It was nightmarish pursuit, and it was not only he who pursued the pair.
“Now, now, now, come forth! He mocks and scorns the exalted Witch, violates Her trial and Her favor! Rend his flesh into tiny pieces and offer him to the Witch!
When Petelgeuse’s command fell from the sky, Witch Cultists hidden in the cave under the cliff appeared in the forest without a sound. They had not attended Subaru and Petelgeuse’s conversation, but now that they knew Subaru was their foe, they had no reason to hesitate. Their steps seemed to glide along the ground as they pursued Subaru and the land dragon.
Petelgeuse was above the treetops, and at their backs, the Witch Cultists were ferociously chasing them—
“Here they come here they come here they come! Patlash, hang in there!”
“—!”
At Subaru’s highly imprecise command, Patlash dealt with the crisis using her own judgment. She opted for speed, crashing through the slender trees that impeded her large frame. She trampled upon roots, vaulted over a depression, and snapped leafy branches apart as she charged straight forward, heading for their destination by the shortest possible route.
“Futile! Meaningless! I shall catch up to you! Even that diligent land dragon’s resistance shall be blotted out, overridden by diligence of my OWN!!”
From afar, mad shouts poured down upon them, and the tyrannical evil hands poured down like a waterfall. They aimed at the sprinting Patlash, each landing in the forest with all the force of a cannonball. Huge trees were broken at the trunk and sent flying, with dust clouds swirling up from the ground being pulverized over and over.
But, despite that waterfall, the dust cloud, and the madman’s hatred pouring down, the land dragon ferociously burst through.
“—”
Patlash, neighing loudly, was not unscathed. Even so, the land dragon had slipped through the attacks, protecting Subaru and herself. She had faithfully seen all Subaru’s clumsy commands through.
“Sorry for leaning on you this hard… You’re the best, Patlash!”
“Howeverhoweverhoweveeeer! It ends HERE!”
Petelgeuse’s cackling, laughing voice interrupted Subaru’s praise for his favorite dragon’s valiant efforts. Pointing beneath him, the madman was not speaking of Unseen Hands. Rather, he indicated the group of black figures chasing them.
“—”
With cross-patterned swords in hand, the Witch Cultists pursued the land dragon with unthinkable speed. The menace they posed far exceeded that of Petelgeuse’s clumsy attacks.
At that rate, the Witch Cult’s blades would slice apart the land dragon’s scales, whittling her life away. But a moment before that could happen—
“Wah—!” “Ha—!!”
A high-pitched double roar made the air tremble, becoming a shock wave that bore through the world.
These very particular voices formed a roar wave that enveloped large trees and boulders in a straight line, rocking the atmosphere as it slammed into the Witch Cultists. Bloody mist danced in the air where the shock wave had slammed into the group.
So far as Subaru knew, only three people in that world were capable of using such voices.
“Whoaaa! You were in a super-tight spot, mister! You were totally gonna die just now!”
“You were in danger of slightly missing the rendezvous point. This is thanks to Sister’s intuition.”
With a great and silly laugh, the beast people siblings, Mimi and TB, lined up alongside Subaru riding their large dogs. Their roar wave having rescued him from peril, Subaru looked over to them and raised a fist.
“Hey, I was going all out back there! But thanks, I thought I was gonna bite it!”
“Ohh, thank you! You are very welcome! Yaay!”
“I understand your feelings of confusion… The man above is an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins, correct?”
Ignoring Subaru and Mimi’s banter, TB glared up at the sky and inquired in a tense voice. The little cat’s monocle-covered eye caught sight of the madman, his habit flapping in the wind, and narrowed.
“What’s that, that’s amazing! That old man’s all balled up and flying! Amazing!”
“I have never before seen such a creepy method of flight.”
“Ohh, right! That’s what it looks like to you two!”
Subaru, able to see Unseen Hands, and Mimi and TB were viewing reality differently. To the two of them, Petelgeuse, balled up like a gymnast, must have seemed to be flying all on his own, but Subaru beheld the nightmarish sight of tentacle-like evil hands throwing him again and again—well, both were awful sights, really.
