——The fight was far more brutal than anything imaginable.
Two men stood facing each other, trading blows head-on.
Flesh slammed against hard bone, muscles burst and blood dripped. Groans rose, bubbles mixed with labored breathing into an ugly sound that overflowed into the air—the sheer savagery of a mud-soaked brawl seared itself into the eyes and ears of anyone who witnessed it.
"……Subaru."
Standing before the entrance to the tomb,
Her uncertain eyes wavered, fingertips trembling as though searching for something to cling to. The warmth of someone she could always rely on at her side—she knew it had been lost, yet it still bound her heart.
Inside the tomb, Subaru had said those words to her.
He had declared that he loved her, that she was precious to him, and that was why he believed in her.
His words had certainly saved part of her. But at the same time, they had only increased her anxiety.
Even now, moment by moment, the real memories were resurfacing within her.
Emilia had walked this far believing that false memories were her beginning. What would become of her when that beginning—the very trigger of it all—changed? What would she become?
Even after they had spoken their true feelings to each other, the fear remained rooted inside Emilia.
Subaru had shouted that even if she changed, his feelings of love would not.
She had no reason whatsoever to doubt the feelings of this boy—who would fight on and endure pain and suffering for her sake. He had proven that much, time and time again.
——What she couldn't believe was herself.
She had started down the wrong path from the beginning, and now, having fixed her gaze on the destination she had always envisioned, her feet had stopped. Was she about to set off in the wrong direction again, hesitating even though she could still see the end?
Her feet had once stopped.
Would she be allowed to start walking again?
When she walked again, would she be stepping onto a new path, or the same one as before?
"————"
She wandered endlessly through a labyrinth of questions with no answers, no exit.
Even now, unable to make a sound, understanding that she had no right to stop anything, Emilia continued to watch the men fighting before her.
"————!"
A groan rose, louder than before, and blood splattered.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ A fist cut through the air, swinging wide.
The knuckles came hurtling toward his face—but they were pathetically slow.
"Tch!"
No need for any dramatic dodge.
A minimal tilt of the head—just enough to let the fist pass by without even grazing him. With his opponent's wild swing leaving his torso wide open, he drove a sharp knee upward, piercing into the internal organs.
He felt thin muscle and ribs give way beneath his knee, the shock transmitting through to the organs beyond. Blood poured from the mouth that had already vomited its contents multiple times, a fresh deluge of gore unleashed by the merciless force.
"Gah… ah…"
Clutching his stomach, staggering pathetically. Subaru brought both arms crashing down onto the hunched back, then followed up from behind, hammering into the soft underbelly and churning the insides to pulp.
A body that had managed to stay standing through the knee strikes crumbled completely from the blow to the back. Subaru kicked the fallen body to flip it face-up, then drove his toes into the left flank for a follow-up strike.
Intermittent groans.
A dissonant chorus of harsh breathing laced with blood-phlegm and vomit.
Fists, knees, toes. With every impact, the sensation of skin, flesh, and bone being ground away rebounded back.
What would normally have brought a rush of exhilaration felt utterly, unbearably disgusting.
Over and over, the same thing repeated—what meaning could any of this possibly have?!
"Give it a rest already, will ya?! Just give up!"
He hurled abuse at the pathetic figure coughing up blood-phlegm.
His consciousness hadn't been taken. Even after being hit in the head, even after being kicked in the stomach—stubbornly, infuriatingly, that much he refused to concede.
The gap in their power was this vast, and yet his body still didn't seem to understand.
"You're one stubborn bastard, you know that?! There was never a chance in hell from the start! Hunchbacked! Wild, pointless swings! Your whole center of gravity is all over the place—this is embarrassing!"
"……Sorry about that."
"Ah, you piece of trash! You think I don't know what it feels like to be dragged into your pointless little stubborn game against my will?! Give me a break—you're pathetic!"
Spitting contempt, he berated Subaru, who was gasping for breath and desperately trying to push himself up.
In front of Garfiel's furious gaze, Subaru propped himself on both arms against the ground, struggling to rise. His beaten face was swollen beyond recognition, blood from his broken nose painting the lower half crimson. Several teeth had surely been broken or shattered. His internal organs, his ribs—there would be no surprise if multiple things were ruptured.
