Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 9

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  “Bahaa!”

  Petelgeuse, struck by vestiges of the aurora and caught in the explosions of his shadows, tumbled to the earth. His crushed fingers clawed at a boulder, and the madman looked like he was about to spit up blood as he rose to his feet.

  Right before his eyes, Julius drew near, unleashing a sharp thrust aimed straight at the madman’s breast.

  “I shall…not…let YOU! —Ul Doona!”

  Petelgeuse spread his arms wide, intoning a spell as he took a counterattack posture. The next moment, the earth burst upward, and stone walls, a mix of boulder fragments and black soil, enclosed the madman on four sides.

  The sword bounced off the rock wall. Mad laughter welled up from the other side, and Petelgeuse let Unseen Hands fly over it, slamming from Julius’s blind side to deliver a serious pummeling.

  “—”

  Dealing with the evil hands meant giving Petelgeuse, on the other side of the wall, an opportunity to escape. However, if he pursued Petelgeuse, he would be slain by the Authority. Either way, Julius’s sword could not reach him.

  That is, if Julius had been waging that battle alone.

  “Blaze, fighting spirit! Howl, demon ball! I’ve got fifty pounds of will, right here!!”

  Twisting his body, raising a leg, taking a great step forward, shoulder rotating in a full swing—with a speed not exactly that of a fastball, Subaru hurled the crimson magic crystal in his hand.

  The youth was no baseball prodigy. But he had once had a burning craving for strikeouts at the nearest batting center. His pitch control, at least, amounted to second rate.

  When this was combined with his concentration ability in his state of extreme observation, hitting the center of the rock wall with the magic crystal was downright easy.

  “What IS…?!”

  The crimson magic stone imbued with destructive energies sailed past Julius and crashed into the wall of stone—and exploded in a flash of light and great heat, burying Petelgeuse’s field of vision with the vermillion flames from the detonation.

  “It cannot be that this, too, was your plan from the…”

  “Scorning him as powerless is the cause of your defeat!”

  As Petelgeuse froze in shock, Julius’s voice reached him from the other side of the flames. The next instant, Julius broke through the flames in a flying leap, burying the tip of his sword in the immobile madman.

  “…aa—”

  His breast thus run through, the inside of Petelgeuse’s entire body was charred by the rainbow aurora.

  Slammed into the rock wall behind him, impaled against it, Petelgeuse flailed his limbs. The madman spit out bloody froth, wept, and bared his teeth, as if unable to believe it.

  “Ab…surd. Absurd, absurd, absurd…! This cannot…be happening…to ME…!”

  “The rainbow aurora has bitten into your very soul. No matter whose body you reside in, the wicked soul within shall find no escape— Now, fall to pieces at the rainbow’s end!”

  At Julius’s voice, the glow of the cavalier’s sword increased. Bathed in that light, Petelgeuse could not unleash Unseen Hands; he could only groan in agony and writhe in the unsightly manner of an insect on the brink of death.

  However, as Petelgeuse struggled, the madness in his eyes was undiminished. He had not given up on living.

  “It ends not here! It cannot! It shall NOT!! My efforts are diligent! I shall not permit any thoughts of surrendering to laziness or sinking into SLOTH! That’s why, by any means necessary…!”

  The madman wailed, struggled, wriggled, and opened his tattered mouth wide as he tried to escape from the sword. Julius gazed in wonder at his implacable tenacity while twisting his sword, pouring destructive energy into the heart of his foe.

  If his heart was destroyed, death was inescapable— Before that point, Petelgeuse made his decision.

  “Having lost all my fingers, my destruction is inescapable…BUT…BUT! BUT! There is still, one vessel, that remains for me…!”

  They’d gone all over the place and preemptively taken out Petelgeuse’s fingers—the spare physical bodies he had brought with him. Consequently, he had to select a replacement on-site.

  “—”

  His madness-suffused eyes opened wide and moved around. He looked past Julius and caught sight of Subaru.

  A chill ran down Subaru’s spine. Simultaneously, Petelgeuse’s mad laughter grew louder, deeper—

  “Ahh—my brain…is shaking.”

