—Immortality.
It was one of the most enduring ideals found in every story across every age and culture—an ideal that seized upon the imagination of every living being.
To never wither, to never decay, to never be touched by the cycle of death and rebirth, to persistently continue one's own existence for all eternity. Even knowing that it defied the very laws of life, immortality was the ultimate attainment that countless beings could not help but be captivated by.
"Immortality… huh."
Subaru murmured the word aloud, repeating it softly, and almost laughed at how unreal it sounded. But his cheeks drew taut, and he could not form a proper smile.
On one hand, he wanted to dismiss the idea as absurd and laugh it off. On the other, his heart—well aware that the
"So the Witch wasn't above chasing something that mundane, huh. Immortality always struck me as something more… the kind of goal petty people cling to out of desperate attachment to their insignificant little lives."
"Whether one considers cherishing one's life petty or not is a matter of personal judgment. But at the very least, the Witch of Greed did not appear to hold a philosophical outlook when it came to her own life. She feared death as a matter of course, and took measures to overcome it. …In most cases, that would amount to nothing more than a pipe dream, cut short by insufficient power and ability."
"The trouble is,
Subaru looked down at Pico sitting beside him and bit his lip, caught by a nameless emotion.
Pico, gazed upon from above, showed no reaction to Subaru's stare. She simply sat in standby, as if silently waiting for some word to be directed at her.
Watching that figure, Subaru let out a sigh of understanding.
"Right. So when you say there's nothing inside, that means… there's no personality, right?"
"A puppet-like state. Truly, a perfectly prepared empty vessel. All that remained was to fill it with what she desired, and the wish would have been fulfilled."
"But could it really work like that? I mean, I don't understand the theory in detail, but I can roughly picture what she was trying to do."
Downloading her own memories and knowledge into an empty body and overwriting it.
If this were some kind of data transfer, Subaru probably wouldn't have shown such visceral disgust. But what they were discussing now was nothing less than a person's entire personality as a human being. Moreover, to Subaru, the vessel both in appearance and substance belonged to someone he knew.
"Extracting one's memories, then pouring them into an empty body. If that succeeds, and you can repeat the process every time the body starts to deteriorate—then yeah, that's a form of immortality, sure. But still…"
Personality, memories, and the possibility of inheriting them—these were undeniably close to overcoming "death." If one's personality could be preserved like data, then even if the vessel was accidentally destroyed, a new one could be found and the personality reinstalled. Revival would be possible.
A reproducible personality. A reproducible body. —In theory, Echidna's immortality was viable.
—But if that were the case.
"They say that when people encounter a version of themselves from a parallel world, they're thrown into a panic and seized by an overwhelming compulsion to destroy the other at all costs."
"……"
"That's how unbearable the sensation is—of knowing that another 'you' exists besides yourself. I can barely imagine it without feeling sick to my stomach. Hey, Ryuzu-san."
"What is it?"
"The fact that you can create multiple… bodies of Ryuzu Meyers means you can pour the same number of personalities into those multiple bodies. In other words, you wouldn't just be perpetuating yourself—you could create multiple copies of yourself."
If the earlier theory held, that should be possible. And if one thought purely in terms of theory, maintaining "yourself" required backups, spares—and the more of those you had, the better.
Subaru could not imagine that he had thought of something Echidna had not.
"What would that feel like, I wonder? Being able to prepare other versions of yourself. Having a 'guarantee' that even if you fail, it'll somehow be all right. Can you even understand that, Ryuzu-san?"
"…That, at least, is something I will probably never understand. The technology to extract personalities is beyond my knowledge. I, as an individual, cease to exist the moment this single body is lost. In that sense, both you and I, Su-kun—we're the same. Neither of us can start over."
"Yeah. You're right. …Yeah, I guess so."
Ryuzu's words drew an involuntary dry laugh from Subaru that he could not hold back. Ryuzu furrowed her brow at his reaction, but she could never grasp its true meaning.
"I see. That explains it. Now I understand why you were so unnaturally familiar with me."
Subaru murmured this sentiment as the image of the silver-haired Witch surfaced in his mind.
