Kazuki Tanaka was born in the Heisei era in Japan. Nineteen years had passed since his birth, and to
capture the essence of his life would require another nineteen years.
He was an ordinary resident of Shizuoka—neither outstanding nor particularly forgettable—yet he lived a life that could be described in a single word: solitary.
At nineteen, he drifted. He had no fixed direction, no clear goal, only a vague sense of time passing him by. That confusion—that quiet, gnawing emptiness—was not born from one single cause.
Bad luck.Bad circumstances.Bad decisions.
You could blame any one of them, or blame them all together.
And yet, none of those explanations mattered here. None of them could explain what happened next.
Just a moment ago, he was at the familiar entrance to his apartment building, grocery bag dangling from his hand. He remembered the weight of it—the rustle of plastic, he remembered the ordinary turn of the key, the ordinary motion of stepping forward…
And then—nothing.
In the blink of an eye, the world had been stripped away.
The cold, tiled stairwell of his building was gone. In its place stretched an endless country road, sunlit and unfamiliar, cutting through a vast expanse of green fields. Grass swayed gently in the wind, insects hummed faintly in the distance, and above it all, the sky was a piercing, endless blue.
Kazuki Tanaka stood frozen, heart racing, his mind scrambling for answers that refused to come.
"…What… is this place?"
The silence that followed was broken not by wind, nor bird, but by something far worse.
His eyes snapped to a figure in the grass—a girl with striking blue hair, dressed in a maid's uniform now stained dark with blood. She lay collapsed on her side, body twitching faintly, crimson pooling beneath her like a widening halo.
Tanaka's breath caught. "Oh my god!"
Without hesitation he dashed toward her, knees hitting the dirt hard as he skidded to her side. The closer he got, the more his stomach twisted—her body was marked by cruel, jagged lacerations, and a deep stab wound gaped in her upper right abdomen.
"Shit…" he muttered through clenched teeth. "It might've punctured her liver…"
He quickly turned her onto her back, careful not to jar her too much, then bent her knees slightly to relieve the pressure. His hands trembled as he stripped off his hoodie and tore the right sleeve from his shirt, pressing the fabric loosely against the wound in a desperate attempt to stem the bleeding.
Suddenly—her eyelids fluttered. A pair of jewel-blue eyes cracked open, dazed but faintly aware.
Tanaka gripped her hand instinctively, his voice breaking as he forced calm into his tone. "You're awake! Don't worry, everything's going to be fine. Just… hang in there."
He reached for his pocket, fumbling for his phone. If he could just call an ambulance—
But then, in a weak, broken whisper, the girl spoke."Ta…naka-kun…"
His breath hitched. He stared at her, stunned into silence. "…How do you know my name?!"
A thousand questions surged at once, but he shook his head violently. "No—forget it! That doesn't matter right now. You just—hold on, I'll get help."
He unlocked his phone, thumb stabbing at the screen—only to be met with cold emptiness. No bars. No signal.
"Come on, not now—"
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it.
A pale, mangled shape half-buried in the grass. He squinted, then froze."…Wait. Are those… limbs?"
The world widened into a nightmare.
Everywhere around him lay carnage. Severed arms and legs littered the roadside like discarded mannequins, except the smell of iron in the air was unmistakably real. A shattered carriage lay nearby, its wooden frame splintered and overturned. Beside it were the grotesque remains of beasts—creatures that looked like animals yet were entirely foreign, their bodies twisted, broken, and silent.
The stench of death clung to the air, heavy and suffocating.
Tanaka's throat went dry. His hands still pressed against the girl's wound, but his mind reeled. "…This… this is too much. Even if I've been working myself to the bone lately… there's no way this is just a hallucination."
Then, a voice broke through the silence. Smooth. Detached.
"Now listen here. How could you chat so cheerfully while ignoring me entirely? And after treating me with such barbarity—attacking me unprovoked. Honestly, I thought there was a limit to how inhumane one could be."
Tanaka's head snapped up. His pulse spiked.
He spun around to find a young man standing there, no older than himself. White-haired, clad in a pristine robe that seemed untouched by the blood-soaked scene around them, he regarded the carnage with unnerving calm, as though this wasteland of bodies and gore were nothing unusual. His golden eyes carried neither urgency nor remorse—just a cool, faint irritation.
