5
—I messed up. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have come alone.
And as a result of that obvious progression, Subaru was left stunned and trapped in a cage like a monkey.
Ram and Emilia. It was only natural the two of them would cooperate. Unlike Subaru, they had the choice of working together. They were different from the start.
“Can’t even keep up your flippant act after being cornered? You’re a disgrace even to Barusu.”
“ ”
“This is why you couldn’t even deceive Lady Emilia. Forget second-rate, you aren’t even third-rate.”
“That’s a compliment, right? Thank you,” Emilia said.
“…You’re welcome.”
I assume it was Emilia who made this ice cage. I did hear she was a mage, though never any details about her abilities.
A beautiful, silver-haired girl who used ice magic made for a mystical sort of combination, and he would have loved to compliment the pairing, but…
“They got the best of me…”
Subaru bitterly kicked the ice. It didn’t budge at all. He didn’t have the strength to break the cage. Without a shovel, I’m not getting out of this.
Meaning whether he lived or died was entirely up to Emilia.
“…What happened, Subaru? Why…?”
“That’s…”
Even in that situation, Emilia was still earnestly asking what Subaru’s motive was. It was the foolishness that was tails to her kindness’s heads.
Of course Subaru had his excuse.
There was a reason why things had ended up like this. But if I try to plead an act of God out of my control, no one would really believe that kind of grasping-at-straws excuse now.
“Lady Emilia, it is a waste to even ask. It is unthinkable that he would answer our questions honestly, and it is dubious whether he should even be treated as Barusu.”
“But Subaru is Subaru. You know that, too, right?”
“He is only a faulty replica that looks the same… That is my judgment.”
Matching Subaru’s thoughts, Ram chided Emilia’s concern.
Kindness was a virtue, but without understanding the situation, it could also be a weakness. On that point, Ram was probably in agreement with Subaru. So there wouldn’t be any mercy for him.
“You were the one who noticed I changed, right, Emilia-chan? So then why would you put your hopes in me like that? And also, what even clued you in?”
“…You really don’t know? It’s the same thing now.”
“?”
Subaru couldn’t understand the reason why she could tell the difference between him and the other Subaru Natsuki. But they didn’t seem to have any intention of conveniently explaining it, either.
Ram’s pink eyes sharpened as she glared at Subaru inside the cage of ice.
“I have no interest in idle chat. Are you going to feel like spilling everything after a little pain?”
“Torture? You need more than a plain old sadistic streak for that, you know. It takes some specialist knowledge.”
“If it’s necessary, I’ll do it. And while I don’t take pleasure in causing pain—it is a specialty of mine.”
Ram was merciless as Subaru tried to bluff from inside his small cell.
Her fingers were pale and slender, but her understated assertion sounded awfully convincing to Subaru’s ears.
“—Wait. Don’t do that. I won’t let you.”
But Emilia stood in front of the cage and spread her arms out, refusing to allow that violent conclusion to come to pass. Ram’s brow furrowed as she faced Emilia.
“…Lady Emilia, you approved this, did you not?”
“I agreed about wanting to talk to him because he was behaving strangely. And I thought it might end up like this…which is why I wanted to be here myself.”
“I asked Lady Beatrice to deal with Julius and Echidna because I didn’t want it to come to this. You are being unreasonable, Lady Emilia… You are too naive.”
Not hiding her frustration at the difference in opinions, Ram pointed past Emilia at Subaru and continued in a barbed voice.
“Do you understand? That is not Barusu. I heard what happened in Pristella…There was an archbishop there who was capable of freely changing shape and transforming into other people.”
“…Yes. Changing back the people that archbishop transformed is part of the reason we came here in the first place.”
“And what of the possibility that the same archbishop has taken Barusu’s form?”
“That’s…”
Ram logically and with careful reasoning tried to counter Emilia’s emotional resistance.
Honestly, that was a false accusation, but he had no way of proving it. But more than that, Subaru—no, she felt a powerful aversion to that idea.
“—Ngh.”
A flashback of vague memories. Not Subaru Natsuki’s, but a fragment he’d seen in the book of the dead, a memory from when she had been herself.
