An aimless tune escaped Malech's throat as, after pouring some water into a mug and adding a teabag to it, he pointed at the water. It immediately began to heat up and boil as the middle-aged dark-haired Devil sat down at the small table in the house that had been provided for him by the leadership of the True Satan Faction upon his arrival and induction into the faction a few years ago.
Though, he supposed, it wouldn't be correct to call it the True Satan Faction anymore, now would it? Not after Raylix had turned back up in Hebeth, half a week ago, with LILITH herself in tow, and Shalba and Creuserey being kicked off the metaphorical throne of leadership within the day. And now Raylix was apparently one of the leaders of what was now being called the Underworld Reformation Faction… things sure moved fast, Malech thought to himself as he idly waved his hand over the cup of tea in front of him, which began to stir of its own accord.
After several seconds of stirring, Malech pointed at the tea bag inside the cup, which disappeared from said cup immediately. Settling a little more comfortably into his chair, Malech raised the teacup to his lips and took a sip… though he almost dropped said cup as a series of loud knocks sounded at his front door. It wasn't often he had people knocking on his door, especially not since joining the TSF… or URF, he supposed he should be calling it, now. Setting his cup back down on the table, Malech rose from his chair and moved over to the door, magically unlocking it and pulling it open. When he saw who was standing on the other side, he blinked, almost taking a step back out of sheer surprise at who was at his door.
"Raylix!" Malech spoke, holding the door open with his foot as he looked Raylix up and down. "Sorry, Lo- should I be referring to you with any kind of title, now?"
"Just Raylix is fine for you, Malech." Raylix replied, a small smile crossing his face for a moment. "I feel like you've earned that, at least."
There was silence between the two Devils for a couple of seconds, before Malech hurriedly stepped back from the doorway.
"Did you want to come in?" the older Devil asked. "I can put on some tea for you, if you'd like."
"That'd be nice, thank you." Raylix replied. "We haven't really talked in a while, have we? I figured now would be a good time to, if you're free."
"I am." Malech nodded, shifting slightly further back as Raylix stepped through the doorway into his house. "And yes, I've got time to catch up, if that's what you want."
It didn't take long for Raylix and Malech to be sat down at the same table that just Malech himself was sitting at a moment ago, and for Raylix to have a cup of tea in front of him just as Malech did. The pair of them steadily made their way through said cups as Raylix recounted his adventures throughout the around-a-year he'd been on his mission for what was then the True Satan Faction: the companions he'd come across and taken under his wings or reunited with for the first time in ages, the places he and his newfound group had travelled to in search of the Sephiroth Graal, meeting Lilith and her adopted daughters…
Malech was a decently captive audience, Raylix thought to himself as he paused for a second to take another gulp of tea, just to wet his throat again after all the talking. He'd been pretty quiet throughout most of the recounting Raylix had done, with only the occasional hum of acknowledgement and question regarding the women Raylix had picked up on his travels coming out of him in terms of sound. He did get a pair of raised eyebrows out of the older Devil by way of reaction when he brought up Lilith, but nothing beyond that.
"Honestly, now that I think about it…" Raylix continued, putting his cup down and leaning back in his chair. "I imagine pretty much as soon as she got it out of me that I'd joined this faction, Lilith must have started planning some kind of takeover operation. And no matter what, she'd probably have gotten her way in taking over in one way or another."
"I'd believe it." Malech remarked, taking a gulp of his own tea. "And it was just down to Shalba, Creuserey and Katerea in terms of where they were going to stand, and whether they were going to make it easier or harder for her. Not that it would've made much difference in the end, when she apparently had the fully trained wielder of the Vanishing Dragon's Sacred Gear under her thumb."
"Well, I wouldn't say Hikari is FULLY trained." Raylix remarked. "As far as I know, she's barely an adult… though now that I say that out loud, that actually makes her sound a bit scarier, doesn't it?"
Malech simply shrugged, taking another gulp of tea before setting his empty cup down.
"Well, scary or not, Lilith seems to be the one really running things now." He remarked. "Thanks, in part at the very least, to your decisions and choices. I guess only time will tell whether you made the right calls."
Raylix didn't reply as Malech leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling for a moment before his eyes flicked back to Raylix's.
"Well, I wish I could say the last year's been as interesting as it's clearly been for you, Raylix, but I'd be lying." He continued. "Truth be told, all it's been is overseeing your brigade… though to an extent, I must confess that I've begun to think of it as MY brigade, considering your absence from the faction."
"Understandable." Raylix replied, shrugging and taking another gulp of tea himself. "I totally get it; I'm not pissed off or anything if that's what you thought my reaction would be. Although…" he set the nearly empty cup on the table himself. "I must confess that wanting to catch up WASN'T the only reason I wanted to meet with you today, Malech."
Malech let out a slow breath, adjusting his position in his seat as he kept his eyes on Raylix.
