The sun of Lugunica bathed the entire world in its usual radiance — impartial, neutral, the same for all, as always. Its light flooded the streets, the rooftops, and the plains without the slightest distinction.
But not quite, on that day. That same marble sun seemed to have decided to aim its rays in a totally partial manner toward specific places, those where important stories were about to be knotted.
And among these mythical places, one of them was known to all down to its smallest details, listed and described again and again without ever changing by a single iota, so many times that it was no longer necessary to detail it again.
A vast manor. A balcony. And an even more familiar silhouette was standing there.
A man all too recognizable, dressed entirely in white. Immaculate hair, clothes without the slightest crease, pale skin of absolute coldness.
Kozuwa Kurisu. He was there, leaning on the railing of his balcony, peacefully sipping a drink — a can of ice-cold soda imported straight from his world, this time — with an almost insulting nonchalance, his gaze lost in the void, displaying that predatory smile which was his own on his face.
He seemed to care absolutely and completely nothing about the horrible things he had just uttered in a world he had himself let be destroyed and reconstructed in the space of a single scene.
He stood there, simply. Acting like the most normal man in the universe.
And yet, he knew.
He knew exactly what he had done — literally reducing a young boy's hopes to nothing, breaking him psychologically, in the most violent way possible, far more deeply than he would have been in the original tale if he himself had never intervened in this story.
He knew it. He had done it on purpose.
And despite all that, he was going to help him.
Because as cruel as he might be, he was not monstrous to the point of leaving this poor soul to rot indefinitely in the hell of his own loops and bad decisions.
He would help him.
But — of course, it was Kozuwa Kurisu, and his way of helping would be, as always, particular.
This Subaru who continued to think that he was just a tool good for dying. Who thought that he would be a hero by dying for people who will only reject him again and again. Who thought he could save everyone, alone, by defeating all the misfortunes that will present themselves to him.
He was not. And he never will be — as long as he thinks like that. As long as he thinks that dying will solve everything, as long as he would see death as a magical reset button.
As long as he thinks he is alone… he would be doomed.
It was for this reason that he had orchestrated everything this way. To leave him in the worst horrors. To help him, sometimes, a minimum — a help that often cost him more than it actually helped him.
Kurisu had therefore shown him the abyss to destroy this toxic mentality. It was for this reason that he had shown him, without the slightest pity, to what extent he was nothing in this world.
But despite everything, Kurisu knew one thing that even that idiot boy was unaware of:
Despite all of this — Subaru remained strong.
Subaru was, whatever one might say, a hero.
Kurisu knew it. Even Author-san knew it.
But he would never be the hero that he, Subaru, wanted him to become. He had to put it into his skull, by brute force if necessary.
Kurisu finished his soda cleanly, with one last gulp, and threw it into the air. The can disappeared into particles of light before even falling back.
Kurisu: « Fuaahh… You have to admit, there's nothing better than a good soda in the morning! »
He stretched gently, cracking his joints, then slowly turned his gaze toward the sky. Higher than the clouds — and even beyond, fixing directly on that invisible space where those who had been observing him from the beginning were located.
Kurisu: « Well, dear readers… what should I do? »
He looked up, far into the sky. That invisible space where those who had been observing him from the beginning were located.
Kurisu: « You know… should I really help him? Shouldn't I let him fend for himself? After all, he must understand by himself what he is made for, right? ... »
The air split suddenly.
A simple sheet of paper slapped him violently, totally ignoring the laws of the Authority's invincibility with an absurd ease and came to crash violently against his face with a sharp sound.
Kurisu: « Guhfuuh — what is that?! »
He tore the sheet from his face and looked at it.
On it, a simple expression was drawn in black ink.
ಠ_ಠ
A severe look, heavy with judgment, which fixed him straight in the soul, without the slightest ambiguity of what it meant.
Kurisu paled instantly, losing all his poise.
Kurisu: « Uh — no, no, Author-san! It was a joke, kekeke… »
He tried to justify himself, hands raised in a sign of peace.
The ink on the sheet sizzled and changed expression to display a —
-_-
An unparalleled blasé look. Then it disappeared in a sparkle of brilliant light, without appeal.
Kurisu swallowed, cleared his throat loudly, and adjusted his collar to regain his composure and his usual tone.
