[The 77th Reincarnation] 

The man woke up with a deep gasp of breath, filling lungs with sweet oxygen as a heart once more started to beat. Blood once more began to run beneath the surface, and all 5 senses slowly returned to the frame of the man lying on the uneven ground. He was unmoving; simply breathing in and out deeply as thoughts flew past his mind, behind his closed lids.

Sounds trickled into his ears, slowly registering as sounds ongoing tussles and fight. Someone was engaged in a fight near him –a fight that consisted of guns and clashing metal. That sound was strangely comforting; he had come into an era where guns existed.

Finally feeling as if his sight had recovered, the man opened his eyes slowly to meet the dim surroundings of a depressing-looking plain of nothingness. He saw something that resembled a massive tree with its trunk covered with twisted vines far in the background; its height so massive that it reached into the clouds and disappeared into the sky.

He looked left and right, but there was nothing in his surrounding that was a tell-tale of his location. Well-travelled as the man was, he could not place a name to his immediate surrounding. At least, he would not be able to do so until he spent the effort to delve into his existing memories to search for the answer.

He recognized the creatures that tainted his full view of his surroundings, however. These creatures were everywhere on this depressing-looking plain –there were layers on layers of the dead version of such creatures. There were occasional piles of the dead creatures, and many more alive creatures populating the plain with their grotesque and unnatural movements. The man looked down to find himself lying on a layer of the dead version of such creatures as well.

What he thought was uneven ground had turned out to be a bed of dead demons. Yet strangely, he felt no fear in gripping in his heart.

His rational mind observed this bodily non-reaction, and made a mental note. He was most likely not fully human.

Eager for another nugget of information, the man looked towards the thickest part of the mess, where the sounds of fight were still going on. He did not have to squint to focus on the main character in the middle of the fight –a man whose hair was a faint metallic red, and whose blood ran down the side of his face like a paint. Cuts, tears and tatters substituted for what was supposed to be a duster-like coat, and though the man was still doing all that he could to defend himself from the large wave of never-ending demons that approached him, the man could see that this stranger was on his last leg.

Instincts –the first thing that was pushing him to take action even while his mind slowly processed information –pushed the man to his feet. He picked up the weapon that laid on the floor beside him, his fingers curling naturally over the sheath. It had to be his weapon of choice, then.

His footsteps were calm as he chose his steps towards the fight scene. A surge of powers fought to rise from his being, and he –out of unfamiliarity –allowed it to run. He both saw and felt the aura rising from his skin –an intangible, yet visible blue mist that escaped his pores –even as he put one foot in front of the other. The closer he got to the group of demons and the slowing man, the more they took notice of his presence and his exuding aura. It was all too soon that the wave of demons started to turn their attention on him, clearly recognizing that he was the stronger and more dangerous individual.

"Vergil... You're okay..." The other man had fallen to his knees by now; finally given a respite now that the demons were focusing their attention on him. "I'm just going to take a rest... don't wake me up."

With those words spoken, the man watched as the other man closed his eyes and fell flat to the floor, the big sword that had been clutched in his hand loosened.

The word –the name –Vergil felt familiar to the man. He could only assume that Vergil was his name –though he couldn't be completely sure unless he slowed down to run through the memories existing in his head. Still, the man who assumed that his own name was Vergil had more important things to care about. His name could wait; getting rid of the demons was the number 1 priority.

A long time passed, but eventually the man who assumed his name was Vergil found himself standing alone in a field full of carnage of dead demons. There were no stirrings around him –no more sounds of fight, no more gunshots. There was nothing except silence all around, and the man took the opportunity of the absence of foreign sounds to finally run through the thoughts and memories floating in his head.

This man, Vergil Sparda, had gone through much in his life. More recently, he had come down to the demon world to find the root of the demonic tree Qlipoth. He had not come alone –his twin brother had come down with him. After severing the roots of the tree from the human world, the two of them had continued remaining in the demon world, fighting each other and the occasional demon waves that came for them. It had been months of non-stop fighting because both brothers were intensely competitive with each other and refused to let each other win for a single moment.

But they met misfortune. A wave of high-level demons had descended upon them –attracted by the amount of power that they had been exuding for an extended period of time –and the sheer quantity had taken the Sparda brothers by surprise. Then, in one particularly fateful moment, Dante Sparda had been careless and forgot to watch his back. His elder twin brother –the very same man who had promised to defeat Dante if it was the last thing he would ever do –had jumped in to protect Dante.

And that had been the death of the real Vergil Sparda.

The man who was now in the body of the Vergil Sparda could only imagine that Dante did not have the luxury of mourning for his brother while dealing with the remaining demon horde himself until he woke up once again and had come saving Dante.

Still taking advantage of the silence all around him, the man who was now Vergil Sparda dug much further into the memories in his head to learn about the timeline that he found himself in.

