CHAPTER 71: ENDING LIST
From the shallow, sharp sword-cut on his skin, Subaru's life slowly spills.
The fresh, gushing blood muddies the green grassland, while in front of the violet-haired man, Subaru's body goes into reflexive convulsions. Eyes peeled open wide, foam froths from his lips as he retches incredible loads of blood. The intensity of the bleeding gradually softens, and with a noise of escaping air—
Subaru: <—>
—Subaru clearly understands that his past self has died. It wasn't that his conscious self and past self shared the same senses. But regardless, the vivid sensation of his rended neck echoes without end, even for the consciousness-only Subaru—for the soul-only Subaru.
Julius: “Emilia-sama, I ask you wipe his... wipe Subaru's face clean.”
Emilia: “—”
Julius: “He would desire it not be I, but you. At very least, by your hands.”
Wiping clean his bloodied knightblade and settling it into its scabbard, Julius addresses the stupefied Emilia. At the feet of the fallen, face-up Subaru, the silver-haired girl falls hard to her knees. Her amethyst eyes lack emotion as they refuse to accept reality, and she goes without wiping away the teartracks wetting her cheeks as they glisten under the light.
Seeing this Emilia, a sharp pain gouges yet once again into Subaru's non-existent chest. Emilia's grieving expression takes the punishment he had avoided witnessing, makes it bare its fangs, and scours away at the thoughtless methods he had been using thus far.
Emilia: “Suhba... rhu.”
Her hand slowly creeps to reach for Subaru's bloody face and its spew, her palm softly wiping his dirtied visage. Barehanded, but heedless of the filth, Emilia determines to make Subaru's agony-bent face into something visible. Once she finishes wiping off the blood,
Emilia: “Why? How come Subaru, how come you, this...”
Emilia asks an empty question to someone who will never respond. Neither his ears to listen, nor his mouth to answer, nor his anything at all are functioning. The dead Subaru would not entertain a single word of Emilia's ever again.
Subaru: <—>
As he looks down at the scene, Subaru recalls what the context for this was.
—This was after his second fight with Betelgeux where, unable to break through his possession, Subaru's body was destroyed alongside the madman.
Felis' magic had disrupted the circulation of his internal mana, and with the strain it put on his organs and capillaries, his death could certainly not be called pretty. Blistery rashes blemish his visible skin, and the destruction of the blood vessels in his dimly-open eyes have dyed his whites red. The nosebleed had been enough to coat the lower portion of his face. If Julius hadn't executed him, his death would have been even grislier.
But cleaning his dead face does nothing to save the hearts of those remaining. Especially those who had made it through the fight with the White Whale, and pledged a triumphant return to the Capital following the Sloth battle's end—the dejection and regret on their all faces wrenches the heart.
Wilhelm: “Subaru-dono... I sincerely beg, for your forgiveness...”
Fallen to his knees, Wilhelm bows his head to the dead Subaru. Slayer of all the cultists subordinate to Betelgeux, Wilhlem hangs his head at the battle's outcome, his expression one of tasting something keenly acrid. Equally are the elderly knights of the subjugation squad, some grieving like Wilhelm, others striking out at the ground. Some are even so incredibly emotional that tears spill from their eyes.
Seeing his own death be so mourned silences Subaru. Compared to being shown the post-death events he had attempted not to realise, this impacted Subaru's heart with a pressure potentially even more overwhelming.
Emilia: “How come... even though this happened to you, for me, Subaru, you... why did you?”
Setting her hand on the mute Subaru's cheek, Emilia continues in her fruitless calls. Seeing her grief, Subaru belatedly realises.
In this universe, Subaru hasn't answered Emilia's question. Subaru had not given his sincere answer to the query she posited at the Capital: WHY ARE YOU HELPING ME? And so Emilia does not understand the reason for Subaru's utter devotion.
—While definitively different from the scene he had been shown before, this was nevertheless still the consequence of the irreparable sin Subaru had committed.
