Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Dante thinks she’s used to it. 

The weight of the firearms is familiar, and the kickback feels almost non-existent. There is a high-pitched sound in her ears that grows louder with every round fired. It drowns out the way bullets tear through flesh and bone alike; the sound of boiling hot blood splattering onto the cold asphalt under yet another slaughtered monstrosity. 

Four down, three to go.

Release, drop, reload. Repeat. She’s running out of bullets fast. Her aim is impeccable, but her enemies are tough, and some take more than a whole magazine before they go down. At least the bodies don't linger around long – they are there one moment, then gone the next, and leave behind nothing but the heavy, invasive smell of brimstone, and puddles of a quickly crystallizing, familiar shade of crimson. They crunch under Dante’s boots as she moves to dodge a swipe aimed at her midriff – all in all, a much preferable alternative to being forced to step-dance around blown-off body pieces. 

(Concentrate.) 

Black, razor-sharp claws seeking to spill life come down in rapid succession whilst veiny and bulging eyes search for the faintest sign of fatigue or hesitance in her nimble steps through the darkness of the unlit alleyway. When they inevitably find none, an enraged, inhuman voice growls out a single word, forced out between stained and jagged teeth:

“Spardaaa…” 

Fuck you too, Dante thinks. “Boring,” she says. “Have you got anything better?” 

There is no further answer, as per usual.  She jumps over the gangly bastard’s next swipe with ease, plants her boot on the back of its ugly skull and propels herself over the beast. It stumbles forward like a drunk toddler while she flips herself around in the air, guns locked on target.

Bang! Bang!

The ringing grows nearly unbearable and the guns in her hands start to feel too warm for comfort. Dante opts to ignore both of these facts in favour of keeping a head count. 

Five down, two to go… Doing great so far.  

(Could be doing better.)

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

Release, drop, reload. Dante lands in a crouch, and doesn’t waste the time to glance over her shoulder and take a look at the smouldering remains of her latest kill. “Guess that’s a no,” she hums, icy blue eyes running over the leftover of the latest demonic crew who stupidly believed they could just roll up and ‘put her in her place’ without breaking a sweat. 

Seems to be a lot of those types running around these days. 

“How about you guys? Wanna call it a night?” the air of nonchalance in her voice is downright Oscar-worthy. She is down to her last bullets. Unfortunate, but not unexpected - it was only a matter of time, considering how this is the third night in a row that Dante had to paint a couple of secluded and abandoned alleyways red due to her unwelcome rise in popularity among the various bottom feeders of Hell. Whether the ammunition she still has on her would be enough for these two is debatable, but it is what Dante has to work with. Though the knife secured in her boot would be more than enough to settle the score this late in the game, Dante would rather not run the risk of her clothes getting bloodied and torn this close to dawn. The last thing she wants is to be late because she had to change to not warrant too much unneeded attention from the local police force by running around looking like the final girl of a B-rated horror movie.

That, and I don’t have a lot of clothes left. 

The last two demons don’t care either way - a cacophony of screeches and claws scraping over the reddened asphalt erupts as they both lunge; their uninspired answer to Dante’s last question. Not that she expected anything intelligent coming from a pair of drooling, semi-feral skeletons anyway, but hey – now nobody can say that she didn’t give them plenty of chances to run. 

A smirk spreads across Dante’s face, and a pistol is raised. “Thought so.”

Bang!

The bigger of the two staggers, head jerking back when the shot pierces through its skull and covers the brick wall behind it in gooey, pinkish-grey brain matter. Far from dead, but temporarily stunned, Dante has more than enough time to dance around the blows of its smaller counterpart and pepper it with enough holes to make it quickly resemble Swiss cheese relatively unhindered. After landing an especially nasty shot on the emancipated Skeletor, its relentless swiping suddenly ceases, clawed hands coming up to its face as strange choking sounds start to emanate from its now ruptured maw. 

Dante must have hit something painful. 

(Good.)

Bang! Bang!

A bald, pale head falls to the ground with a wet splatter. The body stands there for a moment – elongated limbs and fingers twitching in a disturbing manner – before it collapses into a pile of smouldering ash that lights up the alley and deepens the shadows. Dante catches the eyes of a deadly red glint in the faint firelight, wide and burning with feral hatred.

One left.

“Any last words?” Dante plays into the cliché, voice radiating boredom and impatience alike. A quick glance at the sky is enough to tell her that it is about time to wrap things up. She would hate to be late after putting in all this work not to be. “You better not say his name though, cause otherwise, I’ll–”

Dante ducks just in the nick of time – part of the wall she was standing in front of now adores about six inches of deep claw marks of the angriest calibre. The police are going to have a field trip with that one, Dante will think later, but she is currently too occupied with not getting shredded into ribbons to think in probabilities. 

All she sees are claws and teeth. Her heartbeat thumps in rhythm with the ringing in her ears, and the smell of fresh blood floods her senses when she manages to land a shot point blank. The demon does not stagger this time, however – in fact, the pain only seems to usher it to move faster, broken bones and torn muscles be damned. It doesn’t appear to care if Dante does manage to take its life – as long as hers too, ends with it.

Yeah, not a chance, Dante thinks. “Shit!” she curses when the demon nearly barrels into her. She’s saved by the rickety fire escape – she jumps up on the ladder and lifts her dangling legs out of the frenzied monster’s way by a hair, the heels of her boots grazing the bones that are sticking out of its back as it dashes by. A grunt and a huff, and she’s up on the steps, teeth grit and triggers rapidly pulled, hoping against all hopes that she has enough bullets. Up until this point, getting into close combat was something unnecessary – something that was more trouble than it was worth. Now, however, it might pose an actual danger to her well-being; with the way the demon jumps after her, foaming at the mouth and bending the metal bannister out of the way with sheer fury alone, it might just straight up tear off Dante’s head if it catches her. 

Eight, seven, six, five, Dante counts the bullets, hissing in frustration when the fifth shot goes wide as the whole fire escape shakes under her. There’s a horrible screeching sound – not a whole lot different from the skeletal demons’ battle cry –, and metal fastings snap and break as the feral fiend yanks the whole damned thing out of the wall; bringing Dante along for the ride.

The sudden lack of solid ground makes Dante lose her footing, and she crashes into the railing with enough force to make her drop one of her guns, the weapon now heading towards the ground in tandem with the fire escape. Dante, on the other hand, is not so easily controlled by gravity – recovery from the shock takes less than a split second, instincts taking over and urging her muscles to move, move, move. She jumps up and away from the collapsing metal construction, silver hair blown out of her face by the sudden momentum. 

For a wild moment, Dante feels like she’s flying. 

But the magic doesn’t last long; it splinters and breaks into a million pieces the moment the metallic staircase – along with a rather significant chunk of the wall – reaches the ground with a deafening rumble. How the cops are going to explain this, Dante hasn't got a clue, nor does she have the time to come up with one – not when long, black-clawed fingers grab a hold of her ankle and yank her back to the ground with the force of a falling star. 

Huh, Dante thinks, maybe I should have gone down the stairs instead.

(You idiot.)

Her reward for that lacklustre joke is a devastating hit to the back of her head as her skull meets the ground; pain doesn’t even register, only the feeling of the air leaving her lungs and a loud crack that silences the ringing in her ears completely. Warm wetness seeps through her hair, red circling her silver crown in an untasteful mockery of a halo. 

Dante blinks, slow and lazy, eyes unfocused and gaze wondering. She can barely keep her eye on the form of the demon as it comes into her peripheral; the hulking monstrosity is nothing more than a blurry silhouette peering down at her unmoving body before it throws its head back, letting out a loud and victorious screech. 

The sound is grating, deafening, it sets her teeth on edge – and apparently sets something back into place as well. There’s a dull thump and a sharp click, and then intense pain floods Dante’s entire system, making her jerk, lurch and tremble, teeth nearly biting off the tip of her tongue from the sudden onslaught of agony. With a snarl, Dante forces her arm to move, aiming her other gun that is miraculously still in her hand at the open maw of the ‘victor’ through the foggy haze of pain.

Bang! Bang! Click! Click! Click!

Teeth, blood and saliva sprinkle the ground anew. There are no screams or screeches this time - getting your vocal cords shot does that to you, no matter what kind of abomination you are, apparently. It doesn’t really put you out of your misery though if you’re a demon, and so Dante lets out a curse and alligator-rolls out of the way of incoming claws through a puddle of hard and sharpened demonic essence that nicks her clothes and skin as she goes over them. 

