With Ada naked, we lead her toward the vacbed. Vesta discards her clothes as she goes, and...oh. Oh my.

Did she always have such a killer body underneath her clothes? That bra is way too small for her! And her butt is perfect! (Then again, maybe she just rewrote reality to suit her...) Ah, if I'd caught a glimpse of that the first time around I'd have masturbated to the sight for sure! I mean, it's not like something like bathing together with your crush happens except in manga -

wait, no, the Cassandra Hall has communal baths. I know it's a cultural thing - my memories of Japan are fairly hazy compared to Kolya's, but she would talk about that kind of thing a lot with the rather rigidly upstanding Roza - but I can't help but think that this is a matter of Ada's perversion again.

Honestly, the lengths she goes to...wouldn't it just be easier to go to a brothel and ask the girl to wear a school uniform? I'll never understand adults.

"You're going to need to coat her in oil, Lera," says Vesta. "Though, you'd prefer a full body latex suit, wouldn't you?"

I giggled a little, but I fished around in some of the cupboards nearby for the necessary oil. Right, the latex would probably stick to her otherwise, huh? "We're going to need to polish the bed itself, aren't we?"

Right now, it looked like a frame of stretched rubber, dyed black, completely flat. Because it lacked polish, it was completely dull, not pretty at all...

"It's a dangerous thing, you know," Vesta says, as if she'd known all along what it was - and yet, I know, I know, this is the first time you've ever seen one. "You could consider it one of the ultimate forms of bondage. My Sulastri," Vesta's voice resonating with the feelings for her crush, "is quite fond of it, but the preparation involved is intensive enough that it can only be used on special occasions."

"Latex seems quite complicated," I said as I grabbed the oil and a brush to paint it on Ada's body. I knew a little about it - even if I've been depressed for twenty years, I was still a curious girl with a hell of a libido! - and I know some one of Sunset's major breakthroughs that helped it rise to prominence over the past few decades in my time was in biotechnology. Specifically, sometime in the 2030s (we hadn't quite stopped using the Common Era yet), they managed to revolutionize the rubber industry through transgenic archaea!

Artificial rubber is environmentally destructive and natural rubber latex is labour-intensive to harvest and, being mostly produced in the Global South, was associated with high labour abuse and high resulting cost. Thus, Sunset being able to create microorganisms that processed appropriate feedstock into latex rubber was a complete game changer for the entire world! That's around when they started getting a reputation, getting called 'zaibatsu' by all those Lost Girls in the Electric City...

Hee hee hee. Just one of many advances of those naughty Special Divisions! In the future, they'll synthesize even better materials like resilin that can be used in similar ways, but I'll just put up with the difficulties for now~

Oh, and some self-described 'scientific visionary' online - uh, Rita Repulsa or something? I forget - described some impressive advancements in the field a few months before your leap through time, which seemed a little farfetched at the time. But maybe there's something to it? I might have to go through my smartphone later.

...and there was something else she said, too...

Time is an ouroboros.

Maybe, like this, I can understand the truth of those words...

That goddess, 'Cibele', awakened something inside me. By the sound of it, I wasn't alone, but (barring alternative theories which are too dull to get into) clearly no one else had leapt through time like I did, right? And for Vesta to awaken to something so extraordinary through my alteration of her fate, that must mean something too.

Maybe the same people, the same ideas, the same concepts, continually echo and recur. Maybe there's a time when Vesta awakened to this power, the power of a literal goddess, the Flame of Desire. Maybe there's another, where she didn't, but took on the Cassandra Hall by her own will alone - in a way, even more impressive. And maybe there are other Vestas, other Cibeles, other Kolyas and Leras out there, endlessly pursuing that curse known as 'want'.

...or maybe I'm just making things up. Who knows, really~

---

Anyway, to make a long story short, we brushed Ada from head to toe in oil, and the frame was lowered onto the floor for Ada to climb into. Posing within it like a Vitruvian Man, Vesta carefully ensured her copious hair wouldn't get in the way, before sealing it and turning it on, letting the frame slowly tighten along her body, her impressive curves, outlining them for the delight of our eyes. The impression of this woman's body within it, trapped within our design, as Vesta raised it back to the vertical position and pressed it into the impression within the wall...

come to think of it, wasn't there a valve for breathing? Oh, I suppose we don't need to worry about that~

Nor do we need to worry, about how Vesta's hands stroke over the surface, and it goes from dull to polished, the shine showing every curve. Aah, Kolya is so fond of this. I look forward, to being able to show her...

