Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first sensation felt as he roused from his sleep was the sensation of a hand holding his. No, it wasn’t just a hand. Subaru felt that he was embracing someone, or was it that they placed themselves within his grasp? 

It didn’t matter to him, because he recognized the girl utilizing him as a bed. He could go on how despite being over four-hundred years old, she still acted like a sister wanting to be spoiled rotten by her big brother. 

Yes, his partner in crime, his dear contracted Great Yin Spirit, Beatrice was with him. That was all he needed to know for a brief moment of thankfulness that he was not alone. 

Alone…?

Hold on. Was it just him and Beatrice? Where was everyone on the carriage? Wait, carriage…?

He opened his eyes, still a bit blurry from sleeping for so long, and looked toward his anchor. Beatrice was facing away from and toward a light that his eyes just now registered and started sending signals toward his brain for imaging. 

Looking toward the light, he found what appeared to be a… His sleep-addled brain filled in the gap with the word “Screen.” And for a moment, he couldn’t make out what it was displaying to him. Only once he sat up, straightened his back, and chased away the last bit of drowsiness inhibiting him that he found a scene capturing what appeared to be the night he was knighted.

At the sight of one his most cherished nights of his life, Subaru missed the sound of a gasp as he watched himself dance with Emilia like a fool. From the outside looking in, he looked like a scrappy young man trying to woo a beautiful, noble girl in a dance he didn’t seem to understand would not fit in a higher class setting.

 A hand grabbed him, jostling any listless thoughts in his head, and he turned to see who it was. And as soon as he did, his breath was caught in his throat.

It was Rem. Her soft blue hair, almost having him remember a sweet treat for comparison in their hue, covering one of her eyes—just like before, when she was awake—with the other shimmering from building tears.

He couldn’t believe it. If he hadn’t just woken up a moment ago, he would have written this off as a dream. A cruel yet hope-filled dream. Or perhaps he was lucid dreaming, his mind conjuring up a dream of Rem being awake, of her at his side again after an entire year of just feeling useless for not being able to hunt down Gluttony and get her name and memory back. For being the only one to remember ag—!

“Subaru!” 

Before he could do anything, he was suddenly dogpiled by Rem, Beatrice, and…Emilia? Wait, Petra? And Garfiel as well?!

“Oi, what kind of dream has me being crushed here?!” Subaru yelped, unable to help his mouth working faster than his brain at the sudden turn his dream was going.

The culprits of the impending case of having the one and only Natsuki Subaru crushed by an odd group hug just started to laugh despite looking so…tired.

Why do they look so tired?

“What…?” He trailed off. Only now noticing there were other people nearby.

Surrounding him, still within the confines of their own seats as if having a nice break watching movies at the movie theatres while he slept, was Otto, Frederica, Ram, and Roswaal. The latter three confused him further as they were supposed to be back at the mansion, nowhere near the borders of the City of Priestella.

Then he heard noise further away from him and the rest of the Emilia Camp. Stealing his gaze, he turned sharply, taking in the presence of not just Crusch, Wilhelm, and Felix, but some of the other Royal Candidate Camps as well. 

“Hey, Hey!” The movie screen, Rem being awake, the others being here while he had no memory of meeting them! It felt like he was dropped into an already ongoing story. 

“Exposition for the guy who lost the plot, please ?” He said, slipping the last word into English. His silly attempt of downplaying whatever this was. Afterall, it wouldn’t do well to be too carried away in emotions when they could already be ambushed by an enemy stand.

And as soon as he said that, his friends that were still squeezing the life out of him suddenly stilled. Crusch’s previously maiden-like expression fell, replaced with the steely determination that she had…a year’s time ago.

“Stay silent, Aldebaran” A voice belonging to one Priscilla Barielle cut anyone’s voice from projecting out, almost commanding all to pay her mind. 

“It appears this drab play is still going on. Hmph, perhaps the little girl will show me another spark?”

A dead silence rang over them, like bells nullifying the very concept of motion until…

“Subaru.” Silver bells chimed, “We have so~ much to talk about.”

A sudden feeling of unease sprouted from within his stomach. For some reason, he felt like he’s in a lot of trouble.

Chapter Text

Shame..

That was what every cell in Subaru’s body was feeling.

Emilia finished explaining what was going on—after making sure that he doesn’t explode on the spot from the sheer anxiety building up within him.

They knew now. There was no way they weren’t judging him, because now they know. They know that he wasn’t all that.

They all know …

Honestly, he agreed. It didn’t take a genius to tell that if a useless person like him could at least do something good with Return By Death, then imagine the good a real hero could do.

They all know … 

A real hero wouldn’t have died believing that the world adhered to a kid’s fantasies…

Emilia knows…

A real hero wouldn’t have been caught for acting too familiar to people they was supposed to have never met and sow distrust.

Beatrice knows …

A real hero wouldn’t have been trying so hard to deny their own uselessness; anyone could’ve done better than him if they were smarter, faster, or stronger than him—anything to his nothing!

A real hero wouldn’t need to consider the path of using their death to save everyone! 

Rem knows …

If he was smarter, could he have gone back to the aftermath of the White Whale’s subjugation? 

If he was faster, could he have gotten to Rem and Crusch before Gluttony found them? 

If he was stronger, could he have been able to not let anyone cry anymore?

Ram knows …

She saw it happen. In fact, she was first to let him know something was up with the letter. And he mistook it as a counteraction from the Witch’s cult. He was so stu —

“Subaru…” Silver bells chimed, grounding him back into his body. “Look at me…”

So he did. He stared into Emilia’s sparkling amethysts, her hands having reached his shoulders, gently giving him a reassuring hold. 

He didn’t notice this feeling of breathlessness didn’t come from Emilia holding onto him but from his own hyperventilating. 

“Take a deep breath~”

Huff~ .

“And let it out~”

Pah~ .

“ In~ .” 

Huff~

“ Out~ .”

Pah~ .

“Good job!” She said, sending Subaru a look of reassurance.

It only took Subaru another few moments of slowing down his breathing to notice one particular detail of that encounter.

Eh? Wait a minute…! Didn’t that kind of sound like…!

Subaru let that train of thought trail off and derail so that it won’t reach its destination. Instead, he looked around to see if he was the only one that had that gutter thought.

Thankfully, none of the rest of the camp seemed to have caught onto it.

Except Ram. Because of course, it was Ram.

Maybe it was written on his face; but the moment they exchanged glances, her expression changed in a way that he could only describe as shifting through the five stages of grief before returning to neutrality.

And then she sighed. A long, drawn out, but nevertheless somewhat disappointed sigh.

Great.

Now the shame came back, but for a different reason.

“Wait, nee-sama! It’s not what you think! P-please!”

She took a breath and sighed even harder.

“You’re going to sigh all your life’s happiness away, Ram!” He cried, heat flooding into his face and at the tip of his ears, not unlike a certain angelic elf would.

“Eh? Subaru?” Emilia blinked at his sudden shift. She then shifted her gaze from him to Ram, as if that would clue her in to the source of his embarrassment. “Ram?”

In her divine mercy, Ram didn’t say a word. Although, judging by the muffled laughter coming from Garfiel, it wouldn’t have made a difference, damn it!

Whether they were humoring him so that the air wasn’t so heavy, he knew he couldn’t run away from this.

He breathed in once more, held it, and blew any more paralyzing anxiety away.

I’m ready…

“So…” Despite everything, his efforts and his failings, talking still seemed so daunting. 

“Where do we go from here?” He called out to the rest of the people in the room. Silently thanking them for letting him and Emilia have this little moment. He always cherished those…

“Hm.” Emilia countenance turned serious, directing a look at the rest of the candidates and their people. Subaru couldn’t see what kind of message her eyes were hinting at to them, but the way their expressions grew stern in turn… 

This is not going to be easy , he thought. And yet, nothing worth doing was.

Emilia turned back to him, gazing into his eyes like she was trying to find something as she rolled her jaw. Honestly, it was kind of…

Oh, come on! Focus!

“Subaru, do you still want to be my knight?” 

“Emilia…?” He mumbled, his heart felt like it was cracking.

Of course, after watching what he had been doing, why wouldn’t she—

“Will you continue to be my support, after everything you’ve gone through, knowing the path ahead will likely be just as deadly as before?” She cut through what was likely going to be another downward spiral in his head.

He looked deeper into her eyes, noticing there wasn’t any approval or disapproval.

“If you want to retire, then I won’t stop you. I’ll accommodate any need, and I won’t just disappear from your life. You could become a butler for the mansion again, or maybe you could become a tailor.

“However… If you want to keep being my knight during my campaign for the throne, can you accept that it won’t be any safer than all the troubles we faced before? That despite all of us putting our minds and strengths together, it may not be enough…”

Emilia trailed off, the mask cracking as a tremor creeped into both her voice and stance.

“I-I’ll never approve of that power, but I know I’ll never have the strength to make the world the safest place for you. So, tell me… If you still choose to follow me, then…”

She straightened her back, maybe trying to stamp out any weakness within her. 

“I vow that I will be one of many shoulders for you to lean on, to cry on.” Strength came back to her voice: “So that this time, even if we can’t share every secret, we will support each other on our burdens.”

Even if we couldn't solve them for each other… He could almost hear that last part.

It didn’t occur to him that he could probably tell everyone himself what he had gone through. What he felt, what he thought, what he regretted…

Why couldn’t have been able to tell them himself? Instead, they saw it through a damn movie screen. Even just telling someone, with his face becoming even uglier from the tears he would no doubt shed, would mean so much to him.

Or rather, why hadn’t he confided anything else to them. 

How he felt growing up trying to be his father’s son. How he felt so desperate to give up on “Natsuki Subaru” and be “Subaru Natsuki” to them. How…

“There’s so much I want to tell you all…” He said, mustering just a modicum of courage to get his feelings across. “And I don’t mean only about…that”

He could almost feel the collective flinch that his friends made at the allusion of Return By Death.

Subaru matched Emilia’s unease. “I want to live up to the expectations that hang around my shoulders, not because I don’t care for my life, but because that is the knight I want to be.”

After all, Subaru couldn’t find out what his life was worth if he stopped. If he just quit because it would be easier, he knew he’d regret it. That was not who he, Natsuki Subaru, wanted to be.

Saving people, making sure that rather than a sad ending, repeated all over the world again and again, a happy ending where they could cry in relief...

Cry…? He thought, focusing on that thought for a second longer.

Yes, because tears did not necessarily mean there was sorrow.

“And I can’t get there alone.” Subaru said, a shy half-smile slid into place. “So, Your Soon-to-be-Majesty, can you help this dunderhead of a knight reach those heights with your most dependable camp?”

Emilia let out something between a sigh of relief and an incredulous laugh. She still looked weary, like she had aged faster than the last few days would normally entail. But her smile made everything feel like it could be better.

She turned around and then addressed everyone else here outside of our camp: “We now know what he wants, what he has chosen. Are any of you going to deny that it should be just an exclusive affair for my camp?”

Crusch met Emilia’s steel with some of her own. “This will break him; Subaru-dono cannot possibly be able to endure any more of—of this!”

She waved her hand around, pointing out what Subaru had no idea. But if he put his mind to it, he would realize that there were many secrets that didn’t revolve around his ability. 

Roswaal, Echidna, Satella…

Even he knew that such a deep involvement with witches in Emilia’s camp would bring about severe setbacks. And if this trend would escalate further… 

Actually, wasn’t the future looking pretty bleak?

“He does not belong in the battlefield,” Crusch said, looking gravely concerned about his well-being.

Then she pointedly fixed her attention to Rem. “What reason does he have to go after the Witch’s Cult now?”

He could say anything and it’d probably wouldn’t convince Crusch why he had to keep going. Why couldn't he just stop now that Crusch and Rem were here, as if Gluttony’s hold over them was gone? And honestly, he didn’t have an answer other than to prevent it from happening ever again. And maybe that could have worked if it weren’t for the fact the Witch’s Cult was notoriously difficult to find and kill.

Propose that after leaving this place, Rem and Crusch were cured. What reason did he have if Gluttony was no longer important?

And he wasn’t the only one thinking that. 

“Betty had thought she wouldn’t need to remind all of you, I suppose.” Beatrice stepped in front of him, staring down Crusch despite the size difference. 

She glanced back at him before quickly turning back to the Valkyrie. “An Authority took hold of Betty’s memories of…Rem several days after she was eaten. And I doubt that rogue Observer could enforce such a convenient loophole away from its peers’ gazes, in fact.”

Oh…

Crusch stilled at Beako’s words. So did Wilhelm and Ferris. 

Today had a lot of ups and downs, didn't it? So, Rem will just go back to…

“Just give me some time, please !” He cried out. He didn’t know if it was toward the so-called “Observer” or Crusch. He frankly didn’t care. Just for a moment again with her…

In his words, Crusch recovered herself. “I see…”

Slowly, the verdant-haired walked away for a bit, but turned to him for a moment: “Out those doors, there were rooms we used to rest in. That should give you enough privacy… My apolo—”

The sound of a finger snap made itself known with such sharpness that he almost mistaken it with the sound of a whip.

Startled, Subaru looked around hastily for its source. But it was the sound of a gasp that caught his attention.

Petra had covered her mouth with her hands, looking at something…

No, not just something…

Subaru looked toward where the anomalous movie screen was displayed and found only a single word across it.

Advent

Chapter Text

There was a tense silence in the theatre room after the reveal of another part of this eerie play soon to be witnessed. Subaru and Rem had gone into one of the other rooms for privacy. But Emilia hadn’t been worried about that. After so long of not seeing Rem awake, she had no doubt that this moment would mean the world to him.

And in fairness, it was the least that Emilia could do. If not for Rem’s impassioned speech to Subaru, she and a lot of other people would be dead. It scared her how close he was to giving up on her and running away, how close it was that the Emilia that would take her last breath forever would be the one that still believed the world despised her for her appearance.

Granted, the fight that split them apart for a time was only a matter of time. For a person you were so close with, there were some things you could accept and others you couldn’t. Humiliating her in front of everyone at the beginning of the royal selection and breaking their promise was not something that she can just forgive with an insincere apology or a flimsy excuse.

However, after watching the events of Subaru’s life from his perspective, she found that she was also a frustrating woman to be with. She imposed her belief of being hated onto others without asking what their thoughts were. She placed too much faith in others and had not truly connected with them despite how much time they spent together. She…

Emilia shook her head in admonishment, realizing the thought pattern that she was going down through. It was easy to wallow in hypotheticals and self-reprimand after being here for so long, feeling as though every choice made was wrong, invalid; knowing how a different mindset could be the deciding factor of whether everyone would live or not. 

Yet not even that could defy the die that was cast.

The small bit of confidence Emilia nurtured within herself during her talk with Subaru threatened to fizzle out but she held on. With him awake, she had to take charge, lead, do something to push through what may lie ahead…

A voice echoed from her memory, I love you . It had been laced with so much sorrow, joy and obsession that it threatened to eat away at her own self-image. The voice chanted that phrase as if the meaning of the words were all that mattered in the world. The Witch of Envy, Satella, bore a face and voice exactly like hers, and she hated it. 

She hated her.

A witch that could not love others properly, cursing the object of their twisted affections with the ability to survive a world not their own with the prerequisite being to die in whatever hopeless circumstance they were in. Uncaring of the fact that he might have had unfinished business or did not want to leave their home behind.

And he promised to save that witch… One thing at a time. They would have a conversation with everyone later. First things first…

A subtle click could barely be heard, but for everyone in the room, it was louder than lightning.. It was the signal to continue their talk.

“So,” Felt drawled, “you’re really going through with this?”

What “this” was could be summarized as a difference in Subaru’s…handling. It still didn’t sit right with her to address it that way, as if he was a fire crystal in the road waiting to be detonated by any external force, but Emilia couldn’t really deny that the nature of Subaru’s Authority of Envy was a corrupting force. It reinforced ways of thinking that were actively detrimental, blurring the lines between what was acceptable or not with their powers.

