Koba and Pride

It was around midnight. Keita and the others have made enough distance between them and the Undead that they decided to sleep for a few hours. Of course, they couldn't sleep soundly, knowing that a horde of Undead were on their tail.

They stopped at a ruined watch tower on top of the hill. Or was it some other building? Keita couldn't figure out, since it really was nothing more than a ruin. But the hill was situated on a good place so he decided to call it a watch tower. As they closed to the Demon Lands, first swamps and then deserted lands with no signs of life would be all they were going to be able to see. The magic power of the Demons' affected even the land under their feet after all. The hill was in the middle of a swamp, making it an ideal place not only to spot enemies but even fight many enemies with only few numbers, because of the path leading to the top were narrow, allowing only two men to climb side by side at the time, at best.

'Ten men can hold out against a hundred in these paths.' Keita thought, appreciating the humans(?) who carved the steps to this steep cliff.

"I'll keep watch." Keita volunteered.

"Me too." Koba said.

Keita nodded his head in approval. They couldn't take any chances. Two people keeping watch through the night was going to be the bare minimum. They had to worry about both the Undead from the East and the Demons from the West after all.

"Ok, wake me up when it's time to change." Lia said.

With that, Lia, Nao, Anne and Reika slept at the middle of what used to be the watch tower. No fires were made that night. They were too close to enemy territory after all.

Koba and Keita stood next to each other in silence. Keita had a lot of things in his mind so he didn't really mind, but Koba seemed a little unsettled.

"Should I go hunt some game? I know it's the middle of the night but still." Koba said.

"Better not. There is no game around here." Keita responded.

It was true they needed food. What little they had, wasn't going to last more than a couple of days. But this swamp which normally should have been full of mosquitoes, frogs, birds and the like was completely silent. It was unnatural. It was a good fit, since this wasn't a natural swamp. Like the ground around fort Bloodguard, it used to be a battlefield.

The swamp was littered with corpses of humans that no one ever bothered to collect. To Demons, places like these, were called Farms. It was a farm where newborn Demons could sprout from the ground at any moment. As a result, they didn't allow any humans to retrieve the remains - at least in the past. But this wasn't the sole cause of this unnatural swamp. The ashes, the only thing left when a Demon dies, the Spells that have left their scars to this place and of course the black Magic Power. They left the lands uninhabitable for small life forms such as animals.

"You know Keita." Koba said and took a small pause. "I am not stupid you know."

Keita was a bit surprised at his words but he waited for him to finish before saying anything.

"Lia and Anne aren't stupid either but they haven't been close to Nao and Reika as long as I have." Koba said.

There was enough distance between the sleeping group, that even if someone wasn't already sleeping, they couldn't hear them.

"What do you mean?" Keita asked. He had an idea of what Koba wanted to talk about.

"What Reika said back at the mill. Her kind? The things she said you did? As I said, I ain't stupid." Koba responded, not taking his eyes off the swamp.

"Shouldn't you be talking with Nao about this?" Keita asked.

Koba and Keita were never particularly close. In fact, they often clashed in words, especially about Koba's role in the party. Koba was unsatisfied with being a sentry, watching the back, which resulted in him running to the vanguard, hammer in hand. Keita wanted Koba to commit into one role. Priest or Berserker. Keita was confident in his leadership - he used to be a general after all - and Koba in his skills as a Berserker. Neither of them wanted to compromise.

"That guy is honest to a fault you know. I used to think that if it's important enough for him to hide something, I should ignore it. He can't lie for shit after all. I could always tell when he was lying to me." Koba scoffed.

Keita silently agreed.

"So I don't want him to know, you know? I mean it's... embarrassing...? No, that's not the right word..." Koba started rumbling. He scratched his head, not sure what his point was.

"What I mean is, I know that Reika isn't a half elf. It didn't take long to figure it out. I mean when the two of us were talking, that guy forgot that she was a half elf at some point and said he thought I was talking about a different Reika!" Koba said.

They met eyes for a moment and then started chuckling, like teenagers who heard a dirty joke.

"What's wrong with him?" Keita said, as he whipped tears with his palm, from laughing too hard.

"As I said, he is a terrible liar." Koba said, still chuckling at the memory. "Anyway, what I mean to say is, I know about Reika. What I don't know is where you figure out in all this." Koba took a moment to change into a more serious tone. "And right now we are heading towards Demons? It's... you know?"

