Cold water is more Mizu's element than hot, but the heat soothes her muscles. That soothes her mind and relaxes her. She could soak in the water until she's loose, until the small aches and pains melt away. It leaves her in better condition than she usually ever is in Japan and more relaxed than healing herself with her Lore-bought ability. She's ready to enjoy it quietly with Vergil, and Mizu expects the touch, some form of touch, because it'd be unlike either of them to keep their distance. Her legs in Vergil's lap feels natural for that, and Mizu adjusts for it.
Less expected is the attention that follows. The concept isn't new to Mizu, but she's never received it before Vergil. A quiet reminder of how different he is from Mikio. The thought doesn't cause a flicker in her emotions or relaxation. It's natural to compare the two, and as ever, Vergil comes out the better man and the more attentive partner. She sighs a little, even as he warms up her feet. They've born her weight most of the day, it being a day of little reading, and she feels where it's taken a toll. Mizu hums slightly at Vergil's direction. She accepts it but neither plans to speak nor to hold her silence. She lets it proceed.
"Oh," Mizu groans at a particularly sore spot. There's pain, but behind that pain comes relief. The release of tension that means it will feel better once it's been dealt with. "Deeper."
Each time the pressure eases, Mizu sighs a little easier. It's incredible what pain she simply takes for granted until it's gone, relieved. You don't have to, Mizu almost says, except she knows he knows that. Vergil does it anyway. Happily. She lets him, and Mizu relaxes with it more than she ever would were she to massage her own foot on her own. Then, she'd remain alert to anyone approaching her cabin, who might interrupt while she's naked and exposed. She has to, always, on her own. Vergil's senses are stronger than her own, and he will not let someone get close. That's more relaxing than the bath: to let her guard down.
"Would you get any benefit," Mizu asks, "if I were to give you a massage?"
Vergil covers the whole of Mizu's feet as he massages them, extending the massage along not just the tops of her feet, but her ankles and lower legs as well while he has access to them. The difference from when he started is noticeable beyond just the feel of muscles and tendons loosening beneath his touch. Mizu's legs increasingly come to rest heavier and heavier in his lap as he progresses, especially after attending to a particularly sore point with deeper pressure. He does not simply stop touching her though even once he's through with the massage and all the tension seems to have left her. Vergil continues with light touches as though it would keep away any notion of tension returning and allowing her to stay with that feeling of relaxation for longer.
"I think that would depend on whether or not you had any skill with it," he teases lightly. Despite his healing factor, Vergil is not actually any more immune to muscle tension than Mizu happens to be.
Her head leans back, and the water and Vergil support much of her weight. Mizu feels both heavy and light at the same time. Even her question comes from only a half-present matter of curiosity. Vergil's teasing response pulls a bit of a scowl to her face. She would not guess Vergil had much experience with massages, and he's done an excellent job. Surely, she could do... decently. Rubbing and massaging doesn't seem that hard, and Mizu would not be trying to do more than relieve any aches he might have. Part of her wants to pull her legs down, grab his, and let him experience what that might be like.
However, Mizu is comfortable and comfortable enough not to step immediately toward a foolish challenge. Oh, she's not letting the idea go, but Mizu can be a little smarter about it. "I'll pay attention next time you massage my feet when we're not in the bath," she says, "Then I can copy what you do. As we've both seen, you have skill enough with it."
She's used to studying people's hands, their feet, their movements. Mizu wants some time to practice on her own feet before immediately trying it on Vergil's, but it shouldn't be hard. It cannot be harder than learning how to use a sword. "You'll just have to trust me."
"If you are able to learn it after one more massage, then I am doing a terrible job of it," he says with a light laugh. Not that Vergil wouldn't put it past Mizu to still unintentionally undermine the purpose of the massage to learn his techniques by watching him carefully. Mizu has proven through enough of their games that she's able to still find pleasure in sensation, but remain grounded enough that she does not lose sight of her intentions and goals. But that's a different matter. Those intimate games that he challenges her with only provide Vergil the excuse to worship every inch of her, and flood every last of her senses. Even if she doesn't succumb and lose, the outcome remains the same. This, however, has the intention of relaxing her as she is now. Keeping a sharp eye and awareness of his hands only serves to change the outcome, and undermine its intention.
Vergil reaches for her again, but this time draws her in closer to him. He doesn't pull her into his lap entirely, but he pulls her near enough that she can lean back against his chest. With her legs slipping from his lap, Vergil's entangles their legs together loosely just as he so often does when they lay in bed and idle away a portion of the morning together. He traces along one of her arms with his fingertips before more firmly wrapping his arms around her.
Mizu raises an eyebrow at the suggestion because she focuses firstly and primarily on the idea that she might not be able to learn how to perform a massage after only one more massage. She's absolutely certain that she could apply the same techniques of observation wherein she learned how to fight to the far more relaxed activity of massage. Her relaxed state means it only partially draws her fighting spirit, but her determination to prove herself burns like a furnace within. It takes longer, even as Vergil reaches for her and Mizu goes with him, to notice the second half of the statement. A proper massage would distract her, at least if his aim is to melt her into relaxation. Yet a single massage could be sacrificed so that Mizu could learn how to perform it. Vergil could even provide an extra massage, such that none is truly lost at all. There are easy ways around that matter.
This massage has worked, however, and Mizu doesn't argue her point further. It's set aside but not forgotten as she sighs. Mizu leans against Vergil and runs a hand over his thigh where it touches. It's the heart sutra in slow steady strokes over the same area of skin. If she were to write it properly, she'd use far more of him as a canvas, but they're in the water, relaxed, and there is no inkwell and brush.
Mizu leans her head farther back. Mizu cannot see Vergil in any great angle, but the words catch her by surprise. She spoke in quick heat, of her ability to learn, not of herself more broadly. Yet the two feel intertwined. He trusts she could learn how to give massages, and he trusts... her. "You're safe with me," Mizu says, "You're safe here."
He can sense any threat before she does, but Mizu doesn't mean merely physically safe, something Vergil rarely has need to fear here. She strives that they both feel safe in her home. They're safe to relax in the bath together. They're safe reading books in the mornings. Vergil can reveal anything here and be safe. Here, with her, in this space she's created. Sometimes she holds him in her arms, and she feels expansively large and protective. She has him, and she'll always do right by that. Has in the months since she found words for her desire and the way it matched his.
It does not register at first to Vergil that Mizu is writing upon his thigh. Between his lack of familiarity with the characters and just how gentle the touch is, it takes a few characters being formed completely before it occurs to him that there is structure behind the touch and Mizu is writing. Lacking any sense of meaning behind them, Vergil contents himself with merely trying to delineate where one character ends and the next begins. It's a bit of an interesting challenge with his lack of knowledge when it comes to stroke order, but the general patterns of what is meant to be drawn first begin to make it a little easier. Or so he thinks, in any case.
Mizu leans her head back and promises him that he is safe, and Vergil understands her meaning without the need for clarification. More and more, Vergil has learned to let his guard down. He's imperfect at it, and well-aware of that fact, but he's found himself more often than not trying with those he cares for regardless. For all that it often leaves him feeling vulnerable in ways that make his skin crawl, and he often must endure awkward pauses and silences as others process what he's elected to share, it has typically been a worthwhile risk. But that willingness to take a chance began here with Mizu, and it is precisely because Vergil has nearly always felt some degree of safety with her.
It's why he gives her question serious thought rather than merely brushing it aside as he would with most others. A question that he feels is asked more and more by those around him that care for him in return, and one that he never really possesses a clear answer for no matter how many times or in what different circumstances and ways it's asked. Still, he considers it as best he can before answering.
"Not right now," he says, leaning down and pressing a chaste kiss to the fading mark along the slope of her neck. "I have all that I could possibly want."
Yes, Mizu wants and is glad Vergil feels safe, and she'd gladly give him something that would help with that. She wants to take care of him the way she feels taken care of by him. Sometimes she feels spoiled. Vergil cooked dinner, did the dishes, and even in the bath has massaged her feet. Mizu, on the other hand, was a halfway decent conversationalist at best and doesn't feel she's done more than simply let him be present and around. Doing things for each other isn't a competition. It's something she's usually selfish about and takes and takes and takes because it's so rare because her revenge comes first because she knows little about taking care of someone. Instead of simply coming up short, if that's what she's doing, Mizu asks. As so many times, the answer is nothing. There is nothing for Mizu to do.
He has all he could possibly want. That's true of the moment, but Mizu thinks it's also true for Vergil in Folkmore. He has his family. He has Mizu. All that he could want is to keep it. His family seems likely to stay, at the very least not to leave by their choice. Mizu set aside learning more on the train, both in the trial with Vergil and in the next with Rin, his pendant around her neck as a comfortable presence. If she truly could have learned something of value, it might have cut down the time she needs to stay by months. Yet it is less the months Mizu's given Vergil than the peace of mind, when she leaves, as much as she can give it. Mizu will not die here, so she can take the time to hurt him as little as possible when the time comes. Let him imagine some life where she steals Kai back from Mikio's lord and makes swords near a small village on the coast of Japan. Mizu has no idea what will happen once she achieves her revenge, but it's pleasant to imagine. She wants that for him, even when she cannot hold onto it herself. She wants for him—
She messes up a kanji and startles herself a little. Ink once set down cannot be fixed, strokes taken are what they are. Mistakes are mistakes. Mizu sets hers aside and traces the brushstrokes again, properly this time. Her handwriting isn't much. She's forged more knives than written letters. She's written more in the last year, notes on England, than she ever has back in Japan. None of it focused on beauty like scholars might care about. Writing on Vergil, even with her fingers, comes with greater care than any of her notes. That it might look good if it were done with ink.
