11.5.2

Beginning with Subaru and Echidna sitting on opposite ends of the table once more, the tea party recommenced.

Just like the previous time around, he had been unable to expel the Dona Tea he had absorbed no matter how desperately he retched. Pretending that nothing had happened, Subaru sought to blot out his sense of nausea with his sense of duty as he attended the tea party.

"Having the bodily fluids I offered rejected to that extent wounds my maidenly heart."

"A maiden wouldn't talk about offering bodily fluids once in her whole life. More importantly, I want to continue talking about important stuff. About the vow issue, you promise to… Nah, you'll do it, then?"

"You have an aversion toward the word promise, do you? This, too, I accept."

The joking exchange weighed on his mind, but Subaru was relieved he'd gained a firm promise from her: that even when he woke from the dream, he would not forget Echidna's existence. This would surely prove a necessary key to finding the answer to the Witch's laboratory known as the Sanctuary.

Having gained confirmation on that point, there was one other thing he wanted to confirm with the Witch—

"—Echidna, how much do you know about my circumstances?"

"What I know is how much I want to know about you. And how much I want to know is all there is to know in the entire world."

"Don't kid about this. I'm sure you've realized how weird it is that I'm here at all."

"That is not so. You fulfilled the conditions to be invited to the tea party—you reached my territory, and in that place, you were filled with such longing for some reason. And that desire aroused my Greed—"

Echidna made a play on words, whereupon Subaru placed his hand on the table once more.

By this he indicated he didn't mind playing along with the tea party…but he had no intention of playing along with a farce.

"It is strange. I mean, from your point of view, I only just left, right?"

"_______"

"I returned from the Trial…from overcoming my past. And here I am, right after that."

The reference point for that loop was set to right after he'd overcome the first Trial.

Even though Subaru had returned, he ought to have been in the stone room in the tomb. That was both immediately after his conversation with Echidna had concluded, and to the Witch, an extremely quick reunion—

"You're so smart, there's no way you wouldn't find that strange. If you don't, that could only mean…"

"…Could only mean?"

Hesitating to continue his words, Echidna gave his hesitant back a proverbial shove. He breathed in, then out.

If Echidna did not harbor suspicions about their reunion, that meant—

"—You know the circumstances that caused it."

"_______"

When Subaru pressed onward, Echidna made a tiny smile and maintained her silence.

—The basis for his suspicion was the words he'd exchanged with Echidna in the virtual classroom at the height of the first Trial, when she'd stated that world was nothing but a charade.

Even that very moment, the answer he'd conveyed to his parents in the past had not changed. They rested strongly in his chest. Accordingly, it was not that which weighed on Subaru's mind, but how that world had been constructed. Echidna had created a different world using Subaru's memories as a reference, recreating even his school's uniforms.

If that was the power of the Witch of Greed, sleeping eternally within the tomb, then—

"—You have the power to see my memories. So, you don't think this situation's strange."

If she had the power to use his memories as a reference, she knew that from Subaru's perspective, their reunion was not directly after parting inside of that classroom. She also knew he had spent several days since then, letting everything slip through his fingers as "death" greeted him once more.

—And so, too, did she know that Subaru Natsuki had Returned by Death, going back in time.

"_______"

Subaru hesitated, sealing his words away. His heart beat ferociously, as if to tell him that going any further was dangerous— That if Subaru revealed much more, he would most certainly brush up against the taboo.

He would expose Return by Death. That would violate the one inviolate rule that the Witch had laid down. And should Subaru break it, he would taste agony to his very limits as punishment.

Or perhaps he would invite a different tragedy, and those evil hands would take the life of someone precious to Subaru, as they had with Emilia.

"Haaa…haaa…!"

His spiritual body's brow was drenched with sweat. The droplets fell onto his cheek, rolling down to his jaw.

The state of his soul vividly reflected that of his body. That was how far he was backed into a corner.

That moment, what backed Subaru's mind into a corner was not fear of the taboo, but fear of the unknown.

Subaru's tongue rejected spinning the words in that unknown state. After all, the current situation was different from any other situation he had encountered relating to Return by Death.

If Subaru spoke, willingly breaking the taboo, his heart would be crushed.

If Subaru pleaded from his heart that he wanted to reveal the truth—the evil hands would take the life of someone he cared for.

Then what happened if he said aloud that Return by Death had been exposed via a completely different tangent?

It was a complete unknown, a circumstance beyond all imagination—

"Why do you not try it?"

"—?!!"

To Subaru, afraid of the taboo and the unknown, Echidna casually tossed those words.

