CHAPTER 7
NONE CAN LIFT THE QUAIN STONE ALONE
1
Garfiel stood in front of the tomb with wounds all over.
His entire body was smeared red with blood, and his shoulders rose and fell with ragged breaths. His head and body showed traces of blunt trauma all over, and only his loincloth remained upon his honed physique, leaving him close to naked.
Without even shoes on his feet, he stood barefoot and still before them as Subaru lowered his hand.
“…That’s a pretty primitive style to go with. Took a bit too much of a liking to war paint?”
“Never mind ’bout that. Only place that’ll get ya is rollin’ on the ground.”
When Subaru shot the breeze with him, Garfiel snorted through his nose and gave him a sour look.
Jokes aside, the fact remained that Subaru was surprised to see Garfiel wounded. He’d expected Garfiel to show up at the tomb, but being covered in injuries was beyond his expectations. And the cause was—
“That stupid bastard Otto. I told him not to do anything crazy…”
“I underestimated ’im. I never thought he’d put up that much of a fight. On top of that, he sweet-talked Ram…that’s how I ended up like this!”
“Ram, with Otto?”
Garfiel twisted his cheeks in disgust as he nodded and confirmed what Subaru had guessed.
If his words were to be trusted, the wounds carved into his body were the results of Otto and Ram’s exploits. Just how hard had those two noncombatants fought him? They’d probably done it simply to buy time.
They’d made time for Subaru and Emilia to talk. That was what the pair had fought so hard for.
“But if you two die, it doesn’t mean anything…”
Subaru imagined the worst possibility as cold sweat trickled down his brow.
Given the state Garfiel was in, it would not be strange if the difficult battle of which he spoke had resulted in him putting an end to their hard fighting with his claws. This, Subaru feared deeply.
“—Subaru.”
When Subaru clenched his fist and bit his lip, a voice like a silver bell called out to him. When he looked, Emilia, standing right beside him, was touching his shoulder, her concern-infused gaze peering into his black eyes.
Those eyes of hers had not yet come to terms with the emotions inside her. Emilia couldn’t have had any way of knowing what the situation meant. Of course it would throw her for a big loop.
Even so, Emilia was more concerned than doubtful, putting her consideration for Subaru first.
“…Sorry I looked pathetic. Now that I’ve remembered who’s standing beside me, I’m all fired up.”
“Mm, I understand. Don’t do anything rash.”
Replying to her gentle words with a nod, Subaru once more looked at Garfiel, who was standing on the grassy field in front of the tomb. With the stone steps between them, Subaru looked down at Garfiel as the latter crinkled his nose.
“Garfiel, what happened to Ram and Otto?”
“Ya don’t think…me bein’ here is answer enough?”
“Unfortunately, I’m considered a poor guesser. I’d like to hear it straight from your own mouth.”
Garfiel clacked his sharp fangs, his fierce response making Subaru grimace. The two exchanged sharp gazes. Garfiel made a low growl in his throat.
“It don’t matter what y’all are plannin’. I’ll cut off whatever stupid things ya want right here.”
It was not a reply to his question, but rather, he was making plain that he had no intention of giving a straight answer. In its stead, Garfiel was referring to the real reason he was baring his fangs toward the pair.
If the man named Garfiel was the man Ryuzu and Shima said he was, then—
“You didn’t kill them, did you?”
“I said that’s got nothin’ t’ do with this! Livin’ or dyin’…livin’ or dyin’ has nothin’ to do with it. If I smash the entrance to the tomb and end it all right here…”
Irritated, Garfiel put a hand to his forehead and spat out his words. His blunt, violent conclusion was the optimal method of putting an end to the Trial for good. But to Subaru, it sounded like nothing more than an excuse.
Garfiel was searching for an excuse not to have to kill Ram or Otto, or Subaru, either.
“If you do that, the Sanctuary will be a closed, fenced garden for eternity. You all right with that…?”
“—It’s fine. Every other option’s worse.”
Brushing Subaru’s words aside, Garfiel put a foot against the tomb’s stone steps. His advance, seemingly to cast aside all doubt, made Subaru feel he could see the gap between the determination and anxiety inside Garfiel’s stubborn mind.
His body bloodied, covered in wounds, Garfiel was determined to destroy the tomb, seeking nothing beyond a definite conclusion.
But—
“…What do ya think ya doin’, ahh?”
Halfway up the stone steps, Garfiel halted as his pupils narrowed. His feline gaze, reminiscent of a beast’s, shot right through Emilia, the one standing before him to bar his passage. To Garfiel, Emilia’s strength as a combatant was unknown; and so, seemingly by nature, he strongly clacked his fangs and gave off a wary growl.
