Chapter Text
I've been summoned to a parallel world!" Subaru shouted, throwing his arms wide.
"I've been summoned to a parallel world!" another voice shouted at the exact same time, with the exact same tone but this time feminine.
Subaru froze. He slowly turned his head.
There was someone standing ten feet away from him. Someone who'd apparently also just screamed like an idiot. Someone wearing a white jacket with orange, dark, and had the same messy black hair he did. Someone who was with their arms thrown wide in the exact same pose he was in.
The person lowered their arms at the same moment Subaru did, and their eyes met.
Subaru's brain stuttered to a complete halt.
It was him?.
No… wait. Not him. Her?
The face was his face, just more feminine…..the same features, the same sharp eyes. But where those features on him were awkward and unremarkable, on her they were... stunning. Things that he'd always been self conscious about somehow looked elegant on her face. Her eyes seemed larger but not in a bad way, framed by longer lashes. Her features were softer, more delicate, but arranged in a way that was genuinely beautiful. The body was slimmer, unmistakably feminine, with curves in places Subaru definitely didn't have curves. Her hair was styled differently, falling past her shoulders in a way that made her look almost ethereal.
It was strange and more than a little unsettling to see his own features transformed into something that could genuinely be called beautiful.
What Subaru didn't know, couldn't know, was that Natsumi was having the exact same thoughts in reverse. The features that looked plain and unremarkable on her somehow worked on him. The things she was self conscious about somehow looked good on his face. His eyes had an intensity that hers lacked. Where she saw herself as awkward and tomboyish, he somehow looked handsome in a way that made her chest tighten with an emotion she couldn't quite name.
They were mirrors of each other, both convinced they'd gotten the worse end of the deal.
She was staring at him with the exact same expression of complete and utter shock that Subaru could feel on his own face.
They both scrambled to compose themselves at the same time, never breaking eye contact.
"What the fuck," Subaru said.
"What the fuck," she echoed, her voice higher than his but with the same tone of disbelief.
They stared at each other for a long moment. A cart rattled past between them, the driver calling out something though neither of them moved.
"Okay," Subaru finally said, running a hand through his hair, a nervous habit. "Okay, so I'm either having a psychotic break, or I got hit by a truck on the way back from the convenience store and this is my dying hallucination, or—"
"—or we both got isekai'd," she finished, and Subaru's stomach dropped because she'd completed his thought in the exact way he'd been about to say it.
"You're..." he started.
"You're..." she said at the same time.
They both stopped. Started again simultaneously.
"Are you—"
"Are you—"
"Stop that!" they both shouted.
A nearby merchant gave them a strange look and hurried away, muttering something about "weird kids."
The girl, the other him, whatever she was, pressed her hands to her face. "This isn't happening. This is insane. I'm going insane."
"You and me both," Subaru muttered. He took a step closer, studying her. The resemblance was uncanny. Impossible.
"Who are you?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer wouldn't make sense.
She lowered her hands, and her expression was complicated, confused, frightened, but also strangely fascinated. "I'm... Natsumi. Natsumi Natsuki."
Of course she was. Because apparently the universe had a sense of humor.
"Subaru," he said. "Subaru Natsuki."
"I know…" she said quietly. "You're... you're me. Or I'm you. Or we're both..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "This doesn't make sense."
"Yeah, welcome to the club." Subaru looked around at the fantasy medieval city surrounding them. "Nothing about this makes sense. Where even are we?"
"I don't know. I was just leaving the convenience store and then—" Natsumi's eyes widened. "Wait. You were at a convenience store too?"
"Yeah. I'd just bought cup noodles and—" He looked around for his shopping bag, which was in his hand… "And then I was here."
"Same," Natsumi breathed. "I was heading home from the store and suddenly I was just... here." She hugged herself, looking small and lost. "What's happening to us?"
Subaru wanted to have an answer. He wanted to be confident and reassuring, to tell her everything would be okay. But he was just as scared and confused as she was, and lying about it seemed pointless when she was literally him and would see right through it anyway the moment he saw her or himself he felt reality bring him back to his senses not even letting him dream of adventures or a heroic journey just the reality of his situation now.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But... at least we're not alone?"
