Immortal Resolution

Zero days since the Last Death (Seven Deaths)

"… LOVE ME, SUBARU!" The darkness finally gave way, leaving in his body and mind only a desperate cry and the discomfort of the endless jealousy of the shadows. Unable to stand, gravity overcame him, bringing him to his knees.

A strong spasm took place at the base of his throat; it was the retching caused by the dizziness that was besieging him. Immediately he put a hand to his mouth, in order to stop the advance of the contents that wanted to leave his stomach. Even so, the foolish resistance was futile, for the vomit seeped through his fingers, soaking his hand and much of his face. Grunting, Subaru took his hand out from his mouth and let the foul liquid flow out…

His weakness was eternal, of that there was no doubt. However much he died and returned, he still could not get used to the terrible backlash he suffered each time he did. Although, if he remembered correctly, those horrendous returns to life did not occur during the cycle of deaths in Lugunica. Now he felt as if something did not want to release him every time he died, as if something yearned for his presence in the unknown and somber beyond.

Cursing whatever was causing those terrible returns, Subaru stood up again. It was stupid that he was still unconsciously clinging to his unfounded pride, but Subaru did not want to keep looking as pathetic as he was. He felt that part of overcoming his weaknesses involved raising his head and not losing his resolve every time he was affected by one of these.

Maybe I belong on the ground, covered in my own vomit, he thought. But I don't want to just accept it, I committed myself to do something about my weaknesses, and I'm not going to stop now because of a simple dizziness. Injecting determination into his spirit, Subaru shook his vomit-covered hand and wiped his face.

"I've to call Mimi immediately, the sooner the better." The image of the girl suffering from his was still lingered in his mind.

From the heart he wished he didn't have the pathetic need to contact her. But without her help, surviving would only be more difficult than it already was. If he died, she would show that sorrowful expression again; so Subaru needed her in order to spare her that suffering. That was the irony caused by his eternal weakness.

Subaru took the metia in his pocket and prepared to call the little girl. To contact Mimi, it would be enough to open the Conversing Mirror and focus on the owner of the metia with whom one wishes to contact; if the person is within range, then the connection would be successful. However, the metia lay in the palm of his hand, still closed.

Still stunned by the return by death, Subaru had forgotten a critical factor. If he had survived so long after the entity's assault, it was due to the assistance of an unknown demi-human who had unexpectedly helped him. Had it not been for that shabby werewolf, Subaru would never have survived more than five seconds in the face of the hostile entity.

However, something had changed, the order of events had been altered, and the black wolf-shaped demi-human had not helped him stand up. And since he had not helped him up, that meant that Subaru couldn't warn him about the entity's appearance. He was convinced that his warning had caused the demi-human to follow him and, consequently, save him. But now he couldn't warn him...

He had to search and find him in less than ten minutes, or else he wasn't sure Mimi could deal with the attacker alone. Subaru had seen Mimi fight, and he knew that she was considerably powerful, yet the sheer hostile aura of the female figure made him feel that the power difference between the two was gigantic. Therefore, finding the demi-human, who had fought against the entity on equal terms, was vital.

But first I must call Mimi… Without hesitating for a second more, Subaru opened the metia and waited for the girl to answer. Calling her as soon as possible was also a critical action, considering that Mimi had arrived a little too late in the previous loop. Hopefully, those minutes he would save in contacting her, would be enough to avoid seeing her face again soaked by the tears of grief caused by his death.

"Hi, Onii-san…?" As before, the little girl greeted him confused by his call. Feeling a lump in his throat, Subaru observed the girl's energetic smile and bright eyes; that was the smile he was supposed to protect. After briefly explaining what was about to happen, Subaru agreed with Mimi that they would meet somewhere in the metropolitan area; wherever she noticed a commotion or signs of combat.

He didn't have enough time to find the demi-human and escape to the company's main building, so he had to prioritize the former. After what happened in the previous loop, he was convinced that escape was not an option. For some reason, the entity had found him during the previous two loops, so it was likely that the same thing would happen again... Once again, escape was not an option. Is this some kind of lesson, damned fate? He thought, cursing the providence that seemed bent on making him suffer.