“Outta my way. I’ll get rid o’ what’s worryin’ ya with my own bare hands. Once I do that…”
“Garfiel. —What are you so afraid of?”
Pheeew went Garfiel, Emilia’s assertion leaving him short of breath. For a second, he was taken aback; however, Garfiel immediately reddened with anger. His fangs were shaking.
“Me, afraid…?”
“You’re afraid, aren’t you? That’s why you’re speaking so loudly, stretching your arms as far as you can, stomping the ground with your feet… You’re pushing yourself, aren’t you?”
“What are you—?! You! Don’t know nothin’ about me…!”
“I do know. —I mean, I’ve lived in fear of so many things for all this time.”
Because she was weak, because she was afraid, she knew.
Putting a hand to her own breast, Emilia touched the broken crystal to make sure it was still there. Her violet eyes did not conceal her sorrow for the past, even as she pleaded to Garfiel, his eyes wide open.
“Up to today, I’ve lived in fear. When Puck was with me, I put all the bad things onto him, relied on him, and forgot… I think I understand a little now that I finally remember them.”
“Shaddap.”
“Right now, I only just started remembering everything I wanted to forget. I don’t really know what it is I really need to do. But there’s something there. I have to find out what that something is. Most likely, to me, it’s something to be found inside the tomb…that’s why I cannot move aside. But.”
“Shut up. Get lost. I…I’m not listenin’ to any of this.”
“But you’ve already found that something for yourself, haven’t you?”
When she posed the question, Garfiel’s endurance was already nearing its limit. An emotion beyond anger rested in his two eyes; it seemed like Garfiel was ready to train his claws on Emilia. But—
“—Everything you do is half-hearted, Garfiel.”
With Emilia’s assertions stabbing him, Garfiel was left with violence as his only resort. Subaru slowly shook his head from side to side at the immaturity and shortsightedness of his actions.
Subaru meant for Garfiel to turn the brunt of his anger toward him. —No, such intent was not necessary.
There was no plan or calculation involved. It was something Subaru wanted to say, something he needed to say; and so, he did.
“If I can’t do it, no one can. That’s how I think, and there’s no mistaking he’s someone like that, too. —Just how much of a conceited brat are you?”
“ ? ”
“Certainly, it’s just like you said. Emilia’s failing at the Trial over and over. I can’t deny she’s all crying and sobbing over being made to see a past she doesn’t want to. It was hard to watch her lose herself after Puck was gone. I can’t even say with a straight face she’s bounced back yet.”
Standing right beside Emilia, Subaru motioned to her with his chin, mercilessly critiquing her disgraceful behavior.
It was a sudden topic, one that put a suspicious look on Garfiel’s face, but Emilia received it with dignity. The assessment was certainly not one that was pleasant on the ears, but it was correct nonetheless.
She would stand, face her own shame, and take it head-on, for that was what she thought would make Subaru proud of her—
“If she challenges the Trial right now, the results might not change. She might fail again, too, coming back in tears once more.”
“If ya know that already, why make her do it over an’…?”
“But Emilia will challenge it, as many times as it takes. —Unlike you, who lost and ran.”
She had recoiled from her past. She feared the Trial. Her legs cowered from it over and over. But he could not lie to his own heart.
He believed that whatever it was Emilia wished for, it was not a wish beyond her reach.
“That’s just you glossin’ things over with words o’ hope, makin’ the girl ya love see Hell over and over…!”
Declaring thus, Garfiel’s teeth creaked, and he chipped a fang. Heedless, he howled.
“Who the hell can win against yer own regrets?! The Trial was set up by a foul-minded Witch to teach people that! Don’t ya get it?!”
“…Regrets are hard, painful things. I think they’re pathetic things you can’t face, either.”
“Ahh?!”
“The pain of looking at the past is real. But that said, I intend to swallow it all down. Just like you said, the Witch has a foul personality. I’ll never forget my grudge for her betraying my trust.”
Even though it was a fraudulent farewell, with his parents fabricated from nothing but his memories in an illusionary world…
Subaru had faced the greatest regret inside himself; from it, he had gained one farewell, and one answer.
—His grudge toward the Witch who had granted him this would never fade. But these feelings, too, were real.
“I’m grateful to the Witch. I’m glad I faced my past. I ran, and I ran, and I kept running from it…but I’m glad I couldn’t run from it.”
Neither Emilia nor Garfiel could comprehend Subaru’s gratitude toward the Witch. Perhaps they took his words as wild delusions. It was fine even so.
For at the very least, inside Subaru, his stance toward the past was set.
And—
“Garfiel. —Do you hate your mother who left you behind?”
“Wha…?!”