The Massacre of Temen-Ni-Gru, the Tragedy of Fortuna Town and the Month of the Qlipoth... the man remembered reading about these incidents in history books, and now he had come to the life of someone who had been personally involved in all of them. Once, he had been a person who had witnessed the Tragedy of Fortuna Town as a survivor, and had only been involved the massive rush out of the town with his family, and now he was in the life of the man who would eventually be written as the culprit behind the incident of the Massacre of Temen-Ni-Gru and the Month of the Qlipoth.

But that had been the actions of the man who had died, not his actions. He might be Vergil Sparda now, but he had been through situations like these enough to know that he still had a chance of turning things around for the people around Vergil. For all those who might have held even the slightest bit of affection, love, or care for the dead man Vergil Sparda, the current Vergil was determined to make things better for them.

And so, he strove to start with the unconscious brother who had stayed with Vergil all the way until his last moments. Checking the pulse of the man sprawled on the floor, he was hardly surprised to find Dante in a bad situation. Dante might be a half-demon, but it quickly became clear to him that Dante was close to following after the footsteps of his twin brother.

Not on his watch; not while he was still in the body of Vergil Sparda.

Tapping on the memories of his previous lives –glad that he had retained the memories of being a doctor in both the historic age when the concept of bacteria had still been foreign, as well as in the futuristic age where he had been able to do remote surgery via by linking into a surgery table many miles away via a closed network –he administered as much first aid as he could to the unconscious Dante Sparda. In one of his previous life, he had been an avid researcher of demonology, and had learnt deep details of the species of creatures that had eventually been debunked as a legend in the later years of human history. That knowledge helped him now as he finally shrugged his coat off his shoulders, wrapping as much of the material as he could around the bloodied and broken man on the floor.

That was the most that he could do before he did his best to handle Dante in his arms.

"Time to go home, brother." He said to the unconscious man who was now deep in coma. Using the memories that he had surfaced from Vergil's memories, he channeled his power through the sword that Vergil had chosen for a weapon, sliced a cut through dimension, and stepped through.

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The man had lived 76 lives before this one, but he only remembered 75 of them. He could remember his second life very clearly –he had woken up completely confused in the body of an 18-year-old young man who had perished in a car crash. He had lived out that life in accordance to the memories of the young man's educational choice, going down the path of a lawyer and died at the age of 78. From his third life onwards, his memories had more or less compressed and jumbled up with each other.

All he knew was that each time, he woke up in the body of someone else after having retained both the memories of his past life, as well as the memories of the person who had once inhabited the body. He only knew that he took over the bodies of these people who had died, and that the bodies he took over were usually young and had a long potential life for him to live out. Over time, he made it a habit to do his best to fulfil the wishes of the people who had passed after reading through their memories. Thanks to them, he had lived 76 fulfilling lives –learning everything he could. Because his 76 lives had been in all sorts of different eras and countries, he had slowly pieced together the history of human mankind around the world by filling the gaps with knowledge gained from reading history books, asking around and –whenever he woke up in a slightly more futuristic life –surfing the internet.

The man held 76 identities, and had fulfilled 75 wishes in life. He always took the wishes of the dead and did his best to achieve them as if it were some form of compensation for allowing him to live in their bodies. But the man's personal goal –the goal that he had for himself throughout every single life he lived –was to find out about his very first identity, his first life. For the life of him, he could not remember a single fact about his first life –how he had started to be stuck in this endless circle of reincarnation. He could only confirm the fact that he had been a man –none of his 76 lives had him having the experience of being a woman. He had a deep suspicion that he might have been a father in his first life because he always felt a strange sense of attraction towards having children in his following lives. But as far as clues went, that was all that he could pick out after 76 lives.

The 77th reincarnation was no different.

Vergil Sparda returned home after having settled all outstanding debts that the Sparda brothers had faced. The electricity and the water finally worked normally now that Vergil had paid for utilities. The refrigerator was finally full of food enough to support the life within the walls of Devil May Cry. The joint that had turned out to be bought under Dante Sparda's name had been converted from a demon-hunting joint into an office of sort for Vergil to focus on his more lucrative profession –professional freelance third-party hacking.

Because one of his previous lives had him becoming lauded as the world's best hacker in the futuristic era where cybersecurity had reached its peak, the Vergil Sparda now found the current era of technology advancement an extremely easy puzzle to crack. Hacking into servers, manipulating the data pool and shifting information from place to place was something he could now do in his sleep, and Vergil took every single opportunity he could to use this knowledge to earn quick money. He had been forced to this resort when he had returned to the Human World to find out that his twin brother had been living an extremely derelict lifestyle, and that nobody had expected either of the Sparda brothers to come back alive.

Money had been required for Vergil to put everything in place, and Vergil's past life had clearly not been bothered about the human side of things.

Still, it had been a full week, and finally there was some semblance of normalcy back in Vergil's new life.

Unfortunately, the doctor that Vergil had hired for Dante had confirmed Vergil's previous knowledge. His brother might not be physically harmed, but there was something psychological that was causing Dante to remain in deep coma. There was nothing anyone could do, except to wait for Dante to wake up.

