Laughter echoed off the dim, cold walls of the cavern.
With a clicking, cackling laugh, Petelgeuse seemed to find something endlessly amusing. He continued to snicker, revealing teeth stained a mottled red with blood.
It seemed as though Petelgeuse would go on like this forever if left unchecked. Faced with this grotesque spectacle, Subaru—the target of the mockery—simply lowered his head and stared at the ground.
Subaru's body had been dragged into the depths of the hall by figures in black robes and roughly thrown against the wall. The iron shackles bound his limbs so tightly that the metal cut into his skin, causing a numbing, tingling sensation that was beginning to spread.
"Heh... hee hee..."
The feeling of his limbs going numb drew a strained, twitching smile from Subaru, as if it were the only expression he knew. Seeing this, Petelgeuse became even more delighted, clapping his hands.
"Ah, how comical! It's a spectacle that is quite, quite, quite, quite, quite thrilling, I must say! Truly, truly, truly, truly... it makes the brain tremble!"
Blood dripped from the wound on his left hand. He used the fingers of his right hand to wipe it and smear it across his own forehead.
As Petelgeuse drew the mottled pattern on his brow with a manic grin, he was utterly beyond reason.
Subaru, laughing blankly at a different reality, and Petelgeuse, immersed in a world of pure madness. In the space where the mad laughter of these two, who had slightly lost their grip on reality, overlapped, a shadow suddenly welled up.
It was a different figure from the one who had carried Subaru into the cavern. The tall silhouette moved with a gliding grace, making not a sound. It drew close to the cackling Petelgeuse.
"—"
It murmured something in a voice so low only he could hear.
Upon hearing it, Petelgeuse abruptly wiped the manic grin from his previously contorted cheeks. His fidgety, comical gestures ceased entirely.
"Yes, is that so! Ah, that is, ah... it makes the brain tremble, yes!"
With the same nuance as the laughter that started it all, yet with an expression that sent chills of unease down one's spine, Petelgeuse bit the nail of his left finger.
He bit, tore, and ripped at it until the nail peeled back and blood flowed, and even then, he gnawed down to the flesh.
"...Ah, it hurts. It hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts. The brain trembles. It says, 'Do it!' 'Press forward!' There's no time to stop! I must shout! Call out! The brain trembles, yes!!"
He flailed his arm, and blood from his mangled left hand dripped onto the cold floor of the cavern.
The black shadow watched this without emotion. Slightly inclining its waist as if in a bow, it continued to whisper to Petelgeuse, who remained in the throes of his frenzy.
"The left ring finger is annihilated!? Ah, what a delectable trial this is! And yet I have striven with such diligence... The world is still unkind to me today!"
"—"
"Ah, that's fine! The remaining number in the left ring finger can each join with the neighbor finger! It's nothing! There are still, still, still, still, still nine fingers! There's no need to worry!"
"—"
"Yes... I say! A trial! A trial! This is a trial! All of it is a trial to ensure we align with His will! Shine, glow... ah, my brain is trembling!"
Spitting with glee as he cackled, Petelgeuse clutched his head and spun in circles on the spot.
The voice of the black-robed figure was muffled, inaudible even within the enclosed space of the cave. As such, the conversation between Petelgeuse and the dark shadow carried all the absurdity of a one-man play, and coupled with his eccentric behavior, only served to heighten the unease.
"Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yesyesyesyesyesyesyes!!"
"————"
"Yes... ah, him, is it? Are you concerned about him? No no, no no no no no no, I understand perfectly, so I say!"
Bending at the waist to lower himself, then twisting his body further, Petelgeuse sidled closer to Subaru. With his face shoved close, his foul breath washing over him, Subaru gazed up at the display of madness with impassive eyes, still grinning foolishly.
Meeting those dark pupils, Petelgeuse rolled his ashen eyes with such intensity they seemed ready to bulge from their sockets, "Certainly, certainly certainly certainly, how curious, how unsettling, how incomprehensible... at this juncture, with a trial before us, why does an existence such as you appear?"
