Silence.
Emptiness.
And then—
Subaru's eyes snapped open.
A breath tore from his throat—dry, desperate, like a man drowning on land. His chest rose and fell in staggered motions, as if breathing itself was a labor that required willpower he barely had.
The sky above had changed.
No longer the calm, distant moon.
Now, it was the sun—harsh, blinding, merciless—sitting high and heavy above the horizon. It glared down like a god without empathy, burning the world beneath it to ash.
The heat pressed in immediately. It wrapped around Subaru's body, clinging to his skin, choking his breath with dry, shimmering air. Each inhale scratched down his throat like sandpaper.
And he felt it.
The dehydration. The pulsing ache in his joints. The throbbing pain in his temples, behind his eyes. The raw sting of his cracked lips and sun-seared skin.
He was alive.
Which could only mean one thing.
Subaru let his head drop back into the scorching sand.
His eyes stared upward, empty and unblinking, as a soft exhale left his lungs.
"…We lost to him again…"
His voice came out hoarse. Brittle. Already beginning to fade into the wind.
He waited.
Waited for the voice.
For the familiar presence at the back of his mind—the mocking sneer, the cruel commentary, the smug superiority.
There was always something. Always.
But now… there was nothing.
No snide remark.
No quiet chuckle.
Not even a flicker of presence.
Subaru blinked slowly. A faint crease formed between his brows.
That was wrong.
That was very wrong.
"…Pride…?" he said, this time quieter.
Still, no answer.
And that was when he felt the first prickle of unease—a coldness that ran beneath the burning heat, crawling slowly up his spine.
He was still alive.
Still in the desert.
Still in this moment.
He hadn't looped. He hadn't died.
The Sword Saint, Reinhard van Astrea, always killed him. It wasn't a possibility. It wasn't a coin flip. It was an absolute truth that happened every other time outside of the loops where he'd committed suicide. And yet…
This time?
Nothing.
No death. No restart.
Just… silence, total silence.
The bitterness hit first.
A dry taste on the back of his tongue, like ash and bile and sand. The same taste as failure.
And then the deeper feeling crept in—the gnawing, hollow ache beneath his ribs. Emptiness. Vast. Consuming.
He clenched his jaw.
"…Should I try again…?"
He didn't even know who he was asking.
The wind certainly didn't answer.
He forced himself to sit up, limbs stiff and unwilling. His body protested, but he didn't care. He was used to pain.
He was used to everything hurting.
But this—this was different.
He had failed before. Dozens of times. Died. Been humiliated. Torn apart. Crushed.
But he always had Pride. That bond. That voice. That power. Even in death, it lingered. It endured.
And now it was just… sulking?
He ran his tongue over his cracked lips. Already dry. Already aching.
Around him, the land bore scars of the battle. Wounds on the world itself.
Man-made canyons carved into the dunes like claw marks. Cratered earth. Melted and genuine glass. Some stretches of sand had transformed entirely—scorched into black, hardened obsidian. Others shimmered faintly, as if still burning beneath the surface.
From space, this battlefield would look like devastation.
He took a step.
Pain lanced up and through his entire body immediately.
"G-Gh—! F-Fuck…"
He stumbled. Nearly fell.
But his gaze drifted upward again.
Toward the sky.
"...Hey. Hey, Pride! Now's not the time to sulk, dammit—say something!"
Still no answer.
"…Pride?"
A pause.
"…Pride?!"
This time, he shouted it.
The word rang out across the desert, but there was no echo. No response.
Just that awful, crushing silence.
He reached out instinctively, hand trembling. A familiar motion.
He willed the black blade to appear. It should have been like breathing. Like blinking.
He'd done it so many times before.
But now—
Nothing.
His heart skipped.
His throat tightened.
No, no, no—
And then it hit him.
The emptiness.
The silence.
The wrongness.
His knees gave out, sand puffing around him as he dropped.
"…Pride…?"
His voice broke on the word.
"…PRIDE!!"
Gone.
Stolen.
Ripped from him by force. From his soul. From his very being.
He wasn't just powerless.
