Pride and Greed sat around the glowing ball of scarlet malice in ominous silence, something deeply uncommon for the chatty, self-proclaimed Sin Archbishops. Both recalled the moment their silent sanctuary had been penetrated, leaving them inattentive to the outside world as they processed what had occurred in their own minds.
Pride lay face down on the dark floor, spread-eagled, lazily dragging his arms outward in what could almost be considered reverse snow angels. Nearby, Greed stood with a slight hunch, absently chewing on his thumbnail. The new experience had enlightened them to an uncomfortable truth: even within this space, they were not untouchable.
That realization weighed particularly heavily on Pride, who, despite his constant remarks of dissatisfaction while watching the being he repeatedly called immature, whose existence he was forcibly spectating, found undeniable entertainment in judging everything with a detached, godlike perspective.
This place, though seemingly a sinister and harsh prison for what could be considered failed versions of an isekai protagonist, was surprisingly entertaining to these nihilistic beings who had lived such repetitive, wary, mistrusting, faithless, and depressing lives. They could access each other's memories like movies, or, if they wished, live through them with full immersion of all five senses. Given the absurd amount of material available, boredom was nearly impossible.
Along with the meta perspective granted by the child–monster–alien hybrid they currently inhabited, it brought a dramatic shift in how they perceived the gravity of their otherwise completely comical situation. Though they understood that this being saw them merely as counterparts to a fictional character, they were profoundly unwilling to consider that possibility.
Within this space, they felt no pain, no stress, no hunger, thirst, or even fatigue. Sleep was unnecessary, yet available if desired. They could interact with the vessel itself, but interference from the true owner of the body, the one Toyota referred to as the parasite, also called SCP-001-7, rendered such attempts pointless unless they made contact with Toyota while he was busy processing the memories of those already transported.
All that was truly missing was better lighting and decoration to soften the gloom. It could not be called heaven, but in no conceivable way was it hell.
If anything, it resembled a deserved afterlife.
Although Pride was certain that, if not for the Witch's possession over his soul, he would have long since been cast into the deepest, darkest pits of hell, he found himself oddly unbothered by the thought. Nothing less was deserved for the countless lives he had stepped over, sacrificed, and destroyed in pursuit of his disgusting, selfish goals.
He knew exactly how unredeemable he was.
And yet…
He had no regrets.
He was satisfied.
Or so he had thought.
*Flashback*
What at first appeared to be four massive vertical crescents forcibly invading the darkness grew larger and larger, luminous moons ripping through the inky black. As they advanced, the crescents revealed themselves to be fingernails, unimpeded as they tore the conceptual space asunder, moving toward the lethargic duo still immersed in their chosen selections.
Pride had a favorite playlist of memories, all of them obsessively involving Emilia.
Reruns of Lust's bedroom escapades played endlessly, the half-elf's sweet, erotic moans drifting into his ears like a forbidden form of ASMR. At times, the sounds were replaced by Regulus's pathetic death shrieks as he was thrown onto burning coals, limbless.
Both were music to his ears.
Between the screams of an enemy and the cries of a lover, who was he to discriminate?
Wrath's pure white room offered a quieter intimacy. There, he slept upon her lap pillow, warmed by the comforting softness of pale thighs as gentle fingers threaded through his hair. In Greed's memories, Emilia always rushed to care for him, to depend on him as her sole pillar, and the warmth it brought to Pride's chest was all he needed to exist.
Sound. Smell. Touch. Sight.
Every sense was glutted.
Though Pride never pried into Greed's preferences, it was obvious his counterpart's mind operated on an entirely different wavelength. With his utilitarian nature and chronic lack of contentment, whatever he experienced was likely less indulgence and more study, discipline drilled into him by that Manipulative Puppet master.
Such a sad existence.
An eternal pawn.
Yet Pride felt fulfilled simply by experiencing the life he could only dream of. He did not consider any of it inappropriate. Since being isekai'd, the only thing he had ever truly cared about was that one kind-hearted girl.
He believed himself not shameless.
Only romantically pure.
The illusion shattered as a chilling sensation slithered down his spine.
Pride shot upright.
His eyes locked onto something moving within the void.
A pale, slender hand descended languidly, a size vast enough to cradle both him and Greed within its palm. Immediately, he shifted to Toyota's vision to gauge the situation.
The Shadow Garden.
There were many layers between reality, soul, and mind. Concepts that seemed simple often contained infinite partitions. Yet a dimension like the Shadow Garden was an outlier, a domain where no cosmic laws applied.
Only the Witch, its creator, held absolute dominion.
Unaware of what had led to this moment, Pride frowned.