(Yes, we're recording this. Or rather, these Machine Kaiserin glasses are smartglasses, and I've had a hidden camera on me the whole time too! I don't expect we'll need the blackmail, but it won't hurt, right?)

"I think we should show her, what it's like," Vesta whispers lovingly, as she presses her naked body against the impression of Ada's form. "I think we should make her see what pleasures and desires she sparked within these girls."

Yes...that's the thing, isn't it? It wasn't an act of coercion in the traditional sense. Instead, Ada relied upon the desires of the girls within the Cassandra Hall - and perhaps, whatever 'magic' she had gathered - to trap them within the basement.

As if continuing my thought, Vesta spoke, even as she lovingly kissed Ada's impression dyed black. "As humans grow, we gain something called 'desire'. Burning within us, like a flame, demanding answer. And yet, our society, despite the clumsy moves of the Reiwa era to allow for it, continues to deny and repress it. In the case of us, we are demanded to pretend we have no 'desire' before we come of age, even as they burn within us..."

Yes...that was the nature of my desire. The desire of the young, who burn brightly and are tempted by the images of beauty we witness in our youth. And so too, is it the nature of Vesta's desire, and Kolya's. She has taught me so much, even now...

Vesta laughs happily, kissing Ada's lips. "Not that it absolves you, Ada Farrell. Such a thing is not licence for you to exploit us. With power, comes responsibility; you have abandoned that responsibility in favor of exploitation. Desire is not for you to use...

"Especially not now. I am Vesta, the Flame of Desire. On behalf of those you have wronged and denied, I pass..." She licks her lips. "Divine judgement."

'Marduk', as Vesta called it, was a society that could not answer what it had created within us. Sometimes, it was the noblest of efforts, to keep the vulnerable from being exploited and treated like property, to prevent the era of child brides and marital rape, of men using girls' bodies for their own selfish whims.

But other times? It was to deny fulfillment, the 'true will', to exploit humanity for power in both the figurative and - maybe, just perhaps - the literal sense.

Vesta denied this. As did I. As would Kolya.

We want neither clean hands nor beautiful souls.

"Dearest Lera," Vesta says, turning to me and grinning in glee as she eagerly gropes one of Ada's breasts. "We're going to make her understand the desire of the young. My age, or yours?"

"You know, I always wanted a little sister," I said, giggling. I guess technically Kolya and Vesta count as little sisters now, but still! "We need to teach Ada the proper order of things. If she wants to use her age as pretense to mold us into her shape..."

"Then turnabout is fair play," Vesta whispers, as she latches onto one of Ada's breasts with her lips through the vacbed. One moment with a footstool later, and I'm doing exactly the same; both breasts being suckled and pleasured as the two of us stroke over Ada's restrained body.

As we stroke, we shape, molding her like clay within, into a more appropriate shape. She's already so childish - the children she's hurt are more 'adult' than she ever could be, after all. Why not let her form reflect her body?

As if called to worship the Flame of Desire, girls start filtering in from above - the girls who know about the basement, who were lured in by Ada and the curse of want. Vesta's power is vested in this place, in the Flame itself, in the desire built up over the past decade of Ada's machinations. Lingering thoughts, unspoken confessions, memories that can never be forgotten; Vesta claims them as her own.

"So glad you could join us," says Vesta, licking that nipple and touching a breast already far smaller than before. "We've got a new girl to induct into the Vestal Cult, today." Effortlessly, she claims her mantle, and others accept it, their memories altering to suit our needs. They know, but they don't care, for the Goddess controls even their thoughts...

Even I could be so easily swayed if her power weren't tethered to mine; the warmth of the Flame is truly as captivating as I'd hoped. As it is, Vesta took her leave of Ada, letting her rest in my hands as she greeted the girls of the Cassandra Hall, and took charge of something far greater than Ada ever had.

To try and shackle divinity to the Sunset Corporation...what a fool she was.

I giggle as the form within the vacbed is now as tall as I am, seemingly completely ready to be removed. Girls start to kiss parts of Vesta's naked body (though never between her legs), as if the Vestals had returned to show their Goddess fealty...

"Let me whisper in your ear," I say. "Let me shape your mind as we've shaped your body."

There was no response, and no movement. But I knew she could hear, and I knew she was helpless to resist.

It's as the Goddess wills, after all~

Two girls closely approach Vesta. One deeply tanned, and the other more pale than Kolya...ah, no, I recognize these two! Anyone would, here at Verwest; they're famous, and pretty inseparable.

Ida Ayu Ni Luh Sulastri and Percy Lowell...ah, the former is Vesta's crush, and the latter sure looked like she had a crush on Vesta. Without needing to be commanded, the two of them start braiding Vesta's hair and piercing her ears...

