The Defeated
The boy who claimed to be the reincarnation of Adyeshach was surprisingly friendly toward Mea.
As if speaking with Mea made him that happy, his expression changed constantly with every single word, smiling cheerfully all the while.
If not for the jet-black wings growing from his back, he could even have looked no different from a human child.
“Fufu, what should we talk about, I wonder? What do you want to talk about with me?”
“What, you ask… Adyeshach…? Really…?”
“That’s right. More precisely, former. The me here now is a fallen angel of the Greysphere, reincarnated while inheriting his memories.”
“A fallen angel… of the Greysphere…”
“In this world, that’s what you call angels who have fallen, right? It has a nice ring to it somehow, so I’d like you to call us that.”
Mea was bewildered by the identity he declared, and by the strange presence she could sense from his existence.
His appearance, like the angel Daat, was appropriate to be called a black-winged angel, yet she could not sense any holy power like hers.
Neither human nor angel, and yet lacking the ominousness of the Abyss as well.
Certainly, it was the same kind of presence as those aberrations that had come from that gate ── the Greysphere.
──“Fallen angel” really was an apt description. However, if he truly was the reincarnation of the Abyssal Qlippoth Adyeshach, then there was nothing to do but say it was blasphemous for him to call himself an “angel.”
Mea herself did not feel very good about it either.
“Don’t get so irritated… it’s fine, isn’t it, just calling however we want.”
“...You can read minds?”
“Only vaguely. My power in that area isn’t as strong as Charon. But I understand your heart well, you know? Maybe because my previous self was with you… I can probably read Chesed’s heart too.”
“...You really are Adyeshach.”
However, the Abyssal Qlippoth “Adyeshach” should have been defeated five years ago.
Mea at that time had not been able to contribute anything to that battle, but she remembered that through the efforts of En and the others, the Savers, the Ten Archangels of Sefirot including Hod, and T.P. Eight Olishua who released her true power, his existence had been erased without leaving a trace.
And yet, he was reincarnated. He was able to be reincarnated.
That was something that originally should not have been possible.
“Even though you should have been defeated by Onii-chan… how were you able to be reincarnated? And that look…”
Certainly, the Abyss, including them, the Abyssal Qlippoth, were immortal beings.
No matter how many times they were destroyed, given enough time they would revive from the Abyssal World even stronger than before. More than anything, that characteristic was what made them a threat to Fairy World.
And the only existence capable of sealing away that characteristic was this world’s supernatural ability users.
In other words… having been struck down by the technique of the human supernatural ability user named Akatsuki En, he should not have been able to be reincarnated.
As if saying her doubt was only natural, the fallen angel nodded.
“At that time, the me as a Qlippoth definitely died. The flames of Akatsuki En released the Qlippoth called Adyeshach from the reincarnation cycle of the Abyss.”
He spoke excitedly, as though recalling pleasant memories.
“But his soul did not disappear completely. Whether it was because of the influence of being together with you and Chesed, or because Daat did something… I don’t understand the reason, but after losing his existence, he drifted about as only a soul. In a world of nothingness, different again from beyond the dimension where Abyss Zero had been.”
“A world of nothingness?”
“Literally, an empty world. A place like the afterlife you people imagine.”
The concept of the soul had still not been clarified in the human world.
However, Mea felt a strange persuasiveness in the words spoken as though they were an obvious fact.
That was because the Abyss, including Adyeshach’s lot, were, to begin with, mysterious amorphous beings without physical bodies, making it impossible to completely deny it.
“And there, his soul was picked up and blessed. By the grey sphere ── the Greysphere ── whose existence had once been denied by both the Holy Dragon and Abyss Zero.”
The name of the existence that the Primordial Archangel Charon had spoken of came out the boy’s mouth.
He calmly stepped beside Mea and bent forward, gazing with a worshipful look at the Tree of Evil visible from the terrace of this Akebono Tower, and at the jet-black gate spreading across the night sky.
“Greysphere gave Adyeshach’s soul a new body. Greysphere is… let’s see. An existence like a god, comparable to the Holy Dragon Ain Sof.”
“...That god reincarnated you.”
According to Charon, the nuance had been that Greysphere referred to those aberrations, but the Greysphere he spoke of seemed to indicate not the name of a faction, but a single individual.
It was what the Holy Dragon Ain Sof was to the holy beasts .
Like the Primordial Darkness Abyss Zero was to the Abyss.
