NOVEL WEB Chapter 110 — Y5: Your Choice
Okay.
…
Do I really have to?
…Fine.
I’ll --
Just --
…
Fine.
Do you remember when I mentioned why corruption is important in Alchemical Corruption Twelve?
During the final fight against the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, part-way through the battle, it has a special move that will instantly remove every character with max corruption from the battle.
You do not get to block. You do not get to dodge. Divine items do not help and you can not revive them after this move.
If the characters didn’t show up in the epilogues, I’d say that they’d been edited out of the story..
What the move is precisely is -- unclear. In the game, that is. The Evil God of Chastity and Purity shouts out something understandable for the first time, instead of just, you know. Mindless monster noises.
It shouts out the word ‘judgment’.
Then a white fog covers the screen, and when it’s gone, every character with maximum corruption has vanished.
It’s the only word the Evil God of Chastity and Purity seems to say. The rest of the time it just gives -- impressions, that the characters interpret for the player. ‘It seems angry’, or ‘it seems smug’. Things like that.
…So.
There we were, whittling down its health, and we got an increasing oppression of -- anger, from it. Frustration. And then it shouted out, its words loud enough, deep enough, to rattle my bones, ‘Judgment’.
It was like it exploded, as the white material that it was made of spread out from it faster than any of us could react to. Before I could even blink, I was surrounded by a white fog. I couldn’t even see the ground through it.
I could see myself, and one other thing.
…
Myself.
It’s -- okay, it’s a bit complicated.
I’ve mentioned how divine shards can ‘take the place of’ souls, right?
They manage to -- format -- the information a soul holds in a different way, turning one from a mortal, into a god. There’s an unsurprising implication there that I’m going to explicitly confirm: The soul holds information.
It’s why you can’t just, just -- swap souls between two people, keeping their bodies and minds from changing, and expect them to act the same way. It doesn’t matter if their memories say they did something, if their memories say they should abandon all hope; a different soul in that body will react differently.
It’s why souls need to be reincarnated and cycled through, to evade oddities by removing that excess glut of information and biases.
It’s why Axiomanagers want worlds to exist near them -- so they can feel through the influx of raw, soul-based information.
And it’s how the Evil God of Chastity and Purity pulled its nastiest trick.
It reached into me and tugged out a copy.
Not of who I was at the time.
But who I was at the start.
Who I was before I ever went to MISSY.
That man who was playing an eroge, alone, in their room.
That is who I saw in front of me.
And that is who saw me, in return.
I realized in a moment how the move worked. Why only those with maximum corruption were dragged out of the battle.
The Evil God of Chastity and Purity would create a duplicate of them as they were with zero corruption.
And the aura of shame it produces would do the rest.
I could -- I could… already tell, that I… the past me, that is… and…
…
S-sorry.
Just.
Give me a moment.
…No. No, I’m not okay.
But you want this, so.
…So.
…I could already tell that who I was before, the male me, did not approve of who I was then. The female me. …No, sorry; the slut me.
I couldn’t tell due to… to any expression, or a supernatural kind of self-telepathy -- but because I try very hard to know myself. I’m pretty bad at it, but I try. And… and I already didn’t like all of what I had become. I enjoy being raped. I find it hot and I can’t even regret it.
That’s -- that’s not normal. I know it’s not, and it’s also not a good thing. Sure, it keeps my mood up should it happen to me, but it also teaches those that rape me lessons that are…
…Inaccurate.
To say the least.
That’s just one part of it.
There are the parasites that were constantly whispering in my ear that other people were merely food for my desires and pleasure.
The cybernetic implants, designed specifically to make me into more and more of a depraved toy.
My relationships, and how we pushed each other in ways that could get us in serious trouble in a more rational world.
Sure, it was… I was happy as I was. But I knew that was in no small part due to how much I had been brainwashed, altered, and corrupted by my time in MISSY. I was -- it would be easy to argue that I would be dangerous around those that weren’t similar to me. I’m not sure which side of the argument I’d fall on.
But I knew that ‘I’ wouldn’t approve of ‘myself’.
And… I was right.
I couldn’t really read my own expressions. Not really, anyway. It takes a bit of time for me to get used enough to somebody to do so, and even though it was my own face, I don’t exactly play poker while looking in a mirror to find my own tells. But I could still tell.
Maybe it was because I was thinking the thoughts at the same time… but I think it was because I just knew who I was.
Who I was back before MISSY, and who I was then, during that fight.
It started with a -- I started with a deluge of different emotions, and impressions. From ‘wow that chick is hot’ to ‘wait that chick is me’ to ‘what the fuck did I become’ and ‘wow, that’s amazing.’
…What? They -- I -- was still me. Just, a previous version of me.
Then, after the full realization of who I was, and after the emotional high started to fade and calm down, it was time to start going through my memories.
Because of course the Evil God of Chastity and Purity gave ‘myself’ my own memories, what else would it do? Not be an asshole? Hah.
Funny joke.
No, it -- it let them know everything.
From an abstract perspective, like they read it as a story, instead of actually experiencing it.
Year one went by first. Back when I was new to MISSY, struggling to figure out where I was placed in that world, why I was placed there, how I was placed there… all of that and more. Meeting Shimizu, then Sumiko. The minotaur village. My new family.
That was fine.
The incest was a bit -- eh -- but given my mothers proclivities, and how the chief god set up that world in general, it was still… fine. Mostly.
Then the second year. Yuki. Takeo. The parasites that I let puppet me. Ghost town and being possessed.
