(Rem x Reader) Re:Reader - Starting YOUR New Life in Another World

Chapter 165: Unlikely Ally

Chapter 165: Unlikely Ally

*Cough!* *Cough!* *Cough!*

Mouthfuls of foul-tasting water spilled from YN's lips as he gagged and hacked, one trembling hand scraping uselessly against slick stone before finally finding a handhold. With a guttural grunt, he dragged himself forward, fingers curling around the jagged edge of a fractured stone facade that was once part of a nearby building that had been torn loose and tossed aside when the floodwaters had slammed through the district.

Every muscle in his body screamed in protest.

It wasn't just exhaustion clawing through him, but the deep, aching burn of oxygen deprivation, his lungs still struggling to remember how to work properly. His chest hitched violently as he sucked in air, each breath shallow and painful, as if his ribs themselves were on strike.

For how long had he been in the water?

He couldn't say.

Time had lost all meaning while he'd been swept along. He had been tossed and submerged and hurled back to the surface again and again like a buoy in a hurricane. All he'd known was the instinctive fight to breathe and stay afloat. It was only now, washed into this narrow alleyway, where the collapsed walls and angled stone had formed a kind of accidental lagoon, that the current had finally loosened its grip on him.

Completely soaked and exhausted, this was the first time his body had been allowed anything close to rest since he'd been flung into the waters by Gluttony.

His muscles throbbed relentlessly, his lungs still burned with every breath, but those physical pains were nothing compared to what followed once his body finally stopped screaming for survival. As the adrenaline bled away, his thoughts crept back in, and with them, came an awful realization.

YN: ...Damn it!

The heel of his fist slammed into the stone beneath him with a dull thud. The impact sent a sharp jolt up his arm, but it was pathetically weak. Had he possessed even a fraction more strength, he might've cracked bone or split skin, but as it was, his body simply didn't have enough left to punish itself properly.

YN: He got away... —He slipped away!

His fist came down again.

And again.

Each blow barely echoed throughout the narrow alley, another testament to how weak he currently was. With every strike the lament YN had for himself grew by the second.

YN: Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

Even his shouts were weaker than he knew himself to be, which continued to be salt in his wounds.

He'd let Gluttony get the upper hand.

That single truth alone was unbearably heavy, but it didn't stand by itself. It was the first in a growing list of sins YN had committed just today.

He hadn't warned Garfiel or the others about the incoming flood.

He had let Algol be carried off by the dragon.

And Subaru...

YN clenched his jaw, his breath hitching; he had no idea where Subaru was.

Logically, he knew Subaru had to still be alive. There hadn't been a Reset. That alone was proof enough. But logic did nothing to quiet the gnawing dread in his gut. The longer things remained like this, the less of a chance they had at rescuing Emilia, who was still being held by Greed.

Forcing himself to steady his breathing, YN tipped his head back and stared up at the sky. An array of thick clouds stretched overhead, but the setting sun had begun to dye them with streaks of orange and soft pink. It was certainly beautiful, but in a distant, uncaring way, for now, the full reality of their situation pressed down on him with crushing clarity.