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skvaderarts · 1 year

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Petrichor Chapter 37: Gone

Chapter 37: Gone

Note: Happy first chapter of the year, everyone! Sorry for all the delays and thank you for bearing with me during my difficulties. I’m still recovering, so it’s just one chapter every Friday for the time being, but my fingers are feeling much better. Just a bit sore now. Anyway, enjoy the chapter! And thank you for all your well wishes. I haven’t responded to them just yet, but I do see them and they make me smile. I’m working on getting to them soon! Enjoy this slightly longer chapter to kick off the new year!

(-~-)

He had returned home on time, just like he’d promised. And what awaited him was hell itself.

A sinking, empty feeling overtook him as he stood in the doorway to what had once been their living room, his eyes lingering on the furniture that had been overturned and the broken items thrown about the place, subconsciously acknowledging them but not paying much attention to them. He was unable to process or feel anything about the destruction of the space he was so used to seeing in otherwise pristine condition, his mind lingering on the only thing of consequence at the moment.

Where was she?

He walked through the room, scanning his surroundings for any trace of her. And although he did this at a relatively standard speed, the racing of his heart that his face did not portray and the unmitigable dread that he felt overtaking him both slowed his perception of time and accelerated his fear until it became all-encompassing. Suffocating. Crushing.

He made his way into the kitchen where he saw it: blood. A trail of it on the floor as though something had been dragged from the carpet through the doorway and into the kitchen. It wasn’t enough to soak the carpet, but it was enough to warrant replacing it altogether in lieu of trying to clean it. Far too great of a quantity for his liking. He passed the threshold of the doorway and stepped into the kitchen where he found something that he did not entirely expect. A humanoid demon, laying face down on the floor dead with a long metal object stuck through its chest that now protruded through its back. He peeped back into the living room, his pulse racing faster now than ever. It appeared that his observation that one of the fire pokers was missing had not missed the mark.

She had not gone down without a fight. The important question now was… where had she disappeared to? The blood in the kitchen could largely be attributed to the dead demon, but he smelled more than one source, and to his utter dismay, a portion of that was hers. He just couldn’t be certain how large of a portion thanks to the sheer quantity involved and the overwhelmingly pungent aroma of decaying demon blood. It didn’t have the coppery scent of human blood. No, it reeked of decay. Rot. inhumanity. An indication if not a dead giveaway to its composition. A contrast to its normally inoffensive scent.

A glance out of the back door into the small backyard revealed nothing in much the same way as his trip of the stairs to check each of the bedrooms yielded much the same result. It seemed that aside from some blood smeared down the walls and floors and another dead demon nearest to the door to the master bedroom, there was simply no trace of her. A thorough inspection revealed that the only untouched room in the entire house was the nursery, something that he might have recognized as morbidly ironic, if not even darkly amusing if not for the circumstances and the personal stakes involved.

But after a thorough search of the premises revealed nothing, he found himself walking slowly and silently back down the stairs, paying no mind to the broken banister as he slumped down onto the stairs at the bottom, the entire weight of the world nearly crushing him as he found himself sitting there, his neck and chin cupped in his hands and he allowed Yamato to slide out of his grip and onto the steps beside him, the bottom of the sheath actually touching the floor. A rare occurrence that he registered but made no move to remedy. He couldn’t muster the mental energy to prioritize his beloved blade at the moment. Not while this was going on.

“Vivienne… Where are you?”

He knew not who he spoke to, he didn’t know how to answer that question, and he was certain that he wouldn’t like the answer, but his heart suddenly ached for the company of the young woman that he held so dear to his heart. He’d been stabbed before. He’d been brutally assaulted and nearly shredded to pieces. He’d lost those dear to him before. But as he sat there on the steps with the realization that she might be gone forever and that he could sense no traces of her anywhere in at all, even on the outer fringes of his senses no matter how far he expanded his range, he knew true emptiness. He knew loss. He knew agony.

