Despite the look Mizu levels at Vergil for the indignity of being carried, he remains undeterred. In fact, Vergil outright ignores the look and says nothing to most of Mizu's mutterings. The coat is ruined. So, there's no reason to take the time to collect it. Perhaps someone else—be it a Star Child or one of the native spirits—will find it and make some use out of it. Regardless, it's beyond Vergil's skills to salvage it and it serves little use for him now. And as for Mizu's judgment on what's necessary for his recovery? Vergil would deem it poor at best. So, there's no reason to entertain a debate about it. Especially when Vergil is already carrying him. What good is it to argue about something that is already happening? It's a waste of words and breath.
It's only Mizu's statement that he doesn't make any sense that garners Vergil's attention because the statement itself doesn't make any particular sense to him. He glances down at Mizu then, frowning a little before looking ahead once more. Although Vergil is willing to ignore the injury to Mizu's pride in being carried like this, he understands it. And by Vergil's measure with that understanding, it shouldn't seem so unusual or strange that Vergil would make certain he didn't slam into the cobblestone while trying to make his way to the train station or become buried beneath a hefty drift of snow before he could reach the safety of inside his cabin.
After their fights, Vergil has always seen to Mizu's recovery in some form or fashion. He's carried Mizu after beating him into unconsciousness, and stayed until he opened his eyes again. Vergil has always lingered long enough to see to it that Mizu tends to his injuries before leaving. And Vergil's already provided his explanation regarding that matter. He did so the very first time when Mizu balked at Vergil's insistence to make certain he tended to his wounds. Why should this time be any different than those that preceded them? Vergil's brow furrows a little further as he cannot find the difference.
"When have I ever abandoned you to bleed out after a fight?" he asks after a moment of silence.
As they make a proper approach to the apartment building, Vergil strays from the main thoroughfare. While he's been fortunate enough to have neighbors who tend to mind their own business, he's not particularly keen with the notion of carrying a bloodied human in his arms through the front door and chance running into someone on the way up. There will be needless questions and fussing that both Vergil and Mizu will find irritating if that should happen. Better to take the alleys between buildings sooner rather than later and aim for his balcony instead. He only lives on the second floor, and even with Mizu in his arms, he should be able to get enough height with a second jump off the side of the building itself.
Mizu rests her head against Vergil as he walks because there's little point in holding it up when he's holding the rest of her. Win or lose, this usually happens. It is only when they fight right near her home that she may get the dignity of walking herself inside under his supervision. Yet it would be a loss to fight Vergil in one environment only. The varied surroundings and conditions makes it more exciting and realistic. Even if it comes at this cost. Mizu suffers it. It's not like she has honor.
His question makes her blink, and Mizu turns her face up toward Vergil. While she would not have held anything against Vergil for leaving her to tend her own wounds, he's never been that way. He was the first guest, so to speak, she had when he waited in her main room while she tended to her injuries. Part of that vow not to kill each other, not during the fight nor afterward. Her mind is foggy enough it takes a couple moments to connect his question to her statement that he doesn't make sense. That comment wasn't for him. It wasn't about—
"Not that," Mizu says quietly. Held as she is, there isn't much a way to gesture. Though carrying her is unnecessary. She maintains that, and as he didn't permit her to prove she could walk, neither of them can say they are right with complete and utter certainty. Not that that will stop either of them from being certain.
"Earlier," Mizu clarifies, "with the explosive. I've done that before. A body is enough of a shield I lived, but you would have had an easier time beating me." It doesn't make sense. Even without pulling her toward the explosive and ensuring she likely died from it, Vergil could have taken advantage. He could have simply done nothing about her and let what happened happened. He didn't. He took multiple unnecessary actions to protect her, to minimize the harm she took. It did nothing to her.
Mizu wants to look away, but she refuses to be the coward. She watches Vergil as best she can from how she's held.
"Perhaps," he says, falling silent again. It's not a particularly honest answer insomuch they both know that the easier victory would have been true. Even without ensuring that Mizu bore some degree of the blast as well, there is no way he could have possibly moved away quickly enough from that explosion to avoid injury. It's also not a particularly honest answer because it's feigning ignorance of the implied question Mizu is posing to Vergil.
Why?
He can feel Mizu's gaze on him, watching him closely. Vergil doesn't hold doubts that his response isn't bringing about any satisfaction, and Mizu likely knows the word is ultimately meaningless in the ways in which it lacks any sort of truth or acknowledgment. He doesn't feel guilt or shame for offering something unsatisfactory, however. Another's satisfaction hardly matters to him and Mizu is no exception. So, it's not that motivating him to eventually continue in his response.
"Regardless of whatever abilities the fox spirit grants you, that explosive was reckless and stupid." Vergil doesn't condescend by talking to Mizu as though he were scolding a child. It's a statement of fact. It was reckless. It was stupid. He's certain deep down even Mizu is capable of recognizing that given that he already assumed the consequence could mean a quicker end to their sparring. "Simply because you decided to be a fool doesn't mean that I need to abide by it."
It's a fuller answer than his initial response, but it's still not the full of it because there is no unmaking the truth that it wasn't to Vergil's advantage in the slightest. It was foolish for Vergil to not to let Mizu reap the consequences of his choices. Had Vergil lost consciousness after the blast, the shrapnel from the grenade itself would have hindered his healing. Mizu also could have easily taken advantage of Vergil being unarmed and on his knees rather than waiting for him to regroup. It's not as though the other swordsman was so above fighting dirty, after all. So, in that decision to protect Mizu, it could have just as easily been over and done for Vergil. He would have been forced to yield one way or another had things gone a little differently.
So, it's true that Vergil has the ability to decide if he's going to let Mizu taste the consequences of foolish decisions. But that still doesn't provide a reason as to why his instinct wasn't to let Mizu be his own undoing. Especially when Vergil privately knows that being the protector of another... Well, that was a drive and instinct he gave up a long time ago. It's only ever been about his pursuit of power for decades, and thus, only ever ensuring his own survival. What became of others mattered little. The lives lost and broken because of him were negligible.
Then again, maybe that wasn't the conflict. Maybe Vergil didn't see it as his survival or even his defeat were on the line in that moment, and it really did boil down to refusing to let Mizu's self-destructive tendencies determine the outcome. Perhaps it was that selfish part of him that wants what he feels entitled to through his own power and merit that drove him to do it. Perhaps it is a fuller answer than it seems, and there's nothing more to it.
Vergil looks down at Mizu though, and he feels like a child clumsily trying to bluff his way through some predicament to an adult that already knows the truth, but waits to see when he will say it. Vergil can't intuit Mizu's mind, but his words feel so paper thin without Mizu having to say or do anything. He quickly averts his gaze with a mild heat rising to his face and ears, and he feels all at once frustrated. Granted, the frustration is without a specific target as this also appears to happen quite frequently after they spar. Something...lifts afterward. A heaviness that Vergil is so accustomed to bearing that it's only in its absence that he notices it. And in its absence, he seems to part with things. A little at a time and usually without his notice. But something about this makes him cling tighter to it, more unwilling to part with it. Not that he could exactly articulate why that is.
"I was not thinking of the outcome of the fight." It's the most he's willing or able to say on the matter. Vergil comes to a stop at the base of the apartment building and looks up at his balcony. He has a firm hold on Mizu that he's not in any danger of being dropped on the way up, but it's likely there will be a bit of jostling. "Hold onto me."
He waits until he feels Mizu take whatever amount of hold he can muster to minimize how much he's shifted around before leaping into the air. He scales a good portion of the way up before his feet hit the side of the building. Bouncing off the wall, he directs the momentum toward his balcony. His feet find the edge and without removing his arm as a support for Mizu's back, his hand finds the railing. He raises Mizu's knees to grab the railing with his other hand and nods for him to slide himself over the railing and onto the balcony on his own. Once Mizu is clear, Vergil pulls himself the rest of the way over the railing as well.
There is never any surety of what might have happened more than one step removed. It's not as though Vergil had a sword pressed against Mizu's heart, so they could say 'Vergil could have killed Mizu.' It's only that Mizu would have been affected by the explosion in some way. That is too chaotic to say for certain. Perhaps is true. It's also unsatisfactory. It doesn't explain why he did what he did. Mizu doesn't ask again. Vergil will say what he will say and nothing more. Perhaps someone more skilled in conversation might dig more out (doubtful), but Mizu is not that person.
The explosive was reckless, but what was the alternative? Losing more certainly? Surely Vergil can understand how that will not satisfy Mizu, not when she fights like she does, like each fight matters, the difference between achieving her revenge and not. Vergil sees a far broader array of her fighting, fiercer and more determined, than anyone else. Even should any of the hand to hand instructors be able to survive that mode of fighting, it's not what she's looking for from them. She's improving technique, not reaching her fathers. Against Vergil, Mizu improves her technique and adapts her strategies. She also takes it far more seriously and fights more underhanded. As was his wish. That means the reckless along with the best technique Mizu has. It's part and parcel.
The fact Vergil can transform into a demonic form whose skin her sword cannot even cut demonstrates one of the ways he holds back during fights. The way he made the fight thoroughly one-sided the first time they sparred again after the disastrous conversation in his apartment demonstrates it. Infuriating as it is that Vergil holds back, it's far more infuriating that he needs to. Mizu will beat him, no matter what it takes, even explosives, so that he cannot hold back as much as he does now. In that regard, today was a victory. It's the first time she's witnessed him, not only his double, take that form. That pleases Mizu in a way she does not put into words. That move makes sense. Pushing her away, shielding her with his double, that does not serve him well in the fight.
It makes no sense.
Though Mizu already watches Vergil's face, she's stunned and stares when he says it wasn't about the fight. About the outcome. She would forget where they are, save that he speaks again in a way that promises pain. Pain doesn't matter. Mizu fists Vergil's vest with one hand and reaches across herself painfully to get a second anchor point. The neckline of his shirt.
Not used to bothering to hide pain outside of a fight, when Mizu frequently forgets or ignores it, Mizu flinches as the leaps jostle her. It's better than walking through the public areas of Satori Hills. No complaint there. It takes a moment to gather herself. Vergil is letting her climb onto his balcony. That's right. She can do that. Mizu slides away from Vergil and lets go of him to steady on the railing itself. Only for a moment. Rather than focus on what Vergil's words could mean, Mizu takes small forcefully steady steps toward the door into Vergil's apartment. It's not far, and with her foot healed, she manages it.
Woozy from the loss of blood, Mizu pauses, leaning against that door. What was Vergil thinking about? Mizu blinks and stares at him, as though that will provide any further insight. She may as well be swordfather, for how much Mizu can tell from his face. With a small shake of her head to clear her thoughts and focus, she turns back to the door and slides it open. It's only far enough she can slip inside and continue, tracking a little blood, toward Vergil's bed. He lacks much furniture, and Mizu refuses to collapse on the floor.
"I'll be... fine," Mizu says with determination. Whether she has the healing ability or not, she'll live. She'll recover. She'll be fine. Nothing she regrets about their fight, not when she knows that explosive won't kill him. Not there. She was right.
When Mizu stares at him from the door, Vergil says nothing. The silence isn't discomforting given that neither Mizu nor Vergil are ones for idle chatter, but it feels oddly...prolonged. So, his brow furrows slightly as he begins to wonder if he's going to need to step in with getting the door and ushering Mizu to his bed. But the swordsman seems to shake out of his stupor long enough to get the door open and has just enough sense to know where he needs to go. Vergil follows Mizu inside, opting to leave the balcony door open and allow a bit of fresh air into the studio apartment. He doesn't care much about the blood on his floor or the blood that's surely to be on his bed after Mizu rests upon it. He can clean the blood on the floor later after Mizu is settled, and his bedding is ultimately washable. Never mind it doesn't see much use anyway. Vergil tends to stay awake for longer periods of time than is probably advisable even with his heritage.
"I know," he says at Mizu's reassurance. There hasn't been a fight between them yet that Mizu hasn't recovered from in the end.
The most he does for Mizu is pull back the covers on the bed, but he otherwise lets the other swordsman handle getting himself settled. Mizu has a bed to collapse upon should he find himself struggling, anyway, so Vergil will allow Mizu's pride to dictate how much support he has or not. As Mizu settles, Vergil gets a large bowl with some soapy water and a pair of towels from the kitchen. He sets them down on the nightstand near the bed for Mizu to clean off some of the blood and grime. As little as Vergil is concerned with the state of his bedding by the time Mizu is done resting, he can at least recognize that it would probably feel a little better for Mizu to clean up. Even if it's just the rest of what the snow could not on his face. To that end, Vergil opens his wardrobe and pulls from it a shirt and pair of sweatpants. As he does, he says, "I'll make you some food after I've showered."
