[Kyrie nods silently, her jaw tense. She moves slightly, just enough to clasp her hands together before her as she glances down at her feet, gathering her thoughts.
Where does she even begin to put everything in order here?]
I believe you. I believe you're sorry for what you did to Nero, I believe that you love him and I know that he loves you. I believe that you will never willingly hurt him again and I am truly grateful to hear you say that.
[She looks up, giving him the courtesy of her full focus, as she had done when she listened, and tries not to let her nerves appear on her face. Her heart has not stopped thundering since this conversation began.]
I don't need to tell you- [She pauses, trying to calm the tremble that has manifested in her voice. She doesn't need to tell Vergil how awful it was to find Nero in that garage. He knows what he had left in the wake of his attack. She tries a different tangent.]
Did Nero ever tell you that I am an orphan, and my brother is dead?
[He's aware of the degree of relief he hears in knowing that she believes him. That relief, however, is thoroughly tempered by the unspoken but. Rather than sinking into a sense of relief that she understands, that she knows his intentions toward Nero are thoroughly rested within his best interest, Vergil braces himself for what is to follow. Part of him wishes she would just say it. To make it as quick and painless of a thing for them both. But matters are too complicated for something like that. So, he brushes aside those feelings of relief, lest they create the illusion he is somehow walking into a trap, and merely braces himself for what is to come.]
He did. [Vergil hesitates for a moment, uncertain if he should say more of what he knows to spare her having to recount it, or if he should let it be and allow her to speak. He errs on the side of the former, so that if there is more she must say, it need only be what he does not already know.] He told me your brother raised you after your parents died, and he explained some of the circumstances surrounding your brother's death to me.
[Vergil chooses to leave out mention of how Nero blames himself for Credo's death, or the context in which Vergil learned this information had been over a nightmare involving reliving a form of that death and loss again. It's not likely anything Kyrie doesn't already know or couldn't speculate correctly for herself, but it's irrelevant. Vergil also wisely keeps whatever judgments he's made of Credo's betrayal of Nero to himself and allows her to speak.]
[Kyrie nods again, glad that she can get straight to the crux of the matter without explanation.]
So then you'll understand when I tell you that Nero is the only person in this whole world who shares my past with me. He's the only person left who remembers my parents, remembers my brother, and all the happy times we had before- before those times were gone.
[She looks searchingly at him, earnest in her hope that her words are resonating with him.]
If I had lost him... I would have lost my family all over again. I would have lost my present. Every dream I have for the future, a home, babies, grandchildren some day, those would have gone too. And maybe I would have gone on, I would have held it together somehow for the sake of the boys, but I wouldn't really have been living. Because how can you live without your heart?
[Her voice becomes stronger, the tremor non-existent. This is getting easier as she goes on and she's not sure how this will end.]
Your son... is the most incredible, kind, thoughtful, brave, compassionate man I have ever had the privilege to know. He amazes me every day with his strength, his capacity to do good, his willingness to endanger himself just to protect others. Every day I get to wake up beside him I thank whatever higher power there might be out there that I get to love him and have him in my life and that Nero, for some reason, loves me back. And I love that after all this time, you've found each other and he gets to be loved by his own family, the way he has always deserved to be! I really, truly cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am that he means as much to you as does, nothing could make me happier than knowing that your son is loved by his father.
[But it's here that she pauses, and takes a deep breath to steel herself for the question she knows she has to ask.]
But when you attacked Nero, the love of my life, he was just a stranger to you, an obstacle standing in the way of your survival. I know you are sorry for that. What I want to know is... would you still be sorry for what you did if Nero wasn't your son?
[Vergil draws a breath to speak, and gets so far as parting his lips, but in the end, he hesitates. He knows the truth, but he cannot pretend it is anything other than something she is bound to find unacceptable if not outright reprehensible.]
Were he not my kin... [he begins, slowly.] I can only speculate. What harms I've done to others has never been any more my intention than it was my intention specifically to harm Nero. [Vergil knows that does not make it better or somehow more acceptable, and does not state it as though making a case for it. It's a simple explanation of consequence versus intention.] In the past, I've always seen as a natural consequence. Those strong enough to protect themselves and what's theirs survive. Those too weak to protect themselves or anything else simply die or bear their losses.