Tanaka did the only thing that felt natural. "Hey—help me! She's bleeding out!" His voice cracked with desperation as he gestured at the girl.
The man tilted his head slightly, almost puzzled. "…Why?"
Tanaka blinked, stunned. "What the hell do you mean why? She's dying right in front of us!"
The stranger's lips curved into a faint frown, as though explaining something to a child. "Well, it's only natural. After all, she and her companions tried to attack me. Getting themselves hurt is simply the consequence of their own actions. Serves her right, don't you think?"
Tanaka's stomach dropped. His voice shrank to a trembling whisper. "…You… you did this?"
He forced himself to look again at the shattered carriage, the twisted limbs strewn across the dirt, the shredded remains of beasts. The devastation was too vast, too deliberate, to be anything but the work of a monster.
The man raised an eyebrow at Tanaka's disbelief. "Why so surprised? …Ah, I suppose that's Lye's doing. No wonder you can't make sense of the situation."
Tanaka's grip on the girl's hand tightened. "What are you talking about?"
The white-haired figure sighed, then spread his arms as though presenting evidence of his own righteousness. "Now listen carefully. I already explained that your comrades assaulted me without reason. And I, out of kindness, chose not to lay blame on you despite the fact you belong to the same group. Anyone else would have been well within their rights to slaughter the lot of you. But me? I spared you."
His gaze sharpened, almost glowing with self-righteous conviction. "Even now, knowing you remember nothing, I choose to show mercy. That is the extent of my benevolence. Truly, you should be grateful."
Tanaka's thoughts spun. None of this made sense. The man's words twisted around themselves like the ramblings of a schizophrenic, justifying atrocities with logic that had no anchor in reality.
All Tanaka knew was this: he couldn't afford to waste another second. The girl behind him was slipping away, and he was stranded in some nameless countryside with no signal, no help, and no idea where he even was.
The situation was grim—desperately so.
Then, cutting through the thick silence, Tanaka heard the faint sound of a child sobbing. A boy. The voice was thin, high-pitched, and raw with despair.
Tanaka turned and spotted him not far off—a child no older than twelve, dressed in strange clothes that didn't fit any place or time Tanaka knew. The boy's face was streaked with tears and dirt, his forehead already bruised from repeatedly smashing it against the ground. His body trembled as he mumbled broken apologies between sobs.
Tanaka's gut twisted. People were appearing out of nowhere, as though spat into existence by this nightmare. Confusion piled onto confusion.
"What th—? Hey, kid! Calm down!" he shouted, trying to sound steady.
The boy only wailed louder. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!" His voice cracked with desperation, each word shaking as if they were tearing themselves out of his throat.
Tanaka glanced toward the white-haired man, his teeth grinding. "Hey—you. What the hell happened to that kid?"
The man tilted his head, looking mildly amused, as though the question were beneath him. "Hmm… I wouldn't know. And why, pray tell, would you assume I did? Isn't that rather presumptuous of you, considering in your mind I just—"
"Oh, shut the fuck up."
The words slipped out before Tanaka could stop himself. He stood, prying his hand free from the weak grip of the blue-haired girl behind him. Her bloodied fingers twitched as if to hold him back, but she had no strength left. He bent down, meeting her fading gaze.
"I'll be right back. I need to figure out where the hell we are… and I need to find you a doctor. Just hang on."
His voice was firm, but his chest ached as he pulled away and hurried toward the boy.
"Hey! Kid! Are you okay?!"
The boy's lips quivered. His face, blotched red from crying, lifted just enough for Tanaka to hear the single word he choked out:
"Mio…"
Tanaka froze in his tracks.
"…What… did you just say?"
The name hit him like a blade between the ribs. The chaos around him blurred, muted beneath the blood rushing in his ears. His vision narrowed on the boy.
No matter how impossible this situation was, no matter how young the speaker, Tanaka couldn't brush it off.
"Where… where did you hear that name!?" His voice cracked, louder than he intended.
The boy's body lurched, and he suddenly doubled over, vomiting violently into the dirt.
Tanaka staggered forward, heart hammering in his chest. "Hey! Answer me—!"
