4
And so, after enduring the weight of the miasma and the heavy mood and pressing on a while longer…
“—Goddamnit! Why now?!”
Subaru screamed as he kicked the metal door right in front of him. There was no give at all, and despite how quiet the underground was, there was no sound from the kick. It didn’t seem like it was made of just plain iron.
But that was no consolation. Their path had finally been blocked.
“You let us through the third door just fine, so why the hell are you getting in our way now?!”
There was no way the door could answer him, but Subaru still screamed and violently slammed his arms and feet against it. It didn’t budge. All that happened was the impacts reverberated in his bones, making him suffer more.
—After having passed through the third door in the labyrinth, they were stopped cold by the fourth.
So much anxiety and frustration had been building amid their unchanging surroundings, but it would have been fine at least if the door had opened. Having his free pass revoked and making all the walking so far meaningless caused Subaru’s frustration to explode.
Subaru threw the lantern down and pushed against the door, desperately trying to force it open. But almost as if it were mocking him, the cold metallic door refused to yield.
It felt like the faint, slender thread of hope that had been keeping Subaru going had been mercilessly cut.
“Damn it, damn it…piece of shit!”
“Natsuki, that’s enough… This is just a dead end.”
“Gee, I couldn’t tell!”
Anastasia tapped his shoulder, but Subaru brushed off her arm with a furious shout. Kicking the sand wall to vent his irritation, the weak outer layer crumbled, creating a cloud of sand.
There’s nothing we can do. I know already. There’s nothing I can do but pound sand.
“…Tch…”
“—Hey.”
Spinning at that sound, Subaru glared at Ram, who was sitting alone on top of Patlash. Something about how her face looked in the darkness, the way she was looking down at him, pissed him off.
“You’ve been at it a while now, but what’s your problem?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot! I asked you what your problem is!”
Subaru raised his voice violently as he kicked the lantern across the ground. It slammed into the sand wall, and the glass covering the ragmite ore shattered, scattering fragments across the sand.
But Subaru didn’t pay any attention to that. He could only see Ram, who he thought was disrespecting him.
“I’m here working my ass off, and you’re sitting up there chirping at me! What are you trying to do?!”
“Nothing at all. It’s a dead end. The path we chose was wrong. There’s nothing for me to say. It is what it is.”
“Liar! Do you think I’m stupid? If you don’t want to say it, then keep the whole thing to yourself! What’s the point of making a shit show and then acting like it wasn’t anything? How dumb can you be!”
In response to Ram’s cool attitude, Subaru’s fever just grew.
We’ve been separated from everyone else, walking for hours, and we hit a dead end. She’s being too unfair. I’ve been doing my best here. She’s got no right to look down on me.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, both of you. There’s no need to—”
“Shut your goddamn mouth! Ram and I are talking right now!”
Anastasia tried to mediate, but Subaru mercilessly brushed her off. Subaru’s expression was wrath made manifest as he glared at Ram.
“If you want to talk shit, then start talking! Go on, I’m all ears!”
“—You’re awfully keen to keep advancing, aren’t you?”
“Damn straight! Why the hell do you think we came here? To meet the Sage! That’s why I’m working so goddamn hard! What of it?!”
“Wrong. We didn’t come here to meet the Sage.”
“Huh?”
“The reason we came here is to awaken Rem.”
Ram was looking Subaru straight in the eye as she asserted that. Even Subaru with his thoughts seething was slightly overwhelmed by the sharpness of her eyes.
But doesn’t meeting the Sage equal saving Rem?
“They’re not the same thing. Saving Rem is more important, and seeing the Sage is secondary to that. You’ve got the order of precedence wrong. You’ve got things flipped.”
“ ”
“I came here for Rem, to remember my little sister. So what are we doing now? Rem isn’t here, and we’re just wandering around in a place like this… Don’t screw with me.”
“No one’s screwing with you! But there’s no helping the fact it ended up like this!”
Ram’s strained words hurt Subaru, and he fired back in an emotional rage. Hearing that, Ram’s pink eyes slowly filled with grief—
“—Why did you grab me and not Rem?”
She hit him with what happened in the instant the world shattered, when he had reflexively held on to Ram.
“I’m sure you just had your hands full with what was going on immediately around you. That’s how you always are. That’s how it always goes, and it’s not like you really cared about Rem. Your head was just filled with thoughts about Lady Emilia and Lady Beatrice. What a man you are. Poor Rem.”