“Either way, I’ll deal with that one! Take care of the rear just as planned, ’kay?”
“Understood. Let us go, Sister!”
“Oh yeah! Ah! Mister, mister!”
Subaru would continue his dramatic escape from Petelgeuse while leaving subsequent Witch Cultists to the two of them. But just before changing course and departing, Mimi raised her hand to Subaru—
“If you win, it’ll be really cool!”
“Yeah! Leave it to me!”
At Mimi’s words, Subaru gave the little cats a thumbs-up as he leaped forward, praying they would have good fortunes in battle.
Split apart by the roar wave they’d eaten, the Witch Cultists bore down on the pair, weapons in hand. At that point other members of the Iron Fangs—Rajan and company—leaped in from all directions, whereupon general combat began.
Subaru turned his back on the clashing of swords and pointed tauntingly at Petelgeuse high overhead.
“Come on, Lord Archbishop! If you get distracted by kitties and lose track of me, you’ll never live it down!”
“—You, you, how far, how far will you go, how, why?!”
Naturally, even Petelgeuse’s cheeks stiffened as his attacks were thwarted over and over. Having arrived in the current situation from having lost himself to rage, the madman finally realized that he was in a disadvantageous circumstance. His fingers lurking in the forest had been destroyed one by one, his Unseen Hands, in which he’d held absolute confidence, had been seen by another, and that very moment, his disciples had been ambushed and split apart, and Petelgeuse was alone.
Did that situation not mean he had been dancing on Subaru’s palm in every way?
“That cannot be! There is nothing! Nothing recorded of this in my Gospel! What are you, then?! YOU receive favor, and yet you belittle the Witch! You resist, you obstruct the trial I conduct, thwart my PLANS…!”
In midair, Petelgeuse clutched his Gospel, holding it high as he shouted.
His fingers had been taken away, and his authority was ineffective. He did not know it yet, but Emilia and the others had already been evacuated, so his vile acts to bring about the trial had failed before they had begun.
Perhaps, to Petelgeuse, this was what a nightmare looked like.
“What…what are you…?!”
Petelgeuse screamed at the absurdity of it all, froth rising to the corners of his mouth. Subaru calmly replied, “I’m doing this for the fourth time—when it comes to nightmares, I’ve seen enough to kill me.”
He didn’t care about Petelgeuse’s confusion or his laments. Deny it all he could, it was useless. The instant before his eyes was the future he’d crossed multiple nightmares to reach—
“You truly, trulytrulytrulytrulyyyy! You are Pride—”
“My name is Subaru Natsuki.”
When Petelgeuse shouted tenaciously, teeth creaking, Subaru invoked his own name.
“Knight of the silver-haired half-elf, Emilia.”
“—!”
“I don’t know about this Pride business, but that’s the only title I need. The rest can go to hell!”
He silenced Petelgeuse with a point of his finger and his caustic words. The next moment, the forest opened all at once. Ahead, another rocky place appeared—but this was not the rocky place where Subaru and Petelgeuse had faced off earlier. That said, it was not Subaru’s first visit to the
spot.
There, once upon a time, Subaru had lost his life.
“What is this place…?!”
“Earlier I came to an end here. So this is the place that’ll be your end— It’s that kind of spot.”
Arriving at their destination, Subaru commanded Patlash to slow her pace.
Chasing them through the sky, the change in scenery, and Subaru’s statement made the madman wary, causing his vile visage to contort.
“—”
Petelgeuse released himself from the evil hand grasping him, carrying him through the air, and fell to the ground. The madman landed, slowly lifting his face as he stood opposite the precipice, straight toward Subaru.
“If it was YOUR goal to invite me to this place…what is it you have prepared?”
“That goes without saying. A mortal enemy—yours and mine alike.”
When Petelgeuse asked in a low voice, Subaru dropped from his land dragon and declared as such. His words made the madman grimace. Subaru closed one eye. When he did so—
“—Mortal enemy? Once again, it is quite something, the ways that you address me.”
