My Wives are Beautiful Demons

The ruins of the old mansion were still smoldering. Cracked walls, broken glass, and shattered furniture made for a desolate scene... but, oddly enough, it was comfortable in its own way. A half-burned sofa, an intact teapot on a pile of charred books, and the constant smell of sulfur in the air created a strange sense of home.

Vergil sat cross-legged on the open sill of a broken window, staring at the gloomy horizon of the underworld. The hellish city outside was slowly rebuilding itself, like a body that still felt pain but tried to ignore it. He held a cup with a dark liquid—probably wine, or something much stronger—and seemed to be thinking aloud.

Sapphire, Sepphirothy, and Morrigan went to see Cabernet and her daughter, while Ada and Vergil stayed behind.

"It's been three weeks... She's never taken this long." Vergil commented, he had something on his mind...

Across the room, sitting on the floor with her back against a cracked pillar, Ada simply read the news on her cell phone, after all, Walpurgis was approaching with each passing day.

"I don't think it's anything to worry about... When my mother gets fixated on something, she goes all the way, well, that was with swords, I don't think it's any different now, she seemed in good spirits when we last saw her," Ada replied without taking her eyes off her phone. "Deep down, you know she would leave there when she saw fit. No one forces my mother to do anything."

Vergil laughed softly, almost nostalgically. "True... but still, I can't help feeling that something happened, I don't know what's going on... Besides, I didn't think she cared so much about powers, but rather about swords."

Ada stopped reading and looked at him over her shoulder. "Do you think she failed?"

"No. It's just the opposite that worries me. I've advanced enough myself to know that this magic, this form of magic, isn't very healthy..."

There was a slight silence between the two, broken only by the crack of a slat from the ceiling collapsing in some distant corner.

Vergil looked around, then nodded toward the still-warm teapot. "Want some tea?"

Ada raised an eyebrow. "Did you make tea?"

"Of course not. Viviane did. Before she went to help organize Walpurgis. This survived by some magic or just sheer stubbornness."

Ada got up and walked over to the pile, helping herself carefully even though she didn't like tea that much. "You know what's strange?"

"Almost everything in this hell?"

She laughed softly. "No. The fact that my mother is striving for something other than a sword like that. That's something I never imagined I would see."

Vergil smiled, but his gaze remained distant. "Well... the Vergil effect, I would say... after all, I had to put some limitations on my interaction with her until her relationship with the world around her improved. It seems my efforts have paid off, right?"

Ada was silent for a moment, then took a sip and asked, "Silly."

The abrupt sound broke the tenuous calm of the moment.

Ada's cell phone began to vibrate abnormally, as if trying to break free from reality itself. The screen flashed in shades of red and black, with distorted runic symbols appearing briefly before disappearing. It was as if something ancient and impatient was trying to force contact.

Ada frowned. "...Okay, this isn't a group notification."

Vergil turned from where he was standing and raised an eyebrow. "Isn't it usually more... calm?"

The soft silence of the room returned, filled only by the muffled noises of the underworld—a distant siren, perhaps an explosion in a nearby street, or the guttural sound of a stray beast being slain by some elite guardian. To Ada and Vergil, it all seemed too routine to worry about.

Vergil slowly turned his cup between his fingers, lost in thought.

Ada sighed, about to say something when — TRRRRIIIIMMMM! — the cell phone in her hand vibrated with unusual force, as if the very soul of the device was trying to escape.

She looked at the screen.

"Hey?" she muttered, confused.

She answered.

"Hey, what—?"

"ADA? ADA, FOR THE LOVE OF THE SEVEN DEMONS, YOU NEED TO COME HERE NOW!" The voice of the Baal Clan's head maid was in sheer panic. She was more shouting than speaking, and there were sounds of things breaking in the background—glass shattering, walls collapsing, and the unmistakable sound of magical energy being forced beyond its natural limits.

"Calm down, what's going on?!" Ada asked, already standing up, while Vergil slowly turned his head in her direction.

"It's your mother! SHE GOT OUT OF THE VAULT! AND— SHE'S LAUGHING LIKE A MADWOMAN! I CAN'T GET CLOSE TO HER! NO ONE CAN! SHE'S ABSURDLY POWERFUL! AND SHE—"

In the background, the call clearly picked up a loud, triumphant, almost maniacal voice:

"HAHAHA! I HAVE CREATED A SUPREME TECHNIQUE!!! I HAVE ACHIEVED THE TRUE ESSENCE OF EXISTENCE!"

Ada's eyes widened.

Vergil raised an eyebrow. "...Was that her?"

Hey shouted again on the line. "SHE'S INCORPORATING ALL HER SWORDS INTO HER BODY! AND THEY'RE TURNING INTO BLOOD! THE CASTLE IS SHAKING! THE SMELL OF BLOOD IS MAKING THE DEMONS PANIC, ADA! YOU NEED TO BRING VERGIL! FOR THE LOVE OF LUCIFER!"

Ada slowly lowered her cell phone, the glow of the screen still reflecting in her eyes. She was silent for a few seconds before looking away at Vergil, who was leaning against the broken window frame of the ruined mansion.

"Well... you were right," she said, her voice low but laden with something between resignation and slight admiration.

Vergil finished the rest of the wine straight from the bottle, as if he were just quenching his thirst, and stood up with a long sigh. He stretched his shoulders, his bones cracking as if they already knew that the calm had come to an end.

"I knew she would master the technique," he replied, resting his sword against his shoulder. "But I didn't imagine she would... well, make that strange maid so desperate."

Ada crossed her arms, leaning against the peeling wall of the old dining room. A piece of the ceiling still dripped water from a poorly repaired leak, and the burnt curtains fluttered slightly in the wind from the underworld.

"Ah... we'll have to ask Viviane to fix that later," Vergil said. "Morrigan and Sapphire did some damage..."