the Demons."

She feels a kiss press against her head before his cheek rests on the top as he murmurs quietly to her, "It's ok kiddo. I'm ok." Then, clearly not directed at her, he mutters, "Anything else I miss?"

Uncle Vergil sighs, "Other than a whole lot of death from the fact my Devil side took advantage of technically still being related to Dad to override the control of the seal, flip it onto Heaven, and sprout a Qliphoth? No, not really. Well. Lady and Trish were also missing, but Lady has been recovered and we sort of know where Trish is."

Her dad presses another kiss to her head, before, "Sort of?"

Uncle Vergil huffs, "I assume it was Agnus' work since we've also run across more normal artificial Demons, but Nero found Lady had been shoved inside one using the Devil Arm Artemis for power, and assumably Lady's brain as it's processor, and we came across Trish inside another, though given she's a Demon we're assuming they didn't bother to use a Devil Arm. The artificial Demon holding Trish managed to get away though."

Her dad hums in understanding, and some time passes as she just buries her face in his chest and he runs a hand through her hair and squeezes her comfortingly with his other arm. She's not sure how long they sit there. She'd like to think it doesn't take long for her sensibilities as the daughter, niece, cousin, and granddaughter of Demon Hunters as well as a Demon Hunter herself, before even mentioning her being a child of the detested Sparda family, that it's only another minute or two after they finish talking. Honestly though, she couldn't actually say how long it takes. It could have been significantly more time before she pulls away reluctantly, swiping at her eyes roughly before looking up at her dad.

He grins at her, "There she is! Wondering how long it'd be before I could see my darling daughter's pretty face!"

She smacks at his arm with the back of her hand weakly. He scoops her up and pushes himself to his feet before setting her down now that he's gotten up without pushing her back or running into her. Then he rolls his shoulders and head, "Still. A month? No wonder I'm so stiff."

Griffon flies up near him, "Rriiight, sunshine, now put a fire under it." Her dad twists away a bit to punch at the air, mostly likely working out the stiffness as Griffon slowly flaps in circles around him, "We gotta get going, 'cause that annoying pimple Nero is making a beeline for Urizen. And if he gets there he's gonna ge-" He's cut off by her dad's right arm shooting out to grab him by the neck before he tosses him, his voice growing more distant as he finishes, "Smashed like a bug!"

Her dad turns to her uncle, "Why would Nero try to take him on? No offense to him, but if even I hadn't been able to beat him a month ago, he certainly couldn't. And where's Dad?"

Uncle Vergil climbs to his feet, "Though there isn't a Hell Gate, with the seal no longer in the way and the Qliphoth folding back the planes of reality around it so it can grow between Earth and Hell, there's a full blown Demonic invasion happening. One that's been happening for a month. Dad is busy protecting a couple hundred thousand people taking refuge in one of the largest magical shopping centers in Japan from waves of Great Demons. He can't come to help without leaving them to their deaths. I suppose an argument may be made about greater good, but since we don't actually know what Urizen, that the Devil part of me's named, is planning after this. Unless he plans to turn to making Hell Gates and letting the Great Demons cross in more places than here, then it wouldn't be worth letting so many people die to bring him down so I can reabsorb him before he can eat the Qliphoth Fruit. And for all that he killed Mundus almost absently after he was cut out of me, I imagine he'll turn his attention to making sure Hell is firmly under his rule before anything."

Kazuto moves over to hand him his cane which her uncle accepts gratefully, "Thank you Kazuto." Then he turns his attention back to her dad, "Though the one Dad is protecting is the one with the Teleport Gate so they can flee, it can only evacuate so many a day, but given how much harder it would have become to bring him down after he eats the fruit, we couldn't not try." He glances at her, "...Even if some of us rightfully pointed out that this was something like the B Team trying desperately to pull a win at the last moment."

Her dad looks off to the side, then shakes his head, "All right, enough's enough." He turns to where the Sparda is still stabbed into the ground and approaches it, "Can't let a boy…" He grabs the grip and pulls it out of the ground with a grunt then swings the Sparda up until it's resting on his shoulder, "Do a man's job."

He turns to start off, and she steps forward to follow not quite willing to let him out of her sight yet given everything, and Uncle Vergil starts to step forward, "Wait, Dante you just-"

Then his legs give out. Her dad stops and turns to him in concern, and she steps over, seeing his skin is cracking and flaking, "Uncle Vergil! You-"

He waves a hand, "Wielding the Sparda, as lackluster and short as it was, took a bit out of me and shortened the time I have left before I'll perish unless I can remerge with Urizen, that's all. I just need a bit to rest."

