The first thing to seize hold of Subaru's consciousness was a violent searing heat that radiated outward from the core of his body.
"Guh, aaaaagh! It burns—!"
Feeling the unyielding hardness of the ground against his face, Subaru realized he was lying face-down. And yet, his limbs—meant to push himself upright—refused to move.
It was as though he were no longer himself. Freedom of his own body had been stripped away.
And yet, the scorching heat spared him nothing, burning without limit. This was no joke.
— Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.
When he tried to open his mouth, what spilled out in place of a scream was a torrent of blood.
Between agony and suffering, nearly drowning in the flood of his own blood, Subaru was made to taste the very pinnacle of this world's misery.
— What on earth had he done?
That desperate wish to escape the pain kept spinning the same lament through his mind over and over.
What on earth had he done?
He was self-aware enough to know his life had not always been praiseworthy. But that was hardly unique to him. No one lived every single day with a conscience clean enough to hold up before all of humanity. There had been shameful things, things to regret, moments he had turned away from, compromises he had made.
So why did only he have to endure this?
Why was he alone forced to bear the fate that every other human being in the world was spared?
"Ugh, damn it…"
A groan escaped through the gaps of the churning blood.
It was regret. It was hatred toward his own powerlessness. It was loathing toward fate itself.
— And it was, above all, exasperation with himself.
Even this wounded. Even this broken. Even pushed to the very brink of death.
Burned by searing heat, literally sliced apart by blinding pain, his very life threatened— The image of the girl still burned into his mind, her gentle smile and her sorrowful death face replaying endlessly.
"I will…"
He spoke his resolve once more. Spoke his determination. Spoke his lingering attachment, his regret.
How many times he had challenged it. How many times he had crawled on all fours. How many times he had wished. And still the future he reached for remained beyond his grasp.
Both the "pain" and the "heat" were distant now. A loser should howl like a loser—ugly, pathetic, and unashamed.
"…save you."
The moment that wish stirred again in his heart,
* * * Opening his eyes once more to a familiar scene, Subaru felt a strange sense of relief and exhaustion wash over him.
"So I made it back safe and sound—relief, huh?"
Gazing at the bustling streets of the royal capital, Subaru picked up a fallen tree branch and scratched tally marks into the ground—the character 正, over and over—until he was satisfied. Then he scuffed them away with his foot and let out a long sigh.
Natsuki Subaru was a perfectly ordinary truant third-year high school student from the third planet of the solar system: Earth.
Track suit, sneakers, plastic convenience-store bag dangling from one hand—whoever saw that getup would never doubt the story. Though, that line of reasoning only held up in a cultural zone where the meaning of "track suit," "sneakers," and "convenience store" was understood and shared values were in place.
In other words, what he was trying to say was— —"Being summoned to another world is way harder than I thought."
A lizard bigger than a horse pulled a cart across his field of view, raising a cloud of dust as it passed.
Naturally, that kind of sight was unheard of back on Earth. Could it be some kind of special-effects horse—a theme-park employee in costume? No, even that was hard to accept.
After all, it wasn't just one lizard. They were everywhere—spilling through the streets, through the markets. And far too many of the people guiding them also bore the look of something that wasn't entirely human.
Beastfolk—people dressed as beast-races or demi-humans numbered at least twenty or thirty within Subaru's line of sight. There were plenty of ordinary park-goers who looked just like him, of course, but the sheer violence of outward appearance overwhelmed their individuality to the point where they barely registered.
More to the point, he couldn't afford to keep his thoughts tangled up in this kind of escapism.
The beastfolk, the lizards—none of them were costumed employees or movie extras. This place was a cultural zone where those things were taken for granted, and the oddity here wasn't them. It was Subaru.
— Something he had felt keenly enough, through more than ten days of raw, lived experience.
"…Let's go."
Cutting off his useless thoughts, he stood and brushed off his rear.
Still gripping the branch in his right hand, Subaru shuffled out into the alley—away from the crowded main street, toward the back roads.
Unlike the main thoroughfare, crammed between tall buildings, these side streets were almost deserted. A stillness hung over the place, as if隔ting off a world entirely separate from the one just one street over.
In short, whatever happened here, a scream would never carry to the main road.
And so, when a face as conspicuously out-of-place as Subaru's wandered in, it was only natural that trouble would come looking for him.
"Hey, bro. Why don't you hang out with us for a while?"
He turned at the voice. Three figures stood blocking the alley.
Large, medium, and small—a lineup meticulously curated to cover every need. Subaru could feel the earnest research that had gone into it, even if he had no idea what kind of research.
Tilting his head, he looked down the opposite direction from the trio. Behind him, this alley was a dead end. The only way back to the main street was past these three.
And whether the three had any intention of letting Subaru through— "Hey, hey, what's with the blank look?"
"You must not understand the situation. Why don't we educate you?"
As Subaru's sluggish demeanor continued, the trio exchanged leering grins and began plotting how to toy with him. From their perspective, Subaru was a wide-open amateur. An easy mark—and it was hard to blame them for licking their lips.
But their calculations were completely wrong.
It was true that Subaru had never been in a real fight, nor had any hidden history of martial arts training. Their assessment that he was an amateur was correct.
However, when it came to experience against a group like this, Subaru was a veteran of a hundred battles.
"—Huh?"
The big one—let's call the trio Tanchikan—let his guard down. Subaru lunged at "Tahn" and thrust his arm forward.
In that arm was the tree branch he'd picked up earlier. Its tip, not especially sharp, nonetheless bit into the soft flesh of the throat. After barely any resistance, it punched through.
"Wha—?"
The instant hit made "Tahn" go wide-eyed, and "Chan" and "Kahn," flanking him left and right, froze in shock.
That was one down. And while the other two were still locked in place, Subaru reached out with his free hand toward the middle-sized one—"Chan"—and seized him by the hair and ear. No chance to resist. Using the momentum, Subaru swung the man's head sideways and slammed it into the wall with a sickening crack.
Something hard gave way. "Chan" left a smear of blood on the wall before crumpling to the ground.
At the same moment, "Tahn," still impaled by the branch through his neck, dropped to his knees and toppled over, eyes rolled back. Badly. He fell forward, driving the branch in even deeper.
Two down. One left.
"H-hi…"
The small one—"Kahn"—had gone pale, having watched two companions go down in an instant.
If he'd simply bolted straight out of the alley, it might have become a contest of foot speed with Subaru, and he might have had a chance of surviving.
But Kahn hesitated. He looked back at his fallen comrades and wavered. He didn't even realize it was already too late, squandering the precious second he'd been given.
Idiot. Absolute idiot. Enjoy the consequences of that stupid choice.
"Guh, ga, aah…"
Subaru's hands closed around the thin neck. He drove Kahn back against the wall and squeezed. The thrashing small body was pinned; Subaru lifted him off the ground, pressing harder, strangling the life out of him.
Raised until his eye level matched Subaru's, Kahn's eyes bulged as his mouth hung open, gasping for air. But with his airway crushed, there would be no salvation for him.
"Can you guess how many times, all told, I've met you guys?"
"Cuh… kuh…"
"Eighty-eight times. Isn't that a nice round number? Something to celebrate? Go ahead and laugh."
Subaru glared at the face turning an ugly shade between red and black, tears and drool streaming down it. But of course, Kahn had no composure to spare. Before long, even the faintest resistance faded, and his limp body went slack.
Looking down at the three crumpled figures, Subaru methodically stomped each one's neck for good measure. The heel of his sneaker felt something hard give way—that settled that.
Tahn's neck was thick, though; it took five solid stomps before Subaru was satisfied. No matter how many times he did this, he couldn't quite get the feel right. Sometimes he'd get lucky and one stomp would do the job.
"Strangling isn't exactly clean. And the feel of it is disgusting. Let's stop doing that."
With that lesson learned, Subaru relieved Chin's corpse of two knives. Then he dragged all three bodies to the edge of the alley and slipped out as if nothing had happened.
He had entered the alley and encountered Tanchikan relatively early in the cycle. The processing had taken a bit of time, but only a dozen seconds or so.
Hurrying along the main street, Subaru made for his destination.
Surveying the street, he heaved a sigh of relief. He had made it in time.
The commercial district—a broad boulevard teeming with foot traffic on both sides, fulfilling its role as proof of the royal capital Lugnica's vitality. Even just standing still, the cacophony flooding his eardrums was more than enough.
But that lively atmosphere suddenly shifted to something else entirely.
"Wait—! Wait a— Wait, you—!!"
One voice cut through the din of the boulevard, a silver-bell clarity that was almost music.
Brimming with urgency, yet unable to entirely mask the gentleness of its owner, it was aimed at a small figure threading through the crowd.
"Heheh."
With a cat-like grin, the golden-haired girl slipped between the bodies. Something glinted in her hand—clearly the product of a job just completed.
And at that girl, a pale-blue light streaked across the street—a spear of ice hurtling through the air.
"—!!"
Startled by the sudden attack, the girl dodged with leaps and bounds, evading the ice lance.
The magic had been fired in a crowded street. Caught off guard, the citizens of the capital parted en masse, raising their hands to signal they wanted no part of this.
Quite the coordinated response. You couldn't exactly call it a daily occurrence to be caught up in a commotion in the capital, but something close to that.
In any case, the crowd parted and the person he was looking for appeared.
The instant his eyes found "her," Subaru felt as though the entire world had frozen.
Wind, voices, even time itself ceased to exist. Every scrap of his consciousness was stolen by that slender figure.
Long silver hair dancing in motion, gemstone-like deep purple eyes burning with fierce awareness. White, slender limbs wrapped in an ethereal white garb that seemed tailored for a fairy.
In a world where time had stopped, she alone moved freely—and passed right in front of Subaru.
Her target was the golden-haired girl who had slipped past moments before—
Felt had stolen something from her, and she was racing through the capital to get it back. For her, this was an inevitable road leading to a tragic fate.
