MoonlightBushido- Funny you should ask about them, because they'll be popping back up in a couple chapters. That being said, since we haven't really been touching on HP stuff much, they've been in the background, continuing to laugh their asses off from their front row seats for the continued misfortune Potter is still experiencing due to the curse.
She can't help but notice that there are hardly any more Demons around given she hasn't seen one in a while. She couldn't say if it was because of the damage they've done to the Qliphoth on their way towards it, into it, and down it, or if it's because they've been busting up those fleshy transportation pod things. Regardless of the reason, with her beloved mate carrying Uncle Vergil, they aren't too slowed by his condition, so it isn't too long until they're dropping into a hole.
She immediately tilts her head and furrows her brows in confusion. Rather than the darker twisted wood and arteries of blood of the Qliphoth or the sometimes literally fiery depths of Hell, they were on a long path leading up to a decently sized house with clear bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds drifting through the air.
Given her dad was a bit ahead of her near Urizen, she assumes he was responding to something her dad had said, but it almost sounds like a response to her confusion when Urizen speaks, "I have no recollection of this tale, or this place. It's all an illusion, created by this extraordinary fruit. It's power, you see, is all I ever wanted."
As he says the last bit, he starts to reach up to the small bundle of roots, or rather branches, curling up from what looks like a normal sized tree coming up from the ground. The tree itself is far from normal of course, given that it kinda looks like a cross between strings of muscles and arteries, and the trunk is way too thin and winding, but the size itself looks normal. It's only as his hand approaches it that her attention is pulled from the mind fuckery that were the surroundings to the singular fruit hanging from it.
There was a sort of cage around the outside that gleamed in a sort of metallic way surrounding a wet red sort of crystalline inside that was dripping blood steadily, and disturbingly, beating like a heart, thought at quicker speeds than one at rest.
He tugs it off its bloody stem, "And with this…" Her dad breaks into a sprint, trying to stop Urizen, "I will have everything!"
He's too slow though, and Urizen shoves the entire thing into his mouth and starts to chew. When he's done, the 'sky' turns gray before it starts to crack like glass and the roots that have been wrapped around him start to disconnect and slough away in a bloody mess. The 'tree' the branches had been making quickly seems to turn to dry blood and flake away.
Her dad shakes his head, "I suppose it was foolish of me, but after learning about why Vergil used to pull the shit he did, I didn't really wanna fight any part of him, even you. I was really hoping there was something I could reason with still inside you instead of all of it going with the rest of Vergil."
As the roots continue to break apart and drop, Urizen snipes back, "That is nothing but the pitiful cries of those without strength." He turns and starts to walk towards her dad, "Come to me, brother… I shall enlighten you, Dante!"
As he says the last bit, the small bits of root left burst violently into blood. She eyes the form revealed under the root. She'll admit she's nowhere near an expert on it, but to her knowledge, the Qliphoth didn't warp the form of the Demon who ate its fruit, at least not much. It did have a tendency to cause a bone-like crown of horn to jut up from the forehead, which was part of the reason it had begun to be associated with Monarchy in Hell, even before Lucifer united the various parts of it.
Which made the form revealed even more surprising. They had been theorizing that millennia of interbreeding with other Demons -even before Lucifer's time given that Hell and Heaven hadn't been affected by the meteor that killed most of the dinosaurs and basically reset Earth, not that it would've bothered them much since the Nephilim had managed to survive the event just fine from her understanding- had influenced them just from his height, but… Well, the first thing that stands out to her is the fact that he's covered in a multitude of eyes, particularly one right in the center of his chest, looking a bit wider than his head, from corner to corner.
And, well, she grew up with her dad and Nero, and one of the earliest things that fucker Agnus had noted about her was that she was definitely her father's daughter. It's probably that which causes her to open her mouth, "Man. He looks like he'd be downed by some Demonically strong pepper spray."
Her dad barks out a laugh, "Aww shoot. And here I left mine at home."
She laughs lightly as she moves a bit back, absently noting Kazuto set her uncle down after they're back out of the way, "Try poking at them then?"
Her dad chuckles and shakes his head. That's the last of the banter, as he closes in on Urizen and begins attacking. She eyes him a bit more, it was a little difficult not to be distracted by the eyes, especially since he had two natural large pauldron-like armor plating on his shoulders, and each of them also had an eye almost as wide as his head, though unlike the one on his chest, they are a bit smaller. When she finally forces her focus away from that, the next thing she notices is how wide his mouth stretches. It seems to quite literally go from ear to ear, and even stranger, other than the section in the middle of it below his nose, it's not covered by lips.
Her dad activates his new Devil Trigger and clashes with Urizen. The fight that kicks off… honestly isn't hugely different from before he ate the Qliphoth Fruit. His attacks are more powerful, and the pace of the battle is faster, but by and large it's the same. The eruptions of blue energy that she thinks are flames, the shots of purple-pink light that go up only to come back down, the sweeping beam that goes back and forth. There are some differences though. He's faster for one, though whether that's from eating the fruit or no longer having his movement restricted by the Qliphoth roots that had been covering him is hard to say. He also seems to have picked up an ability to make portals somewhat similar to Malphas' somewhere, which is understandably irritating for her dad. And while she couldn't say if it was a side effect of no longer having the roots wrapped around him at his disposal for attacks or his increased mobility, he also starts using more regular physical attacks, which he hadn't been doing before.
As the fight continues the 'sky' continues to break more and more, and everytime it does it drops fragments that quickly lose the sky illusion and shatter on impact with the ground like glass. Off to her side, Nero shakes his head, "Before he ate that fruit I could've tried to give Dante some backup. Made Urizen split his attention at least, but now…" He shakes his head again, blowing out a sharp huff of air, "I'd die in less than a minute."
She snorts, "Tell me about it. I guess we're just on standby at this point."
He tsks once, "Guess so. Doesn't feel too great, but the job getting done is what's important in the end."