If Subaru had given his everything to survive or was caught unaware and was killed, then that was—Emilia stomped down the impulse curl into herself—acceptable. Despite how much everyone would want to protest that nothing bad would warrant that situation again, with the sole exception of Reinhard, none of the people that were here could guarantee that they would always have a fighting chance against whatever the world threw at them.

Although some of them were above the normal standard, the opponents shown were very non-standard, breaking the scale entirely.

However, if Subaru ever went too far to save everyone within his sight, he could very well become a shell of his former self, inflicting wound upon wound to his heart to reach his “happy ending” with everyone by his side. 

Yes, Envy could twist love into something unrecognizable. That was why…

“Is there really~ any other way this could have gone~, Felt-sama?” Roswaal said with a wink, showing his yellow eye.

“Shut it, clown!” Felt’s eyes turned to glare at him.

“Give me one good reason why you should walk a free man?” Crusch sneered. “All this time… All this time! You had that cursed grimoire that could have saved the Royal Family! Plan the course to kill the Archbishops, Witch Cult, Great Witchbeast! Yet you refuse to live for anything but yourself and a dead woman, for four hundred years!”

Emilia almost flinched from Crusch’s words. When it was revealed that Roswaal’s Book of Wisdom could predict the future with such finesse, it put a strain between their camps’ alliance. She couldn’t blame her, devoting over four hundred years of his life, his descendants’ lives, for his goal of resurrecting a forgotten witch, Echidna, was unnerving. The flames of his ardor sent fear to all as they witnessed his actions. Fear, as well as outrage.

“Oh my~!” Roswaal said, dragging his words out still as if Crusch’s words hadn’t bothered him at all. “Now, that would not be wise~, Karsten-sama~. Accusing a fellow countryman like myself~ with such a crime as treason~ would look quite suspicious, no~?”

This is it…

“Nyew don’t have the ground to stand on, nya!” Ferris yelled. “Once Reinhard and Crusch-sama get nyew on trial, nyer’re through! Good luck, trying to worm nyer way out of that, nyew snake!”

At Ferris’s words, Wilhelm took his turn to speak then. “The connection with a Witch of Greed, the origin of Sphinx’s birth, and ties to underground assassination commissions…” Wilhelm breathed in a heavy breath. “The affairs of the Mathers family… Any individual charge could ruin your reputation!”

If Crusch and Ferris’ outrage was from loyalty to the deceased Royal Family, Wilhelm’s was from the betrayal of an old friend long since passed, revealing their true colors… Emilia could not even begin to imagine such pain that came from that realization.

There wasn’t any other way…

“Crusch… Crusch-san,” Emilia said, trying to ignore her heart from cracking, “I ask now, let this remain a matter private to my camp alone.”

Crusch snapped her head in my direction. “Why?” Her face twisted into a look of betrayal. “How could you ask something like that from me, Emilia-sama? After everything he has done?!”

“If I lose Roswaal as my backer—”

“Then what of the talks we had about merging our camps? To oust Mathers from his status and put him away for everything he had done?” She shot back.

Emilia could feel the gazes of her camp behind her; however, she could feel Roswaal’s smile as he watched. 

“I can’t make such a decision so one-sidedly…” Emilia's voice never felt so hollow.

“None of ya trust him! Anyone can see it, sis! Any goodwill he had with any of them is gone! Letting the Witch Cult wipe out those sisters’ villages, the Bowel Hunter’s commissions, luring the Great Rabbit to the people of Sanctuary—all of these have shown that he cannot be trusted! To hell with that soul pact shit!” Felt yelled, her face turning red from breathlessness and rage. “If it’s a sponsor ya want, then have my help. Hell, isn’t there that Miload kid? Screw this sicko!”

“Felt—”

“Ya didn’t want to even be queen in the first place! Ya just wanted to get your family back, yeah? So why are ya just keeping things like this?”

“I want to win!” Emilia screamed as if the words were a scathing, reprehensible curse. “If I just give up on the selection, I’ll betray everyone~ ! Who! Trusted me!”

“What the hell are ya saying…” Felt mumbled in disbelief. “Am I hearin’ this shit right?”

“I won’t take the easy way out just because I can’t work with someone I can’t forgive! I won’t give up because he did horrible things for the sake of my candidacy! I won’t give up because I was a stupid, spoiled little girl!”

Subaru had died and reset time again and again because she was not enough, that she didn’t take this seriously and thought studying alone could get me the crown. She wanted to win through her and her camps’ efforts, not because Subaru carried it all on his own. 

“That is not possible, Emilia!” Crusch yelled. “I thought when the Witch Cult’s attacked the Mather’s domain, it gave you an important lesson…” Crusch said, her stare pierced through her. “Empty promises have no other use than deception.”

Emilia knew what she meant. Before the Witch Cult first attacked, she had all but threatened the Council of Wise Men to give her a chance to participate in the Royal Selection with Puck, the Beast of the End. And when that sort of strength mattered the most, she was one of the last ones to die, not having saved a single person. She was being coddled too much, by both Puck and…Subaru. Her actions made a liar out of her.

Even so… Even so!

With this shame, she wanted to stand up straight. With this, she wanted to hope that she could be better. With this shame… No, not just that… With their help, she wanted to be trustworthy.

“I know that, Crusch-san.” She said, raising her eyes to meet her friend’s. “However, I have to do this. The Emilia they’ve put their faith in will truly be gone if I just accept such an easy path.”

“Ya’re gonna lead ‘em all to their deaths,” Felt said. “So yer just gonna take a deal with some wanna-be devil over us?” 

“I’m not refusing to help each other, not at all. There’s still the matter of Gluttony for Crusch-san and Rem. I just refuse to give up running for queendom in exchange for that help.”

“Your negligence will put Subaru-sama to death, again and again.” Crusch said.

“That may very well happen, but I will not allow Roswaal to be the cause. I’m nowhere strong enough to promise his safety, but I cannot decide for Subaru what he can or cannot do.”

“Letting Subaru-dono fight on would be no different than asking him to embrace his curse!” Wilhelm interjected, his brow furrowed in frustration. 

“Ah~, I believe I know who you really mean~!” Roswaal's voice sung an itching tune within his words. 

Perhaps Wilhelm felt that as well. “Hold your tongue, snake…”

Roswaal paid no heed to Wilhelm’s subtle growl. “And yet~ aren’t there some glaring differences between those two~?”

“Silence.”

“After all~, despite how fond of her I am, there was always~ a part of her that I could not stand~.”

“Julia!”

“Subaru-kun may share Theresia’s inclination for normalcy, but was your wife not a coward?” He said, dropping the musical quality in his voice.

“Take those words back!” Wilhelm raged.

“Oh? Is that what she did not vile? So scared of the battlefield that she left the burden to her uncle and brothers, each one dying needlessly in her stead. Neither sorrow or rage could get her to move her sword, only the fear of losing her beloved Wilhelm Trias had.”

Wilhelm’s eyes screamed with killing intent, but Roswaal’s gaze did not waver, his smile long gone and replaced with a face of discontent.

“Subaru may be moved by his love for Emilia-sama; however, he did not limit his care to just Emilia alone. He held onto a broken blade for the sake of a memory that only he could remember, for people he refused to allow to be in harm’s way.” Roswaal then put a hand to his cheek, tilting his head to the side. “I wonder… Would Reinhard have been alone with just his father if Theresia had just tried to fight so that she would not lose anyone else again? If she had held her sword with the same conviction you and Subaru-kun had, could she have been able to save her father from Stride?”

“Subaru-dono will not survive the fight that will come ahead!” Wilhelm growled, eyes glaring with such anger that one could mistake them red in color. “He would have more luck training in the Flow Method, seeing how he threw away any regard for his own gate! Beatrice-sama may be a Great Spirit of Yin; but unlike other spirits, she cannot draw from the mana around her nor can she disperse to conserve her energy. No matter how much mana Subaru-dono stores, it would only take a single encounter to deplete her reserves.”

The Flow Method, a mana circulation technique that allowed warriors to exhibit enhanced feats of strength, endurance, agility, and perceptiveness. Proficient practitioners were capable of extrapolating some of the basic aspects of the Flow Method into advanced techniques like the one Reinhard used against Elsa in the loot house, imbuing his sword with mana to unleash a devastating slash.

Despite Subaru’s now defective gate, he could still use it to an extent to perceive the battles around him instead of just seeing blurs. In fact, Subaru had enough talent in the Flow Method to subconsciously utilize during the Ulgrams’ attack, allowing him to endure the Witchbeasts’ bites long enough to be rescued by Rem. Unfortunately, that still left the large majority of warriors more than capable of cutting him down without issue.

“Even if the Sword Saint had trained Subaru-kun with any of his Divine Protections, it would still take several years for Subaru-kun to be able to hold his own. Aldebaran had been in this world for over twenty years and still wouldn’t be above the average knight of the Imperial Army in skill. Time that Subaru-kun would not be allowed to have.” 

Roswaal matched Wilhelm’s glare with his own. “His gate never had any potential to be a considerable factor. He had more mana than I had as Julia Mathers yet still would not compare to me during the Demi-Human War! Limited as Beatrice may be by her contractor, do not look down on her capabilities!”

Anastasia clapped her hands once, then twice, gathering the attention of everyone here. “We got a bit sidetracked, don’t ya can agree?”

She traced her hand across her white fox scarf draped over her shoulders before she began speaking: “Now, I understand ya’ll are bent out of shape about this, but I think I need to remind ya’ll one very important thing…”

Anastasia smiled in the direction of Felt and Crusch yet it didn’t reach her eyes. Out of all the royal candidates, she did not inspire much intimidation when it came to physical presence. If this were a business venture, then that smile would likely give its recipient a chilling impression.

“Demandin’ without givin’ ain’t good for positive relations, ya hear? Now, I understand havin’ partners with dubious connections can put ya in unease, but there is no reason we can’t talk this out like adults.”

Felt bristled, “Yer seriously takin’ the clown’s side here?!”

“No way! I’m just sayin’ we don’t hafta decide it all here and now when we’re all tense. Why not have a break? A trip to Priestella will be easy on the soul. And once we had some time to ourselves, we can come back to this”

Priscilla hummed. “My divine self has yet to enjoy the sights this city has to offer. This dog show has taken enough of my time already.”

 “I will not stand calling what to do with a national traitor a mere ‘dog show’!” Crusch glared at Priscilla.

However, Priscilla didn’t even take offense to it, simply looking down on Crusch with apathy. “Quiet the barking. Else your steel will become nothing more than cheap iron. Then I’ll have Aldebaran deal with you.”

“Oi, oi, Princess!” Aldebaran waved his hand in denial. “I don’t know if I can take on the old man and the girl!” Priscilla didn’t seem to care about his assertions though…

Anastasia called for attention once again, smothering any further attempt to drag this on. “So, we’re in agreement, yeah? We’ll cool off and resume at a later time!” She spoke in a tone that did not care for disagreement.

Crusch, Felt, and their respective camps looked agitated with such a casual tone, but seeing as they were outnumbered three to two they could not continue to push back.

Emilia looked back at Anastasia, perplexed at her siding with her in a way. She had thought she would agree with Crusch and Felt for the reason of removing her sponsor and crippling her run in the candidate race. Instead, she sent a discrete wink in her direction, giving her the impression that she had her own motive.

It was no secret that Emilia had lost the trust of Anastasia, Crusch, and Felt during the showing of the first week Subaru spent in the mansion; her lack of leadership skills in her own camp did not inspire respect toward her character. In that respect, Emilia agreed wholeheartedly, seeing how she put off a meeting with other nobles to meet with Anastasia for Puck’s pyroxene crystal only days ago.

Emilia could be accurately described as a young princess who was just barely learning the nuances of leading a kingdom. In hindsight, referring others as young compared to her age felt like a child using seniority by including fractions onto the number. She never had any room to talk. After all, she only ever slept in the time she was within the ice, not truly matching the level of maturity that a half-elf her age should exhibit.

The Emilia who would have kept her promise from the start and ran away instead of going back to try and break the seal… If she had been able to leave by herself, what would her life have been now… Would she be a woman that could stand up straight in her circumstances?

It was easy to think of hypotheticals once one realized that time itself could be changed, imagining only the positives while ignoring the potential drawbacks that such an event would result in. Easy to denounce the actions of one’s past self, to take responsibility for another version of one’s self’s actions, to doubt one’s core in a thought up future—all of these thoughts had done nothing but erode at Emilia’s and her friends’ faith in themselves.

But this would not break them. She refused to crumble at the fact that she was not infallible in her integrity to allow herself to give up on herself and others. She would be no better than a walking corpse if she did that.

“Thank you, Anastasia-san.” She said cordially, giving her a small nod in gratitude without allowing herself to become too familiar. “I hope our prior business has not been canceled, then?”

“Mm? Are you sure you wouldn’t like a break first?”

“No, a break would do my friends and I some good. However, I would still like to make sure our matters from before still have relevance.”

“Don’t worry, I intend to make sure we leave with what we want from each other.” Anastasia stood up from her seat and made her way to the hallway filled with rooms.

Anastasia exchanged a glance with Julius and Ricardo. What the gaze intended to convey, Emilia didn’t know. “My camp and I will be in our room since the next show usually takes a while to get ready. We’ll come back once it rings its bell, ‘kay?”

Emilia nodded, watching the Anastasia camp leave the screening room without another word. 

Felt and Reinhard decided to leave as well, though not without casting a distrusting look at Emilia and her entourage. Their feelings on the matter of Subaru’s well-being were clear and appreciated, truly. But she will not bend. 

Crusch, Ferris, and Wilhelm walked toward the door slowly, eyes sharp with anger. Backing out of her desire to arrest Roswaal for her own reasons had strained their relationship. But that was always going to happen, throwing a tantrum mid-way of the screening, driven only by emotion, was always going to bite her in the behind.

Suddenly, looking down at her feet was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Emilia,” a brilliant radiance called her name. “Is looking down an attempt to garner pity from my divine self?”

A folding fan lifted Emilia’s head by the chin, forcing her to stare into the crimson eyes of Priscilla Barielle.

“No, I just…” Emilia words trailed off, her gaze shifting to where Crusch and Felt had left the room from before a nudge pulled her back.

“Buckling after drawing others’ outrage? From a choice that has no bearing to your resemblance or your own assumptions? Instead, this is the course for which your heart has decided on. Yet now, all I can see are dying embers that have no strength to set ablaze what is in their way.” Priscilla sighed in exasperation before putting away her fan, rubies boring into amethysts. “I will ask a question, so I will not tolerate any hesitation.”

Emilia blinked before nodding in understanding.

“Whom is it that my divine self needs to crush—Emilia or the dog?” Priscilla said, demanding nothing but truthfulness.

At that question, Emilia felt a little warm. She believed that the other candidates didn’t see her as a potential contender, only seeing Subaru and Roswaal as the real obstacles. And she gave them plenty of instances that she was not nearly as capable as them. 

However, Anastasia didn’t rescind her desire to meet with her for business. She still felt that there was value in continuing their deal. And now, Priscilla asked a question that Emilia felt validated her. That she recognized her as a fellow candidate. So, there was really only one answer that felt honest: “Don’t think I’ll be so easy to intimidate, Priscilla-san.”

Priscilla simply smirked. “You best care for that flame. Whether it be Winter or Shadow, the world goes in my favor for I have willed it to.”

With that said, she walked down the aisle and disappeared out the door with Al trailing behind her.

Emilia took a deep breath, feeling both heavy and light in her heart, and addressed the rest of her camp for the first time after Subaru woke up: “Garfiel, Ram, all of us will gather in a single room while you two will wait outside to catch Subaru and Rem to rejoin us. Please?”

“As you say, Emilia-sama.” Ram bowed.

“Got it, Emilia-sama.” Garfield nodded.

“Thank you.” She appreciated their presence. “Let’s go on.”

At her word, her camp followed her to one of the many vacant rooms that the Rogue Observer had made for the captive audience. Once Subaru and Rem rejoined them, they would begin their talk in earnest. 