Rather than taking the clothing with him, however, Vergil lightly tosses them at the foot of the bed in a silent offer for Mizu to make use of them if he so desires. They'll be a little large on his smaller frame, of course, but they're at least clean and it won't require spending any Lore to summon a fresh pair of clothes. But if all Mizu wants to do is simply lie down and sleep, far be it from Vergil to take any offense to not cleaning himself up or taking the clothes.
He pulls out another change of clothes for himself, and slides his wardrobe shut. Out of habit, he begins to reach beneath his shirt and vest to pull his out the amulet around his neck. Vergil pauses and hesitates, however, with a glance at Mizu, his grip subtly tightening around the amulet itself. After a few quiet seconds of debate, he releases the amulet and removes it, placing it on its usual spot on the nightstand. It's been out in the open before and Mizu let it be. He didn't seem to pay it any mind whatsoever the last time he was in Vergil's apartment, in fact. So, Vergil likely has very little to worry about leaving it there with Mizu.
As he heads towards his bathroom, Vergil begins unbuttoning his vest, scoffing quietly to himself at the tears in the fabric.
Mizu's first instinct is to collapse, but with Vergil watching, Mizu takes more care. She sits and rests her injured arm in her lap. Her wounds aren't bleeding as profusely as before, either because she's running out of blood or because the wounds are clotting. Each injury comes with damage to her clothes, cuts through the layers. Mizu pulls her sleeve away from her arm and winces. It sets her to bleeding a little more. The bowl and towels come into her peripheral vision, not as black as before, and Mizu grunts in appreciation.
The cuts in her clothing allow her to clean the wounds without revealing more skin than necessary. Without revealing anything she doesn't want to. Mizu uses her uninjured hand to clean around the wounds so nothing goes worse before she can heal them. Her ability isn't an excuse for reckless wound care. She flinches as she goes, pressing against sensitive wounds. That's how injuries go. Even Vergil isn't entirely stoic. Mizu saw that today. It's not embarrassing to be wounded or to take care of herself. Even as her head gets woozy, she carries on, wiping her face along the way.
The clothes are the greater surprise. The entire time it takes Vergil to leave, to place the amulet on the nightstand and go, Mizu focuses her attention on the simple nightclothes offered to her. She remembers how similar clothes fit on Vergil when she stopped by. They'll fit differently on her, and Mizu puzzles whether that would reveal more of her shape than she would like. To add to the matter, Mizu doesn't know how long it will take Vergil to shower, less than a bath, and she remains injured. That very well may be something he's chosen to be polite, so he can make food more quickly, but Mizu doubts she has time to change into these clothes and change back, should they be unacceptable. Fortunately, Vergil knows Mizu to be plenty rude when she chooses, so there's no social obligation to accept the offer.
There is no time for indecision. Mizu scans the room, as though Vergil may have overlooked some unexpected squatter in this room, and moves quickly despite the pain. She unties her obi, removes her haori, and forces her injured arm through one sleeve, grateful the shirt is large on her. She finishes pulling it on and considers it. Mizu scowls at the way the light breeze coming through the door emphasizes her curves. Her haori is dirty and sliced through, but Mizu pulls it on over the shirt to add some weight. The shirt is clearly visible where the largest slash across her torso goes.
The trousers... Mizu turns toward the closed bathroom door. The shower is still running. Fine. Her legs themselves aren't injured. It only hurts to lift herself up and twist her body around in the act of dressing and undressing. Unless she heals herself here, Mizu doubts she'll want to change back before leaving. In total, she's dressed without being seen. The trousers do not call attention to her hips, and her haori guards her silhouette.
The excitement and terror of the situation wear off and leave Mizu drained and exhausted and wavering even as she sits. Mizu leaves her clothes where they lay and lies down, settling on her back as the least awful option, and passes out without thinking about it.
Once inside the bathroom, Vergil sets his clean set of clothes down on the counter. It's only then that he really gets a sense of the bruise on his face. Reaching up with a hand, he touches it gently with just his fingertips and hisses at the way it stings and smarts with even that barest of touches. He briefly wonders if it was worse when it was fresher or not, but it's more of a distracting thought from the question Mizu implicitly asked him just moments ago. Or, more accurately, the subsequent question that Vergil didn't have an easily produced answer for. Unlike the weight of the question, the bruise will likely be gone by the morning.
But he still lingers on it and the little cuts adorning his features, allowing the distant thought that he hasn't looked this rough since he was a child after a fight with Dante to be more present instead. They'd both be forced to sit as their mother cleaned each cut and scrape. Vergil sat still and quietly even if occasionally his eyes were pricked with tears when it would sting or burn. Dante squirmed and caterwauled nearly the entire time. Vergil would hold his hand after a while to help simmer him down with a prepared excuse that he just wanted to make things easier for their mother, but really he thought it was what a big brother was supposed to do for his little brother. Dante never asked him why he did it though, and neither did their mother. She would only scold them a little, provide them with a chore, and let them be rather than lecture.
Vergil sighs at his reflection for a moment before crouching down to undo the straps on his boots. When he straightens, he turns on the shower to start warming up the water before he strips out of his clothes. The shirt and vest don't go into the laundry basket, instead finding themselves tossed away into the trash bin. He hesitates a moment before stepping into the shower, listening for any sound that might alert him to Mizu struggling in some form or fashion. But there isn't a sound coming from outside the bathroom door, and he can only assume Mizu is managing or otherwise asleep. Vergil will keep an ear out still, but he feels confident that Mizu is fine.
Cliche as it is, the shower really is a perfect place to clear his mind when distraction isn't going to prove effective. He lets it go blank as he watches the rivulets of water coming off him turn from red to pink for just a little while before he begins to properly scrub himself clean again. But the question eventually emerges once again as he touches his once grievously injured side. He protected Mizu because he wasn't thinking about the outcome of the fight, but...
Why had he not concerned himself more with that?
It's not as though he cares that deeply about Mizu's opinion of him, but even if he had, Mizu wouldn't have been angry for whatever Vergil would have done as his opponent. He would have understood, and he would have accepted that he made a significant mistake in thinking greater firepower than what he had produced thus far would best Vergil. That would have been it. And for as reckless as it was, Mizu has survived something similar by his own account. Vergil would have still absorbed the majority of the blast even if he just allowed Mizu to escape as far as he could carry himself before it detonated. But there was just the singular thought to get Mizu away as far as possible as quickly as possible, and he enacted it without much more thought than that. But why?
He shuts off the water, grabbing a towel and drying off a little before stepping out to dry off the rest of the way. Unlike in the shower, Vergil doesn't find himself meandering and is quicker to dry off and dress himself. He opens the bathroom door quietly, padding his way over to the bed to check on Mizu.
He doesn't dare sit on the bed, thinking that the shift in weight could wake Mizu either naturally or through agitating his wounds. So, he kneels down beside him. Looking at Mizu, Vergil considers the question a bit further.
For the entirety of his life, Vergil has never been good at protecting anything. That day, he wasn't able to protect his mother or Dante. He abandoned Nero and his mother. He arguably couldn't even really protect himself in the end. But even with all those failures, he wanted to protect Mizu.
He glances away at the amulet, quietly picking it up from where he left it and putting it back on. Once it's safely tucked away beneath his shirt, he looks to Mizu again. Tentatively, he reaches out with a hand, hesitating just before making contact just as he had at the bonfire. But Vergil summons up the courage, and feels Mizu's forehead to check for a fever. His hand lingers there for just a moment before slowly, he gently follows the line of Mizu's cheek and takes back his hand altogether.
...He wants to protect Mizu.
It's a stupid, foolish, reckless, and terrible feeling. It's completely unnecessary and pointless, and Vergil wants nothing more than to tear it out of himself, to shred it for as long as it takes to make it infinitesimal pieces. But it's there, having lodged itself there at some point or another. The consequence of his humanity, he supposes, mind drifting to the amulet beneath his shirt.
Vergil stands silently, collecting the bowl and used towels. He disposes of the water, cleans the bowl, and puts the dirtied towels in with the rest of the laundry before replacing the bowl with a glass of water on the nightstand. Vergil pulls the sheet over Mizu, but leaves the blanket off him given his choice to keep his haori on. From there, it's cleaning the little trail of blood left behind by Mizu when he came inside and making the promised food.
Mizu dreams fitfully, memories blurring together in ways that they should not. Ways that don't make sense. They continue in odd ways, even as she recognizes that they cannot be real. Vergil has no place in them, nor does he have any reason to wield a sword of her making. They are foolish dreams, the melding of common injuries repeated. When she wakes, Mizu tells herself that's all there is.
She comes to in an unfamiliar bed and reaches for her sword. Still in its scabbard, Mizu takes in her surroundings, memory muddling to the fore slower than the pain. How long was she out? Not long if those sounds are Vergil in the kitchen. She hopes. Mizu sits immediately, not good at staying lying down when she's uncertain about anything in her environment. Though it's safe to pass out around Vergil, Mizu still hates losing consciousness when it's not of her own choosing. The pain pierces through the rest, and Mizu accepts that, normal as it is.
The water is cool and refreshing, greatly appreciated. Mizu looks across the room at Vergil. There isn't anything else to do but sit and wait and slowly recover. Things she can all do here in safety. Only when the thought that Mizu should ask Vergil for a needle and thread does she remember her healing ability, foreign and unfamiliar as it is. If Mizu can heal herself, she doesn't need to sew the wounds shut. A convenient fact given the act only causes more pain. She could ask him for drugs to lessen the pain (not opium, more the pills that come in bottles). However, it is best Mizu masters this ability without any aid, so she does not.
Once again, Mizu arranges herself for meditation, staying in the bed for the process. Closing her eyes, Mizu repeats phrases softly to herself under her breath. For all that her anger burns cold within her, she can find peace and calm, at least for a few moments at a time. Her mind stays on swordfather and all he taught her. When she loses her focus and cannot find it again, Mizu considers her injuries. She slides one hand under the shirt to feel her wound. The skin has sewn shut, but the area is tender to the touch. Her arm is similarly much better but not fully healed. Most annoyingly, her head still feels woozy and light. Nearly drunk, Mizu wants to say, except that she does not drink and could not say with certainty that's how it would feel.
"I'm awake," Mizu declares, in the unlikely case Vergil hasn't noticed. Even under normal circumstances, whenever two people share a room, it's hard not to notice the other person. With her injuries, Mizu has no doubts Vergil's paid attention. "Thank you for your generosity."
The bed. The clothes. The food soon to follow. That isn't part of the obligations they've made to each other with their sparring. Mizu could have laid on the floor well enough. She's slept in less comfortable places.
When Mizu begins to stir, Vergil only spares a look long enough to confirm that Mizu is actually waking and not merely dreaming or shifting about in his sleep. After that, he pays him no mind and allows him his peace and calm, assuming that the smell of food woke him up.
Vergil's not much of a chef. The times he has had to fend for himself historically haven't exactly had much emphasis on the culinary arts so much as merely sustaining himself for the next day. But he's acquired a little skill since being in Folkmore, and he finds he doesn't mind it all too much preparing his own meals. There's something meditative about it, in any case. So, he's managed to put together a standard cheeseburger—a seasoned patty with cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, mustard, and mayo all on a lightly toasted bun—with a side of some sweet potato fries. It seems a safe enough choice in meal given that he doesn't know Mizu's preferences and it'd be more than a little difficult for Vergil to mess it up.
He grunts his acknowledgement when Mizu announces he's awake, focusing on finishing with his plating and turning the stovetop off. He glances in Mizu's direction at the words of thanks, but he doesn't truthfully know what to do with them. He doesn't view what he's doing as anything particularly special, and he would like to think Mizu would extend a similar courtesy if their roles were reversed. In the end, he says nothing to it and brings the food and a small pitcher of water over on a tray. Normally, he'd insist for Mizu to sit at the table to eat to avoid crumbs in his bed, but the sheets will need washing anyway. So, Mizu might as well eat comfortably in bed. He sits down nearby at the foot of the bed and places the tray between them.
"It's not much," he says, loosely folding his arms, "but you should try to eat as much as you can." He pauses before adding, "How do you feel? You look like you're starting to get some color back."
Sitting up is enough effort at the moment that Mizu doesn't attempt more. She pushes herself hard, but when there is time to take a break, to pause, to breath, she does so. Fortunately, with her healing ability, Vergil's insistence in her recover will mean a much shorter break. Since she cannot take further steps on her revenge besides studying in the library and improving her skills as a swordsman, Vergil hasn't seen the full range of how she pushes herself to keep going. Lasting as long as she did in a fight against him is child's play in comparison.
