CHAPTER 435: NATURAL MONSTROSITY

"...So... Pandora, why did you only bring me?" I ask Pandora, confused. She went to that floating island and only brought me back from there, but she didn’t bring my daughter.

"Tsukuyomi, I’ll go get her soon, but I fetched you first because it’s more important. I need your help to take care of Zephyra!" Pandora speaks somewhat hurriedly while pulling my hand.

"...?" She pulls me to her bedroom door and stops.

"I’ll explain briefly. Zephyra and I had a daughter, but I used a very... unique method and Zephyra was traumatized by it. Now I’m trying to at least reduce the effects of that trauma and thought bringing a friend would be useful." She opens the door with this super brief explanation.

I quickly see Zephyra lying on her bed reading a book. I observe her attentively and don’t see any difference.

"Pandora, she seems normal," I whisper to Pandora, unable to notice anything abnormal, although her gaze seems emptier than before.

"Hahaha, funny you say that. When I told Zephyra I was bringing you here, she cried desperately and only accepted it when I choked her for about ten minutes..." When Pandora says this, I shudder.

"..."

"Don’t look at me like that!!! I didn’t want to do it, but to her, I am now everything that represents stability. I kinda became her entire ’world,’ and to her, you are an invader who will steal the love that should be hers, so she didn’t want you near until I gave orders."

"...Sorry, Pandora, but I’m not understanding..." I’m genuinely confused now.

"...Watch." Pandora walks over to Zephyra, who watches her with a smile. Pandora stops beside her bed and looks at me. She moves her right hand and places it on Zephyra’s cheek. Immediately, Zephyra blushes, trembling at her touch, and begins breathing in a way that seems strangely lewd.

I also notice she looks extremely aroused, which makes my eyes widen in confusion.

"I’ll summarize as much as I can so you understand, Tsukuyomi. I fucked Zephyra so much for so long that she broke... summarized enough?"

"If you want it less summarized: I had sex with Zephyra for months, but Zephyra didn’t sleep the entire time and I hurt her quite a bit during that period, not to mention the fact that all her food was semen... that’s what ended up making her like this."

"She’s not well. She now gets turned on by any touch from me, and when I treat her gently, she doesn’t see it as love, but when I hurt her, she understands that I love her."

"Do you get it? She’s broken!! Literally!! But I didn’t do it on purpose and now I’m trying to fix it, more or less, as much as possible. One of Zephyra’s main traumas right now is this isolation."

"She became clingier than you, and now she can’t handle the presence of other people well. That’s why you, as her friend, must help her understand that I still love her even if there are other people around."

When Pandora says this, I cross my arms, thinking about Zephyra’s condition. Zephyra now seems to have way more than just the Stockholm Syndrome that existed on Earth.

"Pandora, why did you choose me? Zephyra has other friends," I say, doubtful about why me.

"...I chose you because ever since you arrived, Zephyra became happier. Before you, Zephyra had many repressed fears, but having you as a friend helped her deal with the traumas I had already caused her."

"Since you’ve helped her before, I thought you could do it again. After all, you are old... I mean... you have experience." When she says that, I feel a stab at my self-esteem.

"I-I’m not that old!... Besides, I’m not a specialized mental healer or anything like that. Do you think I know how to cure traumas? I just talked with her as friends do; she healed her traumas by herself..." Pandora gives me a nasty look as if I’m refusing.

"It doesn’t matter. You live in this world with my daughter thanks to me, and you will obey what I say. You don’t have the right to refuse. You will take care of Zephyra, whether you like it or not."

"..."

"O-Of course..." I approach them, slightly annoyed by Pandora treating me like this! I’m still a goddess; it’s somewhat unfair for her to treat me this way, but I’ll let it slide because ever since Pandora appeared, my lonely life became happier.

"..." I stop in front of Zephyra and snap my fingers in front of her eyes. She immediately freezes and falls back lying on the bed.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" Pandora shouts at me.

"Nothing, just a little hypnotic suggestion. Don’t you want to know what she’s thinking? You asked me to help, so I have to at least know what’s going on, right?" I say, trying to calm her down.

"Don’t hypnotize my queen without asking first," she says with a snarl, but her gaze is calmer.

"Can I... ask questions?" I can’t cure Zephyra, and Pandora knows it. I guess in the end, even Pandora is someone who can get desperate when someone she loves is in trouble.

Even if she won’t admit it, as far as I’ve seen, Pandora isn’t someone who asks for help; she always tries to do everything absolutely alone. So, her asking for my help, even arrogantly, is very unusual.

"Okay Zephyra, what does my presence here cause you?" I start with this important question. Zephyra looks at me with her hazy, clouded hypnotized gaze and soon begins to cry with many tears.

"I don’t like it... I hate it... you are stealing Pandora’s love... I want to be alone with her... I don’t want anyone here... just Pandora... please... leave... s-stop stealing the love that’s meant for me." She speaks in a tearful tone.

I look at Pandora, who grits her teeth. I guess this is frustrating for her in some ways.

"Okay Zephyra, and what do you think of Pandora?" When I ask this question, Pandora seems anxious for the answer.

"I like... I love her... I love Pandora... I want to stay close to her... I don’t want her to leave..." She gives a somewhat expected answer considering her condition.

