Luciel couldn't really call the Grigori headquarters 'home', but it felt good to go back. Maybe because of how well things went, maybe because he arrived locking arms with Miyuzuin… Like usual since he damaged his limbs, but this time it felt a little different. A little more intimate.

So of course, most of his mood worsened once he got up to speed with what happened hours before he arrived and he did his part.

"You realize what you're asking me to give out, right? This is my best creation, my masterpiece, my magnum opus. Never again will I be able to make something this infinitely complex and brilliantly simple both. Never again will I accidentally stumble into something like All is Mine." Abby put her hands on her back, with her expression being more serious than Luciel remembered seeing for a while. Hell, she almost looked actually pissed off.

"You've got your powers for like two weeks girl, relax." Star Seeker spoke up in annoyance, sitting on a couch further into the room. Arms crossed and looking away while trying to keep her lips from curling downward as if her life depended on it.

Good. Luciel hoped it sucked being in their presence.

"I didn't know you felt so strongly about this." Luciel broke the line of contact between the girls by placing himself in the middle, preventing them from looking at each other "I mean, I know it was my idea and it was genius. But I didn't know you, well, were able to care about something so much."

"No. Like, seriously consider how well it works. The more I analyze it the more mesmerized I am with myself. It's one of those things that only happen by accident, y'know. That only works because you don't know how it works." Abby put her hand out as if she was checking her nails "There's so many things that could've gone wrong and I find more ways the more I learn to control my Sacred Gear. I don't want to give it out."

"I see…" Luciel looked away from his sister, considering the momentary flashes that his Kankara Formula gave him of the spell. In reality, he hadn't analyzed it like Abby seemingly was able to. But given how she said it managed to break through a very dangerous spell, he was inclined to believe it. He needed to know its limits, especially because the more he used it the less worthwhile it'd be to focus on its original purpose.

"All the more reason to ask." Miyuzuin ended her conversation with Yuuto, getting updated on Genshirou's condition and whereabouts as the siblings talked, and approached with a hand on her chest "If it's what happened the other day, I'll apologize. But I really, really want you to grant me this skill."

"Where does that end? Should I just freely give it just because it's an opportunity?" Abby shook her head "Yes, it's powerful. But no, that's not enough of a reason to let y'all sully it with your grubby little hands."

"Yuuto will be giving out his Balance Breaker swords." Luciel pointed toward the blond swordsman.

"I just want to help." He smiled slightly.

"Ngh! No means no! Even if you come here with all the Demon Lords and angels, I won't fold! I'd rather y'all kill me than…!" Abby seemingly lost her balance, her face twisting into worry before losing her expression completely and tipping to the left.

Yuuto caught her with his speed, resting her head on his shoulder while she uselessly tried to grab at him. But being unable to because she had no strength in her hands or fingers.

"Let's get you to the couch, Abby-san." Yuuto slowly dragged her along until Miyuzuin helped him carry the girl properly.

Luciel used his magic to pull Star Seeker away from her seat and led them there, even though there was more space for her to rest. He turned to the Miracle Child and pointed a finger at her as a warning, forcing the angry girl to back off while Yuuto carefully moved his sister.

"She used too much power, it seems." Yuuto murmured "She's way more fragile than I thought."

"Luciel-sama mentioned she was moving by the power of a miracle, so her trashing Ise-san after using her Sacred Gear with us must've drained her too much." Akeno hurried along with a plate filled with drinks. She put it on the small stand next to the couch and quickly walked away "I'll call Azazel."

"Please." Luciel managed to reply before the raven haired beauty left the room "Damn it, Abby. What am I going to do with you?"

The blonde Invader grinned weakly.

"You're kind of ruining my day." Luciel shook his head, trying to lighten the mood and help his sister center herself.

The blonde moved her mouth, but only some drool came out.

Luciel's forced smile disappeared as he crouched and held her uniform's hem to clean her mouth off.

"C'mon Sis…" Luciel's voice broke a little, but Miyuzuin's hand made him stop speaking out of nervousness.

"She's stable, wait until Azazel comes to tell you if you should panic."

"She only used some darkness." Yuuto looked very deep in thought "I didn't think she'd be that fragile."

"Not helping." Miyuzuin warned him.

