Vergil remained motionless for a few seconds after Seris's last sentence.
The silence wasn't empty—it was dense. Heavy. Laden with sothing that made the very air seem to hesitate before moving.
"No," he repeated, now with more weight. It wasn't a request. It was a statent.
Seris raised an eyebrow, but didn't smile this ti.
"Vergil…"
He turned completely to her, his eyes already beginning to acquire that cold, deep glint that preceded irreversible decisions.
"She won't participate," he said. "Not in this tournant."
Alice opened her mouth imdiately.
"But—!"
"No," he repeated, raising his hand, not aggressively, but with enough authority to make her stop. Vergil then turned to Seris. "You know exactly what this tournant is. It's not a testing ground. It's a political slaughterhouse."
Seris sighed slowly.
"I know," she replied. "But you also know she's not weak."
"That doesn't matter."
Vergil stepped forward. The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees.
"If she dies there," he said, with a chilling calm, "there will be no more tournant."
Seris narrowed her eyes.
"Vergil…"
"There will be no more rules. There will be no more agreents. There will be no more councils," he continued. "I will ensure that every god who has stepped into that arena dies. One by one. Until the last na is erased from history."
His tone wasn't exalted.
It was factual.
Alice, instead of being frightened… her eyes widened.
Not from fear.
From emotion.
"You…" she put her hands to her chest, her eyes shining. "You would do that… for ?"
Vergil looked at her.
"Without hesitation," he replied.
Alice took a deep breath, as if it were the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.
"That would be… so beautiful," she murmured. "The world ending because you love too much…"
The silence that followed was absolute.
Vergil froze.
Seris froze.
They both turned slowly to Alice at the sa ti, with the sa expression: a perfect mixture of shock, disbelief, and "where did we go wrong?"
"…What?", Seris said first.
Alice blinked, confused. "What?"
"Alice," Seris spoke slowly, leaning forward slightly, "that wasn't… normal."
"Wasn't it?", she asked genuinely.
Vergil closed his eyes for a full second. He massaged his temple.
"You just said you think the end of the world is beautiful because I love you too much."
Alice thought for a mont.
"When you talk like that…" she tilted her head. "Is it strange?"
Seris sighed dramatically and made an exaggerated pout.
"Oh dear…" she said. "I would end the world if you died."
Vergil turned his face to her slowly.
"You're being very helpful."
Seris shrugged. "I'm being honest."
Vergil looked back at Alice, now with a stern but not harsh expression.
"You can't romanticize this," he said. "It's not love. It's disaster."
Alice frowned slightly.
"But you said you would do it."
"I did," he agreed. "That doesn't make it right. It makes it inevitable."
She remained silent, absorbing it.
Seris crossed her arms.
"Vergil, listen," she said, now more serious. "I wouldn't throw Alice into this if I thought she wouldn't survive."
"That's exactly the problem," he replied. "Surviving isn't enough."
He knelt in front of Alice, getting to her eye level.
"You don't need to prove anything to anyone," he said. "Not to . Not to the world. Not to cosmic records."
Alice bit her lower lip.
"But I want to fight by your side," she confessed. "I don't want to always be… the one left behind."
Vergil took a deep breath.
"I know," she replied. "And that's why I won't let you go into that hell yet."
She lowered her eyes.
"Don't you trust ?"
The question hit hard.
Vergil closed his eyes for a mont before answering.
"I trust you," he said. "In who you are. In who you can beco. That's precisely why… I won't risk you now."
Seris watched silently, evaluating each word.
"Vergil," she said finally, her voice firm but laden with sothing unspoken, "you can't protect her forever."
"I know," he replied without hesitation. "But today, I can."
Alice took a deep breath.
For a mont, she seed like just a girl gathering courage. Then, she raised her hand.
The air split.
A magic circle appeared at the tips of his fingers—not a simple arcane diagram, but an absurdly complex construction, ford by overlapping layers of ancient symbols, forgotten runes, and structures that seed to rewrite themselves. The light wasn't violent; it was silent. Definitive.
Alice's body began to glow.
Runes erged from her skin as if they had always been there, molding themselves around her arms, legs, and face. It wasn't a forced transformation—it was as if that magic had been part of her since birth.
Vergil narrowed his eyes.
"Alice…?" he began.
