CHAPTER 50: DISTANT ROAR
The ocean of shadow, pitch-black love, surges onward with Subaru and Garfiel as the targets.
Subaru, upon a great tree's trunk and somehow grasping a branch, has no means to escape. He glances over at Garfiel beside him, to find—
Subaru: “Garfiel!?”
—him having let go of the branches, and hurtling in freefall to contact the ground. The shadow-encroached earth moves to pull in his feet. But Garfiel heedless swings his arms down, thrusting them into the ground, both hands and feet touching the floor,
Garfiel: “'F th' shadow ain't swallowed it yet, how 'bout this hrraaaAHHH!!”
Roaring, Garfiel swings his arms up. The shadowed ground—mere moments before consumption—consequently overturns in a tableflip of incredible proportions.
Clods of dirt whorl into the air alongside the massive noise of upturned earth, charging at the shadow. The supposedly massless shade struggles with the impact for only a moment—before swallowing the earth-storm just as it did the house, and resultantly escalating. The wave of shadow compounds in height, length, saturation. The more it consumes, the more wicked the shade becomes—however, the manoeuvre does birth the slightest delay.
Garfiel: “Yer gonna get left behind 'f yer don't get down quick!”
Subaru: “Uoawuagh—”
Subaru stares dumbstruck at the spectacle, when a sudden impact knocks him from his perch in the treetops and sends him plummeting to the ground. The instant before the crash, Garfiel's outstretched hand nabs him at the waist, lurching him to a stop. Flustered, and aware of what happened, Subaru,
Subaru: “Y-you didn't need to kick me down!”
Garfiel: “Yer judgement's slow. Seems th' thing's attached t' you. Nevermind my amazin' self, you get caught n' yer swallowed n' over in a second.”
Still gripping Subaru, Garfiel jerks his chin at the intensifying shadow as he gives a ferocious laugh. Subaru follows Garfiel's gaze to beyond the wave, to the root of the shadow—to the vague outline of a person with their arms stretched, reaching for him wholeheartedly.
Envy: “IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIl oveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou—”
The voice is muffled and distance separates them, yet Subaru still hears it as if whispered into his ear. The abnormality of it, practically insinuating the range between them means nothing while ignoring the laws of physics, sickens Subaru. Watching this shadow, and having this strong, black passion aimed at him, what wells up in
Subaru's heart is entirely repulsion and discomfort, both unbearable.
That thing was what let him RETURN BY DEATH, and in some sense his benefactor. But no. He wouldn't accept it. His soul rejected it viscerally. If it was between the shadow's embrace and jumping into the White Whale's mouth, he'd prefer the whale.
Subaru: “Garfiel, what do we do!”
Garfiel: “Backing off's all we got! Even Roswaal ain't dependable here. And Ram and granny... and everyone else, there's no thinkin' they could've resisted that shadow.”
Garfiel clicks his fangs, speaking ruefully. Unlike Subaru, Garfiel had directly witnessed the shadow swallow up Ram, Lewes, and his other close relations. Subaru couldn't possibly imagine how deeply the killings impacted Garfiel. Although, being that he harboured loathsome memories of Garfiel, seeing him in grief was a far too complex situation for Subaru.
Subaru: “—!”
Presuming the writhing shadow a giant hand, its fingers abruptly reach out for Subaru and Garfiel. Garfiel evades at the last second, still holding Subaru, with a backstep. He treads onto ground barely invaded by shadow—if they open distance between themselves and the silhouette standing in the eye, they'll apparently avoid immediate submersion in the bottomless bog.
Subaru: “We can back off but things'll still be getting worse... what happened to your attacks?”
Garfiel: “Can't break through the shadow dress. Different story 'f I get a full-power hit in, but I ain't able t'make a chance for doin' it.”
One leap backwards sends them shooting between the gaps among the trees as they have this exchange. Their speed is enough to leave the shadow behind on the other side of the forest, but they can't shake off this shadow which is supposed to be pursuing them slowly. Perhaps this unsuppressable closeness was the shadow's authority or something. And the abnormalities were not over yet.
