Having brought Ryuzu and Pico along, Subaru stepped out of the detached cottage and noticed the eastern sky beginning to pale with the first hints of dawn, making him aware of his drowsiness for the first time.
"Whoa, dawn's breaking… It's been a pretty packed night, huh?"
Though Subaru's subjective sense of time didn't connect smoothly, tonight had begun with
Because the hours had been so dense, he hadn't noticed how fast they'd passed. But unlike his consciousness, his body—which had kept活动ing all this time—couldn't hide its exhaustion. The lack of coordination between mind and body was hardly a new observation, but it could certainly be counted among the drawbacks of "Return by Death."
"Normally, I'd head straight back to the cathedral and crash until noon, but…"
"There's nothing stopping you from doing just that. I'll hand off to the next Ryuzu and make sure I get proper rest."
"As appealing as that work schedule sounds, we don't have the time. Can't afford it."
Six days left—or rather, since one day had already passed, five days remained. Considering that a round trip to the mansion alone consumed an entire day, the practical limit for action was three days.
He couldn't afford to burn a precious half-day here. And yet, though he had seen the future and understood it from the
"I can't afford to make any rash moves that might draw out the Witch of Envy…"
The image of the shadowy Witch devouring the
So if the Witch's hand could reach Subaru directly in the real world, he figured the penalty would likely continue to fall on Subaru alone as it always had—however— "Using someone else's life as a test to confirm that… I'll pass."
Subaru's gaze dropped to Pico, who stood blankly beside him, their left hands linked. When Pico received his gaze, she widened her already round eyes even further, staring expectantly as though waiting for instructions to issue from his mouth.
Having once received a command from Subaru, she had clearly internalized the transfer of authority. Now Pico's demeanor was as docile as a chick following its parent bird.
"So, what's your plan, Suba-bou?"
"For starters, head back to the mansion. There's someone I need to talk to… and I want to see Frederica too. Plenty of things I need her to fill me in on."
"Frederica, hmm…"
When the name of the tall maid surfaced in her mind, Ryuzu furrowed her brow and uttered the name with a meaningful weight. Subaru noticed and frowned. It seemed unlike her.
"Something on your mind about Frederica?"
"…No, nothing major."
"Ryuzu-san. I really don't want to use this authority-command thing if I can help it. Having to order you around—honestly, I'd rather not."
Shrugging, Subaru made the request with an air of supplication. But contradicting his words, his three-cornered eyes sharpened even further, their gaze loudly proclaiming "I'll use it if I have to." Ryuzu let out a sigh.
"Well, when I think about it, I feel like the gears of the Sanctuary have been slipping ever since Frederica left."
"The gears started slipping?"
"The origins being what they are, it's questionable whether it was ever truly in a healthy state to begin with. Even so… hmm, the residents and the Ryuzu Meyer clones alike—Gar-bou too—none of them should have been this unsettled."
"…………"
"I'm counting on you, Suba-bou."
Ryuzu looked up at Subaru with earnest eyes as she said those words.
That word—counting on—made Subaru's chest ache acutely. To have expectation poured upon him, beginning with that word, was something that for Subaru— "The Sanctuary has barely kept going by clumsily holding together a role it lost sight of long ago. Now that strain is causing cracks everywhere. That is why I choose to place my trust in you, Suba-bou."
"Trust me to do what…?"
"To bring the Witch's obsession, the reason for the Sanctuary's existence, and Ryuzu Meyer's wish to an end—in a form that everyone desires."
A request that was both dependent on others and impossibly heavy.
Subaru instinctively tried to respond with "I can't." But having met Ryuzu's serious gaze head-on, his mouth— "————"
Would not form the words.
"That's fine for now. For now, that's enough."
Ryuzu nodded, as though she understood all of Subaru's hesitation and vacillation.
Despite her appearance as a young girl, in this one moment Subaru understood clearly that she possessed a worldview befitting the years she had lived.
"My time is almost up," she said in a tone laced with reluctance, and Ryuzu's body began to emit a soft glow.
