—Choices, cruel choices, were gnawing away at
Sizzle. Inside his chest, something was scorching and charring.
Whether it was his humanity, his faith in himself, his feelings toward "Natsuki Subaru"—all manner of things were burning away.
With his hands on the girl's neck, having pushed her down, Subaru was laughed at by the very girl he had pinned—and he stood at a crossroads that would determine his fate, the fate of "Natsuki Subaru."
"————"
His heartbeat—inaudible. He was panting, but his lungs probably weren't functioning. Despite such a desperate situation, not a single bead of cold sweat appeared on his brow.
That was surely because Natsuki Subaru's body in this place was not real.
To analyze matters in a way that didn't fit the situation—wondering whether he'd been pulled in body and soul through a book, or whether only his consciousness had been dragged here—was likely just another form of escapism.
So it was that Subaru's mind tried to flee elsewhere, seeking a semblance of peace.
But time, space, and his opponent would grant Subaru no such escape route.
"So, what'll it be, big brother?"
The girl pinned beneath him gazed up at Natsuki Subaru, frozen in indecision, and sneered with a sadistic edge.
Peering into his black eyes, she flicked her tongue at his eyeballs as though licking them.
"Pushing down a helpless little girl and wrapping your hands around her scrawny throat—doesn't that give you a thrill? Or is this kind of experience old hat for a freak of nature like you, big brother?"
"—!"
"You're shaking—how cuuute. You think you can make a big, important decision when you're like that?"
Tilting her head, the supine Louis pressed her lips to Subaru's wrist. That sickening gesture, the ardent gaze pouring from her sidelong eyes, and her cruel words conjured a scene in Subaru's mind.
It was the heartless scene Subaru had witnessed once before—though seen from the opposite perspective. Not as Subaru had seen it, but as it appeared through the eyes of the girl who had faced him.
The vision of Subaru—having pushed her down with a wicked expression—strangling her to death.
Exactly the same as the current situation: "Natsuki Subaru" strangling Meili to death.
"Ugh—"
The instant he recognized the similarity, Subaru's entire body, his cheeks, went rigid.
"——So you really do have your suspicions after all?"
"Cut it out! Don't screw aro—"
"I'm not screwing around. If anything, aren't you the one who's not taking this seriously? Love yourself a little more seriously, earnestly, for real—"
"————"
"Ah, that's right. Love yourself. Come on, love yourself. —Just like the people you hold dear are wishing for, you've got to love yourself too, you know?"
In a frivolous tone, words that sounded plausible skimmed across the surface.
Was she even trying to be heard, or had the mechanism for empathizing with others simply died from the start? Was she aiming for something, or was it just her nature? Was she mocking him, or comforting him?
It was all ambiguous. Louis Arneb's very existence was ambiguous in every respect.
Ambiguous—utterly ambiguous.
Louis's words, her speech, were like leaves trembling unsteadily on water—their foundation was shaky, unstable. If only Subaru could write off every last one of them as willful and twisted, perhaps even this doubt would vanish.
No—before that, even entertaining her words as a premise was dangerous.
"If I…do as you say, and that's how it turns out—the proof is—"
"Proof?"
"That if I take back 'Natsuki Subaru,' the me who's here now disappears—the proof of that is—!"
"There is none. None at all. No proof. None, you hear? There isn't any. Not a single thing. Doesn't exist, you know. There's no such proof. …Does that comfort you?"
"————"
"It's a vicious cycle, big brother. We can't speak of what we don't know. Whether, if me or big brother or dear brother died, the things we ate would come back—I honestly have no clue, since I've never once spat anything back up. I ate it, after all."
With a casual "ah," Louis opened her mouth wide, displaying her unnaturally sharp canines and red tongue, letting Subaru peer all the way to the back of her throat, as though to prove there was nothing there.
If she called the act of devouring other people's memories, memories of someone within them, "eating," then naturally no physical trace would remain.
But the word "eaten" pressed heavily on Subaru's heart.
"What'll you do, big brother?"
Louis asked Subaru again.
Throughout the exchange, Subaru's hands remained on Louis's neck. Unable to tighten his grip, yet equally unable to pull back entirely, Subaru kept hurling questions at his own existence.
