CHAPTER 2
IN THE FUTURE
1
“ ”
On the verge of stumbling over the edge herself, Meili widened her eyes as Subaru steadied her.
Looking into her eyes, he couldn’t help having mixed feelings.
Using what he’d gained from Return by Death, he had effectively prevented a tragedy, which was good. But it also proved that he had been pushed to his doom by this young girl on two separate occasions.
The culprit who had sent him tumbling to his death was Meili Portroute, the person who the other Subaru Natsuki had promptly removed from the equation in the last loop.
“…Take responsibility for killing you? That’s a strange thing to say, mister.”
For a moment, her eyes darted in panic, but her expression quickly softened as she traced her finger around Subaru’s arm wrapped around her torso, flashing a sweet smile.
She changed her position, moving over to the stairs before facing Subaru again.
“Maybe you lost something more than just memories? Otherwise, you wouldn’t make such a terrible mix-up.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I mean, obviously? Me trying to kill you? That’s an awful misunderstanding.”
Meili flashed an innocent smile while holding her hands behind her back.
Even Subaru couldn’t help losing a bit of steam after seeing her feign innocence so confidently. He had not expected her to deny it once he’d caught her red-handed. But if it was her…if it was Meili, he could understand.
She was stubborn. Or less charitably, she acted haphazardly.
In a certain sense, she behaved like a wild animal. Also, she had been a little too heavily influenced by the person she chose as a role model.
“I’m hurt that you’d suspect me. If I was going to kill you, it would have been a lot easier out there in the desert than in here, right? Ah, you don’t remember, so maybe you didn’t know that.”
“That’s right. It is a weird story. If you were really trying to kill us before, you must have had plenty of opportunities. But you didn’t.”
“Right? So—”
“But the story changes if you suddenly gained a new motive this morning. Or I guess it would be more accurate to call it a chain reaction, starting from last night.”
“ ”
Meili’s expression changed. She pursed her lips, and her calm smile disappeared. A heavy sigh escaped her. And then she shrugged in a terribly world-weary way that was at odds with her youthful appearance.
“…Am I being set up?”
“In what way?”
“You were testing me, weren’t you? Lying about losing your memories, seeing if I would push you over the edge… Now that we’re at the tower, I’m not useful anymore. It’s the perfect time to take care of loose ends.”
Subaru was sad to hear her so calmly comment on her unfavorable position and on how she wasn’t the same as everyone else.
It was true that he had been testing her, though he had not intended anything malicious. Even if he denied that, he wouldn’t be very convincing.
But he could go beyond her expectations.
“So, how are you going to finish me? Push me off here as a neat bit of revenge? I don’t have my mean pets with me now, so you can erase someone like me easily, even by yourself.”
“Don’t get the wrong idea, Meili. I wasn’t lying about losing my memory to trick you. That’s the truth, and it’s honestly a serious problem.”
“You can say that, but it’s hard to believe you… What do you want, then, mister? Do you think it won’t feel real if you can’t feel it yourself?” Meili wrapped her hands around her slender neck and stuck her tongue out.
“Agh…”
Subaru’s heart leaped in his chest. But Meili was just being sarcastic. It wasn’t as though she had remembered how she’d been murdered.
In that sense, the little assassin was landing one critical hit after another on Subaru’s heart.
“I wouldn’t recommend something too drawn out. I don’t want to suffer personally, but also you don’t seem good at hiding things—”
“—I have no intention of killing you or hurting you. Whether today or tomorrow, I intend to act the same around you as I always have.”
“…Huh?”
Meili’s face changed again.
But this time, it was completely different from before, when she’d immediately selected the most appropriate response. This time, there was obvious confusion on her face. She looked at Subaru with incomprehension.
Subaru simply nodded.
“Fortunately, you were stopped before things went too far, so as long as this stays a secret between us, we can just pretend nothing happened. I had to catch you in the act is all, since if I merely avoided the danger, you might have kept plotting different ways to kill me. If you want to call it bad taste, I won’t deny it. Sorry.”
“Agh…wh-what…?”
“But you understand now, right? Trying to do something to me is pretty risky for you. If this isn’t enough to convince you, then fine. But at least talk with me. If there’s something bothering you, I’ll lend an ear as best I can…”
“Bothering me? Like what…?” Meili’s voice was soft and quivering. And then pursing her lips, she shouted. “What about this situation?! That’s what’s bothering me right now!”