She hums, then watches for a few minutes as her dad deftly weaves through the attacks, threading the proverbial needle with incredible precision. The stakes were ridiculously high of course, but she can't help but feel a little awestruck by the clash between proverbial titans she was witnessing.
At least, she is up until her dad's dodging around Urizen, practically doing laps around him, coincides with Urizen calling up one of his beam attacks, quickly portaling away and launching another, and the second one of which ends up pointing directly at them.
It launches before she can do more than widen her eyes and heads straight for them, and though she hasn't tried this yet, though she has no idea if it'll work, it's moving too fast for them to get out of the way. So she activates Quicksilver to buy herself some precious time to review the memory of what she'd seen before she flings her hands out and copies it as best she can.
It flares out and coalesces just in time for the shield she'd copied from Urizen to catch his own attack, though it almost taps her out in the handful of seconds she has it up for the back and forth sweep. As she falls to her knees and Kazuto snaps to her side, she does notice however, where it was heading.
If she hadn't managed to copy the shield, it would've hit Kazuto dead on and she. Sees. Red.
She doesn't even think about it really. She snaps her wand out and gathers up over half of her magic and Angelic energies, since she's basically out of Demonic power, and pumps them all into overpowering the spell she flings at Urizen, since Demons tend to have varying levels of magical resistance.
Immediately, a massive hole appears in his neck, and he starts fountaining blood. His hands shoot up and he starts trying to stem the flow, and she feels his Demonic energy surge to the area. His eyes go wide in panic when the hole fails to close, "What sort of severing magic is this?!"
She snorts, "It isn't." Then she smiles meanly, "Actually, it's a spell for unclogging sinks and the like and drains the backup. I told it the skin and muscle and even the tissue of your artery between your blood the open air was a clog and all your blood is the backed up mess." She shrugs lightly, "It's not closing because obviously sometimes there will be more stuff in the backup mess that can reclog the whole thing, so it also drains it and keeps it from clogging back up, so that's not gonna close anytime soon." The smile widens, "It may not be instant death, but even Demons can't survive without blood or whatever equivalent they have for long." As he falls to his knees, she calms a little and glances over at Uncle Vergil, "You may wanna go over there. He won't last more than a couple minutes."
He nods, somewhat stunned. As the fountain turns into more of a river running down Urizen's body and he falls onto his back, Uncle Vergil shakes his head minutely and starts to move forward, leaning heavily on his cane and waving off Nero and her dad stepping forward to help him, "In the last throes of defeat, I see." He snorts, "Laid low by a sink unclogging spell. How poetic for you to fall to something so humble, and from perhaps the most humble of the Sparda family fighters at that."
Urizen slowly turns his head towards him, "You…"
Uncle Vergil starts painstakingly climbing on top of him, and seemingly unable to watch it, Nero moves forward and helps boost him up and hold him steady as he climbs to his feet on Urizen's chest.
Urizen weakly tries to raise a hand, but he doesn't even get it close to Uncle Vergil before it drops on its own accord. Uncle Vergil shakes his head, "Trying to struggle to the last. It's pointless now, you've already lost."
Urizen rumbles out slowly and weakly, "I will not lose…" He lifts his head to glare at her dad, and the sheer hatred seems to give him more strength to speak more firmly, "Not to Dante… I need power… More power!"
Uncle Vergil shakes his head, "It truly is astounding to see. Just how much of our old power madness was our unchecked Devil Blood. Since I was separated from you, there was still an urge to get stronger, but it wasn't nearly so all encompassing, and was entirely to make sure nothing like what happened with Iina repeated itself."
He lifts his cane and stabs it into the large eye on Urizen's chest. The moment he does, a small shockwave of blue energy rips out just before a beam of blue light shoots up, at first just from the stab wound, then spreading to Uncle Vergil's form, and finally encompassing Urizen's body. The light from it and the beam shooting up is almost blinding, though thankfully it only lasts a few seconds before it recedes to reveal Uncle Vergil. Whole and healthy once more. And Urizen must've been storing it inside himself with the Yamato, which was back in his hand, since he's even back to his usual blue trench coat. It's only as she rapidly blinks the spots away from her vision that it occurs to her that her ocular ability was still on, and that it likely hadn't helped with the almost blinding brightness of Uncle Vergil remerging with Urizen, having undoubtedly been making it worse.
She shakes her head, then retrieves a pepper up potion and the partially emptied industria effusio crystals Nero had used earlier. It doesn't do anything for her magical exhaustion, not really since while a pepper up can help a little it more masks the exhaustion than actually helps. That being said, it does let her climb back up to her feet, though Kazuto helps as well.
She tilts her head. The remerging had made Uncle Vergil clean, but… She pulls out large jars she keeps on hand just in case and using some of the Angelic power she'd recovered, since she was still tapped out of magic, starts gathering up Urizen's blood. Getting weird looks from everyone else, she shrugs, "You never know when something like this could be useful, especially since unless we ever use Yamato to separate a pure Devil out of one of us again, it's one of the only chances to get undiluted Devil blood." She glances off to the side, "Well, unless Uncle Vergil can take a blood sample from one of us and purify that, but that seems rather complicated, so in case we ever do need it, isn't it better to take advantage of the current situation?"
Uncle Vergil tilts his head, then glances at her dad, "She's not wrong actually…"
He quickly moves to help her gather the blood, and there's so much of it that she uses over half of her massive jars. She taps her fingers on one she ended up not needing as she gazes off thoughtfully. Then she glances at her Uncle, "I know we hate this thing, but we also have no way of knowing if it might not be helpful to have at some point, and since a Qliphoth needs to be between planes to grow, this should hopefully be the last one to have a chance to grow. So maybe we should use the rest of these to gather up Qliphoth sap and stuff?"
