"————"
She nearly fell from the spiral staircase all the way down to the floor below, but managed to catch herself — and the young girl, Meili, stared wide-eyed in surprise.
With those big, round eyes so close to his own, Subaru couldn't help feeling conflicted about how the situation had come together.
He was glad that he'd been able to use Return by Death to prevent a tragedy before it happened. But it also confirmed something else — that this young girl had pushed Subaru's back twice before, in a different timeline, nudging him onward.
The culprit who shoved Subaru's back and sent him tumbling to his death from a great height — that was
"…Responsibility for killing me, huh? You're going to start saying weird things again, aren't you, big brother?"
For an instant, a flicker of alarm passed through Meili's widened eyes, but she quickly relaxed her lips, traced her finger along Subaru's arm that was wrapped around her waist, and beamed a bewitching smile.
Then she took a step back, putting distance between herself and the spiral staircase, and faced Subaru head-on.
"Maybe when you lost your memory, a few other things fell out too. Otherwise, you'd never make a mistake like this."
"Mistake?"
"Yes, exactly. — The idea that I would ever try to kill you, big brother. What a terrible misunderstanding."
With her hands clasped behind her back and an innocent smile on her face, Meili declared this with absolute conviction. Even Subaru was caught off guard by that brazen act of playing dumb.
He hadn't expected her to attempt a denials-first approach even when caught red-handed at the scene. But that kind of resistance — if it were 'I' — no, if it were Meili, it made perfect sense.
She was, to put it charitably, cunning; to put it bluntly, improvisational.
Choosing whatever seemed optimal in the moment — that was the guiding principle of her way of life.
To be blunt, it was the very embodiment of a 'beast's' nature.
"I'm hurt that you'd even suspect me. If I really wanted to kill you and the others, surely sand dunes would've been easier than a tower like this? Oh, but I guess you wouldn't remember, since you've lost your memory."
"Yeah, fair point. It doesn't add up. If you'd been trying to kill us this whole time, there would've been plenty of chances. But you never did."
"See? So then…"
"But if the motive to kill me suddenly sprouted this morning, that's a different story. Well, maybe 'since last night' is more accurate — the chain reaction that started then."
"————"
Once Subaru had laid that much out, Meili's expression changed. She pressed her lips together, the composed smile vanished, and she let out a deep, weary sigh.
Then she shrugged with a world-weary attitude that didn't match her appearance at all.
"Could it be… that I was set up?"
"Set up? What do you mean by that?"
"Weren't you testing me? Lying about losing your memory to see whether I'd actually push you off… If there's an unstable element among your allies, flushing them out is the obvious play. Now that this tower's done, I've outlived my usefulness too, haven't I? …It's the perfect time to cut me loose."
As she rattled off the circumstances laid against her and listed her disadvantages one by one, the girl's situation was genuinely pitiful.
It was true that Subaru had tested Meili's actions, even if there hadn't been real malice behind it. Even if he denied that much, Meili's impression of him wouldn't change.
Still, there were some things he could say clearly. That was — "So how exactly are you planning to do me in? If you're feeling generous, you could push me off from here as payback. With that creepy animal gone, you could handle me all by yourself, couldn't you, big brother?"
"Don't get the wrong idea, Meili. My memory loss isn't some lie to deceive you. It's real, and I'm dead serious about it."
"That's all well and good, but it still feels like… honestly, what do you actually want, big brother? Do you think revenge won't feel real without some payoff?"
"…Ugh."
As she spoke, the girl drew a finger across her own slender neck and stuck out her tongue.
For a split second, Subaru's heart lurched in his chest. But it wasn't Meili tauntingly evoking the memory of her own death — it was simply a figure of speech equating killing with casual gestures.
Thinking about it that way, she really was the kind of tiny assassin who had an uncanny knack for hitting Subaru right where it hurt emotionally. So Subaru, not intending to get payback either — but — "I really wouldn't recommend dragging out a killing. Not just because I don't want to suffer, but because you're clearly terrible at keeping secrets, big brother…"
"…I have no intention of killing you, or even hurting you. From now on — tomorrow and beyond — I plan to keep things going just like they have been."
"…Huh?"
At Subaru's answer, Meili's expression shifted once more.
