Laughter.
Low and rich, like oil poured over flame, it rolled through the grand dining hall, cutting through the heavy air like a blade.
Akeno's unconscious form shimmered—the illusion fracturing like glass struck by a hammer.
Before their stunned eyes, the petite shrine maiden dissolved away—
the shape shifting, twisting—until standing in her place was a tall, handsome middle-aged man.
He wore a gleaming white toga trimmed in gold, a laurel crown resting arrogantly atop his carefully styled dark hair. A well-trimmed mustache curled at the corners of his mouth, framing a smile that reeked of self-satisfaction and lascivious amusement.
Zeus.
King of the Greek Pantheon.
A living relic of arrogance wrapped in charm and unearned pride.
He spread his arms lazily, basking in the horrified silence of the room.
"How did you figure it out?" he mused aloud, voice rolling over them like heavy smoke. "My disguises have never been seen through by the women I'm interested in." He chuckled, tilting his head slightly as he regarded Hespera with obvious hunger. "You fascinate me more and more, little dove."
Behind her, Zeoticus, Sirzechs, and Grayfia still struggled to even lift their heads under the crushing weight of Hespera's dominion aura. They could only watch—helpless—as one of the most infamous gods in existence spoke so brazenly.
Hespera was seething.
Not outwardly—her body remained poised, her wings perfectly still.
But the crackling, hissing tension around her grew sharper, colder, more refined with every word Zeus uttered.
She grounded her teeth once, a tiny sound lost beneath the weight of her disgust.
And then, in a voice so flat and cold it made even the air around her seem thinner, she answered:
"I had my suspicions from the beginning."
She stepped forward slowly, Noctis still gleaming in her right hand, its tip dripping a faint thread of silvery magenta mist.
Her eyes narrowed, heterochromatic and burning with the slow, inevitable rage of something ancient.
"But it was when the announcer during the Rating Game announced your defeat that I knew for sure."
Zeus quirked an eyebrow, still smiling, still arrogant.
Hespera's mouth curled in a slight, merciless smirk.
"Akeno is Rias's Queen," she said, voice dripping venom. "If you're going to disguise yourself as another woman with me around, the least you could do is get her ranking right."
She tilted her head slightly, mock-thoughtful. "Seriously, Zeus? Bishop? You absolute idiot."
The silence that followed was vicious.
The Hesperides in the corner giggled softly into their teacups, clearly entertained.
Ophis watched with mild, amused interest, as though observing a particularly messy storm about to devour a kingdom.
Zeus laughed again—but this time, there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Annoyance.
Wounded pride.
Good.
Hespera let the tension stretch one more breath longer, savoring it—
before her aura flared just slightly, enough to make the entire estate groan under the crushing weight of what she was holding back.
"And now…" she said, twirling Noctis lightly in her fingers, the blade singing a soft, hungry note through the air, "I'm going to give you ten seconds to explain why you were hiding under my nose like a common parasite—"
Her smile sharpened into something feral.
"—before I see what shade of ichor you bleed."
Zeus adjusted the golden laurel crown on his head, utterly unbothered by the deathly stillness around him. He lifted his goblet—where he even got one was a mystery—and took a slow sip of sparkling ambrosia before speaking again, voice rich and warm, like a seasoned storyteller at a grand feast.
"The Hesperides had disappeared from their Garden," he began, his tone almost casual, "leaving the poor hundred-headed dragon alone to guard the golden apples." He waved a hand lazily through the air, a faint sparkle of divine glamor dusting from his fingers.
Hespera's eyes narrowed to slits, the color in them shifting dangerously — amethyst and emerald burning like twin dying stars.
"And when my dear son Apollo saw a vision," Zeus continued smoothly, "of a creature whose beauty surpassed even Aphrodite's herself, well—"
He chuckled low.
"I simply had to see for myself."
The audacity of him — the sheer, unbothered arrogance — filled the grand hall like a noxious perfume.
Zeus tilted his head, his mustache twitching in what he must have thought was a charming smile.
"I admit," he sighed, placing a hand dramatically over his heart, "when my son claimed you were powerful enough to see through all illusions… I didn't take it as seriously as I should."
Another slow, almost wistful sigh.
"It's no matter," he mused aloud. "My curiosity has been sated."
His eyes raked over Hespera's form in a way that could only be described as blasphemous, dripping with a smug admiration that no mortal or god had earned the right to direct at her.
"And now..." he said, smiling wide enough to flash pearly white teeth, "I find myself hoping this won't be our last meeting, little dove. I haven't enjoyed a hunt in quite some time."
It broke.