Her Uncle tilts his head as he also turns his gaze to look around them, "Not wrong about that either…"
He shakes himself and they both quickly set about filling the rest of her massive jars with various samples of things like sap or some of the crystals that grow within the tree like those from Malphas' territory.
When they're done, she stretches a little, "Just destroying the Qliphoth itself left, right? That was awfully fucking close for Uncle Vergil from what I can see, but alls well that ends well I guess. And hey, silver lining. Mundus is dead."
Her dad stares at her, "Uh-huh. More importantly, Vergil, what the hell sort of shit have you been teaching my daughter?"
Vergil huffs and eyes her, "Nothing like that. Using that unclogging spell like that is all her."
Her dad stares some more than draws it a sudden breath, "Ooook. So. Today I learned that my daughter is fucking terrifying."
She frowns at him, "I am not. I'm one of, if not the, weakest of the fighters in the family."
Her dad nods, "Yeah. That's absolutely true. But it's apparently also true that if something pisses you off then the Doom Slayer music kicks in."
She frowns, "It does not. It's just that his attack almost hit Kazuto." Her brow furrows, "Actually, while you guys aren't my soulmate obviously, I do love you both to pieces, so it's a little weird my temper didn't snap when I saw Nero's state earlier or when you were fighting Urizen and he got those hits in."
Her dad snorts, "Nah. Because when you saw Nero your first instinct was to go to him and help, not fuck up the person who did that to him. And you know I generally have things under control. But the kid's your soulmate. Of course him almost getting hit triggered your instincts."
She nods thoughtfully, "That makes sense." Then she shakes her head, "But I'm not terrifying. I mean, fuck, while I'm obviously stronger than, like, Kyrie, out of the fighters in our family, I'm pretty sure even Kazuto has surpassed me. And while by raw power this month of continuously going up against Great Demons has undoubtedly made me stronger than Mike, he's a better fighter in general."
Her dad eyes her, "Uh-huh. So you just… thought of using that unclogging spell like that on the fly?"
She tilts her head, "Well, no. I got into an argument a while back in my magical schooling with another student about how the way spells danger levels and legalizations are classified is dumb because any spell can be dangerous if you're creative, and the clog draining spell was one of the ones he tried to throw out after he started naming spells that were harmless and I came up with it then, and I decided to use it here because he almost killed you a month ago, and almost killed Nero a bit ago, and almost hit Kazuto so I figured getting done in by such a humble spell was what the prideful ass deserved. But even so, that's just creatively dangerous applications to mundane spells. It doesn't automatically make me terrifying."
Her mate shares a Look with her dad, then leans his head closer, "And other spells he tried to list?"
She waves her hand, "I mean, it was things like him tossing out the levitation spell since it can't pick up living beings, so I just told him you could either pick up something heavy or sharp and drop it on someone or like, use it on a necktie to make it turn into a makeshift noose, or if they weren't wearing a tie on the collar of a shirt and twist the fabric until it was choking them. Or when he tried to list the cleaning spell and I pointed out that that it scrubs a surface so you could just overpower it and tell it the skeleton is the surface that needs cleaning and it would scrub away all the muscles and organs and blood vessels and stuff, or if you wanted to drag it out and make it painful, tell it the muscles and everything under it was the surface and scrub all the skin off."
Her dad stares at her. Then he nods firmly, "First of all, your husband understood the assignment of trying to prove to you that you're terrifying since even he clearly gets it. And all you're doing is driving the point home that you are, in fact, terrifying." He looks over at Uncle Vergil, "How'd we miss her being so terrifying?"
Her uncle shrugs as he eyes her, "I have no idea."
She crosses her arms, "I am not terrifying!"
Her dad pats her on the head, "You keep telling yourself that kiddo."
She huffs as they start to make their way off to destroy the Qliphoth to close the hole between worlds, since they couldn't fix the seal until it was gone.
Her uncle suddenly shakes himself, "More importantly, was that Urizen's shield I saw you use? When that attack was heading for Kazuto, I mean."
Her dad almost trips over his own feet, and she eyes him in slight worry that maybe the fight took more out of him than she'd first thought before turning to her uncle, "Yeah, we saw some Demon earlier, don't know what they're called and neither did Dad, it was really red and bipedal with hints of black? It moved super fast, not manipulating time like Quicksilver, just boosting its speed, and it made some sort of blade come out of its arm?"
Her uncle nods, "A Breakneck Fury."
She nods back, tucking the name away, "I was thinking about how it was a shame it was too weak to acquire a Style when you kill it, right?" Her uncle nods, "And then the thought occurred that Styles just kind of automatically do the details of the energy manipulation for you, rather than inherently giving you something you don't have, right?" He nods again, but this time it's slower as his brow furrows, "So, I don't usually use that ocular ability I have, the one that lets me see energy flow amongst other things? But the habit was originally made by my wanting to hide it from Agnus and the Demons and then later when I hadn't started to trust you guys yet, and even when I did learn to trust you all, when I tried using it more, the drain was phenomenal and I kept getting monstrous headaches. But the thought occurred that it was draining for my child body that wasn't anywhere near mature yet, and even if I'd chosen not to be a Demon Hunter and never fought a Great Demon, just growing up would've made my energy reserves larger, and I have fought a bunch of them and gotten even more power from it. And the headaches were always from the plethora of information that I could hardly make heads or tails of and could only make sense of the most basic things. That and I had no real way of filtering it, which I can do with Occlumency nowadays."
She shrugs, "So I figured I could use it way easier nowadays, which I was right about, and that if I watched and saw how its energy moved to make it that fast or let it create those blades I could do it fully manually even if I didn't have the Style. And then I just left it on as we went and kept watching the various Demons dad was fighting. So when we got to Urizen I saw how he was manipulating his energy to do that, as well as all those attacks. Then that attack went wide, and there was no way we were getting out of the way, and there weren't any spells or abilities I have that could stand up to it, so I just used Quicksilver to give myself a little more time to give the memory a quick look and copied it as best I could. I had to have been super inefficient in my haste though, because yeah I have waaay less power than him, but not so much to explain how he held it for so long when just those few seconds basically emptied my Demonic energy reserves."
