Archive of Our Own ^beta

INT. DOCKYARD – NIGHT

Thick fog rolls in off the bay, curling around the rusted metal of shipping containers. Distant waves slap against the pilings. A nearby lamppost flickers, its broken light sliding in fragments over the wet dock. Footsteps echo in intervals, measured and deliberate. Nero leans against a rusted cargo crate, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the horizon. Dante stands a few feet away, one boot up on a crate, coat fluttering slightly in the breeze. His hand rests casually on the hilt of the Devil Sword Dante, eyes scanning the fog like he's seen it all before.

NERO:
“Vergil showed up. Outta nowhere. Said he hasn’t seen you since—”

DANTE:
“Since he tossed me into that hellhole. Said it was for my own good—”
(beat)
“Only way to see why the Yamato still worked when everything else didn’t.”

Nero turns slightly, watching Dante out of the corner of his eye.

NERO:
“He mentioned that too. Said your powers didn’t work in there. Is that true?”

DANTE:
“Yeah. Some kind of dampening field—walls, ceiling, the whole place was laced with it. Like breathing through concrete.”
(pauses)
“Broke through eventually. But you don’t wanna know what it takes to hit that breaking point.”

A seagull cries in the distance. Somewhere beyond the stacks, metal creaks. Nero shifts his stance, gaze dropping for a moment, jaw tight.

NERO:
“That... doesn’t sound like something you walk away from clean.”
(he exhales, looking out toward the water)
“Anyway... that woman in the sketch—he knows something. And the Yamato—”
(trails off, brow furrowed)
“Feels different now. Like it’s powered up to a whole other tier.”

Dante shifts his weight slightly, eyes narrowing as he watches Nero.

DANTE:
“What else did he tell you?”

NERO:
“Nothing straight. Just mumbled something about “power being broken... burden and consequence.””
(beat)
“Cryptic. Poetic. Classic Vergil.”

Dante glances sideways, jaw tense.

DANTE:
“And?”

NERO:
“He looked... off. Like something hit him hard. That fire he used to chase—power, purpose, whatever—”
(pause)
“It’s like he saw what was waiting at the end of it... and didn’t like what he found.”

Fog thickens. The sound of water sloshing under the pier grows louder.

DANTE:
“He’ll show up again. Probably off brooding somewhere, pretending no one else exists.”

He exhales through his nose, flicks a pebble off the dock with his boot, watching it vanish into the dark water.

DANTE (cont’d):
“He’s always been like that.”

Nero shifts his stance, suddenly watching Dante more directly.

NERO:
“You’re not going after him?”

DANTE:
(quiet beat)
“Not this time... for now.”

NERO:
“Last time, you followed him straight into hell to stop the roots.”
(studies Dante, tone edged with disbelief)
“Now you’re just... letting him walk?

Dante doesn’t look at him, only stares out over the water with distant eyes.

DANTE:
“He always circles back, one way or another.”
(exhales, gaze distant)
“Spent half my life chasing him… trying to stop him, save him, keep up with him.”
(beat)
“Right now... well—”

NERO:
“I get it.”

A long silence. A buoy clinks gently in the distance.

DANTE:
“There’s something I gotta tell you. About Lady’s rescue.”

Nero slowly turns to face him, brow creased, but says nothing.

DANTE:
“Vergil was about to kill her. She was trapped in this... thing. Some kind of corrupted stone pod. I stepped in, we argued. He backed off. Let me take her.”

NERO:
(slow breath)
“Okay... and?”

DANTE:
“But when I turned around—”
(beat, eyes narrowing slightly)
“The portal tear... it was different.”

NERO:
“Like how different?”

DANTE:
“Not the usual blue-white edge. It was cross-shaped too, but with a violet tinge. Thinner. Cleaner. Like it wasn’t cut, it just... opened.”

Nero stiffens slightly, brows drawn.

NERO:
“So you’re saying—”

DANTE:
(shakes his head, voice low)
“It wasn’t Vergil. And that portal wasn’t from the Yamato.”

A long pause. The dock groans beneath them. Water slaps against the beams—loud in the silence.

NERO:
(quietly)
“What the hell…”
(beat)
“She doesn’t know, does she?”

DANTE:
(looks away, voice low)
“No. I’m not telling her that.”
(pause)
“She’s just getting her life back... piece by piece.”

He exhales, steady and firm.

DANTE (cont’d):
“Eight months in that pod. Nothing but nightmares.”
(beat)
“She’s not going back there.”

Nero glances away, jaw tight.

NERO:
(waiting, unsure)
“Wait a minute…”
(pause)
“You think the Vergil I saw was really him? Or something else?”

DANTE:
(shrugs, but his gaze sharpens)
“What do you think?”

NERO:
“Felt like him. Same presence. Same way he looks at everyone, cold and detached. Total asshole.”
(beat)
“So... what now?”

Dante exhales through his nose, scanning the foggy dockyard—something far off catches his eye, but it vanishes in the mist.

DANTE:
“For now... we keep our eyes peeled. Something tells me this isn’t over. Whatever that was—”
(pause)
“I’m gonna find it before it finds her.”

CAMERA – ZOOM OUT SLOW: Mist swallows their silhouettes as the frame widens. Behind a distant shipping crate, a faint ripple disturbs the water.

FADE TO BLACK


FADE IN:

Eight Months Earlier — Human World
(In the Underworld, less than a day has passed)


EXT. UNDERWORLD – VERGIL’S POV

The battlefield still seethes. The air pulses with heat and smoke. Qliphoth roots writhe through the haze, alive and feeding, twitching faintly like muscle beneath skin. Vergil stands motionless, Yamato slick with blood. His breath is controlled, his eyes sharp. Movement flickers at the edge of his vision.

A subtle shift.

The space around him ripples barely perceptible. A faint pulse threads through the ground, passing clean through his body like a cold current. Vergil stills. A current crosses through him, as if passing through a bridge to reach a destination not his own.

CAMERA CLOSE ON VERGIL’S EYE: A flicker. White light grazes the edge of his vision. A figure begins to form, vague and feminine. Lady’s shape, but indistinct. More echo than presence. She vanishes before he can focus.

His gaze cuts forward.

VERGIL:
(measured, assessing)
“Dante.”

CAMERA – MEDIUM ON DANTE: Dante is down on one knee, hand clutching his chest. He’s shaking, breath ragged. Something’s wrong.

DANTE:
(voice barely holding)
“It’s Lady... she’s—"

Vergil steps forward, eyes narrowing. No emotion, just analysis.

VERGIL:
“Focus. You’re slipping.”

DANTE:
“Something’s wrong. Way off.”

Vergil watches as Dante steadies himself, wipes blood from his mouth. The man's off-balance. Unfocused. A moment of distraction. A glimpse of weakness.

VERGIL:
(curt)
“She can take care of herself.”

He says it with certainty. But even he hears the hollowness underneath.

DANTE:
(lower now, unshakable)
“Not this time. I need to be there.”

A flicker of irritation crosses Vergil’s face. The words echo too close to something familiar.

VERGIL:
(cold)
“You’re abandoning your mission—your battle—for a woman?”

DANTE:
“I don’t have time for this, Vergil.”

Dante steps past him, not with defiance, but conviction. Final. Done.

Vergil doesn’t stop him. He just watches.

Silence stretches. For a long moment, he sees Dante not as a rival… but as something else. Something pulling away.

Then, he lifts the Yamato.

With a clean motion, he slashes the air. A portal tears open beside them, blue-white edges crackling with energy. The air hums low and steady, the sound sharp and familiar.

VERGIL:
(quiet, without turning)
“Go. I can’t have you here with your head somewhere else.”

Dante pauses, then nods. No words. He steps through. Gone.

The portal closes behind him with a final hiss of displaced air.

Silence returns. But it isn’t peace. It’s absence.

Vergil stands alone.

He doesn't move.


EXT. UNDERWORLD – CONTINUOUS

The battlefield lies quiet. Demons have retreated. The air feels thinner now. Hollow, like something vital has been pulled away.

Vergil scans the ground. The Qliphoth roots, once pulsing with unnatural life, have frozen. Crystallized. Splintered.

VERGIL:
(low, to himself)
“They’ve stopped...”

He steps toward them. Each footfall echoes louder than it should.

Then he sees it.

A flicker of light far off across the ash-choked horizon. Blue. Gentle. Wrong.

It pulses once. Then again.

Vergil doesn't move. He just watches.

VERGIL:
(quietly)
“What manner of force is this... ?”

The blue glow lingers. Still. Patient. Waiting.

Vergil turns away from it slightly, his gaze shifting to one of the larger Qliphoth roots nearby. It pulses faintly, no longer violent but strained. He steps toward it without haste, the Yamato low in hand.

He places his partially bare fingers against the surface of the root. At his touch, a section of it cracks, then crumbles. It falls in delicate fragments, breaking apart like a mix of ash and ice.

His eyes narrow.

With practiced calm, he taps the flat of the Yamato’s blade lightly against the base of the root. The entire section buckles, splintering with ease and collapsing in on itself like brittle crystal.

No regeneration. No resistance.

Vergil straightens slowly, blade still in hand, eyes locked on the lifeless remains.

The Yamato hums softly in his grip. A low, resonant vibration. Not just from the blade, but from something deeper. Older.

Then he hears it.

Whispers.

Indistinct. Distant. Like breath brushing the edge of thought. Male, female, impossible to tell. It doesn’t echo in the air, but somewhere behind his awareness.

Vergil’s stance sharpens. Controlled. Precise. Alert.

His eyes sweep the fog-draped horizon.

Nothing.

The blue glow pulses once in the distance. Steady. Unchanged.

Still... nothing.

But the whispers linger, soft and persistent, like something that forgot how to leave.

The whispers stop. Abrupt. As if they were never there.

Vergil turns slowly, scanning the mist one last time.

Nothing.

His stance eases. Slightly.

He looks down at the Yamato. The blade still hums in his hand, a low, steady vibration like it's responding to something only it can sense.

Then, his gaze lifts to the horizon. The pulsing blue light waits there, soft and constant.

VERGIL:
“Something... doesn’t belong here.”


EXT. UNDERWORLD – VERGIL’S POV – LATER

The terrain opens into a wide, scorched expanse. The ground is cracked and dry, breathing heat like a furnace. Beneath the surface, veins of blue light seep upward. Quiet. Steady. The glow that follows feels otherworldly, unlike anything born of the Underworld.

Ahead, the land boils with movement.

Countless demons snarl and clash, circling something at the heart of the glow. Some are armored, wielding crude blades of bone and blackened steel. Others are feral, spined and clawed, crawling on too many limbs with mouths stretched impossibly wide. Insectile screeches cut through the air as wings hammer against the flame-thick wind.

