The cold voice's call literally froze
"————"
Standing in the entrance of the room Subaru had just turned to face,
But there was something there that defied the iron mask—the impression she rarely wore on her face, the one Subaru had come to know during their time together, however brief. There was a heat that overturned that impression with ease.
"Wh... a..."
"What are you so flustered about? Ram is asking. It's your duty to answer, Barusu—no, you."
"I, I was just..."
"Just?"
Instinctively, Subaru's brain began scrambling to find an excuse. He had to move his tongue, berate his sluggish initial reactions, and talk his way through this with desperate eloquence.
But he had been blindsided by a situation he hadn't anticipated at all, and on top of that, Subaru still hadn't processed the shock of the preceding event—Meili's body disappearing.
He had no excuse at the ready. He was in no state of mind to calmly accept what was happening before him.
All Subaru could manage was to open and closing his mouth awkwardly, desperate not to let a slip of the tongue escape.
Even if that attitude, more eloquently than any words, confirmed the suspicious nature of his actions.
"————"
At Subaru's silence, Ram's eyes narrowed. The coldness of her already absolute-zero gaze dropped further, and a hallucination assailed Subaru—that he was being exposed to a blizzard with a razor's edge.
Trembling knees—he fought to hold them steady—and Subaru came to a quiet, belated understanding.
—He'd been trapped.
Meili's body not being found, the entire discussion at dinner—it had all been a bluff.
When he'd reported the corpse missing, he'd escaped the chance to be interrogated, and Subaru had felt relief.
Despite the frantic search having turned up nothing, and despite the undeniable unnaturalness of a girl's body that had been only carelessly concealed simply not being found, Subaru had clung to the convenient truth that his bad luck had won out, postponing the seed of unease.
And the result was this pathetic scene.
Hadn't Subaru himself seen it on countless television programs?
The murderer who had devised a perfect plan, blundering at the critical moment by walking into a stakeout with the detective and police watching. The almost comic moment when the killer accidentally reveals irrefutable evidence of the crime.
Some part of Subaru had believed he would never make such a fool of himself.
The aesthetic perfection of crime—the way so many mystery-drama viewers saw the murderer who muffed the final move as laughable.
The shock of the fact that he had enacted exactly the same thing—or rather, with even less grace—was devastating.
"——A fake."
Ram's quiet murmur struck Subaru as he reeled under the weight of his own inadequacy.
That single word, and the fragile walls around Subaru's heart collapsed as if struck by a howitzer. His face went pale, his lips trembling, and Ram let out a sigh.
"No rebuttal, I see. Perhaps even you're aware of how poor your acting was. You didn't do enough research on the person you're supposed to be impersonating. There are limits to how underprepared one can be."
Without hiding the contempt in her tone, Ram laid out the grounds for her suspicion.
Called a fake, a poor imitation, accused of insufficient understanding of "Natsuki Subaru"—Subaru couldn't muster a sound. Worse, his cracked heart was being shattered further, and he was beginning to feel the sting of bleeding.
In truth, Subaru had bitten the corner of his own lip, the sharp pain drawing blood.
Fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake—.
A poor imitation of "Natsuki Subaru"—.
That thought churned a thick, black sludge in the pit of his stomach.
The vile muck filled every corner of his body, and its weight made the trembling in his knees stop. In its place, a burning sensation prickled behind his eyes, and the fuse of dark emotion was lit.
People might call it hostility, malice, ill will—or perhaps, the intent to kill.
"Anyone with even a shred of composure would catch that unnaturalness. Unless you're Julius or Anastasia... or maybe even
"...You run your mouth plenty for someone I'm supposed to just shut up and listen to."
"————"
"Calling me a fake and all that—there are limits to baseless accusations. Who do you think you are?"
"Baseless, you say."
Ram's unrelenting verbal assault drew a pained retort from Subaru.
She was, honestly, entirely right. Even if he couldn't agree with that fierce label of "good-for-nothing," there was an unbridgeable gulf between Subaru and "Natsuki Subaru."