  The moment after his murmur, Petelgeuse’s Julius-impaled body crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut. Light faded from its eyes, and its limbs drooped, all signs of life falling from them.

  The time had come. Subaru thrust a hand into his pocket and shouted to Julius.

  “Julius! Release!”

  “Acknowledged!”

  Responding to Subaru’s call, Julius released Nekt just as they had arranged. As a result, Subaru was instantly freed from the ill feeling of two layers of five senses—but didn’t even have time to breathe.

  For next, in place of Julius’s five senses, came a foreign existence, overwriting the impudent Subaru.

  Stuffed into his chest, the invisible entity robbed him of his right to control his own body—and its shrill, earsplitting laughter echoed inside Subaru’s own skull.

  Subaru proceeded to bend exaggeratedly backward, opening his eyes and mouth to their utmost in acclamation.

  “I. Knew. It! This flesh is a vessel with the capacity to hold ME! And with no way to stop ME! No way to impede my path! AHH, ahh, you, were LAZY!”

  Petelgeuse’s existence felt so close, it was as if they were sitting side by side in the same brain.

  This was the final stage of Possession—with his fingers lost, Petelgeuse had moved to take over Subaru’s body.

  Subaru had no way to resist that savage blow. He’d lost the freedom of his body as the madman consumed his mind.

  “Now this is the body of YOUR friend, yes! Can a knight aspiring to noble virtues bring himself to cut it down?!”

  Having taken Subaru as a hostage, Petelgeuse licked Subaru’s face with his own tongue. The words caused Julius, looking ready to rush over, to halt his feet as he spoke.

  “Certainly, I cannot bring myself to cut him down.”

  “Then—!!”

  “Accordingly…”

  As Julius spun the quiet word, he showed the madman his own left hand. He held a glowing conversation mirror in the hand opposite to that gripping his cavalier’s sword. Subaru had passed Julius the mirror in his pocket the instant Subaru was being possessed.

  Its glowing surface displayed a cat-eared knight who had been observing the battle since the outset.

  “Now it is your turn, Ferris!”

  “Subawu, you big fat idiot for making me do this! I’m going to rip you to pieces later!”

  When Julius addressed Ferris through the conversation mirror, the latter’s voice sharpened to a point. The ill omen made Subaru/Petelgeuse’s eyes open wide, and in accordance with that premonition, Ferris carried out the attack.

  However, with his actions having been read through Return by Death, there was nothing he could do—

  “Unseen……?! GaAaaaaaH?!”

  The instant he tried to unleash the Authority, Subaru/Petelgeuse screamed so much, it seemed his throat would burst. The cause was an explosion inside the body that released a torrent of unfathomably vast heat and anguish.

  With a wobble, Subaru’s body lost its strength and, still feeling hot all over, collapsed onto the ground. His skull felt like a sauna within which his brain was boiling, with his scalded mind cutting in and out over and over.

  And Petelgeuse, sharing his flesh, had shared that very bitter taste.

  “A…ga…haa… What…what…happ…?”

  Having experienced the novel anguish of having his brain sterilized through boiling, Petelgeuse moaned, his confusion plain. Subaru, clawing together his mental strength, stuck his tongue out at the abominable soul that
was his roommate as he answered.

  “If the body you take over ain’t…in good shape, you can’t…do a thing, can you?”

  “It cannot be…it cannotcannotcannotcannotcannnoooooottttttttt…be! YOU, you expected ME to shift to your body?!”

  You bet! Subaru grandly stated as Petelgeuse expressed shock inside his brain.

  They were two minds in one body. It felt odd for Subaru’s declaration to leave Subaru speechless. On the inside, Subaru apologized over the conversation mirror to Ferris for foisting such a distasteful task upon him.

  —For it was Ferris, on the other side of the conversation mirror, whose spell had robbed Subaru’s body of its freedom.

