Then, she quietly knelt down on the tatami in the center of the room.
She lowered her head, both hands resting flat in front of her knees. Like a doll, exquisite and fragile, waiting to be defiled by its master.
Chitanda's heart was filled with boundless sorrow and a quiet rage.
But on her face, there was only a saint-like, resigned calm.
...
...
Tokyo. Kamiyama Grand Hotel, presidential suite.
Fuyumi Irisu was meticulously organizing tomorrow's schedule for Seiji Fujiwara.
Her movements were professional and efficient. As if she had been born for this job.
"Boss, tomorrow at nine in the morning, you have a breakfast meeting with Mr. Masayoshi Son of SoftBank. The location is the Wako Main Building in Ginza. At eleven, there's a video conference with Mitsui & Co. to discuss the follow-up integration of the Irisu Family's medical industry. I've already prepared the relevant financial models and legal documents. In the afternoon..."
She was reporting in her steady tone, devoid of any emotion. Just then, Seiji Fujiwara's personal phone suddenly rang.
Seiji Fujiwara glanced at the caller ID.
The corner of his mouth curled into an amused smile.
He didn't pick up immediately. He savored for a moment Fuyumi Irisu's instantly stiff, unnatural expression, before unhurriedly answering the phone.
He didn't speak. The other end of the line was silent too.
After several seconds, a voice came through.
That voice was as faint as a mosquito, with a barely perceptible tremor. It was a young woman's voice, clear and lovely.
"I'm... ready."
A victor's satisfied smile appeared on Seiji Fujiwara's face.
He said only one word.
"Come."
Then, he hung up the phone.
He gave an instruction to Fuyumi Irisu, who was organizing documents in front of him.
"You don't need to stay tonight. Be here at seven tomorrow morning to pick me up."
Fuyumi Irisu's body went rigid for an instant.
She immediately understood who the call had been made to.
She also immediately understood why she was being "sent away."
Because tonight, the master had a new "toy." A fresher one.
And she, the "old toy" who had already been played with several times, ought to have the sense to step aside and make room for the new one.
An indescribable wave of emotion swept through her heart. Within it was humiliation, jealousy, sorrow, and even a hint of complex relief at being "abandoned."
But on her face, she still wore that same cold, professional mask.
"Yes, boss."
Fuyumi Irisu silently packed her things.
She placed the schedule and related documents neatly on the desk, and bowed deeply to Seiji Fujiwara. Then, she turned and left the room.
The moment the door closed behind her, the tense, fabricated strength she had maintained finally collapsed.
Fuyumi Irisu leaned weakly against the cold wall of the hallway, slowly sliding down to sit on the floor.
She buried her face deep in the crook of her arm, her shoulders trembling violently, beyond her control.
She felt sorrow for Eru Chitanda.
She also felt boundless self-mockery and self-hatred. She had pushed her friend into the abyss with her own hands. And now, because of her friend's downfall, she had temporarily gained "freedom." She was a despicable creature.
...
...
The Chitanda residence was an ancient estate, passed down for several centuries.
The deep hallways were lined with wooden floorboards.
In the dead of night, they seemed especially long, as if they had no end.
Moonlight spilled through the lattice windows, casting dappled shadows on the smooth floor, lending an extra layer of stillness and eeriness.
Eru Chitanda was walking down this hallway. She wore the Shiromuku, a garment that symbolized purity and death.
She walked barefoot, one step at a time.
Each step felt like stepping on the edge of a knife.
Each step felt like walking toward her own grave.
Hanging on both sides of the hallway were portraits of generations of Chitanda ancestors. Their solemn gazes, full of expectation, seemed to be watching her, judging her. She was an unfilial descendant, about to defile the family's honor with her body.
Chitanda did not dare to look up.
Finally, she arrived at the door to her own room.
That wooden door, so familiar to her, was carved with delicate patterns. At this moment, it was like a gate to hell.
She took a deep breath and slowly pulled the door open.
The lights in the room were off.
Only the moonlight from outside the window flowed in like quicksilver, silently. It coated everything in the room with a holy radiance.
