Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 12

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  He knew that even if Subaru redid things, the current Roswaal would not be waiting on the other end.

  But that way of thinking was just too—

  “—That’s not the thought process of a human being.”

  With Subaru, whose consciousness continued on, the prerequisite conditions differed.

  With Roswaal, whose consciousness did not continue on, if he died it was the end.

  And so understanding that end, he accepted it as a matter of fact, inserting it into his plan. That was abnormal.

  “At any rate, the time will come when, in a genuine sense, you catch up to me, Subaru.”

  “Roswaal…?”

  “Listen well, Subaru. —You have something that is important. One thing that is truly, truly precious to you. Strip away all other things. Let go of everything else and think only of protecting that one thing that you hold dear.”

  “”

  “Do this and—”

  Somewhere amid that much urgency, with an air of so much sincerity, Roswaal smiled at Subaru.

  The Great Rabbit that had already come so very close tore into that Roswaal’s neck. Blood scattered, and the sound of gouged flesh heralded the beginning of the tragic spectacle. Late to appear, the next rabbits bit into his arms, his knees, his rump.

  “Roswaalllll—!!”

  “—You can become like me.”

  The jester’s smile could no longer be seen, buried under the gleeful horde of rabbit bodies.

  As if craving it, the Great Rabbit covered the whole of Roswaal’s body. Falling to his side, the unresisting Roswaal was gouged out by the rabbits’ fangs. Hungrily, they fed, eating their fill.

  Fresh blood sprayed onto the white snow, drawing a picture of Hell upon that great natural canvas. Even that bloody sketch went to waste, for the demon beasts slurped the blood-smeared snow, erasing every remaining trace.

  Without a word, Subaru watched the spectacle of Roswaal ceasing to be Roswaal.

  He watched, as the being known as Roswaal was lost to the world, his life gnawed away.

  —He watched.

  7

  —A finished world, an unreachable future, lost hopes, and trampled bonds: They all tasted of blood.

  Upon those, Subaru bit down. He bit down on the rising bitterness. He bit down on his decision.

  It was time. This time he would truly give up on this world, for it was time that he let go.

  From hither and yonder, he heard the kichikichi sound of the monsters’ fangs, captive to their own obsession with hunger.

  The Sanctuary was no longer anything more than the Great Rabbit Horde’s hunting grounds. Screams and angry shouts alike were drowned out by the demon beasts’ cries and the sounds of their gnawing as countless cruel deaths were playing out across that powdery landscape.

  Subaru single-mindedly raced past the horrors, running in a beeline to his destination. Surrounded by the sounds of fangs, the flesh-craving rabbits delighted at having new prey enter their feeding grounds. Subaru drew the crystal from his pocket and made one reckless prayer.

  Employing his rights as an apostle, Subaru assembled the replicas remaining in the Sanctuary. Leaving it to them to leap in and intercept the demon beasts, Subaru somehow managed to escape with his life.

  The remaining replicas dwindled even as he watched. A moment after Piko, the first to come to his side, was sacrificed to the rabbits and torn apart, they ceased being effective as expendable speed bumps. He made them fight until they were being shredded, finally causing them to self-destruct, taking as many as they could with them. This he repeated over and over—

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha…”

  Coming to a halt, a dry laugh trickled out. Before his eyes was a fire-enveloped building, burning with brilliant flames.

  It was the Cathedral. Between the people of Earlham Village and the residents of the Sanctuary, there ought to have been nearly a hundred souls housed inside. Their bastion, the place where survivors should have been waiting for aid, was engulfed by flame.

  Possessing nothing save hunger, the Great Rabbit lacked the presence of mind to set its prey on fire. Who, then, had set the fire? For what purpose had—? Without having to think about it, he knew.

  The people inside had chosen suicide over being devoured by demon beasts. That was all.

  Hell—this was a portrait of Hell itself. The people from the village, the residents of the Sanctuary, and even Ryuzu and Otto had probably all been inside. How could they do something so hasty?

