"I know who ya are, after all."
Weitz's gravelly voice echoed down the alley, but Subaru scarcely heard him.
His mind was already elsewhere.
How was he supposed to get through this?
If he fails here, Gojo will slide deeper into something worse. Emilia would wonder where her hero had gone. Beatrice would wait for her contractor to return and never receive an answer. Rem would continue to hope for her hero. Ram would detest him for making her sister cry.
He clenched his teeth.
No. He could not let that happen.
"But that ain't the point," Weitz went on. "Don't lump me in with Hiain and his——Natsuki?"
When he saw Subaru's face, he abruptly halted.
Subaru forced his eyes open, took a deep breath, and moved forward.
"Hey, Weitz."
"Eh? What is it?"
Subaru walked past him, then paused just long enough to glance back.
"You're a good guy," he said. "A really good guy. Thanks."
Weitz blinked, momentarily surprised as a range of emotions suddenly appeared on his face.
Subaru began to leave before he could process it.
"Find the others," he said. "Something bad is happening right now."
"What? Hey, wait——!"
He had already started to move.
With cursed energy pouring into his legs and propelling him forward, Subaru tore out of the alley at full speed. As he rushed, the frightened individuals in front of him scurried aside as the stone beneath his feet cracked.
Almost instantly, pride emerged from the shadows next to him, keeping pace with him.
This time, Subaru had not even called him out.
Pride glanced over. "So. What's going on?"
Subaru kept his eyes forward. "Special guests are on the island. They're with Gustav right now and they're going to kill him and take the curse tool."
Pride's head tilted. "The curse tool?"
"The thing that activates the curse rule," Subaru said. "The one that can wipe out everyone here."
Pride took notice of that.
Subaru did not have the luxury of slowing down, so he continued chatting while he ran.
"Todd and Arakiya. Todd's the one with the brain. Arakiya's the one who can flatten the island. Todd can't use the tool without her."
"Mm." Pride hummed. "That is a lot of stuff to dump on me all at once, you know?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Do I get a prize for surviving the explanation?"
Subaru shot him a sideways glare. "Try not to make jokes right now, besides, I said that as simply as I could."
Pride made a small, irritated sound. "Fine. Fine. But how many times is this now?"
Subaru's jaw tightened.
"...I'm not sure."
Pride was quiet for a second. Then, in a much flatter tone, he said. "That bad, huh?"
Subaru did not answer right away.
He hated admitting it, especially to Pride.
"The only time it was worse than this was Reinhard and the Sanctuary, to be honest." He muttered at last.
Pride let out a slow breath. "Ah. So this is one of those loops."
"Could you not say it like that?"
"Kidding, kidding." Pride lifted both hands a little. "Mostly. Still, if Todd's the smart one and Arakiya's the brute, then you're saying the brute is the real problem."
"Exactly."
Subaru finally looked at him. "So don't waste time on killing Todd, just getting the tool. And when you go after him, Arakiya will try to stop you. And if the curse tool breaks or gets used wrong, she stops holding back and everyone dies anyway."
Pride's voice turned dry. "That strong, huh?"
Subaru gave a humorless snort. "You sound envious."
"I think you know the answer to that better than anyone."
Subaru's boots skidded a little on the following corner, but he steadied himself and continued running.
The door of Gustav's office appeared ahead.
He was nearly there.
He had been too late the other times. This time, he could still——
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"What are you doing?" Arakiya asked, looking at Todd amidst the ruined table on the ground.
Without even the smallest frown on his face, he was reaching into Gustav's corpse.
After a few moments like that, he growled and took out the curse tool.
Todd turned to Arakiya, attempting to dab at the blood on his cheek. "I knew it, a cautious guy like that would hide something so important where almost nobody else would think to look."
"Oh." Arakiya's singular red eye widened slightly. "So that's the thing we're looking for?"
"Yep. The curse tool, the thing we needed this whole time. I would've rathered not doing it this way..." Todd glanced down at Gustav's severed corpse for a moment. "But he decided to go and make it all difficult. I'd say that's his own fault."
Arakiya shrugged as Todd approached and extended out the black orb.
"The Prime Minister mentioned that anyone who's got the curse mark will automatically die when they exceed the distance which the tool has marked, so anyone who tries escaping will automatically die. I've gotta give the creator props for this, real impressive. But the most important thing is all you've gotta do is throw it in any direction, as hard as you can."
