A/N: I hope that everyone is doing well.

[Mama]

When Vergil opened the door to answer the ring of the doorbell, he was completely taken aback by the sight of the person who stood on the other side of that door.

It was extremely hard to take a veteran demon hunter like Vergil Sparda by complete and stunned surprise, and the woman who stood there with a slightly uncertain and confused smile somehow managed to do it without even starting out with the intention of doing so.

"Hello." Her voice was exactly like how he remembered hers to be, the very same caliber of genteel that he never knew he had missed so much until he heard it again. "I know this is a strange thing to say to a stranger upon meeting, but you look really familiar. Do I know you?"

Vergil found that his voice could not come out no matter how much his mouth opened and closed. He had quite literally lost his voice from the shock of seeing the woman standing on the other side of the doorway, looking perfectly fine, and not a day older since the last time he saw her. It could simply not be possible. With manners gone from his head, he unwrapped his fingers from the doorknob, reached forwards slowly and grabbed a limp forearm, expecting his fingers to go through air.

But no, his fingers met resistance. Warm but soft resistance. Resistance of the skin, muscles, flesh and bones beneath it all.

"Um, please let go." The woman said uncomfortably, and Vergil was suddenly struck with the crazy anxiety that he might have hurt her unknowingly that he immediately withdrew his hand as if it he had touched acid, stepping back to give her even more space despite the fact that they were already in good conversational distance.

"I'm actually a little lost." The woman admitted, still holding on to the uncertain look, but seemingly a bit more apprehensive after Vergil's sudden movements. "You see, I woke up and I didn't know where I was. I was on a bed in a broken down and abandoned house, and there were pictures of me and my family. I think it was supposed to be my home, but it became abandoned and torn. Anyway, I was confused and was walking out of that mess when someone passing by the place told me that he had a mission for me. He was talking to me about hunting demons, and he called me Trish. When I told him I didn't know what he was talking about, he told me to come here and find the proprietors, and they would set me right. He gave me directions and left. Are you able to help me?"

"D-Do..." Vergil couldn't believe his reality so much that he actually accidentally bit his own tongue in his tentative question. "Do you remember anything?"

"Not much, actually. I remember putting my children to sleep last night, kissing my husband a good night, then going to sleep myself. There was nothing out of the ordinary, then when I woke up, I was in that abandoned house." She answered, pulling her shawl closer around her shoulders and successfully making her look more vulnerable than she already was.

"T-That was not last night anymore." Vergil shook his head slowly, his mouth becoming dry. "What you are describing was thirty years ago."

"Thirty years?" The woman repeated, her expression one of stunned shock similar to his. "You're saying that I was asleep for thirty years?"

"I'm not sure if asleep is the correct word, because I was quite sure that you had died..." Vergil started again, but recollected himself quickly. "Come in. We will talk sitting. There's someone who will definitely like to meet you too."

"I'm not sure if I should..." The woman still had caution at the front of her mind despite the fact that she had wandered out of what was supposed to be her house confused and followed the instruction of a random passerby all the way here to the Devil May Cry joint.

"I will never harm you or let you come to any harm." Vergil's promise was almost made instantaneously. It was a promise so strong that the worries that his visitor had was suddenly scattered as she stared at him with wide eyes.

"Are you sure we haven't met before? For a moment there, you sounded like my husband." She asked, but decided to risk it and stepped further into the joint named Devil May Cry. At first, she had been very cautious about being directed to some illegal place that might have some dealings with human trafficking when she entered the vicinity, and the dirty windows and neon sign of the joint had not improved her impressions of the place and its respective proprietors. But she had been someone looking for help and couldn't afford to be choosy.

"There is good reason for that." Vergil answered, directing her quickly to a couch at the corner of the largely-spaced joint. From the outside the joint had looked small but upon entering she had realized that it was two-stories with a high ceiling. From what she could see at the door, the second floor seemed to be the bedroom of the proprietors. It was a completely open concept of integrated living, though she could not decide if it was by choice or circumstance as she took a careful seat on the cleaner-looking part of the couch.

"We don't have drinks to offer you except beer and coffee. I assume you don't want either." Vergil said, and the visitor turned her head to find him already with two cups and approaching her. She accepted the water with thanks, taking a polite sip before setting it down on a small empty corner on the table in front of them. She did her best not to comment on the adult magazines opened on the table.

