"Almost there," Trish said cheerfully, "Just one more box." Dante grunted up from the book he was engrossed in. Spring-cleaning had been his partner's idea, no question there. At first he had dragged his heels and tried to get out of it, but she never complained about the demon heads on the wall, or the posters of less-than-clothed women, so he eventually decided to indulge her just this once. Though he would never, ever admit it, he was just a little glad they had gone through his junk; he really hadn't ever cleaned the place. Most of what they found was indeed junk, and was either put back in storage at his insistence or dumped.

However, among the boxes and boxes of useless memorabilia, they had found a few gems. There had been some demon parts, like horns and skulls, which could be sold to the right people for quite a bit of money. Dozens of old, most likely one-of-a-kind books on topics like curses and demon lore in languages ranging from English down to dark tongs not even Trish had heard of had been crammed into his attic along with a decade of crap. (It was one such book that now held Dante's attention. It was an anthology of all the members of the Goat Clan- liberally illustrated.) But most interesting to the blonde demon had been some very lovely devil arms that Dante had just tossed up here to rust.

It was one of these that she found sitting at the top of the last box. Actually, it was two devil arms, twin swords, one red and the other blue. As with all the demonic weapons they had come across, she could feel that these too were brimming with power, but there was something else about them that the other devil arms didn't have. Something… she couldn't put her finger on it… they felt… She held up the blue sword and brought its carved face very close to her own. Staring at it's closed eyes; she tried to figure out just what sort of strange energy it was giving off. It felt like… it was thinking? No, that was ridiculous, even the strongest pieces of devil arms were just fragments of the soul, none of the conscious was ever left. Then what was it she felt? Squinting, she brought the sword nose-to nose with her.

"BROTHER! WE ARE FREED!" The sword yelled as its black eyes flew open. Trish's heart clawed its way up her though and attempted to escape her body as she let out a short, high-pitched scream. She dropped the sword like it had burned her. Dante looked up briefly with her yell, but then seeing what she had unleashed, he chuckled, burring himself back in his book. The red sword opened its eyes too and looked around.

"So it would seem. And not a moment too soon. I daresay that was far more boring than Teme-ni-gru!" He replied.

"Ah, but we were in Teme-ni-gru for a millennium, and verily, we have only been in the box a few years."

"Yes, but there was much to do in there, and we had such a lovely room. And don't forget the games of chess that-" at this, she could no longer stifle a laugh. The swords with their silly little carved faces and incessant ramblings were so… so cute! Her giggle drew the attention of the blue sword.

"Agni," he cried, "We have been freed by a maiden most fair." Dante snorted. Anyone to whom the word 'maiden' came to mind when talking about Trish was clearly not in touch with reality. She shot him a glare that went hatefully un-noticed, thanks to the book.

"Fair you say?" Asked Agni from the box, "But I can feel her demonic aura. And it is strong. She feels like The Darkness. She must be of Mundus's blood."

"Nonsense," Rudra said, "No Spawn of Mundus could be so beautiful. I can see her before me. She has flowing golden hair radiant as the morning sun and skin as pure and white as the fresh-fallen snow and eyes-" Dante snatched the gushing weapon out of Trish's hands. That was fun, but the talking swords were getting very old, very quickly as far as he was concerned. He grabbed Agni from the box and held them both up so they were looking at him.

"The 'no talking' rule is still in effect." He said dryly. "Understand?"

"Master!" exclaimed Rudra, "You are still alive! How joyous a day this is. Agni said that you would die before you remembered us, but I still had hope."

"Your memory is hazy at best brother. It was I who remained faithful in our master. You said that-" The half-demon rolled his eyes and knocked the swords' heads together.

"I thought I said no talking."

"Dante!" Trish said, finally finding her voice. "Don't be so mean! They weren't doing anything wrong." She grabbed the weapons back from her partner and held them in a way that could nearly be described as cradling. He heard one of the swords saying something under its breath to the other, but couldn't make out what it was saying beyond the words 'kinder' and 'master.' He made rather loud 'harrumph.'

"They're annoying me is what they're doing" he said.

At this moment, the phone decided to break up the bickering demons with its shrill cries for attention. Dante answered- as always- with the name of his shop and waited for the password. Trish wondered if this was another job; a little demon slaying would break up the monotony of housework quite nicely. She waited quietly for him to finish up the conversation. He was grinning. That was a good sign.

"Sin Scissors," He said, "A few of them. Grab the Sparda and let's roll." He himself grabbed his eternally-favored twin hand-guns and the Beowulf gauntlets. He had been itching to try them out again ever since they had been unearthed some days prior.

Trish eyed the heirloom sword wearily. It was fun, to be sure, the way Sparda would take huge chunks out of the lesser demons with little effort, but using the same weapon day-in, day-out was getting just a trifle old. Plus, anything that got under Dante's skin was A-ok in her book. She made a few simply swipes with the swords in her hands. The gales and flames that they emitted with so little effort was positively delightful. Her eyes turned once more to the Sparda, and then back to Agni and Rudra. She smiled.

"How would you boys like to have a little fun?"

AN: Don't worry, that was not the end, I'll update. Probably.