Original subtitles

I wonder why I feel so sentimental.

Finishing off a dying soldier is a common enough occurrence on the battlefield.

Is it because she reminds me of the girl I once met on a battlefield?

Of course, treating that peerless warrior

like a naïve, innocent girl would be offensive.

Although I don't drink,

I would have liked to raise a glass with a warrior like her.

Now...

Juni Taisen

Episode 11: To Treat a Man to Beef From His Own Cow

Usagi, Warrior of the Rabbit.

He's so desperate to keep fighting, he'll do it as a corpse.

To warriors like us, death is often its own form of salvation.

But I suppose that logic wouldn't apply to a necromantist.

Even so, to enslave his own corpse...

It defies the very limits of insanity.

Or, perhaps I can understand what he's doing.

Even in death, he's trying to win.

Well, not even the organizers would expect a necromantist to go to these lengths.

Or might it be that

this was weighted as part of the Warrior of the Rabbit's advantage from the start?

Looking back over the fight as I've experienced it,

it seems each warrior has had some way

to exploit the rules of the Juni Taisen.

It appears I did not, though.

No...

Perhaps meeting the Warrior of the Tiger was enough of an advantage.

If not for our alliance, if she hadn't saved me...

I would already be dead.

Given that,

the fact that he speared her stomach might not have been because he missed his target.

It was a precise blow, aimed at the jewel in her body.

Yes, I understand the logic.

If I look at the situation unemotionally,

I can assign explanations to all his actions.

He's not doing it out of vanity for a novel fighting style.

Everything he's done has been appropriate.

But why would he go so far?

To win the Juni Taisen means having one wish granted.

But that's only worth something if he's alive, isn't it?

Can a person have a wish they'd die to see granted?

Rather than go to such lengths,

wouldn't it have been better to abandon victory and find some way to survive?

What is he doing? For what purpose?

I doubt I'll ever solve this mystery, though.

About all I can do is hold a proper memorial service for him.

"Memorial" is a euphemism, of course.

What I intend to do is burn him into ash.

Of course, it may be difficult to find sufficient flammable material.

I may need to search for a gas station.

Or I could collect it from

automobiles in the area, though it would take time.

I had assumed it would take a bit longer

for Rabbit's dismembered corpse to catch up to me.

He's not even a walking dead anymore.

He's a monster, in every sense.

I see. In that case...

Would using my saber, Goboken,

to slice him into tiny bits again be effective?

While that would buy me time, it wouldn't finish him.

And though I hesitate to say it,

I cannot waste all my time on this man.

Which means I'll have to dice him up again,

and find some way to prepare gasoline before he reforms.

Aiming for places like

the brain or heart means nothing now.

Is she already dead?

Monkey!

I was careless...

Even if I hadn't known that Monkey was killed,

I should have been able to predict

that a monster assembled from parts of corpses

could have someone else hiding inside.

It did defy logic that it would still be the Warrior of the Rabbit's original size,

despite the fact that he'd used parts of his corpse

to hold the rest of the body together.

While I was taking Tiger far away,

Rabbit must have called Monkey's corpse

and had her help him rebuild his body, like a model kit.

I'd thought he seemed overly monstrous,

even for a haphazard reassembly of himself.

Is it because he was prioritizing a structure that would let him

fit another person inside?

Damn.

Careless is the only way to put it.

If I hadn't averted my eyes from its wretchedness, and just kept thinking...

No... Even if I had been able to infer it,

the fact that the corpse was Monkey's means the result would have been the same.

If she wanted to, she could crush my arms and legs right now.

The only reason she doesn't is...

Yes, because Rabbit doesn't want Monkey to kill me.

He wants to finish me himself.

He wants to make me his servant,

with my body as intact as possible.

Without consciousness, without desire, without principles.

Just fighting forever, as my orders dictate...

Not so different from now, in a way.

However,

I dislike the idea of being unable to act righteously.

One.

First, I try to do the right thing.

Two.

Then, I do the right thing.

Is my only remaining right option to kill myself?

Just decide to do it, then do it?

I never foresaw suicide in my future, but...

Trying to keep me from killing myself?

Well, they don't care if I lose all my teeth.

As a corpse, I'll be mute either way.

It may be that the outcome of the Juni Taisen was all but decided

the moment Monkey's corpse fell into Rabbit's hands.

Though I don't know how many warriors remain at this point...

I doubt the likes of Dog or Sheep would have the power to resist on their own.

Who else is there?

There should be one more Juni Warrior...

Yes, wasn't it—

Nezumi:

Warrior of the Rat, killing all.

Yes. The Rat.

But why is he here now?

This boy has barely left a mark on the Juni Taisen so far.

What is he doing here now?

There shouldn't be anything he can do.

Could he have arrived here by mistake?

Guess I made it just in time.

It took longer than I expected to find Sheep's corpse.

Sheep? That old man?

But why...

More precisely, this is what I was searching for.

Made it just in time...

So that's what he means.

Until the silhouette of Rabbit's corpse is reestablished,

as long as he has to focus on reforming, he can't take any other actions.

Monkey is fulfilling her role of pinning me to the ground.

She can't move, either.

He didn't make it just in time.

This is the only moment he had.

If he were to miss it,

there would be no other chance to destroy Rabbit and Monkey together.

It would be no exaggeration to call this timing "once-in-a-lifetime."

Of course, I'll be taken out with them, as well...

Even if the Warrior of the Rat is the greatest villain the world has ever seen,

even if he's an underhanded cheater,

this result is still far better than leaving Rabbit at large.

I don't know if this will be any comfort,

but the fact that the late Miss Tiger killed the Sheep geezer earlier

is the only reason I was able to bring this grenade here now.

