Dante could only stare at Viola and her surge of strength. A tear rolled down his face, he grabbed onto his sword, seething what was left of it from the handle up and picking his little sister up in his arms. In fear for the crisis he was in and of not losing her he started slowly backing away to save his sister, running directly to the royal grounds, leaving Viola behind like she wanted. He quickly made his way to the grounds, finding his brother dragged down and beaten up by the ongoing barrage of enemies. No Golden Lances were in his nearby vicinity and all that was left were enemy bodies.

"Little sister!" he yelled, coming up to Dante, "What the hell happened?!"

"She...healed me.", Dante looked at her.

"Healed you how?! By killing herself?!" Dante's big brother angrily said.

Before he could say another word, Dante changed his grip, holding his little sister up with his left arm and punching his older brother in the face.

"Piss off! You know nothing and you just pop off on me! Asshole!" he tightened his grip on his little sister, "And where's everyone? Why are you left alone?"

Dante's older brother calmed down, recovering from the punch and realizing his overreaction to both their injured situation. He seethed his blade as a gesture of pacifism and reproached his young brother again.

"Mom came in and redirected them. She sent them down to the harbor and to a general area around to secure safety for everyone. We took down the raid on the palace together, Sisi and Fred must've escaped by now. Then something happened and mom set a beam line for the temple!"

"Then this only means one thing..." Dante sighed.

"What is it?"

"I...nothing. Nothing..." Dante looked down with melancholy.

Dante's older brother set his eyes on his little sister, "Wait...what is that bow she's holding on to?"

"It's Viola's apparently."

"Viola could fight? I thought she just owned a restaurant. A cook!"

"Yeah...and this is her special ingredient." Dante sighed once again, "Look, it's no secret it's all gone to hell. It's no secret that I want to constantly batter your ass to the ground, but for our little sister, I'm willing to overlook this desire just once. Please..."

Dante's older brother exhaled, "I know that this is how you feel but...lil' bro, I swear, I'm..." he paused, "I'll help you...wait." he looked behind Dante. "Watch-"

In a rush to push his brother away from a mysterious incoming hit, Dante's older brother instead took the hit for him, not even having enough time to let out a reaction of pain. He froze on the spot before kneeling and eventually dropping to the ground, no wounds or anything to show physical damage.

"Big...bro?" Dante's eyes widened at the sight of his fainting brother.

He had hated the mere sight of him ever since "that day". He hated everything about him as his love eventually transformed into relentless jealousy and a need for unneeded revenge and wish nothing but to force his older brother under his shadow. But at that moment, he could not but kneel next to him, little sister still in one hand and now his older brother in the other hand. His need for such meaningless bickering had largely forced him to forget what bond truly lay beneath. From the nearby vicinity, before he could snap out of his shock and let out his concealed feelings, a familiar figure appeared before him.

"Tsk. Near miss. Turns out I largely underestimated his reaction time." Gladeon approached them with a slight echo following his every step, "He isn't dead, just so you know. Just paralyzed. I had hoped to face him and carry you, but this just unnecessarily complicates things. Go on. Burst." Gladeon drew his sword with his left hand, extending it fully to his side while holding his right hand behind his back, "No chance I get to hit you with my paralysis now. So a fight is how it must be."

Gladeon came closer and closer towards Dante, who remained still, hugging both his siblings and paralyzed in the mere sight of the man who had easily taken down whom he hoped to first, all in one sneak hit. As Gladeon came before him and prepared to lay punishment, the swing of his sword was deflected and he himself was sent flying, crushing at a nearby building behind him.

"C-Cecilia?!" Dante yelled.

Before him stood once again, the might of the heavens herself. Facing Cecilia's back, Dante refrained from speaking any more words as he saw a much different look on her than what he had originally. She was dipped completely into the red of blood. Hands, face, sword, everything was soaked down to the bone. Distress and sadness were written all over her body, with a large sense of fear engulfing her. How did he know what she felt? How did he know the depth of hell she was going through? Her hand, holding her sword...trembling. Who before, but even her own son had seen the grand Omnipotent Blade of the Trail Blazers had the hand the justified countries and nations, and had taken the lives of evil, tremble as if the weight of the sword had overtaken its lifting abilities. He briefly tried to break the mold by referring to Cecilia in the only way he hadn't felt like calling her for the longest time.

