CHAPTER 44

Bloody Systeria

“Ahhhhhh!”

The instant I wake up, I’m already jumping out of the bed. Sweat drips down my entire body.

Wh-what the hell?! What a horrible dream that was!

I gaze at the gentle morning sun peering through the window as I try to get my breathing under control.

Whew… I need to do something to take my mind off what I just saw. I guess I’ll go to Cerceus’s café and have a cup of coffee…

While changing into my usual dress…

Thud! Thud! Thud!

I hear a violent knock at the door.

“Keep your pants on. Damn. Who’s th—? Huh?!”

I open the door and shudder. Aria; Adenela; Cerceus; and even the Goddess of Fire, Hestiaca; the God of Lightning, Orand…and numerous other gods who live in the sanctuary are there.

“Wh-wh-what’s going on?!”

I scream.

Orand then yells:

“That’s what we want to know, Ristarte! We just sensed a powerful evil aura coming from your room!”

“What…?”

Aria places a hand over her mouth and points at me in terror.

“R-Rista…! Evil energy is pouring out of your body!”

“What a sinister aura!”

I idly stare into the distance, clueless as to what they mean. While most of the deities take a few steps back, Adenela approaches me, takes my left hand, and stares at it.

“Th-this is a c-curse. The caster t-touched your arm, right?”

Adenela holds up my wrist so I can see for myself. There’s a dark handprint around my arm.

“Wh-what the…?!”

So that wasn’t a dream?!

“I-it’s the Vengeful Empress Celemonic’s final curse, Bloody Systeria!”

I repeat what I heard in my dream as I tremble in fear. However, Aria manages to put on a smile for me.

“Don’t worry, Rista. We’re in the spirit world. We’ll find a way to get rid of it.”

Cerceus nods in agreement as well, albeit with a slightly tense expression.

“B-besides, deities don’t die even if we’re cursed! You probably shouldn’t worry about it too much.”

“Y-yeah… You’re right!”

“Anyway, let’s go talk to Great Goddess Ishtar and hear what she has to say.”

When Aria and I leave the room, Seiya is leaning against the hallway’s wall.

“Oh, Seiya! Give me a few minutes, okay? I’ll be quick!”

“…All that demonic energy oozing out of your body says otherwise.”

Seiya briefly exhales, then walks over to me.

“I’m coming with you.”

After that, Aria, Seiya, and I head to Ishtar’s room together.

“Excuse us…”

Following Aria, Seiya and I walk into Ishtar’s room. Sitting in her usual chair, Ishtar puts on a stern expression and speaks before I can even get a word in.

“Ristarte’s body is covered in a black mist. It has been a long time since I have seen such a powerful curse. The caster must have sacrificed herself to cast it.”

Ishtar continues:

“The souls of deities and heroes are only temporary Astral Souls, and Chain Destruction is a magical device that can destroy the true soul, the Divine Soul, by destroying the Astral Soul.”

The tiny hairs on my body stand straight up when I hear Ishtar suddenly bring up Chain Destruction.

“G-Great Goddess Ishtar…! Are you saying…?!”

“Yes, this curse possesses the same powers as Chain Destruction. When the curse is finished, your Divine Soul will be destroyed.”

“D-d-does that mean I’m gonna die?!”

I almost faint. While Aria and I are speechless, Seiya asks:

“Is there any way to break the curse?”

“The Dark God’s power is preventing me from seeing Ristarte’s future. Therefore, everything I say from here is conjecture. In order to break the curse, you must use a holy spell of even greater power. Another option would be to make the curse sense that the Divine Soul has ascended to the heavens or has been destroyed.”

Ascended to the heavens?! Destroyed?! So I die either way?!

“Hey, Granny, are you sure this isn’t connected to the Dark God’s powers as well? Couldn’t we weaken the curse if we stopped the Dark God’s Blessing from being sent to Celemonic?”

“The curse was not caused by the blessing but by Celemonic herself. In addition, Celemonic no longer exists, and only her curse remains. Therefore, it would probably not be broken even if you were to weaken the Dark God’s Blessing.”

“I see. How much time do we have until her soul is destroyed?”

Ishtar glances at me, then admits:

“Judging by the amount of evil energy coming from Ristarte…she would probably be lucky to make it through the night.”

J-just one night?!

Seiya turns to me.

“Rista, open a gate.”

“Huh?”

“First, we’re going to Ixphoria to check Celemonic’s body. There might be a clue.”

“O-okay…”

I don’t want to see Celemonic’s corpse again, but I’m in no position to make demands.

