Hello once again! Like I've said many times before, I appreciate the effort that you guys make to bear through with my works and also am grateful that people actually end up appreciating my efforts, though criticism is still obviously allowed and encouraged.
And another thing that I've said many times before, I don't own Re: Zero...
And ending that, scroll down like all the other times... and enjoy...
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-Chapter 3-
'Lined in Orange and Black'
Deafening Silence, Loud Silence
"Now hold that end of the cloth, okay," Meili said as she pulled the fancy overcoat onto the table, laying it in an elegant manner fit for the massive feast that was to come soon.
The two sisters that had recently made it to the manor were helping with the setting up for the feast, intrigued by the large galleries that held multitudes of delicate meals, some that they had never seen before. Of course, perhaps they had never seen such delicacies because of one simple fact. The Mather's Mansion was forever impacted by a large amount of delicious and exquisite recipes of a certain Natsuki Subaru. It was quite surprising, especially to a certain pink-haired oni, that the boy held so many amazing dishes, despite being so inexperienced and abhorrent at cooking the same recipes, also despite instructions laid out so clearly in front of the incompetent Barusu.
And like always, as the three sisters, Otto, Frederica, and even Garfiel helped set up banners, tables, decorations, and ingredients that were to be used…
Laid a lazy pink-haired maid in the corner, supposedly supervising them despite being entranced in her own thoughts instead.
Like what happened to Meili and to Lady Beatrice, being in a place that once held a catalog of many memories could only job those same memories back into the minds of those who were present through them. To Ram, that is, the place held many sorrowful experiences. Being in the manor could do nothing but bring her sorrow, even if she gained short bouts of happiness due to the people around her and their weird antics.
The Mansion, even with the name now being the Mather's Manor, was still once the home of the person she loved, the person who sacrificed her despite the multitude of crimes he held. Roswaal, though many in the manor would disagree, did somewhat redeem himself in the end. And the pinked-haired oni's heart could only flutter at the thought that she was right, everybody in the world, despite their crimes, deserved a second chance. Even people who seemed to damn despicable, were only that way because people didn't understand them back or wouldn't take the time to, at least that was her opinion.
(Ironic, isn't it? I'll let you solve the puzzle to what I mean by that)
To be honest, though, it was a long while since the last time she visited this place. She remembered a few years back when she too received an invitation to head towards the Mather's Manor for a special celebration. She remembered even more vividly that she refused, out of fear of returning to a place that held so many memories that could only cause a person to burst into tears. Ram was strong-willed, but she was ironically the most emotional of Emilia Camp. Even the black-haired boy who she thought was only a man of good timing knew this simple fact too. After all, on one of his first loops, he remembered when the death of a sister close to her made her immediately full of bloodlust and determination to kill him.
Ram would have been stuck in that pit of shadows forever if it wasn't for a person of her own blood coming to rescue her in this apparent time of need.
Rem
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A Couple of Day's Before:
"Nee-sama, Wake up? We need to leave soon," pleaded the girl, hoping that her sister could wake up early and get ready for once.
Rem, before and after she lost her memories, had always been the first to wake up. Perhaps it was out of muscle memory or perhaps it was because she just enjoyed waking up early. She loved her sister but sometimes, having time to yourself is always appreciated. Rem as such always had the job to either wake her sister up or leave her be. For a large majority of the time, she did the latter.
Rem would wake up, get dressed, and would do some chores for the day so that she and her sister could do more exciting things later in the day or she would simply venture outside into the beautiful land that was Kararagi. Subaru-kun was right when he said that Kararagi was a must vacation spot that the camp needed to spend time at. Rem couldn't agree more with the sentiment, especially now that she lived in the nation. The place held many elegant and respectful villages that held many hard-working individuals and kind people, even if thieves still existed. It was filled with lush forests, radiating a bright and almost soothing green. It was filled with waterfalls and clear streams that held many colorful fish, which were also incorporated into the meals served there.
Oh yes, the meals.