"Have you ever submerged yourself in the ocean?" Mizu asks, "It's a different sort of peace than the comfort of this hot soak."
Vergil need not know what the character was meant to look like to know that Mizu's made a mistake when she does. The stutter in her movement followed by the repetition, the correction are enough to give it away. It calls to mind when he's allowed Mizu to hold Mirage Edge, particularly that first time. Already by then, Mizu had memorized his movements so well, but she was tired from their prior sparring. And so, mistakes appeared. But Mizu corrected them smoothly until they became too numerous that she clearly felt it best to discontinue and avoid harming her form. So, to that end, it really is not a surprise that Mizu would take the time to correct her invisible writing against his skin. As she says, everything is ultimately for her art. Even something as simple as this, she needs to apply the same level of discipline. But he does find it curious that she made the mistake in the first place. He tilts his head slightly in silent curiosity, but ultimately chooses not to ask. If she wanted him to know or felt ready to acknowledge it, Mizu would say it. She does not tend to shy from speaking what's on her mind even unprompted.
"I haven't," he says while trying to remember when last in his own world, he was near enough to an ocean where he would have possessed the opportunity. It would not have been any sooner than before Nero was born by his estimation, when he chose to stay on Fortuna's island for longer than initially planned. After that, he either was without a will of his own or not his whole self each time he'd been near the water. Vergil brushes aside the thought, such things being inappropriate for where he is presently. He contents himself instead with idly tracing the gentle, subtle curve of Mizu's side as he remembers she once compared him to the ocean. He hadn't understood what she meant at the time considering all the ways the ocean could be perceived, some of which appear to be direct contradictions to one another. "I'm not surprised to find you enjoy it though. I've only known you to occasionally struggle with retaining your focus in Cruel Summer."
Not to say that she allows for it to leave her for long. Even without her favored element, Mizu does not lose sight of a battle, be it a friendly spar or otherwise. But there are significantly fewer options afforded to her there when it comes to seeking out that cool sensation.
Mizu's future looms before them, a nebulous shadowy figure, but she turns away from it so that it does not spoil everything, the wonderful night. If it sours part of it for her, better it only affects her than Vergil as well. Yet even for her own sake, she wants to turn away from it and build a memory she can carry with her. There's nothing spectacular in the moment, save the fact that this happy an evening is nothing spectacular.
Her fingers continue, tracing over the same small stretch of skin, so the flow from character to character is correct. It's different to write on a thigh than the curve of an arm. She knows that, yet better to practice here than to pull herself away from him. Vergil traces her skin as well, and Mizu wonders what her skin would look like with his poetry spreading across it. The lettering is hard to imagine, even though he's shared passages. Horizontal where she expects it to be vertical. The shapes unfamiliar and foreign. Yet she understands even better now why someone would want to experience it, though Mizu cannot imagine it having the same meaning with a stranger.
She remembers her fight against a demon in Cruel Summer, one Vergil watched. It's true that grounding herself was harder, something that truly could have cost her. Now she knows Vergil watched, she knows it wouldn't cost her her life (he wouldn't allow that), but as temperate as England promises to be, Mizu despises that weakness. She hasn't found a way to fully overcome it.
"I grew up outside of Kohama, a fishing village only worth noting on any map because of swordfather," Mizu shares. "Busy as I was helping swordfather, and I always went to bed exhausted, there was still time to go down to an isolated part of the shore, away from the village, strip my outer layers, and enter the waves. They pound against you as you stay above them, threatening to pull you down, but once you go underneath them, you become a part of them."
Mizu pauses because the words are hard to find. It's a feeling she's known so much of her life and never once put into words. They ebb away from her, and Mizu knows they will fall short, whatever she says. Vergil might turn to poetry, to the shape of someone else's words who has said what he feels better than he can (she's fairly sure that's part of what it is), but Mizu lacks those too. "I'm small, but I'm large. I float, but I'm grounded. It does not compare to anything else."
Her free hand makes a small motion to indicate that's only part of it. There's more she hasn't said, more she cannot say. She says what she can. With a smile, Mizu remembers again the foolish statement she told Vergil, the one he said was poetry. "Except you."
Vergil doesn't need to ask. He can already quite safely assume that to Mizu, this is a matter of trying to explain a fact rather than poetry. But that's not what he hears. She embraces the contradictions, how they serve her in equal measure by trying to express it through the arrangement of her words. If that does not qualify as poetry even at its most basic level and structure, then Vergil does not know poetry himself.
"Except me," he echoes in return. "You've said something similar once before. Although with fewer details that time."
And more importantly, he's experienced Mizu grounding herself through him much in the way she describes the waves of the ocean and the purpose they serve for her. So, even as her words may fail her, there is still some implicit understanding for what is left unsaid. Vergil isn't certain what exactly it is about him specifically that inspires that feeling in Mizu, but he's glad for it all the same. Because while only simplistic on its surface, Vergil does wish to return that sense of safety and intimacy that he feels with her. She deserves that much. He would actually argue she deserves more, but that much will still do for now at least. There's a brief pause before Vergil makes the decision to not just ponder upon it, but actually give voice to that desire.
"I know that between us, it is not of a transactional nature, but I am pleased nonetheless to know I am able to provide for you something that you seek out in return. It...has not been often in my life that I've wanted to reciprocate anything to anyone. Not anything good, in any case." He's typically avoided it, in fact. Taking what he needs and running before anything could be expected or he could find himself attached enough that he would protect the other's peace. "But I wish for you to feel as protected as I do with you."
Even if it is only to last so long as their time here does and not a moment longer as is the most realistic outcome and expectation, Vergil sees it as far better than nothing for the both of them. At least they shall both have this.
As little as her words convey her meaning now, she had even fewer before on the train. They lacked time, and Vergil gave her his pendant. Mizu's heard little about it, but she's seen how rarely and briefly Vergil parts with it. As someone of few possessions, it is cherished and held close. Yet Mizu did not want to part from him, though they would be forced apart, and he gave her the pendant. Only for a short time, yes, but he gave her part of himself. She wanted to give him something. She needed to release some of the feelings that roiled within her. Somehow those few words pleased him. She hopes that these ones express more what she meant, enough that Vergil can understand what isn't said.
The ocean will be there when she leaves and cold water when she leaves its shores, but Mizu wishes there were a way to bring some sense of Vergil with her. A pointless wish undoubtedly. She doubts they can bring any item of substance with them when they leave, that they must return as they left. It is why she plans to leave her sword to him, that it might not disappear entirely with her departure. No pendant, no glove, no bit of fabric of his will return with her. Only her memories of him, and that, Mizu suspects, will not be enough to ground her when she needs it. Not the way being with him does. Unfortunate, but nothing more could be expected.
Transactional describes most of Mizu's relations in her life. Even her most recent companions. Ringo wanted to be useful in return for Mizu teaching him. Taigen defended her so that they might have their duel. Akemi wanted Mizu to prevent her return to her father. Before that, her mother wanted to be taken care of and to have money for her drugs. Her marriage with Mikio was entirely based on the labor she would provide. Only swordfather. Now Vergil. For all she's taken, all she used Ringo and Taigen, Mizu and Vergil have long surpassed their terms as sparring partners. There is no ledger, no keeping track of how they have each helped each other. No value assigned and compared between what they do. Mizu receives so much from Vergil, and she wishes to provide for him some measure of such safety. Each moment he relaxes with her, trusts her, and lets her protect him, Mizu only wants to protect him more and to make that safety for him.
"I know because I feel the same," Mizu says. "I've long relaxed when you are here, knowing you'll sense anyone coming before I do. When I lack the cold, water, the ocean, even when I have those, I ground myself with you." Mizu pauses and grimaces a little. "I would have been hard pressed to keep my promise to you, not to search for clues to my fathers on the train, had you not come with me in the form of your pendant. No sooner did we part ways than I was in another world, one I then shared with Rin instead of you, when I was faced with the opportunity to force information from my father's business partner."
Mizu pauses and corrects herself.
"His business partner in that world, a man from Rin's history. He was in my grasp, and I could have—" she reaches up and rests her hand over Vergil's pendant or where it would lay, "I killed him and cut down that chance. You return me to myself, that I can choose and do what I decide. That may be the greatest form of protection, not to lose myself but to decide my own fate and make my way. In a fight. In my revenge. In my heart."
Mizu cannot explain why it has come to be that Vergil has near the same effect for her as the ocean and its shadows. It has saved her life more times than she can count. It matters. Perhaps more than the physical safety he provides with his mere presence.
"You are with me nearly every moment," Mizu admits, "when I forged the new steel for my blade, I made it from the brittle blade I first made, and I made it with the glove I stabbed the first time we sparred, and I made it with the jacket I destroyed with a grenade. You are in my sword."
Her cheeks and ears have flushed with color, but Mizu meets Vergil's gaze. Her fingers still against his leg, and she watches him and his reaction. It's been nearly a year, only a couple months shy, since she made her sword. He's been with her long before the first time they kissed. Mizu lacked the words or understanding then, but she knew it was the right choice at the time. It was needed. It would be impossible for Mizu not to feel protected when each swing of her sword carries it.
