Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

(Thank You Aaron, Kizarat, Roanz, Nero, Vimal, Chris, Kam, Fox for helping me with proofreading on the Live Draft! <>

ARC 4THE EVERLASTING COVENANT Chapter 51 [LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVEME~]

Subaru only watched in silence as the golden tiger, Garfiel, burst apart.

The force of the beast"s claws should have been enough to swipe the Witch"s head flying along with the upper half of her body. No doubt even a Witch would have been torn to shreds by the power of that direct impact. ――But the strike never hit.

Using the last Lewes-clone as a stepping stone, Garfiel carried out his decisive strike. But when his claws came within an inch of the Witch, Subaru saw his wounds, previously gouged by the shadow, beginning to squirm.
Squirming wounds―― caused by none other than the shadows at the Witch"s feet that had crawled onto Garfiel"s limbs. The tips of the supposedly ma.s.sless shadows slid themselves into the openings of the great tiger"s wounds and scattered into wanton destruction, rending flesh and sending blood spouting out.
And just like that, unable to withstand the mounting pressure inside, Garfiel"s ma.s.sive, infiltrated body exploded.

He couldn"t even put up the most basic resistance against this ruthless method of trampling a life.
In the course of an instant, the thing that was once Garfiel splattered throughout the clearing into small piles of dark-red slivers of flesh. Only the golden fur sticking to some of the scattered clots still proved that he once existed in this world.

[Subaru: ――――]

He couldn"t utter a word.
Until not long ago, there were more than twenty lives in this clearing including the Lewes-dolls. And several seconds later, there was now only two.
Actually, if one counted from the beginning, there would have been over a hundred lives in the Sanctuary.
Considering that they were all pulled in by that shadow, the weight of that shadow"s crimes was simply far too great. Beyond unforgivable.

Blood resumed coursing through Subaru"s numbed senses once again, and every cell of his body rallied into that most fitting response.
That is, the primal emotion directed at the Witch before his eyes―― rage.

{???: I love you}

[Subaru: Shut up]

{???: I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you}

[Subaru: I said shut up……]

The shadow"s outline was so vague that even its height could not be distinguished.
Its voice was still murky as though pa.s.sing through a voice changer, impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman"s.
Yet, in spite of its indefinite voice, the sticky affection imbued within was clear to the point of revulsion.

With the same, unwavering love, after drinking the Sanctuary dry and brutally murdering Garfiel, she still directed her interest, her care, and her love wholeheartedly towards Subaru.
It was so abhorrent and twisted it made Subaru want to vomit.

He could feel his sanity being whittled away by the Witch. An emotion bordering on madness surged up, while hatred and revulsion boiled within his chest.

{???: I love you I love you I love you my love I love you I love you I love you}

Standing there, unmoving, the Witch continued to whisper her love to Subaru like a curse.
Instilling it with such warmth it was as if she was about to melt, her inability to read the mood must have been even worse than Subaru"s.
Oblivious to the blatant discomfort on the face of the target of her love, she went on pus.h.i.+ng her obstinate, one-sided affection.

This love was entirely repulsive.
And what enraged Subaru more than anything, was――

{???: I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you}

[Subaru: …………]

{???: I love you I love you I love you I love you――Subaru-kun}

[Subaru: ――Don"t call me that!!]

Hearing that tender suffix, Subaru screamed back, overtaken by rage.
Every ounce of that doting voice, gesture, and address offended Subaru"s very senses.

[Subaru: Who gave you permission to call me that… Don"t make me laugh. Don"t f.u.c.king make me laugh! Don"t you f.u.c.king make me laugh!!]

Her closeness at his side.
The affection instilled in that call.
That loveliness at a distance close enough to touch.
There was only one person in the world who was permitted to address him this way.

――And it was certainly not this Witch standing before him.

[Subaru: You"re just a filthy Witch, so don"t make me laugh. There is only one person that right belongs to. And I won"t let anyone else have it. No… Even if it"s one strand of hair, one fragment of a cell, or just a speck of dirt under my nails I won"t f.u.c.king waste it on you――!]

Furious, abandoned to rage, Subaru spewed out the emotions spiraling inside him.
His shoulders heaved with ragged breaths as he glared at the Witch in front of him.

An enemy he had no chance of winning against.
A monster who ate half the world. Who had just disposed of Garfiel without breaking a sweat. A Witch among Witches.
The utmost calamity plunging all life into shadow, with no other interest besides continuously whispering her deranged love for one single person.

The fact that he dared to face a such a monster surprised even himself.
It must be his brain short-circuiting in a state of self-abandon, he thought.
If the Witch felt like it, she could easily pull Subaru into the shadowy mire in the blink of an eye. Or otherwise skewer him through with the tips of her shadows and use him to fertilize the forest in a gory firework-show like with Garfiel.
Yet, despite knowing this, why wasn"t his heart faltering as he faced her? Perhaps it was because, deep down, Subaru subconsciously harbored a certain confidence in the Witch.
That is――

[Subaru: ……not, moving?]

Recovering from the emotional outburst, Subaru found himself at a loss when none of the expected reactions came from the Witch.
Before he knew it, the curse-like whispers of love―― that endless outpour of affection that persisted even as Garfiel was burst open, had stopped. Halted.

The shadow"s erosion of the clearing seemed to have stalled―― or rather, stopped completely. Distancing himself from the unpleasant sensation of the shadow beneath his feet, Subaru picked a less shadowy spot and moved himself over.
He kept his gaze fixed on the Witch as he did so, but saw no reaction.

The Witch only stood there with her arms dangling, her body shrouded as always in a shade dense enough to bend light, hiding her expression from sight.
She seemed to be so covered with openings that if he just went over and punched her, she would probably fall.

