"..."
The Goddess of the Underworld's mind went completely blank.
This man wasn't doing this for himself. From the very beginning, he had been thinking about Ereshkigal.
"It's a rare opportunity... Since you, as a goddess, finally have the chance at a second life, I think you should make the most of it and enjoy the air and sunlight of the surface."
Shirou drove the shovel into the ground and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
The goddess stared at the boy's face, a strange daze settling over her mind.
Shirou had simply scoffed at the mission imposed upon her by the gods.
To free Ereshkigal from the restraints that bound her, he had decided to physically dig a passage connecting the surface to the Underworld.
Should I call the boy I fell in love with a man of action who actually follows through on his ideas, or an idiot who never thinks about the consequences?
Ereshkigal gave a faint, wry smile, then solemnly shook her head.
"I appreciate the thought, Shirou.
But... I can't."
Ereshkigal shook herself out of her daze and returned to her usual composure as a goddess.
"The Underworld cannot be without me. I cannot leave the Underworld.
If Ereshkigal disappears, there will be no one left to protect the souls that remain here.
Even if only for their sake, I have to..."
"I'll stay."
"......Huh?"
Ereshkigal thought she must have misheard him.
Her eyes widened. Shirou looked at her as though the answer were obvious, with an almost scornful expression on his face.
"Did you really think I hadn't noticed, Ereshkigal?
What binds you to this Underworld isn't an oath to the gods, nor is it the physical divide between heaven and earth.
It's the Underworld itself.
You can't just abandon this world. You can't bring yourself to abandon the souls of the dead, can you?"
Ereshkigal's crimson eyes trembled violently.
"You're planning to... stay here?"
"Yeah."
Shirou spoke slowly, emphasizing every word.
"Then I'll take your place.
I'll stay here instead of you and protect the Underworld you love more than anything.
I probably won't be able to do the job as well as you, but I'm sure I can at least keep everything running."
"Shirou, I..."
At last, the goddess understood everything.
He knew that being trapped in the Underworld was a source of sorrow, yet he had still chosen to sacrifice himself so Ereshkigal could experience the beauty of the surface.
Shirou smiled.
"You don't have to worry about me. I've already built myself a little cottage so I can stay in the Underworld long-term."
"Uu..."
Ereshkigal closed her eyes in happiness.
She had meant to hold it in.
She had already decided she would hold it in.
But the real Ereshkigal, hidden away in the shadows, still couldn't stop herself. In the end, tears spilled down her cheeks.
They were tears of happiness.
"...Thank you, Shirou."
"Hm? It's really no big deal... Goddess-sama?"
Ereshkigal spread her arms and pulled the boy into her embrace.
If she could have chosen, she wished she were embracing him not in the body of a Gallû Spirit, but in the form of a beautiful young girl.
But Ereshkigal knew perfectly well that Shirou wouldn't care about something like that.
He wouldn't be frightened by her hideous appearance. Instead, he simply saw her as a girl who had been trapped in the Underworld for tens of thousands of years.
"Really... really... thank you... Shirou... Uu!!"
The emotions she had accumulated over tens of thousands of years finally broke free in that moment.
The goddess sobbed uncontrollably.
The boy caught in her embrace had no idea what to do. All he could manage was to clumsily comfort her in a fluster.
The goddess quietly savored this moment of happiness.
She even found herself thinking that, had she not personally endured tens of thousands of years of loneliness, she could never have felt such overwhelming happiness now.
So never having seen the real sun actually had its benefits after all... Hehe~
"Okaaay~~~"
The goddess released the boy and patted her cheeks.
Finally... it was time to say goodbye.
"Goddess-sama?"
Shirou sensed a change in the aura of the Gallû Spirit Queen.
The massive skeleton spoke in a cold voice.
"My name is Ereshkigal, Mistress of the Underworld. Ereshkigal."
"Ah... yeah, I know?"
Shirou desperately wanted to retort, "That way of talking really doesn't suit you," but managed to hold himself back.
"Do not address me as Goddess-sama. You alone are permitted to call me by my name."
Ereshkigal looked down at the red-haired boy with a gaze sharp enough to pierce stone.
"To demand that I abandon the Underworld... You have quite some nerve for a mere human.
As the Queen of the Underworld who imprisons souls and brings down lightning, how could I possibly abandon my own realm?
This time, I shall merely punish you. Should I ever hear such foolish words from you again, I will show no mercy."
With that, Ereshkigal raised her skeletal arm.
She was about to deliver a fitting punishment to the human boy who had offended the Goddess of the Underworld.
"..."
Shirou swallowed hard as Ereshkigal pronounced his sentence.
"Your punishment is... exile to the surface."
"Uh..."
