In the soul realm, Greed began to frown.
The ancient, unshakable being—whose emotions had long eroded with time—felt something unusual: a strange, creeping uncertainty. His penance... his silence... gnawed at him.
Pride, noticing the rare expression, tilted his head and frowned as well.
"What's wrong, big bro? Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?"
Greed remained quiet for a few long moments, before finally voicing a single question.
"…How many times have you died?"
"Ohhhh, so big bro can be curious," Pride grinned, tapping his chin. "You can see everyone's memories in this place though. Are you really that curious about me?"
Greed remained silent, calmly staring.
Pride huffed. "Man, you have no fun reactions. At least when I talked to Gluttony, he gave me a proper audience… fine, let's see…"
He put a finger to his mouth and tilted his head, going quiet.
"First day… maybe 80 deaths. Around 10,000 deaths just trying to defeat Reinhard. Overall? I'd say around 100,000 deaths before I finally died permanently. Why?"
At this, Greed's mouth twitched slightly—like he was calculating something. Then he spoke in a cold, almost shaky voice.
"If this child's memories are true… we can never leave this place."
"Huh? Why?"
Greed turned to him, eyes blank. "Have you screened the child's memories?"
"Partly. It was fun rewatching some anime," Pride admitted shamelessly.
Greed looked away, clearly dissatisfied. "I see… you don't understand the fundamental truth of Return by Death."
Pride looked genuinely offended. "What do you mean, big bro? I understand that ability like the back of my—" He turned over his hand. "…Huh. It's kinda misty now."
Raising his voice, he continued, "We die and go back in time! You can die permanently if you complete your goal. Easy."
Greed's voice was deep, ancient, trembling ever so slightly. "Have you thought about the process?"
"…Process?" Pride muttered.
"Does that even matter?"
Greed's gaze darkened.
"Return by Death destroys the world. Every death… wipes everything clean just to restart. All those people… their memories… the forgotten timelines… What do you think happens to them?"
"But—wouldn't their Books of the Dead show up with ours, if that were true?"
Greed shook his head. "Their death isn't the point that triggers time's reversal. So… no such books. No records. No remnants."
Pride's smirk began to falter. "What… are you trying to say, big bro? You're starting to confuse me."
Greed sighed.
Sitting down, he leaned back and gazed up at the vast, dark ceiling—the sky of Toyota's soul, endlessly stretching and expanding.
"Think about it. Why are we here?"
Pride, mimicking him, leaned back too. "…Because this guy is someone who holds Anchor Beings. Did I get that right?"
"Correct," Greed replied quietly.
"Whatever this sad kid is," Pride muttered, "he collects Anchor Beings across the multiverse. To him, we're just… characters. What makes us anchors is that, in every timeline, we're the focal point."
"Really?" Pride cracked his fingers, skeptical. "Then what would've happened if the main route—or Envy, as he calls it—never showed up?"
He gave a crooked grin and continued, "Emilia and Felt would've died on Day 1. Puck would've gone berserk and destroyed half the kingdom. Reinhard would've been deployed to stop him. Crush's party? Dead to the White Whale. Sloth? Still rampaging across Lugnica."
Greed nodded. "Without our existence, this world is doomed. The focal point isn't always the strongest. Even when we give in to our emotions… we're still in control."
Pride sneered, eyes glinting. "Damn right. Reinhard could never be the best. So far, I've seen him be useless, even subservient—like, come on, Reinhard. Get a divine protection of a happy family or something."
He burst into laughter at his own joke, the sound echoing unnaturally in the starless realm of Toyota's soul.
Then Pride tilted his head and looked over at Greed curiously.
"Big bro… how many times have you died? I lost count at 500,000."
Greed didn't answer immediately. He viewed Pride with a dark, unreadable gaze—one that held emotions long buried, tangled together in a way no words could express.
"…The same amount as the stars in the sky," he said softly.
"Ooooh," Pride lit up with excitement. "How many is that?"
"…Too many to count."
"Ahhh, boring. Come on, give me an exact!"
Greed remained silent for a moment, before answering in a low, bitter voice.
"After over 100 million, I lost count."
