folkmeme | October-November 2024 Test Drive Meme

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*tdm

October-November 2024 Test Drive Meme

October-November 2024 Test Drive

Introduction

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This Test Drive meme is open to all.
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not. All TDMs are game canon and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’

TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.

Playing and interacting with the TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.

Current players are always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!
🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore. Then you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.

🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

After the Storm . ★

Content Warnings: Natural Disaster/Natural Disaster Relief

It seems as if the Star Children will be restricted to Amrita Academy forever, when nothing changes at the one month mark. Yet, after another week has stretched endlessly past, a morning dawns to show that the moat of Lorasses has vanished. The way is clear to discover what the chaotic storms have left behind.

Most of Folkmore's resident spirits return. Good thing Catbus is among them because the train is not operating. Debris litters the tracks throughout the land. Someone's going to have to work to clean all of that up before normal schedules can resume... within the first week or so, everyone fervently hopes.

That is far from the only wreckage from those storms. As Star Children have seen, even Amrita Academy hasn't really been spared; between the Lorasses moat and the various structures built to weather the storms, the past weeks have left a mark on the school.

Other regions show clear signs of the warping they have endured similarly.

Wintermute alternated between blinding light and pitch blackness, with mountains growing and crumbling away alike. Cabins were transformed into igloos.
Willow experienced all the seasons in a matter of days multiple times, growing crops and new trees, losing old ones, and its buildings weathered as though through decades.
In Epiphany, the streets ran with water so high it was difficult to walk, and the buildings shifted to reflect related settings.
Cruel Summer grew hotter and more oppressive, so that survival away from the Selkie River was impossible. On the 13th, there was an explosion, and it rained robot parts.
Exile was swallowed entirely by the Swamp of Sorrows, leaving no dry land.
Tides filled with water, dark deep water that could not readily be seen through.
Never Fade became even more purple, with a thick haze that erased visibilty of borders. It also became steeper, so there was no flat ground.

The rest of Willow shows signs of extreme growth and age, as if decades, not weeks, have passed. Epiphany and Tides suffer major flood damage, and Exile is entirely soggy and saturated with a sense of sorrow. Avalanche debris covers Wintermute, and the mountains aren't in the same place. Cruel Summer is even dryer, cracked, and in part of it littered with exploded, partially melted robot parts. Never Fade may be the best off; the ground has leveled off, and only the unsecured outdoor items have crashed around or dropped off the island. In general, all regions show signs of warping.

Talaria has been outright knocked down (once again) and will need to be rebuilt (once again). The contents of Talarian homes have been thriftily saved by Thirteen (yet again). They'll be back as soon as the homes are ready to be redecorated! There's also a new elevator connecting Tides to a platform in the ocean at surface level, making it a little bit easier to get in or out of the neighborhood. Fly, swim, or use a boat from Nereid marina to reach it.

Many of the buildings throughout Folkmore, businesses and residences alike, have been damaged, some past the point of habitability. For better or worse, some residences will wait unclaimed, as their resident spirits have not returned from wherever they went while gone from Folkmore. Newly arriving Star Children (or those interested in relocating) just might find those residences awfully appealing. As with all unoccupied homes in Folkmore, they're free real estate.

Each neighborhood has a new (and structurally-sound) building near its center: a hospitality station of sorts, stocked with basic foods (to suit a variety of dietary needs, relevant to the known local residents), clean water, personal protective equipment, basic tool kits, fresh clothing, and clean linens. For those ill equipped to cook for themselves for whatever reason, there's also a canteen/soup kitchen area. The canteen tends to collect idle spirits and Star Children who might be willing to assist with any cleanup tasks too big or too complex for one person to tackle on their own.

Working with the neighbors has an additional benefit, of course: sooner or later, whether while helping clear the train tracks or fixing up someone's home or business (including a Star Child's own), shifting the debris will reveal a weathered container of some sort, locked up tight, that will only fall open at a touch if and when the right Star Child finds it. There is only one chest per Star Child. Inside, is an item from home, either that of the resident whose house/business it's found in or the one keyed to the lock. It may even be a magical item or weapon.

There's some good news as well, in the midst of all the chaos: most Star Children will find that their homes are wholly unharmed; their pets, companions, Pokémon, etc. are all hale and hearty, having spent the entire time cozily asleep in their boxfoxes — which can be reused if kept, and just as easily abandoned now that they've released their occupants.

The moat is gone! Freeeeeedom!
The train is not operating for one week until October 27th due to debris over the tracks.
Every region of Folkmore shows scars from the past month's extreme disturbances. Things have not reverted to before.
Most spirits have returned; some remain absent. Claim the free real estate, if quick or bold enough.
Hospitality stations have appeared in each neighborhood stocked with food, water, clothing, and linens.
The canteens serve as a social hub and place to ask for/volunteer assistance.
One time only, cleaning up or moving debris will reveal a container holding an item from home: yours or the person's you're helping.
Most Star Children's homes will be unharmed; any damage should match the region's damage flavor. The level of destruction is up to you.
Creatures in boxfoxes are out, fine and dandy! Boxfoxes can be kept/used again.

Dream of the Blue Turtle . ★

Offshore near Agrona Academy, there's something new. Something bewildering, maybe. Something growing. There's also something swimming up to any Star Children near the coast: a very large sea turtle, not willing to come far ashore. She's singing and chirping to get attention, in case being big enough to have a six-foot-long shell isn't quite good enough for some reason. (Or the way she has a blue-green bioluminescent glow when underwater, as becomes quite visible around dusk.)

She's happy to explain that she needs a place to lay her eggs. She doesn't have eggs to lay, just yet, but she wants to have her place all ready anyway. To that end she's busily building a brand-new island not very far from shore. It's just over there, visible once she indicates it with a flipper, barely any higher than the waves cresting around it. Here's the sad part: while she's used a great deal of cleverness in building it, from rocks and sand and bits of broken reef, she's all out of construction materials that she can reach! So she needs help: more construction material for the island.

It seems she's got a very loose definition, though, so pretty much anything that can later be covered in sand or dirt is fair game. Lucky that she wants it now. There's a perfect place to ~~dump all that debris in the ocean~~ recycle all the debris, anything not structurally sound enough for a repair-in-place job. Bigger is probably better, too. Work together with other Star Children to haul up the big stuff. It brings more and more joy to her songs as she finds the exact place for each and every item, making her island grow bigger and bigger.

Anyone who actively participates will be rewarded five (5) spoons by the turtle directly, as a thank you for helping her to keep her eggs safe. (If anyone asks, she'll explain that it's the number of limbs she has, so she thought it was perfect!) In addition, she gives each person a smooth and shiny sea rock that fits in their palm perfectly! If the island gets big enough to be more than a sandbar, anyone who helped with the construction will find it far more welcoming than those who didn't. She isn't expecting to use anything but the beach.

A large sea turtle—with a 6 foot in diameter shell and about 3 feet tall at the shoulder—starts building an island off Cruel Summer.
She needs help getting more building supplies. Bring your debris, bigger the better, here!
All Star Children who help will be rewarded five (5) spoons and a shiny and smooth rock from underwater that fits in their recipients' palms just so.
Star Children who help find the island more welcoming than those who didn't.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Having said what needed to be said, what Mizu feels Vergil needed to know, and misjudging a cat's willingness to do anything but she wants (good for the cat) out of a fondness for Vergil, Mizu waits. Vergil had reasons for his actions, no matter how reasonable the request may be, no matter how (practically speaking) simple it may be. Mizu's apologized when it does not matter, when etiquette and simple things get her toward what she wants. One that matters? Mizu's never managed that. She's never attempted it. She doubts Vergil has either. So as simple as point a to point b may look, it is not a straightforward path, and that, Mizu is familiar with. So she doesn't advise Vergil do anything. It is his decision, and it can only be his decision.

Yet Mizu burns to know more. Why Vergil ripped Nero's arm off and how that was the first time they met. How that connects to what makes this particular apology difficult. More about his life in general. They've spoken more of his early life, when he was younger than she is now, than they have of the two decades or so since. He went to the demon world and missed Nero's childhood and much of his life. It's sparse on detail. Mizu does not hold that against Vergil. For all they've promised each other, it comes over time, not as a torrent. It feels as though they build more of a solid foundation that way. Perhaps that is an excuse for not having talked about parts of her past, but Mizu gives Vergil the same grace he gives her. He did not ask for everything at once. Neither will she.

