Let's fast rewind some to when or cute psychopath rips out the pervert's heart, yeah?
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"Goodnight, virgin boy~" Hespera whispered, and ripped his heart free.
Blood spattered across the glassy void in a wide arc, droplets hanging suspended for one impossible moment before falling with delicate plinks. His body collapsed, twitched once, and began to dissolve just as the others had—flesh and bone and uniform simply ceasing to exist, erased from reality as though he had never been born.
Hespera held his still-beating heart in her open palm, watching it give its final, pathetic shudder. The muscle contracted once, twice—and then went still, the light fading from his eyes reflected in its glossy surface. She closed her fist and crushed it, the remains vanishing into nothing between her fingers.
The Perverted Trio was gone—not dead, erased, as though they never existed at all.
Hespera stretched her arms above her head, rolled her shoulders, and exhaled with the satisfied ease of someone finishing a pleasant afternoon hobby. She licked a stray droplet of blood from one finger and murmured to herself, "Well… That was fun~"
"Now then," her eyes gleaming with sudden mischief. "Let's see what happens next."
And somewhere in the unseen architecture of fate—a place that existed beyond physical reality, beyond the concepts of time and space that mortals understood—a chain that had never been fully forged simply ceased to exist.
The effect moved outward not as sound or light but as absence—a ripple of perfect, absolute nothing that threaded through the human world, the Underworld, Heaven's halls, and the spaces between. It passed through realms and realities with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, severing connections, erasing possibilities, unraveling threads that had been centuries in the weaving.
☆=
Rias Gremory stopped mid-step in Kuoh Academy's emptying hallway, her red eyes going suddenly distant. She pressed one hand to her sternum, fingers splayed across the fabric of her uniform, her expression cycling through shock, confusion, and a strange, hollow emptiness before she forced it back to perfect neutrality.
Beside her, Sona Sitri paused, adjusting her glasses with one delicate finger. "Rias?" she asked, voice pitched slightly higher with concern.
"It's nothing," Rias said, forcing a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I just felt strange for a moment."
Sona studied her for exactly two seconds, unconvinced—her gaze sharp, calculating, missing nothing of the tension in Rias's shoulders or the way her hand still pressed lightly to her chest. But she let it pass, because devils—even those who were friends—understood the importance of keeping their own counsel.
They continued down the hallway side by side, their footsteps echoing in perfect synchronicity. Rias's hand remained loosely pressed to her chest, as if to keep something from escaping.
☆=
Akeno Himejima set the teapot down with a soft clink, the pouring sound suddenly too loud in her ears. Her fingers froze on the porcelain, the sensation of something pulling back—like a tide receding—moving through her chest and leaving a strange, hollow ache behind. She stood with both hands flat on the table, head tilted slightly, violet eyes fixed on nothing.
When she finally moved, her movements were as elegant as ever—fingers curling around the teapot's handle, the liquid flowing in a perfect arc into Kiba's cup. But her smile, when he glanced up from his book and said "You've gone still," was too perfect, too practiced to be real.
"Just a passing thought," she answered, her voice carrying its usual lilt. But her golden eyes stayed fixed on the window long after he had returned to his reading, watching the empty space beyond the glass with careful attention.
☆=
Koneko Toujou sat very still on the stone courtyard steps, the nerikiri packaging crushed in one small fist. Her tail had snapped rigid the moment the ripple passed through her, her ears locking forward with predatory focus. She scanned the courtyard with careful precision—her senses extending beyond the physical, reaching for a threat that had no shape or scent, that left no footprint or disturbance in the air.
Nothing. The yard remained empty—just the late afternoon light, the distant sound of students heading home, the occasional flutter of cherry blossoms drifting across the stone. After a long moment, her tail flicked once—sharp, decisive—and the empty packaging crumpled further in her grip. She rose in a single fluid motion and continued toward the school gates, pace unhurried, face revealing nothing of the calculation running behind her golden eyes.