"Shut up." Luciel spoke to the two of them without turning to look, focusing on his sister's signs of vitality. It took him a moment to realize he'd sounded way colder than intended "Help or stay quiet."

"I can give her some lifeforce right now." Miyuzuin pulled her sleeves back, getting to one knee and pushing Luciel with her hips to get close to Abby "Kuroka might be more ideal, but I have no idea where she is."

"Should I look for her?" Yuuto offered.

"Probably unnecessary." Luciel said.

"Azazel is already on his way." Miyuzuin spoke at the same time "This is just for Lucius' peace of mind."

"I can give her power, if you want." Star Seeker's voice made Luciel stand up and turn to her. She had a cheeky grin, but otherwise stayed at a good distance as the summoned her weird half halberd half sword Sacred Gear "It might be better if it's me."

"Why?" Yuuto stood to Luciel's side, sort of trying to make a wall between Abby and the Miracle Child.

"My Crimson Tears deals damage to heal wounds, but given that I am a Child of Heaven I can do much more." She put her hand above her breasts, lifting her chin with some pride as she spoke with her eyes closed "Naturally, I can give the stored energy to others. Sort of like Gen can. Plus, I am partially linked to Abi… To Abby. So she might accept it better."

Luciel stared straight to her eyes, hands on the opposite elbow in front of his body, trying to discern the Miracle Child's intentions.

He took another second to stretch his left arm forward.

"Really? I thought you'd try to argue against it." Star Seeker tilted her head "At least about who'd bite the bullet."

"It's fine, I don't have full sensibility on my hands." Luciel stated coldly "Hurry up and make yourself useful."

"Luciel-san, that's—." Yuuto didn't get to finish his sentence as Star Seeker swung her blade against Luciel's arm. Getting the serrated points to bite and hook onto the scarred flesh before slowly pulling it back.

Luciel gritted his teeth. The initial hit scared the hell out of him, but the real pain began as the Crimson Tears absorbed something out of him. It did it in a way that set off all of his nerves, feeling like agony and making him want to pull back. Yet he'd been burned alive, carved himself out before.

He wouldn't pass out from this, even if the pain did make him forget about a certain spell that he should've used before accepting.

Star Seeker's Sacred Gear grew veins of purplish color that quickly became white. She pushed it forward a bit so that the serrated parts would not pull Luciel's flesh along as she separated it from him, and walked around the boys while Luciel cradled his injury. Willing it to heal up.

The Miracle Child sort of reached out while keeping herself as away from Miyuzuin as possible. The silver haired half-devil stared impassively at the half-angel as she dug one of the edges of her Sacred Gear into Abby's flesh. And power slowly transferred over while the veins shining with white color got drained out like the liquid inside a syringe into the Invader's body.

Abby's reaction when it was done was to shiver and then punch the Sacred Gear away, making it take a chunk of her skin that quickly evaporated while the wound closed.

"Monster." Abby murmured, still lying on her side while Miyuzuin had her hands within her clothes.

"Projecting much?" Star Seeker lifted her Sacred Gear and touched the side of the blade, smirking smugly as the boys pulled her away "Hope it happens again so I can keep stabbing you."

"Shiki-san." Yuuto said to the air.

"Don't warn her. If she acts funny, I'll just twist her up like a wet towel." Luciel hissed.

"You're very welcome." Star Seeker showed them her teeth.

"Do angel bodies grow in strength with their holy powers?" Luciel asked dangerously.

"What will be faster, chucklefuck? Your magic or my Sacred Gear?" Star Seeker did not back out "Perhaps my light?"

Her question didn't even make sense. Both Yuuto and Miyuzuin outsped her no matter what she tried to pull off. And Luciel's Kankara Formula did not leave his fingertips no matter what. By all means, this would be a fight she'd lose.

Luciel smirked.

"Careful with that tunnel vision." He shook his head, keeping his expression "It's a bad habit that our family gets into when things go south."

Azazel entered the room with Akeno and Rossweisse in tow. He used his wings to close the room in a moment and put a gas mask on Abby's face, only to get a device out of his sleeve and use his light to lift the girl up.

"Get her where Gen is, make her keep the mask on no matter what. She might be overloaded right now." Azazel spitballed at the valkyrie, who simply nodded along and took the blonde on her arms.

