Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu - Volume 4 - Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34: WORLD ENDING 

Portents tell of the coming pain. Although an unpleasant sort of intuition, Subaru's life since coming to this world has been one fraught with life-threatening injury. That intuition was speaking: These next few seconds win or lose this. 

With Petra's shriek echoing through the cramped passage, Subaru reaches his hand for the two flechettes jutting from his left side, to extract them. He knows the instant he touches them will be the beginning. Thus before it can reach him, he forces himself to think at dizzying speed. 

Two flechettes, wounds not fatal. A handful of seconds until the pain arrives. Petra is frozen unmoving. Where did the attack come from? Hand still touching the door. The echoing is shrill. Amidst it a voice dripping murder, creeping into his ears. 

—Elsa. 

He recognizes a silhouette squirming in the darkness before him. Her posture low, bent down to a crawl and poised to dash forth, he also recognizes Elsa. The piercing strike to his abdomen came from beyond the passage. Had been thrown with almost detestably precise control, targeting the gut. He rather wanted to applaud. 

Stupid thought, dumb idea. Why was Elsa here now? What happened to his leeway? Why was she lurking in a hidden passage, supposedly unknown to anyone? Why did she know? Put all of it off for later. Answering questions was secondary, now this instant focus solely on survival force all brain cells fire— 

Subaru: “—SHAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAC!” 

No weapons, no means to counter, hideously unreadied and unprepared. Faced with split-second conditions, Subaru had only one move—or otherwise had his heart set, uncaring of how it looked, on merely one single action for when he encountered Elsa. 

Answering to Subaru's yell, his incomplete gate recomposes his internal mana to conform to the concord's needs. From the fingertips of his outstretched right hand billows a black smoke—cloaking the passage in darkness. An umbra darker than light-given shadow consumes the cramped space, instantly dividing Subaru and the threat approached to before him. The expelled smoke possesses no effects to hinder movement. Plunge forward, and one would pierce through the haze without stopping. But, 

Subaru: “Wall of confusion, if you're something scalable I'll scale y—gggaaaaaaaugh!!” 

The postponed torrent of pain assaults Subaru. A blaze originating from his right hip courses through his entirety, shrieking at the effective thrusts of heated metal flaring through his brain and stomach. The recompense for the imperfect concord further wrings Subaru's body of more mana than necessary. He falls to his knees with the exhaustion and fatigue of his body being parched dry. What stops him from succumbing to collapse is— 

Petra: “Subaru!” 

—The small and soft sensation of a hand gripping his. He looks to find Petra fretting over him, about to cry, her long eyelashes trembling. 

Her eyes host terror at circumstances beyond her comprehension, and rejection of there being a ludicrous threat closing in before her. But stronger than either is the consideration for Subaru's safety. 

The instant Subaru recognizes it, the pain from his shredded nerves and bereavement from his peeling soul promptly exit his mind. Before the effect can fade, he squeezes back on Petra's hand. 

Subaru: “Anyway, upstairs!” 

Unable to proceed further ahead, the pathway's only road is to return back the way they came. Not even Subaru knows how long Shamac would hold. That he did not consume enough mana to faint, perhaps a result of his body acclimatizing to it over multiple uses, was his only present achievement. Regardless, without allowing the opportunity granted by the obfuscating black mist to escape— 

Subaru: “Guigh... augahh!?” 

The moment he steps forth to run, something sharp again gouges pain into his flesh. He looks toward the source of the pain, to find four flechettes jutting out from his right shoulder to the rear of his neck. The depth of the wounds is fortunately shallow, but the burrowing pain of those pinky-thick darts only intensifies in the looking. 

Subaru: “She saw!?” 

She can see though Shamac's smoke, was Subaru's split-second judgement, but he immediately realises that it is incorrect. He intuitively understands what Elsa did from beyond the smoke. Having judged the haze as a threat and diving into it as dangerous, Elsa flung her throwing weapons through the mist without any regard to aim. 