Her heart flops in her chest, a ridiculous feeling that keeps happening, when he thanks her and when he takes her hand again fully. Mizu has better habits than to look conspicuously around them. Her free hand remains above the table, and she squeezes Vergil's hand when he shares Nero has said nothing of the sort to him. What little Mizu can do to support him, she will. Mizu gives a small nod of her head. It leaves her wondering how their interaction (interactions, she hopes) have gone, but again it is not the place.

Not that Mizu pulls back or withdraws her hand from his. Mizu lets her eyes unfocus a moment, her attention directed to the feeling of his palm, his fingers, and the warmth their connection brings. It's only a moment because Vergil asks a question, and Mizu eyes the bowl. Food, good edible food, remains in it. Though Folkmore's returned to being a land of Lore and plenty, it goes against every instinct in her body to waste good food. With one hand, Mizu lifts the bowl to her mouth and, with some mess, gulps it down as quickly as possible. She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and smiles at Vergil.

"I am."

She doesn't say 'you are welcome' for telling Vergil what she would always tell him. His gratitude is appreciated but unnecessary. Her actions wouldn't change without it, and she's had enough of conversation in this place. Wherever Vergil wants to go to talk, she'll go. Anywhere private is preferable to the canteen that's grown increasingly intolerable.

Vergil raises a slight eyebrow as Mizu picks up her bowl and downs it. She smiles at him, and Vergil huffs slightly in mild amusement as he shakes his head. She is absurd, and yet he cannot help the way his heart flutters at her absurdity. There is a light squeeze to Mizu's hand before he lets it go finally. In one smooth motion, Vergil gathers up the Yamato and rises to his feet. The Russian makes her best attempt to keep the sageo, but has little success as Vergil's grip on the scabbard involved shortening the lax in the cords to nothing. He turns from the table, only stepping a pace or two away before he draws Yamato to cut open a portal. As though the beginning of blood arising from a wound, a light beads along where Vergil draws a vertical and horizontal line with a wisp of smoke until the portal opens properly. There's no indication from within where exactly his portal opens to, the opening revealing nothing more than dark and purple fog that ripples with its own natural ebb and flow.

Sheathing Yamato, Vergil turns back to Mizu and holds out a hand to her. He leads her through the portal, and despite its arguably fantastical appearance, it ends up feeling more akin to walking through an open door than anything else. There is no change in her or a sense of being transported far away. There is no wandering about in some metaphysical, liminal space until they find the way forward. It is more or less one step in, and Mizu will find herself in the entryway to her cabin with Vergil as though it truly were just one step from where Vergil opened the portal in physical space. Looking behind only sees the portal seal itself if she's quick enough about it. Otherwise, there is nothing but her own front door to witness.

Setting the Yamato down by the door, Vergil turns to Mizu, and pulls her in close to meet her lips with his in the greeting he wished to give her the moment he laid eyes on her again. If Mizu possessed any doubts in his enthusiasm to be with her in the wake of the distance between them at the canteen, this kiss likely served to quiet them. He still holds her hand, but his other hand rests at the small of her back. Vergil bumps his nose gently into Mizu's when their lips part from one another.

"I assume this is preferable."

He could be referring to the change in location or his affection. Perhaps both.

Mizu stands as well and leaves the bowl on the table. Manners are good, but time with Vergil is better. She stands, staying back, and lets Vergil do the absolute shortest way to get them somewhere private. It's unnecessary, yet Mizu cannot help but smirk at the way he uses Yamato immediately to his benefit after so long a period apart. How frustrating it must have been to have to go everywhere like a normal person losing time to things like the train and walking. Vergil's sensible enough that she doubts he uses it within Epiphany himself, the same way she doubts they're going to his one room apartment now. Even if no one were there when he left, they could be there or return any time. It's no longer a place they can be, the two of them.

She takes his hand and walks through the wound in the walls of the universe. Mizu turns immediately to look behind her, to see little for her trouble, at the disconcerting fact she knows she's gone from one region to another with nothing to give it away save for the strange surroundings for a single step or two. It seems like it should feel like more, for all it accomplished.

Then Vergil kisses her, and the concerns, little wriggling things in the back of her mind, melt away. Mizu kisses Vergil back and grabs his collar to hold him there. So long apart, she's loathe to give him up. Were it not just for the emotional, if repressed for their position in public, conversation they were previously having, Mizu might press Vergil into the door and kiss him until his lips bruised (and healed, as they always do). More, further, once they step through that door. She banks that passion with the contentment of being together again, with all the same emotions passing between them.

"By far," Mizu agrees. She still runs her thumb across the inside of his wrist. Mizu cannot help the smile that takes hold of her face, though she leans her forehead against Vergil's. Her breathing is even and calm.

She pulls back and looks at Vergil. He could readily have distracted her further but didn't. That wasn't the purpose, and Mizu appreciates that. "I'd like to understand what Nero spoke of and hear about it from you, but it is your choice how much you would like to share right now. I won't push."

Thirteen may not be the one who chose to tell Mizu about it. Nero may even think she already knows, but it wasn't Vergil. Yet again, it wasn't Vergil that's raised the question of something in his history between them. That's prone to happen more, the more people from his world arrive here, his family especially. Yet Mizu knows how much harder it is to speak of something when it's raised by another. Even agreeing to discuss what they witnessed, Mizu wasn't ready, truly, to speak of swordfather with Vergil that time. Not to the level of intimacy Vergil witnessed in her memory.

At the same time as she has that respect and a willingness to wait to hear more about the difficult parts of Vergil's past, they promised each other their whole selves. Mizu will wait, but she wants to know more about Vergil, to know all of him. She doesn't want to run against wall after wall after wall. All while knowing she's the same, and it's Vergil's ignorance that spares certain topics from conversation.

His disadvantage, having more revealed, isn't something she'll ever use against him. So in the end, the matter is in his hands.

Vergil's smile does not exactly fade when Mizu returns to the topic at hand, the reason for spiriting her away back to her cabin for privacy, but it noticeably slips from his eyes. Whatever he feels in being close to her, in having the space to display his affections more freely, it is not enough to completely quiet the discomfort in talking about this. The resistance within him that raises its head immediately as he does not wish to say anything at all should it raise more questions. Even if he trusts that Mizu will not necessarily ask them, their existence is enough. Vergil tips his head back up to press a kiss to her forehead.

"In a moment," he murmurs. "In a moment."

And he does take a moment to gather his thoughts, parsing through what he feels needs to be said to provide Mizu with the understanding she's looking for, and within that what he's willing to say. What he wishes he could say, but feels himself even within his own mind balk at bringing up. There is so much to untangle in trying to find what he can say that does not bring matters he would rather not think about or dwell upon into the discussion. But it feels no matter which thread he tugs, there is some part of the unpleasant, ugly reality of his life that is dragged along with it. Vergil separates from Mizu, but only to the end of sitting down on her couch rather than in an effort to create space between them. Even the shortest explanation he feels he might provide her with still feels far too long to be given while standing.

Vergil does not sit in a relaxed manner upon the couch though. He hunches over, leaning forward with his arms resting upon his legs. His hands flex a few times before he simply folds them together, tension written into the furrow in his brow and the line of his shoulders. If it were easy to tell in the canteen all that internally boiled over within Vergil, it is even easier now to see the thought and emotion that does not form itself well into words. Because the truth is, Vergil does not really know where to start in explaining matters to Mizu.

"I did not stay...in the Underworld. By choice," he begins eventually, his words coming slow and stilted. "After Dante defeated me and I fell, I did not remain there for as long as I did... The devil responsible for my mother's death and my father's enemy, Mundus..." He stumbles there, drawing a short breath before swallowing thickly. "I tried to kill him and I failed. I was powerless to stop him when he took the Yamato from me."

As he speaks, Vergil does not look at Mizu. He would not say it was out of shame, but he believes if he looked at her now, he would falter and lose his courage in speaking. Pity, understanding, love, disgust... Anything would be enough, he thinks, even as he does not say a word of what else befell him after his defeat.

"I was dying. Again. Standing, walking..." Vergil shakes his head again. All of those things at the time took every ounce of Vergil's strength and concentration to accomplish at the time. Were he any less focused, any less determined to press forward and claim what rightfully was his, he's certain he would have collapsed somewhere and perished with no one at all the wiser for it. "I was running out of time and I needed to free myself from my humanity, from everything that had brought me so low. I needed the Yamato to cut man from devil."

