“Ah, ah, ah, ahh… It is so lonely to be ignored! Even though! Even though! I have been soooo warm and friendly to you, you, you, youuuuuuu…”
His words trailed off, and the next moment, Petelgeuse’s hands grasped Subaru’s face.
The boy’s expression was frozen, his mind off somewhere else as Petelgeuse forced Subaru to look at him. Unsurprisingly, even in his stupefied state, Subaru scowled and resisted the rough treatment.
Petelgeuse’s voice was quiet, but there was a power in his eyes that would not take no for an answer.
“—Look into my eyes.”
Startled, Subaru shuddered. His face was blank as he looked at Petelgeuse like he was told. Those gray eyes, giving off the glow of madness, evaluated Subaru’s mind.
“You will respond. Your mind will respond. I demand answers to my questions. What are you doing here? Why have you been granted such affection? Why do you not have a Gospel? Does that mean she whispers directly to your heart?”
“Uu, a, uaaa…”
“It seems we are at an impasse. Therefore, I shall rearrange my questions.”
After his string of questions was rebuffed, Petelgeuse tilted his head ninety degrees to the right. With his head horizontal, he glared up at Subaru from below.
“Do you hearrr me?”
“—Auu!”
Petelgeuse stretched out his tongue, licking Subaru’s left eyeball.
Subaru’s chains clinked as he tried to get away from Petelgeuse after the extremely creepy gesture.
However, that lasted only until he heard the next sentence.
“—Why, might I ask, are you preteeending to be crazy?”
4
“Aa! Aaaa!”
Gross, no, I’m scared, forgive me, save me, scared, scared, scared, scared.
He didn’t know what was being said to him.
The ghastliness of someone licking his eyeball, the discomfort of being stared at like that, and his urge to flee the madness of the eyes looking at him, all made his body freeze.
With his mouth gaping absently, his open eye having been licked, Subaru was asked again, “Why are you pretennnding to be crazy?”
Subaru tried to slam him with a manacled arm. The chain went taut, denying his freedom. His arm flailed in the air a little before falling back to the ground on its side.
“Guu! Auaaa! Aiii!”
“No, no, no, no, it is a very important question. Why, for what purpose, with what meaning, are you acting like you are seized with such madness?”
He mustn’t listen. He mustn’t let the words into his ears. He mustn’t know.
He shook his head, yelling as he struggled against the manacles. His consciousness was somewhere far away. He had to blot from his ears the words of the man in front of him, for he was forbidden to listen, to know, to realize.
“The subconscious does not prepare such convenient escape routes. You consciously, and with full knowledge, wrapped yourself in such madness, yes?”
“Aaa! Gauaa! Guruaaa!”
“Your madness is too lucid. The crafty, deliberate way you seek sympathy and beg for love, it is quite rude to those who are actually insane.”
Subaru raised his voice, shouting enough to tear his throat apart, trying to make the man’s words go away. But the man seemed to mock his resistance, and his voice drove into Subaru’s eardrum like a needle.
“Your pretense of being a madman is quite lacking. If you were truly insane, if you were drenched in lunacy in a true sense, you would never recognize the eyes of another. For you would not understand anyone exists beyond your mad self, a world of one person, trapped in the desolate wasteland of his own mind!”
“—Baa! Baaa! Baaaaaa!”
“Ahh, what a comedy, what a farce indeed! Why, why are you pretennnding to be a madman?! If you were truly a deviant, the pretense would not fall away so quickly! I can’t stop laughing!”
It hurt to breathe. He felt horrible. Something was pushing its way up inside him, trying to assert its own existence. No, it had been there from the start. He’d simply sealed it away and pretended not to look at it.
It was because he knew of its presence that he absolutely could not allow it to surface.
“Pitiable! Pathetic! You, such a lowly and deep sinner, drunk on your own pathos—I pity you from the heart! You are loved so much; why do you need to deny it?! Do you desire to remain in stagnation as the wind whittles you away, without drowning in the love you have been granted freely, without returning their devotion?! Ahh, how can this, how can this beee!”
