Farewell
"......What?"
Lily could hardly believe her own ears.
What had her sister just said?
Surely she had misheard. There was no way she had heard correctly.
A slave? Whose slave?
For a fleeting moment she thought it might be one of her sister's cruel little jokes, and she looked up at her—only to find—
"Hic... hhk..."
She was crying.
Tears she had never once seen on her sister's face. The sight of them tracing down that impossibly beautiful face was so breathtaking it nearly stole the air from her lungs—and yet she hated it.
Jewel-bright tears sliding down that pure white skin.
Lily wanted to devour every last one of them from her sister's cheeks.
She wanted her to cry only for her.
She wanted her to smile only for her.
She wanted her sister to look at no one but her for the rest of her life.
Even if it meant becoming a slave—her own—
...No.
Lily forced down the dark desire slowly unfurling in the back of her mind.
She had made herself a promise.
Until she came of age, she would never show her sister even a trace of that filthy longing. She would thoroughly conceal the sticky, clinging feelings she harbored for the woman who still saw her only as a little sister—never as a woman.
But she had never intended to hide them forever.
She could not approach her now. The moment she became an adult, though, she had sworn she would devour her whole.
Until now, Lily had been waiting for that day with a desperate, burning hunger.
And yet.
A slave.
Not hers. Someone else's slave.
...It's that bitch's fault.
Her chest boiled with rage, but her mind remained unnervingly calm. It took no effort at all to know who had made her sister cry.
She looked at her.
The woman watching her sister with that leisurely smile.
She wanted to kill her.
She wanted to rip that hateful smile to shreds and free her sister from her grasp.
But she couldn't.
Instinct told her as much. The overwhelming aura of a true powerhouse rolling off the woman made it plain—right now, Lily could not so much as touch a single hair on her head.
She bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood, swallowing the fury.
Not yet. It's impossible right now.
But someday.
Someday, so that she could never lay a hand on Sister Hera again—
she would kill that loathsome woman.
There's a saying.
A man cries only three times in his life: when he is born, when his parents die, and when his country is lost.
Of course men don't actually schedule their tears that way. The point is that a man's tears are hoarded and hoarded until, at some decisive moment, they finally spill as proof of true sorrow.
In truth, I could barely remember ever crying. I had shed tears once at my mother's funeral—and never again after that.
So then.
"Hic... hhk... hhk..."
Who was this pathetic wreck sobbing like this?
My tears had never been this cheap. And yet twice already—twice in a single day—I had failed to hold them back.
Crying like this in the arms of a child so much younger than me. If my old self from before the transmigration could see this, he would grab the back of his own neck and hurl every curse he knew at me.
But what am I supposed to do when the tears just keep coming...
Maybe it was becoming a woman. I seemed to have grown far too emotional.
As I sniffled, Lily patted my back with her small hands.
"Sister."
"Hic... y-yes?"
Her small, lovely fingers wiped the tears from my cheeks. I looked at her as she called to me in that warm voice—
"Hic... h-hik..."
L-Lily... your eyes...
The gentle voice calling my name was the complete opposite of those eyes—dark as if they had swallowed every scrap of light.
I had seen those eyes before.
In the novel. In Lily's illustration. In that picture she had worn exactly this same look.
B-but why...?
In the novel, Lily had lost her sister and spent years on the run alone. Of course she would have eyes like that after a life so hard and hollowed-out.
So why did she have those same dead eyes now?
"Sister."
"Y-yes?"
"You love me, don't you?"
"H-huh? S-suddenly?"
"You love me, right??"
"Hic—"
She pressed down on me as if pinning me in place. Her coercive presence made my whole body go rigid.
"O-of course I love you... You're my little sister..."
"..."
I answered in a trembling voice. She stared at me for a long moment—and then—
"...I can't hold back."
"Lily...? Mmph?!"
She yanked my head forward and crashed her lips against mine.
We had shared countless little kisses before, but this was different. If every kiss until now had been the light, fleeting touch of a baby bird pecking its mother, then this—
"Mmph?!! Li—?"
—was like a beast devouring my mouth.
"Hhk...! Mmph...!"
When I flinched, she seized my head with both hands so I couldn't pull away. As our lips collided fiercely, something soft slipped into my mouth.
"Nngh?!"
That soft thing sliding over my tongue, licking inside me—
was Lily's tongue.
"What do you think you're doing!!!!!"
BOOM—
Someone's scream rang out as a wall of golden light erupted from the ground between us, forcing Lily and me apart. In the next instant something seized me by the scruff of the neck and yanked me sharply backward.
"Hwek—?"
And then she was suddenly standing in front of me.
Athena glared at Lily with murder in her eyes.
"You.... I distinctly told you not to lay a hand on my property."
Even under a hero's killing aura, Lily didn't flinch. If anything, she almost seemed to smile.
"This is something Sister and I have always done."
"...What?"
Athena's eyes flashed. She whipped her gaze toward me, golden irises blazing.
"Is that true, Hera?"
"Uh... ah?"
I was still too dazed from Lily's dizzying kiss to answer properly. Athena pressed again, impatient.
"Hera. Answer me."
