Chapter Text
Part 1: V
June 15, 11:10 AM
The Sparda was fucking heavy.
“Hey, V, we need to get a move on,” Griffon said, fluttering around. “Unless you want Nero to get skewered to death-”
“I’m trying,” V hissed through clenched teeth, lugging the Sparda behind him. “It is...heavier than anticipated.”
“The weight of your old man’s disappointment, huh?”
V didn’t grace that with a response. Vergil had wielded the Force Edge before, briefly - the Sparda shouldn’t be that different. It should feel welcoming, a source of strength. Instead it was rebelling against V as much as a devil sword can with every step.
If Griffon could carry it, he would have the sword delivered straight to Nero’s lap. As it was, he was stuck walking.
Shadow leapt into being right in front of V’s legs, forcing them to a stop. She only glanced at V for a second before she turned her head and stared at-
“Of course,” V breathed, staring at the rugged remains of a phone both. “My thanks, Shadow.” He hobbled over, lugging the Sparda behind him, and dialed a number with arms trembling from exhaustion.
“Hello?”
“Nico,” V breathed. “I’ve found it. I need you to come quickly.”
“Oh, hey V,” Nico answered. “Found what?”
“The devil sword Sparda,” V said. “So that Nero can defeat Urizen.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “What about Nero?”
“There’s no time for this,” V snapped. “Nero’s life is at stake. I need you to come here so I can get the sword-”
“V, I just saw Nero not twenty minutes ago,” Nico interrupted. “We’re at the top of the Qlipoth. And he’s long gone by now. He’s already fighting Urizen.”
V’s blood ran cold. There’s no way Nero should have been able to climb the Qlipoth that fast, he didn’t have the power - he had miscalculated. “Can you get him out?” he hissed.
“Hell, no!” Nico squawked. “I’m not going in there!”
V grit his teeth. “Then we’ll just have to hope young Nero holds out until we can deliver the sword to him. Come get me.”
“Fine,” Nico spat. “On my way.”
It took her an agonizingly long time to reach him. She cringed in his direction as he hauled himself and the Sparda into the passenger’s seat. “Drive,” he snapped.
“I’m going, I’m going,” Nico said, flooring the gas. The wheels screeched as the van peeled forward. She glanced left at him quickly. “That the sword?”
“The Devil Sword Sparda,” V affirmed, forcing himself to lean back into his seat. “What may very well mean the key to our success.”
“Fucking hell, V,” Nico swore, swerving her way around bunches of roots. “You couldn’t have cued us into this any sooner?”
“I didn’t...want to get your hopes up.”
“Screw that!” Nico shouted. “You could have given us a hint - told Nero to slow down -“
“He’s better than I expected,” V spit. “I didn’t think he could make it so far so fast-”
“Then clearly you’ve never seen Nero pissed off before-”
“Nero will be fine,” V hissed, knuckles whitening against the sword. “If he’s fast enough to make through the entire Qlipoth in less than an hour-”
“You better hope he’s fine or the world is doomed.”
“You think I don’t know that?!”
“Gee, I don’t know, V,” Nico said. “Keeping secrets, making demands, sticking to your whole mysterious shtick like you would burst into flames the second you told us the slightest thing-”
“Arguing isn’t going to help,” V interrupted. “Just drive.”
Nico stuck out her tongue at him and floored it.
“Okay,” Nico said. “The rest of the path is a bunch of ledges, so this is the closest I can go. Nero went up thataway about an hour ago.”
V was already hoping out of the van, the Sparda clunking its way down the van’s flooring behind him. With one final tug he dropped it to the ground. “See you soon,” V croaked, setting off in the direction she’d indicated.
He’d made it all of six steps up the incline when she called after him, “Uh, you sure you’ve got that?”
He whipped around, hair flying in his face. God, this is why Vergil always gelled it back. “You have any better ideas, Nicoletta? A flying sword carrier? A teleportation device, perhaps-”
“Oh my god, chill,” Nico said, hopping over with something bright red in her hands. He identified it a second later as one of Nero’s mechanical hands. “As a matter of fact, I do have some spare rocket-powered hands, so why don’t you shut the hell up.”
V deflated as Nico kneeled down next to the tip of the Sparda and painstakingly clicked the fingers of the hand into place around the spine. She made one last adjustment before tapping the base of the wrist and leaping back as the rocket came to life.
Amazingly, it supported the weight of the sword.
V frowned as he gingerly swung the hilt of the sword. Now that the other end was also supported, it was easy enough to maneuver. “You have some of Nero’s demonic energy wrapped up in that contraption.”
