Hell of a Show Ch. 44 (DxD AU/Multi) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: This chapter is a little bit all over the place. That is by design. I’m juggling so many plates in this story right now lmfao.

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“I WON’T LET YOU HURT HIM!”

In hindsight, Lucrezah probably shouldn’t have teleported straight into Huntrix’s tower. She didn’t really have a good excuse for her lapse in judgment… in the end, she had rushed through all of her responsibilities, foregoing sleep to finally get a moment of free time to come up to Earth. She’d told herself it was fine to introduce herself to Huntrix properly. As a treat.

Alas, she was not expecting to find Huntrix and K/DA all standing there in the middle of the penthouse common area when she’d turned around. Nor was she expecting to be contending with an Ultimate Class Enemy within mere seconds of her arrival.

First she registers the threat. Then she processes the destruction that will take place no matter what she does in response. If she meets the charge head on, the resulting shockwave won’t just obliterate the top of the tower, it could wind up killing some of her favorite musicians as well.

And so Lucrezah takes the hit and rolls with it, deciding that a her-sized hole in the wall of the penthouse is far more preferable than a localized explosion.

Its as she’s about to hit said wall that Lucrezah finally properly registers the identity of said threat… and her eyes bulge in shock upon realizing that she’s contending with a woman she’s been hunting for five hundred fucking years. Grayfia Lucifuge’s snarling face fills her vision, her hands like claws digging into Lucrezah’s shoulders.

And then, rather than punch a hole through the wall… they’re back in the Underworld. Grayfia has opened a portal behind Lucrezah and flown them both through it with every ounce of her strength. Hm, it would seem she was trying to keep property damage to a minimum as well.

The portal closes behind the Lucifuge Heiress and for a split second, everything is still and quiet. It’s in that stillness that Lucrezah registers the next thing… specifically the maid uniform Grayfia is wearing. What the fuck?

Later, she’ll blame her stupefied reaction for why she’s too slow to try and defuse the situation then and there. As is, she does recover fast enough to get one word out…

“Grayfia-!”

But then Grayfia is on top of her again and striking Lucrezah with all her power. A not inconsiderable amount of power at that. Lucrezah notes that the silver-haired devil has not been idle in the past five hundred years, even as her head is slammed to one side by a particularly powerful blow.

Grayfia doesn’t stop at just physically pummeling her either. Magic fills the air, blasting Lucrezah from all directions, tearing and ripping into her at every possible angle. It’s a full court press… an all out assault.

Truthfully, Lucrezah had expected nothing less if she ever did find Grayfia. In all of these years, she had never forgotten that final tear-streaked expression of pure hatred and loathing that Grayfia had directed her way.

Optimistically, she might have hoped five centuries would be enough to cool Grayfia’s rage and allow them to talk things out. Lucrezah wasn’t unwilling to accept punishment for what she’d done. Killing the last Valefor, even if it was by accident, had haunted her every moment of these five hundred years.

But at the same time, she couldn’t just let Grayfia kill her. The situation in the Underworld was tenuous enough already without their administration losing a Great Satan… and a Super Devil at that. As much as she might have felt she deserved to die at times for what had happened that day… Lucrezah couldn’t act on those impulses. She wasn’t allowed to.

And so, somewhat reluctantly… Lucrezah reaches out and snatches one of Grayfia’s wrists. And then the other. She grabs ahold of the other woman with both hands, attempting to bring her to a stop. Grayfia, of course, merely tries to use her legs instead, but Lucrezah blocks with her knees.

Finally, the Lucifuge Heiress goes for a headbutt… and Lucrezah, regretfully, meets it with one of her own, imposing her forehead to match the blow rather than taking it on the nose as Grayfia intended.

Of the two of them, one of their skulls is undeniably the stronger. Grayfia reels back in a daze, blinking those red eyes of hers rapidly. Lucrezah, meanwhile, just sighs.

“Grayfia… we don’t have to fight.”

Lucrezah’s words almost don’t sound real, hanging in the air after all of the violence that has followed. Grayfia snarls and tries to call upon her magic in spite of being physically locked down, aiming to force Lucrezah to free her. Lucrezah responds by calling upon the Power of Destruction… specifically to target the spells Grayfia is using, erasing them from existence one and all.

