What could he possibly call the shock that pierced
From the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, Subaru was struck by the illusion that a bolt of lightning had torn straight through him.
A sensation like every pore on his skin standing on end, a sensation like the blood in every vein in his body was boiling over. His heartbeat climbed to a furious pitch, a flush of crimson creeping from his neck upward as ragged breath escaped his lips and Subaru stumbled backward.
He couldn't stay standing here. Not like this.
If he stayed here, she would reach him. She would touch his fingertips.
Before reason could suppress instinct, he had to put distance between them, or it would all slip beyond his control.
If that happened, it would be over — Subaru would be swept away by "love."
"Stop it..."
"I love you."
"Please stop..."
"You, only you, always and forever, I have loved you and will continue to do so."
"I said stop it — !"
Shaking his head, flailing his arms, Subaru tore his gaze away from that clinging, scorching stare.
Even so, he couldn't see
And yet, the pounding in his chest refused to quiet.
Suppressing it all by sheer force of will, desperately raising his voice, hurling rejection at her like vomiting blood — Subaru clung to the core of himself.
Unless he kept straining to maintain consciousness, exactly like this, he was convinced the very foundation of his being would be twisted out of shape. It was a thought too horrifying to contemplate.
Refuting her this openly, making his disgust this obvious, hammering the truth into her — and Satella simply stood there, facing him the whole time.
He couldn't see her expression behind that veil of darkness. He shouldn't have been able to. And yet Subaru somehow knew that his words had wounded her, that she had cast her eyes downward. He knew that some part of himself wanted to stroke her hair, whisper comfort to that pained profile, murmur love and coax a smile from her.
Even as he rejected her with everything he had, his heart kept crying out to love Satella.
"What the... what are you!? What did you do to my body!? Did you implant something in me that manipulates my heart, just like the 'Return by Death' seeds!?"
Subaru hurled his distrust at Satella — distrust of his own heart, which no longer obeyed his will.
His heart had begun showing responses that surpassed understanding, with no warning whatsoever. If the
To twist a person's heart at will — that was lower than human. The vilest thing imaginable.
For Natsuki Subaru, the first light he had found in this world was his love for
With nothing and no one to rely on, fumbling in the dark, it was Emilia who had reached out to him in his hour of need. The gratitude he felt toward her, and the memory of having his nearly worn-out heart saved — even now, those things made Emilia shine as brightly as ever in his mind.
Caught in the endless loop that began and ended with "death," fighting alone against every conceivable hardship, the things he wanted to protect and the people precious to him multiplied. Through his interactions with them, he had accumulated words, bonds, and feelings, adding weight to what he carried.
He couldn't honestly say anymore that his feelings for Emilia were his only driving force.
But still — for Natsuki Subaru, the first light had been Emilia. And Satella was forcing upon him a love equal to what he felt for her.
They had exchanged no words, shared no warmth, spent no time together, built no bonds. They were nothing to each other. And yet she was trying to steal away his "love" by force.
How could he call it anything but revolting?
"You and
Subaru raised his voice without masking his disgust toward the faceless Witch before him and the white-haired Witch behind him.
Satella, who forced hollow love upon him, and Echidna, who ensnared others with curiosity no ordinary person could ever empathize with — both were monsters beyond Subaru's comprehension.
"That's a bit much. Even lumping us together under 'Witch,' from where I stand she's far more vulgar than that label implies. Your judgment that she's incomprehensible isn't wrong, though."
"Shut up! I haven't forgotten how you pretended to care, how sinister you really are. ...Enough. There's no point in me being here. Get me out. I don't want anything more to do with you people!"
Snapping at Echidna's words and clutching his head, Subaru pleaded for release from the dream castle.
He didn't want to spend another second in front of Satella and Echidna. He had more tasks to count, and this was no time to be adding to them.
He wasn't clever or omnipotent. He had his limits on what he could handle, and the obstacles already standing in his way had surpassed that threshold. So why did more and more problems keep piling on?
"I won't ask for your help! I'll handle everything out there on my own. — That should be fine! From the very beginning, that's what I should have—"
"Oh? So you'll keep dying over and over, making everyone cry while you say 'I had no choice, it was for information gathering.' Wow, impressive."
As Subaru lined up his words of farewell,
"What does this have to do with you!? The pain, the suffering, the wounds, the wearing down — all of it's my problem! You've got no right to lecture me about it!"
"Sure, the person doing the saying gets to act all brave about 'accepting the pain and hardship.' The ones watching you cough up blood and tear your flesh and shatter your bones — how they feel doesn't matter, because you can always use the excuse that you're bearing the worst of it yourself, right?"
