Arc 6, Chapter 39 – “Ruins”

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Repeatedly, over and over, a scorching heat filled his very being.

His skull, his limbs, his torso, his organs, his flesh and blood.

Every single thing in his body was crushed, smashed, twisted and broken. His mind was set alight by the anguish, it was as if every single one of his nerve-endings were being plucked right now, his soul on fire, burning away.

The screams he let out were racked with unimaginable fever and sense of loss.

Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain pain pain pain pain pain pain painpainpainpainpainpainpainpain.

He was pain.

There was only pain. There was just pain. The world enveloping him was filled with pain. Even just thinking this caused more pain to cloud over him.

His thoughts, his very existence was painted with pain.

Anxiety, confusion, nervousness, sorrow, anger, despair, all of these emotions were meaningless in the face of pain.

They were meaningless. Yes, they were meaningless.

Thoughts, actions, pondering, opinions, hopes, memories, they were all equally meaningless.

When it came to those things which were the very embodiment of worthlessness, what was there to value when they had been crushed, smashed and lost in the end?

Only the endless pain inscribed within his soul made him aware of his own existence.

Then suddenly, the never-ending pain, started to fade――

Subaru: [――AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!]

He woke up screaming.

Right now, even the fact that his screaming throat had been crushed, drowned amidst welling blood, was naught but a memory.

Subaru: [AHHHHHHHHH!! UAHHHHHHHHH!!]

Whilst shouting, he tried to protect his body from being crushed using his arms and legs. His arms should be broken, completely unusable, yet they moved.

Although they moved, he lost his balance as his body was still overwhelmed by the sensation of weightlessness and so, falling, he hit the floor.

Subaru: [Guh.]

He tried to speak, yet nothing resembling speech came out. He rolled onto the floor.

The feeling of the floor was strange; he felt a sensation like that of a rope against his body. He opened his throat, which was screaming for oxygen, and immediately felt a pungent pain strike it, resulting in a coughing fit.

Unable to bear it, he vomited. His stomach was mostly empty. Foul-smelling watery chunks of vomit were spewed out of his acrid mouth onto the floor.

Subaru: [Blurgh, buh! Guh, guh, argh! Gah, huu!]

Coughing violently, and spitting out a bit of bile, tears and snot caked his crumpled face. Cowering and covering his face, he feebly smacked his forehead against the floor over and over again.

Repeating this motion, he finally noticed it.

――That the overwhelming pain that assaulted his body like blazing heat as it was crushed, had vanished.

Subaru: [――Ah?]

He was so surprised by how suddenly his pain had vanished, that he had not, until now, realized that someone was gently patting his back.

???: [Is everything better now?]

Reflected in his tear-encrusted eyes was the person who had been patting his back.

Despite his blurry vision, the image of the girl, with beautiful silver hair and eyes of amethyst, was quite vivid―― on her face was an expression of worry whilst she patted his back. Subaru let out a wheeze.

???: [Suba…]

Subaru: [AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!]

He twisted his body and shook off the pale hand that had been touching his back.

As he did so, a trace of surprise flitted across the girl’s eyes whose arm had until then been patting him. But the one here whose soul had been more seriously damaged was him.

His back.

She had been touching his back.

Now and before, someone had touched his back. And, after that, agony――

Subaru: [Ah.]

He jumped back, in an attempt to escape her; he felt the hair on his back standing on end. However, his legs crumpled beneath him, and he fell flat on his backside.

As his body fell, the blow was softened by a rough, black presence underneath him,

???: [――――]

Looking down, he saw the eyes of a reptilian creature staring back at him as he reacted in fright. Looking at the sharp long fangs that lined its mouth, he suddenly realized that they could easily be used as a deadly weapon to chew him up.

Subaru: [AHHHHHHHHH―― Hk!!]

Again, he screamed, attempting to escape forward this time. In front of his eyes now, he could see someone’s leg; he did not dare to look up at that someone’s face, and instead pushed away the small silhouette blocking his way, rolling to the side.

???: [Beatrice!]

