Subaru found himself above an ocean, water as far as the eye could see. He had specifically teleported here, as this was uncharted territory.
"Because there's no other way to hide this."
He looked underneath himself and saw the same city-wide circle he had drawn in the other world. It was now floating in the air with no support.
In truth, to go to earth he didn't need a circle this big. With his Unstoppable Escape, the circle could be even smaller than the one he used to kill Satella. But he did need a circle this big to make a two-way gate between the two worlds.
It would've needed to be even bigger if he didn't have Unstoppable Escape.
Unstoppable Escape was specifically made to, well... escape. He earned this authority by lusting for an escape out of the loop, and the authority answered that lust by giving him the ability to escape from basically everything. Whether it be an attack or a whole world, he could escape it.
'I still can't escape the loop though.'
He looked at the night sky, memories flooding him. Even now, he still remembered all the constellations and stars. That fact never seemed to change.
And now that he had the enhanced senses from Beautiful World (name for gluttony authority), the stars seemed just that much clearer and closer.
He sighed and got back to work. Looking at the stars wouldn't help him escape the loop. Not when witnessing the end of the universe didn't help him. Well, he didn't actually witness it, as it happened instantenously. He also technically made himself braindead so that he wouldn't have memories of endless waiting... but that's reading too much into it.
Thing is, even if he sealed himself or became immortal, the universe would end, and he would end with it, sending him all the way back. Even if he used Al Shamak to go to another universe, that one would eventually end too, and that would send him back as well.
He wasn't kidding when he said he tried everything. He even killed Od Laguna, for Od's sake.
But just as Subaru was about to start working, he stopped.
'Should I... see my parents?'
Truth was, his parents were probably the only people in two worlds who could make him feel anything at this point.
Maybe it was because he knew them before the loop, or maybe because they were, well, his parents. But for some reason, they managed to get a reaction out of him the last time he went here.
Perhaps this time, he could also feel something again...
...
He will go. He was... afraid of losing himself. No, more accurately, he couldn't lose himself.
For someone in his situation, it was beyond easy to fully lose yourself.
He had already lost most of himself. He didn't feel anything when he killed, he didn't feel anything when killed, almost all emotions escaped him and he had no morals.
But... he wanted at least one thing from his previous self to persist. At least... his care for the people close to him.
Emilia could've been that kind of person... but she doesn't know him. Everyone who he met after the loop didn't know him.
But his parents... they knew him before the loop. When he would come up to them, he wouldn't hear the dreaded "Who are you?", and as such, he hoped to save that last part of himself by talking with them.
Of course, it's not like the reasons for why he wanted to save his past self were all good. The main reason was... for revenge.
At first, all he wanted was for his suffering to end. He tried everything to kill himself, or to end this whole mess.
But now? Now... he wanted to escape.
He wanted for the loops to stop, but he still wanted to live. He wanted to laugh again, he wanted for his actions to not be deleted anymore.
He wanted to feel alive again.
This was his best revenge. His best revenge was escaping and living.
The person who made him loop probably wanted him to despair and to eventually succeed in killing himself for good... but Subaru wouldn't do that.
Instead, he would escape and live. He would stomp on whatever that person stood for, and he would live and feel happy again.
'And that's why I have Beautiful World.'
He was gluttonous for all the beauty in the world. He wanted to enjoy the beauty, he wanted to savour it, and as such, he could observe it better and in ways no other person could.
Which was why the stars looked beautiful to him, the gentle waves of the sea too. Even the passing of time and the subtle bending of space from gravity were beautiful. Everything was beautiful... but he couldn't savour it fully yet. First, he had to escape the loop. Only after that could he see the world in its full beauty and glory.
With a snap of his fingers he appeared in front of his house. He didn't need to snap, but it was what his past self would've done to 'look cooler', so it helped him save himself.
He reached out to the handle, but stopped himself before he could do it.
He forgot something important. He was still completely covered in blood from head to toe.
Thankfully, it was night and nobody was awake to see him like this, so he wouldn't have to waste time burning memories.
He quickly burned all of the blood away and opened the door.