She tilted her head, caught off guard that it was that easy.
"Just throw it?"
"Yeah," Todd said, still holding the orb out to her. "Then we can go home. Or, well, somewhere else. Anywhere that is not this island."
After giving the black orb in Todd's hand one more glance, Arakiya slowly extended her hand.
The air in the office changed just as she was about to touch it.
At first, it was subtle. a sharp increase in pressure. The atmosphere had a physical wrongness that caused the hair on the back of Todd's neck to stand up just in time.
Arakiya's crimson eye became more intense.
"Todd."
He stopped. "What?"
She didn't elaborate. She was short on time.
Just as the entire middle of the office exploded, Arakiya grabbed Todd by the front of his uniform and pulled him forcibly back.
The wall was blasted by a tremendous burst of purple, cursed energy that was covered in thick, crushing shadows. In an instant, the ceiling collapsed. Books, stone pillars, and heavy oak tables were crushed and their pieces hurled across the chamber like shrapnel.
The office was ripped open to the sky outside.
Dust and splinters showered down on Todd's back as he fell hard to the ground behind Arakiya, coughing furiously. His eyes widened as he scrambled to his knees.
In front of him stood Arakiya. Her face was expressionless as she hoisted her wooden branch.
A strong barrier of wind and water had split apart and diverted the blast's remains around them. The impact caused the air itself to quiver.
Todd gritted his teeth. Too close.
"What the hell was that?" he muttered, his hand already on his hand-axe.
Arakiya did not lower her branch. "It was meant to kill you."
Todd went still. "...You sure?"
"Yes."
On the broken stone, footsteps crunched.
Todd turned his attention to the damaged wall opening.
A child with black hair stood amidst the smoking rubble, his right hand continuing to release a small trail of purple steam. A featureless, completely black shadow stood next to him, standing with its hands at its sides and adopting the same stance as the youngster.
"Dead again..." Subaru muttered, his voice pained.
"I missed, huh." Pride sighed, crossing his arms.
Subaru glared at his shadow. "I told you there was no point in aiming for Todd. Arakiya would just block it."
Pride tilted his head. "Well, you aimed for him too, don't even try to lie."
"Tch. Whatever you say, bastard." Subaru spat.
Arakiya silently observed them. She looked back to Todd, anticipating her orders.
Todd glanced at the child with dark hair. His nose quirked.
The youngster was physically shrouded by the oppressively strong stench of the Witch. But Todd was more disturbed by how familiar it smelt than by that.
Todd's brow began to perspire coldly.
A monster. This kid is a complete monster.
"...Kill them," Todd ordered, his voice tight. "Don't leave a single scrap."
Subaru's muscles stiffened.
Arakiya swung her branch as soon as Todd finished speaking.
The entire front of the structure was consumed by a torrent of crimson hellfire that burst from the wood. The remaining stone instantly converted to slag due to the extreme heat, and a boiling column of crimson smoke rose into the sky.
Pride moved his foot across the floor and took a step forward. He lifted both hands and drew from the floors a huge wall of solid darkness.
The heat was forced to divide and reroute around them as the hellfire crashed against the shadow barrier, hissing loudly.
"This is supposed to be no effort?" Pride grunted, the shadow wall trembling under the pressure.
"Yep. She's strong as hell," Subaru said, keeping his eyes on Todd. "If I tried to block that, I'd be vomiting my own lungs up. It's totally unfair."
"That's because I'm better than you." Pride commented.
"Yeah? Keep telling yourself that——"
In a moment, the shadow wall was split in two. Pressurised water cut neatly through the darkness in a horizontal line that barely missed their necks by an inch. Pride vanished into the floorboards as Subaru fell to the ground, the water jet roaring loudly as it tore through the building behind him.
Subaru leaped forward after scurrying back to his feet.
"Pride! Buy me five seconds!"
A crescent cyclone of stinging wind rushed past him before he could complete his sentence. Subaru twisted, but his flank was trapped by the air pressure. His side was ripped apart by a deep wound that sprayed crimson across the stone.
He immediately resumed his rushing, doing his best to ignore the pain.
"Fine!" Pride yelled, rising from the shadows directly in front of Arakiya.
The Spirit Eater tilted her head as the dark silhouette blocked her path. "What are you?"
Pride slid into a defensive stance, his form shifting fluidly. "I dunno. Haven't given it much thought. Definitely not human anymore, though."
"I might have an idea." Arakiya murmured.