"Any special care?" The white haired warrior-maiden asked.

"No. Not right now. These guys already did something for her, and her Infinite Circuit of Greed must be doing something in her body too. Let's just stabilize her."

"The what now?" Luciel asked when the valkyrie left.

"Your spell, of course." Azazel turned to him and crossed his arms "Abby told me you guys didn't give it a proper name. It's written as 'Infinite Circuit of Greed' but spelled as 'All is Mine'. What do you say? Pretty cool, huh."

Luciel blinked a couple of times and shook his head to clear his thoughts.

"My sister's sick." He reminded the old being while trying to push that nonsensical talk away.

It was his fault for asking.

"No, she's not. She just used power when she shouldn't after using the Sephiroth Graal basically nonstop, when she also shouldn't." Azazel scoffed, as if saying 'kids, am I right?' to Luciel "This was to be expected sooner or later."

"Right." The matter-of-fact that Azazel used helped Luciel calm down a bit "So she's…"

"In good hands, just like Gen." Azazel confirmed before turning to the Miracle Child "Shiki. You're not causing any trouble, are you?"

"Not at all, Azazel-sensei." The girl perked up as the fallen angel patted her head. Not in the conventional way, but kind of just gave her a couple of soft slaps on top of it before moving on.

"Azazel-sensei, what about us?" Yuuto spoke after it became obvious that the fallen angel considered the matter settled "I don't suppose we'll be of any help until Abby-san recuperates."

"Of course you can stay wherever you want. I'll ask Raynare to prepare rooms for you… Hmm, of course if you'd rather go back to the Underworld that's fine too." Azazel gave Akeno a look, but she averted her eyes "Except we'll have to go through a little bit of silencing since we can't have you go around talking about either our two guests or what we're trying to do here."

The two reincarnated devils exchanged a look.

"Very considerate." Luciel commented "Given everything that happened."

Azazel shook his head with a small smile on his face.

"I'd tell you not to take it too personally, but that'd be very insensitive of me. I can only ask you to understand the sort of position I am in."

Luciel also looked away.

"It's not like I don't understand. In fact, I understand it very well. It doesn't mean it wasn't shitty."

"If situations like yours were easy, we'd have managed to find world peace already." Azazel scoffed.

"Is that why you're helping me now?" Luciel insisted.

"I'm helping you because I want to help you. I don't do this out of regret, or because I think I did you wrong." Azazel spoke sternly "I am the one calling the shots. I will not ask for forgiveness when my priority was not you, so I wish that my sincerity goes through with my actions."

Luciel closed his eyes a little bit.

"The sincerity of 'nothing personal kid'?"

That made Azazel chuckle.

"The sincere desire to protect, rather than to destroy." Azazel stated "Hate me for as long as you wish, I deserve it. But please understand that I'm not evil and neither are you."

"You'd know." Miyuzuin stated.

"Kids nowadays think they're really cool and that they've got all figured out. We all thought the same, once." Azazel grinned "And, eventually, figured out that we have no idea of what we're doing. And that we should've reached out when we could."

"You're talking about God." Star Seeker said and Luciel noticed that neither of the devils reacted badly.

"Everyone makes mistakes…" Azazel looked up before regarding Luciel again "Follow me. I showed them to your sister, but I think it'll help illustrate my point. I do owe you some open mindedness, after all."

Luciel felt apprehension crawl to his chest, but the others urged him forward.

Azazel took the lead, letting everyone else walk behind him. Putting up some distance as Luciel didn't want to follow too close by because of his own hangups.

He looked at Miyuzuin, who was doing the same.

"You don't think it's a trap, do you?" He asked as she kept holding his gaze.

"What?" The Belial girl blinked like she was coming back from her thoughts.

"Never mind." Luciel looked back to the fallen angel's back, still feeling apprehensive.

"Hey." She spoke up again.

"Hm?"

"Is it true?" Miyuzuin asked.

Luciel glanced at her.

"What you told Star Seeker, I mean." She fixed her sleeves, which had remained pulled up thus far, and intertwined her fingers while speaking "About your hands."

"I was curious about that too." Yuuto commented.