Kurisu: « Humm. More seriously — I think it's time to help our dear "hero". He has already suffered enough. »
His tone had just changed. For a fraction of a second, a sincere and rare softness had pierced his shell of arrogance.
He smiled gently.
Kurisu: « Well… let's see what he's doing, shall we? »
He immediately regained his mischievous smile.
And in a whisper swept by the wind, the man in white disappeared from the balcony.
...
The scene moved silently toward a sadly famous place. A place that every reader of this story knew by heart.
A square. Two silhouettes — a man and a woman.
Subaru and Rem.
Subaru had woken up once again in front of the bait merchant, and as in the story he knew, he had collapsed on the cobblestones. Rem had supported him, and they had gone away together.
But the atmosphere was of a suffocating heaviness.
This time, Subaru had nothing else in mind than to flee. Not to hope to live a happy life elsewhere. Not toward some hope. Just to disappear. To no longer exist. To leave everything behind him, to finally rest, to close his eyes and never open them again.
He spoke with an almost frightening calm — as if he had prepared this decision for much longer than Rem could have imagined. He asked her if she wanted to leave with him. But he specified, without the slightest hesitation, that even if she refused — he would go alone.
He was tired. He just wanted to close his eyes and cease to exist.
Rem listened to him, paralyzed.
She couldn't put into words the horror she felt, nor how to react to what she saw.
Why had Subaru-kun become this way? What had happened for this vibrant boy to change to this point in the space of a few minutes? She didn't know.
But she saw, in his eyes, a meticulous, complete void, as if nothing existed there anymore. Absolutely nothing shone there anymore. The man in front of her had surrendered to life. She saw it.
Rem: « Subaru-kun… why are you choosing to give up? »
Her voice trembled with worry.
Subaru kept his head down, the words resonating painfully in his empty skull, as if struck by the question itself.
Subaru: « Give up… »
He repeated the word, slowly.
Subaru: « Yes. That's it. I'm giving up... I'm giving up on everything. I don't want to stay here anymore. I choose to give up and leave. »
Rem looked at him with growing horror.
Rem: « Subaru-kun, this isn't like you. »
She took a step forward, reaching her hands toward his face to bring him back to reality, but Subaru rejected her with sudden violence.
He backed away, planting a look injected with pure rage into that of the maid.
Subaru: « This isn't like me?! What is like me then?! Do you even know who I am, huh, Rem?! »
His breathing became erratic.
He backed away again, his expression turning to pure rage.
Subaru: « I thought I had become strong. I thought I could save them all… »
His mind was assailed by flashes of his own failures.
His pathetic training with Wilhelm. His repaired gate. This single ridiculous blow dealt to Julius, all that for what? For nothing.
Subaru: « But all that… all that was useless. Purely and simply useless. »
Rem on the cross. Ram dismembered. The villagers.
Subaru: « I'm pathetic… I'm worth nothing. »
He remembered the candidates, the merchants on the road, every word he had spoken that had served no purpose.
Subaru: « I only get saved… I only make others suffer. Again and again… »
His lips tightened to the point that a trickle of warm blood began to flow to the ground.
Rem who knocked him out to protect him.
Otto who pushed him off the carriage.
Ram burned alive while trying to help him.
Rem again, who sacrificed herself against the Whale.
Emilia who screamed his name while being dismembered.
Subaru: « I'm being saved… Again and again they try to make me live. And me… I remain this same useless boy who can't accomplish anything. »
He was nothing.
Facing the atrocities of this world, facing the Cult, facing the Demonic Beasts, he was but a pathetic dust that opened its mouth wide to create an illusion.
He remembered the four calamities.
Of Reinhard who had defeated them all with a single movement of his sword, annihilating an entire dimension, while he was not even an atom facing that kind of thing.
Subaru: « I'm not a hero… I understand it now… I never will be. »
He was crying now. The tears flowed without him being able to stop them.
Subaru: « That's who I am… A nothing who thought he could do everything, succeed at everything. »
His voice broke on the last words.
Subaru: « But I will never be the one I wanted to be… I will remain this pathetic nothing who begs to be killed. »
He finished, head against the ground, continuing to cry.
Rem was there.