Agony raged through his body—surely he should have been unable to even maintain consciousness.
"What's the point of this?! You didn't come here because you thought you had a chance, did you?! All you can show is one pathetic, broken mess after another… Just lie down already!"
"——Gah!"
Feeling something in the boy that defied words like "obstinate" or "stubborn"—something closer to sheer tenacity—Garfiel continued to pummel Subaru's body with ruthless persistence.
He swept away the arms bracing against the ground, drove his toes into the sideways face. He kicked the vomiting body upward from below, then smashed it straight down with his elbow.
The body bounced off the ground, beaten hard against the unforgiving earth, and Subaru sprawled into a spread-eagle position.
Eyes rolled back, breath hissing out like air from a punctured lung—this time, surely, he wouldn't move. Finally, Garfiel thought he had broken through, and let out a long breath.
"What's with that face… like it's already over…"
"————!"
Garfiel, shoulders heaving from ragged breathing, snapped his eyes wide open at the voice from below.
The man whose consciousness he was certain had been severed root and all was swaying, but rising to his feet once more.
"This… isn't… a joke…"
"Yeah… it's not a joke… getting hit this many times… wouldn't make a funny story even if I ended up dead…"
"I didn't mean it like that…"
"——Lueh!"
Displaying a nightmarish stubbornness, Subaru exhaled sharply and threw his punch.
Of course, even that desperate strike was little more than a child's attack from Garfiel's perspective. He deflected it with a light tap of his hand, then returned the favor with a palm strike that burst through the solar plexus.
A blow that punched through the gaps between organs and propagated shock through the body's fluids—compressing the now-empty stomach, forcing yellow-tinged gastric fluid and blood to surge back upward.
"Gah… hugh…"
"How many times do I have to tell you it's the same every time…"
Another ultimatum to Subaru, who was clutching his stomach and collapsing on the spot.
Unable to stand the pathetic sight, Garfiel turned his gaze away and clicked his tongue.
"————!"
And that nose of his was narrowly missed by Subaru's right fist as it roared past.
"What!?"
"You… Garfiel. Who gave you permission to write me off…?"
Left arm forward, right arm back.
Garfiel felt something close to a shudder at Subaru's posture—showing that he had not yet lost his fighting spirit.
He did not think of the boy as a threat. Not in the slightest.
It was obvious to anyone that he was merely putting on a brave front. The insurmountable gap in power between Garfiel and Subaru could not be bridged no matter what he did.
Even if he kept charging in recklessly like this—a thousand times, ten thousand times—Garfiel had the solid, unquestionable advantage to simply keep dodging.
So everything Subaru did, all of it, every last bit—was meaningless.
Beaten by Garfiel, kicked, thrown, piling up pain and suffering no matter how much—he could never reach Garfiel, not with a body that had already spent everything it had.
"You're not screwing with me… are you!?"
"Huh…?"
Standing up against an opponent he could not beat, armed with nothing but sheer will.
Only his spirit refused to break, only his resolve refused to yield. Perhaps people sometimes called that kind of mental fortitude strength—a strength not dependent on the flesh.
Perhaps there were those whose hearts were moved by the sight of someone who kept rising no matter how many times they were knocked down.
But if he thought that by showing him that, he could somehow change his mind—it was the most unforgivable insult of all.
Only his heart refused to break, refused to bend. What meaning could that possibly have?!
"You think that if you keep up that stubborn act long enough, I'll eventually pull my punches?! That I'll get tired of hitting and kicking you and concede out of respect for your fighting spirit? That you'll go around saying I lost because you touched my heart?! Is that what you think!?"
"————"
"This isn't a joke! This isn't some game between you and me! I knock you down, or you knock me down! There's no other outcome—none whatsoever!"
He stomped the ground.
The power of the Earth Spirit's blessing surged through him, vitality flowing up from the earth and flooding through his body.
More recovered than when he had arrived at this spot, pushing through exhaustion after finishing his fight with
Did Subaru really think such a paltry influence could sway Garfiel's heart?!
