——The iridescent gleam of a rainbow repelled the surging pitch-black.
The clash had already gone on for dozens of exchanges, and Subaru watched, enduring the searing pain that coursed through his body, as blade and palm ground against each other edge to edge.
Julius's sword — the blade wreathed in rainbow hues — was reinforced by Clarista, a compound magic drawing upon all six elements, and that enhancement allowed its tip to reach the Unseen Hands that Petelgeuse launched.
Each time a slash was dealt, the bisected demonic hands dispersed into mist, dissolving into shadow and vanishing. Though Subaru didn't understand the principle, it seemed the Unseen Hand's regeneration couldn't keep up before that rainbow-edged blade. With each shadow he lost, one after another, Petelgeuse's expression grew more contorted with fury.
"This is no laughing matter, not in the slightest, utterly unacceptable, desu! To think you would use such methods to belittle my love… my loyalty…!"
Spitting foul frustration, Petelgeuse extended his arms from the seemingly inexhaustible swell of shadows, targeting Julius's arms, legs, head — striking indiscriminately at whatever was within reach.
The answering blade intercepted them, and sometimes he twisted away instead, the Finest Knight dancing across the battlefield — quite literally performing a sword dance as he cut through the chaos.
"————!"
The air tore apart as the number of closing Unseen Hands always exceeded ten. There was no way to sweep them all away with a single swing, so whether counting the ones he cut down or the ones he dodged, injuries he couldn't avoid still battered Julius's body.
Miraculously, he had yet to sustain any fatal damage — grabbed apart, torn to shreds. No — it wasn't miracle. It was a feat made possible only by Julius's extraordinary combat prowess.
And because Subaru was keenly aware that Julius's razor-thin success rested on his shoulders too, he couldn't look away from the scene before him.
The pitch-black fingertips grazed his thigh, and Subaru grimaced at the pain of flesh being gouged. He clenched his teeth against the agony, biting down on the sharp sensation of his shoulder being rent, suppressing any sound.
Through Nect, they shared sensation — Subaru's and Julius's bodies and five senses were currently synchronized at a fairly deep level. That meant Julius could see Petelgeuse's Unseen Hands through Subaru's vision, and conversely, Subaru could feel the overwhelming mana surging from the rainbow-colored knight's sword.
However, setting aside those benefits, it was no exaggeration to say this coordinated state existed under extremely unstable conditions.
Visual synchronization occasionally doubled the scenes, creating a dissonance as if his right and left eyes were seeing entirely different landscapes. Physical empathy meant that Julius's battle-fueled adrenaline wasn't all that bled through — even the pain carved into Julius's body was transmitted to Subaru with razor-sharp fidelity.
The feel of wind grazing skin, the sensation of feet pressing into earth, the taste of blood and saliva mingling inside the mouth, the dull, stagnant ringing buzzing through the brain — constantly experiencing "two people's worth" of all this wasn't something where the mental and physical burden could simply be called double.
Taste, smell, pain, touch — if he could shut them all out now, how much easier it would be. A maddening itch in a place his hand could never reach — what would you even call that? The feeling of someone else's scalp itching, perhaps.
"I'd really like to wrap this up, that's my honest-to-god truth…"
Subaru licked his lips and muttered into the tangle of dissonance enveloping him. Surely even those feelings had reached Julius through their link. He couldn't afford to be careless.
If his instincts would let him be weak, he'd give up every sense and shut his consciousness down right this instant. Even though he'd been the one to propose this strategy, the sheer revulsion he felt toward syncing with another person was that profound.
But right now, he had no choice but to seal away all those helpless, fragile feelings.
Because — "My body's gradually adapting. Subaru, shall I increase the speed?"
"Yeah, I'm right behind you — go for it!"
As he spoke, Julius dropped low and plunged into the sea of shadows. Gliding, crawling along the ground, he slipped between the palms and with an upward slash from directly below, mowed down three demonic hands at once. He stitched through the gaps in the dispersing shadow-mist with irritating precision, planting his foot deep into the earth to counterattack instantly — a palm aimed at the end of his motion shattered like sparks before the oncoming rainbow.
Julius twisted his body gracefully, sweeping the sword free of the demonic hands' obsession clinging to its rainbow edge. Behind that gallant, refined mask, his eyes remained closed — not once had they opened.
Through visual synchronization, if both fought with eyes wide, the double-imaged world would blur into vagueness. So Julius had made the decision to keep his own eyes shut, entrusting all visual information entirely to Subaru's eyes.