The gray-colored man grabbed Subaru’s head and violently tossed him toward the wall. The powerful motion slammed his upper body against the rock, sending sparks scattering as his head began to bleed profusely.
“Ah, ah, ah, you…are indeed slothful!”
There was a clang, and Subaru felt like something in his head had split in two.
I don’t hear you. I’m not listening. It’s all the ravings of a madman. None of it hit the mark. None of it arrived at any truth. I still don’t get anything. That’s as it should be. That’s as it ought to be. It has to be like that. If it’s not, I’ll—
“Ahh, that’s quite far enough.”
The black thing inside him reached its peak, ready to explode at any moment. Just before it did, the man pulled him back from the brink with a calm murmur, as if the previous madness was a distant memory.
Bereft of the world of thick madness, the sense of danger Subaru felt from the man redoubled, raising goose bumps on his skin. The man said to him, “Yes, backing you into a corner will cause a trifle, yes, a trifle, trifle, trifle too much trouble later. Take your time, slowly face up to the truth of your devotion, and you shall surely find your own answer.”
“Aa… Uguu…!”
What was the man trying to say to him…?
From beginning to end, the words out of his mouth had been a string of insults. Subaru didn’t get it. The man was acting like he understood something about him. One moment, he was like an adult kindly leading a little boy by the hand; another, he acted like a monster tempting lost people while they tried to cross a bridge.
He was a monster beyond fathom. The distance between them could stay as it was, forever.
Before he crossed the divide into the land of no return.
The man said, “Ahh, in other words… You are not a sloth. You are diligent.”
5
Subaru’s eyes bore a lack of understanding as the madman’s perceptive words pressed upon him.
Petelgeuse folded his arms, gazing up at the heavens, murmuring as if he was praying. This was the only action that made his title of archbishop seem not to be a farce.
After praying for a while, Petelgeuse seemed to notice something and looked back.
“—Oh my?”
He was gazing at the figures emerging one after another within the cavern, the ones that had vanished and gone outside.
The black robes seemed to sprout right out of the ground, their numbers exceeding ten. They knelt in reverence to Petelgeuse, bowing their heads low as they awaited instructions.
“What is the meaning of thisss?”
“—”
“What, the girl is coming here? Ahh, that is why you have returned? That is good! That is very good! By all, all, all, all, all means, let us welcome her. I must welcome her with my very own handsss!”
Petelgeuse was bursting with joy. The meaning of his words did not reach Subaru. However, the boy was panting as if he had a fever. Nothing trickled out of his mouth but a moaning voice, but on the inside, an inexplicable feeling was guiding something inside him to the surface.
But, “—!”
His mouth felt like some invisible object was blocking it, leaving his voice trapped within.
What he felt shutting his throat was different from fear or his other emotions. It was like something tangible, something physical was keeping his lips sealed. Subaru opened his eyes, sensing something like an unseen hand
was constricting his throat. When he looked over, he saw Petelgeuse cackle.
“Now, no need to be hasty… We have plenty of time.”
Petelgeuse’s dry, cackling laughter reverberated throughout the cavern.
Even if the invisible gag disappeared, Subaru would have no way to stop the eerie rumble from echoing against his eardrums. Forbidden to even laugh or cry, all he could do was wait in silence.
—It was a bit under an hour when the change he waited hopefully for finally arrived.
The figures remained on their knees, keeping their silence was their custom. Between them, Petelgeuse paced around without speaking a word, leaving only his footsteps and Subaru’s ragged breaths to disturb the air of the chamber.
The first figure to raise his head was the one closest to the corridor connecting to the chamber.
Following that individual’s movements, the other fanatics lifted their faces one after another. Petelgeuse, noticing their movements, looked toward the cavern’s entrance just as they did and laughed.
