ReZERO_Starting Life in Another World Vol. 5

by Tappei Nagatsuk

Unlike his adherents, his hands held nothing in them. Indeed, the relaxed way his open hands swung before him held not a single smidgeon of visible hostility. His body was skin and bones; his behavior betrayed no suggestion he was strong.

  Noticing Petelgeuse’s advance, Rem knocked down yet another of the black robes and leaped. Hanging upside down from the ceiling, she glared as Petelgeuse advanced beneath her. An instant later, she would shoot out like an arrow with an attack that would surely smash Petelgeuse’s thin body to pieces.

  And yet, why?

  Why was a terrible feeling clawing at her heart even so?

  “Get away from Suba—”

  Rem’s voice cut off. The rest of his name never reached Subaru’s ears.

  But the echo of her voice delivered a decisive tremor to Subaru’s heart.

  Rem herself had surely not intended any such thing. But the girl’s repeated, earnest cries thawed Subaru’s frozen heart.

  “—m.”

  He made a faint sound from the back of his throat and crawled.

  It was a meaningless fragment of a word, carrying not even an iota of the feelings he wished to convey. And yet, as he gasped for breath, Subaru lifted his face and put all his emotions into one short word…

  “…Rem.”

  His voice was as frail as a whisper. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had spoken that name on his lips. And yet his voice was so weak, threatening to disappear completely.

  “—Ah.”

  His feeble voice seemed to die on the wind. He wondered if she could even hear it.

  As the blood-drenched girl grasped the ceiling, a faintly soft look came over her face. Her lips slackened just a little, her eyes radiating with joy as they beheld Subaru.

  “Subaru—”

  As the boy returned from stupefaction to reality, he clearly heard Rem call out his name.

  And then…

  —In an instant, her entire body was torn to pieces that audibly fell onto the cold, hard floor.

  Subaru lost his voice as he beheld the blood spreading from Rem’s fallen body.

  “…aa?”

  Her corpse, fallen to the ground, had been cruelly destroyed for all to see.

  When she had intruded into the cavern, she was wounded all over yet lovely. Now, each of her limbs was bent in a different direction; the wounds to her front and back looked as if the fingertips of a giant had gouged out her torso. And what had wreaked such violence upon her body was…

  “The authority of ‘Sloth’—”

  As Petelgeuse murmured, Rem’s body, limbs destroyed, floated up before his eyes. There was no visible sign of magical interference, yet neither had anyone lifted her up. Even so, Rem’s body hovered. It was as if hands had stretched up from beneath her to raise her overhead.

  “—Unseen Hands.”

  Petelgeuse looked back, raising both hands before his own face while Rem’s body floated behind him. There was no one in her vicinity with hands to place on her. No one was touching her.

  It was a bizarre spectacle.

  “The power to reach places the hand cannot and do anything without moving one’s body. Utmost diligence while being a sloth of the flesh— Ahh, such slothful feelings make…my… brain…shiver.”

  Subaru watched Rem’s final moments, dumbfounded. She would never move again. His voice wouldn’t come out. His eyes widened as he forgot to breathe and his grip on the world around him felt less real, slipping into stupefaction once more. His mind was wrapped in darkness, as if he were falling and falling down a bottomless pit—

  As he tried to flee from reality, Petelgeuse stopped him, roughly grabbing hold of his bangs and using them to lift his head.

  “You are not permitted to run from this.”

  The shock of the pain made Subaru grimace as he thrashed around, trying to thrust Petelgeuse back. Petelgeuse did not allow him to do any such thing, though the boy stretched his chains to their limit. The metallic bonds tore at Subaru’s flesh to the point of drawing blood, but Subaru’s eyes were forced to face forward.

  “Look. Go ahead, look. Look, please. The girl is dead. She died for love. She fought while injured, struggled against her fears as she stepped forward, and died with her desires unfulfilled.”

  “Ua, aa…”

  “Look, please. Look at her burns. This is the result of your actions.”

  “—aa?”

  Rem’s body floated as Subaru’s head was thrust forward as far as the chains around him would permit. Even so, Subaru writhed and stomped on the ground as a pair of hands held him in place.

