Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 6

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  She’d probably been backed into a corner, her spirit worn down by external influences.

  Thus, Subaru stepped forward, ignoring Emilia’s question as he offered her his hand.

  “Come on. You can’t stay here.”

  Subaru’s forceful behavior surprised Emilia; she pulled back slightly from him. When the original distance between them was restored, Emilia shook her head toward the troubled boy.

  “Go where…? No, why?”

  “Anywhere will work, as long as it’s not here. If you’re gonna ask what it’s for, my answer is that it’s for your sake. I came back for your—”

  “This again, Subaru?”

  Emilia seemed disappointed in his reply as he spoke.

  Her velvet eyes watered slightly, glaring up at him through her lashes and cowing him into silence.

  “Returning all of a sudden, covered in wounds and making everyone worry… Aren’t you supposed to be undergoing treatment from Ferris in the royal capital? Why are you here now?”

  “A lot happened! There’s a mountain of things to explain, but I don’t have the time to do it right now. Please listen to me. We have to get out of this mansion this—”

  “I told you I can’t, didn’t I? I can’t trust you like this, Subaru… I told you.”

  Grudgingly, Emilia shook her head and rejected him with a trembling voice. It was a direct continuation of their exchange back in the waiting room at the royal capital, without the slightest progress. Subaru had been unable to convey to Emilia his willingness to do anything for her sake, and he had failed to understand why Emilia refused to understand how he felt. But one thing was different from before.

  “I’ll drag you out of here if I have to. In a few days, you’ll know I’m right whether you want to or not, so…!”

  “Wait. Wait, Subaru. What’s wrong? This isn’t like you, Subaru. I… And yet—”

  “Just shut up and listen to me!!”

  The instant he shouted, Emilia’s shoulders trembled. Before her unbelieving eyes, Subaru’s ragged breaths came with as much force as his angry yell, and he glared intensely at her.

  “You can’t stay here. You’ll regret it. I know you will. It won’t help anyone. It won’t save anyone. I don’t want to suffer anymore. I don’t want to cry anymore!”

  “What are you talking about…? Subaru, I don’t understand.”

  “Shut up! If everyone would just… If you do exactly what I tell you, it’ll be all right! Everything will turn out okay. It’s true! Why doesn’t anyone understand that…?!”

  Subaru clawed at his head, raising his voice—not toward Emilia but at the irrationality of the situation.

  No doubt Emilia could not understand the meaning behind Subaru’s angry outburst. But this was the only place where he could express these curses aloud. Only before Emilia could Subaru vent about all the senseless things he had encountered and bring out all the ugly emotions he had borne with such difficulty.

  Seeing Subaru plead in a tearful voice, Emilia lowered her eyes in sadness.

  “I’m sorry, Subaru. I don’t get what you’re saying. I really can’t understand it.”

  Emilia’s eyes remained lowered as she softened the tone of her voice in an effort to soothe Subaru’s spirit.

  “I want to understand. But even if I could understand with time, I can’t give you that right now… There are so many things I need to do. That’s why right now, I—”

  “It’ll all go wrong.”

  Subaru interrupted her show of concern with a few short words, trampling upon Emilia’s feelings.

  Hearing the malice filling his voice, Emilia was in shock, blinking as he repeated the words.

  “It’ll all go wrong. You’re no good. You’ll fail. There’s no way you could do it. There’s no chance. You’re all talk. Totally beyond saving. No one can rescue you. You’ll just keep doing rash and reckless things, and the number of corpses in the pile will be the same. That…is your future.”

  The satisfaction filling Subaru’s body was pitch-black, mean, ugly, and contemptible. As each word that fell from his mouth sounded in Emilia’s ears, the pain on her face let him truly see the effects of jamming his feelings like blades into the weak points of her heart.

  At that moment, Emilia was forced to pay attention to everything he said. In that instant alone, he took morbid joy in the fact that she could not ignore him.

  He’d rejected her determination, laughed off her resolve, callously trampled on her actions, scoffed at her past idleness, and prophesied a completely dark future. As Subaru watched Emilia, stunned by all he’d said, his heart—

  Quietly, Emilia murmured, “Why?”

  Grief at Subaru’s heartless words, along with pain at his description of an inescapably dark future, caused Emilia’s expression to stiffen. But even then, her violet eyes remained unclouded. Captivated by the haunting, dimmed gleam of her eyes, he watched the world reflected in them—in other words, Subaru himself, as seen by her. Then, “Why do you look like you’re crying from so much pain, Subaru?”

  —Only then did he realize that a twisted smile had come over him while his tears poured out.

  He knew that everything he’d said had been thrown back in his face.

  Reflecting upon each and every word with which he’d crushed Emilia’s feelings, eyes running all the while, he realized they amounted to nothing. With everything he said, Subaru had managed only to slice himself to ribbons.

  Determination, resolve, actions, past, future—Subaru’s had been rejected as much as hers.

  He felt like it was futile no matter how hard he tried.

  He knew that he was seized by an urgent need to do something. As for what he was struggling against, he had no idea. He knew only one thing.