She accepts the food and starts eating the vegetable on the side. That is more familiar to her, though she's been introduced to sandwiches before. In Japan, there would be chopsticks for the vegetable and... she's not sure how they would deal with sandwiches. The fact there is meat and cheese together in the sandwich is very much a white man concept. It's not what she expected from Vergil, but perhaps he learned about it here. The food is varied in Folkmore, and Mizu eats what is presented at various social gatherings. At home, her food is what she's used to.
Since there are no utensils, she picks up the sandwich with her hands and takes a bite. The meat is rich and fatty. The other parts of the sandwich introduce crunchy texture, sour flavors, and creaminess. It's a lot all in one bite. That seems appropriate to Vergil that he would like something like this. She needs the water and wipes her hands off on a napkin before reaching for the glass. She sips. Her appetite is both ravenous and nonexistent. She knows she needs food, but the process pulls at tender skin and sore muscles coming back together.
Mizu wishes Vergil would eat his sandwich. Being watched makes her feel more the invalid than she is and the accompanying desire to prove it. That makes her think of Taigen—that insistence she could beat him anywhere at any time with any weapon. She did beat him with a chopstick. Though Vergil, of course, would immediately learn how to fight with a chopstick upon picking it up. Perhaps not when it's an improvised weapon? Mizu wonders about that.
"It is more difficult to focus and use the healing ability at the moment, but I closed the wounds themselves," Mizu says. "I'm not sure if it replenishes blood. That will be something to think about."
She shrugs. She doesn't need to be hale and whole an hour after they finish sparring. It's enough that it should take a matter of days, perhaps. "I've had much worse," she assures Vergil. She barely passed out long enough for him to finish showering and make food. That's nothing.
When there aren't any signs that Mizu finds the food disagreeable, Vergil is willing to begin eating himself. He didn't really want to start digging in only to be interrupted by needing to fix something else for him. Not that there were an exorbitant amount of options to offer as an alternative, but it was more important that Mizu got some food in him than Vergil. He's not nearly as tentative as Mizu when it comes to picking up and taking a bite of his burger. It's also probably a bit of a contrast to how Vergil is about most things as he's not prim and proper about it even no one reasonable could necessarily accuse him of eating in a slovenly manner. He has to lick one corner of his mouth to clean it from some of the condiments.
As he chews his bite, he listens to Mizu's answer to his question. Based upon it, Vergil privately concludes that this must be a limit to the healing ability. While Vergil's own healing happens instantaneously and without thought—more a natural consequence of his biology than anything else—Mizu's requires a little more cognitive effort. He has to focus his attention in some manner to be successful with it. Therefore, if he's unconscious or in too much pain or in some altered state of mind, it won't be as successful. It's something for Vergil to take note in how he chooses to approach their future fights. He might not need to hold back quite as much as he did before, but to Vergil's mind, it's a negligible difference. The outcomes would be the same as they would be without the healing factor in that circumstance.
Vergil swallows and shifts to holding the burger in one hand as he picks up a fry from his plate. He tips his head a little and his brow furrows slightly at Mizu's reassurance.
He keeps doing that. Trying to reassure Vergil.
The half-devil doesn't know what to make of it because it's not as though he's worried per se. Mizu is upright, talking, eating, and he doesn't look quite so close to passing out with every movement. Vergil is only doing the sensible thing and asking for his own perspective though, and the offer of a place to rest and recuperate is the decent thing to do. Nothing that should merit any sort of concern for Vergil's thoughts or feelings.
"Unsurprising," he says before popping the fry in his mouth. He pinches at the napkin with his fingers to clean them before pushing a few still-drying strands that fell with the movement of his hand back to where they belong. Once the fry is gone, he says, "I think if we had met when I was younger, I wouldn't have been so quick to assume humans were all so weak."
There's a small beat before he adds, "But I may have also assumed all of them were quite stupid."
He's teasing. Not that just anyone would necessarily pick up on the barest of lilts in his tone to indicate as much. To some, it'd probably sound like a genuine insult and more of a display of Vergil's sense of superiority. But Vergil trusts Mizu can tell the difference. Besides, he already expressed that he thought what Mizu did today was reckless and stupid, and Vergil was never one to belabor a point.
Admittedly, Mizu would reassure anyone who asked she was fine even were she on the edge of death, definitely if all that was at risk was passing out for a day or two. She's fine. She's always fine, even when she's not fine. No one need ever concern themselves with her. Taigen wanted her well enough to duel to the death. Ringo didn't want to redo his stitches. That isn't really about her. Vergil makes sure she doesn't die and requires her to be well when she fights him. The rest doesn't have to concern him. She's not dead or about to expire. This, all this, is polite but unnecessary.
Including the food. Mizu eats the strange sandwich. That's not hard after the last half year. It's filling, and she's famished the more she eats. Though she eats tidily, it seems gone in a few bites. Mizu glances down at her hands when Vergil compliments her on not being weak—that is what he's saying, basing his opinion on humans on her. Something that would make so many people in Japan laugh. They don't all consider her human. Many of them consider her weak. Mizu knows better.
A smile grows, amused, when he continues. "People are quite stupid," Mizu says, "Every one that I've met. If someone doesn't appear stupid, wait and they will reveal themselves."
The vegetable takes a little longer, if only because each slice is eaten individually with the hands. It's over fairly quickly however. She could probably eat a second one, but that might not be the best idea. By the time she gets home, however, she'll have room to eat more. She watches Vergil, including him in that group. People. He might not be human, but he's a person. The urge to grapple him, to prove she can pin him, rises as it often does with people. Only Mizu knows better than to think she'd win at that right now, even with the surprise. Give her time, Vergil. Give her time.
"I've always been like this," Mizu says, "I simply wouldn't be as experienced if you met me when I was younger." She believes that, those early lessons against blood soaked Chiaki, the assassin who used her broken blade for years, showed how much more she had to learn. Once skilled, it took experience to get where she is now. Her skill with the naginata, Mizu doesn't like to dwell on it, but Mikio taught her well. She can give him that much credit. Mizu took it further, a way to have a sword and a naginata in one weapon. Superior to only one or the other.
Vergil eats slower than Mizu, although his attention is also more evenly divided between the burger and the fries. He also pauses for a moment to clean his hands with a napkin after he finishes it, using the clean end to also wipe at his mouth as well just in case. He crumples it up afterward and holds it in his hand while he continues to pick at his fries. But all-in-all, it's a positive sign that Mizu has enough of an appetite to finish the burger with as much speed as he does.
"I would have likely found you vexing and wouldn't have had the patience for your foolishness," he says. He's proud still, but he was prideful then. A son of Sparda who was ready to take what was his no matter the cost would have been insulted at a human with no power and little experience or skill to show for it trying to challenge him. Not that Vergil imagines it would have dissuaded Mizu at all. In his experience, the irritating ones have a tendency to refuse to give up. He would have just kept trying again and again and again just as he does now. The difference is, however, Vergil has an understanding of why Mizu refuses to give up on the notion that he might best Vergil someday, and why he's willing to continue throwing himself into a fight he may never actually win again and again and again. That understanding subsequently lends itself to an appreciation and a degree of respect. Things, that in his younger years, Vergil never would have held towards Mizu. The frustration and irritation would have, at most, lead to a sort of resentful curiosity.
He hums in light amusement at how much they probably wouldn't have gotten along, the barest flicker of a smile as he takes one last fry from his own plate. He stacks his plate atop Mizu's now empty plate, and says, "You may have the rest."
He's not actually so full from the cheeseburger that he can't finish his few remaining fries. But seeing as how Mizu didn't complain about the meal, Vergil has no trouble parting with the rest for Mizu to get a little more food in his stomach. After he pops his final fry into his mouth, Vergil wipes his hands clean with his crumpled napkin and places it on the tray where his plate used to be.
Few people wait for the foolishness to stop having patience for her. It'd be a pleasant surprise to have it be her own fault. Something stupid and dumb. Something—
not like letting Akemi get taken back to her father. It felt terrible but was likely the best option for her. She didn't know about Fowler's plot at that point, and even with it, Akemi was getting out of there. She stood by her deal with Ringo. Akemi's fine. The girl made her choices. It's up to her, not Mizu. Mizu is only responsible for herself. Ringo shouldn't have expected anything better. She was clear with him up front. A demon's path. Mizu doesn't want to dwell on those thoughts. It isn't the sort of foolishness Vergil means. Better to think of how entertained and exasperated he might be when the brothel was attacked and Mizu got stuck under the door. She got out, no suffocation for her. In a way the door protected her in ways she'd otherwise be vulnerable on the ground beneath so many opponents.
"Then it's a good thing we were not brought here when we were younger," Mizu suggests. At least she has one, almost two, kills down on her list. The ones she could manage on her own. She didn't need the fox spirit's help before now, so there's no reason she'd come earlier. They butt heads from time to time now, but that's with some understanding and respect for each other. Mizu's seen how far beyond human Vergil is, and he doesn't have the sword he's been looking for since the day they arrived. While it may be an emotional attachment to the sword, Mizu has no doubts it's as remarkable a sword as Mirage Edge. She needs to beat him before that happens. Part of the impetus to get this healing ability.
She must look really hungry since Vergil gives her the remainder of his vegetables. A small nod. Mizu continues to eat them one at a time. She's always hungry after they spar. She goes all out, not only in so far as the injuries she will take over the course of the fight but how little energy she works to conserve. It does no good if she's dead, so a true fight, one that matters, gets that commitment. This time, Mizu is slower. There won't be more after this for a little while, and her body needs to be ready for that. Not that Mizu ever starves in Folkmore. She keeps enough Lore on her spoon to summon emergency supplies, including food.
"This was good," Mizu says, "Weird, but good." She manages not to thank him again for it. Etiquette is one of the easiest things to fall back on when she needs a tool, but Mizu isn't otherwise an especially polite person. Vergil doesn't operate on the same rules Japan does, so it isn't as useful. It simply leaves her with little to go on when she doesn't want a repeat of the disastrous ending of the last conversation they had in his room.
She motions across the room toward the books since he mentioned reading at the bonfire. "Are those yours or from the library?" Mizu asks. In her day, only the very rich had scrolls. Most people relied on stories shared aloud. Most people didn't even know how to read.
Weird, but good is an odd bit of praise to receive, but it is praise all the same. Vergil accepts it silently and without remark. It's only a slight nod of his head in acknowledgement that the food was at least acceptable. When Mizu motions towards his books, Vergil looks towards them.
"Mine," he says. Not that he has anything against the library. He's spent plenty of time with books there, too. But there's something incredible about having a tangible book that's all his own again after so long being without. Not that Vergil doesn't recognize on some level how foolish that is. They are just printed words on a page. They're not exactly some prized treasure decked in jewels and other precious metals. But they are his. And he finds a richness in them that he can't really find an equivalent anywhere else. He glances back at Mizu as he continues, his eyes drifting over toward his balcony instead and the world beyond, "I read a lot as a child. Poetry, mostly."
Vergil lightly folds his arms once more, crossing his ankles as well. It's not out of defensiveness, however. He just can't exactly think of the last time anyone ever took an interest in his reading habits, let alone that he spoke of it with someone else. Dante never understood it, always wanting to be rough and tumble, and play. He found reading tedious, and poetry even more so. Vergil begged his parents constantly to read to him before he was able to read for himself. In all honesty, he doesn't know if his father would have been as interested talking about it with him. He was gone too soon after Vergil began learning to read for himself. But his mother was always willing to sit with Vergil while he read. She never seemed disinterested or annoyed whenever he decided to tell her about the books he was reading. And she never was put out when even well after he could read, Vergil would still ask her to read to him.
He lifts his chin, opting not to dwell on it, and looks at Mizu.
"I spent most of my adolescence reading on clues about my father's power. Most of it was the same story, just little variations." Clearly not something Vergil would have read for the very pleasure of it, that's for certain. "After that... Reading wasn't really something I was able to do."
It's a skirting around the full truth of everything that came after he tried to seize the power of Sparda for himself. But Mizu didn't ask for all of that, and Vergil would much rather not talk about it. So, he doesn't. Instead, he says with a casual wave of his hand, "But I have more time here. So, I thought I might as well fill it with books and poetry."
Mizu isn't sure how much books cost in Lore, but she knows she cannot summon the right one to tell her everything she needs to know so vaguely. She's better off using the library and sometimes talking with a librarian. Months in the library. She's basically becoming a scholar of London. A shocking turn of events compared to the rest of her life. Her reading skills are much better than when she arrived.