With a high-pitched shrill, her chiming silver bell voice frantically cried out something, but the meaning did not reach him as he covered his ears.

Immediately, he headed towards the gap which lay in between the foliage of the room and, scolding his shaky legs, he leapt out of the room. Stepping into the stone passageway, without stopping, his body crashed into the stone wall.

Stopped in his tracks, pain coursed through him. His sight was dyed red, in his mind he imagined an echo of his bones breaking.

Subaru: [Hiii――]

His bumped right arm moved as normal. He pounded at the wall to check whether it really did move as normal. He felt pain again. He screamed again.

Steadying himself against the wall, he broke out into a tottering run.

Subaru: [Haa, huff, huff… Hk!]

He was out of breath, with drool spilling from his mouth, with sweat dripping from his forehead he continued running down the passageway as fast as he could.

Behind, he felt as if someone was following him, and many times he resisted the urge to look behind him. Had he looked back, and confirmed that someone was following him, it would have been too much for his heart to endure. It felt like it was about to burst.

He felt as if his heart was about to rupture, as if the blood within his body was rotting, and as if his body was about to shatter like from the feet up like a glass sculpture.

Whether premonition or truth, there was one thing that was clear―― the absolute, unwavering fact that were this to continue, he would die.

People were born to be ruined.

Every second one would grow older, every second one would head towards eventual death, every second one would fall towards the end.

Though, such a concept of Death meant naught to his person, right now.

In an extreme form, Death was approaching him with a steady gait. Cornering the unsightly, shameful him, who was struggling to flee, as if making sport of him.

He ran, he ran away. He ran away anyway.

Death was following him. He would be killed. He would be killed. At this rate, he would be killed.

Although he had already been killed, he was going to be killed again. Or, given such sheer agony, could it be possible to not die from it? Was that a mystery of life? That would be rather sickening.

Embellishing it as “mystery”, was rather disproportionate. It was a repulsive, unseemly attachment.

Rather, shouldn’t he be dead――?

Subaru: [――Hk.]

The beating of his heart felt like an explosion that shook his eardrums, his sight was flickering on and off. Even how he breathed resembled how a baby would take its first breaths. It was completely absurd how he looked like when escaping from his fear of death.

Yet, as comical as it was, there was no laughter. Everything to him was something that would cause him fear.

Subaru: [――――]

Almost to the point he was losing track the places he was running through, all the stone passageways he had passed through appeared the same to him.

If there was one thing he understood, it was that he should not return to where he had come from. Though, if he continued to escape in this directionless fashion, he would gradually lose his way.

If he lost his way, someone would catch him. If someone were to catch him, he would lose his life.

Why, why his life? Such a question now was useless.

He had no time to wonder whether to go towards the left or towards the right.

Whilst escaping from Death which may catch up even at this very moment, he placed his right hand on the wall, relying on it, as he frantically panted for air, completely out of breath.

It felt like he was drowning.

It was as if he was struggling to break above the water’s surface, even though here on ground there was no water anywhere.

Drowning, drowning, struggling as he drowned, heading towards the water’s surface, kicking and struggling, kicking and struggling, kicking and struggling, floundering, floundering, floundering, before finally―

???: [――Ya prick, the hell ya doin’ here so early in the mornin’, oy!]

Subaru: [――――]

He felt his feet stop as he sensed a monstrously huge presence right in front of his eyes.

――No, his feet were not the only thing that had stopped.

His breathing had stopped, his noisy heartbeat had stopped, and his knees which had been trembling with fear and fatigue had stopped. It felt like all his vital signs had stopped, grasped by the scruff of the neck.

――Before his eyes there stood a giant-like being, an illusion like that.

But after a few seconds, he slowly began to understand, that even though they were tall, there was no chance that the person upon the stage possessed a constitution that transcended what humans could have.

At the same time, the fact remained that there was a human being who could clad himself in such a ferocious, demonic aura.

