The Sage's Story
Looking upon the girl whose body was no longer even whole, Sunya found himself remembering the days when he had first met Kubatum.
Kubatum had been, in a manner of speaking, the bridge connecting Sunya to the village at the foot of the mountain. Without that little girl, he never would have forged any bond with the people living below.
Bursting with energy since early childhood, Kubatum had often wandered every corner of Mount Ebih, and it was during one such ramble that she happened upon Sunya — and so their connection began. His striking appearance alone was more than enough to capture a child's curiosity. Without a trace of wariness, Kubatum approached him, and Sunya — who had quietly been longing for human company — treated her with kindness.
You mustn't tell anyone else that I'm here.
Yes, big brother.
He had made that request when they parted, but unfortunately Kubatum was not a girl who listened well to others. Word of him reached the villagers below, and though Sunya never quite understood how the rumor had taken its final shape, they came to regard him as something of a mysterious sage. In truth, Sunya was a rather mysterious man simply by existing.
And so a few among the villagers began seeking him out for answers to their troubles and dilemmas, and by good fortune Sunya was able to give them replies that satisfied. The rumors spread further still, drawing ever more people to his door. What had begun as a misunderstanding thus endured, and from then on the people continued to call him a sage.
I'm here, Sage!
Even afterward, Kubatum would visit him from time to time despite having no particular worries to bring. Where she found such boundless energy and curiosity, he never knew. Whenever she came to play, the house would grow lively and loud. There were moments when her fondness edged past mere interest, or when she posed some awkward question that left him faintly exhausted — yet she was a child he could never bring himself to dislike. The girl was pure of heart, and she had a gift for brightening any atmosphere. Not once did he ever find her a burden.
To him, Kubatum was something like the first friend he had made in this place, age notwithstanding. It felt strange for Sunya himself to say such a thing — he who had been prepared to leave without a word — but the bonds she had woven between him and the villagers below were a gift beyond compare. Of course, Inanna's arrival had meant he saw them far less often of late, yet he could not deny that they had taken root in his heart all the same.
And so he had wished that even after he was gone, she would grow up healthy and strong, do whatever she pleased, and live a happy life. But—
"……"
Reality was merciless. Tragedy always arrived from places least expected.
Sunya gently stroked Kubatum's face and closed her eyes. The other heads scattered around him belonged to people he had come to know through counsel great and small. One by one, the sage shut each of their eyes, then sank to his knees and pressed his palms together in prayer. He offered a silent requiem for the dead, hoping they might find more peaceful lives in the next world.
Until he spoke, not a soul present could move. An indescribable, uncanny pressure had seized the space entire.
"……So it wasn't merely slaughter and rape. There are signs you ate them as well. Sadistic torture, too. You seem to have enjoyed yourselves considerably."
There was no need to mention the nauseating stench of blood that choked the village. Everywhere one looked, horrors too ghastly for words lay on display. Severed arms and legs and heads impaled on stakes. A raider wearing a length of entrails draped playfully around his neck. The corpse of a woman with blades and spikes driven into every orifice. Villagers whose flesh had been carved away while they still lived, screaming. Heads of the dead rolling about at random, eyes gouged out, tongues lolling.
"I doubt this is the first time. You've repeated this act any number of times, haven't you? And eventually you found your way here. Like beasts — eating when you wished to eat, killing when you wished to kill. Only this time, your luck has run a little thin."
"Uh… auh…"
The leader of the raiders tried to form words. He wanted to. But Sunya did not listen. He had no intention of listening. He had never been speaking in expectation of an answer to begin with.
"Abandon any thought of fleeing. Not that you could escape regardless. Struggling wouldn't be the worst idea, I suppose. It would mean nothing either way. Because…"
Sunya slowly opened his eyes. Those pupils that ordinarily shone a clear blue were steeped in blood-red light, radiating an ominous gleam.
"Every last one of you is going to die here."
And then the one-sided massacre began.
There was no dynamic spectacle of frenzied raiders charging in while Sunya dodged with overwhelming divine might and struck them down in dazzling fashion. The raiders' bodies had locked solid with terror; they could not so much as twitch a finger. Sunya simply approached them one by one and swung his arm as lightly as if shooing away a fly.
Thud.
Each time he did, a raider shattered into pieces. Words like "torn limb from limb" or "reduced to scraps of flesh" fell short. Save for a few bloodstains, some fragments, and the merest tips of fingers or toes, the raiders' bodies were pulverized so utterly it was as though they had never existed at all. The situation was so surreal that even fear failed to take hold. To any onlooker, it simply looked as though people were vanishing on the spot.
"Uwaaah…!!"
Only the leader managed something close to a scream, straining to loosen his frozen body as much as he could.
Move. Move. Move. Move!!
An instant stretched into eternity. With every subordinate who disappeared and every step that brought Sunya closer, the terror became unbearable. Who this silver-haired youth was, or how he had appeared in this place — none of that mattered anymore. What mattered was the simple fact that if he did not escape this spot at once, he would die.
No. I don't want to die. Not like this… not so absurdly…
Ill-suited to his bulk, the leader wept tears and snot. He wet himself as well. That a man who had harmed so many could not face his own death with detachment was simply instinct, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Move, damn you. Please.
Perhaps the plea was heard. At last the leader managed to shake free of the terror enough to move his body.
Yes!
By the time the final subordinate vanished, the leader was already pumping his legs without so much as a backward glance. Among the demigods, his physical prowess ranked among the very highest. With every stride the surrounding scenery whipped past and changed.
"Hah… hah… hah… hah…"
Raising clouds of dust, he ran faster than the wind for a long while. Before he knew it, Mount Ebih had dwindled to a distant speck. Still unconvinced of his safety, he hurriedly scanned his surroundings. Fortunately, no one was in sight.
"D-did I… get away?"
He had survived. The moment he reached that conclusion, relief drained the strength from his entire body. Panting raggedly, he gave thanks for the fortune that had found him.
"Did you think you could live?"
The instant he thought he heard a voice, someone seized him by the throat.
"Ghk!!"
It was Sunya. He was staring at the leader with eyes that still burned red.
"Ah— augh!!"
The grip on his neck was so crushing he could not wrench the arm away. Sunya regarded the leader for a moment with a blank expression, then spoke in a voice devoid of feeling.
"You're far too tall."
Slash.
The leader's thick legs were severed in a single stroke. The pain, like being branded by fire, arrived only a beat later. With Sunya still clamping his throat, the leader could not even scream. He would have welcomed unconsciousness — but the powerful flesh steeped in dense divinity would not permit him the mercy of fainting.
Sunya lifted the leader with arm strength alone, as though he weighed nothing, and set off somewhere. Before long he had returned to the village at the mountain's foot, and he stood at its center where all could see. Blood from the stumps of the leader's severed legs trailed behind them in a long, unbroken line.
Then, with the hand not gripping the man's throat, Sunya tore off the leader's right arm the way one might pluck the leg from an insect. Next the left arm. And last of all, he ripped away the man's genitals. A sizable penis and pair of testicles, torn out by the root, tumbled across the ground.
In the midst of this, the leather skirt Sunya wore happened to slip free. The dying leader caught an involuntary glimpse of Sunya's manhood.
Ah… bigger than mine.
That was the last thought he ever had.
Sunya's hand then plunged into the man's chest and extracted the heart.
Squelch.
A great gout of blood erupted from the chest and drenched Sunya's body. With a few final twitches, the leader moved no more.
The man who had led raiders living like beasts met a beast's death at the jaws of a greater predator — just as he himself had dealt death to others. That was all there was to the story.