With heavy breathing, Subaru walked onto the main avenue of the metropolitan area and began to search for the demi-human. During his previous encounter with him, the demi-human seemed to be heading towards the avenue, so looking there was his best option. Even so, Subaru did not recall seeing him pass by at any time. Although it was possible that he had, but Subaru did not notice. In that case, he was probably willing to help him get up, but he refrained from doing so because Subaru got up by himself; or at least that was his hypothesis.

"I need to find him as soon as possible, or everything will go to hell..." In desperation, Subaru sailed through the sea of people in search of his last hope. Mimi had agreed to speak with Tivey, so there was a possibility that between the two triplets they would succeed in defeating the entity; or at least that would have been the case, if not for the lack of time.

The distance between the factory and the location where the female figure would appear was not too long, yet it would involve a trip of about half an hour. At the very least, fifteen minutes if Tivey rushed to get there. Unfortunately, there were not too many ways to delay the malicious entity's judgment, beyond the use of brute force. Fifteen minutes was too long in those circumstances.

Once again cursing his luck again, Subaru continued to search insistently. He had chosen to walk around the area where the food stalls were located. This was because, due to the time, his best guess was that the demi-human was aiming for lunch on the avenue. It was a very risky gamble, but in the absence of information on the shabby humanoid wolf, there was nothing better he could do.

He scanned a ramen stand with his gaze, but all she noticed was the cook arguing with a customer. Exasperated, Subaru proceeded to the next stall, not without a glimpse of the people who were part of the flow of passers-by. If he remembered correctly, the wolf-shaped demi-human was wearing a black kimono, so all he had to do was find a black patch in the crowd. His gaze wandered over the crowd, but again it proved fruitless.

The next stall he observed was one where they were selling sweets, among which he noticed dangos and mochis; sweets from his native country. Besides the nostalgic desserts from his homeland, he noticed the absence of the figure in black he was looking for. Spitting out an amalgam of mispronounced insults, due to shortness of breath, Subaru pushed on. Now it was time to scan the crowd of people walking along the avenue.

He saw dozens of people, both human and demi-human, with the latter proliferating. All were wearing different colored yukata or kimono, but none were of the color he was looking for. Clenching his fists tightly, Subaru was about to move on to the next food stand, when he spotted something that caught his attention.

It was a black spot in the middle of the sea of colors. With his hope slightly rising, Subaru rushed to the spot of darkness in the middle of the rainbow. But when he was only yards away from the dark figure, his skin crawled and he felt a chill running down his spine. Indeed, what he had seen was a black kimono; but not a men's kimono. The owner of the garment was a woman with milk-white hair, skin like porcelain and sharp eyes that pierced his soul.

"Die…" Said the woman, in a tone of voice that Subaru barely heard. Then, the dam of blood and flesh was broken opened.

Heads, arms, scalps, legs, ears, eyes, teeth, pieces of skin, fingers, cloth, intestines, kidneys, bones, fragments of gray and white matter, hair, lungs, stomachs... A whole plethora of human parts and their torn clothing rose into the air, permeating the area with the characteristic smell of blood. Subaru, who had reacted just in time, avoided the attack by very, very little. His salvation? The ten or so passers-by who had served as a human shield.

Disgusted, Subaru got up from the ground, with part of a bowel on his shoulder and brain jelly in his hair. Covered by blood and other pieces of those that served to save his life, Subaru stared at the female figure, who continued to watch him with the same intense hatred as always.

That entity did not care one bit about all the victims of the collateral damage caused by her attack, her attention was only focused on Subaru. He, clenching his molars together, returned her hateful gaze; the poisonous hatred the figure felt was now mutual. Without a second thought, Subaru jumped to the back of the candy stand for cover. He was going to make his death as difficult for the entity as possible. He was going to resist as much as his weak body could.

"Die..." The word was repeated, and the rain of guts and blood was repeated as well. The surviving passersby who had remained static from the shock, had just been completely eradicated.

The wrath within him was increasing. Flashes of the moment he murdered Meili began to surface in his mind. His fingers tightened and his breathing became even more labored. He remembered his first death at the hands of Elsa, he remembered his failed promise to Emilia, he remembered the torture, he remembered Anastasia's pleas on her deathbed, he remembered the piece of dress that was all that was left of Elsa, the Bowel Hunter. He remembered vividly how he stole Meili's life with his own hands...

