Struggle Before Death
Bang bang bang~~ The sound of iron striking rock echoed in the dim cave.
Compared to earlier, the noise was much weaker now.
Subaru looked stubbornly at the sturdy handcuffs.
Suddenly, he felt a wave of dizziness and blurred vision.
He realized it was from excessive blood loss. A surge of fear welled up inside him — the fear of death. —The most terrifying moment of an execution is right before it happens.
For some unknown reason, Subaru suddenly recalled a famous saying from his past life.
Now, Subaru deeply understood its truth. He let out a faint laugh.
Even though he had tried to kill himself, he was still afraid of death's arrival.
Blood trickled from his arm little by little, yet death still did not come.
Subaru felt like he had lost over 2000cc of blood already. Was the manga lying to him? Or was his feeling wrong? Or maybe his body was just too strong. "Because I'm strong, I need to feel more fear, yet I still can't break these handcuffs. That's just too cruel," Subaru said, looking at the pitted and battered handcuffs with a bit of self-mockery.
Though he could start a new life by having the Witch Cultist bring him to Sloth, that would waste his second life.
Besides, Sloth might even be waiting outside for him. —He wasn't enduring his anger just to die like this.
Subaru absolutely had to confirm where the enemy was hiding.
His heart was filled with unwillingness, a feeling that surpassed even his fear of death.
Subaru didn't want to die like this.
His will finally suppressed his body's weakness.
His bloodied arm raised again and smashed against the stone wall, again and again.
The sound grew weaker and weaker, until it was almost impossible to hear. His arm could no longer lift. His weak body finally couldn't keep up with Subaru's strong will. "Is it over?" Subaru asked himself with reluctance as he collapsed against the rock wall to regain strength.
Then he finally noticed a strange sensation in the darkness.
Something was slowly approaching, dragging itself forward like a crawling animal, but definitely moving toward Subaru.
"Brian? … Rem?" Subaru shouted the names of his friends.
The presence in the darkness seemed to gather strength and came closer again, only a few meters away.
—Is this Rem's last flicker of life?
"Rem...?" —Impossible.
Reason told Subaru this.
He had died so many times but never experienced a last flicker of life.
Death was just death.
He recalled the terrible injuries Rem suffered the last time he saw her. —It was impossible she was still alive.
"Rem, Rem...?" His mind desperately denied the truth, but Subaru's emotions kept calling her name repeatedly.
He felt that because of his voice, she sped up her crawl little by little.
Finally, the sound of something scraping against the cold rocky ground reached Subaru's ears. He stood up, dragging the handcuffs with him, and went to meet her at the limit of his strength.
"Rem." Subaru finally saw her clearly.
He immediately grasped the hand she extended to him.
The wrist he held was so light, so cold — Subaru couldn't believe it was a living body.
The trail of blood vanished into the darkness's end; the endpoint was the girl in front of him. The girl dragged what should have been a dead body to this place.
Rem's death was a fact, but what sustained her? Was it the thought of saving Subaru?
Subaru endured his grief as he accepted the girl who should have died. He checked his own condition but couldn't urge the girl to free him from his shackles.
"Ugh ugh!?" Subaru's wrist was grasped by Rem and pressed down to the ground.
The blood loss made his reaction to her movements slow. The girl began chanting magic in a broken voice.
Pain, as if a sharp blade had sliced his wrist, surged through Subaru.
He understood it was his blood turning to ice. A sound burst out, like pressure from inside becoming unbearable. The handcuffs cracked and flew apart.
Then, a familiar blue light flickered.
His severely injured body and near-death feeling made Subaru recall the first time he met Rem during interrogation.
The restoration of strength and elimination of fatigue reminded him of every healing treatment Rem gave during his training sessions over two months.
The blue light vanished. Subaru's left hand was still bleeding — or rather, it could bleed again.
"Rem, you..." Though the brief healing did not save Subaru's life, it gave him the strength to move again.
Ignoring the pain, Subaru moved his only functioning right hand to support Rem. Then he noticed her slightly parted lips.
"—Ugh." Rem's lips tried to form some meaningful words.
"Rem?" Subaru leaned his ear close to her trembling lips, imprinting every word onto his soul.
"Live, escape..."
Subaru carefully laid the girl's cold body on the ground.
Then he tore a piece of cloth and roughly stuffed it into the wound. He staggered to his feet.
"Mm, we will all live. I promise."
Subaru did not bury them. He did not leave them behind.
Blood dripped down, and Subaru knew the cloth could not save his life. But he did not care — he had already chosen to die and return.
Step by step, Subaru moved forward, blood dripping drop by drop — that was his life, that was his strength.
Eventually, Subaru could only lean against the wall to continue, then he crawled.
The cave was too deep — but the chance Rem gave him could not be abandoned so easily.
So Subaru kept moving forward.
He had lost too much blood; Subaru vaguely understood that the moment he stopped moving would be the moment of death. Was it in this state that Rem saved him?
Finally, the seemingly endless rocky corridor came to an end.
Subaru turned his head.
Moss-covered rock walls loomed high, so tall that one must look up to see their peak.
Without any tools, this natural fortress was impossible to cross. Beyond the rock walls were trees.
"I see now." Subaru looked at the rock blocking the cave's exit, seemingly from nowhere.
His last lingering obsession disappeared.
He collapsed onto the ground and looked at his already necrotic left hand.
—I did it. I didn't waste the chance Rem's last flicker of life gave me.
Subaru felt a death more glorious than any before.
Falling into bottomless darkness, embraced by a familiar voice speaking of love, Subaru felt himself begin to surface.
"Are you an idiot? How many times have I told you Spirits don't need to eat?"
A childish voice full of dissatisfaction spoke. Subaru saw countless books and a blonde great Spirits sitting at the center.
"Why are you spacing out? Don't just stand in the doorway."
Subaru paid no mind to the angry great Spirit. He looked at the plate in his hands — mayonnaise, his special homemade mayonnaise.