CHAPTER 73: WEAKNESS'S HIDEAWAY
—How long had it been since he had last heard that voice? In reality, she had not been sleeping for that long a time.
At best a week—a conceivable timespan for going without seeing friends or family. —But Subaru could not think that way. For a Subaru who abandoned his life continuously and continuously to redo time, actual timespans held no meaning. By his soul's internal clock, a much more gargantuan span had passed since that voice had last made tremble his ears, his heart.
???: “—Please wake up, Subaru-kun. I would be happy to see your face.” Words rain down from above as he lies face-down on the ground. The affection brimming in that voice, that passionate fondness, swiftly fill Subaru's heart with something warm. The parched, empty vessel what was his heart, permeates with heat. By just two sentences spoken by that gentle voice.
—Just how much strength was it that she gave him? Subaru: “...You're joking.” Her: “No, it is not a joke.” Subaru: “You can't be here.” Her: “Should you desire it, Subaru-kun, I will be at your side at any moment.” Subaru: “When I most want something done, and only then... you'll always, come to me... as if, something that... convenient could...” Her: “Well, I am constantly seeking to be your most convenient girl, Subaru-kun.” His voice laced with sobs, Subaru lets spill his pathetic whining.
But this voice was assuredly not looking down on him, or failing to perceive him.
She knew. Her. Knew that Subaru was weak, hopeless, so brittle that he could not live without something to cling to, always without confidence, always in doubt. Because this was the girl who, regardless of Subaru's incapacity to be strong, told him she loved him.
Subaru: “—Rem.” Rem: “Yes. This is Subaru-kun's Rem.” He raises his head.
Blue arises in his teary vision.
He roughly wipes his eyes with his dirtied sleeve, abolishing the tears. He looks. At the sight of the girl, standing before him. At the sight of darling Rem. Subaru: “Rehm...” Rem: “Yes, this is Rem. A maid who will unfailingly be within arm's reach whenever Subaru-kun wants her there.” Subaru: “Y, ou...” Tilting her head, playing with Subaru in a rather joking manner, is Rem.
Before he can say anything about her attitude, Subaru feels the air peacefully escape from his lungs.
The heaviness in his heart drops away with a thunk.
His breathing eases, the tiny wailing him inside his skull vanishing to somewhere.
So easily, so so easily saved, Subaru is stunned. He had believed himself so absolutely without hope and deadlocked, and simply by having this one single girl before him, everything comes unravelled this easily.
Subaru: “God you're amazing, Rem...”
Rem: “I appreciate that very much. You're incredible too, Subaru-kun.”
The words she speaks as she smiles fit together with how they, as usual, don't really fit together.
Inadvertently feeling happiness even at this back-and-forth, Subaru fails to keep enduring it, coming close to crying.
Still seated slovenly on the ground with his eyes downcast, Rem kneels down before him.
Rem: “Do you feel all right? Are you, worn out?”
Subaru: “Who knows... am I worn out? ...But I haven't done anything yet.”
This loop has seen Subaru battered around entirely, without him reaching even a single correct answer. He was in no position to be saying that he was worn out.
Everyone would anguish more. Everyone would hurt more. Why did everyone have to suffer? The answer there was obvious.
Subaru: “Because I'm weak.”
Rem: “—”
Subaru: “Because my ability is lacking.”
Rem: “—”
Subaru: “If I were stronger, smarter, a man who could do more... things'd be over without everyone suffering, sorrowing, hurting...”
If Subaru were strong enough to do everything, absolutely everything on his own, then working with Emilia to face her past, soothing of Beatrice's heart abraded over four hundred years of isolation, rescuing of Petra and Frederica otherwise murdered, protecting SANCTUARY's people assaulted by the Sizeable Hare, coming to understanding with Garfiel as he attempts to distance the outsiders, would all be within his ability.
Everything, all of it, from start to finish, was Subaru's fault. And so with that final balance sheet of weakness, Subaru needed to scour away his own soul. —Is what he had thought, and still.
Subaru: “Is there anybody... that I saved?”
