the title sums it up pretty well.
Tho it’s not as deep of a post as you’d think. It’s Just rambling
I saw a post I don’t quite remember what it was possibly related to the amulets? I donno.
but it was something in the tags of a reblog or the tags of the post questioning-
how Mundus was able to actually Brake Vergil.
they had the idea that maybe Mundus had Vergils Amulet,
a treasured item that means So much to him given to him by his dead mother, an example of her love for him. A prized possession if you will.
something that means a Lot to him deep down.
essentially Mundus broke him down, tortured and abused him so bad he begged for it back.
Mundus broke him and took the amulet so he would beg for that little bit of love and comfort that it would bring him.
eventually leading to Mundus trading the Amulet for Vergils
Autonomy (is that the right word?)
Vergil would then go on to become Nero/Nelo Angelo.
Later losing the amulet when Dante’s ‘kills’/defeats him,
I feel like there’s a deep meaning you could apply here? But I’m too tired to think of it.
I think although unlikely a neat idea. I just wish I could find it~
I mean just think of poor Vergil laying on the ground Bleeding out body mangled and barely conscious using what little strength he has left clutching the amulet to his chest, glaring at Mundus through half lidded eyes, Knowing that he has no chance of getting out of this and reluctantly giving in.
Hm... Who did know that writing hurt-comfort can be so soothing? 😂 Certainly not me. But it is, and with this discovery, it probably will be appropriate to honor my favorite characters with a minute of silence. Because a lot of hardships are waiting for them in the future...
Ok, I'm joking. Almost.
This is technically an additional chapter for this almost-fic (I will probably polish and expand it a little before posting it on the Archive somewhere in theoretical future, so it would look like a normal fic). Just a little snapshot of certain character's POV. It's something I wanted to write for a while now, and, considering details the last chapter of "Visions of V" brought, it's finally the time!
Let's go! ...Or, at least, for a certain someone, crawl.
A dark, ragged figure stumbles through the streets of Fortuna.
Every step staggers. His body, covered with a dirty cloak, shakes with every pathetic movement.
He doesn’t remember much. His mind is overwhelmed by a whirlwind of fever, pain and distorted memories. He is hardly aware of his surroundings. The only thing he can clearly feel - the only call he can heed - is a beacon of bright blue aura somewhere on the edge of his consciousness.
Yamato.
He doesn't give much thought to why she is here or where is "here" is. It's irrelevant. He only knows that Yamato is nearby and that she belongs to him. She should return to him, and then-
A fit of cough interrupts his uneven train of thought and he halts on his path, waiting for the fit to pass. It doesn't. It wretches his body, and it seems like it's going to continue until there is no air anymore and no breath and no blood and everything of him crumbles into dirt.
But it isn't the time yet. With an unimaginable effort, almost ceasing to breathe entirely, he manages to stops the fit by sheer willpower alone, and, with the newly-acquired illusion of control over his shell of body, continues on his way.
He's dying. This knowledge was imprinted in his mind, cold and unshakable as the simplest of truths. The fragile, corrupted body that emerged from the darkness in which his soul was immersed will not last long. And ... he does not oppose it. Not really. For the infinite time, his world was made up of pain, darkness and nightmares; he doesn't object to leaving it all behind.
But.
Somewhere, in the deepest corner of his unraveled mind, an untainted piece remains. It's as blurry and fragmented as the rest of his memories, but instead of cold and dark, this corner is filled with sunlight and warmth. His father's laughter sounds like a thunder’s ramble there, and the touch of his mother's gentle hand is felt, gently removing the fallen strands from his forehead. The sun's rays falling on the veranda; the rustle of book pages fluttering in the wind; a melodic duet of piano and violin; an annoying, obnoxious loud voice that just can't let him read calmly - and constantly drags, drags, drags him to the another “Great adventure”, and the only way to push some thoughts into this stone head of his is to hammer them into it literally, and therefore they fight more often than they talk, and it becomes a new language for them, which gradually replaces the first one.
