(Illustration: Lucrezia Zola)
"Akuto-kun… honestly, I've been paying attention to you for a long time now~"
Lucrezia Zola's red lips parted as she began recounting an old story.
Akuto let the witch sit in his lap, listening to her talk about the past while feeling her soft warmth against him.
No matter how you looked at it, Lucrezia Zola's starting affection toward him was unusually high. Akuto already had a rough idea why, but a guess was still different from hearing the truth from her own mouth.
"You still remember what happened a few years ago," Lucrezia Zola asked softly, "when Marquis Voban gathered witches and shrine maidens and tried to summon a god?"
"Of course," Akuto replied. "Anyone who knows me even a little knows I was there. And they know my entire life trajectory changed after that."
As he spoke, one hand slid along the side of her violet dress—an easy, practiced motion. Feeling it, Lucrezia gave a helpless little smile and continued.
"I was supposed to be on the list of witches invited to that incident. But I used a special method to bind and seal myself, so the outside world couldn't obtain even a trace of information about me."
"By wrapping myself up like that—cocooning myself—I managed to slip past unnoticed."
"Afterward, I learned there was an idiot boy who charged into the summoning ground, rescued the person he wanted to save from a Godslayer's hands… and even, while he was at it, saved the shrine maidens who'd completed the ritual."
Whether judged by the standards of then or now, what Akuto had done back then was nothing short of a miracle.
Escaping a Godslayer's pursuit as a mere human, and pulling so many people out of that blood-soaked place—anyone in the hidden world would've turned it into a hero tale.
"But that boy didn't see it that way," Lucrezia said, her tone shifting. "After that, he changed direction and started moving toward the domain of 'crossing over.'"
"And as it happened… the field he was researching was one I'd also touched."
"That field… was called fate."
When she said it, the way she looked at Akuto grew even more captivating.
Partly because she'd always been drawn to him.
And partly because his succubus bloodline was quietly exerting its pull.
That's right—drawn to him. What Lucrezia felt wasn't some simple, girlish crush. It was devotion braided together with desire and the sensation of destiny itself.
As the witch of Sardinia, Lucrezia Zola was long past the age of falling for someone easily.
In that sense, Saint Raphael and Lucrezia were much the same.
Saint Raphael's initial affection toward Akuto hadn't met any "standard" either—she'd only accepted him because he was the only man who had ever stirred that kind of feeling in her.
As for Lucrezia… Akuto could feel the intensity of her emotions at zero distance. He could even say with certainty that she'd be among the fastest to reach whatever "threshold" existed.
"So that's what it was," Akuto said, nodding.
"And what, exactly, is 'that'?" Lucrezia smiled faintly, then turned and tapped a kiss to his lips.
Akuto instinctively parted his mouth—only for Lucrezia's long finger to press against it the very next second.
She was doing it on purpose, plainly. Teasing him.
Akuto didn't get angry. He simply kept his hands on her, appreciating the graceful curve of her body.
He liked it when a woman played with him like this beforehand.
Because when the time came to completely overwhelm her, the contrast would be all the sweeter.
"Ara, ara~ As expected of Akuto-kun, the one who stole a portion of the goddess Athena's Authority… you really are proactive when it comes to these things."
"But could you wait a moment? Just a moment, that's all…" Lucrezia leaned in, gently catching his earlobe between her lips as she whispered.
"You noticed something?" Akuto's hand slipped up to stroke her smooth hair.
"I know you didn't actually slay Athena," Lucrezia said. "You only used a special method to take part of her Authority."
"And as for how I know…" She smiled with playful menace. "It's because I was there too~~~"
As a grand witch at the "titled witch" level, Lucrezia could grasp what was happening across the region even without leaving her home.
In the original story, she'd once been gravely injured because she secretly watched the battle between Verethragna and Melqart, and she'd had to remain bedridden in her villa for a long time. That was why, when Kusanagi Godou met her, she was sprawled on a sofa.
But now, with the story altered, Lucrezia hadn't been injured by peeking at a divine war. She could keep observing those two gods' movements—so she'd witnessed the scene of Akuto stealing Athena's Authority with a kiss.
