Nobody told me how long I had been in the hospital. It could have been months or years.
I never received a single visitor, neither from my friends nor from the rest of my family.
Although I was disappointed that no one cared to see me, I later understood that they were probably too busy with their lives to bother talking to the deranged young man who couldn't process reality.
It would be a sad and awkward reunion, given my mental state.
But if they had come, maybe that would have helped me accept this new phase where I had lost what mattered most to me, unable to do anything to protect it.
Being alone, I got trapped in a loop. Wake up, feel miserable, sleep. Wake up, feel miserable, sleep. Wake up, feel miserable, sleep.
All day, every day; each time with less hope, less will to get out of bed.
I grew tired of chatting with Doctor Daniel. He kept saying he still needed to make sure there was no risk of relapse before discharging me.
So I spent my time wandering around my room, through the hospital hallways, or out in the courtyard.
I hated being alone with my thoughts. I constantly tortured myself thinking about what kind of dark future awaited me outside the hospital.
I also thought about the other world. I wondered if I could go back, if maybe I would be happier living that lie for the rest of my days.
There was pain over there too, but there were also good things, people I cared about, and an identity I liked—not because I was a masochist, but rather because in that world, I was important. I was necessary.
I was, right? I had definitely helped make that world a better place. Without me, many would have died…
But others would have survived.
"Ha…"
I was sitting on a wooden bench in the courtyard, surrounded by trees. It had rained, and my face was reflected in a puddle of water beneath my feet.
Rem would have scolded me for thinking like that.
But Rem wasn't real. Nothing that happened was real.
Even before my parents died, I always clung to fantasies to escape my insecurities, the fear of facing the world on my own.
This was the result: a man with no future, a hopeless madman, a failure of a person.
"You're a pathetic guy, Leandro Lagostena."
I muttered, looking into my own sad, empty eyes.
I felt something break.
It was probably what was left of my sanity.
Slowly, my body began to lose its strength. My head fell onto my chest, and my eyelids felt incredibly heavy.
"That's it. Sleep, sleep forever, and never wake up."
I heard the voice of Doctor Daniel, who sat beside me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I couldn't quite hear what he said to me, but he seemed quite upbeat, as if he were happy about something.
In contrast, I was falling, or rather, sinking into an abyss of darkness.
A part of me grew desperate to surface, to avoid being consumed and disappearing. My heart pounded heavily, sensing the danger.
"I'm sleepy, Doctor…"
"I know. You can rest now. You don't have to think about anything else."
"Doctor…"
"Yes?"
"You hate me, don't you?"
"Yes. I hate you more than anything in this world."
"Why?"
"Because you took everything from me. You stole everything from me."
His grip turned oppressive, crushing my neck and suffocating me.
"NOW GIVE ME BACK MY SOUL, GIVE ME BACK MY NAME, GIVE ME BACK MY IDENTITY, GIVE ME BACK MY EXISTENCE!"
Daniel's strength was irresistible, overwhelming. Although I tried to break free, I couldn't move his arms at all. Little by little, I stopped fighting and gave up.
Maybe it was for the best.
I wouldn't have to suffer anymore. I wouldn't have to question my existence, its value, and its purpose.
But then, my body moved again, revitalized by some kind of golden energy that began to leak from my eyes and mouth.
"Ha! Why would I do that? It's so much fun being the protagonist. If you don't like being in my shadow, blame yourself for being a weakling."
My body moved on its own, speaking and performing actions that I couldn't comprehend myself. Apparently, my other selves had taken control.
"WHAT ARE YOU…!? YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO USE THAT POWER ANYMORE!"
His voice trembled with a mixture of hatred and fear.
Ignoring him, I grabbed his head with my hand and squeezed tightly, making him scream.
"You want your soul back?! Fight for it!"
I began to absorb his essence directly: the fragment of the soul that made up his existence, just as happened with the Doppelgängers.
Then I saw his memories.
***
Natsuki Subaru was desperate.
It all started (or ended) suddenly.
One day, the world shook with the appearance of an anomaly.
It was an existence that transcended the laws of the universe, a living calamity.
