Crying So Loud

February 2, 1516.

For Babylon, today was a special day... That said, this was not the first time-God's eldest daughter was about to be born.

(Mantra could distinguish a baby's sex before birth.)

Still, the people of Babylon had rather complicated feelings about the birth of this eldest princess, especially the people of Birka, who, in a sense, positively reeked of old aristocratic privilege...

-Because this was the child of the [Left Hand of God], Her Highness Lilith, the Black Wing Arbiter.

Ever since ascending to godhood, the High God had strictly forbidden discrimination against the Wingless and Black Wings. Nobody dared say anything as outrageously stupid as "Black Wing witch," even in private.

Nor were they merely paying lip service while secretly resisting. They had submitted long ago. Refusing was not an option: a hundred-million-volt holy judgment delivered by iron fists, bam, bam-two punches, and they submitted. They really did.

The old Birka natives were utterly submissive to Lilith, practically ready to brainwash themselves. Mainly because, besides being deeply favored, Her Highness was also Babylon's highest judicial official.

But a thousand years of cultural habit carried its own inertia. Even if they sincerely accepted her, there was always that tiny little something in their hearts...

It was an afternoon of warm sunshine and a gentle breeze. Since this was not the first time, having experience made things much easier. It was not as chaotic as when Isabella gave birth.

Inside the delivery room was the same trio: a midwife from the Birka Church, a maid, and a Female Knights member.

Outside, besides Sephiroth, Lilith's close friends and loved ones were also waiting for news.

Sephiroth sat on the sofa, looking slightly restless as he stared at a book he was not actually absorbing. Still, he was doing much better than last time. At least he was not tapping out telegrams.

Isabella sat beside him with one-year-old Gil in her arms, delightedly having prepared some gifts.

She and Lilith had often discussed their experiences raising children. Now she was very eager to compare notes with Lilith in practice.

...Looking at the barely one-year-old Gil, whose expression said, "Just a little hardship, that's all," and whose face looked almost three years old...

It was clear that his mother, a Female Knights member, might have a few problems with her approach to education.

Actually, that bastard Sephiroth bore some responsibility too... The bedtime stories he occasionally read to lull his son to sleep were passages from The Prince.

He certainly had high expectations for Gil...

At the moment, Isabella wore Jeanne d'Arc's white third-ascension knight outfit from Fate/Grand Order. With her blond hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and lovely maidenly looks, she was remarkably convincing from a cosplay perspective.

Bella's personality, however, was much closer to Nero, that "umu" machine. And ever since Carina and Conis had begun their idol project under Sephiroth's arrangements, Bella had wanted to participate enthusiastically too...

All one could say was that hers was an art best enjoyed privately by a small audience.

On December 24, she really had put on quite a show for everyone.

Conis, dressed in a saint's outfit, sat on the other side. Although her duties as a personal attendant had not changed for now, ever since she and Sephiroth had taken their relationship all the way, she had become the High God's Acolyte within the Church's internal hierarchy.

An ordinary priestess uniform was no longer enough to reflect her position. Normally, she should have worn a plain, undecorated bishop's robe. But Sephiroth had instead dressed her in Cecilia's white saint outfit from Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence, out of personal preference.

Sephiroth did not force anyone to wear specific clothes. Strictly speaking, he had only prescribed the style of their work uniforms; they could wear whatever they liked off duty.

However, he had designed many outfits to suit his tastes and given them to the girls he thought they suited, including spare sets of the same designs.

For instance, Isabella received various Female Knights-style outfits, Conis received female clergy outfits, and Lilith received gothic outfits.

Laki stood by the window, faithfully maintaining her guard duties as always. As a Shandia musketeer, she received Western gunslinger and cowgirl outfits, along with biker gear. But she was not particularly fond of changing clothes, and still wore Yoko's sort of... race queen-style biker outfit, the kind that regulations made difficult to show everyone.

In fact, her original clothes had not covered much more than Yoko's, so she seemed quite comfortable in that sort of outfit.

Nojiko, Carina, and Nami had also come. During this time, they had gotten to know Bella and the others through Conis.

Though bursting with curiosity, they sat quietly in a row on the circular sofa, waiting for the new life to arrive.

