Darkness.
It was not the gentle, velvet embrace of sleep, nor was it the violent, final void that followed the end of life.
This darkness lingered. It was heavy, viscous, and suffocating—a stagnation of the world that pressed in on the young sorcerer from all sides.
Thump—thump.
It wasn't a sound, but a vibration. A dull tremor coursing through his body, arriving on a delay as if it had to wade through a thick mire before it could reach his consciousness. His heartbeat felt… distant. Muffled. As though his body wasn't quite convinced it still belonged to him.
Is this… a checkpoint?
Had he been ensnared in a loop of total darkness, dying repeatedly without the mercy of pain?
——No.
Natsuki Subaru knew better than anyone—this wasn't death.
Death, at least, followed rules. That was a lesson carved into his very soul by the loathsome curse known as Return by Death.
Death meant pain sharp enough to tear a scream from his throat. Death meant panic, regret, terror—and then the cold, violent pull backward. It meant the Witch's sub-zero fingers closing around his heart to drag him to safety, ironically enough, through the mechanism of his own demise.
This was different in a way Natsuki Subaru couldn't quite articulate.
He wasn't dying.
But he couldn't feel. He couldn't see.
To be stripped of every sense is a fate often theorized as nightmarish, a scenario most would label the absolute worst hell imaginable. Faced with such a purgatory, the average person would beg for the escape of death.
For to live without sight, smell, hearing, or touch... could one even call that living in the first place?
Most would say no.
But alas, Subaru had made a promise to Aldebaran. He had sworn he would no longer discard his own life on a whim, nor treat it as cheap currency to be spent without reason.
Damaging my mental state by continuing to do that won't do me any good, anyway.
Besides, he couldn't force a reset right now even if he wanted to. Nor did he consider it a possibility to change the outcome of what had already transpired.
This void had descended the moment Suguru Geto—no... the moment that faker wearing the face of Gojo-sensei's one and only friend—had unleashed a spell Subaru had never witnessed before.
Subaru wasn't arrogant enough to believe he was remotely close to omniscient; he knew the depths of his own ignorance were vast. But he had learned the fundamental hierarchy of magic.
There was regular magic, followed by El, Ul, and Al. Each prefix denoted a surge in power, a higher risk for a higher reward, taxing the Gate like the ultimate gamble in the various RPGs of his past.
"Al Shamak." As the false-Geto had intoned.
It seemed to be the apex of Yin Magic. The very same element Subaru wielded, taken to its absolute, unreasonable extreme.
Is that something I could do in the future?
It seemed an impossibility on his own. His Gate at the moment could perhaps only be considered above average at best, even after a year of constant expansion and training. Perhaps if he burned his very Od as fuel? But that was a pyrrhic victory, a tactic that would steadily destroy him before he could ever savor the win.
Maybe… with Beako, an Al Shamak might be within the realm of possibility.
The thought was almost laughable in its absurdity.
Isn't that just totally OP?!
Of course it was. The fact that this imposter could defeat Satoru Gojo—the... former... strongest sorcerer alive—in a one-on-one battle without even using that broken level of magic until the very end where victory was already attained?
What else could a person be, if not a monster, to accomplish such a thing?
In this world, a rare few shatter the boundaries of flesh and bone—creatures who have transcended any and every natural limit.
They are the ones who cleave a castle in two with a single, thunderous chop of the hand. They are the ones who slip beyond the reach of mortal senses, moving through time and space as if it were air, propelled by sheer speed.
Subaru calls them Transcendent.
Few that he has met so far—people like Reinhard van Astrea, Satoru Gojo, Regulus Corneas, and Reid Astrea—already bear that title in his eyes. Perhaps Puck will return to claim it once more.
It was a level of power that he was not close to just yet. A wall he could not climb on his own no matter how many times he repeats it.
—————————————————
Then, there was light.
The all-consuming darkness, which had obliterated his senses, vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
Peering into his newfound surroundings, Subaru was instantly seized by a breathtaking panic. The wind, tearing past his body, was not the problem; it was the terrifying realization that gravity had reclaimed him. He was plummeting through the sky, rapidly hurtling towards the ground. That very ground, a vibrant, unbroken expanse of green, stretched out below him, eerily reminiscent of the vast, verdant canopies he'd seen in nature documentaries, viewed from a bird's-eye perspective.
To be falling, and to be falling into such a place, was undeniably far from enjoyable. In fact, he would readily describe this as an unmitigated disaster.
Where, in the name of all that was sane, was he?
