Ichinose finally looked away from the forum on his computer. It was already past 7:50 p.m., with only a few minutes left before Episode 7 of Re:Zero aired. He walked into the living room, grabbed a bottle of soda, peeled back the foil on his barbecue takeout, and settled in front of the TV. That was what Friday nights looked like for an ordinary salaryman like him after work. As for whether tonight would actually feel relaxing or not, that depended entirely on how good this week's episode was. Last week's Episode 6 had shaken him so badly that he hadn't slept all night. This time, he only wanted one thing - something satisfying.
At exactly eight o'clock, Episode 7 began.
The first thing on the screen was a familiar ceiling. Ichinose had already seen that ceiling four times now. For Subaru Natsuki, this was the fourth loop of the mansion arc. When Subaru raised his head, the first people he saw were still Rem and Ram, and for the first time, unmistakable fear appeared on his face. Only a minute ago, from his perspective, those two had brutally killed him at the end of the third loop. And yet Subaru's greatest strength as a protagonist had always been this: his emotions were astonishingly stable. Even though he no longer wanted anything to do with them, he did not lose his mind, did not scream, and did not rush forward in blind revenge. Because, strictly speaking, the harm they had done to him no longer existed in this timeline. Here, they had not done anything to him yet. His anger had nowhere to land.
That was exactly why Ichinose admired Subaru's choice this time. Subaru simply stopped caring. He shut himself away in Beatrice's room and decided to rely on the Great Spirit's power to resist the curse. If he stayed there, Rem and Ram would have no chance to ambush and kill him again. He even made an agreement with Beatrice, asking her to protect him over the next few days. The moment Ichinose saw that, he nearly shouted in relief. Finally. Finally, you've learned to step back, Subaru. This is what you should've done from the start. You're the only ordinary human in that entire mansion. Why keep trying to save everyone? Lying low is the right choice here.
The instant Subaru chose self-preservation, Ichinose felt an overwhelming sense of vindication. None of the people in that mansion seemed especially trustworthy anyway. He should just find a chance to leave and be done with it. But then Beatrice truly took Subaru's hand and, in a solemn voice, made a promise with him, assuring him that as long as he remained inside the mansion, she would protect him. That one scene almost made Ichinose tear up. After dying three times in a hopeless situation, Subaru had finally discovered that among all the people he had wanted to protect, there had actually been someone kind. For some reason, that struck far deeper than expected.
Ichinose took a long drink of lemon soda, and his mood instantly lifted. From that moment on, he declared himself firmly on Beatrice's side. He had completely forgotten that just last week he had been arguing on the forums with Emilia fans while insisting that Rem was the cutest girl in the entire series.
This time, Subaru stayed in Beatrice's room through the fourth day - the day he had died in previous loops. And then, at last, he lived to see the dawn of the fifth day. When the morning sunlight spilled across the screen, Ichinose felt moved right alongside him. So this was all it took to survive. Give up the impossible fantasy. Give up trying to protect everyone. Stay quiet. Stay still. Do nothing. And you live. What was so wrong with that? What was wrong with giving up and choosing the safest path for once?
Then the story twisted.
Subaru survived until the fifth day, but someone else died.
Ram's cries echoed through Roswaal's mansion at dawn, and a chill climbed Ichinose's spine. Why was she crying? Why was Ram crying like that? The next scene gave him the answer.
Rem was dead.
Killed by the curse.
Ichinose blinked, his mind briefly failing to catch up. In the first and second loops, the one cursed to death had been Subaru. That was why, in the third loop, Subaru became convinced that some hidden evil was lurking inside the mansion and tried to protect everyone. His suspicious behavior only made people distrust him, and in the end, the sisters killed him. Because Rem and Ram had killed Subaru in both the second and third loops, Ichinose had unconsciously lumped Subaru's first death onto them as well. After all, if they could smash his head in one loop and cut it off in another, adding a curse to the list hardly seemed impossible.
But now the truth was obvious. If Rem had died from the curse, then Subaru's fear from the beginning had been justified. There really was some malicious danger hiding inside the mansion. Subaru had only escaped because he stayed beside Beatrice that night. The curse had missed him and taken Rem instead.
The moment Ichinose realized that, his chest tightened all over again. He had spent the whole time insisting that Subaru should stop caring about those people forever. But when Rem actually died, it still hurt. Her brutal murder of Subaru in the third loop had genuinely enraged him as a viewer, but the affection he had felt for her in the first and second loops had also been real. Watching her die like that left behind a bitter ache.
Then what followed made him even angrier. Because Subaru was the only outsider in the mansion, and because Rem had died at the worst possible moment, everyone except Emilia and Beatrice turned their fury toward him - toward the man tainted by the Witch's scent. Ichinose exploded at the TV. What the hell is wrong with you people? Why are you looking at him like that? Your sister died - what does that have to do with him? He spent the whole night hiding from you, and Beatrice can testify to that, and you still want to blame him?
But Ram would not listen. She clashed directly with Beatrice and Emilia, and even Roswaal was drawn into the confrontation. Subaru took one look at the situation and ran.
