—Hadn't she wrung every last drop of blood and tears from his body this time?
Just how long was he supposed to weep?
Just how much was he supposed to suffer?
Had he truly done something so unforgivable? What was it about his actions that grated so badly? Why wouldn't they just put him out of his misery in one clean stroke?
He was wounded. His heart was trampled. The person precious to him was taken. He couldn't save those he needed to protect. And the life of the one person he cherished most was snuffed out wretchedly by his own hand.
—What exactly was this punishment meant for?
"I... was..."
He was wrong. He'd been deluded. He'd let it go to his head.
He'd taken the
All of that accumulated into the catastrophe before his eyes now.
Subaru slumped to the floor,
How much time had passed since Emilia—since that life had been lost? When he touched her, her body had long since gone cold. The fresh blood she had spewed at him had lost all its warmth and chilled to the core.
Her soft limbs had begun to stiffen everywhere, and the sight drove into Subaru the understanding that what lay before him was a reality beyond denial.
Even so, even understanding that, no reason for his emotions to stir surfaced.
He was just tired now. Hadn't he suffered enough? How many people in this world had endured as much pain as Subaru?
Compared to who he'd been before, he'd fought unimaginably hard and tried everything in his power to fix things. And yet the worst still couldn't be averted, and catastrophe mocked him at every turn.
If everything he did was futile, meaningless, pointless, then maybe it was fine to just end it here— "You look like you're about to say something along the lines of 'I'm the most unfortunate person in the world.'"
It rang out as a voice dripping with undisguised contempt, looking down on the shell-shocked Subaru.
In a room where no one else should have been, Subaru raised his head at the phantom-like sound and turned his gaze toward the entrance.
With an agonizingly slow turn of the head, his vision finally focused, and there a single girl stood, watching Subaru.
She was a beautiful girl with long cream-colored hair split into two large curls, wearing an extravagant dress that looked like something a Western porcelain doll would wear.
She was also the last person living in this mansion whom Subaru had never once seen during the endless repeating days, despite her supposedly being there all along.
"
"It seems your vacant face has become even more vacant since the last time I saw you, I suppose."
The girl—Beatrice—spat the cutting remark, crossed her slender arms, and tilted her chin up slightly as she surveyed the carnage. Taking in the blood-soaked floor, Subaru, and Emilia sinking in a sea of blood, she said: "You certainly made quite the spectacle of yourself, I suppose."
She evaluated the whole scene with startling nonchalance, a sigh mixed into her words.
Emilia, who would never move again. Subaru, clutching her lifelessly with empty eyes. And Beatrice could look at that and come up with nothing more than that kind of remark?
Not even that faint spark of resentment could well up in Subaru now.
He was the one who had created this atrocity. He had no standing to be driven by righteous fury, and surrendering to passionate emotion would only deepen his exhaustion.
In that sense, Beatrice's current attitude—refusing to confront him with bloodshot eyes—was actually a relief. It would have been even better if she'd simply left him to wither alone, but still.
"Nii-chan... he can't come out, can he?"
As she spoke, the girl stepped close and crouched down beside him. When she lowered herself like that, being small of stature, her eye level was roughly the same as Subaru's while he sat.
The girl looked at the immobile Subaru with his vacant expression, then pierced his profile with her unwavering gaze of contempt.
"Even if I told you to search, you probably wouldn't, I suppose. ...It's because your hands would get dirty, isn't it really."
She muttered in a small, reluctant voice, then Beatrice reached out toward Emilia, who lay face up. Subaru dazedly wondered whether she would do something for the dead Emilia, but her small hand slipped smoothly into Emilia's breast pocket.
Rustling through it, her hand and movements carried no trace of anything magical. She was truly just rummaging through Emilia's body.
There was something indescribably unpleasant about that, and Subaru opened his mouth to rebuke her. But his parched lips only managed a raspy breath, refusing to form coherent words. And while Subaru struggled in vain, "There it is, I suppose."