"What did you...!?"
"By making sure you're the one with the flashy, obvious injuries, you shut up everyone who gets hurt in the wake of your actions. Because you're the one suffering the most. Because you're the one in the most pain. Because you're the one having the hardest time... silencing the complaints of those around you. How very convenient."
The more she spoke, the more fury seemed to build in Minerva's voice. Subaru bared his fangs right back. At such malicious words, he couldn't stay silent.
"That I — that I'm melodramatically throwing myself into tragedy just to silence everyone's voices!? That everything I'm doing in this dead end is all for show!?"
"Of course that's not what I mean. But the conclusion that 'it's fine as long as I'm the one who gets hurt the most' is cowardly. I think Echidna's inner darkness is something else, and I'll never understand Satella's roundabout way of doing things, but... the way you twist yourself up is way more disgusting than any Witch."
"———"
"And from where I stand — someone who punches every wound she finds and heals it — your way of living isn't just the opposite of mine, it's my natural enemy. Because this child doesn't deserve any of that."
Thrusting a small fist toward Subaru, Minerva declared without catching her breath. Then she appended a quiet murmur at the end, and her azure eyes shifted to Satella standing beside her.
Satella, who had been standing stock-still since Subaru unleashed his tirade, had maintained complete silence the entire time. She neither affirmed nor denied, nor made any indication of her stance on what had just transpired. Minerva seemed to sense that, and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly with something like sadness.
But to Subaru in this moment, the fluctuations of their emotions didn't matter at all.
"Disgusting... doesn't deserve it...?"
Latching onto Minerva's parting words, Subaru's shoulders trembled slightly as he looked down. The trembling grew, and when he finally raised his head, Subaru was laughing.
It was so absurd that he couldn't help it.
"What's that supposed to mean!? Disgusting, nothing — why do you think I started doing things this way!? Why do you think I developed this twisted way of thinking!? My methods, my way of thinking — it's the natural result given what little I have! Isn't it!?"
"———"
"It's because of you! You're the one who made me like this!"
Subaru hurled his fury at Satella, who was trying to escape responsibility through silence.
By accepting Return by Death, by exploiting its特性 to overcome one obstacle after another, by crashing into hardship after hardship, Subaru had come this far.
Every time he carved the despair of "death" into his soul, he transformed it into the strength to take the next step. That was how Natsuki Subaru had run this far.
And it was that battle-scarred experience that had led him to this conclusion.
"The pain and suffering — all of it, every last bit, is mine and mine alone! Just mine, and that's a blessing beyond measure! As long as I grit my teeth, as long as I choke down every ounce of rage and grief and everything else, no matter how much it hurts or how many times I die, I won't let anyone else feel so much as the tip of that despair's finger! From start to finish, it's just me getting hurt, and that's fine! What's wrong with that!?"
Through repeating Return by Death, he could find the optimal path through trial and error. That was exactly what Echidna had said. He couldn't accept her invitation to indulge her curiosity through that very process, but he could do the same thing on his own.
Unlike Echidna, who took pointless detours, Subaru — pouring his heart and soul into finding the best path — would surely need far fewer retries than going with Echidna. Of course, even so, the sheer number would be staggering. But it would still be worth trying.
If, beyond the reach of his scarred, outstretched hand, there existed a future where no one had to be hurt.
"I said I didn't understand, that I'd had enough. Yeah, sorry, I'm sorry about that. There wasn't a shred of dishonesty in those feelings, but I was also grateful to you. I'd forgotten that. Forgot that too — I was just about the worst kind of ingrate."
"———"
"There's only one thing I'm grateful to you for. Thank you for giving me Return by Death. For this alone, I'm grateful. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to protect a single thing I cared about. From now on too, I'll keep relying on this power. So for this one thing, thank you."
He already had the resolve to keep challenging the trial and error.
The option of fleeing from the fate standing before him had died out long ago.
From the moment she had rejected his words — take my hand, let's escape together — that option was gone.
There was no running. There was only fighting on. He had sworn it. She expected it of Subaru. She believed in it — that Subaru wouldn't run, that he would keep fighting.
The man who kept standing back up — that was Subaru. Otherwise, he could never continue to be
"So I'm thanking you for this power alone. Thanks to it, even someone like me, with nothing to offer, can face a hopeless situation..."
"Don't cry."
"...a situation..."
As Subaru was pouring out the heat building inside him in a torrent of words, Satella broke the silence with a murmur.