As a slightly concussed Grayfia gawks at this, Lucrezah smiles tiredly and apologetically.

“I have had a long time to grow more… precise with my power.”

That probably wasn’t the right thing to say because it clearly reminds Grayfia of what she did all those years ago. Immediately the silver-haired woman begins to fight back again, struggling and snarling.

“Won’t… let… you… hurt him…”

Lucrezah tilts her head to the side, slightly bemused by that. Who was ‘him’? She had assumed Grayfia was still angry about the last Valefor and how he’d died. But now that she thinks back to the start of this altercation, Grayfia’s first words hadn’t been something like ‘I’ll kill you’ or ‘Die, die, die!’. No, she’d said ‘I won’t let you hurt him’.

It recontextualizes this entire fight. Grayfia was not fighting with the berserker rage of a woman with nothing left to lose and only vengeance in her heart. No, she’d acted to remove Lucrezah from the initial situation, pulling her to this battlefield… and she’d fought with a desperate zeal. The sort of desperate zeal of someone who has something to protect.

As Grayfia continues to struggle against her, summoning more magic that Lucrezah is forced to erase with her Power of Destruction, the Satan Lucifer thinks fully back to that momentary glimpse she’d had of Huntrix’s penthouse.

It had been crowded… and obviously her eyes had gravitated towards the reason she’d come, the three young women who she’d been so worried about. That the four members of K/DA had been present as well had been startling to the point of distraction… and then Grayfia had been in her face and Lucrezah hadn’t had the time to properly process anything else she’d seen.

Or rather… anyone else. Besides Grayfia (who Lucrezah truly hadn’t registered until they were through the portal and back into the Underworld) and the seven combined members of Huntrix and K/DA, there were two other people in the common area. One of them was a very familiar-looking devil. And the other…

“Hold on, why in the world was Gabriel in Huntrix’s penthouse?”

Grayfia jolts in her grasp at that, her red eyes widening in horrified realization.

“No… I have to get back. Let me go!”

Lucrezah does not do so. Or rather, she does not intend to do so. One moment she’s holding onto Grayfia with all her might… the next, she’s holding on to no one at all. Blinking owlishly, Lucrezah’s hands let go of the empty air she was grasping at, her brow furrowing in confusion.

… Where did Grayfia go? How did she escape like that? She-

The faintest flicker of demonic power pulls Lucrezah’s attention over to a portal that’s already closing. Before it can close entirely, Lucrezah dives through it, finding herself back in Huntrix’s penthouse. The whole battle with Grayfia had only really taken about five minutes… not nearly long enough for anything to have changed back at the tower. Everyone is looking just as bewildered as ever, in fact.

“Master, we need to go… now.”

There’s Grayfia… and the familiar male devil. Lucrezah understands now. When she killed the Valefor Heir all those centuries ago… Grayfia had been pregnant with his son. He looks almost exactly the same. Though why Grayfia is calling the boy ‘Master’ and dressed as a maid, Lucrezah doesn’t know.

… It’s also not the most important matter to address right now. She can deal with the reintegration of Grayfia and her son into Devil Society later. As well as all of the personal reparations she owes the two of them. Right now…

“Seraph Gabriel. What do you think you’re doing here?”

Focusing entirely on the Archangel in their midst, Lucrezah narrows her eyes at the other woman. Gabriel, who has her wings completely out and was clearly trying to intimidate everyone into submission before Lucrezah arrived, frowns in response.

“… I could ask the same of you, Satan Lucifer.”

Lucrezah huffs.

“Well I asked you first. You wouldn’t be trying to poach these young ladies, would you?”

Gabriel looks downright offended by that question.

“Excuse me?! That’s awful rich coming from you!”

Lucrezah bristles even though Gabriel’s words have some merit. But then the Archangel continues on before she can retort.

“Especially since one of yours has already reincarnated Huntrix into his peerage!”

Wait what? Lucrezah shoots a glance back at Huntrix and gapes a little bit when she finally registers that they’re all devils now. In fairness, she’s juggling a lot of different things right now… for all her power, she can’t focus on a million things at once!

But at the same time, she can’t help but be shocked. And also a little thrilled. If Huntrix were devils now, then that meant they would live forever, or at least for a very, very long time. And that meant they could keep making music!