And just like that, the suffering began again.
Subaru only wanted to live. He had chosen to protect himself by staying beside Beatrice, but was a world where he survived and Rem died really the one he wanted? He knew that if he fled now, there would be no coming back from it. He could not explain why he carried the Witch's scent. He could not explain Rem's death. Even if Beatrice and Emilia believed him, it would not change anything.
To everyone else, only a few days had passed. But for Subaru, it had already been four full cycles of life and death. In the first loop, he had laughed together with Rem and Ram. And now Rem was dead, and Ram had gone half-mad with grief. What did I do wrong? We were smiling together not long ago. The music turned soft and sorrowful, and the emotion in the voice acting bled through the screen with such force that Ichinose felt it in his bones.
Subaru ran alone through the forest until he reached a cliff. There, he stood at the edge, staring down at the jagged rocks below with hollow, miserable eyes. If I die, will I be saved? If I die, can I change everything? But if all this struggle ends here anyway, then what meaning was there in struggling at all? And if I die this time... what happens to me then?
Ichinose understood Subaru's fear instantly. Subaru had never known whether Return by Death had a limit. If this was his final chance, would he really bet everything on it? Would he really risk his last life to go back four days and save the girl who had killed him in the second and third loops? The background music swelled without warning, becoming grand - almost sacred. How would he choose?
Ichinose's eyes turned red. Sure, a lot of anime fans online had been saying that Rem deserved a bad ending. But those were only angry words thrown around in the heat of discussion. When it truly came down to it, what he wanted was still the same thing Subaru wanted: a world where everyone survived, a world where no one got hurt.
In the original story, there was an IF branch right here - the point where Sora was preparing to split into the Wrath route. If Subaru chose to abandon everyone and live only for himself, then his heart would truly die here. He would flee, be hunted down by Ram, eventually grow up in a foreign land, gather powerful yet deeply self-serving companions around him, and throw the world into chaos until people came to call him the Purge King. A true fallen-protagonist route.
But in the main story, Subaru remembered something else. Before waking in that large bed in the mansion, he would often dream because of the horrors he had suffered in the previous loop. And in one of those hazy moments before waking, he had vaguely seen Ram and Rem holding his hands, their faces full of worry, looking at him with anxious concern. That image from his earlier dreams resurfaced in an instant, like a single ray of light piercing through the darkness of a heart about to go out.
Maybe Ram and Rem really did hate the version of him who woke carrying the Witch's scent. But before that - before he woke up tainted by it - there had been at least one moment when they truly cared about him. That was the instant Subaru's heart changed. That was the thought that shifted the entire course of fate.
The music changed again. Everything he had experienced with all of them through those four loops flowed through Subaru's mind. Ram, Emilia, Roswaal, and Beatrice had all caught up to him now, standing near the edge of the cliff. And in that moment, Subaru's fear of the future disappeared. Even when Ram questioned him, he answered lightly, almost calmly. Because he had already made his decision. There was nothing left in this world for him to fear anymore. Ichinose could feel it. He knew exactly what Subaru was about to do.
I really do love all of you.
The words Subaru had failed to say before dying in the fourth loop finally left his mouth - without hesitation, with a smile. Even if Ram had cut off his head in the previous loop, even if Rem had crushed his skull in the loop before that, he still could not lie to his own heart. Then he turned, faced the rocks below, and threw himself from the cliff headfirst, ending his life in the most decisive and tragic way possible.
At that moment, the music surged to its peak.
Ichinose forgot how to breathe. Watching Subaru hurl himself downward like a moth diving into flame, he finally felt tears gathering in his eyes. This anime had always gone out of its way to make one thing painfully clear: Subaru was afraid of death. Terrified of it. He was afraid of pain, afraid of being hurt, afraid of suffering. Even with the power to rewind through death, he had never once thrown his life away carelessly. Even with a broken arm, he still fought to survive. Even while the curse was killing him, he crawled desperately toward the room of the one person who might save him.
And yet now, that same Subaru had chosen suicide. He leapt from the cliff with a smile. He was terrified that this might be his final chance, that if he died now, there might be no next loop waiting for him. But he still did it - not because he had conquered his fear of death, but because his desire to save someone had finally become stronger than that fear. Even if that person had once killed him.
Then came the familiar ceiling once more. The bright room. Subaru waking up. And there, standing by his bed, still alive, were Ram and Rem, looking down at him with worry in their eyes. Ichinose had already seen that scene five times now, but this time it struck him harder than ever.
So this was Subaru's final choice.
If it had been Ichinose standing there, he knew he could never have been that generous. But Subaru had chosen to kill himself, return to the past, and save the very people he loved without holding onto any grudge. Ichinose could only respect that. And he was deeply moved by it.
Then the episode ended.
Just like that.
Ichinose sat there in disbelief, utterly speechless. The emotional high had barely faded, and all that remained was a miserable, gnawing frustration. So what would Subaru do in the fifth loop? Could he solve the curse? Could he clear up the sisters' misunderstanding of him? And this time...
would he still be killed?