139. Heaven and Hell, and Hope
139. Heaven and Hell, and Hope
2 to 3 times a week.
The Cronus of the past approached Rhea and unilaterally forced sexual acts upon her.
"Rhea... good. Your embrace always comforted me."
".......Cronus.."
[...Kkeueung]
Sexual acts that were only painful,
meant solely to relieve his own lust.
In an era with practically nothing to entertain him, the fact that he kept it to 2 to 3 times a week might actually be considered quite patient.
At the very least, he was better than some treasonous bastard who was in heat 365 days a year and rammed it in every corner of her body.
[Even so, it was hard to endure.]
A time filled with nothing but pain.
Though I had gotten used to it enough that I could bear it just by steeling my eyes, the more time passed, the more I felt my patience draining away.
When it first happened──yes,
I thought that receiving the grace of such an excellent Main God like himself, and having my Appraisal acknowledged, was an act filled with that much honor and glory.
But now that it had transitioned to near-daily routine, I found it merely bothersome, difficult, and exhausting.
[It no longer felt that... honorable.]
Rather, I even felt disgust at my past self, struggling atop Rhea's body.
Given that this was not an emotion I was feeling through Rhea, it was clear that Cronus himself had begun to regard his own self as ugly.
Always noble, pure, a Main God whose very presence was filled entirely with honor and divinity
...just as that belief gradually began to crack, I suddenly felt a strange sense of disharmony within the belly.
[This is... strange.]
A sensation I had never once felt in my life.
A feeling of heaviness in the gut, twisting and curling inward.
By no means pleasant, just a consistently unpleasant sensation.
"Uueok....!"
Rhea, unable to hold back, retched.
At the same time, she looked at the vomit spilled on the floor and trembled lightly.
"...No way..."
[....Ah, I see. It was around this time.]
The quickening of another life.
Rhea intuitively sensed that another life had been born within her womb.
"A child... mine and that person's child....."
Rhea slowly stroked her belly, a mix of conflicting emotions crossing her.
Though, Mother, Gaia had cursed Cronus──but still, surely he wouldn't try to harm his own child.
"...He won't. Mm. Surely he won't."
Wouldn't he rather be happy?
Even if it is a cursed child, it is my child and that person's child.
Surely, even if he is flustered at first, once he feels that it is his own child, the heart of a 'father' will bloom.
Rhea soothed herself.
Though nothing had been decided yet, it was because she could not endure otherwise.
Turning her eyes away from reality as much as possible and dreaming only of an ideal future
"Rhea, you... have conceived a child?"
"Yes. It is your and my child."
Rhea looked at Cronus, at the Cronus of the past.
Her hands stroked her belly, pouring her whole heart into them.
Love for her child, all emotions for her child flowed toward Cronus.
[...It is warm.]
A mother's heart.
Not a woman's heart, but that of a child's mother.
A coziness unimaginable as a heart held for a child not yet born.
Truly a bosom befitting the aide of a Main God, an embrace worthy of being called the vessel of the Earth Mother.
And this heart of Rhea's
"Daring... to conceive my child, Rhea."
"...Cronus..?"
the Cronus of the past cursed it.
"To carry the curse that will kill me, that will bring my ruin....!"
"Cronus.... Cronus? Wait, please! Ah, Aaack!!"
Saying she harbored the curse that would kill him,
that would drive him from the throne of the sky,
the Cronus of the past forcibly pushed Rhea down and pinned her to the floor.
"You look down on me. Because I am ridiculous to you! The mother and daughter both surely find me ridiculous!"
"Cro...nus....!"
Rhea shed tears.
More than the physical pain, the pain of the heart
A sharp pain as if her soul was being torn apart
A chill heat
A sensation as if being sharply cut while the sap drained out through the wound.
[.............]
Cronus fell silent.
If it had been his original self, he would have defended his past self.
But over the long time spent with Rhea, he had shared her emotions together with her.
As the combined time was that long, he could not simply ignore Rhea's heart.
[Back then... I had no leeway, so I acted that way.]
Ultimately, Cronus blamed his past self.
A figure thoroughly separating the past from the present, saying that at least his current self would not be like that.
"You are persistent, Rhea. If you wished it, you could surely erase such a curse easily."
"Cronus... please think again. It's the child of us two...!"
[....If he had not known of the curse, it would have been different.]
Even as time passed and Rhea's belly swelled,
Cronus kept making excuses, making excuses, evading, turning his eyes away
"If it is a curse that will destroy me, I shall overcome this as well."
"A... no.... stop, noooooooo!!!"
And even as he watched himself swallow the child the moment it was born
[Gaia... this is all that wench Gaia's doing!]
Cronus made excuses for himself until the very end.
******************
"Child.... my child......"
[.................]
Rhea, stroking her now empty belly.
As if she had lost her mind, she kept muttering about the child.
Tears suddenly streamed down.
"I'm sorry... Mommy is sorry....!"
A cycle of crying, sleeping, crying, sleeping.
By the time even her tears had nearly dried up, the Cronus of the past approached Rhea's side again.
"Rhea"
"..........."
Rhea remained silent.
But Cronus, who had shared Rhea's emotions and read history, could feel it.
[You... even in the midst of all this, you felt Huipe.]
Cronus
She cursed and cursed and hated and detested him
But──nonetheless, because he was the husband she loved, because she firmly believed he was surely not in his right mind due to Gaia's curse
With the sole belief that someday he would return to being the 'Cronus' she once knew
"Come into my embrace."
"...Don't come near me."
She refused.
But what she wanted was not merely to reject him.
[She... she wished for me to apologize.]
This emotion. This heart.
Hating, but not only hating.
Despite it all, the heart wanting to love, Huipe, an emotion of pure white light.