When Subaru thought out how Rem's awakening from her long sleep would go, he thought it would be after forcing Gluttony to cough her name and memories back up. 

Call it childish or grossly egotistic of him, but Subaru had hoped that he would be her hero once more and know that he earned it. That what he had gone through and would endure for her had meaning. Right now, it was like he was being given a teaser to a long awaited final game after so long with vague and indeterminate release date.

If only Rem could look him in the eyes.

It started out fine. The two were talking about how they were since the last time they say each other; Subaru with his year since fell asleep, not mentioning the happenings of Sanctuary, and Rem with her few days of being in this theatre, including what happened when Gluttony attacked. She didn’t look comfortable talking about it, but she pushed on while looking as if she was about to burst.

It turned out Gluttony had come because the White Whale, his pet, had been killed and it sparked his curiosity, leading to his attack on the returning people. Subaru would have regretted dealing with the Great Witchbeast if it wasn’t for the fact that he wouldn’t have the military might because the Whale had been sighted and been prepared to be dealt with by Crusch’s army of volunteers. He was damned if it wasn’t there and damned when it was killed.

The added fact that there were two Archbishops, Greed and Gluttony, made Subaru understand that he would likely not even have enough men to deal with Sloth after dealing with the former two. But hearing how Greed appeared to have some form of invincibility and Gluttony had enough skill in martial arts that he could literally teleport in short range and in short bursts, Subaru had to admit that there was nothing he could have done.

Rai Batenkaitos. Regulus Corneas , he engraved that piece of information into his memory. Before he only had the detail of what cardinal sin the culprit was. Now he had two, with their physical descriptions, names, and some of their capabilities. Frankly, the fact that Gluttony was young didn’t matter to Subaru. He promised that he’ll get Rem back, so he refused to have any doubts in facing the Witch Cult. He could never forgive those wretches.

He would still dream of that day when they first came around… The charred corpses… Petra’s eyes…

When Rem started to recount what her last moments were, he won’t deny that it didn’t sting in a very familiar way. Perhaps it was shown on his face as Rem

“R-Rem is s-sorry! Subaru-kun!” Rem cried, her face twisted in anguish. Guilt sealed her eyes shut, gave more strength to the hands that dug into her palms. 

In all of his dreams of Rem walking side by side with him and her sister, she had a smile that expressed contentment. Maybe it was naive to expect a happy ending without working out the details of what came from before. 

“Rem sh-shouldn’t h-have fought the Witchcult a-alone !” Her sobbing battered at his heart.

In Subaru’s stalling mind, he had thought that “before” meant what everyone remembered, not what was forgotten. That was something he long accepted that would never change when utilizing Return By Death.

“Rem should have known Su-Subaru-kun was n-not a witch cultist! I-I should have listened !” Cold started to permeate within his chest as imagined the devastating thuds.

“R-Rem should have t-taken you to B-Beatrice-sama instead of k-killing you !” Numbness filled his extremities as he imagined blazing pain and the rattling of chains.

“Rem is—! Rem is—!” Blue waves crashed onto the shore with crushing weight. 

That was not what he wanted to hear. This wasn’t how he envisioned their reunion.

But he couldn’t help the thought that this was somewhat familiar. That feeling gave him a little bit of courage to ask a very important question: “Do you know why I love you, Rem?”

The girl who saved him unscrewed her eyes and looked him in the eyes. It would have been cute if she didn’t look so devastated, looking as though she had expected his question.

“R-Rem is trying to… Subaru-kun cannot just ignore what—!”

“I want you to answer,” Pitch-black met ocean-blue. “Please, Rem.”

The blue oni breath quickened, “Subaru-kun cannot just f-f-forgive Rem for what she did! To be forgiven for killing the person Rem loved the most, that is… That is…!” She hugged her shoulders and made herself small, looking so vulnerable that Subaru feared that her own grip would shatter her.

“Did I forgive you?” He asked, stepping in front Rem and gently removing her fierce grip, holding onto them firmly. She let him, shocked at his question. 

However, deep within those sparkling oceans, Subaru could see something so very familiar. That was why he had to shut it down, here and now.

“The Rem who killed me, and the Rem who saved me are two different people.”

Rem’s eyes widened, trying to take her hands away from his. But for some reason, the strength that hid within her slender frame could overpower his grasp. 

He pressed on. “The first time was when it was too late to save me, and it hurt so bad that I didn’t want to be saved. The second time, I was so suspicious, so stubborn that I shut down any path for us to move past that.”

Rem shook her head in refusal. “No! Rem took it upon herself to confront you! Subaru-kun did not deserve what Rem—”

“That’s not true, and you know it! I hid in the mansion’s woods with a knife, Rem! How the hell is that not suspicious!” Subaru held steadfast.

“Hours, Rem tortured you for hours ! There…! There has to be a limit to how much of a glutton for punishment you are!” Rem finally managed to remove Subaru’s hands from hers, frustrated incredulousness apparent on her face.

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you! Miss ‘Reason To Die’! If there was a contest for the most self-flagellating, you’d win the bronze, silver, and gold!” Subaru bristled at the insult, double-edged as he may have thought it to be. “Who the hell do you think you are, huh?!

“Do you even remember how you felt about swinging that chain down on me?! Of course you don’t! It never happened!”

“It did happen! Rem killed you, tortured you! Subaru-kun died because of me! You suffered because of me!”

“Because of you? Really? Don’t joke with me! You didn’t do anything!” Subaru yelled back, deciding to lift up his tracksuit to reveal his stomach. “Do you see any scars from you? Do we share a moment of me running away from you? Oh, just me?”

Rem glared at him with tears streaking down her face. “How could Subaru-kun make light of—of this?!” She waved her hand around, as if presenting something he couldn’t see. “Rem killed you! Rem made you suffer! Rem cursed you into being a hero!”

“Cursed? Cursed?!” Subaru’s nostrils flared at the accusation. “I wanted to be one long before you had anything to do with it! Don’t be so conceited! It’s like looking in a mirror.”

“How can Rem think of it as anything but a curse! She sacrificed herself for Crusch-sama, knowing she would not win, and look what she had done! Subaru-kun plunged the knife into his throat because of her! Subaru-kun saw his life as lesser to everyone else’s!” Rem held her head, her breath running ragged as she tried to breathe.

“Rem never wanted Subaru-kun to be like her!”

At Rem cry, Subaru couldn’t help but imagine her face was one he made a long time ago.

“You didn’t kill me. No matter what you say to twist the facts, you didn’t. Because we never shared that memory…”

Rem simply shook her in a sort of resigned way. Even now, she wasn’t listening to what he was saying. So…

“And you didn’t die saving me.” He said with finality. 

And those words, Rem stilled, raising her gaze to match his. The question was apparent on her face.

“That Rem died because I did nothing. But she had a lot of common ground with you, Rem.”

It wasn’t so simple as saying it never happened, but he was not so unreasonable that he would apply every bad moment to any future loops he would live through. Simply put, it was both.

“The Rem that hurt me because of what the Witch’s Cult did is not here. The Rem I saved and who saved me in turn is.”

Rem’s agonized face hurt him a lot, yet he couldn’t help but wonder if this was what he looked like before.

“You should know by now that carrying all that suffering is not gonna help anyone. I tried, dumb as I was, thinking I could do it all on my own. 

“It’s not that I wasn’t scared of you after that, ya know! I hid, closed myself off from the world… And then you died. I was too scared of doing anything, too scared to lose everything again; I wanted what I had with everyone back, and I threw a tantrum once I got hit in the face with the fact things were different. But running away once I realized there actually was a threat to the manor was my own fault.

“I’m not saying it never happened. It did, but only for me ! I made every mistake myself, not just seeing it from the outside, Rem!” Subaru said pleadingly.

She shook her head in stubborn refusal. “No, Subaru-kun can say that it wasn’t Rem, but she knows herself! Rem…! Rem is…!

“Rem is nothing but a demon! Her very existence is a curse! Why can’t Subaru-kun see that?! She could have killed you quickly, but she made it agonizing! Rem is a monster; she would think Subaru-kun was plotting something against Sissy and Rem when there was no proof, twisting what she saw for her self-serving pettiness! You know Rem is right!” Rem wiped away the tears blurring her sight, carelessly pawing at her face without a care of scratching at her skin with her nails. 

Subaru simply stood there, waiting for Rem to be done with her piece. When he thought she was done by a brief silence and heavy hiccups, she muttered once more.

“Rem knew she was being punished. That being around Subaru-kun and Sissy would cause them nothing but pain. Rem knows that the both of you would endure anything for her, but she doesn’t want that. She just wants the people she loves to be happy, even if she isn’t there… But she hurts everyone, whatever she may do.

“Yes, they saw what was inside Rem’s heart completely. She is a demon who cares so little for her own life that she drags everyone down with her because of her ugly, mindless wrath!” Rem fell to her knees, holding onto to her arms, and let out a whimpering sob. “Why can’t any of you see that? That Rem is not worth dying over?”

Subaru slowly walked in Rem’s direction, careful not to spook her as he sat down near her. He didn’t speak, instead he breathed in and out. The two sat in silence for a while, the emotional rush from their lovers’ quarrel declining, leaving only a headache from the mental exhaustion.

“You didn’t kill me as painlessly as you could have, that’s true. I can’t deny that, but I know why you did it.” He let out a shuddering sigh. “What the Witch Cult did? I understand it now, I’ve seen it happen several times, and it’s not something that you can get over; especially as young as you were…”

Rem’s hand gripped onto her hair, her head shaking at his words.

“But did that give me any right to try and attack Crusch because of what Petelguese did to Arlam?” His head shook in disapproval of himself. “No, that wasn’t right, but you still stood by me without any explanation of how I knew. You just had faith in me. Every single time, you believed in me.”

A tired smile crawled onto his face. “You loved me at my worst, even when my miasma reminded you of that terrible night, you chose to look past that and love me. It wasn’t even the first time you did. When you smiled at me for the first time, it was so bright I thought you went from demonic to holy!” Rem stopped shaking her head, an eye slightly peeking from the blue curtain that was her hair and at him.

“I can’t lie and say that we were thick as thieves at the start, but we fell in love because we saw the good in each other in spite of the bad we both saw. So, don’t say you’re not worth it. Don’t say that the bad is all you are, because that is a bad habit too many people share, ya know?” 

Subaru smiled wryly. “I won’t deny that what I have experienced didn’t give me a bias, but that’s for me to work out. That is something I am going to live with for the foreseeable future. So, trying to carry every bad thing you could have done, denying everything else and putting the blame on only yourself is not going to help.”

Subaru reached out his hand, holding it out for Rem, leaving the decision to grab it her own choice. “It’s easy to give up, right Rem? There are so many ways to, it’s scary. But giving up on yourself hurts so damn much. It may feel like a release at the start, but then everything starts feeling hazy and you realize that it’s going to be the same feeling tomorrow too. No matter how much you wish it to be true, we’re not at the end yet. Nowhere even close.”

“Rem doesn’t deserve this. She deserves to be left behind and forgotten.”

“That’s too bad. For me, your image has never been clearer. Don’t forget, you can’t decide how people feel towards you.”

“Rem is disgusting. Her love is a sickness, a blight. She rots everything she touches.”

“I won’t deny that it’s not heavy, but it saved me from falling down and staying there.”

“Rem… She…”

“I love the way you held my hand; your grasp was soft, but I know that they hide a fanatical strength that always filled me with safety. I love the way you smile; it always made me feel like I could be out in the rain and you could make me forget that. I love the way your eyes sparkled; I’ve never seen Priestella, but I’ll bet that they have nothing on blue oceans that I see in your eyes.”

Subaru felt a hand gently grasp his own. “Rem… I love you.”

“Subaru-kun has a bad habit of reusing confessions.” Rem croaked, trying to move her mouth into a teasing smile yet it only gave off the feeling she was exhausted. “Rem doesn’t know what to do, where to go, who she should be… She doesn’t even have the chance to change.”

“No matter what, I’ll get you back. And when I do, I’ll be there, ready to fall in love all over again with the Rem you choose to be.”

“She’ll never be good enough. She’ll never make up for what she put you through, what you’re going to endure to get Rem back.”

“I didn’t fall in love with you because you’re perfect, neither did you. Like I said, we fell for each other despite our faults. Although, it’s frustrating that the passion I fell in love with keeps getting you in trouble. Man, is this how everyone else felt?”

Rem laughed at the end of that, clearing the tears from her eyes with her other hand, allowing Subaru to move closer and embrace her. He placed a kiss on the top of her head before resting his chin on top of it.

It almost felt like things were like before; Subaru and Rem, together. Except now, there was an underlying scar beneath the surface. It made everything feel so fragile, so easy to break at a touch. He hated it.

He knew what it was. Rem saw through his eyes how everything went. To ask Rem not to feel anguish at the sight of her killing him and then interrogating him was horrid, Subaru will concede. But he firmly believed that trying to carry the weight of all her other selves was undeniably selfish. The difference between Rem and him was that she only knew of it from the outside, while he lived through it and participated in the chain of events.

To show Rem such graphic details of his deaths over and over made him want to punch this so-called Observer himself. It was one thing to tell everyone of Return By Death himself, but it was a different thing entirely of showing it to her in such bloody detail. Subaru couldn’t help but think that if he was just allowed to talk about his Return By Death himself, then he could spare some of the details from everyone. It wasn’t honest, but that didn’t mean that he should just dump all of his past issues onto them and make them present issues. 

But once again, the choice was taken away from him.

Subaru lost track of time of how long they spent sitting on the floor, holding hands, letting the fatigue of their conversation sit and burn at their nerves. It was cathartic in the way of having let go and vent out their troubles out into the night, only to receive a chilling gust of wind as a response. 

But there wasn’t anything fixed with this. Subaru imagined this was like the feeling of surviving a calamity, laying there in the ruins of it all. Perhaps that would have been how it would’ve felt if Subaru had fulfilled Rem’s dying wish and lived on by himself, or if he and Rem had run away together. All either of them could do was wait as time went by.

“Rem believes that…” A hiccup interrupted her, making her try to speak again. “Rem believes that Subaru-kun and her must reunite with everyone…”

Subaru raised his sleeve to his face, wiping away any tears, and nodded. “Yeah, we should go…”

He raised himself from the ground, pulling Rem up with him as they made their way toward the room’s door. When the door knob was within his grasp, he took a moment to prepare himself and looked back at Rem. Seeing that she was ready to go, he opened the door and walked into the hallway.

“Captain?”

“Rem. Barasu.”

He saw blonde and peach colors in his view. Garfiel and Ram were standing at a door down the hall. 

“Hey, guys… How’ve you been?” Subaru tried not to wince at how hoarse his voice must have sounded. “Did we keep ya guys waiting lo—?”

Subaru’s words were interrupted by the ringing of a bell. Unlike a certain silver trill, this gave him the image of a giant bell within a clocktower. Except, it didn’t threaten to burst his ears; rather it kind of had a soothing effect.

He looked at Garfiel and Ram with an arched brow, silently asking what that sound was for.

“The bell is to announce when the showing is complete, Barusu.” Ram said, looking more at Rem than him.

“Yeah, it takes a while for it ta get ready. Although… my amazin’ self kinda likes the sound of it.” Garfiel said.

“It does sound nice.” Subaru nodded. “What’s up, Ram?”

Ram took a glance over at her sister, narrowing her eyes at Rem’s visage and then mine before settling her sights at their interlocked hands. 

Whatever she was looking for seemed to allow her to untense, placing a hand over her heart and letting out a breath. “Apologies,” she said, “Ram was just worried sick, knowing that Rem and Barusu were alone in a room, where he would no doubt lose control of his beastliness. Thankfully, I was worried for nothing. Truly, Rem’s cuteness is a blessing to the world and a curse for her.”

“Oi, I wouldn’t go that far!” Subaru exclaimed, a smile crawling on his face. “Although I won’t disagree that Rem is a jewel, dazzling all who see her in the light!”

Ram closed her eyes and hummed in agreement. “Yes, she is a divine gift that can make even the most unsightly of beasts heel at her command.”

