When the smoke cleared, a seemingly young girl stood in the hole where the window had been. She wore a dark dress that managed to look both elegant and casual at once. Her pink hair was short and vibrant, pulled into a side ponytail.
Her eyes gleamed. Her already wide grin grew wider.
"Who the hell are you?" Kirara was the first to speak. Her hand hadn't moved from her side. 'Her magicule count is insanely high. Eve, what am I looking at?'
The newcomer looked directly at Kaede, as though the other two people in the room hadn't registered as worth acknowledging. "You really made me go through a lot, you know, Caos." Her voice seemed to find everything faintly amusing. "You're really mean, y'know."
Kaede sighed. She was still sitting on the couch. "Hey, Violet."
"You know her?" Kirara asked. Her guard didn't move.
A sharp intake of breath from Towa drew Kirara's attention. The queen of Raja had gone still, her eyes fixed on the girl in the ruined window frame. She stepped forward slowly.
"Violet." Her voice was careful. "Then you must be... the Primordial Violet."
Primordial Violet turned to look at her. Something in her expression shifted, becoming almost fond. "Ah. You must be little Towa. You seem much better than the last time I checked up on you."
"Isn't that kind of your fault?" Kaede asked, her voice flat.
"Wait." Kirara looked between all three of them. "What is going on? Who is this girl?"
Violet's expression flickered. "Girl?" She looked at Kaede. "Ne, Caos. Can I kill this one? You won't mind, right?"
"Try it." The outline of Kirara's Spirit Rider suit traced itself across her body in bright blue lines, not fully manifested but present enough to make the point.
"Lady Violet is one of the seven Primordial Demons." Towa's voice had settled back into something measured. "I know her, or at least of her, because several centuries ago, one of my ancestors made a contract with her."
What followed was the full account. The nature of the contract, what it had demanded, what Towa had quietly carried as a result of it, and the conspiracy that had very nearly brought Raja to ruin from the inside.
By the time she finished, Violet had produced a second couch from somewhere and settled onto it beside Kaede, sipping from a small rectangular juice box printed with tiny fruits.
Kirara looked at her. "That's horrible." She finally said.
"Her ancestors made the contract," Violet said easily. "They came to me."
"Bullshit." Kirara's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "You knew what was happening." She looked at Violet steadily. "So don't sit there with your juice box and tell me it was just a contract."
"Don't tell me you're that naive." Violet eyes curved like smiles. "Give and take. It's that simple. I don't interfere in human politics," she said. "It doesn't end. It's never interesting and it never ends."
Towa had not said anything since she'd finished the account. She was sitting with her cup, not drinking from it, her eyes somewhere in the middle distance between the table and the window frame that was no longer a window.
"The contract was fulfilled," Violet said. "For the most part. That some of my followers went behind my back and messed everything up really sucked for me too ya know."
"You don't even sound the littlest bit apologetic," Kirara growled.
Towa's hand came to rest on her shoulder, quiet and firm. Kirara stilled.
"Miss Violet." Towa's voice was soft.
Then she bowed.
It was a proper bow, unhurried. The room went very still around it.
Violet blinked. For the first time since she'd come through the wall, she looked genuinely uncertain about what was happening.
"Thanks to your help, my great ancestor was able to protect the kingdom of Raja." Towa straightened, and she was smiling. "So thank you. For everything."
Violet stared at her.
'Why is she thanking me.' The surprise hadn't left her face. It had just settled in, like it intended to stay for a while. "Hey. I only did it for my own amusement, you know."
"Yes, I'm aware," Towa said.
"I was going to take your body for myself," Violet said, louder this time, as though volume might produce a more sensible reaction. "If not yours then your daughter's. Or your granddaughter's."
"I'm still grateful regardless." Towa bowed again.
Violet looked at her for a long moment. Something was happening in her expression that she didn't appear to have a ready category for.
"Stings, doesn't it?" Kaede said. There was a quiet amusement in her voice that she wasn't particularly trying to hide.
Violet turned to her. "How do you deal with that?"
"Mostly just gotten used to it." Kaede shrugged. Then her expression settled into something more direct. "Now. Why did you bust down the wall? Why are you actually here?"
Violet's attention snapped to her fully, the unsettled look dissolving back into something bright and aggrieved. "I've been trying to reach you for nearly a year. A year, Caos." She pointed at nothing in particular, which seemed to represent Kaede's general existence. "Your stupid demon wouldn't let me through."
"Tomokashi?" Kaede asked.
"Yeah, that dumb bitch kept getting in my way." Violet's whole demeanor shifted into something deeply aggrieved. "Even after I forcibly manifested in a random mortal body. And this body is barely getting by as it is."
"So that's how you made it to the material world." There was something almost idle in the way Kaede said it.