What a terrible thing to watch the light go out of his eyes and the joy bleed from their reunion. Yet it feels natural to the rest of Mizu's life that she cannot have any one moment of pure happiness. That is for other people. The only person who could care for Mizu as she is, angry and vengeful and full of poison, would have as painful a past, as terrible of deeds, and horrors endured others could not imagine. So no matter how she steps, when she wishes to get to know Vergil better, it touches on that terror. What she knows would be enough to break most people, and it is only what Vergil shares easily.

She shuts the door behind them and sits on the coffee table across from Vergil, their knees touching. Mizu sits and waits and makes no other connection between them. Vergil had his reasons for his actions. Mizu's surety in that doesn't waver, no matter how long it takes Vergil to tell her anything about them. The long wait is no measure of trustworthiness or the strength of their relationship. Only a clue to how terrible the situation was for him to have reason. The gap in all Vergil has spoken of to any degree.

Her face stills, her mouth a long flat line. It's the most awkward Vergil has ever spoken with her. It starts and stops, the explanation disjointed. Yet it is immediately obvious why Vergil would fight Mundus, no matter the condition he was in when he fell. The one behind the tragedy that separated his family, that killed his mother and separated him and Dante, that shattered the life he had, mundane and happy. Mizu would do the same, no matter if she won or lost. She did in her own way, attacking Fowler's castle less than a day after defeating the Thousand Claw Army. Fowler shattered her sword, and had Mizu not the fortune to dive out the ninth floor and somehow climb upon the ice and... however that went that she doesn't remember, she too would have been at Fowler's mercy. And dead for it.

So she understands what led to the situation Vergil was in, but there remains many questions, so much unexplained. Vergil was nineteen when he fell, and he's more than twice that now. Mundus took Vergil's sword and...? What did he do to Vergil? Too many things can leave a person dying, and they do not take a decade or two to accomplish. If the point were merely Vergil's death, then he would certainly be dead. Vergil avoids it entirely, and Mizu does not ask. The questions burn inside her, but she stays true to her word (not for the sake of honor but because she said what she meant to Vergil).

Mizu frowns slightly at the next gap in Vergil's explanation. He was dying, and for some reason, the way to survive was to remove his humanity—that reference Thirteen made in his profile. For all Vergil sought power, she doubts he would cut out his humanity simply to gain more power. It was to live, but why? What happened to him that was so terrible that to remain himself would kill him?

He doesn't look at her, so Vergil doesn't see the series of faces she makes between the confusion at the lack of details to the understanding of how terrible those gaps must have been. Then, of course, there's the matter of the Yamato. It's the point upon which this explanation rests, the tool by which Vergil can save himself. Mizu has no idea how it went from Mundus's possession to... some unclear relationship to Nero's arm.

"You needed the Yamato," Mizu summarizes and prompts Vergil, without commenting on the rest, despite the questions burning within her yearning for answers no matter how terrible those answers may be. Mizu would rather know than remain in ignorance. If Vergil can bear to state it. "Then what?"

Focus on the part Vergil can talk about. He has to get them the rest of the way there. Mizu breathes evenly, calm as best she can, no matter the anger in her own heart, the desire to kill Mundus then and there. To protect Vergil in ways she cannot. The past has already happened.

"I could sense the Yamato," he says, glancing in the direction of the blade now. Although he is unable to actually see it without turning his head, he knows without a doubt where it rests. "I do not know how the Order came to possess it. Only that they failed to reforge it as it refused to recognize any of them as its master. But it answered to Nero and his demonic arm absorbed the blade."

Vergil was not surprised to hear any of that from Dante recently. While Vergil could not say with confidence when exactly the Yamato was shattered after his defeat, he doubts the blade would have obeyed Mundus or any of the filth that remained loyal to him any better than the humans that later tried to make use of it. Assuming the Prince of Darkness even tried to wield it for himself in the first place. In his hatred of Sparda, he may have more simply sought to destroy it without any further consideration than that. Regardless, just as Mundus has ripped apart Yamato's master, he shattered and cast aside the Yamato. The blade stubbornly refusing humans, only accepting another descendant of Sparda if it was not to be Vergil who wielded it was also to be expected.

Still, even with this part being easier to tell than what preceded it, Vergil is still quiet for a little while. He squeezes his own hands tighter for a brief moment as his gaze shifts to one pair of their knees touching. He wants nothing more than to seek out Mizu's touch for comfort, but he denies himself her warmth for now. This ultimately is not about him or what he wants or needs, but the harm he caused his son, and why it is no simple matter to apologize for immediately. Squeezing his hands briefly is the only way he knows to quell the impulse.

"I took it back," he says, not bothering to clarify for Mizu that it was by ripping Nero's arm off when she already knows that part. Vergil's furrow in his brow deepens. "And to save myself, I left him to die."

Vergil turned his back on Nero and left him to die in a growing pool of his own blood. Not out of an inherent maliciousness or desire for cruelty, but out of his own self-preservation. And that's where it becomes more complicated and difficult to simply and plainly apologize. If it were just out of cruelty or a mistake, it would be easy to apologize. But Vergil's wrongdoing in this matter is so intricately tied up in his survival, and that is something he has not only never apologized for, but has never been willing to apologize for. Not that he believes that is what Nero is seeking or wanting. Not after the lengths he went to at the summit of the Qliphoth, nor after claiming to Mizu he wants to extend to Vergil a chance of a relationship as father and son. But it had been impossible then and it is hard now to see any alternative where the outcome would have been the same.

If Vergil had not acted, he simply would have died.

Even were Vergil's life not on the line, the explanation that the sword was in Nero's arm, the logistics of which Mizu decides not to give a fuck about at the moment, makes it clear why Vergil would rip someone's arm off to obtain it. It is his sword, and someone else, some stranger, has no right to it. She's not sure how Vergil feels about Nero having it, even knowing now that Nero is his son and of the same lineage. So certainly it hardly takes much consideration to believe Vergil willing to tear the sword asunder, demonic arm and all, from the one who separated him from it. If that were all it was, an apology would be if not easy doable. Within Vergil's grasp. If that were all it was, he would not have spoken of what came before.

Mizu has never apologized for living or doing anything required for her to live. She's never even apologized for what she's done in the name of revenge. Living. Survival. To apologize for that is unthinkable after so many years fighting and scrapping for survival. To fight and to kill not only for revenge but because others would not let her existence go. To apologize and to mean it, to mean he's sorry that he ripped Nero's arm off, is in a way an apology for living. For surviving. It offends Mizu in an instinctual way.

How can anyone apologize for living? As someone whose very existence is an offense to so many people, Mizu refuses to apologize for it. No matter how deformed or horrible she is, Mizu is. Vergil wouldn't be who he is today—much less alive, it seems—were he not equally determined to live.

Yet he wants a relationship with Nero, and Nero wants an apology for having his arm ripped off and being left to die. Mizu's nearly died plenty of times, and she'd never consider a relationship with anyone who has left her that way. Nero is, and Vergil wants it. He wants that relationship.

Somehow he has to bridge the divide, the yawning abyss between the two points. Mizu frowns because there is no easy answer. If there were, Vergil would know it. If there is some answer, perhaps they are too alike to see it, blinded in the same fashion. Whether it exists or not, Vergil has to make a solution. That's simply a fact.

The same way Vergil took his time and silence reigned between them, Mizu does not immediately respond. The problem is that she does not understand why he needed to carve out his humanity to live—why he needed the Yamato to live, why he needed to do that to Nero to live. Mizu accepts that it is true, but acceptance and understanding are not the same thing. If Vergil has not and is not explaining it such that Mizu understands, there seems no chance that Nero understands it, whatever he knows of Vergil's past that Mizu might not.

Mizu takes a deep breath. It's not for her curiosity that she speaks. It's for Vergil and for his relationship with Nero. It's because she cares for him.

"If I do not understand why you needed to cut man from devil, I doubt Nero does. If you cannot explain it, I don't know how you can find a way forward. So you can carve yourself open to find that way, or you can avoid it and see what that does."

Mizu doesn't speak with judgment for what Vergil may choose to do. It's the plain ugly truth, painful and raw. Mizu wants to reach for Vergil's hands. She wants to hold him. She doesn't because Vergil chooses not to reach out to her for that comfort. Yet her words which cut into him are their own form of support. Some wounds must be purged.

It is his choice. Mizu does not demand more answers, though she wants them, though she wants to scream and to shout and to cut Mundus into a thousand pieces, though she wants to understand every torment Vergil's sustained. It's not about her.

