—The body forms.
The torn-away flesh, the ripped-off skin, the crushed bones, the fully chewed nerves, the lapped-up blood, the soul trampled by abominable hunger—returns to its original form.
Sensation reaches his fingertips, and from that starting point, Subaru's whole body jerks as though convulsing.
On the dusty, cold, hard ground he writhes in agony, and white foam spills from the corners of his mouth as groans escape him.
Pain—none. Sense of loss—none. His limbs continue from his torso, and neither his head nor its contents have suffered any physical damage. His thoughts are hazy with the fog of just having woken, but even those clear within a few seconds—the unreliable promised clarity.
And yet, Subaru's body, his consciousness, refuses to accept the reality it has returned to. That is how unspeakably horrific the events before this return were.
Who could claim to have experienced having their insides invaded from the mouth, every last intestine torn to shreds? Having the skin ripped from the whole body in a competition, the raw, dark-red muscles and pink fat underneath scraped away by rough tongues—that sensation.
His brain refused to process pain, and yet he could objectively perceive the reality of being "devoured"—a nightmare he could observe as though it were happening to someone else, despite it being his own body.
"Bu-bu-bu..."
Nausea surged upward, but all that rose from his dried stomach was yellow-tinged gastric fluid. Sourness mixed with the frothing bubbles, and Subaru continued convulsing, lying flat on his side.
As though struck by some seizure, or like a fish washed ashore, it was not Subaru's will but his soul that chose to reject reality.
Who could accept having their very existence devoured? Who could blame Subaru for his dysfunction, having returned here while fully understanding the fact that he had been eaten?
Through what karma, by whose scheme, was he made to suffer such a fate?
"————"
His consciousness flickered.
Eyes open or closed—he couldn't regain control of his own body.
His soul rejected living in reality. The soul would not even let Subaru stand before the choice, let alone choose.
Subaru's body was simply forced to tremble before "the fact of what was lost," drowning him in despair.
—Why.
If there was a concrete word inside Subaru's mind, it was only one.
—Why.
What happened? What occurred? Why did it become like that? Why was there no other way? What was he now? What must he become? What should he do from here?
—Why, why, why, why, why.
Before a proposition whose answer—and even its very question—was unknowable, the soul simply screamed.
—Why! Why! Why!
And at that wretched, stubborn refusal to give up—continuing to hurl the unanswerable question, drowning in reality, tormented by nightmares, losing sight of the path to living, asking "why."
That was precisely— "You have earned the right once more."
It was a voice like a whisper at his ear, addressing Subaru's trembling form.
A high, lilting voice. One that reached Subaru's ears but whose meaning he could not yet chew through. But it resonated, terribly, deep within Subaru's hollow interior— "I invite you—to the
In the next instant, Subaru's consciousness, which had only just returned, once again lost its sense of reality.
*** Upon a small, grassy hill, a refreshing wind—the kind that evoked summer—blew through the tall, verdant blades.
The cool breeze tossed Subaru's bangs and the green of the tall grass, swept over the hill, across the meadow, and rushed off toward the distant blue sky where white clouds danced.
He lightly touched his tickled bangs with his fingertips, squinted against the dazzling sunlight, and slowly lowered his gaze to look ahead.
Without realizing it, he had been seated in a rocking chair, like an armchair. Between them sat a small white table, and across from him—with legs crossed in an identical chair—was a girl whose hair and every inch of exposed skin were painted white, and who was dressed in mourning clothes that seemed to contradict that impression. No—perhaps "girl" was no longer the appropriate term.
"After all, she's a witch who's been lounging about for over four hundred years..."
"Catching a girl and saying such things—how bold of you. In my case, I was nineteen at the time of my death, so my appearance should be that of a young girl befitting your age."
"Dying at nineteen is quietly horrifying. And don't come sit next to me based on some evaluation that doesn't even make sense. We're not a good match or anything—I'd laugh that off and it'd make my blood boil."
"Oh my, it seems I've been turned down?"
"That's not the point. Don't underestimate me. I'm well aware that I'm the scum of the earth. Whether someone's a good match or we're on equal footing—those aren't evaluations that others hand down to me. Those are things I have to earn by rising above. And right now, I haven't achieved anything worthy of that."
Opening and closing his fists on his knees, Subaru looked up at the sky with a bitter expression and muttered.
Hearing this, the witch—
"You seem to have quite a low opinion of yourself."
