CHAPTER 45: CONDITION FOR THE TEA PARTY
Subaru: “—before.” Eyes closed firm, Subaru grits his teeth in anticipation of the coming fingers of pain. But, Subaru: “...huh?” Nothing happens. Subaru: “...hrm.” Subaru raises his head, stroking his chest to confirm there's nothing strange going on there. Echidna sits opposite him with her legs crossed as she has been, her brows knitting slightly. Subaru hurriedly peers over at her, but there's no obvious changes in her, either. Her breathing, mannerisms, are all normal. Predicting the worst of possibilities, Subaru focuses on her chest region.
Echidna: “I don't know if I can answer to your expectations, but personally I'm not that confident in my chest size. If I were more like Sekhmet or Minerva, I could surely experience the bodily fault so known as back pain. ...Speaking inquisitively, on that factor it's a disappointment.”
Subaru: “...That's not why I'm ogling. No, I mean nevermind that.”
Subaru replies to Echidna's natural flow with his thinking still stopped. He puts his palm to his mouth, frantically getting the emotion out of his near-trembling voice. Subaru: “I... When I die, I go back in time, and re-do the world. I've RETURNED BY DEATH.” Echidna: “I heard. And before that I read. I see, they're definitely rare circumstances.” Says Echidna casually, nodding. But her demeanour in itself is shockingly irregular to Subaru. The pain of the hands, inflicted upon either Subaru himself or upon another, had bound him with unshakable trauma. Thus, attempting to 'TEST' with it was something impossible for him. If Echidna hadn't pushed him along, he probably would've hesitated and not gone through with it. That's how huge this was. But then it so easily just—
Subaru: “Why won't the hand come?”
Echidna: “It almost sounds as if you're disappointed it won't. If so, then it's like you're frustrated you missed the opportunity to kill me, ouch.” Subaru: “You should at least know that's not what I...!” Echidna: “Yes, I know. Your heart has so little leeway that you're this cornered?” Echidna's casual attitude doesn't falter as she ignores the emotions of a Subaru wavering in shock.
Unable to suppress his irritation for her, Subaru clicks his tongue and sharpens his gaze further.
Subaru: “Answer clearly. You—no matter how many times I say 'I've RETURNED BY DEATH', that hand... the Witch's hand won't come? I can think that?” Echidna: “Then you understand it's the Witch's hand. ...Yes, you can. This is my dream, my castle.
My fantasy during my death. Nobody can trespass without my permission.” Subaru: “Can you assure that?” Echidna: “Certainly cautious. —I do assure it. The witches capable of existing here are GREED,
GLUTTONY, LUST, PRIDE, WRATH, and SLOTH only. There's no room for ENVY to cut in.”
Subaru holds his breath, and after a short period, strength leaves him. His shoulders fall, he lowers his face, and gives a long, long sigh. Subaru: “Right... right, ri... right...” Covering his face with his hands, Subaru repeats the word over and over. In confirmation, grasping, clinging. After all, this was the first time he had ever been freed from the witch's fingers, and able to speak about the taboo.
Echidna: “You sure make some pretty emotional expressions.” Says Echidna as she watches endless waves of emotion toss Subaru about. She passes her finger through her hair.
Echidna: “That's just how much it's been tormenting you, would be the situation. With a love that intractable pointed at you, that's also kinda inevitable.” Subaru: “Sorry, I'm just a little overwhelmed. I'll calm down. ...Okay. Calmed down. Calmed down, and now there's some things I want to talk about. Piles of things I want to talk about.”
The restraints on talking about RETURN BY DEATH aren't in operation. It comes with a feeling of liberation—of a ray of hope cutting into this constrained stalemate. HOWEVER Echidna: “There's something you're misunderstanding.”
Subaru: “—?” Echidna: “Indeed the witch-hand binding you can't intervene in this castle of mine. So I do understand your heart's jubilation at getting to disclose secrets you couldn't reveal to others. But you know... whether I lend you an ear, or say conveniently assist you, or offer you advice on these circumstances of yours, would be a completely separate problem?”
Subaru: “wh...” Subaru shuts his mouth, Echidna looking as if what she said was completely normal. Subaru can't hide his confusion and discouragement at her unexpected reaction. His gaze putters about as unintelligible little mutters slips from his mouth. The light he saw, the liberation he anticipated, had escaped from his side. What should he do? He didn't know. Echidna: “Seeing you looking like an abandoned child does trouble me. I didn't mean to make that tricky of a demand.” Expression troubled, Echidna tilts her head as she taps her finger on the table thrice. Subaru's gaze follows the path of her settled finger—to the untouched cup set before him.
