8
“ ”
As he stared at the person standing right in front of him, his eyes slowly narrowed.
He was tired of looking at that familiar face because it was his own ugly face staring back at him. It was him, but it wasn’t him. It was him, even if it didn’t feel like him.
When he finally got a reaction out of him, it felt good. This was the first time something had actually gotten through.
“…The most familiar stranger, huh?”
There were not many people who could like themselves from the bottom of their ■■■■■.
Subaru hated himself in that sense. And Natsuki Subaru was probably no different. The new Subaru and the old Subaru both hated themselves.
But from the position of the most familiar stranger, when the current Natsuki Subaru looked at the other Natsuki Subaru, even if it was embarrassing, his first thought was he’s cool.
“Weak, pathetic, can’t do anything. But even so, you keep struggling. I respect that. That’s the you they all care about. So…”
“ ”
“That was the whole point of reading your book of the dead.”
It wasn’t just to complain in the mirror about his own powerlessness and regrets.
And it wasn’t to trace the roots of the superman Natsuki Subaru and fulfill some delusion of unlimited power, either.
It was to understand that Natsuki Subaru was just a person. To accept that, and to respect it.
“…What was that, all of a sudden? You’re embarrassing me, man.”
The other Subaru had been frozen, listening intently. Suddenly he was moving and talking again. His eyes narrowed, and he glared at Subaru in annoyance—or perhaps in embarrassment.
“It’s a bit weird for me to say this, but looking back on everything up to this, I’m amazed you could say that. You basically watched ‘Natsuki Subaru Starting Life in Another World from Zero.’”
“Yeah, it feels a bit weird seeing a protagonist with the same name as me.”
“Better than the heroine having the same name as your mom… What am I even talking about?”
Firing off a bit of banter, both Subarus eyed each other. Seeming almost a bit let down, the other Subaru pointed to himself.
“So you’re going to believe me even after everything you said earlier? It’s not like you’ve ruled out me being Louis in disguise yet.”
“I have. You didn’t change back when I punched you.”
“That logic is straight out of a manga and isn’t necessarily true, you know…”
Like the other Subaru was saying, that wasn’t really enough to be sure. But at this point, Subaru had let go of all his doubts. Probably because of what the other Subaru had said before.
Even if Louis Arneb could consume all of someone else’s life from head to toe, that look on his face, the sound of his voice when he talked about how much he cared about everyone—that was something Subaru didn’t believe she could reproduce.
Because she couldn’t understand happiness. She didn’t know what it meant to be fortunate or blessed…
“She can’t love anyone, so she can’t understand the feelings of someone who returns through death for people they care about.”
“ ”
“So why are you here? Were you waiting for me?”
He acknowledged the Subaru in front of him. This was someone with the same roots as him. The question that naturally rose to the surface then was why the two of them had met here.
Stepping forward on the pure white floor, the other Subaru answered:
“The reason we met here is because this is the one and only connection we have.”
“Our connection…”
“Inside the tower, the only place you and me can meet is in the book of the dead that recorded the death where I had my memories eaten. That’s the only way for a Subaru with memories and a Subaru without them to come face-to-face.”
“…That just brings me back to the first question. Why are you here?”
He couldn’t accept that it was just the book of the dead with written on it bringing the two of them together.
For that matter, it didn’t make a ton of sense for there to be a pile of books for every single death. If Natsuki Subaru’s death wasn’t observed and recorded from some point beyond this world, it shouldn’t even be possible.
Had the Odo Ragna itself acted as an observer?
“In that case, it doesn’t make sense why Louis got so excited in the corridors of memory when she confirmed I was returning through death. If it could be confirmed from the outside…”
“She’s just sitting in here. She isn’t the ruler or anything. The ruler is…probably someone even more nasty. Given everything, the most likely candidate is…”
Both Subarus finished the thought together.
““Sage Flugel.””
That was the most likely and nastiest possibility.
The person who was involved with the construction of the Pleiades Watchtower, who set the examination that forced them to face Reid, and who had sentenced Shaula to four hundred years of isolation that could have easily lasted even longer.
After both confirmed that he was a shared enemy, the two of them looked at each other.
Then, for the third time, he asked.
“Hey, other me. Why are you here?”
“ ”
“So you’re not gonna say you already know this time, huh?”
He shrugged when the other Subaru fell silent. His banter went unanswered.
Instead, what appeared in the other Subaru’s black eyes was the gleam that had been there from the start.
He probably feels a bit guilty…
“Hey, what do you think will happen when our memories get combined?”
So Subaru deliberately brought it up in a cheerful tone.
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