Volume 4 - CH 51.2

The shadows shot forth with tremendous mass and momentum as Subaru helplessly watched on.

The black arms extending from the Witch’s feet looked terribly similar to Petelgeuse’s Unseen Hands. But they differed in that while Subaru could easily avoid the Unseen Hands once he saw them, the Witch’s hands rushed with a speed nearly impossible to avoid.

And so, in the matter of an instant, Subaru’s eyes saw himself being enveloped by shadow and lifted high over the treetops, before being pulled back down in front of the Witch at a speed faster than freefall.

The whole course of the attack happened faster than his consciousness could process, and the upheaval of his organs from the sudden lurch sent vomit spouting from his lips.

[Subaru: Ough, hu……gh]

Unable to keep his consciousness straight, his vision spun round and round.

His feet were off the ground, and his entire body felt like it was wrapped in something soft and cloth-like. Although his bondage wasn’t tight, his movements were completely sealed, and he couldn’t find a single point where he could apply force to break out.

He tried struggling from the tips of his fingers to his toes, but only the part above his neck responded to his commands, while the rest all yielded to the enshrouding shadow.

At last, with his vision clearing, Subaru’s throat froze as he caught the vast, shadowy mass within his sight.

――Before his eyes, as in right up against his eyes, the Witch stood so close that he could almost feel her breathing.

Having caught him in her shadowy shroud, she was observing him at an extremely close range with undeviating eyes as if they were boring into his skin.

His head was held in place so that he couldn’t escape that gaze. Perhaps he could shut it out if he just closed his eyes, but somehow, even that was forbidden when his eyes met the Witch of Envy’s.

{???: I Iove you. I Iove you. I Iove you. I Iove you. I Iove you}

Syllable by syllable, same as before, the Witch continued her profession of love.

Hearing those words, despite having been overwhelmed into silence, the spirit of rebellion flared up in Subaru once again.

Injecting strength into his immobile limbs, he widened his eyes, glaring back at the Witch. Then, opening his mouth to resume the barrage of insults,

[Subaru: It’s not a matter of distance. It’s that you don’t mean anything in my heart at all――]

{???: I love you. I love you. ――Love me}

Hearing his answer, there was a pause in the Witch’s voice.

Subaru furrowed his brows and blinked, wondering if he had misheard it. And seeing Subaru’s reaction, the Witch slightly lifted her head,

{???: 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 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 love me love me love me love me love me love me ――Love me}

Suddenly shivering, for the very first time, Subaru felt pure and genuine terror towards the Witch.

His heart, which he had managed to distract with rage and rebellion up to now―― was suddenly stripped bare in the face of the Witch’s reworded calls.

Resolving not to falter no matter what she does or say, he had forced himself to keep his head held high.

Facing off the Witch of Envy, he thought he had understood the root cause of her obstinance.

But that meager courage and overhasty conclusion were both pulverized into dust.

Aberration. Deviant. Lunatic. Love to the point of madness. Criminal. Murderer. Witch.

Understanding that her continued whispers of love would receive none in return, this time, she was requesting love through brute force. Rather than greed, it was more along the lines of shallowness.

And there, he realized it.

The Witch desired Natsuki Subaru, but she wasn’t seeing Natsuki Subaru at all.

What the Witch saw wasn’t Subaru, but the vessel named “Natsuki Subaru”. She wanted a superficial Subaru, and wished to be loved by a superficial Subaru. Whether or not his feelings were genuine was no concern of her’s.

To love Natsuki Subaru, and be loved by Natsuki Subaru.

That was the Witch of Envy’s entirety, and her reason for destroying the world.

――It made no sense at all.

Understanding this much, the question in Subaru’s chest was right back to where it started.

That is, why was the Witch so obsessed with him in the first place?

They’ve never met or talked before. In fact, this was the first time they’d actually seen each other.

So why in the world would she be so madly in love with him?

He had no idea. There was no logic to it at all. It’d be easy to say that love was never something to be measured by common sense, but the Witch’s love had taken that to an entirely different level.

{???: ――Love me love me love me love me love me love me love me love me}

The Witch was mistaking superficial love for the genuine one.

Chances were, if Subaru just said the words, the Witch would have released him from his bondage.

If this was the usual sly, crafty, pragmatic Subaru, he might have even replied with some cringeworthy, grandiloquent response to her professions of love.

