Around the time Subaru encountered the poisonous old man in reality
The sky screen
["-Tch, tch, tch." "----"
An instant later, a suffocating heaviness pressed against his senses, forcing Subaru's eyes open. He could hear the irritating sound of blood flowing throughout his body, and his muscles ached as they contracted and stretched. His nails dug into his palms as he tightly gripped the reins, while Betty Beatrice made her presence known against his chest through her warm body.
In that instant, a vivid sense of the reality of [death], something that could not be described as déjà vu, sent a tremor through Subaru. There was no mistaking this sensation.
It was [Return by Death]. Natsuki Subaru had just experienced [death] and returned to this moment.
Although he knew that, Subaru could not make an immediate judgment. From his position, he could not see the condition of Joseph, who was crucial. Julius, who held the reins, had not noticed anything unusual about the earth dragon either. Even he lacked the composure to look toward the earth dragon. Everyone on the dragon carriage was praying that Meili would successfully make contact with the Courtesan Bears. Unfortunately, however-Joseph could not hold back.
"Juli..."
"----!!"
-He was a step too late. Joseph's roar drowned out Subaru's call. As though reenacting the previous sequence of events, the roaring Joseph stamped the ground. His roar and the rumbling of the earth awakened the Courtesan Bears' awareness together, and the flower field rose, thirsting for blood and violence. Staring with dull, lightless eyes, the Courtesan Bears pounced, drooling. A pale blue ice spear pierced one through the head, and everything, right up to the explosion of ice fragments, unfolded exactly as before.
"-Barusu! Run for your life if you don't want to die!"
As Subaru suffered under an intangible agitation, a sharp rebuke came from beside him. Its owner was Ram, who handled the reins from the driver's seat, expertly controlling the excited Joseph. Although her skillful handling, every bit the equal of Rem's, brought the earth dragon under her control, things would go badly if this continued.
"We can't keep running toward the tower! Ram, change course!"
"-What are you saying? Right now, the only path is straight toward the tower. Every other route is full of witchbeasts."
"That's true, but we can't go on like this!"
"Barusu, what exactly did you notice?! Explain yourself!"
"The trouble is, I can't explain! Just change direction, now!"
Faced with Ram's angry voice in her urgency, Subaru could only answer with a rough shout. Frantic as he was, he could not say a single thing with certainty.
-Because Subaru himself did not know what had caused his [death]. Of all the many [deaths] he had met thus far, every one had been continuous in time, before and after. He had relied on the information within them to break through situations in which he was helpless. This time, however, the end of the thread that could draw his fragile fate closer was nowhere to be found. Nor did he have time to search for it. -This truly was the worst possible way to shut down [Return by Death].
"Subaru wouldn't say strange things without thinking!"
Seeing Ram protest instructions that could easily be mistaken for a loss of reason, Emilia shouted from the carriage roof. She nodded firmly as she strafed the witchbeasts with countless chunks of ice.
"Barusu makes a living out of talking nonsense!"
"Subaru wouldn't say strange things without thinking in a crisis!"
"Thanks for going out of your way to correct yourself and say it again!"
Should Subaru lament being treated as the boy who cried wolf, or take pride in still being regarded as a dependable man in a crisis? Setting both reflection and pride aside for now, Patrasche followed Subaru's wishes, planting a foot in the sand to make a sharp turn, then brutally kicking a Courtesan Bear over with another flying kick, changing their course.
"-! You two, on top and on the side! Make sure you don't get thrown off!"
Following Subaru and the others' turn, Ram deftly worked the reins to change Joseph's direction as well. Subjected to tremendous centrifugal force aboard the dragon carriage, Emilia and Julius clung tightly to its body. With a fierce creaking, the dragon carriage knocked witchbeasts flying and barely managed the turn, improvising its way through the immediate danger-
"----" -> ->
But just then, a shrill sound clawed at their eardrums, followed by an unpleasant gust of wind. What had happened? Subaru reflexively looked back and saw it.
"L-Little sandworm...!" Meili leaned out of the driver's seat, her voice trembling with shock and sorrow. -Behind them stood the sandworm, its enormous body nearly twenty meters long, upright in the sea of sand. Its trunk burst apart as though struck directly by a cannon shell. Its slimy skin tore open, and its body, robbed of support, slowly-"Get out of the way-!!"
The falling sandworm's body had enough mass to crush the dragon carriage. Listening to the screams of witchbeasts caught and crushed behind them, Subaru and Ram each directed their earth dragons, forcing turns to escape the sandworm's direct path.
"That bastard Regulus was easier to take down than this horde of witchbeasts...!"
"There's no time to complain! We've got to find a way to reach Emilia and the others..."
"I know! I'm thinking right-"
Subaru stood as he spoke, searching for Patrasche so they could regroup. Without her speed, none of their strategies could even get off the ground. But at that very instant, a white light flashed at the edge of his vision, sending a chill through him. "Light-" The instant his voice cracked in surprise, [it] closed in on Subaru in the sea of sand. It was a beam of white light fired toward the ground from the middle of the watchtower.
