["So that's it — the story ends here, huh."
On screen, a black-haired boy in a tracksuit stood in front of a convenience store shelf, a manga volume pinched between his fingers.
He scratched the back of his head, muttering something under his breath, wearing an expression that was equal parts bored and lost in thought.]
"Subaru!"
"Subaru!"
At almost the exact same moment, two voices rang out inside the cinema.
Elsa and Emilia had both been seized by the same wordless surge — worry for Natsuki Subaru at the sight of him on screen, and a bewildered confusion at the utterly alien world surrounding him.
[The Natsuki Subaru on the curtain was completely oblivious to the two women's silent, anxious cries.
Something seemed to catch his eye. His gaze drifted away from the manga and settled on a corner of the frame — a pane of glass.
Reflected in it was the clear image of a couple, arm in arm, their closeness unmistakable.
He stared at the reflection for a second or two, his expression unreadable — a little vacant, as though his mind had wandered somewhere far away.
Then, as if he'd lost interest, he carelessly shoved the manga back onto the metal shelf beside him.
"Yeah… I'll skip the natto."
Subaru drifted through the store, picking up a box and setting it back down, then grabbing a few snacks instead.
"Three hundred and sixty-three yen."
The cashier recited the total with the detached routine of someone who'd said it a thousand times before.]
"Subaru's buying something? But what is a yen? What kind of currency is that?"
Emilia murmured, looking faintly puzzled.
"Still haven't figured it out?" Elsa scoffed from beside her. "This is Subaru's homeland — he told me so himself. You didn't even know that? Hmph. Then again, I suppose it makes sense. You didn't know Subaru before any of this, did you."
"That's not true! How could I not know Subaru? He and I are — we're — "
Emilia's voice trailed off, growing smaller and smaller until it was barely a whisper.
Reinhard, for his part, remained silent throughout. His full attention was fixed on the screen, searching it carefully — hoping to find some clue as to how and when Subaru had joined the Witch Cult.
Maybe… there was still a chance to turn things around?
[Natsuki Subaru fished a coin from his wallet, muttering quietly.
"A ten-yen coin from the early Showa era, huh…"
He shook his head slightly and walked out of the store, snacks in hand.
He'd only just stepped up to the roadside — a car having roared past moments before — when a sudden wave of dizziness washed over him. A hallucination bloomed before his eyes.
A silver-haired girl, lying motionless on the ground. He seemed to reach out toward her.
"I… will definitely…"
"…save you."
Natsuki Subaru rubbed his eyes.
"Well, I guess it'd be weirder if my eyes weren't aching after being cooped up in my room gaming all day."
The moment he lowered his hand, the world lurched and spun — and night became day.
"What… what's going on?"
Natsuki Subaru stood frozen, staring blankly as an enormous creature hauling a cart thundered past right in front of him.
The street around him was alive with humans and demi-humans dressed in every color imaginable, and above his head, a flock of white doves suddenly burst into flight.]
The scene playing out before them — so utterly foreign to Natsuki Subaru — felt strangely familiar to all three watching in the cinema.
"So Subaru was never from our world at all. No wonder…"
Emilia's first thought went to Subaru calling himself a traveler. Of course — if his very homeland didn't exist in this world, what else could he be but a lonely wanderer, adrift and far from home?
At that thought, a deeper tenderness welled up inside her for Natsuki Subaru.
"Now that is interesting," Elsa mused, her tongue trailing slowly across her lips, a smile curving at the corner of her mouth. "Perhaps that's why you've always felt different to me… Subaru?"
"Someone from another world entirely — how on earth did he end up…?"
Reinhard's brow furrowed deeply. He couldn't begin to understand how a person with such an extraordinary background had come to join the Witch Cult.
["No matter how I look at it, this can't be fake!"
Natsuki Subaru's expression shifted by degrees — from blank stupor to barely contained excitement.
"Which means…"
"This is what they call being summoned to another world?!"
Unable to hold himself back, Subaru let out an ecstatic shout — startling a flock of birds from the Royal Capital's sky.
His first steps in a new world were anything but smooth. Brash and blundering, he stumbled from one mishap to the next.
He made friends with an apple-stall uncle, accidentally walked into the wrong restroom (a demi-human ladies' room, of all things), and eventually slipped off a bridge, plunging into the river below.
He barely dragged himself to shore. With nowhere else to go, Subaru ducked into the nearest alley to peel off his soaked tracksuit and catch his breath.
But in that brief window of vulnerability, he came face to face with the city's darker side — three thugs of wildly mismatched builds: Ton, Chin and Kan.
"What's this guy going on about?"
"No idea. Oi, you there — hand over anything valuable if you don't want to get hurt!"]
Emilia's gaze turned ice-cold in an instant — as if it could cut straight through the grey curtain and kill those three thugs all over again.
Then her eyes shifted to Subaru, filled with a quiet, aching tenderness.
This was a part of the story that had never surfaced in the memories she'd been given. Everything she knew began from the moment she first met Natsuki Subaru.
She hadn't realized — that when Subaru first arrived in this world, he had suffered so much.
Just thinking about how Subaru would one day become the Purge King — that hollow, lifeless look in his eyes — sent a sharp ache through her chest.
"No. That won't happen. Not again."
"Subaru — this time, it's my turn to love you properly."
Beside her, the Bowel Hunter's smile had faded entirely. Her expression had gone dark and cold.
"How dare they threaten someone dear to me. I'd love to make them beg for the sweet release of death~"
[On screen, a yellow-haired little girl passed through the alley — barely even glancing at the cornered Natsuki Subaru before vaulting over a wall and disappearing.
"You're all just EXP to me!"
Fearless in the way only the young and reckless can be, Subaru decided to fall back on years of gaming instinct — he'd take on all three of them and clear the mobs in one go.
And yet —
Subaru managed to drop one of the bigger guys and the short one cleanly enough — but then the last thug pulled out a pair of blades that gleamed like mirrors.
"I'm so sorry, I was completely out of line, please spare me!"
As a modern-day person, Subaru had a bone-deep, instinctive terror of knives. He caved and started begging in an instant.
But in that moment of hesitation, the other two men had already recovered — and climbed back to their feet.
In the chaos that followed, Natsuki Subaru was beaten mercilessly by all three men.]
Silence.
The cinema had gone completely still. Faced with this scene, both Elsa and Emilia had gone wordless.
But the terrifying aura radiating off both of them was enough to make even Reinhard glance over.
"My apologies to you both. The fault is mine — I failed to maintain order in the Royal Capital and let thugs like these run free."
Reinhard's gaze stayed fixed on the curtain, his expression complicated as he watched Natsuki Subaru endure one ordeal after another.
Was this the reason? Coming alone to a strange land, subjected to violence without anyone reaching out to help — was that what had eventually turned him against the world?
And yet —
Reinhard's brow furrowed. A clear, bell-like voice had rung out from the screen.
["That's enough out of you, villains!"
At the mouth of the alley, bathed in a shaft of light — a silver-haired, violet-eyed girl.
To Natsuki Subaru's eyes, she was the kind of person who could only arrive like fate itself.
Emilia had made her entrance.]
...
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