As Sephirot's voice fell, a tall, slender figure slowly stepped out from the woods.
The woman had short, sleek black hair, and her heterochromatic eyes, one red, one blue, glinted in the moonlight. The faint scar across the bridge of her nose didn't detract from her delicate features; instead, as she tilted her chin slightly, it added a touch of wildness to her appearance.
Lady held her strap with one hand, carelessly adjusting the weight of the giant rocket launcher with its exaggerated caliber on her back.
The movement instantly pulled her crisp white shirt taut. Several black tactical belts were cinched tightly across her waist and chest, pressing against her proud curves until they seemed ready to spill over.
Following the line of her slender waist down, she wore a pair of form-fitting tactical pants, with tactical holsters on both thighs biting slightly into her firm flesh.
"Like what you see?"
The woman's mismatched eyes met Sephirot's gaze without a hint of shyness, her lips curving into a half-smile.
Faced with a sight enough to make any ordinary man's blood pressure spike, Sephirot remained exceptionally calm.
It was no joke, having grown up surrounded by women as alluring and dangerous as Lady and Trish, he would have been beaten into a hospital bed countless times by now if he didn't have at least this much self-control.
"Ahem, the gear suits you, Lady."
Sephirot naturally averted his gaze.
"Ah! Lady!"
Beside him, Patty finally saw who had arrived. She let out a delighted scream and lunged forward, throwing her arms around the woman.
"What are you doing here all of a sudden? You didn't even tell me you were coming back!"
Patty grumbled even as she cuddled affectionately against her.
Lady ruffled Patty's blonde hair, her expression softening considerably.
After calming Patty down, she stepped forward and gave Sephirot a firm, solid hug.
As they pulled apart, her gaze suddenly sharpened.
Lady reached out and flicked a lock of hair away from Sephirot's forehead. "What's going on with your hair?"
Her brow furrowed, a trace of worry flashing in her eyes.
"Just a symptom of a bloodline awakening," Sephirot said, casually brushing his bangs aside.
Lady stared at him for several seconds. Once she confirmed there was nothing wrong with him, and that he actually seemed more composed than before, she finally relaxed.
She scanned the deathly silent surroundings and teased, "So, it's been a while; do you plan on having me catch up with you guys right here?"
...
—--
Several hours later, Poho County, Freddy's Pizzeria.
The faint light of dawn filtered into the shop. In the center of the restaurant's stage, those animatronic bears wearing top hats remained in their original poses.
Whether it was an illusion or not, there seemed to be a few more dark stains on their bodies.
*Crackle–*
The sound of shattering glass suddenly rang out from a booth, causing several townspeople eating breakfast at nearby tables to cast curious glances over. "Are you telling me that damn bastard Dante let an ordinary person like you take on such high-risk contracts?"
"Is that brain of his so stuffed with pizza that it's clogged?!"
Lady's grip tightened until the glass shattered. Ice water mingled with glass shards spilled across the table, a fire smoldering in her mismatched eyes.
"Lady, don't be mad..."
Patty jumped, hurriedly pulling out several napkins and scrambling to wipe up the mess.
Sitting across from them, Sephirot silently scooted back. His eyelid gave a slight twitch as he took a discreet sip of his Cola, hiding the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
In just a short while, he had given Lady a vivid account of his experiences in Silent Hill, his bloody battle with the Ogres, and how he had wiped out that twisted town.
Sephirot swore that as an honest man with professional integrity, he really didn't want to talk behind his elder's back.
However, Lady had insisted on getting to the bottom of things. As a defenseless junior, he had no choice but to tell the truth.
Of course, for the sake of making the story more interesting, he had added a little embellishment, downplaying his own role and shining a bright spotlight on Dante's behavior.
*Sigh, sorry about this, Uncle Dante.*
Sephirot made the sign of the cross in his heart. *Who told you to dump the Agency's entire mess on me without even leaving a decent weapon?*
A son pays the father's debts, and a nephew collects from the uncle. Next time they met, Dante would just have to take this RPG shot in stride.