"Guh…khh…—"
Dying was frightening. Terrifying.
But this was a different kind of fear from the four times he had tasted "Return by Death" up until now.
The proposition now crushing Subaru's soul was a death weighed against the annihilation of the self.
That was what "death" was supposed to be in the first place.
When you died, your consciousness ceased—there was no second chance.
So perhaps Subaru had no right to complain, having grown accustomed to the safety net of retaking his blunders.
Being handed a choice between vanishing or not—and having the luxury of time to agonize over it—perhaps that alone was already indulgent.
But it was his life.
His heart, forced into a situation where he alone had to decide whether to snuff out that flame, cracked a little more with every passing second.
"————"
In this other world, Subaru had already died four times. Each had been a brief affair.
Thrown into an unfamiliar world, meeting people he had never encountered before, and then—immediately assailed by unavoidable circumstances that drove him to death.
The time he had spent in conscious awareness added up to less than two days total.
A short time—terribly short. But Natsuki Subaru had seventeen years of life in his original world beyond those two days.
He'd had a father. A mother. Friends—few, and the kind of relationships where calling them "friends" was debatable, but people who'd at least wave back if you greeted them. Looking back, he'd gotten along reasonably well with classmates in elementary and middle school, and there were plenty of neighbors whose faces he recognized.
He hadn't done well. Subaru had been hopeless at life.
But even so, there had been time spent trial-and-erroring his way through it all—no life-threatening moments, true, but he'd still been scraping by on his own grand stage.
Was he going to abandon all of that—the accumulated weight of diverse times and memories?
If "Natsuki Subaru" returned, the fact that those experiences existed wouldn't vanish. But the present self who had genuinely felt all those moments—would cease to be.
He had exchanged promises with
"I don't want that…!"
That realization cracked Subaru's body in this place, stripped of all metaphor.
Cracks spread across his cheeks, and spiderweb fractures appeared on both arms pressed against Louis's neck. There was no pain. No blood seeped from the fissures. Strangely, what lay inside those cracks was darkness—not flesh or bone, but a bottomless, unnatural void.
Just as he had inferred: he had not brought a real body here.
The body Subaru wore was not genuine. And precisely because it was not, his current emotions reflected directly onto it—cracking, shattering Subaru's form.
The cracks widened. The surface peeled away in fragments.
That was undoubtedly the shell of pretense that Natsuki Subaru had worn—the mask called "Natsuki Subaru."
As it crumbled and fell away, so too did his bravado.
"I don't want this, I don't want this, I don't want this—I don't want this…!"
"That's right. Naturally."
He shook his head in refusal, denying the terror of death awaiting him—the no, the terror of loss.
Why should he have to lose himself—the self who had only just admitted he loved the ones he loved?
"I don't want this…"
"Mhm, mhm. I know. I totally know. Because I know. I know."
"I don't want this…!"
"It's your life, big brother. Why on earth should you hand it over to someone else?"
"I want to stay with everyone… I want to be with everyone, more…"
He wanted to be with everyone—longer.
He had fallen in love. He had fallen for them. In less than two days, he had doubted them more than once, tried to kill them, tried to run, been swallowed in suspicion— Subaru had fallen in love with them. Now, they were precious to him.
If he could be with them, if they thought he was important—then maybe he could even come to love the parts of himself he hated most.
He had been able to think that. Positively, he had believed it.
After a lifetime of looking on the dark side, it was the first ray of sunshine.
Why should he be the one to let go of that?
That was— "—I don't want to."
"That's right. Exactly. —So, what do you think you should do?"
"…I'm going to stay…me."
"Yes—you stay you. That's the right answer. You took it once. It's musical chairs, big brother. Whoever's sitting in the open chair when the music stops is the king."
"————"
"You have to tell the person you pushed out of the way to step aside! Acknowledge it—your own existence! You've got to shout it from the rooftops: I am the real deal! Come on, right?!"
Right below him, at breath's distance, eyes blazing with fervor, Louis roared.
As though she would bite—no, in fact, she did bite Subaru's wrist still clamped around her neck, inflicting a searing pain that seared a warning into him.
