Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (LN) - Volume 25 - Chapter 3.4

4

Now that the terrifying being was gone at last from the corridors of memory, Louis Arneb let out a long, long, trembling breath and confirmed she was still alive.

“How…?”

How could he be okay? She couldn’t understand it. Her understanding of Natsuki Subaru before and after experiencing death herself was completely different. She couldn’t understand him. It was impossible. She couldn’t steal everything from that terrifying monster.

Why, for example, had she not been able to steal his memories from before he was isekai summoned, or whatever he called it?

Gluttony’s power should have consumed all of the target’s memories from the moment they were born. And yet she could only steal a little over a year’s worth of memories from that thing.

It was as if the Odo Ragna loathed the memories before that point, or else…

“…Hey, this isn’t what we talked about.”

Suddenly, a voice rang out in the corridors of memory where she should have been all alone. Louis spun around in shock, but her surprise quickly dissipated.

Standing before her was…

“Us…”

“Right, us. We drew the short end of the stick. We’ve been waiting this whole time with nothing to show for it. Did you set up the ultimate life environment with mister, like we planned?”

A mirror-image Louis grinned back at her.

Another her in the truest sense, created by splitting a soul that should have been one to create the same but also different being.

And that other Louis had not experienced what she had. This sneering Louis felt almost alien.

“—? What is it, us? Why that look? Where is mister? Us being here means he entered the book of the dead again, right?”

“ ”

“Hey, you did your job, right? We didn’t get him here, but you performed your role, didn’t you? Wow, wow. You slipped in neatly. That sillyhead didn’t even notice us inside him!”

Dancing and clapping, the other Louis reminisced on that forbidden rendezvous.

Of course, the original Louis knew about it, too, and didn’t need to be told. That was when Subaru connected to the corridors of memory from Reid Astrea’s book of the dead, trying to search for a way to deal with that tyrannical swordsman. That was where the splinter Louis made contact with the monster that had forgotten everything and tried her luck by consuming it—including Louis who was hidden as a Witch Factor.

That plan failed, due to the resistance of memories that were supposed to have been consumed. However, if they had not gotten in the way then, Louis would have become one with that thing by now. When Louis thought about merging with that thing…

“Hey, what is it? Talk more! Tell us! You saw it, right? You heard it, right? Smelled it, right? Tasted it, right? Natsuki Subaru’s authority!”

“—Don’t say its name!!!”

Speaking excitedly, the splinter Louis reached out her hand. But the moment it touched Louis’s shoulder, she erupted, brushing away her other half’s arm.

“…Huh?”

Of course, her other half didn’t understand why she was being rejected, and her expression clouded. But Louis didn’t have the composure to notice splinter Louis’s reaction. Louis clutched the shoulder that a stranger tried to touch and shook her head wildly as she fell back.

“No! No, no, no! Don’t touch us! Don’t get any closer!”

She was terrified. Terrified of the splinter Louis, of the person with the same face, the person who had experienced the same things as she had.

The being that was the other half of her soul…felt like a complete stranger.

And there was no telling what a stranger might do. A stranger wouldn’t protect Louis. A stranger could kill her. And she didn’t want to die.

“Stay away! Stay away stay away stay away! Don’t get any closer! Don’t touch us!”

She hugged her body, unable to do anything more than she had when she faced that thing.

Splinter Louis’s eyes widened in confusion at seeing Louis push her away.

“Huh? What’s that about?”

Splinter Louis clenched her hand that had been brushed away. And with a terribly strained voice, she looked down at Louis and gnashed her teeth.

“What’s this? What, what, what’s going on? By what right and whose permission?!”

“Eeep!”

“This isn’t what we planned! What is this?! What’s this reaction?! This attitude?! Answer us!”

Flying into a rage at being rejected, the splinter advanced on the cowering original. Crouching down in front of the frozen Louis, she grabbed her trembling other half by the hair and hauled her up. Two identical faces were now eye to eye, close enough to feel each other’s breath.

“Strange. Strange, strange, strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. That’s right, it’s strange. It’s too strange. We’re saying it’s too strange!!!”

“ ”

“What about the plan? It went like we planned, didn’t it? You slipped into that empty mister and set our nasty plan in motion, didn’t you? Good job! He was scared! He believed he was just the closest stranger to Natsuki Subaru!”