Those memories, under normal circumstances, would have led to a trauma-induced panic attack. But at that moment, in that instant, as if it were poison or some kind of stimulant drug, a strange feeling of pleasure, hatred and anger ran through his veins. He wanted to do the same thing to this entity that only thought about killing him. He wanted to take her neck and, with his bare hands, squeeze the life out of her body.

A part of him immediately felt disgusted by those emotions and thoughts. However, a different part of him, a fragment of his mind, embraced them and set out to stay alive, only with the goal of having the opportunity for vengeance in mind. Once again, that fragment of himself had shown signs of existence, and did not seem willing to give up control of his body. Unwillingly, an obsessive and sick desire for revenge engulfed him completely.

Feeling the rational part of himself go numb, Subaru was left alone with the unaltered instinct for survival and the morbid desire for revenge. Moved by this, Subaru rose again, ignoring the bodily fluids of those who had served him as a shield of flesh, which were covering him entirely. As if he were a robot, he leapt behind another of the food stalls, just milliseconds before the one he had been covering himself with was reduced to mere rubble.

Wood, meat, viscera, blood and sweets rained down, making the air smell of sweetly copper. Resisting the urge to vomit, Subaru jumped to the next stall without even hesitating. He was using the street shops as a cover, he was using the survivors as shield. His own actions were disgusting him, to the point where the self-loathing he felt was reaching unsuspected limits. Yet, with his sense of reason relegated to the background, his survival instinct continued to command him to use everything to his advantage to extend his life even for a single second.

"Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!"

Irritated, the female figure launched attack after another, turning everything in front of her into a chaotic amalgam of organic and inorganic matter. The entity lacked all reason, her only objective was to assassinate Subaru at any cost, disinterested in how many lives could perish in the process. With her gaze blinded by hostility and hatred, the death entity kept on throwing wind attacks, coating the avenue, and herself, with the remains of what just a few seconds ago had been food stalls and dozens of innocent bystanders.

Subaru hated her for only thinking about killing, ignoring everything else. Subaru hated himself for only thinking about surviving, ignoring everything else; including his own life. Once again, death brought them together. Who was that entity...? Screaming, Subaru fell behind another of the stalls that was still standing. Horrified, the owner of the stall looked at him with panic taking hold of him.

"N-No! Get away from me!" Squealing, the owner gestured to Subaru with his index finger.

By that point, it was expected that the few remaining survivors would have noticed the pattern. Subaru was the one attracting the attacks, so his presence implied that they would be the next victims. The stall owner seemed willing to berate Subaru for having fared to approach his stall, but ultimately decided against it. Knowing what was coming, the man left his food stand and walked away from both it and Subaru. Subaru couldn't blame him for his reaction...

Understanding that the time was getting shorter, Subaru set out to get up and move on to the next stall. However, he had not begun to stand up, when his body was overcome by gravity and he returned to the ground. Feeling a stream of pain surging from the base of his ankle, Subaru looked at it directly, utterly alarmed. Paralyzed, he observed how his foot had disappeared from the ankle down, leaving behind a bloody stump, from which it was possible to see bone protruding.

Choking back a cry, Subaru took his foot and squeezed it hard, trying hard to keep more blood from leaking out his body. I don't want to die again, I don't want to die… Selfishly, that thought began to take control of his mind. Subaru knew that after everything that had happened, dying was the only way to reverse the catastrophe. And yet, his weak heart still refused to accept it.

With the survival instinct stirring his heart, Subaru released his foot and started crawling on the ground. He knew that resistance was useless; he knew that now that he had lost a foot, escape was impossible; also he knew that death was the way. And even so, that fragment of his mind refused to die. Injecting more survival instinct into his veins, the fragment forced him to keep fighting.

"Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!" But the terrible entity would not be satisfied with any other death but his. Releasing another cyclone of death, the stall that he was now using as cover was reduced to nothing; leaving him entirely exposed.

Both pairs of sharp eyes met. Fear again took hold of Subaru, who was enveloped by the malevolent female being's aura of despair. His body became completely paralyzed, to the point that even his lungs stopped working properly. Subaru knew it, he recognized the sensation: it was his death, which was rapidly approaching.

"F-Fuck i-it!" But his reason remained numb. At that moment, the ruler of his will was not himself, in a manner of speaking... The fragment injected even more hatred, anger and a desire for revenge. Adrenaline washed over him and, breaking the limits of his body, Subaru knelt and threw himself forward, propelling himself with his knees. "Aaaaaaarrrrggghhh!"