"It's not like I can't feel anything, but the difference is noticeable." Luciel raised his right hand and turned it around while appreciating the somewhat disgusting visage it had "Why? Are you worried about me?"

"Just curious." Miyuzuin said.

"It's alright. If I hold your hand, I'll be able to appreciate it." Luciel smiled cheekily.

"Incredible. I thought it was a serious issue, but if you can try to spin it around to flirt then I guess it's not that bad." Miyuzuin stated while opening her eyes a bit more than usual.

"Hah. Maybe you should've stayed quiet." Star Seeker pushed Yuuto with some force.

"Shiki." Azazel said from the front.

"I'll be good." The Miracle Child shrunk a bit.

"I suppose some people just need a tight leash." Luciel was about to put his foot in his mouth by saying 'a good dad' in front of at least three orphans. Fortunately, he wasn't a complete idiot. So he managed to string his sentence right before he could ruin his chances with Miyuzuin on day one.

"Says the twink throwing a tantrum because his older brother was mean to him." Star Seeker stated.

"Wow. Okay sis, good to know we can have a normal conversation." Luciel rolled his eyes.

"Of course, pal. We're adults after all." Star Seeker showed him her tongue.

"Of course we are, buddy."

"Good to know we're on the same page, champ!"

"Is this really necessary…?" They heard Yuuto murmur.

"Sure, pal."

"I already said pal!" Star Seeker beamed "You're so bad. You're so terrible."

"Pfff. Okay?" Luciel scoffed "Whatever, kiddo."

"Okay. Let's just…" Akeno moved to the side and pushed Star Seeker and Luciel away from each other "Shiki, don't listen to him. Okay?"

"Pay attention to me, Lucius." Miyuzuin sounded a little irritated as she pulled him closer from his forearm.

"With pleasure." He beamed her a big smile.

"Fine…" Star Seeker pouted.

Still, it served to distract him from the psychopath walking with them. So Luciel took advantage of it and drew a line on Miyuzuin's palm.

She raised her hand as if she wanted to see what he was doing, and Luciel placed all of his fingers on her hand, slowly dragging them out and placing them on top of the corresponding finger. Thumb with thumb, index with index. And so on and so forth.

Miyuzuin shivered a bit.

"It feels weird." She confessed.

"Bad weird or curious weird?"

"It doesn't feel like skin." Miyuzuin moved her hand to grab his instead of intertwining their fingers. She turned it around and fondled Luciel's palm while grabbing him firmly "It feels better than before, at least."

"I might've cut myself touching my normal skin before." Luciel confessed while looking at their hands. Miyuzuin's touch didn't make his heart race or send shivers down his spine. It didn't register enough for his body to go 'we're doing something intimate!'. And that hurt him a bit "But now it's like this."

"Small mercies." Miyuzuin commented "Does flexing your fingers hurt?"

"Not anymore, no."

"I cut my palm several times while practicing the sword." Miyuzuin turned to give Yuuto a look, and he answered with an expression that screamed 'ouch' but didn't actually speak up "It was really nasty and holding anything was torture. I can't imagine how it felt when you did this to yourself."

"I think I was more worried about surviving than anything." Luciel leaned forward to dodge looking at Akeno and gave Star Seeker a look "Before I realized, my hands were too damaged to call it pain."

Star Seeker pretended not to have heard.

"I should've stayed with you." Miyuzuin's words took Luciel aback a bit "Even if just to look after Gen, even if I didn't trust you. I should've stayed."

Luciel looked at the floor.

"When I look back, my vision turns red. I want to murder Star Seeker." Luciel confessed "Elijah, Fate Weaver. Hell, maybe I hate Rias a little for not having been a little faster… And Sona for forcing my hand, and Stain for not being there…"

Luciel looked straight at Miyuzuin.

"I never once thought you should've made a different choice. Call it petty, or biased. But… I can't come around to hate you because of what happened."

Miyuzuin held his gaze and then looked away, behind him.

"And these guys?"

When Luciel turned, both Akeno and Yuuto were trying to look discreetly. Not to interrupt the conversation. But it was obvious they were holding back a lot.

"Them? The ones that held on with me?" Luciel chuckled "How could I ever blame them for doing their best?"

Their reaction was a lot more subtle than he expected. Of course, he didn't think that Akeno would explode into a blushing mess or anything. But the serenity with which they seemed to get deep in thought really obfuscated any other emotion that Luciel could read.