“This is one of the ones he dropped off for repairs,” Nico said. “But they all do that, generally. The wonders of demon magic. You best be off now. Tell Nero my present’s just as good as yours.”
“Indeed,” V said. “My thanks, Nico. See you soon.”
Even with the new support, getting the Sparda through the final channels of the Qlipoth was no easy task. The demons mindlessly chased after power, any power, and it took all of Griffon’s and Shadow’s and Nightmare’s tricks to get him through. He paused for only a second on the outside of the door - this close, his sense of Urizen was almost overwhelming - before bursting through.
For the first time, he made eye contact with his other half.
Urizen paused, hand outstretched, and cocked his head to look at V.
Nero took advantage and rushed him, landing a solid blow to Urizen’s outstretched arm that made Urizen recoil and swat Nero out of the air with his other hand. Nero landed on his feet but doubled over, taking a moment to catch his breath.
Nero was never normally out of breath.
Urizen shook the blood off his arm and raised himself slowly out of his chair, founts of blood erupting at his feet where the droplets landed. “Humanity,” Urizen stated, with a voice that shook V down to his soul, “is a plague upon this world.”
Nero whipped his head up, instantly poised for a comeback. “Nero!” V shouted instead, running over and pushing the devil sword Sparda into his hand.
“V!” he shouted back, glancing at the Sparda in confusion. “This is Trish’s sword!”
“Use it,” V ordered.
“But-”
“I can hold onto yours if you prefer,” V said, grabbing at the - what was it, blue queen?
Urizen roared and Qluipoth roots burst from the ground, separating them. Nero dropped his mechanical sword and switched the Sparda to his living hand, plucking the red mechanical hand off with the other. “Hey, ugly, guess who just got new toys!”
“The Sparda is inconsequential,” Urizen said, and then he shoot a fireball at Nero.
V did his best to clear the obstacles in Nero’s path, but he could do little more than grant Griffon and Shadow a few hits before his limbs started shaking to the point of being uncontrollable and he needed his companions more to dodge than for anything useful. His own demonic power paled in comparison to Urizen, anyway.
In stark contrast, the Sparda was clearly agreeing with Nero. His swipes were as deadly as they were accurate, keeping Urizen on the back foot often. Nero must be of their blood, V mused to himself, he had to be, to use the Sparda so easily. Dante’s son, in all likeliness. His own father couldn’t have had any more children-
Urizen sent the Yamato to block Nero and sent a bubble of time-magic in V’s direction. V was too slow to dodge it, and then he was caught in the bubble and too slow to do anything but watch in horror as a fireball flew his way.
“V!”
There was an explosion and V was thrown backwards, hitting the back wall of Urizen’s royal chamber hard. He wheezed and rose up on shaking limbs, staring blankly at his limbs.
Long cracks, running up and down each arm. As he watched, pieces of skin up and crumbled away.
At least he wasn’t burned.
“V, get out of here!” Nero screamed. He was missing any sort of mechanical hand at all, his left arm back to a stump.
“V,” Urizen echoed. “Appropriate.”
“Shut up!” Nero shouted, hitting the Yamato over and over. And Over. “Look at me, you piece of shit!”
“Less than half of what we were,” Urizen continued, focusing only on V like Nero didn’t exist. “It was foolish of you to come here.”
The Yamato’s crimson shield shattered under the force of Nero’s anger. “Hey, ugly! I was in line first!”
“It would have been better if you never existed. Die.”
“V!”
V flinched and braced himself for the end. Instead of a ferocious impact, there was just a loud squelching sound. He opened his eyes to see Nero in front of him, impaled on a vine. “No,” he gasped.
Nero heaved up blood onto the plant almost cleaving him in two, and swung with the Sparda to sever the vine from the rest of the Qlipoth. “Run,” Nero ordered, his voice hoarse. His skin was glowing faintly blue.
“But-” V didn’t have time to finish before he was jerked into the air by familiar talons on the nape of his coat. “Griffon! Put me down!”
“Kill yourself later!” Griffon said. “Shadow’s not just in stasis, she’s almost discorporated! If we don’t get out now, we’re all toast!”
“I can still-”
“Nero’s either going to pull off a miracle, or he didn’t inherit as much from Dante as we hoped,” Griffon said. “You are just making things worse.” He dropped V roughly next to the Devil May Cry van. More cracks appeared in V’s skin on landing, like spiderweb cracks on a shattering mirror.
