The two held each other for a minute or two, before a small, tiny cry nabbed Gemini’s attention. That little sound slipped past every defence he had active, slamming through his chest and piercing though his heart. For a moment, the world seemed to spin all around him, and when Gemini next came to, his head was spinning.

Giddy, he turned to the little blue bundle that Lila had placed on the table, and then glanced back at her. “Is that…?”

Lila smiled, adding to the beauty of her tear-stained face. Nodding, she led him by the hand, guiding him to the tiny little thing that was currently complaining about the hardness of the wooden table. His heart seemed to skip a beat as he looked down on the small little life, and on instinct, Gemini extended a hand.

The baby looked back at his approaching hand, and with a movement that rocked Gemini’s world, reached back out in wonder. A fragile warmth landed on his hand; a warmth that made his world seem a fraction brighter than usual.

“I…” Gemini took a deep breath and picked up the little fellow, who gurgled happily. Turning to Lila, he said, “Thank you.”

“She’s the only reason why I could hang on, even after you vanished,” Lila replied.

“What’s her name?” Gemini asked, cuddling the baby gently. Simply doing so was filling the Demon Sovereign with trepidation, since the life in his hands was so small and fragile, but another part of him did not want to stop carrying the little gurgling bundle. After enduring the clash between his fear and his desire for a few seconds, Gemini settled by sitting down on the ground

“Ars-Aria,” Lila replied, before taking up the space beside him.

“Aria…” Gemini repeated the name thoughtfully. “It’s a good name.”

“She’s a quiet one. Likes to sleep a lot,” Lila replied. “Look! She’s snoozing off!”

Gemini looked around the cottage for something soft to place her on, and then realised that the interior of his current abode was…definitely not suited for raising children, especially babies. Panicking, he was about to bring up that issue when Gemini abruptly remembered that he wasn’t the Constellation of a year or so ago anymore.

With a small stir of his will, a small baby cot popped up, one that was designed according to the image of a baby cot Gemini had in his mind. Black in colour with delightful gold specks on it, the Demon Sovereign was reasonably certain that even the most rambunctious of toddlers would fall asleep when placed on the overwhelmingly soft mattress within.

Aria gurgled happily as Gemini lowered the little bundle of joy onto the bed. Her face, squashed up in a surreal cuteness that could only belong to babies, brightened, and even the eye on her forehead popped open to look around.

For some reason, Gemini had a feeling that someone was criticising him for that incredibly awful waste of divinity, but even after casting his senses out, he couldn’t find anyone. It was probably a stingy part of his subconscious at work, so after blotting it out with a vengeance, he turned to Lila, who had a…very, very interesting expression on her face.

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“How…how did you do that?” Lila asked, her eyes as round as saucers.

“Do what?”

“You just created something out of thin air,” Lila replied. “What…what happened to you while you were…gone?”

The last bit of her question was noticeably more subdued, and Gemini moved to give her a hug. Patting her on the back, he looked up at the ceiling and tried to formulate an answer to that particular question. It was a question that he hadn’t quite gotten around to answering either; Gemini was sure that simply mixing two differing —and potentially opposing— divinities had changed his body in ways he didn’t understand.

“Uh.” Gemini struggled to come up with an answer. “I suppose the best answer I have so far is that I became a great god or something, I guess.”

Before he could elaborate on that answer, something within his body trembled. With a jolt, Gemini immediately understood that one of the many Demigods under the Demon God had invoked his true self to descend. Drawing out a strand of divinity, Gemini shaped it into a small person and shot it out towards the skies. An enormous pillar of black and gold descended in the direction of the Great Divide, and his awareness in the northern region of the Wildlands strengthened.

“What was that?” Lila asked.

“One of the many Demigods under me needed help,” Gemini replied. “I sent out an incarnation to descend upon him.”

“Put that way, you really do feel like a great god.” Lila rubbed her nose.

“I pretty much am one, though…” Gemini smiled. “Aria’s pretty much the luckiest child to ever exist. Her dad’s a great god! I can get her anything she wants! Including baby supplies, I guess.”

“Don’t even think of spoiling her,” Lila replied. “She’s going to grow up without all that great god nonsense.”

“But…”

The two bickered for a while more, before Gemini was forced to turn his attention to his incarnation. As per his agreement with the Sentinel of Space, Gemini had ordered the Demigods to rally the shattered demon armies, directing them to prepare an ambush. He had explicit orders to not kill where possible, and the ambush had gone well so far.

That was until a teenager had appeared. Even when Gemini was controlling his incarnation, he could feel an acute sense of danger of his opponent’s frame. His eyes, in particular, were cold to an extreme, and the only saving grace was that he had no desire to act.

Upon conferring with the Demigod he had descended upon, Gemini found out that the teenager had only chosen to obstruct his incarnation. He was also the cause behind the Demigod’s plea for help to begin with, but for some reason, the teenager wasn’t moving to attack.

It was as if his purpose here was to only prevent the Demigod from attacking. The original plan was for the forces here to destroy any supplies being transported, but the moment the Demigod made a move, the teenager had intervened.

Gemini stared at the scene, befuddled at the odd actions of the teenager, before ordering a general retreat. The Sentinel of Space had indeed dispatched his own troops, as promised, and after laying waste to the North’s logistics train, the demons present began to retreat.

The Demon Sovereign withdrew his incarnation and the Demigod retreated in one piece, but he couldn’t erase the sight of those freezing eyes from his mind.

Above all, that teenager seemed rather familiar to him too.

Who exactly was he?