"The person who will definitely want to see you, my brother, is in the back taking a shower." Vergil said as he took his seat across her on the standalone armchair, his piercing blue eyes adamantly on her. "Can you tell me exactly what you remember?"

"It's really just very normal. I'm a housewife, so I made breakfast yesterday morning for my husband and sons. I kept them busy, went through their homework from the previous day with them, taught them how to multiply and do division, made lunch for us three. We went out shopping after lunch, and it was almost time for dinner by the time we got back, so I left them to their devices as I made dinner and we had it as a family. My husband watched some TV while I patched up some holes in our sons' clothing, then I put them to bed, showered and slept myself. My husband was busy watching TV. That's all." She recounted. "What date is it today?"

"It's 14th December."

"Oh, then it has only been just about a week since-"

"Twenty-Nineteen." Vergil interrupted.

"Excuse me?" She did not manage to catch Vergil's words clearly since she had been in the middle of a speech herself.

"Twenty-Nineteen." Vergil interrupted, then clarified. "The year is Twenty-Nineteen."

"You are kidding me, aren't you? It's Nineteen-Eighty-Nine."

Vergil grabbed a random adult magazine on the table, flipped to the first page of a semi-nude woman with her exposed legs wrapped around a baseball bat. He pointed to the top left-hand corner.

"December Twenty-Nineteen edition." He emphasized. "It has been thirty years since you died, Eva."

"I died?" Her hands went up automatically to cover her mouth in her shock. "How do you know my name?"

"There's no easy way to say this." Vergil put the adult magazine down. He wasn't sure if he had locked the doors to the joint just a moment ago, but hoped he had because he didn't want to chase her if she ran out of the joint screaming in panic. "My name is-"

"Hey, Vergil! What's so important that you had to interrupt me in the middle of-" The door to the back where the kitchen and bathroom was opened, and showed a man (thankfully) dressed in only a pair of loose sweatpants and dripping water from his wet hair.

There was one moment of hesitation upon the realization that there was a visitor, one moment of recognition, and one moment that took Dante flying across the spacious room, grabbing the sitting woman in a hug.

"Mama, you're back!"

________________________________________________________________________________

Eva Sparda dabbed at the tears adamantly clinging onto the corners of her eyes as she looked left and right, sandwiched between her sons who had both grown up far better than she had ever imagined that they ever would. The Dante and Vergil from her yesterday had only been as tall as her waist, and now both of them had a solid head in height over her. The shoulders that had been barely the length of one arm now could envelope her in a solid embrace.

And most importantly, now that she knew what to look out for, the faces of innocent youth had grown up to replicate the same mature charm that their father had. There was a little bit of Sparda on their faces here and there, and even though she was overjoyed to reunited with her sons again, the remembrance of her husband made her melancholic.

"Mama, don't cry." Dante might be thirty-eight now, but the way he was speaking to her made Eva feel as if he had not grown a single bit at all. He was still adamantly calling her a childish 'Mama', as if seeing her had immediately made him revert back to his childhood mannerisms.

"This is a reunion of joy, not tears, Eva." Vergil was on the other end of the scale –he had completely forgone the 'Mama' phase, and had matured into the stage of life where he could comfortably call her by name. While it was the exact same Vergil that Eva had birthed and loved, the way he spoke her name was so similar to their father's that she could not help but feel a small stab of pain whenever he did.

"I just cannot help it. I never thought I would ever get a chance to see you two so grown up like this! You guys were just eight yesterday!" Eva exclaimed, a fresh wave of tears rising again as she caressed both cheeks of her sons. It had been smooth, youthful skin yesterday but today she could feel the rough stubble on both their jawlines –Dante much more unshaven than his brother.

"We were eight thirty years ago." Vergil clarified, but even he could not resist showing the happiness on his face as a full-fledged smile refused to wipe itself away. "We are so happy to be able to see you, touch you and feel you alive once again. There are so many things we have to say."

