A/N: In the previous part, I mentioned that it would be a short while before any stories about post-DMC5 Vergil would be written. I take that back, because I realised that uploading this chapter while DMC5 is still relatively fresh in everybody's mind works better.

Dedicated to @rey_asha who was quick to ask for a reunion between the Sparda Trio (though not really fighting side by side yet).

Presenting: My take on an alternative ending

[Welcome Home]

Personality: Post-DMC5 Vergil

Pants went up heavy in the air as the last of the demons crumbled away into nothingness. On one side of the circular battlefield, Dante panted heavily from the workout, hunched with his hands propped on his knees. On the other side, his brother did not do any better at all. Vergil had one knee on the floor, propping his upper body up with his sword stabbed on the ground, catching his breath. Both half-demons looked over at each other, making sure that each other was not strong enough to launch into another attack.

As if some agreement was silently made in the accidentally-made eye contact, a short pause in their fight was unanimously declared as both men turned to fall on their butts on the floor, taking a very deserving break. They kept close eyes on each other, though. Neither man wanted to lose to each other in any way. If one brother managed to score one extra move against the other, then this score count had to be evened out one way or another. It was no longer just childish desire of winning each other; it was a soul-sung desire to at least remain equals, if not better than the other.

"Tired already?" Dante taunted despite the fact that he was visibly exhausted as well.

"I can still fight." Vergil answered despite the picture he was painting with Yamato impaled on the floor beside him, him panting heavily.

"Yeah, well, so can I."

Both men acted at the same time: Dante bringing Ivory around in a quick-draw and Vergil sending a summoning sword piercing through the air in the very same moment. Bullet and magic sword crossed each other in the middle of the battlefield, and hit both opposing men at the same time, pushing them down to the floor.

Neither Dante nor Vergil had bothered to dodge the other's projectile, and neither men tried to jump up from receiving the shots, simply taking the excuse of being shot to lie down on the floor to rest.

It was silent for a long time as they laid on their backs.

"Vergil?" Dante started, still staring up at the softly-glowing ceiling above them. The Underworld's ceiling enclosed the two of them, but all it took was just a slice from Yamato to open a tear and return back to where Dante had spent his years growing up.

"What?"

"How long have we been here?"

"I don't know. We have time until eternity; I wasn't keeping track."

"It feels like it's been a year. I'm getting tired of this. Isn't there another way we can solve this?"

"This is the best way to decide the winner once and for all." Vergil answered with conviction in his tone. Dante didn't doubt it as the truth, but if he was being completely honest with himself, he was quickly becoming uninterested and honestly losing the motivation he had about facing down against Vergil once and for all. When they had first come down to close the portal to the Human World, Dante had been completely fine staying here with his twin brother since somebody had to keep an eye on the man. That much he had promised Nero.

But it was probably almost a year since then, and Dante was getting seriously sick of the demons interrupting their duel ever so often. He now detested the sight of the glowing roots of the cut-down Qliphoth that had made his surroundings for the past almost-one-year. The leftover human blood in the Qliphoth roots might have helped keep him and Vergil alive and strong enough to keep going for each other's throat without food or rest, but Dante was real tired of his environment.

"How about we do it the way you tried to back at the top of the Qliphoth? Let's find Nero and have him decide who is stronger." Dante suggested, running a hand through his hair. It had grown over the long year, and he could feel his beard getting pretty scraggly and unruly at this point. Even his brother who had been clean-shaven when they first arrived was now sporting a healthy stubble –soon to become an unruly bush like his. Dante had no doubts that the both of them looked like two very well-dressed homeless men.

"That sounds like a fair suggestion." Vergil's reply was evened since the both of them had slowly recovered back to their prime from the short pause in their fight. "I was beginning to get tired of this view. And I will like to face him down once more. Our fight was never truly concluded."

"And I never paid him back for that bitch slap." Dante added, finally sitting up to find his brother doing exactly the same. Summoning his sword in his hand to help him regain his feet and balance, Dante walked with an easy gait back towards his brother as they met each other midway. Nothing in their posture gave away the sense that they had been fighting each other –and the frequent demons that were foolish enough to try challenging them –for the past almost-a-year.