Rem's favorite, without a doubt, was sushi with a bit of wasabi. She would occasionally regret her decision when the food touched her taste buds but it was still delightful nevertheless. It shocked some of the residents in Kararagi as well when they saw the oni dip their delicacies into a sort of condiment they never had seen before. After all, wasabi was Subaru-kun's idea, the mind of a genius I tell you!
However, today was different because they really needed to leave. They paid for a ride to the capital of Lugunica but, even so, the travel time from here to the Mather's Manor would take at least a few days, considering that they may need to stop for food and to rest.
"Nee-sama, wake up!" shouted Rem, being more assertive than usual as she shook her sister from the depths of her dreams.
"Barusu could wait, Rem, one more minute," retorted Ram, her eyes still shut.
Wait...Was she awake the entire time!?
"Nee-sama, they're expecting us. You better remember that Rem is not the same one you knew once before and you should be used to that by now, so Rem will say it again...get ready please," said the girl.
"Fine," muttered Ram, giving her sister the satisfaction that she didn't need to stay for another 20 minutes.
As Ram's groggy eyes slowly opened, she could only hear the shutting of the door of her room and soft, ballad-like footsteps that faded away as they got farther from her room. Her vision was still somewhat blurry and the blinds that were closed last night had been opened, clearly a common thing that her sister would do in the attempt to wake her up.
She looked to her far-right and saw a pile of neatly folded and stacked clothes that not only wore a very durable material but a very elegant appearance, deserving of someone as pretty as herself. At the thought of leaving for the manor gave the pink-haired once maid a bit of an anxious sweat but she did it last year and so she was far more prepared.
As she got up, dressed, and walked out of her humble abode, she could only smirk at the thought of the date.
The reason that her nap was interrupted was that idiot's fault!
To people all around the world, Lugunica in particular, this day meant the saving of the kingdom and even the election of the new Queen that brought the nation out of its own demise. Funny thing is, even the Queen and those who called her a friend never saw the event like that.
Even Ram knew it too, today was not the Queen's Aniversary or the kingdoms redemption anniversary...
It was his anniversary...
"Barusu, this is... what did I expect, of course, something this stupid could have only come from you," said Ram, though secretly intrigued at his bizarre proposal.
As the outside of the manor was flooded with much rain and mud, even making travel on the gravel roads difficult for the studiest of ground dragons, sat the knight of the half-elf directly across facing the eyes of an agitated maid, agitated that she actually ended up agreeing to have this discussion.
"Come on Ram, I know I've done a lot of stupid stuff but at least we didn't die! Plus, how is this stupid," questioned the boy in front of her, subconsciously including a reference to the deaths that he'd seen before.
Ram could have sworn that she would slightly flinch when he muttered something like that, it was one of many things of Barusu that were unsettling and disgusting. However, compared to his weird and disgusting demeanor, the maid still felt unsettled when the idea of death ever came into discussion. It was not like she feared it but instead that she was more intrigued as to why the brightly smiling boy in front of her spoke of it as if he'd known it for years.
Ram, however, wasn't as incompetent as Barusu as to leave such a question unturned.
"You're adopting a person who tried to kill you by pushing you down the stairs and who worked with an assassin who tried to kill you twice. Barusu, did you hit your pathetic head hard on something," said Ram, raising her eyebrows indicating her confusion.
"Do you really have to add the pathetic part of that? And it's not like that's her fault! She was just misguided and it's not like she could just run away from Elsa," said Subaru, regretting saying the assassin's name as it sent shivers throughout his body. He was thankful that he practiced maintaining control, otherwise, he might have started hyperventilating from memories of the assassin or of the tower.
He hoped that talking to Ram would help, she seemed to be more of a parent position now that she had to deal with Louise, the new loli of the Emilia Camp.