A figure stood with his back to her, by the window. As if he had been waiting for some time.
It was Seiji Fujiwara.
Hearing the door open, he slowly turned around.
His gaze fell on Chitanda, and a flicker of amused mirth flashed in his eyes, as if he were appreciating a perfect work of art.
"Oh? Dressed so formally. It seems my dear Eru has resolved herself to becoming completely mine."
His voice was not loud.
But like a hammer, it shattered the last sliver of fantasy in Eru Chitanda's heart.
Chitanda did not speak.
She silently walked to the center of the room and knelt down calmly.
She didn't cry. She didn't beg.
Chitanda extended her hands and placed them on the sash at her waist.
Then, she began, layer by layer, to undo it.
Her movements were slow and gentle. Filled with a kind of solemn and tragic ritual.
Like the most devout saintess. Before the deity, peeling off her holy garments with her own hands, offering up her most precious sacrifice. The only sacrifice she had left.
Seiji Fujiwara just watched her quietly. He did not step forward, nor did he urge her on.
He savored the process.
He savored the entire spectacle of this snow-pure girl, in order to obtain the "answer" he would dispense, defiling herself with her own hands, calmly.
When the elaborate Shiromuku finally slid down from her delicate shoulders, revealing her flawless maiden's body, Seiji Fujiwara knew he had won.
Under the moonlight, Chitanda's graceful body seemed to emit a faint, glimmering radiance.
...
...
The moonlight was like water.
Seiji Fujiwara slowly walked toward the young woman.
He didn't touch her right away.
Like a discerning artist, he circled around her once.
His gaze traveled from Chitanda's smooth black hair down her elegant swan-like neck. Her neck was held slightly straight from tension.
In the end, Seiji Fujiwara's gaze fell on her hands. They rested in front of her knees, soft as if boneless, with the knuckles slightly white from the force of her grip.
"Eru." He spoke softly.
His voice carried a playful tenderness, like a lover's whisper.
"Did you know? In ancient times, the Shiromuku symbolized both pure rebirth and absolute submission to one's husband's family. Without reservation. By wearing it, are you trying to express your resolve to me?"
Eru Chitanda's body shuddered violently at his words, beyond her control. But she still kept her head down and did not speak. She only bit down on her lip more tightly.
"Not speaking? Very good. I like girls who express their loyalty through action." A satisfied smile appeared on Seiji Fujiwara's face.
He did not rush to the next step. He turned and carried over a large dressing mirror from the corner of the room. The mirror was set in an ornately carved frame. He stood it firmly in front of Chitanda.
The mirror clearly reflected what she looked like at this moment. That figure was pure, beautiful, yet full of humiliation and despair.
"This is..." Chitanda looked at herself in the mirror, finally unable to hold back, and asked in a trembling voice.
"This is our most important 'research tool' for tonight." Seiji Fujiwara walked behind her and crouched down. He whispered in her ear. That whisper, like the devil's, was full of seduction.
"Last time's 'research,' because you were blindfolded, your report was, in the end, missing the most crucial 'visual data.' It wasn't complete enough, nor 'objective' enough. This time, I want you to watch it with your own eyes."
He reached out and gently caressed her pale, beautiful cheek in the mirror.
"You know what to do, don't you?"
Chitanda's face instantly turned ashen, white as paper.
She wanted to flee from this demonic mirror at once. The mirror that reflected all her humiliation.
But she also knew, she could not escape.
"Of course," Seiji Fujiwara said, as if seeing through her thoughts. He gave a soft chuckle and threw out his "bait" once more. The bait she could never resist.
From an antique wooden box beside him, he took out an old book. The book was thread-bound, its pages already yellowed with age. He gently placed it in front of her.
The old book gave off a faint scent of ink and the smell of accumulated years. Its cover bore no text, only a circle of mysterious, ancient cloud patterns.
Eru Chitanda took only one glance, and her heart began pounding wildly, beyond her control. That heart had already been filled with despair.
With her vast knowledge, she immediately recognized that this... this was absolutely a "sole surviving copy." A true sole copy, never recorded in any historical record, of immeasurable value.
