Teaser: Mr. Leeman chewing Ryosei out for being disrespectful; Ryosei feels embarrassed over it and apologizes profusely.
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The first thing Eika saw when she opened her eyes was the blown up image of the Queen of demons, Lilith. Between her slim, curvy figure that couldn't be hidden by her slinky, floor-length red dress, her long, ankle length violet hair, her bewitching green eyes and her bright red lips that contrasted against her smooth, pale skin, she was the epitome of beauty...
And Eika was unimpressed; she felt in comparison to her mother, her father, and herself, Lilith was just a wannabe beauty who was actually a slut.
"Oh... Lovely... That's just what I wanted, seeing her annoying mug right when I just woke up. How nice..."
Eika sighed, stretching and arching her back somehow gracefully before yawning, running her finely crafted and elegant hand through her pale, bone white hair. As her eyes followed the path of her hair, she noticed it had grown significantly over the years, now trailing on the grown and filling the corners of the marble capsule that she'd created for when she connected to the mortal realm.
'Well', she reasoned to herself, 'it has been 700 years—it's only natural it has grown.'
She was disturbed in her musings as she felt the unique flow of mana—mana that matched Lilith's to a "t".
"Oh," she groaned, her voice laced with annoyance, "she's having a fit again, isn't she? Did father blow her off again? Figures—between her infidelity and her attitude, he isn't favoring her any time soon."
Sure enough, as she gazed at Lilith through the image screen she had placed in her capsule, she saw her furious expression, and the giant fireball she had generated above her head. With a scream and a fair amount of cursing in Latin, she chucked it at Eika's capsule. Eika's expression remained bored throughout her assault, finding her behavior to be boring and childish.
Sure, Eika liked making people aggravated like any demon, but Lilith was an exception; she wasn't funny like Ryosei was when she was angry—she was just annoying as Hell and five times more unbearable than usual.
As she waited out Lilith's tantrum, she looked around her capsule, pleased to see what her father had done in her absence; he really did know what she preferred, even if she herself wasn't aware of it.
There was white marble columns like the Parthenon's lining the circular pavilion of her capsule and the outer walls. Plants hung from the arches in between them, ivy and other plants of various color, shape, and size growing along the walls. Eika had been placed in a bed of morning glories—red, blue, purple, and white morning glories—at the base of what she suspected to be a sprout of the World Tree from how big it was.
Eika laughed, affection lighting in her eyes as she observed the flowers; the joke wasn't lost to her, and she found the fact that her father had to leave a mark on everything he works on adorable.
"Dear old dad..." she smiled, her expression akin to what she had shown Ryosei not too long ago, but perhaps even more beautiful, for she was in her real body, and not in the fake, watered-down body that Rurielles had so lovingly crafted over the years.
Still, even Rurielles had to admit, that much to her chagrin as a craftswoman, nothing of her or her sisters hand could ever create a masterpiece that could ever match Eika's beauty—it was simply impossible. Eika's looks were a miracle only the superior and out of the dimensions genetics of her parents could ever create, and as such, she could be considered the perfect muse for artists that yearn to create beauty.
Eika took the morning glories, and with a gentle but skilled hand weaved a beautiful flower crown out of the blossoms, a smile never leaving her face as she hummed a lovely tune, her dual colored eyes crinkling with happiness as she finished it, triumphant over her success; she always had a talent and love for making things—a sentiment and character trait shared with her father.
Giggling childishly, she delicately placed the crown on her head, her smile growing into an expression that could only be described as angelic. She stood up, nearly falling as her body wasn't used to movement yet. She laughed at her quaking legs, the image of a newborn colt coming to mind.
She flexed her muscles, putting some mana in them to compensate for their weakness and to help them adjust as she took to dancing, leaping and flipping and twirling through the garden-like paradise her father had made for her in her rest; she was a fairy, an angel, a creature of impossible beauty and unthinkable perfection.
She sang in the tongue only her mother and father knew, the melody awakening the birds that had been birthed in the sanctuary of the capsule, leading them in a similar melody and flight pattern of her, and causing more laughs to be elicited from the heavenly creature—a sound that only caused more adoration to be presented to her.
It was here she could be a child; it was here, she could be the girl she yearned to be—the innocent, sweet, kind, and free child that she never got to be, and wasn't born to be. She knew that. She knew her father knew that; but even still, he built a fairyland for her to wake up too, a place for her to be what she wanted.