Even Ram figured out the reason why, the only other reason was that he needed someone he could talk to about Meili. Talking to Julius or Anastasia was currently unavailable as they were doing whatever asshole knights and merchants did. Emilia was currently meeting with Felt and her knight while Patrarche, despite being of best girl status, stood tired in the stables making idle conversation with Fufroo. He didn't want to talk with his beloved drill-haired loli about it because he could already predict what she might think of trying to adopt the person who tried to hurt him. And after rounding them all out, he was left with one person to consult with.
"Ram, I think she deserves better, it's as simple as that," stated Subaru, holding the firm belief that despite the harm that Meili once brought to the camp was only because she was surrounded by things that made her do it, that made her feel appreciated and loved if she did do the acts accordingly whether that was being praised by Elsa or anything of the sort.
Ram dropped her eyebrows, now quite frustrated with the boy's tone and proposal even more. Her first priority during the tower, apart from making sure no one touched her sister, was to keep the idiot Barusu alive. As she constantly spied on his nightly visits to her sister's room to only talk to himself for an hour, she understood, even if her ideas weren't confirmed that her sister and Barusu must have been somewhat close. As such, Ram got closer to Subaru and protected him.
And the mere thought that he'd put that on the line to help someone who tried to take his life was a bit, just a bit, irritating.
"Barusu, why haven't you talked to your merry band of dunces about this," asked Ram, wanting to know Subaru's specific reason for not informing Otto or Garfiel first.
Subaru looked at the floor, looking as if he was thinking of an answer. Of course, he wasn't, he was just a bit frustrated that the one in front of him only made getting the papers harder rather than easier like he'd wanted. Subaru glanced back up towards the oni, her arms crossed in an independent manner, and all he could do was continue.
"Garfiel and Otto weren't at the tower so I don't think they'll understand the lengths Meili went at," answered Subaru.
"Lengths?" said a slightly confused Ram, though such an expression of confusion never once laced her tone.
"Ram, you saw it too right? How hard she fought," said Subaru, knowing full well of the answer.
Ram, though conflicted, ended up agreeing with that statement. Meili fought hard during the tower. Some would contribute that to the fact that she was only fighting for herself, yet if she was then why not only protect herself and why constantly overexert herself? Meili's heart, though no one really noticed it, began to thaw from that point onward.
"Ram-sama, I need help please," cried a feminine voice, mos likely Frederica.
"I guess you are a man of only good timing, Barusu. I'll speak to Ros-no, I'll send word to Lugunican officials and advisors about your request,"
"Thank you, Ram! Now give me a hug!" exclaimed Subaru, diving towards Ram.
Ram, as you'd expect, dodged the wild Barusu.
And as Subaru climbed back up to his feet...
"Just make sure that she feels loved... Subaru," muttered Ram as she left the room to aid Frederica in whatever problem she found herself in.
Subaru sat there in silence, he could only hope that those adoption papers or whatever the equivalent was in this world would go smoothly.
Rem sat at the dining table, having already finished her breakfast and starting double-checking, or more like triple checking, the foods and supplies they had in their bags, still preparing for the journey ahead of them.
A weird gurgle of her stomach and the feeling of wanting to vomit was all she could feel at the thought of visiting Lugunica for long periods of time. She appreciating seeing her friends and all and though they calmed those disgusting illnesses, if she ever were left alone those very same feelings would overtake her. It wasn't like she hated Lugunica or that she believed it to be a worse place than Kararagi but there was a reason she chose to live here rather than there.
Lugunica reminded her of the sorrow the plagued Subaru. When she first met the Emilia Camp, she was bewildered at the weird faces Subaru's friends made at the sight of her, most likely surprised that the sleepy beauty had actually awakened. However, when turning to Subaru all she could see was immense guilt.
She wondered why for a long time, why would such an amazing and capable person be so down in the dumps like this?
She learned why a bit too late.
Maybe that was why, even though she'd never admitted it, she had subtle hate towards Lugunica. Hate towards the people who couldn't see past his facade which she could see despite knowing him far less than any of the others. Hate towards, disgusting as she put it herself, towards Emilia who had done nothing but watched her supposed beloved sacrifice himself for them all the while they saw it as him simply losing his life.
