Concerns

Venelana's PoV

Despite having essentially the same appearances – when their wings aren't out of course – pure-blood devils and humans are separated by very distinct differences when it comes to pregnancy. For one, while a human pregnancy only nourishes a child's physical body, a devil receives both physical nutrients and demonic energy from the mother. This only makes sense as devils are magical entities to begin with. In fact, while not too accurate, how much energy a child can absorb while in the womb is often used as an indicator of future potential.

The second difference has to do with the mother's themselves. Devils, particularly those who are more powerful and have stronger energy sensing abilities, can closely monitor their child's health. With acute senses, they can determine the growth in both physical health and energy growth. This knowledge in hand, devil mothers can adjust their diet to better suit the demands of the child and can speed up or slow down the demonic energy delivery through the umbilical cord. Naturally such energy manipulation requires very delicate skill, but, with long lives, most upper-class mothers manage to obtain the necessary skill. And, even if they are lacking, there are many trained medical specialists to assist in the task.

As a result of all this, the vast majority of devil babies are healthy and strong.

Another side effect is that, with mothers having accurate information about the necessary physical nutrition needed, most mothers don't put on excess weight and look like their pre-pregnancy selves immediately following birth.

Indeed, this had all held true for Venelana for her first two pregnancies. Her first pregnancy was notable as her son, Sirzechs, had consumed far more energy than she had anticipated. Being a new mother, Venelana had her husband, Zeoticus, call in an energy manipulation specialist. Sara, the high-class devil specialist, had confirmed that the baby was healthy and was simply stronger than normal. Still, being cautious and having loads of money and influence, the Gremory couple hired Sara to stay at their household for the remaining of the pregnancy.

Sirzechs was born a very healthy and strong boy, taking after his father in looks.

Centuries having passes since then, Venelana gave birth to her second child less than a year ago. Though she was completely confident in her ability to monitor her child this time around, the Gremory couple once again hired Sara just to be on the safe side. Though little Rias didn't absorb as much demonic energy as Sirzechs, there were no complications and she was born as a very healthy girl with her father's bright red hair and blue eyes.

It was to Zeoticus and Venelana's great surprise when, just one month after giving birth to Rias, she became pregnant once again. Considering the fertility rate of devils, this was nothing short of a miracle.

But this pregnancy was different from her others.

Her little boy's physical body was growing perfectly well, but there had been hardly any growth in his energy. When she discovered this, she had sent her senses scouring over and through hers and her child's bodies. The only problem she discovered a blockage in the energy channel where her umbilical cord met the child.

Finding this, she was actually elated. It wasn't exactly common, but an energy channel constriction did occasionally happen. All she needed to do was gently push some demonic energy through until it loosened up.

But it was not that simple. No matter how much she delicately nudged the energy against the constriction, it wouldn't budge.

Worried and becoming a little anxious, Venelana called the specialist, Sara over, but even her precise skills weren't enough. In short procession, Zeoticus, Sirzechs, and Grayfia were all called over to try and loosen the channel. None of them succeeded.

It was then Sara put forward a hypothesis. She presumed that they were all too powerful. Despite their high control skills, their high power and large energy pools made it nigh impossible to grab the finite amount of energy needed. Their best attempt was in controlling five fragments of energy and pushing it against the constriction. However, by Sara's calculation, as little as one fragment and at most two were required to loosen such a narrow blockage.

Therefore, there were two solutions to the problem. First, they would need to find someone more skilled in control than anyone present. Second, they could find an individual weak and unskilled enough that they could only grab a couple energy fragments at a time and trust them to open the channel.

Both solutions were rejected. If even Sirzechs Lucifer, one of the four devil kings, lacked such finite control, then no one else was likely to. And there was no way in hell Venelana would trust an unskilled and weak person with her baby.

As such, the only thing they could do was wait and hope for the best. And so, a couple months passed by with no change…until yesterday.

Her son was more active than he had ever been. She had even felt him strongly kick out. Though it was her third pregnancy, she was still elated at his healthy activity. In Rias' room at the time, she shouted out to her maid to call her husband, Sirzechs, and Grayfia over. Zeoticus smile was wide and his eyes glimmered in happiness as he felt his wife's stomach and felt his son's movements.

However, as they were chatting happily afterwards and Sirzechs was playing with Rias, Venelana felt her baby thrash around wildly. Even before she reached out her senses to the child, her mother's intuition told her he was in extreme pain.