And yet... they do not break through.

In the center of it all stands a man.

He moves, but not with desperation. His fighting is fluid, precise. Every motion is a calculation, every strike a correction. He turns with eerie calm, always one step ahead of the chaos around him. He doesn’t retreat. He doesn’t chase. He simply is, and the world falls apart trying to reach him.

He is tall. Bare-armed. His sleeveless black wrap clings to his frame like monk’s attire, weathered but intact. His movements are unburdened, silent.

A long, jet-black braid trails down his spine, unmoving even as the air trembles with violence.

Across his eyes—

A black cloth. A blindfold.

Vergil’s stance tightens. The Yamato still hums in his grip.

He does not speak. But he watches. Intently.

CAMERA – CLOSE-UP ON THE MYSTERIOUS MAN’S SWORD: A saber unlike any other. Long, curved, and elegant. Its blade tapers into a twin-pronged fork at the end. The design is precise, deliberate. Less a weapon of brutality, more a symbol of command. It hums. A low, resonant tone, reverent. Not a challenge. A salute.

CAMERA – MIDSHOT: The man halts. Blade still. Bloodied demons crumpled at his feet. He tilts his head slightly, as if sensing something far beyond the present. Though blindfolded, he turns his face toward the distant ridge. Toward Vergil.

CAMERA – CLOSE-UP ON THE YAMATO: In Vergil’s grip, Yamato responds. The steel vibrates with a matching note, low and ancient.

Two echoes meeting in silence.

Vergil looks down at the Yamato. The hum remains, low and steady, echoing the reverence in the stranger’s blade.

VERGIL:
“That’s... unexpected.”

His eyes lift again to the figure in the light. The chaos around them still rages, but in this moment, something older is speaking. Neither man says a word.

The hum of the Yamato lingers. Faint. Watching.

Then—

A sudden shift behind him. The ripple of movement. Bone scraping metal. Wingbeats. Screeches.

Vergil doesn't turn. He simply moves.

CAMERA – BEHIND VERGIL: A pack of demons barrels toward him. Ten, maybe twelve. Armed, armored, hungry. Some crawl. Others leap. One howls mid-air as it descends toward him.

Vergil pivots cleanly. Yamato flashes once. No wind-up.

The leaping demon splits mid-air, its scream cut short. Both halves hit the ground with a wet thud.

CAMERA – TRACKING CLOSE: Another swings a jagged axe at his back. Vergil steps aside with surgical calm, blade slicing upward along the creature’s midsection. The top half twists off before it realizes it's dead.

A third lunges low, insectile legs clicking. Vergil drives the tip of Yamato down and in, piercing through its open mouth and out the back of its skull. He twists. Withdraws.

No wasted breath. No wasted step.

WIDE SHOT – DEMONS ENCIRCLE: More come. Fast. They're not retreating. They're pressing in, surrounding, driving him back.

One roars and charges with a pike. Another with twin sickles. They come in waves now, forcing motion. Every strike Vergil delivers is precise. Each kill demands ground. The swarm keeps pressing in.

He sidesteps one strike, ducks another. The Yamato cuts upward in a clean arc, severing limbs with graceful precision.

But he's moving. Whether he wants to or not.

CAMERA – HIGH ANGLE: The battlefield spirals inward. The blue light glows brighter with every step.

Vergil cuts through another demon, then halts. Looks around.

He realizes it.

They’re pushing him. Nudging him closer. Toward the man.

Vergil steps forward and delivers a final diagonal slash, cleaving through the last shrieking demon. It collapses in silence. The remaining creatures hesitate, their snarls quieting. Unease ripples through their ranks. For a moment, the battlefield holds its breath.

He’s within the man’s radius now. Close. Too close for comfort. Neither flinches.

The blindfolded figure tilts his head slightly. Then, with quiet finality, he nods.

Vergil does not respond. He doesn't need to.

CAMERA – WIDE SHOT: Without a word, they move. Back to back.

The circle breaks. Demons screech and rush from all sides. The light catches the Yamato’s steel as it sweeps in clean arcs, fluid, economical, unforgiving. The stranger’s saber, with its forked tip, glides like liquid fire, parries and slashes folding into one another like a violent dance.

CAMERA – CLOSE TRACKING: Vergil pivots, dispatches three with a single motion. The man counters behind him, his saber blocking a descending blow, then slashing outward in a tight, spinning step.

Their spacing is exact. No words, no signals. Just rhythm.

Two swords. Two frequencies. One harmony.

CAMERA – LOW ANGLE, DYNAMIC TRACKING: A fresh wave of demons surges in. Blades flashing, wings beating, claws scraping the scorched ground.

Vergil’s eyes narrow. The blindfolded swordsman across the field exhales, steady and unshaken.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON YAMATO: The blade hums. The air around it bends and shivers.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON THE SABER: White electricity dances along the forked tips, the pitch climbing.

Synchronized charge.

CAMERA – WIDE: Both men burst forward, sprinting straight toward one another.

MICRO-BEAT OF RECOGNITION: As they close the gap, Vergil angles the Yamato a fraction toward the stranger. The stranger answers with the faintest nod, a wordless consent before the storm.

Just before they meet, Vergil snaps the Yamato fully into its scabbard with a sharp click that rings across the field like struck iron. A blue Devil-Trigger flicker washes over him and is gone. At the same instant the stranger plants his lead foot and sweeps his saber in a tight half-circle, static hissing along the twin forks.

Instant warp

Both fighters vanish.

A heartbeat later they reappear on opposite sides, dropping to one knee, swords lowered.

Detonation.

Behind them the battlefield erupts.

Vergil’s Judgment Cut blossoms from the click-point. Dozens of indigo-violet slashes carve space itself, shredding every demon in the radius.

The stranger’s strike detonates in tandem. A soaring spiral of white lightning lifts foes skyward, flaying anything the void slashes miss.

CAMERA – WIDE TRACKING FROM ABOVE: Twin signatures overlap: needle-fine violet arcs interlace with a brilliant white cyclone. Ash, smoke, and fractured ground billow outward in mirrored rings.

CAMERA – STATIC WIDE (AFTERMATH): Dust settles. Ash drifts like snow. Across the ruined field the two warriors kneel back-to-back, perfectly spaced, swords resting at their sides.

A tableau of devastation—quiet, eerie, exact.

Silence.

A breath hangs heavy in the ash-choked air.

Vergil rises from his kneel in one fluid motion, the Yamato still sheathed and humming at his side.

The stranger turns a fraction, blindfold angled toward the sound of shifting weight. A nod passes between them. No camaraderie. Only recognition.

Then—

CRACK.

A deep rumble tore through the earth beneath them. The ground split wide without warning.

Bodies. Blood. Ash. Everything dropped.

Vergil’s boots slid. The stranger didn’t flinch. But there was no time to leap clear. The entire platform buckled in a single violent motion.

Both men were swallowed into the collapse.

Their silhouettes vanished into the dark, trailing dust and silence behind them.

FADE TO BLACK


FADE IN:

CAMERA – TOP VIEW, STATIC: Vergil lies motionless atop rubble and scattered demon corpses, bodies contorted from the fall.

Dust lingers thick in the air, slowly settling. The Yamato rests a short distance from his outstretched hand, gleaming faintly in the gloom.

His fingers twitch. A breath draws in. Then, with quiet control, Vergil stirs and pushes himself upright. He looks to his side. The Yamato is there, waiting.

He reaches out and grips the hilt. The blade hums softly in his grasp, low and resonant.

Vergil rises to his feet, steadying himself. Above, the shattered ceiling of the Underworld is barely visible. The crevice walls stretch far beyond reach. There is no return path.

He brushes dust from his shoulder with one fluid motion and rolls his neck. A soft crack breaks the silence.

Around him, remnants of an ancient city lie buried in shadow. Arched structures, weathered stone, and crumbled statues guard forgotten corners.

He steps forward. His boots grind against broken tile and bone. Far ahead, tucked behind layers of ruin, an old fort slouches against the dark. From its lower chamber, a soft blue glow pulses. Faint. Steady. Something older.

The Yamato hums in response, its resonance drawn to the light.

To his left, a structure leans into shadow. Shattered columns jut from the ground like broken ribs. To the right, a stairwell sinks deeper, lit by a faint, pale glow clinging to the walls like breath trapped in stone.

His eyes scan the distance, beyond the fractured plaza where he stands. The ruins stretch outward: collapsed towers, sagging archways, scorched walls clawing through ash. A sunken path lies further down, half-lost to time.

He begins to walk.


INT. UNDERGROUND PLAZA – CONTINUOUS

Vergil descends a broken slope into the plaza. Mist coils at his feet, parting just enough to reveal what waits below.

In the center of the clearing, half-lit by a lone torch mounted on the crumbling wall of a ruin, stands the stranger. Motionless. Back turned. A long braid rests against his spine, black cloth whispering in the breeze.

He does not turn. But he knows Vergil is there.

Vergil slows, but does not call out. His hand rests on the Yamato’s grip, eyes narrowed.

The silence holds, tense and heavy, waiting for whatever comes next.

WARRIOR:
“You’re a son of Sparda.”
(beat)
“The question is—which one?”

VERGIL:
(sharp)
“What difference would it make?

WARRIOR:
“Hmm. That edge in your voice...”
(pause)
“You’re Vergil.”

Vergil’s expression doesn’t shift. Only his eyes narrow, just slightly.

VERGIL:
“You know who I am. So stop wasting time—who are you, and why are you here?”

WARRIOR:
“ Amiel .”
(beat, matter-of-fact)
“Same reason you are.”
(brief pause)
“Something breached this world… unearthed what old wars buried.”

VERGIL:
“The Qliphoth stopped. No regeneration. Just ash. Did you cause that?”

AMIEL:
“No. But something else did.”
(beat)
“Did you feel it—just before the roots stopped growing?”

Vergil doesn't answer. His gaze sharpens, measuring and reserved. A man who sees no reason to offer truth to a stranger.

AMIEL:
“That energy you felt... it doesn’t belong to your demon gods.”
(pause)
“It’s older. Far older.”

VERGIL:
(low, edged)
“Then what is it?

AMIEL:
“I’m still searching for answers.”
(beat)
“But this much I know—”
(quiet)
“Even the oldest demon kings... spoke of it in fear.”

VERGIL:
“What are you? Demon? Human? How did you get here?”

CAMERA – SLOW PAN – AMIEL: He turns. The blindfold catches the torchlight, gleaming faintly. He tilts his chin toward the Yamato.

AMIEL:
“Same way you did.”