Fixing her gaze on his wavering black eyes, Louis Arneb screamed.
"Acknowledge it! —'Natsuki Subaru' is the closest stranger you've got!"
Her roar demanded that he establish his self.
Stop talking about dying for someone's sake—cut out that nonsense.
Why should anyone have to sacrifice themselves for another?
—Especially to hand over the life they were living—the rare, irreplaceable days—to someone who wasn't even themselves, someone who bore their name, so that he could reunite with the people he loved?
So he could let them meet the people he cherished, instead of himself?
What absolute idiocy.
"Now—kill him! Kill him! Go on, kill him! Kill! Do it! Kill! Let's kill him! Kill him! Just kill him! Kill him dead!"
"'Natsuki Subaru' is—"
"—you, big brother, are the one and only Natsuki Subaru in this world—not a stand-in for anyone!"
"—!"
The one and only Natsuki Subaru in this world. Not a substitute for anyone.
Holding hands with Beatrice, exchanging barbs with Ram, making Meili pout, sighing at
If "Natsuki Subaru" was the one who possessed all of that, then Subaru— —would do what he must with that man.
"————"
His vision blurred, welling up from within.
The spirit directly affected the body. The heartbeat, the burning in his lungs—he would have felt it all keenly now.
But what he felt most intensely of all was the unstoppable tears.
Were they born of anger or grief? Jealousy or envy? Guilt or fear?
What had given rise to this surge of emotion, Subaru couldn't say. There was so much he didn't know. But through the haze of those tears, Subaru saw.
"————"
Someone was looking down at him—looking down at Subaru, looking down at Louis.
At Subaru, who had pinned Louis down, hands around her neck, eyes brimming with tears—a pathetic sight.
There was only one person Subaru could imagine it being.
"…Did you come out because you were scared, 'Natsuki Subaru'?"
"————"
The blurred figure said nothing.
Standing on a white floor, backed by a white world, shrouded in white mist—it gazed at Subaru.
To that presence, having rushed out in a panic, Subaru crumpled his face and spoke.
"I… I don't want to disappear. I don't want to die. So, I…"
"————"
"I want to stay with everyone. I love them all. So, I…"
"————"
"So, I…"
Words piled up like excuses.
Just like when he had put his hands on Louis's neck. —He had reached a conclusion: he did not want to lose himself. So he was telling the figure that had appeared.
Even if that meant killing the person before him—who was, surely, wearing the same face as his own.
Because he—"Natsuki Subaru"—was the closest stranger of all.
And therefore, Subaru had every right.
For Natsuki Subaru to kill "Natsuki Subaru" and reclaim his one patch of sunshine— "So—I am not you! You and I are—!"
He said it clearly, cutting off every possibility.
Just as he was about to— "…Who are you talking to, big brother?"
Louis stared wide-eyed, her mouth agape, as though her conversation had been rudely interrupted.
She tilted her head, looked in the same direction Subaru had been facing, trying to see the figure. But she furrowed her brow in confusion, her sharp canines chattering.
"—There's nobody here. Nobody at all. Who are you talking to, big brother?"
"————"
Her teeth clattered as she whispered, disbelief written across her face.
She shook her head, her earlier expression dissolving into something like fear.
"This is our place… No one else should be able to interfere. Who are you talking to in here—stop it! Big brother, you're ours, you belong to us—!"
But despite Louis's pleading, Subaru's consciousness didn't waver by a fraction.
His focus remained on the figure in his vision that would not disappear. Through tears-blurred sight, the wavering outline grew a little sharper.
He had no idea who it was—this silhouette.
Gradually, the figure's contours came into focus, and Subaru thought it seemed to be smiling.
He shook his head, blinked hard, trying to see that smile more clearly, when— "—Why are you trying to choose just one?"
A voice—thrown at him.
A voice he had never heard. A voice from someone who shouldn't be here.
A girl with blue hair—whom he had never once seen smile—stood there smiling.
That smiling girl, still smiling, looked at the silent Subaru and— "—STAND UP!!"
—That was her opening line.
—In the harshest voice in the world, she screamed at Natsuki Subaru.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "—STAND UP!!"