He would search for them. He had to. It was all that he could do. But a part of them already knew that they were lost to him. He was simply going through the motions like he always did, unable to face the truth of the cards he’d been dealt. He always drew the worst hand. He should have known better than to get her involved. What horrors she must have endured during her last moments. What brutality she might still be enduring elsewhere. What if this had been the devil king’s work? Those demons were not your average run-of-the-mill henchmen. They were humanoid. Advanced. Had Mundus ordered that they take her to the underworld? Did he know about the little one? Had he…

“No… anything but that… “ He thought to himself as his now empty mind spiraled. He could not think of a worse fate for her to endure. A worse end to her vibrant and beautiful life. Vergil could hardly fathom the depths of her suffering or the things that his hated enemy would do to the woman who dared bear his child. For the first time in recent memory, he felt visceral anger, hate, disgust, and misery mix into one potent cocktail of apathetic sickness. They were lost to him. It was a fact that he somehow knew deep in his soul.

How… how was he supposed to go on without them? He would think about this as he searched. And he would search everywhere. He had to. It was the very least that he owed her. Wherever that path lead him. Even if he had to open the gates of hell themselves, he would. And if he could not find them he would upturn the Earth itself in vengeance. How foolish these human emotions were to lead him down such a foolish path. To let him think that he could be happy. To convince him that he was strong enough to protect anything and that he was worthy of love. Where love had once been there was only emptiness. A void. And he did not know how to fill it. But he would spill the blood of those who had dared cross him. Who had dared hurt her. Who had thought foolishly that they could take from him the only ones he loved.

He would have his answers. He would know revenge. And as he stood up from his place on the stairs and grasped Yamato, throwing open the door to what had once been their home and slamming it behind him as he left it forever, he felt the setting sun sting in his waterlogged eyes. His was a divine hate for whatever force had taken her from him. He had nothing left. Nothing but his task. Nothing but his vengeance. And he would know satisfaction. She would know justice.

Vergil would become strong enough to make sure that this would never happen again. He would never dare love again. And he would never again be made a victim of his human heart. He would become strong enough to protect himself. To defeat anything. He would internalize his hatred and allow it to become the barrier that blocked out all else. To become the icy barrier that held back the storm. He had a single-minded focus now, and if he could not find them, then hell protect those who had stolen from him the only thing he had left to fight for. The only thing he’d ever wanted to protect. The only one he’d ever loved in that way.

He felt an icy tingle flow through his body as he triggered and, in a flash, disappeared through a portal cut through the fabric for reality itself with his blade, the ruins of what had once been behind him. Whatever the outcome, this would be the end of his weakness. The end of his humanity. The end of hope. The end of love.

(-~-)

Dante looked at his twin brother as he simply sat there on the other side of the table, his mind a thousand miles away. So much more made sense about him now than never had. He… he felt like he’d come to understand Vergil more during the conversation they’d shared that day than he ever had up until then, at least all at once.

Over the years and through a lot of introspection as he’d grown out of his teen years he’d been able to sympathize more with his older twin than he’d had the capacity for when he’d been younger, but it was these moments when Vergil opened up to him… when they allowed themselves even the slightest vulnerability with one another that he felt them truly connect. And even if it felt like a knife slowly being plunged into their hearts the majority of the time, he wouldn’t back down from the challenge or wish for an easier way out. It wasn’t like the silence between them and their previous feelings towards one another for the majority of their lives had been painless, anyway. At least this way they were making progress. Or, at least Dante thought so. He liked to imagine they were, at least.

“So you came back and she was just… gone?” There was an emotion in Dante’s tone that was hard to distinguish, but he seemed to truly be trying to put himself in his older twin’s shoes in an attempt to comprehend the sorrow that his brother had felt that day. The very thought of imagining what he’d lost and how sudden it had been. And the not knowing. Not knowing what had happened to her. And V… thinking that he’d forever lost the opportunity to know his child… And they’d been so close. So very close to the actualization of everything they wanted. No wonder he’d been so unreachable during their clash atop the tower. Not that he’d exactly tried to talk things out and really reach him until the very end, anyway. One of his own life’s biggest regrets. They’d both had something profound to keep them awake at night.