An expression of glee came over his face, wide enough to split the corners of his mouth.
“It seems she has arriiiived.”
The echo of a great roar drowned out Petelgeuse’s delighted murmur. An incredibly heavy-sounding explosion shattered it, and the sound of destruction sent fierce vibrations through the cavern’s cold air. The successive sounds reached Subaru through the hard ground as well, and all present were able to sense that the entrance had been smashed by a most violent knock.
The figures swayed and stood up, drawing their crosses from their flanks and posing with their hands held low.
Though they were in a chamber, when ten-odd people moved together it was impossible to claim they had plenty of room. They deployed with the urgency of a school classroom fire drill, readying themselves to respond to the assailant.
There wasn’t anywhere near enough space to leap and run around. It was a favorable condition for an intruder at a numerical disadvantage.
“—I’ve found you.”
Her roaring iron ball sailed and mowed down the shadowy figures, creating several red smears against the wall. The flail, butchering three figures with the first blow, was an unstoppable murder weapon that robbed life from everything it touched. There was no option but to dodge it, but the confined cavern made that a difficult proposition.
Falling to the ground, the iron ball shattered the rocky surface, and its barbs, smeared with blood and flesh, made a dull sound as they split the earth. The blue hair of the girl walking ahead of it was dyed completely black as her brilliantly glowing eyes surveyed the chamber. They landed on the boy lying on the ground. Her lips quivered as she made a shallow breath.
“Subaru. I’m so glad…”
The demon—Rem—relaxed her shoulders as she called the boy by name with relief.
Her appearance was ghastly, with the cuts all over her expressing the heroism involved in her arrival. There was not a single part of her body not drenched in blood. Her blue hair was now pitch-black; there was no visible trace of the apron dress that had been burned to a crisp. Her legs, poking out of her ripped and shredded skirt, were lacerated. Her left arm had been burned so cruelly that Subaru wanted to avert his eyes.
With her entire body covered in the perfume of blood and death, Rem smiled reassuringly toward him even so.
And with Rem looming so violently before him, Petelgeuse raised his voice in acclaim.
“Ahh—oh my, how marvelouss!”
He had forgotten that Rem had slain his subordinates before his very eyes; to the contrary, it seemed to have stirred him all the more, with his excited voice bursting with praise.
“A girl! A single girl! Bearing all these wounds yet moving forward! And for what? For this young man! You have gone to these lengths to rescue this beloved boy! You are possessed by love; you live for love!”
“You may save your sermon, devotee of the Witch…”
Petelgeuse was standing between Subaru and Rem, practically frothing at the mouth as he shouted in joy. Rem gazed coldly at his crazed state as she continued, “You are a band of fools to enter the dominion of Master Roswaal, lord of the Mathers territory, and commit illegal acts. With my master absent, I, Rem, sentence you to death in his place.”
“As tattered as you appear? You should not make promises you cannot keep. To begin with, you have come only to take this young man away from here, so enough with your convenient excuses.”
Petelgeuse crouched and clutched Subaru’s head, lifting it up. Enjoying himself, he grabbed Subaru by the hair, nodding it up and down against his will.
“…ch him.”
“What was that?”
“I said, don’t touch him!!”
Rem’s face contorted in fury at Petelgeuse’s antics. Seeing the demon girl lose her composure, he laughed in satisfaction.
“Yes, very good. Bare your true desires, bare your heart, bare your love! Love! Love! This is love! Love is what guided you here! To deny that love, to conceal it, to disguise it with falsehoods, all are betrayals of that love! Insults! Ahh, and so slothful!”
“One insult after another…!”
“I am so glad for that shout. That is your true desire, devoid of all unnecessary impurities, for you rushed here purely out of your feelings for this young man!”
Rem, still enraged, was cowed into silence as Petelgeuse pressed his point. His mad eyes gazed at her with a glint of compassion; then his gaze fell upon the boy at his fingertips.
