[It seems foolish after a moment of thought, but hearing Dante admit so plainly to having missed Vergil takes the elder son of Sparda by surprise. Had it only been that decade from when they both left behind the burning rubble of their childhood and assumed themselves the sole survivor, it would not come as all that much surprise because Vergil had missed Dante then, too. For all that he swore to himself that he would never allow himself such vulnerabilities and weaknesses again, he still missed his brother. For weeks and months after the attack, when Vergil settled in for the night, he would pretend Dante was there beside him. It was, of course, a means of soothing his own anxieties by projecting them onto Dante instead of accepting them as his own, but Vergil was always left with that feeling of loneliness afterward when he was staring into the dark instead of at matching blue eyes. He still remembers thinking on some nights that he would have given anything, even the Yamato itself, to have his brother there with him instead. Or in weaker moments, on worse nights, he wished it had been him instead, or if that weren't possible, that they both died that day. Because they were not supposed to be separated like that. They shared a womb, and just hours apart, they came into the world together. One of them was not supposed to grow up while the other remained a child forever. Even Vergil knew that at such a young age.]

[But that was before everything that came to follow.]

[It feels to Vergil that Dante should not miss him. Not particularly. Not acutely. Not to any great measure beyond an old loss that one has had time to sit and come to terms with. The odds that they have been at with one another, the resolve that Dante had to find within himself to do whatever it took to stop Vergil... Vergil would have thought somewhere amid all that, it would have burned it out of Dante. That there could be no more love, no grace, no hope, nothing left for Vergil but resentment and anger at what Vergil pushed Dante to do again and again. He was prepared that day atop the Qliphoth, wasn't he? To end it. Once and for all. For there to be no more chances, no more opportunities for Vergil to cause mayhem in all the ways he had before. That's all it should have been by then.]

[He squeezes his eyes shut, but it's already too late. The tears slip from his eyes, falling the short distance to Dante's shoulder. The first in years. Decades, really...]

I missed you, too.

[Not in the same ways. Their positions and perspectives on their conflict with one another have always been different. And there had been that stretch of years when Mundus carved and rent every trace of what made Vergil who he is until there was nothing but a mindless, hollow shell left behind. But the words are true. The ache of years lost and wasted still resonates beneath them all the same.]

[Vergil loosens his hold and sits back.]

Look at me. [He holds his brother's face in one hand while the other rests at his shoulder, waiting until he has Dante's eyes before he continues.] We are in this together. Not as the sons of Sparda, but as Dante and Vergil.

[As brothers. As they always should have been.]

Nothing is going to get in the way of that, Dante. [Vergil shakes his head slightly as he gives a squeeze to Dante's shoulder.] Not anymore.