The countless terrible treatments she had undergone in the name of discipline.
The one that was most terrifying was when her body got split into dozens of frogs.
Even though she had only one consciousness, she distinctly remembered the disparate shards of her being leaping all over the place, fleeing in every direction.
The terror of potentially never turning back to normal, the feeling of forgetting what that normal felt like, the complete loss of value of her existence and life… When she was changed back, she had thanked Mother from the bottom of her heart.
But at the same time, her spirit had broken completely, and she decided then and there to never disobey her mother.
“—Ngh.”
Remembering that terror directly as if it had happened to him, Subaru was hit by an intense vertigo.
A person’s identity is fundamentally connected with their appearance. Having that manipulated by someone else’s will is a desecration.
It was one of the most loathsome things that could be done…
“Something that extreme isn’t like you at all, Ram! That forced way of speaking, too!”
“Can you really say there is no chance? Just look at him…”
Their argument continued while the dizziness continued to assault Subaru. Ram was demanding a devil’s proof. There could be proof of a positive statement, but no one could prove a negative statement.
This Subaru Natsuki was not the Subaru Natsuki that they wanted.
They had observed that much. And in order to explain that, Ram was pointing to the easy-to-understand theory involving a person known to possess the ability to shapeshift—but that was also an incredibly difficult explanation for the current Subaru to accept.
Unable to do anything with the antagonism welling inside him, Subaru groaned…
“We should make him speak at once! In order to find out where the real Barusu and Meili are.”
“—Ah?”
His consciousness was ensnared by that unexpected outburst from Ram.
“ ”
Raising his head, he saw the two of them arguing. He couldn’t see Emilia’s face since she was facing the other way, but he could see Ram’s face clearly.
Her eyes burning with anger didn’t feel like they were hiding a lie. She had meant every word.
Which means they haven’t found Meili’s corpse.
The reason they had lain in wait in order to catch him there was only because he had acted suspiciously and couldn’t perform his Subaru Natsuki act perfectly.
Ram’s seemingly inconsistent statements revealed that. But at the same time, he didn’t understand.
If it wasn’t them, then who moved Meili’s corpse?
If there was some other plot, something going on besides just his plan and theirs…
“We can’t just decide whether he is fake or not! Because the Subaru here is—”
“—I lost my memory!!!”
“Huh…?”
Grabbing the ice bars, Subaru interrupted their argument.
Ram’s eyes widened at the unexpected shout. If his goal was to surprise her, it would have been a success, but that wasn’t the point. It was just a shout.
Subaru’s confused, unsure plea, not knowing what would happen to him if he said it.
“What drivel is this now…”
Coming back to her senses, Ram’s face filled with rage.
As far as she was concerned, what Subaru just said was a painfully frustrating lie—one so obvious that it wouldn’t achieve anything beyond wasting time.
But even if Ram thought that—
“Ram! See what Subaru said! There really was a reason!”
“Are you serious, Lady Emilia?! There’s no reason at all to believe him!”
Emilia took his side when she heard it.
If it was just her clinging to an absurd opinion, Ram would have ignored it without a thought.
But Emilia’s face tensed at Ram’s obstinate denial.
“There is a reason to believe it! The reason is all the time we’ve spent with him!!!”
“—!”
There was a pained look on Ram’s face.
For just a moment, there was doubt in her pink eyes. But she shook off that hesitation through sheer force of will.
“—What about Rem?”
“Ah…”
In that moment, Emilia faltered in the face of Ram’s glistening eyes, and the situation started moving.
Lowering her body, Ram kicked, aiming to sweep Emilia’s legs. Emilia dodged by leaping backward, but Ram advanced and grabbed her wrist.
Not allowing her to resist, she spun Emilia’s arm and sent her flying.
“Don’t get in my way!”
“Kyah?!”
Emilia cried out as she did a flip and landed on her feet, avoiding tumbling to the ground. But as she landed, her foot touched down on the shoe that Ram had taken off and she slipped.
Stumbling, Emilia was slow to react. In that opening, Ram pulled out a wand and held it out through the ice bars, pointing it right in front of Subaru’s nose.