???: [Are ya “lone, ya prick? Ya prick, ya”re just a lone small fry that’s not even worth talkin’ to. Small fry, so instead of person, should I go with critter[1]? Even as a critter, ya’re not even worth considerin’. Go fetch those people ya were with yesterday, and that sexy girl. Ya prick, are ya listenin’, hey! Ya prick, oy, ya prick.]

The figure that was standing still in front of him was fluidly rambling on.

They displayed showed the signs of being an extremely violent person, and their manner of speaking felt really vulgar, as if each word was being beaten into him. His breathing, which had stopped before, as well as his silenced heartbeat, and his trembling knees, suddenly started up again.

――He had entered a ferocious beast’s cage, the very place where he must not tread.

He had just kept running and running for his life.

He had run along the stone corridors, and tried to keep away from any places he had found familiar. He had followed a stairway he had found within a strange room, which had led him upstairs.

Perhaps he had been told about the staircase yesterday, or was it something like yesterday, maybe some few hours ago? It was all but lost to the oblivion of his memory.

He went up the long, long, long, long, incredibly long stairway, short of breath, up he went, and then.

And then, once he reached its end, he had found himself being glared at by a most terrible beast.

???: [Are ya even listenin’ to me?]

Subaru: [Hu.]

Suddenly, his breath was knocked out of him and he noticed he was looking right at the other person’s face, just before his eyes.

He had long, red hair, with a black eyepatch covering his left eye. He wore a kimono that exposed one of his shoulders and part of his chest, a white sarashi[2] wrapped around his exposed chest.

Just underneath his nose, this man was jabbing at him a thin, wooden stick. Though the tip of it was not at all sharp, yet he still perceived what was thrusted before him as Death, too.

Subaru: [――Hk.]

???: [Hey, don’t’cha fuckin’ ignore me.]

Subaru: [Wha, ah, eh?]

Without hesitating, he had obeyed his instincts and had tried to escape him.

But the moment he had tried to run back out of the room, he crashed straight into the man’s chest. The man had then pushed his raised forehead using his wooden stick, causing him to fall.

The back of his head bumped against the floor, bright flashes flew around his vision. Tears of pain started to flow out of his eyes.

The pain of bumping against the floor, the pain of his head banging against the floor, it reminded him of the pain of being crushed.

Subaru: [Ah, ahh, ahhhhhhhhh…]

???: [Oyoy, ya prick, c’mon, ya cryin’? Why’d’cha start cryin’, ya prick? Did’cha fight with yer boyfriend downstairs, ya prick? Ya cryin’ ’cause ya were defeated?]

Subaru: [Guh… hiii… uuuu!]

???: [Good grief, what a hopeless bastard, OY!]

Whilst lying flat on his back, tears had begun to pour out of his eyes as he slowly relived the horror he had experienced. Looking at this spectacle, the long-haired man scratched his head roughly.

He crouched down beside his head, and,

???: [C’mon, tell me what happened. If ya’d like to ask somethin’, then I’m all ears.]

Subaru: […Uh, ah?]

???: [You ran all the way to this place. Must be a real big deal, ya prick.]

He spoke those words with a sigh. The meaning of them was incomprehensible to him, and he simply reacted by blinking rapidly.

Just then, he felt like the being who had seemed vicious beyond compare slowly took on a more definite outline. Not only did it take on the shape of a person, but the emotions of a person and quintessence, began to tie together an actual image.

In his vision blurred by tears, the face of the man looking down towards him gradually became clearer――

???: [――No matter what’cha say, ya’re a fool!]

Subaru: [Gii, gah, ahhhHHHHH!?]

――With a cruel appearance, reminiscent of a bloodthirsty shark, the man had shoved the wooden stick right into his chest.

He had slid the pointed end of the stick between his ribs. He poked around and tickled the delicate internal organs behind his bones as if he was laboriously teasing him.

Sheer agony pierced his entire body, the wish to retch blood piercing him.

???: [The fuck ya doin’ runnin’ away, ya prick!? Even worse, what were ya tryin’ to pull, if before ya made a leg for it, now ya came to me, ya prick. I ain’t yer guardian, nor yer mate, ya prick. Aren’t’cha the one choosin’ who to flock with, ya prick. Do ya wanna fuckin’ die?]