Subaru’s question caused the color of Garfiel’s face to change dramatically.
From red with anger, it turned pale with shock, and finally, when it lost all color, he closed his eyes.
“From the old hag…? Damn you, buttin’ into other people’s pasts…!”
“Sorry. Even though we take off our shoes when entering someone’s house, we keep them on when stepping into someone’s heart. It’s a Natsuki family tradition.”
There were the words of the Witch, the words of his biological sister, the words of his grandmother, and the words of yet another grandmother.
The night before, Subaru had heard straight from the lips of Shima, who held Garfiel dear to her, confirming that Arma’s speculation was correct. —The past Garfiel saw had indeed been the moment he and his mother parted.
He openly confessed to trampling all over Garfiel’s heart in order to learn more.
“I have some notion of what past you saw. Frederica and your mother left you both in the Sanctuary and went out into the world. So you saw that, and then what?”
He told him of what he’d heard from Shima. However, he left the conclusion blank as he tossed the question.
The question Subaru posed made Garfiel shake his head, repulsed. Subaru heard his fangs clattering nonstop. This was no act of intimidation, but simple shaking from fear.
Seeing this, Subaru took a step forward, not allowing any escape as he redoubled his question.
“Frederica left the Sanctuary. She believed you’d open the Sanctuary someday, so she left to make a place in the outside world for the people here. So what have you been doing on the inside?”
Garfiel had rejected the warmth of the hand his sister had offered him, continuing to cower within the Sanctuary instead.
Feelings of guilt sprung up for digging into the scars on another person’s chest. Subaru forced down the feeling, pressing Garfiel for the truth, his fingers digging into the wounds, drawing blood in the process.
“Was it that your mother abandoned you, so you hated your mother, so you hated the world that had stolen your mother from you, so you stayed shut inside the Sanctuary? Here, because you didn’t want to get hurt!”
“That ain’t…! What do you know…? Don’t flap yer damn lips like ya understand!”
“That’s right! All I’m saying is my own arbitrary guess, flapping my lips like I know what I’m talking about. Only you know what you really think. I’m not your family, so I’m not gonna know unless you come out and say it!”
When Garfiel retorted on reflex, Subaru harshly scolded him, pummeling him with words.
“If you don’t say it, we won’t know! If it’s not in words, no one’ll get it!”
“—!”
“If you hate your mother for abandoning you, go outside and get revenge or whatever right this minute! Don’t pin this on us people on the inside! That’s what it is, isn’t it? You’re just lashing out?!”
Garfiel’s expression contorted. He went down the stone steps, as if trying to put distance between them.
There was no escape. Grasping Garfiel’s arm, Subaru brought his face close enough to take a bite out of him.
At breathing distance, he glared into that sad, blood-smeared face and asked. And kept asking.
“You hate your family. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be…”
“No!! Me…I…!”
In Ryuzu’s words, the truth about Shima, Echidna’s advice, Roswaal’s and Frederica’s behavior, the soft gaze Ram sent Garfiel’s way—there, Subaru had found a different answer.
There was a basis for Garfiel’s actions. This basis was hatred toward his mother and fear of the outside world.
He raised that conclusion aloft. He raised it, so that Garfiel’s objection might strike it down.
Even that very moment, he was not killing Subaru or Emilia but trying to destroy the tomb in order to prevent the liberation of the Sanctuary. He wanted to keep Emilia from taking the Trial, because his fear of the Sanctuary being liberated was exceeded by his inability to watch Emilia being tormented by her past.
—If there was a basis for Garfiel’s actions, it was not hatred or estrangement toward his past.
“What is it you really think?! Tell me, damn it!!”
“Me…I…want Mom to…!”
Swallowing his breath, Garfiel turned his face to the sky, his fangs quivering and voice tearful as he spoke:
“—I wanted her to be happy…!!”
2
“We were in the way, right?! Sis and I, we were in the way of her being happy, right?!”
They poured out—the feelings that had been resting inside Garfiel for ten years.
“I got it, of course I did! She abandoned Sis and me. Isn’t that right?! We were kids she never wanted, and half-bloods at that. Of course we were in the way of a better life on the outside! What’s strange about abandoning us…she wasn’t wrong about anythin’…!”
Unable to hide the trembling in his voice, he tried to at least conceal the trembling in his eyes, covering his face with his hands.
“Of course she abandoned us. That’s why I don’t hate Mom for it… Of course she did. Sis and I were in the way, so she went outside to be happy!!”
On that day, when he was still very young, Garfiel watched his mother leave them in the Sanctuary.
And then, when he challenged the Trial, Garfiel saw his mother abandon them once more.
Garfiel had been abandoned by his mother twice. Who could blame him for the cracks in his young heart?