Rem: “Subaru-kun.”
Subaru: “If worlds continue after I die, then how many times, places, people... did I leave everyone to die?”
Rem: “Subaru-kun.”
Subaru: “How many times did I let you die? How many times do I... need to kill you?”
Rem: “—Subaru-kun.”
With dread trembling up from the core of his body, Subaru rapidly confesses his sins. Spit them all out, and immediately, hopefully get his pronouncement. Before he could wrack his own mind to nothing, he desired that someone, nearby, sentence him. He desired that someone smack this colossal idiot—who while pledging to no longer make mistakes, had tread down the wrong path on their very first step—and let them know what a hopeless moron they were.
Rem: “—”
—But what the punishment-seeking Subaru receives, is a kind, enveloping embrace.
Subaru: “Re, hm.”
Rem: “Everything is okay. You're okay, Subaru-kun.”
Subaru: “But, noth... nothing is, okay...”
Subaru had accomplished absolutely nothing. There were many people who would go unsaved if Subaru didn't rescue them. There were many people who would meet horrific ends. And Rem too, was someone Subaru needed to save. She was entirely qualified to lambaste the eternally inadequate, insufficient, weak Natsuki Subaru.
Subaru: “You should... at me...!” Rem: “—I love you.” She meets her forehead to his, and simply, whispers her love. Subaru: “—” No words will exit him.
There is nothing he can say now.
So near, as those blue eyes gaze entirely straight at Subaru. He could drown in the depths of the mercy in those eyes. Rem: “I love you, Subaru-kun. —And so everything is all okay.” Subaru: “Th-at... isn't, an answer...” Rem: “Yes, it is. Why is it I am here? Why is it I forgive you? Why is it that I hold you? —All of it, is entirely that.” At range close enough to feel her breath, Rem's smile grasps Subaru's heart with an invisible hand.
He can't move. He can't even twitch. Reaching around his back, the small hands grip hard onto his clothes, strong and even stronger, so strong the two could be one, as she hugs him. Rem: “It must have been rough, Subaru-kun.” Subaru: “—” Rem: “All alone, being this hurt... it must have been hard, Subaru-kun.” Subaru: “—hk” Rem: “You don't need to experience this sadness any more.” Rem's sweet enunciation continues.
Gently unravelling Subaru's heart, melting away his obstinacy. Rem: “All of your hurt, your pain, your weakness, I will shoulder as substitute.” Subaru: “...” Rem: “Everything you willed to protect, to fight, to complete... I ask you will entrust to me.” Subaru: “...” Rem: “There is no necessity at all for you to carry every single burden. —Task everything to me, for now you may rest peacefully, and sleep.” Subaru: “...I,” Rem: “Please show me once again the Subaru-kun that I love.” With her hand set against his cheek, Rem raises Subaru's head to look at him straight on.
Her lips pause maybe in hesitation, and slowly, her face approaches his.
Even his laggard consciousness can comprehend what she is doing, and what will be done to him. Immediately near, within breathing range, the lips of a darling girl loom in. Would it not be fine to overlay, to intertwine, luxuriate, acquiesce and drown?
—She was already pardoning him whether he was right or wrong. Just to what extent had Rem's words gently permeated Subaru's heart?
His frayed emotions, his soul shrieking for someone to reach out, were by this girl who understood everything of Subaru, right now, saved again. To powerless Subaru, Rem offered her hand.
To brittle Subaru's back, Rem offered her support.
To foolish Subaru's path, Rem offered her escort. Imposing on those, clinging, depending completely—if that would guide to the correct answer, then... Where was the point in struggling alone?
He was abraded wholly, he didn't know where his footing lie, he no longer knew which was the direction to walk, and so, on absolutely everything, just give up, yield— ???: <It is easy to give up.> Subaru: “—” ???: <But.> Subaru: “—” ???: <—It does not suit you.> A voice.
Rem: “—Subaru-kun?” Rem's voice, puzzled, from in front of him. But of course it would, as her face so close, once mere moments from touching him now has its path blocked by a hand.