She gazes at him, eyebrows furrowed, then looks towards her dad who she just confirmed was alive and got back. Her mate moves over to kneel by Uncle Vergil's side and smiles at her, "Go ahead and go with your dad. He's been missing and presumed dead for a month. I'll stay with Vergil and do my best to keep him out of any sticky situations."

She flicks a look to Uncle Vergil, but he waves a hand as he shakily shifts from being down on his hands and knees to sitting, "I'll be fine, especially if Kazuto is staying with me." He nods at her dad, "Go."

She gets up, and her dad gives her mate a contemplative look before turning his gaze to Uncle Vergil and nodding, "You get some rest. Come on kiddo. We need to go after Urizen obviously, but I need a little bit to get all the kinks out of my muscles or I may end up locking up at an inopportune moment."

She darts after her dad, catching up and flicking her wand out. She should have done it earlier but the shock of finding her dad so suddenly had thrown her off badly, but she flicks a diagnosis spell at him to get a good idea of his condition, then scowls up at him as she puts her wand back in its holster and pulls her medical bag out of her Devil Bringer as well as some of the dense energy bars Kyrie makes especially for their Nephilim bodies for when they don't have time to grab a proper meal.

She shoves the handful of the latter at her dad to stuff his face with as she starts digging through her bag, "Not the only thing wrong with you, as I guess is obvious if you've been in a coma for the last month."

Her dad is already halfway through his third, having practically inhaled the first two in two bites while she was talking, "Yeah, guess so."

She digs out, not a potion, but two fully charged industria effusio crystals, one with Angelic energy, one with Demonic and hands them over to her dad, since the fact he still has some injuries, without even touching on the momentary strain, if the grunt as he picked up the Sparda, which tells her more than enough about how tapped out he was. He takes them without hesitation, and in moments they're both empty as he shoves the rest of the sixth, and last, bar she had on her into his mouth. She hands over a bottle of water after fishing it out, and he tosses the wrappers aside and accepts it.

After chugging one, and accepting a second, he glances over as he cracks it open, "We'll go after your Aunt Trish first, since I need at least a little time still to get back up to fighting shape after a month trying to heal from his full body bitchslap." He waves vaguely behind them with the water bottle, "Obviously Vergil needs to reabsorb his Devil, but what was that about 'time I have left' he was saying?"

She purses her lips, "Well, we now have a new theory that when our Devil side draws in power from Great Demons we kill that our Nephilim bodies automatically splits the power hike between our Demonic and Angelic sides… because when Uncle Vergil's Devil was ripped out of him, the internal balance of his body was destroyed and now his Angelic powers are attacking what's left of his Demonic powers and it's slowly killing him. Relatively speaking. He lost the ability to Shift with his Devil side obviously, so he slipped out when the Qliphoth made a hole between the planes and rushed over to try to warn us. A little too late, since we detected his Devil side and you all rushed off before that obviously, but that's not his fault. But he wouldn't have even lasted that long if he hadn't made some Nightmare Demons from the trauma of losing Aunt Iina and struck a deal with them to boost up how much Demonic energy is in his body. But by his reckoning, he slowed his death from a day or two to a month or two. If just using the Sparda, even so minimally, to wake you up took even more out of him…" She chews on a lip in thought, "From what I saw back there, if he doesn't reabsorb Urizen, he has a week. At best."

Her dad grunts, then rolls his shoulders again, before glancing towards the opening of the bag she's still ruffling through, trying to see if there's anything else he needs, sort of hopefully, "Got anymore bars in there? I suppose it's not surprising if I've been out for a month but I'm starving."

She shakes her head though, "No, sorry dad, but I kinda figured you'd need them so that was all of the ones I had." She blinks then looks up at his somewhat crestfallen expression, "But! I'm sure we have more at home! I could get on the walkie-talkie app and ask mom to apparate to my GPS coordinates. Should probably be letting them know we found you and you're ok anyway now that I think about it."

Her dad hums, "GPS? Can't she use the rings?" His face scrunches in confusion as he looks away, "Actually, now that I think about it, how come you guys didn't find me earlier with them?"