But this time it was fundamentally different from the earlier change, the one where she'd immediately pivoted to her next optimal choice. Confusion ran clearly across Meili's face, and she looked at Subaru with eyes that couldn't comprehend what she was hearing.
Subaru met that gaze and nodded.
"Fortunately, your crime was prevented before it happened. As long as the people involved keep it between us, we can pretend nothing ever occurred. I did have to catch you in the act, though — if I'd only deflected it without confronting you, you might've just tried a different method to kill me later. If that makes me tasteless, I won't argue. My bad."
"Wha… what are you…"
"But hey, this whole thing showed you something, right? Trying to do something to me is pretty risky for you too. So if you're still inclined that way… at least let's talk it through. If you've got grievances, I'll listen as much as I—"
"Grievances? What grievances…"
Suddenly, Meili's voice came out small, trembling.
Then she pressed her lips tight together and — "My grievance is this situation right now! This is unbelievable!"
Subaru had been trying to reason with her, choosing his words carefully, seeking some kind of reasonable resolution. Meili fixed him with a look of utter disbelief and roared.
"Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable…"
As she shouted, her hands fidgeted busily, touching her own braid over and over.
Subaru could see it for what it was — a psychological defense mechanism, a sign of her dependence on someone who used to wear the same hairstyle.
"You don't understand what I was about to do, big brother! That's the only explanation. If you did understand, then…"
Her words grew halting, and Meili desperately tried to point out how absurd the whole situation was.
It was the first time Subaru had seen Meili this shaken — no, he had seen it once before, inside the Tome of the Dead.
In the previous night's loop, she'd encountered Subaru at Taygeta and been thrown into a panic. After that, through her conversation with Natsuki Subaru, she had resolved to kill the amnesiac version of him.
But that hastily assembled murder plan must have been a double-edged sword for her as well.
Subaru, who had been shoved off and died from the fall, had no way of knowing — but after his death, how had Meili planned to escape suspicion of murder?
Of course, there was a good chance it would be written off as an accident. — Or was there?
Now that Subaru knew
In that case, Meili's crime would inevitably come to light.
Ram, Julius, or
So this was — "It was a spur-of-the-moment impulse. You've just gotten used to killing. There are no other options floating in your head for solving problems. That's not your fault."
"…! Don't talk like you understand! You… what could you possibly know about me!?"
"I do know."
"————"
Meili, who had flared up and lunged verbally, froze as though doused with cold water.
Looking straight at her, Subaru declared firmly, with absolute conviction.
"Meili. I know you. It might be gross to hear, but there might not be two people in this whole world who understand you better than I do — maybe even just one, besides myself."
At those words, Meili's face twisted in terror.
Subaru took that reaction as natural, even as he agonized over how to convey this — this twisted 'self-love' buried deep in his chest.
He recalled it — the temptation of 'I' that had repeated itself over and over.
The whisper that appeared at every turn of Natsuki Subaru's actions, urging him again and again toward murder as a form of problem-solving, toward the most irredeemable and worst course of action. The temptation to kill.
The ghost of the dead Meili Portroute, who had merged with Subaru's consciousness through reading the Tome of the Dead, tempting him — "— No, that's not it."
Shaking his head, Subaru refused to shift blame onto the girl he'd killed.
Even now, what was he thinking? Look at the confusion and the agitation on this girl's face. And above all, recall what Subaru himself had seen in Meili's Tome of the Dead.
Given the suffering Meili carried, it was impossible that she possessed a personality that would conveniently incite murder.
That wasn't the Meili he'd merged with through the Tome of the Dead.
That was a facade conjured by the weakness in Subaru's own heart.
As proof, that voice had never once appeared before Subaru on its own.
"————"
In a terribly condensed and one-sided way, Subaru had vicariously experienced Meili's life through the Tome of the Dead. It was her existence from the time she'd become self-aware — establishing her identity, defining her way of being, and watching helplessly as her far-too-short life was unreasonably cut short.
In those days, there was an emptiness within Meili that no one else could glimpse — an emptiness matched only by a 'terror' so vast it had been given to her as experience, and one single, shining attachment.
The name of that attachment was — "—
"…!"
"That's the reason you tried to kill me, isn't it?"
At those words, Meili's face twisted in bitterness.
