This is a short rewrite of a scene from the DMC3 manga Code 2: Vergil. If you have read the manga, you should recognize the scene easily. Vergil here is speaking as an adult, although he's depicted in a child's body.

Disclaimer: Devil May Cry belongs to Capcom. The plot in this ficlet is taken directly from Chayamachi Suguro's DMC3 manga.

Content Warnings: Gore and violence.

The breeze here carries the stench of death, rotted and stifling. The fingers clutching the cold steel against my palm are those of a child-- small and frail, utterly foreign. Some kind of twisted dread falls through my stomach and I turn to the tune of shifting sand and grinding bone. The hallowed dead approach; their steps are ungainly, their jaws agape. I am shivering against the grim cold as I raise the sword-- it's heavier than usual, but no matter.

Even in the clutches of this nightmare, the fierce joy of the kill is not beyond me. I am acutely aware of everything-- the cracking of bone rent by a blade, the shuddering of my own breath, the twigs and stones that cut the soles of my bare feet. These nameless enemies are undaunted; they have me dancing to a funereal dirge in this godforsaken graveyard. I am a puppet here.

I cut them down right and left but the horde is unrelenting. Somewhere far away-- or perhaps only in my head-- someone is laughing at my struggles. I feel decayed teeth in my arm; they easily saw through flesh and grind against bone.

I pull away with some measure of desperation-- my breath has gone ragged and my muscles have begun that lactic burn. My mouth is full of ash and Yamato's hilt slips within my grasp, now slick with blood. I dance among the headstones amidst scattered fragments of bone and dust. The enemy has vanished-- the earth at my feet trembles before steel penetrates my body and my world is frosted with a sanguinary haze.

I feel every angle of the speartip pass through my chest, parting flesh and bone with all the unlikely finesse of murder. I vaguely feel Yamato slip from my limp grasp as I am hurled through the air by the punishing blow, my mind in disconnect with my body. My back strikes rimy stone as my lungs writhe and protest the intrusion before sputtering and falling still.

My muscles have seized up and they clutch the embedded spear. I couldn't withdraw it if I tried-- my body has claimed the weapon and is coloring the haft with my blood. I taste acid copper boiling up in my throat and expel it with an accompaniment of agony. I look to my sword and stretch a plaintive hand toward it; the gesture is utterly futile and my body resists it.

As I languish, sudden fire bursts and spirals against the liquid moon. Its distant heat is intangible, and yet I feel it scald my retinas.

A name springs to my lips, unbidden.

I can only watch as one of the nameless skeletal demons plucks my sword from the ground and approaches me. This place is familiar now, and I swim through a deluge of nightmares as I watch spurts of my blood arc through the air and paint my thighs. My own sword has been driven through my body; I can feel chips of stone flaking against my spine where the blade has buried itself in the grave. I do not need to turn and look to know the name carved in the headstone.

My nightmare manifests against the bleached moon and I am asked questions of fear. I have tasted fear and desperation, and it leaves bitter acid on the tongue. The mean metal implanted in my body drains me of both those emotions and I feel only calm contempt. I ask the purpose of the nightmare.

The response is cryptic talk of hurt and pleasure, and my mortality is stolen away by a flurry of edged weapons. I am beyond agony now, and as hot scarlet stains my skin, I speak a few succinct words of warning.

My nightmare is over-- the devil's threats fall on deaf ears, and I draw Yamato to claim the path to Hell.

I will walk it alone.