"After you." Dante gestured to his brother.

Vergil's face wrote no expression as he raised Yamato once more, this time not in threat for Dante's life. A simple tear in the reality in front of them was cut quickly, and Vergil did not bother waiting for his brother as he stepped in, glad to be out of the stuffy battlefield that had been his reality for too long.

________________________________________________________________________________

"This place reminds me of Fortuna. It looked exactly like this when I left." Dante observed, spinning around to get a look at the destruction that was all around him. There was no doubt that they were back in the Human World –the sun hanging brightly over their heads was good enough an indicator. "Where exactly are we?"

"This is where the Qliphoth first made its appearance in the Human World. This place must have been wiped out when the tree fell." Vergil observed, turning to face a certain ruin that sat at the horizon of their view, pointing. "That was our home."

"We're still in Red Grave?" Dante sighed, forcing his sword to disappear from his hand while he tucked his guns safely away in their holsters. "Couldn't you have brought us back closer to the office?"

"What office?" Vergil asked.

"My demon-hunting office. You know this as V; don't pretend to be an idiot." Dante shot back, summoning one of his newer weapons quickly with a loud roar of engines.

"I did not retain my memories as V. I told you." Vergil said, watching as his brother jumped onto the demonic motorcycle that purred loudly in the deathly silence of the Ground Zero of a Qliphoth-induced destruction.

"Whatever. You getting on?"

"I refuse to owe you anything."

"Suit yourself." Dante shrugged, revving up the engine. "I'd better see you when I reach my office, Vergil. If you even think about summoning another demon tree in another city, I'm not even going to bother coming. You will be dealing with Nero alone, and you and I both know that it's going to be a pretty bad idea now that he has awakened his own Devil."

"The next Qliphoth fruit that grows will be in another few thousand years. At this point, you have proven that your power with your sword and the Sparda sword is strong enough against a full-demon who has ingested the Qliphoth fruit. Two demon kings have been ruined by you; I am not about to attempt getting a third." Vergil reasoned, and though Dante was secretly hoping that his brother would assure him along the lines some newly-created moral grounds due to finding out about his son, he didn't comment on his silent disappointment.

Finding out that Nero was his son was unfortunately not going to make Dante's brother less of a douche bag.

"See you, then." Dante bade.

________________________________________________________________________________

After having terrified many citizens who were still reeling from the horrors of a year ago with his demonic motorcycle racing through the streets, Dante guided his vehicle-weapon into the familiar alley, not surprised at all to see the neon sign completely black. It was in mid-day and there was absolutely no reason for anybody to be in the office, and that was what Dante was looking forward to. He only hoped that Morrison had not done anything to his office. When he had passed the lease to that man, Dante hadn't thought that he would be coming back. He had even considered the fact that he might not be able to come back. For almost a year, that had been rather true.

Making his bike disappear as he walked up the short steps to the office, Dante was quietly overcome by emotions. This place was familiar; this place was his home. Even without electric, water and sometimes food, this was where Dante had set his roots after his family had been destroyed back in Red Grave. That broken, torn building in Red Grave that hung his family portrait was his home no longer.

This office was where he had collected precious memories; where the tokens of his life had accumulated.

And Morrison had better not cleaned them away in the past one year.

Opening the swinging doors, Dante was surprised that it swung easily. It was not locked as usual, but the fact that the doors swung easily meant that it had been oiled recently. Somebody had been taking care of his office while he wasn't around –and he knew Morrison wouldn't have bothered.

"Oh hell no." His brief moment of relief was removed when he saw the evidence of livelihood made around. Worst still; he recognised these evidences.

The bullet casings on the floor, the gun alteration spare parts on the low table, the fashion magazines on his desk where his mother's photograph sat. Clothes and towels hung over sofas, and empty beer cans sat on the low table in front of the sofas. Makeup sets on the drawers, lipstick boxes on the floor.