She had heard everything — his worst fears, his most cruel thoughts, everything he thought of himself in the depths of his being.
And she wanted to tell him the opposite.
To her, Subaru was everything. He was infinitely more than he believed. He was her hero, and she was preparing to tell him.
She approached a step.
Rem: « Subaru-kun… »
Unfortunately, it wasn't that kind of fake speech that we needed.
A voice, right next to them.
Kurisu: « Ep, ep, ep. Gently, blue one — you won't say another word. »
Rem: « Who — »
Rem startled violently, turning toward the voice, and saw him.
A simple man, all in white, hands in his pockets, an extreme smile splitting his face.
All the Oni's senses screamed of death, again and again at his presence. The pestilential smell of the Witch that emanated from him, mixed with an overwhelming pressure, froze her blood.
Subaru, for his part, slowly raised his head, as if carried by the sound itself, and saw him too.
His pupils dilated. The shock purely and simply took his breath away.
Subaru: « Ku… Kurisu… »
Kurisu: « Yep, it's me. And I'm here to talk to you a little. »
He approached with relaxed steps.
Rem: « What do you want with Subaru-kun ?! »
She stood on guard, ready to interpose, the smell of this man hissing to the very depths of her being.
Kurisu did not even deign to look at her.
He slowly took his hands out of his pockets, raised them to the height of his chest, and, with an exasperating slowness, joined them.
Tap.
He tapped gently — so gently that Subaru barely heard it.
But the effect was cosmic.
The wind stopped blowing. The leaves remained suspended in the air. The noises of the capital died instantly. Rem, eyes wide with anger and terror, froze like a marble statue.
And the entire world — each particle, each living being — fell into an absolute temporal stasis.
Kurisu had just, once again, stopped time.
He moved forward, royally passing Rem without giving her a look, and found himself a few centimeters from the man kneeling on the ground. Subaru was no longer looking at him with astonishment. He was simply exhausted, his eyes empty of everything.
Kurisu leaned over, scanning the boy's face. Subaru's initial shock had already dissipated, replaced by an abyssal fatigue.
This intrigued Kurisu.
Kurisu: « Wow… Subaru. Your eyes are almost as empty as mine. Aren't you happy to see me? »
Subaru hadn't changed expression. He simply lowered his eyes. His mind was dead.
Subaru: « What do you want… »
A whisper that died almost immediately on his lips.
Kurisu looked at him, let out a deep sigh, a weary, heavy sigh. He noted that the damage was much worse than he had anticipated. He was going to have to give his all.
He lowered himself, without warning, grabbed Subaru by the collar of his jacket, and lifted him off the ground with a single arm to force his gaze to rise.
Subaru didn't move. He remained inert, his feet no longer touching the ground, his eyes fixed toward a frozen sky.
Subaru: « If you want to kill me… do it. I have nothing left to do. »
Kurisu narrowed his eyes. He armed his free fist, ready to smash his jaw.
Subaru closed his eyes, waiting for the killing blow with a morbid relief, convinced that it was over.
But the blow did not come.
Kurisu opened his hand and simply let Subaru drop to the ground like a vulgar bag of sand.
The boy hit the cobblestones, gasping.
Subaru: « What ? ... »
He raised his eyes toward the man in white — and what he saw there was different. It wasn't the cold void he had known earlier. It wasn't the rage with which he had crushed Puck either. Nor the usual mocking look.
No, it was something else.
The look of an older brother sincerely and viscerally disappointed by his little brother. The look of a teacher who notes, with bitterness, that his student had absolutely learned nothing from the most important lesson of his life.
Subaru: « Wh… what is… why… »
Kurisu: « So… you learned nothing, huh? »
He said that gently, approaching.
Subaru: « What… what are you talking about… »
Kurisu: « When I talked to you that night, before the end of your training… When I warned you before your departure for this battle… Everything I showed you. Everything I said to you before your death… Did all that really go over your head? Really ?! »
Subaru trembled. The words of the day before came back to his memory.
You are not a hero.
Subaru: « Yes, I know, no need to say it again. I'm pathetic... I only run away. I won't be a hero. Never… I understood that. »
He closed his face back into the shadows.
Kurisu approached gently. Lifted his foot.
And, with a dazzling movement, crushed Subaru's head against the stone pavement.