Fuck me.

The now severely mutilated sole survivor drops down on all fours, neck cracking and blood gurgling in its ruined throat. Just as Dante begins to think that maybe its loosing its momentum, it then proceeds to crawl after her like some kind of demented spider. It is a scene straight out of the horror movie Dante had unwittingly become the star actor of, and the best thing she can say – probably because she’s still suffering from a mild concussion – is “Holy shit, get away, get away, get away–” whilst kicking the demon-spider-zombie square in whatever remnants of a face it still has. 

More bones break, making the demon finally reels back in pain, and giving Dante just enough time to yank out the knife she has concealed inside her boot as she pulls back her leg. The metal parts the air and the connective tissue of one eye in a quick and silent swipe, followed by a brutal and spiteful stab to the other. The smell of blood coats Dante’s tongue in a way that's not entirely unpleasant – a thought that’s quickly pushed aside as she surges forward, basking in the grounding feeling of having a blade in her hands finally. 

Back on your feet, hold on tight – careful, now.

After all, the only safe demon is a dead demon – and this one, although now also blinded, is still very much alive. How? Dante doesn’t have a fucking clue. She did significantly more damage to it than all of its littermates combined – and yet, it somehow still has enough juice to not only stand, but fight. Though the fight part of that sentence is very much in quotation marks, because the demon currently is just more or less widely flailing its arms in her general direction like a creepy tube man high on helium. Which would've been kind of funny, if one: those arms wouldn’t have been accessorized with claws that are still more than sharp enough to sever her head in a single strike, and two: if the demon’s face wouldn’t have looked like it was intentionally mutilated beyond recognition. 

(It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t.)

So no, it’s not funny. Easy to dodge as long as she keeps her distance, but painless retaliation is now near impossible. With only a knife, Dante doesn’t have the reach to do any significant damage – she has been chipping at the demon’s arms for a while now, and could keep going 'til the sun comes up, but that’s precisely the thing she has been trying to avoid. Well, that, and the inevitable arrival of the cops while she’s still on the scene of the crime, of course – but that’s only secondary. 

Alright, let’s change tactics.

Duck and roll, go for the ankles, and don’t forget to judge the disgustingly long toenails while you’re down there. The blade mercilessly cuts through something important, and Mr Horror Show falls to one knee with a gurgling grunt. 

Fucking finally– 

But then it jerks around quicker than Dante could escape the reach of its ridiculously long arms. A hiss leaves her as a sharp pain lights up in her bicep as her skin is torn open, bright red blood joining the crimson sea that’s still crunching away beneath her feet.

Dante ignores the way her own blood sizzles as it splatters across the ground, too fucking pissed to care - cause holy shit that hurt. Her whole arm now feels like it’s on fire. “You asshole,” she growls then strikes back without hesitation. Her hunting knife leaves a significantly smaller cut compared to the one that's now adoring her arm, but that doesn’t deter Dante from keep hacking at the Demon-Who-Fucking-Refuses-To-Die with renewed vigour. 

Just keep at it. It’s going to be over, sooner or later.

Just as she wonders if she’s going to be here all day, one of the arms is successfully severed and falls to the ground with a dull thud. It’s all very… anticlimactic, the way the demon slumps over after this. Still not dead– 

HOW IN THE FUCK–

–but definitely out of the roaster. 

Yay.

Dante’s breathing is on the heavier side, her arm hurts, her head hurts, her pride hurts, and she just wants to curl up on the ground and do nothing but sleep for the whole day. Not a good sign, considering it’s about only like, five in the morning, though Dante was never known for having a good sleeping schedule.

“Finally,” Dante sighs, bracing her arms on her knees to take a breather. Funnily enough, she’s actually trying to breathe less; what with the literal slaughterhouse she’d made of this decrepit alley, the smell of blood is all too thick in the air for her liking. She positively yearns for a change in scenery, like the one on the what’s-it-called bridge that has that great view of the river–

But first.

Bones pop as Dante straightens her back, eyes narrowing when she spots Mr. Indestructible trying to crawl its way to freedom. 

“A bit late for that, isn’t it buddy?” This time Dante asks it with much less bravado, too tired from this whole ordeal to really put her soul into it. She twirls her knife in her hand as she walks after it, with lazy, but measured steps, alert just in case this headache of a devil has any other tricks up its sleeve. Certainly not an everyday occurrence… 

(Thank god.)

…but still. Credit where credit’s due.

“I gotta say, I’m kinda impressed. Still pissed though, so don’t think you can now just waltz right out of here after all the shit you put me through. Can't have you coming after me later, after all–”

The crunch of the demon blood as Dante comes to a stop sounds especially loud for some reason. So loud in fact, she nearly fails to hear it. But there it was.

Unblinking, she stares down at the source of the sound. The demon has come to a stop next to a still-warm puddle – and Dante knows, knows it’s still warm even though no steam emanates from it, could feel its warmth from where she’s standing, could smell it in the air – it’s single, remaining hand curling around a handful of crystals. It’s not trying to shove some into its non-existent mouth as Dante expected. No, it’s simply keeping the clawed appendage on that mound and makes that sound again, regrown vocal cords vibrating the air in a drawn-out crescendo akin to a whine, though it sounds more like–

A cry.

(...) 

No.

(Dante is eight and she’s staring out of a window while all the adults in the room are talking over her. They don’t know, they don’t notice, they don’t see the shadow that’s looking inside through the fogged-up glass, staring at the little girl with the silver hair who is standing in the middle of the room in her charred and tattered clothes, clutching a small satchel to her chest like her life depends on it. Its black eyes are slitted and unwavering, its elongated, eight-limbed body ready to crash through the glass the moment she would allow her gaze to wander, and so she doesn’t answer when they ask her for her name over and over again, doesn’t dare to look away, unable to breathe, body frozen in terror–

She blinks, and then it's gone. Dante wonders if it was ever even there in the first place while the adults go on to decide what to name her.)

She moves before she could think, and stomps down on the spine of the demon at a sharp angle. The thick and protruding bones are unable to bear the assault; they snap, and the sound turns from that mournful wail - lies lies lies lies - to a shrill scream of pain. 

(Dante is ten and she hates having to walk to her newest foster parents’ house from school. They live relatively close to the tall, unfriendly red-bricked building, but Dante feels like they might as well live on the other side of the country. Because she tries to stick to the main roads and avoids alleys like a plague it takes her an eternity every time to get back, but it’s fine, she would rather walk than run, after all. 

This is what happens every time she strays off the longer path: she can hear the sound of claws scraping on asphalt; of low growls seeping out from the dark shadows stretching between the tall buildings where the Sun never shines. They trigger a deep-seated fear that envelops her, turns her breathing laboured and ragged, adrenaline coursing through her veins almost as fast as the dread, and she knows she has to run. Run, run before they notice her, before they give chase, because they will, they won’t hesitate, they never hesitate– 

“Tony, you’re late again.” her foster mother later reprimands, and Dante is covered in sweat and feels like throwing up, but doesn’t say a word.)

Dante likes that sound so she does it again, this time taking revenge for the blow to her head by cracking the demon’s skull against the ground. The thing lets out another gurgle, then falls silent once more under her boot. 

No – that’s not it.

She goes down into a crouch and stabs the demon in the back, knife parting muscles and sinew with newfound vigour. The monster screeches as Dante does it again, and again, and again – hacking at the once-pale skin, set on completely covering it in vermilion. 

(Dante is twelve and she’s being dragged over a gravel road by her ankle, the bone broken and flesh mangled in the maw of the wolf-like abomination that caught her during her latest escapade from the social services. The six-legged red beast is chewing on the ruined appendage as it trots farther and farther away from the quaint little stable Dante had stopped at for the evening, heading towards the forest with a pep in its step, completely ignoring the screaming child who by no means asked to be taken for a ride. Dante continues to scream, hoping against all odds that someone, that anyone would hear the pain and desperation in her voice. 

It is a fickle hope; a frantic one. She knows that the village is too far, and that the occupants of the house the stable belongs to are not home tonight.

Deep inside, she knows that nobody is coming to save her.