He turns back to her, blinking at her holding her phone towards him, and she smiles as she pulls it back, looking down somewhat happily at the talk button she'd started holding around the time her dad said 'rings' unable to help thinking about how ecstatic her mom must be, "As you heard, we found Dad. Mom, he's been in a coma for a month and tore through all six of the energy bars Kyrie makes just for us that I had, but for obvious reasons he's still hungry as fuck, are you avaliable to pop over to bring some?" She pauses as she eyes her dad, "And maybe a couple more fully charged crystals. Dad already sucked up one of each, and his energy levels are still alarmingly low."

She glances at her dad as she waits for a response, "The way the Qliphoth has twisted the energies, while we can briefly boost the signal the rings give off, it's not guaranteed to get through. It's more reliable to use GPS. Though admittedly Uncle Vergil and Nero are so unused to relying on technology in our work that they tend to default back to those and only use GPS if the rings can't get a signal through."

Her dad hums in understanding and a beat later mom's voice, a mess of shaky wet relief, answers back, "Absolutely. Are you heading straight for Urizen?"

She clicks the button again, "Not just yet. Like I said, Dad was in a coma this whole time after a, and I quote, 'full body bitchslap' so Dad wants to stretch his muscles a bit to make sure he won't lock up or something, so since Uncle Vergil gave him the TL;DR quick notes, we're going to find Aunt Trish first."

Yui's voice pops up right about then, a tiny sliver of hesitance, undoubtedly at cutting in, lacing her voice, but otherwise far more cheerful than she's heard her daughter in quite a while, and why wouldn't she be, the last of their missing family has been found, "Sorry to interrupt, Mama, but you were all so focused on the Devil Sword Sparda and the possibility of it boosting your odds of bringing down Urizen since Grandpa himself is unavailable and asking me to narrow in on that if I could that I think it slipped your mind to ask about tracking great Aunt Trish, but I took the liberty of keeping as firm or a pin on her location as best I can with the Qliphoth throwing all the signals off. I'll send the information to your Augma. Which reminds me, you should give Grandpa one of the spares in your bag, since electronic signals get through much easier with the mess the Qliphoth has made, so it will help him keep in touch. And Grandma should take a spare phone if Grandpa's broke, which I assume would have happened if he was hit hard enough to put a Nephilim into a month long coma."

She glances up at her dad, who's gazing at her phone with a mixture of surprise and love. Catching the movement of her turning to him though, he looks up at her, then checks his pockets before pulling out a sliver of an utterly smashed phone. He huffs, them tosses it and moves to dig the rest of the remnants out of his pocket as she shakes her head and clicks the talk button as she pulls a spare Augma out of her Devil Bringer, "It's absolutely smashed, so yeah, he'll need one of those too for the Augma to connect to."

Her mom makes a sound of understanding, "Anything else?"

She gives her dad a quick look, and he shakes his head, "Change of clothes might be nice, since even if these are clean now they're a bit torn up, but there isn't time for that." She flicks out her wand and tosses some repairing spells at them, and her dad rolls his shoulders as he grins at her in amusement, "Don't even need that anymore."

She clicks the talk button, "Not really."

Her mom hums, "Alright, I'll be over there shortly."

She clicks the button, "Ok, see you soon."

Then she tucks her phone away. Right as she swings her bag back in front of her to look through it again, a few Demons appear in front of them, but when she hesitates with her hand hovering over the bag's opening, her dad waves her off, "Leave it to me."

Her dad grins as he rushes over, "Looks like I overslept… Time for a warm up!"

As he starts cutting into them with the Sparda, she shakes her head in amusement, unable to tear her eyes away, just happy to not only see her dad again, but see him back at it. As he's about halfway through them, as well as the Qliphoth needles that had burst out of the ground, her mom pops in, wet eyes almost immediately locking into him as he tears through the Demons.

She shakes her head with a weak laugh, tilting her face in her direction, though she doesn't take her eyes off of him, "Not even half an hour from my understanding and he's already back to business."

She grins at her mom, "It's Dad, and we're talking about Demons in a Demonic invasion. Honestly, I would have been more surprised if he actually took a more meaningful amount of time instead of just heading off to find Aunt Trish first, and only essentially as a warm up for his muscles."

Her mom laughs again, and her dad grins as he turns after finishing up. Her mom returns the smile, even if hers is a little wet from the tears of relief she had definitely shed before, "Hey hotshot. Was wondering how long you'd sit on your butt instead of helping with this mess."