The interrupting voice of a third party made Petelgeuse’s head practically bounce as it swiveled around.
Petelgeuse already realized that he had been lured. On guard against a surprise attack, the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins stuck a finger into his mouth, strongly biting it as he surveyed the area.
But his caution against a surprise attack was utterly meaningless.
“I did not believe I would ever have another opportunity to hear such words again.”
Saying this, the speaker leaped straight down from the top of the precipice to the rocky ground below. A surprise attack seemed unthinkable to him as he landed lightly, using a finger to set his handsome hair, askew from the wind, in order.
“—”
Petelgeuse stifled his voice as his eyes widened, gazing at the handsome figure.
However, the handsome man merely stood at Subaru’s side, saying nothing of the madman’s threatening gaze. Subaru glared at the side of his calm, collected face, grimacing in pronounced annoyance.
“What, you’ve got a problem with my announcement?”
“No, I was concerned that you might be recalling previous events of which you could not be unashamed… It seems you are truly audacious. I am impressed that you would say such a thing in front of me, even now.”
“How about I repeat it in your sleep so you see it in your dreams, hmm?”
“I shall pass. Once is quite enough. Should I hear such a statement a second time, it shall be difficult to sear from my memory.”
Drawing his slender sword, the knight answered Subaru’s biting sarcasm with sarcasm of his own.
Subaru couldn’t even remember how often the sight of his perfectly kempt royal guardsman uniform and his purple hair swaying in the wind had annoyed him. It burned him that that abominable sight was so dependable that moment.
“Julius Eucleus, assigned to the Knights of the Royal Guard of the Kingdom of Lugunica.”
Identifying himself, Julius poised his drawn knight’s sword, pointing its tip toward the madman.
The next instant, lights of six different colors rose up and swirled around Julius, demonstrating their power to the wide-eyed Petelgeuse.
“—I am the sword of the kingdom, the sword that shall strike you down.”
“A spirit knight, IS it…? Just how far, truly, just how far will you…”
Petelgeuse’s teeth clenched as he received those spoken words. His anger was not so much directed toward Julius for joining to battle as toward the quasi-spirits nestling close to him. On top of that, the madman glared at Subaru and spoke.
“So this, too, is YOUR doing…! Never before have I been so humiliated…!”
“That so? Well, do enjoy—this is your just deserts, y’see.”
Subaru replied to Petelgeuse, in whom so much hatred seethed that he clenched his teeth hard enough to split them. Then Subaru patted Patlash on the head, commanding her to depart from the battlefield.
“You’ve been a big help this far. We’ll settle the rest.”
“—”
Patlash rubbed Subaru’s head with her nose in apparent concern before slowly shifting from the rocky place to the forest. Seeing her go, Subaru took a deep breath.
“Let’s do this, Julius.”
“You’re fine with this?” Julius inquired.
Subaru threw his shoulders back at the question. Unshakable determination rested in Subaru’s eyes as he opened his mouth and spoke.
“I won’t retreat, I won’t bend, I won’t lose. I don’t wanna lose anyone else.”
“I am the man who beat you terribly. Though I swear even now that I had significant reason for doing so, that is no more than self-righteousness so far as you are concerned.”
Julius answered Subaru’s resolve by speaking of the unforgettable karma that existed between them.
Those words suddenly stirred bitter, out-of-place memories. The humiliation and anguish of that time came vividly rushing back, as if something sharp bit deep into his chest.
“I am not digging up the past in the hopes of washing away the shame. Your resolve is weighty, formed by each decision and action you have taken along the road to this point. Accordingly, I ask you: At this juncture, can you carry out your long-cherished desire with me at your side, not dispirited in any way?”
“—”
“Can you trust in me?”
Julius’s question was extremely vague, coming off as out of place and even vaguely immature. But his meandering drew Subaru’s attention to the barbs continuing to assert themselves in the deepest parts of him—a necessary ritual, so that he might turn and face them.
