Possessiveness (1)
The moment permission came down from the Holy See, Seria set out for where Lowen was.
"I arrived earlier than expected."
Her longing to see Lowen carried her to Baram-sae Forest in the blink of an eye.
Standing before the old cathedral, Seria pressed a hand to her racing heart.
"Lowen is here…"
She ordered the accompanying Edil and Demian to wait outside and entered the cathedral alone.
"Other people would only get in the way of a moving reunion."
The instant she met Lowen she would throw herself into his arms and exchange body heat and scent for every second they had spent apart.
Night’s quiet flowed through the cathedral. Candlesticks stood sparsely along the windows, their meager flames flickering and casting only a dim glow across the darkness.
"Right. It’s late, so he must already be asleep."
Seria stepped through the door that led to the living quarters.
Haah… haah…
The moment she opened the door and entered the corridor, a strange sound pricked her ears.
A moan of pain. A sound as if someone were desperately holding back sorrow.
"Or rather…"
It was the sound of delicate, ragged breaths.
Seria followed the noise into the room. A confessional stood inside the small chamber. The sounds were leaking from the middle stall.
Holding her breath, she stopped in front of it.
—Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.
Mixed with the wet noise of something being crushed like blueberries in a glass bottle came a woman’s unmistakable moans.
Haang… Bi-Bishop Lowen… ungh… Please plant your seed inside me…♡
A pitiful voice, pleading for something with desperate longing.
At the words “Bishop Lowen,” Seria’s hand closed around the doorknob. At “plant your seed,” the sex-education lessons from the monastery flashed through her mind. She clearly remembered that when a man and a woman coupled, the act of ejaculating into the womb was vulgarly called planting a seed.
Without another thought she flung the confessional door wide open.
A thick, cloying sweetness stabbed her nose. Unpleasantly humid air washed over her face.
And then—
"Peep?!"
A silver-haired girl whose breasts were larger than her own head let out a scream that sounded exactly like a chick’s cry.
"……"
Seria surveyed the interior of the confessional with dead eyes.
Lowen was not there.
Judging by the lines she had just heard, he should have been having sex inside this very stall. Yet there was no Lowen exploring a woman’s body. Instead a soft-figured girl thickly coated in feminine allure was thrusting her own fingers into her sex and squelching away.
"Uh… uuh… uuh…"
The girl—Ariel—stammered as if the words were stuck in her throat.
Seria looked down at her with eyes as cold as the wind off the northern snowfields, then suddenly realized who she was.
"Aren’t you the Violet Saintess?"
Only then did Ariel recognize the beauty staring down at her as Seria, and she nodded.
After learning from Ariel that Lowen had gone to help with work in the village, Seria sent her Holy Knight Edil to meet him.
Cardinal Demian and the other Holy Knights remained outside on standby. Only the two Saintesses—Ariel and Seria—were left inside the cathedral.
"Uuh… uu…"
Ariel whimpered like a frightened puppy. The silence was agony. She tried to read Seria’s emotions with eyes filled with divine power.
"Huh…?"
She could not read them. Or rather, she could, but false emotions were completely covering the real ones.
"This is the first time we’ve met since last year’s Saintess Conference, isn’t it?"
Seria spoke first.
"Ah, y-yes… yes…"
Sitting perfectly straight, Seria studied Ariel, who sat hunched and shrinking into herself.
"The last time we met you looked completely expressionless, like someone who knew nothing but faith… You’ve become quite the simpleton. Simple enough to do something so blasphemous in a sacred place, no less."
Ariel suddenly wanted to die as quickly as possible.
It would have been better if the owner of the shirt had caught her wearing Lowen’s shirt and using his underwear as a masturbation aid inside the confessional. Lowen already knew her true nature and would simply look the other way no matter how enthusiastically she pleasured herself.
But of all people, the one who had witnessed the scene was the Second Saintess, Seria.
"And what is that outfit supposed to be?"
Seria pointed at Ariel, who was wearing nothing but a single shirt over bare skin.
"I-I’ll go change right away…!"
Ariel shot to her feet, ready to flee to the bedroom.
"No. I asked the wrong question."
Seria stopped her and asked again.
"That shirt you’re wearing right now. No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t seem like something belonging to the Violet Saintess. Whose shirt is it?"
"Ah… well…"
"Whose shirt is it?"
Terrifying.
This was not the Seria Ariel knew. Her every word and gesture radiated an almost manic possessiveness.
"B-Bishop Lowen’s… shirt…"
The instant the answer left her lips, winter settled in Seria’s eyes.
"Why are you wearing Lowen’s shirt?"
Ariel prayed for Lowen to return as soon as possible. Facing Seria’s gaze—as if the other woman meant to devour her—felt like her brain was freezing solid.
—Clack.
Had her prayer been heard?
The cathedral door opened and Lowen, dressed in black clerical robes, stepped inside.