Her dad laughs as he strides over quickly, "Sorry 'bout that. Needed my beauty sleep."

Her mom laughs, and quickly all but shoves the items at her before she lurches forward and her dad catches her in a hug, picking her up off her feet and squeezing her to him tightly as he buries his face in her hair. They cling to each other for a surprisingly short amount of time, only a few moments, before her mom pulls back and rubs under her eyes with her fingers briefly as she steps back and looks over at her as she steps up to them, holding out some of the bars towards her dad, who happily tears into them.

She looks over at her mom, "You should scan Dad. You're way better at medical stuff than I am, and with all these Demons around and Dad's intention to go after Urizen…"

Her mom nods and pulls her wand out, scanning him quickly. She frowns a bit, undoubtedly able to make more sense of the info than she can, and accepts the bag to start going through it without question, almost immediately shoving a bottle into her dad's hand, which he downs without question after swallowing the rest of the bar he was on. After he tosses that, but before he can move onto the next bar, she quickly shoves the energy crystals at him, which he empties almost immediately before handing them back, and accepts another bottle from her mom.

She eyes the crystals, unable to help but wonder, 'Just how much damage did Urizen do that his body has desperately been trying to heal, that the first pair brought him up to what I would consider 'alarmingly low' and these two sets have just gotten him a bit below normal levels?'

Shaking the thought off, she brings her dad's spare phone and one of the spare Augma's she carries, both for herself and to hand out if necessary, up and starts hooking them up and making sure her dad's phone was set up.

She hears frantic kissing sounds as she works, undoubtedly her parents sharing a desperate kiss after being apart, and one of them terrified out of their mind for the other, for roughly a month. She looks up when she hears her mom let out a mournful sigh, "I've done all I can, but between the potions, the crystals, the bars, and the water, you should be back up to full fairly quickly." She leans up to brush a quick kiss against his lips, "Now, I love you, but I have refugee bases I need to get back to watching over." She squeezes him in her hug, then reluctant steps back, "Be careful. Especially if Urizen is that powerful."

He gives her a cocky smirk, "Oh, don't you worry about me gorgeous. I've never lost a rematch yet, and I'm not about to start now. I'll be back in time for dinner. " Then his smirk turns into a grin as he sweeps her with a heated look, "You'd be better off worrying about yourself. I haven't seen my gorgeous wife in a month after surviving being taken completely by surprise by Urizen's power and I'm about to go kick the ass of one of the most powerful Demons I've ever met, I'll be wanting my reward after dinner."

Her mom tosses her head back and laughs as she rolls her eyes, though even at her dad's shamelessness she can't help but grin at having him back to suffer him shamelessly flirting with her mom. Her mom gives him a heated teasing smile, "Maybe. Possibly. If you work hard enough and put a stop to this whole mess fast enough."

He places a dramatic hand to his chest, "Such work."

Her mom tosses her hair, "But worth it."

Her dad's grin spreads, "Well now Urizen is definitely screwed, because now I'm motivated."

She snorts and rolls her eyes, her mom looks over at her, turning a bit red at the reminder that they forgot she was there. Again. It didn't happen often, but it wasn't the first time. Which was why her mom only blushed a bit instead of spontaneously trying to compete with a tomato, since it was, unfortunately, a little normal.

As she passes by, she touches her medical bag and tucks it back into her Devil Bringer, even as she idly comments at her dad as she passes, "Funny. How you dislike Kazuto so much but that's one thing you two have in common."

She just catches her dad's face scrunching up before she moves past, and as soon as it does, her mom laughs, for the first time in a month, at him, "You deserved that one."

Her dad whines, whines, "Lily…"

She hears a brief kiss as she keeps walking before her mom responds, "No. I've been telling you since day one, but he's practically been glued to our daughter's side this month through a Demonic invasion. If you don't start warming up to him now, when even Vergil has been, we're going to have a talk when you get home. Now I love you, but we both need to get going."

Rather than more petulance, to her surprise her dad sounds thoughtful, "Love you too. See you later."

Then she hears her mom pop away and a beat later her dad jogs to catch up with her. As they approach a cliff and look down it, her dad tilts his head towards her, "You can just play backup like you used to when you first started going on hunts. Even with all the potions and the like, I'm not kidding about wanting to stretch out my muscles first."

She hums in agreement, "Alright. Then I'll just tag along and only interfere if your muscles do lock up."