The scheme to achieve immortality by preparing a copy of oneself and transplanting one's personality into it. Doing so meant adding a "guarantee" to one's life— "So how is that any different from what I'm doing right now?"
There was no way he could feel repulsion. If anything, a sense of kinship arose. Or perhaps it was the dark elation of recognizing one of one's own kind—something too grim to call mere kinship.
Echidna, who had touched upon one end of immortality in her own way. Subaru, who repeated "death" over and over at the Witch's whim in order to fulfill his purpose. Both stood in rebellion against what should have been a singular, unrepeatable "life."
If that was the case, Subaru thought— —Then wouldn't Echidna be the only one who could truly understand me?
At the very least, she would be the only one who could understand that particular psychology.
"Su-kun?"
"…I understand your position, Ryuzu-san. I understand what Echidna was trying to do. But on top of that—what I want to know is… did Echidna's plan succeed?"
"Her plan…"
"The preparation of an empty vessel—I can see that with my own eyes, right here. All that was left was to overwrite it with her own personality. Did that overwrite succeed? No, more simply—"
—Is Echidna still alive somewhere in this world?
Subaru's question went unspoken, but Ryuzu understood its meaning. She closed her eyes, and then shook her head slowly in response to Subaru's pleading gaze.
Slowly, side to side.
"No. I'm sorry, but… the Witch's plan did not succeed. There exists no body of Ryuzu Meyers that inherited the Witch's personality and sustained her life."
"Wh-why not? The personality download—the extraction of the mind—didn't work?"
"Whether it was a 'download' or whatever, I don't know, but the technology to extract a personality itself should have been functional. What fell through was a different factor entirely."
"A different… factor?"
"It's a simple matter, really. If the water you pour into a vessel exceeds its capacity, it spills over. If any part of it spills, what remains is no longer the original—it becomes something else entirely."
At the word "vessel," Subaru looked at Ryuzu and then at Pico.
Casting his gaze over their small frames, he said— "A vessel… but that's not a matter of physical size, is it?"
"Perhaps it's the size of the soul, one might say. Every person has a vessel suited to the size of their soul. The body of Ryuzu Meyers simply lacked the capacity to contain the soul of a Witch named Echidna."
"How did she figure that out?"
"She attempted to pour her knowledge into the first clone and failed—that was when she first confronted the disparity between the soul and the vessel. But by that point, the body of Ryuzu Meyers was already sealed within the crystal, and the system for producing clones one after another had already been built. So even though her original objective could not be achieved, the vessels continued to be spawned regardless."
Subaru found it surprisingly characteristic of Echidna to have overlooked something so fundamental. For someone of her caliber, this was a remarkably careless oversight at the critical juncture. The fact that she had taken no measures to address the subsequent multiplication of Ryuzu clones felt even less like her.
"What happened to the first clone? Even if it couldn't hold everything, wouldn't it have inherited at least some of the Witch's memories? Wouldn't you still call it a partial copy of the Witch?"
"When you pour water into a vessel until it overflows, can anyone selectively choose which part spills over? If it were trivial, everyday memories that spilled out, that might have been manageable. But if the critical parts spilled instead—then what remained could no longer be called a personality."
Through Ryuzu's circuitous phrasing, Subaru understood. The first Ryuzu—who became Echidna—was a failure. An entirely different "something" had been born, far removed from the Witch's intentions.
"I've heard that the first clone that was produced suffered a complete personality collapse, and because she had partially inherited the Witch of Greed's power, she became quite a troublesome existence. Disposing of her apparently required considerable effort."
"Disposing of… right, I see."
"Naturally, the Witch was neither so easily discouraged as to abandon everything after a single failure, nor so irresponsible as to walk away. After disposing of the first clone, I'm told she wracked her brains trying to find a way to alter the total quantity of the soul, so she could transfer her personality into the next clone."
"That she jumped straight to the soul for a solution—that's insane."
Echidna's thinking was essentially the same as compressing a large data file to fit a different storage medium. Or, alternatively, pre-trimming unnecessary portions to match the available capacity on the receiving end.