"When your surroundings are that much bigger, you develop the habit of craning your neck upward when you talk. I'd like to think I've at least graduated from the pathetic state of not even noticing I'm looking up."
Looking back on who he had been, Subaru clenched his open fist.
He squeezed until the bones in his knuckles cracked, took one deep breath, and— "So... what brings this tea party invitation?"
"Nothing complicated. I am the Witch of Greed, and the embodiment of the desire for knowledge. The heart that seeks and yearns is a pleasant one for me, and when that desire is a desire to know, a lament of asking 'why'—that is the finest."
Speaking, she brought the white cup on the table to her lips.
She swallowed with an audible gulp, then offered a faint smile.
"If I had to specify the cause, I'd say you brought it upon yourself by wishing for it in a place that is attuned to my castle."
"Don't make it so complicated. ...Anyway, for now I'm not going to complain about being invited to this tea party. What I want to know is something else."
Waving off Echidna's pretentious explanation, Subaru leaned forward. He fixed his gaze on the white beauty before him, unwilling to look away.
"What happened to me?"
"Surely you understand that yourself?"
"Understanding and acceptance are two different things. I know objectively what state I was in, but that understanding doesn't connect to the state I'm in now."
"How so?"
"I was on the ground, losing my mind and foaming at the mouth, but here I'm sitting up in proper clothes, having a conversation with my head working well enough. It's only natural to assume you had a hand in it."
They exchanged light banter, but Subaru's mind was running at full capacity, trying to understand the situation.
The fact that he could think this calmly—that he had enough composure to even spare thoughts for this place called Echidna's dream world—it was only because he had that margin now that he could recognize how dangerously close to the edge his body in the real world had been. He had left behind a body suffering from a kind of shock symptom, existing here with only his mind, and he was not without his anxiety about that— "Last time I joined your tea party, I woke up in a bed, so I couldn't tell—but what about the elapsed time? No, for that matter, what about the outside world..."
Thinking that far, Subaru realized this was no place to be calmly drinking tea.
—Subaru, who had been convulsing from shock symptoms, had not been able to check the time when he had "Returned by Death."
Worse still, he hadn't even confirmed where he had been foaming at the mouth.
Tormented by regret that came far too late, Subaru kicked the chair aside and stood.
"Echidna! Get me out of here right now!"
"At a witch's tea party, it would be terribly rude to leave without even touching your tea. Perhaps you should take some time to consider what kind of being I am before you—"
"I don't have the luxury of playing along with your lectures! Right now—get me outside! While we're here, out there..."
"You went into this unprepared, failed, and now you want to walk out of here empty-handed again... Are you planning to repeat the same pain and loss?"
Subaru, unable to contain his impatience, had raised his voice at the leisurely Echidna. And then—as if dousing him with cold water—she asked in a voice stripped of all emotion.
"...Ah."
"I commend the act of striving for a desired result. Whether the result is wanted or unwanted, there is beauty in the process of trial and error to achieve it. The refusal to lose that will to challenge—that is what I find noble and precious. However."
She raised a finger at the speechless Subaru and continued, narrowing her eyes.
"If you don't even consider the results of last time, and walk the same path to arrive at the same conclusion... I would part ways with such an act of desecrating accumulated knowledge, and the one who performs it, with contempt."
"You... are..."
"For the record, to answer your question—the outside time is currently right after you overcame the first Trial in the tomb. Fortunately, the flow of time differs between here and out there. Having tea with me here shouldn't leave you too far behind."
Echidna knocked down Subaru's concerns one by one.
If he believed her words, the outside time was right after the first Trial—in other words, the restart point of "Return by Death" had not changed.
Subaru's body, abandoned at the tea party, was still lying beside
He didn't take her words at face value, but being told the facts by a third party poured at least some calming water onto his anxiety.
With that peace of mind came composure, and the next question that surfaced was— "Echidna... how much do you know?"
"What I know? As much as I know, naturally. As for what you want to know? I'd like to know everything in the world."
"Don't joke around. This is serious. For example... you said just now that this is right after the first Trial."
The first Trial—now even that phrase felt distant.
Having finished his parting with his parents in the dream world, Subaru had been greeted by Echidna in the empty school building. Through their brief exchange, he had returned to reality.
After that, a countless number of events had transpired before he arrived at his current state— "If you discount all that, then our reunion was right after we parted..."