“Seiya, Rista, be careful…”

And just like that, I open a gate to the underground proxy room while Aria and Ishtar see us off.

…After so many traps were sprung, the proxy room is a mess, with buckets scattered about and the wall crumbling. Celemonic’s body is just as we left it—lying facedown on the floor with one hand and one leg missing.

“Huh? Seiya?”

I suddenly realize Seiya isn’t with me. With the door slightly ajar, he’s peeking into the room with one eye.

“…What are you doing?”

“Is Celemonic really dead? Even if she is, how do I know for sure she still can’t curse me? I can’t afford to be cursed right now.”

“Sh-she’s dead. Trust me. Besides, I was only cursed because she grabbed my wrist. You’ll be fine, Seiya.”

Putting a powerful curse on someone requires stringent conditions…and she unfortunately held my wrist long enough to be able to meet those conditions.

After finally coming out of the gate, Seiya squints at Celemonic.

“She’s all shriveled up. Did you do this?”

“Y-yeah, she shriveled up after being exposed to my holy magic.”

“In other words, you came into the proxy room and tried to deliver the final blow, which resulted in you being cursed.”

“Er… Sorry…”

But Seiya doesn’t reprimand me for ignoring his instructions.

“Well, I’m partly to blame for what happened this time.”

Seiya mutters those few words, then begins poking Celemonic’s body with his sword’s sheath.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Examining the body.”

Seiya continues using his sheath to flip Celemonic over and roll her around after that, but he eventually turns his gaze toward me.

“I’ve confirmed her death. Now we know your curse wasn’t caused by Celemonic still being alive.”

“O-oh, so that’s what you were checking for…”

“All right, let’s go meet with this goddess who taught you holy magic.”

We end up not gaining any information in the proxy room, other than the fact that Celemonic is, in fact, dead. But before we head back to the spirit world, Seiya uses his earth magic to drop the Vengeful Empress’s remains deep into the planet’s core—as is tradition.

The gate takes us to the tile-roofed house in the Divine Forest. I open the wooden door and let myself into the home of the Goddess of Wealth, Baldr. Sitting in the tatami-matted room, Baldr greets me with a smile.

“Oh my. Look who it is. Have you come to than—Ahhhhhh!!”

But she screams when I get close enough.

“Wh-what an ominous aura! What a frightening curse! Go! Get out of my house!”

She grabs the vase on the altar and starts pelting us with the salt it contains.

“Pfff! Wh-what are you doing?! Madam Baldr! We—”

“You couldn’t pay me enough to remove that curse! It is far too powerful! Now go!”

Seiya knits his brow while watching Baldr furiously pelt us with salt.

“Who’s the salt-throwing hag? The Goddess of Seasoning or something?”

“N-no, that’s actually the deity who taught me holy magic…”

After approaching Baldr, Seiya swipes the vase from her hand, flips it upside-down, and slides it over her head.

“Ah?! I—I can’t see anything!! And…the salt…! My eyes…! My eyyyyessssss!!”

Seiya then casually turns on his heel.

“We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.”

“O-okay…”

After that, at Seiya’s request, I open a gate that leads to the rooftop of the sanctuary. It looks like he’s going to see if the second-highest-ranking deity, Valkyrie, can help. She indirectly told us about the Goddess of Warfare, Zet, before, so she might have a solution that Ishtar wouldn’t be able to tell us.

Wearing nothing but chains, the half-naked goddess is painting her latest disasterpiece on the rooftop, but when Seiya approaches her, she puts down her brush. After they exchange a few words, Valkyrie walks over to me.

“All right, Rista, you got it. I’ll help.”

She then places her right hand on my face.

“Huh? Valkyrie…?”

“It’s simple. We just need to trick the curse into thinking you died.”

“W-wait! Valkyrie, d-don’t tell me you’re—!”

“The Fifth Valkyrja: Shadow Break!”

“Blargh?!”

Everything suddenly fades to black, giving me no time to even feel pain.

…Some time goes by until I finally regain consciousness. Actually, I don’t know if regain consciousness is the right phrase… At any rate, I can see myself on the ground surrounded by Seiya and Valkyrie. My skull is crushed, and it’s so grotesque that I almost faint.

Ahhhhhh!! Valkyrie killed me?! Does that mean I’m a ghost now?! Did she really have to go that far?! Ugh! B-but on second thought, she was just trying to help, and if it worked, then…

But while I’m staring at myself, an ominous aura begins emanating from my physical body until it gradually takes the form of a person! It then transforms into a monster with the heads of two women!