  For the purpose of healing, Ferris had interfered with Subaru’s Gate, making it possible for him to make the mana inside Subaru’s body go berserk through use of water magic. Indeed, it was he who had delivered fatal damage to Subaru the last time around when Petelgeuse had possessed Subaru’s body.

  He’d made Ferris, proud of his power as a healer, use that power to take a human life. And yet, Subaru had asked him to use that power in such a fashion once more, so as to lay the final trap.

  “So thanks to that last request, this body’s no good, either… So ready to give up yet?”

  “Give up? Give in? As if I would surrender! At this rate, I will rob your flesh, and it will be me, by me, for me, only me—me, me, ME?!”

  Beyond his normal madness and fury, Petelgeuse, in a true sense, had begun to go insane.

  To so great an extent his moves had been read in advance, his plans thwarted, yet even so, Petelgeuse wailed while tenaciously clinging to his delusions; and Subaru, even as he tasted the suffering of his blood boiling within his body, hardened his resolve.

  “At this rate, I’ll die…and that’ll be traumatic for Ferris… I don’t wanna die, either, so I’m gonna settle things with you. We’re just gonna do it my way…”

  “What, are…more, unto me! What more, DO you seek from me?!”

  Petelgeuse’s voice shook; he was aghast at Subaru’s words, words that foretold what was coming.

  That moment, with Petelgeuse sitting right next to him in his brain, he knew. The madman was closer to him than he needed to be, conveying his fear and denial so much that it hurt.

  The same went for him. Hence, he knew that Subaru’s resolve was the real deal.

  “Are you scared? Now, after all the things that you’ve done?”

  “All unto love! All to repay Her favor! What do you know about ME?! All YOU have done is interfere and obstruct my path! What is it with YOU?!”

  Petelgeuse knew not Subaru’s true identity. He was simply afraid.

  The madman did not understand whence sprung the hatred Subaru bore toward him. Subaru and Petelgeuse’s lives had never crossed, not even once. At the very least, that was true as far as he was concerned.

  “Your actions are simply out of irrational resentment…misplaced to the EXTREME!!”

  “…There’s no point talking to you anymore. Even among human beings, there are people you can’t have a frank conversation with. That goes double if you’re not even a human being.”

  “—”

  Subaru’s voice, tinged with disappointment and understanding, sent Petelgeuse into shock.

  The madman’s reaction was raw, for Subaru’s declaration had penetrated his stupor to strike at the truth.

  “What. Are. You… Are you saying…you know about ME?!”

  “The fact I lured you to this rocky place should’ve made you imagine a nut being cracked— It’s a place only for proper spirit mages and—this is flattering myself—people qualified to become ’em.”

  This was the final condition for Possession that the conversation between Subaru and Julius had uncovered—

  “Forcing a pact onto a human being qualified to be a spirit mage and takin’ over their bodies. That’s the truth behind your Possession, Archbishop of…no, spirit, Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti!”

  “You dare—!!”

  When his true nature was exposed in a loud, brash voice, Petelgeuse, lurking inside Subaru, forgot his fear and shouted back.

  Subaru had realized Petelgeuse’s true nature when in thought in the middle of the Possession incident the last time around. The real tip-off was Ia, the quasi-spirit.

  Last time around, Ia ought to have been residing in Subaru’s body, but the instant Petelgeuse possessed him, she was shot out of Subaru. That unnatural occurrence led him to broaden his speculation. It was for this reason Subaru began to suspect that his hatred of spirits—and of the spirit mages employing them—was hatred of his own kind.

  Petelgeuse’s Possession was an irregular pact, the effect of Petelgeuse himself being an evil spirit. Accordingly, he saw spirit mages, which already had formal pacts with spirits, as his enemies. Even if he could hijack a provisional pact, he could not do so to a formal one. That was why spirit mages were his mortal enemies.

  It was because of Julius’s sword, and the power resting within it, that Subaru had selected him for the decisive battle—

  “Wow, getting ticked at me hitting the bull’s-eye. Maybe while possessing people their humanity rubbed off on you?”

