The tears begin to well in Mizu's eyes and it is not long after that they begin to spill. It is difficult for Vergil to say what spurns the tears on exactly, but he would also hazard a guess by the sobs that leave Mizu's breathing uneven and uncontrolled that Mizu also does not know. But it is a great, pent up emotion that Mizu releases now through her tears, and that neither she nor he likely know what to do with. So, Vergil does little to impede it and he lets her cry for a few moments in her silence, watching her in the dark morning. He witnesses her emotion rather than trying to soothe it away, but he stays and he's willing to stay for as long as it takes whether that is for her to seek him out for more comfort or gathering herself back up enough to speak. Tears slip from her face to land quietly and gently upon the pillow she rests her head upon, and he can feel the way each sob shakes her frame. The most Vergil is willing to do is gently wipe away at the tears that manage to reach his hand there on her cheek.
She finds her voice again eventually, and with his hand leaving her cheek, Vergil pulls the blankets up over both their heads. He makes the world even darker, yes, but he also makes it smaller. An intimacy wherein there is only her and him, and their shared warmth and mingling scents as he draws her in closer to himself with both of Vergil's arms wrapped around her once more. This time, his fingertips trace along her neck, slowly and repeatedly as he allows her to hide as little or as much as she wants there in his arms.
"I don't believe it is only me," Vergil says quietly, as if there was a possibility of his voice carrying and the wrong ears were to hear it. The words are only meant for her, but he also knows they are likely difficult words to hear. Even if they are kind ones, they must still be so challenging for her to hear. "There are others. But it is hard, Mizu. It is hard to allow them after everything."
Whether or not Mizu is able to recognize it in the storm of her own emotions, Vergil is speaking from experience. One may crave love, crave the care and attention of others, and yet still find it an impossible and daunting thing to be loved and cared for. Vergil knows this because he has spent the better part of his life craving love, and yet, he has run from it nearly every damn time it has presented itself. It did not matter if it was a failure to recognize his mother's love, rejecting his brother's hand, or fleeing from his son's mother and her kindness. Even here with Mizu, it was not an easy decision on Vergil's part to allow for his feelings, to allow for the possibility that Mizu herself returned those feelings. To be loved is something that requires courage, and he has not possessed that courage for the majority of his life. He doesn't believe Mizu has much herself either. Not very often, at least.
But there have been moments of love in her life. Vergil knows there have been because he has seen it firsthand with her swordfather, and because he himself loves her. Others must have been able to look beyond their prejudices to see her and love her. But Mizu could not see it. She could not understand it. She could not accept it. It is easier to believe herself unlovable and broken in some way, to think it madness to care for her, than to allow herself to be loved and love in return. And Vergil knows what that is like. His reasons may differ, but he knows it all too well that aversion to such vulnerability that comes with connecting with another person.
Mizu buries her face in Vergil's neck. The tears continue to leak out, but the worst of it has passed. The hiccups continue at a slow enough pace she just thinks they may have passed when one jerks its way out of her. Vergil lets her and holds her, and though Mizu is mildly embarrassed, it's as much due to the fact that she doesn't know what's going on with her as the fact she's sobbing. Vergil's seen her cry before, and as before, he's there for her. It makes all the difference than being on her own remembering everything that happened.
Her breathing feels shallow, but Mizu focuses some attention to evening it out. It's small, but it's something she can do, a small way of helping herself. It isn't easy, especially not when Vergil's first response is to contradict her. Her question. That truth that slipped out uninvited. Mizu bites down on her tongue and the urge to immediately correct Vergil. Others. He most likely means Master Eiji. They had a reunion, courtesy of Ringo and quite likely her injured state. Swordfather let her and Taigen recover with him and crumbled before Ringo when the latter decided Master Eiji was his new master. They spoke, and it was better than when she left. He refused to let her use his forge, but she built her own oven to make new steel. He gave her a set of tongs to melt down into the steel.
Something else cracks, and Mizu holds on tighter. She doesn't know whether swordfather accepts her, not really, until she returns from Edo. Until she returns from Folkmore. Once he judges her worthy of one of his blades, she will know they are truly okay. Until then, like Fowler's life, it hangs on a knife point, moments away and forever at a distance. Mizu had to forge her sword, her sword in Folkmore, without his approval. Mizu leans her head against Vergil's. It's something that he believes Master Eiji will prove true, that she will prove worthy of his approval. It also cannot be known for certain until it happens.