Beatrice withdrew her hand from the clothing and held her palm upward. On it rested a crystal glowing green. He recognized it—it was one of the crystal stones Emilia had carried.
It was the vessel that her contracted spirit,
That crystal was now— "It's broken..."
"The one who broke it looks rather pale about it... though I suppose you don't have much awareness of that, I suppose."
Beatrice looked at the crystal, split cleanly in two on her palm, with a sorrowful expression, then let it drop to the floor. It landed with a light clatter and sank into the blood on the floor. The shimmering green light was stained crimson and, before long, its dim glow faded away entirely.
—What had become of the broken crystal and the spirit that should have been inside it?
That spirit who called the girl sleeping in Subaru's arms right now his "daughter," who had loved her more than anyone—what had become of him? What was he thinking?
"There's no need to worry. Nii-chan won't die, I suppose. He lost his vessel, so it will just take a little time for him to reach this place. —The window you have isn't very large, I suppose."
Answering Subaru's unspoken question as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, Beatrice flicked her long hair over her back. Watching her vertical curls bounce, Subaru felt a measure of relief.
If that spirit was alive—if he was going to come to this place—then surely— "...Do you have... anything you want to say?"
Subaru exhaled with a wildly out-of-place sense of relief. Beatrice, maintaining the same eye level as him, asked in a gentle voice.
That voice's composure made Subaru question whether she felt nothing at all about this situation. But he had no will to raise that question.
Mumbling, what Subaru's mouth produced was not an inquiry toward the incomprehensible Beatrice, but something far more purely selfish: "Kill me."
It was words born of leaning on her kindness, clinging to it, and then dismissing her goodwill.
He wanted to die right now.
He was sick of everything. Exhausted by all things. Everyone and everything had turned its back on him. There was no more hope in this world.
He simply wanted to die. Die and put an end to everything. Even if he could die and start over, he'd surely meet the same end again. Even if he could start over, or couldn't, at the very least he didn't want to exist in this world anymore.
Emilia was dead.
So— "Kill me..."
Only an ending could save Subaru now.
If there was nothing left to hate about the things he should hate, and nothing left to act for the things he wanted to protect—not even excuses to keep his own heart alive— Then please, if his plea could be granted, just peck away at this worthless life.
Tread upon the sanctity of the lives he entangled, render his feelings meaningless, burn this pitiful, wretched self—abandoned by everything—to ash and obliterate it.
The girl before him, wielding supernatural power, should have been capable of that.
She had always hated Subaru, and if she was willing to grant his wish, she would surely deliver a miserable end befitting his foolishness.
Subaru Natsuki, that foolish human, hadn't changed a whit after nine deaths.
This would be the tenth. A nice round number. Gods, Buddhas, goddesses, witches—it was as good a time as any for them all to give up on him. So— "Kill me. Here."
Clutching Emilia's corpse, Subaru begged Beatrice.
If this was going to be the end, he wanted to finish it while still holding her body. Pure selfishness to the last—wishing only for his own selfish desires to be fulfilled, having brought about the worst outcome through sheer self-centeredness.
He tightened the arms embracing her, closed his eyes, and waited for death.
After that, perhaps a stretch of silence fell.
Then, suddenly, a voice reached the one who had selfishly sunk into a calm respite all his own.
"...I suppose."
"H—Huh?"
It was small, weak, a hoarse voice.
Involuntarily, Subaru opened his eyes and looked up at the girl. Beatrice, who had been crouching beside him, had risen to her feet and was looking down at him.
Hugging her own small body with both arms, she stood there as though feeling the cold— "For Betty to kill you... that's far too cruel, I suppose..."
She said it with an expression and voice on the verge of tears, and Subaru was completely bewildered.
He blinked. Again and again. Waiting for the expression of the girl standing beside him to change. But no matter how many times he repeated it, the deep sorrow etched into her face remained.
It was different from any expression of hers that Subaru knew.