This time when she speaks, Vergil raises his gaze to meet Mizu's eyes and sits back in his seat. The look Mizu finds there, however, is not one of the proud son of Sparda, bristling at the implicit demand being made of him that he should need to part with anything not by his will alone if not directly by her then at least through her in this moment by his son. It would be easier, if he could be. If he could be that demon that responds to such challenges with strength and power, that lashes out and forms reality into what he wills it to be and not be forced to accept it for what it is. He would much rather tell her that she's wrong. That she is speaking out of line, and on matters that she has no business, no right to speak of in ignorance. It would be easier and feel better to cut her to the quick than to sit in the reality of it all.

But it's not a bruised ego, nor a spark of anger in his eyes. It's something far rarer than that, something Mizu has never seen in his eyes. Because although it is so plainly fear, it's not the confusing entanglement of anxiety he can be at times when he gets lost in his own head, overthinking a matter—particularly those of a more relational nature with others—until he's tied himself into a fearsome knot. Nor is it what Mizu might potentially imagine Vergil would possess if he had the temperament that yielded more to the notion of mortal terror. It's something that, despite leaning back and sitting at more of a proper height, seems to cause parts of Vergil to fold in on themselves. It is a helpless child crying out for his mother and brother as his world has been warped into nothing but endless pain and fear. Vergil averts his gaze rather than hold it for longer than a second or two with Mizu, but he feels the damage is already done.

Maintaining his silence, Vergil folds his arms loosely across his stomach as he stares at the empty cushion beside him. His gaze is not hardened, threatening to bore holes into the couch, but one that does not see what is in front of him. Vergil has never spoken of this. There's never been a need nor the time to speak of it. He merely had to make his own private peace in the fact that it happened at all. His jaw clenches and his lips press and part slightly, but his mouth feels dry and the words collide in his throat again and again no matter how hard he swallows.

"After I was defeated, he wanted me to serve him." Vergil still does not look to Mizu, his voice soft and distant, as though he were speaking of something happening to someone else. "I don't know why exactly. It may have been to torment my brother. As a final insult to my father to break one of his sons. But whatever his exact reasons, I refused. No matter what he did to me, I wouldn't yield to him."

He squeezes his eyes shut tight for a moment, pushing back the sense memories. The smell of his own blood, the intermingling of fresh, dripping blood sliding along sticky, caked, and dried blood that preceded it. The way his vision swam and darkened, as he slipped in and out of consciousness. The thunder of Mundus' voice belying his frustration in Vergil's stubbornness as he taunted him as a weaker, lesser creature. Demonic seed tainted by the womb of a human woman. The way every breath burned and ached across nearly every inch of his body, how much he had to force his own voice to remain even and unbroken.

"When the physical torture did not work," he continues, opening his eyes and still avoiding looking in any direction near to Mizu, "he took everything else from me. I fought it as long as I could. But he took everything all the same. Every thought, every memory, every emotion. Until there was nothing left, and I was nothing but a mindless puppet to be manipulated."

A shack burns in the woods. A small child stares at the fire that takes away everything they've ever known, the only person they've ever known, their whole life, and with it the whole world. It's not the first time Mizu hardened herself nor the last. Swordfather's voice echoes in her mind that the stupid lost boy she was would not recognize her. Perhaps not, but Mizu recognizes him in Vergil. However much that the trauma Vergil needs to speak of comes later in his life, when he was nineteen at least, it comes back to the lost boy who lost his mother and brother on the same day, who became alone and hunted, who was scared and needed somewhere warm and safe, somewhere like swordfather's house. Something Mizu recognizes and also realizes she's fortunate to have received.

Her hands tighten, and Mizu focuses on her breathing. If she hugs Vergil now, if she gives that lost soul the comfort he needs, he may not be able to speak, may not be able to do what he needs for his sake and for Nero's. It's the continued painful but compassionate choice not to reach for Vergil in that moment. She sits and does not try to regain his gaze, even as she wants Vergil to feel safe, to feel— cared for. To feel something he may never have felt before. Perhaps he does feel something like it, if he's willing to speak.

Anger wells within her, a pool that's always there but deepens with new and powerful waves. Mizu takes this anger in and accepts it into her own without it overwhelming her in the moment. The very idea of what Vergil describes, she cannot know the exact pain and suffering, but her imagination coming up short is awful enough. An existence more hollowing and painful than the creation of an onryō.

That description is not the end. Vergil sits before her a man, himself, whole and alive and full of pain. A man who can remember what it's like not to be a man, whether that be only his creation as a puppet, the hollowing out, or his time in that state. A being without his own will or autonomy, without anything. For a man who sought out enough power to protect himself after being helpless, he became helpless, more helpless than that young child. To return to himself and to know that. How could he tolerate it but to cut it out himself. That is no real solution or Vergil would not be who he is before her. It isn't how he's continued his life, in the end. In the moment, however, he needed to survive. He needed to last a day, a minute, a moment longer, and that pain and that loss was unbearable.

Mizu takes deep, even breaths, the benefit of years of training.

"You cut out that part of you, the part of you that experienced that." A statement, not a question. It's what he needed to survive. It's what would crush his ability to keep going, and that is untenable. Mizu could not let Mundus win, could not let him doing that be the end of it all. It could not be all that Vergil would be, the end of his story.

"You cut out everything that would prevent you from living." Not exactly a safe, sane option that works long term, but Vergil didn't exist in such a long term state of mind, only the immediate future and his survival. Terrible. Stupid. And most ridiculous of all, it fucking worked.

Mizu rests an open palm on her knee. Nero doesn't know this, doesn't understand it, and it's not an apology for what happened to him. It's a reason.

"I needed to become a true devil to defeat Dante," he says, as plainly as he can to confirm her understanding. Vergil had little to live for at that point, but he could not live with all that happened to him. His body was failing him, crumbling and leaving him increasingly helpless almost as a physical manifestation of all his failures prior. The only way that he could save himself, any part of himself but particularly the part of himself that seemed to matter most was by removing every nightmare he'd ever had, every weakness, every failure. Every possible way in which his strength could fail him had to be excised. "At the time I thought—..."

He purses his lips, cutting himself off. It's difficult to explain now to someone else what was going through his mind at the time even if he understands and knows what was true. He had lost to Dante when he fell into the Underworld. He suffered yet another defeat as Nelo Angelo. Vergil could not let it stand that he was weak and helpless, lesser than his brother in every way that mattered to him. Not when it still felt that Dante had never known the loss and pain and grief that Vergil had, and not fought for every scrap that he had. But that was not what truly laid within his heart. He wanted his power and his strength returned to him, of course. He could not die the weaker and lesser son of Sparda. But he had been too afraid to accept what he truly wanted. Just as he always had been.

Vergil finally pulls his gaze back to Mizu. Forcing himself to look at her, although that look that was there in his eyes a moment ago has been forced back as well.

"My time as human showed me how wrong I had been. I could finally see how much I had thrown away and ruined in my pursuit of power. But I could not right those wrongs on my own." V did not possess the strength to defeat Urizen while the demon king was reliant upon the Qliphoth as part of his continued existence. He needed Dante to intervene, and he needed Nero as a contingency should Vergil's aims have succeeded and ultimately overwhelmed his twin. He's quiet a moment, gaze lowering for a brief moment before he looks to Mizu again. He reaches for her hand finally, just his fingertips finding hers tentatively. "I still cannot even as I am now."

Vergil is not speaking of the mayhem he's wrought on the human world in his pursuit of power. The portals that opened to the demon world and even the Qliphoth tree were ultimately all things that were within his power to act upon and manage. Dante did not need to follow Vergil to the Underworld to sever the roots or to close the portal, and Vergil told him as much before they began the task. It is everything else that he means. The harm and hurt he's caused his son (and his brother). The time he lost and the life he very nearly never had a chance to live. The isolation he imposed upon himself in thinking there was no other way, in thinking he could not stand nor bear the weight of grief again. Vergil is a man saved, but he could not begin to argue that he is a man found. He is constantly still so lost within the maelstrom of his emotions, feelings and connections that he has not permitted himself in decades. If anyone were to ask him what he wants, what future he seeks, Vergil isn't certain he could truly provide an answer. Not enough of one that gives the notion there's altogether much in his mind's eye beyond the immediate because it's all he's ever known. It's all he's ever dared to reach for.

And he is certainly not a man redeemed.