She didn't look at him.
"Ancient Magic," she said, in a voice that no longer seed to belong to a girl. "Birth and End."
The world folded.
Vergil felt reality being ripped from beneath his feet, not violently, but with absolute authority. There was no pain, no impact.
There was only… absence. When he regained consciousness, everything was white.
There was no ground, no sky. No horizon, no shadow. A pure, absolute void, as if that place existed before the very idea of existence.
Vergil looked around slowly.
Above. Below. To the left. To the right.
Nothing.
Then he turned.
And saw.
Alice was sitting on a throne.
It wasn't made of stone, nor of tal—it was made of condensed magic, layers of solid energy intertwined like the roots of an impossible concept. The throne seed to grow from the void itself, recognizing her as its center.
She didn't look sixteen.
She looked… grown-up.
Erect posture. Serene gaze. Distant expression, laden with a weariness that didn't co from the body, but from the soul. It was still Alice—but not the one he knew.
Vergil let out a slow sigh.
"Why send to another dinsion?" he asked, without raising his voice.
Alice on the throne observed him for a few seconds before answering.
"Because you wouldn't listen to any other way."
Her voice was calm. Deep. Strangely familiar… and completely different.
She rested her elbow on the arm of the throne.
"I'm not the Alice you know," she said. "I'm probably the result of countless futures of that little girl. Tilines that converged… or collapsed. In the end, it doesn't matter."
Vergil stared at her in silence.
She tilted her head slightly, and for a mont, the gleam in her eyes was exactly the sa as the child's who jumped in her arms.
"But you matter."
She rose from the throne.
Each step she took made the void react, as if the white world recognized her presence as a fundantal law.
"Father."
The word echoed.
Vergil felt sothing stir within him—sothing ancient, instinctive, that had nothing to do with power or dominance.
An adult woman, with that look, calling him father…
It was strange.
More than that—it was disconcerting.
He accepted Alice as a child calling him that. Even being adopted, even without blood, he had assud that role. It was natural. Right.
But this…
Vergil took a deep breath, keeping his expression firm.
"This doesn't change anything," he said. "You're still Alice."
She smiled slightly.
A sad smile.
"That's why I needed to talk to you," she replied. "Because in every future where you try to protect at all costs… sothing is lost."
She stopped before him, a few steps away.
"And I ca to prevent that."
The void remained silent.
The white void remained still, but sothing in it seed… attentive.
Alice took a deep breath before speaking again. There was no haste in her gestures, no hesitation. This wasn't a child improvising difficult words—this was soone who had lived too long.
"You need to let participate in the tournant," she said directly.
Vergil didn't answer imdiately. His red eyes analyzed her with the sa surgical coldness with which he faced enemies, but there was sothing different there. Not hostility. Caution.
"No," she finally answered. Simple. Absolute.
Alice closed her eyes for a mont, as if she had been expecting it.
"If I don't participate…" she began, opening them again, "the end of the world happens."
Silence spread.
Vergil didn't move. He didn't widen his eyes. He didn't show surprise. He only tilted his head slightly.
"The end of the world happens because of a tournant?" he asked. "That's a terrible causal structure."
Alice gave a near smile.
"It's not the tournant," she corrected. "It's what happens without it."
"What changes, then?" Vergil questioned. "What exactly does your being there alter?"
She looked away.
For a mont, the security that surrounded her wavered.
"That…" she said slowly, "I can't say."
Vergil narrowed his eyes.
"Can't… or won't?" "I can't," he repeated firmly. "Not without breaking things that can't be fixed. Not even by you."
He let out a low, irritated sigh.
"You appear out of nowhere, rip from reality, throw into a white dinsion and ask to put you in the middle of a divine massacre… based on a vague threat."
Alice stared directly at him.
"Then let be clear about sothing I can say."
She took a step forward.
"Father… you will die."
The sentence didn't echo like a dramatic prophecy. It wasn't laden with mysticism. It was stated as a simple fact. Undeniable.
Vergil froze.
For a second—just one—sothing crossed his expression.
Not fear.
Recognition.
He remained silent for long seconds, his eyes fixed on hers, as if dismantling that information layer by layer.
Then, slowly, a smile appeared on his lips. "I understand."
Alice frowned.
"...Understand what?"
Vergil took a step forward, approaching her until they were only inches apart.
