An unexpected beginning.

For months on end, I could only see a glistening hue of maroon. I found myself swimming without any air to breathe. It was like my body was in a perpetual straight of drowning, yet I had never felt so comfortable.

If you were to ask me if I would like to stay here forever, I wouldn't be able to deny it.

But then in came light... Bright, blinding, cold, and uncomfortable.

An orifice opened right in front of me as rhythmic contractions embraced my body. Two hands grabbed the underside of my arms and being unable to resist, I started getting pulled out of the comfortable warmth of the place where I was resting- and then-

'PLUP!'

A slumber. A slumber long enough to make me feel like I had already been dead. But I wasn't. It was in this new environment where I found myself.

The small light source gradually became larger and larger until my entire field of view was filled with nothing but light.

"Honey! You did it!" Cries of a man resounded in the background making my head throb.

"Congratulations. Even though he came a bit early, there don't seem to be any complications."

"Haaah… finally…" An exasperated sigh. "Haah."

My eyes took a bit of time to adjust but as soon as they did, I was greeted with a reflection of a red infant cradled in the arms of a man. Around that red sloppy fleshy creature, I found people donning blue drabs.

I tried to move my hands and it was the reflection that moved instead. 'Ah, so that's me.'

This calls for a slight correction then. What I meant to say was that around that gorgeously handsome-looking infant with scarlet skin, I found people wearing blue garments.

Anyways, on the other side, there was a man grabbing a woman's hand with great fervour.

The woman in question looked completely fine excluding the little beads of sweat glistening off her supple skin. The man on the other hand looked... rough to say the least. For one, he was balling, for two he had no irises, and for three, snot was dripping out his nose.

"Uwaahhh..." He cried. "I-It took so long..." While the woman patted his head lovingly.

Speaking of the woman, her green hair matched the serenity that she was displaying with her composed outlook. If I didn't know any better I would have assumed that it was the man that gave birth to me.

One of the blue rag-covered females used some sort of tool to chop off the pipe extending from my belly and the other tied it up neatly and put some sort of clip on it. It didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would after seeing the instrument. Or rather, I was feeling excessively numb right now.

No... that's not it. I- I wasn't feeling anything. I wasn't feeling any pain. My eyes started to glisten.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't feeling any pain. It was just a sombre feeling of nothingness. I felt... alive.

Just as I was basking in this moment, my parade got stormed on.

The man. who pulled me out held me up the wrong side around and hit my baby bottom with a finger. 

As if called by that obscene action, the room went silent and everyone looked at me with anticipation. What an odd bunch of fellows.

Slap. He hit me again. No, really, what the hell was he trying to accomplish by that? Why was everyone looking at me in this shameful state? Is this some kind of perverseness I was not aware of?

I wanted to call them out but I did feel like I was choking a bit.

Applying a little pressure on my vocal cords I coughed a bit.

"Khhk Khhk." Yep, the air was now entering my lungs just fine.

Yet, the man didn't cease the act of tapping my ass.

'WHAT DOES HE EVEN WANT ME TO DO?!'

He continued incessantly and with more aggression with every progressive tap. One tap, two taps, three taps… the air got colder and everyone started looking more worried. The man started to sniffle a little.

"no-" He whispered. The couple were holding each other's hands desperately. A touching moment.

Well, for them at least. I was still getting my ass annihilated by this blue peasant.

'Ughhh! I can't take this anymore.' I was going to wait for them to put me down before I talked, but this was getting ridiculous-

"C-ugh can you stop?" I squeaked out of my little vocal cords. My voice was barely audible.

.

.

.

The sobs of the man started to get louder as his body started to get surrounded by mana. Mana that was warm and forgiving, mana that started to fill the room. The woman too, unlike the composed look she had a moment ago, she looked agitated, scared.

And out of all the troubled reactions filling the room, there was one more troubled than everyone else's combined.

"W-Wha-Wha- WWWWHAT THE FUCK?! THE BABY JUST TALKED! FUCK!" The blue drabbed peasant shouted and then, in a single moment-

"Eh?" My legs suddenly got released and I started falling straight to the ground. The tiles were reflecting my face. "EEEHHHH!!!" Blasphemy! How could this nincompoop let such a vulnerable and delicate like myself fall?!

I needed to protect myself. I drew my hands closer to my chest, to no avail. They flailed around helplessly. Weak. Excessively weak. My muscles were absolutely useless. Now, the only other option was using my mana!

BUT I DIDN'T HAVE THAT! BUT I HAD IT WHEN I WAS A BABY THE LAST TIME! HOW EVEN-

'Noooo... Am I going to die again? Already?!'

I prepared myself for the worst. While hoping for the best, and then all of a sudden- Before I reached the ground, a mana cushion stopped my movement and forced me to float in the air.

Heh, how? I looked around the silent room. The source was- ah! The female in the bed.

The mana slowly pulled me towards her and I got buried between her arms and her plentiful… umm… chest.

My heart was racing, and I sweated an unholy amount but I felt warm.

After giving myself a moment and exerting my brain the reality of the situation dawned on me.

Even though it was different from my era, what I went through was nothing but the human phenomenon of childbirth. Unlike my last birth, this was different. I was born- normal. 

Anyways, even though I did claim that it was a human phenomenon, the woman who underwent it was definitely a demon by race. I could feel her energy. Demons don't give birth, so this scenario still didn't make a lot of sense...