Distanced from the touch of their sweet, supposedly to-entwine tongues, a somewhat wounded glint lights up in Rem's wavering eyes. Gazing at that shaking light from between the cracks in his fingers, Subaru speaks.
Subaru: “—Who are you?”
Rem: “Huh?”
Subaru: “I just asked, who are you?”
Rem: “Subaru-kun, what are you... asking who, is...”
Rem's throat seems to cramp as Subaru's low-voiced question leads her to falter.
The dim anguish in her eyes grows thicker, traces of misery etching themselves into her expression.
Incredibly, that felt to be clawing at onlooking Subaru's chest from inside and out.
To distract from the sensation Subaru presses down on his heart, baring his teeth.
Subaru: “When... I'm hopeless at the end of my rope, seriously wishing that someone'll do something, thinking maybe it's impossible and about to give up... you would come to me. I seriously believed that.”
Rem: “—”
Subaru: “When it's you then surely, when I'm so stuck, here hugging my knees, ruminating and irresolute, then you'd hold yourself against me, you'd be kind to me. I believed that.” Rem: “—” Subaru: “You'd listen to my whinging, let me spew out my whining, let me wring myself out on tears and everything until the tap's all dry...” Rem: “—” Subaru: “—And say, stand up.” Natsuki Subaru remembered with all his soul the daintiness of her fingers, the warmth of her skin, the scale of her love. And so crystal clear, to this Rem—to this imposter, he'd well damn say it. Subaru: “She would not say 'rest now.'” Rem?: “—” Subaru: “She would not say 'give up, task everything to me.'” Rem?: “—” Subaru: “Loving me, loving her, kind to me, in love with me—and more than anyone in the world strict on me, unsparing to me, that girl is Rem!”
Springing to his feet, Subaru howls as he takes distance from this Rem before him, keeping her in his sights. Still on her knees, Rem looks up at Subaru from her low position wordlessly. Even now he could about drown from the sadness in her expression at being rejected.
Rem: “No, no no. Please listen, Subaru-kun! I, I was wrong. Just, I couldn't bear watching you in suffering... and so, I merely, I wanted you to forget the pain and rest for now, that was all!”
Subaru: “I'll let you see my weakness. I'll let you see my frailty. I'll let you see that I'm a pathetic, worthless bastard. —But I'll never let you see me giving up.”
Subaru is a hero, Rem had said. I will act being as Rem's hero, Natsuki Subaru had decided.
Ever since they shared their promise, Subaru had resolved. —That in this world, this universe, the only time he could show his weakness, was when with Rem.
When with the Rem who knew Subaru was weak, but even so believed in his efforts to act with strength, was the only time Subaru could go without hiding the fact he was weak. Not to Emilia, not to Beatrice, not to anyone else could he show it. The only person could a Subaru who needed to be strong show his weakness to was Rem.
Subaru: “My weakness belongs to Rem. She hides all of my weakness, and in exchange even if I have to grapple it in tight, I'm not letting my surrender happen.”
Rem?: “—”
Subaru: “Fuck off, you fake. —Don't goddamn coddle me wearing my Rem's face and voice!”
That firmly declared, Subaru jabs his fist out at Rem—at the imposter. The listener is lost for words. They cast their gaze down, standing silently on the spot.
Rem: “Th-this, was, wasn't... what sh... she, t-told... me.”
Subaru: “Ah?”
Tilting their head with blue hair swaying, the imposter stutters out her words. Hearing it rises questions for Subaru, when—
Rem: “—”
Right before him, her form seeming to blur, Rem's visage turns unclear. A storm of television-haze static drowns out his vision, and in a blink at that spot there appears someone completely different.
—Someone he's never seen before.
Her pink hair stretches halfway down her back, her mien gentle—or more rather, timid. Her facial features are attractive, but that did not mean her face as a whole was outstandingly beautiful. Something more of an ordinary, normal-person kind of cuteness.
She wears a long-sleeved white outfit, her hands not peeking out the ends as she puts her palms to her cheeks, looking at Subaru nervously. Subaru: “Who're you?”