Her dad trips again, but this time he actually falls. She rushes forward to check on him, "Dad! Did that fight take that much out of you?"
His voice is sort of numb when he replies, "No, I'm fine kiddo…"
Her uncle speaks up, turning her back to see him stopped dead in his tracks, "You figured out how to copy Urizen's shield… after seeing it once?"
She tilts her head, "Uh, yeah? I mean, my being a practiced Occlumens means I can watch that memory as many times as I want, so it doesn't really mean anything that I only saw it once."
Her uncle rubs his eyes, "Yeah, it kinda does. And even then you only reviewed the memory of the shield once, so technically you only saw it twice, yes?"
She nods, and he shakes his head as her dad mutters, "Dad's gonna lose his shit…"
Uncle Vergil snorts, "I'm sort of losing my shit."
She looks between them before turning her gaze to Kazuto in question, who just gives her a look of fond amusement without answering her question. She helps her dad up, "Ooook. Oh! Speaking of things I learned how to do by watching, I'm not dumb enough to do it myself since there's a minimum of power required, but I was curious, did you learn how to make a Devil Sword instinctively when you achieved a certain amount of power, or did you work it out from absorbing the Sparda?"
Her dad stops the step he had started to take so they could continue on and turns to stare at her, "You… also figured out how to make a Devil Sword from watching me make mine?"
She nods, "Yeah, and from what I saw, technically you just had enough power even before you absorbed the Sparda, so I was curious if it was something you were supposed to learn a bit later when you were more comfortably above the minimum needed or if it was something Grandpa worked out on his own and you learned it from the Sparda."
Her dad rubs at his eyes much like how Uncle Vergil had shortly ago. Was the Qliphoth pollen getting to them? Before he can say anything Uncle Vergil dryly says, "Well, that's something you'd have to ask your grandfather. Since it's impossible to know with Dante given that he went significantly further than the minimum by absorbing the Sparda, so it'd pretty much be impossible for him to tell which the knowledge came from. And while I'm also way further than that minimum but don't know how, that doesn't necessarily automatically point to him learning it from the Sparda since it's possible Urizen learned it but disregarded it as unnecessary and I just don't have the knowledge because the instinctive knowledge coming to me was triggered when I was separated into two and I just can't recall it because his memories are so hazy."
He pauses a beat, then steps a bit quicker to catch up to her side and glance over, "I have the Yamato obviously, but I would be interested to know how it's done, since if Dante is well over the minimum, than I certainly am since I got a power boost from reabsorbing Urizen after he managed to eat the Qliphoth Fruit. Though I am curious why you were asking."
She glances over at him, "I was asking because there seemed to be some inefficiencies that could be fixed and some room for streamlining. I don't know what effect that would have on the process, but I was thinking that it may bring the minimum power requirement down. It would still be too much for me, but I was thinking that if it does then maybe it may be low enough for Nero." She glances back at her cousin who's more like a brother and he points at his own chest in a silent surprised question, "He has the Red Queen obviously, but it would be good to know for him to have a potential backup in case anything happens to it."
He gets an understanding look, which quickly turns thoughtful, and Uncle Vergil nods equally as thoughtfully, though he has an amused smile, "Saw it once and already thinking of ways to improve it?"
She nods, "Yeah! I could explain those too, but I have to explain how I saw Dad make it first or this won't make much sense, so bear with me, ok? Even then, it may very well require me to just show you mentally since even going into technical details, I'm not sure how well I'll be able to describe it."
He nods, so she immediately launches into describing it as best she can. Even better, if she can get her point across, regardless of whether she could do so verbally or had to do so mentally, Uncle Vergil was one of the best people to be able to help with her ideas for tweaking the process, except for maybe Grandpa.
This entire chapter of their lives had honestly been a bit of a nightmare, but at least it was over. Now. Now they just needed to turn their attention to cleaning up. Something which would be significantly easier once the Qliphoth was destroyed and the Seal back where it was supposed to be and the Angels were released to help.
Marzanna continues scrolling through social media, still utterly shocked even two weeks later. After the Qliphoth had been dealt with and the the seal flipped back off of Heaven and onto Hell, a shit ton of Angels had immediately poured into Earth to help with the cleanup in general, whether it be hunting down the Demons still around or trying to help repair the damage they and the Qliphoth had done.
The Angels, and a sizable amount of humans and other native denizens of Earth for that matter, after everything they'd done for them, had politely strong armed the family into taking a break and resting and leaving things to them now that they'd dealt with the hard part. She'd actually been a little surprised that their shop and house was still in near perfect condition, but that had quickly been explained rather easily. Namely, while the Demons were drawn to the way their energy signatures had seeped into the house and made it a beacon practically screaming it as the home of the 'Traitorous Sparda's' to them, which was actually the whole reason they'd never put up wards to keep Demons out since any attention they could draw was less the Demons could turn on other people, but with only Kyrie there constantly while Grandpa himself was 'vulnerable' elsewhere and with so many Demon Hunters and even some of the other help using it as a base and constantly coming through the doors in the basement so as to not tie up the Teleport Gates, not to mention the plethora of defensive wards that had been laced over it to protect it from damage, broken windows were really the only real damage it had seen.
Angelic power was fucking amazing at repairing damage, both to bodies and to buildings and even the land, especially when out of curiosity she'd gone over to watch them with her ocular ability while they were repairing some of the canyons and the like that had been torn into existence.
On the note of her new tricks with her ocular ability, when she'd explained how she'd been using it recently and asked her grandpa about the creation of a Devil Sword, for reasons she didn't quite get, her grandma had immediately started laughing her ass off while he went straight over to the liquor cabinet, poured himself a glass that he immediately chugged, and only when he was done had she gotten to discuss it with him. It was neither entirely something from Devil instinct nor a technique of his own making. Apparently, when Devils started getting to a certain level of power, they would start feeling an instinctive need to start manifesting their power. In her grandpa, this had eventually manifested in the creation of the Devil Sword creation technique, but it was also why, for instance, Lucifer had his explosive needles.
