CHAPTER 5
SUBARU NATSUKI, THE SELF-DECLARED KNIGHT
1
—Subaru learned of how the tale had proceeded in his absence thanks to Reinhard and Ferris, who had shown up together in the castle’s waiting room.
“And so the meowgnificent royal selection began,” Ferris concluded. “Subawu, you’re going to serve as Lady Emilia’s knight, huh? Good luck to both of us.”
Ferris wrapped up his summary, but the sarcastic twist of the knife at the end was very sharp indeed. He’d been in the chamber from start to finish; surely he knew quite well what kind of mental state Subaru was in. But Subaru had no time to pay the jab any heed. The royal selection details were crucial, but at that moment, there was an issue Subaru had to find out about even more than that.
Seeing how Subaru was too timid to properly ask, Reinhard answered his unspoken question.
“—The old man is unharmed. His safe release has been secured through Lady Felt’s kindness.”
“—!”
“I didn’t think he’d come in through the same corridor without you seeing his face, and I knew you two know each other. It was easy to guess why you were anxious.”
When Subaru lifted a finger, Reinhard moved quickly to assuage his concerns. But even he didn’t know the true source of Subaru’s sense of guilt.
The instant Subaru had let himself leave Old Man Rom to rot, a dark cloud formed at the bottom of his heart from which there was no salvation.
Ferris chimed in, “That’s wonderful. You should thank Reinhard and Lady Felt because it’s all thanks to them. Now you don’t need to make any excuses at all, Subawu!”
“—”
An icy shudder ran up Subaru’s spine. He looked up and turned to face Ferris. His amber eyes glittered like they could see right through Subaru, all the way into his soul.
Having someone look inside him felt deeply unpleasant. So Subaru forced his stiff face into motion to cover it up.
“Y-yeah… I’m so glad! Totally like I figured! It really was a good idea to leave it all to Emilia-tan and Felt—better than anything I could’ve done… Right? That’s right, isn’t it?” Subaru spread his arms wide as he gave both a dose of deliberate, exaggerated, clownish behavior, his next words even hastier and more flippant, “But man, Felt really set her heart on winning the royal selection ’cause of me, and that means one more strong rival for the throne. Emilia-tan might give me a real scolding for this one.”
In different ways, the expressions on Reinhard’s and Ferris’s faces changed in response to Subaru’s sudden shift, but in the end, they chose not to press the point.
Both knights were showing him pity. Subaru, painfully aware of the fact, ignored his crippled heart’s pleas.
“So now that the talk is all over, where is Emilia-tan and everybody?”
“The candidates remained in the chamber to discuss the fine details of the royal selection process. During that time, I said I would go to check on you, and Ferris came with me,” replied Reinhard.
Reinhard’s actions made sense, but he couldn’t stop wondering why Ferris was showing his face, too. Thus, Subaru asked the latter, “Thanks for checking up on me, but is this all right, not being by your master’s side?”
“It’s totally fine. Lady Crusch is much stronger than Ferri, so it’s perfectly safe!”
“Just laying that out there like that… How’s a slacker like you in the Knights of the Royal Guard, anyway?”
Ferris gave Subaru a sidelong glance and wagged a finger at him. His fingertip glowed with a blue light.
“Mew know why. Ferri’s got a special talent that’s in high demand.”
“Uh… Why do I feel lighter, like my shoulders, knees, and hips aren’t working as hard anymore…?”
“Subawu, your body’s aching all over like an old man.”
“That’s your selling point, eh…? Right, I heard you’re a really good water mana user.”
In the first place, the reason Subaru was allowed to go with Emilia to the capital was to improve the poor physical condition he was in. The one who was supposed to heal him was none other than the cat-eared man before his eyes.
Reinhard replied to Subaru’s comment, saying, “The words really good do not suffice, Subaru. It is fairer to call Ferris the greatest master of water-type magic on the continent. It is not for nothing that he bears the title of ‘Blue,’ standing at the pinnacle of those who share his magical affinity despite his young age.”
Reinhard’s praise prompted Ferris to push his chest out, displaying not the slightest shred of modesty.
“Meow, the title came from all Ferri’s fans.”
Given that he really was a healer as good as his title, Subaru saw his numerous admirers in a new light. It really put into perspective that this person was treating him.
Subaru’s tone was heavy and pained as he arrived at the answer he’d expected.
“—So Emilia-tan really did…”
“So Lady Emilia indeed organized it,” Reinhard concluded.
Subaru could only guess at the back-and-forth that arranged for his healing. That was why he couldn’t stop the heavy melancholy rising deep in his heart.
Asking Ferris, in the Crusch camp, to treat his body meant relying on a political rival on the very eve of the royal selection. In other words, Subaru had been deadweight for Emilia…again.
He asked, “Hey, why do I have to accept the treatment no matter what?”
“Because she already paid. If Ferri doesn’t heal you, Subaru, it’ll mean Lady Emeowlia went through aaaaall that effort for nothing.”
“What’s this payment? If it’s just some object, you can hand it back, ri—”
“It’s not an object, and once you know it you can’t give it back. So Ferri has to say no to your request, Subawu.”
Shot down at point-blank range, Subaru could only put a hand to his forehead and cradle his head.
Even though Subaru didn’t want to be a liability, it seemed that was all he had been to Emilia. He wanted to help her. That was Subaru’s whole reason for being there. It was the one and only reason that gave his existence there any meaning.
A tranquil voice echoed through the waiting room. The speaker was neither Reinhard nor Ferris, but a man with refined features leaning against the open door—Julius.
“—If you curse your own lack of strength so much, I believe you have one choice you can make.”
Subaru’s face shot up like it had been slapped.
“What? Oh, it’s you.”
Subaru scowled with resentment. Julius received his gaze with a calm, composed look.
“I would rather you did not make such a disagreeable expression. I did not expect a warm welcome, but letting your emotions get the better of you…”
“The better of me… So what?”
“…It brings the character of those who stand with you into question. Strive to remember this.”