Natsuki Subaru was a man few saw past and even fewer understood.
His eyes were not tinged with excitement at the sight of the Emilia Camp when they finally reunited from Volcannica, they were tinged with horror and immense guilt for not only failing at restoring her memories but at the sight of the camp that he swore to watch over no matter what.
She, indeed, learned far too late.
The Chapel lay silent still, a few shuffling of seats or the hitched breathing of peoples resounding from the walls, echoing off of them and back into the ears of the sorrowing peoples. Stained Glass and elaborately made statues littered the chapel, making getting up and speaking an even more difficult task as pressure would automatically be put upon the speaker. That didn't matter now though as the audience of the funeral could hear the mad, yet soft tapping of a person's shoe. Some groups had to look behind themselves, only to be greeted with a blue-haired oni, now finally dressed in something other than the maid uniform that had once stuffed her wardrobe and now wearing an elegant blue and black dress.
She was all alone there, no one to accompany her, very much unlike the speeches that were made by the Sword Saint's Camp and two of the brotherly trio.
And as she made her way up towards the body of the boy, she held back pearls of water within her eye, knowing that saying goodbye was the true importance of funerals.
She was, however, incredibly terrified at the sight before her.
Terrified that the boy looked so much more peaceful when he was dead, inherently reminding her of the sounds of screaming the boy would make after a nightmare or the time where he had finally broken and let out a dam of tears, reciting his own worries to the camp for the first time in a while.
As she turned around, she could see that those in the audience looked at her with admiration, for they knew the importance of the blue-haired maid to the boy and the boy to the blue-haired maid. She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, preparing for the words that, she could only hope, lift the minds of those in the chapel to talk instead of lay silent in this ever to the quiet chapel.
"Subaru-kun would always have nightmares you know. We would never notice it but Rem did once. Many of you in here remember Rem as one who was subjected to the sleeping beauty curse, a curse by the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. Subaru-kun visited my room every day, from what nee-sama said, and talked about his day despite no one actually listening to him. One day, he, out of habit, made it to my room and even though Rem wasn't currently inside of it, he continued to talk as if Rem were. All Rem remembers is opening my room's door to find Subaru asleep in a chair next to my bed, his eye twitching as if he was having a bad nightmare," exclaimed Rem, knowing full well that she could be digging a larger ditch of guilt for those in the room.
But that didn't matter because they needed to see the lesson.
And so, she continued, dropping bits of her speech pattern...
"I tried waking him up and all he did was scream for help, it was the first time that I and, for all I know, the camp too saw him breakdown. As people rushed into my room, he just kept screaming and screaming, his eyes just seemed so empty and out of place. It was like he wasn't even there," continued Rem.
Those in the chapel had further reclused into the depths of their guilt, especially a half-elf and a Great Spirit who had known of the boy's nightmares for quite a while before that incident that occurred.
"After much talking and calming him down, he finally starting being at least a bit more transparent to us, tellings us how he felt and what not. Subaru-kun always held secrets and was always afraid of what others would think if those secrets were released. We can proudly say that we are now more proud of him than ever. Subaru-kun will forever be stuck in our memories and I would rather him be thanked here for being a hero, my hero than laying silently and looked by gloomy faces!" scowled Rem, her true emotions now showing, her composure dissipating.
"When I woke up in Volcannican Forests, knowing not of who I even was, the only one who extended a hand was Subaru. I, at first, distrusted that hand of help only to be met more with kindness and compassion. I won't force anyone here to do it but Subaru-kun deserves people to stand by him even in death and her deserved, even if he himself can't feel it now, to be loved." finished Rem, now eyeing towards some members of the Emilia Camp.
Subaru told her many times that the Rem he knew never really valued herself while putting others on a pedal stool.
Would he, perhaps, be proud of this development? That she not only retained her love for him but now saw the value in lifting others up so they too could love themselves?