"I should've figured." He remarked, his expression neutral. "Well, I guess you should get to that reason, rather than waste both of our time."
Raylix let out a little snort, nodding as he downed the remains of his teacup.
"Alright then, I will." He replied. "Recently, it's come to my attention that I may need a personal elite force of my own within the URF. You know, to carry out missions that wouldn't be right for the regular rank-and-file members of the Faction, report directly to me about the goings-on within, serve as my personal squad in battles when numbers are needed. Stuff like that, you know?"
"A wise decision." Malech mused, waving a hand to refill both his and Raylix's cups of tea. Raylix nodded, picked up his cup once it was fully refilled, and took a gulp out of it.
"Yeah." He replied. "And I was thinking that I'd need someone to… you know, lead this force when I'm busy with other things related to the URF. And I think, Malech, that it should be you."
Malech had initially moved to pick up his newly refilled teacup, but upon hearing Raylix's declaration, he paused for a second before shifting back a little. His eyes remained on Raylix's as he did so, searching for any hint that Raylix might not have meant what he just said… but he found none.
"Raylix…" he began. "I'm honoured you'd consider someone like me for such an important role. Truly, I am, and I wouldn't want you to think for a second that I don't appreciate this offer. But surely, there are more powerful members of the True Sa- I mean Underworld Reformation Faction, that would be worthy leaders of such a force."
"Yeah." Raylix remarked, taking another sip of his tea before lowering the cup. "You're probably right."
"And more experienced commanders, too." Malech continued. "I don't know if this ever came up in any conversation we had prior to joining this faction, but I was an officer in the Devils' military during the Great War… I might have commanded my own battalion of troops, but I never saw much action. I have a feeling that if you looked around this faction, you'd probably find a former officer or two with far more experience in leading troops into battle."
Raylix nodded, humming as he ran his finger around the top of his teacup, letting out a slow breath in response to Malech's words. Slight confusion entered the older Devil's face and eyes as silence stretched out between him and Raylix for another few seconds, before Malech chose to break it again.
"So… what are you still doing here?" he asked. "What possible reason could you have to want me in charge of your personal elite force, rather than someone much more qualified that I'm sure would gladly take up the role if you offered it to them?"
Raylix remained silent, taking another sip out of his teacup before setting it down once again.
"Just one." He replied. "And it's a pretty important one, Malech. All those hypothetical people out there throughout the faction, that you say could do a better job of leading- of commanding this elite force I'm planning on forming… I'm sure they exist, and I'm sure you're right about them, but… I don't know them. They didn't help wake me up to the horrific shit that the noble Pillars are putting the rest of the Devils through, and how shoddily the Devils' side of Hell was really being run. They didn't show me that I had another possible direction to point my life, in joining up with the True Satan Faction- back when it was called that and help me damn near every step of the way when it came to joining it. They didn't listen every time I wanted to vent, or just talk, about… about Sabemka and Tomosei."
He trailed off for a second before regaining his composure and keeping his eyes on Malech.
"On the other hand, Malech, you did all of that." He continued. "I know you; I trust you, maybe the most out of any single member of this faction. DEFINITELY the most out of anyone alive I know from outside the URF. I guess in my eyes, that's more than enough for me to want you leading my elite force, maybe even serving as my second-in-command."
Raylix raised his teacup to his lips and drained the rest of its contents in a couple of quick gulps, before setting the cup down on the table and rising to his feet.
"Consider it, at the very least. That's all I'm asking, Malech." Raylix spoke, while casually stretching. "Thanks for the tea."
And without another word, Raylix was gone from Malech's house, shutting the door behind him as he went. A couple of seconds later, Malech heard the sound of a transportation-circle activating and saw the flash of light outside one of the windows that signified Raylix's departure from the area. Halfway across Hebeth at around the same time, in the newly built six-story URF leader's compound, built within a couple of days in place of Shalba's mansion, a transportation-circle opened in Raylix's office that Raylix himself popped out of.
Yeah, he had his own personal office now. Not just a dinky little desk shoved in the corner of Katerea's spare bedroom, or even a much nicer desk in his bedroom at the Gremory Castle. No, this was a whole-ass ROOM dedicated to work, and a damn nice one at that. Lilith really had spared absolutely NO expense in making sure the compound had everything that anyone could want in somewhere to both live and work.
Glancing over at his desk, Raylix let out a slow breath as he looked at the files that he'd left there about an hour ago. Pertaining to Shalba and Creuserey's, or rather what USED to be Shalba and Creuserey's, human-world businesses that they ran to fund the True Satan Faction's, or rather what USED to be the True Satan Faction's, operations. As far as he understood it, they had 'voluntarily' signed over control and ownership of the businesses to Katerea yesterday… though Lilith was apparently involved in that signing-over, so it begged the question of just HOW voluntary things ended up being. Either way, Katerea had thought it'd be best for Raylix to get up to date with exactly how much money the URF had to work with presently: profits from the three companies that she now fully owned, expenses, how much spare money the faction was saving every month to be put away for potential new expenses and expansions, that kind of thing.
