Chapter 25

## Chapter Chronology

**Birth of a Monster** is the 25th chapter of the "*Shuumatsu no Valkyrie: Record of Ragnarok*" manga series.

## Summary

Heracles questions what Jack the Ripper is talking about but Jack ignores him, mumbling to himself about how he wants to see what kind of color Heracles will be dyed in, at the moment of his death. He admits it excites him and Humanity's crowd wonders why Jack is so relaxed when he's the one losing. Looking at the reflection of his eye on the knife he's holding, Jack begins singing "London Bridge is Falling Down". Arthur Conan Doyle recognizes the nursery rhyme from "Mother Goose" and as Jack continues to sing, he thinks back to the past. At the end of the 19th century in London, a young boy sings "London Bridge is Falling Down" while holding his parents' hands. His father tells him he can choose what to eat today and the boy excitedly asks for roast beef. In an alleyway they pass, another young boy goes through a wooden dumpster. He finds a half-eaten loaf of bread and is about to take it when a chef appears and kicks the boy. He tells the boy that it doesn't matter whether they're scraps or not – if the boy wants food, he has to pay. The 12-year-old Boy (later known as Jack the Ripper) pleads for the chef to let it go, just this once. Day in and day out, having to crawl through the urine-stained streets of London for scraps of food, was the Boy's only means of gathering food.

With his right eye, the Boy can clearly see the chef's emotions as colors, making out the dark hues to be mixed feelings of disgust, rage, scorn and contempt. Grabbing the chef's leg, the Boy promises not to do it again and begs the chef to forgive him. When the chef sneers, the Boy realizes that the color of his emotions have changed to dominance.

The chef decides to let it go and allows the Boy to take the bread before warning him not to come back. In order to survive in that harsh world, at some point, the Boy's right eye became able to read the emotions of people as colors. Looking at the bread, the Boy notes that his mother should be pleased. At a brothel, the Boy goes up the stairs and witnesses a man coming out of a room.

A woman yells at him that this wasn't what he promised but the man tells her that the amount of money he gave her is more than enough, calling her an "aged whore". After the man leaves, the Boy walks into the room to find his mother, Mary, slumped on the floor. The Boy asks if the man hit her but Mary insists she's fine. She hugs the Boy and when he hisses in pain, she notices a wound on his arm. The Boy tries to assure her it's nothing but Mary insists they have to make sure it isn't infected and bandages up his wound. She counts the money the man left behind and sighs in relief that there's enough for her to buy some medicine. The Boy thanks her and Mary hugs him, telling the Boy that she's his one and only hope in the world. The Boy finds the bright color coming from his mother to be beautiful.

He exclaims that she must be the most beautiful woman in the world. The Boy loved watching his mother's emotions more than anything else.

The next day, the Boy sits on the staircase, reading a compilation of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Another prostitute, Anne, takes a swig of alcohol and tells the Boy there's no point in trying to learn if he's the son of a prostitute. The Boy tells Anne it's bad for her health if she drinks too much but Anne doesn't care. Sitting next to him, Anne asks the Boy if his mother is "occupied". The Boy says yes and Anne wonders what's so great about that woman, noting that she's been free all day. Looking at the Boy, Anne says they have it bad being born in a place like this and wonders why Mary chose to have him. Mary had gotten pregnant five times by different customers. Each time, she got an abortion. Yet, when she became pregnant with her sixth child, she decided to give birth to and raise him.

Taking another swig, Anne says she feels sorry for the Boy. He asks why and she brings up that this is a pretty shitty place to be. Closing his book and looking at his bandaged arm, the Boy claims he's the happiest boy in the world. To be chosen by his mother and loved by her was all he needed to be able to make those claims with pride...until that fateful day. One night, the Boy happily goes up the stairs, having found a big wheel of cheese. However, he suddenly drops it as he hears Mary scream "No!!" from inside her room. Opening the door, he asks what happened. Mary continues crying over a newspaper and Anne shows it to the Boy.

