The Five Desires and Seven Emotions (1)

It was probably snowing that day. Or maybe it wasn't. Who could say anymore?

What I do remember is the moment my journey began.

Seven years ago now? Perhaps longer than that, even.

It all started with the rattling jolt of a carriage. My body was bound tight, and my head burned as if my skull were coming to a boil. Everything before my eyes was dim and swimming.

And in the middle of all that—

I was curled in on myself, shivering with the fever of whatever was changing me from the inside out, when it happened.

"What should we do with this one?"

The first voice I ever heard.

Then someone shuffling around in visible panic.

"What the hell? Why did you even bring that thing back?"

"Well, it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just felt wrong to leave it out there to die."

"Wrong my ass. Throw it out!"

Along with that roar of fury, my body was flung onto cold stone flooring.

It hurt beyond words.

I wanted to lift myself up, but I couldn't. I wanted to scream please, let me live, but no voice would come.

My mind was blurred. My memory, even more so.

Which is why only the very last words I heard remained carved into my head—

"Even if we keep it around, it's just going to be a 'burden' anyway."

Jim.

So I took that word and made it my name.

To reach Nirvana, one must sever all earthly delusions. To slip free of the Five Desires and Seven Emotions, unenslaved by Greed, by Anger, by Delusion.

Yes—only when a person casts off every last shackle like that can they truly enter Nirvana.

There was such a moment.

It's the road of that journey that keeps coming back to me.

A road already walked. And yet a road walked in reverse.

The things I had chosen to set down.

The things I had chosen to pick back up.

And so, the self I completed.

The attempt to understand people from a human point of view, as a human among humans.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Haah……"

I tilt my face up toward the falling snow.

Was it snowing like this back then, too?

"I thought that once you entered the army, I might finally get to see your face again."

The one who crossed every penance. The one who remembers the whole of the journey. Blue blood etched into soul and body alike—blue flame.

Yes. That flame, blazing like sacred fire and yet clinging like the fires of hell, was once a single, whole thing.

Something discarded, then gathered back up, then completed.

That was me, before I was split.

Even now, the line I carved by force is trying to fade.

"Demon King. You're a hard man to get a look at."

But—not yet.

Not yet. I still have to remain pure. I have to remain a fool.

So that no one grows suspicious. So that no one sees through me.

Everything I have done must be shoved across the line, over to the other side, and I must go on moving as if none of it ever happened.

As long as I keep myself split in two, I cannot afford to let my true heart show.

The gaze of the Sage who reached Nirvana and attained enlightenment. The gaze of the Fool, steeped in the Three Poisons and the Five Desires and Seven Emotions.

The original me—me, who walked the middle path embracing all of it—now draws a dividing line through himself and hides half away.

Yes. For now, I sink myself into the Five Desires and Seven Emotions, like a child gripped by obsession.

Yes. Unless I am in a state of having understood the Three Poisons and accepted them—

"Perhaps I should watch how things unfold a little longer."

After all, deceiving your 'eyes' is going to be difficult, you know.

Lilith was anxious. And no wonder—ever since Jim had walked into the Papacy of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Heavenly God Order, all contact with him had gone completely silent.

H-he'll be all right, won't he?

It felt like watching a lunatic walk straight into the mouth of an active volcano.

Lilith had shuddered at how calmly Jim had announced his intention. Of course, Jim had only made contact in the first place because he had already accepted despair and death, grown so detached from dying that he'd let go of any real desire to live.

Lilith didn't know about Jim's abilities.

She had no idea just how fragile his mental state actually was.

And yet she overestimated him all the same—and even so, the thought of him marching into the Heavenly God Order of his own two feet was impossible not to worry over.

It was common sense, for a demon.

It was the very reason Jim had been able to let go of his attachment to living so early on.

"Fine. Right now, I have no choice but to trust him. And yet……"

His regular check-ins had stopped. His emergency signals went unanswered.

But sitting still wasn't an option either. Lilith might have been a parachute appointment, but she was a demon who worked hard—a demon who delivered results.

Yes. The time for empty posturing was over. If you want something, you move yourself to get it.

I'm going to the 5th Corps.

The unit Jim had belonged to.

It would have been the 5th Corps that issued the infiltration mission into the Hero Party, too—so if she wanted the full picture of how things stood back then, she had no choice but to meet the Legion Commander herself, Five.

Fortunately, Legion Commander Five, who had been run off her feet until recently, was comparatively idle at the moment.

"A pleasure to see you, Lieutenant General Five."

"……I wasn't even planning to say this much, but isn't this a bit much, even for you?"

It was.

Five was still recovering from her battle against the Ancient Red Dragon, Agni, on the Eastern Front.

Unlike Eleven, who'd been ordered into convalescence by force for insubordination, Five had earned her sick leave in honest combat against a dragon—which was precisely why Lilith's visit sat so sourly.

Naturally so. Here she was, resting, and a workplace colleague showed up at her door with an attitude of deliberate formality.

Worse, this was the woman who had purged one of their own colleagues. Of course the meeting was awkward.

"Now, now, no need to look so displeased. I merely came with a few questions regarding operational matters within the 5th Corps."

Which was, in effect, the Operations Staff announcing its intention to audit the 5th Corps' internal affairs.

Five felt a chill run down her spine at Lilith's icy composure.

Of course. Is this what being the Demon King's bloodline gets you? One wrong move and I could end up purged just like Eleven……

The merciless Empress of Cruelty.

At some point, Lilith's reputation had grown until it pierced the very heavens.

"Very well. I'll answer honestly. I don't know what you're hoping to hear, Lieutenant General Lilith, but……"

"The Hero Party."

"Pardon?"

"I have questions concerning the 'Hero Party Infiltration Operation' that you, Lieutenant General Five, are said to have planned and executed."

