A/N: Take it how you will. I wanted see if I can get angsty too. I do not own DMC or its characters... Capcom's getting rich off them. Also if you wanted to know where the title came from, it is named after the Alice in Chains song.
I made some slight edits few hours after the original post... Hopefully its easier to read and it flows better.
If you see ANY spelling or grammatical mistakes, please let me know. Fresh eyes are greatly appreciated!
Sea of Sorrow
Chapter 1: Dirge
Vergil stood only a few feet from the open black lacquered casket, almost too afraid to look inside. He stood in the same spot for what seemed to him like an eternity. A hand grasped his shoulder, snapping him out his trance.
He turned to see Trish with arms slightly out-stretched and her baby blue eyes welling up with tears. She held him in a warm embrace, the very same that Eva had used to comfort him so many years ago. It pained Trish to see him this way. Vergil, the son of Sparda was always so emotionally detached.
This sociopathic detachment had always been a defense mechanism to protect his human heart; it reared its head when his father disappeared and when Eva died. He didn't cry then. No, that snow-topped ten-year-old boy did not shed a single tear at his mother's funeral, trying his best to be strong… at least for Dante's sake.
Trish's arms were still wrapped around Vergil when she absorbed all she could at the time. He had traded his traditional blue battle garb for the black slacks and sweater of mourning. His normally spiked platinum locks were now in more subdued, neat emo fringes, almost reminiscent of Dante's own style. It nearly felt as if Vergil was Dante himself.
Without a word she somehow coaxed Vergil closer to the casket to view the body. His eyes were swollen red from tears he could no longer cry. Vergil managed to peer inside. It was lined in crimson satin. The very color sent images of what happened a week ago through Vergil's head. Blood… There's so much blood. I have to stop the bleeding. "Hang on! Please, STAY WITH ME!"
He begrudgingly continued to look inside at the body starting with its hands. Fingers gently interlocked, holding Ivory in place at about mid-chest. Vergil had made it his resolve to keep Ebony as a memento and to bury him with Ivory, just as Dante had done for Lady with Kalina Ann nearly two years ago.
Vergil continued to take in the man lying before him. He had been dressed in a simple funeral suit, the same that he wore to Lady's. His eyes trailed up to his face, his mirror image. The same silver hair neatly combed back with some of the tuft slightly obscuring his right eye. His seemingly sleeping face held a slim serene smile. It was amazing what a mortician could do to make the deceased look so peaceful no matter the circumstances of death. Vergil absent-mindedly stroked the hair out of his brother's face as he recounted what happen.
If Vergil hadn't known any better, he would have thought his brother was sleeping, at first glance. He stood in the doorway scarcely understanding what was unfolding. Directly across from him sat the white-haired devil hunter. His shoulders slumped; head slightly bowed and back precariously supported by the foot of an unmade full-sized bed.
There sat Dante in a puddle of his own blood with a cursed athame sizzling in the loose grip of his right hand and a photo of Lady in the left. He was clad in black dress slacks, white button down dress shirt and a slackened black tie; casket sharp. His sleeves were rolled up just past his forearms to reveal a series of terribly deep gashes. Dante's shirt was already soaking up vast amounts of blood from a substantial chest wound.
Why isn't he healing? There's so much blood. I have to stop the bleeding, Vergil immediately thought. He rushed in to his brother's side. Without delay, Vergil fell to his knees gasping for air and feeling sick to his stomach. What is this, some kind of barrier, he thought. He looked around again and saw glyphs written in chalk encircling him and his brother. Dante's blood had already enclosed around Vergil. With a blood-covered hand, Vergil managed to erase a few of the runes, nullifying the spell. Almost automatically, Vergil was breathing much easier.
He made his way to Dante, kneeling in the puddle. Vergil touched his twin's shoulder ever so slightly. The athame clattered to the floor. Dante collapsed onto his side making contact with the pool of blood. His silver hair was instantaneously saturated in crimson. The sight alone made Vergil want to vomit.
Having nowhere else to go, Vergil turned Dante onto his back and began to assess him and tear at the bed sheets for makeshift bandages. "Trish! Lucia! I need your help," Vergil screamed out.
Vergil placed his fingers on Dante's neck to feel for a carotid pulse. It was weak and very thready. His breathing was already so shallow that Vergil's demon enhanced hearing had difficulty picking up on it. "Trish! Lucia," he called again, still not realizing that they had gone out earlier.
His attention snapped back to Dante, whose eyelids were already narrowing into slits.