The passage was narrow, enough so that three Subarus side-by-side would fill it. Should one possess the control to aim for the centre of the passage, the high probability of striking a fleeing opponent's back would result in a hit. The instant he realises this, Subaru yanks Petra's arm forward and takes her against his chest in an embrace. She shrieks. Just as she finishes getting out of the way, there comes the noise of those metal flechettes slicing past through the air. Had Subaru not interfered, the line of flechettes would have reached to skewer Petra's head. 

Subaru: “This's... bad!” 

Spitting saliva and blood, Subaru looks back as he sprints down the passage for the mansion. He pulls along the arm of a lagging Petra, forcing her onward. His vision strobes with pain. The world flickers in black and red. Dull blue lights arise in the dim passageway. They mingle with the red and black, the world indistinct. 

One instant of action had entirely sapped Subaru of his energy and stamina. Even should he reach the mansion in this condition, no plan for breaking through this predicament would come to him promptly. He was simply clinging onto the hope before him, biting down on his molars and continuing his dash. 

The terror that courses up his neck in that instant, perceived exactly because he was Subaru and had scraped with demise on several occasions, may have been the sensation of impending death. 

Bitter terror guides him to tilt his neck backwards. His dark eyes witness the tracks of death. Slicing the air—was far too light of a phrasing—butchering the air was the incoming blade. The most greatly owned and most wicked of Elsa's weapons—a kukri knife—rides its own weight as it rotates on the vertical, closing in on Subaru and Petra's backs at terrifying speed. 

The speed makes reaction impossible. To parry or match this threat was unthinkable. That Subaru, faced with this, nevertheless managed to reach out his arm was what you would surely call a split-second miracle. 

His fingers reach to catch the knife's edge, and indeed between his pointer and middle finger does the kukri slice—then continuing without any waning of its speed or ferocity, and away fly Subaru's middle, ring, and little fingers. The knife proceeds its cut through Subaru's arm, bisecting it straight from the wrist to the elbow. Momentum forces the now-lowered arm to strike the wall—the resulting haze of blood painting the passageway, painting Subaru, with red. He screams. He shrieks. His voice invites speculation that his throat will break, burn, shred. His vision turns to red and the force of his bite fractures his molars. He lifts his mangled arm. Red. Just red. He sees something white. Instantly turns red. Unthinkable this thing belongs to him anymore. Simply a pain-spawning profusion. 

Cut it off. Get rid of it. What is the need for an organ of only pain. There is none. Get rid of it, send it flying, chop it off. Fuck this thing. Just die, die, die—a touch. The touch of a hand gripping his. Opposite the limb of only pain there remains a warmth. The instant Subaru feels it, his shrieking stops. Throat busted. His pain-frazzled nerves transcend their permissible limit, bursting. He forgets the pain. But not the warmth. 

He brings in his arm, steps out his foot. His voiceless throat trembles. Painting the passage with blood, Subaru runs. Heavy—his legs. Heavy—his arms. Is he pulling them, or are they pulling him? He did not even know. He did not know. Did not know. Did not want to know. 

The passage ends. He made it to the staircase. Run up the spiral stairway and he will enter the mansion. Enter the mansion and then what. Someone who, someone there, someone to, save, Emilia, Rem? 

Subaru: “aeeheuiiiI, Iii!” 

It will not be ended. It is not ended. It surely would not be ended. He still had not seen anything. Not found anything. Had not grabbed, grasped anything. Like hell he could throw away everything here. 

He looks up. The top of the staircase is far. His legs are unsteady. Tongue is numb. His life spills with the blood dripping from his arm. He picks up the exhausted, eroded warmth in his left hand. And— 

???: “—baru-sama!!” 

The yell of a beast. The sound of heavy impacts descending from above. Subaru climbs the stairs to see someone's large, broad back. An apron dress embellished in the lingering black smoke. Long, blonde hair swaying in the cold air, a figure squatting on the landing now standing up. A terrifying face looks back at him—its expression letting slip worry, its visage familiar. 