  “She…she brought me this far… No. She stayed with me this far, and there are things I have to do for her…”

  “Rem?”

  Subaru anxiously searched his heart for the original feelings that had brought him to where he currently stood. Emilia, listening to his seemingly meaningless utterance, tilted her head slightly.

  “—”

  His breath caught.

  The way Emilia had said her name.

  It was clearly how people sounded when they were confused.

  “—You too.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’ve…forgotten Rem, too—”

  Not only had her own twin sister forgotten her existence, not only had all traces of her vanished, but the person who was the entire reason for Subaru’s return didn’t remember her, either, even though Rem had staked her life on making it happen.

  The days she had spent, the time, the feelings, the way she’d lived, all had vanished. Her smile, her anger, her tears, the touches they’d shared—what had happened to all the things that made her who she was, that were firm proof she had lived?

  “—All right. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Eh?” Emilia responded, surprised by Subaru’s words. Looking up at her beautiful, refined face, Subaru found anew the source of the emotions that had driven him to such lengths.

  If the alternative was for Rem and her feelings to vanish into the ether forever…

  “It’s better to get everything out, even if it makes me cough up blood.”

  Subaru had decided.

  He’d reveal it all. He’d tell her the truth about what clouded the depths of his spirit.

  Emilia, seeing that the look in Subaru’s eyes had changed, swallowed stiffly.

  Standing before her, Subaru put a hand to his chest. His heartbeats were fast; he knew and feared exactly what was about to happen, what the result would be.

  That pain. Pain enough to drive a man mad.

  The suffering of those ministrations on his heart, the sensation of it being crushed, his inability to even let out a sound, continuing on and on, never knowing when it would come to an end…

  But he had thought about this, too.

  As if I care. I don’t care
. What’s that pain compared to this suffering right now?

  She couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t understand him. If he would have to endure the suffering of no one remembering Rem on top of that, mere physical pain paled in comparison.

  —If you’re gonna come, then come, damn it. If it’s my heart you want, you can have it.

  “Emilia.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve…seen the future. I know what’s gonna happen. And if you wanna know why, it’s because…I can Return by Death—”

  The instant he reached the verge of revealing everything, the world indeed came to a halt. As he’d expected, everything gradually slowed, finally stopping altogether. In that instant, the environment lost its color; all the sounds he had heard to that point vanished. The wind, his breath, his beating heart—all grew further and further away and did not return.

  With all five senses deserting his mind, Subaru was isolated from the world.

  —Then, as if unable to leave him alone in his solitude, the hands slowly appeared, bearing their unsought benevolence.

  The black cloud that spawned seemed to slide through the air as it wriggled, shifting to form arms. In past times, only the right arm had the well-defined contours of a limb. But as the frequency of the evil hands’ occurrence had increased, they formed a left hand as well with disturbing speed.

  Both hands drew near to Subaru, with the left stroking his cheek, seemingly fond of him. The right rudely refused to be patient, plunging into Subaru’s chest, slipping past his ribs, and gently enveloping his heart.

  The frightening sensation of that alien limb softly, gently toying with his heart coursed through his entire body.

  Unlike the unimaginable pain inflicted on him previously, the blackness that held Subaru’s life in its hands seemed to be craftily manipulating his ultimate fear to break his determination and resolve.

  With the impending agony failing to arrive, a new fear began to quietly take root in Subaru’s mind.

  He’d made his peace with the excruciating discomfort and had sworn to endure it. The evil hands seemed to be mocking Subaru’s determination, delivering no more pain to his body and mind than pinpricks, and relying on his imagination to fill in the rest. It was that way of inflicting pain, so different from what he’d expected, that made the immobilized Subaru want to scream. But he clenched his unmoving teeth and rejected the urge.

  He was in pain, afraid, ignorant, but Subaru did not allow that suffering to affect his spirit. If he failed, he would gain nothing. If he failed, he would never be forgiven. In a world where no one remembered that Rem had ever existed, Subaru had nowhere left to beg forgiveness for his responsibility in her death, save the confines of his own soul.

  If the hand wanted to inflict suffering, he would let it carve as much into him as it pleased. But that determination was the one thing that would not shatter so easily.

  Subaru glared at the evil hand toying with his own heart, holding his breath as he waited for the inevitable moment. But the hand made no move to do so. If it could do the deed anytime, it could also delay as long as it wished.

  In that world of stopped time, all he could do was wage a war of attrition until his mind was worn away. Even if Subaru’s determination held firm for the moment, it would eventually falter, and his spirit would be subsumed and broken.

  —If that’s what it thought, it had another think coming.

  He’d endure the agony, no matter how many hours or days it might take. He hadn’t died over and over for nothing. If it wasn’t going to kill him, he’d endure anything mere pain had to offer.

  Such was Subaru’s resolve—

  “—Ah?”

  Suddenly, something began to animate that stilled world.

  All traces of the looming pain, of which he’d received only a preview, vanished from his world. Subaru and his resolve were left intact as sound, color, and time returned. A flood of sounds—his breathing, his heartbeat, of moving things moving in the world—swirled around Subaru, as if that other realm had spat him out in derision.

