Chapter 79 — Y4: Chrono Attack

Like it~?

Why yes it does make my butt look fat, thank you very much!

And the cleavage is generous, yes, I know~  It’s quite wonderful, isn’t it?

See how tight the top is?  You can see the shape of my nipples if you squint!

And of course there’s how the patterns work with how I move, and --

-- hmmm?

Haha, ah, no, actually, that’s not the case at all.

Yes, really.

…No.  I’m not kidding.

No, it's not a choice!  I can't look normal-nice!

Yes really!

Ugh!

Look, at a certain point, you can either be sexy pretty or frumpy ugly, with no in-between.  I happen to be well beyond that point, with these tits and this ass, so --

-- fine!  You’re on!

We’ll go shopping as soon as I put on my going-out makeup.  Hrmph.

-- ah, right, right.  Right.  Storytime.

Okay!  Storytime first, then proving I'm right.  Let’s go!

-- ah.  Right.  I had just shared that I was -- y-yeah.

Takeo.

And making out.

…Yeah.

That was -- it was like a dam had broken.  I suddenly felt starved for his touch and affection.  I was grinding into him as we made out, pushing my body, tits and all, into him as I all but devoured his lips.

Remember the discussion I had with Shimizu?  About relationships?

Yeah.  On the one hand, I really had no desire at the moment to get tied down or to get married.

On the other hand, I was suddenly finding myself obsessing over what  wedding dresses would best attract Takeo’s eye.

I broke our kiss to take in a deep breath of air, and Takeo said, “Lizzy, wait --”  Before I cut him off and resumed kissing him.  When I took another breath of air, he tried, “We shouldn’t --”  And I cut him off again.

This repeated for some time as I got my fill of the hottest hero I’ve ever met.

…What’s with that look?  He was into it too!  He didn’t even try to get me off of him!  He was kissing me back!  He was actively hugging me closer!  We were meant to be together, dammit, and I know how that sounds coming from me, but we were!

By the fifth time I had taken a breath, he had stopped complaining, and by the seventh, his hands had finally started roaming my body.  I mean, honestly.  I push my tits into him like a whore, french kiss his mouth for several minutes, and only then his hands start wandering?!  Ugh!

He’s hot but a bit dim at sometimes.

…Though that does only make him cuter…

Eventually, I had had enough of kissing him, of my apology for being so mean to him for so long, and leaned back.  Still holding him tightly, my adoration clearly shining in my eyes.  I'm Sure it was, it must have!  After taking two breaths to recover, I felt a heady, girly giggle bubble up from my throat, letting it loose before I confessed.

It was an almost desperate, rushed thing, something I waned out before I forgot, something I needed him to know!

I told him that I loved him!

…What?  I did!  I do!  Takeo’s a hero ten times better than any you’ve ever met, and he’s so selfless going through all of those loops alone, and -- and --

-- r-right.  Right. Storytime, sorry.

Just don’t insult Takeo again, got that?!

…Good.

So.  I told him that I loved him, I wanted him, I needed him --

-- and then I felt somebody tugging me off him!

Shimizu was -- she was just jealous, I know she was!  She wanted to keep me away from him!  She was telling me things about ‘letting me get my head on straight’ and ‘returning to sanity’ but I was sane!  I was thinking clearly!  And I wanted the person who would be, if I had anything to say about it, my future husband, dammit!

I shouted out that I loved him when the stupid herm just stuffed a few fingers into my mouth.

I glared at the hand even as I started sucking her fingers like they were a cock, out of instinct.

Hrmph.

Stupid slutty body… at least Takeo likes it…

…Why are you getting the water out?

COLD!

That was fucking cold!  Bleck!  Look, if you want an impromptu wet T-shirt contest, I'll always be up for that, but use warm water!

Fucking -- hah.  Tch.

Hm?  Yes?

…Uh.  Why?

Okay, fine.

Takeo’s a dork and not nearly as cool or useful as he thinks he is.

What’s with that look?

Hey, come on, what’s with that look?!

…What about my brain slug?!

Haaaaah…  Thanks.  I needed that.

And, uh, thanks for being, um, understanding.  About the whole brain slug… thing.  The, uh… the 'remembering being brainwashing means you resume being brainwashed'... thing.

A-anyway!

So.  Takeo and his stupid aura aside, there were a lot of things that I had to do in the fourth year.  Getting a bunch of blessings and rare items were on my to-do list.  This year was when you got the materials required to make end game gear, the best that you can normally make, so that was also a huge goal of ours.

Well, most end game gear.

There’s a special accessory that -- nevermind, that’s later.

Thankfully, the fourth landmass is the best place to go if you want to focus on getting specific blessings.

This is due to the curses that both angels and demons can give you.

These things can affect you a lot, and that is perfect for going -- well, whatever you want, really.

First off, we had the future-angels that could change your past.  We had managed to shift the time of the fourth landmass after the chief god showed up, so we were off to collect materials and get cursed!

…Well, I was off to get cursed, at least.

Jessica wanted to join to get a taste of adventure in MISSY, and Zaylee wanted to be a dutiful bodyguard.  Things went well for the first few days, before they went, uh.

…A bit sideways.

Well, no, okay, things went a lot sideways.  I'm pretty sure I didn't bother explaining the plan for year four, and this is why.

See, in the game Alchemical Corruption Twelve, if you don’t do the year four quests as perfectly as possible, you get punished with a curse.