After Mizu confesses the materials of his that she used for reforging her blade, Vergil is quiet for a moment. It's possible for Mizu that his silence feels as though it stretches on and on, as Vergil also feels its length to stretch beyond what it is in reality. But sans moments of intense passion, neither Mizu nor Vergil have ever rushed to reach their responses to one another. They always permit the other to take their time no matter how long it may be even if the wait feels far too long in the moment. To that end, Vergil is somewhat vaguely apologetic to Mizu in leaving her waiting for his response after such an intimate confession. But what she says is great, and it is something that Vergil has no desire to simply accept as truth and ultimately gloss over it. It would be far too disrespectful to her, to her feelings, to what they've built together.
Vergil remembers their first spar still so clearly. Reflecting upon it, he can now see the first sparks of attraction beginning to fly between them that escaped his attention back then. Vergil was too distracted at the time with the fight itself. But more importantly, that fight was the one and only time that Vergil has ever yielded. The decision to concede the fight, however, had not been because he was on the verge of defeat. There's a fire that burns within Mizu, brought to the surface each time she wields a blade. It caught Vergil's attention from the beginning of that sparring match as it does even now, occasionally stirring other appetites within him at her displays of strength and skill. But that day, it had begun a wild, uncontrolled blaze, and Vergil realized quickly how such a beautiful, powerful thing within Mizu threatened to consume the swordsman before him. Even with as little personal investment as Vergil had in Mizu back then, when they barely knew each other, he knew he wanted to see that flame tempered. Leaving it as it was would only mean Mizu's eventual death upon returning home.
Back then, it was limits that Vergil set that forced Mizu to temper herself. Mizu chafed at every single one, of course, not hesitating to let her complaints or frustrations be known. It was no secret to Vergil that her compliance stemmed from a mild anxiety that Vergil would refuse her moving forward if she did not adhere to his additional rules. But still, she already felt it such a concession to accept dueling to the death was not allowed that she found his refusal if she was significantly injured still to be an unnecessary stipulation. She was little more than a petulant child huffing and puffing over his unwillingness to part from her until he knew for certain that she tended enough to her wounds that Vergil felt comfortable with leaving Mizu on her own.
But Mizu kept his ruined glove, stained with his blood and useless as an article of clothing. And she followed the rules, and sought out the next sparring match as soon as she could. She spent Lore to give herself an accelerated healing factor so that she could face Vergil again sooner, and she returned to where he'd discarded his ruined coat to collect it. And she ultimately used him to bring balance into her blade, reflective of a balance Vergil has wanted for her before his feelings had grown to be what they are and what he hoped their sparring matches could teach her if nothing else was to be learned or gained from them.
When Vergil meets Mizu's gaze, there's a softness in his eyes as he's unable to contain the swell of emotion to just himself. He knows the weight and meaning of that choice, to include pieces of him in the process of reforging her blade into something stronger, that can serve its purpose better. And the fact that she made that decision before... There is so little good that Vergil can claim to have a hand in. His choices have typically wrought destruction and ruin as unintended consequences, but ones Vergil has done little if anything at all to prevent them all the same. He cannot begin to put into words—borrowed or his own—just how immense the feeling that follows her admission. Mizu is not the only one with a bit more color in her face or tips of her ears than there was a moment ago.
Instead of trying (and likely failing) to put it into any words, Vergil leans forward to kiss Mizu instead. It does not lack in passion, but it is not a heated, rushed expression of it. Rather, much like how they settled into this hot bath, it allows for the comfortable weight of their feelings for one another to blanket over them slowly in this space they've made and protect together. Vergil's hand at her side remains, keeping an arm around her, as his other hand covers Mizu's over his half of the amulet.
In keeping with how long it has taken Mizu to share what she has done, Vergil needs time to understand it. All that's happened since she forged the blade only adding and shaping the reflection on the act itself. It is such a personal matter, to forge her own steel and blade again, that Mizu did not know how to explain it then. She feared any attempt would only push Vergil away. Better to face him with her own blade and to fight the better for it than to explain it. He's lived first hand how her sword has changed her, the way Mizu's seen the difference between Vergil fighting with Yamato and Mirage Edge.
Vergil was always worthy of her true blade. Her concern was herself and the blade she'd make. Their conversation about it helped, as well the way they met blades. Vergil's rules bristled, but they never came from disrespecting her as an opponent. No matter that the more she's learned and seen and even experienced in memory, Mizu knows he holds himself back and could press her even harder. Yet he enjoys it and finds it worthwhile. He looked after her when he did not need to. He made himself safe, that Mizu could push so hard she fell unconscious and trust him to mind the boundaries of her clothes and body. Vergil wants her to feel as safe with him, as he does her? It is a rare instance that Mizu allows herself to fight so hard as to lose consciousness without it being to the death. He's had trust from the beginning built somehow over past wrongs and common ground.
Her shortcomings, her flaws, her body's frailties, all of it was accepted. Swordfather's always insisted that an impurity in the right place is a quality, but those words never penetrated so deeply as for Mizu to see it in herself. Still, she struggled with that. She struggles to this day. Her inclination to make a sword too brittle, not too soft. To be too hard, inflexible. Mizu's hardly reached some remarkable best form of herself she could ever be, only a better swordsman than she has been. That was her goal from the start with sparring Vergil. Mizu simply didn't understand all the ways he'd see her to that goal. No that she's done. She's better, yes, but she can be better yet. Like she's a living blade not yet forged and completed.
The sword is the soul of a samurai. Mizu is no samurai, but her sword is her soul, the most intimate part of herself. Vergil is a part of it, a simple statement of fact yet one that says more than words can ever say. Words that fail Vergil as well. He leans in, and Mizu releases some of the tension that built waiting. Her fingers tighten around the pendant and press into the skin beneath them. Mizu kisses Vergil back, words not fully capturing her feelings as well, and awareness of the room around them, the cabin, and the snow beyond fade away, such that someone could climb the stairs with Mizu none the wiser. Yet none the more in danger because she leaves that to Vergil.
She hadn't realized how much she wanted Vergil to know about her sword without a sense of how to tell him or when or even perhaps why she did not wish to give him her sword when he gave her his pendant. It would give him part of her, yes, but it would rob her of him too. It was not the time to explain, not in depth, and her words felt so short a measure of comfort compared to his. Not a competition, not a price to be paid, and not as necessary perhaps when she was the one more tempted by the trial. So she takes Vergil as hers and part of her and gives herself in return in the kiss. It is not so different a position than all the times he's carried her after sparring, the difference in knowing. Vergil knows better the depth of Mizu's feelings, the arc of those feelings, and Mizu safe as ever and accepted.
Vergil kisses Mizu sweetly and slowly until its end, and when he does eventually part his lips from hers, he does not stray far. He nuzzles her in a familiar gesture of affection before kissing the corner of her lips. He cares for little else beyond her even when not kissing her, his world narrowing down to their little points of contact and yet not seeming the smaller for it all the same. He knows it's likely untrue, but he likes to imagine their hearts beating in unison. How else could such a feeling within his chest be shared with another if that were not the case?
"I loved and guessed at you. You construed me, and loved me for what might or might not be," he recites quietly, only borrowing a few lines from the otherwise brief poem. "Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong. For verily love knows not 'mine' or 'thine.'"
The words still feel as though they fall short of fully reflecting all that he feels, but they are close as he is liable to find in his own or another's in being able to speak of it. A love so accepting and so deep that it becomes one, and in turn, by sharing it, they are one as well. To that end, it does not matter what is to become of them or how inevitable it is that they shall leave this place one day and without the other. It is as they promised to each other, that they shall always belong to the other. There is no amount of time or distance that will unmake any of this. Not even heartache nor grief can replace it.
Vergil dips his head to the faded mark, placing a few light kisses before taking the skin into his mouth. He takes his time in darkening it again, alternating between his efforts in bruising the skin and teasing it with the light graze of his teeth or brushing over it with his lips. It's a different tempo than when he had left the mark the first time, more akin to the massage he'd given her than a ravenous hunger wherein the point is more for her to linger in each sensation.
Her soul has been before him for nearly a year, yet with all his demonic power, Vergil was none the wiser to his own presence within it nor the power that provides, power that cannot be detected by a demon. Not in the sword. Perhaps in Mizu, though she suspects not for the complete lack of wariness her demonic opponent had for her in the arena. She has no proof but suspects they'd carry more respect for Vergil or any of his family. So few people have recognized her power that it is no matter, and Mizu hardly minds being underestimated. That no one can sense Vergil and his influence on her by looking at her sword is their loss and potential downfall.
Vergil speaks words that may begin as his but carry on into phrases she believes he borrows. They do not all make sense to her, but the final sentiment is simple and clear. There is no ledger or accounting between them. They do not act because they owe each other as much love as the other has given. They love, and they both act accordingly. Where they cannot communicate themselves, where they might not understand everything, it does not matter. The ease with which Mizu does not judge what Vergil offers or ever feels he comes up short, he feels the same of her.
Mizu sighs softly as he pays further attention to the lightly sore stretch of skin. It's already fading, it was, before this moment. Her head tilts to make it easier, and she holds tightly to him, tight enough to bruise in her own right. Bruises Mizu knows she won't see, faded back into the empty stretches of his skin. That hunger grows patiently in the back of her mind. It's soft attention, for all it bruises again, and Mizu treasures it. She waits, and it's some time before she pulls herself higher, her chest leaving the warm water. Mizu tugs his head farther down and taps the skin hard over bone in the middle of her chest. "That's where your pendant lay that day, and I would carry you with me there again."
