Master-Slave Brand
"...Huh..?"
"Why aren't you taking them off?"
Wait.
Uh.. how did...
H-how on earth did it come to this?
I had only said I would grant her a request to repay Athena for everything she had done for me.
And then, out of nowhere, she told me to take off my clothes.
I was still reeling from how absurd the demand sounded—wondering if I had misheard—when she started reaching toward my chest.
An inexplicable chill ran through me. On pure instinct I scrambled away from her, bolted for the bed, and wrapped myself up tight in the blankets.
She took one look at me, let out a short laugh, then climbed onto the bed and smiled down at me with a languid, seductive curve of her lips.
Which left us exactly like this.
"Are you trying to seduce me, Hera?"
"W-w-what are you talking about!!"
I clutched the blankets even tighter.
Take off my clothes?
What exactly was she planning to make me do?
Alone together in a room, and she wanted me undressed...
D-don't tell me she means that kind of...
Unspeakable images painted in bare skin began flooding my mind.
Th-that couldn't be it.
Athena and I were both women.
But no other reason for stripping me bare would come to mind no matter how hard I tried.
Could it be that the women of this world even did that with each other?
No. Impossible.
Granted, this was a world that didn't bat an eye at same-sex affection—but there still had to be a line.
Even between women, surely they wouldn't go so far as to press their bodies together like that.
So then why was she doing this?
D-did she... like me?
Had Athena been a lesbian in the novel...?
No matter how hard I racked my memory of the story, the only character written as homosexual had been the Saintess.
Athena, if anything, had been treated by readers as one of Robin's heroines.
I was certain she had never been written as interested in women.
"Why aren't you taking them off?"
"Hic?!"
The moment she began slowly peeling the blankets away from me, I scrambled back until I was pressed against the very edge of the bed.
Athena's hands closed on empty air. She simply stared at me, dazed.
Meeting those darkened eyes sent another chill racing down my spine.
I have to refuse, at least...
No matter how grateful I was to her, some things were simply not okay.
I squeezed my eyes shut and all but shouted at her.
"N-no... no dirty stuff!!"
But my cry was met with nothing at all.
A heavy silence settled over the room.
When I carefully cracked my eyes open—
Athena was staring at me with her eyes wide.
"Pff—pffhah!"
And then she burst into helpless laughter.
She laughed so hard tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.
After a long stretch of full-throated, doubled-over laughter, she finally wiped her tears and spoke.
"Hera... what exactly were you imagining?"
"...Huh?"
"Don't tell me you thought I was going to demand your body?"
"I-it isn't?"
"Pffhaah!! Of course not. Or what—were you hoping I would?"
It wasn't.
My head burned so hot it wouldn't have been strange if steam started pouring off it.
I wanted to crawl into the nearest mouse hole and hide from sheer mortification.
I couldn't see my own face, but I was certain it had gone as red as a ripe tomato.
"Th-that's..."
"You've got a bit of a perverted streak, Hera."
"Th-then why did you tell me to take my clothes off?!"
I was not the weird one here.
Anyone told to strip would jump to the same conclusion.
I was absolutely not the weird one.
Probably...
"The brand."
But she had brought it up for an entirely different reason after all.
"Brand...?"
"Mm. I'm going to carve a Master-Slave Brand into your body."
Master-Slave Brand. An unfamiliar term.
I had heard of slave brands plenty of times, but a Master-Slave Brand felt somewhat foreign.
They were probably similar concepts.
But did we really need something like that...?
I had no desire to have any kind of brand carved into my body for no good reason.
Even without one, I already couldn't escape her.
"...Do I have to?"
But she shook her head without the slightest hesitation.
"Hera. What happened this time. You still remember, don't you?"
"...Yeah."
She was bringing that incident up again.
I didn't want to think about it.
Even knowing the man was safe now, the guilt of having hurt him still gnawed at me without end.
When he comes back, I'll go apologize properly. I'll beg until he forgives me.
The moment he finished his treatment and returned, I intended to seek him out and keep apologizing until he accepted it.
"Back then—you couldn't control your strength, could you?"
"....Huh?"
She was right.
The instant the man's attack came flying toward me—
an enormous power had flooded my body of its own accord, and before I knew it I had dealt him a near-fatal wound.
But how did Athena know that?
As if she had overheard my thoughts, Athena answered for me.
"Hah... I'm sorry, Hera. I should have told you ahead of time. I never imagined something like this would happen."
"What... are you talking about?"
When I only stared at her in confusion, her expression turned thoroughly serious as she began to explain.
"Do you know why people form Master-Slave Contracts?"
"...No."
"A Master-Slave Contract looks like it only benefits the master. But that isn't true."
Athena opened her palm. Around it, golden light began to flicker and dance like fireflies.
"Once the contract is formed, the slave becomes able to draw on a portion of the master's power."
"...."
"And when the slave falls into real danger, their body instinctively pulls out the master's mana from within."
She gripped my shoulders firmly and continued.
"What happened in the sparring hall was my mana bursting out on reflex to protect you."