“Ugh…!”
Subaru’s throat constricted with anger. It wasn’t the words themselves, but the sensitive places they jabbed.
He maintained his silence as Julius strode past him toward an open window.
“Now, I suppose you wanted to ask me what I am doing here?” The knight turned his back, surveying the grounds beyond the palace, narrowing his eyes as a breeze blew. “Naturally, I came to see you. I would like you to accompany me for a brief time.”
How about it? Julius asked with a wave of his hand. The man’s sharp gaze even then implied this was not some friendly suggestion.
“Just so you know, I’d never say yes to something like that, not knowing the place or what it’s for, even on one hour’s sleep.”
“The place is the parade square. The objective… Yes.”
In response to Subaru’s seemingly casual but extremely biting words, Julius looked down in apparent thought. Then, with an arrogant smile, he spoke with as much venom as Subaru had.
“How about…teaching you a lesson or two about reality?”
2
Some ten minutes after that precariously sarcastic exchange, Subaru was standing atop tightly packed, sandy soil.
They’d moved from the waiting room of the castle to the knights’ garrison adjacent to the castle. The tamped-down reddish training ground was ringed by stout walls that gave off a strong sense of the place’s history.
The area was perhaps half the size of a high school campus, providing plenty of space for running around and crossing swords.
Subaru tested his footing, then casually began stretching.
Reinhard, standing at the entrance of the parade grounds, tried to get Julius to relent. “Julius, you should stop this. It isn’t like you.” The expression on his face was not one of haste or anger, but pure concern for Subaru’s well-being. He continued, “I accept it was a petty thing for him to say, but it was nothing that couldn’t be settled by a retraction. Normally, you would judge as much yourself, no?”
“That is precisely so, my good Reinhard. Normally, I would.”
Julius was removing the ceremonial decorations from his Knights of the Royal Guard uniform one by one as he looked back at Reinhard, his eyes betraying no emotion.
“Had it not been this day, and had I met him in a different place, I might have simply let him be. However, it was not meant to be. My good name was sullied before those connected to the throne, and he spoke lightly of chivalry itself. Furthermore, he has not only failed to apologize but has heaped on additional insults.”
Just like that, the faint murmurs that had filled the parade square fell silent.
“—I shall now chastise the base ruffian who has besmirched my knightly honor! Any objections?!”
“—!!”
Abruptly, a wordless typhoon roared through the air over the training grounds. The gathered knights and guardsmen shouted, their voices creating the gale. No doubt they saw things very simply: Julius was their representative against Subaru, the man who had disrespected them all.
Never in his life had Subaru stood before so many people directing such hostile emotions at him. He remarked, “Odds are about seven hundred to zero with no one betting on me. I’m so unpopular, I could cry…”
Truthfully, it chilled him to the bone; his body was filled with an overwhelming urge to fall to his knees. Yet, his heart was calm, and though his limbs felt heavy, they did not shake.
It was not that he had resigned himself to his fate. Subaru really didn’t understand the mental state he was in when Julius spoke up again. “Now then, before we begin, I shall ask once more: Do you intend to apologize for your earlier impropriety and ask for forgiveness? If you make a full apology for your repeated transgressions here and now, I shall pardon you.”
“Repeated transgressions, huh. I can’t think of any… And apologize how?”
“Put your forehead to the ground with tears in your eyes. Or, if you find it more fitting, roll onto the ground and show me your belly to curry favor like the good lapdog you are.”
“Neither choice is very elegant, so if you don’t mind, I’ll pass on both.”
No doubt he’d never expected Subaru to accept. “I see,” Julius murmured to himself curtly as he finally handed his knight’s sword to one of his fellows standing beside him. He accepted a pair of wooden swords in its place.
“Properly speaking, it would not be strange for a man to cut you down for your foul tongue. However, you are Lady Emilia’s vassal, whether she desires it or not. Accordingly, I shall face you using these wooden wasters.”
Any objections? asked Julius’s eyes. Subaru answered with a curt wave of his hand, signaling there was no problem. Concluding that his opponent had accepted from his gestures and expression, Julius nodded.
“The referee shall be—Ferris.”
Julius glanced sideways at him, while Ferris casually lifted up his palm and waved back.
“Sure, suuure.”
He’d easily accepted the role of referee. There was no way to know what he thought on the inside. Unlike Reinhard’s hope to put a stop to this, Ferris seemed all too eager to get things under way.
“Have at it, you two. No matter what horrible wounds you suffer, Ferri can patch you up as long as you don’t actually die, Subawu, so good luck!”
“Why say that to just me? Worry about the other guy, geez.”
“Meow, what strong resolve! Hear that, everyone? All right, one, mew, three!”
Turning to the onlookers, Ferris raised both hands high and brought them down. At his signal, the parade square erupted in uproarious laughter, pouring scorn on Subaru’s reckless words.
Bathed in laughter, Subaru stepped forward and turned to face Julius. When Julius offered him one of the practice weapons, he gripped the hilt firmly, as if he was used to it. Similarly, Julius gripped the other waster and announced the start of the mock duel.
“At least you are enthusiastic. Shall we begin?”
Subaru, his skin crackling with the electric energy of the audience, poised the wooden sword and pulled back, then twirled the waster in his hand around as he complained, “Ah, time-out. The feel of this doesn’t seem right.”
“Is that so? I do not think they differ much, but you may use this one if you prefer?”
“Sorry, sorry. I’m a child of the modern era, so I don’t wanna use something that doesn’t feel right.”
As he spoke, he accepted the wooden sword Julius offered with one hand. In its place, he offered Julius the sword handed to him just earlier—
“Oops.”
“—”
Subaru’s hand let the wooden sword go a moment before Julius’s fingers could take it. Naturally, gravity caused the waster to fall. Julius instantly bent forward as his hand chased after it. The knight, his body curved forward, had lost his height advantage over Subaru.
“…Hmph.”
