Sapphire breathed deeply, her shoulders rising and falling unevenly. The Flame of Olympus still flickered at her extremities, weak, unstable, as if deciding whether to extinguish itself or not. Vergil, on the other hand, maintained his typical calm—or at least tried to. The blood trickling from the side of his forehead and his trembling arm betrayed the colossal effort he had also made.
For a few seconds, only the sound of rocks still falling in the distance and the echo of the destruction they left filled the silence.
Sapphire kicked a car-sized rock away, irritated.
"…that was ridiculous," she muttered.
Vergil raised an eyebrow.
"Equaling with you will never be ridiculous."
"That's not it." Sapphire rubbed her face, spreading even more blood. "What's ridiculous is you… you, with that vacation face, flip-flops, summer shirt… coming all the way here and putting up with this." She gestured toward the utterly decimated scene. "You shouldn't have succeeded."