Natsumi looked at him, and something in her expression softened. "Yeah. At least there's that."
They stood there for a moment, two halves of the same person, equally lost in a world that they shouldn’t be in.
"So," Subaru said eventually, because standing around wasn't going to help anything. "I guess we should... figure out where we are? Find someone who can explain it"
"Right. Yeah." Natsumi nodded, then glanced down at herself. "Though maybe first we should... I don't know, make sure we're actually real? This could still be a hallucination."
Before Subaru could respond, she reached out and pinched his cheek hard.
"Ow! What the hell?!"
"You felt that?" she asked.
"Of course I felt it! You pinched me really hard!"
"So you're real." She pinched him again.
"Stop that!" Subaru batted her hand away, then pinched her back. "See? You're real too."
"Ow!" Natsumi rubbed her cheek, but she was almost smiling. "Okay, so we're both real. Both here. Both... whatever this is."
"Both apparently in a fantasy world," Subaru added, gesturing at their surroundings. "Because that's a thing that happens now, I guess…."
They started walking, neither of them quite sure where they were going but both feeling like they needed to move, to do something. The streets were busy with people going about their business, merchants hawking for costumers, children running between adults' legs, the occasional person in fancier clothing.
"This is so weird," Natsumi murmured, staring at everything with wide eyes. "It's like we're in a video game or an anime or something."
"Yeah, if someone had told me yesterday that being isekai was real, I would've laughed at them," Subaru said. He paused. "Wait, do you play video games? I mean, do I—do you—"
"Yeah," Natsumi said. "RPGs mostly. Some visual novels." She gave him a sidelong look. "You?"
"Same. Though I probably play more shooters than you do."
"Probably." She kicked at a loose cobblestone. "This is so strange. Talking to myself but not myself."
"Tell me about it." Subaru shoved his hands in his pockets. "So, uh, what do we do now? In the isekai stories, there's usually like... a princess or a goddess who explains everything and gives you a quest or whatever."
"Do you see any princesses or goddesses around?" Natsumi asked dryly.
"No, but..." Subaru looked around. The street they were on opened into what looked like a market square ahead. "Maybe there's like, an adventurer's guild or something? A place where we can get information?"
"Or we could just ask someone," Natsumi suggested.
Subaru considered this. "Yeah, but what do we even ask? 'Hey, excuse me, we just appeared here out of nowhere and don't know anything about anything, can you help?' They'll think we're crazy."
"We might be crazy," Natsumi pointed out. "This whole thing might be a shared delusion."
"That's a cheerful thought. But I doubt it since I still feel the pain from my cheek…”
“Stop whining it’ll go away soon” Natsumi replied
They wandered into the market square, both of them trying not to stare too obviously at everything. The stalls were full of things Subaru had only ever seen in games or anime, weapons and armor, what looked like actual magic items glowing faintly in one vendor's display.
Magic items. Magic was real here!?. That was actually real!.
"Holy shit," he breathed.
"Yeah," Natsumi agreed, following his gaze. "Holy shit."
They drifted closer to the stall with the glowing items. The vendor, a middle-aged woman with sharp eyes, looked them up and down assessingly.
"You two look lost," she said "New to the capital?"
"You could say that," Subaru said. "We're... travelers. From far away."
"Very far away," Natsumi added.
The woman nodded like this made perfect sense. "Well, if you're looking for lodging, there are several good inns around. The inn over there has reasonable rates, if you don't mind sharing a room." She gave them a knowing smile pointing at where it was. "You two are together, right?"
"We're—" Subaru started, feeling his face heat up.
"Yes," Natsumi said quickly. "We're together. Thanks for the recommendation."
The vendor nodded and turned to another customer. Subaru stared at Natsumi.
"Why did you say we're together?" he hissed.
"Because it's easier than explaining the truth?" she hissed back. "What was I supposed to say? 'Oh, we're actually the same person from different realities or timeline who somehow both got isekai'd at the same time'?"
"Point taken," Subaru muttered. Though the idea of people thinking they were a couple was... weird. Really weird. She was him. That was almost like... no, he wasn't going to finish that thought.