Wasn't that kid about to kick the pretty-boy knight's ass?
No matter how strong a soul's willpower, resistance correlated directly to the soul's grade. Against the Witch, within her own domain, none of that mattered. Her miasma passively invaded the minds of those she wished, corrupting their souls merely through proximity, staining them in her color.
If not for his considerable resistance, he might have already thrown himself mindlessly into her embrace.
"Shit. Wake up, big bro."
Greed remained frozen, pupils dark and glassy, body statue-still.
After a brief internal debate, Pride lunged forward and drove his shoulder into Greed's stomach. Greed's body snapped inward like his old flip phone before Pride hoisted him over his shoulder, carrying someone his exact size like a sack of potatoes.
Greed caught on quickly, processing the situation through countless mental channels.
The hand reaching toward them possessed a feminine allure despite its enormity, a delicate charm capable of corrupting the very soul. Love itself seemed engraved into what should have been a platonic body part. An intoxicating warmth radiated from it, heat rivaling even the Soul Furnace.
Seeing the Witch's intent directed squarely at them, Greed spoke.
"If we stay within her proximity, the miasma will corrupt our minds. Use the core as an obstacle; it should be able to filter out the foul air emitted by her."
He raised his foot, angling his toe toward the hovering scarlet sphere of hatred.
"Got it, big bro."
Pride sprinted, tracing a wide semicircle around the Soul Furnace to maneuver it as a shield, Greed still draped over his shoulder like a coat.
"Put me down," Greed ordered, voice deep and cracked with weariness.
Pride tilted his shoulder, letting him fall.
"It's not what you think, big bro. I wasn't really going to do it."
Greed stared at him with hollow, alien eyes that no mortal should possess.
"So you weren't imagining using me as a sacrifice to momentarily appease the Witch?"
The deadpan delivery made embarrassment crawl up Pride's spine.
"Ergh…"
Caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, Pride's voice turned coy.
"Well, not anymore, obviously. Come on, big bro, you know better than anyone how it's a dog-eat-dog world. It was only a last-resort solution. I wouldn't want to lose my only pen pal."
He tried again.
"Self-pal… confinement-pal… soul-pal…"
Failing to find a suitable title, he abandoned the effort and refocused on the new variable.
The Witch's hand moved forward slowly, on a collision course with the impediment standing between it and its single-minded drive. Hand trembling, speeding up as if equally impatient to reach its dearly beloved.
Then—
The living sphere of wrath moved.
As if newly sentient, it accelerated to a speed bordering on teleportation and slammed into the enlarged hand.
A clash erupted.
All-consuming, jealous love crossing dimensions…
Against a wrath so absolute that it wished existence itself to continue only so it could suffer perpetually.
Smashing into the Witch's palm like a thrown baseball, the scarlet sphere jarred her hand violently backward. Instead of rebounding, it dug deeper into the hand, transfigured to fleshless shadow, black tendrils erupting from the point of impact and spreading rapidly, tracing across her palm before curling around her fingers like a closing curtain.
All of it happened in an instant.
This was the Witch's physical attack nullification.
Continuing her counterattack, she clenched her hand, attempting to engulf the ball of hatred entirely.
A sharp sound split the void.
Like glass cracking.
Fractures spiderwebbed across the orb's outer shell until the noise was drowned beneath the overlapping voice of a boy.
"Bullshit! What do you know? What the hell do you actually know about me, huh? Nothing! I'll tell you what kind of man I really am! I have no strength, but I want it all! I have no knowledge, yet all I do is dream! There's nothing I can do, but I struggle in vain like an idiot!"
The words struck something buried deep within Greed.
Nostalgia flooded his mind.
Why did they sound so familiar?
Despite his earlier agitation before the Witch, he had remained composed, convinced the sphere could force even her into a stalemate.
"I… I hate…"
His lips moved before he realized it.
"I hate myself."
Words from a far more complete version of himself.
A past self.
The core of the sphere blazed brighter, outshining the darkness swallowing it whole. The sound of charring flesh hissed through the air as the Witch's hand began to disintegrate, shadow peeling away like burned paper.
Then—
The speech cut off.
It was because the tendrils of shadow erupted from the collapsing grip.
As if reevaluating the target from something she must destroy to something she must possess.
The murky shadows re-shaped into hands grasping, pulling with manic impatience, they gouged a massive chunk from the red sphere, tearing 1/7th of the core apart before tightening possessively around their prize.
The ownership of whatever was within that shard transferred in silence.
The Witch's hand, now bearing a cavernous hole through its palm, was violently dragged back into the abyss beyond the space.
