Hespera strolled through the polished marble halls of the Gremory estate, barefoot and utterly unhurried, wrapped in nothing but a towel that clung to her hips like it had personally signed a non-disclosure agreement with gravity.
The air around her rippled with obedience.
Reality knew better than to test her patience right now.
Maids scrambled out of sight like mice avoiding a prowling lioness.
A butler fainted silently behind a decorative vase.
Thud.
Another staff member walked face-first into a wall and slumped with a dreamy sigh.
It was hard to blame him — wet, radiant goddesses were apparently a workplace hazard now.
Hespera raised a hand, fingers snapping lazily.
In a shimmer of arcane thread and divine code, her towel dissolved into an outfit both sleek and deadly — a cropped combat tank that bared her flawless stomach, black tactical cargo pants cinched tight at the waist, boots designed for stomping across both battlefield and bureaucracy alike.
Her skin still glistened faintly from the bath, but now she looked like the kind of woman who could seduce a war god and then kill him with his own pride.
She stepped onto the courtyard balcony.
Above her, the sky tore open.
Golden spirals.
Threaded light.
Three sigils flared into existence —
—one pure gold, radiant and clean.
—one rose-gold, vibrant with floral energy and mischief.
—one silver as moonlight on dark wine.
And then—
like choreographed divine theater—
The Hesperides descended.
Aigle landed first, her expression calm, carrying Akeno bridal-style in glowing threads of starlit silk. The priestess's aura was frayed, flickering faintly, but stable. Her breathing shallow but even.
Khrysothemis arrived next, elegantly spinning a silver tray on one hand like a bored bartender at the end of creation.
The tray held strawberry shortcake, absinthe, and two glittering soul shards — clearly souvenirs.
Hespera's lips curled into something resembling a smile as she took in the sight of her daughters landing with divine timing and borderline theatrical grace.
But that smile didn't reach her eyes.
Those blazed.
One glowed emerald, sharp and cutting.
The other, amethyst, deep and unreadable.
And both shimmered faintly with magenta flames—the kind that didn't warm you… but whispered promises of slow, elegant incineration.
She swept a hand through her silver-violet hair, still damp from the bath, and let her gaze linger on each of them.
"Aigle, Khrysothemis, Erytheia."
Her voice was sweet.
Sugar-drenched, honeyed — the sort of tone a doting mother might use when her children brought her breakfast in bed.
"Welcome home, my lovely disasters."
Aigle gave a small respectful bow, ever the graceful daughter.
Khrysothemis winked and offered up the cake and absinthe like a sacred relic.
Erytheia just blew a kiss and twirled mid-air.
Hespera accepted the tray with one hand, inspecting the cake.
"Perfectly fluffed," she said. "Not too sweet. Just like me."
Then her eyes slid to Baraqiel.
She tilted her head slightly.
Her smile deepened — dangerous now. A lover's promise with a killer's follow-through.
"And if it isn't one of the family's many disappointments."
Baraqiel stiffened, wings twitching behind him. "S-Sister H-Hespera—"
"Still alive, I see," she cooed. "Surprising. I thought being Azazel's obedient lapdog would've gotten you smote or at least experimented on by now."
Baraqiel flinched. "I'm not—! I was trying to—!"
"Trying?" Hespera echoed, slowly circling him like a cat circling a mouse with a name tag. "Oh, sweet Bachy. That's adorable. You tried to raise your daughter after throwing her mother to the wolves? No, you tried to protect her by abandoning her. And you tried to hide from me after you heard what happened to little ZayZay."
Her tone dropped a note lower. Almost sultry.
Almost tender.
"But look at you now… adorable and shaking in your robes. I missed you, little Bachy."
She cupped his cheek.
He froze. Her fingers were soft. Her nails were sharp.
Baraqiel was very aware of both.
"You know I'm going to make you suffer for the mess you made, don't you?"
Baraqiel nodded slowly. "Y-Yes."
"Good boy." She patted his cheek gently. "That's growth."