After all, she had always hated him. She was always cold. Occasionally there was a glimpse of a softhearted side that couldn't simply dismiss his feelings—but by and large, he'd thought of her as someone who could be thoroughly merciless.
He hadn't expected her to simply accept the request—surely refusal was possible—but what came back was supposed to be delivered with contempt and mockery.
"You understand nothing... you don't understand anything at all, I suppose..."
He'd never expected that asking her to kill him would be met with this kind of sorrowful rejection.
"B-Beatrice...?"
"I won't grant a single one of your wishes, I suppose. If you want to die, then go ahead and die however you like on your own... Betty wants no part of it."
Beatrice shook her head, closed both eyes, and killed her expression. The tears that welled up didn't fall, but were hidden deep in her pupils. Then, as the girl raised her arm— "The scenery—!?"
It began to distort.
Subaru saw the space around him warp and cracks run through it. It seemed like a premonition of the world collapsing, and driven by a sense of despair, he involuntarily tightened his hold on the cold limbs in his arms.
Looking down at that, Beatrice murmured in a voice emptied of warmth: "Worst of all..."
"Even if everything else is already ruined, I can't have you staying here, I suppose. —At the very least, allow me to protect this mansion."
"What are you—no, Beatrice, you..."
"—Betty is nothing like Roswaal. Even if it meant gaining a future, I don't want any of it—pain, hardship, suffering, sorrow, terror. None of it, I suppose."
To questions that weren't really questions came answers that weren't really answers.
Yet Subaru could not form words for the piercing emotion embedded in her words, and the twisted space seized his body in its contortion. —There was no pain.
"At least... die somewhere Betty can't see, I suppose."
That final murmur pretended to be heartless, but it was accompanied by a profoundly lonely smile.
He couldn't say anything. He couldn't understand anything. Only one thing came through.
—Beatrice was grieving Subaru's decision. His actions. His pain.
The distortion reached its limit, and the crumpled space burst apart and vanished.
A momentary dissonance, like visual noise racing across his vision, swept through the world, and in the next instant, no trace of atmospheric distortion remained anywhere.
All that was left was the hollow where Subaru and Emilia had been, scooped out along with the blood-soaked floor.
Beatrice stood where they had been, pressed a hand wearily to her forehead, and covered her eyes with that hand, hiding herself from the world.
"—Mother... how much longer must Betty..."
———— —What caught Subaru as he was hurled through the rift in space was a mound of layered, moss-covered vegetation.
"Oof!"
Without preamble, he face-planted into it, tasted grass in his mouth, and lifted his head. He frantically spat out dirt, leaves, and a bug snagged on his front teeth.
"Ghk—hu—ahh... where... is this...?"
Brushing off the revulsion of insects crawling on his cheeks, Subaru looked around with a furrowed brow.
What filled his vision was a dim grove of trees, and after turning his head fully around, there was no sign of the tree line breaking. In other words— "A forest... a forest at night..."
Fortunately, the moonlight wasn't obstructed, so he could barely make out his surroundings.
The wind brushing the leaves, the chorus of insects—this was unmistakably a midnight forest. Thinking that far, Subaru realized it had taken him a full half-day to wake up in the mansion.
At the same time— "So... spatial teleportation? Is that the right way to think about it?"
The atmosphere had warped, cracks had formed, and he'd been thrown through them into the forest.
Unless this was some hidden stage within the mansion itself, there was no issue in assuming he'd been transported somewhere far away. If Beatrice was the one who did it, she had the power to connect the door of her library to whatever room she pleased, after all.
But even understanding that, her true intentions remained a mystery.
She had rejected Subaru's plea to kill him, then forcibly launched him out of the mansion through spatial teleportation. —Even now, that expression on the verge of tears wouldn't leave his mind.
He'd assumed that if she refused, she'd simply leave him to rot because she couldn't bear to look at him. Yet she had looked at him as though she were... disappointed.
"That would mean... almost like..."
She had been... expecting something from him?
How absurdly selfish and self-centered a thought—Subaru shook his head and denied it.