When she finally accepts the cruel truth, the girl holds back her cries and ceases her ineffective flailing. She takes a deep breath, inhales the dust and dirt of the gravel road, and tries to think of something, anything, but it hurts; it hurts and she sobs from the pain, her vision blurry, but there has to be something she could do, this cannot be the end–

Her arm brushes against something solid and heavy, and Dante immediately goes to grab it, broken and bleeding fingernails ripping open again with how hard she is gripping the stone she nabbed from its cradle in the earth. Breathing through her mouth, she gathers whatever's left of her strength and twists around in the devil's grasp, bloody rock raised to strike. 

The sound of a bone snapping in two and the echoing howl that follows is like fuel to a fire that has been waiting forever for the moment to burn anew.)

The knife is lost somewhere amongst the carnage. Dante doesn't know when it happened – doesn't care to remember –, but her hands, her arms, are now covered in red; bare fingers break open new streams of the blazing hot liquid as they dig deeper and deeper within the torn open flesh. The ringing is back, louder than ever, fogging up Dante’s senses while she is drowning in the scent of iron and brimstone. Her control slips through her fingers like droplets of sweet demon blood, but she doesn’t chase after it; content with losing herself to the comforting numbness once again. 

Dig, grip, tear. Repeat.

It pretended to cry.

Dig, grip, tear. Repeat.

It was mocking Me.

Dig, grip–

It was mocking THEM.

Her teeth are aching, the skin around her lips pulling taut and fingers twitching as something stirs under her ribcage and wraps itself around her heart, ready to sink its fangs into the quivering, quickly beating organ that’s crying out with hate, sorrow and fear.

You are not like me.

I am not like you.

You don’t deserve to cry.

And I–

She stills.

(Dante is fourteen and thinks she could get used to this. 

The cold March breeze ruffles her silvery hair as she pulls her knife out of the chest of the third shapeshifting-lizard-devil she’d found prowling around the neighbourhood this week. Just like its buddies, it was trying to impersonate a human in need, calling out for help and waiting for some good Samaritan to throw common sense to the wind and investigate the desperate shouts coming from a dark, off-beaten path of the most dangerous and unpleasant park of the buzzing metropolis. It was an uncreative, but rather effective plan, considering the rising number of missing-person reports in the area she heard about on the radio just the other day.

Some people are just plain stupid, I guess.

Dante blows a lock of hair out of her face as she stands up straight, eyes taking in the faintly burning remains of the devil under her feet. The lizard-people, though great at disguising themselves, were also pathetically weak. She would wager that even a human could kill one with a relatively mediocre amount of effort – as long as they realize fast enough that the thing they are running to rescue is actually not a damsel in distress. 

Yeah, like that’s gonna happen anytime soon.

She sighs.

Oh well.

It’s not like Dante actually cares. She isn’t here because she is trying to be some kind of unsung hero or some shit. She is here because she enjoys the rush of adrenaline in her veins and the burning sensation of the devil blood seeping into her skin. She wants to feel her heart ignite when her knife slices through otherworldly flesh, feel vindicated when a bullet shatters bones and the cries of pain and anger fill the night. 

If a human was to see what she likes to do on a Saturday night, they would be horrified by the smile on her face. They would say that what she’s doing is morally wrong, regardless of how she exterminates the vermin plaguing them without asking anything in return. They would still judge her and feel justified for thinking her a freak the moment they first looked at her – an assumption based on nothing but a single look; upon the realization that the silver of her hair is anything but fake. 

Judged and scrutinized.

“Tony is a little… strange.”

“Stop looking at me like that! You’re freaking me out!”

“Why can’t you just act normal?”

“It’s like she knows what you’re thinking.”

“I’m telling you: that child’s got the Devil in her!”

So no: Dante doesn’t give a shit about people, in one way or the other. And if she sometimes stares into the mirror to look for the monsters she’d slain in her reflection; the monster everyone eventually seems to see when they look at her…

Well. That’s her own damned business and no one else’s.

Besides – Dante deserves this. Deserves to feel victorious after the continuous bullshit life keeps piling on her whenever she least expects it. Deserves to feel like she is doing something that matters, instead of just simply existing and waiting for the next moment when everything comes crashing down again. She deserves to think – if only just for a moment – that she could one day even the score.

So yes: Dante feels like she could get used to this, blood and hellfire and all. The Underworld will keep on breathing down her neck probably till the day she is a hundred and more grey than ever. Why not find some kind of silver – no pun intended – lining in this craziness? Why not enjoy being able to fight against fate? Why should she limit herself and wallow in helplessness when she doesn’t have to? Why act like she cares about the opinion of the people who so readily turn their backs on her for reasons beyond her power?

Fuck them. All of them. Demon or human – doesn’t fucking matter.

Still riled up, Dante kicks away some of the smouldering devil blood with a sneer on her face. Her hands are trembling, and her insides feel cold and empty. She suddenly gets the urge to move, to run; to go to a place where no demon could find her, where no human could judge her. The yearning makes her throat ache, and she presses a bloody hand against her mouth to smother the words that are trying to burst forth in this moment of weakness. 

(Home.)

(I want to go home.)

“Stupid,” Dante whispers, closing her eyes to ignore the way her vision starts to blur. “Get yourself together, for fuck’s sake. You’re not eight anymore.”

Besides – there is nothing to go back to.

At that very moment, a loud scream shatters the fragile silence of the night. Dante’s head whips around faster than her heart could skip a beat – her eyes snap open, ice blue irises scouring the lightless woods as the fire reignites in her chest to chase away the cold the somber reminiscing had brought unheeded. The prospect of a fight; the chance to leave behind these chains of pain and regret – if only just for a moment – is one Dante will always take if given the choice, now and forever.

“Please, someone– Someone help me!” comes the siren call, and Dante is all too eager to answer. She turns on her heels and charges into the unknown with a wild, almost mad abandon: a young woman set on outrunning her past.

Though unkempt and overgrown, the foliage of the park could do very little to slow Dante down. Light on her feet, she easily weaves through the trees and bushes, following the increasingly frantic screaming and the urgent beating of her own impatient heart. Run, run, run, something inside of her sings, ready to feel the hot embrace of blood on her skin, to take it into its own and fill the ever-spreading cracks within her being that reach deeper than her very marrow. 

Dante lets it guide her, coat the turmoil in her mind with numbness and excitement, and thus she doesn’t question why the screams guide her towards the light of the beaten path and not back to the deeper dark of the trees. She rushes by branch and stone like a hungry wolf, the notion of stealth not even remotely entertained in her current state.

She comes to a stop when her worn-out sneakers meet gravel and her pupils constrain as they take in the barely-there light of the rusted and muddy lampposts that accompany the graffitied benches which sparsely litter the winding road that semi-successfully parts a sea of dry, near knee-high grass. Dante stands on the edge of the clearing, eyes trained on not one, but two moving forms sprinting through the neglected lawn. The sight makes her pause – higher cognition taking control momentarily to comprehend exactly what she’s looking at. 

It’s either a rouse or a genuine attack-in-progress: a "woman" running for her life as a "man" rushes after her in the most secluded part of a dark and empty park. Either two devils teaming up to put on a more convincing act, or Dante’s earlier theory about lizard-demon subterfuge versus human common sense actually has some merit. Either one is fine by Dante, but if the second turns out to be the case, then she is in a bit of a pickle.

Getting a human see her in action is not… ideal. It hasn’t happened yet, precisely because Dante tends to linger around these kinds of god-forsaken places where not a soul walks by at night unless they are either drunk, in a hurry, have a death wish, or just extremely stupid. If the woman is indeed a human, then that could become a problem for Dante later down the line. The lady would probably be grateful for not getting eaten by an overgrown salamander, but there’s also the chance that she will just straight-up go to the police later to report seeing a homicidal fourteen-year-old girl with white hair running around the park, stabbing everything that moves – and there are probably not that many of those running around in the city. 

I swear officer, I only stab devils, and only on the weekends–

Well, either way, Dante’s not going to just sit here and watch her get eviscerated to dodge the police. Now the only problem is whether the woman is a devil herself. A question Dante can’t really answer at this very moment – the shapeshifters are honestly pretty good at masking their demonic presence, despite their lacklustre hunting methods. She simply doesn’t know what the woman is at this instant, unless Dante herself cuts to the chase and draws the first blood.

Do it.

The thought comes unbidden and unwelcome – Dante feels her body lurch out of her control; a single step taken beyond her intentions. The creature under her skin growls in agitation when she refuses to take another, and Dante curses herself for letting her blood run too hot. She’s practically vibrating with murderous intent, as if that other devil she obliterated just a minute ago never existed. The earlier numbness now feels suffocating; the desire for a good fight more like an unsettling glee for the carnage to come.

