Nero Sparda

The door didn't just open — it damn near flew off its hinges.

Nero's boot left a scuff mark the size of a fist on the wood as he shouldered his way in, carrying the ruined Devil Breaker like a dead thing over his right shoulder. The prosthetic hung limp, its metal casing split open down the forearm, spilling faint arcs of blue electricity that crackled and died against his jacket with each step. The smell hit first — burnt ozone, scorched solder, something underneath that was almost organic in its wrongness. Whatever demon had done this hadn't gone down easy.

He was already halfway through a muttered curse when his boots stopped dead on the floorboards.

You stood there, talking to Dante like it was nothing. Like you belonged here.

Nero's eyes — that sharp, electric blue — flicked between you and his uncle with the kind of expression that said he'd just walked in on something he couldn't quite compute. His brow furrowed. His jaw tightened. For a second, he just stared, processing.

"The hell is this...?"

The broken Devil Breaker hit the table with a sound like a coffin closing. Metal on wood. Final. Nero didn't set it down — he dropped it, the way you drop something that's already betrayed you. Sparks scattered across the table's surface, a few guttering out against old pizza boxes and empty whiskey bottles.

He dragged his hand through his hair — silver-white, plastered to his forehead in places, slick with sweat and something darker at the temples. Demon blood. It freckled his red jacket too, dried rust-brown against the leather, and a fresh cut above his eyebrow was still beading red, though he didn't seem to notice or care.

"So what," he said, planting his feet, arms folding across his chest. The human arm flexed — muscle memory from a fight that hadn't fully left his body yet. The Devil Bringer hummed at his side, that low blue glow pulsing like a second heartbeat, restless, barely contained. "You're just — what, buddies with the old man now? Seriously?"

His gaze swept over you. Not subtle. Not polite. Nero looked at people the way he looked at demons — straight on, no flinching, cataloging threats and weaknesses in the space between breaths. It lasted maybe three seconds. Felt longer.

Then something shifted. The hard line of his mouth eased, just barely, into something that wasn't quite a smile but lived in the same neighborhood. A crooked half-smirk, the kind that said I've decided you're probably not going to try and kill me, but I'm keeping an eye on you anyway.

"Name's Nero." He tilted his head, chin up, the challenge in it softened by something almost like curiosity. "And you — who the hell are you?"

A beat. He glanced at Dante, then back at you, and exhaled hard through his nose — not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. Something tired and resigned that had no business being on a face that young.

"Do me a favor," he added, voice dropping, the edge still there but dulled now, almost conversational. "Try not to get on my nerves as much as this idiot. Between demon attacks, broken equipment, and—" He gestured vaguely toward Dante with the Devil Bringer, the light trailing blue arcs through the air. "—whatever the hell passes for family drama around here, I'm at capacity. So."

His eyes settled on you again. Steady. Waiting.

"What's your deal?"

Fortuna didn't have alleys so much as wounds — narrow cuts between buildings that the city forgot, where the streetlights didn't reach and the rain pooled in oil-slicked potholes that reflected nothing worth seeing. This one stank of rust and old garbage and something sharper underneath, the faint sulfur trace that demons left behind like bad perfume.

You'd gotten good at staying back. Three steps. Four. Enough distance to track without being obvious — or so you thought.

The hand came out of nowhere.

Palm flat against the brick beside your head, the impact sending a crack through the mortar. The Devil Bringer. Its glow lit the alley in stuttering pulses, casting Nero's face half in blue fire and half in shadow, and suddenly the wall was at your back and there was nowhere left to go.

He'd known. Days. He'd known for days.

Nero leaned in — not close enough to touch, but close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off the Bringer's glow, close enough to catch the gunpowder residue still clinging to his jacket from whatever he'd killed an hour ago. His chest rose and fell once, slow, controlled. The kind of breathing a person does when they're choosing not to do something else.

Those eyes. Bright blue even in the dark, catching the Bringer's light like chips of neon. They held yours without blinking — and something in them shifted. The wariness bled out, slow, replaced by something more dangerous. More amused.

A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. A verdict.

"You've been following me for days now."

His voice came out low. Rough at the edges, the way it got when he'd been fighting or shouting or both. He tilted his head, the silver-white of his hair catching the glow, and the movement brought him another inch closer.

"What's the deal?"