"You said it, didn't you!?! That you'd teach me what it means to be weak—you said that, didn't you?! So where is it?! What's this 'teaching' you're talking about?! The one who's been overpowered because he lacks strength and is too stupid to think things through—that's you, isn't it?!"
He remembered every word of the defiance Subaru had spoken before the fight.
Every bit of it was absurd. Every bit of it was a lie. This man was nothing but a fraud through and through.
"That guy and Ram too! Both of them came at me with the resolve to beat me! That's exactly why I went all out against those two! I twisted my brain coming up with strategies, used every ounce of my intelligence to make up for what my strength lacked… They had resolve—the kind I can truly acknowledge. What about you?!"
Though he didn't know all the details, Garfiel was genuinely impressed by Otto's battle. The way he had used his blessing to turn the forest to his side, backed Garfiel into a corner, and the final push toward that great magic—his complete expenditure of both willpower and intellect was the very best a weaker fighter could have offered.
And Ram's assault, which had come from the ambush that followed—it had delivered a pain nearly equivalent to betrayal, but the fight itself had been truly worthy of Ram.
A merciless, holding-nothing-back battle against a genuine powerhouse.
Both of them had given everything they had against Garfiel, fighting with the resolve to seize victory.
That way of living was noble. Even as enemies, they deserved respect—Garfiel had no choice but to admit it.
"And compared to that… you're the most pathetic thing I've ever seen! You get up every single time you're knocked down… so what?! No matter how many times you're hit, your heart won't bend… What's that supposed to mean?! Even knowing there's no chance of winning, you'll never run away… How is that something to be proud of?!"
"————"
"You think I'm supposed to be moved or something?! Standing there covered in blood, legs shaking, eyes barely open—and you want me to feel something and hold back?! I'll tear you to shreds, you hear me?! Do you have any idea how much you're mocking the people—for my sake and for yours—who stood up for this!"
Now, Garfiel was burning with the greatest fury he had ever felt in his life.
The fight had been defiled. He had been insulted. And more than that—this man's way of being was trying to stain the nobility, the purity of purpose of those Garfiel had acknowledged in battle, covering it all in the filth of humiliation.
"Go to sleep. Get lost. You pathetic, miserable piece of trash. Admit you've lost and take a nap—that's the only smart move, you damn fool!"
"…………"
Still not dropping his stance, Subaru continued to weather Garfiel's barrage of verbal abuse.
His head wobbled, his half-closed eyes barely managing to focus on Garfiel. His fighting spirit alone had not waned—and it was precisely that which made his utter wretchedness all the more grating.
If words and fists could not bend this man's spirit, then what would it take to snap it?
If pain alone wasn't enough, there was only one answer.
"Why don't you say something back to him, huh!?"
Garfiel turned around and called out to Emilia, who was watching from beside the tomb's entrance.
Seeing her narrow shoulders tremble as the focus of the conversation was suddenly thrust upon her, Garfiel clicked his tongue in irritation at the weakness he saw there.
"You tell him to stop! You tell him what a pathetic, pathetic sight he is! No matter how many times I say it, he won't listen! The girl he loves—tell him that the way he's clinging on is ugly, that it's pointless, that he's being a piece of trash!"
"……I, I…"
"What's that?! You can't say it?! From where you're standing, does it really look like this guy has a chance?! Or do you want to keep watching?! You want to see the guy who's in love with you get beaten to a bloody pulp, and keep basking in the delusion that he loves you?! Which one is it, huh!?"
"————!"
Emilia's eyes flew wide, her body frozen by the malice pouring down on her.
Garfiel's words were unbearable—and they pierced mercilessly through Emilia, who had been nothing but a bystander to the fight.
If Garfiel's fists couldn't stop Subaru, then the only way was with Emilia's words.
If Garfiel broke his body and Emilia broke his spirit, then surely this time Subaru would finally bend his knees.
Watching the fight, Emilia had already twisted her expression in anguish again and again at the sight of Subaru being beaten.
Unlike Subaru, who had steeled himself with some resolve she couldn't understand, Emilia's heart had not yet solidified. She was still the girl who had crumbled before the tomb's "trial," weeping pathetically.
Garfiel had no particular intention of blaming her for that.