Nothing Raylix was all that thrown off by, he remembered doing this kind of thing for Zeoticus and the Gremory Large Enterprise, back when he was still an aristocrat.
There were also some other memos from Katerea regarding ideas for how to restructure the Underworld Reformation Faction, which Raylix hadn't looked at yet, either. He wasn't planning to until at LEAST after he was done going through all the financial stuff first… and maybe after he'd gotten something to eat, too. It was getting to be around that time, and Raylix had skipped breakfast in lieu of morning training…
Just as the thought crossed his mind, however, he heard a light knock on the door of his office, prompting him to turn around. Before he could even call out to whoever was on the other side of the door that they could come in, the door was pushed open.
"Raylix?" Eve's voice sounded through the door as it opened, before the woman herself appeared, carrying a box. "Oh, you're back." She remarked once her eyes met Raylix's, adjusting the box she was holding as she entered the room, shutting the door behind her.
"Hey, Eve." Raylix replied, yawning and pointing to the desk. "Thanks for bringing those, you can just put them on the side. I'll look them over when I've got time to."
"Okay," Eve nodded, carrying the box past Raylix and carefully placing it down on the floor, just next to his desk. "And it's no problem, Raylix. Really. Actually, while I've got you, I wanted to apologize."
"Hm?" Raylix, occupied with adjusting a book on one of the bookshelves that looked slightly out of place, looked over at Eve, who had moved away from the desk. "For what?"
"How I reacted when we first met." The Primordial Human replied. "When you brought up my… humiliated pack horse."
She suppressed a giggle at the last three words, shifting her sandal-clad feet over the carpet a little bit.
"Whatever you might have known of the stories about me and him," Eve explained. "You couldn't have known what our present relationship would have been. I should've been more aware of that, rather than nearly fly off the handle with you."
"Truth be told, I didn't even know you were still alive." Raylix remarked. "I never heard anything about either of you after the Great War wrapped up, so I just assumed you'd died, or something. Definitely wasn't expecting you to be under Lilith's wing, and definitely not for Adam to look like he did."
"Well, I imagine we probably would have died, had Lily not been able to take us in." Eve replied. "Or at the very least, be kept under lock, key and a mountain of protective enchantments up in Heaven, which I doubt would have been much better."
Raylix suppressed a chuckle himself.
"Either way, it's fine." He assured Eve. "At least I know for next time. Though I've got to admit, I'm still curious about what the story is between you, him and Lilith."
"You're probably best asking Lily." Eve remarked, walking towards the door. "It's… hard, reliving that time. Besides, Lily could probably tell you a far fuller version. Up to and including why Lily's pet dog looks like he does~"
With her face turned away from Raylix at that moment, he didn't see a light blush crossing Eve's face.
"You're okay with her telling me that?" Raylix asked, shifting himself from one foot to another as he tore his eyes away from Eve's ass, up towards her no-longer-blushing face as she turned around.
"Yup!" the cream-haired woman replied, smiling as she pulled the door open. "I've got no problem with it." She made to step through it, but paused mid-step before turning around. "Oh! I was just going to get something for lunch, did you want something? Maybe a drink?"
"Sure, yeah." Raylix replied, nodding. "That'd be nice, thanks."
Nodding with a smile, Eve left the room, shutting the door behind her and leaving Raylix alone in his office again. Taking a breath and trying to force down the boner he didn't realise he'd formed until just now from Eve's sheer presence over the last few minutes, he moved behind his desk to the custom-made armchair behind it, sporting a colour scheme of black and silver. Slumping down into it, he reached over to the first of the files relating to Shalba and Creuserey's businesses.
Judging by the size of the pile of files on his desk, and of the size of the box of files Eve had brought him just now, Raylix wouldn't be surprised if he spent the whole day on it…
Oh well, he thought, mentally shrugging as he tore his eyes away from the box, and refocused on the file in his hand as he flipped it open. The workout he was planning to do later, he'd just have to go even harder with it than he was already planning to. Though before he could fully focus on the file, he felt a communications-circle forming by his ear. Resisting the urge to sigh at the constant interruptions, he reached up and tapped the circle with a finger.
"This is Raylix."
"And this is Malech." Malech's voice sounded off in his ear, from the comms-circle. "Raylix, I've thought about it. The… the offer you gave me, about being the head of your elite force?"
"Oh?" Raylix leaned back in his chair. "…And?"
"And… I'm in." Malech replied. "I accept… if it's still open."
"Malech, it's barely been five minutes." Raylix remarked, resisting the urge to chuckle. "But still. Excellent. Thank you. We'll talk soon."
Malech hummed, on the other end, before hanging up. When the comms-circle faded away from Raylix's ear, he took another long breath and, hoping to go at least a minute or more without getting interrupted again, opened the file.