That understanding was likely generally correct. The reincarnation of Adyeshach, calling himself a fallen angel of Greysphere, read Mea’s thoughts and affirmed her inference.
“That’s right. Want me to show you now? Come on, crouch down, crouch down!”
(Show me…? Can something like that even be shown…?) she thought only for a moment, then the fallen angel suddenly drew closer until he was right near Mea’s chest and kept on talking while looking up at her.
Overwhelmed by the innocence like that of a very young child tugging at its mother’s hand, Mea unconsciously ended up going along with the firm request.
“Eh… ah… like this?”
“Yep! Just like that, just like that.”
She sometimes got swept along easily by pushy people ── was something her friend Arisu had once said.
Mea leaned forward with her hands on her knees, peering at the expression of the grey fallen angel who had come close.
Against the boy, who was a full head shorter than her, it became a posture where their gazes met at a very close range.
Then, wearing an impish smile, he moved even closer to Mea’s face ── and lightly pressed his forehead against hers.
“──!”
At that instant, an unfamiliar vision was projected into Mea’s mind.
It was a gigantic shadow.
A gigantic shadow far larger than not only this Akebono Tower, but even the Tree of Evil.
Within complete “nothingness,” where neither light nor darkness existed, that sphere continued to slowly rotate.
Its color was beautiful, yet without even a fragment of brilliance ── exactly the same color as the eyes of the boy standing before her.
“...Was that… Greysphere?”
“It looked just like its name, didn’t it? Just like a grey moon.”
Mea suddenly regained her senses and looked at the fallen angel chuckling as though delighted by the success of his prank.
That was right… it truly was a form fitting to be called Greysphere.
From its appearance, it did not seem like a living being possessing will; a gigantic inorganic form. Rather than calling it a god, it felt more fitting to call it a “celestial body.”
However, the chill running through her body was not the kind one felt from stargazing.
Mea and the others had only once seen something with a very similar appearance, and it was something even more terrifying than anything else.
“It resembled… Abyss Zero…”
“Fufu, surprised? Abyss Zero and Greysphere were originally one existence; you could say they’re like parent and child. Their appearances are very similar.”
“Parent and child?”
The Demon King of Ruin, whom the Savers and the Ten Archangels of Sefirot had challenged with all their might, and whom even then they had managed to seal away. The appearance of Abyss Zero, called the Primordial Darkness, was far too similar to that form.
If Greysphere was a grey moon, then that existence was a dark sun. Recalling that threat, Mea unconsciously hugged her own shoulders with trembling arms.
Perhaps thinking something upon seeing Mea like that, the grey boy spoke in a cheerful voice as though trying to cheer her up.
“But Greysphere is very kind, unlike Abyss Zero! Even this form was given to me after considering Adyeshach’s wishes, you know?”
Spreading both arms before Mea, he spun around and showed off his own appearance.
Only then did her attention finally turn to it, and she realized that the outfit he was wearing had been influenced by someone familiar.
“Right! Doesn’t it look very cool, just like Daat?”
It was a design like a gentlemanly black tailcoat-style blazer, accented with royal blue highlights.
Though what he wore underneath was not a long skirt but boyish pants, the overall impression given by the outfit resembled the phantom thief attire the Primordial Archangel Daat, T.P. Eight Olishua, was fond of.
“I even thought maybe I should just have myself made into a girl so I could look even more matching with her, but… Adyeshach had a personality leaning more toward being a boy, you know.”
Now that she thought of it, it was not only the outfit. The fact that he was speaking human language rather than telepathy, and speaking in an intellectual, mature manner as well, all seemed influenced by her.
Though he claimed to be the reincarnation of an Abyssal Qlippoth, an Abyss, Mea found it strange how strongly he seemed to respect one of the enemy faction, the Fairies ── the angel Eight ── and asked him about it.
“...Do you like Eight-san?”
“Yep, I love her! I already loved her back when I was Adyeshach, but now that I’m not an Abyss anymore, I like her even more!”
“I… see...”
At the words where he openly revealed his feelings toward Eight without concealing anything, Mea, while bewildered, cracked a smile involuntarily.
Mea knew people who wore that expression. Children whom she had helped all smiled happily with the same face.
A carefree smile exactly like her friend Arisu’s showed that the words he had spoken, that he loved Eight, were a truth without falsehood.