Garfiel: “...Shit.”
Garfiel spits, growling in irritation. His shoulders sway with ragged breathing. Great loads of sweat rise on his brow, his state uncomfortably different from normal.
Fatigue from carrying Subaru's weight—was not the issue. Subaru furrows his brows at Garfiel's situation. Seeing Subaru's reaction, Garfiel clicks his tongue.
Garfiel: “Body's heavy. —Shadow's fuckin' stealin' life from what's around.”
Subaru: “The shadow under us is!?”
Panicked at Garfiel's response, his feet not touching the floor as he sways in Garfiel's grip, Subaru looks down—and shivers at the endless range the shaded ground encompasses. And excessively belated, Subaru truly realises the threat the shadow presents.
Subaru: “No way—”
—The forest was shrinking.
The trees of the forest surrounding Sanctuary were tall, boasting a canopy thick enough to conceal the moon and stars. That forest sky, right now, was plainly visible. It wasn't that the trees were felled, or the leaves burned away. The foliage stands properly and as usual, the leaves rustling in the wind.
—The forest was low enough that, if Subaru jumped, his head would likely emerge from the treetops.
Subaru: “The forest's sinking!?”
Garfiel: “'S what'll happen 'f yer ain't keepin' moving. 'Said, 's gettin' stronger more it eats, too!”
The threat of a shadow engulfing all of SANCTUARY compounds, the blackness beginning on swallowing the entire forest. Front back left right, no matter where Subaru looks there isn't anywhere untouched by shadow. They could cross the barrier, leave the forest, and it still seemed there'd be no end to it.
The unforeseen development, and the sudden appearance of the Witch of ENVY. With those two matters robbing his attention, Subaru had misread the threat this opponent presented. This was the Witch of ENVY—the one who swallowed half the world, whose aftermarks of terror still gouged thick, the utmost of calamities.
Subaru: “There's no way this could actually escalate into covering half the world tier, right...?”
Garfiel: “Story's around that it swallowed a whole country. 'F yer gonna laugh the thing off, ya haveta not know that first.”
Garfiel laughs in agreement with Subaru's imaginings. The deep weariness in Garfiel's expression results from the negative influence the witch's shadow fostered, the acceleration of the shade's consumption, and the intensifying feeling of sinking into the ground. His feet submerge on every step of the sprint, each footfall rapidly requiring more energy than the last. Although, speaking plainly, if he was alone, Garfiel could probably escape.
Subaru: “Garfiel, I'm who it's aiming for. So...”
Garfiel: “If yer gonna fuckin' say 'drop me', my fangs're gonna be bitin' off yer fingers digit by digit.”
Subaru's speechless. But he immediately shakes off the feeling and glares at Garfiel's sweat-soaked face.
Subaru: “This isn't the time to be saying that! We're both going to be eaten like this! If I face it, I should manage to buy even just a little time. In that opening...”
Garfiel: “I run? Or call goddamn Roswaal over? Y'know the first thing th' shadow went for was the village centre. ...Th'villagers and the evacuees, and Roswaal... they're all eaten.”
Subaru: “—. Y-you're positive on that?”
Garfiel: “More th'n what you seen, th' shadow's eaten all of SANCTUARY. 'Less everyone just happened 't be out n' the woods fer some stargazin', it's positive.”
Garfiel speaks with no emotion, the divergence from his usually-overemotional attitude supporting his words as truth. If it wasn't just the evacuees and citizens, but even Roswaal who got eaten, the situation is nothing but dire.
Being that Garfiel's primary means of attack is close-range brawling, his combat affinity against the long-range attacker Witch of ENVY is horrid. Although if Roswaal or Ram, the long-distance attackers on their side, had been around, they probably could've utilized both near and far attacks to get hits in.
Subaru: “Which means without you there's even less ways to oppose it...”
Garfiel: “And granny! And Ram! And everyone else, all of them eaten!”
Subaru: “—!”
Garfiel: “And you're gonna tell me to abandon even you to it too and shame myself? …Never, ever, ever. PURARAGURARA SCARS STAY UNFADING 's sayin', 'm never going to be satisfied 'less I bash that thing up!!”