That was when questions about who I was would start to come in, who I had become. Somebody who lost themselves to parasites? Who manipulated those around me for my own benefit?
…
I know I’m flawed.
But looking at it from the perspective of who I used to be, while surrounded by an aura that induces shame…
…It made it so much worse.
Then came the third year.
Big Bull. Kaiser. The Empirical Empress. Cybernetic implants, new allies, new enemies. More… using my body, to push things forward. Thinking less of doing so. Finding the acts less worrying and more exciting.
…The fourth year was after that.
Getting my sister back, and spending every minute in her presence wanting to fuck her. Willingly, eagerly, submitting to being raped by monsters. Having trouble seeing why any would even object to it.
And then the fifth year.
The final year.
The year I intentionally degrading myself, time and time again, in exchange for blessings that would make me even worse.
…Submitting myself to the chief god for his pleasure, finding I had no capacity or willingness to say ‘no’ to the offer.
And that wasn’t the worst of it. No… no, I… what happened to me, what I didn’t, wasn’t the worst of it. I could accept that, I think. Probably.
But, no. The worst of all of it was that I liked it. I enjoyed the sexual depravity, breaking boundaries, dragging people down with me. I couldn’t even, can’t even, feel any real guilt over fantasizing about my own sister. The idea of feeling bad for doing so is so foreign to the point that I sometimes forget others have an incest taboo, and remembering only makes me recall how that makes it hotter.
I am who I am, I was who I was, and even back then, I had no apologies to offer for who I had become. I could have, but I wouldn’t have meant it.
I was, despite everything that had happened, content in my own skin. Flaws and all. Corruption and all.
And that fact…
…That fact was what worried my past self most of all.
That I had accepted, and internalized, so many of the lessons that MISSY had to offer, and I didn’t even have room in me for an honest apology about it.
That was who I was and who I am.
And who I used to be -- they didn’t like it.
Oh, the dislike wasn’t as intense as it would have been for others, don’t misunderstand.
I was still me, even back then. My experiences were hot and past-me could understand that very well. It didn’t care much about the change in gender, or even… most of what I had done.
Just.
Some of it.
Some of it was too much.
And then…
…then that version of me, that past version of me brought forward, had to make a choice.
It’s --
I --
…
I’m sorry, I need a moment.
…How do I --
…
Have you ever known that you made a mistake?
Not in the moment, not necessarily, but afterwards. You know that you’ve made a mistake, and you know that the bill is coming due.
It’s written on the wall. Your actions result in consequences, and you know exactly what those consequences are. And when they come due, staring you in the face, you just…
…You just freeze.
Because you know you deserve it.
The truth or facts of the situation do not matter; you know you do.
If the me that I was chose that he couldn’t stand the me that I became, then that -- that was it. I knew it would be. I wouldn’t be able to continue in the fight. The shame would be too much.
It would be my consequence for my actions.
Forced upon me by the God of Chastity and Purity.
It’s why all of those with maximum corruption are knocked out of the fight.
The ‘they that was’ faced the ‘them that is’, and they always, always lost.
The shame-enhancing aura that the evil god probably had something to do with that, but it couldn’t do it alone.
I then spoke. The me that I was, the male me, spoke. He said, “...I know I have to make an honest choice. I’m compelled to, I think… and I’m not sure I can approve of what I’ve become. …No, that’s not being honest. If I have to make a choice, right now, then I don’t. I can’t.”
I felt myself crashing as he paused, and he, I, looked around at the white fog. And ended up facing in the direction of the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, knowing where it was despite the fog. “But… this… isn’t in isolation. There are… only a few actions, or decisions, that I can’t approve of. And if by judging them means I let an asshole like that choose what I can or can’t be… I don’t know. It feels like I’d be approving of somebody just like the chief god.” He turned back to me. “...And I don’t. I can’t claim you’re ideal. …But you’re fine. I’ve made my choice, and I choose you.”
…It stung, a bit, to know that I couldn’t accept ‘myself’ wholesale, but… to think that I would is, perhaps, an idealistic fantasy. I mean… didn’t judge myself as harshly as others would have, to be clear.
I’m still me, and this was clearly a fantasy of mine.
That helped. It might have even been what made it possible. It was certainly why there were only a few hard lines that I crossed over, instead of, uh. A lot.
But in the end, I don’t think that that’s -- I don’t think it was the key. That’s not the thing that made me me.
…What had defined me, since I came to MISSY, was that I would not let any overpowered, self righteous, short-sighted moron with a god complex decide who I could or could not be.
I might make mistakes, I might go too far, but those are my choices, and I became who I chose to become.
Every step down my path was my own choice.
Others could change me, of course they can. Obviously; everybody is affected by what others do. But how I responded to them -- that was always my choice.
And I wouldn’t let some self-styled enforcer of ‘purity’ dictate things for me otherwise.
…So… in the end… I guess I didn’t.
I could go on about the fight, but there’s no real point. And I’m too emotionally wrung out to really care right now. A few of us couldn’t handle the fog, but Shimizu and Takeo could. Combined with those that weren’t at risk from it, it was enough.
We fought. It fought back. We won.
I claimed the two shards it had remaining, left behind from when Argenta stole one from it.
I became a goddess of MISSY. I currently hold a grand total of seven divine shards. And I’m here to bring you back to wed Pandora, at least for long enough to get us one more shard for the critical vote.
Now.
I need your answer.
You won’t stay as you are if you do, but…
…Are you coming back with me?
…Or are you staying here?
I need an answer. And I need it soon.
What’s your choice?