Mission:012 Awakening

Mission:01-2 Awakening

Darkness.

Darkness as long as death.

Nero slept within that darkness until a beam of light shone into her eyes.

It was from the depths of death—a memory she had forgotten.

"Let her go!"

"You little brat, you're asking to die!"

"Yaaah!!!"

Nero finally opened her eyes. A glaring surgical shadowless lamp hung over her head, and the smell of disinfectant stung her nose. Not far away, a Black man in a pure white, high-ranking Order uniform was rummaging for something while muttering to himself.

Demons, angels, the Savior... and other hard-to-understand words spilled from his mouth. Nero instantly realized the identity of this hunchbacked Black man with greasy hair and a monocle.

An Order researcher, the Pope's lackey, one of the madmen who wanted to use Demonic Power to rule the world.

These were all things the original Nero had not known, but Nero remembered now. She remembered her past.

A transmigrator—more accurately, she should be called a "reincarnator." Ni Lu, who had died after recklessly stepping in to do the right thing, seemed to have, through some fortuitous circumstance, reincarnated as the protagonist of the game Devil May Cry, Nero.

Mm... a female Nero.

Nero remembered that she should have had her chest pierced by a demon's blade, just like in her previous life. But then again, someone who had never taken a chest wound couldn't be the protagonist of Devil May Cry—

Could that be why she had reincarnated as Nero?

Then, since she had not died, the demonic bloodline she had inherited from her grandfather Sparda should have awakened as well. Every moment she stayed here would become more dangerous. Because the demonic colossus created by the Order, "Savior," should already be complete by now, lacking only a member of the Sparda Family to serve as its core.

In other words, Nero's cheap Old Man, who had run off to who-knew-where, Nero's unlucky Uncle, who loved eating Strawberry Sundae, and Nero herself—an ordinary orphan born in Fortuna Town.

But Nero did not act rashly. Instead, she gently turned her head and looked around the room. She knew that as a researcher of Demonic Power for the Order, the Black man not far away had to have many demons around him.

But even with such caution, that man still noticed Nero waking up.

"You... you're awake? How incredible."

"...Who are you?"

Faced with the dark-skinned, greasy man leaning his face closer, Nero frowned and asked back in a somewhat hoarse voice. She really did not know the man's name, because the plot of the game Devil May Cry itself had barely had any presence.

"Agnus." The other man gave a pretentious bow, then raised his head and said, "A doctor... at least for this moment."

A doctor? Nero almost did not know whether to laugh or cry. But after thinking about it, she understood that Credo must have used his authority as Captain of the Knights—for someone with a fatal chest wound, the Order's Ascension Ritual, which transformed humans into demons, had become the only hope of being saved.

It was just useless for Nero. The bloodline of the strongest demon from her grandfather already flowed within her. Even if it had only just awakened now, it still...

Nero moved her wrist and found that she was tied to an operating table.

All right, she had to admit it. Nero did not know how to use the magic power inside her body right now, nor did she know how to use Devil Trigger. The current her could not beat the greasy man in front of her.

Unless she could get the weapon that belonged to her Old Man, Yamato.

That was one of the weapons left behind by Sparda, the strongest demon—a demonic blade capable of separating the human world from the Demon World and cutting through everything.

The good news was that the blade was here now, inside this room. Nero had already seen it.

The bad news was that the blade was currently broken, and Nero did not know how to repair it. Though in the game, after Nero got hold of it, it repaired itself.

Should she try?

A cool cotton swab landed on the crook of Nero's left elbow. She raised her head and saw Agnus applying iodine there.

Noticing that Nero was looking at him again, Agnus forced out another smile. "Don't be nervous. This is a normal examination."

Like a real doctor, he disinfected the spot where the needle would go while using conversation to distract Nero. "Do you remember what injury you suffered?"

But this man was not about to give Nero an infusion. Judging from the vacuum tube he took out, he was going to draw a blood sample from her.

Nero did not resist, nor did she answer. She let the needle pierce her arm.

She needed an opening.

A moment later, Agnus sealed the wound with a cotton ball and tape, observing the blood sample beneath the shadowless lamp. At the same time, his gaze kept drifting toward Nero's chest, and an obsessed look appeared on his face. "Too beautiful, truly..."

In that instant, Nero understood from the bottom of her heart what the word "repulsive" meant, and a large patch of goose bumps rose on her arm.

At the same time, when she remembered that she was tied to an operating table by this repulsive thing, the chill instantly spread from her arm to her back, making Nero shudder.

"Ahem, forgive my rudeness."

Noticing the obvious fear and disgust on Nero's face, Agnus once again put on a gentlemanly smile. "I frightened you. But I think you should also know what exactly has happened to your body, yes?"

"You mean?"

"You don't remember?"

Agnus put down the blood sample, took out a mirror, and held it in front of Nero. Nero's chest was reflected right in the frame.

Beneath the bloodstained white nun's habit, a golden, hard substance had grown out of her fair skin, like a vertical eye wrapped in feathers. This tightly closed eye extended from beneath her collarbone all the way to the center of her heart, about three fingers wide. Strange blue light rose and fell between the gaps in the feathers along with her heartbeat.

Nero was not surprised. She knew that because of her severe injury, she had awakened her demonic form, so a similar mutation would naturally appear. But this mutation also proved that the plot was about to begin.

The Order wanted to use Demonic Power to rule the world, and Nero had to stop them.

And Credo. In all the years since her adoptive parents had died, this Sworn Brother, who had taken on half the duties of a father, would die for Nero. Nero wanted to—had to—stop all of it.

Then she should start by taking Yamato.

As it happened, the time had come.

She erupted into motion, mustering all her strength to tear apart the straps binding her upper body. Before Agnus could react, she smashed a fist into the bridge of his nose.

Caught completely off guard, Agnus was instantly sent tumbling. He flung the mirror away and fell to the floor, letting out a shrill cry: "P-p-protect me!"

Nero reached out and tore through the other straps, then flipped herself off the operating table.

"W-wait, wait!"

Seeing Nero break free of her restraints, Agnus hunched his back, held both hands in front of him, and shouted with a timid look, "I'm h-h-h-helping you!"

Like hell he was.

Nero silently retorted, staring coldly at the flying swords hovering behind Agnus, ready to move.

They were small demons manufactured by Agnus, Sword Wings that had both insect and sword forms.

Agnus was still babbling on, trying to persuade Nero: "Have you truly not noticed? The you right now is so powerful, so b-b-b-beautiful—"

His voice caught in his throat as if it had been cut off.