Re: Life In The Original World From Zero [A Re:Zero Fiction]

Chapter 83: Modern Day Life Graduation Trip Part Seventeen

A/N: The struggle continues!!! Here's chapter 83!!! Please enjoy!!!

"Hihara Yuuto, the man with the Pride to command every single existing thing in the world, the Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult representing Pride. It's got a nice sound to it. Thanks for the inspiration, Natsuki."

The words rang loudly in Subaru's nonexistent ears. He burnt there, unable to make a move, burning until he felt the hands of death embracing him again.

"I love you."

A flash of light, a sudden input of horrible information, an abrupt pause of breathing, Subaru found himself back in the seat in the hall, where everything was fine, where everyone was well, where it all was about to begin. With a great shudder, Subaru wrapped his arms around himself, checking if everything was still intact. The sudden movement and the change in his expression caught the others' attention. Among them, Rem and Beatrice stared at him, their eyes widened. "Mana burning...!?!?! Mana! In our bodies!! How's that even possible??? How on Earth are we ever gonna fight this???" Subaru shouted in his mind as he got up, not caring about the fifteen pairs of questioning eyes that were on him. He left the table, stumbling a little as he walked through the sea of students and tables. It seemed to have become a fixed pattern, because when he came back to his senses a little more, Subaru was in one of the stools in the bathroom again.

Cold sweat was drenching his clothes as he recalled what had ended the previous loop. Hihara Yuuto, current leader of the mafia, the Hihara Family, was a descendent of a Sin Archbishop from the girls' world. How, why, when that happened were all unknown, and Subaru had no intention to find out. What concerned him was how they could counter Hihara's assault. With every failed loop, Subaru discovered more and more about Hihara's abilities. First, he found out that he could command, not only conscious people, but also unconscious ones; in the second loop, he found out he seemed to have been able to endure attacks and that he could make people suffocate; in the third, which was the last loop, he discovered, to everyone's utter shock and horror, that Hihara's ancestor had been a Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult, who might have contributed to the origination of the native magic users in this world, and what was even worse, Hihara's magical abilities were further enhanced once he had accepted the potion or curse or whatever it was passed down by the Sin Archbishop and he could now command inanimate objects and even abstract and indistinct things such as air, which was how he made them suffocate, and mana, which was how he made them burn from the inside and rendered them completely powerless in front of him.

Last and worse of all, he had guessed and was right about the girls' true identities. He knew now that they were not someone from this world but someone who were native to the world where his magic came from. He had learned about mana, and he had understood how it worked. This wasn't something that he only knew after they started the fight but something that he had gained knowledge about soon after the Yuki Matsuri, which meant that Subaru couldn't play dumb and pretend that he knew nothing about the girls and Hihara's origins, and he couldn't rule out the fact that Hihara wouldn't come to realize that he could make the mana in their bodies burn. In fact, he should consider that he had always known about it and hid it as his trump card.

Also, Subaru remembered that Hihara seemed to be able to deflect any magical attacks, as he had demonstrated by getting not even a scratch after being under attack of everyone's magic. Physical attacks seemed to have worked though. This wasn't a definite direction to go for, but it was definitely a start. But why? Why did physical attacks work? Subaru remembered blood splattering out his mouth when he punched him in the first round, and in the second round, he sustained considerable damage from the beat up as well. Was he simply not activating his powers when he was being punched by Subaru and the others in the first and second loops? Then that part of the second round came back to him. They were beating Hihara up, but quite suddenly, they were thrown away as if they were repulsing ends of two magnets. That had to be the result of his abilities. From that, Subaru could at least be sure that Hihara being unharmed by all the magic attacks was likely caused by his own magic.