  The madman’s putrid breath washed over him; Subaru panted with the bloodstained Rem before his eyes.

  “It is the result of your actions. You were slothful and did nothing. And because of that, she is dead! Because you killed her!”

  “…You.”

  “It was by my hand! It was by my fingers! It was by my flesh! But it was you, you, you, you, you, you who, who, who…killed her, yes!”

  Petelgeuse’s abnormal power toyed with Rem’s body as he chirped, almost like he was singing.

  Rem’s body, lying down in midair, shifted like a marionette on a string as her arms and legs dangled. Her twisted limbs danced according to the madman’s whims.

  “…op it.”

  There came a scrish of something ripping apart.

  Unable to handle the manipulation, Rem’s body broke…and so did something within Subaru.

  “Owww, ow it hurts, it hurts, the pain, the pain, save me, save me… Ahh, Subaru?”

  It was a cheap taunt, the lowest of base humor. The madman violated Rem with his antics. With easy enjoyment, he debased the girl Subaru revered directly in front of him.

  That spectacle was so ugly that he dearly wanted to avert his eyes and make himself forget it.

  “—Petelgeuuuuuse!!”

  Subaru was afraid of seeing reality, but the rotting stench hovering around him had been enough to pull him back to his senses. He stretched his neck, trying to bite at the windpipe that was tantalizingly close. But the manacles intervened and his canines fell just a little short. He stumbled forward, tumbling hard onto his face.

  His nose was bleeding and he had chipped a front tooth. Petelgeuse laughed in delight as he looked down at Subaru.

  “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you…kill, kill, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you! Kill, kill…die, I’ll have you killed, die, die, dieeeee!”

  “To hate another so that you may live, that fierce passion toward others is the opposite side of the coin of love! Ahh, how splendidly warped this is! This spurs both my fingers and me to greater heights of diligence!”

  “Kill… I’ll kill you. You…killed…Rem. I’ll…kill, kill, kill. I’ll have you killed. Yeah! I’ll kill you! Kill, kill! Die, damn you! Damn you, aah! Die, damn you!”

  He spewed saliva as he spat out curses and raised a resentful howl.

  He didn’t care if his arms tore off. He didn’t care if his legs tore off. If he could get free of those manacles and kill the man before his eyes then and there, it was enough. He hated, hated, hated the man to no end. The man had to die. He could not be suffered to live.

  He had to make very sure that the man died then, that moment, that very instant.

  Subaru thrashed his entire body around in rage as Petelgeuse stood beside him. Abruptly, the latter’s crazed laughter faded, and he murmured, “This has been a rather untidy affair, but it is finally time that we must part.”

  With a hand, he assembled the surviving figures together and pointed toward the cavern’s wrecked entrance.

  “We shall abandon this place. You will disregard the number of fingers remaining, continue the role of the left hand, and join with the other five fingers— The ordeal shall be conducted as planned.”

  “Die! Die, damn you! Die, die, dieeee!”

  Having issued his brief orders, Petelgeuse clapped his hands. On that signal, the black robes vanished, melting into the gloomy darknes
s of the cavern. And one by one, all trace of life vanished from the hollow, with Petelgeuse himself finally departing, walking leisurely toward the entrance. The loud clicks of his shoes echoed off the rock walls of the cavern, with Subaru howling, cursing him with death over and over as his back grew distant.

  “Wait, you piece of shit! Kill! I’ll kill you! Die here! Die here, now! Die right now! Die! Die! Die!!”

  “Ohh, I forgot one thing, it would seem.”

  Even with the bloodthirsty shouts directed at him, the madman stopped and called back as lighthearted as ever. As Subaru glared at Petelgeuse, the latter looked back, nodded to the former, and crossed both hands over his own chest.

  “You truly do not understand your position. In spite of this, I would have you make a decision here and now.”

  The madman’s head tilted into a perfect right angle with enough force to break his neck, or so it seemed. A dark smile appeared.