A situation not covered in their pre-battle planning had caught Subaru off guard, and he'd been about to voice furious complaints about Julius's judgment — but there were reasons he had no choice but to swallow every last one.
The first was that Julius's decision to abandon his own vision had been correct. At least now they could avoid the foolishness of hesitating before two overlapping scenes.
And the second was the logical conclusion of the thinking that had led Julius to give up his eyesight.
"You're an idiot, an idiot, screwing around like this… You really are the worst, you know that?!"
To surrender his own field of vision and entrust every visible scene to Subaru — that could only mean one thing. Julius had proven with his life that he believed Subaru wouldn't flinch.
And if he wanted to pile on even more: pouring every nerve into Subaru's vision wasn't a simple matter. Subaru's eyes belonged to Subaru's body alone, not to Julius's.
In other words, Julius was now performing a feat of impossible coordination — controlling his own body as seen from a third-person perspective behind him, all while fighting.
"This isn't like some game, y'know… One catch and it's game over, one of those crap-tier permadeath games. And trusting your life to that? You're out of your mind, and so am I."
Subaru leapt over the whip-like arc of an arm and snatched at a tree branch as Julius's body soared through the air. He whipped his head around to keep track of him, careful not to let him drift too far. After all — "You needn't worry about yourself so much, for as long as I defeat you, that will be the end, desu!"
Petelgeuse's true target wasn't Julius, who was risking his life on the front line — it was Subaru.
Subaru was the linchpin of this battlefield, the "eyes" needed to break through the Unseen Hands. And above all, in Petelgeuse's mind, Subaru was the great sinner who had made a mockery of his faith.
"Julius, trouble! Fall back! Fall back! Follow me!"
"My, my, what a handful you are!"
Julius kicked off the tree trunk and leapt horizontally with superhuman grace, alighting near Subaru. At the same time, Julius first completely ignored the Unseen Hands bearing down on them from behind — minimizing the damage to grazes at most — then drove his sword through the palm that had been reaching for Subaru's neck, punching clean through it.
Then the rainbow arc swept around, lopping off the hands that had grazed Julius all at once. Turning the situation on its head, still with eyes shut, the knight grinned at Subaru.
"I understand you're desperate, but perhaps you could try a bit of self-preservation? At this rate, you can't even face an enemy head-on."
"I'll throw those words right back at you! I can't sit still watching this either! Can you see me struggling through my eyes, huh?!"
"A worried, handsome face with noble features — the sort who looks as if they were blessed with both lineage and talent."
"So you're literally just admiring yourself through my eyeballs?!"
Subbaru stuck out his tongue at Julius's self-praise, then scrambled away from the incoming wave of palms. Subaru rolled, Julius jumped backward while slicing with his sword to sever the grasping hands, then moved forward again.
The terrifying thing about Julius was that he was growing accustomed to this impossible feat of fighting while piloting his body from an overhead view.
Unlike Subaru, Julius had honed his body to its absolute limits, beaten it bloody again and again — and as a knight who elevated himself in fields where killing intent was traded for killing intent, that experience shaped every fiber of his being.
Trembling before a fight, unable to perform — not just below his potential, but unable to even produce what he had — was Subaru's current limit.
Refining himself through combat, drawing out power beyond his potential — that was the way of warriors like Julius.
The fact that he was involved, even tangentially, in this knight's fight was barely propping up Subaru's cowardly, weak-kneed resolve.
Palms grazed him, gouged his back, his thighs, and the exploded pain in his shoulder sent his brain reeling.
Grinding his teeth to endure the pain, Subaru didn't look away.
Running, leaping, sliding in, countering, pushing forward, leaping back, advancing, slipping through, holding ground, wriggling past, circling around, sidestepping, shifting, whirling, charging, bouncing up, kicking — refining each action with every beat.
Sweeping, cutting down, thrusting, slashing upward, kicking away, flowing slash, slamming, mowing, piercing, cleaving, flashing, swinging down, striking, cutting apart, hacking — the accumulation of sword strike upon sword strike reduced the Unseen Hands to dust.
Yet even as the nightmarish darkness seemed ready to swallow the entire field of vision, the figure of the knight dancing with his rainbow blade was so beautiful it stripped the scene of reality.
It was almost enough to make one forget they were fighting over lives — a scene with an almost dreamlike quality.
He felt that way probably because, through Julius, Subaru could sense the heartbeat of the spirits. And something similar seemed to dwell in the rain of palms as well — "This cannot be… how can this be happening…!? Why, desu, why!? How can my authority… I was supposed to be loved, I am loved, I am loved, desu! I love! This much, this much, this much! I — otherwise why!? You're saying the
"I can't indulge in incoherent rambling. The black hands have dwindled accordingly. And above all, I've grown accustomed to fighting through Subaru's eyes."