Echidna: “You were invited to a witch's tea party. If you're planning to have a lively conversation over tea, shouldn't you first prove you accepted the invitation?” Subaru: “...underst—anding is hard with you, you know.”
Echidna: “I thought I pointed this out extraordinarily clearly right at the beginning, though.” Thinking back on it Echidna did voice some dissatisfaction at Subaru getting all excited and not reading the tea party mood. Although you could call her revenge for that just a little bit too mean.
Subaru: “Understood, fuck!” Subaru snatches the cup off the table and downs the amber bodily fluids in one go. Although time was supposed to have passed since the cup was laid out, the insides are still a good temperature— truly, befitting of a witch's tea party. He gulps it down faster than he can taste it. He wipes away the droplets at his lips. Subaru: “There, drank it all. Now're you interested in accepting me as a member of the tea party?” Echidna: “Drink my body fluids so vigorously, and... yup, I'm flushed.” Subaru: “EeuGHhh I forgot—!” Subaru again trips the Chidna Tea Trap which caught him before. He puts his hand to his mouth trying to bear the nausea as Echidna looks at him cheerily. She smiles. Echidna: “You're accepted.” Echidna: “With your inquiry of 'why' as the qualifier, you have opened the door to the tea party. And in drinking tea presented by a witch, you are an outstanding participant. As head of the tea party, it is my obligation to welcome you. —Now, please do ask.” Echidna gives a small clap, curiosity blazing in her eyes. Echidna: “Since addling brains to produce an answer, as far as I'm concerned, is rapture.”
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
—The tea party, or perhaps better said the QA session, begins. Subaru: “The agent for my RETURN BY DEATH... would be the Witch of ENVY, right?” Echidna: “That understanding's more or less correct. Though, since I haven't observed you die, I wouldn't know the mechanism behind RETURN BY DEATH. And since you can't lose your life in this castle of mine, that condition's not being fulfilled.”
Subaru: “There's no dying here?” Echidna: “This is a fleeting dream, a temporary perch for the mind alone. Do you think that when you die in nightmares you also die in reality?”
Subaru: “Do sorta feel if the dream's really horrific you could die of shock...”
Lots of fictional works have premises where you if you die in a dream you die in real life. Taking them as precedents, Subaru figures it wouldn't be too weird for deaths in a witch's mental realm to connect back to the flesh, but.
Subaru: “Well, it's weird to insist that you should die after being told you won't. Anyway, I can be an idiot here without worrying about dying.”
Echidna: “If your mind is shredded apart before returning to your body, you still might end up as an invalid.”
Subaru: “Being a living corpse's the same as being dead... but the part where there's no RETURNING BY DEATH makes that condition the worse!”
Subaru had once come to the verge of mental breakdown during the loops in the Capital. Was he running on self-preservation instinct, or just pretending his ego had broken? Even now he wasn't entirely sure which, but either way, he regained himself out of rage. That said Subaru senses that if his mind breaks here, it won't be something shock therapy can cure.
Subaru: “Really have to decline a condition where you can't willingly choose the timing of your death. ...Though of course what's really best is not to die.”
Echidna: “The ability to consider DEATH as a tool for procuring your conditions to victory is something even I'm uncertain of my stance towards. Not even I have observed my own DEATH, and I can't amass it in my store of knowledge.”
Subaru: “...? But you're dead and a ghost, wouldn't you remember your death?”
Echidna: “Not quite. My body, the vessel for my soul, is indeed dead and gone. But, my soul was sealed by Volcanica before it could meet death.”
Subaru: “...Basically, your body died but your soul didn't. Since your substance has never died, it's a little different from actually experiencing DEATH?”
Echidna: “That'd be it. And while this is probably an inconsiderate thought, I'm jealous of your situation. The ability to observe my own death—and not even just once, given multiple times to savour it—surely wouldn't be permitted to me.”
Subaru: “...depending how you hear it that line was some crazy masochism. You know, I have never been able to feel good while welcoming death even once.”
Subaru's actions have ended in DEATH before, and far as he's concerned all those ends amounted to was proof he had failed to achieve his goal. His aversive feelings toward DEATH weren't weakening, and hadn't changed since even before he'd experienced it. Although he wouldn't deny that he'd gotten somewhat accustomed to, and was capable of, facing it.
Echidna: “Your DEATH allows you to re-do. Well, this power forbidding you the peace of DEATH is almost unmistakably a thing of ENVY. When did you notice?”
Subaru: “I've had lots of people thoroughly tell me things implying there was a connection. I sincerely have no memory of meeting face-to-face with the Mighty Green-Eyed Witch before... But when the name's coming up just everywhere, I can at least imagine that maybe that's the HAND MODEL who keeps showing up.”