It rested against her bindings, but fresh marks will lie closer to her.
Even as he continues to attend to the freshened mark, Vergil does not impede her movement in rising further out of the water. He only ceases his attention along the small stretch of sensitive skin when Mizu directs his head between her breasts. There's only a brief moment of hesitation, but only for the novelty of the location. He's left his marks along her neck and shoulders, dipping low to her collar bone. Her back has been peppered in the shapes of his fingertips, and her thighs teased until the heel pressing into his back signals she will no longer abide his nonsense. But this portion of her body? Vergil has a tendency to... Well, neglecting it would be an inaccurate description for it, but he certainly does not have the tendency to prioritize it when pleasuring her. Mizu is not exactly indifferent to it, but there are other parts of her body that seem to thrill her more when he provides them with attention.
But it's only a brief moment of hesitation before he begins to oblige her request. Vergil's hand falls from hers and he disentangles their legs as he licks away the rivulets and beads of water that linger upon the canvas of her skin. With his freed hand, Vergil swings her legs back over his lap while his hand at her side slips to the small of her back and scoops her into his lap. As is usual, Vergil lifts Mizu as though she weighed nothing at all, a sensation likely heightened even further by the more weightless motion through the water. Mizu does not need any sort of help in remaining seated higher above the water even with a tub as deep as the one she has here, but that was not the point. The air just above the water and the air throughout the bathroom are not exactly cold and absolutely not the sort that she often seeks out, but it is still cooler than the water itself, and especially where their bodies meet one another. It's enough to feel a difference, to draw more subtle attention to the sensation of his mouth and breath on her skin. Vergil grips at her thigh firmly while his hand at her back adds some support to the way she must slightly twist to provide him access.
It's a bit more work to leave a mark there than his favored locations for marks on her skin, but Vergil is nothing if not patient and persistent with the task. Just as he had when freshening the mark on her neck, he alternates between sucking hard at her skin and teasing it balancing accomplishing what she's asked with allowing her to enjoy the process from start to finish. By the time he finishes, the spot is redder than the rest of her skin that's been heated by the water. Vergil is certain it should darken and bruise like every other mark by then and allows his affections to her skin to wander then. He turns his head slightly aside so that he is able to trail kisses over the swell of her breast before drifting over her heart and ending with the round of her shoulder. Resting a cheek against her shoulder then, Vergil looks up at her the best he can.
"Wherever you will it, I will always mark my love upon you. As with all things of mine that I've willingly surrendered to you, it is yours to claim as you will."
With ever remarkable ease, Vergil adjusts their positions to do as she asks. She no longer needs to lift herself up, and Mizu relaxes in Vergil's hold, trusting him to have her. Her hand slides down around his shoulders and holds tight more from the urge to do so than any need to support herself. Her eyes close, and memory mixes with the moment. She still feels his pendant under her hand, and she remembers the weight of it on her chest. The feeling she could not let him down so long as she had it. A demand and a reality.
Given the location, the stretch of skin over bone, Mizu surprises herself with how much she enjoys receiving the mark, not only the thought and conclusion of it. Goosebumps spread across her shoulders, and Mizu nearly whines when he stops. The continued attention defeating the sound in her throat. She breathes a little harder and looks down, though his face doesn't come easily into focus. Instead it's a warmth against her shoulder, again warmer than the air around them. Surprising how she nearly shivers with how warm it is.
Mizu lets go of his pendant to run a finger over the tender skin he's left her. She traces the rough shape of the pendant and smiles. "I always want to carry you with me, so much even my sword is not always enough. I want more," Mizu says. Relaxed as she is, a little more slips out. "It feels odd when I have not a single mark from you on my skin."
Even with multiple marks from Vergil, Mizu feels that strong urge for more, some need she doesn't look too closely at. Yet the ghost lingers, the desire to carry him with her more than memories and the connection they have. Something more than her mind and, given her sword, her soul. He's before her, so it's a foolish thought, and Mizu sets it aside without more consideration.
It would be a difficult thing to resist smiling when she confesses to wanting so much, to wanting more. So, Vergil puts no effort into it, and allows himself to be simply pleased by Mizu's greediness. He doesn't need the confirmation from her that she desires the physical marks of his affection upon her. If Mizu did not like it, she simply wouldn't allow for it. Or if she was at least willing to entertain the act of creating them, but did not wish for the bruises to linger, she would use her healing factor to make it as though they never were. But he still likes to hear her say it.
"Your attempts have not been unwelcome," he says, the hand upon her thigh tracing along the outside of it to her knee before returning along the top of it until he very nearly meets her pelvis. It's a slow, soothing touch. Vergil knows it often frustrates Mizu to no end that his own healing factor prevents her from leaving such physical reminders of her affection, proof of their connection to one another. Would that Vergil could, he would slow his own healing for the sole purpose of allowing her marks to linger for longer. But his ability is not like hers. He cannot target specific injuries and leave the rest alone. His body naturally seeks to heal the most significant damage. He would not likely be in the position to allow for her marks if his body were to ignore them. But he does still enjoy the sensations just the same as her if nothing else. "But I am not without you simply because you have not been able to leave a visible mark. I have your scent and you occupy no small part of my mind when we are apart."
Whether in the heat of passion or with slow determined dedication, Vergil always responds to Mizu's attempts to mark him. It encourages her, when so often the bruises fade before she gets a proper look at them. Smooth unmarked skin beneath her fingers, her lips. Like she was never there. Mizu doesn't care about power or legacy or remembrance in history, but to leave a mark on someone that matters to her? Not a way to honor or greatness or the next high. Her, seen and understood and making a difference. It stunned her to learn Master Eiji considers he made his best sword when she was his apprentice. Even if no one else knows or understands, those swords are out in the world, a testament to that. With Vergil—
Mizu sighs, "Scent fades so quickly."
His better sense of smell extends the time he carries her, but it's a matter of days. New odors and scents overwhelm old ones. There's a reason she wears his clothes when he's gone. Well, more than one, but that is one of them. Especially when she visits Cruel Summer and comes away smelling so terribly of demon even she sees need of a bath, no matter how recently she's washed herself. Mizu doesn't understand why or how the fighting pits have such a steady stream of demons from Vergil's world, but she's gotten better at fighting them. Individually. She isn't yet prepared for crowds of them the way she can handle groups of men.
"What is my occupation of your mind like?" Mizu asks. The only place she may last and one that will change unavoidably one day. It cannot be helped.
He's not certain if it's frustration or disappointment that she speaks with when she notes that scent is not as long-lasting as she would like. Whichever it is—assuming that it is either of them—Vergil finds the presence of such an emotion difficult to ignore. Vergil's smile fades a little upon hearing it. He likes to think that he does well in navigating Mizu's emotions when they arise. Their similar temperaments allows him to have a better sense of what may alleviate the distress or discomfort she's experiencing from them. But this is not one that Vergil knows even in the vaguest sense could be helpful for her in soothing whatever it is she feels over the impermanence.
So, he continues tracing her skin and he answers her question.
"It varies, depending on the circumstances," he says, turning his head slightly to press a kiss to her shoulder. "For example, on mornings I wake uncertain if I will see you that day, I wish I was with you so we could waste hours of the morning in whatever manner we pleased. But the closest I can be is imagining the weight and warmth of you on the bed beside me."
Vergil pulls back from resting his head against her shoulder to look at her properly. It's plain that he is looking at her that same way before they got into the bath together, but Vergil also holds in his mind's eye the image of her that he describes.
"The gentle sound of your breath and that look of peace on your face when you're still sound asleep, neither of which I possess the heart to ever willingly disturb because if I did not know it was a gift you've unwittingly given to me countless times, I would think it mere fantasy for all the calm and peace I feel within myself." The hand at her back slips away in favor of intertwining fingers with one of her hands. "But if I know I am to see you, I've no need for such visions to act as comfort in staving off a lonely morning. I've all my thoughts of what is to come even if it is a great test of my patience to have to wait and fill my time with other things between waking and when I see you again because all I can think of is what I wish to do with you, to say to you, to share with you.
"Mizu, you are among my first and last thoughts each day. There are reminders of you for me littered throughout each day I am not at your side that I'm sure you would find foolish. But you bring me peace and happiness each time I think of you, and I think of you often."
Familiar as Mizu is with her own thoughts of Vergil when they are apart, thoughts that only fade when her focus is so intense nothing but her current actions fill her mind, Vergil's descriptions are not that great a surprise. Her bed feels cold and vast when she wakes up alone in it, and she rises immediately, instead of the many hours Vergil gets her to stay when he's there. Without him, it's simply a place to sleep and to take the necessary rest to get to the business of her day. Nothing special.
It is indeed a lonely morning. Those weeks at Amrita, whatever else they did, introduced her to them by spending every night together. That might have continued afterward, save that Dante stayed with Vergil. Then Nero arrived. Mizu will not tear him apart from his family nor ask him to choose between them. A fool's errand, even if she were so selfish of him and his happiness to consider trying to keep him all to herself. That would never work, and if it did, in the end, it would only leave him alone. Far better that Vergil has people, the life he came to Folkmore to seek, with or without her.
Mizu does not understand how he can think so well of her, how thoughts of her can bring him peace and happiness without the dark shadow of separation that waits for them. It is of her making without any need of the fox spirit's interference to heighten the drama into a tragedy.
"I am not that good," Mizu declares, "You wonderful idiot."