But what truly left Garfiel feeling helpless was not the sight of his own mother abandoning him.
“But I saw. When I went into the tomb without telling Grandma, I saw…Mom, who left us…right after she left, she got caught up in a landslide, and then…!”
“—!”
“Sis doesn’t know… Sis still believes Mom’s living somewhere far away… But that’s not really true! Right after abandoning us, Mom…died!!”
In a tearful-sounding voice, Garfiel proclaimed the fragmentary truth he had seen with his own eyes.
That cruel truth slammed into Subaru, who already knew, and Emilia, who did not.
“She died…she never got to be happy…”
Garfiel kept his face covered with his palms, sobbing raggedly as he continued:
“Why? Didn’t she go to the outside world so she could be happy?”
Subaru gave no reply.
“Didn’t she leave us so she could go off and be happy?”
Emilia gave no reply.
“If she abandoned us, only to die right away without ever being happy, then…”
Garfiel kept tossing unanswerable questions to a pair unable to answer them.
This was likely a question that Garfiel had kept asking, echoing at the bottom of his heart—
“What should we do with the loneliness and sadness from her abandoning us…?”
—In those ten years, he had continued searching for the answer to that, finding none.
“I wanted Mom to be happy…!”
He put his strength into that tearful voice. Removing his hands from his face, Garfiel made his fangs creak.
Clenching his teeth enough that it seemed they might split, blood dripped from his tattered lips as he howled.
“This sadness! The loneliness from being abandoned! I wanted to believe that if they made her happy, there was meaning to them! I wanted to make Mom hate me…!!”
His feelings for his mother had nowhere left to go. Garfiel had shut his heart inside the Sanctuary. With nothing left to slam them against, his ferocious emotions had kept on burning like a flame, consuming his soul as its fuel.
Amid the flames of his smoldering heart, Garfiel vowed to himself.
“—I ain’t lettin’ anyone leave anymore.”
His voice was shaking.
There was anger, sadness, and the vestiges of fierce emotions forming a fire that continued blazing that very moment.
“Just changin’ doesn’t mean you can be happy. There’s lots of people around who can’t do anything like that! What are they supposed to do?! Should they just become sacrifices and take on all the sadness so others can be happy? Are they all supposed to become changed like me and Sis?!”
Garfiel spread both arms wide, hoisting the Sanctuary, isolated from the outside world, onto his own shoulders.
“Me, I’ll—protect.”
Powerfully pressing down with both feet, Garfiel stopped howling, calmly stating his words.
“I’ll protect. I’ll protect everything as far as my hands can reach. Protect, protect, I’ll protect them… I won’t lose anyone else… I won’t let anyone go through what Mom had to…”
It was not anger that made Garfiel’s heart tremble. It was not sadness.
Ten years’ worth of resolve, ten years’ worth of determination, ten years’ worth of desires: It was these that infused Garfiel’s shout.
“I’ll be the barrier!! A real barrier that separates inside from out!!”
“Garfiel!!”
“That’s why! I’ll! Protect everyone in the Sanctuary! Protect Grandma! I’m the only one who can do it! I’m the only one who knows! I’m the only one who has to know!!”
Spitting blood as he raised a mighty shout, Garfiel made a great leap backward. Abandoning climbing the stone stairs, Garfiel landed on all fours in the middle of the grassy field.
With a shudder, every hair on his body stood up. Subaru understood what he intended to do like it was the back of his own hand.
“—Subaru.”
“It’s all right, Emilia.”
When Emilia addressed him, Subaru nodded, heading down the stone stairs on his own, turning toward the grassy field.
In that grassy field, dyed in the color of the setting sun, Subaru faced off against the gradually transforming Garfiel.
“You ignorant, blockheaded bastard.”
Garfiel could no longer be stopped with words. So that only left one thing to do.
“I’ll put you on your back and drive it into you. —That you’re a kind and really stupid jerk!!”
“—Oooooo!!”
A howling voice accompanied the ground cratering as Garfiel, on all fours, transformed. His bones audibly creaked as his body swelled, and he bared his fangs as golden fur appeared all across his skin.
Having turned into a ferocious, mindless beast for the purpose of killing Subaru Natsuki, Garfiel roared.
“Gaaaaaaa—!!”
This was a decision to kill. Garfiel deemed he had no choice but to kill Subaru. Subaru could not be stopped short of killing him. The last ten years had left Garfiel unable to sheathe his fangs.
Hence, Garfiel transformed as a last resort, for the sake of taking a life.
—Turning into a mindless beast so that he would not avert his eyes at the critical moment.
“But that’s your mistake, Garfiel.”