The conversation had been rather revealing, and they had started to work on working out some issues she'd seen in it. They still weren't to the point that Nero could use it, but even just streamlining some inefficiencies had lowered the base power requirements, freeing up additional power that could either be used directly or dumped into making the Devil Sword more powerful.
But that brings her back to now. While they'd been mostly relaxing, especially since there wasn't much they could do in the UK either since the magical world over there, or rather Voldemort and his fanatics, were staying pretty quiet at the moment, they had released an official statement through various channels, both official and online on social media and even an official site Kazuto and Yui had quickly made for the Demon Hunters Association, about exactly what had happened. There had been some debate about doing it, given the outcry that may happen since it had technically been someone with the blood of Sparda that had done it, but in the end, the need to reassure people that the seal was not weakening and liable to break, as some worries were wondering about, and just the fact that by and large her family was honest in nature.
Her grandpa, as the one who originally made the seal and whose blood was what was needed for it as well as the head of the family, had made a video explaining everything. How Uncle Vergil had gotten captured by the former Demon King Mundus, how he'd had his pure Devil side ripped away from everything else, including his morals, how Urizen was the result of that and how he had immediately killed Mundus, became the new Monarch of Hell, and promptly took advantage of technically still being related to the Sparda family in the ways that mattered to the seal to flip it and let the Qliphoth break through so as to get the Fruit.
While places like the official news outlets hadn't had time for it, the video even continued on from there, not with more statements from her grandpa and the rest of them, but with footage. As an Augmented Reality device, the Augma actually has the rather neat feature of being able to record everything you're seeing in real life. Given that you never know when a record of what happened could be useful, the entire month had been recorded from all of them, even when she'd been in the Qliphoth, due to her mate and child predicting that even electronic signals could be blocked by the Qliphoth, they had been set up to upload the footage of the previous hour everytime the hour was up, but if they couldn't get in touch with the server, to store it on smaller portable digital storage they were carrying that could hold about half a days worth of footage.
When the video continued from her grandpa's rundown of what had happened, it had continued on with an edited video of all major occurrences over the month, and there were even separate videos of the entirety of the month made available, with the only thing edited out of either being personal conversations and the like. And even then, some of them had been allowed through, like her dad going overprotective dad mode and asking if she'd had any boyfriends he never knew about or him asking about the wedding ceremony she and Kazuto had been talking about, though not the continued conversation since if nothing else no one wanted to ruin the surprise when her dad gave Kazuto the bike as a wedding present, just to show that they were just chit-chating as they made their way towards the Qliphoth and not trying to hide anything.
The point being, they'd put everything out about what happened, and even that one of the first things they'd done after being shooed off by the Angels and the like had been to contact as many magical experts as they could to throw the seal on them and ask them to attempt to find ways to take control of it, like Urizen had, or even outright break it. Not to actually break it, but to see if there were any other holes in it that weren't accounted for so they could close them before they had any other Demonic invasions.
They'd been expecting a shit ton of outcry. Which is why she was still so surprised two weeks later, because despite their expectations, what they'd actually gotten was an unexpected amount of support and even sympathy for Uncle Vergil. For every post she saw detracting them, she felt like she saw over a hundred calling out perceived idiocy for being against them. She's seen people point out that yes, it was technically part of one of them that had been ripped away from everything else, including his morals, that had broken a five thousand year old peace, but that peace had been made by her grandparents to begin with. She's seen people pointing out that they'd risked their lives to protect as many people as possible and fix the issue, and that they basically snapped into motion the moment the Qliphoth appeared. She's seen points made about how it was her family that made the Demon Hunters Association and Demon Detectors, which made Demon Hunters world wide be able to get an idea of how much activity they were seeing and how much they could afford to spare to help Japan while still keeping local regions as safe as possible.
She's seen people noting that even the Teleport Gates that had let so many people evacuate so quickly were invented by them, and that it was them who defended those Gates so ferociously from waves upon waves of Demons. She'd even seen people pointing out Yui's help could also be attributed to them, seeing as when things had calmed down she'd been recognized as a sentient being and her and Kazuto's adopted child, especially with Ymir making it easier by basically signing away any claim they had to her programming and in front of a government official to boot, and by Yui's own admission wouldn't have survived the deletion of SAO without them, so her incredible help could also be attributed to the Sparda family. She's even seen somewhat funnier posts about how her dad got 'full body bitchslaped' as he put it, went into a month long coma, was woken up and given the rundown and immediately went, 'OK, time to get back to work after my unplanned month long nap, and I need to go get ready to win round two.' and then did that within an hour of waking up from said coma. She's even seen posts just calling for people to continue to pour out the flood of support for them, just to show the extremely small minority of detractors that they did not have a whole lot of support and were not convincing people to see things their way.
She's also felt horrendously guilty about some posts she's seen from people who lost everything and that they hadn't been able to help crying out against them. The replies to those weren't particularly different than the ones that were just blaming them for the fact daily life had been derailed for a month. The first time she came across one of those, she'd gone to her grandpa and they'd released another statement, this one expressing their surprise and gratitude for the support, but asking people not to be cruel to those who didn't support them because they lost everything that they couldn't help because they can't be everywhere at one and to show some compassion to them. It hadn't really been their intention but that had also increased the support for them. Both in the form of unintentionally convincing some people who'd been on the fence by pure virtue of not only taking the vitriol with grace but also even asking for understanding for some of those against them due to their circumstances, and also in the form of the support for them getting louder.
As a video automatically starts playing on what appears to be a funnier post about her dad, if the clip of him whipping his head towards her and asking about past boyfriends he didn't know about was any indication, her dad looks over. He tilts his head, "Scrolling again?"