But Subaru would not allow that.
He would absolutely not let her be claimed by the fate of "death."
"I will— I swear I will save you!"
At her retreating back, Subaru made his eighty-eighth vow.
How much conviction an oath broken this many times could possibly carry, he didn't know.
He didn't know. But as long as he didn't give up, as long as he kept fighting, as long as he kept wishing to save her— "Wait for me. —
* * * The power to die and turn back time—Return by Death.
This was Subaru's eighty-eighth attempt to restart the world using that power.
He had already crossed the threshold of a hundred tries, and every single one had been spent trying to rescue the silver-haired girl—Satella—from the dead end fate had boxed her into.
"I've tried all sorts of things, all sorts of trial and error… but it's never as easy as Tanchikan."
That was Subaru's conclusion regarding this timeline's greatest obstacle—
It was this woman named Elsa who had hired Felt to steal the emblem from Satella. She was the dangerous individual who kept driving Satella to her death.
Over the course of eighty-seven attempts, Subaru had fought time and again to eliminate Elsa and secure Satella's safety. But Elsa's combat ability, already beyond the realm of humanity, crushed him every time. He had died with his belly opened more than fifty times.
Elsa was a sadist who took pleasure in gutting people. She was not someone you could fight and win against.
If she were still just another Tanchikan, he could have patterned out some kind of guaranteed strategy. But against someone of Elsa's caliber, the instant Subaru made a move, he could be decapitated in the blink of an eye.
In fact, it wasn't his neck but his stomach that had been split open in the blink of an eye—more times than he cared to remember.
Subaru could not defeat her in a fight. Felt couldn't. Old Man
Given that conclusion, the strategy Subaru chose was— "How wonderful! How wonderful! I do wish you'd entertain me more, though!"
"Guhaaah—!!"
Black blades flashed in succession. With every gust of wind, blood sprayed.
The number of bodies on the street had already exceeded what both hands could count. Elsa's expression, drenched in splattered blood, had passed beyond ecstasy—she looked as though she were intermittently savoring the peak of climax.
In the midst of such carnage, her allure only deepened with each shower of blood.
There was an old tale about a woman who had bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth—called a vampire, or something to it. Right now, Elsa looked every inch that "vampire."
"…Another failure, huh."
From his hiding spot on the rooftop, Subaru sighed and narrowed his eyes over the carnage below.
The location was a corner of the slums—a particularly desolate quarter ringed by ruins, a kind of open square. On that stage, the bloodbath was expanding without end.
The ones trading swords with Elsa and being mowed down one after another were city guards. Ordinary citizens had reported the dangerous individual Elsa Granhiert, and these men had rushed in to apprehend her—only to lose their lives. It was enough to make one's heart ache, acting out of good citizenship.
"Who knew the gap in ability between regular guards and Elsa was this wide…"
It was practically handing Elsa sacrifices on a platter.
Subaru had hoped that people in the position of city guards—those charged with protecting the capital—might have some magical means of enhancing their bodies, allowing them to stand against Elsa on even footing. But that, it seemed, was asking too much.
After all, Elsa's power was extraordinary even in this world.
His anger toward her only grew. But no matter how fiercely that anger burned, Subaru lacked the power to stop that monstrous woman with his own hands.
The idea that the guards might land a lucky punch and bring Elsa down was completely out of the question.
"Any more of this and it's just a waste to watch."
He felt bad about the guards who had already sacrificed themselves, but this particular experiment would end here.
He still had no intention of going easy—but even if these guards died here, if Subaru ultimately failed and lost his life too, they would simply be restored when he turned the world back.
As sacrifices for that purpose, he could only swallow his grief and let them die for now. If there was a next time, he wouldn't expect anything from them. He'd let them guard the peace of the capital with a clear conscience.
Just as Subaru reached that conclusion and was about to leave— "Oh my."
He stopped. Elsa halted mid-swing, tracing her blood-slicked lips with her tongue.
Overflowing with wild joy and killing intent—the clearest sign that the woman had grown bored of her game of slaughtering guards and had found new prey. And the poor soul she chose as her next victim was— "That's enough."
For a moment, Subaru hallucinated—there stood red flame.
Holding his breath, he rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Only then could he accept that it was not flame, but a young man.
A young man with hair like crimson fire and eyes blue as a clear sky bottled and sealed within.
He appeared slender, but beneath his white attire was a tall, lithe frame honed with lean, supple muscle. At his waist hung a sword with a comically extravagant design.
His features were such that if you put a hundred people in a room, all a hundred would turn to look—divinely sculpted beauty that transcended gender. If there was anything that prevented it from registering as violence in its purest form, it was perhaps the young man's gentle bearing.
At a single glance, his presence commanded the soul to recognize that here was something entirely different from the ordinary rabble.
"Knight Reinhard…!"
"You all, step back. She is… the 'Bowel Hunter.' There have already been too many victims. I don't want any more."
Reinhard spoke softly, his eyes cast down, in response to the trembling voice of the surviving guard.
It was pity for the lives cut down like refuse, and righteous fury directed at the slaughterer called Elsa.
From his distant vantage, Subaru could see the character of the young man called Reinhard.
What a genuinely decent person—to be angry for genuine reasons, with genuine thoughts, through genuine conviction.
To grieve death, to despise slaughter, to mourn his inadequacy, to paint over regret with conviction.
That was the young man called Reinhard—the knight's way of being.
"
"A day where I'm nearly crushed under the weight of such overblown praise. You are the 'Bowel Hunter,' no mistake."
"That's right. Oh dear. What am I to do? I have my real work to attend to, and yet here I am, face to face with you of all people."
Elsa let out a breath hot with ecstasy, her feverish eyes trained on Reinhard.
Reinhard's expression, in contrast, was dead serious—his blue eyes held only a sense of duty, with absolutely no trace of playfulness.
The two faced each other with diametrically opposed philosophies, yet the conclusions their hearts reached were identical.
There was nothing to be done but destroy each other.
"I would normally recommend surrender…"
"Before this carnage, you would say that to me? How kind. For me, and for them—unbearably cruel."
"No. I actually agree. Showing you leniency here would not be honest toward their deaths. So no—I won't ask you to surrender."
At the words of Elsa, who casually kicked the bodies of fallen guards at her feet, Reinhard slowly shook his head.
Then he reached to the guard beside him and said, simply, "A sword."
"Please, if you would."
When the guard offered up a sword, Reinhard took it and tested its weight. Elsa regarded this with a quizzical frown.
"You won't use the one at your waist? I'd love to feel the edge of that famous dragon blade with my skin."
"Unfortunately, this sword has a rather particular trait—it determines whom it should be drawn against. A bit troublesome, but it seems this sword doesn't take to you. I'll use this one instead."
"Hmm."
Reinhard readied the borrowed sword, and Elsa exhaled.
But the hint of dissatisfaction in her expression lasted only a heartbeat. Switching instantly, the woman licked her lips in anticipation of the clash and the blood to come.
And then— "The 'Bowel Hunter,' Elsa Granhiert."
"The Sword Saint's lineage, Reinhard van Astrea."
They declared their names to each other, and at the center of the square, two figures turned into wind and collided.
One exchange. A single strike decided it.
A completely unremarkable slash—yet it birthed a vortex of light, and a shockwave tore apart a quarter of the slums.
The sword strike of the man called the "Sword Saint" was nothing less than Power itself.
Natsuki Subaru watched it all with wide-open eyes.
He didn't understand why tears streamed down his cheeks, nor why his knees trembled.
* * * The development hadn't gone the way Subaru had planned or hoped, but the primary objective—Elsa's defeat—could be considered accomplished.
Reinhard's intervention had been unexpected, but if the result was what he'd wished for, then that was cause for celebration.
Thanks to him, the events surrounding Satella's emblem would be resolved safely. If her transaction partner Elsa didn't show up, Felt and Old Man Rom wouldn't risk trying to keep the emblem either. Satella, consumed by rage, was unlikely to kill the two of them.
The story centered on the loot house could wrap up with only the bare minimum of participants.
For Subaru, this was an ideal outcome.
So— "Why, exactly, are you helping me?"
"You don't have to trust me. If you'd rather stay surrounded by guards and never get your revenge, feel free to cut me down and run."
"……"
Spitting the words out, Subaru addressed Elsa, who was hunched against the wall behind him.
Her entire body was drenched in blood. Her black outfit was torn in places, exposing pale skin. Though the skin was covered in ugly scars, there was not the faintest bit of room for shame.
Subaru had zero interest in Elsa as a woman. He had simply identified her as useful and was seizing the opportunity.
"The guards are looking for you like mad. I led them in the wrong direction, so it'll be a while before they catch on to this area. How are the wounds?"
"They hurt terribly. So painful, I might just die. Heheh, how wonderful."
"A sensibility I can't begin to fathom. But you can't die on me—I need you alive."
He had gone out of his way, risking danger, to guide Elsa toward survival.
If she collapsed here—if Subaru got dragged into the guards' search in the process—the fragile survival route he'd stumbled into would go up in smoke.
If that happened, he'd simply roll the dice again until this outcome came up.
"Could you clear a path to the southeast of the slums? That way, I can rendezvous with my sister. She'll have supplies for the wounds and an escape route ready."
"A sister! Ha—and here I thought you two were sharp. What a hopeless story."
He hadn't been trusted—wouldn't want to be, honestly—but Subaru grasped the outline of how to navigate this dead end from Elsa's words.
During the escape, they'd already drifted quite far south. Getting from here to the place Elsa indicated wouldn't take long.
Subaru had bribed slum-dwellers with the holy gold coin Elsa had been carrying, and they were now interfering with the guards' search, leading them in the wrong direction. No problem there.
"What I don't understand is your objective."
"I want to owe you a favor. It might come in handy someday."