Not wanting to slay his foe, to thrust his claws through his opponent, was kindness.
The decision to use his body to protect the hearts of those around him, to protect the Sanctuary, was kindness.
But making excuses for supposedly unclouded wishes and feelings in order to kill someone who couldn’t be left alive, averting his eyes to his own actions, and going as far as to stop thinking at all—that was not kindness. It was weakness.
And Subaru Natsuki did not hesitate to take advantage of that weakness.
“I’m counting on you, body of mine. Don’t break down on me when we’re inside the ring!”
The transfigured Garfiel bent all four limbs, widening his fangs as if to bite Subaru with them.
Instantly, Subaru pictured a gate above his navel that was connected to the very center of his body and chanted.
“—Shamaaaaaaak!!”
Just before the great tiger leaped forth, Subaru shouted with all his spirit, and the world shouted back.
An incomprehensible darkness explosively spewed forth, swallowing the fiendish beast, who was extending his sharp claws whole. Those claws, which should surely have shaved away Subaru’s life, never reached their target; the fiendish beast’s bloodlust was erased somewhere in that abyss. The next moment—
“ —Ah. ”
Subaru realized that a fateful impact had destroyed something in the deepest part of his body.
He’d abused the Gate he’d been told not to use. He’d used the magic that he’d been forbidden from using.
He’d gone against the warnings of his personal healer, the greatest healer in the kingdom. The cost of betraying those words might have been to never be able to use magic again.
The Gate that had been at Subaru’s core collapsed. Violently, chaotically, oblivion clawed at his mind.
“Thanks.”
The cord he had relied on so many times to date had been cut.
To this feeling of losing something he could never regain, Subaru spoke words of parting.
The magic he had relied upon several times over had finally had enough of him. It could not be helped. But he was grateful nonetheless.
With gratitude in his chest, he took a powerful step forward.
“ ? ”
His goal of landing a single blow had been met. The darkness magic he activated did not even cover the whole of the beast. Subaru had no talent for magic. This was all he could do with the final spell cast under his own power in his lifetime. Thanks to that, he made a beeline toward the beast’s wide-open right shoulder—
“—Come step onto my turf, Garfiel.”
With all his strength, Subaru pounded the blue crystal he gripped in his hand into that right shoulder, which was as thick as a log.
Light gushed forth.
“—Gnn!”
Incredible particles of light surged forth. Subaru felt something akin to wind pressure as he fell backward. Landing on his butt, he backed away. Before his eyes, the fiendish beast, who had been swallowed by the black cloud, had yet to comprehend what had occurred.
But the light-emitting crystal was consuming all the mana around it, turning the impenetrable darkness enveloping the fiendish beast into its own fuel. And with that crystal pressed into him, Garfiel himself was no exception.
“Wha—?”
Freed from the incomprehension slammed into him, he was assaulted the next moment by chagrin.
When the black cloud lifted and the light gradually abated, what was there was no great, ferocious tiger. —His transformation undone, Garfiel had returned to his human physique, both in size and internal bone structure.
Having regained his human form, Garfiel wore the most incredulous expression of all. Lifting up both hands, he stared at the bestial fur shedding and falling from his white fingers, seeing for himself with his own jade eyes.
“Wh-what…why did I turn back…huuuh?”
Patting his own body as he searched for the cause, Garfiel noticed the crystal in his shoulder. It was a crystal that marked one as an Apostle—one Garfiel knew well.
The blue crystal from Frederica that Subaru had carried seemed stuck, unwilling to leave Garfiel’s body.
“This is…Sis’s stone…but why is it…drainin’ my strength like…? What trick did ya put into this stone…?”
“Who’s to say? Maybe there’s a very hungry kitty inside it?”
Perhaps transformation had taken much of his endurance; Garfiel was out of breath as he clawed at his shoulder. But the crystal rejected his fingers, biting into his flesh and showing no sign of coming off.
“—This is all the help I can give you.”
As light faded from the stone—the blue crystal—he felt like he heard a laugh coming from it.
Having kept silent, the incomplete communication had made him keep worrying all that time, but…
“If you’re gonna be quiet, keep quiet, you noisy, glimmering jerk…”
With that listless comment, Subaru saw with his own eyes that the assist from the crystal—his trump card—had worked.
“—Watch this, Emilia.”
Slowly standing up, Subaru took a deep breath, then spoke to the presence he felt at his back.
Behind him, atop the stone steps, Emilia was watching over the pair’s fight. It probably looked like a fight that Subaru had no hope of winning. There was no mistaking that in her head, she wanted to stop this.
Even so, she didn’t; Emilia, who had so angrily tried to stop Subaru from engaging in repeated fights out of unsightly stubbornness.