“V!” Nico said, hopping out the driver’s side door. “What happened?”
“We gotta go,” Griffon said, nudging V by the back into the van. “Get back in!”
V heaved himself into the passenger’s seat of the van. Each and every muscle in his body was trembling.
“Where’s Nero?”
“Still fighting,” V gasped. “He might - he might -”
“Holy shit,” Griffon swore, materializing in the space between the two seats.
V recognized the phantom of demonic power raising goosebumps on the back of his neck. “Nero did something,” he said stupidly.
“The place is gonna blow,” Griffon said. “Drive, girl!”
Nico scowled, buckling her seatbelt. “I don’t take orders from a chicken.”
“Nico, please,” V begged, staring up above at the lightshow vaguely visible from Urizen’s throne room. “We have to go now.”
“I do not like this,” Nico muttered, but she started driving away anyways. She had just turned the van towards the when there was a ear-splitting crack from the throne room, and Qlipoth started rumbling like an earthquake. “Shit!”
“We’re not gonna make it!” Griffon screamed, hopping onto V’s lap. “New plan, V, ditch the van, I can get us down-”
“Are you crazy?” Nico shrieked, flooring the gas suddenly. Griffon and V were thrown back into the seat as the van sped down a long bridge of Qlipoth. The color was slowly leeching out of the demonic plant, turning the sinister blue-black into a lifeless gray. “You guys’ll get crushed!”
“The Qlipoth is dying,” V said, looking around. He threw out the remains of his demonic senses; Urizen’s presence was still there, as strong as the day he was born. Nero’s, however-
The Qlipoth under them abruptly collapsed. Nico screamed as the van fell through the floor and was caught by nothing.
There was nothing but empty space below them. And below that, cliffs.
“V!” Griffon screamed. “Do something!”
V screwed his eyes shut and clenched his fists as the van landed nose-first. The airbags inflated, catching them relatively gently, as the van was lowered carefully back to all four tires.
Nico jerked upright, releasing the seatbelt and jumping out of the car. “Oh, god, V, tell me this demon is one of yours!”
V hopped out of the van on also shaking legs. Griffon had de-materialized back into tattoo’s on V’s body - a good thing, too, or he’d have a beak lodged halfway to his stomach. “Thank you, Nightmare,” he drawled. “I know you must be tired. You can go back to resting now.”
“I can’t believe it,” Nico said, watching as Nightmare dematerialized as well. “We’re alive. I haven’t been that scared since my first gun backfired.”
V stared at the remains of the Qlipoth above them, swaying slightly in the other direction now with its lack of support. He was too far away to sense Nero or Urizen anymore. “Nero killed it,” he said numbly, watching gray branches crumble to dust (in a pattern similar to what his limbs appeared to be trying). “The main body, anyway. The true roots are still lodged deep in hell.”
“Man, I knew he could take down the bastard,” Nico said, planting her hands on her hips. “Now, if he could just bring my masterpieces down in one piece - ow!”
V looked over to where Nico was rubbing her head. She looked down at the white pistol that had clattered to the floor and frowned. “What’s that doing here?” Nico asked, and then they both looked up.
There lay Dante, cradled in the arms of a broken angel statue.
Even with their fairly rough manhandling of Dante into the back of the van, he still didn’t wake up. This didn’t snap Nico out of her cheerful mood.
“We’re alive, Dante’s still alive,” she commented. “Today’s gonna be a good day, V. Now all we need to do is hook up with Lady and Nero again and we’ll be set.”
V glanced up at the remains of the Qlipoth. There was still about half a stalk left, but it was crumbling steadily. ‘You forgot Trish,” he pointed out.
“Who?”
“Dante’s other business partner,” V explained. “She was captured along with Lady and...we thought, Dante, during the first attack.”
“Rate we’re going, I’m sure we’ll find her,” Nico dismissed. “Probably be home by dinnertime.”
“I hope you’re correct,” V said. He never really knew Trish, and he didn’t like dwelling on the portion of his life where he may have. “Although I’d rate waking up Dante and finding Nero as our top priorities, just in case.”
“Nero will call,” Nico said. “He always does. As for Dante…” she glanced back at him in the rear-view mirror. “Maybe Lady will know what to do with him?”
They found Lady again, fully dressed, where Nico had dropped her off at an army outpost on the edge of the city. “Really?” V asked, looking around. “Here? With these humans?”
“They have lots of guns,” Nico said. “Lady! Hey, Lady! We need your help."