She nods, "Yeah. It's just… so surprising how much support we've been getting and how loud it's been." She glances up at him with a grin, "That, and the posts wanting to appreciate that you went from month long full body bitchslap coma to launching straight back into work and getting ready for round two within an hour are kinda funny, and the ones about the clips with audio we released to show we were just chatting showing you in overprotective dad mode are almost always hilarious given the commentary on it, not to mention the memes and shit posts."
He grumbles a bit, but maybe because he was owning up to the fact he hadn't been the best to Kazuto before the mess with Urizen, he's been rather good-natured about it. Then he suddenly straightens up, "Oh yeah, that reminds me. I had a vague thought about it at the time, but then I got distracted by everything with Urizen."
Her mischievous teasing grin slips away as she blinks quickly in surprise, "Mm? What about?"
He shrugs, "When you mentioned you were looking for your soulmate, you talked about how you feel drawn and you just click." His brow furrows, "I don't get why you weren't just waiting to be led to him."
She lowers her phone to look at him fully in confusion, and she isn't the only one, given that a good chunk of the family was relaxing in the living room, with only Kat, Trish, and Mike missing from the group, "What? What do you mean led to him?"
Now it's his turn to look confused, "Huh? I mean, isn't that how it works?"
She shakes her head, "No? Dad, what was yours and mom's meeting like?"
He shrugs, "Just came off a job that went south because the client was actually working for Demons. Originally wanted to go home and just relax, but then I suddenly felt a pressing desire to head out to my favorite bar. Didn't think much of it at the time, but I met your mom there, and from what she said of her own experience later… Well, you basically get led to your soulmate, don't you?"
They're all giving him odd looks now, and her mom seems to notice, so she adds, "He's not wrong. I mean, after I decided to have Marzanna, I was basically led to a bar by a pressing urge despite the fact it wasn't my usual kind of place. And given I was looking to have Marzanna, I wasn't going to be particularly picky. I was fine with anyone that was good looking and charming enough that I didn't feel like a slut to be honest. There were even a few that would've fit my vague criteria too, but I just kept feeling an urge to wait for a couple hours actually, and then it went away and I suddenly felt the urge to turn around just in time to see Dante walk in."
She stares at her parents, "That's…" She glances at her grandma, "Not how soulmates are supposed to work?"
Her grandma nods and climbs to her feet, "I could try doing some Divination magic to get to the bottom of it?"
Her parents share a surprised look, then both nod at her, though it's her dad who responds, "Sure. I mean, I'd like to know why things were different for us too, so I have no problem with it."
Her grandma moves forward and starts doing some magic to her dad. It takes a few minutes, and when the glow fades and her vague, distant expression clears up, she looks rather surprised before turning to cast on her mom. When she's done with that, she has a thoughtful expression, and rather than answering to their expectant and questioning looks, she suddenly casts on herself, then goes over to grandpa, before wandering over to Kyrie and Nero and casting on each of them in turn, then over to her and Kazuto who was also present working on something with Yui. She glances at Uncle Vergil in question last, and though his face tightens a little at the reminder of his pain, he nods and she casts on him too.
When she's done, she gazes into the distance thoughtfully. A few beats pass before her dad speaks up, "Mom?"
Grandma looks over at him vaguely, "Hm?" Then she suddenly shakes herself, "Right! Sorry, I was a little surprised and thoughtful. I wasn't expecting that at all."
Uncle Vergil tilts his head, expression weary, "Expecting what?"
She looks over at him, then immediately gives him a reassuring smile, "Nothing like that. Just." She runs her hands through her bangs with a sigh, "Alright, so let's start with the basics. So, people don't really like to mention it, but realistically with so many people in the world there are multiple people who could serve as a perfect match for someone in one form or another. Magic itself, or nature magic, or whatever you wanna call it evaluates each as well as both parties most likely futures, since being magic itself obviously it has the ability to see possible futures given that Divination does exist and if we can do it Magic itself certainly can. From there it selects the best match, or matches in the case of more than two person soulmate groups, to be soulmates, but after that it basically leaves you to your own devices. Or, that's how it usually works. But here's the thing. Magic does not like it when species go extinct. So all that being said…"
She looks around to make sure they're all following, and once she's sure they are, she continues, "So. It's already upset about the Nephilim, and from what I can tell, it had actually been selecting more Demon and Angel pairs to be soulmates instead of automatically disregarding them due to the longstanding feud between them to try to push for the Nephilim to come back, since unlike most species, being a naturally occurring hybrid means they can be recreated. Which, for the record, it was even more upset than usual about a species dying out than usual over the Nephilim because Magic likes balance and it was Magic that made them in the first place to be the balanced middle point between the two extremes that were the Angels and Demons."
"Anyway, so it's doing its thing and trying to recreate the Nephilim. And then comes Alessio. Who's most likely future shows him as the last Devil. So it gets a bit upset about that, not Nephilim levels but more than usual since the Devils are such high level Demons, practically the pinnacle of them actually, and them dying out would also fuck with the balance. So it needs to be especially careful with selecting his soulmate. And then it saw that amongst the particularly good matches was an Angel from a particularly powerful species. And on one hand, it wants to preserve the Devils on their own, but on the other with the likely future Alessio would have he was a very good candidate for a Demon that would have good reason to turn away from the Demon-Angel feud and actually maybe even have a good relationship with the Angels. So it picked me to be his soulmate. And it didn't essentially consider its work done and leave it up to us, it was more watchful, and even occasionally nudged us a bit to try and make it a little more likely we'd end up together."
She gives her grandma a surprised look, and she's not the only one, but her grandma continues without even pausing to see if any of them have anything to say, "And it worked. It wasn't all that happy about the seal since it prevented any more Demon-Angel pairings, but given that it also stopped the Demonic rampage across Earth and the damage they were doing, even having driven a few other species extinct, as well as the fact it would make things safer for any blossoming Nephilim species and give them room to grow, it also wasn't upset about it. Though it wasn't exactly neutral either. In terms we'd understand it was more of mixed feelings but leaning towards approval."
