3

[AI CENSORSHIP BLOCKED THIS CHUNK - RAW ENGLISH RETAINED]

She had just concluded he couldn’t do it. But that would be the same as killing Subaru Natsuki. At the very least, that was what she was saying.

“So.”

“”

“Well? What is it? Which one? What’ll it be? What do you want? How do you want it? What can you do? What happens next? What’s okay? We’ll forgive you, whatever you pick.”

Louis’s voice hammered his ears mockingly, sneeringly, like a curse.

Louis Arneb, the Archbishop of Gluttony, the slender girl, the loathsome being, the parent who created him, put the question to the Subaru Natsuki before her.

—What would he do about Subaru Natsuki?

“So…”

So.

“What do you want, mister?”

—The cruel, cruel choice ate away at Subaru Natsuki.

He could feel something in his heart burning to a cinder.

His humanity, his trust in himself, his feelings about Subaru Natsuki as a separate person, something was being scorched away.

With his hand on the neck of the girl he had pushed down, with her sneering up at him, Subaru Natsuki was placed at a crossroads. His own fate and the fate of Subaru Natsuki hung in the balance.

“”

I can’t hear my heart. My breathing is ragged, but my lungs aren’t working.Even though he was in such a desperate situation, there wasn’t a bead of sweat on his brow.

That was surely because his physical manifestation there wasn’t real.

My body was transported when I read the book; just my mind waspulled in…but all this is trying to avoid the reality in front of me, isn’t it?

Subaru’s heart was trying to achieve a fleeting peace by letting his thoughts wander into the distance. But time, space, and the girl in front of him wouldn’t let him escape.

“So what will you do, mister?”

The girl he was pinning down looked up at Subaru, who was still frozen in indecision. She peered into his black eyes with a sadistic sneer, and her tongue flicked back and forth, as if she was going to lick them.

“Pinning a delicate little girl down, your hand around her frail neck. Doesn’t it give you a thrill? Or is it just something a guy with your sort of nature has plenty of experience with?”

“—!”

“You’re trembling. How adorable. Will that let you make your important, important choice?”

Tilting her head, Louis kissed Subaru’s wrist. That repulsive act, the intensity in her flirtatious gaze, and her callous words reminded Subaru of a scene.

It was a tragic scene he had experienced once before. —But that time, the perspective had been flipped. He had seen it from the perspective of the girl in front of him, not from his own eyes.

The scene of Subaru pushing him down. Being strangled while seeing that vicious look on his face.

Subaru Natsuki had strangled Meili…

“Ugh.”

—The instant he realized how similar the situation was, Subaru’s body, his face, everything tensed.

“—Oh, so you do remember something like this.”

“Don’t! Don’t…!”

“We’re not joking. If anything, you’re the one who isn’t being serious. You should seriously, earnestly love yourself.”

“”

“Yeah, that’s right. Love yourself. C’mon, do it. Just like the people you cherish want you to. You need to love yourself.”

A torrent of superficial words in an insincere voice. Was she tryingto make him understand something, or was she simply not capable of empathizing with people? Was she being artificial, or did it come naturally? Was she sneering at him or consoling him?

It was all ambiguous. Everything about Louis Arneb was ambiguous.

“You…if you’re right, if that’s true…give me proof.”

“Proof?”

“Proof that the current me will disappear if I bring Subaru Natsuki back…!”

“There isn’t any. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nothing. Not a single thing. Nothing at all… Does that make you feel better?”

“”

“You’re going around in circles, mister. We can’t talk about things we don’t know. We don’t know if our brothers would die if what they ate was returned. And honestly, we’ve never returned something we ate, so we don’t know. We ate it, after all.”

Louis opened her mouth wide, revealing a red tongue and seriously sharp canines, letting Subaru see all the way to the back of her throat, as if to sayLook, there’s nothing there.

Her red tongue dancing all the while she referred to stealing people’s memories and devouring them as “eating.”

“So what will you do, mister?”

“Gh…ngh…”

Dying was scary. Terrifying.

But it was a different sort of fear from what he had experienced four times before when he’d died and come back. The issue weighing on his soul now was the potential loss of self. His existence hung in the balance.

That was what death was originally supposed to be. If you died, your consciousness was lost, and there was no second chance. So maybe Subaru had no right to complain after relying on the easy choice that let him fix his mistakes. Maybe it was a supreme luxury to get to choose whether he would disappear or not.

But it was his life.

Placed in a position where he had to choose whether to snuff that candle or not, he felt his heart cracking with each passing second.

“”

Subaru had already died four times since coming to this world. They were all short.

Thrown into an unfamiliar world, surrounded by strangers, and then visited by death in some difficult-to-escape-from form.

Added together, the sum total of the time he had been conscious was less than two full days. It was a short, meager time. But in addition to those two days, he also had spent seventeen years in his original world.

It had not gone well. Subaru had been shit at life.

But even though it had not gone well, even though it had been trial and error, even though there had never been any situations with his life on the line, he had at least tried in his own way to put up a fight in the big moments.

If the original Subaru Natsuki came back, it wouldn’t change the fact of everything that had happened. But his current self who cared about those moments would disappear.

The me who made that promise with Ram, who swore to protect Meili, who seared Echidna’s forgiveness into my heart, who spurred Julius on to fight, who believes Beatrice is so lovely, who…who fell in love with Emilia…that me would disappear.

“I don’t want that…”

That realization made Subaru’s body crack.

Subaru’s body there wasn’t the real thing. And because it wasn’t real, because it was a reflection of the feelings in his heart, Subaru’s body shattered.

Fissures spread along his arms and legs. His cheek fell to the floor.

It was the fake shell of Subaru Natsuki that he’d been wearing.

