7
Short black hair, long torso, stumpy legs—and suspicious eyes that made him look like a murderer. An all-too-familiar face stared down at Natsuki Subaru, who had crumpled to the white floor.
“Let’s take it from the top. What’s up, bro?”
“ ”
“Hmm, that’s a little confusing. If we wanted to be more precise, then… What’s up, other me?”
In a daze, he looked up and stared at his face.
The person raising his hand and greeting him so casually—no, that made it sound like someone totally different was there. Even though they had the exact same face.
“Natsuki Subaru…”
“…Am I detecting a weird kind of emphasis in there? Also, referring to yourself by your own full name is kinda weird. I guess it’s common enough in manga and stuff. Anyway, it is a bit of a question what we should call each other.”
“Natsuki Subaru…!”
Getting angry at the Subaru who was standing there so carefree, Subaru stood up. And glaring at the thoughtless person right in front of him, he gnashed his teeth.
“Why are you here…and where is this place? Why am I here?!”
Still staring at the nonchalant Subaru, he gestured to the white space all around them.
The white, empty space, just like the corridors of memory, the cradle of Odo Ragna, where he had faced off against Louis Arneb.
“Why am I here?!”
“—It’s proof that you caught up to me.”
“ ”
“You read the books of the dead and caught up to me. You should have seen everything you didn’t know. Every bit of my life in another world.”
Subaru answered his hoarse shout calmly. Everything from his calm demeanor to his composed attitude to his seemingly insightful way of talking, it all bothered him.
—First of all, what is he saying with that nasty face?
“I caught up to you?”
“That’s right. There isn’t anything else about me that you don’t know. So…”
“—Bullshit!”
“ ”
“I caught up to you? You think this is a game?! Don’t lie to me! There’s still more! I still don’t know the most important, the most crucial thing!”
Growling with a furious look in his eyes, Subaru grabbed Subaru by the chest. Subaru didn’t resist. He let himself be pulled close until they were close enough to feel each other’s breath as the other Subaru’s wild black eyes stared him down.
“Perfect! If you’re here, then just tell me! Why are you the way you are?! I didn’t see anything! I couldn’t find anything! Tell me…”
“The reason I’m me?”
“That’s right! There must have been something, some spark that made you different. I want to…”
“—You should have seen it already, though?”
So close their eyes reflected in each other’s, Subaru calmly looked at Subaru without resisting.
That lack of resistance made Subaru feel like he was being told he wasn’t even worth talking to. Like he was being looked down upon from some high-up vantage point…
“Don’t look at me like that!”
“Gah!”
Subaru slammed his fist into the face he couldn’t bear to look at anymore. There was a hard impact, and the other Subaru got knocked back. And nothing happened to the Subaru who had thrown the punch.
The pain the other Subaru felt was his own.
He was clearly his own being, separate from Natsuki Subaru.
“The way you keep talking like you know everything…I see, I get it.”
Subaru studied the Subaru who was kneeling after taking that punch and he finally understood something.
If this was the corridors of memory, then there was only one possible person behind this unnatural situation.
“So you’re Louis? The Archbishop of Gluttony! Again?!”
When he had met her in this white realm the last time, she had used every trick in the book to separate Subaru from the identity of Natsuki Subaru, to devour his being completely.
He had just barely escaped her evil clutches, but there was no Archbishop who would give up so easily. Petelgeuse, Regulus, Sirius, Capella—they were all the worst possible broken people. Lye, Roy, and Louis were no different. It wouldn’t be a surprise for her to lie in wait here for Subaru as he passed bullheadedly through all those books of the dead.
“That’s what this really is, isn’t it, Louis Arneb?! You can change what you look like, so you’re just trying to mess with my head!”
Using the memories and names she stole from others, stealing not just their experience but even their form, she assimilated their identities and made them her own. That was Louis Arneb’s power, her authority.
There was nothing strange about her wielding the menace she had used inside the tower here.
“You want to devour me? To hijack me for real this time? I already dumped your ass last time. Don’t you know when to give up…? Do you really want to die and come back that bad?!”
“ ”
“Snap out of it already! You think this is some amazing power?! It’s just dying and getting another shot. Dying, retrying…and even then, the outcome is always shit, since the guy using it, me, is shit! That’s why…”
“ ”
“That’s why I couldn’t save anyone… That’s why everyone dies. Because I’m weak, everyone gets hurt. Right now, and however many times I repeat it, it feels like I can’t save anyone…”
—Return by Death isn’t worth anything.
It really is a shitty, useless ability. It would be better not to need something like this.
There was a Witch who said it was some wonderful thing, but I can’t agree.
Even if you give an ant a cannon, it still won’t be able to use it. It’s pointless.
How many times do I have to be tricked? To have my hope shattered? How many more times does my ■■■■■ need to break before I’ll learn?
Why do I keep standing up even after being tricked, see my hope shattered, and have my ■■■■■ broken time after time after time?