Then she turned back to her daughters, expression brightening like someone flipping a switch from "executioner" to "soccer mom."
"Now! Who wants to tell Mommy what they found out while traipsing through dimensions?"
Khrysothemis raised her hand lazily. "Akeno is stable. Olympus is gossiping. And Zeus might be in the dog house."
Erytheia grinned. "Also, I dragged Bachy here after I sensed a presence watching us. He was being a little chicken shit hiding."
Aigle said nothing — only bowed again.
Hespera beamed at her, then leaned down to place a kiss on Aigle's forehead.
"That's my reliable ones."
She turned toward the still-unconscious Akeno, now cradled in her arms like a queen holding a fallen general.
Her smile faded into something softer — a glimmer of true warmth beneath the madness.
"Let's go wake her up."
Then, almost as an afterthought, she tossed a look over her shoulder at Baraqiel, her voice once again sweetened like arsenic in rosewater:
"Bachy, do be a dear and prepare yourself. I'd hate to rip out your spine before she finishes yelling at you."
Baraqiel swallowed. Hard.
As Hespera strolled toward the mansion, her arms full of one unconscious thunder-priestess and her mood as radiant as it was unsettling, the doors to the courtyard burst open with a loud, almost panicked creak.
"H-Hespera!" came Rias's voice, slightly too high, slightly too fast.
The redhead appeared in the doorway in a fresh set of clothes and a face that screamed 'I've definitely remembered something I'm trying very hard to forget.'
Trailing behind her were Kiba, looking too polished to be relaxed; Koneko, who was staring unblinking at Kuroka hiding behind a pillar; Gasper, who still hadn't fully recovered from bath trauma; and a handful of castle staff tiptoeing like they were afraid of waking a sleeping kraken.
Sirzechs followed shortly after, attempting to exude "calm older brother energy" and managing instead "this is above my pay grade."
Zeoticus trailed behind him with the quiet desperation of a man trying very hard not to make eye contact with a Chaos Seraph who knew where he kept his wine cellar.
Grayfia was holding a clipboard and an existential crisis.
Rias stepped forward, straightening her shoulders.
"…Is Akeno okay?" she asked, voice quiet now. Sincere. Wary. "I was told you found her. I mean… that your daughters found her. And brought her back."
Hespera tilted her head, the silver of her hair brushing across Akeno's cheek.
"She's stable," she said, her voice slipping into a softer register. "Sleeping it off."
She looked Rias up and down then.
Not judging — not exactly.
Just seeing.
"You woke up earlier than I thought. Good. Fainting into my bath water usually earns you at least a twelve-hour time-out."
Rias's cheeks went crimson.
"Wha—I—I didn't faint because of you!" she sputtered.
"Oh?" Hespera blinked innocently. "Was it the wet body, the magical chains, or the purring nekomata that got you?"
Kiba choked.
Gasper squeaked and turned invisible.
Koneko made a sound that could only be described as a judgmental cough.
"Anyway," Rias mumbled, redder now than her own hair, "I just… wanted to see her. Akeno. I needed to know she's—safe."
Hespera nodded once.
A quiet, rare gesture of understanding. Of respect.
"You'll see her soon. But give her time," she said. Then, more playfully, "Her circuits are scrambled. Comes with being impersonated by a horny thunder god with poor taste in crowns."
Rias blinked. "Wait—what?"
Sirzechs cleared his throat and stepped in quickly. "She means… there was a situation involving Zeus."
"A situation?" Rias turned to him.
Zeoticus added unhelpfully, "There was a sword involved."
Grayfia scribbled something in her notes that looked suspiciously like "send therapist to entire family."
Baraqiel, standing awkwardly by a tree, looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the known universe.
Erytheia, who was lounging midair and licking strawberry frosting off her fingers, called out, "Don't worry, princess. Your girlfriend's in good hands. Mother's very gentle with people she likes."
Khrysothemis chimed in, eyes glinting. "Or very not gentle. It depends on the hour."