“Hm? Eh? Are you talking about me, Nee-sama? Although, I won’t deny that she already has me by the paw.” Subaru said cheekily, raising their interlocked up and down and showing off a bit.

Ram opened a single eye, watching Subaru and Rem’s faces and sighed when she saw their reddish ears. “Ha… Ram’s baby sister is still too young to pick a boy—ahem, a stray—I mean, a Barusu.”

“So, I already fell down the caste of pets?! What am I, vermin now? At least keep me by the same level as cats or dogs, even though I don’t have the fluffiness for it!”

“Mm, Mm! I-If Subaru-kun was a dog, Rem would think his fur would be so soft that she’d carry him on her shoulder all day, or maybe a teacup would be cuter.” Rem said, her face flushed.

“A teacup puppy?!” Subaru gasped, stars almost forming within his eyes as he smiled from ear to ear. “With stubby little legs—wait a minute! Rem!” His face twisting into a face of faux-betrayal.

Garfiel tried to stop his mouth from releasing a cackle, but he failed, instead he tried to wipe the tears from his eyes.

Subaru spotted that, and made an exaggerated pout. “Ah, quiet down, Garfield ! You’ll bust a gut and ruin your Monday.” Even though he knew that comeback was lame, he didn’t really want Garfiel to stop enjoying himself. If Rem’s behaviour concerning his loops was any indication how the others felt about it, he’d take the clear skies when he could get them and add more fuel to the fire with more of his lameness.

And no sooner than Subaru thought that, the light-hearted mood became cold as the sound of doors opening rang out in the hallway. Ram walked toward a door and knocked quickly, indicating to drop the inside discussion in favor of coming out. Garfiel just quickly warned them that the relations between the Emilia camp, Crusch camp, and Felt camp were not doing great at the moment.

And that was a big pill to swallow, having the closer two of the four camps in relation to him be at odds with his had made him feel like he was in trouble for stealing from the cookie jar. Felt would likely hate Roswaal for being what she’d imagine him to be the worst of the noble class. Crusch’s ire would stem from his disregard for his own people and his ulterior motives for Emilia’s candidacy. 

But Anastasia and Priscilla didn’t strike Subaru as the type to meddle in their affairs. The former would have likely taken it all as important intel, said her piece at certain places, but wouldn’t have made any moves to cut off any future business. The latter would have marched to her own drum, saying his Return By Death wouldn’t matter as the world goes in her favor or something.

Subaru looked behind him to see Julius taking the lead of exiting with Anastasia's camp. A brief exchange of glances made the two of them freeze up for a moment before Julius stepped aside and held the door for the rest of his group. 

Subaru had no idea what his relationship with Julius was at currently. If he had to describe it, then he had cleared three of ten events pertaining to Julius. Although, his face immediately soured at the thought because that would mean the game was an Otome instead of a Galge, and in no way was he going to go down that line of thinking. Ugh, he could practically hear the forums forming around the Roswaal route. It gave him goosebumps. 

Anastasia walked out with the triplets, one of them being Mimi who looked to have perked up when Garfiel was in view. If Anastasia had a smile before noticing Mimi’s change in behavior, it fell as she narrowed her eyes at the young demi-human boy. Ricardo just walked along with a brief nod of respect toward Subaru.

Priscilla came out next with Al from another door, crimson eyes appraising Subaru briefly before leaving the hallway and into the theatre room. Al made a casual wave and followed along. They didn’t seem to care that much, huh? Just like making a detour before going about their day. He kind of felt relieved that they just didn’t make a big deal out of it, really.

The same couldn’t be said about Crusch and Felt’s respective camps.

Crusch, Ferris, and Wilhelm entered the hallway with neutral expressions, likely tired of this entire situation and looking forward to leaving this place. Their eyes belied a softer emotion when Subaru was in view, but it sharpened into something else once they saw…Ram. They clearly didn’t have anything to say at the moment and left the hallway, leaving behind respectful nods towards Rem and Garfiel in particular.

That had Emilia and the others as the only ones left. Maybe they hadn’t noticed or they tried to keep their conversation going, but it looked like time was up… If the showings were of his life in specific, and the last one was about Subaru’s knighting ceremony, then there probably wasn’t much left to show. Unless that included some of his more comedic misadventures, then this was the last bit of time he had with Rem.

The thought made him grasp her hand more firmly.

The others finally got into the hallway, signaling the end of this brief reunion with one last showcase.

“So, does anybody have popcorn? Soda?” Subaru, tried to make a small joke before holding his chin in between his index finger and thumb. “Actually, have you guys been eating at all?”

"Ah," Aldebaran sighed. “Don’t remind us, bro. It’s still a weird thing to think about, not needing to eat or drink since coming here. Still gives me the creeps whenever I think too deeply about it.”

“Well, sorry! I’m new to this, short as it’s gonna be. And don’t you think the idea of my unconscious body being here for hours and hours doesn’t freak me out! I mean, what was the point of having an unconscious dude at the movies who’ll sleep through all of it except the epilogue?” Subaru said, trying to keep the mood that Aldebaran had so graciously allowed him.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, you were pretty much a stuffed toy for the more lovelier end of your company.” Aldebaran teased.

“And I didn’t wake up then?! Why?!” Subaru cried out with fake tears.

Crusch couldn’t help but feel that Aldebaran and Subaru’s banter was out of place, since the former had seen one of his fellow countrymen experience a repeating fate. Or perhaps that was just an idiosyncrasy that was common for those taken from beyond the waterfall. Natsuki Subaru’s father and mother were odd but endearing, making their eccentricities into charming points. Subaru didn’t have the same amount of success as them in that instance, but Aldebaran was simply too suspicious.

Any attempts to connect with him were met with evasive and senseless remarks. Anything the helmeted man said that had substance was an explanation of concepts pertaining to their home beyond the waterfall, yet that was done on a need-to-know basis and usually prodded by Priscilla Barielle. 

At the elaboration of what a cell phone was, Crusch realized a weakness of her Divine Protection of Wind Reading; she was prone to misreading half-truths. She was able to read another’s emotions to tell if they had just lied. Normally, emotions were not something that can be gleaned from another save for their mannerisms and body language; however, Crusch could read the wind along with invisible things like the wind. After all, if warriors could see the aura of another, why couldn’t she see emotion as well? 

A thought had occurred to her at the discovery of the relationship between Divine Protections and Authorities; if she was there to subjugate Sloth, could she be able to more easily discern the Unseen Hands’ maneuvers by virtue of it being an invisible thing? Unfortunately, all supernatural phenomena were rendered null and void save for the Great Spirit of Yin, Beatrice. Otherwise, her form would unravel into mana.

Crusch shook her head, clearing her thoughts from such ruminations. Instead, she decided to continue to observe the Emilia camp. No, she was observing Emilia.

Before, Crusch thought she was someone worthy of her respect. Even now, she still did. However, she cannot accept her decision to forgive Roswaal L. Mathers. The Mathers family had been a long lasting noble house of Lugunica for more than four hundred years, faithfully serving the royal family as a lineage with talent in magic. The revelation of their ascent being the patronage of the Witch of Greed was unsettling but not something she couldn’t turn away with blind eyes. The actions of an ancestor should only be applied to their descendent if they committed themselves to continuing their will.

Roswaal A. Mathers was a horrid exception to that belief. Stealing the bodies of his descendents, devoting his unholy existence to a Witch, endangering others with his plans for his obsession—the margrave was a danger to the world. However, that was the political reasoning of her unwillingness for Roswaal to have his way. The real reason was that somehow, in some twisted manipulation of fate, Roswaal’s existence had been an accomplice for much of her camp’s scars.

First, the Sacrament of the Immortal King had been made by the Witch of Greed, resulting in Ferris’s heart ache at the ruin of his family, watching his newly revived mother kill his father; his birth mother witnessed the event and had chosen to die alongside them, being the source of his antipathy for those who throw their lives away. 

Next, Sphynx, Witch of the Demi-Human War, a failed experiment of the Witch of Greed’s desire for immortality and a user of the very same spell kept by the Argyle Household to create her corpse soldiers. Her part in the war was crucial in their fighting force, and was the cause of many of Wilhelm and his comrades’ troubles. Her magic circles making the human side of the battlefield weaker and easier to be picked off by the Demi-humans.

Finally, the Book of Wisdom, a relic that gave the devil instructions to achieve his desired future. He would allow any atrocity if it furthered his agenda, including allowing the Oni to be attacked, endangering those who are under his protection for progress, keeping secret the whereabouts of the Great Witchbeasts, and letting the deaths of the Royal Family of Lugunica—of Fourier’s death—be the turning point for his goal of releasing the Witch of Greed.

Despite how much Crusch respected Emilia, acknowledging her triumphs and losses, she could not abide letting Roswaal go. She could empathize with the feeling of helplessness when it came to aiding her subjects with their troubles. She had commemorated Emilia’s resolve to free her people from their frozen prisons. And having time to cool off from Emilia’s decision to continue her candidacy with Natsuki Subaru still as her knight, she could trust in Emilia’s heart to not allow the Authority of Envy to become her crutch.

But she could never agree with her decision to forgive Roswaal. Her virtue became an obstacle in what Crusch believed to be the good of the kingdom.

She made her stance clear, but Roswaal had as well; he would not change what he desired, what he sacrificed for.

In reality, Crusch hadn’t believed that heroes would always have virtuous comrades, but the margrave was a man too engulfed in sin.

A hand clasped hers and squeezed reassuringly. Crusch smiled gratefully for Ferris’s consideration. The year in which Ferris and Wilhelm had supported her and rebuilt their relationship meant so much to her now that she had her memory. However, knowing that her memories may disappear into the ether once more, she was at least comforted by the fact that they’ll be there.

“Oh, cool! It’s starting!” Subaru said, pointing at the projection with a free hand.

Footsteps echoed throughout the cold, dark chamber.

Not a speck of light beamed into the space, making the path a charge through dark or shadow.

But the footsteps sound without hesitation, travelling through the rancid chamber with a casual gait. With such ease that they may as well be traversing their own room. 

The sound of water droplets and insects squirming could faintly be heard.

“Uh…” Subaru made a confused face, looking at nothing but a black screen. The only thing that clued him in that it was playing the scenario out was the audio. “Is one of the jacks knocked out? There’s only the A in AV.”

Aldebaran snorted, suppressing a laugh.

Subaru raised an eyebrow, then he understood. “Th-That’s not what I meant! Dude!”

“Subaru, what are you talking about?” Petra asked.

Aldebaran just laughed, forgoing his attempt in maintaining subtlety. 

“N-Nothing, Petra!”

 Mud and gravel crunched under their feet, the melted snow’s lingering chill stung their bare feet. This place inspired nothing but discomfort, but the silhouette gave not the slightest murmur of discontent.

Hordes of insects opened a path as they fled from the silhouette, their stronghold disturbed. Water flowed over their feet, the gentle downward slope being their guide as they walked on. Eventually, the silhouette stopped, their long hair flowing behind them as they looked up.

“Does anybody recognize who that is?” Subaru asked with squinting eyes. “I can’t tell.”

“Apologies, Subaru.” Reinhard said, crossing his arms. “The theatre has dampened our capabilities, thus we cannot see in darkness as well as we could have before.”

“Ah, right, my bad. Thought you guys could.” Subaru said, deciding to give up on trying to see who that is. He should just let it play out if Reinhard couldn’t…

Wait, wha?

“Huh?” Subaru blinked, his brain just finished processing what he just said. “I’m sorry, I think I heard something wrong. Are you saying that you’re being nerfed right now?”
“I do not know what that means, but I believe that the word ‘debuffed’ is applicable. Yes, I cannot use my full strength.” Reinhard explained, a thoughtful expression on his face. “This has been in place since several days ago, at the time of our arrival.”

Subaru couldn’t help but feel queasy. Reinhard, the Sword Saint, who cleared Puck’s cold storm in a single swing of his sword, was effectively suppressed. Such a possibility had not been something he could consider powerful.

As before, there was no light.

But her eyes shined with conviction. 

Dim lights danced as wind whipped around the girl's feet. 

Her long, pink hair and long-sleeved robe fluttered in the breeze. At their feet, at the point from which the wind blew, a circle drew itself in the ground. 

“Ryuzu…Shima, right?” Subaru asked Garfiel, having not seen her since last year. Well, it wasn’t accurate; he meant he hadn’t seen this soul with a very familiar face.  

“Aye, that’s Granny.” Garfiel said, understandably focusing on the showing with keen interest. He hadn’t seen Granny in forever, knowing that she left to take care of the barrier. So, suddenly having a clue of what happened to her was important to him and Frederica.

“So the reactivation ritual remained intact.” She was impressed by her work lasting for so many years. And of course, she gave herself a silent applaud for the performance she made until the time was right.

“...Huh?” Garfiel muttered.

“No…” Wilhelm gritted his teeth.

Roswaal… He simply smiled.

With that murmur, the girl atop the glowing circle levitated. She ascended as if riding on an invisible floor, rushing for the roof of the dark. That instant, as if ghosting through the bedrock, the girl launched to the outside. 

The sunlight burned her eyes. The girl closed her eyelids. 

It took exactly ten seconds for her to open her eyes again. Sun rays pierced through her eyelids and into her eye. Prompted by rebellion toward that, and some amount of impatience, she kept her eyes open wide. 

What she saw was the sun rising anew. “It's far less emotional than I expected.” 

“W-What?” Subaru was in shock. Deep within his heart, he knew who this girl was. This was the woman who wished to know everything. The woman who’s soul should still be in her grave.

“Mother…?” Beatrice whispered. This was not something she had thought was possible. Mother had escaped Sanctuary, using a duplicate of her friend’s body to operate in the world. She… Was this all a part of her plan? Was breaking her promise to Mother something she had planned since the beginning? 

It was an eerie experience comparing her mother from before her death and then after. Mother had been someone she deeply loved, wanting to do anything Betty could to make her proud of her. However, Mother within the Castle of Dreams was different, in fact. Not so much that Betty didn’t recognize her; her brilliance, her desire to know everything, her willingness to offer aid even if it came with an expectation of compensation. 

Yet Subaru’s interactions with Mother had changed those traits into something darker, or perhaps the Witch of Greed had always been that way if not more restrained. 

Did Mother truly planned for Ryuzu to become a sacrifice for Sanctuary’s foundations, or had the need for an immediate step forward have her use Betty’s friend as an alternative?

Did Betty’s Book of Wisdom cease functioning because she was expected to choose who was “That Person,” or did that mean her Mother thought she didn’t need the book?

Beatrice realized that everything she had done could be seen in one way or another. And she was too unsure as to what the answer for it all was.

Faced with the daylight, the girl tilted her head. 

Indeed, not a single ripple of emotion came from her apathetic eyes. After all her time spent with a false sun, she had hoped that seeing the real thing again would move her, but the results were unpromising. 

“Either way, I've safely left the barrier. Meaning that thing defeated the Trial, frustratingly enough.” Her only regret was that she couldn’t see her suffering at the third trial. “I'll give my thanks for doing what was expected of her but nothing more.” 

If that hadn't happened, it would have been inordinately difficult to leave Sanctuary in her new half-elf body. She would have caught herself in her own scheme. 

When she thought of the girl who dealt with that mess, she felt something akin to displeasure sprout within her heart. 

“Well, it's no issue. I can't be too reckless in this body, and I might as well traipse about for a while to fill in the blanks.” 

The girl flexed her hands open and closed, checking her body's condition. A duplicate of the progenitor’s vessel, and a subsumed soul of the same nature. She had fit her soul to this body when it entered the trials to retrieve the young boy and had been gradually transferring herself ever since, but adapting to it will take time.

Garfiel’s mind went blank. He did this. If he hadn’t tried to complete the trials, Granny wouldn’t have ended up like this. Her body being puppeted around by a witch while her soul was just gone. He was too conceited, thinking he could help everyone on his own. He was never facing the right way forward, always making a mess that others had to clean up for him. He saw that pathetic side of himself perfectly clear. He was just a scared kid; even now, he was scared. 

