No. 8
"You lot, that's all you've got?!"
"No, sir!!"
A pair of shit-for-brains bastards, shrieking their heads off in tandem. The ones barking bullshit, and the ones swallowing that bullshit whole.
"You were chosen as the Moon of the Empire!! And this — this is all you can do?!!"
"AAAGH!!"
"W-wait, don't push—!"
Behind the dull thuds of the club came the crack of splintering bones, one after another. Calling it training to withstand torture while he beat the children black and blue, the instructor's face never once lost its grin.
Of course, the complaints were many. Unless a child had truly peculiar tastes, nobody enjoyed being beaten.
And yet not one of them dared rebel. Move against him carelessly, and the other instructors were all too likely to pile on — and besides, he didn't strike at random. That would have earned him a reprimand from his superiors. Only on those who failed to keep up with his instruction did he inflict violence, dressed up as discipline.
"Hehe, how've you been, Senior?"
"...Did you get beaten up again?"
"They barely hit me at all today, y'know!"
And so, once again, a boy came ambling over to me — me, sitting quietly crumpled in a corner, secretly cursing him out a bucketful in my head. A boy whose wispy, fluttering orange hair left quite the impression.
I never knew his name. We were children the instructors had hauled in as they pleased; of course none of us knew one another's names. Those bastards called us by numbers — numbers assigned in order of height.
"...Why do you call me Senior? Why not No. 6, like the others do?"
"Ehee, a lower number makes you my senior~"
"...It was nothing but a difference in height."
The name they called me was No. 6. And this orange-haired boy—
"And besides, aren't you actually better than me? Then you're my senior!"
"...Suit yourself."
His skills were nothing special, but the boy had quite the gift of gab.
"S-Senior! Isn't this delicious?! It's really delicious!!"
"...Just shut up and eat, please."
That boy who devoured the most ordinary street skewer as though it were a feast.
"Senior! I survived too! Now I might even get to work alongside you!"
"...I was certain you'd be dead."
"What's with that reaction?! Aren't you happy I made it?"
"Ah... no, I am, but..."
On the day of our "graduation," this boy who had somehow scraped through and still smiled so brightly — this boy who seemed too green to know what anything meant—
"Haha, sorry, Senior! I really didn't want to do this either!"
"You... fucking bastard..."
"I really do think it's a shame. You were a good person, Senior... But what can I do about it?"
That day — the last day of my second life — the name of the boy who drove a knife into my back without ever losing his smile was...
"It's what Mother ordered, heehee."
"You... you son of a..."
"See you again sometime, Senior?"
No. 8. He was No. 8. The eighth child, forever smiling.
Over the battlefield that had, until moments ago, rung with shouting, a silence now hung like a lie. The elf who had screamed at the loss of her family, the knight who had raged over his fallen comrade, the princess who had watched it all unfold — not one of them could easily open their mouth.
Right before them stood the monster wearing a boy's shape, the one they had been locked in standoff with only moments before — and beside them was a young man striding straight toward that monster.
The knights tried to hold him back. He was a young man with his whole road still open ahead of him — how could he throw his life away so carelessly? But he could not be caught. Hands that were certain they'd touched him found nothing. No one could say how it was possible, but not a single one of them managed to seize so much as his sleeve.
Slipping serenely past every reaching hand, he came to a stop before the boy. Only when the distance had shrunk to barely the width of a single hand did his advance end. Even with mounds of flesh writhing sickeningly right in front of him, his expression didn't so much as flicker. He simply kept his eyes on the boy.
"No intention of explaining?"
"Senior, it's really been forever! Do you remember saying we'd meet again?"
"Why you betrayed me back then. Why you're still alive in this place. Why you've become... that."
"I knew it — even after being put through all that, you'd come out perfectly fine, Senior!"
"No thought of explaining, then?"
At Jenison's words, the boy only snickered, choking down his laughter — as if the whole situation were so genuinely hilarious he could hardly bear it.
"Kikik, Senior... your acting is still absolutely terrible."
…
"You've already guessed everything, haven't you? Whatever you're expecting is probably right!"
…
"Ah, now that I think of it, I don't believe I ever told you my name, did I?"
With that, the boy took a single step back and raised his right hand, then lowered it again — the parting bow of a magician finishing his act. A tentacle laden with lumps of flesh trailed after his moving right hand, making for a deeply grotesque sight. And then, utterly mismatched with that grotesquerie, the boy's smile came bursting forth.
And once more — clashing horribly with that smile — the chilling self-introduction rang out.
"Wow, though I gotta say, Senior, you really are something else!"
…
"From what I've heard, a human who'd lived at that level would normally be so steeped in peace that he'd have broken long ago!"
…
"So how did you hold out? You've endured far better than we expected!"
