"No shit Sherlock," he laughed. "After I cave your head in, I'll have enough Juice to make Hydra finally pay."

I saw the cackling kid for what he was—some immature edge lord with more power than sense.

"Have you considered that I might be on your side?"

"Don't even try to sweet talk your way out of this," he said, squaring up his fists. "I took my lumps like a man when you attacked. Now be a man and fucking take yours."

Man? What man? The kid looked like he was 16 at most.

He lanced forward, the floor splintering in his wake and arrived to a profound disappointment. His hook phased through me entirely, sending him stumbling forward. He spun around, delivering a backhand slap that would've taken anyone's head off, but I wasn't standing where he left me. I was behind him. Osiris swung out, carving a thin line across his lower abdomen, and he hissed and leapt back in surprise. But, he was in for a nastier surprise when I switched to Ophion and yanked him by the foot, pulling him close enough to deliver a devastating Burst-infused punch to his crossed arms.

The blow blew him away, sending him crashing into the hard wall, but he came charging at me a second later. He led with a barely-trained boxer stance, relying on pure speed rather than technique to press his advantage. I bobbed and weaved through most of his attacks. Each blow and stomp shook the entire floor.

The kid was a walking calamity, and getting hit once would've been a death sentence, but he was still remarkably green. He could become a useful addition to our current team with the proper guidance.

So, I decided to provide just that.

I dispelled Eryx and lowered my stance, leaving myself open. The kid was immediately suspicious of me.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Rin," he answered.

"I'm Dante. How about you and I have a bet? If I can beat you in three moves, you'll stop dragging your fist around like an ape and actually hear me out?"

"Three moves?" he scoffed as he dug his feet into the ground. "Dream on"

"Is your healing factor any good?" I asked before we began.

My question gave him some pause. "Yes. It will deplete my strength quickly, but as long as I don't take too much damage…wait a minute, why am I telling you this?" he shook his head. "You're a dead man."

Rin rocketed forward with a fist, superman-style, moving faster than he'd ever before. If it were anybody else, he might've won with that single punch, but I had Evasion on my side and years of Jujitsu. Evasion triggered when he came close enough, and I leaned out of the way of the blow and positioned myself under his outstretched arm. With a mighty heave and a twist, I threw Rin into the ground, using his considerable strength against him. The floor shattered beneath us, and we fell a floor down, crashing into the concrete floor. Rin groaned in pain, and so did I.

The display stole more than a little chunk of health from me. It was easy to forget how fragile I'd become because of the cosmic burn affliction. Angel Regeneration kicked in, reversing the damage.

I bunched my fingers and struck out at Ren's throat just as he came to, reducing the powerful mutant to a blubbering, choking mess. I produced a finger of Orochi and stabbed into his chest to deliver the coupe de grace. The blade stopped inches from his heart, and the willful teen screamed like a stuck pig.

I imagined that between the Dragon's breath poison and the heart wound, he must've been in great pain.

"Ready to listen, now?" I asked, and the kid scowled, mouth full of blood. He spat at me in the hope of distracting me and tried bucking me off with his waist. I let myself be thrown off and dodged the bloody phlegm but threw two fingers of Orochi, stabbing deep into his liver and stomach.

Rin, who'd been slowly getting up to his feet, collapsed again, spasming in pain. Three more knives followed, and when I was done, the kid was barely conscious.

I squatted beside him with a patient look. "Ready to talk now?"

"You're just as bad as they are," he gasped, and I snorted.

"Stop being a drama queen. And if I remember correctly, you asked for this. The only reason you're fucking breathing is because I think you might hate Hydra ten times as much as I do."

"Go to hell."

I rolled my eyes. "Listen closely because I'm only going to make this offer once. I'm putting an end to Hydra tonight. Pierce is only the first head, but we're targeting all of them: Malek, Trask, Strucker, everybody. So, you can either come with us and put your talents to use or die because I'm sure as hell not leaving any witnesses."

Rin gulped and forced a smile. "When you put it like that."

I pulled the dagger from his chest, eliciting another scream and then removed every other dagger. "This should go without saying, but this is your only chance. I will kill you if you step out of line."

---

I stepped back into Pierce's room with Rin following behind, and Clint and Natasha gave me a look that spoke volumes.

"The kid hates Hydra more than the Director does, probably, and he's a mutant. He can be useful."

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"Picking up strays was never part of the plan," Natasha said, looking Rin over. Her eyes hovered on the bleeding spots on his suit. "And he doesn't strike me as particularly competent."

"You're not wrong," I said, "but he can throw a mean punch and bounce back from most wounds. So I say the potential is there."

"The Director did say he was looking for fresh meat," Clint commented, but Natasha looked unimpressed.

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" Rin fumed. "And I don't need to prove myself to anybody. I almost got him," he said, jabbing his finger at me, and I snorted, slapping him upside the head.

"No, you didn't. Have a modicum of self-awareness, you dolt," I said. "You need to win them over if you ever want to breathe an inch of free air again."

"What!" I saw his muscles tighten, and I glared at him.

"Don't even fucking dare," I seethed. "They're as good as you're ever going to get it. They're SHIELD. You know, the good kind?"

"SHIELD, huh?" he said, slowly relaxing his muscles. "He says you're here to wipe out Hydra. Is that true?"

"We'd have preferred a slower and more methodical approach, but yes. If all goes well, the leadership of Hydra will be dead before sun-up," Natasha answered.

"Then count me in," he said, slamming his fist into his open palm. "I want to see those suckers burn, but I'm not going back into a cage, never again."