They continued exploring, slowly getting a sense of the city's layout. It was huge, sprawling, with different districts devoted to different things. And there was also what looked like the slums. They decided to stay away from there since they weren’t trying to get robbed. It also told them that even in different worlds the poor and unfortunate always existed.
The sun was starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange. Subaru's stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since... whenever. Before all this.
"We should probably find that inn," he said. "Get a room for the night, figure out our next move."
"With what money?" Natsumi asked.
Subaru froze. "Shit. Right. We don't have any money."
They looked at each other, the same realization dawning on both their faces at the same time.
"Our phones," they said in unison.
Subaru pulled his flip phone out of his pocket. No signal, obviously, but the device itself was still valuable. Advanced technology in a medieval fantasy world? Someone would pay for that.
Natsumi had hers out too. "If we sell one, we should have enough for a room and some food, right?"
"Probably? I don't know what the exchange rate is for 'futuristic technology from another world' to 'medieval fantasy currency.'"
"Only one way to find out."
They spent the next half hour trying to find someone who might be interested in buying a strange technological advance device from another world. It turned out to be harder than expected,
Finally, they found a merchant who seemed genuinely intrigued. After a demonstration of the phone's functions, the camera, the calculator, he offered them a price that seemed reasonable, though neither Subaru nor Natsumi had any real frame of reference.
"25 Holy Gold coins ," the merchant said. "That's my final offer."
Subaru looked at Natsumi. She shrugged. They sold Subaru’s phone, pocketing the heavy coins with a sense of relief. At least they wouldn't starve and they might be rich. I mean it was Gold, it had to be a lot… hopefully.
The sun was nearly down now, and the air was getting noticeably colder. They asked a passerby for directions to the inn they were looking for and started heading that way, both of them tired and ready to just sit down for a while.
"Today has been insane," Subaru said as they walked.
"Understatement of the century," Natsumi agreed. She wrapped her arms around herself. "Is it just me, or is it getting really cold?"
"Yeah, I noticed that too." Subaru frowned. "Maybe it's just because the sun's going down?"
"Maybe." Natsumi responded slightly shivering.
But it kept getting colder. Unnaturally cold. The kind of cold that didn't make sense even at night. Their breath started coming out in visible puffs. Frost began forming on the cobblestones.
People around them were noticing too. Merchants hastily packed up their stalls. Parents grabbed their children and hurried inside. The streets were emptying fast.
"This isn't normal," Natsumi said, her voice tight with worry.
"No," Subaru agreed, shivering from the cold. "This really isn't."
The temperature plummeted further. Ice was spreading across the ground now, creeping up the walls of buildings. The sky had gone dark,
And then Subaru heard the screaming.
It started somewhere in the distance, but it was getting closer. People were running now, panicking, fleeing from something. Subaru grabbed Natsumi's hand on instinct.
"We need to get inside," he said.
"Where?" Natsumi's eyes were wide with fear. "We don't know where—"
The cold intensified so suddenly that Subaru gasped, his lungs aching with each breath. The ice was everywhere now, coating everything, and still the temperature dropped.
Through the chaos of fleeing people, Subaru saw it.
A massive shape in the sky, barely visible against the darkness. Four legged, feline, with fur. It was enormous, the size of a building, maybe bigger. Its eyes glowed with an intelligence that could seem even through dark.
"What..." Subaru couldn't finish the sentence. His teeth were chattering too hard.
"W-What," Natsumi whispered beside him. "What is that thing?"
The creature, the monster’s eyes blink and a wave of freezing air swept across the city. Subaru felt his skin burning from the cold, felt ice crystals forming on his eyelashes. His hand was still gripping Natsumi's, and he held on tighter.
"We need to run," he tried to say, but his lips were going numb.
They stumbled forward, but their legs weren't working right. The cold was too intense. Subaru fell to his knees, dragging Natsumi down with him. The ice was everywhere, covering everything, and he couldn't feel his fingers anymore.
"Subaru," Natsumi's voice was faint, barely audible over the howling wind. "I can't... I can't move..."
"Me neither," he managed. His vision was blurring. Everything hurt and then, suddenly, it stopped hurting. That was worse somehow.