There was a tablecloth on his desk. It had lace.

"That damned Patty." Dante muttered underneath his breath, disbelieving that his magazines tacked on the board of hot women were taken down. Trish and Lady had definitely made their home after his departure and made his haven into his hell. He had literally escaped one hell to return to another one.

Heaving a big sigh though there was no one around to hear it, Dante walked to the bathroom to check the water.

It was a pleasant surprise to find it working, and thus he treated himself to a warm shower after one year. He spent more water than he had ever been allowed to in the office since he knew that it was already paid off by at least one of the ladies making their residence here. It was the only good thing he could find about his office anymore, and Dante was decently clean, shaven and dressed into new clothes that thankfully had yet to be thrown out.

"How nice of you to turn up. Did you finally remember your days as V?" Dante asked as he walked out of the shower with a towel rubbing the water droplets from his hair. His brother, too, looked cleaner though Dante did not bother trying to ask where Vergil had found a place to clean up.

"I do not remember anything from V." Vergil enunciated clearly with irritation in his tone, but Dante had heard too much of that to even be affected. "I tracked your presence."

"Stalker." Dante dropped the wet towel with the many ones on the sofa, grabbing a cold can of beer from the refrigerator. So, it appeared that having water in the office wasn't the only good thing that came out of the ladies making this place their home.

"How do you want to find Nero?" The question was posed nonchalantly.

"Find him? Let him find us." Dante answered, walking over to the desk to meet his brother standing there. "Give him a call."

"I don't have his number." Vergil replied plainly staring at his brother.

"You do. You called for Nico's van a couple times while you were V. If you think hard enough, you're going to remember it." Dante popped the can open and took a long, refreshing gulp after almost a year of not having anything to eat or drink. "I never had the need to call the boy. I don't have his number either."

"This is ridiculous. I can sense his presence if I want to." Vergil shook his head.

"Just give your son a call. It will be the first call he will be receiving from his father in his life." Dante interrupted, annoyed now. "I never struck you for a coward, Vergil. Don't make me start thinking otherwise."

"Fine." The elder brother bit back with a warning glare. While the both of them had made it back safely back to the Human World, Vergil had way less ties and connection to this place in general. He had no problems about tearing down more buildings or ruining lives while fighting it out with Dante all over again. They would just simply have moved the fight from the Demon World back up to the surface anyway.

But Vergil did not summon his sword, and instead stared at the telephone sitting innocently on the table. It was not a complete lie that Vergil could not recall the memories of V. Because he had been revived by the combination of Urizen and V, his memories of all that had happened since separating himself with Yamato had been a mess. His mental timeline was all over the place, and certain memories that he had while being V and while being Urizen blurred each other out.

But if he spent enough time to clear up the mess, he could remember some things. Unfortunately, some things that he didn't want to remember revealing while as V had surfaced as well.

Picking the phone off its cradle, Vergil did not put it to his ear as he punched a sequence of numbers, and let the call ring.

"Devil May Cry." A familiar husky female voice greeted. "Who's it calling from Dante's office?"

Dante and Vergil looked at one another, each one daring the other to answer the weapon smith who happened to also double up as the driver of the demon-hunting van Devil May Cry, and as Nero's engineer.

"Ay, Nero. Someone's calling from Dante's place. You think it's a prank call?" Both half-demons heard as the woman raised her voice to gain attention.

"We're nearby. Just drop by the place." Another very familiar voice answered, and an affirmative was given shortly before the phone call disconnected.

Dante's grin was much more obvious now that it was no longer hidden behind a beard, but Vergil adamantly kept no expression on his face as both men turned and walked in unison towards the door of the office. Already, they could hear the roaring of engines of a van that was better off described as a tank. It was the sound of engines from a van that had driven its way fearlessly into the Qliphoth, had run over countless demons and survived battering from an honestly reckless driver.

"Try to smile. He's your son." Dante's advice sounded more like a tease as the brothers stood side by side on the sidewalk leading to Devil May Cry, waiting.