Subaru, too, knew there was something that he could not quite call trust . There was no need to put a label on that something; at the very least, not then, at that instant.
“Look at me, Garfiel.”
“Ahh…?”
“If you wanna stop me, stop me with your own hands. Don’t chicken out and rely on your blood, you coward. How long are you gonna treat me like an idiot?”
He stepped forward, bringing him to stand and face Garfiel, who was rooted to his spot.
They were both within arm’s reach. Garfiel was in a state of exhaustion; Subaru was in tip-top shape. It made for a pathetic tale, but at that time, in that moment, Subaru could stand on the same ground on equal terms—
“No matter what you say, we’re heading to the outside world. If you want to stop us, stop me first. Emilia will challenge the tomb. The Sanctuary will open…whether you want it or not.”
“Don’t decide all that shit on your own! Who asked ya to?! Who gave ya permission?! This place—this place should stay as it is, never changing!!”
“Of course it can’t stay like this, always the same, stopped and never changing. Someone ought to have said it centuries ago before it turned out this way.”
“There’s people who! Who want it to never change, damn it!!”
“If you could stay here and protect this place forever, that’d be one thing, but…”
Someday, the time and the era would leave Garfiel behind.
It was inevitable that this never-changing Sanctuary would one day be forced to change.
“A day when you drive all of us together into the same corner, when you can’t do anything about it by yourself, is definitely coming. It might be tomorrow. —It might even be today.”
Cutting off his words, Subaru raised his arms, adopting a fighting pose.
Talking wasn’t going cut it. After the pushing in the crystal part, his plan was pretty much blank to begin with. Knowing that each other’s words would settle nothing, his means were reduced to one.
When the opinions of two men differed like that, the only way left was to fight until their souls were spent.
“I’m gonna knock you on your ass, Garfiel. —Respect the power of numbers.”
“Ain’t ya got a different way of sayin’ that?!”
Garfiel howled at Subaru’s line, their fists both unleashed simultaneously and landing in each other’s face.
Letting out anguished groans from the sharp pain, the pair backed heavily away from each other. Setting Subaru’s fist aside, Garfiel’s blow was tragically weakened. The crystal embedded in his shoulder was absorbing his mana even then; thanks to its aid, they were able to have a good, honest fistfight.
If not for Otto, for Ram, for the crystal—for Puck—Subaru could not have climbed onto that stage.
“He-he, thanks to them I’m managing to make this a fi— bwah! ”
He took a direct hit to the wide-open side of his face. His vision swooned, which he put a stop to with a stomp. In return, he kicked upward into his opponent’s gut, sending a straight punch right into his opponent’s lowered face. He was hit back. The hard blow made his eyes spin, and nosebleeds oozed—from Subaru and Garfiel both.
Both their faces marred with blood, the objectively awful and clumsy brawl continued. Each and every blow was weak, but they reverberated in each other’s core because of the feelings infused in their fists.
Subaru was physically exhausted; Garfiel was exhausted in both body and spirit. Thus, the damage spread further.
“E…nough of…this!!”
When both sides were depleted in strength, what separated victory from defeat in a fight was skill.
Evading Subaru’s attack, Garfiel spun his body, plunging an elbow strike into the pit of Subaru’s stomach. When Subaru moaned in agony, his movements coming to a halt, Garfiel delivered a hard chop to the back of his head, and when Subaru fell down, Garfiel kneed him in the face.
Subaru’s vision ferociously shook. He proceeded to move backward and—not fall.
“You still…! Just sleep already! Give up, and I’ll end this!!”
“Don’t make me look uncool in front of my girl…not giving up makes me look way better than giving up, damn it. If you’re a man, let me look cool, you stupid jerk.”
Garfiel probably hadn’t been able to look good in front of Ram, the girl he longed for, not even once.
Snorting out the blood blocking his nose, Subaru put a smile on his awful-looking face. His expression made Garfiel swallow his breath, from which Subaru understood how creepy he must have looked.
“ ? ”
Subaru felt like praising Garfiel’s strength. You’ve done well coming this far. Simultaneously, Subaru felt sadness about his strength. Why did you push it this far?
There was a future coming that Garfiel could not change, no matter how stubbornly or valiantly he fought.
Perhaps by telling him about the future assault on the Sanctuary, Subaru might have been able to move Garfiel off that spot. But that would not settle the issue within him.
Even if his body moved for a time, his heart would remain in the same place. Garfiel would ignore all those watching over him, all those extending a hand toward him, and continue to cower, grieving for his dead mother.
“Take a good look, Garfiel. There’s no wall here for you to be afraid of.”
