Chapter 41 (~11.5k words):
– Harry –
Kokabiel uncurled from his fetal position in the air, his face twisted into a mask of humiliated fury. The veins in his temples throbbed visibly, pulsing with corrupted golden light as he forced himself upright. His ten black wings snapped open, each feather trembling with barely contained rage. The hand that had been clutching his injured groin slowly lowered, though I could see the way his legs remained slightly bowed, the posture of a man who had just experienced a very specific kind of agony.
Good. I hoped it hurt like hell.
"You," Kokabiel hissed, his bloodshot eyes locking onto me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. "You pathetic half-breed spawn." He spat the words like venom, each syllable dripping with centuries of accumulated hatred. "The bastard whelp of this magical slut—" He gestured dismissively toward my mother, and I felt my blood pressure spike dangerously. "What do you think you're going to accomplish with your meager power, boy? You think joining this fight changes anything?" His lips peeled back from his teeth in a cruel, mocking grin. "I am Kokabiel! I am the Star of God! I have slaughtered armies! I have toppled kingdoms! I watched civilizations burn while your ancestors were still crawling in the mud!" He spread his arms wide, the Boosted Gear gleaming ominously on his right hand. "And you—a child, a half-human mongrel who can barely fly straight—you think you can challenge me?"
My jaw clenched so hard I thought my teeth might crack. Every instinct I had screamed at me to launch myself at him, to wipe that smug, superior expression off his ugly face with a torrent of pressurized water. The disrespect toward my mother burned in my chest like acid, corroding my self-control with every passing second.
But before I could act on the impulse, I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. Serafall had floated closer, her fingers warm against my bare skin where my shirt had been shredded by the dragon fight.
"Harry-kun, be careful," she murmured, her blue eyes serious in a way I rarely saw. The playful Levia-tan mask had slipped, revealing the ancient, calculating Satan beneath. "Kokabiel is a veteran of the Great War. He's killed more beings than you can imagine, and he's famous for using psychological warfare." Her grip tightened slightly on my shoulder. "He'll say anything to get under your skin, to make you angry, to make you sloppy. That's how he operates. He goads his opponents into making mistakes, and then he kills them."
I forced myself to take a breath, to push down the hot surge of rage that threatened to overwhelm my rational mind. She was right. Of course she was right. Rushing in blind against an enemy of this caliber would be suicide.
"And there's something else," Serafall continued, her gaze flicking toward the massive red gauntlet encasing Kokabiel's right arm. The green gem embedded in its back pulsed with an eerie, rhythmic light. "The Boosted Gear. It's one of the thirteen Longinus—Sacred Gears powerful enough to kill gods. Every ten seconds, it doubles the user's power. That's why I haven't been able to put him down yet."
My eyes widened.
The Boosted Gear?
I had heard stories about it during my crash course on supernatural politics in the Underworld. The gauntlet of the Red Dragon Emperor, Ddraig, one of the two Heavenly Dragons whose power rivaled the gods themselves. It was supposed to manifest in a human host each generation, chosen by fate or destiny or whatever cosmic force decided these things.
So how the hell did a Fallen Angel have it strapped to his arm?
"He shouldn't have that," I said, my voice low and urgent. "That's supposed to belong to a human, right? Did he—"
"I don't know how he got it," Serafall interrupted, shaking her head slightly. "Maybe he killed the current host. It doesn't matter right now." Her eyes hardened into chips of glacial ice. "What matters is that it makes him exponentially more dangerous the longer this fight drags on. We need to end this quickly, before he stacks enough boosts to actually threaten us."
I swallowed hard, my earlier bravado cooling slightly in the face of this new information. Maybe charging up here hadn't been my smartest move. I had been so focused on protecting my mother, so consumed by the need to help her, that I hadn't stopped to think about what I was actually getting myself into.
But no. I shook my head, banishing the doubt. My mother had been in danger. Kokabiel had been building up to an attack that could have leveled the entire stadium. Even if rushing in was reckless, I couldn't have just watched from below while she fought alone.
I wouldn't change that decision. Not for anything.
BOOST!
The mechanical voice of the Sacred Gear echoed through the sky, and I felt the air pressure shift as Kokabiel's aura swelled again. The corrupted golden light around him intensified, crackling with renewed power that made my demonic senses scream warnings.
"Now!" Serafall hissed, her playful demeanor evaporating completely. "Rush him before he builds up more power! Don't give him time to stack!"
She moved before I could even process her words.
One moment, she was floating beside me, her hand on my shoulder. The next, she was simply gone, a streak of neon pink and void black that tore through the air faster than my eyes could track. It was like watching a bullet fired from a gun—except bullets didn't leave trails of crystalline frost in their wake.
Kokabiel's eyes widened in alarm. He tried to raise his guard, tried to summon a barrier of light, but Serafall was already there.
CRACK!
Her massive pink magical girl wand—a ridiculous, heart-topped monstrosity that looked like it belonged in a children's anime—came down on the crown of Kokabiel's skull with the force of a meteor impact. The sound it made was deeply satisfying: a wet, meaty thunk that resonated through the clouds.
The Fallen Angel's head snapped forward, his entire body driven downward by the sheer force of the blow. A grunt of pain escaped his lips, his wings faltering for a split second.
But he recovered faster than I expected.
"Not good enough, slut!" Kokabiel roared, his voice thick with pain and fury. His left hand shot up, golden light coalescing into a crackling lightspear of corrupt holy energy. He thrust it toward Serafall's exposed midsection, aiming for the gap between her magical girl bodice and her short skirt.
At that range, there was no way she could dodge.
Something inside me snapped.
Twin torrents of passionate pink flame erupted from my palms, screaming through the air toward Kokabiel like the wrath of an angry god. The fire roared as it traveled, the sound high-pitched and otherworldly, more like a woman's furious scream than the crackling of normal flames.
I felt the heat wash over my own face, so intense it should have burned my eyebrows off, but the flames recognized me as their source and parted around my body like water around a stone.
Kokabiel saw them coming. His eyes went wide, the lightspear in his hand faltering as his attention snapped toward the incoming inferno. He tried to raise a barrier, tried to interpose his wings, but the flames were too fast, too hungry.
They slammed into him with the force of a tidal wave.
The Fallen Angel's shriek of agony was music to my ears. It was a raw, unfiltered sound of genuine suffering—not the theatrical screaming of someone trying to intimidate, but the involuntary cry of a being experiencing unexpected, excruciating pain.
"WHAT KIND OF FIRE IS THIS?!" Kokabiel howled, thrashing in the air as the pink flames licked across his armor, his wings, his exposed skin. Everywhere they touched, they clung, burning with a fierce intensity that defied his attempts to extinguish them. "WHY DOES IT BURN SO MUCH?! WHY IS IT FUCKING PINK?!"
I stared at my own hands, momentarily stunned by the sheer volume of power I had just unleashed. The Veela fire I had used against the dragon had been impressive, yes, but this... this was something else entirely. The flames pouring from my palms were thicker, brighter, more vibrant than anything I had produced before.
They burned with a passion that felt almost alive, as if the fire itself was angry on my behalf.
Was it because I was fighting to protect her? Was it because every fiber of my being was focused on keeping my mother safe, on punishing the creature that had dared to threaten her?