"Everyone else has left me, and they do not know the worst things I have done," Mizu says. Vergil doesn't either, not the specifics. Other than burning down Edo, which is the worst thing she's done when it comes to a matter of scale. However, it lacks the horror of the intent, the personal interaction, and the callous disregard for whoever had to die to enable Mizu to reach her ends. Even so, Mizu's sure Vergil would not judge her for them. Everyone else? They cannot even handle what they know.
She wrinkles her nose then shakes her head a little. "Well, I guess there's Rin." So much as Mizu's let Rin in.
"That foolish girl," Vergil says, the trace of a quiet laugh in his voice when he speaks. "She is tougher than she looks."
Certainly far more tenacious than Vergil would have expected her to be, in any case. Vergil thinks if Mizu were to be as honest with Rin as she is with Vergil, it would not end with Rin leaving. Oh, the girl is liable to have a large emotional outburst over some facts of Mizu's life that Mizu probably has no idea what to do with nor likely would care to manage, but Rin would persist for longer than that outburst in the end. If Mizu's attitude hasn't been enough to scare the little thing off, not much is likely to succeed to that end.
"I cannot speak to the others in your world," he plainly admits, returning to the broader topic at hand. Vergil was not there when events unfolded, and in the absence of the fox spirit's trickery and games, he only has Mizu's version of events, which he knows is liable to be skewed. "But do you think perhaps it could be as it was with your swordfather?"
Master Eiji and Mizu did not part on the best of terms the first time as Vergil well knows. However, it was never really a question to Vergil of whether or not it was Mizu that Master Eiji was rejecting. It always seemed to him that it was Mizu's decision that angered her swordfather. His expectations for her in how he raised her did not align with the decision she was making, and his anger was likely rooted in a fear of what would become of her if she truly committed herself to that decision. While he was still clearly displeased with her decision upon their reunion, and likely many of the decisions that came after given Master Eiji refused to contribute to her self-destruction, he did not refuse her. He still allowed Mizu the opportunity to prove herself, to make decisions that would enact her revenge without sacrificing herself in the process.
And Vergil knows all of that to be exceptional as the love of a parent to their child tends to be. He is not implying that others may have the same patience, the same willingness to tolerate decisions they perceive to be mistakes. But there may yet be some. There may be some bonds Mizu has managed to form where there is that chance for a repair to be made, an opportunity to prove herself if she is willing to take the risk in trying for it.
Like Vergil, Rin was not immediately swept up to Amrita Academy. She too was out in the wild landscape that exhausted even Vergil so much that he slept nearly immediately upon his return. Rin stayed out there another week, and her injuries did not require immediate medical attention. Her clothes paid a price, and she was famished, but after a shower and a hot meal, she leapt immediately into helping others in the kitchens. Mizu agrees with Vergil that Rin is foolish. Her time seeking revenge does not erase that she is a rich girl raised well, loved, and educated. Her ignorance over Mizu's eyes made Mizu snap, but each time Rin gets that reaction from Mizu or her grumpiness or anything else, for some reason, she sticks around. Mizu suspects Rin has less experience with the darkness her revenge has brought her too, and some of it may prove too much to stomach. Yet they've known each other a long time now, so much as Mizu knows most anyone. Rin always wants to know more, but Mizu still isn't sure she's ready for it.
It is something to consider, but Mizu sets those thoughts aside when Vergil speaks again and the conversation returns to where it originally was, where Mizu's thoughts lie. Where people consider her a monster, a demon, an onryō. It's what Taigen considered her growing up, and she stands between him and his honor yet. It's how Akemi treated her for taking Taigen from her side and for abandoning her to her father. Oh Akemi accepted Mizu's help escaping, but it was not for any friendly feelings. It's why Ringo returned the bell, the symbol of his apprenticeship. Mizu never anticipated the cheap item to mean so much. She only wanted him to stop appearing out of nowhere before her. Yet receiving it hurt more than she expected. It's where the story Mizu shared, of her mother and her husband, ended. Mizu, the monster.
Vergil does not mention her mother or Mikio. He does not know of Taigen, Ringo, or Akemi. It circles back to thoughts she herself considered only moments before. It takes no tricks of reading her mind to approach this subject however, not when Vergil has twice raised the issue of Master Eiji being her father, as well as her master. Of everyone in her life, he's known her the longest, seen her grow from a young child to an adult, and taught her much of what she knows. If only one person in Mizu's life were to accept her and to love her fully, she would want it to be him. The thought, recognized consciously, aches because it's the kind of wish that someone like Mizu never gets fulfilled. Wishing for it, leaning on it in any way, only asks for more heartbreak and pain. She will have her revenge. She will not change that for anyone, and in so doing, she may never have swordfather's approval. Mizu may leave the limbo that Folkmore is, kill Fowler, and return only to be rejected once more, only to leave for London worse off than she is now.
