Devil May Cry : New World

The first arc ended.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

POV: Michael

The desert stretched for miles. A cracked landscape of rust under a washed-out sky. Heat shimmered over abandoned highway lines, and old metal signs drooped like they were trying to melt into the earth.

Michael stood alone at the edge of a roadside diner—the kind of place that hadn't seen life in years. A busted neon cactus still flickered weakly above the door. "Last Stop Café," it read, letters barely hanging on.

He wasn't sure why he'd stopped here, only that he had nowhere else to go.

DARKOM was gone.

Mary believed him dead.

His name—Michael Kyle Redfield—was buried in an unmarked grave.

And yet… he was breathing.

'What do I do now?' he thought, leaning against the rusted car he'd hotwired days ago.

That's when the engine growled behind him. A heavy black sedan pulled off the highway and rolled up the gravel.

Michael tensed. Watched. Didn't move.

The car door opened, and a tall man in a clean jacket and sunglasses stepped out, adjusting his hat like the sun annoyed him more than the silence.

He looked at Michael once and smirked.

"You look like hell."

Michael tilted his head. "You must be Morrison."

One Hour Earlier — Somewhere Else

Morrison slammed a file shut and tossed it on the table in front of him. The bartender raised an eyebrow.

"You good?"

Morrison sipped his drink. "Better than the folks in that file."

On the manila folder: DARKOM — CLASSIFIED LOSS REPORT. Inside: photos of burning forests, corpses in armor, and at the bottom—a grainy surveillance still.

A man walking away from the blast zone. Tall. Black coat. A face hidden in shadow.

Morrison tapped it.

"Michael Kyle Redfield," he muttered. "But you're not dead, are you?"

Present — Desert Diner

Inside the café, dust danced in shafts of golden light cutting through boarded windows. Booths were torn. The jukebox was cracked. The coffee machine had been gutted by time.

But they sat anyway. Morrison lit a cigar. Michael said nothing.

"You know, you made quite a crater back there," Morrison said, glancing at the ash still stuck to Michael's coat. "Forest fires. Dead soldiers. Missing artifacts. And then poof—you vanish."

Michael took a drink of old water. "Didn't plan the crater. The rest... yeah."

Morrison raised an eyebrow. "And now you're just out here? In the desert?"

Michael leaned back. "Was waiting for you."

That caught Morrison off-guard. He chuckled. "You're not what I expected."

Michael's voice was low. "I'm not what anyone expected."

Silence hung for a while.

Then Morrison pulled out a folded paper and slid it across the table.

"You're gonna need a name."

Michael looked at it. A forged ID. Clean. Real enough to fool the border, the banks, even a decent bounty board.

Antonio Marino.

"Italian?" Michael asked, lifting a brow.

Morrison shrugged. "Women love the accent."

Michael smirked faintly. "It's ridiculous."

"You want something safer?"

Michael didn't answer right away.

Then: "No. It works."

Morrison leaned forward. "There's work, you know. Demons don't care what badge you wear. They bleed the same."

Michael's gaze shifted. "I'm not looking to join anything."

"You won't have to. I hand you the jobs. You keep your head down, play nice, and keep your real nature off the radar."

Michael said nothing for a moment.

Then gave the smallest nod.

"I'll take it."

Over the Next Year

Their partnership was simple.

Morrison found the leads. Michael took the jobs.

At first, it was small towns and out-of-the-way contracts—old spirits in mines, corrupted familiars in graveyards, demon-wolves stalking the snowy passes.

But word spread quickly.

Antonio Marino. The Silent Hunter. 

He never showed his powers publicly, never stayed in one place too long. But his name kept coming up—in whispered rumors, bar stories, and bloody alleyway whispers.

"He took down a spine leech solo."

"I heard he cut through four berserkers with a broken knife."

"Some say he's not human."

Michael let the rumors grow. They shielded him. Shaped him.

He didn't need people to know the truth.

He just needed them to think twice before crossing him.

POV: Morrison

Morrison stepped off the train in Chicago and smiled as his phone buzzed. Another alert.

Job Complete — Client PaidAntonio M. / Target Status: DECEASEDPayment Sent: 35,000 USD

"Guy works fast," Morrison muttered.

He swiped again and checked the logs. Seven jobs in two months. All clean. All closed.

No evidence. No survivors. No witnesses who remembered anything but the echo of fire and the blur of a long coat disappearing into the smoke.

Morrison exhaled a lazy breath.

"This one's gonna be a problem."

Then he grinned.

"But he's my problem."

Back to Michael – Motel Rooftop, West Coast

Michael stood shirtless on the edge of a motel rooftop. The sky was a bruised purple, stars blurred by citylight.

He flexed his hand, and a thin red glow traced along his veins. In his other palm, a demon core pulsed—quiet and steady.

He didn't consume it.

Not yet.

Instead, he pressed it into the hilt of a stolen blade—one he'd reforged at a back-alley forge in Colorado. The steel took the core greedily. The glow spread through the metal like blood through cloth.

The weapon hummed.

Michael nodded once.

Behind him, Morrison stepped onto the rooftop with two beers.

"Thought you didn't drink," Michael said.

"I don't. One's for you."

Michael took it and twisted the cap. "Where to next?"

"Fortuna."

Michael's face shifted.

Morrison held up a file. "Got a lead on someone named Machiaveli. Knows about the cores. Maybe more."

Michael's eyes narrowed. "You think he's a threat?"

"No. But you need to know more before you absorb another one of those. Last thing I want is you waking up with spider legs and no memories."

Michael smirked faintly. "I'd still look good."

Morrison chuckled. "Don't push it, Romeo."

Michael turned back to the skyline. Sipped the beer.

"Antonio Marino," he said, almost tasting the name.

Then he closed his eyes.

Michael Kyle Redfield was dead.

But something else—something freer, colder, cleaner—was starting to live.

And it wore his skin like armor.