That left Vergil in a strange situation. His 77th life didn't have a wish for the rest of his life. The old Vergil Sparda's wish had been to defeat Dante, but there was no way that the current Vergil could accomplish any of that while the man in topic was in deep coma. Besides, he wasn't exactly sure if defeating Dante had any more meaning since he did not exactly hold the same level of conflicted feeling as the old Vergil.

Knocks on the door took Vergil's attention. Leaving his computer setup on Dante's desk alone, he opened the door to find a distantly-familiar individual standing there, looking shocked to find a response at the door.

"You are..." Vergil hesitated, taking a quick moment to flip through his internal memory book. "You are Nero. My son."

"I came because Nico swore she saw the lights of the joint turned on. When did you come back? How did you come back? What are you back for?" Nero asked –clearly not the normal warm welcome home from a normal son to a normal father who had been gone for months, if not years.

Vergil understood the reason why Nero unconsciously slid his right arm slightly behind his back.

"I am not back to tear another arm off; in case you were wondering." Vergil answered evenly. "Things happened, and I have become a changed man. We came back last week, but Dante is still in a coma after what happened to us back down in the Demon World. I have no other plans, except to carry on with my life trying to atone for all that I did to everyone around me."

The honest words from the man who had once been arrogant, prideful and adamantly refusing to accept his defeat at the hands of his own son shocked Nero. Clearly, it was going to take more than words to convince anyone that Vergil had changed and was trying to atone for his mistakes made.

"Words are easier said than done." Nero said cautiously, still in disbelief.

"I know, but I hope you give me and yourself a chance. I have been a bad father, but I intend to repair our relationship as long as you allow me to." Vergil answered sincerely.

"I think you ruined that chance when you tore my arm off."

"I have made many mistakes previously, Nero. If you want me to take my entire remaining life to make it up to you somehow, then just say the words. I will do it." He begged, but it only seemed to put Nero on a higher level of caution at the almost-180-degree change in the man who he could barely begin to accept as his paternal figure.

"I don't know what you're asking for, but as long as you don't go around killing any more people or disturbing my life, then we're good." Nero answered cautiously. "Besides, I got an arm back and you got your sword. We are evens."

"But I abandoned you. You never got the chance to know your father as you grew up." Vergil pointed out, unafraid to point out and face his past mistake.

"Good thing I didn't. Given the things I heard from Lady and Trish after you and Dante were gone, I don't think you and I would have ended up well if you brought me up yourself. Besides, I would never have met Kyrie if I wasn't put in that orphanage, so I'd rather not look back on the past. Like I said, as long as you leave me and Kyrie alone and not go out summoning more demonic things, I will just treat you like another person."

"But not a father?" Vergil clarified with a slight frown. While he had lived a few of his previous lives being childless –a few of them even unmarried –he was still a person who had always taken enjoyment in being a father, raising his children up and watching them get on with their lives. It was safe to say that he had been a father many times before –he was experienced at dealing with many types of children throughout his many lives.

But of course, meeting his abandoned adult son and trying to make up for being an absent parent and tearing off an arm was something new that he had never experienced before.

"I don't need a father." Nero's answer was short and simple.

"You might not say the same sometime in the future." Vergil cautioned from his experience in the past 76 lives. But of course, there was no way a twenty-plus-year man could know about the future and thus it was understandable that Nero found his father's words hard to believe.

"I don't need you to try being a father to me. I can do well on my own." Nero stepped back away from the door with clear intention of not staying longer now that he had more or less ascertained that his father was back in the Human World, but not looking for any trouble. "I'll see you around. As long as you don't create a mess."

"I promise that I am not going to create a mess." Vergil promised, knowing that there was no way he was going to turn impressions around within a few sentences. The old Vergil Sparda had made too strong a bad impression on his son –it was going to take months and years of effort to show his son that he had truly changed into a new person.

Still, he had lived 76 lives to know that time was the strongest salve over any pains. Nero might still be guarded against him for now –and had good reasons for being so –but Vergil knew that one day the son he barely knew he had would come back around.

And when that ever happened, Vergil was ready.

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"In case you mistake, this is not personal." The way the lady emphasized the word 'not' made it seem the complete opposite, and the sly grin spread on her face did not help her case.

"No personal insults taken." Vergil answered calmly, keeping both hands up and palm faced outwards to show that he was completely unarmed and had no intentions to reach for any weapon. The cold barrel of a gun rested lightly on his forehead and though he now knew his half-blood body well enough that he would hardly die from a gunshot to the head, Vergil did not desire to receive the shot either. "Please, feel free to check on his situation. If either of you ladies have suggestions on what can be done to wake him up, I welcome your opinions."

There was a disbelieving scoff from the woman who still held the gun steadily against his head, keeping him standing at the door of the room while her companion stood by his brother's bed, leaning over to check the poor comatose patient.