"A favor, is it? That's curious. …You want to kill me so badly, after all."
As she leaned on his shoulder and he helped her flee, Subaru felt her black eyes looking up at him, probing for the emotions buried in their depths.
But there was no need to probe. The answer in Subaru's dark eyes was exactly what Elsa had intuited.
Subaru wanted to kill Elsa right now if he could. But if he rushed in without thinking, he couldn't even beat a half-dead Elsa, and besides—that would be shortsighted.
Right now, Subaru was treating his situation as a deeply lopsided game board.
He would consider every possible move, engage in trial and error, and play the optimal hand. That was his premise for fighting.
If he thought of this like a game of shogi, simply sweeping every piece off the board wouldn't lead to victory. It wasn't that simple.
If possible, he would swap allies for enemies. Given an opening, he wouldn't hesitate to shift his position entirely.
For that reason, even someone he truly, genuinely hated—he should use them.
"I want to kill you. Someday, I will. But not now."
"Not now."
There was no point hiding it. Subaru laid his true feelings bare to Elsa.
If Elsa were a cautious person, she would have killed him on the spot to eliminate the threat from behind. But Subaru was certain she wouldn't.
That certainty was something only he—Subaru, who had been killed by Elsa more than eighty times out of his eighty-eight attempts—could possess.
"How wonderful. Binding you and me together with hatred. Someday, certainly. Your words will be proven true, I know it. And that is truly, truly wonderful."
"……"
Elsa parted her blood-smeared lips and smiled—like a girl in love.
That smile, seen at such close range, made Subaru feel, from the depths of his being, that this woman was utterly repulsive.
* * * "Let's meet again for certain, shall we?"
"Bye-bye, big brother. And do be grateful to Elsa."
He handed Elsa off to the dark-haired girl who had joined them, and Subaru let out a breath of relief.
The girl waiting at the abandoned building Elsa had indicated was still young—early teens. At first, Subaru had been surprised by how young she was, but the girl had handled Elsa's wounds with practiced efficiency, finished preparations to flee the capital in short order, and then departed the building without delay.
The bare minimum of what Subaru had gained was a means of contacting Elsa.
Whether the reward was worth the risk—uncertain.
"I suppose that depends on what I do from here."
He peeled off the blood-crusted track-suit jacket and tied it around his waist, then set off.
His destination was the opposite direction from the slums—the loot house. Whether Satella had managed to retrieve the emblem safely in that place Elsa couldn't reach—that was his only remaining concern.
It took time, but when Subaru arrived at the loot house, the sight before him made his eyes go round.
"This wasn't what I expected."
Spread before him was the loot house—encased in ice.
More accurately, it was frozen within a block of ice. He asked a nearby resident what had happened, and the answer came: "The old man who ran the place and his granddaughter got hauled off by guards. Apparently they'd gotten mixed up with some weird mage or something… not the kind of people I want to be associated with."
"The granddaughter and the grandfather—are they all right? The mage?"
"They said no one was hurt, but I haven't exactly been keeping track. Are we done here?"
Perhaps unsettling Subaru's intense demeanor had creeped the man out—he shook off Subaru's grip and disappeared swiftly into the gloom of the back alleys.
Watching him go, Subaru replayed the man's words and breathed a sigh of relief.
He couldn't verify how much of it was true, but at the very least, there were no reports of casualties. That much he was sure of.
Felt and Old Man Rom had been arrested by guards—that was simply the consequence of their line of work. They could use some time behind bars to reflect on what they'd been doing.
And Satella was safe—had survived, just as Subaru had wished.
"So now… it's about what I do next."
Scratching his head, Subaru recognized that his objective had been emptied out.
Summoned to another world, gifted with a power called "Return by Death," he had used that power to try to save that kind, beautiful silver-haired half-elf.
He had died eighty-seven times to achieve that. And now he'd arrived here.
"Wait—I should have asked Elsa while I was carrying her why she tried to steal the emblem from Satella in the first place…"
He'd meant to ask, but it slipped his mind during the transport.
Then again, if he had pressed Elsa for details and she'd picked up on the fact that Subaru was emotionally invested in Satella, there was no telling what she would have done.
The result was that both Subaru and Satella were alive. If that was the right outcome— "If possible, I'd like to know more about Satella…"
Where she came from. Where she'd gone. Whether he'd ever see her again. He had no answers.
He could try repeating the loop until he found out, of course.
But if there was another way— "—I wonder if you'd tell me?"
Standing before the frozen loot house, Subaru turned around with both hands in his pockets.
No sign of anyone. And yet, Subaru's field of vision was filled with countless figures.
A nondescript lot—old and young, men and women, a disorganized mob with no unifying trait.
If there was one thing they all shared, it was their eyes.
Every last one of them had dead eyes. Eyes steeped in madness, yearning for ecstasy—for its sake.
If he looked in a mirror, Subaru knew, his own eyes would look exactly the same.
"……"
Letting his features soften at that thought, Subaru tilted his head toward the sky.
The moon, terrifyingly clear and bright, looked down in silence over the frozen loot house and the madmen gathered below.
* * * Satella's identity was confirmed in detail nearly two months later.
"The Royal Selection! A silver-haired half-elf! Recommended by Margrave
In the midst of no progress and dead ends, this sudden influx of information struck like lightning. Subaru clapped both hands together, his face alight with elation.
The unexpected flow of intelligence came from a royal decree: the announcement of the "Royal Selection," displayed not only in the capital but throughout the entire kingdom.
Originally, Subaru had scoffed at the crude signboards erected around town—just some backwater country's election. Now his eyes went wide.
Among the five female candidates listed, there was the girl he had been searching for.
"The Royal Selection… the Royal Selection, huh? If she's a candidate to be queen, that means noble blood. No wonder she was overflowing with elegance just from the way she walked. Emilia—Emilia."
Now that he knew her real name, Subaru's heart felt lighter than air.
He had known for a long time that Satella was a false name. He also knew why she—Emilia—had given him a fake name.
Because if there were a silver-haired half-elf going by the name Satella— "—Nobody would go near her, suspecting ties to the
She spoke of her half-elf heritage with a lonely look on her face, acted afraid of being shunned, yet used that very fear to think of others—trying to push Subaru to a safe distance.
What a brave, endearing girl she was. His chest ached with the feeling.
And then— "NATSUKI SUBARU! Beloved disciple! Are you here!?"
"……"
A grating, ear-splitting shriek echoed, calling Subaru's name.
Wincing at the noise, Subaru set down the signboard he'd pried off a wall in the capital and placed it on his bed. Reluctantly, he opened the door and stepped outside his room.
Beyond it lay cold air and a dark corridor. Reverberating through that space was not only the irritating voice but also a strangely hurried set of footsteps.
Pressing his back against the door, Subaru waited. Through the dim light, a pallid, sickly-looking man gradually materialized.
The moment the man spotted Subaru, his eyes nearly basted from their sockets.
"There you are! Why, why, oh why are you lounging about in idleness at a time like this?! We must be diligent! We must answer the
"Save the accusations, Pete. I'm following the Gospel's instructions. The Gospel told me to stay here."
"WHAT! The Gospel told you such a thing?! At this hour, on this occasion, under these circumstances, why would the Witch leave such a devout believer idle? What could the Witch possibly be thinking—someone like me could never hope to fathom it—fathom it!"
The man shouted himself hoarse, and his body was no less noisy—constant, twitching gestures.
Standing before this lunatic—Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti—Subaru struggled to keep himself from sighing.
The man inspired nothing resembling goodwill, but he was undeniably useful.
After all, Subaru's current companions were all egomaniacs to a one, and the rank-and-file cultists might not even possess anything resembling self-awareness.
Subaru privately theorized that the cultists' emotional shallowness was the result of some kind of conscious interference—designed to prevent their affiliation from being noticed in daily life.
In any case, that analysis was irrelevant. What mattered was the purpose of Petelgeuse's visit—this man who had been placed in a position of authority far above the common cultists.
For the past two months, Subaru had been welcomed into a particular group that included Petelgeuse and had been living a reasonably comfortable life.
Comfortable, at least, in material terms. In terms of action and mental state, it was nothing but restriction.
The opportunity to interact with lunatics and fanatics of this caliber was, for a person with nothing beyond ordinary human sensibilities, nothing short of agony.
His dwelling was a cave hidden deep in the mountains, its entrance concealed.
Surprisingly livable—Subaru had even been given his own room, indicating favorable treatment. But the distance from any town, the hardness of the floor, and the cold stone walls made life hard for a modern-day kid.
Then again, his acting wasn't good enough to maintain his cover while living outside. As a compromise, he stayed here and accumulated knowledge of this world. That was useful.
"So what brings you here, to me, living this hermit's life?"
"Don't you know?! The foolish proceedings about to take place in this country!"
"In this country, starting now… you mean the Royal Selection?"
"YES! The Royal Selection! But that is not the issue! What matters is not the Selection itself, but the entity participating in it! Namely, the silver-haired half-demon!"
"……"
As if educating the ignorant Subaru, Petelgeuse produced a copy of the Royal Selection proclamation—the same one Subaru had hanging in his room—and thrust it forward.
There, naturally, was the face of his beloved girl, stared at so long it might as well have had holes burned through it. Petelgeuse's skeletal finger pointed at her image.
"Look! Her appearance! Her background! Nothing less than blasphemy against the Witch! An entity we can never afford to overlook! This is a time of trial!"
"A trial."
"YES!!"
With a shout, Petelgeuse slammed the proclamation against the cave wall. Then, slamming his fist into the portrait of Emilia, blood spattered.
A madman who harmed himself by choice, drunk on pain and blood, he proceeded to blaspheme the image of Emilia drawn on the paper.
"If she matches, we embrace her! If she does not, we cast her out! We must test whether she is a vessel worthy of the Witch, and if she is, we shall take her into our midst! That is the trial we must perform!"
