Chapter 842: Vergil’s Decision.

Vergil was lying in his room at the Palace of Sparda, staring at the ceiling as if he expected some answer to be hidden among the soft shadows cast by the curtains. The room was silent. There was no meeting, no voices arguing around a table, no witches preparing forbidden seals, no primordial goddesses emerging from the dark to offer servitude. Only him, the wide bed, the high ceiling, and the irritating sensation that the world had found yet another way to drag him into a crisis he could not ignore.

He took a deep breath.

Then slowly let it out.

"There is no way not to get involved in this," he murmured.

The sentence remained suspended in the room.

Vergil hated it when the conclusion was obvious. He preferred clear enemies, simple choices, threats that could be cut down. This, however, was different. It was not merely about helping Hades, Persephone, Nyx, or any other name tied to Olympus. If it were only that, perhaps he would refuse without losing sleep. But it was not. The Outer Sepulcher, the Underworlds being attacked, the Titans reacting, Helheim wounded, Naraka touched, Yama’s system under suspicion, the Sins and Horsemen being used as pieces in a greater move. Everything pointed to something growing beyond individual pantheons.

And, as always, the problem had touched his life before he decided to touch it.

Sapphire. Sepphirothy. Lilith. His family. His world.

Vergil closed his eyes for an instant, irritated with himself because he already knew the answer.

That was when he felt two energies leaving his heart.

It was not pain. It was as if two ancient and familiar parts of him crossed the boundary between inside and outside, manifesting in the room without needing a portal. A frozen energy took the left side of the bed, making small ice crystals appear in the air before dissolving. The other came hot, deep, with a red glow that rippled like magma beneath black stone.

When Vergil opened his eyes, Nivara and Crymsaria were standing beside the bed.

Nivara had long, straight platinum-white hair, with an appearance so cold that even her eyelashes seemed covered in frost. Her pale skin and glacial eyes gave her a distant, cutting beauty, like a frozen mountain watching the world without caring whether anyone survived the climb. Crymsaria, on the other hand, was concentrated heat. Her red hair looked like living lava, falling in intense waves over her shoulders, and her eyes carried an incandescent glow that made the air near her seem drier, heavier.

Both crossed their arms at the same time.

Vergil only moved his eyes toward them. "What?"

Nivara raised an icy eyebrow. "That question should be ours."

Crymsaria tilted her head, staring at him with a mixture of provocation and concern. "Why do you look so depressed?"

"I am not depressed."

"You are lying there staring at the ceiling like a dramatic war widower," Nivara said.

Crymsaria nodded. "And you sighed alone. That is always a bad sign."

Vergil looked back at the ceiling. "You know why."

"We do," Nivara said.

"But we want to hear it from you," Crymsaria completed.

He was silent for a few seconds.

Neither of them moved. Despite the teasing, there was something serious behind their presence. Nivara and Crymsaria had not appeared only to irritate him, although that certainly formed part of their natural instinct. They were linked to him in a way too deep to ignore when his soul began to grow heavy. They knew what he thought, felt what he repressed, and yet still wanted him to put it into words.

Vergil took a deep breath. "I did not want to get involved in more problems."

Neither interrupted.

"It is always like this," he continued. "When I think I can breathe, something else appears. Sins, Horsemen, Abyss, Lilith in a coma, Sapphire and Sepphirothy captured, now Hades trapped in Tartarus, Nyx offering servitude, a dimension older than the Underworlds, and an organization trying to use all of that to reach something no one should touch."

His voice remained controlled, but there was exhaustion in it.

"I have no rest. And now I need to decide whether it is worth helping a pantheon that practically everyone who matters to me describes as the worst nest of arrogance in existence."

Nivara looked at Crymsaria.

Crymsaria looked at Nivara.

For several seconds, the two rivals remained silent. Then, without saying anything, Nivara walked to the left side of the bed and lay down beside him. Crymsaria did the same on the right side. Vergil turned his face toward Nivara, then toward Crymsaria, as if wanting to ask what they were doing, but already knowing neither would answer normally.

The two lay there staring at the ceiling with him.

The silence that formed was not uncomfortable. It was strange, but not uncomfortable. Nivara kept her hands over her abdomen, cold and still, while Crymsaria rested one arm behind her head, radiating enough heat to balance the icy presence of the other. Vergil remained between them, feeling that familiar contrast of ice and fire like two quarrelsome halves of the same protection.

Nivara raised one hand.

A line of ice left the tip of her finger and began drawing on the ceiling. It did not truly freeze the stone; it was more like an elemental illustration floating over the surface. First, she traced Sparda, represented by a white fortress surrounded by blue lines. Then she drew circles around it, each symbolizing an Underworld. Tartarus appeared as a prison of chains. Helheim as a gate covered in dark snow. Naraka as concentric wheels. Yama’s system as a scale before a river. The Christian Underworld appeared marked by a purple moon and red shadows.

"You are thinking of Olympus as the reason," Nivara said. "But Olympus is only the insufferable neighbor whose house caught fire."

Crymsaria raised her own hand, and trails of flame began moving across the ceiling, crossing the ice drawings without melting them. The flames formed small red points between the Underworlds, like infections spreading across a map. "If you let it burn, perhaps it will be funny for a few minutes. Until the fire reaches your wall."

