I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Afterward, Nathan and Shiina dressed in silence and sat together on the ruined altar.

Neither of them seemed in a hurry to leave. Perhaps they were resting. Perhaps they simply liked the cold night wind against their skin after the heat they had just shared. Around them, the shattered shrine remained still beneath the dark sky, and for the first time since arriving there, the place felt almost peaceful.

Shiina let out a long breath and leaned back against the altar, her eyes lifting toward the night above.

”I never thought sex could be this exhausting,” she murmured. ”More exhausting than a fight, honestly.”

Nathan looked up at the moon. ”Pleasure tends to do that.”

A faint flush touched her cheeks, and she gave a small, embarrassed smile that did not suit her usual teasing confidence. ”I really did not know it could feel like that. I did not think that kind of pleasure was even possible.” She paused, then added with complete seriousness, ”If it feels this good, women should probably do it every day.”

Nathan almost smiled. ”Not everyone has the time or the energy for that.”

Shiina turned her head slightly toward him. ”Do you?”

”Maybe.”

That answer made her laugh softly under her breath, though Nathan’s thoughts had already drifted elsewhere for a moment. With the number of women in his life, a day without desire was almost rarer than the opposite. For now, distance kept things scattered. Tenebria was far away. His women were spread across kingdoms and lands. But one day that would change. Eurynome was already helping prepare the place he intended to gather them to, a place where he could finally bring them together and give them something closer to a true home.

And when that day came, he knew very well he would have plenty to do as both husband and father.

”As expected,” Shiina said after a while, her voice returning to a lighter tone, ”that silver haired girl is not your only woman, is she?”

Nathan did not look at her. ”You already know the answer.”

Shiina smiled and folded her arms behind her head. ”Yes. I do.”

Silence settled again after that, but it felt different now. Softer. More open.

Then, without warning, Shiina spoke again.

”I was abandoned by my parents when I was a baby.”

Nathan turned his gaze toward her at once.

Her tone had changed completely. There was no playfulness in it now, no teasing edge, no mask. She was looking up at the sky as she spoke, as if it were easier that way.

”The one who found me was an old woman. She raised me well. Better than anyone else ever did.” A faint smile touched her lips, but it did not last. ”Then she died, and I was left alone when I was ten.”

She closed her eyes briefly.

”It was Minato. And that place was already rotten then. I had to survive somehow. It was hard enough for anyone, but for a girl that young...” She let out a quiet breath. ”It was worse.”

Nathan said nothing. He let her continue.

”I worked however I could just to eat once a day. Sometimes not even that. And it did not take long for me to understand that Minato was not a place where a girl could ask for help and expect kindness.” Her fingers tightened slightly where they rested against the altar. ”When I turned to women, some tried to sell me. When I turned to men, it was no different. Because of my hair and my eyes, because I did not look like most people here, they thought I would fetch a high price.”

Nathan’s expression darkened, but he stayed silent.

”I escaped more than once,” she said. ”Barely. Some days I ate nothing at all. Some days I could not even stand properly from hunger. When I got sick, it was worse. I was weak, cold, starving, and eventually my body simply gave out.” She swallowed, then continued in an even quieter voice. ”That was when one of them caught me. One of those filthy men who wanted money. He sold me to a noble in Minami Kyoto.”

A pause followed.

The night wind moved gently through the ruins, but neither of them stirred.

”When they took me there, they shipped me in a box,” Shiina said. ”I could barely breathe in it. By the time it was opened, I thought I might die from the air alone.” Her face remained calm, but Nathan could hear the old disgust beneath her voice. ”Servants washed me. Dressed me. Then they brought me to his room.”

Nathan looked at her more closely now.

Shiina’s eyes remained fixed upward, but her body had grown subtly tense.

”He started touching me,” she said. ”I was terrified. More terrified than I had ever been before. Not when I was starving. Not when I was freezing. Not even when I thought I might die alone somewhere in the street.” Her voice tightened. ”I knew he was going to take something from me. And I knew that if he did, whatever came after would be even worse.”

”Shiina,” Nathan said quietly.