"Terrifying?" Keita said. He hugged his own arm.

Koba nodded his head in response.

"I'm just going to say it and whatever you say, I will believe you. Keita, are you a Demon?" Koba asked.

"I..." Keita wanted to say he was human but he couldn't. "It's more complicate than that. I... I want to be human."

"I am not asking for a yes or no answer or what your feelings are. I'm going to be honest Keita. When the Undead were following us, me and Anne tried something. We stayed behind and tried going to slightly different directions. A few Undead followed me but none followed Anne. Most of them, were still going after you. I bet if we split up, the ones following us will be no more than a few dozens even with Nao with us. The girls can just run away on their own. What I'm saying is, that irregular or whatever. The Elder Lich said something about the irregular being a guy and it looks like even you are confident that it's you." Koba said.

Keita kept listening in silence.

"If the Undead are only after the irregular, it would be safer for the rest of us to abandon you. That's why I need an answer Keita. If you are a Demon, I will honestly hear you out. Tell me why I should trust and follow you and I will do so. If you are a human, explain how you have a Demon's magic power and how you know this swamp that you never been has no game to be had, as you said. But I need to know, you know? One of us might end up dead. I need to know that we didn't make a mistake leaving you behind. Otherwise, I don't think I will ever be able to accept it when the time comes. I won't be able to forgive myself or you."

Keita kept his silence. He sat down and hugged his knees, his hands slightly trembling.

"It's going to be a long ass story, you know? Where do I even begin... I used to be... No, that's not the beginning. That's right, I guess the first thing I need to say is this. I am someone who has memories of his past life."

And so Keita told Koba everything. From when he first awakened as a Demon, to the Demon Lord defeating him and making him her subordinate, to him becoming Pride and his ultimate demise at the hands of the one he served.

"I was born human, you know. My mother is human and so is my father. My first love is a human and so is my first friend. Truth is, I don't even know what I am anymore. For Pride and myself to be two different existences, is impossible. But, that's right. The first time I started thinking myself as Keita Raigon the human, was when I first met Wrath. The day that I first killed a human, as a human." Keita continued his story.

And so he told Koba about his first encounter with Wrath. How he could feel his soul still scarred by the Demon Lord's experiments to make him stronger. How he murdered an innocent child by accident and he decided he wanted to use his life for human kind but had no resolve to keep on his path. How he wanted to be a Hero at the time but didn't have what it takes. How he was still not sure why he was even fighting anymore. Other than getting stronger. How he had a partial transformation to Pride when he fought Morran and how he was about to kill Nao.

Koba stayed silent for all this. He wasn't surprised when he heard Keita used to be a Demon. His eyes widened when he heard that he was Pride, one of the Seven Deadly Sins though. When he heard about his demise and regrets, his eyes became kinder but when Keita got to the part of him killing a child his eyes where full of disgust. In the end though, he never said anything. Even when Keita told him that when he was Pride, he killed Reika's kind to near extinction. Even when he said that he was about to kill Nao, less than a day ago.

"I haven't even told Helene this..." he muttered at some point.

"I would die for all of you, you know?" Keita said after telling him everything. "Even for Anne and Reika who hate my guts." he added with a smile. "That's why, you guys should all leave. I will manage by myself somehow. I might not be able to win against a strong Demon but I think I should be able to at least run away. The Demon Lord will handle the Undead. The moment we pass through her territories though, she will know that humans have entered. That's why, as long as I run away, I might be able to slip in and out, before the Undead are defeated and she turns her eyes towards me."

Koba still kept his silence. Keita was done talking though. Sooner or later, he had to say something.

"So that's your plan? Leave the Undead to the Demons while we circle back and slip back into human lands?" Koba said.

Keita nodded while smiling, to feign confidence.

Koba took a time to think about the plan. It had a low probability of success if Keita was alone.

"Are you going to tell about Pride to the others?" he finally asked.

"I think Lia and Anne don't have to know for now. As about Nao..." Keita's eyes shifted to the back, where Nao and the others should have been asleep. "He will know everything before we two wake up I think."

It was very quite but Keita could definitely hear it, Reika's slight sniffing, since he started talking about his past.