But he couldn't admit that. If he did, there'd be no way to talk his way out.
He couldn't stop now—not halfway down this road— "Baseless or not, I'm not gonna just sit here and take it because my ears itch."
Shrugging his shoulders, twisting his cheek, glaring at Ram, Subaru spat his words out.
He dressed the truth and lies with his own sense of how brazen they were, presenting it all as though it were the plain truth of this world.
"Seriously, what's wrong with me going out for a walk at night? I was just thinking and taking a stroll when nobody was around. In a place where I couldn't sense
"—Did you really think nobody saw or heard anything?"
Cutting through Subaru's rapid-fire rambling, Ram posed a quiet question.
Her words were few, but they cut straight to the jugular.
"————"
At the question, Subaru held his breath and scrambled to decipher its true meaning.
To see, to be seen, not seen, must not be seen.
—Ram's "see"—which meaning was she reaching for? What did the word refer to?
Meili's corpse? Or Meili before she became a corpse? The foul act of concealment Subaru had committed against the corpse? Or— "Even if you believe nothing was seen by anyone, the earth dragon witnessed your suspicious actions clearly. And Ram saw it the same way."
Pressing a finger to her lip, Ram made an incongruous gesture toward Subaru.
"...What the hell are you saying?"
Not understanding the meaning of the gesture, Subaru could only return bewildered words.
But he recognized the gesture itself—it was the same one he had just made to Patrasche before leaving the spirit room.
Why it was now being mirrored here by Ram, he didn't understand— "This is the epitome of underpreparedness, 'good-for-nothing'—"
Ram's words, dripping with undisguised disappointment, told Subaru this was an ultimatum.
"————"
From Ram—who, despite her coldness, had until now maintained a posture willing to exchange words—even the intent to speak with Subaru had been snuffed out.
The instant he saw the color of those eyes, Subaru concluded there was no point in making excuses.
No matter what Subaru said, Ram no longer had ears to listen.
Which meant Subaru had no choice but to force his way through this situation.
—In that instant, rough as the method was, Subaru began calculating ways to kill Ram in his head.
"————"
He considered killing her. The resistance he felt was gone.
He had already killed one person. One more, two more—it hardly changed anything. And before that, "I" had taken countless lives.
There would be no obstacle to carrying out the "Book of the Dead" plan from here.
『—That big sister, though—』
The countless options inside Subaru collapsed with a crash, leaving only the most dangerous ones behind, when the phantom of the girl who had been silent until now interjected.
A phantom he couldn't see, yet whose presence he could feel so close it seemed she was right beside him. It embraced Subaru from behind and whispered into his ear, tempting him.
The sweet, cloying contents of that temptation were— 『—It must be because you're out of shape. Your left center of gravity, your balance is off—』
What the sweet whisper brought was the lethal flaw of that fierce, noble girl—in short, a guide on how to kill.
He was inferior in build, inferior in strength, inferior in killing experience.
With the knowledge gained from spending so long beside the漆黒の戮殺者—er, the obsidian slayer—killing a woman would be child's play.
『Step in from her left side and slam her head into the wall. That's all it takes—』
Considering the gap in their physical strength, "I" sent the appropriate advice.
All he had to do was follow it, and the girl's skull would crack, painting a vivid red flower on the stone wall.
A brilliant crimson bloom befitting a lovely girl in light pink— "——!"
Without signal, without warning, Subaru stepped in, timing his move to her blink.
With the phantom's cheering at his back, he lunged without hesitation toward Ram, who had tensed ever so slightly. Toward her right side.
And then, he would slam Ram's body into the wall— "When you run out of words, you resort to violence. How barbaric and tedious."
In a split-second exchange, just before Subaru's arm could reach, Ram's lips wove words.
Their gazes clashed, and Subaru caught his breath at the frozen depths of Ram's eyes.
"—Did you really think a weak girl like Ram would come alone to challenge a barbaric man like you?"
More pity than mockery, Ram's words were accompanied by the sound of air cracking.
