The laughter echoed off the cold, dim walls of the cave.
Petelgeuse was laughing loudly, but it was unclear what he found so funny, as he continued to laugh, baring his teeth, stained red with blood.
If there was no one to stop him, Petelgeuse would likely continue like this forever. Subaru, the target of ridicule at his strange behavior, bowed his head and glared at the ground.
Subaru was dragged into the back of the hall by a man dressed in black, then roughly thrown out and tied to the wall. The iron shackles were so tightly gripped around his limbs that they changed colour, and a numbness began to spread as his blood vessels were squeezed.
"Hehe, hehe..."
Subaru gave a strained smile as if he didn't know any other way to express the numbness in his limbs. Seeing this, Betelgeuse clapped his hands even more enthusiastically,
"Oh, how ridiculous! Quite quite quite quite, it is an exciting sight. Very, very, very, very, very, my brain is shaking..."
Blood drips from the wound on his left hand, he wipes it with the fingers of his right hand and smears it on his own forehead.
Betelgeuse, with a wicked smile and a mark of spots on his forehead, was out of his mind.
Subaru was laughing at a place that was different from reality, and Petelgeuse was immersed in a world of pure madness. As the two men's manic laughter overlapped, slightly damaging their sense of reality, a shadow suddenly appeared in the space.
It was a different figure from the one who had carried Subaru and brought him to the cave. The tall figure moved silently and silently, approaching the snoring Betelgeuse.
"――――"
She muttered something softly, in a voice so that only he could hear.
Hearing this, Betelgeuse suddenly lost the smirk that had been twisting his cheeks, and his playful, silly behavior stopped.
「That's right, Death! Ah, that, ahhh... it makes my brain tremble!」
With the same nuance as the evil laugh he'd started with earlier, but with a sinister, menacing expression on his face that sent chills down one's spine, Betelgeuse bit the nail on his left finger.
Biting, biting, tearing, his nails peeling off and bleeding, he didn't care and continued to bite into the flesh,
"...Ahh, it hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. My brain is trembling. Do it. Move forward! There's no time to stop! Scream! Call! My brain is trembling!!"
He swung his arm, and blood fell onto the cold ground of the cave from his left hand, where the nail had been bitten off.
The black shadow watched this emotionlessly, then tilted his hips slightly - giving a gesture of thanks while whispering to the still-maddening Petelgeuse.
"My left ring finger is destroyed?! Ah, what a sweet trial it is! Even though I am working so diligently... the world is not kind to me today either!"
"――――"
"Ah, that's fine. The remaining ring fingers on your left ring fingers will join the fingers next to them. There's still more, still more, still more, you still have nine fingers. There's nothing to worry about!"
"――――"
「That's right... Death! A trial! A trial! This is a trial! All of this is a trial to ensure that we follow God's will! Illuminate, shine... Ah, my brain is trembling!」
Petelgeuse laughs in joy, spits, and spins around on the spot, clutching his head.
The voices of the men in black are muffled, and impossible to hear even in the enclosed space of a cave. Therefore, the conversation between Petelgeuse and the Black Shadow is almost comical, like a one-man show by Petelgeuse, and this, combined with his eccentric behavior, makes it even creepier.
"Ahh, death, death, death, death, death death death death death death death!!"
"――――"
"Death... Ah, is it him? Are you worried about him? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I understand... Death!"
Bending at the waist, Petelgeuse lowered his body and twisted his body further to approach Subaru. He drew his face closer to his, breathing a fishy-smelling breath on him, and Subaru, grinning, looked up at the crazy behavior with emotionless eyes.
Facing those black eyes, Betelgeuse twisted his own grey eyes with so much force that they looked as if they were about to pop out of his skin.
Subaru: "Indeed, indeed, indeed, indeterminately, strange, disturbing, incomprehensible… At this stage, with the trial right before our eyes, why is there an existence like you?"
"――――"
"Dragon carriage! Ah, dragon carriages are great! Earth dragons are adorable and very good! Unlike humans, they don't have any unnecessary emotions. Above all, they diligently follow people's orders, work diligently, and their attitude of trying to be diligent is wonderful!"
"――――"
"I killed him! Yes, that's also good! I had no choice in order to bring him down! Yes, you guys should be diligent too! That's good, that's good! If you're by my side, the fingers of my hands, then it's more important than anything to be diligent! Yes! Yes! Very very ...
