2.5.8

How many times had his mind gone blank from what he'd experienced?

How many times had he come face-to-face with tragedy beaten into him?

Wasn't it time someone saved him from this?

"—"

The blue-haired girl lay upon the bed, no longer breathing. Her skin was pale; her eyes would never open again. She was dressed in a delicate negligee that somehow seemed perfect on her.

Subaru abruptly realized that he hadn't seen Rem out of a maid uniform once.

"Why did…Rem…"

As Subaru murmured, brushing his short hair back with his hand, he fell to his knees.

His head hurt. His brain came up with the wonderful suggestion that the sight before him was all in his sleep-deprived imagination.

This was his fourth loop at the manor. To Subaru, who'd already died and gone back three times, Rem was the person he was most wary of.

"Then why…why was Rem killed…?"

Surely it was Rem who killed Subaru, not the other way around.

Suddenly, a little devil on Subaru's shoulder whispered—maybe she wasn't really dead?

Maybe it was all a trick, a trick to make Subaru drop his guard? A joke in exceptionally poor taste was incomparably better than the nightmare before him being real.

He approached Rem to check her pulse, but…

"—Don't touch her!"

As he reached out to touch Rem, his hand was slapped away, hard.

When Subaru yelped and looked up, Ram was glaring angrily at him. The tear-filled rage on her face easily drowned out any words of retort Subaru might have used.

"Don't…touch my little sister!"

She refused to let anyone come between them.

With a tearful voice, Ram repeated herself as she clung to Rem's body, tears flowing quietly down her face.

There was no sign that the devoted, pain-filled older sister expected her little sister to ever awaken.

That made the truth clear.

—Rem really was dead.

As Subaru wobbled out of the room, Roswaal stood by the doorway and voiced his deductions.

"Appaaarently, death by debilitation. Her vigor was stolen as she slept, her heartbeat gennntly slowed, and the fire of her life puttered out, likely the work of a curse rather than magic per se."

Subaru's eyes snapped open at the word curse, the word for what the clown believed to be the cause of death.

Death by debilitation via a curse: that was the direct cause of Subaru's deaths during the first and second loop. In other words, Rem had died from the same curse that had previously killed Subaru.

"But I thought the curse came from Rem…"

The second loop, Subaru had died from debilitation via curse as well as having his head smashed by an iron ball.

Subaru had deduced from that night's circumstances that the witchcraft and the iron ball were linked. But Rem herself being killed by a curse had ripped his hypothesis to shreds.

"Then the shaman and Rem are separate…?"

Subaru's mind was in chaos as the thought of a new, separate shaman arose.

Rem had slain Subaru out of loyalty to Roswaal. At the very least, that was the only answer if Rem's words during the third loop were true.

He wondered if Rem, who'd killed him by her own hand, and the shaman were connected somehow. But if that was the case, Rem being killed this time around made no sense whatsoever from the shaman's point of view.

So maybe Rem and the shaman weren't connected to begin with…?

The first time, the magic of a shaman had slain Subaru; the second time, the shaman's spell had debilitated Subaru when Rem murdered him for whatever reason. The third loop, Rem had eliminated him with no connection to the shaman whatsoever.

"The fourth time…I didn't do anything, so Rem was the target instead…?"

It was baseless supposition, but based on the circumstantial evidence, it was the only reasonable conclusion.

If Subaru had been the target for reasons related to the royal succession, he could understand it as an indiscriminate preemptive strike against Emilia's side. The victim, be it Subaru or Rem, was random.

"You appear to be in raaather deep, serious thought?"

The mismatched blue and yellow eyes looked down, reflecting Subaru in them. Subaru's eyes rose as he felt like Roswaal's scrutinizing gaze was seeing into his very soul.

"It pains me to ask such a thing…but do you have aaany idea about what happened, good guest?"

"Wh-why would you think…I…"

"Myyy, forgive my rudeness. I am simply somewhat…displeased at the moment, that one of my pretty retainers has suffered such a fate, you see?"

Roswaal abruptly shifted his gaze from Subaru to the painful sight inside the room.

Looking at the side of his face, it truly sank in to Subaru just how precarious his situation had become.

Subaru had no way to prove his innocence. This time, Subaru had done nothing to earn the slightest smidgen of trust from the others.

Emilia tugged on his sleeve, speaking with an anxious voice.

"…Subaru."

When he looked, the shimmer in her violet eyes seemed to be pleading with him: If you know anything, please say it.

Her eyes and her calling his name told him that much.

The implication of answering Emilia's earnest request hit Subaru hard.

He'd have loved to tell everyone what he knew. He wanted to shout it at the very top of his lungs.

When Subaru made no reply, Emilia's small fingers trembled a little as they held his sleeve.

He'd thought that repeating the past would lead to a better future, yet here he was, every silver lining having a dark cloud, with the outcomes worse than he ever imagined possible.

"Subaru…"

Confusion clawed at the inside of his head. He'd thought that it would all be swept aside and things would be better someday.

No, he thought they'd become better already.

—And the moment he thought it, this happened.

"—"

The moment he pictured the black cloud and the world stopping, ceaseless pain gripped his head.

His breath caught. The sensation of Emilia touching his sleeve made Subaru's stomach twist in pain.

If Emilia kept her pleading look trained on him, Subaru's heart would falter. Even if he didn't, Puck, able to read emotions, could easily expose the fact that Subaru was hiding something. But still, Subaru couldn't explain anything about Return by Death.

And that meant the torture would continue, pain without end, over and over.

He felt his tongue quickly dry. Unable to resist his urge to flee, he took a small step back.

"—If you know anything, you'll never escape me."