VERGIL:
(scoffs, eyes narrowing)
“Impossible.”

CAMERA – CLOSE ON AMIEL'S HAND: His fingers curl around the hilt of his saber. He draws it in one smooth motion. It hums, low and resonant. Not hostile. Aware.

VERGIL:
“If this is meant to challenge me, you’ll need better motivation.”

AMIEL:
“This is not your test. It’s the blade’s.”

Spar begins.

CAMERA – FAST TRACKING: Vergil moves first. Sharp. Exact. Controlled fury. The Yamato flashes with lethal precision.

CAMERA – MID SHOT – AMIEL: He counters, not with power but with poise. He redirects, steps fluid. His stance is anchored. His sword, an extension of his breath.

Clash. Steel on steel. A sharp ring echoes through stone.

CAMERA – LOW ANGLE: Vergil slices wide. The Yamato’s tip grazes the blindfold and cuts it clean.

CLOSE SHOT – BLINDFOLD FALLS: It drifts down like ash.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON AMIEL'S FACE: His eyes, pale gray. Clouded. Unseeing. Yet unshaken.

VERGIL:
“You’re blind.”

AMIEL:
(tilts his head slightly)
“And yet... here we are.”

A sudden shift. Amiel pivots, clean and precise.

His saber hooks behind the Yamato’s spine with impossible accuracy.

The sword flips free. It spins once. Then twice. Air slicing.

Amiel catches it mid-air, exact and unfazed, in his other hand.

He now holds both blades.

Silence.

The hum ceases.

Both men still.

Vergil’s gaze sharpens. Not fear. Insult.

A flicker. Barely a shift in stance.

But the air coils tighter.

VERGIL:
(low, cold)
“Return it.”

CAMERA – CLOSE ON AMIEL: He holds the Yamato upright in one hand, careful and balanced. His other hand lowers the saber but doesn’t let go. Eyes closed.

CAMERA – TIGHT ON HIS FACE: His breathing evens. The blade hums, soft and low. Not a weapon now, but a memory. A pulse flickers faintly along its edge.

CAMERA – SLOW PUSH IN: Amiel stands as if listening to something no one else can hear.

His presence shifts. No longer adversary.

Just... attuned.

AMIEL:
“It remembers a woman.”
(beat)
“Highborn. Martyred.”

Amiel steadies the Yamato gently in his hand, treating it more like a relic than a weapon. He steps forward and extends it, offering the hilt first.

Vergil doesn’t hesitate. He takes the sword without ceremony.

VERGIL:
“You and I... we’re not so different.”

AMIEL:
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
(tilts his head slightly, listening)
“Tread carefully. Some secrets were meant to die with their keepers.”

A breath. Quiet, deliberate.

AMIEL (cont'd):
“And yet, truth always finds us... especially when retribution is unfinished.”

Vergil’s gaze shifts toward the horizon. The faint pulse of blue light still flickers in the far distance. Low and steady. Unnatural. 

He mutters, cold and flat.

VERGIL:
“Then they should’ve buried them deeper.”

AMIEL:
“May we never meet again.”
(beat)
“If we do... it will be the end.”

He begins to turn away, his blade tilting as he pivots with quiet finality.

VERGIL:
“You came all this way... to turn back?”

AMIEL:
“This path is no longer my destiny.”
(pause)
“It’s yours. Rightfully. Farewell, son of Sparda.”

Amiel turns. With a single, precise slash, his saber tears open space. The portal hums low and steady. He steps through without a word. The rift closes behind him.

Vergil watches it close. A faint crease forms between his brows.

Just for a moment, his grip tightens on the Yamato.

Not in anger. But recognition.

Someone else had done what only he believed possible.

He says nothing.

The Yamato still in hand, but heavier now.

Not from battle. From a legacy older than his father.

FADE TO BLACK


FADE IN:

INT. INNER RUINS – DEMON STRONGHOLD – UNDERGROUND DARK

Vergil moves through the fractured interior of a once regal fort. Its architecture bears the weight of both nobility and war. Though decayed, the signs are unmistakable: carved archways, sloped pillars, and stone reliefs depicting demonic conquests. This was no mere fortification.

This was a residence. A warlord’s dominion.

He walks slowly, torch in hand. Shadows stretch along the walls. His eyes scan each detail with silent calculation.

But it’s not this place he came to find.

Dust coats the inlaid tiles. Burnt edges and collapsed supports hint at a battle long past. Yet the structure holds. Wounded, but not fallen.

He stops near a large supporting column, burnt black and half-collapsed, and turns toward a dark stairwell descending beneath the main structure. The glow is faint but visible, blue light bleeding from the seams below.


INT. LOWER CHAMBER – SLAVE QUARTERS – CONTINUOUS

Vergil descends the narrow steps into darkness. The air grows colder. Drier. Each step echoes against stone shaped not with reverence, but with control.

This place wasn’t meant to shelter. It was built to break. The torchlight reveals it all: Narrow stone cells. Iron loops driven deep into the walls. Chains dragged from their moorings. Shallow pits used for waste or worse.

No signs of life.

Just silence. And the light.

CAMERA – WIDE SHOT OF THE FLOOR: In the center of the chamber, the floor is cracked. Dry sand has settled into the fractures, as if time itself tried to conceal what was left behind. From beneath the stone, a soft blue glow seeps upward, pulsing slow and steady. Like breath.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON YAMATO: A low vibration stirs in Vergil’s grip. Not hostile. Steady. Drawn.

Vergil steps forward. The closer he gets, the more the light responds. It does not sense him, but what he carries—the Yamato.

CAMERA – LOW ANGLE – VERGIL STANDING OVER THE BROKEN STONE FLOOR:
The soft blue glow pulses through a jagged crack between fractured tiles. The blade in his hand answers. Quiet. Insistent.

He sets the torch aside, fitting the handle into a narrow groove between two broken stones. The flame holds steady, sending flickering shadows across the chamber.

 Then he kneels.

His fingers brush the edge of the fractured floor, testing the weight. He grips it, strains, and begins to lift.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON VERGIL’S HANDS: Vergil’s hands press down. Stone grinds against stone. With effort, he shifts the fractured tiles aside, revealing what lies beneath.

Sand. Packed. Undisturbed. Ancient.

The blue glow subsides, leaving only shadow.

But in that quiet, he feels it. A subtle vibration, faint and fleeting, humming through the Yamato’s scabbard at his hip.

He doesn’t hesitate.

With one hand, he begins to dig.

Each handful strips away the packed dust. Dry. Heavy. Clinging like ash.

Then a shape begins to emerge.

His fingers slow.

Brush aside the last veil of sand.

A skull. Not human.

Long and broad. The remnants of filed horns are jagged stubs, worn and broken. The bone is stained with time but intact.

The rest of the form stretches beneath it: skeletal, massive.

She was tall. Regal in stature, even in death.

Vergil stares. Silent.

His hand lifts slowly. He reaches toward the broken horn, brushing the stub.

At his touch, blue flecks lift from the bone, soft and iridescent. They rise like embers, gathering midair.

The Yamato hums, deep now. Alive.

The flecks swirl, coalescing into a single orb of light suspended above her remains. It pulses once, then drifts gently toward him.

Vergil rises. Slowly. Watching. With one controlled motion, he draws the Yamato. Its edge catches the light. His stance remains steady, guarded.

The orb lands softly against its edge.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON YAMATO’S BLADE: Light spills across the steel, traveling like liquid down the length of the sword, mapping ancient veins once dormant. The glow doesn’t overtake. It joins.

A resonance. A return.

Vergil’s grip tightens. His breath shallows. Eyes locked on the light.

CAMERA – ZOOM IN: VERGIL’S EYES: The glow reflects in his pupils. Sharp. Flickering.

Light blooms outward, swallowing the frame.

The present dissolves.

MEMORY VISION SEQUENCE:

INT. PRISON CELL – ANCIENT TIME – POST-TRIUNE WAR ERA - NIGHT

Flickering torchlight. Cold stone. Chains. Silence.

A woman sits in the far corner, her towering frame crumpled low.

One leg is braced awkwardly. A crude crutch rests beside her.

Her wings have been severed. The stubs are cauterized, still smoldering.

Her horns, filed down to scorched, splintered nubs, glow faintly with ember heat.

She breathes raggedly, pain etched into every line of her body. Not crying. Just enduring.

CLOSE ON HER HAND: She bites the tip of her finger. Jagged, razor-like teeth pierce flesh. Blood wells, dark and thick. She dips a strip of torn garment into it.

CAMERA – LOW ANGLE: Using her own blood, she begins to write on the cloth. Ancient glyphs etched in haste, in pain, in purpose.

CAMERA – TRACKING VERGIL (as vision): Vergil stands in the cell, unseen, like a ghost tethered to her agony. He approaches slowly, watching the blood symbols form.

At first, they are unreadable. Foreign. Alien.

Then—

CAMERA – CLOSE ON THE GLYPHS: They shimmer. Reconfigure. The letters pulse once and slowly reshape into words Vergil can now read, attuned by resonance.

ON THE CLOTH:

“They tortured many of us here. Some beyond recognition. They severed my wings. Scorched my horns. Stripped me of dignity as if I bore no soul. I am too weak. The wound from battle has not closed, and worse, my back still bleeds where my wings once were. I don’t know when I’ll rise again… but if I do, it will be for the last stand.”

CLOSE ON THE WOMAN: She glances around, chest rising with effort. Quiet.

With shaking fingers, she folds the blood-marked fabric and slips it into a small nook beneath a loose stone in the cell wall. Hidden, but reachable.

Her eyes close. Not in peace, but in defiance.

SOUND CUE – LOW HUM: The Yamato vibrates gently in Vergil’s grip. The sound deepens, steadier and stronger.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON VERGIL’S EYE: A glint of light catches. His pupil contracts.

FLASH CUT – SILENCE: Everything vanishes in a blink. No sound. No movement.


INT. SLAVE QUARTERS – PRESENT

Vergil exhales, shoulders stiffening. Dust shifts in the air around him.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON THE YAMATO: The blade’s glow fades slightly. No longer bright, but still alive, a quiet pulse along its edge.

Vergil stands alone now, breath shallow. The chamber feels different. Not empty. Just haunted.

His gaze roams the space. Stones. Decay. Stillness.

He exhales once, quiet. The Yamato lowers.

With a clean, fluid motion, he sheathes the blade.

Then, he sees it.

A slight indent in the wall’s base. The same nook from the vision.

Vergil steps forward. Kneels.

His gloved hand reaches into the recess, brushes past broken splinters and stone dust, then finds it:

CAMERA – CLOSE ON FABRIC: A strip of old cloth. Stained. Weatherworn. Folded in layers.