They collapsed together on the frozen ground. Subaru could barely see Natsumi's face next to his, could barely register that her hand was still in his. The last thing he was aware of before everything went black was that same giant creature in the sky, and the terrible, impossible cold.
And then………… and then he was standing on cobblestones again, but they weren't frozen. The air wasn't cold. The sky was bright with afternoon sunlight.
Subaru gasped, jerking upright. His heart was pounding, his lungs burning like he'd been holding his breath. He looked down at his hands, they were fine. No frostbite, no ice, no—
"Holy shit!"
He spun around. Natsumi was there, a few feet away, also standing, also staring at her hands in disbelief.
"Did you—" Subaru started.
"I died!" Natsumi shouted. "We died! That thing, the cold, we froze to death!"
"You remember it too?" Subaru went over to her. "It's not just me?"
"No! I remember all of it!" Her voice was shaking. "The cold, the ice, that monster in the sky—" She grabbed his shoulders. "Subaru, what the hell is happening?!"
He stared at her, his mind racing. They'd died. Both of them. He was sure of it. The cold had killed them. But now they were here, alive, back where they'd started.
"We... we went back," he said slowly. "We died and then we went back in time."
"That's impossible ," Natsumi said, but her grip on his shoulders didn't loosen.
"We're in a fantasy world with magic and monsters," Subaru pointed out. "We already passed impossible."
They stood there for a moment, both trying to process what had just happened. Around them, the city continued as normal, the same merchants, the same passersby, everything exactly as it had been when they first arrived.
"This is like..." Natsumi's eyes widened. "Like a video game. When you die, you respawn at a checkpoint."
"Return by Death," Subaru murmured. "We can come back from death."
"Both of us." Natsumi let go of his shoulders, wrapping her arms around herself instead. "We both remember. We both came back."
The implications of that hit Subaru like a truck. They were connected somehow. Not just by their appearance, not just by being alternate versions of each other, but by this ability. This curse? Gift?. Whatever it was.
"Hey." He touched her arm gently. "Are you okay?"
It was a stupid question. Of course she wasn't okay. Neither of them were okay. They'd just experienced death.
But Natsumi seemed to understand what he was really asking. "I'm... I don't know. I'm freaking out. But I'm handling it. Are you?"
"Same," Subaru admitted. "This is insane. This is absolutely insane."
"Yeah." Natsumi took a shaky breath. "But we need to... we need to figure out what to do. That thing that killed us….the monster, it's all going to happen again unless we do something different."
Subaru's mind was already working through the implications. "Right. So we know that if we stay in the city, we die. Which means..."
"We need to leave," Natsumi finished. "Before that thing shows up."
"Can we though?" Subaru asked. "I mean, shouldn't we try to stop it? If we have this power… maybe we're… supposed to be heroes or—"
"No." Natsumi's voice was firm. "Subaru, did you see that thing? It was huge. It was a monster. We're just two normal teenagers from Japan. What are we supposed to do against something like that?"
"But people died," Subaru protested weakly, part of him knew she was right. "That thing killed lots in the city. We can't just run away and let that happen."
"What's the alternative?" Natsumi challenged. "We stay and die again? And again? Keep dying until we somehow figure out how to stop a giant magical monster that can freeze an entire city?"
Subaru wanted to argue. He wanted to insist that they had to try, that they couldn't just abandon everyone. But the memory of that cold was still too fresh. The memory of dying was still too fresh and…
And Natsumi was right. They were nobody. They had no power, no weapons, it's not like some beautiful silver haired girl would be waiting for a knight in shiny armor, no they had no idea what they were doing. Fighting that thing would be suicide.
"We’ll leave," he said quietly. "We get out of the city before it happens."
"Together," Natsumi added. "We stick together, okay? No splitting up."
"Together," Subaru agreed, happy that at least he wouldn’t be alone in this… even if it was his girl self keeping him company.
They helped each other wak. Subaru's legs felt shaky, and he could see that Natsumi was trembling too. Dying and coming back to life… even if they didn't fully understand how it worked, it was traumatic. But they didn't have time to process it properly. They needed to move.