"Y-yes?"
I shook my head hard, trying to drag my scattered wits back into place.
Lily must have just... slipped up.
The sudden shock of everything must have made her lose control without meaning to.
...But could you slip a tongue in by accident...?
It was an accident... right...?
I shoved the doubt aside and looked at Athena.
"W-we're both girls, so... it doesn't really matter, does it...?"
"....."
Athena stared at me as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Then, as though something had clicked—
"You little brat... you've been up to some pretty filthy tricks, haven't you?"
—she turned a crooked smile on Lily.
Lily refused to be outdone. She looked straight at Athena and said, clear and cold:
"Coming from someone who turned a person into a slave on a whim?"
"....Do you have a death wish?"
At Athena's lethal tone I startled and clung to her at once.
"Y-you can't...! You promised you'd protect them..."
She looked down at me for a moment at my desperate plea, then let out a short sigh and arched one eyebrow.
"Then call me by the proper title, Hera."
She was forcing the form of address on me. I couldn't answer right away; my lips worked soundlessly.
I don't want to say it in front of Lily...
"If you don't want to, fine."
At that I blurted out in a panic:
"I-I understand!! Please... keep your promise... Master..."
Crrrk—
I thought I heard the sound of teeth grinding.
Athena glanced sidelong at Lily, then let a sly, mocking smile bloom across her face.
"When my adorable little slave begs me like this, I suppose I have to protect them."
"You..."
It was freezing.
Was this what it felt like to have a dagger driven straight into your chest?
An unreadable, ominous energy crackled between Athena and Lily, stiffening my shoulders.
W-what do I do...
As I fretted helplessly between them, a voice reached me like a lifeline.
"Lady Athena."
Dania called Athena's name with a face as still as the eye of a storm—every trace of a smile gone.
"......"
Athena stared hard at Dania. For a split second it almost looked as if she were staring at her chest.
Must have been my imagination.
"May I ask you just one thing?"
At Dania's words Athena lifted her gaze to meet her eyes.
"What?"
"Did you... force a master-servant contract on Hera?"
Dania's question struck dead center. Athena's face twitched—then she shrugged with deliberate indifference.
"And if I did?"
At that, Dania's expression began to crack, ever so slightly.
"And you still call yourself a hero?"
"Pfft... a hero?"
Athena's smile turned into something close to a sneer.
"I never told anyone to call me that. I just killed a few monsters and people decided to fawn over me on their own."
"...."
It was the kind of thing a villain would say.
Even in the novel, Athena had never been a saint. She moved purely according to her own interest; human lives and the peace of nations meant nothing to her.
Which was exactly why she became the mastermind.
"If you're done, mind stepping aside? I'm a busy woman."
"...What do you intend to do with Hera?"
Athena looked from me to Lily and back again.
"Seems my slave has been wagging her tail all over the place. I'll have to educate her so she doesn't do it again."
"Hey!!!!"
The rage she had been crushing down finally burst. Lily shouted and lunged toward Athena—only for Dania's hand to stop her at once.
"Lily. No."
"Sister!!!! But that bitch—!"
"Lily."
"......"
Lily looked at Dania and fell silent. Blood was dripping from the crescent marks Dania's own nails had dug into her palms.
Athena watched her and gave a short, amused snort.
"I was just about done going easy on you... but unlike your little sister, at least you know when to back down."
As if she had nothing more to say, Athena scattered her mana into the air. A vast magic circle bloomed overhead, and white radiance began to descend, wrapping around Athena and me.
"I think that's enough of a greeting. Time to say farewell, Hera."
"F... farewell?"
I stared at her, hollow.
"Th-this suddenly...? What about them...?"
"I'll send someone separately. I'll keep my promise, so don't worry."
"W-wait!! Just a little more time—"
"I've already given you more than enough, Hera."
Farewell.
Just like that?
I whipped my head toward Lily and Dania. Dania was watching me with violently trembling eyes. And Lily—
"Sister!!"
—as if she still couldn't let me go, she scrambled forward and threw herself into my arms.
"D-don't go...! That contract... I'll find a way to break it somehow...!"
"Lily..."
"I-if I learn a little magic... I can... no... if I just kill her... uugh..."
"Lily."
I held her tight as she shook and wandered in panic.
"Lily. I'll be all right. I promise."
"You don't know what that bitch might do!!"
To calm her, I decided on a small lie.
"It's okay, Lily. Have you forgotten how strong your sister is?"
I spread both arms in a ridiculous bodybuilder pose, trying to joke for the girl trembling with fear.
"B-but....!"
I made up my mind about the last things I wanted to say to her.
"Lily. Go to the Academy. Make lots of friends. Experience all kinds of things."
"And always keep smiling brightly. You're prettiest when you smile."
"Someday... I'll definitely come find you... Wait for me until then, Lily..."
"And..."
Don't forget me.
With those words I pressed a kiss to her forehead.
But before I could even pull my lips away—
Snap.
The sound of fingers snapping. Light flooded my vision, and the world changed.
And just like that—
the black-haired woman who had been holding Lily so carefully in her arms
vanished without a single trace.
".......Sister...?"