Silence was marred occasionally by the mechanical beeps of the medical equipment that Dante had been hooked up to. The blonde woman did a visual check over the sleeping man. Vergil had become familiar with his original host's memories enough to know that the blonde's name was Trish, and that she was a full-blooded demon. Thus, he was hardly surprised when she activated her dormant demon-side in an attempt to sense out the demonic powers of the comatose man.

"He isn't lying." Trish announced as she finally straightened up, withdrawing her demon-side and turning back to cast a look to her companion. "Dante is really in a coma on his own."

"How is it possible?" The lady's smug expression at being able to keep Vergil captive at her gunpoint fell away to worried confusion. Vergil found her rather daring to let her gaze escape from him to turn around to seek visual confirmation, but he had no intention to retaliate against her pointing her gun at him either.

He had dug through the memories of his original host and though the lady holding the gun against his head had barely appeared in those memories, he could risk a guess that his brother was an important person in her life –considering the fact that she dared to threaten his life just to ascertain that he had not harmed Dante in any way.

"We were weakened by each other at the bottom of the Qlipoth, and the demons there took their chances with us. I barely made it out myself, and he hasn't been awake since then." He supplied helpfully, not moving a single inch with the hopes of convincing the women that he was not planning any counter-attack against them.

"And you say you have been the one taking care of him for the past 2 months?" Trish was the one to ask this time, crossing her arms underneath her generous bosom and pairing that move with an expression full of doubt.

"There is not much to take care of, if I am expected to be honest. He is a half-demon, so his body does well to keep him in perfect physical shape. All I do is change the feed hooked up to him, and well... clean his wastes. His physical condition has not deteriorated once since coming back, so the coma is just something mental." He explained sincerely, dimly understanding the look of extreme shock that appeared similarly on both ladies' faces.

He guessed that the shock was less about Dante's inability to clean his own waste, and more of the fact that he –an infamous half-demon who had been responsible for many tragedies involving demons spilling into the Human World –was the person cleaning his brother's waste.

"I know it is difficult to trust my words at the moment, but I am a changed man. Take all the time and all sorts of measures you want to test me; I am willing to go through anything as long as it proves that I no longer want anything to do with gaining more power or defeating Dante. I simply want to make up for everything wrong that I have done in my past, and to live out the rest of my life atoning to Dante." Vergil expressed sincerely.

"Ha!" The lady still holding the gun against his head gave a sarcastic laugh. "Do you think we're going to believe that you turned into an angel overnight? Keep dreaming, demon. You disappeared for 16 years and came back to cut off your son's arm and summon a demon tree in Redgrave. You think I'm going to take your words just because you said you disappeared for half a year this time, and came back an enlightened man?"

"I know it is hard to believe." He answered. His situation was certainly not in his favor: he could not use the excuse that being at death's door had made him re-assess his circumstances. Vergil had a history of dying once in the form of Nelo Angelo, and had come back 16 years later with his personality not even the slightest bit changed. No one would believe him based on words alone that he had really changed for the better this time.

"Damn right it is-" The lady's sarcastic and snide reply was interrupted by Trish, as the demoness joined by her companion's side, a hand gently placed on the lady's shoulder as if in gesture for her to lower her gun.

"I think he's right." Trish announced, fearlessly holding eye contact with him. "You can lower your gun, Lady. He will not be retaliating."

"What- you believe his words just like that? What's wrong with you?" The lady spluttered and staring at her friend as if she had grown horns –not that Vergil would be surprised if the demoness could actually grow horns.

"I know you find it hard to trust based on what you have seen and heard, but his demonic aura is different this time. I don't know how to describe it to a human like you, but demons can sense each other's aura to gauge their level of danger as well as their level of corruption. Vergil's aura was always dirty –like something had smudged over his aura. But today it is clean and pure. He really has changed." Trish explained absently, still looking for something by keeping her sharp eyes dead on him.

"Thank you for placing your trust in me." Vergil answered with the beginnings of a smile that froze when the demoness put her hand up to stop further words.

"I never said I trust you. I only said that you have changed, but I don't trust you yet. I don't know what you happened to you, or what you did to have an aura cleaned like that, but I have never seen a demon or half-demon who have managed to clean their aura in such a short time as you. How you did it is suspicious."

"I understand." He nodded to show his acceptance. "But perhaps the gun threat is no longer required? While I would gladly receive a few bullets if they can prove that I am no longer the same man I was, I would prefer a much less violent method."

"Lady, do we have any jobs coming up in the next few months?" Trish's question was so abrupt that even Vergil was taken by surprise as he blinked blankly.

"A few... but it's nothing I can't do alone." The answer was spoken more like a question instead, as the lady that Vergil was now beginning to be aware was named Lady finally let her gun drop back to her side, heterochromatic eyes tagging onto her companion in confusion. "What are you thinking of?"

"Good. I'm staying here for the next few months. If this guy here claims that he has changed and is playing the role of a dedicated brother now, then let his action prove his words." Trish answered, her arms still fastened in a cross underneath her bosom as sharp green eyes fixed itself on Vergil. The sunglasses that had been fixed on her head shone with light caught from the overhead light as she shifted her weight from one leg to another, the movement accentuating her femineity.