Rem: “I-I'm the WITCH OF LUST.... Camilla. Ni... nice to, meet you... mm.” Subaru inadvertently swallows his breath. She's introducing herself as the WITCH OF LUST. Meaning,
Subaru: “This weird unexplained room... is in Echidna's dream, then.”
Camilla: “Yes, but also, no... maybe. Echidna-chan's, watching the... TRIAL, and TRIAL's always... kind of, like a dream... mhm... yeah.” Subaru: “That's not really getting to the point or actually no before that...” Camilla's manner of speech irks Subaru. Seeing his gaze spontaneously turn harsh, a huge shudder runs through Camilla's body as she winds up hugging her head. Camilla: “Sto... d-don't, hit me...” Subaru: “I'm not gonna do that. Not gonna do it, but... what were you plotting with that?” Camilla: “With... that?” Subaru: “Putting on Rem's shape, and standing in front of me! Is that what your power is!?” All of these witches crowned with deadly sins inevitably will have some kind of ridiculous authority. If the WITCH OF LUST is no exception, yes indeed she should have an authority. If her transformation from before was it, then—
Subaru: “Man transformation's a really orthodox power compared to the other witches.”
Camilla: “I-I was, wasn't... transforming... though? I-If I look... looked like, someone else then... that's b-beca... because, you wanted to see... that... yeah?” Subaru: “What?” Camilla: “I, mean... I didn't even... w-want to, meet you. E-Echidna-chan, told me to... come, so... and she, lied... too...”
Mumbles Camilla, her words exacerbating Subaru's annoyance.
The way she talks, the way she glances around, the way she lowers her eyes when she senses his gaze on her, absolutely all of it grinds his gears. And that sissyish way she speaks, and her sulky complaints. Being that what she's trying to say isn't communicating clearly, she could not know how important a thing for Subaru she had just stomped all over.
Irritating. Aggravating. He'd like to start raving, make her know it.
Subaru: “Do you... do you understand what the fuck it is you just did?”
Camilla: “Echidna-chan, said... I-I, just had to... spoil him, but... and that, doing that... it'd all work... out fine, but it was... like that... a-and I, I even told her I... didn't wanna.”
Subaru: “Listen to me!!”
Camilla: “E-everyone's... ganging up, to... pick on me, is what... they're doing. Echidna-chan's d-doing it. She's, is, she's awful... aw... awful.”
Subaru: “Can you not hear that I'm telling you to listen!!”
Subaru attempts to shout, when he notices that his lungs are squeezed of air and his voice is frail. Notices it, but his lovebent rage is far more important and instantly dispels that fact from his considerations. Suffocation was a trivial matter when faced with something so annoying it makes him want to claw at his own chest. He'd shut that whiner's mouth, slap her with all the anger and suffering he had, make her comprehend just what she had d—
???: “Any more than that'll be life-threatening.”
Subaru: “—!?”
That instant, Subaru hears a voice whispering at his ear as he regains his sanity.
The moment he does, what assaults him is the agony of being on the border of total asphyxiation for having been kept in a state of oxygen deprivation, and the pain of his dry eyes for having kept them continuously open.
Subaru: “Aau—ah, hahhh?”
???: “They were drastic measures, but just as long you're back. —When faced with Camilla, with Lust's FACELESS GODDESS, people forget to breathe. Ultimately, forget even for their heart to beat.”
Subaru: “Eghu, ghbah... ha, haa.”
The choking prompts Subaru to spit as he falls with all limbs to the ground, his thoughts strobing. But the voice does pass into his ear, and the meaning of its words does communicate to his brain.
Thus Subaru wipes his mouth with his sleeve, looks at up the one who supposedly set up everything about this station, and scowls.
Subaru: “What th—what the fuck were you plotting, Echidna?” Faced with Subaru's hateful gaze, the white-haired witch strokes at her hair as in the now meadowlands she puts her elbow to the table and her cheek to her palm.
Echidna: “Isn't it a given? —I'm a witch. The plot's something nefarious.” She says, smiling.
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