Kuroka, now leaning casually behind a pillar in her half-dried clothes, added,
"I'm fine with either."
Rias looked like her soul momentarily evacuated her body.
"…I'm going back to bed," she whispered.
Koneko caught her before she could wander off aimlessly, dead-eyed.
---
Hespera turned away from the delightful chaos with a sigh of contentment.
"Home is where the dramatics are."
She floated off the balcony, carrying Akeno toward the west wing guest chambers, her daughters casually trailing behind like divine paparazzi.
As she passed Baraqiel, she didn't even slow.
"Thirty minutes, Bachy," she said over her shoulder. "Get your excuses in order. And maybe bring flowers."
He looked up. "You like flowers now?"
"They're not for me," Hespera replied sweetly. "They're for the woman you abandoned."
She vanished down the corridor in a flash of magenta light, trailing petals, stardust, and the faint scent of strawberry absinthe behind her.
~☆~
The grand marble pillars of the throne room stood tall and proud, crowned with celestial fire and threaded with gold that shimmered like captured lightning.
A place of power. Of poise. Of divine dignity.
Which made the sight of Zeus pacing back and forth in a toga several sizes too big, shirtless, barefoot, and smoking slightly, that much more jarring.
The King of the Gods was rattled.
And if the deep furrow in his brow or the constant tugging at his tangled beard wasn't enough of a clue, the heavy scent of ozone and shame certainly was.
"She stabbed me," Zeus muttered for the tenth time in five minutes, his stormy eyes flicking toward the stunned assembly of deities watching him. "She actually—stabbed me. In the heart."
Apollo, lounging sideways on his throne with a bowl of grapes, popped one into his mouth.
"You were disguised as her niece, Father," he said lazily. "It was a very stab-worthy offense."
Artemis, sitting next to him with her arms crossed, muttered, "She should've aimed lower."
Hermes stifled a snort from the corner, scribbling furiously into what was very obviously a gossip scroll labeled "Olympian Disasters Vol. 38."
He'd already underlined 'strawberry milk' and 'wet goddess dominance.'
Hera sat upon her throne, every inch the radiant queen — her expression smooth as porcelain, her aura glowing faintly… and yet behind her eyes, the seething glee was unmistakable.
Zeus froze mid-pace, the oversized toga sliding slightly off his left shoulder as he slowly turned to face his wife.
Hera lounged like a serpent in silk, chin resting delicately on her knuckles, her voice the picture of elegance — her words, anything but.
"Surely," she repeated, her tone glacial, "you weren't trying to seduce Eveningstar. The sister of Lucifer. The blade of Chaos. The woman who disassembled an entire pantheon's astral plane because someone mispronounced her name."
Zeus's mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
"…It wasn't like that," he said quickly, then added—too quickly—
"It was research."
From the corner, Hermes made a noise that sounded suspiciously like someone choking on divine irony.
Athena leaned forward, voice deceptively calm.
"You disguised yourself as a teenage priestess. In the middle of her rating game. In front of her entire family. And then flirted with the one archangel you shouldn't have."
"Strategic research!" Zeus insisted, jabbing a finger in the air. "I was trying to gauge that woman's current level of power! She's been dormant for eons! I didn't know she'd come back with even more power." "And an even finer ass", he murmured to himself." Unfortunately for him, someone did hear him.
Aphrodite, who had been mostly silent while reapplying lip gloss made of crushed cherry ambrosia, looked up and drawled, "Darling father, she didn't stab you because you ogled her body. She stabbed you because you're Zeus."
Dionysus, half-drunk and reclining sideways in a wine fountain, raised his goblet.
"To be fair, I'd stab you, too."
Poseidon, seated in a minor oceanic swirl a few thrones down, gave a grunt of agreement.
"Your toga's backwards, brother," he added dryly.
Zeus blinked down at himself.
Indeed, it was.
He yanked it tighter and muttered something distinctly un-Kingly under his breath.
Hera's voice sliced through the tension like a blade through gauze.