As it fell to the ground, the strong facade he had been putting up peeled away, too.

“No, no, no…no…”

“Of course not. It’s natural.”

He shook his head like a child, rejecting the terror of death, not of loss that awaited him.

Why do I have to lose it? Why, when I just realized I love her?

“I don’t want…”

“Mm-hmm. We understand. We get it. We know.”

“I don’t want it…”

“It’s your life, after all. Why do you have to just give it to someone else?”

“Everyone…all of them…I want…”

I want to be with everyone longer.

He cared about them. Even though it had not been two days, even though he had suspected them multiple times, had tried to kill them, had tried to run away, had let his paranoia consume him.

Subaru cared about them. They were precious to him.

If he was with them, if they cared about him, he might be able to learn to like himself, too. That was what he had thought. He had actually felt some hope.

He had always felt negative about his life, but he had finally found a ray of sunlight.

So why did he have to let go of it himself?

That was…

“—I don’t want to…”

“That’s right. Of course not. So then, what do you think you should do?”

“…Stay myself…”

“Yes. Just be who you are, mister. That’s right. You took it for yourself. It’s a game of musical chairs. The one who takes the empty seat is the winner.”

“”

“The one who gets pushed out steps down. Acknowledge it. Accept your own existence. Shout it to the skies. That you’re the real one! Isn’t that right?!”

Just below him, close enough so Subaru could feel her breath, Louis roared with eyes wide and blazing.

It almost seemed like she was about to bite him—no, shehadbitten the wrist of his hand around her neck, warning him with a vibrant pain.

Looking into his wavering black eyes, Louis Arneb shouted.

“Acknowledge it! —Subaru Natsuki is just another person, just the stranger most familiar to you!”

With a roar, she demanded he reaffirm his existence. Demanded he not do something so stupid as die for someone else’s sake.

Why did he have to sacrifice himself for someone else?

—And for someone who wasn’t him, for some other person using his name. To never be able to meet the people he cared about again, just so that person could meet them.

To yield the time living with them, those precious, irreplaceable days.

Who would do such a stupid thing?

“So kill him! Kill him! Just kill him! If you kill him! If you just kill him! If you kill him dead!”

“…Subaru Natsuki.”

“You are the only Subaru Natsuki in this world, not a replacement for anyone else.”

“—!”

I’m the only Subaru Natsuki in this world, not a replacement for anyone else.

Earn the right to hold hands with Beatrice, to talk shit with Ram, to make Meili pout, to be taken aback by Shaula’s openness, to shoot the breeze with Echidna, to stand back-to-back with Julius, to feel Patlash’s unconditional love, and to be with Emilia.

If Subaru Natsuki had it, then Subaru would…

“”

His vision blurred.

His mind was directly influencing his body. His heartbeat, his aching lungs. He could feel them vividly now.

But what he felt most strongly was uncontrollable tears.

Was it rage or sadness, jealousy or envy, guilt or fear?

Subaru didn’t know what emotion had caused it. He didn’t know anything. But as the tears blurred his vision, he saw it.

“”

Someone was looking down at Subaru, at Louis.

Louis was lying on the ground, looking up at pathetic, teary-eyed Subaru, whose hand was still around her neck.

Subaru'nun aklına orada olabilecek tek bir kişi geliyordu.

"...Korkup da kendini göstermeye mi karar verdin, Subaru Natsuki?"

Bulanık figür tek kelime etmedi.

Sadece Subaru'ya baktı. Arkasında bembeyaz bir dünya, bembeyaz bir zeminde duran bulanık, beyaz bir figür.

Subaru'nun yüzü perişandı; aniden beliren kişinin önünde tüm gerçeği döktü.

"B-ben... Ben yok olmak istemiyorum. Ölmek istemiyorum. Bu yüzden..."

"Herkesle birlikte olmak istiyorum. Herkesi seviyorum. Bu yüzden..."

"Bu yüzden ben..."

Kendi kendini haklı çıkarmaya çalışarak gevelemeye devam etti.

Tıpkı Louis'nin boğazına elini koyduğu zamanki gibi. Kendini kaybetmek istemediği sonucuna varmıştı. Bu yüzden karşısına çıkan figüre anlattı.

Bu, kendi yüzüne sahip kişiyi öldürmek anlamına gelse bile. Çünkü o... çünkü Subaru Natsuki başka biriydi. Sadece tanıdık, yakın, başka biri.

Bu hakka sahibim.

Subaru Natsuki, diğer Subaru Natsuki'yi öldürecek ve onun yerini alacaktı...

"Ben sen değilim! Biz...!"

Farklı. Bunu söylemeye çalışıyordu. Bu olasılığı bertaraf etmeye çalıştı.

Tam da bunu yapacakken—

"...Kimle konuşuyorsun sen, beyefendi?"

Louis'nin gözleri faltaşı gibi açılmıştı, sanki şaşkınlıktan donup kalmıştı. Ona sanki aklını tamamen yitirmiş gibi baktı. Başını çevirip Subaru'yla aynı yöne baktı, onun ne gördüğünü anlamaya çalıştı. Ancak kaşları şüpheyle çatıldı ve keskin köpek dişleri hareket etti.

"Orada kimse yok ki, kimle konuşuyorsun sen, beyefendi?"

Louis olanlara inanamıyor gibiydi. İfadesi değişti, sanki bir şeyden korkuyordu.

"Burası bizim yerimiz... Burayı rahatsız edebilecek hiçbir şey olmamalı. Burada bizden başka biriyle konuşmak... dur artık. Sen...!"

Louis ona yalvarıyordu ama Subaru'nun bilinci yerinden oynamıyordu.

---