...
—--
At the same moment, in Hell, within the Infinite Abyss.
*BOOM!*
Two blurs, moving fast enough to be indistinct, slammed into each other with brute force.
Dante, clad in red, had just swung the Rebellion Greatsword when he suddenly felt an inexplicable chill.
In the half-second his movements faltered, a roundhouse kick infused with blue demonic power slammed heavily into his chest.
Dante went flying back like a cannonball, crashing through two rocky mountains before his momentum finally stopped.
"Too slow, Dante. Distraction in battle is the height of stupidity."
Vergil stood holding the Yamato, looking down at his brother in the ruins with a cold gaze.
"...Some sightless bastard is definitely talking trash about me behind my back."
Dante spat to the side and hauled himself out of the rubble, shaking out his arm. "Looks like I'll have to get a little serious."
With that, he reversed his grip on the Rebellion Greatsword and plunged it violently into his own stomach.
The blade greedily absorbed his blood as a berserk red demonic power soared into the sky.
Seeing this, a smirk finally touched Vergil's lips.
"That's more like it, Dante. For the sake of power, it must be so!"
With a flick of his wrist, the Yamato became a streak of light as he likewise drove the blade into his own abdomen!
*CLANG!*
Blade met blade, the terrifying shockwave crushing the hellish soil for a hundred meters around them down several feet.
Locked in a stalemate of strength, Dante grinned against the edge of the blade and struck up a conversation. "Speaking of which, hasn't this dump been getting a bit too lively lately?"
"Are you referring to that idiot son of the Lord of Hell?" Vergil let out a cold snort, the force behind Yamato increasing by another fraction, his face a mask of disdain. "Boring."
"Not gonna do anything about it? If that brat crawls up there with his lackeys, the human world is gonna be in for a rough time."
Dante clicked his tongue. "If the old man were still around, he'd probably be throwing another fit."
"The life or death of humans has nothing to do with me."
Vergil's gaze turned icy as he unleashed a burst of demonic power to forcibly repel Dante, pointing his blade at him. "Right now, I am only interested in cutting you down."
"Ha! Suits me just fine! Then let those kids in the human world deal with their own headaches!"
Dante laughed loudly, tossing those trivial matters to the back of his mind as he charged forward once more.
"Ee-yah!"
...
—--
At the DMC Agency, if Dante was an unreliable hands-off boss, then Lady was certainly Sephirot's de facto guardian.
This was a woman who had embarked on the path of demon hunting after her biological father was seduced by demons, became corrupted, and murdered her mother.
Though a pure human, her terrifying heavy firepower and unparalleled combat instincts made her even more brutal than the demons she slaughtered.
Ever since he was a child, Lady had shown Sephirot nothing but favoritism, being protective of him to an extreme. Now that she had heard how Dante was exploiting Sephirot, it was only natural for her to fly into a rage.
"Uh... actually, it's not as bad as you think."
Sephirot cleared his throat, attempting to save a bit of face for that unreliable man.
"Under the pressure of life and death, I relied on my own hard work and talent to activate the Demonic Bloodline within my body. You could call it a blessing in disguise."
"Hmph! No wonder that guy was so scared he didn't even dare stay at the Agency."
Lady took a tissue from Patty to wipe her hands and grunted coldly.
Hearing this, it suddenly clicked in Sephirot's mind, so Dante's "runaway" act wasn't just to dump the workload, but also because he was afraid Lady and Trish would come back to settle the score?
"By the way, Lady, why did you suddenly come all the way out to these backwoods without saying a word?"
Sephirot quickly changed the subject.
If he let Lady ramble on any further, once she was done badmouthing Dante, her next step would definitely be lecturing him on not being so reckless.
He really didn't want to experience Lady's "gun-and-blade education" ever again.
"I haven't even finished lecturing you yet, and you're already interrogating me?"
Lady leaned back against the sofa, pulled a customized phone from her pocket, and slid it toward Sephirot.
(Translated by yourtl.app)