“…Shut your mouth…”
“Rem believed in you, didn’t she? Or was that just another of your convenient explanations? Just running your mouth to get by? Just your bad habit of saying whatever it takes to get women to trust you? Poor Lady Emilia and Lady Beatrice, too. Being tricked by a man like you!”
“Shut your goddamn mouth!”
“No, I won’t! Because it’s not like you actually care at all about Rem!”
“—Don’t you dare!”
The world turned red, and his head erupted in flames.
Look at her, so smug and looking down on me, spouting random shit. I oughtta drag her off her goddamn high horse.
“Invisible Providence!”
“Gh, ah?!”
Giving in to the dark feelings taking over his head, Subaru unleashed it.
The black hand cheered rapturously as it grabbed the girl spouting her misguided insults from the dragon’s back and dragged her down onto the sand.
Looking down on Ram, who couldn’t figure out what was happening, Subaru gnashed his teeth.
“Don’t play with me.”
You think I don’t care about Rem? You think this is some sick joke?
In a fit of rage, his head was burning as he leaned over her slender body—
“—Ugh.”
Subaru wrapped both his hands around her neck and started throttling her with all his strength. His fingers bit into her small neck. He could feel her bones creaking under his hands.
“…Ah…ugh…”
Ram groaned as Subaru straddled her and was strangling her.
Her face warped in pain, and saliva started to dribble from the corner of her lips. Her red tongue moved in her mouth as she struggled to get free, but Subaru had pinned her shoulders with his knees, taking a perfect mount, so even Ram couldn’t fight back.
You’ll regret what you said about me when you stop breathing! You’ll regret saying that shit about me! How dare you hurt me!
“It’s your fault. You. You!”
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!
As all little resentments piled up and overflowed, Ram’s face drained of color.
“Die. It makes me sick that an asshole like you looks the same as Rem!”
“ ”
“Huh? What’s that? I can’t hear you. If you want to say something, just speak u—”
“…ra…”
Ram softly whispered something. As he narrowed his eyes at the sound of it—
“What?!”
The sand below him exploded upward, sending the both of them flying.
Subaru spun as his mouth and eyes were filled with sand from the sudden explosion.
Caught up in the explosion, too, Ram rolled to the side, coughing as she escaped Subaru’s murderous rage.
She had been injured in the explosion, and her blood was dripping onto the sand—
“Magic…! It’s too late to beg for your life now!”
“That’s my line, Barusu! Nothing good will come of allowing Rem to see an emotionless womanizer like you. I’ll cut you to pieces, and you can rot in the sands here.”
“Big talk!”
Holding his face in pain, Subaru reached to his hip and grabbed his whip while Ram took her wand from her thigh and bristled with determination to fight.
“ ”
She has the advantage when it comes to matching blow for blow, but my whip won’t lose in terms of speed. In speed alone, a whip even works against people on the superhuman level in this world.
“I’ll gouge out that face of yours so there’s no one else who looks like Rem in this world.”
“Stupidity is a disease caught by spending too much time talking to idiots— So shut up and die before you pass it to me.”
Subaru’s eyes were bloodshot from the sand, and Ram’s lips curled into a bloody, lethal smile. The two of them carefully measured their distances, facing off against each other in the circular passage.
It was a lit powder keg, and neither of them would make it out unscathed—
“—All right, that’s enough.”
—But the fuse was snuffed out.
“ ”
Dumbstruck, Ram looked down at her small chest. The bloody tip of a knife was sticking out of it. It was a precise stab in the back that went straight through her heart.
“Ahh, gh…”
“There was no stopping you two, so I just weighed who would be more useful… Hope you’ll forgive me.”
The knife twisted and then slipped back out of Ram with a fountain of blood.
Ram slumped to her knees and then fell forward. Her limbs twitched for a few moments, but she soon stopped moving, and her blood seeped into the sand.
And just like that, Ram died.
“You, why…?”
“Huh? You’re asking that? You were going to just chip away at her. I figured it would be bad if I left it be, so I gave you a hand is all.”
Faced with Subaru’s furious expression, Anastasia just shrugged. There was no hint of any guilt on her conscience. She just looked like she had done the obvious and natural thing.
“What, can’t take the fact that your prey was stolen out from under you, so now you’re turning on me?”
“ ”
Anastasia was looking up at him with the bloodstained knife in one hand. Quieted by what she was saying, he looked her over, as if appraising her.
There was a belittling nuance to it, but she has a point. It’s stupid to keep fighting and kill more people like this.