"Lowen—"
"Lowen!"
Ariel had been about to call “Bishop Lowen!” and run to him, but Seria cut in front of her and reached him first.
"Lowen, it’s been so long."
The planned embrace evaporated the moment she saw him—shyness overtook her—but Seria still greeted him with a bright, lively smile. The frigid winter that had filled her eyes only moments earlier vanished, replaced by a spring in full bloom.
"I really missed you."
She looked exactly like a girlfriend in a long-distance relationship finally reuniting with her boyfriend after ages apart.
"Didn’t you miss me, Lowen?"
"It would be a lie if I said I didn’t."
"Oh, stop it. Don’t feed me sweet talk."
Seria bashfully smacked his chest.
That’s right! That was pure sweet talk!
Ariel, who could read Lowen’s emotions, knew the words had been a completely emotionless, automatic lie. Seria, of course, remained blissfully unaware and simply happy.
"You’ve matured a great deal while we were apart."
Lowen smiled gently and stroked Seria’s hair.
"Really? Hehe. It must be because I’ve grown stronger as a Saintess."
Ariel stared at Seria with a face that had completely lost the will to live.
Powerful affection. Seria’s honest feelings burned with passionate intensity.
While she kept glancing back and forth between Lowen and Seria, Ariel finally noticed the cut on Lowen’s cheek and the blood running down his arm.
"Lo—"
"Lowen, what are these wounds?"
Once again Seria spoke first.
"Oh my, your arm too… What happened?"
She made a genuinely worried face, on the verge of tears.
"Ah… the arm is from helping with work in the village. The cheek is just a light graze from Edil’s sword."
"Edil swung a sword at you?!"
"It was a greeting. He must have wanted to show me how much he’s grown after so long."
Seria turned a terrifying glare toward the cathedral door behind Lowen.
"Don’t scold him too harshly."
"A Holy Knight who carelessly swings a sword still needs to be punished."
Seria raised her divine power and healed Lowen’s wounds completely clean.
"Thank you."
Lowen pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.
"Hehe."
Seria giggled as if it tickled.
Ariel felt a sharp sense of isolation, as though she alone had been left in a completely different space. Her chest ached. All they were doing was talking affectionately, yet somehow it felt unpleasant.
She tried to look away, only for her eyes to be drawn back. She tried to close her ears, only to open them again and strain to catch every whispered word between the two of them.
She wasn’t entirely sure, but she remembered the nuns once talking about a similar situation—a new heroine appearing and targeting the male lead. One phrase the nuns had spat while grinding their teeth rose to the surface.
…That fox-like bitch.
Ariel glared at Seria.
"Saintess."
Just as an unidentified black shadow began creeping into Ariel’s heart, Lowen spoke to her.
"Ah… y-yes?"
He approached and looked down at her.
"Why are you wearing my shirt?"
In that instant Ariel’s frozen face flushed bright red, and the black shadow that had been flooding her heart scattered in every direction.
"Ah, ah, th-that is… it’s nothing special, really…"
From her reaction Lowen could roughly imagine what Ariel had been doing while he was away from the cathedral.
She was masturbating, of course.
The confessional was no doubt still reeking of her juices.
"Hah…"
He was reminded once again that raising a child was hard work. Leave a child alone for even a moment and she becomes a bomb that reveals her true nature and does who-knows-what. Lately she had been showing a more ascetic side and he had felt proud of her progress—only for everything to reset in a single day.
"Saintess, before you go to bed, let’s have a talk."
She could already hear the lecture coming. Yet Ariel felt happy that Lowen was paying attention to her.
"Yes!"
She beamed and nodded vigorously.
Lowen stared at her energetic answer as if he couldn’t believe it.
"I’m suggesting a talk because I intend to scold you, Saintess."
"I know. I did something bad, so I deserve to be scolded."
For the first time Lowen looked genuinely flustered. His eyes went round and he couldn’t find the next words.
Ariel gave him a soft, smiling look from below.
"Will you scold me all night long?"
She tilted her head. Her innocent words and actions felt to Lowen exactly like an attempt to seduce him.
This lewd Saintess is trying to tempt me again.
He made the sign of the cross in his heart and flicked her forehead with a sharp thwack.
"Ow!"
Ariel pressed both hands to her forehead and glared up at him.
"Bishop Lowen, violence is not allowed."
"Saintess, you are the one who needs to watch that kind of talk and behavior."
"Huh?"
"It’s late and we have guests, so we’ll postpone the talk until later."
Lowen turned back to Seria.
"Lowen, I’m hungry. Could you make me that dish you used to cook for me?"
The moment he returned, Seria linked her arm through his and pressed her body against him. At the same time she shot Ariel a frigid look.
Their eyes met.
"……"
"……"
Silence stretched between their gazes, and atop that silence discord bloomed like a lotus.