-It churned up the sandy earth, tearing apart every witchbeast in its path, flying and flying and flying and flying toward him. Just as it was about to mercilessly destroy Natsuki Subaru-
"-!!"
A black shadow lunged from the side and struck Subaru, turning his world upside down. Propelled by this second impact, Subaru's body was flung onto the sand, his consciousness wavering amid pain and confusion. Only after he finally realized he was lying spread-eagled on the sand did he blink several times.
"What... happened...?" Subaru raised himself and looked around. Then he noticed. Right beside him, Patrasche's enormous body lay helplessly on the ground. -A horrific wound gaped in her flank, giving off a scorched stench and bleeding without cease. The earlier scene flashed through Subaru's mind. -Patrasche had protected him.
"-Subaru!"
After Subaru realized he had been protected, Betty shouted his name. Looking toward her voice, he saw the girl running from a short distance away, her expression turning deeply anguished. Subaru followed the gaze of her blue eyes down to his own body. The right half of his abdomen had been cleanly gouged away, leaving him with a grave wound just like Patrasche's.
"Ah, ugh..."
The instant he saw the wound, clots of blood surged up and spewed from his throat, and his vision tilted sideways. Subaru fell onto his side, unable to move. All strength drained from his body, and his consciousness drifted into the distance. He could only feel someone kneeling beside him.
"Subaru! Subaru! No! You can't die... Please, don't die... Don't leave Betty... all alone...! Please..."
(Hurry and give Betty a "Don't die" word of power!)
She shook Subaru's shoulders. He heard her crying and wanted to reach out, but he could not move. Her face was endearing, yet she was crying. He mustn't make her wear a tearful expression, Subaru thought.
"Don't... leave Betty..."
Choking back sobs, the girl desperately hugged Subaru's body. His limp body was too heavy for her small frame. Even so, she held him with all her might. Two trails of hot tears ran down her cheeks. Subaru thought he should at least wipe them away. He tried to find some part of his body that could still move, but found nothing. So he drew something movable out of somewhere other than his body.
"...Subaru?"
-An invisible [hand], which only he could see, wiped the tears from the girl's face. The pitch-black fingers traced her tears, making the girl notice something and turn toward him. Subaru wanted to smile to reassure her, but he did not even have the strength for that.
"Subaru-"
For an instant, the girl was about to say something. But a white light flying from far away cut her words short.
-> -> ->
Another impact pierced Subaru's chest. He slowly lowered his gaze and saw that it had first shot through the back of the girl holding him, then passed through his chest and out his back.
"-Ah."
That hoarse sigh was the last. Suddenly, before he even had time to blink, the body of the girl holding Subaru turned into particles of light and vanished. As though she had never existed in the first place.
"Cough..."
Without her support, Subaru fell to the ground again, unable to move. Nor did he have any reason to move.
Subaru's breathing stopped, and his eyes began to lose focus. Which would come first: his flesh being torn apart by sharp fangs and claws, or the extinguishing of the flame of his life? His brain, which could have compared the two, died first, and he no longer understood anything.
-Only at the very end, he seemed to sense something flashing white again in the distant night sky.] End
The last trace of white light on the sky screen faded over the sea of sand.
A deathly silence enveloped the entire world.
That white light piercing Beatrice's back, that tiny figure dissolving into points of light, and Subaru's eyes losing focus at the end drove into every viewer's heart like an ice-tempered dagger. More suffocating than the previous instant annihilation was this long, hopeless struggle-Patrasche's resolve as she sacrificed herself to protect her master, Beatrice's heart-rending cries, and Subaru's tenderness as he tried to wipe away her tears with the very last of his strength.
Imperial border · Emilia Camp encampment
Inside the dragon carriage, Beatrice, who had been curled up fast asleep in Emilia's arms, abruptly sat up.
"Subaru! Don't die... Please!"
She was drenched in cold sweat, her little body trembling violently. Her ice-blue eyes brimmed with tears, her gaze hollow and terrified, as though she had just personally experienced that death. Instinctively, she reached out, grasping wildly at the air, trying to catch hold of something, but caught only cold, empty air.
"Beatrice! Beatrice, wake up!" Emilia hurriedly hugged her, warming her icy body with her own warmth.
"Calm down. That wasn't real. It was only an illusion. You can sense Subaru, can't you? He's alive and well right now, waiting for us somewhere in the Empire."
"It wasn't an illusion... It wasn't..." Beatrice buried her head in Emilia's arms and burst into tears.
"Betty felt it... Betty felt that pain... My chest hurt so much... Like something had pierced right through it..."
"Why did Subaru leave Betty... Why, when you're Betty's contractor, do you have to bear so much pain alone... Once I find you, Betty will never let you let go of my hand again... Never..."