He pulls it out carefully.

Not one piece. Multiple. Hidden deep, packed in sand to preserve them.

Each one bloodwritten. The symbols are ancient, etched in agony, barely legible. Their meaning hovers just beyond comprehension, as if carved from something forgotten by the world.

He unfolds the first.

The blood has faded to rusted brown but the message lingers.

CAMERA – OVER VERGIL’S SHOULDER: At the Yamato’s resonance, the symbols shimmer slightly. They shift just enough to become legible, aligning with his attunement.

He recognizes the glyph from the vision, then moves to another cloth.

ON CLOTH – TRANSLATED TEXT:

“They killed Adia, my handmaid. She was like a sister to me. They made her suffer before they took her head. She was with child. Many among us became with child, not by will but by repeated violation. And when they discovered what had taken root, they slew the women and the unborn with them. He has not touched me yet.”

Vergil’s jaw tightens. A shadow crosses his expression.

The cloth trembles slightly in his grip.

He reaches into the crevice again.

Fingers brush something cool. Metal, wrapped in aged, ragged cloth.

He lifts it carefully. A medallion. Silver-gold, weathered but intact.

A faint glint catches the light.

Embossed on its surface are three interlocking symbols forming a triangle. At the center, a single word. Unreadable at first. The glyphs shimmer strangely, just beyond his comprehension.

Then the Yamato hums, low and fleeting.

The symbols shift in his vision, aligning with something deeper.

Now, he sees the meaning.

Unity. Dominion. Salvation.

At the center, he speaks the final words aloud:

VERGIL:
(quietly)
“Imperial Triune. The Perfect Creed.”

A breath.

Stillness returns.

He gently folds the blood-marked cloths. The medallion, still cool to the touch, he wraps once more in the ragged strip that held it.

Careful. Deliberate. He slips both into the inner pocket of his coat.

They vanish from view, but not from weight.

Then—

A sound.

Faint. Far down the corridor.

Echoes.

Ghostly. Dragged. Ascending.

Vergil’s head turns. His grip steadies. The Yamato at his side, but unmoved.

He reaches for the torch where he left it. Still burning, nestled in the groove. 

He steps out of the chamber and begins to follow the sorrow that does not rest.

INT. RESIDENTIAL CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS

The cries draw him into a broader passage.

The stone here is finer, etched and designed.

Arched ceilings curve overhead. Intricate carvings trail along the walls.

This place was once meant to be lived in. But nothing lives here now.

The sound drifts ahead. Fainter. Higher.

He moves with it, as if pulled. Not by will. By gravity.

No silence now.

Only the weight of what lingers. Until the corridor exhales. Faint cries. Then screams. Agonizing. Blood-curdling. They rise with every step.

INT. GRAND DINING HALL – MOMENTS LATER

The doors hang askew, half-rotted and torn from their hinges.

Vergil steps through.

He fits the torch into an old sconce embedded in the wall. The flame steadies, its light rolling unevenly across stone and dust.

The hall stretches wide before him.

A long table splits the room, snapped down the center.

Chairs overturned.

Shackles bolted into the floor beneath the head seat, suggesting meals were taken in the presence of captives.

The far wall bears long, jagged claw marks. Not random. Desperate. Signs of panic. Of detainment.

The air vibrates. Not from the blade. But from the cries that do not stop.

Voices echo, pleading, screaming—ripped from the past and trapped in stone.

Vergil stands still, listening to agony that refuses to die.

The Yamato hums. Low. Fleeting.

The air folds inward, quiet but charged.

Light bends, the edges of reality warping like ripples in glass.

CAMERA – ZOOM INTO VERGIL’S EYES: A flicker catches in his gaze. The glow deepens. And then the present slips away.

MEMORY VISION SEQUENCE:

INT. GRAND DINING HALL – PAST - POST-TRIUNE WAR ERA

The dining hall glows with infernal light.

No ruin. No rot. But what stands is no less horrifying.

Vergil blinks. And he’s there. Present, but unseen. A ghost inside a memory.

He stands near the head of the table. At its end, a demon warlord lounges in a grotesque throne carved from bone and blackened steel.

Smiling. Commanding.

Indulgence woven into every twitch of his clawed hand.

To his left stands a woman. Tall. Chained at the neck. A crude crutch rests at her left side, supporting her weight.

The jagged stubs of her horns, filed down and scorched at the base, match the remnants Vergil unearthed. A shackle gleams against her collarbone.

She carries a narrow vessel, silver and ceremonial.

She pours its contents into the goblet before him. Blood. Dark. Still warm. It pools like wine.

A malformed servant, hunched and dragging one foot, lumbers past. His twisted figure carries a massive tray piled high with something unnameable. Meat, but not animal.

He passes directly through Vergil. Doesn’t see him. Doesn’t feel him.

Vergil doesn’t flinch. He isn’t truly present. Just a phantom, caught within someone else’s past.

The table groans with excess.

Demonic guests feast wildly. Their laughter curdles the air. They tear flesh, gnash bone, devour and drink.

On the periphery—

Screams. Women like her. Dragged by chains. Bent over tables. Their limbs bound. Their mouths gagged. Eyes hollowed by terror, by the repetition of it.

Some hang from hooks. Bare. Exposed. Torn open for sport.

Others kneel, forced to serve with trembling hands as laughter drowns their cries.

They are defiled in unspeakable ways.

Not captives. Not prisoners—

Entertainment.

She sees everything. Can’t look away. She isn’t allowed to. She lowers her gaze, just barely. A flicker of refusal.

The demon warlord notices.

Black metal creaks as he lifts his arm.

Clawed fingers clamp around her jaw, rough and unrelenting.

He tilts her face upward.

DEMON WARLORD:
“Open your eyes. Look.”

She hesitates. Just a breath.

Then his voice hardens. Deeper. Crueler. Louder.

DEMON WARLORD (cont’d):
“I said—look.”

Her eyes open wide and unblinking. Not out of obedience, but because defiance is all she has left.

To endure.

The warlord studies her for a moment longer, then releases her jaw.

Her head remains tilted, breath shallow.

He raises the goblet, drinks slow. Blood smears his lip as the cup lowers.

DEMON WARLORD:
“Indeed. Sweeter served by your hands… princess.”

Her breath hitches.

Another demon approaches. A lieutenant by rank. His armor is less ornate but bears the mark of command. He steps close. Too close to Maerion. His leer curls as he turns toward the warlord.

DEMON LIEUTENANT:
(mocking)
"When will you take your delights with this one, Lord Abaddon?"

Abaddon doesn’t answer.

The lesser demon chuckles, saliva stringing at the corner of his mouth. His claw drags slowly down the princess’s arm, leaving a streak of grime against her skin.

A beat.

Suddenly, Abaddon rises.

Towering. Silent.

With one smooth motion, he unsheathes a serrated dark-forged greatblade, its surface streaked with molten red veins. He drives it through his lieutenant’s torso. No hesitation. Brutal. Final.

ABADDON:
(cold)
"No one lays a hand on my trophies.”

The body slumps off the blade. Crashes to the stone with a thunderous thud.

The hall stills.

Blood pools. The air holds its breath.

Abaddon turns to face the room of demon guests and their trembling prey.

ABADDON:
(raising his voice)
“Anyone who dares touch what is mine—perishes.”

No one speaks.

But one by one, the demons bow. Deep. Obedient.

Abaddon laughs. A low, hollow sound. Cruel and joyless.

ABADDON:
"Carry on."

Abaddon steps closer to the princess.

His towering frame looms, breath reeking with old blood and rot.

He leans in, slow and deliberate. His face just inches from hers.

One clawed hand lifts a strand of her dull silver hair. He brushes it aside with an almost tender touch, then leans in and inhales slowly and indulgently. When he exhales, the foul heat of his breath grazes her cheek.

ABADDON:
(cold, sinister)
"I’m saving you for a grander purpose. Consider yourself... favored."

Her eyes remain forward. Unflinching. But the vessel trembles slightly in her grip, her knuckles white around its narrow neck.

Vergil stands still. He does not speak. Does not blink.

The weight of what he’s witnessing holds him. Not with fear, but with something colder. Cruel revelation.

Abaddon sinks back into his seat, one arm draped over the side.

He snaps his fingers.

ABADDON:
(mirthless)
"Music."

At the far end of the hall, a demonic quartet stirs.

Strings screech. Drums thrum low. A grotesque symphony begins to rise.

Vergil watches, breath taut in his chest.

His fingers twitch toward the Yamato.

A beat.

He draws.

Steel flashes: clean, swift, final. His blade cuts through the image of Abaddon’s neck.

But there is no blood.

Only vapor. The memory shatters like smoke in the wind.


INT. GRAND DINING HALL – PRESENT

Vergil stands alone.

No quartet. No table. No chains.

Only the weight in his hand. And the echo of screams that still haven’t faded.

For the first time, he hears it. Louder. In the stillness that follows an atrocity more vicious than his own. His own cracks. Not in voice, but breath. Sharp. Controlled. The edge of rage slipping through. Not loud. Not wild. But smoldering. A storm held back by force of will.

He holds the stance a moment longer. Then slowly straightens.

A quiet reset. Shoulders square. Breath steadies.

He puts himself back together.

A sound breaks the air. Shuffling. Deliberate. Uneven. It comes from beyond the crumbled archway.

Something moves. Not fast. Not frantic. But closing in.

A figure limps into view. Hooded. Ragged.

Old bones wrapped in frayed cloth and shadow.

Labored breath. Each step a burden, yet relentless.

Vergil circles. Alert. The Yamato drawn in one fluid motion, tip poised beneath the stranger’s chin.

VERGIL:
(low, cold)
“Come any closer, and I’ll make this your final step.”

The stranger does not flinch. Instead, with slow, brittle movements, he lifts his hood.

Beneath it: A hunched, withered demon. Skin like cracked ash, stretched tight over brittle bone. Two rows of short, dry horns curl back from his skull, some chipped, others worn to stubs. One eye bulges unnaturally wide. The other is sunken and milky. His lower tusks are jagged and broken, as if shattered long ago.

He looks familiar. The malformed servant from the vision. The one who carried the unnameable feast.

STRANGER:
(raspy, uncertain)
"Are you... Master Erlik’s son?"

VERGIL:
(flat)
“No.”

STRANGER:
(disappointed, soft)
“You look just like him.”
(pause)
“Young master Sparda.”

VERGIL:
(cold, controlled)
“No. That can’t be—”
(beat)
“Why do you speak his name?”

The stranger studies him. Not with alarm, but with quiet clarity. He scrutinizes the lines of his face, the weight in his voice. Slowly, understanding sets in.