Immediately, Reinhard tried to stop the entity with all his power, but he was completely eradicated.
Even Satella came out to protect her beloved from the threat, but she too was wiped out without a trace.
Two virtually immortal beings, the most powerful in the world, fell like flies.
Subaru understood that the world was doomed.
He had been stripped of his ability to reset, unable to reverse that destruction.
And worst of all, that entity turned its attention to him some time after finishing off Satella.
Subaru could only accept his fate.
He thought that perhaps his life was a story written by a cruel author who held a grudge against him.
He was almost like Spider-Man, a character built for suffering.
Resigned, Subaru offered his life without resistance, but the entity didn't take it.
Not in the way he thought it would.
Instead, Subaru was consumed by that entity. His essence was usurped and corrupted.
His soul became the new skin covering the calamity's true form, containing its power and shielding the world from its true nature.
Meanwhile, the impostor took his place in the world, making pacts with the witch who summoned him and the witch who intended to guide him, only to then start acting like the genuine protagonist of the story.
He wreaked havoc on the timeline. He reset the world millions of times. He lived multiple lives following different paths. He became friend and foe to everyone, acting as hero and villain, creator and destroyer.
Meanwhile, Subaru was trapped inside his own soul, inside his own stolen body, forced to watch without being able to intervene while the impostor did whatever he pleased, treating the world and its inhabitants as if they were part of a game, as if everyone were fictional characters he could mess around with.
Little by little, Subaru understood that the impostor was neither a god nor a human: he was a monster. The worst part of all was that Subaru couldn't protect his friends and had to watch everything that monster did to them.
The only one he always left alone was Emilia, as he felt the reflection of Subaru's intense love for the half-elf. But other than her, he spared no one.
Subaru hated him with his entire being. Hatred was the only thing keeping him conscious.
And one day, he was finally freed from his prison.
To his surprise, it was Pandora herself who offered to help him reclaim what was his, even granting him the position of Archbishop of Pride just to secure his cooperation.
The mission was to become a Sage before Leandro—a competition. However, to Subaru, none of that mattered. He only craved one thing.
Revenge.
***
Once again, Subaru experienced the familiar sensation of fading into nothingness.
Assimilated again.
In the dark again.
Forgotten again.
Again…
"NO… YOU WON'T WIN AGAIN!"
In a burst of willpower, Subaru managed to break free before being consumed by Leandro.
Even so, he was terrified. In his infinite hatred and eagerness for revenge, he had pushed too hard.
Even he, an Archbishop of Pride, knew he couldn't defeat him with that approach.
If he wanted to defeat Leandro, the best strategy would be to crush his spirit, to shatter it into pieces.
And to achieve that, he needed more time.
"GET OUT OF HERE! DISAPPEAR!"
Much to his dismay, Subaru gave up the struggle and expelled the soul fragment that had detached from Leandro when Reid killed him.
He had planned to take advantage of his death to absorb him, but it was arrogant to believe it would be that simple.
Even when he tricked him with an illusion that made him question if his journey to another world was real, believing that everything was false and that he had lost everything… it simply wasn't enough.
But it shouldn't have been surprising. After all, Leandro was a monster. Even if he was a normal human in the past, he could no longer be considered one now.
"THIS ISN'T OVER, YOU SON OF A BITCH…"
Panting, the Archbishop of Pride collapsed onto a table.
Despite the failure, his mind was already planning the next move.
Nearby, a male voice made a sound of disappointment.
"So you failed."
Subaru grunted.
"Shut up, Roswaal."
"I told you it wouldn't be that simple, didn't I?"
In response to the rebuke, the archbishop raised his head, locking his eyes onto the mage's.
"I won't be impatient anymore. Besides, it was a good way to learn how his mind works. As long as he doesn't have all his memories, he's still vulnerable."
"What if he recovers them?"
Subaru's expression darkened.
"He won't. He'd have to kill me to achieve that."
"And to kill you, he'd have to overcome your Authority of Pride."
Roswaal smiled maliciously.
"Even knowing exactly how your authority works, not even I can think of a way to kill you."
Subaru nodded, staring into space with a thoughtful expression.
"This time, he won't beat me."