Veela fire was fueled by emotion, by passion, by love. That's what Fleur had told me during our training sessions. The stronger the feeling, the stronger the flame.
And right now, watching Kokabiel writhe in agony, knowing that he had tried to hurt the woman who had welcomed me into her life without hesitation, who had shown me more love than I'd ever experienced in the first 19 years of my life...
Yeah. I was feeling pretty fucking passionate!
"Those are the flames of me and Harry-kun's love!" Serafall's voice rang out, high and clear and absolutely delighted. She had retreated to a safe distance when my fire erupted, but now she was back, hovering beside me with her wand raised high. Her blue eyes sparkled with manic energy, and a brilliant smile stretched across her beautiful face. "They burn extra hot because our bond is extra special!"
Kokabiel managed to extinguish the worst of the flames, but his armor was blackened and cracked, his wings singed and smoking. He glared at us with pure, undiluted hatred.
"You... you dare..." he snarled, his voice ragged.
"Oh, I dare!" Serafall laughed, her aura spiking dramatically. The air around her dropped in temperature so rapidly that ice crystals formed on my eyelashes. "I dare very much, Koko-chan! And now..." She raised her wand, the heart-shaped tip glowing with a blinding kaleidoscope of colors. "It's time for the finisher!"
The magic that gathered around her was unlike anything I had felt before. It wasn't just ice, wasn't just demonic power. It was something else—something that sparkled and shimmered with every color of the rainbow, infused with the essence of Serafall's ridiculous, wonderful, utterly unique personality.
"SPARKLY LEVIA-TAN BLASTER!" she screamed, her voice pitched in the exaggerated, theatrical tone of her magical girl persona.
A beam of pure, concentrated magical energy erupted from the tip of her wand. It was massive—easily ten feet in diameter—and it shimmered with every color imaginable as it screamed across the sky. Rainbow light painted the clouds in its wake, leaving trails of frost and flowers and tiny, sparkling stars.
It was the most ridiculous attack I had ever seen.
It was also devastatingly effective.
The beam caught Kokabiel square in the chest before he could even think about dodging. The impact was catastrophic. His hastily raised barrier shattered like glass. His armor crumpled like tinfoil. His body was lifted off the air and sent hurtling backward at incredible speed, a dark speck against the rainbow trail of Serafall's attack.
He flew over the stadium, over the grounds, over the edge of the Forbidden Forest, disappearing into the distance with a fading scream of fury and pain.
"After him, Harry!" Serafall shouted, already moving. Her wings beat against the air, propelling her forward in pursuit.
I didn't need to be told twice.
I tucked my own wings and dove after her, the wind roaring in my ears as I pushed my body to its limits. The ground blurred beneath us—the stadium shrinking to a toy, the forest expanding into an endless sea of dark green—as we chased the wounded Fallen Angel toward wherever he had landed.
My heart was pounding, my blood singing with adrenaline and lingering power. The Veela fire still flickered at my fingertips, eager to be unleashed again. Beside me, my mother flew with the grace and speed of a being who had spent millennia perfecting the art of aerial combat.
We were going to end this. Together.
Kokabiel had made the mistake of threatening my family. Now he was going to learn exactly why that was a very, very bad idea.
– Sona –
Sona Sitri prided herself on maintaining her composure in any situation. As the heiress of a prestigious devil clan and a future leader of the Underworld's younger generation, she had been trained from birth to project an image of calm, collected authority. Emotions were tools to be wielded strategically, not weaknesses to be displayed for all to see.
But even her legendary self-control had limits.
How, she thought to herself, her left eye twitching almost imperceptibly behind her glasses, do their outfits never survive whenever they are fighting?
Her gaze had drifted—entirely against her will—toward Rias Gremory and Akeno Himejima, who were stationed about thirty feet to her left near the Hufflepuff section of the stands. The two of them were fighting magnificently, she had to admit. Rias's crimson hair whipped around her face like a banner of war as she hurled sphere after sphere of pure Destruction magic into the sky, each blast erasing Fallen Angels from existence with casual efficiency. Akeno flanked her King, her expression twisted into that unsettling smile she always wore in combat, violet lightning arcing from her fingertips in brilliant, branching streams that caught diving attackers and sent them plummeting to the earth as smoking, twitching husks.
They were powerful. They were effective. They were turning the tide of battle in their section of the stadium alongside the rest of Rias' Peerage.
They were also, Sona noted with a mixture of exasperation and reluctant admiration, almost completely topless.
At some point during the chaos—probably when that cluster of Fallen Angels had coordinated an explosive barrage against their position—both of their outfits had taken critical damage. Rias's Hogwarts uniform had been reduced to little more than a tattered skirt and the remnants of a white blouse that hung open, doing absolutely nothing to contain her generous assets. The expensive bra she had been wearing underneath had apparently been incinerated entirely, leaving her pale, bouncing breasts fully exposed to the cool Scottish air.
Akeno's situation was somehow even more scandalous. Her uniform had been shredded down to scraps of black fabric that clung to her hips and absolutely nothing else. She fought completely bare from the waist up, her equally impressive chest heaving with each breath, her nipples hardened to stiff peaks by the combination of cold wind and combat adrenaline.
Neither of them seemed to care in the slightest.
Every time Rias thrust her hand forward to launch another Destruction blast, her breasts jiggled dramatically with the motion. Every time Akeno raised her arms to direct her lightning, her chest bounced and swayed in a way that seemed almost choreographed for maximum visual impact. They fought with complete focus and intensity, utterly unbothered by their state of undress.
Sona, meanwhile, was extremely bothered.
Not because she was a prude—she had seen plenty of naked bodies in the Underworld, where attitudes toward physical modesty were considerably more relaxed than in the human world. No, what bothered her was the audience.
Because despite the ongoing attack by literal angels of death, despite the explosions and screams and falling bodies, there was a small but noticeable cluster of male students who had not fled to safety. They huddled near one of the exit tunnels, wands clutched uselessly in their hands, their eyes fixed not on the battle raging in the sky but on the two half-naked devil women fighting in the stands.
Sona recognized a few of them. Cormac McLaggen, his jaw hanging slack, a thin line of drool actually visible at the corner of his mouth. A group of sixth-year Ravenclaws who should have known better. Several Durmstrang students who had apparently decided that ogling was more important than evacuating.
Idiots, Sona thought venomously. Complete and utter idiots. We're in the middle of a warzone and they're treating this like a free peep show.
She was half-tempted to redirect one of her water attacks toward them—not to kill, just to knock some sense into their hormone-addled brains—but she restrained herself. There were more important targets that required her attention.
A flash of movement in her peripheral vision snapped her focus back to the battle. A Fallen Angel with four black wings had broken through the outer defenses and was diving toward the Ravenclaw section, a lightspear crackling in his grip. His eyes were locked on a cluster of younger students who hadn't managed to evacuate yet, his expression twisted with sadistic anticipation.
Sona's hand came up and a Sitri magic circle flared to life in front of her palm. A jet of high-pressure water screamed across the stands, catching the Fallen Angel mid-dive. The impact was brutal—she heard the crack of breaking bones even from this distance—and the attacker was sent spinning into the stone wall of the stadium, his lightspear dissolving into harmless sparks.
He slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood, and didn't get up.
