My Wives are Beautiful Demons

Chapter 825: What do you want for the future?

Here is the scene with a calmer, more introspective, and continuous tone.Vergil sat in silence on the castle’s inner terrace, his elbows resting on his knees and his distant gaze lost somewhere between the garden and his own thoughts. The sky above Sparda was calm that afternoon, and the wind slowly moved the black curtains tied to the open columns. After the Abyss, after the Sins, after death, Wrath, and all the Authorities that now existed within him, that silence felt almost strange. It was not exactly peace. Not yet. It was only the temporary absence of an immediate threat, and Vergil did not quite know what to do with it.

In front of him, Lucy ran back and forth through the garden, completely absorbed by a small butterfly that insisted on escaping her hands. The girl laughed every time the insect rose a little higher, then chased after it with her arms raised as if she were facing a mission of extreme importance. The absurd detail was that, even while carrying the Authority of Pride in her soul, even while being connected to the fragments of Lucifer, at that moment she looked only like a child chasing a butterfly without a single worry in the world.

Vergil watched it for a long time. Lucy stumbled once, almost fell, recovered her balance by herself, and went back to running as if nothing had happened. The butterfly landed for a second on a red flower, and she approached with all the care an impatient child could pretend to possess. Before her fingers could get close, the insect flew off again, and Lucy let out an indignant complaint that made several nearby maids smile discreetly.

The scene was too simple for the kind of life Vergil had led. Perhaps that was what bothered him. He knew how to deal with wars, betrayals, monsters, gods, demon kings, and entire structures trying to collapse over his head. He knew how to answer threat with strength, attack with precision, and loss with destruction. But faced with a quiet afternoon and a child playing in the garden, he found himself without a clear function.

It was in that silence that Stella approached.

She did not announce her presence. She simply walked over to him naturally, like someone who did not need permission to occupy that space. She sat beside him, settled in calmly, and rested her head on his shoulder. Vergil did not move immediately, but he did not pull away either. He simply accepted her weight there, warm, familiar, and peaceful.

Stella spent a few seconds watching Lucy play before speaking. "What are you doing?"

Vergil kept his eyes on the garden. "Thinking."

"I noticed that." She closed her eyes for an instant, settling more comfortably against him. "Thinking about what?"

He took a while to answer. Not because he lacked trust, but because the answer was not yet organized within him. Too many things were moving at once: the Authorities of the Sins, Death, Wrath, his uncomfortable position before Heaven, Lilith’s condition, Sapphire’s momentary fragility, and his own mother still recovering from what had happened. All of that formed a weight difficult to name. Even so, beneath all those worries, there was a more personal, quieter question that had troubled him since he returned from the Abyss.

"I am thinking about what I want for my life," he finally said. "Now that I have all these powers."

Stella opened her eyes and lifted her face slightly to look at him. She did not seem surprised, but there was attention in her expression. "And what do you want?"

Vergil fell silent.

Lucy was still running through the garden. The butterfly rose above her head, and she spun in place trying to follow its movement, laughing by herself. For some reason, that image made the question harder. Vergil had ready answers for almost everything. Protect his family. Ensure no one dared to touch Sapphire, Sepphirothy, Lilith, Lucy, or any of the women connected to him. Grow stronger so nothing like the Abyss would happen again. Keep Sparda safe. Prevent Heaven, the fallen angels, or any infernal faction from mistaking patience for weakness.

But none of those answers seemed to be exactly what Stella had asked.

He frowned slightly. "I do not know."

Stella did not answer immediately. She only rested her head against his shoulder again, as if that answer was already important enough. "Then that is what is missing."

Vergil shifted his gaze toward her.

She continued speaking in a low tone, without accusation. "You are always fighting. Always becoming stronger. Always carrying something else because you believe you need to be capable of stopping the next tragedy before it happens. I understand that. After everything you have lived through, it would be strange if it were different."

He remained silent.

