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Reinhard dies.
He opens his eyes.
He’s in a hallway, or a corridor; its walls are vast and its ceiling vaulted. It’s beautiful, and grand, and a perfect pristine white. The air is entirely silent and tepid and still. There are no marks on the wall.
Reinhard looks around, as blank as the hallway around him. He blinks, and sighs, and then turns around and punches the wall nearest to him.
The air whirls and swirls and crashes around Reinhard’s fist. The sound rings down the hallway.
There are no marks on the wall.
Reinhard stares at the spotless expanse for a moment. It burns a blinding, seamless white. His uniform looks grey against its idyllic perfection. The splashes of red on him—his hair, his blood—are jarring in contrast with such a monotonous glare.
Jarring too is the complete lack of wind, of movement, of any form of life in this place.
Except for Reinhard.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Lady Felt will be waiting for me,” he says, and his voice is so quiet that it doesn’t echo.
He opens his eyes again and smiles to himself. It’s a wry smile. It fades until Reinhard’s expression is once again as intemerate as the walls around him.
He stares out, first one way up the hallway and then the other.
Up ahead is a dark spot, bold against the white.
Reinhard squints at it.
He flinches back. His eyes fly wide open.
His hand goes to his sword and he grips it tightly. The spot hasn’t moved; pensively Reinhard stares. Then his expression smooths away once more and he strides towards it.
As he gets closer he speeds up. The spot turns into a figure, then a person.
They’re sitting down and leaning against the wall, slumped over and casual, one leg extended and the other pulled close. It’s the opposite of any sort of attacking position—even Reinhard would have a difficult time springing to his feet, were he sitting like that. They’re watching him as he approaches.
Reinhard stops right in front of the figure. He looks down at it. “Subaru?”
Subaru blinks up at him. He grins and waves. “Apparently it takes fifteen minutes to start hallucinating in complete vision deprivation,” he says conversationally. “It’s been way more than fifteen minutes. You’re late! I’m not blind right now, though, I guess. But that endless, repetitive white should definitely count! And the temperature. Have you noticed the temperature? It’s really hard to notice. It’s awful. It’s absolutely perfect. You can barely feel it! I’m almost feeling sympathetic towards Elsa. Elsa! I already tried Return by Death, though…”
Reinhard blinks at the gust of words. “Subaru—What—Where are we?” His voice is tense, and lost.
“Reinhard-Hallucination, you’re very chatty,” Subaru says. “That isn’t your line. Aren’t you supposed to guilt me or something? That’s what they always do in the movies. Hey, maybe this is a solitary confinement thing! People sometimes hallucinate in that, right? I feel like I read somewhere that it worsens existing medical concerns…”
Subaru trails off. He looks back up at Reinhard. He laughs.
Reinhard slowly kneels down beside Subaru. “You’ve...been here alone for a while?”
Subaru tilts his head at Reinhard. “Shouldn’t you know? You’re my hallucination, after all.” He snorts. “A very accurate one, wow.” He unfolds a bit and shifts towards Reinhard. “Or maybe not so accurate—why are you bloody? Reinhard would never be bloody.”
Reinhard runs his hand through his hair, then stops with a wince.
He looks closer at Subaru, his eyes lingering on Subaru’s clothes and bandana and cloak and face.
Subaru doesn’t say anything. He greedily watches Reinhard watch him.
Reinhard shifts back. “Tell me a lie,” he requests. He blinks, then adds, “Please.”
“I never lie,” Subaru counters immediately. A wind blows across him, ruffling his hair. He looks around. “Hey, where’d that come from?” He frowns. “Tactile hallucinations too?”
“You are Subaru?” Reinhard asks.
Subaru’s frown deepens. “Who else would I be?”
“You are Subaru?” Reinhard repeats.
“Yeah, I’m Subaru,” Subaru says. He crosses his arms with a scowl. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I know I’m having identity issues right now, Reinhard-Hallucination, but you don’t have to be so insistent. Have some subtlety!”
No wind ruffles Subaru’s hair. The air is perfectly, painfully still.
Reinhard has gone pale. “Where are we?” Reinhard asks again, strained.
“Od Laguna,” Subaru shouts, spreading his arms grandly. His smile isn’t happy. He’s still sitting down. His voice echoes down the chamber as he laughs. “Hey, Louis, where you at?”
Subaru pauses for a moment. The echoes of his voice fade. He shrugs. “Must be somewhere else, then.” He laughs again. “Maybe she got bored of me! No new memories to eat—maybe she’s watching other-me. I wanna be watching other-me. No, wait, that sounds stressful. And awkward. No one wants to watch their younger self.
“I’m really confused on the mechanics of this,” Subaru continues, now contemplative. “Am I just a copy? Am I dead, for real? Did she—”
“Subaru,” Reinhard interrupts.
Subaru glowers at him, annoyance clear. “What?”
“You said we’re in—Od Laguna?”
“Yeah, kind of.” The glower disappears. Subaru tilts one hand back and forth, rocking in place. “The Corridor of Memories. The occasional pit-stop right before Od Laguna. The rainbow bridge!”
“So this is a place between life and death,” Reinhard confirms carefully. He looks away from Subaru. He opens his mouth. He closes it. He asks, “Does everyone go here?”
Subaru shakes his head. “Louis gave the impression that it was only an occasional thing,” he says. He grins. “I think she’s lonely.” He leans forwards conspiratorially, and his voice turns sharp. “Good.”
“So—why—” Reinhard clears his throat. He sits down fully, his legs tucked beneath him and his sword across his lap. He tries again. “Why are you here?”