"Hmph! My decision is final. It is far too late to beg for mercy now!
Go to the surface and reflect on all the disrespect you have shown this goddess... Regret it for the rest of your life, until the day you die!"
"Wait... Ereshkigal!"
Shirou's feet left the ground, and his body began floating helplessly into the air.
In this Underworld, Ereshkigal was absolute law. No one could defy her decision.
"Ereshkigal, I haven't...!"
Shirou rapidly rose higher.
Ereshkigal watched as the boy drifted farther and farther away, a faintly bittersweet smile appearing on her face.
...This is for the best.
Yes. This is for the best.
Shirou, go back to the surface.
You shouldn't remain trapped in this world, and you certainly shouldn't sacrifice yourself for me.
Don't worry about me. Don't be sad for me, Shirou.
I've already received the most important thing from you.
To me, it is a treasure that nothing could ever replace.
Thank you.
Thank you so much...
My beloved Shi... who let me experience happiness, even if it was only for a brief two and a half months...
"Wait! Ereshkigal!"
Shirou shouted from high above.
"Gilgamesh sent me to the Underworld! He told me to investigate Enkidu's remains!
Before you send me back... at least let me see Enkidu's grave!"
"Eeeeeeh?!?!?"
...
...
The banishment ceremony had already reached the perfect romantic mood, but it was forced to come to an abrupt halt halfway through.
Ereshkigal led Shirou to the place where Enkidu's remains had been kept.
It was a burial ground Ereshkigal had specifically set aside to preserve the divine weapon that had ceased functioning.
Shirou opened the coffin, only to find it completely empty.
As expected, Enkidu's remains were gone.
Which meant that the fake Enkidu he had encountered before...
Shirou's expression turned grave.
"Is that enough now?"
A girl's voice came from behind him.
Shirou nodded instinctively and closed the coffin again.
"Yeah, that's enough.
Enkidu's remains. Confirmed."
This time, it really was time to say goodbye.
"You've been a huge help. Thank you, Ereshkigal."
"There is no need to thank me. Nor is there any reason to."
"No, I really should thank you..."
As Shirou spoke, he turned around.
Standing before him was not the terrifying Queen of the Gallû Spirits, but a beautiful girl radiant enough to illuminate the darkness of the Underworld.
"Since this is the last time, I suppose I'll let you behold... the true form of the goddess Ereshkigal."
The beautiful girl gave him a cheerful, confident smile.
"Well? Surprised?
Hehe, shocked, aren't you? You look shocked! You are shocked, right?!
This is my true appearance! Of course the Gallû Spirit form was only a disguise!
So be properly amazed, and consider yourself honored to witness a form that not even the Sumerian gods were fortunate enough to see, Shirou!"
"..."
Shirou's mouth fell open as he stared in astonishment at the beautiful girl before him.
Her golden hair was smooth and flowing, her lips full and moist.
Set within her exquisitely beautiful face was a pair of ruby-red eyes.
A black robe wrapped around her slender body, accentuating her fair skin and graceful curves, while her long, shapely legs drew the eye.
Without question, she was a flawless beauty.
And yet Shirou couldn't feel the slightest bit moved or honored.
After all, anyone would be left speechless if they suddenly ran into a girl from the class next door in the distant Age of Gods.
Tohsaka, you've finally lost it.
When did you dye your hair blonde? Is this cosplay?
Shirou nearly blurted the words out.
No matter how he looked at her, Ereshkigal's true appearance was unmistakably Rin Tohsaka.
No. On closer inspection, the girl's demeanor was somewhat different from Tohsaka's.
She also looked a little older.
Whoa... Shirou's staring so hard at me. Hehe...♡
Those techniques I learned from human books really do work!
This is the classic romance route. Shirou and I are about to fall madly in love!
Ereshkigal put on a slightly aloof expression, even though she was already beside herself with joy inside, her heart pounding wildly.
"Ahem! Just how long do you intend to keep staring at me? Honestly, Shirou, how rude."
Ereshkigal spoke shyly.
Shirou hurriedly tore his gaze away from the goddess's beautiful legs.
"Ah, I'm very sorry."
Ereshkigal gave a small snort.
"Well, I suppose I can understand how you feel."
I really don't think you could understand the complicated feelings I'm having right now, Shirou thought.
"S-so... what do you think?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you have anything you want to say to me?"
Ereshkigal stared at Shirou expectantly as she pressed him for an answer, even batting her eyelashes at him as an obvious hint.
"You know, something like, 'Ereshkigal is so cute!' 'My wife!' 'My forever favorite!'... Something like that?"
"..."
After hesitating for a moment, Shirou decided to tell her what he honestly thought.
"Ere."
"Mm... H-hey, who are you calling Ere?!"