But the degradation of her appendage had not decreased, as it was seen exiting the fingers now absent.
The two souls could do nothing but watch the Witch retreat.
In deafening silence.
"…I withdraw my previous statement," Pride muttered. "Perhaps I don't need to feel that wanted."
"You really are shameless."
"I am you."
"…"
"…Why do I feel like you know far more than you let on? That line you mouthed…" Pride tilted his head. "It can't just be your age-addled, dust-filled mind hiding secrets from little old me… can it? Or am I just another variable you plan to dispose of the moment I become inconvenient?"
He leaned forward, smiling faintly.
"You are capable of such a thing, aren't you? Or what… do you find me that threatening, old man? You won't let me in on whatever you're scheming, hiding behind the excuse that 'little reindeer' might hear."
His smile sharpened.
"Do you think I believe that bull? You should have acted quicker. What were you watching that was so distracting?"
Greed moved.
Not quickly.
Not violently.
But with intent.
He stepped into Pride's space until barely a breath separated them.
The smile he wore was wrong.
It carried killing intent.
The first undeniable proof that he possessed a will far more ferocious than Pride had ever approximated.
He was not a hollow spectator.
"Old man?" Greed repeated softly.
Pride blinked.
Greed's eyes narrowed into crescents, devoid of humor.
"What you said earlier was correct. I am you. We are both Subaru Natsuki." His voice lowered. "So why? Why do you insist on provoking me?"
A step closer.
"What do you gain from this petty intimidation? Are you even capable of making me feel anything?"
The air tightened.
"When I was alive, the only value I possessed was Return by Death. My life was currency. Infinite. Inexhaustible. My death was worth more than anything I could have offered while breathing."
Each word landed heavier than the last.
"Everything I carried in my mind existed for the sake of others."
His voice thinned.
Dangerously.
"And yet you… you selfish bastard."
For the first time, emotion bled through.
"You pick and choose memories to indulge yourself. Instead of learning from your failures, you delight in the failures of others just to feel taller."
His stare hardened.
"You are satisfied with your feats, never caring how deeply others suffer because of them. Tell me… how much do you think the Emilia you left behind cried? You destroyed everyone's future just to build hers."
A pause.
Measured.
Cold.
"You are, by far, one of the most childish failures among the six of us."
Another breath.
"While I may be a failure… at least I admit it. You hide inside self-deluding fantasies."
Silence stretched.
Then the fracture.
"We are similar in only one regard."
His gaze bored straight through Pride.
"Our fucking body count."
Silence collapsed between them.
Pride froze.
"It is nothing more than proof of our reliance on that cursed ability," Greed continued quietly. "Reliance on the Witch."
It was the first time Pride had ever heard him speak with such naked emotion.
For a fleeting second…
He wondered if he had gone too far.
"I knew that line because I said it," Greed went on, voice rougher now. "It is how I feel. Watch Envy's memories. Learn from them, you disgusting scum…"
A bitter exhale.
"I am you."
A beat.
"Yes… I am you."
His eyes darkened.
"And I, too, am scum."
Then—
"I'm sorry," Pride said quickly, lifting his hands in surrender. "I was just messing with you, big bro. Don't take it so seriously."
Greed said nothing.
And somehow…
That was worse.
The dull ache in Pride's chest made him realize the warmth he had felt earlier was never truly his.
He had only been borrowing the happiness of others.
How long had it been since he last felt guilt for his actions?
Should he follow Greed's advice?
Envy was a loser. Utterly painful to watch. Just thinking about him made Pride feel uncomfortable in his own skin. He hadn't even made it past the first week of those memories… should he really continue from where he left off?
After a long deliberation, he finally came to a reluctant decision.
I can watch it in increments… if it gets too uncomfortable, I'll just go back to my sweet Emilia ASMR as a break.
"…HUH? Where did it go? What happened to Envy?"
***
Crack!
The sharp sound of a practice sword smashing against Crimson's skull rang out, followed immediately by the sickening note of bone giving way.
(AN: This dialogue sequence took a lot of thought. Getting the right emotional weight into these characters wasn't easy. For those of you who haven't read the Greed IF or Pride IF, this scene might be a little confusing, but I tried to flesh it out enough that you can grasp the general tension.
If you want to read Re:Zero for free, Witch cult translations has the Webnovel and IF Routes.
Now the true story begins.
You're about to see what the MC is like without Subaru's mentality guiding him.
Up to this point, the MC may have seemed overly moral… even heroic to the point of boredom. He has always tried to maintain a modicum of respect for others.
But what happens when he doesn't want to be the hero anymore?)