Line Break
"Everyone seems to be settling in alright."
"Mmhmm, good." Lilith replied, adjusting her position in her chair as she looked across at the magic-circle floating in front of her, which displayed an image of a talking Hikari. "And Shalba and Creuserey? Have you checked in on them recently?"
"Yeah, yesterday." The White Dragon Empress replied. "Nothing to report on that front."
"I see." The dark-haired Succubus nodded. "Well, you and Kurumi keep me posted, okay?"
"Of course, Mother." Hikari nodded. Lilith saw her stretching a little on her end. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."
"Alright." Lilith replied. "See you then."
The magic-circle faded away, leaving Lilith alone in her office within the URF's new compound, essentially a scaled-up version of the personal office she'd had back in her villa. It had been about a week since she, Raylix and Katerea had taken over the True Satan Faction and replaced it with the Underworld Reformation Faction: since then, it had been one thing after another for her.
Consulting Katerea regarding plans for the compound, getting the compound built, moving most of her stuff from the villa to the compound, setting up a good location to exile Shalba and Creuserey to, helping weed out any servicemen from the URF that wouldn't be willing to follow the new leadership, setting said servicemen up with new places in the human world, keeping tabs on all of said servicemen plus Shalba and Creuserey as they settled into their new lives outside of the faction they were no longer a part of, and that was to say nothing of all the regular business she had to deal with as the top monarch of the Lilim…
She knew, she'd known for a long time, that the path she'd started down would be an EXTREMELY long and arduous one, but still… damn. Although, as she took another couple of breaths and appreciated the silence that was her office, as her mind racked with everything that might need doing now… there was nothing she could think of that, either on this side of her life or her official side back in the Underworld, that strictly NEEDED taking care of RIGHT NOW.
She actually had some free time, for the first time in over a week. She actually had the space in her schedule to tackle something that she'd WANTED to do, for a decently long while at this point. The only thing was, though… where would he be?
…
'Well, knowing him, that's probably an easy answer.' Lilith thought to herself, spinning her chair back around before getting to her feet and leaving her office. Making her way along the landing and down the stairs to a couple of floors below the one her office and bedroom sat on, she made her way to the sparring hall and gym, pushing open the doors to the former as she reached it first. Almost immediately upon entering, her eyes snapped onto the exact person she was looking for.
Just in time to see Raylix, Rubilacxe in one hand and Gaeneron in the other, sweep-kicking an armless training dummy to send it spinning into the air. Before Lilith's very eyes, Raylix seemed to disappear for a second as he moved towards the dummy, delivering multiple heavy slashes to it so quickly that the dummy he seemed to have been practicing his moves on was utterly obliterated, in roughly the amount of time that it took Lilith to blink.
Raylix then reappeared, Rubilacxe and Gaeneron dissipating from his hands as the dummy in front of him seemingly collapsed to dust. Lilith saw him taking a couple of breaths before he turned around, having seemingly finally noticed that someone other than him was in the sparring hall. Almost immediately, she noticed some shadows underneath the former Gremory Heir's eyes.
"You need something, Lilith?" he asked, reaching up to rub at his eyes for a second as he spoke.
"Yeah, I do." She replied, shifting a couple of stray hairs out of her face. "We need to talk, Raylix. No, this can't wait until later." She immediately added, the second she saw Raylix opening his mouth, which he closed again for a couple of seconds before opening again. "And no, you don't need to keep training, you look like you've been here for hours. Hell, I didn't see you at breakfast, how long HAVE you been here?"
"Since, uh…" Raylix stretched a little as he looked slightly thoughtful, before what looked like a minor 'oh, shit' expression came over his face. "8 in the morning?"
…It was currently 3 in the afternoon.
"Fine, we can talk." Raylix relented, relaxing his body a little as he looked over at Lilith. "What's up?"
Well, at least he'd recognised that he could take a moment, Lilith thought to herself as she took a breath.
"The girls." She replied. "I'm not gonna beat around the bush, Raylix, we've needed to talk about this for a while. And I think you know why."
"Oh, really?" Raylix asked, as he wiped his sweaty hands on his pants. A blank look had crossed his face, which Lilith found herself slightly annoyed by. The ignorance angle, huh? Definitely wasn't making him look all that much better, but still. She thought this might happen, she'd long-since figured out what Raylix needed to hear.
Whatever expression her face had shifted into when the annoyance came over her, though, Raylix had picked up on and almost seemed to shrink a little bit at, before turning away slightly.
"Irene, Katerea, Cinder, Esdeath, Tamamo, Hikari, Kurumi," she began. "You've known some of them only a few weeks, some for years, Irene nearly your entire life. I might not know some of them as well as you… probably, do, but what I do know? They're all playing parts in your life now, pretty major parts at that."