“Tell me one more time that you forgot.”
“Tha…no…that’s not…”
“Tell me you forgot Rem one more time. With that voice, wearing that face…”
Ram was gritting her teeth. He could see the atmosphere warping around the tip of her trembling wand.
He couldn’t see it, but most likely that was mana gathering in order to activate some magic. But the words—the action—to make her stop wouldn’t come.
He couldn’t think of the words to stop Ram, to stop the tears of the girl in front of him who looked like she was about to cry.
—If it was Subaru Natsuki instead of Subaru Natsuki, would he have been able to find the words?
“Stop, Ram! Don’t!”
Emilia shouted as she regained her balance and rushed to stop Ram.
But she wouldn’t make it in time.
“ ”
A white light flashed on the other side of the ice bars, and the blast swallowed Subaru up.
His body slammed backward into the ice bars, and he hit the back of his head.
“—Ngh.”
His head slumped and his consciousness faded.
Subaru Natsuki fell unconscious, not even managing to offer an excuse—
“—Ugh?”
With a faint, weak groan he gradually regained consciousness.
Slowly, slowly, rising through a dark mire. It felt like a vast, boundless space, but gradually it picked up speed and started to feel real, until finally…
“—Ngh ahh?! Owwww?!”
The moment he woke up, it was like his consciousness had been grabbed by the collar and dragged up. A sharp pain exploded behind his eyes as he leapt up from the hard floor and opened his eyes.
“Oww… That hurts. What…what is this…?”
Looking for the cause of the pain, he reached up to his left shoulder. The moment he touched it, the sharp pain made the world around him go red. I can’t move it at all.
“Is it…dislocated…? I’ve never dislocated a shoulder before…”
Past his shoulder, his arm stopped moving how he wanted. He tried moving the arm with his other hand, but even touching it hurt, so he just stood up carefully not to jostle it.
“This is…the room…”
Where Meili died. The room I was in before I passed out.
As proof, the cage of ice Emilia had made was still there behind him. Strangely, though, he had been on the ground outside it. From the look of things, there was no sign of the cage being opened, and there should have been no way of slipping through the ice bars, but…
“…That’s why the shoulder…?”
Getting that far, he realized the connection.
Looking at the gaps between the bars, it was clear that it wasn’t impossible to forcibly slip through. In fact, it looked downright doable with a dislocated shoulder. The problem was just how it had happened.
And—
“—Where did Emilia and Ram go?”
The two girls who had been arguing and fighting before he passed out were nowhere to be found. It was unnatural.
—No, more than just unnatural, it’s scary.
Subaru had been knocked out, his shoulder dislocated, Emilia and Ram had disappeared. He looked around the room, trying to figure out what had happened while he was out—
Subaru Natsuki was here.
When he saw a familiar line carved into the wall.
The stone wall had been carved out raggedly, hammered into a bare canvas.
He saw the shattered stone pedestal out of the corner of his eye. The letters in the wall had been seemingly carved using that. But if that was all, it wouldn’t have had the same impact as the message carved into his arm.
He would have just laughed it off as a disappointing rehash.
But—
Subaru Natsuki was here.
Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here.
Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here.
Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here. Subaru Natsuki was here…
Every wall of the room was filled with that pathological message.
It was understandable he hadn’t noticed it at first. The message had been engraved so tenaciously, so carefully filling every space on the wall, that it made it seem like that was just something decorating the wall.
Why did someone write…
“—Ah? The hell is this? This is one nasty lookin’ room. What’d you do to this place, huh?”
“ ”
Subaru shuddered in terror when he heard a voice behind him.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t sense his presence. His entire attention was just completely consumed by the letters on the wall. He wouldn’t have noticed anyone who approached.
That wasn’t what stunned Subaru.
What stunned him was that he remembered that coarse and brash voice.
“What are you doin’ starin’ into space here, small fry? A guppy who gets separated from the pack is just prey for the big fish.”
Subaru couldn’t turn around as the shark-like red-haired man laughed.
—The man who shouldn’t have been able to be there was laughing.
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