Before long, it was evening in Chaldea.
I threw some clothes on and stepped out of my room. As always, Shuten-Douji and Baobhan Sith stayed close at my side, and together with Olga Marie and Kojiro, I headed for the cafeteria.
The moment I entered, a clean, deep aroma brushed my nose.
It was nothing like the rough food I had made before. This was the scent of a real cook, someone who had honed their craft over many long years.
My gaze naturally turned toward the open kitchen.
A small figure stood on a little platform, humming to herself as she skillfully worked a kitchen knife. It was Beni-Enma.
"..."
Hearing my footsteps, Beni-Enma's shoulders twitched, and she turned around.
The moment our eyes met, clear agitation and instinctive disgust flashed through her bright eyes. I could see her small hand tighten around the cutting board.
But unlike this morning, she did not draw her sword. She only bit down hard on her lip, forced herself to look away, and tried to focus on cooking again.
I signaled to my Servants to sit at the table first, then rolled up my sleeves and walked into the kitchen.
The closer I got, the more visibly rigid Beni-Enma's back became.
I stopped at an empty cutting board a short distance from her and took out pasta, garlic, and olive oil. The sound of the gas burner igniting filled the kitchen's awkward silence.
"...Um, excuse me."
Just as I started slicing the garlic, a tiny voice, barely louder than a mosquito's buzz, broke the silence.
"About this morning... I am truly sorry."
Beni-Enma had set down her knife and was bowing deeply toward me. There was no excuse mixed into her trembling voice, only sincere remorse.
I stopped cutting, drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out and closed my eyes for a moment.
I knew. To her, an embodiment of lawful good who had spent her life cutting down the demons of hell, my cursed constitution had to be something nauseating just by existing, something that stirred the urge to cut off my head on sight.
Even now, her soul was probably screaming at her to reject me.
And yet, despite all that physical revulsion and instinct, she had crushed it down with reason and with her duty as a judge, then bowed her head to me.
As expected of Beni-Enma of Enma-tei. Just like one of the very few people Kiyohime and Tamamo truly respected.
Her heartfelt apology stirred up more thoughts in me than I expected, for someone who had spent his whole life being hated.
I opened my eyes again and answered casually as I took up the knife once more.
"It's fine. Just don't pull a blade on me first thing next time."
At my calm, almost lighthearted forgiveness, Beni-Enma jerked her head up. She stared at me with wide eyes, as if she could not believe it.
"Why... why would you forgive me so easily? If you think about it, I... I practically tried to take your life. Even if I only meant to cut out your tongue, if you had been caught defenseless, your life would surely have been in danger... Aren't you angry? Don't you resent me?"
No lies could pass the eyes of a judge of hell.
She knew better than anyone that I was not pretending to brush it off. I truly felt no anger or resentment over what had happened. That was probably why she could not understand it.
I poured olive oil into the heated pan and sautéed the garlic as I went on in an indifferent voice.
"Well, attempted murder is something I've dealt with all the time since I was a kid."
"What...?"
"Back at the orphanage, there was a kid around my age who slept next to me. One time he nearly stabbed me in the neck with a shard of glass. Getting hit by rocks while walking down the street was normal. I got shoved down stairs more times than I can count. If you're asking whether I had some kind of grudge with those people, no. It happened over and over for one reason only: I was standing there. My existence itself disgusted them."
Over the sizzling sound of garlic in the pan, my dry account of the past scattered into the air.
"So when you nearly took my head off too, I just thought, ah, another Servant having a fit because of my constitution. It's not that you're especially bad. I was just born with a filthy curse like that."
Clatter.
The kitchen knife slipped from Beni-Enma's hand and hit the floor.
Her clear eyes shook uncontrollably.
She had watched countless sinners suffer punishment in hell, but she probably still could not begin to grasp the loneliness of someone who spoke so matter-of-factly about death threats as if they were everyday life.
Even now, her instincts were still calling me a demon before her eyes, but her crushing guilt was reaching toward my scarred past.
The demon she had loathed so intensely was, in truth, the most pitiful human of all, someone who had endured the world's irrational violence alone. That realization left her breathless.