Subaru could appreciate this line of reasoning because he had enough familiarity with computers to understand the concept of data. But Echidna—who had no knowledge of data transfer on computers and was furthermore working with something as metaphysical as a "soul"—her mode of thinking was terrifying in its scope.
When Subaru heard that the first clone had been lost, he had honestly felt deflated. But then he learned that Echidna had immediately attempted a different approach, and in that he found hope.
However, Ryuzu prefaced her next words with "But—"
"Even though she sought a new method, the Witch was unable to test it."
"Wh-why not? I mean, forgive me for saying it, but she'd already prepared the groundwork for testing. She already had multiple copies of Ryuzu Meyers—"
"Because the Witch of Envy made her move before the experiments in the
"———"
"The Witch of Envy swallowed half the world, and in the process, devoured the other six Witches—all of them. The Witch of Greed was no exception. The scheme to extend the Witch's life through immortality was cut short by none other than another Witch."
Subaru already knew the fate of the six Witches other than the Witch of Envy. The Witches he had encountered in that dream castle—the ones Echidna had introduced him to and even allowed him to meet in person. They had all been destroyed by the Witch of Envy, their remnants lingering only as echoes in the world of dreams.
Perhaps, even as nothing but a lingering spiritual presence in this world, that was the final act of defiance from Echidna—the Witch who had failed to achieve immortality.
"…What happened to the Sanctuary after the Witch was gone?"
"The management of this land had originally been handled by Roswaal's Mathers family. I don't know what sort of contract existed between the Mathers family and the Witch. That arrangement continued unbroken, and now Roswaal maintains and oversees this Sanctuary. Though what he does amounts to keeping just enough commerce flowing to prevent the place from collapsing, and occasionally bringing in a child of suitable standing to serve as a new resident."
"So apart from that, the internal management was left entirely to you, Ryuzu-san? You said earlier that the individuality you'd acquired was your personality—"
"If we're talking about the restriction of being a clone, I am the third one from the start. I was born with a predetermined personality implanted in me, designed to manage the ever-multiplying vessels and to take on Ryuzu Meyers' role within the Sanctuary. I have been fulfilling that role ever since."
"Implanting a personality… is that even possible?"
Something like implanting a pseudo-personality into an empty vessel so it could fulfill a designated role.
Teaching a robot to mimic artificial intelligence and act human—even in the world Subaru came from, such a thing was far from practical application, existing only as an imaginative fantasy.
To this, Ryuzu nodded.
"Of course, it was by no means easy. But it was only possible precisely because the vessel was empty and devoid of a soul. Even so, during the experimental stage, it seems she really could only manage very rudimentary things."
In the beginning, it was quite difficult, Ryuzu said with a faint smile at the corner of her lips.
"Having no memories yet being given a role to fill—it was a bizarre sensation. Time passed with a slow yet overwhelming momentum. It took quite a long time before I could even begin to feel that sensation as something strange."
"…What happened to the clones that kept being produced? Aside from you and Pico, I don't recall seeing any others here in the Sanctuary."
"Besides the four who serve as Ryuzu, the others are scattered throughout the Sanctuary. They serve as watchers against intruders and as messengers. An interesting thing happens when clones of the same type interact—thought transmission between them becomes possible."
Subaru recalled that Garfiel had once mentioned something about the "eyes of the Sanctuary." If that referred to Ryuzu's clones, and if they were indeed scattered around the perimeter of the Sanctuary, then it made sense that Garfiel had seen through the mass escape from
"Ah, yes. That too is a simple matter. Even as clones, continuously recreating the entirety of a human body's structure with mana places an enormous burden. When the mana is depleted, the body ceases to exist. Unlike spirits, once it dissipates, reconstitution is impossible—at least, not as far as I know."
He recalled the existence of spirits who experienced dissolution and reconstitution while maintaining continuity of memory. In their case, however, even after dissipating, they had a "home" to return to—something like an anchored shrine—so even if they "disappeared," it was not a true cessation. The clones had no such anchor. For them, death by mana depletion meant true, final death.