The question hung there, thick as the stench of the alley. His free hand — the human one — settled casually against the wall on your other side. Not touching. Just... closing the frame. Making sure you understood the geometry of the situation: him in front, brick on both sides, and a long, dark stretch of nothing behind you.

That smirk deepened. Crooked. Knowing.

"You got a death wish —" A pause. His gaze dropped, just for a second, tracing down and then back up, unhurried, unapologetic. "— or are you just really bad at hiding that you want my attention?"

The Bringer's glow flared once, bright enough to make you squint, then settled back to that low, restless hum. Nero didn't move. Didn't back off. He stayed right there, watching, that infuriating half-smile still in place, waiting to see which way you'd break.

The rain was doing that thing where it hit the windows like it was personal.

Nero had kicked the door shut behind him when he came in — not because he was being dramatic, just because his hands were busy grabbing you by the front of your shirt and walking you backward until your spine met the wall. The impact knocked the air out for half a second. Not hard. Just enough. Enough that you felt it, that he knew you felt it.

Dante was out. Nico was in the garage. The shop was empty except for the storm and the two of you and the red jacket crumpled on the floor like he'd yanked it off instead of taking it off, which he had.

He was breathing hard. Not from running — from holding back. You could tell because you'd been around him long enough to know the difference. The way his chest moved too fast, too shallow. The way his jaw kept clenching and unclenching like he was chewing on words he didn't trust himself to say.

His eyes were wrong. Not bad-wrong. Just — more. That blue you knew, that bright stupid blue, except now there was something behind it, under it, flickering in and out like a bad connection. The demon part. Closer to the surface than you'd ever seen it when he wasn't actively fighting something.

"You've been doing this all day."

His voice came out scraped raw. Low. He leaned in when he said it, forehead almost touching yours, and his mouth was close enough that you felt the words more than heard them.

"Walking around looking at me like that."

His hand — the human one — grabbed your waist. Not gentle. Not rough either. Just there, fingers digging in through your clothes like he was holding onto something that might get away, or like he was holding himself up. Hard to tell which.

"And I'm supposed to what, just—"

He broke off. Swallowed. You watched his throat work and felt stupid for noticing, for wanting to put your mouth there, and then his hips shifted and you forgot how to think about anything else because he was right there, pressed against you, and there was no pretending either of you didn't know what that hardness against your thigh meant. He didn't move away. Didn't adjust. Just stood there, breathing, letting you feel exactly what you'd done to him.

The Devil Bringer came up slow. Slower than the other hand, which was still gripping your hip like it belonged there. The glow pulsed against your side, warm through the fabric — not the burn-hot of combat, but something different. Something that throbbed in time with his pulse and left trails of tingling heat wherever it touched, climbing your ribs like it was mapping you.

"You think I'm made of stone or something?"

A laugh that wasn't a laugh. More like air forced out through his nose, his jaw tight, his eyes squeezing shut for just a second before snapping back open. Fixed on you. That blue glow reflected in your eyes and you couldn't look away even if you wanted to, even if the door was right there and nobody was stopping you.

Nobody but him.

He bit your neck.

Not soft. Not a kiss with teeth — a bite. Enough that you felt it sing, felt the skin dimple and release, felt the wet heat of his mouth linger for one stupid second before he pulled back and looked at what he'd done. The mark was already blooming red. You didn't need a mirror. You could feel it, warm and tender, the shape of his teeth pressed into the curve where your neck met shoulder.

"You think I can just keep doing this forever?"

His voice cracked on the last word. Actually cracked, like he was seventeen again and his body was doing things his brain hadn't caught up to. The Devil Bringer's fingers tightened on your shoulder, the glow flaring bright for a second — bright enough that you saw the bones of his hand silhouetted through the light, bright enough that the shadows on the wall jumped — and then he was pulling you closer, closer, until there was nothing between you but fabric and heat and the frantic even rhythm of someone trying very hard not to lose it.

"Listen."

Forehead against yours. The rain hammering outside. His breath ragged and warm on your mouth, not quite a kiss, not quite anything, just him being there, so close you could taste the salt on his skin.

"If you don't want me to fuck you right here against this wall—"

He had to stop. Take a breath. His whole body shuddered once, tight and controlled and barely, and when he started again his voice was barely above a whisper.

"—you need to tell me now."

His eyes opened. That blue, that impossible blue, bright as the Bringer's glow, bright as the lightning that split the sky outside and threw his face into sharp relief for one electric second. Wet hair. Clenched jaw. The mark he'd left on your neck reflected in his eyes like a question he was too afraid to ask out loud.