He'd already accepted, understood, that he was a disease-ridden wretch incapable of doing anything. The world was inexorably merciless, and every person he'd tried to save met a wretched end.
Knowing that and still unable to stop it—what could anyone possibly expect of Subaru?
He couldn't even expect anything of himself, so there was no way anyone else would expect anything of him.
To seek that from someone who was supposed to hate him was beyond arrogance.
"I'm hopeless... I really am..."
He forced a hollow grin and slowly pushed himself to his knees. That was when, after struggling against legs that wouldn't cooperate, he belatedly realized— —On his knees, just as before in the mansion, lay Emilia's corpse.
"Emilia..."
In the dark world, her face was dimly lit by moonlight, pale as the moon itself.
Her death expression held neither agony nor peace—only bewilderment, as though she had no idea what had happened. She had been alive, in a world where time stood still, and her heart had been crushed without warning. There was doubt whether she'd even had time to register pain.
But even if she hadn't felt pain, that was no comfort.
Subaru didn't have much experience dying instantly, but he had accumulated nine times as many deaths as the average person. He didn't want to believe any of those deaths had been peaceful, nor did he think death could be a kind of salvation—except for his current self, perhaps.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm truly... sorry."
As he looked down at her face, droplets of water fell upon her white cheek.
Tears he thought had dried up surged forth once more, and the unending torment began pressing down on Subaru once again.
He could hear voices. Voices condemning him. Every person he'd ever met, hurling cold, furious invective at him.
Among them were a silver-haired girl and a blue-haired girl— "Someone... anyone will do..."
—Kill me.
Bathing in the inextinguishable voices of condemnation, Subaru stood with Emilia cradled in both arms.
He stepped through the grass, broke through branches, and began walking slowly through the nighttime forest.
From somewhere far away, a beast's howl echoed.
Right now, he felt he could welcome an encounter with that black horned demon dog with a smile. He wanted them to rip apart his flesh and blood, devour his mana, scatter everything, and kill him.
A clean death like Emilia's was far too good for him in his current state.
He wanted to be slaughtered so brutally that his human form, his dignity, everything, was trampled to nothing.
Because if not—if Subaru Natsuki wasn't destroyed that way—then there was no salvation for him.
———— As he walked through the forest, Subaru noticed something.
"This... if I cross this gully, and then..."
He descended a slope carefully, using the protruding roots like steps to traverse it. The handicap of having neither arm free drained his stamina faster than expected, yet for some reason he felt no fatigue.
His body, pushed past the limits of exhaustion, had gone beyond screaming. His frayed spirit had honed his concentration to a razor's edge. The nighttime traversal using only his lower body flowed without interruption, and his vision—which should have been unable to see even a few meters ahead—was startlingly clear, as though light had pierced through the dark.
That was partly because his body was burning with the last embers before flame-out— But more than that, it was simple: this was a path he recognized.
It was— "Yeah... they're here."
A smile of irrational relief—the kind only someone with blood caked on them and a mind ground down could muster—crossed his lips.
It was a maddening grin that would make anyone on the receiving end cringe and choose to back away. But the ones it was directed at were beings long accustomed to that madness.
—Surrounding Subaru was a group wrapped in black garments that merged with the darkness.
They emerged like phantoms from the forest shadows, surrounding him without voice, without sound, their very presence thinned to almost nothing, staring fixedly at Subaru.
Bathed in gazes devoid of hostility, goodwill, malice, or kindness—devoid of anything that could be called intent—Subaru recalled the very first world in which he'd encountered them.
Yes, back then— "It's the same..."
As if echoing the memory he'd just recalled, the black-clad figures bowed their heads in unison.
It was the first time these beings, who possessed no will to speak of, showed Subaru "respect."
Subaru didn't know the finer details of why they directed that emotion toward him. What was clear was that they were devotees of the
"Move."
There had been so many things he wanted to know, he thought. Before he'd resigned himself to all of this, there had been countless questions he'd wanted to press. But now even that kind of sentiment was a useless indulgence.