So even if she was a mistake, and even if he had made some mistakes, she loved her father to death, and never could hate him; not truly. And so, for a little bubble of time, she was free as a lark, and found it to be wonderful.
Even Lilith didn't seem so bad.
After frolicking like a little child for a bit more, she calmed down, her awakenings euphoria curbing as she fell back to reality, regaining her cool head and her poker faced smile. She checked her mana levels, and found that they were fairly low—an expected reading considering how she hadn't been cultivating it as she used to.
Besides, her body was weak, and given her naturally large mana pool, taking in the amount of power she usually had would injure her badly; think of it as doing a serious work out without properly warming up—you pull a muscle, right?
It was the same concept, just a billion times more devastating.
Think life threatening.
Eika immediately started strengthening her body, her muscles nice and warmed up from how she had "frolicked" around earlier; she wasn't the type to do unnecessary or useless things, especially since she only had a small window of time till Lilith finally cooled down and started getting suspicious of the capsule and its lack of reaction to her attacks.
Seeing as how it was indestructible, clearly either Eika or her father had made it.
It took a good long time for Lilith to realize whom she had messed with though; her husband had rejected her advances for the umpteenth time, and she was humiliated and furious with jealousy. That women, that horrible, horrible women who had ruined everything before was 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 ruining everything now, even after her demise.
When she had learned of the whore's death, she had felt an undeniable sense of pride and joy; finally, finally she would be able to save her husband from that women's tainted grasp—finally, she could restore her broken relationship with her apathetic husband! But what did he do after her death?
He buried himself in work for 2 years, and went to sleep for 3!
He refused to eat, to drink, to sleep, and to even talk to anyone. He tried drowning himself in his work, even going as far as ruining the economy just to try to forget his grief over his death, even attempting to forget everything about her! Then, he forced himself into a coma from which no one could wake him from, only to wake up and immediately retrieve the daughter that was born from him and that women, the one he had initially neglected for 5 years, and naming her his successor!
Lilith was infuriated just by remembering the titters of the court, the sneers of the nobles as they watched how he had so casually brush everyone else aside, save only his uneducated and illegitimate daughter that had only learned to speak. She had tried to reason with him, proclaiming the girl unable to rule given how slow she was—but who would've though the little chit was a genius, and was faking her foolhardiness the entire time?!
Oh, the humiliation, the mockery, the rumors that had started!
She screamed till her voice was raw and tears were in her eyes, summoning a flame of incredible power and force, enough to rival the suns intensity and heat before chucking it at the stupid stone rock that refused to break. She panted, her outburst causing her throat to become ragged, and raw.
'How did this happen?' she though, a despairing look in her eyes.
'Why did she have to appear? Why?! Why wasn't he satisfied with just me, why was she so beautiful, why did he spare her?!! Why... why?!'
Tears of loss and sadness overcame her delicate, porcelain doll face. Loss, because she had lost the one who had always been so kind to her her; sadness, because even though that women was defiled in body... her soul had been so beautiful, so pure, so clear, that she could understand why her husband had left her for that women.
And she hated it.
She hated herself for being caught up in the love offered to her by one of her husbands creations; she hated how she wasn't good enough.
And she hated how that child was the a carbon copy of her mother, with touches and hints of her father that made her even more perfect than her mother had been. The vibrancy, the life, the spark—she had it all.
And she despised and envied her for being so alive when she was nothing, even now.
"Oi, drama queen, I get that you hate me and stuff, but if you would please not attack my sanctuary capsule, that would be great. A favor if you will, women to women."
Lilith looked up, her gaze hard and disbelieving at what she saw.
High cheekbones set into a delicate face; a strong yet perfectly fitted jaw; long, almost crystalline white lashes that surrounded dual colored eyes of ruby and golden obsidian; wavy, bone white hair that dragged behind her on the ground; a curvy yet elegant and refined body that was not too much and not too little in all the right places; a flowy, white, Greek-style toga-like dress; a tall yet lithe frame that was covered with seals and runes of silver over her beautifully pale, smooth skin that was like moonlight over snow.
Her lovely rose blossom lips were twisted into an annoyed smile, her expression worthy of a whole fresco being dedicated to it alone.
A perfect blend between someone she loved and someone she hated; a perfect picture of despair wrapped up in the most perfect of wrappings.
A breeze overcame them in the meadow they resided in, the Queen of Demons looking up in hatred to the Princess of Demons in a picturesque setting of conflict.
Morning glories surrounded them in a haze of white, dancing as referenced the man who stood between the women—the son of the morning; the morning star himself.
Satan.