In truth, it was no auditory hallucination—it was the death rattle of the atmosphere, as moisture rapidly condensed and was forcibly transmuted from gas to solid.
"Wha—!"
The sound erupted from beneath Subaru's forward foot, and a white, freezing stake of ice shot upward, violently halting his advance and pinning him in place with pain.
"Ice...?!"
Rebounding off the cold, hard impact, Subaru couldn't believe his eyes.
But the transformation didn't stop there. The ice stake that had been born wasn't just a single spike from beneath his feet—it rose again and again, transforming into a cage of ice that enclosed Subaru.
"You've gotta be kidding me... This is, no way, magic...?!"
In the span of a single second, between one blink and the next, the ice cage was complete, sealing Subaru's movements.
Gripping the ice lattice, shaking it, trying to break it—Subaru was stunned by the ice's strength. It didn't budge. No matter how hard he kicked or punched, he had zero confidence he could break it.
And with Subaru trapped inside that cage of ice— "—I wish it had all just been Ram's misunderstanding."
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ As one might expect, the way things had unfolded left Subaru gaping like a caged ape.
"————"
A joint fight between Ram and Emilia—of course.
Unlike Subaru, they had the option of cooperating. Their circumstances were different from his, where he was forced to fight alone.
From the start, the idea of facing a dangerous person one-on-one probably never even occurred to them as a possibility.
In the end, Subaru had been dancing in their palms at every turn.
"In this situation, you can't even pretend to be casual or spout baseless boasts. As a performer, you're not even second-rate—you're third-rate at best."
Ram spat the words out, glaring at Subaru in the cage, arms crossed.
Looking back, since her initial appearance, Ram hadn't moved a single step from her position. She hadn't even changed her posture.
That was simply how far superior their caliber as players was compared to Subaru.
"With acting like that, you couldn't fool anyone who wasn't in deep distress. In that case, it's obvious which of us has the strongest mental fortitude."
"That way of putting it—you're complimenting me, right? Thanks."
"...You're welcome."
Ram's response carried a faint hint of bitterness as Emilia, silver hair swaying, stepped forward.
Judging from Ram's attitude and words, the ice cage was Emilia's handiwork—one of the forms of magic she could wield.
If not for this situation, Subaru might have been moved by how the fantastical ice magic suited Emilia's ethereal beauty.
But actually being a prisoner inside the cage made it immediately obvious how powerful it was—how overwhelming the difference in strength between them truly was.
The difficulty rating of executing the "Book of the Dead" plan and the ranking of obstacles had shifted dramatically.
But before all that— "—Subaru, what were you trying to do at this hour? You were supposed to be resting in your room, weren't you?"
"That's..."
Emilia, looking worried, pressed Subaru for the truth, even now.
In her eyes was sincere concern, but at this point, Subaru could only see it as a fool's stubbornness, a hair's breadth from sheer idiocy. She was convinced that everything had a logical reason.
Subaru had his side of the story too.
There was, genuinely, a reason he'd ended up like this. But if he tried to explain something so intangible, who on earth would believe him?
"Emilia-sama, there's no point in asking. I don't expect him to answer our questions honestly. Whether he's Barusu—I have my doubts about even that."
"But Subaru is Subaru. Ram, you can see that too, can't you?"
"He's nothing more than a shoddy product that merely looks the same on the outside. That is Ram's judgment."
Perhaps siding more with Subaru's perspective, Ram corrected Emilia's hopes.
It was likely Ram who had suspected Subaru in the first place and proposed the late-night surveillance. Emilia had simply been held in reserve as backup, ready in case something went wrong.
In other words, within Ram's mind, the course of action against this person who was clearly not "Natsuki Subaru" had long been decided.
All that remained was the painful process of confirmation.
"With Emilia-sama's help, we've subdued you without incident. Perhaps a taste of pain will make you willing to tell us what we want to know?"
"Torture... You're saying you're going to torture me? It's famously not just about being sadistic—it requires specialized knowledge too, you know."