"You want me to help with that?"
"Yes, exactly! I asked others as well, but those faithless wretches are unlikely to respond. Only the 'Wrath' Archbishop had any potential, but she is far from the kingdom now… Therefore, we must go ourselves!"
With a sense of mission filling his chest, Petelgeuse wept torrents of tears while shoving his blood-covered fist into his own mouth, sucking on the wound. His lip split to the corner, his front teeth punctured the back of his hand, tearing through skin and muscle—the sight was almost too grotesque to witness.
Telling himself to endure with his steel willpower, Subaru kept his expression flat.
"So I should tag along? I don't know how this works, Archbishop."
"You will accompany us? Oh! Ahh! How—how—how—how—how—how—how—how—how wonderful is that!"
"I just said I'd come along—no need to get that excited."
The bitter smile that escaped him was genuine.
Accepting Subaru's positive response, Petelgeuse nodded so many times his head nearly flew off. Then, with a sharp change of demeanor, he straightened his posture, turned his back, and declared: "We depart immediately! I have already dispatched orders to my 'Fingers' along the way… We shall rendezvous individually, then proceed to the Mathers domain. There, we shall follow the Gospel's guidance!"
"Understood. …By the way, what does this 'trial' actually entail?"
"A natural question! We test whether the vessel is worthy of the Witch—that is, whether the vessel possesses the strength, the quality, above all the qualification to contain the Witch's soul!"
A vague explanation at best. Subaru nodded with an air of understanding.
He didn't know the specifics. But compared to the agonizing period before he'd known that Satella was Emilia, this was far more bearable.
Besides, this meant he'd have the chance to interact with Emilia again.
But for that— "Come, come, come! Come, come, come! We go! We test! If this vessel is unworthy, the Witch shall descend upon the world once more! On this occasion—for the first time in centuries—all seats have been filled!"
"If the Witch Satella descends… the girl who is the vessel…"
"She shall become a most noble sacrifice! But that is a glorious thing! I would gladly take her place! If offering myself would satisfy Satella's desire, I would endure any suffering, any number of times, for the hope of reunion!"
"So that's how it is. You're going to disappear."
Following behind Petelgeuse as the madman strode off, Subaru murmured softly.
It was a whisper so faint it didn't reach Petelgeuse, who was laughing in his own world, cackling endlessly.
"Oh, I see."
—Natsuki Subaru's smile, dark and savage, went unnoticed by the madman.
* * * He drove the sword into the center of the thin body and twisted.
The feedback through the blade told him he was tearing apart something vital.
From that emptiness, a trembling breath escaped— "I know you probably won't believe me when I say this, but…"
"Why… do you…"
"I actually ranked you among the less awful ones I hate."
The eyes, forced wide in shock, looked down in despair at the black eyes intersecting with them at close range.
With the astonishment still not fading, the body slowly toppled backward as the sword withdrew. The motion forced Subaru to step back, and he drew a deep breath.
At his feet lay Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti in a pool of blood.
His heart, destroyed by Subaru's own hand, was moments from ceasing.
"I went through a hell of a lot of effort to set up this situation. Pretending to be crazy—you were a bit too thorough, honestly. I genuinely racked my brain more than once."
"What… are you… saying…?"
"All the trial and error it took to get me here. No, the strategy was one thing, but the trump cards were genuinely terrifying. Seriously, I'm relieved."
Petelgeuse tried to force strength into his limp limbs and crawl. But he lacked the energy to stand and fight back. He could only drag himself away from death—backward.
And even without any effort on Subaru's part, Petelgeuse's life would not last long.
"At first, I couldn't even see your 'Invisible Providence' and didn't know what to do. The 'Fingers' gave me a lot of trouble, too… Now, I'm filled with a sense of accomplishment having finally managed it."
"Guh, uuu, uuu…"
The blood flowing from the wound was the measure of Petelgeuse's remaining life.
Rather than stemming it, Subaru watched the blood flow freely as he played the mastermind, revealing his hand.
The Invisible Hands—those black, unseen palms Petelgeuse wielded.
The Fingers—Petelgeuse's confidants, and even the stock of spare bodies.
And Possession—the ability to transfer his consciousness into those spare bodies, extending his life.
Subaru had employed every tool and maneuver at his disposal, fighting Petelgeuse's attempts to corner Emilia using his own hallmark "diligence." Taking him down had been an ordeal.
It had taken over four hundred attempts to reach this point.
"So, without question, you're the person I've exchanged the most words with in this world. It's incredibly one-sided, but I almost feel something like friendship. Your single-minded devotion to your goal, your willingness to use every card in your hand to fight it out—I can't say I wasn't moved."
"What… What are you, what are you, what are you, what—what—what—what—WHAT ARE YOU SAYING!!"
In the body that had been falling toward death, a final surge of rage-fueled power took root. Pouring every last fragment of his existence into that moment, the dying Petelgeuse raised his torso.
Coughing blood—literally, blood spilling from his mouth—eyes red and wild, Petelgeuse fixed Subaru with his gaze.
"Traitor! Betrayer who rejects the Witch's favor! I cannot forgive—cannot forgive—forgive you—!!"
With a roar, Petelgeuse thrust out his blood-soaked arm.
It was not the activation of his Invisible Providence. Invisibility that could be seen through was useless. Here, Petelgeuse had only one card left to play— The condition required for the evil spirit Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti to seize a body.
The process of Possession—transferring into the body of a human with the aptitude of a spirit arts user.
And there was only one person in this place who met that requirement— "Your… body—!!"
With that will to seize, Petelgeuse lunged— and Subaru let out a soft exhale.
Then, calmly stepping forward, he drove a kick straight into Petelgeuse's desperate face. The full-force front kick shattered the madman's front teeth, and Petelgeuse's head snapped back in shock.
He couldn't possess the body he should have been able to take.
Rather than answering with words, Subaru raised his left hand—and on its fingertip, a faint crimson glow materialized.
It was a minor spirit.
A being that had formed a contract with the aptitude-endowed Natsuki Subaru, serving as nothing more than a small tool to light the way through darkness.
The evil spirit Petelgeuse's Possession could only take root in the body of an uncontracted spirit arts user.
How many deaths had it taken to figure out this condition?
"It was the longest three days of my life. For you, it was probably just a short acquaintance…"
"NATSUKI SUBARUUUUU—!!"
"You targeted Emilia. —Enjoy a long, long regret."
As Petelgeuse screamed in hatred, Subaru kicked him to the ground, pinned him on his back, and brought the sword down on his face. Without mercy, the blade plunged through Petelgeuse's skull, destroying his life and brain alike.
The ear-piercing death shriek cut off. Subaru leaned his weight on the sword that had gone through Petelgeuse and into the ground, and let out a long breath.
In real time, it had been short. In experienced time, it had been far too long. The brutal battle with Petelgeuse was over.
Both a sense of accomplishment and a sense of collapse washed over him.
"Oh my—you're done over here too?"
Into the brief silence that followed, a voice reached him.
Turning, Subaru saw a massive shadow pushing through the trees—a beast with black fur, the head of a lion, and savage limbs lumbering toward him.
Naturally, it was not the beast that had spoken in that languid tone. Riding atop it, sending Subaru a gaze far too mature for her age, was a girl.
"Yeah, all cleaned up. Thanks for the help, Meili."
"Think nothing of it. I got my payment, and Elsa did have you to look after her brother, after all. But I'm glad, yeah? These people—weren't they your comrades?"
"Not really. If they hadn't tried to kill me at the end, I could have called them friends from a distance—but they tried to kill me, so. What a shame. Friends denied."
Wiping a spatter of blood from his cheek with his sleeve, Subaru shrugged at the girl—Meili. At his words, Meili touched her chin thoughtfully.
"Hmm. In that case, I would never try to kill you, brother. So I'm your friend, right?"
"By that logic, sure. You and I are friends, Meili."
"Yay! Wonderful! Now, counting Petra and the others, I have lots of friends!"
Clapping her hands together, Meili happily bounced her shoulders atop the beast's back. Raising an eyebrow at her childish behavior, Subaru was surprised to hear she had friends.
"Huh, unexpected. I don't mean to sound like that, but you actually have friends?"
"I do! Of course, I've killed most of them by now."
"……"
With a faint smile, Meili said this without a shred of guilt.
Killed—which meant they'd been people she'd interacted with on the job. For a moment, Subaru had thought there might be something childlike in her after all, but her moral compass was clearly bent out of shape.
Though, being Elsa's sister, that was hardly surprising.
"Anyway, thanks for filling in the gaps. Without you, there was no way I could have wiped out every last 'Finger' on my own."
"Fine with me. But did it really have to be us? Wouldn't it have been better to ask one of the kingdom's real knights or something?"
"That wouldn't have served part of my objective."
"Objective?"
Meili tilted her head, trying to read Subaru's thoughts. But he had no intention of explaining further. He flashed a casual smile.
"That's grown-up talk from here on. You're a kid, Meili—best you don't know about it."
"Ugh! There you go treating me like a child again! Fine! I don't care! I don't care, I don't care about you, brother!"
Meili's cheeks puffed with indignation, and at her anger, the beast let out a low growl.
He had to be careful—if the beast was set on him now, it would ruin everything. He had worked too hard to kill Petelgeuse to let this loop end in failure.
Struggling to coax Meili out of her foul mood, Subaru devoted himself to the delicate art of placating a sulky girl.
* * * Within days of the Royal Selection's start, the landscape of the Lugnica Kingdom had changed dramatically.
The biggest shift was the elimination of the frontrunner candidate—Duchess
Because the very existence of this person called Crusch had vanished from the world without a trace, and the fact that she had "existed" was erased along with it. The world recorded her as simply never having been.
As a result, the Royal Selection began with only four candidates, and the memories of those who had supported Duchess Karsten were twisted so that they fell under a different faction.