…If he was an existence with a heart rich enough to care for Eight this much, then perhaps this matter too could be resolved through dialogue.
The new enemy, the Greysphere.
Wanting to understand that existence more, Mea felt that she should speak more deeply with the boy who, for now, was showing absolutely no hostility toward them.
Though he claimed to be the reincarnation of Adyeshach, his current self appeared so calm that it was hard to believe that fact.
He too probably sensed that her emotions had changed from caution to interest. The grey fallen angel softly rose into the air with his black wings, then, with the shining moon at his back, looked down at Mea and said,
“I like you too, so I’ll specially tell you all sorts of things about us. I can explain things way better than Charon can!”
In this situation, those words were just what she needed.
Sensing an unconcealable barb in that added final remark, Mea tilted her head and asked,
“This whole time, why are you being so… harsh toward her?”
She meant Charon.
Even while he spoke without hesitation his love toward Daat, who was likewise a Primordial Archangel, the words he directed toward her older sister somehow sounded bitter from earlier.
At Mea’s question, he pursed his lips with a “Muu…” as though pondering for a while, then turned his face away with a huff and answered:
“Because… I hate her. It annoys me that she stole Daat from us.”
Mea widened her eyes at the unexpected claim.
And after a pause while she understood what he meant, she replied with a sigh mixed in.
“Stole her…? Charon-sama is Eight-san’s older sister, right?”
“No. Daat belongs to us.”
“...Are you jealous?”
“! I see, so this is the emotion called jealousy! Fufu, I see… so this is why I hate her.”
Including the way he behaved like a truly young child, the feelings he held toward her were very easy to understand.
However, he himself seemed to have only now realized the true nature of those feelings, and this time he was the one widening his eyes and laughing.
“...Adyeshach, huh...”
Watching him like this, it became deeply hard to believe that his true identity was the reincarnation of an Abyssal Qlippoth.
He was like a boy one could find anywhere in the world, who loved Eight dearly and wanted to keep her all to himself.
However, the moment his smile disappeared, everything completely changed ── as though the surrounding temperature had rapidly dropped; Mea felt a chill.
“Shall we take a walk through the night sky while I tell you an old story? A story from the age of gods, before even the Ten Archangels of Sefirot had been born.”
Saying that, the boy extended his hand and led Mea out into the autumn night sky.
(tl note: After this, narration switches into a storytelling register, like a myth being read.)
──Long ago, in the world of holy beasts, different from this world, there was a great war.
From the deep bottom of the sea of clouds, the terrifying Demon King appeared.
The Demon King led ten monsters with him and came to the heavenly realm where the holy beasts [Fairies] lived. With a power that erased all things, the existence of the Demon King, who carried out destruction without the slightest hesitation, was better described not as a living being, but as an inescapable phenomenon.
With that power, the Demon King cast the holy beasts throughout the heavenly realm into fear ── and after continuing to fight for a long time, he was finally defeated.
Through the efforts of the Holy Dragon Ain Sof, guardian of the holy beasts, and the Primordial Archangels, the Demon King Abyss Zero was banished beyond the dimensions.
The monsters he left behind as a parting gift gradually began to develop individual wills among some of them, and came to be called by the holy beasts the “Abyssal Qlippoth.”
── However, it was not only the Qlippoth that had begun to develop wills.
In the instant just before being sealed by the power of the Holy Dragon Ain Sof and banished beyond the dimensions ── the Primordial Darkness, Abyss Zero himself, the origin of them all, had also begun to develop a will ── to bud a “heart” ── over the course of the long war. Among the holy beast faction, Daat alone had noticed that.
Abyss Zero was terribly disorientated by that abnormality born within himself.
A sickness called a “heart,” something he should never originally have possessed. For him, who had existed as absolute darkness itself, the tiny light born within him assaulted him as pain he could never possibly accept.
Why am I suffering?
Why am I here?
Having been influenced by the holy beasts, perhaps at that time he had, for the first time, begun trying to become a “living” being like them.
However, he rejected that blessing.
I don’t need something like this ── rejecting his own change, he cut that heart away from himself in the form of a “sphere.”
A tiny light born within a great darkness.
That sphere, separated from him as he was being banished away, continued to act as an independent existence, similar to yet different from the Abyss faction.
Becoming a grey celestial body ── neither white nor black ── existing within the world of nothingness.
(Author: It’s almost the original protagonist’s turn to appear.)