Louis said nothing as splinter Louis reviewed their plan.

It was true that their plan had proceeded smoothly. Louis had experienced the Return by Death inside Subaru, and using her tricks, she had convinced Subaru to see Natsuki Subaru as a different person. All the while, splinter Louis had remained in the corridors of memory, ready to eat Subaru when he became a separate entity from Natsuki Subaru, to take his authority for herself. They had been one step away.

“Even if it didn’t work, we could have done it again, tens, hundreds of times, even! The plan was to keep going until we stole his authority, wasn’t it?! It was just a small blunder! We can just steal his memories again and keep trying as many times as we want. We can even trade positions, trying over and over and over again! Any mistakes can just be fixed!”

The plan was to trade roles and keep going over and over, without end, until they perfectly usurped and stole his power.

And yet…

“And yet you’re rejecting us!”

“Nooooooooo!!!”

“Whah!”

Louis shrieked in pain and fear as the hand gripping her hair pulled. And then she pushed splinter Louis’s chest, sending her other half to the ground, where she landed with a painful groan.

They stared at each other in disbelief as an unbearable silence filled the space.

And with Louis unable to say anything, splinter Louis’s eyes flared.

“Were you…planning to keep the authority for yourself?”

“ ”

“Once you had his power to yourself, you were planning to erase him and have all the fun by yourself. You were going to forget about us.”

“N-no!”

Astonished, frozen, the splinter Louis stumbled upon a disgusting suspicion, even as the original Louis shouted in response. That wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all. She didn’t have any desire to keep something like this to herself.

If she could throw it away, she would. But she couldn’t do that. Because they were none other than Louis Arneb’s own memories. She couldn’t erase her own memories. She couldn’t steal them. She couldn’t lock them away.

“All the things you don’t like, all the painful stuff, you’re going to carry that yourself. Don’t run away from your memories!”

At that very moment, what that thing said earlier crossed her mind. She couldn’t forget what she had experienced; she couldn’t erase the path she had walked. That was the history of Louis Arneb that had been born inside her.

“This isn’t funny! You think we’ll let you…?!”

She had wanted to be happy. She had wanted to attain a blessed life all her own. But the life all her own that she had managed to find unexpectedly crushed Louis’s ■■■■■—Louis’s heart—into dust, wounding her irreparably.

And the splinter Louis couldn’t understand the Louis who was cowering because of the wound to her heart and just sheer exhaustion.

“You think we’ll let you keep our ticket to happiness to yourself?!”

“No! You’ve got it wrong! That’s not it! That’s not it at all!!!”

“Liar! We never would have expected you to betray us! As expected of us! Right. Right. Yeah. We understand, us!”

The splinter hopped to her feet, putting her hands together in front of her chest. And then her lips cracked into a giant grin as she glanced at Louis, who was pleading tearfully.

“If you happened to be planning a little trick for us, once you got your hands on that power, there would be no way of winning! Amazing! Well thought out!”

“We don’t want to die! We don’t want to dieeeeee!!!”

“What an obvious lie! You don’t want to die? Why? If you don’t want it, then give it to us! Keeping it to yourself…you don’t care about us at all!”

Splinter Louis rejected the other half of herself.

And in doing that, Louis felt something shatter inside her. It felt like she heard something crumbling. Though she didn’t know what the sound was, shattering inside her.

She didn’t know, but…

“Natsuki Subaru is ours, you thief!”

She talked like she was superior, even though she didn’t know anything about that thing.

Even though she was the only one who really understood that thing.

Even though we’re the ones who understand.

“We’re the only ones who know Natsuki Subaru, you stupid girl.”

It was terrifying, repulsive. It was odious.

So…

“Let us savor him, too!!!”

The splinter lunged forward to rob the original of the memories that made her Louis.

But handing them over would mean the death of Louis Arneb.

It would mean death. It would mean the world that thing had seen.

“Aaaaaaaaaaghhhhhh!!!”

Shout. Shout. Shout. Shout. Shout. Shout.

She kept screaming, screaming and screaming and screaming.

“We don’t want to die.”

A terrible, gruesome, and meaningless battle began in the corridors of memory.

A battle watched by none. One no one cared about.

And so it began—and ended. A battle without a victor.