Dante pants, eyes glued to the two running figures, trying to see the signs, the little tells about their true natures. But she cannot focus; not with the burning sensation pressing down on her bones, urging her to jump into action or suffer the consequences. It is an urgent, growing need Dante has to hold at bay; she strictly refuses to just start swinging her knife all willy-nilly only because the most hateful part of herself is getting a murder boner.

No. Sit the fuck back down.

Time is running out. Either the devil catches up to the maybe-devil, or Dante does something she might regret. Bad choices all around, but one has to be made.

Gritting her teeth, Dante briefly entertains the idea of just straight going for the man-devil, but that annoyingly proud part of her rabid weirdo side doesn’t want to show her back to a potential enemy just for the laughs. Oh, it would gladly come up between them and slice both devils in two with a single strike – but potentially getting nicked just to make sure Dante doesn’t become a wanted murderer? Oh, that is just far too much!

I really, really fucking hate you.

After suffering through each millisecond that felt like an eternity, Dante nearly cheers when the universe takes pity on her and her own shitty decision-making: the woman accidentally trips on a rock or some trash in the grass just before she reaches the gravel path. This results in her catching herself on the roughly ground stones to avoid a nasty faceplant; her loud cry of pain nearly as shrill as her screams as she bloodies her palms on the gravel. 

Blood. Sweet. Salty.

Human.

Dante shoots out like a comet – every other thought dissolves in her head as relief floods her senses, along with the roaring cackle of an excited hunter finally finding her mark. 

Catch.

The gravel barely makes a noise; Dante almost flies above it with how fast she is running. Nobody is paying attention to her. The human woman is currently trying to crawl away from her attacker, while the devil has slowed down into a brisk walk as it laughs at the woman’s pathetic attempt at trying to save her own life. There’s a pocket knife in its hands, old and dirty, the light of the sub-par lampposts barely catching on the blade.

Maybe that’s why Dante doesn’t see it.

Funnily enough, the human is the first one to notice the swiftly approaching silver-haired girl. She looks over her shoulder, dirt and tears smudged on her sweat-covered face, bright green eyes widening with a mix of surprise, fear, and hope. 

Dante rushes past her without a second glance. The devil comes to a stop a split moment before Dante barrels into it – brown eyes growing to the size of saucers as it lands on its back with a clipped shout. The impact makes it drop its meagre cargo, and the pocket knife disappears into the overgrown grass. Droplets of dew wet its receding, straw-blond hairline for a second, only for the water to be replaced by its plentiful crimson blood as Dante takes advantage of its imbalance to stab her own weapon through the worn, flimsy grey jacket it is wearing, pushing the blade down to the hilt before nearly slitting its entire torso open with a brutal downwards-drag.

The damage is done before the devil underneath her could even gasp. And when it finally does, its with a wet, pained cry, followed by a screech and then a gurgle when Dante stabs it in the throat next. Its freed hand comes up to try and grasp her wrist, but its hold on her is far weaker than any of its’ late brethren. No wonder then, that the woman was able to escape it momentarily. This must be the runt of the litter. 

Pathetic.

Dante tears her arm out of its grasp with no trouble – she then jumps off the shapeshifter, expecting it to shed its human disguise and come at her with claws and teeth; to do just the barest minimum and face her in battle, ready to fight to the death. 

But that never happens.

Dante stands there, arm raised to strike, chest heaving, the grin on her face frozen. Eyes of the purest blue are stained with the red steadily dripping from the blade in her hand.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Flowing from the wounds, sinking into the earth. 

Blood. 

The smile on her face slowly drops.

Sweet. 

The body in front of her ceases its attempts at breathing. The shadow she is casting on it is as still and as long as a dark monolith.

Salty.

No flames of hell burst forth from the red-painted ground to consume either.

Human.

She just killed a human.

Smells delicious.

The skin on her hands is wet with it one moment, then it’s dry the next – she feels the blood seeping inside her veins, layer through layer. With devil blood, the first time it felt like fat snakes burrowing under the pores. With human blood, it feels more like thousands of ants crawling towards the burning channels; sinners marching towards the cleansing fires. 

Bile crawls up Dante’s throat as she stares down at the butchered body of a man, as if her own body hoped it could rid itself of the stolen bounty through her stomach. The girl clamps her mouth tightly shut, nearly avoiding desecrating the corpse even further. 

Turning away, Dante dry heaves above the wet grass, mind a confusing mixture of revulsion and satisfaction. She doesn’t get it – doesn’t understand how this could’ve happened. She was so sure that the man was the devil. 

But if not–

Dante looks down at the woman still on the ground, thinking, hoping that she was somehow tricked. That at least the woman is a devil, and it would grin and laugh at her, jump up and unsheathe its claws to rake them down her back while whispering “Thank you for that,” in her ear. 

None of that happens either, of course. It’s a stupid, laughably naïve fantasy. The fear in her eyes had been real, and so was the blood glinting on the gravel road. But so was the chase then, the look of sadistic glee on the man’s face as the woman fell onto the ground. He was surely about to commit something wicked, but Dante killed him before he could go through with it. She didn’t want to, but she did. 

The man is dead, his body growing cold – there’s no taking it back. 

But… I saved her, right? I still saved her. She’s fine, she’s going to be alright. 

Yes, the woman’s fine. Fine, and utterly terrified.

They always are.

Dante doesn’t know the exact reason why. Could be the aftermath of the chase, the evisceration of her attacker, or maybe the haunting, crazed and blameful way Dante stares down at her in her own denial while her clothes are saturated red with the blood of a man who has just been slaughtered. 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Either way, the woman’s tearful green eyes fill with pure, unadulterated horror. 

And she screams. 

Loud. Desperate.

It’s painful, that noise, and it hurts in a way Dante never thought she could be hurt. Long and drawn-out, it feels like acid being poured down in her eardrums – sounds almost exactly like the scream of a woman dying; caught during her desperate search for her one and only son.

Stop it, Dante wants to yell, but the sound grates on her thoughts, drowns them out until she loses every other sense. Now there’s nothing but that high-pitched scream in her ear, that melody of true fear, and the fire under her skin that has been nourished by the plentiful harvest the girl had just reaped. It doesn’t matter whether she had done it on purpose. Dante can still taste the blood in the air – sweet, sweet human blood.

Make it stop.

Very distantly, Dante could feel the knife dropping from her hand – strangely so, it doesn’t fall silently into the grass, but onto the gravel with a foreboding clatter. In response, the screaming becomes even louder.

Make her stop.

Her hands fly up to grip her skull, fingers curling and nails digging into skin, deep enough to stain the roots of her snow-white locks with the shameful red. The taste of brimstone suddenly fills her mouth, even though there are no more demons around. There’s only–

Loud, it’s so loud–

Make her stop.

Make her stop!

“Shut up!” Dante snarls, but it doesn’t work. That high-pitched, familiar sound of her mother’s screams pulls her under the tide, and drags her straight down to Hell. She’s trapped, locked away, smoke slithering into her lungs to steal all her oxygen while everything she’s ever loved burns down around her. She could feel the flames climbing higher – a rising crescendo of fire and screams, set on destroying her very soul.

“Make her stop!” she begs to no one.

There’s nobody left to hear.

“Make her stop, make her stop , make her stop–”

Darkness. Silence. Peace. 

But only for a moment.

The next time Dante opens her eyes, she is unsure of whose blood had stained her clothes.)

I’m going to be late, Dante realizes, looking down at the splattering of red on her cheap, simple grey and black attire. The one thought is more clear, more sobering than the scent of petrichor on a quiet, hot summer evening. 

She looks up at the sky, and sees the night receding. There’s a lovely shade of blue emerging from the black now, light, pale, yet somehow also bright. It reflects in her eyes, and a sigh leaves her as she pulls her bloodied hands out of the smouldering demon carcass.

Dante feels like an inferno doused with heavenly water – there is no more high-pitched screaming in her ears, only the quickly approaching sirens of the police in the not-so-far distance. By the time they arrive, there won’t be a spec of devil’s blood to be found. Most of it had already evaporated, and the only body that still remains will soon join the rest in the aether. 