I stared at the face of the thing cheeping away excitedly in front of me. Inhuman black eyes greeted me with delight, and within them glinted a burning red light.
"Why do you think we stepped in?! We even went so far as to borrow from a god other than Mother!"
…
"Well, the result was good, so it's all fine. You've stayed miserable, after all, Senior."
…
"But!! Why!! Haven't! You! Broken! Yet?!!"
The red gleam in his eyes crept closer and closer to me, his steps without a shred of hesitation. Still smirking, he cocked his head, that slimy smile spreading across his face.
"Whenever it looked like you might live even a slightly stable life, we found some way to wreck it. Remember?"
…
"And not just me — every single one of us stood in your way, you know?"
…
"So how have you held on without going mad?"
Something tapped my shoulder. Tap. Tap. I lifted my head slightly — and saw a crushed eyeball. One not fully torn free, dangling in a long, ugly trail. A moan drifted up. The last faint plea of someone begging to be spared. All of it — the eyes, the moans, the begging — had been kneaded together into a single tentacle. And that thing was resting on my shoulder right now.
"Humans are frail, aren't they? So frail that death alone is enough to drive them mad?"
…
"So why is it you alone who's different, Senior? Why are you the one who doesn't go mad?"
The light in the boy's eyes deepened. The red was beginning to cloud over.
"Aaah, I'm jealous, so jealous... You're strong no matter where you are, Senior... Even that makes me jealous."
"...That's all?"
"Eh? Whatever do you mean?"
For a brief moment, that inhuman madness hung thick over everything — and then, in an instant, every soul there went wide-eyed. Because the sight before them allowed no other reaction.
"Whew... now that's something I haven't seen in quite a while."
"...No. 8."
The tentacle jutting from the boy's shoulder — the one whose mere sight had made revulsion surge — had been cleaved clean in two and was spinning through empty air.
A beautiful crescent moon, flipped upside down, drifted weightlessly through the sky — and in its wake, blood came gushing from the boy's tentacle like a fountain.
"Still as sharp as ever, Senior! Not just anyone can cut through this—"
"Did you ask how I held out?"
"Huh? What's that all of a sud—"
Something whisked past the boy's ear. Tiny and needle-thin, but something he could unmistakably feel.
"Ah, I've seen this somewhere befo—"
"At first, I endured out of sheer indignation. Going over it piece by piece — what wrong had I ever done for this to happen to me?"
"Huh? W-wait, hold on... aren't they getting more and more numerous?"
Having done no more than graze the boy's ear, the something showed no sign of stopping. It kept flying. Never once pausing midway.
"Then, as time went on, that indignation turned — before I knew it — into waiting."
"Whoa, that's quite a lot more than I expec...ted!"
"Wondering when this endless cycle would finally come to an end."
The something kept launching, hurtling headlong at the boy's body, and even after a long while its speed didn't slow — if anything, it grew faster and faster. To everyone watching, it was more than enough to leave them stunned.
But it still wasn't enough. The boy, turning aside every last one of them, still wore that smile — as if no one in this world could ever lay a finger on it.
"Senior, I'll admit you're an incredible human! Anyone would!"
…
"But that's exactly human level!! A human, weak in body and mind alike!"
…
"How much mana do you have left, I wonder? You seem worn out just from conjuring blades!"
There was a reason behind Jeal's composure. The Seven Deadly Sins — the upper echelon of the cult — knew every scrap of information there was on him: his abilities, his limits, his mana reserves, all of it. In truth, that was only natural. The person who mattered most to their design was none other than Jenison. One researches one's target thoroughly; that was simply how it was done. And at last, the intelligence he held told him that Jenison's mana should be scraping bottom right about now. After all, the attacks that had been flying indiscriminately mere moments ago had stopped as though nothing had ever happened.
"Hahat, so what will you do n—"
"Listen to people all the way to the end."
"Eh?"
But something was wrong. By all rights, he should have been gasping for breath by now. He should have drained his mana to the last drop and been exhausted beyond words.
"And now — it's vengeance."
…
"Probably. No — certainly. Vengeance. And a very deep one at that."
Yet he stood there unscathed. No — he looked more alive than ever, as though he hadn't spent a single drop of mana. At that wholly unforeseen sight, the boy's body stiffened for an instant — and Jenison's hand moved once more. His right hand, to be exact.
"Haha... isn't that a technique I know as well? I'm fairly certain I've seen it befo—"
"If you'd learned it properly back then, you could block it. Or dodge it."
That is — if you still remembered the teachings of the humans you sneered at as inferior and weak.
The instant those words fell, the battle began. A battle between a darkness grown thicker than before — and a moon that glowed, if not brilliantly, then with a quiet, unbroken light.