And from that point on, one by one people stood up to walk to the corpse of the boy and each person, one by one thanked him.
For being a friend
For being a charmer
For being a man of only good timing
For being a knight
For being an amazing contractor
For being a role model
For being a Good Person.
And yet, in the deep recesses of the Shadow Garden still laid the boy.
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It was like the airplane rides back at home...
Yet it was strangely different from the ones back home, so very much different.
The boy remembered the first time he rode an airplane, once scared that he'd somehow fall off or that his ears popping was actually his ears melting or some rare disease only contracted on airplanes. I suppose, when one is at that age, their imagination truly does get the better of them in order to make up for those bouts of paranoia. Over time, those airplane trips progressively got easier to persevere through, the fear slowly dissipating each ride even if he still needed to use medication to get over the head-numbing pain of motion sickness and nausea. Those airplane rides were especially brilliant for two particular reasons though...
First off, looking from the windows all the way to the ground truly gives a person perspective, and, as a kid, seeing yourself so high up, seeing things that people even a few decades ago would have never dreamt off made the trips so much more... exhilarating. Another idea, I guess, was the fact that it provided a boy a temporary distraction from the worries and stresses that infested the places underneath him.
Secondly, the boy enjoyed when he'd ask his parents for a lollipop or a piece of gum to chew to ease the ringing in his ears and, for whatever reason, despite the ringing of the ears being downright obnoxious and painful, the boy was sometimes happy when it did happen as it meant that he'd not only get a free piece of candy but the feelings of the pain disappearing the more you chew on the piece of gum, for example, was so satisfying.
And then when they would finally land, the ringing would stop and then they would step into the terminals, either finally reaching the destination or maybe getting on another flight.
However, here it was different.
The ringing just never could stop, they mustn't have landed yet.
Deafening silence, faint chirpings of nothingness yet filled with a constant ring continued within the garden. It was only the dark depths of the shadows that were to accompany him in this realm of punishment...
Ironic wasn't it?
To the boy who had constantly sought anything but this silence, he now had to live with it. The boy who could only, in the greatest of dreams, wish to talk to somebody who truly understood him, such dreams were now impossible to have. Hell, he couldn't even sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the same sensation of hopelessness still seemed to linger in him. What made it worse was that even if he somehow went to sleep, shadow men and haunting memories would only seek to torture him in the depths of his mind... nightmares.
To the boy who constantly made jokes, who constantly exaggerated his dulled out emotions, who would, according to friends and acquaintances alike, be described only as someone who was loud and ecstatic... now sat inside the purplish atmosphere without ever uttering a single word, not even a syllable inside the lonely labyrinth of shadows.
He could only wonder if this place was simply a punishment for his sins, for all the hellish timelines he created for being so damn incompetent. Timelines where he stayed dead and when others would have to live with the uncontrollable emotions that were grief and anger. Or maybe, in some timelines, those who even had the slightest of care towards the boy... were dead.
If any of his friends were present though in this garden, accompanying him instead of the empty, uninteresting atmosphere, maybe things would be different. It would be quite a shocking revelation to the boy that none of them would have ever blamed him for his actions or what the boy called 'his sins.' His friends, how lucky he was to have them, would support him in whatever way they could.
The boy, despite the boundless support and love, would constantly and inherently describe himself as nothing but a monster, no better than a cultist or a Witch. He was the destroyer of worlds and a creator to ones that would only end in more destruction and misery, even if that misery was brought by different means. If, however, you asked any of his friends or those who saw him nothing short of a hero, he was just a human-like anybody else. But being human was not always a good thing, especially for someone like him, especially when trapped in pure darkness for years on end. He lived in that Garden for all the days and nights too, not like you could tell the time of day anyway. But to everyone else, he was still very much human.
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But humans are fragile, are they not?
Years of solitude took a toll on a person. Years of standing, of sitting, zero talking, zero feelings took a toll.
