The Slave Told A Lie

Since Scarnetti left, Sarai has been brought to his mental limits, and something in him finally broke.

After finishing the dishes on the table and paying, he left the restaurant and wandered around Osaka, its cloudy night sky arching high above him, mirroring his endless concerns.

He had no destination in mind. One could even say he wished to sleep outside.

He walked.

Occasionally ran.

And most of the time stood still, gazing at a sky bereft of stars.

Before he knew it, as if his legs had guided him, he had neared a familiar place.

It was the alley where he had first awakened in Osaka, marking the beginning of madness.

To think it was only a couple of steps and a turn away from him planted a lingering warmth in his cold heart.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Now, only a turn stood between him and that warmth—the warmth of being hopeless.

He turned left.

It was extremely dark in there. The smell of overloaded trash bins wasn’t enough to send him back.

After all, this was where he had first been cast into foulness.

If I can’t take this, I can’t take anything.

As bold as he could manage, he stepped into the darkness. Of course, he couldn’t see a thing, so he walked until the murk solidified into a wall.

He had reached the end of the alley.

He sat, his back pressed against the rear wall, arms wrapped around his bent knees.

As if he were gazing at a TV screen, the entrance of the alley projected a view of the empty street, in which the stores’ glass panes provided a very faint light.

Silence, and nothing but silence.

Until—a man whose hazel eyes glimmered like a torch in a storm appeared.

Enji, who had also moved by pure instinct and intuition, loomed at the entrance of the alley.

Thud. He stepped inside.

“I knew you would be here, Sarai-kun,” he said.

Sarai, who wasn’t wishing for any further hassle, rose slowly.

“Let’s go back.” Enji waved his arm in the opposite direction. He faced away from Sarai but strangely stood motionless.

At the peak of his vulnerability, Sarai approached with a posture so hunched that one might mistake it for a disability.

He took a step. And another.

Very slowly.

Very deliberately.

Very—recklessly.

!!!

A wet heat bloomed in his throat.

Drip. Drip.

It was his soft, red blood that blessed the murky concrete with color, perhaps turning it even filthier.

His eyes, quite late, grasped the scene.

Enji had thrust his arm forward, plunging his dagger deep into Sarai’s neck—exactly where the Scorpion sigils were carved into the delicate skin.

He pulled it back.

Thud! Sarai fell to his knees, eyes wide not with shock but perhaps with gratitude.

Of course, there was nothing he could think of. As stated earlier, this young man’s mind had truly hit its limit.

“I’m sorry, Sarai-kun. But there are things that should be done no matter what.”

“I like to be fair, though. Let’s see you fight your way out of this.” Enji reached into his pocket for a paper parchment. A symbol resembling some sort of barrier was drawn on it with lustrous ink.

After chanting a prayer or two in an ancient language, the parchment burned into dark fire, and a magical, suffocating barrier sprang up around every corner of the alley and the atmosphere above.

It was a cage that disconnected this small area from the real world.

It hurts.

It hurts.

Feeling the cold crawl into his knee bones, Sarai bled excessively. A searing pain assaulted his senses, but he could only sit in acceptance, tears overflowing down his cheeks.

He watched Enji slice open the sigils in his own palm, mutating the flesh into flames.

Enji shaped his burning hand into a pistol and pointed it at Sarai.

“Get up and fight me,” he declared, his eyes sharp and focused.

Sarai was on all fours like a pathetic dog, coughing blood as if barking.

“W-Why… cough… cough… are you doing this…?”

“I have my reasons.” Enji’s voice carried no emotion.

Sarai gasped. “Then… do what you want. I’m not g-going to fight you.”

“Just kill me—”

“Get up.”

What?

“Fight him.”

“Kill him.”

“Skin him.”

“Whatever it takes for you to live, human, shall be done.”

That voice was no distant whisper.

It was no illusion.

It was what Sarai had believed in since the very beginning.

It was what he had deliberately buried in his mind.

It was the entity whose presence he had acknowledged long ago but wished to be false.

It was the entity that has been puppeting his body.

The main reason behind his memory loss.

The Scorpion itself spoke to him.

“You are no slave of anyone, are you?”

Suddenly, the torn sigils at Sarai’s neck shimmered with purple light.

He felt his blood pressure rise. He felt his skin boil under the heat, as if every passing second pushed him further from what a human was.

Further into blasphemy.

His back lanced with sharp pain. As mana gathered beneath the skin and flesh, it condensed into a large, extending shape.

!!!

“Aaaaaaghh!” Sarai screamed, and little did he know… It was just the beginning.

Watching the blasphemous transformation in front of him, Enji weighed whether to retreat or not. The same malicious presence that had first brought him face-to-face with Sarai was beginning to brew again—this time even more vicious.

The lower half of Sarai’s back ruptured. The shredded flesh fused with the volatile mana mass, mutating his back into a mystical appendage.

A curved, segmented tail, crowned with a stinger that streamed with venom.

It was the Scorpion’s tail.

The coppery smell of blood engulfed the air, mixing with the venom’s oppressive reek.

Sarai stood up slowly, the long tail extending from his back hovering menacingly.

His eyes were cold and focused when his tightly pressed lips twitched.

“I’m not a slave for anyone…”

“I’m not a slave…”

“I’m not…”

“I’m…”

Suddenly, a ravenous bloodlust deteriorated his perception. His eyes glittered like those of a predator.

“I’m going to fucking kill you.”

The slave told a lie.