But then again, this was the future. I didn't have the context to make sense of this.

Coincidentally, the male with red hair was human.

The two other females were demons and the male who was holding me upside down is human.

Now that I think about it, what the hell is up with this intermingling of races?! Since when did humans and demons just coexist like this? In my time, these people would be at each other's throats.

'Did I miss a page of common sense?'

"What are you talking about doctor? How could a baby talk?" The almost crying woman said while forcing a finger between my palm. I grabbed onto it instinctively.

She looked down at me in shock. Her eyes widened, but they were kind, and so was her genuine smile. "He's alive." Her lips mouthed. The man too leaned over.

'Damn, look at those scars'

Anyways, can babies not talk? Now that I think about it... my general did say something about his daughter's first words. Eh, I wouldn't know. A being like me came out of Gaia's womb giving military orders.

"But-" The 'doctor' in question tried to protest.

"Moreover… you almost dropped my little baby. Don't you know how much pain I had to go through to give birth to him?" I took a look at her visage, which was composed again. Was she bipolar?

'You look just fine.' The man beside you, on the other hand, looks as if he went through hell.

The 'doctor' now had his eyes down low under this stifling atmosphere.

"Well, it's fine since I wouldn't let him fall even if you threw him on purpose…" 

"But he really did-"

"Tch, how could an idiot like you even get a license?" She looked down at me expectantly. "So why don't you say something cutie wootie Mao-kyun?" Her words seemed unthreatening, or rather cringey, but her face... Her face!!!

Why do calm smiling faces always look so terrifying?!

All of my neurons fired up at once and I transferred into my maximum thinking state.

Humans and demons coexisting, and a demon giving birth to a child from presumably a human. This was all unprecedented. This is definitely a more, uhh, liberal future. There were too many variables and too much danger. I cannot compute properly!

I must lay as low as possible. Judging from the 'doctor's reaction, speaking is something a 'baby' should be incapable of. So what do I do to not arouse any suspicion? What do I do? What do I do? Not speak, naturally.

But at the same time, the woman was looking for a response. I had to give her something.

"Mao-kunnn." The slowly slanting face of the woman instilled an impending sense of doom in my heart.

And then it all clicked.

Previous life, age six, I came to learn from a subordinate when he decided to bring a stray human orphan he found to work. He wanted to raise him but needed my permission beforehand.

That day, I experienced the worst sounds possible. After seeing my grand visage, the baby started to make a sound that resembled the high-pitched whine of a dying hyena.

Nonetheless, it was the one lead I had. I put all my faith in that little sound and opened my mouth.

"Uwein."

The room went silent again and the eyes that were imparting fear were now glittering with an emotion that can only be described as joy. The man next to the woman had streaks of tears running down his face again.

"Seee doc?!" The woman shouted. "There's no way our cutie wittle Mao-kun could speak so early! I mean listen to him… he even cries in a Germain accent!" The woman held me up and pointed me toward the doctor.

"Uwein." I muttered again. AHH! SO EMBARRASSING!

'I want to cover my face and hole up somewhere. Don't look at me!'

"I see..." The doctor said unconvinced and started wrapping his stuff up.

"Well, can you move on to the other procedures now?" The woman retook charge. Her composure and prideful aura. Boy, am I proud of this demon! Such a strong one.

"Yes, sure."

What followed next is a bunch of tedious processes- I got wrapped up, caressed, and showered with affection, fed the liquid called colostrum, almost suffocated in the process. And only after all that, did I get put into a bed.

But that peace didn't last very long either- a bunch of guests came and suspiciously greeted my lazing self.

Many dressed up in uniform. Some dressed in noble clothing. All played around with me and discussed my future with my parents as if I didn't have any say in it. They looked as if they wanted to build connections with me before I was even capable of picking and choosing. They blatantly tried sucking up to me. Many a time with gifts.

It appeared as though my new family had some prestige.

But that didn't get to them, as they were clearly capable of handling themselves. They put off any attempts with a smile on their face saying that I should be the one to decide. The man who was crying a minute ago was stern and confident now.

By the time the majority of them left, the room was filled with bouquets. We were done with all the pointless pleasantries. I could relax from now on- Or so I got baited into thinking.

"Is this our little Mao-kyun?" The last one to arrive was a demon man, a vampire by family.

"Yep… isn't he cute?" My father bragged. It was the first time seeing him relaxed in the last hour.

"Sure is… but he's still not as cute as our Yuu-chan." The man replied with an equal amount of pride. He and my father must be close, to have this sort of conversation. Blatantly making fun of my godly appeal.

"You shouldn't be saying that after seeing someone's newly born child!" A woman complained. She slowly crept into my field of vision, carrying another kid... probably the 'Yuu-chan' the man just mentioned. Phe. I could see her oily skin peeking over the woman.

To think that man would compare my looks to that inferior be-

'Oh.' As the woman turned around 'Yuu-chan' came into sight.

A female demon kid, around my age. Skin as pure as snow, majestic blonde hair, and eyes shining like the deepest blues of the ocean. But what struck me was the mana composition, the feel of her soul-her existence. One I would never mistake for anyone else's.

I put on a stern expression as it unmistakably belonged to that one person. The premiere human who was bestowed with the honour of killing me in my previous life- the hero.