"That's right. Of course in terms of real time, and even in subjective time with its discrepancies, the separation between you and me was quite short. Only a few minutes before we met again, by my reckoning."
"Miss me?" she said with a laugh, half-joking.
Subaru received this light banter expressionlessly, and she shrugged with a look of disappointment.
"You really don't give me the reactions I'm looking for. Having things not go the way you want is frustrating, but also oddly pleasing—it's a complicated feeling."
"I'll humor your complicated maiden heart when I have time. What I want to know is—"
"If you showed a little more joy at our quick reunion, I think my tongue would slip more freely. Well, I suppose it's only natural to be distracted. After all."
Echidna paused there.
A brief, breathless silence. During that moment, she glanced at Subaru with her black eyes. For an instant, some emotion flickered through those twin pupils—one that Subaru, in his current state, could not read.
But as if welcoming his confusion, Echidna smiled a radiant smile.
"Unlike me, for whom it was only a few minutes—for you, it was hours, no, days of separation before this reunion. That's just how it is."
*** Replaying Echidna's words in his head, Subaru chewed over and understood that they could only mean one thing.
Her tone just now, her meaningful gaze and smile—there could be no mistake in his interpretation.
She knew—the witch knew. The dregs of a future that Subaru's soul had accumulated, that should no longer exist anywhere in this world, the future he had failed to obtain.
"Why...!?"
"I'll answer your question this way: because this is my castle, and because I am the Witch of Greed. There are things I haven't shown you yet, after all."
In front of Subaru, who pressed for an answer, Echidna tilted her head and extended her right hand forward.
Light descended upon her palm, and that light took shape—birthing a single book with a pure white binding.
A book the size of a dictionary, with neither title nor any markings. Except for its color—a blinding, pristine white—its form held nothing but bad memories for Subaru.
"That's not... a 'Gospel,' is it?"
"Oh my, without even needing to look at this book, your thoughts are plain as day on your face. You look like you want to say 'you too?' Just from that alone, I can more or less surmise what you've been through out there..."
Reading Subaru's inner thoughts from his expression, Echidna gently opened the white book in her hands. Her eyes swept through it, murmuring "hmm, hmm" as she followed the text, nodding several times.
"I see, I more or less understand. There are parts I can't keep up with, but I'll supplement those by reading you directly. ...Yes, this is wonderful indeed. The sensation of filling in missing pieces, the indescribable excitement of nearing the answer. This is what makes life worth living...!"
"...You're already dead, you know."
Overwhelmed by Echidna's fervor, Subaru barely managed to get that retort out. Hearing it, Echidna twirled the tip of her white hair with her finger and pouted.
"When you throw cold water on it like that, it kills my motivation—even if it's true. In any case, let me put your anxious mind at ease. ...This book is different from the 'Gospel' you have in your memories. It doesn't record the future or optimal solutions. Just facts."
"Facts?"
"If the 'Gospel' falls under the category of prophecy, then what I hold here might be called a history book. A book whose form is never fixed—always hazy, vague, and boundless, neither any book nor all books, with the possibility of being any book or becoming any book... Four hundred years ago, the people of this world called it the 'Tome of Wisdom.' But I call it this."
"————"
"'Memories of the
A grandiose name—but one that carried power to match.
If her words were true, this book could read anything about anyone, so long as it was a thing that had already occurred in the past. As an intelligence-gathering tool, it was, needless to say, an absurdly overpowered ability.
"Of course, I don't particularly like relying on this. The content, once seen, is burned directly into one's memory as-is. A magic book that skips the process of 'learning' and rewrites it into 'having known'—for someone as curious as me, a book that skips the process of discovery is difficult to evaluate."
"If you don't need it, you could hand it over to me. I could find plenty of uses for it. In fact, with that, I might find a way to solve things—"
"If you don't want to become a vegetable, I'd advise against it."
With that, Echidna cut short Subaru's upbeat proposal, then held the white-bound "Memories of the World" up before his face.
"It may look harmless, but it's a witch's tool. An ordinary person's brain would burn out from the sheer volume of information seared into it. You'd be better off not reading it."
"Then don't hold it out to me so conspicuously, you creep!"
Learning that this was the kind of solution beyond his reach, his spirits plummeted at an equally steep angle.
He pushed the magic book back with his palm, and Echidna flicked her hand again, transforming it back into particles of light. The fact that it took up no shelf space and was convenient for storage was a matter for later. For now, Subaru was satisfied with her depth of knowledge.