She listens to Vergil, however, because he loved books from childhood. He comes from a childhood with books in it. Given how powerful his father was, that shouldn't be surprising. It's the rich and powerful men (and demons) who have libraries. It matches the pride and the search for power, in so much as that more frequently comes from men in those parts of society. Taiden has ambition, and he has pride. It's the pride of someone scraping to prove himself and drag himself up, rather than one who was born to be there. That might have made Mizu dislike Vergil, except they discussed it in the context of their mistakes costing so many people their lives. It felt different, even if it was something they had to share to ever leave that library. Now, it seems, the two closest people to her in Folkmore come from that wealthy kind of background. Vergil. And Rin.
Vergil's adolescence is particularly relatable to her current activities. It speaks to where they are in their journeys. Vergil no longer is trying to amass as much power as possible, but Mizu still walks the path of revenge. At best, she'll soon be half done. The second half of such journeys are likely harder than the first. They only ever get harder. A small sigh. She has enough difficulty learning about London. She can't imagine trying to learn the truth behind his father's power, something that would be a much more guarded secret. No jealousy there, strange as it is to learn about a place around the world that she's never been to and for which so much information is about the future.
"It's what you like, so it makes sense you would," Mizu says. She's never cared about poetry herself, but she doesn't say so. No need to insult what Vergil likes. It's not like Mizu's been exposed to much poetry in her life. She leans back against the wall, more interested in Vergil than the books themselves. "What do you like about them?"
Better to let him talk on the matter. Mizu can listen. Not everyone is as single minded as she is, and Vergil had more exposure to various things before his life went to shit than she did living in a shack in the woods. Her stories were always of the bad men who would find her if she went outside.
It's a question that takes Vergil a little off-guard, resulting in him opening and closing his mouth without saying anything at all at first. It's not that he doesn't necessarily know why he likes his books and his poetry. For as little insight as he's proven himself to have when it comes to certain aspects of his internal world, he knows why he likes what he reads specifically and just the act of reading alone. But no one has ever asked him the question before both given that he had given it up as a hobby at such a young age and because he isolated himself for so long. So, he's never anticipated anyone would ask never mind actually had to articulate the answer before.
"When I was a child, I liked it because it was something I didn't have to share with Dante. We're twins, so we were expected to share most everything together."
Albeit, Vergil always felt more pressure around sharing with Dante than the other way around. Dante was always so happy to let Vergil have anything, and he could never particularly understand why Vergil rarely reciprocated. Even when it was things he wasn't all that interested in like Vergil's books, he couldn't understand why Vergil didn't want to let him have them and why he'd get so angry with Dante every time he'd hide one of Vergil's books on him.
"I used to mark the things I didn't want Dante touching with a 'V'," he says, drawing the letter in the air with a finger. "Although in hindsight it was a foolish choice. It just told him which things of mine he needed to try and steal from me in order to get my attention if I kept refusing to play with him.
"Anyway, he was never much for reading. He thought it was boring, and couldn't understand why I'd rather read than play and train with him. So, the books and poems were something for me."
But it certainly grew to be more than just avoiding his brother's insistence to fight with their wooden swords, or establishing something for himself as time went on. And it wasn't even about that sense of escapism either. It was actually more about seeking a connection more than anything. Vergil found an emotional world in his reading. One that he's known so very little about in his daily life as even as a child, he found himself struggling to articulate all that he felt and saw. It's why he fell in love with Blake's poems, works that dealt with both the beautiful and uglier sides of nature and life. Vergil briefly mulls over how much of that to share, how much of it is even relevant or something Mizu would even care to know even if he did ask the question what it was about books and poetry that drew Vergil's interest before he answers.
He looks back over towards the balcony.
"I have never been...particularly skilled when it comes to connecting with others. Even as a child, I would watch Dante befriend almost anyone and I could never understand it. How he drew people in and spoke to them so easily as if they had been friends the entirety of their lives.
"But I found that connection for myself in poetry. Blake, in particular."
And then his mother was killed, and he presumed his brother was dead, and that the same fate was about to befall him as well. And the devil awakened within him, and he survived, but he swore off such connection, such emotion. It was weakness to be so human, so connected that he would grieve anyone ever again, that he would ever allow himself to be reliant upon those connections for his own protection and well-being. The colder he was able to be, the stronger he was, he thought. And so he spent years on his own, refusing help, refusing to hide who and what he was. He fought viciously for his survival, and he remained so single-minded in his pursuit of power that he let all else fall by the wayside.
"I wanted more of it, so I read as much as I could."
Mizu smiles at Vergil's response. As little as she expected to stun him with such a basic question, it amuses her greatly. That alone makes asking worth it, even as she understands the isolation and loneliness inherent in the reaction. It's only surprising if it has never happened, if it is thought it never would happen. Sad, yes, but they're both cut off from people. Separate. No one honestly asks such questions of them. Rather than be sad about it, however, Mizu enjoys Vergil's surprise. One day she'll see that face when they spar.
Siblings or other young people not trying to beat the shit out of her is... a foreign experience for Mizu. It sounds like the kind of thing that must be normal to other people. It's like peering through the slats in her shack as a child and seeing the village children play together. Something observed not experienced, not fully understood. Dante reminds her a little of Ringo and his insistence in following Mizu, joining her, and coming along on her quest. Not the same, mind, but it's the closest she has to someone bothering her when she repeatedly tells them to go away.
She finishes eating the rest of Vergil's vegetables while he talks. The way he looks away, looks distant, when he continues leads her to still. Mizu wipes her hand on the napkin and sits quietly. While it makes so little sense to her that connection could be found in words on a page, Mizu understands the difficulty connecting with others. How much she tried when she still gave a damn about it. It takes effort not to mull over certain events, certain mistakes in her past. She won't think about them. Better to rip open her side again than revisit foolish moments.
Mizu gazes at Vergil's books and tries to see what Vergil said he found there. Her reading has been factual accounts. What stories she's read, she's focused on the details about London, not on connection and people. That superfluous information. None of it has been poetry. Mizu notes the name Blake and looks back at Vergil. The point is what it did for him. There's no expectation it would ever do the same for her. She found herself a different way.
That way doesn't involve words. Mizu's glad to listen to Vergil speak about his interest in books, in poetry, but she doesn't know what to say. Conversation isn't a skill she's developed or needed. "I didn't know you could find that in books," Mizu says, "I didn't grow up with them."
Mizu's still not sure she could find that in books, but she hasn't tried. Connection isn't what she seeks. Connection is for other people. Even, it seems, Vergil. He's in a different place than she is, no longer simply seeking power (though his continued work to regain his sword relates to it). He has room for more in his life. Poetry again. Connection. Vergil and Rin, in their own ways, have been in similar places to Mizu, but they both are in different ones now. Something past, pushed beyond, the goal itself. It raises the question: what happens after? If Mizu kills Fowler and Routley and Skeffington. She doesn't know. If she survives the process, she can figure something out then, though she will be far from anyone she's met in Folkmore at that point. These connections, what little they are, will be gone. That shouldn't matter. It doesn't. The ache is simply her wounds not fully healed.
"Then again, all I did in my youth was make knives and swords and practice my swordmanship."
Vergil hums thoughtfully as Mizu acknowledges he never really had the opportunity to read books. It's not entirely surprising given that Mizu comes from a much earlier era than Vergil, and that he's never once come across as someone born into wealth. Wealth likely could not have necessarily entirely protected Mizu from the suffering that he endured, but it could have very well buffered him from much of it. Therefore, the chances that Mizu received any sort of formal education was unlikely. He learned what he needed to learn to survive long enough to begin enacting his revenge. Nothing more. Nothing less. Even his interest in swordmaking likely stemmed from his desire for revenge than wholly an interest in the craft itself. Otherwise, he probably would have stayed much as Vergil would have stayed with his books and poetry.
He sets the pitcher of water on the nightstand for Mizu to be able to still refill his glass as needed before gathering up the tray.
"Even if you did grow up with books, you didn't have a need for them," he says as he stands up. And Mizu isn't the sort of person to waste his time on something he doesn't place value in. "You had your smithing instead."
Vergil steps away to the kitchen, tossing out the used napkins.
"Have you considered smithing more while you're here?" Vergil asks as he sets the plates in the sink and opens the cabinet from where he pulled the tray out. Vergil feels like he already knows the answer. Mizu's never been unclear about his focus on his task of revenge. Swordsmithing doesn't exactly align so neatly with that beyond the ability to repair his own weapons as he continues to train both sharpening and maintaining his skills. But he would like to be surprised by hearing otherwise. So, he asks regardless of the certainty that hasn't likely crossed Mizu's mind all that seriously.
Neither smithing nor swordplay can be learned from a book. Moving the body, completing the actions right again and again and again. That's how one learns. Master Eiji had her make a thousand kitchen knives before she ever approached a sword. They sold. There's no whirlwind of kitchen knives in swordfather's home waiting to make a pincushion of Vergil or anyone else. As much boring work as there was sweeping up and putting tools away, Mizu remembers it all fondly. Every single time Master Eiji hit her on the head with tongs. They were good years. She left when she needed experience more than practice with the sword. When she thought she was ready (and had enough experience).
Mizu sips more of the water and watches Vergil go about cleaning up. She will probably leave soon. She can walk, and Vergil doesn't need her imposing on him, his space, or his time. He's been more than fair. Still, she wouldn't have minded if he stayed sitting there longer.
"I am making a sword for someone," Mizu says, "They were searching for someone who can make katana, rather than simply summon one, and he's going to pay me in Lore." Mizu smiles, almost a smirk, at Vergil. She knows Vergil works hard to build up Lore, to have enough Lore to regain Yamato. Here she is getting paid half the cost of her healing ability to make a single sword.
"It's ensuring I make sure the forge is set up just right. I'm approaching the work as Master Eiji taught me, though I admit he's never had to make a sword for someone from another world. I'm curious to see how well I match it to him." His words about her sword, about it being too pure, too brittle, ring in her mind. Sephiroth's sword will not break on him. She'll see to it.
The near-smirk about earning Lore for his swordsmithing earns Mizu a flat look from Vergil over in the kitchen. They both know why he's smiling and what he's teasing about, but Vergil doesn't give him the satisfaction of getting a further rise out of Vergil than just a look. Looking at the dishes in his sink, Vergil opts to leave them for after Mizu leaves. He has, after all, more to clean than just their plates.
"And how exactly do you match a blade to a person?" he asks as he moves the pan, cutting board, and knife to the sink.
Vergil isn't ignorant to the idea of a blade matching its wielder. Yamato was his father's blade once and Vergil's own son has wielded it as well. But he would be lying if he attempted to deny he feels a stronger claim to it than anyone else in his bloodline, including his father. By now, Vergil has full command of the Yamato's power. When he wields it, the sword is an extension of him and his will. Vergil moves with grace and speed, the blade itself enhancing his own natural abilities further. And when he transforms, the blade and its scabbard become physical parts of him. There is, in some ways, no separating Vergil from Yamato or Yamato from Vergil. Not for long. But Yamato isn't an ordinary blade made purely of steel by the hands of everyday men, and it wasn't forged with Vergil in mind. When Sparda divided his power into the blade, it was so that the gate between worlds could be properly sealed, not with the intention of one passing the blade down to a son. Vergil's connection with the blade came far later and unintentionally.
So, the question and its associated curiosity is genuine. Vergil abandons the dishes for now to return to his spot on the bed.
Mizu does not brush the fact in further. It is what it is, and Mizu has neither interest nor the character to hide the fact she's getting paid for her work. It inherently brings up what Vergil's doing, and well, it is amusing. She's not sure there is the same demand for poetry... or that Vergil writes it. Interaction is not easy for either of them, or it would not matter.
The question is simple but difficult at the same time. No matter how many times Master Eiji explained it or how many swords she saw made, it's not so easy to define. It requires a deep understanding of the warrior, while a swordsmith also will not observe them live in combat. Master Eiji cannot see at all but manages to understand simply touching someone as they go through their moves, an ability Mizu could not match. He is incredible, far beyond anything else she has seen.
"In its most basic form, you need to understand how a blade will be used," Mizu explains, "You have to observe their techniques. Master Eiji refused to make a sword for anyone who would not demonstrate each and every one of his techniques, even the secret ones. Some refused, so they did not get swords." That's the simplest most basic level. A sword must be suited to the ways it will be used. However, that could lead to the same sword for every student of the same dojo, a most laughable idea.
"Those observations also reveal temperament, preferences, ticks, and other expressions of who a warrior is. Though in truth, every interaction with someone before making them a sword feeds into the understanding of them and what suits them." That's only the observations, not how it comes out in the sword.
"There are hundreds of decisions that go into making a sword, and each of them affects the outcome. Even what wood you burn to heat the metal, each piece of wood I mean, not only the kind of tree or the dryness of the wood. I don't know that I could explain each decision I make throughout the process, but attuning yourself to it and ensuring your mind is in the right state. You have to empty yourself and..."