"Always wondered how Luciel-san felt about… That." Yuuto commented as if he was talking to himself, as if to confirm his own thoughts.

"My, my. You and I, Yuuto-kun. It's just that Luciel-sama is terrible at conveying his feelings." Akeno joked while covering her mouth. But her voice sounded a bit more relieved than teasing "And that's considering all the time we've spent with girls like Koneko-chan and Yuzu-san."

"What did Yuzu-san do to get his trust so easily?" Yuuto chuckled.

"I wonder." Akeno followed his lead.

Miyuzuin didn't really react with a facial change. Instead, she said something outrageous.

"He's just after my body."

Luciel raised an eyebrow at the accusation.

"Too close to home?" Miyuzuin looked away immediately after saying that. As if she was showing some embarrassment without actually changing her expression.

"Why do you people always think I'm just horny? Like, the only person here that hasn't accused me of that is Star Seeker." Luciel threw his thumb in her direction, speaking calmly but visibly annoyed "How messed up is that?"

"Not messed up. I'm just very gentle, and considerate, and don't make mistakes. Ever." Star Seeker lifted her chin proudly.

"I sure hope you're not including me in that list, because that's just blatant defamation." Azazel stopped pretending not to hear them while leading them around and stopped in front of a small door "Okay. This is really important for me, so I need your full attention."

Miyuzuin had her mouth open like she wanted to say something but closed it immediately.

Both the other girls and Yuuto did the same.

"'Kay, let's go." Azazel opened the sliding door, and Luciel was assaulted with the space twisting magic directly in his mind.

He tried to ignore it, but the room had been warped in a way that made it difficult for his senses to move away from them. He almost couldn't see the pillars that held eight spaces with something like light imitating atoms in how they moved. Well, seven. Because one of the pillars was empty. And coiled around the whole thing, a massive golden dragon reared its head to regard them.

"Yo, Fafnir." Azazel greeted the reptile "I'll just show these guys what's up and we'll be on our way."

The dragon let out embers from his nostril and simply went back to lying down. The guys were pretty spooked, and Luciel felt creeping anxiety once he started adapting to how much power was in the room.

It'd seem that it was dampened on the other side, so his senses weren't as sensible to it outside. But once inside, he couldn't help being overwhelmed from all the formulae whose variables kept changing from moment to moment. Seemingly following a pattern, but one that Luciel couldn't follow up.

"Sacred Gears." Miyuzuin stated once they were in the center of the room.

It did remind Luciel of the place where he met her.

How long ago had that been?

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it a bit. Miyuzuin looked at him and nodded.

It took her a moment to coil her fingers around Luciel's hand, reciprocating.

"True, true. You know they're my passion and all that. It's my pride to know as much as I do and to be able to work with them after so many centuries of studying them." Azazel sighed, smiling with melancholy. But his expression was still painful. He was having difficulties being in this room.

"That's why you fell." Star Seeker added.

"Yes… Kind of." Azazel looked down "You see, knowing isn't all that bad. When He booted me out, it wasn't just because I wanted to know all the secrets of the Sacred Gear system. Hell, I believe Lucifer even got into a bet and got Him to make a Sacred Gear in his image."

What?

"That'd ironically work against Him because it was the model used for the Malebranche… But anyway, it wasn't all that bad. And for a while, He let me be. Perhaps He found it cute how enthusiastic I was about his Sacred Gears, or perhaps he liked having such a die hard fan of his masterpiece…" Azazel's voice broke a little, and Luciel felt a bit of trepidation as he approached one of the pillars, looking longingly at it "But it doesn't change that I didn't know what I was doing. Be it because Father didn't want me messing around with them, or because He wanted to keep it a secret… I don't know. Satanael thought He just hated the idea of someone mimicking His power. You might find it hard to believe but…"

"Babel." Yuuto stated without much of a care.

"...You might not find it too strange, but that breeds resentment… Which you also understand very well." Azazel chuckled bitterly "But here's the thing about resentment: It foolishly makes you think that you're right."

Azazel turned to them and spread his hands to either side of his body. As if inviting them to check the Sacred Gears held by the pillars of the room.