Julius turned his head toward the shrieking Petelgeuse by sound alone, held his breath for a moment, then pointed his sword's tip squarely at the madman.
"— It's about time I dealt with you in earnest. For too long you have plagued the Kingdom… no, the world. Right here, I will sever one fated thread of that menace: Sloth."
"You cannot! You will not! I… I have spent four hundred years basking in the Witch's favor, devoting myself diligently to embodying her will! That I, such a — such a fool who accompanies nothing but a trivial spirit, would be denied by the likes of you, is absolutely unacceptable, desu!!"
Petelgeuse bared his teeth, his fury at Julius's words plain on his face.
But Subaru could feel that the content of that outburst gave terrifying weight to the conjecture he and Julius had exchanged. If that was true, then the madman really was — "Julius —!"
"I know! Sin Archbishop, brace yourself —!!"
Julius drove forward with a kick that gouged the earth, launching his body straight ahead.
Petelgeuse opened his mouth, screaming something as he deployed the Unseen Hands in an obsessive torrent. Skyward, earthward, toward the forest — the demonic hands spread from every direction, converging to envelop Julius's body without a single gap — "——Al Clarista!"
The aurora of rainbow fire consumed the world, and the palms that had been about to crush Julius were obliterated all at once.
The highest-tier magic of Clarista, imbuing the sword with rainbow light.
Though it lasted only an instant, the encirclement Petelgeuse had built was completely annihilated, and an unobstructed path opened between Julius and the madman —!
Petelgeuse, stripped even of the hands he'd extended to levitate by the aftermath of the aurora, crashed to the ground. He rose, his gaunt frame trembling with raw emotion.
Julius charged toward the madman without a shred of hesitation. He leveled his blade straight ahead, the tip blazing with rainbow light aimed at the chest.
"I won't allow that, desu!! Ul Dona!!"
Petelgeuse threw both arms wide and stood as if to welcome Julius, chanting. Immediately afterward, a torrent of mana interfered with the earth — a wall of soil rose from all sides around Petelgeuse, shielding the madman from the blade.
And from behind that barrier, circling around, a bundle of massive black hands reached for Julius in an embrace-like motion.
In this state, one extra action would be needed to smash through the wall, and that delay of even a single beat could mean the difference against the Unseen Hands. For Julius, this was either a fatal wound or a missed chance to corner Petelgeuse.
— If it had been Julius alone fighting here.
"Burn, fighting spirit! Roar, magic ball! — My real pitch is a hundred and twenty kilos, baby!!"
He twisted, raised his foot, drove forward, rolled his shoulder into a full swing — the speed was a stretch to call a fastball, but the magic mineral ore left Subaru's hand with devastating force.
The throw from an ordinary hand that hadn't done any particular pitching practice was nonetheless driven straight at the target by extreme concentration.
"What is this…!?"
The destructive energy sealed within the crimson mineral ore shot past Julius and slammed into the earth wall — detonating with light and extreme heat, erupting in a fireball that filled Petelgeuse's front in crimson.
"You didn't plan this from the very start…!?"
"The reason you lost is that you came to fight all alone!"
Julius burst through the flames, and his thrust pierced Petelgeuse's chest.
The rainbow radiance drove through Petelgeuse's body, the aurora searing his gaunt frame from the inside out.
Hammed against the earthen wall behind him and skewered through, Petelgeuse flailed his limbs like an insect pinned to a specimen board, blood foam bubbling from the corner of his mouth.
"Impossible, absurd, nonsensical… My, my body — like this…"
"The blade bound with six elements scorches your body from within. If your true nature is as we suspect, then let this be the end of you!"
Julius wrenched the embedded sword, drawing a shriek from Petelgeuse.
The knight's sword blazed brighter, and before that light, Petelgeuse could neither deploy the Unseen Hands as a feint nor turn the situation around with a chant.
But the madman's eyes, crazed though they were, refused to surrender to death — "I can't end! I won't end! It's not permissible for me to end, desu! I have been diligent! To resign myself to a lazy defeat, to accept a lazy end — I am not even permitted to think such a thing! Therefore, I must — I must, at any cost…!"
Petelgeuse shrieked, thrashed, clawed at himself, tearing the wound wider to deepen the source of his agony. Matching his desperate movements, Julius drove the blade in further, trying to destroy the madman's heart — and then — "I've lost my fingertips, my body is still being damaged even now… desu, desu, desu! But! I still! Have a body remaining, desu!"
