Beatrice, too, was born in that era and had lived since then until the present day.
“Obeying the pact, I lived under the same roof as the Mathers family, who stood in the same position as I, spending my days in accordance to what was written in the magic tome. I would hardly consider those first several decades to be suffering at all, I suppose.”
Subaru felt a chill as he listened to her voice and the grandness of the details she spoke of.
“But even during that time, the world shifted. The first Roswaal that Betty knew passed away, and the next generation inherited the duty. Betty has been watching this act of replacement the whole time.”
The girl explained calmly. This reflected the blandness of the passage of time, the frayed nature of the reality she had experienced.
“I waited day after day for That Person who was supposed to come someday…but was I at all anxious, I wonder? After all, Betty had the book. As long as she trusted and waited, as long as there were amended pages, then surely, one day.”
“But that’s…”
The remains of the magic tome were scattered all over the floor. Subaru knew that from Beatrice’s perspective what was written on those blank pages was very cruel indeed. To Beatrice, that whiteness denoted despair.
At some point, the book of knowledge, which to her was a symbol of hope—
“No matter how many times I checked each and every day, there was no change in the text… The span of time until I became certain was incredibly trying.”
“”
“I have seen the revision to the final page in my dreams over and over. Perhaps I continued to yearn for That Person, who I did not know, face unknown to me, opening the door so that I might receive the blessing of a duty fulfilled.”
“…Beatrice.”
“Each time someone’s hand reached for that door, Betty’s heart was betrayed.”
In other words, whenever someone had opened the door, entering the archive of forbidden books, yet was not That Person.
Subaru was probably included as one of those who disappointed her with every visit. Beatrice’s despair only ever continued to piled higher countless times. Subaru had only added to the wounds she carried within her.
—Wounds he had unreservedly, rudely, thoughtlessly gouged into her, over and over, never healed and were still oozing blood.
“As I spent my time like that, I realized… No, perhaps I knew it all along?”
“Realized what?”
Knowing of her suffering, knowing that he had added to her wounds, his voice trembled.
And as his own sins tore at his chest, Beatrice softly smiled.
It was a forlorn, frail smile, just like when she had stated she wanted someone to end it all.
“—When no more is written in the book, it means that the owner’s future has come to an end.”
“You’re wrong…!”
The fitful denial that flew out never reached Beatrice. It simply bounced right off her immovable, resigned heart. A baseless emotional argument was not what she sought. She wasn’t looking for someone to console her either. The answer to her question had already come out from inside her. Out it came, into the open.
“Why…do you have to…?!”
Even so, Subaru’s emotions would not permit it. He refuted Beatrice’s surrender, her desire for death.
“So you came to a conclusion all by yourself!! This is what happens to everyone when they’re worried and mull things over all by their lonesome! That’s when things go in bad directions, just like this! You start thinking, This is the only way, and you agonize over that thought… That’s when you think the only road in front of you is the worst one possible!”
Because he was Subaru, someone who’d railed against his own powerlessness as he threw himself against hardship over and over, he understood.
A senseless destiny pushed people into isolation. And with the compulsion to continue to stand and face it alone, black fingers would entwine around any heart fighting that lonely battle.
But that was a rule that didn’t need to be followed. He wanted to convey that to her.
If only he could return to Beatrice the power of the similar words she had once spoken to him, Subaru could—
“If what you want is someone to do something to help, say it so people can understand. One sentence is enough. Say that you’re sad. Say that you want help. If you can say that…even I…!”
If she did that, surely she would notice. —There was no need to give up at all.
“A whole bunch of times, you… That’s why this time I’ll…!”
“…Do something to help?”
“That’s it… Call out for help, just like that.”
“Do something to help…”
“That’s it! That’s it, that’s it, that’s it! If you say that and reach out with your hand…”
“Betty, wants to be saved from this…sadness, this suffering…this darkness…”
“Yeah, leave it to me. I’ll—”
Her tiny, shaking fingers reached out toward Subaru. He reached a hand out toward hers.
His blood was rushing to his head. That moment, all he wanted to do was to embrace the girl before his eyes, to shower her with kindness. That moment, Subaru had completely forgotten the reason he came for a visit to begin with.
But that was for the best. Thanks to that, he had discovered this girl tormented by loneliness. Then and there, Subaru was being driven solely by the burning sense of duty residing in his chest.
If he took her hand, Subaru would be accepting another weighty burden. He didn’t care. Beatrice was someone he could not abandon to begin with. All he had done was confirm that in his heart.
His soul was shouting as loud as it could. And Subaru simply obeyed its call.
Save her. Rescue her. After all, that girl is to you.
“Is that why…?”
The fingers she had stretched out indeed reached Subaru’s own.
He grabbed hold of her frail, trembling fingers, strongly joining their hands so that neither could let go. He looked into Beatrice’s eyes, unsure if he should smile or send a nod her way instead.
Her blue eyes were filled with a great many tears—
“—Betty wants you to kill her, I wonder?”