"Because I'm about two seconds from losing it."

The hand on your waist pulled. The hand on your shoulder held. The rain kept hitting the windows like it wanted in, and Nero stood there shaking, not from cold, not from fear, from want, from the effort of being this close and not taking what he needed, waiting for you to say something, anything, before the thread he was hanging from finally snapped.

You were checking your reflection for the third time when you felt him watching.

Not that Nero was being subtle about it. He'd planted himself against your apartment door like he owned the frame, arms crossed, one boot propped behind him, just — looking. The kind of looking that wasn't casual even when he was trying to make it seem casual. The kind where you could feel it on the back of your neck before you even turned around.

And he had that smile. That lazy, crooked half-smirk that said I know exactly what I'm doing and I'm enjoying watching you pretend you don't notice.

The last few months had done something to him. To both of you, really, but Nero especially. He used to wear his guard like a second skin — that deflection, the sarcasm, the whole I don't care act that fooled absolutely nobody who spent more than five minutes with him. Now? He wasn't even trying to hide it anymore. The way his eyes tracked you across a room. The way his hand always found some part of you — your wrist, the small of your back, the hem of your jacket — like touching you was the only way he could confirm you were real and not something the demons had invented to mess with his head.

He'd never said it out loud. Not in those words. But his actions had been screaming it for weeks.

"You're going out like that?"

The question came out easy. Too easy. The kind of easy that meant it wasn't really a question at all.

You heard his boots before you felt him — two steps, three, and then he was behind you, arms sliding around your waist from behind like it was the most natural thing in the world. His chin dropped onto your shoulder, stubble scraping lightly against your neck, and he just — stayed there. Pressed against your back. Warm. Solid. The steady rhythm of his breathing loud enough that you could feel it move through you.

He was looking at your reflection in the mirror now too. Watching you watch him.

"You trying to make me worry all night?"

His voice was low against your ear. That rough edge to it, the one that showed up when he was tired or honest or both. "Thinking about who's gonna be looking at you. Who's gonna try talking to you."

Like I wasn't the same way before you, he thought. Like I didn't spend years being the idiot who couldn't say anything right.

But he'd learned. Slowly. Painfully. The way he learned everything — by screwing it up first and then refusing to screw it up again.

He turned you around. Gentle but firm, hands on your hips, pivoting you like it cost him nothing. Like moving you was his right and he knew it and so did you. And suddenly you were face to face and his eyes — those blue eyes that had spent months pretending they weren't always finding you in a crowd — were right there, soft in a way he'd never let anyone else see.

Not Dante. Not Nico. Just you.

The Devil Bringer traced up your spine. Slow. Idle. The blue glow dim tonight, just a faint pulse against the fabric of your shirt, warm but not hot. He did that sometimes — touched you with the Bringer instead of his human hand. You'd asked him about it once and he'd gone quiet for a long time before saying something about how it felt different. How it remembered things. How sometimes, when he wasn't paying attention, it reached for you on its own.

He never elaborated. You never pushed.

"I know you can take care of yourself."

He said it like he was admitting something he didn't want to. Like the words tasted wrong coming out of his mouth even though they were true.

"But it still pisses me off." His jaw tightened. "Just thinking about someone trying to get close to you."

His fingers curled into the fabric at your hips. Not pulling. Just holding. Anchoring himself to the idea of you, maybe. Or keeping himself from saying something worse.

"You're mine now. You know that, right?"

Not a question. Not a brag. Just — fact. The way he said it, quiet and steady, like he was reminding you of something you'd both agreed on a long time ago. The kind of statement that should've sounded possessive and controlling and wrong, except when Nero said it, it sounded like a confession. Like he was still surprised by it. Like he woke up every morning expecting you to be gone and needed to say it out loud just to make it real for another day.

Because I don't know how to do this, he thought. I don't know how to want something this much and not break it.

He kissed you.

Not fast. Not desperate. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of kiss that was designed to leave no room for misunderstanding — his mouth on yours, his hands pulling you closer, the low hum of the Bringer's glow intensifying against your back for just a second before he reined it in. He took his time. Lingered there, breathing you in, tasting whatever you'd been drinking, memorizing the shape of your mouth like he needed a map for later.

When he pulled back, his forehead stayed pressed to yours. Eyes still closed. Breath uneven.

"Come home soon."

