Re:Zero: Wrath Route Yandere Emilia Watches the Projection

”But a madman… isn’t necessarily a fool, is he?”

Natsuki Subaru seemed to sense what Reinhard was thinking. He let out a cold laugh.

”I will kill you on the level of [Knight] and [Hero]. To that end, I will set the entire Royal Capital ablaze.”

”When the people you protect are screaming and there is nothing you can do — that is when Reinhard… the Kingdom’s Sword Saint… will already be dead!”

”Ha… hahaha…!”

With that, Natsuki Subaru could no longer hold back his laughter. It spilled out of him, wild and unrestrained.

Reinhard felt something shift inside him. Deep within, something dark and heavy was quietly taking shape.

”Why? Why are you doing this?”

At that, Subaru’s laughter slowly died. He repeated the words back with a blank, expressionless face.

”Why, indeed? That’s the question I should be asking!”

”Why are you so strong?”

”Why — why must you be so strong that my friends have to sacrifice themselves just to graze the hem of your coat?”

Natsuki Subaru’s voice trembled. He clutched at the fabric over his heart as though a tide of long-delayed grief had risen up and swallowed him whole.

Reinhard stood there, unable to comprehend what he was seeing — Subaru’s face streaked with tears, laid bare before him.

Could someone like this — a villain who had achieved his goal — still weep?

”Enough. Let me put an end to your suffering.”

On instinct, Reinhard raised his hand, intending to cut Subaru down with a blade of sword-force.

But he noticed his body wasn’t obeying him. Instead, his hand returned the sword to his hip — and he charged straight at Subaru.

Only then did it dawn on him.

Perhaps, in this moment, some part of him had judged that this — the weakest of all the Sin Archbishops — wasn’t even worth drawing a sword for.

And as it turned out, that was exactly right. The Subaru standing across from him could only watch helplessly as it happened.

Yet — just as Reinhard was about to close the distance and reach Subaru —

A dark shape flickered in from the side. A slashing blow swept out, halting Reinhard’s advance.

But Reinhard stopped it with a single hand-blade strike, shattering the edge of the weapon in the same motion.

”You are…”

Reinhard looked up — and saw that the one who had blocked him, still bleeding heavily from wounds all over her body, was the [Bowel Hunter], Elsa.

In his memory, Elsa should have already been eliminated by ”himself.”

And yet here she stood, seemingly returned from death.

”Meli… it was a failure of an older sister, to let you die while watching.”

Elsa’s clothes were shredded beyond recognition, yet a mournful smile touched her face.

In the next instant, she turned to face the red-haired Sword Saint with eyes full of hatred.

”The Kingdom’s Sword Saint… Subaru once said he would definitely kill me. It seems now that promise will have to go unfulfilled.”

Natsuki Subaru flinched at her words. He reached out, as if trying to grasp at Elsa’s back — so close, yet already turning away.

He was on the verge of speaking, guilt rising in his chest — and then —

Elsa tilted her head, showing him the breathtaking line of her profile. The corner of her mouth curved into a soft, gentle arc. Her long ponytail swept out behind her in the wind.

”Farewell — to what may be the only person in this world who truly understood me. My fellow conspirator — Natsuki Subaru.”

Elsa and Subaru held each other’s gaze one final time. That look carried a thousand things left unsaid.

”If there’s a next life — I’ll make you into a trophy that belongs to me, and me alone. Or perhaps… I’ll let myself belong entirely to you.”

And after that, not another word.

The killer and the hero who guarded the Royal Capital clashed in their final battle.

The scene before his eyes began to dissolve. Reinhard suddenly felt a powerful sensation of weightlessness seize him.

A moment later, his consciousness snapped back into his body in the waking world.

Reinhard slowly opened his eyes. The mingled stench of blood and mildew in the alley cut through his nostrils — yet it felt far less vivid than the cold, heavy weight that vision of the future had left buried in his chest.

Deep within his sapphire eyes, a trace of crimson had not yet fully faded — as if branded there by the flames consuming the Royal Capital, and by a hatred belonging to ”himself” that would not let go.

”Is this the warning the world has given me?”

He murmured the words quietly, his voice carrying an unshakeable resolve.

”Witch Cult Archbishop of Pride — Natsuki Subaru.”

”I — Reinhard van Astrea, heir to the lineage of the ’Sword Saint’ — swear it!”

”I will stop your wicked scheme to burn the Royal Capital — and more than that… I will strangle your evil in its very cradle!”

Reinhard’s gaze flickered as he called to mind the foreign memories that had surfaced in his head.

”Soon, someone will alert the guards to surround the Bowel Hunter in the Slums… now that I think about it, that someone must have been the man who later grew so close to the Bowel Hunter — Natsuki Subaru!”

”I cannot afford to delay!”

”That siege will leave the guards annihilated — and I must stop that tragedy from happening!”

Now that he knew the Bowel Hunter was not so easily killed, he would not leave a single loose end.

He would cut them both down without fail — the Bowel Hunter, Elsa Granhiert, and the Archbishop of Pride, Natsuki Subaru. Utterly. Finally.

The decision crystallized in his mind, absolute and immovable.

He didn’t linger a moment longer. His silhouette blazed into motion — a streak of crimson lightning that swept soundlessly out of the alley and dissolved into the deepening dusk settling over the Royal Capital, bearing straight toward the Slums.

——That vortex at the center of what was to have been a killing ground, where so many guards’ lives would have been swallowed.

His speed was extraordinary. The wind roared past his ears. The streets blurred and fell away behind him.

Closer. Closer to his destination…

The moment Felt — golden-haired girl — stepped back inside the Loot House, she saw it: Old Rom, the man who had raised her from childhood, dangling in the air, one hand wrapped around his throat, hoisted aloft by a woman clad in dark violet.

”What do you think you’re doing? Let him — let go of Old Rom!”

Felt’s furious cry tore from her throat. Her figure surged forward wrapped in a gust of wind, her golden hair carving a blazing trail through the dim warehouse.

Her wind blessing granted her explosive speed far beyond any ordinary person.

She drove her fist forward, every bit of her worry for Old Rom behind it, hurling herself straight at Elsa — so panicked that she’d already forgotten about the badge clutched in her own hand.

But Elsa — poised, elegant — didn’t even turn around.

A subtle shift in that violet silhouette, and one slender leg rose with uncanny precision, as if she’d seen it coming from the very start. It missed Felt’s fist by a hair’s breadth — and her foot came crashing down on the girl’s abdomen with crushing force.

”Ugh——!”

A dull, heavy impact rang out.

All of Felt’s momentum collapsed in an instant. She was sent hurtling backward like she’d been hit by a battering ram, a choked cry escaping her as she slammed into the wall and raised a cloud of dust.

The pain folded her in on herself where she fell, barely able to breathe — and the badge she’d been clutching so tightly flew from her grasp, tracing a faint arc of light through the air.

Elsa didn’t spare Felt a single glance — as though she’d merely kicked aside a sack of rubbish.

The hand that had been throttling Old Rom released just as carelessly, tossing the large old man aside like a worn-out burlap sack.

At the same moment, her other hand shot out like lightning — and snatched the badge clean out of midair with pinpoint precision.

”My, my. You’ve kept me waiting longer than I expected.”

Elsa turned the badge over idly between her fingers. Those crimson eyes carried an amused, playful glint as she turned to look behind her.

In the distance, Natsuki Subaru and Emilia had only just arrived — too late to have seen any of it — and were standing there, taking in the scene.