But before he could reach the child, an unbearable pain exploded in his skull. A splitting headache, sharp and suffocating, as though knives were carving into his brain. It came in perfect synchrony with the boy's retching—as though their bodies were bound to the same torment.
Thoughts. Faces. Voices. Deaths. All of it came crashing down like an endless flood.
The memories of the past month surged back in a single tidal wave—the loops, the endless suffering, the nightmares that had stretched into centuries within his mind. Every death, every scream, every horror carved itself fresh into his soul.
Tanaka clawed at his head, his vision swimming. His knees hit the earth, tears spilling unbidden from his eyes. It was no wonder Gluttony had collapsed under the weight of it. No person—no being—should have to shoulder centuries of torment condensed into a single moment.
But it was his burden. His truth.
He remembered.He remembered this place.He remembered why he was here.He remembered who he was.
And yet the weight of that memory was too much. His body trembled, his thoughts splintered beneath the crushing tide.
A shadow fell across him.
Something leapt.
Then came the sting of steel.
The boy—no, the Archbishop, Lye Batenkaitos—descended upon him with manic frenzy, his wrist-blades flashing like fangs. The first stab tore into Tanaka's flesh, then another, and another, until pain blurred into a single, searing haze.
"Die! Die! Die! You deserve to die! You bastard!" Gluttony shrieked, his boyish voice cracked and wild, frothing with hysteria. Each word was punctuated by another plunge of steel, another rivulet of blood.
It hurts. It hurts so much.
Tanaka's world became the rhythm of stabbing, the wet sound of metal piercing flesh, the heat of blood soaking his clothes. His breath hitched in ragged gasps, his body convulsing beneath the merciless assault.
This was his fourth death in less than twenty minutes. He had felt the quick release, the sudden end, the gruesome annihilation. Now, life was being drawn out of him forcefully, torn from him piece by piece under a storm of blades.
And yet… even as his vision darkened, even as he drowned in agony, his mind sought answers. Desperately, stubbornly, he tried to find a way out of this hopeless situation.
But no clarity came.
Tanaka's body gave out at last. His breath stilled. His eyes glazed.
And once again—he died.
*********************************************************************************************************
"A smile suits you, Kazuki Tanaka. You should do it more often."
Air rushed back into his lungs like a drowning man breaking the surface.
"Hah!—hah!—hah!"
Tanaka clutched at his chest, ragged breaths tearing out of him, sweat dripping cold down his temples. His body shook, the memory of blades still carved through him.
"Tanaka-kun?" Rem's voice, sharp with concern, broke through the haze. Her blue eyes widened as she leaned toward him. "What happened to you all of a sudden? Are you okay?"
But he couldn't answer her. He didn't have time.
His gaze darted between Rem and Crusch ,panic thrumming through him. Even if he screamed out a warning now, the message would never reach the carriages ahead. Regulus Corneas was already there. The slaughter was seconds away.
He had to act. Alone.
Tanaka forced his shaking body upright, pushing through the phantom pain of his last death. He staggered to the edge of the carriage and heaved himself upward, extending his hand out of the window.
"Tanaka-Kun, that's dangerous!" Rem's voice rang out behind him, but he didn't flinch.
Instead, he drew in a breath, concentrating his mana.
He pictured the air around the moving carriage as filaments — streamlines wrapping and separating, a turbulent wake yawning behind the wheels.
He ran through countermeasures in his head.
Match the local flow
Control the boundary-layer
Manipulate the density and reduce it density around himself
This was no time for fuck-ups, this isn't like the time in the mansion where he made it snow, where he could do just try again.
One mistake and he's dead.
He centered the image in his chest, feeling the mana like warm water at his sternum. Clear, precise: create a forward slipstream along the carriage roof; inject momentum into the boundary layer; match the carriage speed at the interface. He spoke the syllable like a mechanical trigger.
"Fura!"
At once, the gale pressing against him weakened, dwindling into nothing more than a soft push. The crushing resistance dissolved, leaving him standing in a fragile stillness atop the speeding carriage.
"I… I did it!?"
The words slipped out before he could stop himself. He was stunned—he had actually pulled it off
A gamble—and it worked. For the first time, he never used any element other than water magic before.