"M-Mom?" he looked at Cecilia with fright.

In the brief instance of those words echoing in her ears, Cecilia broke out of her trance, briefly looking at Dante over the shoulder and revealing a sober look on her face, coated in a mix of red and tears. She quickly turned back to the front, steading her stance and stopping her hand from trembling. It was as if she was afraid to face Dante more than the life-ending enemy in front of her. As if she was ashamed of the thing that mattered most to her to look at her in the eyes, for him to only realize her largest mistakes in an instant. She muttered a few words to him.

"I'm sorry. For everything." she whispered and muttered to herself.

"Huh? Mom, what are you saying?!" Dante yelled.

Cecilia completely turned around, revealing her full bloody armor and face to Dante, with a frightened expression on her face never seen before by anyone. One such face that even her own son would never even imagine her with.

"Take them both right now and go to the bunker in the palace's main hall!" Cecilia commanded him.

"N-No! I won't leave you to be-", he was interrupted by Cecilia.

"No, you listen to me! Go in there right now! Don't you dare to look back! Run!" Cecilia urged him further, picking him up and pushing him away inside the partially destroyed palace, "Go! Hurry!"

Not wanting to let his mother away but unwilling to let go of both his siblings in his arms, he mustered all his strength and submitted to his mothers' heartfelt and frightened orders, taking both his big brother and little sister inside the palace and towards a bunker built for the general public down the main hall. He took faint looks behind him to see Gladeon recovering and Cecilia ready to charge him back down. He tearfully looked away as he hastily dragged both his siblings down the bunker. And as soon as he could see the inside of the bunker, more and more misery piled onto him. No blood. No bodies. Nothing...emptiness. No one had made it to the bunker. No one had been saved he thought immediately. Despite his oath, duty and will to protect everyone, despite those that led the glory of hope...it was empty. He did not falter for once, as he softly placed both his siblings inside the bunker and prepared to close the door. Before he could do so, however, a flash of light emerged out of nowhere, smacking the door shut, hitting him in the process and knocking him out cold, right next to his big brother and little sister. A sense of instant darkness took over him as he remembered everything that he had unrightfully taken away from everyone. The places...the faces. It all flashed back to him before he twitched and bent his body, struggling to wake up, struggling to end the memories. And to his surprise, he finally did it. He woke up. He had managed to escape the pain, just for once. Or rather...a part of it. No more faces. No more surrounding destruction. But the nightmare was only beginning for him. His eyes slowly opened again to reveal the familiar faces of his big brother and little sister, still intact, still alive...

He instantly got up, the adrenaline kick-starting his body, and began feeling all over their faces and necks. They were alright. For once, a sigh of relief came over him in this endless hell, knowing that those he held on to were indeed safe. Trying to wipe the sweat off his face, he felt a familiar texture. Blood. Like his big brother and little sister, not his, but yet another means to alarm him with. He looked to the side to gaze upon rays of sunlight, protruding through a completely broken palace ceiling and a shattered bunker door. A moment of joyful solace, not even a cloud in the sky ruining the view. It was as if the storm had never been brought upon him. He took a brief moment to escape the hell by looking back between the sunlight and his two fainted siblings, still struggling to take everything in. As he exhaled and lowered his head, his eyes met with something he thought to be a formality. A moment after he had thought to be staring at the royal red carpet of the palace, he finally managed to make out what it really was. Looking back, it became more and more clear what had happened, as the royal red carpet turned into a trail of blood that set its starting point to the place where he slept his pain away with his siblings.

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He unsheathed his broken sword slowly, worrying that there could be just one thing left with malice in its head, aiming to hurt what little he had left. Slowly exiting the broken, run-down bunker by stepping on some wrecks, he started to trail the bloody path to its source. During his tracking, he saw what he knew from a new perspective. The royal red carpet that span from the palace's entrance to the throne room had now been burned down, with the blood trail filling the burned parts, like some sickening work of art. The walls that once hosted the head of what he thought to be his home were gone, broken down and reduced to wrecks, the banners hung on them now resting on their remains. The lush green of the indoor flora is now gone, with nothing but a few black burned and rotten leaves taking their place. The portraits of the heroes, legends and history of Dirunon and Victoria, along with the rest of the world were gone as if their durned-down ashes had already been taken by the wind.

