Chapter 32: Making the Goddesses 'Volunteer' to Join
"It's not just confidence; it is the result of being sufficiently clear about my own strength."
Shirou smiled as he answered, "If I win, then just obediently join me. How about that?"
"You'd better be able to do that first!" Quetzalcoatl said, her figure already blurring from her original spot, leaving a trail of afterimages as she lifted her leg to kick at Shirou.
BOOM—!
In that instant, dust was whipped up by her passing figure, only to be blocked by Shirou, who raised a hand to catch the blow. Seeing that the strike missed, Quetzalcoatl immediately intended to withdraw to launch another attack.
"This is—!?" Quetzalcoatl, who was just about to retreat, suddenly froze. Her ankle had been grabbed by a hand.
"You—!?" She widened her eyes as she stared at Shirou, who had made his white longsword disappear, using his right hand to grip the right leg she had kicked out.
Before Quetzalcoatl could even counterattack, Shirou's hand, which held her right foot, twisted with sudden force. Quetzalcoatl had no choice but to rotate her body along with it to dissipate the force. Seizing this opportunity, Shirou stepped forward; one hand gripped her ankle, his knee pinned her lower back, and his other hand pinched her chin.
"Uwah...!"
Her entire body arched backward into a bow shape. At this moment, Quetzalcoatl had completely lost the ability to resist. Saliva flowed from her mouth, which was forced open by the pain in her body.
"I—I surrender...!" she uttered inarticulately.
Only then did Shirou let go. Blue ripples undulated beside him, and from them, chains shot out to bind her hands together.
"This is..." The 'Goddess of Venus,' Quetzalcoatl, her wrists bound, suddenly noticed something and immediately looked at Ishtar and Jaguar Man, whose wrists were also bound.
"Heh heh~ You finally understand what's going on, don't you?" Ishtar looked at the current Quetzalcoatl, instantly putting on an expression of schadenfreude.
"..." Quetzalcoatl looked at Ishtar, who was also bound by the wrists, and immediately fell silent.
"Alright, now are you going to honor the previous bet and obediently join me?" Shirou asked, looking at the silent Goddess of Venus.
"Before that, why don't you untie these chains first?"
The moment her wrists were bound by the chains, Quetzalcoatl had already tried to use brute force to see if she could break free, but she had failed without a doubt. Realizing this was an Anti-Divine Noble Phantasm that could not be broken in a short time, Quetzalcoatl gave up struggling quite decisively.
"That won't do. You must choose one of two options: either you continue to be bound, or you join my camp, and I will remove the chains for you," Shirou said mercilessly.
"I... I... I join!" Compared to the tsundere Ishtar, Quetzalcoatl had a much more generous personality, so after a brief moment of thought, she chose to join.
Seeing Quetzalcoatl fall so quickly, Ishtar couldn't help but begin to hesitate. At the beginning, her refusal to the death was merely due to the fact that she couldn't save face after a goddess was defeated by a human, but now that she saw Quetzalcoatl had joined, she couldn't help but feel tempted. After all, being tied up by these chains made moving around very inconvenient.
At this time, Jaguar Man saw that Quetzalcoatl had surrendered so quickly, and she immediately raised her own chain-bound hands. "I surrender too, oh wait no, I mean I join too!"
Jaguar Man's words became the final straw that broke Ishtar's resolve.
"I... I'll join too!" Finally, Ishtar spoke up with a flushed face, though she still had to act tough in the end. "Don't get any ideas, okay? I'm just begrudgingly helping you guys out! Yes, that's it!"
After 'inviting' the Goddess of Venus into the camp, Shirou and the others returned to Uruk. They had a big feast that night, and after eating and drinking their fill, everyone went their separate ways to sleep.
.
.
.
That night, the stars dotting the firmament of Uruk shimmered with a faint glow, and a breeze coming from who knows where brushed away the final remnants of late spring.
Shirou arrived on the roof alone as usual. There were few lights in Uruk at night; it was unlike a modern city that could be lit up so easily. Suddenly, footsteps approached. Shirou looked up and saw golden hair swaying in the hazy moonlight.
Once night fell, Ereshkigal came out again. She arrived at Shirou's side and sat down naturally. Contrary to Ishtar's somewhat flighty personality, Ereshkigal's character leaned more toward being calm and steady, like a quiet noble lady.
"Why do you keep looking at me?" Noticing Shirou's gaze, Ereshkigal asked with slightly reddened cheeks, her eyes darting away, not daring to meet his gaze. Since the last time she heard those answers from Shirou, Ereshkigal's heart had already begun to surrender.
"Of course it's because you're beautiful," Shirou responded with a smile.
"W-What are you saying! I... I'm not..." Ereshkigal glared at Shirou with a blushing face, then lowered her head, feeling shy, as she covered her gradually heating cheeks with both hands.
A little over a minute later, this shy goddess finally recovered her composure and spoke to Shirou.
"You have won over... no, I should say you have abducted yet another goddess." Whether it was regret or something else in Ereshkigal's tone, Shirou sensed a hint of resentment within it.
"How could that be? It is clearly they who 'volunteered'," Shirou said, looking at Ereshkigal. "What about you? Didn't you want to dig a tunnel between Uruk and the Underworld? Why did you suddenly drop everything to come and see me?"
Who could have guessed that Ereshkigal, the 'Goddess of the Underworld' and one of the 'Three Goddess Alliance,' in order to conquer Uruk first, had actually dug a tunnel to the Underworld beneath Uruk? Her goal was to wait for the right moment and cause the entire city of Uruk to subside, dropping it directly into the Underworld.
Although this method was a bit clumsy, thanks to her unremitting efforts, she was only three days away from completing this great undertaking on the eve of the 'Mother of Creation' Tiamat's arrival.
Now, although he didn't know how much work she had left, Shirou felt she shouldn't have been free enough to come see him during her limited time of appearance at night.
"You even knew about something like that!?"
Ereshkigal's pupils constricted, and she looked at Shirou with some astonishment. It was only then that she realized, belatedly: if that was the case, why didn't he stop her?
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