Julius: “Perennial tormentors of the world, the Witch Cult—whose vanguard of one, Sloth, has been slain. This constitutes for the world an incredible boon. —However.”
Looking down at Subaru's corpse, Julius raps his fingers against the hilt of his sheathed sword. Over and over, gaps gradually coming to the repeating rhythm.
Julius: “That does not mean I can accept every sacrifice made to achieve this. —I had wished to speak more with you, Natsuki Subaru.”
With that pained mutter, Julius averts his gaze from Subaru's dead face. The Knight looks to the sky, his eyes harbouring gloom.
Julius: “I had wished to call you a friend.”
Julius' weak and murmuring voice is the end to the grassland.
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Again the scene blacks out, and Subaru reawakens with a jolt.
Subaru: “—Dggh, hwa! ...ah, aaaha, aaa!?”
He writhes about, to find himself atop a cold, hard floor. With the mossy stench assaulting his nostrils, the tumbling Subaru focuses entirely on engaging in these pointless actions, attempting to flee from the emotions threatening to whip up a storm in his interior.
What's happening? Is not a thought he reaches. He tumbles, tumbles, his otoliths in pain, torturing his lungs as he wheezes shallow breaths, his consciousness wishing to reduce its allotment spent thinking by even a little, even a hair, to hopefully sink into unconsciousness.
Subaru: “—ugh, guh!”
But even though he attempts to distract himself with these humanity-degrading practices, the moment he crashes into a wall and bounces away, he finds his strategy at a standstill. Pain from his stricken back, and blood oozing from his grazed forehead. He takes ragged breath after ragged breath with his face still pressed to the floor, tears having mysteriously welled up at the corners of his eyes.
—Pathetic. Stupid. Hopeless.
Just how many times, to what extent, would weakness continue to overwhelm Natsuki Subaru? No matter what the circumstances, no matter what the suffering, an unshakeable and unbreakable heart of iron—just what did he need to do to acquire it? So weak, so brittle, and so even until now, Subaru had—
Subaru: “Pretended not to notice, averted my eyes, and the payback... is this..?”
It wasn't that he had never thought of it it. In a corner of Subaru's awareness, not only once, but many times had the possibility come to mind. That the thought never exceeded just a corner was because unconsciously, he had been refusing to investigate the truth, and refusing to consider it.
The existence of universes after Subaru dies—should Subaru think their presence potentially be fact, his way of fighting crumbles beneath his feet. Everything he had thought to save had deserted Natsuki Subaru. Or no, the one doing the deserting was Natsuki Subaru. By abhorrently and selfishly welcoming DEATH, Subaru had deserted multiple universes to escape into new ones.
The worlds left behind by Natsuki Subaru's thoughtless decisions, should they perhaps still exist, would be exactly the scenes Subaru was being shown now.
Subaru: “—You're, kidding me.”
His consciousness once again begins growing distant. Unlike sleepiness, this was a sudden whitening of his consciousness to sequester it from reality.
<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
At his ear, again an unidentifiable voice whispers. Whose voice was that, desperately wonders his fading consciousness—and he notices.
—That was, without any doubt, his very own voice.
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Before the corpse and its pulverised skull, a girl has fallen to her knees.
Fallen from high up, hit with an impact beyond what a fleshy human body could endure, insides of its black-haired head splayed about the ground, a flower of death bloomed in crimson.
Subaru: <—>
This sensation of his consciousness switching states no longer surprises Subaru. After the forced conversion in his consciousness, he had figured this phenomenon would happen. What he hadn't figured was what scene exactly would be presented to his sobered mind, but—
???: “Speaking nonsense to the very end of the end... now, nothing's...”
Fallen to his death, Subaru lies sprawled against the earth. Standing beside him as she spits her statement is a pink-haired girl—Ram. Her usual impeccable grooming is in disarray, the snagged rips and tears in her outfit particularly outstanding. While she consciously attempts to keep her expression blank, some complex emotion and rage still slip though.
