Re:Strengthened By Death

by AiriMage

With endless regrets and wishes, all of which go unheard, Natsuki Subaru finds himself betrayed and in a cell, tortured by those he once called friends, the world having forgotten him. As he calls out for friends and family, and even the witch, none answer his call. Feeling more betrayed than ever, he steels his resolve to save himself. Strengthened by his will, can he escape?

2. The heroes goal is their hands in his

Chapter 2: The heroes goal is their hands in his.

Natsuki Subaru has once again spent a night sleepless, training in his magic in preparation for escape. Surprising himself, he's made rather great strides in his magic. Shamak, Subaru's go to spell, even cast in its smallest form previously took such a large amount of magic that casting it even just 4 times would leave him exhausted and his gate screaming in protest. That same spell, Natsuki Subaru can now cast 10 times in small burst, and can most likely cast it a single time within a 10 foot area around himself. Though, he can't test that yet. Overall, he was quite proud of his progress, especially since his gate hasn't healed at all, due to him having yet to die during the torture, another achievement he's proud of.

Still, Subaru's aware this isn't anywhere near enough strength to escape this place. If Subaru had to create a realistic scale of strength, then the strongest Knight here, Julius, would be at about… 'two thousand maybe? While if I were to fight, at least in my current beat up state, I'd probably be around 280.' Odd estimate, Subaru thinks to himself, but considering he's basing it off of Reinhard, it's obvious the scale would go up that far at least. For reference, since Subaru personally doesn't know many of Reinhard's divine protections, he can only go off of the little bit of physical abilities he's seen, placing Reinhard at about four thousand. If he were to truly use all his divine protections… 'yeah, he's a monster, seriously a monster. How did such a protagonist even appear? Seriously unfair, superrrr unfair.' Subaru thinks, chucking to himself.

Clang, the door to the room opens, revealing Felix, who from the looks of things, is in a seriously bad mood. 'Let's just hope he doesn't bring out the bucket…' Subaru thinks to himself, shivering in fear just from remembering that incident.

Walking til he's just 3 steps from Subaru, Felix stares at him, his eyes blazing with anger and loathing, none of his usual amusement seen, yet he's strangely silent. Suddenly, he lunges forward and slams Subaru's head to the ground, and in the coldest tone Subaru's heard yet, a tone devoid of any of the usual playfulness, Felix says "Subaru, today you're going to tell Felis how to cure Crush-Sama. If you don't…"

Subaru's body spasms as he screams out in pain, a rush of magic flooding into his body 10x worse than anything he's experienced thus far as he feels his body instantly heal and his nerves burn simultaneously. It only last for a few seconds before Felix runs out of magic, but those few seconds were enough to cause Subaru to nearly lose his mind. But as always, he persist.

Through gritted teeth and glaring eyes, Natsuki Subaru slowly positions himself upright before he says in a tone devoid of any previous warmth toward the cat "My dear F-Felix… what seems to be the r-rush? Hahaha..!" A slight hint of madness can be felt from the laugh, but Subaru's holding himself together well enough to not give into it.

Felix, in response to Subaru's laughter, a laugher he takes as mocking, screams at the top of his lungs "YOU! YOU WILL TELL FELIS HOW TO CURE CRUSH-SAMA NYOW. BEFORE IT GETS ANY WORSE YOU'RE GOING TO TELL FELIS, OR YOU'RE GOING TO FEEL THE TRUE WRATH OF FELIS OD."

Desperation was clear of Felix's face. Seeing the face of one he was considered a friend like this, Subaru felt… amused. Of course, it's not as though Subaru had suddenly become heartless. He's certain that if he'd seen his Emilia-Tan with a face like that, or his… adorable Beako… cough, that he'd be doing his absolute best to come up with anything, to do anything at all for them. After all, what gluttony did wasn't their fault. The only fault lies with gluttony. However…

Subaru's seen it. Felt it too. The way Felix treats torturing him as some form of joy and release, rather than just as a way to extract information. Felix claims to be a healer, but that's simply a well hidden lie, the most hypocritical of hidden lies. So, Subaru feels no remorse, especially for what he's about to say.