Luciel regarded them with his mind's eye.

He almost immediately set his attention somewhere else, flinching and taking a step back. Bumping into Miyuzuin as she did the same, probably having paid attention with the extra senses that her senjutsu gave her.

"These are my mistakes. The ones I managed to recover, that is." Azazel sounded satisfied with the reaction, although that only made Luciel grow even more distrusting of the fallen angel.

"Why are they like this?" Luciel asked "It felt like they'd…"

"Like they'd swallow me whole." Miyuzuin finished.

"I call them Broken Vessels. They're, well, broken Sacred Gears." Azazel shrugged almost by reflex "Sacred Gears I broke in my pursuit of knowledge… And the reason I fell."

"That's bullshit." Luciel didn't really think before speaking "The amount of power required to break a Sacred Gear is… There's only a handful of ways to do that."

Azazel nodded.

"What the fuck were you doing in your youth, Azazel?" The Invader insisted.

"Terrible things." The fallen angel admitted "I've spent most of my life trying to correct my mistake but… Well. Life doesn't turn out the way we want, huh."

Luciel looked away, clenching his jaw at the underhanded accusation.

"Some absorb their host's soul, some absorb power like your Infinite Circuit does, some have no safety measure to protect the host and just drain them in a handful of activations. And those are the ones that go back to the Sacred Gear system, which means that it'll happen again and again… Until they're taken out."

"So that's why they're here." Akeno looked at one in particular, one that made the others shy away from it "You're running damage control."

"You could say that." Azazel nodded.

The look Akeno gave him when she turned to him was as accusatory as anything Luciel had seen before.

"Do you fallen angels only know how to hurt and make things worse?"

"Akeno-san…" Yuuto tried to stop her but Azazel just chuckled.

"That's an awful generalization, but it's fair if you think of me that way."

"Haven't you been teaching us for some time?" Star Seeker didn't look particularly worried about the whole situation. She still reacted badly to the Broken Vessels, but she didn't seem to care about Azazel's story at all.

"Doesn't mean I haven't done bad things." Azazel acknowledged.

"No, it doesn't." Luciel agreed while walking up to one of the Sacred Gears "What happens if they get out?"

"Straight to the Heavenly System, straight to ruining people's lives."

"Why not destroy them, then?" Luciel asked.

"If the girls in your previous peerage were to miraculously revive right now, would you kill them all again?" Azazel asked back.

Luciel was about to answer when he noticed his reflection in the barrier holding the nearest Broken Vessel.

"Probably not." He admitted.

"So what about this? What are we supposed to take from this revelation?" Miyuzuin asked while eyeing the dragon around them.

Azazel shrugged.

"I guess I just want you guys to understand my position better. How we got here, why things are the way they are."

Luciel raised his gaze to look at the fallen angel.

"Running damage control."

Azazel simply leaned onto one of the pillars.

"Hate me all you want. It doesn't matter because…"

"Because there's more important things to take care of." Luciel's thoughts went back to his brother and sister.

"So we agree." Azazel said.

"I'm kind of happy right now." Luciel admitted "I think I got out of my family's bad habit of going into tunnel vision when things don't go our way, so I sort of get it."

"Tunnel vision?" The fallen angel asked.

"Look, we're all like that. We all think we know better. Abby, Fate Weaver, me. And then it turns out that we're doing completely nonsensical things. I had more options as Diodora than I noticed, I could've done better."

"That's what your sister said." Miyuzuin interrupted him "It doesn't mean she's right."

"Oh, but she is. A lack of judgment is as bad as being stupid. It's not pretty, but at the end of the day I could've avoided this." Luciel raised his hands, showing them his scale-like scars covering them "And… I dunno. Maybe we could all be in Kuoh right now, laughing that the Khaos Brigade were idiots all along and how easily we averted the end of the world."

"But there are no what if scenarios." Azazel reminded them all "Thinking about them won't clean the blood on the floor, or fix the broken windows."

The fallen angel regarded all of them individually, giving them a stern look while they held his gaze.

"Take this from an old man living in spite of his regrets: Don't leave things unfinished. The world keeps moving, and when you notice it's been more than 300 years and you just notice that things weren't so bad in the end." Azazel smiled bitterly "And that maybe, just maybe, you should've been the bigger man in the room that one time."