Sona didn't spare him a second glance. Her attention was already shifting, scanning the chaotic battlefield for the next threat. Her mind worked in rapid calculations, tracking trajectories and threat levels, prioritizing targets based on their proximity to vulnerable students.
This was what she was good at. Strategy. Assessment. Control.
Her gaze swept toward her own peerage members, and she felt a small measure of relief settle into her chest when she confirmed they were both still fighting effectively.
Tsubaki Shinra, her Queen, stood near the edge of the Ravenclaw section with her sacred gear activated. The Mirror Alice manifested as a large, ornate mirror that hovered beside her, its surface rippling like liquid silver. A Fallen Angel hurled a lightspear directly at her chest—a killing blow if it landed—but Tsubaki didn't even flinch.
The mirror's surface flashed, and the lightspear vanished into the reflection.
Half a second later, it erupted out of the mirror, traveling in the exact opposite direction at twice the original speed!
The Fallen Angel who had thrown it barely had time to register what was happening before his own weapon punched through his chest. His eyes went wide with shock, a gurgling sound escaping his lips, and then he was falling, tumbling end over end until he crashed into the pile of bodies that had accumulated on the pitch below.
Sona allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. Tsubaki's sacred gear was devastatingly effective against ranged attackers. The Fallen Angels relied heavily on their lightspears, which made them perfect prey for a weapon that could reflect any attack back at its source.
That's at least the twelfth one she's taken down with that trick, Sona noted mentally. They should have learned by now not to target her directly.
But the Fallen Angels, for all their age and supposed wisdom, seemed incapable of adapting their tactics. They kept throwing lightspears, kept diving in predictable attack patterns, kept falling to the same counterattacks over and over again.
It was almost disappointing, really. Sona had expected more from warriors who had supposedly fought in the Great War.
Her attention shifted to her other active peerage member—Luna Lovegood, the newest addition to her household.
The blonde Ravenclaw was positioned near a group of younger students, her wand raised, her pretty silver eyes scanning the sky with an expression of dreamy focus that somehow managed to look both serene and intensely alert at the same time. She wasn't as powerful as the other fighters—she was a newly reincarnated devil, her powers still developing, her magical reserves a fraction of what they would eventually become.
But she was brave.
As Sona watched, a Fallen Angel broke through Rossweisse's barrier, diving toward the students Luna was protecting. The creature's face was twisted with malice, a lightspear forming in his grip.
Luna didn't run. She didn't freeze.
She stepped forward, placing herself directly between the attacker and the children behind her, and raised her wand with steady hands.
"Stupefy!"
The red bolt of magic caught the Fallen Angel in the face.
Sona felt a warm glow of pride settle in her chest.
She was the right choice, she thought firmly. When she had first decided to release the girls from her peerage back in Kuoh—Momo, Reya, Ruruko, and the others—it had been a difficult decision. They weren't bad people. They weren't incompetent. But there had always been a... distance between them. A formality that never quite relaxed into genuine friendship. They served her out of obligation and ambition, not out of true loyalty or affection.
Luna was different.
Luna was strange, yes. Her conversations wandered into bizarre tangents about creatures that may or may not exist. Her observations often seemed disconnected from reality. She wore radish earrings and read magazines upside down and spoke with a dreamy cadence that made some people dismiss her as mentally unstable.
But beneath that eccentric exterior was a core of steel. A girl who had faced isolation and mockery for years and never let it break her spirit. A girl who saw the world differently than everyone else and refused to apologize for it. A girl who, when faced with a life-or-death battle against literal angels, stepped forward to protect those weaker than herself without a moment's hesitation.
Sona respected that. More than respected it—she admired it.
A massive surge of magical energy suddenly flooded Sona's senses, overwhelming in its intensity. Her head snapped upward, eyes widening behind her glasses.
A beam of light erupted across the sky. It shimmered with every color of the rainbow, sparkling and glittering like it was made of crushed gemstones and childhood dreams. It painted the clouds in brilliant hues of pink and blue and purple, leaving trails of frost and tiny, twinkling stars in its wake.
Sona recognized that magical signature instantly.
Onee-sama.
A smile—a genuine, relieved, proud smile—spread across Sona's face.
Serafall Leviathan's signature attack, the Sparkly Levia-tan Blaster, screamed across the heavens. It caught the leader of the Fallen Angel force—the ten-winged general who had been matching her sister blow for blow—and sent him hurtling across the sky towards the forbidden forest. His scream of fury and pain echoed across the sky as he flew, growing fainter and fainter until it vanished entirely.
Onee-sama is finally winning!
Serafall was a Satan, one of the four rulers of the Underworld, a being of almost incomprehensible power. The only reason she had been struggling against Kokabiel was that ridiculous Sacred Gear he had somehow acquired—the Boosted Gear, if Sona's intelligence was correct. Without it, a ten-winged Fallen Angel would have been little more than a momentary annoyance to someone of her sister's caliber.
On top of that, Sona saw Harry in the sky flying after her older sister! Sona would have to properly scold him for being so reckless later! But she was glad he was alright and very proud of him.
As if responding to that shift in the tide, the battle around Sona began to change.
With most of the human students finally evacuated from the stands—herded away by prefects and professors who had prioritized civilian safety over combat—the supernatural fighters could stop holding back.
The restraint they had been exercising, the careful modulation of their attacks to avoid collateral damage, was no longer necessary. Sona felt the change in the air immediately. The ambient magical pressure spiked as devil after devil released the limiters they had been maintaining.
Above her, two figures who had been fighting defensively suddenly exploded into aggressive action.
Lilja Nornas—Harry's Queen spread her new devil wings and launched herself into the sky like a silver missile. The sword in her hand blazed with runic light as she carved through the Fallen Angel formation, each swing precise and lethal.
Three Fallen Angels fell in as many seconds, their bodies tumbling toward the earth in pieces.
Rossweisse—the silver-haired Valkyrie who was apparently Lilja's older sister—stopped focusing exclusively on defense. The massive barrier she had been maintaining over the stadium flickered and thinned slightly as she redirected her power toward offense. Magic circles erupted around her in a dizzying array—dozens of them, each a different color, each containing a different spell. They hung in the air like a constellation of destruction, spinning slowly as Rossweisse's eyes swept across the battlefield.
Then she began to cast.
The spell she unleashed wasn't a single attack. It was a barrage. Beams of light, bolts of fire, lances of ice, spheres of compressed force—they erupted from her magic circles in a continuous stream, each one tracking a different target with unerring precision.
It was anti-siege magic, Sona realized, the kind of large-scale battle spells that Valkyries were famous for. Spells designed to break enemy formations, to turn the tide of wars, to annihilate entire armies.
Fallen Angels began dropping from the sky like flies, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming fire. They tried to dodge, tried to raise barriers, tried to scatter and regroup, but Rossweisse's targeting was too precise, her rate of fire too relentless. For every attack they blocked, three more slipped through.
Ultimate Class, Sona assessed, watching the carnage with clinical appreciation. She's definitely Ultimate Class. Maybe even pushing toward the bottom ranks of Satan Class. No wonder Asgard considered her their greatest Valkyrie in a millennium.
And then there was Dumbledore.
Sona's gaze drifted toward the judges' platform, where the ancient Headmaster of Hogwarts stood like a pillar. His wand was tracing complex patterns through the air as he dueled three Fallen Angels simultaneously.
