Chapter 141: World Line, Shift

Dense, dark blue-black finger-marks—the kind that could give a person nightmares from a single glance.

At last, Natsuki Subaru, advancing step by step, came to a halt before Frederica, sizing her up and delivering his final verdict.

"You're another one in dull black and white, huh. Then I can't die by your hand."

As though he were merely stating a fact, once he finished speaking Natsuki Subaru walked past Frederica and continued on.

And Frederica, who from the very first had kept her eyes locked on those finger-marks at Natsuki Subaru's collar, dropped to her knees with a heavy thud.

She was gasping now, drenched in sweat as if she'd just been hauled out of water, no longer daring to raise a hand against Natsuki Subaru.

Her eyes brimmed with terror—clearly the sight from a moment ago had frightened her out of her wits.

"Mister Halibel, take her and flee."

Before the curtain fell, the sovereign issued his final command. This time he added the honorific "Mister" before Halibel's name, a sign that the two of them stood as equals.

"The truth is, I'd very much like to trust you, Mister Halibel—but ever since I came out of that snowfield, I lost the right to trust anyone."

With his back turned to Halibel and Frederica, his face hidden from view, Natsuki Subaru spoke.

"If this were another world, maybe we'd have become good friends… but for now, allow me to say it—farewell!"

Hearing this, Halibel let out a sigh at the fate that, in the end, kept him from becoming the sovereign's friend.

Then, after watching the sovereign walk further and further away until his figure could no longer be made out, Halibel finally gathered up Frederica, slipped into the shadows, and left that place.]

When Natsuki Subaru's orange scarf had slipped free just now, baring that horrifying neck, Ram's pupils suddenly contracted—in an instant she recognized it as her own "handiwork."

And that reaction of hers was the first thing noticed by her twin sister Rem, who stood beside her and was all but joined to her in heart and mind.

Meeting the earnest gaze Rem turned on her, Ram could not, in the end, bear the pressure within, and in a low voice told Rem the truth.

"Those finger-marks… I left them."

The very moment the words left her mouth, Ram's body sagged despite herself. Fine, cold sweat beaded across her forehead, as if under the crushing weight of it she had, for a brief instant, fallen prey to muscle spasms and a weakness that left her limbs slack.

Three years… She had kept Barusu imprisoned for three years—or you could say that she and Natsuki Subaru had kept each other company through three years of time—and yet she had never once known.

The scarf Barusu had always worn was there to hide the scars, to hide the bruises she herself had once choked into his skin!

Tormenting him in spirit was one thing—but even in the flesh… he had endured the torment of that bruised neck aching and throbbing without end.

At the thought of it, Ram's eyes flooded with tears, and she sank into a frenzy of self-loathing.

Barusu… what wrong had he ever committed, that he should have run into a woman like her?

Venomous-tongued, quick to anger, deaf to all reason… good for nothing, without a single quality anyone could love!

And yet even so, Natsuki Subaru had once cared for a woman like her—through the earlier loops within the mansion, he had held on to his fondness for her from beginning to end!

But what had she done in return?!

Ram tore at her own hair as if punishing herself, her nails sinking without her noticing into her scalp; the crimson blood that welled up mingled with the pink of her hair, and to any onlooker the sight was truly ghastly.

She had watched him, suspected him, wondered whether he was an enemy from without;

and then, after her sister Rem met with disaster, she had hunted him down with prejudice and misplaced fury!

But what was the truth of it? It was only later that she learned Natsuki Subaru was not the one who had killed Rem!

In the end, everything she had done amounted to nothing but… a crime!

At that thought, a sudden urgency seized Ram's heart.

The hollowness within her and the guilt that threatened to drown her drove her, desperately, to want to see the Natsuki Subaru of reality.

To confess it all to him with her own lips, even if it meant he would come to loathe her.

To clear away the misunderstanding, to make things whole again, to convey to him the true love in her heart…!

For that, even if it meant casting aside her pride and her dignity to become Barusu's little puppy, she would gladly do it!

And in the very instant that thought settled into place—

it was as if some contract had been silently signed and sealed within this viewing space.

The next second, Ram's figure vanished soundlessly from the viewing seats, dissolving into a faint glow that melted into the screen, gone like a stream flowing into the sea.

And vanishing from her seat alongside Ram was Emilia—she who, only moments before, had finally understood everything, had grasped the true longing in Subaru's heart.

This sudden anomaly steered the viewing on the screen toward an unknown direction…

[The Wrath-if line.

Pandaemonium, in the room where Emilia was imprisoned.

"I… this is…"

Emilia looked at her own two hands with bewildered eyes, and then her face became like a dyeing vat, a jumble of many emotions at once.

Confusion, disbelief, struggle, reluctance, pain…

At last—no one knew what she had thought of—it all transformed into a firm resolve, the conviction of one about to go and do something momentous!]

And this display of hers, down to the subtlest shift of every emotion on her face, was now mirrored with perfect clarity upon the screen within the viewing space.

At this moment those watching still did not understand what had happened.

Why did it feel as though, from a moment ago, the Emilia on the screen—who had been listening to Puck's chatter beside her—had suddenly become a different person, reacting in such a strange way?

But they only pressed the puzzlement down inside, for experience told them that so long as they kept watching, the truth would surely come to light.

["So then, Lia, which path are you finally going to choose? I've talked my mouth dry…"

Puck floated in the air of this pure-white cage, arms folded, urging his beloved daughter before him to hurry and make her choice.

Was she to be the ice-pure princess rescued by her knight—or to follow one path to its bitter end, walking to the finale alongside the tyrannical sovereign?

In all honesty, as Emilia's guardian, Puck naturally leaned toward his daughter choosing the path where Reinhard came and rescued her.

But he respected his daughter's choice all the same.

"No… this time, neither path—I choose neither of them!"

Emilia sprang abruptly to her feet, her gaze turning uncommonly resolute.

If things unfolded the way they had in her memory, then there was no more time to waste now!

At that thought, Emilia went at once to the great door of this pure-white cage.

Gazing at the tangled web of protective wards before her, Emilia thought of something, and a trace of tenderness welled up in her eyes.

Soon she began to move—but not to try and unravel that intricate spellwork. She only made one simple motion: she pushed the door.

In the next moment, the great door of the cage that had held her for so long swung open, just like that, with the greatest of ease.

"So it really is like this…"

A sweet smile suddenly bloomed across Emilia's face.

This door, guarded layer upon layer on the outside, had been designed on the inside so that the moment Emilia made up her mind to leave, she could break it open with ease.

A caged bird that had lost its wings, placed inside the cage by its master to be protected, tended to with care day and night.

The bird believed itself imprisoned—never knowing that the master had never once locked that cage.

"Subaru, you really are so gentle…"

…

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