He’d resolve that no matter what pickle he might find himself in, his heart, at least, would not falter.
But that resolve had been shattered by his latest Return by Death.
His sense of loss, of despair, of loneliness, gouged Subaru just as deeply as the bonds formed over the days before.
There was no way he could recover. He didn’t have the strength to recover.
Emilia, sitting on the bed beside Subaru, smiled at him as she patted his injured right hand.
“—All right, done. I think it’s nicely patched up, but you mustn’t thrash around like that, okay?”
—At that moment, Subaru and Emilia were the only two people in the room.
The two maids who had been present when Subaru awoke retreated in the face of Subaru’s disgraceful behavior right after waking, leaving things to Emilia.
“Ram and Rem were really so worried about you.”
Subaru reflexively raised his face at the mention of two names he didn’t want to hear.
Subaru’s reaction put a bit of surprise on Emilia’s face, but she instantly brushed it off with a small shake of her head.
“They’re feeling unusually down, thinking they may have offended you somehow. How about you say something to them next time you see them?”
“Offended, huh? No, they didn’t do anything… There’s nothing between those people and me.”
Emilia’s feminine eyebrows softly grimaced at the insensitive tone of his voice. Her reaction was in the corner of Subaru’s vision, but no apology or excuse came from his lips.
Instead, what came out was a question without the slightest hint of sarcasm.
“Hey, Emilia, do you…think I’m a bother?”
Emilia raised a finger and seemed to speak rapid-fire to hold Subaru in check.
“How could I think you’re a bother? You saved my life, Subaru. What are you supposed to do if someone you owe a debt to just gets up and leaves? It’d really put me in a bind.”
Subaru listened in silence, belatedly realizing that he was staring intently at every detail of Emilia’s face and actions.
“Whoa, I was seriously…”
He was disheartened that it was he who’d given Emilia such a look of distrust.
Emilia had unexpectedly hit the nail on the head, had she not?
To stop thinking of your benefactor as your benefactor was the lowest thing you could do.
Emilia was the only oasis Subaru had in an uncertain world. Subaru, having lost everything else he’d set his heart upon, had nowhere else to turn.
“—”
He suddenly had a small thought.
Perhaps it was to Emilia that he should reveal the truth of the Return by Death?
“That’s right…”
Now that he thought about it, Subaru had tried to change his dead-end reality completely on his own so far. But all he’d achieved was a dead-end fate, with both the future and the past blocked off.
Breaking through that stalemate required fundamental change.
Maybe the answer was to form a bond of trust with a third party, someone he could rely on?
“—Emilia, there’s something I want to tell you.”
The clouds seemed to lift as Subaru’s feelings of hesitation and unease parted inside him.
Hearing the tone of Subaru’s voice fall like that, Emilia sat back down in a chair, looking at Subaru with a face tense with concern.
Watching himself reflected in her violet eyes, Subaru thought of how he should begin this.
How should he talk about Return by Death? Perhaps Subaru ought to first find out if it was something that happened to other people of that world, too?
It was a pretty funny story, really. The chances were high she’d think it was a big joke.
But Emilia would listen to Subaru tell it, wouldn’t she?
Then and there, that was the hope that kept Subaru going.
—He’d talk to her about Return by Death. And that he hoped she would lend him her strength.
Subaru, well aware that here he was, already receiving her gratitude and yet making another request, opened his mouth.
They’d change this extremely confusing situation. They’d fight against Fate and win…together.
—Or so he thought.
“Emilia. I c—”
He began his confession. The moment the thought formed, it came.
“—”
Discomfort. Something’s wrong, Subaru’s mind told him.
What’s wrong, he wondered back, but he immediately noticed why.
Sound. Sound was gone. There was no sound anywhere.
His own heartbeat. Emilia’s breaths. The sounds of morning filtering through the window. All had completely vanished from the world.
And that was but the prelude for what was to come.
—Next, movement followed sound, vanishing from the world as well.
The passing of time lengthened. A single moment extended to eternity. The next second simply never arrived.
Emilia’s serious expression remained before his eyes, unmoving. She was like an ice statue, her next motion an eternity away.
Subaru was the same. He couldn’t move. His mouth, his eyes, nothing for eternity.
Sound had vanished, time had stopped, and Subaru’s hand could not even reach out to beg.
For some reason, only Subaru’s mind continued on during the phenomenon beyond his understanding.
—And then, suddenly, it came.
A black cloud. Subaru, unable to blink, suddenly saw it fill his vision.
In a world where nothing could move, only the cloud was still in motion. The cloud wriggled and changed shape. Its mass was such that it could be held in the palms of one’s hands. Bit by bit, the contours of the cloud took form, and it finished changing shape.
—Subaru saw something like a black palm.
It had five fingers. It didn’t reach to an elbow, but he could definitely make out a forearm.
The black fingers shifted. The gentle movements of what clearly had the shape of a hand swam through the air. Subaru’s mind gasped when he saw where it was headed.