☆=
Asia Argento's hands tightened around her rosary, the wooden beads pressing half-moon impressions into her palms. She sat alone in her candlelit Italian church, the hollow ache opening in her chest so suddenly that her breath caught. She pressed her free palm flat over her heart, eyes closing automatically as she bowed her head.
The prayer began without words—just a feeling that expanded to fill the space between her ribs, warm and heavy and somehow terribly important. The candle flames shivered in their holders, casting dancing shadows across the stone floor. Her lips moved soundlessly, forming shapes that held no meaning but that somehow expressed the perfect, absolute certainty that something had changed.
☆=
Xenovia's foot came down wrong mid-training sequence, her balance shifting with the abrupt dislocation of reality. Ex-Durandal dipped before she caught it, her jaw tight, grip tightening on the hilt until her knuckles went white. She stood in sudden stillness, feeling the outline of a gap in her future—not grief, not even sadness, but something stranger: a path suddenly closed, a branch of possibility that had simply ceased to exist.
She lowered the blade slowly, her blue eyes fixed on the distant horizon. Then she straightened, resettled her grip on the holy sword, and began again from the top of the sequence—her movements perfect, precise, revealing nothing of the calculation running behind her gaze.
☆=
Irina Shidou's lips stopped moving mid-prayer, the words frozen in her throat as a tremor passed through her wings. She pressed both hands to her chest, golden eyes wide and unfocused—seeing not the church around her but something that existed just beyond perception. The sensation lasted for one long moment—a perfect, absolute certainty that something was wrong—before fading as suddenly as it had come.
She bowed her head, forcing the prayer to continue with lips that suddenly felt too heavy for words. The sensation lingered—a ghost of awareness at the edges of her consciousness—as she completed the final verse with careful precision.
☆=
Rossweisse's pen stopped moving over her color-tabbed budget projections, the neat column of numbers interrupted by a single, jagged line. She set it down with careful precision, straightening the papers before her with methodical movements. Then she folded her hands on the desk and said quietly to the empty room:
"I don't know what just happened. But I feel like I narrowly avoided a very serious long-term financial liability." Pause. "And also significant personal chaos." Pause. "I need a drink."
She reached for the bottom drawer of her desk with the particular determination of someone who had earned a moment's peace.
☆=
Kuroka sat bolt upright on the Khaos Brigade rooftop, one hand pressed to her sternum, slit-pupil eyes fixed on the sky with predatory focus. Then, without warning, she laughed—full, unguarded, all nine tails sweeping free behind her in a perfect arc of delight.
"Whoever did that," she announced to no one in particular, "I owe them one."
She draped herself back against the warm tiles, her smile widening to show a perfect row of fangs. Her eyes remained fixed on the distant horizon, watching the ripple fade with careful attention.
☆=
Ravel Phenex's fountain pen left a perfect streak of ink across the page—a line that crossed three paragraphs and rendered the entire document unacceptable. She set it down without picking it up, the two halves of the pen separated by exactly one centimeter.
She sat very still, both feelings—insult at the ruined work, relief at something she couldn't name—playing across her face before she carefully smoothed them away. Then she took a fresh pen from the drawer and began rewriting from scratch, her handwriting as perfect as ever, the slight tension in her shoulders the only indication that anything had changed.
☆=
Le Fay's summoning circle fizzled out with a soft, anticlimactic pop, the chalk still in her hand as the carefully drawn lines simply... stopped. She looked at her hands, at the ruined rings, at the middle distance beyond her window, her expression cycling through confusion, consideration, and a strange, quiet relief.
"Oh," she said quietly.
Then she settled back to her knees and began redrawing the outermost ring, her shoulders a little looser than before, the magic flowing through her fingers with new ease.
☆=
Ingvild's fingers went still against her instrument strings, the note hanging in the air between one breath and the next. The silence that followed was different from the isolating silence she had grown up in—lighter, cleaner, as if something heavy had been lifted from her shoulders.
After a long moment, she began to hum again—a different melody, one that felt more genuinely hers. The sound filled the small room, bouncing off the walls and returning with new resonance. She closed her eyes, letting the music carry her forward into a future that suddenly felt less predetermined.
