Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious

Chapter 106: Chapter 27

Yukina stood at the edge of the silent, shimmering lake, the only sound being the rhythmic, heavy rush of the waterfall crashing into the basin nearby.

The air in this part of the forest was damp and cool, smelling of wet earth and moss, but the atmosphere felt thick with the weight of her history.

She exhaled a long, shaky breath that misted in the air, her eyes filled with a turbulent mix of nostalgia, shame, and a burgeoning, iron-clad resolve as she gazed into the water.

She began to methodically peel away her layers of clothing, dropping them onto a mossy root. Stripped down to a black sports bra and cycling shorts, she revealed the canvas of her body—a body that had been both her curse and her liberation.

She stepped into the frigid water, the cold biting at her ankles, and then her knees, as she waded further in.

This was the anchor. This was the exact spot where her old self had died and something far more jagged and resilient had been born.

She closed her eyes as she remembered the past.

She had always matured faster than the other girls. By the second year of middle school, she already possessed the curves of a woman twice her age.

While other girls were worrying about exams, Yukina was worrying about the eyes of men—classmates who whispered, teachers who lingered a second too long, and middle-aged strangers who leered at her in the street with predatory hunger.

She had hated it. She had felt like a piece of meat on display, and so she had retreated away from them.

She spent years swaddled in oversized hoodies and thick, shapeless coats, trying to make herself invisible, a ghost in the background of her own life.

She found safety in the shadows of Suzune and Emi. They were her shield, the only ones who didn’t look at her like an object.

But the stability of their trio shattered when Suzune’s father passed away, leaving his legacy to a mistress and plunging Suzune into a catatonic depression.

Yukina and Emi had been helpless, watching their friend waste away.

They thought Suzune would remain the depressed and gloomy girl that she had become…until Seijirou came into her life.

Suzune had returned one day like a person reborn, glowing with a terrifying, infectious cheerfulness.

She introduced them to the man who had saved her: Kageyama Seijirou.

For Yukina and Emi, his reputation as a violent, unpredictable delinquent was legendary, and yet, he had been charming.

He was a master of words, a hot-blooded young man who looked at the two introverted girls not with the vulgar leering of a stranger, but with a calculated, magnetic intensity.

Yukina was naive then; she had mistaken his predatory interest for genuine validation.

Within a few minutes of talking with him, she was already harboring a deep, secret crush on him, desperate for the attention of the first man who didn’t make her feel like she had to hide.

Then, by the next day, Suzune had invited them for the celebration of Aiko’s Company’s turning point.

It was supposed to be something grand and joyous, but it became a nightmare.

As Yukina walked alone toward Suzune’s home, the lurking fear she had felt her whole life finally took shape.

A stalker had emerged from the shadows.

Panic seized her, and she ran, her instincts driving her deep into this very forest, but he had caught her here, by the lake.

He had smashed her phone, silencing her only link to the world, and pinned her down in the dirt, his breath hot and foul against her skin.

But in a moment of pure, animalistic terror, Yukina’s hand had closed around a heavy, jagged rock.

She hadn’t thought about consequences, she had simply struck. She hit him until he stopped moving, until the weight on top of her became cold and still.

She remembered staring at his lifeless eyes in the moonlight, the blood staining the forest floor, and realizing that she had become a killer.

It was a few minutes later that the police, Suzune, Emi, Aiko, and Seijirou arrived, but for her, the world already became a blur.

It was ruled self-defense, but the trauma was an open, festering wound. And Seijirou, ever the opportunist, never left her side.

He stayed with her through the shivering night, his voice a honeyed poison that convinced her she was special, that she did nothing wrong, and that he was the only one who could truly appreciate the “real” her.

In her state of total vulnerability, she had given him everything.

Three days after they met, she returned here with him, and gave him her virginity right here to symbolised her ’rebirth’.

And under his “guidance,” she transformed.

He talked her into the tattoos—the word “Slave” etched into her cleavage as a mark of his ownership—and the piercings that claimed her body as his playground.

He taught her to stop hiding, to wear her uniform in a way that flaunted her curves as a middle finger to the world that had tried to shame her.

Her sister, her legal guardian, had been horrified, but Yukina didn’t care.

Seijirou had given her a sense of power, even if that power was anchored in her devotion to him.

Now, standing waist-deep in the lake, Yukina felt the familiar sting of that old trauma rising up.

The spirits Retsu spoke of would be drawn to this—the place where she lost her innocence and found her shackles.

She reached down and touched the tattoo on her chest, her fingers tracing the ink.

She didn’t regret it. She didn’t want to be the hidden, frightened girl anymore. She wanted to be a weapon for the man who had reclaimed her from the dirt.

She closed her eyes, letting the memory of the blood on the rock and the heat of Seijirou’s voice consume her, waiting for the spirits to notice the weight of her scar.

Yukina took a sharp, jagged breath, the freezing lake water now reaching her chest.

She remembered Retsu’s clinical warning: Spirits do not bargain with the faint of heart.

So she raised her hand, looking at her thumb, and bit down hard. The metallic tang of blood filled her mouth as a dark crimson droplet fell, hitting the mirror-like surface of the lake.

