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{3rd Pov}
"You…!" Subaru snarled, glaring at Zero with pure venom in his eyes.
His entire face twisted with hatred so intense it looked like it physically hurt him to hold it back.
The fury burning inside him wasn't just ordinary anger—this was rage built on betrayal, confusion, and the crushing weight of everything he had just witnessed.
He had heard every word of Zero's grand announcement, and out of everything that had happened, that was the part that cut him the deepest.
It wasn't the deaths, it wasn't the chaos, and it wasn't the destruction.
The worst pain came from realizing that Zero had supposedly been acting from the very beginning.
Every threat, every move, every intimidation—if all of it was just part of some elaborate façade, then Subaru didn't know what was real anymore.
But even with that claim, nothing made sense to him.
If Zero was merely acting, then how the hell did he know about Return by Death?
Despite Subaru's efforts to piece the puzzle together, that one detail stuck out like a knife in his brain.
Return by Death was supposed to be his absolute secret—a curse, a burden he carried alone.
No one was supposed to know it existed, not even those closest to him.
Yet Zero had mentioned it casually, as if he had lived with it for years.
And then there was Beatrice.
The second Beatrice.
The girl who looked exactly like the Beatrice he knew, yet wasn't.
Zero had shown up with her at his side, acting like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Subaru kept replaying that moment in his head, and each time it only deepened his confusion.
How did Zero know her contract?
Her mannerisms? The way she talked? The way she reacted?
It wasn't something someone could replicate easily, not even with months of observation.
And Zero hadn't just acted similarly to him—he had behaved exactly like him.
His habits, his speech patterns, the strange combination of arrogance and self-loathing… it was like Zero was a distorted mirror image of Subaru himself.
And the final blow—Zero even knew Subaru's parents' names.
The exact names of the two people who existed in a completely different world. Subaru felt his stomach churn at that realization.
That wasn't a detail someone could randomly guess or dig up.
But when he thought about it—when he remembered that the so-called "leader" of this newly revealed Witch Cult faction was an actual Witch, not a human—everything started clicking together in his mind in the worst way possible.
A Witch whose power could bend reality itself.
A Witch capable of rewriting memory, altering perception, even pulling information from other worlds.
If someone like that existed, then knowing Subaru's secrets wouldn't be hard at all.
Of course she would know about Return by Death.
Of course, she would know about Natsuki Kenichi and Natsuki Naoko.
Of course, she would know about Beatrice and Zero copying Subaru's personality.
Nothing was impossible for someone with real reality-bending abilities.
And the more he thought about it, the more everything hurt.
Zero had forced open a massive crack between Subaru and the people he trusted the most.
He had ripped apart relationships that Subaru had carefully built with his own blood and tears.
Otto's desperate efforts, Garfiel's unwavering resolve, Beatrice's loyalty—Zero had used all of it as fuel for his twisted performance.
And then, one after another, Otto, Garfiel, and Betty had died because of Zero's actions.
They had died horribly, pointlessly, brutally—all for an act.
An act meant to gain control over the Witch of Envy that Subaru had never asked for.
An act that treated their lives like they were disposable props.
Each death played repeatedly in Subaru's head like a nightmare that wouldn't end, and each repetition only made his hatred grow deeper and stronger.
His hands trembled violently as he glared at Zero, his teeth grinding together so hard they almost cracked.
Every breath he took was filled with bitterness and rage.
The more he thought about what Zero had taken from him—what he had destroyed—the more his hatred intensified, rising like a storm ready to tear everything apart.
"Subaru, we meet again," Zero said calmly, as if the chaos around them didn't matter at all.
Subaru, however, stared at him with bloodshot eyes full of hatred, disgust, and betrayal so thick it felt like poison in the air.
"You… you fucking liar!" Subaru roared, his whole body trembling with fury.
"You fooled us! You fooled me! Because of you, my friends are dead! Otto is dead! Garfiel is dead! Beatrice is dead! All of them died because of your bullshit! I hate you! I hate everything about you!"
He clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, drawing blood.
"I indeed lied," Zero replied, completely unbothered by Subaru's rage.
"In fact, from the very moment we met, I have done nothing but lie to you and to this entire world. Lies, deceptions, façades… I have used them all. But that doesn't change the fact that some of my words were true. Not everything I said was meaningless."
"Fuck you!" Subaru snapped back.
"I'm done listening to your garbage! I won't let you manipulate me anymore, not even for a second!"
His voice was cracking, half from anger and half from sheer exhaustion.
Zero watched him without flinching.
"I suppose I can't expect you to believe me so easily," he said.
"And honestly, I don't blame you. I understand you, Subaru… because I am Natsuki Subaru."
"Shut up!" Subaru spat.
"Stop using my name! Stop pretending to be me! You're not me—you're just a monster wearing my face!"