So the credit for what's about to happen belongs to your friend.

With that in mind, do you have any last words?

No.

Please do it.

For me, this is the right thing.

You should do what you believe is the right thing for you, young man.

Ushii: Warrior of the Ox, killing systematically.

The Rat, eh?

The animal that placed first in the zodiac race by riding on the ox's head...

In a sense, he rode me to victory, as well.

That's all right.

To my surprise, the words he said to ease my mind were genuinely reassuring.

But I must say, I feel as if I've met him somewhere before.

I believe it was—

Congratulations, Warrior Nezumi.

You are the winner of the Twelfth Juni Taisen.

Everybody, clap your hands!

The antidote will have done its work, so you can rest easy now.

Glad to hear it.

Can I go now?

No, please wait just a bit longer.

It really was quite a dazzling victory.

I would like to hold a brief interview

so that the record will remain for those who come after you.

Sounds more like an interrogation...

Well?

Will you cooperate with me?

No.

I see. What a pity.

Well?

Will you cooperate with me?

I see. What a pity.

Well?

Will you cooperate with—

O-Oh... Nezumi-san?

Well?

That won't work.

Well?

Will you coop—

Well?

Will you cooperate with me?

No.

In an instant, I tried a hundred ways of refusing, but they all failed.

And forty times, I ended up dead.

Well,

compared to being killed ninety-nine out of a hundred times during the Taisen,

sixty percent seems like a reassuring chance for survival.

Well?

Will you cooperate with me?

So, what do you want to ask?

Based on probability, lock in.

First, I would like for you to explain

the actions you took during the Taisen.

After all, Warrior Nezumi, your actions, well...

From an outside point of view,

they are difficult to evaluate and analyze.

I didn't do anything that unusual.

What a pain in the ass...

It seems resistance is futile.

Lock in.

I didn't do anything that unusual.

What do you mean by that?

As usual, in my normal way,

I tried a hundred strategies at once,

using my power of intervention, Hundred Paths of Nezumi-san.

And I was lucky that a single one of them allowed me to survive.

I see, I see...

No matter how excellent the warrior,

no matter how brave or brilliant, or even as a corpse,

they only get one try at a given action.

If one looks right, one cannot look left.

But it sounds, then, as if you can.

More or less.

Now that the Juni Taisen is over,

it would be difficult to argue that you didn't dominate it.

You make it sound so easy.

Do you know how hard it is to try a hundred strategies at once?

I'm exhausted right now...

It's rather like Schrödinger's cat, isn't it?

The cat in the box is, at once, both alive and dead.

Though in your case, it would be Schrödinger's Rat.

Although I'm the lab rat, not the experimenter.

They say the cat isn't represented in the zodiac because the rat tricked it.

And this time, it wasn't only the cat.

You put one over on all the participants.

I don't agree that there's no cat in the zodiac.

I mean, there's a tiger. That's kind of like a cat.

True...

Along another path, Tiger and I formed a grudging alliance.

Of the hundred strategies I racked my meager brain to devise,

this was the only branch in which I won.

I see.

But that, too, wasn't thanks to my planning, but to Sharyu.

In the underground sewer, the pacifist made a request of me.

Nezumi-kun, I have a favor to ask.

If I should happen to die and end up controlled by the necromantist,

I want you to kill me.

So she said.

I refused,

but she told me that the "powerful explosives" that

the Sheep geezer mentioned at the start would be effective against the corpses.

So the one who deserves the credit for taking out Monkey is Monkey herself.

Which means all of my plans were failures.

Like I told you, I got lucky.

You are quite humble.

I find it impressive that you were able to change

your combat priorities from moment to moment.

It suggests a flexibility that may derive from

always choosing among those hundred paths.

Also, no matter which branch I took,

I never could ascertain what Sharyu's plan for peace was.

It must have been a bluff. I wonder if it was a bluff.

It must have been a bluff.

No, no.

I don't think we can be certain that it was a mere bluff.

For instance, if the pacifist knew the circumstances behind the Juni Taisen...

There are three paths among the hundred in which I can get him to explain this.

Perhaps she intended to negotiate with the organizers.

She's a hero in countries she's saved, and she has strong ties with many nations.

She could have sat at the same table with them and bet countries as they do.

She could have dealt with them on equal terms.

Bet countries? That's what they do?

Of course, it's too late to know for sure.

Well, on the routes where I died halfway,

I prayed hard that one had a pattern where her peace treaty would come to pass.

If Sharyu is the warrior who's saved the most people,

I guess I'm the warrior who's killed the most worlds.

The peace agreement aside,

I wonder who won in each of the ninety-nine routes

in which it wasn't you.

I hate to say it,

but since I died partway through each, I never got to find out.

But given the state of the battle until then,

Rabbit probably won in most of them.

Speaking of which, among the hundred patterns,

there was one where Rabbit and I sort of unexpectedly hit it off.

Oh? You and Rabbit?

I shouldn't talk about the deleted routes.

Should I delete this route, too?

No...

No matter what I do, he'll make me say it in the end.

Lock in.

Thank you very much.

The winner's interview is now over.

You are free to go home and rest.

Oh, yeah? I'll go, then.

Oh...

When you decide on the one wish that will be your grand prize,

feel free to contact me at any time.

Okay.

If he asked me now, I might say, "Just let me sleep already."

At any rate, I'll come up with a hundred wishes,

then ask you to grant one.

They say, "A mountain's great labor may yield only a mouse."

Whatever you think of it,

everything will, at least, be resolved.

Next time: The One Wish That Must Be Granted,

Episode Twelve: The One Wish That Must Be Granted, and the Ninety-nine That Can Be Done Without

and the Ninety-nine That Can Be Done Without.