Sephirot dropped to one knee without a moment's hesitation, gripping the Yamato with both hands and driving it straight into Angela's swollen belly.
Dante's devil sword governed fusion, but Vergil's Yamato, its authority lay in separation.
Vergil had once used this method to sever his own personality from himself.
It was the best solution Sephirot could improvise on the spot. Whether it worked or not, he had to try.
"Shhk."
No blood gushed forth. No wound appeared.
The blade of the Yamato flared with light.
The Power of Laws coursed along the edge, forcibly stripping Mammon's Demonic Soul from Angela's flesh and blood.
"ROAR!"
With a demonic shriek, Mammon curled into a ball and dropped to the ground.
But in the next instant, it began to swell madly at a speed visible to the naked eye, absorbing the ambient energy drifting through the air.
"BOOM!"
Deafening thunder rolled across the sky outside.
Sephirot watched the Demonic Body, his own frame sinking slightly lower.
He gripped the Yamato, and every last drop of his magic surged into the blade like a flood.
"You dare?!"
Gabriel had finally grasped Sephirot's intent. For the first time, fury contorted that impassive face.
"NO!"
With a furious shout, Holy Light erupted from His entire being as He lunged to stop Sephirot.
But the instant Gabriel struck, a colossal force slammed into His body out of nowhere.
He was hurled backward like a kite with its string cut, crashing through wall after wall and smashing them to rubble.
In the corner, Papa Midnite's eyes flew wide with horror. He turned, incredulous, to stare at the little girl beside him who had always seemed so meek and timid.
Just now, he had felt it clearly, an unparalleled psychic force erupting from deep within Carrie's body.
Carrie's eyes were locked onto Gabriel amidst the wreckage. Not a trace of cowardice remained in her expression.
She would not allow anyone to harm Sephirot!
No one was going to take away the safe harbor she had fought so hard to find!
Even if her opponent was an angel, she would tear it to shreds!
"BOOM!"
The ruins exploded as Gabriel shot skyward from the rubble.
His entire form blazed with dazzling Holy Light, pure white wings unfurling fully, bearing an inviolable divine majesty as He streaked toward Sephirot like a falling star.
But Sephirot did not spare Him so much as a glance.
His entire focus was fixed upon the Yamato in his hands.
As the blade left its sheath, the surrounding space seemed to shatter in that moment into a fractured mirror.
Countless intersecting flashes of purple light carved through every inch of space.
"Click."
The crisp sound of the blade seating home rang out.
Judgment Cut End!
As the ultimate secret art of the Yamato, it had become his to command the very moment he took hold of the blade.
As the sword fully sheathed, the frozen space around them collapsed like shattered glass.
A web of crisscrossing purple lines, like a net of death, sliced space itself into countless fragments.
Mammon, still madly devouring energy and struggling to grow at breakneck speed, was carved into pieces without the slightest chance to resist.
[Ding!]
A rapid cascade of System Prompts flooded Sephirot's mind, and the magic drained from his body was instantly replenished. But he paid it no mind, his expression calm as he watched Gabriel ahead.
"Unforgivable!!!"
Gabriel, seeing Mammon sliced into Demon Fragments, was utterly consumed by rage.
The Holy Light around him erupted, flooding the previously pitch-black room with a brilliance as bright as day.
Even the dark clouds in the sky outside were forcibly dispersed by this power.
From the vault of heaven, a beam of Holy Light broke through the clouds and fell straight upon the Psychiatric Hospital.
Countless ordinary people in Los Santos who knew nothing of the truth witnessed this scene, believing a miracle had descended, and fervently knelt in prayer.
"Ugh!"
Even though Gabriel had yet to truly strike, this eruption of divine might alone swept through the scene like a gale.
Sephirot bore the brunt of it, his entire body hurled away by the terrifying blast wave.
He spat a mouthful of blood in midair, along with Papa Midnite and the others behind him, crashing heavily into another room.
"Cough, cough..."
Papa Midnite was crushed at the very bottom, in so much pain he couldn't utter a single word.
Constantine lay sprawled miserably on the floor, his fate unknown.
Leaning on his sword, Sephirot struggled to pull himself up.
Carrie and Angela had already been sent into Silent Hill the moment he sensed Gabriel's fury.
He watched the distant silhouette slowly approaching through the dust.
It hurts a bit, true...
Sephirot spat out the clotted blood in his mouth, but the smile tugging at the corner of his lips was utterly irrepressible.
But at least, I've accomplished all my goals.
Now it's all on you, my dear Uncle Dante...
He drew the Yamato once more.
You'd better not get lost!