All his possession targets had been destroyed ahead of time. Yet as his final body neared its end, Petelgeuse screamed his defiance against resignation.
Those eyes — those eyes filled with madness — locked straight onto Subaru.
A chill ran down his spine, and Petelgeuse's mad grin deepened.
"Ah — my brain… trembles."
"————!"
The next instant, Petelgeuse's body — pierced through by Julius — crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Light drained from his eyes, his head lolled limply, and every last spark of vitality vanished from the flesh.
The instant Subaru saw that response, he knew what was coming. He immediately pressed his hand to his chest and pulled something from his jacket — "Julius! Break the link!"
"Understood!"
Responding to Subaru's call, Julius kicked Petelgeuse's corpse aside, then spun around and sprinted back. His eyes were open now, and in the next moment the doubled sensory pressure that had been crushing Subaru's body vanished entirely.
In its place, a different presence forced its way into Subaru's body. It was — 『As I thought, your body has the aptitude to serve as a vessel for me! Even you couldn't have predicted this, desu! Ah, ah! Ah! You are Sloth, aren't you?』
The mad laughter of Petelgeuse rang out so close Subaru could have sworn it was nesting right beside his brain.
Then, against Subaru's will, his right arm reached out toward Julius, who was sprinting toward him. Subaru's shadow swelled upward, and from within it erupted the Unseen Hands — aimed at Julius, who had lost his visual sensing — "Ubuuh!"
『— Oh?』
Just as Subaru's body was about to assault Julius, his torso lurched. A floating sensation, as if he'd been hit with a fever, suddenly convulsed through his skull. Unable to maintain his posture, Subaru collapsed on the spot without even rolling into a breakfall.
And from his falling hand, the communication mirror tumbled free.
『If I can see your position through the communication mirror, I can manage this much, nya. Besides, Subaru-kun, planning a self-destruct strategy — you really are, stu-pid~♪』
The familiar, mischievous voice reached his eardrums through the mirror's surface. It was
Of course, Subaru's consciousness was still intact; this was merely a limited burst of water-element mana that had seized control of his body.
"As long as he's still in a stable mental state, he can't exactly fire off the Unseen Hands, can he?"
『Im — possible… Im-im-possible, impossible, impossible, impossible! I… I was read — you even predicted that I would take over your body!?』
Petelgeuse's voice inside Subaru's skull quavered with shock, and Subaru answered with a slanted, drunk-like consciousness — but answered nonetheless, with conviction.
While Subaru and Petelgeuse wrestled within, Julius sprinted over. He didn't spare a glance at the fallen Subaru. Instead, he scooped up Mimi and Tivey, who had been laid at Subaru's feet, loaded them onto
『Give up — in this state, I will seize your body, I am I am I am I am I a-a-a-a-m I I I I I I I IIIIIIII!?』
In the grip of madness, surpassing even his usual frenzy, Petelgeuse truly began to break.
Listening to Petelgeuse's glitching words, Subaru answered the intractable madman with a sigh, then — as if steeling his resolve — closed his eyes.
"Take me over, and Ferris might actually come at you to kill for real. So I'll fight you in my own way."
『What — are you going to… do, desu?』
Subaru drew in a breath and recalled the world of the previous loop.
The battle on the plain — the final moment when Petelgeuse had taken over his body. Ferris overloading the mana in his body, leaving Subaru in tatters. That unimaginable agony, and the madman shrieking in the same agony Subaru was. In other words — "Forcibly synchronize with another — that's the true nature of your possession. Sloth's Petelgeuse… no — Spirit Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti!"
『Don't call me —!!』
Subaru shouted his deduction aloud and confronted Petelgeuse within.
Through his conversation with Julius, Subaru had arrived at the answer to Petelgeuse's true identity.
Once they'd formulated a theory about the mechanism behind the possession, they had reached the conclusion that it could be nothing else.
Petelgeuse was a spirit who had obtained a physical form by forcibly overwriting and hijacking the bodies of others. "Those with aptitude" — that was Petelgeuse's assessment of who was worthy of forming a contract with him. The possession was nothing more than a one-sided, selfish contract being established.
Julius's rainbow blade — Clarista — bound all six elements together, a supreme mana destruction formula capable of breaking through any element's protection. It held the power to cleave even Petelgeuse's true body, a spiritual entity composed of mana. That was why his sword could reach Petelgeuse.
