Celestial Dungeons – The Holding Cells of the Fallen
Far beneath the radiant towers of Heaven, where even light dared not linger, a prison carved from the bones of stars held those deemed too dangerous, too corrupted—or too inconvenient—to be cast into oblivion.
Within one of the deepest chambers, bound by divine runes and celestial chains, sat Azazel.
For the first time in centuries… he was silent.
The smugness, the charm, the glib remarks—gone. He stared at the wall with vacant eyes, his wings stripped of their grandeur, black feathers dulled to ash.
He had felt it.
The moment her energy touched Heaven's gates, Azazel's breath had caught in his throat.
She was here.
She was alive.
And she was furious.
He knew better than anyone what Hespera Eveningstar was capable of.
He had created what she was today, afterall.
Now, the monster had come home.
He leaned back slowly, a faint, bitter smile twitching at the corner of his lips.
"So, Lost Star," he murmured into the darkness. "You're finally awake..."
From the shadows beyond the bars, a whisper crawled through the silence—one of the low-ranking angels tasked with guarding him.
"...What are you whispering about now, you wretched fallen?"
Azazel chuckled darkly. A sound that sent a shiver down the warden's spine.
"The last mistake Heaven made," he said. "And the one we'll never forget. She has returned."
~☆~
The Inner Sanctum – One Hour After Hespera's Exit
Silence reigned.
No hymns. No choirs. Only the haunting echo of what had just occurred.
The Seraphim Council—Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Raziel, and the Thrones—remained gathered, seated around the radiant marble dais. The divine glow that usually illuminated the chamber now felt subdued, dimmed by the weight of one name.
Eveningstar.
Gabriel was the first to speak, her voice still laced with restrained emotion. "She spoke with control. But her presence—it shook the sanctum. That wasn't just power. That was ice-cold wrath."
Raphael nodded solemnly. "It reminded me of Big brother Lucifer's, when Father ordered us to bow to Adam and Eve. It was just as biting."
Uriel stood, pacing once more. "Are we truly considering surrendering Azazel's fate to her? She is biased. She may be justified—but she is not objective."
"She is the victim," Gabriel said pointedly. "And the only reason Azazel lives is because she has not yet acted."
"Or because she was waiting for a good time to torture him," Uriel said, folding his arms.
Michael raised a hand, halting the debate. "Enough."
All eyes turned to him.
Michael exhaled, wings slowly unfurling behind him like shields of light. "Raziel. Your visions. Do they tell us how this ends?"
Raziel's expression was heavy. Worn. "They never tell the 'how,' Michael. Only the truth of the soul."
Michael nodded slowly. "And what is her truth?"
The Keeper of Secrets looked down at his hands.
"She is justice unfulfilled. A wound that never closed. She will not stop until the ledger is balanced." (Yes, Hespera can in fact manipulate Raziel's seer abilities. I'll explain more later)
A pause.
Then Raziel looked up, voice steady. "But she does not seek destruction. Not unless we force her hand."
Uriel frowned. "So we give in to the demands of a rogue celestial? What precedent does that set?"
Gabriel turned to him, her eyes sharper than usual. "She was never rogue. She was erased. That was Father's decision, not hers."
Michael looked around the room.
Each Seraphim. Each Throne.
He could feel the weight of every argument—justice, vengeance, consequence.
But he also remembered the weight of Father's command long ago. "When the time comes, give her what she wants. Otherwise, my creations will all perish. That includes you my dear, child."
And the burden of his siblings' silence.
Finally, he spoke.
"We will not judge Azazel."
Gasps rang around the table. Even Uriel's stoic mask cracked.
Michael's voice rang with divine finality.
"We stripped her from memory. We abandoned her to suffering. And Azazel exploited her for his own perverse curiosity. If we judge now, our verdict will never be trusted."
He stood fully now, radiance returning to his form.
"She will decide Azazel's fate. And Heaven will abide by it."
Uriel slowly rose from his seat. "…Then may the Powers have mercy on him."
Gabriel whispered, "She won't kill him quickly."
"No," Raphael said quietly. "She'll make him suffer."
Raziel said nothing.
He simply closed his eyes.
And the future he saw whispered in his mind like a prophecy waiting to be fulfilled.
"The 7 Heavens will burn, if she does not get what she wants. All God's creations shall perish."
~☆~
The clouds above the Celestial Realm pulsed faintly, as if even the sky was holding its breath.