"What's wrong… oh so great healer… aren't you supposed to be the best? Yet you can't even save your lad-" WHAM. Felix, with surprising strength, bashed in Subaru's teeth, his expression just as terrifying as Wilhelm's when facing the white whale. What's more terrifying than the strength of his punch, or his murderous expression, is the effects that come along with the punch. Subaru could feel it, that punch had magic power behind it… all of Felix's magic power, and possibly, his Od, too. It seems like Subaru set Felix off a little too much, as the cross dressing cat boy has decided to kill Subaru now. The spell typically reserved for frying nerves flared with a strength hundreds of times stronger than before as Subaru felt his very body begin to rip apart on a cellular level. Felix had anatomically ripped every molecule of flesh from Subaru apart, causing him to near instantly turn into a bloody mist.

It all happened so fast Subaru could barely react, though honestly, he wish he couldn't have at all. At least then he wouldn't have to feel this pain, this terror. What the hell even was that? The pain was hundreds of times worse than any nerve frying could be. As the darkness started to set in completely, and he could feel this loop coming to an end, Subaru could also feel two other feelings. One, of his minds last straws snapping, the sanity leaving his body, and the other, of something that'd been building up inside of him in the background, lying undetected until now, reaching a new strength…

Meanwhile, At the Mather's Manner within a closed room:

A blue haired oni maid with hair slightly below her shoulder was resting in a nearly empty room. Her name was [Rem] and her name has been eaten by gluttony. As Rem laid in bed, a pink haired oni maid with a slightly shorter haircut and a striking resemblance to the maid with blue hair laid by the bedside, not noticing the subtle twitch of the blue oni maid's fingers, nor the very faint scent that began to emanate from her body at this moment…

Back within the prison:

Natsuki Subaru lay still, eyes wide opened, unblinking and not making a single noise. Laying against the wall, hands still chained above his head, the whole scene looked reminiscent of one of his most traumatizing moments from one of his failed loops.

As the door opened and Julius came in to check on the Sin Archbishop for the second time today, he couldn't help but frown, an uncomfortable feeling overtaking him. Slowly, he took out his wooden sword and pointed it at Subaru, then proclaimed "Enough of this Archbishop. Help me to return my as well as my brothers name, or else you'll meet death and worse. Haven't you suffered enough pain by now anyways?" Subaru didn't respond. Frustrated, Julius began his attack, systematically targeting the joints, starting with the ankles and wrist, followed by the elbows and knees, then the shoulders and hips. When there continued to be no response from Subaru, Julius sped up his heating of him, first disclosing his jaw, then slashing the eyes, breaking the toes, cutting the tongue, smashing the ribs, on and on he continued, never once getting so much as a flinch. It truly seemed to him as though the archbishops mind has died, leaving behind his flesh body.

Sighing, Julius turned to leave, only to hear the faintest, croakiest of voices from the broken Archbishop… "R..em?.." Subaru barely chokes out.

3 minutes prior, Natsuki Subaru, Slowly moved his head a few centimeters, with Julius still unaware, he'd been seemingly shocked awake from seeing something despite his slashed eyes. In front of his very "eyes", Subaru could see hundreds of small dots on a square grid. Each of these dots are red, and he could somehow feel how far they were, as well as the fact that they're hostile. Occasionally he'd see greyed out dots scattered about here and there. Those grey dots didn't contain any feelings for him, as though they'd simply treat him as a passing stranger. As he focused on one of the red dots, Subaru's location appears to change. Along with the large, bright blue sky, Subaru can see the streets, the people of the capital city of Lugnica, though their faces are somewhat blurred. As Subaru attempts to move his head and body, he realizes he's frozen in place, stuck floating along as he watches a wolf type beast man walk along the capital streets, unaware of Subaru's own existence.

Shocked by what he just saw, Subaru loses focus and finds himself back in front of the holographic map. By this point, Julius has begun walking out of the room, whilst Subaru finds a single blue dot. Curious, Subaru focuses on it, only for it to show… "R…em?…" Subaru barely chokes out. In front of him, a sleeping Rem with a certain Pink Haired Oni Maid sitting next to her sister with her head laying on the bed rests. 'Her hairs gotten longer…' Subaru thinks to himself. As Subaru watches, in a trance, he notices a faint twitch of her finger. That single twitch of a finger sent a shock through his body like no other, a shock so strong it blew away all the mental fatigue he'd experienced until now. With that single finger twitch, he'd been given two things he hasn't had in so long. The first, hope, and the second, a true goal.