Subaru stepped forward and flipped the waster in his hand from down to up, aiming squarely at the tip of Julius’s chin. Simultaneously, his left hand thrust straight forward, tossing the sand he’d covertly picked up during his warm-up exercises toward Julius’s eyes—a classic blinding, two-step surprise attack.
—Got him now, thought Subaru, smiling with malicious satisfaction at his little trick. The next moment, he heard a voice right against his ear.
“It seems that you truly have no shame—It must make the vulgarity easy to come by.”
Simultaneously, a blow struck Subaru. He felt a sharp, hard jab right to the solar plexus.
The shock to his torso shuddered through the rest of his body. He felt weightless; just after his feet left the ground, his face slammed hard into the earth. Sandy dirt smeared his face, mixed with vomit forced out by the blow to his solar plexus. Pain and heat struck his brain with equal force. The next moment, the parade square erupted in boisterous cheers at how Subaru, the fool who did not know his place, received what he deserved.
The boy curled into himself on the ground as the pain caught up, screaming into the sky above the parade square.
Higher, higher. Farther, farther.
3
“Reporting. Currently, Sir Julius and…Lady Emilia’s vassal, Sir Subaru Natsuki, are engaged in mock combat with wasters in the parade square.”
“…Eh?”
Upon hearing the guard’s report, Emilia’s thoughts slipped out in a breathless whisper.
Stay calm, stay composed, the voice inside her kept saying. She didn’t know what it meant.
“Wh-why would they be doing such a…?! The parade ground, you mean the knights’ building next to the royal palace, right? Julius and Subaru are…brawling there?”
Emilia could not conceal her bewilderment. The guard, however, could not let one part go uncorrected.
“Pardon me, but it is a mock combat. It is no brawl arising out of a personal grudge, but a matter of Sir Julius’s honor.”
His manner, on the verge of open disrespect, shook Emilia all the more deeply.
She thought back to the war of words between Subaru and Julius in the throne room. Neither had a good impression of the other, and if that was the reason for a private duel…
“Anyway, I need to stop this immediately. Lead me to this parade square…”
Emilia was about to rush off to the square to talk some sense into them when a high-pitched voice interceded—Anastasia’s.
“Ah, I think you oughta let them be.”
When Emilia turned, she saw that Anastasia had raised a hand, gathering attention on her. Having moved from the throne room to a conference room, the candidates were seated, with their associates at their side.
Naturally, everyone else had heard the report as well. Anastasia continued, “I want to make sure of somethin’. Who proposed this mock combat?”
The guard replied, “I understand that Sir Julius did. However, because Sir Subaru Natsuki accepted, we are in the present situation—”
Anastasia gave the guard’s reply a generous nod before looking back at Emilia.
“Ahh, that’s fine, that’s fine. I just needed to know it was Julius’s idea—Since Julius started it, I’m against stopping it.”
Anastasia’s reply put her squarely at odds with Emilia.
“Your knight and my…my friend, are clashing. Aren’t you worried?”
“Worried? About what? That Julius might go too far and make me pay to heal your boy?”
Anastasia tilted her head a little as she replied, looking mystified. Emilia was at a loss for words.
In the half-elf’s place, Priscilla poked a small smile out from behind her fan.
“Certainly. From what I saw, he is an incorrigible fool. I imagine he is having his face rubbed into the dirt for a second time today out of excessive stubbornness.”
Anastasia added, “Perhaps. Back in the hall, he had some nerve. Makes you wanna look up to him—since someone probably threw him across the room.”
The ill-natured smiles the two were trading left Emilia unable to believe her eyes, her voice quivering.
“D-don’t you have anything else to say…?”
But only adding to her shock, Crusch broke her silence and announced her own opposition to Emilia’s view.
“If Emilia’s vassal had requested a duel, I would agree that it is correct to stop them. However, since it is Sir Julius who requested it, and Emilia’s vassal who accepted, I believe stopping them is a mistake.”
“Why? I mean, Subaru isn’t my…”
“If you do not understand, no explanation shall suffice. Besides, though his temper was quick, this is a necessary thing.”
Crusch cut Emilia off with a strong tone that did not allow further discussion. Crusch, too, had taken a hard stance that Emilia should not get involved.
The stalled conversation brought a sour expression to Felt’s face before she raised her voice in annoyance. “So why did that guard come to tell us about this, anyway? I mean, it’s one thing if you’re gonna report before they start, but why get all weak-kneed in the middle of it? Just wait for them to finish fighting and tell us what happened after.”
Felt’s question, posed with arms crossed and a bad attitude, made the soldier’s face visibly blanch. Marcus, sensing from his demeanor that something was amiss, stepped in front of his subordinate and broke his silence.
“Report.”
“S-sir! I have come to request orders because…the mock duel between Sir Julius and Sir Subaru Natsuki is excessively one-sided!”
“…What do you mean, one-sided?”
“Sir Julius is surely holding back…but it does not appear that way.”
The guard seemed distressed, as if he’d seen such a miserable sight that he couldn’t bring himself to look in Emilia’s direction. That announced to all present just what a terrible spectacle was occurring.
That news was the last straw for Emilia, who threw her indecision to the wind and rushed out of the room.
“I have to stop them…!”
She ran down the corridor toward the knights’ garrison and the parade square within.
Once Emilia left, the room seemed on the brink of an uproar when Al raised his hand and suggested, “So, how ’bout we follow the lady and take a look, too?” he motioned toward the open door and shrugged his shoulder to Priscilla, standing beside him. “You like this sort of thing, right, Princess? Watching a ferocious beast toy with a weak critter.”
Priscilla lightly turned her back away from him as her charming laughter shook her bountiful breasts.
“Do not cast aspersions upon me with your petty delusions, Al. Well, I do enjoy it… Very well. I wanted a break from this dreadfully long-winded talk, anyway. Looking down upon a variety of fools and laughing at them is good for the soul.”
The haggard guard broke out in an icy sweat as Priscilla thrust the tip of her fan toward him.
