The Goddess who Defied Fate

Chapter 12

After Shiro’s outburst, Hue stood in silence, pressing his hand to his mouth. Having used up the last of her powers, her legs gave out from underneath her.
“Shiro!” Hue caught her.
“I know this is unfair of me, but I can’t lose you. Not again.”
“You really do say the most ridiculous things…” Through hazy eyes, she saw Hue smile. “You don’t want to harm the Earth, and you don’t want to die. Right?” Shiro glared at him, not answering. She knew where he was going with this. “And I don’t want to let you die. We don’t have any other options…” Hue put a hand over his right eye again.
“Yes, we do. Those are only the options Zyglavis gave us.” Hue’s eyes widened. “There’s a fourth option.”
“So, you want me to help you find that fourth option,” he said matter-of-factly. Shiro smiled and gently pulled his hand away from his right eye, gripping his hand tightly. Hue smiled. “You’ve always had an unusually powerful grip, ever since the very beginning.”
“Because I grab onto the things I want to protect, and I don’t let go.”
“I give up. No… I mean, I won’t give up. Shiro, I won’t give up on a future with you.” Shiro breathed a sigh of relief and the roaring winds subsided. Zyglavis, who had been held at bay by the winds, looked their way past Kuro, glaring. Kuro, on the other hand, looked as relaxed as ever, a smirk on her face. She buffed her nails against her shirt and inspected them.

“Give up, Zyglavis. This is not going to go like you want it to. I’m going to risk my life, but not out of hopelessness. I’m going to do it to help you find that ‘fourth option’.” Hue looked down at Shiro’s face.
“You’ve been spouting nothing but nonsense since I got here. Enough is enough. How about some silence?!” Zyglavis yelled, quickly pointing his palm at them. A shot rang out and Zyglavis clutched his hand, blood seeping through the pristine glove. Kuro laughed sinisterly, holding her gun in front of her face.
“Kuro!” Shiro exclaimed. Her sister would face extreme retribution for this.
Kuro stepped in front of them. “I have faith in my sister. Shiro isn’t going anywhere.” Kuro’s voice had a very dangerous edge to it.
“Kuromi…” Zyglavis said. “There is no ‘fourth option’. I guess I have to teach you that the hard way,” he said.
“You really don’t know when to call it quits, do you?” Hue returned fire with quick energy balls of his own. The two gods were evenly matched in power.
“If you had just surrendered on your own… I was going to give you a peaceful death,” Zyglavis said, his words directed at Shiro.
“I don’t care what you say. I won’t let you harm this girl. I will protect her this time,” Hue answered.
“‘Even if it means I have to sacrifice myself’, right? Your favourite motto…” A mocking grin appeared on Zyglavis’s face.
Hue, however, responded to Zyglavis’s words with a calm smile. “That’s what I used to believe… But now I know I was wrong.”
“What?” Zyglavis asked, his eyes wide.
“It hurt to lose the goddess.”
“I have a name, you know…” Shiro mumbled.
“But I really was wrong to call what she did ‘being sacrificed’.”
“You’re just playing with words now. She gave her life to save the Earth. What is it called, if not a sacrifice?” Zyglavis asked.
“It doesn’t matter what it looked like to you or anyone else. What matters is the truth. If the Clotho didn’t see it as a sacrifice, then we’re misrepresenting what she did to call it that,” Hue said.
“Hue...” Shiro muttered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“Zyglavis, the goddess never stopped hoping for the best. She risked her life believing in the future. She came to me without giving up. And now she’s done it again. That’s why… I won’t say ‘I wish I had never met her’ anymore.” Hue squeezed her hand tightly. Shiro remembered what she had said before she gave her life to save the Earth.
“Hue, I’m so, so happy I fell in love with you. That’s why I want to bring love to Earth if I can… I want to help humanity to recover their ability to love as you taught me to love.” Yes. She believed in her decision completely back then. There was no reason for everyone to be forever saddened by what she did.