Mizu adjusts to lay her head on the pillow, to see Vergil's face, if not particularly in focus for how close they are. Tears stain tracks down her face, but Mizu ignores them and leaves them be. Everything feels raw and on edge without the adrenaline rush and enjoyment of a fight. Nothing to direct and drive her emotions through. Only words and Vergil's arms around her, and his back under her hands. Vergil's warm, and the bed and sheets around them are warm despite how cold it is outside, and Mizu... Mizu is comfortable, physically, if nothing else. It drives a stark comparison to the piercing painful question, to thinking about swordfather and his rejection of her, about their conversation on the cliffside about being an artist.
"He wanted an apprentice, someone to work with him and to continue to make swords as he does, as an artist. Everything he does he does to make good swords. I cannot be that person. So long as my revenge is incomplete, I can never be that person. I have never been that person. He did not understand my desire to train with a sword. He allowed it, but he understood I would have trained whether he allowed it or not. Once my revenge is complete, even should I decide that returning and becoming a swordsmith is what I wish for, I do not know what it would be like, but it would not be the same.
"He did not wish for me to leave, and I did. It will never be as it was." That is the truth, as unfortunate or tragic as it is. Mizu is who she is. Master Eiji is who he is. She could never be the apprentice he wanted. She isn't. She's always dedicated herself to more than making swords. To revenge. That is her art. Swordfather does everything to make good swords. Mizu made good swords to enact her revenge.
"And that means it will not be as good as it once was?" he asks, the question sincere in its asking.
Vergil understands perhaps better than most how one can irrevocably change things with their decisions. He knows that no matter what he does now with Dante, they cannot go back to what they were as children. Too much has happened and been said for them to ever go back to that. But that does not inherently mean there is nothing worth salvaging, nor does it mean what they might build with one another cannot be just as good as what was. Or perhaps even better. But Vergil's hold on that small hope of being able to still build something out of what has become of his relationship with his brother comes from his desire and drive to do as much. With as much as Mizu has denied herself though, it would not surprise him to learn she has never considered this question in the first place, or she has a less charitable answer for it.
The question shifts, and Mizu frowns. It was good, yes, and despite how it ended when she left, the pain couldn't poison her memories of all those years. That time went deeper and survived in ways the period of her marriage could not. It remains inaccessible, something that will not return even if she does. So Vergil asks about that potential future, that event that hasn't happened and cannot yet happen until an unknown point in the future.
How can she judge what it will be like, when neither she nor swordfather are yet the people who would be in it? Mizu does not know how the rest of her revenge will change her, nor how Master Eiji will change, at least in his opinion of her, during that time. Mizu cannot even be sure she would make the attempt in the first place, that she will wish to do that.
"Could you predict what it would be like to reunite with Dante after you achieved your dream for power?" Mizu asks. "Imagining what it might be like with swordfather is as impossible for me as it would be for you after you refused Dante's hand decades ago."
"Could it be as good? Perhaps. It could also be impossible. That, the more likely." Mizu glances down. "He may not see me as a monster for how I was born, but he could still determine the demon's taken all the chairs for what I've done. What I'll do."
Before she even speaks, the frown that forms on her face there in the dark tells Vergil all he needs to know about the answer that is to come. They have been down this road with one another far too many times for Vergil not to recognize it. At some point during these sorts of conversations, Vergil can always feel her slip from his grasp. As of late, the wall that takes its place between them, shutting out whatever sense or questions Vergil might speak to her has not been quite so tall or thick. He has found ways around or through it when necessary, and he's learned to simply rest beside it when it's not. But still it makes its appearance all the same.
Vergil's jaw tenses slightly at the mention of Dante and Vergil's refusal to take his hand, to do anything other than pursuing power. It is not an unfair comparison, but with a recent conversation with his brother still so fresh on his mind—Dante's initial silence still so deafening that it leaves his subsequent promise little more than a whisper—the comparison settles a bit more poorly than it otherwise would for Vergil. Part of him feels like biting back that he's more than aware of the difficulty in predicting what it would be to reunite with his brother. He faced that uncertainty once as V, disguising any aspect of his true identity out of a fear that Dante would refuse to help him. He faces it now each day with Dante here in Folkmore. But he holds his tongue because it is not her he is answering if he does. He listens instead, trying to push aside the distraction of his brother.