She waves her hand near her head somewhat dismissively, "Anyway, as you no doubt know, it was difficult beyond belief for an Angel and a Demon to have children together, an issue that was compounded by the fact that Alessio is the aforementioned pinnacle of Demons Devil and I'm a pinnacle of Angels Seraphim. But eventually we did have children, ie Vergil and Dante, and Magic kinda rejoiced because there were not only more Devils but the Nephilim had officially been brought back. Aaaand then we got captured before we could even hope to have more kids, and as it turns out everything lining up for us to get free was actually very unlikely, or at least it was at the time, as time progresses, the path things end up taking of course affects the potential futures. Like, the minute we did Magic essentially wrote us off due to how unlikely it was. But we left two kids behind, so it wasn't without hope. It had foreseen the possibility of course, but given the fact it now had two species vulnerable to extinction it was already being incredibly careful with the selection of Vergil and Dante's soulmates, and us getting captured actually wasn't super likely either, so it basically turned its attention to them entirely and we got caught in its moment of inattention to us. Not that it was only because of Magic that we'd avoided it up to that point, it was just garbage timing."
She's both utterly surprised and fascinated by what her grandma had discovered, and while she can't really bring herself to look away from her as she weaves the tale, given what she can feel coming over her bond with Kazuto, she's fairly confident she isn't the only one. Her grandma shakes her head, "Anyway. So now it had two vulnerable young children that the continuation of two different species was riding on. It did its best to nudge things to protect them, but given the way Demons are drawn to them as the sons of Alessio, there wasn't a whole lot it could do. Even worse, the soulmate it had selected for Dante got ensnared by love potion, which had been an unlikely outcome itself, so it wasn't likely she'd get the chance to live out the likely future she'd initially had of ending up going to America after she got her Masteries in Potions and Charms for a joint research venture, that she'd accepted both because the research in question interested her and because she'd wanted to see America, and meeting Dante when the lab she was working at got attacked."
"So it turned its attention a little more fully to Vergil, who after growing up a bit started to wander on his own, tracking down and killing Demons, so it wasn't hard for it to nudge his wandering feet on a path that would lead him to Iina. With us out of commission and Dante unlikely to meet his soulmate, which it was kinda set on since it meant there'd be less human blood overall than if it helped him have kids with his playboy tendencies, Vergil was who it was kinda banking on to at bare minimum keep the ball rolling and give it at least one more kid to work with in case things went south before the could have more, as it had foreseen the likely way things were going to play out from there when it was studying Nero's potential future to find his best partner, so it already kinda figured it wouldn't get more from him."
She sighs and looks at Uncle Vergil in a soft echo of pain, "Which, as we all know, is exactly what happened. So as things stood at that moment, me, Alessio, and Vergil were captured and unlikely to escape and therefore be able to continue contributing to its efforts to build back up the Devils and Nephilim -which I'll remind you is it's entire motivation here, and it's not being callous, it's just that it's Magic itself, it's not a person- and Dante's soulmate has gone down a path that was unlikely to let them ever meet. So at that moment it's best bet is Nero. It turns most of its attention to him, but after the absolute mess that had come from it turning away from us at the worst time, it does keep an eye on Lily and Dante. And then Lily decides, entirely on her own and despite being under the effects of Love Potion, that she wants to have a bachelorette vacation in America so she can still at least visit America like she used to want to. And Potter, who has gotten lax after years of keeping her under the potion, agrees, and not only that, but even in that moment he figures he'll just send that female friend who knew along with her to keep dosing her on the trip. And it straightens up sharply, proverbially speaking anyway. Because an unexpected opportunity just arose. And all magicals respect its selection of soulmate pairs which means it's a potential out for Lily and right into Dante's arm to boot if it deals with it right. And while it has nothing against Nero, Dante has zero human blood so he's fractionally preferable for that, and on top of that it's an opportunity to create a second possible way to move forward instead of having to bank everything on one of its possibilities."
Her mouth drops open slightly in surprise, and her grandma gives a vaguely amused smile, "Nero's fine at the moment, so it switches who it's focusing on and immediately starts pressing significantly harder than it ever has before. Lily doesn't just want to go to America in general, she wants to go to New York where Dante lives. And suddenly Lily's vague thoughts of maybe going to San Francisco, or Hawaii or something disappear because, actually, she really wants to go to New York. Then she starts looking into hotels and it presses her to go to this specific area of New York, and suddenly hey! That hotel in that specific area seems like a good choice. And while she's sorting out the details of her trip, things are going to line up so that Severus, who's been keeping an eye on her waiting for a moment like this is going to be able to find out exactly the information he needs to track her down away from Potter's reach and watch. So everything works out exactly as it had been hoping, and she even makes the decision entirely on her own to have a kid! So now? Now it's game time. Now it not only needs to try and arrange them to bump into each other or something on the trip but outright needs to shove Dante to get his ass moving tonight. Because he has a soulmate to meet and a new Nephilim baby to make."
She shakes her head in amusement as she looks at her parents, "Hence why Dante suddenly felt the burning urge to change his plans and why Lily was led right to his favorite bar and made to wait while it shoved at him to get his ass in gear and stop keeping her waiting." She looks over at her and her amusement disappears and she turns a little sad, "Then Marzanna was conceived and when it was looking at her future it realized that she was going to have a very shitty first few years, no if about it. But. You remember how I said that as things unfurl the possible futures change? It's relevant, because with her conception to a mother trapped under a Love Potion and with the strong morals she'd both inherit and have honed by years of seeing first hand what it looks like when someone lacks them, suddenly me and Alessio and Vergil went from likely being prisoners for life to practically being guaranteed to be getting free and back to Dante within ten years of her birth."