But he wants to be. He wants to be a man that was brave enough to face his fears instead of constantly running from them. He wants to be a man who both loved and was loved. He wants to be the brother that Dante has always needed and wanted and deserved, and he wants to be the father Nero needs him to be. He wants to be strong enough to have what he wants and to keep it protected. But these are not things he can do on his own, in any semblance of isolation.

Vergil does not know if Mizu understands what he means entirely. It's possible that the implication passes her by entirely, or that she recognizes it, but rejects it entirely. Neither would particularly surprise Vergil if either is the case given what he knows she tends to think of herself and how she's responded to such comments from him before. But he has had to start somewhere. Regardless of how she perceives herself, she cannot deny that. And whether she accepts his feelings as they are or not, she also cannot ultimately deny that it was here and between them that Vergil started. That some part of him that wanted began to want again, and he allowed it. Under a tight control and not without a significant amount of anxiety and doubt, and needing ample time to think it through, but he allowed himself to pursue something he wanted all the same.

And it gives him the strength now to pursue what he wants with his son, with his brother. No matter how difficult it may be, and how much Vergil may need to confront and wrestle with. He is not willing to give up on it now. Not so easily.

He needed to defeat Dante. It's not exactly the same thing as cutting away all the pain and hurt and trauma, the way most people turn away from their pain, their grief, from whatever they're uncomfortable with. Yet it comes back to the fundamental idea of demons as strong and humans as weak, something that no doubt was worn into him in his time powerless as a prisoner to a demon. (Fuck that, Mizu disagrees, but she's used to being thought weak. It's not meant as an insult from Vergil, she knows, but she also knows that defeating him, defeating each of them, is the only way to convince that whole bloodline.) So Vergil lost to Dante. He lost to Mundus. He lost too many times, and he needed to win, and who better to represent that to him than Dante. It makes sense to Mizu, but she would bet that "it's the only way I could be stronger than your uncle," even if that's not truly what it was about, is not going to satisfy his son.

Mizu watches Vergil and meets his gaze, and she misses the lost child who was there before because she, the same as everyone else who at best ignored her, did not reach out the hand she wanted to receive, the hand she received from swordfather. Vergil may not have wanted it in this moment, but it's one irritating point of anger to lose banked for another day.

Then comes the change Vergil has spoken of before in less direct terms to these events, including some credit he's given to Nero that he even gave Mizu a chance. Vergil cut himself in two and became demon and human, and human he learned what he speaks of. Mizu wonders whether he looked the same as he does now or whether being purely human perhaps made him a more usual height. An idle light musing among all the serious revelations. Again, the fact remains that his harm to Nero to obtain the Yamato led to these positive changes that Nero may wish for. Ironic.

Her fingertips curl to hold his closer, to hold him closer when he finally reaches for her. She's grown so used to his touch, to intimacy not only of words but their bodies, so that the return to her natural state feels harsh and painful in comparison. It anchors Mizu as well as him, and her thoughts race to understand what he says.

Again, Mizu knows only what Vergil has told her of his latest state before the fox spirit found him. He was in the demon world, closed off from the human one, and forced away from Nero. They handled whatever he'd wrought, and he needed only to find his way home. So much as those wrongs could be righted, they have been. That information, along with the reason for this whole conversation, permits Mizu to piece together the likely possibility that Vergil means the situation with Nero and from that also Dante. His family, the people he cares about. The apology Nero wants that Vergil did not know about until Mizu told him. Whatever Dante needs. Whatever else those relationships take.

He could hardly look to a more doubtful partner than her, but Mizu at most could only be a small portion of what he means. They've connected, and however difficult it is for Vergil to tell Mizu about losing to Mundus, losing himself, and all he's done, none of it harmed Mizu, so it is far easier to tell her than to tell Nero or Dante. An easier step forward. Before. Now. In the future. As one of only two people Mizu cares about in Folkmore, a fact she cannot thanks to the last trial, Vergil has Mizu's support in whatever inadequate way she can provide it, for Mizu knows she's not someone skilled at this. By far the opposite.

Mizu rests her other hand atop his, a pitifully small gesture but one in line with what he's shown willingness to accept in the moment, and looks at Vergil with steadiness that feels absolutely false.

"You're not alone," Mizu says. It is both true and an ashy lie in her mouth. Mizu knows she'll leave him some day, that her words do not promise forever, not even as long as the fox spirit may permit them. She means them in that moment, she means them for however long she is in Folkmore. She means them, and half of her wishes to bolt from her own residence before Vergil tosses them back to her unwanted. Today, tomorrow, whenever he doesn't want or need her anymore. When he has Dante and Nero back emotionally. That's fine. Until then, until she leaves Folkmore or he doesn't need her, Mizu is here for him. So she stays put and squeezes his hand.

"I know."

Vergil is able to say it far easier than he thinks he perhaps ought to be able to say it. It's not as though it's left Vergil's mind or awareness that their time together is limited in one way or another. At some point, this will come to an end, and in the ideal scenario for the both of them, it's likely they will never see each other again afterward. That should be enough to shake his confidence in that implicit promise to remain with him and to allow him the grace to stumble and fall when he chooses poorly or does not know the way just as much as she is there to celebrate his successes. It should be something in the forefront of his mind that she may very well not leave because of him or something he does, but rather there needs to be an end to her bloody task awaiting her in her own world.

But none of that is what comes to mind for him when Mizu says he is not alone. It is not even the here and now. Instead, it is the small comfort in knowing that she has changed him, and regardless of where they end up in an hour from now, a day, a week, or a year... Nothing can unmake that change. Nothing can really take the feelings he's held for her away even if they should fade or change over time because they happened.

Vergil gives a small tug to her hands to guide her from the coffee table across from him to the couch beside him. Scooting over a little, Vergil lays down and rests his head in her lap once she's settled. There is no one else around in Mizu's cabin, but still Vergil hides his face from the rest of the room by facing her. Spreading his fingers, he loosens the hold they have over the other's hand without separating their palms. Her hand is smaller than his and her fingertips rougher and more calloused from both her work as a swordsman and a swordmaker. Vergil slots his fingers between hers, more properly holding her hand again as he simply nestles in closer to her. There's a furrow in his brow as he lies there thinking.

"I don't know that I can tell him all of it," he confesses after a moment of quiet. Vergil doesn't know that Nero can understand it even half as well as Mizu, and to some extent, he hopes not. Mizu understands it because she, too, has been alone for the majority of her life with few who cared one way or another if she lived or died, and hunted for the sole crime of existence. He would not want that for Nero. He would want Nero to find his logic baffling at best, horrifying at worst, but not anything that he can offer such a degree of empathy and understanding for. Really, the most Vergil allows himself to dare hope for is that Nero understands Vergil would never do anything willingly to hurt him. In a different state of mind, with the knowledge he has now... Vergil isn't so certain he would still live and breathe. He never would have found it in himself to hurt his son so even at the cost of his own life. He'd rather die a weak, pathetic disgrace than that. "But what questions he asks, I will answer the best that I can until he understands. His judgment of it will be for him to decide."

And realistically, there is little more that Vergil can do than that. But despite that fact and the calm in which he says it, Vergil still cannot help that spike of anxiety over it all the same. Nero says he wants to give Vergil a chance. So, that implies Nero does not see Vergil as an inhuman monster. He sees something that he wants to know better for himself that goes beyond the simple longing for a father in his life. But it is hard for Vergil sit with his past actions knowing that any one of them could potentially tip the scale just a bit too far, to find something Nero eventually deems unforgivable. So, a chance is a good thing. It's a wonderful thing. It fills Vergil with untold amounts of joy and happiness to know Nero wants to give him a chance, wants to build a relationship between the two of them without any doubt or uncertainty. But it also allows old anxieties and insecurities to once again whisper that despite his best efforts, Vergil could lose it all through his own shortcomings and failures and weaknesses. Or, worse yet, his presence and influence could irrevocably harm Nero in some manner just as he knows with little doubt he would have if he had known and stayed in Nero's life.

"I keep thinking it is a dream, and any moment, I might wake up," he says with a soft huff. "But he's here. My son is really here, Mizu."

It's small given everything, but it still manages to put a smile on Vergil's face. Because Nero is worth the risks and the possible heartache. He barely knows his son realistically, but he knows that to be simple fact. Terrifying as it is, Vergil has no desire to waste the chance Nero is willing to give him, and he is determined to prove himself worthy of it.