Subaru: [Guh! Gah! Agh! Guhgyah!]

???: [Don’t reckon we got the sorta relationship where we get along by talkin’ to each other, ya prick. If things’d end up fine “n dandy with that, then it”s not like I’d’ve been called to this place to begin with. Come at me like ya feel like killin’ me. I’ll play ‘bout with ya. Finally.]

With evident irritation and hostility, the degree of his anger increased with every word he said. The hands of the man that was fiddling with his organs had a certain delicateness to them, and boasted exceptional precision.

He had been taught the importance and value of his organs with sharp, unbearable pain, so he well understood that.

If the man had been someone on edge, with the tendency to let his emotions get the best of him, or if his arms had been something other than precise and gentle, his guts would have exploded a long time ago.

That it had not ended up becoming like so, was down to the man’s awful talent.

His overwhelming resourcefulness as one who oppressed, being extremely blessed with violence, along with the talent necessary to exert it.

It was only thanks to that, that this act of barbarism was able to be carried out so properly.

――No. This place differed so much compared to the place he knew about.

???: [Beat it, small fry.]

Subaru: [Guh――]

The poking sensation in his guts faded away, and was quickly followed by the man’s foot violently kicking his side.

Rather than having kicked him with the side of his foot, he had punted him like as if he was a football. His body spun and tumbled around midair, and was sent out of the large room he had been in.

However, what was welcoming him as he flew out of the room was,

Subaru: [No, waaAAAAAAAAY…!]

He was tumbling down the stairs. With the sight of that scene in his mind, he instinctively dug his nails into the floor.

With a terrible screeching noise, the nails of his right hand, belonging to his middle and ring fingers were torn off their root. The nerves behind them became exposed and red blood wet the floor, but, somehow, he had managed to stop himself from falling down.

Subaru: [Guh, guhhhhh…!]

Immediately following the brief moment of relief, as he had in some way escaped the fall, he was assaulted by a sensation of scorching heat at the base of his nails. Gazing towards the sharp pain in his hand, he saw that his fingernails had been torn off like the open lid of a box; the nail on his little finger was also coming loose as well. Seeing this pain spurred his brain into overdrive.

Subaru: [It hurts… it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…]

Grasping his left hand with his declawed right one, he applied pressure to ease the pain, even if a little. Coming in drops, the blood oozing from his wounds flowed down his wrists, and left behind a trail of blood on the stairs as he stood himself up.

There was no courage in him to look back behind him anymore.

There was no sign that this ferocious beast was turning its attention over to him. If, to say, he had caught even a glimpse of it, he would have fallen down the stairs this time for sure, unable to put up with it.

He had stopped himself from experiencing the worst situation, but had now settled into the second worst case. So, what was he going do to do now?

Subaru: [Why…?]

Why was he in a place like this?

He had forgotten how to flee, his heartbeat had been engulfed by dread and paralyzed, and finally, his mind had turned to the wonders and nonsense of why he was here.

Though he should have been smashed up, he was here.

Though he should have been engulfed by scorching heat and vanished, he was still here.

It would have been nice if everything had been a dream or an illusion or the likes of that.

Subaru: [Precognitive… dreams…]

He had assumed that was what he had experienced.

The spectacle he had seen, the people that he had talked to, the conversations that had proceeded exactly as he remembered them, the events that should have occurred, he had seen them with his very own eyes.

Thus he had believed, that he would try and straighten out a theory as to why it had occurred, in his own way.

For sure, in some respects, he had even thought about it with such vagueness, as if it were none of his business, as if it were no skin off his nose.

Without knowing that the reward for such impudence and shallow thinking from him, would have been experiencing such intense pain.

Subaru: [――――]

He then took notice he had crouched down on the spot

Drops of blood dripping down from him and soaking the stone staircase beneath him with a hue of red could be seen.

A feeling of wasted effort, a feeling of loss, a feeling of dismay; generally speaking, a lot of negative thoughts were spinning around his head.