At Subaru's terse command, the black-clad figures obeyed without protest, retreating smoothly and sinking into the darkness.
Once they vanished from sight, it felt as though even more silence flooded a world that had already been devoid of sound.
Before he knew it, he could hear neither insects nor wind.
As though all living things detested their presence entirely. In previous worlds too, he couldn't recall hearing a single insect when the Witch Cult appeared.
Or perhaps it meant that the Witch Cult and Subaru sharing the same space was something abhorrent. —That evaluation seemed more fitting for who he was now.
An obstacle that was hardly an obstacle had been removed, but it gave Subaru certainty.
The hesitation that had once lingered faintly in his steps was completely gone. He crossed the gully, stepped onto the soil, and his progress did not stop.
Before long, he cut through the forest and arrived at a stretch of rocky cliffs.
—There, a cave was blocked by a massive boulder, and "Welcome, beloved Apostle."
A gaunt man stood there, wearing the same deranged grin as Subaru's own kin.
———— "Oh my, oh my? And more, and more, and more, and more—could it be, could it be, could it be, that what you hold in those arms is a half-elf girl, perhaps?"
Treading through the grass, Petelgeuse peered at Emilia in Subaru's arms and tilted his head. Holding his neck at an angle level with the ground, he leered with his tongue lolling, saliva dripping.
"To think you would perish before even receiving our trials... what misfortune! What tragedy! Ahh! And—how—could—you—be so—diligent! To snuff out the life of a half-elf before we even had to act!"
He flailed his arms, dramatizing Emilia's death with over-the-top theatrics.
Before Subaru knew it, believers had crawled out of the cave one after another, surrounding the area, all straining their ears to drink in Petelgeuse's madness.
He was insane.
"I'm... diligent...?"
"Yes! That's right! Diligent! Ah, how splendid! Unlike us, who are slow to judge, dull of wits, and lacking in the resolve to act—you were the first to embody the Witch's will!"
Hearing Subaru's raspy murmur, Petelgeuse's face lit up with delight. He rushed to Subaru's side, dropped smoothly to his knees, and slammed both palms onto the dirt. "In comparison!" he screamed.
"How slow, how foolish, how lacking my own fingertips are! Ahh! Forgive me! For my inadequacy in repaying the love you bestow! For my faithlessness in this body of indolence! For this deficit that cannot match the love you grant! Please—please forgive me...!"
Petelgeuse wept freely, slamming his own arms against the rock face until wounds opened.
His violent self-harm sent blood scattering. Even when the skin split on his wrists and bone became visible, his rampage did not stop. The believers around him, far from trying to intervene, followed his lead and knelt, each expressing their devotion in their own way toward the being they worshipped.
Even watching the madness of these lunatics, Subaru felt nothing.
Had it been before—had it been Subaru of just one day ago—he would have thrown aside all pretense and lunged to take the life of Petelgeuse before him.
But now, even seeing the man he should have hated standing right there, no emotion was produced, and his wish did not change.
"Ah, what can I do for you—Subaru—who accomplished the trial in place of this inadequate me, who could not repay that beloved one's feelings? Tell me. What can I do to prove through love that I am not indolent?"
"Kill me."
To Petelgeuse, who pressed close with tears streaming and voice pleading, Subaru spoke calmly.
Thrown that abrupt statement, even Petelgeuse for once showed an expression of shock— "Is that all you wish?"
—but he didn't let it show. Without a heartbeat's pause, he shoved Subaru away.
Planting his feet, Subaru staggered back. Petelgeuse watched him with a look of ecstasy and declared: "Ah, how splendid—how truly, truly, truly splendid! A devotee who has completed the trial, seeking salvation—how diligent of me to bring him salvation and love at once! Ah, I need not be indolent! Thanks be to you! Love be to my diligence!"
Without the slightest question about Subaru's resolute answer, without a shred of remorse for his own actions, and without wavering against any principle of this world, Petelgeuse unleashed his killing intent.