The newspaper is about Jack Smith, a failing playwright who became successful by marrying into nobility. Anne reveals that Jack was a former customer of Mary's and Mary sobs about how he promised to come back for her, once he was successful. Calling it a cliché, Anne exits the room, telling Mary it's her fault for believing in his 13-year-old promise. After Mary stops crying, the Boy offers her a cup of water. When she doesn't respond, he tries to assure her that he's here for her, only for Mary to snap and knock the cup out of the Boy's hand. Not mad, the Boy keeps trying to assure her that he'll protect her but Mary yells at him to shut up and screams about how she should've never given birth to him.

She insists that, without Jack, the Boy is useless and yells that she should've stabbed him while he was in the womb with a coat hanger like the rest. As Mary rips up the Boy's books, the Boy begins crying as he understood that the color he thought was his mother's love toward him, had never been love towards him at the very start. She only saw him as an opportunity and a tool that tied her to Jack. Using his right eye, the Boy can see Mary's emotions as a dark color, like the chef. He insists a polluted color like that is no good and begins choking Mary with his bare hands, promising to free her from her grief.

As Mary struggles, the Boy sees a color he hasn't seen before and questions if it's fear. He sees how it's trampling over all her other feelings and upon his first time seeing the color of fear, the Boy thought it was beautiful. After Mary gets free, she tries to question what he's doing, only for the Boy to cut her throat with a knife from the dresser behind her. As Mary dies, the Boy smiles, smitten by the color she's displaying. With the entire room covered in his mother's blood, the Boy hugs Mary's corpse and says he loves her.

Later that night, the Boy walks into Jack Smith's house. Jack asks who he is and wonders if he's a fan. Seeing the Boy bloodied and armed with a knife, Jack offers him money in exchange for letting him live. Still smiling, Jack says, "Men at some time are masters of their fates." He says it's from Shakespeare and reveals it was written in the book Jack left behind, calling him "Father." Jack finally realizes who the Boy is but the Boy still cuts his throat.

Leaving him to die, the Boy walks towards the exit but notices a hung hat nearby. The Boy takes the hat and leaves. After killing his father, the Boy vanished into the streets of London. In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution brought light to the world's (then) largest city but at the same time, it gave birth to great darkness. Dragging his knife along the walls of an alleyway, the Boy sings "London Bridge is Falling Down".

In the present, Jack says that, when he was alive, he could see the swirl of emotions that raged within the hearts of others. Yet at the moment of death, when the body was ruled by fear, that swirl would recede and remove all impurities. Jack calls it a beautiful sight. Heracles declares that, no matter what, Jack won't get what he wants out of him as the only thing he fears is the day he parts from justice. After dodging an attack, Jack throws a multitude of knives. However, Heracles easily foils each one and advances, forcing Jack to go up against Big Ben. As the bell of Big Ben tolls, Heracles says it rings for Jack. In that moment, Jack uses his grappling gun to scale Big Ben, only for the place where the hook grabbed onto, to crumble, forcing Jack to hang onto the building. Heracles calls it useless and destroys Big Ben's base, causing the clock tower to fall down onto a building.

As Jack hangs off of Big Ben's clock face, Heracles activates his **Herculean Exodus** and summons the **Seventh Labor: Cretan Bull**. As the lion on his club changes into a bull, Heracles' tattoo spreads even further and he prepares to strike. Taking off Big Ben's clock face, in a seemingly desperate move, Jack flings the clock face at Heracles. Holding up his left forearm, Heracles reminds Jack that manmade objects can't harm him, only to be surprised when the clock face slices off his forearm. As Ares, Hermes and Göll react with shock, Jack says he heard him, each and every time, before wondering how it feels, calling him, "My fair lady."

## Characters in Order of Appearance

* Heracles
* Jack the Ripper
* Loki (No lines)
* Hermes (No lines)
* Brunhilde (No lines)
* Göll
* Arthur Conan Doyle
* Mary (Flashback)
* Anne (Flashback)
* Jack Smith (Flashback)
* Heimdall
* Ares (No lines)