Slowly, ever so slowly and carefully raising himself off the ground, Subaru looks at Julius and mumbles out "Prepare yourself… greatest knight—" 'Because you're me hero, Subaru Kun!' "—For I… Subaru Natsuki… have just been given the greatest weapon…" raising his face to look the shocked Julius straight in the eye, Subaru continues on with, "…hope, and a purpose… I've remembered my goal, and who I have to save… because I've that, I've finally found a path forward…" his breathing rough, Subaru stares Julius straight in the eyes as, with all the determination in the world he says, "First, I will escape from here. Second, I'll track down gluttony and beat their ass. Third, I'll restore everyone's memories. Finally, I'll have that happy ending I've always wanted, hear me? It doesn't matter what a low life wanna-be knight like you does, you can beat me, torture me, belittle me, or even KILL ME! I still won't stop. Not enough I've saved the girl that's saved me time and time again, you hear me, greatest knight?" Julius can only stare in shock, at having this man, this Archbishop, that has broken a moment prior, now telling him about he'll escape and save someone. It was simply incredulous.

Julius can only stare incredulously at Subaru's seemingly self motivation, before… "hahahaHAHAHAHA!" With a hand on his face, his knightly demeanor finally disappears and, laughing madly at Subaru, Julius wipes his face, then stops laughing, glaring at Subaru. "It seems you truly have gone insane, Archbishop."

"Damn right I have!" Subaru shouts, with his renewed vigor. Julius closes his eyes and debates with himself for a moment, then slowly raises his sword "it seeks your renewed determination is quite potent, Archbishop Natsuki Subaru. It's caused even myself to get quite heated." Subaru could only smile at this, as he shouts "bring it on then! I won't fall to a bastard like you."

Once again Subaru is beat. Beat so thoroughly he may yet again cross over the lines of death. Yet, this beating doesn't fill him with despair. Rather, looking towards the future that's always seemed just out of reach, Subaru can feel a trace of hope within his soul, a hope that continues to grow the more he thinks about regaining what he's lost. Rem, smiling once again, awake, with her memories of him restored. Emilia, holding his hand as they smile and laugh together as though all of this was simply a bad dream. Beako, sitting atop his lap and getting teased… Subaru will persist, as he always has. Even if he's blooded and broken, even if his whole body trembles at even walking, he'll continue to take step after step towards his happy future… as that is simply who Subaru Natsuki is.

Authors Note:

Phew, I had tons of motivation from the first one still burning in me, but I started to get tired out towards the end. Still, I didn't wanna lose my little flow I had going, so I persisted til I felt it was time to wrap this one up. Honestly, between this one and the first chapter, I can't tell which I like more yet. As this is my first time writing a fanfic, I was quite scared at first honestly, and apart from a slight mishap, I'm glad it's turned out alright. I may go back in the future once I'm a bit better at writing and rewrite Subaru's little speech though, it wasn't really to my liking as I felt I could've portrayed his determination a bit better. Hope it wasn't too poor for all of you. Oh, right, I've decided to do this here for this one chapter and see if everyone likes it or not, so uh, here's Subaru's little character sheet from the end of this chapter.

Hp:5/ 21 (Temporary HP, 5 / 5)

Gate Status: 34% fixed

Affinities: Yin

Authorities: RBD, Sloth, Greed

Strength: 6

Speed: 8

Defense: 1

Health: 1

Magic: 20

There's a lot more lower down in the status, but that's getting into spoiler territory for what I have planned in the future. Let me know if you enjoyed this little glimpse into Subaru's current strength. Right, almost forgot! Subaru's power estimate comes from adding the strength, speed, defense, health, and magic all together for the total of the person. However, there's some other attributes in there not included here that can raise combat power significantly, for example, the environment or tools at one's disposal. Anyways, that's all I wanted to show off with this one, I'll be going on vacation for the next little while but I should post some chapters every few days since I'm feeling pretty motivated for once! Bye bye now, hope you all have a good day!