Chapter 124: Sinner Ram's Personal View

[It was a voice ringing beside his ears, a voice brimming with hatred, chasing after him.

Even along the whole way, from the forest to the snowfields, it never once fell silent.

To have one's soul hunted by such a terrifying "demon"—surely no human being could help but feel fear?

Let alone Natsuki Subaru, whose spirit had already been teetering on the edge of collapse, who had even lost the courage to kill himself and start over.

From the very moment he left the manor, his mind had gone almost completely blank.

He didn't want to think about anything, didn't dare think about anything—he simply waited, passively, for his own end. Nothing more.

And yet the beautiful goddess of fate seemed to be playing a joke on him.

Even in such a dazed, half-conscious state, he had somehow fled this far, so far that Ram had chased him all the way onto these unnamed snowfields.

Still—this was far enough now, wasn't it?

The thought suddenly leapt out from within Natsuki Subaru's tangled mind.

At least the place where he died was far from the manor, so Betty wouldn't have to grieve at the sight of his corpse, and Ram could get the revenge she wished for—truly a way to kill two birds with one stone.

But—was that really so?!

As Natsuki Subaru dragged his feet with difficulty through the snow, the vacant, lifeless eyes set within his weary, hollowed sockets twitched without warning, his chest heaving violently, as if he had just started awake from a dream that looped endlessly, over and over.

If things were truly unfolding so beautifully, then why, exactly, did his body still refuse to stop moving?

Was some part of his subconscious afraid of something?

Was some part of his subconscious dreading something?

Ah, that's right—all of this was simply because—death was not, for him, an end at all!!!

Natsuki Subaru clenched his teeth, his face twisting for an instant into something ferocious and dreadful. From the look in his eyes alone, in this moment he resembled a cornered beast with nowhere left to run.

The moment he died, he would once again Return by Death, back to the very day he first arrived at the manor.

To once again face those two sisters, Rem and Ram—outwardly friendly, yet secretly sweeping him up and down with scrutinizing, suspicious eyes!

The cruel torture Rem inflicted upon him, Ram's ceaseless, ever-present suspicion, the unsolvable curse... was he really to endure it all again, over and over?

"Aaah——"

Just imagining it, Natsuki Subaru's newly-awakened consciousness had already begun to crumble, despairing at this unsolvable future, until he clutched his head and let out an agonized, wretched scream.

But on this flight from his pursuer, even a moment's release would only hand the hunter behind him an opening to exploit.

And so, unsurprisingly.

With a "thud," Natsuki Subaru was tackled to the ground by Ram, savage as a lone wolf...]

Beyond the screen, the audience section had fallen utterly silent.

Everyone seated among the spectators held their breath, and even the most blunt and forthright Garfiel wore a grave expression, opening his mouth as if to speak, then swallowing the words back down.

The reason for such an atmosphere now was that almost no one had imagined things could veer so far off their original path, hurtling headlong all the way to this point.

And according to the information they already knew, the direct cause that had driven things to where they stood today seemed to be...

One by one, in silent understanding, everyone let their gazes drift—some openly, some covertly—toward the two sisters, Rem and Ram.

The many gazes crossed and tangled in complicated ways: there was mockery, pity, morbid curiosity—but more than anything, there was, perhaps without even their own awareness... Wrath. Or rather, misplaced anger.

Gripping her trembling little sister in her arms, Ram lowered her eyes, taking it all in.

She made no attempt to explain anything—she hadn't the strength to explain.

She could perhaps explain that the cause of this whole tragedy was that Curse User hidden away in the shadows, that she and Rem back then hadn't been familiar with Barusu at all, that they had acted only out of wariness toward a stranger and hatred toward the Witch Cult...

But would defending herself like this really do any good?

Or rather—would it really mean anything at all?

Was there anyone present who didn't share countless intertwined ties with Barusu? Every one of them treasured Barusu beyond measure!

So whether the facts were reasonable or not didn't matter to them. When someone close was hurt, people would instinctively lash out in misplaced anger—that was human nature.

And was she any different? After Rem's death, she had immediately suspected Barusu, and had let it escalate to the point of hunting him down across a thousand miles just to kill him—wasn't that the very same kind of misplaced anger?

Now, it was simply that the target of that misplaced anger had changed from Barusu to herself.