Two little words should not fill Mizu with such warmth. It is a strange feeling to be trusted and more that it is not to do a bloody deed or otherwise her capabilities with a sword. Vergil trusts her to be there for him, and it's both incredibly wonderful and frightening. He shouldn't. It's a gut instinct and knowledge that Mizu cannot entirely set aside. A foolish move on his part to trust her and a foolish one on her part to let him. She does, and she's here. No matter the difficulties Vergil faces, no matter what it means for her, something inside her is more at rest. Mizu can interrogate that later. Now's not the time.

With no more than that small invitation, Mizu joins Vergil on the couch and settles with his head in her lap. One hand slowly brushes through his hair, and his hand is warm in hers. She could sit there quietly as long as he wants, content with the connection they have. He's told her the truth and put words to it aloud. It's a first step for him in making things right with Nero. No immediate answer comes to mind for how he could explain all that to Nero and how Nero could understand. Simple statements alone don't communicate why or understanding. Mizu experienced that herself. Yet more... Mizu doesn't know how Nero would take it, even if Vergil shared it all. Such a simple thing Nero asks, but so complicated to give. No matter what it means for her, Mizu wants it to go well.

She holds Vergil's hand and rests the other. Neither of them can decide what Nero will do. Mizu's done what she can. Vergil will do his best—she believes that wholeheartedly because Nero means so much to him, what he wants so terribly to do well, to have, and to make right. The calm that rests in her is one that comes when she's committed, when the battle cannot be stepped back from, and what will happen will happen. Strange for this scenario perhaps, but it's better than the uneasiness, uncertainty, and pain of before.

So much has happened in the last month or so, so much changed since Folkmore shifted around them, and more for Vergil than for Mizu. Yes, they've both experienced the shift in what is between them, but Vergil's gained his brother and his son. Only a week or so since Nero arrived, and it changes everything. It changes Vergil. It changes Mizu's life by consequence. Mizu cannot get what she wants in Folkmore, where people do not stay dead, but Vergil wants a relationship, and that Folkmore provides the opportunity for. Perhaps that means Vergil will not leave it, not while Nero and Dante are here. Not while he can have what he wants. What is Folkmore versus his home while he can have it here? She's happy for him, she truly is.

"He is," Mizu agrees, "and he's going to spar me." Mizu frowns slightly in memory of what Nero said. "He's definitely going to hold back too much. Doesn't want to hurt a human."

Even if Mizu qualifies, she doesn't want nice gloves treatment.

Vergil laughs, the sound low and quiet. There is no surprise to be had in that she asked to spar with him, and that Nero has set firmer, more in-depth limits upon it than Vergil has in his spars with Mizu. She already made it clear a while ago that she strongly desires to defeat the Sparda bloodline, as a means of proving her skills and her readiness to seek her revenge. Vergil isn't quite certain how or why she came to the conclusion that their bloodline was to be the one, but then again, some part of her may recognize the impossibility. So, if she able to accomplish the impossible perhaps then she will feel her revenge is at hand. It is all speculation though. Vergil has never asked, and is unlikely to ever.

"I would not take it personally," he says with a slight shake of his head. "He has agreed to fight with me again, but on the stipulation of 'friendlier terms' than our first."

While Vergil could make the argument that their first battle was on friendly terms as it pertained to either party's willingness to seriously hurt or outright kill the other, Nero still clearly found Vergil's approach to be too intense. Or, at the very least, far greater when considering lengths Vergil was willing to go than he was looking for in a rematch. It is something Vergil is willing to adhere to, and while he will not necessarily soften his approach altogether, certainly he could accommodate Nero's request and stay his blade before it has the opportunity to slice or impale. It makes enough sense to do it that way anyway while Nero is still learning to navigate his demonic power now that it has been fully awakened. Vergil has to admit that it will make for a better opportunity to learn for Nero if it falls within the parameters of what he's comfortable with rather than stepping beyond.

"Nero is driven to protect others," he says. Vergil remembers as V, near to when and where everything began before he came to Folkmore, Nero struggled to walk away from Dante, from people who were already dead. While it was likely some part of it wounded pride—he is Vergil's son, after all—and anger at the way Dante tried to push him our, there was a strong will to protect others. So, Vergil doesn't know how much Nero necessarily believed his grandfather to be a god before, but he knows Nero was certainly not able to escape that will to defend someone who may be unable to defend themselves. Then again, that was more likely a credit to his mother more than anything the Order might have tried to impress upon him. Or, at least, Vergil would like to think so. She had not exactly been the most devout when their paths crossed, and rather than carrying on with the tenets of the Order, she marched to the rhythm of her own drum. It's what she would have imparted to Nero most certainly. "I know it likely goes without saying, but he is just as stubborn as I am in his convictions. You will not convince him to treat the fight differently regardless of how hard you push him otherwise."

He pauses before adding, "Perhaps you could look at this as a learning opportunity still. He may not fight to the extent that you desire, but Nero is still skilled within his own right.

"He's quite good at wrestling."

Not that Vergil is going to exactly part with how he knows this information. He will leave it to Mizu to speculate on just how...firsthand Vergil's knowledge happens to be if Nero happened to leave that detail out.

Mizu wonders if the friendlier terms Nero stipulated to Vergil have been defined and set. Perhaps, given how much Vergil wants a good relationship with him, Nero will be able to make them whatever he wants, and Vergil will agree. He's already experienced in holding back in one way with her. He may not have to hold back the same with Nero, but it's more of the same. For her part, Mizu's pushed herself and continued to push herself fight by fight, practice by practice. It's what she needs to do and part of the reason Mizu's selective with her sparring partners. She has no intention of going soft during her time here.

So Mizu hears Vergil. She's listening, even, but Mizu takes Vergil's statement with a grain of salt. Vergil is stubborn, so likely Nero is too yes. So is she. No less stubborn than either of them, and the idea of fighting people of similar skill to Vergil but different style and preferences calls to her. The victories too, when they come, should mean something more than, say, Nero holding back or refusing to take her seriously as an opponent. So Mizu will see. Not killing her, after all, involves holding back.

The last statement makes her brows knit together. Mizu looks down at Vergil's head in her lap. It would seem like a strange turn of the conversation save that it has to be relevant. It has to tie back to some confrontation between Vergil and Nero or... when would Vergil have the chance to witness that otherwise? It is difficult to imagine a fight between Vergil and someone turning into a wrestling match when it matters most. His skills with a sword seem the better play for him and more in his character. Perhaps he might wind up wrestling with Dante sometime, but this is Nero.

"Better at wrestling than you?" Mizu asks. She still needs to grapple with Vergil again after her ambush by the pool, but while it's not her primary skill, she's far better than she was months ago. It presents another possibility, Nero being good at it. The Mandalorian who taught her has since left Folkmore, which put a stop to those lessons.

"Given his interest in it, I would imagine so."

Not that Vergil cannot hold his own well enough hand-to-hand, but there is a difference between competent knowledge and skill in something, and truly having passion and mastery over it. Vergil can throw an effective series of punches and kicks when he needs to, but unlike Nero, it does not occur to him to utilize moves like that mid-sword fight. And that is why it is quite easy for Vergil to acknowledge that Nero may very well possess the greater skill. It also does not hurt that it is something for Vergil to take pride in that his son has taught himself something as well as Nero has taught himself wrestling moves to fight with against demons.

"I am not ashamed to admit that he managed to catch me off-guard with it when we dueled one another." A brainbuster was not exactly the anticipated outcome when Vergil charged in, fully transformed, but it's what Nero gave him for his troubles. "I don't imagine if he intends to hold back as much as you believe he will that he would do the same to you as he did to me, but I'm sure you could ask him provide you opportunities to practice hand-to-hand."

Their conversation continues its shift away from Vergil's terrible past and current difficulties toward a discussion of Nero as relevant to her. It's likely far easier for Vergil, and Mizu doesn't mind learning more about Nero. Her hand-to-hand's improved, but it's not her passion like with swords. It's useful, both for her revenge and the various associated situations where she needs to brawl or use her hands and for the secondary goal of doing better against Vergil with it, an interesting time for them when neither of them focuses on it. For all she's a swordsman, she always needs the ability to improvise and adapt. She cannot have her hands taken from her without serious issue.

Vergil seems to think along the same lines, and Mizu hums in agreement. "That would be good," Mizu says, "For all the reading I've done on London, I still have no idea how it will be to go there. I certainly cannot bet everything on having my sword. I did not even bring a sword to confront Fowler in Edo. The fox spirit came when I was deciding whether or not to plunge his dagger deeper into his neck."

