The sun was still high when Madara descended from the heights of the castle.
He hadn't hurried. He had no urgency, no goal.
The city pulsed again. The cries, the merchants, the hooves, the bells. The chaos.
But today, Madara no longer saw the same thing.
It wasn't a meaningless cacophony anymore.
It was movement. Energy.
He walked among the crowd without looking at them. But his eyes saw everything.
Mothers dragging their children by the hand. Dogs following carts. Nobles hiding their fatigue behind frozen smiles.
And deep within, something stirred.
"This world is alive. Not better. But rich."
He entered the inn. The same creaking. The same table. The same smell of smoke and grease.
But nothing was the same.
The innkeeper looked at him, as if expecting something.
But Madara said nothing. He sat down, closed his eyes for a moment.
— "You walk like a man who's returned from another world," murmured the old man.
Madara opened his eyes.
— "I just looked at it more closely."
Night fell. Gently. A bowl of steaming soup sat in front of him.
The innkeeper put away chairs, slowly. Noa slept in a corner, curled under a blanket far too big.
The fire in the hearth was low. The tavern nearly empty.
Madara broke the silence.
— "This world… who truly understands it?"
The innkeeper raised his head, confused.
— "What?"
— "Not the king. Nor the soldiers. Nor the merchants. I mean those who listen. Who observe. Who know what we'd rather ignore."
The old man stared at him for a few seconds. Then set down the rag he'd used to wipe glasses.
He sat across from Madara.
— "You're not the type to just drink and sleep like everyone else, huh?"
Madara didn't answer. He waited.
The innkeeper sighed.
— "There was a man once. Strange fellow. Rarely spoke. Took dry bread, a bit of water, and read. Always. Came once a month. Then stopped coming."
He paused.
— "We called him the Mute. The kids said he lived in a ruined shrine, up in the northern districts. Between the nobles and the ruins. Underground."
Madara stared at him silently.
— "Some say he was a former mage. Others, an exiled archivist. A guy who knew too much, you see? Some even said he'd drawn a map of the entire world… from memory."
He grimaced, embarrassed.
— "Just stories, yeah. But he used to say one thing. Always the same: 'There is a place where everything we never wanted to hear lies sleeping.'"
Madara nodded slightly.
— "And this place?"
— "He called it the Sanctuary. Said it was more than a library. More than a temple. It was... the memory of the world. What even the gods forgot."
He laughed softly.
— "But hey. People say a lot of things. Doesn't help me sell bread."
Madara finished his bowl. Slowly. Then stood.
— "Thank you."
He left the inn, the door closing behind him with a soft sigh.
Night had fallen.
Madara wandered for a long time in the northern districts.
The alleys grew more twisted, the lamps rarer.
Marble gave way to stone. Stone to wood. Wood to dust.
Passersby were few. Gazes, evasive. Here, the city forgot its nobility.
A hidden staircase, half-collapsed, led to the foundation of a ruined temple.
The moon barely pierced the mist.
He found the door. An ancient arch, swallowed by ivy and time's creaks.
When he laid his hand on the stone, it reacted. Cold. Alive.
He pushed.
Behind it, silence.
And another world.
A low room. Too vast to be hidden here.
Endless shelves. Books as far as the eye could see. Scrolls. Stacks of paper.
The air was dry, but not dead. As if frozen in time.
Each step echoed hollow, like walking over a sea of glass.
Words were everywhere. On the walls. The ceilings. Some even floated in the air, hanging like ink-fireflies.
It was almost a Genjutsu. An illusion made real.
A man was there. Hunched, thin, fingers stained with ink.
He looked up.
— "You are not from here."
— "No."
— "But you stay."
A silence.
— "Why?"
Madara looked over the books. The ideas. The memory.
— "Because this world… might be worth holding onto. And I want to know why."
The librarian stood.
He walked over to an oval table, where an ancient map lay sleeping.
— "There is a place. Protected. Hidden. The Sanctuary. They say it's where the ancients locked away memory."
— "Why?"
— "Because truth is frightening."
— "And no one seeks it anymore?"
— "No one dares."
Madara nodded slowly. Turned his back.
As he passed through the door to leave, he glanced back one last time.
The hall had already vanished.
Behind him, only a wall of stone.
Outside, the moon was high.
The city was quiet. Rooftops asleep. Alleys empty.
Madara walked slowly. No hurry.
But for the first time in a long while, he had a direction.
He was no hero.
He was no king.
But he was a man who wanted to understand.
And that was enough to make the future tremble.
"This Sanctuary… even its name carries weight. A promise. A threat. It is the silence between two screams. I must see it. I must know."
He thought briefly of Subaru. That fragile, irrational silhouette.
A weak being, yet driven by absurd will.
"He was an anomaly. Like me. And fate will surely return him to the path. Perhaps he will walk, unknowingly, in my steps."
Madara stopped for a moment, at the edge of a narrow alley.
He looked up at the starry sky.
"If this world has offered me a second chance… then so be it. I accept.
Not to change it. Not to conquer it.
But to read it.
A final gift from my old world…
For a man who has nothing left to prove in the one he left behind."
"Ok, it's the end of arc 1 of Madara in Re:Zero. We're going to wait a little bit before arc 2 — I need to finish things up. Normally, we're going to level up the universe, take it up a notch. And that's it, let's say the next part will come out before the end of the month? Anyway, that was the author. Ciao!"