Weeping angel

We were met with legions of servants in a hall that could be only more than luxurious, sinful by design with floors made of a black material that seemed to be absorbing light, chandeliers of gold crusted with rubies that illuminated the castle with a crimson light.

It looked as if we had truly stepped into hell in the abode of the devil and that it was tempting us, making us look at what he would give us if we gave him our souls.

I turned to look behind me to see how my peerage was faring. Issei was still unconscious. A fidgeting Asia was still at his side, blood still staining her form and the head of Issei's mother in her hands denoting a tragedy that happened.

Akeno looked calm, unbothered, almost bored I would say even though she probably had to fight against a god. The soldiers were looking nervously at her as if she was a monster who at any moment would choose to attack.

I could understand why she spooked them. I didn't know how even though I was happy that it happened, how Akeno had been able to get over what stopped her from acceding to her fallen angel side.

She radiated holy energy and divinity all around her. I knew that if she wished so, with a flick of her will, she would be able to turn the layer of hell my brother was ruling into a holy wasteland where only ultimate-class beings would be able to survive in an instant.

To a normal devil, this was the equivalent of walking at the side of a living Tsar Bomba but much worse.

Her gaze crossed with mine and even though I wasn't able to read it like I could before, there was one thing that hadn't changed and I don't know why but that made me breathe more easily. I could still see love and care in her eyes.

Using her fallen angel side had changed or would it be more accurate to say that it made her whole? A part of me had been scared that with this change, what I felt had begun to bloom between us, the kiss would mean nothing anymore.

An irrational part of me was scared that I would lose her even though in canon, accessing it didn't make her leave.

She smiled at me softly, so beautifully and I don't know but I felt myself flush. It was as if she was a divine being looking down at me with love, like a beautiful painting having taken life 'Not now, not now Rias. You'll deal with all of this later.'

I turned toward Yuto, my knight. Even though he had told me that it was fine, I could read exhaustion in his eyes.

Gasper was clinging to his and the floating form of Koneko's side. Gasper even though we were back in the underworld, in the place where we were supposed to be the more safe looked jumpy as if at any moment, gods would come out of the shadows and attack us.

I needed to find a place for my peerage to rest. There were a lot of things that should be talked about but they'll have to wait for later. Most members of my family looked half-dead.

"Sirzechs," I spoke the name of my brother calling his attention back to me. "My peerage needs to rest. I know that there are things we should brief you, inform you about before anything but my peerage needs it, we need it," I whispered to him in the end.

What I was saying wasn't wrong. It wasn't a lie. Even though my essence worked with my demonic energy and the divinity that I had usurped to keep my body and my mind in a perfect state, I still felt kinda exhausted mentally.

This was the kind of exhaustion you had when you did something repetitively for a while. Even though you could probably continue even after a while, you didn't want to.

"Don't worry Rias. Falbium won't be happy about it but when is he when he's not sleeping? A debriefing can wait Rias," my brother told me.

As if my brother had sent a hidden message, A maid walked toward us separating herself from the sea of servants.

She looked incredibly beautiful as most supernatural beings did. "My king, my lady," she spoke before grabbing the helms of her dress and bowing.

"I came with Guests who will be considered until further notice as new inhabitants of the castle, Julietta," my brother told the still-bowing maid. "I want the best care possible given to them. I want them to be treated as if they were royalty as if they were extensions of myself".

"It is understood you majesty," the maid spoke. I felt her eyes travel to me and the members of my peerage in less than an instant as if analysing each of us.

"I think that I have found the best chambers to assign all of you," Julietta spoke to me and my peerage.

"Just make sure they're not far away from each other," I told her.

I didn't know how Koneko or Issei would act when they will wake up. The cold and frost that still lingered on the form of my pawn along with a missing arm showed that he had fought bravely and violently before falling unconscious.

I don't know if he would wake up panicked, angry, scared. He had lost almost everything. Asia was literally holding the head of his deceased mother. I didn't know if it would work but I hope that awaking while surrounded by what could be seen as a safe environment would be the best.

I thought similarly about Koneko. Koneko, my rook had almost died at the hands of a god while I was fighting, taking pleasure in doing so, not caring about what could happen to my peerage.

I had been lucky. I knew this. Unlike Sona, I hadn't lost any of the members of my peerage. Better, it could even be said that I benefited from the attack.

Akeno had accepted or at least was now ready to use the fallen angel powers she inherited. Yuto had been able to push beyond his limits, to kill the aspect of a god and find a way to heal with his swords. Issei even though he had lost most people who were dear to him grew in strength and was able through the ritual I created to usurp a part of the strength of the deity he fought against.

It could be said that I had won, that in the end, the only true winner was me. I may have hated the desolation the Shinto Gods created by destroying Kuoh and slaughtering its inhabitants but in the end, I hadn't truly lost anything truly important to me. Homes, schools, cities, they could be built again. Lives? It wasn't that easy.