"I just want to hug her to sleep and wake up to make sure that this isn't a dream, Vergil!" Dante exclaimed, still holding one arm adamantly around his mother's waist as if to make sure that she would not disappear into thin air all of a sudden. He had thankfully put on a simple cotton shirt after his first hug with his mother, but since then Dante had not let go of her. Thirty years had gone by without him touching her and he was clearly not going to let any more pass the same way.

Vergil was the same, but less expressive. Since the reveal of their identity, Vergil had held his mother's hand in his the whole time, carefully cradling it as if it were a gem that he could not bear to cover with his fingers. Like the quiet little boy that he had been just yesterday in Eva's memories, her adorable son kept his hold on her, seeking reassurance from her presence just through touch alone.

"There are many stories that we have to cover later, my dears, but the two of you must tell me this: where are your wives? Are the two of you married with children yet?" Eva expressed worriedly. Though she had never had the impression that her sons would grow up to their ripe old age unmarried, she had been looking forward to seeing her daughters-in-law and grandchildren since realizing the men in front of her were her grown up children.

"We're still single, Mama." Dante reported. It was a little strange for both Eva and Vergil to see a grown-up man still acting so childishly in front of his mother, but then again, it was a very strange situation that they found themselves in. The veteran devil hunter Dante Sparda was supposed to be smart-talking, rebellious, carefree, strong, independent... and not a complete mommy's boy that he was currently being.

"What? There hasn't been a woman who has fallen for my sons' lovely faces?" Eva exclaimed in surprise, and was glad to see that regardless of their grown-up appearance, the embarrassed blush at a mother's love still appeared on their faces.

"There are a few women hanging around Dante all the time." Vergil reported. "One of them looks like you."

"Looks like me? My dear, did you miss me too much?" Eva turned to Dante with a pitiful look, and she was honestly the only person in the entire world who could give the veteran demon hunter that kind of look and not get any consequences from it.

"I missed you more than anything in the world." Her younger son declared with a grin. If Eva was to be honest, he looked much older than his age with the unshaven beard and the long unkempt hairstyle with fringe that covered over his eye. The younger twin was somehow looking older than his elder brother, but still he was acting like an eight-year-old child.

"Sweet words, Dante. You butter me up so." Eva answered knowingly with a laugh. "What about you, Vergil? Do you have any ladies in your sight?"

"I haven't had any since Nero." Vergil's honest answer made him realize that he had yet to introduce his mother to her grandson.

The sudden rush to tell her about her grandson was stopped at an equal pace when Vergil remembered the particularly dirty mouth that had been attached to Nero. It had been completely fine with Dante and Vergil when the young one continued cussing and swearing at them to express his emotions and anger, but Vergil did not want his poor mother to go through the same.

"Nero?" Eva prompted.

"Nero is Vergil's son!" Dante was –as he always had been –out to put Vergil on the spot as he declared.

"A son? I have a grandson!" Vergil's mother's elation was too enjoyable to be doused by concerns of his son's mouthy personality, and thus he gave in.

"That's right, Eva. The circumstances to which Nero was born was not particularly desirable, and I have not been the best father. Still, he has grown up very well by himself, and there is really not much left that I can do for him as father anymore." Vergil admitted. While he could claim that everything that had happened had been because he was young and stupid, he could not use that excuse for summoning a demonic tree in the middle of Red Grave, cutting his son's arm off just to gain power so as to defeat Dante. If his mother was here to stay, Vergil needed to face the truth that he had been doing his best to bury behind him: that he had not grown up the way Eva and Sparda had wanted him to.

"I have to meet him. How old is he now?"

Vergil opened his mouth to answer, but paused before words could come out. The sudden realization that he had no idea how old his son was struck him as he looked to his brother for help over their mother's head.

"Twenty?" Dante chanced a guess helpfully. "That noisy one seems young enough to be twenty to me."

"I'm twenty-one, you senile douchebag." The answer came from the man himself, and all three of them turned to find the young man in question coming through the door. "What the heck are the two of you going snuggling up with Trish like that? And why is she dressed up so differently today? Is she joining some sort of cosplaying competition?"

"Don't be rude." Vergil –for the very first time since acknowledging his son –sounded disciplinarian as he glared at Nero while the young man approached them from the door. "Don't talk to Eva like that. Have some manners."