But,

[Subaru: ――I hate you]

[???: ――――]

[Subaru: I am never, going to love you]

Pronouncing this rejection from his very soul, Subaru refused the Witch of Envy’s request.

[???: ――――]

Hearing this answer, the Witch fell silent once again.

Not many humans could claim to have dashed a Witch’s hopes so many times like this. Subaru derived a small, pointless gratification from this fact. And then, his altitude slowly began to drop.

Wrapped in his shadowy shroud, Subaru’s body that was held in the air was slowly lowered to the ground. But it was not in order to release him.

Still restrained, starting from the tips of his toes, he was being dragged beneath the Witch’s feet――little by little, swallowed into the center of the vortex.

Realizing that she couldn’t obtain his heart, the Witch had decided to consume him instead. A rather short-circuited and overly materialistic idea.

There, while everything below his knees was swallowed into the shadow, with his mind tormented by the terror of the gradual loss of sensation, a sudden doubt struck him.

If he was swallowed like this, Subaru would no doubt lose his life.

So in a sense, it might be good to give up here. Embracing “Death” would be his last, half-ditched resistance against the Witch. So maybe it’d be alright if he just let himself be swallowed.

But,

――All of his “Deaths” so far had been reversed by the powers of the Witch, but, if the Witch herself killed him, would he really be able to come back?

[Subaru: ――――!]

The moment he realized this, Subaru began his belated resistance. With the lower half of his body already swallowed into the shadow, such efforts were only naive and futile. Yet he had no choice but to try.

Come to think of it, even before the question of whether he could return, he wasn’t even sure if being swallowed by the Witch would actually kill him. What if he becomes a part of the Witch after being pulled into that shadow, and ends up spending eternity without being granted the permission to die?

Over that long, long timespan, all his current resolve and determination would whittle away, and then, would he bend to the Witch in the end? Subaru wasn’t confident enough to say that he wouldn’t. Therefore he mustn’t allow himself to be swallowed.

In the worst case, he would commit suicide by biting off his tongue before he could fall into the Witch’s hands―― but,

[Subaru: ――uu, huh?]

That resolve was prematurely cut off by a scalding sensation on his chest.

Feeling a rising heat burning the left side of his chest, Subaru looked down to see what was happening. And there, he saw a light coming from the heat, seeping through the darkness that was enshrouding his body.

What was even more surprising was that beginning from the source of that light, the Witch’s shadow was slowly vanishing as if melting away.

[Subaru: If this……!]

Before his mind could even process what this abrupt burst of light may be, Subaru twisted his body, using the light to slice through the shroud of shadows. The range of his movements widened as he shredded through the shroud, and, confirming that his arms were free, he immediately reached for the source of that light.

Grasping it between his fingertips, what he retrieved from his chest was a napkin, fluttering in the wind―― with a grey cat embroidered on top. It was Petra’s handkerchief.

[Subaru: Why would this……nevermind!!]

Putting off his thoughts for later, Subaru swung his arm with the handkerchief in hand. Obeying Subaru’s will, the supposedly soft fabric took on an astounding resilience, and, with the sharpness of a razor it severed the bond between the Witch and the ground.

[???: ――――]

[Subaru: Woah! If this thing……alright!!]

Subaru stabbed the handkerchief-blade into the mass of darkness that swallowed the lower half of his body.

Burying the tip of the shining handkerchief into the shade, for a moment, the shadows rushed to envelop the light, but, without a sound, they bursted apart in an instant.

With the shadows scattered away, all that remained were Subaru’s two feet landing on the ground.

Immediately stumbling backwards, he confirmed that both his legs were still there. Then, readying the handkerchief at his hips, Subaru ran his eyes over the shining piece of cloth.

Petra’s embroidered handkerchief. It was hard to imagine that her feelings for Subaru could have such miraculous qualities. But there, Subaru’s mind turned to the one who must have done something to this handkerchief.

[Subaru: That Echidona…… did she already know this was going to happen?]

“Just for insurance, insurance” he could almost hear the white-haired Witch saying.

In the dreamworld, at the closing of the tea party, Echidona had taken this handkerchief as her payment. He had never actually considered what would happen if a real world object was given away in a dream――but if this was the result of her tampering, then it really is possible to influence reality from within a dream.