It reminded Subaru of an spirit on the verge of vanishing, and without thinking he reached out his fingers toward her. But— "Rest easy. I'm not returning to mana. I'm simply entering a dormant state to replenish what I've spent. The replacement Ryuzu will arrive shortly."
"Even if you look and sound the same, you're not the same being, right?"
"That's right. The appearance, the tone, even the personality—I've made a conscious effort to replicate them all… but we are different people. Therefore, the one who just spoke to you, Suba-bou, is me and me alone. Do you feel lonely?"
"It's not about being lonely or anything like that. Ryuzu-san… aren't you suffering? Doesn't it bother you—to keep playing the part of a single Ryuzu Meyer among four? Don't you ever think, where does my own life exist…"
As he spoke, Subaru understood how cruel this line of questioning was.
Even if Ryuzu herself had her own feelings—even if she harbored pain and sorrow deep down about her current state, what could Subaru do upon knowing that? Unable to unravel even the superficial principles of magic, the details of mana, or the surface of a spell formula, how much meaning was there in perpetually reaching out toward an unattainable regret?
Ryuzu seemed to understand Subaru's conflict. She smiled faintly, her pale red hair swaying gently in the morning breeze, touched with the colors of dawn.
"What do you think, Suba-bou?"
"Huh?"
"I'll count your answer to this question as one of the things I expect from you."
With those parting words, Ryuzu's body faded like mist, dissolving into the morning glow. Even having been forewarned that this was not the same as dissipating into nothing, it was an ethereal sight—hard to believe. A person had melted into the sunrise, vanishing as though absorbed by it. How could one accept that this was not the disappearance of an existence?
Yet in the blink of an eye, where Ryuzu had vanished, a new figure had appeared. From build to everything else, an existence identical in every respect to the Ryuzu who had vanished.
She shook her head once, then looked up at Suba-bou.
"No need for a self-introduction, I'd think, Suba-bou. The previous 'me' and I have already synchronized what we discussed."
As though dispelling any lingering doubts, the new Ryuzu briskly adjusted any gaps in their respective perspectives. Then, tilting her head at the end: "So, Suba-bou… where do we go from here?"
"Right… let me think."
He looked up at the sky. Catching sight of the sunrise slowly devouring the night sky from the corner of his eye, he let his consciousness drift between the time that had passed and the time that remained.
Then Subaru lowered his gaze, looking at Ryuzu and Pico together.
"First, I want to escape the Sanctuary. Ryuzu-san—I'm going to need your help."
That was his offer.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ The dragon carriage shed stood before Subaru, who had arrived just after dawn.
He opened and closed the creaking door as quietly as possible, searching for his partner within. The pitch-black form that seemed to melt into the dim light waited at the very back of the shed for its master's call.
"Sorry for leaving you alone,
Patrasche stretched its neck toward Subaru and nuzzled its nose against him in response. The gesture seemed to carry equal parts affection and sulky resentment at being left behind, giving Subaru a tender ache despite the situation.
"I know it's rough waking you up like this, but we've got work to do. Can you carry me to the mansion again?"
As Subaru stroked the face pressed close to him, Patrasche let out a low rumble that Subaru could have sworn sounded like, "You sure are a handful, Subaru…"
At least he had the dragon's consent. Relief seeping out, Subaru removed the fence and prepared to lead Patrasche outside.
With Patrasche's speed—unburdened by any dead weight—the journey that normally took half a day could be cut even shorter. Departing now at dawn, they would likely reach the mansion before evening.
"Well, it's a rough plan built on the assumption of a do-over, but…"
Having made up his mind to return to the mansion, Subaru had decided—unlike last time—not to bring the Arlam village refugees along. To put it bluntly, he was keeping the possibility of a reset firmly in mind, eliminating every unnecessary variable and focusing purely on information gathering.
It was true that the current state—having heard Ryuzu Meyer's story and established a decent rapport with Ryuzu—was valuable. But— "My relationship with Garfiel is already terrible, and I just bit into something that'll make it worse."