"Understood my lady but before anything, would you like me to transfigure your clothes into something more comfortable?" Julietta spoke.

I turned my gaze downward toward my clothes or at least what remained of them. The only reason I hadn't exploded due to the embarrassment was due to the nudist tendencies I had inherited from the Original Rias.

How hadn't I been able to see it? Most of my clothes were gone. They should have all been destroyed but luckily even after a fight against a fire deity, they weren't. they however looked now more like scraps that looked as if they had been intentionally arranged by someone who was asked how much they wanted to push for indecency and their answer was yes than a schoolgirl uniform.

Why hadn't anyone tell me? I turned toward Akeno and the mischief and was I imagining it or was she ogling me? No, I wasn't imagining it. She actually was. I now knew why she didn't. I lifted an eyebrow as if to say really? She saw it and continued to look shamelessly.

Weirdly, coming from her, it didn't feel violating. It felt flattering. A whisper took life in the back of my mind 'I wonder if she would look at me like this again if I wore something similar.' Not now Rias, not now!

Thinking about it, I didn't need to ask to know why the other members of my peerage hadn't said anything. They had seen way worse. For most of them except Issei and Asia, that would probably be normal to see me like this. The grass was green, the sky blue and Rias wearing clothes or scraps of clothes that left almost nothing to the imagination.

I had talked with Olethros, Destruction of the Endless himself and all this time, I had been dressed as something that could be seen as inappropriate in a red light district. 'God, kill me,' I begged in the confines of my mind even though I knew that he probably had bit the dust a long time ago.

I turned back toward the maid and tried to ignore the embarrassment I felt "I wouldn't say no to your proposition," I answered her trying to appear as unbothered and regal as I could be in my circumstances.

Her eyes flared up taking a golden malevolent colour. The twisted light in them twisted space, travelled through reality, to me and touched the rags I was wearing.

They burnt with hellfire but from the fire didn't only come destruction. Her flames took shape around my body embracing me, cladding me in a warm soft embrace before fading away leaving me behind in what seemed to be a form-fitting black leather dress with a front closure that almost impossibly enhanced my body to divine to more than that.

Maybe I was beginning to become a narcissist but who could blame me? I knew that I was objectively more good-looking than most even in the supernatural world. I had gone from an average or maybe above average when it came to my looks to an Aphrodite wished she could look as good as me level.

"I hope you find my choice satisfying, your grace," the maid told me bringing me back to the real world out of my head.

"You chose well Julietta, thank you," I told her honestly. Sometimes, when you felt more disgusting than dog crap, wearing clothes that made you look good made you feel good.

"May you follow me so that I would be able to show the chambers assigned to you?" she asked us.

I nodded to her and she turned away from me to walk toward where our chambers would be. Most of the soldiers who had followed us chose to stay behind. The only ones still walking at our side and behind us were the devil who through his magic was levitating the body of Issei, Alexander and three other devils who seemed to blend with the shadows.

I didn't know how they were doing it but It felt as if they were slipping through reality like ghosts. Using my demonic energy to detect was useless. The only reason they hadn't disappeared completely from my perception was because of the advanced sense that my biology and my essence had given me.

The castle was a castle but now that I tried to feel it deeper and understand it with the newly gained knowledge I received after eating Kagutsuchi and with what my eyes saw at a metaphysical level, it felt as if the castle was alive.

It was as if we were walking through the body of a malevolent beast. Each step we were taking made our surroundings shift. In one step we would be going forward, in another one, we would have switched walking on the ceiling. It's as if we had chosen to enter into a non-euclidean labyrinth. More than that, maybe I was wrong but it was as if I could almost hear ominous maddening whispers. It was as if they were muffled but I knew that if I forced myself, they would become clear to my ear.

I didn't try to. I had played enough Bloodborne and read enough stories of the worlds created by Lovecraft that sometimes, not knowing was a blessing, that ignorance could be mercy in itself.

The thing is that I only noticed because of my own oddities, my own special circumstances that the castle changed in a way no one who didn't look at it deeper would understand or notice. I turned to look at the members of my peerage who were not unconscious.

Kiba wasn't looking at the caste with surprise or shock. It was clear that he hadn't noticed. The only thing he could probably feel right now was exhaustion.

It was also the case with Asia who walked slowly like a doll at the side of the floating body of Issei.

A frown marred the beautiful face of my queen like a beautiful sky being torn by violent lightning. Her eyes were shifting all over the place as if like me, she could understand that there was something different, something strange, something wrong with this castle.

Surprisingly, she wasn't the only one to react this way. Gasper looked as if all of his fears had been confirmed. I could feel how darker his shadow had become, how it seemed that his shadows were full of rolling red eyes and canines that flickered in and out of existence.

I felt a gaze on me. I turned toward where I felt it was coming from. "You noticed that there was something different about the castle," my brother spoke worry and pride intertwined In his eyes.

"I did," confirming his thoughts. "The castle, it feels alive Sirzechs. It feels dangerous," I whispered to him.