The sound of bone against rock resonated violently.
Subaru: « Aaaaiiieee — ! What was that for ?! »
His face, bloody, was nevertheless finding a bit of color.
Kurisu grabbed him again, lifted him to his height, and snapped his fingers.
A white glow enveloped the boy, instantly erasing the wound and the pain.
Before Subaru could even understand, Kurisu armed his arm and gave him a monumental slap.
SLAP !
The sound tore through the silence of the frozen space-time, resonating to the very ends of the universe.
Subaru: « Ahhh — ! »
Subaru was projected to the ground, holding his cheek, eyes wide with pain.
But Kurisu gave him no respite.
He approached again, placed his boot heavily on the boy's chest, pinning him to the ground.
Subaru: « Damn it ! »
The pain finally revived something in Subaru's empty gaze.
A spark. Rage.
Subaru: « Wasn't it enough to belittle me ?! To destroy my spirit ?! To let me die again and again ?! Now you just want to make me suffer physically for fun too ?! »
Kurisu: « Is that really all you learned ?! »
Kurisu's voice was no longer mocking. It was a roar.
Subaru finally looked at him.
It wasn't cruelty. What he saw was rage. Pure, insane, immeasurable rage.
An immense hatred — not against him as a person, he understood vaguely, but against the words that he himself had just dared to utter. Against the stupidity of the mentality that he refused to let go of.
It was the visceral fury of a reader who refused to see his protagonist choose the worst of paths.
Subaru: « What… why… »
Kurisu removed his foot, lowered himself near him, grabbing his collar with both hands to anchor his gaze in his own.
Kurisu: « You know why I showed you all that? You know why I said all those words ?! I showed you how pathetic you were, how much you were worth nothing alone in this world, and you know why ?! »
He let a second pass.
Subaru was mute. His mind was blank — for him, the answer was obvious: Kurisu had just shown him what he would never be.
What else could there be? Why else, if not to destroy him?
Kurisu: « I did it so you would evolve, goddamn it! »
Subaru: « Wh… what? ... »
Purely shocked.
Kurisu dropped him violently and got back up, running a nervous hand through his white hair.
Kurisu: « I already know how suicidal you can be by burying yourself in your own bullshit and doing nothing to prevent it. I know way more things about you than you know yourself. »
He held his face with both hands.
He was almost screaming, venting a cosmic frustration.
Kurisu: « I've seen you in all your facets, goddamn it! I've seen you at your lowest — when no one deigned to look at you, when everyone turned their backs on you, when you were alone in the world, at the bottom of the abyss, facing things that completely overwhelmed you! »
Subaru felt a cold shiver run up his spine.
What was he talking about?
He continued, listing things that Subaru himself had never experienced — or at least, not in this life.
Kurisu: « I've seen you make yourself forgotten by everyone. I've seen you get tortured. I've seen you forget everyone you loved, be purely and simply erased from the world! I've seen you die dozens of times, in ways all more absurd and gory than the others! You can't even imagine, damn it! »
Subaru widened his eyes, his breath short. His brain refused to assimilate the information.
Him? dying dozens of times? being erased?
Kurisu continued, talking about other versions of him.
Kurisu: « I've seen you reduce this world to ashes for a single person! I've seen you rely only on the fucking flip of a coin to decide the life or death of people! I've seen you reduce lives to ashes. REDUCE YOURSELF to ashes. You don't even know what monster you are capable of becoming when you lose your mind! »
Subaru understood absolutely nothing of what he was saying.
Him, destroying people's lives? Reducing this world to ashes? Deciding everything with a coin? What was he babbling about?
In Subaru's head, the chaos was total. He was incapable of uttering a word.
How could this man know things he had never lived? Visions? Possible futures?
Vertigo seized him.
Kurisu lowered his tone slightly, but his voice became heavier, more overwhelming with truth.
Kurisu: « I know you all too well… Natsuki Subaru. Son of Natsuki Kenichi and Natsuki Naoko. »
Subaru turned pale. His heart skipped a beat. The blood drained from his face.
Subaru: « How... »
How? How could he know the names of his parents ?!
He didn't understand. Had he known him, in his world before… on earth? Had they already met?
Who was this monstrous being who knew even the identity of his father, from whose shadow he couldn't manage to free himself?