Could he do it? Could he kill his Granny to protect everyone? Is this how he should take responsibility? What was the right thing to do?

Arms went around his shoulders and pulled him to the side. He knew this feeling, knew who was hugging him.

“It was just a mistake, Garf.” Frederica said, rubbing his back in reassurance. “You couldn’t have known. And she wouldn’t have blamed you for this at all.”

Garfiel could only cry, like a child who knew he had done something wrong, and he clung onto his big sister. And in turn, Frederica focused on consoling her little brother, hoping to make the weight on his shoulders just a bit lighter.

She retained her full self at the cost of all of her magical power, so it would take time to regain her old prowess.

She was longer Ryuzu Shima; she would need a new name. 

“Omega.” Otherwise meaning “The End,” according to Subaru’s memories from Earth. 

She smiled, treading on the grass, slipping through gaps in the trees to exit the forest. The journey was somewhat troubling for a young maiden's legs, but it was no matter. The fatigue and pain proved that her soul and body are connected. She had to enjoy her long-lost life in abundance. 

Emilia couldn’t help but feel cold. When before that she said she would put to rest the business between her and Roswaal, she had said so with confidence that was the truth. However, she had to concede to him that it was between Echidna, Roswaal, and Subaru. It was almost comical how wrong she was about it all. Although she was necessary to free sanctuary, the other three were the ones orchestrating events around her to decide everyone’s fate.

Echidna made Puck and led him to her, when Emilia had not even been born at that point, all to help make the Trials essentially impossible for her to overcome without Puck breaking their contract. If Echidna had planned for her to free Sanctuary despite how much she despised her, then…

No, despite how much she was led around by the nose, Emilia didn’t think that her efforts were for nothing. Echidna’s machinations were something that Emilia couldn’t ever hope to break with just brute strength. She couldn’t help but be reminded of what Subaru had said to a witch cultist that they had captured; to knowing the terror that came from facing an opponent that was always one step ahead. But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t worth trying to fight—to defy the fate made in stone if not a little bit.

“Beatrice has left the Forbidden Archive, Roswaal has lost his gospel. Though considering the man who pocketed the burnt remains, and Garfiel's persistent rage, the fires are still smouldering yet. How will they face what's to come? Perhaps I'll watch over them, from the sun and in the shade.”

Otto’s breath hitched. She knew of that part as well? How?

He made sure that no one knew that he had Roswaal’s Book of Wisdom, keeping it a secret for the purpose of unveiling what Roswaal had planned before his defeat. 

Emilia-sama and Natsuki-san were kind. They held a quality that was rare that allowed them to shine nobly and virtuously. The latter’s personal experiences showed how such a man could live like that.

However, they were too kind. They could say whatever they wanted when it came to Roswaal, but he would neither forgive nor trust that man unless the situation called for Otto to put his misgivings aside. Despite the nobility of their character, Otto Suwen lived in this harsh world with his mistakes, lucky breaks, and efforts.

And now, Roswaal knew that his Book of Wisdom was not burnt completely. He didn’t have the heart to look to his side and confirm that Roswaal was looking at him, seeing that by process of elimination he was the only one that could grab the remains.

“You…!” A quiet growl was heard.

Unfortunately, Ram seemed to have figured out it was him. But Otto would not shrink his gaze that his actions were not essential for their sakes.

Purposefully excluding the girl that irked her, she began to walk. There was a whole world out there. It would never grow dull for her, abundant, endlessly satiating her curiosity, a mountain of treasures for the embodiment of the Thirst for Knowledge. 

“If I'm like this, perhaps I'll understand someday.” 

Along her path, the girl sights a ring of flowers, and smiles. 

She plucks a flower petal, sniffs its scent, pops it in her mouth. 

Even beautiful flowers shall wilt. Why must the flowers wither? Were even the beautiful memories shared between people destined to wane? 

“Ah~, why must love always fade?” 

Muttering, her long pink hair swaying, the girl steps forth. 

Once again, a Witch had been unleashed into the world.

Felt sat there in her seat, her temper threatening to boil over. 

She believed that the world ran on the old saying of survival of the fittest. That it didn’t matter if you shit in a hole in the ground or in a fancy porcelain bowl—whatever! If you cannot adapt to your circumstances and work toward your goal, then you weren’t anything worth noticing. 

If a girl wanted to take herself and her family out of the slum’s life, she better learn how to pickpocket. Lying and stealing, whatever it took so long as they didn’t lose sight of what goal they wanted to realize.

However, Emilia seemed like she was losing sight of the goal herself.

Life had been about survival of the fittest, whether it was a beggar doing whatever it took to live day-to-day or an orphan doing their best to learn a trade. Felt would never judge what would be the “right” or “proper” for others to live strong. People lived in a chaotic world that didn’t give handouts whenever times were tough or unfortunate.

However, that did not mean Felt agreed with Emilia’s way of things. The method to achieve one’s goal was just as important as the goal itself. Felt learned to see the world in a wider scope during her time in the Astrea Household, but it was especially transparent in Subaru’s experiences.

She understood the consequences of ignorance and haste, seeing the old man’s corpse several times due to her shallow understanding of what warriors were like and how her desire for more led to bloodshed. But that was a single, lethal mistake; Emilia had made several times over, trusting that grandstanding margrave in any capacity was her evidence of the half-elf’s insanity.

Roswaal was effectively the worst of the worst of what Felt despised of the kingdom of Lugunica, having great power and doing nothing with it to help those in the dirt. He hordes magical techniques to himself, using his magic color titles as decorations. He saw his subjects as pawns to advance toward his sick, love story. Felt hated him with nearly as much animosity she held for the other nobles of Lugunica.

And despite that, Emilia was still willing to have her as her sponsor for her candidacy. Felt couldn’t help but compare the situation as a behind closed doors deal. She hated it; seeing Emilia try to navigate her way in a corrupt system made by those blue blood bastards and be corrupted in turn.

She had thought that Emilia would be similar to her in how they want to direct the kingdom, changing its social structure to something better than the rot it was before. After all, who else would want Lugunica to change its way of doing things besides the two of them? Crusch’s focus was on cutting off the Divine Dragon’s pact, but would likely fall back on the kingdom’s pre-established rules and structure, seeing how she strongly felt the old royal family deaths. Priscilla would still be the prissy bitch Felt saw her as, ruling on her whims and whatever else goes through the mad woman’s head; she didn’t want to know. Anastasia was a merchant, through and through, enough said. Emilia was the only who knew what it was like to be looked down on, and to have not many things at all.

Felt couldn’t understand the reason why Emilia would be willing to sell her soul with this clown.

“Emilia-san,” said Crusch. 

At least she wasn’t the only one to feel that way. She just didn’t agree with their way of doing either.

“Do you still expect us to turn a blind eye to what that traitor’s actions have resulted in now?” The Valkyrie stared down the self-proclaimed Witch of Glaciation.

Chapter Text

“Emilia-san, do you still expect us to turn a blind eye to what that traitor’s actions have resulted in now?” Crusch said. Her eyes narrowed as if to dare Emilia to challenge her words.

“Crusch-san…” Emilia muttered, closing her eyes and taking in a breath before hardening her expression. “I will not retract my words. This is an affair for my camp to handle.”

Felt let out a frustrated breath. “Are ya fucking kidding me? Even now, ya taking this bastard’s side.”

Reinhard frowned. “Emilia-sama… Is there no other way?”

“There isn’t.” Emilied refuted. “Roswaal is not just my sponsor. He is bound by a soul pact that he will support me as best he can; therefore, he is my responsibility to reign in.”

“Oh, well! Ya did a real bang up job, huh? Good work! There’s a witch out there, living it up, and now you expect us to not bring this up?” Felt snarked, crossing her arms and raising a brow. She did not look amused by the idea.

“Go and tell the Council. I will not back down.” Emilia said, trying to give fuel to her audacity.

It was not like she didn’t understand where they came from. However, thinking about it further, Emilia understood what the right path could be.

Throughout the viewing, they all understood a pattern when it came to Subaru’s approach to survival. Something Aldebaran had said in passing and was forced by Priscilla to elaborate in greater detail: the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

He compared Subaru’s approach to using his Authority of Envy was that he would choose a so-called “route” to go down to explore what he can find and return to his checkpoint. In times of desperation, he would double down on an idea to the trials ahead. He would lose sight of his priorities so that he could stick to his method of approach in spite of the fact that just a moment to center himself would help him more than rushing off.

Like he did when he went on a stakeout for a curse-user, stealing a knife from their house.

Like he did when he pleaded for help without offering a fair trade, making promises that he would never be able to fulfill.

Like he did when he decided that no harm would come to pass, using his life as a trade off for that future where death was denied.

Subaru had narrowed his focus too much and raked himself across hot coals when it was not necessary.

Just like she did…

It was the screams of his knight as he was devoured by the Great Rabbit for so long that she made an impulsive plea. To help her detain Roswaal so that he may never hurt Subaru ever again. Without hearing Otto’s advice, she sneaked a meeting with Crusch to ask that of her.

Once again, it was because she had a head full of air that she didn’t realize that was the wrong decision. After all, if she had talked to Otto about this half-baked idea, would he have revealed to her he had the remains of Roswaal’s Book of Wisdom?

If she had been more reliable, would he have told this to her by himself?

Emilia didn’t fault Otto or questioned his motives. She trusted him completely in spite of his initial attempts to come across as a shrewd merchant. He was just as hopeless in a good way like Subaru.

She could only blame herself for being so untrustworthy.

So right now, she must prove herself to them—her friends—that she was capable of leading them. Because right now, she could not lose a thing for the sake of being nice or right.

“Tell them what you can, and I’ll tell them the truth of the matter.” Emilia said.

“What we can?” Felt scowled. “And what the hell do you mean by that?”

“All you have is hearsay. Observers, Book of Wisdom, Envy—I’m sure it will go well.” Emilia felt sick. “And if you think your Divine Protections can corner us, then you have another thing coming.

“I won’t deny the House of Mathers had their origin intertwined with the Witch of Greed. I won’t deny that Roswaal L. Mathers has orchestrated events for his own gain. And I will not deny that he has carried out the will of his ancestors all the way back to Roswaal Altair Mathers in the revival of their benefactor. But Crusch-san, you missed something very, very important...”

Crusch rolled her jaw, feeling heat permeate throughout her veins. For a moment, she didn’t understand what the point Emilia was trying to make. Or at least, that was until she heard the line mentioning the carrying of ancestral will.

“You…”

“Yes,” Emilia affirmed. She felt a piece of herself crack as she talked, but she must carry on. Collecting every bit of Pride in her being. “We entered the settlement known as Sanctuary and conquered the Witch of Greed’s Tomb, suppressing her student’s descendant from carrying out her instructions.”

This was the gambit that Emilia had come up with just now. Telling the truth from another perspective. If Crusch and Reinhard were going to use their Divine Protections to corner her sponsor into speaking the truth, she would then refute their accusations with that very truth.

“Roswaal and Subaru made a bet where not a single person can die as we push through the Witch of Greed’s Trials to free demi-humans that were held in captivity by the Echidna’s pursuit for immortality. Of course we would want to set them free. It is not their fault that they cannot leave, since it was their ancestors that chose to never leave.

“Not a single person is allowed to die as we survive the encounter with the Bowel Hunter and a witchfiend tamer. An event orchestrated by Roswaal, yes.

“Death was not allowed as we must claim victory over the Great Witchfiend, the Great Rabbit. I held the horde back from devouring the villagers of Sanctuary, fighting with everything I had so that my knight and his spirit could end the threat for good. Go ahead; at least then, they’d have no other choice than to affirm our achievement instead of leaving it as pending!”

Emilia’s heartbeat resounded in her ears. She could not stop now. She could not give them any window of opportunity to push her onto the backfoot. 

“We may have failed to stop him from calling the Rabbit to us, but we burned his Book of Wisdom, leaving him without a way to divine the future, and forcing him to rely on our lead instead.

“Roswaal made a bet that we must all live as we endure these tribulations. And then we did.” Emilia grimaced at the thought of what she would say next. “Not a single one of us had died.”

That line made Emilia feel so much shame that her stomach turned into a void, eating away at her innards at such an arrogant, insensitive assertion. Even so, she must step on that doubt and crush it.

“Is that not true, Roswaal?” Emilia addressed the magician, looking at his expression for the first time since her speech. “You made a wager where not a single person must die as we faced all of these impossible odds, so that you may truly support my candidacy in full instead of following the words of a Witch who was your family’s greatest benefactor. We proved to you that we were capable of a victory so overwhelming that the people would tell tales of how just after the subjugation of the White Whale, the Great Rabbit would never again devour and wreak havoc across Lugunica because of us!”

Roswaal’s conspiratorial smile burned Emilia. The reason was that despite all he had done, a part of her had still wanted to forgive him. No, even after what he caused, she still forgave him. 

But at least now, she will never forget what was done. What she let be done. 

“Indeed~, Emilia-sama.” Roswaal said in a song-like tune. “Despite doing everything I could to set the wager in my favor~, I still lost in such an embarrassing~ manner. And in the face of that reality, is there any~ other reason not to follow the victors?”

“Nyew…! Nyew!” Ferris growled.

Emilia looked to the small groups of people that made up the Crusch and Felt camp respectively, feeling the void in her stomach start to move toward her heart.

“Emilia…?” Subaru muttered, confused by the sudden tirade. He knew that he was told that there were tensions between the three camps, but why did he feel like this was almost a threat of mutually assured destruction? Wasn’t this getting too heated?

“Crusch-san, Felt-chan, Reinhard-san… If you try to make this a public affair, then I will simply win over the people after every single feat of ours at the incident is irrevocably confirmed. I will win over the Council with the promise that we will slay the Black Serpent that stalks my home’s land with its poison.

“I will vow before them that we will subjugate Greed, who decimated my home years ago, and Gluttony, who took from us the existence of those we held dear! witchfiend, Archbishop, or Witch—we will do what it takes to put them all beneath our feet!”

Emilia walked up to Crusch, meeting her razor sharp glare with amethyst eyes filled with a dark determination.

“All that will accomplish is Subaru-sama dying over and over again. Are you so willing to use your own subjects’ lives just to ascend to the royal palace?” Crusch said.

“What other path is there, Crusch-san? Tell me, what is there to do?”

“You—!”

“It’s this face! This hair! These eyes!” Emilia cut whatever Crusch was going to say off. “It’s these things that will never allow me to live peacefully. Do you think I wanted to be born like this?!”

Emilia’s voice had cracked, the Pride that carried her will faltered and turned into Wrath. No, it was not quite like that. It crumbled into a Fear that threatened to consume her very being, her body burning as she drowned in it.

“How am I supposed to live knowing that at any moment Pandora could come along and raze it all to the ground? She can still influence the Black Serpent like before! She has Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, and Lust under her command! And you expect me to follow through with a decision I made with an addled mind? To get rid of Roswaal when I have his soul bound to my ambitions?”

“E-Emilia?” Subaru stood up from his seat, reluctantly letting Rem’s hand go.

He felt guilty doing so. He had just declared his devotion to her, and here he was going to the side of the silver-haired girl. He knew that falling in love with two different girls was hypocritical and indecisive of him, but he supposed that for all of his words and promises, Rem and him knew who he would choose first and foremost.

He really was the scum of the earth, huh?

“I-I think that maybe a break cou—” Subaru tried to de-escalate, however…

“Please sit down, Subaru.” Emilia said, not even sparing him a glance, making him flinch. “Right here, right now… We’re settling this.”

“There is no room for outsiders in a meeting between camp leaders, Subaru.” Crusch said, refusing to look away from Emilia’s gaze.

Emilia’s breath hitched. “Is that supposed to be a slight, Crusch-san?”

Crusch scowled. “I do not believe that my words could have carried any other meaning to them, Emilia-san.”

Emilia knew what she really meant. It was as obvious as the blood in the snow.

Wet crunches echoed within her mind as she glared at the woman in front of her. Screams rang out before being drowned out in a cacophony of clicking teeth.

