Chapter 96: Y4 — END

Mmmph~  I feel good~

You know that good sore feeling you have, after exercising?  Yeah, I feel like that, but for my sex muscles.

Wha -- sex muscles are totally a thing!

Oh shush, like you’d know better than me.

I’m not a bimbo!  I’m a slut!  There’s a difference!

…Hrmph.  Fine.

One blowjob, then storytime.

So!  Let me get into my multi-month long plan and adventure to seduce Yuu.

See, it started with --

-- eh?  N… no, I’m not, I’m --

-- okay.  Fine.  Maybe I am.  A bit.  But come on!

Sexy things!

Sexy fun seducing a straight woman things!

I --

…Haaa… okay.  Okay, fine, you’re right.

Ugh.

The end of the fourth year was… complicated.

Let’s start with the mess that was Argenta and Modesty.

…Things go worse.

Like.

Argenta refused to go back to maintaining the stability of reality.

Modesty tried twice to convince her.  Once bringing up the death toll of the bugs, and once bringing up how her church’s reputation was ruined -- and she wasn’t moved by either.  Then Modesty asked me to talk to her.

It was… Hah.  Argenta didn’t cross certain lines, I’m aware of that.  She wasn’t actively cruel, I’m aware of that, too.  But those really seem like just excuses when one looks at her actions as a whole.  She doesn’t really do ‘damage control’ for her actions; she tries to limit direct harm, but that’s it, and…

…Haaaaaa…

…Look, ultimately, there were reality bugs appearing all over the world, and I had no reason to believe that Argenta would do anything to me, not again.  She had what she wanted, and we were actively watched by, like, half a dozen different goddesses.

The conversation went…

…Well, it went politely, but not well.

Frankly, it seems like Argenta’s actually somewhat fond of me.  I gave her key information, and I never -- hrmph… I never ignored or betrayed her, to her knowledge.  Both of those things seem to be a great way to get her pissed off at you.

Regardless.  I asked her to get back to work, and she said she would happily do so -- so long as there were no goddesses constantly questioning every single action she did.

She put it like this:  “I don’t mind working to keep things stable.  If I did, I wouldn’t have done so for millennia.  I don’t even mind them watching me work.  What I mind is the constant questioning.  If I need to justify every single action, then it makes it take forever -- and the constant suspicion doesn’t exactly help.”

The problem is, uh… Argenta is the most skilled of the goddesses in shardcraft.  By a large margin.  Others might be better at their speciality, but Argenta is the one that’s been focusing on her general skill for millenia.

So if Argenta wanted to sneak in a command or two while stabilizing reality, she absolutely could.  The only way to avoid that happening was to understand every single step and every single action she took when interacting with the world shard.  And so none of the other goddesses wanted Argenta to do anything with the world shard.

Interacting with it was required to keep the world stable, and was required for anything that a goddess wants to do that isn’t in their immediate vicinity.  It’s what she used to kidnap me, using that prize as a sort of 'homing beacon' and 'trigger' for a shardcraft program.

So… yeah, uh… they didn’t want her to have access.

So I asked if she could, perhaps, maybe, teach somebody how to do it for her!

Argenta smiled and said, “Oh I have no problem with teaching people that I trust.  Of course, of the four goddesses that I would, theoretically, agree to teach, one is an asshole, one can be easily manipulated, one’s gone crazy with lust, and one has been lying to me for years.  Oh, and one of them betrayed the rest of us.  So just find somebody else that I can trust, and I’ll happily teach them everything I know.”

So that was a, uh.

That was not an option either.

It was so incredibly frustrating.  Argenta didn’t want to have reality bugs roaming around the world -- she certainly took some spiteful pleasure from how things were going poorly for others, but the damage to reality and mortals itself wasn’t something she indulged in.  It’s…

…I’m going to be frank.  It’s hard for me to not sympathize with her.  I know the history of MISSY very well, through the Alchemical Corruption games, and everything I know from them and everything I know now say the same thing.

Argenta was a hero.

…But the trade for things was just, completely unequal.

Argenta needs to teach somebody the basics on how to deal with reality bugs; it would take maybe a month, tops, and the information wasn’t anything that would harm her.

Modesty needs to let Argenta have unfiltered, unmonitored access to the world shard.

Those are not equal trades.  But, technically, either would work.  Either Argenta teaches somebody some only-helpful skills, or Modesty’s entire group trusts Argenta.  Or at least enough of them to convince the rest to stop monitoring her.

Suffice to say, there wasn’t really any progress on that front.

Argenta just seemed amused by the entire situation, lounging in a chair whenever she was called, and Modesty was getting increasingly frazzled trying to keep things together.

It was… quite a situation.

An exhausting one, because I was put in the middle.

I even managed to get them to agree to a trial run of one day, and Argenta taunted her watchers by creating a fancy cake for her to eat without them noticing until she was eating it.

Which… Started a screaming match and ended things right there, of course.  Because of course it did, even I was -- Eugh.

Nevermind.  Anyway, talking to Argenta didn't work.

…The thing is,  that’s not…

…

That’s not the most important thing that happened during the fourth year.

The most important thing happened when I went to the ruined Hall of Mirrors when the year was nearly over.

I needed a break.

With all of the reality bugs appearing everywhere, and with the fifth and final year nearly there I was working myself to the bone.

Combat practice, alchemy, diplomacy with my friends and the goddesses… I was running myself ragged.  Not even sex was helping me calm down; I just needed some time away from them all.

So I went to the hall of the mirrors.

