The passage of time had not dulled the weight of Lucien's bold request to seek out Kuroka. Days had slipped by, the quiet hum of the Gremory household covering a subtle unrest, as sealed doors whispered secrets and silenced messages traveled through enchanted channels. Beneath the surface, old legacies stirred—long-buried truths were on the verge of revelation.
The Lucifuge-Gremory archive chamber was an ancient, sacred place. Cold, eerily so, the temperature is not a product of mere enchantment but a manifestation of the secrets kept within its walls. Wards layered thick as latticework hummed quietly, defying detection and divination. This was no space for casual research; it was a vault for forbidden knowledge, an echo of the past that refused to be forgotten.
And today, that knowledge would come to light.
At the center of the chamber, Sirzechs stood as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. The obsidian console before him flickered faintly, a projection crystal pulsing with reports long-declassified through Serafall's clearance. His crimson eyes hardened, brows furrowing as old sins resurfaced.
"Unapproved experimentation," Serafall said, her usual light-hearted demeanor absent. Her voice was cold, a weapon honed by the years of leadership. "Binding seals. Ki suppression. Demon blood spliced into hybrid children."
Her words were low, chilling. They tried to bury this.
Sirzechs' jaw clenched. His eyes, usually calm, were darkened by the weight of this revelation. "All done under the guise of control," he murmured, his voice like a shadow, cold and unforgiving. "They weren't training devils. They were manufacturing weapons."
Grayroad, standing behind them, nodded gravely. "All backed by the Old Satan Faction, the same factions that resisted the Maou reforms after the Great War."
Another set of declassified files flickered to life, casting flickering images on the crystal: broken ritual circles, shattered collars, and blood-stained soil. There was a photo of Kuroka, barely sixteen, clutching a young Koneko as they fled through the wreckage. Behind them, destruction stretched in a landscape ravaged by twisted magic.
"She wasn't fleeing justice," Serafall whispered, her voice full of quiet anger. "She was escaping a nightmare."
Sirzechs swallowed, the silent weight of guilt pressing on his chest. "And her master's death?"
Grayroad, ever the dutiful observer, focused on a telemetry log, revealing magical readings that could not lie. "He tried to bind her permanently. The kill was a reactive beast-blooded instinct in a mortal moment. Not premeditated."
Serafall's fists clenched until her knuckles whitened. "We let them make her into a monster... and then blamed her for surviving!"
Sirzechs stared at the image of Kuroka, her haunted expression captured in time as Koneko clung to her. His gaze softened, grief like a stone settling at the bottom of his heart. The failure to protect the innocent echoed painfully.
A map shimmered into life, showing the snow-blanketed Hokubu Mountains in the Underworld's northern territories. A faint flicker of light appeared on the map, the faintest trace of Senjutsu, subtle but recent.
Serafall tapped the map with a steady finger. "Faint traces. Recently, within the month."
Sirzechs nodded, his resolve firming like steel. "It's enough. I'll assemble a covert recovery team."
Serafall's eyes darkened. "I'll contact Azazel."
Sirzechs shot her a sharp look. "You trust him?"
"I trust that he hates corruption more than he hates us. He has eyes where we don't."
A long silence followed, a quiet agreement between the two. Then, Sirzechs exhaled, the weight of the past heavy in his voice. "All this time… and we called her a stray."
Serafall's voice was soft, but filled with steady conviction. "No. She was abandoned. There's a difference."
⸻
Two Weeks Later — Maou High Council Chamber
The Maou High Council chamber was a monument to the power of the Underworld. Its obsidian dome echoed with the murmurs of devils, noble and dangerous, their sharp eyes tracking the movements of the Four Great Satans. Above them, holographic projections of redacted reports, decrypted files, and forbidden truths floated in the air, casting their shadows over the council.
Sirzechs stood before them, as imposing as ever. His voice rang with the authority of someone who had seen the depths of the devil's darkness and had still managed to rise above it.