At the royal selection conference, Subaru had put on a disgraceful display; at the training ground, his good name was not restored, but rather smashed all too perfectly at Julius’s hand, his infamy redoubled.
The devotion of one girl had continued to motivate Subaru, enabling him to rise to his feet again. And now that he stood and faced forward, there was a different girl he wished to support.
Guided by these twin lights, he struggled against fate. He wondered, how could he put the feelings from back then into words now? What kind of passion did he hold, what fierce emotions scorched within him, what colors of light burned bright within Subaru at that time, in that moment?
“I really hate you.”
“Yes, I know.”
“That graceful air you give off annoys me, the way you talk sounds stupid and shady, and on top of that you clearly look down at me, and now that I think about it, you kissed Emilia’s hand the first time I set eyes on you. When someday I’m lavishing kisses over Emilia-tan’s entire body, what, that’s gonna be an indirect kiss with you? Gimme a break!”
When he thought back, he’d hated Julius even before they had exchanged words for the first time.
The entire sequence of events leading to Emilia’s treating him cruelly began with Subaru’s antagonism toward Julius. At the royal selection conference, it grew significantly; at the training ground, it exploded; and the ashes continued to smolder thereafter.
Even that very instant, they remained very hot, never ceasing to scorch Subaru’s breast.
“You broke my hands and feet, cracked my skull, you even chipped my permanent teeth. Even if they all got healed up, you’d expect the trauma to be real for anyone. Do you even know what holding back is?”
“I would like to point out that was still a great deal of restraint.”
“Seriously, that’s ‘holding back’ for you? I really do hate you the most.”
Subaru, the self-declared knight, had known repeated shame for his powerlessness, ignorance, and recklessness.
Julius had beaten Subaru to demonstrate what a knight was, fulfilling his role with capability and force.
Subaru couldn’t help but pity himself for playing the role of comic relief, but if he set that aside, th
e man remained, well and truly, the knight Subaru had always wanted to be.
“I really hate you, ‘Finest of Knights.’”
“—”
“Because of my shame, I know that you’re one hell of a knight. That’s why I trust you.”
More than anyone in that place, more than anyone in that place in the past, Subaru intimately knew Julius’s sword.
Hence, it was him to whom Subaru entrusted his fate.
For at that time, Subaru had come to know the weight behind his sword.
“I’m counting on you, Julius—everything I have, I give to you.”
“—”
Subaru spoke those words to Julius from close enough for two people to shake hands.
Upon hearing those words, Julius closed his eyes. He slowly opened them a few brief seconds later. Julius beheld Subaru in his yellow eyes, nodding strongly toward him.
“Then I shall answer that shame with all my spirit.”
When his sword rose, pointing to the heavens, the quasi-spirits granted their blessing to Julius’s decision. The vibrantly colored quasi-spirits seemed to revolve around the sword as they danced in the sky. Among them, the two quasi-spirits colored white and black emitted the strongest light—and this increased still, strengthening and rising until Subaru’s vision was practically burned away.
Then, when the light shining on the battlefield with the precipice at its back finally relented, the madman moved.
“…Has your farce finally reached its END?”
Petelgeuse, who had kept his silence while watching the exchange between Subaru and Julius, inclined his head. His eyes were bloodshot as he pointed two bloody fingers toward the pair, creating countless vile, pitch-black hands in the process.
“And just what can you do with the addition of a single spirit knight to the fray? It is absurd that any mere spirit could hinder ME, MY path, MY love, MY diligence! You shall fall! I shall tear the others to pieces! I need only commence the trial anew! For my diligence knows no slothful surrender, nor demise!”
“—”
“Ahh, AHH, ahh, Sloth, Slothslothslothslothslothslothslothsloth—!!”
His tongue stretched so far that his throat seemed unable to contain it. Petelgeuse dug wounds into himself deep enough to reach bone as he shouted his premonition of death, sending his Unseen Hands to smash the pair flat in one blow.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 9 Page 12