He spoke with an earnestness that sent me for a loop. Wasn't this the same kid frothing at the mouth, trying to cave my head in a few minutes back?

"That's up to the director," Clint said, but then winked, "though I'll try to put a word in."

I shook my head at the whole display and got down to talking business with the pair. No signal had made it out or in the entire time I was out, and Aaron hadn't budged since he started his Mass illusion spell.

The spell reminded me a great deal of the concealment Spell in Harry Porter. The sorcerers in this universe used it to cover up the aftermath of their battles with dimensional threats until they could repair what was broken with some good-old transfiguration.

By laying down the spell in Pierce's home, Aaron created an illusion of normalcy. People approaching will hear no sound escape from it, nor will they notice a single fixture out of place. That would change if they touched the building, however. For now, the imperfect mass illusion would have to do.

Jean was still busy emptying Pierce's head, so I decided to get on with the cover-up.

I summoned Thunderer, startling Rin.

"What the hell is that!"

"You've been holding out on me?" Clint asked, eyes practically shining like an anime character.

I flipped the gun over with a smirk. "Just something I picked up earlier today, and no, you can't touch it."

"This is how you plan to make it look like the demons did it," Natasha said.

"That and this," I said, summoning half a dozen metal pinions from the Thunder Bird. It was a shame to waste infernal metal like this, but it needed to be done.

Rin followed after me as I stepped out of Pierce's bedroom again, keeping pace. I dragged a few clumps of dead mutants and super soldiers together in the hallway and let the Thunderer rip.

Energy poured out of its barrel, scorching the bodies and punching through the floor underneath. The attack splashed on the second floor and almost hit an electrical cable, which would've proven disastrous.

We'd left Pierce's backup generators running specifically because we wanted to harvest his computers and servers, and the generators he had was not nearly powerful enough to run all of his sophisticated traps.

"Damn," I muttered. "I forget how powerful this thing is."

"You have some demon blood, don't you?" Rin said in his annoying, overconfident voice.

"What gave me away?" I asked. "Was it the glowing fist weapons or the teleportation?"

"I was unsure when I first met you, but now that I've seen you up close…" he trailed off. "I have this feeling about you. My Grandmother said her mother was half-demon."

That stopped me in my tracks immediately and I used Devil's eye on him again.

Rin Yamanaka

Torn from his parents' hands at a young age, Rin Yamanaka is one of Hydra's many young mutant prospects. His unique mutation and heritage make him a formidable threat.

Not one word differed from when I'd first looked at it, but the word I'd dismissed earlier, 'Heritage,' stuck out.

My eyes went a little wider. I immediately scanned the halls with Devil's eye and looked for hidden cameras or any other indications that what we would say could be recorded.

"Does your demon blood do something, or is it just for show?"

Rin seemed hesitant to answer.

"You already told me that some part of you is demon, you might as well tell me the whole truth."

"My demon blood lets me do everything you've seen. It temporarily strengthens me after each death and brings me back so long as somebody has died around me recently."

I whistled internally. With enough murder and time, he'd become virtually unstoppable. It certainly explained why Pierce might want him close. He planned to make the kid one of his aces. With what I've seen, I can't let him go to Shield. He might only be situationally useful for now, but when he grew older and learned how to channel demonic energy, he'd be formidable, even in his base form.

Still, that didn't change the fact that he had a mutation he was hiding. Devil's eye identified him as a demon-mutant hybrid-- the very thing that Corvus was trying to create. If I had a lick of sense, I'd kill him and be done with this, but I was curious what mutant ability he had to round off his demon side. Would our fight have turned out any different if he'd chosen to stop holding back?

"You're lying," I pronounced, moving on to the next set of bodies. "It's not been ten minutes, and I'm already regretting sparing you."

"What? No!" Rin said. "I—"

"You're holding something back," I said, activating Demonic Aura. It'd been forever since I'd used it, but it seemed very appropriate for the situation. A coat of thick demonic energy covered me and pressed down on Rin's feeble mind. "The truth, now?"

Rin bit his lip in frustration and actually resisted me for all five seconds before he caved. "I never stood a chance, did I?"

"No fucking shot," I said. "Now talk."

Rin swallowed and began to speak. "My mutation is actually what makes my demon blood so effective. While it's true that my blood lets me get stronger in the presence of death, it does not allow me to heal or make me more durable. My mutation does that. I call it Assimilation. It basically siphons power from the life energy my body takes in the presence of death and uses it for all sorts of things like permanently strengthening my body and healing."

My aura winked out, and my mouth fell open. What in the ROB's name was this ridiculousness? He was basically a game character without a fucking stat sheet.

Jesus, he had the same potential Dante, Nero, and Virgil from the original Devil May Cry game did.

I shook my head. I just fucking couldn't.

I had a thousand and one questions, but one trumped them all.

"Why did you tell me you were part demon?" I spoke in a low voice.

"Because you gave me a chance when you didn't need to," he started honestly, "and because you probably have the answers I've been looking for my entire life. Plus, I figured you couldn't be a total asshole if you wanted to take on the demons and Hydra. I may be wrong about that last bit."

I ignored the jab, but I didn't mind being called an asshole. I did mentally pressure him to divulge his secrets.

"You were right to tell me for the most part," I said, "And you will never speak of this out loud to anyone until I tell you to. In fact, you have to have some protagonist-tier luck that you ran into me and not any other Cambion. You have no fucking clue how much danger your mere existence puts us in," I hissed.

I immediately put the thought of killing him out of my mind. This kid didn't know it yet, but he was my ticket out of this bullshit path Shin had forced me down.