――Subaru was so transfixed by the girl sealed inside the crystal that he forgot to breathe.
Such was the haunting, heart-rending beauty before his eyes.
Encased in the translucent, faint-blue crystal was a girl sitting with legs folded.
Frozen――may be an apt description, but unlike ice, which melts and releases whatever was inside, a crystal would remain eternally sealed until it was shattered.
But surely, if this crystal were to be shattered, so would the body of the girl sealed inside.
[Subaru: Why...would...]
The words slipping from his lips carried a tinge of rage.
Subaru was calm, but he certainly felt anger.
There was no way to safely release the girl from the crystal. He didn't know what whoever did this might be planning, or what relation that person might have to this girl. He didn't know, but he couldn't stop it from tearing at his heart.
[Subaru: This is Lewes-san... isn't she?]
He stepped into the room. ――And, contrary to his memories of last time, there was no giant hole in the floor. Instead, settled in its place was the crystal.
It was a tall crystal, set on a metallic base which was the only equipment not in a state of disrepair in the otherwise ruined facility, shining like it was fresh out of a factory.
Opposite the crystal were several tables lined up in a row, and Subaru realized that they were the same ones that were toppled and scattered over the room in the previous world.
Same as last time, there were no lights in the room, but the faint glow of the moss on the walls ensured a certain degree of visibility.
Instruments reminiscent of medical equipment that he had seen scattered against the wall were now in perfect condition. Sifting out these differences in his memories, Subaru arrived at the conclusion,
[Subaru: Six days from now, this place will have been destroyed, in a way that no one could figure out what was going on in here]
It would be inconvenient if anyone found out about this place.
Sometime between now and the Great Rabbit's attack, the key components of this facility would be destroyed and its rubble buried into the darkness.
But this time, Subaru arrived before that could happen.
[Subaru: And sure enough, the most likely candidate... is Garfiel]
What made Subaru search here in the first place was his sense of unease towards Garfiel's suspicious behavior.
Determined to protect the Sanctuary and with his unmistakable affection for Lewes, there must be some reason unbeknownst to Subaru why Garfiel would be doing this.
Simply put, there weren't many people whose strength could match Garfiel's, so, considering the extreme difficulty of actually destroying the facility, there was reason to believe it was Garfiel.
The question that remained would be――
[Subaru: What is this facility actually used for?]
Although the room was fortunately intact, Subaru's inspection yielded no obvious results. Aside from a girl who looked exactly like Lewes encased inside a crystal fixed to the room, nothing stood out and caught Subaru's attention.
In the back of the room, on the wall beyond the row of tables, Subaru saw the ventilation shaft that he had crawled through last time. Passing through it should land him back in the waiting room.
[Subaru: ...It's pretty late at this point, but what's with the weird layout? All this can't just be for one big room plus a waiting room]
Contrary to the layout of the rooms inside, the exterior of the facility looked a lot larger than this.
The more he tried to match his mental map with what he saw outside, the stronger the sense of incongruity became. ――There was enough space to conceal a whole other room.
Cutting across the room, Subaru walked up to the wall beneath the ventilation shaft and began tapping to feel its surface. The moss-covered wall felt more like an animal's fur than actual moss.
His knocks did not produce a sound, and, aside from lighting the room, they seemed to be also serving another purpose. Location-wise, if there was a mystery room, it would be on the other side of this wall.
[Subaru: Considering how far I had to crawl, there should be a room half the size of this one. Unless there's some kind of rotating wall… there'd be no way to get into that room from here...]
In that case, the entrance might be in the waiting room.
Last time, Subaru didn't have a chance to search every corner of the facility. Nor did he care to look for any hidden doors when he passed through the narrow waiting room this time.
In fact, he was so preoccupied with the girl inside the crystal that he had neglected the waiting room entirely. ――On that thought, he turned around,
[???: ――――]
When he came eye-to-eye with the person who had entered the room.
[Subaru: ...a?]
[???: ――――]
Meeting gazes with those emotionless eyes, he let a sound escape from his throat.