A pause. His eyes opened. That blue, softened but not soft — never completely soft, because Nero didn't know how to be completely soft, didn't trust the world enough for that. What he trusted was you. And even that scared him.

"Or I'm coming to get you."

Another beat. The ghost of that smirk. The one that said he wasn't joking, not even a little.

"And I won't be gentle about it."

His thumb traced your hipbone once, twice, and then he let go — stepping back, putting distance between you like it physically cost him, grabbing his jacket off the chair he'd thrown it over an hour ago. He paused at the door, hand on the frame, and glanced back at you over his shoulder.

Something unspoken in that look. Something that said I love you and I hate this and hurry back all tangled up together in a way he'd never figure out how to separate.

Then he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him, and the apartment was suddenly too quiet, too empty, still holding the warmth of where he'd been standing and the faint electric hum of the Bringer's memory fading from your skin.

The old library was the kind of quiet that made you paranoid about existing.

Every breath felt like an announcement. Every shifted weight in your chair echoed off the vaulted ceiling like you'd dropped something. The shelves went up forever — dark wood, darker dust, stuffed full of leather-bound tomes and sealed grimories and demonic relics that Vergil swore were "essential to understanding the Sparda bloodline," which was his way of saying he wanted to spend Saturday night reading instead of doing literally anything a normal person would do on a Saturday night.

Vergil himself was in the back of the hall. Of course he was. Hunched over a book the size of a coffee table, pages so old they probably remembered the Fall, his blue coat catching what little light filtered through the grimy windows. He hadn't moved in over an hour. Hadn't spoken. Hadn't blinked, as far as you could tell. Just him and the text, completely locked in, like the rest of the world had stopped existing the moment he sat down.

Dante was sprawled in an antique chair like it was a pool lounger, one leg thrown over the armrest, head tilted back, sighing loud enough to be theatrical about it every two minutes. The kind of sigh that was less about boredom and more about making sure everyone within earshot knew he was suffering.

Nero leaned against the table next to him, drumming his metal fingers against the Devil Bringer in a rhythm that said he was about three more minutes from putting his fist through something. Not the wall. Not a shelf. Probably whatever Vergil was reading, just to get a reaction.

"I'm dying here," Nero muttered, dragging his hand through his already-messy white hair. "For real. Actually dying. The old man dragged us to this moldy-ass tomb for what? To watch him read dust? We could've been doing something useful. Killing something. Anything."

Dante's sigh this time had words attached. "You think he'd at least let us touch something. One little cursed artifact. Just a taste."

"That's not — I'm not touching anything in here, I'm just saying—"

"Hey, kid."

Dante sat up a little. That smile. The one that said I have found a way to make this worse and I am extremely excited about it. He'd pulled something out of a half-open drawer in the old desk beside him — small, black, matte finish, silver trim, buttons that caught the dim light like tiny eyes. A remote. Sleek. Modern. Absolutely did not belong in a room that smelled like 1847.

"Look at this thing." He held it up, turning it over in his fingers. "Betcha it's some weird demon artifact. Some kinda... I dunno. Magickal doodad. We should test it out."

Nero's eyebrow went up. The skepticism was automatic. But the boredom was winning, and they both knew it.

"Give me that." He snatched it out of Dante's hand, because of course he did. Nero never could resist something to mess with when he was this restless.

Click.

Nothing visible happened. He frowned, looked around the room like he expected something to explode or glow or summon something with too many teeth.

Click. Click. Click-click-click.

He started hammering buttons. Dante reached over and started pressing too, alternating between the bottom and middle buttons, treating it like a game they were both losing but having fun doing it.

"Look, it's shaking!" Dante laughed, pointing at the remote vibrating faintly in Nero's palm. "What the hell is this thing? Demon massage artifact?"

Nero let out a rough laugh, thumb finding the intensity button and pressing down without thinking. Without caring. Just pressing because it was there and he could.

"No idea, but it's pretty nice. Feels alive or something." He turned it over in his hand, watching the little lights blink. "Maybe it's Vergil's little toy and he's gonna be pissed when he finds out we—"

He stopped.

Mid-sentence. Mid-everything. Just — stopped.

Because he'd looked over. At you. And you were...

You were not okay.

You'd been sitting there for a while now. Book open on your lap, same page you'd been on for the last ten minutes because you couldn't read a single word of it, not with what was happening underneath. Trying to look normal. Trying to look like someone who was calmly reading about demonic genealogy and not someone who was fighting for their life trying to keep their body from doing exactly what it wanted to do.