She swung her branch.
"Watch where you're swinging that, you bastard!" Pride shouted, throwing up a shadow shield as a blast of water erupted between them. "You almost took my head off!"
Subaru didn't turn around. He took off running.
Todd was there. With his small axe lifted, the mercenary stepped back and clenched his teeth.
"Don't——!" Todd yelled, panic finally cracking his voice.
Subaru didn't even try to avoid him when he swung the axe. After all, the steel blade would simply bounce off his Cursed Energy reinforcement. Fighting against him was more than just Todd being out of his element.
Subaru extended the unseen hand and summoned Invisible Providence. The ghostly, purple hand lunged at Todd, tearing the Curse Tool from his grasp.
However, Subaru's right side erupted in a searing, white-hot pain before the invisible fingers could make contact.
He faltered. He lost his equilibrium and fell to the stone floor, reaching for his shoulder while his chest heaved.
He grabbed empty air.
Subaru gazed. His right arm had been neatly amputated at the shoulder. Three meters away, a tangle of wet, heavy flesh and cloth sprawled on the stone, the stump's blood gushing wildly.
"ARGH!!"
Subaru let out a wild, animalistic cry of unadulterated pain.
In an attempt to stop the flow of blood, he clamped his left palm over the stump, but it leaked through his fingers and stained his shirt.
How? Pride was supposed to be holding her! Did he fail in ten seconds?!
Subaru hastily scanned the wrecked office through a mist of blood and tears.
Pride was absent. He had anticipated a shadowless silhouette, but there was none.
Just Arakiya, a short distance away. A peculiar, dark substance marred her mouth and slowly seeped into her flesh.
"W... Where is... Pride?" Subaru choked out, his vision beginning to darken.
Arakiya looked at him, her expression completely vacant.
"Pride...? Oh. If you mean your shadow friend..." She licked her lips, her red eye completely still. "I ate him. He tasted stale, though."
"———"
She ate him?
He knew Pride wasn't human. But he hadn't realized Pride's spiritual, shadow-like composition made him nothing more than food for a Spirit Eater.
"Arakiya! Don't waste time!" Todd's panicked voice cut through the ringing in Subaru's ears.
He was clutching his chest, his eyes wide as he looked at the bleeding child. "He's too dangerous! Kill him now!"
"Okay. I got it." Arakiya said.
She held up her left hand.
Immediately, dense black shadows gathered in her palm. She didn't have to practice. She didn't have to study. Now that she had consumed the spirit, she was the owner of the ability.
The shadow hardened into a sharp, deadly blade.
Subaru examined the firearm. He knew this loop would not work, so he didn't try to run.
He was pinned to the stone floor as the shadow lance went straight through his chest.
The coldness of death engulfed his heart, causing blood to rise up in his throat and flow over his lips.
He looked up at the ceiling while holding onto the black shaft with his free hand.
"Ne...xt..." Subaru whispered.
So he declared before the world faded to black.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"I know who ya are, after all."
Weitz's gravelly voice cut through the alley again.
Subaru made a small, frustrated sound under his breath.
"...Darn it."
Weitz scowled and was obviously about to press him on it, but Subaru's expression stopped him.
Something wasn't quite right. Not simply fear. Something more acute. more wild.
Weitz felt a chill run down his spine as the same frantic edge from before remained in his gaze.
"Natsuki?"
Before anyone could speak another word, Subaru had already moved.
He and Pride threw themselves forward simultaneously as soon as he arrived at the workplace. With all the cursed energy he could conjure, Subaru drove his palm out as Pride rushed in next to him, his shadow expanding and solidifying into something much denser than before.
The office's outside wall was completely torn apart by the combined strike.
Dust, stone, and wood all burst apart at once.
Then Arakiya halted it, precisely like the last loop.
All she had to do was lift her branch, and her magic's power completely neutralized their attack. She stood her ground as if it had all been a fleeting breeze, even though the office trembled.
"I missed, huh." Pride muttered, folding his arms.
Subaru narrowed his eyes at the ruined office ahead. "Don't waste time. We go again."
Pride gave a small shrug. "...Roger that."
Subaru didn't wait for Arakiya to retaliate. Now he was familiar with her patterns. She would cast a pressurized water line by swinging horizontally.
"Pride! Disperse! Don't let her get close enough to inhale you!" Subaru barked.