So you, Ram—you truly... deserve it!!!

Thinking this, Ram let out an involuntary cold laugh—both a mockery of that self up there on the screen, and a sense that she herself, right now, was laughable enough.

At the same time, a wretched, base sense of relief rose up within her heart.

Thank goodness—thank goodness the Barusu of reality, who still knew nothing, hadn't taken part in this viewing. Everything could still be salvaged; she still had the chance to make it up to him.

Just like... just like those things she had already done back in reality.

The hand Ram held clasped with her sister's tightened without her noticing, drawing a puzzled look from Rem.

But Ram had no attention to spare for her sister now—or rather, Rem's gaze made her feel, faintly, a stir of excitement instead.

The moment she thought of that absurd night with Barusu... or rather, with her master, a flush she couldn't suppress rose to her face.

Back then, in a muddled daze, she had used Rem as her excuse—and within that, there was no small element of atoning to Barusu, her master.

Of course, it was also because the excuse of "for my sister's sake" allowed her, quite naturally and reasonably, to set down her pride and reserve before Barusu.

From a certain angle, her dear little sister Rem really was rather useful.

At that thought, Ram couldn't help the faint, serene smile that curved at the corners of her mouth.

But the very next second, a familiar voice exploded beside her ear.

It came from the screen ahead—it was her own voice, and it made her whole body suddenly shudder.

["What's so... funny?"

Ram sat astride Natsuki Subaru's body, her slender legs locking down his shoulders, stripping him of his freedom.

Yet even though she had caught the culprit in her eyes, Ram was still stung by the smile on the face of Natsuki Subaru lying there on the ground.

"What's so... funny?!"

Ram repeated the words once more, her voice colder and more biting than the frozen wind.

Beyond the screen, the others only worried for Natsuki Subaru, thinking that his heart had already collapsed, and that was why he wore such a smile at a time like this.

But only Ram felt as though she had plunged into a pit of ice.

The others were watching a film, but she was reliving it, as if she stood within it herself.

Every interrogating cry she had once flung at Natsuki Subaru now transformed into sharp blades, crossing time and space to hack down upon her heart.

Ram lifted her hand and reached toward the smile frozen at the corner of her own mouth, then flustered, shifted her gaze back to the screen, to that Natsuki Subaru wearing his ghastly smile.

Barusu—why would he smile in a situation like that?

This had once been a question that troubled her for a long, long time. During the days she was imprisoned by Barusu and chained with iron in that sealed chamber, she had dreamed of this very scene countless times.

But now, standing from the perspective of a bystander.

When the complicated look in Barusu's eyes on the screen seemed to pierce right through and fall upon her, she understood.

Simply being looked at by Barusu with such eyes felt like standing barefoot in the cold, cold snow.

This feeling of being disliked, loathed by the one she loved even left her a little breathless, sunk in despair.

And yet back then, from Barusu's point of view, the gaze he had had to endure was not merely this one—

["What's so... FUNNY!!"]

Ram stared at the screen with hollow eyes as that past self of hers went on interrogating, that hatred that seemed ready to pierce through the screen making her unable to keep from answering, deep in her own heart.

There's nothing funny. In the end, this isn't funny at all.

And a question like that carried no point in asking either—it was purely an expression of hatred.

Utterly without logic, utterly unreasonable, relying on nothing but the flames of that misplaced anger to burn an innocent man to ashes, body and bone.

This was her... Ram, and the ending she came to was, she supposed, no more than she deserved.

Indeed, she felt that being imprisoned by Barusu, her own master, for the rest of her life was already letting herself off far too easy.

How laughable!

Ram lifted her eyes, a ghostly glimmer flickering deep within them, broken sanity and madness reflecting off one another there, together with a fierce, powerful yearning for self-destruction.

She tilted back her neck and watched with her own eyes as the self on the screen suddenly lost consciousness midway through her interrogation, slumping limply down onto Natsuki Subaru's body.

Watched with her own eyes as Natsuki Subaru's reddened, blackened fingers trembled and raised a stone the size of a human head.

Watched with her own eyes as his gaze softened for a brief instant, then filled once more with killing intent.

And then——

"Thud, thud, thud!"

In the end, only the dull, heavy sounds of the solid stone striking down echoed across the snowfield.

____

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