Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu - Volume 4 - Chapter 94

CHAPTER 94: LEFT BEHIND 

—The first thing she feels upon waking up is the loneliness in her empty right hand. 

Thus thinks her fuzzy mind, leaden still from waking. Then, realising alongside her sobering what a selfish sentiment that is, her cheeks redden in anger and shame. Rather than uprighting herself she chooses to ball up in the bed, curling the blankets around herself, making herself small. In her own wretchedness, which she awakened to alongside her awakening, she is quick to misjudge herself despite the start of a new day. 

???: “—Awful, awful, just so awful. I'm... really, selfish.” 

Mutters the girl curled up in the bed—Emilia—as she gives a long, long sigh at her own repulsive state. 

She fists and unfists her hands multiple times under the covers, remembering the sensation present there until just before her sleeping. Uneven, thick fingers, the skin slightly firmer at the tips, entirely unlike her own thin and frail ones —which was something she thought on every opportunity she had to hold those hands. 

It was the touch of the boy who had cared for her, spoke kindness to her, and until she surrendered her consciousness, sat at her bedside while holding her hand—Subaru, and the feeling of his bony, delicate palm. The first thing she unconsciously thought upon waking was her melancholy about the emptiness of her fingers, and the loss of the touch of that hand. Unconditionally, she's beyond help. She had leaned on him so much. But was her nature desiring to pile more burdens on the boy? Even after she had already troubled everyone with her vices and weaknesses to an irreparable degree? 

Today was already her fourth day in SANCTUARY—and following from the first day, Emilia had devoted herself to the TRIAL in the tomb deep in SANCTUARY both yesterday and the day before. 

For an Emilia aiming to with the Royal Selection and secure the throne of Lugnica, SANCTUARY's aid was the very first step on the road of things she had to acquire. The governor of this land, Roswaal, is Emilia's backer, and these are citizens in circumstances similar to her half-elf self. If she cannot present herself for their approval, when the conditions are so heavily in her favour, then how can she intend to possibly do anything from here on out? Emilia is undeniably in a disadvantageous position compared to the other Selection candidates. For powerless Emilia to win, the help of others is indispensable. And it is only by Emilia's own actions that she will earn the trust needed to secure that help. 

For an Emilia who correctly understood her own position, the things she has to do and has to present are clear. She has not any wavering about that. But, what casts a gloom over her eyes is— 

Emilia: “...The TRIAL.” 

The single absolute condition for gaining the acceptance of the people of SANCTUARY is to beat the TRIAL. 

These are residents who cannot exit out the forest encircling SANCTUARY, because of the barrier wired to the tomb. She needs to traverse the TRIAL and eliminate the barrier if she's going to fight alongside them in the outside world. While there's an issue of sentiment too, if she cannot at least manage this much, then the residents will not even attempt to accept her. 

Defeating the TRIAL will make the requirements for dealing with both the physical and sentimental problems simple. Once the issue has shifted into a unipolar form, neither fastidious logic nor pointless debates are going to happen. The problem now is that the contents of the TRIAL are deadly poison for Emilia. 

—Inside the tomb, an unfeeling voice announced: Face your past. 

When she closes her eyes, she can remember vividly that world of white. Instantly, as if she's been thrown naked into the frost, she shivers at the unstoppable chill. Was the dread coursing through her body because she remembered the cold of that day, or because she had not forgotten even now her fear from back then? 

What did Subaru think, hearing her talk clumsily about her past? 

This past, impossible to forget, which even now bound her with chains of guilt. It was yesterday afternoon that Emilia revealed it all to Subaru. She had first challenged the TRIAL the night before, and her heart had been soundly beaten. It was in Subaru's arms that she cried, bawled, broke down, and when his voice and tender stroking of her back finally calmed her, Emilia announced to everyone waiting outside the tomb that she had failed. She did not remember what expressions everyone made, in hearing that. The composure for her to check everyone's faces one-by-one was absent. They could be gazing at her with scorn, dejection, anything, it didn't matter. She merely acted firm, parted with everyone, tumbled into the house lent to her, and immediately after realising that she was now alone, was swallowed by unbearable terror. Unable to stay holed up like that, she burst out of the building. She was shivering in the night wind when she ran into Subaru, who was walking under the moonlight. Subaru confessed his resolve: he would spend himself for her sake. Emilia lined up purely idealistic screeds about her determination and ran away. Emilia, cornered by her own words, did not notice how equally stricken Subaru had been by hearing them. 

Emilia didn't remember how she got back to her lodgings after that. 

What next woke her up was Subaru's calls for her, his face pale, her collapsed on the floor. She talked with the worried Subaru about the impetus for this, the TRIAL—and inevitably, it turned into a conversation about Emilia's past. 