  But Subaru had no right to blame them. They had simply exercised a natural right. They had the right to choose their end—a right Subaru did not possess—and so they chose. That was all.

  It was Subaru Natsuki who ought to be blamed. It was he who had made them choose how to end lives that, unlike his, would never return—this was the crime of Subaru Natsuki, a crime he could never undo.

  “…Put yourselves on the line and protect me. Once I make it to the tomb, do what you want.”

  The Great Rabbit began to surround the Cathedral as it burned and collapsed. Sensing their approach, Subaru left only those orders to the remaining Ryuzu replicas—of which there were six.

  Shifting his head, Subaru looked not at the scene of the fire but across the snow to where the tomb was supposed to be.

  With one step and another, he walked, casting his hesitation aside as he broke into a run.

  Behind him, the demon beasts identified the racing Subaru as more prey, their little bodies bounding in pursuit. The replicas did as ordered, fighting without self-regard as they protected him from the beasts.

  He heard a chaotic mix of sound from the cries of demon beasts and of the horrifically wounded replicas turning into light and exploding.

  Leaving all of it behind, Subaru covered his ears with his hands, continuing to run into the blowing snow.

  Countless sounds reached the eardrums of Subaru Natsuki, berating him as they did. He did his best to ignore it and shook them off.

  —He continued to run.

  8

  By the time he arrived at the tomb, Subaru’s body no longer felt the cold.

  He had a cavity for a left eye, and the vision of his right was dying bit by bit. But he thought nothing of the pain.

  In his dull, leaden thought process, the image of a single girl flickered.

  Stepping into the corridor of dry stone, Subaru headed deeper, deeper within. And there he found—

  “—Subaru?”

  At the back of the corridor was a stone room filled with a faint blue light. From there, someone called his name.

  Invited by the voice, his legs dragged him forward, and the person standing in the center of the stone room gazed at Subaru and said, “Subaru, it really is you! Goodness, where have you been? I was worried!”

  As she spoke, Emilia rushed over in a small run and grasped both his hands.

  Wearing a pouty look, Emilia proceeded to pull Subaru’s hands against her own chest. As gentle softness and body temperature blended together, she gazed at him with upturned eyes.

  “…Are you tired by any chance?”

  “Yeah… I might be just a little tired…”

  “Tee-hee, is that so? Well, in that case…”

  Nodding, Emilia smiled with redness dying her cheeks. From there, she bent her knees on the spot, leaned on her hip, folded her legs under her, and gave her white thighs a couple of pats.

  “…A…lap pillow, huh?”

  “Yes. Subaru, you just love my lap pillow, don’t you? You’ve told me as much. I remember.”

  Emilia proudly made the proposal with only a tiny hint of a blush. Though it took Subaru a little longer, he also sat down on the spot, indulging in her generosity as he laid his head upon her soft thighs. Right away, the sensation of his hair elicited a sweet murmur of “mmm,” but Emilia immediately began stroking Subaru’s head.

  “How many times does this make that I’ve offered Subaru my lap as a pillow anyway?”

  “Who kno
ws…third time, maybe? I think I was a real wreck every time.”

  “I am happy to indulge Subaru like this, but you know, spoiled children get their hair teased…”

  Teasing his forelocks, tickling his forehead with her fingers, Emilia was in high spirits as she did as she pleased to Subaru.

  Because Emilia wore that adorable expression, not even a smidgeon of an urge to brush her fingers aside arose.

  —Besides, he had neither the willpower nor physical endurance to do so. Most of what should have been in his belly had already spilled out anyway.

  “”

  Subaru was in a sorry state that was almost unbearable to look at.

  The bite wound in his hip had reached his intestines. Of the fingers on the right hand he’d used to swipe away a leaping rabbit, only the thumb really remained. Below his waist, countless deep gashes had left the bone visible, and from which too much blood had escaped.

  That he’d made it that far with his fraying mind was the result of tenacity bordering on obsession and the freezing cold slowing the metabolism of his body. But even that bargain-bin miracle had finally reached its limit.