“Lead us to this parade square—I command it.”
4
Blood from Subaru’s head wounds seeped into his eyes. He raggedly wiped at them to clear his red-tinged vision.
He’d already lost count of how many times he’d been knocked to the ground. His left eye was already swollen shut; he tasted too much blood to tell if it was just his lip, or if the inside of his mouth was cut, too.
He didn’t really feel the pain.
He wasn’t sure if the aching had become so great that he had grown numb or if it was the adrenaline soaking his brain. It was probably a number of things.
But what was driving the pain from Subaru’s mind was pure anger.
The strength of Subaru’s spirit, so deviant from the norm, earned him exasperation from Julius, not praise. “How about you finally acknowledge your own limitations?” His handsome face was still untouched by a single speck of dust or a single drop of sweat as he calmly swayed the tip of the frayed wooden sword he had used to beat Subaru to a pulp. He continued, “Surely by now you are painfully aware of the difference between us, and how grievously you insulted me by treating the word knight with such casual contempt?”
It was not an attempt to appeal to Subaru’s heart, but to smash it to pieces.
Julius was only pounding on Subaru to show him what being a knight meant. Subaru was only recklessly, stubbornly resisting the reality Julius was drilling into him. There was no room for anything to grow between them. And nothing did, no matter how long their confrontation continued.
Julius said to him, “I believe going any further may put your life in jeopardy.”
“…Like this much is gonna kill someone. Don’t talk about it like you know.”
“You sound as if you have prior experience.”
“I know more about it than any man in this world.”
Since Subaru had set foot upon that land, he had perished a total of seven times. There was no one in that whole, wide world that had faced death as many times as Subaru.
People used words like hurts enough to die, mortified enough to die, enough to die, enough to die, but he knew that people did not die of these things.
Shaking his cut, throbbing head, Subaru sluggishly lifted up his weapon, raising his voice as well. The instant he brought Julius into range, the tip of his wooden sword cried out as he raised it for a swing—
“There is no beauty in you.”
A moment before Subaru was about to unleash a downward strike, a blow struck his right wrist—his sword hand. The sharp smack sent his wooden sword flying, and Subaru’s eyes instinctively followed it. The next moment, he was bowled over by another blow to the solar plexus.
His breath caught, and, unable to break the fall whatsoever, Subaru rolled onto the ground, the earth and sky trading places about five times before he ended up flat on his back, arms and legs spread wide. Subaru literally coughed up blood.
The knights and guards were still gathered to watch Subaru’s public whipping at Julius’s hands. But there were no cheers any longer.
Subaru was the villain who had belittled the very nature of knights at the royal selection that would determine the kingdom’s future. And so, Julius rose to represent the Knights of the Royal Guard and rebuke him, making him taste pain until he apologized—That was the scene they had come expecting to see.
Indeed, when it had begun, they cheered heartily in delight, or laughed in mockery at Subaru’s pathetic display, unreservedly supporting their comrade, Julius. What had changed was that everyone now understood this was a beating, and nothing more.
There was a vast, yawning chasm in ability between Julius and Subaru. Unskilled in attack and wide-open in defense, the boy was knocked down over and over.
At first, derisive laughter rang out each time he went down. The exasperated sighs began when the number exceeded ten. By the time people had lost count, everyone wanted to avert their eyes. Just end it already, they thought. Anyone could see who had won and who had lost. They had learned all over again that knights were superior. Beyond that, this was a meaningless dispute.
But Julius continued to beat Subaru and showed absolutely no sign of relenting.
As referee, Ferris had the authority to stop the fight at any time, but made no sign of stopping, regardless of how hurt or injured Subaru became.
And Subaru himself betrayed the knights’ hopes, standing up again.
Everyone understood. This no longer held any meaning, any significance. It was nothing more than a pathetic display of senseless stubbornness. Therefore, in the end, it was the least they could do to watch Subaru be bullheaded to the bitter end. They did not leave, because those who watched the spectacle unfold had become part of it, and shared responsibility for it.
“—”
Subaru’s quivering upper body sat up before the eyes of the knightly onlookers. He picked up the waster that had fallen beside him, using it as a crutch to prop himself up. He coughed violently, spewing a large volume of blood.
The somber sight confirmed everyone’s thoughts. As if by nature, they understood—
The next exchange would be the final blow in this pointless dispute.
5
—One more hit and I’m done.
Funnily enough, Subaru had managed to reach the same conclusion as the onlookers watching his absurdity. But he no longer cared about what anyone saw. Inside Subaru, there was no one but him and Julius.
He wouldn’t get up after the next blow. Even if Subaru’s sword miraculously made contact, Subaru would be unable to continue.
Why challenge him, then? If the end result would be the same either way, why even try?
He couldn’t see the answer. He had lost his original reason for starting the fight, filled purely with hatred for Julius standing nonchalantly in his swollen field of vision. And so he decided he’d put everything he had into one final blow, aiming to break the bridge of Julius’s nose.
“—”
His lungs ached simply from breathing. Exhaling made his mouth hurt that much more.
Pushing the agony away with his threadbare consciousness, Subaru collected his remaining strength and waited for his chance—hoping Julius would let his guard down for even a moment. He couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.
—PainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainDIE.
“—!”
Julius’s gaze seemed to drift for an instant. In his tattered state, Subaru took his shot.
He heard nothing. He left everything behind, lifting his sword up with all his spirit.
Julius, having taken his attention ever so slightly off Subaru, hadn’t reacted yet. Something had attracted his attention, but every cell of Subaru’s brain was devoted to thinking about that single blow.
“—!”
He thought he heard something—something in that world without sound, where only he and his target existed.
“—ru!”
He heard a voice. Someone’s voice. Someone’s voice in his ears.
His mind was being pulled away. But everything was forgotten, drowned out by his furor.
That moment, his eyes trained on the single thing that gave his existence any meaning.
“—baru!”
The voice became clearer. It began to hold meaning.