☆=
Elmenhilde Karnstein set her correspondence down, crimson eyes sweeping the room with centuries-honed precision. She found nothing visibly wrong—no intruder, no disturbance, no threat that required immediate response. But she noted the slight easing of tension across her own shoulders, the way her breathing came easier than it had moments before.
She refused to examine it—to name it, to give it weight or meaning. Instead, she picked up the next letter and continued reading, her expression revealing nothing of the calculation running behind her eyes.
Kunou stumbled in her mother's estate garden—not her feet, but something deeper, a dislocation that made her tails curl tight against her back. She called "...Mama?" into the empty afternoon, her voice carrying across the perfect arrangement of stones and flowers.
When no answer came, she stood very still with one hand pressed to her sternum, golden eyes fixed on the horizon with careful attention. Then, slowly, her tails began to unfurl—one by one, each movement deliberate—as the butterfly drifted on through the flowers and she ran after it, her laughter bright against the quiet afternoon.
☆=
And somewhere in a pocket of created reality, Hespera stretched her arms above her head with casual satisfaction, the Boosted Gear dangling from one finger. The title [Protagonist Killer] glowed at the edge of her vision, pulsing with wicked promise.
"Perfect," she declared to the empty void. "Everything's exactly where it should be."
She vanished the gauntlet with a flick of her wrist, then snapped her fingers—once, twice—the obsidian floor rippling beneath her touch. The pocket dimension began to dissolve around her, reality folding in on itself like paper in water, until there was nothing but the faintest shimmer where the boundaries had been.
And somewhere in Kuoh, a new power had awakened—a dragon of void and chaos who answered to no one but herself.
Hespera sauntered down a Kuoh street in the early morning light, schoolbag slung casually over one shoulder, thigh-high boots clicking a steady rhythm against the pavement. Her silver hair—streaked with violet, indigo, and green-blue—caught the sunlight with each step, fracturing it into patterns that danced across the sidewalk. The morning air carried the faint sweetness of cherry blossoms and the particular scent of a town just waking up—the combination pleasant enough that she almost regretted the havoc she'd wreaked.
Almost.
She hummed as she walked—a cheerful, deliberate tune that synced perfectly with each click of her boots against the concrete. "Sweet but Psycho" spilled from her lips in quiet, satisfied notes, her voice carrying just far enough for nearby pedestrians to catch snippets of the melody. A raspberry lollipop twirled between her fingers—the candy bright against her olive skin, the plastic wrapper long since discarded—its presence a small, self-indulgent pleasure in a morning that promised many larger ones.
She popped it into her mouth with theatrical flair, letting the tart raspberry flavor coat her tongue as she turned down another street. Her heterochromatic eyes—emerald on the left, amethyst on the right—glowed faintly with the power still running beneath her skin. The smile sitting on her face held the deceptive softness of something that had never once been innocent, curving her lips into a shape that made passing students edge away without seeming to realize they were moving.
"Mmm~" she hummed, drawing out the syllable with dreamy pleasure. "Delicious morning, delicious chaos, delicious me~"
The street around her was the picture of ordinary Kuoh morning—a few early commuters hurrying toward the train station, students in identical uniforms making their way to school with varying levels of enthusiasm, shopkeepers raising shutters and arranging displays in windows. Cherry blossoms drifted from the trees lining the road, pink petals catching in hair and on shoulders before being brushed away with absent gestures. In the distance, the first school bell had yet to ring, but the particular energy of a day about to begin hung in the air—a tension that Hespera found both amusing and beneath her notice.
None of it touched her. The ordinary world continued its routine, unaware that its future had just been irrevocably altered. She hummed another line—"A little bit psycho~"—and a soft giggle escaped her lips as she pictured Rias Gremory's face the moment she realized what had happened.
"Oh, Princess~" Hespera murmured, her voice lilting with mock sympathy. "You're going to be so confused."
She pictured it in perfect detail—the crimson-haired devil's expression cycling through shock, denial, and desperate calculation as she tried to understand why her carefully laid plans had suddenly collapsed. She'd check the Boosted Gear's location, of course—standard procedure for a devil of her rank—and find nothing. Not a fading signal, not scattered remnants, but perfect, absolute absence, as if the Sacred Gear had never existed at all.