Eek!! Celemonic!!

The materialized Celemonic’s missing hand and leg have regenerated, but Celena’s and Monica’s faces are still bloody and crushed. Then, black blood begins spewing from the gap between Celemonic’s heads, and the skin begins rising until a new head pops out! It’s covered in blood, and both of its eye sockets are but hollow black holes!

Is that Shanak?!

For some reason, neither Seiya nor Valkyrie notices our presence. Perhaps Celemonic and I aren’t ghosts or spiritual bodies but our own consciousnesses.

Celemonic gropes around at the ground as she approaches my body. She then crouches and mutters:

“Are you dead? Are you dead? Are you dead? Are you dead? Are you dead? Are you dead?”

She promptly rises back to her feet. Suddenly twisting her neck, she then unsteadily drags her feet over to me! She shouldn’t be able to see anything, so how does she even know I’m here—and with such precision?!

Ahhhhhh!

I try to run away, but I can’t move my body! After grabbing me, she brings her bloody face toward mine and howls as if her voice were echoing from the depths of hell:

“You’re not dead you’re not dead you’re not dead you’re not dead you’re not dead you’re not dead you’re not dead you’re not dead you’re not dead…”

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

I scream once again and open my eyes.

“R-Rista?! Are you okay?!”

Aria leans in with a worried gaze.

“H-huh? Where am…?”

I look around to discover I’m in my room. Seiya, Cerceus, Adenela, and even Valkyrie are here. I nervously touch my face, which Valkyrie destroyed, but it feels like it’s back to normal.

“Hey, Aria…how long was I asleep?”

“About two hours. We actually kept trying everything we could think of while you were asleep, but…”

I suddenly notice that Ishtar is in the crowd of deities as well, despite the fact that she almost never leaves her room. When she gazes at me with those sorrowful eyes, I honestly think to myself:

Oh. I’m not going to make it. It’s over.

I grab Aria’s hand.

“Aria, please take care of the rest after I’m gone. Save Ixphoria with Seiya and the others.”

“Sniffle…! Rista! But…! But…!”

Tears run down her cheeks. I gently rub Aria’s head, then turn to Cerceus by her side.

“Cerceus, where are Jonde and Kiriko?”

“They’re at my café. They’re really worried about you.”

“Please tell them I’m sorry.”

“O-okay, I will…! Sniffle…! Th-this…this is all too much for me!”

After Cerceus covers his face with both hands and dashes out of the room, I shift my attention to Seiya, who’s by my side.

“Seiya, you made me so happy yesterday when you said, ‘I owe you one.’ Ever since our journey in Ixphoria began, all I did was get in the way, but I felt like I finally accomplished something, and I’m proud of that. But if you could…”

I muster up the courage and continue:

“There’s just one last thing I want you to do for me…”

Everyone’s watching, but I don’t feel that embarrassed, since I know this is the end.

“C-could you…kiss me? It could just be on the cheek…”

I bashfully grin.

“Oh, and this doesn’t have to be some kind of romantic thing or whatever, so don’t worry about me being a goddess or you being a human. It’s just…we went through so much together, so…just think of it as a kiss good-bye.”

“Rista…”

Seiya wears a serious expression as he leans in toward me.

This is it. I have nothing to regret now…

And…

Whack!

Seiya slams his fist onto the crown of my head.

“Pweeep?!”

The fierce blow causes a weird sound to erupt from my mouth, creating a stir among the spectating deities.

“I-is that how humans kiss now?!”

“It looked like he punched her to me!”

“M-maybe it was a kiss that looked like a punch?!”

As the deities spread misinformation among themselves, I scream:

“What part of that made you think it was a kiss?! That was most definitely a punch!”

“Oh, right! How embarrassing! Duh!”

I ignore their reactions—oh, how strangely accepting they were—and accost Seiya.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Seiya interjects with a “hmph.”

“You still look fine to me.”

“Th-this is good-bye, and yet, you’re still gonna treat me like that?! I can’t believe you!!”

“Who decided this was good-bye? Did you really try everything you could?”

“Huh…?”

Seiya looks down at me with a steely gaze.

“Don’t give up so easily. Keep fighting until the bitter end. I already made up my mind: no more regrets. That goes for you, too.”

“Seiya…?”

“There’s still time before the curse is complete. There’s still hope. Follow me.”

“A-ahhh?!”

Seiya jerks me out of bed, then adds:

“You too, Grandma.”

“O-okay.”

While leading Ishtar and me by the arm, Seiya pushes his way through the other deities and exits the room.