The black fingers slowly reached to Subaru’s chest…and seemed to go right in.
Subaru felt the feeling straight to his soul. The feeling of the fingers brushing against his internal organs, stroking his rib cage…
Discomfort and unease gripped Subaru. The black cloud wouldn’t stop moving.
It was as if it hadn’t found what it was looking for and had to look deeper, deeper into Subaru’s chest.
—Hey, hold on here.
His voice wouldn’t come out. His body couldn’t resist. Subaru’s mind let out a terrified yelp.
—This isn’t funny.
Subaru was shaken beyond what he could call his innards, to the very core of his being.
Could anyone put into words why having your internal organs damaged hurt?
The question is pointless.
No one needs to think about it.
In that instant, Subaru felt no need to put into words what that excruciating pain felt like.
It was really simple. Having his heart mercilessly squeezed felt like his very soul was being crushed.
He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t writhe from the pain.
There was only suffering. And along with suffering came something that made Subaru wish he could scream.
The pain was pulling apart the person called “Subaru.” His mind was frayed, twisting, falling apart. Subaru was being cut into pieces, unable to remember what a logical thought felt like—
“—baru,”
“—?”
“Subaru, what’s wrong? Don’t go all quiet like that. It worries me.”
Her hands were on his thighs as the silver-haired beauty gazed into Subaru’s eyes with concern.
Subaru seemed to stop holding his breath when he was sure his fingers were moving as he intended. He gingerly touched his own chest, confirming from the outside that his heart was making
quiet beats.
His body moved. His voice came out. He couldn’t feel any pain from his heart.
—But the fear remained.
Subaru fell into despair, for it had ripped his one hope to shreds.
Just thinking about defying it a second time made him see the swaying black cloud in his mind.
Subaru had no choice but to face facts.
Unable to hold back her emotions, Emilia put her palm against Subaru’s face, at a loss as she asked an uncertain question.
“—Wh-what’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird since earlier. If something’s wrong…”
“—I want to ask you a favor.”
Subaru cut off Emilia’s worried voice midway, lying down and turning away his head.
He couldn’t face her. His features probably looked horrible.
If he looked at Emilia in his current emotional state, there was no telling what he might say to her.
Working all out to keep his mind steady, Subaru could manage to say only one thing.
He threw away the words he wanted to say. He threw away the feelings that wanted her to hear.
He threw away everything.
“Don’t have anything to do with me.”
Listlessly, that was all he said as he curled into the bed. He didn’t even look at Emilia’s shocked reaction.
Unconsciously, Subaru had firmly grasped a single fact the moment the palm touched his chest.
—He would not be permitted to break free.
Subaru was alone. And he would remain alone.
3
Having brushed off Emilia, Subaru gloomily began his fourth loop.
Roswaal went to Subaru’s room after he’d hurt Emilia with his heartless statement.
Subaru largely didn’t remember what they’d talked about. But he felt like he’d been appraised like an expensive vase. He didn’t know if that was just this time or if it had happened before and he just hadn’t noticed.
“I shall treat you as a guest for as looong as you prefer.”
Subaru felt like he’d said something convenient like that.
He also felt like the details didn’t matter anymore.
If he left the mansion, they’d shut him up for good. That was certain. But even if he was dead weight in the mansion, he couldn’t avoid getting ground into mincemeat in the near future.
He felt like his saved game guaranteed a BAD END. The fact that it was autosave made it extra brutal.
“—”
Subaru was on top of the bed and not moving much, but his breaths were quick and ragged.
Fearful of falling asleep, Subaru had used the feathered pen in his hand to cut the back of his other hand several times. Every time his eyelids seemed to droop, he forced his consciousness awake through pain. If he slept, he didn’t know what he’d wake up to.
He’d already died three times.
In the royal capital loop, he hadn’t experienced more than three deaths. To Subaru, plunged into that first day for the fourth time around, dying a fourth death was unknown territory.
—Maybe, if he died here, he’d never come back.
He couldn’t find a way to avoid death. But still, he didn’t want to die.
He distrusted all and struggled against all in his desperate fight to live. He forgot the passage of time, the churning of his empty stomach; Subaru became eager to simply exist.
The pain of his wound felt like affirmation of his existence. The spaces between the holes in his hand vanished.
Pain. Joy. Pain. Joy. Pain. Pain. Pain—
Suddenly, his face shot up when he abruptly heard a little girl’s voice.
“—You certainly have a cowardly look about you.”
A girl was standing at the entrance, leaning against it, shooting Subaru a look like she was gazing at a beast.
Beatrice, whom he had yet to meet even once during this loop, had come to visit.
Subaru’s vigilance ratcheted up at the unprecedented change of circumstances.
“—So it’s you this time?”
He belatedly realized that his voice was low and scratchy. It surprised him. His voice held more hostility in it than he’d imagined. Maybe he was voicing his feeling that the world was cursed.
“What an incorrigible fool, to waste away like this in the span of a day or two.”
“No one asked you— What’d you come for?”
