My Wives are Beautiful Demons

"Your face tells me you're up to something..." said Sapphire, returning with light steps but watchful eyes. Beside her, Ada crossed her arms, observing with surgical precision.

"Actually, your face says, 'I'm hatching the plan of the century,'" Ada added, tilting her head slightly as she stared at Vergil, who held the Orb in his partially frozen hand—and with a dangerously satisfied smile on his face.

Vergil chuckled softly. "Come on, don't exaggerate. I just shared a little prediction of the future with our guest here."

"Prediction, huh?" Sapphire raised an eyebrow. 'Let me guess: that other one there wakes up out of nowhere, freaks out with the Orb, and kills everyone?'

Vergil snapped his fingers with his free hand, feigning surprise. "Bingo. But with a little more style, of course."

Ada let out a theatrical sigh. "That's not a plan. That's provoking the apocalypse with a monocle and a wine glass."

Vergil just smiled—one of those crooked smiles, where irony and defiance shared space with something darker. His gaze remained fixed on the Orb, as if listening to an ancient melody that only he could hear.

"Exactly."

Ada narrowed her eyes, intrigued. 'Is she... listening to that?'

Vergil shrugged, but his eyes did not stray from the artifact.

"Who knows?" he said in a tone that danced between disdain and reverence. "It's been a few hours since everything went... quiet. No pulses. No voices. Just silence. As if she had turned to stone inside."

He raised the Orb to eye level, observing how the light seemed more opaque, almost dead, but still alive enough to hold something back.

"Before, it was like holding dormant thunder. Now... it looks like she's holding her breath."

Sapphire took a step closer, her gaze clinical. "That's not good. When beings like her fall silent, it's not because they've given up. It's because they're waiting."

Vergil nodded slowly, his tone more serious now. "Waiting for the first move. The first mistake. A reason to burn everything down."

Ada tapped her fingers impatiently on her arm. "Okay, enough of that. Leave the Orb there. We need to go."

Vergil raised an eyebrow, still focused on the dying light of the artifact. 'Go where? You feel it too, don't you? This thing... it's still breathing.'

Ada snorted and turned on her heels, as if talking to a stubborn child. "Obviously, we're going shopping for clothes."

Sapphire let out an unexpected, muffled laugh as she pretended to study her fingernail with forced boredom. "Wow. Vergil, you've been defeated by futility in one fell swoop."

Vergil blinked, genuinely confused. "Clothes?"

Ada turned back to face him, with the lethal calm of someone who had made up their mind long ago. "You barely have any decent clothes, and Walpurgis is in two weeks. All the demon clans will be at that banquet ball. And you're going to show up in that?" She pointed to his worn-out clothes.

Vergil opened his mouth, closed it, and looked to Sapphire for support. She just shrugged, trying to hold back a smile.

"Ada, there's a draconic empress inside an Orb who might want to devour us alive as soon as she awakens, and you want to go... shopping?" Vergil said with a mixture of disbelief and exasperation.

Ada stopped a few steps away from him, slowly turned on her heels, and walked up to face him closely. Her tone was firm, almost unperturbed—like someone who had just delivered the final sentence in a millennial trial.

"Precisely because of that. If we're going to be obliterated by an ancient goddess, let's at least look elegant when we're pulverized."

Without waiting for a response, she turned away, already tracing the lines of a transport circle with almost ritualistic precision.

"And please, Vergil. I refuse to be seen alongside a possible Chosen One of the Ages... wearing those criminal boots."

Vergil slowly lowered his gaze to his own boots, as if he had only just noticed their deplorable state—dried mud, scratches, and traces of some kind of arcane residue that was definitely not stylish.

He sighed, defeated, with a touch of theatrics:

"...Yeah. I think I need a new coat."

Sapphire laughed softly, shaking her head. As they approached the circle, she reached out and took the Orb with surprising ease.

"I'll take this," she said, her eyes shining with the kind of interest that only arose when chaos and knowledge intertwined. "We'll talk later, and I hope you'll be beautiful when you return. Or dead. One or the other."

Vergil hesitated for a brief moment, glancing at the Orb now in her hands. Something inside him pulsed—or maybe it was just his imagination. In any case, he didn't protest. He trusted her... to a certain extent.

Ada cast one last glance over her shoulder at Sapphire. "Don't mess with her."

"I'll just mess with her a little," Sapphire replied with an enigmatic smile, already sitting on an old chest while twirling the Orb between her fingers.

Light exploded beneath Vergil and Ada's feet, tracing a transport circle with a clean, almost ceremonial glow.

"Let's go, before you decide to experience the apocalypse barefoot," Ada muttered, already disappearing into the beam of light.

As soon as the glow of the transport circle dissipated, taking Vergil and Ada with it, silence fell over the hall once more. A heavy, dense silence, like the exact moment between thunder and lightning.

Sapphire slowly turned the Orb between her fingers, unhurried, her eyes fixed on its surface. It was like staring at a closed sea—it shone on the outside, but what was inside was unfathomable. Still, she felt it. She felt that something was there. Awake. Watching.

And then, like a blade cutting through the still air, the voice came.

Feminine.

Ancient.

Immense.

"You've grown, little demon girl."

Sapphire froze.

Not physically — her body remained motionless, elegant, relaxed as always. But inside, her heart gave a little jolt. That voice. It wasn't a generic presence. It wasn't just any forgotten deity.

It was her.

Sapphire slowly raised her gaze, as if it were possible to face the entity inside the Orb.

"It took you a while to notice me," she replied, her voice serene, but with a sharp spark beneath the calm. "I thought you were busy ruminating on your ego in the abyss."

The Orb pulsed.

This time, not with light, but with heat. A dry heat, like the breath of a dragon restrained by ancient chains.

"You've lost your fear. Interesting."

Sapphire smiled slightly. It was a smile full of sweet poison. "No. I've just learned to pack it into smaller bottles."

"You are not the same child I met in the war."

The voice now seemed to glide, whispering behind the echoes of reality. There was a subtle pleasure in every word, as if savoring old memories was a luxury reserved only for immortals.

"Neither are you the same creature that was feared by kings and hated by other gods," Sapphire replied, harder now. 'Everything changes. Even empresses who fall.'

A slight crack ran across the surface of the Orb. Like a tiny crack, not in the crystal, but in the veil between worlds.

"You've become sharp, little girl. I like that."

Sapphire stood up, still holding the Orb casually, though her eyes were now darker, more intense.

"And you've grown old, old woman."