He didn't know.
Kurisu finally removed his hands from his face.
He approached again and lifted him for the umpteenth time by his garment, forcing him to sustain his furious gaze.
Kurisu: « And you know why I let all that happen? Why I let you suffer, despite everything I knew? »
Subaru turned his head away, incapable of answering.
He was terrified by the answer.
Kurisu: « Because you think you're a fucking tool! You think dying will fix everything? You think that just by dying on a loop, again and again, and trying again and again by sacrificing yourself, you will finally manage to do everything ?! To save everyone ?! Huh ?! »
The words hit Subaru like a battering ram straight to the heart.
That was exactly it. Subaru finally understood.
The words spoken that day on the manor roof — which he hadn't been able to understand the very moment they were spoken — that was it.
And Kurisu was right.
Without even realizing it, without even admitting it to himself consciously, Return by Death had become his crutch. He saw himself as a consumable resource.
Subaru had started to see his own life as a tool, thinking that dying again and again was acceptable as long as he could save others.
But what Subaru didn't know — what Kurisu, for his part, knew — was that this feeling was still only precarious.
It was after this precise moment, after the speech that Rem should have given him, that Subaru would have fallen entirely into this spiral.
Kurisu therefore had to show it to him in his very flesh, as harshly and viscerally as necessary.
Kurisu: « And that is your problem. You still think you have to handle everything all by yourself. It's really the worst flaw of your existence. »
He said that more gently this time, and his body slowly began to rise into the sky, Subaru with him.
Kurisu: « What do you think… Why did Rem sacrifice herself against the Whale? Why did she want to protect you? Why did Otto push you off the carriage? Why did Ram want to save you? Why was Emilia screaming your name while crying? Why did I tell you all that? You don't know? ... »
They were still rising, overlooking the capital, going up ever higher toward the stars.
Subaru, mute with terror, saw the blue sky turn into a starry black. They were still rising. Higher than the atmosphere.
Kurisu: « You don't know why I showed you how cruel this world was? How monstrous you had to be to just survive in it? Why I let you suffer so much? Why I told you that you weren't made for the role of hero? ... »
They were now above everything. They were floating in the spatial void. In space itself. Below them, the world of Od Laguna extended, immense and yet so derisory, a flat earth bathing in the cosmos.
This same earth on which he had been summoned, which he could now see in its entirety.
And despite everything, Subaru was breathing perfectly, although the cold of the universe was terrifying.
Thanks to the discreet intervention of Author-san's Authority, without a doubt — he could not let a scene as important as this be spoiled by a detail as insignificant as the absence of air.
Kurisu was still holding him, his voice resonating clearly in the absolute void.
Kurisu: « I'm telling you again… You weren't made for the role of hero. And you never will be… »
Kurisu let a heavy silence settle on this last syllable.
He let him go.
Subaru, feet floating in the void, looked down. Gaze fixed on the planet.
The words of last night resonated in his mind like a funeral sentence.
« Despite everything he just said… it's the same conclusion. I will never be the hero I wanted to be. I never will be… »
Kurisu: « …ALONE, GODDAMN IT! »
His eyes widened, his voice exploded, striking Subaru's soul with the force of a supernova.
Subaru violently raised his face. His eyes widened, confusion instantly sweeping away his resignation.
Kurisu: « You weren't made to be a hero ALONE! Obviously ! goddamn, is it not obvious to your bird brain ?! »
He spat the words into the boy's face.
Kurisu: « You're a pathetic man, the lowest of the low, who can't accomplish anything without dying several times… You're stupid, barely tenable, impulsive, physically weak. Honestly… I'd be ashamed in your place. Pff. »
Kurisu spat these words with fierce disdain, but instead of crushing him, these acerbic truths seemed curiously to free him of a gigantic weight.
Then his tone changed radically. Going from mockery to a softness, solemn, almost absurd for him.
Kurisu: « And that is precisely why your fucking friends are there. »
Subaru: « That… my… friends? ... »
Kurisu: « Yes, yes, you heard right. Your friends are there. They want to help you, idiot. So… Why want to accomplish everything alone? Why want to carry the weight of this disgusting world on your own fragile shoulders? And above all — why always want to die, as if it were the easiest solution to save them? »
The man in white floated toward him, reducing the distance. The hardness of his face had evaporated.