Carina and Nami were currently at the stage of growing from young girls into young women, and they were endlessly curious about this sort of thing.

Carina had a great talent for singing and dancing, so the clothes she received were mostly schoolgirl, idol, and model styles. Nami's clothes mostly leaned toward schoolgirl, techwear, and sportswear styles.

Right now, both wore blue schoolgirl uniforms and were exchanging wide-eyed stares with Gil in Isabella's arms. To avoid disturbing the delivery room, they only made assorted silent funny faces at the little boy.

Bella quite enjoyed this adorable interaction, but enormous question marks appeared in Gil's ruby-like eyes.

Nojiko was two years older than the other two. Perhaps because she had helped raise Nami from childhood, she seemed more mature than her actual age. Calling her a young woman would not have been wrong.

Back then, she had voluntarily gotten a fairly large tattoo to spare Nami's feelings. Combined with her lightly dark skin...

(There were many shades of dark skin. Hers was very light, close to that of "Nemu the Bedouin.")

That was why most of the clothes Sephiroth gave her were mildly gyaru or schoolgirl gyaru styles.

(Not the wild, punkish sort, but the more understated kind of gyaru.)

Nojiko was also reading at the moment, but her peripheral vision kept drifting toward the delivery room door.

"Lily, big sister..."

Her mind was not on her book either. She was merely turning the pages by instinct.

Over the years, the maids within the Sanctuary had grown accustomed to taking their lead from Lilith. Although Conis could also direct them, and they did not dare disobey her behind her back, she was too softhearted to oversee everything. In the end, she often simply revolved around Sephiroth.

As regent, Isabella exercised supreme administrative authority and had no time to manage the inner household.

As a result, besides being Babylon's supreme arbiter, Lilith was also effectively its "inner household manager."

Consequently, the newly arrived Cocoyasi trio had received a great deal of care from Lilith during this time. All of this deeply moved Nojiko, who had spent so many years being both sister and mother.

They also shared a hobby, "growing fruit," so she and Lilith had a very good personal relationship. In private, they called each other sisters.

Time passed, minute by minute, and the sounds from the delivery room kept everyone's emotions rising and falling.

In fact, ever since Sephiroth had learned to train and strengthen the body through precisely controlled electrical stimulation, he had used the method on everyone close to him.

(Of course, he had stopped doing this to Isabella and Lilith once they showed signs of pregnancy.)

The people of this world had remarkable constitutions, even the ordinary ones. With this help, Isabella had reached the Grand Knight level faster, and she was now not far from becoming a Holy Knight.

Lilith had once been merely a maid and had never received knight training. But under Sephiroth's intimate guidance, her constitution was now approaching that of an ordinary knight. Her stamina was much better than an ordinary woman's, which kept everyone from getting too nervous.

With a cry... well, not as resounding as Gilgamesh's had been, but still quite strong, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

A few minutes later, the midwife came out as usual to report that a princess had been born. Her expression, however, had become... very strange. The proportions of emotions on her face could practically have formed a pie chart.

Sephiroth's heart lurched. Surely there was not some obvious congenital problem?

Led by the midwife, everyone carefully entered the room.

Lilith lay quietly beneath the covers. Nestled beside her cheek was a swaddled infant, a tiny life-a little princess with soft silver-gray hair and delicate pink skin, sleeping sweetly.

She had inherited Lilith's hair color. According to the midwife, the child had also managed to open her eyes while crying, and they were wine-red like Sephiroth's.

-Holy crap, a critical hit against the land of red eyes and silver hair.

"Sephi..."

Lilith's expression was complicated too, almost guilty. After all, she had decided to have a child partly out of a desire to compete with Bella.

There was nothing to tell from the swaddling. Sephiroth thought that if there really were a congenital deformity, he would wait until she was a little older and take her to Drum Island to seek treatment from that hundred-year-old witch. If that failed, he would dig three feet into the earth to drag out Luo, who had eaten the Op-Op Fruit.

"It's all right. Don't worry. If there's a problem, I'll definitely cure our daughter."

Sephiroth leaned close to Lilith and gently nudged the area beside her ear with the tip of his nose.

Still holding Gil, Isabella also walked softly to Lilith's side, bent down, and gently kissed the baby's forehead, her eyes full of affection.

