[Part 14]

Vergil’s P.O.V

The days passed in a wink, but it felt almost as if we stood still, unchanging and unreactive to the change around us. Even as some sort of strange urgency settled over us, none of us could pinpoint a source of it all. We just knew, for some reason, that an ultimatum –a deadline –had been issued. For some reason, we were all left out in the information circle on when exactly the deadline was, left to speculating endlessly.

It was a strange feeling that took us long to accept. Granted, everyone has returned to the normalcy of life, but everything felt endlessly surreal. It felt as if time had stopped for us, and still we pretended that it was moving along. Still we pretended as if we were still moving forward, ahead with the time that left us out from its flow. We were the grains dropped to the river bed, but still attempting to follow the flow.

Still, I could do nothing, as I sat where Daniel Kries once sat, in his office, and taking his work. Dante, on his end, have been taking his place with the children, escorting them to and from school, making sure they were protected. Soon, I knew we would have to let go of Kries Technologies. But until Damon returned with some sort of news, some sort of a direction as to where to go, we would stay here, stuck in his world, pretending to carry on with their lives.

No one out there knew Daniel Kries was dead. No one out there knew that I, Vergil Sparda, had been coming to ‘work’ and pretending to be Daniel Kries. It is as if the world had gone on without the death of a fine entrepreneurial businessman –merely having him replaced with a faux, a half-devil. I had somehow, in the tide of time, inherited Kries Tech under my thumb. As Sparda’s eldest son, I have prided myself in being able to adapt to the situation around me, and this is no different as I sat in Daniel’s previous seat, negotiating deals and making sure that the company continued to flourish.

Currently, Kries Technology is planning to break into the China market –its biggest project so far. The spearhead of the project, Daniel Kries, was gone but in his place was a son of Sparda. I carried on where Daniel left, and could only pray that nothing bad would happen to the company. Still, as I think about it; sitting here in this very office where two men have headed the company, and suffered greatly –I don’t think Daniel would ever care what happened to Kries Tech in his absence.

We are merely helping to keep up with appearances, after all. Trish and I have worked out on who to pass the company to when our time of acting and appearances run out. We have a plan to fall back on when Hell breaks loose.

But for now, everything was simply a masquerade. The family –my family –hid the ugly truth from the unknowing world. The imminent end of the world. The end of all things; it was upon us anytime. The ultimatum issued, and still no one would know a thing.

Even the children were part of this large lie that we were forced to keep. But what could we do? We were trapped in this world. When Damon left, alone, to Hell, he took my sword away. Without Yamato, I could not open portals between the worlds to DMC. We tried to get to the natural-occurring portal that linked DMC to this world when the moon cycle converged, but it was apparent that Damon had done something to that too.

There was no questioning what he had been thinking; he didn’t want any more deaths in his family. He cut us off from DMC, from Hell and left us all stranded in his demon-less world, venturing as a lone soul into Hell to hunt down for Kalina.

“Mr. D, your sister is here to see you.” Daniel’s secretary knocked lightly on the open door, then backed away as Marcy walked in, thanking her as she closed the door. Yet another individual who had been unable to tell the difference between Daniel Kries and Vergil Sparda; the secretary was just another sad soul kept in this ugly charade.

“Hey,” Marcy said with a smile, though it never truly did hold its previous brightness. My wife used to smile so brightly, so beautifully. She was still beautiful, but nothing could erase the sadness she now held in her blue eyes. The clear blue eyes never seemed wetter these days, and the sadness was never clearer in those beautiful eyes.

“Hey.” I replied with a small smile. Neither could I smile with the previous brightness. Ever since that day, it was like an absence in my heart. This must have been what Dante felt when I fell off the cliff into Hell the other time. This must have been the heartbreak my brother had been forced through when I fell back, slicing his palm with Yamato.

“Are you doing okay?” Marcy asked worriedly, as she had been doing ever since I took over Daniel’s seat at the head of Kries Tech. No one seemed to ask questions as to why Marcy Kries suddenly took such an interest in the workings of the company, and neither did the secretary question why she now visited her ‘brother’ so often.

“I’m fine. If your brother could do this work, then I can.” I replied, and Marcy nodded quickly with a smirk. If there was one thing that could still make my wife smile at the memory of her brother, then it would be memory of the amount of complaints he ever gave at the boring life behind the desk at the tenth floor of the Kries Tech Tower.