Two arms, and the faint outline of a body Subaru had come to see in the form of a black shadow. Although inflicting pain on Subaru when he spoke the forbidden words, it also acted lovingly toward him. Pain, love, it was sadistic spuriousness that Subaru was not grateful for in the slightest.
Subaru: “I've got no clue why she's so bothered like that about someone she's never met. ...Do you know?”
Echidna: “Now, just who could say. It wouldn't just be me, I doubt there's anyone out there who could comprehend her mindset. Even if I hypothetically could, I'd decline.”
Subaru: “For someone who wants to know everything in this world, you're pretty unsparing toward the Witch of ENVY. Er, or if you consider the damage she did maybe that's normal.”
Even the knowledgeable and transcended Witch of GREED can't escape from her feelings. Subaru can't help feeling sort of hopeless about that.
Echidna: “Looks like you're overestimating me. I might be a witch, but I started as a human. I can't escape from my emotions, or my likes and dislikes, or from the strengths and weaknesses of who I interact with. Though, I'll brag that my permissible range is pretty big compared to the other witches.”
Subaru: “Well you say you have endless interest in others, and if you're fussy about people's preferences you won't get to peacefully satisfy your curiosity.”
Echidna: “That's right. So I'm capable of pardoning most beings. No matter how unsightly and vulgar the being is, there's reason for me to endeavour to understand its mindset. That is, to satisfy my want to know everything. But.”
Echidna cuts herself off, her expression changing as she lowers her head slightly. For the first time her mouth twists in clear displeasure—and anger.
Echidna: “That Witch of ENVY's the exception. I'm not pardoning her, or endeavouring for her. I have never, between the time I was alive, time I've been dead, and my glimpses of the MEMORIES OF THE WORLD, seen a being so unforgivable.”
Subaru: “...That's not just coming from being killed. With that anger.”
Echidna: “Death doesn't hold that much significance to me. When you consider that I'm here like this. Just, she did something I consider more unbearable than that. I believe every action out there is an effort taken to procure results, but... even so, I will absolutely never accept it.”
She says gloomily, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Just by that, all omens of rage vanish from her face, and up bubbles her usual observing smile.
Echidna: “Let's not talk about the witch. I have conjectures regarding the principles of your RETURN BY DEATH, but nothing definite.” something something and that's a problem that won't influence your death at all. “Do you maybe have questions on anything except its origins?”
Subaru: “Except its origins...”
Having the root of RETURN BY DEATH so easily affirmed actually makes Subaru wind up deliberating. Putting the machinations of its originator aside, Subaru was aware he was helpfully using the power of this authority housed in him, or otherwise being used. Loathe to say it, but without this power, there were multiple outcomes Subaru wouldn't have procured. And he'd most lively have to rely on it again in the future. Thus,
Subaru: “—Do you think my power RETURN BY DEATH has limited uses?”
Echidna: “Hrm... I see. That's a natural question to reach, knowing you can re-do by DEATH.”
As far as Subaru can remember off-hand, he's already died 16 times in this world.
All of them were agonizing and filled with loss, but in having them, Subaru returned and redid the world. That said, even after having acquired desired results, DEATH always came with the terror that this one might really be the last time.
Exactly because it was a world he couldn't get through without this power, losing it would give him a feeling of powerlessness. Until the instant that RETURN BY DEATH hit, Subaru wouldn't know whether he would end or not.
Echidna: “This is incredibly nothing more than my speculation, is how I'll preface this. I have some broad predictions on the principles of your RETURN BY DEATH. I'd first like your permission to talk going off those estimations.”
Subaru: “...Sure, please tell me.”
Echidna: “Your RETURN BY DEATH. We'll assume that it's under a fixed limitation, but the limit on tries is—”
Subaru swallows his breath. The few seconds between that last word and the next feel like an eternity.
Echidna: “—most likely, none.”
Subaru goes silent.
Echidna: “There is no end for you in DEATH. You're permitted to die how many times you want, decay as many times you want, your soul going back in time to re-do events until you defeat the fate that brought about the DEATH. No matter how brutally killed, or how broken your mind and body are, too.”
Hearing Echidna's theory, Subaru's head fills with complete blankness. If that blankness was a baptism, then the next thing to begin filling his emptied head was—
Subaru: “—I, see.”
A quiet acceptance of reality, and a frantic attempt to control his body's trembling.
He puts his hand to his mouth, lowers his head, and closes his eyes. He's not out of sorts, but there's no visible relief at finding out RETURN BY DEATH is unlimited, either. Echidna's brows furrow.
Echidna: “You don't look nearly as surprised as I thought.”
Subaru says nothing.
Echidna: “As far as I'm concerned... no, as anyone is concerned, the ability to overturn the finality of DEATH should be something exceedingly huge. And that's without touching on your powerlessness, while the obstacles in your way are overly severe. I kinda thought you'd react more.”