"If necessary, I will. And while I don't enjoy inflicting pain—I am good at it."
Confined to a cage barely the size of a single tatami mat, Subaru tried to put on a brave face, but Ram showed no mercy.
Her fingers were white and slender, yet her modest claim that she was "good at inflicting pain" struck Subaru as disturbingly convincing.
If he couldn't do anything, if no countermeasure came to mind, then they'd dredge the shallow bottom of his stomach and expose nothing but a meaningless, pathetic humiliation.
"—Wait. You mustn't hurt him. I won't allow it."
But it was Emilia who stopped Ram from carrying out the extreme measure. She placed herself between Subaru's cage and Ram, facing her squarely.
"...Emilia-sama, didn't you agree with Ram?"
"I agreed that he was acting strange and that we should question him. And I thought this might happen... which is exactly why I thought I needed to be here."
"Because you feared this outcome, you asked
Concealing her irritation at the disagreement, Ram pointed past Emilia at Subaru behind her. Then, with a barbed "Listen here," she continued: "This person is clearly missing points that the real Barusu should have. I've heard about what happened at the Watergate City—
"...Yes. One of the reasons we came here was to restore the people that Sin Archbishop had changed into different forms."
"In that case, couldn't the Sin Archbishop be disguised as one of us?"
"————"
"Even if it's not the Sin Archbishop himself, if someone can freely alter their appearance, then their looks can't be trusted. When their usual behavior and the feel of talking to them are this different..."
Responding to Emilia's emotional arguments with measured logic, Ram held her anger in check.
Honestly, for Subaru, it was all speculation and nothing more, but he had absolutely no material to refute it with.
And beyond that, Subaru—no, "I"—felt a visceral rejection toward the current topic.
"——!"
A flashback. White memories.
They weren't Natsuki Subaru's—they were fragments glimpsed within the Book of the Dead, memories from when "I" was still "I."
—Discipline, and what was done to "I" under that name.
Countless terrors had been carved in, but the most horrifying was when "I" was transformed into an uncountable number of "frogs."
Only one body held consciousness, yet countless fragmented selves hopped away freely in every direction, fleeing.
The terror of never being able to return, the sensation of forgetting what the original even was, the catastrophic devaluation of one's existence as a living being—at the moment restoration finally came, "I" had felt gratitude toward "Mother" from the depths of one's soul.
And at the same time, the absolute commandment never to disobey was carved deep into the soul.
"—Ugh."
Recalling that terror directly, as something happening to him now, Subaru's vision flickered.
One's shape and form—it was directly tied to one's fundamental identity. To tamper with it freely at will, to manipulate it however one pleased—that was a desecration of existence itself.
The most abominable of acts— "That's too extreme! That's not like Ram at all! Telling someone they're locked in from above like that!"
"Can you say with certainty that it isn't possible? That the man behind you isn't..."
Leaving Subaru alone in his agony—the sensation of his stomach turning inside out—the argument between Emilia and Ram continued.
But Ram's claim was like a "proof by absence." She could prove something existed, but no one could prove that something did not.
That this Natsuki Subaru was not the "Natsuki Subaru" they wanted.
When explaining that logic, the power to change one's shape was useful, easy to understand—and at the same time, for the Subaru of right now, utterly unbearable.
Overwhelmed by the clashing emotions within himself, Subaru groaned in agony— "We should make him talk right now! To find the real Barusu and where Meili is!"
"—Wha?"
At Ram's sudden, ambush-like plea, Subaru's consciousness was wrenched to a different track.
It was a bolt from the blue—an utterly unexpected statement.
"————"
Raising his head, Subaru watched Ram and Emilia, who were still arguing. He couldn't see Emilia's expression from behind, but Ram's face was perfectly clear.
In her fury-flaming eyes, he detected no scheme to trick him with lies. Her latest statement—at the very least, she had made it in earnest.
Which meant Meili's body had not been found by Ram and the others.
They had been lying in wait here solely to confront Subaru over his suspicious behavior—the fact that he couldn't play "Natsuki Subaru" convincingly.