Los Santos, Red Grave Avenue.
Rain poured in torrents.
Patty splashed through the puddles, hugging a pizza box to her chest, her head bowed as she hurried toward the DMC Agency.
It was Friday.
She should have been lounging comfortably on the princess bed in her apartment, hugging her favorite plushie, listening to the rain while catching up on shows and drifting off to sleep.
But for some reason, no matter how much she tossed and turned in bed tonight, she just couldn't fall asleep.
The moment she closed her eyes, images of Sephirot and Carrie, a man and a woman all alone together in the Agency, kept invading her mind.
"Just the two of them in the Agency... with Carrie's timid nature, what if Sephirot forces her to..."
The more Patty thought about it, the more agitated she felt.
She was beginning to regret it.
She should have set Carrie up in her own apartment back then, instead of letting her work at the Agency.
A powerful sense of unease drove her to rush over through the rain.
The streets today were eerily deserted, an anomaly; even the homeless who usually sought shelter from the rain were nowhere to be seen.
What unsettled her even more was that the sign light in front of the Agency was out, the entire building swallowed in darkness.
"Another power outage?"
Patty grumbled helplessly.
Just as she was about to reach the Agency, "Skrrrt–"
Several unlicensed, completely black armored vehicles shot out from the corner, completely blocking Patty's path ahead.
"Boom, boom, boom..."
An armed helicopter circled in the night sky, its high-powered searchlight piercing the rainy night like a sharp sword, trapping her petite figure in a circle of light. Patty was blinded by the intense light and couldn't open her eyes. She dropped the pizza box in her hands and, without hesitation, ran back the way she had come.
"Freeze!"
Before she could get more than a few steps, a fully armed task force squad wearing tactical night vision goggles surged out of the darkness and sealed off every escape route.
Patty drew a few deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. She pulled a handgun from her pocket, leveling the muzzle, standing off against the armed personnel.
The task force captain's face was expressionless. He pressed his earpiece: "Target confirmed. No other high-risk targets detected. Preparing for capture."
"Take her alive." A male voice came through the earpiece.
The captain looked up and made a forward tactical hand signal. Several operatives raised their guns and closed in on Patty.
Cold sweat seeped from Patty's palm.
Her little handgun was no different from a toy against these fully armed special forces soldiers.
But before she let herself be caught without a fight, she would at least tear a chunk of flesh from them!
"Bang!"
Though Patty fought back with all her might, the pocket pistol was simply too weak, and they had overwhelming numbers.
A heavy blow landed on the back of her neck. Patty's vision went black, and she nearly lost consciousness.
Just as the task force operatives were gripping her and about to drag her into the vehicle.
In that instant, time stopped.
The gale vanished. The thunder was silenced. Even the rain falling across the sky hung suspended in midair with eerie stillness, as if the entire world had been paused.
Countless lines of ghostly blue silently, soundlessly slit through the void, weaving into a net.
Under the cutting of those lines, the bodies of the task force operatives appeared visually displaced, misaligned.
Amid deathly stillness of all creation, the task force members remained frozen in their gun-wielding postures, their eyes filled with terror.
Their brains could still think, their eyeballs could still move, but their bodies were utterly paralyzed, locked rigidly in place.
Silence.
A death-like silence.
Within this frozen space-time, from somewhere unknown, came a sudden crisp sound.
"Click."
It was the clear ring of a blade seating into its scabbard, the guard striking the mouth of the sheath.
In the next instant, time resumed its flow.
The suspended raindrops fell again, and falling with the rain was a sky full of blood.
"Squelch..."
The dozen-plus task force operatives surrounding Patty never even understood what had happened before their bodies were displaced in a single moment.
Blood gushed from the clean cut surfaces, mixing with the rain, studded with minced flesh, flowing into the sewer.
"This... this is–"
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES — CROSSOVER GUIDE
Some references in this chapter come from source universes that may be unfamiliar to some readers. The notes below provide the context needed to understand them without leaving the page.
POWERS / ABILITIES
Judgment Cut End — Vergil's ultimate technique in Devil May Cry 5. By charging the Yamato to its absolute limit, Vergil performs a single unsheathing motion that freezes the surrounding space and time, then detonates it in a cascading storm of dimension-cutting slashes. Everything caught within is carved apart simultaneously, with no chance to react. It is visually characterized by ghostly blue lines suspended in frozen space-time, completed by the sound of the blade seating back into its scabbard. In this chapter, Sephirot uses a version of it to dismember Mammon; Vergil himself uses it at the close of the chapter to eliminate the task force surrounding Patty.