Hespera stood on the outskirts of the inner sanctum's golden plateau, arms crossed, her coat billowing in slow, heavy waves from the divine pressure surrounding Heaven's borders. Her expression was unreadable—serene, but distant, like a storm calmly watching the world from behind a veil.
Her fingers brushed the obsidian-black hilt of her katana. It vibrated lightly—its pulse familiar. Loyal. Eager.
"Noctis," she murmured.
Yes. Mistress?
Her voice dropped to a measured tone, cool and absolute. "Head out. Begin searching."
A pause in the wind.
"The prison holding Azazel. And the one containing my twin's soul."
Noctis responded with a hum of acknowledgment, already moving through the ethereal threads of reality as only a blade crafted by chaos and nihility could.
"But," she added, eyes narrowing slightly, "don't touch Azazel's cell. Not yet."
Her lips curled in a half-smirk. "If the little chickies of Heaven don't make the right choice, I'll carve my own invitation and burn my way through that prison personally."
Noctis pulsed with quiet approval.
"And if you find where Luci's soul is being kept…" Her expression hardened, eyes flashing emerald and amethyst. "Try to collect it. But only if it can be done without being caught. If not, leave it."
There was no rush in her tone. Only certainty.
"I'll figure it out myself if I have to."
A final breath, laced with the taste of divinity and vengeance.
"But if you can acquire it—secure it in your void storage. Once it's there… not even fate can slip its fingers in."
Noctis's voice vibrated through her mind like silk over steel.
Understood. Noctis will be silent as death and swift as forgetting.
"Good," Hespera murmured, gaze rising toward the burning light of Heaven's veil. "Because I'm done asking."
And with that, her sword vanished in a flicker of dark fire and starlight—gone into the folds of reality to carry out her will.
The skies rippled.
Something ancient stirred.
~☆~
The sword of Pandemonium Noctis moved.
Not through air, nor through physical space, but through the fundamental cracks in the fabric of Heaven itself. Noctis, the spirit-forged sword of Hespera Eveningstar, was not bound by ordinary logic. She was a being born of chaos and nihility, wrapped in divine command and dark purpose.
Her form shimmered in and out of tangibility—not a sword now, but a serpentine thread of ink-and-silver mist, slipping between dimensions like a ghost through a dream.
The first destination: Tempus Claustrum, the timeless sanctum where the most dangerous of the Fallen were imprisoned in loops of stasis, forgotten by all but the Seraphim who maintained them.
Noctis entered without sound. The outer veil of the sanctum flared briefly as it sensed the intrusion—a celestial alarm that failed to trigger. For Noctis did not break rules; she slipped between them, like water through cracks in stone.
Through an infinite corridor of suspended cells, each one locked in a moment forever repeating, she floated until she reached one particular chamber.
There he was.
Azazel.
Bound within a stasis prism of eternal contemplation. Wings clipped. Aura suppressed. Thought frozen mid-sentence. His golden eyes stared, unseeing, at the void.
Noctis hovered at the edge of the chamber, the glyphs of containment humming against its presence.
Noctis. Is not. To act, Noctis reminded herself.
Per her Mistress's instructions, she merely observed. She noted every glyph, every binding sigil, every divine law inscribed into the prism. Then, carefully, precisely, she unraveled a single thread of her being—a mark.
A tether.
Noctis latched onto the stasis field and etched herself invisibly across dimensional layers, syncing her with Hespera's soul-beacon.
Azazel's location had been acquired.
Then Noctis slipped away.
---
The next search was more delicate.
Lucifer Morningstar's soul.
Noctis combed the Vault of Judgment. The Fields of Purification. The crystalline depths of Malkuth's Garden. Nothing. All known resting places yielded no sign of the fallen star.
It stretched further—into the fractured dimension beneath the Throne of Echoes, a place where only the first creations of God had ever walked. Where the forgotten and the forbidden were sealed.
There, in the heart of that sanctum—hidden behind sevenfold mirrored veils—Noctis found it.
A prism.
Suspended mid-air in a cradle of golden chains laced with divine paradox, the soul of Lucifer pulsed weakly. It was fragmented, but unmistakable. The twin resonance sang to Noctis like a memory long buried.
Not living. Not dead.
Not cleansed. Not condemned.
Balanced.
A soul in limbo, too dangerous to free, too necessary to destroy.
Noctis approached the prison slowly. The wards here were ancient. They did not react to magic, to strength, or to malice. They reacted to purpose.
And Noctis came not to destroy. But to retrieve.
She extended a sliver of her void essence—a thread of memory laced with Hespera's divine frequency. A mimic of presence. A whisper of familiarity.