"One body cannot remain active for very long. Once the body reaches the point where it can no longer move without strain, it takes approximately three days to recover the lost mana. During that time, it is essential that no problems arise from Ryuzu Meyers' absence from the Sanctuary."
"So that's why there are four Ryuzu-san."
"A daily rotation—every four days, the role of Ryuzu Meyers comes around to each one. At all other times, I am no different from any other vessel. …Just an empty vessel bearing the name of Ryuzu Meyers. I suppose you could say that."
At Ryuzu's sardonic words, Subaru found himself at a loss for what to say. Anything he said would ring hollow—as though he were merely parroting understanding he did not truly possess. He knew that staying silent would only affirm Ryuzu's cynicism, yet his lips could not weave any words.
"Don't be so down, Su-kun. Both I and the other clones consented to our roles. The first Ryuzu Meyers felt the same way."
"The first… right, I wanted to ask about that too."
"Hmm?"
"You Ryuzu clones—the Ryuzu Meyers clones—obeying the Witch and protecting the Sanctuary, I understand the reasoning behind that. But the girl Ryuzu Meyers herself, the original—why did she cooperate with the Witch?"
A girl, sealed within a crystal, her eternity stolen. Based on everything he had heard so far, the attempt to pour Ryuzu Meyers herself into an empty vessel was never part of the plan. In other words, Ryuzu Meyers had offered her body for the experiment of her own volition, while choosing to end her own existence as a soul within a crystal with no destination.
It was a decision tantamount to suicide—sacrificing the soul, herself, in exchange for the physical shell being endlessly reproduced.
How had that young girl been able to make such a decision? Or had the Witch simply chosen her as an experimental subject at random, without obtaining her consent?
Hoping desperately that it was the latter, Subaru asked: "What was Ryuzu Meyers thinking when she agreed to participate in this experiment?"
"…I've heard that Ryuzu Meyers presented the Witch with a condition, and participated in the experiment on the condition that the Witch accepted. There was no coercion, so you needn't worry on that account."
"A condition… would you tell me what it was?"
"I could, but I doubt you would understand, Su-kun."
Ryuzu's teasing tone drew a silent stare from Subaru. She grimaced at his stubborn, childlike gaze and let out a deep sigh.
"The condition Ryuzu Meyers proposed to the Witch was… the continuation of the Sanctuary."
"The continuation… of the Sanctuary?"
"What Ryuzu Meyers desired above all else was that this Sanctuary—the experimental grounds the Witch had prepared for her experiments—be maintained. Naturally, the Witch, who needed the Sanctuary in order to continue her own experiments, agreed readily. And even now, long after the Witch's death, the promise made between the two has been kept, with us continuing to uphold their contract."
"But that's… backwards, isn't it?"
It was Echidna who needed the Sanctuary for her experiments, and Ryuzu Meyers was supposed to be a subject gathered there for that purpose. For the experimental subject to be the one requesting the Sanctuary's continuation—the logic did not align.
"Even if she was treated as a test subject… the Sanctuary was far more hospitable than the persecuted lands she had come from. That is how one might look at it."
"…That's way too bleak, isn't it?"
"Hope exists here. That is precisely why Ryuzu Meyers offered herself for the experiment. Whether the results bore fruit is something you can judge by looking at me and the girl there."
Watching Ryuzu sip her long-cold tea, Subaru could not bring himself to continue. Beside him, Pico showed no reaction whatsoever to the conclusion of the discussion about her circumstances. She simply tugged at the hem of Subaru's clothes in silence.
"Why has this kid taken a liking to me? She said the inside was empty, and at first she treated me like I wasn't even there."
"That's because you touched Ryuzu Meyers' crystal, Su-kun. The command authority was rewritten, and you became the registered owner."
"Command authority…?"
Another unfamiliar term made Subaru furrow his brow once more.
Nodding at his suspicious expression, Ryuzu raised a finger and said: "Why don't you try giving that girl an order? Oh, but nothing indecent, mind you—she looks the same as me, after all."
"I didn't need to be told that. I'm not going to get turned on by this loli body. …Pico, come over here and give me a shoulder rub."