“Of course, why do I even have to ask? Honestly though, I don’t know what Daniel ever had to complain about. Far as I know, everything’s done by his many many advisors and consultants.” She continued, with a smirk. Marcy had missed demon hunting, but given the many opportunities to spend time with her family truly –especially after losing a brother –she had been nothing but glad.

“Signing papers. Daniel seemed to have perfected his own signature on papers.” I replied, passing a piece of paper –one of the last few official documents he ever touched –over. One look, and Marcy’s bark of laughter bounced in the silent office, a sound I have often missed, but still felt so empty with it in my ears.

It was still a laugh hindered by pain. Still laughter that cannot truly hide the sorrow that ran beneath the surface.

“This is his signature?” Marcy asked, turning the paper back to show the name written on the straight line. The name, Daniel Kries, stared back at me, in a child’s handwriting. In no way did that ever seem like a businessman’s signature, never did it seemed like it would be used for official papers. But it was apparent that the man had not cared much about anything at all –at least not about kindergarten kids mimicking and forging his signature by accident with their scrawling.

“Apparently so.” I received the paper back from my wife, carefully placing it back in the file it belonged to, glad that something so minor, something of the old antics of a man passed could still make us smile. Truly, never have I ever been more grateful with the strange peculiarities of Marcy’s brother, and never have I cherished such smiles he brought unintentionally. It seemed as though Daniel had treated the family company of Kries Tech as his canvas for smiles, for every now and then, in every small corner, I would find the smallest hint of the uniqueness of Daniel as a man who led a business empire, and would smile for the cheers he left behind him.

So very much like Dante, constrained by the boundaries of a hard, painful corporate world.

“I miss him.” The forlorn sound of a sigh echoed7 in the closed walls of the office, and the smiles faded at the sight of the depressed sister. “It just isn’t like the time Damon left. He promised us; Damon gave us hope. He gave us last words. But Daniel didn’t. It makes everything so real –the fact that he didn’t leave anything behind just in case he died or something like that. And what we’re doing now, covering up for his disappearance, it feels really like his life was just cut off like that, and we’re picking up the pieces.”

Silently, I stood from where I sat, in Daniel’s seat, and crossed over to her side to send a soft hug. Marcy must have it so bad these few days; having experienced the fear of losing contact with me, only to have me return from Hell with her dead brother. The fact that she was still going strong, still bouncing back; it made the strength that was my wife shine through. Even with her difficulties, Marcy still made a smile for every one of us, to show that she had conquered the fears.

She had conquered her demons. She had conquered me.

“The last words he said to me were ‘go home’.” I said softly, whispering in her ear, leaving her frozen. I hadn’t been able to say the words since the day, but I could never forget the sound of Daniel’s labored breathing, the struggle to speak, the hoarse voice in my ear. It was the softest sound of a man’s speech, but yet it held everything that meant the world to him.

Go. Home.

Daniel simply just wanted to go back to a home where everyone loved him. I had carried his body home, but his spirit was truly home. Home to his parents.

The phone rang before more could be said, as I breathed a soft sigh of relief to have an excuse to escape the thoughts locked in my mind. The endless questions pouring since the day we buried his body in my mind; the endless asking the question of what if. Nothing could change the fact that things had gone exactly the way they did, but the second guessing never failed to hit me. What if I hadn’t stayed in Hell the duration that I did? What if I chose to refuse Daniel’s order when he told me to run to the portal first? What if I pushed Daniel out of the way when I saw Kalina swooping in?

“Verge, I think you won’t like the news.” Dante’s voice was a little cautious, and if this came from my twin brother, who I have suddenly come to see in such a similar light to the late Daniel, it could only meant that things were truly serious.

“What?” I barked seriously through the phone, startling Marcy too, as the sorrow turned into concern and worry.

“Damon returned, and he’s going to destroy Hell.”

“He can’t-” I began to protest, but Dante must have known the protest close to my lips. My brother never interrupted me, and when he did, it must mean that things were serious.

“I’m not joking. You’d better come back quickly. I-” This time it was Dante’s turn to be interrupted, as the sound of the phone passed from a hand to another came.

“Vergil, you were the one who carried Daniel’s body back all the way to this world. You returned my brother to where he belongs, with us. I trust you with my life and my family. But if you, in this moment, choose to stay and protect Marcy and everyone else in my stead, I’ll understand.” Damon’s voice was low and not like him at all. I refused to imagine the things that must be going on back home, but I could hear Dante and the kids arguing in the background for some reason. It wasn’t the playful type of bantering either, for I could hear them arguing to each other to decide on who to stop the ‘maniac in the house’.