Now he understood the source of Ram's somewhat disjointed interrogation. But at the same time, he didn't understand.
If it wasn't Ram or Emilia, then who had moved Meili's body?
Someone other than Subaru, someone other than Ram's group—a different agenda was at play— "You can't just declare someone real or fake! Because this Subaru here is..."
"—I have amnesia!!"
"Hah...?"
Gripping the ice lattice, Subaru shouted, cutting into their argument.
Hearing that shout, it was Ram whose eyes went wide, completely dumbfounded. The blow had come from a completely unexpected angle, creating a genuine blank in Ram's consciousness.
If this had been a cunning ploy designed to create exactly that opening, it would have been a masterstroke. But it wasn't. This was Subaru's genuine cry.
"——!"
Even after shouting it, Subaru himself couldn't understand why he had said it at this particular moment.
In this loop, Subaru had been hiding the fact that he had no memories, trying to pass himself off as the same person as the previous "Natsuki Subaru." That effort had paid off—no one had tried to take his life in this loop.
But while that hadn't happened, events no less shocking had been chasing and tormenting Natsuki Subaru one after another.
True, the fact that he'd hidden his amnesia had caused everything to go sideways this loop.
But even so, what good did it do to confess it now?
"At a time like this, what nonsense are you spouting...!"
In fact, the moment Subaru's stalled thoughts began moving again, Ram's expression was stained with fury.
To her, Subaru's statement was just a desperate lie—no, it didn't even rise to the level of a lie. It was mere drivel.
But for Ram, maybe it wasn't— "Ram! Subaru is saying it—he has his reasons after all!"
"You're serious, Emilia-sama!? Something like that isn't worth believing...!"
Spreading her arms wide, Emilia placed herself before Ram, taking Subaru's side.
If Subaru had thought she was merely leaping at this absurd claim out of sheer convenience, he might have given up saying anything more.
But in contrast to Ram, who cut it off immediately, Emilia stood firm— "It is worth believing! Isn't that what all our time together has been about!?"
"——!"
At Emilia's appeal, Ram's cheek stiffened slightly.
For an instant, doubt flickered in her light-red eyes. Behind that sharp mind, Subaru could see countless thoughts cycling. Then, she parted her tightly set lips— "Let's listen to Subaru's story together—"
"—What happens to Rem, then?"
"—Ah."
In that instant, Ram closed her glistening eyes, whirled her small frame around, and lunged at Emilia.
Reacting on instinct, Emilia stepped back and braced to subdue Ram. But Ram was faster—Emilia's left hand was caught in Ram's right.
"Don't get in my way!"
"Kyaa!"
As she spoke, Ram moved her feet and body with minimum joint displacement for maximum effect and hurled Emilia through the air.
Sent spinning in a casual side-flip, Emilia was surprised by the world revolving around her but immediately grasped her situation, planting her long leg to attempt a landing.
"—!"
And at the exact spot where Emilia's foot would have landed, Ram had kicked off her own shoe. Emilia stepped on it, lost her footing, and was sent sprawling to the floor on her hands.
In close combat, Ram defeated Emilia with sheer technique and sense alone, then slipped through the opening.
She thrust a slender, small rod through the ice lattice, right before Subaru's stunned eyes.
"Say you've forgotten her again. Go ahead."
"I... didn't... mean..."
"With that face, and that voice. Say it one more time that you've forgotten Rem—"
Biting down hard on her molars, Ram could be seen gathering something at the trembling tip of the rod.
An invisible force—probably what one would call mana—was accumulating before his eyes, and Subaru was struck dumb.
He couldn't find the words to stop Ram—to stop the girl before him who looked ready to cry.
Was it that "Natsuki Subaru" couldn't have done this, but "I" could?
"Stop it, Ram! Don't do it!!"
Regaining her footing, Emilia screamed, rushing to intervene.
But she was too late.
"————"
A white light flashed beyond the ice lattice, and an impact swallowed Subaru whole.
His body was thrown backward against the ice, the back of his skull striking hard.