She had expected him to be powerful. He was the wizard who ran the school after all, and the man that even Harry's enemy Voldemort supposedly feared to face directly. What she had not expected was the sheer magnitude of what she was witnessing.
Dumbledore wasn't just powerful for a human. He was powerful by devil standards. When he slashed his wand through the air, the resulting spell didn't just attack his opponents—it dominated them, overwhelming their defenses through sheer magical pressure.
A whip of pure white fire lashed out, catching two Fallen Angels and hurling them away from the students they had been targeting. A barrier of shimmering golden light intercepted a volley of lightspears, absorbing them harmlessly. A bolt of crimson energy struck a diving attacker and sent him spiraling into the pitch, unconscious or dead.
High-Class Devil equivalent, Sona calculated, adjusting her mental assessment upward. Upper High-Class, pushing toward Ultimate. For a human—a mortal human who will die of old age eventually—that's absolutely extraordinary.
She found herself reluctantly impressed. The wizarding world clearly had more depth than she had initially given it credit for.
A Fallen Angel tried to take advantage of her distraction, diving toward her with a lightspear raised. Sona didn't even look at him directly. A flick of her wrist and a sphere of water enveloped his head. He clawed at it uselessly, drowning in mid-air, before Tsubaki's reflected lightspear punched through his back and ended his struggles permanently.
Sona allowed herself a small, satisfied smile as she surveyed the battlefield.
The tide had turned. The Fallen Angels were breaking!
Their leader had been driven off by Serafall. Their elite eight-winged warriors were being systematically dismantled by Sona's parents and the Valkyrie sisters. Their rank-and-file four-winged soldiers were being slaughtered by devils and witches and wizards who had finally stopped holding back.
It was only a matter of time now.
We're going to win, Sona thought, the certainty settling into her bones. We're going to break them, and then we're going to hunt down every last one who dared to attack our school.
Her eyes drifted upward, toward the distant streak of rainbow light that marked where Serafall's attack had sent Kokabiel flying. Somewhere out there, her sister and Harry were pursuing the wounded general, ready to finish what they had started.
Be careful, Onee-sama. Be careful, Harry.
She pushed the worry aside and returned her attention to the battle in front of her. There were still enemies to defeat, still students to protect, still a war to win.
Sona Sitri adjusted her glasses, raised her hand, and got back to work.
– Serafall –
Serafall glanced back at her son as they streaked through the cold Scottish sky, and despite everything—despite the battle raging behind them, despite the wounded enemy ahead, despite the lives hanging in the balance—she couldn't help but smile.
Harry flew beside her with a determination that made her heart swell with maternal pride. His devil wings beat powerfully against the air, each stroke propelling him forward with surprising speed for someone who had only discovered his heritage a few months ago. His shirt was in tatters, hanging off his muscular frame in ragged strips that did absolutely nothing to hide the sculpted planes of his chest and abdomen. Soot and blood smeared his handsome face, and there was a wild, fierce light in his blue eyes that reminded her so much of herself when she was young and hungry for battle.
My beautiful boy, she thought, her smile widening into something fierce and possessive. Look at him. He's magnificent.
But the smile faded as her gaze shifted forward, her expression hardening into the cold mask of Satan Leviathan. There would be time for pride later. Time for celebration, for rewards, for all the delicious things she had planned to do with Harry and Sona once this mess was cleaned up.
Right now, she had a job to finish.
Kokabiel's smoking form came into view through the thinning clouds.
The Fallen Angel general had crashed into a clearing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, his impact carving a deep furrow through the ancient trees. Centuries-old oaks had been snapped like twigs, their massive trunks scattered across the forest floor like discarded toys. Kokabiel himself knelt at the center of the devastation, his ten black wings hanging limp and singed behind him, his ornate armor cracked and blackened from the force of her Sparkly Levia-tan Blaster.
He wasn't so cocky now.
Gone was the sneering confidence, the theatrical pronouncements about being the Star of God and slaughterer of armies. In its place was something far more satisfying—raw, undisguised pain.
Kokabiel's face was twisted in agony and humiliation, his bloodshot eyes bulging with impotent fury as he struggled to push himself upright. Smoke curled from the gaps in his ruined armor, and Serafall could smell the acrid stench of burned feathers and scorched flesh even from fifty feet above.
Good, she thought viciously. That's what you get for threatening my family!
Serafall and Harry descended in tandem, their wings carrying them down to hover just above the treeline.
Kokabiel's head snapped up as they approached, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a snarl of pure hatred. "You... you fucking cunts!" he spat, his voice raw and ragged. "You think this changes anything? You think you've won?" He lurched to his feet, swaying unsteadily, one hand pressed against a deep gash in his side that oozed thick, golden ichor. "I am Kokabiel! I am eternal! I have survived worse than this! I will tear you apart, I will rip out your hearts, I will—"
SPLOOOSH!
A high-pressure blast of water slammed into Kokabiel's face with the force of a fire hose, cutting off his tirade mid-syllable. The impact snapped his head back violently, sending him staggering several steps before his weakened legs gave out entirely. He collapsed onto his back in the mud, sputtering and choking, his dignity thoroughly demolished.
Serafall blinked, then burst into delighted giggles.
She turned to Harry, who was hovering beside her with his palm still extended, a satisfied smirk playing at the corners of his lips. Water dripped from his fingertips, the remnants of the attack he had just unleashed with such perfect, comedic timing.
"Harry-kun!" Serafall pouted playfully. "You shut him up right when he was getting to the best villain monologue part!"
Although villain monologues were fun on her TV show, they were kind of mean in real life!
Below them, Kokabiel was struggling back to his feet, water streaming down his face, his expression somehow even uglier than before. The humiliation of being interrupted—of being treated like a joke rather than a threat—seemed to burn him worse than any physical wound.
"You... you dare..." he hissed, his voice trembling with barely contained rage. "You dare mock me? ME?!"
"We dare very much, Koko-chan!" Serafall called down cheerfully, twirling her wand between her fingers. "You're not scary anymore! You're just sad and wet and beaten!"
"I AM NOT BEATEN!" Kokabiel's scream echoed through the forest, scattering birds from their roosts and sending small creatures fleeing into the underbrush. His aura flared violently, corrupted golden light erupting around his battered form with renewed intensity. The air pressure in the clearing spiked, heavy and oppressive, as he gathered what remained of his power.
And then he raised his right arm.
The Boosted Gear gleamed in the dim forest light, its green gem pulsing with an ominous, rhythmic glow. The red dragon-shaped gauntlet looked almost alive, the metallic scales shifting and writhing as if something ancient and terrible lurked within.
Serafall's playful demeanor evaporated instantly.
Oh no.
"BALANCE BREAKER!" Kokabiel roared, his voice cracking with desperate fury.
Serafall's heart seized in her chest. She had been in enough battles, faced enough Sacred Gear wielders, to know exactly what those words meant. Balance Breaker was the ultimate state of a Sacred Gear—the point where its power transcended all normal limitations and achieved something close to divine. For the Boosted Gear specifically, it meant the Scale Mail—a full-body armor forged from Ddraig's power that could boost its wearer's abilities to truly godlike levels.
