She rose from her seat, and stretched out her arm and waved her hand in the air. "But instead of telling you the story of how my dear little brother spent centuries finding a way to make a humanoid sacred gear... I'll think it would be more fun to show you~"
As Hespera's fingers traced the air, a pulse of chaotic energy rippled through the room.
The air around them warped, twisted, bending reality itself to her whim.
Sirzechs, Venelana, Zeoticus, Grayfia, and Rias barely had time to react before—
The world shifted.
The grand dining hall of the Gremory estate dissolved, swallowed whole by a rush of golden-green luminescence, like ink spreading through water.
And when the haze settled?
They were no longer in the Underworld.
They stood within a cold, sterile laboratory—a memory ripped from time itself.
Rows of massive stasis tubes lined the walls, filled with softly glowing liquid, casting an eerie, muted green light throughout the dim chamber.
Inside those tubes? Infants.
Some barely moving. Some pressing tiny, delicate hands against the glass, their bright, unnatural eyes wide with silent curiosity… or fear.
And in the center of it all?
A child.
One with soft platinum-blond curls, luminous, glassy blue eyes, and a golden glow pulsing faintly from the center of his chest—a sigil, an unnatural mark etched into his very being.
The moment their eyes landed on the scene, Venelana's breath hitched, Grayfia's fingers curled ever so slightly, and Rias? Rias took a sharp step back, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.
"What... is this?" Zeoticus murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.
A soft chuckle echoed behind them.
They turned to see Hespera, completely at ease, watching the memory unfold like an amused spectator at a play.
"This, my dear Gremory," she said, her voice syrupy-sweet, yet laced with venom, "is my little brother's masterpiece."
Her heterochromatic eyes gleamed as she gestured toward the stasis tubes.
"Welcome to one of Azazel's secret laboratories—where he spent centuries trying to create something that was never meant to exist."
She tilted her head, watching their reactions with twisted delight.
"A living, breathing, humanoid Sacred Gear."
Grayfia's usually unshakable expression cracked. "That's… impossible."
Hespera laughed—low, rich, and utterly entertained. "I disagree on the impossibility of if, but yes, Azazel wasn't able to properly make his humanoid sacred gear. He failed miserably."
Hespera's grin widened, the eerie glow of the laboratory lights casting sharp shadows across her face. She turned slightly, surveying the scene before her with the air of someone recalling a particularly amusing joke.
"Ah, but the story doesn't end there," she continued, voice dripping with mock sympathy. "See, dear Azazel wasn't just playing scientist for fun. No, no, no~ He was chasing a dream—a ridiculous, impossible dream."
She gestured toward the tubes, her fingers elegantly tracing the air.
"Like I said, he wanted to create the ultimate weapon. A humanoid Sacred Gear—one that wouldn't be wielded by a host, but one that was the weapon itself. A living artifact, bound to no one, controlled by no God or system." Her eyes glinted, amusement flickering through the depth of something far darker. "A creature that could rival even the strongest of Heaven's divine creations."
Sirzechs exhaled sharply, his normally composed expression taut with something unreadable. Grayfia, beside him, remained unnervingly still, though her fingers twitched at her sides, as if resisting the urge to clench.
"And how," Venelana finally spoke, her voice smooth but edged, "did he attempt to achieve such a thing?"
Hespera sighed, shaking her head. "Oh, you're going to love this part."
She flicked her wrist, and the memory shifted—rewinding, morphing, peeling back the layers of time itself.
The image in front of them darkened, replacing the eerie green glow of the stasis tubes with the cold, sterile blue of an operating room.
And there, strapped to a surgical table, was a much smaller Hespera.
Her silver-streaked hair was messy and damp, clinging to her porcelain skin. Chains wrapped around her wrists, her ankles, her torso, glowing faintly with divine runes—seals, designed to suppress whatever power she once held.
Overhead, Azazel stood, peering down at her with clinical detachment, quill in hand, scribbling on a floating parchment.
"Subject still resistant," his voice echoed, crisp and impassive. "Even with divine restraints, her very existence fights against the laws of reality."
He clicked his tongue, setting the quill down.
"Perhaps a different approach is required."