No loli would ever be present to comfort him or heal him when he occasionally lost control of his bloody hands, no half-elf to comfort him with gracious lap pillows, no knights to pick him up and encourage him with usual knightly demeanors and that he was doing a splendid job... no one at all.
Nothing but the usual airplane 'ringing effect' in his ears for what seemed like years and were, in fact, years took a toll.
All he ever could really do was sit there and relish the times where his humanity would return, even if briefly. Times where he would see the world that he left behind and could only be grateful that no one had died and that he had, at least, been mildly successful in his strategies despite the obvious recklessness and lack of caution behind them.
But the boy's eyes would always hold different shades of sorrow and fear once in a while, as any human would.
His ears were forever deafened by the chantings of the quiet garden,
his taste eradicated by the dense, disgusting fog around him,
his touch demolished from the constant feeling that he was floating in nothingness,
his sense of smell was no longer present as it was only intuned with the miasma that would often suffocate him.
But his eyes... the sense of sight was something far scarier as it would forever imprint visions of terrible pasts and potential futures.
Because to the boy, when he wasn't watching the two precious daughters he left behind, or the adorable drill and purple-haired lolis he let go, or his beautiful wife... watching them having fun or even watching them have breakdowns in their own rooms as servants and maids rushed to calm down the victim or when adopted daughters seemed to lose all the shine in her eye simply at the thought of him...
he would only see death, visions of the mistakes he made before being trapped in this terrible prison.
The Shadow Garden
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Bodies laid scattered about. Guts lay open, rawly cut and butchered. Eyeballs were smashed or disintegrated. Necks bleeding, teeth split. It was morning when he first saw the sight and the smell of crimson still hung throughout the air, the blood still flowing outward from their bodies indicating that their painful, or perhaps painless, deaths were nothing but fresh. Sooner or later, flies and other disgusting critters would be hanging around the bodies, scavenging for whatever food were to be ingested or for whatever nutrients said flies needed. Sooner or later, the blood would turn a deep black, disguising with the charred ground of the houses that would inevitably be overtaken by the plants and soil. Sooner or later, things would start crawling inside of the bodies, maggots to be precise. Sooner or later, the larvae of those maggots and other creatures would soon be laid and would hatch to make the next generation. Those larvae would bust from the skin, reeking everything with pus and disgusting products that would only further make a more proficient paradise of a hatching ground. The skin of the once gruesomely murdered bodies would soon peel away, separating muscle from the skin and resembling the sight as if someone had taken a knife and skinned the people alive before laying them about the scene.
Amber haired little maids had their eyes poked out,
Purpled-haired daughters and a certain greatest knight would lay with arms outstretched, obviously begging for whoever the perpetrator was to not hurt the others.
A certain Great Spirits ashes would be floating in the air in complete anguish,
so many dead bodies would lay there; their deaths would soon be avenged when the knights of the kingdom found the villain who caused such a gruesome scene.
And all while that would happen, knights all around the kingdom only continued to hunt for the perpetrator who killed the Royal Candidates, the last hope of Lugnica many people believed them to be.
But even so, the bodies remained in the motionless state that dead bodies only found themselves in. And in the middle of that red-dyed field was simply a black-haired boy with scary mean, kind eyes who stared in complete silence, his eyes resembling the deepest abysses of the ocean.
His mistakes made this, he only wanted to help.
He didn't wish for this. This was not at all according to his plan. WHY did this happen? It just didn't make any sense, why would they do it or, heck, why would they want or even cause such a thing to even occur?
So as the boy muttered his thoughts in his head, slowly corrupting and breaking each section of his brain even deeper and even more irreversible, he only continued sobbed at it all.
"ahh..." muttered the knight, his legs trembling at the sight of yet another failure. He knew that he'd have to reset, this timeline was so obviously messed up in every possible manner and fixation. All his friends whether those be asshole knights, tsundere oni's, purple-haired daughters, or silver-haired half-elves were nothing but corpses waiting to be fed on maggots, maggots who would sooner or later crawl through their open mouthes and busted noses.
