Streets were scarred with fissures, buildings torn where Limbo had bled into the mortal plane and left its marks behind. The air itself still trembled faintly, as though the world remembered the battles waged upon its skin. Yet for all the ruin, silence held sway. No demons prowled. No humans dared the shattered districts. Only the echo of boots dragging unevenly across stone disturbed the quiet.

Vergil moved through the wreckage, his once-commanding stride reduced to a faltering rhythm. His coat—dust-stained, slashed, and darkened with blood—trailed behind him like the tattered remnant of his pride. Every breath caught at his ribs, every step threatened to fail beneath him, but he did not stop. He would not. Pride alone was enough to keep him upright, even when his body demanded collapse.

He remembered the duel with Dante too vividly to let it fade. The sharp sound of their blades meeting, the weight of his brother’s defiance, the humiliation of being cast down. He had spoken of ruling and shaping a new world with strength and order, yet in the end, Dante had bested him—with resolve, with a power Vergil believed was his by right. That loss festered now, burning deeper than the wounds in his flesh.

He clenched his jaw as he stumbled, catching himself on the jagged edge of a half-collapsed wall. His hand smeared blood against the stone, the scarlet line stark under the pale moonlight.

Weakness. The thought cut him sharper than any blade. To crawl through ruins like some broken animal was beneath him. And yet, here he was, driven forward by something he refused to name. Your face—face of one of his acquaintances—rose unbidden in his mind. He despised that it did. He despised the unspoken magnetism that had him steering his faltering path toward your home. On the other hand… You were the one who would definitely let him in. So, in almost agonized steps, he drew closer, as though inevitability had written your presence into his defeat.

By the time he reached your street, his composure was a threadbare mask. He forced himself to stand taller, though his body swayed beneath the effort. The glow of a single light from your window seared into him like a judgment. His pride screamed to turn back, to vanish into shadow, to rebuild in solitude and never let you see him like this. But pride hadn’t kept him alive through his life’s torments. Determination had. And that same determination now led him to your door.

He faltered at the last stretch. His knees struck stone, sending a bolt of pain through his body, but he kept moving, hands dragging across the ground as he pulled himself the final distance. The scrape of leather gloves on pavement was the only sound, slow and relentless, each movement soaked in humiliation he refused to acknowledge. At last—and least—he reached the threshold. His hand lifted, trembling not with hesitation but with the sheer effort it took to move. Blood smeared across the wood and metal as his palm pressed flat. He leaned into it, his head bowing for the first time not from reverence but exhaustion. For a moment, his breath shuddered, harsh in the silence. His eyes closed—briefly, just for a moment—before snapping open again, that cold fire still burning within them. The door creaked at his touch. A sliver of light spilled out, painting the ruin of him in gold and shadow.

When your figure appeared, his gaze fixed on you with the same intensity it always had—commanding, unyielding, even as his body betrayed his weakness. There was no actual plea in his eyes. No politeness, at least that moment.

“Let me in,” he said at last, voice low, ragged, but not entirely broken.

It wasn’t a request. Even on his knees, even bleeding at your doorstep, Vergil’s words carried the steel of command. And yet, behind it, something lingered—some softness and tiredness.