I had never seen my potential ‘future’, after all.

It was -- well, it is, I suppose -- absolutely ruined.  A wreck of reflective shards, with the exit gate turned into rubble.  There was only one mirror that wasn’t broken.  It stood tall, and clear, and didn’t even have a scratch on it.

I…

…

…I’d rather not share what I saw, okay?

No, it’s not, it’s -- look, it’s private.  And it was… unsettling.  And it’s most likely not going to be true.

…

I -- look, I understand that you want to know everything, it’s just…

…Fine.  Fine.  You’re right, this is part of why I’m here.  Just -- urgh.

I saw myself in the chief god's place, with nothing having changed in the world what-so-ever.

Me, with ultimate power, and no desire to change things for the better.

…Hah.  Yeah.  It probably was one last jab at us by the pastmen, somehow.

Look, can we move on?  That’s not the important part, anyway.

…Thanks.

So.  After seeing… that, for far too many moments, the image suddenly, and almost violently, shifted.

Instead of a weird monochromatic vision, I saw what appeared to be a young woman with… surprisingly modest assets.  She looked pale, almost glowing with little color there was in her skin, and her hair was a wispy gray.  She sat, alone, in a cell.  The walls were made of a black, stained stone, and she was kept in by solid bars made of something -- something stronger than iron, but I’m not sure what.

There were shackles made of the same materials, four of them, each attached to the wall behind her.  One for each corner -- and, presumably, one for each limb.  They were not, currently, in use.

I somehow knew that the woman wasn’t kept as a prisoner.

She could leave any time she wanted.

She opened her eyes, revealing solid black with pinpricks of pure light in the center.  She smiled at me, and greeted me.

She told me she was waiting to meet me.

She is the last of the goddesses.  The secret goddess.  One below them all.

At the time, she was the 'real' twenty-eight goddess.  Or the zeroeth?  Something.

Pandora, daughter of the chief god.

…yes.  No, I’m not going to bother hiding it; she’s the one.  and I want you to pay attention to what I’m saying because of that.

Pandora, and the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, were created at the same time, for the same purpose -- so the chief god could expunge parts of himself that he did not like.

The Evil God of Chastity and Purity took anything that could be viewed as reluctance to have sex, while Pandora was formed from what feminine nature he had, as well as a good dose of his empathy.

They were each created with three shards, because that is one of the most natural configurations for them to exist in -- one for the past, one for the present, and one for the future.

This is actually why the chief god got -- well, I say ‘better’, but I mean ‘less terrible’ over the years.  He gradually redeveloped some empathy and understanding of others, and realized that some kinks weren’t as fun as he thought, but those portions of him will be forever stunted unless he actively chooses to change.

Which he won’t.

Both the Evil God of Chastity and Purity and Pandora were sealed away upon creation.  The former was sealed under the ocean, and the latter was sealed in a specially created prison, located in a dimensional bubble.  They were never intended to be released, but Pandora was let out some thousands of years ago, around the same time that Immaculata was minted.

…Technically, at least.

She never left her prison.

Her words were, “As my shards obey my ‘fathers’ commandments and not my own, they warp reality as I walk amongst it according to my, and his, natures.  I am his lost empathy and femininity -- and thus, everything becomes polarized with those as its axis.  Individuals become either more empathetic and feminine, or less empathetic and masculine.  Rape, slavery, and other base cruelities spread where I walk, until the issue of my nature is solved.

“I refuse to warp this reality further in my ‘father's’ image.  And thus, I remain here.  Until such a time comes that I can leave without harming those I walk among.”

Which is -- well.

…Yeah, it's depressing as fuck.

Pandora, like the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, has three shards that create her being.  Unlike the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, she has not become some kind of merged -- thing with reality bugs.

This means that, to her immense irritation, her three shards are subservient to the chief god.  In any vote that comes up, her shards will vote with him.

…That said, there is an exception.

One that the chief god gave her, years and years ago.

A method for one of her shards to vote for somebody else.

She merely needs a husband.  One who can, according to the chief god, claim ‘ownership’ over her.  While the chief gods claim remains primary, the one who weds her -- and it must be a man who does so -- can control one of her shards when it comes to divine votes.

…There’s just a problem.

He has, as a ‘good father’, put a limit on who she can wed.

They must be sexually capable enough that they can ‘satisfy her’.

Now, normally that would be fine.  Not 'ethically acceptable' fine, obviously.  Fine as something that she could work around.

But her aura was on the level of Takeo's seduction aura, except instead of his making all women love him, it turns all men into chief god copycats… which would include her husband.

There’s only one way around that, and that’s by taking advantage of the time slot and age system.

If an individual has no recorded life in MISSY, then they count as somebody that sex is considered a ‘hard no’ for, regardless of their physical age.

Those in the ‘hard no’ age category are immune to all sexuality and corruption based events and auras.  Including Pandora’s aura of corruption.

And with how broken MISSY is, the age system only updates people's categorization during time slot rollovers.

So, that’s why I’m here!

If you obtain enough sexual skill, and we sneak you into MISSY when the chief god is too distracted to update how the world shard interacts with you, then you’ll be able to marry Pandora without being affected by her aura!  Then you scram before the time slot ends and the aura starts affecting you, and bam, we have another vote!  We've already talked it out with her, and she's agreed to the plan.

Ready to accept yet, or --

-- yeah, I thought as much.

Not that I mind.  We need more time to get you more skilled at sex magic anyway.

Okay.  One more year.  One last year of my adventures in MISSY.

It was a doozy.

Let’s go!