Panicking, she shouted out in horror. Sirzechs and Zeoticus rushed to her while Grayfia used a magic circle to pick up Sara. No one knew what to do as they didn't understand what could cause the child to feel such pain. But, by the time Grayfia came back with Sara mere moments later, the child was no longer in pain and thrashing. Oddly enough, Venelana felt that he was actually very happy.

(Please be alright) she fervently thought. Her eyes were filled with tears from the wild rollercoaster of emotions, something her hormones didn't help with at all.

"What happened? Grayfia hasn't had a chance to explain." Sara asked, looking from one person to the next. She was quite short at roughly 150 centimeters, with black hair to her shoulders, green eyes, and a very modest chest.

"He…he was thrashing about just a second ago. It felt like he was in severe pain," Venelana answered.

Sara's brow scrunched up as she approached Venelana, placed both hands on her stomach, and focused as she sent out her senses and thin tendrils of energy to probe the child's condition. One minute turned into ten as she kept examining his condition.

Venelana couldn't bear the tension and silence and asked, "Is he still healthy?"

Sara didn't answer immediately but instead backed a step away and stared at Venelana's belly as if in deep thought. Everyone waited with baited breath. Meanwhile, Rias' bright blue eyes sparkled in pleasure as she played with the action figure of a famous anime while in her crib.

Finally, Sara spoke up. "Can you have your maids step out for a moment?"

No one expected her to ask that and it took a bit for her request to register in their minds. Looking confused at the request, Zeoticus motioned for the maids to leave.

As soon as the maids were gone and the door was shut, Grayfia cast sealing magic to prevent their words from leaving the room. That done, Venelana then asked in a quiet voice, "Is it that bad?"

Sara shook her head and smiled warmly at the expecting mother. "No. If anything its something to be very happy about, but it's quite unusual and I wasn't sure if you wanted anyone else to know."

"Unusual?" Sirzechs spoke.

She nodded. "I don't know how it happened, but his brain is now much more developed than is normal at this point in the pregnancy. What's more, I've found no abnormalities or negative side effects that can be associated with the growth."

"So, there's nothing problematic? He's completely healthy?" Zeoticus asked.

"Beyond the energy channel constriction, he's a perfectly healthy baby," Sara affirmed confidently.

Hearing that, Venelana sat down in a nearby chair a released a big breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "That's good," she softly said. "That's good."

**********

Now, a day later, Venelana was in Rias' room once again. She was resting in her arms as Venelana read a children's story book to her. As the time for her usual afternoon nap approached, Rias' eyes drooped down until she eventually fell asleep. Setting aside the storybook, Venelana gazed lovingly at her daughter and began to gently run her hands through her 6 centimeter-long, bright red hair.

She then felt movement in her stomach, telling her that her little boy had woken up. Her smile widened. She had never thought she'd have third child, but she was so happy she was going to.

But suddenly he began thrashing around in her stomach again. She could sense the pain he was in.

Unable to stave off the panic in her heart, her voice raised as she looked at each of the four maids in the room and issued orders to them.

"Go tell Sara to meet me in the medical room."

"Stay here with Rias."

"Go find my husband."

"Follow me."

While two of the maids rushed off, another gently took the waking Rias from her and started rocking her back and forth. The last maid followed closely behind her mistress as she set a brisk pace out the door.

The medical room was located several corridors away and it took Venelana 4 minutes to get there despite her quick pace. Zeoticus had outfitted the room during her pregnancy with Rias with all the newest general and OBGYN medical equipment he could find. Usually magic examination were sufficient, but it never hurt to have more options.

Naturally, Venelana could have just used magic to get there quicker, but in her irrationality she didn't know what was happening to her child and didn't want the magic to somehow make things worse.

Of course, this fear was nonsense, but no one wanted to tell the hormonal, panicking, pregnant mistress of the house that.

On the way over, her son had stopped his painful movements and, yet again, seemed to enter a state of happiness. Strangely, she even felt unnatural shifts of demonic energy within his body.

Sara was already in the room by the time she got there, busy prepping the ultrasound machine. "We're going to do an extremely thorough examination today," Sara stated.

Venelana nodded and, thinking of yesterday, ordered her maid to wait outside and send her husband in when he got there. She then laid down on the examination table and lifted her blouse, revealing the smooth, flawless white skin of her belly.

Sara didn't waste any time and rubbed the ultrasound gel on her stomach and asked, "How long did his thrashing last this time?"

"A little less than yesterday."

"Hmmm," was all Sara responded. She grabbed the ultrasound transducer and positioned it properly. Then, an image of the child popped up on the nearby screen. Both women stared intently at the image as Sara moved the transducer around to view different angles.