The rest of her answer leads him to sigh. Mizu gives a small chance that the worst may not come to pass. She tries to couch the worst outcome in a probability. But she still speaks with unearned certainty, and damns the alternatives with insignificant chance.
"So long as you recognize, could is not the same as will. No matter the probability you assign to it. He still has a choice and will of his own, just as you do."
And as she said, she cannot truly predict what Master Eiji will do.
No doubt Vergil's answer it not the same as hers. No doubt he sees foolishness in her words. The sigh speaks of that as surely as any words. Mizu's aware that they do not see eye to eye on everything in her life, and at times it seems on swordfather most of all. It's the only relationship Vergil has witnessed anything directly, lived it as she lived the fight with Dante she referenced. So he may feel more entitled to his own opinions about it, and Mizu does not begrudge him that. Yet he saw but a single swing in all a sword can do and does. A blade that may break or perhaps already is broken.
Mizu nods her head slightly in recognition of what Vergil says. They each have choices, the two of them. Mizu is the one who comes and leaves, while Master Eiji stays where he is. The first choice is hers. Once there, they each do as they will. Stubborn, the both of them. She lets that future, that hazy unpredictable future rest.
"I told him I'd come back after I killed Fowler," Mizu shares, "if I survived. Let him decide whether or not I was worthy of steel by his hand." She pauses and traces the kanji for fire on Vergil's back. "He can decide for himself what to make of what I did to Edo."
If he cannot accept her for doing that, if that's enough to turn her away, there will be no reason to go back after killing Routley and Skeffington. No need to ponder that distant future. They must get through the immediate aftermath before parting for a greater time, whether it be as great as the years before or less. The voyage around the world alone will take a good amount of time. If everyone in Japan sees her as a monster, who is to say she will even return? Mizu does not care to think about it, about anything after her revenge. It's a distraction all the more likely to make it never become a concern in the first place.
Vergil knows better than to push too hard on a point with Mizu. It only causes her own stubbornness to flare if he does, and the point ultimately becomes lost in the disagreement of perspective. She has been willing enough to hear him out. While it is obvious her pessimism still reigns supreme when it comes to predicting outcomes, her belief in the history of people who were meant to love her serving as basis for such predictions, she at least acknowledges that Master Eiji will make his own decision based upon his own judgment. Not her history or her assumptions, but as he knows her. It is more consideration than Vergil believes Mizu would naturally give to it, in any case, as she can more easily reflect that Master Eiji knows her to her core and that is his metric. Not what he wants her to be, but who he knows her to be.
"He will," he says, letting the matter rest by not speaking of which way her swordfather's decision will fall. Mizu knows what he thinks the outcome will be. She knows what he believes it will be. And they both know that the answer will not reveal itself until the time for it has arrived. There's little sense on either of them continuing to dwell upon it any further. Vergil brings a hand down to one of Mizu's legs, disentangling it to hook it loosely around his hip as he somewhat lazily rolls Mizu over onto her back. His remaining hand at her back slips out from beneath her to support some of his weight on an elbow beside her as he leans down to kiss her. Despite their current positioning, the kisses he places to her lips are chaste and simpler expressions of his affection for her. He teases her lightly by saying, "Might we at the very least agree that you have made marked improvement in your choice for lovers?"
Which really is less about Vergil's ego as it sounds, and more subtle a reminder that her bad memories of the man before Vergil does not determine what happens between the two of them any more than her mother's decisions determine Master Eiji's decisions. Vergil is not her late husband, and he would not have even for a moment considered the decisions he made. Even if there was something he found himself in disagreement with or his pride was bruised, he could never find it within himself to lash out at her, nor abandon her when she might need him. Not with how he feels for Mizu.
The irony of the matter is that neither of them will be in a position to prove their claim until Mizu leaves and their ways part. Should Mizu prove right, and she does not wish to, there will be no one to which she can point it out. Should Vergil prove right, Mizu will not be able to inform him or perhaps, as is fitting, let him bonk her on the head with the pair of tongs he bought her. Vergil draws her attention back to her body and keeps her thoughts inhabiting it with a simple touch. No need to think of the future, even one so short after her return, when they have that moment and each other. No reason to think of the fact they will part.