Fowler, for his part, tried to buy his life with that one word. A foreign city Mizu knew nothing about. "White men may not be demons to you or to Nero, but they are mine."

Vergil is quiet for a moment, looking up at Mizu thoughtfully. It is not the talk of her revenge that draws his attention because those are simply matters that have been a fact for as long as Vergil has known her. Vergil knows this, and so he bears no intention of trying to convince her otherwise, or asking her to stay. She has offered herself, offered as much as she can give while she is in Folkmore, and Vergil has contented himself with that much. That understanding coupled with the knowledge of how deeply ingrained her revenge is with her being shall hopefully be enough when the time inevitably comes.

Instead, it is her comment about White men that catches Vergil's attention. They haven't really talked about it. Mizu declares herself a demon because of her lineage, but Vergil has never once called her as much. That is about as far as the conversation ever tends to go with Mizu changing the subject abruptly. Mizu is not one for arguments, Vergil has observed that much and knows that to be generally true of her. If there is a difference of opinion, she does not concern herself much with attempting to change the minds of others. But it has always struck him as somewhat odd that despite such obvious disagreement, she has never really taken the time to lay out her perspective in more clear detail. Even if Mizu is unwilling to argue or seek to change the mind of another person, she is not incapable of at least providing her reasoning before letting a matter drop.

All but this one matter, in any case.

"Does it bother you?" he asks. "When I call you a human, does that bother you?"

Vergil anticipates she will answer the question at the very least, but a deeper explanation may not occur. While he would ideally like one so that he can better understand Mizu, he is willing to accept the answer at its face with nothing more.

The question surprises Mizu a little, but it may well reflect how much closer they've become, no matter how temporary that is. Vergil has his definition of demon, the same one Nero shares and Dante undoubtedly with them. Mizu has hers. It may not involve the same differences in appearance or physical ability, but they are no less fundamentally what they are. Mizu is no less what she is because it does not match the image Vergil has in his mind. He's not alone in considering Mizu human and only human. Mizu doesn't care what people here think she is. They are from so different of worlds that they don't understand most things about her and hers, but Vergil isn't just another person.

"I know what you mean when you say it," Mizu says. "What it means doesn't bother me." She lacks demonic power the way Vergil has it. She's not that kind of demon. She's not claiming to be one. She even understands why Vergil does it, the difference it means in his world and in his view and that it does affect how he sees her (whether that's for how much force and ability he can use against her or what it means to be part-demon for him).

Yet.

The feeling remains, sticking in her side. It's a small angry point that remains, one that Mizu hasn't expected to change. No, Mizu doesn't think about it or expend time on it. There's no need, no reason. It just is. So she hasn't thought about the words, even for herself, to what it means and how she feels.

"It bothers me," Mizu answers, "It erases a huge portion of my life and who I am. I am as much a half-devil as you even if you are blind to it, and I still face what that means though no one understands it here, no one but the damn fox spirit."

The artist or the demon. Which will Mizu turn out to be? She doesn't know, they are both possibilities. Ignoring it or pretending it isn't real doesn't make it disappear.

Placing his free hand on Mizu's opposite side, Vergil pushes himself to sit up a little better and bring himself closer to eye-level with Mizu.

"Help me understand it then," Vergil says, his words a request and not a demand. Mizu still has the right and the ability to refuse. But she is ultimately correct in that he does not understand it any better than anyone else what she means when she calls herself a demon. It is also true, however, that he cannot possibly understand it if she does not explain it to him. "I only have the context of what a demon is in my world, which we both know you are not, and I've never thought you attempted to claim you were exactly. You've never explained to me what it means in your world."

He pauses a moment, a thoughtful look on his expression before he adds, "And I've not thought to ask."

Vergil believes that has been partially due to his own ignorance and assumptions, and partially to her avoidance of discussing this topic at any particular length. It is difficult to think of such a question when the topic appears to be otherwise taboo.

"You say it erases a large part of you though, and I've no desire to do something like that even out of ignorance because I meant what I said when I told you I want everything." He strokes the back of her hand lightly with his thumb. "So, help me understand."

Everything gets more serious again, and part of Mizu regrets that one small turn of phrase. He wants words she's never had to find before, an explanation that she does not readily have. It's like being asked to explain why the ocean is blue. Water is clear in thin enough quantities, but the ocean is blue. Everyone whose seen it knows that. Explaining it is another matter. They all live with things they know but do not explain or know how to explain. This is one of those. It's one of the reasons she's never given an explanation.

She's only spoken of being a demon with swordfather, and Master Eiji's words travel with her. However, in none of that did Mizu have to explain why she was a demon or what kind of demon she is. She hates the idea of talking about it further, of laying out exactly how she's the demon everyone's always thought her to be. Flashes of memory pass before her, each one a scene embodying her demonhood.

It feels like the direct opposite of the times Vergil calls her human. Instead of cutting out the demon inside her, it carves away the rest until the demon is all that remains. The conversation itself could invite the demon to take two chairs. Mizu squeezes his hand and controls her breathing. It centers her. It's worth the time to clear her mind.

"White men are demons," Mizu says, "They came to Japan with guns and drugs and their god. They dealt in misery and death, spitting out ruin in their wake. Japan has flesh traders. They continue their filthy practice to this day, but white men took it further. They took daughters and treated them like animals. Abijah Fowler had his way with as many women as he pleased, and when they had children, he killed them mother and child alike."

He was so proud of it too, of cleaning up his mess. Mizu can only assume him smart enough to realize one might come after him some day, and the problem is easier handled when they cannot defend themselves. They all must think that. Why else try to kill her? Why else keep the bounty on her head?

"They are demons, and as the child of a white man, I am made of that violence and horror, and I am as capable of it. I've done it. Not guns or drugs or their god, but misery and death. I've sold my services with my blade for both coin and information. I kill whoever I must to have my revenge, even should it only be their misfortune, not their evil deeds, that condemns them."

Mizu waves a hand and growls. "That does not adequately explain it, not even close."

"But no human has destroyed a whole city in Japan. Only an onryō could do that."

As much as Vergil is able to listen while setting aside his preconceived notions of what a demon is in his own world, Vergil listens to Mizu's explanation. Interestingly, it is less the definition of what a demon is that Vergil struggles with, and more that Mizu applies what she describes to herself. While he would never deny that Mizu's willingness to pursue her goal of revenge has likely led her to commit terrible actions—he knows that all too intimately from his own pursuit of power—he does not believe that is the sum of all Mizu's parts in the way she describes it now. A furrow forms in Vergil's brow as he listens, but he remains silent and listening even as he feels a number of arguments just behind his silence.

Vergil doesn't believe his arguments would bear much weight in any case. The frustrated growl that leaves Mizu as she feels she is inadequately explaining the matter to him is a telltale sign that whatever he says will most likely end up dismissed. And Vergil does not see that as a fault of Mizu's stubbornness so much as he recognizes she is attempting to explain her core to him. Another person commenting upon that is never going to be received particularly well regardless of the points they raise. But even knowing this, Vergil believes it would be remiss of him not to say something, not to offer his perspective for her to do with as she will.

"In my world, what you've described," he says, "a demon would be capable of doing if provided with the means to do so. They driven by strength and a lust for power, and they seek to conquer and rule. That is why they are generally incapable of love or regret and remorse. But so, too, could a human do those things with just as much malevolence and cruelty as a demon."

For as weak as Vergil has always viewed humans because of those feelings demons typically find foreign and unknowable to them, he's never been ignorant to their own capacity for cruelty, too. Just because it is a rarity among their species when taken as a whole does not mean it does not happen. After all, he need only look to Arkham alone as an example for that. He was born a human, and yet his lust of power saw him sacrificing his loving wife, and manipulating his daughter to providing her blood all so that he might steal the power of Sparda for himself. There was no devil within that man that drove him to those extremes.

"The real difference between a devil and a human in my world is not the abilities or appearance, but their ability to choose. A devil is cruel because that is his nature. A human is cruel because he chooses to be." Vergil shakes his head slightly. "I believe I understand the distinction in your world as best I will be capable of understanding without being from your world. But from my perspective, you remain a human not because you are innocent or incapable of cruelty. You are human because you have chosen to be cruel in pursuit of your revenge.