"That Whale Mist is some scary stuff. Erasing other people's records like that."
Why its effect didn't work on Subaru alone was a mystery. But since Subaru had never done anything special to himself, he simply avoided the awkward discrepancies that arose from conversations with others.
It was easier to forget Duchess Crusch Karsten ever existed.
Those who had recklessly challenged an overwhelmingly powerful enemy and died had no chance of a comeback.
Only in this world could Natsuki Subaru earn that chance.
So he simply kept the defeated in his memory as a cautionary tale—an act of foolishness not to be imitated.
But there were other changes that had meaning beyond Subaru alone.
Among them— "One of the Royal Selection candidates, Emilia! She has subjugated the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop of Sloth, a source of evil that has tormented the world for years…!"
The kingdom erupted at the news. Her accomplishment, he heard, had spread to foreign nations as well.
It had been surprisingly effective publicity—even more so than Subaru had anticipated. The result of transferring, wholesale, the victory Natsuki Subaru had won through more than four hundred deaths to Emilia—or rather, to the suspicious, clown-like man who supported her.
Honestly, the negotiations to cede the credit to Emilia—and the Margrave's attitude in response—had been every bit as risky as taking on Petelgeuse.
But the man had been shockingly reasonable.
Margrave Roswaal L. Mathers accepted Subaru's proposal without hesitation, promptly announced the Petelgeuse subjugation as Emilia's achievement.
Though Subaru sensed something fishy about the man's readiness, he didn't press the issue.
Emilia had always been despised in this world for trivial reasons. For someone to step forward as her supporter, serve as her backing, and push for her participation in the Royal Selection— There was likely a crude expectation that if Emilia somehow won the throne, there'd be sweet rewards to lap up.
The way the man had drooled over the report of Petelgeuse's defeat was proof enough.
"Fine. Do whatever you want, Margrave. As long as you're on Emilia's side, I'll be on yours. Just as you hope—Emilia will become queen."
For that, Natsuki Subaru would use this power over death to make it happen.
But if Roswaal harbored dishonorable desires toward Emilia—thoughts beyond what he deserved—then— "Her tombstone line will be one headstone longer, that's all."
Until then, Subaru could only continue working in the shadows, maintaining a position where Emilia wouldn't know of his involvement, while letting Roswaal handle the overt actions.
In exchange, Subaru would scheme beneath the surface.
For that purpose— "I went to the trouble of picking you up. You'd better be useful, 'Blue.'"
"……"
Deep in the cave, behind a token iron-bar cell, was a prison.
Chained within that cold space was a figure in a grimy outfit—ears of a cat in pale gold atop the head, a slender body wrapped in the white uniform of a Royal Guard—a girl, boyish to the point of androgyny.
While Subaru was scrambling to clean up the aftermath of Petelgeuse's death and the
But the person supposedly called "Blue"—renowned for healing talent—had yet to show any such ability. Instead, he simply stared at the floor of the cell and kept muttering in a sobbing whisper, without even tending to his own wounds.
"…Someone, tell me. Tell me—why am I… Where is Your Highness? What am I—what am I here for? There was someone. There must have been. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. But…"
"Well, this is a problem. Looks like it's going to take some time."
Scratching his head, Subaru pulled a document from his pocket. It was the Royal Selection proclamation—the very one he kept on his person at all times, a thing of desperate personal value.
But the content had changed from what Subaru remembered. Where five candidates had been listed, the portraits now showed only four, and the text was shorter.
The disappearance of Crusch Karsten had been applied here as well.
But Subaru remembered. He had reread that article so many times it was practically burned into his memory, even if he hadn't taken it seriously at first. Crusch Karsten's knight's name had been Felix Argyle.
The "Blue" healer who should have been sitting right in front of him.
"When you get erased by the Whale Mist, your memories adapt to the change just enough that nothing feels wrong—that was my theory. But looking at this…"
"Someone—someone, tell me. Your Highness… Your Highness, where is she? Who is she with…?"
"If the gap in their memories is too large to compensate for, this is what happens."
When a person who had played a significant role in someone's formation of identity was erased from the world, it was only natural that the person themselves would fall apart.
That was why "Blue" had ended up like this—a broken doll, repeating himself endlessly.
How to heal a broken mind—unfortunately, even Subaru didn't know.
The one person who could have kept his heart whole had no connection to Subaru. Even if he started over, the time he could travel back to was not Subaru's to determine.
So what kind of story had existed between him and that person, Subaru could never know.
"But even so—you're a piece I went through the trouble of finding. Don't worry. I'll find a way to fill in that crack in your heart."
"Someone—please… tell me. What am I—why am I—"
Subaru's words drew no response from "Blue."
It seemed hopeless, but Subaru had no intention of rushing. He was prepared to take as long as it took.
A power to heal wounds. A knight who had lost the one person to lean on. There was no easier piece to use.
And so, with sincerity, from the depths of his heart, Subaru said: "This time, I'll find you a way to not kill yourself."
No matter how many times, he promised to face that will to die head-on.
* * * Every entrance and exit of the mansion had been sealed.
Doors barred from inside, every window boarded over, curtains drawn tight in the darkened estate—if anyone had paid attention, they might have noticed something was wrong.
Of course, Subaru had made absolutely certain no one would notice before setting this in motion.
"—!!"
A catastrophic blaze engulfed the massive mansion without mercy, scorching everything within.
Fires had been set throughout the building, and the flames spread with unstoppable ferocity, consuming everything from floor to ceiling, raging to reduce it all to ash.
The conflagration swallowed the grand estate—and it was not only furnishings and decorations being reduced to char.
The many women who had spent long, agonized hours within this mansion were also caught in the flames and smoke, losing their lives, their human forms becoming unrecognizable cinders.
An act of indescribable cruelty—a barbarism no one would be blamed for condemning.
But who would believe that this was exactly what the women, now burning to death, had wished for?
"Th-this is—this is absurd—YOU'RE ALL INSANE!!"
The fire's fury only intensified, and within the raging mansion, a man's screams echoed off the walls.
It was a pathetically strained voice, torn and distorted.
That voice, disbelieving of the situation, unable to grasp what was happening, howled in madness— "Number ninety-two! A hundred fourteen! A hundred twenty-three would do! Where is she?! Where did she go?! Who do you people think I am?! To leave me behind—to die like this on your own terms—how irresponsible and selfish can you women be?!"
Like a child throwing a tantrum, a white-haired young man shrieked in a cracked voice. Clad in white robes, his plain features twisted into something demonic as he raged.
In the midst of a grand estate that could collapse at any moment, his existence was an anomaly.
Any normal person would be taking every possible measure to escape the fire.
But this man showed no such behavior. On the contrary, he acted as though the thought of his own death had never even crossed his mind—operating on a morality that seemed to transcend life and death itself.
His mind was not broken.
No—that wasn't quite right either. He had his own firm conviction.
That in this fire, he could not possibly die.
Therefore, the reason for his screaming had nothing whatsoever to do with fear of death.
If anything, it was an intractable fury directed at his own wife—his wife—who had presumably started this fire.
A fury born from the fact that he could not see his own situation, his own footing, at all— "The lot of you, treating my limited assets with such contempt—"
"—I wish you'd close that unbearable mouth of yours."
"Hwha—"
The face of the raging man was struck squarely by the sole of a boot that had burst through the wall of flame.
The unexpected angle and the sheer unexpected force sent the man flying to the far side of the corridor. The wall there, weakened by fire, crumbled under his impact.
He tumbled violently, sprawling flat, and lay staring up at the burning ceiling in stunned silence.
"What… is…"
"This fire is a farewell letter from your many wives. To put it bluntly—love held together by fear has run its course."
The woman's voice was the same one that had accompanied the kick. As the man bounced upright, she climbed through the collapsed wall into the burning room.
Her trademark features were a bewitching smile and a long, black braid.
But what truly spoke of her position was the curved blade clutched in her right hand.
"A thief?! Who do you think I am?! You'll regret this foolish—"
He raised both arms to strike at her, but his plan was thwarted in an instant. His arms, severed at the elbows, flew from his field of vision with a light impact.
Lowering his gaze, he saw his own armless body.
He could not process it. What was happening?
"Immortal? Invincible? I forget which, but the trick to that has been figured out. Right now, you're nothing more than a disgusting insect."
"You—a harlot like you—"
"……"
Arms gone, dignity shattered, the man hurled filthy words at the woman. But she didn't let him finish.
Her long leg swung upward, striking the man between the legs where he sat slumped on the ground. The force launched him into the air, and the blades already gripping his limbs carved death.
His arms were cut off above the elbows, then at the shoulders. His legs were sliced at the toes, ankles, shins, knees, and thighs. Blood sprayed as his body was grotesquely dismembered in the blink of an eye.
"I—"
"To still try to speak in that state—how admirable."
Her kick drove straight into his diminished torso, shattering the boarded-up window and blasting the man's body out of the mansion into the inferno beyond.
Falling amid shattered glass, the limbless man hit the ground without any way to break his fall. The room had been on the second floor, which saved him from fatal impact.
Though, having lost all four limbs and bled profusely, the situation was already more than lethal enough.
"This is—this is impossible. I am—I am the most perfect being in this world. I asked for nothing, knew when I had enough, lived without desire, without excess—how could I, how could I fall victim to you defective humans—"
"If you'd spent less of your time spewing that kind of crap, no one would have filed for divorce."
"Wha—?!"
The man who could no longer even roll over on his own caught sight of yet another figure.
It was a black-haired, black-eyed youth in a black robe—Natsuki Subaru.
Subaru looked down at the hopelessly oblivious man and sighed.
"Didn't expect things to go this smoothly with everyone cooperating. Nice going, Regulus."
"You—why are you here…? Did you, did you orchestrate this…?"
"What else would it be?"