"....What?"
"Dillon. Him getting hurt—that wasn't because of you."
Athena pulled my dazed self into a tight embrace and spoke in a voice that sounded almost sad.
"I'm sorry. If I had known something like this might happen to you... I would have carved the brand into you sooner."
".....Ah."
I was lost.
I had believed it was entirely my fault.
I had been certain it happened because I still didn't fully understand my own abilities.
But that wasn't it.
She was saying the tragedy had been caused by her mana.
A tangle of emotions rose in me.
Part of me resented her for only telling me now.
And at the same time, relief flooded through me at the knowledge that his injury hadn't been entirely my doing.
I knew what that relief really was.
It was my own selfish desire to run from the guilt that had been tormenting me all this time.
This wasn't Athena's fault.
She had simply never imagined an incident like this could occur—and the only reason her mana had manifested at all was to protect me.
If I hadn't challenged him to that duel in the first place—
or if I had just calmed myself even a little during the match—none of this would have happened.
Even if I hadn't been the one who struck him, I was still the cause of the outcome.
"It wasn't your fault, Hera."
But as she held me warm and close and comforted me that none of it was my fault, everything inside me began to crumble.
All the guilt I had been bottling up burst free at once. Tears poured from my eyes.
Like a child, I clung to her and cried, taking out my frustration on her for no good reason.
"Hic... why... why didn't you tell me... why... sob..."
But she only stroked my back and accepted every bit of my childish sulking.
"I was wrong. So please don't cry, Hera."
"Hic... sob..."
She gently wiped away the tears that kept falling.
I hated her so much right then—
and yet I found myself thinking that, just for this moment, maybe it was all right to lean on her.
After I had cried myself out in her arms for a long while—
I finally heard the rest about the Master-Slave Brand.
Right now, her mana was lodged inside my body in its raw, unrefined state.
The Master-Slave Brand existed to let me use that mana efficiently.
Once it was carved into me, drawing on her power would become far easier.
The moment I learned that, I accepted without a second thought.
Dillon getting hurt had happened because I couldn't control her mana.
To make sure nothing like that ever happened again, I decided to have the Master-Slave Brand carved into my body.
Which brought us to now.
"...But... do I really have to take everything off...?"
"......Of course. How am I supposed to carve a brand through clothes?"
I sat with my back to her, wearing only the bare minimum needed to cover the important places.
I was so embarrassed I could barely lift my head—but it was a necessary process, so I gritted my teeth and endured.
"Th-then just... hurry up and do it..."
"Heh. Then you'll have to stay very still, all right?"
When I nodded, she rested her hands on my shoulders.
"Nnh..."
The cold touch against my bare skin made me flinch for a second, but I adjusted quickly enough.
At least until she started moving her hands.
"Ahhn...! W-wait..."
"Stay still, Hera. All of this is necessary."
Every time her fingertips brushed the nape of my neck, my shoulders, my back, my body gave a little involuntary twitch.
Ugh... why does she have to touch every single place so thoroughly...
Her hands glided over me as lightly as feathers, and the sensation left me restless and strangely on edge.
At last she settled both hands on what seemed to be her final destination—the small of my back—and whispered against my ear.
"Hera. Even if it gets a little hot, bear with it."
"What— haah?!!"
Something inside my body suddenly began thrashing wildly in every direction.
It felt as if every drop of my blood had started to boil.
"Hnn... haah... hahk...!"
I gritted my teeth and endured the seething heat.
Little by little, I could feel whatever had been rampaging through me begin to gather toward a single point.
The unknown energy rode my heartbeat slowly downward and collected near my stomach.
The moment it all came together, the frenzied power went utterly still.
"Hngh... nn... haah..."
"You did well, Hera. It's all finished."
After I spent a long while panting out hot breaths, my body gradually settled again.
"Now that you know how to use my mana, nothing like last time should happen again."
She spoke while slowly stroking my stomach.
"Hnn... the brand... it's done...?"
At my question she gave a soft little laugh and answered in a sultry voice.
"Mm. It turned out beautifully."
So the brand had been carved without any trouble.
Thank goodness.
Now I wouldn't go around carelessly hurting people the way I had hurt Dillon.
If something like that ever happened again, I felt certain the self-loathing would shatter me completely.
But... where exactly did she put it...?
I hoped it was somewhere hard to see, if possible.
But no matter how I twisted and turned to look myself over, I couldn't spot anything resembling a brand on my body.
Was it the kind of brand that stayed invisible?
"Pfft. Hera, where are you looking? It's over here. This is where our brand is."
She lifted her hand away from my stomach as she spoke.
I looked down at the place her palm had been hiding—
"Hyaat?!.......W-what is this?!?!!!"
There, low on my belly, was a vivid brand painted in pink.
And the shape of it was one I knew all too well.
Yes.
It looked exactly like—
the kind of mark that showed up constantly in the darker corners of the internet.
The kind a succubus might wear while strutting around.
The kind that could drag even nonexistent lust up out of a person.
An unmistakably lewd little brand.