"So don't take it too much to heart."
I transferred the boiled pasta into the pan and added quietly,
"But... if someday I really do something horrible, the kind of thing your instincts tell you I would... if I really do become a monster..."
I turned off the heat, set down the pan, and looked straight into Beni-Enma's trembling eyes.
"Then you can cut off my head. I don't want to die, but living on as the worst kind of person everyone thinks I am... I'd hate that even more."
At my firm declaration, Beni-Enma's lips trembled faintly.
"D-don't speak so lightly of giving up your life...! There is no such thing as a life that deserves to be cut down!"
"I'm not giving up. My life matters to me too. I just don't want to become a monster while accepting the fate I've been given."
I gave a small shrug and neatly plated the pasta.
Beni-Enma clenched both fists and asked,
"I may once again fail to overcome my disgust and impulsively try to harm you, just as I did before. Even though I tried to be fair to the demons of hell, this is all the discipline I amount to... So what exactly are you trusting in me to hand me such a terrifying right?"
"Who knows. I trust you, I guess."
I let out a faint laugh and lifted the plate.
"If you've made up your mind as Ritsuka's Servant, then I believe that if I ever truly fall, you'll judge me not out of disgust, but fairly, as a judge of hell."
It was trust in her as a just and good person, and at the same time, trust in Ritsuka as well.
At my calm answer, Beni-Enma froze where she stood.
The victim was entrusting fair judgment, without the slightest doubt, to the very person who had nearly killed him out of disgust alone.
Faced with that contradictory yet earnest trust, Beni-Enma was overcome by piercing self-loathing.
She had been blinded by prejudice and tried to cut out the tongue of an innocent man, while he had endured all that absurdity and still chose to trust others.
In this kitchen, who was the real sinner deserving judgment and a severed tongue?
Deep doubt and guilt churned inside her small chest.
A heavy silence settled over the kitchen for a moment.
I was just about to finish the pasta with a rough sprinkle of parsley.
"...Wait. Please hold on."
Beni-Enma carefully approached and took out some cheese and a container of special spices.
"For pasta sauce... if you layer in the aroma like this, the flavor comes alive much more."
She grated cheese over my plate and lightly dusted it with spices.
Then her small hand lightly brushed the back of mine, which was holding the frying pan handle, as if by accident.
"...Ah!"
The instant my body heat touched her, Beni-Enma's small shoulders jolted as if she had been struck by lightning. The color drained from her face in an instant.
A physical wave of revulsion seemed to rise in her throat. A chill like her flesh was burning away.
But Beni-Enma did not pull her hand away. She did not run, and she did not draw her sword.
She squeezed her eyes shut and bit down hard on her lower lip... no, on her own tongue, blunted and shortened from having been cut.
Inflicting enough pain on herself that tiny beads of blood seeped through her lips, she endured that terrible instinctive disgust and forced it down.
This is a trial, she told herself. A fitting punishment for someone as foolish as me.
Her trembling hand stubbornly finished sprinkling the spices, and only then did she step back, breathing hard.
"...Please enjoy it."
Beni-Enma forced a polite smile despite the cold sweat on her face.
Having watched that entire struggle from right beside her, I looked back and forth between the back of my hand and her with a slightly troubled expression.
I'd seen more than enough people run from me or retch because they hated me. But this was the first time I'd ever seen someone bite their own tongue and desperately endure, all to overcome their disgust toward me.
The beads of sweat on her forehead looked painfully pitiful, and in some strange way, they made something in my chest ache.
If it weren't for this rotten constitution of mine, neither of us would have to feel so awkward and sorry like this.
I swallowed the bitterness rising inside me. Through her desperate effort, I was reminded once more that there was no such thing as evil that came naturally.
"...Thank you. I'll enjoy it, Beni-Enma."
When I nodded with genuine sincerity, she returned the gesture. Her face was still pale, but her eyes looked a little more at ease.
The cruel parallel lines of good and evil had seemed as though they could never draw closer.
Yet across that distant ravine, a clumsy, fragile bridge of understanding was being laid, little by little, ever so slowly.
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