"I think manners were out of the question when you cut off my arm back then, old man." Nero's shoot-back was quick and instinctive, as he positioned himself in front of the strange sight. "What's going on here?"

"Eva, much as I am sorry to say this, but this is Nero, my son." Vergil sighed as he introduced, letting his mother stand up slowly to face his son directly. Dante reluctantly let Eva go as well, and both sons of Sparda watched as their mother studied her grandson with tears in her eyes.

"Err, what did you guys do to Trish? She's crying." Nero was starting to get uncomfortable as his grandmother reached out her hand to cradle his cheek the same way she had done to her sons. He tried to dodge the hand, but was caught anyway with the soft hand then touched lightly as if afraid that he was going to crumble to pieces.

"You're all grown up and handsome just like your father. I'm so glad that you managed to grow up into the fine young man that you are now." Eva said with tears threatening to overflow as she smiled widely at him.

"What are you talking about? Can somebody tell me what the fuck is going on?" Nero demanded, alternating his gaze between his strange-acting uncle and father and the even stranger Trish. What did his father mean by calling her a different name?

"See, Mama? He's a dirty mouthed boy." Dante reported.

"He must be so if you have been teaching him the wrong things, Dante." Eva's answer was smooth. "Don't try to fool me; I know you use the same cusses when you were younger. I heard you say them a few times when you thought I wasn't listening at your brother. Your father did not teach you well."

"I did not!" Dante's protest was childish, and both Eva and Vergil knew much better. The need to cuss and swear had gone down over the years as Dante grew more and more carefree and rolled with the punches, but as a child, Dante had never been an angel. Sparda had not been the perfect father either –Sparda himself also cussed quite a bit in exclamations.

"This is starting to get really annoying. Quit playing around; Dante is creeping me out with his childish act." Nero demanded, removing the hand from his cheek.

"Nero, this is Eva. My mother, and your grandmother." Vergil introduced, standing up.

Nero was silent for one long moment waiting for the joke to drop, but it never did.

"Over my dead body." He answered when neither of his elders gave him the punchline.

"Watch your words!" Vergil frowned, raising his voice. He wasn't sure what he had been planning to do next to take on the role of a disciplinarian father, but was saved from having to think about it when his mother hurriedly put a hand on his chest, keep him back from making any moves against his son.

"Calm down, Vergil. It's okay. The boy is just confused and think that this whole situation is a joke. I understand; if I were in his shoes, I would think of this a bad joke too. There's no need to get angry at him."

"Mama, you're just too nice. If Dad was here, Nero would have gotten his ass served to him a million times for shouting at you." Dante put in unhelpfully.

"Now, I'm sure you're speaking from experience, Dante, but unfortunately your dad isn't here." Eva answered. "Or perhaps in your case it might be a fortunate thing. Now that I have looked at you up closely, what is that beard doing on your handsome face? Your father would never approve of your hiding your handsome features with all that hair and beard, Dante. Please, have a shave."

"But Mama, if I shave, they will just grow back out again in months." Dante protested.

"Then shave again a few months later." Eva's answer was as normal as anyone else could be, but it was only words from a mother –his mother –that could make Dante move. Looking reluctant to leave the scene, but wanting to be a good boy, Vergil and Nero watched as the veteran devil hunter slowly walked away, dragging his feet towards the door that led to the washroom in the back, and looking back ever so often as if to check if his mother had disappeared in those fleeting moments.

Eva motioned for her son to go quick, and so he disappeared through the door with one last reluctant look backwards.

"He still reminds me of days when he was afraid to go to the bathroom alone because he was scared that bad guys would kidnap him." Eva commented, turning to her other son with a reminiscent smile.

"He never knew that he would be a kidnapper's worst nightmare even if it ever happened." Vergil agreed with a grin.

"I don't like being ignored here. Someone explain things to me." Nero demanded again, pulling attention back to himself.

"Ah, yes. Let's not leave your poor boy in the dark." Eva's smile had returned and was gentle once again. With her red shawl wrapped snuggly around her shoulders, her straight blonde hair tumbled to past her shoulders to her elbows, and her almond green eyes glittered at her grandson. "Have a seat, Nero."