But she only shook her head and went on.

”Nothing happened.”

For the first time since she had begun speaking, some warmth returned to her expression.

”The door burst open.”

She raised one hand slightly, as if she could still see the scene before her.

”And that was the first time I saw Norihiro-sama.”

Nathan remained very still.

”He came into the room wearing his armor. I remember that clearly. I remember how he looked standing there, how sudden it all was, how impossible. He saw me on the bed and that man leaning over me.” Her eyes sharpened at the memory. ”He cut his head off so cleanly it was over before I even understood what I had seen.”

She let out a slow breath.

”To me, he looked like a hero.”

Then she lifted her hand fully, and a blue glow bloomed against the darkness.

A moment later, her dark blue katana appeared in her grasp.

She held it above her lightly, almost reverently, moonlight catching along the steel.

”And that beautiful sword,” she said softly, ”was part of it too.”

”It was his sword originally,” Nathan said.

Shiina nodded.

”Yes. It was his. But the moment he brought it near me, I felt something pull at me from deep inside. I cannot explain it any better than that. It was as if the sword already knew me before I understood anything myself.” Her fingers brushed lightly against the hilt before she continued. ”That was when I learned the truth. I am descended from Miyamoto Musashi.”

Nathan looked at her in silence.

”Norihiro -sama told me he was the greatest swordsman in Kastorian history,” she said. ”And that his blood flowed in my veins.”

”And then he adopted you,” Nathan said.

Shiina nodded again, more slowly this time. ”He gave me the sword and told me it belonged to my family. He fed me. Educated me. Gave me a roof, a name, and a reason to live. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had not simply been thrown into this world to suffer and survive. I felt like I had been born for something.” She lowered her gaze for a moment. ”Norihiro sama gave me a new life.”

Nathan watched her, then said, ”So that is where your loyalty comes from.”

He paused, studying her face.

”No. It is more than loyalty. You look at him the way someone looks at a parent.”

Shiina smiled faintly and dismissed the katana. The blue glow vanished with it, leaving only moonlight and the broken shrine around them.

Nathan’s expression hardened.

”But he only sees you as a weapon to be used,” he said. ”He looks at his own daughter as a political tool. Do you really think he sees you as anything more?”

Shiina did not flinch.

”I do not care if he sees me as a weapon,” she replied quietly. ”He still saved me. He still gave me a life.”

Nathan looked at her for a long moment.

The words rose to his lips. That it made no sense. That gratitude did not erase cruelty. That salvation given with one hand and control with the other was still a form of chains.

But in the end, he said none of it.

Because some part of him understood too well.

It reminded him of his own father.

The man who had trained him until he collapsed. The man who had pushed him until his body bled and broke. The man who had isolated him, hardened him, and shaped his life through pain more than warmth. Nathan hated him for many things and always would. Yet even with all of that, he could not deny that some small part of him still held recognition for what had been given. Perhaps gratitude. Perhaps the faintest trace of affection twisted into something harder and colder.

Some bonds were too tangled to cut cleanly with reason alone.

”That is why,” Shiina said at last, her eyes closing as she leaned back against the altar, ”I cannot let you kill Norihiro sama.”

Nathan turned his gaze toward her.

The words hung between them, clear and final.

He did not answer.

There was nothing useful to say.

So he remained there with her in the ruined shrine while the night wind moved softly through the wreckage and the moon watched in silence from above. A few minutes passed. Then a few more.

Eventually, Shiina’s breathing deepened.

She had fallen asleep there beside him, as if the weight of speaking aloud what she had buried for so long had finally drained the last of her strength.

Nathan looked at her for a moment in silence.

Then he stood.

Without another word, he left the broken shrine behind and returned to the town below. The streets were still dark and quiet when he reached the inn. He went inside, woke Yukihime and Genzo, and told them to get ready.

Before dawn could rise over Death God Valley, Nathan left with them, leaving behind Shigeru’s group, the freed town, and Shiina sleeping beneath the ruins of the shrine.

Ahead of him waited only one thing now.

Norihiro.