Howls Garfiel, baring his fangs. His expression hosts unending rage aimed at the shadow—and that there perhaps seemed something more there, was probably just a mistaken impression of Subaru's. His precious ones stolen from him, yet his heart howling in more than just fury—if Garfiel was such a person, then—
Subaru: “Then why's it that with everyone, you...”
Why was it that with everyone, you killed them? Garfiel as well knew the pain of pillaging and the anguish of loss. Entirely emotions of empathy. But so why had he committed to such a cruel deed?
Garfiel couldn't have understood what Subaru's strangled question meant. He wordlessly tightens his grip on Subaru, signalling his lack of intent to leave him behind. The shadow's pace of consumption having accelerated, Garfiel puts more force in his steps to escape, leaping forward, forward, flying out of the forest.
Subaru, unsure of how to behave toward the encroaching threat and toward Garfiel, raises his head in surprise at the sudden opening of his visual field. They've shot out of the sinking forest, into a clearing. The density of shadows here remains low—with naked earth and short grass, though the biggest shock for Subaru is—
Subaru: “—Wha!?”
Garfiel tosses Subaru onto the turf the same moment Subaru spots it. Tumbling across the ground, Subaru scrapples his fingers into the earth to kill momentum, coming to a stop and shaking his head. His urge to mention the thing he saw beats out his urge to state his displeasure about being thrown. The seen thing in question being,
Subaru: “Why is Lewes-san...?”
Standing in front of Subaru is a pink-haired girl—or so she appears, but her insides are that of the aged. Indeed, it is Lewes. Seeing her standing there with her blank gaze in the back of the clearing makes Subaru tremble. After all, Garfiel had just told him Lewes had been swallowed.
This is not coinciding. If considering which information to believe, it would have to be the reality what exists before him. Meaning, all of the conversation they just had was perhaps a lie.
Subaru: “Garfiel, what is the...”
Garfiel: “...Don't jump't conclusions. I know yer got things you wanna say 'n ask, but there ain't any time.” something something this is how deep in we're getting
Cutting off Subaru's questioning with a swing of his arm, Garfiel directs his gaze about the surroundings. He lifts back his chin, faces the sky, takes in a deep breath,
Garfiel: “—σσσσσȠ!” and he howls, not at a volume to spear through the forest, yet mysteriously quiet in a way that does spear absolutely through the forest. Hearing it prompts Subaru to have the situation-inappropriate thought of 'guy can do some animal mannerisms', but the thing that really stupefies him is seeing the howl's outcome.
Subaru: “—!?”
Silhouettes come shuffling through the foliage, arriving one after another at the clearing. All of them are short, with hair long enough to nearly drag along the ground. Pink hair, pale skin, emotionless, round eyes. They wear robes unfitting to their sizes, the sleeves overlong and dangling. Apparently wearing little beneath the robe, for their legs are bare as they peek through the unclosing slits.
The silhouettes total something close to 20 in number. Taking up half the space in the clearing as they stand there, all the girls wear the same face. Not the same expression. —The same face.
Subaru: “What kind of, joke is...”
Garfiel: “Didn't want t' show yer if I could help it.”
Garfiel's pained mutter doesn't reach a jolted Subaru's ears. Or no, it does reach them, but the meaning doesn't settle in his brain.
The scene of these same-faced girls—these people exactly identical to Lewes—standing there together makes Subaru feel as if he's dreaming. And actually Subaru had had nightmares like this many times. The urge strikes him to file this one away as another one of those. But,
Subaru: “The scratches from the branches hurt, and my heart too... It's reality.”
Checking the blood oozing from his arms, and the sharp, rapid pulsations in his chest, Subaru takes a deep breath. Steadying the resolve to accept the scene before him, he again observes the girls.
The Lewes-faced girls not only shared exactly the same facial features, but perfectly identical expressions. That is, an emotionless, unmoved, doll-like expression. The Lewes that Subaru knew wasn't exactly someone overflowing with activity, but she was abundant in emotion, and her actions breathed with the feeling of a living human being.
