12.1.4

"I love you. I love you. I love you. —Love me."

Amid the darkness, he heard a voice.

Swallowed by shadow, he was upside down and shaken around.

Not only his body but the inside of his skull was being ransacked as the shadow whipped Subaru Natsuki about.

Within, as Subaru Natsuki dissolved into the shadow, he heard a whisper.

"Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me. —Love me."

It was horrifying. He trembled in ecstasy. He shuddered in fear. He cried tears of joy. He spat blood in a rage. He cried out in exultation. His emotions were being sliced apart, bounced around, as what was right became wrong and what was wrong became right—

"_______"

Subaru Natsuki's field of vision was growing hazy. He knew his body was being dissolved. Why did he know that? Was it Subaru Natsuki who knew or was it something else?

"_______"

Inside the shadow, he sensed some kind of separate presence beyond the whispers of love. —No, he did not sense them, for they were not separate at all. It was Subaru. It was Subaru Natsuki. If he was dissolved, mixed, and combined with one mass, there would be no boundary between him and others. Everything that had been swallowed would become Subaru Natsuki.

There was warmth, sadness, hatred, generosity, dejection, ecstasy, despair, relief, lamentation, satisfaction.

Yes, there was satisfaction. Amid the many despairs and many laments, there was satisfaction.

That satisfaction was a part of Subaru. If that could fill Subaru, then—

"—?"

He reached a hand out toward the satisfaction—no, it was not a hand. He had no body to be found—no, that was not so. His body had been swallowed by shadow, so it was all there: his dissolved heart, his crumbling consciousness, the remains of Subaru Natsuki's soul. There they were all gathered together. And in gathering them, he comprehended the reason why they were gathered.

There was heat. Subaru Natsuki felt heat in the midst of his return. And so to a place completely different than that false satisfaction, he extended an arm, a right arm, a right wrist. And then—

—in that darkness-colored world, a prayer-imbued handkerchief glimmered vividly.