The Goddess of the Underworld suppressed her secret delight and panic, held her breath, and listened intently.
"You look a lot like one of my classmates."
"...Huh?"
Ereshkigal's eyes widened.
"W-what is that supposed to mean?
You don't need to use a cheesy pick-up line like that now! It's not like hearing it makes me happy or anything... Well, maybe just a little.
Hmm... Your reaction feels kind of underwhelming. Why? Shouldn't you be reacting much more strongly?"
"Even if you say that, I..."
The Goddess of the Underworld frowned as she studied the boy's reaction.
Something was strange.
Shirou wasn't teasing her, nor did he seem to be lying.
Ereshkigal murmured, "Wait. Could it be that... this body I'm possessing..."
Shirou nodded.
Now he finally understood where the strange sense of familiarity he had felt around the goddess Ereshkigal came from.
"Yeah. It sounds unbelievable, but... the body you're possessing seems to belong to one of my classmates."
"W-what?! How could something like that happen?!"
The beautiful blonde girl grabbed her hair in stunned disbelief.
"The girl I'm possessing is actually Shirou's classmate...
Doesn't that mean there's absolutely nothing romantic about this at all? Not even the slightest possibility of love at first sight?!
N-no... I hate this! Noooooo, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
The goddess Ereshkigal clutched her head, dropped to her knees, and burst into tears.
I feel like I just did something really cruel, Shirou thought.
Maybe I shouldn't have told her the truth?
"Uu!"
Ereshkigal sprang back to her feet.
As expected of a Goddess-sama capable of syncing with Rin Tohsaka. She sure recovered quickly.
"All right. Enough joking around."
"I wasn't joking just now," Shirou said.
"Guh...!"
The Queen of the Underworld's face turned pale, then flushed red, as though she had just suffered a devastating blow.
"W-well then... this is where we part ways, Shirou."
"Are you really not going to the surface, Ere?"
In response to Shirou's question, the goddess gave him a bewitching smile.
"It seems you've misunderstood something, Amamiya-kun."
Whoa, even the way she talks has changed!
Don't let the power of the demon, Rin Tohsaka, corrupt you, Goddess-sama!
Ereshkigal placed a hand over her beautifully shaped chest and spoke.
"Allow me to properly introduce my true identity once again, human.
I am the Ruler of Death. Mistress of the Underworld, the One Who Tramples the Spirit Peak, Ereshkigal."
"I've already heard that..."
"I am your enemy, one of the pillars of the Three Goddess Alliance."
"...?"
"Well? Do you finally understand that you've been used?"
Ereshkigal's expression turned serious.
"This is a declaration of war. Deliver it to that Gold-glitter in Uruk for me!
My goal is to imprison every last human of this era in the Underworld, including you, and make all of you my personal property!
That is my choice. The choice of the goddess Ereshkigal, the first decision I have ever made of my own free will."
"...Ere."
Just as Shirou was about to say something more, his body suddenly became weightless.
The next instant, he shot upward into the air.
...
...
One minute later, Ereshkigal began regretting it.
Maybe she shouldn't have been so forceful when she sent Shirou away... What if he ended up hating her?
No, no, no. Shirou was such a kind person. There was no way he could hate her, right?
But what if...
Just imagining even the tiniest possibility made the goddess's chest tighten.
"Haah..."
Ereshkigal sighed.
Shirou had left the Underworld.
Perhaps it was only her imagination, but even her surroundings seemed quieter now.
Ereshkigal was alone again.
She felt a little like crying.
The two and a half months she had spent with him seemed as beautiful as a dream now that she looked back on them.
After experiencing such a beautiful, warm dream, could she really return to the darkness and accept it as unquestioningly as she once had?
There was no doubt that the years ahead would be even harder to endure than before.
But she had to endure them.
It wasn't a question of whether she could. She simply had to.
As the Mistress of the Underworld, she had to endure the loneliness and grow accustomed to the cold.
To humans, this was an empty afterlife where nothing existed. But to a goddess, it was the realm in which she lived.
From the moment the Divinity known as Ereshkigal underwent its Awakening, the world to which she belonged had already been decided.
A kingdom beneath the earth, a wasteland where the souls of the dead froze.
A world bordering the Abyss, where all life came to an end.
There was no sun or stars, no wind, water, or flowers. Only the administrator of this cold realm of the dead.
That was the sole mission entrusted to her, her duty.
When Ereshkigal first descended into the Underworld, she had dreamed of turning it into a wonderful kingdom.
Cultivating the wasteland, building houses, tending the hills, improving the soil.
It took a thousand years for the goddess to realize just how far beyond her reach that dream truly was.
With her power alone, there was simply no way to warm such a cold world.