Beatrice, having mocked Subaru’s disgraceful sight and received his sullen retort in turn, narrowed her eyes slightly.
“…Puckie and that little girl asked me to pay you a visit.”
“Puck and…Emilia?”
“You were acting oddly since you awoke, I suppose, so they suspected that I had done something to you when you first woke up. A rather rude suggestion, if I may say so.”
It was true, and Beatrice was innocent, but those things didn’t register with Subaru.
Surely Subaru’s heartless words had hurt Emilia, yet she was concerned for Subaru all the same, enough to speak directly to Beatrice, even if her suspicions were misplaced?
As a result, Beatrice, with a weakness for Puck to begin with, had Puck begging her to help them, so here she was, reluctantly showing herself in Subaru’s room.
Emilia’s concern for him brought just a tiny bit of warmth to Subaru’s heart.
Even if it was meaningless as far as breaking the stalemate was concerned…
“Got it. I’m all right now. You came to apologize, and that’s enough.”
Beatrice’s lips twisted as Subaru tried to brush her away.
“Why must I apologize to you, I wonder? Before anything else, I will not be leaving until that misunderstanding is cleared up.”
Instead of leaving the room, she marched over to the bed. Subaru was about to pile on more complaints when…
“—Hm?”
Subaru watched as she crinkled her nose and tilted her head. If she just stayed quiet she’d look pretty adorable, but…
Beatrice looked displeased at being stared at and covered her face, glaring at Subaru.
“’Tis not just your dull face, I suppose, that is rotten. It is quite thick all around you.”
“—Huh?”
“Perhaps I speak of the scent tickling my nose? It would be wise to avoid meeting the twins for a while.”
Beatrice pinched her nose and waved with her free hand as if driving off an unpleasant scent.
“—”
But Subaru’s mind couldn’t let go of the keyword scent.
Scent. Certainly someone had used that word around the end of the third loo—
“A smell coming from me…?”
“—The scent of the witch. Perhaps your nose is broken?”
He remembered that word. He’d come across that piece of vocabulary only recently. So that meant—
“The jealous witch?”
“In today’s day and age, there is none other who would be called witch, I suppose.”
Her statement, belittling him as a petty idiot, aroused only more questions in Subaru.
“Why is that scent coming from me?”
“Who is to say? Perhaps the witch took a liking to you, or perhaps she hates the very sight of you. Either way, the witch giving you special treatment makes you attract trouble.”
Beatrice slumped her shoulders, her gloomy behavior indicating any further talk about it was unwelcome.
Witch—a being shunned throughout the world to the point that the fairy tale “The Witch of Jealousy” would not record her name.
But Subaru had no connection to the witch or the story; he’d read about it only in a book.
Naturally, without any memory of having met the witch, he had no memory of how he might carry a lingering scent from her touch.
—Rem had also said he stank of the witch, hadn’t she?
He felt that the overwhelming hostility was related in part to the scent of the witch. If that was so, he’d earned her hatred through something he had no memory of; with one slander pi
led on another, she felt she had no choice but to silence him.
Subaru, having grasped something that was wholly outside his control, sighed at length. As Subaru remained silent, Beatrice looked at him as she reached toward the doorknob.
“If nothing’s wrong with you, I’m leaving. I should tell Puckie that we had a chat and what we talked about, I suppose.”
She seemed ready to vanish into the Passage when he called out to stop her.
“Wait a sec.”
Beatrice looked distinctly displeased as she looked back at him.
Subaru stubbornly arrived at the words and tossed them out.
“You feel bad about what you did to me, don’t you?”
He didn’t know if it meant anything or not—but he thought it was worth a shot.
Beatrice shot Subaru a sour look as Subaru knocked against the bed and asked again.
“Do you feel bad about it? Yes or no?”
“I think no such thing.”
“I’ll tell Puck on you.”
Beatrice repositioned herself to face Subaru, crossing her arms and raising her nose with a haughty air.
“Ugh…perhaps I think it a teeeeeny bit.”
“I’ll forgive you if you’ll do one little favor for me.”
“…Would you speak it, I wonder?”
“Could you protect me until sunrise on the fifth da— The morning after tomorrow?”
It was a thoroughly shameless request to make of a girl who looked younger than he did.
Beatrice was silent for a while in the face of Subaru’s heartfelt request.
“That is a rather vague statement. Perhaps there is a reason someone is after you?”
The question Beatrice countered with was quite natural and sensible.
Beatrice kept Subaru in her sights as she paced around the room.
“In the first place, I do not want to bring discord to this manor. This manor is a place that, to me, I must not lose, I suppose.”
“…I don’t want to cause any trouble. I just wanna put out any sparks that fly.”
“That is quite a sentiment coming from someone trying to make it another’s problem?”
“For once, I don’t have a comeback.”
Beatrice sighed as Subaru bowed down before her.
Subaru was still bowed as he thought he heard a sound like the door being closed from the inside.
The sound of Subaru’s request being denied and Beatrice returning to her archive.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 2 Page 19