[She was hoping I would make an excuse for myself. She wanted, once again, to return to the way things were before.]
If only he had bowed his head, blaming it on Gaia's curse,
if only he had said he never did it out of hatred for Rhea,
even though he devoured the child, despite that──if only he had uttered a single word, 'I love you'
[How foolish. So foolish. Foolish to the point of giving me chills.]
Rhea, perhaps Rhea would have taken Cronus into her arms.
What she wished for was reassurance and acknowledgment. Apology and love.
A foolish woman who loved even the husband who had chewed up and swallowed her own child.
Therefore
Because she loved the husband who had even chewed up her own flesh and blood,
because 'I' was also able to feel such 'love,'
"Very well. Mingling mouths with a wench must be meaningless, indeed."
"....Cronus... euk, eueok....!"
[......Ha]
The me of the past,
the past self, never even doubted.
Naturally thought that a 'woman' was 'like that.'
Because she was a 'female,' because she was a 'woman,' because she was a 'wife'
The past self thought 'it was permissible'....
[...It was not so.]
"I shall make you realize the price of despising me, of despising you."
"Cronus.... Cronus.....!"
Rhea crying out his name.
A cry of hatred.
At the same time, a scream mixed with Huipe.
A wail pleading for him to return to his original self. A tearful outcry.
But despite Rhea's voice,
"You have conceived a curse again, Rhea."
"Please... Cronus, pleeease....!"
The Cronus of the past, the me of the past....
[No.... No, no!]
Cronus denied it.
That it was never meant to be this way.
[She was merely... merely scared!]
Continuously shouting his own heart,
stubbornly adhering only to his own thoughts,
"Ah..... Aaaaaaaaaack!!!!"
"Gaia. With a curse from a wench like you, you can never ever kill her."
"I'll kill you... I'll kill you! You! You! I'll definitely kill you!"
"...Can you, the daughter, kill me, when even your mother could not?"
[...................]
Cronus spoke no more.
...
..
.
Even after that, Rhea was caught and crushed under Cronus's hand.
She wished he would rather have an affair. But Cronus kept violating and impregnating Rhea.
"Cronus... let's talk. If we talk, if we talk to each other, we can understand each other."
"I have nothing to say with a wench carrying a curse in her arms."
At first she tried to resolve it through conversation, but it didn't work.
"I have to... run away....!"
"Where do you flee to."
"Ah.....!"
Even if she tried to run, she couldn't.
Because the entire sky and the entire earth were in Cronus's hands.
"Die... please just die! You must not come out....!"
She wished she could just kill him, but even that was impossible.
Because life born from the earth was the very breath of Gaia.
Since Gaia had delivered the curse to kill Cronus, how could she kill him by telling him to die?
"................."
"Indeed. How wonderful it is that you are so obedient."
Rhea, having finally given up resisting.
Days of simply being defiled as he pleased, swelling up, giving birth, and watching the child be devoured before her eyes.
[Aaack.... Ah... Aaaaack....!!]
As if Rhea's heart had shattered,
Cronus also could no longer endure.
Horrifyingly bitter pain
Agony as if his soul was being ground away.
A mother's rage, grudge, hatred, and sorrow.
Coming to loathe even being alive,
a void where nothing remained after burning herself entirely away.
A cold so deep it numbed the bones and tore the heart.
Under torture that even the mental power of a Main God could not withstand, Cronus tried to stop time──but damn it damn it goddamn it...!
[I cannot... stop.]
Because if he stopped here, it would truly be irreversible.
Because it would be the same as admitting to himself that he could not achieve his desired goal, the goal of establishing a new sky once more.
[...I cannot, stop I say....!]
Cronus, for the sake of his ambition, for his dream,
clung to his crumbling mind and shared Rhea's pain.
And so,
"Waaah..... waaaaaaaaah!!!"
"Ah....."
A baby born once again.
But whether it was a blessing or a curse, the Cronus of the past did not come.
"You too... shall be devoured...."
"Kkeuu.... euh.... eung, aeeaeae....!"
The baby cried.
Wailed.
But Rhea did not hold it in her arms.
Because she was already exhausted.
Exhausted, worn out, and now knowing all too well that it would be devoured as if it were only natural.
Therefore, because she didn't want to hurt anymore, because she didn't want to be hurt,
Rhea tried to keep the child out of her sight anymore, but....
"Eung, aeeaeae......!"
"......Are you hungry...?"
A child that would die anyway.
How about letting it spend even its last moments happily?
Ultimately, the heart of a woman who thought only of the baby again.
Rhea slowly took the child into her arms and gave it her breast.
"Chup... chuuup! Cheup, heeeee....."
".....Baby.."
The baby suckled the milk, and held in Rhea's arms, smiled bashfully.
"Baby.... Baby, my baby....!"
Holding the child in her arms, Rhea rose from her spot.
A single spark that bloomed again in a heart filled with a void that seemed ready to tear.
"Now, while Cronus is not here....!"
Love.
Love for her child──maternal love.
With the sole determination to protect the baby, Rhea rose once more.
'I don't care if I die.'
If it was for the baby,
for this child, she felt that it did not matter what became of her own self.
"I have to go find... Mother, Gaia...!"
Even while shedding chunks of blood between her legs, carefully holding the child in her arms lest it be hurt, Rhea crawled along the floor.
Lest the sky discover her, she hid in the shadows, lest his avatars discover her, she held her breath every moment,
not sleeping, not even drinking water, solely a mother's heart to protect her baby.
And perhaps this heart of Rhea's summoned a miracle.
"Mommy is sorry. And, I always think of you."
Obtaining the wisdom of Gaia, like a miracle that would never happen twice in the world,
Rhea's child, who managed to flee outside avoiding Cronus's eyes.
"I love you, my child──Zeus."