The transfer of authority—what Garfiel had presumably held—now passing to Subaru meant that the beast-boy would stop at nothing to find where it had gone. It was easy to imagine.
Before long, Garfiel would find Subaru. Ryuzu hadn't been sworn to silence either. Subaru had told her beforehand that she was free to answer honestly if asked.
All of this had been calculated.
"…Even so, I'm still the sentimental type who can't leave Emilia without a note."
If he accepted that this was a world that would disappear upon a reset, then logically, there was no reason to agonize over how he handled Emilia this time. No matter how much she suffered, grieved, or how he tried to make her happy—it would all be left behind in a vanishing world. He understood that in his head, but— "This isn't about logic."
Even knowing it was a world he would leave behind, a world he would abandon, Subaru still couldn't bear to see Emilia look sad.
His disappearing without a word would surely bring her piercing anguish. Without anyone to cling to, she might lose sight of her own footing. Subaru was glad that Emilia relied on him so much, but it was also painful to witness.
Hoping she wouldn't end up like that, and praying that even if she did, she wouldn't stay that way, Subaru left a letter for Emilia.
That said, the contents were the usual empty reassurances—the kind of safe, inoffensive words one would find in any common letter. Since he couldn't convey the truth, all Subaru could do was piece together a surface-level comfort.
"Better than nothing… or maybe I'm telling myself that if Emilia didn't depend on me quite so much…"
Without
Even so, Subaru would leave Emilia behind and depart the Sanctuary. To overwrite the present he couldn't save with a future he could—he steeled his heart, telling himself it was a necessary sacrifice.
"Alright then, let's get out of here before anyone sees us—"
While leading Patrasche out of the carriage shed, Subaru pulled out the saddle from the passenger car, where it had been removed so he could ride the earth dragon bareback. He brushed off the surface and was about to sling it over Patrasche's back when something caught his eye at the edge of his vision. It was— "The Gospel of Petelgeuse, huh…"
The thick, black-bound book was the Gospel, tucked away in a corner of the passenger car.
It was Petelgeuse's keepsake, and frankly, Subaru wanted to dispose of it as soon as possible. But treating it carelessly and letting it fall into the wrong hands would be worse. More than anything, he had kept it because it might serve as a clue to the
"Come to think of it, my perspective on this thing has changed a lot thanks to Roswaal's story."
Setting the saddle on the seat, Subaru casually picked up the Gospel. The heaviness and texture of it brought to mind the image of a blood-soaked madman.
A man who had harbored an excessive obsession with the Gospel, believing it was proof of his devotion to the Witch.
The irony was that this content—which to Petelgeuse himself, the owner, had appeared to foreshadow his future actions—had been just that.
"Roswaal,
Grumbling under his breath, Subaru flipped idly through the pages.
His fingers stopped, and a strange sound escaped his throat, driven by shock.
"I—I can read it?"
The text written on the Gospel's white pages was clearly visible to Subaru's eyes.
The handwriting was messy, like a child scrawling letters, but coherent words were strung together there—and moreover, they were written in a form even Subaru could read: in katakana script.
"What the… Could the book have accepted me as its owner? But nothing special has—"
Before he could finish the thought, Subaru realized something.
The last time he'd been unable to read the Gospel's contents had been before his visit to the Sanctuary—during his time in the royal capital and at the Roswaal mansion after returning from it. He hadn't had a chance to open the Gospel since then, so he couldn't verify, but he couldn't dismiss a connection between that and what had happened in the Sanctuary.
Or rather—it wasn't events in the Sanctuary that were the cause. A more direct reason came to mind.
That being— "Did Echidna do something to me?"
Just as she had administered the "Trial" in the tomb, there was a high probability Echidna had interfered with Subaru's body in some way. He couldn't shake the feeling that it was connected to the tea she served during those gatherings she called tea parties.
Echidna had joked about it being bodily fluids, but perhaps it was something else entirely.
Something that had dramatically altered Subaru's body from what it had been before.
"I don't know if that's really the reason, but the last change was greater than anything before it."