"Yeah, but it's not strong enough." Violet's expression darkened at the edges. "And I know you were able to manifest Tomokashi fully. She wouldn't stop lording it over me every chance she got." The grumbling that followed was quiet but heartfelt. "She's lucky she's your subordinate. If not..." she stopped herself, seemed to remember something, and looked at Kaede with sudden suspicion. "Hey. Why do you sound so underwhelmed? Aren't you even a little surprised to see me?"
Kaede looked at her. Thought about it genuinely. "Not really," she said. "I just found out six countries worship me as a god for some reason. A demon showing up through my window doesn't really move anything in me."
Violet opened her mouth. Closed it. "I'm not just any run of the mill demon." The pout that followed was immediate and somewhat majestic. "I'm an arc demon. I'm really strong, you know." A pause weighted with personal injury. "Definitely stronger than that stupid Tomokashi."
"I am actually a little peeved that Tomo never mentioned you were lurking around this whole time," Kaede said, mostly to herself. Her eyes drifted back to Violet. "What exactly have you been doing? This whole year."
Something shifted in Violet's posture. A subtle squaring of the shoulders.
"Well," she began, with some ceremony. "Being in a mortal body and all, I decided to experience the joys of the flesh. Naturally, sustaining such pleasures requires resources, and so I took the initiative to establish an enterprise suited to my needs."
Kirara stared at her. "I have absolutely no idea what that means."
Kaede pressed a finger to her forehead. Left it there. The expression on her face said that she was having a telepathic conversation with someone at the moment
"She tasted the food in Maple Tree," Kaede said slowly, "went on an extended feeding spree, and ran up enough debt that Tomokashi had her arrested." She paused. "Edward was apparently involved. She was put on community service to pay it off." Another pause, longer this time, her finger still on her forehead. "And then after that she opened a stall."
She lowered her hand.
"Selling fireworks," she said, quieter. More to herself. "So that's where the fireworks have been coming from."
The silence that followed had a particular texture to it.
Violet was wearing an embarrassed expression after being summarized with complete accuracy and was finding the experience deeply unpleasant. "I mean, the only thing I have in this form is my magic."
"Please tell me you haven't been selling nuclear fireworks to my citizens." Kaede pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.
"What do you want from me!?" The exasperation that came out of Violet was sudden and most definitely not genuine.
"To not blow up my nation." Kaede's voice had an edge to it that didn't often surface. "I don't need this right now. If you're going to be here then make yourself useful."
Violet stared at her for a moment. Then she swooned backward against the couch with theatrical suffering. "You're so mean. You remind me of that upstart Luminous, you know that?" She draped one arm over the back of the cushion. "If only I wasn't stuck in this weak body." The swooning resolved itself back into her usual grin, easy and unhurried, like it had never left. "Anyway. What's actually bugging you?"
Kaede looked at her.
"I'm proclaiming myself a Demon Lord," she said.
The grin didn't change. But something behind it did. Then the grin grew wider.
"Ohohoh," Violet said softly, and with quiet delight. "Now isn't that something."
"Anything I should know? Especially since Walpurgis is in a few days." Kaede's eyes drifted toward the broken window, toward the dark beyond it. "Of all the Demon Lords I've met, I've only had actual conversations with two of them. Frey and Guy Crimson."
She glanced at Violet. "You seemed to have some kind of history with Guy at least."
Violet's expression curdled. "You spoke with Guy?" The frown deepened, her teeth pressing together. "That nosey, no good bastard. Can't keep his hands to himself."
She took a slow breath. Let it out.
"Okay then, Caos." The grin came back, bright and decided. "I'm staying for Walpurgis."
"I didn't invite you," Kaede said.
"I know how Walpurgis works. You get to bring two subordinates." Violet leaned forward slightly, the grin sharpening at the edges. "Just bring me along. I promise it'll be fun." A pause weighted with personal anticipation. "The look on Guy's face alone."
"You realize what you're asking," Kaede said. It wasn't entirely a question.
Violet's smile shifted into something quieter, sweeter, almost. "I've planted a great many seeds toward my manifestation," she said. "But something tells me none of them will yield even half as much a result as this."
Kaede looked at her for a moment.
Then she stood up.
It was an unhurried motion, but something in the room changed around it regardless. The air felt different.
"And here I was hoping for some time off," she said, mostly to herself.
"What's happening?" Kirara asked, her eyes moving between Kaede and Violet, although from the look on Towa's face it was clear that at least one person in the room had already worked it out.
"As expected of Lady Maple." Towa's voice was quiet and certain. "There is no better way to cement your position as a Demon Lord than to have one of the Primordial Demons of legend stand as your servant."
"Wait, you mean..." Kirara started.
The magic that came off Kaede was immense and came off in waves.
She looked at Violet.
Violet was grinning. Like she had been waiting for this specific moment for a very long time.
Kaede held her gaze.
"From now on, your name is..."