"And I know it to be a choice because you would not speak of it as you do if it were truly your nature, Mizu." Vergil releases her hand to instead hold her face, fingertips grazing briefly along her cheekbone before his palm cups her cheek. "You may still think I am wrong, and tell me so. I will not argue against it any more than I am arguing now. I am only saying this so you understand that while I may not know the details of every cruel thing you've enacted, I am not ignorant of it. Nor am I ignorant of what you may yet do. But regardless, if you are much a half-devil as I am as you claim to be then I cannot possibly see you as a demon condemned by his nature.

"When I call you human, it is because I believe you possess a strength far greater than any cruel nature that might be ascribed to you by anyone, including yourself." Vergil gently rests his forehead against hers. "You always have a choice, Mizu."

Her frustration is a banked fire inside, something Mizu does not release beyond that initial sound. Her words were inadequate, nearly as bad as saying nothing at all. Even should Vergil's world have onryōs, they are not the same as hers. He cannot even understand that basic type of demon which predates white men, for they are not the only demons in the world, only one that Japan has mostly shut out. Most onryō are born when a person dies, but due to her birth, Mizu was born as one. She will likely have to explain that as well.

She listens to Vergil's response, unsure what it will be but not expecting it to be simple acceptance. It focuses mostly on his world's definition of demons and human, of their natures, and thereby what he means by it. While it's entirely in line with how he's spoken of demons before, if not laid out so clearly then, Mizu cannot ignore the giant demon flag in everything he says: Sparda. His father loved his mother, defended humanity, and closed off the demon realm. Those are hardly the acts of someone incapable of love and regret and remorse. They are not the actions of a being that cannot choose but to be cruel. If one demon of his world can be all the things Vergil ascribes to humans, is it so much that the others cannot or simply do not? Are they not so shaped by their experiences, whatever they be in the demon world, that they are what they are—born into such circumstances as Mizu might find relatable until their path is set, and nearly none would turn away from it. Would not her siblings, if they lived, also devote themselves to the same bloody path? Where is the difference?

She closes her eyes, her forehead pressed against his, her cheek in his hand, and Mizu does not deserve the softness or kindness Vergil gives her. He does not need the details. Mizu need not detail every cruel deed she's done, every innocent life she's taken, so that he believes her. They exist, and they're there unspoken. They haunt her and are her burden to bear.

"What is the crueler or more terrible being: one that has no choice or one that chooses to be cruel?"

Her words are quiet, not what she meant to speak of next, but for all Vergil said, those last words echo around her. She has a choice, and she's chosen again and again and again, whether it was to stand by and let Akemi be taken or the shogun killed or whether it was to kill innocents herself or whether it was to inflict harm on men no more ignorant or cruel than any others while letting other men continue their paths of cruelty.

Mizu does not know what strength Vergil means, not when she turns everything she has, everything she is, toward her revenge. It is not that she considers herself weak, but she does not see how the two can be cleaved so neatly. It was her rage that turned the fight against Fowler to her favor in the end, the unleashing of everything inside her, no matter that he was the larger, stronger man with her in his grip. Her demon was stronger than his. Her need for revenge stronger than his need to dominate Japan.

"I've no answer for you, Mizu," he says, his admission coming just as quietly as her question. Some might think there is an obvious answer, but after having grappled with it plenty himself and given he's been both with and without choice, Vergil knows the answer is not as clean of a binary as the question poses the answer to be. No possible answer is truly robust enough to feel it provides full satisfaction to the question. At least not for Vergil. It may sit differently for Mizu given choice has always been present for her even if alternative ways forward have seemed impossible whether by circumstances or blindness she's caused herself in her pursuit for her revenge. "But if we were all defined by and destined to our cruelty alone, by choice or by nature..."

No amount of time as V or observations of Nero's strength would have dissuaded Vergil from his path if all he was in the end was his cruelty whether it was chosen, incidental, and instinctive.

"These very same hands that touch and hold you are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent lives, and among them my brother and my son. You know this. But I do not believe you think of me as a cruel man, nor do you think me a heartless devil." Vergil does not bother to point out the quite obvious fact that if she did feel that way about him, she would not have attempted to cross the moat to try and find him. She would not have allowed him to share her bed, or entrusted him with her secret. She would not promise him everything, nor accept his everything in return. She would never run her fingers through his hair, or seek closeness with him for warmth. She would not have traveled all the way to Epiphany to try and find him today, and hold his hand beneath the table. Vergil would not be seated here on her couch, her face in his hand, and so close they share breath with one another. "Whatever cruel things you have done, and whatever cruel things you may yet do, I cannot think of you as cruel. Regardless of how you might try to convince me otherwise whether by words or actions, there is still a heart that beats within your chest. One that hurts and wants, hates and loves."

Again, Vergil does not present this as an argument against how she sees herself. As much as he would like to argue that point, he knows that's not an argument he can make let alone win. But he can reconcile the cruel things Mizu has done in the past, and what cruelty she may yet enact in her quest for revenge with the person he knows Mizu to truly be. His feelings for her are not in spite of anything. They are for the whole of who she is, her everything that she has promised him, and that includes her capacity for cruelty as much her capacity for something softer and kinder. Vergil does not believe the month in Amrita was enough for her to see there was more to her than just her quest for revenge, that there were things she wanted if she gave herself the opportunity to want them. Not in the face of a lifetime of throwing everything that she is and will be into her revenge. But as far as he's concerned, it still proves there is more to her than the demon that others have proclaimed her to be, that she has wrapped herself in being. And all he can do is hope that she might yet see that someday whether it is with him or far beyond their time together in Folkmore.

Mizu is unsure of the answer herself. All her experience with white men, both directly with Violet and Fowler and indirectly through the repercussions of their choices, known and purposefully inflicted, would make them seem clearly like the demons whose character is cruelty, who know no other path. The books she's read over the last year, oh so many of them, do not characterize white men that way. Many of them, she knows, were written by white men who might see nothing to little wrong with the deeds of their forebearers—foibles and deeds understandable as being of their time. What it makes them, cruel by choice or by nature, matters little to Mizu's revenge. These four men will die by her hand and as many others as need be to accomplish that goal.

She is an onryō, a demon that cannot be at rest until it is satisfied. In the past, when great leaders were killed unrighteously, they became onryōs that shaken the nation until the wrongs were set to rights. The Four Fangs may be right, that history will not know her name or her deeds, but she has watched the shogun die and made Edo burn. Japan may only know rest because the storm of her being must turn toward another country and another city.

Mizu brings her hand back to cover his on her face. She knows he's killed many, probably more than her, in his time. Mizu's known of that since they met, but Vergil is not a cruel man, a callous one at times, yes, but would not anyone the world has turned their backs on do what it takes to survive? They cannot all manage it. People die all the time, but Mizu does not judge Vergil poorly for what he's done, though she does not ignore the harm it's done to many people and more personally, more visibly, to his family. Her care for him could not be rocked at the revelation of whatever other cruel deeds he's done that she knows not about.

It is both predictable and in its way frustrating for him to turn the same logic on her, the same way she feels about him reflected back. It sets aside whatever she is, demon or human or both, without concern for the answer. Without seeing her the way every last person in her world has looked at her, including her mother, Mikio, Ringo, Taigen, and Akemi. Even, at one point, Master Eiji. Tears well up in her eyes and threaten to spill over.

"That is an onryō," Mizu says, "A demon older than white men and what I've been called over and over all my life. People say it when they see my eyes, but I have been an onryō since the fire in the woods and the moment I first swore vengeance. Hatred is not enough to make an onryō and only part of the reason for its power."

She leans harder into Vergil's hand, able to accept both that she is a demon and that she has a heart. Able to recognize that he cares for her. Mizu takes the hand she holds and settles it over her chest. "Master Eiji may not have recognized it when he first took me in, but it was there even then. That oath of vengeance has carried me forward and helped me survive when others would simply give up."

Strange that Vergil's the one comforting her when it feels only moments ago Mizu was comforting him. They're fully dressed sitting on her couch, faces close but nothing more than the intimacy of hand over hand and breath on breath, yet it feels as vulnerable as when she unbinds her chest. Mizu takes deep breaths.

October-November 2024 Test Drive Meme

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cw: mentions of dismemberment, blood, torture

cw: mentions of dismemberment, blood, torture

cw: attempted child murder, trauma memories associated w/torture, brainwashing/mind control

cw: attempted child murder, trauma memories associated w/torture, brainwashing/mind control

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CW: references to imperialism, colonialism, sexual exploitation, child murder, internalized racism

cw: reference to ritualistic murder & blood sacrifice

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