To see them here in the basement shows just how long, and how far, Ada's little operation went. And to see them so easily fall into place around Vesta speaks to her power, and their connection...

"You belong to us," I whispered to Ada. "You belong to the Goddess."

Behind me, a chant, a prayer to the Goddess herself began.

"You belong to the Goddess of the Hearth."

Anima mentis, clavis aetheri vitae.

"You belong to the Flame of Desire."

Anima perditarum, e vaso discessa.

"More to the point, you belong to me!"

Vis detur, ut orbis restituatur.

"A cute little sister, who just wants to make it up to me..."

Ut orbis restituatur.

"Relax. Sink deeper."

Vesta sum, flamma lubidinis.

"Sink into the latex."

Ada non magis alteram quam me cupiet.

"Sink into the Flame, and be reborn before our glorious Goddess."

Ea ad pedes genuflectat et patrare oret.

"You want to be a good girl, don't you?"

Animae discessae e vasis, imagines disparitatis a flamma illustratae, in me alte perfodiant, recedentes ad tenebras extra finitiones flammae.

"You want to make it up to us. You want to learn to be good."

Novae dominae pareant, habitantes in cineribus, fundentes in novis formis.

"You want to worship at the altar of the Goddess."

Vesta sum, dea foci. Flamma lubidinis haec mihi gubernare est.

"You want to witness the true power you sought, before your very eyes."

Ada mea est. Percival mea est. Aula Cassandra mea est.

"You will kneel before us and beg to come."

Haec cella mea erit.

"You will never betray the Goddess ever again."

Haec schola mea erit.

"You will work, to become a Vestal, to become worthy of the Goddess' love."

Haec urbs mea erit.

"Everything is moving as the Goddess wills."

Omnes animae meae parent.

---

Our will impressed itself through the bondage that Vesta and I created.

Vesta has no interest in 'copulation', as she calls it...but other girls doing it, or making other girls submit to her through such methods? Both are something she loves. I still don't entirely get it, admittedly, but it's obvious - Vesta is a sadist. She wants the control. She wants the worship.

And if you ask me, she deserves it, too.

Well, it's natural, right? Someone who wants control over their own lives, to be seen as desirable and beautiful, would naturally want this kind of position. Not to mention, her passion, her protectiveness toward girls...being a goddess really does suit her, on far more than a sexual level.

Of course, Vesta would probably say there are things better than sex.

Paraphilia.

I had suspected such with hypnosis, ever since I saw those books, ever since I saw her and Percy at that talent show. She once told me about this cartoon, with a psychic of vast power, her personality split into a stern woman and a child who played with others like dolls...and in hindsight, it's not hard to see the blush on her cheeks in my memory.

Hypnosis. Mind control. Brainwashing. It's clear to me how intimate she finds it...

but bondage was unexpected.

She doesn't see it as sexual, in the way of 'copulation'...she finds beauty in bodies restrained. Positioned. In senses stolen away. She finds power from it - and perhaps even comfort.

And certainly, the girls in here must now feel the same...

Everything is moving as the Goddess wills.

When Ada emerged from the vacbed - not pulled out of it like an ordinary person, but pulled away from it as if emerging from a cocoon - she coughed deeply as she stumbled onto her knees, and looked up to see the visage of an awakened Vesta before her.

Her hair was in a long braid now, and her stance had completely changed - no longer did she slouch, instead standing high and smug above others. Her eyes seemed to somehow become host to the Flame itself...everything was adjusted just so to make her all the more beautiful and captivating, and a faint touch of makeup and elaborate ear piercings gave her striking contrasts.

You could easily recognize her as the same person, but somehow, everything had changed. Become better. Reborn into a power she was once denied...

I wondered: was this a reflection of her magic, of the goddess Vesta became with her power awakened? Or was it simply a glimpse into a possible future, one she could claim with only the strength of her own humanity, gnawing deep inside her heart as she is captivated by her own flame?

...well, it doesn't matter. Vesta is her most beautiful self now, that's the important thing.

As for Ada?

Her newly tiny body was just as tall as I, just a few months younger than me - just to rub in the whole 'little sister' thing. She was turned on in our mere presence, so much more sensitive after her trip into the vacbed. Delicious...

Ada looked up, and I could swear I saw hearts in her eyes as she stared up at me, and I walked next to Vesta, grinning gleefully.

"I...m-my...G-g-goddess, forgive me, I..." Ada's quivering voice lacked any confidence or power - which made perfect sense. Someone who grew up and studied in luxury in Old America's Ivy League, who had escaped any consequence of the Collapse, who believed she was truly strong when she'd never suffered in her whole life...

strip away all of that, and you're left with a scared little girl. One who needs guidance.