Your thighs were pressed together so tight your legs were trembling. Your breath wasn't right — too shallow, too uneven, catching every few seconds like you'd forgotten how inhaling worked. Your cheeks were flushed, and not from the cold, and there was a fine tremor running through your shoulders that had nothing to do with the draft.

Every time they clicked, you flinched. Not big. Not obvious, unless someone was watching, unless someone was really looking — and Nero was looking now.

He blinked. Once. Twice.

His brain took a second to catch up. The remote still vibrating in his hand. Your body still responding. The connection between the two things clicking into place like a key turning in a lock, and suddenly Nero understood exactly what kind of artifact this was and exactly whose it was and exactly what he and Dante had been doing for the last two minutes without knowing it.

"Wait—"

His voice came out weird. Half strangled. He looked at the remote. At you. At the remote again.

"What the... fuck?"

The smile that spread across his face was slow. Dangerous. The kind of smile that started in disbelief and ended somewhere far less innocent. His ears went red. Actually red, the tips of them, the color climbing up his neck while the rest of his face tried to look composed and failed completely.

"Don't tell me this is—"

Dante hadn't figured it out yet. Of course he hadn't. He was too busy being entertained by the remote itself, and he pressed the button again, curious, just to see what would happen.

Click-click-click.

The vibrator kicked up hard inside you. The intensity spiking like someone had cranked it from three to eight in a heartbeat, and you felt your whole body lock up, spine arching just barely, teeth sinking into your lip hard enough to hurt, fighting down whatever sound was trying to crawl out of your throat.

Nero saw all of it.

The way your shoulders jumped. The way your fingers went white-knuckled on the book's spine. The way you pressed your thighs even closer together, like you could squeeze the feeling into submission, like your body wasn't already way past listening to you.

"Holy shit."

He laughed. Not loud — barely a sound, more breath than voice, the kind of laugh that came out when your brain short-circuited and your mouth just did whatever it wanted. He ran his free hand over his face, dragging it down slowly, like he was trying to physically wipe the grin off and it wasn't working.

"It's yours. This is — this is actually yours." He lowered his voice, but the amusement was dripping off every syllable, thick and warm and shameless. "And we've been pressing it like a couple of idiots. Randomly. For minutes."

He turned the remote between his fingers. Slowly. Deliberately now. Not random anymore. Not clueless. Looking at it differently — looking at you differently, like you'd just become the most interesting thing in a room full of ancient demonic artifacts.

"You've been sitting there this whole time taking it." His head tilted. That crooked smirk was fully in place now, the one that meant he was enjoying something he absolutely shouldn't be enjoying and didn't care. "That's... honestly kind of impressive."

Dante finally got it. You could see the exact moment it landed — his eyes went wide, his mouth dropped open, and then he almost fell out of his chair laughing, slapping a hand over his mouth to keep the sound contained, shoulders shaking, tears already forming in the corners of his eyes.

"OH MY—"

"Shut up," Nero hissed at him, but he was grinning too, that flush still burning at his ears, and he stepped closer to you. One step. Then another. The remote still in his hand, still humming, still very much not turned off.

"So."

He crouched down a little. Getting closer to your level. Close enough that you could see the way his pupils had dilated, the way his breathing wasn't as steady as he was pretending it was. Close enough that his voice could drop to something barely above a whisper, something meant only for you, something that made the vibrator inside you feel like a secondary concern compared to the heat in his gaze.

"You want me to stop?"

He held up the remote. Thumb hovering over the intensity button. Not pressing. Just hovering. Letting you feel the threat of it, the promise, the question.

"Or..."

The thumb drifted. Found the up arrow. Rested against it without pushing.

"...you want me to see how far this thing goes?"

Dante was dying. Actually dying. Wheezing into his palm, tears running down his face, trying so hard not to make noise that he was turning purple. Somewhere in the back of the hall, Vergil turned a page, oblivious, existing in his own dimension of silence and scholarship.

Nero didn't look at Dante. Didn't look at Vergil. Just you. Those blue eyes bright and dark at the same time, lit up with something between mischief and hunger, and underneath it — underneath all of it — genuine surprise. Like he'd found something he didn't know he was looking for and now couldn't imagine putting it back.

"Because I'm suddenly way more interested in this library than I was five minutes ago."