  “Subaru, are you sleepy?

  “Just a…a tiny bit, yeah. Ahhh, it’s all right, it’s all right… I can do this, I can do this…”

  “Really? You’re not forcing yourself? I mean, Subaru, you always do reckless things for someone else’s sake… I mean, even Subaru understands that about Subaru, but it really makes me worry.”

  “I’m…all…right…”

  “I’m a little conflicted about it. I want Subaru to do reckless things just for me…but I don’t want to see Subaru pretending not to see other people… Sorry, I’m very selfish, huh?”

  Emilia piled words upon words in quick succession. Her voice grew distant.

  Unlike the snow-buried grounds of the Sanctuary, the tomb interior retained a moderate amount of heat. This thawed Subaru’s still-battered flesh, and his bleeding commenced once more. The pool of blood on the stone floor broadened, and the blood Subaru was coughing splattered onto Emilia’s cheek. But Emilia paid the blood no mind.

  “Hey, Subaru, are you listening? There’s so, so, soooooo much that I want to talk to you about. So please let me be by your side. Listen to my voice. Let me speak, ’kay?”

  She wasn’t ignoring him. Emilia hadn’t noticed—not Subaru’s state, nor the blood on her cheek.

  Subaru was firmly reflected in her violet eyes. But reality didn’t show up in them.

  Emilia didn’t see what was wrong with Subaru. Nor did she notice the change in the Sanctuary, the gradually approaching end, or much of anything else for that matter. —However, perhaps the same was true of Subaru.

  “”

  Subaru should have been doing his best to get Emilia out of the Sanctuary.

  The Great Rabbit was already burying the exterior of the tomb. It probably would not be long before they surged inside. If they did, just like with Roswaal, not even one scrap of Emilia would be left behind.

  That would mean Emilia’s death—but even knowing this, Subaru did not tell Emilia to run.

  He could not escape from his self-centered desire to be at Emilia’s side for the little time he had left.

  Roswaal’s words and grand death, the regrets he harbored for Ram’s and Garfiel’s deaths, the uncertainty of how Petra and Frederica had been taken, his inability to save Rem and Beatrice; these were killing Subaru.

  —Trapped between a sense of loss and a sense of loneliness, Subaru wanted to vanish, and not a moment too soon.

  As the world began to go white, his consciousness and his soul were being whittled away from it, bit by tiny bit.

  Strength drained from his limbs, and sensation vanished from his dying flesh. Emilia, not realizing that Subaru was dying, would be the only one left.

  —Here, he was going to leave Emilia behind? Emilia, who no longer had anyone else on whom to depend.

  “Ah—”

  Even if he wanted to regret it, it was too late. It was too late for everything.

  His voice refused to come out. Light vanished from his black eyes.

  Not noticing this, thinking Subaru had merely fallen silent, Emilia tilted her neck in adorable fashion.

  Then she abruptly smiled, gently bringing her face closer, and—

  “”

  —kissed the silent Subaru’s lips.

  —The taste of her first kiss was the cold taste of death.

  CHAPTER 5

  ENDING LIST

  1

  Subaru’s consciousness was greeted by the same sensation of a cold, hard floor.

  “”

  Still lying faceup, Subaru opened his eyes and coughed out the dirt inside his mouth. When he grimaced at the stench of dirt and looked around the area, he saw he was in a dimly lit stone room—back within the tomb.

  Subaru returned to the world in the exact same place right after the old one had ended, going back only in time.

  His eyeball had returned to his left eye socket, restoring his vision. Though on the one hand, he was relieved by this, the fear that this left eye would see Hell and a sense of inescapable confinement made him feel an ache from a wound that surely no longer existed.

  The main thing holding back his sense of despair and the creeping feeling that he would only reach another dead end was the presence of the girl lying by his side.

  There, beautiful silver hair spread over the floor, moaning in anguish, was Emilia, the girl with whom he had surely met his demise—here she was tormented by the Trial, seeing a nightmare of the past from which she could not awaken.