But there was no room for relief.
Steeling himself, Tanaka raised his eyes to the horizon. His vision sharpened as mana coursed into his senses, narrowing in on a figure less than a kilometer away. A man in a white robe, standing calmly in the middle of the road.
The first carriage would reach him in less than a minute.
Tanaka's jaw tightened. His mind raced. Think, damn it, think. The horses wouldn't stop in time, and warning the others would be too slow. He needed to alter the trajectory of the carriages—force them to swerve—without killing everyone inside.
"Crystallization… thermal extraction… expansion, fracture, refreeze—" His voice broke into a sharp growl. "Fuck it—whatever!"
He thrusted his hands with a vertical motion, trusting his instincts and shouting out loud, "HUMA!".
With a thunderous crack, jagged glaciers of ice erupted from the ground, rising in tilted walls that split the road like a canyon. The onrushing carriages were wrenched off their direct course, wheels biting into frozen ruts that forced them to swerve around the barriers.
Just as disaster loomed—just as wood threatened to splinter and bodies to be flung—soft blankets of snow materialized in front of each carriage. Like cushions placed by invisible hands, they absorbed the shock and eased the chaos into a bruising but survivable halt.
Even the carriage Tanaka clung to slammed into one of those conjured snowbanks. The impact tore him from the roof and hurled him forward, his body sinking deep into the cold embrace of the snow.
No one died.
Not yet.
The carriages groaned as they settled into the snowbanks. Shaken voices rose, doors creaked open, and passengers stumbled out with pale faces and unsteady steps.
Tanaka clawed his way out of the snow, coughing, his clothes drenched in cold wetness. His first instinct wasn't to check himself, but the others. He sprinted toward the nearest carriage. Before he could call out, a figure in polished armor stepped down—Crusch, her composure unbroken despite the chaos. Her eyes narrowed, sharp and demanding.
"Explain yourself. What—"
He cut her off, his hand gripping the cold steel of her shoulder plate. His eyes locked into hers, firm, unflinching.
"Crusch! Listen to me, and listen carefully." His voice shook with urgency, not hesitation. "From this moment on, I handle the talks. Whatever happens—do not attack, do not provoke him. If you do, we're all dead."
Crusch's brow furrowed. "I don't understand. Who are you talking ab—"
Her words were drowned by a voice that seemed to bloom out of nowhere.
"Well, well. That was quite the commotion." The tone was calm, conversational, almost bored. "I'll assume it was you who cast those spells?"
Every head turned. The voice came from the middle of the road, but no one had seen the figure appear.
Tanaka froze, then forced himself to stand tall, his expression morphed into a mask. He faced the voice.
"Yes. That was me," he answered evenly. "The dragon carriages were moving at high speed, and I feared they'd collide with you. I acted to prevent an accident."
"Oh?" The man's voice carried a note of mock delight. "How thoughtful! Your comrades were about to commit a grave mistake. But since you went to the trouble of correcting them, I suppose I can overlook it."
From the side, Crusch's voice cut in, low and wary. "Tanaka… who is he?"
Tanaka didn't glance away from the figure. His words fell like a stone into still water.
"He's the Sin Archbishop of Greed."
Gasps rippled through. Rem's voice trembled with disbelief. "Tanaka-Kun… are you sure?"
Before he could respond, the white-robed man spoke again, annoyance flickering in his tone.
"Hey now. Isn't it rude to whisper among yourselves while ignoring someone standing right in front of you?"
Tanaka drew in a slow breath. "I'm sorry about that. I was just telling them that you are the Sin Archbishop of Greed, Regulus Corneas."
The man tilted his head, pale hair swaying slightly. For the first time, something like curiosity touched his calm mask.
"…Hmm? You know my name? Strange. I don't recall ever meeting you."
Tanaka's lips tightened. His reply was quiet, but heavy.
"We did meet before. But I doubt you remember."
The truth gnawed at him: there was no way to kill this man. No weakness, no visible crack in his authority. He was untouchable—invincible.
Still, Tanaka steadied his breath, forcing his mind to move forward.
"Before I introduce myself," he said, eyes darting briefly toward his allies, "I need to say something to my comrades first."