He was incomplete.
He wasn't whole.
Someone had taken away everything.
His strength. His purpose. His anchor.
Himself.
A scream built in his chest, but didn't escape. Not yet.
Instead, he ran.
Tripping. Stumbling.
No cursed energy to stabilize his steps. No reinforcement to protect him from the glass. No balance. No direction.
Just sheer panic. A natural human response.
And then—
A shard of obsidian glass. Sharp. Jagged. The size of his head.
He grabbed it with shaking fingers, blood drawing around his hands as he gripped the jagged shard.
Tears clouded his vision, but he didn't stop.
"If I die—I'll loop back... I'll even fight again. I'll fight the whole damn world if I have to—Reinhard, the Witches, Od Lagna itself—I don't care—JUST GIVE IT BACK!!"
And then—
He drove it into his throat.
Pain.
Searing.
Blood filled his mouth, thick and choking.
His body spasmed, keeled with his back facing the scorching sun.
And then despite the light shining overhead like a beacon—
Darkness.
Gasp—!
His eyes flew open.
Same sun.
Same heat.
Same desert.
Still here.
"No…"
He gripped his head, fingers digging into his scalp.
His breath hitched. Became erratic. Labored.
His reset point had moved forward, why?
"No, no, no—"
Then the scream came.
It ripped from his throat like fire.
"—REINHAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!!!"
A roar of anguish. Of hate. Of desperation.
But the world didn't answer.
Because no one was left to listen.
Only Subaru.
————————————————————
He walked..
And walked..
And walked..
There was no rhythm to it anymore.
His feet didn't rise—they dragged, carving long, uneven grooves through the burning sand. His shoes had long since fallen apart, torn and frayed, the soles worn thin. Now, every step was just raw skin against heat and grit.
There was no direction.
Just the Watchtower. Subaru's personal coping mechanism at this point. In his little adventure, he hopes that it would give him purpose, or an actual goal at least. Because right now, he is nothing, he's merely a husk that's incapable of truly dying.
Far in the distance, a jagged silhouette against the gold horizon. It was tall—impossibly tall. Taller than logic. It stabbed into the heavens like a blade, and even though it never moved, it also never came closer.
No matter how long Subaru walked, no matter how many hours—
It always remained exactly where it was.
A cruel trick of the world. A taunt. As if telling him to dare try and reach it.
So, Subaru kept moving. Not out of hope. Not even out of stubbornness.
Just inertia.
He was empty now.
Reinhard had taken everything. Not just Pride. Not just victory. He had taken his meaning. Taken his context.
No Emilia.
No Rem.
No Gojo.
They didn't matter.
They weren't real.
They never remembered. Not like he did. Not across loops. Not through the pain.
They forgot. They left him behind. Always.
They'd think he was being dramatic when he'd roll over and burst into tears. Like he was a joke.
And now, with Pride gone too—he didn't even have power. Didn't even have madness to cling to.
Only Subaru.
Only this walk.
One foot in front of the other.
Over, and over, and over.
Until—
His knees buckled.
He dropped forward into the sand, hands sinking into it, elbows shaking as they caught his weight.
A low, rasping breath escaped him. Sweat ran down his brow and sizzled as it touched the ground. His vision blurred, the white heat around him blending everything into a single, formless smear.
But even now, even here, some fractured part of him refused to stop.
His hands pushed. Trembling. Weak.
He rose. Slowly.
Not because he wanted to.
Because there was simply nothing else to do.
He didn't need an excuse. He needed a reason.
Otherwise what was life?
And so, Subaru walked...
Even though the Watchtower never grew.
Even though time stopped mattering.
Even though it felt like the world was playing a joke he couldn't understand.
His legs moved on.
And then—
The ground shifted.
Not subtly.
It shook.
A dull, deep vibration. A rumble through the bones of the desert.
The sand in front of him trembled, then collapsed inward—splitting open like a wound as something vast surged up from below.
A mabeast.
No, more than that.
A monster. A desert leviathan. Wormlike. Towering. Its mouth opened in a grotesque yawn, a ring of teeth, dozens of rows, spiraling inward into blackness.