Where in Lugunica existed such an endless tapestry of forestry and foliage, so vast that its boundaries were invisible, even from countless feet in the air?
The answer, of course, was agonizingly simple. Yet, this was one of those infuriating times when he yearned for a complex explanation, one that might, at least, offer a different outcome.
Alas, fate, it seemed, was a cruel mistress.
"Craaaaaaap!!"
Bracing for the inevitable impact, he instinctively raised his arms and tucked his entire body into a desperate, last-ditch effort to shield his vitals. Simultaneously, he channeled his Cursed Energy, pushing it to its absolute limit to reinforce his body in the scant seconds he had left to prepare.
Then came the impact.
Initially, it was a relatively soft tearing sound as he ripped through leaves and hundreds of smaller branches. But then, a sharper, more jarring pain erupted as his spiraling form slammed into a colossal brown tree. The momentum of his fall was so explosive that the very trunk groaned, then snapped at its base, collapsing with a deafening crack.
He tumbled, rolled, and spun, his world inverting and righting itself countless times before, finally, everything settled into an unsettling stillness.
"Urgh...."
A deep groan escaped his lips as he lay sprawled on the muddy ground.
Through half-lidded eyes, he fixated on the dimness above. While not the absolute blackness of his previous oblivion, it certainly didn't evoke the feeling of a sun-drenched day. Of course, thousands of leaves, forming a dense barrier against the sun, would inevitably create such a perpetual twilight.
"Forest...? No... jungle. Definitely a jungle... so I'm a hundred percent not in Lugunica anymore... shit."
With a low mutter, the nasty-eyed boy pushed himself upright, his gaze tracing the destructive path of his fall—a swath of upturned grass and the splintered remains of a tree.
Remarkably, he wasn't severely injured.
Cursed Energy truly was something else, wasn't it?
Thank you, Gojo-sensei!!
He couldn't help but offer his gratitude to Satoru once again, even if the moment hardly called for it. Without that foreign power Gojo had taught him to wield, he knew, with absolute certainty, he would never have survived such a fall under any circumstance.
If that friend of his—Gojo Satoru—were present in this moment, he would likely brush off any gratitude with a frivolous joke or an aloof shrug. That was simply the kind of person he was.
"Wait... what... seriously? How the hell did we even get split up?"
The confusion was palpable, a cold sweat clinging to his back. It was a concerning development, one that spoke volumes to the unreasonable depths of the false-Geto's power and the twisted capabilities of Al Shamak. Was such a separation truly within the enemy's calculations, or was it merely a byproduct of that faker's overwhelming skill?
Natsuki Subaru had no way of knowing, and that ignorance was terrifying.
However, what froze the blood in his veins was not the separation, nor the jungle.
It was the weight... the child... clinging desperately to his waist.
To an unknowing observer, it might have been a heartwarming scene—a lost child seeking comfort. But to Natsuki Subaru, it was a sensation akin to having a venomous spider crawling across his skin. It was repulsive. It was nightmarish.
Driven by a reflex born of pure physiological disgust, Subaru raised his leg.
With a dull thud, he kicked the small frame away, sending the girl tumbling across the muddy, uneven floor of the jungle. She rolled for several meters, her body limp and pathetic against the harsh terrain.
To the outside world, such an action would be branded a cruelty beyond measure. Someone of adolescence kicking a defenseless child? It was an act of villainy.
But those who knew... those who understood the true nature of this creature...
Even if she could no longer devour his name, as she had done before.
Even if her consciousness was shattered, perhaps never to wake again.
She was still here. She was still clinging to him.
The existence that had stolen the name of the strongest sorcerer, Satoru Gojo. The monster bearing the title of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony.
Louis Arneb.
She was the last remnant of that vile trio.
Roy Alphard had been obliterated by Gojo-sensei during the assault on the mansion.
Lye Batenkaitos had met his end at the Subaru's own hands after the fatal arrogance of trying to devour the name of the Sword Saint, Reid Astrea.
And now, only this girl remained. The final Gluttony, curled up in the mud, completely at his mercy.
Mercy?
Why should he offer even a fragment of mercy to such a monster? The only thing childish about the thing lying before him was its shell. Beneath that skin lay a calamity that had trampled countless lives without a shred of remorse, stolen Names, and hollowed out the existence of so many people he held dear.
The logic was cold, hard, and undeniable.
The correct choice—the only choice—was to leave her. Let her rot in this green hell. Let her succumb to starvation, to the scorching thirst, or let her become feed for the beasts that lurked in the shadows.
For a creature like her, that was the only fitting end.
