3.6

He couldn't escape.

Subaru cried and screamed until his trembling voice went hoarse, a flood of tears pouring down as he wrapped his arms around Petra's remains, cast aside on the ground.

Warmth had long faded from the girl's body. Rigor mortis had set in. The body of an unconscious person ought to have been heavy, but even considering Petra's youth, her body was far too light.

That was probably because of all the blood that had flowed out of the gaping wound in her chest.

Petra had died with her eyes open and an expression of surprise. The only comfort to be found was that the absence of pain or suffering on her face meant that she'd died instantly when her heart was impaled. After all, there was no reason for her to die with a gaping hole in her chest and then suffer in agony on top of that.

Subaru laid Petra's corpse upon the ground and covered her with his track jacket, the only funeral he could provide her. He'd tried to close her eyes, but with her body already stiff, he couldn't grant her even that small mercy.

Praying that Petra would rest in peace, Subaru trembled as he turned his back to her— He continued to avert his eyes from the hellish scene the familiar village had become.

The cause of the white smoke was Muraosa's charred body. The young men had no doubt fought with the swords they had. There were weapons and farm implements scattered about, with the blood of the slain villagers drenching the bare earth around them.

Death had befallen the village. It had all been over long before Subaru arrived.

Far too late, Subaru was now the only person to bear witness to the results of the tragedy befalling that place. He offered up both his hands, as if pleading for someone, anyone to take them.

What happened?

What had happened? What terrible, horrible thing had occurred? Who had violated the village in a merciless slaughter of its innocent denizens, trampling upon their dignity even in death?

No one still breathed. Not a single person was left alive.

A memory of days long forgotten arose in the form of a carefree voice.

"Oh, Master Subaru. Good morning to you. Here to play with the children again?"

He remembered the brash, noisy, fond, and very pushy voices of the young children.

"Subaru's here!" "Subaru came!" "Subaru's all alone!"

One girl had pretentions of adulthood as she made a cheeky promise about the future.

"Eh-eh-eh, Subaru's the one who saved my life, so when I'm bigger, I'm going to return the favor."

He couldn't see her face anymore. His track jacket now covered it.

No one was left. His memories had been trampled underfoot, shredded, discarded, lost.

It wasn't sinking in. Liquid was pouring from every cavity in his face. Whether it was tears, snot, or drool, he had lost the will to hold it back as it continued to sully his face.

"—Aaa."

Then, as Subaru wallowed disgracefully, practically drowning in tears, he came to grasp something far too late. He finally understood the obvious.

There was no reason for the senseless tragedy to have stopped at the village's edge.

"—"

A chill worse than any that had come before shot through Subaru's entire body.

Since Subaru had fallen into that world, he had overcome mortal crises several times over.

Even then, he had never known fear and despair as he did in that moment.

—The despair that, somewhere beyond his reach, the people precious to him had been taken away.

His teeth chattered to their very roots. His eyes, painful from too much crying, could see little, but he raised his limited field of vision to the sky. The clear blue ether seemed innocent in the face of the tragedy beneath it. And under that sky, the mansion awaited.

That place he'd wanted so much to return to, that he'd yearned for, the place practically right before his eyes, was now too frightening to contemplate.

But whatever had turned the village into hell surely hadn't overlooked the mansion.

"—Ah, ahh."

He was scared. He couldn't help but be scared.

He didn't want to think of the possibility that this "something" had torn through the mansion. He was afraid that if he thought it, let alone spoke it aloud, that would make it real.

He shook his head, casting off the fearful images. But though Subaru tried to drive them to the back of his mind, one of them obstinately held on, whispering in Subaru's ear, refusing to be forgotten.

That was why Subaru clung to it, the lowest means for him to escape. If he could voice even the possibility, the chance that something had happened to her, then…

"Rem…? Rem…where are you…?"

It was the name of the girl who ought to have arrived before him, the girl who had cared for him, who had cuddled with him, who had affirmed him, and who had betrayed him in the end.

Subaru instinctively knew what it meant to call her name. And knowing this, Subaru had chosen to do it anyway.

In the name of worrying about Rem's safety, he was fooling his heart with the most sordid of means.

"If Rem came back… She'd never sit back after that happened to the village…"

Excuses.

It was another excuse, spoken in a place where he stood alone, and it didn't even fool him.

He was the worst. He was the lowest of the low.

He didn't want to understand, but he did.

If he could voice the possibility that he'd lost the girl he cared for and the possibility his own heart could break, then why not offer up a sacrifice so that he wouldn't have to?

Subaru told himself such lies so that he could pretend not to see his own overly unscrupulous heart.

He felt like the blue-haired girl's pleasant smile, the warmth of her nestling against him, her voice that called Subaru's name, were growing further, further away.

"That's right… Rem… Rem can… Rem…"

Subaru began listlessly tottering along the road to the mansion. He dragged his feet, leaving Petra's remains and the corpses of the villagers behind, covering his ears to block everything out.

He still didn't know what awaited him. He thought both that he didn't want to know and that he needed to know, but he didn't have the courage to run to find out.

Subaru slowly, slowly climbed the upwardly sloping path, clinging to the girl's name like she was the pillar supporting his heart as he walked toward the mansion.

—Rem was dead in the courtyard.