Ah, but she should probably focus on the matter at hand. Looking back to Gabriel, Lucrezah sniffs haughtily.

“Then I question your presence even more. I don’t see what business you have here.”

Gabriel narrows her eyes in response.

“Don’t you? Kai’Sa of the Kuusho Clan belongs under the aegis of Heaven. I was in the process of convincing her of such before your arrival.”

Wait, Kai’Sa was a member of that clan? Lucrezah shoots a bewildered look towards the young human woman, who tenses up under her gaze. That glance is enough to tell her that Kai’Sa is more than just a member of the Kuusho Clan. She’s… ah.

In the silence that follows, Kai’Sa musters the courage to speak.

“I-I already told you I don’t want to go with you. I’m staying with my bandmates… with my friends.”

 As Ahri and Akali take either of Kai’Sa’s hands in their own and even Evelynn smirks and crosses her arms over her chest, Lucrezah feels a stirring of emotion at the sight. She also feels a variety of other feelings upon finally looking at K/DA in their entirety in the flesh… and realizing exactly who and what each of them are.

Before she can stop herself, Lucrezah blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

“How the fuck are you all still alive?”

Look, she was really, really busy down in the Underworld, okay? She tried to find time for her hobbies wherever possible, but between keeping things from going tits up and also searching for Grayfia whenever possible, Lucrezah had been stretched pretty damn thin these past five hundred years.

She’d managed to sneak away for a couple of Huntrix’s live performances, but she’d only ever seen and listened to recordings of K/DA. All this time, she’d thought that they were just a really good idol group with some flashy special effects. But now she realizes how wrong she’d been.

Hang on, had Serafall known about this? And she hadn’t told her?!

“… What do you know about K/DA’s circumstances before now, Lucifer?”

Lucrezah jolts as Grayfia’s son suddenly speaks up. His mother has been trying to get him to flee with her this entire time, but he’s refused and stayed all the same. Courageous if nothing else. Still, looking at the spitting image of the man she’d accidentally killed five hundred years before… it hurts.

Focusing on his words instead of his beautiful face helps a little bit. Processing his question, Lucrezah furrows her brow.

“I don’t understand. What circumstances?”

There are a variety of reactions around the room at that, but the most prominent of them comes from Gabriel. It’s not often you see an Archangel choke on their own spit after all.

“You seriously didn’t know that the four of them were trapped under magical contract bindings until a couple of days ago?!”

… What? Lucrezah slowly turns her head to regard the four members of K/DA. Now that Grayfia has said something, she can see the ragged remnants of the metaphysical chains that were previously binding their souls.

“Who would dare?”

“Millennium Enterprises.”

Grayfia’s son is the one who answers her. He has a curious look on his face, like he’s trying to puzzle her out. Grayfia is looking similarly confused by her reaction to him so far.

Did they really believe Lucrezah was such a monster that she would try to attack him? Grayfia had seemingly thought so… the other woman had spent the last five hundred years terrified that Lucrezah would find out some remnant of her lover still lived and come to snuff it out, apparently.

Setting aside her budding anger towards this ‘Millennium Enterprises’ for the moment, Lucrezah turns to face Grayfia’s son entirely and bows at the waist.

“My sincerest apologies for the death of your father. I know it does nothing to bring him back, but it was never my intention to hurt him.”

There’s a pregnant pause that follows that declaration. When Lucrezah finally lifts her head, she’s not sure what she’s expecting to see on their faces. Grief? Anger, perhaps? Rage? She’s certainly not expecting to see incredulity.

“… Who exactly do you think I am, Satan Lucifer?”

Blinking owlishly, Lucrezah looks between Grayfia and her son.

“Ah… you are the son of Amadeus Valefor and Grayfia Lucifuge, are you not?”

The resemblance was uncanny! They were practically identical, though the male devil in front of her now was even more gorgeous than Amadeus had been. That might have had something to do with Lucrezah’s last sight of Amadeus being his face in a rictus of agony as her power chewed through his arms though.

“No… I am not the son of Amadeus Valefor and Grayfia Lucifuge. I am Amadeus Valefor.”

Wait, what?

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A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11aPdLhvHWTHo4PilXgCWfucKoJtw_njTrAfyfVAqhtw/edit?tab=t.0