"You look like the woman in the picture on Dante's table." Nero commented with sudden wide eyes as he sat, as if suddenly realizing how similar the woman in front of him looked like to the one in his uncle's picture. "I always thought that was Trish before she... I don't know, I just thought that was Trish without her leather clothing."

"Who is this Trish that I keep hearing about?" Eva turned with a politely confused smile to his son.

"She is one of the women that hangs around Dante. She was actually created by Mundus to look like your replica so that she could trap Dante in the Demon World, but she switched sides in the end." Vergil reported.

"My face was used to trap Dante? My poor boy!" Eva's reaction was a very good indicator of whether or not he should ever tell her about his previous days as Nelo Angelo. "Thank goodness your father gave the both of you strong bodies!"

Strong body was one way to put it; he had been crumbling to piece just from finding his way out of the Demon World.

"By 'your father', you actually mean Sparda, don't you?" Nero clarified, bringing the conversation back to him.

"Yes, my dear. Sparda is your father's father, which means he is your grandfather. Unfortunately, he is not here with us..."

"That means you really are Eva Sparda? The wife of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda?"

"I know some people call him the Dark Knight, but I don't know about the Legendary part. I mean, my husband was pretty amazing and good at what he did, but I'm not so sure about him being 'Legendary'." Eva admitted.

"He was the Patron Saint of the religion in the town where I grew up." Nero informed. "I was never really a believer of that religion, but it's still something to meet the wife of the person who's supposed to be a Saint."

"My husband as a Saint?" Eva's chuckles were light and the same way Vergil had remembered them. "Sparda might be an impressive man outside of the house, but the Sparda who courted me and captured me with a ring on my finger is truly the furthest from it."

"Eva, you are ruining his impressions about his grandfather." Vergil warned lightly, but still held on adamantly to his smile at the sound of his mother's mirth. He still remembered the days when his mother would laugh lightly in amusement at the stupid, childish things that he and Dante did as children. He still remembered the sound of her embarrassed but loving chuckles when his father returned home with a bouquet in his hands declaring his love to her all over again like the embarrassing man he made himself out to be.

"Your grandfather is just as much a man as any of you are." Eva continued, ignoring the warning as she smiled widely at her son. Nero decided that it was turning out to be an extremely strange day in which the woman who turned out to not be Trish but his grandmother smiled widely at him, and his very own father –who was infamous for either being an icy, heartless bastard or just straight-up psychotic man chasing for power and/or obsessed with the idea of trumping Dante –smiling almost equally widely along. Nero could not decide which was weirder and creepier: the presence of his grandmother or the presence of his father's uninhibited smile.

"Where is your mother, Nero?" The straight question came from the innocent Eva, and suddenly the smile that Nero had just begun to think was creepy disappeared. The strange light atmosphere also dropped within an instant, and Nero chanced a quick look to spy on his father's expression to gauge exactly how much he should reveal. Unfortunately, he still had not yet mastered the art of reading Vergil, and thus let his eyes settle back on his grandmother as he answered as honestly as possible.

"I don't know. I don't know who she is, and neither does Vergil."

The wince was obvious from the man as Eva spun around to glare at her son.

"Vergil Sparda!" The disciplinarian tone of a mother appeared, and it took both Nero and Vergil by surprise –Nero never having heard someone use this tone before since he had grown up without a mother, and Vergil having not heard this tone for the past thirty years.

"Mama, hear me out..." Vergil's plea was surprisingly soft, and gone was the confident man who called his mother by name. Truly, beneath the character that he had built out for himself, Eva could still see her sweet son through and through.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Eva demanded, hands fisted and resting on her hips in a power-position. The graceful angel that had been in front of them turned into a scary demon all of a sudden.

"I... I didn't mean for Nero to happen..." Vergil lost strength in his voice, his eye contact falling to the floor as Nero watched in open-mouthed shock.

All it took was one woman. One woman who was completely human, who did not have a single bit of demonic power, and who wasn't even wielding a single weapon to cut down the very man who had summoned a demon tree into Red Grave.

Eva was right, the legend was really not meant for Sparda's title.

The real legend was right here in front of Nero's eyes: the woman who married a demon, who brought up two half-demon sons, and who had somehow come back from the dead to admonish them for the foolish things that they had done.

The real legend was Eva, the Legendary Mama.