The Anunnaki gods had long since lost their Divinity.
The Seven Judges had become nothing more than automated clay tablets that could only recite the law.
Without her orders, the Seven Gates of the Underworld would not make so much as a sound.
The entire world's management System had effectively collapsed, yet souls continued pouring in without pause.
Every day, Ereshkigal was occupied with making spear cages for the newcomers, leaving her no time for any other work.
Even construction of the temple where she herself was supposed to live had been delayed for thousands of years without ever beginning. She had grown so accustomed to living on Spearhead Hill that it had become second nature.
But the goddess had never given up or fallen into despair.
After all, the world had only just begun. The number of humans on the surface would surely continue to grow!
Fortunately, she thought, books were the one thing she could still consult even from the Underworld.
For now, she could only devote herself to studying. There was no time to rest.
Crops that could grow without sunlight or water. Animals that could survive without edible grass.
This was where all living things would eventually come to rest.
The final world souls would ever see.
Such an important land had been entrusted to her.
"A mere thousand years is... n-not hard at all."
"Just watch me. Even if another thousand years pass. No, even if ten thousand years pass, I won't give up."
"This place may not be as beautiful as the surface...
No. Precisely because there are no stars shining in the heavens, I will make this a beautiful kingdom more peaceful and equal than any other."
"I am the Earth Goddess whom humanity wished for and who underwent an Awakening for that very purpose. The order of the Underworld is the reason for my existence."
The goddess had once made that vow to herself.
And yet, in the end...
Even when the Age of Gods came to a close, she had failed to fulfill her wish.
Carrying that small regret with her, the goddess Ereshkigal returned to the Inner Sea of the Planet.
She had thought her story ended there. But because of the instability of space-time, the goddess returned to Mesopotamia through a vessel she possessed.
The regret she had been unable to resolve in her previous life...
This time, she would surely...
"Hm?"
As Ereshkigal walked across the cold stone ground, she suddenly caught an unfamiliar fragrance.
"That direction... is that where my palace is?"
The goddess frowned.
Come to think of it, she hadn't been back to the palace in quite some time.
Partly because she had been busy weaving spear cages to deal with the huge increase in dead souls caused by the war.
And partly because Ereshkigal had already given the place over to Shirou, and had felt too embarrassed to go see him on her own...
Shirou had already gone back anyway, so she might as well take a look.
Until now, she had only ordered the Gallû Spirits to keep watch over the place. The goddess herself had never actually seen what Shirou's house looked like.
Curiosity filled her as she made her way toward the palace.
"How could this be..."
When the completely transformed palace came into view, Ereshkigal held her breath.
"Goddess-sama, what is this place?"
"Have you never heard the story of that foolish Goddess of Heaven?
Beyond the Seven Gates lies the palace of the goddess Ereshkigal."
"So this is the palace of the Underworld... Um, but...
This is just an ordinary wasteland.
If this is supposed to be a palace, isn't it a little too..."
"What were you expecting? This is the Underworld. Nothing beautiful or extravagant exists here.
To think you would actually try planting flower seeds in a world like this. I truly wonder what goes on inside that head of yours."
Ereshkigal covered her mouth.
Spread out before her was a garden overflowing with blooming flowers.
The empty land that had once been utterly barren was now filled with blossoms of every color.
White, golden, and multicolored flowers were illuminated by the faint light that trickled down from the pitch-black sky, creating a breathtaking sea of flowers.
"..."
This was the first time Ereshkigal had ever seen real flowers outside the pages of a book.
She had tried many times in the past to grow flowers in the Underworld, but every attempt had ended in failure.
In this cold, sunless world of the dead, delicate flowers should never have been able to survive.
Although the Gallû Spirits had been ordered to monitor Shirou's every move, they had never reported this to the goddess.
Most likely, from the Gallû Spirits' perspective, the boy had merely been carrying out a "meaningless project," and there had been no reason to report it.
And yet, over the course of two and a half months, Shirou had succeeded in covering Ereshkigal's palace with flowers.
Ereshkigal suddenly remembered the "Pilgrimage to the Fairy Kingdom" Shirou had once told her about.
Shirou had a companion, a witch who had grown up in the Land of Rain and was highly skilled in Magecraft and herbalism.
Shirou had probably learned the necessary knowledge about plants from her, and now it had finally proven useful.
What lay before Ereshkigal was the result of two and a half months of effort.
A genuine miracle.
"Come to think of it..."
This garden blooming in the Underworld was the fulfillment of a promise between the two of them, one the goddess herself had nearly forgotten.
The offering the boy had promised to present to Ereshkigal when he came to the Underworld.
Standing among the flowers, the girl looked up at the subterranean sky and smiled with pure happiness.