But there was nothing gentle in the femineity that she exuded as her gaze bore through Vergil, an unspoken challenge in her eyes as if daring him to try anything funny.

Try me, her eyes read with unspoken threat.

"By all means, go ahead." Vergil welcomed, glad that the demoness had decisively helped them arrive to a solution to their current situation that had started with the two ladies barging into Devil May Cry, demanding to see Dante and then pointing a gun at him when they found their target in deep coma. "Both of you are welcome to stay for however long as you wish; I have nothing to hide."

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"Rough day?" Trish looked up from her phone at the sight of her partner taking sluggish steps into the room, plopping down on the couch beside her with a heavy sigh.

"Wouldn't have been so rough if you were there." Lady answered honestly, leaning against the back of the couch heavily and covering her eyes with the back of her hand. "When are you coming back to work? Hasn't it been long enough? If Vergil was really trying something funny on Dante, he would have done something by now."

"You're right." Trish's answer was truthful, resting her phone on the couch by her side and picking up the free hand that Lady left between them. Gentle fingers began to press lightly onto a callused palm full of scars and evidence of a hard life. "I don't know what happened to them, but I am one day away from admitting that Vergil really intends to nurse Dante until he wakes up. What I cannot understand is how much Vergil has changed. He literally has become another man; I find no trace of the original Vergil Sparda no matter how hard I look."

"Is that really a bad thing? The original Vergil was no good man, and we are clear that this new Vergil means well for Dante. Why don't we just accept that him as Dante's brother?" Lady questioned, turning to watch as her partner knead softly into her palm.

"We are not from the Sparda family; we cannot speak for Dante. What if he wakes up one day and refuses to acknowledge the new Vergil as his brother? If I were the one in a coma now, and I wake up to find a stranger wearing your skin caring for me, I wouldn't be able to accept that person who looks like you. The memories we created are far too precious for someone to use your guise in front of me. I know that even though they didn't spend much time together, Dante cares for Vergil enough to want to refuse accepting the new Vergil." Trish explained.

"If he tells me directly that he will never accept me, then I will take my leave." The intruding voice came from the man of topic himself, stepping into the living room and resting a steaming cup on the low coffee table in front of Lady. "Drink the tea while it is still hot."

"I didn't know you were a tea person." The lady accepted the offered beverage with gratitude, smacking her lips in appreciation.

"I once studied on how to mix leaves to concoct different types of drinks." The man answered simply, his eyes travelling to land on Trish. "If you like, I can give you the leaves so that you can brew it for Lady often even when I'm not around."

"I'm not kicking you out of this place yet. Besides, I'm not the one in position of kicking you out. You're the one paying rent and utilities." She answered.

"You don't have to. You ladies are family to Dante; you get to stay here as long as you want without paying a single cent. Families don't fight over petty things like rent." Vergil's answer was so innocent that there was a long moment of awkward silence in which both ladies froze as they stared at the man as if he had grown horns.

"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?"

"Are you sure you are related to Dante in blood?" Lady was the one who demanded, a face full of disbelief.

"Yes, why?"

"That man literally kicked us out of this apartment because we were using his water and electricity even though we were the ones helping him pay his rent most months." Trish answered with a laugh. "If I didn't know better, you sounded like his father there for a moment –talking about families and paying rent and all that."

"A father, huh?" Vergil repeated with a look of introspection. "If only Nero would see that I am trying my best to be a good father."

"If you showed him that you had the capacity to be a good father back then, it might have been easier for him to forget that you practically abandoned him. Nobody knew you had any fatherly traits until now."

"Yes, it was my fault for never showing him that I was capable of being a proper father. It was a complete waste of my life never having spent the years watching him grow and caring for him. All his firsts that I will never be able to witness."

"I think Nero is past the age of wanting his father to watch his firsts. But if you're really set to make things right; all you have to do is to wait for a good time. He isn't like how you once were; he is emotion and rebellious. Eventually he's going to realize that you are sincere about the change and give you a chance." Trish answered knowingly –mostly because she had been beside Dante when they had first met the boy when he was young and rebellious.

The boy had initially refused to accept Dante as anything more than an 'old fart', but over time Nero had turned around to accept Dante as a senior, a role-model, an elder.

"I simply wish that it will not be all too late." Vergil's answered with a heavy sigh that seemed to hold the regret of years beyond his age. "If there is one thing, I have learnt from all my experiences... then it is the fact that at the end of everything, the only thing that cuts the sharpest will be memories of family."

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"Do keep watch over your son, sir. Kids their age tend to run off the moment they find anything interesting, and they become blind to everything around them." Vergil advised with a polite smile, transferring the toddler who had not yet learnt to speak back to his panicked father.