I... [He purses his lips briefly.] A lot has changed since then. But I would not claim that I feel guilt or shame over my previous wrongs to faceless strangers as acutely as I feel for what I've done to Nero.
[Even if he wanted to dwell that much on any of them, Vergil is certain he couldn't when he has to set aside the guilt he feels for Nero, only allowing it at times, so that he can continue to step forward with him. It would paralyze him at best, kill him at worst.]
So, were he just a stranger... [Vergil inhales deeply albeit a little shakily through his nose and lets out a soft exhale.] I doubt I would have spared much thought to him.
[Whether she finds it reprehensible or not, there it is. The truth.]
[The words hit her like a thud, so much so that she could swear she actually heard them hit. (Little does she know on the other side of the bedroom door, Nero's skull has connected with the door in dismay.) In truth, she suspected this would be the answer, had braced for it, but it doesn't hurt to hear it any less.
If Nero had been anyone else's child, he'd have just been another victim of a person who could callously strike down another in cold blood and move on without thinking anything of it, or the damage following in the wake of such action. Tossed aside and never thought of again.
Kyrie sets her jaw, her lips thinning in a visible display of discomfort.
It hurts to know that at the time, maiming Nero had been nothing more than collateral to him, and she does genuinely feel that the knowledge of that pains this enigma of a man standing in front of her. It still doesn't bring her as much comfort as she'd hoped.]
Then my next question is this: you just said 'in the past.'
[It was a sliver of something, something that she's not about to let slide. She hopes her intuition is about to steer her wrong.]
Are you trying to say that you would act differently now?
[It's the most emotion Kyrie has shown since the beginning of this... Well, Vergil somewhat hesitates to call it a discussion. They are taking their turns in speaking, questions followed by answers. But until that bit of emotion makes its way into Kyrie's expression, it hasn't felt much like Kyrie was communicating in return. Yes, she indicated she accepts what he has to say and that she trusts Nero and Vergil's profession that their relationship has been a good thing to be true, but... It's given little insight into what she's thinking and feeling about any of it. But that barest change in her expression puts a put in his stomach, sends his heart rocketing down low.]
[Vergil purses his lips as she picks at his words. No matter how even she speaks, how gentle her voice, it begins to feel more an interrogation. Especially as he does not know how to explain any of this to this...stranger when he can barely speak of it to those he holds close, if he can even manage to speak of it at all in the first place. There's a harder to look to Vergil's eyes as he looks at Kyrie, studies her. It's not the freezing glare of his temper arising, ready to lash out in anger. But it's a blatant defensive wariness. Whatever assumptions Kyrie may have held about Vergil's reserved temperament, his difficulties with emotional vulnerability most likely come to prove themselves in the way he regards her. Vergil's fingers curl against his pantlegs tightly, the fabric serving as a buffer to keep blunt nails from digging into his palms.]
[He draws a steadying breath, releasing the tension in his hands, but not the furrow in his brow.]
I am saying that I lived as a devil before. Now, I am trying to live as a man.
[The steel in Vergil's gaze makes Kyrie instinctively want to shrink beneath its scrutiny and start to backpedal furiously. This kind of conversation makes her feel so incredibly uncomfortable, but she's not about to back down. She's not a fighter, but she has to fight for this. She has to get her answers if she's going to make an informed decision.
It takes every ounce of resolve not to flinch when the very slight motion of Vergil curling his fists into his pants catches her eye. She's upset him and the adrenaline pulses through her veins; does he have a temper? Does it spark and catch flame the way Nero's does? Does she want to imagine what it would be like to make Vergil truly angry?
No. Not even a little.
But then his answer comes on the tail of a deep breath and a furrowed brow and she finds herself surprised by the simplicity of the answer. So few words, so much said.
[It should perhaps be an easy question to answer. There is an obvious binary to it after all. Either he's successful or he's not. However...]
It's not as simple as that.
[Vergil would like to give her a straightforward, simple answer of yes or no. But a response in either direction would be a misrepresentation of what it is to walk the path he does now.]