  “I will leave your arms and legs bound. All that awaits you is death. And yet…if you were to take up the Gospel in this place, you can still be saved.”

  “Go to hell! Die here, right now! I’ll tear you apart! Blow you away! Blast you to pieces!”

  “You can be saved if you become one of us. If not, you are a mere stranger. It is clear and simple, yes?”

  Petelgeuse, stating what seemed to him like a most wise plan, proceeded to turn his back on Subaru. He treated the foul curses flowing out of the boy’s mouth like nothing more than a breeze, with his feet regarding the pool of blood like a puddle of water left by an early afternoon shower, his casual demeanor wholly unaffected.

  By rights, Petelgeuse would have departed without taking any further notice of Subaru.

  However, he did not, for a heavy, watery sound drew his attention to the side.

  “—Aaah.”

  Petelgeuse looked toward the sound, nodding as he stared at the blue-haired girl who had fallen there. Having lost all interest in playing with her as a doll, he was just about to leave when he noticed her tossed by the wayside.

  —It was no exaggeration to say that this, too, was treating her like a toy.

  “You, too, are a devotee of love. Yes, yes. You tried very hard.”

  Petelgeuse stood still and corrected the posture of Rem’s corpse, making a sign of the cross over her. He seemed to praise and acknowledge the girl’s actions up until several minutes prior. However…

  “You died for love, defying your destiny with all your might. However, you lie ruined and unfulfilled, having lost the object of your love, unable to fulfill your desire with emptiness hovering all about you…”

  His acclamation turned on a dime, lamenting the futility of Rem’s actions as his cheeks twisted into a mocking smile.

  “Because…you were slothful!”

  There was no greater way to belittle the existence of the lone girl Rem.

  “—!!”

  Howls and shouts fiercely echoed throughout the cave. Subaru Natsuki raised an inhuman cry, his anger great enough to fill his entire throat, his rage enough that he couldn’t form words, his regret enough to produce tears of blood.

  Hearing this, Petelgeuse laughed, as if it were a shower of the highest possible praise.

  He cackled and cackled.

  “—”

  He did not stop walking.

  Of course, Subaru could hope neither to stop him from behind nor wring his neck.

  He kept hearing that cackling voice for long after.

  Even with Petelgeuse himself gone, even though his own curses couldn’t reach the man, even though the light inside the cave dimmed all at once and left him alone with the corpse in the darkness, it wouldn’t stop.

  Cackle, cackle.

  Cackle, cackle.

  —Cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle.

  6

  “Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.”

  Amid the darkness, dead to the world, he spewed enough bloodlust and hatred to burn a man alive.

  He murmured and spat over and over, forgetting how many times it had been, yet his scorching hatred did not subside.

  “—”

  He had never hated anyone, not a person, not any living being, as much as he did then.

  Since arriving in that world, he had experienced hatred of the formless thing called Fate several times over. He had been beaten down into the ground, with reality pitilessly thrust in his face, with that callous world making him pay for bad decisions with his life—but the times he had hated and cursed were fewer than the number of his fingers.

  But to this point in his life, he had never hated another individual to that extent.

  “Petelgeuse…Romanée-Conti…!”

  Voicing the name on his lips, he recalled the man behind his eyes. His eardrums wallowed in his own shout. When his brain thought about that man, a fire raged inside him that made every drop of his blood boil.

  —What the hell was with that man, anyway?

  Subaru understood nothing about his identity. All he knew was that Petelgeuse walked far from the path of sanity, that he was a demon in human flesh who could not be reasoned with, and that he was a despicable person, the foulest of villains. He was the most awful of men who’d hurt Rem, the girl who’d sacrificed her own body in an attempt to rescue Subaru, and went on to humiliate and dishonor her life. He couldn’t even imagine the damage that letting that man live would wreak.

  That was why Subaru had to kill him. Subaru needed to kill him with his own hands, not letting anyone else do the deed. He had to kill Petelgeuse with his own hands. If he couldn’t do that, how could he pay him back for Rem’s death?

  “Kill, kill, I will…kill you with my own hands…”

  Subaru embraced the bloodlust pouring from his own mouth and earnestly twisted his own body, clinking his shackles.

