Chapter 843: Training to keep my mind occupied.

Vergil’s personal training area was located in an isolated wing of the Palace of Sparda, far from the common courtyards, far from the soldiers, far from the maids, and far enough from the main rooms that no one would be struck by accident if he decided to test something beyond reason. The floor was made of black stone reinforced by layers of ancient runes. The walls bore marks of cuts, impacts, flames, ice, and demonic energy, though all of them were quickly regenerated by restoration spells. There, Vergil could train without needing to worry about etiquette, an audience, or structural destruction.

That day, however, he was not holding Yamato.

He was holding a spear.

The weapon was simple in appearance, at least compared to the absurd relics that circulated through his life. A long shaft, dark metal, a well-balanced tip, and weight distributed impeccably. Vergil spun the spear once in his hand, feeling the center of gravity, the distance between grip and tip, the difference between extension and control. It had been a long time since he had truly trained with a weapon like this. Not because he was incapable. Simply because Yamato made certain questions useless.

Why train with a spear when one possessed a sword capable of cutting space?

The practical answer was simple. Because if one day Yamato was not the best option, or if some seal, domain, or entity tried to limit the direct use of the sword, Vergil did not intend to be reduced to a man with only one solution. Besides, after everything he had heard about Tartarus, the Outer Sepulcher, the Titans, and death systems being manipulated, he needed movement. Thinking too much without acting only made the body heavy.

He positioned his feet.

The first sequence was calm. Advance, thrust, retreat, short spin, lateral strike with the shaft, grip change, and a descending cut with the tip. The air opened in thin lines before him, not because of the spear itself, but because of the precision with which Vergil moved his body. The weapon sang softly in the empty space, and every strike ended exactly where it should.

Or almost.

Vergil noticed a few imperfections. Small. Irritating. The left foot lagged by half an instant in the transition between advance and rotation. The hip still behaved as if it were carrying a sword, not a spear. The right hand tended to dominate the movement too much, reducing the fluidity of the shaft. Minimal errors, but errors.

He repeated the sequence.

Then repeated it again.

The spear cut through the air in a long arc, retreated, advanced, and stopped a few centimeters from a training dummy made of enchanted metal. Vergil took a deep breath, spun the weapon behind his back, and began another combination.

"You are letting the shoulder decide too much."

The voice came from the side.

Vergil stopped in the middle of the movement and turned only his gaze.

Sapphire was sitting on one of the low stands of the room, as if she had always been there. She wore light training clothes, though the way she crossed her legs and rested her chin on one hand made it clear she was not there to sweat. Her eyes, now more alive since she had returned to her true self, watched Vergil with sharp attention. There was something different about her. More whole. More intense. More dangerous. And, at that moment, slightly amused.

"You appeared without making a sound," Vergil said.

"Of course."

"That does not answer."

"It answers enough."

Sapphire stood calmly and walked toward him. The sound of her steps echoed softly across the stone, and Vergil immediately realized she was not merely observing like a curious wife. She was evaluating posture, breath, weight, rhythm, and intention. The old Sapphire, the spear warrior who had crossed eras of war, was there.

She stopped in front of him and pointed at his hand.

"You are using the spear as if you were extending a sword," she said. "It works against inferior enemies, because you are you. But against someone who understands distance, you will waste reach."

Vergil looked at his own grip.

Sapphire touched his hand, adjusting the position of his fingers. The gesture was technical, but it lasted a little longer than necessary. Her fingers slid over his with calm possessiveness, as if correcting his grip were an acceptable excuse to touch him. Then she moved behind him, placed one hand on his hip and the other on his shoulder, guiding his posture.

"Less strength in the arm. More decision in the center of the body."

Vergil kept his expression neutral. "You are very close for a technical correction."

Sapphire laughed softly, with a tone both disdainful and satisfied. "I am only helping my husband."

The way she said my was not casual.

It was not a word thrown into the middle of a sentence.

It was a mark.