It was always like this. No matter what she said, no matter what she did, Emilia just kept letting down those she never wanted to disappoint.

“I really think we should probably calm down a little.” Subaru interjected again, turning around to look to Otto for some help.

Otto, slightly startled from Subaru’s impromptu signal for help, briefly shifted his eyes toward…Ram? Subaru noticed that her face was strained slightly.

“Subaru…”

“Natsuki Subaru...”

Subaru ignored their tones full of stern warning. Instead, out of impatience, he motioned the movement of holding something, raising both his arms, and swinging it down to Otto’s general direction.

Now, Otto Suwen was going to help his friend in his political fiasco until the sudden gesture he did. It kind of reminded him of Natsuki’s whip practice, but his hands were placed too far apart for that to be the case. It made him pause in his stride.

Subaru, noticing his friend’s confusion, moved his hand toward the other in parallel and started cycling it through the air. How the hell was he not getting what he was doing? 

Come on, Subaru! Reel in the Merchant of the Swamp!

Heave! Ho!

Subaru whipped about the (imaginary) fishing pole, giving and taking slack as he fought against its immense weight!

Heave! Ho!

And yet, the Lackey of the Lake remained immoveable, completely ignoring its ingrained instincts of indulging in its periodic stupors!

Heave! Ho!

But the illustrious Hunter did not give in! He dug in his heels and pulled, the opposing forces he directed sunk his small boat into the waters. The wood releasing a warning creak as if it would be the first casualty between the battle of wills of him and the dead-drunk fish!

Unleash your inner Freecs! Persevere beyond the raging storm and waves—!

“Ahem!” A cough made Subaru pause in his movements. He turned his like a rusty automaton toward the source and found it was Crusch. 

Emilia herself was not as wound up, but she was more confused by his Subaruism. Or was it more the face of irritated incredulousness?

At being caught in his shenanigans, Subaru did the only thing that felt appropriate at the moment. He gave Otto a slow and profound shake of his head in disappointment. Oh, how he had dropped the ball on this one, and now he must be the one to clean it up.

That made Otto throw up his hands in the air. How was that his fault?! Natsuki was 

Subaru coughed to clear his throat, ignoring the heat flooding his ears. “Ahem! Thought you guys were gonna keep leaving the rest of us out of this. Mighty bad manners, ya know?”

At his words, Emilia and Crusch narrowed their eyes.

But Subaru held up a finger. “Wait a minute! I wasn’t done. Yeesh…”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Bad manners, nya?”

“Yup!” Subaru chirped, ignoring the jab. “I mean, it’s one thing to have an important discussion in front of everyone, but it’s another to be so heated, too!” He shifted his gaze left and right before cupping his mouth and talking in a whispering shout. “Wouldn’t want the neighbors to make a public disturbance report.”

Al let out a dramatic sigh. “Kids these days, I swear. With all the hullabaloo and their racket.”

Subaru knocked his head, closed an eye, and smiled with his tongue hanging out. “Gomenasorry, mister! We didn’t mean to wake you at your nap time.” 

“Ugh, don’t do that!” Al said in disgust, then he paused. “Oi, don’t call me old! I’m young at heart!”

“Bleh! Sowwy!” Subaru said, holding a finger to his chin.

“Ha… Kids these days…” Al shrugged and waved his only arm at his fellow countrymen.

“This isn’t a game, Subaru!” Emilia reprimanded. 

“Subaru-dono, I believe that those under their candidate's leadership should refrain from interfering.” Wilhelm said gently. 

Subaru shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think I will. So let’s throw all that political stuff out the window already, yeah?”

Felix threw Subaru an unimpressed look. “Nyou are really going to do this again? I nyeed to knyow where nyou get all this audacity from, nya.”

Subaru was not going to admit that Felix’s expression stung more than his words. He didn’t want to give out a single sign of meekness. As much as he didn’t want it to be the case, he could almost imagine himself back at the capital in front of the council and knights of the kingdom. “I don’t have a clue to anything you guys are talking about with all this gloom and doom that’s been hanging in the air. So if we’re not going to push this aside, let’s talk it out. Friend to friend!”

“So long as the barking ends. Make it quick.” Priscilla said. “Come Aldebaran.”

“Yes! Thank you, princess.” Al said, seeing himself out of this conversation.

“Hm, I don’t think my camp has any business here, so just knock once y’all are done.” Anastasia declared, gently pulling Mimi away as they made their leave. The small cat girl was sulking at not being with Garfiel. Tivey and Hetaro threw Garfiel a look that was both protective of their sister and pitying for the boy.

Ricardo smirked at the four, letting out a small snicker, before falling in line with Anastasia.

Julius followed his lady’s word without any doubt, but not before he gave Subaru his parting words. “Good luck.”

“Rejection from the start! Well, not like I didn’t expect that from you guys.” Subaru said, deliberately ignoring Julius’ words on instinct, but… “Thanks…”

Subaru didn’t know why he said that to Julius. He hated him. He hated his perfect face. He hated how he carried himself like he could do anything if he gave all of effort to. He…

“I~ believe that we shall leave as well~.” Roswaal said, interrupting Subaru’s train of thought. He motioned for his maids to follow, and they did with varying degrees of displeasure. 

“Sure ya can be so carefree, bastard?” Felt spat out.

He responded with only a smile. And it was pissing her off.

“Garfiel-kun, Otto-kun… I don’t think we’ll~ be needed here.” Roswaal said.

“What are you planning?” Otto couldn’t help but ask as Garfiel bristled and growled at the margrave.

“I’m~ simply giving consideration~ to those wanting a private moment. It is rather~ rude to intrude on a talk among friends, no~?” Roswaal said with a wink.

“...Fine. Let’s go, Garf.” Otto said with the expression of having eaten ash.

Garfiel looked to Otto in confusion, then swerved to Subaru. “Captain…?”

“It’ll be fine, Garf. Trust me.” Subaru smiled with reassurance.

With that almost all of the Emilia camp began to leave, only Subaru, Beatrice, and Emilia herself remaining.

“Betty…needs to talk to Roswaal about something.”

“Huh?” Subaru blinked. He didn’t notice that she was right next to him, nor did he notice that they were already holding hands. It felt so natural he didn’t think about it at all. “Oh, um… Sure.”

Whatever she wanted to talk to Roswaal about… Wait, no. He was almost about to assume based on the fact he couldn’t talk about his experiences. Subaru…didn’t know what Beatrice could want to talk about with Roswaal. He…

“Yeah… Um, take care?” He said dumbly. He could only trust Beatrice that she’ll be okay. 

Huh… He suddenly didn’t feel all that assured… 

She knew that Beatrice had suspected he was cursed and stayed out of it…

He was going to hash that out with her later, but he didn’t like that this might be a repeating thing. Crap, he was in so much trouble.

Roswaal stayed by the entryway. “Lead the way, Beatrice.” But he dropped the verbal tic.

All that remained in the showing room was the Crusch camp, Emilia camp, and the Felt camp. 

“Why?” Ram asked, eyes pointed at the gray-haired merchant. 

“Because I thought that we needed every advantage we could get.” Otto said firmly.

The two were staring the other down in the room they were all in before, deciding that they would not be of help in the ongoing talk between the three camps. 

Truly, the Internal Affairs Officer was not needed in a political discussion, huh?

He was being brushed aside so that those two could run it all by themselves, huh?

Natsuki-san would be getting punched if Otto didn’t like his answer as to why he needed to vacate the scene when it was his job to be there. Although, he might kill Otto if he tried the same method he applied to Natsuki-san back at Sanctuary to Emilia-sama. He’ll need another way to get through her hardheadedness.

“By giving back the thing that trapped his soul for centuries? Ram cannot understand how you could have possibly believed that was an idea worth exploring down.”

Otto narrowed his eyes. He felt a sort of coldness wash over him as he stood his ground. “We all know that wasn’t what his heart was bound to.”

Ram's response was her gritting her teeth.

“I came with everyone to have the Book of Wisdom restored at Pristella so that any plans the margrave had made ahead of time would be discovered.”

“An action unneeded when he has already been beaten.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Otto raised a brow. “Are you that desperate to keep him under your thumb? Under the illusion that since he has no way of communicating with the witch, he’ll love you instead?”

“Watch it, Cabbie.” Ram said coldly. 

“Nee-sama…” Rem muttered.

Otto ignored her. “We both know what Emilia-sama and Natsuki-san are like. Even if their anger toward Roswaal was sparked again, they’ll forgive him.”

Petra grimaced, but she nodded her head in agreement. “They will. This is one of the times that I can’t help but hate them for it.”

Rem stared down at the ground in unease.

Frederica simply stood by with her eyes closed, holding a blank face.

Garfiel gritted his teeth in anger, staring Ram down with fire of his own.

“But that doesn’t mean I will. That we have to. So, I’m getting this repaired, and I will find out what he was planning all this time.” He said, his tone leaving no room for refusal. “You’re not going to stop me.”

“Ram will burn that book as many times as she needs to.” was her response. 

“And if Emilia-sama were to order you to accept this?”

“She won’t. Ram knows Emilia-sama has had enough of prophecies.”

“Mm… Yes, I suppose she’ll be sick of the Book of Wisdom…and of Natsuki-san’s Authority of Envy.” He could hear the others’ breath hitch at his inclusion of Natsuki-san.

Ram’s eyes were staring down daggers at Otto. In fairness, even he didn’t want to take it to that level, but… He didn’t want Ram to stop him when it came to protecting everyone in the camp. So…

“Ram-san… I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but…” Otto trailed off before taking in a deep breath. “Was taking his Book of Wisdom all you could think of? Did you think it was enough?”

Ram didn’t respond this time, so he continued. “I won’t deny that it hadn't shaken Roswaal’s core, but all that resulted in was replacing a book with a person… With Natsuki-san…”

“Ram destroyed that book to force him to face all of his sins. So that for the rest of his life, he could not use that book as an excuse to turn his gaze from the fact that he himself had made his own choices.” She said, forcefully making her voice steady.

“I… I don't think Roswaal ever saw it that way, Ram-san.” Otto said, gently. The fact that she had bothered to explain what she was thinking was probably a testament to how much trust she placed in him for his title as the Internal Affairs Officer. So that didn’t mean he needed to be too harsh. 

“Ram-san, do you really think that book was the source of all Roswaal’s evils? I don’t think so.” Otto shook his head, letting out a shuddering breath. “The driving force of their resolve has always been their love.”

He doesn’t love Ram went unsaid. He definitely cared for Ram as he treated her when she was injured back at Sanctuary. If he had let Ram be, then the wager between him and Natsuki-san would end with his victory as Ram was most certainly one of the people Natsuki-san wanted to save. If she succumbed to her wounds, then Natuski-san lost. And if Natsuki-san went back on his word to not use his Authority, then it was everyone’s loss. Otto didn’t even want to think about what kind of lives everyone would be living if that happened.

“Four hundred years… In those four hundred years, Roswaal may have been following his book’s instructions, but that was all it did. It gave instructions for his desired future. I believe that there were several times where he chose another path instead of what his Book of Wisdom wrote out. So, I don’t believe it was ever the source of his misfortunes.” Otto paused to not only let his words sink in, but to prepare himself for what he was about to say next. “Ram-san, is it not you who used the Book of Wisdom as the excuse you say Roswaal was always using?”

Otto didn’t believe for a second that the Book of Wisdom was the thing binding Roswaal. After all, Roswaal had used his children as his soul’s vessels for centuries. He cultivated his martial arts to fight without magic. And he seemed to have once been a good friend with Wilhelm Van Astrea.

No, whatever bindings Roswaal had were self-induced. As much as he touted that he would do whatever it takes to reach his goal, then why did he never ask the question from Beatrice? Why did he never say he was “That Person” if Beatrice herself would take a lie as truth?

“The hell are you on about, Cabbie? Could it be that not drowning yourself in alcohol is the reason Ram is hearing nonsense?” Ram tone was laced with venom.

“The viewing confirmed that you knew about the Book of Wisdom for a long time, so…was it not you who was chained by its instructions? Your memory was altered, your feelings changed by Gluttony’s Authority… I won’t deny the possibility that your vengeance changed into love…” No matter how much it sickened him, or how much it reminded him of Natsuki-san at the Witch’s Tea Party. “So, I’ll press forward on the assumption that it was all genuine…

“Ram-san, did destroying the book really change anything if Natsuki-san is here?”

“The connection between Roswaal and that witch is severed. He is free from her influence wrapping chains around him.”

“She has been dead for centuries, so I don’t believe the Roswaal torch for her wavered at all. If anything, the viewing strengthened his hopes.”

Ram looked as though she wanted to lunge at him, but it was Rem’s hand interlocking with her big sister’s did she pause. Otto didn’t want to do this, but he felt like he had to. As two people who trusted each other for the sake of a shared goal, for the sake of a cherished friend, Otto felt like he needed to say the words.

Ram’s eyes were filled with anger, doubt, and sorrow. Otto didn’t know if it was the conflicting feeling having two sets of memories and the emotions that came with them.

The first time they entered this theatre, Ram choked on her words as she embraced her long forgotten sister. It was the first time he ever saw her so vulnerable. Yes, perhaps Beatrice had summarized it perfectly: the oni sisters were two halves of a whole.

He would not claim he was the example of patience when the revelation that Rem and Ram had both killed Natsuki Subaru became a part of his knowledge. But he would not deny that he didn’t feel for Ram when her past self once said that Rem would understand being left behind. The sad part was that Rem would have agreed, but the Ram who remembered living with her baby sister would never forgive herself for the assertion. He knew dearly how precious a sibling’s bond was.

It was an abominable thing; the concept of being erased from the world. According to the world’s memory, Subaru had killed a large number of witchfiends on his own despite having been nearly mauled to death. There was no way for him to have killed the entire pack, but the world didn’t question such a statement and took it as truth. Nobody else thought to question it either.

“Ram wanted to bring him down to the earth…” Ram said, her voice cracking slightly. “She wanted to take away his reason for being, for living, for fighting! Ram… Ram thought that taking something so precious, his last connection with the witch, she could hold his soul in her hands. And yet, it…he still won’t look her way.”

Ram held her sister’s hand. And then, she let out a resigned breath. “It wasn’t enough.”

Ram wasn’t enough, went unsaid.

Despite how much Subaru tried to paint it all, this was not a fairy tale where a happy ending that everyone fought for was there, hoping for their hands to break down the last obstacle and grasp it. Especially now that they realized how many corpses it took to get this far.

But that was a topic for another time. Because the happy ending was not the end at all. Fantasy has lied. So, everyone must pick up the pieces that were their lives, whether the shards were dull or jagged.

Because that was the only life they had…

Frederica reached out a hand to Ram before she retracted it back to her hand, clasped against her lap. It was at the nudge of Petra that she tried again, following her lead to wrap her arms around her.

Ram tensed, but she relaxed once Rem joined in the impromptu hug. Her eyes slightly misting.

Garfiel watched it all with a conflicted face. He didn’t think it was fair, seeing the girl he was sweet on look so defeated over someone he hated not feeling the same way she did. But…

At least he wanted to say something that didn’t hurt her. “I’m sorry, Ram…” He genuinely was sorry at the hand she was dealt with.

“Ram gets it…” She said, before her face grimaced. What kind of sister was she when she didn’t immediately ask this question: “Could that book get Ram’s sister back?”

Otto blinked. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. In hindsight, it should have been something he’d considered if it still worked when he wasn’t its owner. He was just so focused on Roswaal he didn’t… “I’ll see, as soon as it’s fixed.”

Otto wanted to hide his shame for thinking so shallowly. “Although, Natsuki-san will probably have found Gluttony before then.”

Ram let out a small, mocking laugh. “Fufu… Yes, that would just be Barasu’s luck, hm?”

“My amazin’ self’ll probably lock the bastard in an earth cage. He’ll need ta breath, right?” Garfiel said, throwing in his own thoughts on how to catch Gluttony.

“Ha!” Ram’s mocking laugh seemed more lively this time. She nuzzled into Rem’s embrace a little more.