Maybe revealing "Return by Death" to Echidna wasn't the sole cause of the Witch of Envy's rampage.
The fact that he couldn't immediately question her about it was an agonizing frustration for Subaru.
"…Then again, maybe it doesn't mean the book has recognized me as its owner."
The idea of being acknowledged by a Gospel belonging to the Witch Cult was unsettling, but as Subaru scanned its contents, he determined that what he was reading wasn't a message directed at him—it was simply the content that had been conveyed to Petelgeuse, now legible to Subaru.
No dates were recorded, so he couldn't tell when the first page's events took place. The Gospel's writing continued over many pages from there, and Subaru could see at a glance how Petelgeuse had worked through each one.
Essentially, the instructions were of the go-here, do-this variety, with no indication of how specific results might connect. Presumably, Petelgeuse had self-validated that all his actions were leading the Witch Cult in a positive direction, regardless of outcome.
Skimming through, Subaru reached the final recorded passage.
There were still pages remaining, but beyond this point, only blank sheets followed. On the last of those blank pages, a large "The End" written by Subaru in blood-script remained in dark crimson.
On the page just before it—the last of the Gospel's original writing—this remained: "To administer a Trial to the silver-haired half-blood in the Mathers domain… Huh. Doesn't make much sense."
Without knowing the content of the Trial, this passage carried no more information than the fact that Petelgeuse had intended to attack Emilia.
All Subaru had gained was the conviction that Petelgeuse's atrocities—the ones Subaru was familiar with—had been set in motion by this Gospel's instructions.
"…Ah, sorry, sorry. We'll be going now."
Patrasche, growing impatient, pressed its nose against Subaru, who had been leaning against the passenger car. Subaru gave a wry smile at the gesture and returned the Gospel to its original spot in the car.
Committing what he had just seen to memory, he shifted his consciousness to a separate problem.
Namely, escaping the Sanctuary and returning to the mansion.
"Let's keep this quiet—no commotion inside the Sanctuary. Stealth mode, if you please."
"————!!"
Patrasche let out a grand, confident snort as Subaru mounted its back and clung tight, pressing the saddle against its hide. Feeling a strange mix of reliance and amusement toward a partner who understood nothing of what was happening, Subaru calmed the excited dragon and set a course for the Sanctuary's exit.
To the east, the sun—now showing itself fully—glinted in the distance, its light illuminating the tops of the forest trees. If they didn't hurry, the early-rising residents would begin to stir, raising the difficulty of a nighttime escape.
Subaru urged Patrasche forward, and the dragon broke into a run, giving Subaru his first taste of its explosive acceleration. Almost immediately, the dragon's body entered the influence of the "Divine Protection of Wind Resistance," and the effects of vibration and wind ceased reaching Subaru's body.
They burst out of the Sanctuary and into the forest. Patrasche charged along what amounted to an animal trail toward the mansion without a moment's hesitation. From previous experience, Subaru knew that without any rein guidance, Patrasche would, of its own will, choose the optimal path for Subaru.
There was a touch of wistfulness in that, but letting Patrasche take the lead was the smart move in terms of ability. Subaru gripped the reins loosely, clinging tight with his whole body against the dragon's hard hide, becoming one with Patrasche as they tore through the forest. If nothing interrupted them, they would clear the forest in under an hour, making their escape from the Sanctuary a reality. But— "Hey—hold it right there!!"
A vertically rotating heel descended from above, driving into the ground on their path and blasting the earth apart.
Amid the swirling dust clouds and splintered wood, Patrasche slammed on the brakes, its side-turned feet gouging the ground as it scrubbed off speed. With supernatural balance—careful not to throw Subaru from its back—Patrasche came to a halt, its gaze fixed forward.
At the same time, Subaru, who had endured the impact while clinging to Patrasche's back, saw the same thing Patrasche was staring at.
"You—what the hell are you even trying to do?! What are you thinking?! What the hell are you playing at, huh?! OI!!"
Garfiel kicked the ground with an expression of barely contained fury.