Foaming at the corners of his mouth, Subaru bellowed like a wild animal. As before his last death, he managed to prevent the attack from hitting a vital area of his body. But now both of his legs had been sliced from the knees down; the rest was now nothing more than a pulp of blood, flesh and bone. Once again, his resistance had been completely futile...

"Die!" Shouting, the female entity signaled the end of his life. Subaru still felt the desire to keep on living, throbbing inside him, but there was nothing he could do to save himself.

"Onii-san! Waaaaahhhhh!" Before the murderous entity could end his life, Mimi appeared just in time to save him. Unlike the previous occasion, when she had only come to witness his death, Mimi had managed to interrupt his death.

How much would he end up owing the triplets at the end of his life? That question inevitably popped up into his head. The entity did not react to Mimi's call. She simply raised her hand and executed her wind attack. However, Mimi's scream prevented her from launching it. Being hit by the sound wave of Mimi's attack, the female figure disappeared from Subaru's sight completely.

Stunned, Subaru stared transfixed at the point where the entity of death had previously been. The blood, flesh, guts and other remains that littered the avenue had been swept away by Mimi's scream, leaving a line of street completely exposed. With a tormented smile settling on her face, Subaru watched as the little girl approached him, utterly startled.

"Midge..." Subaru greeted the girl with a muffled whisper. With tears welling up in their gazes, the two remained completely silent. With a gesture of pain seizing her innocent face, Mimi looked at Subaru's destroyed legs.

"Subaru Nii-san… Mimi has to get you out of here, Onii-san!" Mimi said that, however, there was no realistic way that she, with her tiny size, could get him out of there.

Mimi was not a child, leastways not in the strictest definition of the word. She was about to turn fifteen, so she could well be considered a young adult, at least by the standards of that world. She was a teenager, but her body, like that of her siblings, was no more than four and a half feet tall. Getting Subaru out of there, especially considering his current state, was a virtually impossible task.

"Mimi… In my current condition…" Subaru did not want to die. But he neither did want to be a burden, and at that stage he was.

Now that he knew that by contacting Mimi as soon as he returned from death, she could reach him in time, he already had information that would make his death worthwhile. He knew it, and yet something inside him still refused to give up. A war of ideas was raging inside Subaru's mind, and he was more aware than anyone that this was not the right time for it.

"Don't say it, Subaru Nii-san! Mimi won't leave you behind! Mimi will do whatever it takes to keep you alive! Mimi won't let Onii-san risk his life in complete loneliness again! Mimi doesn't want Subaru Nii-san to disregard his life again by becoming bait or somethin' like that! I'll stay by your side, Onii-san! I promised!"

Speechless, Subaru looked straight into Mimi's teary eyes. That girl's spirit, like that of her brothers, like that of Julius, like that of Ricardo, like that of Anastasia, burned with determination. She and her siblings hadn't had an easy life, they were abandoned by their parents, to be later picked up by Ricardo. Together with him and Anastasia, the triplets emerged from the lower strata of Kararagi, to then obtain a life they could truly consider worth living. And at that moment, the little girl was willing to risk that life for him.

"Shit…" With self-contempt on the surface, Subaru voluntary decided to return to ignore his rational thoughts, ending the war between the thirst for revenge and the desire to die. He would let the alienated fragment of her being guide him. "Well, do you've something in mind, Midge?"

"Hmm… Mimi thinks we'd-"

"Die!" However, before Mimi could tell him what she had in mind, the entity returned to attack them.

"Ul Dona!" Instinctively, Subaru tried to shield the girl with his body. Even so, Mimi acted faster than he did and used her earth magic to raise an earth dome around them. The shield of rocks and part of the street did not withstand the wind attack, but it was enough to prevent them from being annihilated.

Mimi, as usual, was about to engage in battle recklessly. However, she stopped before doing so. Glancing at Subaru over her shoulder, Mimi decided to stay in front of him and make sure to protect him. Subaru wanted to speak out against that decision, but the girl did not seem willing to hear any objections. He wished he could do something, help her in the least, but in his condition he was unable to do anything but be a hindrance.