[Subaru: Why"re you suddenly so…… unless, was it what I said?]

"Impossible", he thought, while frowning at his inability to deny it.
It was hard to believe that Subaru"s words could have had such an effect, but considering the point where Witch"s speech and movements stopped, there was just no other explanation.
Though that did not make the possibility any easier to accept.

[Subaru: If my rejection threw you off that much……]

Then if he had just screamed it out earlier, Garfiel and others may not have died.
Now that Emilia, Ram, Lewes, Otto, and even Garfiel, who was trying to protect him, all lost their lives to the Witch, there was already nothing left in this world for Subaru to live for.
Echidona had just a.s.sured him that there was no limit to Return by Death. And, though he wasn"t aware of it himself, he was beginning to become complacent with "Life".

That was why he withdrew his plan to be the bait immediately after Garfiel rejected it, wasn"t it?
Seeing that the Witch was so obsessed with him, Subaru should have known that such an action from him would provoke a reaction like this.

[Subaru: I don"t know why, but…… that means I"m the Witch"s weak point, doesn"t it……?]

If all this was due to her unwavering obsession with Subaru, then that might just be the case. The problem is, even after knowing this, would he really have an opportunity to use it?
After all, the circ.u.mstance of every Sanctuary loop so far had been different. They had Subaru scrambling to find the solutions without a single clue in sight―― but in comparison, the difference in this loop was truly in the Dreadnaught-Tier.

Elsa, Garfiel, and the Great Rabbit were already unmanageable enough to begin with, but if the Witch of Envy were to be added to the fray, it would be nothing short of impossible. Just the thought of figuring out the pattern behind their appearances was enough to send his motivation into retreat.
Such was the overwhelming threat of the grotesque existence of the Witch.
Even formulating plans to resist felt ridiculous. Managing to cripple his will to fight before the fight had even begun, compared to the gargantuan White Whale, the Witch"s small figure was infinitely more frightening.

Even though the Witch only stood there motionlessly, Subaru could feel his heart withering away.
The Witch made no effort to move. Nor did she seem to mind the turmoil of Subaru"s thoughts. She simply stood there, immersed in her own world.

Time pa.s.sed in this state of indecision.
His breathing, the irritatingly loud beating of his heart, and the sensation of profuse, lukewarm sweat rolling down his forehead all informed him of the pa.s.sage of time.

Even if they continued staring at one another, no resolution would come. And just when Subaru drew in a deep breath, intending to take action――
A thought flashed across his mind. That is,

[Subaru: ――Could it be… because of Echidona"s tea party?]

[Subaru: I ran my mouth on all the forbidden information while I was in her Citadel… I thought if the penalty didn"t come then I was allowed to do it there, but……]

――What if he wasn"t?

What if the Witch never gave Subaru the permission to reveal his Return by Death? What if she saw him so carelessly spilling the words and had tried to inflict punishment as always in the world frozen in time?
What if, unable to manifest in the Witch"s tea party to interfere, she instead chose to deal him a different punishment.
――What if that was the truth of the disaster that befell the Sanctuary?

[Subaru: Just how…… selfish are you……?]

Was this ma.s.sacre just because she couldn"t exact punishment on Subaru?
Did she think that she had the right? With this flagrant show of force, who was she trying to show off to?

{???: I love you}

At that point, Subaru"s thoughts seemed to have arrived on a corner of the truth.
The Witch, who had been as still as a silhouette, suddenly resumed her revolting activity. She turned her eyes and what seemed to be her head to Subaru, and continued her curse-like murmur.

As if the loving whispers ratified the movements of the shadow, darkness once again began to erode the surface of the clearing. Feeling his soles sinking into the mire, Subaru quickly jumped off that patch of ground.

[Subaru: What"s with you…… soon as I mention another girl"s name you get lively all of a sudden, oy!]

{???: I love you I love you I love you I love you}

[Subaru: No matter how many times you mutter that, I"m not going to love you! My heart"s number One and Two places have already been filled. There"s absolutely no room for a Witch to come in!]

Exchange blow for blow―― even if the only words coming from the Witch"s mouth were monotone repet.i.tions of love.
But, when he sensed a definite twinge of emotion in response to his provocations, Subaru"s cheeks twisted into a wicked grin. Getting on other people"s nerves was precisely his strong suit, and it was time to test whether it worked on Witches.

[Subaru: If you keep on repeating "I love you" so lightly, they"ll just get cheapened]

{???: I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you}

[Subaru: The first real "I love you" I got in this world…… had the power to make a piece of no-good human garbage aspire to become a hero, you know!]

Enough to make the broken, twisted coward who only knew how to flee face his challenge head-on for a future he was on the verge of giving up on, and provide him with the strength to do so not only once, but time and time again.
Such was the strength, n.o.bility, and greatness of genuine love.

[Subaru: So all your whispers of love can"t reach my ears at all. Especially when you committed such atrocities for some jealous fit. There isn"t a single thing I like about you]

{???: I love you I love you I love you}

[Subaru: If I had to love a Witch like you……]

{???: I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you――}

What was the one thing he should say to hurt this Witch the most? Unrivaled in his ability to p.i.s.s other people off, Subaru knew exactly what.
And so, with a cruel smile, and eyes filled with disdain,

[Subaru: If I had to love a Witch, Echidona and the other Witches are way more lovable than you――]

The moment he said those words, the Witch"s curses ceased.
And――

[Subaru: ――――a]

Subaru"s vision, and the world, were instantly swallowed into darkness.

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Let me know if you found any typos or missing words while reading! ❤

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Chapter 51 Live Draft: