Chapter 166: Everyone Returns! Back to Reality
["Dum-dum-da-dum~ Dum-dum-da-dum~"
Solemn, sacred wedding music swelled. The great gates of the shrine swung open, and a couple — one in a black kimono, the other in a pure white shiromuku bridal robe — came walking slowly through them, facing the camera.
Behind the newlyweds trailed a procession of relatives from both families and an honor guard, though once the day's two leads reached the sanctuary, everyone else waited outside.]
"Where is this? I've never seen buildings like that anywhere. Is that architecture something unique to Subaru's homeland?"
Anastasia tilted her head, her eyes bright with excitement as she quietly filed away every detail of those buildings.
With the time she had now, she could easily use her Hoshin Company to bring that architectural style into existence in this world.
She could even swap in a wedding exactly like this one when the two of them married this time around. Subaru would be over the moon, surely?
While Anastasia sat there daydreaming, the crowd on the other side had erupted.
"Who are these two? I don't recognize either face. Wasn't this supposed to be Subaru and Lord Puck's wedding?" Julius asked, pinching his chin in puzzlement.
"Ha! And here I figured it'd be Cap'n tying the knot with a kitty spirit the size of a grown man. Thank the heavens my eyes got spared that!"
Whatever anyone else made of it, Garfiel was thrilled — no eye-scrubbing required after all.
Otherwise he'd have had no idea how to face Cap'n ever again. One look at the man and he'd have pictured that wedding with the little cat spirit, and there'd be no keeping the laughter in.
But right then, the two on the screen reached the moment when they were finally alone.
[Once they were inside the room and genuinely by themselves, both of them relaxed noticeably. They looked at each other and smiled.
"I never imagined that after everything, the two of us would end up walking together like this," said the groom in the black kimono, grinning as he looked straight into his bride's eyes.
That made the bride laugh, delighted. Then, with a mischievous, almost prankish glint, she winked at him. "Well then — here's to the rest of our lives together, Su-ba-ru?"
"Hahaha! Sure, sure. Then I'm counting on you too, Puck!" Something had struck the groom as hilarious; he laughed until he couldn't straighten up, and only once he'd caught his breath did he manage a reply.]
"Wait, that's… that's Subaru's voice, and Big Brother's voice!" Outside the screen, Betty cried out. She'd picked out both of those achingly familiar voices the instant she heard them.
But the moment the words left her, she looked at the bride on the screen and faltered.
"Huh? Hold on, Big Brother… no, should it be Big Sister now?"
For a moment Betty was thoroughly lost.
"It is Barusu's voice, though the man doesn't look the least bit like Barusu. And as for that being Puck, the notion is nonsense," Ram said, analyzing it calmly.
"Could it be — some kind of loop, a reincarnation?" Rem clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with the guess.
"Maybe it's a Subaru and a Puck from the future. The two of them were reborn into a new world, feelings gradually grew between them, and then they threw away everything they used to have and got married…"
Rem's voice dropped lower with every word, because the longer she listened to herself, the more it sounded like a knockoff of her own history.
No — no, no, no!
Don't you steal my husband, Lord Puck!
Rem was on the verge of tears.
And Elsa, right there beside her, twisted the knife. "Hehe. But going by what was written on the screen, doesn't that mean darling fell for that spirit ages ago?"
"Mm… although it was labeled as unofficial history, of course."
That was exactly why Elsa's own composure never wavered. None of this was necessarily true, so there was no sense getting worked up over it.
"Ah-hah… th-that's right! It says right there that it's unofficial history, so it can't be trusted at all!" Puck stepped forward at that, echoing Elsa's words.
The next second, a pair of hands closed around his waist, clamping down like a giant set of pincers and locking him in place.
The icy stare coming from behind froze the nape of his neck stiff. Puck turned around inch by inch — straight into the eyes of Emilia, where some unnameable emotion churned.
"Puck, I trust you'd never do anything like that. Right?" Emilia asked, offering him a light, bright smile.
"O-of course not! Lia, you know me — you're the only one for me!" Puck poured out explanations and promises at the fastest speed he could manage, and only at the very end did Emilia's tightly knit brows smooth out a little.
Then, just as Emilia was about to say something more, the scene around her shattered.
And not only for her. In the eyes of everyone watching, this mysterious space was rapidly breaking apart, collapsing.
Yet not one person there felt any panic, because an instant before the space came apart, understanding had risen in all of them.
They were about to return to reality.
And of course, even Natsuki Subaru, off in his separate space of pure white, was no exception.
The return: beginning now!
"Sir, care for an apple?"
In the village market, Natsuki Subaru's eyes snapped open as a line he knew all too well reached his ears.
The hell?! Who lost affection points this time?
Head still fogged over, Natsuki Subaru gave the shudder that had long since become reflex, lifting his head on instinct to scan his surroundings and work out where he was.
Once he'd calmed down, though, he realized he wasn't standing in front of that green-haired fellow's fruit stall in the Royal Capital at all — he was simply in the market on the outskirts of the village in Roswaal's domain.
As for the woman who had just called out to sell him an apple, she was nothing more than Elsa, playing the part of the fruit stand's proprietress—
Hold on. Wait. Elsa!
Natsuki Subaru's gaze went blank as his memories came rushing back like a floodgate thrown open…
He'd run into Elsa and Meili in the village, and then Zarestia had invaded — the most beautiful Grim Reaper, one of the Four Great Spirits.
He'd ordered Ram to evacuate the villagers, and hired the Elsa sisters to intercept Zarestia.
Then something had gone wrong partway through: Petra had abruptly come into power beyond anything he could have imagined, and had called herself the [Witch of Melancholy]…
After that, Petra had sent Zarestia away somewhere else in order to protect him.
And then, out of nowhere, every last one of them had blacked out. First he'd been dropped into a strange worldline that felt like a game dungeon; once that world crumbled, he'd arrived in a space of pure white and come face to face with everyone else, all of them watching his past experiences.
Once the dust had settled on all of it, he was back in reality.
The whole thing really did feel like a dream…
What baffled Natsuki Subaru most, though, was this: after entering that viewing space, had he gone through Return by Death again?
Otherwise, why was he back in the stretch of time before Zarestia invaded the village?
But that thought was shattered soon enough by the reactions of the two following at his side — Ram and Betty.
—And it was Ram who broke the calm first.
____
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