"What do you mean, inh——"
The thought was not completed by pride. Just as the horizontal line of water cut through the air above them, Subaru grabbed him by the shoulder of his shadow-form and flung him backward, landing flat on his stomach. Subaru didn't care that the attack's wind nearly peeled the skin off his back.
Using his momentum, he slid across the dusty floorboards on his chest in Todd's direction.
Todd's eyes were wide with disbelief.
"Arakiya!" Todd screamed, scrambling backward.
"Too late!"
Subaru called upon Invisible Providence. In an instant, the purple hand shot out of his chest, avoiding the gap between them. With a dull, heavy crack, it pinned Todd to the stone wall after slamming somewhat violently into his chest.
"Guhk!"
The orb rolled out of Todd's grasp, and Subaru lunged to get it, his fingers getting closer and closer until——
Subaru was cleanly impaled in the stomach by a sharp spike of earth that shot up from the floorboards.
Blood immediately spilt across Subaru's lips as his breath caught. He peered down at the spike of stone.
He then turned to face Arakiya, who had already raised her branch in an attempt to kill him.
He refrained from screaming. He refrained from crying.
Rather, a violent, razor-sharp smile spread across his face.
"Two seconds..." Subaru whispered, his vision fading. "I held you... for two seconds."
——Next.
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"I know who ya are, after——"
"Yeah, great, got it!" Subaru cut Weitz off without waiting. "Weitz, stay far back! Do not enter the courtyard!"
Weitz blinked, utterly baffled. "Hey! Natsuki!"
A moment later, Subaru had already vanished, propelling himself up into the rooftops after using Pride's shadows to cushion his fall.
He hummed with Cursed Energy. When he strains himself, his gate burns, but he was becoming more and more in control. More accurate. He didn't have to expend energy on enormous, flashing screens. All he needed was speed.
"We're crashing the ceiling again!" Subaru yelled to the shadow running beside him.
"Looks and sounds like you're getting real comfortable with dying, you know that?" Pride snorted, though his pitch-black form was tense.
"It's a process!"
They arrived at City Hall's roof. Subaru made a snap decision. He struck the wooden rafters with his heel, sending splinters flying into the office.
He avoided looking at Gustav. He avoided looking at Arakiya.
He immediately fixed his gaze on Todd.
"Todd!" Subaru roared, his voice a manic, terrifying screech.
Todd, who was walking toward Gustav's severed corpse, jumped back in pure, unadulterated panic.
His green eyes locked onto the black-haired child descending from the ceiling.
"W-What?!" Todd stammered.
In a moment, Arakiya responded by swinging her branch to release a torrent of wind.
Subaru, however, was well aware of the perspective. He utilised Invisible Providence to pull Todd forward while twisting his body in midair and allowing the wind to blow over his shoulder.
"Get over here you bastard!"
Todd was flung like a club into Arakiya by the invisible hand that caught him by the ankle.
For a vital time, Arakiya's momentum broke as she had to catch the orange-haired man.
Subaru landed on his feet, sliding past the desk. "Sorry, Gustav——"
Gustav was already dead, having been murdered prior to Subaru's arrival, so he thrust his hand into the dead Governor's chest and pulled.
He curled his fingers around the black orb's smooth, frigid surface.
"Got it!" Subaru grinned.
"Arakiya! Stop holding back!" As he scrambled out of Arakiya's grasp, Todd yelled and coughed.
The office exploded in crimson hellfire a heartbeat later.
Since blocking it was impossible, Subaru made no attempt to do so.
All he did was hold the black ball close to his chest while the flames devoured him.
He gazed at Todd's horrified face through the blinding light and excruciating pain, remembering the man's expression with a wild grin as the flames completely engulfed him.
——Next!
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"I know——"
"Quiet! Running now!"
Subaru didn't even turn to face Weitz. He was already speeding through the alleys, a swirl of purple and black.
His heart was racing, but it was no longer a victim's panic.
It was the rush of a hunter who had at last discovered the patterns of their prey.
Yes, Arakiya was a natural disaster. However, even catastrophic disasters ultimately obeyed the natural rules.
Subaru made countless attempts to map them.
Without even waiting for them to complete their conversation, he stormed through the side wall of the office.
Subaru was in Arakiya's blind area before she had even fully lifted her branch.
"Pride, shadow grab!"
"I got it." Pride commented with a swipe of his arm.
In an instant, a dozen black tendrils sprang from the ground, encircling Arakiya's legs and securing her to the stone.