Ram thought that her pact with Roswaal could let her avenge her fallen kin. But as time went on, she realized she didn’t owe them anything after how they treated her sister. Yet at the same time, that night where he rescued only them left a scar on Rem’s heart. A scar that she couldn’t heal.

Her head felt hazy at times, feeling and interpreting how she felt at certain points when she was still a half of a whole. When Rem was there in her heart. She never wanted to feel that void in her chest again. How could she go back to wondering how deeply she loved Rem.

And if Ram lost Roswaal at the very end of it all, then… Yes, she could still live on as long as Rem was there with her. 

Ram…doesn’t want to let Rem go again…

Everyone stood at the stairs of the theatre room, deciding that they would rather look at each other face to face than side to side while sitting.

Reinhard and Felt stood at one point of their little triangle; Crusch, Felix, and Wilhelm gathered at another; Emilia and Subaru were stationed at the center of attention.

But before they could get a word in, the sound of a clock softly ticking gathered their attention to the side. 

It was the screen, having switched back to showing the night sky with a solitary star. Yet the sky started to change, colors swirling toward the star in a blur of blues, violets, and orange, with more stars being caught up in the whirlpool and shining. The center star that everyone else had been familiar with every time there was an intermission between events flared, looking more like a ball of Light than the small dot it was before. And peaking from that ball of light was the shape of a four-pointed star shining brilliantly.

“That…was dramatic,” Subaru said, deciding to break the brief moment of silence that covered them at the sudden transition. “Did, huh… Did that happen before or…?”

“No, Subaru.” Reinhard said, brows furrowed. “That certainly had not happened before… It simply showed a night sky with a single star. Nothing so…dynamic.”

Dynamic seemed to be the right word to describe what the screen was presenting. If before it was like a phone’s background picture, what they were seeing now was like a cycling PNG for its screen.

“Huh…” He mumbled. Taking a moment to look around for any other changes, Subaru swerved his head about but found nothing conspicuous. No sudden shifts in the environment, no sudden redecorating, just a change in its idle screen. Until…

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

The words crawled onto the screen in a slow and theatrical pace. But the words only made it put Subaru off.

“The hell…? Are we entering the inferno?” Subaru said uneasily before a useless thought came up that he blurted out. “Are we getting those cool nunchucks? Dogs haven’t liked me recently, so might as well?”

“Subaru,” Emilia called out, raising an eyebrow in befuddlement. “What…?”

His face burned, hearing the girl he liked hear his own otaku mumblings. Quick, pivot!

“U-Uh, d-d-da—!” He stammered. How cool, much suave! “Ahem! Oh, it’s just a saying I read about in passing…in literature class.” He didn’t want to admit that he looked it up after playing the video game. But could anyone blame him? Tell Emilia about something he shallowly researched about and act like he was some kind of expert on it? He’d die from embarrassment.

“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ basically means give up on getting anything positive from the experience you’re about to get into. It’s a famous line because the main character from the story found it as the inscription on the entrance to hell itself.” He said.

“Wow… Real bright, huh?” Felt said, raising a brow at Subaru’s explanation. “Whatever. At least we know what it’s supposed to mean for sure. Although, we kind of got it when we first saw it here.”

“Oh, you guys saw it at the start?” He asked. There was a lot he didn’t know that happened here in this theatre, and he was kind of feeling like a third wheel here. Ugh, he was feeling anxious again about all this… 

“Well, despite the grim message. It wasn’t all that bad. The guy, Dante, was basically given a tour of hell. It was as distressing as you'd imagine it’d be exploring the place, but he wasn’t actually hurt there. Like, the story didn’t have anything like a big fight with the devil or anything. It was more of an explorative adventure, talking to ghosts and seeing how the writer interpreted Hell, then Purgatory, then Heaven.”

“Really?” Emilia asked, surprised that such a foreboding phrase had come from a seemingly tame story. “And what was the name of the story?”

“Ah, it was called ‘Dante’s Divine Comedy’. It had three different parts for each location: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Oh!” Subaru remembered a fun little fact he overlooked. “And the guy who wrote it had the same name as the main character.”

Crusch raised an eyebrow. “Was that a coincidence, or…?”

Felix talked then. “He probably just wrote himself into the story, nya. That sounds like something that Subaru would do, too, nya.”

“Hey!” Subaru exclaimed. “Why am I getting flack now?” He didn’t want to admit that maybe Subaru had made up a fantasy or two about him going on an epic adventure, too. But it typically had more swords and magic with a demon king threatening the world. Typical shonen stuff.

“‘Lumps of EXP,’ I recall.” Felix said blandly.

“Hrgk!” Subaru felt an arrow pierce his back, metaphorically speaking. 

He, uh, might have misread the room here. Hadn’t Felix been a bit too sassy?

Despite not wanting to come across as a fake know-it-all, he used that to delay their talk, didn’t he? Oh no, he was having flashbacks from his highschool debut…

Don’t be nervous, Natsuki Subaru! Just take a deep breath and engage. No poorly timed jokes; steel the nerves. “Sorry for the tangent.”

At Subaru’s apology, Felix just hummed.. 

Emilia shook her head with a tired sigh. Now that she thought about it… Didn’t that story sound terribly similar to Subaru’s experiences? Being taken from home and sent to unreasonable circumstances… 

Suddenly, Subaru saying that the journey into Hell was not that bad reminded her of the route where he had used the Ryuzu clones to occupy Garfiel. He was so set in taking all of their pain for himself then that she was positively mad.

It wasn’t just Subaru thinking so lowly of her that irked her. It was also the fact that he was putting down his own pain as if it were nothing. So hearing that a man’s descent into Hell was “not all bad” kind of irked her a bit. But applying Subaru’s thoughts on a book to himself was unfair of her. 

Emilia was just so tired; her head felt like it was on fire. What was she even doing?

“Um,” Emilia mumbled before she cleared her throat. “Should we let the others know? That the screen changed again?”

Crusch opened her mouth to refute that, but she couldn’t really fault the idea behind it. The screen having shown no change in its contents for so long, save for the times where a brief and sometimes ironic title was displayed, suddenly changed in a dramatic fashion did cause a notion of concern. 

Crusch looked around the room another time in search of another change. “Has there been any other changes? Anything at all?”

“No, Crusch-sama,” Wilhelm confirmed. “The screen was the only thing that changed, and I believe it would be a matter of aesthetics.” 

“Ha,” Felt idly sighed. “So, what? If there ain’t anything for me to care about, why should I worry about some bastard thinking they’d like to replace their painting with somethin’ else? Could be a statue for all I care and I’d still wreck it for bein’ so attention-grabby.”

“Felt-sama…” Reinhard sighed, knowing full well she might just do that if her patience was spent. Although, it was already so troubling short as it was, especially if it came to him. 

“Ah, shut it. We’ll tell ‘em later. We’re doing this here and now.” Felt spat back, looking straight at Subaru and seemingly ignoring Emilia. She had noticed the dismissal; her eye twitched in indignation. “That sick clown. Kick him out.”

“Why?” Subaru said, more asking out of the need to give a reply than actually inquiry.

“‘Why,’ he said. Are ya fucking serious?” Felt looked at him like he had grown a second head. “The Great Rabbit, Sanctuary, the witch—take yer fuckin’ pick!”

“Okay, so there is a lot to take issue here!” Subaru said, raising his hands up in a placating gesture, but it only made Felt narrow her gaze sharply. 

“But! But! But! Have you considered this?” Subaru quickly waved his hands as if it would give him more time. “That would be taking our central pillar in our campaign!”

“Roswaal had been complicit in several, irrefutably damning acts of treason or gross negligence of their goings on.” Crusch started counting the offenses. 

“One: lost track of a dangerous half-elf duplicate that was intended to be for the Witch of Greed’s resurrection experiments, leading for that clone to then participate in the Demi-Human War where it had used the dead bodies of Lugunican soldiers as Corpse Soldiers!

“Two: had in his possession a metia with a suspicious resemblance with the Witch Cult’s gospels. A relationship we have no information on other than the fact that they were both used to manipulate events for dubious goals! When did the Witch Cult acquire these gospels, and how do we not know it wasn’t from the witch’s machinations?

“Three: the obedience of the aforementioned Book of Wisdom’s instructions to attract the attention of the Great Rabbit that would have killed most likely all of the Arlem villagers and definitely all of the residents of Sanctuary!”

Crusch’s face was turning red from frustration, making her short of breath. This had let to Felix and Wilhelm reaching out in reassurance and to ground her. “There are other such instances that can be considered as treacherous, horrific, or suspicious, but there is one thing neither I nor the Council of Wise Men would overlook…” Crusch focused her gaze on him and Emilia. 

“If he had let the royal family die so the election could come into fruition, what else had he done since then? What had he planned for any other obstacle in his way?” Crusch seemed to be searching for something. What that was, Subaru didn’t know. He was too stunned.

He had never considered how much Roswaal had done just so he could bring Echidna back… Yeah, he understood why they’re so angry.

“I said it already, Crusch-san…” Emilia said sternly, her face as fixed as stone. “I will not repeat myself again.”

Crusch closed her eyes for a moment, letting out a shuddering sigh, then she opened them again. Jewels emanating cold, military sternness, like a general was crossed with their fellow soldier for gross misconduct, gone was the pleading feeling they had before.

He wanted to say something. He wanted to confirm to Crusch that whatever she was looking for was still there nor did it change at its core.

“I don’t want Ryuzy and the others to be in trouble.” Subaru said, small and unsteady, but he grasped at whatever his mind gave him and ran with it. “If we expose all this, then this will be a lynching for them, like it was for Emilia.”

Crusch, who had looked like she was looking at an enemy, moved her gaze away from Emilia and onto Subaru. He had a feeling she had forgotten about them. There was a flicker of doubt in her eyes that told him that she didn’t want those girls to be caught up in Roswaal’s case either.

At gaining her attention, he took a deep breath. “I get it. I really do!. I don’t like working with him anymore than the others do, but that’s all we had at the time! But if we had to be so choosy with what help we accept then we’d have no chance at all! And he hasn’t done anything for the past year!”

Felt interrupted him, inserting herself back into conversation. “I ain’t gonna trust him to be a good, little loser when he clearly doesn’t care if he needs to bring everyone down with him to hold ya up to a standard.”

Subaru flinched. He was at a disadvantage of how much they know. If they knew everything he knew and then some, as the screen did shift in perspectives, he couldn’t really hide anything. He was already caught in any half-truth he could possibly tell. “We still need him, so… I don’t get why we should prosecute him at our detriment.”

“Detriment, ha…” Felix let out a hollow laugh. “Like that hadn’t stop nyou before.”

“Subaru-dono,” Wilhelm interjected, choosing to not mind Felix’s muttering. “It would be a different matter if the only one wearing those girls’ faces was Sphinx, whom I had met during the Demi-Human War; but right now, the Witch of Greed had been released from her tomb for a year. I apologize, but that is not a matter I’m willing to let be forgotten.”

Even now, Echidna was screwing him over. Subaru had thought that he had beaten her with everyone, yet she took account of all of it. In hindsight, maybe that was inevitable when his checkpoint was in her damn tomb. In the one place where she could read his mind and plan around his past loops.

He was scared to ask, but… Did she improvise everything the moment they met in each loop, or had Echidna been planning for his arrival from the jump?

“I refuse. The Ryuzus would be put in danger, and our camp would be unable to support them if something goes wrong.” Emilia said sternly. Shame had begun to rise from within her. She hadn’t thought about the Ryuzus. If someone from the Demi-Human War who caught a glimpse of Sphinx saw any of them, she didn’t want to think about what would happen to them. Unlike people who could age, all of them are stuck looking like a small girl. There would be no way for them to deny any relation with their appearance.

She couldn’t bend at all. Emilia needed to take charge! She had to show everyone that she deserved to be taken seriously. “And wouldn’t there be better options than announcing their presence throughout Lugunica? Echidna would have likely left the country of Lugunica if she was hampered by her new body.”

“Yes, she would have to… If she still had a way to monitor Emilia and the others, it would likely be something remotely controlled. There would have always been a chance for the Ryuzu clones to spot her and realize she wasn’t quite like the rest of them.” Reinhard acquiesced to Emilia’s point. At this point, Echidna was long gone out of their reach. He himself couldn’t leave the kingdom without starting international unrest; thus, only Anastasia had the leeway to check Kararagi for Echidna’s whereabouts.

“That doesn’t matter right now!” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “The way ya do things matter just as much as what your fightin’ for! I thought that ya understood that from seeing how this guy ran around.”

Subaru opened his mouth to interject before Felt shot a glare at him. 

“Oh, shut yer trap!” Felt rebuked. “Yer worse than her! As long as it doesn’t stop ya from yer sick comedy act, ya don't give a rat’s ass where ya get yer help from!”

“Oh apologies, princess! I thought I didn’t have a choice there! If at any point I hesitated, would I lose someone else again? With Rem, I still had a chance to get her back. But in what world would I ever be so lucky?!” Subaru yelled back, beginning to feel cornered. “Did getting out of the slums make you that holier-than-thou?”

“Says the dumbass that trusted a witch and a body stealer to help him out of the mess they made!” Felt stepped right in front of Subaru. Her crimson eyes were as unyielding as they were furious.

“Felt-sama, please calm down.” Reinhard said.

Subaru-dono, take a deep breath.” Wilhelm said.

The two Astreas were trying to calm Felt and Subaru down, respectively, but they both ignored them.

“You could say that we should have sent Roswaal to the brig, but what would that get us?! I ain’t saying that putting it behind us made us saints, but being so honest wasn’t going to give us any favors!”

“So, what? Ya’d rather take yer chances with the clown who could just kill everyone the minute ya failed a run to force ya to restart? Ya’d let that sword hang above yer head?”

“Felt, I’m pretty sure—” Emilia tried to interject, only for Felt to whip her head to her and silence with a look.

“I ain’t gonna hear it from ya!” Felt said. “If yer gonna use him as a crutch, drop out. At least the rest of us ain’t just gonna get their votes given to us on a silver platter.”

“What do you want, Felt? Tell me.” Emilia said with the tone of a tired mother looking after an unruly child. It was just so exhausting… Wouldn’t it be easier to just ignore her? “If you are just going to insult us, I really don’t think this is worth me getting a headache over.”

Felt scoffed at Emilia's words. “It’s like ya don’t even care if ya get yerselves killed.”

Emilia went stock still before shooting Felt a heated glare. “Excuse you!”

“I ain’t excusing shit! It ain’t like I’m wrong, either! The way yer going about, it’s the same as just throwing y'all at the wall and see if yer blood will soften it up!

“Each and every time ya coulda done something, ya didn’t! Why? ‘Cause ya didn’t want anybody to hate ya? Well, guess what? Ya’d probably be more useful if ya had just put yer damn foot down! And now ya’d realize how little ya’ve been taking us seriously, yer digging yer heels and cryin’ ‘Look at me’! Fuck off with that shit!

“Ya had a year like the rest of us, but what did ya really do? Sure, killed some Great Witchfiend. Go y'all! But killin’ every threat in front of ya all ya can do? Hell, ya didn’t even get it right the first damn time!”

The words pierce Emilia like steel. She couldn’t refute Felt’s words. She wanted to say that it wasn’t her fault, that what her camp had achieved had taken a lot of effort, but…

It was because Subaru was there… That thought felt like a binding curse. Like she truly couldn’t fail. Because Subaru wanted everything to go right, it meant that no matter what she did, it would turn out all right. But… But…

“Do you think I wanted it to be this way, Felt?! It would have been so much easier to think that everything I had done so far was the result of everyone’s efforts! That it was because we chose to struggle and win together! I didn’t know that Subaru had to die so many times just to drag us this far!”

Quitting the election and returning to Elior Forest just for the fact Subaru’s mercy killing was done out with brutality. Was she supposed to just accept and continue on like none of it mattered to her? No! She’d never forgive herself for being so callous. But was it worth it to just quit and just hope that everyone she froze in the forest would wake up? She didn’t want to think of herself as someone who would quit before they would even try. But she didn’t want to think of herself as a person willing to let someone die just for her own goals.