Vergil watched the drawings.

Nivara continued, creating a blue line between Sparda and the other domains. "You are already fighting this problem. You simply did not have the complete map."

Crymsaria drew dark figures trying to open rifts between the circles. "Spectre, Dante, Sins, Horsemen, Abyss. All of that was part of the same fire. The difference is that now you know it did not begin at your door."

"And it may not end there," Nivara added.

Vergil remained silent.

Crymsaria turned her face toward him. "You are not going to help Olympus because they deserve it."

"They do not deserve it," Nivara said bluntly.

"You are going to act because the problem is yours too," Crymsaria continued. "And because waiting for it to grow will only make everything more irritating."

Nivara drew a small figure representing Vergil standing before an abyss. Then she drew the same abyss larger, surrounding several fortresses. "If you act now, you choose the field, the allies, the conditions, and the protections. If you wait, the enemy chooses for you."

Vergil looked at the figure drawn on the ceiling. "Seris said something similar."

"Then Seris was right," Nivara said.

Crymsaria grimaced. "Unfortunately."

Nivara looked at her. "You cannot stand agreeing with me even when you agree."

"I can stand it. I just find it unpleasant."

"Mutual feeling."

Vergil released a low sigh, almost imperceptible.

Crymsaria smiled from the corner of her mouth. "See? Better. You sighed like someone irritated, not like someone sinking under his own weight."

"An important difference," Nivara said.

Vergil turned his eyes to her. "Did you two come to comfort me or analyze me?"

"Both," Nivara answered.

"And judge a little," Crymsaria added.

"That too."

The ceiling remained covered by drawings of ice and fire. Nivara began drawing a barrier around the representation of Vergil, made of thin blue lines. Crymsaria added red runes, attack marks, exit routes, and points where flames could cut through the rifts before they opened completely. Despite being natural rivals, fire and ice, heat and cold, the two worked in a strange harmony. Their elements did not cancel each other. They organized themselves. Where ice created form, fire gave movement. Where flame indicated danger, cold defined distance.

Vergil watched it closely.

"You agree," he said.

Nivara and Crymsaria went still for an instant.

"Do not exaggerate," Nivara said.

"We agree on one specific point," Crymsaria corrected. "Do not make it sound intimate."

"That would be disgusting."

"Terrible."

Vergil ignored their reaction. "What is the point?"

Nivara pointed to the drawing of the Outer Sepulcher, represented as a dark circle without clear borders at the center of all the domains. "Preventing this from being found is better than waiting for it to be used."

Crymsaria completed, drawing an explosion of fire around the circle. "And if someone is trying to manipulate Underworlds, authorities, and death systems, then eventually they will try to manipulate you. Better to break their hand before they touch your heart."

The room was quiet for a few seconds.

Crymsaria’s sentence, although spoken with her usual intensity, was not exaggerated. Vergil knew that. Nyx had called him a bridge. Wukong had said something similar. Seris had confirmed the risk. If he stayed still, perhaps it would seem prudent for a time, but only until the enemy decided it was time to use his existence anyway.

Vergil ran a hand over his face. "Then the answer is to help."

"Carefully," Nivara said.

"With distrust," Crymsaria said.

"With contracts reviewed by Seris."

"With exit routes."

"With identity seals."

"And with someone ready to burn any false voice that tries to call your name."

Vergil looked at Crymsaria.

She smiled. "What? I am good at that."

Nivara raised a finger, and a small ice dragon appeared on the ceiling, flying around the drawing of Sparda. Crymsaria answered by creating a fire dragon that chased the first. The two began circling the maps as if that were part of the strategy. Vergil watched for a few seconds and, despite the weight of the situation, the scene looked absurdly well drawn.

"Despite being two dragons," he said, "you are very good at drawing."

Both turned their faces toward him at the same time.

Nivara narrowed her eyes. "Despite?"

Crymsaria propped herself on one elbow. "Was that a compliment or an insult?"

"Compliment."

"It sounded like an insult," Nivara said.

"Vergil compliments like he is filling out a military report," Crymsaria said.

"You draw well," he corrected.

Nivara looked at him for an instant. "Better."

Crymsaria lay down again, satisfied. "Acceptable."

Vergil looked back at the ceiling.

The drawings remained there, glowing in ice and fire, showing the entire problem more clearly than any meeting had managed. Olympus was irrelevant before the larger structure. Hades, Persephone, and Nyx were inconvenient pieces, but not the center. The center was the enemy trying to reach something forgotten, and the only real choice was whether he would face it now or later.

Nivara moved a little closer, her cold presence calming part of his mind.

Crymsaria did the same, her warmth stabilizing the other side.

Vergil closed his eyes.

"I will help," he said. "But not for Olympus."

"For your family," Nivara said.

"For your world," Crymsaria said.

"And because you hate when someone tries to use you as a key," Nivara completed.

Vergil opened his eyes again.

The purple glow in them was faint, but present.

"Yes," he said. "For that too."

The two smiled in different ways. Nivara with satisfied coldness. Crymsaria with contained fire.

Above them, on the ceiling of the room, the drawings of ice and flame continued moving slowly, like a living map of a war that had not fully begun yet.

And, for the first time that night, Vergil did not seem alone with the weight of the decision.

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