He followed the trail down to detail, not that it mattered because there was one place it led him to. Forwards, all the way down the palace's entrance. He firmly held on to the broken blade, unable to find anything else to protect himself with as his adrenaline kept rising ever so higher, his fear and anxiety peaking at an all-time high. Step after step, he slowly and finally managed to make his way to the entrance.

Horrible. Horrifying. Nothing could properly describe what he felt. This was not the natural cycle of things and it surely was what everyone could describe as one of their worst nightmares. A broken down in both spirit and armor Cecilia laid there, next to the partially destroyed arc of the gates, slowly fading away. The blood trail ended right underneath her. Between the gazing in the sunlight and the pain on her body, she still found the remarkable strength to crack a sweet, soft smile at Dante, whose blade dropped to the ground, him simply gazing at his own mother, almost reduced to one of the many dead outside the palace.

"Hey kiddo..." she softly smiled and spoke with a weak, gentle voice, "Slept well?"

Dante simply walked up to her and kneeled in front of her. Tears rolled down his face in an awkward manner, his expression still stuck to that of shock instead of fright and sadness to go along with the tears.

"Seems like...I messed up...didn't I?" Cecilia's voice began to crack, as she desperately tried to hide all of her largely blackened, infected parts.

Dante simply crawled up to Cecilia and leaned on her body, retracting his legs as if he was trying to cradle in her arms. As awkward as his actions for the given scenario may have been…it was as natural as it could be to do so. He softly hugged his mother as she still, miraculously, mustered even more strength to do the same. Cecilia's eyes quickly turned watery, as she set off tears for both herself and her son. Unable to sob or squeal, she could only show her sadness for them both by tightening her grip around him, as if she feared him running away from her again.

"Durante...you know this isn't your mistake...right?"

"Durante". No one could ever find themselves to call him by his full name. Dante, Dante, Dante. Always the same name echoed in his head. It was the way that someone could pull his attention, to make him turn his head. But that name..."Durante". Only but his mother ever called him by that name, rarely so, the same way he could never find himself calling Cecilia as "Mom". It was in a way, the special way that they would call each other on a whim. Was it out of seriousness or out of formality? Only they would know.

"I'm sorry..." Dante kept shedding tears.

Cecilia chuckled, coughing a little, "No...Really, I should be. All this time...all your life...I'm such a horrible, horrible mother. This agenda...this...oath." she whimpered as she laid back, dragging Dante with her, "I wished for a choice myself...and I never gave it to you..."

"I'm sorry..." Dante repeated.

Cecilia cried even harder, "I can't believe you...you have so much to give...and I forced you to keep it all to yourself. I...I thought that maybe, this would serve you better...”, she came to a small realization as she started questioning herself, “Then why...why didn't I let you choose...as if someone held a knife to my throat though they did not. I forced...such a one-sided coin...like I acted how it was expected out of this world. One...in many.

"I'm sorry..." Dante kept repeating.

Cecilia pressed her arms against Dante's back. Slowly lifting one hand, she pet Dante's head, smiling, knowing how he loved being pet there but hated receiving it anywhere but behind a closed door. She held him tighter than she ever did with anything before. She slowly began residing that one, same song she always did to him from an older time. A time when tears were able to more freely come down. A time when there was no need to lift unneeded weight, as if the world was hanging over his head. It was a surprise when he first heard that song. Much like the person he looked up to, Cecilia was, in a way, similar to him. Struggling to say any words of true affection and bottling up, he could empathize with the song she had forced herself into writing to soothe what she made him go through. Patting Dante's head and clearing her throat, she started to once again repeat that same song that brought out the best of his worst situations.

"I don't need to shed tears when I know I'm ok

in the morning the sun will show no grey

I was thinking about what is to blame

maybe all I carry or just my name, the role that I claim?

What is it anyway?

Always thinking about how I can hold onto the strings

wanting but afraid to let go or say goodbye to this

I don't know why I'm here, drowned in my own fear

sometimes I wish I could disappear

Can I really take much more?