Her cursed "thirst for knowledge," already branded into the depths of her soul, in this moment, once again overcame her fear and shame.
"Now, our 'research' for tonight officially begins."
Seiji Fujiwara's voice was like a final verdict.
He pushed into her slowly, from behind.
This time, what he chose was the most sacred, most pure forbidden ground of Chitanda the maiden. The place no one had ever touched. The place she had never once thought of as a place at all.
She felt the blunt head of his cock set against her asshole and understood, half a second early, exactly what he meant to do with her. There was no time to refuse it. There was no time even to clench. He simply pushed, slow and total, and the tight ring of her gave because a body is built to give and not because she allowed it.
"Ah..."
The pain was white and enormous. It was the specific splitting wrongness of being opened somewhere that was never meant to open, and threaded all the way through it, worse than it, the humiliation of being spread on a man's cock like a thing being filed and shelved. Her body folded forward on its own, spine bowing, a short raw cry pulled out of her before she could close her teeth on it. In the mirror her face came apart all at once. Mouth open. Brows wrenched. Nothing of the composed Chitanda heiress left anywhere in it.
One tear ran down and dropped off her jaw. She did not feel herself crying. She only saw it, in the glass, on the face that was supposed to be hers.
He gave her no time to adjust. He seated himself fully, until she could feel his hips pressed flush to her ass and the whole unbearable length of him lodged where nothing belonged, and then he simply held there, in no hurry, the way a man holds a place he has already decided to keep.
He reached past her shoulder. She heard the small dry whisper of an old cover lifting, and the book opened to its first page in front of her lowered eyes.
"Eru, lift your head and look at yourself in the mirror. Then, describe these pages of the book to me. From the material and texture, to the diffusion of the ink, I need the most detailed, most professional verbal report."
Her whole body shook. The order made no sense and perfect sense at once, and that was the cruelty in it: he was not asking her to endure this. He was asking her to stay a scholar while he did it. To keep the one thing she was proud of switched on and aimed at the page while he used everything else.
She raised her head.
She saw herself in the mirror. The crimson face. The shame sitting openly on it. The hollow violet eyes swimming with tears. And below the reflection, near enough that the scent of aged paper still reached her, lay the book, serene, four centuries of careful keeping in it, everything she had ever loved about the world set six inches from where she was being split open.
Her mind tore down the middle along exactly that line.
But she opened her mouth. Of course she opened her mouth. He had known she would.
She forced her eyes onto the page and pinned her whole attention there, and her voice came out wrecked and wet, shaking around the sob she could not put down.
"The... the pages... the material is... high-grade kozo paper... the fibers... fine and long..."
He drew back and drove in. The end of the sentence broke in her throat and came out as a thin high sound that was not a word, and she heard it in the room and saw it in the mirror, and she hauled the scholar back up out of the wreck by sheer will.
"...excellent toughness..."
"Very good. Continue." His voice was warm at her ear, and his movements grew deeper, more forceful, settling into a slow heavy rhythm that pushed each breath up out of her on his timing and not hers.
She bit down on her lower lip until she tasted iron. She made her voice flat. She made it the voice she used in the reading rooms, the voice that had never once shaken in front of a manuscript, and she hated him most of all for proving it could.
"The surface... the surface has been calendered, smooth as a mirror... to the touch..." he drove deep and held, grinding the word out of its shape, "...warm to the touch... the age of the paper, by preliminary judgment, should be... should be over four hundred years..."
"Mm, smooth as a mirror... just like your skin right now, isn't it?" Seiji Fujiwara whispered in her ear.
His hand slid up her bare back, slow, like a hand laid on something already owned, and her skin rose under it in a long shiver she could not stop and had to watch herself fail to stop, there, in the glass. That was the worst the mirror did to her: not the cock in her ass but the shiver, her own body answering him in front of her own eyes, a slick shameful heat starting low in her cunt where nothing was being touched at all, gathering on its own, for him, against every single thing she was.