The invisible leash Hespera kept on herself—on her patience, on her civility—snapped like a brittle branch under the weight of a storm.
Her aura didn't flare—
It erupted.
A crackling vortex of elemental chaos exploded outward from her, so dense that the air screeched as space twisted around her form.
The chandeliers shattered.
The stone beneath her boots blackened and cracked.
Every candle, every flame in the grand hall — snuffed out in an instant.
She didn't scream.
She didn't roar.
She simply moved.
One hand lifted — magenta fire spiraling around it like a coiled dragon.
From her fingertips burst a spear of searing, crystallized chaos—
a lance formed from pure elemental force, carrying threads of fire, void, storm, and decay interwoven like strands of inevitability itself.
It ripped through the hall—
Straight for Zeus's smirking face.
---
At the tea table, Ophis took a serene sip of her tea, perfectly unfazed by the apocalyptic surge of magic tearing through the estate.
She glanced sideways at the Hesperides, her voice flat and mild, "She lasted longer than I thought before throwing something."
The Hesperides — lounging in their seats, nibbling on lemon cookies — all giggled politely behind raised teacups.
"We owe you five cookies," murmured the eldest.
---
Back at the center of destruction—
Zeus's eyes widened—just slightly.
"Ah—"
He didn't finish.
With a roar of displaced wind and a crack of shattering dimensions, he vanished just before the spear could vaporize him where he stood.
The blast tore through the far wall of the estate, carving a seething wound through the sky itself, sending debris raining down like the shrapnel of a dying star.
Zeus's laughter echoed from the fraying portal he'd ripped open mid-escape, his voice carrying back through the ruins like a fond whisper:
"Until next time, little dove—!"
And then he was gone, fleeing back toward Olympus with all the grace of a cockroach scurrying into the cracks of a broken temple.
---
The silence that followed was thick and vibrating with suppressed energy.
Hespera stood in the wreckage of the hall, Noctis humming in her grip, chaos magic still sparking violently along her gloves, her breathing slow but heavy, her heterochromatic eyes locked on the spot Zeus had fled from as if daring him to come back.
Behind her, Ophis took another unhurried sip of her tea.
She set her cup down with a soft clink and mused aloud,
tone as calm as ever:
"Next time, aim for the knees. Gods rarely remember how to regrow those properly."
Ignoring the casual murmur from her adopted mother, Hespera exhaled slowly through her nose, the last of the chaos magic hissing off her skin like steam escaping a boiling vessel.
Without turning around, her voice cut through the broken silence, crisp and commanding:
"Aigle. Erytheia. Khrysothemis."
The three Hesperides immediately straightened from their relaxed, tea-sipping poses, their playful expressions sharpening into keen, focused alertness.
"Find Akeno," Hespera ordered, flicking her wrist as if brushing Zeus's memory off her glove. "Knowing that disgusting bastard, she's probably stashed somewhere nearby. Most likely the Occult Research Club building back in Kuoh."
The sisters exchanged a glance—silent, swift understanding sparking between them.
Without a word, they moved.
Three flashes of twilight and starlight.
Gone.
Off to hunt, swift and silent as celestial hounds unleashed from the leash.
---
Hespera lingered just a moment longer in the grand dining hall, now eerily pristine after a casual wave of her hand had restored the estate to its untouched beauty.
The marble gleamed.
The chandeliers reformed and swayed gently.
The shattered walls stitched themselves with silvery cracks of magic until not a scar remained.
It was almost as if nothing had happened at all.
Almost.
Because the air still carried the faint, sour aftertaste of him.
Zeus's greedy, leering gaze.
His stench.
His audacity.
And Hespera felt it.
Like grime under her nails.
Like smoke clinging to clean silk.
Her mouth curled into a sneer of pure revulsion.
Turning on her heel, she ascended the wide, spiraling staircase, her boots clicking sharply against the gleaming steps.
Her wings tucked tight against her back, rippling once with pent-up fury as she muttered under her breath:
"I need to wash this filth off me."
A hand briefly combed through her silver-violet-green-magenta hair, agitated, restless.
"Fucking piece of shit."
Her voice was low and vicious, vibrating with a cold, simmering rage that promised very bad things for anyone foolish enough to cross her in the next few minutes.
Behind her, Ophis quietly reached for another cookie from the tea tray, utterly unbothered.
The Dragon God of Infinity glanced at Grayfia, who was still kneeling from the aftershock of Hespera's unleashed aura.
In a soft, almost conspiratorial whisper, Ophis said:
"This is her version of... a mild temper tantrum."
Grayfia, to her eternal credit, gave no response—whether from wisdom or pure survival instinct.