"Oh Tooodd!" With Invisible Providence already wrapped around his hand, Subaru shouted.
Todd was thrown across the room after the purple fist smacked into his face, breaking his nose and several other bones.
As Subaru raced in its direction, the black ball escaped Todd's grasp and whirled into the air.
"Shamak!"
The room was filled with dense, loud purple smoke as soon as Subaru grabbed it with his left hand. After all, he had already committed the wrecked chamber and escape route to memory, so it didn't really matter to him.
In a split second, Arakiya broke through the shadow tendrils and destroyed the Yin spell with a mighty wind gust, her one red eye blazing with a startling, rare spark of true rage.
"Give it... back." She muttered.
A jet of water under pressure flew in the direction of his chest.
With the Authority of Pride, he had swiftly changed its course around him, but he was powerless to stop it as it followed the curve out of his field of vision.
The orb was in Subaru's left arm, which he twisted and threw sideways, protecting it with his body. His right arm was completely severed and a large portion of his chest was severed as the water jet tore through his right shoulder.
Despite his stumble, he managed to hold onto the ball. With blood gathering all around him and a crazy, gory smile on his face, he collapsed to one knee.
"I have... the tool..." Subaru wheezed, looking at Todd, who was clutching his bleeding face in terror. "You... can't kill... anyone..."
Todd stared at the bleeding, mangled child who was laughing in the face of death.
"What are you...?" Todd coughed, his voice trembling. "You're not a child. You're a damn monster...!"
Arakiya stepped forward, her branch crackling with blue light. "He is annoying."
She aimed the light-speed beam directly toward Subaru's head.
——NEXT!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Once more, they arrived at Gustav's office roof.
Subaru took a deep breath, his tiny chest swelling.
His Cursed Energy then erupted into a fierce, screaming purple flame.
He broke the roof.
A huge cloud of dust and debris was created when Subaru and Pride crashed into the office like twin meteors.
"Shamak!" Subaru roared, thrusting his hand forward.
In the middle of the room, a dome of complete, black fog burst.
It deprived Todd and Arakiya of their senses, including hearing and sight.
"Arakiya!?" Todd yelled in confusion.
Subaru wasted no time at all. His hand reached for the deceased Governor's chest to grab the black orb as he leaped into the dark mist.
The black fog was ripped apart by a huge, crescent blade of compressed wind. As he had previously witnessed, Arakiya had just focused on the displacement of air rather than using her eyes. His little frame was unable to avoid the onslaught because it came so quickly.
Subaru narrowed his gaze and followed the wind's path.
The area surrounding Subaru distorted. Instead of neatly beheading him, the wind blade abnormally slipped around his body and crashed into the stone wall behind him.
Pain rushed up his spine in a sudden, excruciating spike. He rattled his teeth.
His fingers dug into the Governor's coat as he arrived at Gustav's body. He discovered the black orb's icy, metallic surface. He pulled it away.
"Got it——!"
The stone floor beneath him melted before he could retract his hand. His legs became stuck in a whirling maelstrom of muck.
Arakiya had anticipated his next action. A column of unadulterated, white-hot fire shot out of her branch as she swiped it, directly at him.
When they made eye contact, the fire bent away from his body and burnt the ceiling above them.
He was struck like a physical hammer by the mental reaction. His nervous system was ripped apart by the punishment for utilising the Aversion twice in quick succession. His muscles tensed up. His tiny body fell into the muck, totally immobile, and blood spurted from his ears and nose.
Arakiya moved through the steam. She raised her branch and pointed it directly at his forehead.
"You are very annoying." She said simply.
——NEXT!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The damp alleyway returned.
"I know who ya——"
"No time, Weitz! Stay back!"
Subaru was in motion already. His veins throbbed in his temples, and his eyes were wide. The agony of his head being vaporised had vanished. It was merely data. It was merely a variable that he had effectively mapped.
Once more, he smashed through the office ceiling without using Shamak.
"Pride!"
"Roger that!"
Pride vanished into the floorboards as soon as they touched down. Beneath Arakiya's feet, a thick, sticky pool of dark darkness formed, encircling her ankles and attaching her left foot to the stone.
It was successful. She was a split second behind schedule.
Invisible Providence was utilised by Subaru. The ghostly, purple hand leaped from his chest, avoiding the gap between them. Before Todd could even grab his knife, it crashed into his face, breaking his nose and sending him flying across the room.