Foxidna is my guide to the watchtower, and there’s still a good chance she’ll be useful to me. Unlike Ram, who was useless and just kept pissing me off, she’s a piece that would be a problem to lose.
“…Fine, I’ll go along with your smooth talk.”
“That’s good. I knew you were a smart one. That’s a relief.”
Anastasia smiled thinly as she made a show of breathing a sigh of relief. Then she stepped awkwardly across the sand toward Subaru, holding out her white hand.
“Let’s shake on it. A reconciliation—and to working together going forward.”
“ ”
“Natsuki?”
Subaru slipped into thought at Anastasia’s seemingly innocent expression.
I know I was just thinking Foxidna was a useful pawn, but is that actually true?
She’s smiling right now, but she had the same smile on her face when she stabbed Ram in the back, didn’t she?
She was holding the knife in her other hand. It was a thick, top-grade survival knife. Even in her hands, it could easily cut into a human body.
Not just Ram’s body, but Subaru’s, too.
“…Are you not going to shake on it?”
Foxidna cocked her head, wanting to shake hands. Handshake range. Close enough to reach with a knife. And a range that was too close for a whip to be useful.
—I have to kill her before she kills me.
“What is it, Natsuki?”
“…No, nothing.”
Subaru smiled slightly and then reached his own right hand out toward hers.
As they were shaking, Subaru was waiting for the moment when she let her guard down completely.
—Invisible Providence.
The invisible hand he reactivated stretched its fingers toward Anastasia’s neck.
I won’t make the same mistake as with Ram. I’ll snap her neck.
“ ”
The black hand’s fingertips were reaching for her neck as he grabbed her hand. Feeling that, Foxidna’s smile deepened.
At the same time, a dark smile crossed Subaru’s lips.
“In that case…”
Now.
While she was saying something, before she could raise the knife, he poured strength into the invisible hand. The black palm covered her thin neck and started to twist—
—Just before he could do it, though, a blade of wind split her body in half from behind.
“ ”
A breeze?
Just after Subaru felt that, he saw the girl in front of him explode in a red splatter as she was split in half at the waist.
“Huh?”
Blood splattered all over the white sands, and hot blood and viscera warmed the cool air as a horrific stench filled the cavern.
“—Ah.”
Seeing that, Subaru looked at his hands in shock.
Anastasia’s upper body was still hanging there. He was still tightly gripping her hand from the handshake. Her eyes were opened wide, looking at Subaru in a daze.
Behind her, her lower half had collapsed to the ground. Urine was leaking from her lower half as her muscles suddenly relaxed.
“Ah, ahhhhhhhhh?!”
Subaru screamed at her grisly state.
He tried to shake her off, but her grip was absurdly strong, and so he ended up swinging her upper body around, splattering more blood and viscera all around for no reason.
“L-Leggo! Let go of me!”
“No! I’m not dead yet…!”
“You’re dead already! There’s no way you can be saved!”
Hearing her clinging to life so strongly, Subaru screeched in response.
Her body had been cut in half, and her blood and internal organs were falling out. It made no sense that she had not died immediately. It made no sense that she was holding on so tightly to his hand. None of it made any sense.
“You. Stupid. Piece. Of. Shit! Just die already!”
“Nooo…”
Violently grabbing Anastasia’s face, he forcefully pulled her off him. She was sobbing and screaming something as Subaru finally got her away and threw her down to the ground.
Her small upper body fell into a puddle of her own blood.
“Don’t…leave me…”
That soft murmur that almost sounded like a drowning voice was her last.
Subaru could no longer hear her voice. It was destined from the moment she was cut, but death had finally caught up to her. Subaru was overwhelmed by a tremendous nausea and started heaving.
“Geh! Ugh! Gah-ha! Geh-hoh-hoh! Haaah…”
Expelling what little was left in his stomach, he wiped the yellowish vomit from his mouth with his sleeve. It wasn’t the time to just hang his head. The one who had just killed Anastasia was—
“—Barusu.”
“Just die already.”
There was a shadow in the light of the lantern on the ground. It was Ram, her whole upper body stained in blood. The knife had cut deeply through her chest, but she was still alive.
Only just barely. She killed Anastasia on tenacity alone, and now she’s after me—
“Just die and leave me out of it…”
Struggling to breathe, Subaru looked around for his whip. But he couldn’t find it. And while he was searching, Ram approached him with faltering steps.
