Against a blow delivered at such a high cost, even the Witch of Jealousy had to be—
“—I love you.”
The firm belief to which Subaru clung was rebuffed and smashed to pieces, along with Garfiel, who turned to bloody mist.
3
Speechless, all Subaru could do was watch as the golden-colored great tiger was eviscerated.
His claws should have torn the Witch’s body apart, and his fangs should have crushed her skull. The tiger’s murderous intent could have pulverized a human body with ease; not even a Witch would have been able to endure it—assuming the attack struck home.
What had robbed Garfiel of his life were shadowy blades that had slipped into his body through the wounds on his limbs. The shadows that had initially bound Garfiel used his wounds as an entryway to race around, cutting his body to shreds from within.
In other words, Garfiel’s death had been decided the moment he suffered his first injury. His life had been whittled down relentlessly.
There were no words for the cruelty of that act. The fragments of flesh that were once Garfiel were mercilessly scattered about the murky black ground. Even these were swallowed by shadow, all traces of his existence erased. The Ryuzu replicas had also been annihilated, so only Subaru and the Witch remained—no, that wasn’t right.
“—I love you.”
From the beginning, the Witch had no eyes for anyone but Subaru, rooted to where he stood.
Not Garfiel, slashed to death; not the Ryuzu replicas, slaughtered; not the people of the Sanctuary and Earlham Village, no doubt engulfed by shadow at a time unbeknownst to him; not Ram; not Otto; not Ryuzu; not Roswaal; not Patlash; not Emilia—anything and everything else was a distant afterthought.
“—I love you.”
“Shut up.”
“I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.”
“I said, shut up…!”
As Subaru stood still, the Witch walked along a path formed of shadow, moving past the clearing to approach him.
Her contours were hazy. He couldn’t even put a finger on her height. Just as before, he could not distinguish her voice.
And yet, her clingy zeal alone touched Subaru’s heart without reservation to an abominable extent.
“I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.”
To the immobile Subaru, the Witch whispered her love as it if was a curse.
She acted more out of place and was worse at reading people than even Subaru. Not only did her whispers of love inspire anger in him, the adoration she was offered was completely selfish.
Her love was repulsive. But in that moment, what sent Subaru into even more of a rage was—
“I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you—Subaru.”
“—You don’t get to call me that!!”
That sweet, enchanted form of address made Subaru explode in anger.
The charming voice, the sweet gesture, the feverish way in which she said it rubbed Subaru the worst way possible.
“Who gave you permission to call me that name?! Don’t screw with me! God damn it!!”
It was a form of address filled with trust, with pride, with mutual love meant for those who stood at each other’s side.
In that world, there was only one person Subaru permitted to address him by his first name imbued with such affection.
“This ain’t a joke!! That’s for one person alone. Who the hell would…? No! Letting you go for what you’ve done, forgiving even one lock of your hair or one part of a single cell of yours, is too good for you—!!”
Indignant, Subaru let his anger reign, mercilessly driving home the maelstrom of emotions swirling inside his chest.
He had no chance of victory. He had no chance of survival. Besides, that world held no reason for him to live on anymore.
Even so, he absolutely could not simply stand and watch her trample on that bond as she pleased.
“I love you I love you I love you I love you.”
Her love was relentless. That was why Subaru absolutely refused to respond to that love.
“In this world, when I heard ‘I love you’ spoken seriously to me for the first time…it gave me, an unredeemable bastard, enough power to make me think I could become a hero.”
He was a piece of garbage, twisted down, broken, and ready to flee from everything, but those words had made him believe he could face the future head-on, never giving in—to challenge it once more, over and over, however many times that it took.
Compared to that, the substance of the Witch’s love was insultingly weak.
“I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.”
“The number one and number two spots in my heart ain’t changin’. There’s no place in there for the likes of you.”
She started it; he finished it—Subaru’s visage contorted vilely as he flatly enumerated those he loved.
“So I’ll roll up your love and toss it aside. And if I’ve gotta compare…”
He had no way to mount a physical attack. But he still had verbal attacks. Getting on other people’s nerves was a particular specialty of his.
What could he say, what should he say, that would rub the Witch the worst way? There was no one better armed to get under someone else’s skin than Subaru. So he knew.
Accordingly, Subaru gave a shallow, cruel laugh, turning a look of scorn toward the Witch.
“—I’d rather love Echidna and the other Witches than you.”
“”
The instant he made the statement, the Witch’s curse-like words of love halted for the first time.
And then—
“—Ah.”
In an instant, Subaru’s field of vision and the world itself was swallowed by shadow.
4
“I love you. I love you. I love you. —Love me.”
Amid the darkness, he heard a voice.
Swallowed by shadow, he was upside down and shaken around.
Not only his body but the inside of his skull was being ransacked as the shadow whipped Subaru Natsuki about.
Within, as Subaru Natsuki dissolved into the shadow, he heard a whisper.
“Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me. —Love me.”
It was horrifying. He trembled in ecstasy. He shuddered in fear. He cried tears of joy. He spat blood in a rage. He cried out in exultation. His emotions were being sliced apart, bounced around, as what was right became wrong and what was wrong became right—
“”
Subaru Natsuki’s field of vision was growing hazy. He knew his body was being dissolved. Why did he know that? Was it Subaru Natsuki who knew or was it something else?
“”
Inside the shadow, he sensed some kind of separate presence beyond the whispers of love. —No, he did not sense them, for they were not separate at all. It was Subaru. It was Subaru Natsuki. If he was dissolved, mixed, and combined with one mass, there would be no boundary between him and others. Everything that had been swallowed would become Subaru Natsuki.
There was warmth, sadness, hatred, generosity, dejection, ecstasy, despair, relief, lamentation, satisfaction.
Yes, there was satisfaction. Amid the many despairs and many laments, there was satisfaction.
That satisfaction was a part of Subaru. If that could fill Subaru, then—
“—?”
He reached a hand out toward the satisfaction—no, it was not a hand. He had no body to be found—no, that was not so. His body had been swallowed by shadow, so it was all there: his dissolved heart, his crumbling consciousness, the remains of Subaru Natsuki’s soul. There they were all gathered together. And in gathering them, he comprehended the reason why they were gathered.
T
here was heat. Subaru Natsuki felt heat in the midst of his return. And so to a place completely different than that false satisfaction, he extended an arm, a right arm, a right wrist. And then—
—in that darkness-colored world, a prayer-imbued handkerchief glimmered vividly.
5
His consciousness floated upward.
As if in struggling to reach the water’s surface in search of oxygen, he frantically clawed against the darkness, desperately moving higher, higher.
His consciousness was enshrouded in darkness. It was as if he had sunk into a swamp. His mind was immersed in weight and weariness, yet Subaru earnestly pressed on even so—
At the end of his struggling, his field of vision suddenly opened. Subaru’s mind had floated back up to the real world.
He had returned from the world of shadow alive—but that did not mean he had escaped peril by any stretch.
“Hagh…! Haa…ah?
His breathing was clumsy. There was some kind of shadow stuffed in his throat. His feet were not on the ground. Bound by shadow, his body was being held aloft at an angle. He could not move. He was not being allowed to move.
But as if clinging to it, he touched the handkerchief wrapped around his right wrist with his left hand.
“…Petra’s handkerchief.”
In that world covered by shadow, Subaru’s field of vision was dyed the color of darkness. Amid that pitch-blackness, Petra’s handkerchief alone dazzled, radiating a white light as if trying to drive off the dark.
The feelings with which Petra’s handkerchief was imbued had granted this miracle to Subaru—no, such a thought was hard to justify. Subaru had a different culprit in mind for the crafty trick that had saved him.
—Namely, the Witch of Greed who had touched that handkerchief upon the occasion of his departure, leaving words of deep import with him.
“That damn Echidna… Did she know this would happen, damn it…?”
It’s insurance. Just to be safe, he could almost hear the Witch’s face say as it floated up in the back of his mind. That one time, he was well and truly grateful for that inconsiderate, boastful Witch.
If not for that light, Subaru would surely have been engulfed by the shadow, vanishing without a trace.
What was happening inside that shadow? —It was a blender. The shadow was dissolving Subaru’s very being. It was melting him and mixing him into something else: everything that had been swallowed by shadow.
—Mixed with all the many, many things that had been swallowed whole by the Witch’s shadow.
Becoming one with those who had been melted before him had exposed Subaru to a great many emotions. Coursing into him were sensations, feelings, memories, knowledge that was not his own. It became natural to be instantly aware of those things as they let themselves in, carving into his body, his mind, and his soul.
He’d escaped by a hair’s breadth. He’d escaped with his life with only fractions of a second to spare. Being engulfed by that shadow was not death. Subaru Natsuki would be stirred into something else, erased through becoming part of a heterogeneous whole.
That was an intolerable defeat, one from which even Return by Death could not bring him back.
Had it not been for Echidna’s aid, Subaru would have come to an end, unable to slip out of the shadow’s embrace. It was because he could feel that in his bones that he wanted to call the Witch right back to thank her.
“Guu…agh…”
But delaying the inevitable with Echidna’s aid had gone as far as it could.
Slowly, Subaru’s body was being engulfed by the shadow once more. As if his lower body was sinking into the ground, as if his extremities were being meticulously digested bit by bit, the Witch’s shadow was consuming Subaru.
He was gradually losing himself. Not only was the sense of loss frightening but the relief.
There was relief. There was joy that he would be swallowed, dissipated, and erased, his fate arriving at its end.
Accordingly, he was certain in his belief. He could not die from being engulfed by shadow. He would continue to be “loved”—forever.
“Damn…it all…”
The light created by the Witch had bought him tens of seconds, but that postponement would not save Subaru’s life.