An expression lamenting Subaru's death—or actually rather, fury at this outcome. Ram rigorously scratches at her head, then turning back.
Ram: “And was this all conforming to your designs, Beatrice-sama? That you blocked my advance was your...”
Beatrice: “—”
Ram's expression stiffens as she goes to reproach Beatrice, her words cutting off. There before Subaru's corpse, Ram's cerise eyes see Beatrice fallen to her knees. Heedless of the dirtiness to her dress, she sits bare on the ground—witnessing Beatrice's state, unrest jolts Ram's eyes.
Ram: “Beatrice-sama...”
Beatrice: “—Why?”
She murmurs. Paying no mind even to Ram's existence, Beatrice wholeheartedly gazes at the dead Subaru. That from her blue eyes tears are drawing their tracks, even Subaru can see.
—Beatrice was crying. At Subaru's DEATH.
That truth plunged a blade called guilt deep into Subaru's heart. Feeling his non-existent eyes grow hot at the heart-gouging pain, Subaru wishes to immediately dash over to that small, little girl, speak something, anything to her.
The legs, the arms, the mouth, the anything to achieve this, do not exist for him.
Beatrice: “I, at least knew that... you aren't, they... but...”
Her expression vanished, Beatrice mutters almost incoherently as the teardrops continue to fall. Ram seems to have abandoned making any further remarks to Beatrice about her heartbreaking visage. She sighs. At Subaru's corpse and the incredible angle of his bent neck, she directs her scornful gaze.
Ram: “Love, wonderful. —Truly, there's nothing to salvage.”
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<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
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A misty white chill—cold enough to almost freeze the very air—dominates the world.
The frozen forest trees break apart with every gust of the wind, unable to maintain their existence in this mana-wrung environment as they return to dust.
The trees, the towns, the creatures, the world, all turn to thousands of crystalline white particles in the gale, white demise slowly encroaching on the realm.
Subaru: <—>
This time, what Subaru's witnessing is the end of the world. Just like how his consciousness had turned to white, the world attempts to meet a frigid and merciful end. However,
???: “—So, you did come.”
A low voice quakes the air as it bellows, its tone one of agreement. An incredible tremor rocks the earth as the behemoth's downward fall entirely transforms the landscape. Trees snap and topple, the felled things crumbling into snowflakes, the successive shocks morphing the forest into a flatland.
What brought about the destruction of this flattened, frozen woodland was a colossal four-legged beast, coated in grey fur and apparently feline.
Half of the beast's overflowing fangs break, white puffs of air escaping the gaps between the swordlike teeth. With its golden eyes blazing and still collapsed on its side, it turns itself to face frontward. And, trembling nearly convulsively,
Beast: “Frustrating... I knew this would happen, but still there's nothing I can change about it.”
???: “—I've more or less grasped the situation. And so, I find this truly a regret.”
The beast speaks not to winge about its loss, but in intelligent acceptance of the truth. It is a shockingly clear, beautiful voice which responds. Even amid the end of the world, this voice suggests not a single detriment to its owner's vitality or health. Standing tall and standing straight, red hair tousled in the white wind, is a blue-eyed young man.
Man: “Neither Emilia-sama nor Subaru would be anywhere anymore?”
Beast: “Lia is sleeping, eternally. Existing in a world without her carries no value at all. I who failed to protect her, and that man, share the same sin.”
Man: “You are attempting to destroy the world because of this?”
Beast: “I knew I'd be obstructed. But, doing this is what I pledge.”
Unsheathed from its engraved dragon-talon scabbard, the glinting steel points at the snout of the beast—at Puck in his true form—as the sword-wielding SWORD SAINT Reinhardt silently shakes his head. His blue eyes house deep sorrow, and sympathy.
Reinhardt: “I understand your rue. I feel the same thing. But, that does not mean you may use those feelings to lash out at those around you. Your actions, and the outcome of your pledge, will bring chaos to the world. —I am unable to ever allow that.”