Shrugging, Subaru grinned at the man—Regulus—who had finally grasped the situation. Humiliated by that expression, Regulus's eyes blazed with fury.
"You wretched—filthy—scoundrel! Do you have any idea what you've done?! You burned my wives alive—right in front of me—along with the entire mansion! Do you understand how monstrous, how demonic that act is?! You wife-killer!"
"I have to admit, that's such an out-of-left-field accusation that even I'm at a loss for words. …But let me tell you something—the ones who gave their lives as part of your heart-countermeasure? That was your wives' idea. Not mine."
"…That's—impossible—"
Leaning back with a look of pure disbelief, Subaru watched Regulus go speechless.
That reaction—genuine surprise beyond anything Subaru could have predicted—was harder for him to understand than anything else.
Regulus had locked numerous women in his mansion under the title of "wives," threatening them with death if they disobeyed, and lived out a selfish domestic life.
That alone would have made him look like the worst kind of harem fantasist. But the Sin Archbishop's ugliness went further: he had entrusted his own "heart" to those wives, freezing his body's time to achieve immortality and "invincibility."
To kill the Sin Archbishop of "Greed,"
The only way to do that was to kill every wife he had entrusted it to—destroying every possible hiding place.
When Subaru had learned this fact, even he had struggled with the decision.
But the ones who resolved his hesitation were none other than Regulus's captive wives—no, those women.
"They all said they'd gladly die if it meant getting back at you. To be hated that much—I can't say I've ever heard words that harsh."
"Who—no one would believe that! I loved my wives! And so they should have loved me too! Isn't that right?! Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense! And yet—they failed as wives, so why should I suffer like this!"
"…You really mean that. That's honestly terrifying about you people."
With a look of utter exasperation, Subaru turned away from Regulus, who continued his stream of abuse and blame-shifting.
His gaze found a shadow leaping down from the burning mansion into the garden—Elsa. She lightly brushed soot from her clothes, noticed Subaru's look, and said: "Oh, are you worried about me? Don't be. Not a scratch on me."
"Worried? Hardly. More importantly—what's with this? I never asked for this level of dark theatrics."
At Elsa's cheerful remark, Subaru's lips twisted. He pointed at the limbless Regulus.
At least, the Regulus Subaru had seen before had limbs. Elsa was clearly responsible for this state. At his accusation, she shrugged.
"He was too noisy with all his limbs. Besides—I thought they deserved to have their words conveyed to him."
"…Fair point."
Surprisingly, it seemed Elsa did have some capacity for empathy.
The women who had been sacrificed to Regulus—the determination with which they had lured him into this trap—it would have been wrong to let him die without knowing the truth.
And since she had delivered that truth— "Gu—aaagh!"
Elsa drove her dagger into Regulus's chest and lifted his drastically lightened body. Dangling like a skewer of meat, Regulus bled and thrashed, desperately clinging to life.
"Finish him off?"
"No…"
At Elsa's question, Subaru stroked his chin in thought.
Unlike Elsa, Subaru did possess a normal person's sense of sympathy and righteous anger. And that heart now urged him to honor the resolve of those women who had wept as they chose death.
And so Subaru ordered: "Throw him onto that pile of scrap over there. I want to watch him burn to death."
"Understood."
Without a hint of remorse, Elsa nodded at the cruel instruction.
She carried Regulus's body—the man who still wouldn't stop cursing—and threw him onto a mound of debris where the flames had barely begun to lick.
"……"
Screams of a man being burned alive, roasted by fire until death, echoed through the night sky.
Without so much as changing expression, Subaru and Elsa stood side by side and watched.
"Bugs are at least more pleasant to listen to than that."
When the agonizing death cries finally ceased, Elsa murmured that observation.
Subaru agreed completely.
* * * The sound of a shattered glass seemed to Subaru like the sound of trust shattering.
"Th-this is…"
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't want it to come to this. I swear, I swear."
The man's voice trembled with shock as he slammed his elbow against the counter. But his body wouldn't support him—his torso slipped, his chair toppled, and he fell to the floor of the shop.
The fall toppled the glasses and bottles on the counter, which shattered on the ground. The spilled contents soaked his white uniform with the stench of alcohol.
His limbs wouldn't respond. The color was draining from his face. His lips turned blue-purple, his vision blurred—he blinked again and again, trying to push back the encroaching end.
Subaru watched the man's desperate struggle from the seat where he sat at a table.
He was an elegant-looking man. Tall and slender, graceful in the bearing he'd shown when entering the shop and in the way he addressed a friend. He was every inch a knight.
"I can see why they call you the 'Finest.' You really are,
"You… what have you…"
"But if you'd been more aware of your position, you might have been a little more careful around others. As the number-one knight of the current Royal Selection frontrunner, you had to account for the possibility of being targeted—not just your master. Of course…"
Standing, Subaru extended an arm toward the person who had been seated in the chair beside Julius before he collapsed.
He gently gathered the slender shoulders, touched the head with pale-gold cat ears, and stroked. That alone was enough for "Blue" to relax his tense expression, eyes softening in a blissful haze.
"J-Julius… you…"
"Breaking through his grief was quite the effort, you know. I never imagined I'd have to go to such lengths for someone else's sake. But it paid off."
"What—what are you scheming…"
"It doesn't concern you anymore. Relax. In my estimation, once you're out of the picture, your master should no longer be a target. If she gets fired up, though, all bets are off."
In Julius's amber eyes, confusion warred with anger, grief with bewilderment, anguish with doubt.
But every one of those rapidly shifting emotions was meaningless.
"Summoned by an old friend, sharing a drink in a bar—and this is how it ends. Trust really is a sweet poison, 'Finest.' You let yourself drown in it, and you lost sight of things."
"…Oh…"
"It's easy to do something you can be proud of. Must be nice living with that kind of clarity. …You'll die, though."
Crouching down, Subaru peered into Julius's fading consciousness. Julius's gaze no longer looked at Subaru. He was not fixated on the man who had ordered his death.
All that remained in his eyes was concern for the safety of the friend who had been used unwittingly, and—presumably—the regret of failing a master who was not present.
"……"
"Still a knight to the very end. Damn annoying."
Looking down at the face frozen in eternal silence, Subaru spat out those words.
The churning in his stomach came from the fact that there was absolutely no reason—a nonexistent justification—for killing this "Finest" knight.
This was the first time Subaru had ordered a death so completely without pretext.
Killing Witch Cultists and Sin Archbishops—he felt no pain over that. But this killing, Subaru had chosen based on nothing more than which target was easier.
Rather than
"Lord Subaru, did I do well?"
"Perfectly. Sorry for putting you through something so painful."
Standing after witnessing Julius's death, Subaru answered "Blue" in a weak voice. At that, Subaru shrugged and stroked the anxious head once more.
If it calmed that emotionally unstable mind, he would stroke it as many times as needed.
"It's all right, as long as I can be of use to Lord Subaru. Because this is what's needed to shape the future Your Highness and Lord Subaru desire, isn't it?"
"Yeah, exactly. And that's why your friend had to die."
"…Yes…"
With an expression drained of emotion, "Blue" still felt the fracture of his heart at a friend's death. He reached out and gently plucked at the hem of Subaru's robe.
And as the scent of death thickened within the shop— "Oh my—you're busy, I see."
Through the entrance that no one should have been able to open, an elegant man stepped inside.
An outsider who had witnessed a troublesome situation would normally contemplate silencing the witness. Fortunately, this man required no such measure. He was an associate.
"You're on time."
"Yes. Time is finite. 'Time and money are of equal value'—that's the merchant's creed."
"You still call yourself a merchant? How brazen. You're the 'Merchant of Death.'"
"I can't say I disagree with that."
Scratching his head at Subaru's remark was a slender man with gray hair.
Clad in a black suit with a matching tie, from a distance he might have been taken for an ordinary man leaving a funeral. But on closer inspection, an unmistakable stench of death clung to him.
His features were gentle, his gaze mild—but the way he scanned the room clearly betrayed wariness, marking someone who had survived the killing fields.
Most of all, Subaru liked those murky eyes. They were the eyes of a living corpse—someone who had lost the will to live, lost sight of any meaning, yet chose to persist. Very similar, in nature, to "Blue" beside him.
"Have I… heard your name before?"
"I've never introduced myself, and I don't intend to. Of course, I won't ask your name either. Better for both of us that way."
"Yeah, fair enough. Not like we could be friends or anything."
"No. If anything goes wrong, we'd be enemies in an instant. That's the result of calling someone a friend, isn't it?"
The man glanced at Julius's body on the floor and the figure of "Blue" leaning against Subaru, his words tinged with irony. Subaru offered no rebuttal and headed for the shop's exit.
The poison and the cleanup had all been prepared in secret cooperation with this man. Moving the Witch Cult would attract unwanted attention—and Subaru was walking a very fine line right now.
"Say hello to Russell for me. Tell him I'll need his help again. He's your right hand, isn't it?"
"His right hand is attached to his right shoulder. I'm merely a slave."
What a pragmatic way of looking at things. For better or worse, Subaru found himself liking the man's frank realism. At the same time, he felt a twinge of regret.
They could have been friends—they'd have gotten along.
* * * Reducing candidates. Reducing the Sin Archbishops who tried to block his path. Scheming in the shadows over and over.
A mysterious organization. A den of dangerous individuals—within which, members did not interfere excessively with one another's activities.
For Subaru, the Witch Cult was an extraordinarily convenient cover.
It was a cover he would eventually have to eliminate entirely, but with that前提 in mind, using them made it possible to dispose of them without a shred of guilt.
He had no sense of camaraderie with the Sin Archbishops. None at all.
He constantly schemed, tested, and—if feasible—laid groundwork to kill them. And even if he failed, Subaru had the power to restart the world.
Gradually, in this version of the situation, he had even begun to form something that might be called relationships.
