Beatrix lowered her gaze to the ruby resting in her palm.
For a fleeting moment, something unguarded flickered in her eyes — regret, perhaps. Or sorrow. It passed too quickly to name. The air in the room grew subtly heavier, as though even the walls leaned in to listen. Across from her, Akatsuki's coffee cooled unnoticed, its steam thinning into nothing.
Her attention returned to Dazai.
"Let me tell you a story," she said softly. "One that concerns the Ten Speculums… and the truth you seek."
The irritation in Dazai's expression eased, replaced by sharpened focus. Akatsuki leaned forward slightly in his chair, the earlier humor draining from his posture.
Beatrix snapped the fingers of her right hand.
The world dissolved.
The estate, the walls, the sunlight — all unraveled into strands of fading light. In their place stretched an endless expanse of luminous pink void, celestial and vast. Stars shimmered in impossible constellations across a horizon that did not exist. There was no floor, yet they stood. No sky, yet the cosmos arched around them.
"Here," Beatrix murmured, her voice echoing gently through infinity, "we may speak freely. Nothing leaves this place."
She turned, and the void responded.
"Long ago, in the Ages of Ashborn, when Heaven stood at its zenith and the archangels reigned in unchallenged radiance, a war ignited."
The stars dimmed.
"Not from within," she added. "From beyond."
Shapes began to form in the distance — towering gates of light, armies clad in divine armor, wings unfurled in brilliance. Then the sky fractured.
From the rift descended beasts unlike anything scripture had foretold. Monstrosities wreathed in ancient fury. Titans bearing the sigils of Olympus.
"The monsters of Olympus invaded Heaven," Beatrix continued evenly. "Not as conquerors alone… but as seekers."
Dragons of impossible scale tore through clouds of sanctified light. Celestial citadels burned.
Archangels clashed against creatures carved from myth and malice.
Akatsuki exhaled quietly, eyes scanning the war unfolding around them.
"So Olympus launched an invasion?" he asked. "To seize power?"
"To secure it," Beatrix corrected.
The battlefield shifted again. Amid the chaos, a lone figure descended.
He did not shine like the archangels. He did not roar like the beasts.
He simply arrived.
His hair was long and crimson as spilled blood. His eyes burned with a fury too quiet to be called rage. When he moved, Heaven trembled.
"He struck down Samael," Beatrix said softly. "Not the one you know… but his counterpart. The archangel who bore the mantle of Pride."
Dazai stiffened.
His aura flared instinctively, rippling through the void in jagged pulses of blue and black. Fractured visions assaulted him — flashes of memory that were not memories. The red-haired figure raising a blade. The sound of something holy shattering.
Beatrix watched him closely but did not stop.
"He was not a god," she continued. "Nor a monster. He was something else entirely."
The battlefield froze.
"He carried one wish," she said, her voice lowering. "To watch the gods who slew the only soul he cherished… fall."
The stars dimmed further.
"In exchange for power sufficient to repel Olympus's invasion, he granted six angels something unprecedented. Authority beyond Heaven's design."
The vision shifted. Six radiant figures stood before the crimson-haired being. Light warped around them. Their wings darkened.
"They became Sins."
Akatsuki's expression sharpened.
"And the Seeds?" he asked quietly.
Beatrix lifted the ruby slightly.
"He allowed them to descend."
Ten fragments of light appeared above a distant world — Athena's realm — streaking downward like falling stars.
"Ten Seeds," she said. "Entities not born of Olympus, nor of Heaven. They exist to balance what lies beyond even divine sight. The outerverses. Realms layered atop realms."
The illusion expanded — gates opening, dimensions fracturing, worlds intersecting.
"Olympus desired them," she continued. "For with the Seeds, their dominion would never again be threatened."
Akatsuki folded his arms.
"So Pride started the war?"
Beatrix glanced at him, faint amusement returning.
"And what leads you to believe the Seeds were not already present?" she asked. "I said he let them descend. Not that he created them."
Akatsuki paused.
Dazai spoke instead, voice steady despite the faint tremor in the air around him.
"The Seeds were already in Heaven," he said. "But only he possessed the authority to release them. No one else could."
Beatrix inclined her head approvingly.
"Correct."
The void darkened further. A crimson aura bled outward from her form, staining the celestial pink into deep ruby hues. The gemstone in her hand began to dissolve, its light absorbing into the fabric of the void.
"Pride did not stop at Heaven," she continued. "He eradicated half of the gods — not merely of Olympus, but of other pantheons as well."
The battlefield resumed in flashes — deities falling, constellations collapsing, thrones abandoned.
"Then," she said quietly, "he vanished."
The war faded.
"Athena's world was left to the Sins," she continued. "And the Seeds… scattered."
Ten distant lights flickered across the cosmos.
"Only a few awakened," she said. "The rest slumber still."
The void began to still.
"The Ten Grand Speculums," Beatrix concluded. "Known by another name as well."
Her gaze locked onto Dazai.
"The Keys of the Creator God."
The final stars dimmed.
"Above all."
Silence followed.
But in that silence, something ancient stirred — not in the void.
Within him.