"————"
"Dragon carriage! Ah, dragon carriages are splendid, I say! The earth dragons are quite charming and thoroughly wonderful! Unlike humans, they possess no多余emotions. Above all, their dedication to diligently following orders, diligently working, and diligently striving to do so is truly magnificent, I say!"
"————"
"Killed it! Ah, that too is a fine thing, I say! It was unavoidable in order to pull him down! Ah, you too are diligent, I say! Excellent, a fine thing it is! If you are by my side, if you are fingers upon my two hands, then being diligent is above all else most important, I say! Good! Good! So very very very very very very, veryveryveryverygood, I say!!"
Petelgeuse bent his body backward with such flexibility his head nearly touched the ground. An expression of ecstasy blooming on his face, he snapped upright like a bow released from full draw, "The diligence of my fingers! It felled a creature that was the very embodiment of diligence, an earth dragon! Ah, my brain is trembling. Trembling trembling tremblingblingblingblingblingbling!!"
Flushed red with excitement over a madness no ordinary person could comprehend, a thin trickle of blood suddenly streamed from Petelgeuse's nostril.
Licking it up with his tongue before it could reach his mouth, his face now flushed crimson, Petelgeuse smiled blissfully, his cheeks relaxing with a beatific expression, "Ah... a dead earth dragon is truly, 'sloth' itself, I say."
He murmured those words with burning eyes, his body trembling at the peak of ecstasy.
Then he roughly wiped the nosebleed with the sleeve of his vestments, and with such cold detachment it was as though he had cast aside the fervent emotions from moments before, "Clean up the site where the dragon carriage was destroyed immediately. With the day of the coming trial before us, we must ensure our presence is not exposed. The area should have been cleared of people, so there should be no concern about witnesses, I say... but what of the passenger? Did you kill them properly, I say?"
"————"
"A report on that matter? Ah, let me hear it. With generosity, with grandeur, with vast love. I treat my fingers with benevolence, after all."
Spreading both hands wide and swaying the hem of his vestments, Petelgeuse nodded solemnly.
The black shadow watched this behavior befitting the position he claimed—that of a bishop—and tucked its chin, yet still stubbornly kept its voice hushed, "————"
"One accompanying passenger... a blue-haired girl. The tip of my left ring finger made contact and destroyed the dragon carriage. Upon securing him, combat ensued... the ring finger's rampage was caused by that girl... status unknown."
Taking in the black shadow's report, Petelgeuse cracked his neck from side to side.
He continued to sway his head back and forth as though lost in thought, like a pendulum—twisting, wrenching, rotating, shaking—before finally letting it droop forward with a dull nod.
"Un-known... is it?"
Having declared so, he slowly, slowly raised his trembling head, directing those hollow grey eyes toward the black-robed figure.
"You are... 'Sloth,' are you not?"
As he spoke, Petelgeuse raised his left hand and slipped his ring finger into his mouth.
And then, without a moment's hesitation, he bit down hard on the fingertip.
The grotesque sound of flesh being crushed between molars and wrung out with savage violence filled the air. Petelgeuse chewed on his nail, ground the meat, pooled the resulting blood in his mouth, and spat it all out together before seizing the black shadow's face with his blood-red left hand.
"A trial! A situation where things are about to be exposed! That! That! That that that that that! Is this your way of earnestly repaying the Gospel?! Ahh, sloth! Sloth! Sloth sloth sloth sloth!"
Where such strength could come from in a body of nothing but bone and skin, Petelgeuse seized the face of someone powerful enough to carry Subaru and run, and swung them violently right and left. The black-robed figure's passivity likely played a part, but even so, Petelgeuse savagely thrashed his victim about as he tilted his gaze toward the ceiling.