“Damon, what are you planning to do?” I tried to demand, but the power is lost on someone who was obviously more powerful than I was. And after what we’d seen since he left for Hell looking for revenge, I wasn’t sure if we could consider Damon a half-devil anymore. It was like all of his humanity had been burnt away by his desire for vengeance.

“I will open a portal from Kries Tech back home. But if you want to protect the family, then I’ll leave them to you and end everything myself. I don’t want any more deaths in my family, but I can’t be killing Mundus and protecting the family at the same time. I want you to choose. Kill Mundus with me, or stay here and protect the family.” Damon’s voice betrayed nothing that held his previous humanity –almost as if he were an entirely different person.

“You talk to him!” Damien was shouting in the background, presumably at my brother, “You’re the adult here, and I pretty sure don’t have such a freak show like that for a father!”

I winced at the hard words of Damien’s, surprised that Damon didn’t betray a single sound of hurt at his son’s words. Was Damon really gone? Was this really Damon Kries? We have all changed in our own little ways after the death of Daniel, but had Damon lost himself entirely, like he had said? Was his humanity really gone?

“I’m coming with you, Damon.” I replied with conviction, watching the concern flash in Marcy’s eyes.

“Then come back. We will go back to DMC.” His emotionless voice ended with the cut-off connection of a call, and a second later, a slice in reality occurs right in the office, the red portal swirling as Marcy stood up in worry.

“What’s going on, Vergil?” She asked, stepping closer to me in confusion and worry. There was no doubt that she had heard the caution in my voice; no questioning that she knew I didn’t like my odds. But right now, what mattered the most in the family wasn’t the children. It wasn’t Trish, it wasn’t the woman that both Dante and I had married.

The one who needed help the most was Damon Kries.

“We’re going back home.” I took her hand and stepped through.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

All of us sat around the table in my apartment in DMC –save the kids who were carefully tucked away in their beds –looking at the man who sat at the head of the table. Marcy and I had never intended our house to room a whole family, but the spare rooms we had suited the children as well as their parents well.

Slowly, Damon had been regaining bits and pieces of his past self, but he is still far from the man he used to be. Right now, he is still fully demon, still lost in the tide of pain, rage and loss. The inability to protect his own brother, the desire for vengeance; everything could easily seen in his eyes.

“I’ve scoped the Mundus’s place out. There isn’t wish in invading his castle, not if we want to be dead at the end of it all. But there is another way to draw him out, and we’re going to attempt it in right in DMC.” Damon begins, unrolling the large sheet of paper on the table filled with his scribbles and rough drawings of a plan beginning to unfold. The plan to kill Mundus; the plan to murder the demon king.

“We’re going to summon him into DMC. The last time anyone got summoned, I was around. We remember how the many blood sacrifices were taken to summon just two princes of Hell. Who we are attempting to summon now is the King of Hell. We need carnage. We need a sea of blood, and an area large enough to contain him. Mundus used to reside in Mallet Island. He had an island to himself for his reign, but we don’t want him comfortable. So we use this piece of land here.” Damon charged ahead, ignoring if anyone could not catch up to his explanations. Easily, I could see Dante dropping out of the process, while I followed closely, watching as Damon circled a large countryside just beyond the town.

“Demons were part of the carnage in summoning Mammon and Leviathan the last time I was here, so coming up with the blood sacrifice isn’t going to be a problem here. What we have to do is dealing with the demons Mundus is going to bring up. I can destroy them without a problem, but I can’t do that while facing Mundus down. That’s where I need you all. Destroy the demons, make sure none of them gets away while I deal with Mundus.”

“Isn’t that a bit too easy?” Dante yawned, but the irritation doesn’t even flash through Damon’s eyes now. Where Damon would easily show his irritation and annoyance at Dante’s obvious show of disinterest, there is absolutely none of it as the demon sweeps his eyes over at us.

“It won’t be easy dealing with Mundus, but I’ll deal.” Damon replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

“How sure are you? You are dealing with a demon king.” I was next to ask, exchanging a quiet worried look to Marcy. What else could Damon be thinking; what else could be going through that mind of his? Was nothing else other than avenging Daniel in his mind? Was there nothing other than destroying Hell in his heart? Did his family even exist anymore?

