My Wives are Beautiful Demons

Vergil leaned against the edge of the colossal building's balcony, arms crossed as he watched the chimneys in the distance belching thick smoke into the crimson sky of the Demon World. Pipelines crossed freshly paved avenues, and metal structures sprouted like mushrooms amidst the remnants of enchanted ruins. The sound of progress echoed like a metallic heart beating in the chest of the city.

"This looks like an industrial revolution. Like the one in France," he remarked, eyes following a demon working as a bricklayer at a nearby construction site.

Sepphirothy stood beside him, leaning on the black adamantine railing, puffing on some cigarette with one of those lung cancer warnings everyone ignores. She wore a black dress clinging tightly to her curves—undeniably sexy. Her gaze drifted over the horizon with the tired look of someone whose mind wandered far from here.

"They're evolving. They need to. Rapid growth, messy, inevitable. Chaos trying to walk in a straight line," she murmured, exhaling smoke with the exhausted grace of a goddess who had seen civilizations rise and burn a thousand times.

Vergil raised an eyebrow. "And that thing over there? That colossal spiked monstrosity in the middle of the city? Looks like a gothic tower with a prison complex."

Sepphirothy took a long drag, narrowing her eyes. "It is a prison. With population and influence rising, you can't keep things in line with fear and gossip alone anymore. You have to institutionalize punishment... give terror a civilized face."

Vergil glanced sideways at her. "So this is what you were handling while you vanished?"

"Part of it," she answered, unmoving, as if the breeze carried her thoughts far away. "Organizing hierarchies, handling revolts, outside interference, managing new laws... Some meetings with clueless Archdukes. And a few... personal issues."

Vergil stared at her for a few seconds, then with a neutral expression, snatched the cigarette from her lips and flicked it off the balcony with a quick motion.

Sepphirothy turned her head as slowly as an ancient gate creaking open. Her eyes followed the cigarette's path like she was watching a loved one being pushed off a cliff. It twirled three times mid-air before spiraling down, vanishing with a faint glowing pff.

She blinked. Her jaw quivered slightly. "My... cigarette..."

Vergil smirked, dry. "You gonna talk to me, or keep hiding behind smoke and short sentences?"

She took a deep breath. The kind that shifts tectonic plates. She ran a hand over her face slowly, like trying to scrape off centuries of exhaustion clinging to her skin.

"You've grown too much, you know that?" she murmured, without her usual sarcasm.

"I grew in the vacuum you left behind," he replied. There was no bitterness in his voice, only a dry, factual tone.

Sepphirothy turned her back to the cityscape. Her eyes met his for a moment, and in that moment she seemed less a Primordial Demon and more a mother bearing the weight of ten worlds on her shoulders.

"I'm tired, Vergil," she admitted, barely above a whisper—as if each syllable had to be dragged from some place even she no longer knew how to reach. "Sometimes I just... wish someone else could hold all this shit together, even if just for a minute."

Vergil remained silent for a moment. The kind of silence that doesn't weigh, but welcomes. Then he looked at her, eyes steady, stripped of irony.

"Then don't do anything," he said simply, as if the answer had been there all along. "Sit. Breathe. Let me take you away from all this, if only for a night."

She didn't answer. Just let out a long, drawn-out sigh, like she was trying to exhale centuries of expectation through her teeth.

He continued, lighter now, trying to ease the invisible weight she carried.

"Honestly, I know there are things you don't want to tell me. And that's fine. I won't push. But… do you still actually care about all of this?" He gestured toward the city, the buildings, the cosmic gears spinning without rest. "I mean, I see you less now than when you used to work double shifts at Pizza King. And back then you had three eyes and handled ten orders at once."

He chuckled, trying to coax even the faintest smile out of her. But all he got was another one of those sighs — the kind that felt heavier than a dead planet.

Vergil watched her for a few seconds, and then a thought struck him — like a blade too fine to see, but sharp enough to cut deep:

"I was born from her essence. And ever since she awakened that demon side again… she's pulled away. Cold. Methodical. Almost like she's trying to protect me from something. Or worse… like I'm the reason for it."

Even so, he smiled. Not out of sarcasm, but tenderness. The kind only children who've seen war in their mother's eyes can offer.

Gently, he touched her face. Her skin — the same that could withstand meteors and vengeful gods — trembled under her son's tender hand. For a moment, time didn't stop because they had to fight… but because it was finally safe to feel.

"Wanna go get pizza?" he said in a tone almost childlike, like he was inviting her to skip class with him.

Sepphirothy blinked. Those eyes, ancient and eternal, flickered — as if trying to remember what it felt like to say yes to something simple.

She closed her eyes. One corner of her mouth finally lifted.

"Only if it's that one you hate. With pineapple and bacon," she murmured, her voice rough with a buried sense of humor.