Zero spread his arms wide open, as if offering himself to fate.
"Then I will prove it to you. Right here, right now. Call her. Summon the Witch of Envy. Tell her to attack me with everything she has. If I'm lying, she'll kill me instantly."
Subaru froze for a second.
He didn't know what the hell Zero was planning or what kind of twisted gamble he was attempting.
Nothing about this made sense anymore.
Zero's behavior, his confidence, his knowledge—Subaru had no idea what to trust or what was part of another manipulation.
But one thing he did know, one thing that burned through all confusion, was his thirst for revenge.
He wanted blood.
He wanted to tear apart everyone who had ever used him.
Everyone who had lied to him, betrayed him, or treated him like a disposable pawn.
Zero was just the first on his list.
"I'll give you what you want," Subaru muttered, his voice breaking into a feral scream.
He pointed at Zero with a trembling, hate-filled hand.
"Envy!!!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, as if trying to rip open the sky with his voice alone.
"Envy! If you kill him—if you kill this bastard—I will love you!"
Zero's eyebrows twitched the moment Subaru shouted those reckless words, because this was literally the first time he had ever seen a version of himself openly command the Witch of Envy given that he had only seen other two versions in person, one who was already dead by the time he had arrived in that timeline.
Even for someone like Zero—who had already experienced timelines full of insanity—giving direct orders to the Witch of Envy was something even he had never done, although he could do.
The idea of treating that insane, obsessive entity like some obedient pet was ridiculous, borderline suicidal… and yet here was this world's Natsuki Subaru doing exactly that without hesitation.
Well, I guess he is indeed Natsuki Subaru, after all Zero has done same in his timeline.
(A/N: Hmph! You are the one to say)
Despite Subaru's mind being clouded with pure hatred, frustration, and emotional overload, he somehow managed to say the one line that could actually influence the Witch of Envy: using "love" as a bargaining chip.
Zero begrudgingly had to admit it—even if this Subaru was mentally a wreck, his freakish talent for attracting non-human, unstable women was just as strong as his own.
Natsuki Subaru's supernatural chick-magnet energy was absurdly consistent across worlds.
Zero, watching the chaos unfold, decided to silently assist the situation for the sake of his plan.
Reinhardt was still clashing with the Witch of Envy in a battle that was ripping apart the battlefield, but Zero ended that immediately.
Without lifting a finger physically, he invoked his Authorities—Lust, Life Manipulation, and Death Manipulation—stacking them together for an instant kill.
The strongest Sword Saint in the entire recorded history of Lugunica collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, his life snuffed out in a single, unceremonious moment.
With Reinhardt dead, the Witch of Envy was instantly freed from her distraction.
The second she heard Subaru's desperate, emotionally charged declaration—"If you kill him, I will love you!"—she immediately went into heat, consumed by that same twisted love-obedience dynamic she always had for Subaru.
Just the idea of the person she adored promising affection was enough to override every other instinct she possessed.
She rushed forward without the slightest hint of resistance, ready to fulfill his wish.
In that single moment, Subaru achieved something that not even the three great heroes of legend could accomplish.
Not even Satella herself, the one who held Envy's origin, had ever been able to command the Witch of Envy with direct authority.
Yet this enraged, broken, but unbelievably reckless Subaru managed to do exactly that.
(A/N: LMAO, every version of Natsuki Subaru has that husband-mode)
The Witch of Envy lunged forward, her long black hair swirling wildly like a storm behind her.
Her glowing purple eyes were locked onto Zero with an intensity that could melt steel, and her entire body was coated in thick miasma, turning her skin pitch-black.
From her back, hundreds of shadowy hands erupted outward, shooting straight toward Zero with murderous intent.
But the moment the shadow hands reached a few inches away from him, everything froze.
Every single hand stopped mid-air as if they had slammed into an invisible wall, and Envy's killing intent vanished in an instant.
The overwhelming pressure she emitted simply dissolved, leaving her staring blankly at Zero in utter confusion.
She blinked once, then twice.
Then she slowly turned her head toward Subaru… then toward Zero… then back to Subaru… and then Zero again.
She repeated this back-and-forth stare several more times, like she was trying to process the world's most difficult puzzle.
Subaru, meanwhile, stood rooted in place, his entire body trembling in disbelief.
He had absolutely no idea why the Witch of Envy wasn't tearing Zero apart.
Not even a scratch, not even a twitch of aggression.
Nothing.
His mind instantly jumped to the worst conclusion—maybe Zero had some hidden technique or some sick Authority that allowed him to dominate or manipulate the Witch of Envy.
After all his plan was to use him to summon the Witch of Envy.
The thought made Subaru's stomach twist in horror.
Of course, he had no idea that Zero had been telling the truth the entire time.
