137. Become Yeoui's Mate
137. Become Yeoui's Mate
A familiar ceiling.
A chill rising from the floor.
Even the dusty air, now quite familiar.
I slowly rose from my spot and looked ahead.
"I have waited for a long, long time."
"....Cronus."
A figure seated arrogantly upon that high Divine Throne.
As I watched, wondering what in the world she would say this time──
"There. Stand in that spot."
─Cronus descended from the Divine Throne of her own accord.
One step. Another step. She descended from the throne and met my eyes.
She created a round table right in front of her, pulled out a chair before it, and sat down.
"....What are you doing?"
"It is a round table."
They say it is a seat that emphasizes equality among all, without dividing between superior and subordinate.
Cronus then pulled out a chair on the opposite side and set it up.
'Is she telling me to sit?'
It looked suspicious no matter how I saw it.
A situation where I had absolutely no idea what her intentions were.
Even if my eyes didn't sense anything particularly dangerous, who knew.
Because she was a Greek god.
She was an opponent against whom layering caution upon caution would never be excessive.
I simply stared at Cronus without sitting in the chair, and Cronus let out a small sigh.
"I have no intention of inflicting any harm upon you. Did I not swear on the River Styx?"
"....Think about your own karma first."
Come to think of it, she did swear on the River Styx.
Only then did I sit down and face Cronus.
"So... what kind of grandiose thing did you have to say that you invoked an 'Advent' to see me?"
"..........."
Silence.
Cronus did not speak.
She just quietly looked at me, staring at me──
─Woooooong....!
".....Hey?"
A strange feeling.
A sensation of slight goosebumps rising.
Simultaneously, something surged up from behind me and shot toward Cronus.
─Claaaaaaang!!!
"....Is that a Fragment of Scythe?"
Something flew toward Cronus.
A black, dark-hued dagger. And what deflected it was yet another 'weapon.'
"Fragment. It seems you have grown quite fond of your new master."
A Fragment of Scythe.
The fragment I possessed flew toward Cronus and clashed with the fragment Cronus possessed.
A situation where dagger and scythe stood opposed.
Cronus placed her hand upon the scythe and spoke.
"However, do not be too hasty. As I said earlier, there is an oath sworn on the Styx. I was merely...
...simply confirming whether that human is truly a 'Hero.'"
"Hero...?"
What, was this some story about beating up the Demon King?
"Return to your master. And... I have not permitted even you to act so."
As Cronus withdrew her scythe, the dagger also returned to my bosom.
The scythe in Cronus's hand seemed to tremble ever so slightly, but I decided to ignore it.
"I apologize. No, would you prefer if I bowed my head and said... I was wrong?"
"First, let me hear what you did wrong."
"It is nothing much."
I merely viewed your past, present, and future.
"...Crazy bitch."
That is absolutely 'something much,' is it not?
I instinctively raised Scythe to cover my body.
At this, Cronus shook her head repeatedly and lowered her hand.
"Do not be so. Contrary to your worries, nothing was visible to me."
"Then.... so how does that have anything to do with being a 'Hero' or whatever?"
"This too is nothing much."
A hero is,
by nature, a 'made-to-order hero' designated by the Main God.
"....I have absolutely no idea what you mean."
"For you, there is neither a need to know, nor a reason to understand."
I simply came to realize something.
Cronus slowly closed her eyes and recalled that moment.
****************
The battle against Queen Siren.
Cronus had anticipated it.
No, the word 'anticipated' was not fitting.
"She can see the future."
Because she could see 'time.'
She could also gaze upon the 'outcomes' to be realized from future 'time.'
As the future was not fixed, its branches multiplied into tens, hundreds, thousands of possibilities, but like such threads of fate, there also existed 'singularities' where they converged into one.
"Athena... a bloodline of Zeus, is it?"
The future she beheld was this:
That Chrono, having received Athena's blessing, would boldly step forth and defeat Queen Siren.
It was, so to speak, the first page of an epic heralding the birth of a hero.
Though it rankled that this role would be played not by herself, a Main God, but by a child who was technically a grandchild, if it elevated her own name it would also be a good thing──or so she thought.
[Heroes, arise!]
[Arise. Fight back!]
[Slay the enemy who insults the goddess, and be reborn as heroes!]
".....Huh?"
The future changed.
No, this was beyond the level of merely having changed──it was, so to speak, a cataclysm.
It went beyond the threads of fate being tangled; it created entirely new threads of fate.
[...Crazy bastard.]
Beside her, Athena quietly had her mental state ripped to shreds.
It was a sight somehow reminiscent of herself──but this was far too absurd a 'cataclysm' to feel any sympathy for.
"Is that... even possible?"
No, it was an impossible event.
Fate was both relative and absolute.
Though the process could change slightly, the outcome was always 'fixed.'
And the future of Chrono she had seen, seen with her very own 'eyes'──was certainly meant to be the moment he was reborn as a 'Hero.'