The beast screeched, its cry like a sandstorm howling through a cathedral.
But Subaru… didn't move.
He stared.
Blank-eyed, not even fearful at this point. Of course he wouldn't be, he knew he'd come back from death, and had survived an altercation with the Sword Saint himself.
"…Ahhh… fuck it."
The creature lunged.
And then—
Darkness.
Light.
His eyes opened again.
Same sky. Same sun. Same air.
Same body.
Same place.
No escape.
Still no reason.
He lay there, unmoving for a moment.
Then a sound escaped him.
Laughter.
Low. Ragged. Disbelieving.
"…Hah… ahaha… hahah…"
It didn't last.
It dried up quickly, replaced by a hollow silence that rang louder than any scream.
Subaru's face twisted, not in anger, but emptiness. He wasn't going to make that walk again. Not like before.
That endless, stupid trek toward the tower had been a symptom of despair, not will.
Now?
He still wanted to die.
But at least his mind was clearer.
He knew, now, something was wrong with that place.
Something was keeping him away.
Not just distance. Not exhaustion.
Something fundamental.
Magic, maybe. Authority. Reality manipulation... something...
Or maybe even just the miasma in the air. Perhaps if he had woken up hours earlier, he could've just waltzed toward the tower before the witch's miasma replaced the emptiness that Reinhard's attack had brought about during his fight with Pride.
Regardless, he couldn't do that. But that was fine. Even if it meant it'd be more difficult.
He had infinite tries after all.
So—
Once more..
He walked.
And this time—
The world responded.
Not gently.
Not kindly.
But violently.
The air around him rippled.
Pressure pressed down, slow at first, like invisible hands pushing against his body. Then stronger. Heavier. The very fabric of the world groaned around him.
His knees bent slightly.
He gritted his teeth.
"U-Urghk—!"
Then the sand exploded into him with the face of a storm.
A fake wind whipped into being—but not wind. Not natural. Not even elemental.
It had weight, physical, it felt as if a pressure was pushing against his entire body like his body weight doubled.
Subaru staggered, shielding his eyes with a raised forearm. Cursed energy flickered into his limbs, reinforcing skin and bone—but even that wasn't enough. His body was being torn apart by sheer pressure, glass and sand thrown at immense speeds into his body like unavoidable bullets.
The air screamed. Sand blasted every inch of his skin, slicing tiny cuts into him like thousands of needles.
He could barely breathe through the haze.
His thoughts slowed.
"…This isn't… wind…"
He forced his eyes open.
And saw—nothing through the haze.
No horizon. No tower. No sky.
Just a swirl of sand, space, and silence, all blending together in some kind of liminal non-place, something that shouldn't exist, but with the appearance of a mere sandstorm.
Time lost meaning.
It could've been ten seconds.
Or ten years.
Subaru couldn't tell, just that the very concept of time was irrelevant in wherever he had found himself.
He tried to walk—but with each step, his foot fell into different ground. A dune. A flat surface. A pit. A cracked mirror. Then sand again.
Reality was fracturing.
And through it all—
He tried once more.
"…Pride…?"
Silence.
"…Right…"
He cursed himself.
Why had he even called out?
How did he forget?
Was this absurd place messing with his mind too?
He clenched his fists. Something inside him refused to kneel. Refused to die. Refused to accept this. Cursed energy surged, empowered even further by the lingering miasma in the air. It burned through his body, his circuits pushing beyond their limit.
He screamed as he moved.
Pushed forward.
Even though it felt like space was trying to erase him.
Even though time coiled around him like a noose.
Even though this sandstorm wasn't truly a storm at all—
It was truly reality fighting back.
Trying to stop him from going further, stopping anyone from going further.
But Subaru didn't understand the concept of 'giving up'.
And he always came back.
With a roar, a surge of power, he forced his hand downward, slamming his palm into the broken, warped sand that he stood upon..
And then..
CRACK--!
The ground cracked. No. The world cracked, the space in front of Subaru rippled like a gate, just the sight alone made Subaru force himself into a sprint toward it as fast as he could.