Being defeated by the "trial"—by the past—was perfectly natural. Who could deny another person's greatest regrets?
That you could overcome the past, overcome your regrets—that was nothing but wishful thinking.
A madman who had mixed together ideals that could never be realized and dreams that would never come true.
The boy standing before him now was a genuine lunatic who chased nothing but fantasies and tried to shove them down other people's throats.
He was the same breed as Roswaal—a one-track-minded fool who could see nothing else.
"Just make him stop, and everything's over! Both for me and for you! We're both dancing in the palm of that witch's hand! That's all there is to it!"
"I—"
At Garfiel's words, Emilia's back straightened as though struck by lightning, her eyes going wide.
Through glistening tears, those bewitching eyes turned to look at Subaru, who was standing there in wretched agony. Her trembling lips, urged on by Garfiel, moved to call for Subaru to abandon his stubbornness.
And then, everything would end.
But—— "Emilia."
"————"
Before Emilia could speak, Subaru called her name first.
Her mouth, with the tip of her red tongue just barely visible, closed. Emilia listened to Subaru's hoarse voice, straining to catch every word, bracing herself for whatever he might say.
And to her, Subaru offered just a single, short phrase.
"……Watch me."
A brief utterance.
So quiet it could have been a murmur spoken only to himself.
But when Emilia heard it, her head snapped up, and after a few seconds of hesitation— "——Mm."
She pressed a hand to her chest and nodded.
"……Hah!?"
Facing their exchange, Garfiel let out a bewildered shout of incomprehension.
But as Garfiel's eyes flared with rage, Subaru let out a long breath and pointed a finger at him.
"……You've been running your mouth this whole time, but you're wrong, Garfiel."
"What did you say?"
"Maybe it looks to you like I'm giving it my all even though I have no chance of winning, and that's hilarious… but it's no joke. I learned the hard way what it's like to pick a fight knowing you can't win—I got burned real bad before, and I'm not falling for that again. Absolutely never again. Not once more."
His face was a swollen, mangled mess, yet he still grimaced with unmistakable displeasure.
That "before" he mentioned—Garfiel had no way of knowing what it referred to, but it must have been an exceptionally bitter memory for Subaru.
Still, there was something in those words he couldn't afford to miss.
"This doesn't make any sense! Forget ideals and fantasies—you can't even see what's right in front of you! If you're saying you'll stop picking fights against opponents you can't beat… then this situation—hey! What is this situation?!"
"Isn't it obvious, idiot? I haven't given up the fight. Not even once."
Subaru's voice had regained strength as his consciousness cleared during their exchange, and he declared this with certainty.
The sheer, baseless force behind those words caught Garfiel off guard, his fury choking off any reply.
"As long as I can still stand, I won't give up the fight. …The only time I'll stop standing is when I'm dead."
"…………"
"And you, with your half-hearted resolve at the critical moment—you can't kill me. …Which means you can't stop me. Bit by bit, I'm getting closer to my win. And my victory… will not waver."
"You've lost your mind…! Whether I can kill you or not isn't the point! How—how are you going to beat me, huh!?"
Covered in wounds, looking like a tattered rag, no matter how many words he strung together, it was all talk.
Subaru's argument was nothing but an extreme position. "I won't stop until I'm dead"—that was simply a statement of intent. Even if you accepted that premise, did it follow that Subaru, as long as he wasn't killed, would eventually deal Garfiel a fatal blow?
That was impossible. And even if it weren't—how much time and how many miracles would it take?!
"If I crush your limbs so you can't do anything, it's over! Whether you're conscious or not, whether you've given up or not—none of it matters!"
Garfiel roared, seething with fury.
Drawn up through the soles of his feet, the vitality from the earth had restored his exhausted body to roughly half its normal power. More than enough to tear
He stamped the ground and closed in on the immobilized Subaru.
As Garfiel approached, Subaru thrust out his fist as though it were his one chance. Pathetic. Slow. Everything about it was lacking. Garfiel dodged it with ease and struck his torso with a single blow. He drove his knee into the rising chin, caught the reeling body, and hurled it to the ground with all his strength. He stomped on the supine figure with his heel—once, twice, three times—drawing out groans with each impact.