“Yes. And the quantity of blood did not leave me with an abundance of confidence. Nor did the broken furniture. Or the claw marks.” He spoke quietly as though raising his voice would invoke some otherworldly force. “... It was clear that there had been more demons there at one point than what I found. I can only imagine with the gift of hindsight that they must have pursued her. I still do not know how she managed to escape her fate but… I am grateful that she did.”

Dante didn’t doubt that for a second. He had to admit that he himself shared that sentiment. Not just for his brother’s sake, but for hers and for V. He would have never been granted the chance to meet him and to know him as he did now if she’d died that day. And would his brother even be here now to have this conversation with, if not for the actions that V had taken decades later? Would he have ever known Trish and Lady? How much would be different if they had ventured down different paths and never known it? The possibilities were staggering and admittedly somewhat existentially horrifying.

“Any idea who they were or how they got in? I mean, besides obviously being demons”

“That much was clear from the offset, yes. I could tell just from the smell of the blood alone. Some of it was her’s, but I couldn’t determine what percentage due to the sheer volume. I can only assume they were tracking me on behalf of Mundus and happened upon her since she was more or less the nexus of all of my activity at the time.” A look of displeasure crossed the Darkslayer’s face. He was no doubt considering the folly of his past again. Perhaps thinking about what he could have done differently to change that outcome. Dante wondered to himself if that was a fatal flaw that his brother possessed that he would ever outgrow: his inability to not blame himself for every negative outcome and to see that there were simply some things that he could not fix. That he could not account for. That were uncontrollable. He didn’t expect him to enjoy that fact, but he wondered if he would ever come to accept that.

Something told him that he wouldn’t.

“You figured that they took her. I gathered that much.” Dante added to his brother’s conclusion. Everything else he’d said made perfect sense. It seemed that they were on the same page for once, in this regard. They had probably been looking for Vergil and she’s simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Poor Vivienne…

Vergil fell silent for a long while, closing his eyes as he exhaled a long breath. He almost seemed to tremble as he did so, Dante understanding that hearing those words spoken out loud still brought with them immense sorrow. And the way that Vergil swallowed and opened his mouth to speak only to close it again before shifting uncomfortably in his seat spoke volumes. “I did not wish to come to that conclusion, but after searching for the better part of a week with no trace of her for hundreds of miles around, that was the only answer. But it seems I was incorrect.”

“What… what did you do after that?” Dante asked carefully, fully aware of the fact that he was treading on cracked ice. Probing for details when it came to something like this was a good way to get Vergil to stop talking altogether. He only hoped that he wasn’t pushing him too far.

“Come again?” The Darkslayer asked, his mind elsewhere for a moment. He’d heard what Dante had just said, but he hadn’t really comprehended it.

“When you stopped looking. I’m sure that was a hard decision to make but… What did you do after that?” Dante wasn’t sure if he’d struck, a nerve or his brother had simply checked out during their conversation, but understandable his mind seemed to be elsewhere. He hoped that he wasn’t lingering on his past. There didn’t seem to be any peace there. Only pain.

“I needed to distract myself from my grief. It… consumed me. Utterly and completely. My decision to stop looking for them was perhaps the hardest thing ever done. No amount of time felt like enough, and nothing short of that felt like too little. It would never have been sufficient. I was fighting a losing battle in every aspect possible and I was utterly and completely lost.” Vergil admitted, looking down as a heavy sadness washed over him. He was lingering in it; living in it again fully for the first time in a very long while. And it was just as utterly saturating as it had always been. And for so long he’d felt that he deserved to feel this forever. His personal penance for his failure. He did not deserve happiness, so it was unavailable to him. He did not deserve love so it was forever lost to him. “So I left and followed the lead that had cost me so dearly. That I had pursued despite everything telling me it was foolish. It was the only thing that I could do. And that led me to Fortuna. And eventually to our first encounter sometime after that.”

