Lilith was in heaven—which sounded great—but she hated it here.
She hated the angels, too, and she hated that they yanked her away, to waste time, instead of—
Well, not that she could do anything.
"We need a backup plan," Michael groaned, sitting on his giant throne.
"Konrad was our backup plan," Gabrielle pointed out, pacing back and forth on the clouds.
"He's still alive, you know," Lu noted, huddling in a corner—or at least that's how it looked.
He was the little antisocial kid, hiding from the world. Except he was thousands of years old, and there were no corners in heaven.
"If he's alive," Gabby paused, "why is it that I can't feel him?"
Lilith scoffed.
"Because you're looking for a tool," she said. "Meanwhile, I've lost my lover."
Gabrielle opened her mouth, then closed it, before opening it again.
"You know we were about to get married, right?" she asked with a tone that made Lily's skin crawl. "After all, I was the first pick of your little lover—"
The demoness wanted to punch her, but she couldn't.
Or rather, she could've, but it wasn't a great idea with the other two around.
And they had this whole situation to solve, too.
The best she could do was laugh.
It wasn't honest, she almost exploded with rage, but she held it in.
If this bitch wanted to play this game, she would give it her all, too.
"It was to be a double wedding," she noted, her tone level but lips trembling. "He only wanted to marry you for your connections. But he wanted to take me because he actually loves me."
Gabrielle didn't leave it at that.
"Love or not, we've been kissing for a month," she claimed. "And he wasn't even that bad."
Ugh. No punching the bitch.
Deep breath, counting to ten.
"Let's stick to the facts." Lilith held out a hand to count on her fingers, too. "First, it was for a day, even if you stretched it out to eternity. Second, his life depended on it. So it doesn't count."
"His tongue was in my mouth, though. You don't have to do that to breathe—"
That was it. She had to put Gabby back in her place.
"Enough," Michael's voice boomed, shattering the nearby clouds.
If he weren't doing that, Lily might've been at his sister's throat already.
This 'pretending to be calm and destroy others with words' thing wasn't her game after all.
"Archangel Gabrielle. You should feel ashamed of yourself," the eldest of the angels said. "To let your petty rivalry and your emotions towards a human affect this mission—"
"Hey, not a petty rivalry," the demoness protested. "But yeah, don't emote towards my Konny."
There. She was acting mature and calm. But it wasn't enough.
"Yours," Gabby scoffed, crossing her arms. "If anything, he still belongs to Lucifer. And thus, us."
The angel in question shuddered at the mention of his name, even before Lilith shot him a hellish glance. Right. Of course. That little bastard stole him from her. Not that she'd forgotten.
She thought she had forgiven; it seemed like good fun back in the day, but now—
"Please don't drag me into this," Lu pleaded, curling into a ball. "I don't even swing that way."
And that was a lie.
Lily knew it for a fact, but that was the least of her problems right now.
"I said enough," Michael yelled, taking a menacing step towards them. "Countless words are in danger, and you are bickering about meaningless things."
Yeah, no. The first archangel was still the most obnoxious of the bunch.
"I said this before, and I can only repeat myself," Lilith said. "I don't care about your worlds, or your mission, or if the Old Man falls or not. I'm only here because it involves Konrad."
"Brother, he is not meaningless," Gabrielle joined in, too. "He is the key to our success."
She had her with the first part, lost her with the second.
But Michael could make it all worse with a single word.
"Was," he said. "Whether he's gone or still alive, he's useless now."
That was too much.
"How dare you?!" Lilith yelled, walking straight up to that holy monster. She wanted to shout it right into his face, but, well, he was much taller than she in this form. "He is a freaking prodigy."
"They call him that because Lucifer let him keep his memories," Michael talked down on her.
"Well, I mean, I wouldn't say that," Lu muttered. "He's pretty talented when it comes to magic."
One good point for that corrupted angel. He was still close to negative infinity, though.
"His magic didn't help when the Demon Lord banished him," the archangel noted. "And you said we could use him, because unlike us, he's unbanishable."
Was that even a word? Outrageous and stupid as always.
"First off, he's not banished," Lilith snapped. "I can still feel his presence—or could before you yanked me away again. Plus, he was kinda ambushed, you know?"
The circumstances still weren't clear.
She felt a tremor in the mana, but by the time she warned Konrad, he was gone.
Nobody was that fast. Okay, Gabrielle could pull it off when she froze time, but—
Oh.
"He has the same powers as your sister," she claimed, scratching her temple. "And he has some of mine. You said he wasn't a big deal without his banishment spells, but you were wrong."
Confusion and doubt met her words; it was clear without even trying to read their minds.
"Care to explain?" Lucifer asked first, perking up from her non-existent corner.
"When I rushed to the scene, I could feel his presence. But like—it was so strong, as if he'd spent an eternity on that spot. He was there while the universe formed and fell apart."
"You say that, but I still couldn't feel anything," Gabrielle interjected.
Lilith rolled her eyes.
"Of course, idiot. Because I'm talking about the place. Space. My affinity. He was there in space, but not in time. And I'm sure that Maou, too, arrived there through time, not space."
"This makes my head hurt," the angel moaned, pinching her nose. "Time doesn't work like that."
"Or does it?" Lily asked, her hands on her hips. "What do you know? Your skill is to slow down or speed up one moment. This guy might've figured out how to move between two."
"While possible, we outlawed time travel," Michael noted. "His first one was a one-off accident."
"Oh, because you can do whatever you want," Lilith scoffed. "Care to explain why you're afraid of this guy then, and why he's such a threat? Because you can't control him, after all."
The archangel took a step back and groaned.
"It's not about him. We froze that world's timeline, as we did with many others."
"Well, you go tell him that, then," she said, shrugging it off. "He doesn't seem to care."
"Let's assume you're right," Lucifer offered, pacing back and forth. "If he undid our safeguards and can travel in time on that world, how do we defeat him before he finds a way out?"
Lilith smirked, crossing her arms.
"You can't. Not sure if Konrad can—but he's there right now. He'll have to figure something out."