"I'm sorry!" Ada bent forward, into a deep dogeza, forehead touching the floor. Hearing those words from a newly high-pitched voice is so sweet! "I have...I have profaned the Goddess!" Despite this, her memories are still intact, so she can properly be forgiven and reborn. "I have defiled this place, with my selfishness! I...I will do anything, anything it takes to get your forgiveness..."

"Look up, Ada Farrell."

Vesta draws forth a riding crop, and passes me something. Ada stares up at her in awe, as Vesta raises her chin with the crop, to see the flame burning within her eyes.

"You understand this, don't you? With fire, came disparity. The disparity between you and I, in this case. When humans mastered fire, came hierarchy; but fire will always master them. Human beings can't live without order, or without light and heat..."

"I don't under-wah!" I wrapped the blindfold around Ada's eyes, and Vesta licked her lips, Ada trembling in fear from a simple act she had done so many times...but apparently never tried herself.

"What I mean is, the divine power cannot be controlled. You can snuff it out, perhaps - but it is inevitable it will come back to haunt you. Isn't that right, Lera?"

"That's right~!" I stroke Ada's hair, and she breathes out, finding comfort in the act. "But we forgive you. You just need to make it up to us...with your body!"

"M-my body? Are you going to -"

"Me? No, not at all!" Vesta says, laughing. "But there are girls I'm sure would love to have their way with you..."

"I'll handle my little sister," I said, poking cute little Ada on the nose. Boop~ Honestly, Vesta's going to have her, what, the rest of the semester, minimum? I may as well have my fun with it!

"Why, what...impure thoughts you have," Vesta says, chuckling. "Are you really sure? It seems all too base to me. Too close to what she wants."

"It's for my sister's sake." I nodded, sliding my fingers into Ada's lips. "You have trans friends, don't you? Girls who would hate being rejected by this woman?"

"I do! And, if it's copulation you want, by all means. For Ai's sake, if no one else's." Vesta turns around, drawing forth the riding crop. "Just don't expect me to emerge from the flame with one of those."

Ehe. It was to be expected~ But there are things I'm more suited to than her. (Honestly, writing after all this is done, I think Vesta kept her own genitals just for Sulastri's sake...)

I held Ada there, suckling on my fingers for a time, moving behind her and lifting her blindfold so I could show her what Vesta would do with what she created. Sulastri followed close behind, and the two of them spoke of their intentions. After all, Ada cared nothing for these girls' desires, only her own; she left them trapped in 'want', in a way she could control, but never offered true fulfillment. Whether it was malice or stupidity was, frankly, entirely academic!

Couples left lingering and distant drew close. Fetishes unfulfilled became manifest. Sulastri demonstrated her skill with bondage, while Vesta whispered and caressed to push past the hesitation of those few who still bore it when they drew witness to the Flame. Girls not previously here began to come in - girls who had such desires, but were not allowed in by Ada's will, or had yet to be invited this early into the year.

It was beautiful...

"You see?" I said, whispering to Ada. "Our Goddess is much better at this. Someone who can truly release and embrace the desires of these girls, and shape them to her will. Someone who won't leave them lingering."

Couples began to embrace. There was one girl who came down using the stair lift, suspended in bondage through the careful support of her lovers. First-years began to embrace hidden desires, and girls were bound in various ways, all captivated by the central flame that shaped them to Vesta's will. The 'divine power', it seemed, warped reality itself in the basement...

How delightful!

"Now, I have something I need to do," I said, as I pulled the blindfold back down. "You're all pent up, I bet, but I'm afraid we're still busy~! I need to do something special for the sake of the girls you've denied..." I grabbed one of the 'potions' Mona had prepared for me from my bag, and swallowed it quickly, trying to ignore the bitter taste. "Mm~! See, I always wondered why we had gendered dorms, and you've shown me why. Worse yet, there are lots of girls you don't want to let in because of how they were born!" Ada moaned, absorbing my words, letting the Flame reshape her to suit those needs of ours. "To think of all the times Mona told me about her fantasies of going to a girls' dorm, and she'd never get her dream...ehehe."

I let go of her, and slipped forward. Fingers inside her lips. "Relax. Sink deeper." And she did, so easily, still captivated by flame. So long as its light and heat bore down upon her, all it would take to drop her into trance would be a single word. "Good girl."

Ada's body shivered under those two words, unable to resist what we'd wrapped within her. Soon, all those memories of the Sunset Corporation and the Special Divisions and her little project would seem like nothing more than a distant dream~

But first.