"Hold on a moment."

"I understand you may be reluctant to explain the details to an outsider such as myself, but——"

"No! That's not what I——"

Five's brow creased deeply.

This was not a situation she had anticipated.

Because she——

"I have never once executed any such operation."

She had never drawn up a plan like that in her life.

"……"

"……?"

"……"

"Um…… hello?"

"……I see."

Lilith nodded as if something had just clicked into place, then turned on her heel, kicked open the door of the sickroom, and left.

Five, who had no way of knowing what was going through the woman's head, could make absolutely nothing of it.

"Is that girl so spoiled she never learned to close a door behind her?"

Demon King's bloodline or not, the way she did things was strangely careless.

Five followed the Law of Might and obeyed the Demon King, but she didn't particularly respect him.

And why would she? The man's naming sense had rotted clean through.

Even now, Five hadn't quite made peace with the borderline-insulting name the Demon King had saddled her with.

"Haah. Well, what can you do. Against a monster who took down Leviathan single-handedly."

There was a reason the man was Demon King.

Five let out a long sigh and shut the door, the image of Lilith's scowling departure still hanging in her mind.

Something was stirring within the Demon King's Army. Something she couldn't name.

"I'd better look into this a little."

So murmured Legion Commander of the 5th Corps, Five—her tone as casual as if she were planning to cure a bout of boredom.

Lilith headed straight for the encampment where the 5th Corps was stationed.

Once she had begun to harbor certainty, there was no hesitation left in her stride. The faint timidity she'd shown before the Legion Commander was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long gone; as if tearing this suspicion open by force, she began rifling through the 5th Corps' operational files without a shred of ceremony.

In principle, corps-level matters were supposed to be shared with the Operations Staff—but nobody reported every minor operation one by one.

Such was the demon's peculiar carelessness.

Could beings who couldn't even bother to name themselves properly be expected to run an army properly? That the military retained any shape at all was frankly miraculous.

"……Found it."

Lieutenant Jim was a half-blood? No—wait. They threw a legendary being like that into an operation this small?

A half-blood demon could not, in theory, exist. Which was exactly why demons treated tales of half-bloods as legend and hearsay.

Then what was written here?

Did someone just write down a rumor?

No, that can't be it. Half-blood or not, he must have had traits convincing enough for someone to claim as much.

Lilith had never known Jim to be a half-blood.

Half-bloods were, quite literally, beings closer to wild rumor than reality. It was strange enough that the thought had crossed her mind at all.

Then why would Jim—someone holding such an important position—be pulled into something as trivial as a Hero Party infiltration operation?

Eight times out of ten, it was the demons' trademark indifference. Their utter disinterest in anyone but themselves.

"Operation originator: Lieutenant Colonel Extra. Even thinking about it again, what a name. Who on earth gave him that?"

The odds favored Legion Commander Five.

Five had openly grumbled about hating the name 'Five' that the Demon King had given her—so the odds were even better that this had been vented spite.

Something along the lines of, fine then, just go be an Extra. Slapped on without a second thought.

Not that it mattered right now.

Now, where are the operation's results……

Lilith found the operational reports. By the plan's own outline, there ought to be reports on the intelligence Jim had coaxed out of the Hero Party members.

"Recipient: Lieutenant Colonel Extra……"

The name written on the report she'd dug up was that of the lieutenant colonel she'd just seen.

Lilith's brow furrowed.

Lieutenant Colonel Extra is dead.

Which meant obtaining anything further was impossible.

He had been deployed on the operation to rescue Jim—and annihilated alongside his entire operational team.

Losing a field-grade officer so pointlessly was precisely what had sent the Hero Party's notoriety soaring, enough to reach the Demon King's Army's high council.

"Something's wrong here."

Reports handled within the Demon King's Army retained timestamps of when they were written—a safeguard against the tampering that demon soldiers so habitually committed.

Five herself, with that fiery temper, had botched plenty of paperwork in her day, so nothing about the system was strange.

"The timestamps are far too consistent. And besides, at this point in time……"

…the Legion Commander of the 5th Corps, Five, had been deployed to the front lines, locked in battle with Agni.

The period when Lieutenant Colonel Extra's operational team was established and the Jim rescue plan began matches it exactly.

Would Five, mid-battle against a dragon on the front line, have approved an operation like this?

Would she even have had the time?

Lieutenant General Five said she never executed any Hero Party infiltration plan. Which means this is——

Lieutenant Colonel Extra acting on his own initiative?

Lilith's gaze, until now fixed solely on the operational reports, shifted.

The 3rd Battalion, being reorganized in the wake of Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Extra's death.

And the personnel rosters attached to it.

"……Found it."

Only after combing through the entire personnel roster did Lilith finally locate Jim's name.

So many of the names were hastily scrawled single syllables—Jim among them—that it took her a while.

"Hmm."

Having confirmed Jim's posting, Lilith allowed a faint smile to curl her lips.

It was that bewitching smile that had, entirely without her meaning to, ensorcelled countless officers and enlisted men alike.

Yes. Things were falling into place.

Everything was unfolding exactly as she had expected.

"So the true architect of the Hero Party Infiltration Plan was——"

None other than Jim himself, the Supply & Operations Officer.

And Lieutenant Colonel Extra had most likely been his collaborator.

He was an inside man.

Then for what purpose? And why was Jim now trying to claw his way back out?

And who had dressed all of it up as an order from Legion Commander Five?

Lilith's eyes narrowed as the puzzle pieces in her mind began to lock together.

"Fufu. As expected."

And so Lilith extrapolated the grand design she believed Jim must have been drawing all along.

"Lieutenant Jim really was the Demon King's illegitimate son."

Abstraction.