I will concede that I am not a full-blooded demon. There is and always has been something inside me that has always made me more prone to think and feel in ways not dissimilar from full-blooded humans. But I grew accustomed to not merely ignoring it. I refused to recognize it as part of me at all. Casting it aside altogether became second nature. [Until he went to such extreme lengths as to excise it from him completely, but Vergil does not bring that up now. He merely looks to a spot on the floor somewhere in the vast amount of space between them, the furrow in his brow deepening as though he were lost in thought.] I no longer choose that, but it is still a choice for me.
[A messy and, at times, complicated choice, but a choice nonetheless. Vergil raises his gaze again after a brief pause.]
And I cannot ignore the fact there are still days and times that I yearn for when I chose to ignore it. When I doubt my own resolve.
And yet, the fact I cannot comfortably say to you that I am now more man than devil does not lead me to stop trying.
[So, it's not a matter of whether it is working or not. Not when it's impossible to envision the possibility of an endpoint where it is no longer a choice. Vergil doesn't believe it can ever be that way for him, not after everything. Instead, it's a matter of daily, sometimes momentary choice as Vergil implied with his answer that prompted this question from Kyrie in the first place.]
I recognize this may be an unsatisfactory answer to your question, but it is the truth. As best I know it to be.
[A part of Kyrie realises that the question she asked was never going to have a simple answer. Being human is anything but simple. It is to fight and toil and struggle and suffer, to feel things deeply and intensely, to be afraid and to be weak. It's to fight and keep fighting even in the face of impossible odds. To accept that being human is to be perfectly imperfect and finding ways to grow from that. She can see how much easier it would be to embrace that part of him that is so much stronger and detached from the struggles of the mere human, to be unmoved and unbothered by weakness and attachments.
But is it really stronger?
She knows she's just a weak, sheltered girl brought up believing lies, but she believes still in the inherent goodness that Sparda must have stood for, must have believed in with his soul to turn his back on his race and protect the weaklings who walked the earth. She wonders how much of her belief is fiction, and wonders if one day she will ever feel comfortable enough with Vergil and Dante to ask for the truth about their father. It's hard to accept that he was flesh and blood and not a god, but here's the proof standing in front of her.
Admitting that there is work to be done, that Vergil is still not content in his own skin, is a human enough answer to show her that his efforts are not in vain.]
I wouldn't call it an unsatisfactory answer. I'd say it was very honest.
[It is. As is he. Unflinchingly so.
She is quiet and still for a moment, thoughtful and worried about how to proceed. There's still a myriad scenarios she's concerned about, and the part of her that yearns to shield Nero from harm is still unsettled and snarling, not sure if it's safe to drop her guard.
She takes a deep breath.]
I accept and appreciate your apology. But...
[She looks at him carefully, her face showing just how deeply troubled and saddened she is by everything she has learned in the last twenty four hours.]
Please understand when I say I need more time to decide if I forgive you for it. I- I'm just not sure I fully know how I feel. I want to- I don't want to-
[She stops, not wanting to babble or let her mouth run away and say something indelicate as she struggles to find the words to voice how she feels. This man, and his importance to Nero, isn't something she can trample roughshod over for the sake of making everybody feel better immediately, only for her to change her mind.]
I want to make the right decision and I need time to think. The last thing I want to do is cause anyone any more pain than they've already had to experience. I think all three of us deserve that.
[Hope is among one of the worst emotions one can have, Vergil realizes. It rises quickly with the faintest glimmer only to be smothered even quicker, leaving behind a hollow feeling where it used to be. She accepts his apology insomuch that she believes it to be true, but. That word. But. Whatever feeling of hope in his chest dashes itself upon the rocks of that word, and while Vergil does not deflate, does not reveal how cold his blood runs, how dry his mouth suddenly becomes, he feels the pull of wanting to crumble and fold. Vergil meant it when he said he held no expectations of forgiveness. It was not his to demand. But...]
[It's still crushing. Even as he remains stoic and stern in his expression as he minutely nods. Even as he hears himself say,]
Of course. I understand.