Mizu doesn't have the words. She knows when it's right.
"You let the sword be what it should be."
A wholly unsatisfactory answer, she is sure. No one asks Master Eiji how he does it, only satisfied that he does. She learned from him, a thousand little lessons along with the larger ones. Mizu shrugs.
Vergil sits facing Mizu this time, one knee resting on the bed while the ankle is propped up by the opposite knee. He doesn't fold his arms this time, one hand resting over his ankle while the other rests upon his thigh. Without the need to sit upright for food and the odd sense of vulnerability associated with answering Mizu's earlier question, Vergil's overall posture and demeanor is a little more relaxed and casual. He's attentive while Mizu explains, allowing him the space to think of how to articulate it to someone who has no experience in such matters when he seems to need it. He's quiet for a moment longer after Mizu explains it to him, but not because he finds it unsatisfactory. Rather he's mentally comparing the process to that of making a Devil Arm.
His father's blades would be perhaps the closest comparison. Others are a little less comparable given that they require another demon to suffer defeat and submit to the will of its better for its continued survival. But rather than steel, they were forged of Sparda's power, and rather than to match its wielder, they were matched to a purpose given that the wielder was the same as the creator. But even those small differences make the processes seem incompatible. Sparda putting himself into his blades was not an extension of something more metaphysical like what Mizu describes. It was merely funneling raw power and manifesting it. Then again, that woman... What was her name? Vergil's brow furrows a little as he tries to recall it. Nico. Nico had been capable of forging Devil Arms. The arms that Nero used and the hat she gifted Dante had seemed appropriate to each of them. Perhaps there is some overlap that Vergil just cannot parse entirely on his own given the only Devil Arms he's possessed he either inherited or forged after defeating the devil whose power he was taking for himself.
"I'm sure you will make a blade that matches him," he says, breaking his quiet and lifting his gaze back to Mizu. "You're attentive in battle. You read my moves better each time we cross blades and apply that knowledge well. I imagine you'll understand him well enough, too, to make a blade that suits his needs."
Hopefully, Mizu will not need to explain her process to someone else. If Vergil hadn't talked about books first, she's not sure she would have explained so much. Anyone coming to get a sword could see Master Eiji tap a piece of wood for his apprentice to pick out of the pile, but they might take those action for granted. Explaining them feels far more revealing. Mizu pays as much attention to the wood she uses as she did for Master Eiji. Since Sephiroth knocked down so many trees demonstrating his technique, they gathered them. She tracked eat piece and considers which are right to use with his. It's all that wood, none of the wood she gathered before. It feels right.
A small nod at the compliment. It's not praise she's used to hearing. Even when she made the sword, it was always under Master Eiji. Except for her sword. No one complimented her on her work, especially not beforehand. They thanked Master Eiji for the sword. That was that. Master Eiji gave praise and criticism as deserved. No memory stands out stronger than the broken blade, the one Mizu assumed was her fault. Her impurity. Master Eiji identified the problem cleanly with one touch of the assassin's hands. They did not match his story. Nor, in hindsight, did his treatment of Mizu learning swordplay. Chiaki is dead now, and the stories about him will fade. The sword reclaimed. For his part, Vergil is also fair with his words. He means it.
She runs a hand over the sheath of her sword and draws it into her lap. "He didn't have a sword. He doesn't want one of the ones lying around Folkmore or that could be summoned. So I let him demonstrate his techniques using my sword," Mizu says. Her sword but not one of her make. "I could see the ways it doesn't suit him."
Not that it's a perfect match for her either. She'd need to make a sword for that. She'd need to remake it, no matter that Thirteen returned it to her whole and unbroken. Mizu knows the impurity is there and cannot wield it. Will not wield it. Nor has she remade it, though it needs remaking. They spoke about it at the bonfire. She's not sure what will make her ready.
He watches as Mizu lays his sword across his lap, his gaze dropping down to the sheathed blade. He remembers what Mizu said at the bonfire about not being ready for his true blade, and needing to reforge it. But the time wasn't right, according to him. Not yet. Silently, Vergil counts the months since they arrived. Six months. Six months and there's nothing to suggest or indicate that Mizu feels any more ready to reforge his blade and wield it anew. He looks up at Mizu again, scrutinizing him as though somehow the answer as to what Mizu feels still needs to change about him to be worthy of it. Nothing reveals itself to Vergil though. And how could it possibly when Mizu himself didn't seem entirely certain of it?
Vergil turns his hands over in his lap and summons Mirage Edge, the flat side of the blade resting in his other palm.
"This is based on one of my father's other blades, Force Edge." A blade that Vergil only ever had the opportunity to use once before he was proven not strong enough to take hold of his father's power and suffered a crushing defeat. He tries not to taste the bitter taste the memory inspires in the back of his throat and offers it to Mizu. For as many times as Mizu has been struck by Mirage Edge, he's never had the opportunity to actually examine it.
If Mizu takes it, Mirage Edge will feel no different from any other blade. It has weight and balance of its own even if it's not made from any sort of tangible materials. Without any means of sensing magic, there's nothing that belies all that Mizu has seen it can do. Really the only thing that seems to speak to its nature at all is the fact it's the same sort of warmth that had been Vergil had been exhausting when he transformed. It's almost as though Mizu has been able to physically hold the sensation of warming his hands over a fire.
"I tried to claim it for myself once, but it was not meant to be. I only came to use this phantom version of it when Yamato was..." he says, hesitating as he tries to find the right word. There are many he could use. Lost. Nearly destroyed. Broken. Ripped away. He finds a middle ground. "...Taken."
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It's only Mizu's statement that he doesn't make any sense that garners Vergil's attention because the statement itself doesn't make any particular sense to him. He glances down at Mizu then, frowning a little before looking ahead once more. Although Vergil is willing to ignore the injury to Mizu's pride in being carried like this, he understands it. And by Vergil's measure with that understanding, it shouldn't seem so unusual or strange that Vergil would make certain he didn't slam into the cobblestone while trying to make his way to the train station or become buried beneath a hefty drift of snow before he could reach the safety of inside his cabin.
After their fights, Vergil has always seen to Mizu's recovery in some form or fashion. He's carried Mizu after beating him into unconsciousness, and stayed until he opened his eyes again. Vergil has always lingered long enough to see to it that Mizu tends to his injuries before leaving. And Vergil's already provided his explanation regarding that matter. He did so the very first time when Mizu balked at Vergil's insistence to make certain he tended to his wounds. Why should this time be any different than those that preceded them? Vergil's brow furrows a little further as he cannot find the difference.
"When have I ever abandoned you to bleed out after a fight?" he asks after a moment of silence.
As they make a proper approach to the apartment building, Vergil strays from the main thoroughfare. While he's been fortunate enough to have neighbors who tend to mind their own business, he's not particularly keen with the notion of carrying a bloodied human in his arms through the front door and chance running into someone on the way up. There will be needless questions and fussing that both Vergil and Mizu will find irritating if that should happen. Better to take the alleys between buildings sooner rather than later and aim for his balcony instead. He only lives on the second floor, and even with Mizu in his arms, he should be able to get enough height with a second jump off the side of the building itself.
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His question makes her blink, and Mizu turns her face up toward Vergil. While she would not have held anything against Vergil for leaving her to tend her own wounds, he's never been that way. He was the first guest, so to speak, she had when he waited in her main room while she tended to her injuries. Part of that vow not to kill each other, not during the fight nor afterward. Her mind is foggy enough it takes a couple moments to connect his question to her statement that he doesn't make sense. That comment wasn't for him. It wasn't about—
"Not that," Mizu says quietly. Held as she is, there isn't much a way to gesture. Though carrying her is unnecessary. She maintains that, and as he didn't permit her to prove she could walk, neither of them can say they are right with complete and utter certainty. Not that that will stop either of them from being certain.
"Earlier," Mizu clarifies, "with the explosive. I've done that before. A body is enough of a shield I lived, but you would have had an easier time beating me." It doesn't make sense. Even without pulling her toward the explosive and ensuring she likely died from it, Vergil could have taken advantage. He could have simply done nothing about her and let what happened happened. He didn't. He took multiple unnecessary actions to protect her, to minimize the harm she took. It did nothing to her.
Mizu wants to look away, but she refuses to be the coward. She watches Vergil as best she can from how she's held.
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Why?
He can feel Mizu's gaze on him, watching him closely. Vergil doesn't hold doubts that his response isn't bringing about any satisfaction, and Mizu likely knows the word is ultimately meaningless in the ways in which it lacks any sort of truth or acknowledgment. He doesn't feel guilt or shame for offering something unsatisfactory, however. Another's satisfaction hardly matters to him and Mizu is no exception. So, it's not that motivating him to eventually continue in his response.
"Regardless of whatever abilities the fox spirit grants you, that explosive was reckless and stupid." Vergil doesn't condescend by talking to Mizu as though he were scolding a child. It's a statement of fact. It was reckless. It was stupid. He's certain deep down even Mizu is capable of recognizing that given that he already assumed the consequence could mean a quicker end to their sparring. "Simply because you decided to be a fool doesn't mean that I need to abide by it."
It's a fuller answer than his initial response, but it's still not the full of it because there is no unmaking the truth that it wasn't to Vergil's advantage in the slightest. It was foolish for Vergil to not to let Mizu reap the consequences of his choices. Had Vergil lost consciousness after the blast, the shrapnel from the grenade itself would have hindered his healing. Mizu also could have easily taken advantage of Vergil being unarmed and on his knees rather than waiting for him to regroup. It's not as though the other swordsman was so above fighting dirty, after all. So, in that decision to protect Mizu, it could have just as easily been over and done for Vergil. He would have been forced to yield one way or another had things gone a little differently.
So, it's true that Vergil has the ability to decide if he's going to let Mizu taste the consequences of foolish decisions. But that still doesn't provide a reason as to why his instinct wasn't to let Mizu be his own undoing. Especially when Vergil privately knows that being the protector of another... Well, that was a drive and instinct he gave up a long time ago. It's only ever been about his pursuit of power for decades, and thus, only ever ensuring his own survival. What became of others mattered little. The lives lost and broken because of him were negligible.
Then again, maybe that wasn't the conflict. Maybe Vergil didn't see it as his survival or even his defeat were on the line in that moment, and it really did boil down to refusing to let Mizu's self-destructive tendencies determine the outcome. Perhaps it was that selfish part of him that wants what he feels entitled to through his own power and merit that drove him to do it. Perhaps it is a fuller answer than it seems, and there's nothing more to it.
Vergil looks down at Mizu though, and he feels like a child clumsily trying to bluff his way through some predicament to an adult that already knows the truth, but waits to see when he will say it. Vergil can't intuit Mizu's mind, but his words feel so paper thin without Mizu having to say or do anything. He quickly averts his gaze with a mild heat rising to his face and ears, and he feels all at once frustrated. Granted, the frustration is without a specific target as this also appears to happen quite frequently after they spar. Something...lifts afterward. A heaviness that Vergil is so accustomed to bearing that it's only in its absence that he notices it. And in its absence, he seems to part with things. A little at a time and usually without his notice. But something about this makes him cling tighter to it, more unwilling to part with it. Not that he could exactly articulate why that is.
"I was not thinking of the outcome of the fight." It's the most he's willing or able to say on the matter. Vergil comes to a stop at the base of the apartment building and looks up at his balcony. He has a firm hold on Mizu that he's not in any danger of being dropped on the way up, but it's likely there will be a bit of jostling. "Hold onto me."
He waits until he feels Mizu take whatever amount of hold he can muster to minimize how much he's shifted around before leaping into the air. He scales a good portion of the way up before his feet hit the side of the building. Bouncing off the wall, he directs the momentum toward his balcony. His feet find the edge and without removing his arm as a support for Mizu's back, his hand finds the railing. He raises Mizu's knees to grab the railing with his other hand and nods for him to slide himself over the railing and onto the balcony on his own. Once Mizu is clear, Vergil pulls himself the rest of the way over the railing as well.
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The explosive was reckless, but what was the alternative? Losing more certainly? Surely Vergil can understand how that will not satisfy Mizu, not when she fights like she does, like each fight matters, the difference between achieving her revenge and not. Vergil sees a far broader array of her fighting, fiercer and more determined, than anyone else. Even should any of the hand to hand instructors be able to survive that mode of fighting, it's not what she's looking for from them. She's improving technique, not reaching her fathers. Against Vergil, Mizu improves her technique and adapts her strategies. She also takes it far more seriously and fights more underhanded. As was his wish. That means the reckless along with the best technique Mizu has. It's part and parcel.