Despite the lies, the deception, and the fake persona he had been using earlier, Zero really was Natsuki Subaru—just one from a vastly different timeline.
And the Witch of Envy recognized that instantly.
"Subaru? Subaru? Subaru? Subaru? Subaru?" the Witch of Envy repeated like a broken recorder, her voice glitching with confusion.
It was probably the first time in her entire existence that she genuinely had no idea what was happening.
Her head jerked back and forth between the two figures, her expression trying—and failing spectacularly—to process the situation.
"TwoSubaru? TwoSubaru? TwoSubaru? TwoSubaru?" she finally stuttered out, the realization crashing into her like a meteor.
There weren't hallucinations.
There weren't clones.
There were actually two Subarus in front of her.
Two real ones.
To her, this was basically the greatest discovery of her cursed immortal life.
Now she didn't have to obsess over just one Subaru—she could go full yandere on both versions at the same damn time.
"Both mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!" she shrieked, her envious nature exploding like a bomb as she instantly decided that the only correct choice was to claim both Subarus for herself and never let either of them go.
Without hesitation, dozens of her shadow arms shot out and wrapped around both Subarus, lifting them into the air like captured toys.
Her expression twisted into something disturbingly ecstatic—an unholy mix of pervert-level excitement and obsessive affection, like a deranged predator finally obtaining its favorite prey.
"Dammit! Kill him! Why the hell are you grabbing me?!" Subaru yelled, thrashing as he was held up. Panic and rage mixed on his face as the situation spiraled out of control.
This was supposed to be his trump card—his final weapon against Zero.
Satella was the last thing he could rely on.
And seeing her completely ignore his command to instead cling to him like some deranged, clingy nightmare made him feel his hope evaporate.
If this didn't work, he had nothing left to contend against Zero.
"Idiot! Can you not listen to what she is actually saying? She's already figured it out—she's realized there are two Subarus standing in front of her right now, you and me, and now she wants to have both of us for herself!" Zero snapped, finally spelling out the situation for him.
Subaru, hearing that, went completely gobsmacked.
His expression froze as the realization hit him like a hammer.
Zero wasn't joking, exaggerating, or pulling some mind game—he was telling the truth.
And if what he was saying truly was the truth, then Subaru had to confront a very uncomfortable question: why had he made that earlier declaration that he wasn't Subaru at all, and was only manipulating everyone for his personal gain?
What was the point of that lie if it only made things more confusing?
Not only that, but the contradiction regarding his supposed goal made everything even worse.
His stated purpose from the very beginning was to change him, Subaru of the past—that was the entire reason he had come back to the past.
But now a massive paradox was staring him right in the face.
If he entertained the theory that Zero was merely pretending to be Subaru, and that the Witch of Vainglory—or whatever the hell her real title and abilities were—was actually so absurdly powerful that she could twist reality to such an extent that even the Witch of Envy herself couldn't properly identify the true Subaru or assert control over her authority, then what did that imply?
It would mean that Vainglory's power was so overwhelmingly broken that she could have freed the Witch of Envy by herself without anyone's help.
That alone made the theory feel almost stupid.
But if he considered the opposite theory—the one where Zero was the real Subaru, which would explain why the Witch of Envy wasn't targeting him—then a different contradiction appeared.
Why did he even bother making that earlier dramatic announcement in the first place?
It served no strategic purpose whatsoever.
Before he made that claim, he had already explained his motives for traveling into the past clearly enough.
So what was the point of adding another statement that contradicted everything he had said earlier and only made the situation even murkier and harder to make sense of?
Everything felt like a jumbled mess of conflicting logic, and none of it was lining up in a way that gave him even a sliver of clarity.
Subaru was utterly confused, his mind spinning from everything happening at once, when Zero suddenly said, "I'll explain everything to you—Hey! Oi! Take your damn hands off there! What the hell do you think you're doing, Witch?!"
Only then did Subaru also notice the Witch's hand slowly creeping toward his private areas, and he panicked even harder, struggling like his life depended on it.
Ahem.
Without any warning, Zero's aura exploded outward, an overwhelming surge of power bursting from him.
And before Subaru could even process what was happening, Zero smacked the Witch of Envy on the head—just a single strike—yet all of her power instantly dissipated, collapsing like dust in the wind.
She dropped straight to the ground, completely unconscious, almost like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.
(A/N: Zero really just bonked her and said NO HORNY!)
Subaru stood frozen, eyes wide, completely stunned by the absurd display of overwhelming strength.
He genuinely couldn't tell whether Zero had simply knocked the Witch of Envy out… or straight-up murdered her on the spot.
"Relax. I haven't killed her, if that's what you're thinking," Zero said immediately, as if reading the thoughts forming in Subaru's mind before he could even voice them.
"Damn it! You're definitely reading my mind, you bastard!" Subaru yelled, glaring at him with a mix of shock and irritation.