Looking at the madman, Subaru felt something stir inside and closed his eyes.
—At the very least, in this moment, Subaru's feelings would be repaid. So— "That said, however..."
Sensing the approaching killing intent on his skin, Subaru heard Petelgeuse murmur something.
"To be unable to surmount a single trial—and not only that, to be unable to face even one of the sins—and yet to have aspired to greatness, only to trip at the very first stone..."
And then— "—Ah, you are 'Sloth,' aren't you!"
—Because that remark was an insult to Emilia's death.
The instant Subaru opened his eyes, he saw a black mist in the shape of a palm surging toward his face.
For a split second, the memory of past pain flashed through his mind and his blood ran cold. But there was one thing different from back then. His body moved. His legs moved. His arms moved. So he could dodge.
He swayed and slipped past the approaching black palm, and still clutching Emilia, Subaru leaped sideways. The overshooting palm vanished as though confused, and Subaru, tracking it with his eyes, exhaled roughly. Then— "...Aren't you looking at my Invisible Providence right now?"
Trembling, Petelgeuse forced open his gleaming eyes and stared at Subaru.
He stuck his skeletal fingers into his mouth, crushing them one by one between his teeth. With each finger, flesh burst and bone cracked in a sickening sound. Blood spitting everywhere, he chewed on the nail fragments and bone shards remaining in his mouth, and turned bloodshot eyes on Subaru.
In them blazed unmistakable killing intent—utterly distinct from the fanatical emotion that had driven him before. What that gaze held was, purely and simply, killing intent born of hatred for the very existence of Subaru.
—In that instant, black arms erupted from behind Petelgeuse like a fountain.
Petelgeuse's shadow split and multiplied, the resulting palms numbering seven. They were eerily similar to the cursed arms that appeared when Subaru tried to reveal "Return by Death," and the sight sent a jolt of terror down his spine.
But— "I can see them..."
There was nothing he couldn't dodge.
The speed of the black arms was never particularly fast. Their reach and the raw strength to tear a human body apart were fearsome, yes—but what was truly terrifying was the "invisible" aspect.
And in Subaru's current state—burning his life down to the final ember, his body operating far beyond normal parameters—that aspect was useless. They couldn't reach him.
"Why—why—why—whywhywhywhywhywhywhy—can you dodge them!? You can see them!? This is my... my... alone...!!"
"The only thing I won't let you do is kill me."
Weaving through the palms, Subaru dodged the reaching fingertips by leaping forward. He immediately crouched to evade the arms closing in from both sides, and rolled into Petelgeuse's close range.
He welcomed with dark pleasure how the madman's expression twisted into shock.
—He remembered. He'd wanted to kill this man.
"Guah!"
Leaping upward with all the momentum he could muster, Subaru drove his forehead into Petelgeuse's nose. The unprotected Petelgeuse was sent reeling, blood spraying everywhere. Subaru, feeling a sharp pain in his own forehead, flew backward.
In his vision, the palms had lost their precision and were flailing wildly. Blood dripping from his forehead painted his sight red. His front teeth had connected—his forehead must have been split. The massive bleeding filled his vision, and for an instant his right eye went blind.
—In that opening, Subaru's body was seized by the foot and hurled as a pivot.
The moment he was about to be slammed into a massive tree, Subaru didn't curl up to protect himself—he wrapped his arms tighter around Emilia's body instead.
Not clinging in desperation. Protecting.
"Guh!"
The full force of the impact struck his back, and he felt his spine compress.
Multiple ribs snapped simultaneously. Several wounds that had only just begun to close burst open all at once, and a chorus of agony erupted as Subaru convulsed on the ground like an insect.
"How pathetic! Isn't that pathetic!? Ahh, how wonderful—truly wonderful. If I were to remain 'Sloth' in this state, my actions would be rendered meaningless. Ahh, as expected—I must remain diligent, devoted to love..."
"Shut... your mouth... moron..."
Subaru hurled the insult at the madman who had been about to crow over his own superiority.