"The merchant," Subaru said. "The one who was willing to buy the phone, we need to sell it and use the money to get out."
"We need to find him before he leaves," Natsumi said.
They ran this time, not bothering to explore or sightsee. They had a goal now, a plan. Find the merchant, get out of the city, survive.
It took them twenty minutes to locate him, pitch the phone and get the amount they previously got. Now all that was left is to find someone to take them out of here.
Lucky for them a merchant was loading crates onto a wagon near the city gates. He had the look of someone who dealt in general goods, his wagon already half-full of various supplies.
"Excuse me!" Subaru called out, jogging over with Natsumi close behind.
The merchant looked up, raising an eyebrow at two breathless teenagers. "Yes? Can I help you?"
"Are you leaving the city?" Natsumi asked.
"I am.” He looked them over curiously. "Why?"
Subaru and Natsumi exchanged a glance. They'd discussed this after getting the gold coins on what to say to convince someone to give them a ride out of the city.
"We need to leave the capital," Subaru said. "And we were hoping... maybe you'd be willing to give us a ride? We can pay—"
"No need for that," the merchant said with a wave of his hand. He was smiling, looking pleased with himself. "I've had an excellent day today. Made more than I expected on these deliveries. I'm feeling generous." He looked at them more carefully. "You two are together, yes? A couple?"
Subaru felt his face heat up, but Natsumi jumped in smoothly. "Yes, we're together."
The merchant chuckled. "Young love. I remember those days. Alright, climb in the back. But I'm leaving in five minutes, so if you need to grab anything, do it now."
"We're ready to go," Natsumi said quickly.
They climbed into the wagon, settling among the crates and supplies. The merchant gave them a friendly nod and climbed into the driver's seat.
As the wagon started moving, pulling away from the city gates, Subaru felt something in his chest loosen slightly. They were getting out. They were going to survive this loop.
Natsumi was sitting next to him, close enough that their shoulders touched. She was staring back at the city as it slowly receded into the distance.
"Do you think..." she started, then stopped.
"What?" Subaru asked gently.
"Do you think anyone will survive? When that thing comes?"
Subaru thought about the chaos they'd seen, the people running and screaming. He thought about that massive creature in the sky, the ice spreading everywhere.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe? If they got away fast enough?"
But he didn't really believe it, and from the look on Natsumi's face, neither did she.
"We couldn't have stopped it," she said quietly. "Even if we'd tried."
"I know" he said weakly.
"But it still feels like we're running away." Natsumi responded
"Yeah." Subaru looked down at his hands. "It does."
They sat in silence for a while, the wagon bumping along the road. The sun was still high in the sky, they had hours before that cold would come, before that monster would appear. Hours that they'd bought by leaving.
"Hey," Natsumi said eventually. "At least we're not alone."
Subaru looked at her. She was trying to smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Yeah," he said. "At least there's that." He smiled softly.
And it was true. As terrifying and confusing and awful as this whole situation was, at least he wasn't going through it alone. At least he had someone else who understood, who remembered, who was dealing with the same impossible nightmare.
Someone who was literally him, in a way that made the whole thing even stranger but also somehow comforting.
They were two halves of the same person, dropped into a world that didn't make sense, with an ability they didn't understand. But they had each other.
For now, that would have to be enough.
The wagon rolled on into the afternoon, carrying them away from the capital and toward an uncertain future. Behind them, the city continued about its day, unaware of the doom that would come with nightfall.
Subaru leaned back against a crate, exhausted despite having just "respawned." Beside him, Natsumi did the same.
"This is really happening," she murmured. "All of it."
"Yeah," Subaru agreed. "It really is."
"What do we do now?"
"I don't know. But... we'll figure it out.."
"Together," Natsumi murmured.
The merchant was humming to himself up front, completely oblivious to the magnitude of what his two passengers had just experienced. The sun continued its journey across the sky. And Subaru and Natsumi, two versions of the same lost soul, sat side by side and tried to come to terms with their new reality.
They had died. They had come back. And somehow, they would have to learn to live in this unfamiliar world.
But for now, they were alive. They were safe. They were together.
For now, that was enough to slightly warm their hearts from the freezing hell they both experienced.