Black Tongue was unperturbed by Vikir's request to get up first, and gave a brief nod of approval.
"...And so it is."
The interrogation was over, and there was no reason to remain in such an uncomfortable place.
Vikir gave Black Tongue a curt bow and rose to his feet.
"Ah...."
Kirko opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself.
Black Tongue had opened his mouth first.
"You may leave first. I don't think your adjutant's interrogation will be very long."
"Yes, sir."
Vikir saluted, then turned and walked out of the room.
Kirko watched his back with a complicated expression, then turned her attention back to the front.
"...!"
For a moment, she had to gasp.
The face of Black Tongue was now right in front of her.
"Hathathat, it's been a long time since I've seen you."
Black Tongue took Kirko's hand and rubbed her shoulder.
"...?"
Kirko furrowed her brow in disbelief.
For one thing, this was the first time she'd ever seen Black Tongue.
But more than that, it was the cold, firm feel of it against her skin that was so unpleasant.
So Kirko leaned her upper body back slightly, avoiding contact with Black Tongue.
"I am new to you, Lt Colonel Black Tongue."
"Hathathat- yes, I remember you. You used to say such cold things to me every time we met, no matter how hard I tried to woo you~"
"...What do you mean, I'm obviously meeting you for the first time today."
"Awww~ Not again. Okay, I'll bear with you since it's been a while. How could I have forgotten your pretty face all these years? I missed you so much! I guess you're not getting any older, we...."
Black Tongue pulled the leech muscles across his face into a tight smile.
"Lieutenant Valentine Grimm."
A moment. Kirko's expression went hard.
She barely managed to keep her lips from falling apart and managed to get a shaky voice out.
"...My name is Kirko, Captain Kirko Grimm."
"Huh?"
Black Tongue looked dazed for a moment.
Then he raised a fist and made a gesture of punching himself in the head.
"Damn, look at me. You're here as Major Garm's adjutant, aren't you? You look so much like her that I've stopped mistaking you. Well, that was already a few years ago...."
Black Tongue began to flick through the papers in his hands.
"That's right, that's right, you got a surprise promotion to Captain today. Was Captain such an easy rank to attain?"
"...."
"I haven't seen a Captain so quickly since D'Ordume and Souare. Ah, Major Garm, he's a bit of an exception."
Black Tongue looked back and forth between Kirko and the papers and smiled.
"Age 22, hometown... Eh, Nouvelle Vague? You're from here? Ah, so you were born here, then, and your parents are guards."
He rolled his eyes and thought about something, then slapped his knees.
"I see! Somehow, I thought you looked familiar. You're the child of 'those guys', aren't you?"
Kirko bit her lip at that.
'That incident', 23 years ago now. Kirko was the child born when a prisoner jumped on a guard.
Black Tongue was referring to that very incident.
However, things were going to turn out a little differently than Kirko had imagined.
"That's right, there was a reputation in the Nouvelle Vague at the time for being a good guy and a good girl. The higher-ups were even considering paternity leave."
...?
Kirko shook her head.
Surely she was the child of a prisoner and a guard.
An ominous being whose very birth touched on unspeakable taboos.
A heretic whose roots lie in the lower reaches, unwelcome everywhere.
And yet, what Black Tongue was recalling was so different from what she knew.
"Yes. I remember them walking around holding hands in a secret love affair, both of them exemplary low-level guards. They made me jealous."
Black Tongue's voice was hot and sticky with desire, like molten asphalt.
"Just looking at it made me feel sick to my stomach and I couldn't bear it, so I had him arrested for breach of military discipline. It happened to be around the same time that D'Ordume and Souare were getting really tough on prisoners, so we had to keep discipline among the guards."
Kirko's pupils dilate uncontrollably.
Before she could open her mouth to speak, Black Tongue spoke in a wide grin.
"So I decided to hastily fake one of the more shocking incidents – yes, that's right – your parents."
The love of a male guard and a female guard, a secret love affair between lowly junior guards.
It was forged as an incident in which a prisoner attacked a guard.
The guards needed a story as shocking as possible to make the prisoners despise and hate them.
Kirko muttered in a daze.
"Dad wasn't... a prisoner? Mom wasn't... victimised?"
Kirko thought of her parents, whose faces she didn't know.
She hated her nameless, faceless father and pitied her mother, whose only name she knew.
And now, Kirko knew two things.
That her mother and father loved each other fiercely, and that her mother's face was eerily similar to her own.
"...Maybe I could have been loved by both Mom and Dad."
Kirko closed her eyes.
The emotion rising in her chest was unmistakably relief.
"...Thank God, Dad's not a bad person, Mom's not a miserable person. I'm the only bad one."
No more hating the father.
No more pity for the mother.
This alone seemed to lighten her heart, which had been imprisoned since birth.
... But there were still unanswered questions.
"So. What did you do to my parents?"
Kirko asked, glaring at Black Tongue.
Her tone had changed to a sharp half-speech, but Black Tongue didn't seem to mind.
"Why are you looking for your parents from me?"
"You dragged them away, and they've been missing ever since."
"Yeah, I did that, huh?"
Black Tongue began to roll around in his eyeballs.
It looked like it was trying to think hard.
And then.
"...Aah!"
He slapped his knee, as if remembering something.
Black Tongue spoke brightly, like a boy remembering a long-forgotten time capsule.