Mizu bites her lip for a moment before laughing. He's known of Mikio's existence for all of a single morning, and he turns all the comparisons she's made, all her quiet thoughts, into a teasing remark aloud. Spoken of. Not something haunting her thoughts. They may yet be banished.
"You're more than a month late to that realization," Mizu replies. She runs one hand into his hair and enjoys brushing it with her fingers. It's yet one more place it's easy to draw differences between them, by far a less important one, but it's grounding to touch Vergil and even with her eyes closed be unable to mistake the two. "I've known that since the first day by the pool. Not only because you kissed me when I pinned you down, but because you opened yourself up to me, you listen and do not think any worse of me, you already knew me at my most foolish... you care for me, not some idea of me, and you will still care for me when I defeat you."
Mizu knows everything she said, it's obvious, something Vergil knows and surely, with this conversation at least, knows she knows as well, yet it feels far more fragile to say it aloud. She teases back, "I wouldn't delay my mornings for you otherwise."
Vergil's eyes close briefly as she runs her fingers through his hair, savoring the sensation and focusing on her words a little more closely. Although with such close attention to what she's saying, Vergil's eyes open again not long after, searching hers in the dark. It feels like so many times now, he's tried to say what he feels for her, and so many times he's missed the mark. Arguably, he still is when she describes Vergil's feelings as caring for her rather than what he knows them to be. But he can't think of it that way in hearing her speak of it. It's the first she's ever acknowledged aloud anything about how Vergil feels so directly and with no qualifiers. An indescribable warmth fills his chest and spreads throughout him even as she teases him.
"I already told you earlier it isn't morning yet," he says with a smile, gently bumping noses with her and nuzzling her in his affection. "So, perhaps you might consider delaying morning a little longer with me."
Vergil kisses Mizu again sweetly, bringing more of his weight to rest comfortably upon her in subtle proposal of how the morning might yet be delayed further.
Mizu relaxes into an amused smile as Vergil yet again continues his claim that it is not morning. No clock, save her relic, is in the room, somewhere on the far side of the sheet and blankets he's covered them with. It wouldn't be easily seen anyway, for it is as dark as night outside. None of that matters because the time is not the point. When morning comes, when they treat it as the start of day, their time together will end, and though it will come again, Mizu is loathe to give it up.
Stubborn and narrowly focused on her goals as she is, Mizu melts into the kiss and the continued desire to spend more time with her. No excuses about time saved in traveling instantaneously, it's what she wants. Her leg tightens around Vergil, as though he's the one that might get up and leave, and Mizu kisses Vergil repeatedly.
"Perhaps a little while," Mizu says against his lips, "until you've finished."
Half a joke, but Mizu lacks the urgency to rush anything. It's enough to explore him beneath her hands yet again and to pull his head down the small distance to kiss him. This moment is hers, and that cannot be taken away from her.
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She finds her voice again eventually, and with his hand leaving her cheek, Vergil pulls the blankets up over both their heads. He makes the world even darker, yes, but he also makes it smaller. An intimacy wherein there is only her and him, and their shared warmth and mingling scents as he draws her in closer to himself with both of Vergil's arms wrapped around her once more. This time, his fingertips trace along her neck, slowly and repeatedly as he allows her to hide as little or as much as she wants there in his arms.
"I don't believe it is only me," Vergil says quietly, as if there was a possibility of his voice carrying and the wrong ears were to hear it. The words are only meant for her, but he also knows they are likely difficult words to hear. Even if they are kind ones, they must still be so challenging for her to hear. "There are others. But it is hard, Mizu. It is hard to allow them after everything."
Whether or not Mizu is able to recognize it in the storm of her own emotions, Vergil is speaking from experience. One may crave love, crave the care and attention of others, and yet still find it an impossible and daunting thing to be loved and cared for. Vergil knows this because he has spent the better part of his life craving love, and yet, he has run from it nearly every damn time it has presented itself. It did not matter if it was a failure to recognize his mother's love, rejecting his brother's hand, or fleeing from his son's mother and her kindness. Even here with Mizu, it was not an easy decision on Vergil's part to allow for his feelings, to allow for the possibility that Mizu herself returned those feelings. To be loved is something that requires courage, and he has not possessed that courage for the majority of his life. He doesn't believe Mizu has much herself either. Not very often, at least.