The black orb escaped Todd's clutches and Subaru grabbed it out of the air.
"I have it!" Subaru laughed, landing on the desk.
However, Arakiya could cast without using her feet.
She just let out a huge, all-encompassing shockwave of pressurised water since she was unable to move.
Subaru attempted to employ his initial Aversion, but the water's sheer volume was too great. He was thrown out of the window as the blow struck his chest, crushing his ribs.
He struck the stone courtyard below and started to stand up before his body was split into numerous square pieces of flesh by a huge net of water.
——NEXT!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Once more, they dropped through the ceiling.
"Pride! Decoy!"
Pride appeared as a flawless, completely black replica of Subaru, lunging directly toward Arakiya's throat. Arakiya's branch swung to cut the decoy in half as her lone crimson eye followed the shadow.
Subaru lowered herself and slipped across the stone floor while she was preoccupied. He didn't pursue Todd. He headed directly for the area under Arakiya's protection.
"Shamak!"
He blinded her lower senses by directing the Yin magic at her feet.
To prevent the soldier from interfering, he instantly called upon Invisible Providence, grabbed Todd by the ankle, and slammed him against the wall.
He grabbed the black sphere off the ground with his right hand and raised it.
"I have the tool!" Subaru yelled.
Pride's illusion was broken by Arakiya's branch, which dispersed the shadow into mist. A nanosecond too late, she discovered the trick. Her branch surged forward, releasing a concentrated lance of water as her crimson eye jerked to Subaru.
Subaru stared at the assault.
Unnaturally bending, the liquid projectile struck the stone wall next to him with a very explosive sound.
Subaru ignored the flaring agony in his chest. He launched himself at the open window by using the momentum from his slide to kick off the wall.
"Arakiya, the tool!" Todd called out.
Todd hurled his hand axe while bleeding and bruised. Aiming straight for Subaru's head, the throwing weapon whirled through the air.
A part of Subaru wanted to laugh and make fun of Todd like a crazy person, but instead of employing his second Aversion, he just bent his wrist in midair and parried the axe aside with his bare hand.
He fell out the window, hitting the ledge and plummeting into the courtyard because, regrettably, there was not enough time.
"Arakiya, stop him!" Todd's voice screamed from the ruined office.
Despite having a bleeding gash on his side and a damaged arm, Subaru rolled to his feet as he hit the ground. He glanced up at the sky, where Arakiya was getting ready to pursue, and the wind was already starting to collect about her figure.
He examined the dark sphere he was holding.
I survived the office, I have the tool. Next is the courtyard.
Subaru forced his legs to run while thinking, his chest heaving.
Three seconds later, Arakiya used a tiny cyclone to vaporise the entire street, killing him almost immediately.
However, it was irrelevant.
He was drawing nearer to victory He was living longer.
Loop by loop, death by death, he was completely dismantling one of Vollachia's strongest.
——NEXT!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"I know who——"
Weitz was not even allowed to finish speaking by Subaru who let out a loud, barking laugh that reverberated off the alley's stone walls.
"N-Natsuki?" Weitz stepped back, his eyes wide. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing, Weitz! Absolutely nothing!" Subaru grinned, his eyes wide and completely feverish. "I'm just really, really getting the hang of this!"
Before Weitz could even process the words, Subaru exploded straight past him.
He was going to take the island.
All of the gladiators with in it.
And he was going to do it soon.
——For that was he, Natsuki Subaru, the Strongest Existence.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
——NEXT!
——AGAIN!
——NOT YET!
——ALMOST!
——BETTER!
——NEXT!
——NOT YET!
——AGAIN!
——AGAIN!
——NEXT!
——ALMOST!
Subaru's foot slid across the floor, blurring the whole world.
Arakiya's branch moved in a manner he had already witnessed numerous times, and he gestured to Pride with a swipe of his hand——
"Dodge!"
Pride vanished into the darkness as he lunged forward beneath the crescent of pressurised water, closing the distance between himself and Arakiya in an instant.
Subaru took a step forward and aimed the onyx blade he was holding at Arakiya's throat.
Instead of taking a single step to avoid——the tanned woman swiped the branch crosswise and let out a gust of wind.
Before Subaru adjusted his grip on his sword and swung the blade horizontally to split Arakiya in two, he repeatedly swung against the invisible force, making the loud noises of something swift and sharp slicing through the wind.
Naturally, all he wanted was for it to be that simple, but a half-second later, Arakiya scattered into flecks of light and emerged off to his flank with a swing of her branch.