If Kokabiel achieved Balance Breaker now, wounded and desperate and backed into a corner, he would become exponentially more dangerous. The power multiplication wouldn't just heal his injuries—it would amplify his already formidable abilities to the point where even she might struggle to contain him without unleashing her true form!
And she couldn't do that. Not here. Not with Hogwarts and Hogsmeade so close. Not with thousands of innocent lives that would be frozen to death if she let the Satan Leviathan fully manifest.
I have to stop him, she thought frantically, already gathering her power for a preemptive strike. I have to stop him before he—
But then something unexpected happened. Instead of the crimson light of the Scale Mail erupting around Kokabiel's body, the Fallen Angel general doubled over with a violent, hacking cough. Blood sprayed from his lips, splattering across the muddy ground in thick, glistening globs. His wings spasmed erratically, and his legs buckled beneath him, sending him crashing to his knees in the devastated clearing.
"What..." Kokabiel gasped, his eyes going wide with shock and pain. "What the fuck... what's happening...?"
The Boosted Gear pulsed again, but this time the green gem flickered with an angry, unstable light. And then, for the first time since the battle began, the gauntlet spoke.
Not the mechanical BOOST announcement that had been echoing throughout their fight. This was something different—something older and far more furious.
"You dare."
Serafall's breath caught in her throat.
She knew that voice. Every supernatural being worth their salt knew that voice. It was the voice of Ddraig, the Red Dragon Emperor, the Welsh Dragon, one of the two Heavenly Dragons whose battle had once threatened to destroy the world itself. A being so powerful that the combined forces of God, the Four Satans, and the Fallen Angel leaders had been forced to work together just to seal him away.
And he sounded absolutely furious.
"You murdered my host," Ddraig growled, the words reverberating through the clearing with physical force. The trees around them trembled, leaves shaking loose from their branches. "A boy. A child. Seventeen years old! He had dreams, ambitions, a life ahead of him. And you slaughtered him like cattle, just to steal the power that was rightfully his!"
Kokabiel's face had gone pale, his earlier bravado crumbling into something that looked almost like fear. "The boy was weak," he spat, though his voice wavered. "He didn't deserve the Boosted Gear! He would have wasted its potential! I am a warrior! I am—"
"You are nothing."
The gem pulsed again, and Kokabiel screamed. It wasn't a scream of physical pain—not entirely. It was something deeper, something more fundamental.
Serafall had seen enough soul-based attacks in her long life to recognize what was happening. Ddraig wasn't just speaking to Kokabiel. He was attacking him from the inside, using the connection of the Sacred Gear to strike directly at the Fallen Angel's spiritual essence.
"STOP!" Kokabiel howled, clawing at the gauntlet with his free hand, trying desperately to tear it off. "STOP IT! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
"You thought you could control me," Ddraig continued, his voice cold and merciless. "You thought that killing my partner and grafting my prison onto your flesh would make you my master. Fool. I am Ddraig. I am the Red Dragon Emperor. I have existed since before your pathetic faction fell from grace. I will not serve a murderer. I will not grant my power to the creature who slaughtered an innocent child for his own ambition!"
The gem flared again, brighter this time, and Kokabiel convulsed as if he had been struck by lightning. More ichor sprayed from his mouth, his eyes rolling back in his head, his wings thrashing uselessly against the ground.
"You will never achieve Balance Breaker. You will never wield my true power. And when you die—and you will die, here, today—I will make certain your soul suffers for eternity."
Serafall stared at the scene below, her mind racing to process what she was witnessing. In all her centuries of existence, she had never seen a Sacred Gear rebel against its wielder so completely.
But Ddraig wasn't just any Sacred Gear. He was a Heavenly Dragon, a being of almost limitless power and equally limitless pride. And apparently, he drew the line at having his host murdered and his essence stolen by a warmongering Fallen Angel.
Well, Serafall thought, a slow smile spreading across her face, that certainly simplifies things.
She opened her mouth to say something witty, to capitalize on the moment with one of her trademark quips, but Harry was faster.
Her son didn't hesitate. He didn't wait for Kokabiel to recover. The instant Ddraig's second attack sent the Fallen Angel convulsing to the ground, Harry moved.
He dove from his hovering position like a falcon stooping on prey, his devil wings tucked tight against his back, his body streamlined for maximum speed. In the span of a heartbeat, he had closed the distance between them, the wind screaming past his face as he plummeted toward the vulnerable enemy below.
Water coalesced around his right hand as he fell, drawn from the moisture in the air, from the damp forest floor, from the very clouds above. By the time Harry reached striking distance, he was holding a blade of pure, pressurized water—a sword so dense and sharp that it hummed with lethal potential that even made her whistle.
Kokabiel saw him coming. The Fallen Angel's eyes, still glazed with pain from Ddraig's assault, widened in alarm. He tried to raise his arms, tried to summon a barrier of light, tried to do something—anything—to defend himself.
He was too slow.
Harry's water sword came down in a vicious, diagonal arc, the blade singing through the air with a high-pitched whine. It caught Kokabiel at the junction where his uppermost right wing met his back, slicing through feather and flesh and bone with horrifying ease.
The wing came free in a spray of dark blood and stray black feathers.
Kokabiel's scream was unlike anything Serafall had heard from him before. It wasn't a scream of rage or defiance or theatrical villainy. It was a scream of pure, animal agony—the sound of a creature experiencing a violation so fundamental that it transcended mere physical pain. For a Fallen Angel, their wings were more than just appendages. They were manifestations of their divine nature, physical proof of their celestial origin.
To lose one was to lose a piece of their very identity.
The severed wing tumbled through the air, black feathers scattering like dark snow, before landing in the mud with a wet, heavy thump.
Harry didn't stop to admire his handiwork. He was already spinning, already repositioning, his water sword reforming for another strike. His blue eyes blazed with cold, merciless intent—eyes that reminded Serafall so much of her own when she was in the depths of battle.
That's my boy, she thought, fierce pride swelling in her chest alongside something hotter.And then her own battle instincts kicked back in.
She launched herself downward, her wand raised high, demonic power surging through her veins. The playful magical girl was gone, replaced entirely by the Satan who had helped end the Great War, who had frozen armies solid with a thought, who was considered the strongest female devil in existence for very good reason.
"Let's finish this together, Harry-kun!" she shouted, her voice ringing with savage joy.
Ice erupted from her wand in a cascading wave, crystalline spears forming in mid-air and hurtling toward Kokabiel's prone form. At the same time, Harry pressed his attack, his water sword flashing as he went for another wing.
Kokabiel tried to fight back. Even wounded, even crippled, even with a Heavenly Dragon actively sabotaging him from within, he was still a Cadre-class Fallen Angel with millennia of combat experience. Lightspears materialized in his hands, golden and crackling with corrupt holy energy. He hurled them at his attackers with desperate fury, trying to create space, trying to buy time, trying to do anything that might let him escape this nightmare.
But he was outnumbered, outpowered, and thoroughly outmaneuvered.
Serafall's ice spears shattered his lightspears before they could reach their targets, the frozen projectiles detonating the holy constructs in mid-air. Harry ducked under a wild swing, his enhanced devil reflexes letting him read Kokabiel's movements like a book, and retaliated with a slash that opened a deep gash across the Fallen Angel's chest.