But, a moment of hesitation stirred within him.
Why? Why? Why?
For what reason?
For what purpose?
There was absolutely not a single fragment of rationality within Natsuki Subaru that could justify saving her. Leaving Louis Arneb to rot in this sea of trees was the correct answer. It was the logical answer. So why did his feet refuse to move and leave her behind?
Placing a hand against the side of his head, he jammed his fingers into his scalp, gritting his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache as he scratched at his black hair repetitively.
"That damn... appearance...!!"
To wear the skin of a child... against Natsuki Subaru, it was the ultimate weapon.
He knew—he knew better than anyone—that the thing inside that blonde shell was a monster. She was a Sin Archbishop, a creature of complete and utter malice. And yet, his soul, weak and foolish as it was, rejected the act of abandoning a child. He simply couldn't help himself.
"——Shit....!"
Spitting out the curse, he stomped forward.
He scooped her small body up—light as a feather, disturbingly so. He didn't sling her onto his back; that would be madness, exposing his neck to a potential blade. Instead, he held her in his arms, a bridal carry born of paranoia rather than affection.
Well, if she wakes up and slits my throat, I'll know at least.
In the next loop, he would have the answer. If she was faking it, he would kill her without hesitation next time.
But then, on the small chance she wasn't faking it... what was even the point?
All that remained was a husk, wasn't it?
It seemed that her mind, twisted as it was, couldn't withstand the hell of Return by Death. She had coveted his power, salivated over his authority, only to be broken by the reality of experiencing his memories—of dying again, and again, and again.
Will she ever wake up?
And if she does, then what? Will he just have to put her down the moment she bares her fangs?
"...That's a problem I can figure out later. For now, I've got to just find my way out of this annoyingly massive jungle."
Was this wrong of him? Was this a betrayal, after what she did to Gojo-sensei and so many other random, innocent people?
But... what were the chances that she could return his memories?
He had never heard whether it was possible or impossible to retrieve what Gluttony had devoured. Meaning, the possibility existed. And if the chance was there, regardless of how infinitesimal, how unreasonable it might be, he was going to take it.
For Gojo-sensei—no, for Satoru Gojo.
His closest and best friend.
The only existence in this world who knew... who knew... about his Return by Death without the Witch of Envy's shadow swallowing them whole.
The man from Japan, who had been there since the beginning.
He had to do this.
For him.
—————————————————
He couldn't help but wonder—what would his friends think of him now, dragging along a Sin Archbishop of the Witch's Cult? Would they look upon him with disappointment? With anger? Would they come to loathe him?
In the blink of an eye, Natsuki Subaru cast those dark ruminations into the recesses of his mind. They were trivial. Meaningless. Because above all else, a single, consuming thought dominated his heart: What is happening to them right now?
Are they safe?
To be sure, Wrath was a nightmare. Yet, in Subaru's estimation, compared to the other two monstrosities still roaming the water city of Priestella, Sirius Romanee-Conti was the lesser threat. That did not make her harmless; she was a calamity capable of dragging dozens of innocents into a spiral of death with that twisted Authority of hers.
But Emilia could handle Wrath on her own. He had seen the clash with his own eyes; she held the slightest, razor-thin advantage.
"Of... course... my Emilia-tan would've won if that bastard didn't... argh... she would never die to something like that."
The true despair—the towering walls of absurdity that blocked the path to a happy ending—lay with Greed and Lust.
They were both entities that seemed to reject the very concept of death, albeit in fundamentally different ways.
Regulus Corneas: a man who seemed utterly unaffected by any and all phenomena that struck him.
Capella Emerada Lugunica: a meat-clump of malice capable of regenerating from any wound, likely down to the microscopic level too.
Perhaps, if the Sword Saint were to unleash his full might in a single swing—disregarding the lives of the innocents around him—he could utterly obliterate Capella, deleting her existence down to the last atom. But that was nothing more than a hollow theory. In the end, Reinhard van Astrea was a hero. He would sooner offer up his own life than allow his power to devastate the hundreds or thousands of bystanders caught in the crossfire.
Reinhard and Gojo-sensei. They were the only two existences capable of standing before Regulus without being instantly erased. And with the latter absent, the burden of fighting that bastard is falling solely onto Reinhard's shoulders... which meant, surely, Emilia was safe from that self-righteous bastard.
But, could Reinhard actually win?
It was a question Subaru had never thought he would have to ask.
It wasn't a matter of skill. If one were to strip away Regulus's Authority, in all likelihood, a common farmer tending to his crops could thrash that pathetic excuse for a man in a fistfight. His martial prowess was that laughable.