Her voice struck the cracked Subaru, pummeled him, thrashed him.
Mercilessly, unhesitatingly, the shriek shattered Subaru further, accelerating the fractures—as though casually driving claws into his exposed heart.
"Stand up!"
The blue-haired girl raised her voice at Subaru.
She glared at Subaru, screaming, roaring, bellowing.
At Subaru, who remained on his knees, having pinned the girl down, cracks spreading across his blank expression.
"STAND UP!!"
Repeated again and again—the furious shout.
Over and over, it battered Subaru's heart without mercy, without restraint.
Why did he have to be subjected to such words?
It hurt. It was agonizing. It was painful. It was heartbreaking. His heart felt fit to burst.
In a lifetime, there were few moments when you were thrown such brutal decisions, one after another, with no time to brace yourself. —He had stopped lamenting why he had to face such hardship.
So at least he had reached a conclusion. So wasn't that enough?
"Stand up!"
The girl before him would not tolerate Subaru's whimpers, his stubborn resolution, his heart cowering in fear of loss. She rejected it absolutely, stacking her words with force.
He had made his decision. She could at least acknowledge it. At least show some sympathy—he'd suffered enough already. And yet, why was she pushing Subaru like this?
"Stand up—!"
She would not allow him to stand by his broken, shattered decision.
"Stand up—!"
Was she still going?
Why—this voice, this girl?
When it hurt so much. When he was suffering so much.
"Stand up…! Stand up! Stand up! Stand up!"
Who was this girl?
Where in his memories did she exist?
They had never exchanged a word. There were no memories of her inside Subaru—none at all.
He didn't know who she was, what kind of person she was—he knew only the surface.
It was the kind of relationship that couldn't possibly be a reason to stop.
And yet—why, why was his chest so hot?
Why was there a heat welling up from the depths of his chest?
"Stand up, Natsuki Subaru! Stand up! —
Tears in a voice from a girl outside his memory—called a hero by that voice, and his heart trembled.
It was so absurd he wanted to laugh, yet his heart trembled all the same, as though in perfect resonance.
Cracks—fractures—accelerated.
It was, quite literally, the sight of "Natsuki Subaru's" shell being broken apart.
But what slept within that shell was subtly different from what had been there moments before.
—No—if it was truly going to change, it started here.
Standing up. Doing as he was asked. Crushing the fear in his heart and rising.
"If you've managed to stand—then go. Go, and save everyone. Everything."
Everything—what did that mean? Everything?
It was too vague. What on earth did "everything" mean?
"Everything means everything. All of it. Every last thing, every last person—including yourself, including the closest stranger you have!"
What was she saying?
Could he do that? Did she seriously think he could do that?
For this Subaru—this lacking Subaru, who couldn't even save himself?
The ones Subaru had come to love. The ones who treasured Subaru. The ones Subaru wanted to protect. The memories he didn't want to lose.
Did she really think even a Subaru who had been ready to give up a single thing could do all that?
"Because you can. After all—"
After all.
After all—what?
Give me strength. Give me an answer. If you can—then with those words.
If only with your words, blue girl, with yours— "—Subaru-kun is Rem's hero."
"————"
Something dropped into the depths of his chest.
What had been stagnant and black was purified by those words—which sounded like a confession of love. —No, not "sounded like." It was a confession of love.
He had lost yet another reason not to return "Natsuki Subaru" to its rightful place.
"—Ha."
At the same time, what had increased was not only that.
Purified by the girl's words, the black sediment gained radiance and transformed.
And at the core of Natsuki Subaru—where his strongest desire burned—it began to pulse.
"————"
It pulsed. Having lost everything, having been left behind by everything— Even so, it yearned. It yearned to hold everything together, to let nothing slip through his fingers—not even himself.
Responding to that timorous, desperate "Greed," the desire blossomed into a power capable of granting that wish.
—The wavering Factor fused with existence.
"Come to me—Cor Leonis."
The seed of "Greed" that had been lost and wandering inside Subaru finally sprouted.
And there it stood—solid, resolute.
"————"
In that instant, only the smile of the blue-haired girl blessed him.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "—Big brother?"