They worked together seamlessly, mother and son, as if they had been fighting side by side for years. When Serafall went high, Harry went low. When she pressed the attack, he covered her flank. When Kokabiel tried to focus on one of them, the other would strike from an unexpected angle.
It was beautiful, in its own violent way. A dance of destruction choreographed by blood and instinct.
Another wing fell. Then another. Kokabiel's screams grew hoarse, his movements sluggish, his once-proud form reduced to a bleeding, mutilated wreck. The Boosted Gear on his arm had gone dark, Ddraig's gem dull and lifeless, the dragon apparently content to watch his captor suffer.
Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, Serafall called a halt on their attack.
"Harry-kun, stop!"
Her son froze mid-swing, his water sword inches from Kokabiel's throat.
Serafall floated down to land beside them, her pink boots squelching slightly in the blood-soaked mud. She looked down at Kokabiel—at the creature who had dared to attack her family, her entire world—and felt nothing but cold satisfaction.
The Fallen Angel general lay in the ruins of the forest clearing, his body broken beyond recognition. Seven of his ten wings had been severed, the stumps oozing blood. His armor was in pieces, scattered across the ground like discarded trash. Deep gashes crisscrossed his flesh, some from Harry's water blade, others from her ice magic. He was breathing in shallow, rattling gasps, his eyes unfocused, his face slack with shock and blood loss.
He wasn't dead. Not yet. But he was very, very close.
"Why... why stop?" Harry asked, his voice rough. "He deserves to die. He tried to kill everyone we care about."
Serafall smiled, reaching out to cup her son's cheek with one hand. Her thumb brushed away a smear of enemy blood, gentle despite the violence they had just committed together.
"Oh, he's definitely going to die, Harry-kun," she assured him, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. "But not yet. First, he's going to answer some questions for me and my Queen, Behe-tan, back in the underworld!"
A few minutes later…
Serafall's beautiful, stacked blonde Queen and secretary, Behemoth, had appeared in the forest clearing mere minutes ago. The tall woman had taken one look at Kokabiel's broken, bleeding form, nodded once to her King, and efficiently teleported away with the prisoner in tow. No questions, no commentary, just the quiet competence that made Behemoth invaluable. She would ensure the Fallen Angel general was secured in the deepest, most escape-proof cell the Underworld had to offer, ready for interrogation whenever Serafall got around to it.
Which wouldn't be for a while. Serafall had other priorities right now.
She stood in the ruined clearing with her son, surrounded by the devastation of their battle. Fallen trees lay scattered like broken matchsticks, their ancient trunks splintered and torn. The ground was churned into a mess of mud and golden ichor, black feathers drifting lazily on the cold breeze. The coppery scent of blood hung heavy in the air, mingling with the sharper smell of ozone from discharged magic.
None of it mattered.
All that mattered was Harry.
He stood a few feet away from her, his chest heaving with exertion, his bare torso gleaming with sweat in the dim forest light. His shirt had been completely destroyed at some point during the fighting—she couldn't remember exactly when, but she certainly wasn't complaining about the result. Every breath he took made the muscles of his abdomen flex and shift, the hard planes of his pectorals rising and falling in a rhythm that Serafall found utterly hypnotic.
He was covered in the evidence of battle. Soot smeared across his cheekbones. A thin cut on his jaw that had already stopped bleeding. Spatters of golden ichor—Kokabiel's blood—marking his skin like war paint. His black hair was wild and disheveled, falling across his forehead in damp strands that made her fingers itch to brush them aside.
He looked like a warrior. A conqueror. A devil prince who had just helped defeat one of the most dangerous Fallen Angels in existence.
He looked absolutely edible.
Harry caught her looking. Of course he did. And instead of being embarrassed or flustered, the beautiful boy grinned right back at her—a cocky, confident expression that sent a bolt of liquid heat straight to her core.
That was all the invitation Serafall needed.
She moved.
One moment she was standing several feet away, admiring the view. The next, she had crossed the distance between them in a blur of supernatural speed, her body slamming into his with enough force to drive him backward. Harry's back hit the trunk of one of the few trees still standing in the clearing, the impact hard enough to shake loose a shower of leaves from the branches above.
He didn't even have time to gasp before her mouth was on his.
Serafall kissed him like she was starving for it—because she was. She had been starving for this since the moment the attack began, since she had been forced to put aside her plans and her desires to deal with Kokabiel's idiotic invasion. Every second of that battle, every exchange of blows with that ugly, arrogant Fallen Angel, she had been thinking about this. About getting Harry alone. About finally, finally claiming the reward she had earned.
Her lips moved against his with desperate hunger, hot and wet and demanding. She didn't bother with gentle or teasing—there would be time for that later. Right now, she needed to taste him, to feel him, to remind herself that he was alive and whole and here with her.
Her tongue pushed past his lips without waiting for permission, plundering the warmth of his mouth with aggressive enthusiasm. She found his tongue and sucked on it greedily, drawing a low groan from deep in his chest that vibrated against her own body. The sound was intoxicating—better than any wine, any drug, any pleasure she had experienced in her long, long life.
Her hands moved constantly as they kissed, roaming across the bare expanse of his chest with greedy exploration. She traced the hard ridges of his abdominal muscles, feeling them twitch and flex under her touch. She dragged her nails lightly across his pectorals, leaving faint pink lines on his skin. She found his nipples, already peaked from the cold air, and pinched them just hard enough to make him jerk against her.
He pouted at her for that one, making her giggle even more lustfully! "Sorry~" she only broke the kiss for a second to say that, and then her lips mashed against his again.
The adrenaline from the battle was still coursing through her veins, mixing with the arousal that had been building since the moment Harry flew up to protect her in the sky. That moment—watching her son place himself between her and danger, hearing him roar at Kokabiel to get away from his mother—had done something to her. Something primal and possessive and deeply, inappropriately turned on.
She needed release. She needed it now!
Without breaking the kiss this time, Serafall grabbed Harry's thigh and pulled it up between her legs. His muscular leg slid under her short pink skirt, pressing against her most intimate area, and she shuddered at the contact.
She wasn't wearing panties. She rarely wore panties—they were uncomfortable and got in the way and besides, she liked the feeling of freedom beneath her magical girl costume. Right now, that preference was paying dividends, because there was nothing between Harry's bare thigh and her dripping wet pussy except heated skin.
She ground down against him immediately, her hips rolling in a desperate, instinctive motion. The friction of his leg against her swollen folds sent sparks of pleasure shooting up her spine, and she moaned into his mouth, the sound muffled by their ongoing kiss.
Yes. This was what she needed!
She kept grinding, her movements growing more urgent, more frantic. Her slick arousal coated his thigh, making each roll of her hips smoother, easier, more delicious. The hard muscle of his leg provided the perfect resistance, letting her angle herself so that her sensitive clit dragged across his skin with every thrust.
Harry's hands had found her hips at some point, his strong fingers digging into the flesh of her ass through the thin fabric of her skirt. He wasn't just letting her use him—he was helping, guiding her movements, pulling her down harder against his thigh with each grind. The pressure was exquisite, building and building with every second.
Their kiss had devolved into something messy and uncoordinated, more panting breaths and clashing tongues than any kind of technique. Serafall didn't care. She was too far gone to care about anything except the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in her lower belly, the pressure building toward an inevitable explosion.