"She didn't run because she was evil," Sirzechs' words cut through the air. His tone was tempered, cold, but not without compassion. "She ran because she was hunted. Because this system, our system, failed her."
Serafall stepped forward, her voice like a blade. "This wasn't simple negligence. It was a sanctioned conspiracy. Rogue nobles turned children into test subjects... and we let them. We hid it."
The nobles in the gallery erupted in murmurs of disbelief, horror, and a growing understanding that something truly dark had been concealed from the world.
Falbium Bael, the ever-calm and calculating devil, broke the silence. "Then the question becomes... what do we do now?"
Another noble, a younger devil, stood and raised an eyebrow. "She is still, officially, a stray. What is her fate?"
Sirzechs and Serafall exchanged a long, meaningful look. Then, as if on cue, both smiled.
"As of this meeting," Sirzechs declared, voice ringing with finality, "Kuroka's stray designation is revoked. Her bounty is nullified. She will be placed under the guardianship of my son, Lucien Lucifuge-Gremory."
The chamber descended into chaos.
Nobles erupted in shock, outrage, and laughter, their voices rising in a cacophony of disbelief and intrigue.
"You would hand her to a child?!"
"He's no ordinary child…"
"The Crimson Prince takes after his father—powerful, calculating."
"Or reckless."
A younger noble, leaning toward his friend, smirked. "Ten-star coins say the kid's got a tail fetish. First a Nekomata, next a fox, maybe a dragon. Little fur-chaser's building a zoo."
The laughter rippled through the back rows.
Serafall raised her voice, cutting through the murmurs. "Lucien has the strength to face her. But more importantly, he has the will to understand her. That's rarer than any sword."
Sirzechs, calm and unwavering, added, "And Koneko deserves her sister back. Not as a burden, but as someone who protected her when no one else did."
The room fell silent.
Not all agreed, but the shift was undeniable.
Redemption was no longer weakness. It was overdue justice.
As the council prepared to deliberate further, Serafall leaned toward Sirzechs and whispered, "He's going to have his hands full. That girl bites literally."
Sirzechs chuckled dryly. "Then I'll be tripling that boy's training."
Serafall blinked, then grinned. "Now that's the Lucifer I remember. You're finally sounding like a dad instead of a diplomat."
Sirzechs' expression softened for the briefest of moments. "He's my son," he murmured, the weight of the coming storm pressing on his words. "I can't protect him from what's coming... but I can prepare him for it."
⸻
Post-Meeting – Nobles' Lounge
As the Maou Chamber emptied, the nobles filtered into the adjoining lounge, an opulent room where whispers carried far and wide. Rich velvet, obsidian columns, and soul-glass decanters filled the space, and behind every polished corner, plots were being formed.
A cluster of young heirs, their laughter tinged with mockery, stood near the spirit fire hearth.
"Did you hear that windbag? 'A child's burden is his strength.' What a joke."
"First a half-caste knight, now a stray cat? What's next? A fallen angel concubine?"
"I swear, the fluff level in his peerage is going up with each recruit."
More laughter echoed through the room.
Across the lounge, Lady Alecta of House Valefor swirled her midnight wine with an air of indifference. Beside her, Lord Galbreath of House Oriax stroked his beard thoughtfully, his mind already calculating.
"Fools," Alecta murmured. "While they joke about fetishes, they miss the truth."
Galbreath raised a brow. "Which is?"
"That boy's building a faction. And not of pampered heirs or polished prodigies. He's collecting survivors. Fighters. Loyalty born of exile, and power wrapped in rage."
She took a slow sip of her wine, eyes glinting with an unsettling clarity. "And if even half of them survive what's coming… the next Great War won't begin with a declaration. It'll begin with a whisper from his table."
Galbreath said nothing.
But the flicker in his eyes suggested he was already considering which of his grandchildren he might one day send to that table.