2
“ ”
Subaru shut his eyes when the response came so readily.
He had not really expected her to deny it. Even with this short back-and-forth, he had a feeling that she wasn’t the type to be roundabout.
Louis knew too much. She knew too much of the depths of Subaru’s feelings. Louis Arneb was too familiar with the old Subaru Natsuki, knowing things that even the current Subaru Natsuki couldn’t know.
Meaning…
“—So the old me really did come here.”
“To be precise, you came by a slightly different path. But the goal was the same. The result was just a little bit different is all. But amazing. Wonderful. How many times did it take for you to get here?”
“ ”
“C’mon, answer, mister. We answered you, didn’t we? How many times is this after we ate you, mister?”
A chill ran down Subaru’s spine. Her eyes, her question… Someone would only ask those if they knew about his Return by Death.
No…of course she does. Obviously.
If she had stolen the original Subaru Natsuki’s memories and she could freely inspect them, then it would be weirder for her not to know.
That ability wasn’t some power he had gained after losing his memories; it must have been an ability that Subaru Natsuki had possessed even before losing his memories.
I’m sure he used this to get through lots of pinches. That’s why Emilia and Beatrice and the others trust him so much. All that trust is evidence of cheating.
Subaru wasn’t going to call foul. Cheat or not, he didn’t believe there should be any hesitation when someone’s life was on the line. Subaru Natsuki’s choice to use that ability was correct.
He acknowledged that value and grasped the power of Return by Death.
However, alongside that resolve, on the other side of the coin, Subaru felt uneasy. A worry had burrowed deep in his heart. And Louis Arneb had touched on that fear, that taboo.
“—Are you worried that someone else knows? Well, it’s too late, mister. Since we met you yesterday, didn’t we?”
“ ”
“If the rule was that no one could know, you already broke it. But what happens in the corridors of memory can’t easily escape to the outside world. So the scary, scary Witch won’t do anything.”
Her hands and legs still on the ground, Louis leaned in close to Subaru. She had a bewitching smile, at odds with her childlike appearance, her red tongue flicking out of her lips.
“So mister, how many times has it been?”
Her voice felt like a tongue licking directly against his brain, and he experienced a numbing sort of ache.
Barely moving his lips, he finally answered.
“…The fifth.”
“—! Amazing, wow, so cool, isn’t it, it is, because it’s amazing, because we want it… Eat it all! Gluttony!”
“Gah!”
“We want to taste you so much, until our stomach bursts! From our experience, appetite and libido are similar. And that’s the same as love, right? So we—”
Louis pushed Subaru down and straddled him, her face contorted with excitement as she breathed hard. With flushed cheeks and rapt eyes, she ran her tongue over Subaru’s neck without hesitation.
As that happened, he could imagine what she had been about to say—
“—I love you.”
As he remembered those words of love whispered in his ear countless times in the last loop, when he had wished for death in that hopeless situation, his heart burst.
“—Don’t…touch me, you wannabe femme fatale!”
“—Ah.”
Opening his eyes wide, Subaru grabbed her neck and violently pushed her to the floor. Trading places, now he was straddling her.
Her body was slender and light. Her blond hair spread across the floor made it look almost like he was pushing her down onto a bed of gold as he grabbed her by the throat with teeth bared.
“Let your guard down? Too bad! I have the upper hand now! If you don’t want to be strangled, then give me my memories—!”
“Give them back? If we don’t, you’ll wring our neck? Us? A delicate little girl?”
Even with his hand around her neck, the excitement in her eyes had not faded at all. Her lips softened as she looked at Subaru, who was breathing heavily, nose flared.
And as her expression relaxed, she spoke, her voice like a hex ringing in his ears.
“Can you really do that, mister?”
“—Do you think I can’t?”
“More like ‘know’ than ‘think.’ After all, right now, we know you better than you do.”
Louis poked both of her cheeks with a finger and cocked her head provocatively. Gulping, Subaru looked down at his right hand around her neck.
I just have to squeeze a little to show I’m serious. If I prove I’m serious, she’ll change her tune. Think of Emilia, Beatrice, Ram, Meili, Julius, Echidna, Shaula, Patlash, everyone, and—
“—Your grip loosened, mister.”
“ ”
“We really weren’t going to resist, you know? After all, here, we’re just the delicate little girl we look like. Unlike our brothers, we can’t do anything without taking the form of someone we ate.”
Louis poked Subaru’s hand. That weak nudge was enough to make Subaru’s hand slip abruptly off her neck.
“Damn it…ghh!”
“No need to feel bad, mister. You did good. You did good. Honestly, we didn’t even think you would be able to make it back here.”
“Is that supposed to be some consolation?”
Louis was still lying where he had pushed her down, acting unconcerned, as if any danger had already passed. Anything Subaru said would just sound like sour grapes, but Louis simply stuck out her tongue and laughed.
“But this is for the best, isn’t it? If you got Subaru Natsuki’s memories back, the current you would die, after all. This way, it ends without something stupid like suicide.”
“…Huh?”
“Oh? That’s a strange reaction. Did you really not realize? If those memories come back, the current you will be overwritten, and your existence would be erased… That’s the same as dying, right?”
Subaru froze at Louis’s matter-of-fact riddle-like answer.