Her body locked rigid against the knowledge of it. Then she made herself go on, because the page was the only ground left to stand on.
"The ink... the ink is... top-grade pine soot ink... the color... black as night... soaked into the paper..." his hips snapped flush and the air left her in a broken stutter, "...soaked deep... at the edges, there is a faint, natural diffusion... displaying... displaying a unique 'ink halo' effect..."
"The ink soaks deep into the paper... Eru, can't you feel that something is also... 'soaking deep' into your body? Aren't you curious about everything? You can... watch with your own eyes how it 'soaks deep' in."
The double meaning landed exactly where he had aimed it. Her vision smeared over. She looked at the ruined girl in the mirror, the one being worked open from behind in long deep strokes, hair stuck to a wet red face, and her eyes went down on their own to where the two of them joined, and she saw it the way he had ordered her to see everything, with attention, like a scholar. She watched the place he went into her. She would never be able to unwatch it.
Her brain stopped producing anything she could use. The heat low in her had become unbearable in a different direction from the pain, two unbearable things now, climbing each other.
"The corner... the corner has... slight curling and... and wear..." her voice was barely assembled out of pieces, every clause bought with a second of will, "...the reader... seems to have... cherished it greatly..."
She poured everything she had left into that one small fact about a worn corner, the way a drowning person holds a single breath. One second of being a mind and not a body.
He took even that. He bent down over her, his rhythm never breaking, slow and deep and certain, and put his mouth to her ear, and his low voice was thick with a winner's pleasure, the last line of a verdict already written.
"Very good... Eru, your 'inquiry' is... very deep..."
"And so is your body..."
These words struck her brain like a bolt of black lightning.
In that instant all of it went down at once. The analysis she had used to numb herself. The professionalism she had worn like armor. The curiosity she had hidden deepest of all, the part of her that was most herself. All of it folded inward, soundless, complete.
Her mind went blank.
She stared, empty, at the naked girl in the mirror, the one being wholly possessed from behind, taken in her last untaken place while she recited fibers and ink with a man's cock buried in her ass. That girl's face wore a drifting, drugged expression, pain and a horrible swimming pleasure no longer separable on it, mouth slack, eyes gone.
She knew that was her.
She also could not find, anywhere left inside herself, the person she had been an hour before.
In the moment her spirit was thoroughly torn apart, her soul as if drawn out of her body, the cold notification of the system rang in Seiji Fujiwara's mind. That sound was like a heavenly melody.
[Congratulations, Host, on conquering Eru Chitanda. Received Reward: Soil Ecosystem Reconstruction and Self-Circulating Microbiome Matrix.]
Seiji Fujiwara gave a satisfied chuckle.
He snapped the old book shut with a crisp sound. That sharp sound was especially jarring in the deathly silent room.
He looked at the beautiful porcelain doll. She still knelt before the mirror, her eyes vacant, as if she had become a soulless shell. He spoke calmly, in a tone purely devoid of any emotion. That tone was as if he were appraising a tool.
"Not bad. Your 'curiosity' is quite valuable."
"Tomorrow, I'll let the Chitanda Family receive my 'help.'"
...
...
The next morning. In front of the main fields of the Chitanda Family, three groups of people had already gathered. They formed a strange tableau, full of despair, doubt, and schadenfreude.
The first group was the members of the Chitanda Family, led by Chitanda's father.
They had not slept all night. They looked at their own land.
That land, which they had relied on for survival, passed down for centuries.
Within the span of a few days, it had transformed from full of vitality to a complete wasteland.
Hardened and cracked, gray-white in color.
On every face was etched a despair and numbness that ran to the bone.
Chitanda's father, this stubborn old man, seemed to have aged twenty years overnight.
He sat slumped on the ridge between fields, staring blankly at the sky, muttering to himself: "Retribution... this is all retribution..."
The second group was the local officials, led by Sasaki of the Ministry of Agriculture.
After receiving the Chitanda Family's call for help, they had rushed over through the night.
When they saw this "land of death" before them, every one of them sucked in a sharp breath.
It was a hundred times more wretched than during the pest infestation!
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