Lilith took a breath as she surveyed Raylix's reaction to her words… up until he looked down, averting his eyes from hers, he didn't seem to have been having one at all. He was listening, at least.
"They all like you, that's incredibly obvious." She continued. "I don't know whether or not you, somehow, haven't realised that, or are just intentionally ignoring that, but either way, it's time for that to stop. Time for you to start respecting their feelings, consider at least trying to have some kind of relationship with them beyond keeping everyone at arms-length, which you seem to be doing whether deliberately or not."
Raylix rolled his neck around a little bit, before turning slightly away from Lilith.
"No." he replied, beginning to make his way towards the exit of the sparring-arena, aiming to go around the Lilim Queen. "There are more important things than-"
"STOP."
And just like that, Raylix stopped dead in his tracks, suddenly unable to keep walking towards the doors to the sparring arena. He was right alongside Lilith, who herself hadn't moved from the spot she'd started their conversation in. Looking to the side and up at her- realising that whatever she did to Shalba and Creuserey to get them to shut up, she'd just done to him- he felt himself going pale at the barely contained anger present on her face.
"Let me guess," Lilith continued, her voice still calm but now carrying a noticeable edge to it. "You're heading for the gym next door so you can keep working out?
When Raylix didn't immediately reply, she let out a sigh.
"You're reminding me of Hikari, when I first took her in." she remarked, reaching over and resting a hand on Raylix's shoulder. "She was obsessed with getting stronger whenever she could, but even she knew when to give it a rest and get some sleep-"
"It's not that!" Raylix cut across Lilith as he pulled away from her, having found the strength to move his body again. "It's more than just that, Lilith!"
Lilith didn't move or verbally reply, only raising an eyebrow in a silent invitation for Raylix to continue as she kept her gaze on him steady. She could almost see his confidence under her gaze slipping away by the second, as he almost immediately tried to avert his eyes.
"It's… what I'm training for, as well…" he continued, in a far quieter tone.
"I'm listening." Lilith stated. As she did so, the doors to the sparring hall swung shut, which Raylix immediately noticed and let out a small sigh at.
No letting him run.
"For… I guess my whole life, up until relatively recently," Raylix began, his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. "I had my friends, Sabemka and Tomosei. My best friends… my only friends." Audibly swallowing, he continued. "Ever since we met during the Great War, we did everything together. And I mean EVERYTHING. Up until… until…"
"They were killed." Lilith spoke. "During your engagement party to the Phenex Heiress. I heard about the Fallen Angel attack that night… I'm sorry."
"I GOT them killed, though." Raylix replied, rubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. "Every night after it happened, and just most nights recently, whenever I close my eyes, it's the fucking engagement party. The Fallen Angels moving in, me moving to fight them off… Sa- Sabemka and Tomosei joining in… and… and sometimes I wish I…"
Lilith heard a choked sob escaping Raylix's throat, as he seemed to visibly shrink in on himself a little bit.
"It's… it's empty." He spoke, though shallow, ragged breaths, clutching at himself with one hand. "After all the… the shit that went down with my f-family-" He spat the word as if it was poisonous. Lilith almost thought she spied some drool flying from Raylix's mouth as he said the f-word. "And… and after I threw away everything else I thought I had… for the smallest chance at making things better…"
Raylix wiped at his eyes again with the same sleeve. In spite of that movement, though, Lilith could still see tears welled-up in the auburn-haired Devil's blue eyes, with some of them beginning to flow.
"Recently, th-though" Raylix continued. "I found something to live- to fight for, for the first time in years."
Lilith's eyes widened a fraction at the verbal slip-up. Whatever alarms in her head that had been stirring for the past minute or so, they were now well and truly ringing.
"Not just fighting to reform Hell, or what you've got planned for the wider world," Raylix spoke, his voice quivering and his breath shaky, even as he tried to keep his cool. "but finding the Sephiroth Graal so I can bring them back. I can't go back, and I can't fail… if I do, I'll have… nothing!"
Raylix couldn't keep going. The tears that dropped from his eyes were so much that to try and hide them or wipe them away would just be a fruitless endeavour, fighting a losing battle. All he could really do was turn his face away from Lilith in some vain attempt to not be seen, but he couldn't do anything about the loud sobs that escaped his throat. He didn't remember crying this hard in any situation, or crying PERIOD, for years: probably not since he was still Gremory Heir, now that he thought about it.
His cries were the only sound that filled the sparring hall for a moment or two, and just letting all the repressed sadness and pain that he'd been carrying and bottling up for years out, was all he could focus (if one could even call it that) on, until…
Raylix didn't even realise that he was no longer on his feet until he felt his body hitting the hard ground, heard the thud that came along with it, also felt a sharp stinging sensation on one of his cheeks. As soon as his mind caught up to the fact that he was now on the ground instead of stood upright, he looked up and saw Lilith, a couple of steps' distance forward from where she'd been standing earlier, pretty much right where he himself had been standing, lowering one of her hands that she'd apparently raised.
