"No fighting," Lilith said, brows furrowed. "But then—"
"Didn't you realize it yet?" Gabrielle scoffed, pacing back and forth on what little remained of the heavens. In fact, most of it was her floating, pretending to walk. "He's strong."
The demoness rolled her eyes.
"Strong, duh. I am, too. So if you can't win in one attempt, you already give up?"
The angel let out a frustrated sound.
Music to Lilith's ears.
"You don't understand," she groaned. "He somehow stole Michael and my powers, too. Last time we clashed, it was only thanks to luck and that blonde necromancer that I beat him back."
"Last time? No, you mean the only time you fought," the little ginger laughed.
"It wasn't," the angel claimed, but Lilith had to wait a bit for her explanation. "We cornered him a while ago. When I first found out he was stealing souls from the Great Cycle."
"Oh?" That was new. Lucifer never mentioned it.
And crafty as that bastard was, it could have been the moment he stole their powers, too.
But she didn't want to bore the angel with assumptions. It was more interesting to hear hers.
"Michael and I confronted him about a century ago," Gabrielle claimed. "And thinking about it, that might have been even before he reincarnated Maou Midori. Or right around that time."
"Lulu got himself a little spanking, then?" the demoness asked with a smirk.
If they knew for that long and let it slide, they might've been more corrupt than she expected.
Why didn't she find satisfaction in that now?
"He did," Gabby noted with a sigh. "And he stood no chance. That's when his wings turned black, and he would cower in a corner whenever we were around ever since. Until last month—"
"A century's a long time," Lilith pointed out. "Enough to figure out how to take his revenge."
And turns out, spanking or not, he continued his transgressions all that time, too.
Gabrielle took a moment to summarise her thoughts.
"I didn't expect him to be this—adaptive? Like, he beat me in my own game. And even after I somehow got the better of him, he escaped before I could seal him away."
"Yeah, he wasn't half bad," the demoness agreed. "But he's better at running than fighting."
When she fought him here, with the Demon Lord by his side, it was still a short, one-sided battle. It took him only a minute to realize he couldn't beat the greater demon, and Lucifer fled.
That said, Lilith couldn't stop him with the falling Konrad being her priority.
"Without distractions or escape routes, I could still beat his ass," she claimed.
Yeah, she was confident.
Right until Gabby's next claim.
"If you managed the impossible and killed him, everyone he reincarnated would die, too," she said. "They're more than his tools, they're—"
"Hostages," the demoness deduced, rubbing her temples. "Of course, damn it."
That tether thing. She had heard it before.
"By ripping those poor bastards off the Cycle, he's their only anchor now," the angel repeated anyway. "Including your precious Konrad. So be glad Lucifer got away before you could win."
Lilith grunted, scratching her scalp in frustration.
"What, then? We'll let him walk all over us because we can't fight him?!"
Gabrielle gave her no answers this time.
It was the demon's turn to start pacing back and forth.
"He said something like this, too," she mumbled, more to herself. "That even if my Konny boy had the strength to harm him, he couldn't. Because of their bond and whatnot. So annoying."
"Well, it's not that he couldn't harm him," the angel corrected. "But he'd hurt himself, too."
That gave Lilith a pause.
"What d'you mean?"
Gabrielle sighed.
"If harm comes to Lucifer, he can dissipate it through his bonds. And if you hurt his puppets, he'd feel that pain, too. Unless he cuts them off, but then they'd die. And it takes time, too."
"Whoa," the demoness recoiled. "Wait, that seems super inconvenient. Why would he—"
No, she knew exactly why. He loved to feed on human suffering.
Not on torture, but on them trying their best to chase their dreams and failing.
Which gave her an idea.
"So it goes both ways, right?" she asked. "Then we can use his reincarnates against him."
The angel shrugged.
"I mean, we could, but—do you think a mere human can take even half the punishment he can? What you're suggesting is to torture Konrad until he dies, only to tickle Lucifer."
"Hey, I didn't say anything about Konrad," Lilith scoffed. "There's Meow Midori, too."
And he must have had a lot more such reincarnates.
"What if we gathered a bunch of 'em and stunned Lucifer by, you know?" the demoness asked, a plan forming in her mind. "How many would we need? If we don't want them to die."
Gabrielle looked at her, wide-eyed.
"What do you mean? I told you if he dies, they die, too, either way."
Lilith shook her head.
"I said to stun him. To seal him away for good. So how many?!"
"From regular humans? A lot. But Maou and Konrad are pretty strong, so five, six?"
"No, no, no, we're not using my Konny boy like that," Lilith protested. "Even if it's safe."
And knowing her lover, he wouldn't let others die in his stead, either.
"So would six or seven work? Without a single one dying?" she asked.
The angel pondered for a while.
"In theory, if we're only trying to stun Lucifer. And if we can even find that many puppets."
The demoness hated that word when she used it on Konrad, but this was still a plan.
"Well, we have one already," she claimed. "Though I'm not sure where he took Meow Midori from here. But if I had to guess, he's already back on Kasserlane. Wait—"
Her eyes widened, an idea forming in her head.
"Couldn't he banish him? Like, from everywhere?!"
Gabrielle laughed.
"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" she said with a sigh. "I mean, he could, but it takes a lot of mana each time, and even more convincing to start. And you know, the multiverse is big."
"Fair," Lilith mumbled. "But we could still banish him from strategic places at least."
The angel nodded.
"Yes. But you're forgetting something," she pointed out. "We don't have the Demon Lord yet."
That was an easy fix. Lilith grabbed her, a grin stretching wide on her face.
"Then it's about time we get him," she said. "What are we still doing here? Let's go back to my Konny boy and figure out something from there."
He must have been awake by now. And she waited thousands of years to see him.
That said, if he didn't fail during his daring escape from Earth, she wouldn't even be here now.
Saved again, without him knowing.
"Fine," the angel sighed, snapping her fingers, and their bodies collapsed. With their souls ripped out for their return trip to Kasserlane, they've left the ruins of heaven.
They had half a plan and a clue ready to explore.
Now, Lilith wanted her Konrad time, and—
Found the temporary office in Halaima empty when they got back.