To the girl crying her eyes out inside the room, Subaru's small action looked like nothing more than an attempt to flee for his own convenience.

Instantly, a raging gust of wind made the door violently shake, its passage blowing Subaru's hair down flat. The moment after the sudden gust made him close his eyes, a sharp pain heralded a vertical cut on his cheek.

"Ow…!"

He immediately touched his cheek, moistening his palm with blood. Wind. The wind had wounded him.

From within the room, Ram was shooting Subaru a hate-filled look as she trained her palm toward him.

"If you know something, spill it!"

"Wait, Ram! I…!"

Can't, Subaru was about to say, but the word died instantly on his lips, since he knew what would befall him.

But he was coming up empty for any way to kick that can down the road.

With Subaru holding his tongue, Ram shot him another gust of wind as a warning of what would follow.

Had he been able to calmly assess the matter, he would have called it a Blade of Wind.

Wind magic—magic that inflicted cuts like the whirlwind monsters of lore. The sharp slice had enough power to leave a cut on the floor between Subaru and Rem, slice the door in half, and stop right at Subaru's cheek; such was the power she threatened him with.

If that hit him full force—faced with the phenomenon before his eyes, Subaru forgot to breathe. But Beatrice extended her cream-colored palm in front of Subaru and countered the Blade of Wind.

"—I am one who keeps her promises."

She gave her raised palm a small shake, as if that were no great feat, as she looked back at Ram.

"I have made a promise to protect this man from harm while he stays at the manor."

"Lady Beatrice…!"

Whereas Beatrice's demeanor was elegant, Ram bit her tongue with indignant anger.

As Ram raged to the side, Beatrice looked up at Roswaal, still standing right beside them.

"Roswaal. Your maid is being quite rude to your guest."

"Certainly. I find that sinceeerely unfortunate. If possible, I wooould like to welcome him anew as my guest, as soon as he breathes out what he is holding within, to feel all the lighter."

"How could he be involved in this matter, I wonder? He was in the archive of forbidden books all night."

"This is too grave a matter to simply drop. Surely you cooomprehend this?"

With negotiations having failed, Roswaal shrugged and raised his palms into the air. Subaru saw the multiple orbs of differing colors that floated from his palms.

They were red and blue, yellow and green—even Subaru, untrained in the ways of magic, understood that those four colors represented magical power. Their beautiful glows contained energy beyond his imagination.

"It is just like you to engage in petty tricks. Just because you have a little talent, a little more power than others, a pedigree just a little finer than others, you need to flaunt in others' faces… You are quite a child, I will have you know."

"How very haaarsh of you. Is the difference between we, who walk about normally, and you, passing time in a room where time has stopped, sooo great? Perhaaaps we should put it to the test."

He could feel the magical tension between them making the very air twist. Subaru was becoming a third wheel as hostility rose.

"Hooowever, to think that you would go through such trouble…are you truly sooo fond of him?"

"Your jokes are in as poor taste as your makeup, Roswaal. Puckie is my ideal partner. That human cannot match such lovely fur."

Beatrice looked defenseless as she stood before Roswaal's four glowing, floating balls.

However, the "simply standing" girl projected something around her so powerful that it made the air itself bend. Something invisible but frightening was about her.

As the situation became explosive, with both wielders of supernatural power glaring at each other, Ram's shrill voice wedged itself between them.

"Who cares about that? Who cares?!"

Everyone looked at her as she stormed over, hands holding the hem of her skirt.

"Let me through and do not interfere. If you know something, say it, all of it. Help…help me avenge her!"

It was a sad, painful plea. The words gripped Subaru's heart. He truly wanted to tell her what she wanted to know.

But Subaru had no words to offer her.

Ram shot Subaru a despondent, despairing glare. Emilia stood beside Beatrice, as if they were both shielding Subaru from her hostile gaze.

"I'm sorry, Ram. I still believe in Subaru."

Emilia put her palm toward Ram to hold her in check while looking back at Subaru from the corner of her eye. Her eyes wavered, trying to find the words, before dropping for but a moment.

"Subaru, please. If there's something you can do for Ram and Rem…please."

Her compassion made Subaru feel more ashamed.

Emilia had sided with Subaru, even in such extreme circumstances, even though Subaru had said such horrible things to her at the start of the week, even though he was still holding his tongue in silence…

"I'm sorry—!"

As if crushing Emilia's concerns under his heel, Subaru stepped not forward but back.

In that instant, Emilia's eyes went silent as her emotions raced. They spoke of shock, sorrow and, above all, unbearable disappointment that her trust was about to be betrayed.

What Subaru truly saw in Emilia's eyes was his own despair. He knew his actions had opened the door to a nightmare and could never be taken back.

That was when Subaru, no longer able to meet Emilia's eyes, turned his back on her.

Instantly, Emilia reached out toward his back. But this was to block the Blade of Wind before it reached Subaru.

The wind crashed against pure magical power; mana bounced off mana as Subaru ran.

"Subaru—!"

Shaking off the voice trying to stop him, Subaru rushed down the corridor in a daze. He felt the magical confrontation behind him increasing in severity, but Subaru lacked the courage to look back.

He was weak. He was fragile, unable to do anything.

That was why he'd run out on Emilia, who'd trusted him after all that, and Beatrice, who'd tried to save his life, spurning their goodwill and good intentions.

He didn't know what to do anymore. What he did know was that Ram shouted behind him like she was spitting blood—

"—I'LL KILL YOU!!"

Having lost her other half, the girl pursued him with a cry that threatened to tear her asunder.

Covering his ears, shaking his head, making wordless sounds, Subaru ran. He ran.

And he kept running.