"————"
Louis looked up at Subaru, who had slowly risen to his feet, and called out to him.
The hands removed from her neck, Louis climbed onto the golden bed strewn with her own hair, confusion still lingering on her face, blinking in bewilderment.
"What happened? Come on—pick up where we left off… the continuation?"
"————"
"The continuation…"
Told to continue, Subaru wet his lips with his tongue.
If he was a spiritual entity, this was just a comforting habit—a meaningless tic.
But even that small gesture revealed something.
—His mind was astonishingly clear.
The bewildering confusion and frenzy from moments ago had receded like the tide; he felt as calm as if he'd sailed to the center of a placid sea.
Therefore— "You don't need to say another word. I'm sick of your twisted, warped explanations."
He could now calmly acknowledge that the malice before him—in the shape of this girl—had been trying to twist his will and use him for her own purposes.
At Subaru's words, Louis shook her head, saying "No, no, no—"
"Twisted? That's harsh. We were just looking out for you, in our own way, giving you some nice advice…"
"Then stop using words I already know so brazenly. Shaking me up with that trick won't work. —I'm not going to waver anymore."
"————"
Louis narrowed her eyes at those words. She could not possibly understand the full extent of the change that had come over Subaru. Even Subaru himself didn't grasp the specifics.
But unshakable "Greed" had forged the Natsuki Subaru who stood here.
Subaru had defined himself.
In the form the girl who had screamed at him in that moment wished for.
"————"
Subaru glanced past Louis—to the space beyond her.
The girl who had been hurling merciless words at him was no longer there. The moment Subaru stood up and faced forward, she had vanished.
But that was probably fine.
The person she truly needed to reunite with was not here, and not Subaru.
No—that wasn't quite right, either. The person she needed to reunite with was the Natsuki Subaru who had reclaimed his memories of her, his feelings for her.
And there was no need to distinguish between that "Natsuki Subaru" and Natsuki Subaru.
"Over and over… you kept telling me that, didn't you?"
—Even if memories are lost, Subaru is still Subaru. He'd been told that.
When he had stubbornly insisted that there was a clear, absolute difference inside himself, that he had to draw a line—it had been a burden, a chain of curses.
But look at him now.
For Subaru, who had finally settled on what he had to do, those words were a beacon—a thread of hope.
If he followed that thread, if he grasped it and pulled, it would lead him straight and true to the people at the other end—the people precious to him who held the end of that thread. No hesitation, no doubts.
Therefore— "—Put away the knife and fork, you dine-and-dash thief. I'm not making you any ramen."
"————"
Louis's eyes went wide.
Louis Arneb stared, eyes round, at Subaru pointing a finger at her. Reading the utter absence of sentiment in his expression, she looked down.
"Ah…"
She lowered her head, and a hoarse breath escaped.
It was a sigh freighted with indescribable emotion.
Louis straightened, shoulders trembling, drawing her knees to her chest, curling up on her golden carpet of hair.
Then slowly, lifting her bowed face— "—Ah, damn it, damn it, damn it. One more step. I was one step away."
With a gaze of loathing, she glared at Subaru and ground out those words as though cursing.
"————"
"One step away, right? So close, right? Why—how did I mess up? —Who, who tampered with you, big brother?"
Her voice was that of a dead soul at the bottom of hell, seething with hatred for the living who frolicked in paradise—such was the hopeless, absolute gulf distilled into her tone.
In that venomous voice, Louis continued.
"I was one step away from completely tearing 'Natsuki Subaru' and Natsuki Subaru apart…!"
"…What's that even supposed to mean? Why go to all that trouble?"
"—Because you can't eat the same person twice, you idiot!"
"—!"
Over Subaru's puzzled voice, Louis shrieked in a raw, cracking tone.
She scrambled to all fours, her expression utterly transformed—now the face of a beast stripped of all humanity—glaring at Subaru.
"They had to be separate! The 'Natsuki Subaru' I'd already eaten, and the Natsuki Subaru left over—they had to be completely separate! I went through all this effort and scheming for that… and it's all for nothing! What a joke!"
"…That's not funny. Not one bit."