“I’m getting sick of listening to you.” Zyglavis launched another attack.
“Enough!” Kuro snapped her fingers, creating a protective barrier around Shiro and Hue. “Do what you need to do, Shiro.” She took a fighting stance in front of Zyglavis. Shiro nodded as Kuro smiled over her shoulder.
“I can tell you the truth now. I’m not doing this as an act of self-sacrifice. Not for the Earth, and not for your soul. I’m doing this because I want to protect you,” Hue said.
“Why?” Shiro asked.
“It’s not like you to be so slow. Isn’t it obvious?”
“I want you to say it.”
“There’s only one reason I want to protect you. I’m in love with you. I love you, Shiro.”
“Hue… Are you sure? I’m me, but I’m not the same I was back then.”
“I know. I love you because you are you, Shiro. How many times are you going to make me say it? Or… Can you see right through me? Do you already know I want to say it over and over again?”
Shiro threw her arms around his neck. “I love you, too, Hue. I always have. And I always will. I thought I could never tell you because I’m human now. I was so scared of my own feelings that I tried to hide them. But it was no use. I love you. I love your snarky humour. I love your sarcasm. I love that you have hidden weaknesses. I love everything about you. And I am so, so happy that I fell in love with you.” I looked up at him. Hue’s eyes widened.
“Shiro…”
“Which is why I will save this world. I will save this future. Our future. Please, Hue. Trust me.” Shiro’s eyes were serious as she looked at him. “You had to bear your pain alone for a long time. But I’m here now. I won’t leave you again.”
“Shiro. I will protect you from anything and everything that ever tries to hurt you. And I promise… I will never leave you,” Hue said, smiling for a moment. She smiled back and nodded. Then, she did what came naturally. Her clothes gradually changed until she donned her godly form. Hue gasped. “Shiro, that form…”



With a calm smile on her face, Shiro confidently stepped up to Kuro. She wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulder from behind as Hue had done mere moments befor, and pulled Kuro to her.
“Hands off my little sister!” Shiro held out her palm and several red threads shot out towards Zyglavis, trapping him in a red threaded cage.
“Impossible…”
“Quit your griping for one damn minute. You’re such a pain. The Earth is already back to normal so just shut up already,” Shiro snapped. She looked down at the fountain as it started to glow. The scenes of Earth reflected on the water gradually began to change.
“The rain stopped… The Earth’s climate is stabilising,” Zyglavis said.
“What in the world is happening…?” Hue asked, looking from the fountain to me.
“The crisis is over,” a strangely comforting voice filled the air. Zyglavis, Hue, and Kuro all spun to the source of the voice, their eyes wide. Shiro could only smile wryly as she let the threaded cage dissipate. She turned to the gentle light until a god exuding divine energy appeared. “So your heart has learned to love again.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Hue answered. Zyglavis, Hue and Kuro bowed to the king. Shiro followed suit. The king, smiling quietly, looked back and forth between Hue and her.
“That question wasn’t directed at you, Huedhaut,” the king said.
“Huh?” Hue asked.
“You regained your ability to love quite a while ago. Your mark vanishing was proof of that.”
“You can’t mean—Then, my mark of sin wasn’t… Didn’t I sin by interfering with death when I kept the goddess’s soul on the wheel of rebirth?”
“I did not punish you for that. After losing the person most precious to you, you lost yourself in sadness and rejected love. That was your sin.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t figure that out until now…” Kuro muttered. Shiro lightly elbowed her.
“My darling Kuro. It seems you are as quick as ever.” The king turned back to Hue. “You refused to see why the goddess gave her life… Instead, you told yourself love meant sacrifice and loss, closing your heart to the world.”
“Your Highness… You knew all of this all along? You knew all this would happen?” Zyglavis asked.