That much reached his ears, and Subaru's momentum faltered. His face stiff. He asked her to repeat what she had just said.
What had she said just now? As if it were something he didn't want to hear.
As Subaru held his breath, Satella, after a brief silence, spoke once more.
"Don't cry. Don't be hurt. Don't suffer. Don't make that sad face."
As if pleading, Satella whispered those words to Subaru.
The content of that plea made Subaru's heart tremble with raw emotion. It was rage, shock, and every indescribable feeling all mangled together.
"You... you're the one who..."
The maelstrom of emotion was too vast for him to know what words to put in his mouth.
His throat constricted with emotion, and Subaru opened and closed his mouth, staring at Satella in disbelief.
Subaru's turmoil only deepened as Satella pressed on.
"So, love yourself."
"...Is that all it comes down to in the end? You keep twisting my emotions like this, and in the end it's always just to make me love you!"
"No."
Subaru's trembling words were cut off as Satella shook her head.
Her expression was still invisible. But Subaru could feel, through sheer instinct, how Satella — on the other side of that curtain of darkness — was looking at him.
— Right now, Satella was gazing at Subaru with...
"Don't you think... you deserve to be loved?"
...surely, a tender, compassionate face.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ It took a considerable amount of time for the meaning of her words to sink in and permeate his brain.
And the moment those words finally settled into his mind, what seized Subaru's heart was a shapeless, shuddering wave of emotion.
"What... are you saying..."
"Don't be hurt. Cherish yourself more."
"You're the one who gave me Return by Death. You're the one who gave me this power that lets me keep moving forward!"
"I love you. That's why you should love yourself too — and protect yourself."
"If I take this method away from myself out of self-pity — then what the hell do I have left!?"
As if rejecting Satella's endless whispered love, Subaru pressed his hand to his own chest and shouted: "You know it too, don't you!? I have no power! No wisdom, no skill, nothing special at all! The only thing I have is what you gave me — Return by Death! So the only thing I can pay with is my life!"
"Don't be sad."
"I've already accepted the pain and suffering and the likelihood of dying. I'm fine with that — I am fine with that! If I'm the only one who has to suffer, then I'm fine with that!"
"Don't suffer."
"If I'm the one who gets hurt more than anyone, the one who experiences more than anyone, if I can stand at the front and protect everyone — then nobody else has to go through any of it! I'm not asking for anything more than that!"
"Don't cry."
"My fate doesn't matter! Someone like me — nobody's going to care what happens to me! No matter how broken I become, if everyone can reach the future safely, then that's..."
Because if Subaru didn't keep taking wounds at the very forefront — "...if everyone can reach that future without losing a single person, then that's..."
...because otherwise, he might lose someone irretrievably once again.
"...Rem is gone."
"———"
"If I'd been smarter, if I'd been stronger, if I'd been less sparing of myself, if I'd been the first one out there putting my body on the line... it could have been avoided."
That loss, that despair — it had kept Natsuki Subaru bound tight.
That was why Subaru had chosen now to fight on alone, without asking anyone for help. He believed it was the right thing to do.
"I have to believe it... believe that there's some way to make it work... believe that Return by Death can fix everything..."
That if he could just use it properly, he wouldn't lose anything.
If he didn't believe that, keep telling himself that, convince himself that the pain was necessary — how could he possibly face that despair again?
"I don't want to lose anyone else the way I lost Rem — !"
Clutching his head, Subaru rejected every sound reaching his ears and let out a scream.
Before he knew it, he had collapsed to the ground. Forgetting even to put distance between himself and Satella, he retreated into his own shell, shrinking down as he denied that sweet whisper.
It was poison. Lethal poison. For Subaru, Satella's very existence was a poison that dissolved his will.
The heart that had sworn it would not break — cracked.
And through those cracks, the cold despair poured in, reviving the sense of loss from that day, battering Subaru's heart without mercy.
"...Not like a child, that..."
A voice murmured softly.
Seeing Subaru clutching his head, screaming, insisting he didn't want it, shouldering everything alone — seeing him like that, the Witch who had been silent until now murmured a single observation.
"Crying, raging, rejecting, shouldering it all alone... it's almost as if..."
"———"
"As if you were a lonely child."
With a voice tinged with pity,
The Witches who remained silent at Sekhmet's words made no attempt to deny it.
Her words — the words of the current Witch of Sloth — hit far too close to the mark.
Subaru's appearance in that moment was truly, heartbreakingly pitiful — like a weak, small child.