Lady jogged out to them, dressed in a passable version of her usual outfit. True to form, V could stop the outlines of at least two pistols on her person. “Finally,” Lady said. “Looks like you guys had all the fun without me, didn’t...hey, where’s Nero?”
V stilled, but beside him Nico waved the question away. “We last saw him fighting Urizen,” Nico said, gesturing to where the Qlipoth used to be. “Clearly he’s getting his revenge like he always dreamed.”
Lady frowned, seemingly having some sort of debate with herself. “He’s probably fine,” she answered eventually. “I mean, Dante always came out okay.”
“Speak of the Devil,” Nico said.
Lady’s face lit up. “No. Really?”
“In the back of the van!” Nico exclaimed, leading the way. “He’s sleeping something real fierce. We were hoping you could help with that, actually.”
Lady hopped up into the van and smiled when she saw Dante. “Yeah, he’ll be okay,” Lady said, fingers running over his pulse-point. "He passes out sometimes, but I can wake him up."
"How?" V asked.
Lady pulled out a handgun from behind her back and pointed it directly at Dante's forehead. "Muscle memory," she said, flicking off the safety.
Part 2: Dante
June 15th, 1:11 PM
Dante flinched and rolled off the side of the - couch? Where was he? "I'm up, I'm up," he croaked, face down on the floor of wherever-he-was. "Geez, Lady."
"Told you guys," Lady said, matter-of-fact.
Dante groaned and heaved himself into a sitting position, blinking and squinting in the sunlight.
"Oh, man," a girl with a heavy southern accent drawled, hanging on Lady's arm. "I thought for sure you were going to kill him."
"I've tried," Lady said. "A little bullet in the head wouldn't stop Dante."
"Stop telling the kids all my secrets," Dante huffed, looking around at all of them. Lady was here, looking a little tired but not too worse for the wear. V was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed and looking beat up as hell. "Who are you, anyway?"
The girl looked at him with wide eyes. "N-Nicoletta Goldstein," she said. "Granddaughter of Nell Goldstein, the legendary gunsmith."
"I knew Nell," Dante said, reaching behind him to grab - oh crap. One was missing. He pulled out Ebony and gestured to her. "You happen to have the other one of these?"
To his surprise, she pulled out Ivory and tossed it right to him. "Fell out of your damn pocket while you were unconscious. Take care of those."
He smiled - she didn't much look like her, but she reminded him of Nell, all right. "Will do. Thanks, Nicoletta."
She snorted, relaxed a little. "Nico is fine."
Holstering Ebony and Ivory back in place, Dante pushed himself to his feet and looked around. There wasn't much head space - they were in a van. "This is Nero's van," Dante said belatedly, finally placing it. "What are - how did we get here? Where's Nero?" he looked around again. "And where's Trish?"
Lady, Nico, and V all looked at each other. V spoke first. "How much do you remember, Dante?"
Dante sighed. "I remember Urizen's temper tantrum," he said, strolling past all of them to push open the van's back door and hop out. "And I remember a house plant that needs - what the hell happened to the Qlipoth?"
Nico popped out next to him. "Nero happened to it," she said. "Blew it up straight to hell, as far as we can tell."
Dante could feel his jaw clenching, and forced his voice to remain under control as he turned to V. "I told you to leave Nero out of it."
V was pale and eyeing the hop from the van to the ground like it might be too much for him. "You were missing. Presumed dead. Trust me, if I had any other option I wouldn't have dreamed of using that... child."
Dante tensed. "Where's Nero now?"
"We last saw him fighting Urizen," Nico said. "V brought him that sword, didn't ya?"
V had lowered himself to a sitting position on the edge of the van, and was still leaning heavily against his cane. "I brought to Nero the devil sword Sparda," he said. "Such that he may use its power to defeat the demon king."
Dante clenched his fists. "You had no right to give away my things, V. You should have waited-"
"It's been a month, Dante," V snapped. "Urizen defeated you, and Nero could use the sword. He was good with it."
He blinked. A month? He'd slept for a month? Nothing had ever even managed to knock him unconscious before, let alone...
"You okay there, Dante?" Lady asked. "You know, I'm kind of pissed at Urizen for keeping me down for a month, myself. I just got up this morning. I'm in a bit of a mood for seeing if there's any ass left to kick."
God, he loved Lady. "Well, if you're in the mood," Dante said, offering Lady his arm. "I shouldn't let a Lady go unescorted."
"I'd kick your ass if I weren't using you for your body," Lady threatened. "Give me a lift, dragonfly-boy."