"I don't think that we will have any normal father-son relationship. It is curious how he has power that might even have surpassed us." Vergil said –the only time Dante had ever heard him concede that there seemed to be someone stronger than the both of them, and being fine with it.

"Not surprising." Dante shrugged, watching as a van skid into view from the end of the street. "We're old men. Besides, I'm pretty sure you and I have already surpassed Dad a long time ago."

"And the boy still overpowers us." Vergil concluded, turning to watch the mobile demon-hunting van run up a small ramp made by leftover debris on the road instead of swerving to avoid it. Neither men took a single step as they watched the van fly over their head, admiring its underbelly for the slightest moment before it bounced and screeched to an expert stop just a short distance away from them without toppling over.

Dante silently conceded that there was probably someone out there in this world who drove more recklessly than he did, and that someone sat behind the wheel of the mobile Devil May Cry.

A moment passed in silence as the individuals sitting behind the windshield stared at them with their eyes wide in disbelief. Then the door to the shotgun seat was kicked open, and a familiar man jumped out of his seat quickly, running to the front to get a closer look as if he could not believe his eyes.

"Dante. Vergil. You're back." Nero noted with surprise heavy in his tone.

"Didn't your arm regenerate by itself like a lizard the last time we met? What happened; someone cut it off again?" Dante's first question was addressed towards the mechanical arm still attached to the man. He had been keeping a very close eye on his twin brother the whole time they were in the Demon World, and he hadn't heard of anyone else gaining a new sword by cutting off Nero's arm again.

"My arm is still fine." Nero answered, removing the metal prosthetic to prove his point and tossing the weapon towards Nico who still hung out the window of the van. "Why... How are the two of you back?"

"Vergil has Yamato." Dante shrugged. "He can go anywhere he wants to, and I'm just keeping an eye on him while I can. Somebody has got to keep this douche-bag in line, or he might start running around summoning demon trees again."

"There is no need for me to summon any more trees now that you are sticking to me like a bug." Vergil announced. "It brought as much inconvenience as it was worth."

"You can repeat that again." Dante agreed, regaining his laid back grin at the sight of very two familiar women coming out from the van with mild surprise written across their faces. It was rather safe to say that both women clearly expected the man's return –just that they didn't know how long they had to wait. Still, Dante's appearance now probably proved some sort of bet since Lady scowled as she handed a small roll of cash to the gleeful Trish upon the sight of him standing healthily and well in front of them.

"Are you two here to stay?" Nero questioned carefully.

"I am back to settle our score." Vergil answered. "Dante and I agreed that if I beat you, then by default I beat him."

"I never really agreed, but whatever." Dante raised his hands in surrender, shrugging again. "I just want to take a break from this guy for a long time, so it's up to you to keep him entertained. I'll just stay out of your way."

"What were the two of you doing the past year?"

"Fighting. It was a long fight." Vergil answered his son evenly.

"For a whole year?"

"A whole damned year. I stopped counting after I pulled our point difference to 5." Dante yawned, stretching.

"I do not trust wherever you learnt to count. We were even the whole way." Vergil countered.

"The focus here is not the point, but the fact that you two have been fighting for a whole year? Without stopping?" Nero's tone was one of disbelief, alternating his gaze between the men he still found hard coming to know them as his uncle and father.

Nero might have had a whole period of shock and struggle to accept the fact that his father had almost destroyed the whole city of Red Grave by simply summoning a demon tree, but that family-identity crisis had faded away over the one year in which his father and uncle had been absent. Nero had almost given up on the hope of ever seeing them again despite what Lady and Trish always seemed to claim –that both sons of Sparda were more 'cockroach than cockroaches'. Nero had known that Dante was probably indestructible considering how the man seemed to be bouncing back to everything with his grin and his laid-back manner despite his age, but he had been rather convinced that Dante was staying by Vergil's side in the Underworld for a very long eternity.

"There were demons who kept bugging us." Dante said, then took note of the two women approaching where the men were now. "And apparently there are two more demons I forgot to bring with me and leave in the Underworld. Ladies, I'd like my office back."