She pulls him in for a kiss, hard and demanding. Demanding what, Mizu isn't certain, only that she needs Vergil and something from him. No, perhaps it's to give something to him. She breaks it off with a grunt of frustration to kiss and bite her way down his jaw and to his neck. There, Mizu makes yet another attempt at leaving her mark on him. She sucks and bites and pulls on his skin. Over and over, she gives herself to the effort, but the mark doesn't stay. It never stays. She leans her face into his neck, eyes damp. That image he painted will disappear after she does. Mizu knows it.
Mizu kisses him harder than he would expect, leaving his kiss in return likely a little clumsier than she would prefer. There is passion in the kiss, but there is something else he feels in the intensity behind her kiss that Vergil cannot name, cannot identify. Except, he thinks, he has heard similar talk before. Not as heated, no, and certainly gentler, but...
Mizu breaks the kiss with a noise that sounds near to a growl, but Vergil does not stop her. He does not, however, sink into the feeling of her mouth against his skin. There is too much disconnect between the act and himself, between Mizu and him for him to feel even the harshest press of her teeth as happening to his own skin. For all that Mizu has been confused regarding his thoughts of and feelings for her, never has she had such force behind her refutation of it. Not even when he called her beautiful had there been such an energy behind it.
He finds it... he finds it so difficult to understand. Months ago, he had taken her on the floor of her living room, and in that fit of passion sprung forth a greater intimacy than either of them had ever really known. Vergil let the words slip from him as quietly as he could for fear of a reaction like this one. But he received its opposite then.
She buries her face in his neck and Vergil wraps his arms firmly around her. He doesn't believe it will make a difference to how she's feeling, but Vergil doesn't know what else to do, how to possibly soothe what she's feeling. He considers it briefly, but declaring his feelings firmly and true would likely only produce a worse result. Mizu knows how he feels, and to some extent, that appears to be the problem. Asking her to explain it to him doesn't even cross his mind as a possibility. Teasing her even gently or at his own expense just seems cruel. So, he is left without any words. Not his own. Not borrowed. Useless as it feels to him, a warm embrace and silent patience is all he can offer.
The warm water fails to ground Mizu. Her emotions roil inside her, turbulent and unrelenting. Guilt and pain and sadness well up overwhelming. Mizu holds onto Vergil tightly and doesn't let go. She doesn't want to let go of him, not now, not in the future, not when she leaves. Yet she must. She will. That's always been how they will end. She knows it. He knows it. Damn well, the fox spirit knows it. He holds her tight, and Mizu holds onto him.
She feels his heartbeat against her, and Mizu focuses on the steady beat. It slowly calms her until her breathing feels less ragged. Until she feels more like herself. More at ease. As foolish as it is, it's him. It's Vergil grounding her as he's grounded her so many times before. The thought Vergil will come to hate her or despise her or wish he hadn't known her, once she is gone, continues to come to mind. It may be true, and there's nothing she can do about that. She's been clear about her goals, about her plans, from the very beginning.
Mizu continues to lean against him, and unlike when they spar or make love, she feels small. "I'm sorry," Mizu says softly, "That wasn't your fault."
Vergil deserves better. The least Mizu can do is treat him right while she's here. His feelings and thoughts toward her are wonderful, better than she deserves, but his and his to have. Mizu will not pretend either of them are perfect. Vergil's done terrible things, but he's never done them to her. He's never treated her anything less than well.
"Did you ever plan to stay," Mizu asks, "in Fortuna?"
Vergil doesn't need nor want an apology from Mizu, but he does not dismiss it all the same. He recognizes that it's part of Mizu's reassurance. While he feels strongly that he shouldn't need nor want that either, he does. Vergil is soothed when she says the reaction is not his fault, the implicit message being that he's done nothing wrong. It's easier to believe her now than it was over the noodles. Or, well, it's easier to accept in the moment than it was that night. Vergil isn't certain if it's because of that experience, or if he's just simply grown a little more confident that his overtures of love and affection are not wrong. No matter how uncomfortable such vulnerability may make either one of them, Vergil is certain that his feelings are not wrong. He just may perhaps misstep from time to time in how he expresses them, and that can be wrong albeit not intentionally so.
At her question, Vergil's gaze darts away to elsewhere in the bathroom. He has no desire to lie to Mizu—never has and never will—but the answer comes coupled with shame and guilt. It's not something that he allows himself to dwell upon, but that is the only way he finds peace from it given that the unintended consequences from his choice irrevocably shaped the rest of his son's life. Never mind the lingering question of whether or not Beatrice's life was cut short as a consequence of his absence. There is nothing that can ever truly make the guilt and shame with that leave him entirely with both of those things weighing upon him.
"No," he admits with his next breath. "I was merely there to gather what information I could about my father."
Her apology only came for Vergil's benefit, so he'd know not to blame himself. Mizu's sorry to hurt him, even in those moments, when he might blame himself. It isn't his fault, not tonight and not when she leaves. It's the least she can do to make sure he knows that. Mizu didn't apologize to Ringo because she wasn't in the wrong. The people she's wronged, what few of them she identifies, are dead, and the dead do not need, nor likely want, her apologies. She did what she did. She must live by her choices. It's not entirely unlike leaving swordfather, except Mizu knows Vergil will not ask her to stay.
She watches Vergil's reaction to her question, the pain he feels clear cut. A decision he would change, given what he knows now, given who he is now. He didn't know what would happen as a consequence of his decision. Vergil left Nero's mother behind after what, Mizu's reasonably sure, they both knew was a relationship that would not last. Everything Vergil's told her says the woman was smart. She knew what she was doing, and she made her choices too. Vergil made the choice in line with his goals, in line with what the two of them knew their relationship to be.
Vergil regrets it. Mizu feels worse in that moment, as she traces the smooth skin of his neck, already no mark marring it. He regrets it, however, because of Nero primarily, what happened to him. Perhaps to a lesser extent, whatever happened to the woman he loved. Those aren't concerns Mizu has to contend with. She cannot leave him pregnant, and Vergil is powerful enough to live and to survive on his own without her. He even has Dante and Nero watching his back, should some threat truly emerge. It's not the same situation, no matter that Mizu is merely here to gather what information she can about her fathers.
Mizu cups Vergil's face and kisses his forehead. That he made a fair decision in that moment matters little to him, and Mizu cannot wipe those pained feelings away from him. "You don't know what would have happened if you stayed. Only what happened when you left."
They aren't meant to be absolution. Only the truth. "You were hunted, were you not? You could have drawn that attention to them."
Because the truth, so often, is terrible. Mizu understands only having bad decisions to make, one or the other. She sighs. What happened to Vergil and Dante didn't happen to Nero. That's something.
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Less expected is the attention that follows. The concept isn't new to Mizu, but she's never received it before Vergil. A quiet reminder of how different he is from Mikio. The thought doesn't cause a flicker in her emotions or relaxation. It's natural to compare the two, and as ever, Vergil comes out the better man and the more attentive partner. She sighs a little, even as he warms up her feet. They've born her weight most of the day, it being a day of little reading, and she feels where it's taken a toll. Mizu hums slightly at Vergil's direction. She accepts it but neither plans to speak nor to hold her silence. She lets it proceed.
"Oh," Mizu groans at a particularly sore spot. There's pain, but behind that pain comes relief. The release of tension that means it will feel better once it's been dealt with. "Deeper."
Each time the pressure eases, Mizu sighs a little easier. It's incredible what pain she simply takes for granted until it's gone, relieved. You don't have to, Mizu almost says, except she knows he knows that. Vergil does it anyway. Happily. She lets him, and Mizu relaxes with it more than she ever would were she to massage her own foot on her own. Then, she'd remain alert to anyone approaching her cabin, who might interrupt while she's naked and exposed. She has to, always, on her own. Vergil's senses are stronger than her own, and he will not let someone get close. That's more relaxing than the bath: to let her guard down.
"Would you get any benefit," Mizu asks, "if I were to give you a massage?"
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"I think that would depend on whether or not you had any skill with it," he teases lightly. Despite his healing factor, Vergil is not actually any more immune to muscle tension than Mizu happens to be.
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However, Mizu is comfortable and comfortable enough not to step immediately toward a foolish challenge. Oh, she's not letting the idea go, but Mizu can be a little smarter about it. "I'll pay attention next time you massage my feet when we're not in the bath," she says, "Then I can copy what you do. As we've both seen, you have skill enough with it."
She's used to studying people's hands, their feet, their movements. Mizu wants some time to practice on her own feet before immediately trying it on Vergil's, but it shouldn't be hard. It cannot be harder than learning how to use a sword. "You'll just have to trust me."
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Vergil reaches for her again, but this time draws her in closer to him. He doesn't pull her into his lap entirely, but he pulls her near enough that she can lean back against his chest. With her legs slipping from his lap, Vergil's entangles their legs together loosely just as he so often does when they lay in bed and idle away a portion of the morning together. He traces along one of her arms with his fingertips before more firmly wrapping his arms around her.
Quietly, he says, "I already trust you."
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This massage has worked, however, and Mizu doesn't argue her point further. It's set aside but not forgotten as she sighs. Mizu leans against Vergil and runs a hand over his thigh where it touches. It's the heart sutra in slow steady strokes over the same area of skin. If she were to write it properly, she'd use far more of him as a canvas, but they're in the water, relaxed, and there is no inkwell and brush.
Mizu leans her head farther back. Mizu cannot see Vergil in any great angle, but the words catch her by surprise. She spoke in quick heat, of her ability to learn, not of herself more broadly. Yet the two feel intertwined. He trusts she could learn how to give massages, and he trusts... her. "You're safe with me," Mizu says, "You're safe here."