Taken aback by the casualness of it, Subaru was indignant next. Echidna didn't understand. She didn't comprehend what might arise if he just tried it, how horribly unprofitable the prospect.

But in the face of Subaru's anger, Echidna shook her head and said,

"To test in hope of a result is an action to be praised. We only covet that which has value."

Without even knowing if she herself might be harmed, she criticized Subaru's inde— No, that wasn't it.

The Witch Echidna had seen right through to Subaru's reason for indecision.

She knew it was possible that it would be her, not Subaru, who might be in peril. And, knowing this, she had said to do it nonetheless. She said this, because her conviction was unshakable.

The "Witch of Greed," the very epitome of hunger for knowledge, would gamble even her own life on an action with no way to foresee the result.

"You might not have time to regret it…?"

"If that time comes, may I expect that you will break down in tears before my remains?"

To Subaru, hesitating until the last moment, Echidna replied in a tone that was sunny to the bitter end.

Her position was one she adopted out of consideration for Subaru, so that her personal feelings might not excessively sway his decision.

That was less sympathy toward Subaru than the Witch's sincerely not wishing for an external impurity to skew the result wrought by his decision. There were no expectations, nor wishes, attached.

He saw that it was her way as a Witch to seek the purity of the result. And that gave his back a shove.

He felt like her way of life, not harboring the slightest of doubts, was mocking his own smallness—

"Echidna. I Return by Dea—"

He spoke the words that were taboo.

Just as he had done many times before, he spoke the words, the special phrase, that walked across the prohibited line.

Several times had he done this: to serve as a decoy for the demon dogs, to lure in the White Whale, to deceive the Witch Cultists.

In the course of doing so, he was robbed of words, and the world's time came to a halt—

"—th."

Firmly closing his eyes, Subaru gritted his teeth against the ferocious pain he expected to come.

However, his touching resolve amounted to nothing.

"…Eh?"

He opened his eyes. The world had not changed. Time had not stopped. There was no pain.

And this being the case, he shifted his gaze toward the Witch sitting directly in front of him, who went…

"Hmm…"

Sitting in her chair, the Witch recrossed her long legs as the eyebrows of her refined visage grimaced ever so slightly. However, that was her only reaction. Even when he glanced at the area of her breasts, there was no change in the Witch.

"…If you keep staring at me like that, I shall be embarrassed. Though I am rather proud of my outward appearance, I have no such confidence about my figure. Unlike Sekhmet and Daphne, that is."

"I ain't starin' at you for a reason like that. No, more importantly…"

Subaru responded to her misdirected demeanor, his thought process still at a halt.

No punishment of the taboo had been applied within the chest that Echidna hid from Subaru's gaze with her arms.

In the face of that fact, his thoughts slowly began anew as he touched a hand to his mouth.

The roots of his teeth, and his voice, were shaking.

"When, when I die, I go back in time, and I restart the world. I Return by Death."

"I heard you. And I perceived it before I heard. I see—it is an exceedingly rare circumsta…"

"I! Return by Death! Return by Death! Return by Death! Return by Death!!"

"W-wait a—?!"

Echidna was horrified at Subaru repeating the forbidden words over and over. Her composure from the moment before was lost; the Witch's eyes opened wide as she hurriedly urged Subaru to calm down.

"C-calm yourself. I understand how you feel, but…"

"I've! Returned by Death! Over, and over, I die and restart! I! Return by Death…"

"I get it already! So let's advance the conv…"

"I…! Return by Death, starting things over, over and over...!"

"_______"

He shouted numerous times, unable to contain himself. As Subaru shouted, hot droplets poured from his eyes. The droplets trickled down his cheeks, rolling down to his jaw, and fell— This was not sweat. These were tears.

"All this time… I've…!"

He'd seen this dream so many times. He'd anguished so many times, wanting to shout it out. He'd probably begged for it many times over.

Yet he could reveal Return by Death to no one.

He thought he was forced to defy it, alone—

"I…!!"

"—I understand."

His revelations became lamentations, and his shout scattered into sobs midway.

Faced with Subaru's voice, the Witch quietly nodded.

As Subaru wept, the Witch stood at his side. Her fingers touched his black hair, seemingly ready to enter it. Then, her slender, delicate hand gently stroked his head.

"I know, the footprints you have made until now. I saw them, after all."

"_______"

"But, I have merely seen them. If possible, I would like you to tell me about them from your own lips. I want to know what you thought, what you felt, how much you embraced."

Stroking his head, the Witch added, "I mean," and continued, "—I am Echidna, the Witch of Greed, she who craves knowing everything in this world."