"No!"
Below the screen, Emilia was shaking, both hands pressed over her eyes, unable to bring herself to watch.
She had been the one to give Subaru that na in the first place.
And she had been the one to turn around and condemn him for using it.
Please — other — just let Subaru call you that. Understand why he calls you that.
Don't let him be hurt any more than he already has been.
"Fate truly has a cruel sense of humor."
Reinhard let out a weary sigh. Lady Emilia's instinct to shield herself had, without any intention on her part, beco a blade driven straight into soone else's heart.
Elsa gave a quiet, cold laugh and watched the spectacle unfolding on the screen with idle curiosity.
["I'll ask you once more — why are you calling by the na of the Witch of Envy?"
"I don't know who put you up to this, but it's in spectacularly poor taste!"
"The Witch of Envy — a na so forbidden that no one dares speak it aloud — and you have the nerve to call by it?"
"Absolutely unacceptable!"
Natsuki Subaru found himself on the receiving end of a thorough scolding from a very angry Emilia.
"If there's nothing else, I'm leaving — I have things I need to take care of!"
Just as it seed the two of them were about to part on bad terms, Felt seized her mont and made her entrance.
Using her innate wind blessing, Felt slipped past Emilia in the blink of an eye while her guard was down and deftly lifted the royal candidate's badge right out of her pocket.
"Was getting to stop here your plan all along?"
"You're working with that thief, aren't you!"
Emilia jumped to the conclusion that Natsuki Subaru and Felt were accomplices.
Faced with the scene in front of him, Subaru had absolutely no way to prove otherwise.
"Wait — Satella! Just let explain!"
Natsuki Subaru ran after Emilia in a panic, but turned left, turned right, and ended up losing her completely — only to find himself back in a now-familiar alleyway.
And standing in it — once again — was Gann, Wen, and Trei. The thug trio.
"Get out of my way. I have sowhere I need to be and sothing I need to do —"
Subaru's head was a storm of panic. Ignoring the three thugs who had already drawn their gleaming twin blades, he tried to simply walk past them.
Shick.
A sharp, wet sound cut through the alley — steel eting flesh.
The cold edge of a blade punched clean through Natsuki Subaru's side. He stumbled, looked down.
Bright red soaked through his tracksuit in an instant, blood dripping from the blade to the stone below.
"Hey! You just stabbed him without a second thought?"
"That's — that's not it! The idiot walked right into it himself!"
With a wet, sucking sound, the silent short thug wrenched the blade back out — it had already gone in deep.
"And now what are you doing?"
The tall thug stared in fresh disbelief.
"Well — it'd be a waste to leave a good knife behind!"
"Then run! Guards'll be here any minute!"
Natsuki Subaru pressed his hand to the wound, but there was no stopping what was slipping away.
His vision blurred fast. The only things left in his ears were the ragged sound of his own breathing and the thugs scrambling away in panicked flight.
He sank to his knees, powerless. Emilia's face flashed through his mind — the stranger's look in her eyes when she had turned away from him — and the despair that welled up behind it threatened to freeze his heart solid.
"Why… does it always… end up like this…"
He rasped the words into the dark before consciousness left him entirely, his body going slack against the cold stone of the alley floor.]
"A death as absurd as it is tragic. Those killers deserve everything that's coming to them."
"For the Royal Capital to have fallen to this level of lawlessness… Subaru, this is my failure."
Reinhard closed his eyes, exhausted, full of self-reproach.
["Hey there, kid — want an apple?"
All at once, the fruit stall vendor's voice rang out again in Natsuki Subaru's ears, like so kind of landmark calling him back.
"Uh — sir?"
Natsuki Subaru stared blankly.
"How many tis have you seen now, would you say?"
"What do you an, how many tis — this is the first ti, obviously."
The green-haired vendor looked at him like he'd grown a second head and held up his apple again.
"So — want an apple, kid?"
That brief exchange seed to unlock sothing in Subaru's mind. So of the shadow of death lifted from behind his eyes.
He planted a fist on his hip, stuck out his thumb, and announced at full volu:
"Sorry! I am a broke and destitute man of infinite poverty!"
"Then get lost!"
The fruit stall vendor's furious voice echoed across the entire street.
Natsuki Subaru found a safe spot to rest, then took stock of everything he was carrying.
Wallet, phone, corn potage packets, instant noodles…
All present and accounted for.
Not a single knife wound on his body either.
So it hadn't been a hallucination or a fever dream. He really and truly had acquired that ability —
"Sothing like a ti-leap —"
"And on top of that, it triggers every ti he dies, resetting everything back to a fixed point — effectively rewinding the entire world!"
For a power straight out of gas and ani, Subaru's mind had already run three laps around it.
"I hereby na this ability — 'Return by Death'!"
Natsuki Subaru slapped his thigh with a crack, and a light blazed in his eyes like nothing that had been there before:
"A ti-rewinding ability is a rare gift — but the 'loser' condition of having to actually die to activate it suits down to the ground!"
The revelation hit him like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, instantly burning away the fear and despair left behind by two deaths.
"Which ans — Satella hasn't helped at all in this fourth loop, so every debt I owed her is wiped clean, right?"
Subaru tried to picture the future, practically buzzing with excitent:
"In that case — forget all that ss, sell the phone imdiately to fatten up the wallet, and use my knowledge of the modern world to live the good life in another world!"
"The dream is within reach, isn't it? Right, old man!"
Riding high, Subaru struck up a conversation with the owner of a nearby stall, like they were old friends.
"Wh — what? You're asking ? How should I know?"
The stall owner stared back, surprised and distinctly unwelcoming.
"Don't just talk to out of nowhere. I want no part of other people's problems."
Subaru blinked, gathered his things, stood up, and headed out onto the street, walking and thinking with his head down.
"Fair enough — no matter what world you're in, most people live by the principle of least involvent. But —"
Subaru's thoughts were spiraling. The image that had flashed into his mind first was Emilia stepping out at the mouth of that alley like a goddess descended, saving him.
"But that's exactly why the idiots who still run in to save soone even when they're the ones in danger — they exist too…"
"Even if Satella doesn't know , Felt will still steal the badge, she'll still track it to the Loot House, and then that Elsa woman will —!"
"Damn it — no matter how many tis I start over, it plays out the sa way. Is this what they call historical inertia?"
"Right. I've made up my mind!" Natsuki Subaru clenched his fist until his nails bit into his palm. The pain sharpened him.
"The goal stays the sa — get Satella's badge back, and make sure she gets through this in one piece!"
"And this ti, at the very least — I'm getting her to tell her real na!"]
"Thank you, Subaru… for always, always doing this for …"
Emilia pressed a hand lightly over her mouth, eyes brimming with tears.
"And here I thought I was the foolish one — mo~, Subaru is the real fool! The biggest fool of all — the kind who charges headfirst into danger just to help soone else!"
By the end, Emilia had gone from tears to a watery laugh, her voice a fond, teasing murmur.
"Natsuki Subaru… you died again and again, and you still refused to give up?"
Reinhard murmured almost to himself.
"I recognize your courage and your resilience. If the future shown in the blessing hadn't included you burning the Royal Capital… I think, back then, we would have beco very good friends."
Elsa let out a low, rumbling laugh, as though struggling to contain her excitent.
"Even against a gap in strength this enormous — he won't quit —"
"Beating soone far stronger with nothing but sheer grit — that's the Subaru I know!"
["Hey — sir!"
After a stretch of running, Natsuki Subaru arrived at the green-haired fruit vendor's stall, breathless.
"What is it, you broke kid?"]
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