Hespera's smile widened at the thought, fangs catching the light. "Mmm, yes, check again~" she sang to herself. "Maybe it's just hiding~"
The morning continued around her—unaware, undisturbed, proceeding with the particular obliviousness that humans cultivated as both defense mechanism and survival strategy. A salaryman checked his watch with a frown; a group of first-years compared homework answers with desperate enthusiasm; a shopkeeper arranged fresh pastries in a window display, unaware that Hespera's gaze had fixed on him for one considering moment before sliding away.
She hummed another line, the melody bright against the morning quiet. "She's sweet but a psycho~" The lyrics spilled from her lips with casual precision, each word carrying the weight of absolute truth.
Her thoughts turned to Akeno—the half-fallen's face when she realized her carefully constructed revenge plot had just lost its centerpiece. All that rage, all that planning, all that delicious malice directed at a boy who no longer existed—the thought was almost enough to make Hespera laugh aloud. And Koneko, with her sharp instincts and sharper suspicions, would be the first to connect Hespera's arrival with Issei's disappearance. The tiny white-haired devil's expression when she made that connection would be absolutely worth preserving for posterity.
Hespera rounded the corner toward Kuoh Academy, the massive gates coming into view at the end of the street. The building rose before her—all clean lines and modern architecture, the windows gleaming in the morning light. Students flowed through the entrance in a steady stream, uniforms crisp, conversations animated, the particular energy of a new day hanging in the air around them.
As she approached, the bubble of empty space that always surrounded her expanded—bodies shifting unconsciously away from her path, voices dropping to whispers, eyes tracking her movement with that particular mixture of fascination and wariness. A second-year girl with a yellow ribbon in her hair grabbed her friend's arm, the two of them freezing mid-step as Hespera passed. A group of boys near the vending machines fell suddenly, perfectly silent, their laughter cutting off as if someone had hit a mute button. A teacher—thin, nervous, with a habit of wiping his glasses when stressed—visibly considered crossing to the other side of the courtyard before forcing himself to continue on his original path.
None of them approached. None of them spoke. A few brave souls watched from a distance, their expressions caught between curiosity and caution, but most found urgent business in the opposite direction the moment they spotted her silver-streaked hair.
Hespera savored each reaction with careful attention, cataloging the particular expressions of discomfort and intrigue that her presence provoked. She'd eliminated the protagonist, consumed a Heavenly Dragon, and set the entire supernatural world on edge—all before first period. The day stretched before her, full of delicious possibility.
"Now then," she mused, tapping one finger against her chin. "What to do for an encore?"
Her options were wonderfully varied. She could reveal herself to Azazel—her brother, who had treated her divine body like a collection of parts to be disassembled and reassembled for his amusement—and watch the recognition dawn in his eyes. She could corner Vali Lucifer, the white dragon's current host, and offer him the particular pleasure of seeing what had happened to his eternal rival. She could drop hints to the Church about her true nature and watch the chaos unfold as three different factions tried to claim her for their own.
Or she could do nothing at all—could sit back and watch as the carefully balanced world of devils, angels, and fallen began to tilt on its axis. The ripples from Issei's erasure were already spreading outward, altering relationships, shifting alliances, rewriting possibilities that had once seemed set in stone. All she had to do was wait, and the dominoes would continue to fall in perfect, satisfying sequence.
Hespera popped the lollipop back into her mouth, humming the final line—"At night she's screamin'~"—as she approached the school gates. The morning sun caught in her hair, turning the silver to liquid light, the streaks of violet, indigo, and green-blue glowing with otherworldly intensity. Her boots clicked forward with steady rhythm, her smile widening around the candy's stick.
She passed through the gates with unhurried steps, utterly unbothered by the stares that followed her, utterly delighted by the chaos already unfolding in her wake. Behind her, in pockets of reality too small to notice, the first dominoes had already begun to fall.
And the story, as it had been written, was about to change completely.