Chapter Text
June 29, two weeks after the Qliphoth's collapse.
The wastes lay quiet now, ruled by silence, broken only when a stray survivor crossed their path and met its end.
Vergil stopped without warning. His gaze fixed on a jagged stretch of canyon wall. Dante slowed behind him, frowning.
"What now?"
"Something is concealed here." Vergil's voice was measured, composed. "The path bends back on itself."
"You mean like, invisible?"
"Not invisible. Displaced." Yamato whispered free in his grip. "Poorly done."
One clean arc split the distortion open. Space shuddered, then parted—revealing a narrow descent yawning below.
Dante grimaced at the copper tang bleeding through. "Figures. Smells like something trying too hard not to be noticed."
Vergil stepped forward first.
They descended. The air thickened, silence pressing heavier with each step until the tunnel widened into a hollow chamber—
—and a boy lay sprawled naked on the stone. Limbs torn away, wounds still bleeding, yet alive. His chest hitched shallowly, throat rasping with every fragile breath.
Dante froze. Ebony leveled, but his voice came out flat with disbelief. "A human."
Vergil's eyes narrowed. "Impossible."
The silence that followed carried weight. The boy wasn't discarded mid-ritual; his placement was deliberate—almost careful. As though he'd been carried here from somewhere deeper inside and set down in waiting. The air beyond the chamber smelled heavier, copper-rich and wet, hinting at a larger hollow beyond the dark arch.
Their eyes met. No words—just shared confusion, and the quiet certainty that whatever answers waited here, they wouldn't like them.
The stillness lingered, heavy as stone. The boy's ragged breath filled it, faint and uneven, the only sound in a place that felt long-abandoned.
Then claws scraped stone. Slow, deliberate.
A demon emerged from the dark arch—stooped, towering, wings folded close like a cloak of shadow. His long frame bent forward, gaunt head cutting the dim. Each step clicked with talons meant for rending carrion. He moved without hurry, without caution—a creature too sure of its claim to imagine losing it.
The twins shifted—not apart, but together. Dante's grip adjusted on Ebony; Vergil's hand hovered near Yamato's hilt. Coordination came unspoken now, born of instinct rather than rivalry.
The scavenger crouched beside the boy and pressed a taloned hand to his chest. Power seeped through, a dull glow spreading under torn skin. The boy twitched—a sound, almost a gasp—and his chest found rhythm again, shallow but certain. The act carried no mercy in it, only method, as if the motion itself knew what came next.
Dante's jaw tightened, something cold and unsettled stirring beneath his ribs. Vergil's gaze sharpened, cataloguing every motion with clinical precision.
The demon lingered, head tilting as though listening to the boy's pulse. When satisfied, he looked briefly toward the twins—a dismissive sweep, registering obstacles of no concern—then turned back to his work.
He dragged the boy upright by the hair, talons sinking deep. Strands snapped loose in his fist. One arm slid beneath the broken frame to brace him—efficient, possessive, methodical.
That casual ownership, his disregard for their presence, hung like a challenge neither brother could let stand.
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
He turned his back on them without a second thought. The motion was precise, practiced, disturbingly domestic—hands that had done this too many times to remember why.
Dante's voice broke the stillness, sharper now. "Hey."
The demon's head tilted, but he didn't turn. A dry rasp of laughter escaped him—low, thin, amused.
Dante's jaw clenched. That sound—like they were gnats interrupting something divine. "What the hell are you doing to him?"
This time the scavenger turned. His head swiveled slowly, eyes unfocused, as if uncertain they were real.
"Visitors?" he murmured, blinking. The word sounded foreign, forgotten. Then his attention snapped back to the boy, the moment already gone.
He adjusted his grip with clumsy, obsessive care. "Soon," he whispered, voice fracturing with reverence. "Soon we'll be perfect again."
The twins exchanged a look. Something in the air shifted—wrong not only in the act, but in the mind behind it.
"He's dying," Dante said, disbelief threading through the words.
The scavenger's head tilted, his gaze fixed on the boy's face with manic affection. "No, no," he breathed, voice trembling. "He endures. Always endures. My precious raven never breaks."
The sound of that endearment lingered, uneasy and alien in the still air.