The silhouette's round pupils stared back at Subaru――it was a girl wrapped in white cloth with long, pink hair.
A figure who looked exactly like Lewes, but without any of the aura of the girl he knew. In fact, it gave off no aura at all.
Like empty space, it simply stood there. In other words,
[Subaru: Ah, Lewes-san's...]
Clone. The word flickered across his mind, but he hesitated before applying it to the girl. "Clone" was just a title that Subaru had imagined. The truth is, he had no idea where the girls actually came from and felt a little guilty calling her that.
[Subaru: But then...]
Having no other name to call her with, he was stuck.
Watching Subaru fall into silence, the girl stood there quietly as well. Her expression did not move, and even whether she was breathing was suspect.
Subaru hesitated to make the first sound, while the doll only waited to be addressed.
――Seeing her quietly standing there, at last, Subaru made up his mind to open his mouth.
[Subaru: Y….. you, uh. Can you understand what I'm saying?]
[???: ――――]
[Subaru: What's your name? Can I ask what you're doing here? Actually, what is this place, anyway?]
[???: ――――]
[Subaru: ...Sanctuary, Garfiel, Lewes. You know those words?]
[???: ――――]
Three questions were met with three bouts of silence.
He thought the questions might have prompted her expression to change, but her face didn't move a muscle to any of the questions he asked. As if she was simply incapable of expression.
Nothing was happening――he was out of ideas.
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But, just as Subaru was scratching his head, the girl suddenly moved.
[Subaru: ...?]
The abrupt movement startled him, but the girl's pace was relaxed.
Same as when he entered the room, the girl stepped through the waiting room door and walked to the center of the room with unhurried steps―― until she was in front of the crystal.
The girl inside the crystal looked exactly identical to the girl approaching it.
Standing before the girl sealed in unwaking slumber, the unfettered girl bent over and reached for the lower part of the crystal's supporting base.
[???: ――――]
The lower part of the base opened with a clank, and Subaru's eyes widened. There seemed to be a flap on the lower section of the base that opened into some kind of storage space inside.
The girl squatted down and began working away, blocking his view of the interior as he stretched his neck. Shifting around trying to see, Subaru decided to step closer and confirm its contents once and for all, when,
[Subaru: ――Uugh!]
An intense, putrid stench pierced his nostrils as Subaru covered his face, recoiling.
The shocking odor corroded the membranes inside his nose, and the sensation of smelling it was closer to pain than shock. His eyes teared up as he was overtaken by the pressure of his stomach's contents rushing to his throat.
Stench――it was the same putrid stench he remembered permeating the facility the last time he was here. Like some chemical concoction, suspected to contain substances harmful to the human body.
Subaru was sure that it must have come from the collapsed hole in the ground, but,
[Subaru: It was actually coming from inside that base...and the whole area around that crystal]
Holding his nose, Subaru came to this conclusion as he drew closer with teary eyes.
It felt as though the stench was seeping into his pupils as the sight of the oblivious girl buried in her work sent shivers down his spine. Then, as he peeked down at her hands from the side, his eyes shot wide open.
――Inside the base, the girl's hands were fiddling around with an internal segment carved with incomprehensible patterns with magical minerals installed in various places.
The minerals were faintly glowing from their stores of internal Mana, but one of them seemed to have used up its stores and lost its light. The girl carefully removed it, and inserted a replacement in its place.
The complex patterns reminded him of what he saw in that last loop.
Magic circles――a staple technology of the parallel world fantasy genre, was somehow inexplicably absent from this world. And that was precisely why it left such an impression when he did eventually encounter one and made him wonder just what function it may have served.
[Subaru: Seeing how the minerals are linked up... it kind of looks like an electrical circuit. If the magic circle is the mechanical part and the magic minerals are like the batteries...]
Subaru couldn't help but be amazed by the sight.
Magical science, or should he call it arcane technology?
While Subaru occupied himself with such thoughts, the girl seemed to have finished her work, having extracted the spent mineral and closed the metal flap.
