The Night of Oni Possession [4]

"...Does Rem deserve to be treated this way?"

"I don't quite understand what you're saying, Rem. You made me something to eat. How is that 'being treated' any way?"

This was the worst food Rem had ever made.

She had no tools or seasonings, and it had rolled around in the dirt several times. No matter how well she controlled the fire, it was still just a roasted sweet potato.

And the gift she had truly poured her heart into had been thrown into the trash. Why? Why did this person cherish her feelings so much?

"Come on, don't cry. An expression like that doesn't suit your cute little face, Rem. Otherwise, my cute aggression might kick in, and I won't be able to resist picking on you."

"Let me say it again. Thanks to you, Rem, I got to eat a delicious roasted sweet potato right now. My stomach's all warm, and I feel so much better. It's all thanks to you."

"...I'm sorry."

Rem rushed forward and wrapped both her little hands tightly around one of Subaru's arms. She buried her face in his sleeve, guilt and self-reproach coming out in broken words from deep in her throat.

"At a time like this, Rem should be saying something like, 'Sorry it wasn't much.'"

"No... that's not it... Rem... was so awful... Back then... I said such awful things to Subaru..."

Rem's voice was thick with tears. She truly regretted it.

Back then, Subaru had merely gotten stronger. He hadn't done anything wrong, yet out of jealousy, out of that ugly fear of "being left behind" that she hadn't dared admit to, she had said something as heartless as "We're not even friends" to him.

She didn't dare imagine the look on Subaru's face when he heard those words. For the first time, Rem understood that people couldn't empathize with their past selves.

As she was now, she could never forgive the Rem who had treated Subaru so coldly.

She lifted her face. Her tear-wet lashes trembled slightly, Subaru's figure reflected in her blue eyes as she gazed at him quietly, with a wholehearted dependence and affection she had never shown before.

"From now on... can Rem still stay by Subaru's side?"

"Of course. You're the first friend I made here, Rem. If you're not in that picture of the future, where we're talking and laughing together-then I don't want it."

Subaru held up his little finger.

"Come on. We're going back together, no matter what-that's our promise."

Antares floated silently over to Rem's side, as though also waiting for her answer.

"Once we get back, you'll have to make it up to me, Rem. I haven't eaten your cooking for days, and there's a huge gap to fill."

"I'm going to take up plenty of your time, or maybe I could learn to cook from you. Then you can cook for me, and I can cook for you. And Ram will definitely get so jealous she'll come along too-then the three of us can eat together."

"Well? Sounds pretty good, right?"

"...The three of us eating together."

Rem softly repeated the words, imagining Subaru in the kitchen with an apron on, imagining her sister carrying a bowl and squeezing in as if it were only natural, imagining the three of them sitting around a little table with steaming food in the middle.

"In that case, Rem will make a little extra. Sister eats too much."

"Yeah. With you around, Rem, I'll never go hungry."

Rem raised her hand. Little by little, her small finger hooked around Subaru's pinky.

The finger linked with Subaru's was warm, so warm that it made her want to cry again.

She looked up, her eyes fixed on the boy's face. He was a complete mess, yet in her eyes, Subaru was now the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life protecting more than anyone else.

Tears welled in her eyes, but did not fall. Rem couldn't bear to let them blur the sight of the person before her.

The corners of her mouth lifted. Her smile was a little awkward, cautious, a little dazzling and somewhat uncertain, yet the joy rose irresistibly from her heart to her lips.

The smile was like the melting of a winter that had lingered for years...

They unhooked their pinkies, but neither drew their hand away. A tiny distance remained between their fingertips.

Rem smiled gently as she watched the boy grinning at her. She wanted to say something. She wanted to talk about what came next.

She had so much she wanted to say, about what came next, about the future, about how the two of them would spend each coming day together.

But not quite yet. First, they had to leave this forest, return to the village, and get him lying down so the wound on his leg could be properly treated.

She would say those things once they got back. She opened her mouth to say, "Let's go," to Subaru.

"...Rem. Let's..."

Subaru spoke first, but his words caught halfway through.

They did not stop. It was somehow familiar: the syllables were forcibly drawn out, the words distorted into unrecognizable moans.

Rem's smile froze on her face. Subaru froze too, his pupils widening slightly. Then he understood in an instant. It was that giant crocodile.

They both struggled desperately to move, but every movement of their bodies became impossibly slow. Raising a hand took seconds, taking a step took even longer, and even blinking once was like completing an arduous task.

It wasn't an illusion. It was real. Time had been forcibly slowed down for him and Rem.

And then a crushing pressure bore down on them from every direction, without warning.

Antares was frantically sounding the alarm.

It was yin magic. The crocodile's magic wasn't an attack, but interference, the infliction of negative effects.

It could reverse gravity, bring time to a standstill, and turn two living people into prey with nowhere to run.

If this was a negative status inflicted on the body, then striking their bodies with sufficiently powerful external mana could disrupt the magical power that had been forcibly poured into them!

There was no time to think.

Subaru began manipulating the mana inside him, trying to use his own magical power to disperse the yin power enveloping his body.

But with time slowed down, even the speed at which he gathered mana was several times slower. Not fast enough, nowhere near fast enough!

He needed a stronger external impact.

With all his strength, he raised the hand holding the gun. Under Rem's panicked and confused gaze, the muzzle turned, little by little, toward her.

What are you doing? Rem wanted to shout, but her voice too was stretched and shattered by time.

"Bang-!"

The impact of mana tore through Rem's body.

That force scattered every trace of the yin magic inflicted on her body in an instant.

Rem's body returned to normal, and she flew backward, crashing heavily to the ground.

Pain spread across her back, but at last she could move her limbs. She understood. When danger struck, Subaru's first move had been to save her.

Rem opened her mouth, trying with all her strength to call his name.

But Subaru hadn't even had time to turn the gun on himself when, just as Rem returned to normal-

"Roar-!!!"

A gigantic body burst through layers of treetops, and a bloody maw large enough to bite a dragon carriage in two filled Rem's entire field of vision.

Rem's pupils contracted to their smallest in that instant.

The world became a series of slow-motion frames: the densely packed fangs in the enormous mouth, the charred flesh and blood caught between its teeth, the foul breath gushing from deep in its throat, and Subaru's figure.

"Snap-!"

The bloody maw slammed shut. The dull sound made her whole body convulse violently. Then she heard it: from within that closed maw, from the darkness that had swallowed Subaru, came the crisp sound of chewing.

"...Aaaaaaaaaah-!!!"

(Looking back over the earlier chapters, I only just realized the author mixed up the names of the minor Oni blacksmith and farmer...)