On that day, the goddess Ishtar laid eyes on something that truly shone, a gemstone.
Red hair and amber eyes. His features seemed unremarkable at first glance, yet there was something inexplicably familiar about him.
The human boy's name was "Shirou Amamiya."
The instant she saw him, the goddess Ishtar fell hopelessly in love.
It was utterly irrational.
It happened with hopeless speed.
It was love at first sight, so undeniable that she could offer no defense even if others called her a wanton goddess.
People often said that Ishtar was frivolous and capricious, but only the goddess herself knew that this time was different.
Through the divine power lingering within this vessel, the goddess Ishtar could easily perceive the true nature of a person's soul.
Take Ana, the girl currently traveling with Merlin.
With a single glance, Ishtar had understood the child's past and future before anyone else.
Then what shape did Shirou Amamiya's soul take in the eyes of the Goddess of Venus?
It was like a ray of light illuminating the murky depths of a lake.
After following him for several months, that impression only grew stronger.
Shirou Amamiya had little reverence for the gods and showed no particular deference even toward King Gilgamesh, the King of Uruk, but he was unfailingly courteous.
He was helpful and kind, yet also remarkably quick-witted. Though he had a sharp tongue, he was genuinely considerate.
He was popular with women. Far too popular, in Ishtar's opinion, and that displeased her somewhat.
He was like a hard, stubborn piece of iron ore that had been polished day after day until it finally became a brilliant diamond.
That was Shirou as the goddess Ishtar saw him, and it was everything that had made her fall in love with him.
Had she not been inhabiting a vessel, but instead been the goddess Ishtar of the Age of Myths, she likely would have claimed Shirou Amamiya for herself without giving him any say in the matter and forced him to marry her.
From a goddess's perspective, Shirou was simply The Treasure worthy of belonging to her. Nothing more.
However, after becoming one with a human...
After merging with the girl named "Rin Tohsaka," her way of thinking had shifted closer to that of humanity.
The goddess Ishtar had come to love Shirou as a man.
Nothing like this had happened in the tens of thousands of years she had existed.
The Goddess of Venus, who deeply loved humanity as a whole, had fallen in love with one individual human.
For the first time, the goddess tasted the sweetness of first love.
Then Shirou's presence vanished from the surface of the earth.
For the first time, the goddess tasted the bitterness of losing contact with someone she loved.
"Shi... Shirou...!?"
Yet the person she had believed to be gone was now standing before her.
Ishtar's eyes widened. How was this possible? Why?
Seeing the goddess stride in so proudly only to freeze in place, Shirou gave her a teasing smile.
"Hmm? And you are? Have we met somewhere before?"
"!!"
This was the first time Shirou had ever spoken to Ishtar of his own accord.
That fact alone was enough to make the Goddess of Venus blush.
"Um... Wha...? I-I'm... well... Ouch~~!"
Ishtar bit her tongue in her nervousness.
"Are you all right?"
Shirou tilted his head and studied the flustered goddess with concern.
"Uuu...!"
Ishtar's face grew even redder.
"Could you be the goddess Ishtar?" Shirou asked.
Of course, he had known who the black-haired woman before him was from the start.
To be honest, he was completely taken aback.
Aside from her vivid red eyes, Ishtar looked exactly like Rin Tohsaka.
Glamorous, elegant, luxurious, dignified...
Even the way she was fumbling around in a panic looked exactly like the Rin Shirou knew. It was actually rather cute.
That was why Shirou had been unable to resist teasing her.
"Ugh... Y-you're right! I-I am Ishtar, the Goddess of Beauty who rules over Venus!"
Having finally regained her composure, Ishtar crossed her arms over her chest and tried to assume the dignity befitting a goddess.
"Y-you must be Shirou Amamiya, the one staying with Gold-glitter. I've heard rumors about you."
"I'm honored."
Shirou's smile sent Ishtar's heart racing.
"Hmph. What do you mean, honored? You're only saying that to flatter me...
Anyway, I thought you were dead. How are you still alive?
And now you're trying to investigate the Goddess's vacation? Even someone as insensitive as you ought to know when to stop!"
"Even if Gilgamesh hadn't saddled me with that request, I've wanted to meet you for quite some time, Goddess-sama."