No one welcomed him - of course no one did. His parents were asleep at this time of day. Unlike Subaru who could substitute sleep with magic, they were completely normal humans.
And he's only been away for one day, so they aren't depressed and don't have insomnia yet either.
He wondered. Should he come in the morning instead? Even if he woke up his parents now, they probably wouldn't be able to hold a conversation well when sleepy.
'Alright, I'll come back later.'
He chastised himself for his lack of foresight and then teleported to the moon. Then, from the moon he teleported to Mars, to Jupiter, to Saturn.
He left the Solar System, then left the Milky Way and continued going further and further.
He wanted to see it, the edge of the universe. In the other world, he couldn't find the edge of the world. It was just an infinite nothingness.
This world though? It was bound to have at least something. So he continued teleporting further and further.
Days passed. Weeks passed. But Subaru didn't even notice.
How could he notice? Yes, he could feel the flow of time with Beautiful World, but time was passing by too fast.
It felt like one moment he blinked, and the next a week passed. After so many loops, so many years, uncountable millenia... time just flowed too fast.
Finally, after a month he managed to reach the end. He couldn't see the edge, but he could feel it. With Beautiful World, even something as surreal as the edge of the universe was observable to him.
He tried to teleport beyond the edge... but couldn't. In hindsight, he should've expected that. To teleport somewhere, that place needs space.
But beyond the edge, there was nothing. No space, no time, no concepts.
His only other way of going there would be crossing by flying... but there was a problem. The universe was expanding at speeds faster than light itself, and the only way Subaru could be faster than light is by teleporting.
He couldn't run faster than light, he couldn't fly faster than light. Sure, he could fly at speeds 99.999999% of light, but not more than it.
This meant that crossing the border... was impossible. For the current him, at least.
Well this was a bummer. Oh well, this wasn't the first time his hopes were crushed, and not even the millionth. He was used to it.
He quickly started teleporting back. He would've loved to teleport in one go, but he didn't have the mana for that. His Hopeful Preservation (name for Greed authority) was not all powerful, despite its name.
All Hopeful Preservation could do was keep things for himself, and not allow others to take it. Even if the world demanded mana from him in return for casting spells, Hopeful Preservation kept that mana, even though the spell was cast.
Hopeful Preservation best worked for multiple small spells. If a spell demanded too much mana, Hopeful Preservation couldn't keep all of it.
He got this authority by being greedy for the perfect escape. By wanting to not just end the loop or escape it, but to keep everything once he left.
He wanted to keep all the knowledge he gained, he wanted to keep some his old self.
He wanted to keep his humanity.
Or a smidge of his humanity, at least.
After a month of teleporting, he was back at earth. This time it was morning. It was time to visit his parents.
But before he could teleport to their house, he stopped himself.
Thing is, a tracksuit wasn't really built to handle the harsh conditions of the cosmos, so he was completely naked now.
With a snap, he materialized his favorite clothes.
The black pants appeared first. They had orange vine-like patterns on them, some of these vines combining into magical circles in certain places.
Then came his shirt. He already forgot what the color of the shirt was supposed to be, and it was riddled with so many magical circles of different colors, that finding out its original color would practically be impossible.
The last one to appear was his black cloak. It was simple, all things considered. Just random orange magic circles sprinkled throughout with rune-like lines connecting them, along with an orange rim.
'Even throughout all the loops, I still kept my color pallet, huh? If we don't consider my shirt, that is.'
This shirt was actually a part of an expiriment of how many circles he could fit into such a small space without the shirt breaking from the strain. The answer? 2487.
That expiriment was probably the only time in his last 1000 resets that his skills were pushed to their limits.
Anyway, after getting his new... what was it called? Oh, he remembered.
After getting his new drip, he teleported to his parents' house.
It was time to visit his parents again.
Just a question, but what name should this Subaru have? I found a person in the comments who called this Subaru [TiredBaru], but do you think that fits? Give me your ideas.
Since this fic is largely inspired by a Mother of Learning AU called "Abyss of Time", I was personally thinking of [AbyssBaru], but let your imagination run wild. Don't let my idea cripple yours.