She'd hit him. Pretty damn hard at that, if it was enough to knock HIM down without him even realising what had happened. It was also at that second that he copped a glance at the expression on Lilith's face… and it was anything but a happy one. Quite the opposite, it looked like the anger that she'd been holding in a few minutes ago was now a good bit LESS held-in, with a fair dash of disappointment added in.
"I can't believe you." Lilith spoke, her crimson eyes boring down into Raylix's tear-filled blue. "I genuinely CANNOT believe that you'd have the GALL to make a claim like that, Raylix!"
Raylix blinked a couple of times, too shocked by the fact that Lilith had just slapped him to even think about formulating an immediate response.
"But at the same time, I can't call myself surprised." Lilith spoke, again. "Considering your track record."
"Wh-what?" was all Raylix could muster as a reply, his voice a bit hoarse and still shaking after all the crying.
"I have my ways." Lilith replied. "Now be quiet: I heard you out, you're GOING to hear me out, whether you like it or not."
Raylix's mouth had opened again, but the look on Lilith's face was more than enough for him to close it again. This was more than the cold contempt Lilith had shown Shalba and Creuserey before she'd done… whatever she'd done after Hikari had beaten the shit out of them. She was MAD.
"I know more than you realise." the Succubus Queen explained: "I know that things started out pretty well for the pair of you, before the unfortunate events of your engagement party. I know things got a bit harder for you in the aftermath of said engagement party, and how Ruvella still tried to make things work in spite of how you'd long-since checked out of it all. Though I suppose that checking-out made it pretty easy for you to stab her in the heart like you did."
Raylix was too caught-up in the revelation that Lilith knew THAT much about his life, down to how his relationships had gone, and wondering just what else she could know about him to formulate any attempt at a response, before Lilith continued.
"I bet you didn't even think of how just walking out to join the True Satan Faction- not even a week before the wedding- would affect her, did you?" she asked, rhetorically. "Of course you didn't. But I'll fill you in on something: it affected her quite a bit. She was devastated, Raylix: to the point that the dress she was going to wear for you in THREE DAYS TIME, and I bet she'd still have been happy to wear in spite of how shit a fiancé you were to her, she apparently destroyed instead. It would've been the happiest day of her life, and you went and turned not just it, but the whole situation leading up to it into something she might not ever recover from."
Raylix felt like he'd been slapped again. He didn't even have the mental strength to try and move himself out of the position that Lilith had slapped him down into as she ploughed on, not done by a long way.
"Anything- literally ANYTHING- you could have done for her, would have been better than what you ended up doing, or not doing." She remarked. "You could've apologised for what you were about to do, on the night you ended up leaving? You could have had some kind of message to her, explaining what you were doing and why, for her to receive after you left? You could've even explained why you were the way that you were, or what you were about to do in-person during one of the MANY times you met up with each other leading up to when you left? Had you played your cards right, she might have even joined you, and you'd have gotten to run away together!"
"Th-there's no way that would've happened." Raylix replied, his voice still hoarse. "She'd have ratted me out immediately, and-"
"I said: QUIET." Lilith hissed, shutting Raylix up immediately. "Whether or not you'd be able to convince Ruvella to go with you is neither here nor there: my POINT is that you went and caused your fiancée so much hurt and pain, when all- or at least most- of it could've been so easily avoided. Just a little bit of effort from you, and you wouldn't have ended up making your pain her problem!"
Lilith closed her eyes, shook her head a little bit as she took a breath. Raylix, by contrast, seemed to shrink in his position on the ground, feeling smaller than he already was against all six-foot-one and a bit of her.
"And that's not even mentioning the maids," Lilith continued, after a second. "Oh, you thought I was just going to stop at Ruvella? Think again!" she added, when she saw Raylix's eyes widen. "Now Ruvella, I can somewhat understand you being reluctant to share any information about what you were planning with her, or to invite her along, but your little troupe of PERSONAL servants? Did you even think about them, leading up to when you left? Never even consider that at least one of them might want to leave alongside you- without being paranoid and deluded enough to ACTUALLY think that they'd tattle to your parents rather than take the side of the man they loved? That they may well have wanted to leave alongside you for their own reasons, or just want to help keep you safe, rather than just being dumped and left to wonder if you were even alive?"
Raylix opened his mouth as Lilith paused, but after half a second's consideration over what he could POSSIBLY say to counter anything Lilith had thrown at him, he closed it again. He'd been mentally blocking the entire subject of Ruvella and the maids from his mind pretty much ever since he'd left, but Lilith had only gone and made UNGODLY short work of that. Pretty much every single thing she'd said: it was either absolutely dead-on accurate, or he could see why Lilith would come to the conclusions she'd come to based on the information she had… which seemed to be a damn lot. And even in those cases, in his heart of hearts, he knew she had a point.