“I have the powers of the seven Princes, and the power of Sparda. I have a human heart and soul. I can deal with Mundus.” Damon’s detachment from the situation should alarm me, but instead all I felt was the depth of pain that strikes within me. In the single moment, I found myself on my feet, staring at the man I no longer recognized. I could not bear the pained look in Trish’s eyes, could not bear the worried, but helpless look in Lady’s eyes as she watched the tension crackle between Damon and me.

“Do you even have anything relatively human anymore, Damon?”

The dangerous narrowing of eyes on me should have told me that it was a dangerous move, but I was beyond care. We had all lost Daniel, and never had we thought we would lose Damon along the way. Even the children didn’t seem to dare to acknowledge a ‘maniac’ for a father anymore, and still Damon showed nothing. Even Trish seemed too much in pain, and still Damon showed nothing. As if he had been detached from the family ever since Daniel left. As if he had never been part of the family he gave up so much for.

“You doubt me, Vergil?”

“There is no space to doubt.” I must have taken a streak of Dante’s rebellion, for my reply is hard and unforgiving in the face of a demon who could easily kill me as Kalina had done Daniel. Even as I became more aware of how weak I was in the face of the enemy, even as a son of Sparda, there were some things I truly were unafraid of. Unafraid to say my words to Damon, unafraid to face him no matter what.

I promised him that I would protect his sister and his family when he was first captured in Hell. He might have forgotten it, but I hadn’t. Right now, the one who need protection the most wasn’t his family; wasn’t my wife who still held on so strong and brave through everything. Right now, the one needing protection wasn’t the children, who had found themselves uprooted away from their home, and yet still adapted so well to their new situation, training and focusing on their skills of demon hunting.

“No space to doubt?” Damon asked, voice not betraying a single thing. Was he feeling anger, fear or worry?

Marcy’s hand tugs on mine, but I lightly removed them, not needing her attention to know that my fists were balled with controlled rage.

“There is no space to doubt. Because you are not human. You are not Damon Kries.”

The spark flashed in the hard blue eyes that I could no longer recognize. The danger was clear in the air as Damon stood at the head of the table, glaring down at me as if, for the moment, I had become the very demon who had murdered Daniel in cold blood.

“You are not fit to say that.”

“I am fit to say anything I want, and I say that you’re not Damon Kries. We don’t recognize you, and if Damon Kries died along with Daniel, I will honor his memories. But don’t you destroy the image of him that we have created, because we are not the only ones being disappointed this time around, Damon. The children are losing faith in you. And when they completely lose respect for you, you will truly have failed everything you wanted to become. You will have failed being a brother, a husband, a father. You will have failed being a man.”

It happened in an instant. I had expected Damon to lose himself, but never have I expected such hopelessness in the situation, as I was met with a blast of demonic power so strong that I was thrown off my feet, crashing into the couch in the next room. Fight instincts made me jump to my feet, but in the next moment, I was slammed back down by a hand so strong that even I, a son of Sparda, could not stop.

“Do you want to fail being a man, then, Vergil? Do you want to fail being my brother-in-law? Do you want to fail the expectations I have of you, the trust I have of you to take care of everyone? I told you I trust you to protect my family. Do you want to fail that?”

As fingers slowly closed over my throat, tightening by the second, as dizziness began to hit me at the sudden lack of oxygen, the dots of blackness occurring in my vision, I could only see the hard blue eyes staring at me, the face of a man I did not recognize looking back at me. This was supposed to be my doppelganger. This was supposed to be the same man I guided to DMC the first time, the man whom I, along with my father, manipulated quietly to accomplish the mission meant for me.

This was supposed to be Damon Kries, the man I declared my half-brother.

To the side, the door to the children’s room burst open and both of them came running out, straight to their father. Wynter’s eyes are already streaking with tears of fear and concern, and Damien looked somewhere between helpless and angry as both of them tried to pull their father’s hand away from my throat, trying to pry the fingers off.

“Daddy! Stop it!” Wynter screamed, but there was no flash of recognition at all, as the fingers clenched tighter and tighter.

“Daddy, if you don’t let go now, I’m going to hate you for the rest of my life!” Damien screamed, hammering at his father’s hand on my throat, squeezing as if I was never his family member, as if I never made a difference in his life at all. As if I wasn’t part of what made him Damon Kries in the first place.

