The maelstrom of white, black, and grey flames enveloping Maven began to calm after both Divine Blessings given to her reached a balance. Now, neither gift was stronger than the other, even blending together in places. The Blessings had originally been a small fragment of the divinity of the goddesses, a reservoir of power Maven would be able to draw from, and something that would return to the goddesses when her time was up.

 

 

Divinity is ordinarily quite sturdy and resistant to change. Somehow, Maven had taken the fragments of Henna and Kannon’s power bestowed to her and smashed the two together. Pressing them into each other until they had combined and blended together within her soul, with no border to separate them.

 

 

Henna and Kannon both looked a bit pale. They had both lost ownership of the power they had lent to Maven. The divinity given to Maven was lost to them forever, weakening the already weak goddesses even further.

Opening her eyes as the flames withdrew back in her body, Maven looked to the two goddesses, “Ummm… why do you guys look so pale? Aren’t you supposed to be goddesses? You’re making me awfully nervous by looking so pale and anxious.”

 

 

Henna hid her mouth behind her hand while Kannon forced a grin onto her face while saying, “W-We were just a bit surprised by how energetic the reaction there was. Y-Yep… definitely just a little surprised. We absolutely weren’t confused, okay?”

Putting on a resigned smile at how quickly her sister gave the secret away, Henna sighed and jumped in to cut off her idiot sibling, “Gods aren’t all-powerful, Maven, and we certainly aren’t all knowing. I was honestly gobsmacked by the way you just took two completely opposed forms of divinity, two pieces of us, and completely integrated them into your soul - so completely that we’ll never get that power back. Congratulations! You can consider yourself mini demigoddess.”

 

 

At those words, Maven snapped her head in Kannon’s direction as if begging the mature, white-haired beauty to say it wasn’t true. Unfortunately, Kannon could only shake her head in denial - shooting down Maven’s desperate hope.

 

 

Despair clouding her expression, Maven powerlessly held her head in her hands as she slipped down onto her knees, muttering hollowly, “… a demigod?! No, no, no, no… I just wanted to be a normal girl. I wanted to live a normal life in a normal world. An apocalypse, gods, goddesses, magic, becoming a demi-god… Why me? This is all so far from what I wanted…”

 

 

Kannon, face twitching at ghastly aura radiating from Maven, approached quietly and held out her hand in an attempt to snap her out of it. Waving her hand in front of Maven’s face but receiving no reaction, Kannon knelt beside Maven and shook her gently to no avail.

 

 

Taking a deep breath and gathering her courage, Kannon hugged Maven as hard as she could. However, even pulling Maven’s body into a warm embrace wasn’t enough to bring Maven back from the heartbreak of losing her dearest wish.

 

Knowing drastic measures were the only solution, Kannon abandoned all common sense and quickly brought her face and lips in close to Maven’s own. Losing courage at the last possible moment, she ever so lightly pecked a kiss at the very corner of Maven’s lips - barely even grazing them. It was quite shameful for a goddess who was supposed to have lived for thousands of years.

 

 

Henna was on the floor, roaring in laughter and banging the floor as she rolled back and forth in amusement. Does it even count as a kiss if you have to question whether your lips touched?

 

 

Regardless of whether or not it counted as a kiss, it was at least enough to shake Maven loose from her darkly spiraling thoughts.

 

 

“K-Kannon! Wh-wha-what are you doing now?? K-K-Kissing my ch-cheek wasn’t enough for you? Now you want to steal my first kiss too!” Maven managed to stutter out while blushing.

 

 

Kannon, however, was just relieved to see Maven back to normal - giving Maven the purest and most beautiful smile she had ever seen.