It was then that Zeoticus entered the room, shutting the door behind him. His usually calm face now plainly showed his worry. "How is he?"

Sara gestured for him to look at the ultrasound screen before saying, "We've only performed the ultrasound so far, but he looks completely normal. I'll do an energy examination next."

She proceeded to take a towel and wipe the gel from Venelana's stomach, then removed her gloves. But as she reached out to begin probing with her energy, Venelana gave her and her husband a strange look.

"I…I think the blockage in the energy channel just disappeared," she said a bit dazedly.

"Are you sure?" Zeoticus asked, his voice tense.

"Yes. I think so."

Zeoticus gestured to Sara to proceed with the examination.

She reached out and placed her hands on the stomach, sending her delicate tendrils of demonic energy into the womb to probe. Her face scrunched in concentration as she checked and rechecked everything. She took a particularly long as almost a half hour passed before she removed her hands.

She stood up and released a sigh. "I have never dealt with a pregnancy as strange as this one."

"What did you find?" Venelana anxiously asked.

"Quite a bit, actually. First, his vocal cords and their surrounding muscles have been strengthened and developed a bit more. Unusual as it may be, I don't believe it will cause anything harmful. Second, the energy channel is indeed opened and his energy capacity has increased by roughly 20% already. If he continues to grow at that rate, he should more than make up for the last four months where his energy growth stagnated. Finally, with regards to unblocking the channel, I believe it was accomplished by forcing a single fragment of energy through."

Venelana looked confused. "But for someone to be able to push a single fragment through…."

"It confused me too. The only conclusion I could arrive at was that it was the child's doing."

"Is that even possible?" Zeoticus asked.

"It's common for powerful children, even in the womb, to subconsciously interact with energy. I recall Sirzechs doing it often and Rias also occasionally causing fluctuations. That being said, I've never heard of an unborn having enough mental awareness to be accurately manipulate energy. Therefore, there are only two possibilities. One, it was just a lucky coincidence that you can be happy about. Or, two, the boy is a genius. Furthermore, regarding the pain spasms, while I don't know why they happen, I can only figure that they aren't doing any harm and are likely to be beneficial," she concluded.

"And you're confident about everything?"

"There's no way to be 100% sure, but if I wasn't confident enough then I wouldn't have given you my conclusions."

Hearing that her child was completely find and may, in fact, be a genius, Venelana looked down to your belly and gave a beaming smile. Zeoticus also came and leaned forward, giving her a tight hug, before gently placing his hand on her stomach.

Sara allowed them a few moments of happiness before grabbing their attention by clearing her throat. "Ahem." Venelana and Zeoticus turned to look at her. "I don't know if it's my place and you may already be aware, but I heard some concerning gossip in town a few days ago."

"Feel free to speak your mind," Zeoticus responded.

"Well, with this pregnancy there seem to be rumors that other clans, especially the Bael clan, are concerned with the Gremory clan rising in power. You already have Sirzechs and, even if he is not official a Gremory, he is still your child. Then there's Rias and now another son in five months. It's also only a matter of time before Sirzechs and Grayfia have a child."

As she spoke, Zeoticus and Venelana's faces grew more concerned.

Sara continued, looking at Venelana. "With yours and Sirzech's strong destruction genes, it seems unlikely a child wouldn't awaken their destruction magic. The Bael clan and others apparently are displeased with that and, hypothetically, if they were to take action, their natural target would be your son," she said, pointing at Venelana's stomach.

Venelana, surprised at the claim, put her hand over her stomach protectively. "Why do you say that?"

"Sirzechs is untouchable, as would be any child of his. Rias has the title of being the heir to the house of Gremory, and her death would cause a huge outcry. That leaves your son. While his death would still cause serious repercussions, it would be less than anyone else. In addition, if he does turn out to be a genius, it would be all the more reason to eliminate him before he grows." Sara paused, looking at the couple's grim faces, and then bowed in apology. "I apologize for speaking my mind. I sincerely hope it is an unfounded rumor but believed you should know regardless."

Zeoticus waived his hand in dismissal. "There's nothing to apologize for. In fact, I should thank you for bringing this to my attention. There is a certain logical basis to the rumor and it sounds exactly like something the current Bael clan head would do." He then turned to look at his wife and gave her a kiss. "I'll go increase the security. Try to get some rest."

Venelana nodded and gave him a halfhearted smile. "I will. Go do your job."

Zeoticus turned and walked out the door.

Venelana stared at her swollen belly. Her eyes had a sharp glint to them as she quietly said, "Mamma won't let anyone lay so much as a finger on you."