Emilia had reported her past to Subaru without including even a speck of dramatization or any lies at all. She had just been forced to witness vividly the crime she committed. She took that unforgettable thing, peeled off the scab of her memories, exposing the raw wound to the wind as she spoke her story. Simultaneously, Emilia confessed that her motives for aspiring for the throne were incredibly  personal and selfish. 

To say she was unafraid would be impossible. As consequence of her mistake for which her youth did not console her, Emilia made victims of far too many people. And she went without paying the recompense, even now passing her time by herself, in leisure. The finisher to this was that the methods she chose for her atonement could only be achieved by entangling even more people in the mess. 

She thought it natural that she disgust people, receive their scorn, and be distanced from them. But on the other hand, even she had recognized her conviction that Subaru would surely never desert her. No matter how awful her past was, and even knowing that she was attempting to atone for it with a selfish wish, Natsuki Subaru could surely not forsake her now. 

Emilia had witnessed the things he had protected through his wounding and wailing, and witnessed the outcomes of his actions. He was a kind, dutiful, compassionate boy. He bore far too many things, and without even considering the idea of letting them go, kept running despite his incredible injury. Assuming that she herself was a piece of the baggage he carried, then surely, no matter how repulsive her nature was, he would not be capable of letting her go. 

—This was cruel calculatedness in the truest of meanings, and perhaps even insidious. 

She shakes her head to deny the thing, thinking that's not the way I see it at all. But if she said that the concept had never skimmed through her head before, it would be a lie. And if there were a part of her that hoped for this outcome, then that was equivalent to the entirety of Emilia affirming the thought. 

She put her trust in somebody who disliked her not in the least, and managed to speak openly about her past, which may earn her dislike. And really, that was all it was. 

Subaru ultimately showed no shock or dismay after hearing Emilia's past, and did not do anything to fault her for her sins. With her mental fatigue peaked from her confession, her sleepiness bore in on her. The touch of his hand as it held hers, and its abounding thoughtfulness, had not changed even a single bit. 

Subaru had acted so precisely in line with what her repulsive parts expected, she could spite it. Subaru, with his sharp eyes softened in worry, sincerely concerned about Emilia. His kindness was a horrifically sweet poison for Emilia. Her heart was liable to melt, her resolve to melt, her sincere and disgusting thoughts to come unveiled. 

If only I could leave everything to somebody else, and have someone else undergo the hardship for me. Should Emilia voice her whining, that of a child averting their eyes from something they disliked, then undoubtedly Subaru would expend himself without any pause and devote himself for Emilia's sake. 

—This should not be forgiveable. 

Ever since they met, Emilia has always been being saved by Subaru. At the loot house in the Capital, at the mansion under witchbeast threat, at the Selection Hall amid the glares of the candidates, at the mansion targeted alongside the village by an unknown cabal. 

Emilia had always been clinging to Subaru's hand. And, unable to bear seeing him wounded, she had even cast said hand away, reasoning that she lacked the qualifications for this to be happening. But even despite that, Natsuki Subaru did not attempt in the slightest to let her go. Far from it. He had instead told this to Emilia, ignorant to why he was saving her: 

Subaru: “I like you. So, I want to be your strength.” 

Emilia had never experienced that kind of wholly devoted, entirely baseless love confession before. The only people who had ever expressed fondness to her had been the elves she lived with, and later her foster parent Puck. 

She had left the forest by Roswaal's guidance, and felt keenly again the poorness of the situation for half-elves. In her two trips gone to the Capital, her understanding of that intensified further. While she had accepted Roswaal's plan and would fulfil her goals, the trend of disdain for half-elves remained deeply ingrained in the world—and she had harboured a dim hope that perhaps, that would change a little. But the one who thought that hope a transient thing, and could not fully believe in it, had also in fact been Emilia. 

And so how gigantic a thing was it for her when, with consideration included to her being a half elf, and to her being weak, Subaru told her he liked her? 

He was not of her race, was not someone determined by birth to spend time with her, had met her not by anyone's designs but purely by coincidence, had had his amicability toward her deepen, and from their shared sentiments there budded his warm feelings—and just how this saved Emilia. 

And so, this time she could not rely on Subaru. Every time he undergoes hardship in her place, the permanent wounds on him compound. It doesn't end just with his body. His mental scars, too. 

Emilia did not think Subaru someone extraordinary, who possessed resilient body or mind. He had a strong heart for accomplishing his intentions, a kind heart considerate to those around him, but he was not extraordinary. Sad things hurt him, he cried when in pain, and he would die if he shed too much blood. Just that kind of normal person. 

Emilia had no intentions of forcing this normal boy to bear any further hardship. She desired nothing further than for him to keep supporting her back, standing at her side, while she proceeded forward. But even that was an incredibly selfish wish, so much so that it embarrasses Emilia. 

Should he support her frail resolve, then surely Emilia could overcome her obstacles without  folding. She ought to fight the obstacles before her by herself. 