But there have been moments of love in her life. Vergil knows there have been because he has seen it firsthand with her swordfather, and because he himself loves her. Others must have been able to look beyond their prejudices to see her and love her. But Mizu could not see it. She could not understand it. She could not accept it. It is easier to believe herself unlovable and broken in some way, to think it madness to care for her, than to allow herself to be loved and love in return. And Vergil knows what that is like. His reasons may differ, but he knows it all too well that aversion to such vulnerability that comes with connecting with another person.
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Her breathing feels shallow, but Mizu focuses some attention to evening it out. It's small, but it's something she can do, a small way of helping herself. It isn't easy, especially not when Vergil's first response is to contradict her. Her question. That truth that slipped out uninvited. Mizu bites down on her tongue and the urge to immediately correct Vergil. Others. He most likely means Master Eiji. They had a reunion, courtesy of Ringo and quite likely her injured state. Swordfather let her and Taigen recover with him and crumbled before Ringo when the latter decided Master Eiji was his new master. They spoke, and it was better than when she left. He refused to let her use his forge, but she built her own oven to make new steel. He gave her a set of tongs to melt down into the steel.
Something else cracks, and Mizu holds on tighter. She doesn't know whether swordfather accepts her, not really, until she returns from Edo. Until she returns from Folkmore. Once he judges her worthy of one of his blades, she will know they are truly okay. Until then, like Fowler's life, it hangs on a knife point, moments away and forever at a distance. Mizu had to forge her sword, her sword in Folkmore, without his approval. Mizu leans her head against Vergil's. It's something that he believes Master Eiji will prove true, that she will prove worthy of his approval. It also cannot be known for certain until it happens.
"Everyone else has left me, and they do not know the worst things I have done," Mizu says. Vergil doesn't either, not the specifics. Other than burning down Edo, which is the worst thing she's done when it comes to a matter of scale. However, it lacks the horror of the intent, the personal interaction, and the callous disregard for whoever had to die to enable Mizu to reach her ends. Even so, Mizu's sure Vergil would not judge her for them. Everyone else? They cannot even handle what they know.
She wrinkles her nose then shakes her head a little. "Well, I guess there's Rin." So much as Mizu's let Rin in.
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Certainly far more tenacious than Vergil would have expected her to be, in any case. Vergil thinks if Mizu were to be as honest with Rin as she is with Vergil, it would not end with Rin leaving. Oh, the girl is liable to have a large emotional outburst over some facts of Mizu's life that Mizu probably has no idea what to do with nor likely would care to manage, but Rin would persist for longer than that outburst in the end. If Mizu's attitude hasn't been enough to scare the little thing off, not much is likely to succeed to that end.
"I cannot speak to the others in your world," he plainly admits, returning to the broader topic at hand. Vergil was not there when events unfolded, and in the absence of the fox spirit's trickery and games, he only has Mizu's version of events, which he knows is liable to be skewed. "But do you think perhaps it could be as it was with your swordfather?"
Master Eiji and Mizu did not part on the best of terms the first time as Vergil well knows. However, it was never really a question to Vergil of whether or not it was Mizu that Master Eiji was rejecting. It always seemed to him that it was Mizu's decision that angered her swordfather. His expectations for her in how he raised her did not align with the decision she was making, and his anger was likely rooted in a fear of what would become of her if she truly committed herself to that decision. While he was still clearly displeased with her decision upon their reunion, and likely many of the decisions that came after given Master Eiji refused to contribute to her self-destruction, he did not refuse her. He still allowed Mizu the opportunity to prove herself, to make decisions that would enact her revenge without sacrificing herself in the process.
And Vergil knows all of that to be exceptional as the love of a parent to their child tends to be. He is not implying that others may have the same patience, the same willingness to tolerate decisions they perceive to be mistakes. But there may yet be some. There may be some bonds Mizu has managed to form where there is that chance for a repair to be made, an opportunity to prove herself if she is willing to take the risk in trying for it.
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It is something to consider, but Mizu sets those thoughts aside when Vergil speaks again and the conversation returns to where it originally was, where Mizu's thoughts lie. Where people consider her a monster, a demon, an onryō. It's what Taigen considered her growing up, and she stands between him and his honor yet. It's how Akemi treated her for taking Taigen from her side and for abandoning her to her father. Oh Akemi accepted Mizu's help escaping, but it was not for any friendly feelings. It's why Ringo returned the bell, the symbol of his apprenticeship. Mizu never anticipated the cheap item to mean so much. She only wanted him to stop appearing out of nowhere before her. Yet receiving it hurt more than she expected. It's where the story Mizu shared, of her mother and her husband, ended. Mizu, the monster.