"But protecting the people you love is not the same as having a dream of your own," Stella said. "It is a noble goal, and no one can deny that. But it is still a goal built around the fear of loss. You become stronger because something might happen. You kill because someone crossed a line. You obtain power because the world keeps trying to tear something away from you."

Vergil watched Lucy for a few more seconds. The girl finally managed to make the butterfly land on the tip of her finger, and her face lit up with such simple happiness that it seemed out of place amid his thoughts. The butterfly stayed there only briefly, then flew off again, but Lucy did not seem sad. She simply chased after it once more.

Stella raised a hand and touched Vergil’s arm with her fingers. "What do you want to build when no one is trying to destroy anything?"

The question lingered between them.

Vergil did not know how to answer.

And for the first time, that absence of an answer did not feel like a combat weakness, but an older flaw, something he had never stopped to consider. For so long, his life had been defined by reaction. Reacting to Mundus. Reacting to the past. Reacting to Sparda’s blood. Reacting to his own pursuit of power. Reacting to the enemies that appeared, to losses, betrayals, and threats against those he now called family. Even when he chose, his choices were almost always born from something that needed to be prevented.

Dream was a strange word to him.

So was future.

Not the future as a prediction of wars or political successions, but as something he desired by his own will. Something that was not merely surviving better, protecting better, or killing faster. Vergil tried to imagine a concrete answer and discovered that his mind always returned to the same images: his women alive, Lucy safe, the castle intact, his enemies dead. All important. All true. But nothing that belonged only to him.

"I never thought about it," he admitted.

Stella smiled faintly, without mocking him. "I know."

Vergil looked at her with an almost suspicious expression. "Was that supposed to be obvious?"

"To those who love you, yes."

He exhaled through his nose, somewhere between irritation and acceptance. Stella did not mind. She knew that gesture well enough to understand that, from him, it was almost equivalent to a confession.

"You do not need to find an answer now," she continued. "But maybe you need to start looking for one. Not as a king, not as the Horseman of Death, not as the bearer of Authorities, not as a worried husband or a son trying to correct the past. As Vergil."

He thought about that for a while.

The sound of Lucy’s laughter continued filling the garden. In the distance, the butterfly escaped again, and the girl complained with the dramatic seriousness of someone who had just suffered a great betrayal. Stella laughed softly at the sight, and Vergil felt the light vibration against his shoulder.

After a few seconds, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. Stella accepted the gesture without saying anything, settling against him naturally. Vergil kept his eyes on the garden, but his expression had changed slightly. It was not an answer. Not yet. But it was the beginning of a real question, and perhaps that mattered more than pretending to have a certainty he did not possess.

"Perhaps I want this," he finally said.

Stella lifted her face. "This what?"

Vergil watched Lucy running, the wind moving the trees, the silent castle around them, and Stella sitting beside him as if that place also belonged to her by right. The answer still felt incomplete, but not false.

"A place where I do not always have to be reacting."

Stella remained silent for a few moments. Then she smiled, small and sincere. "Then start there."

Vergil nodded slowly.

His hand remained steady on her waist, not possessive or tense, but as if that contact helped keep the idea in place. He still did not know what he wanted to build. He still did not know what kind of future he could desire without first imagining a threat trying to destroy it. But for the first time in a long while, that question did not feel useless.

Lucy ran back toward them, holding her hands cupped together.

"Father! Look!"

Vergil raised his gaze.

The butterfly was there, resting between her small fingers, calmly opening and closing its wings. Lucy looked at him as if she had captured a legendary relic.

Vergil watched the butterfly for a moment and then looked at Stella.

Perhaps there were things that did not need to be conquered.

Perhaps some only needed to remain alive.

He turned his eyes back to Lucy and spoke with a seriousness that made the girl smile even wider.

"Very good."

Stella laughed quietly beside him, and Vergil, still with his arm around her waist, allowed the silence that followed not to be heavy. For the first time since returning from the Abyss, the silence felt only like silence.