"So. To summarize—"
She stood slowly, every movement regal and cruelly precise.
"You impersonated a teenage girl."
"Snuck into the mortal realm during a divine truce."
"Tried to seduce a being older than most of our children."
"Got stabbed through the heart, fled in fear, and now stand before Olympus smelling like scorched dignity and shame."
Her smile was radiant.
"Is that correct?"
Zeus opened his mouth again.
Hermes muttered without looking up, "This one's going on the scroll cover."
Ares leaned back, arms crossed, nodding slowly.
"Best thing she ever did."
Artemis didn't bother hiding her laughter anymore.
"She really should've gone for below the belt. Just—snap. Right between the legs."
Zeus, finally — blessedly — sat down, thudding into his throne like a lightning-struck statue.
He rubbed his temples.
"…She called me a pervert," he whispered, traumatized.
Apollo grinned. "Well. She's not wrong."
The laughter in the throne room echoed through the grand halls when the light in the chamber shifted.
A coolness washed through the air—like stepping into a shadow that hadn't been there a moment before.
The laughter died. Even Dionysus stopped chewing.
A low thrum pulsed through the marble floor, followed by the subtle chime of sandals on obsidian stone.
Two figures entered.
One, the queen of spring and sorrow—Persephone, dressed in flowing silk the color of pomegranate flesh and moonlit bone. Her smile was soft and sharp at once, like she'd bloomed from both grave and garden.
The other…
Hades.
And where his wife was the scent of petals and inevitability, he was finality made fleshless.
The skeletal god of the Underworld stood tall in dark, regal armor trimmed in gold and crimson, each plate etched with underworld runes that pulsed faintly like slow heartbeats.
A bone-white skull grinned beneath a crown of molten gold. His eyes glowed with an eerie, ancient blue—calm, calculating, cold.
Yet the most unsettling part was not his form. It was that he looked genuinely amused.
"...I leave you all alone for one cycle," Hades said, voice like granite sanded smooth. "And already, Zeus is running around in borrowed panties, impersonating teenagers."
Zeus twitched. "I was not—!"
Persephone held up a dainty finger.
"Oh, darling, please. The tapestry recordings say otherwise."
Hermes nearly dropped his scroll in excitement.
Athena smirked. "We were just discussing Hespera, actually."
"Ah." Hades nodded, stepping fully into the throne ring and folding his bony arms. "Yes. The favorite child of Father Chaos. Chaos's… Blessed."
Persephone's smile twitched upward. "Our gorgeous adopted sister."
"She's causing trouble," Artemis said, still seated sideways, looking like she was trying not to enjoy this too much.
"Quite," Hera murmured, sipping wine like it was made of Zeus's dignity.
Hades chuckled softly, a sound like rolling bones in an endless cavern.
"Good. It was about time. I always liked that one."
Then his tone shifted—barely noticeable, but every god in the room heard the thread of warning wind through it.
"However, her awakening has… consequences."
The room went still.
Even Apollo stopped twirling a grape.
"What kind of consequences?" Athena asked, eyes narrowing.
Hades tilted his head, crown glinting faintly in the light of the sacred braziers.
"Nyx is stirring."
A long pause.
Then Zeus muttered, "That's not funny."
"It's not meant to be," Hades replied. "She felt the ripple when Hespera tore into reality. The return of the Blessed of Chaos always draws attention—but this time, Nyx is responding."
"From where?" Artemis asked tightly. "She's been dormant since the War."
Persephone answered, her voice softer, but no less grave.
"From beyond the Weave. She's shifting in the Outer Dark—closer to the gap between stars. The places even the Moirai doesn't reach."
Hera's lips pressed into a line. "She knows something."
"She wants something," Hades corrected, tapping a skeletal finger to his chin. "And when a Primordial wants something, the rest of us should pay attention."
Zeus straightened, face hardening for the first time since his magical embarrassment. "And what does Nyx want?"
Persephone's eyes met his.
"We're uncertain but... she started moving when the Eveningstar made her first move."