But Chrono cast off this 'singularity' and once again created a new thread of fate.
The creation of fate.
A new possibility. A new future, fate, possibility descending from it, a world turned upside down.
From Chrono's perspective, it might simply end at having screwed Athena over.
However, viewed from a macroscopic lens, what Chrono had done was akin to a grand event that inverted life and death.
By Chrono's choice, by Chrono's single action,
by just one altered 'singularity,'
A person meant to die, lives.
A person meant to live, dies.
The boundary between life and death collapsed, and a new history and fate were born──that was what it meant for 'fate' to be twisted.
[...Is that guy actually a eunuch?]
"................"
Such absurdity was even revealed in his relationship with Minerva.
The Goddess's Wisdom.
Wisdom that the Goddess of Wisdom personally wove for her child.
Whether it was effective or not, irrespective of its utility, Athena's act of 'bestowing wisdom' itself held meaning.
One might say it carried a kind of 'coercion.'
Just as once, in a weaving contest between a maiden and Athena,
though skill-wise the maiden won a complete victory, she was cursed for not worshiping the god.
The beings called gods, especially the Main Gods, were like this.
Their very existence was force and coercion. Before such beings, humans dared not raise their heads.
[Kee... aaaaaaack....!!!]
"....Hah."
A goddess personally strives to arrange a meeting with a child of the lower realm, yet fails repeatedly?
Watching this, Hera dismissed it as 'How does a mere virgin dare speak of love?', but that was nonsense and the barking of an immature heart.
A Main God.
This was an act personally undertaken by a Main God.
Then, even if Chrono did not truly share love, it should at least have progressed to the point of physical union.
Because that was what it meant to be a god, a Main God.
Because the wisdom granted by a Main God was imbued with 'force' and 'coercion.'
...And yet, she overcame such 'coercion' when she was nothing but a mere human?
"Bullshit."
As the words implied.
In Cronus's eyes, this situation was neither acceptable nor comprehensible.
But the event had happened, and reality was unfolding accordingly.
"...I must confirm it."
Cronus immediately sought out the place where the Three Fates resided.
And so,
when she arrived at the place of the three sisters──
"Main God, good heavens...."
Clotho, the goddess who spins the thread of fate.
Threads burst uncontrollably in real-time, tangling her entire body into knots.
"No, no no no! Stop it now! Stooooop!!"
Lachesis, the goddess who winds the thread and measures the length of life.
The thread stretched wildly of its own accord, being wound endlessly without limit.
"Hieeeeek──!"
Atropos, the goddess who cuts the thread of life.
She cuts and cuts the threads of fate, but severed threads suddenly reattach themselves, and threads that should be there do not fall.
Among the threads of fate flying about in utter chaos, her eyes were turning into those of a snail.
"Fate... is reversing?"
Beholding this spectacle, Cronus could say nothing else.
"Catastrophe."
To the heavens, a catastrophe.
"Miracle."
At the same time, one who could change the predetermined ending.
"I shall give it a name."
One who dared to overturn the fixed destiny.
One who shook the world by his very existence.
Therefore, one whom the gods anticipated, and came to rely upon.
"Hero."
...
..
.
"Haaaaa....."
He erased the fixed destiny.
He brought forth a new destiny.
Did the 'Hero' before her eyes have any idea what kind of meaning that held?
"...If you're not going to tell me, how about you say why you called me or get on with it?"
"............"
An insolent posture.
He was getting high and mighty because he had Hera backing him.
'...But I am in no position to say such things.'
Because she had incurred the displeasure of one who created new destinies.
She could understand her own current situation.
"In history, those who incurred the displeasure of the 'Hero' always met an unsavory end."
For example, it was so in her own case.
For example, it was so in Zeus's case.
Of course, in this context, it was closer to 'Hero' in the sense of a 'hero blessed by a goddess'...
"...So what?"
"............"
The existence before her eyes was one who would vomit out even a goddess's blessing if he disliked it.
Therefore, he was an existence all the more unmanageable because he could so splendidly kick away the fixed destiny.
But if you asked if he had ambition, no.
If you asked if he had desire, no.
And if you asked if he had completely reached the state of enlightenment, that also was not true.
An unpredictable existence.
An unfathomable existence.
A bastard more disorienting than even Zeus.
'There is possibility.'
The fixed destiny.
The possibility of changing the predetermined ending.
To the rebellious soul that dared to smash even the Main God's prophecy to bits and achieve his own will──
"Become my companion, Cronus."
"........What??"
Cronus entrusted her own fate to him.
'Everything is for the new heavens.'
To drive out the vile bloodline of the traitor (Zeus).
To fill the heavens with her own bloodline once again.
As a side note──
"Fine."
"Good. I thought you would refuse──What?"
Chrono did not refuse.
"In exchange, you don't mind if I treat you 'Greek style,' right?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm saying I'll do it, as long as you don't mind me doing to you exactly what you did to your wife."
"..........."
It was essentially a statement no different from a refusal.