STRANGER:
(soft, with wonder)
“Are you... his?”

Vergil does not respond. His gaze sharpens. Still. Measuring. Something flickers behind his eyes. Not denial. Not belief. Just calculation.

STRANGER (cont’d):
(staring, breath hitching)
“The young master...”
(beat)
“He has a son...”

His knees buckle. One, then the other. He lowers himself, slow and trembling, until he is kneeling. Stone meets bone. His hands rest on the floor.

A sound escapes his throat. Not just grief. Reverence.

STRANGER:
(choking back a sob)
“I never thought I would see the day...”

A rasping sob escapes him. Raw. Shattered.

Vergil holds still. His grip remains steady. Slowly, he lowers the Yamato. Not in surrender, but in quiet recognition of something older than pain. Something unnamed, but undeniable.

The stranger looks up. His single enlarged eye gleams with a hint of urgency.

STRANGER:
“There is something you must see.”


INT. ARMORY HALL – OLD FORT– INNER CHAMBER

The stone corridor widens into a long, vaulted hall.

The stranger leads the way, a flickering torch in his hand. Shadows dance across the walls as he limps ahead, the flame casting brief glimpses of what remains.

Vergil follows in silence, boots echoing on the worn stone.

Ancient weapons line the walls, some rusted, others still sharp. War trophies sit in mounted display. Demon skulls of grotesque shape and scale, their eye sockets hollow and accusing.

Busts of forgotten warriors gaze from pedestals. Some faces are cracked, others erased entirely by time.

At the far end, two towering statues rise from blackened marble.

One stands tall, armor jagged and regal. Lord Commander Abaddon, carved mid-command, one clawed hand extended as if still issuing orders.

Beside him, more restrained in posture, stands a second figure: General Erlik, sword resting at his side. His features are stoic and severe, carved with a precision that borders on reverence. Long hair flows past his shoulders, and though his hands end in talons, his form is more refined than Lord Commander Abaddon's. He is elegant where the other is grotesque. Abaddon's figure looms insectile, with thick markhor horns, moth-like wings, and mandibular jaws jutting from a face twisted by hunger.

Vergil barely spares them a glance.

His attention catches elsewhere.

To the side of the statues, slightly offset, hangs a worn canvas, nearly swallowed by dust and shadow.

Vergil steps closer.

The stranger lowers the torch. Its flame licks the edge of the canvas, casting a slow, wavering glow across a portrait—a young man, solemn and composed. Not yet a warrior, but unmistakably of that blood. His hair is silver-white, brushed cleanly back. His eyes, icy blue, seem to cut through the grime and years layered on the painted surface.

At his chest rests a high-collared coat, marked at the center by a faint family crest.

The image is quiet. Untouched. No fanfare. No dramatics.

Vergil doesn’t speak. He just looks. Not in awe. Not in disbelief. Just the quiet, fixed stare of a man face-to-face with the son his father once was, before the world buried him beneath legend.

STRANGER:
(softly, with reverence)
“That’s the young master—Sparda.”

Vergil turns slowly. No sudden reaction. Just a pivot. A measured glance toward the one who named the portrait.

VERGIL:
(flat)
“What happened here?”

The stranger says nothing at first.

He limps past Vergil, torch held high once more, sending unsteady light across the long chamber. Shadows stretch across silent witnesses: busts, blades, and bone. Time clings to the stone like ash, thick and undisturbed. The air holds its breath, heavy with remembrance.

He stops before the two statues: Abaddon and Erlik. Father and son.

The stranger’s eyes linger on Erlik. He places a hand gently on the statue’s base.

As if it still breathes.

As if it still sees him.

STRANGER:
(low, like speaking to the dead)
“Lord Abaddon and Master Erlik were powerful generals. Both served Mundus.”
(beat)
“But Master Erlik’s power... it was unmatched. Stronger than any demon warrior in the Emperor’s ranks.”

He turns again. Slower now. The limp more pronounced. He moves back toward Vergil, the torch illuminating broken tiles with each step.

STRANGER:
"Others grew jealous. Their rise, their favor with Mundus—”
(pause)
“It didn’t sit well with the rest. And then..."

His voice tightens. His face hardens.

As if remembering wounds that never closed.

STRANGER:
“Someone from their inner circle uncovered the truth about Master Erlik. He was the seed of the Lord Commander and the captive princess.”
(beat, as if repeating a truth he’s carried too long)
“He was never meant to exist.”

VERGIL:
“He wasn’t supposed to live. Why?”

The torch shivers in the old demon’s grip as he steadies himself.

STRANGER:
(voice dropping, almost a whisper)
“That was the pact. After the old war against the—”

His throat tightens. The words falter. He swallows hard.

STRANGER (cont’d):
“...against her kind.”

Vergil’s gaze sharpens.

The chamber feels heavier now. Older. Watching.

VERGIL:
“What were they?”

The stranger stops beside a stone column etched with unreadable glyphs. His shoulders rise with a breath, then fall—slow, cautious, bitter.

STRANGER:
“I dare not speak it. Destruction follows their name. No one speaks it aloud. Not even Mundus.”

He exhales through clenched teeth, a sound brittle with fear and memory.

VERGIL:
“This pact... who was it made with?”

STRANGER:
(swallowing hard)
“Even the name of that pact is forbidden. I know more than I’m permitted to say.”
(quiet breath)
“The Underworld remains bound to it. Sealed in blood, silence, and consequence.”
(pause)
“Forgive me. The Triune Wars scarred every realm. Their names were buried for a reason.”

Vergil steps slowly past a crumbled column, his gaze lingering on the statues.

VERGIL:
“Very well. What became of Abaddon and Erlik?”

STRANGER:
“The city turned on them. A mutiny had begun.”
(he pauses, voice low and strained)
“They planned to brand Lord Commander Abaddon a traitor. To condemn him for breaking the pact and win the Emperor’s favor.”

He steps forward again, dragging his foot along cracked stone.

The torchlight flickers across the black statue of Abaddon, making its eyes seem to move.

STRANGER (cont’d):
“Before word could reach Mundus, the father and son struck first. While the city slept.”

Vergil narrows his eyes. Steps closer. His voice stays level.

VERGIL:
“How?”

The stranger lifts his hand. Not to a relic. Not to a crest. To the Yamato.

STRANGER:
“Master Erlik’s power.”
(beat)
“Through that.”

Vergil glances down. The Yamato catches the firelight, quiet and unreadable. But its hum still lingers.

STRANGER (cont’d):
“He inherited something from the princess. A force so devastating, he could erase the city in a single breath.”
(pause)
“And he did. All of it.”

A beat. The silence coils between them.

Vergil’s voice cuts through it, low but steady.

VERGIL:
“If she carried such power, why didn’t she use it herself?”

The stranger’s eyes lower.

He speaks to the floor now, to history.

STRANGER:
“They found a way to strip their powers. That’s how they won the Triune War. Not easily. Eventually.”
(beat, quieter now)
“She and her kind were strong, but not invincible.”

Vergil lifts his gaze to the towering figure of Abaddon, then to the quieter presence of Erlik.

They stand frozen in stone, yet somehow… listening.

VERGIL:
"And after they razed the city... what did Abaddon and Erlik do?"

The stranger’s torch hand trembles slightly, but his voice doesn’t.

STRANGER:
“They buried the truth with the city. Told Mundus it was a purge. A cleansing. That the city was conspiring to form a new allegiance with Argosax.”

Vergil looks to the statues. First Abaddon. Then Erlik. His eyes narrow, a flicker of bitterness surfacing. This is where it began. The fracture buried in blood.

He turns back to the stranger, voice steady.

VERGIL:
“And you? Why are you still here?”

The stranger’s face softens, shadowed by firelight.

STRANGER:
“Master Erlik spared me. Maybe a sliver of her mercy survived in him.”
(beat)
“Or maybe... he knew an old, limping servant wouldn’t be missed.”

He lowers his gaze. The torchlight catches the deep lines in his face, carved by time, silence, and things he’s never told.

STRANGER (cont’d):
“Either way, there was nothing left for me above.”

VERGIL:
(flat)
“I’ve seen enough. I’m leaving.”

The stranger’s voice calls after him, brittle.

STRANGER:
“You may take something from here. Anything. It’s yours now.”

Vergil pauses. He glances around, at the dust-choked heirlooms, the lifeless busts, and the blood-stained trophies.

His expression hardens.

VERGIL:
(cold)
I have no use for dead things.

He turns. Walks.

The stranger stumbles after him, limping, his breath ragged.

STRANGER:
“Wait... young master—”

Vergil stops. Slowly turns.

VERGIL:
“I am not your master.”

The stranger bows his head, voice quiet.

STRANGER:
“If it pleases you… may I know the name you carry? It would mean much to one who served your bloodline.”

A long pause.

VERGIL:
“Vergil.”
(beat)
“I have a twin. Dante. He’s...”
(quiet pause, searching for the word)
“...the flamboyant one.”

A flicker of something soft crosses the old servant’s face. Almost a smile. Then it fades.

STRANGER:
“May I ask one thing of you, master Vergil?”

VERGIL:
“Just... Vergil.”

The stranger nods. Takes a breath.

STRANGER:
“Vergil…”
(beat)
“I have lived long—not by choice, but by fear. I lacked the courage to end it myself. There is nothing left here. Nothing left out there.”

He slowly lowers himself to his knees. His hands settle on the stone, trembling.

STRANGER (cont’d):
“Please... I beg you...”

He lifts his gaze, eyes hollow but steady.

STRANGER (cont’d):
“Let me go. It would be... mercy.”

Vergil stands still. Caught off guard, not by fear, but by something colder. He has slain countless demons. But never granted one their death by request.

His gaze drops to the kneeling figure. Then, after a moment, he turns, not to walk away, but to steady himself.

VERGIL:
“It is not my place to grant such request.”

STRANGER:
“Please... I promise you... it will be no burden.”
(pause)
“This—this is all I ask.”

A beat.

The silence stretches, heavy.

VERGIL::
(calm, measured)
“Choose your weapon. Face me—”
(beat)
“And I shall grant you death.”

STRANGER:
(staggered breath, almost trembling)
“I have no fight left in me. Only a soul too worn to carry.”

VERGIL:
“Your name.”

STRANGER:
“Golreg.”

Then—

With his back still turned, Vergil unsheathes the Yamato. The blade hums low and steady as it slices through the silence like breath on glass.

He exhales softly.

VERGIL:
(quiet, resolute without cruelty)
“Then your name shall be your final stand.”

