Chapter 163: Rem's Brain... Seems to Be Trembling!

[Natsuki Subaru, Ram, and Rem crouched in the underbrush, holding their breath, hiding from the Mabeasts.

And it was then that Rem, whom Natsuki Subaru had carefully laid flat in a small clearing, slowly came around.

Perhaps it was that near-telepathy between sisters. The instant Rem's eyes found Ram and Natsuki Subaru, she already understood, more or less, what had happened.

Which was why she dropped her head in shame and sank into a self-recriminating silence.

It was a long while before Rem, under the worried gazes of Natsuki Subaru and her sister, finally spoke.

"Why… why didn't you leave me behind? If Sister and Subaru both came, then there was no point to any of it."

Her voice shook as she said it.

"Rem had to do it alone. It was enough for Rem to be the only one hurt—"

Before her words had faded, Natsuki Subaru answered her with a grin. "Too late for that. Ram and I are already covered in cuts. Hsss… I've even dislocated my right shoulder."

In that deliberate deflection, Rem felt the depth of his gentleness.

But to someone drowning in guilt, gentleness was nothing but poison.

So Rem broke, with no warning at all, weeping tears of repentance, pouring out her sins to no one in particular.

"I'm sorry, Subaru… Rem has committed the very same mistake she made back then with Sister."

"The day the Witch Cult attacked the oni village, it was my fault that Sister's horn was broken… and yet, at the time, I was glad of it."

"And it was the same with Subaru. Because Rem caught the lingering scent of the Witch on Subaru, she hesitated and failed to grab hold of him, and that's why Subaru nearly died!"

Rem's eyes were hollow. The sheer weight of the guilt inside her had all but killed her heart.

Outside the screen, Rem watched the ugliest part of herself laid bare like this, put on display before everyone, and her face twisted into an expression of raw pain.

"Ugh… hgk!"

Rem's knees gave out. She could no longer hold her own body up, and she dropped to the ground.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, but the surge of nausea welling up out of her would not be stopped, and she vomited.

Head bowed, blue hair spilling down to curtain her whole face, a thin trickle of pale yellow running slowly from the corner of her mouth — there was no more wretched sight in the world than her in that moment.

"Everyone, don't look! Ram is begging you… please, don't—"

Ram rushed forward and pulled her broken sister straight into her arms, shielding her.

At the same time, her face contorted with pain, she pleaded with those around them not to turn their eyes this way, not to put any more weight on Rem.

Julius turned his head aside, unable to bear it, and looked no more toward where the two sisters were.

Old Master Wilhelm and Reinhard likewise drew their gazes back, politely.

Garfiel had already looked away before Ram ever spoke. When it came to small details like this, to reading what other people were feeling, he had always been sharp.

Otto simply shook his head and let out a helpless sigh.

Honestly — those of them who counted Natsuki Subaru as a close friend, how much better off were they than Rem right now?

Watching Natsuki Subaru be killed again and again, Return by Death, and be killed again — their own stomachs were churning with the same violent revulsion.

If the setting and the timing had been even slightly less inappropriate, most of them would have long since buckled under the agony and torment of those experiences of his.

Over on the other side, Priscilla's sharp gaze made one circuit of Ram before she turned her head away with an air of lofty disdain.

The look on her face seemed to be telling her rival, in that prickly way of hers, "Only now do you start to look worth something."

As for Emilia, Elsa, Ferris and the rest, they did not spare Rem so much as a glance, as though she weren't worth splitting off any of what little attention they had.

Meili, on the other hand, watched Rem with keen interest. Even after Ram said what she said, her eyes did not waver in the slightest, full of nothing but the mocking amusement of someone enjoying a show.

What the screen was showing was the one thing Rem had always least wanted to touch, or to face.

Rem knew that what tormented her wasn't really having her secret exposed. It was that, in this moment, she was forced to look straight into her own heart.

To face the knot that had been tied there all along—

"Why is it that a person can commit the very same mistake twice?"

That was what Rem asked herself. And in truth, in that moment, she already had the answer.

"Ah, that's right. It's all because Rem is too selfish…!"

That dark side hidden deep inside her, the side that loved only herself, that thought only of herself — that selfishness!

It was precisely because she was selfish that she had smiled when her sister's horn was snapped, thinking — "Ah, the horn is finally broken."

Because she had spent her whole life living in her sister's shadow. Because she loved only herself!

That was why, the very instant her sister's horn broke, what she felt was not worry, not grief, but… relief and joy, welling up from the bottom of her heart!

It was precisely because she was selfish that, when Subaru shoved her out of the way, she could have caught his hand — and in the end missed her chance to take it, because the lingering scent of the Witch on him sickened her.

And it was precisely because she was selfish that, on that rooftop in the Royal Capital, she had agreed to Subaru's plea to run away together!

"Choose me! If you choose me, I'll give you everything I have, my whole life is yours, I'll live only for you… so please, I'm begging you, Rem!"

On the rooftop in the Royal Capital that day, Subaru had stood hunched over like a dog with its spine beaten out of it, begging her to take him and flee.

But Rem had seen it perfectly clearly. When Subaru said those words, he hadn't even dared to look her in the eye, and there wasn't a trace of sincerity in them — only the escapism and self-abandonment of a man whose spirit had been washed away.

And yet—

Even though she understood all of that, she had still stepped forward and taken Subaru's hand, and then… she had smiled!

She understood that Subaru's face in that moment was full of anguish, and it was ugly — ugly enough that a single glance at it would turn your stomach.

She understood that if she loved him, she ought to encourage him and comfort him, not help him run away and leave him a nightmare to carry for the rest of his life.

And she understood, better than anything, that for her and Subaru to walk away like that meant abandoning her sister, abandoning Lady Emilia, abandoning everything.

And yet—

Even so. Even so!

Rem kept her head down, and her trembling body slowly, bit by bit, went still.

Even so — she had made her choice, and the choice she had made was to say yes to running away with Subaru!

All because of her own selfish heart, because she craved Subaru's love!

Ever since she was reborn, she had carried guilt over having taken Subaru's hand back then.

But she had never dared face it, never dared think through why that guilt ran so deep, or what the root of it all really was.

Was it because Subaru's spirit had collapsed, and she couldn't bear to see it?

No! Rem was never a woman of such noble character!

She was simply selfish, narrow-sighted — the kind of self-serving creature who would abandon her own sister for the man she loved!

Because in truth, on that rooftop in the Royal Capital,

she… had already been moved to her very core by Subaru's words!

To have someone live for her for a lifetime. To have someone depend on her, and only her, for a lifetime…

That, and nothing more, was all that had been in her head at the time.

Whether Natsuki Subaru became the hero who saved everything that day, or the coward who fled from everything —

that outcome had never been his alone to decide.

The one who decided it, from beginning to end, was Rem, by her choice!

Just as, in the Wrath-if line, the true source of it all was Ram in her fury—

in the Sloth-if line, the one who was truly "slothful" was never the Natsuki Subaru who broke down and fled on that rooftop.

It was her… it was Rem!

"You really are… 'slothful,' aren't you, Rem?"

Rem murmured it to herself, under her breath.

Her mind… felt as though it were shaking!!!

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