"It was you," he said, with frightening calmness. "Wasn't it?"
Alice didn't answer imdiately.
Vergil continued, his smile widening slightly.
"You were the one who asked for it." His eyes glead. "You were the one who asked to take care of you when I found you in the underworld."
The emptiness seed to tremble.
Alice's eyes widened slightly.
Vergil closed his eyes for a mont.
And the mory ca.
The sll of sulfur and blood.
The lower underworld, far from the main routes. A forgotten corner, where lesser demons fed on whatever they could crush. He rembered walking aimlessly, irritated by sothing that no longer mattered…
And then he heard.
Screams.
Not out of pure despair—but from soone trying to resist.
A small girl, twelve years old, covered in bruises, being beaten by creatures who reveled in their own cruelty. Unstable magic seeped from her in uncontrolled bursts, burning the air, but it wasn't enough to save her.
Vergil rembered the silence that followed when he appeared.
The fear etched on the demons' faces.
The dry sound of breaking bones.
And then… her.
The girl who, even hurt, looked him in the eyes without crying.
"Take care of her," she had said. "Please."
Vergil opened his eyes again in the white emptiness.
"You didn't ask for help," he said. "You asked for protection."
Alice took a deep breath.
"Yes," she admitted. "It was ."
She lowered her head for a mont.
"In many futures… you passed by. Or arrived too late. Or saved … but left." She looked up again. "That was the only path you stayed on."
Vergil was silent.
Then, slowly, he brought his hand to her head.
The gesture was firm. Protective.
"I hope your plan works," he said. "Daughter."
The word ca out effortlessly.
And it carried enough weight to make the entire void tremble.
Alice froze.
Her eyes widened, and for a mont… all that future maturity cracked.
"…You never said that," she murmured.
"I know," he replied. "But it was always true."
She smiled.
Not the confident smile from before. Not the distant smile of the woman who saw futures.
An emotional smile. Almost childlike.
"Thank you."
The space around them began to vibrate. Invisible runes appeared in the air, trembling as if sothing were trying to force its way in.
Alice took a deep breath, regaining her composure.
"The Administrators are furious," she comnted, looking at the nothingness above them. "They don't like it when soone ddles too much with the board."
"I presu they don't like either, whatever those administrators are," Vergil replied.
She laughed softly.
"Indeed." Then her gaze turned serious. "But ti's up."
She raised her face, staring at sothing Vergil couldn't see.
"He's coming."
"Who?" Vergil asked.
Alice smiled sharply.
"The Dragon of Infinity."
The na stirred sothing deep within Vergil's perception. Sothing ancient. Sothing that wasn't just powerful—it was structural.
"I understand," he said. "And you intend to…?"
"I'm going to kill her," Alice replied casually, as if talking about cleaning a ssy room.
Vergil raised an eyebrow.
"Ambitious."
"Necessary."
The void began to unravel. The original reality pulled Vergil back with increasing force.
Alice took a few steps back, already beginning to fade into particles of white light.
"Co back," she said, waving her hand. "I'll wait for you on the other side."
She smiled once more.
"Goodbye, Father."
The white world collapsed, and the mont the white vanished, infinite darkness descended upon the domain, trapping Alice's body.
"You dare to do sothing so reckless," said the girl with dragon wings, gothic dress, and black hair. "Yog-Sothoth."
"Don't call that, Ouroboros," Alice replied. "My father nad Alice Lucifer."
"Stop playing gas, Yog-Sothoth," Ouroboros said. "I have orders to take you to—"
"That's enough. The Great Red won't tolerate it," Alice said, then sighed. "Go away, parallel existence. If you want to capture , co personally. Dragon God of Infinity."
Then, with one blow, space swallowed her, killing that girl…
Alice sighed…
"Why is dealing with tilines so frustrating… how many tis have I said this today? A million? Damn it, I'm going to have to spend all my energy trying to get him to follow the right route," she said, frustrated.
She looked into the infinite and, again, her domain appeared. Once more, another Vergil erged.
"Why send to another dinsion?" he asked, without raising his voice.
The Alice on the throne observed him for a few seconds before answering.
"Because you wouldn't listen to any other way."
The cycle repeated itself.
The little girl would save her father.
Even if it ant rewinding ti a billion tis.
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