“There is a wall! There is for me! An absolute wall, separating inside from outside for me! For me, Grandma, and all the others! We’re standing still! We’re shut in! It’s over for us!”
“Don’t you dare go and say it’s over…don’t you dare lose hope!”
In anger, Garfiel lamented that by giving up, his own future was closed, finished.
Something burned inside Subaru’s chest. Amid that war of fists, amid that war of words, nothing made sense anymore.
Something was wriggling around inside his belly. His Gate was dead. He could use magic no more.
Then what, in the deepest part of his body, was beginning to assert its existence that very moment?
“No matter when! No matter the time! If you wanna do something! If you wanna change! When you think it, that’s your starting line, damn it!!”
When you’re frustrated, with nothing left, immersed in resignation, stopping your feet, clutching your knees, and cowering…
When you’re despondent toward yourself, disappointed with others, despairing from feelings of loneliness by being abandoned by those precious to you…
“When someone says Lift up your face and walk forward again , who the hell replies Why don’t you just give up ?!”
Give up, go off and die, cower somewhere. —Garbage. All of it was worthless nonsense.
If you’re clutching your knees and someone has the courage to speak to you, respond, would you?
Hang in there. Do it. You may not know how or why, but if you stand and run, you’ll get somewhere.
—The inside of his chest was hot.
“Isn’t that right, Garfiel…?!”
He called out the name of the small-looking man before him, eyes swaying weakly.
—The inside of his belly burned.
“Isn’t that right, Emilia…?!”
He called out the name of the girl watching them from behind, the one who was sandwiched between weakness and the threshold of something yet unknown.
—Something from the back of Subaru’s eyes flooded out.
“Hey—isn’t that so, Rem?!!”
He called out the name of the one who’d made him lift his face, open his mouth, open his eyes wide, and stand tall.
The one who had taught him that even when your feet were stopped in surrender, that didn’t mean it was over.
Subaru Natsuki desperately wished for the power she had given him then to somehow reach all the others.
“ ? ”
A power that was not Subaru’s wriggled inside his body, making its first cry of birth.
As if to bless its arrival, as if to celebrate its birth…
“Damn it all…! I—I—!!”
Once more, Garfiel swung his claw upward.
It was no longer with words, but with actions that Garfiel denied all that Subaru claimed.
Lacking anything else to say, unable to give up on his feelings, Garfiel had no other option.
Having closed his eyes to so many things and averted his eyes from the future, he could not face Subaru; hence, he had not noticed.
—That where he leaped, invisible hands were waiting.
“This new move sure gives off a bad impression.”
The world moved in slow motion. Subaru could clearly see Garfiel leaping at him.
His hostility had grown to its limit. And yet, his face was in tears, like a child throwing a tantrum.
He aimed at the tip of Garfiel’s chin. That’s enough , he knew—not with words, but with his heart.
—And then he pounded that spot with all his strength.
“ ? ?!”
The power he released exulted with joy, striking the unwary Garfiel directly below its unseen form.
The invisible blow took the form of a fist, smashing into Garfiel’s face and driving him toward the sky.
“Gu, oh…!”
The moment after seeing it through, Subaru, too, went down on one knee. He violently retched from the sense that he had shed something from inside him, with agony as if his very soul had been whittled.
Not a single drop of spit or blood came out. That one blow had truly taken everything out of him.
This time, even that stubborn Garfiel—
“Hey, hey, you gotta be kidding me…”
He was sure he saw Garfiel fly skyward, with nothing to break his fall as he was slammed into the ground. Covered in wounds that were mostly there before clashing with Subaru, he’d endured a string of battles without any rest. On top of that, there was a spirit in his right shoulder sucking his mana right out of him. How did he explain this?
“Just how tough are you…?”
“Don’t…look down…on me…me, I h-haven’t broken…yet…”
His fuzzy head was swaying, but even so, Garfiel was standing on his own two feet.
His gaze was unfocused. But he stood out of pure tenacity, rejecting Subaru’s final push.
“Hah. Well, this sucks… Having come this far, I’ve got to face facts.”
Subaru had exhausted all his schemes, played his one trump card, and even used a hidden trick that had suddenly sprouted up. Even with Otto and Ram’s valiant fighting, Puck’s assistance, and all the rest, he had still been unable to defeat Garfiel.
Garfiel was strong. Even when he was weak, he was strong. This Subaru acknowledged from the bottom of his heart.
That was why—
“Now, no one else’ll…!”
With wobbly footsteps, Garfiel walked forward as Subaru rested on his knees.
Garfiel was at his limit, but so was Subaru. His consciousness probably could not sustain even one blow, no matter how little strength was behind it. Accordingly, Garfiel poured his entire nervous system into his claws, intent on beating Subaru with them.