She shrugs, "All it really needed to do was be a little mean to her and help the bastard Agnus, that even Magic doesn't like given the way he trashes nature, find her and manage to hold onto her until the ritual to break the seal which it needs to help her survive, and nudge Dante to be at the right places at the right times to learn of her and help us get out. It didn't even have to push at anything, most of that was likely to happen on its own, it just needed to nudge things for all the cards to fall just right for everything to align just right to get the best of the possible outcomes. And even better, when it went a bit further down the line and saw the high likelihood of her eventually adopting Yui if the circumstances saw her in SAO and happy with Kazuto, who was the indisputably best candidate for her anyway, since the fact she was likely to free us meant that other than taking into account if they are fertile or not, which Kazuto has no issues with, it's only concern for her was her best match to increase the likelihood of soulmate bonding and the decrease in human blood that would be introduced after their bonding made him a Shift, then it wouldn't even have to rush her to have a kid, especially since the body she would inevitably make for her if the future with Yui came to pass would biologically be hers and Kazuto's child and capable of having kids as well eventually. And with so many of us around, it's actually pretty OK with slowing down a bit. Especially now that Urizen, which was one of the largest hurdles for us to clear for a while to come from what it was willing to show me, we aren't in a bunch of danger."
Her brows furrow, "Well, I should say that I vaguely got the sense that V-Mort was likely to be a bigger hurdle than we're expecting, but it seemed fairly confident in us clearing it." Then she glances over at her grandpa, "It's actually why practically everyone in the family has met their soulmate -with the only exception being Mike and only because it's too early to know if Hermione is his-, despite the statistical unlikelihood of that happening. Honestly, my biggest concern at the moment is the fact that now that it technically has both more Devils as well as Nephilim once more, it seems currently rather interested in trying to make purely Demonic Devils. Ones that aren't Nephilim so it can have both back and separately at that. It's a little weird to call it thinking since that's not exactly what Magic does, even Magic itself, but in simple terms it seems to currently be thinking about the best way to go about that." She shakes her head, "To be perfectly honest, you don't usually get nearly as much information as I got from magic like I used, and not nearly so easily at that, so I'm pretty sure Magic itself was actually being forthcoming with me. Presumably in the hopes that we'd either start working with it, or at minimum to give the two of us a heads up that it may pull some fuckery in the future to get purely Demonic Devils, and since the easiest way to do that would be to find a less hostile Demon and arrange something like you getting drunk and sleeping with them… Well, it doesn't want to lose its current only method of getting pure Nephilim without human blood diluting it, and I'm assuming it's hoping a heads up will stop such an event from ruining our relationship."
Her eyes blow wide as her grandpa gets an aghast expression, "Wait, if it's been interfering with our lives so much, is that why Aunt Trish is a family friend?"
Her grandma suddenly turns to her with wide eyes, "... Oh. To be honest, I… kinda forgot Trish is purely Demonic. Fuck. It probably is planning to have Alessio have a kid with Trish. Not from the get go of when Trish met Dante since back then it still thought he'd never be free, but after we did get free… Fuck, I'm surprised it hasn't arranged something yet."
She bites her lip before offering, "Maybe… Maybe it was holding back and nudging Dad to notice the difference and have him bring it up and you find out the truth explicitly because it was basically its way of saying that Grandpa kinda needs to do something about the situation or it may take matters into its own hands? Especially since Aunt Trish is a shape shifter and it wouldn't be the first time she's taken Grandma's form(1) which is likely the only way it could actually get Grandpa to do it even if you add in alcohol. It's… probably not in any particular rush since it technically has other Devils, but you may wanna have a talk with Aunt Trish when she gets back about maybe being an artificial insemination surrogate to get Magic to leave you alone instead of pulling shit like that, or at least agreeing to donate an egg for someone else to surrogate after it's fertilized with Grandpa's genetics if she doesn't feel comfortable being the surrogate herself. Although, given our… issues with the Demons, I don't know how it intends to continue the bloodline after that."
Her grandparents are staring at each other in mild horror at what Magic may have possibly made happen. Instead of its usual firm strength, for once, her grandpa's voice sounds faint, "That… is an excellent suggestion Marzanna. Hopefully Trish will be understanding of us springing this on her out of the blue by the time we're finished explaining and have asked. And it wouldn't surprise me if it was making plans to use that pure Devil blood you gathered from Urizen the moment you did it, or maybe to push some of the more open minded Demons to join us. In the meantime, I… think we need a bit of time to ourselves to think and talk."
Her grandparents leave the room, thoughtfully silent and she shares looks filled with mixed emotions with the rest of her family at the revelations they'd just had dumped on them.
While they may be the ones most likely to be affected in the near future, she thinks her grandparents aren't the only ones who need some time to think and talk with their soulmate.
(1): So, I apologize for the this to DMC fans since your the ones most affected by it, but I completely spaced mentioning this, and I didn't realize I'd forgotten to mention it until I recently got into a bit of a back and forth with someone in the comments on AO3, and I sincerely apologize for spacing that. But with the fact I'm blending the Reboot into DMC, I've actually been imaging Eva to have her Reboot appearance. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with DMC, Trish is actually supposed to look exactly like Eva, she was originally an artificial Demon created by Mundus to lure Dante in who turned on Mundus. But her DMC design is significantly different from Reboot Eva's. So the thing I forgot to mention is that essentially, since I'm interpreting her as a shape shifter anyway given that whole DMC4 Gloria stuff, that she made herself look like Eva in her first meeting with Dante, but the appearance we usually see in the games is her natural unshifted form. Again I apologize for forgetting to mention it, by the time I gave into the plot bunnies and started writing the fic it had become so ingrained in my head that I just spaced the fact it was something I needed to mention. And if you've had any confusion as to why there was never any mention of them looking like twins either when Eva first met Trish or when Marzanna's friends met both of them, that's why.
