The Devil's Hourglass chapter 1 part 1

The Devil's Hourglass

Chapter 1: A chance to change the past

It had been a month since the incident at Vie de Marli and Dante had travelled into the deepest pit of Hell, but to the red clad demon hunter it seemed like it had been a whole life time.

It was the middle of the night and his shop was surprisingly silent; not a single sound could be heard, unless you counted the old, worn floor boards that creaked every time something moved. Moonlight shone through the windows and danced across the floor, highlighting the splinters and the gaps in the floor boards. The light spread into every corner of the room, reflecting off of the drum kit and the juke box, giving each an eerie look.

The light crept across the room. The Devil arms that were impaled into the walls were made to look even more deadly than they already did, by the glowing light that outlined each detail perfectly. The demon heads that were being held up by the Devil arms,
were also highlighted by the moonlight, and they gave the shop a more gothic look. The shop had a damp, musky smell, which was odd since it usually smelt of pizza.

Dante was sitting at the desk in the shop, with his feet up, flipping his double-sided coin. Over the years since the incident at Mallet Island, the red clad Devil Hunter had become more serious and reserved. Sure, he had been cocky towards the Kid, Nero in the events of the Fortuna incident, but after that, he found that the Kid reminded him of Vergil so much. The way that Nero used Yamato was not as fast or as precise as Vergil had used it, but some of the combos Nero used were identical to Vergil's. The Kid also
bore a striking resemblance to the red clad's twin; the back of his hair was choppy, like Vergil's had been when he had slicked it back. Along with this, the teen likes to wear dark blue, which may not be the exact colour the Dark Slayer wore, but it still shocked Dante a bit. Additionally, the young hunter had the same cold look in his eyes that the blue clad had worn when finishing off an opponent...

Dante watched the teen closely as Nero ran towards a Hell Vanguard with Yamato raised. The O-Katana was glowing a soft blue-violet colour, which highlighted its elegance and beauty. His feet splashed in the puddles that had formed from the heavy rain that was pouring down onto the ground. After having such an intense fight with the demon, the young hunter was ready to finish it off. Nero got close enough to the demon to strike it, so he impaled its stomach with Yamato, at which point the sword's
glow intensified, as if it had a thirst for blood. The look in the teen's eyes was so cold and so unnerving, he could have made Medusa herself cower in fear.

The Hell Vanguard shrieked in pain using a horrifying an inhuman tone. Nero removed Yamato from its stomach. He flicked out to the side and then slowly sheathed it, making a small click of metal sound when the entire sword was resting in its scabbard. Dante's eye's widened when he saw this. Not only had Nero perfectly copied one of Vergil's trademarks, he also looked like the red clads deceased twin; standing there in the rain with a cold glare which was directed at his opponent. To Dante, this was like seeing Vergil battling all over again. The Hell Vanguard disintegrated into dust and slowly, its remains were washed away by the rain.

Nero glanced over at Dante, while panting heavily. At first he smirked at the older man, as if he were proving something, such as being able to take down a Hell Vanguard after first dealing with several other lesser demons first. But his smirk was soon wiped off of his face when he saw the red clad's shocked expression and replaced with a look of concern.

"Dante, what's the matter?"

The fact Nero reminded Dante of his twin so much, had actually pushed the red clad into acting like his deceased twin so much, that his personality had completely changed and his once cocky attitude barely remained. In serious situations he took on a more calm, cool and serious approach as opposed to being a wisecrack and showing off his cocky aura.

Then there was Trish, who bore a striking resemblance to Dante's mother. When the red clad had first started to act like Vergil, he started to distance himself from Trish more, due to the fact that her appearance stirred up memories from when he and his older twin were children; when they didn't have to worry about anything. They didn't need to worry about their heritage; they didn't need to worry about losing each other and, they didn't need to worry about demon coming to attack them. The blonde demoness had obviously understood his reasons for being distant, but had tried to reason with the fact that she wasn't Eva; sure she had her looks and some of her caring personality, but she was her own person. But it seemed that the red clad would not listen to her attempts to reason with him; he seemed too caught up in mourning the loss of his twin once again, so the blonde left him alone in the shop and went around as a free-lance hunter again.