Emilia: “After all, if I don't...” 

If she kept relying on him, leaving absolutely everything to him, clinging and leaning on him, then someday Subaru would surely come to think her a burden. Just thinking that that day would come terrified her. 

It was something she had avoided believing she wanted. It was something she had given up on, reasoning that even should she desire it, she would never get it. It was something she had kept out of her awareness, but something she had always wished for. And because she had gotten it, because it had been bestowed to her, because she had taken the hand offered to her—Emilia now could not bear to think of losing it. 

Emilia: “—” 

Emilia's sins had painted the forest in white, trapping her friends and family beneath the snow and ice. Emilia herself had fallen asleep inside the ice as well, and gone almost 100 years until Puck saved her, without recognizing her crime. 

Her grave and aversive sin. What was even more sinful was that Emilia did not remember even a single thing about the actual heart of her deeds. The inbetween is gone, and although aware that it was her actions which shunted everybody into white stagnation, she can't remember what she was thinking, or why she did it. 

She thought it natural she be called a witch's spawn. After Puck woke her from the ice, Emilia spent 7 years in Elior Forest. Unable to make or cultivate anything to eat in the frozen woods, she would go to the villages near to the forest, relying on them for most of her food. She would not forget the terrified gazes on her then, or how they called her THE WITCH OF THE FROZEN FOREST. 

Witch. The insult had suited her. 

She spoke of her resolve, necessary to overcome the TRIAL, while thinking her own words sounding hollow herself. Emilia had not any idea of what she could do to defeat her past. She merely evaded Subaru's questionings with pleasant-sounding words, choosing to stay holed up inside her shell and her dreams. 

With the touch of Subaru's palm present and definite, she fell asleep not long after. 

—She indeed doubted she dreamed anything, then. 

When she woke up, Subaru was there in the same posture he had been, having watched over her sleeping. Unassailable emotion swelled up in her chest at seeing it, and as he led her by the hand, she stepped out into SANCTUARY—to challenge the TRIAL. 

The results of her attempt are obvious. She was unable to beat the TRIAL. 

Subaru and Ram saw her off outside the tomb. She tread inside, the gazes of SANCTUARY residents Garfiel and Lewes at her back. But the TRIAL would not pay any mind to an Emilia who had gone in without any definite plans, or neglected to prepare any clear terms for winning. As always the past tormented Emilia, plagued her, pierced her. 

When her consciousness returned to being atop the cold, hard floor of the tomb, Emilia noticed that her cheeks were wet. This crying was ridiculous, and her wretchedness was loathsome. 

Unable to grasp any clues for overcoming the TRIAL, Emilia left the tomb in haggard straits, to be welcomed by the worried Subaru and others. Afterwards and just like the night before, she was lulled into peaceful sleep in this building, losing consciousness right after tumbling into bed—which she only realised now, this morning. 

Emilia: “And in the end, nothing progressed at all... I'm useless...” 

If there were anything that she understood yesterday, it was that she was a hopeless, spoiled child, always causing problems for Subaru and everyone else, but still unable to find even a single glimmer of hope—the unchanging truth of her being weak. 

Emilia: “Puck...” 

The pendant hanging at her chest—and the green lustre inset at its end, the anchor for her contracted spirit, Puck. It had been guaranteed that whenever she called his name in frail voice, he would reply “What's wrong?” in his usual, carefree tone. 

It had been almost two weeks since those replies had ceased. At first she had thought it his hibernation period, which occurs once every several months. There had been times before where Puck would stop giving her any reaction, and on every occasion Emilia would endure the loneliness, waiting for his return and awakening. 

But his hibernation periods always ended in three or four days, and this occasion's long timespan was a first. And most importantly, even if Puck was in a hibernation period, then provided that Emilia seriously called out to him, it would interrupt his sleep and he would answer. She cannot even sense that reaction from the current, distant Puck. 

Something surely happened to him. There was surely something—some irreparable something—that happened in his sleep, and he could not materialize. If this was the case, then what should she do? She had spent such a long time with Puck, and still Emilia could not find any methods to kickstart him if he left her alone like this. 

Neither the TRIAL, nor the things with Subaru, nor the settlement with her past, nor Puck's absent presence—offer Emilia even a single good omen. 

Emilia: “...I'm so stupid.” 

Just before Emilia voices her discontent that there is nobody at her side to offer her their helping hand in this deadlocked situation, she stops herself. It was exactly from doing this that she had degraded irreparably. —Already viewing herself lower than ever before, Emilia does not wish to think she can descend even further. 

Emilia: “No, stop it. Thinking entirely about these bad things... he's not showing up today, but Puck must have a reason for it. And nothing's solved about the TRIAL yet, either. I have to keep it together.” 