Subaru was trying to settle things amicably, for some reason. Meili’s only reaction was to stare at him in absolute disbelief.
“I can’t believe it… I can’t, I can’t…”
She restlessly touched her braided hair as she howled.
It was a coping mechanism, but also a sign of her dependence on a certain someone who sported the same hairstyle. At least, that was how it looked to Subaru.
“You clearly don’t realize what I was about to do just now! There’s no way! Otherwise, it wouldn’t make any sense. Otherwise…”
She faltered, desperately arguing why this was all wrong.
Seeing her this flustered was a first for Subaru—no, there was that other time inside the book of the dead.
Last night, when she ran into Subaru in Taygeta, after she was upset, after her conversation with the other Subaru Natsuki, she decided to kill him after he lost his memory.
But that sort of impromptu murder was a double-edged sword.
Since he had died, Subaru had no way of knowing what sort of alibi she had planned to use once he was found dead. There was always the chance of it being ruled an accident, but that was a difficult needle to thread. Given what he knew about Emilia and Beatrice, as well as about Ram and the others, he couldn’t imagine them not insisting on getting to the bottom of his death.
And if that happened, there was no way for Meili to avoid being caught.
Ram, Julius, and Echidna were far smarter than Subaru. They would almost certainly solve it without having to die even once first. And it was hard to believe Meili didn’t realize that.
That left one explanation…
“It’s an impulsive crime.”
She had made no attempt to create an alibi or to hide the evidence.
She didn’t have any choice but to act. Because murder had become a habit. Because the life Meili had lived was so harsh that she couldn’t conceive of any other alternatives.
“You’ve just gotten in the habit of killing. You just can’t think of any other ways of dealing with things. But that isn’t your fault.”
“—! Don’t talk like you know me! What do…what do you know about me?!”
“But I do know.”
“ ”
He answered her furious eruption with a cool, calm confidence. Looking her straight in the eye, he said it firmly and directly.
“Meili, I know you. It might sound creepy, but there’s probably nobody in this world who knows you better than I do.”
Seeing Subaru shrug, Meili gave him a terrified look. It was a natural reaction, but it also hurt Subaru. He struggled to convey the twisted, almost narcissistic sort of affection he felt for Meili.
“ ”
He could remember all of her provocations. The voice whispering in his ears as he acted, pushing him toward the solution of murder again and again, tempting him to take the worst and yet safest path.
The goading of the dead Meili Portroute, who had merged with Subaru’s mind when he read her book of the dead…
“—No, that’s not right.”
He shook his head to stop shifting the blame to the girl who had been killed.
The whispering voice that had tempted him while he was in the grips of dark paranoia. He hadn’t heard it once this time. —No, I’m never going to hear it again.
What are you doing? Look at her, right there in front of you. Look at her confusion, her fear. Remember what you saw in her book of the dead.
Considering the anguish she must have been feeling, Subaru knew she wasn’t the kind of person who would egg on others to commit murder.
It wasn’t Meili who had merged with him after he read her book of the dead. It was just his own weak will deceiving him.
—After all, she had never once actually appeared in front of him.
“ ”
In an awful, one-sided way, Subaru had experienced Meili’s life through the book of the dead.
He’d watched her from the moment she’d gained awareness, and he’d seen the development of her identity, her way of life, and how her short life meaninglessly ended.
During those days, Meili had felt an emptiness that she didn’t let others see, an experience that had given her the terror to match that overwhelming void, as well as the one and only shining emotional attachment she had formed.
And the name of that person was—
“Elsa Gramhilde.”
“!”
“She’s the reason why you tried to kill me, right?”
Meili’s reaction to that name was dramatic. Her sweet, adorable face was warped by anguish, and her pea-green eyes opened as wide as they could go.
This was anger. Anger at someone traipsing with muddy boots into a place she didn’t want anyone to go, a thing she didn’t want anyone to touch.
And she took decisive action to stop him from trampling on it any further.
He didn’t have any time to stop her.
“No one knows how I—!”
Screaming as tears ran down her cheeks, Meili turned and threw herself over the edge.
Wasting his effort to keep her from falling before, she leaped into the void herself, to hide her feelings.
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