HARD CUT TO:

INT. CORRIDOR - OLD FORT

CAMERA – ZOOMS OUT SLOWLY: Measured. Unhurried.

The flicker of torchlight spills from the armory hall. 

A soft thud echoes. Final. Gentle.

Vergil steps into the corridor.

He pauses. Then wipes the blade clean across his forearm in a practiced motion, ritualistic and precise, before sliding it into the sheath.

A beat.

He exhales.

Silence returns.

Not hollow, but at peace.

FADE TO BLACK.


EXT. OLD FORT COURTYARD – BURIED CITY – UNDERGROUND NIGHT

Vergil stands alone in the ruined courtyard.

The stone beneath him is broken, choked with ash. No sound. No movement. Only the faintest light filters down from far above where the ground split open.

He glances over his shoulder. Toward the fort. One last time.

His face holds still.

But something in the eyes shifts.

Not grief. Not peace.

Just weight.

He draws the Yamato. First a vertical cut. Then a clean horizontal slash.

The air splits with a crack.

A cross-shaped portal opens, its center pitch black, the edges sparking with bright blue and white arcs of energy. Lightning whips outward, briefly illuminating the ruins in strobe flashes.

But the pull is unfamiliar. He feels it even before stepping through.

Vergil steps forward without hesitation.


INT. THE BASTILLE – LOWER CHAMBER – MOMENTS LATER

Vergil emerges mid-fall. The ground below is solid stone, uneven and cold. His boots strike hard, echoing through the chamber.

The moment he lands, Dante is already mid-stumble behind him.

The Devil Sword Dante drags with unnatural weight. Dante's step falters, thrown off balance just as his guns click dry.

DANTE:
"Oh, come on..."
(flicks the slides, checks the chambers)
"...you're kidding me."

Click. Click.

Dreadflies skitter in from the edges, crawling, leaping, twitching through the dark.

Vergil draws Yamato.  

The blade hums low in his grip.  

He doesn't look back. Instead, he steps forward, placing himself directly between Dante and the incoming swarm.  

A flash of blue slices the air.  

He stands firm, sword raised. His coat settles in the heavy silence.  

The Yamato gleams, but something in it has changed.  

Ghostly glyphs flicker faintly along the edge, etched into the steel, pulsing softly with each breath he takes.  

Vergil remains still, centered.  

Dante behind him.  

Dreadflies ahead. 

Then he vanishes.  

Judgment Cut. Spatial rifts slice open. Air fractures around the swarm. Slashes split in rapid succession, precise and silent. A dozen shimmering cuts ripple across the chamber.  

Walls crack. Ceilings groan.  

The Dreadflies are already lost.  

Then it shifts.  

An alchemical ring unfurls from the final arc. Blue and gold glyphs orbit the Yamato, turning with solemn rhythm. 

They lock.  

Atonement begins, the blade alive with the princess’s fused soul fragment. 

Reality bends.

From every spatial tear, the glyphs collapse inward. Matter folds.  

Dreadflies are pulled into the void. No sound. No time.  

They flicker, then vanish.  

Only ash remains, drifting like snow.  

The ring fades.  

Vergil lowers his blade. The room is silent.  

He does not turn to Dante yet.

DANTE:
"Alright, that's new. Where the hell did you get that power boost?"

Vergil doesn’t look at him.

Dante shifts his grip, adjusting the Devil Sword Dante on his back. The weapon drags heavier than it should. Vergil notices it instantly. The weight isn't physical. It's suppression.

He speaks, voice low and even.

VERGIL:
"There was residue. From that surge you felt when you surfaced from the Underworld. It wasn’t demonic. It was... something else. And it struck everything on its way down."

He takes a step forward. His boots scrape across the stone. Even sound feels distant here, stretched thin by the Bastille’s unnatural pressure. He remembers the moment clearly—

FLASH CUT: The Qliphoth root beneath his hand, crumbling like ash-glass, its energy already drained.

BACK TO SCENE.

VERGIL (cont’d):
"The Qliphoth stalled. Froze in place. Crystallized. Everything went still. The demons withdrew, as if repelled by something greater. Then, I found something. It pulled me here."

DANTE
"Yeah? And what’d you find?"

Vergil doesn’t answer.

His fingers shift lightly on the Yamato’s hilt.

Not out of instinct. Out of analysis.

He studies the chamber, but the dampening field is invisible. No markings flank the walls, no glowing sigils betray its pattern. The Bastille hides its workings from every eye.

Yet the Yamato hums in his grasp, soft and insistent, like a tuning fork catching a distant note. The blade feels the lattice even when Vergil cannot see it, handing him an advantage Dante lacks.

He doesn’t know what this place truly is. Not yet.

But something old remembered the sword.

And that meant something worse was still watching.

CUT TO BLACK.

The sound of iron grinding. A gate sliding. A mechanism locking into place with a sharp, final click.

CUT TO:

INT. THE BASTILLE - LOWER CHAMBER ATRIUM - DUNGEON 

Dante grips the dungeon bars, voice tight.

DANTE:
"You serious with this again?!"

Vergil does not answer right away.

He watches Dante from the other side of the gate. The field in this place is active. He can feel it pressing down on Dante's energy, compressing it. Dante doesn’t notice how exposed he is. But Vergil does.

VERGIL:
"There's something I need to find."

DANTE:
"I'm not down here for a tour, Vergil. Lady's still out there, and you're locking me up?!"

Vergil hears the urgency beneath the anger. He understands it. But logic comes first.

VERGIL:
"Our powers are suppressed here, but the Yamato remains unaffected. I need to understand why. We don't know what else this place might be capable of. For now... you're vulnerable."

DANTE:
"I can handle myself."

Vergil studies him. Not with cruelty. With precision. He has made the calculation.

VERGIL:
"I'll come back for you."

He turns without another word.

Behind him, Dante mutters under his breath.

DANTE:
"Always with the grand exits."
(shouting)
"You said that last time, too!"

Vergil keeps walking.

The blade in his hand hums, steady and clear.


INT. BASTILLE – ENDLESS CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS

Vergil turns right into the only archway ahead. The space opens into a narrow corridor lined with closed doors on both sides. No windows. No markings. Just silence.

Both ends stretch into shadow, vanishing into the dark.

He stops.

Something is wrong.

A flicker of realization crosses his face.

He steps to the nearest wall and raises the Yamato. Just as he did earlier, he lets the tip touch the surface.

A ripple pulses outward. For a heartbeat, blue-gold glyphs shimmer across the stone, then vanish.

This time, he doesn't stop there. He adjusts his grip. The blade pierces clean through the wall with ease.

No resistance. No sound.

Vergil withdraws the Yamato, then lifts it to eye level.

VERGIL:
“Dante's devil sword is suppressed here. But not you.”
(pause)
“Why?”

He looks at the wall again, eyes narrowing.

VERGIL:
“Could it be...”
(quiet pause)
“...an illusion?”

He slashes downward.

A vertical tear opens in the air like a wound splitting through glass.

On the other side, another space flickers into view. Not part of this corridor. Something else.

A different hall. A different layer.

As the tear widens, blue-gold glyphs flash faintly along the edges, markings etched in motion like veins of light tracing old pathways before vanishing.

Before he can fully focus, the slit seals shut.

The surface folds inward with a thick, slow tension, like stretched membrane pulling itself closed.

Vergil lowers his blade.

VERGIL:
“Something is buried inside this place.”
(pause)
“Or maybe this place is inside another one.”

Vergil lowers his blade, expression locked behind silence.

He exhales.

Without hesitation, he makes a wider vertical tear, clean and deliberate, drawn from top to bottom.

The edges of the slit quiver, resisting him.

He reaches forward and parts it with both hands.

The surface stretches reluctantly, its texture thick and elastic, like forcing apart wet parchment fused by time. It clings to itself as he pushes through, resisting every inch of movement.

The space beyond breathes a different air. Cold. Still.

Vergil steps out. The tear closes behind him, sealing with a slow, soundless draw.

He does not look back.

Vergil steps through.

The corridor behind him vanishes, sealing shut with a faint shimmer. The air changes, growing heavier, colder, reverent.

Before him stretches a colossal, open hall. Towering white columns line both sides, their gilded capitals catching light from no visible source.

The ceiling rises far overhead, carved with ancient reliefs. Some are crumbled. Others remain impossibly intact.

Flanking the entire corridor on both sides is water, still and mirror-like, impossibly black. No ripples. No end.

Above, the sky is not sky at all but a vast, vaulted dome. Smooth and shadowed, it swallows sound. The atmosphere feels suspended, too still to be natural.

At the far end stands a massive memorial.

A feminine figure carved from flawless white stone. Both wings rise behind her, full and expansive. One arches slightly higher, as if shielding. The other steadies, grounded and resolute.

From her temples, a pair of long, spiraled horns arc backward in perfect symmetry, forming a natural crown. The sculpture captures her with impossible grace. Her features are calm, posture poised, as though she might rise at any moment.

Her head is bowed, not in defeat but in quiet command.

Across her lap rests the Yamato, rendered in exacting detail. The blade lies angled across her legs, hands gently placed on its hilt.

The air around her feels suspended. Sacred.

This is no ruin.

This is a monument. A memory guarded by time itself.

Vergil stops.

The space says nothing. But it remembers.

Vergil steps forward, eyes lifting to meet the statue’s stony gaze.

He halts at the base.  

Beneath the figure, a stone slab bears etched glyphs, shifting lines that shimmer faintly in the gloom.  

The Yamato hums, resonant and aware.  

A breath.  

The glyphs move.

They reorganize with precision, knitting themselves into words that feel stolen from Vergil’s own mind:

MAERION THE VALIANT
Imperial High Commander of the Sovereign Nal’Keshai Dominion
First-born of Osairen, Regal-Class Forgemaster Clan
Makers of the Shadow Nova Stabilizer

Vergil lowers his gaze.

VERGIL:
(quiet, to himself)
“Not only a princess... ”
(beat)
“A soldier.”

The hall answers with stillness.

He touches the edge of the slab.

Suddenly—

A burst of light erupts from the Yamato and the statue’s heart. Blinding, white-hot, absolute. It swallows him whole.


EXT. THE ANCESTRAL FIELD – UNKNOWN TIME

The world reforms.

Vergil lands on one knee, boots pressing into soft earth that doesn't quite feel like earth.

Above, three moons hang in an obsidian sky, haloed by streaks of crimson haze and ethereal purples. The stars do not twinkle; they burn.

The air is hushed. Reverent.

Vergil turns.

The landscape stretches in silence, rolling dusk plains framed by jagged cliffs. The horizon glows faintly where the haze meets the edge of stars.

At the cliff’s edge stands a tall figure.