Subaru: “Fuhreder...” 

Frederica: “Don't speak! That wound... it's terrible.” 

Frederica sees Subaru's wounds the instant he voices her name, her face paling. Her gaze as she looks at Subaru's disfigured arm is pained, and after following the blood slathering half his body— 

Frederica: “a,...” 

—She swallows her breath, her voice so quiet as to disappear. The ghastliness of Subaru's condition was probably that shocking. The Subaru in question had already lost feeling of the pain thanks to his brain's overflowing endogenous opiods. He could not stop the raggedness of his breathing, nor the dripping of drool from his lips. Spitting out the bath of bloody foam inside his mouth, Subaru attempts to speak to Frederica— 

Subaru: “aauAhh—!” 

Frederica: “—Shh!!” 

From beyond the darkness again comes the assault of a kukri. The revolving deathblade aims for Frederica's head. Subaru speaks at sighting the shimmer of steel, to which Frederica draws something from her waist in a flash—sparks scatter the dark of the passage, a shrill tone sounds, and the crooked blade deflects. What achieved this was— 

Frederica: “Appears we have an intruder.” 

Furnishing Frederica's crossed arms are clawed cestus. Her mastery in readying them shows: these are well familiar game for her. In a sense, they were a weapon so excessively and suitingly boorish as to excess her suiting. She shreds the air as she readies her arms before her, glancing back at Subaru behind her. 

Frederica: “To the mansion. Signal when at the top. I will follow.” 

Subaru: “Bhu...” 

Frederica: “With those wounds you'll be a burden regardless. —Take care of Petra.” 

What pushed a stubborn Subaru forward were Frederica's final pleading words. Swallowing what he was about to say, Subaru pulls Petra's small body close. Cradling her now will be faster than pulling her along. Petra enters into his arms without resistance as Subaru takes one step away. 

Subaru: “Dhon't die.” 

Frederica: “Of course not. —I haven't finished yet.” 

Although limping and reluctant, Subaru dashes up the stairway with his sights on the top floor. The noise of blade striking blade echoes up Subaru's ascent of the helix. The constrained space robs Elsa of her mobility, leaving this battle as a match of direct prowess. Frederica may even have chance of winning—or at least, such was the hope Subaru wished to cling to. 

Spitting out his fractured molars, Subaru curses his furiously-revolving legs. Faster, sharper, every second spent conquering the stairs was a second closer to Frederica's fate. Hurry—hurry, to the top,  to the top, to the top—. 

Subaru: “Ih'm... mahde it!” 

Reaching the top, Subaru spits ragged breaths as he collapses to his knees on the carpet. He jabs his head back into the escape passage, calling his voice down the stairs. 

Subaru: “Fuhre, dherhaa! Ihsssaohkae!” 

Sealing off the passage after Frederica's completed her ascent would sequester them from Elsa. Realising this as he speaks, Subaru tumbles himself toward the open-close gimmick sculpture. He takes its neck in his hand, waiting for Frederica's flight. However—, 

Subaru: “—weh” 

What slams on Subaru's ears is the cacophony of tremendous ballistics and collapse. The building's foundations break against each other in a quake, kicking up billows of smoke and assaulting the mansion with tremors. What happened, thinks Subaru as he leaves the sculpture and returns to the path. He peers inside— and sees the spiral staircase now absent, leaving only rubble. 

Subaru: “This... a,” 

This was payback for shoddy architecture—was not the breed of this destruction. It was excessively clean and undamaging to the actual passage for an unanticipated collapse. Though some artifice, it operated by separating the stairway itself. Perhaps it was intended to cover the tracks of a successful escape, or to counter against invader encroachments like the present. Subaru knew not which. What he did know was— 

—Frederica could not be coming back up. 