It had only been a minute—maybe less—since she'd pushed him against the tree. But Serafall was so wound up, so desperate, so completely overwhelmed by the combination of battle-high and finally having Harry alone and willing in her arms, that she could already feel herself teetering on the edge.
She broke the kiss with a gasp, her head falling back, her eyes squeezing shut. Her hips stuttered in their rhythm, grinding down harder, faster, chasing the peak that was so close she could taste it.
"Harry," she panted, his name falling from her lips like a prayer. "Harry, I'm—oh fuck, I'm going to—"
The orgasm crashed through her like a tidal wave!
Her whole body seized, muscles locking tight as pleasure exploded outward from her core. Her thighs clamped around Harry's leg, trapping him in place as she rode out the intense waves of sensation. A high, keening moan tore from her throat, echoing through the ruined forest clearing—a sound of pure, unrestrained ecstasy.
She shuddered against him, her hips jerking in helpless little movements as the aftershocks rippled through her. Her fingers dug into his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises, anchoring herself against the overwhelming tide of sensation. Behind her closed eyelids, stars exploded in brilliant bursts of color!
It felt like it went on forever. It felt like it was over too soon.
Finally, finally, the pleasure began to ebb, leaving her trembling and breathless in Harry's arms. Her forehead dropped to rest against his shoulder, her chest heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. Between her legs, she could feel the slick mess she had made of his thigh, her arousal coating his skin in a warm, wet evidence of just how hard she had come.
"Fuck," Serafall breathed, the word coming out as a shaky laugh. "Oh, fuck. I really needed that."
She could feel Harry's chest rumbling with quiet laughter beneath her. His hands were still on her hips, holding her steady, his thumbs tracing gentle circles against her hip bones through the fabric of her skirt.
"Yeah," he said, his voice rough and a little strained. "I, uh. I noticed."
Serafall lifted her head to look at him, a lazy, satisfied smile spreading across her flushed face. Her blue eyes were half-lidded, hazy with post-orgasmic bliss, but there was still a sharp hunger lurking in their depths.
Because that had been good—amazing, even, considering it had only taken a minute of desperate grinding against his thigh—but it wasn't nearly enough. Not after everything she had been through today. Not after weeks of interrupted attempts and near-misses and cosmic cockblocking.
She wanted more. She wanted everything.
"That," she said, her voice dropping to a low, sultry purr, "was just the teaser, Harry-kun."
She watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard, his blue eyes widening slightly.
"The... teaser?" he repeated, his voice cracking just a little on the word.
Serafall's smile widened into something predatory. She pressed closer to him, her breasts flattening against his bare chest, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear as she spoke.
"Mmhmm. Just a little appetizer to take the edge off." Her tongue darted out to trace the curve of his ear, and she felt him shiver against her. "The real thing comes later, when I get you and So-tan alone in my bedroom. And believe me, Harry-kun..." She nipped at his earlobe, her teeth sharp enough to sting. "I'm going to take my time. I'm going to make you feel so good you forget your own name. And then I'm going to do it again. And again. And again, until neither of you can walk straight for a week."
Harry gulped audibly.
Serafall pulled back just enough to see his face, delighting in the way his cheeks had flushed, the way his pupils had dilated until his blue eyes were almost black with desire. The bulge in his pants had grown even more prominent, straining against the fabric in a way that made her mouth water.
"But first," she said, forcing herself to step back despite every instinct screaming at her to drag him to the ground and have her way with him right here in the mud and blood, "we should probably check on everyone else. Make sure the battle's actually over. Let So-tan know we're okay."
She straightened her magical girl costume, smoothing down her skirt and adjusting her bodice with practiced ease. A small flex of demonic power cleaned the worst of the battle grime from her skin and clothes, leaving her looking almost pristine—except for the telltale flush on her cheeks and the satisfied gleam in her eyes.
"And then," she added, throwing a smoldering look over her shoulder at her still-dazed son, "we celebrate properly."
Harry pushed himself off the tree, visibly trying to compose himself. The tent in his pants made that somewhat difficult, and Serafall had to bite her lip to keep from giggling at his predicament.
"Right," he said, his voice still a little unsteady. "Check on everyone. Make sure no one's dead. Then... celebration."
"That's my good boy," Serafall cooed approvingly.
She grabbed his hand, interlacing their fingers, and began leading him back toward Hogwarts.
– Harry –
I held hands with Serafall as we walked through the Forbidden Forest, our pace leisurely and unhurried despite everything that had just happened. My devil wings had retracted back into my body, and without them, I felt almost normal again—just a guy taking a stroll through an ancient magical forest with his devil mother.
Well. "Normal" was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
Serafall had assured me that the fighting was over. She could sense it, she said—the signatures of the remaining Fallen Angels had either been extinguished or had fled beyond her detection range. The battle for Hogwarts was won. The school was safe.
I should have been relieved. And I was, mostly. But there was a knot of anxiety in my chest that wouldn't fully unwind until I saw them all with my own eyes. Sona, Rias, Hermione, the twins, Fleur and Gabrielle, Narcissa and Tonks, Lilja, Ginny, Jasmine, Ginny... the list of people I needed to check on was longer than I wanted to admit.
Somewhere along the line, my circle of "people I would kill for" had expanded dramatically.
That was probably going to be a problem eventually. But right now, I was too tired to worry about it.
Serafall pressed closer to me as we walked, her body warm against my side despite the cool forest air or the fact that she was known as the Maou of Ice. Her arm had snaked around my waist at some point, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my hip through what remained of my shredded clothing. Every few steps, she would "accidentally" brush against me in ways that were definitely not accidental—her breast pressing into my arm, her thigh sliding against mine.
She was doing it on purpose. I knew she was doing it on purpose. And from the smug little smile playing at the corners of her lips, she knew that I knew.
I couldn't help but gulp at the thought of what was coming. The "teaser" in the clearing had been... intense. It had left me painfully hard and desperately wanting more.
And she had made it very clear that more was exactly what she intended to deliver later with Sona included. I was going to die tonight. I was going to die of pleasure, and it was going to be the best death anyone had ever experienced.
But first, I needed to make sure everyone else was okay.
I needed to see them. I needed to confirm with my own eyes that they were safe, that the battle hadn't taken anyone from me.
The forest began to thin as we approached the edge, the ancient trees giving way to younger growth and then to open grassland. I could see the distant bulk of Hogwarts castle silhouetted against the grey sky, and beyond it, the Quidditch stadium where the Triwizard Tournament had gone so spectacularly wrong. Smoke still rose from several points around the grounds, and I could make out tiny figures moving in organized patterns—cleanup crews, probably, already starting to deal with the aftermath.
We were maybe fifty feet from the tree line when someone stumbled out of the brush directly in front of us.
I tensed immediately, my hand coming up, water already coalescing around my fingers in preparation for an attack. Beside me, I felt Serafall's aura spike, cold and deadly, her playful demeanor vanishing in an instant.
But the figure that emerged wasn't attacking. She was... stumbling. Staggering, really, like someone who had just woken up from being unconscious and wasn't quite sure where she was or what was happening.
She was a Fallen Angel. That much was obvious from the four black wings sprouting from her back, currently disheveled and askew, several feathers bent at odd angles. She was also, I noticed with the part of my brain that never seemed to stop cataloging attractive women, absolutely gorgeous.