But reality was cruel. In the department of abilities, Regulus was essentially using cheats.
"What a pain... there's no point in spiraling over that now. I can't do anything about it..."
Forcing a deep breath into his lungs to quell the trembling of his soul, Subaru pushed forward, wading through the rising grass and the choking foliage of the jungle.
"They'll be fine... they will all be fi——"
The mantra of self-assurance was severed mid-sentence. A chill ran up his spine, a primal warning screaming that something foreign had trespassed into the vicinity of his perception.
It was a minute discrepancy amidst the gaps of the dense trees and the carpet of fallen leaves. A motion that defied the natural rhythm of the wind-swept grass——
—Whoosh.
Digging his heels into the earth, Subaru twisted his body into a sudden pivot. He clutched Louis tightly to his chest, shielding the Sin Archbishop as a streak of death whizzed through the space he had occupied a split-second prior.
The projectile whistled past, burying itself deep into the bark of a nearby tree with a dull, heavy thud.
"Hah!?"
His neck snapped toward the origin of the attack. His eyes, sharpened by countless brushes with death and cursed energy, scoured the dense foliage, attempting to pierce the veil of green and ivory.
"——Damn it..."
But there was nothing.
Only the silent, mocking greenery returned his gaze.
Unconsciously, he had forgotten to breathe. Now, the air rushed back into his oxygen-starved lungs as the adrenaline began to circulate.
"...What the hell just happened?"
Subaru muttered to himself, stepping cautiously toward the arrow protruding from the tree trunk.
It was a heavy war arrow of sorts, fletched with feathers. Even a cursory glance told him that without fully reinforcing his body with cursed energy, that shaft would have easily punched a hole through him with ease.
The conclusion was immediate. The entity hunting him was no Witchbeast, nor was it some mindless monster.
It was a person. A human being.
That much was undeniable given the use of a man-made tool designed for slaughter. Regardless of their reasoning, the intent was clear. They were the hunter, and he was the target.
However...
"I'm not prey... not anymore."
It appeared that this hunter was cautious—intelligent, even. They understood that firing a second arrow from the same position would only serve to expose their location.
Subaru respected that pragmatism. It made them dangerous.
Eventually, as he delved deeper into the jungle, the suffocating embrace of the overgrown foliage—the tangle of leaves, grass, and trees—began to thin. The sensation of mud clinging to his soles gave way to firmer ground.
The terrain opened up, spilling him out into a grassy plain.
It was a peculiar space, a basin of silence surrounded by a 360-degree wall of towering trees. However, it wasn't just the sudden expansion of the sky that caught his eye.
There, in a small clearing carved out of the grassland, lay the remnants of a campsite.
"——Oh."
It was clearly abandoned, yet the traces of life were fresh. The silence was heavy, devoid of any human presence, but logic dictated this was the hunters nest. This was where the one who had nearly skewered him had been lying in wait, surely.
Naturally, his vigilance spiked. The memory of that arrow's sheer kinetic force—enough to punch through reinforced flesh—lingered in his mind.
He approached cautiously. In the center of the camp lay the charred remains of a bonfire. Beside it, a makeshift bed lined with cut grass. There was no doubt; someone had been living here, breathing here, waiting here.
The bed was empty. The area seemed devoid of life.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Subaru couldn't help but frown.
"There's not really anything useful he——"
It was the faint, dry sound of a twig breaking. A fatal discrepancy in the world's audio.
Subaru didn't think; he reacted. His body, honed by the cruel tutelage of death, rotated instantaneously. He pivoted not to flee, but to intercept, fully expecting another arrow to come whistling toward his heart.
Instead, he was met with steel.
He felt the cold, biting edge of a blade pressed firmly against the right side of his neck.
If this enemy had intended to kill him, the moment of the snap would have been his end. The fact that he was still breathing meant the game had changed.
How did they get so close to me without me being able to tell I wasn't alone?!
"———"
Silence descended once more.
The stalemate was absolute. Just as cold steel kissed Subaru's skin, an ebony blade was pressed firmly against the jugular of the man standing before him. They had moved in perfect synchronization, a mirror image of violence.
Neither dared to move. A single twitch would result in mutual destruction.
But in all honesty, Natsuki Subaru wasn't particularly frightened.
And looking into the eyes of the stranger, he realized something else. The man before him—this unfamiliar person—wasn't afraid either.
"——You do not fear death."
The voice was young. The man sounded to be around Subaru's age, perhaps only a few years his senior.