And, within seconds, Subaru felt a tingling sensation on his skin.
――There was a subtle vibration in the atmosphere.
[Subaru: It's like... when magic is being used]
Magic of tremendous force and magnitude―― like during the battle with the White Whale, and when Julius activated Nect in their fight against Petelgeuse.
Most likely, it was some kind of interference in the atmospheric mana, and his body was perceiving the corresponding shift in his own mana.
In this case, it was obvious what the mana was reacting to.
Before his eyes, he saw the crystal's faint glow rapidly intensify.
Translucent and blue, the crystal's radiance compounded in the darkness of the room as the girl's body grew ever more distinct.
And there, the magic circle inside the base, along with the crystal supported above, illuminated the room with blinding, pale-blue light.
[Subaru: ...Savepoint]
Subaru unconsciously muttered something that no one except those living in the modern age would understand.
A crystal on top of a magic circle, engulfing the room in a pale-blue radiance: That was exactly how Subaru remembered the familiar savepoint-crystals in his video games.
Captivated by the vivid spectacle, the silence in which it happened only adding to its mystique, Subaru held his breath, unable to voice his thoughts.
But, as he stood rigid in front of the mesmerizing sight,
[???: ――――]
Without paying him any mind, after switching out the magical mineral, the girl began heading out of the room, chucking the inert mineral into what seemed to be a waste pile.
Hearing the footsteps grow distant behind him, Subaru quickly reached out to her shoulder.
[Subaru: Hey, h-hold on... ah-, touched her]
[???: ――――]
With the apparent feebleness of her vibe and presence, Subaru had half-expected his hand to simply pass through her, but fortunately, his fingers wrapped around her shoulder and successfully stopped her.
Then, suddenly remembering that she was probably one of those girls who exploded upon contact with the Witch of Envy, Subaru's caution instantly heightened,
[???: ――――]
But the girl only quietly looked at Subaru, without showing any signs of exploding.
Somewhat relieved by this fact, Subaru met the gaze of the girl who was still quite intact.
[Subaru: Sorry for interrupting your work, but, I still want to ask… Can you not ignore me this time? I'm in kind of a jam here, you know]
[???: ――――]
[Subaru: So, what were you doing just now? Why's that crystal glowing? And do you know anything about the girl inside?]
[???: ――――]
Nothing was happening RE-TAKE.
No matter how many times he asked, the girl only gazed at him in silence. She wasn't refusing to answer, but rather, it was as if the choice wasn't even available to her.
The impression of a "Doll" hadn't changed at all.
[Subaru: If you could just manage some sort of yes-or-no communication then I'll have something to work with here...]
But, that wasn't happening.
Keeping hold of the girl who seemed to be ready to leave as soon as he let her go, Subaru turned to the crystal.
Nothing had changed about the girl inside her dazzling, glowing prison, but something else became clear with the intensified light.
She wasn't breathing, and it was clear that she had no pulse.
――The body of the girl encased in the crystal lacked all signs of life.
[Subaru: ...Suspended animation… would be an over-optimistic take on it]
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Just reheating frozen bodies to return them to life would be difficult enough. Not to mention that this girl's body was crystallized.
Freeing her would be like a pipe-dream times two.
[Subaru: Once again… I'm so damn useless...]
Defeated by his own sense of powerlessness, Subaru touched his fingers to the surface of the crystal.
He felt its coldness against his fingertips, and wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or enraged that this girl could not feel this chill eat away at her.
And, just as that sentiment scraped across his chest,
[Subaru: ――Eh?]
The coldness at his fingertips suddenly turned to heat, passing through Subaru's arm and coursing through his body.
[Subaru: ――O, ou, ouah!?]
What started as a warmth quickly turned to searing heat, scorching his entire body.
The flames running from his fingertips to his organs made Subaru recoil, crying out in pain.
Gripped by the suffocating heat, his screams echoed through the room.
Paying no heed to the filthiness of the floor, Subaru sprawled out onto the ground, convulsing as his eyes flashed between dark and light――and then,
[Subaru: ――Hhh, uh?]