[Vergil rises to his feet from where he sits upon the couch all the way in the living room. He does not slouch, but stands tall and proud as always despite how very much the opposite is what he carries inside. He's too aware of how she stays more or less in the other room, a great deal of distance between them as she keeps herself contained in the kitchen. It feels worse somehow. For as much as Vergil found himself fumbling and struggling with all the emotion that spilled out of the girl when he found her wandering alone in the forest, Vergil would rather more emotion spill out of her than what's there in her face, than that defensive measure to keep her distance.]
[But he can find no fault in her for it. All he can see is a reasonable decision. She knows of his lethality and violence more than she knows anything else of him. What reason does she have to truly see him for who he is now, and not the monster that maimed and nearly killed the man she loves?]
[He never felt owed forgiveness, but it hurts more than he cares to admit and acknowledge not to receive even an ounce of it. Nero spoke so much of Kyrie and how she sees the good in everyone, and the likelihood she could forgive Vergil, but that's not what she sees. It's clear to him that's not what is in focus, and is not liable to be anytime soon. And it's hard to understand. Or maybe it's just an ugly truth that he does not wish to contend with. He doesn't know. He's exhausted and crawling out of his own skin all at once. Vergil can feel his mind beginning to flood with doubts and insecurities he thought he'd moved past. The most he can do now is tread water, but he knows it won't be long before he drowns.]
[He picks the Yamato up from where he left it to rest against the arm of the couch. Part of him just wants to walk away immediately, but he doesn't. He looks over at his shoulder to Kyrie again before taking so much as another step towards retreating to the relative safety of his room.]
If that is all you wish to discuss for now, I will let you return to your morning.
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no subject
Where does she even begin to put everything in order here?]
I believe you. I believe you're sorry for what you did to Nero, I believe that you love him and I know that he loves you. I believe that you will never willingly hurt him again and I am truly grateful to hear you say that.
[She looks up, giving him the courtesy of her full focus, as she had done when she listened, and tries not to let her nerves appear on her face. Her heart has not stopped thundering since this conversation began.]
I don't need to tell you- [She pauses, trying to calm the tremble that has manifested in her voice. She doesn't need to tell Vergil how awful it was to find Nero in that garage. He knows what he had left in the wake of his attack. She tries a different tangent.]
Did Nero ever tell you that I am an orphan, and my brother is dead?
no subject
He did. [Vergil hesitates for a moment, uncertain if he should say more of what he knows to spare her having to recount it, or if he should let it be and allow her to speak. He errs on the side of the former, so that if there is more she must say, it need only be what he does not already know.] He told me your brother raised you after your parents died, and he explained some of the circumstances surrounding your brother's death to me.
[Vergil chooses to leave out mention of how Nero blames himself for Credo's death, or the context in which Vergil learned this information had been over a nightmare involving reliving a form of that death and loss again. It's not likely anything Kyrie doesn't already know or couldn't speculate correctly for herself, but it's irrelevant. Vergil also wisely keeps whatever judgments he's made of Credo's betrayal of Nero to himself and allows her to speak.]
no subject
So then you'll understand when I tell you that Nero is the only person in this whole world who shares my past with me. He's the only person left who remembers my parents, remembers my brother, and all the happy times we had before- before those times were gone.
[She looks searchingly at him, earnest in her hope that her words are resonating with him.]
If I had lost him... I would have lost my family all over again. I would have lost my present. Every dream I have for the future, a home, babies, grandchildren some day, those would have gone too. And maybe I would have gone on, I would have held it together somehow for the sake of the boys, but I wouldn't really have been living. Because how can you live without your heart?
[Her voice becomes stronger, the tremor non-existent. This is getting easier as she goes on and she's not sure how this will end.]
Your son... is the most incredible, kind, thoughtful, brave, compassionate man I have ever had the privilege to know. He amazes me every day with his strength, his capacity to do good, his willingness to endanger himself just to protect others. Every day I get to wake up beside him I thank whatever higher power there might be out there that I get to love him and have him in my life and that Nero, for some reason, loves me back. And I love that after all this time, you've found each other and he gets to be loved by his own family, the way he has always deserved to be! I really, truly cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am that he means as much to you as does, nothing could make me happier than knowing that your son is loved by his father.