A burst of light exploded from the impact, tearing through the twisting space like a flood.
The storm fell apart.
The pressure vanished.
The desert stilled.
And Subaru—his body broken, his skin cut and burned, his lungs heaving—stood at the center of a silent world.
Breathing. Bleeding.
Alive.
And still standing.
"…What the hell… was that?"
His voice was hoarse.
It was no longer day.
Somehow—somewhen—the sun had fallen without notice.
Darkness had arrived.
Subaru blinked up at the sky. He hadn't been in that storm long enough for night to fall. He was sure of it.
But there it was—an endless canvas of black overhead. Not a single star flickered.
Only the moon remained, pale and full, staring down like a watching eye.
Too empty.
Too quiet.
Subaru squinted, trying to focus. His thoughts felt slippery. Clouded.
"…Too confusing…" he muttered, shaking his head.
There wasn't time to dwell on it.
Because in front of him—where broken desert should've stretched on endlessly—there now lay a stunning meadow. A vivid, shimmering field, awash in color. A sea of petals and blossoms, more vibrant than anything natural. Red. Violet. Gold. Petals like glass, like silk, like whispers.
It wasn't real.
It couldn't be. Something so beautiful couldn't exist for Subaru of all people to see.
But even knowing that—his legs still carried him forward. Slowly.
Each step toward the field felt… lighter. The pressure in his skull eased. His limbs stopped aching. His breath slowed.
He stared.
It was beautiful.
So beautiful it hurt.
And for a moment—
He wanted to stop.
To sit. To rest. Just for a moment. Just for—
Eternity.
Would that be so bad?
Would it? Would it?
THUD—
His foot slammed into the earth, kicking up a cloud of sand.
Subaru froze, eyes wide, sweat trickling down his temple.
"No," he said aloud. "No. As if…"
His voice sounded distant. Dull.
He forced himself to step back from the flowers, gaze hardening.
Something was wrong.
Not just suspicious—wrong.
Beneath the gentle scent of blossoms was something else. Rot. Poison. Malice. Something so buried beneath the sweetness it could almost be missed.
But not by him.
Not anymore.
He turned away.
And set his eyes on the tower.
It was closer now. Still far, still distant—but closer. Barely. But enough to matter.
Genuine progress.
Then—
RUSTLE—
The ground trembled.
Subaru tensed.
The meadow beside him buckled, then exploded upward—dirt and petals flying as something massive burst from beneath.
He didn't have time to think.
A blur of claws ripped through the air, carving through the space he'd occupied just a second before.
SWIPE—
He moved.
Cursed energy flared, sharp and fast, his body twisting on instinct.
He skid across the sand, feet carving trails across the surface, breath caught in his throat.
His eye twitched.
He looked up—
And saw it.
"…What… the hell…"
A beast. A monster. No—a witchbeast, twisted beyond natural form.
It stood nearly three meters tall, its body hulking and deformed. Legs short and thick like stumps, but arms long and heavy, claws dragging furrows in the dirt. Its fur was dark—almost black—but threaded through with tangled roots, the same as the meadow's flowers, pulsing faintly like veins.
Its eyes locked onto him—bloodshot, glassy, feral.
And then—it lunged.
"Urk—!"
Subaru dropped low in a blur, knees bending like a loaded spring before he exploded upward, just barely slipping past a titanic claw that screamed through the air beside him, splitting the sky with raw force.
Midair, he twisted—a corkscrewing blur of motion—before hitting the sand and launching himself forward without pause. Cursed energy flared, violet arcs crackling around his limbs, surging into his legs and coiling in his fists.
He felt it.
Speed.
Power.
Predation.
It wasn't normal. It was unnatural. Exhilarating. Addictive.
A twisted grin spread across his face.
Is this what it feels like to be Gojo...? Even a fraction of it?
BOOOOM—
A concussive shockwave shattered the silence as Subaru blurred into motion, sand vaporizing behind him, a sonic boom rippling outward from his sheer acceleration.