And through all of that...
The night sky could only shift and turn, clouds of crackling intensity or calming soothingness would be formed and would either make the boys experience out at the haunting cemetery that was these piles of corpses either worse or slightly worse. And up above, hovered the ever so cold, yet so hot, sun as it stared at the lumps of corpses, pitying the boy who sat in the middle of it. And when the day suddenly would turn into nights, even the mabeasts would leave the boy alone, as if they pitied him and the loss of the people he had saved over and over again.
But the boy only could laugh at the sight now... After all, he'd seen it at least, what? 11? 14? 20 times? He couldn't fathom any of it and it still broke his heart into a million fragments each time at the sight of the failure, but he just couldn't believe it! And so, he laughed. After so many timelines and so, so, so much investigating, he found out who it was who caused the horrid sight, and the boy, for lack of a better word was both in sorrow and extremely pissed.
And he could do nothing, NOTHING... but grin widely and laugh.
The boy, that at a distance seemed so helpless and unaccomplished, had been the same hero who destroyed the Witch Cult and all its arch-bishops.
Regulus was to lay in the large aqueducts in Priestella, dead but still drowning in his own self-importance,
Ley laid dead, decapitated and worried for the sister he supposedly cared for,
Roy lay dead in Vollcania, his body full of stab wounds with flies wasting over him,
Betelgeuse lay dead, burning in fire and his large devotion still to this day being rejected,
Capella lay in abject horror that someone had rejected the dragon's blood and assassinated her despite the apparent immortality,
Sirius lay dead in the cells of a prison, still grinning widely but with a somewhat sorrowful expression of not being able to see her 'beloved' again, her crazed mind being present to the very end,
In short, all of them lay dead... each and every single one getting what they deserved for all the other horrid sights they staged throughout the world.
But it was still all too funny to the boy now because for that same reason. The Witch cult... was dead. The perpetrators of this horrid sight before him could have never been them and so his initial assumptions of who it could be were immediately demolished, especially after much thinking on his 4th and 5th loop.
But then he started thinking more.
Perhaps, it was the remnants of the Witch Cult, oh so devoted members gathering up for one last, desperate strike to kill the person who threw a wrench into the gears or to capture the girl he loved because she just happens to look like someone they worshipped. But at the same time, the same situation occurred at Priestella yet they still survived, even though the archbishops were there too. In fact, at Priestella they were at a distinct disadvantage due to the extravagant and flooded layouts of the city and being under the constant threat of being pummeled with gallons upon gallons of water.
Here though, they were at the advantage, and with all the archbishops taken care of, how could even a rogue faction or even the remnants of a once-powerful cult take care of them so easily?
But the boy learned something throughout the constant investigating and hopeless trials, something that he finally accepted during his 11th and 12th loop. It never was the Witch Cult.
So the boy still sat there with a wide smile on his face.
The miasma stunk the air, corrupting it, and yet... it only came from the boy.
Satella, at this point, was already free. Subaru saved her, though, without the acknowledgment of those who he also called his allies. If they had known the boy freed a great evil such as her, all trust would be turned to dust.
Satella, however, still couldn't live with the sins of her past, much to like how the boy would often refuse the objection that the faults of his past, weren't really his in the first place.
And with that, she imagined the faces of her beloved and immediately gained the dangerous envy that made her notorious in the first place, her other personality crushing the boy's hopes and dreams.
Satella, no, the Witch of Envy then remembered those friends of her beloved who could so easily move forward, leaving all that they had done to her beloved behind without even a single glance back and one simple thought made her enraged. She would feel Envy that she couldn't be there when those who were would only make things harder for her beloved. Envy, no, detestment and murderous intent for those who wronged her, despite never even interacting with them in the first place. They could have made an excuse, lied about her identity, maybe even explained that Satella wasn't actually a bad person... but that plan, that future had already gone to shambles the second Satella was freed from her lifelong imprisonment.