Vergil turned his face slightly toward her. Sapphire held his gaze without retreating, a small smile on her lips and a confidence too intense to seem like a joke. There was possessiveness there, clear, warm, and admitted. Not the theatrical possessiveness of someone trying to provoke the other women. It was something deeper. As if, since accepting who she was again, Sapphire had also accepted without filters how much she wanted Vergil for herself, even while sharing him with an entire chaos of wives, lovers, problematic mothers, goddesses, witches, and entities orbiting his life.

She leaned a little closer, her chest almost touching his back. "Or would you prefer another woman to teach you how to use a spear?"

Vergil raised an eyebrow. "Is that question a trap?"

"Yes."

"Then I will not answer."

"Good choice."

He observed her face for several seconds. Sapphire seemed clingier. More loving. More possessive. The intensity had changed completely since her return to her true self. Before, she could be provocative, proud, affectionate in a calculated way. Now there was something almost too direct in her. As if the part that once kept distance to preserve pride had been torn away and replaced by a woman who saw no reason to hide desire, affection, or possession.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

Sapphire smiled.

It was not a cruel smile, nor a sarcastic one. It was almost happy.

"I am much more in love."

Vergil stared at her.

She did not explain further. She merely adjusted his shoulder again, as if the declaration were simple enough not to require defense. Vergil remained silent for a moment, processing the answer. Coming from Sapphire, that phrase was less light than it sounded. She was not joking. She was not trying to embarrass him. She was simply telling the truth, with a calmness that was perhaps more dangerous than any provocation.

He looked forward again. "I understand."

"You do not understand completely."

"Probably not."

"But you will learn."

"Is that a threat too?"

"A promise."

Vergil took a deep breath and restarted the sequence. This time, Sapphire walked around him as she watched. When his foot lagged, she lightly tapped the side of his thigh with her fingertips. When his shoulder hardened, she touched the exact point with two fingers. When the spear advanced at the wrong angle, she held the shaft and corrected it effortlessly.

"Again," she said.

Vergil repeated.

"Better."

"Was that praise?"

"Do not get used to it."

He spun the spear and executed another thrust. The tip crossed the air more cleanly this time, stopping before the enchanted dummy without touching it. Sapphire observed with discreet approval.

"You are recovering quickly," she said. "Your body remembers. It is just too addicted to Yamato."

"Yamato solves many problems."

"Yes. And that is why you became lazy with other weapons."

Vergil looked at her.

Sapphire smiled. "I said what I said."

He released a short sigh and returned to the starting position. As he trained, he began to speak. Not dramatically. He simply told her, between one sequence and another, what had happened over the last few days. Persephone in Aphrodite’s flower shop. Hades trapped in Tartarus with Thanatos. The Helm of Darkness offered as payment. Nyx pulling him into the dark, bowing before him, and revealing the existence of the Outer Sepulcher. Seris confirming that the place was real, older than the Underworlds and linked to Outer Gods from outside the sector of the multiverse. The possibility that the simultaneous attacks were attempts to map death systems until they found something older than the rules.

Sapphire listened to everything in silence.

Little by little, her smile disappeared.

When Vergil mentioned the Titans imprisoned in Tartarus and the possibility that they were being used as anchors, her eyes widened almost imperceptibly. But Vergil noticed. Sapphire did not react that way out of fear. She reacted like that when something awakened ambition.

He finished a sequence, spun the spear, and stopped.

Sapphire was still.

"Sapphire."

She looked at him.

"No."

"You did not even hear what I was going to say."

"I heard it in your expression."

She took one step forward. "I want to go with you to Tartarus."

"No."

"Vergil."

"No."

This time, her voice changed. The loving possessiveness was still there, but now there was something else beneath it. Hunger. Not the Authority of Gluttony. Not a vulgar hunger. It was the ancient impulse of Sapphire, returned from the depths of herself. The warrior who looked at the power of others and calculated how to take it, absorb it, surpass it.

"Take me with you," she said, almost pleading, though her pride fought against every syllable. "I need to go."

Vergil rested the spear on the ground. "Why?"

Sapphire held his gaze.

Then smiled.

A sharp, red, ancient smile.

"Because I want to devour Cronos’s heart."