The whip won’t make it. So there’s just one other choice.
“Invisible Provide—?!”
The trump card he had relied on several times already.
Just as he tried to fall back on its power again, he suddenly felt an intense pain in his eye.
“Gah?! Ahhh?! Ohhhh?!”
A pain like a burning needle piercing his skull made his eyes roll backward in their sockets. The side effect of using his ability scorched his mind, and he grabbed his head and rolled around the sand while tears of blood seeped from his eyes.
It felt like a hellish feast was starting inside his head, and all his nerves started boiling. He couldn’t escape the pain.
“Ahhh! Ghhhh! Ughhhhh?!”
As Subaru writhed in pain, Ram held up her bloody wand while barely clinging to life and pointed it at him.
Subaru rolled into Anastasia’s pool of blood, getting her viscera all over himself while still writhing in pain. Ram’s lips slowly moved as she cast her spell.
And, finishing the incantation, just as the blade of wind was about to tear into Subaru—
“ ”
The sound of something being chewed filled the cold cavern.
The earsplitting sound continued as an unpleasant sloshing sound started to be mixed in.
“Ah, haa, aa, aa?”
Just as Subaru expected to die, to be cut to pieces, for some reason, death didn’t come.
Finally, the intense pain and emptiness that had been tormenting Subaru started to fade.
“Wha…?”
Covering his face with his left hand, he forced himself up. Even just that much took a stupid amount of time. His face was bright red from the bloody tears as he slowly looked around.
The pain and bloody tears were surely the backlash of overusing the Unseen Hand. Ravaged by a pain beyond imagination, he couldn’t even tell how long he spent writhing on the ground.
Why did I have that long to writhe in pain?
“…Patlash?”
Dumbfounded, Subaru’s black land dragon moved next to him as he slumped over.
Noticing his voice, the dragon that was squatting on the ground waved her long tail to indicate she was fine.
“You’re safe? …What happened to Ram?”
There’s no way she ran out of steam right before finishing me off, did she?
It was a little bit too convenient, but she had suffered a mortal wound. It wasn’t all that strange.
“I don’t know if that makes me lucky or unlucky…”
Either way, now’s not the time for that. There’s no one getting in my way now, so I should get out of here quickly. I need to get to the watchtower.
“Patlash… Sorry, but I need to ride you now.”
“ ”
“Patlash?”
He called to her, but his trusty steed didn’t obey.
In fact, she didn’t even turn to look at him. She was just sitting comfortably on the sand, breathing heavily next to Subaru.
Seeing that, realizing that he was being ignored, Subaru’s rage started growing.
“Hey, Patlash. You listening to me? Hey!”
It was a similar sort of annoyance to what he had felt with Ram and Anastasia. His negative emotions were amplifying at a speed far greater than normal, and he erupted at the land dragon that refused to answer him.
“Hey, look at me, asshole! Who do you think I am?!”
“ ”
“Look at you, finally listening—”
Subaru threw sand at Patlash, and perhaps finally being willing to listen, Patlash turned to look at him. Subaru was thinking to himself that he had done a praiseworthy job of not scoffing in his annoyance when he noticed it.
—When Patlash turned, her mouth was stained an unnatural red.
“ ”
That crimson was a color Subaru had become used to in the past few minutes.
It was the same crimson clinging to his clothes and face and wetting the dry sands below him. And its powerful smell was mixing with the stench of human excrement that was wafting in the air, too.
But there was something he wished he had not noticed.
—That there were clumps of pink hair between Patlash’s fangs.
“Eeep!”
He realized it with a shudder.
Ram, who he had lost track of, was lying collapsed on the other side of Patlash.
She wasn’t moving at all. Of course not. Because there wasn’t anything left of her above her shoulders.
Ram’s skull had been shattered by violent fangs, and her brain was splattered all around her, just like Anastasia’s insides had been splattered all around her.
And the same Patlash who had done that to Ram was looking at Subaru with her yellow eyes.
Her yellow reptilian eyes were filled with a sharp, violent—
“Sto—”
Patlash’s jaw opening right in front of his face was the last thing he saw.
He could hear the sound of his body being chewed until the moment his consciousness was extinguished. Even after his head was shattered and his ears were no more.
How was he hearing it? It was strange and didn’t make any sense, but he couldn’t laugh at it. He didn’t have a mouth to laugh—or any life left, either. So he didn’t laugh or even do anything.
—And so Subaru Natsuki died, eaten by his partner.
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