He hums in agreement and they hop down the cliff. There isn't much down there, so they turn left and head through a small hallway segment with arches, and her dad's nose scrunches up, "What's that?"

She huffs a laugh as she pulls out Lucifer, "A blood clot in the Qliphoth. We need to burst as many as we can. Uncle Vergil didn't give me the details to be honest, but given that surrounding sections of the Qliphoth die when we do, I assume it weakens it overall."

She follows the root with her eyes, and frowns as she realizes that it's curled around the roof of the small hallway, and that if anything was going to collapse it was that. So she nudges him over to the wall segment to the side of it directly behind the clot after planting a needle, and her dad shakes his head, "Kinda gross, but ok."

As soon as they're clear from the potential splash, she detonates it. Just as she'd suspected, the end of the archive hallway collapses, though it does essentially turn into a ramp up to another level of the small building, of which she hadn't seen a walkway into from the cliff which was basically on the other side.

She heads up with her dad, jumping up some segments of broken up ground that had also been hidden from the cliff by the building, otherwise she'd have just flown over, exiting a small passage onto what's left of a street.

Her dad stops and looks around with wide eyes, "Back there was so destroyed you could hardly tell it used to be part of a city, but this…"

She brushes her bangs back, "Yeah. It… hasn't been all that great. It's… Yeah."

Her dad shakes himself then claps her on the shoulder, "Even less of a reason to dally."

Before they can head off though, Demons pop up. Unlike with Kazuto and Uncle Vergil, she hangs back totally, only really keeping an eye out for any coming for her, rather than vigilantly watching for any coming for Uncle Vergil or for her mate to get in trouble. Not that her dad takes very long to wipe the floor with such basic Demons as Cainas. Though, likely having heard the commotion, a trio made up of two Brutal Riots and a Barbed Chaos Demon show up, hopping down off the cliff to her left, which her dad starts tearing into with gusto.

When he's done, they head into the building, which looks like what's left of a school, maybe a university from its look? As they cross what's left of the courtyard her dad comments, "I'm not a fan of ruins… Like my cities lively."

She snorts before dryly responding as they hop up some rubble, "Don't we all."

They drop back down on the other side, quickly finding another clot as the only thing of interest, and her dad sighs, "What a pain in the ass. Just gotta take it down."

She eyes the way the roots are spread out, then nudges her dad down into the broken section of flooring, and answering his confused look before he can say anything, "Yeah, but with the way the roots are spread out I've seen enough of the way they basically take over a buildings infrastructure to think it may be better to be down there."

She plants a needle, then creates another shield and detonates. Just as she'd suspected, after they turn ashy gray and disintegrate, the whole broken section in the floor drops down into the ground before it's caught again, or maybe settles unto the caved in ground underneath the building, she doesn't know. There wasn't any way forward up above, but the way it's dropped has made a gap more than large enough for them to walk through and drop down to another floor where she can already see another clot.

That being said, a glance around reveals another clot to the left. Her dad glances at them, "Well, given from the sound and feel of that middle section settling, I'm pretty sure it hit the ground. There's a good chance the ground under the entire building is caved in and there's a good chance of more collapses if we break these. We could break through the wall if we get stuck, but with how ruined and unstable the building is, I'd rather not do more damage if we can avoid it. So which one?"

She shakes her head, "The left of the building, from outside, it would be the right from the middle section we were on when it dropped, only led to the cliff. We'd have better chances of getting a way forward by collapsing the other one."

Her dad nods. Another needle and shield, and the right drops. However a quick look around reveals no way forward, so with a shared look and a shrug, another needle and shield and the middle drops again which lets them up and out onto a collapsed street with more buildings around.

She shakes her head, "Man. This is going to be a nightmare to fix, even with magic helping out now that the supernatural has been outed."

Her dad snorts, "You're telling me."

Then he casually heads over to deal with the Qliphoth needles as she checked the live tracking Yui was sending to her map. She blinks. Aunt Trish was… surprisingly close. That being said, given the difficulty at narrowing in on her location, even with Yui tracking her from the moment they saw her, any particularly warped spots she'd gone through would've thrown off the data more and more, so it isn't enough of a bead on her location to just try to just fly up and head straight for her.

Her lips tremble. But. If they can rescue Aunt Trish, her family won't just be found, the missing group will all be back. Then her mouth tightens. And after that… after that is Urizen.

She just hopes Dad with the Sparda will be enough.