He can sense any threat before she does, but Mizu doesn't mean merely physically safe, something Vergil rarely has need to fear here. She strives that they both feel safe in her home. They're safe to relax in the bath together. They're safe reading books in the mornings. Vergil can reveal anything here and be safe. Here, with her, in this space she's created. Sometimes she holds him in her arms, and she feels expansively large and protective. She has him, and she'll always do right by that. Has in the months since she found words for her desire and the way it matched his.
"Is there anything you want?"
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Mizu leans her head back and promises him that he is safe, and Vergil understands her meaning without the need for clarification. More and more, Vergil has learned to let his guard down. He's imperfect at it, and well-aware of that fact, but he's found himself more often than not trying with those he cares for regardless. For all that it often leaves him feeling vulnerable in ways that make his skin crawl, and he often must endure awkward pauses and silences as others process what he's elected to share, it has typically been a worthwhile risk. But that willingness to take a chance began here with Mizu, and it is precisely because Vergil has nearly always felt some degree of safety with her.
It's why he gives her question serious thought rather than merely brushing it aside as he would with most others. A question that he feels is asked more and more by those around him that care for him in return, and one that he never really possesses a clear answer for no matter how many times or in what different circumstances and ways it's asked. Still, he considers it as best he can before answering.
"Not right now," he says, leaning down and pressing a chaste kiss to the fading mark along the slope of her neck. "I have all that I could possibly want."
And that is the honest truth.
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He has all he could possibly want. That's true of the moment, but Mizu thinks it's also true for Vergil in Folkmore. He has his family. He has Mizu. All that he could want is to keep it. His family seems likely to stay, at the very least not to leave by their choice. Mizu set aside learning more on the train, both in the trial with Vergil and in the next with Rin, his pendant around her neck as a comfortable presence. If she truly could have learned something of value, it might have cut down the time she needs to stay by months. Yet it is less the months Mizu's given Vergil than the peace of mind, when she leaves, as much as she can give it. Mizu will not die here, so she can take the time to hurt him as little as possible when the time comes. Let him imagine some life where she steals Kai back from Mikio's lord and makes swords near a small village on the coast of Japan. Mizu has no idea what will happen once she achieves her revenge, but it's pleasant to imagine. She wants that for him, even when she cannot hold onto it herself. She wants for him—
She messes up a kanji and startles herself a little. Ink once set down cannot be fixed, strokes taken are what they are. Mistakes are mistakes. Mizu sets hers aside and traces the brushstrokes again, properly this time. Her handwriting isn't much. She's forged more knives than written letters. She's written more in the last year, notes on England, than she ever has back in Japan. None of it focused on beauty like scholars might care about. Writing on Vergil, even with her fingers, comes with greater care than any of her notes. That it might look good if it were done with ink.
"Have you ever submerged yourself in the ocean?" Mizu asks, "It's a different sort of peace than the comfort of this hot soak."
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"I haven't," he says while trying to remember when last in his own world, he was near enough to an ocean where he would have possessed the opportunity. It would not have been any sooner than before Nero was born by his estimation, when he chose to stay on Fortuna's island for longer than initially planned. After that, he either was without a will of his own or not his whole self each time he'd been near the water. Vergil brushes aside the thought, such things being inappropriate for where he is presently. He contents himself instead with idly tracing the gentle, subtle curve of Mizu's side as he remembers she once compared him to the ocean. He hadn't understood what she meant at the time considering all the ways the ocean could be perceived, some of which appear to be direct contradictions to one another. "I'm not surprised to find you enjoy it though. I've only known you to occasionally struggle with retaining your focus in Cruel Summer."
Not to say that she allows for it to leave her for long. Even without her favored element, Mizu does not lose sight of a battle, be it a friendly spar or otherwise. But there are significantly fewer options afforded to her there when it comes to seeking out that cool sensation.
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Her fingers continue, tracing over the same small stretch of skin, so the flow from character to character is correct. It's different to write on a thigh than the curve of an arm. She knows that, yet better to practice here than to pull herself away from him. Vergil traces her skin as well, and Mizu wonders what her skin would look like with his poetry spreading across it. The lettering is hard to imagine, even though he's shared passages. Horizontal where she expects it to be vertical. The shapes unfamiliar and foreign. Yet she understands even better now why someone would want to experience it, though Mizu cannot imagine it having the same meaning with a stranger.
She remembers her fight against a demon in Cruel Summer, one Vergil watched. It's true that grounding herself was harder, something that truly could have cost her. Now she knows Vergil watched, she knows it wouldn't cost her her life (he wouldn't allow that), but as temperate as England promises to be, Mizu despises that weakness. She hasn't found a way to fully overcome it.
"I grew up outside of Kohama, a fishing village only worth noting on any map because of swordfather," Mizu shares. "Busy as I was helping swordfather, and I always went to bed exhausted, there was still time to go down to an isolated part of the shore, away from the village, strip my outer layers, and enter the waves. They pound against you as you stay above them, threatening to pull you down, but once you go underneath them, you become a part of them."
Mizu pauses because the words are hard to find. It's a feeling she's known so much of her life and never once put into words. They ebb away from her, and Mizu knows they will fall short, whatever she says. Vergil might turn to poetry, to the shape of someone else's words who has said what he feels better than he can (she's fairly sure that's part of what it is), but Mizu lacks those too. "I'm small, but I'm large. I float, but I'm grounded. It does not compare to anything else."
Her free hand makes a small motion to indicate that's only part of it. There's more she hasn't said, more she cannot say. She says what she can. With a smile, Mizu remembers again the foolish statement she told Vergil, the one he said was poetry. "Except you."
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"Except me," he echoes in return. "You've said something similar once before. Although with fewer details that time."
And more importantly, he's experienced Mizu grounding herself through him much in the way she describes the waves of the ocean and the purpose they serve for her. So, even as her words may fail her, there is still some implicit understanding for what is left unsaid. Vergil isn't certain what exactly it is about him specifically that inspires that feeling in Mizu, but he's glad for it all the same. Because while only simplistic on its surface, Vergil does wish to return that sense of safety and intimacy that he feels with her. She deserves that much. He would actually argue she deserves more, but that much will still do for now at least. There's a brief pause before Vergil makes the decision to not just ponder upon it, but actually give voice to that desire.
"I know that between us, it is not of a transactional nature, but I am pleased nonetheless to know I am able to provide for you something that you seek out in return. It...has not been often in my life that I've wanted to reciprocate anything to anyone. Not anything good, in any case." He's typically avoided it, in fact. Taking what he needs and running before anything could be expected or he could find himself attached enough that he would protect the other's peace. "But I wish for you to feel as protected as I do with you."
Even if it is only to last so long as their time here does and not a moment longer as is the most realistic outcome and expectation, Vergil sees it as far better than nothing for the both of them. At least they shall both have this.
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The ocean will be there when she leaves and cold water when she leaves its shores, but Mizu wishes there were a way to bring some sense of Vergil with her. A pointless wish undoubtedly. She doubts they can bring any item of substance with them when they leave, that they must return as they left. It is why she plans to leave her sword to him, that it might not disappear entirely with her departure. No pendant, no glove, no bit of fabric of his will return with her. Only her memories of him, and that, Mizu suspects, will not be enough to ground her when she needs it. Not the way being with him does. Unfortunate, but nothing more could be expected.
Transactional describes most of Mizu's relations in her life. Even her most recent companions. Ringo wanted to be useful in return for Mizu teaching him. Taigen defended her so that they might have their duel. Akemi wanted Mizu to prevent her return to her father. Before that, her mother wanted to be taken care of and to have money for her drugs. Her marriage with Mikio was entirely based on the labor she would provide. Only swordfather. Now Vergil. For all she's taken, all she used Ringo and Taigen, Mizu and Vergil have long surpassed their terms as sparring partners. There is no ledger, no keeping track of how they have each helped each other. No value assigned and compared between what they do. Mizu receives so much from Vergil, and she wishes to provide for him some measure of such safety. Each moment he relaxes with her, trusts her, and lets her protect him, Mizu only wants to protect him more and to make that safety for him.
"I know because I feel the same," Mizu says. "I've long relaxed when you are here, knowing you'll sense anyone coming before I do. When I lack the cold, water, the ocean, even when I have those, I ground myself with you." Mizu pauses and grimaces a little. "I would have been hard pressed to keep my promise to you, not to search for clues to my fathers on the train, had you not come with me in the form of your pendant. No sooner did we part ways than I was in another world, one I then shared with Rin instead of you, when I was faced with the opportunity to force information from my father's business partner."
Mizu pauses and corrects herself.
"His business partner in that world, a man from Rin's history. He was in my grasp, and I could have—" she reaches up and rests her hand over Vergil's pendant or where it would lay, "I killed him and cut down that chance. You return me to myself, that I can choose and do what I decide. That may be the greatest form of protection, not to lose myself but to decide my own fate and make my way. In a fight. In my revenge. In my heart."
Mizu cannot explain why it has come to be that Vergil has near the same effect for her as the ocean and its shadows. It has saved her life more times than she can count. It matters. Perhaps more than the physical safety he provides with his mere presence.
"You are with me nearly every moment," Mizu admits, "when I forged the new steel for my blade, I made it from the brittle blade I first made, and I made it with the glove I stabbed the first time we sparred, and I made it with the jacket I destroyed with a grenade. You are in my sword."