"The lease belongs to Morrison, and that old man agreed to let us stay if we worked for rental." Lady answered easily, smiling at the sight of a man she had always known would come back eventually. "And now, you owe me a five hundred dollars for coming back early."

"Give me a break. I just came back from the Underworld."

"You could have just stayed for one more year. We are taking care of things on this side. Nero is covering up for you pretty well, and Nico is a hell of a driver." Lady answered, half-turning to give the eavesdropping woman a thumbs-up.

"It's good to have you back, Dante. Thank you for the five hundred." Trish waved the roll of cash from Lady she had yet to pocket. "I might even let you eat more at the dinner table tonight. Nero's girl is a pretty good cook."

"You're crashing us again?" Nero looked helplessly over to the demonness, an expression that said that it was probably a routine now. "The two of you are making things difficult for Kyrie!"

"She is the one who says we are welcome anytime, and you were the one who said Kyrie always cooks too much. Just call her: she is only going to get happier to be able to cook for her future father-in-law and uncle-in-law." Trish answered, turning to Dante. "You're in luck. She's cooking curry today."

"Nice." Dante's grin fell away quickly at a thought, turning back to Nero once again. "Wait. Why are the two of them suddenly so chummy with you and your gang? All they did while they were with me was to leech off me and butt in on my jobs whenever they liked!"

"They forced themselves on us. Kyrie likes them over, and Nico loves the things they bring in. I just tolerate them most times." Nero answered fearlessly despite the women flanking him left and right.

"You say it like that, but somebody has to watch over you while Dante was gone. We were keeping you in track just in case you end up like Vergil." Trish rested her knuckles on her hips, thrusting them to one side and accentuating her slender legs.

The said man remained silently standing at the side, watching the conversation bounce around. He could not understand why his brother and the women in his brother's life seemed to enjoy such pointless talk, but it appeared that it was probably him that was the only person who couldn't understand the meaning of such talks. Vergil had never had proper communication ever since his parents died. He had always been alone, and any sort of conversation he had had with anyone had only been to prove his worth, exert his dominance, or make his intention known.

Vergil thus stood silently, rifling through his memories once more in an effort to remember the things he might have talked about or conversed about with the people he now found semi-familiar after having met them as V. With his memories as Urizen blurring out some details, Vergil was not surprised to find that even when he had been a pure human, all he could talk about was stopping the demon king.

Vergil –in all forms: human, demon or half-demon –was incapable of having a casual conversation.

"Yo, whaddup, V!" A slap on his back jolted Vergil from his realisation and he spun around with shock to find the distantly-familiar female human standing beside him with a grin spread widely across her face. Her freckles dotted her nose very obviously as she stood under the sun,light but nothing in her face or eyes wrote the fear that he always saw whenever anybody looked towards him.

"I am no longer V. My name is Vergil." He expressed evenly, deciding not to raise a hand against the woman since... well, since she was the only person approaching him to talk.

Although, Nero might probably take him very seriously in a fight if he killed the woman right now...

"Yeah, I heard from Nero. Sucks about what happened to you. I might not like the stupid old book you were carrying around, and I might have thought about cooking that chicken you had with you a few times, but at least you were kinda okay. You didn't bitch about my driving as much as Nero did." Nico answered, now giving him a friendly bump on his arm as if to show some sort of solidarity or mutual understanding.

"My memories while I was V is unclear. I don't remember much of what I said or did while I was him." Vergil said.

"It don't matter, coz I remember all of 'em! You just need someone to remember the things you did, and it'll all be fine, Nero Daddy. I guess I'll just keep calling you V, coz yer name's a bit hard to pronounce." Nico breezed her reply, ending with a wink and a finger gun cocked to the man as if they had agreed on something.

"Hey, Nico." The intruding voice made the both of them turn to realise that Dante and his two ladies had brought their conversation walking back to the van, and Nero approaching them instead. "Can I have some time alone with him? You can start the van going again and call Kyrie to give her the heads-up."