Vergil does not mention her mother or Mikio. He does not know of Taigen, Ringo, or Akemi. It circles back to thoughts she herself considered only moments before. It takes no tricks of reading her mind to approach this subject however, not when Vergil has twice raised the issue of Master Eiji being her father, as well as her master. Of everyone in her life, he's known her the longest, seen her grow from a young child to an adult, and taught her much of what she knows. If only one person in Mizu's life were to accept her and to love her fully, she would want it to be him. The thought, recognized consciously, aches because it's the kind of wish that someone like Mizu never gets fulfilled. Wishing for it, leaning on it in any way, only asks for more heartbreak and pain. She will have her revenge. She will not change that for anyone, and in so doing, she may never have swordfather's approval. Mizu may leave the limbo that Folkmore is, kill Fowler, and return only to be rejected once more, only to leave for London worse off than she is now.
Mizu adjusts to lay her head on the pillow, to see Vergil's face, if not particularly in focus for how close they are. Tears stain tracks down her face, but Mizu ignores them and leaves them be. Everything feels raw and on edge without the adrenaline rush and enjoyment of a fight. Nothing to direct and drive her emotions through. Only words and Vergil's arms around her, and his back under her hands. Vergil's warm, and the bed and sheets around them are warm despite how cold it is outside, and Mizu... Mizu is comfortable, physically, if nothing else. It drives a stark comparison to the piercing painful question, to thinking about swordfather and his rejection of her, about their conversation on the cliffside about being an artist.
"He wanted an apprentice, someone to work with him and to continue to make swords as he does, as an artist. Everything he does he does to make good swords. I cannot be that person. So long as my revenge is incomplete, I can never be that person. I have never been that person. He did not understand my desire to train with a sword. He allowed it, but he understood I would have trained whether he allowed it or not. Once my revenge is complete, even should I decide that returning and becoming a swordsmith is what I wish for, I do not know what it would be like, but it would not be the same.
"He did not wish for me to leave, and I did. It will never be as it was." That is the truth, as unfortunate or tragic as it is. Mizu is who she is. Master Eiji is who he is. She could never be the apprentice he wanted. She isn't. She's always dedicated herself to more than making swords. To revenge. That is her art. Swordfather does everything to make good swords. Mizu made good swords to enact her revenge.
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Vergil understands perhaps better than most how one can irrevocably change things with their decisions. He knows that no matter what he does now with Dante, they cannot go back to what they were as children. Too much has happened and been said for them to ever go back to that. But that does not inherently mean there is nothing worth salvaging, nor does it mean what they might build with one another cannot be just as good as what was. Or perhaps even better. But Vergil's hold on that small hope of being able to still build something out of what has become of his relationship with his brother comes from his desire and drive to do as much. With as much as Mizu has denied herself though, it would not surprise him to learn she has never considered this question in the first place, or she has a less charitable answer for it.
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How can she judge what it will be like, when neither she nor swordfather are yet the people who would be in it? Mizu does not know how the rest of her revenge will change her, nor how Master Eiji will change, at least in his opinion of her, during that time. Mizu cannot even be sure she would make the attempt in the first place, that she will wish to do that.
"Could you predict what it would be like to reunite with Dante after you achieved your dream for power?" Mizu asks. "Imagining what it might be like with swordfather is as impossible for me as it would be for you after you refused Dante's hand decades ago."
"Could it be as good? Perhaps. It could also be impossible. That, the more likely." Mizu glances down. "He may not see me as a monster for how I was born, but he could still determine the demon's taken all the chairs for what I've done. What I'll do."
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Vergil's jaw tenses slightly at the mention of Dante and Vergil's refusal to take his hand, to do anything other than pursuing power. It is not an unfair comparison, but with a recent conversation with his brother still so fresh on his mind—Dante's initial silence still so deafening that it leaves his subsequent promise little more than a whisper—the comparison settles a bit more poorly than it otherwise would for Vergil. Part of him feels like biting back that he's more than aware of the difficulty in predicting what it would be to reunite with his brother. He faced that uncertainty once as V, disguising any aspect of his true identity out of a fear that Dante would refuse to help him. He faces it now each day with Dante here in Folkmore. But he holds his tongue because it is not her he is answering if he does. He listens instead, trying to push aside the distraction of his brother.