  “”

  Quietly, with his fingers, Subaru gently touched not Emilia but his own parched lips.

  In the back of his mind arose the sight of Emilia just before Return by Death—when, putting the dying Subaru on her lap, she did not notice his loss as she kissed him.

  He could not imagine what Emilia’s mental state was like the moment she kissed Subaru’s bloody lips. Nor was Subaru, then on the verge of death, able to bring with him the sensations or feelings from the final moment of his passing.

  It would have been the first kiss with Emilia in Subaru’s life, and it was death that had gotten in the way.

  “”

  But if Subaru had to answer whether he regretted feeling the touch of her lips, he would resoundingly say no.

  Reminiscing about the kiss in that final moment was to reconfirm his sense of crisis at seeing Emilia becoming wholly dependent on Subaru as she fled from reality after her mental state had deteriorated so much…

  Unable to rely on Puck, enduring the pressure from those around her, losing the support of Subaru’s consoling words must have pushed Emilia’s mind to its limits.

  He’d taken pride in the best start to date, but if Emilia’s collapse was the result…

  “If I’m not at her side…then that happens. I don’t want to…make her sad…”

  Even if she’d temporarily recovered from the tomb, the nighttime conversation, the letter, it all backfired.

  Swallowed up by a tremendous snowfall, a great many became victims to the Great Rabbit’s invasion. Roswaal had slain Ram and Garfiel in a fit of madness. And finally, having Emilia kiss him on the lips was Subaru’s final moment as he went to his death—

  “I knew. I should have known.”

  To Subaru, that world had offered the cruelest, the most senseless of fates.

  Therefore, as if by design, Emilia, Beatrice, and even Elsa and Roswaal were arranged in the most formidable configuration possible.

  “I’ll save…Emilia, the Sanctuary, the mansion. I’ll save them all. If I don’t, then…”

  —Can you do it?

  —It’s not a matter of whether I can. I have to. I will. Me.

  Subaru bared his fangs and silenced the inner voice that he’d heard many times already. He would permit no excuses, no lifelines. He swore a vow, one that would absolutely never be rescinded.

  All he
had to do was list the problems, obstacles, issues, and walls in his way; clarify his victory conditions; put them in chronological order; then challenge them with trial runs over and over, as many as time and his mind would permit.

  Even if Subaru’s mind was whittled down with every failure, he would be satisfied so long as a future worth holding on to still existed… No matter how many horrific things he had to see, like what he had already bore witness to.

  And so—

  “—Emilia, are you all right?”

  He stretched out his hand, shook the shoulder of the adorable girl lying on her side, and gently brought her back to reality.

  As Subaru watched her long eyelashes tremble and her purple eyes slowly open, he decided.

  All over again, he made a vow inside of himself, making it hard and strong so that it would never be broken.

  —I’ll protect Emilia and save everyone else. Even if it costs me my life.

  2

  In his head, he organized the information he never got a chance to digest at the end of the last run, given the chaotic events and his impending death.

  The most crucial of this was the man who knew of Subaru’s Return by Death—Roswaal L. Mathers. Subaru had to consider his position and how to best confront his schemes.

  Roswaal did not know that dying was the condition for activating his ability, but he knew that Subaru looped. It was unclear whether he learned this since Subaru’s arrival in the Sanctuary or perhaps long before, but the way he found out had to be the magic tome in his possession—the book of knowledge.

  This magic tome had the same origin as the blank one Beatrice possessed, one of only two volumes in the world.

  Subaru had no idea whether the contents of the tome accurately foretold the future or not. But if he took Roswaal’s words at face value, Roswaal had to be acting in accordance with the magical tome’s notations.

  His words and deeds in the Sanctuary and even his offering his body to the Great Rabbit at the end were the results of his strict observance of the magic tome—the ideology motivating his actions was similar to what drove the Witch Cultists from Petelgeuse on down.