The gash on her arm is healed, but the crimson the devil had drawn out of her had stained every single clothing item on her. So, Dante stands, wiping her lightly trembling digits on her already ruined jeans. She’s had more than enough of the brimstone-scented blood finding home inside her veins.

For a moment, Dante just stands there, taking in the chaos and destruction. Remembers the pain, the hurt, and the guilt that she will always carry on her shoulders. 

Dante is sixteen today, and wonders if she will ever get used to it.

Capulet City might not have been the most interesting city Dante’s ever visited, but it’s definitely one of the prettier ones. With its cobblestone roads, well-maintained parks and old, historical buildings, it is the kind of place that when someone asks about it, you would go and say “Capulet? Yeah, that place’s pretty alright.”  

Which is honestly more than Dante could say about most of the places she’s been to. It is also important to mention that unlike many other cities in this day and age, Capulet’s rivers are – for some reason – moderately clean. The water doesn’t stink to high heaven, and along the bank, it carries a gentle breeze that tickles the fine hairs on Dante’s nape as she squeezes the pinkish water out of the last of her latest dirtied garments. They are all unsalvageable – the jeans, the jacket, and the shirt she was wearing under it too; its dull pink colour now eternally stained with the blood that was pouring out of the back of her skull whilst she laid there on the ground contemplating her life’s choices and listening to some mediocre demonic aria. 

Fun times.

Dante’s now down to the last of the second-hand clothes she’d stolen from a flea market of sorts a couple of months ago somewhere down South. Unless she’s okay with going around naked – something she doesn’t feel all that much of an aversion to at the moment – she will either have to resort to stealing some more, or learn how to dodge effectively enough as to never get hit ever again in this lifetime, considering how her meagre funds are now exclusively used for bullets, and bullets only. 

A decision for another time, perhaps.

With a sigh, Dante puts the wet – but no longer suspiciously dripping with blood – clothes into a freshly "relieved" garbage bag she grabbed on her way to the river. She adjusts her "new" clothes, then hauls her worn and beaten-up travel bag up on her shoulder; its sorry state a result of the fact that she keeps having to chuck it out of the way whenever a demonic skirmish is about to go down, because even the simple thought of some wayward devil getting its disgusting paws on it makes Dante feel sick to her stomach. She may not have a lot of stuff to brag about, but the few items Dante does have all have some sort of significance. Potentially losing one of the more important ones…

No. Just no.

They are irreplaceable.

Her grip on the strap tightens as she leaves the bank of the river behind, quickly running up the stone steps leading to higher ground. The gloom of the night recedes with every breath wasted on thinking about worst-case scenarios. There’s no point in thinking about all the ways life can kick her down again – when the time comes, Dante knows she won’t be prepared either way. Why try to imagine how shitty her future is going to be, when in the end it will turn out ultimately worse than anything she could ever dream up?

(Just keep going.)

Head lowered and hood hiding the sight of her rather easily recognizable silver hair from the world, Dante hurries back to the dark of the alleys to hide the bag in a dumpster. The sidewalks and roads are no longer completely devoid of life – the occasional jogger gives her a cautious look and quickly swerves to the other side of the street, while the early workers in their cars pass by her without a second look, as the caffeine in their system hasn’t kicked in enough for them to care about some lanky teenager gallivanting around town at barely five in the morning. But, other than that, people don’t pay all that much attention to her.

Which Dante is glad for. If someone were to stop her right now, she would probably say “Fuck it,” and smack them with the garbage bag. Even if it was the police. Dante has taken a bullet before – surely, she can do it again.

Lucky for her, it is simply just too early for most people to give a shit, and most of the police force in the area is probably still at the alley with the collapsed stairway, scratching their heads at the claw marks and bullet holes that litter the brick walls and the asphalt for as long as the eye could see. They wouldn’t find any other evidence though – Dante broke open some of the crystallized blood of the last devil and erased whatever Dante-blood she could find with it, so unless she missed a spot behind some dumpster or something, there is going to be little to no evidence for a gumshoe to go on. Well, other than the bullets on the various pieces of masonry, that is, but Dante’s pistols are about as standard and nondescript as they come. 

So yeah. Dante isn’t worried about the cops coming after her any time soon. She has been as careful as a sixteen-year-old with a chronic demonic-infestation problem physically could be, after all. If anything, Dante should get paid for all the extermination she does on a daily basis.

Well, Dante hums, popping open a dumpster in one of the shadier alleys and throwing away the trash. There’s an idea.

Now the problem is that most people don’t really believe demons exist. Especially people who would have the money to pay Dante with. Demons have a nasty tendency to go after the weak and the poor, hiding under the dark of the night and waiting for the unsuspecting to take one wrong step into the shadows. Rich people with their loud and flashy lifestyles don’t tend to wander around in places where the bloodthirsty dwell. And, although Dante has to deal with devils almost every day, the denizens of the Underworld don’t frequent the human world nearly as much on the regular. Therefore, the chances of someone paying Dante for protecting just herself is a big, beautiful zero.

But money is still something Dante desperately needs. The couple hundred bills she lifted from her last foster parents as a final “Fuck you,” is all but gone. She can get by with dirty clothes that are basically falling off of her frame, and she doesn’t have to eat and sleep nearly as much as a regular human being, but Dante needs more bullets. What happened earlier today could’ve been very, very bad. Whenever she fights up close and personal, Dante gets carried away far too easily. Jokes aside, she has no idea what she would’ve done if one of the officers tried to shoot her while she was…

(Like them.)

Well. The simple solution is to get money and refill her ammunition. Too bad she has no idea how to do that without having to work a normal job, because "I need money to kill spider-dog-lizard-skeletons from Hell on a regular basis" would probably not cut it for most businesses as a motivational letter. 

Dante groans, feeling a headache rising on the horizon. How fun is it that her head can be basically broken open like a melon and she would be perfectly fine shortly after, but she thinks about her lacklustre future for a single moment, and it feels like she immediately needs to chug some painkillers?

What was that saying about bridges and future problems…? Oh hey, I am actually here on time. It is an honest-to-God Christmas miracle!

Shoving her current problems to the back of her slightly aching head, Dante quickly crosses yet another street to reach the sidewalk that leads up to the longest bridge Capulet City had to offer; its dark green metal arches faintly glinting with perspiration under the pale light of the currently sunless sky. Four lanes stand empty and silent as Dante walks towards the centre, the peace occasionally broken by a wayward vehicle that zooms quickly by the lone girl whose eyes are as blue as the sky above.  

Yeah… this looks good enough.

Dante comes to a stop and hauls her bag to the cold concrete ground, grumbling when the zipper fights her for a moment before conceding to her superior intellect – meaning she almost tears it clean off in her impatience before it finally gives in. As Dante searches through her meagre belongings, she can feel the morning sunlight touch the arches above, painting the green slowly in brilliant gold. Dante spares the living reminder of the time she has left one single glance before pulling out the thing she was looking for: an old, faded satchel sporting some heavy wear and tear. She pops it open, pointedly ignoring both the cracked frame of the picture she spent so many lonely nights gazing at, and the antique piece of jewellery Dante keeps in a side pocket that she is too scared about losing in a fight to wear as often as like she would like to. 

Instead, she reaches even deeper. 

There.

“Here we go,” Dante takes a deep breath, letting the rest of her stuff just chill on the ground beside her while she stands up with her most precious treasure pressed against her chest; against the painful, slugging heartbeat under her breast. “Ready?”

Leaning against the railing, Dante watches the world change with the unstoppable coming of the day. The cold blue of the horizon is quickly overtaken by the warm yellows of the Sun – Dante watches as the colours spread like paints on a canvas, their shine reflecting off of the gentle waves of the river below, turning the water into molten gold. Its beauty is blinding, the light almost warm enough to chase away the sudden ice she can feel spreading in her veins – and the somber thoughts suffocating her heart.

Almost, but not quite.

Eventually, Dante turns away from the breath-taking sunrise to stare down at the worn noses of her boots, holding onto her cherished memento with all of her might: 

A book that feels heavier than the entire world.

Swallowing down the tears, Dante forces herself to whisper the words that cause her more pain than any hell fiend ever could.

“Happy birthday, Vergil.”

Her shadow stands alone in the morning light.

(“What do you think?”)

Trembling fingers graze the elegant V on the cover of the book in her hands and Dante is unable to hold back the choked sobs this time.

(“I thought you would like it.”)