His breathing sounded wrong. He could feel severe damage to his lungs. The pain in his abdomen vied for attention, each wound screaming louder than the next, and his consciousness flickered white.
Even so, Subaru grinned through the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"What love, idiot. The love you were supposed to have received... I can see it too, y'know. ...If you're getting cheated on, sucks to be you."
"What are you... saying—saying—saying—saying—saying—saying—saying—my brain—my brain is sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-shaking!"
Froth bubbled from the corners of his lips as Petelgeuse raged.
He strode to Subaru's side, kicked Emilia—the one Subaru had been cradling in his arms—and sent her corpse flying away from him with a vicious blow.
His fingers lacked the strength to hold on, and Subaru couldn't grip Emilia as she was kicked free.
Emilia rolled and came to a stop against the roots of a tree. Glancing at her body, Petelgeuse let out a vicious laugh.
"I will not permit the mockery of my love! Ahh, I've decided—I've decided! The half-elf who was to receive the trial has perished, but the sin of those who sheltered and elevated that half-elf still remains!"
He screamed, vomiting nothing but spiteful rage, and trampled Subaru. He drove his heel through the black palm into Subaru's body, and another black hand seized the neck of Subaru—who had been about to scream—asphyxiating him.
Choked off, his neck wrenched upward by a force that threatened to tear it free, his spine already in ruins, Subaru couldn't even produce a sound.
That sight seemed to give Petelgeuse some small measure of satisfaction.
"First, I shall exterminate every last one of the mansion's associates. Then I shall offer the lives of the villagers nearby! Nothing shall remain! Sloth is the hallmark of the negligent! I and my fingertips shall, prioritizing diligence, seize everything and deliver judgment! —The highway blockade is already complete! No one shall cross the fog to interfere!"
He raved in a frenzy, saliva flying, as he roared at Subaru.
Then he said "Before that," and blew his foul breath into Subaru's face.
"You were holding that quite tenderly, it seemed... but I wonder—how beautifully would that half-elf's body sing if I were to destroy it?"
Petelgeuse tilted his head, curled his lips, and let his eyes gleam with morbid curiosity. Five additional arms rose from behind him—distinct from the one choking Subaru's neck—and each moved independently toward Emilia's corpse.
Each hand seized a limb, and then her neck— "Can you see? Do you understand what is about to happen?"
"...N-No..."
The terror born of seeing it all was what struck Subaru now.
When he couldn't see—when those black arms had done what they did to Rem's body—every detail was recalled with horrifying clarity. And now, those arms were directed at Emilia's corpse.
Subaru's view of life and death was a dry one. A body that had lost its soul was nothing but a lump of flesh. There was no possibility of a soul lingering in it. There was no heaven, no hell—death meant only darkness waited.
He'd lived with that arid view of death, and after coming to this world, his belief hadn't changed.
He regretted that now.
Even if her soul didn't dwell in that body, that body was still Emilia. For it to be violated—the soul would still scream in anguish.
But right now, Subaru had no power to stop it, and Petelgeuse's mad grin deepened further still.
—*'What are you doing?'* The voice descended suddenly from the sky, falling upon the eardrums of everyone present.
"—!"
Petelgeuse's expression shifted, his gaze sweeping in search of the voice's origin.
The voice carried an overwhelming, authoritarian force and a sharpened fury that froze the blood.
Petelgeuse's searching gaze found it at last.
A moment later, Subaru too, still enduring the pressure on his throat, saw it through blurred vision.
—*'I'll say it again.'* A gray-furred cat stood there, trailing behind it an apocalyptic quantity of icicles that seemed to cover the entire sky.
Its ragged breath steamed white, and a cold that froze the very world swept through the forest.
The kneeling black-clad figures. Petelgeuse, who had been wearing that mad grin. All lost their words.
—*'What are you doing to my daughter—mongrels?'* The beast that would dye the world white—the Beast of the End—had now come to bring about the end of the tenth world.