Everything else has long since disappeared into the darkness. But this last, stubborn piece remains. It changes over time - both of them change. Where there was a loose cotton T-shirt, there is now a heavy leather cloak of an abhorring scarlet color. A child's wooden sword is replaced by a heavy broadsword, and a pair of pistols, and a rocket launcher, and Heaven knows what kind of nonsense the idiot manages to use instead of a real weapon. The attacks they exchange lose their childlike innocence and become sharper, angrier, filled with murderous intent. A loud, obnoxious voice makes sarcastic jokes instead of an excited chatter. The idiotic joyful smile loses its sincerity, transforms into a mask, under the external carelessness of which years of suffering and pain are swirling.
But their language - the language of combat, the language of weapons - remains, and like a blue-red lightning sweeps through the darkness, linking the delusional fog of the present with the warm light of the past. This is the last pillar holding his world. A lifeline that keeps his decrepit body from falling apart. An instinct that engulfed his whole being, forcing him to take one staggering step after another.
He is not afraid of death. But he longs for one more time to plunge into this vortex of blows and parries, which feels like a coming home. He wants to taste the smug superiority of the victory and see the offended and stupid face of the idiot when he realizes that his older brother is still one step ahead of him. And he will say, as he has said many times before:
"I won, Dante."
-and then, perhaps, he will be able to feel the echo of that place filled with light and warmth.
Logically, he realizes that this is nonsense. Their fights have long crossed the line of a friendly skirmish. In their battle, when it takes place, there will be no place for brotherly bragging, and warmth, and a friendly handshake at the end; only death, cold and final. But the delirious consciousness does not care about clarity of real circumstances. His whole existence is reduced to a single impulse:
He... he wants to fight. He must fight.
But his body is barely able to take even a few steps at a time. He has to fight for every next breath, let alone the possibility of shedding someone else's blood.
Blood. There are two kinds of blood flowing in his veins: human and demonic. Father's blood and Mother's blood.
His Father's blood gave him power; it healed him from terrible wounds and allowed him to endure many months, years without food and water; even now supports his fragile body, not letting it fall apart.
Mother's blood, on the other hand... Was there a moment when it did him any good? No, from the very beginning, this blood has never helped him. Even now, it does not allow his body to regenerate, impeding the power of demonic blood with the weakness. It was unable to endure the darkness and allowed his mind to break, filled him with nightmares and doubts, weakened him, depriving him of the ability to think and perceive clearly.
This weak, useless, desecrating blood... He had to find a way to get rid of it. Cut it out of him, like a surgeon with a sharp scalpel excises a malignant tumor so that the whole body continues to live.
Cut off human from the demon. There is hardly a surgeon capable of performing such an operation. But fortunately, he knows a blade that is sharper than any scalpel.
He would get rid of his weak, useless part, and be able to regenerate and recover, and then he and Dante would fight one last time, and everything will become right-
The world around is bright to the point of pain in the eyes, to the point of blindness. But among this cruel brightness stands out an inviting, reassuringly cool blue aura.
Yamato.
She's very close now. He feels her near, hears her thin voice in the air. In front of him is a dark mass - building. The door - gate? - is open. He notices movement inside. A person. Alone. But their insignificant presence is immediately thrown aside, because she is here and she is the only thing that matters.
Yamato.
But something is wrong. She's here, but she is... not here? This thought makes him stop and his attention returns to the person inside.
Dark blue leather jacket. White hair. Blue eyes.
The man doesn't move. He looks at him and his face is distorted with shock and something else that he can't distinguish and doesn't care to.
"You're alive." - And his voice is overflowing with emotion, and almost breaks. But it doesn't matter, because the next second the man turns to him, and he sees the arm covered with blue scales and burning with a bright light, and at another time he would have stopped trying to figure out what kind of power it is, but now it doesn't matter, because he feels it, and rushes forward, grabs and pulls.
Yamato-
Except, he barely manages to touch the demonic arm when the man impossibly quickly wriggles out of his grip, and only a couple of broken scales remain in his fingers. And then, before he has time to reassess the situation and attack again, something crashes into him and throws him against the wall, scattering pieces of metal around. The blow deprives his frail body of breath completely; he loses awareness for a split second, and then he sees a mixture of white, and brown, and gold in front of him, and something sharp touches his neck, and he is too weak to resist. Then there is a shout, desperate and piercing his mind that struggles to stay on the surface.
"Stop!"
A man's voice, sharp and distinct, but clearly puzzled:
"Nero? This demon attacked you. We have to destroy it."