Subaru: “Sorry for the bad reaction, and not answering your expectations... but...”
Infinite retries OK—was one of the optimistic theories Subaru had already made about RETURN BY DEATH. Thus having someone else affirm it doesn't absolutely surprise him. Doesn't, but,
Subaru: “I'm not going to be a complete moron immediately swallowing that down going I CAN DIE AS MUCH AS I WANT!? THIS LIFE IN A PARALLEL WORLD IS EASYMODE!”
Echidna: “You already figured my speculation and saw ahead. Surprisingly, seems you're a quicker thinker than I thought. We'll leave aside whether that's a good or bad thing.”
Subaru: “Every time I RETURN BY DEATH... or saying more, every time I try to reveal the truth and feel the Witch's presence near me, I can tell that black shadow is coming closer.”
The first shadow Subaru saw when he voiced the forbidden words was a single arm touching his heart. But every time he repeated that action, the visible parts of the shadow steadily became more and more distinct, and now he could faintly see its entire body. What would happen from now on, if the shadow's form became even clearer?
Subaru: “My limit on RETURN BY DEATH is hit once it takes definite form. Once that shadow becomes real, I don't think I'll be able to reject it.”
Echidna: “Hrm, and your basis for this?”
Subaru: “Gut.”
Echidna's eyes snap open wide. Subaru rests his elbow on the table, hand on chin, looking up at Echidna.
Subaru: “It's really a feeling only people who've met the shadow can understand. If there was anyone except me who understood it...”
It'd probably just be Betelgeuse.
Subaru's chest gives an emotional twinge. Echidna narrows her eyes as if peering into Subaru, but immediately gives a shrug.
Echidna: “That I can't understand this feeling of yours is bothering me, but that does generally accord with my speculation. Your RETURN BY DEATH has no limit. However, that is set under fixed conditions.”
Subaru: “Fixed, conditions?”
Echidna: “What causes you to RETURN BY DEATH is a witch's spurious delusions. So long as the root of those delusions remains unsundered, meeting the end is forbidden to you.”
Subaru: “Root of delusions... meaning?” Echidna: “Killing the witch who's so attached to you, or the witch's love for you running dry... Though from what I've seen, you could call either one the ultimate in difficulty.”
Slaying the Witch of ENVY—the 400-year wish of the world that not even the Dragon, Sage, and Sword Saint's cooperation had managed to grant. This Witch of ENVY, who coated half the world in shadow, was not completely killed and instead sealed. What Echidna's saying means surpassing this laudable achievement.
Subaru: “Feels like going for love running out'd be so much easier...” Echidna: “Can't you just kinda tell that that is absolutely not going to happen?” Subaru goes silent. Echidna: “There's that feeling that only you understand, having met the witch's shadow. But me, knowing what that thing used to be like, inevitably has to think so.”
Echidna's expression is disgusted. Seems this antagonism toward the Witch of ENVY is so deep-rooted that it intensified over these 400 years, rather than lessened. Unable to completely deny what Echidna's saying, Subaru gives a sigh out his nose and leans back on the chair. Just like Echidna said, Subaru sees no hope of the Witch of ENVY letting him go.
He had also never thought he'd be loved this blindly by a person whose face he didn't know and who he had never really met. And by someone who literally destroyed half the world. Echidna: “You sure accept things easily.” Subaru: “—Huh?” Echidna: “Saying this's something, but all we've been talking about is a bundle of my speculation. I can't show basis for it, and I figured this'd be far too little material for you to just believe it.”
Echidna closes an eye, apparently perplexed that Subaru swallowed down her opinions so easily. Well, yes, agrees Subaru. Subaru's only known her a short while, and more importantly she's a WITCH. Considering that point alone, it would be no exaggeration to say there is not a single thing about her to inspire trust. But, Subaru: “That's also my gut.” Echidna: “...Gut.” Subaru is aware that there is a part of him vaguely thinking that if Echidna says something, it's probably believable. Maybe because she was someone who inspired belief that she paid respect to knowledge. Although Subaru'd also noticed many times the defect where her thirst for knowledge went too far and got into tastelessness or gossip.
Subaru: “Ignoring that, you're probably not lying—is how I'm thinking.” Echidna: “...Is that also your gut?” Subaru: “Yeah. Gut. Though, it's the gut of a guy who's died sixteen times, so the argument'd end by just calling it unreliable.”
Scratching his head, Subaru eases the atmosphere with a self-deprecating joke. Echidna holds her breath, then reaches for a cup on the table, brings it to her lip, wets her tongue. Echidna: “You might just have a talent for flirting with witches.” For the first time, the smile she gives looks something earnest.
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