Betelgeuse leans his body back, demonstrating his flexibility to the point that his head almost hits the ground. With a look of ecstasy on his face, he raises his body in recoil like a drawn bow,
"The diligence of my fingers! I have defeated the earth dragon, a creature that is the epitome of diligence! Ahh, my brain is trembling. Trembling, trembling, trembling, rrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!"
His face turned red with excitement at the madness that normal people could not comprehend, and suddenly a stream of blood began to flow from Betelgeuse's nostril.
Licking the food that was about to get into his mouth with his tongue, Petelgeuse's face turned crimson red and he relaxed his cheeks with a look of ecstasy.
"Ahh... the dead earth dragon is indeed "lazy."
With heated eyes, Petelgeuse exclaimed, his body trembling with ecstasy.
Then he roughly wiped the blood from his nose with the sleeve of his priest's robe, and with such coolness that it made one wonder where he had thrown away all the excitement he had felt up until then.
"We must immediately clean up the scene where the dragon carriage was destroyed. With the Day of Trials approaching, we must avoid our existence being discovered. We should have already cleared everyone away, so there shouldn't be any need to worry about witnesses... but what about the passengers? Did you kill them properly?"
"――――"
"A report on that? Ah, let me hear it. Be generous, be grand, and with an immense amount of love. I will treat my fingers with mercy."
Spreading his arms, Petelgeuse nodded solemnly, the hem of his robe swaying.
Seeing this, a man who called himself a bishop and was behaving in a way that was in keeping with his position, Kurokage tucked his chin in and continued to stubbornly keep his voice low.
"――――"
"There was one passenger... a blue-haired girl. The tip of her left ring finger got caught and destroyed the dragon carriage. A battle ensued while they were securing him... the ring finger was destroyed by that girl... her life or death is unknown."
Hearing the report from the black shadow, Betelgeuse shook his head from side to side, cracking his bones.
He continued to think deeply, his head swinging from side to side like the pendulum of a clock, twisting, turning, turning, swaying, and finally leaning forward.
"Life, death, uncertainty...death, huh?"
Having made this statement, he slowly, slowly raised his trembling head and turned his blank, grey gaze towards the man in black.
"You're lazy, aren't you?"
As he spoke, Betelgeuse raised his left hand and took the ring finger into his mouth.
And immediately afterwards, without any hesitation whatsoever, he bit into the tip of her ring finger with all his might.
The sound of flesh being crushed between his molars and violently squeezed resounded with disgust. Betelgeuse bit his nails, chewed the meat, and let the resulting blood pool in his mouth, then spat it all out and grabbed the shadow's face with his left hand, stained bright red.
"A trial is ahead, a situation where the truth is likely to be revealed! That! That! That that that that that that that! Is this your sincere way of repaying the gospel? Ah, laziness! Laziness! Laziness, laziness, laziness, laziness!"
Where does this strength come from in a body that is nothing but skin and bones? Petelgeuse grabs his opponent, who is strong enough to carry Subaru and run, and swings him from side to side while grabbing him by the face. His black outfit may have been a factor in his lack of resistance, but Petelgeuse looks up at the ceiling as he violently shakes his opponent off.
"And! The laziness of my fingers is my own laziness! Ah, forgive my own laziness, which does not allow me to return the favor! With all my body and soul, with diligence, to live in accordance with the Gospel! Please forgive me!"
Letting go of the black shadow, Petelgeuse knelt down, tears flowing freely. He clasped his bloodstained hands together and prayed, clasped them, begging as if he could see something.
The men in black who had been roughly treated also followed Betelgeuse's prayer, looking up at the ceiling behind him, silently confessing their own immorality and sins.
--It was an unusual sight.
Betelgeuse switches between joy, anger, sadness, and happiness without any signs of indecision. It's not just emotional instability. It's an emotionless state.
It was also strange that the man in black clothing took it for granted and showed no reaction even to the assault on him. Seeing how he followed Betelgeuse, who called himself Bishop, perhaps he should be called a believer. More accurately, he would be a fanatic.
"Love! Love must be reciprocated! We cannot be idle! We must obey the gospel! We must return the love that has been given to us by loving!"
"――――"
"I have to find the girl whose life or death is unknown! If she's alive, I have to put an end to her life! If she's dead, I have to cut off her head and bring her here! I have to clean up after her with my own hands and apologize for my neglect!"
The dark shadow responded to the shriek's command and melted away into the darkness of the cave.
And then the presence faded away, and for a while Betelgeuse was stunned, kneeling on the spot and breathing heavily, but then,
"Now, now, now, now, now, now, now..."