“Guess that explains… well, a lot, actually. Now the cold silence makes more sense. You weren’t in a talking mood, and now I know why.” Dante said with a nod, more to himself than to his older twin. Neither of them had been, but for entirely different reasons. So many of his brother’s words made so much more sense to him now. He’d been grieving everyone he’d ever loved, and the only person who had survived, the only person he’d had left, had been his younger twin. The younger twin who had told him to his face that he didn’t like him. He… he wished he could take that back. He was willing to bet that he’d already assumed that, but hearing it had probably forced him to internalize it. And why had he said it in the first place? Just to hurt him? Had they both just been that petty back then?

He… He loved Vergil. They were brothers. He might not speak the words, but it was true.

“Among other reasons, yes. You have arrived at the general vicinity of the answer to your lingering question.” Vergil said almost too offhandedly. Perhaps this was a road he didn’t want to go down, either. And then something occurred to Dante that hadn’t previously.

“You said you went to Fortuna. That end how I think it does?” Dante asked, genuinely curious. To say that he knew nothing of what had happened in that place would be a vast understatement. He genuinely wondered what all had occurred there. After all, Nero was proof enough that something of note had transpired there. “Anything noteworthy happen while you were there?”

“If you’re insinuating anything with regards to Nero’s conception, then yes. I assume.”

“That another bad story?” Dante said before registering the last two words that his brother had said. And then he remembered his offhand joke about Vergil’s awful memory atop the Qliphoth. Had he actually been onto something? “Wait, you assume? You… you really don’t remember. I thought that you were being sarcastic.”

“Surprisingly, no. That isn’t a negative experience. Although I must admit that it started as one. I was looking for a distraction. It… It was his predicted due date and I desperately wanted to not think about that.” Vergil looked up at the clock on the wall of the diner and Dante’s eyes followed his gaze to it. They’d been here for about two hours now. This had to be the longest single sitting of conversation between them in perhaps their entire lives. It was a good thing that they’d started the day out so early. But he didn’t regret that. “And as for remembering… much of what I do and do not have the capacity to recall is dictated by my time as that… thing. Everything is hazy and fragmented. I recall pieces of many things, but not their order. Mundus made sure of that.”

“I see.” Dante lingered on the clock for a moment, his eyes drifting back to Vergil after he realized how late it was getting. They weren’t exactly in a hurry, but he wondered if his older brother had noticed that. He’d looked at the clock a few minutes ago, after all. “Getting late, hu? Don’t have time for that one?”

Vergil looked over at him, an almost amused smirk threatening to make itself known as his eyebrow crooked slightly in spite of it all. “I distinctly remember you indicating back in Redgrave City that you were uninterested in that story. But I suppose we do have time. If you’ve since reconsidered.”

Dante chuckled to himself as he shook his head. He had said that, hadn’t he? Vergil had him dead to rights in that regard. “Eh, I was just being difficult. Lay it on me.”

“Very well. It was a short affair, but I can only imagine that the details will prove to be… entertaining to you, at the very least.” Vergil leaned back in his seat and gave Dante a serious look. It was clear that whatever he was about to say was no laughing matter. “But.. you will not speak of this to Nero. To anyone or either of them. Not until I have. I owe them that much.”

Dante nodded. His older twin hadn’t needed to tell him that in the first place. He didn’t think that it was right to do something like that, and he was quite certain that Vergil probably knew that, but he clearly still felt the need to say as much. It was simply that important to him. “Deal. Not that I needed telling in the first place, but fine. So what’s the story.”

Vergil chuckled to himself, shaking his head. Now that they were on the same page… “It’s pathetic. Given the circumstances, I fully understand why I let it slip from my memory. But I shall tell you what I remember.”

(-~-)

Well, this conversation was one heck of a roller coaster! I hope you liked it! I’m typing this as the guy from the internet company is pulling into the parking lot to see whats going on with my wifi. Fingers crossed it’s not the wiring! See you in the comments and next week on Friday! I hope you liked it! Bye bye!

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