The ripples expanded, breaking the reflection of the moon.

“I, Watanabe Yukina, stand at the place of my death and rebirth,” she whispered, her voice gaining a resonant, haunting quality. “I offer the weight of my past and the vessel of my soul. I call upon the dwellers of the thin places. Show yourselves!”

The world abruptly shifted, the roar of the waterfall vanished into a vacuum, the vibrant greens of the forest bled into shades of charcoal and ash, the water around her felt like viscous ink, and the air grew heavy with a tingling, static pressure.

Thousands of unseen eyes seemed to open in the shadows of the trees, watching her with a hunger that would have withered a lesser person.

Yukina stood her ground, her chin tilted up defiantly. “I am Watanabe Yukina! I seek the power to help and protect the man I love! I will pay whatever price is demanded!”

The silence that followed was deafening, until a chorus of distorted, overlapping voices echoed directly inside her skull.

“If this power demands the forfeit of your life this very instant… would you take it?”

“No,” Yukina answered without a second of hesitation. “My life belongs to Seijirou. Every breath I take is for him. I won’t give it to you and leave him alone.”

The shadows pulsed. “To save him… would you give up that same life?”

“I would give up a thousand lifetimes,” she replied, her eyes burning with a fierce, manic devotion.

“And for this power… are you willing to surrender your soul to the void when your time ends?”

“As long as my life on this earth is spent by his side,” Yukina declared, “you can have the rest. Take my eternity. Just give me the strength to keep him safe for the next eighty years.”

“Is it worth it? An eternity of nothingness for a mere century of mortal affection?”

“It’s worth more than you can imagine.”

“…Very well, I acknowledged your convictions.”

The darkness shattered. A violent, warm gust of wind erupted from the center of the lake, forcing Yukina to squeeze her eyes shut and shield her face.

When the pressure subsided, she wasn’t in the dark forest anymore. She stood in a realm of impossible beauty—vast, rolling meadows under a sky of permanent twilight, flanked by mountain peaks that pierced the heavens.

Hovering a few feet above the ground was a man. He didn’t look like a monster or a dragon as she had hoped, but he was lean and graceful, with sun-darkened skin, flowing blonde hair, and eyes the color of a summer forest.

He wore a simple, pristine white robe that caught an invisible wind.

Yukina stared at him, her expression falling into a flat, unimpressed pout. “A guy? Seriously? I was expecting a dragon… or at least a giant that can crush mountains.”

The man’s serene expression faltered, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “Do not be so quick to judge by form, young lady. I have laid low beings that make dragons look like common lizards.”

Yukina perked up slightly, her eyes narrowing. “Wait… are you a hero? Are you Heracles? You look a bit too… skinny to be him.”

The man felt his cheek twitch. “No. I am not the son of Zeus.”

“Achilles?” Yukina tried again, her voice brimming with hope. “The one with the heel thing?”

“No,” the man sighed, his patience being tested by her blatant disappointment.

“Herios? King of Heroes? The King Where All Began?”

The man let out a long, weary breath. “No. I could not hope to be as great as a man as Lord Herios, but that’s besides the point. Honestly, can I get through my introduction? My name is Jacob. Surely, even in this corner of the world, that name carries weight.”

Yukina blinked, tilting her head. “Nope. Never heard of you. Your name sounds lame, are you some kind of European cultist?”

The man looked like he wanted to facepalm. “Do you not read the Bible? The scriptures?”

“I’m a Buddhist,” Yukina said matter-of-factly. “Well, technically I’m a Seijirou-ist, but my family is Buddhist.”

“Oh. I see.” Jacob nodded, taking a moment to regain his composure. He hovered closer, a sudden, sharp intensity radiating from his green eyes. “Then let me show you, rather than tell you. You want power to protect your beloved? You want to stand against those who use ’divine’ gifts against you?”

He grinned, and for a moment, his aura flared with a terrifying, ancient heat. “I am but a mortal man who challenged the divine and walked away with its blessing.”

“I was not born with supreme talent or a silver spoon.”

“What I had was pure human grit and a refusal to let go.”

He raised a single palm toward the massive, jagged mountain range in the distance.

“Engrave this name into the marrow of your bones, Watanabe Yukina! Witness the strength of the one who stole the heavens’ favor!”

“The name of this power is… ”

“Izrael: He Who Wrestled With God!”

He didn’t scream, he didn’t chant, he simply pressed his palm forward into the empty air.

An invisible shockwave tore through the realm.

There was no fire nor an explosion, just the raw, terrifying application of absolute physical force.

Under Yukina’s stunned gaze, the entire mountain range simply ceased to exist.

The peaks were flattened into dust in an instant, turned into a level plain of rubble by a single movement.

Jacob turned back to her, his blonde hair fluttering, a challenging smirk on his face. “Are you satisfied with this ’skinny guy’ now, young lady?”

Yukina stared at the empty horizon where mountains had stood seconds ago, then a slow, wide, and slightly crazed grin spread across her face.

She began to laugh—a loud, melodic sound that rang out across the new plains.

“Hahaha! Flattening mountains with a palm strike?” Yukina giggled, her eyes shimmering with delight. “Yeah. That’ll do. That’ll definitely do.”