If he heard it clearly, there would be no going back.
That was why Subaru brushed everything away, to escape from the overwhelming fear that pursued him still, right on his heels. With every ounce of his being—he shouted.
“—Subaru!!”
“—SHAMAAAAK!!”
Betraying the clear-as-a-bell voice in his ears, Subaru chanted the incantation at the top of his lungs.
A black cloud erupted, dying the reddish-brown soil of the parade square black, blotting out everything.
A realm of oblivion unfolded. Within it, Subaru rushed forward, shouting in his guttural voice. In this space where reason held no sway, his brain commanded his arms to swing down. The dark cloud swallowed the limbs stretching in front of him, ignoring all else to do as they were commanded, so that the tip of “something” might reach—
“So this is your secret weapon, then?”
Clear as day, Subaru heard the voice in a world that should be soundless.
The black cloud brightened—And from within the source of light, a wooden sword cut through the air, mercilessly slamming Subaru’s body down to the ground.
The voice flitting his way from above sounded surprised rather than hurt.
“I did not expect that you would use Dark-type magic. I admit you caught me by surprise.”
Subaru, lying on the ground with his limbs splayed, gazed up at the sky in a daze as he faced reality head on.
“However, your training is deficient. Such low-level magic can only work on someone of lower ability than you, or perhaps an unintelligent beast. Such a plan would not work against a single Knight of the Royal Guard.” The voice seemed to carry pity. Pity that crushed Subaru’s heart and told him to give up on everything.
He had thought he could change his situation. He thought that even he could accomplish something.
“You are irredeemably powerless. You have no place by her side.”
Those words, at least, he wished to refute—words that denied that his life held any meaning. Subaru moved his neck to glare at the man, trying to get him to at least take that part back…
“?”
…but instead, he caught a glimpse of the silver-haired girl with violet eyes.
She was leaning over a terrace on a floor midway up the royal palace wall that overlooked the parade square. Behind her were girls he recognized, each one coldly surveying the results.
The thoughts behind her blanched face no longer mattered.
Subaru no longer cared what anyone at all thought of him.
Or rather, that would have been true if the person standing there hadn’t been the absolutely last person in the entire world he wanted to see him in this state.
“?”
Inside him, Subaru heard a sound like a thread snapping.
That was the last thing he knew before his consciousness began fading far, far away.
With his mind, distinct until that point, cut loose, the world quickly lost its color. This time, Subaru’s mind truly left anything and everything behind as it plunged to the bottom of the abyss.
“—Subaru.”
He thought he heard a murmur he should have been unable to. Then, it vanished along with the rest.
6
When Subaru awoke, his brows furrowed as he stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling.
To Subaru, who usually woke up more quickly than he liked, the brief period of mental vagueness between sleep and fully waking was precious time. For several seconds, Subaru immersed himself in this boundless, nebulous state as his mind groped for its memories, such as what he’d done before sleeping, what that place was…
Subaru felt his temple throb painfully. That ache brought everything rushing back.
“I…remember…”
He remembered the disgrace he had endured before he ended up where he slept.
He raised a hand to his forehead, but his eyes were drawn in by the discovery of a serious scar near his wrist that he didn’t remember. He immediately realized it bore the traces of healing magic.
And that he could feel the traces of wounds on his body meant—
“—I didn’t…die.”
Touching his presumably cracked forehead and most likely fractured wrist, he let out a sigh, lamenting that the healing had removed all physical pain. If not for the smoldering feeling of humiliation in his chest, he’d almost think the whole thing had never happened. No—
Now that Subaru had regained consciousness, the betrayed look she gave him was something no spell could heal.
“—Subaru.”
Emilia sat on the side of the bed, her violet eyes full of melancholy. For no reason he could discern, she’d folded the white robe she’d been wearing over her lap while watching over Subaru.
The rays of the western sun filtering through the open window made Subaru guess it was several hours later on the same day.
The first thing on his lips was harmless and inoffensive enough.
“—The royal candidate discussion’s over already?”
Emilia apparently waited for him to make some kind of excuse before she opened her eyes a little wider, caught off guard by how he tried to pretend nothing had happened.
“Yeah, it’s finished… Most of what everyone wanted to say came out in the throne room, so the rest was mainly working out the minute details about the royal selection. Most things were settled by Roswaal approving them.”
Emilia shook her head, a subtle lament in her voice at her own powerlessness. Subaru realized he took comfort in that—Emilia, regretful she couldn’t do anything in the royal selection, was somehow sharing in his misery.
Subaru tried to hide it from himself by making an attempt at being glib.
“That so. Then you probably wasted a lot of time waiting for me while I overslept. Anyway, let’s get straight back to the inn. Gotta pick up Rem and work out plans for the royal selection, right?”
“Subaru.”
“Here in the castle you don’t know who’s watching or listening, so best to save the deep talk till we’re back at the mansion, right? Or do you have to talk with high-ups in the capital here first?”
“Subaru…”
“Errrr, maybe it’s best to make non-aggression pacts with some of the candidates here instead? It’s tough when you don’t know who’s coming at you and when…”
“—Subaru!”
Emilia sharply shouted Subaru down amid his rambling, cutting off his excuses. He turned his averted gaze back toward her.
She spoke to him quietly, but gravely, not be swayed.
“—Let’s…talk.”
Emilia rose from her seat, her arms tightly hugging the fabric of her folded robe. The stiffness of her cheeks conveyed better than any words that the coming conversation was not about anything good.
“There are things that I want to ask you… Truly, many things.”
Her lips quivered, as if in hesitation, groping for exactly what subject she should broach.
“…Yeah, I, suppose so.”
Subaru had a pretty good idea why she was hesitant. Everything Subaru had done until then had been completely unexpected.—Therefore, Emilia was seeking the right way to ask about Subaru’s true intent behind his actions that day.
He had only a single, unabashed reason to give. But the question on Emilia’s lips was not what he wanted.
“Err, then… Why did you…come to fight with Julius?”