Puck: “Because it's unjust?”
Reinhardt: “Yes, because it is unjust. —I am a model of what is just. Sword to rectify error. Consequently, here I shall need to slay you. Great Spirit.”
Nevermind the overwhelming disparity in mass, anyone could tell who had the greater combat strength here. True-form Puck, without managing to discompose Reinhardt's unruffled expression at all, was at death's door. Should the point of the entrenched sword draw a single arc of silver, then by that alone would Reinhardt's blade slice even a spirit in twain. The ferocity of his surging swordcery communicated that fact clearly to the surroundings.
Puck: “—Kh.”
And so, that sound leads Reinhardt to furrow his brows. Even Subaru's consciousness has something arise in his scant emotions coloured with the hue of a question mark.
It's hard to judge just what that short, choppy sound was—as he could not believe that it was what he plainly heard.
Puck: “Kh, kuku... Haha, huhahaha!”
Reinhardt: “—Is there something funny?”
Throat shaking, and on the border of death, Puck's face twists as he bursts into laughter. Not comprehending Puck's motives here, Reinhardt asks his question. But, as if finding Reinhardt's query even more humorous,
Puck: “Is something funny? Incredibly funny, of course it's funny. Reinhardt, you... nah, I mean you don't know anything.”5
Reinhardt says nothing.
Puck: “I just remembered. How things're supposed to be. It's super late understanding. And that I know this, and you still don't, is so amazingly funny I can't stop.”
That statement, including the fact the volume of his voice is different from when in his usual form, is incredibly unlike Puck. This was for Subaru, who had quite a few memories of interacting with the cat-shaped spirit, the first time he had ever seen him speaking to someone with such spite.
5 Puck's form of addressing Reinhardt changes from 'kimi' to 'omae' (assume all Puck's 'you's from this point on are 'omae').
This was different to when Emilia had been killed, and he aimed his loathing at Subaru and Betelgeux. Back then, Puck should've still been Puck. But right now, as he ridicules Reinhardt, he differs from anything Subaru's ever seen from Puck before, as if he were something entirely different—.
Reinhardt: “...I will be safeguarding against any further casualties now. If you're to resent, resent me.”
Puck: “No resenting here, Reinhardt. You're a hero. Heroes have their roles, their deeds, that only heroes can do. With you conforming to that, I'm resenting and faulting nothing.”
Reinhardt: “—”
Puck: “You're a hero, Reinhardt. —A hero is all you can ever be.”
At the end of the end, and accordingly so, this statement is the one spoken with the most spite.
Hearing it through, Reinhardt swings up his sword, and with one flash of swordcery—following the edge of the glinting sword out bursts an incredible wave of energy. It cleaves through the sky, drills through the air, shatters the ground, roils the ambient mana, rending everything which was in the blade's path in two—the light settles, and the sight before Subaru's consciousness slips.
Subaru: <—>
That world, covered in its frigid chill—after the torrential sword-slash settles, it rebirths. The slippage in the world is rectified, the once-roiled mana forms a ring as it recirculates through the world, the once-shattered earth blooms with flowers, the once-pierced air abounds with gaiety, and down from the once-cleaved sky there shines sunlight.
Simultaneously bringing the end and rebirth of the world, the Sword Saint's strike. The colossal beast stricken with the attack remains as not even a trace, completely extinguished from the universe.
Assuredly present until just a few seconds ago, the behemoth is gone, and no hint of the destruction it caused remains.
Subaru: <—>
Reinhardt sheaths his knightblade in its scabbard. Wind caressing his red hair as he squints up at the sunlight, Reinhardt slips a sigh so faint as to be inaudible.
Reinhardt: “—Felt-sama will be surely be sad.”
He murmurs, eyes closed.
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<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
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<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
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<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
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<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
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<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
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<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
<Witness the uncomeatable present.>
<Witness the uncomeatable—
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