"He doesn’t... he’s not... Fuck, Credo! Just don't touch him!"
The blade at his neck hesitates but doesn’t not retract.
"Does it have something to do with...?"
"Yes! And now listen to me and step away from him!"
An appropriate warning, because he had already regained consciousness sufficiently and gathered enough strength to tear the blade’s owner apart. But before he can jump to his feet and attack, something inside his body cracks, and the air leaves his chest again, and another coughing fit twists him, and suddenly the ground is in front of his face, and his vision is covered with black dots, and he can't breathe-
And then someone turn him on his side. Something strokes his forehead, and this touch seems foreign and unreal and wrong, because it does not bring pain with it.
"Vergil? Hey, can you hear me?" A hand takes him by the shoulder and shakes him lightly. He looks up wearily and blinks, trying to clear his blurry vision.
White hair. Blue eyes. A young face incredibly reminiscent of his own, as it was preserved in his fragmentary memories.
Dante?..
No. Not Dante. The stranger who somehow knows his name, the one with blue coat and the demonic arm that continues to glow with a bright, inviting light.
"Yamato."
His own voice hurts his ears. It's cracked and dry and breaks, just like the rest of his body. And it's quiet, barely audible to himself.
But the odd stranger clearly hears him, because he looks at his arm and shakes his head with a sad laugh.
"Sorry, old man. Can't give her to you yet."
Yet. So he’s planning to return her later? But why, and why he has her? These questions make his head spin. They should not matter: all he needs is to reclaim what is his, and then finally get rid of his weakness. But his pathetic body doesn't even have the strength to get up. All he is capable of is lying on the ground, and looking at a strange (un)familiar stranger, and - hating and despising himself for the weakness - trying to make him understand.
"I need her."
Something shifts in the stranger's expression, and for a moment his face becomes open and almost helpless. But this moment goes away as quickly as it appears.
"Yeah, I know. And I will return her to you. Promise. Just... not now, ok? You know..." - a smirk slips into his voice - "It doesn't look like you'll even be able to lift her."
The tired mind freezes for a second from the insult, and somewhere in its corner the offended "insolent brat" echoes. Because who is this child to decide what he is capable of and what he is not? Even if he is right and the humiliation of this fact weigh down his body more than any corruption can.
"You know what? Why don't you put your feet up for a while? We will decide what to do when you're more lucid."
"Nero…"
"Shut up, Credo. I’ve already said that I’ll explain everything later."
Rest? Even the very thought of it sounds ridiculous. Just recently, he knew for sure that if he allowed himself to give in, he would never open his eyes again.
But... now, when he lies crushed by his own weakness on the garage floor, surrounded by the smells of engine oil and metal and paint, this feeling gradually fades away. Somehow he knows that he will wake up though he doesn’t know how to feel about it. He sees a patch of sunlight on the ground in front of him, and the cold that bound his chest slowly recedes, dissolving into warmth, and something again brushes his forehead in this strange, non-painful touch.
"Guess you’re really a piece of work, huh? This craquelure on your skin is worse than on your family portrait. Damn old man. Why is nothing ever easy with you?"
Yamato sings close to him, and her song is light and soothing, like a lullaby that Mother sang when she stroked his hair in the past, in that warm and cozy place. And he hears in her voice joy, and relief, and promise, and some secret that she can't wait to tell. But all this remains for later, because now he dissolves into her singing and lets its waves carry him away.
"Yeah, right. Yes to napping, no to killing and ripping arms off. Take a little time out, because I really need some time to strategize-"
For the first time in forever, Vergil falls asleep.
When Vergil lost his sight, he initially refused to accept it. Even in the dark, he tried to convince himself that he would heal.
That never happened, and without his sight, it was much harder for him to defend himself against demon attacks. So, Yamato had to become his eyes, strangely guiding him.
Losing his sight wasn't easy. Besides leaving him even more vulnerable, it took away his favorite pastime of reading and made him much more dependent on Arkham in DMC 3, as Arkham acted as his eyes for information.
Ugh, you make my heart ache.
But would he be blind only in his human form or it infect his devil form? Because he would be so devastated that he can't even see in his devil trigger, he even think it would rendering him to a lower tier demon.