“Why am I here now, Hallucination-Reinhard?” Subaru repeats.
Reinhard nods in confirmation. He holds the sword on his lap tightly. His eyes go distant for a moment.
He is not smiling.
“Why not earlier?” Subaru continues. Reinhard startles.
Subaru lifts his hand to his chin, affecting an exaggerated look of deliberation. “Well, I’ve been thinking—my soul must not be escaping, or something, when I die. Like, Satella must snatch it up before I can end up here.” He nods and thumps his fist on the flat of his hand. “But the books provided a short cut, and since I wasn’t actually dying, she didn’t know to whisk me away in time.”
He sighs. “Reading Reid’s book was a really stupid decision on my part.”
The air is entirely and undeniably still.
Reinhard’s eyes aren’t distant at all, now. They’re locked onto Subaru.
He runs one hand through his hair again, quick.
“Satella?” Reinhard repeats. His voice is carefully controlled. Only at the end does it waver, just a bit.
“You’re right, I should give her a nickname!” Subaru says, bright. “She’s my reason for living, after all! By the more literal definition, at least. Emilia-tan is closer to my heart, metaphorically.”
“That… wasn’t what I was asking.” Reinhard exhales. He pries his hands off the sword. They tremble, almost imperceptibly.
He pulls off one glove and drops it on the ground. It looks dirty against the white floor. Neither Subaru nor Reinhard spare it a glance.
“What are you doing?” Subaru demands. He leans back, pressing himself against the wall. “You’re my hallucination. I’ve never seen Reinhard with his gloves off. You can’t do that.”
Reinhard grabs Subaru’s hand.
Subaru freezes.
His face pales.
Glassy-eyed, Reinhard shudders.
“You’re—real,” Subaru croaks.
Reinhard draws his hand away. It’s shaking. “You’re real,” he echoes, and now his voice is shaking too. “Why are you—?”
He falters before he finishes the question.
“Why are you here?” Subaru does not. “You can’t be here. You’re Reinhard. You can’t di—oh.”
Reinhard nods distantly. His hands are still shaking. “Yes. I died for Felt. I’ll be back there soon.” He takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. His hands stop shaking. “And you..?”
Subaru draws his legs close to himself. “It’s—don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s nothing new.”
“You come here often?” Reinhard says, tight.
Subaru snorts. “I’m already seeing someone,” he says. He shakes his head, quick. “No. I’ve never been here before.”
“Yet you said…” Reinhard trails off.
Subaru bites his lip. “I say a lot of things, Reinhard,” he says. “You shouldn’t take me seriously.”
“You’re not a liar, Subaru,” Reinhard tells him. The air stays still; the wind doesn’t blow.
“Maybe I’m not Subaru,” Subaru counters. “Didn’t you hear? Maybe I’m someone else—maybe I’m a copy. Maybe I’m the endpoint.”
“You feel like Subaru. You act like Subaru.”
“Memories are fickle things, Reinhard,” Subaru says, at once ignoring Reinhard’s words and gently responding to his meaning. “Have you ever forgotten yourself? Who are you when you’re all alone, without yourself for company?”
Reinhard glances at his glove on the ground. “I remember you, Subaru.” He’s talking fast in some parts and slow in others, limping through the sentence like a dog that’s too afraid to run away. “Emilia does, too. Felt, Anastasia, Crusch, Julius, Beatrice—you’ve touched a lot of people. They’ll all remember you.”
“No, they don’t,” Subaru says fondly. “That’s okay, though. Starting from zero isn’t too bad. You can climb back up, eventually. That’s not the point, though.”
Reinhard doesn’t argue.
“Or—I guess it kind of is the point,” Subaru continues, introspective and quiet. “I guess I’ve gotta have faith. I’ve lost count of how many times other-me has failed, but I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve failed, too. Maybe he’ll get back to his feet. Maybe he’ll find me.”
He shrugs. “Or maybe he won’t. That’s—I don’t want to die, but—it’s better that there’s one Natsuki Subaru out there than none. I—I can believe that.”
He falls silent again. The air is quiet.
Reinhard stares down the empty, empty hallway. “Subaru,” he says, treating every syllable with care. “Why are you here?”
Subaru looks at him. He says, “I’m waiting.”
Reinhard takes a deep breath. “For what?”
Subaru smiles. “I’m waiting to know that, too.”
Reinhard stands up suddenly. The fabric-rustle of his uniform is loud in the silence of the corridor. He holds out his bare hand. “I’ll get you out of here, Subaru,” he swears.
Subaru glances at Reinhard’s hand. “Thanks, Reinhard,” he says. “You’re such a hero. I don’t think I can use you, though. There’s a different hero I’m waiting for. We’ll see if he decides to show up on time.”
Reinhard draws his hand back, close to his chest. “You can’t be dead.”
“That’s right!” Subaru shoots Reinhard a strange gesture, one with his thumb and pointer finger extended. “You’ll see me later. Hopefully I’ll see me soon.”
The space around Reinhard shimmers and warps in a phoenix-fire heat-wave distortion. Reinhard’s face twists. The air around him twists, too. “You can’t be dead,” he repeats.
“I’m not,” Subaru says, breezy. He’s watching Reinhard go and still smiling. The air burns and shrieks and writhes. “See ya around.”
Reinhard blinks. When he opens his eyes, he is standing with Felt. He is alive. He is wearing only one glove.
“Reinhard!” Felt shouts, panicked.
Reinhard smiles. “Glad to be back,” he says. “Everything will be okay now,” he says.
The wind blows.