"And! The sloth of my finger is my own sloth! Ahh, forgive me for failing to repay your favor—the sloth of my very being! With every fiber of this body, with the utmost diligence of my entire soul, I wish to live in accordance with the Gospel, to exist! I beg your forgiveness!"
Releasing his hold on the black shadow, Petelgeuse sank to his knees, tears streaming down his face. He clasped his blood-stained hands together and pleaded as if in prayer, as if clinging for dear life, as though he could see something right there before him.
The black-robed figure, having been so roughly handled, followed Petelgeuse's lead and likewise tilted its head skyward, and though silent, confessed its own unworthiness, its sins.
——It was an abnormal sight.
Petelgeuse switching between joy, anger, sorrow, and delight without the slightest warning, without any telltale sign, click-clack-click-clack, flipping from one to the next. This was beyond mere emotional instability. This was emotion gone entirely missing.
And the black-robed figure who accepted it all as perfectly natural—who showed not the slightest reaction even to the violence inflicted upon it—was equally bizarre. Watching it follow this man who called himself a bishop, one might call it a follower. More accurately, a fanatic.
"Love! One must repay love! Sloth is unforgivable! One must obey the Gospel! One must return the love one has been given—with love!"
"————"
"Find the girl of unknown status! If she's alive, snuff out her life! If she's dead, sever the corpse's head! Bring her here! I must handle the cleanup with my own hands and apologize for my sloth!"
At that piercing command, the black shadow complied, dissolving into the darkness of the cavern like ink bleeding into water.
And as that presence receded into the distance, Petelgeuse remained kneeling on the spot for a time, dazed, drawing ragged breaths— "Now, now, now now now now now now..."
Still on his knees, Petelgeuse shuffled closer to Subaru in a crawling motion.
Chapter: The movement of scraping his knees against the ground, where hard, sharp rock peeked through, was nothing more than self-harm that would only bruise the skin beneath his robe.
Ignoring the pain, ignoring the wounds, he peered into Subaru's face.
"Just what in the world are you, I wonder?"
"Nngh... agh..."
"You don't seem to have been led here by the Gospel, yet the thick, dense affection radiating from your body... Truly, truly, truly, truly, truly tr-tr-tr-truly... fascinating... desu!"
He brought his face close—so close he could have licked him—and stuck out his tongue, studying Subaru from that distance. But Subaru was in no state to answer his questions.
Still staring blankly at some far-off place, Subaru drew from Petelgeuse an ecstatic murmur of "Ah, my brain trembles," as the Bishop continued, "I should recognize every face other than that of 'Sloth,' yet someone who has received this much devotion... I cannot believe they have no connection to the Gospel whatsoever."
With that, he reached inside his robe—and pulled out a book.
It was a black-bound book, roughly the size of a dictionary and nearly as thick. At first glance, it might have seemed like nothing more than a cherished read he happened to produce.
"Ah... I can feel the Gospel. My brain... it trembles...bles..."
The way he tenderly ran his fingertips along the black spine, letting out a heated breath, made it abundantly clear that this was anything but an ordinary book.
With the titleless volume in hand, Petelgeuse savored its texture for a moment, then slowly and solemnly began to turn the pages.
"You are not mentioned in the Gospel. Naturally, neither is the matter that arose before this magnificent trial, nor anything at all about the present! That is! In other words—!"
He snapped the book shut with a loud crack, held it aloft, and spat as he spoke.
"You are nothing of consequence! The fact that your existence is not recorded in the Gospel means you are entrusted to me! And yet, despite receiving such deep, deep, deep, dee-dee-dee-deep affection... how contradictory you are! Ah, my brain, my brain, my braaaain—!"
He jabbed a finger into his temple, clawing at the skin as though he might gouge it right out. The skin split, and blood began to seep through.
Even seeing this, Subaru still did not react. He just kept grinning, literally looking past Petelgeuse's self-mutilation.
