When Sakolomeh entered the castle's living room with the others, a foreign presence imposed itself on them immediately.
Lying on a large draconic stone sofa, an individual rested, motionless. His body was covered in black and geometric patterns, engraved right into the flesh, like fragments of laws tattooed onto his being. His dark, spiked hair and the structure of his face recalled something disturbing.
Sakolomeh stopped dead.
Bakuzan narrowed his eyes and murmured: "He looks almost like... Sakolomeh. But with differences..."
Erasa, for her part, simply observed in silence. Her gaze was cold, attentive, as if something within her already recognized what she saw.
Neru broke the silence: "What does this mean exactly...?"
At that moment, the strange individual slowly opened his eyes. His gaze settled directly on Sakolomeh. Then, in a hesitant movement, he sat up and rose from the sofa, as if his own body were still resisting him.
"You're finally here..."
The voice was hoarse, marked by something older than the Dream itself.
Sakolomeh frowned. The double covered in patterns advanced toward him, his steps slightly unstable, almost staggering. "All this time... I was looking for you."
Sakolomeh clenched his fists: "But... who are you?"
The individual stopped a few steps from him. "Who am I?"
A faint, weary smile stretched across his face. "I am the Ineffable who faced Salomeh... in another reality."
Salomeh's eyes widened abruptly: "What?! So... it was you... the one who tried to kidnap Hinata?"
The man nodded slowly. "Yes."
Then he added, in a graver voice: "My name is Leon. My appearance... is the result of an accident."
Bakuzan stepped forward, his gaze hard: "What kind of accident?"
Leon stared Bakuzan straight in the eyes. "An accident linked to Azazel."
The silence grew heavy.
"I know you're looking for a way to save—or restore—the souls and beings captured by Azazel's malevolence."
He paused, as if weighing his words. "And that's precisely why I'm here. For I may be... the last being still linked to Azazel."
His gaze grew darker. "At least... as he existed in life."
Ravena stepped back, her voice tense: "Linked to Azazel...?!"
Leon did not respond immediately. His silence was thick, almost oppressive.
Salomeh, for her part, felt a memory strike her full force. The words he had spoken once, while holding Hinata in his hands, returned to her with chilling precision.
— "This little one possesses the key within her."
She abruptly raised her head and fixed Leon: "Last time... in that strange shadow form... you said Hinata possessed the key." Her voice grew harder. "The key to what, exactly?"
Leon closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed deeply. "I am a very ancient witness to Azazel. Originally... I was just a demon among others, close to him." He paused. "I served him. I served our Father of the Hells."
Erasa still said nothing. Her gaze did not leave Leon, as if she were peering beyond his words.
"After Samael's fall..." Leon reopened his eyes. "You can consider me the first son of Azazel."
Everyone's eyes widened.
Leon continued, his voice graver: "When Azazel came to Hell, he was already possessed by something. A strange thing. Indecipherable." He shook his head slowly. "No one knows who he really was before that. He never spoke of it."
He placed a hand on his chest. "But me... he chose me as witness. As acolyte. He desperately sought a way to free himself from that thing that had made him a mask."
His gaze drifted for a moment. "He tried everything. Absolutely everything. But it was impossible."
Leon breathed deeply. "That thing was both a blessing... and a curse. At first, it granted him abilities that no creature of the meta-reality could conceive." His voice trembled slightly. "Azazel faced Lucifer. The Father God. And even Mü Thanatos."
A stunned silence followed.
"He lost to all three... but they all noticed." Leon gritted his teeth. "When Azazel fought them... he wasn't just fighting them. He was also fighting himself."
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. "The more time passed, the more his identity crumbled. The more he used that power, the more he lost himself." Then, in a murmur: "And the worst... is that even when he wasn't using it... he still lost himself."
Leon clenched his fists. "Azazel was afraid. He felt himself disappearing. So he sought a receptacle." His gaze darkened. "He wanted to leave his own body."
"He began capturing souls. Beings. To make them into a massive consciousness, a collective source." He breathed. "He hoped to recreate himself from those sources alone... and leave his old body empty, to take it back, freed from the thing."
He let out a bitter laugh. "Even if he had to become weaker... he was ready for anything."
Leon lowered his head. "But despite all the souls he had accumulated... it was never enough." He slowly raised his gaze. "I even offered my own body."
The gazes froze.
"I was already a Demon Emperor. But he refused." His voice grew dry. "He said it wasn't enough."
Then Leon straightened up. "And one day... Azazel crossed your path."
Everyone instinctively turned their eyes toward Sakolomeh.
Leon fixed him. "The first time he saw you... you were just a child." He hesitated, then corrected: "No... a baby."
A shiver ran through the room.
"And yet... the thing in Azazel stirred." He breathed slowly. "Azazel understood at that instant."
His voice fell like a sentence: "That thing was there... for you."
Azazel had never sought to possess Sakolomeh.
Sakolomeh was human.
But at the deepest part of his source, in the very confines of Saiko who resided within him, rested something utterly inconceivable. Something that escaped all understanding.
It was strange.
Even Azazel... had never understood what it was.
Leon breathed slowly, searching for his words. "There is a distinction... difficult to express. I couldn't really tell you what Father Azazel said he perceived in Sakolomeh, but..." He raised his eyes. "It was worse than anything mortals can imagine about the Great Mythic Beings."
He paused.
"The Great Mythic Beings are already, by nature, inconceivable to mortals. Even to the Monitors." His voice grew more didactic, almost solemn. "For them, these beings are so transcendent that one can only formulate speculative theories about them, never reaching what they truly are, in their true forms, beyond all reality."
Leon clenched his fists. "Even the Monitors, who already transcend reality itself, cannot truly understand them." Then, lower: "If a being of reality—or even a Monitor—contemplated a Great Mythic Being in its true form, beyond realities... it would lose its reason."
He slowly raised his head. "But what Azazel saw in Sakolomeh..." His voice trembled. "It was even worse than that."
Leon began to tremble slightly. "Something extreme. So extreme... that Azazel stopped trying to contemplate it. Even in fragments." He closed his eyes. "He voluntarily limited himself to Sakolomeh's human part."
He reopened his eyes. "From that day, he decided to keep an eye on him."
Leon continued: "He observed his entire life. His conflicts with Mutreph. His encounter with Sally... Hinata. His opposition to Grafay. Absolutely everything." He added: "Even when he changed realities to join Hinata's."
A heavy silence settled.
"That's when he decided to act." Leon breathed deeply. "He sent me to this reality to capture Hinata."
He slowly turned his gaze toward Salomeh. "Why Hinata?"
He answered himself, without waiting. "Because Hinata contained within her a part of an echo. An echo destined to reveal to Sakolomeh what he truly is." His voice grew darker. "That echo was sealed in a wound within her... by frustration... provoked by the arrival of the Black Grief."
He gritted his teeth. "I tore open that wound. In the hope that Sakolomeh would become what he truly is again."
Leon lowered his eyes. "Azazel hoped then that the Thing interested in Sakolomeh would abandon him definitively... to come for him." His voice broke slightly. "But that Thing... ended up taking him. Permanently."
A funereal silence fell over the room.
Leon inclined his head. "I am one of the oldest demons of the Hells. The first son of Azazel." He raised his eyes. "Even Zar'Khan is just a little brother in my eyes."
He concluded, in a heavy voice: "I've seen everything." "And I only manifested once... in the hope of saving my father."
His gaze settled one last time on Salomeh. "Capturing Hinata was my ultimate attempt. I thought that Thing would take possession of her... and leave Azazel in peace."
He closed his eyes. "But... it didn't work."