"She is such a lovely child."

Isabella and Lilith's relationship bore no resemblance to those palace intrigue dramas from Blue Star in Sephiroth's previous life. They had always been... well, somewhere between snarky friends and best friends.

Perhaps this was what a feudal society looked like when supreme power belonged to an individual.

Gil, in her arms, also kept staring at his little sister with his large, curious eyes.

Nami and Carina leaned over the bedside like a matching pair of little animals, gazing at the baby in silent admiration.

Laki, Conis, and Nojiko all restrained themselves and stood a little farther away.

Sensitive as she was, Nojiko noticed something odd about the atmosphere and could not quite hide her concern.

"Lily, what exactly is going on? Whatever it is, I'll cherish her."

After comforting Lilith for a while, Sephiroth asked softly.

"...She, she has two-colored wings..."

"...?"

Wait a second. Let's speak the same language here. What did you just say?

Seeing Sephiroth's strange expression, Lilith's voice grew even fainter.

"Our daughter's left and right wings are... different colors. One of them is black..."

Hearing this, those from Sky Island more or less understood why Lilith had become so upset.

Sephiroth could not help gently opening the baby's swaddling and looking at those tiny black-and-white wings.

He simply could not suppress his delight...

It was the sort of uncontainable joy that came when his inner teenage edgelord erupted at full force.

His joy and expression were so exuberant, so utterly saturated with delight, that they swept away Lilith's dejection, even though she had no idea why Sephiroth was so happy.

"-Holy shit! That's so fucking cool!"

He suddenly burst out with a beautifully eloquent phrase from his homeland.

His daughter woke with a start, and a frantic scramble to soothe her followed.

Seeing that Sephiroth genuinely adored her, Lilith relaxed. Still, she gave him several dirty looks for frightening their daughter into tears.

Once their daughter had been coaxed back to sleep... the greatest credit actually belonged to one-year-old Gil. Just how had he soothed his little sister to sleep in baby talk...?

Now the biggest question was what to name their daughter. Although they had prepared several possibilities long ago, it was time to settle on one.

"February 2..."

Although this was not Blue Star from his previous life, Sephiroth had still slipped a reference from that life into Gil's name, since he had been born on May 1.

What was the point of having children if you could not play with them? (Wrong.)

His daughter deserved equal treatment. He could not let her escape!

He slapped his forehead. February 2, right? The Black Wing witch's daughter, right? Got it...

"Elaina. Our daughter will be called Elaina."

"That sounds lovely..."

Although Lilith said it sounded lovely, Sephiroth did not dare tell her that he had come up with it by thinking of witches.

"Black Wing witch" had once been a slur used privately against Lilith by people jealous of her, but Sephiroth thought it sounded pretty cool.

Besides, in the Western world of Blue Star in his previous life, February 2 was a festival associated with witches.

It had originally commemorated a Celtic goddess of light. She was also the goddess of fire, crafts, poetry, and healing, and was sometimes believed to be three sisters.

Nineteen priestesses tended her eternal sacred flame. Every February 2, they celebrated the return of light, symbolizing the sun's power of rebirth.

When the Roman Catholic Church arrived, it could not easily brand this goddess a demon, so it instead canonized her, claiming she had actually been an ancient Catholic missionary. Later, it deliberately conflated her festival with Candlemas to further weaken the goddess's influence.

Those priestesses who still refused to be "absorbed" became the so-called "Celtic witches."

(In classical Western culture, the terms for magical women and witches were synonymous. The distinction only came later.)

...The eldest princess's birth prompted Sephiroth to declare another nationwide weeklong holiday. The New Year break had only just ended, and now another long holiday had arrived.

There was no concern about basic work being left undone; the emotionless Mechanical Servants would handle it. But consecutive long holidays left the people unsure what to do with themselves. Since taking time off was not compulsory, some actually chose to keep working.

As it happened, following Sephiroth's personal habits, many of Babylon's current holidays had been established by his unilateral decree.

Gilgamesh had been born on May 1, and there had been seven days off then too. But that holiday was one Sephiroth had already designated long beforehand.

His little sister's birth, however, brought an extra holiday.

His son's crying seemed to have gotten louder. Was he imagining it?

He would read him Das Kapital tonight to comfort him.