The mabeast bellowed—startled, disoriented by its prey's sudden shift in momentum—and raised a claw the size of a wagon to swat him from existence.
And Reinhard…
Reinhard took it, took actual power from me…
SWOOSH—
Subaru ducked low, sliding across the sands like a phantom, the wind from the beast's blow screaming inches above his scalp. As he passed beneath the monster, cursed energy surged and compressed into his limbs—his entire arm vibrating with coiled destruction.
He twisted, rose mid-slide, and unleashed hell.
CRRAACK—!!!
His fist detonated into the mabeast's abdomen like a purple comet—cursed energy erupting on contact, amplifying the blow hundredfold. Flesh tore. Bone shattered. Blood geysered into the air in a grotesque arc through it's back.
A crater bloomed in the beast's stomach—a ragged hole clean through its core.
It reeled. Twitching. Reeling backward with a strangled, gurgling screech.
Then it collapsed, a trembling heap of muscle and failure, blood soaking the sand beneath its dying limbs.
Dead.
Silent.
Subaru stood tall amid the carnage, violet wisps of cursed energy flickering across his entire arm.
He exhaled once.
Slowly.
And grinned.
Then he smelled it again.
Flowers.
A wave of sweet aroma washed over him.
And then—
A spike of pain through his dome.
"Gh—!"
A sudden headache, white-hot, stabbed through the side of his skull like a lance.
He grit his teeth, clutching one eye, vision swimming.
What the hell…?
But still.... that was easier than I expected. Too easy..
And then—
Footsteps.
First one.
Then three.
Then a dozen.
Then hundreds.
The very ground trembled, sand quaked and moved with each movement made..
Subaru looked up, vision blurred, and saw them.
Silhouettes moving from within the meadow. More beasts.
Each of them like the first—towering, twitching, claws dragging through flowerbeds.
So many.
His breath caught.
"…Okay. Nope."
He ran.
There was no hesitation. No clever plan. No resistance.
He turned, and ran like hell.
Miles passed beneath his feet.
"Uff… uff…"
The desert blurred around him.
The tower—it was bigger now. Visibly. Tangibly.
Progress.
But also—
Pain.
Every muscle screamed. His legs burned. Not from the cursed energy—it kept flowing—but from the strain of his body, worn thin by exhaustion and heat and madness.
And behind him—still—they came.
"THESE BASTARDS ARE STILL COMING—!"
He shouted into the night, voice cracking with frustration.
He was faster. That much was clear. But they weren't giving up.
This wasn't pursuit.
It was relentless instinct. Programming. Hunger.
His eyes darted forward.
A shadow. A dip in the landscape—a crevice, small and narrow, just barely large enough for a person.
Too small for the beasts.
His heart surged.
Please—
He dove toward it.
The opening loomed closer—sand sloping downward into shadow.
He slid inside, scraping his arms on jagged rock, his body half-tumbling into the hollow.
Then—
Silence.
The stampede didn't follow.
They stayed outside. Roaring. Scraping. But they didn't enter.
Couldn't.
Subaru collapsed against the stone wall, chest heaving, lungs pulling in the hot, dry air in ragged gasps.
His limbs trembled.
The pain was catching up now.
He closed his eyes, head resting against the cool stone behind him.
"I'll just…"
His voice was barely audible.
"…Wait here. Let them go back to… sitting in their flower meadow I guess…"
Silence again.
Time passed.
How long, exactly, Subaru couldn't say.
Minutes bled into one another, slow and shallow like the air in his lungs.
Eventually, the world outside grew quiet—eerily so. The thunder of clawed feet and bestial cries faded into silence, as if they'd never existed at all.
Subaru waited a little longer.
Then, carefully, he shifted. Pressed one palm to the rough stone and pushed himself up.
His head brushed the roof of the narrow crevice as he crawled upward, breath steady, controlled.
Cautious.
The opening greeted him with moonlight. He hesitated for a moment, listening for any sound of movement.
Nothing.
He exhaled slowly.
"…Alright."
And emerged.
