Natsuki Subaru raised the wooden staff upright, using its thickest section to guard his midsection.
At the same time, he drove the tip into the ground to absorb the impact.
Slash!
Out of the darkness, a blade of pale violet light cut through the air like a ghost — and the next instant, Natsuki Subaru took a massive impact and was sent stumbling backward.
"Tch — you little pest, always getting in the way…!"
This time, Elsa was genuinely furious.
Watching her last chance to kill Emilia slip through her fingers, she burned with frustration and pressed forward to attack again.
"That's enough, Elsa!"
Reinhard arrived just in time, planting himself in front of Emilia and the others.
Elsa hurled her last kukri at Reinhard's back.
Not to wound him, of course — merely to pin him in place, to keep him from suddenly changing his mind and cutting her down before she could flee.
"One day, I will spill the guts of every single person in this room!"
Elsa fixed Natsuki Subaru with one long, burning look, left those parting words hanging in the air, and vanished.
"Lady Emilia — are you alright?"
Reinhard turned back first, his eyes sweeping the room as he spoke.
"Is now really the time for that? Never mind me — Subaru, are you okay?"
Emilia shoved Reinhard aside with an irritated huff and hurried over to Natsuki Subaru, who was hunched over and clearly in pain.]
"Okay, that part was barely passable — but at least I came through when it counted!"
Outside the screen, Emilia's eyes lit up, as though she had finally reclaimed a sliver of her confidence.
["I'm fine, I'm fine — ha… what a roundabout way to get here."
Natsuki Subaru couldn't help but rub the back of his head with a wry, relieved laugh.
"But at least we made it."
As he said it, Natsuki Subaru struck a ridiculous pose with absolutely no warning.
Right index finger pointed to the sky, left fist bent downward toward the earth, right foot lunging forward in a wide stance — and his backside jutted out just a little for good measure.
He beamed at Emilia and asked,
"My name is Natsuki Subaru! I'm the one who just saved you from the blade of your enemy — your saviour, your knight in shining tracksuit — are we in agreement on all of the above?"
Emilia tilted her head in puzzlement and ventured a tentative reply.
"I… okay?"
"In that case, wouldn't it be only natural to offer some sort of reward in return?"
Natsuki Subaru rocked back and forth with a strange, giddy energy in his voice.
"I understand!"
Emilia flinched back like a startled rabbit, eyeing him with wary suspicion.
"But — only if it's something within my power to do!"]
"Pledge yourself to me — come on, say it, say you'll be mine — past me, you absolute coward!"
Outside the screen, Emilia kept her face perfectly composed — but inside, she was screaming at the top of her lungs, seething with the particular frustration of watching someone fumble a perfect opportunity.
["Very well — my wish. Only one. Just the one!"
Natsuki Subaru slowly raised a single finger, his gaze fixed on Emilia and brimming with a very particular kind of anticipation.
"Mm!"
Emilia's throat bobbed as she gave a tense little nod.
"That's right, my wish is…"
Natsuki Subaru snapped his fingers with a sharp, stylish click, his expression shifting in an instant to dead serious — as though he were about to go down on one knee.
"So then, Miss — might I have the honour of knowing your name?"
"Ah… huh?"
Emilia tilted her head, her mind clearly a beat behind.
She had been bracing herself for something impossible, or perhaps something outrageous.
She hadn't expected — of all things — that all he wanted was her name.
Before she knew it, Emilia had raised one hand to her lips, and a soft laugh escaped her.
"Hahaha…"
Seeing her laugh, Natsuki Subaru couldn't hold back either, and joined in.
"Emilia!"
"Hm?"
Natsuki Subaru responded with a puzzled sound, as though he hadn't quite caught it.
"My name is Emilia — just Emilia, nothing more!"
"…What a beautiful name. Like an angel."
Natsuki Subaru looked up, where a particular shaft of moonlight had found its way through the darkness and fallen across Emilia, wrapping her in a soft, sacred glow.
He had lied, actually — not about the name sounding like an angel's, but about where the thought had come from. To him, it wasn't the name that was angelic. It was Emilia herself — the most radiant, most perfect thing he had ever encountered in any world.]
"Subaru… I never knew you thought of me that way."
Emilia's lips parted slightly, and she stared into the middle distance, lost in the feeling.
Then, as if something had quietly resolved itself in her heart, her expression grew solemn.
She folded both hands over her chest and offered the person she loved most the quiet, earnest encouragement he had always deserved.
"It may be a little late — but Subaru, I want to say it all the same… you've worked so hard."
Whether by coincidence or something more, the Emilia on screen and the Emilia in the audience spoke the same words at the very same moment — as though their voices had reached across time itself and found each other.
"Thank you, Subaru —"
"Thank you for saving me!"
The two voices layered over one another, resonating as if they had pierced through time and space to meet.
Beside them, Reinhard had not taken his eyes off the screen for a single moment.
"So that's where the story ends… isn't it?"
He kept watching — and suddenly, his brow furrowed.
["Come to think of it, Subaru — you really are in one piece."
Reinhard remarked quietly, picking up the large wooden staff Natsuki Subaru had used to block the Bowel Hunter's strike and turning it over in his hands.
"Because I managed to block it with this thing in time — otherwise I'd have been split clean in two."
Natsuki Subaru laughed it off, awash with relief.
"Right, if it hadn't been for this…"
Reinhard's voice abruptly cut off — because right before his eyes, a hairline crack appeared at the centre of the staff, slowly widened, spread, and then the whole thing split apart.
The break was mirror-smooth, flawless. It was clear the Bowel Hunter's blade had already passed clean through the wood — which meant…
In an instant, every pair of eyes in the room snapped to Natsuki Subaru's stomach.
Natsuki Subaru looked down as well — and the fabric of his tracksuit, previously smooth, sagged open in one long gaping slit, as though something had sliced cleanly through it.
"This is bad. I can already guess what comes next."
Natsuki Subaru tugged at the corner of his mouth and watched helplessly as a massive wound split open across his abdomen — nearly severing him at the waist.
In an instant —
Blood came surging out. Natsuki Subaru's vision swam, his legs buckled, and he crumpled toward the ground.
Emilia cried out and rushed to him in a panic, catching him and pressing her hands to his stomach, pouring healing magic into the wound.
"Ah… even in a panic she's adorable… this fantasy world I dreamed of…"
That one last thought drifted through Natsuki Subaru's mind — and then the darkness swallowed him whole.]
"Heheh~ My strikes aren't so easy to block, you know. Subaru back then was still so green — like a little unripe apple~"
Elsa gave a pleased little shimmy, a smug smile curling her lips.
Reinhard's expression had gone still and unreadable, his thoughts hidden behind composed eyes.
Emilia, for her part, felt no particular distress — she had her memories, and she knew full well that her healing had left Subaru without a single scar.
More than that, she found herself curious about why the grey screen had chosen to show this particular scene.
And — whether it intended to keep going.
While the three of them sat with their separate thoughts, the image on the grey screen gradually faded, returning to its original state of pure darkness.
"Is it over? I can't wait to get out of here."
Elsa said it without a care in the world — she was, after all, the most eager of the three to leave. With Reinhard and Emilia both weakened from their ordeal, she could simply scoop up her dear one and run as far as she liked — straight to Meili!
And yet, reality had other plans entirely.
It was ending — but only this particular chapter of the story.
As all three watched, the grey screen bloomed back to life exactly as it had at the very beginning, line after line of glowing text appearing without warning.
[Take a good, long look — at those "present moments" that never were.]
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 extra chapter for everybody