The fact Vergil can transform into a demonic form whose skin her sword cannot even cut demonstrates one of the ways he holds back during fights. The way he made the fight thoroughly one-sided the first time they sparred again after the disastrous conversation in his apartment demonstrates it. Infuriating as it is that Vergil holds back, it's far more infuriating that he needs to. Mizu will beat him, no matter what it takes, even explosives, so that he cannot hold back as much as he does now. In that regard, today was a victory. It's the first time she's witnessed him, not only his double, take that form. That pleases Mizu in a way she does not put into words. That move makes sense. Pushing her away, shielding her with his double, that does not serve him well in the fight.
It makes no sense.
Though Mizu already watches Vergil's face, she's stunned and stares when he says it wasn't about the fight. About the outcome. She would forget where they are, save that he speaks again in a way that promises pain. Pain doesn't matter. Mizu fists Vergil's vest with one hand and reaches across herself painfully to get a second anchor point. The neckline of his shirt.
Not used to bothering to hide pain outside of a fight, when Mizu frequently forgets or ignores it, Mizu flinches as the leaps jostle her. It's better than walking through the public areas of Satori Hills. No complaint there. It takes a moment to gather herself. Vergil is letting her climb onto his balcony. That's right. She can do that. Mizu slides away from Vergil and lets go of him to steady on the railing itself. Only for a moment. Rather than focus on what Vergil's words could mean, Mizu takes small forcefully steady steps toward the door into Vergil's apartment. It's not far, and with her foot healed, she manages it.
Woozy from the loss of blood, Mizu pauses, leaning against that door. What was Vergil thinking about? Mizu blinks and stares at him, as though that will provide any further insight. She may as well be swordfather, for how much Mizu can tell from his face. With a small shake of her head to clear her thoughts and focus, she turns back to the door and slides it open. It's only far enough she can slip inside and continue, tracking a little blood, toward Vergil's bed. He lacks much furniture, and Mizu refuses to collapse on the floor.
"I'll be... fine," Mizu says with determination. Whether she has the healing ability or not, she'll live. She'll recover. She'll be fine. Nothing she regrets about their fight, not when she knows that explosive won't kill him. Not there. She was right.
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"I know," he says at Mizu's reassurance. There hasn't been a fight between them yet that Mizu hasn't recovered from in the end.
The most he does for Mizu is pull back the covers on the bed, but he otherwise lets the other swordsman handle getting himself settled. Mizu has a bed to collapse upon should he find himself struggling, anyway, so Vergil will allow Mizu's pride to dictate how much support he has or not. As Mizu settles, Vergil gets a large bowl with some soapy water and a pair of towels from the kitchen. He sets them down on the nightstand near the bed for Mizu to clean off some of the blood and grime. As little as Vergil is concerned with the state of his bedding by the time Mizu is done resting, he can at least recognize that it would probably feel a little better for Mizu to clean up. Even if it's just the rest of what the snow could not on his face. To that end, Vergil opens his wardrobe and pulls from it a shirt and pair of sweatpants. As he does, he says, "I'll make you some food after I've showered."
Rather than taking the clothing with him, however, Vergil lightly tosses them at the foot of the bed in a silent offer for Mizu to make use of them if he so desires. They'll be a little large on his smaller frame, of course, but they're at least clean and it won't require spending any Lore to summon a fresh pair of clothes. But if all Mizu wants to do is simply lie down and sleep, far be it from Vergil to take any offense to not cleaning himself up or taking the clothes.
He pulls out another change of clothes for himself, and slides his wardrobe shut. Out of habit, he begins to reach beneath his shirt and vest to pull his out the amulet around his neck. Vergil pauses and hesitates, however, with a glance at Mizu, his grip subtly tightening around the amulet itself. After a few quiet seconds of debate, he releases the amulet and removes it, placing it on its usual spot on the nightstand. It's been out in the open before and Mizu let it be. He didn't seem to pay it any mind whatsoever the last time he was in Vergil's apartment, in fact. So, Vergil likely has very little to worry about leaving it there with Mizu.
As he heads towards his bathroom, Vergil begins unbuttoning his vest, scoffing quietly to himself at the tears in the fabric.
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The cuts in her clothing allow her to clean the wounds without revealing more skin than necessary. Without revealing anything she doesn't want to. Mizu uses her uninjured hand to clean around the wounds so nothing goes worse before she can heal them. Her ability isn't an excuse for reckless wound care. She flinches as she goes, pressing against sensitive wounds. That's how injuries go. Even Vergil isn't entirely stoic. Mizu saw that today. It's not embarrassing to be wounded or to take care of herself. Even as her head gets woozy, she carries on, wiping her face along the way.
The clothes are the greater surprise. The entire time it takes Vergil to leave, to place the amulet on the nightstand and go, Mizu focuses her attention on the simple nightclothes offered to her. She remembers how similar clothes fit on Vergil when she stopped by. They'll fit differently on her, and Mizu puzzles whether that would reveal more of her shape than she would like. To add to the matter, Mizu doesn't know how long it will take Vergil to shower, less than a bath, and she remains injured. That very well may be something he's chosen to be polite, so he can make food more quickly, but Mizu doubts she has time to change into these clothes and change back, should they be unacceptable. Fortunately, Vergil knows Mizu to be plenty rude when she chooses, so there's no social obligation to accept the offer.
There is no time for indecision. Mizu scans the room, as though Vergil may have overlooked some unexpected squatter in this room, and moves quickly despite the pain. She unties her obi, removes her haori, and forces her injured arm through one sleeve, grateful the shirt is large on her. She finishes pulling it on and considers it. Mizu scowls at the way the light breeze coming through the door emphasizes her curves. Her haori is dirty and sliced through, but Mizu pulls it on over the shirt to add some weight. The shirt is clearly visible where the largest slash across her torso goes.
The trousers... Mizu turns toward the closed bathroom door. The shower is still running. Fine. Her legs themselves aren't injured. It only hurts to lift herself up and twist her body around in the act of dressing and undressing. Unless she heals herself here, Mizu doubts she'll want to change back before leaving. In total, she's dressed without being seen. The trousers do not call attention to her hips, and her haori guards her silhouette.
The excitement and terror of the situation wear off and leave Mizu drained and exhausted and wavering even as she sits. Mizu leaves her clothes where they lay and lies down, settling on her back as the least awful option, and passes out without thinking about it.
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But he still lingers on it and the little cuts adorning his features, allowing the distant thought that he hasn't looked this rough since he was a child after a fight with Dante to be more present instead. They'd both be forced to sit as their mother cleaned each cut and scrape. Vergil sat still and quietly even if occasionally his eyes were pricked with tears when it would sting or burn. Dante squirmed and caterwauled nearly the entire time. Vergil would hold his hand after a while to help simmer him down with a prepared excuse that he just wanted to make things easier for their mother, but really he thought it was what a big brother was supposed to do for his little brother. Dante never asked him why he did it though, and neither did their mother. She would only scold them a little, provide them with a chore, and let them be rather than lecture.
Vergil sighs at his reflection for a moment before crouching down to undo the straps on his boots. When he straightens, he turns on the shower to start warming up the water before he strips out of his clothes. The shirt and vest don't go into the laundry basket, instead finding themselves tossed away into the trash bin. He hesitates a moment before stepping into the shower, listening for any sound that might alert him to Mizu struggling in some form or fashion. But there isn't a sound coming from outside the bathroom door, and he can only assume Mizu is managing or otherwise asleep. Vergil will keep an ear out still, but he feels confident that Mizu is fine.
Cliche as it is, the shower really is a perfect place to clear his mind when distraction isn't going to prove effective. He lets it go blank as he watches the rivulets of water coming off him turn from red to pink for just a little while before he begins to properly scrub himself clean again. But the question eventually emerges once again as he touches his once grievously injured side. He protected Mizu because he wasn't thinking about the outcome of the fight, but...
Why had he not concerned himself more with that?
It's not as though he cares that deeply about Mizu's opinion of him, but even if he had, Mizu wouldn't have been angry for whatever Vergil would have done as his opponent. He would have understood, and he would have accepted that he made a significant mistake in thinking greater firepower than what he had produced thus far would best Vergil. That would have been it. And for as reckless as it was, Mizu has survived something similar by his own account. Vergil would have still absorbed the majority of the blast even if he just allowed Mizu to escape as far as he could carry himself before it detonated. But there was just the singular thought to get Mizu away as far as possible as quickly as possible, and he enacted it without much more thought than that. But why?
He shuts off the water, grabbing a towel and drying off a little before stepping out to dry off the rest of the way. Unlike in the shower, Vergil doesn't find himself meandering and is quicker to dry off and dress himself. He opens the bathroom door quietly, padding his way over to the bed to check on Mizu.
He doesn't dare sit on the bed, thinking that the shift in weight could wake Mizu either naturally or through agitating his wounds. So, he kneels down beside him. Looking at Mizu, Vergil considers the question a bit further.
For the entirety of his life, Vergil has never been good at protecting anything. That day, he wasn't able to protect his mother or Dante. He abandoned Nero and his mother. He arguably couldn't even really protect himself in the end. But even with all those failures, he wanted to protect Mizu.
He glances away at the amulet, quietly picking it up from where he left it and putting it back on. Once it's safely tucked away beneath his shirt, he looks to Mizu again. Tentatively, he reaches out with a hand, hesitating just before making contact just as he had at the bonfire. But Vergil summons up the courage, and feels Mizu's forehead to check for a fever. His hand lingers there for just a moment before slowly, he gently follows the line of Mizu's cheek and takes back his hand altogether.
...He wants to protect Mizu.
It's a stupid, foolish, reckless, and terrible feeling. It's completely unnecessary and pointless, and Vergil wants nothing more than to tear it out of himself, to shred it for as long as it takes to make it infinitesimal pieces. But it's there, having lodged itself there at some point or another. The consequence of his humanity, he supposes, mind drifting to the amulet beneath his shirt.
Vergil stands silently, collecting the bowl and used towels. He disposes of the water, cleans the bowl, and puts the dirtied towels in with the rest of the laundry before replacing the bowl with a glass of water on the nightstand. Vergil pulls the sheet over Mizu, but leaves the blanket off him given his choice to keep his haori on. From there, it's cleaning the little trail of blood left behind by Mizu when he came inside and making the promised food.
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She comes to in an unfamiliar bed and reaches for her sword. Still in its scabbard, Mizu takes in her surroundings, memory muddling to the fore slower than the pain. How long was she out? Not long if those sounds are Vergil in the kitchen. She hopes. Mizu sits immediately, not good at staying lying down when she's uncertain about anything in her environment. Though it's safe to pass out around Vergil, Mizu still hates losing consciousness when it's not of her own choosing. The pain pierces through the rest, and Mizu accepts that, normal as it is.
The water is cool and refreshing, greatly appreciated. Mizu looks across the room at Vergil. There isn't anything else to do but sit and wait and slowly recover. Things she can all do here in safety. Only when the thought that Mizu should ask Vergil for a needle and thread does she remember her healing ability, foreign and unfamiliar as it is. If Mizu can heal herself, she doesn't need to sew the wounds shut. A convenient fact given the act only causes more pain. She could ask him for drugs to lessen the pain (not opium, more the pills that come in bottles). However, it is best Mizu masters this ability without any aid, so she does not.
Once again, Mizu arranges herself for meditation, staying in the bed for the process. Closing her eyes, Mizu repeats phrases softly to herself under her breath. For all that her anger burns cold within her, she can find peace and calm, at least for a few moments at a time. Her mind stays on swordfather and all he taught her. When she loses her focus and cannot find it again, Mizu considers her injuries. She slides one hand under the shirt to feel her wound. The skin has sewn shut, but the area is tender to the touch. Her arm is similarly much better but not fully healed. Most annoyingly, her head still feels woozy and light. Nearly drunk, Mizu wants to say, except that she does not drink and could not say with certainty that's how it would feel.
"I'm awake," Mizu declares, in the unlikely case Vergil hasn't noticed. Even under normal circumstances, whenever two people share a room, it's hard not to notice the other person. With her injuries, Mizu has no doubts Vergil's paid attention. "Thank you for your generosity."
The bed. The clothes. The food soon to follow. That isn't part of the obligations they've made to each other with their sparring. Mizu could have laid on the floor well enough. She's slept in less comfortable places.
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Vergil's not much of a chef. The times he has had to fend for himself historically haven't exactly had much emphasis on the culinary arts so much as merely sustaining himself for the next day. But he's acquired a little skill since being in Folkmore, and he finds he doesn't mind it all too much preparing his own meals. There's something meditative about it, in any case. So, he's managed to put together a standard cheeseburger—a seasoned patty with cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, mustard, and mayo all on a lightly toasted bun—with a side of some sweet potato fries. It seems a safe enough choice in meal given that he doesn't know Mizu's preferences and it'd be more than a little difficult for Vergil to mess it up.