The wooden floor under her bare feet creaks loud enough to wake the dead – and so Dante freezes mid-step, standing in the middle of the hallway, as still as a pillar of salt. Eyes of the coldest blue dart to her parents’ bedroom door, laser-focused on the handle, waiting for just the tiniest of movement; body getting ready to bolt if it begins to turn. She even holds her breath for good measure. 

You didn’t wake up, Dante squints her eyes at the door, putting all of her willpower into holding it closed with nothing but her gaze alone. Stay asleep, stay asleep…

When no sounds announce the opposite to be true, Dante grins and continues her journey through the silent house, tiptoeing towards her destination with all the grace a newly-turned six-year-old could have in her tiny body. She’s almost there – one step, two, and…

Made it!

The hardwood door looks exactly the same as every other one in the manor, but unlike those, this one is the only one that makes Dante feel giddy whenever she is allowed to pass through its borders. Which doesn’t happen that often nowadays, so Dante usually lets herself inside of her own volition anyway, much to the chagrin of the owner of said room. He especially hates it when she makes a big ruckus early in the morning in order to wake him up, and since Dante wants his cooperation for what she has in mind for today, she has decided to go with a more… delicate approach this time around.

To begin with, she doesn’t barge through the door like a pack of raging rhinoceros, and instead gently turns the handle to slip inside the crack, as quiet as a shadow. The room inside, as always, is the complete opposite of her own; whereas Dante’s looks like a small hurricane goes through it on a daily basis, clothes, toys and books strewn about with little rhyme or reason, this one’s perfectly organized. The fluffy rug is empty of left-out cars and figurines, the small table and desk under the window stand immaculate with not a single piece of paper out of place, and the bookshelf in the corner is filled to the brim with books of various colours and sizes, all neatly arranged in an alphabetical order, and without a single shirt tucked in between covers for reasons even Dante couldn’t explain. 

All in all – Dante finds this room really, really boring. Have it not been for its occupant, who is currently sound asleep in his bed, she would probably avoid it like the plague. Lucky for her, he does exist, though all Dante can see of him at the moment is just a few locks of messy silvery-white hair peaking out from under a midnight blue comforter that is littered with golden stars. 

Step one: successful. Now for step two…

Slow and careful, Dante approaches the sleeping beast, trying her absolute best to not give into the habit and jump on him like a wild kangaroo ready to square off to speed up the process. It’s a real battle, but in the end, Dante comes out victorious; she stops by the bedside, almost bouncing on the spot, and gently lays a hand on her brother’s shoulder to give him a tentative shake.

“Vergil… Vergil, wake up! I wanna show you something!”

There is a sleepy groan, and then the silence returns tenfold to the unlit bedroom. Dante gives another shake, a bit firmer this time, and leans forward to speak directly to the mound under the comforter that hides her one and only brother, “Come on Verge, we have to get going, or we will miss it! You can go back to sleep after you've seen it!”

More grumbling, this time with actual words mixed into the noises; muffled by sleep and fabric alike:

“Go away, Dante…”

Dante isn’t deterred by this blatant rejection – she takes a hold of the comforter, pulling it down just enough to look Vergil in the face. “Come on Verge, don’t be like this–” 

Vergil immediately yanks the sea of stars out of her hand, completely disappearing under the blue this time as he pulls the comforter over his head, all the while he growls in drowsy indignation, “Leave me alone.”

“Ugh, come on!” she flops onto the bed, earning an annoyed “Hey!” from the coward hiding under the covers. “It’s a really cool surprise, and I worked really hard on it!”

“I highly doubt that.”

Dante slaps the place where she assumes her brother’s shoulder is, but this time she gets no reaction. “It’s true! I’ve been preparing for it for a whole week, you just didn’t notice because you’re such a lazy bum!”

A scoff, and then nothing. This is not working, Dante pouts, turning onto her back to stare at the ceiling. She can see the cold light of the morning creeping inside the room from the gap above the tightly drawn curtains, and the sight makes her want to just grab her brother and drag him with her by his comforter. If only that wouldn’t result in a shouting match that would surely wake up their parents…

Kicking her legs as they dangle over the edge of the bed, Dante makes a sound of frustration and disappointment. “Why you gotta be like this?” She crosses her arms to fight the sudden urge to cry. She’s trying to do something nice for her brother – why can’t he just be nice for once and humour her a little bit? “Today’s my birthday too you know… and I just wanted to do this one really cool thing, and I wanted to do it with you, cause I thought you would like it. This would’ve been a birthday gift for the both of us.”

The longer the silence stretches, the more Dante feels like she shouldn’t have even bothered with trying. Vergil is just not a morning person – it was stupid of her to think of such an early morning activity for them to do. But it was the only time the two of them could really be alone to do something special without the chance of any parental interference. 

It’s not like Dante doesn’t want to spend time with her whole family – but today is her and Vergil’s sixth birthday. It’s an extra special number, and they should do something extra special to celebrate it. Just the two of them, no adults allowed.

But, as usual, Vergil has other plans. Ever since they learned to read a couple months back, all he wants to do is read his stupid books and keeps refusing to play with her. He reads when they are inside the house, he reads when they are outside – he’s even reading in the car during the rare occasions when they leave home for whatever reason. Dante’s been trying her best to distract him, but – aside from a moderate use of physical violence that Mother highly disapproves of – no amount of nagging has managed to coax him out of his mind space of tales and mythos on most days. 

It’s been… actually pretty lonely lately. Yeah, Dante will always have Mother, and Father’s been home a lot since February, but it’s Vergil Dante wants to be with the most. And that’s hard to do when he would rather read some boring story written by people with weird last names than climb a tree, play pretend, or just solve a puzzle with her.  

But that’s most days. Today is special – today should be different. And if Dante has to make sacrifices to make it happen…

Turning back on her stomach, she climbs fully atop Mount Vergil, plopping her chin down on her crossed arms with a look of determination on her face. “I’m not going to bother you for three whole days if you come with me right now.”

There’s a little movement under the covers. Progress. She must be on the right track, but the deal is apparently not sweet enough. Conceding, with a hint of annoyance in her tone, she makes it so. “A week. That's my final offer.”

It’s going to be absolute torture, but Dante could do it. For the greater good. “What do you say?"

Slowly, so very slowly, the comforter is pulled away and a pale face appears in the early morning gloom, identical to Dante’s. Blue eyes blink, sleepy yet alert, silver hair an uncharacteristic mess. At her twin’s long-awaited appearance, grumpy as it is, Dante lets a cheeky grin grace her face, while Vergil simply frowns, gaze snapping at the drawn curtains before they focus on her.

“This better not be a prank.” 

“Not today.”

Vergil rolls his eyes and Dante giggles, jumping off of him without a complaint when he goes to sit up. He runs his hands through his hair to get it out of his face while Dante is nearly shaking with excitement as she stands by, waiting. Impatient, she goes to quickly peek out the curtains, just to check. Her smile widens at what she sees. They are still good.

“What are you looking at?” her brother asks as he goes to stand behind her in his fully checkered pyjama glory – the same set as her own, except hers is red whilst his is blue. He cocks his head to take a look over her shoulder, but Dante quickly drops the curtains before he could see anything.

“Nothing,” she grabs him by the hand and skips around him, his palm pleasantly cool in her own. “Come on, let’s go! But be very quiet – we don’t wanna wake Mom and Dad.”

“Tell that to yourself,” he grumbles, but follows in her footsteps nonetheless. Dante carefully cracks open his bedroom door again, head poking out for a split second to check the perimeter before she leads Vergil out into the hallway. 

Not wasting a single moment, Dante hurries the two of them through the shadows, holding back the giggles and hushing Vergil when he tries to ask what she’s planning. They sneak by their parents’ bedroom as quiet as a pair of little white mice, skittering by potted plants and elegant paintings, their forms faintly illuminated by the early morning sky each time they come across an uncovered window. 

They reach the main hall in record time, with its ostentatious chandelier and the outdated family portrait watching their every move as they pass over from one wing of the manor to the other, with Dante not sparing even a glance at the twin stairs that lead down to the first floor, much to Vergil’s surprise. And suspicion. This side of their home has a couple of rooms that they are not allowed in, which is more than enough reason for the older of the two to question his younger sister’s intentions.