"Sure thing, little bitch. Remember: your daddy doesn't like cry-babies." Nico teased, but Nero had been around the woman long enough to know that not rising to her bait would usually get her going on her way.

"Is she always like this?" Vergil asked as Nero stationed himself awkwardly beside his father, turning to watch Nico bound back to the van, then engage in another conversation with Dante and his ladies standing by the side door of the van.

"She runs her mouth, but Nico is great at what she does. Kyrie loves her too." Nero answered, secretly relieved that he was able to hold a slightly proper conversation with his father. They definitely had many things to settle in between them.

"You have all been alluding to this 'Kyrie' individual. Who is she?"

"My girlfriend."

"Ahh, the woman that was used to bait you back in Fortuna. Dante told me about her."

"Don't tell me what he thinks about her; I don't want to know." Nero answered quickly, knowing Dante's character enough to recognise that there was no good in knowing what Dante thought about his girlfriend. "Um... are you really going to be staying here for good?"

"Like I said, I still have a score to settle with you. If we manage to conclude our fight easily, then I cannot guarantee that I will stay." Vergil replied evenly. "Do not expect me to play a father figure, Nero. My father died when I was young, and I don't know how to be a father."

"Good. I feel weird having a father too. I have always dreamt of having parents when I was a child, but now that I find out that I actually have you for a father and Dante for an uncle... I don't know... it's just a little too unreal for me."

"I cannot say likewise. If anything, I view you more like a young version of Dante. Brash, rude, reckless and foolish. Still, it is interesting for me to face down one such as you with powers that rivals the blood of Sparda. I truly wonder what you are capable of at the height of your power."

"Oy! Princesses! Get your asses back here!" Nico shouted from the van, and the conversing men turned again to realise that everyone had disappeared into the van.

"We'd better get back, or Nico will run us over." Nero sighed. "We have a lot to talk about, but if you are not going back to the Underworld, you're welcome to come with us back to my place."

"I will go where Dante goes. I fear he may be too coward and go running off once I leave him be. My score with him hasn't been settled." Vergil began to follow after his son, but stopped in surprise when his son did too, pausing in his journey back to the van at the risk of being yelled at by a feisty driver.

"You once told me as V that all you wished was to be loved and protected. But you were alone the whole time, and you were forced to protect yourself. Is that why you are the way you are now?"

"I don't remember." Vergil lied. "My memories of V are blurry."

"Regardless whether you remember or not, I never replied him properly. It is okay to want to protect yourself and become powerful when you are alone. But when people start to walk beside you, you have to become stronger not to beat them, but to protect them. I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't met Kyrie and Credo. And, by a long shot, Dante too." Nero admitted, refusing to turn around.

Vergil noted, though, that the man's ears were red, and his hands were fisted tight.

"If the two of you don't want dinner, just say so. I'm starving, so let's get on with it!" Dante broke the atmosphere by shouting the magic words that got Nero shuffling his feet quickly back towards the van and Vergil picking up pace again, turning over his son's words in his mind.

Vergil opened the side door to help himself into the van that was bringing him distant nostalgia back from his days as V. He had sat in the same van a year ago, riding along with his son and reading his book, wishing that he could rewind time and take back everything he had done. V had been filled with pain and guilt, and only the undercurrent of desire to defeat his twin brother had kept him sane. Distracting himself with his favourite book had been the only way keeping himself from dark thoughts while in the grim, end-of-the-world atmosphere of the van back then.

"We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them." William Blake's quote came unfiltered through Vergil's lips at the appropriateness of his situation.

"Get your ass in here and the van moving. You can read your nerdy book on the way." Dante pulled him in, slamming the door close behind him. Vergil was surprised to find a book pressed against his chest, doubly surprised to find it the very one that he had left behind in bequest to his son.

"Strap yourselves down; we're going home!" Nico announced loudly, and slammed the accelerator, speeding the way home for the two half-demons who had finally come back to a place that Vergil was beginning to learn was not as  terrifying as he had thought when he was a child.

Most importantly, he was not alone anymore.

A/N: How was my take at an alternative/extended ending of DMC5? Tell me what you think!