Her sobs grew quieter. The violent fluctuations in her emotions continued to consume what little mana she already had. Under Emilia's gentle soothing, Beatrice finally fell deeply asleep again, though undried tear tracks still lingered at the corners of her eyes.
Emilia carefully wiped away her tears, her movements so gentle that she seemed afraid of disturbing her dreams. She raised her head and looked through the window at the screen still hanging in the sky, her ice-blue eyes filled with overwhelming worry and heartache.
"What happens on this screen feels even more real than the trials in the Sanctuary back then. That sense of déjà vu... It's as though I really experienced it myself."
She murmured softly, her voice carrying a barely perceptible tremor.
"How many deaths like this has Subaru experienced? How many times has he watched the people most important to him die like this, unable to do anything?"
"Lady Emilia, is Lady Beatrice all right?"
Ram's voice came from outside the carriage. She gently lifted the curtain and stepped inside, her crimson eyes passing over the sleeping Beatrice as her voice unconsciously softened considerably.
Emilia gently shook her head and pointed at Beatrice, signaling for her to be quiet. Ram nodded, turned, and left the carriage.
Standing outside the dragon carriage, Ram looked up at the sky screen. Her face, usually languid and caustic, was utterly expressionless now. Her fingers tightened slightly, pinching several deep creases into her soft sleeve, her nails digging deep into her palm and leaving several shallow crescent marks.
"Barusu really is an irresponsible bastard."
Her voice was very quiet, but carried a barely perceptible rasp. "Just how much has he been hiding from everyone now? What exactly is on this sky screen? Why does he always have to make everyone worry themselves sick over him..."
"Lady Beatrice has suffered enough already. If he dares fail to take proper care of Rem again..."
She paused and drew a deep breath, her tone carrying an unquestionable firmness.
"Barusu, you'd better stay alive and well. If you dare make those two sad, Ram will chase you all the way to hell, twist your head off, and kick it around like a ball."
A complicated light flickered in Roswaal's mismatched eyes, and a meaningful smile curled at the corners of his mouth.
"Well now~ So that's the condition for restarting."
"Paying for a return with death. How arrogant and greedy of you~ Natsuki Subaru, you truly are the person I've always trusted. If you can endure even the pain of 'death' alone, you can surely take me to the future I await."
He raised his head and looked toward the sky screen, his eyes filled with fervent anticipation.
"This sky screen must be your gift to me, Teacher. Do you want me to see just how strong Subaru is, how worthy he is of my waiting? Wait for me, Teacher."
In a corner of the logistics team's camp, Petra crouched on the ground, still holding the wildflowers she had just picked. She had intended to weave them into a flower crown and give it to Subaru when he returned. But when she saw the horrific scenes on the sky screen, the wildflowers in her hands scattered across the ground.
Her eyes were red, and tears welled in them, but she fought hard not to cry. She remembered her days at Roswaal's mansion, remembered how Subaru always smiled as he patted her head, remembered how he had protected her and all the children during the Witch Cult's attack, heedless of whether he lived or died.
"Lord Subaru... Didn't we make a promise before you left for the Sage's Tower?"
She murmured quietly, picking up a little daisy from the ground and clutching it tightly.
"Why do you always break your promises? Everyone and I just want you to come back safely. Are the things on this screen real...? Petra is still waiting to hear your stories about the outside world. Petra will work hard to grow stronger too, even if there has to be a price..."
In the Empire's City of Guaral, Rem suddenly clutched her chest, bent over, and began coughing violently.
The images on the sky screen struck her heart like a heavy hammer. Seeing Subaru cover his mouth and struggle to suppress the lingering terror of death, her fingers unconsciously tightened, and she did not even notice the cool water beading on the glass wetting her palm. Seeing Beatrice throw herself into Subaru's arms and cry so hard she could barely breathe, her own eyes reddened slightly, and a sharp pang of heartache rose within her-she could empathize with that despair of losing someone important, even though she did not seem to know these people on the sky screen.
And when she saw Subaru on the sky screen, a heart-rending pain exploded without warning deep within her heart, spreading through her limbs. Like beads from a broken string, tears slid uncontrollably from the corners of her eyes.
She clearly did not remember who he was.
She clearly had lost all her memories.
Yet when she saw that black-haired boy on the sky screen, holding the girl in his arms and slowly ceasing to breathe, her heart hurt so much it felt about to split apart. As though something more important than anything else was slowly disappearing from her life.
"Subaru..."
She murmured the name unconsciously, her voice terribly hoarse.
"Who exactly are you?"
"What exactly are you to me... What am I to you...?"
"I don't understand. I don't know, so why..."
After seeing Subaru die once again, everyone in the Emilia Camp involuntarily reached a consensus.
"We have to move faster. We have no time to waste. We have to find Subaru, Lord Subaru, Barusu, as soon as possible!"