I’ll show you a fate that makes you want to tear your eyes away from the insanity of it all.
So why…?
“—Because you love everyone,” Subaru said to him, still kneeling.
Those quiet words pierced Subaru’s ■■■■■.
“…Because you love everyone. That’s why you can’t stop.”
Rubbing the red spot on his cheek where he was punched, Subaru said it again. The boy who had the same clothes, the same face, the same name, and yet somehow seemed decisively different, looked directly into Natsuki Subaru’s eyes as he continued.
“Honestly, just imagining how painful the situation you are in is enough to make me sick. Starting at the sixth stage at level one with no pickups. I hear you on all those complaints. It’s the same pain I’ve felt so many times before.”
His face was etched by the countless experiences of powerlessness and ignorance— Subaru could tell because he had lived through them as well.
Subaru knew all the defeats, all the pain, all the cries of death that the other Subaru had experienced. He had seen them with his own eyes. He had experienced them all with his own body, his own ■■■■■.
And precisely because he had experienced them, because he knew that none of it was a lie, he refused to accept what the Subaru in front of him was saying. He didn’t want to accept it.
“If I was stronger, if I was smarter, if I was more everything… It’s enough to drive you crazy, right?”
“…As if you’d understand! What do you know?”
“I know. And you should know why I know.”
“Grrr.”
There was no force behind his rebuttal. That was only natural, because that would entail rejecting someone’s opinion, to brush it aside or crush it and declare they were wrong.
But Subaru couldn’t muster that in response. Because he knew. In every sense, he knew everything there was to know about Natsuki Subaru.
“I shouldn’t have looked at your memories…”
“You don’t get to complain about that after poking around in someone else’s diary.”
“I should never have looked at your memories!”
Clenching his fists, Subaru railed against Subaru’s cheeky quip.
But that was all the resistance he could muster.
“I…I wanted to find some hope. If you were some amazing guy, and I could just figure out what made you so amazing, then maybe I could do the same thing. But…”
But he knew. He had seen it all.
The Natsuki Subaru standing over there was no different from him at all. He was just a weak nobody. Just a mediocre guy who had lived a life that Subaru didn’t know before, who had met people Subaru didn’t know before, who had made it through stories Subaru didn’t know before, who had experienced moments Subaru didn’t know before.
“—I wish I could say you’re wrong. But I can’t. Because I know exactly how you feel—since you are me.”
He had seen the world the other Natsuki Subaru had seen and experienced. He had seen it all. How Natsuki Subaru had come to love this world, the people in it, Emilia and everyone. And he had seen all the wounds Natsuki Subaru had suffered to be able to keep loving it all.
—Natsuki Subaru wasn’t some superman. That illusion had already been shattered.
“Yeah, I know! I knew it! You…you just can’t give up, no matter how many times you die. That’s all it is!!!”
The Subaru standing across from him had slammed into impossible walls over and over, just like him. And when it happened, he died over and over and over again, changing the situation, the way the encounters happened, the way things connected, until he was able to make it through—that was all.
“The only reason you never give up is because you love everyone! You piece of shit! Why aren’t you a superman?! Why are you still just a stupid kid?!”
He took as long as he had to, even if it meant enduring unspeakable agony. That was all.
Natsuki Subaru was just a regular person. He didn’t have any extra tricks up his sleeve beyond what the current Subaru had. And he was terrible at playing the cards he did have. On top of it all, he had terrible, terrible luck.
“If there was at least something…”
He murmured weakly, having lost all steam. He clenched his fist, wishing for something even though he knew it was impossible.
“…Why did you disappear?”
“Huh?”
“Why were you gone? Do you know how much I’ve suffered because you up and vanished…?”
The unsolvable question that had started all of this.
Why had the original Natsuki Subaru disappeared? Why was the current Natsuki Subaru born?
What happened to the original Natsuki Subaru when his memories vanished like smoke?
“Why did you disappear…?”
“…That was me screwing up. I went into Taygeta to search for a solution to Reid. And luckily, I managed to find his book, but…”
“…Reid’s book was empty when you read it.”
“I bumped into Gluttony there. The rest you already know.”
Subaru scratched his head as he recalled his embarrassing mistake.
Running into Louis in the corridors of time, the original Natsuki Subaru had his memories stolen. And forgetting all his adventurers in this new world up to that point, the current Natsuki Subaru, who couldn’t understand his own feelings, let alone those of the people around him, was born.
“Don’t beat yourself up too hard…is what I’d like to say, but I know that won’t help you feel much better. Since you are me.”
“…Natsuki Subaru is a weak nobody and an unsalvageable dumbass.”
“Got that right.”
“But…”
The other Subaru started to laugh as he agreed, but that last word made him raise his eyebrows.
Subaru gave his other self a good long look before he finally finished his thought.
“—You’re an amazing guy, Natsuki Subaru.”
That was how he honestly felt after witnessing more than twenty cycles of returning by death.
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