『Don't call me — don't put me in the same category as spirits, those inferior beings! I have transcended spirits! Transcended spirits, shed the state of being a wavering, ambiguous existence, and through favor I obtained a singular will — I am a chosen being! And you — how dare you speak of me as though you understand!』
And Petelgeuse, incensed by Subaru's words, exploded with his very existence and screamed.
The content of that scream, ironically, served to confirm their theory. And so Petelgeuse revealed his fury in denial of that fact — 『Love changed me, desu! Love gave me will, a reason to exist, desu! And all of it, every last drop, was the Witch's blessing, the Witch's favor! Therefore — therefore, therefore, therefore, therefore — this body, this soul, should be offered up entirely for the Witch, desu!』
"Enough of your sermon. — If you want it that badly, I'll grant you a special audience."
『With whom!? With what!? What are you —!!』
"With the Witch you've been longing for, of course."
At those words, Petelgeuse's eyes went wide. His face froze in shock, robbed of all speech.
Burning that expression into the back of his eyelids, Subaru drew a deep breath — and summoned the moment.
— Come on. Come.
"——I will, 'Return by Death.'"
The instant those forbidden words left his lips, the world's motion stuttered.
And then — it arrived.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ In a world of nothing but darkness, the being was led.
Nothing — he didn't even know where his own body was.
Only consciousness remained, and he could perceive nothing beyond it.
When he tried to extend his arm, he couldn't see it. He doubted there was anything in this world his arm could touch.
Honestly, the recognition of his own body — hands, feet, limbs — was already becoming hazy. What meaning did the presence or absence of a physical form hold in a place like this?
Left behind by the world, severed from the body, existing as nothing but consciousness. As nothing but soul.
That hopelessly fragile sensation, that crushing sense of loss — and to realize, with a start, that he found it terribly nostalgic, that recognition itself felt too painful to accept, and rejection swelled fiercely.
But all of it — every direction his emotions might travel, every aimless point where his passions might land — became meaningless in the face of the change that visited the darkened world.
『————』
It was a figure cloaked in darkness so absolute it could paint over the darkness of the pitch-black world.
A woman — that much he could sense. Her face, her limbs — everything was hazy, uncertain, impossible to make out.
Yet in this formless world, consciousness arrived at a single truth and erupted in joy.
He blessed the encounter with this existence before him, his trembling awe beyond words.
It was for the sake of meeting this being that all the days up to today had existed.
Days he couldn't even recall — and yet, days so terribly long — all of it, every last one, had been spent for this singular instant. For this mere sliver of a moment.
He cursed that he had no fingertips. He wanted to close the distance right now, to take her hand.
He cursed that he had no mouth. He wanted to hurl the full weight of this feeling at her in words.
He cursed that he had no body. If she wished it, he would gladly sacrifice everything — flesh and bone and all.
He cursed that he was nothing but consciousness. It was all he had to offer, and it was not enough.
『————』
She continued to maintain her silence.
Yet he could feel, with vivid clarity, that her awareness was directed toward him. Just the thought that he existed within the world she perceived was enough to send his spirit soaring.
And the "love" he craved — the answer from her lips — consciousness was prepared to receive the true answer — 『— That is not him.』
It was a voice, hoarse and steeped in disappointment.
He had been prepared for his spirit to tremble at her words as though hearing a heavenly voice, no matter what she said. And yet, now that he actually heard those words, what crashed over him was an unstoppable tide of anxiety.
Here — in this place where he was supposed to be told of "love," where he was supposed to reach the answer he had longed for — 『— You are not that person.』
The disappointment saturating her voice. And it was immediately supplanted by another emotion.
That is to say — 『If you are not that person, then why are you in that person's place with me?』
Rage filled her voice.
It was a denial of him. A rejection.
Unable to comprehend what it meant to be treated this way, consciousness tried to protest, to grasp at her words in desperation.
But consciousness had no mouth. No hands or feet to convey his will. All it had was itself — it could not touch her, could not exchange words with her, let alone be loved by her — 『— Disappear.』
None of consciousness's confusion, bewilderment, or anguish reached her. Even if it had, it would have held no meaning.
To her, consciousness was worthless. Meaningless. Nothing.
Rejection and denial confirmed the despair of that consciousness.
And so consciousness was severed from the framework of this truncated world, sinking away, fading into the distance from the encounter it had so desperately desired.
Her figure receded.
The figure he had yearned for — so much, so deeply, so painfully — vanished into the far distance.
Her gaze no longer lingered on consciousness's anguish.
She simply bowed her head, quietly, and — 『I love you I love you I love you I love