#i have a feeling it's going to break 100k. thpigh if i trash the chapters i don't like it might not make it. it depends.

[mariyekos]

Okay so I reblogged this once before with some ideas but the post-DMC1 Qliphoth idea I mentioned in the tags of that other reblog is taking over my brain so to expand on that-

Dante beats Mundus in Hell but is so keyed up that he just keeps mowing through things. Bloodlust/rage

Comes across Vergil who he realizes is not dead, but was teleported

While Dante freaks out because Vergil may not be dead but he's clearly *dying*, Trish shows up. She came through the portal

Dante begs her for a way to save him. Maybe Dante tried a vital star and it didn't work

Trish mentions the Qliphoth. It is said to grant ultimate power... and demons have a natural healing factor, so if Vergil becomes more powerful, his healing will improve, and he may live

Dante doesn't want to harm humans. It's not right and he swore to protect his mother's people. But...he swore to protect Vergil too. And it's not like people don't die sometimes. Earthquakes and hurricanes and tornados and other natural disaster kill hundreds or thousands at a time. This'll just be like one of those. They're unfortunate, but the world will move on. And it's not like Dante will permanently unleash the demon world on the human world, he just needs to open it enough to save Vergil, then he'll go and clean up the mess and everything will be normal! It'll be fine! Totally!

So Dante searches for the Qliphoth fruit. Maybe Mundus has the seed since he ate the last one, and he was just waiting for it to germinate, so Trish retrieves it from Mundus' vault while Dante guards Vergil

After a few days (time uncertain in the demon world) Dante decides to start feeding it his blood because hey he's part human maybe that'll make it react. After ??? time (a few weeks) it finally does. Dante gives it some of Vergil's blood too, apologizing to his still-unconscious brother, then plants it.

He returns to the human world. Hides Vergil in the shop, calls Lady, and tells her she should really go on that vacation she's been talking about for months. His little vacation to Mallet Island was nice. He's sure the sunny Bahamas will be way better.

Lady leaves for her trip because sure why not. She doesn't want to deal with the headache of Dante fixing his shop anyway. And it's just in time, because the Qliphoth bursts from the ground like 2 days later.

Dante takes Vergil in, and the empusas don't attack bc it was germinated by their blood and they recognize their master. But the other enemies do. Trish protects Vergil while Dante cuts them down. There aren't that many yet thankfully.

Dante sits Vergil down on the throne and essentially hooks him up to the tree. Dante just patrols but...Trish notices that when he sleeps, the tree feeds him too. Dante doesn't seem to notice how invigorated he's feeling or connect the dots between why he's fine without eating.

Lady shows up almost 3 weeks later, makes it to the throne room. (Since this is pre-cell phone era and the Qliphoth might not have shown up on international news at least at first, Lady was blissfully unaware until it either DID finally hit international news or she got home from her trip). Vergil is still unconscious, so Dante defeats her. He has the tree make her into Artemis for her own protection. That way the demons won't hurt her, and if she's unconscious, she can't hurt herself either. It's for the best. Artemis can take out any hunters that get in deep. He justifies it more by saying he'll free her once Vergil eats the fruit and everything can go back to normal and they can be friends again and it'll be fine!!! Yeah!

Dante feels it when the fruit is ready. He brings Vergil (who is finally starting to wake up, though he's too weak to move and Dante is too excited about the fruit to notice. Plus both of their energies have been distorted by the Qliphoth, so he can distinguish between his own Qliphoth-changed energy sparking and Vergil's).

Before feeding it to Vergil he hesitates. What if Trish tricked him? He'll just take a small bite to confirm. The rush of energy comes and it's so, so hard but he doesn't eat the rest and shoves it into Vergil's mouth instead, who is awake enough that the rush of power overwhelms his normal thoughts and he eats it right away

Once Vergil is healed, Dante is overjoyed. Finally, finally he has his brother back! He didn't kill him a third time! (Childhood by making Vergil leave the house and be attacked alone, Temen-ni-gru, Mallet).

Vergil meanwhile is horrified. While hooked up to the Qliphoth he dreamed a lot, and thought over what Mundus had done, and what their father wanted. He realized he had fallen after the Temen-ni-gru to join their father's world, but the world their father *chose* was the human world, and after everything he'd suffered he decided he should choose it too. Rejecting humanity had only brought him suffering. It was in those few years of childhood that he lived as a human that he prospered and was happy.

Dante is confused why Vergil isn't happy. He saved his life. Shouldn't Vergil be happy? Trish shows up and Vergil says that she corrupted Dante, just like she tried to corrupt him. Stripped away Dante's humanity just like she stripped away Vergil's when she helped Mundus break him enough to put him in the armor. (Remember when Dante says: "That last bit of humanity you had? You just lost it." or something like that when Urizen eats the fruit?)

(Maybe Vergil is also upset because Dante forced something onto him (the fruit) just like Mundus did. Vergil hasn't had a say over his body in nearly a decade. Dante is extremely shocked and offended by Vergil comparing him to Mundus, because he is *nothing* like that bastard. This was the best for Vergil. The armor was for the worst. Dante only wanted to help, Mundus only wanted go hurt. But Vergil argues that they're the same anyway, because they both wanted something that Vergil didn't. They both took his bodily autonomy away from him. They both used Vergil to further their own selfish desires; Mundus to prove his superiority to Sparda and inflict his anger on Sparda' son, Dante to reassure himself that he was a good person and didn't kill his brother. Mundus liked to say he was helping Vergil by making him stronger too. But he wasn't. Vergil didn't want that. Either of them. Dante used Vergil as an excuse for his own gain and he cannot forgive Dante for that.)

Dante also gets upset at Vergil accusing Trish of being bad bc Trish's knowledge is the only reason Vergil survived. He should be grateful. But Vergil argues the cost wasn't worth it. Wasn't Dante upset about the Temen-ni-gru? What changed? Why is it okay now?

Dante argues it's because he's trying to protect Vergil. He didn't do it for power's sake. But Vergil argues that he didn't do it just for power either, he did it for the power to *protect* which means Dante has made the exact same mistake as Vergil.

Dante disagrees. So, there's only one way to settle the argument. To fight.

Who wins? Well Vergil ate more of the fruit, and he was more hooked up to the Qliphoth than Dante. But Dante had a bite, and he was fed by the Qliphoth a little too. And Vergil is hesitant to kill his brother, while Dante is so upset (and has spent the past month plus trying to convince himself that everything he was doing was justified, and is so far in that he can't accept that it *wasn't* bc then he'll have to face the horrible things he's done) that he is able to put so much more of himself than Vergil is. So when you have a stronger guy who isn't trying versus a weaker guy who is giving it everything he has...

:)

This probably isn't as much Vergil turning over a new leaf as you intended since he's pretty absent from most of the story (as in, he's a plot device but isn't awake until the very end) but it sort of fits the bill? Eh, it was fun to think of either way. If I haven't gotten swept up in another idea once I finish my current DMC longfic, I might try to turn it into a proper fic one day!

Role swap AU but not in the typical sense where Dante and Vergil's positions were switched on the day of the attack. Instead it's Dante fucking snaps at some point and when Dante snaps is about the same time Vergil turns a new leaf.