Things won't be like before

And that's shaking my core

I cannot step outside, I have to retain this pride

because nobody will ever know how I cried

Down a road to an endless glory

but only thing that does is make me worry

Who will hurt us? What will I need to do to protect us?

Will it be myself or something worse at last?

It's as if I'm earning a past that wasn't asked

So I will keep on always going forth

but what I lose my stepping and end up in the lonely north

I was thinking if it all mattered anyway

sometimes I feel I can't stay, only thinking of a life away

Will there be someone for me to pray?

Maybe this time I can hold it all together

but will that truly last forever?

I wish I knew why I was here, drowning in despair

can someone find a way to make it more clear?

Can I really take much more?

Things won't be like before

And that's shaking my core

I cannot step outside, I have to retain this pride

because nobody will ever know how I cried

Down a road to an endless glory

but the only thing that does is make me worry

Who will hurt us? What will I need to do to protect us?

Will it be myself or something worse at last?

It's as if I'm earning a past that wasn't asked

Will there be anyone that could really tell that I love them, looking past my fake pride?

I struggle to show any way to care while I burn inside

Maybe I'm just the one to blame

the one pushing myself away, as I get cast astray

Why is it that I must blind those around me and sway?

Always thinking how I could get away and part with everyone else

Self-destructive to the core and wish to never again be found

I may never know but wish to why I was ever brought here

because I need to stand strong and never chose to disappear

Can I really take much more?

Things won't be like before

And that's shaking my core

I cannot step outside, I have to retain this pride

because nobody will ever know how I cried

Down a road to an endless glory

but only thing that does is make me worry

Who will hurt us? What will I need to do to protect us?

Will it be myself or something worse at last?

It's as if I'm earning a past that wasn't asked

But even then I must make it my task."

This was true strength of will. No stutters, no cutting sentences. She very much knew death was immanent, but at the chance to sing this song once more for the kin she thought she wronged the most was one that even that wouldn’t be able to make her pass on it. However, with each passing verse, her melodic voice lowering, Dante slowly got up, he too inspired to muster his own strength, getting up from his mother's hug. He approached his dropped sword and picked it back up, before turning around to face Cecilia. His face turned expressionless as tears kept rolling down. Cecilia's face didn't change despite knowing as well what was about to happen. He dragged his body, each step slower and slower as the footprints left behind were constantly leaving a window from which he, only, could see and listen to the echo of all that Cecilia had given to not only him, but everyone around her. Especially him and his siblings. His cocky older brother and jolly older sister. His shy little sister...how did she manage to love them all as equally and discriminate not, like how their childish selves did, bickering about each tiny difference, despite knowing well that they would be inseparable at heart. He could understand why it was all happening the way it did deep down…but in an endless delusion of self-defense, he chose to play dumb. Each step...a memory with them all. He kneeled right in front of Cecilia and placed his broken sword on top of her stomach. Cecilia kept on smiling throughout the process, still pressed against the wall, as she pressed herself against the blade, reaching Dante to hug him one last time.

"I...love you all. No matter…what…" she softly spoke against his ear.

Final words. Nothing more. Nothing glamorous or a speech worthy of a legend. It was simply, the words of a mother's unyielding love. As the blade was pushed through her stomach, Dante remained emotionless, but firm, refusing to move an inch. The sunlight from above shone on top of Cecilia, taking away the light from her eyes, as the soft breeze blowing by took hold of her last breath, taking it with its flow. There was a small pause in the world's movement. Still, emotionless and frozen, she couldn't help but just remain there. Petrified like a statue. The ever-growing flow of red from the cutting point drooled down further, surrounding Cecilia in a pool of blood. And it ever so slowly covered the handle of Dante's broken sword. And then how it all collapsed on him. That one subtle touch of the flowing blood was just enough to completely destroy him, as at that moment a horrifying scream echoed through the remains of the broken city. It felt as if Dante himself was stabbed through every point he could think of at once. Tears now flowing like a waterfall he hugged his mother the hardest he ever did, not caring about how he painted himself red from the ever-flowing blood. It was the day that had been locked away and thrown into the abyss. It was the day he was reborn in blood. It was both their day and his. It was the birthday of the son of Cecilia.