[But it's here that she pauses, and takes a deep breath to steel herself for the question she knows she has to ask.]
But when you attacked Nero, the love of my life, he was just a stranger to you, an obstacle standing in the way of your survival. I know you are sorry for that. What I want to know is... would you still be sorry for what you did if Nero wasn't your son?
no subject
Were he not my kin... [he begins, slowly.] I can only speculate. What harms I've done to others has never been any more my intention than it was my intention specifically to harm Nero. [Vergil knows that does not make it better or somehow more acceptable, and does not state it as though making a case for it. It's a simple explanation of consequence versus intention.] In the past, I've always seen as a natural consequence. Those strong enough to protect themselves and what's theirs survive. Those too weak to protect themselves or anything else simply die or bear their losses.
I... [He purses his lips briefly.] A lot has changed since then. But I would not claim that I feel guilt or shame over my previous wrongs to faceless strangers as acutely as I feel for what I've done to Nero.
[Even if he wanted to dwell that much on any of them, Vergil is certain he couldn't when he has to set aside the guilt he feels for Nero, only allowing it at times, so that he can continue to step forward with him. It would paralyze him at best, kill him at worst.]
So, were he just a stranger... [Vergil inhales deeply albeit a little shakily through his nose and lets out a soft exhale.] I doubt I would have spared much thought to him.
[Whether she finds it reprehensible or not, there it is. The truth.]
no subject
If Nero had been anyone else's child, he'd have just been another victim of a person who could callously strike down another in cold blood and move on without thinking anything of it, or the damage following in the wake of such action. Tossed aside and never thought of again.
Kyrie sets her jaw, her lips thinning in a visible display of discomfort.
It hurts to know that at the time, maiming Nero had been nothing more than collateral to him, and she does genuinely feel that the knowledge of that pains this enigma of a man standing in front of her. It still doesn't bring her as much comfort as she'd hoped.]
Then my next question is this: you just said 'in the past.'
[It was a sliver of something, something that she's not about to let slide. She hopes her intuition is about to steer her wrong.]
Are you trying to say that you would act differently now?
no subject
[Vergil purses his lips as she picks at his words. No matter how even she speaks, how gentle her voice, it begins to feel more an interrogation. Especially as he does not know how to explain any of this to this...stranger when he can barely speak of it to those he holds close, if he can even manage to speak of it at all in the first place. There's a harder to look to Vergil's eyes as he looks at Kyrie, studies her. It's not the freezing glare of his temper arising, ready to lash out in anger. But it's a blatant defensive wariness. Whatever assumptions Kyrie may have held about Vergil's reserved temperament, his difficulties with emotional vulnerability most likely come to prove themselves in the way he regards her. Vergil's fingers curl against his pantlegs tightly, the fabric serving as a buffer to keep blunt nails from digging into his palms.]
[He draws a steadying breath, releasing the tension in his hands, but not the furrow in his brow.]
I am saying that I lived as a devil before. Now, I am trying to live as a man.
no subject
It takes every ounce of resolve not to flinch when the very slight motion of Vergil curling his fists into his pants catches her eye. She's upset him and the adrenaline pulses through her veins; does he have a temper? Does it spark and catch flame the way Nero's does? Does she want to imagine what it would be like to make Vergil truly angry?
No. Not even a little.
But then his answer comes on the tail of a deep breath and a furrowed brow and she finds herself surprised by the simplicity of the answer. So few words, so much said.
I am trying to live as a man.]
Is it working?
no subject
It's not as simple as that.
[Vergil would like to give her a straightforward, simple answer of yes or no. But a response in either direction would be a misrepresentation of what it is to walk the path he does now.]
I will concede that I am not a full-blooded demon. There is and always has been something inside me that has always made me more prone to think and feel in ways not dissimilar from full-blooded humans. But I grew accustomed to not merely ignoring it. I refused to recognize it as part of me at all. Casting it aside altogether became second nature. [Until he went to such extreme lengths as to excise it from him completely, but Vergil does not bring that up now. He merely looks to a spot on the floor somewhere in the vast amount of space between them, the furrow in his brow deepening as though he were lost in thought.] I no longer choose that, but it is still a choice for me.