In any case,

[Subaru: Guess I better say thanks… for giving me something to fight the Witch with]

[???: ――――]

Faced with the fact that her shadows had been destroyed, the Witch only stood there, stupefied. Seeing this opening, Subaru drew in a short breath and lunged to the Witch’s side――

[Subaru: Careless to a fault!]

――and thrust the handkerchief towards the frozen Witch’s flank. The Witch didn’t move an inch. But the shadows at her feet shot out in self-defense, activating the protective “dress”, as Garfiel called it.

[Subaru: ――RuuaaaaAAAAGH!]

Yet it did nothing to stop the handkerchief’s light.

Like a sharpened dagger, the handkerchief pierced through the shadowy dress, thrusting straight for the side of the Witch’s face――and struck true.

[Subaru: Got her――!]

The unmistakable sensation in his hand prompted him to cry out in joy, as Subaru turned, reining the same momentum into another backslash against the Witch――

[Subaru: ――Eh?]

But he stopped, when he saw it.

The Witch stood there, unmoving, looking at Subaru. The shining thrust to the side of her face had indeed landed, and had peeled away the vast, shadowy veil, revealing her face.

It was a familiar, silver-haired girl with eyes of frozen emotion staring back at Subaru.

[Subaru: Emilia……?]

She did not respond to his call. But everything else set off into massive motion.

The shadowy shroud returned. The previously-eradicated darkness beneath his feet wound around Subaru’s body once more, and this time, it constricted him without mercy, causing him to shriek.

Starting from the right side of his ribs to the entire left half of his body, the shadow restrained him tightly in its grasp. Only his right arm, still holding onto the handkerchief, could still move, albeit barely, being denied the full range of it movements.

And, just like this, the immobilized Subaru was steadily pulled beneath the sea of shadows. Without a trace of hesitation, it was far faster than the last time.

First, was his lower body, and then his left shoulder submerged as well, until only his head and the right portion of his chest were still above ground.

Desperately lifting his head, resisting with his sinking body,

[Subaru: Emilia! Emilia!? Wh, how did this.. why!?]

When he saw her missing from the Tomb and the Sanctuary engulfed by shadows, Subaru had thought that she was swallowed by the Witch.

At least then, his resistance against the Witch of Envy up to now would have had some meaning.

――But why was she the one wearing that shadow, attacking the Sanctuary?

He didn’t have an answer. Nor would she answer him. She didn’t see Subaru at all. A never-before-seen coldness gleamed in her violet eyes, and Subaru couldn’t be sure if her consciousness was still there.

There wasn’t even enough time to find out.

[Subaru: Gh, u, ah……]

His body was dragged deeper and deeper into the shadow.

He couldn’t feel a thing in his swallowed body. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was only a lack of sensation, but the fact that even the sense of existence was lost forced him to reassess the danger of being swallowed here.

Confirming that the handkerchief was still in his right hand, the only part of his body he could still move, his resolve was settled.

The white-haired Witch flashed across his mind once more.

He would like to amend his previous statement, and instead raise a complaint to that Witch.

[Subaru: Did that bastard Echidona seriously know it’ll turn out like this……?]

If that were the case, he’d be so moved by her scrupulous consideration that his eyes would tear up.

With tears of blood, that is――

――Closing his eyes, when he opened them again, Subaru stabbed the handkerchief into his own throat.

The sharpened point pierced into his flesh, and bore open a hole in the vital regions of his throat. Blood flooded down his windpipe and into his lungs, drowning his consciousness in red.

Suicide. The Witch of Greed had equipped him for precisely this opportunity.

It wasn’t to resist the Witch of Envy. She knew that their conversation in the Citadel would set her off. And here, she exacted her toll.

{???: ――――!}

Seeing Subaru commit suicide, for the first time, an emotion other than love detonated in the Witch of Envy.

But, drowning in his own blood, Subaru’s already-detached consciousness wasn’t aware of this.

Only, seeing the girl’s familiar face twisted in grief, regardless of what was residing inside her, it still pained his heart all the same to see her like this――

His throat was filled with blood, making it difficult to formulate speech. But even so, Subaru spoke, not to the counterfeit residing in her vessel, but to the girl.

[Subaru: I, will――]

――Definitely save you.

The next instant, Natsuki Subaru died.