The ‘as possible’ is the important bit there, because some missions can have variance in what you can achieve.

In this particular case, we were out collecting chunks of bluecopper ore from a depleted mine.  Why there was still ore in a mine that was depleted never made any sense, and remember that for later.  The amount you can find varies from seven to twelve pieces, total.

We had already collected eleven, but the last chunk of bluecopper ore was held by an RNG-spawned salamander miniboss towards the back of the mine.  We had a good chance of winning, but it was getting late in the day, we'd depleted most of our supplies and stamina, and Jessica was still getting used to fighting in MISSY.  So it was risky.

So I suggested that we just do something when reporting that wasn’t possible in Alchemical Corruption Twelve:

I suggested we just substitute in a chunk of bluecopper ore that we'd gotten from killing one of the rock golems in the depleted mines dungeon.

You see, there were two types of bluecopper ore in AC Twelve!  The bluecopper ore in the ingredients tab, and the bluecopper ore in the quest items tab.  Identical name, identical icon, identical description.

Because they were the exact same thing.

So we went back, presented the twelve bluecopper ore chunks to the angel, and told him we were done.

Honestly, we could probably have lied to him about how much we found, kept the extras, and still gotten away with it.  It's not like there were security cameras inside the mine, and the angel was a nameless nobody civilian.  But either way?  He wanted us to scavenge for ore from a depleted mine, we came back with a bunch, we gave it to him, happy angel, quest reward, done.

…And that's how it should have been.  How it should have gone.

Instead, when he looked at the twelve pieces of ore we laid out for him, he narrowed his eyes.  He counted out the eleven pieces we collected for this specific mission -- and ignored the one that I added.  Like he just couldn’t see it.  He even asked me if I was sure that we only found eleven pieces, and I told him no, we had twelve!

I held up the twelfth piece of ore in front of him, I even started waving it in front of his face, but he didn't react!  He didn't even flinch!  He just went through saying the 'quest failure' dialogue from the video game, word for word!

I had just enough time to realize something was wrong, before the angel gave me the first of several timeline curses I would end up receiving during year four.

This particular one?

He pointed to the three of us and said, in an ominous tone, “Your first kiss of passion… was with your sibling!”

Now, he didn’t know that Jessica and I were, in fact, siblings.

Nor did he know that Zaylee was an only child -- meaning the curse only gave her a foggy memory of kissing somebody that didn’t exist.

For me, however?

I suddenly remembered quite vividly how my ‘new’ first kiss was when I was a teenager, late at night, with Jessica in my room.  We were chatting about kisses and boys and how neither of us knew what the big deal was, and we decided, all innocent-like, to experiment ourselves while our parents were asleep!

This then -- uh -- kinda…

It, f-fuck, if I focus on the memory alone, no context, it makes a warped kind of sense.  It wasn't just, us suddenly becoming sluts.

We talked through it.  Teased each other.  That sibling kind of… I dared her to grope me, she did, I moaned, then awkward silence until I started babbling about how good it felt.  That sort of thing.  Exploring kissing and touching and each other, and -- and slowly psyching each other up.

We didn't -- we didn't cum, either of us, but it…

…It eventually escalated into a full on, heavy petting, grinding, moaning, squirming make out session with each other.  On my bed.  And not cumming, it not becoming outright sex, was a near thing.

We went to sleep together after we exhausted ourselves with it, cuddling together.

It was -- was -- us.  If that makes sense?  Looking at the memory alone, I can't say it wasn't us that did it, that it was brainwashing or anything.  I know what brainwashing feels like, and there wasn't any.  It happened purely because we did that.

We -- did -- that.

…Except, of course, with any context whatsoever, it's complete bullshit.

For one, in that memory, I’m a girl.

In case you need reminding, I wasn’t a girl back then!

For two, I have two past memories of my ‘first kiss’.  One as me in Radianta, and one as me in MISSY.  Each one with the Jessica of that reality, and the MISSY side memory was the same kind of surreal plausibility could-have-happened, falls-apart-with-context thing.

My mother would've noticed her daughters sleeping together!  Because she's a super perceptive super slut!

And finally, for three, nothing else changed.

Both memories, I remember going to sleep cuddling with my sister, and I don't remember waking up the next day!  Because there was no 'the next day'!  We never talked about it again, not because it was too awkward and embarrassing to possibly say another word about it, but because it didn't really happen and year four timeline curses are stupid!

So yeah, I know that the memories are fake.  But they sure feel real, like they could have really happened if things had gone differently, and --

-- eh?  No, why would it?

…I don't understand what you’re saying.

No, I don’t think the idea of kissing your sibling on the lips is weird.

…Wait.

Fuck.

Okay, uh, m-moving on!

So!  I had that memory implanted into my head.  I was reeling from both it and the angel acting totally detached from reality.

Then I heard Jessica say, in a flat, terse voice, "Mini, scan report."

Mini appeared with a little 'pop' on Jessica's shoulder, and cried, "Zap him now now now!"

Jessica snapped her spear forward, thrusting the heart-shaped spearhead into the angel's chest.  There was a flash of light and a byoom noise!

And then the angel was gone.  Just, absolutely nothing left but empty air and footprints in the dirt.

"Mini, what just happened?" Jessica said.

"Chrono attack!  It got your sister and Zaylee!"  Mini said, with squeaky panic.  "The people here aren't people!  They're all reality bugs!"