Subaru: “—”
Subaru can't sense the characteristic feeling of a living person in these girls. Doll-like, was an expression more than appropriate. Could even just call them dolls. They breathed, and carried the rhythms of life, but were merely moving dolls—that was the abnormality of these twenty same-faces, all lined up.
Subaru: “Clones... or, this world isn't gonna have that technology. Offshoots, or magic to create multiple bodies...? But then why are they all Lewes...”
With the words 'somatic cell cloning' drifting through his mind, Subaru realises something. That is, why Echidna had been vague with her words about SANCTUARY being a test site, and why Garfiel had repeatedly and repeatedly cursed the place as deadlocked.
Subaru: “Is this the result from SANCTUARY's tests...? Doubles of Lewes-san. No but, what's even the point of...”
Garfiel: “Sorry f'r this while yer in th' middle of ponderin', but looks like now's 'bout time.”
Having approached to the side of a Subaru engaging in high-speed thinking, Garfiel's arms swell up. The bulging of his golden-furred arms rips through the sleeves of his clothes, arms now three times their usual size in thickness. Ancestral Return—assuming Garfiel's true form was a tiger, this partial transformation would be the first step in asserting his trump card.
Garfiel: “Surround n' conquer. 'S simple, but with everythin' else eaten that's all's left.”
Subaru: “...I more or less get what your ace move is, but, erm, the girls...”
Garfiel: “Dunworry 'bout 'em. They ain't like granny, their insides're empty. But they c'n still manage movin' accordin' to my instructions. 'F they can make an openin', 's a profit.”
Subaru has an overwhelming number of things to ask about this fight strategy and about these Lewes double. But no time remains for brining it up, or for peaceful conversation.
Garfiel uses his great arms to push Subaru further back into the clearing. Pitching forward as he follows the rough instruction, the Leweses come to stand in front before him protectively. Garfiel now stands in the middle of the clearing. Behind him are the Leweses, and at the very back is Subaru. And swallowing up the forest of trees Garfiel is glaring at is,
Envy: “IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIl oveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIlov eyouIloveyou”
Sliding in slowly, the shade's words of love drown out and flow over the forest.
The unceasing revulsion and the ringing of a danger alarm fire incessantly through Subaru's skull. The witch-shadow raises what is probably where its head is, catching sight of Subaru in its vision.
Envy: “—”
Subaru witnesses it when the shadow's movements adopt a blatant and delighted kind of pulsating. Helix of shade churning with forest trees, broken treetrunks snapping to bits, the love-whispering shadow steps closer.
The spreading murk violates the meadow-clearing, turning the ground jet-black in the space of an instant. Everything here would more than likely, just as the forest had, now soon sink into the shadow. Meaning that if Garfiel had any chance of winning, it would have to be taken in the moment before the shadow began swallowing the clearing, aka now, in this very instant.
Garfiel: “—GGHRRRAAAAAAAAAA!!”
Facing to the heavens, Garfiel's throat gives rise to a thundering roar. The violent vibrations splitting through the air petrify Subaru to his guts with instinctive terror. Subaru petrified, Garfiel transforms not only his arms but his legs into those of a beast, slamming his foot to the ground with all the power he can muster.
The earth bursts in an onward surge, the land under Garfiel's foot as the fulcrum, flipping up the witch-invaded ground like a seesaw and sending the shadow flying. A reenactment of when Garfiel and Subaru first met, and he overturned Patrasche, and the carriage, and the ground all in one shot.
With the shadow launched into the air and lost on where is up and down, Garfiel lowers his posture, gets on all fours, howling as he spurs his transformation further ahead.
His clothing bursts apart as it fails to bear his growing mass, turning to scraps caught on his golden fur. His body excels four meters in size, his limbs grow to astounding girth, his mouth fills with rows of sharp, blade-like fangs. It was the materialization of the tiger which had conferred Subaru despair and wrath for the nigh-unpardonable.
Garfiel: “——Ϡ!!”
