3
The moment the connection severed, Subaru felt a sharp pain in the back of his head.
“Th-this is…”
It wasn’t some cold, dark, dirty building. He was in the Taygeta archive.
He had hit the back of his head when he slumped to the floor. Realizing that was the source of his pain, Subaru slowly sat up—and then checked his stomach in a panic.
There was a life-threatening injury—or at least there should have been.
“It’s…gone. There’s nothing. There’s no cut…”
He checked his stomach over and over, confirming that the source of the searing heat was no longer there. There were no traces of the incredibly vivid scene he’d just lived through.
The overwhelming pain that he had mistaken for burning. That feeling was…
“…a memory. My stomach split open, and I died.”
A sharp blade had bitten deep, and his final moments had been steeped in powerlessness and blood. It would still have been forgivable if he had at least died alone. But that wasn’t the case.
“Satella…”
That was the name—the fake name—of the girl he had been unable to save.
In those memories, the familiar, silver-haired girl had interacted with Subaru under someone else’s name. Why? It wasn’t out of malice, that much was clear.
And as he watched the other Natsuki Subaru run around and work so hard right after being summoned to this world, something dawned on him.
That went beyond dying in vain. Calling it a dog’s death would be an insult to dogs, but…
“—This is definitely the one and true Natsuki Subaru’s book of the dead.”
A pathetic, foolish, weak, hopeless Natsuki Subaru. There was no mistaking it.
That stupid self-consciousness and total lack of consideration for his parents was unmistakable. And on top of it all, when he found himself in another world, he used it as an excuse to escape reality, deceiving himself and the people around him with a hollow sense of positivity.
That foolishness had resulted in tragedy.
“What a hopeless idiot…but…”
His stupidity had been fatal, but it had also revealed certain truths. This may have come naturally to the other Natsuki Subaru, but it was something the current Natsuki Subaru had not known.
—For example, how had he gained the power of Return by Death?
If this was a classic isekai story, then there should have been a god or some other supernatural being that summoned him. But if the old Natsuki Subaru didn’t have any memories of meeting a supernatural being, then it made sense why he didn’t remember receiving the power or being aware it existed.
In his final moments, the other Natsuki Subaru had been convinced that he’d died for real.
Or at least that’s how it felt to me.
—And as he had that thought, Subaru suddenly realized something.
I can’t objectively differentiate between myself and the other Natsuki Subaru in any meaningful way.
“I’m even more mixed-up than when I read Meili’s book…”
When he’d dived into her book of the dead and gone through the moments of her life, he had experienced something like an intense gravitational pull that dragged him into her mind. Part of his personality had merged with hers and created a Meili that took up residence in his head, saying whatever she wanted and generally driving him crazy.
On some level, he knew that it was a figment of his imagination and had nothing to do with the real Meili. Even then…
“ ”
There were obvious differences between his experience with Meili and what he was going through now.
The primary reason was probably because the subject this time was himself. A version of him that wasn’t actually him. This was an impossible situation that was pushing him into an unexpected battle with himself.
A battle with myself…
It was a hackneyed turn of phrase, but it perfectly described the situation Subaru found himself in. Honestly, it wasn’t looking good. Subaru’s consciousness was being inextricably drawn into the other Natsuki Subaru.
“—Emilia. Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia.”
Subaru could feel himself being blotted out, so he chanted her name like it was a powerful spell.
The reason for that was simple—the Natsuki Subaru in the book of the dead didn’t know her as Emilia. He had played the fool until the very end, never doubting the fake name he had been given.
That was a difference between the current Subaru and his other self.
Still terrified by the feeling of being whittled away, he gritted his teeth and looked down at his feet. The book that he had dropped was lying there.
He had watched the old Natsuki Subaru die once.
It was odd to think back on it, as the book had started with the moment he first came to this world, the moment he had shouted like a moron about how the world was so different. With Meili’s book, it had started with her first memories—not that it changed much.
The issue is what comes next.
“It was the same for you, right, Natsuki Subaru…?”
That Natsuki Subaru must have used the same Return by Death power, too. He must have been even better at using it than the current Subaru. Or maybe he didn’t have to rely on the limited effects of Return by Death, and he could freely turn back time.
Honestly, that would make way more sense.
A power like that would go a long way to explaining why he was so trusted and relied upon by Emilia, Beatrice, Ram, Echidna, Julius, Meili, Shaula, Patrasche, and all the other people he had met.
“In which case…the answer is somewhere past this moment…”
The current Natsuki Subaru and the other Natsuki Subaru looked exactly the same from the outside. But there had to be some decisive moment that changed the other Natsuki Subaru and made him him and no one else. In search of that moment, Subaru picked up the book again.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath.
“ ”
With the book in hand, he counted one, two beats of his ■■■■■. And when it had calmed down, he slowly started walking.
Finally, standing in front of the bookshelf, he stretched out a hand—
“—The second volume.”
The next volume had faintly revealed itself to Cor Leonis.
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