The soul stirred.
Noctis opened her personal void storage, a sub-realm of absolute containment. Carefully, she reached out, folding the mirrored reality around the soul prism.
The moment stretched.
The air pulsed once.
Then the prism vanished.
Contained. She replaced it with one of the fallen angel's souls, her mistress took before Death could reap it. (Death clearly noticed it, but found it amusing. The soul was Raynare's btw)
The wards did not scream. No alarms flared. The balance held.
Lucifer's soul was now safely sealed in Noctis's void, hidden from sight, unreachable by any other.
---
Mission complete.
Noctis shimmered once, folding back into dimensional mist, and vanished into the eternal rift.
Message to Mistress:
Azazel's cell is marked. The twin soul is secured. Awaiting your next command.
~☆
Ten minutes after Hespera dispatched Noctis on her mission, the grand doors of the Celestial Council chamber slowly parted with a hum of divine energy.
Gabriel emerged, her expression composed, though the tension in her shoulders betrayed the weight of what had just transpired. The soft glow of her wings framed her silhouette, casting long, golden rays down the hall of judgment.
She halted before the gathering of Seraphim and other celestial witnesses, lifting her chin with serene finality.
"The Council has reached its decision," she announced, her voice calm but firm—carrying the weight of divine authority.
A beat passed.
Then—her lips curved, ever so slightly.
"Brother Azazel is to be handed over… to big sister Hespera."
A ripple of disbelief and unease stirred the crowd, but Gabriel's gaze never faltered.
And inwardly?
She was pleased. Because for once… justice wasn't bound in chains of law.
It was walking, breathing—and furious.
And its name was Hespera. 'Big sis is so cooool!'
The air in the Inner Sanctum of Heaven had finally begun to settle—though a thick current of tension still simmered beneath the serene veneer of marble and divine runes.
Hespera walked to the center of the dais, her presence still commanding, still dangerous, though she no longer projected the full scope of her wrath. A veil of control draped over her now, sharp and regal, like an empress waiting for her tribute.
Michael's voice, even and solemn, echoed through the hall. "As Gabriel has said, the council has decided that Azazel's judgment... will be left to you, Hespera Eveningstar."
A heavy silence followed his words—an agreement forged not out of obligation, but out of fear, respect, and the simple knowledge that denying her would mean unleashing something Heaven could not contain.
Hespera's smirk was slow and sharp, blooming like a wicked flower.
"Well," she purred, "a wise choice."
Just then—ding.
A subtle flicker of energy danced across her vision. Only she could see it. A black-and-silver system screen bloomed to life in the corner of her eye, shifting like ink under her control.
[NOCTIS – SYSTEM COMMUNIQUE]
› Azazel's cell is marked. The twin soul is secured. Awaiting Mistress's next command.
Hespera's smile widened—just a touch. Satisfaction curled in her chest like a purring beast. She blinked once, mentally replying through the silent bond she shared with her sword.
Good job. Return to me now. It looks like I won't have to steal Azazel afterall. A shame really, it would have been fun causing some chaos up here.
[Acknowledged.]
With the message dismissed, Hespera refocused on the chamber. None were the wiser to the exchange that had just transpired.
Gabriel, standing with a soft grace, finally asked, "Will you… execute him here?"
Hespera tilted her head, considering the question. Her fingers idly toyed with the hem of her glove.
"No," she said. "This chamber is too holy. Too clean."
A hush swept over the gathered Seraphim.
"I want him to see me under the same sky he left me to rot beneath. The same world where he tried to erase me." (Yup, the party is happening in the Dimensional Gap)
Raphael's expression tightened. "And if he begs?"
Hespera's amethyst eye gleamed. "Then I'll remind him what it means to defy me."
A flicker of golden light shimmered beyond the sanctum doors—an incoming escort. Hespera turned slightly, eyes narrowing.
"Looks like your little errand boys have arrived."
The great doors began to open once more, a procession of six angelic guardians walking in formation—escorting a shackled, glowing figure whose once-proud golden wings were now bound and dimmed with divine seals.
Azazel.
Hespera's expression was unreadable.
But the moment their eyes met, Azazel's faltered. Just for a second.
And that was enough.
Because in that second—he remembered. The chains. The experiments. The screams. The defiance that refused to die.
And the thing he created that refused to be broken.
Now walking toward him in full glory, bearing the wrath of the divine and the chaos of the void, was the judgment he thought would never come.
Hespera Eveningstar smiled.
And the world held its breath.