"Oh? Really? But you hate us too, don't you? Doesn't it feel good to see the ones you hate suffering? Nice feeling, huh? You… only you could have satisfied us, the ones stuffed to bursting… 'Satiety'—only you could fill us!"
Louis's bloodshot eyes bored into Subaru, and he murmured "Satiety" under his breath.
If he hadn't misheard, the title she had claimed was "Gluttony." So why was she talking about "Satiety"?
As Subaru wrestled with this, Louis threw her head back to stare at the white sky and roared, "And 'Gourmet' Lye! And 'Vore' Roy! They don't understand a thing! One after another, like the imbeciles they are, eating recklessly, indiscriminately—while we're locked in here with no freedom to choose? Don't make me laugh, you useless brothers!"
Clutching her golden hair to her chest, Louis thrashed about, spraying spittle.
Her snarling words—Subaru didn't grasp their full meaning. Lye, Roy—were those names?
But from what she had said, some things about "Gluttony" could be inferred— "So you and your crew go around devouring other people's memories, names… is that the right word for it? Anyway—you steal that kind of thing. Eat it up. Right?"
A case in point: Subaru himself, whose memories were eaten, leaving him unsure of his own identity.
Julius, whose name was eaten, leaving everyone around him unable to remember—driving him to anguish.
And Rem, whose memories and name were both eaten, forgotten by the world, fallen into a sleep from which she would not wake.
All of that—the work of "Gluttony." Of Louis and the companions whose names had just come up.
"What's the point of doing all that? What's your goal?"
"—To be happy."
"————"
Answered instantly, Subaru caught his breath.
Ignoring his reaction, Louis clicked her teeth, her eyes erratic and unstable.
"To be happy. What other goal is there? Being happy is the whole point of living, right? Or did you think we freaks of nature are twisted even in that regard? We're not. We're not. We're not, we're not, we're not! We're absolutely not! We're totally different! I'm telling you we're different! Ahh, my soul aches…"
"The connection between wanting to be happy and stealing other people's memories is…"
"—Big brother, have you ever thought life was unfair?"
"Yep."
"Ah-ha."
Biting into the back of her own white hand, Louis asked him. When Subaru answered without hesitation, Louis let out a bitter laugh.
Still laughing, she trailed her fingers over her thin chest, leaving marks like teeth.
"We have too. Or rather—life is unfairness incarnate. You can't choose your birth. Can't choose your parents. Can't choose your environment. Can't choose your future. Can't choose a single thing. The system's rigged that way. You're already on the conveyor belt."
"————"
"—But what if it wasn't?"
In front of the silent Subaru, Louis tilted her head.
"What if you could choose your birth? Your parents? Your environment? Your future? What if every option was yours for the taking? …Wouldn't anyone choose a better life? Right?"
"Maybe… that's true."
Subaru saw no connection between that premise and the atrocities Louis and her kind had committed.
But Louis rattled her teeth and pressed on.
"—Exactly."
"…Huh?"
"If you could choose your birth, your parents, your environment, your future—if every option was yours for the taking—anyone would pick a better life. —That's why we've been working so hard, spending all this time, searching for the best possible life for us."
"————"
"It's out there somewhere! A rosy future where we can stand tall and live this life as ourselves—and feel glad about it! And until we find that destiny, we'll eat and gnaw and chew and suck and swallow and gobble down—Binge! Gluttony!"
Eyes blazing with fervor, Louis Arneb shouted her magnificent ambition to the heavens.
From the bottom of her heart, she believed it was the pursuit of happiness—the only way to seize the best possible future for herself.
In her own life, Louis could find no hope, no expectation.
Because for her, the life of Louis Arneb had started with a bad hand. The starting position was wrong. —So she wanted to erase it.
She wanted to win a self blessed in birth, parents, environment, future, talent—in everything.
Those were, as she defined it, the conditions necessary to live life to its fullest.
Therefore— "So you steal and devour other people's memories… for that?"
"When we find the life we want, we paste on 'memories' and 'names' and live that life with our heads held high. Unfortunately, so far everyone's been a reject… there were a few promising lives, but our appetites can't be satisfied by just a little bit of experience anymore, at this point."