"!!!"
Ishtar's eyes widened.
"R-really?"
Shirou nodded. "Haven't you been traveling around helping humans?"
"Helping humans... Me?" the Goddess of Venus repeated blankly.
"Yes. That's the conclusion I reached from the rumors I've heard recently and the information I gathered along the way.
Goddess Ishtar, you've been patrolling the pastures outside Uruk and protecting them from Magical Beast attacks, haven't you?"
"Wha... W-why would I ever do anything like protecting humans? Don't make things up!"
"No, you really are protecting them," Shirou said. "Though it would be even better if you didn't rob them of their treasures afterward."
Ishtar frowned unhappily. "What do you mean, robbing human treasures? That makes it sound awful.
I don't attack humans for money. What I demand is fair compensation!
Besides, if I protected them for free, they'd grow complacent, wouldn't they?"
"Protected them for free?"
Shirou grinned. "So you're finally admitting that you've been protecting humans?"
The Goddess of Venus went deathly pale.
"Oh no... I let it slip..."
"So that's the truth, Goddess-sama?" Shirou pressed.
"Ugh..."
Ishtar bit her lip and made up her mind.
She abruptly flew into the air, putting some distance between herself and the red-haired boy.
"A-anyway! Shirou Amamiya, I shall inflict divine retribution upon you!"
"Huh?" Shirou stared at her.
Ishtar declared haughtily, "You will pay for making me worry for three months, and for causing me three months of pain and heartbreak!"
"I'm sorry, but I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."
"More specifically, you're going to forget the conversation we just had! Especially the part where I was panicking at the beginning!"
In the end, what bothered Ishtar most was how badly she had embarrassed herself in front of Shirou.
It had been a terrible first meeting.
This was her first love, yet they had met like that. Absolutely not!
All right~~ First, I'll knock him unconscious, then use the all-powerful "Power of Beauty" to erase that part of his memory!
The goddess raised one finger, and a dense mass of calamity gathered at her graceful fingertip.
Shirou recognized it as Gandr, Rin Tohsaka's signature curse projectile.
He had once witnessed Tohsaka use it to drive away foreign Magi who had intruded upon Fuyuki.
However, the Curse unleashed by Ishtar was on an entirely different level from anything Rin Tohsaka could produce.
The projectile fired from the goddess's fingertip was dazzlingly bright, like a meteor descending from the heavens.
Gandr itself was merely a Curse of a dark nature.
Yet the pitch-black curse bullet had been dyed gold by the goddess's own beauty and majesty.
Not only that, but the body currently possessed by the goddess was likely the "prime" version of the girl Shirou knew, Rin Tohsaka.
As a modern Magus, Rin's talent ranked among the top one hundred in the Clock Tower's nearly two-thousand-year history.
Now, that peerless genius's skills had reached their absolute peak.
Despite his astonishment, Shirou moved at once.
A direct hit from one of those projectiles would probably leave him confined to a bed at the embassy for the next month.
Shirou wove through the overwhelming barrage of golden light.
"Stop running! Hold still!"
The goddess's irritated voice came from above.
For Ishtar, subduing Shirou without killing him must have made controlling her firepower difficult enough on its own.
The goddess Ishtar had been given everything under heaven and showered with affection. The concept of "conservation" did not exist for her.
Only because Rin Tohsaka excelled at "conservation" was Ishtar capable of such precise shooting now.
Shirou had no intention of letting himself be attacked without fighting back.
He projected hundreds of weapons into the air and launched them at the goddess, but...
"Oh my. So this is the ability they say resembles Gold-glitter and Scrap Metal..."
Ishtar raised her right hand and gave him a seductive smile filled with Divinity.
"Do you really think this is enough to defeat me, Shirou? How adorable♡"
"...!"
A sense of foreboding rose within Shirou, though he had no idea what was about to happen.
In the next instant, the swords and blades flying toward Ishtar abruptly reversed direction.
The hundreds of swords Shirou had projected came hurtling back at him.
"Huh?"
A storm of swords and blades crashed into the ground, blasting Shirou and the earth beneath his feet into the sky.
"......"
Amid the turbulence created by the shockwave, Shirou understood.