Her back is turned.

Silver-white hair unbound, tangled from captivity.

Her prison garments hang loose, worn thin by time.

Stubbed horns crown her head, crooked and seared at the ends.

Her skin is pale as marble, cold and unyielding in the light, but streaked with evidence of ruin.

Her back bears the brutal remnants of severed wings. Scars cross her shoulder blades, raw and ridged, as if the flesh still remembers the tearing.

She doesn’t move.

The wind brushes past her, carrying nothing but silence.

Vergil steps once, then stops.

MAERION:
(firm, ceremonial)
“State your name, your father, and the soul edge you carry.”

VERGIL:
(cold, dismissive)
“I was brought here.”
(beat)
“You already know who I am.”

Maerion’s shoulders tense. She pivots on bare, silent feet, the torn hem of her prison rags brushing through flattened grass as she faces him fully. Her gaze travels from Vergil’s grip on the hilt to the faint pulse along the Yamato’s edge.

MAERION:
(voice level, with an undercurrent of judgment)
“You wield one of the most powerful blades in all the realms…”
(beat)
“...and yet you show no wisdom of the old ways.”

She straightens, chin tilting up, eyes set.

MAERION (cont’d):
“Insolent. Disgraceful.”

Vergil’s eyes narrow. The Yamato answers with a low hum in the hush that follows.

He stands still, the wind tugging faintly at his coat. The field around them breathes in silence. 

VERGIL:
(curt)
“Vergil. First-born of Sparda. Wielder of the Yamato.”

Maerion lets the name settle. Her gaze drifts to the blade at his side. She gives a short, dry chuckle, low and sharp, not amused.

MAERION:
(repeating, quiet and cutting)
“Wielder... of the Yamato.”
(beat; her tone softens but sharpens underneath)
“Are you truly worthy of the blade?”

Vergil steps forward slightly, his hand resting at the ready. No aggression. Only certainty.

VERGIL:
(firm, measured)
“This blade is legacy. Power refined. Controlled.”
(a pause; his eyes steady)
“I am the only one who can wield it now as it was meant to be.”

Silence.

The wind thickens around them, curling through the grass, as if the field itself holds its breath.

Maerion stands unmoving, her eyes fixed on him.

Then, without shifting her gaze—

MAERION:
(voice like steel)
“Then you have failed.”
(a beat; her tone sharpens)
“Draw the Yamato, First-born of Sparda.”

Vergil does not flinch.

VERGIL:
(low, restrained)
“You are unarmed.”

Maerion takes a slow step forward. Her rags catch at her ankles, but her posture remains regal, unshaken.

She raises her chin, voice unwavering.

MAERION:
“I command you... ”
(pause; a subtle crackle in the air)
“To draw the Yamato.”

Vergil’s fingers tighten around the hilt, but he does not draw. His voice cuts through the field with quiet finality.

VERGIL:
“I do not take commands from anyone.”
(beat)
“Only by my own will.”

The air shifts again, pressure folding inward. The grass stills. Even the silence seems to lean in.

MAERION:
(faintly smirks)
“Very well.”

At her words the air shifts, a pulse like reversed gravity. Light floods her form.

Wings erupt from her back, dark gray and immense, each feather edged with a metallic sheen that flashes like forged steel. Horns rise anew, obsidian and elegant, crowned with presence. The shredded layers of her prison rags ripple and fuse, knitting themselves into sleek regal armor that gleams with ancient sigils. Silver-white hair falls in waves, brushed back from an ageless and fierce face. Her eyes blaze blue within pools of black sclera, staring through him rather than at him.

She lifts a hand, steady and open, every finger tipped with a black talon as sharp and graceful as a blade.

The Yamato hums in Vergil’s grip. Then, without a sound, it fades from his hand.

It rematerializes in her palm. She holds it with impossible calm.

Fingers closing around the hilt as if it had never belonged to anyone else.

Vergil stares—not afraid, but altered.

A breath. A shift.

The wind stills. Vergil lowers his hand, settling into guard. One breath, one step forward.

VERGIL:
(low)
"That is mine."

Maerion’s wings unfurl wider, their metallic edges glinting. She turns her palm upward, the sword drifting a few inches higher, just out of reach.

MAERION:
(calm, unwavering)
“I am the First Wielder of the Yamato.”

She lets the title linger.

A faint hum courses through the armor’s sigils, and the field’s silence deepens, as if the world itself waits to see what he will do.

A beat.

Her gaze narrows, luminous blue cutting through the gloom.

An echo of the Yamato shimmers into Vergil’s hand, faint and spectral, lacking weight but alive with resonance.

No flash. No strain. Just stillness before the surge.

Vergil’s Sin Devil Trigger ignites. Silver plates snap across his body, horns crest his brow, and four ethereal blue wings flare wide, the ground trembling under his cold aura.

MAERION:
(slightly amused, unshaken)
"Impressive."
(beat)
"But I have faced gods and monsters greater than you."

She moves. One deliberate step forward.

Vergil answers. The echo blade slashes.

Clang.

She stops it cleanly, her true blade humming with a resonance older and deeper, final in its authority.

CAMERA CLOSE ON THE CLASH: The spectral Yamato trembles, fine cracks of blue light racing along its edge—unstable.

With only a spectral echo instead of the true Yamato, Vergil’s Sin Devil Trigger sputters. Silver plates dim, wings pull tight to his back, and the aura gutters around him.

MAERION:
(quiet, razor-sharp)
“Do you chase power?”
(a beat, her voice colder)
“Power born of vengeance ends in ruin.”

Vergil pushes forward. Precise. Controlled. She deflects every strike, economical, graceful, unwavering.

Her footwork never falters. She draws, cuts, and sheathes in a single breath, each motion as seamless as the last.

Vergil snaps in with a parry and a reverse stroke, but she slips inside his guard, steel whispering past.

A single beat.

She counters. One cut, clean and narrow, a graze across Vergil’s shoulder.

He staggers, not from the wound, but from the precision behind it.

The gap between them is not power.

It is refinement.

They circle at arm’s length, blades still ringing in the hush of wind-brushed grass.

MAERION:
(quiet, appraising)
“You have strength.”
(a slow breath, voice sharpening)
“But the Yamato demands more than a storm.”

She steps in, closing the gap.

Vergil braces, muscles coiled for a counter.

Maerion does not strike. She lowers the sword and holds it between them, the steel thrumming with a low, even hum.

MAERION:
“It remembers me. The only path back to you...”
(slight tilt of her chin as she gazes down at him)
“...is if it chooses you.”

Her fingers uncurl.

For a heartbeat the sword hangs upright, point down, blue light rippling along the edge.

Then gravity claims it.

Vergil lunges half a step, hand outstretched. The hilt slaps into his palm. A sharp pulse of resonance splits the air.

Connection. The glow dims.

The Yamato melts into blue mist, slips through his grasp, and re-forms in Maerion’s waiting hand before the pulse can fade.

Its hum steadies, deeper than before.

Vergil stops short, closing an empty fist around nothing. He says nothing. His grip tightens on the echo blade.

MAERION:
“How many lives have you claimed?”

VERGIL:
(cold, without hesitation)
“Too many to count.”

Maerion steps around him slowly, her voice low, almost reflective.

MAERION:
“Enemies once called me the Harbinger of Destruction.”
(pauses, gaze distant)
“Millions died by my hand. Some in defense. Others in conquest.”

She stops. Looks him dead-on.

MAERION (cont’d):
“And I remember every one.”
(a breath)
“Because even then... I carried the weight of it.”

VERGIL:
(low, firm)
“I’ve carried it too. I just never asked for forgiveness... or pity.”

He shifts his weight, just slightly. His gaze sharpens. Posture taut, deliberate.

Maerion studies him.

Her tone sharpens, not angry but precise, like a blade honed to expose fault.

MAERION:
“Your blade serves a wound. Not a people. Not a purpose.”
(closing the distance slightly)
“Just the entitlement of your birthright.”

A flicker, barely perceptible, crosses Vergil’s face. His jaw sets. Grip tightens slightly on nothing.

The pride remains. But it bruises.

WIDE SHOT: She seizes his forearm with her black talons, grip like iron. Her gaze bears down into his. Vergil, caught mid-breath, looks up. She pulls him closer, not with rage, but with purpose.

FLASH CUT – MEMORY VISION – SLAVE QUARTERS – POST-TRIUNE WAR ERA ("The Forgotten War")

A cramped, dim space. Cracked stone walls. Rusted chains hang from an iron loop.

Faint torchlight cuts through a slit in the door.

Maerion sits in the corner on a straw mat.

Dirt smudges her face and arms. Her silver-white hair is matted, tangled. Stumps of filed-down horns crown her head, jagged and uneven. Scars mark her back where wings were torn away.

One hand rests over her swollen belly, full and unmistakable. She is deep into pregnancy.

Exhausted but still defiant.

Beside her, a crude wooden crutch lies against the wall.

She reaches for it. Fingers curl around the mid-shaft. A subtle twist.

Click.

The wood splits open like petals.

Inside waits the Yamato.

She draws the blade with care and settles it across her lap.

Her hands tremble. Slowly she angles the hilt so the tip turns inward, glinting a breath above the curve of her belly.

The point meets flesh just below the sternum. A shallow prick. Blood beads.

She inhales, grip tightening.

A faint flash ripples along the steel.

A pulse answers inside her.

A gasp escapes.

The Yamato slips from her grasp and clatters onto the mat.

Both hands fly to her abdomen, instinct overruling resolve.

Stillness.

Then movement. Bare. Alive.

She stops, breathless.

She closes her eyes. A tear escapes.

She stays there.

Listening.

Not to memory, to life.

Her breath evens.

Not softer, sharper. Rooted.

She draws herself inward, arms shielding the child.

MAERION:
(soft, breaking)
“Avenge me…”
(a quiet pause)
“Not through bloodshed or conquest.”

She opens her eyes.

MAERION (cont’d):
“Honor me with what this war never dared.”
(a breath, her voice dropping to a whisper)
“Mercy.”

A grounding breath steadies her. Resolve settles.

MAERION (cont’d):
“Let that be your rebellion. Let that be my legacy.”

She reaches, lifts the Yamato, and sets it beside her, blade turned away. Not in surrender, in defiance.

Her eyes lift. Unyielding. Unbroken.

FLASH CUT – BACK TO PRESENT

Maerion shoves Vergil back, sharp and commanding. Her expression holds steady. Composed, but no longer detached. Her breath breaks rhythm. Shallow now. Drawn through clenched teeth.

Vergil stumbles back, boots skidding across the grass.

His Sin Devil Trigger gutters out.

Silver plates dissolve. Wings retract.