"Thank you so much, good sir. I... I don't know what I would have done if you didn't save him when you did." The father was quick to tuck his son into his embrace, jumping the crying boy up and down to calm him. The tightness at which the young father held his son made a faint smile draw itself on Vergil's face.

While he did not have the luxury of carrying his own son in his arms in this life, the picture drawn out in front of him reminded him of the many memories he had of his past lives. Through the eras, through the different cultures that he had experienced, a father's love was the same no matter when or where he lived. There was no first-time father who did not experience moments of panic like this.

"You will learn as time passes. Don't worry." Vergil felt the pure need to reassure, patting the young father on the shoulder, turning to meet the call of his name from a familiar voice.

"Nero, I apologize for running off like that. This man required some help." Vergil answered as his son caught up with them, exchanging polite greeting nods with the stranger.

"I know, I saw from afar. That kid would have been pancake if you didn't save him." Nero described crudely the incident that had inspired Vergil's interrupting in their previous conversation to save the toddler from an oncoming car in the middle of the street.

"I thank you again for saving my son. I won't forget your help. If there's anything I could do to repay your kindness and bravery..." The young father professed again, managing to calm down the toddler that would have 'become a pancake' without Vergil's intervention.

"You don't have to repay anything. Just make sure the young one gets to drink something warm and have a good sleep. He will forget this whole thing after a sleep." Vergil answered, nodding to signal that he was done with the conversation. "Nero, let us be on our way."

"Thank you, sir! You definitely make a good father!" The stranger shouted after them as Vergil found his pace beside his son, resuming their original direction.

"A good father, huh?" Nero repeated with a scoff. "If only he knew..."

"I know nothing I do now can make up for what happened between us all those years, but please at least let me try to begin doing what I can." Vergil begged softly as they walked.

Nero's pace was casual –his hands stuffed in his pockets in a show of boredom. His body language was one of ease, his eyes pinned on the road in front of him as if there was nothing worth his curious gaze to rest upon –as if he was not walking beside the man, he had once wished and prayed to appear before him when he was much younger. The streets brought back waves of nostalgia to Nero, and he had never once imagined that he would be walking back here with his father.

"I know you're trying to make up. That's why I'm here, isn't it? You convinced Trish and Lady that you can make a good father, and they went to talk to Kyrie who forced me to give you a chance. I'm here to talk and listen to you and be a good son or whatever."

"You don't have to be a good son." Vergil assured quickly. "I am in no position to expect anything from you. I'm happy as long as you give me the chance to learn more about you and what you had to go through growing up. I know that you are all grown up, and that I have no place to tell you what to do or what not to do. I just hope that... when you need some advice, knowledge or help of any sort, you can trust me to be there and make things possible for you. Anything you ask for, Nero, I will get it for you."

"Even say... more power?" The question was tentative as the younger man finally casted a sideward glance, curious at the reaction that his father would show.

"Power..." Vergil repeated. He had lived long enough in this body to know that the real Vergil had lived his entire life chasing after power. The memories of real Vergil had practically surrounded the word power, because the man had regretted never being able strong –powerful –enough to protect and hold his family together. "If you need power to protect your family, then you can trust me to be standing at the forefront of whatever is threatening you or your family's life. But if you need power to destroy other families, then you will find me standing at the forefront stopping you from obtaining that power."

"Relax." Nero rushed to say upon receipt of the serious answer that had been given to him. "I'm not going to go out looking for more power. I don't need power; I can protect myself and Kyrie. The rest of you are strong enough to protect yourselves; I don't think you guys need me. If anything, Dante is probably the only one who needs protection right now."

"Yes, that is good. I am glad that despite all that happened to you, you manage to grow up to be a strong, capable and reliable man. Kyrie is lucky to have you."

"I am lucky to have her." Nero answered automatically, a fond smile drawn upon his face. "Anyway, we're here. The orphanage where I grew up. This is also where I met Kyrie and Credo. The Matron of my time has passed away, but they still keep photos and records of the orphans who outgrew this place. They promised we could come back to take a look at our own photos and records whenever we wanted to."

"Thank you for giving me a chance to get a glimpse of your childhood, Nero."

"Nah, no biggie. It's just some pictures. Just don't nag at me for my school results or something. I wasn't a good student and I didn't like classes."

"And still you managed to grow upright and just." Vergil answered honestly, ready to forgive anything that his son must have done while he was not around. Besides, this was meant to be a session for Vergil to learnt more about his son; not to judge.

With a very faint blush that suggested that Vergil's praise had somehow made it past the young man's defenses, the father-son duo entered the orphanage side by side. Nero communicated the purpose of their visit to the orphanage to the front-desk administrative staff, who ducked quickly into the back room to verify Nero's identity, then returned with a thick file that turned out to consist of all of Nero's identifications, records and pictures throughout his years in the orphanage.

The two were escorted to a side room to peruse through the documentation, and Vergil found himself seated across his son with the file sitting on the table in front of him.

"Go on." Nero gestured to the file when Vergil made no move to open it. "I have nothing to hide."

