What am I, to other people?
I once read that who you are is ultimately decided by others.
That a person is judged through their relationships with other people.
So what, exactly, am I? The more my memories of Chaldea returned, one by one, the more I began to question my own existence.
What am I, really?
"...Haa."
A heavy sigh slipped from my lips. I wanted to blame the acrid smoke stabbing into my lungs, but the truth was simpler.
I was just unbearably lonely.
This was something I had lived with my whole life. I thought the repeated wounds had long since hardened into calluses.
Looks like I was wrong.
No, maybe I had only wanted to believe that. Because somewhere inside me, I had still been clinging to the pitiful hope that maybe I, too, could share warmth with others like a normal person.
"Husband? What's wrong? You look awful. Are you hurting somewhere?"
Shuten, who had been walking behind me with her feet stepping over my shadow, came lightly to my side and peered up at my face.
A rich scent of alcohol drifted from her as she drew near. Her gaze, filled with pure and blind affection that I had never once received from another person in my life, was fixed on me.
Her cool fingertips carefully smoothed out the crease between my brows.
"It's nothing. My eyes just sting a little from the smoke."
I answered as calmly as I could and lightly took her hand before letting it go.
In the past, the only time anyone ever laid a hand on me was to hit me. But this was different, so there was no reason to reject it.
Still, I couldn't let myself get used to this. This wasn't normal for me. If I grew accustomed to something like this and then everything went back to the way it was before, I would be the only one left hurt.
At my gentle refusal, Shuten blinked wide-eyed, then soon flushed and let out a pleased little laugh.
"Oh, my husband really is thoughtful. Even the way you lie is adorable. Fine then. If you say it's nothing, then it's nothing."
Shuten slipped her arm through mine and pressed herself close, as if sharing her warmth with me.
"But, husband... there's been a really nasty smell coming from over there for a while now."
Her eyes flashed sharply toward the end of an alley where gray smoke was rising.
The moment she finished speaking, a bizarre chill swept over my skin, as if the air around us, wavering with flame, had frozen solid.
Tap. Tap-tap.
Heavy, sticky footsteps sounded at even intervals. Emerging slowly from the smoke was a human-shaped figure, as if molded from pitch-black mud.
A Servant in a skull mask, one arm shaped like a massive club, a dagger in the other hand.
It probably couldn't use its Noble Phantasm, so it shouldn't be much of a threat. But the pressure I felt as a human was undeniably heavy.
"Kshaaaaaak!"
It kicked off the ground and launched itself forward. The speed was so unreal that an ordinary human eye couldn't even follow its path.
Just as the chill of the black dagger rushing for my throat was about to touch the back of my neck—
"How dare filthy trash like you."
A cold, cruel voice brushed past my ear.
Shuten, who had been linked to my arm just a moment ago, was suddenly standing in front of me. One arm guarded me behind her back, while the other casually swept through the air.
Crunch!
With a sickening tearing sound, both arms of the Shadow Servant aiming for my neck crumpled like paper and were ripped away into the air.
Black, mud-like blood splattered everywhere, but the dense violet Magical Energy pouring from Shuten formed an invisible barrier, and not a single drop touched me.
"You dare try to step on my husband's shadow? Worthless little scrap that doesn't even know its place."
The seductive woman who had been clinging to me and acting cute only moments ago was nowhere to be seen. What stood there now was the leader of the oni, a being that delighted only in brutal slaughter and violation.
Shuten's nails lengthened into a terrifying blood-red, then mercilessly drove into the chest of the writhing Shadow Servant that had lost its arms.
"Who do you think you're looking at with those filthy eyes? He's mine. Mine, I said!"
Crush!
The sound of Shuten's hand crushing the Shadow Servant's core echoed through the alley.
Without even managing a final scream, the shadow Heroic Spirit scattered into the burning air of Fuyuki as black mist.
It was overwhelming. I stared blankly at her back.
The absurdity of this situation, where I, the one called a monster, was being protected by a real monster, was so unreal it almost made me laugh.
Or maybe a weak monster was simply being protected by a stronger one.