With this magic book, he could indeed minimize "what he didn't know" to the absolute limit. That she chose not to use it was perhaps a witch's unique way of thinking— "But hey, now that you understand, this should go faster. Right, Echidna? The stuff about me... that about dying..."
He was about to say "Return by Death," and his throat suddenly froze.
But it was not the penalty that came with attempting to speak the Taboo—the one that brooked no resistance.
Before the frozen Subaru, Echidna simply waited for his words, her white hair swaying in the wind, silent.
The more he felt that it was an uncharacteristic, almost considerate gesture from her, the faster his pulse raced, and the heavier and slower his tongue became.
What froze Subaru's voice was a single, primal emotion—namely, fear.
"Hah... hah..."
Up to this point, Subaru had been given the opportunity to speak the forbidden word many times.
The power that dwelled within him—Return by Death.
Whether it could even be called an "Authority" was debatable, but it forcibly prevented him from conveying that fact to others. It did so through direct pain to the heart—with an irrationality and coercive power beyond resistance or endurance.
And that venomous fang had once fallen not only on Subaru but also on Emilia, when he had tried to tell her everything. He could never forget the loss and the anguish of that moment.
The rare occasions when he had wished to die, to simply disappear— He could not say "never." The regret and bitterness he had accumulated through his own stupidity... He was pitiful, he was frustrated—and still, his trembling heart feared to take the next step.
It was not the pain of his heart being crushed that he feared. Of course, the pain was terrifying. But if it was a necessary sacrifice to draw closer to the desired future, he would endure it until his voice gave out.
What Subaru feared was this: that by speaking the information here, the black fingers would reach not only him but someone else as well.
No. Subaru shook his head.
During the battle with the
When dragged into the irrational, the words he was about to confess would be interrupted, their continuation flung somewhere beyond the stopped world. And so he was never questioned about them.
He had never made anyone who sought the continuation of those vanished words into a victim of the black hand.
—With the exception of Emilia.
"————"
The memory of the silver-haired girl growing light in his arms came flooding back.
If he had to experience that loss again, this time it would be truly unbearable.
He marveled that he hadn't gone mad back then—having killed Emilia and wandering around cradling her corpse. He was amazed he hadn't broken.
That was how deeply sinful it was. That was how terrifying.
And so fear bound Subaru, and made him hesitate to speak the words here.
The one before him was the witch Echidna. Their relationship was, frankly, shallow enough that comparing it to Emilia's was presumptuous.
He even made the cold calculation that if her heart were crushed, he would not experience the same depth of despair or loss as at that moment.
Yet he still couldn't move—and that was partly because Subaru was soft, but more because the conditions were so different from before, and his anxiety about the unpredictable outcome was strong.
When someone ignorant of Return by Death was involved, the Taboo had crushed Subaru's own heart.
When he tried to confess Return by Death to someone precious to him, the Taboo had squeezed the heart of that precious person.
Then if he confessed to a being who had already seen through Return by Death from a different angle—what would be the result?
Would only Subaru suffer? Or would the black hand reach out to the being before him as well— "You should try it."
"————!?"
"The act of taking action to obtain a desired result is noble. My view on that hasn't changed. And I believe that those who take such action are the ones who have value in living."
Whether Subaru knew it or not—that the result of his hesitation might turn upon himself— No, that wasn't it.
The witch almost certainly saw through to what Subaru was worried about.
And she, the witch, knew that the outcome was unpredictable. Even so, that she could say "try it" meant that she believed with her whole heart in the conviction she had just put into words.
"You might not even have time to regret it, you know...?"
"If that happens, I suppose I'll hope you'll collapse crying before my corpse."
Facing Subaru's desperate refusal to choose, Echidna responded with a relaxed attitude to the very end.
That attitude, too, was perhaps a consideration to prevent extraneous circumstances from creeping into Subaru's decision.
It wasn't so much compassion for Subaru as her sincerity toward the result that would be obtained through that decision, he thought.
He wasn't being expected to act. He wasn't being asked.
It was simply the sight of her wanting a possibility—an answer as a possibility—that gave Subaru a push.
A way of living that held no doubt whatsoever about its own reason and significance.
He knew he could never live like that—but he felt saved by that strength, somehow.
"Echidna. I used Return by Death, and—"
And then, he spoke the Taboo word— At that moment, the world—