The blonde demoness walked up to the brooding Dante. She carefully sat on the corner of the desk like she always does, and looked into his distant eyes; they were full of many
mixed emotions such as sorrow, remorse and even loneliness. Trish had noticed the red clad's changes in personality quite quickly; the way he was more distant and cut off from everyone. It had all started shortly after the Dante came back from a job he'd had with Nero; the hunter had told the demoness that the 'Kid' as he called him, had used Yamato in a similar style to Vergil. Trish immediately understood why he was a little upset, but she couldn't comprehend why he continued to act in this way. Then she had found out that the memory of Vergil had led the red clad to think of their childhood, when Eva was still alive.

Trish gently cupped her hands around the hunters cheeks, "Dante" she spoke, softy. The half-devil snapped out of his thoughts and looked up at her; his eyes widened slightly at first, but then he realized that he wasn't looking at Eva. "I'm not Eva and Nero isn't
Vergil, you have to stop thinking about us in that way," she reasoned.

Dante sighed, "I know it's just… hard." He looked into her eyes; they were full of concern, but at the same time appeared caring and understanding, just like Eva's had been when he was younger. The hunter reached up to her face and placed his hand on her cheek,
"You really are just like her."

Trish took hold of Dante's hand, "But I'm not her," the demoness said. She sighed, slipped off of the table and walked to the front door, "Dante, you need sometime alone
to think, but please, remember; Nero and I we're... we're not Vergil and Eva." And with that she silently slipped out of the door, leaving a surprised and upset Dante to his thoughts.

Shortly after Trish had left, everyone else had started to stop visiting the red clad as well; in fact they all left him alone. Dante flipped his double-sided coin again, but closed his eyes when he caught it; there had been a reason behind him getting it, one that had confused everyone when he first got it. The reason was that he had absolutely no luck whatsoever; every time he showed up for a job, at least one thing would get broken, leaving him with a bill instead of a pay check or something else like an army of demons would come, which wasn't too bad except that people may get hurt and things would be broken. So instead of relying on this bad luck of his, the red clad decided to make his own luck and a double-sided coin would turn every single decision in his favour.

The red clad flipped his new double-sided coin in the air while sitting at his desk with his feet up, reading a magazine. Trish came up behind him and caught the coin in mid-air, just as Lady, Nero and Kyrie were coming through the door. The blonde demoness examined the coin closely, looking at both sides. She gave Dante a questioning look, "Why do you have a double sided coin? Are you hoping to win a few bets with it?"

A small smile touched the corners of the hunter's mouth, "Maybe." Trish raised an eyebrow, "Okay fine, I have no luck in life so, I figured I'd just make my own luck," he explained. Everyone looked at him in a questioning way.

Make your own luck?" Lady asked, as she walked up to the desk along with Nero.

"That's right Lady; I'll make my own luck."

The red clad decided that he had been awake for too long, so he put his coin down on the desk, lay back in his chair and closed his eyes.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

A demon sat on a throne in a large marble hall, glaring down at the two wooden doors at the far end of the room. The hall was immaculately clean and the stone was pure white in colour, although this was difficult to notice, due to the lack of light. Eight great pillars stood tall and proud at the sides of the room, their shadows were being partly erased by the darkened hall. The ceiling was raised high above everything and depicted
the night sky; it even had all of the star constellations and the movement of the planets mapped out, and they would change along with the real life ones. The throne that the demon sat on was made of black marble that was polished to perfection and was very basic in its design.

The demon appeared to be in a human-like form, although he could be distinguished from a human if you looked closely. He had long jet black hair which came down to just above his tail bone and skin so pale that it was almost white. The demon had a pair of dark red eyes, with slit pupils. He was clad in black armour; his gauntlets had razor sharp spikes that stretched up to the middle of the demons upper arm. The gauntlets gave him long, pointed fingers with extremely sharp nails. The chest plate looked extremely durable and it had a black skull in the middle that had ruby jewels filling the eye sockets. The black spaulders on the demons shoulders had five straight spikes that pointed diagonally downwards.

The demon closed his eyes and slowly tilted his head back to face the ceiling. He slowly opened his eyes and studied it closely; the stars sparkled gently under his gaze. He looked closely at the alignment of Neptune and the moon; soon they would be in aligned with each other. It will happen in a few minutes, the demon thought. I can't
help but wonder; who will be chosen?

Suddenly, the doors at the far end of the hall burst open, revealing a lesser demon that had a humanoid form, but was clearly identifiable as a demon. He had dark red scale-like armour with hints of black in the scales and pitch black eyes. The demon knelt before his master, "My lord Aeon, it has begun."

The demon named Aeon smirked and looked down at the lesser demon, "Finally."