The room fell silent.

Vergil went absolutely still.

Sapphire moved closer, her eyes shining with an intensity that was not merely desire for battle. It was naked ambition. "The Titans are older than the Olympian order. Before Zeus, before Hades, before that family turned arrogance into government. Cronos, Hyperion, Coeus, Crius, Iapetus... each of them carries fragments of an era when the world was still raw. If Tartarus is trembling and they are being touched, then their power can be accessed."

Vergil narrowed his eyes. "You are speaking as if it were simple."

"It is not simple. That is why I want to go."

"You want to eat a Titan’s heart."

"Yes."

"To become stronger."

"Yes."

"And you think that is an acceptable justification."

Sapphire tilted her head. "For me, it is excellent."

Vergil stared at her for several seconds, trying to decide whether that was insanity, honesty, or simply Sapphire being Sapphire in her purest form. Probably all three. She had returned to her true self, and that true self was not only more loving. It was more ambitious, more hungry, more brutal in its pursuit of strength. The same heart that now clung to him with intensity also looked at Tartarus and saw opportunity.

"Sapphire," he said, lower. "Tartarus is sealed. Hades is trapped. Thanatos is trapped. Nyx came personally to warn me. Seris confirmed there is a risk of something trying to rewrite bonds, identities, and death systems. This is not a hunt."

"I know."

"Then stop treating it like one."

She stopped in front of him, so close that the spear between them seemed like only a detail. "I am not treating it like a hunt. I am treating it like war. And in war, if there is a source of power capable of preventing me from being used against you again, I want it."

The sentence struck somewhere else.

Vergil did not answer.

Sapphire continued, now without smiling. "I was captured. I was crushed. I, who have destroyed armies and crossed eras like a calamity, was used as bait against you. Do you think I returned to my true self just to accept that with elegance?"

Her voice grew lower.

"No."

The silence between them changed.

Vergil understood, then. This was not only ambition. It was also fear transformed into hunger. Wounded pride converted into discipline. Love converted into the need never again to be anyone’s weak point. Sapphire wanted Cronos’s heart not because she thought devouring a Titan was beautiful, but because she saw in that power the chance to close a wound that still existed inside her.

He slowly let the air out.

"Your answer is still dangerous."

"I am dangerous."

"It is also impulsive."

"I am asking to go. If I were impulsive, I would already have opened a path alone."

Vergil looked at her coldly.

Sapphire smiled from the corner of her mouth. "I am not saying I could get out."

"That does not make it better."

"But it shows maturity."

"Not enough."

She placed one hand over his chest, her fingers closing firmly in the fabric. "Then help me do it properly. If there is a risk of Titans being used as anchors, perhaps we will need to deal with them anyway. If Cronos wakes, you know as well as I do that he will be a problem. And if he dies..."

"You want the heart."

"I do."

Vergil stared at her for several seconds.

Then he picked up the spear again and returned to the training stance. "Again."

Sapphire blinked. "What?"

"Correct my posture."

She narrowed her eyes. "You are running from the answer."

"I am thinking."

"Vergil."

"Would you prefer I answer now?"

Sapphire opened her mouth, stopped, then closed it with a small irritated sound. "No."

"Then correct my posture."

She looked at him for a few more seconds, then released a low laugh, almost satisfied. She moved behind him again, but this time her touch came firmer. One hand on his hip, the other on his shoulder, her body close enough to mark her presence, her lips near his ear.

"You know you will end up taking me," she murmured.

"You do not know that."

"I do."

"Arrogant."

"I am your woman."

"That does not answer."

"It answers everything."

Vergil spun the spear following her correction. The tip cut the air with more precision, and Sapphire followed the movement closely, guiding him as if they were dancing on an invisible battlefield. For several minutes, neither of them spoke of Cronos, Hades, Nyx, or the Outer Sepulcher. There was only the spear, the breath, the sound of feet on stone, and Sapphire’s presence wrapped around him like a possessive promise.

But both of them knew the conversation was not over.

Tartarus still waited.

And now, Sapphire had found something in it that she wanted to devour.

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