The atmosphere shifted subtly but definitively, as if something invisible had crossed that battlefield and redefined the weight of every remaining second. The fire still burned, the rain still fell like sacred blades piercing hell, and Ouroboros still slowly crawled through the dimensional rift above... but none of that mattered anymore at that moment. The focus had shifted. The axis of the world had moved. And now, everything revolved around only two existences.

Vergil sighed, a low, almost weary sound, like someone finally accepting that an inevitable task must be completed, even without any pleasure involved. His eyes remained fixed on Dante, but there was no anger in them, no hatred, not even explicit contempt. There was something worse: absolute indifference mixed with purpose.

"It’s past time," he said, his voice calm, firm, carrying a weight that left no room for response. "I will retrieve the fragments of Lucifer that are in your body."

Dante reacted with a laugh, but it was no longer that confident, arrogant, and superior laugh he used to provoke. It was unstable, broken, almost hysterical, as if he were trying to convince himself that he was still in control of the situation. His aura exploded again, growing chaotically, expanding without a defined direction, trying to compensate for something he himself was beginning to realize he was losing.

"You really think you can just take everything from me?!" he shouted, advancing without hesitation, his blade tearing through space with absurd violence.

The attack was swift, brutal, charged with a force that moments before would have destroyed everything in its path without any resistance. But, at that moment... it found a limit. Vergil raised only one hand, without haste, without apparent effort, and held the blow in mid-air as if interrupting something trivial, as if that attack simply didn’t have enough weight to justify any real reaction. There was no impact, no explosion, not even a significant sound. The blow simply... stopped.

Dante froze for a moment, his eyes wide, trying to process what had just happened, while his own evolution, which had previously seemed limitless, now failed to overcome that simple, silent, and absolute barrier. Vergil didn’t even look directly at him at that first moment, analyzing his own arm as if evaluating a minor variable within a larger calculation.

"You’re stronger," he commented casually, "but not enough."

Before Dante could react, Vergil had already moved. It wasn’t an explosive advance, nor a perceptible displacement, but something stranger, more inevitable, as if space had simply been rearranged to place him where he needed to be. His hand pierced Dante’s defense without resistance, completely ignoring any attempt at blocking, adaptation, or regeneration, and his fingers sank directly into his chest with surgical precision.

The scream came the next instant, but it was too late. Vergil pulled. The sound was grotesque, damp, heavy, like something that shouldn’t exist being forced out of a place where it was deeply rooted. One of the hearts emerged, not as a common organ, but as a dense core of energy and concept, pulsing with something that clearly no longer belonged to Dante. It was a fragment. A part of something much larger.

Dante didn’t just scream in pain. He screamed in loss.

His body reacted instantly, trying to regenerate, rebuild, compensate for that sudden absence, but his own evolution seemed... delayed. As if trying to catch up with something that had already happened too quickly. Vergil observed the heart for a second, analyzing, understanding, and then brought it to his mouth and swallowed it without hesitation, as if simply reclaiming something that had always been his.

The aura surrounding Vergil shifted slightly, not explosively, but in depth. It was as if something had fallen into place, as if a missing piece had returned to its proper place within a much larger system. Dante recoiled, staggering, his breath faltering for a moment as his eyes began to lose the focus that had previously sustained his confidence.

But he didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop.

His evolution responded violently, forcing his body to adapt, to grow, to rebuild itself at even more absurd levels, like a desperate survival mechanism trying to avoid total collapse. He advanced again, his attacks now even faster, heavier, more unstable, each blow carrying a force that distorted the space around it.

And yet... Vergil didn’t move more than necessary.

He dodged with minimal adjustments, blocked with his fingers, negated impacts simply by being in the right place at the right time. There was no exchange of blows, no real contest. There was only difference. A difference so great that the very idea of ​​fighting began to lose its meaning.

"Keep going," Vergil said, almost casually, as he dodged an attack that would have destroyed an entire dimension. "You learn more this way."

And then he advanced again.

Another imperceptible movement.

Another direct invasion.

Another heart ripped out.

The second fragment came accompanied by an even deeper, more desperate scream, as if Dante were beginning to understand what was happening, but still refused to accept it. Vergil didn’t hesitate. He swallowed again.

The third came soon after.

Then the fourth.

The fifth.

Each retreat was more brutal than the last, not because of the violence itself, but because of the inevitability with which it happened. Dante couldn’t stop it. His evolution tried, reacted, adapted, but was always one step behind, always arriving too late.

His body began to shift erratically, his aura exploding in erratic patterns, his energy leaking in directions he couldn’t even control. He was getting stronger, yes... but he was also becoming less stable, less coherent, less... himself.

"I WON’T DISAPPEAR!" he shouted, lunging forward again with an uncontrolled blow, his voice mixed with something deeper, more primal, more desperate.

Vergil merely tilted his body slightly, letting the attack pass by his side, and responded with a single Yamato slash.

Silent.

Precise.

Dante didn’t perceive the exact moment.

But his body... did.