"That's right! I dragged your parents away! I remember screaming loudly no matter how unfair it was... But they just disappeared? Didn't come back? Isn't that strange? Did they just escape?"
He set his jaw and thought for a while longer.
"That's right, that's right! I forgot and didn't let them out! I only locked them up for a few days and got busy interrogating them and forgot! Where do you think they are now...?"
Huddled eyeballs rolled separately to the left and right.
Then Black Tongue raised a finger.
"I remembered! There they are!"
Black Tongue stretched out his index finger and pointed.
That's where Kirko is sitting now.
It was the black ball under her bum.
"Hathathat- you're sitting on it now. On top of your mom."
Hearing Black Tongue's words, Kirko's expression went blank for a moment.
For a moment, a flashback flashed through her mind.
It was a conversation she'd had when she'd first entered the stone chamber.
'Surely there are people inside those leeches that act as cushions?'
'I'm sure there are. Let's sit down. If you're not comfortable, you can sit on the floor.'
'...No. I'm not uncomfortable.'
She sat down, not wanting to be pushed by the momentum of Black Tongue.
For a moment, Kirko felt her legs give way.
As her weight was added to it.
Poof.
The leech beneath her ass shudders again, this time spewing out a thick stream of blood.
And Black Tongue grinned at her, as it had done so many times before.
"You look like you're about to get your ass kicked~"
He stood up from his seat with an exaggerated gesture and walked back to Kirko's back.
He stroked the black ball and said.
"Joke. Joke. I think you're nervous, so I'm going to loosen you up~ Your mom will be sad if you're so stiff, ahhh, this. I'm sorry about your parents. I really did tell them to let them go after a few days, but I must have forgotten and stuck them in a corner. I forgot about them, what the fuck?"
Black Tongue brushed off the dust that had settled on the black ball.
Then he kicked the side of the ball with his military boot, causing everything inside to spill out.
Chwaaaaak-!
Thick liquid spread across the floor. It smelled foul.
Black Tongue held out two hands and said.
"Say hello. This is your mom and dad. My forgetfulness has delayed this meeting. But how fortunate they are to meet you now. Does it feel good...?"
However, he didn't finish his sentence.
sappug-
The tip of a sword sliced through the air and grazed his forehead.
"Gosh! What the heck is this? Bottomless?"
Quickly jerking his head back to dodge, Black Tongue turned to look at Kirko with a smirk on his face.
Kirko, who had drawn her longsword from her waistband, faced Black Tongue with a terrifying momentum.
jjuuug-
Black Tongue pulled on his neck as if it were rubber, stretching it.
"That's a good look, just like your mom, that's why I like girls who do things like that."
He didn't seem to intend to be provocative, but in truth, his every move was an enormous provocation to Kirko.
Even just smiling, even just breathing.
sweaeg-
Once again, Kirko's longsword sparkled with light.
However.
jjuuug-
The rubbery palm of Black Tongue slammed into Kirko's abdomen.
"Kuhugh!"
She flew like a kite with a broken thread and slammed into the wall behind the stone chamber.
"Keughh...."
It looked like a few ribs were broken.
Maybe sharp bits of bone were embedded deep in her guts.
"Hathathathat- Your eyes are still there, that must hurt a lot."
"...."
Kirko gritted her teeth.
She must kill him, even if it means dying.
Prepared for death, she drew all her strength into her sword.
Flowing…
Soon, an aura as sticky and dense as honey glowed brightly at the tip of the sword.
Black Tongue saw it and clapped his hands in amazement.
"Wow! A Graduator at your age? That's what it takes? That's amazing. You're so talented, too bad you're going to die here. Have you ever thought about getting pregnant? I might be able to give you another year or so of life like your mother...."
"Shut up!"
Kirko's eyes finally rolled back.
Her sword sliced through the air with killing intent.
Of course, it did little to erase the genuine smile on Black Tongue's face.
...However.
A somewhat unexpected result occurred.
Kirko's sword failed to kill Black Tongue. That was to be expected.
But there was one thing she did succeed in.
It completely erased the deep smile that formed on the corner of Black Tongue's mouth.
... Of course, Kirko did not accomplish this alone.
Tsk.
Vikir. No, Major Garm Nord.
He had appeared out of nowhere, stepping between Kirko and Black Tongue.
ttug- ttudug- hududug-
Black blood drips from Vikir's hand as he grips Kirko's sword blade tightly.
"...I apologise. I forgot my adjutant."
Vikir said, his head half turned towards Black Tongue behind his back.
"My adjutant has a severe case of codependency, and when I'm not around, she has these intense anxiety attacks."
But Black Tongue wasn't listening to Vikir at all.
It was simply staring at the drops of Vikir's blood dripping onto the floor.
'Yes. Get him.'
Vikir nodded, watching Black Tongue's eyes grow increasingly greedy and mad.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd better get going, or my adjutant might go on a blind stabbing spree somewhere, and I don't mean the lower levels."
"Uh, yeah. Go ahead."
Black Tongue merely waved his hand, distracted for some reason by Vikir's blood on the floor.
Vikir picked Kirko up and held her close.
"Now, wait a minute... Ha!"
Kirko pushed against Vikir's chest, trying to protest, but the pain in her lower abdomen prevented her from finishing the sentence.
jeobeog- jeobeog- jeobeog-
Vikir exited Black Tongue's chamber, still holding Kirko.
'Black tongue...I will see you again soon.'
The hound's eyes which momentarily moves away from the baited prey, remain calm as usual.