The first page of file was a summary report of the young boy named Nero. The date that Nero entered the orphanage, his weight, height and age upon entrance... small details like that were all written down. Vergil learnt that his son was allergic to a common type of painkiller, and that Nero had been sent to the hospital on 3 different occasions throughout his entire stay in the orphanage –once due to a bout of fever that almost killed him when Nero had been eight, once due to an accident involving Nero falling from a ladder at thirteen years ago that ended up with a broken leg, and lastly, due to a fight that broke out between Nero and a fellow student resulting in a cut above his left eye that required stitches.

"You were prone to accidents..." Vergil read, looking up briefly at the guiltlessly grinning man.

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have become so hardened now. All the scars and injuries were training for me to become a demon hunter." Nero spoke proudly, and despite the naivety and simplicity of that declaration, Vergil could not resist a smile at the innocence. The man might have grown up and was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but he was still innocent in areas that Vergil had not expected.

"That's good to know." Vergil praised again, enjoying the sight of the small blush rising again on Nero's face. From their interactions, Vergil was beginning to learn that his son might have not received much praises in his life, considering how Nero did not seem to be able to take them in without a blush.

"Uhh... it's nothing much. I didn't get injured the most; there were other kids who visited the hospital so often that they knew the names of all the nurses there." Nero excused, scratching his head awkwardly as Vergil flipped the page.

This time, it was a school report card. Vergil focused his eyes on the year of the report card, doing a quick mental calculation to find that it showed Nero's results in his last year at the orphanage.

"You said you weren't a good student, so I was expecting failures for every subject." Vergil commented, looking up at his son in surprise who was looking a little uncomfortable now at the positive comments being showered upon him. "But you did rather well. You even scored As for your sciences and mathematics."

"Uhh they say guys are better at these technical subjects. My language was terrible and I barely passed my humanities subjects. I was a complete failure when it comes to music and arts." Nero explained.

"You say you were terrible, but you didn't fail. I think you might have been expecting a little too much out of yourself, Nero. You didn't have bad results. I have definitely seen worse." Vergil assured. There was no way Vergil could tell his son now that he, in his past life, once had a son who had constantly failed every single subject except for gym class.

"I guess I can't match up to you; Lady and Trish told me you studied everything by yourself. You taught yourself to read and speak ancient languages." Nero's blush was becoming more noticeable as the awkward scratching happened again, this time scratching the back of his neck.

Vergil flipped the page again, and this time was surprised to find a child's crude drawing. It was obviously drawn with a hand that was very unused with holding a writing instrument as lines were jagged and crooked. There was no clear shapes or pictures as the lines zig-zagged everywhere and it simply looked like a colorful mess or lines, distorted curves and dots.

"I don't even remember drawing that." Nero commented with surprise. "But that is apparently the first drawing I ever made. The orphanage helped us keep memorabilia like that to help us remember things that we couldn't."

"Artistic." Vergil gave a short chuckle. "This is much better than many other first drawings I have seen. There was one that-"

Sudden silence filled the room as Vergil's mode took a sudden swing when a shot of pain rang through his head. Scrunching his brows, Vergil focused on his thoughts, startled to find an unfamiliar mental picture of another crude drawing similar to this one. It was the same kind of child's drawing that had no special brilliance, no special significance. But for some reason, that mental picture fixed itself in his head and did not fade away.

"Um... Vergil?" Nero asked cautiously.

"I... uh... Sorry, I was distracted." Vergil found his realities, blinking as he flipped the page once more in the hopes of being able to focus on something else other than the mental picture. "This is a picture of you when you were young?"

"Oh yeah, this. One of my earliest friends at the orphanage was being adopted, so he begged his new parents to take a picture of us together. I think I was five in this picture."

Vergil traced his finger over the boy with white hair frowning back at the camera, clearly unhappy that strangers had come to take away his friend.

"Don't frown, you will turn your day upside down..." Vergil whispered, pressing a finger on the small face of the young boy in the picture, imagining that he was pressing the boy's forehead. "A sigh today steals your smile from tomorrow. A frown today steals your happiness from the day after."

"Um, what do you..." Nero's uncertain question came again.

"Ugh." The unconscious sound of pain escaped Vergil's lips as he pressed the heel of his palm against his temple as the pain assaulted him once more. This time, it felt as if a bullet had gone through, leaving waves of pain in its wake as they crashed one on top of another.

Don't frown, you will turn your day upside down, my son.

He heard a voice – a very familiar voice –echo in his head. With his eyes closed to deal with the pain, he instead could see another picture very vividly; his forefinger pressed on the forehead of a frowning young boy who was adamantly holding on to his deep frown.

No. He dropped my donut so I threw his into the bin. It's fair. I didn't do anything wrong.

The boy pouted with his arms crossed.

Both of you were in the wrong this time, but hasn't your mother already given the both of you more donuts? You've had your fill, so why are you still frowning?

I don't like being scolded.