He grunts his acknowledgement when Mizu announces he's awake, focusing on finishing with his plating and turning the stovetop off. He glances in Mizu's direction at the words of thanks, but he doesn't truthfully know what to do with them. He doesn't view what he's doing as anything particularly special, and he would like to think Mizu would extend a similar courtesy if their roles were reversed. In the end, he says nothing to it and brings the food and a small pitcher of water over on a tray. Normally, he'd insist for Mizu to sit at the table to eat to avoid crumbs in his bed, but the sheets will need washing anyway. So, Mizu might as well eat comfortably in bed. He sits down nearby at the foot of the bed and places the tray between them.
"It's not much," he says, loosely folding his arms, "but you should try to eat as much as you can." He pauses before adding, "How do you feel? You look like you're starting to get some color back."
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She accepts the food and starts eating the vegetable on the side. That is more familiar to her, though she's been introduced to sandwiches before. In Japan, there would be chopsticks for the vegetable and... she's not sure how they would deal with sandwiches. The fact there is meat and cheese together in the sandwich is very much a white man concept. It's not what she expected from Vergil, but perhaps he learned about it here. The food is varied in Folkmore, and Mizu eats what is presented at various social gatherings. At home, her food is what she's used to.
Since there are no utensils, she picks up the sandwich with her hands and takes a bite. The meat is rich and fatty. The other parts of the sandwich introduce crunchy texture, sour flavors, and creaminess. It's a lot all in one bite. That seems appropriate to Vergil that he would like something like this. She needs the water and wipes her hands off on a napkin before reaching for the glass. She sips. Her appetite is both ravenous and nonexistent. She knows she needs food, but the process pulls at tender skin and sore muscles coming back together.
Mizu wishes Vergil would eat his sandwich. Being watched makes her feel more the invalid than she is and the accompanying desire to prove it. That makes her think of Taigen—that insistence she could beat him anywhere at any time with any weapon. She did beat him with a chopstick. Though Vergil, of course, would immediately learn how to fight with a chopstick upon picking it up. Perhaps not when it's an improvised weapon? Mizu wonders about that.
"It is more difficult to focus and use the healing ability at the moment, but I closed the wounds themselves," Mizu says. "I'm not sure if it replenishes blood. That will be something to think about."
She shrugs. She doesn't need to be hale and whole an hour after they finish sparring. It's enough that it should take a matter of days, perhaps. "I've had much worse," she assures Vergil. She barely passed out long enough for him to finish showering and make food. That's nothing.
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As he chews his bite, he listens to Mizu's answer to his question. Based upon it, Vergil privately concludes that this must be a limit to the healing ability. While Vergil's own healing happens instantaneously and without thought—more a natural consequence of his biology than anything else—Mizu's requires a little more cognitive effort. He has to focus his attention in some manner to be successful with it. Therefore, if he's unconscious or in too much pain or in some altered state of mind, it won't be as successful. It's something for Vergil to take note in how he chooses to approach their future fights. He might not need to hold back quite as much as he did before, but to Vergil's mind, it's a negligible difference. The outcomes would be the same as they would be without the healing factor in that circumstance.
Vergil swallows and shifts to holding the burger in one hand as he picks up a fry from his plate. He tips his head a little and his brow furrows slightly at Mizu's reassurance.
He keeps doing that. Trying to reassure Vergil.
The half-devil doesn't know what to make of it because it's not as though he's worried per se. Mizu is upright, talking, eating, and he doesn't look quite so close to passing out with every movement. Vergil is only doing the sensible thing and asking for his own perspective though, and the offer of a place to rest and recuperate is the decent thing to do. Nothing that should merit any sort of concern for Vergil's thoughts or feelings.
"Unsurprising," he says before popping the fry in his mouth. He pinches at the napkin with his fingers to clean them before pushing a few still-drying strands that fell with the movement of his hand back to where they belong. Once the fry is gone, he says, "I think if we had met when I was younger, I wouldn't have been so quick to assume humans were all so weak."
There's a small beat before he adds, "But I may have also assumed all of them were quite stupid."
He's teasing. Not that just anyone would necessarily pick up on the barest of lilts in his tone to indicate as much. To some, it'd probably sound like a genuine insult and more of a display of Vergil's sense of superiority. But Vergil trusts Mizu can tell the difference. Besides, he already expressed that he thought what Mizu did today was reckless and stupid, and Vergil was never one to belabor a point.
He takes another bite of his cheeseburger.
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Including the food. Mizu eats the strange sandwich. That's not hard after the last half year. It's filling, and she's famished the more she eats. Though she eats tidily, it seems gone in a few bites. Mizu glances down at her hands when Vergil compliments her on not being weak—that is what he's saying, basing his opinion on humans on her. Something that would make so many people in Japan laugh. They don't all consider her human. Many of them consider her weak. Mizu knows better.
A smile grows, amused, when he continues. "People are quite stupid," Mizu says, "Every one that I've met. If someone doesn't appear stupid, wait and they will reveal themselves."
The vegetable takes a little longer, if only because each slice is eaten individually with the hands. It's over fairly quickly however. She could probably eat a second one, but that might not be the best idea. By the time she gets home, however, she'll have room to eat more. She watches Vergil, including him in that group. People. He might not be human, but he's a person. The urge to grapple him, to prove she can pin him, rises as it often does with people. Only Mizu knows better than to think she'd win at that right now, even with the surprise. Give her time, Vergil. Give her time.
"I've always been like this," Mizu says, "I simply wouldn't be as experienced if you met me when I was younger." She believes that, those early lessons against blood soaked Chiaki, the assassin who used her broken blade for years, showed how much more she had to learn. Once skilled, it took experience to get where she is now. Her skill with the naginata, Mizu doesn't like to dwell on it, but Mikio taught her well. She can give him that much credit. Mizu took it further, a way to have a sword and a naginata in one weapon. Superior to only one or the other.
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"I would have likely found you vexing and wouldn't have had the patience for your foolishness," he says. He's proud still, but he was prideful then. A son of Sparda who was ready to take what was his no matter the cost would have been insulted at a human with no power and little experience or skill to show for it trying to challenge him. Not that Vergil imagines it would have dissuaded Mizu at all. In his experience, the irritating ones have a tendency to refuse to give up. He would have just kept trying again and again and again just as he does now. The difference is, however, Vergil has an understanding of why Mizu refuses to give up on the notion that he might best Vergil someday, and why he's willing to continue throwing himself into a fight he may never actually win again and again and again. That understanding subsequently lends itself to an appreciation and a degree of respect. Things, that in his younger years, Vergil never would have held towards Mizu. The frustration and irritation would have, at most, lead to a sort of resentful curiosity.
He hums in light amusement at how much they probably wouldn't have gotten along, the barest flicker of a smile as he takes one last fry from his own plate. He stacks his plate atop Mizu's now empty plate, and says, "You may have the rest."
He's not actually so full from the cheeseburger that he can't finish his few remaining fries. But seeing as how Mizu didn't complain about the meal, Vergil has no trouble parting with the rest for Mizu to get a little more food in his stomach. After he pops his final fry into his mouth, Vergil wipes his hands clean with his crumpled napkin and places it on the tray where his plate used to be.
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not like letting Akemi get taken back to her father. It felt terrible but was likely the best option for her. She didn't know about Fowler's plot at that point, and even with it, Akemi was getting out of there. She stood by her deal with Ringo. Akemi's fine. The girl made her choices. It's up to her, not Mizu. Mizu is only responsible for herself. Ringo shouldn't have expected anything better. She was clear with him up front. A demon's path. Mizu doesn't want to dwell on those thoughts. It isn't the sort of foolishness Vergil means. Better to think of how entertained and exasperated he might be when the brothel was attacked and Mizu got stuck under the door. She got out, no suffocation for her. In a way the door protected her in ways she'd otherwise be vulnerable on the ground beneath so many opponents.
"Then it's a good thing we were not brought here when we were younger," Mizu suggests. At least she has one, almost two, kills down on her list. The ones she could manage on her own. She didn't need the fox spirit's help before now, so there's no reason she'd come earlier. They butt heads from time to time now, but that's with some understanding and respect for each other. Mizu's seen how far beyond human Vergil is, and he doesn't have the sword he's been looking for since the day they arrived. While it may be an emotional attachment to the sword, Mizu has no doubts it's as remarkable a sword as Mirage Edge. She needs to beat him before that happens. Part of the impetus to get this healing ability.
She must look really hungry since Vergil gives her the remainder of his vegetables. A small nod. Mizu continues to eat them one at a time. She's always hungry after they spar. She goes all out, not only in so far as the injuries she will take over the course of the fight but how little energy she works to conserve. It does no good if she's dead, so a true fight, one that matters, gets that commitment. This time, Mizu is slower. There won't be more after this for a little while, and her body needs to be ready for that. Not that Mizu ever starves in Folkmore. She keeps enough Lore on her spoon to summon emergency supplies, including food.
"This was good," Mizu says, "Weird, but good." She manages not to thank him again for it. Etiquette is one of the easiest things to fall back on when she needs a tool, but Mizu isn't otherwise an especially polite person. Vergil doesn't operate on the same rules Japan does, so it isn't as useful. It simply leaves her with little to go on when she doesn't want a repeat of the disastrous ending of the last conversation they had in his room.
She motions across the room toward the books since he mentioned reading at the bonfire. "Are those yours or from the library?" Mizu asks. In her day, only the very rich had scrolls. Most people relied on stories shared aloud. Most people didn't even know how to read.
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"Mine," he says. Not that he has anything against the library. He's spent plenty of time with books there, too. But there's something incredible about having a tangible book that's all his own again after so long being without. Not that Vergil doesn't recognize on some level how foolish that is. They are just printed words on a page. They're not exactly some prized treasure decked in jewels and other precious metals. But they are his. And he finds a richness in them that he can't really find an equivalent anywhere else. He glances back at Mizu as he continues, his eyes drifting over toward his balcony instead and the world beyond, "I read a lot as a child. Poetry, mostly."
Vergil lightly folds his arms once more, crossing his ankles as well. It's not out of defensiveness, however. He just can't exactly think of the last time anyone ever took an interest in his reading habits, let alone that he spoke of it with someone else. Dante never understood it, always wanting to be rough and tumble, and play. He found reading tedious, and poetry even more so. Vergil begged his parents constantly to read to him before he was able to read for himself. In all honesty, he doesn't know if his father would have been as interested talking about it with him. He was gone too soon after Vergil began learning to read for himself. But his mother was always willing to sit with Vergil while he read. She never seemed disinterested or annoyed whenever he decided to tell her about the books he was reading. And she never was put out when even well after he could read, Vergil would still ask her to read to him.
He lifts his chin, opting not to dwell on it, and looks at Mizu.
"I spent most of my adolescence reading on clues about my father's power. Most of it was the same story, just little variations." Clearly not something Vergil would have read for the very pleasure of it, that's for certain. "After that... Reading wasn't really something I was able to do."
It's a skirting around the full truth of everything that came after he tried to seize the power of Sparda for himself. But Mizu didn't ask for all of that, and Vergil would much rather not talk about it. So, he doesn't. Instead, he says with a casual wave of his hand, "But I have more time here. So, I thought I might as well fill it with books and poetry."
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She listens to Vergil, however, because he loved books from childhood. He comes from a childhood with books in it. Given how powerful his father was, that shouldn't be surprising. It's the rich and powerful men (and demons) who have libraries. It matches the pride and the search for power, in so much as that more frequently comes from men in those parts of society. Taiden has ambition, and he has pride. It's the pride of someone scraping to prove himself and drag himself up, rather than one who was born to be there. That might have made Mizu dislike Vergil, except they discussed it in the context of their mistakes costing so many people their lives. It felt different, even if it was something they had to share to ever leave that library. Now, it seems, the two closest people to her in Folkmore come from that wealthy kind of background. Vergil. And Rin.
Vergil's adolescence is particularly relatable to her current activities. It speaks to where they are in their journeys. Vergil no longer is trying to amass as much power as possible, but Mizu still walks the path of revenge. At best, she'll soon be half done. The second half of such journeys are likely harder than the first. They only ever get harder. A small sigh. She has enough difficulty learning about London. She can't imagine trying to learn the truth behind his father's power, something that would be a much more guarded secret. No jealousy there, strange as it is to learn about a place around the world that she's never been to and for which so much information is about the future.