The zone where the headquarters had been built had a lot of free space. Luciel didn't really know where in the world they were located, but he appreciated the mild weather and soft wind while the sun settled down. Walking around aimlessly became pleasing, and so his thoughts didn't harass him as much when he spun them around.

"What are you thinking about?" Miyuzuin approached him, having changed into another suit-like attire. But looking cleaner, less tired.

"Azazel speaks B.S., I don't forgive and forget. I remember and resent."

"It doesn't apply to everything." She agreed.

"Fallen angels obsess over their reason for falling, right? Maybe it's different for us and we shouldn't listen to him." Luciel's mind went back to Rias' peerage "...Too much."

"I get it. It feels like I'm a bit like him." The Belial girl fixed her hair when the air blew against it "And he looks fine to me, so maybe it is a warning that shouldn't be heeded."

"Maybe."

"Question." She stated.

"Hmm?"

"Did you ever see me as an enemy?"

"I can't recall." Luciel admitted.

"It's fine if that's the case, don't try to just say something you think will leave a good impression."

"I really can't. At that point, I was looking for people I could trust. I understand money, so maybe I thought that while you weren't an ally you could be an asset at least." Luciel explained with a sigh "In the end, if you weren't there things would be different. So it doesn't really matter."

"It does to me."

"Why?" Luciel eyed her with some suspicion.

"I want to know when you started wanting to have me." She admitted.

Luciel chuckled.

"You were always mine, in my heart at least."

"Spinning it around to sound romantic doesn't help you here." Miyuzuin reminded him.

"You're such a bore… It's not like I think you aren't mine. You've stayed. It doesn't matter if you do it because you care about me or because I'm an asset to you. You are mine all the same. There won't be anyone that can take you away from me."

Miyuzuin frowned.

"Then why confess?"

"Because I want more of you, of course." Luciel smiled "I want your smile, your longing gaze. I want you to touch me, to hold me. I need your voice like I need to rest."

"You want me to worship you." Miyuzuin came to her own conclusion.

"I like you the way you are. I don't need an unthinking drone that can only think of me." Luciel scoffed at the idea "But I still want you to think of me. To want me to belong to you. Does that make sense?"

"You think in a way I can't follow." Miyuzuin closed her eyes "What even is love to you?"

"Control." Luciel admitted immediately, a dark grin showing on his face "So if you have this much power over me, then it's only fair for me to have the same power over you. Right?"

"That's messed up." She said.

"I thought it sounded romantic." Luciel reached out.

"You're really messed up if that's true." Miyuzuin approached him and took his hand.

"Then why are you blushing?" Luciel grinned.

"Because it's warm."

"It is with you here. Can I kiss you?"

"You're going too fast, even for me. Do you think I'm an easy woman that'd fall for a handful of compliments?" Miyuzuin leaned closer, almost daring Luciel to cross the gap between them.

He had to get on his tiptoes, but Miyuzuin pulled back so he couldn't reach her.

"Do you think I'll just let you do whatever you want to me that easily?"

"I have to try." Luciel confessed "Unless you hate it."

"You tell me." She caressed Luciel's hands, but he pulled them so she held his face instead.

"That's nicer." He said breathlessly.

"You're rather easy. Aren't you a little too slutty to be a guy?"

"I already told you I need this. Aren't you the one giving out your affection too easily?

"Do you think I'm such a woman?" Miyuzuin sounded actually surprised.

"If you were, I'd grow the stamina for you to think only of me."

"I bet you told Kuroka the same." Miyuzuin whispered.

Instead of answering, Luciel bit her right thumb.

"It doesn't get me in the mood." The Belial girl blinked, sounding more serious now.

Luciel was about to suck on her finger, but she apparently realized this and pulled her hand away.

"You're right. There's a degree of control in there… Good to know that staying by your side remains good business." She turned around, hands on her back. So Luciel could see her pressing the thumb that had been in his mouth against the rest of her palm "Let's have some dinner."

Luciel sighed, trying to get his breathing in check.

"Just you and I?"

"Sorry to disappoint, but that'll have to wait." Miyuzuin gave him a side glance. She was still blushing a bit "Work comes first, enjoyment second."

Luciel groaned but followed behind her.