The rest of her answer leads him to sigh. Mizu gives a small chance that the worst may not come to pass. She tries to couch the worst outcome in a probability. But she still speaks with unearned certainty, and damns the alternatives with insignificant chance.
"So long as you recognize, could is not the same as will. No matter the probability you assign to it. He still has a choice and will of his own, just as you do."
And as she said, she cannot truly predict what Master Eiji will do.
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Mizu nods her head slightly in recognition of what Vergil says. They each have choices, the two of them. Mizu is the one who comes and leaves, while Master Eiji stays where he is. The first choice is hers. Once there, they each do as they will. Stubborn, the both of them. She lets that future, that hazy unpredictable future rest.
"I told him I'd come back after I killed Fowler," Mizu shares, "if I survived. Let him decide whether or not I was worthy of steel by his hand." She pauses and traces the kanji for fire on Vergil's back. "He can decide for himself what to make of what I did to Edo."
If he cannot accept her for doing that, if that's enough to turn her away, there will be no reason to go back after killing Routley and Skeffington. No need to ponder that distant future. They must get through the immediate aftermath before parting for a greater time, whether it be as great as the years before or less. The voyage around the world alone will take a good amount of time. If everyone in Japan sees her as a monster, who is to say she will even return? Mizu does not care to think about it, about anything after her revenge. It's a distraction all the more likely to make it never become a concern in the first place.
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"He will," he says, letting the matter rest by not speaking of which way her swordfather's decision will fall. Mizu knows what he thinks the outcome will be. She knows what he believes it will be. And they both know that the answer will not reveal itself until the time for it has arrived. There's little sense on either of them continuing to dwell upon it any further. Vergil brings a hand down to one of Mizu's legs, disentangling it to hook it loosely around his hip as he somewhat lazily rolls Mizu over onto her back. His remaining hand at her back slips out from beneath her to support some of his weight on an elbow beside her as he leans down to kiss her. Despite their current positioning, the kisses he places to her lips are chaste and simpler expressions of his affection for her. He teases her lightly by saying, "Might we at the very least agree that you have made marked improvement in your choice for lovers?"
Which really is less about Vergil's ego as it sounds, and more subtle a reminder that her bad memories of the man before Vergil does not determine what happens between the two of them any more than her mother's decisions determine Master Eiji's decisions. Vergil is not her late husband, and he would not have even for a moment considered the decisions he made. Even if there was something he found himself in disagreement with or his pride was bruised, he could never find it within himself to lash out at her, nor abandon her when she might need him. Not with how he feels for Mizu.
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Mizu bites her lip for a moment before laughing. He's known of Mikio's existence for all of a single morning, and he turns all the comparisons she's made, all her quiet thoughts, into a teasing remark aloud. Spoken of. Not something haunting her thoughts. They may yet be banished.
"You're more than a month late to that realization," Mizu replies. She runs one hand into his hair and enjoys brushing it with her fingers. It's yet one more place it's easy to draw differences between them, by far a less important one, but it's grounding to touch Vergil and even with her eyes closed be unable to mistake the two. "I've known that since the first day by the pool. Not only because you kissed me when I pinned you down, but because you opened yourself up to me, you listen and do not think any worse of me, you already knew me at my most foolish... you care for me, not some idea of me, and you will still care for me when I defeat you."
Mizu knows everything she said, it's obvious, something Vergil knows and surely, with this conversation at least, knows she knows as well, yet it feels far more fragile to say it aloud. She teases back, "I wouldn't delay my mornings for you otherwise."
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"I already told you earlier it isn't morning yet," he says with a smile, gently bumping noses with her and nuzzling her in his affection. "So, perhaps you might consider delaying morning a little longer with me."
Vergil kisses Mizu again sweetly, bringing more of his weight to rest comfortably upon her in subtle proposal of how the morning might yet be delayed further.
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Stubborn and narrowly focused on her goals as she is, Mizu melts into the kiss and the continued desire to spend more time with her. No excuses about time saved in traveling instantaneously, it's what she wants. Her leg tightens around Vergil, as though he's the one that might get up and leave, and Mizu kisses Vergil repeatedly.
"Perhaps a little while," Mizu says against his lips, "until you've finished."
Half a joke, but Mizu lacks the urgency to rush anything. It's enough to explore him beneath her hands yet again and to pull his head down the small distance to kiss him. This moment is hers, and that cannot be taken away from her.