“Where are we going?” he tries again, more firmly this time, but Dante just grins like a little imp and shakes her head. “Dante, if you get me into trouble again–”

“Come on, Verge! Do I look like I want to spend our birthday doing chores?” she asks, a tad more serious. Well, as serious as a mischievous six-year-old can be, but serious nonetheless. To ease his worries, Dante gives Vergil’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Plus, I told you that this isn't gonna be a prank. Don’t you trust me?”

“Not when you say it like that…” Vergil’s grimace makes her giggle, and she gives him a little shoulder bump he instantly reciprocates, along with a small smile of his own. 

With every forbidden door they leave behind, Dante can feel Vergil’s anxiety lessen. They walk in a relative quiet, broken only by Dante’s occasional giggle whenever Vergil comes up with an increasingly more and more absurd guess as to what her big surprise could be. Her favourite so far was that she stole a horse and hid it in the attic without their parents noticing. 

Keep that in mind for next year.

“Here we are!” she lets go of Vergil to run ahead, reaching the door at the end of the hallway long before her brother. Said brother doesn’t question her this time, but he does raise a brow when he catches up to her.  “Ready?” she grabs the door handle. 

“What if I say no?” Dante makes a face that makes Vergil chuckle, and she puffs out an exasperated breath for show that earns her another nudge. Still – she couldn’t help but smile when Vergil finally nods. Dante pushes down the handle and opens the door to their mother’s atelier.

The pleasant smell of oil paint is ever present in this room. It sticks to the white walls and the dark wood furniture in a way Dante always liked – it's mixed with the scent of roses their mother carries with her wherever she goes, and so this room makes Dante feel warm and loved even when Eva isn’t here. Aside from her own room and Vergil’s, the atelier is Dante’s favourite place in the manor. The fact that it’s also the perfect place for what she has in mind for her and her twin is just the icing on the cake they are going to eat later in the day.

“It’s gonna be back here…”

She takes Vergil’s hand again, and leads him through the organized mess of canvases, stands, and tables filled with brushes, pencils, sketchbooks and paints of every kind. They march by, careful not to disturb any of the paintings that are drying, or Eva’s expensive photo equipment. Accidentally knocking something over would be a surefire way for the both of them to be banished from this room for all eternity – a fate that neither of them would want to suffer through.

Eva’s atelier is the one room in the manor with the most windows, besides the library – and, unlike the library, this one has a lovely window alcove both of the twins like to take advantage of whenever Eva is working. Dante finds this seating area with its plush pillows the best spot in the house – aside from Vergil – to take a nap on, while her twin can read in complete peace in here because their mother would absolutely not let them have a fight in the middle of her studio. Eva’s atelier is a neutral space; one that both child mutually agrees on. 

There’s a gold checkered gift bag placed atop the red and grey striped pillows that Dante quickly snatches up before she jumps into the alcove, dragging Vergil with her.

“We are just in time,” her smile grows even wider in her giddiness as she cradles the gift bag to her chest and crosses her legs. Vergil mirrors her position on the other side, but he also puts a pillow on his legs to prop his elbow on them in a pretend-bored position while he waits. 

“I’m starting to feel like it’s not going to be a horse,” he says in a disappointed tone that gets him hit with a pillow he throws back at her not even a moment later. 

“If you really want a horse that bad you should tell Mom and Dad,” Dante advises as she rubs the place it hit her on the forehead, but Vergil just shakes his head.

“You know animals don’t like Father very much,” he leans against the wall and puts his pillow back in its original place, all neat and tidy. “Remember when you begged for a whole month last year prior to our birthday for a puppy?”

“Nah, that didn’t happen.”

“It did, you just don’t remember. You have the memory of a goldfish.”

Dante sticks her tongue out at him, and Vergil rolls his eyes again – then they both laugh, free and without worries. The next moment, Dante suddenly sits up and grabs her brother, pointing out the window; elated.

“Look, look – it’s happening!” 

They watch in absolute silence as the world outside changes. The pale light blue of the sky that’s been slowly being pushed back as the vibrant shades of pink, yellow and orange arise with the coming of the Sun is partially hidden behind some wayward clouds that eagerly take on the colours of the morning. The light mist that covers the well-maintained, emerald green lawn and the colourful garden that surrounds their home looks especially magical as dawn finally breaks. Finally, the Sun rises over the horizon dressed in crimson red, bathing everything in its subdued light and chasing away the cold of the night.

It's the very first sunrise they've ever seen together.

Here, in the little alcove they had made their own, Dante turns to her brother with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty on her pale face. “Well? What do you think?” When he doesn’t answer right away, she quickly adds “I… I thought you would like it.”

Do you?

“It is beautiful,” he says in a quiet voice that pushes the heavy rock of worry that suddenly landed on Dante’s heart with ease. Vergil watches the sunrise, enraptured, while Dante lets out a satisfied sigh of relief. He likes it, she thinks with a smile, turning back towards the window – but then she remembers something important.

Vergil spares her a glance when she shuffles on her knees to grab the gift bag, and raises his brow again when she produces one of their mother's Polaroid cameras from it. “Would you like a picture of it?” Dante asks, bouncing on her seat.

“Does Mother know you have that?” the reprimanding tone was expected, but Dante rolls her eyes at it nonetheless.

“I asked if she could lend it to me for a birthday gift I wanted to give you. She even showed me how to use it – here!” in a matter of moments, Dante snaps a photo of the sunrise while it’s still new and fresh. The photo rolls out of the camera like it’s magic, and Dante treats it just as delicately as she takes it in her hand. “Mom said you should never shake it, despite what they show you in movies, because it could mess up the whole image. You should just put it down out of direct light until the picture develops and not mess with it until it does.”

“You really took this seriously, didn’t you?” Vergil asks, and though his choice of words sounded a bit condescending, his expression is anything but. It’s more… contemplating, than anything.

“Of course I did! I even made some backups in case this doesn’t work out; like, if it rains or if the sunrise wouldn’t look as pretty today as it could be, so–” Dante grabs the gift bag again, pulls out six other photos, and then places them in a row in between the two of them. Each one depicts a different sunrise, a few from other rooms in the house, although most of them are from the atelier. “–I snapped a couple photos earlier this week. Some of them are not… the best, but if you like one of them better than the one I just made, you can take that one instead.”

Vergil takes each one in his hand to take a better look at them, and for the first time in history, his expression turns into something more than mild amusement or annoyance. He looks almost impressed… and perhaps a little worried.

“Have you really been waking up at dawn all week for these?” Why he has to always sound so chiding, Dante will never understand. He might be the older twin, but he is not that much older than her!

“If you don’t like them, just say so–”

She goes to take them back, but Vergil quickly snatches them away, turning sideways so she can’t steal them from his hands; a dragon guarding his most sacred treasures.

Just as Dante opens her mouth to shout at him, Vergil shakes his head “No, I will keep them.” 

This simple sentence is enough to make Dante sit back; surprised. “What, like… all of them?”

“Obviously,” he says, like it is the most obvious thing in the world. His blue eyes shine like diamonds in the morning light. “You did all of this work, while I… didn’t make you anything. The least I can do is cherish what you’ve made for me.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Dante quietly adds, but Vergil shakes his head again and looks through the pictures again, now with a gentle smile on his face.

“No, I think want to,” he says with an air of finality. What else can Dante do, but accept it?

“Okay then.”

And that was that.

A pleasant silence falls upon them. When the newest photo of the set is done, Vergil puts it atop the small pile and slips the stack inside the gift bag. When he inquires as to where Dante got it from, he snorts “Of course,” when she tells him that she just took it from a cupboard in the kitchen.

Dante meanwhile fiddles with the camera to fight the quickly rising sleepiness that threatens to take over. When Vergil places the bag on the ground next to them and turns to stare out the window once more, she suddenly raises the camera to her face and snaps a photo of him. 

Her brother gives her an annoyed glance, blinking and agitated from the unexpected flash. “Why did you do that?”

“Felt like it,” Dante says in a sing-song voice, putting the freshly produced photo and the camera aside. She turns back at him and narrows her eyes as she looks him over. “You look a lot like Dad with your hair like that, you know.”

Surprised, Vergil runs his hands through the pushed-back silver locks on his head. “I do?”

“Yeah,” her following grin is positively diabolical. “And with that sneer on your face, you look a grumpy old man even more so than usual.”