"As if that wasn't bad enough for them," Lilith continued. "Those maids that served you, slept with you, loved you? If the rumours coming out of the Devils' side of Hell are right, they're gone from the Gremory Clan's service. Never to return, likely never to find work in the Underworld again. One of them might even be dead… all because of you."
Forget slapped, Raylix felt like he'd just been stabbed. His eyes widened a bit more, before he tore them away from Lilith's piercing gaze and focused his attention on the floor that he was half-sitting half-lying on.
One of his maids… dead? Someone else to join Sabemka and Tomosei in the club of people close to him that HE'D gotten killed? That… that might be true. And he had a feeling he could make a guess as to which innocent maid was the one to meet that fate, if it was.
Unconsciously, he dragged himself into a more presentable and stabilized sitting position, keeping his eyes on the ground as Lilith looked down at him, shaking her head before bending down. The sound of her doing so, and the sight of her approaching him out of the corner of his eye was enough to get him to look up.
"Ruvella, Rheliesh, Zest, Narberal, Hannah… Whether you forgot about them in your grief, or simply just ignored them, you still had people who cared: don't you DARE claim that just because Sabemka and Tomosei are dead, Raylix, you had nothing." Lilith spoke. "Hell, is Irene nothing? What about Cinder, Esdeath, Tamamo, Katerea? You seem to have done just fine in replacing your old collection of women from before you left with a mostly new set by choosing to leave alone, and you still claim you have nothing? You've always had something, but you're just content to push away whatever you gain! Finding the Sephiroth Graal to revive Sabemka and Tomosei, that's a noble goal to be sure, but how can you POSSIBLY expect to get anywhere when all it seems like you want to do is wallow in your own self-pity and nihility, to the point it's beginning to sound more like you want to go join them than bring them back?!"
Raylix averted his eyes from Lilith again, drawing his legs up towards himself. Having seemingly finally finished what she wanted to say, Lilith drew herself back up to her full height, but still looked down at Raylix as she made a half-turn towards the door.
"Think about it, Raylix." The Lilim Queen's voice, while still hard, was now slightly softer… but only slightly. "Get up, go somewhere more comfortable than here, and REALLY think about it. I doubt you'll be able to properly train with so much on your mind, at the very least."
Waving a hand as she fully turned towards it and began walking, the doors to the sparring hall opened in front of Lilith as she strode through them and left Raylix alone. She could only let out a deep breath as she felt herself calming down from the high that saying what she'd said to Raylix had brought.
Some of it- no, probably most of what she'd said- some would probably call it harsh. But it was like how she'd gone about swaying the True Satan Faction to her cause as the Underworld Reformation Faction: she would call it necessary, what Raylix needed to hear. However, UNlike last week, she wasn't going to get immediate results. But she had a feeling results WOULD come sooner or later, she definitely felt like she'd gotten through to Raylix at least a little bit. Still, though, whatever happened next…
It was up to him.
Line Break
There was no going back now, Venelana thought to herself as she walked in near step with Zeoticus, down one of the hallways of the Gremory Castle, towards a certain bedroom.
They'd just gotten off the magical comms with Rika and Renzo Phenex, the last of what had been several long sessions of drawing up, negotiating the terms of and, finally, signing a new version of the contract that had been broken between the two families.
It was already at the very least SOMEWHAT official, ever since Zeoticus had first pitched the idea, but now it was… official-official. Rias, their daughter, and Riser Phenex, were now engaged. They would be married when Rias reached maturity. By which point- if she'd been taught right- Rias would have had every possible lesson regarding how to live and conduct herself as the Gremory Heiress well and truly drilled into her, so the engagement and marriage between her and Riser could go ahead without any possibility of a repeat of… last time.
Acknowledging with a nod to a servant of the Clan that happened to walk past them at that moment, the Duke and Duchess stopped outside the door to Rias' bedroom, sharing a look with each other as Zeoticus reached out to the door and pushed it open, stepping into their daughter's chambers. Her bedroom was rather simple-looking, but no less grand in its scale.
Like most rooms within the Gremory Castle, the walls of Rias' room were painted a deep crimson, with a white ceiling. Five dull-looking metallic orbs (one in each corner, and in the room's centre), which could emanate light if the user desired, floated close to the ceiling, all presently turned off. To the direct right of the door that they'd just come through was a large window, with open curtains on either side that allowed the afternoon light of the Underworld's sun to streak in. By the window was a wardrobe that stretched the remaining length of that side of Rias' bedroom, which held most of the clothes she'd either had made for her by the Clan's employed tailors, bought for her on Zeoticus and Venelana's orders, or gifted to her by other noble Clans. Each of the wardrobe's seven doors also had a mirror embedded into it, reflecting the room.
Opposite to the window and wardrobe were a couple of bookcases, which mostly housed books on the history of the Underworld and the Gremory Clan (specifically aimed at and written for noble children), but also held a number of books of children's stories, as well as the beginnings of a manga collection.