This was the power Ishtar possessed as the Goddess of Beauty.
An absolute power from which humans, living creatures, inorganic objects, and even the laws of physics could not escape.
The swords Shirou had projected had been captivated by Ishtar's charm, becoming prisoners willing to sacrifice themselves for the goddess.
Come to think of it, something similar had happened when he fought Artoria... when he fought the goddess Rhongomyniad.
Shirou had launched an attack, only for the Lion King to directly "fix" the physical laws of space-time themselves.
Still, perhaps because Ishtar was inhabiting a vessel, the level of her power had been reduced.
"Don't move, or I can't guarantee what will happen to you."
Ishtar spoke calmly as she fired even more projectiles at Shirou, who had been thrown into the air.
Even with his "Projection Magecraft" nullified, the boy did not give up. A black bow appeared in his hand.
"......"
Ishtar silently marveled at Shirou's tenacity.
If a normal Magus found that the Magecraft they prided themselves on was useless in battle, they would immediately panic. Shirou, however, remained completely unfazed.
His combat instincts could only have been forged through countless brushes with death.
At the same time, the sheer number of techniques he had mastered could only be called tragic.
Shirou drew the bowstring back and fired an arrow transformed from a sword.
"——————!"
The arrow split apart in midair, scattering along several trajectories and shattering the goddess's light projectiles.
Incredible. He recognized the weakness of my power in an instant...
Ishtar glanced at the arrow that skimmed past her cheek.
Had Shirou simply fired weapons recklessly like Gilgamesh, Ishtar could have seized control of them with ease. Even a barrage from a thousand gates would have been meaningless.
But when martial skill was imbued into a projectile, as Shirou had just done, the goddess's power could no longer interfere with it.
This, too, was a weakness caused by her vessel.
Because this body, Rin Tohsaka, was inherently too upright and detested the very idea of controlling others, both Ishtar's Divinity and her powers as a goddess had been greatly weakened.
Damn it... If this drags on, I might actually lose to Shirou.
Several translucent gems appeared between Ishtar's fingers.
I'll finish this quickly.
With that thought, the Goddess of Venus poured her Mana into the gems.
At that moment, a tremendous impact struck her from behind.
It was a completely unexpected blow.
The instant Ishtar focused her attention on the gems, the arrow that had flown past her suddenly reversed course and struck her in the back.
It was a technique belonging to the mightiest hero of Greek myth.
"Style: Nine Lives," an arrow that continued to track its target automatically after leaving the bowstring.
The Mana-infused arrow tore through the goddess's weakened defenses from behind.
"Waaaaaaaaah!"
Ishtar lost her balance and plummeted from the sky with a scream.
"......Ugh."
She struck the ground headfirst, her eyes rolling back as she lost consciousness on the spot.
...
"Ugh... My head hurts... It feels like it's splitting apart..."
Enduring the agonizing headache, Ishtar slowly opened her eyes.
"Where am I...?"
She blinked and realized that she was lying across someone's back.
The sensation felt strangely familiar, as though she had experienced it herself sometime in the past.
But Ishtar was certain no one had ever carried her on their back before. Were these memories from her vessel, Rin Tohsaka?
"Hm? You're awake?" The boy carrying her turned his head slightly.
"Shirou...?"
The goddess's face flushed once again.
She finally realized that the boy she loved was carrying her on his back.
"Wait! Wait a minute! What is going on? I demand an explanation! Shirou, where are we?"
The newly awakened goddess reacted with tremendous alarm, and Shirou answered honestly.
"We're on our way back to the City of Uruk."
"Back to the City of Uruk...?"
"Yeah. You're coming with me to see Gilgamesh so we can explain what happened."
"I'd rather die than do thaaaaaaaaat!"
Ishtar screamed and threw herself backward, trying to escape from Shirou's back.
However, Shirou's arms were holding the goddess's beautiful legs in place, so only her upper body fell. The back of her head slammed hard against the ground.
"Ah... Her eyes rolled back, and she passed out again."
***
...
If you'd like to support my work and unlock advanced chapters, you can follow me on p-@-treon.
[email protected]/PinkSnake (50 Chapters Ahead).
You can also follow as a free member to read a few advanced chapters.
***