It was anger — the anger of someone having touched a place she didn't want touched, of someone having trampled into a situation where she would never permit outsiders to set foot uninvited.
But Subaru pressed on anyway. Because — "When you enter someone's house, you take off your shoes. But barging into other people's hearts with your boots on is the Natsuki family way."
As one of those family members, Natsuki Subaru strode boldly into the young assassin's heart.
The root cause buried in the deepest depths of her mind, the thing that drove her toward impulsive violence.
A dark killer Subaru didn't know — and yet, one who felt devastatingly close.
When he thought of her, what welled up in his heart was relief and adoration, grief and fury, and then emptiness — the emotions Meili had held for her were something so complex and yet so impossibly simple.
— Meili had adored Elsa. She had loved her. She had idolized her.
And so, having had that taken from her, she grieved, suffered, loathed, and raged — carrying murderous intent and despair.
The reason she'd hidden all of that without a hint and joined Subaru's group was nothing more than an act performed for the sake of revenge — or so one might claim, but Meili wasn't that skilled.
If anything, Meili's lack of finesse was absolute.
She was a sorrowful girl so ignorant of her own emotions that she couldn't even recognize how deep the wounds in her heart truly ran.
— An artificial killer forged by her environment. That was Meili Portroute.
"Did you want revenge?"
"…I don't know."
"Even if you did, Elsa wouldn't…"
"I'm not hoping for that. I know that much."
At Subaru's words, Meili shook her head twice in succession.
Subaru understood Meili's feelings. And Meili knew that Subaru's words hit the mark.
In this situation, Meili and Subaru were equals.
And so, it was tragic — that she, who was overwhelmed by her own emotions, couldn't find the right answer, wandered into a dead end, and had no tool to clear away her confusion besides 'murder.' At the same time, Subaru felt a kind of hatred toward the world that had given Meili nothing but that option.
Even the way of being that Meili yearned for in Elsa was something that couldn't be changed.
Elsa may have been a light for Meili, but the path illuminated by that light was far too harsh for an ordinary person to walk.
"I know you're overwhelmed by your own emotions. But the answer probably isn't something that can be figured out right here and now. So."
"————"
"Leave this situation to me. I won't let things go badly. At the very least, I'll try to make sure they don't. And if you want the same thing…"
"…I can't believe you. You can say anything with that silver tongue of yours, big brother."
Even after hearing Subaru's appeal, Meili — her face lowered — wouldn't simply nod.
Of course not. It was a request to find a way of existing that simply didn't exist in the dictionary of everything she'd built her life upon.
And the person making that proposal — for reasons Subaru himself couldn't fathom — was Natsuki Subaru, who stood there lecturing her with an annoyingly knowing look on his face.
Given that this was also the same guy who had been willing to be shoved off a ledge to lure her to a place like this, Subaru himself was astonished by how dubious it all sounded.
Which was exactly why he'd prepared the next best option.
"If you say you can't trust my words, I actually have to reflect on that a bit. Apparently, the me of yesterday and before was a habitual promise-breaker. So."
"So?"
"Let's not make it a promise between just you and me. Let's make it a promise between all of us and you."
"————"
When Subaru said that, Meili furrowed her brows, not understanding the intent.
But the answer to her doubt became clear almost immediately.
It was — "Mm, it's okay. I was listening the whole time, so I can be a witness to the promise."
"…!"
Hearing the voice, Meili flinched and spun around with a start. There, in her line of sight, was a girl of such breathtaking beauty that her existence almost seemed unreal — a once-in-a-generation maiden who shamelessly radiated loveliness in every direction.
Meili's eyes went wide at the sight, and her lips trembled in shock.
"Big sister… you were listening?"
"Subaru asked me to be here. …He said that if Meili was in danger, he wanted me to step in."
As she spoke, Emilia stepped forward toward the two of them, her silver hair shimmering like moonlight, her posture something out of a myth.
Hearing Emilia's words, Meili tilted her head, still carrying an expression of surprise.
"If I was in danger…? Not big brother, but…"
"Yes. If Meili was in danger. That's what you wanted, right, Subaru?"
"—. Yeah, exactly. That was the only part I was genuinely worried about."
"—? Why are you turning away, Subaru? What's wrong?"