This answer was much harder to come by. What significance did that battle have—?
“You had a reason for it, didn’t you? It’s you, so I’m sure you had an important…”
Already beaten down, Subaru had been waiting in the corridor when Julius appeared before him. When Julius invited him to the parade square, Subaru immediately deemed it would be payback for the rudeness he had shown in the throne room.
He certainly tried to appreciate the difference in the power Julius wielded compared to him.
He knew from the start he had no chanceof victory. And yet, Subaru had taken the wooden sword, challenged him to the hopeless battle, and had been pounded into the dirt.
Why did he do all that? The answer was—
“I wanted…payback.”
“…Ah?”
Subaru lifted his face. Looking up at the bewilderment in the silver-haired beauty’s eyes, he continued, “I wanted to show him that…I’m not something to throw away on the side of the road. I thought I could pay him back, and show him I could…stand by guys like him even if only a little.”
His words were all jumbled. He resented himself for not being able to put it more clearly. If not for the emotions smoldering in his chest, ramming against his heart, he wouldn’t need to endure such conflicted thoughts.
“Subaru…”
“I was…stubborn. I hated him. For saying I’m disgraceful, powerless, how I’m in the way…how I’m not worthy of you, how he tried to push me away from you… So I took him on.”
He figured the last one was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Yes, Julius had been sternly rebuking Subaru, telling him he wasn’t worthy of Emilia. But he didn’t even have to say that. Subaru himself knew that more than anyone. To gloss that over, he had desperately worn a mask, feigning ignorance, but that man had easily called his bluff. So unable to forgive him, Subaru had taken him on, leading to the inevitable result.
The boy’s listless reply, spoken with a hung head, made Emilia’s breath catch a little.
“That’s…why you…?”
No doubt it was not the concrete reply she had been searching for. Whatever lofty ideals she had held onto, the truth behind Subaru’s banal stubbornness betrayed them.
Subaru listened to the trace of disappointment slip past her lips.
“…Emilia…tan, you…”
Her quivering words had scolded the powerless-feeling Subaru into a confession.
Emilia hadn’t intended to do it. She did not understand how cruel and relentless her act was. That was why, as Subaru spoke with a frail voice, he was unable to even look at her.
“—You just don’t understand.”
That was what he said.
The moment he said it, Subaru realized he’d been lashing out. To deny that someone understood was the worst kind of excuse, cutting off that person from your heart.
Subaru was unable to keep his face raised when he heard a breathless-sounding voice.
“—You’re right.”
Her agreement, spoken almost like a sigh, made it sound like she grasped what he had said, that she was agreeing not to push the issue any further.
Her reaction made Subaru’s shoulders ease with a sense of relief. That was when she said, “Tomorrow, Roswaal and I will be returning to the mansion. You will remain in the royal capital to focus on medical treatment.”
Subaru couldn’t make sense of her words
“Huh?”
When he tilted his head in confusion, Emilia strove to hide her heavy emotion as she turned toward him.
“That’s what we agreed to in the first place, yes? You came to the royal capital so that your depleted gate can be healed. Ferris agreed, so you will be healed by him, then recuperate.”
“W-wait a minute.”
Emilia stated the plans for Subaru at a rapid clip. “While staying in the capital, you will be in Ferris’s…or rather, Lady Crusch of the House of Karsten’s care. Rem will be staying with you, so you won’t need to worry about a thing.”
Subaru, realizing that his intent had been completely missed, called out to her in a desperate voice.
“I said wait!”
His fingertips immediately reached out, taking hold of her sleeve as if that would stop her from pulling away.
“Why are you…all of a sudden…I…”
In reply to Subaru’s frail voice, Emilia looked away as she said, “…You push yourself too far when you’re around me. Don’t you?”
Subaru held his breath at her words. Emilia’s expression was unreadable. He strained, trying to get her to look at him.
“You don’t have to…put it like that…”
“I’m not wrong, am I? It was like that when we first met, and like that at the mansion. And it was like that today… All of it’s because you were together with me, wasn’t it?”
Her way of speaking was thick with discontent.
Faced with negativity and cynicism that was all too out of character for Emilia, Subaru could only shake his head.
“That’s not what I was trying to say… I just…”
“Just?”
“I just did those things…because I wanted to give you something…”
“For…me?”
When she echoed his words back, Subaru sent a determined nod back her way.
He had earnestly struggled against destiny for Emilia’s sake, and hers alone. It was that feeling, above all others, that he wanted her to understand.
…That was why the next words out of her mouth left Subaru in complete shock.
“—It was all for your own benefit, wasn’t it?”
“—”
Beyond the silence, Subaru’s brain was a complete blank.
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he wanted to say.
“I…I just…wanted…to give you…”
Sadness? Suffering? Regret? Anger? Sorrow?
—I want to give you happiness.
—I want to help you get what you desire.
—I want to protect you from everything that makes you sad.
Those were the pure feelings Subaru had for Emilia that formed the foundation of his every deed.
He had acted in the belief that his efforts would convey his feelings stronger than any words.
But that had been his conceited assumption, made without any consideration for other people’s feelings.
“—Mff!”
The dazed Subaru yelped in surprise at the sudden impact of soft fabric on his face. When he immediately pulled the material away, he realized it was the white robe with an embroidered hawk that Emilia had been holding in her hands and that she had struck him with it.
But he couldn’t associate Emilia with such a violent action. Even if he accepted that, logically, Emilia had thrown it at him, he could not emotionally accept it.
After all, the Emilia Subaru knew was always kind, filled with motherly affection, and, though she was not consciously aware of her own stubborn streak, she was a soft-hearted girl who couldn’t stop helping others if she tried.
Why, then?
Emilia’s violet gaze quivered with a wave of emotions. Her face was tense as she bit her lip, which seemed to tremble from fierce emotion. He’d never seen either before.
Neither her expression nor her gaze fit the girl he knew whatsoever. Yet, both were aimed at him, of all people.
