The Woman I Saved
Every so often, I find myself thinking back to the day I drifted into this world. I agonize over where exactly my choices began to go wrong, and I regret them. I look back on the ways I reshaped other people's lives.
I was arrogant. So certain that I knew more than anyone, I never truly understood the humanity of those around me — forgetting that every person's values and character are remade by the lives they lead.
This place was the karma I had sown, in a world I failed to grasp was not fiction but reality.
A narrow cell with a floor of frigid iron, walled in on three sides by steel. The only glimpse it offered of the world outside was a small rectangular opening — and even that was studded with iron bars, bleak beyond describing.
I would stare at it endlessly, imagining myself walking out, but with my limbs bound, such thoughts always died as mere fantasy. Though I possessed strength beyond comprehension, I could not undo my restraints.
It was because of learned helplessness.
I was gazing blankly at the iron bars, my eyes gone dull and unfocused, when footsteps echoed closer — tap, tap, tap. It was only a sound, yet my body trembled with fear. Before long, the owner of those footsteps revealed herself.
"Nepi, you must have been lonely without me, haven't you?"
The voice belonged to a woman of dazzling beauty — a maiden with flawless white hair cascading to her waist, memorable above all for her jewel-like blue eyes.
And the very person who had bound me here.
I gave no answer, offering nothing but the ragged sound of my own breathing.
"Aha, I know even without you saying a word. After all... one look into Nepi's eyes and I can read every thought behind them. Don't worry! I'll be right here with you all day today, so you won't be lonely at all."
"..."
She eyed my vacant stare with open displeasure.
"Why won't you talk to me, Nepi? I want to have a conversation with you. If you just keep your mouth clamped shut like that, how am I ever supposed to open it up for you?"
My gaze darted instinctively to the tools hanging on the wall. A saw blade missing half its teeth, pincers stained with blood, a chair bristling thick with awls — each one proudly announcing its presence.
But I held my silence. My immortal body had long since grown accustomed to accepting whatever pain this room had to offer.
"Haa, I suppose there's no helping it. If I want to open that mouth of yours, Nepi..."
She closed in until barely a handspan remained between us. At the sinister chill radiating from her, I squeezed my eyes shut.
At last, she cried out playfully.
"Gotcha!"
In that instant, my eyes flew open at the soft sensation pressed against my lips — and her radiant beauty filled my vision.
Her heated breath washed over my face, damp and heavy. A moment later, her tongue pried past my lips and stroked slowly across my own.
My lips parted fully against hers, and with a fevered expression she coiled her tongue greedily around mine — as though determined to leave her mark on every last inch of me.
I neither resisted nor responded. I simply left everything to her.
And so, for a long while, our clinging breaths, with nowhere left to go, swirled in muddled circles between us.
"Haa... haa..."
A thread of glistening fluid stretched between our lips, thin as spider silk — then snapped.
Only after exploring me deep enough to steal my breath did she finally pull away.
"Keep that up, and I might just have to open your mouth like this every time, you know?"
The boldness of a moment ago had vanished without a trace, leaving behind a shy young girl. She looked for all the world like a blushing new lover holding hands for the very first time.
That dissonance was somehow more terrifying than anything else. My teeth clenched hard as I forced out her name.
"Irelphi..."
Irelphi Justiha. That was her name.
The name of the woman... whom I had saved.
On the day I first crossed paths with her, I had — fool that I was — become entangled with her, past all undoing.