The Forbidden Fruit

Lucifer had never been one to meddle in the affairs of the dead-at least, not personally. He had an empire to run, after all. But when the Exorcist known as Adam fell in battle, something gnawed at him, something beyond curiosity, beyond strategy. It was almost... sentimental.

So, under the cover of darkness, while Heaven turned its gaze elsewhere, Lucifer slipped into the wreckage of the battlefield. Adam lay among the ruins, his once-pristine armor shattered, his face bloodied and bruised, but his soul-his essence-hadn't fully slipped away. It was a fragile ember, barely burning, but burning nonetheless.

Lucifer had done many things in his existence. But saving an angel-one who had sworn to annihilate his kind-was not one of them.

Until now.