The image blurred, shifting to another memory.
A massive vat, bubbling with a thick, dark reddish-purple substance, pulsating as if alive.
"The blood of a Pureblood Phoenix," Hespera narrated, her voice casual despite the grotesque nature of what they were witnessing. "But not just any Phoenix. Oh no, my darling little brother had to get creative. This was the blood of one long extinct—so old that its very essence had become unstable. But, you see, unstable meant pliable."
The scene changed once more.
A vast chamber, filled with massive skeletal remains—bones blackened and cracked with age, but still humming with latent power.
"This," Hespera continued, turning to look at the assembled devils, "is where things get really interesting."
Sirzechs frowned. "What are we looking at?"
Hespera's smirk sharpened.
"The remains of a Chaos Dragon."
Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence.
No one spoke. No one could.
Because there was no such thing. Or rather—there should have been no such thing.
"A what?" Rias finally managed, her voice barely above a whisper.
"A Chaos Dragon," Hespera repeated, drawing out the words like she was savoring them. "A species long lost to time itself. Creatures that existed before the concept of order—before the three factions, before Heaven, before Hell, before the very foundations of this world were even set in place."
She reached out, running a finger along the jagged outline of a bone suspended in the vision.
"Azazel stumbled upon these remains by accident—or so he thought." She chuckled. "He believed them to be fossils, remnants of some forgotten race, but oh, how wrong he was. Chaos Dragons did not simply die. Only a Primordial could eradicate one. Even their corpses defy the natural order. Even in death, this thing continued to exist, it's essence lingering, waiting, hungry. This was the last Chaos dragon in all existence. In every universe. I have it on good authority on that." Remembering the discussion with Death on Chaos Dragons and how they came to be.
A slow, creeping chill slithered down Rias' spine.
"So what did dear Azazel do?" Hespera cooed, twirling a lock of her silver hair between her fingers. "He combined them, of course! The unstable, endlessly regenerating blood of a Phoenix, and the raw, uncontrollable power of a Chaos Dragon."
Her grin widened, fangs flashing.
"And what was his lovely little test subject?" She gestured toward herself, voice lilting with cruel amusement.
"Me."
Venelana's breath hitched.
Zeoticus stiffened.
Sirzechs' fingers curled into a fist.
And Grayfia?
For the first time that evening, she trembled.
"He spliced them into you," Sirzechs muttered, his voice dark, strained.
Hespera hummed. "Mm~ More like infused them. He wanted to see if a divine entity—a Cherubim, one of the Firstborn—could be twisted into something more."
She flexed her fingers, watching as embers of magenta flame curled between them, shifting, distorting, warping into nothingness.
"The result?" she murmured, voice soft, almost hypnotic. "An abomination. A creature that could not be controlled, could not be destroyed, could not die."
Her heterochromatic gaze flickered toward Sirzechs, dark amusement gleaming in their depths.
"And when he realized his error?"
She spread her arms, gesturing grandly.
"He tried to terminate me."
A chilling pause.
"But that didn't work either."
She laughed, slow, indulgent. "Even with my angelic powers sealed, even when I was nothing more than a child in a cage, I was still beyond him."
She exhaled dramatically, tilting her head. "So dear Azazel did the next best thing."
She flicked a wrist.
And the scene changed.
The Dimensional Gap. A chaotic void, endless, suffocating, devouring all who dared enter.
"And he threw me into the Gap."
Rias sucked in a breath.
Sirzechs' expression finally cracked, something dark and stormy shifting in his usually composed features.
Grayfia's eyes burned.
Hespera sighed, turning back to them with a lazy smirk.
"And the rest, as they say, is history~"
She clapped her hands together, the memory shattering, reality snapping them back to the grand dining hall of the Gremory estate.
Silence.
No one spoke.
No one could.
Hespera tilted her head, watching their reactions with unveiled amusement.
"So," she purred, resting her chin on her palm, her wings folding behind her.
"Any more questions?"
In the corner of her eye, was Ophis sitting comfortably reading. She chuckled, 'As expected of her, so unbothered with her surroundings.'
Ophis sat comfortably on the plush chair she had conjured for herself, flipping through the pages of a book she had seemingly pulled from thin air. She hadn't bothered to react to the horrifying revelations that had just been laid bare before the Gremory family.