"It's what you like, so it makes sense you would," Mizu says. She's never cared about poetry herself, but she doesn't say so. No need to insult what Vergil likes. It's not like Mizu's been exposed to much poetry in her life. She leans back against the wall, more interested in Vergil than the books themselves. "What do you like about them?"
Better to let him talk on the matter. Mizu can listen. Not everyone is as single minded as she is, and Vergil had more exposure to various things before his life went to shit than she did living in a shack in the woods. Her stories were always of the bad men who would find her if she went outside.
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"When I was a child, I liked it because it was something I didn't have to share with Dante. We're twins, so we were expected to share most everything together."
Albeit, Vergil always felt more pressure around sharing with Dante than the other way around. Dante was always so happy to let Vergil have anything, and he could never particularly understand why Vergil rarely reciprocated. Even when it was things he wasn't all that interested in like Vergil's books, he couldn't understand why Vergil didn't want to let him have them and why he'd get so angry with Dante every time he'd hide one of Vergil's books on him.
"I used to mark the things I didn't want Dante touching with a 'V'," he says, drawing the letter in the air with a finger. "Although in hindsight it was a foolish choice. It just told him which things of mine he needed to try and steal from me in order to get my attention if I kept refusing to play with him.
"Anyway, he was never much for reading. He thought it was boring, and couldn't understand why I'd rather read than play and train with him. So, the books and poems were something for me."
But it certainly grew to be more than just avoiding his brother's insistence to fight with their wooden swords, or establishing something for himself as time went on. And it wasn't even about that sense of escapism either. It was actually more about seeking a connection more than anything. Vergil found an emotional world in his reading. One that he's known so very little about in his daily life as even as a child, he found himself struggling to articulate all that he felt and saw. It's why he fell in love with Blake's poems, works that dealt with both the beautiful and uglier sides of nature and life. Vergil briefly mulls over how much of that to share, how much of it is even relevant or something Mizu would even care to know even if he did ask the question what it was about books and poetry that drew Vergil's interest before he answers.
He looks back over towards the balcony.
"I have never been...particularly skilled when it comes to connecting with others. Even as a child, I would watch Dante befriend almost anyone and I could never understand it. How he drew people in and spoke to them so easily as if they had been friends the entirety of their lives.
"But I found that connection for myself in poetry. Blake, in particular."
And then his mother was killed, and he presumed his brother was dead, and that the same fate was about to befall him as well. And the devil awakened within him, and he survived, but he swore off such connection, such emotion. It was weakness to be so human, so connected that he would grieve anyone ever again, that he would ever allow himself to be reliant upon those connections for his own protection and well-being. The colder he was able to be, the stronger he was, he thought. And so he spent years on his own, refusing help, refusing to hide who and what he was. He fought viciously for his survival, and he remained so single-minded in his pursuit of power that he let all else fall by the wayside.
"I wanted more of it, so I read as much as I could."
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Siblings or other young people not trying to beat the shit out of her is... a foreign experience for Mizu. It sounds like the kind of thing that must be normal to other people. It's like peering through the slats in her shack as a child and seeing the village children play together. Something observed not experienced, not fully understood. Dante reminds her a little of Ringo and his insistence in following Mizu, joining her, and coming along on her quest. Not the same, mind, but it's the closest she has to someone bothering her when she repeatedly tells them to go away.
She finishes eating the rest of Vergil's vegetables while he talks. The way he looks away, looks distant, when he continues leads her to still. Mizu wipes her hand on the napkin and sits quietly. While it makes so little sense to her that connection could be found in words on a page, Mizu understands the difficulty connecting with others. How much she tried when she still gave a damn about it. It takes effort not to mull over certain events, certain mistakes in her past. She won't think about them. Better to rip open her side again than revisit foolish moments.
Mizu gazes at Vergil's books and tries to see what Vergil said he found there. Her reading has been factual accounts. What stories she's read, she's focused on the details about London, not on connection and people. That superfluous information. None of it has been poetry. Mizu notes the name Blake and looks back at Vergil. The point is what it did for him. There's no expectation it would ever do the same for her. She found herself a different way.
That way doesn't involve words. Mizu's glad to listen to Vergil speak about his interest in books, in poetry, but she doesn't know what to say. Conversation isn't a skill she's developed or needed. "I didn't know you could find that in books," Mizu says, "I didn't grow up with them."
Mizu's still not sure she could find that in books, but she hasn't tried. Connection isn't what she seeks. Connection is for other people. Even, it seems, Vergil. He's in a different place than she is, no longer simply seeking power (though his continued work to regain his sword relates to it). He has room for more in his life. Poetry again. Connection. Vergil and Rin, in their own ways, have been in similar places to Mizu, but they both are in different ones now. Something past, pushed beyond, the goal itself. It raises the question: what happens after? If Mizu kills Fowler and Routley and Skeffington. She doesn't know. If she survives the process, she can figure something out then, though she will be far from anyone she's met in Folkmore at that point. These connections, what little they are, will be gone. That shouldn't matter. It doesn't. The ache is simply her wounds not fully healed.
"Then again, all I did in my youth was make knives and swords and practice my swordmanship."
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He sets the pitcher of water on the nightstand for Mizu to be able to still refill his glass as needed before gathering up the tray.
"Even if you did grow up with books, you didn't have a need for them," he says as he stands up. And Mizu isn't the sort of person to waste his time on something he doesn't place value in. "You had your smithing instead."
Vergil steps away to the kitchen, tossing out the used napkins.
"Have you considered smithing more while you're here?" Vergil asks as he sets the plates in the sink and opens the cabinet from where he pulled the tray out. Vergil feels like he already knows the answer. Mizu's never been unclear about his focus on his task of revenge. Swordsmithing doesn't exactly align so neatly with that beyond the ability to repair his own weapons as he continues to train both sharpening and maintaining his skills. But he would like to be surprised by hearing otherwise. So, he asks regardless of the certainty that hasn't likely crossed Mizu's mind all that seriously.
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Mizu sips more of the water and watches Vergil go about cleaning up. She will probably leave soon. She can walk, and Vergil doesn't need her imposing on him, his space, or his time. He's been more than fair. Still, she wouldn't have minded if he stayed sitting there longer.
"I am making a sword for someone," Mizu says, "They were searching for someone who can make katana, rather than simply summon one, and he's going to pay me in Lore." Mizu smiles, almost a smirk, at Vergil. She knows Vergil works hard to build up Lore, to have enough Lore to regain Yamato. Here she is getting paid half the cost of her healing ability to make a single sword.
"It's ensuring I make sure the forge is set up just right. I'm approaching the work as Master Eiji taught me, though I admit he's never had to make a sword for someone from another world. I'm curious to see how well I match it to him." His words about her sword, about it being too pure, too brittle, ring in her mind. Sephiroth's sword will not break on him. She'll see to it.
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"And how exactly do you match a blade to a person?" he asks as he moves the pan, cutting board, and knife to the sink.
Vergil isn't ignorant to the idea of a blade matching its wielder. Yamato was his father's blade once and Vergil's own son has wielded it as well. But he would be lying if he attempted to deny he feels a stronger claim to it than anyone else in his bloodline, including his father. By now, Vergil has full command of the Yamato's power. When he wields it, the sword is an extension of him and his will. Vergil moves with grace and speed, the blade itself enhancing his own natural abilities further. And when he transforms, the blade and its scabbard become physical parts of him. There is, in some ways, no separating Vergil from Yamato or Yamato from Vergil. Not for long. But Yamato isn't an ordinary blade made purely of steel by the hands of everyday men, and it wasn't forged with Vergil in mind. When Sparda divided his power into the blade, it was so that the gate between worlds could be properly sealed, not with the intention of one passing the blade down to a son. Vergil's connection with the blade came far later and unintentionally.
So, the question and its associated curiosity is genuine. Vergil abandons the dishes for now to return to his spot on the bed.
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The question is simple but difficult at the same time. No matter how many times Master Eiji explained it or how many swords she saw made, it's not so easy to define. It requires a deep understanding of the warrior, while a swordsmith also will not observe them live in combat. Master Eiji cannot see at all but manages to understand simply touching someone as they go through their moves, an ability Mizu could not match. He is incredible, far beyond anything else she has seen.
"In its most basic form, you need to understand how a blade will be used," Mizu explains, "You have to observe their techniques. Master Eiji refused to make a sword for anyone who would not demonstrate each and every one of his techniques, even the secret ones. Some refused, so they did not get swords." That's the simplest most basic level. A sword must be suited to the ways it will be used. However, that could lead to the same sword for every student of the same dojo, a most laughable idea.
"Those observations also reveal temperament, preferences, ticks, and other expressions of who a warrior is. Though in truth, every interaction with someone before making them a sword feeds into the understanding of them and what suits them." That's only the observations, not how it comes out in the sword.
"There are hundreds of decisions that go into making a sword, and each of them affects the outcome. Even what wood you burn to heat the metal, each piece of wood I mean, not only the kind of tree or the dryness of the wood. I don't know that I could explain each decision I make throughout the process, but attuning yourself to it and ensuring your mind is in the right state. You have to empty yourself and..."
Mizu doesn't have the words. She knows when it's right.
"You let the sword be what it should be."
A wholly unsatisfactory answer, she is sure. No one asks Master Eiji how he does it, only satisfied that he does. She learned from him, a thousand little lessons along with the larger ones. Mizu shrugs.
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His father's blades would be perhaps the closest comparison. Others are a little less comparable given that they require another demon to suffer defeat and submit to the will of its better for its continued survival. But rather than steel, they were forged of Sparda's power, and rather than to match its wielder, they were matched to a purpose given that the wielder was the same as the creator. But even those small differences make the processes seem incompatible. Sparda putting himself into his blades was not an extension of something more metaphysical like what Mizu describes. It was merely funneling raw power and manifesting it. Then again, that woman... What was her name? Vergil's brow furrows a little as he tries to recall it. Nico. Nico had been capable of forging Devil Arms. The arms that Nero used and the hat she gifted Dante had seemed appropriate to each of them. Perhaps there is some overlap that Vergil just cannot parse entirely on his own given the only Devil Arms he's possessed he either inherited or forged after defeating the devil whose power he was taking for himself.
"I'm sure you will make a blade that matches him," he says, breaking his quiet and lifting his gaze back to Mizu. "You're attentive in battle. You read my moves better each time we cross blades and apply that knowledge well. I imagine you'll understand him well enough, too, to make a blade that suits his needs."
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A small nod at the compliment. It's not praise she's used to hearing. Even when she made the sword, it was always under Master Eiji. Except for her sword. No one complimented her on her work, especially not beforehand. They thanked Master Eiji for the sword. That was that. Master Eiji gave praise and criticism as deserved. No memory stands out stronger than the broken blade, the one Mizu assumed was her fault. Her impurity. Master Eiji identified the problem cleanly with one touch of the assassin's hands. They did not match his story. Nor, in hindsight, did his treatment of Mizu learning swordplay. Chiaki is dead now, and the stories about him will fade. The sword reclaimed. For his part, Vergil is also fair with his words. He means it.
She runs a hand over the sheath of her sword and draws it into her lap. "He didn't have a sword. He doesn't want one of the ones lying around Folkmore or that could be summoned. So I let him demonstrate his techniques using my sword," Mizu says. Her sword but not one of her make. "I could see the ways it doesn't suit him."
Not that it's a perfect match for her either. She'd need to make a sword for that. She'd need to remake it, no matter that Thirteen returned it to her whole and unbroken. Mizu knows the impurity is there and cannot wield it. Will not wield it. Nor has she remade it, though it needs remaking. They spoke about it at the bonfire. She's not sure what will make her ready.
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Vergil turns his hands over in his lap and summons Mirage Edge, the flat side of the blade resting in his other palm.
"This is based on one of my father's other blades, Force Edge." A blade that Vergil only ever had the opportunity to use once before he was proven not strong enough to take hold of his father's power and suffered a crushing defeat. He tries not to taste the bitter taste the memory inspires in the back of his throat and offers it to Mizu. For as many times as Mizu has been struck by Mirage Edge, he's never had the opportunity to actually examine it.
If Mizu takes it, Mirage Edge will feel no different from any other blade. It has weight and balance of its own even if it's not made from any sort of tangible materials. Without any means of sensing magic, there's nothing that belies all that Mizu has seen it can do. Really the only thing that seems to speak to its nature at all is the fact it's the same sort of warmth that had been Vergil had been exhausting when he transformed. It's almost as though Mizu has been able to physically hold the sensation of warming his hands over a fire.
"I tried to claim it for myself once, but it was not meant to be. I only came to use this phantom version of it when Yamato was..." he says, hesitating as he tries to find the right word. There are many he could use. Lost. Nearly destroyed. Broken. Ripped away. He finds a middle ground. "...Taken."
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