That was why Garfiel never noticed the approaching sound or the shaking of the ground.
—The final blow that would drive Garfiel to defeat.
“This…is the…end for…yaaaah?!”
“—!!!”
His announcement of the final blow was blotted out by the piercing neigh of a slender and tall land dragon.
Shaking the ground, the charging, jet-black land dragon heartily slammed into Garfiel, sending him hurtling into the air.
“—Goeh?!”
The blow, which carried his entire body away, made Garfiel’s eyes roll back, his body thrust away as if he weighed no more than a pebble. He bounced on the ground twice, then a third time, ending in a sprawl.
This time, he did not move a muscle.
Upon seeing this, the leading actress who had delivered the final blow looked toward the sky, letting out a roar.
“How about that, Garfiel…?”
Standing beside Patlash, loudly taking pride in her victory, Subaru spoke to Garfiel, who was prone upon the ground, in a voice so raspy, he couldn’t even tell if it was really him that was talking.
Both had used up all their strength and played every card they had in their hands. What was the decisive thing that separated victory from defeat?
It was simple. —The powerful Garfiel had fought alone. The weak Subaru had not.
“Like I said—the power of numbers.”
“There’s…other ways of…sayin’ that, damn it…!”
The immobile Garfiel resentfully responded to Subaru’s words.
His voice made Subaru lightly scratch his cheek.
“Then everyone’s feelings bundled together to form bonds of victory.”
“ Haa …so this is, like, none can lift the quain stone alone …ngh.”
Leaving those words behind, Garfiel finally fell silent.
Watching this, Subaru waited several seconds. Certain of victory this time, Subaru turned his head upward.
“Finally, one of those sayings made sense…”
Those satisfied words slipped out as he collapsed, bringing his torso to the ground, and his consciousness along with it.
3
Loudly, the land dragon’s neighing voice echoed across the Sanctuary’ sky, announcing that the battle was decided.
For once, Patlash, the one who had delivered the final blow unto Garfiel, held a triumphant look on her noble face, jubilant from her feeling of achievement at having redeemed herself for past humiliation.
—To Patlash, Garfiel was a mortal foe who had inflicted a mortifying defeat upon her.
On the initial day of their arrival in the Sanctuary, Patlash, who was pulling the carriage, fought Garfiel, who had come to capture the intruders that had crossed the barrier. Though she did her best to protect Subaru, she had lost.
Patlash, eagerly awaiting her chance to avenge herself, had splendidly achieved her aim.
“—!!”
Having witnessed Patlash’s joy at restoring her honor, Emilia let out a deep sigh.
It had been a battle so fierce that she had genuinely forgotten to breathe.
Just as Subaru had asked her to, Emilia had continued watching that grand battle until its conclusion.
The sight of the two clashing had no doubt made her want to rush over and stop them many times over.
But over the course of that, Subaru’s voice and gaze had held Emilia’s weak heart in check.
It was a scene where she was permitted neither to lend a hand nor speak.
It was torture. It was a terrible thing to endure. Yet, it was a scene where the one thing she could not do was to avert her eyes.
The scene, the pair’s argument, and the pair’s clash made something burn inside her chest.
Subaru had been so stubborn. Garfiel had cried in such a tearful voice. Two men smelling of mud as they pounded each other to settle their dispute—Emilia did not understand even a fragment of what drove them.
Even so, something that was hot, ebbing, and flowing inside her chest probably served as answer enough.
“Er, oh no! Subaru’s going to die if I don’t heal him!!”
Snapping back to her senses, Emilia practically flew down the stone steps, seemingly gliding as she raced to Subaru’s side. Standing beside Subaru, Patlash gave Emilia an almost wary glare.
“Ah, you don’t need to make a worried face like that; it’s all right. Without Puck, my control is a little shaky, but I can borrow the power of minor spirits for something like simple healing, so…”
As she said this, the minor spirits of which Emilia spoke gave off a pale glow as they lent her their strength. Soft light enveloped Subaru and Garfiel and began to slowly heal their wounds.
Subaru’s pained expression softened bit by tiny bit.
Making a thin smile at the sight, Emilia gently brought his head onto her lap.
Somehow, lending Subaru her lap like this had become a very familiar development, even though she would have much preferred fewer opportunities to give an injured Subaru her lap pillow.
“When you wake up, there are so many things I really need to ask you, so…”
But perhaps the things she wanted to say to him numbered more just then.
As she murmured, Emilia gently combed through Subaru’s hair as he slept with the face of a child.
Subaru grimaced for a moment. Then his lips truly slackened.
—It was soon after that Otto met up with them, carrying Ram upon his back.
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