"Akuto-kun… do you know how excited I was," Lucrezia murmured, slowly rising, "when I learned there was a boy who could seize a goddess's Authority by special means—and that boy's name was Akuto?"
She cupped his face as if she were holding the rarest treasure in the world.
Because someone who could do that had already stepped beyond the "fate" of the Godslayer world.
…
"Akuto-kun, do you remember?" Lucrezia continued. "A few years ago, you saved some shrine maidens and escorted them back to their homelands."
"Among them were several shrine maidens from Italy."
"After you returned them, I paid them a visit."
"I discovered their fate trajectories had been altered. But under the pressure of powerful fate lines, they still walked toward the ending of 'extinction.'"
"Normally, fate lines can't be changed at all. But you did it."
"Even if they ultimately still reached extinction… you truly changed their destinies."
"At the time, I thought you might be a traveler from a parallel world—so the world 'corrected' your changes back into place."
"And it was just as I imagined. You noticed something was wrong, too, and you threw yourself into research on fate."
"And then… we arrive at now."
"I've confirmed that this time you've successfully churned the original fate into total chaos—and the world shows no intention of correcting it at all."
"Once I confirmed that, you became the man I cherish most in this lifetime. That's why I showed myself to you the moment we met."
"Well, Akuto-kun? That's why I'm so taken with you… so tell me—am I guilty of seducing you?"
Even now, Lucrezia maintained that intensely intimate posture—sitting astride Akuto's waist, holding his face in both hands.
She searched Akuto's eyes—those calm, starry depths—trying to find something there.
But the only thing she found was the feeling of: "just as expected."
It seemed Akuto had anticipated that she would be devoted to him.
"Lucrezia Zola-san," Akuto said, "did you know? Someone once—more precisely, a goddess once—told me something similar. She said she only liked me because of a special constitution I possess… a nature that refuses to be easily negated."
"Oh?" Lucrezia lifted her brows. "And how did you answer, Akuto-kun?"
She hadn't expected him to reveal something like that so casually.
"That goddess was Kus—the night goddess Kus," Akuto said. "She wasn't a Heretic God of this world, and she certainly wasn't a true main body from the divine realm. She was a different form of divinity entirely—one that isn't shaped by myth and legend."
Lucrezia's brows rose higher. She hadn't expected him to admit his nature so openly.
In truth, she'd long suspected it. The kind of fate disturbance he caused… besides a parallel-world traveler, the only other possibility was a genuine outsider—someone from a world where "Heretic Gods" didn't exist at all.
Once that was clear, Lucrezia's gaze turned gentler—and far more predatory.
She was glad she'd met Akuto. Otherwise, she would've already gone to observe the movements of the "world's greatest convergence of fate"—the Godslayers.
"As for my answer to her," Akuto said, "I told her it didn't matter."
"Whether they like my constitution, my nature of existence, my face, my power… none of that matters. As long as they're willing to move forward with me, that's enough."
He truly meant it. And perhaps, in part, it was because of that succubus bloodline: even if someone only loved one fragment of him at first, they would eventually come to love him.
"But compared to all that," Akuto added, "I care more about right now."
His gaze slid down Lucrezia's slender legs, the meaning painfully obvious.
Right now, he only wanted to skip ahead to the part where words stopped.
"Only the present, hm? Akuto-kun… I really like that attitude~" Lucrezia said, and slowly lowered herself again.
Akuto was right. With everything laid bare, she had no reason to hold back anymore.
"Hss—wait… you didn't take off your stockings?" Akuto hissed, startled despite himself.
He'd been planning to do it himself—teasingly, carefully—only to realize Lucrezia had simply decided she wanted him now.
"It's fine," Lucrezia said with a playful smile. "You can just break them like this, can't you?"
She slid a hand behind his head and offered him her first kiss without hesitation.
Akuto had to admit it—Lucrezia's boldness, that novelty, the fearless way she moved… it left a deep impression, sending his bloodline surging.
And with that surge—
A faint tearing sound came from the violet lace, pushed past its limit.
(End of Chapter)
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