Beginning to feel dizzy from the blood loss, Subaru watched the fight lying on the ground. He wanted to make a tourniquet to at least prevent his death from reaching him so quickly, but after trying to shield Mimi from the entity's attack, all of his body's energy seemed to have left him. The exhaustion caused by the initial chase and loss of blood had finally caught up with him.

With her eyes half-closed, he watched as Mimi used her earth magic to cover them and her screams to attack. The female figure was absurdly agile, and yet she had taken damage from one of Mimi's screams. With blood gushing from her head, the entity carefully dodged each of Mimi's voice attacks. After being caught unawares by the first scream, the entity seemed to be aware that receiving another one could jeopardize her goal of killing Subaru.

Mimi used her magic again to shield them, then fought back with a scream when the earth dome was destroyed. The scream grazed to the entity, who succeeded in dodging it, and collided with another of the food stalls; a liquor sale. The whole stall, along with all its content, exploded and spread out across a part of the avenue, several yards away from the entity. Subaru, even in his dazed state, managed to notice the strange reaction of the entity.

For an instant, the hostile entity was completely frozen. Mimi, of course, took the opportunity to launch another attack. The sound wave grazed one of the entity's legs, who was almost too slow to react, leaving a wound from which blood began to gush out. The female figure, in rage, increased the intensity of its deadly gusts; apparently, her aura of hatred and bloodlust had intensified considerably.

The hostile entity dodged and attacked by firing sharp air blasts, while Mimi was limited by the need to protect Subaru. Perhaps, were it not for his weak existence, the little demi-human might even have put up a more even fight. But it was useless to assume. The entity was undoubtedly more powerful, and Mimi had the disadvantage of having to prioritize defense over attack. That fight was the chronicle of a death foretold...

"Die! Die! Die!" And that's when it happened. Mimi tried to create another dome of earth to cover them, but tiredness prevented her from doing so at the necessary speed.

With his dying eyes, Subaru watched helplessly as Mimi's body received the full force of the wind. Her small body, unable to withstand the cyclone of magical energy, succumbed. Pieces of her hair, eyes, teeth, skin, organs, blood and clothing bathed Subaru. Her body was already coated by this very thing, the difference being that until that moment, this carnage had belonged to strangers. Covered by the shreds of Mimi's body, Subaru wished he could yell, curse, insult, destroy everything around him, but above all, kill the culprit of that slaughter.

Subaru observed the figure approach him, his gaze dimming. Hatred had partially kept him alive, but now that the figure was preparing her last attack, his unfounded pride decided not to give the accursed being pleasure. No longer clinging to his life, Subaru bled to death, moments before he could realize that another figure in black had appeared to face the entity that was about to deliver the final blow.

Zero days since the Last Death (Eight Deaths)

Rejecting the shadows that refused to let him go, Subaru returned to the save point located in the alley. As usual, a strong headache rocked his head, while nausea and trembling crept in. However, the hatred and thirst for revenge, which she had accumulated before his death, were still intact.

Forcing himself to swallow the vomit that threatened to come out of his throat, Subaru refused to fall to his knees and thus looked up. At that moment, he had no time to think, let alone to suffer. He had to… No… He needed to find the black wolf-like demi-human. He would not allow Mimi to cry over his pathetic corpse, and he would not accept to witness her death again without being able to lift a single finger. And to achieve this, he would need to find the aforementioned demi-human.

Desperate, Subaru looked for him in that same alleyway where he had returned. The demi-human had helped him shortly after he returned from the first death he suffered at the hands of the entity, so at that moment he should not be far away. Subaru was about to go out to the avenue, but remembered that the previous search in that place had failed. Maybe the demi-human was in the adjacent street and not in the avenue?

Subaru then retraced his steps and began walking towards the other exit of the alley. He had not taken more than ten steps, when he noticed something that caught his attention. There was a shadow reflected on the surface of the alleyway. The shadow was humanoid, but no one was around to cast it.

"Perhaps…" Then Subaru understood.

Because of the time, the Sun had to be high in the sky, so the shadow must have come from above. According to his conclusion, Subaru looked up and then saw it: there, at the top of the building next to him, was an anthropomorphic figure dressed in black. And he could only think of two beings fitting those characteristics. Was it his salvation? Or his death? Subaru knew there was only one way to find out, so without hesitation he went into the building.