Then, with a hint of dry amusement, he asked,
"…Have you watched Groundhog Day?"
Pride grinned. "Let me guess. Story of your life?"
Greed gave a faint nod. "On Echidna's behest… to figure out every detail of what I could change and affect… I spent nearly 20,000 years on a single day."
"Wow!" Pride howled with laughter. "You are such a simp!"
"It was to save everyone," Greed replied flatly.
But then—his voice dropped. A shadow passed over his face.
"…Now think. If we managed to take the body of this angry child… what would happen?"
Pride's grin faltered slightly.
"…What do you mean?"
Greed's eyes gleamed, empty yet heavy. "What happens if we, who have reset the entire world… killed everyone an uncountable number of times… combine with him?"
Pride's eyes widened.
It wasn't fear—not of death or pain. But something close. A realization of something so horrifying it scraped against the very core of his being. A forgotten, ancient dread.
"…You… can't mean…"
"We're Anchor Beings," Greed continued. "Every world we've touched… every timeline we've torn apart… all of that remains within us. The memories. The guilt. The souls."
"If we fuse with this child, and gain his ability—if that possibility exists…"
His voice trembled with cold gravity.
"…Then we are bringing over trillions, if not more, of souls. All from our tests. Our failures. People who hate us. People who died for us. People we promised to protect but forgot."
Pride could barely speak. His lips moved, but the sound was hollow.
Greed leaned in.
"With that ability… Soul Seer…"
"We need to remain separate from Toyota," Greed said flatly, his eyes reflecting a cold calculation. "His vessel is far too dangerous for us to directly inhabit."
He paused, then continued with measured weight.
"That's why I manipulated that child… to start with the Order of Souls he chose. If not for Sloth and Lust going first—disrupting his mental state in that exact way—we would've been utterly doomed."
Pride let out a long breath of relief. His shoulders slumped, his expression relaxing as admiration filled his face.
"You're amazing, Big Bro… How'd you even pull that off?"
Greed gave a dry, bitter smile.
"Simple. He wants his body back. The key was convincing him that following our plan would give him what he desired."
"But how did you preemptively know what ability he would gain from Gluttony?" Pride asked, squinting with suspicion.
Greed didn't respond immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the endless ceiling of the soul realm, watching the faint pulses ripple through Toyota's stretched and morphing soul.
Then, with a small breath, he answered.
"I thought you would've realized by now."
"These abilities he gains from our souls—they're not power in the traditional sense."
"They're concepts. Ideas. Interpretations."
Pride blinked. "Interpretations?"
Greed nodded, eyes narrowed slightly.
"When our souls merge with his, he doesn't inherit our powers like copying a spellbook. He reconstructs the idea of what we are. Gluttony isn't just about hunger—it's the compulsion to consume everything, including identity, meaning, and memory. What he gets from Gluttony won't be the same power—it's his mind's attempt to 'realize' the essence of Gluttony into something usable."
Pride clicked his tongue. "So it's like… symbolic? Or conceptual magic?"
Greed raised an eyebrow. "Exactly. It's the archetype, not the ability."
Pride frowned, scratching his head. "But that makes it impossible to predict."
Greed's eyes sharpened.
"No. That makes it possible to preempt—if you understand what kind of person he is."
He leaned back slightly, his tone more mocking now.
"After all… he's such a pitiful existence. All that power—and no one person to cling to."
Pride tilted his head curiously.
"…You're saying he's now attached to someone?"
Greed nodded. "I can feel it. A slight attachment forming… through Rei. Watch closely. When Henkiel arrived, his possessiveness spiked. He doesn't know what to do with those emotions, so he clings tighter."
Pride's eyes narrowed as it clicked. "So that's what that was… That flash of envy, that sharp twitch in his thoughts…"
He looked genuinely surprised for a moment, then grinned.
"So that little kid really can be human."
***
In another space, the Anomalous child stood silently—his body a writhing mass of shadow, ivory horns curling from his head, and countless eyes blinking in every direction. His attention was fixed on two newly formed memory tapes suspended in the void.
Wrath's tape was the first. It was massive—thick and heavy like an industrial roll of duct tape, stretching endlessly. It pulsed with crimson light, almost throbbing in his grasp. But then his gaze drifted to Gluttony's tape… and confusion twisted his expression.