He understood how out of place the sentiment was, but he thought that she was…beautiful, like this.
The wave of emotions turned to tears that filled her purple eyes.
“Stop lying about doing all these things for my sake—!”
With a small shake of her head, she seemed to be venting about every last thing eating at her.
“Coming to the castle, fighting with Julius, using magic… You’re saying it was all for me? I didn’t ask you for any of those things!”
“—!”
“All I wanted was for you to do the things I asked you to do!”
“?”
“Hey, do you remember? What I asked?”
“I-I…”
Hearing her reject his actions so clearly froze Subaru’s mind with terror. That was why he couldn’t produce an answer to her question from within his jumbled head.
With Subaru unable to answer, Emilia firmly closed her eyes.
“I asked you to stay at the inn with Rem and wait.”
“?”
“Using any more magic would be very bad for you, so I asked you not to use magic.”
He remembered that she’d used the word please for both.
Both times, Emilia had strongly urged him to behave out of concern for his health. But Subaru had trampled on her words each time based on his own selfish delusions. Somewhere deep down inside, he had thought of things so frivolously, as if good results would always let him smooth over his broken promises. But as a result, Subaru had not only disregarded her pleas, but didn’t have a single proper thing to show for it; indeed, he’d only disgraced himself and held her back.
But even so, he at least wanted her to understand that the underlying motivations were genuine.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’m really, really sorry. But! But you’re wrong, I, I didn’t do them for my sake…”
But Subaru’s tongue cramped like it had gone numb, rejecting his efforts to put feelings into words. As he flailed for words, Emilia stared at him with sadness.
His words were unforgivably selfish. He never should have said them.
“Emilia, don’t you…believe me?”
Someone who had just denied that she could understand him had no right to say any of it.
“I want to believe you… I want to believe you, Subaru.”
She sounded like she wanted to cry. She might have already been crying. But Subaru didn’t have the courage to find out. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, even though she might be in tears; even though he might have been the reason why she was in such a state. Subaru had continued running forward trying to avoid that, but at the most critical moment, Subaru Natsuki just—
Her emotions exploded.
“I wanted to believe you…but you’re the one who stopped me, Subaru!”
Though she had sometimes lost her calm and logical demeanor to anger before, this was the first time he had seen her cast them aside, like shackles on her emotions. Freed of those restraints, Emilia poured her overflowing feelings into words.
“You didn’t uphold a single promise, did you, Subaru? You…promised, but you broke them all like they were nothing and ended up here, didn’t you?!”
He’d trampled on the promises they made together—in other words, her trust.
His claim, that he had done it all for her, was moral justification that only held meaning for Subaru himself.
Emilia carried on, saying, “You haven’t kept your word, but then say you want me to trust you…? However you ask, I can’t do that. I can’t…”
No!, he wanted to cry out in a loud voice. But in reality, Subaru’s trembling throat made no sound; his head felt as heavy as lead, too heavy to lift from its lowered, face-down position.
In front of the crying girl, whose emotions he had toyed with, who sought an honest answer from him—Subaru chose to turn his back to her, and thus, continue to betray her.
She asked him, “…Hey, Subaru. Why do you want to help me so much?”
It was surely the doubt nestled in Emilia’s mind that kept her from asking many times before. Seeing Subaru running around covered with injuries, forcing himself to smile all the while, or watching him endure great pain and leap into the jaws of death, she must have entertained those doubts for some time. Thus, it was inevitable she would press the issue now.
If Emilia didn’t let it all out there, if she kept her misgivings forever deep inside, not understanding why Subaru kept doing his utmost for her, it would only bring her more pain.
The question was Emilia’s final offer of salvation to Subaru. He had thought that, having so lightly treated his promises, there was nothing he could say that could reach her, but even so, she was asking him to honestly tell her.
—Why did Subaru work himself to the bone for Emilia?
—Why had he tenaciously clung to her since arriving in that world?
“I want to do everything I can to help you because you saved me…”
“I…saved you…?”
“That’s right.”
When he had been suddenly invited into another world, he was at a complete loss, not knowing right from left, with unavoidable violence threatening him; for all he knew, that world would have been the end of him.
He continued, “I don’t think you understand how…much you helped me. But that…saved me, more than words can express.”
What Emilia had saved back then was not his life, but Subaru himself.
It didn’t start with Subaru. The first time, it was Emilia who did the saving. Everything he’d done since was nothing more than repaying her for what she had given him.
“Subaru, I don’t understand…”
“That can’t be…helped. But it’s true. You saved me. That’s why I tried to…pay back the favor…but now, it’s…”
It’s not just that, were the words that should have followed. But Emilia exploded in emotion, her silver hair violently swaying as she shook her head, so the words never arrived.
“—I told you, I don’t understand!! I saved you? I did no such thing. The first time I met you was at the loot cellar. I’d never seen you before in my life!”
“No, listen to—”
“If I’d met you before that, if that was true, I’d… I’d…!”
Burying her face in her hands, Emilia rejected Subaru. She would listen to him no longer. His words did not have the strength to stop her from fully retreating into her shell.
He had no idea what kind of sore spot of hers he’d brushed up against. He didn’t know, but he had to keep talking. That’s why Subaru quickly pulled himself together and said, “Maybe you don’t understand, but listen to me anyway. It’s the truth! The first time we met when I came to this world—”
Instantly, the scene ground to a halt, and Subaru realized he had brushed against the forbidden. This was the world where time was frozen and everything stopped.
He could no longer hear even the furious beating of his heart. Emilia’s voice, which he had heard until that very moment, grew distant. Even the high-pitched ringing sounds vanished without a trace as the world of silence beckoned.
Subaru could not contain his anger, both at himself, and at the enforcing shadow with no respect for the mood—the shadow that inflicted unending pain upon Subaru when he spoke about his peculiar trait.
After the warning from the halted world that he had nearly violated the taboo, time began to tick once more.
—With a thump, Subaru realized his entire body had broken out in a cold sweat.
