Inside the most secluded building on the Demeter Familia's grounds, the atmosphere felt as though something heavy were pressing down on the entire room.
The glow of the magic-stone lamps flickered softly in the corners, casting shifting patches of light and shadow across the damp walls.
Loki stood in front of the cage, staring through the cold, unyielding iron bars at the woman who had once carried herself as though no one in the world could touch her.
Ishtar huddled in the corner, her body still trembling slightly.
Her lips were cracked and streaked with blood. Those violet eyes that had once Charmed countless people now held nothing but fear and unwillingness to accept what was coming.
She could tell.
Loki wasn't joking.
She wasn't trying to scare her.
She really intended to end this.
"Loki... don't."
Ishtar's voice was hoarse and weak, carrying a trace of pleading.
"We can talk. We can negotiate... anything you want..."
Loki didn't answer.
"This is what you deserve."
Her voice was soft, but utterly final.
"Loki..."
Ishtar thrust her hand through the bars and grabbed for Loki's wrist.
Her nails dug into Loki's skin, leaving several shallow bloody scratches, but Loki didn't flinch.
She merely looked at Ishtar with a gaze as calm as if she were staring at a ghost that had already died.
"You shouldn't have used your Charm to tamper with my mind."
Loki's voice dropped lower.
"And you definitely shouldn't have set your sights on him."
She didn't say Genichi's name.
But Ishtar knew exactly who she meant.
That boy.
The boy who had brought about her downfall.
The boy she had gone to such lengths to control, only to have everything turn back on her in the end.
Ishtar's pupils contracted.
She opened her mouth, wanting to say something.
But Loki's blade had already pierced through her body.
A pillar of white light suddenly erupted upward, flooding the dark room with blinding radiance.
The iron bars trembled faintly beneath the force, producing a low metallic hum.
Ishtar's body began to turn transparent.
Starting from her limbs, specks of light peeled away from her and drifted upward.
Her lips trembled.
She tried to scream, but no sound came out.
She tried to struggle, but her body no longer had any strength.
Her eyes remained locked on Loki.
There was unwillingness in them.
Rage.
And, buried somewhere even Ishtar herself had never noticed, a trace of regret.
The pillar of light grew brighter and brighter until the entire room seemed to tremble beneath it.
Then everything vanished.
Ishtar was gone.
The cage stood empty.
Only a few lingering motes of light remained, slowly falling through the air like silent snow.
Loki withdrew her hand and stood.
Her expression remained calm, but a trace of exhaustion flickered through her narrow eyes.
Freya remained where she was.
From the moment she had entered the room, her attention had never truly left Loki.
Her gaze was sharp as a blade, like a snake hidden in the dark, like a mirror capable of exposing every disguise.
She had watched Loki crouch in front of the cage.
Watched her raise her hand.
Watched her perform the return to Heaven.
Watched her end Ishtar's life without the slightest change in expression.
Every movement.
Every expression.
Even the smallest change in Loki's breathing.
Freya had noticed them all.
"Loki."
Freya's voice broke the silence.
Loki turned toward her and spread her hands, her expression almost unnaturally calm.
"What? Is something wrong with me?"
"Everything about you is wrong."
Freya's voice dropped lower, her intense gaze locking onto Loki.
"And that sentence just made me even more suspicious."
Freya had known Loki for more than a day or two.
They had known each other for hundreds of millions of years.
Hundreds of millions of years of competition, probing, and learning exactly how the other thought.
What kind of goddess was Loki?
She was the Goddess of Deception and Trickery.
Someone whose every action had a purpose, whose every word contained calculation, whose every smile might conceal a blade.
She never helped someone for no reason.
And she certainly wouldn't personally send a goddess back to Heaven for the sake of some human boy without a reason.
"Loki."
Freya went straight to the point.
"What exactly is your relationship with Genichi?"
Her gray eyes stared directly into Loki's, as sharp as twin blades trying to cut through every layer of disguise and expose the truth beneath.
Loki looked at her in silence for a moment.
Then she shrugged, her expression still calm.
"If I told you there was nothing between Genichi and me, would you believe me?"
"Do you think I would?"
There was a chill in Freya's voice, and anger unconsciously entered her gray eyes.
It wasn't simple curiosity.
It felt more like betrayal.
She and Loki might not have been friends, but they were at least beings who stood on the same level.
Freya had assumed Loki was like her, simply watching Genichi from a distance, admiring the changes in that extraordinary soul and waiting until he had grown enough to make taking action worthwhile.
Apparently, she had been wrong.
Seeing Freya looking as though she might explode at any moment, Loki finally couldn't hold back her laughter.
There was a trace of helplessness in it.
A little amusement.
And something else, an emotion she herself couldn't quite explain.
She spread her hands.
"There really isn't anything between us."
"At most, I kissed him once."
The smile disappeared from Freya's face.
Her pupils contracted slightly.
Her lips parted as though she wanted to say something, but no words came out.
Her teeth ground together audibly.
Her fingers clenched around the fabric of her dress until her knuckles turned white.
Her lips pressed into a thin line, her chin lifting slightly.
Her entire body looked like a bowstring pulled to its limit.
"Loki..."
Freya's whole body trembled with anger, and her voice came through clenched teeth.
Coming from Freya, that single word carried an intensity almost never heard from her.
She inhaled deeply and forced herself to calm down.
She was Freya.
A Goddess of Beauty.
One of the most powerful goddesses in Orario.
She couldn't lose control here.
She couldn't expose her emotions in front of others.
She absolutely couldn't let Loki see her like this.
"When?"
She tried to keep her voice steady.
Her hands, however, refused to stop trembling.
Loki tilted her head, a glint flashing through her narrow eyes.
"You really think I'm going to tell you?"
Freya drew in another slow breath, then exhaled.
She stared at Loki, her gray-blue eyes filled with complicated emotions.
Anger.
Unwillingness.
Frustration.
And something deeper that even she seemed unwilling to examine too closely.
"Why did you tell me?"
she asked.
Loki shrugged.
"You asked, so I answered."
"You would've found out sooner or later anyway. Better to hear it from me than from someone else."
Freya fell silent.
She stared at Loki, a faint light flickering in her eyes.
After a long time, she finally spoke.
Her voice was soft, but the determination behind it allowed no argument.
"Stay away from him."
"He's the one I've chosen."
"I won't allow anyone else to lay their hands on him."
(End of Chapter)
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