A reality where I wasn't protected by people, but by a monster.
Should I be relieved, at least now, that things had turned out this way? If only I had known from the start that this was the kind of constitution I had... no, that kind of assumption was meaningless.
Even then, my life probably wouldn't have changed all that much.
Still, I was worried. Before long, I would probably meet the people from Chaldea. What would they think when they saw me and Shuten as we were now? How would they react?
At the very least, I didn't want Shuten to be insulted because of me.
Shuten lightly flicked the black mud from her fingertips, then turned and came running back toward me.
"Husband! I did well, didn't I? You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"
In the middle of a battlefield drenched in blood, she looked up at me with sparkling eyes like a dog begging for praise. I let out a faint, helpless laugh and reached out to gently stroke around her horns.
"Yeah. I'm not hurt. Good work, Shuten."
"Hehe, it feels so good when you pet me. I'd be happy staying like this forever."
For Shuten of all people to react like this... it wouldn't have been strange for the gap to feel jarring, so why did it feel so warm instead?
It was just as she rubbed her face against my hand with a blissful smile.
[Main Quest: Shadow Servant subjugation complete. Rewards will be distributed.]
A system window rose at the edge of my vision, lines of inorganic text appearing one after another.
A notice passed by saying a random Craft Essence summoning ticket and a Heroic Spirit summoning ticket had been added to my inventory, and then the final line burned itself into my retina.
[Forcibly opening basic Magic Circuits.]
"...Huh?"
The instant I read those words, a strange sensation swept through my body. No, strange wasn't enough to describe it.
It felt like thousands of burning iron spikes were being forcibly driven deep into my bones.
"Ugh...!"
My breath caught, and my vision flashed white. It felt as though the blood running through my veins had turned into boiling lava, burning through my entire body.
I had endured all kinds of physical and mental violence throughout my life, but in the face of this pain, as if my entire nervous system were being torn apart and rebuilt, there was no enduring it.
The strength left my legs, and just as my body was about to collapse to the ground, two arms reached out in panic and caught me firmly.
"Husband?! Husband! What's wrong with you?! Open your eyes!"
Beyond my pain-warped vision, I saw Shuten's face gone pale. The hands holding me were trembling.
The enchantress who had been reveling in merciless slaughter just moments ago was now speaking in a desperate, agonized voice, as if her own heart were being torn apart.
"Why is your body burning up like this?! No, don't—if my husband dies, I'll bite my tongue and die too! Open your eyes, please!"
As if trying to lower my temperature, she kept pressing her cool cheek against my forehead in frantic distress.
The embrace holding me was astonishingly soft and warm, despite how dangerously revealing her clothes were.
Ah, honestly. Even in a situation like this, if I could think something like that, maybe I really was insane.
Was being worried over by someone always something that felt this good?
Even through the agony that felt ready to burst my veins, the warmth of the oni clutching me tightly enough to crush me was unbearably sweet.
My life had been one of abandonment, disgust, and endless solitude, rolling alone through the mud. And now, at last, in the middle of that horrible existence, the tiny bit of warmth I had always longed for was finally in my arms.
But this wouldn't do.
I didn't want to see her grieving because of me. I didn't want to see her cry. She shouldn't have to.
I forced my trembling hand up and very lightly brushed Shuten's cheek, where tears had begun to gather.
"It's okay..."
My voice came out horribly ragged, rough like metal scraping, but I still forced the corners of my mouth up into a faint smile.
"I'm not going to die... It just hurts a little. Just a little... so don't cry, Shuten."
At my gentle words, Shuten's eyes widened. Resting her cheek against the back of my hand, she swallowed down a low, aching sound like the cry of a beast.
"Honestly, husband, you really know how to tear a person apart inside... Fine. I'm here. I'll stay right by your side, so just endure a little longer. I will never let you go."
Shuten's cool body heat and her unbearably sweet scent of alcohol wrapped around me as my consciousness began to fade.
Even as the pain closed in and my mind sank into darkness, I found myself wishing, in a warped and secret corner of my heart, that the two of us could be left alone together like this forever.
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