Still kneeling, Petelgeuse moved closer to Subaru.
The movement of scraping his knees against the hard, sharp rock-like ground was a self-inflicted injury that only maliciously damaged the skin beneath his robes.
He looked at Subaru, seemingly ignoring his pain and wounds,
"So, what exactly are you?"
"Uhh... Ahh..."
Subaru: "It doesn't seem like he's been guided by the Gospel, but an intense amount of affection emanates from his body. Very, very, very, very, very interesting…!"
Petelgeuse looked at Subaru, his face close by and tongue out, as if he could lick it. However, Subaru was in no state to respond to his question.
Subaru was still looking somewhere other than here, and Petelgeuse ecstatically muttered, "Ah, my brain is trembling,"
"I'm sure I'm familiar with the faces of everyone except for 'Pride', but I can't imagine that someone who is this beloved has no connection to the Gospel."
He reached into his robes and pulled out a book.
It was a black-bound book. It was the size of a dictionary, and about as thick. At first glance, it looked like he was just carrying a favorite book, but...
"Ahh... I feel the gospel. My brain is trembling..."
The way she lovingly stroked the black spine with her fingers and let out hot sighs made it clear that this was not the case and was beyond reassuring.
Holding the book with no title or anything in it, Petelgeuse enjoyed its feel for a moment, then began to slowly and solemnly turn the pages.
"You are not mentioned in the Gospels. Of course, there is nothing about the problems that arose before this great trial, or what is happening now! That is! I mean!"
He closed the book with a clang, then held it up, spitting at it.
"You are an inconsequential thing! Your existence, which will never be recorded in the Gospels, is entrusted to me! Despite being so deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply loved... how contradictory you are! Ah, my brain, my brain, my brain!"
He put his fingers against his temple and moved his nails with such force that it seemed as if he would gouge the skin. The skin tore and blood began to ooze.
Subaru still doesn't respond, instead laughing and ignoring Petelgeuse's self-harming behavior.
「Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah... Ah, being ignored must be lonely! So much, so much! Even though I've been treating you with kindness, even though, even though, even though, even though, desu!」
Petelgeuse reached out and grabbed Subaru's face, fixing Subaru's face, which he wasn't sure where he was looking, and forcing it to face his own eyes.
Subaru, who was in a state of unconsciousness, grimaced at the violent act and tried to resist, but
"--Look into my eyes."
It was a quiet, less emotional statement than anything he'd made so far, but there was a powerful force in his voice and his eyes that left no room for argument.
Subaru's body trembled with fear, and though stunned, he did as he was told, staring into Betelgeuse's grey eyes, shining with a madness.
and,
"I will answer. I will respond. To my questions, to my requests. Why are you here, and why are you so beloved? Do you not have the Gospels with you? If so, have you ever heard the Gospels directly?"
"Ah, yeah...hihahe."
"This isn't going to work... In that case, maybe I should change the order."
Dodging the barrage of questions, Betelgeuse tilted his head ninety degrees to the right.
With his face tilted to the side, Betelgeuse brought his face even closer.
and,
"I have a question for you."
"--Ahhh!"
Petelgeuse drew his face closer, extended his tongue, and licked the pupil of Subaru's left eye.
Subaru reacts with a rejection at the unusual sensation of his eyes being licked by another person, and the chains on his handcuffs rattle as he trembles.
That was, until he heard the next word.
"--Why, my dear, are you pretending to be mad?"
※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※
Grey is scary.
The eyes staring at me in front of me, unable to look away, are terrifying.
Trembling, I turn my face away, trying to escape from his eyes, but the hands gripping my face are so strong and the chains binding my body are so cold that I can't escape.
I have unbearable pain all over my body.
The abrasions he'd received from being thrown from the overturned dragon carriage hadn't been treated in any way. Under his torn clothes, the red, frayed wounds only intensified the pain, and the blood oozing from them seemed to be directly connected to some extremely unpleasant memory.
Where did the blue go?
The blue that was always by my side. The blue that touched me gently. The blue that fed me, and held my hand when I was anxious.
If Ao wasn't there, if only Ao was here, it wouldn't be so scary.
There's no green, no brown, no white here.
All there is is pitch black, so dark you can't see anything, and the grey in front of you.
It was also scary how Kuro just stood there, saying nothing or answering anything.
But grey is much, much more frightening than that.
"Have you ever heard the gospel firsthand?"
I don't know what they're saying. My brain won't work to understand. I just have a strong desire to reject the things I don't like, so I turn my body, my face, my heart away to reject them.