"No, it's just… she's too cute to look at directly…"
To Emilia's tilted-head question, Subaru answered in a small murmur. Unable to make out the words, Emilia tilted her head even further, but Subaru coughed to cover his embarrassment and turned his gaze back to the still-perplexed Meili.
He was confident he could prevent Meili's crime — if he knew she was going to shove him, he could handle that. The real problem had been what came after: the actions of 'Natsuki Subaru.' Hypothetically, if the Natsuki Subaru of the loop where Meili had been killed had been acting in self-defense against Meili who was trying to kill him, then right after catching her in the act, that Natsuki Subaru might well have taken actions contrary to what Subaru wanted.
So Subaru had entrusted that problem to someone clearly stronger than himself.
He believed that even if he lost consciousness and the other Natsuki Subaru appeared, Emilia — no, his friends — would handle it somehow.
"Listen, Meili. I believe what Subaru said. If you can't believe that, then just keep your eyes on Subaru with me. And if he breaks his promise, I'll get angry together with you."
"Keep an eye on big brother…? That's weird, isn't it? That doesn't make sense. Big brother and big sister should be watching me, not the other way around…"
"If Meili is the one who tries to do something wrong, then it's Subaru who broke his promise with Meili. So you'd be watching to see if Subaru keeps his promise. It's the right order, isn't it?"
"————"
Kneeling down to meet Meili at eye level, Emilia's words left the girl in a state of confusion.
Facts, situations, responses, and solutions tumbled chaotically through her mind.
"You were about to do something wrong, but Emilia-chan and I made a nice save and stopped it before it happened. So now you've got a chance to learn what you should've done instead. The question is — in that chance, can you find a path that isn't about killing me? …It's a showdown."
"A showdown…?"
"When the tangled mess of emotions inside you has sorted itself out — will you still feel like you have to kill me, or will you feel differently? …I'll work hard on my ethics homework too."
Scraping his head, Subaru pointed Meili toward that path through her confusion.
Honestly, it was probably the definition of unsolicited advice. Meili had cultivated her way of living up to this point, and Subaru was arbitrarily trying to graft on new possibilities.
But if she refused, her path in this tower of sand would be closed off. With the way she'd lived until now, she couldn't cross this tower together with them.
And — "I won't let you get off the ride halfway. I don't know exactly how old you are, or the details… but when I was about your age, the adults around me helped me out more times than I can count."
"————"
"So even if you resist, I'm going to try to help you. You're still too lovely to be turning away the helping hands around you just because you don't know what to do."
As he spoke, Subaru took one step closer to Meili.
Seeing that distance close, Meili's shoulders trembled. She looked up at Subaru with uncertain eyes, and without any hesitation, he placed his hand on her head and ruffled her hair.
He didn't tighten his grip around her slender neck. Instead, he offered the other Natsuki Subaru a different solution.
Meili was a kid who didn't need to die. And — "Please believe in Subaru… believe in us, Meili."
"…Ah."
As Subaru ruffled her hair and Meili stood frozen, Emilia wrapped her arms around the girl from behind. Gently enveloped in Emilia's warmth, Meili bit her lip softly, and Emilia pressed her cheek to the girl's.
"This tower of sand is too narrow a place for you to make any big decisions."
"————"
"Once you get out of here, find your answer somewhere wider. We'll be trying really, really hard too."
There was no good in a girl with nowhere to put her emotions grappling with them in a confined space like this.
Even choosing his words carefully, Subaru could only come up with a clumsy way to say it — but Emilia said it with gentle words and sincere feeling.
"————"
Hearing that, Meili's eyes drifted back and forth as though thinking, over and over, and then — "About Elsa… I don't want to forget."
"Yeah, of course. There's no need to forget someone you love. Just, well…"
Stopping there, Subaru thought of the woman in black he'd seen in the Tome of the Dead.
An utterly strange impression. There was no connection between them, and yet he felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity — as though he'd known her closely. As he recalled her, Subaru unconsciously rubbed his stomach and — "— Even if she's someone you love, I'd really prefer you not copy her methods."
He pleaded, weakly.
— It was only after a full数十 seconds of silence that Meili, her strength spent and hesitation still lingering, finally nodded.