Her cheeks and ears have flushed with color, but Mizu meets Vergil's gaze. Her fingers still against his leg, and she watches him and his reaction. It's been nearly a year, only a couple months shy, since she made her sword. He's been with her long before the first time they kissed. Mizu lacked the words or understanding then, but she knew it was the right choice at the time. It was needed. It would be impossible for Mizu not to feel protected when each swing of her sword carries it.
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Vergil remembers their first spar still so clearly. Reflecting upon it, he can now see the first sparks of attraction beginning to fly between them that escaped his attention back then. Vergil was too distracted at the time with the fight itself. But more importantly, that fight was the one and only time that Vergil has ever yielded. The decision to concede the fight, however, had not been because he was on the verge of defeat. There's a fire that burns within Mizu, brought to the surface each time she wields a blade. It caught Vergil's attention from the beginning of that sparring match as it does even now, occasionally stirring other appetites within him at her displays of strength and skill. But that day, it had begun a wild, uncontrolled blaze, and Vergil realized quickly how such a beautiful, powerful thing within Mizu threatened to consume the swordsman before him. Even with as little personal investment as Vergil had in Mizu back then, when they barely knew each other, he knew he wanted to see that flame tempered. Leaving it as it was would only mean Mizu's eventual death upon returning home.
Back then, it was limits that Vergil set that forced Mizu to temper herself. Mizu chafed at every single one, of course, not hesitating to let her complaints or frustrations be known. It was no secret to Vergil that her compliance stemmed from a mild anxiety that Vergil would refuse her moving forward if she did not adhere to his additional rules. But still, she already felt it such a concession to accept dueling to the death was not allowed that she found his refusal if she was significantly injured still to be an unnecessary stipulation. She was little more than a petulant child huffing and puffing over his unwillingness to part from her until he knew for certain that she tended enough to her wounds that Vergil felt comfortable with leaving Mizu on her own.
But Mizu kept his ruined glove, stained with his blood and useless as an article of clothing. And she followed the rules, and sought out the next sparring match as soon as she could. She spent Lore to give herself an accelerated healing factor so that she could face Vergil again sooner, and she returned to where he'd discarded his ruined coat to collect it. And she ultimately used him to bring balance into her blade, reflective of a balance Vergil has wanted for her before his feelings had grown to be what they are and what he hoped their sparring matches could teach her if nothing else was to be learned or gained from them.
When Vergil meets Mizu's gaze, there's a softness in his eyes as he's unable to contain the swell of emotion to just himself. He knows the weight and meaning of that choice, to include pieces of him in the process of reforging her blade into something stronger, that can serve its purpose better. And the fact that she made that decision before... There is so little good that Vergil can claim to have a hand in. His choices have typically wrought destruction and ruin as unintended consequences, but ones Vergil has done little if anything at all to prevent them all the same. He cannot begin to put into words—borrowed or his own—just how immense the feeling that follows her admission. Mizu is not the only one with a bit more color in her face or tips of her ears than there was a moment ago.
Instead of trying (and likely failing) to put it into any words, Vergil leans forward to kiss Mizu instead. It does not lack in passion, but it is not a heated, rushed expression of it. Rather, much like how they settled into this hot bath, it allows for the comfortable weight of their feelings for one another to blanket over them slowly in this space they've made and protect together. Vergil's hand at her side remains, keeping an arm around her, as his other hand covers Mizu's over his half of the amulet.
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Vergil was always worthy of her true blade. Her concern was herself and the blade she'd make. Their conversation about it helped, as well the way they met blades. Vergil's rules bristled, but they never came from disrespecting her as an opponent. No matter that the more she's learned and seen and even experienced in memory, Mizu knows he holds himself back and could press her even harder. Yet he enjoys it and finds it worthwhile. He looked after her when he did not need to. He made himself safe, that Mizu could push so hard she fell unconscious and trust him to mind the boundaries of her clothes and body. Vergil wants her to feel as safe with him, as he does her? It is a rare instance that Mizu allows herself to fight so hard as to lose consciousness without it being to the death. He's had trust from the beginning built somehow over past wrongs and common ground.
Her shortcomings, her flaws, her body's frailties, all of it was accepted. Swordfather's always insisted that an impurity in the right place is a quality, but those words never penetrated so deeply as for Mizu to see it in herself. Still, she struggled with that. She struggles to this day. Her inclination to make a sword too brittle, not too soft. To be too hard, inflexible. Mizu's hardly reached some remarkable best form of herself she could ever be, only a better swordsman than she has been. That was her goal from the start with sparring Vergil. Mizu simply didn't understand all the ways he'd see her to that goal. No that she's done. She's better, yes, but she can be better yet. Like she's a living blade not yet forged and completed.
The sword is the soul of a samurai. Mizu is no samurai, but her sword is her soul, the most intimate part of herself. Vergil is a part of it, a simple statement of fact yet one that says more than words can ever say. Words that fail Vergil as well. He leans in, and Mizu releases some of the tension that built waiting. Her fingers tighten around the pendant and press into the skin beneath them. Mizu kisses Vergil back, words not fully capturing her feelings as well, and awareness of the room around them, the cabin, and the snow beyond fade away, such that someone could climb the stairs with Mizu none the wiser. Yet none the more in danger because she leaves that to Vergil.
She hadn't realized how much she wanted Vergil to know about her sword without a sense of how to tell him or when or even perhaps why she did not wish to give him her sword when he gave her his pendant. It would give him part of her, yes, but it would rob her of him too. It was not the time to explain, not in depth, and her words felt so short a measure of comfort compared to his. Not a competition, not a price to be paid, and not as necessary perhaps when she was the one more tempted by the trial. So she takes Vergil as hers and part of her and gives herself in return in the kiss. It is not so different a position than all the times he's carried her after sparring, the difference in knowing. Vergil knows better the depth of Mizu's feelings, the arc of those feelings, and Mizu safe as ever and accepted.
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"I loved and guessed at you. You construed me, and loved me for what might or might not be," he recites quietly, only borrowing a few lines from the otherwise brief poem. "Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong. For verily love knows not 'mine' or 'thine.'"
The words still feel as though they fall short of fully reflecting all that he feels, but they are close as he is liable to find in his own or another's in being able to speak of it. A love so accepting and so deep that it becomes one, and in turn, by sharing it, they are one as well. To that end, it does not matter what is to become of them or how inevitable it is that they shall leave this place one day and without the other. It is as they promised to each other, that they shall always belong to the other. There is no amount of time or distance that will unmake any of this. Not even heartache nor grief can replace it.
Vergil dips his head to the faded mark, placing a few light kisses before taking the skin into his mouth. He takes his time in darkening it again, alternating between his efforts in bruising the skin and teasing it with the light graze of his teeth or brushing over it with his lips. It's a different tempo than when he had left the mark the first time, more akin to the massage he'd given her than a ravenous hunger wherein the point is more for her to linger in each sensation.
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Vergil speaks words that may begin as his but carry on into phrases she believes he borrows. They do not all make sense to her, but the final sentiment is simple and clear. There is no ledger or accounting between them. They do not act because they owe each other as much love as the other has given. They love, and they both act accordingly. Where they cannot communicate themselves, where they might not understand everything, it does not matter. The ease with which Mizu does not judge what Vergil offers or ever feels he comes up short, he feels the same of her.
Mizu sighs softly as he pays further attention to the lightly sore stretch of skin. It's already fading, it was, before this moment. Her head tilts to make it easier, and she holds tightly to him, tight enough to bruise in her own right. Bruises Mizu knows she won't see, faded back into the empty stretches of his skin. That hunger grows patiently in the back of her mind. It's soft attention, for all it bruises again, and Mizu treasures it. She waits, and it's some time before she pulls herself higher, her chest leaving the warm water. Mizu tugs his head farther down and taps the skin hard over bone in the middle of her chest. "That's where your pendant lay that day, and I would carry you with me there again."
It rested against her bindings, but fresh marks will lie closer to her.
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But it's only a brief moment of hesitation before he begins to oblige her request. Vergil's hand falls from hers and he disentangles their legs as he licks away the rivulets and beads of water that linger upon the canvas of her skin. With his freed hand, Vergil swings her legs back over his lap while his hand at her side slips to the small of her back and scoops her into his lap. As is usual, Vergil lifts Mizu as though she weighed nothing at all, a sensation likely heightened even further by the more weightless motion through the water. Mizu does not need any sort of help in remaining seated higher above the water even with a tub as deep as the one she has here, but that was not the point. The air just above the water and the air throughout the bathroom are not exactly cold and absolutely not the sort that she often seeks out, but it is still cooler than the water itself, and especially where their bodies meet one another. It's enough to feel a difference, to draw more subtle attention to the sensation of his mouth and breath on her skin. Vergil grips at her thigh firmly while his hand at her back adds some support to the way she must slightly twist to provide him access.
It's a bit more work to leave a mark there than his favored locations for marks on her skin, but Vergil is nothing if not patient and persistent with the task. Just as he had when freshening the mark on her neck, he alternates between sucking hard at her skin and teasing it balancing accomplishing what she's asked with allowing her to enjoy the process from start to finish. By the time he finishes, the spot is redder than the rest of her skin that's been heated by the water. Vergil is certain it should darken and bruise like every other mark by then and allows his affections to her skin to wander then. He turns his head slightly aside so that he is able to trail kisses over the swell of her breast before drifting over her heart and ending with the round of her shoulder. Resting a cheek against her shoulder then, Vergil looks up at her the best he can.