“It is deeply regrettable. A devotee of love to such an extent as thee… Why are your eyes firmly locked on one such as this? An effete, ignorant, disgraceful, shameless sight such as this… Truly the product of sloth!”
“What do you know about Subaru?! Do not speak out of turn, devotee of the Witch!”
“You are upset because you do not accept this, are you not? That this young man, the object of your love…is already finished, long lost to you.”
“He isn’t finished! I am here. I have not forgotten Subaru’s words. I will take him by the hand and lead him away. So long as I am here, he is not finished!”
—These were not mere words of consolation. They were words conveying a firm truth inside Rem.
As Rem shouted, Petelgeuse laughed, slowly lifting up Subaru’s head while leaning him against the wall.
“—”
Some kind of voice came up from inside Subaru. He didn’t know what was being said or why.
Rem saw the partial change in the boy drowning in a sea of rejection. She leaped with her wounded body.
As Rem sprang into the air, the figures that had maintained their silence so far did the same in pursuit of her. Two figures kicked off the wall to approach. Their cross-shaped swords, melting into the darkness, stabbed at the small girl.
She yelled back, “Don’t get between Subaru and me!!”
She swung her right arm with the chain for the iron ball wrapped around her forearm. With a high-pitched sound, she deflected the crucifixes, following through to gouge out large parts of one figure’s face. Another tried to grapple with her after its blade was deflected, but the iron ball, trailing behind, easily caved in the back of its skull.
The two corpses fell to the ground as Rem landed in the center of the chamber—right in the middle of the fanatics.
Just before the blades around her were about to slice her apart, Rem spat out blood as she shouted, “—El Hyuma!”
The incantation surged cold, making the corpses at Rem’s feet bounce. No—the fresh blood flowing from the corpses froze, forming sharp-tipped blades of red ice that turned on the enemies around her.
The black robes leaped in hard, but it was they who were impaled. When they came to a stop, their torsos run through, Rem’s fist and flail mercilessly smashed them to pieces.
Petelgeuse exclaimed, “Splendid. Splendid indeed! It is no exaggeration to say that you are splendid! And yet, why! Ahh, why! I cannot accept love! I do not acknowledge this! I do
not understand! Without the words, there is no salvation, no more than you can grasp a cloud! And yet, why is it?!”
“Do not speak such words so cheaply! I already have my salvation! After that night when I should have lost all, there is no greater than what I had that morning! That is why!”
Rem brushed aside the madman’s voice, her eyes staring straight at Subaru.
“I will repay everything I have received with everything I am. I have no intention of labeling the feelings behind my actions, behind my desire to take those actions, as cheaply as you do!”
The figures in the chamber once numbered around fifteen. Already, nearly half of them had perished from Rem’s attacks. The remainder seemed incapable of halting her fury. Her superiority was beyond question. The might of the demon race was very real.
And yet, why?
Petelgeuse clutched his head, letting out hot breaths as he surveyed the cruelty inflicted on his faithful.
“Aa, aa, aa…”
He didn’t seem shaken by grief, fear, or anxiety. Her anxiety only grew as it became clear to her that his reaction was one of pure excitement.
At Petelgeuse’s side, Subaru watched Rem’s rampaging battle.
Slowly, the meaning of the scene, and the girl’s reason for fighting, seeped into his brain.
He didn’t understand. He didn’t want to understand. He wasn’t trying to understand. And yet, it reached him all the same. The sight of her bleeding, wounded, and yet continuing to fight stirred something inside his chest, bringing it to the surface.
Perhaps he had to put into words what troubled him. Yet if he did, he could no longer remain in a stupefied state. It meant facing up to what was right, what was wrong, and why he was there.
For Subaru, to fear this, to prioritize his love of himself over all else, was just—
Petelgeuse rose to his feet as he said, “My brain trembles.”
The sleeves of his black habit swayed as he calmly stepped forward.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 5 Page 19