Without so much as a warning, his time in Hell ended as abruptly as it came.
The heat ravaging through his body died away, and Subaru was suddenly released from the storm of agony.
[Subaru: ...wh-what the hell was]
Sitting himself up, Subaru muttered while checking over his hands and feet.
The sudden pain, and its equally abrupt end. He couldn't understand its cause or its purpose, and it left him only questions and a painful memory.
[Subaru: There's…nothing. But, if nothing happened, then…]
Why did it hurt so much when he touched the crystal?
Perhaps it was the arcane technology at the base of the crystal. Something like touching inside a machine and getting electrocuted.
Coming to that thought, Subaru suddenly remembered the Lewes-lookalike he had forgotten about while he was distracted by the pain.
[Subaru: Ah...]
[???: ――――]
Subaru scrambled to his feet, but the suspense fell away when he looked up and saw the girl's unchanged face. Then, through the unravelling tension,
[???: ――――]
――He saw the girl kneel down with profound reverence, bowing her head before him.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Seeing the girl on her knees, her head lowered, Subaru wasn't sure what to do.
If he wasn't mistaken, that gesture was a display of respect and submission towards him.
[Subaru: W-what're you doing all of a sudden?]
Having completely ignored him up to now, the sudden, drastic change left Subaru both surprised and skeptical.
Even if she was submitting to him like this, the gap between Subaru and the girl ran deep. Neither of them knew where the other came from, and, considering the circumstances, there was no way to not be suspicious.
[???: ――――]
In front of the cautious Subaru, the kneeling girl stood up.
Then, she lifted her gaze, as if looking at something behind Subaru's head. He turned around to see, but there was nothing there.
It was almost like how one would stare into empty space while thinking. And when Subaru turned back to her,
[Subaru: Uuoaa!?]
[???: ――――]
He saw the girl standing within breathing distance, right up against his eyes. Subaru tried to lean back, but the girl reached out her hand and grabbed him by the arm.
[Subaru: ...? You… want me to come with you?]
[???: ――――]
Saying nothing, the girl tugged on his sleeve, signaling him to follow.
Seeing her nod wordlessly to his question, Subaru only stood there, thinking.
Maybe the reason she was so stubbornly refusing to talk was simply because she couldn't. But she did seem to understand his question. So maybe, by asking Subaru to follow, she was trying to reply to what he was asking earlier.
[Subaru: Well, can't get the tiger's cub without going in the tiger's den, right?]
[???: ――――]
[Subaru: It's a thing from back home. ――Alright, lead on, I'll follow]
Subaru nodded back, gesturing that he'll go with her, and the girl started walking, still pulling on his sleeve. Following behind her, Subaru took one last look at the crystal.
――Same as before, the girl continued sleeping inside the pale-blue light.
Pulling him by the sleeve, she led him out of the room, through the corridor, the waiting area, and then, out of the facility.
[Subaru: So it's not inside, huh. Well, outside's ok too, but...]
If someone from the Sanctuary saw him, his stealth mission into the facility would be exposed. Although he didn't really do anything to feel guilty about, considering his current relationship with Garfiel, he'd rather avoid it this loop.
Just as he was worrying about what he should do if the girl starts leading him to the Sanctuary,
[????: ――What's that, sure's a complicated expression you got there, Su-bo]
[Subaru: ...Oy oy, what's with the timing?]
Stepping out of the facility and into the open air, he heard a voice calling out to him.
Turning to the direction of that voice, and seeing the person standing there, Subaru's lips slackened. Whether it was out of relief, or for some other reason,
[Lewes: I'm sure there're all sorts of things you want to talk about, but first, how about a change of location?]
[Subaru: Yeah, sounds good. There really are… lots of things we need to talk about]
Subaru shrugged in agreement.
And, in that moment, just what did she see when she looked at him?
――With her back to the moonlight, seeing Subaru standing beside a girl who looked exactly like herself, just what was the original Lewes thinking in that moment?
-=