—She flung Subaru’s hand aside. The salvation she sought was nothing so cheap.
“—Ah.”
His hand cast aside, his fingers grasping nothing at all. The rejection made his heart go numb.
He could not raise his voice to ask, Why? Beatrice’s eyes would not let him.
“”
It was too late for that. Those eyes were filled with too much despair—with too much that could not be undone.
“I have spent four hundred years…always here alone.”
“B-Beatri…”
“I continued protecting this place always alone, while That Person who’s certain arrival never came, I suppose.”
He could not look away from Beatrice’s two eyes.
He called out her name. But the current Subaru hesitated to do even that.
“I do not know how many times I thought of throwing it all away. I do not know how many times I wished I could forget everything. A hundred times, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred million, and still it was not enough…”
In that dimly lit room, Beatrice had spent a very, very long time steeped in loneliness.
Holding her knees, sitting on top of that stool, she had continued to cling to hope and despair for someone whose name she knew not.
Just how many times had loneliness killed this girl’s heart?
“You want to save me…? You want to do something to help me…?”
“—Ah.”
“Just how many times do you think Betty has asked exactly that? Did you think Betty simply gave up, not once thinking of such a thing, I wonder?”
The words were halting, but they were imbued with steadily increasing heat. Her eyes held an intensity light.
/> Anger, disappointment, sadness, dejection—Subaru didn’t see any of that. It was simply the glimmer of her tears.
“Are you saying that if I reached out with a hand, you would pull Betty out of this darkness that has no end in sight? Are you saying that you would teach me the correct answer for this never-ending blind alley, I wonder?”
“”
“If you were going to do that…then why…then why…?”
As Beatrice lowered her face, she breathed in, leaving a brief pause in time.
This was the final opportunity, the only moment left where he could get a word in. It was that or nothing.
And yet, Subaru hesitated out of fear. Afraid of hurting her, he said nothing.
Beatrice lifted her face. She was glaring at him. She opened her mouth, baring her teeth—
“—Why did you leave Betty alone for four hundred years?!”
“!”
“I was alone! Always! Always, always, always, Betty was here alone! I was lonely! I was scared! I felt abandoned; I felt like I could not fulfill the single duty assigned to me, uphold the promise I made… I thought I was going to be alone here forever!!”
Tears spilled out, coursing down from Beatrice’s large eyes.
Passing over her cheeks, a deluge of sorrow fell from her chin onto the floor. As her searing tears struck the floor, Subaru’s heart was struck by an incredible blow, cracking and smashing it to pieces.
“You came to save me?! You came to rescue me?! Why didn’t you come sooner?! Why didn’t you embrace me from the beginning?! Why?! Why did you leave Betty by herself?!”
Her words became a blade, became fire, became steel, wounding Subaru’s heart one after the next. In various forms, in various meanings, she tormented Subaru with every suffering she had endured.
And Beatrice was only showering him with the tip of the iceberg of four hundred years’ worth of pain.
Just how much did the words of someone like Subaru Natsuki ring true compared to Beatrice’s four centuries of isolation?
“Words, like, save me, do something to help me…! Over four centuries, have I not exhausted such pleas long ago, I wonder…?”
“”
“It is not as if no one came during those four hundred years. Among them were humans who attempted to bring Betty out. They sought Betty’s power as a high-ranking spirit…”
“D-don’t lump me in with people like that! All I want is to—”
“It has nothing to do with Betty’s power. You merely wish to save the person before your eyes… Did I claim there were no naive sorts like you among them, I wonder?”
“A…uu…”
“But they did not bring Betty out. Of course not.”
After all, Beatrice continued her words, making a very forlorn smile as she said,
“Half-hearted resolve cannot erase the pact that binds Betty. It is impossible for mere humans.”
“What should I…?”
“—Make Betty number one.”
The words tossed his way were so very quiet and yet so very sharp.
Subaru felt like fine needles had been thrust through his eardrums, sending a blow shooting right through him.
“Make, Betty your number one. Think of Betty first. Choose Betty first. Overwrite the pact. Blot out the pact. Bring me out of here. Draw me to you. Embrace me.”
“”
“That is absolutely impossible for you, I suppose?”
Beatrice’s sincere, earnest plea was enough to clamp down on his heart.
The request was unspeakably heavy, one that did not permit a thoughtless nod.
“Your number one has been long decided. Therefore, you cannot save Betty.”
Emilia was inside him. Rem was inside him. Both were inside him. Betty’s words were clear.
When he thought of both of them, Subaru’s heart leaped and grew hot. This was the answer carved upon his soul.
Beatrice’s words were the truth. It was probably beyond Subaru to make Betty his number one priority.
“That is why I wish you to destroy Betty…the worthless girl who desires to destroy her pact, to turn her back on her duty as a spirit, who has accomplished nothing and no one for four hundred years.”
