Gabrielle's right eye twitched as she scanned the clouds.
Well, what little remained after Lilith's, uh—
"What, you'd expect me to go easy on your brother?!" the demoness snapped before the angel could. "Be glad I've at least kept the bystanders alive. Somehow."
They weren't her priority after she found—
"Bystanders?!" Gabby demanded, already in her face. "Who else was here?"
And when did she get so close?
Right. Unrecognizable as she might have left it, this was still heaven.
Angel territory. That's why it was a pain in the ass to beat Lucifer here, too.
Not that she had the luxury of picking her battlefields.
"Um, there was Konny," Lilith counted her fingers, "Meow Midori, and the girl they brought."
"A girl?" the angel repeated, before getting mad. "What d'you mean you kept the Demon Lord alive?! Why? He is—wait, no. How come he didn't banish you in the first place?!"
Uh, which one did she want answered first? Lilith shrugged.
"I don't know? Could be because Lu wiped too much of his brain right before I arrived?"
Gabrielle should have known her brother's skills better than she did anyway.
"But then, you were the one who designated the poor dude as your greatest enemy," she added with a little jealousy. "He's actually decent, when not under your brother's influence."
The angel was ready to blow, but Gabby took a deep breath.
She put on her inquisitive face rather than her raging one for now.
"Care to explain?" A neutral, cold tone.
It was no fun when she reined in her emotions like that.
"Well, I don't know how much you know, you know," Lilith said. She had to comb her duplicated memories, too, before explaining anything. "Like, he's Lu's reincarnate, too."
"He's what?!"
There, that's better. From zero to eleven.
The demoness suppressed a smirk, plastering on a pout instead.
"Don't yell at me. How could you not know when you knew about my Konrad?"
"B-because," Gabby muttered, face shifting until she seemed calm once more. "I followed you to Earth and back, catching him, well. Not fighting you. And when I started digging—"
"Oh, so you hadn't even suspected your little brother's corruption before?!"
Lilith couldn't hide her grin now. She must have done a great job, then.
"Corruption?!" the angel seethed with rage. Now she was actually funny. "We're angels, God made us impossible to be, uh—"
The demoness interrupted her with a laugh.
Proving an arrogant heavenspawn wrong was her favorite sport in the universe.
Even if it came to bite her in the ass pretty hard now.
"I'll only say that Lucifer reincarnated dozens of poor bastards before Konny boy. Cutting them off the Soul Cycle and all. Meow Midori came about a century ahead of him, for one."
"He was behind him all this time?!" Gabrielle moaned to the sky, her knees buckling.
The exact reaction she wanted.
But, well, since it involved Konrad, she had to be a little more serious.
"Truth is, he wasn't even that big of a deal in the original timeline," she said, also putting on her business-like face. "But things got sideways after Lu reeled in my sweet little Konrad, too."
And that may or may not have been her fault. Not that she would admit it.
"What's with that anyway?" Gabby asked while rubbing her temples. Aww, did she get a headache? "Everyone else forgot about you after, uh, Maple's big reveal. So what timelines?"
"Yikes, you want me to go there?" the demoness yelped.
While it was a valid question, how could she summarise tens of thousands of years she had lived twice? It was already tiring to think about it, let alone explain everything from the start.
But she could do the main points, if nothing else.
After throwing herself down to one of the few remaining clouds.
"Fine. This'll take a while, though, so you'd better get yourself comfortable."
***
"And Stella ran things?" Konrad repeated, still in disbelief.
Eyna waved around the cluttered temporary office with a nod.
"She had to work extra hard, Master, because most people reacted the same way you did. But she was all right. I've supported her in any way I could, of course. Since your first wife, um—"
"Lily," he said as her voice trailed off. "She's my wife, huh? Like, actually."
Not that he doubted her, but it still felt unbelievable.
Apart from hooking up with an adorable ginger chaos incarnate like her—
How the hell could he forget about it all?!
And to make it worse, everyone else did, too.
Including her brother, Welf. That said, she always claimed they weren't real siblings.
"Anyway," Eyna cleared her throat to continue her report. "She 'convinced' your brother to cover for your public appearances. Thus far, the king and the nobles have left us alone."
The word 'convinced' told Konrad there was a story behind that.
But he'd worry about his idiotic twin brother another time.
"What do you mean by 'left us alone'?" he asked. "Shouldn't they have sent us aid against the invaders? Like the first time, when all the men-at-arms gathered under my banner."
The purple-eyed girl sighed.
"That was before the king had returned, Master. After you disappeared, things got hectic."
Yeah, easy to see why.
Even if his excursion in Tokyo wasn't a wild dream, things weren't simple on this side, either.
Politics remained as ruthless as always, facing a nomadic horde or not.
"So what you're saying is that the king wanted the Demon Lord's men to pass right through us. But since he thought I had defeated him in a duel, he gave us free rein? How about the nobles?"
"They see this as an opportunity," was all Eyna said.
Because of course they did.
She rolled out a map that must not have seen much action lately.
"Duke Schwertburg in Aset is beefing up his forces for defense," she said. "That's the pretense. Truth is, he tried to return his daughter more than once, but Lady Gabrielle refused to leave."
"While also refusing to fight the nomads," Konrad grumbled, rolling his eyes.
"She helped when it mattered," Eyna defended her with a shrug. "As for the others, they play the waiting game to see if our defenses would falter before or after the king—"
"Stabs us in the back," he finished in her stead. "And so we're alone against tens of thousands—"
"Hundreds," the girl corrected him. What a great outlook. "But we're not exactly alone, Master."
She put on a tentative smile, her purple eyes glistening when their gazes met.
"Your connections and charm worked even while away, My Lord. We have a thousand men, and Lady Helena is, for one, here with a volunteer force of knights. Many others followed her."
"The queen?!" Konrad couldn't hide his surprise. "No, wait. Regent. Princess? What is she now?"
Eyna's smile widened.
"An outcast, like us," she said. "But she's a strong ally, and, uh—"
Her voice trailed off, a blush forming on her pretty face.
"And what?" He raised an eyebrow, leaning closer.
That made her dark skin turn an even deeper red.
"And she seems to be in love with Welf Welfson of the Blood Moon tribe."