He stopped.

And then fragmented into multiple parts, his body being divided before he even understood what had happened, scattering into pieces that still tried to regenerate as they fell.

And before the regeneration could complete, Vergil was already there again.

His hand cut through the chaos of flesh and energy. Another heart.

The sixth.

Ripped out with the same precision.

Swallowed with the same calm.

When Dante fell again, something was different. His regeneration still worked, his body still tried to rebuild itself, but there was a flaw now, a gap, a void that could no longer be filled by evolution alone.

Vergil stopped before him, observing silently, analyzing like someone evaluating the final state of an experiment that has already reached the expected result.

"This last one..." he murmured, looking directly at Dante as he tried to stand again, "...is the most important."

Dante remained on his knees for a brief moment, his body still trying to rebuild itself while that internal absence began to weigh more than any physical pain he had ever felt. His breathing was ragged, irregular, and his eyes trembled slightly as they stared at Vergil, as if trying to find some logic, some explanation... some chance to reverse what was already happening.

Vergil, on the other hand, simply smiled.

It wasn’t a wide, provocative smile, but something small, almost subtle, laden with a cold curiosity, like someone watching an experiment reach its most interesting point. He tilted his head slightly, twirling Yamato between his fingers naturally, while his eyes analyzed Dante with renewed interest, not as an enemy... but as a final variable to be tested.

"Before we finish this..." he began, his voice calm, steady, without any hurry, as if that moment held no urgency whatsoever. "I want to test something."

Dante didn’t respond immediately, his body still slowly recovering, his hands trembling as he tried to stand, but something was different now. His regeneration still existed, his evolution still tried to react... but it was slower, heavier, as if each attempt required more effort than before.

Vergil continued.

"Last time... it wasn’t complete." He slowly raised Yamato, positioning the blade beside his body, while his posture shifted almost imperceptibly, becoming firmer, more precise, more... absolute. "But now..." his eyes narrowed slightly, focusing directly on Dante, "...now this will be a supreme technique."

The air around them began to change.

It wasn’t an explosion.

It wasn’t visible pressure.

It was... silence.

The entire world seemed to hold its breath.

Even Agares’ fire hesitated for an instant.

Even Sephirothy’s sacred rain lessened its impact.

Even Ouroboros, above, seemed... to slow down.

Vergil took a single step forward.

And then—

He disappeared.

There was no visible movement, no perceptible displacement, not even a distortion to indicate speed. It was as if he had simply ceased to be at that specific point in reality... and begun to exist in all others at the same time.

And then—

The first cut happened.

But it wasn’t in Dante.

It was in the world.

A thin line appeared in space, crossing the battlefield silently, so precisely that it seemed more like an error in reality itself than an attack. And then came another.

And another.

And another.

In an instant, billions of cuts began to appear, not from a single direction, but from all directions at once, tearing through space, traversing dimensions, cutting concepts, as if the very structure of that world were being sliced ​​into layers impossible to count.

The sky shattered.

Literally. That divine dimension, already unstable, began to crack like glass, fragments of the firmament breaking apart and... returning. Time began to fail, reversing small instants, repeating microseconds of existence, as if it couldn’t keep up with the absurd speed at which everything was being cut.

And at the center of it all—

Dante.

His body reacted to the first impact.

But it couldn’t keep up.

The cuts didn’t come from outside.

They appeared directly on him.

Inside him.

Crossing his existence before his regeneration could even identify where they were coming from.

His skin opened.

Then his muscles.

Then his bones.

Then his energy.

All at once.

Without order.

Without sequence.

Without logic.

His body began to fragment on an absurd scale, billions of cuts piercing every part of his existence, reducing him to pieces smaller than any form of regeneration could keep up with.

He tried to scream.

But his voice was cut off before it existed.

He tried to react.

But his body no longer responded as a unit.

Every part of him was being separated, divided, redivided, fragmented again in an endless sequence of precise and inevitable destruction.

The technique wasn’t fast.

It was... absolute.

Each cut was perfect.

Each division was exact.

Each fragmentation happened at the ideal point to prevent any form of coherent recovery.

The world around him no longer made sense.

The skies broke and returned.

Space tore and rebuilt itself.

Time failed to keep up.

And in the midst of it all—

Dante was disappearing.

Not like an explosion.

Not like a death. But like a continuous process of disintegration.

Layer by layer.

Part by part.

Concept by concept.

Until... there was no body left.

No form left.

No structure left.

Only—

A heart.

Floating in the middle of the fragmented void.

Pulsating.

Slowly. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Like the last vestige of something that still insisted on existing.

And then—

Silence.

The cuts stopped.

The world... tried to stabilize.

The skies still trembled, fragments fitting back into a reality that clearly hadn’t been made to withstand something of that level.

Vergil reappeared.

Behind the heart.

His posture relaxed again, as if none of this had required real effort.

He observed what remained.

For a brief moment.

And then... he smiled slightly.

"...better this way." he said, putting away Yamato and picking up the heart. "Time to go home."