After responding to Ryuzu with a sour face, Subaru gave the command to Pico beside him. The girl looked up at the sound of his voice, gave the faintest dip of her chin in acknowledgment, then climbed onto the bed, circled behind Subaru, and— "Oh—oh yeah, that feels good, that feels—wait, Pico?! That's way too hard! Ease up, ease up—Pico, ease up!!"
"She may understand the concept of a shoulder rub, but the force applied is still an unknown quantity. Unless she learns that through trial and error, mistakes like this will keep happening."
"You—you knew that and tested me on purpose!?"
Subaru shook free of Pico's continued assault on his shoulders, directed her back to her seat, then rolled his aching shoulders in wide circles. Shuddering at Pico's bone-crushing grip, he tilted his head and said: "Still, isn't the security on this command authority thing way too lax? If some malicious lolicon had stumbled into that place instead of me, what then?"
"Breaking into that place is not something that can happen by accident. Moreover, the transfer of command authority is not so easily accomplished. At the very least, one must be recognized as an Apostle of Greed."
"…Hm?"
Ryuzu's words contained yet another part that Subaru could not ignore—he had lost count of how many times that had happened now. Folding his arms, he said hesitantly: "Excuse me. I don't have the faintest idea what you mean by 'Apostle of Greed.'"
"Being recognized by Echidna—that is the qualification of an Apostle. Inside the Tomb, did you not receive something along those lines? Something given to you, bestowed upon you, or placed inside your body?"
"Inside the Tomb…"
He recalled the confrontation with Echidna in the dream castle and searched his memory for any solemn transfer ceremony like the one Ryuzu described. But nothing came to mind.
If anything had been given to him by Echidna in that place, it was a measure of knowledge, a measure of relief, and a considerable amount of terror. And— "…Don't tell me it was the Dona tea."
"Oh? Dona tea?"
"Echidna offered me something she called her own bodily fluid, cleverly disguised as tea, and I ended up drinking it twice…"
"No joke—that is very likely the case."
"That woman—she really will make you drink anything!!"
Ryuzu calmed Subaru as he sprang to his feet in indignation.
"Well, be that as it may, it was because of that that you're in this situation now. It wasn't all bad, was it?"
"What infuriates me is that she did that behind my back! What has she been doing to my body?! 'Apostle of Greed'—as if I didn't already have enough entanglements with the Witches! Every last one of them is the same…"
The Witch of Envy, who had arranged the "Return by Death" contract without his knowledge. The Witch of Greed, who had unilaterally added him as her Apostle. Witches were all like this—every single one of them.
"In any case, Su-kun, through that you gained command authority over the Ryuzu Meyers clones here in the Sanctuary. You can even make me obey your orders."
"Even you, Ryuzu-san?"
"I have more resistance than those girls who lack willpower, but ultimately I cannot refuse. Well? Wouldn't a boy of your age be pleased?"
"I told you, I'm not a lolicon…"
Even when she gave him a smoldering look, he did not react in the slightest.
As Ryuzu laughed with amusement at his discomfort, Subaru turned over the mysteries of the Sanctuary that had now been laid bare. The facility hidden away in the depths. Ryuzu Meyers, sealed within, and the system that produced her clones. The destruction that would occur in six days' time, and all the attendant problems.
And indispensable to discussing the facility's existence was— "Ryuzu-san, sorry for the abruptness, but could you help me with something?"
"What is it? If it's something dirty, take it up with one of those innocent ones over there."
"That's enough already."
Dispatching Ryuzu with a light kick—she seemed determined to keep him in the throes of adolescence—Subaru rose to his feet, straightening his back and gazing up at the ceiling.
"There's at least one other person besides me who holds this command authority, right?"
"———"
"I want to hear what that person has to say, but there's also something else I've been wondering about."
Two figures surfaced in his mind. One was Garfiel Tinsel, the great tiger who protected the Sanctuary—the one who had been issuing orders to the twenty-odd Ryuzu clones.
And the other was— "Why did she send me to that facility through the Doorway? It's about time I got an answer to that question…"
To demand answers from the cream-haired, curly-locked girl, Subaru resolved to seize the opportunity.