Long black hair tumbled down her back in waves, slightly mussed but still lustrous. Her face was classically beautiful—high cheekbones, full lips, violet eyes that caught the dim light and seemed to glow. Her body was the kind of figure that would make supermodels weep with envy—generous breasts, a narrow waist, flared hips, and legs that went on forever.
She was also wearing what could only be described as a bondage outfit.
I blinked, momentarily thrown by the sheer audacity of her attire. It was black leather—of course it was black leather—consisting of straps and buckles that crisscrossed her torso in a pattern that seemed designed to highlight rather than conceal. Her breasts were barely contained by two triangular patches of material that left the inner and outer curves fully exposed. Her stomach was completely bare, the leather straps framing her toned abs like some kind of fetishistic picture frame. Below her waist, if you could call it that, was a skirt so short it was practically a belt, leaving her long legs completely exposed down to the thigh-high boots that completed the ensemble.
It looked like something out of a very specific kind of adult magazine. The kind that came in plain brown wrappers and required age verification to purchase.
Who the hell wears that to a battle? I thought incredulously. That's not armor. That's not even clothing. That's a cry for attention!
The Fallen Angel woman seemed to finally get her bearings. She straightened up, shaking her head to clear it, and her expression shifted from confused to furious in the span of a heartbeat. Her violet eyes locked onto us—onto me, specifically—and her beautiful face twisted into a mask of hatred. "Halt!" she commanded, her voice sharp and imperious. She thrust one hand toward us, a flickering lightspear beginning to form in her grip. "You damn humans! I don't know what's going on, but you're going to tell me exactly what I want to know!"
I raised an eyebrow but didn't lower my guard. Beside me, Serafall had gone very still, her head tilted slightly to one side like a cat watching a mouse that didn't realize it was already dead.
"My name is Raynare," the Fallen Angel continued, apparently mistaking our silence for fear. "I am a soldier of the Grigori, servant of Lord Kokabiel, and you pathetic creatures are going to answer my questions!" The lightspear in her hand solidified, crackling with purple energy. "That bastard Voldemort—the damn wizard with the snake face—he attacked me! Stunned me from behind like a coward while I was coordinating the ground assault!" Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Tell me where he went. Tell me where I can find him. And maybe—maybe—I'll let you live long enough to—"
Her words cut off abruptly.
She had finally looked—really looked—at the woman standing beside me.
I watched the recognition hit her like a physical blow. Her violet eyes went wide, the color draining from her face so fast I thought she might actually faint. The lightspear in her hand flickered and died, the energy dissipating into harmless sparks. Her wings, which had been spread in an aggressive display, snapped tight against her back in an instinctive gesture of submission.
"Oh fuck," Raynare breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. "The Maou Leviathan..."
She spun around so fast her hair whipped across her face, her wings beating frantically as she tried to launch herself into the air. It was a panic response, pure and simple—the desperate flight instinct of a prey animal that had just realized it was standing in front of an apex predator!
She made it about three feet off the ground.
Serafall snorted. She raised one hand in a casual gesture, barely more than a flick of her fingers, and the temperature in the clearing dropped so fast that my breath suddenly misted in front of my face.
Chains erupted from the frozen ground.
They were made of ice. They moved like living things, shooting upward to wrap around Raynare's ankles, her wrists, her wings, her waist. In less than a second, the fleeing Fallen Angel was yanked out of the air and slammed back down to earth, her body bound in an intricate web of glacial restraints.
The chains didn't just hold her—they positioned her. Her arms were pulled behind her back, wrists crossed and locked together. Her wings were pinned flat, each one individually wrapped in coils of ice that prevented even the slightest movement. Her legs were forced apart, ankles shackled to frozen stakes that had erupted from the ground, spreading her into a vulnerable, exposed position. A final chain wrapped around her throat like a collar, tight enough to restrict but not quite enough to choke.
The overall effect was... well. It was bondage. Explicit, deliberate, unmistakable bondage. The kind you'd see in the dungeons of very specialized clubs, performed by professionals who knew exactly what they were doing.
Raynare hung in her restraints, panting with fear and exertion, her earlier bravado completely shattered. Her leather outfit, already revealing, had shifted during the binding process, leaving even less to the imagination. One of her breasts had slipped partially free of its inadequate covering, the pale flesh marked with goosebumps from the cold.
I stared at the scene, momentarily at a loss for words.
Did Serafall just... did she seriously just tie up a prisoner in a bondage position?
I glanced at my mother, who was examining her handiwork with a satisfied smile. She caught my look and winked. "What?" she said innocently. "The restraints are more secure this way. It's a tactical choice."
"Uh huh," I managed, my voice flat with skepticism.
"It is!" Serafall insisted, though the mischievous glint in her blue eyes suggested she knew exactly how ridiculous that excuse was. "Besides, look at what she's wearing. She was clearly already into this sort of thing. I'm just... accommodating her preferences."
Raynare made a strangled sound of protest from her position on the ground, but the collar around her throat prevented her from forming actual words.
Serafall ignored her, turning to face me fully with a bright, cheerful expression that seemed wildly inappropriate given the circumstances. "Well!" she announced, clapping her hands together. "Looks like we caught ourselves one more little crow to interrogate!" She reached out and patted Raynare on the head like she was a misbehaving pet, drawing a muffled whimper from the bound Fallen Angel. "Isn't that nice, Harry-kun? She can share a cell next to Kokabiel. They can keep each other company while they wait for us to get around to questioning them!"
I looked at Raynare—terrified, bound, and helpless—and then back at my mother, who was radiating smug satisfaction. "You're enjoying this way too much," I observed.
"I'm enjoying this exactly the right amount," Serafall corrected primly. "She's part of the group that attacked my babies. She deserves much worse than some uncomfortable restraints." Her eyes hardened for just a moment, the playful Satan giving way to something older and far more dangerous. "She's lucky I'm in a good mood, or I'd be freezing her fun bits off instead of just tying her up."
Raynare whimpered again, clearly having heard every word.
I sighed, running a hand through my disheveled hair. "Fine. What do we do with her?"
Serafall's good humor returned instantly. She pulled out a small communication circle and spoke a few quick words into it.
Moments later, the air shimmered, and Behemoth appeared once again.
The tall blonde woman took one look at Raynare's bound form, raised a single elegant eyebrow, and then turned to Serafall with an expression of long-suffering resignation. "Another one, my King?"
"Another one!" Serafall confirmed happily. "Put her with the other prisoner. Make sure she's secure. And maybe give her a blanket or something. I don't want her freezing to death in our icy cells before we can question her about how she knows Voldemort!"
"As you command." Behemoth stepped forward, placed one hand on Raynare's shoulder, and vanished in another shimmer of teleportation magic. The ice chains went with them, leaving nothing but a few rapidly melting puddles to mark where the Fallen Angel had been captured.
And just like that, we were alone again.
Serafall immediately latched back onto my arm, pressing her body against mine with renewed enthusiasm. "Now then," she purred, her voice dropping into that low, sultry register that made my blood heat. "Where were we? Oh yes—going to check on everyone, and then..." She trailed off meaningfully, her fingers walking up my chest. "Celebration."
I swallowed hard.
It was going to be a long night…
XXX