V never claimed to be a father. Perhaps he wasn’t—at least, not entirely. He was fragments, the remnants of a man who once abandoned everything. But the blood in your veins was his, and the sight of you—Vergil’s child, barely seven years old, clutching your school bag—twisted something sharp inside him. Guilt.

You didn’t know. To you, V was just… V. A strange but gentle man who sometimes walked you to school when Vergil was absent for weeks. Unlike Vergil, he did not rush you. He slowed his steps, letting you match his pace.

And yet, he remembered. He remembered every morning your small hand would reach up—hesitant, trembling—only for him, as Vergil, to cast it aside. He remembered the cold words that fell from his own lips:

“Focus on your steps. Don’t slow me down.”

He had never taken it. Not once. That memory burned in him, sharp and bitter—his own cruelty, his own neglect. And now, as V, he felt the ache of it more than ever. This form, this fragile self, carried regret Vergil never allowed himself to feel. And with it came the gnawing question—could he change what he once destroyed? Could he offer now what he always denied?

"…If you wish," he murmured softly, almost too quiet for you to hear, "you may hold onto me."