She already knew.
Hespera had shown her and Red this memory back when she had been living with them in the Dimensional Gap. And Ophis, in her infinite wisdom—or perhaps, in her absolute apathy—had simply accepted it.
But the same could not be said for the devils before her.
Sirzechs, for all his carefully composed demeanor, was gripping the table so tightly that cracks were beginning to form along its ornate edges. His usual pleasant smile had long since vanished, replaced with an expression so dark, so furious, that even Grayfia cast him a wary glance.
Venelana, the ever-elegant matriarch, remained still, her face a mask of collected grace, but her wine glass was empty—drained in one sharp gulp somewhere between Hespera's tale and the realization that her family had just become entangled in something far, far greater than they had anticipated.
Zeoticus had yet to speak, his hands steepled before him, eyes shadowed in thought.
Grayfia? Her frosty exterior had cracked. Her normally unshakable expression was tight, her silver eyes flickering with emotions she rarely allowed herself to feel. Fury. Disgust. Something dangerously close to grief.
And Rias…Rias was still staring at Hespera.
But not with fear. Not even with shock. No—Rias Gremory was looking at her with something far worse.
Understanding.
The kind of understanding that came from realizing that the person before her was no longer just an enigma, a curiosity, or an annannoyance.
She finally understood thhat Hespera Eveningstar was something else entirely. Something wrong. Something unnatural. Something she couldn't stop looking at.
And that? That was far more dangerous than any horror Hespera had just revealed. 'Why in all the Hells, is she even more attractive now!' Rias Gremory was screaming in frustration in her head. Hehe~ the birth of Mrs Vein, the throbbing vein that appears everytime Hespera does something that annoys or fustrates Rias! Chaos would be so proud~ Let's cause some headaches~
Finally, Sirzechs spoke.
His voice was quiet, controlled—but it was the kind of quiet that preceded a storm.
"Azazel…" He exhaled slowly, his fingers flexing against the table. "He did this."
It wasn't a question.
Hespera smirked, resting her cheek in her palm, utterly unbothered. "Mhm~ It was quite the passion project for him. A shame he was so bad at it, though."
Grayfia's voice was like ice. "And you have proof?"
Hespera blinked, then let out a small, delighted laugh.
"Grayfia, darling," she purred, her smirk widening. "You just watched it."
The silver-haired maid stiffened.
"Or do you think I fabricated all of that?" Hespera's head tilted, her amusement clear. "Because if so, I'd love to hear your theory on how I managed to trick even you." 'I mean I could, but that would defeat the purpose of showing you my memories.'
Grayfia said nothing.
Sirzechs leaned back, exhaling sharply. His fingers drummed against the table once, twice, before he finally sighed.
"The Grigori will answer for this."
Hespera chuckled. "Oh, my dear Lucifer, you're acting as if I haven't already planned my own revenge."
Sirzechs' gaze sharpened. "And what, exactly, is your plan?"
Hespera hummed, tapping a finger against her cheek. "Well, I could always drop by the Grigori and remind dear Azazel what happens when you play god with things you don't understand."
She grinned, fangs flashing.
"Or~ I could let you lot handle it and just sit back and enjoy the fireworks."
She leaned in slightly, her gaze locking onto Sirzechs'.
"But if you're thinking of stopping me, dear replacement of my brother, I'd reconsider. Because let's be honest—you don't have the power to stop me."
The air in the room tightened. It was challenge. A blatant, undisguised challenge.
Sirzechs held her gaze, his own power stirring, crackling beneath the surface. He wasn't foolish enough to challenge her outright, not without knowing the full extent of her capabilities.
But he knew power when he saw it. And Hespera? Hespera was power.
A beat of silence passed. Then, Sirzechs did something unexpected.
He exhaled. And smiled.
Not the pleasant, diplomatic smile he was known for.
Not the calculated, political expression of the Lucifer.
No—this smile was different.
It was the smile of a man who had just realized that the world had become infinitely more interesting.
"Then," he said smoothly, "I suppose we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"
Hespera's grin widened.
"Indeed, we shall~"