“The goddess offered her life to save the Earth. That was the first and only time a god had attempted such a thing. Not even I could predict how a gamble that unprecedented would play out. I knew that if his heart were to be saved, only one with the soul of the goddess of fate could do it, but to think that she wasn’t a reincarnation at all, but the goddess herself in human form…” The king smiled at me. “You have accomplished something truly splendid, Clotho. No, I suppose your name is Shiro now.” Shiro smiled back, unable to answer. “Then, allow me to ask you again. Have you opened your heart to love again?”
“Your Highness…”
“Well… the answer is already clear, but I thought I’d ask anyway.”
Shiro took a deep breath. “It’s true, Your Highness. After Hue left, for a time, I’d forgotten something very important. I’d forgotten why I saved the Earth in the first place. But I remember now. I saved the Earth because I wanted to give humans what Hue had given me.” She the corners of her eyes sting.
“Zyglavis, you seem to have misunderstood one thing. Huedhaut also made the same mistake,” the king said.
“What do you mean?” Zyglavis asked.
“This girl did not lose control of her divine power because it was too much for her control. I did not expect her to be able to use divine power either, but… This human showed surprising skill when linking her powers and her heart.”
“I don’t believe it,” Hue said.
Shiro smiled wryly. “I had a feeling that was the case. My heart prompted the release of my divine powers which was what threw Earth into chaos. I… did exactly what I told Hue not to do.” She rubbed her arm and looked to the side. “I rejected the love I had always had in my heart for him.”
“That was indeed what caused the rain,” the king told her. She nodded.
“I see. Long ago, she chose to give her life to save the Earth out of love. For her to then reject love…” Zyglavis mused.
“Yes, her rejection of love threw the Earth back into chaos. The planet really could be destroyed by such an imbalance in energies,” the king said.
“Which you already knew. And you also already knew how to fix it.” Kuro stepped next to Shiro.
“You knew?” Hue asked, his eyes wide.
“Yes. I would have told you, but you were so adamant about using the stars in your right eye to stop it, I had to talk you down from the ledge first,” Shiro told him.
“Now then, I hope everyone is clear on exactly what happened. Perhaps now you can see what path to take in the future,” the king said.
“Thank you for your words, Your Highness. I take them all to heart,” Hue said.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Shiro chimed.
“You can never lie to your own hearts about the love you feel again. Oh, and by the way, your death could also disturb the balance of energy on Earth. So don’t worry, no threats will be made on your life. Isn’t that right, Zyglavis.” The king glanced at Zyglavis and smiled a smile that sent shivers down Shiro’s spine.
“Forgive me, King, but this girl is romantically involved with Huedhaut. Such relationships between gods and humans are forbidden. It is a sin for—”
“There’s no need to raise your voice, Zyglavis. That should prove entertaining as well,” the king said. The corner of Shiro’s lips twitched.
“Besides, I’m not even human,” she mused.
“What?” Zyglavis narrowed his eyes at her.
“I don’t know if it was because of what Hue did, but right now, the most accurate term for me would be along the lines of ‘demi-god’.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Something like that isn’t—”
“Possible?” Shiro cut Zyglavis off. “Please spare me. Give up your idea of what you think is possible or impossible. Nothing about this situation is normal. Do you honestly think a human would be able to what I did?”
The king laughed. “Indeed, you are not entirely human. Those who are bound together by the threads of fate have the strength of will forge their own paths. You, Shiro, are capable of doing just that,” the king told her.
“I will,” she said confidently.
“‘I’? You’re not alone. Are you trying to get back at me for before? I’d appreciate it if you replaced that ‘I’ with a ‘we’,” Hue smirked at her.
Shiro chuckled. “Yes, you’re right. We’ll create our future. Together.” She squeezed his hand, interlacing her fingers through his.
The king chuckled. “Today turned out to be a good day. I suppose this was destiny too. Isn’t that right, Shiro?”
“Yes, but, well… It’s a destiny we created ourselves, by our own hands.” Shiro peered back into the reflecting pool, seeing beautiful images of the Earth.
“Let’s give this our all. We’ll probably have a lot of obstacles in our path… But…” Hue started to say.
“We will. I know we can build a wonderful future together.” Shiro smiled.