It wasn't a tape at all. Not in the traditional sense.
It was a core—a small roll tangled with strands of dozens of different colors, branching out like chaotic weeds. Nothing was orderly. Some strands were short and looped back. Others stretched into the distance, fading into the shadows. It resembled a baitcaster fishing reel gone horribly wrong, knots choking each thread.
The child blinked, narrowing his eyes as he sifted through the memories again. His expression darkened with frustration.
"…Why are these not Subaru's memories?"
The scenes he viewed were jumbled. Random people—side characters from the story. Fragments of moments. Incomplete emotions. Some were blurry, others vividly sharp. He traced a strand, following it until it suddenly stopped. No beginning. No core.
"Am I… reading other people's Books of the Dead?"
He couldn't tell. He hated not knowing.
With a sharp snarl of frustration, he threw the tangled mess down, its strands flicking violently through the void like writhing snakes.
"Ugh, I'll just shove it all in! So annoying!"
But just before he acted, he paused.
He stared at Wrath's long, dense roll.
"…All of this is too long to edit…" he muttered, biting his lip.
Still gripping the two rolls, he turned toward the two floating silhouettes—Toyota and Subaru. Their unconscious forms hovered, wrists chained together by a spectral link of light. He studied them.
If I put the memories in Subaru… would it be different?
He'd never tested the composite bond directly. They were tethered—but would it matter who he fed the memories to? Would it spread through the link? Would it amplify one side over the other?
The shadow child stepped forward, his claws curled around the pulsing rolls, eyes narrowing with silent calculation.
"…Since it's so long," he muttered, voice flat, "I'll just start with Wrath."
***
He stood on the edge of a windswept cliff—both a metaphor for his crumbling sanity and a literal escape from the nightmare he'd stumbled into. The wind bit at his skin, but not nearly as cold as the thought pressing down on him:
"Should I jump and reset?"
"Should I run?"
His breaths were uneven. Chest tight. He didn't want to die.
And more than that, he didn't want to be blamed for Rem's death.
It didn't make sense.
She had killed him in the last loop.
So why… why was she the one dead now?
His thoughts spiraled, screaming for logic in a world that thrived on contradiction.
That's where Beatrice found him—tucked into himself in the dirt, curled like a trembling child. His nails dug into his legs, trying to hold himself together.
"I can't…" he whispered. "I can't do it. I'm not brave enough."
Beatrice didn't speak right away. Her eyes softened, expression unreadable behind those flower-petal irises. Finally, she stepped closer.
"I will honor our contract," she said.
"Until you leave this place, I'll protect you… I suppose."
That was all it took.
With numb limbs, Subaru stood up and ran.
But behind him came a scream—raw, filled with unbearable grief and fury.
Ram.
She chased him like a ghost fueled by vengeance alone, even with her magic depleted. Her footing faltered through the underbrush, but she kept going. Even as exhaustion dragged her down, she hurled curses, broken spells, and her voice like daggers.
She blamed him.
She believed he did it.
And in this world… maybe he had.
Eventually, silence fell.
No more footsteps. No more shouting.
Only wind and the rustling of disturbed leaves.
He doubled back—guilt eating him alive—to find her collapsed against the roots of a tree.
Her mana had drained past the limit.
The horn on her head—gone and sparking faintly—no longer channeled anything.
She was dying of mana poisoning.
Yet as her breath grew shallow, and her fingers twitched in weakness…
She still glared at him.
Eyes full of hatred.
Such Color, such honesty directed towards him.
(AN: I didn't think I would have to write a bonus chapter, since yesterday it was at 50 I thought I would get free time to start my new fanfic. You guys are making me feel conflicted. I appreciate the power stones, but you're making me work😭The last two chapters were really rushed, and I didn't like how it turned out, so I apologize if you feel the quality's going down.
I've set an official release schedule: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Although when I get bored, I add extra.
Bonus chapters will drop on Saturdays if my demands are met. 🔫
Trade deal:
You give me 80 power stones, and I give you a bonus chapter.
Sounds fair, right?)