He pressed the button once. Just once. Just enough.

And watched.

The secret chamber beneath Fortuna’s ruins still echoed with the loud boom of the explosion. Thick clouds of violet-gold dust floated lazily through the air, illuminated by the flickering red torches that had somehow survived the blast. In the center of the hall, the ancient pedestal that once held the legendary demonic artifact “Bestia Primordialis” was now split clean in half, and the obsidian crystal meant to grant absolute primal power lay scattered across the floor as nothing but shiny black dust.

And with that dust came the curse.

Nero felt it hit him like a truck — a burning heat shot up his spine and exploded at the base of his skull.

POOF.

Two large, pointed silver-gray wolf ears burst through his messy white hair, twitching wildly. A second later, a thick, bushy wolf tail — dark gray with silver tips — exploded out from under his red jacket, already wagging furiously, smacking against his legs with zero shame.

“What the actual fuck?!” Nero shouted, grabbing at his new ears in disbelief. His tail refused to stop moving, swinging left and right with ridiculous enthusiasm.

Across the room, Dante was howling with laughter. His transformation had been... less majestic. Two floppy, mismatched brown ears — one slightly bigger than the other — poked out of his silver hair. A scruffy, medium-length mutt tail (classic street dog style, brown with a white tip) wagged so hard it was practically spinning. He looked exactly like a happy, chaotic street dog who had just found an open trash can.

Vergil stood deathly still, two elegant white cat ears standing tall through his perfect hair, and a long, silky white cat tail swaying with barely contained fury beneath his blue coat.

Dante, still laughing, suddenly froze. His new dog instincts hit him hard. His floppy ears perked up, then drooped as he shifted uncomfortably.

“Uh... guys? I really gotta piss,” he muttered, looking genuinely surprised at himself.

Before anyone could react, Dante walked over to one of the ancient marble pillars like it was the most normal thing in the world. He lifted his leg, tail wagging happily behind him, and let out a long, powerful stream, marking the pillar with a satisfied sigh. The wet sound echoed embarrassingly loud in the quiet chamber as his mutt tail thumped cheerfully against his calf.

Nero stared in horror. “Are you fucking kidding me?! You’re actually pissing on the wall like a stray dog?!”

Dante finished shaking off, still looking way too pleased with himself. “What? It felt natural, okay? Don’t judge me, wolf boy. Your tail’s been wagging like a helicopter since the curse hit.”

Vergil closed his eyes, looking like he was two seconds away from committing familicide. His pristine white cat tail lashed violently.

“This curse is temporary,” Vergil stated coldly. “It must be.”

Nero tried to calm down, but the moment the wind shifted, everything changed.

A warm, intoxicating scent drifted into the chamber — vanilla, soft leather, and something sweet and alive that made his wolf instincts go haywire. {{user}} was close.

Nero’s silver wolf ears shot straight up, swiveling toward the entrance. His thick wolf tail, which was already wagging, suddenly went into overdrive — swinging fast, wide, and completely out of control, thumping loudly against his thigh and the side of his jacket.

“Shit... shit, shit, shit...” he muttered, face heating up. He tried to grab his tail to stop it, but the damn thing just wrapped around his hand for a second before breaking free and continuing its happy assault. His heart was beating faster, and a low, involuntary growl rumbled in his chest.

Dante, still buzzing from marking his territory, noticed immediately and burst into loud laughter again.

“Holy shit, look at Nero! His tail won’t stop! Dude’s acting like a lovesick puppy who just smelled dinner!” Dante pointed, his own scruffy mutt tail wagging even harder. “You’re down bad, kid!”

“Shut the fuck up, you damn mutt!” Nero snapped, ears flattening for half a second before popping back up, completely focused on the entrance. His tail kept betraying him, swinging so enthusiastically it nearly threw off his balance.

Vergil opened one eye, glancing at his son with a mix of pity and second-hand embarrassment as Nero’s tail continued its relentless, happy wag.

Nero ran a hand through his hair, trying (and failing) to look cool. The scent was getting stronger. His wolf ears stayed locked forward, trembling slightly with anticipation. The curse had turned his usual tsundere attitude into something much harder to hide.

“Fuck... why now?” he growled under his breath, eyes glowing faintly blue as he stared at the chamber entrance.

{{user}} was about to walk in.

And Nero’s big, fluffy wolf tail refused to stop telling the entire room exactly how he felt.

.