He knew the Witch Cult was unreliable and that he shouldn't have been accumulating associates.
"Brother and I have been at this from the very beginning, haven't we? I hope you'll keep letting me help with more and more fun things!"
"I have no intention of siding with you exclusively. But you—right now, given the chance, you're still thinking about killing me. And somehow, that's incredibly comforting."
"As long as you're here, Lord Subaru, Your Highness's dream can come true. That's why I'll stay by your side forever. …But, wait? When and where did Your Highness and Lord Subaru first meet…"
"A working relationship involving dirty deeds? What a silly notion to call it partnership. You and I—we're both unfilial children whose families can't even see our faces. Honestly, it'd be easier if we were just dead."
"Only one step away—just one step—from achieving a lifelong wish. For that, I would sell my soul to the devil. To you, a devil."
—Subaru himself did not believe he was doing anything worthy of praise.
And yet, at some point, supporters had appeared.
Perhaps that was, in the end, a form of salvation.
Using the power of Return by Death, Natsuki Subaru wished to save Emilia and kept fighting, kept struggling.
He had thought it was a solitary battle—that he could only fight alone.
Perhaps, at some point without realizing it, it had ceased to be a battle he fought alone.
* * * The royal capital was engulfed in flames. Subaru, every joint in his body aching, looked up at the sky.
His consciousness was sharp.
The acute pain, paradoxically, had driven him not toward unconsciousness but toward wakefulness.
What had happened. Why he was here. Everything was crystal clear.
"……"
In his arms, Subaru held Meili's lifeless body.
The girl's eyes, already drained of light, stared at some place that wasn't this world. Her brash attitude, her sweet voice too mature for her age, the way she threw a tantrum at being treated like a child—he would never see any of it again.
Because Subaru had used Return by Death and come back to this exact moment.
Even if the point of Return had shifted, it had never taken him further back than before.
This was now the starting point. And since Meili was already dead in Subaru's arms upon his return, there was no bringing her back.
"……"
Knowing it was only comforting himself, Subaru gently closed Meili's eyelids. He had no right to pray for a soul's peace. These hands were too stained with blood.
Meili was the same. She had committed evil acts for which no peace in death could be expected. Sin piled upon sin, forming chains that would drag them all to hell.
"But still…"
The fact that she had met "death" was no reason to give up.
How many times had he died to reach this point? Already past a thousand, into the tens of thousands—blaspheming every life, trampling them underfoot, desperate to grant his wish, and finally arriving here.
He had nearly broken under the pain of death—more than once. But each time, a flame had burned in his heart.
That very first scorching heat. The faint sensation of fingertips. They had guided Subaru here.
He was one step away from achieving his deepest desire.
Having paid so many sacrifices to finally reach this point.
And yet— "That's enough."
The voice came from above, cold and absolute.
The royal capital being engulfed in flames was no metaphor. And that blazing inferno seemed to radiate from the figure who appeared on the slope above, shining with terrible brilliance.
"Reinhard… van… Astrea…"
"No need for introductions. I don't have many words to exchange with you either."
Reinhard's blue eyes fixed Subaru where he crouched, piercing him straight through.
The light in those eyes had changed from when Subaru had last seen it—it trembled with raw emotion.
This man, who had never been rattled regardless of whether his opponent was a slaughterer or not, now directed toward Subaru— Emotions so intense they were difficult to even put into words—hatred.
"So you actually have the capacity to hate people, 'Sword Saint.'"
"I'm surprised myself. I didn't know I was capable of this."
"Discovered something new about yourself. Happy birthday—congrats, Reinhard."
"Sorry, but today isn't my birthday. It will, however, be the date of your death."
Even the self-conscious phrasing, when delivered by someone as handsome as Reinhard, carried a certain elegance.
Sentenced to death by his own words, Subaru smiled.
He had wiped away that composed mask and dragged up the emotions buried at the bottom—knew it was pointless, but it was all he had to feel victorious about.
"You're killing me, Reinhard! 'Sword Saint'! The sword of the kingdom! You're supposed to be the knight who protects the Kingdom of Lugnica, right?! What exactly have you protected?! Tell me!"
"……"
Spreading his arms, spitting venom, Subaru screamed.
At the main gate of the royal castle where the two faced each other, the panorama of the capital spread out below—every building consumed by fire. And not just the capital.
Now, the inferno raged to consume the entire Kingdom of Lugnica.
No matter how strong, how outstanding a knight Reinhard might be—what could one man do? Nothing. That was the conclusion.
"This is my gift to you! This trap I set—to kill you!"
"You want to… kill me?"
"How many times—how many times do you think I've tried to kill you?! How many—how many hundreds, how many thousands of times do you think I've challenged you?!"
"……"
To Subaru's incomprehensible outburst, Reinhard's cheeks hardened with confusion.
He could never understand. No one but Subaru could.
Subaru had exhausted every possible trial and error to kill Reinhard.
He had studied the man called Reinhard van Astrea, studied him to the core, tested every means he could conceive, devised schemes, and attempted every possible method to take his life.
But no matter what approach he chose, Reinhard defeated them all. As if Subaru's shallow cleverness could never touch a being like him.
He sacrificed Elsa. He sacrificed Meili. He sacrificed "Blue." He sacrificed a man who could have been a friend. He sacrificed the self-proclaimed accomplice clown. He sacrificed the Witch Cult. He sacrificed Sin Archbishops. He committed every form of illegality, inhumanity, and depravity—and still couldn't kill him.
And so, having exhausted every means to end Reinhard's life, Subaru had made his decision.
"I'm going to kill you as a knight. I'll drag that grand title of 'Sword Saint' to the ground, trample it under my feet, and spit on it!"
"All of that… for this?"
"All of it! Yeah—that's right, for this! I used up every life around me—for this. To drag you to the ground!"
He laid Meili's body on the ground, then pointed straight at Reinhard.
Reinhard's composure was cracking. That was satisfying.
"You're a hero, Reinhard. I can't kill Reinhard. But even I can kill a hero. —This is how you die, Reinhard."
"……"
To the silent Reinhard, Subaru spoke in a ruined, victorious voice.
He had tried everything. Devised strategies. Created sacrifices. Spilled blood. Died over and over. And finally— Shielded by Meili, barely surviving—he had finally reached this point.
With enough sacrifices stacked up, he had finally stood on the same stage.
"…Why?"
Abruptly, the momentum from before dissipated, and a feeble voice escaped.
"Why are you so strong? Why—why do I have to kill all of them just to reach you? Why are you so strong?"
Trembling. The voice shook with something like a sob. At this, Reinhard's expression stiffened.
He could no longer understand what Subaru was thinking. Of course. Even Subaru himself no longer understood.
He didn't even know the reason for his tears. When was the last time he had cried?
Probably—the day he had been brought to this world. That was the last time.
The day that had brought Natsuki Subaru to this landscape of fire—that day's tears were the last.
"If only you were like me. If only I had the strength to save everything, straight and true, the way you do. I envy you. I hate you."
"You…"
Overflowing with tears, those words must have been the truest feelings Natsuki Subaru had ever held.
The moment he had first seen that man—Reinhard van Astrea—who had broken the endless loop, back when Subaru had been trapped in the royal capital.
—At that moment, Subaru had envied Reinhard.
Repeatedly having his stomach split open, literally experiencing death, and still unable to change anything—his heart growing more and more savage, peeling away—while this man, like some cosmic accident, like swerving around a pebble on the road, effortlessly rewrote fate.
He had admired that strength. Envied it. Jealous. And filled with hatred.
"I wanted to become you, Reinhard."
"…I don't understand your feelings."
Indifferently, Reinhard dismissed Subaru's heartfelt words as nonsense.
And he was right. Reinhard, hero—you were always, always right.
—Where had things gone wrong? Where had Natsuki Subaru strayed?
He didn't know. No—he did know. But no one could understand it.
That was precisely—that was precisely why.
Natsuki Subaru had long since become a madman no one else could comprehend.
"……"
Reinhard narrowed his eyes slightly and bent at the waist. He made no move toward the sword at his side. In his eyes, Subaru wasn't worth a weapon.
Correct. Subaru's fragile body would be pulverized by a single blow.
So then, at the very least, at the very least— "—I don't think it's time to give up just yet."
"You—!"
The instant Reinhard lunged, a dark shadow attacked from the side. With a sound of grinding metal, Reinhard's bare hand intercepted the black figure's downward slash.
Are you insane? How could he catch a blade swung with that much force with his bare hand? Look— the blade shattered with a high-pitched ring. Are you insane? Why is the blade the one that broke?
"You really are something else, aren't you."
Twisting in midair, landing on all fours—it was the blood-soaked Elsa.
He had thought she was dead. Used as a stepping stone in his plan, he had believed she would burn through her life at that moment.
"I seem to have survived dying. Though, given the circumstances, it almost looks like I came back just to die again."
"Elsa…"
"Meili—yes, she's dead. What an unfortunate little sister."
Catching sight of Meili's body on the ground at the edge of her vision, Elsa murmured, a trace of loneliness in her voice.
But she blinked once and her expression reset. Turning to face Reinhard head-on— "She was my sister's murderer, wasn't she? Shall we dance?"
"I have no weapon. And do you even understand whose side you're protecting?"
"I don't like complicated talk. I do as I please. The man behind me lets me do as I please. That's why he's such a valuable guest."
Licking her lips, Elsa answered with the logic only a slaughterer could understand.
Reinhard held his breath and braced against Elsa.
"This will be our last encounter, I imagine. It's been fun. Truly wonderful."
"Elsa! I—"
"Goodbye."
It was a farewell true to her nature—nothing at all considered for Subaru's plans.
The next instant, with the agility of a wild animal, Elsa launched herself at Reinhard, and the fierce battle between hero and slaughterer began.
It would be over in moments—Elsa Granhiert's last feast of blood.