His voice was becoming softer and softer.
Kurisu: « Despite everything that can be said about you… You remain a strong boy, who never bends in the face of danger, nor of despair. You continue to move forward despite the obstacles. You accomplish the impossible. You do everything to save others at the expense of your own spirit. »
A smile stretched Kurisu's lips. Not his Machiavellian smirk. Not his troll smile.
A sincere smile, for the first time. Warm, benevolent, addressed to the person in front of him.
He raised his hand and placed his fist gently, but firmly, on Subaru's heart.
Kurisu: « You're an amazing guy… Natsuki Subaru.»
At these words, Subaru's world truly stopped. Nothing was moving in his mind anymore. Surprise paralyzed him entirely.
« Kurisu... Kozuwa Kurisu. »
This monster of arrogance, this demon who amused himself with his deaths, who watched him suffer while eating popcorn... this man had just told him, above the entire planet, that he had value.
« But… what if I fail again? And what if I make them suffer, once again, because of my mistakes? »
The fear persisted, a last barrier that didn't want to yield completely.
Subaru: « You… you're serious? ... »
Subaru's whisper was broken. His thoughts swirled in a dull panic.
He barely asked it, stammering, deeply surprised that Kurisu — Kozuwa Kurisu, this arrogant guy who usually didn't care about his suffering, who took a malicious pleasure in watching him die and endure the worst things — had just told him all that.
But Kurisu regained his characteristic little smile, sweeping away doubts with a look.
Kurisu: « You can't be more serious. »
He continued.
Kurisu: « So, for the love of this fucking fanfiction — stop always taking your life as a toy. Stop wanting to die for nothing. Have confidence in your pathetic fucking self. Believe in this useless man who is deep inside you. And above all — believe in your loved ones. Because maybe without them, you are nothing… »
He finished, gently.
Kurisu: « But with allies… You, Natsuki Subaru, you can accomplish everything. You can do the impossible. Things that anyone in the world — not even that cheater Reinhack — could do. So just believe in them. And believe in yourself. »
A pause.
Kurisu: « After all… you're not my student for nothing, huh? »
The silence fell back. A huge, absolute, enveloping silence.
Kurisu had just told him everything. Absolutely everything. What he had to do. What he had to be.
He had dissected his soul, crushed his martyr complex, and rebuilt his heart by offering him the only thing Subaru had desperately needed since he had been summoned: the right to be weak and to be helped.
A long silence settled between them, suspended in the void of space, the flat world of Od Laguna turning slowly far below.
Subaru said nothing during this silence.
Then he cried.
Subaru's eyes blurred. The tears, which he had been holding back for so long, overflowed.
Again — but this time, they were not tears of pain. They were not tears of fear or sadness… even less of terror, despair, or self-hatred.
They were tears of joy. Of pure and burning joy.
To see that, despite everything, at least one person — and not just anyone, the one who claimed to know him better than anyone in the world — sincerely believed in him, despite his abyssal weakness...
That warmed the boy's heart more than anything else.
The silence lasted a few more seconds.
Subaru sniffled, ready to stammer a pathetic but sincere "thank you," when suddenly...
Kurisu turned violently to the side. His cheeks puffed up suddenly.
And vomited.
Purely and simply.
He vomited his guts into the spatial void. A multicolored, brilliant, and sparkling jet.
Subaru: « Huh ?! »
Totally surprised.
Subaru's sadness and emotion evaporated in a millisecond in the face of the visual absurdity of the scene.
Kurisu: « Goddamn it… I hate this kind of mushy emotional scene… Author-san, I curse you… Blegh... horkkk... »
He continued to vomit his stellar rainbow, holding his stomach with a grimace of absolute disgust.
Subaru watched him, blinking, mouth agape.
And then, it rose.
A little chuckle, at first.
Then a smile.
And finally, a laugh.
Subaru: « Ahh... ahah... ahahhhaaha ! »
Natsuki Subaru laughed. A clear, frank laugh, rid of its shadows.
He was purely and simply laughing at the misfortune of this man in white, at this lunar situation, and at his own rebirth.
He was back.
Broken, repaired, and more changed than ever.