Zero only shrugged casually and answered, "You're just that easy to read. That's your problem, not mine."
Despite the situation, Subaru let out a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding.
The relief that washed over him was real and undeniable.
As ridiculous as it sounded, he was genuinely glad that the Witch of Envy wasn't dead.
Even he couldn't fully understand why he felt that way.
Logically speaking, he should want her gone—she was the one who had dragged him into this other world in the first place, and she was the one responsible for saddling him with this broken, cursed ability instead of giving him actual strength like a normal cheat protagonist.
But despite all of that… some part of him refused to want her dead.
He simply couldn't bring himself to hate her enough to wish for her end.
And beyond that, he had made a promise to Satella—a promise he intended to keep.
No matter how much of a mess things became, he had vowed to save her, and that vow wasn't something he could ignore or run away from.
"Now then," Zero said, snapping his fingers with a sharp click, and in that instant Priscilla materialized beside them.
Subaru finally realized something he had somehow missed until now—the environment around them wasn't normal at all.
They weren't standing on solid ground or inside a familiar room.
Instead, they were trapped inside some strange, box-like space.
Each of the six sides had an eerie, shimmering barrier covering it, almost like they were sealed inside a giant cube of distorted darkness and warped light.
"Just so you know, I used Al Shamak to create this place," Zero casually explained, waving his hand around as if the bizarre pocket dimension he had created was nothing more than a slightly messy living room.
"Consider it a private little dimension for us to talk without interruptions."
Priscilla, however, didn't care about the sightseeing.
The moment she appeared, she instantly summoned the Yang Sword, flames crackling with enough heat to reduce everything around her to ash.
She lifted the blade high, fully prepared to strike Zero down and vaporize him where he stood.
But before she could even move an inch, her body froze completely, like invisible chains had locked her in place.
She couldn't even tilt her head.
"Priscilla… I know you feel betrayed after hearing my earlier announcement," Zero said in a calm, steady tone, as if he were talking to an angry child rather than an enraged empress holding a sword capable of burning the world.
"Unshackle me, you swine!" Priscilla hissed, her voice overflowing with fury so raw it felt like it could burn through the air.
"How dare you deceive mine divine self?!" She glared daggers at him, her expression twisted with scorn, outrage, and pure hatred.
After hearing Zero's recent announcement, she had put the pieces together.
She now believed that the entire story she had been fed—the idea that Zero was the future Subaru, the idea that he was her destined partner in another timeline, the idea that he had fathered Gloria with her—was nothing but a complete fabrication.
Realizing she had been tricked, humiliated, and manipulated sent rage exploding inside her.
She felt so infuriated, so deeply insulted, that in her heart she wanted to kill Zero not once or twice, but at least a thousand times over.
If she could have moved, she would have sliced him apart and incinerated whatever remained until not even ash survived.
"First of all, I am not the one who tricked you into believing that Gloria is your daughter," Zero replied in a calm, matter-of-fact voice.
"You reached that conclusion entirely on your own." He raised one brow as if mildly annoyed that he even had to clarify something so obvious.
"Secondly, I already told you—I am Natsuki Subaru. But explaining everything from the very beginning is a hassle, and I have no patience to walk you through every detail piece by piece. So instead, I'll just feed you the information directly."
Without waiting for further objections, Zero extended his hand, and a surge of power spread out from him.
In the next moment, he transferred memories—cut, trimmed, and selectively arranged—straight into Subaru's and Priscilla's minds.
The memories included the circumstances of their summoning into another world, the countless times they died, the endless loops, the pain, the desperation, and the completely separate paths both versions of Subaru had taken in their different timelines.
Even Subaru was forced to witness Zero's version of events—how Zero, or rather the Subaru from that alternate line, possessed a slightly different variation of the Authority of Envy, a version that made him unbelievably overpowered and pushed him into becoming something terrifyingly strong.
Of course, Zero conveniently left out anything related to Ayan—his other past life, the fragments of memory he carried, and every romantic moment he had experienced.
Those memories remained hidden, sealed away from both of them.
By the end of the transfer, both Subaru and Priscilla staggered, grabbing their heads as if their skulls were splitting open.
Their minds were overloaded, and they struggled to process the flood of information that had been dumped into their brains all at once.
Confusion, disbelief, and shock were written all over their faces.
"Priscilla," Zero said, turning toward her with a flat expression, "why don't you discuss with Subaru whether what you just saw is true or not? Compare what you received with his memories."
Then he added, "After that, we will talk. And I will finally explain why I have done all of this—why I lied to you, why I manipulated you, and why I carried out every single so-called heinous act."
He lifted a hand, pointing at both of them as if marking the moment.
"From this point on, only the truth will be laid out in front of you."
To be continued...