The instant he thinks so far, his forgotten wounds twinge and he pukes up blood. The flechettes bored into his neck and shoulders nibble away at his flesh. His fingers slip over to remove them— contact—they tremble in fear of the haemorrhage—stop. 

Subaru: “'Sisnt, timeto be doing this... I'm, idiot...” 

He has no time for his legs, his mind to freeze. The hopelessness of Frederica's survival is surely yet dependant on Subaru's actions. Bearing the pain, Subaru forces his knees to stand as he prepares for action. When he remembers about Petra. She had surely been in his arms until he reached the office, so where had she— 

Subaru: “Pe, tra?” 

Subaru discovers Petra on the opposite end of the room—nearby the sculpture. She lies on her side face-down and collapsed. Apparently, he had dropped her in the commotion. 

Yet worrying about Frederica, Subaru must follow her words and ensure Petra remains protected. He taxes his trembling legs to stand. His feet lead him to the fallen Petra's side. And, he goes to pick her up— 

—When there, buried from her head's rear to her nape, he spots the crooked knife. 

Blood trickles from her mouth, brain lies spilt from her fractured skull. Fresh bloodshed seeps heavy into her soft chestnut hair. Her gentle, warm hands will no longer move. Subaru lifts his right arm. He sees a pathetic bundle of flesh missing three fingers and half a forearm. The kukri he had attempted to halt had torn straight through to strike Petra. Now presented with this, Subaru thus had protected not a single thing. 

Subaru: “—aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” 

Bloody does his ruined throat shriek. 

※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※ 

Subaru limps across the mansion carpet, his expression haunted, headed for the eastern bloc. Settled in Subaru's arms is Petra's corpse. He has covered her in a white sheet, hidden, so no one will see her death. 

Her frozen-still expression of surprise proves that her death was instantaneous, the only saving grace in this. Experiencing the same agonizing deaths Subaru had experienced would be excessively horrible. He couldn't save her. 'Saving'—like that was anywhere here. 

Subaru: “ourrReeau...” 

Had he not come here wishing to save everyone in the mansion? Had he not resolved to devote himself to become capable of saving? Again he caught Petra inside this spiral of death. This is the third time he's seen Petra's dead body —all of them ends that shouldn't have happened if Subaru had done something. 

The witch cult had instigated the last series of loops, but this time had a decisively different component. Trying to settle it without getting Petra caught, Subaru could have objected to the decision to welcome her in as Frederica's undermaid. He was supposed to have known that being at Emilia's side, being at his own side, might invite danger. 

Subaru: “Could've... should've... endless.” 

If he's going to go on about coulds and shoulds after the game's already over, it'd go on forever. Subaru knew this. And being that he knew this, that he reflexively thinks he can't stay here is Subaru's weakness. 

According with his fractured feelings, his limping gait is heavy. A trail of his yet-spilling blood marks the carpet with red, a rasping pain grinding at his nerves with every step. One step, another, the sound of his flesh and mind shaving away, pain. Even being able to receive this punishment was a grace. If Subaru had sinned, then he should also be the only one eligible to receive the punishment. If it would uphold this rule, then any amount of pain he received was fine. This girl in his arms, the woman who had stayed so he could escape, and— 

Subaru: “Rehm...” 

Please let no disaster reach her. 

Subaru reaches the servant's quarters in the eastern bloc. He had chosen the shortest path from the office to get here, but he senses it took ages getting here pushing his wounded body. His destined room was opposite the stairs, room closest to the edge. He even now doesn't think of what'll happen after he gets there. With getting there alone as his objective, with touching the girl present there his only objective, he already lacks the will to live. 

He's lost too much blood, and his preparation and resolve have flowed out of his body with it. And most importantly, this time had far too many losses. He doesn't even seem capable of raising his head as he walks. If it's ending, then at least let it be at her side. At the side of the single girl in the world to whom Subaru could expose his weakness. 

