Malerion sat alone in his office.
Lights dimmed.
Door locked.
The hum of the building vibrating gently through the floor.
A glass sat untouched beside him.
He wasn't here to drink.
Was here because, for the first time since arriving in this world,
his own mind refused to obey him.
And all of it…
all of it came from one person.
Verosika Mayday.
He leaned back, fingers steepled under his chin.
Why her?
now?
He had controlled everything so carefully
emotions, plans, power, influence.
But when Vael asked him whether he had a crush on her,
something inside him cracked open.
Not because of embarrassment.
Or because the question was stupid.
But because…
He didn't have a clean answer.
THE PAST HE SHOULDN'T HAVE
Malerion closed his eyes.
Back then
before Hell, before this world, before this life
Verosika Mayday had been a character on a screen.
A fictional succubus with a broken past
and an even more broken future.
He remembered watching her episodes late at night,
lights off, headphones in,
listening to that confident laugh that barely hid the loneliness underneath.
He remembered thinking:
"God, this woman deserves better."
Not romantically, obsessively.
Just… humanly.
He knew her story.
How she rose and fell.
Clawed her way back up.
And lost things no one should.
maybe that planted the seed long before he ever set foot in this reality.
A strange, quiet sympathy.
Wish that her fate could've been kinder.
He exhaled slowly.
"But that was fiction," he whispered to the empty room.
"Wasn't it?"
Except now…
it wasn't.
Now she was real.
Her voice smile spark real.
Her exhaustion, her confidence, her all real.
And when Malerion saw her first poster two years ago…
when he paused before that cracked wall…
when he read her name and saw her face printed in cheap ink…
Something in his chest had tightened.
A sense of inevitability.
Pull he didn't understand.
He pushed it away then.
Didn't understand it then.
He thought it was nostalgia.
A side effect of knowledge.
Trick of memory.
But now?
Now he wasn't so sure.
THE PRESENT HE COULDN'T IGNORE
Malerion opened his eyes.
He remembered her tonight.
The way she leaned forward at the bar.
Way her voice softened without losing its edge.
The way she looked at him
not like a fan ,enemy.
But like someone trying to read a book whose pages were sealed shut.
And the way she reacted when he spoke honestly to her…
He wasn't supposed to feel that.
Not in this world.
With these dangers.
Not with what he was building.
What he was hiding.
Alastor's voice curled through his thoughts, gentle and cruel:
"You care."
Malerion didn't respond.
"And caring is a liability… unless you turn it into strength."
He stayed silent.
"But you won't avoid her now," Alastor whispered.
"You've never been able to avoid what your heart chooses."
Malerion let out a rare, humorless laugh.
"My heart," he murmured.
"That's rich."
He wasn't sure what part of him had reacted to her:
The strategist?
Man from his old world?
The demon he had become?
Fragments of empathy he never fully lost?
Maybe all of them or none.
But one thing he knew:
The feelings he had now were not the same ones he once had watching a show.
They came from here.
From this life.
Who she was now.
The realization hit him harder than expected.
He wasn't clinging to the Verosika from the canon.
Wasn't romanticizing a future he once knew.
He wasn't idolizing a character.
Cared about this Verosika.
The one who fought on stage with fire in her voice.
One who walked alone through neon-lit streets without losing her pride.
The one who looked him in the eye tonight and refused to flinch.
This wasn't obsession.
Wasn't fate written by someone else.
Something new real.
And terrifying.
THE FUTURE HE WOULD NOT RUN FROM
Malerion stood and walked to the window.
Below him, Sin Rouge glowed with quiet life.
Demons laughed in the street.
Quill's neon signage flickered.
Dreg's patrols kept the alleys safe.
His work power growing kingdom.
Placed a hand on the cold glass.
Had feared the canon for so long
feared breaking it, feared altering it, feared the consequences of knowing too much.
But now…
Now that fear felt small.
Weak.
Pointless.
Verosika didn't follow a script.
Neither did Vael.
Neither did he.
Hell was alive, shifting, rewriting itself with every choice.
"Enough," he whispered to himself.
No more acting like a ghost scared of touching the timeline.
No more pretending he didn't feel anything.
More tiptoeing around the future like it was fragile.
This wasn't someone else's story was his.
And if his path crossed Verosika's?
If their lives tangled?
Their fates collided?
Then so be it.
He would face itshape it decide.
For once
Malerion allowed himself the truth:
He wanted to see her again.
Not as an: observer ,protector ,shadow.
As himself.
He breathed in.
Slow.
Steady.
Certain.
Whatever happened next…
would not be fear-driven.
It would be choice.