And so, back then, Satella was to be inevitably restrained and killed by her beloved, her parting wish being a dangerous Witch Factor that seethed into the boy's veins and blackened his thoughts.
That day was perhaps the most heart-crushing day for the boy, so many years and hours of hard work and research not only went to waste but the person that he was so adamant on saving perished right between his fingers because he couldn't account for the situation. He was then about to immediately pull out the knife from underneath his coat, something that he kept hidden in one of the inside pockets with extra padding so no one would notice it sticking out, and point it towards his neck and shout encouraging or self-deprecating statements to motivate him to slit it as efficiently as possible.
But then fear overtook him, as Satella was dead and that he knew, that Witch Factors change based on the person who they resided in.
And so he stood there paralyzed in the thought, scared of waiting too long to where the checkpoint would change which could prevent him from actually saving the day but too scared to leave those who he had accumulated throughout so much time and painstaking effort, afraid for once in his life to feel the actual sensation of death.
And so, the perpetrator of the piles of corpses on that bloody field was not Satella, as she never could have been there to have caused such a bloody sight.
It wasn't Satella nor the Witch for the matter.
On the boy's 16th and 17th loop, he came to a brilliant conclusion that would make perfect sense!
It was Pandora!
Yet sadly that wise testament was nothing more... but untrue, as he knew himself that Pandora was dead from the Witch Factors swimming and twirling inside of him.
Pandora had been defeated by none other than the boy who was sobbing on that charred ground of corpses.
One could say, a person who had the ability to warp reality to whatever that bender saw fit could only be defeated by a stronger bender of the same reality.
Pandora was probably the most difficult enemy the boy ever faced in his entire time in this world. Sadly, the Witch still was only difficult in terms of countering her ability, but the situation he was in now... he was going against something far worse than ever before.
He was going against people he thought he could at least mildly trust, people who he thought would uphold the wishes of the kingdom even if they were a bunch of foolish in truth.
And then on his 19th loop, he then figured out that though those he suspected did have a play in it all, they were not the people who caused the massacre before him.
And so the boy just sat there, grimacing at the corpses whose eyes held no color or hope, where once had been plentiful bundles of such feelings.
It was a sad battlefield to behold, an abhorrent sight if anything else as well.
On his 20th loop, he finally realized how he could solve the problem.
The boy knew that he couldn't live...
He pulled the knife into his neck, hoping that the cursed ability he once had, retained its essence...
His hands trembled at the thought as he hadn't used the ability by committing suicide in such a long time, almost a year and a half at least.
His mouth was dry, perhaps instinctively remembering the times in which he did do the act and where his entire body would limply fall only to have the image of a dry, cold corpse.
His head clouded with sorrow and self-deprecation that everything that was set before him could have been stopped if only he paid more attention and noticed it sooner, his head clouded in guilt that he had to let them suffer 20 more times before he realized what was actually going on.
With one quick jab and a wave of extreme justification, Subaru slit his throat as the battlefield experienced one more fallen causality.
And in the end,
Natsuki Subaru Returned by Death because he knew that he couldn't live
.
.
.
With the thought of murdering his friends.
.
Author's Notes:
Sorry, I kind of rushed this one. I'll be honest, I literally forgot that this fanfic I made existed, no joke. I was scrolling to read some fanfiction and was trying to find one that I read quite a while ago that I really liked but after some searching, my eyes landed on the top right corner of my screen and I saw my username 'Yorelis,' and in a quick relapse of memory, I remembered that oh... the fanfic.
This was, specifically, today (March 24, 2021) at like 7:00 AM and I only started to work on the thing until it was 8:00 PM... in other words, I procrastinated.
Either way, I hope you enjoyed it.
I don't know what the heck to write for the next chapter but it should be ending soon as this is supposed to be an experimental short story. Should be around what? Two? Three more chapters maybe?
Also... after I finish this, assuming I do, I have an idea for a 'cooler' Re: Zero Fanfic idea so yeah...
My Name is Yorelis...
Bye! ;-;