"Excuse you," Dante said. "My demon form is very intimidating. It's shaped like fear."
"Maybe a mix between a dragonfly and a hummingbird."
"Uh," Nico said. "If you guys what a lift, I can-"
"That's okay, kids," Dante said. "Relax. Take a load off. The grown-ups are here now."
"Wait," V said suddenly. "There's something I have to-"
Dante triggered, grabbed Lady around the waist, and pushed off. He couldn't fly that far using Devil Trigger, or necessarily control his path real well, but boy could he pick up speed. They crashed at the base of the Qlipoth, kicking up loads of dust. Lady peeled herself off him and immediately started coughing.
"Sorry," Dante said, phasing out of Devil Trigger and brushing the dust off. "Man, sure looks different here than last time, doesn't it?"
Lady straightened up and looked around. "It's definitely a dead evil plant this time, yeah. I remember having to leapfrog lots of sentient thorns our last trip."
Dante pulled out Ivory and shot a quick round of bullets into all the walls around them. "Hello! Anybody home?" His voice echoed in the empty chamber.
"Nero really did a number on it, I guess."
Dante hummed in agreement and started marching forward. His back felt naked without the Rebellion - he had the fragmented hilt still caught in his belt, but it wasn't the same. "So what happened to you and Trish after you-know-who bitch slapped me into June?"
Lady kept one gun in her hand but otherwise walked normally beside him. "Uh, this is going to be awkward. Don't get mad when I tell you, ok? We didn't mean to team up with him."
"What?"
"Urizen made servants out of us," Lady said, not looking at Dante. "Gave us outer demon armor and used our souls as batteries."
He stopped at stared at her. "You're kidding. Vergil wouldn't-"
"I'm not," Lady said. "Urizen sent me to stop Nero this morning. Nero won, and here I am." She finally looked up at Dante. "Are you sure Urizen is Vergil? Just because V said - who we still know nothing about, by the way-"
"He's Vergil," Dante said. "He knew me. I'd...that's Vergil. I don't know V's deal either, but Vergil's taken advantage of innocent humans in the past."
Lady snorted. "Innocent. He's got three giant demon familiars, Dante."
"He's Nero's age," Dante said. "Speaking of. If you were a giant throne room falling from space, where would you land?"
Lady shrugged. "Gotta be close, right?" She paused, and then asked, "So if Nero was using the Sparda, does that mean-"
"I'm gonna stop you there," he interrupted. "I haven't even told Nero yet."
Lady gave him an exasperated look. "Nero's not yours," she said. "I know you would have come clean by now if he was. He's not yours, and there's only one other person who-"
"Lady, stop," Dante said. "I can't. I'm sorry, I just - I can't."
"You always get the same look on your face when you're thinking about him," Lady said.
"You've known me too long," he shot back. "I used to be mysterious, damn it."
She snorted.
"What? I was!"
"Sure you were," Lady said. "The mystery of who could try and fail to cook an omelette every day for a week-"
"You were the one who signed me up for an egg delivery service!"
"You still owe me for that, by the way."
"Yeah, yeah," Dante groused. Lady smirked at him. "Are we searching or what?"
They didn't find hide nor hair of Urizen, or Trish. The closer they got to the center of the Qlipoth the lower the ground sloped.
Lady stopped at the edge of a cliff and stared down at the eternal drop below. "Oh, god," she said. "The stupid plant came straight from Hell. Look at this, Dante. There's still a giant hole in the ground."
Dante came up next to her and squinted at Hell. "Yep," he said. "That's a hole, all right."
"We've got to do something."
"It might close up naturally," Dante said, tilting his head as he considered. "If the Qlipoth is truly dead - and it seems to be - there won't be anything to hold it open anymore."
She snorted. "When's our luck ever been that good?"
"Well, then," Dante said. "The Yamato can close it."
Lady stared at the hole. "Think Nero managed to nab it back?"
Dante pressed his lips together. "We should have found him by now," he admitted softly.
"Think maybe he fell a little farther?"
Dante's expression fell impossibly even flatter. "There's no way he would have gone to Hell."
"Willingly," Lady said.
They were walking back into town when an army jeep pulled up next to them. "Hey, kid!" a soldier said, hopping out of the van. "I found something - oh. Sorry, citizen, I thought you were someone else. You should get out of here. I know it looks dead, but we haven't cleared the perimeter yet."
Dante narrowed his eyes at the soldier. "No offense taken, crew cut. Who are you looking for?"