It was only a brief matter of time until he was pulled in and erased. Just what did Echidna want there?
“That…shitty Witch…!”
The instant he arrived at his conclusion, Subaru cast aside his gratitude from the moment just prior, tearing at the light with his left hand.
The single saving grace was the light that had saved Subaru, brushing aside the shadow engulfing him—and it was here that Echidna’s desire rested.
Echidna had a goal. Echidna had left in Subaru’s hands the means to accomplish it.
It was a lifeline. A lifeline not for saving Subaru but to let him take his own life.
“”
As if sensing his tragic resolve, the light changed shape, transforming into a radiant dagger.
She had no doubt thought it would be difficult to accomplish with nothing but a single handkerchief. Her polite consideration brought tears to his eyes.
It was just, though they were tears, what coursed out were tears of blood.
He closed his eyes, let out his breath—and with that impetus, he thrust the dagger of light toward his own throat.
“—gh.”
Though the sharpness of the blade of light was unclear, it penetrated his windpipe with ease. Blood coursed backward into the fatal wound, and as it flowed from his throat down to his lungs, his consciousness began to drown.
—The protective charm of light was not a weapon. Echidna had put it in his hands so that he could take his own life.
That was what the postponement of tens of seconds was for, so that he might realize, so that he might carry it out, so that he might Return by Death.
Echidna had most likely anticipated that the Witch of Jealousy would appear outside of the tomb. The reason why remained unclear to Subaru, but he had to pay for it with his life.
“—!”
For the first time, Subaru’s suicide caused the Witch of Jealousy to shout something other than her love.
However, drowning in his own blood, already having let go of his consciousness, Subaru did not comprehend the words.
But he stretched his hand toward the face of the Witch covered in shadow as if it was the natural thing to do. It seemed right.
The dagger of light fell away, and the fingers of the final vestiges of light touched the shadowy veil.
The veil came apart, and the half of the Witch’s face hidden by the shadow was exposed to him.
She had purple eyes that were like gemstones. She had shimmering silver hair that was like moonlight. And she had a lovely and familiar face—
Seeing that face twisted in grief, he felt not so much surprise as pain within his chest. Sadness had impaled his chest.
With his throat filled with blood, he could not form proper words.
Nonetheless, to the one before his eyes, the sad girl who spilled countless tears, he made a declaration…
“I will—”
—I will save you.
The instant he stated it, Subaru Natsuki lost his life.
6
When he straddled “death,” the first piece of reality to arrive was the bitter taste of dust.
“—U-geh!”
Coughing violently, he spat out foreign substances tasting of dirt along with his saliva. After that, Subaru sat up and confirmed that he had been lying on a floor in a cold, dark room.
The stone walls were very faintly glowing blue, and it was tranquil enough to rattle your nerves—he was inside the tomb.
“I’ve re…turned…”
With a raspy voice, opening and closing his hands right before his eyes, Subaru made the result of Return by Death sink in.
His memory from just before was still fresh, both from having been swallowed by sh
adow and having ended his own life. —So, too, the violent pain in his throat.
“Not the first time I’ve killed myself, is it…?”
The sharp sensation boring into his throat, the feeling of it being gouged out—this made Subaru breathe hard.
There was the suffering of drowning in his own blood and the sense of loss from his consciousness slipping away. No matter how many times he’d tasted death, the horror never dulled. No matter how many times or instances he felt death, it never got easier.
He was afraid of death. Death was terrifying. It was painful, agonizing, yet even so—
“Even so, coming back…beats the hell out of ending with everything lost…!”
He’d chosen to come back. In that place, he’d chosen death without hesitation.
This way, Subaru could still fight. He could resist. He could fight to win his future.
“But I can’t get all mushy about death all the same… I still have things I have to do.”
Gazing anew at those things he had to do, Subaru tried to calm the sound of his heart as he checked around. Having returned to the tomb, there was a silver-haired girl lying right at Subaru’s side.
This was the tomb, the starting point of Return by Death—where Emilia was continuing her nightmare about her past.
He had to shake her slender shoulder and awaken her from that nightmare. Tell her she didn’t have to go through those terrible thoughts anymore, gently embrace her—those were the first things Subaru ought to do.
Hence, as Emilia gasped in anguish, Subaru gently stretched a hand out toward her—
“…The hell?”
There was a tiny tremble in his fingers as he tried to touch Emilia with them.
Wondering what was up, he tried to stop the shaking in his fingers. However, though Subaru was aware of the trembling, his fingertips disregarded his will; if anything, the trembling increased. And that was not all.
A strange clattering sound was echoing off the stone walls. The annoying sound and the trembling fingers left Subaru confused as to what in the world was going on, but belatedly he realized.
The clattering was coming from Subaru’s teeth. Without his teeth pressed together, his jaw was trembling, causing the miserable rattling.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 12 Page 3