"Okay Zephyra, and what do you think of love?" I ask all the questions using a trigger phrase. By starting with "Okay Zephyra," I can get her ready for the question beforehand.

"It hurts... love hurts a lot..." She starts crying even more, and I decide to stop this question here, seeing she won’t answer further.

"Okay Zephyra, and what do you think of pain?"

"I like it... Pandora loves me so it hurts... she loves me a lot, and it hurts because I am weak... it’s my fault... but I like it." When she answers this, Pandora seems to mentally file away this information.

’So she feels that if something hurts her, the fault is entirely hers... that’s... sad.’ I look at Pandora with a bit of anger. Zephyra is a good girl and I don’t think she deserved to suffer like this.

"Okay Zephyra, could you tell me what Pandora did to you?" When I ask this, Zephyra, crying, begins to explain. The start is pretty normal, following more or less what Pandora normally does.

But as she continues, things get worse and I start to feel sick with the absurd descriptions of what I’m hearing, and when she finishes, I can’t help but look at Pandora in horror.

"H-Hey!! It wasn’t like that! I mean... that’s how it happened, but it wasn’t me! It was my body!" When Pandora gives this excuse, I genuinely give her a somewhat disgusted look for shifting the blame like that.

"Don’t look at me like that, Tsukuyomi!! I can really explain! I would never do that to her consciously!... well, unless she did something wrong, but in this situation it was different!"

"You know my race is a monster. When I’m going to get pregnant, my body loses consciousness and acts on its own, focusing 100% on the egg’s well-being!"

"It’s not exactly my fault that I made her suffer." She gives this explanation that seems honest, but to me, it doesn’t change the fact that she severely hurt Zephyra.

"Pandora, I have no way to cure this. She was literally abused for months! This is abuse! There’s no other word for it!"

"Hey! Don’t call me an abuser! I didn’t abuse her! Everything was consensual! I never used coercion to force her to consent! And she seemed happy at the start! I just... miscalculated a bit and didn’t consider the fact that her mind wouldn’t withstand months of sex!"

"..."

"Besides, I didn’t call you here to judge me! I never denied that I broke her in that cave, and you know what? I don’t regret it! I now have a cute daughter who came from the union of the two of us, and I’m happy with the result!"

"And I would do it all again if necessary! She is my wife, and it is her duty to satisfy my desires, and if I want a child, she, as mine, must give me one." Pandora speaks with a dangerous look.

"...Sorry." I apologize. I guess I expected too much from Pandora. In the end, she is a monster, not a human or a purely rational being. It’s obvious she will always put her own desires above others.

The mere fact that she sees how she broke Zephyra and still says she would do it all again shows how empathy-less she is. You can see she didn’t want this outcome, but you can also see she doesn’t regret the result.

"Pandora, answer me honestly... depending on your answer, I will decide whether or not to help Zephyra..." I say coldly.

"You... want Zephyra cured for which of these two reasons?"

"Do you want her cured because you genuinely want to see her well..."

"Or do you just want her cured for her own sake?" Both might seem similar, but the differences are massive.

"...I just want her cured for her own sake." Pandora chooses the worst answer.

"...I’m sorry, but I won’t help. And I don’t care if you threaten me, kill me, or hurt me. I won’t help you with this. I feel sorry for Zephyra, but I won’t help you do this to her." Pandora gives me a dangerous look, and I genuinely see murderous intent in her eyes.

She’s really pondering whether to kill me, but soon she seems to give up, probably because she doesn’t want to hurt Eclipsya.

"You’re lucky you’re the mother of one of my children. Get out of here before I break your legs, you useless bitch." She shows her truest side, the side she doesn’t try to hide but is never obvious.

"..." I turn around and start walking towards the door. The question I asked had hidden meanings that Pandora knew, and she still chose the worst one.

If Pandora wanted her cured to see her well, it would mean that for Pandora, Zephyra’s current state is something she dislikes and she genuinely wants to reverse it.

However, the second answer, which was Pandora’s choice, means that Pandora doesn’t care that Zephyra is like this and is only trying to cure Zephyra because Zephyra is "hers" and she is merely taking responsibility for what she caused.

But she doesn’t truly care about what she did and possibly even prefers Zephyra like this. In short, she is just acting like someone who has to do a duty rather than someone who wants to heal the person she loves.

It’s the most literal way to act, a cold and monstrous way to treat the person you love. Normally, when someone we love gets hurt, we take care of them because we want to see them well.

However, there is the type of person who takes care of those they love, not because they want to see them well, but because it is their duty to keep them well. Pandora is exactly this second type.

It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love; it just means that between love and duty, Pandora will always make the choice based on herself and never on what the other truly needs.

And that... is monstrous in every possible way. That’s why I, as a goddess who helped the humans of my world thousands of times, refuse to be part of this. I refuse to help Pandora cure Zephyra.

Because helping to cure Zephyra means that in the future, Pandora could hurt her even more deeply and again she would only seek to fix the mistake out of duty.

And if I help now, she will always come seeking my help. Pandora’s love is inhuman; it consumes, destroys, and then tries to rebuild, only to repeat it again and again.

In a way... I’m glad Pandora doesn’t love me. Her love is too dangerous and heavy for me to bear.