Roaring, the wicked beast tears through the air as it plunges for the shadow. The ground caves in where the beast had stood, tiger plummeting through space at a speed sickening considering its massive size. He opens his jaws, fangs capable of shredding metal closing in on the slender shadow's waist—
Envy: “—”
—is when a shade stretches up and catches the tiger from below in its hold. Lost of momentum, the tiger remains stuck in the air, throat trembling as he shrieks.
Blood sprays from the tiger's entangled limbs, shadow practically announcing intent to twist off the beast's legs as it constricts them. Arms as thick as Subaru's waist begin shredding apart with the noise of ripping flesh. Subaru cannot tear his eyes away from the shrieking, immobilized tiger. The shadow proceeds in its assault, plucking away its limbs, guts and bloods spilling to the ground—
Subaru: “—ah,”
—is not what happens. Before the dazed onlooker what was Subaru, two of the Lewes doubles bound into the conflict between the tiger and the Witch. The little girls dash with their mouths open, pointlessly flapping their gabs. They fly out of the shadow with surprising speed, land well on the ground, darting for the witch who gazes up at the restrained tiger.
Subaru: “ue,”
Leweses: “—”
Arms spread, the girls leap at the witch as if to hug her. But the witch notices before the two complete the approach, piercing and sticking them both in place with shadow. The shadow strikes with the pointedness of a spear and flexibility of a whip, slicing the two Leweses' legs, proceeding to skewer them through their torsos, and then dangling them up to the yet-shrieking Garfiel's side in display.
An abominable scene, but that laxness was the Witch's mistake.
Garfiel: “—σσσσȠ!”
Although his throat trembles in agony, Garfiel sights the two doubles so atrociously wounded, and roars in an irregular manner which prompts Subaru's brows to furrow. Confused as to the meaning of the changed tone, Subaru witnesses the hanging Leweses flash with abounding pale light—
Subaru: “—!?”
Leweses: “—”
The next instant, the two Lewes explode into light. It came with none of the unsightly blood and guts of an exploded animal. Their flesh turns to particles of light, dispersing both themselves and the shadow about the surroundings, returning life to the world for only a second. Detonate and disperse—but in a manner different from a gory bombing.
Subaru aggressively rubs at his seared eyes. His vision swiftly returns, allowing him to witness the protective wall of Leweses rushing for the shadow just as the first two had.
The 18 Leweses scatter in all directions, coordinating the variations in their speeds, surrounding the Witch. As if lacking any other means for attack, as if intending to cling to the shadow as the first two attempted, they spread their arms as they dart into the circumference of the shade.
But the doubles move with speed classifiable under the header of 'human being', and their opponent is the utmost of calamities, the Witch of ENVY. Although the surrounding Leweses had separated, the skyward-surging shadow splits at the tip into eighteen shades. Them transforming into sable knives, the 18 Leweses take their respective evasive manoeuvres in counter. But the spears proceed with mocking accuracy to pierce, rend, ravage the Leweses' craniums, torsos, abdomens.
Despite spacing their assaults, all the Leweses fall—and after a single beat, every Lewes explodes into light. The shadow is repelled temporarily, the vortex of shade around the witch vanishing. Garfiel: “—RRRRRRUUUUGHHHAAAAAAAAARRR!”
The torn-ragged tiger would never miss that opening. Freed from his restraints over the Leweses' sudden rush, the great beast bends its legs, roaring, leaping for the shadow's head in the instant following the 18 doubles' dispersion.
The witch erects a wall of shadow to counter the oncoming tiger. But, the tiger strikes the barricade with the silhouette caught in its clawtips—with the concealed Lewes double, blasts the wall apart, rides over the pale light, and sinks its fangs and claws into the shadow.
—He's done it, was how the perfection of it prompted Subaru's conviction.
It was an inhuman deed unrepentantly costing 21 Lewes doubles. Being a direct strike from tiger-form Garfiel's claws, for even a witch survival wouldn't possibly— Envy: “—I love you.” And Subaru's pleading conviction, Envy: “—Subaru-kun.” With an affectionate call and the burst-open corpse of Garfiel, shatters into dust.
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