"Wherever you will it, I will always mark my love upon you. As with all things of mine that I've willingly surrendered to you, it is yours to claim as you will."
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Given the location, the stretch of skin over bone, Mizu surprises herself with how much she enjoys receiving the mark, not only the thought and conclusion of it. Goosebumps spread across her shoulders, and Mizu nearly whines when he stops. The continued attention defeating the sound in her throat. She breathes a little harder and looks down, though his face doesn't come easily into focus. Instead it's a warmth against her shoulder, again warmer than the air around them. Surprising how she nearly shivers with how warm it is.
Mizu lets go of his pendant to run a finger over the tender skin he's left her. She traces the rough shape of the pendant and smiles. "I always want to carry you with me, so much even my sword is not always enough. I want more," Mizu says. Relaxed as she is, a little more slips out. "It feels odd when I have not a single mark from you on my skin."
Even with multiple marks from Vergil, Mizu feels that strong urge for more, some need she doesn't look too closely at. Yet the ghost lingers, the desire to carry him with her more than memories and the connection they have. Something more than her mind and, given her sword, her soul. He's before her, so it's a foolish thought, and Mizu sets it aside without more consideration.
"If only I could do the same."
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"Your attempts have not been unwelcome," he says, the hand upon her thigh tracing along the outside of it to her knee before returning along the top of it until he very nearly meets her pelvis. It's a slow, soothing touch. Vergil knows it often frustrates Mizu to no end that his own healing factor prevents her from leaving such physical reminders of her affection, proof of their connection to one another. Would that Vergil could, he would slow his own healing for the sole purpose of allowing her marks to linger for longer. But his ability is not like hers. He cannot target specific injuries and leave the rest alone. His body naturally seeks to heal the most significant damage. He would not likely be in the position to allow for her marks if his body were to ignore them. But he does still enjoy the sensations just the same as her if nothing else. "But I am not without you simply because you have not been able to leave a visible mark. I have your scent and you occupy no small part of my mind when we are apart."
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Mizu sighs, "Scent fades so quickly."
His better sense of smell extends the time he carries her, but it's a matter of days. New odors and scents overwhelm old ones. There's a reason she wears his clothes when he's gone. Well, more than one, but that is one of them. Especially when she visits Cruel Summer and comes away smelling so terribly of demon even she sees need of a bath, no matter how recently she's washed herself. Mizu doesn't understand why or how the fighting pits have such a steady stream of demons from Vergil's world, but she's gotten better at fighting them. Individually. She isn't yet prepared for crowds of them the way she can handle groups of men.
"What is my occupation of your mind like?" Mizu asks. The only place she may last and one that will change unavoidably one day. It cannot be helped.
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So, he continues tracing her skin and he answers her question.
"It varies, depending on the circumstances," he says, turning his head slightly to press a kiss to her shoulder. "For example, on mornings I wake uncertain if I will see you that day, I wish I was with you so we could waste hours of the morning in whatever manner we pleased. But the closest I can be is imagining the weight and warmth of you on the bed beside me."
Vergil pulls back from resting his head against her shoulder to look at her properly. It's plain that he is looking at her that same way before they got into the bath together, but Vergil also holds in his mind's eye the image of her that he describes.
"The gentle sound of your breath and that look of peace on your face when you're still sound asleep, neither of which I possess the heart to ever willingly disturb because if I did not know it was a gift you've unwittingly given to me countless times, I would think it mere fantasy for all the calm and peace I feel within myself." The hand at her back slips away in favor of intertwining fingers with one of her hands. "But if I know I am to see you, I've no need for such visions to act as comfort in staving off a lonely morning. I've all my thoughts of what is to come even if it is a great test of my patience to have to wait and fill my time with other things between waking and when I see you again because all I can think of is what I wish to do with you, to say to you, to share with you.
"Mizu, you are among my first and last thoughts each day. There are reminders of you for me littered throughout each day I am not at your side that I'm sure you would find foolish. But you bring me peace and happiness each time I think of you, and I think of you often."
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It is indeed a lonely morning. Those weeks at Amrita, whatever else they did, introduced her to them by spending every night together. That might have continued afterward, save that Dante stayed with Vergil. Then Nero arrived. Mizu will not tear him apart from his family nor ask him to choose between them. A fool's errand, even if she were so selfish of him and his happiness to consider trying to keep him all to herself. That would never work, and if it did, in the end, it would only leave him alone. Far better that Vergil has people, the life he came to Folkmore to seek, with or without her.
Mizu does not understand how he can think so well of her, how thoughts of her can bring him peace and happiness without the dark shadow of separation that waits for them. It is of her making without any need of the fox spirit's interference to heighten the drama into a tragedy.
"I am not that good," Mizu declares, "You wonderful idiot."
She pulls him in for a kiss, hard and demanding. Demanding what, Mizu isn't certain, only that she needs Vergil and something from him. No, perhaps it's to give something to him. She breaks it off with a grunt of frustration to kiss and bite her way down his jaw and to his neck. There, Mizu makes yet another attempt at leaving her mark on him. She sucks and bites and pulls on his skin. Over and over, she gives herself to the effort, but the mark doesn't stay. It never stays. She leans her face into his neck, eyes damp. That image he painted will disappear after she does. Mizu knows it.
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Mizu breaks the kiss with a noise that sounds near to a growl, but Vergil does not stop her. He does not, however, sink into the feeling of her mouth against his skin. There is too much disconnect between the act and himself, between Mizu and him for him to feel even the harshest press of her teeth as happening to his own skin. For all that Mizu has been confused regarding his thoughts of and feelings for her, never has she had such force behind her refutation of it. Not even when he called her beautiful had there been such an energy behind it.
He finds it... he finds it so difficult to understand. Months ago, he had taken her on the floor of her living room, and in that fit of passion sprung forth a greater intimacy than either of them had ever really known. Vergil let the words slip from him as quietly as he could for fear of a reaction like this one. But he received its opposite then.
She buries her face in his neck and Vergil wraps his arms firmly around her. He doesn't believe it will make a difference to how she's feeling, but Vergil doesn't know what else to do, how to possibly soothe what she's feeling. He considers it briefly, but declaring his feelings firmly and true would likely only produce a worse result. Mizu knows how he feels, and to some extent, that appears to be the problem. Asking her to explain it to him doesn't even cross his mind as a possibility. Teasing her even gently or at his own expense just seems cruel. So, he is left without any words. Not his own. Not borrowed. Useless as it feels to him, a warm embrace and silent patience is all he can offer.
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She feels his heartbeat against her, and Mizu focuses on the steady beat. It slowly calms her until her breathing feels less ragged. Until she feels more like herself. More at ease. As foolish as it is, it's him. It's Vergil grounding her as he's grounded her so many times before. The thought Vergil will come to hate her or despise her or wish he hadn't known her, once she is gone, continues to come to mind. It may be true, and there's nothing she can do about that. She's been clear about her goals, about her plans, from the very beginning.
Mizu continues to lean against him, and unlike when they spar or make love, she feels small. "I'm sorry," Mizu says softly, "That wasn't your fault."
Vergil deserves better. The least Mizu can do is treat him right while she's here. His feelings and thoughts toward her are wonderful, better than she deserves, but his and his to have. Mizu will not pretend either of them are perfect. Vergil's done terrible things, but he's never done them to her. He's never treated her anything less than well.
"Did you ever plan to stay," Mizu asks, "in Fortuna?"
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At her question, Vergil's gaze darts away to elsewhere in the bathroom. He has no desire to lie to Mizu—never has and never will—but the answer comes coupled with shame and guilt. It's not something that he allows himself to dwell upon, but that is the only way he finds peace from it given that the unintended consequences from his choice irrevocably shaped the rest of his son's life. Never mind the lingering question of whether or not Beatrice's life was cut short as a consequence of his absence. There is nothing that can ever truly make the guilt and shame with that leave him entirely with both of those things weighing upon him.
"No," he admits with his next breath. "I was merely there to gather what information I could about my father."
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She watches Vergil's reaction to her question, the pain he feels clear cut. A decision he would change, given what he knows now, given who he is now. He didn't know what would happen as a consequence of his decision. Vergil left Nero's mother behind after what, Mizu's reasonably sure, they both knew was a relationship that would not last. Everything Vergil's told her says the woman was smart. She knew what she was doing, and she made her choices too. Vergil made the choice in line with his goals, in line with what the two of them knew their relationship to be.
Vergil regrets it. Mizu feels worse in that moment, as she traces the smooth skin of his neck, already no mark marring it. He regrets it, however, because of Nero primarily, what happened to him. Perhaps to a lesser extent, whatever happened to the woman he loved. Those aren't concerns Mizu has to contend with. She cannot leave him pregnant, and Vergil is powerful enough to live and to survive on his own without her. He even has Dante and Nero watching his back, should some threat truly emerge. It's not the same situation, no matter that Mizu is merely here to gather what information she can about her fathers.
Mizu cups Vergil's face and kisses his forehead. That he made a fair decision in that moment matters little to him, and Mizu cannot wipe those pained feelings away from him. "You don't know what would have happened if you stayed. Only what happened when you left."
They aren't meant to be absolution. Only the truth. "You were hunted, were you not? You could have drawn that attention to them."
Because the truth, so often, is terrible. Mizu understands only having bad decisions to make, one or the other. She sighs. What happened to Vergil and Dante didn't happen to Nero. That's something.
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nsfw warning
Re: nsfw warning
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