My Wives are Beautiful Demons

Kaguya raised an eyebrow, staring at the woman she was talking to—or Viper, as she preferred to be called in more informal nighttime circles. The nickname was no accident: her movements were precise, quick, and deadly, and the venom that dripped from her words could be more lethal than the blade she wielded.

"Little princess of Japan..." Kaguya repeated in an icy, almost disinterested tone, wiping her bloody hand with a black silk handkerchief she took from her jacket's inside pocket. "You've always had a special talent for provoking those who could rip the other half of your face off."

Viper smiled even wider, her white teeth gleaming in the red light of the stained glass windows. She twirled the katana in a lazy flourish and tucked it behind her back, as if to say: I don't need this anymore, for now.

"Ah, but where would the fun be if everyone were as polite as your precious eastern clans?" She took a step forward, her eyes fixed on Kaguya's. "Do you really think you can come in here, give a speech like an exiled queen, and think no one will poke at your crown?"

Katharina watched silently, her hand close to a demonic pistol hidden in a holster under her jacket. She didn't know this Viper woman, but she had seen enough predators to recognize one. And this woman exuded the kind of confidence that came from centuries of piling up corpses.

Kaguya approached slowly, unhurried, as if time itself had bent around her.

"I came looking for allies. Not an audience."

"And why now?" asked Viper, crossing her arms. "It's been decades since your clan disappeared from the tables of power. Everyone thought your lineage had become myth or was extinct. And you show up here, spitting ancestral blood on the altar, as if the world had been waiting."

"Perhaps it was," replied Kaguya, with an enigmatic smile.

Viper stared at her for a long second, then let out a dry, low laugh that seemed to vibrate off the walls of the Crimson Chapel.

"You have courage, I'll give you that." She glanced at the decapitated body behind her. "And you know how to choose the right moment to send a message."

"That message was just a polite note. I haven't even started my speech yet."

Viper smiled again—but this time, it wasn't scorn. It was interest. A rare kind, that arose when danger began to smell like opportunity.

"Then speak. What does the princess want from us, monsters and exiles?"

Kaguya finally looked around. All eyes were on her — some with fear, others with desire, and a few with stifled hope. She took a deep breath and spoke, loud enough for everyone to hear:

"The traitor is missing," Kaguya said, looking directly at Viper. "The funny thing is that so far no one has wanted to become the Vampire King. Even with that disgusting creature taking over our main base... What are you waiting for?" she asked with a smile.

She took a step forward, her voice like a blade cutting through the air.

"I am a fool. But I came to remind you that either we fight together, or we will be hunted down one by one. I just wanted to give you this news... Vampires will soon be extinct if we continue like this. We should be a sovereign people, but we're worse off than the werewolves. Well, I'd love to keep talking about how pathetic our race is and how pathetic we're going to be. But that's up to you. I've already chosen a better master."

Silence.

Even the DJ, who was about to resume the music, slowly took off his headphones.

Viper looked at her for another moment. Then, with a slow gesture, he removed his eye patch, revealing a deep scar and a glass eye that looked like it was made of liquid obsidian.

"Look me in the eye and say that again," Viper said.

"You're going to be extinct. You pieces of shit," Kaguya replied...

"She... has completely lost it... I thought she was more fair and reasonable, less crazy... but she's completely out of her mind..." Katharina thought, looking at Kaguya.

For a moment, the silence in the Crimson Chapel became absolute. Even the music contained in the depths of the souls present—heartbeats, breaths, memories—seemed to stop.

Viper's obsidian eye glowed under the red light of the stained glass windows, reflecting more than just anger. It was something deeper: it was recognition. And an old fear masked as respect.

She tilted her head, as if studying a work of art that was finally beginning to make sense.

"So that's it," said Viper, her voice drawn out, almost maternal. "The little princess has grown up. And now she spits on the throne while wearing another crown."

She took a few slow steps, circling Kaguya. The hall remained silent, breaths suspended.

"You know that if you say that in front of the Vampire Council, you will be branded. As a traitor."

Kaguya didn't move. She stared at Viper with the calmness of a sheathed sword that had known war.

"But I betrayed them all anyway," Kaguya said and raised her aura, "Do you think I'm afraid of a bunch of old bloodsuckers who run away at the first opportunity? I don't care if I'm condemned as a traitor." Kaguya said as her eyes glowed red.

She wasn't lying.

After Alucard abandoned her in that damn incident, she decided to devote herself to someone who sees her for more than she is. And of course, Vergil's blood tasted divine. It was the best of both worlds.

Viper stopped behind her, close enough that Katharina almost drew her demonic pistol. But Kaguya didn't even blink.

"And this new master of yours?" Viper asked, her voice now lower, almost a whisper. "Who is he? Some idiot who's deluding you?"

Katharina lunged forward in the blink of an eye.

Her hand, engulfed in flames, closed tightly around Viper's neck. The smell of burning flesh filled the air as the vampire's skin crackled under the infernal heat. The scream did not come—Viper was too proud for that—but the grinding of her teeth was audible even to the humans in the city's underground.

"Call my husband an idiot again, and I'll kill you all with a single attack."