His form contracts, muscles drawn tight.

He drops to one knee.

Human again.

A sharp breath. No cry. No flare.

Just control. Barely held.

VERGIL:
(low, even)
"You speak of mercy..."
(pause, gaze rising to meet hers)
"As if it were ever afforded to us."
(voice sharper)
“I was never given that.”
(beat)
“So I learned to survive without it.”

Maerion steps forward. Not threatening. Deliberate. Her shadow falls across him where he kneels, gaze fixed.

MAERION:
“Survival without mercy isn’t strength.  It’s rage, wearing a crown.”
(a pause, voice cutting deeper)
“You maimed your own son.”

Vergil flinches. Barely. A flicker behind the eyes. Not shame. A quiet admission.

MAERION (cont’d):
“If you’d lived in my time...”
(pause, tone darkening)
“You’d be dismembered. Out in the open.”
(quietly, with finality)
“Nowhere to hide your shame.”

The shattered echo of the Yamato dissolves into mist in Vergil’s hand.

He stands unarmed.

His breath steady.

His hands empty.

CAMERA – FULL BODY – SLOW MOTION: Maerion raises her blade. Not with fury. With purpose. Her wings arc behind her, drawn like crescents. She steps forward.

CAMERA – CLOSE ON VERGIL’S FACE: His expression stays still. Cold. Breath held. From the edge of the frame, the tip of the Yamato presses into view. It hovers near his throat, gleaming faintly in the light. A breath’s width from breaking skin.

And then—

FLASH CUT — MEMORY VISION — MAERION’S FINAL DEFIANCE:

INT. - SLAVE QUARTERS - NIGHT

The rattle of iron.

The demon warlord Abaddon enters. His form eclipses the torchlight.

Maerion, pale and gaunt, kneels with her neck shackled and her belly swollen.

A wooden crutch leans beside her.

He yanks her chain, dragging her to her feet.

She sways but steadies. Her hand lashes out, fingers curling around the crutch.

It unfolds.

Panels bloom outward like forged petals, revealing the Yamato.

She lunges.

A slash.

It tears across Abaddon's ribs, but misses the heart.

His roar is low, livid. He answers with steel. Drives the blade through her heart.

She gasps, blood on her lips, hands trembling.

Then—

He unsheathes a dagger.

Cuts across her belly.

A choked cry.

The room spins. Her world ends.

He pulls the newborn from her womb.

Red. Crying. Alive.

The baby’s cries rise—

FLASH SEQUENCE:

A streak of time across blood and generations:

Erlik.

Sparda.

Vergil and Dante.

Nero.

The bloodline spirals forward.

FLASH TO WHITE.

BACK TO PRESENT – ANCESTRAL FIELDS

CLOSE UP – MAERION: Her expression softens. Icy blue eyes, ringed in black sclera, gleam faintly. Glassy with remembering.

MAERION:
(softly, but clear)
"Now you know... the weight of your legacy."

CAMERA – MIDSHOT – VERGIL PROFILE – SLOW ZOOM OUT

(OPTIONAL- MUSIC CUE - Start at the chorus: "Bury The Light" – Casey Edwards & Victor Borba)

His hand rises slowly. In it, the Yamato.

It has already returned to him. Silent. Certain.

The blade catches the light.

ZOOM CONTINUES – HOLD AS THEY STAND FACE TO FACE

She lowers her hand. Not in surrender. In acceptance.

MAERION:
(softly)
"It was never about power."
(a quiet breath)
"It is redemption, my son."

She closes her eyes. A slow breath. Almost serene.

Light begins to rise from her skin, blue and iridescent, delicate.

Her form softens at the edges. The wind picks up, faint and reverent.

She fades, bit by bit, into thousands of luminous specks.

They lift. Drift.

Drawn. Pulled.

The blue motes gather. Swirling together into a single orb of light, gentle and radiant.

The orb floats forward, gravitating to the Yamato’s edge.

It brushes the blade. Then dissolves into it.

Absorbed.

Whole.

The Yamato hums. Low. Deep.

Like a breath drawn across centuries.

Vergil doesn’t move.

But in his silence,  something has settled.

A legacy reclaimed.


EXT. ANCESTRAL FIELD – STARRY DUSK - CONTINUOUS

Vergil lowers his gaze. A still breath.

His grip shifts, looser now. No longer clinging. No longer demanding.

He lifts the Yamato.

One clean, vertical slice from top to bottom.

Followed by a swift, horizontal cut.

A glowing cross-shaped rift tears through the air.

The space around it folds inward, shimmering and smooth, like breath drawn across glass.

He doesn't look back.

He simply steps through.

EXT. GRAVEYARD – HUMAN REALM – LATE AFTERNOON

The portal folds shut behind him.

The sound of the ancestral rift dies, replaced by soft, earthly stillness.

Vergil steps forward onto the overgrown path. His coat moves gently with the wind.

Ahead, at a distance, Nero stands with his back turned, overseeing the dismantling of a headstone.

Men work with reverence, removing the gravestone piece by piece.

An untouched coffin rises from the soil, clean and unmarred by death.

Vergil slows, eyes adjusting to the living world. His boots crush wet leaves as he moves, unhurried. The Yamato rests at his side, not clenched, just present.

He approaches a moss-covered statue.

An angel with broken wings, tilted by time.

He leans against its base, arms folded, spine loose but alert.

The cold stone anchors him.

His gaze locks on Nero, not with disdain, not with pride.

But with something deeper.

Something newly born from memory and marrow.

Vergil watches him.

A son.

An echo.

A question.

He wonders, for the first time—

VERGIL:
(low, to himself)
“Should the truth die with me...”
(breath)
“Or should I let him carry it, and decide its worth?”

The breeze stirs.

Nero turns.

They lock eyes.

Still.

Unreadable.

Vergil doesn’t shift. His posture stays measured, shoulders quiet and chin slightly lowered. Not inviting. Not defensive. Presence without provocation.

Nero begins walking.

Each step muffled by damp grass. Steady. Intentional.

He stops just short of the space between them.

A buffer of air, of blood, of history.

His voice lands flat, too calm to be comfortable.

NERO:
"Who’s watching hell’s garden while you’re up here?"

He exhales after. Tight and shallow. It betrays more than his face does.

VERGIL:
(quietly)
"The roots froze. Crystallized mid-growth. Something... greater pushed back. They stopped feeding."

A soft gust stirs the leaves above.

Somewhere, a branch creaks.

NERO:
"Should we be worried?"

VERGIL:
"Not yet."

The answer slices clean. Not ominous. Measured.

Something unspoken moves between them.

Not hostility.

Something older.

Nero’s gaze dips, just briefly, drawn to the sheathed the Yamato.

He doesn’t reach, but his eyes know it.

As if the sword hums to him too.

NERO:
"The Yamato..."
(beat)
"It’s different now. Feels—"

VERGIL:
"Stronger."

He says it without inflection. No pride. Just fact.

That one word lands like a stone dropped into deep water.

Silence stretches, elastic and tense.

Nero lifts his head again. His tone doesn’t shift. But in his eyes something smolders. Not anger. Maybe fatigue. More likely the quiet ache of an estranged son.

NERO:
"Lady’s back. Dante’s been taking a few gigs again..."
(pause)
"But he’s different. Keeps an eye on her more than he lets on quietly. You run into him yet?"

VERGIL:
“We crossed paths in a dungeon. I confined him for his protection, not mine.”

He lets the words settle, breath measured.

VERGIL (cont'd):
“Our powers were inert. Only the Yamato still answered. When I returned, he was gone.”
(pause)
“So I moved on.”

A hush follows. It isn’t silence. It’s that moment when everything living holds its breath.

NERO:
"Dante found something too. Parchments. Symbols grouped in threes, arranged in a triangle."

Vergil doesn’t respond. His jaw locks.

A shallow movement, subtle tension in the throat.

His hand flexes once on the Yamato’s grip.

Not in threat, but as a reflex to the burden of a secret he carries alone—for now.

NERO:
"Wasn’t the symbols that caught my attention. It was the drawing."
(pause)
"A woman... can’t tell if she’s demon or angel but she was holding the Yamato."

Vergil’s eyes lift. No shift in his posture. But something in the air tightens like drawn wire.

NERO:
"You know who she is, don’t you?"

He steps in, barely.

But the pressure changes, electric between them now.

NERO (cont’d):
"And you're not saying a damn thing."

He breathes once, sharp and shallow.

Vergil says nothing.

NERO (cont’d):
"I knew it. Nothing’s changed. Still chasing power, no matter what it costs."

The accusation lands with surgical precision.

Vergil doesn’t respond right away. His gaze lowers, just slightly. A flicker in the eyes. Barely there. His grip shifts. The Yamato’s sheath creaks beneath his hand.

(OPTIONAL- MUSIC CUE - "3 Libras" – A Perfect Circle)

VERGIL:
"Power..."

The word hangs like ash.

Not hungry. Not defiant.

Just... weary.

VERGIL (cont’d):
"What I discovered made power feel borrowed. And broken."
(a breath, voice lowering slightly)
"It is both burden and consequence."

He turns. Not to retreat. Not to dismiss. But as if walking into something Nero can’t yet see. Something still unspoken. Still unnamed.

Nero exhales sharply. Shakes his head. Throws a hand up—part surrender, part frustration.

NERO:
(scoffs, bitter)
“There it is again. Drop some cryptic crap and walk away.”

VERGIL
"Whether or not it reshaped me..."
(pause, voice hard and cold)
"I have no interest in convincing you."

He turns and walks away.

The sound of his boots presses against leaves and soil.

Steady. Measured. Unrushed.

Nero doesn’t follow.

His jaw clenches. He scrapes a hand through his hair.

A quiet breath escapes, tight and frustrated.

Then he turns and walks away, His footsteps grow faint.

Vergil stops.

CAMERA – CLOSE-UP – VERGIL’S FACE: His expression softens. Just slightly. A breath escapes, low and grounded. His eyes lower, not in defeat, but reflection.

CAMERA – MEDIUM SHOT – OVER VERGIL’S SHOULDER: He glances back. Farther down the path, Nero walks away, shoulders tight with silence.

He doesn’t call out.

He just watches.

A part of him doesn’t know how to reach—

held in place by something unspoken.

Perhaps guilt.

Perhaps the quietest invasion...

Regret.

FADE TO BLACK. 

----
This is a bridge story from the DMC Legacy Arc concept meant to fill in the gaps, not just between events, but between who they were and who they’re becoming. For the full story, check out the mainline fic: RAGE OF THE FALLEN: A DEVIL HUNTER STORY (PART 1 – REVERIE & FURY).