"Does it scare you?" he asked me.

"I would be lying if I didn't recognize that a part of me is terrified Brother. This castle feels primal like an abyss." Not like the darkness but something similar at a lower magnitude.

"But I'm not worried about anything wrong happening to me here. Do you know why?" I told him. "Because you are there."

I watched as a smile split his face as if he was a kid who just received exactly what they had wished for as their Christmas gift. It made my brother, The Crimson Satan, Lucifer look cute. I

"Of course, I won't let anything happen to you." he swept me in his arms as if I were a feather and began hugging me. "I love you so much Rias," he said while crushing me in his arms.

The way he acted wasn't proper to the way a devil king should be acting and I could feel the gaze of the others on us. It was kinda embarrassing but I had learned in the past that there was no point in being embarrassed in such situations. "I love you too brother," I whispered to him even though I felt myself blush.

Nothing was eternal. No one was eternal. It was better to live fully in the present, to not care about concepts like shame or embarrassment to not have regrets in the future.

That still didn't mean I liked being treated like a living doll "Brother can you put me down?" I begged Sirzechs.

"Don't wanna."

"Please Sirzechs," I said trying to sound the cutest possible.

"Fine," he grumbled before putting me down. I continued to follow the maid as if nothing had happened even though I could hear some of the guards and Akeno snicker behind me.

"You still didn't tell me why your castle is such a way," I told my brother.

"This is a tale I don't think you're ready yet to hear," he said to me. It made me feel offended.

"I know I can," I told him.

"I never said that you couldn't. I said that you were not ready Rias. I think that I'm not ready to tell you this yet," he spoke softly in the end.

The look in his eyes, the sadness and the melancholy I could see in them stopped me from asking further.

"What is dead may never die," I heard Sirzechs murmur before The maid stopped at what seemed to be a corridor. I could see what seemed like an endless amount of gold and red doors on both sides of it.

She turned toward us "We arrived your majesty, your grace," she told us. She opened one door and stepped into the room on the other side.

We followed after her into a chamber that seemed bigger than the one I had in Kuoh. On The ceilings, images of pretty-looking devils and red dragons moved through what seemed to be the dark cosmos, through Stars. It was both like and unlike a movie. It wasn't something I could properly explain. It would be like trying to explain to a peasant from the Dark Ages the complexity of modern music, of the different instruments and the way they synched together to create something more than divine.

There was a gigantic bed that looked as if a cloud in the sky had been removed and painted with blood. Covering it were blankets made of something that even from afar looked so unreal and bright that it was clear that no mortal material could come close to it.

"I chose this place for your unconscious boy servant my lady," Julietta told me.

This place looked according to my memory even better and more comfortable than the Gremory estate I grew up in "Woah," I heard Gasper say behind me in amazement.

There was something I still didn't understand "How were you able to know that my pawn is linked to dragons," I asked her. That could not be a coincidence. There were no such things in the moonlit world.

"Your pawn, your grace feels similar to Lord Tannin and his brood. This is how I was able to deduce," she told me. My respect for her rose. I was impressed. I guess there was a reason why she worked directly for Lucifer.

The floating body of Issei moved in the air and was slowly and softly laid on the bed. "We did our best for now your grace. The only major thing left is his arm but creating a new one either with a cell or with demonic technology would need him to be awake," one of the healers said to me.

Asia had already left our group and was at Issei's side, watching over him with this broken expression on her face that both angered and saddened me.

"Understood," I told him. "Thank you for what you did."

"Serving is an honour, your grace," he answered before leaving through the door.

"Make sure he doesn't lose himself trying to find the exit," my brother spoke and one of the devils in the shadows who was trailing us kneeled before disappearing from my senses.

I walked toward Asia and sat at her side. "Asia, you need to rest too," I told her softly. She already looked broken.

"I can't," she whispered. "My role is to heal, to stay at his side. He also entrusted the head of mom to me. I can't let go. I was blessed by him to heal. This is something I like to do but when the moment came, I was unable to do anything. I couldn't heal Mom. I couldn't heal Dad. I couldn't help Issei. I couldn't save anyone. I was useless."

I realized with sadness that the mom she was talking about was the one she held her head in her hands. I crushed the surging sadness in my veins. Asia had been an orphan before being taken in by the church, the fallen angels and me after.

She never truly had any parent or any support at least until she began living with Issei and his family. I had without knowing given her a family, a sense of normality that didn't last more than a month before it was ripped away from her by uncaring gods. Ironically, she had been my Denji and I, her Makima.

I cradled as softly as I could her head in my hands. What could I say to make everything better? What could I do to make everything better?

I felt and heard the others leave the room. I could feel them just outside of it. They had tried to give us a semblance of privacy. She stayed still in my hands.

She stayed still in my hands, her head pressed against my chest. I could feel something liquid wetting my dress. I didn't try to move fearing ruining and breaking things even more than I already did.