Leaving a trail of blood and half-leaning on the wall, his minuscule willpower turns to tenacity as Subaru arrives just before his destined room—Rem's bedroom. He leans Petra against the wall and removes the sheet. Closes her eyes. Touches her cheek, traces his finger across her lips, hanging his head before the cooled girl's empty vessel. 

Subaru: “Sorry... Ih'm sorry... I'm, stupid ahnd usehelss and so...” 

There had to have been some method, but since Subaru was an idiot he hadn't known it. Petra was a resulting sacrifice. His apologies reach her absent self not. His tears fall onto Petra, he falls onto his knees. He pulls up the sheet and again covers her, stands up, turns around. 

???: “—I think it's rather mean to be left behind.” 

At the end of the hallway, a foot stood on the stairway Subaru just descended, is a beautiful black-haired woman. She fiddles with the end of her long, braided hair, her other hand holding a bloodsoaked kukri. Black bodysuit and black overcoat. Same outfit as when he saw her in the Capital. She was supposed to have fought with Frederica, but there's not a sign of that battle anywhere. That meaning both in wounds, and in fatigue. 

Her appearing here now explains just what happened to Frederica. All Subaru can do about having more people his apologies won't reach is look up at the ceiling and curse his own incompetence. 

Elsa: “I'm impressed you walked this far with those wounds. Very well done.” 

Subaru: “You ghonna give me a payment for it? Your life'd work fhine.” 

Elsa: “Can I read that as 'your lifetime is my desire', courting?” 

Subaru: “Ehf you're ghood to get crushed immediately, hand eht ohver.” 

Subaru glares at Elsa, using the wall to somehow get himself up. Elsa looks his wounded body up to down. 

Elsa: “The aroma of blood, the scent of anger, the fragrance of DEATH... ahh, you excel in every one. If your guts are to my liking too, I'll be too joyed to comment.” 

Subaru: “Freak... I got nho ideah what you're saying.” 

Hugging herself with an expression of ecstasy, Elsa looks at Subaru with a gaze not hiding its arousal. Even though she's beautiful she has the eyes of a debauchee, which gives Subaru only fear and disgust. Subaru makes his expression one purely of rejection. Elsa's cheeks retain their sensual tone. 

Elsa: “It's nice to talk with you, but... I'd rather not be told off for losing sight of my goal. Would the spirit and young half-witch lady I met in the Capital happen to be home?” 

Subaru: “Woulda saved effort if you'd just gave us a phonecall before coming. Whe've given mercenharies ghreat treatmenht before.” 

Elsa: “You aren't going to answer. Then, it'd be best to ask your guts.” 

Her pink tongue sensually wets her red lips. She traces her tongue alone the flat of her knife, smiling in ecstasy at the drips of blood she licks up. Brandishing her kukri, she dashes low at Subaru, posture spiderlike. She's fast. Can't think of any counter to it. But, 

Subaru: “As goddahmn if I'm ghonna die at yhour hands!” 

Says Subaru as he pushes open the door of Rem's bedroom. Elsa's brows furrow at the action, unable to comprehend it. Subaru feels some satisfaction at that reaction. 

Subaru's already half-resigned this one as being a failure. His wounds are deep, he can't stop his lifeblood from spilling everywhere, and the destiny for this loop is precarious. So at least he'll get one fuck over on Elsa, and stop things from going how she wants. He'd rather not fall victim before those blades. If he's going to fall into her hands, he'd rather just throw his life away first. But before that, he wanted her to avoid being violated. That meaning, a considerably selfish double-suicide. 

But if it meant falling into Elsa's hands, like Petra, like Frederica... That girl in this world that had already ended, would at least, by Subaru's hands— 

Subaru: “And ihmmediately, me too...” 

And instantaneously from there, he would join her. Subaru enters into Rem's bedroom with this resolve— 

Subaru: “—huh?” 

—The bookshelves of the Forbidden Archive welcome a Subaru prepared to end.