Die. Disappear. Having it said so bluntly…
Being told that the moment Subaru Natsuki’s memories returned, the current Subaru’s consciousness would be overwritten.
If you asked me whether that was dying or not…
“—Right now, Subaru Natsuki is dead. He doesn’t exist anywhere. But if he comes back, then this time, you will die, mister. You won’t exist anywhere.”
“ ”
“Is there much value in getting Subaru Natsuki back? You can do the same things, can’t you, mister? You like the people around you just like him now, don’t you? And they will like you just the same, too. What’s so bad about that?”
“What’s…?”
So bad? When put like that, there was nothing bad about it at all.
That Subaru Natsuki and this Subaru Natsuki. Neither of them was bad.
Subaru was a person with lots of flaws. Just crap tons of them. Enough to make him hate himself. If anyone asked who he hated most in the world, he wouldn’t hesitate to say himself.
That was how pathetic, how lacking Subaru Natsuki was.
But when it came to this one problem, he had not done anything wrong. If there was anything wrong, it was that there could be only one winner in this cruel game of musical chairs.
“Emilia-chan and the others… I wanted to…”
…Give Subaru Natsuki back to them.
That was why he had intended to steel his resolve to get those memories back, to not hesitate if he was ever given the chance. But he had averted his eyes from the fact that his existence would completely disappear. He had hoped for some sort of miracle, a convenient blending of their two memories. That the current Subaru would remain somewhere inside Subaru Natsuki.
That had been his vague hope, but…
“It’s hard to say what’ll happen. We’ve never seen anyone who got their memory back, so we don’t know.”
Louis grinned at Subaru’s obvious inner turmoil, her eyes making her look just like a cat toying with a mouse.
The criminal who stole those memories was insolently claiming she had no idea what came after. And it was almost surely the truth. Louis Arneb wasn’t someone who would ever give back what she had stolen to its rightful owner. So she didn’t know what would happen to Subaru Natsuki after his memories came back.
“You were given life, mister. It would be a waste not to enjoy it.”
The irresponsible thief continued, peering into Subaru’s face from close up.
“Because we ate Subaru Natsuki’s memories, you’re here now. So that makes us almost like your mother. Choosing your own death, right to your mother’s face? Isn’t that disrespecting your parents, mister?”
“Bullshit…”
“—Memories make the man, mister.”
Louis’s face went blank, and her voice was low, cold. That alone was spoken seriously.
Subaru caught his breath at the unexpectedly sharp words and fell silent. At the same time, he felt like he had heard that line before. The ring of it, the words. He had heard it right before his second loop’s death…
“The current you has the relationships that the current you made. Why not try again. Live a positive life. That’s another option, if you ask us.”
“ ”
“Also, maybe we shouldn’t say it, but…Subaru Natsuki doesn’t seem like the greatest guy.”
Closing an eye, she made a face like she was speaking a difficult truth while pummeling Subaru’s emotions.
Still lying on the ground beneath Subaru, she clasped her hands in front of her chest and looked into his black eyes with a dreamy, maiden-like gaze…
“Poor Emilia! Born just like the Witch of old, a pitiful girl avoided by everyone! Ahhh, but I’m so kind for being willing to be with her!”
“Wha…?”
“Weak and fragile Beatrice! Living alone without anyone to rely on, what a lonely girl! I have to take her by the hand and lead her down the dark and dangerous road!”
To Subaru’s shock, she spoke the names of the girls who had prayed for his safety and watched him go…and then she started reciting terribly twisted thoughts.
It was obvious who Louis was implying thought these things. He could tell, but…
“Rem, so devoted, offering unconditional love! So foolish and beautiful and so pure. An incomplete child who feels alive when she becomes desperate, for the sake of someone other than herself. That is why I have to guide her!”
“What…what are you getting at?!”
“Just sharing what Subaru Natsuki thought. What he wanted was a feeling of superiority. He was never thinking about someone else. He was just drunk on the pleasure of having useful people waiting on him. And puppies who refuse to get close don’t get fed. Those people got pushed away.”
“ ”
“Do you really want to give yourself up for the sake of that Subaru Natsuki?”
She asked it again.
Louis was… Gluttony was demanding a confession from Subaru Natsuki. She wanted to hear what Subaru really felt: Do you want to die or not? And if you do want to die, would you really die for someone like that?
—Would Subaru Natsuki really choose death for the sake of some other Subaru Natsuki?
“So what do you want, mister?”
“—!”
Louis’s slender arm grabbed Subaru’s and put his hand on her neck. She even guided his fingers around her neck. All he had to do was squeeze, and her slender neck would snap.
She had just concluded he couldn’t do it. But that would be the same as killing Subaru Natsuki. At the very least, that was what she was saying.
“So.”
“ ”
“Well? What is it? Which one? What’ll it be? What do you want? How do you want it? What can you do? What happens next? What’s okay? We’ll forgive you, whatever you pick.”
Louis’s voice hammered his ears mockingly, sneeringly, like a curse.
Louis Arneb, the Archbishop of Gluttony, the slender girl, the loathsome being, the parent who created him, put the question to the Subaru Natsuki before her.
—What would he do about Subaru Natsuki?
“So…”
So.
“What do you want, mister?”
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login