Rias' bed, directly opposite the door that her parents had just come through, was more than large enough to house the toddler. Hell, it'd probably be large enough to comfortably house at least five of her. The thick red sheets were what Rias herself- clad in a cute white dress- currently sat cross-legged on, a book on Underworld history open on the bed in front of her that she seemed to be reading quite intently. She looked up, however, as Zeoticus and Venelana entered her room.
"Father? Mother?" she asked, looking from one to the other. "Is it time for dinner?"
Zeoticus let out a chuckle as he strode across the bedroom, approaching the bed.
"No, Rias, it won't be time for dinner for a while." he replied. "I can get someone to whip you up a snack if you're feeling hungry, though."
Rias shook her head as Zeoticus shifted himself onto the bed, glancing at the book that Rias had in front of her. There was a picture of Lucifer and Lilith, on their wedding day, on one page, and a recounting of Lucifer's life up to when he met his future wife and eventually married her on the other. After shutting the door, Venelana walked over and joined her husband and daughter on the bed, coming up on Rias' other side.
"Then… am I in trouble?" Rias asked, looking from Zeoticus to Venelana again and seeming to shrink slightly in her position on the bed. "What did I do wrong?"
"Nothing, Rias, nothing!" Venelana quickly assured the young redhead, reaching over and pulling Rias into her lap, giving her a one-armed hug. "Your father and I…" she paused for a second, her eyes flicking up to Zeoticus' face before refocusing on Rias. "We just have to talk to you about something, that's all."
"Oh… alright." Rias replied, reaching up to begin twirling a lock of her crimson hair around her finger. Venelana and Zeoticus shared another look with each other, before Zeoticus cleared his throat, closing the book that Rias had been reading.
"You remember how our family, the Gremory Clan, is of a high standing within Hell, right Rias?" he asked. "How we have important duties and responsibilities to the other Devil Clans, and to the Underworld?"
"Mmhmm." Rias replied, adjusting her position in Venelana's lap as she continued twirling her hair around her finger.
"Well, one of those responsibilities," Venelana spoke, attracting Rias' attention. "is making sure our family keeps its high standing in the Underworld. And to do that, Rias, sometimes that means having to make promises."
Rias furrowed her tiny crimson eyebrows. She certainly understood… some of the words her parents were saying to her. Not all, nowhere NEAR all, but enough to have the beginnings of an idea of what they were getting at.
"Promises?" she asked. "Like when I promised to share my toys with Sona, whenever she came around?"
Zeoticus let out a soft snort through his nose, nodding.
"Something like that." he replied. "But this promise is a bit bigger than that. We, as a family, have promised to another family that when you come around, you're going to be…"
The crimson-haired Duke looked over at his wife, pausing for a second. It was clear, from a glance at her husband's face, to Venelana that he wasn't quite sure how to word what he wanted to tell their daughter, in a way that she'd fully understand.
"You're going to be friends, with someone from another family." the brunette took over, catching Rias' attention again. "Do you remember Riser Phenex, from your debut?"
"Riser?" Rias' face screwed up in concentration as she took a couple of seconds to recall who her mother was talking about, before it seemed to light up as she remembered. "I remember him! He… talked a lot."
"Yes, I suppose he did." Venelana replied, stroking Rias' hair a bit with her free hand as she shared another look with Zeoticus. "One day, you and Riser will be spending a lot of time together, so it's important that you become good friends with him. It's a special promise, that your father and I made with Riser's mother and father."
Rias looked from Venelana to Zeoticus, confusion becoming more and more evident on her face by the second.
"…Why?" she replied. "Why do I have to be friends with Riser? What's wrong with Sona?"
"Nothing, Rias, nothing!" Venelana replied, tightening the one-armed hug she'd been holding Rias in this whole time. "You can still be friends with Sona, you can be friends with whoever you want! If you think we're telling you to stop being friends with Sona anymore, we're not."
"Oh… okay." Rias nodded, settling a little more comfortably into the hug with her mother, clinging onto Venelana's arm with her own tiny ones.
"But it's still important, Rias," Zeoticus spoke up. "That whoever else you choose to become friends with, it's important to get to know Riser, and be kind to him, as you grow up into the woman your mother and I know you can be." he gently tapped the cover of the book that Rias had been reading before he and Venelana had come in. "I'm sure you, as smart as you are, will come to understand why soon enough."
"Okay!" Rias, perking up a bit at how her father had called her smart. "I'll do my best, Father!"
"And that's all we can ask of you, Rias." Venelana replied, leaning down a bit to plant a kiss on Rias' heads, before unwrapping her arm from around her and getting off the bed, with Zeoticus following. "We'll send someone to collect you when dinner's ready."
Rias hummed and nodded as she watched her parents retreating from the bedroom, shutting the door behind them.