Even if he investigated the conclusions spinning around in his head, he would find that they would all result in the same thought―― he did not know why he had experienced such things.

Subaru: [――――]

Just a few hours ago, he was comfortably living his boring daily life.

There was no danger there, at the worst, he was worrying about his future. There was no one around threatening him, nothing to actually be taken seriously.

――He had only been in a place where he only needed to keep his face down under the gaze of his mother and father, at most.

Was that so wrong, he wondered.

He had continued to be an inconvenience to his mother and father. He had continued to disappoint them. He had not been a good son.

And thus, he had tasted the pain of death. Nevertheless, he had been driven to a situation now in which he had not died. The nails which had been peeled off were hurting him, he had been tortured by a strange man, he had been left all alone on this stairway. Was he crying?

In retrospect, had he thought about it, he would have done it more properly.

Subaru: […I should have at least said “see you later”.]

It had been a life full of regret.

Everything had gone wrong, resulting in only failure; thinking back on it, he wished to redo things. But that seemed too impossible a thing to perform with his own hands and feet. For the first time, something came to mind.

When I left home, I heard Mom’s voice saying, “Take care”.

I didn’t reply to it.

Why?

―—Because I didn’t wash the cup left in the kitchen sink.

Subaru: [Guh, uh…]

I didn’t wash the cup.

I didn’t care to wash the brown stains that were stuck to it, after drinking that hot cocoa. If I’d responded to Mom’s voice, if I’d started a conversation with her, I might’ve been told to wash that cup.

I ignored Mom’s words because I didn’t want to wash the cup.

I didn’t say anything. I left the house without saying anything, and went to the convenience store, and spent money that I did not earn. And then found myself in this place.

I didn’t say anything to Mom or Dad, I didn’t wash the cup, and then I ended up here.

Without washing the cup, without even saying a word to my kind-hearted Mother, I may die in this place. I will die, having always caused trouble, without giving anything back, without even washing a cup.

Die, I’ll die. I will die. I will most definitely die.

If I fall from that height, there’ll be no saving me. I will definitely die.

Subaru: […I’ll, die.]

I’ll die.

Everything that lives eventually dies, and I’m going to die here.

In this place, where he knew no one.

Without Mom or Dad, surrounded by complete strangers, I’ll end up becoming a filthy, bloody lump and die.

Subaru: [I’ll die. I’ll die. I’ll… die. Die, die, die…]

He muttered this. As he muttered so, albeit strange, it felt like it became a little more distant.

It was just a temporary peace of mind. He was distracted. When put into words, it was not like anything would dramatically change.

Death would not change, loitering about while smiling, entangled with his fate.

Just now, it appeared to be taking the shape of a person. A dark shadow rose, laughing at him as if mocking him.

That face, which was stuck to the dark shadow was a face which seemed familiar, and he immediately realized who, among those he knew in this place, that familiar face belonged to.

Death, wearing his own face, was laughing, as it pointed at him, as he trembled.

Subaru: [Don’t smile.]

He glared at the shadow, and said this with a dark hatred.

The shadow continued to smile. It had not stopped pointing its finger at him.

Subaru: [Don’t smile. Don’t smile at me! This is nothing to smile at…!]

Standing up and grinding his teeth he approached the shadow standing against the wall.

The shadow still kept smiling. It had yet to stop pointing its finger at him.

Subaru: [Stop laughing. I will die. But not to you. You will not kill me.]

The facial expression of the embodiment of Death changed for the first time.

It seemed like it had gotten angry that he was not at its mercy.

It seemed like this was the shadow’s weak point, it was here that he would launch an incessant onslaught against it.

Subaru: [I will not be killed by you. I will die. It’s certain that I will die! I will die! I’m dead! I’m already dead! I died and came back here, but I――]

――won’t be killed by you.

It was in the moment he had tried to clearly speak those words out loud.

Subaru: [――――]

His lips had stopped moving following his will. The next thing he noticed was that his eyes which had been glaring at the shadow seemed frozen, and the sensation of being completely separated from his body.

