[ they had both played in arkham's hands, in the end, vergil through his desire for power and dante through the underlying desire to reconnect with the only family he had left. but they were both young and foolish back then, not yet schooled by all that followed that day on top of that tower. ]

What's done is done, Vergil. We can moan about it all we want but it won't change what happened. You've gotta move forward if you are ever gonna know any peace.

[ it's easy to say, far too easy to say, but dante knows better than most that you can't just click your fingers and brush it all aside. how long did he spend letting guilt and grief eat him alive? how long did he wallow in the dark, staring at the blood of his brother staining his hands, before he was finally dragged back to the land of the living? too long, far too long.

but it isn't just about temen-ni-gru or the destruction the qliphoth wrecked throughout redgrave, dante feels it coming before vergil even lifts his head to look at him. he feels his stomach sink as the elephant in the room all but stumbles from his distressed brother's mouth:

i nearly killed nero, as well. did i not?

dante exhales heavily, reaching out to take the book up himself. how the hell does he put this? ]

To put it bluntly, yeah. You nearly killed the kid. But I don't think you were thinking straight, from the sounds of things you were barely holding yourself together and all you knew was Yamato was in Nero's arm. [ he screws his nose up, running his fingers over the book's cover. ] I'm not trying to excuse what you did, it was up there on the shitty father behavior scale, but what I am saying is that desperation can make you do some pretty fucked up shit.

[ and, in vergil's defense, it isn't like they had the example of being a father. dante's memories of sparda are few and far between and over overwritten by the fact he abandoned them when they needed him the most. ]

In the end of the day the kid pulled through and you got to find out you had a son.