"No! Hang on! Stay wake… Please, st-stay with me," he nearly shouted with tears forming. Dante feebly tried to respond, only more blood burbled and oozed out the sides of his mouth, staining his paler than usual complexion.
Dante let out a string of wet coughs and labored breaths. "Verg," he tried to appeal, voice barely audible. His once brilliant azure eyes were now a dull gray. They were strangely accepting of the inevitable. Vergil couldn't even bring himself to look Dante in the eyes. "Shhh… Dante conserve your strength. Try not to speak," he soothed, cleaning the blood off his twin's mouth.
Vergil looked up at the door hoping, praying if he ever did, that either Trish or Lucia heard his calls.
He turned back his brother, "Dante?" No response. Vergil's eyes grew wide in horror when he realized that Dante's heart had stopped. "No! No. No," he said in near denial. He finally remembered a gold orb that he always kept on his person. He tried and it didn't work.
Vergil immediately started CPR. "Don't… you… dare… leave… me," his words punctuated by compressions, determined to bring his brother back one way or another. He kept trying and calling for help that would never arrive.
Vergil sank back when he recognized that his attempts were in vain. He tried his best to choke back the sobs that came rushing forth without his permission.
Probably near insane now, Vergil sat behind Dante with his back against the bed. He placed Dante's head in his lap, began caressing his hair and absently humming the ghost of a tune from years past. Lady's picture lay floating on the ruddy tide.
Vergil stared straight ahead as Trish and Lucia walked into the room less than five minutes later. Upon seeing the scene before them, their eyes bulged and mouth agape; they dropped their shopping bags and quickly found themselves at the twins' side. For a short while only silence and the sickening copper scent of warm blood wafted through the air.
"OH MY GOD," Trish screamed and promptly understood the shear volume of her voice and the irony of her statement. She continued sensitively, "Is he-" Vergil didn't make eye contact. Didn't even utter a word. "What should we-" Lucia was cut off when Vergil brought himself to his feet and walk out the room.
Within minutes the police were there taking photos and statements. Dante's room was tapped off. Detectives conversing, comparing notes, commenting on the scores of trophy skulls, weapons and talismans. Vergil cooperated with the police even if some had settled in their minds that he had done it.
Some thirty minutes later, they wrapped things up and carried out a body bag.
Vergil was now a repast at Devil May Cry, standing by the metal grated stairs staring at his cup of coffee. The place was thoroughly "cleaned" with weapons and other demonic kick-knacks stored away. He mindlessly swirled it allowing the light to catch at it. People that he didn't know surrounded him; mainly neighbors and people Dante had saved.
Through no fault of his own, he caught onto tidbits of conversation that danced about the room:
"Suicide? I can't believe that he'd do that to himself." …
"He was a nice enough guy."...
"Stay gothic long enough, it'll happen." …
"I feel sorry for his brother… what's his name… Vincent?"…
"How sad. First his wife and now him."
He couldn't take it any more… he had to get away.
Vergil trekked upstairs to Dante's room and lay face down across the bed that hadn't been touched since that day.
"Where's Vergil," Trish asked.
"He went upstairs," said Lucia, "You go… I'll host."
Trish nodded and went up to check on Vergil. "Verg," Trish asked knocking on the doorjamb.
"Only Dante could call me that," he answered bitterly. Trish shouldn't have been, but she felt hurt by his words. He saw it in her eyes.
"Sorry," He finally said, "What do you need?"
She walked into the room, side-stepping the spots where blood seeped into floor and sat on the bed next to Vergil. She rubbed his back in comfort and let out a small sigh.
"I knew Dante a long while before I met you," she said thoughtfully, "And I knew he was going through a rough time when Lady died… I wasn't there for him and I am so sorry, Vergil."
Hearing this Vergil straightened himself and promptly said, "Dante did not kill himself." His cerulean eyes were now burning with a passionate, deeper blue.
"But," she said softly, "They found beyond fatal doses of blood thinners, tranquilizers and alcohol in his system. All signs point to-"
"No," he said abruptly, "I would understand the alcohol, but the others were misdirection. The spell on the floor and athame found in his hand. No devil or half-devil can ever use them. The drugs just made things easier. Whoever murdered my brother was…" Vergil trailed off.
Trish looked up to see Vergil standing at the door, his back to her and with Yamato in hand, "Human," he finished. His voice was cold with hatred as he said the word. Before Trish could intervene, Vergil had already disappeared.
Where's Vergil off to?
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