Lightly slapping her pale hands to her cheeks, Emilia keeps her thoughts steady. She looks up, then taking a comb to even out the knots in her hair. —Part of her is pained about this. This job was one she had always tasked to Puck. Emilia did not even take her own initiative to sort out her grooming. She passes her hand through her hair, confirming the knots are gone. Looking in the mirror is not something she does. She had speedily hung a cloth over the mirror in this room, and deposited it in a corner where it would not reflect anything. 

As her fingers fiddle with the ends of her hair, Emilia determines that she has succeeded in the bare minimum of arrangements. She then sweeps her fingers up through her silver tresses, bunching it together as she begins to plait. Preparing her braid. It was Puck who determined Emilia's daily hairstyle, and adhering to it was one of the important avowals of their contract. Emilia had not received any instructions from Puck for two weeks now on how to do her hair, and she had instead kept persistent with the style he had last instructed her, for this entire period. And of course she attended to her other stipulations too, like her bathing, after-bath exercises, her talks with the minor spirits, her mood not cheerful but nonetheless fastidious. It seemed, should she not keep to these customs, that her connection with the invisible Puck would disappear completely, which terrified her. 

Emilia: “—Mhm.” 

Parting her hair to the left and right from the centre to plait two braids had been her method thus far. But today she crafted her hair into one long, single braid to flow down her back. Having properly abided her contract with Puck today, Emilia wishes for the contract's continuance. Aware of the definite connection inside her, she— 

Emilia: “...huh?” 

Emilia yelps quietly just as she goes to change her clothes before Ram can arrive with a bucket of water. The gaze of her shocked, amethyst eyes lands on the pendant at her breast. Just as she had confirmed before, hanging from the end of the pendant is a green crystal, the proof of Puck's presence—with a crack ruptured down its face. 

Emilia: “Wh... weh, wha? Wait... what's, what?” 

Putting her hand to the inexplicably cracked jewel, Emilia utters fragments to no sentence. A violent shock jolts her eyes, her trembling fingers timidly stroking the crystal's face. The fractures intensify at the touch of her fingertips. She wails a quiet, strangled scream. 

Emilia: “N-no... no, don't... wait, please hold on... come on, Puck, hold on...” 

She shakes her head, but this does not stop the crystal's collapse. Emilia puts all her focus into the palm of her hand as she holds the crystal, trying not to stimulate it, but her unstoppable shivering hastens the collapse, the anchor disintegrating in Emilia's hands. 

What will happen, when this damage reaches the whole jewel? Faced with this first-ever occurrence, with this entirely unimagined situation, Emilia's mind goes perfectly blank. But there is one thing she does know. Which is— 

Emilia: “If this keeps going, then Puck will...!” 

—This was the goodbye between Emilia and her effective family. 

Emilia: “—!” 

She raises her head. Looks about the area. No one is here. It's still early morning, and the outside shows no signs of people activity either. She could raise her voice, but no one would hear her. She could race out, seeking help, but the jostling feels liable to trigger the end, and so Emilia does not move. 

Lowering her voice, stopping her breath, Emilia gazes as the disintegrating crystal in her hand. She has no solution. Rather than endeavour to distance the certainly-looming end, she frantically attempts only to slow it down. And, 

Emilia: “—a” 

Her tardiness in avoiding this means out rings the crack of the crystal fracturing to bits. Upon Emilia's palm as her eyes widen in stupefaction is the green crystal, its form entirely lost. The jewel fractures apart, the fragments lose their colour, and without any life circulating it, its gleam dims. 

Emilia: “Come, on... Puck, you're... just kidding, right?” 

Clinging lastly to hope, Emilia calls out to her palm, her voice weak. But the gemstone in her hands—lost of its shape—is now nothing more than green grains of dust. Nevermind a spirit, this thing had lost its power to store even an infinitesimal load of mana, the green dregs of jewel waiting only to be cast to the winds. Anyone could see that Emilia's fleeting hopes were already fruitless. 

The only one who could not accept the reality of them being fruitless was Emilia. 

Emilia: “N-no, this can't... this can't be happening... I-I mean, Puck he, when we first met he... said  we're f-family... that I, wouldn't be alone any more...” Reeling in their supposedly assured bond, Emilia repeats back the old promise, her tone infantile. —The fragmented rock in her hand replies only with silence. 

Emilia: “...iar.” 

Unable to bear the silence, and her eyes now understanding that this is reality, she looks up at the ceiling, her amethyst gaze wavering with tears. Emilia: “Puck, you... Dad, YOU LIAR!!” Falling to her knees, she hurls the fractured fragments at the wall. 

The bits of stone ping against its surface, perhaps the quiet announcement of Emilia and Puck's  overly abrupt parting. Emilia buries her face in her hands, wailing. Wailing. No tears flow. 

Only a hollow sense of lacking weighs heavy in Emilia's chest.