Naturally, it was not directed at him——instead, it split the remaining portion of the office in half, with only a single step separating Pride, who was sprinting toward Todd, who had instinctively halted himself, and the man on the opposite side.
"Arakiya! Don't let them close!" Todd screamed, clutching his bruised ribs and backing away. The black orb was gripped tightly in his sweating palm.
"I am..." Arakiya muttered.
Once more, her branch swung. The floorboards gave way to three columns of solid dirt that lunged like stone teeth toward Subaru.
Subaru refrained from using his aversion. Not quite yet. For the final punches, he saved the conceptual reworking.
Rather, he jumped, contorting his body in midair. Before using the flat of the stone pillar to kick off and launch himself straight toward Todd, one stone fang scraped his leg, tearing a bit of flesh away and tearing through his garments.
"Pride! Floor!" Subaru yelled.
"On it!"
Beneath Todd's boots, the shadow became a furious, swirling bog of liquid darkness. Todd's legs quickly collapsed. In a panic, he swung his hand-axe down, but Pride's shadowy hands emerged from the shadows, tightly encircling Todd's wrists and pinning him.
"Tch, you bastard——" Todd roared, his boot kicking wildly.
With a frightening, blinding blue light emanating from her branch, Arakiya intervened.
Subaru craned his neck just a little bit as he moved through the air, his gaze fixed on the spark.
He could only be relieved that she wasn't furious enough to employ her light assaults as such just yet because they were far too quick to handle in succession.
When these Yang magic rays were released, he was unable to even sense them, so he just devised a workaround.
Simply move prior to the attack being launched.
The office was no longer able to sustain its own weight. The ceiling collapsed, the walls split by Arakiya's water gales and the main pillar destroyed. With a thunderous roar, massive, three-ton stone slabs and hefty wooden beams fell inward.
Beneath them, the floor gave way and broke.
"Arakiya!" Todd screamed as the stone beneath his feet completely collapsed, launching him into the void and onto the courtyard below.
In a flash of light, Arakiya moved.
She grabbed Todd by the collar of his uniform and jumped right into the falling debris, completely ignoring Subaru.
Todd grabbed out in desperation as he hung over the dizzying plunge amid the falling stone.
He held the black orb toward her. "Take it! Just throw it and kill them——!"
"Not happening!"
Pride sprang into the air from a falling piece of stone, sending a dense, jagged javelin of solid blackness directly at the hand-off.
The projectile screamed through the air, leaving a horrible, decaying stench.
Arakiya's single red eye opened slightly. She couldn't allow the shadow touch her, or the instrument.
Arakiya nestled Todd firmly under her arm and used the wind in the air to propel herself higher. She launched high into the air, the shadow javelin passing beneath her as she cleared the wreckage and fell to the land below.
With her feet creating a huge cloud of dust and sand, Arakiya fell heavily in the middle of the training yard.
The black ball remained in Todd's fist as he fell to the ground next to her, gasping for air and clutching his injured chest.
The courtyard was completely silent as the dust started to settle.
In a broad circle stood dozens of gladiators.
They gaped in shock, disbelief, and indignation as they gazed at the fallen Governor's tower.
"What... w-what is happening?!" Hiain whispered, his scales standing on end.
From the sinking dust of the ruin, two people emerged.
Subaru was a thoroughly disturbing sight. His right thigh was torn and bleeding, a deep gash along his ribs dripped red down his shirt, and his face was covered in mud, perspiration, and dried blood. He walked with a heavy limp and ragged breathing.
Nonetheless, his eyes, black, wide, and completely crazy, were fixed on Arakiya.
Pride was beside him, emerging from the shadows. The featureless black form stood with his hands loose at his sides, closely mirroring Subaru's position.
"You're still standing..." Todd muttered, his voice cracking as he looked at the bloody child. "You should be dead. Why won't you just die?!"
"I don't really do that, so..."
Subaru stood in the midst of the training yard, his breathing ragged and shallow.
Every muscle in his emaciated body was screaming. His right thigh was ripped and bloodied. His ribcage felt cracked. The warm, metallic flavour of blood permeated his tongue, trickling steadily from his forehead into his left eye.
He looked around.
The courtyard was filled. Dozens of gladiators, including Weitz, Hiain, and Idra, stood immobilised in a large circle. The masked guards behind them gripped their spears with shaking hands.
