Chapter 9 — Origin of the Stars
"Whew... hoo..."
Shub-Niggurath, who had fled from her Father's side as though escaping a fire, stood gasping for breath.
"Haahhhh... I survived that one, thank the void..."
She peeled the sweat-soaked strands of hair from her face and let out a long sigh.
Announcing that she was leaving her Father's side, right in front of him, had been an unforgivable blunder.
It was only because her Father's obliviousness transcended all imagination that nothing catastrophic had happened. She'd come within a hair's breadth of disaster.
"...I *have* to make up for this mistake."
Uncharacteristically, Shub-Niggurath's eyes burned with resolve as she steeled herself.
"First things first... let's get the surroundings in order, shan't we...?"
From her sleeve, she drew out a small black fragment.
It was a shard of the black void that Azathoth had crushed to pieces — one of the leftover portions that had gone unused when the three sisters were created.
She hadn't brought every fragment with her, of course; some of them must still be drifting, lost and abandoned, through this universe.
But setting that aside — she snapped off a piece of the black shard and began kneading it together, bit by bit.
If Nyarlathotep's power was that of disease, then Shub-Niggurath's was creation itself.
By any measure, it was the power best suited to their stated goal of making a friend for Father.
"Hmm... hmhm... There we go!"
The one who'd been fussing over the black fragment cried out in triumph.
She set the kneaded ball of black matter down on the ground, and it began to twitch and squirm, exactly like a bird's egg trembling before the hatch.
"Come on, come on. You can do it."
She cheered at the bizarre spectacle like a mother watching her child take its very first two-legged steps.
Before long, something began to grow from the surface of that black form.
From its base, the cloven hooves of a goat.
From its middle, a human mouth.
From its crown, tentacles black as pitch.
A shape so dreadful that no decent pair of eyes could bear to look upon it.
The firstborn of Shub-Niggurath's countless progeny — the birth of the first Dark Young.
"Hmm... but if it looks like this, won't Father hate it...?"
She had heard it before, through Nyarlathotep: that Father had shrieked in horror at the sight of his own form, covered head to toe in tentacles and eyes.
The Dark Young had no eyes, true — but its upper body was absolutely slathered in tentacles. It was a lost cause, most likely.
"Maybe I should change its appearance a little...?"
Shub-Niggurath exercised her power and remade the Dark Young's outer form.
Into something her Father would not recoil from.
"...Seems the youngest has finally gotten started."
Yog-Sothoth, in the midst of entertaining their bored Father, noticed Shub-Niggurath's activity.
They shared the same blood, the three of them — even at a distance, she could roughly sense when her sisters exerted their power.
And that was precisely the problem.
"...?"
"Ahem."
It was her Father who was the strange one — this boy currently gazing at her with those blank, foolish eyes. Their Father, who lacked even the knowledge of how to use his own power, who fell short of his daughters in every basic common sense imaginable.
And yet, who nonetheless carried an aura of majesty that could not be approached, not even by them.
Reminding herself once more of her Father's exalted position, Yog-Sothoth addressed him.
"Ahem... um, Father?"
"What is it? ...Are you leaving to go find a friend too?"
At his question, asked with a face gone dark and gloomy, she nearly shrieked in panic.
"N-no, no!! Where would I go? I'm not leaving, Father. Never."
At the sight of Yog-Sothoth flailing her arms through empty air in vehement denial, his face relaxed into an easy smile of relief.
"No, it's just... there's something I'd like to ask of you, Father."
"A favor?"
He furrowed his left eyebrow, as if the concept were beyond his comprehension.
"Yes. I... well, *we* — we intend to fulfill your wish, Father."
My... wish? Oh!
What she meant by Father's wish, of course, was the creation of a friend for him.
Oh, you mean dying!
That oblivious Father of theirs understood it completely wrong.
It wasn't that he failed to grasp the situation entirely — his true goal, the making of a friend, had only slipped out of him once in a drowsy half-sleep, after all. Never once had he told his daughters directly that he wished for a friend.
Given his position, confusing their purpose was, in a way, only natural.
"Got it! What do you need me to do?"
And yet — even under the misunderstanding that they meant to kill him — he cheerfully offered his help all the same.
Truly, hopelessly oblivious.
"Well then... first, could you breathe a little of your power into these?"
From her sleeve, Yog-Sothoth produced a bundle holding round, grayish beads.
"Sure! I just blow into the bundle, right?"
Puffing up his chest like a balloon, he blew into the bundle with all his might.
How adorable...
Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlathotep, watching the scene, both flushed pink with the same thought.
"Hooooooh... phew... whew. Is that enough?"
"Plenty, Father! Now then... would you look inside the bundle?"
"Hm? ...Whoa!!"
Following her suggestion, he peered inside and jumped back in surprise.
The beads that had been dull gray mere moments ago now glowed in every color of the rainbow.
Each one even bore its own unique pattern — they were a genuine feast for the eyes.
"Then... if you'll excuse me."
Nyarlathotep plucked out a single red bead and tossed it into the air.
The bead floated up and hovered in place, as though it had met the same pole of a magnet.
"Whoa!! What's that? How did you do that?"
Well... technically, Father did it...
It was not the sisters who had made this happen, but their Father.
The beads, mere stones until moments ago, had met the power within his breath and become stars and planets.
That was no figure of speech. Genuine stars and planets.
It was his own power, manifested without his even knowing it.
"Would you scatter these... here and there for us?"
"Yeah!! This looks super fun!! I'll do it!!"
Beaming, he flung the beads from the bundle into the air, one after another.
Glittering stars began, little by little, to adorn the darkness-tinged void.
And as if by some power of his, the number of beads in the bundle refused to diminish one bit.
"Whew... now I can finally breathe a little."
Yog-Sothoth stretched and let out an exhausted sigh.
"We'll seed the stars and planets Father scattered with life... and then support them ourselves from there."
Her purpose was, in the end, the nurturing of their creations.
Making beings on par with Father from the very start was impossible — that much was a given.
So her plan was this: create life in great abundance first, however weak it might be, and then raise its standing, letting it grow into something greater.
"Let's start with... twenty planets or so, I suppose."
"Um... hey, big sister?"
"Nyarlathotep? What is it?"
Nyarlathotep, who had been watching Father, called out to Yog-Sothoth in an unusually cautious tone.
"Isn't he... scattering a bit too many?"
The culprit was their Father, who had gotten so carried away with excitement that he was now firing stars off in every direction like a man gone mad.