The soldier stared at him.
"Let me guess," Dante said. "White hair, dark coat, about my build?"
"One arm, issues with authority?" Lady added.
The soldier looked back and forth between them. "Yeah, that's the guy."
"Employee of mine," Dante said. "What's up?"
The soldier reached into the jeep and pulled out something that made Dante's heart sink like a stone. "I'm pretty sure this is his," the soldier said. "Think you could pass it onto him for me?"
Oh
please not that, anything but that
no no no no no n o
Dante grabbed the handle of the Red Queen numbly and rasped, "yeah. Will do."
Part 3: Kyrie
June 16th 8:44 PM
The fall of the demon tree was all over the news. She tried calling immediately, but signals to Red Grave still weren't going through. She invoked some favors to have some other families look after the orphans, and stayed up all night worrying over the phone.
A call never came, and then she slept most of the day out of pure exhaustion.
A knock on her front door woke her up. She jolted upright from her doze off the couch, staring at the front door, and felt a spark of recognition at the very top of the Red Queen's handle she could see through the window. "Nero," she breathed, jumping to her feet and wrenching the door open. "Nero, you're ba - oh. Dante?"
The corner of Dante's mouth twitched. "Hi, Kyrie," he said. "Can I come in?"
She nodded and stepped aside to let him through. "I'm...glad to see you're alright," she said, her eyes glued to his back. "We were worried about you." He was definitely wearing Nero's sword.
Dante turned around, hands shoved in his pockets and mouth set in a firm line. "Kyrie, after-"
"Would you like something to drink?" she heard herself say.
Dante let out a breath. "Maybe later. I-"
"Or eat," she continued.
"Kyrie-"
"Let me at least take your coat."
"We didn't find a body," Dante blurted out.
Kyrie's hands clenched into fists at her sides, and she sat down heavily on the couch. Dante was still wearing Nero's sword. She stared at the floor, blinking furiously, and thought about when Nero had kissed her goodbye.
"I'm sorry, Kyrie," Dante said, and then turned towards the door.
"Wait," she called out, jumping to her feet. "Tell me what happened. You owe me that."
Dante sighed but turned back towards her. "What do you want to know?" he said.
"Everything," she answered.
"Here are the facts," Dante said. His voice was steady. "Nero fought a monster to save my friend Lady. He fought his way to the top of the Qlipoth - the demon tree. He then fought the demon king. The demon tree fell, and the demon king is gone."
Kyrie blinked once more and felt tears slide down her cheeks. "And so is Nero."
"He might not be dead," Dante said. "But Kyrie...even if he isn't, I can't say for sure what happened to him, and if or when he'd be able to return."
"I understand," she whispered, voice too wobbly to speak any higher. "Thank you for..." her voice died. "Thank-"
Dante's hand rose feebly, like he wanted to touch her but wasn't sure if he should, and Kyrie rushed him, throwing her arms around Dante and sobbing into his jacket. "I'm sorry," she mouthed, not sure if he could hear her, not sure if she wanted him to, not sure what she was apologizing for. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Dante wrapped his arms around her and placed his chin on her head. "I'm so sorry," he said. "It should have been me."
Kyrie took a few deep rasping breaths. "Nero was really proud to be a part of Devil May Cry, you know," she said.
She felt something wet drop onto the top of her head, and Dante squeezed her just a little bit tighter. “Would you like to keep the Red Queen?” he asked. His voice was so even, you would have never known he was crying.
“No,” Kyrie said. “Thank you, but I think you’ll get more use out of it.”
Life went on. It had gone on when her parents died, and it had gone on when Credo died, and it stubbornly went on now.
Dante took the Red Queen and vanished back to Devil May Cry. She assumed. She’d never actually kept close track of Nero’s business partners, and Dante didn’t reach out to her again.
Nico tried to offer her the van. She refused. Nico hung around for a few weeks, but there wasn’t much work for such a uniquely qualified engineer on Fortuna, so she left too.
Kyrie reluctantly helped place the orphans in other homes. Nero had provided her main source of income, and she didn’t have the money to feed three growing boys on her own anymore.
(Or the willpower.)
(She had been so stupid, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she been taught this lesson enough? Love had made Nero immortal in her eyes. He promised her forever, and she had believed him, promised him the same. She didn’t know what she was going to do without him. All of her plans for the future had implicitly included Nero at her side. Without him, what did she have?)
Kyrie sold her house and moved out of Fortuna. (She’d only ever lost people there.)
Nero had always liked the mainland.