She laughs when Vergil attacks her with a pillow again, but this time she fights back properly  – ready to settle the score. They nearly avoid falling out of the alcove and the window in turn, shouting and laughing like they are the only ones remaining in the whole wide world. When their excitement goes down and the drowsiness returns with full force, they don’t bother with getting up and going back to their respective rooms. Dante finds the maroon-red blanket her mother placed here for Dante's occasional naps in the atelier, and Vergil puts it over the two of them as they lie down facing each other – the same way they've always gone to sleep ever since they could remember.

With his back to the window and the morning sun, Vergil’s silhouette is illuminated like he’s something ethereal; more like a dream than something tangible. It strains Dante’s eyes to look at him, her eyelids heavy with all the missed sleep she had burdened herself with for this precious memory they now share. 

“I still feel like I should’ve done something for you as well,” her brother confesses quietly after a few minutes have passed, in case she’d already fallen asleep. 

Dante crawls closer to him, and hides her face from the sun under his chin. “It’s okay,” she says with a yawn, content with the way things are. Slowly, she searches for and takes his hand in her own, holding onto it like it’s the most precious thing in the world. “I’m just happy you liked it.”

“You know, I’m not opposed to… doing this next year again, if you want.” Vergil proposes, his breath warm against her hair. “We could make it a thing that we do for our birthday. Just the two of us.”

“Promise?” she asks in a whisper, nearly lulled to sleep by her brother’s heartbeat. She feels content under the covers; warm and safe, like when Mom hugs and kisses her, or when Dad picks her up and holds her close. Only better. 

Things are always better when her brother is near.

“Promise.”

Dante looks up at him, a small smile on her face that may or may not be just a little cheeky.

There’s no point in not trying, as Dad likes to say. 

“You know… if you still feel bad, we could just pretend that I never said anything about not bothering you for the week–”

“Go to sleep, Dante.”

And so she does, with laughter in her heart and Vergil by her side.

The way things always should be.

The wind that rushes along the bridge is rather cold, despite it being already the middle of June. The few people who decide to take a walk on the metal construction this early in the morning lightly shiver as they pass by the lanky teenage girl in the grey hoodie, mumbling about how they should’ve dressed up a bit warmer for today. 

Hopefully, the morning chill will pass quickly, they think. By the time they step off the bridge, they already feel much better, miraculously so. It’s probably all the river’s fault. Next time, I’ll bring a jacket.

Strangely enough, next time around the wind won't feel anywhere near as cold.

Dante ignores the people walking by the same way they ignore her: lost in her thoughts while she listens to the song of the wind. She watches how it plays with the water, creating shallow waves that die as quickly as they are born. Her brother’s book is held firmly in her arm, thumb running along its spine like a caress. 

She looks distracted. Vulnerable. But her free arm shifts quicker than the wind – her grip on the young man’s arm who is about to snatch up her bag that’s been placed next to her feet is harsher than steel. A not-so-gentle squeeze makes the man yelp like a kicked puppy, and his eyes widen in what could be only be called pure terror when Dante moves her head just enough to look him in the eye; her expression colder than a winter night.

“Keep walking,” she says quietly, the words barely audible. They set the man running when released, the panicked beating of his heart echoing in Dante’s ears long after he disappears from view. 

Chase. Punish.

Fuck. Off.

She leans back against the railing and lets out a tired sigh. Her eyes no longer burn; the tears have dried up long ago, but the urge to cry is still very much present. It’s the same dance and song every time. Seven times she had tried to go through her birthday unaffected, trying to hold onto the hope that it will get easier next year. 

But it doesn’t. It never does. The day ends the same each and every time: with Dante feeling like she is nothing but the shell of a person; a wandering soul cut in half. Empty, in the loneliest, most painful way possible.

All Dante can think of is how he would’ve turned sixteen today too. How a decade ago they made a promise to watch the sunrise together, and how she’s been watching it alone ever since she turned nine.

This is all that’s left of him. A promise, and a book. Nothing else survived the Hell that tore apart their home on Judgment Day. Every picture of him was burned in the flames, aside from the family portrait in the foyer that was simply too big for her to carry around. The only reason Dante can even still remember his features is because she sees a memory of him every time she looks into a mirror; but with each day, even that memory is fading. She is no longer that little girl who was the perfect copy of her twin brother. She changed. If he was here today, standing next to her, he would be–

Dante takes a deep breath, reigning in the fantasy with an iron fist. No. No, she can’t imagine what it would be like if he was still here. She would just be hurting herself by thinking about the life she was denied the moment her entitlement chased Vergil away from the sanctuary of their home. 

(If only I didn’t–)

(If only he wasn't so–)

(If only Father was still–)

The warmed-up metal railing groans in protest under the force of her grip. It takes Dante a moment to ease her fingers off of it, her blood boiling with a suffocating mix of anguish, loathing and self-hatred. It's always the same whenever she's thinking too much about the past. It makes her feel like she is voluntarily taking another sip of a slow-burning poison that cannot kill her – only bring her immense pain she cannot escape from. 

Sometimes Dante wishes she could get on with her life and forget her past like her mother wished her to. That she could fully become Antonia Redgrave and leave Dante Alighieri behind like she did with the ashen remains of her once deeply loved family home…

But she just can't. Not when Hell relentlessly pursues her like a pack of bloodhounds every night, set on taking revenge on her for father's betrayal; not when every human she ever meets flinches away from her instinctually, not knowing, but understanding that she is nothing but a pretender: 

Neither human nor devil. She is both. And thus, the world decided she had to be punished for this egregious sin – that she was to be denied peace and be chased around like prey, but also antagonized and locked out like a predator. Dante is left alone in the middle; has to skirt on the edge of human society while the Kingdom of the Damned wants to tear her into pieces and return to the Inferno with her broken bones held high like golden trophies. 

In the midst of all of this madness, her memories are the only things that she could call truly hers. They are the dying embers that keep Dante warm at night, even though holding onto them too tight burns her chest and makes her eyes well up with tears. There's nothing in this godforsaken world that could take them away from her. 

Not even the last wish of her own mother.

Dante’s eyes stray back to the book that once – no, that belongs to her brother. It would always belong to him, regardless of all the years Dante has been holding onto it. She doesn’t know what the cover hides, as she not once has cracked it open to look. If Dante were to guess, she would say it’s probably about the works of one of the many poets Vergil had taken a liking to during their last year together. What, with the way he was holding it after he came home with it, the book might have just been made of gold in his eyes.

How funny. Back then, Dante would’ve never thought she would feel the same one day.

The loud honking of a car signals that she should probably get going. The Sun is now high up in the sky, warm rays breaking through the cold caress of the wind. Dante adjusts the hood on her head and makes quick work of hiding Vergil’s book in her falling-apart satchel of ill-gotten heirlooms. Runs a finger down the cover as a silent goodbye, as Dante just simply cannot look at it and reminisce nearly as easily as she does with her mother’s portrait. No, the book is reserved for only Dante’s birthday, or on her darkest of days, when only the phantom presence of her long-dead twin could make her last through the night. Until then, it stays locked away; safe and loved.

With that done, Dante hauls the bag back onto her shoulder; careful not to take off the head of any of the growing number of passers-by in the process. It’s easy enough to do with the relatively wide berth she’s given by the riff-raff. There are some perks of being just generally unlikeable, apparently. At least she’s rarely bothered, if nothing else.

The water continues to gently flow under the bridge as Dante continues on her journey, mind steering away from the past and focusing on the present. First off: ammo. There has to be a place somewhere Downtown, as even a city as nice as Capulet would have a few people who own a gun for whatever personal or nefarious reason. It’s probably going to take Dante a while to actually find it, as she can’t just go and ask people for directions. Especially since there was a shootout of some shorts in the early hours on the other side of the river, she hears.

A small grin graces Dante’s face under the shadow of her hood. Wonder who that could’ve been.

After she finishes her bullet hunt, it would be very wise to leave town quickly. Not that Dante’s worried – but just in case.

One step, two, and Dante’s off the bridge and becomes one with the morning commune. From a distance, one couldn’t guess that she’s any different from the rest of the crowd. Just a tall, young woman on her way to whatever destination she’s headed to. The years of pain and loneliness lay obscured under the light of the morning Sun; their shadow enough to make a human feel the chill of winter. But only the devils who only stir awake after dusk, thirsting for the red-hot blood in her veins – and Dante herself – knows the whole truth:

She is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Always was, always will be. And although she still wanders around the world without a true goal in sight, Dante knows that one day she will find whatever it is that she’s looking for. Until then, she will keep going; steadfast, and enduring.

For them.