Why, even his ability to question it had been sealed, he had simply just succumbed to this sudden transformation in his body.

He could not move. His body―― no, it was not his body that had stopped moving. It was the very world itself that had ceased.

The black shadow that was standing in front of him had also halted all movement, its distorted expression of anger remaining frozen on its face.

In this world where he could not move, there was only one thing that moved. And that was――

???: [――I love you.]

――It perhaps looked like a woman in black.

Darkness, it was a woman with slender limbs whose whole body was entirely dyed in black.

He did not know whether this woman’s figure was made of darkness itself, or whether it was a woman dressed in black. He was not certain which one it was, it did not seem to make any sense to choose one.

In any case, it was a woman in black. It was as if she were wearing a black wedding dress, with a black veil that made it impossible to see both into it and out of it. This black veil completely concealed her face.

Woman in Black: [――I love you.]

However, the words which emerged from the lips of the woman who was shrouded in darkness contained an unimaginably strong emotion.

Just how many emotions he could concentrate within, to get close to the words that slipped out from her lips?

There was quality, there was quantity, there was a sense of time, there was weight, there was worth, and that was just the general concept.

He did not know approximately how many people in the world had uttered “I love you” ―― but if you were to take all of those “I love you’s” and put them together, then it would surely be akin to this woman’s “I love you”.

And slowly, the woman who had been gently whispering her words of love moved her black arm towards his chest.

Slender fingers passed through his chest, his skin, his flesh, right through his bones and caressed his beating heart.

Subaru: [――――]

Several minutes, dozens of minutes, he did not know how much time had passed, but his heart had been made aware of her presence ever since he had awakened―― but, he had never been more aware of it than in this moment.

He had never felt annoyed at her existence. Because――

Woman in Black: [――I love you.]

She caressed his heart with the same passion that was found in her whispers.

But suddenly, a great shock coursed through him; his body, fearing pain, completely succumbed to it. His body being crushed by his fall, his soul burning and being scorched out of existence, even the pain of his guilty heart when thinking back to his mother, all of those pains seemed insignificant compared to this pain.

He wanted her to let him scream.

If he could shout himself hoarse, he could alleviate the pain a little. Rather than be faced only with pain, he would be able to escape some of the pain by thinking of things other than the pain he was in.

Now he was unable to do that. He could only face his pain.

Woman in Black: [– I love you.]

Her love would not let go of his heart.

It was as if she had an everlasting desire for exclusivity, not allowing him to turn his attention to things other than herself.

――It was as if she was envious of everything around him.

Subaru: [――Haa.]

His liberation was abrupt.

Subaru: [――――]

Gasping, he collapsed on the spot.

With tears overflowing from his eyes, he was incapable of keeping hold of his continence. He felt a warm, wet feeling around his crotch, and urine began dripping down the stairway.

The dark shadow that had stopped continued to point at the shameful sight in front of it, and was laughing loudly.

As he watched the figure that was laughing, he realized that he had been deceived.

Since he had displayed behavior which had indicated weakness, he had been deceived into stepping on the tiger’s tail that should not be tread on.

Subaru: [I…]

He could not resume his words.

He was holding his head, completely at his wit’s end. Blood was still flowing from his peeled fingernails’ wounds. Even his tears and the urine that was dripping from him seemed like punishment for his weakness and stupidity.

――Just kill me.

Those words went unvoiced. As for being killed, would he really be “killed”?

He heard the sounds of footsteps going up the stairs, and the sounds of anxious voices running up to where he was.

Until then, he continued to cry like a foolish child, smeared in his own filth and disappointment.

The ruins of Natsuki Subaru―― kept on crying.

Translation notes:

[1]There’s something difficult to translate into English in this sentence. The person first refers to him by “一人” to question if Subaru is by himself, but then thinks better of it, and puts Subaru down by using “一匹”. The detail here is that the former is the counter for people, and the latter is the counter for small animals.

[2] A long, white cloth that may be wrapped around the body under a kimono.