A merciless succession of blows. That should be—— "……Is it… over?"
"————!! Who the hell are youuuuu?!"
Despite having taken even more devastating damage, Subaru stood up again.
Seeing that before him, an incomprehensible sensation finally began to take hold of Garfiel's heart.
Not "can I not defeat him." Not "can I not win." It wasn't that kind of anxiety.
It was the doubt—was it really true that merely accumulating physical damage wouldn't be enough to stop this man?
"What meaning could there possibly be in throwing your life away like this?! If you somehow, through sheer desperation, beat me—that half-elf would be able to beat the 'trial'?! Do you really believe that, huh?!"
"…………"
"How could miracles pile up like that?! How could something so convenient ever happen?! Even in one chance out of ten billion, even if you somehow beat me—she wouldn't change! Nobody would! Once you've got a wrong, irredeemable past and nothing but bottled-up regrets to stare at—you're stuck! You can't go forward, you can't go back! Why can't you see that?!"
"Then why can't you see it—!"
"————!?"
His shout lacked the force to be called a roar and was too emotional to be an appeal— In the gap where Garfiel lost control of his words, Natsuki Subaru's scream cut through.
"You don't get to decide everything on your own, Garfiel…!"
"What are you…?"
"Don't get to decide Emilia's limits on your own. She's not that weak."
From far away, at the entrance to the tomb, Emilia caught her breath.
"Don't get to decide my limits on your own and write me off. Falling to my knees, throwing everything away and curling up—nobody tells me to do that. I won't, not until I've given up myself."
He spat blood, and the light in Subaru's eyes grew stronger.
And then— "Don't you dare go deciding to give up on yourself. You can still do more. You can go further. …How long are you going to cling to that hard-headed conclusion you reached as a kid—when your limbs hadn't even fully grown, when you hadn't even hit puberty…?!"
He told Garfiel straight to his face—the conviction that Garfiel had clung to so stubbornly, the belief that had bound his heart to the "
"————"
Garfiel opened his mouth to fire back immediately.
But as though something had pierced his chest, no voice came from his throat.
Nothing came out. Nothing emerged.
His mind had gone blank. It wasn't that he believed this man was right. He couldn't be wrong—he was the one who had started this after learning he had been wrong. He could not be wrong.
He must not be wrong.
And so, this man who claimed Garfiel was wrong could not be allowed to exist.
"Haa… haa… I get it…"
"…………"
"I've got to… stop you. Everything you're saying—I don't understand a damn word of it. But it makes me sick. So I'm going to stop you."
He had to stop him.
And the means to do so—there was surely only one way, exactly as this man had said.
——Unless he stopped this man's breathing, he would never stop.
"Then… I'll kill you…"
"Can you?"
"Don't be ridiculous. —I've had the means from the very beginning."
If killing was the only way to stop him, then this time he would kill him and be done with it.
He would choose the means to do so right now.
He would choose to surrender to the loathsome, detestable beast's blood sleeping inside this body.
"——Roarrrr!"
Garfiel clutched his own body as a searing heat surged through him, as though every drop of blood in his veins was boiling.
So intense was the fever that he hallucinated red tingeing his breath. Every cell in his body writhed, muscles swelled, and his volume expanded explosively.
His limbs thickened like logs, his torso ballooned until the cloth around his waist burst apart. Golden fur sprouted across his entire body, and sharp fangs grew to the length of blades in the blink of an eye.
His snout pushed forward, his pupils narrowed, and the colors of the world shifted.
His thoughts white-hot, the consciousness of Garfiel Tinsel, who had been here until this moment, was buried under a tidal wave.
The elation of the transformation, the sensation of bestial instinct drowning out reason.
When it was all over and he returned to himself, torn scraps of flesh would be scattered before his eyes. That would be Natsuki Subaru's final form.
It had come to this. He hadn't been able to stop him any other way.
He had no intention of regretting that. No intention of repenting.
The fault lay with the one who lacked power.
The weak could do nothing. That was all there was to it.
Consciousness faded.
The beast's instincts cheered, its jaws opening wide to bite through its pitiful prey—— ——The vision of the beast that had lost its reason was swallowed entirely by an eruption of black smoke.