"——!"
His head rocked, consciousness blurring.
Without even the chance to make an excuse, Natsuki Subaru's consciousness cut out there and then.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ • "—Ugh?"
A faint, feeble groan escaped as consciousness was guided toward wakefulness.
Slowly, slowly, awareness surfaced from a darkness like thick sludge. A vague, drifting sensation that gradually, gradually accelerated, took on the weight of reality, and finally— "—Uh, ah!? It hurts!?"
The instant consciousness drew near to waking, it was wrenched upward with force—like being grabbed by the scruff of the neck—and a sharp, burning pain seared through Subaru's brain.
His body jolted. Groaning in pain, Subaru opened his eyes on a hard floor.
"Ow, ow, ow—what, what the hell is this...?"
Through waves of intermittent pain, he pushed himself up and reached for his left shoulder. The instant he touched it, fierce agony burned through his brain again. His left arm wouldn't move at all.
"Is my shoulder dislocated...? I've never dislocated anything before..."
The arm dangled, refusing to respond to his will. But the slightest attempt to move it—or even touching it—sent lancing pain through him, so Subaru stood with utmost caution.
He looked around. No one was there. And this place was— "The room where I hid Meili..."
In other words, the very room where he'd last been conscious.
The proof was that Emilia's ice cage, created by magic, remained behind him. Strangely, Subaru was outside the cage. It didn't appear to have been opened, and there shouldn't have been any normal way to get out, but— "—With my shoulder, then?"
Thinking that far, Subaru connected his dislocated shoulder with his escape from the ice cage.
The gaps in the lattice were barely wide enough—impossible for an adult, but perhaps a child could squeeze through. If he'd forced it, dislocating his shoulder would have let him pass.
The question was how the unconscious Natsuki Subaru had managed to do that.
And— "—Where did Emilia and Ram go?"
Neither of them—the women who had been arguing, and nearly came to killing blows, moments ago—could be found in the room.
It was far too unnatural a situation.
—No, more than unnatural, it was terrifying.
Subaru's consciousness knocked out, an unexplained dislocated shoulder, and the absence of Emilia and Ram, who should have been here.
What exactly had happened while he was unconscious? Had something gone wrong? Subaru scanned the room—and noticed it.
"NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING"
"————"
On the wall, he'd seen those words before, carved into the stone.
Scratched roughly into the stone wall, scrawled like graffiti on a blank canvas.
The instrument had been a chunk of stone lying beside the wall—apparently a remnant of the stone block that had originally been used to conceal Meili's body.
Using that stone fragment, the words "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING" had been carved into the wall. —If that were all there was to it, it wouldn't have carried half the impact of the same words carved into his arm.
A repeat performance should have been laughable.
But, however— "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING"
"NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING" "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING"
"NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING" "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING" "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING"
"NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING" "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING" "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING" "NATSUKI SUBARU REPORTING"— "—Ugh, ah."
Covering every inch of the walls in the room—densely, pathologically, the words had been carved.
It was no wonder Subaru hadn't noticed the wrongness at first. The repetition had become so pathological, so obsessive, that it was practically an optical illusion—a pattern one might half-mistake for wallpaper.
Covering the entire room—why would anyone carve these words, so many times— "—Huhh? What the hell is this? Creepy-ass room, man. Why all this creepy decoration, huh?"
"————"
A chill ran through Subaru, and he froze at the voice behind him.
It wasn't that he'd failed to sense the presence. In fact, Subaru's consciousness had been completely consumed by the writing on the walls. He wouldn't have noticed anyone approaching.
So the shock wasn't from that.
The shock was that in that rough, dismissive voice, he recognized the tone.
It was the voice of someone he wanted to forget immediately—a hateful memory— "You, what are you doing spacing out in a place like this, fry? A lost little fry always gets eaten by the big fish. That's just the rules of the sea, you know?"
Saying that, the red-haired man like a shark grinned behind Subaru—the man who should not have been here.
He was, without question, sneering.