Subaru's stomach dropped. A cold, hollow dread poured over him, fully overpowering the exhilaration from his jump.
This is bad. This is a disaster.
He had been so concentrated on pursuing Todd and obtaining the Curse Tool that he had no idea where the hunt would lead. In the small, constricted surroundings of the Governor's office, he was able to limit the collateral damage. But out here? In the open courtyard?
He remembered the loops in which Arakiya vented her rage. He recalls the moist splat of Idra's bisected torso on the dirt. He recalled the horrifying, choking odour of ripped bowels and burnt flesh.
Arakiya wasn't concerned about collateral harm. If he confronted her here, she would simply launch an omnidirectional attack or a torrent of pressurised water. With his existing injuries, he couldn't stop it.
He only had one use of Aversion before experiencing conceptual feedback that paralysed or killed him.
He couldn't defend thirty people from someone he couldn't fight effectively on his own. She hasn't even gotten serious yet.
This loop is a failure.
The realisation was bitter and tasted like ash on his tongue. He had come so far. He had gotten the jump on Todd, broken into the office, and put Arakiya on the defensive. However, one wrong step and the board was completely wiped.
He had to eliminate this loop. He needed to die and try anew. But first, he had to buy time. He needed to see what she was going to do next.
Subaru tightened his grasp on his dark blade, and his knuckles turned white. He bent slightly nearer his shadow and whispered under his breath.
"Pride, get ready... I haven't gotten this far before."
The pitch-black silhouette beside him shifted, its featureless head tilting toward the surrounding crowd.
"You look like total garbage, you know... not that I can really blame you but," Pride muttered, his distorted voice low. "If she swings that branch even once, all these guys are going to turn into red mist. Are we really doing this?"
"We don't have a choice," Subaru hissed. "Just buy me five seconds."
Todd scrambled to his feet, holding his wounded ribs. He raised a dirt-stained palm towards Subaru.
"Arakiya! Don't let him breathe!" Todd screamed. "Look at him! He's practically dead already! Kill him, kill the shadow, kill everyone! Just clear the yard, that's why we're here anyway!"
Arakiya did not respond. She simply elevated the wooden branch.
The air pressure in the courtyard dissipated quickly. The wind began to scream in a tight, vicious spiral around her boots, creating a blinding cloud of sand. The gladiators shouted out, stumbling backward as the sheer power of her mana began to squeeze the air out of their lungs.
However, before the wind could consolidate into a devastating strike, a dazzling flash of blue light sliced straight through the dust storm.
It wasn't wind. It wasn't water.
It was absolute, physics-defying speed.
Speed that surpasses everything alive or dead.
"My, my! What an incredibly loud entrance indeed."
A cheerful, childish voice shattered the suffocating tension.
"And here I thought the main stage was reserved for my upcoming Sparka! It seems someone went and started the climax without giving me my cue to arrive, that could've been quite bad, especially if I'd not shown up here..."
The wind died down immediately as a figure appeared squarely between Subaru and Arakiya.
Subaru's breath tightened.
"Apologies for the rather late entrance, Basu!"
Arakiya's empty expression immediately cracked. Her single red eye had dilated to the size of a pinhole.
The wooden branch in her grasp trembled, and the collected wind dispersed swiftly.
Her visage had transformed into a mask of uncommon, venomous contempt.
"You..." Arakiya gritted the words out in rage.
Her voice was no longer flat. It was tight, filled with a profound, innate anger. Even in this child-sized form, those starry eyes and outrageous blue hair were unmistakable. Blue Lightning. The one person in the Empire she could never, ever outperform.
"CECILUS!!" She snarled, her mana flaring violently.
The intensity in the air made Subaru grimace, if she'd started off at this level of strength, overcoming it head-on as he had may well have been impossible.
Cecilus, who had been glancing at the destroyed office block, blinked in interest at the name.
He then tilted his head slightly and looked at her in real, courteous confusion.
"Oh? Do you know me, miss?" Cecilus hummed, scratching his cheek. "I must admit, my memory of past events is a bit blurry right now! But with a face that scary, I feel like you'd make an absolutely fantastic recurring antagonist."
He waved his free hand toward Subaru and cocked his head.
"Hey there, Basu! You appear to have been brutally battered to a pulp. I assume you're delighted to see me right now? I'd want some gratitude, since I have to say, my timing was absolutely flawless."
Vollachia's strongest spoke thus. The finest swordsman alive.