“That’s…how important the pact is to you? If you don’t like it, if you want to stop, why don’t you just stop, then? If it’s not something you do out of your own will whatsoever, then—”
“—Is it not the one thing that gives Betty’s life meaning, I wonder?”
Subaru couldn’t find an answer for that. Instead, Subaru posed a different question, and in so doing, he committed a base sin.
Instantly, despair filled Beatrice’s eyes as she stated her words in a thin voice.
“Betty is a spirit who lives for the sake of this pact. It was the first role I was granted in this life. Selfishly cast this aside and live… That is what you are telling me to do?”
“It’s not selfish at all, damn it! You’ve already hung in there for four centuries!! Who’d blame you after you protected a single promise for all that time! Who could?! You’ve done enough…”
“No one would blame? That is not so… Betty would! Betty absolutely cannot permit it! Beatrice the spirit cannot permit such a haphazard way of life!!”
Stepping forward with a trembling foot, Subaru attempted to grasp the little girl’s shoulder. But Beatrice angrily rebuffed his attempt, thrusting his touch aside and putting distance between them.
He stepped back and coughed. He felt weak. What meaning was there in having a voice if it could not reach her?
“”
She was glaring at him. Her eyes were filled with tears. Biting her lip, she grasped the hem of her skirt.
She’s far too small, he thought.
How could everyone have abandoned this little girl for all that time?
“You… are not That Person spoken of in the pact, I suppose…”
“”
“But would you become That Person? Would you make Betty your number one?”
Subaru had no words.
This was not something he could easily agree to nor could he impulsively refute her words.
He could not heal Beatrice’s loneliness. Four centuries were too much for his mind to even grasp. Unless he spent an equal amount of time alone, there was no way to truly learn what was in her heart—
“Betty knows best of all that there is nothing you can do.”
“Beatrice…”
“Therefore, kill Betty by your own hand. Suicide is the same as violating the pact. Is it something a spirit absolutely cannot do, I suppose. I cannot even choose to die by myself.”
“Why me…?”
Beatrice stretched both arms toward him in an earnest plea.
Unable to look directly at the hands she haltingly stretched forth, Subaru covered his face with both of his own.
“Why are you entrusting me with your final—your four centuries’ final end…?”
“Why…I wonder?”
They were tearful words. They were words making excuses, evasive words merely spoken to block things he disliked out of his ears.
Beatrice did not scorn Subaru for his cowardice. She simply sighed.
Then, after a momentary pause, she slowly nodded and said, “—Ahhh, I understand now. Betty is probably entrusting you with her final moment because…”
Once he heard the answer, there was no going back. —He was certain of it.
And yet, his decision came too late. He had realized too late. It was too late for everything.
“—Sorry to intrude mid-conversation, but…”
A voice he should not have heard spoke. Hastened by a terrible chill, Subaru flipped around.
Then he saw her.
“—Is it all right if I become That Person for you, I wonder?”
Carrying a black curved blade in her hand—a kukri knife—the black-clothed Bowel Hunter stood at the archive’s entrance.
5
To Subaru, the voice
of the woman he heard behind him was the backing track to his very first death.
Since being summoned to that other world, Subaru had experienced a great many perils, sometimes losing his life to them, but that black-clothed woman’s existence remained a symbol of death to him nonetheless.
Wearing a black mantle, clad in an outfit unsparingly exposing her curvaceous physique, her black hair, as rare in that world as Subaru’s own, tied in a triple knot, the woman had a lustrous, sensuous beauty to her that far exceeded the norm.
—There stood Elsa Gramhilde, aka the “Bowel Hunter.”
“—Oh my, so you were here, too. So tell me, how did your body fare after that? Did the insides of your belly get all prettied up again?”
Noticing Subaru, frozen from shock, Elsa slightly opened her eyes wider and tilted her head, almost like greeting an old friend.
She posed that question, but from the beginning, she had not come in order to hold a conversation. Speaking and acting in ways no normal person could understand, the person before his eyes, speaking things like that as if they made perfect sense, was a dyed-in-the-wool madwoman.
“—Whose permission did you obtain to step into this archive, I wonder?”
As Subaru stood rooted to the spot, a voice abruptly slipped past his flank, aiming the question directly at Elsa.
It was Beatrice, with cold hostility trained upon the insolent intruder. Her posture remained the same as when she had confronted Subaru earlier, but she was glaring at the trespasser without the slightest hint of tears on her face.
Elsa responded to the girl’s question while slowly stroking her own long hair.
“It wasn’t locked, so all I did was open the door and come in. If you want to have an important conversation, I think you really should remember to lock the door first…”
“Such a frivolous reply… This is Betty’s archive of forbidden books. None may enter without permission.”
“Ahhh, that is what you mean. It is quite simple, really.”
When Beatrice questioned her further, Elsa nodded as if finally understanding the meaning of the question. Then she indicated the still-open door with her hand as she explained.
“Your magic to isolate a space…it uses doors as catalysts, yes? Now-lost Dark magic that links doors to other doors, was it?”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 12 Page 13