His eyes swept across Rem, Crusch, and the line of armored soldiers bristling behind them. Their breaths still came uneven from the crash, but every face was turned to him, waiting. Tanaka inhaled sharply, filling his lungs with icy air before shouting, his voice cracking like thunder over the snow-strewn field:
"Listen, all of you! No matter what happens—do not speak your names aloud!"
Confusion rippled instantly through the group. Soldiers traded wary glances. Crusch's eyes narrowed, suspicion lacing her voice.
"What is the meaning of this? First you claim you'll introduce yourself, then you spout riddles? Are you mocking me or wh...?"
Tanaka raised both hands quickly, his tone urgent but steady.
"No. That wasn't my intention. I'll introduce myself, as promised. But before I do… your colleague—the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony—needs to show himself. We can't have an honest discussion while he's lurking somewhere. And you understand, don't you? Saying my name recklessly while he is hiding… won't do it."
At that, the soldiers stirred. Crusch's composure wavered just slightly.
"Gluttony? You mean… Gluttony still lives? But we just felled the White Whale."
Tanaka's reply came sharp, unhesitant.
"That was one thing. This is another."
After what he spoke with Odglass, he thought that the white whale is what remained after the witch Daphne and what inherited her witch factor.
He was wrong, the white whale was merely one of her spawns.
He turned, voice rising, words cutting through the heavy silence.
"So what's it going to be, Gluttony?! Will you come out and face us—or keep slithering in the dark like a coward?!"
At first, there was nothing. Only the whisper of the wind, the faint creak of snow beneath shifting boots. Tanaka's outburst made him look deranged, shouting into emptiness.
Then—
A voice broke through. Not one voice, but a chorus, a fractured hymn of tones that overlapped and bled together.
"Good! Nice! Wonderful! Acceptable! Agreeable!"
The words dripped like honey, yet grated like rusted blades. It was inhuman, alien.
"We sensed it—the death of our pet! So we came to see, yes, we came to look. But oh, oh, oh—this is even better than expected!"
A figure emerged from nowhere, movements languid, lips stretched into a too-wide smile. Lye Batenkaitos. His voice tumbled and tripped over itself, a manic litany spilling from his mouth.
"It's good, it's good, it's good, maybe it's good, sure it's good, it's probably good! Obsession! Love! Hatred! Chivalry! Ahhh, every flavor, every spice, joys and sorrows all mixed together!" He clutched his face, trembling with ecstasy. "That's what makes it worth eating!"
Then his eyes cut sharply toward them—sharp as blades, gleaming with hunger. The smile thinned into something cruel.
"But you two… you're the main dish. Crusch-Sama. Tanaka-Sama…"
Tanaka's brows twitched. He already ate some names.
Crusch's name was no surprise—her lineage was famous across Lugunica, and as a royal candidate, she was a household name. But his? The only way Gluttony could know Kazuki Tanaka was if he had devoured someone's memories—someone who knows him. And the honorific, "Sama," suggested it wasn't random. It was respectful, likely taken from one of the soldiers whom he fought with.
Tanaka exhaled sharply, forcing himself to keep his tone calm, though his stomach tightened. He glanced toward Crusch and Rem, voice low but firm.
"Listen carefully. Gluttony's authority works like this: if he eats a name, that person is erased—forgotten by the entire world. The only way he can do it is by knowing your name first." His gaze locked with Rem's, sharper than steel. "So whatever you do—don't say your name."
Rem's lips parted in surprise, but she gave a faint nod.
Crusch's eyes hardened. She and Tanaka were already in the line of fire, already exposed. But if Rem stayed unknown, she might yet survive this encounter.
Turning away from them, Tanaka shifted his focus back to Regulus. His expression smoothed into one of forced composure.
"Well, there you have it," he said evenly. "My name is Kazuki Tanaka."
His fingers tightened. A sheen of frost shimmered as an ice dagger formed in his palm, its surface catching the pale light.
"In any case," he said, his voice carrying through the brittle air, "let's stop fooling around."
Regulus's gaze followed the dagger, his lips curling with visible disgust.
"I'm disappointed. After our brief exchange, I thought you might be a reasonable human being. Yet here you stand, brandishing such a dangerous weapon as though you could wound me. Repulsive."