By the whim of the shadow, he had not received a painful penalty. He remembered that. If he kept talking like he had just been about to, the shadow would mercilessly torture his heart in the frozen world.
The words he would have spoken tumbled back down his throat. The sincere thoughts he wanted to share had no place to go, a millstone Subaru’s shoulders had no choice but to bear.
Emilia said, “…Once again, you’re not saying anything.”
Her cold, hard voice battered his eardrums. It sounded like despair—like she’d given up. The uncharacteristic anger, the surge of sadness within her chest that had no outlet—what could he do about them? Even if he tried to tell her how he really felt, she wasn’t listening to him anymore. And if he tried to tell her everything, that accursed shadow would get in his way to stop him.
He asked, “Why…don’t you understand…?”
“…Subaru.”
“I thought, you… You of all people would understand…”
“The me inside your head is really something, isn’t she?”
That one sentence was filled with enough distance and isolation to make him cry.
When Subaru lifted his face, astounded, Emilia averted her eyes and faced away from him.
He wondered whom the lonely smile that came over her lips was meant for…him, or her?
She continued, “She understands it, all of it, without even having to ask. Your pain, your sadness, your anger—she feels all of them as her own.”
“……Huh?”
“—If you don’t say it, I can’t understand, Subaru.”
He’d been rejected. He’d been smashed to bits. His illusion crumbled into dust.
The one thing he truly thought he could believe in since falling into that world vanished.
“I…”
He’d risked his life, endured the pain of being bitten all over, wiped away his tears and surpassed them, all to continue to protect the idol he had erected in his mind.
And so, his arbitrary utopia, one that had never existed, crumbled without a sound.
His lips quivered. His eyes were hot inside. His tongue was twitching. His heartbeats were so fierce he could hear them.
“Everything…I’ve done…”
He lifted up his face and met Emilia’s violet eyes. They were filled only with sadness. When he saw his own face reflected there, it was truly pitiful and beyond salvation.
He raised up his shrill voice in anger, so much that the room seemed to shake with it.
“—You got this far because of me, didn’t you?! Like at the loot cellar when your crest got stolen! I saved you from that uber-dangerous serial killer! I put my body on the line! All because you’re important to me!!”
His fingertips trembled as they gripped the sheets. His nails dug into his palm and slowly drew blood. He continued, enumerating every deed to his credit that he could think of as he tried to chase after her shadow, far in the distance.
“Like at the mansion! I barely hung on there! My skull got cracked, my head went flying, but everyone in the village got saved anyway, didn’t they?! And things turned out the best way possible with Ram and Rem, I’m sure of it! That’s because I was there, right?!”
The fact that he had saved everyone at the loot cellar, and at the mansion—all that had been possible because of him. These were the deeds Subaru ought to be proud of, and rewarded for. He’d come that far. He’d done so much. He added, “You have to owe me something for everything I’ve done for you—!!”
He shouted because the meaning of all his actions, and the thoughts behind them, had been refuted. Subaru’s vainglorious search for praise, his gnawing desire for satisfaction, and his egotistical wish to be wanted, had been the unconscious extremes that had led him down his path.
And all were summed up in a single, defining word.
With a halting, shaky voice, Emilia said to Subaru, who was breathing roughly with sweat on his brow, “…Right.”
Her words had a tone of acceptance, of resignation, of resolve—in other words, it was the end.
“Subaru, I owe you a huge, incredible debt for many things you’ve done, so…”
“Yeah, that’s right. That’s why I—”
“So I’ll repay it all to you. Then we can end this.”
Her statement, incredibly clear, raised Subaru’s face like he’d been kicked. And when he saw that Emilia’s gaze was even hollower than before, he realized that his hasty words should never have been spoken.
In a childish tantrum, he had trampled even his purest thoughts underfoot, throwing it all away.
“—That’s enough, Subaru Natsuki.”
If the relationship between them was only about repaying favors, that relationship would end as soon as the debt was repaid.
That was the only conclusion the situation could reach, now that he’d tallied up the things he’d done in the hope of giving her something without the slightest thought of a reward.
Ever since their first, intimate encounter, she had called Subaru by his first name. He understood all too late that he could not recover the affection he had lost.
She stated, “Rem will come later. Do as she says. Everything else, I will arrange afterward, so…”
He couldn’t even reply. Nor was there anything he could ask of her.
Emilia began to walk, putting distance between them—physical distance, but an emotional distance that was far greater. In that moment, Subaru lacked the courage to reach his fingers toward her back, or even to watch her as she left.
When Emilia reached for the door, she abruptly stopped and murmured.
“I…”
She spoke in a soft voice, like she wanted to say it less to Subaru than to herself.
“…got my hopes up. I thought, just maybe, you…you wouldn’t give me special treatment, Subaru. I thought you could look at me like an ordinary person, like an ordinary girl, the same as any other…”
This was the girl that had demanded fair treatment in the chamber at the royal selection.
The fact she was a half-elf must have caused her intense and prolonged suffering for her wish for something so meager. But…
Subaru replied with a faltering, quiet murmur of his own.
“I can’t…do that.”
Emilia hadn’t spoken as though she sought a response. Therefore, Subaru’s own murmur was not a reply, but a statement for his own benefit.
Mulling over Emilia’s words, Subaru weakly and limply shook his head.
“Even if you tossed out every other person in the whole world, I couldn’t do that. I can’t look at you the same as everyone else, I just can’t.”
That, at least, was the unmistakable truth.
He heard the door close. The air became still again.
Left alone in the room, Subaru curled up on top of the blankets, his gaze wandering.
Abruptly, he pulled himself to the corner of the bed. He saw the robe that had fallen on the floor.
He reached out, pulled it close, and embraced it. As he hugged it, he felt like a trace of human warmth remained in it when all others had vanished. Subaru squeezed it against his chest, as if trying to bind that warmth to himself.
—That day, for the first time in that other world, Subaru Natsuki became truly alone.
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