I worked Ada's lips open with my fingers, let her taste just the tip of what Mona prepared for me. "It's okay. It won't hurt. I think you'll enjoy it~! Besides, I'm not the only big sister you'll have..."

There was no attempt at pulling away. This belonged to her big sister! And I was working under her Goddess' will~ She just opened up, and began to suck like it was one of my fingers. Just...a big finger, attached down there.

It felt great.

Ehehe, it's not like I'm attached to it. It might be fun to use one again later, but you only had to look at Sulastri in her element for a short time to realize you didn't need one of these to teach a girl a lesson. But even so, feeling Ada suck, and sink, and suck, and sink...

It was so wonderful.

Ada radiated bliss as she serviced her older sister, as she allowed herself to become subordinate to us. Her thoughts shifted axis toward Vesta's world, where womanhood was a matter of soul and flame, where 'the Eternal Feminine' wasn't attached to mere biology. Honestly, I think Vesta might have something with this 'better than sex' thing, brainwashing is way too fun~

With the room seemingly devolving into fetish, sex, love, warmth, flame...I made use of Ada, and her desires. I helped her become accustomed to serving others. Truly serving, selflessly, with her lips and her tongue...

Exquisite.

Vesta, of course, had her own designs. Before the Flame of Desire itself, she held Percy - dearest, sweetest Percy, whose fate is to kneel to us, whose fate is to be brainwashed all the time - and gave her what she truly desired. Sulastri took the time to prepare a suspension bondage rig (which reminded me of the one game with, uh...Gladys? Carol? You know, the computer who likes bondage), and when the time came, Percy was suspended above the flame, made to stare at it, and to become one with its warmth. As Vesta burned away and purified her into her perfect servant...and Sulastri's, of course. (Hee, she was the original candidate for all this, of course the Flame would like her, too!)

And all the while, I filled Ada's lips...both pairs, and her butt too (she's weak there!), and had her watch. To burn away all remnants of the woman before, and make only a perfect, sweet little thing we'd shape to perfection.

And as Percy was raised above the Flame, I whispered into Ada's ear...

"Good girl. Everything is moving as the Goddess wills."

"E-everything...everything is moving...haaaaaaaaaah..." She had a little orgasm, one last one, as she accepted that she would be our good girl from now on..."as the Goddess wills..."

And all together, the whole room said, as one, led by the Flame of Desire herself...

"Everything is moving as the Goddess wills."

---

"...it's vested in the basement itself," Vesta said, as the two of us walked to my bus stop, hand in hand. By the time we were done, it was already dark, the skies twinkling with stars above us. "It'll be some time before I can use it elsewhere."

"What a strange limitation!" I shook my head. "I guess that place is pretty important to you...or some other you."

"I must not seem that amazing to you now, away from there." Vesta shook her head - it was natural that she might have some doubts in this situation. I did, after all, more or less force her into it, rather than letting her naturally develop. "I still think I'm dreaming, Lera."

"Mm. It's not like that, you know?" I shook my head, and clung close to my 'older sister'. "It's not your power that makes you amazing. It's because you're amazing that you have an amazing power!"

"I wonder if that's the case for my future cousin Cibele, too," Vesta says, nodding to herself. I really can't get over how cute she looks with those piercings, or the way that braid makes her look so mature...not to mention having a properly-sized bra for her amazing chest! "I guess I should be nice to her when she's born, then?"

"We've got a while yet before that!" My smartphone says she's twenty - and, uh, apparently I missed quite a lot in the past seven months since the riot, but uh, never mind! She does seem like a nice cult leader, but I'm not sure about the latex drones from that Rita Repulsa lady...maybe Kolya would like them? "I'm just glad she gave me the chance to save you."

"Do you think I could've saved myself?" asked Vesta. "Without this power, I mean."

"...if things were different, I'm sure of it. Who knows, maybe Kolya helped out too~"

The two of us giggled and held hands, enjoying our company until the time came for my bus ride home. Vesta waved back at me, and I felt the happiest I'd been ever since I returned to this time period.

It does seem like strange things centre here on Southern Sun, and on these girls, Cibele and Vesta, and those connected to them...which includes me, it seems. Maybe that Rita chick is right, maybe time really is a flat circle or whatever. Or was it something you put on the wall, or wear on your wrist?

...ah. I shouldn't go off too much. I've only got so many pages left in this diary of mine, after all.

But there's one more thing I need to do. One more person I need to save.

Dream sweet tonight, dearest Kolya. Because tomorrow, your little sister will show you your true self. 🖤