Soren dropped to one knee without hesitation, gripped Yamato with both hands, and drove the blade straight into Angela's swollen belly.
Dante's Rebellion fused things together. Vergil's Yamato cut them apart.
Vergil had once used it to slice his own humanity free.
It was the best idea Soren could come up with on the fly. Win or lose, he had to try.
Schick.
No blood sprayed. No wound opened.
The katana glowed. Law itself flowed down the edge, forcibly ripping Mammon's demonic soul out of Angela's flesh.
"ROAR!"
Mammon tumbled out as a shriveled ball of flesh and hit the floor.
Then it started swelling at insane speed, sucking in every scrap of free energy around it.
BOOM!
Thunder cracked across the sky outside.
Soren stared at the growing demon body, legs coiled, ready to spring.
He poured every drop of demonic power he had left into Yamato.
"You dare?!" Gabriel finally realized what Soren was doing. For the first time, pure fury cracked that holy face.
"NO!"
Holy light exploded off the archangel as he lunged to stop him.
But the instant Gabriel moved, an invisible wall of force slammed into him like a freight train. The archangel was hurled backward, smashing through wall after wall in a cloud of concrete dust.
Papa Midnight's eyes bulged in the corner. He whipped his head toward the quiet girl beside him.
He had felt it—an overwhelming psychic blast had erupted from Carrie.
Carrie's eyes were locked on the rubble where Gabriel had disappeared. Every trace of fear was gone.
She would not let anyone hurt Soren.
She would not let anyone take away the one safe place she had finally found.
Even if it was an angel—she would tear it to pieces.
BOOM!
The wreckage detonated. Gabriel shot skyward, wrapped in blinding holy light, six pure-white wings fully spread. Divine pressure rolled off him like a storm as he streaked toward Soren like a falling star.
Soren didn't even glance at him.
Every ounce of his focus stayed on Yamato.
The moment the blade left its sheath, the air around them shattered like broken glass.
Countless crisscrossing purple slashes carved through space itself.
Click.
The sword slid home.
Dimensional Slash: Zero.
Yamato's ultimate technique. The second Soren gripped the hilt, the knowledge had simply been there.
The instant the blade locked into the scabbard, the frozen space exploded like shattered mirrors.
A web of purple lines sliced the entire reservoir into pieces.
Mammon—still greedily swelling to full strength—never got a chance to fight back. It was carved into countless fragments in a single heartbeat.
[Ding!]
A flood of system alerts exploded in Soren's mind. His drained demonic power surged back to full.
He ignored the notifications. His cold eyes stayed fixed on Gabriel.
"Unforgivable!!!"
Gabriel stared at the scattered pieces of the demon prince and completely lost it.
Holy light detonated from his body, turning the dark reservoir into blinding daylight. Even the storm clouds outside were blasted apart.
A pillar of pure white light punched down from the sky and speared straight into the psychiatric hospital.
Across Los Santos, ordinary people saw the heavenly beam and dropped to their knees, weeping and praying like a miracle had come.
Even before Gabriel attacked, the sheer pressure of his divine aura hit like a hurricane.
Soren took the brunt of it. The shockwave lifted him off his feet and sent him flying. He coughed blood mid-air, smashing through another wall with Papa Midnight and the others right behind him.
"Cough—cough—"
Papa Midnight was crushed at the bottom of the pile, too wrecked to even swear.
Constantine lay sprawled nearby, unconscious.
Soren pushed himself up on Yamato, coughing more blood.
He had already shoved Carrie and Angela into the Silent Hill domain the second he felt Gabriel's rage spike.
He watched the dust cloud where the archangel was slowly walking forward.
"Hurts like a bitch," Soren spat out a mouthful of blood, but the grin on his face refused to die.
"Still… mission accomplished."
He drew Yamato again.
"Your turn now, dear Uncle Dante—"
"Don't get lost, you bastard!"
---
Los Santos – Red Grave Avenue.
Rain hammered the streets in sheets.
Patty splashed through puddles, pizza box clutched tight to her chest, head down as she hurried toward the Devil May Cry office.
It was Friday night.
She should've been curled up in her apartment, wrapped in her favorite blanket, watching shows while the rain drummed on the window.
But she couldn't sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw Soren and Carrie alone in the office.
Just the two of them… Carrie's so timid… what if Soren tries something—
The more she thought about it, the more her stomach twisted.
She regretted leaving Carrie at the office instead of taking her home.
That nagging feeling of danger had dragged her out into the pouring rain.
The streets were weirdly empty tonight. Even the usual homeless guys who ducked under awnings were gone.
Worse, the office sign was dark. The whole building was pitch black.
"Power out again?" Patty muttered.
She was ten feet from the door when—
SCREECH.
Several black, unmarked armored vans shot out from the side street and boxed her in.
A military helicopter thundered overhead. A high-powered searchlight pinned her like a butterfly.
Patty's eyes stung from the glare. She dropped the pizza box and bolted back the way she came.
"Freeze!"
Armed commandos in full tactical gear melted out of the shadows, cutting off every escape route.
Patty sucked in a sharp breath, forced herself calm, and drew her pistol. She aimed it at the nearest soldier, heart hammering.
The squad leader pressed a finger to his earpiece, voice flat. "Target confirmed. No other high-threats. Prep for capture."
"Alive," a male voice ordered through the comm.
The leader gave a hand signal. Several men advanced, rifles up.
Cold sweat slicked Patty's palms.
Her little handgun was a toy compared to their gear.
But she'd be damned if she went down without taking a piece of somebody with her.
BANG!
She fired anyway.
It was useless. They were too many, too fast.
A heavy blow slammed into the back of her neck. The world went black.
As the commandos grabbed her limp body and started dragging her toward a van, time stopped.
The raindrops froze mid-fall. Wind died. Thunder went silent.
Countless glowing blue threads sliced open the air, weaving into a deadly net.
The commandos' bodies suddenly looked… wrong. Like pieces of a puzzle forced out of alignment.
Their minds still worked. Their eyes could still move. But their bodies were completely locked in place.
Dead silence.
Then, from somewhere in the frozen world, came a single clean sound.
Click.
A katana sliding home into its sheath.
The next instant, time snapped back into motion.
Rain fell again.
Along with it came a downpour of blood.
Schlick—
The dozen commandos surrounding Patty never even realized what hit them.
Their bodies simply came apart at perfect, razor-clean cuts.
Blood and chunks of meat sprayed everywhere, mixing with the rain and washing down the storm drains.
"This… this is…"
A white-haired man in a long blue coat stepped out of the shadows, Yamato still in his hand.
He glanced at the carnage, then at the unconscious girl on the ground.
"Tch. What a pain."
Vergil's cold eyes narrowed.
"…Nephew."