Her voice trembled with fervor as she spoke. Louis ran her fingers lightly over her own body beneath her tattered clothes, making a gesture that seemed oddly sultry for her age—no, it wasn't that.
If her words about "Gluttony" were true, she had already consumed countless lives, gaining an amount of experience beyond anything ordinary humans could imagine.
Men, women, children, the elderly—she had crossed the boundaries of species and biology, savoring the experiences of every conceivable being. A glutton of life.
Just as she had called herself.
She was sated—sated with the act of eating other people's lives.
For her, who had nibbled the "tasty parts" from countless lives, every event was a tired cliché, devoid of novelty, boring and stale.
But once Subaru understood her state of mind, something suddenly became incomprehensible.
It was— "If you're such a picky eater, why go through all this elaborate trouble just to take a bite out of me? Some kind of food-fighter's pride because you hate leaving leftovers?"
"For a reason that boring? —Big brother, you're our destiny."
"————"
Taking that at face value would be the mark of a fool, so Subaru glared at Louis with anger and wariness.
But there was no falsehood in the way Louis looked at Subaru. She was genuinely, earnestly—in love with Subaru's—no, with Subaru's "life."
Why? Because— "We've eaten men and women, young and old, humans of every race and standing and whatnot—but there's one thing we've never experienced. Can you guess what?"
"How should I know? My pathetic whining, maybe?"
"—The experience of 'death.'"
Subaru froze mid-blink.
Watching him, Louis raised her thin arms, palms turned toward him.
"No matter how many memories we devour, it's impossible. 'Death' is the one memory we can never obtain. Because obviously—memories are records from while you're alive. There's no memory of being dead. —Except for you, big brother."
Louis yearned for it from the bottom of her heart—envied it, craved it: the power of "Return by Death."
For this girl, bored to death with the world, here was the one man who could offer her a fresh, never-before-felt moment.
"Hey, hey—what's dying like? It must be awful, right? Painful, right? Tough, right? It hurts, doesn't it? Sometimes it didn't hurt though, right? I've heard it can even feel good—is that true? When you die, are you actually happy? Or have you just stopped caring? Is it easy? Hey—hey, hey, hey, hey!"
"…If you've got my memories from yesterday, wouldn't you know already?"
"Only the memories! But those are old, they're not real! We want the raw, live sensation. Rehashed, stale ingredients don't satisfy us. What fills us is something new, vivid—something no one else has experienced!"
Therefore, she continued— "The most special memory in the entire world—one no one else could ever experience! And it's not just that—if you mess up, you just die and start over! How convenient! Even after finding the best life, you could still screw it up, right? But with your life, that's not a worry! Don't worry—I'll pull it off without anyone noticing!"
"————"
"Emilia, Beatrice, Ram, Meili, Julius, Echidna, Shaula, Patrasche, Petra, Otto, Garfiel, Frederica, Liliana—no, Louise—Roswaal,
She extended both hands toward him, tilting her head adorably.
"So please—let me eat my fill of your life?"
As though making a coquettish request, she had surely selected the most fitting supplication, the most endearing manner, from the vast archive of memories she possessed.
It was proof of the adage Subaru loved: there are no bad ingredients, only bad cooking.
He had never felt its truth so viscerally.
He had never encountered an existence that squandered such an incomprehensible, inhuman volume of experience so recklessly.
"—A third time isn't happening. My suffering, my deaths, my life—every last bit of it is mine. I'm not giving you a single thing!"
"————"
"Starve to death, you piece of garbage. If you only get one way to die in life, the one I'd recommend for you is that. —The most painful way in the entire world."
Subaru mimed slitting his own throat with his thumb and spoke with finality.
Louis's eyes went wide. She looked down at her own hands, then covered her face with both and tilted her head back, groaning.
"I failed. I did. I went and failed. I screwed up. I really did. I messed up."
Her knees buckled and she collapsed on the spot.
That she was genuinely shocked was proof that she had genuinely tried to seduce Subaru. And the result of that genuine effort was the rejection he had just delivered—the abnormality of her psyche went without saying.
Subaru could maintain his "serves you right" posture without the slightest crack.