"Damn it!"
He couldn't die here.
Turning away from Elsa's fight and Meili's body, Subaru ran down the slope.
In the distance, behind him, the aftershocks of the battle echoed.
The burning capital was collapsing, building after building, turning into a hell where screams rang out on every side—a hell where children called for parents, parents for children, men for women, women for men.
Yes—this was the hell Subaru had created.
He had created this hell, shattered the false image of Reinhard, and accomplished his goal.
Now— "You—"
Stumbling, about to fall, Subaru's body was caught by a massive creature that had appeared at his side—and tossed onto its back. Clinging on for dear life, what filled Subaru's vision was pitch-black fur and the face of a lion charging forward with tremendous speed.
"You… Meili is already dead…"
Carrying Subaru, the beast raced through the burning capital. It was one of the magical beasts Meili had commanded.
Guiltylaw—carrying Natsuki Subaru, the beast ran at full speed. Though its master was gone and it owed no allegiance, the magical beast carried Subaru in a straight line— "Please—find her. She has to be somewhere—"
With a prayer in his heart, Subaru wished for Guiltylaw to pull off a miracle.
A feeling born in his chest—not knowing if it was relief, or resignation, or some indistinguishable emotion—washed over Natsuki Subaru, and his consciousness threatened to fade.
But just before that true limit was reached— "That's enough."
Ice lances, fired in rapid succession, pierced Guiltylaw's flank.
The beast screamed, stumbled, and crashed violently to the ground. Subaru, caught in the fall, was thrown against the cobblestone road.
"Guh… wh—what…"
Forcing his pain-blurred eyes open, Subaru looked around to see what had happened.
Guiltylaw, its left side studded with countless shards of ice, was rising to charge at a figure wreathed in pale blue light.
Raising its claws, Guiltylaw roared. Perhaps it was the pride of a magical beast—or the pride of a creature that had served a girl named Meili to the very end.
The blow it brought down could have torn through a human body with ease.
But before it landed, an enormous, razor-sharp ice lance was fired.
"……"
It entered Guiltylaw's open mouth, pierced through the throat, entered the chest from within, pierced the hindquarters, and impaled the beast's entire body.
A catastrophic blow that left no chance of survival. Immediately after, the sound of cracking air rang out, and white frost descended over Guiltylaw's body, transforming it into an ice sculpture.
Watching Guiltylaw's final moment, Subaru slowly rose to his left.
His left arm wouldn't raise—broken or dislocated in the fall. There should have been pain so intense it brought tears, but his brain refused to register it.
Because right now, if Subaru broke down and cried, everything would be for nothing.
"That's enough, villain."
To his left and right, the burning cityscape of the royal capital. Between them, the frozen statue of a magical beast.
Deep purple eyes burning with fierce conviction and indomitable duty. Dark eyes trembling with unbearable ecstasy—the two gazes locked.
Silver hair tinged by moonlight, amethyst eyes set like the finest gemstones. The heavenly beauty that had disturbed Subaru's heart beyond all reason. The silver-bell voice that could be mistaken for a fairy's song.
The girl he had chased, chased, desired, loved without end—she was there.
"…Emilia."
"You know my name?"
At her surprised reaction to being called by name, Subaru burst out laughing.
Just as he'd imagined—or rather, just as she'd been that first time they'd walked through the capital together.
She still didn't fully grasp how much attention she was drawing as a Royal Selection candidate in this kingdom. Not from a lack of awareness—but surely because her self-assessment was too low.
In the eyes of the world, she was a hero who had defeated the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishops of Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Wrath, and Lust—eradicating the evil that had tormented people for centuries.
And that title would be completed today, in this very moment.
"What's so funny?"
"No—sorry. It's just… I'm happy. You haven't changed at all, and it feels like it was all worth it."
"What do you mean? Have we… met somewhere before?"
At Subaru's words, Emilia desperately searched her memory.
But Natsuki Subaru's existence did not appear anywhere in her recollection.
Of course. That fleeting encounter existed only in Subaru's memory. And it was that brief encounter—his final, desperate vow—that had brought Natsuki Subaru here.
"You are…"
"Remia, don't listen to everything he says—"
"…
The being that interrupted Emilia as she tried to piece together a clue was the small gray cat that had appeared on her shoulder—the spirit.
Subaru remembered it clearly.
Though the memory of that day was distant now, he had thought about it far more times than the number of loops he had lived through. There was no way he could forget the being who carried a part of that memory.
"Oh, speaking so casually. You've caused quite a scene—how do you plan to make amends?"
"I will make amends. Just as you wish. —There's nowhere to run."
"…? How very noble of you. Suspicious."
Subaru opened his jacket and spread both arms to signal he would not resist.
In his track suit—yes, his track suit. The one he had sealed away for so long. He was wearing it now. In his heart, he had always believed: if he were to face Emilia again, this was what he wanted to wear.
He had waited for the day he could stand before her in this again.
"Everything I'm about to say comes from the raving of a madman. Please forget it."
"…What?"
"The fire burning the capital right now—I started it. Not just the capital—this fire will burn the entire kingdom. No one could stop it. It's the failure of the kingdom, and the failure of the knights sworn to protect it."
As Subaru spoke in a measured, deliberate tone, Emilia was deeply confused. Puck looked as though he might interrupt Subaru's words, but upon seeing Emilia's state, he held back.
Thankful for that, Subaru continued: "Reinhard's—'Sword Saint'—glory will be brought to the ground. The covenant that was supposed to protect the Dragon Kingdom of Lugnica—even the dragon can't be saved, since no one knows where the breach began. I've tested this enough times to be sure. In the end, Reinhard and the dragon are both just one body."
"You burned the whole kingdom? You did this? Are you trying to destroy the country?"
"No. This is the only way—one way—to make you queen."
"……"
At Subaru's smiling words, Emilia's eyes went wide with shock.
In her mind, what Subaru had said must have made absolutely no sense.
He had labeled his own words as the ravings of a madman, so it didn't matter if they didn't get through.
As long as the result followed, that was all Subaru wanted.
"I'll bring the kingdom to ruin—this is the only way to make you queen!"
"You're lying—lies! Because I—! Why would you—!"
Overwhelmed by an devotion she had never asked for, an offering she had never requested, Emilia broke down in tears.
Her grief was understandable. Her inability to understand was understandable.
Subaru knew he had strayed.
Subaru knew he was wrong.
Subaru knew this was not the way to make Emilia happy.
But there had been no other way.
To fulfill Emilia's wish, to make Emilia queen, to give shape to his feelings for her.
He had known all of this from the start. Known it was wrong. And still, he had come here.
And so Natsuki Subaru laughed. Smirked. Sneered.
"—Look at me, Emilia. Look at me, hate me, engrave me into your memory."
"Who… who are you? Where do you come from, who are you…?"
Arms spread, approaching slowly, Subaru heard Emilia's trembling voice.
At her question, Subaru closed his eyes.
He felt as though he had been waiting for this for a long, long time.
To answer that question before Emilia—to finally— "—My name is Natsuki Subaru."
"Su…baru…"
A hoarse voice called his name, and just that was enough to fill him with a torrent of emotion.
Surely, that alone was enough to make Subaru satisfied with having come here.
Holding that feeling in his heart, praying that the words to follow would not tremble— "—I am the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop, in charge of 'Pride'—Natsuki Subaru!"
"Sin Archbishop…!"
With every fiber of his being, Subaru drove his foot into the ground.
Gathering the strength scattered throughout his body, Natsuki Subaru's final sprint of his life was there.
Having sacrificed so many. Having trampled those who could have been called comrades. Having been saved by what might have been bonds. Having finally arrived before the beloved girl— "I burned the world. Shook the kingdom. Killed a hero. And—"
"——"
"—I am the man who will be killed by you."
Feeling the impact pierce through the center of his chest, Subaru smiled faintly.
His knees buckled. He collapsed without support, rolling across the ground.
He couldn't even reach Emilia— tumbling clumsily past her, unable to even break his fall.
Eventually, lying spread-eagle, he looked up at the sky—a sky gazing down upon the crimson capital.
Sandwiched between red and blue, Natsuki Subaru reached his end.
"Why?"
As Subaru closed his eyes and accepted his end, he noticed something and opened his lids.
Standing right beside his fallen body, Emilia looked down at him. The tears falling from her eyes struck Subaru's cheek, forcing his eyes open.
"Why?"
The question, repeated, layered.
What did that "why" mean, Subaru wondered.
"Why" did you do this.
"Why" did it have to be this way.
"Why" did you come here to be killed by me.
Surely there were countless "whys" in that question.
He wanted to answer every last one—but the time Subaru had left was vanishingly small.
And so, as though letting out his final breath, Subaru placed his answer upon it.
"—I love you."
* * * Death was approaching. Familiar death.
Each time death came for him, Subaru was taken to a place he couldn't quite identify—dark and desolate.
A place so truly lonely that one couldn't endure it alone.
Each time death came, he was sent out from this place.
Into a world of blood and pain, of tears and lament, where at least a few precious things still existed.
But now—it was enough.
He was satisfied.
"……"
Someone was waiting for Subaru in this dim world. He felt as though they were whispering something.
It was comfort. It was encouragement. It was confirmation. It was confession.
Why was it this person, when this was not the person Subaru had sought?
The one he sought was in another place—the place where his wish was granted. In a place where he did not exist.
He had paid so many sacrifices for that, and given himself in the end.
So it was all right. Even if she didn't save him—his salvation had come in the very beginning.
"……"
It was surely a calling.
Gently, tenderly, as though cherishing—his name was spoken.
And so, accepting that his existence was spiraling away from death's embrace, drifting further and further— Accepting, he responded to those wordless words.
"……"
—Even if you reject me, I will never forget you.
*Starting Life Over From Zero, The Wrong Way* — fin —