Sand crunched beneath his feet again as he rose to standing. He took one more glance around the barren desert—still, calm, dead.
No beasts.
No movement.
Subaru let out a shaky laugh, one hand rising to wipe sweat from his brow.
"Well… at least at this rate…" he muttered, "It's just a matter of time until I get there!"
A smile.
Not a sarcastic smirk. Not bitter triumph.
A real, genuine smile.
His first in…
How long?
A year, maybe less?
He'd truly lost count of how much time had passed.
He looked ahead.
The Watchtower.
Tall, distant, but closer now than ever before.
He'd made it here. All the way.
Alone.
And that thought… that reality… gave him pause.
No Pride.
Not even his shadow at his side.
Just him.
Natsuki Subaru singlehandedly.
No tricks. No partner. No voice whispering strategies in his head.
Just grit. Stubbornness. Survival.
And yet—
That flicker of pride stuttered.
Because somewhere deep inside, another thought crept in.
Would anyone else have made it faster? Stronger..? Probably.
Subaru sighed.
"Yeah, that makes sense."
That small smile wilted.
Then—
CRACK—!
The sand to his left exploded upward, arcing in waves like a broken tide.
Subaru staggered back, eyes wide.
Rising from the dunes, coiled and massive, was a beast—a worm, easily dozens of meters long. Its hide was a dull, sand-washed beige, segmented and twitching. No eyes. No mouth.
Just a gaping, circular maw, layered with rows of jagged prongs like thorned bone.
"Urgh… I really gotta stop speaking so soon—!"
He turned.
And ran, not even bothering fighting it, mainly because he didn't want to get chased by another few hundred mabeasts again.
"Uff… uff…"
Breath came ragged.
But he didn't stop.
Not as the sand behind him buckled again.
Not as another worm burst forth, this one crashing into the first in a blur of hunger and violence.
They were everywhere.
Dozens.
The desert he'd crossed without company now screamed behind him with chaos—worms lunging, diving, collapsing atop one another in their frenzy.
The sand itself became unstable, shifting and collapsing underfoot with every thunderous tremor.
Subaru didn't look back.
He couldn't.
He knew what was behind him. Madness.
But..
Ahead—!
The tower.
So close now.
He had to crane his neck just to see the top. The air near it shimmered, warped by heat and pressure—or something less natural.
He laughed.
He couldn't help it.
Even amid the noise, even amid the ache in every inch of his body—so he laughed.
A cracked, disbelieving sound.
"I've made it…!"
Each step was pain.
But each step was real.
His foot hit stone. The sand gave way to cracked, ancient tile beneath him. The base of the tower stood like the spine of a god—immense, overpowering, undeniable.
"I really did it…!!"
He reached forward, almost stumbling into a half-sprint as he got closer and closer.
But then—
His body froze.
Not from exhaustion.
Not from fear.
From something deeper. Perhaps realization, hesitation.
A soundless scream inside his nerves.
His instincts howled—pulling him back, begging him to stop, to turn, to run anywhere else.
Something was wrong.
So wrong.
And then—
Run.
Turn.
Escape.
Something was coming.
Something wrong.
And then—
FLASH-!
A single white gleam.
Far above.
From the core of the Watchtower above.
Like the glint of a sniper scope.
One razor-thin sliver of light, burning, pure, and utterly unavoidable.
Subaru blinked, thinking his eyes were deceiving him momentarily.
His lips started to move.
"All on my ow—!?"
BWOOOOOOM—!!
The air didn't just explode—it collapsed, torn in half by something far too fast to respond to or evade for someone on Subaru's level.
There was no pain.
No sensation.
Just—
White.
And then—
Black.
No warning.
No sound.
No time.
Subaru's head didn't just burst—
It detonated.
Like a melon hit by a railgun. Skull shrapnel sprayed in all directions, misted in an arc of blood and cerebral ruin. Brain matter splattered the sands in a wide fan, warm and wet against the sand.
His body jerked midair—then ragdolled, crumpling like trash beneath the weight of unfeeling physics.
He hit the ground with a wet thud, twitching once.
Then silence.