His brow furrowed with wrinkles of irritation and displeasure, Garfiel bared his fangs at Subaru, who looked down from atop Patrasche.
"Stop looking down at me. Get down. We're talking face to face. Start from there, or I'll beat you to a pulp, you bastard…"
"I had a feeling you'd get in my way, Garfiel."
"I never—not even for a second—thought you'd pull this kind of stunt! You think you can just tuck tail and run now?! Don't screw with me! You! This Sanctuary! The half-blood and Roswaal! All of you! We're all in this together! Until the Trial is over, you're not getting out of here—"
"That's just your cover story, isn't it?"
"————"
The rage-contorted expression on Garfiel's face shifted at Subaru's brief question.
The eyes that had been sharpened to points softened their furious heat, and all that remained was the sound of quiet teeth-gnashing and measured breathing.
"Garfiel, you've been acting like you want to keep us locked in this Sanctuary and see the Trial through—but that's not what you really want, is it?"
"The hell is that supposed to mean, huh?"
"It doesn't mean anything or anything else. If you genuinely want the Sanctuary freed, then you should be letting my actions go. The fact that you can't—or won't—means some complicated agenda is tangled up in this. Am I wrong?"
"Hah, what the hell are you spouting?! I just don't like the stench of Witch coming off you, that's all—"
"You really smell the Witch on me, do you?"
Once again, Subaru's rapid-fire questioning left Garfiel at a loss for words.
His eyes darted, and Garfiel's lips trembled. He was clearly not a man built for subtlety, and that reaction alone nearly drew a bitter smile from Subaru.
"The clearest moment was when we left the tomb last night. Honestly, I've never been more on guard, thinking you might actually kill me, than I was at that moment."
"…Hah? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Since you don't understand what I'm saying, I'm wondering if your claim about smelling the Witch on me might be a lie."
Fresh off "Return by Death," with the cause of death being contact with the Witch of Envy, Subaru's body would have carried an extremely dense lingering scent of the Witch. Yet Garfiel had treated him with the same demeanor as before entering the tomb. Then, after they'd parted, he had apparently remembered something and called Subaru back—that was last night's exchange. It was unnatural to an absurd degree.
"To avoid making things complicated, I considered the possibility that you noticed but pretended not to back then… but from how impulsive you are, I ruled that out."
"You sure talk a lot of crap for someone in your position! You're saying I lied about smelling the Witch on you?! Hah, that's ridiculous! What would I even gain from lying about that, huh?! There's no point—"
"Oh, there's a point. If you make a big show of that and raise my guard against you… it draws attention away from the one person who can really smell the Witch, doesn't it?"
"————"
It was a statement that, perhaps, struck at Garfiel's true intentions.
The moment he heard it, Garfiel's expression truly changed.
Up until now, he had still been trying to resolve things through dialogue. Now it shifted to something short-circuited—something that wouldn't hesitate to resort to violence.
Garfiel's arm bulged to a larger size. Golden fur began to cover his exposed skin, his hunched posture rounding further, tilting forward until he was more on all fours than standing.
"I ain't listening to your words anymore. I know something I wasn't supposed to know. I didn't want to do this, but I can't let you leave alive."
"Don't say that, Garfiel. You'd better hear me out a bit more. Otherwise, you won't understand where your own scheme leaked from."
"My scheme…?"
Garfiel's eyes glinted as he raised a questioning voice.
To dispel that distrust, Subaru raised his hand skyward while still on Patrasche's back and snapped his fingers high and clear. And then— "Wha—?"
Garfiel swallowed hard, his eyes disbelieving what he saw before him.
There—at the ends of his vision, circling the earth dragon like a tightening ring—the Ryuzu Meyer clones had gathered in droves, following Subaru's instructions. Twenty-one of them.
Having now recreated with his own hands a scene he had witnessed before, Subaru pointed a finger at Garfiel.
"Look at this situation, and you'll understand what position I'm in right now."
"How… How did you reach that place?!"
"With regret and pain as offerings, I summoned the truth. And it's still my turn."