There was an echoing laughter, and the finger that had been pressing on the forehead reached forward and brushed back white fringe with a palm, pushing the hair back and revealing the fresh face of the young boy.

I told you before, my little devil. A sigh today steals your smile from tomorrow. A frown today steals your happiness from the day after. Do you want your day after to be another sad day?

"Hey, hey. What's wrong?" A shake jolted him back into his reality, and his eyes shot open to see the young man standing beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He blinked a few times in an effort to comprehend his bearings.

"I'm sorry, but..." He answered as he reached up, taking Nero by surprise as he pushed his son's fringe back the same way he had done in his mental image.

"What the-" Nero stood frozen for a moment, watching his father's trembling irises stare back up at him.

"Vergil... You looked like Vergil..." The words that escaped the elder man's lips stunned Nero. The man was referring to himself in third person, staring at Nero as if he suddenly could not believe that Nero was his own son.

"I'm sorry, Nero." Vergil stood up so abruptly that the chair he had been sitting upon tilted and fell backwards with a loud clatter. "I need to check something urgently. I think... I think the person who died... might be my son."

With no other words said, he dashed out of the room with tears in his eyes.

________________________________________________________________________________

It all made sense.

It finally made sense; why he had always reincarnated as a man, why he was always fond of having children, and why he always felt nostalgic and particularly happy spending time with his children in his many reincarnations.

The man sat in the middle of the pile of mess in the room, the beeps of the medical equipment constantly breaking into the silence. Dante still slept peacefully on his bed, not having moved a single inch since the day he brought Dante back home. The man's heart was wretched and sour as he looked at the pictures that he had spread out on the floor around him, his eyes resting upon the bright smiles on the characters of most of the pictures.

The tears had not stopped falling ever since he had come to the conclusion and found more and more evidence to support his conclusion. The throbbing headache was no longer a significant pain; it could not compare to the pain in his heart that had struck upon his realization.

For the first time in his 76 lives before this, he had found the truth of his first life. While he still could not find the memories of how he had started this reincarnation cycle, he finally knew who he was in his first life.

"Vergil... Dante..." He picked up the picture of the family portrait on the floor right next to him, the tears running like streams as he pressed it against his chest. "I am so sorry... I can't believe..."

The sobs took him and he could not do anything except cry.

"Vergil... I... I couldn't save you and now, I'm..."

The night hung long, and eventually the tears and sobs slowed to a stop as he laid upon the pictures of his first life. Exhausted emotionally and mentally, he laid upon his side as he stared at the picture pinched between his fingers. He sat in a regal armchair, his wife in another beside him. Their hands covered each other in the space between the armchair, and on the ground in front of them sat their sons, wide innocent and happy smiles.

He flipped through the memories belonging to this body of Vergil's, and located those of himself -his first life. He flipped through the memories after he disappeared, finding the downward spiral of what had used to be a young boy with a brilliant future.

It was all because of him. It was because of him that his son had died, living his life in futile vain, living his life regretting his inability to save the family.

Beep Beep. Beep Beep. Beep Beep.

The steady sound of evened breathing transitioned into irregular breathing in and out, and despite the emotion exhaustion, the man pulled himself back upright, staring over at the bed and the medical equipment hooked to the individual lying there for the past year.

"Ugh..." The soft moan was the first foreign sound that he had heard in a long time, and his pure instincts forced his legs stumbling forward until he was kneeling at the bedside, grabbing the limp hand that had been rested upon the bed for the longest time.

"Dante!" He begged and prayed with his whole heart, and against all odds, the tears spilt forth again. "I lost Vergil; I can't lose you too. Please, come back to me!"

"Ugh... pipe... down..." The complaint was soft, hoarse and labored –a completely understandable phenomenon considering the half-demon had been unconscious for a full year.

"You must be alright, Dante. You must pull through no matter what. I've lost Vergil, but I have the chance to make things up to you. You must do it for me; you must not leave me again."

Finally, eyelids fluttered and very slowly cracked open. Every motion was slow as blue eyes took a long time focusing and un-focusing on the ceiling. Eyes blinked very slowly a few times, and finally swiveled to find him.

"Dante..."

"Dad?" Eyes were clearly having troubles getting used to receiving light as irises focused and unfocused repeatedly.

The man wiped his cheeks free of tears fiercely, ignoring the moisture on his hands as he gripped Dante's tightly in both of us.

"I swear to you, Dante, that I will be a good father. I was too late for Vergil, so all I can do now is to live the best life for his body. But to you, I can still make things up. And when I die this time, I will refuse to live any further reincarnated lives. I've lived so many lives just so that I can come back to you."

"What..." Lips that were dry from not having been lovingly moistened recently cracked open for labored speech. "Are you talking about? I thought I saved Verge?"

"Your brother... your brother died and by the sickest strike of coincidence I possessed his body, Dante. I am your father."

"This is a joke." Dante breathed in deep to sigh, then closed his eyes. "I'm going to go back to sleep until this nightmare ends. Don't wake me up."