"A-a-a-a-a-a... ah, to be ignored is... lonely, desu! Even though I'm being so, so favorable toward you! Not not not not not not not, desu!"
Petelgeuse's hand shot out and seized Subaru's face, forcing the head of the directionless boy to face him, locking eyes with his own.
Even in his vacant state, Subaru grimaced and tried to resist at such rough treatment.
"—Look. Into. My. Eyes."
Quietly, with far less emotional fluctuation than any of his previous outbursts—yet carrying an irresistible force in both his voice and his gaze, Petelgeuse spoke.
Subaru's body flinched involuntarily, and despite his dazed condition, he did as he was told—looking into Petelgeuse's grey eyes, which burned with a mad light.
And then, "Answer me, desu. Respond to me, desu. To my question, my demand—why are you in such a place, and why are you so favored? Don't you possess a Gospel? Then have you ever heard the Gospel directly with your own ears, desu?"
"Ahhh, uh... hhhehe..."
"That gets us nowhere, desu... Then shall I change the order of things, desu?"
Having had his successive questions deflected, Petelgeuse tilted his head ninety degrees to the right.
With his face still tilted sideways, Petelgeuse leaned in even closer.
And then— "I have a question for you, desu."
"——Aauu!"
Leaning close, Petelgeuse extended his tongue and licked the pupil of Subaru's left eye.
The sensation of having one's eye licked by another person—a touch so far removed from anything in the realm of the normal—triggered a violent rejection reflex, and Subaru trembled, rattling the chains of his shackles.
But that was only until he heard what came next.
"——Why are you pretending to be mad, desu?"
*** Grey is frightening.
Those eyes staring at him from right in front of him, the ones he cannot look away from—those terrify him beyond measure.
He trembles, turns his face away, tries to escape from those eyes, but the hands gripping his face are unbearably firm, and the chains binding his body are terribly cold. He cannot escape.
His entire body is in unbearable pain.
Thrown from the dragon carriage when it overturned, the abrasions covering his body had received no treatment whatsoever. Beneath his torn clothing, the raw, red wounds stung with every glance, and the sight of seeping blood seemed to connect directly to some horribly unpleasant memory.
Where did Blue go?
Blue, who was always by his side. Blue, who touched him so gently. Blue, who fed him, who held his hand when he was anxious—Blue, who did all those things for him.
If only Blue were here. If Blue were with him, he wouldn't have to be this terrified.
Green isn't here either. Nor Brown. Nor White.
All that exists is the impenetrable black that seems to see nothing at all, and the grey right in front of his eyes.
The black that says nothing, answers nothing, simply exists—that frightens him too.
But grey frightens him far, far more than that.
"Have you ever heard the gospel with your own ears, I wonder?"
I had no idea what was being said. My mind couldn't work to understand it. The overwhelming desire to reject what was unpleasant simply consumed me—turning my body, my face, my heart away from it all.
But the other party would not permit that, and Grey drew its face even closer.
"This is getting us nowhere, is it…? In that case, shall we change the order of things?"
As it spoke, Grey brought its face closer still. From that mouth, a tongue extended—that unnaturally long tongue, that red tongue that had just finished licking away dripping blood—advancing toward me without mercy.
"Allow me to ask you something—"
The surface of my left eye, directly above the pupil—the tongue pressed in, ravaging, invading.
The revulsion that surged up, the overwhelming terror—it rattled its chains and laid bare its rejection. But Grey had no intention of stopping. If anything, with a playful air, it extended its tongue around to the back of my eyeball, rolling the globe across its tongue as though toying with it.
Disgusting, stop, please, help me, I'm scared, scared, scared, scared.
I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared.
"—Why are you, I wonder, pretending to be mad?"
I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared I'm sca—?
I couldn't understand what had been said to me.
The discomfort of having my eye licked, the repulsion of being stared at so intently, the rejection born of fearing the visible madness before me—my body, which should have been trembling, went completely still.