  He’d tried to force his arms out of the manacles or kick them off his legs several times over.

  The manacles were clasped tightly and rather painfully on Subaru’s limbs, to begin with.

  He felt the pain. His fury would not permit him to forget it. But even as that discomfort clawed at his nerves, he bit it back with thoughts of what Rem had undergone.

  Even if the manacles tore off his hands and wrists, he didn’t really care. As long as he could escape, as long as he could move a single finger, as long as he had a single tooth left, he’d snuff out Petelgeuse’s life.

  —Several hours had already passed since his foe had departed the cave.

  The lagmite ore had lost most of its power, so the cavern fell into darkness. Subaru wondered if it was some kind of mistake. He was inside a natural cavern, yet not even a single insect lived within it. He was the only living being there.

  “—! Petelgeuse!!”

  A moment before Subaru noticed the darkness and silence, he wrung the hateful man’s name from his throat to keep his thoughts intact.

  Within the gloom, unable to see a thing, Subaru could sense nothing beyond himself in the whole world. His ragged breaths, the beats of his heart, the sounds of the chains chafing, the drip-drops of water—isolation and solitude quickly weakened the human heart.

  If he remained in this place like that much longer, with no change whatsoever…

  “Woaaaaa! Petelgeuse! Petelgeuse!!”

  Subaru abandoned his body to hatred, as if rejecting the image of his mental balance crumbling away.

  A human mind walled off from the outside world was well on its way to decay, to collapse, to a final end.

  Subaru screamed as if trying to avert his eyes from reality, trying to shake off the fear of being left behind.

  As long as he could shout his hatred, he would remain sane.

  As long as he was enveloped in bloodlust like a madman, he would not go mad.

  To keep his sanity, Subaru needed hatred.

  —Subaru did not know how many more hours passed after that.

  “Hff, hff… Kuh…ll.”

  Subaru’s consciousness hovered somewhere between
alertness and unconsciousness. Fatigue, debilitation, the abrasions on his body—all these dragged down Subaru’s body and spirit.

  Still bound by the manacles, his limbs, abused beyond their limits, no longer accepted the brain’s instructions. The metal scraped his flesh and even wore down the bones of his wrists and ankles. Just moving around sent him into convulsions from the ferocious pain.

  —Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.

  In spite of that, even then, bloodlust welled up from the very bottom of his heart. That moment, with both body and head no longer listening, it was the heart alone that kept Subaru going.

  It had been dozens of hours since he had been abandoned in that world of solitude. His body and spirit had reached their limits, but Subaru’s consciousness had not shut down.

  Archbishop of Sin. Petelgeuse of “Sloth.” Witch Cult. Right hand. Left hand. Unseen Hands. Index finger. Ring finger. Little finger. Diligence. Sloth. Sloth. Sloth—

  These were the keywords Subaru had gleaned from Petelgeuse’s high-pitched, shouted ramblings. With his head dying on him, he recalled these terms, wondering what they meant, thinking about Petelgeuse to keep his consciousness together even a little bit and to keep his hatred astir.

  He needed to remember a fresher, firmer, clearer image of the man’s face. He reflected along the same lines—the man’s voice, his appearance, his way of walking, his manner of speaking—exactly as if thinking about one’s dearly beloved. The direction of Subaru’s sentiments was the only thing that had changed. He was still using it as fuel to ignite his soul and keep himself awake.

  From afar, it seemed Subaru’s spirit had already arrived at the dimension of madness.

  Perhaps the mind would wear down and vanish first. Perhaps his body, unable to keep up with his active mind, would expire first. He was on a path where the end was nigh; it was simply a choice between one dead end or the other. Surely keeping his mind intact no longer had any meaning other than that.

  Subaru continued his futile struggle, but he was truly alone in all the world.

  “—aa?”

  His panting within the darkness had been frail, but his breath abruptly caught when he felt that something was off.

  It was troublesome to even move his head, but Subaru looked in the direction of the disturbance. Of course, his field of vision displayed nothing but the darkness of the cavern.