Vergil feigned offense. "You're a monster, you know that?"

"I am the monster, sweetheart," she said, already beginning to walk beside him, her cloak billowing with just a little less weight.

"Oh, right. True." Vergil paused, arms crossed, eyes narrowing curiously. "So… where'd you send Raphaeline and Cabernet after our little almost-apocalyptic incident?"

Sepphirothy didn't look directly at him — just let out a soft, mischievous chuckle, like remembering a very good inside joke.

"Oh, them? They're… learning the value of healthy cohabitation," she replied with a sweetness so forced it was practically a provocation.

Vergil raised an eyebrow. "You locked them up, didn't you?"

"'Prison' is such an ugly word," she countered with a dangerously charming grin. "I prefer to say they're attending a mandatory emotional growth retreat."

"…You imprisoned the demon queens."

"In a magic cell with anti-teleportation wards, containment runes, and an enchantment that plays elevator music if they start fighting. But look on the bright side — it's great PR." She spread her arms theatrically, as if unveiling a stage. "Even demon queens can be jailed. Gives off a nice 'no one's above the law' vibe, y'know? Infernal democracy."

Vergil stared at her with a mix of fascination and exasperation. "You literally turned a personal revenge act into state propaganda."

"Thank you," she said, pretending to get emotional, patting her chest lightly. "I try."

"And what's the plan? Keep them locked up until they learn to hug without triggering a dimensional collapse?"

[Arcano-Corrective Cell, Cycle 2, Day 4](Or, as Cabernet wrote in the journal: "The day I considered turning into vapor just to stop hearing Raphaeline's voice.")

The cell had everything a proper reformist hell-prison needed: enchanted walls with glowing runes, zero privacy, a coffee table forged from recycled basilisk bones, and of course, the damn coexistence journal — which rewrote itself whenever someone tried to lie.

Cabernet lay on her back atop a kind of floating mystic mattress, twirling a quill between her fingers in pure boredom. Raphaeline, seated cross-legged in the opposite corner of the cell, was writing carefully in the journal with handwriting so perfect it was borderline infuriating.

"You wrote that I started the fight?" Raphaeline said suddenly, not looking up.

"You did start it," Cabernet replied in the tone of someone who had lost the argument a hundred times and no longer cared.

"YOU CALLED ME A FAKE QUEEN!" Raphaeline snapped, her quill trembling in her hand.

"Was I lying?" Cabernet raised an eyebrow. "You inherited the throne. I won mine in blood. Literally."

"You stole your throne after poisoning your sister during a coronation ceremony!"

"Details." Cabernet clicked her tongue, pretending to polish her nails with the edge of the quill. "Politics is about results."

Raphaeline dropped the journal with a dramatic sigh. "Why are you so unbearable?"

Cabernet gave a lazy smirk. "Because it works."

Silence.

Then the ambient enchantment kicked in — a slow, repetitive instrumental version of 'Formal Banquet Songs: Volume II' began to echo from the cell's walls.

Both of them flinched.

"Damn it," Cabernet muttered. "The rune triggered again. Hostile tension enchantment…"

"Five minutes of infernal elevator music," Raphaeline growled, covering her ears.

"You could just admit you're wrong," Cabernet said, trying to sound casual as her sanity leaked out through her ears.

"YOU COULD STOP BREATHING THROUGH YOUR NOSE LIKE A HARPY WITH SINUSITIS!"

"…Wow. That was creative. I'm almost offended."

The music got louder.

Both of them collapsed onto the floor at the same time, arms spread, staring at the enchanted ceiling.

"I'm gonna lose it," Raphaeline murmured.

"You already did," Cabernet replied. "Now it's just a descent into deeper levels."

Silence.

Until Raphaeline said:

"…Can you draw?"

Cabernet turned her head, suspicious. "What now? Gonna challenge me to a doodle duel?"

"No. It's just—the journal requires one drawing per day…" She pointed at the magical page, where flaming letters had appeared:

"Use art to show how you feel about each other today."

Cabernet sighed. Grabbed the quill. Scribbled something furiously. Then held it up: a little demon vomiting rainbows while holding a sign that read "I'm trying."

Raphaeline stared at it, surprised… and let out a small laugh. A real one.

"It's kind of cute," she admitted.

"I know," Cabernet said, tossing the quill back onto the table. "I'm a genius. Now you draw."

Raphaeline thought for a moment. Then she drew a broken heart… being stitched back together with a flaming needle.

Cabernet stared at it for a few seconds. Then gave a slight nod.

"Okay. Points for visual drama."

They sat in silence for a while longer.

The music stopped.

Cabernet closed her eyes. "Maybe we don't have to hate each other every day."

"Maybe…" Raphaeline murmured, adjusting her hair. "…but tomorrow's another day."