Tanaka shook his head, stepping forward once, deliberately slow.
"No. You misunderstand. This knife isn't meant for you. I have no intention of fighting whatsoever."
But even as he said it, his mind was already racing back to the last loop.He remembered, with crystal clarity, the moment Lye Batenkaitos's clammy fingers pressed against his face, the glistening tongue trailing across his knuckles as that alien voice muttered his name like a curse. By all logic, that should have been the end—his name devoured, his existence erased.
But it hadn't worked.
Instead, Batenkaitos recoiled like a beast tasting poison for the first time, gagging, retching violently, eyes watering. That moment had plunged everything into chaos—Crusch and Rem attacking Regulus, soldiers surged forwards, the battlefield turning into a slaughterhouse of shattered steel and blood. Everyone had died in the frenzy.
Everyone but him.
And over the cacophony, he'd heard it—Lye's voice, shrill with frustration and disbelief:
'Using dirty tricks such as a fake name!'
Those words had stuck with him ever since. Eating a name erased someone from the world. Eating their memories erased their past. But for that authority to work, the predator had to know the name of its prey.
Kazuki Tanaka. That was his name. Always had been. But if Batenkaitos thought it wasn't real… did that mean his name carried some kind of immunity? Was it like Subaru—outsiders from another world, somehow resistant to these powers? It was the only explanation that fit.
He turned back toward Gluttony, speaking steadily but with a faint edge of iron beneath his words.
"Based on what you just said, I'm going to assume you're planning to eat my name as well."
Batenkaitos's grin widened, teeth flashing like a predator's, his words tumbling out in a breathless litany:
"Of course! We've been starving for so long! And now—now we've found you! Tanaka-sama, the courageous spirit art user who saved countless lives during the White Whale hunt! Is there any gourmet in this world greater than this? There isn't, there isn't, there certainly isn't! It can't be, it can't be, it can't be—binge drinking, binge eating, our hearts and our stomachs are trembling with joy!"
His laughter rose into a high, childlike cackle, echoing off broken timbers and shattered armor, a sound that was more insect chitter than human mirth.
Tanaka tilted his head slightly, eyes hooded, the dagger glinting like ice between them."I see. Okay… I don't really mind. But you should know…" His lips curved into the faintest, coldest of smiles. "If you try it, you'll get very, very sick. You'll start to vomit your guts out. Are you sure you're okay with that?"
Lye's grin evaporated. The high, frantic laughter snapped off mid-note and left him with an ugly, narrowing expression. For a moment the boy's brightly manic energy curdled into suspicion.
"You seem to understand how our authority works," Lye said, voice low now, probing. "That's… odd. We don't remember meeting you before."
Tanaka kept his face composed. "Yes. I suppose you wouldn't remember."
Lye's head tilted, brow furrowing as if inspecting a curious insect. "So you're telling us, then, that 'Kazuki Tanaka' is not your true name?"
"Maybe," Tanaka answered levelly. "That's the name I have always used. But I guarantee that you will get sick if you try eating that name."
He let a beat hang in the cold air, then pushed forward with the only bargaining chip he had left. "I have a peaceful suggestion. If you insist on proof, take my memories. Feast on them — see for yourself whether I lie. But if you do, you must release everyone."
Lye's features contorted with delighted incredulity. "How charming! How generous! How absolutely—" he jabbered, voice bubbling with perverse glee, "—delightful of you. But—" He faltered, about to continue, when Tanaka cut him off with a hard, steady word.
"No. That's a deal breaker." Tanaka's tone made the word feel like a blade.
Lye blinked, then smirked, his arrogance returning in a flash. "The very fact you are negotiating, offering even your memories, betrays your weakness. You're not the one with the upper hand here. You don't get to set the terms."
"That may be true," Tanaka said, calm as winter. "But you clearly want my memories. You can take everything forcefully, yes. Or you can accept them the way I offer." He tightened his grip on the dagger until frost-white knuckles showed. "I'm offering only what I will give willingly. It should be more than enough."
"If you don't accept my terms…"
Tanaka raised the ice dagger towards his throat and spoke up, "I will kill myself."