  “Silence! Do not! Do not compare ME to spirits! Do not put me together with such lowly beings! I am a being beyond that of spirits! I am a chosen being surpassing mere spirits, abandoning vague self-consciousness and granted an objective through Her favor! What do YOU know about me?!!”

  Petelgeuse vented, forgetting all about the flesh he had taken over as his rage and hatred exceeded all limits. Ironically, the contents of his words only bolstered Subaru’s deductions, and the more he denied it, the deeper he dug his own grave.

  “Love has changed ME! Love has given me will, a reason to exist! This, and everything, is by the grace of the Witch! The Witch’s favor! Thus! Thusthusthusthusthusthus! I must offer this body, this soul, everything to the WITCH!”

  “You can save the sermon, Lord Archbishop—I’ll grant you an audience, then…just for you.”

  “What?! With whom?! Of what do you speak?!”

  “Why, the great Witch you’ve been waiting for.”

  Root and branch, Subaru’s statement blew Petelgeuse’s fierce emotions away.

  What remained was shock and bewilderment, and for the first time, Subaru had a glimpse of the underside of Petelgeuse’s madness.

  As the mad thoughts went blank, Subaru turned toward them, choosing that moment to be the one to draw near.

  “—I’ve Returned by Death…”

  The instant he spoke the forbidden words, the world lost its color, and all motion came to a stop.

  And then it came for Subaru.

  2

  The world that greeted him was dominated by darkness, and darkness alone.

  It was a hazy space, a world of nothing, an empty vacuum where even his own body did not exist.

  Whether his body existed or not was unimportant; it was a world where existence or nonexistence held no meaning, a world where you knew not if you even had a soul.

  There was a sense of oblivion alone, and there was a blissful, familiar feel to that oblivion. If he could feel anything at all in that place, he could somehow make out his own existence.

  Within that darkness, where even his mind was hazy, there suddenly came a change, and the world’s ambiance shifted.

  “—”

  In that world without light, there was a pitch-black figure blotting out even that darkness.

  It was a woman. He could grasp that at least.

  Her face and the contours of her body were so uncertain, he could not be sure of anything about them. And yet his heart seethed.

  This chance meeting with her—no, not a chance meeting; this was a reunion.

  This was blessing, this was grace, this was gospel—this was true love.

  His lack of fingers irritated him. He wanted to walk over and take her hand that very instant.

  His lack of a mouth irritated him. He w
anted to lavish words upon her to express his feelings.

  His lack of a body irritated him. If she so desired, he would offer her blood, bone, flesh—all of it.

  His being only a soul irritated him, for he had but that single thing to offer her.

  “”

  As before, she continued to hold her silence. But her mind had certainly shifted in his direction. That was enough. Being in a world where she paid heed to his existence felt as good as if he had ascended to heaven.

  And his soul, yearning for love for so long, would be hers, forever—

  “—This is wrong.”

  The voice was tinged with disappointment and despondency.

  He had prepared to receive her first words with supreme bliss, whatever they might be. Yet the instant he heard her voice, it created a shadow of worry that made his entire being tremble.

  Why did it feel like this? Here, in the place that would surely grant the love that he sought…

  “—You are not him.”

  Her disappointment deepened, her ardor dissipated, and finally her despondency changed into another emotion—anger.

  “Why is someone not him here, in our place—?”

  The voice shook with anger.

  The angry, hateful, accursed words rejected the soul, ripping it into pieces.

  Unable to grasp the reason for her pushing him away…unable to accept the reality that she truly detested him, and that his love could never reach her…he desperately sought words of sadness and lament, a voice that he could exhaust to assuage her heart.

  But he had no mouth to use to form such words, nor fingers nor a body to act out his will. All he had in that place was his soul—and she had rejected him, not permitting him to offer even that.

  “—Begone.”

  The bewilderment, consternation, and grief of his thoughts never reached her. They were meaningless, for to her he was worthless, meaningless, and idle.

  Bathed in rejection and repudiation, he accepted his despair; the misery shattered his soul.

  Torn away from the framework of the world, his mind was cut from it; and so he sank far, far away, the reunion he had so yearned for…severed.

  The sight of her grew distant.