Dumbfounded, struck speechless, my mouth hanging open, my wide eye still being licked— "Why are you, I wonder, pretending to be mad?"
I heard Grey's question, repeated once more.
"Aauuaauuaaauu!!"
"No no no no no no no, but in truth I do wonder. For what reason, for why, for what purpose—are you putting on this act of being consumed by madness?"
I must not listen. I must not let it reach my ears. I must not be permitted to know.
I shook my head, rattling the shackles on my wrists and ankles again and again, severing my consciousness. I distanced myself from the words of the man before my eyes. I must not listen, must not notice, must not know.
"I won't provide you the convenient escape route of 'unconsciousness.' You are aware, you understand yourself, and upon that foundation, you are feigning madness."
"Ah! Gguuh! Uuh, auaa!"
"Your madness is far too rational. No one goes mad so cleverly, so meekly, as though to win sympathy, as though to be loved—that is simply not how madness works."
I raised my voice, screaming until my throat felt ready to tear apart, trying to drown out the man's voice. But the man, as though mocking such an attempt, slipped his words neatly through the gaps in my consciousness.
"It is the performance of a half-baked madman, desu. If one is truly going mad, truly immersing oneself in the world of madness, one must not be conscious of others' eyes. The world must be self-contained — going mad means falling outside of it, desu!"
"— Baaah! Baaaaah! Ba-ba-ba-ba-aaah!"
"Oh, how amusing, how positively amusing, desu! Why do you pretend to be mad, desu? From the perspective of one who has truly fallen outside, that thin facade peels away in an instant — it is visible, and it is irresistibly funny!"
Words I did not want to hear, things I did not want to know, hammered against my eardrums and poured in.
It hurt. I felt sick. Something was swelling up inside my chest. Something dark and murky was screaming to get out. I could not let it out.
If it were to get out, if that were to happen — "I pity you, I pity you! You, who are wretched, hideous, vile, paltry, and sinful — oh, how I pity you, desu! And yet despite being loved so deeply, what could you possibly have to reject? You neither drown in the love given to you, nor repay the devotion, nor refuse it — you simply wish to weather away in stagnation, desu?"
The gray man shook his head and flung the face he had been gripping aside.
The thrown head slammed into the wall behind with a crash, sparks scattered, and a sharp pain drew a groan from my throat.
But the man did not spare even a sliver of awareness toward me, and instead twisted another finger into the wound he had bitten open moments ago, still deliberately drawing more blood as he — "Oh, oh, oh — you are 'sloth,' desu, aren't you!"
Something inside my head cracked with a sharp snap.
I was not listening. I was not hearing anything. Every word was the raving of a madman. Not a single one hit its mark; not a single one had arrived at the truth.
I understood nothing. I could understand nothing. That was how it should be. That was how it had been. That was how it had to be.
Because if it were not — "Oh, that is far enough, desu."
The murky darkness in my chest had been swelling, on the verge of exploding, when suddenly the man drained away all his momentum and murmured.
In that instant, the skin-prickling sense of danger that had been building, the light of madness looming before my eyes, receded — and without realizing it, the tension drained from my entire body.
"No, well — no, no, no, no, no-no-no-no-no — it would be troublesome to push you too far, desu. Perhaps it would be better to take some time, to think things over slowly and carefully? If you face the devotion that has been bestowed upon you with sincerity, the answer should come to you naturally, desu."
"Ah... ughh..."
What in the world was this man saying?
From beginning to end, not a single word that left the man's mouth reached my understanding. Yet despite this disconnect from my side, the man behaved as though he had absolute command over everything about me — as though he understood me perfectly from the darkness I could not see. Like a gentle adult leading a small child by the hand. Like a demon beguiling a lost soul on a swaying bridge.
I must not understand. I must not try to understand. And more than that, it was something I could not do — must not do — not in my current state.
Because if I truly understood, there would be no turning back.
"Oh, if only... you were not slothful, but diligent, desu."