  Perhaps the evil hand had judged that it was futile in the face of Subaru’s obstinate resolve?

  Like hell, thought Subaru. His repeated suffering at those hands led him to scoff at the notion. Even then, he felt the black cloud’s right hand softly grasping his heart. If it’d squeezed, Subaru would that very moment be—

  “—”

  At that point, a doubt crept into Subaru’s thoughts.

  Subaru had a firm memory of that abominable right hand touching his heart.

  But what had the left hand been doing during that time? At first, it had touched his cheek, but after that—

  “—Hu.”

  Before he could find an answer to his question, Emilia, standing before him, seemed to murmur something.

  Her voice roused Subaru to his senses. He recalled the rest of the sentence he had started before time had stopped. Though his sudden release from the nightmare had thrown him off, if violating the taboo would bring no further price, he needed to concern himself with it no further.

  He’d reveal everything, sharing with her what lay moments into the future, so that Subaru, and everyone, could get the world they hoped for. Finally, his determination to see that through would bear fruit—

  “Ahh.”

  A moment before he could, Emilia’s body abruptly leaned forward toward Subaru, who was standing just in front of her.

  Subaru instinctively reached a hand out to catch her. Her breath caught a little at the soft, warm touch against his hand when…

  Splat.

  “—Eh?”

  Splat, splat, splat.

  “—Emi…lia?”

  Splatsplatsplat, spurt.

  Emilia made strange sounds while she embraced him as an enormous amount of blood poured from her mouth.

  —Where had the left hand gone while the right was touching Subaru’s heart?

  Emilia rested her head on Subaru’s shoulder, continuing to cough up blood. The sheer amount coming out dyed half of Subaru crimson as her body grew lighter.

  “Stop i… Wha? Wai…? Huh?”

  She lifted her head, seemingly trying to stop the blood she was heaving up, but in that instant, her listless head dropped. She slid down his shoulder. Her lifeless gaze told him everything he needed to know.

  Right then, before Subaru’s very eyes, Emilia’s life—

  “WaaaAAAHHHHHH—!!”

  A scream rang out.

  He screamed and howled enough to tear his throat apart, as if that would let him forget everything. If it were so, he wanted it to break at that very moment, to claw at it and rip it out with his own hands.

  Emilia’s limp body was still growing lighter within his arms.

  The blood wouldn’t stop flowing out of her. Subaru’s body turned redder. Redder. And redder.

  —While the right hand had been touching Subaru’s heart, the left hand had reached for Emilia’s.

  His determination, his resolve, his actions, his past, and his future had all been stomped down and mocked.

  His stubborn determination, the resolve that he had only just decided would never be broken, had been smashed to pieces, and Subaru Natsuki plunged into an abyss of despair.

  His scream reached higher and higher, never fading.

  It had finally come to this. Subaru—

  —had killed Emilia.

  4

  This time, he surely had no more blood to cough up, no more tears to weep. He had been wrung dry.

  How much did he have to cry?

  How much did he have to suffer?

  Had he done something so unforgivable?

  His spirit had been wounded and trampled upon. He’d been robbed of someone precious. He couldn’t protect the people he needed to protect. And by his hand, the most important person to him in the world had cruelly lost her life.

  —Had someone levied some kind of judgment upon him?

  “I—I…”

  He�
��d been wrong. He’d misunderstood. He’d gotten cocky.

  He’d become conceited after skillfully using the curse of the Witch on his soul to turn things around before. Encouraged by the thought that he’d come back even if he died, he’d dismissed the abominable being known as the Witch along with her evil hands, and this was the result.

  All those things, accumulated together, had produced the tragic spectacle now before him.

  Subaru fell to his knees, resting Emilia’s corpse atop them, as his hollow eyes wandered aimlessly about.

  How much time had passed since Emilia had lost her life?

  When he touched her cheek, it had gone cold. The heat had faded from the blood that poured from her mouth. Her soft limbs had begun turning stiff, leaving him with less and less with which to deny her death.

  Subaru, understanding that, remained unable to move from the spot.

  He was exhausted.

  He’d suffered so much. Surely it was all right for him to stop now?

  Was there any human being anywhere in that world who had undergone as much as he?

  He’d made efforts unthinkable for his old self, trying to manage somehow. Even so, he’d been unable to avert the worst case, the calamity had overtaken him, and he had lost everything. Then what more could—

  “—Your face seems to say, ‘I am the unluckiest man in the whole world.’”

  No one should have been there, so Subaru doubted his own ears when he looked toward the entrance.

  As he sluggishly brought his head around, he saw a single girl standing in front of the door. She gazed at Subaru with disdain. Her long cream-colored hair was split into two beautiful rolls, and she wore an ornate dress fit for a Western doll. She had an adorable face, one Subaru had not seen upon his return to the mansion the last two times through the current series of loops.

  “Bea…trice…”

  “In the time since I have last seen you, has your witless face grown even more foolish, I wonder?”

  Making that harsh declaration, Beatrice surveyed the tragic sight in the room.

  Then she said, “Well, now you’ve really done it…”

  With a sigh, Beatrice summed up the tragic spectacle with extreme bluntness.