However, the other person didn't allow it, and Gray came even closer,
"This isn't going to work... In that case, maybe I should change the order."
As he spoke, Gray approached me. A tongue extended from his mouth, an abnormally long tongue, red from having just licked up the blood that had dripped from his mouth, and approached me mercilessly.
"I have a question for you."
--The tongue licked cruelly over the surface of my left eye, just above the pupil.
The disgust welling up inside me, the overwhelming fear, the rattle of the chains, making my refusal clear, but Gray makes no attempt to stop. What's more, he extends his tongue even more joyfully, running it behind my eyes and toying with my eyeballs, rolling them around on his tongue.
It's disgusting, I don't like it, forgive me, help me, it's scary, scary, scary.
Scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary.
"--Why, my dear, are you pretending to be mad?"
Scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary scary---?
I didn't understand what he was saying.
The discomfort of having his eyes licked, the nausea of being stared at, and the sense of rejection due to fear of the visible madness caused his body, which should have been trembling, to stop completely still.
Stunned, dumbfounded, with her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide open,
"Why are you pretending to be crazy?"
I heard the repeated, grey question.
"Aaaaaaahh!!"
"No no no no no no no, actually I'm wondering. Why, why, why are you pretending to be tainted by madness?"
You must not listen. You must not hear. You must not know.
Shaking his head, his handcuffs and shackles clanging, he tore himself away from consciousness. He pushed the words of the man in front of him away from his ears. Hearing, realizing, knowing was something he must not do.
"I don't provide a convenient escape route like 'unconsciously'. You are aware of it, understand yourself, and then pretend to be insane."
"Ahh! Ugh! Aaahhh!"
"Your insanity is too rational. There's no point in going crazy like that, acting so wisely, acting so obediently, trying to gain sympathy, trying to be loved."
I raised my voice, screamed as loud as my throat would burst, trying to muffle the man's voice. However, the man seemed to mock my actions, slipping his words into my consciousness.
「It's just the acting of a failed madman. If you're serious about going mad, if you're truly immersed in a world of madness, then you shouldn't be conscious of what others think. Your world should be complete within yourself, otherwise going mad means going off the rails!」
"--Baaah! Baaah! Ba-ba-baaah!"
「Ah, how ridiculous, how ridiculous! Why do you pretend to be a madman? If you are truly off the mark, that facade will peel right off, it will be obvious, and it will be unbearably funny!」
Words I don't want to hear, things I don't want to know, flow into my eardrums, hitting them.
It's painful. I feel sick. Something is swelling inside my chest. Something dark is crying out to get out. There's no way I can let it out.
If it gets out, if that happens,
"Pity, pity! You are miserable, ugly, vile, small, and sinful, ah, I pity you! What on earth do you need to reject when you are loved so much? Do you wish to simply fade away in stagnation, without indulging in the love that is given to you, and yet neither reciprocating nor rejecting the affection?"
The man in grey shook his head and threw away the face he had been holding.
The thrown head hit the wall behind him, sparks flying, and a sharp yell of pain escaped.
However, the man paid no attention to me and thrust another finger into the wound he had just bitten, causing the finger to bleed even more.
"Ah, ah, ah, you... you're lazy!"
There was a crack and it felt like something inside my head had split.
I'm not hearing anything. I'm not hearing anything. It's all the ramblings of a madman. Nothing hits the mark, nothing reaches the truth.
I don't understand anything, I can't understand anything. It should be that way. It should have been that way. It has to be that way.
If not, then I would――
"Ah, that's enough."
Something dark began to swell up inside his chest, and just when it felt like it was about to explode, the man suddenly lost all of his momentum and muttered something.
Instantly, the sense of danger that had been causing goosebumps on his skin and the light of insanity that had been looming before his eyes faded away, and his entire body, which had been tense without him realizing it, relaxed.
"It would be troublesome if you pushed her too hard. Maybe it would be best to take your time and think about it for a while? If you face your love sincerely, the answer should come naturally."
"Ahh... ugh..."
So what on earth is this guy talking about?
From start to finish, I cannot understand a single word the man says. Even though I cannot reach him, the man behaves as if he has everything under control, as if he understands me in the unseen darkness, like a kind adult holding a child's hand, or like a devil misleading a lost soul crossing a suspension bridge.
I shouldn't understand. I shouldn't try to understand. What's more, I can't even think like that now. I shouldn't be able to.
Once you understand that, there's no going back.
"Oh, I hope... that you're not lazy, but hardworking."