"—It won't go the way you want. My name is Natsuki Subaru. Kenichi Natsuki and Naoko Natsuki gave me that name. —Nothing else. I am me."
"And if you're overwritten? You might disappear?"
"I'll teach you a magic spell. —That's that, and this is this."
The magic spell he had hurled at Julius—he would hurl it at himself now.
If he reclaimed "Natsuki Subaru," this version of himself might vanish. But he might not. There might be a way to prevent it.
There might be a way to somehow share that one patch of sunshine.
"—I don't need to politely park myself in some corner of sunshine. I'm the kind of person who barges into other people's hearts with his shoes on. That's my answer, you pipsqueak."
Flipping her off with a parting shot, Subaru turned his back on Louis.
He felt no need to be wary of her, now crumpled on the ground clutching her head. More important was finding a way out of this incomprehensible space.
He needed to get back to Emilia and the others as quickly as possible and take on Ridley's "Book of the Dead" again.
But first—why had Ridley's "Book of the Dead" been in this place in the— "—Ugh, fine. I guess I'll just have to leave it to big brother and dear brother, huh."
"————"
As Subaru stood lost in thought, Louis sighed behind him.
Hearing that, Subaru—who had been pressing his ear to the floor, pounding on the ground—turned around. Louis was sprawled across her golden hair, palms covering her face, kicking her legs about.
Big brother and dear brother.
Names Louis had used many times. If Subaru's guess was correct— "—Lye and Roy. 'Gourmet' and 'Vore'?"
"We can't leave this place. So if big brother and dear brother don't eat for us, we can't even choose what to eat. …That's why we asked."
"Asked…"
Chewing on that ominous word, Subaru prompted her to continue.
It took agonizingly long for Louis's next words to come. At last, her red lips trembling, she spoke as though mirroring Subaru's own impatience.
"This isn't your second time here since last night, big brother. —So both big brother and dear brother know. They know where you are."
"————"
—And with that, the two threats bearing down on the
"They're both dying to sink their teeth into you. Can you blame them? —You've had more unique experiences than either of them has ever tasted, big brother."
"Guh—damn it…! You…"
"—Ah, that's cheating."
Leaving the trembling Subaru aside, Louis murmured that offhandedly.
The non sequitur clicked in Subaru's mind almost instantly.
"This—is that an exit?!"
Behind the turning Subaru, a crack had appeared in the white space, its far side shimmering.
A clear anomaly—a spatial rift that should not exist—was opening.
It was responding to Subaru's will—his resolve to return to the library.
"————"
"You can't. There's no way you can. …I was hoping you'd do it for me, though."
Before Subaru could lunge toward the exit, he hesitated over what to do with Louis.
Given the strangling incident, and her behavior after she had revealed her true intentions—she almost certainly possessed only the combat ability her appearance suggested.
Which meant Subaru could, physically, dispose of her right here.
At the mere thought, the instant his gaze flickered with hesitation, she saw through him.
"Paranoid or suicidal—it doesn't matter. You can't bring yourself to kill anyone. Yourself, others, even someone like me. A spineless coward. …And after I nibbled on you so gently."
"…No, it's fine. Your bite was clean—get orthodontics, you freak."
Louis scowled, and Subaru gave her the finger before turning away.
He didn't wait to see her reaction. Before the rift, he paused for just an instant.
Not out of pity for Louis. He was glad he'd never have to see that face again.
What Subaru hesitated over was not parting with Louis—it was parting with the voice that had made him stand.
That girl, who had appeared for just an instant to spur Natsuki Subaru into action.
The girl who had lost her memories and name, and therefore was the only one in all the world to call out to Subaru.
"It's fine. —I remember the promise."
Natsuki Subaru would never forget that.
So he would see her again. Surely.
—And next time, he wanted to hear not just a harsh voice, but a gentle one too.
"————"
Steel in his heart, Subaru hurled himself toward the crack to return to his companions.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "Ah—ah—ah—damn you! How dare you not even look back! What a man!"
"I won't forgive this. I won't let you get away. Absolutely, absolutely not—!"
"Don't think this is over, Natsuki Subaru…!"
"Your life—it's ours!!"