Palm upward, Subaru looked down at Garfiel from atop the dragon.
Meeting that gaze, Garfiel choked, and Subaru—savoring the sensation of slamming the unveiled truth into him—declared: "The command authority has been transferred to me. To keep you from noticing, I ordered the Ryuzu clones to carry out your commands as usual throughout the night, without letting on."
"…Ah."
"And that cover is blown. Listen, Garfiel. I'm leaving the Sanctuary and heading back to the mansion. There's something I need to do. And I can't have you getting in my way."
Having grasped, however dimly, what Subaru was about to order, Garfiel's expression crumbled.
The face that moments ago had been hardened with unwavering resolve now cracked apart, revealing confusion beneath. He looked as lost and fragile as a small child who had wandered from the path.
His beastly transformation stopped, and his inflated body shrank back to its original small frame.
"Don't follow me, Garfiel. I've got a mountain of things I want to ask you, but that'll have to wait. Including the authority transfer—there's too much I need to know."
"You… you screwball. You think I'd just give up like this…"
"You would. At the root of it, you're a real softie."
Provoked by Subaru's goading words, Garfiel roared and leapt. Baring his fangs, he lunged to crush Subaru and Patrasche together. But a small figure intercepted him.
A clone. Garfiel swatted it aside and raised his arm to clear a path—but just before the downward swing connected— "Gar-bou."
"—!?"
The moment the nickname reached him, Garfiel's expression changed completely. His arm, meant to strike, sliced through empty air. His body, suspended mid-leap, was seized from behind by multiple outstretched arms and pinned helplessly to the ground.
The clones had reached out and restrained Garfiel's body. And standing at the forefront, looking down at Garfiel with a sorrowful expression— "That should be quite enough of a delaying action, Suba-bou."
"Yeah, you saved me. I figured Garfiel would never think of this move."
In his battle against the Witch of Envy, Garfiel had ruthlessly used the clones as pawns. But there shouldn't have been a single conscious Ryuzu Meyer among them at the time. The active Ryuzu had been swallowed early by the Witch's shadow, but Subaru suspected there had been another reason besides.
It was, in a sense, something that went beyond cruel to call a stratagem— "You can't treat Ryuzu-san—the one you consider family—the same way you treat the other clones. If there's a difference between how you and I use the command authority, that's the reason."
"Yo—You—!"
"Even without that, you can't bring yourself to destroy Ryuzu Meyer's clones with your own hands, can you? Just stand down and let me go this time. I won't do anything to hurt you."
"What could possibly be worse than this?! Don't screw with me, don't screw with me!!"
A howl echoed in the distance, but Subaru deliberately ignored it and slapped Patrasche's back. The earth dragon, sensing its rider's intent, let out a soft cry, turned its back on the restrained Garfiel, and pointed toward the forest's edge.
Before setting off, Subaru turned back to Ryuzu.
"Sorry for making you play the bad guy."
"I judged it to be a necessary measure. Even if I'd objected, I couldn't have stopped you—there's no need for you to worry about me."
"Still. I'm sorry."
Leaving those words of apology aimed at Ryuzu, who gazed at Garfiel with sympathy, Subaru used the farewell as his signal and urged Patrasche forward.
Once more, the "Divine Protection of Wind Resistance" unfurled, leaving sound and wind behind.
"Wait! Wait, dammit! This ain't a joke—OI!!"
The fading voice pursued Subaru.
Accelerating to shake it off, Subaru tore through the forest and out of the Sanctuary.
"Let me go! You can't let him— Why? Why?! Is the old lady on his side more than mine?! Why, why—"
"————"
"Granny——!!"
A anguished cry—the voice of betrayed affection—rang through the forest.
Leaving every last sound behind, Subaru drove straight and true through the woods.
A necessary sacrifice, a necessary sorrow—all of it a cornerstone for the future.
Biting the edge of his lip until blood dripped, Subaru told himself that for the sake of the grand finale, he would write off this moment of Garfiel's grief as a necessary sacrifice.