[A messy and, at times, complicated choice, but a choice nonetheless. Vergil raises his gaze again after a brief pause.]
And I cannot ignore the fact there are still days and times that I yearn for when I chose to ignore it. When I doubt my own resolve.
And yet, the fact I cannot comfortably say to you that I am now more man than devil does not lead me to stop trying.
[So, it's not a matter of whether it is working or not. Not when it's impossible to envision the possibility of an endpoint where it is no longer a choice. Vergil doesn't believe it can ever be that way for him, not after everything. Instead, it's a matter of daily, sometimes momentary choice as Vergil implied with his answer that prompted this question from Kyrie in the first place.]
I recognize this may be an unsatisfactory answer to your question, but it is the truth. As best I know it to be.
no subject
But is it really stronger?
She knows she's just a weak, sheltered girl brought up believing lies, but she believes still in the inherent goodness that Sparda must have stood for, must have believed in with his soul to turn his back on his race and protect the weaklings who walked the earth. She wonders how much of her belief is fiction, and wonders if one day she will ever feel comfortable enough with Vergil and Dante to ask for the truth about their father. It's hard to accept that he was flesh and blood and not a god, but here's the proof standing in front of her.
Admitting that there is work to be done, that Vergil is still not content in his own skin, is a human enough answer to show her that his efforts are not in vain.]
I wouldn't call it an unsatisfactory answer. I'd say it was very honest.
[It is. As is he. Unflinchingly so.
She is quiet and still for a moment, thoughtful and worried about how to proceed. There's still a myriad scenarios she's concerned about, and the part of her that yearns to shield Nero from harm is still unsettled and snarling, not sure if it's safe to drop her guard.
She takes a deep breath.]
I accept and appreciate your apology. But...
[She looks at him carefully, her face showing just how deeply troubled and saddened she is by everything she has learned in the last twenty four hours.]
Please understand when I say I need more time to decide if I forgive you for it. I- I'm just not sure I fully know how I feel. I want to- I don't want to-
[She stops, not wanting to babble or let her mouth run away and say something indelicate as she struggles to find the words to voice how she feels. This man, and his importance to Nero, isn't something she can trample roughshod over for the sake of making everybody feel better immediately, only for her to change her mind.]
I want to make the right decision and I need time to think. The last thing I want to do is cause anyone any more pain than they've already had to experience. I think all three of us deserve that.
no subject
[It's still crushing. Even as he remains stoic and stern in his expression as he minutely nods. Even as he hears himself say,]
Of course. I understand.
[Vergil rises to his feet from where he sits upon the couch all the way in the living room. He does not slouch, but stands tall and proud as always despite how very much the opposite is what he carries inside. He's too aware of how she stays more or less in the other room, a great deal of distance between them as she keeps herself contained in the kitchen. It feels worse somehow. For as much as Vergil found himself fumbling and struggling with all the emotion that spilled out of the girl when he found her wandering alone in the forest, Vergil would rather more emotion spill out of her than what's there in her face, than that defensive measure to keep her distance.]
[But he can find no fault in her for it. All he can see is a reasonable decision. She knows of his lethality and violence more than she knows anything else of him. What reason does she have to truly see him for who he is now, and not the monster that maimed and nearly killed the man she loves?]
[He never felt owed forgiveness, but it hurts more than he cares to admit and acknowledge not to receive even an ounce of it. Nero spoke so much of Kyrie and how she sees the good in everyone, and the likelihood she could forgive Vergil, but that's not what she sees. It's clear to him that's not what is in focus, and is not liable to be anytime soon. And it's hard to understand. Or maybe it's just an ugly truth that he does not wish to contend with. He doesn't know. He's exhausted and crawling out of his own skin all at once. Vergil can feel his mind beginning to flood with doubts and insecurities he thought he'd moved past. The most he can do now is tread water, but he knows it won't be long before he drowns.]
[He picks the Yamato up from where he left it to rest against the arm of the couch. Part of him just wants to walk away immediately, but he doesn't. He looks over at his shoulder to Kyrie again before taking so much as another step towards retreating to the relative safety of his room.]
If that is all you wish to discuss for now, I will let you return to your morning.