His features were obscured, the lower half of his face concealed by a rough cloth wrapped tightly around him. In terms of stature, he stood only slightly taller than Subaru, possessing a physique that leaned toward the slender side. Yet, despite the lack of visible muscle, his stance was flawless. In his hand, he gripped a thin-bladed sword—resembling a saber or a rapier—with practiced ease.
What stood out most, however, was the dissonance of his attire.
He wore clothes of evident quality—fine fabrics that had no business being dragged through a muddy jungle. The cloth masking his face suggested one of two possibilities: he was concealing a hideous scar, or he was a man with a reason to hide his face from the world.
"You do not speak? Is it your wish for me to sever your head from your shoulders immediately?"
The tone was commanding, laced with an arrogance that felt entirely natural to him.
Subaru concluded instantly. Though, the man didn't act in the slightest how he had pictured a jungle hunter would. There was no wildness in him, only cold calculation.
Irritation bubbled up in Subaru's chest. Being looked down upon—while holding a knife to the other party's throat.
"You've got a hell of an attitude... Did you somehow forget that my blade is pressed right against your neck, too?"
"You stayed your hand. That alone serves as proof that you possess no desire for bloodshed here—regardless of the lethal intent my strike carried."
Subaru offered no verbal retort, his gaze instantly dissecting the man standing before him.
He's clearly nobility—or something close to it. Though, his attitude isn't what I expected... guess that's what I get for basing my worldview on fantasy novels. Still, putting that aside, he doesn't feel strong. Actually, compared to the monsters I've dealt with, he might be the weakest one. That sword couldn't even cut my skin if I reinforced it with Cursed Energy, let alone take my head off. This isn't the hunter from before.
Subaru caught the slightest narrowing of the man's eyes.
He realized it already? He knows I'm stronger than him, yet there isn't a shred of fear in his eyes... How terrifying.
Simultaneously, the man returned Subaru's scrutiny with a gaze of cold, imperious calculation.
The manner in which this man carries himself... it echoes the presence of a Divine General. Yet, his attire is utterly unsuited for the Buddheim Jungle—or anywhere else in the Empire, for that matter. A peculiar anomaly. The girl in his arms is a stranger to mine eyes as well; unlikely to be of high birth.
A flicker of acknowledgment crossed the man's features.
You have managed to pique my interest.
The lethal tension hanging between them evaporated in an instant. As if by mutual agreement, both lowered their weapons simultaneously.
"Why do you stare? If you have words, speak them."
The masked man responded swiftly to Subaru's gaze, his tone laced with irritation at being scrutinized.
"Ah, well... you're really serious, aren't you?"
Although the mask obscured the upper half of the man's face, Subaru could easily picture the deadpan expression beneath it—a look of impatient expectation.
"Okay, I've just got a question. Now, I don't think my senses are on the same level as Gojo-sensei's, but I still should've been able to hear or feel you coming. You definitely aren't one of those crazy powerhouses that hack the power system—you don't give me that vibe."
The masked man did not seem provoked by Subaru's assessment. Instead, he treated the question with the cold indifference of a teacher correcting a slow student.
"Your manner of speech is grating. But to answer your query: I simply removed myself from your perception using the Art of Concealment."
Subaru blinked in surprise. In the time it took to draw a breath, the man had vanished from his field of view, despite standing directly in front of him.
"Well, it definitely doesn't get rid of the sound you make... You must have had the devil's own luck to sneak up on me, then!"
Only after exhaling did the man reappear before Subaru. Though his blade was still drawn, he kept the tip pointed firmly toward the earth.
"Do not overestimate yourself fool. You are no assassin, nor a shinobi. To mine eyes, your vigilance is pitifully lacking. But ignoring your incompetence at stealth for a moment—what is your intent?"
Subaru ignored the sting of the man's blunt words, raising an eyebrow instead.
"What do you mean?"
"——You stand within the Buddheim Jungle, dressed in attire utterly unfit for the climate, burdened with an unconscious child. The conclusion is obvious, you are hopelessly lost."
A frown tugged at Subaru's lips. He lifted a hand, scratching the back of his neck with a sigh.
"Bingo. That's me! Natsuki Subaru—broke, stranded, and totally lost! Say, you wouldn't have happened to see a weird guy with white hair and a blindfold stumbling around here too, would you?"
Seemingly disappointed by the sheer absurdity of Subaru's request, the man gave a dismissive shake of his head.
"I have seen no such oddity. A man of that description would stand out starkly in these woods. But answer me this, Natsuki Subaru—what do you intend to do from this moment forth?"