“Go away. Daddy’s busy. Busy murdering the man who’s going to leave us like Uncle Daniel did. Don’t cry for him, Kids. I don’t want to see any tears.” The demon over me spoke, as I watched the blue irises that I no longer recognized at all tremble in the whites of his eyes. Even as he strangled me, crushing my windpipe, a surge of relief flooded into my senses. Damon was still somewhere in there, struggling and fighting over this demon that had taken over him.

“Get off him, Damon!” Dante’s yell was enraged –something that came in a dim surprise –as the combined force of my twin and my wife brought my assailant stumbling back. The hand over my throat was removed, as I sat up again, coughing and choking for breath as Marcy did her best to help me out.

“Tell me, Vergil. Are you going to be like Daniel? Are you going to leave us? Leave the family, betray my trust in you?” The low questioning growl could only mean that Damon was still losing. The human whom I had met, had first manipulated to do my bidding; the man who fought and excelled at taking care of Dante when I never thought he ever could survive –somehow he was losing despite all that he had to lose. He was somehow still losing despite all the support from his family, the love from his wife.

“I will leave when it is clear that you are no longer human. I can still see you fighting inside yourself, so I’m going to stay. The moment you lose yourself, Damon, you won’t have lost only me. You’re going to lose everyone around you. You’re going to fail taking down Mundus, because even if you defeat him, you’d have lost.” I said strongly back in reply, rubbing my throat from the sore. Back in DMC now, I had the powers of a half-devil and yet still Damon had pinned me down with such ease. There was no questioning the new lengths of his abilities, but what use was it? What use was a shell holding on to that amount of power, without a proper person to handle that?

“I won’t fail!” Damon screamed, and the electrifying well of power expanded from his body in full force that Dante didn’t even have the time to react. Still, somehow, the children, who were standing right beside me, jumped before me, their arms outstretched as if planning to absorb the blow in my stead.

As the horror rose, Marcy and I lunging to remove the children from Damon’s potent powers, Trish jumped.

A loud bang resonated throughout the house, and everything died down in a moment, everyone looking at each other.

“MUMMY!” Wynter shook my hand away from her waist, clambering to her feet as she charged towards where the woman lying unconscious on the floor was. Behind her was the wall, with large cracks running from the dented point of impact. Damien didn’t take long to rush towards to their unconscious mother, as a spiral of fear shot through me. Lady was beside them in an instant, checking for any major problems. The blood trickling from her head seemed little cause for fear, it seemed, as Lady assured the crying children quickly that their mother would be alright.

“Trish!” The strangled voice behind us all cried, and Damon pushed past me to get to his wife. His wife, who had been blown unconscious by his power, trying to save their children from his wrath. His lover, who had loved him and their children so much that it didn’t matter if she would die or not from this blow –she just wanted to save the children.

Dante pushed Damon back, and Marcy and I both stepped forward, pulling the man back from his unconscious wife while he struggled weakly. Whatever power he had was gone as he struggled in vain, his eyes with tears of shock, regret and pain.

“Let me go! I have to get to Trish!” He yelled.

Wynter climbed to her feet, pulling her brother up beside her while she wiped the tears away from her eyes, now that she knew her mother would be alright. Dante silently went over to pick Trish up carefully from the ground, and with careful watch from Lady, brought her into the bedroom.

“Go away, I don’t want you here!” Wynter turned around, screaming at the man my wife and I held back. “I don’t want you here, I hate you! You’re the world’s worst father, and I don’t want you! Go back to Hell; I don’t care! I don’t want you here, you’re just giving Mummy more pain that you’re giving her love!”

“Wynter…” Damon’s deflated voice could only define how much the man was breaking down, as his struggles ceased, watching his daughter –the daughter who had always held so much naïve hope that she would break out of his spell –finally lose faith in him. The daughter that had always smiled at him, always persuaded her twin to have faith in their father… Wynter covered her face in her hands and ran for her own bedroom, slamming the door.

“There, you see it! I don’t care if it’s an adult thing! I know what everyone’s going to say to us: we’re just ten year old kids, what can we know? At least I know that I HATE YOU, DAMON KRIES! I hate that I’m your son, and if anyone asks me, I’M THE SON OF DANIEL KRIES!” Damien screamed, and like his sister, charged into his room, slamming the door louder than his sister had done.

Damon sank to the floor, and finally, I saw the Damon Kries that had been missing all this while in his eyes.

Damon had returned.

He had returned –barely –but what had it cost?