And yet that was what she did anyway. Again and again, she was just so passive, so meek! That she would decide right then and there that a rejection meant she was to be alone forever…

Emilia just wanted to know how to be strong like Subaru. To never give up like him! 

But he did give up… And it was because she equated special treatment as a denial of who she was, no matter the form. 

She just wished that she never knew what it really cost everyone to get this far.

I won’t forgive you , Petra’s words of heartbreak echoed in her head. She was right. It was all her fault… But she wanted to make amends. She wanted to prove that they could rely on her. Despite being so selfish, she wanted to show that she was worth following. She just…!

No matter what she did, Emilia felt like she would never be anything but a child making mistakes that would cost her the friends around her. 

Like Guese… Like Mother Fortuna…

“I can’t stop now! Every loss, every death, it has to mean something! It can’t be in vain.” Was it sick of her to try and put meaning into their deaths? Was it arrogance to the extreme to force meaning into Subaru’s suffering? 

She didn’t know, but the idea that it was all meaningless frightened her. It shook Emilia to her core the idea that everything that she was, everything she could be, would be erased the moment it dawned on everyone that their choices would be rendered null and void. “If I stopped now, then what were all those sacrifices for?!”

“Em… Emily…?” Subaru muttered numbly. That face again… Or maybe it was the sheer emotion that he saw in Emilia’s amethyst eyes… He kept seeing that in every girl he loved, huh? 

Emilia didn’t hear him, pouring out the Envy deep within her Heart. “It’s easy for you to say that, Felt! Every choice you made and its result is because you made it work! But whenever I try, it’s all because someone is carrying me through the dark.”

“Emilia! Felt! Calm down!” Crusch said, having enough of their conversation going down this route.

Emilia couldn’t help but draw comparisons between her and Felt. They both had nobles as sponsors, they both had less than others, they both had no foundation of knowledge to rule a kingdom. Yet Felt had gathered others under her banner, utilizing what she had for her ideals.

She had reached so much farther than Emilia had.

Yes, killing monsters was all Emilia had. But all the sacrifices and costs it took to reach that victory was placed all on Subaru. And for what? Because she saved Subaru from three thugs in an alleyway? That was not her. That was the girl lying in a pool of her own blood.

Ever since she saw the horrid truth that none of her actions meant anything good for her friends, for the people that cared for her despite her face’s uncanny resemblance… She dreamt that they were back at Subaru’s knighting ceremony, dancing together with everyone so happy. Yet they kept stumbling not because they were clumsy in their dancing, they were stepping on the brutalized corpses of everyone there. Again and again, she stumbled and saw another face, sometimes the same face exhibiting a different expression of their last moments…

“I never thought I’d get along with everybody I’ll ever meet. Hell no, I ain’t naive like y’all are! But ya piss me the fuck off with all that shit yer spewing outta yer mouth.

“Meaning? Death has no meaning in it, dumbass! Ya only give a shit about a grave when ya know the life that went on ahead. So if you're already trying to fit bro dying again and again for being stupid into some kinda life lesson or some revelation, yer already gonna lose it all! No way in hell am I trusting that kind of person to keep that clown in check. Despite all yer puffin’ up yer chest at me, all I see is a girl spoiled rotten again and again to the point yer deluded into thinking that just having yer knight beside ya, yer always gonna win!”

“What else am I supposed to do?!” Emilia yelled back. “No matter how many promises I make, I’ll never be able to protect Subaru from dying! So am I supposed to just strip him of his knighthood, put him away in a room, and say ‘Your job is done’? If I do that, I’ll be no different than Roswaal!”

No different than what he once was. Subaru couldn’t help but feel that missing line hurt his heart. Again and again, his past kept hitting him where it hurts. No, this time was different; everyone saw every mistake he made that was forgotten by the world. 

“So it’s more important for ya stand on yer high horse than to actually get yer head on straight? Ya can say that yer just trying to take charge, but all it really is about ya caring more for a quick fix for yer pride than anything else!”

“I know I’m selfish; I don’t need you to remind me of that! I froze everyone that treated me nicely, so I know I’m terrible. But I’m trying! I really am!” Emilia felt overwhelmed, raking her hands through her silver hair. 

She wanted to cry.

She wanted to hide away in a hole and stay there.

She wanted everyone to stop looking at her that way. Stop looking at her with such disappointment.

“I know we haven't been the best of ourselves, but it’s obvious that we want to be better!” Subaru interrupted Emilia’s spiraling thoughts. “But please, hear me out.”

Felt looked as if she was about to shut him down before Crusch then spoke. “Go on.”

Crusch, despite wanting Emilia and Subaru to see reason, didn’t want to do so to the point of pushing the silver-haired girl into looking as though she was about to cry. That wasn’t what she wanted. “Say your piece.”

Subaru nodded. “It’s not that I don’t get why you’re all so angry about us keeping Roswaal around, but believe me when I say that we still need his support. We don’t have much, not with how Lugunica feels about Demi-Humans, especially silver-haired half elves. But Emilia and I still have things we want to get back.”

Subaru turned to Emilia. A gentle, encouraging smile worn at his lips. “I have someone I need to wake up.”

Emilia couldn’t help but feel at a loss. Then the words came out of her mouth before she knew it: “I want to save everyone back at home…”

Once again… Subaru was…

“As much as I don’t like it, we’ll probably keep working with Roswaal. So, sorry,” Subaru apologized as he bowed his head toward everyone. “I don’t think he’ll be leaving.”

Crusch frowned. The words were…as she expected of Natsuki Subaru. Throughout the viewing of his life, she found a repeating pattern that she couldn’t help but find concerning. “You always forgive people that tore you down, Natsuki Subaru…”

Emilia couldn’t help but flinch at that truth.

But Subaru shook his head. “The ones who hurt me never did in the first place…”

His response, however, irked everyone in the room.

“Roswaal is still here…” Crusch said.

“The Witch of Greed is still out there.” Wilhelm said, growing at what he saw was an utter disregard for his well-being.

“The Witch of Envy is still here, waiting inside nyour soul.” Felix said, his glare as severe as fire.

“Tell me somethin’, bro… Just to make sure I got the clear picture.” Felt said, holding the bridge of her nose as a headache was starting to form. “What if I killed ya right here and now, would ya forgive me for that?”

Subaru was surprised by the question. He didn’t understand what he said that prompted a question like that. But he answered, “I need context.”

“‘Context.’ For killing ya?” Felt said with a low, dangerous tone. “Nah, I think I got the right of it all.”

“Nope!” Subaru said, refusing to let the matter drop. “Nuh uh! It’s one thing to straight up kill me without a reason! But I’m not gonna let you decide it all without a proper discussion on it.

“Felt, why would you kill me?”

Felt looked at him… That was it. This was one of the times where he couldn’t really glean what emotion she was feeling right now. “Ya’d save the Witch of Envy, right?”

“I don’t know…” He shrugged. After being briefly hurt by the reason she would kill him, he didn’t really fault her for it. What he had said to Satella back at Echidna's dream was the same as promising to save the demon lord of this world. And typically, those kinds of characters weren’t known for being stable or reasonable; for example, Petelguese.

Felt looked like she didn’t believe him.

So he tried to make his case. “I get what you mean… Me feeling some kind of love for her without knowing why… Me crying after her saying that I was ‘allowed’ to be saved, too… Yeah, it doesn't really paint a good picture for me. I admit it.”

Perhaps that was why Crusch and Felt were so adamant about us giving up Roswaal. They didn’t trust us. Honestly, he had to wonder what their faces were like when they saw him being consoled by every Witch of Sin there. He’d imagined it’d be like if Elsa and Meili had joined the Roswaal manor’s staff of servants. An accomplished serial killer and a distorted kid controlling witchfiends… He’d probably question Clint’s sanity for allowing that to happen.

But then did that mean Anastasia and Julius…?

He shook his head, shelving that thought for later. “But believe me when I mean that I don’t know if I’m going to save her… Honestly, just because they were crying in front of me didn’t mean I should save them… Right…?”

At the end, Subaru found himself unsure of the validity of that statement.

“Why ask that question…?” Emilia said. Her eye twitching in either anger or anxiety, Subaru didn’t know for sure. “After all she did, why should you save Satella?”

“I don’t know… I never really put much thought into who I should save, or if I was right in it. I just didn’t like anybody to cry.”

“Tell me, Subaru… If you had to choose between saving me or Satella…” Emilia paused, letting out a shuddering breath. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“Emilia-tan is always going to be my number one.” He said without hesitation, yet a part of him felt like it wanted to rip out his tongue for saying those words. “Huh, I wanted to punch myself for saying that… Well, Envy had tried to melt me into her shadows before, so I guess that makes sense.”

“How can you—! In what world—!” Emilia stepped away from Subaru, pacing in what he understood to be exasperated anxiety as she held her head in her hands. Then she marched back to him, ignoring the stunned crowd looking at him. “That’s all you have to say?! Y-You…! Why are you like this?!

“Satella, Envy, who cares what excuse you’d use for justifying her actions! How can you stand there and tell me that her controlling your mind is some kind of afterthought! You…! You! Dunderhead! You simpleton! You egg!”

“I don’t think that was in iambic pentameter. And nobody says that anymore.” He replied as if it was in second nature. Despite knowing the fact that Emilia was trying to cuss him out, he couldn’t help but find it absolutely adorable! He smiled with a faint blush running across his cheeks.

At Subaru’s words, Emilia wanted to pull her hair out.

Subaru sobered up, and spoke again. “Them being two different people… I’d like to say that changed things, but… Even afterward, I couldn’t tell Beatrice about Return By Death, no matter how many times I tried. I just couldn’t get the words out.

“I’d like to say I wouldn’t save her; and honestly, I don’t think I would if it meant freeing Envy or just setting her off at the ones I love… I don’t know how to save her, not the faintest clue… But I think what I meant at that time wasn’t that I would save her in particular. Maybe a part of me did, but I think what I really meant by that promise was, I wanted to save everyone. I wanted to become a hero.”

He turned to everyone else. “Those feelings I had whenever she came close to me… The many reasons she had that made her fall in love… I’ll be honest, I don’t think those words were for me. I wasn’t transported here four hundred years ago; and I’m pretty damn sure I’m not a clone. I don’t have the talent for magic nor would there be a need for recreating the stuff I bought from the convenience store. And I’m way too Greedy to just choose one thing to protect, so I’m no sage either.

“I am just Natsuki Subaru. An idiot that is way over his head when it comes with all this political, historical, or magical stuff. But I still want to leave my mark. I still want to protect those I care about. But I’m still too weak to do that, and I don’t want Return By Death to define me.” He shook his head resolutely, and made a small smirk. “After all, Rem can’t see my good sides if they never happened. So Roswaal is staying where he is.”

A moment of silence was held by the others as they took in his words. In any other instance, the words would have been reassuring. 

“Is the role of everyone’s hero that important?” Wilhelm asked, taking the reins of the conversation himself. “Is there no other way for you to exist, Subaru-dono?”

“I wanted to be one for a long time… You saw what my room was like, heard the immature references, and know how I acted. Even when I mocked those knights at the capital, I was just so jealous that they were living the dream that I hoped I could live. I even studied hard to at least behave appropriately as Emilia-tan’s knight, though I guess I haven’t had many chances to showcase it. Ha…” Subaru said, feeling a little embarrassed.

Wilhelm studied his face for a moment before he looked to the side, right into the viewing of a whirling night sky with a blazing star at its center. “I did admire heroes, as well. It was during the Demi-Human War where I had fought with the people who would be my wife and I’s life-long friends… I was immature, stubborn. Whenever Theresia had asked me if I loved flowers, I always said no. Perhaps a part of me knew it was a love confession, but I didn’t want to admit it.” He let out a nostalgic chuckle. “Though, I believe I was too hard-headed to realize that.”

His warm expression fell. “Grimm and I would ponder what a hero would be like in the war. It was someone who could end the war as soon as they set foot in the battlefield. A force that would assure our army’s soldiers that they wouldn’t die that day, that it was a certainty that they would arrive back home to their loved ones… The war had gone on for a while, I don’t remember exactly when we talked about it. But I knew that it was a while. I wasn’t very good with first impressions, so I’d say it took a long while of Grimm staying by my side for me to even entertain a conversation when I could use my time training.”

Then Wilhelm turned back to Subaru. “My home was attacked during the war, and I disobeyed orders to stand by just so I could save my family. I couldn’t. It was the first time in my life I fought a battle where I knew I was as good as dead. If it hadn’t been for Theresia, I wouldn’t be here. That was the day I found out she was the Sword Saint.

“I resented her for it. Looking back at myself, I think I was ashamed she saved me. The girl I fell in love with was fighting in the war for my sake, despite her never wanting to raise her blade to cut another life down. I couldn’t accept that; so in my foolishness, I attacked her as if that would prove that she must never wield her sword. I said whatever I wanted as if living because she saved me was an attack on my Pride.” He shook his head in disappointment. “That’s why I find you admirable, Subaru-dono. You were never afraid to say to a loved one you cherished them…

“I left the royal army to refine my swordsmanship, and Theresia won the war on her own. At the celebration at the capital, I challenged her to a duel and won. I said I didn’t hate flowers, that I wielded my sword for her sake. Instead of becoming a hero for my comrades in war, I chose Theresia for who I would devote my strength to so that she may never wield the sword again. At least, so long as I could help it…

“Subaru-dono…” Wilhelm called his name once again in a firm voice. “After hearing my youthful follies, do you understand my intent?”

Subaru looked into Wilhelm’s eyes. The man that Subaru admired for his unyielding love for his long-departed wife, and his tenacity for never letting go of his grip for the sword he wielded for her. Possessing neither a Divine Protection nor an Authority, Wilhelm defeated the Sword Saint, who was supposed to be the pinnacle of swordsmanship.

Subaru believed he knew what Wilhelm was trying to convey. Even now, Subaru could believe that he was a man of action because he was never a man known for his words. Sadly, Subaru still couldn’t abide by his concerns. “Sorry, but a hero to me is someone who would save everyone. I wouldn’t be honest with myself if I choose before experiencing it for myself.”

He could understand wanting to devote oneself for the love of his life or for the bonds he forged through strife, he knew that experience all too well; but Subaru would never allow himself to pick and choose who he wanted to save as if it was some kind of option in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game. He wanted to save everyone he could reach his hands to, not just his friends and those he considered family.

Wilhelm sighed in disappointment. 

He wasn’t surprised by Subaru’s words. And he wasn’t surprised his words had no sway to him either. If it wasn’t a matter that could be solved by a sword, then Wilhelm was completely hopeless. Even so, he didn’t want Subaru to torture himself to fulfill a vow to maiden he had fallen for. 

Truly, life always forced cruel choices onto them all. Here he was, trying to steer a youth he couldn’t help but see himself in from being brought to life by the flames of love.

Subaru continued. “If I’m not searching for the path where no one has to die, I’m not being true to myself, Wilhelm-san.”

“It’s that desire to save everyone in front of nyou that Ferris can’t help but distrust, nya.” Felix interjected, having enough of Subaru’s way of talking.

Subaru couldn’t help but be bemused. “Any reason for that, Felix?”

“Nyou say that nyou would never settle for anything but a complete victory, nyeah? That is what Ferris is talking about, nya.” Felix walked closer to Subaru, eyes narrowed with a trace of contempt. “What is the line nyou draw, huh? At what point would nyou refuse to allow the present to be set in stone, nya? For all Ferris knyows, nyou would give up as soon as an out was present for nyou.”

Subaru couldn’t help take offense at Felix’s words. “Excuse me? I know I wasn’t eligible for a vote in trust at Sanctuary, but I’d like to believe that you’d know I wouldn’t do something like that!”

Felix nodded with a half-lidded look. “Nyeah? So that nyou could find the reason everyone has expectations for nyou, nya? Well, if nyou don’t realize it despite everything, Ferris doesn’t knyow what to tell nyou. You’re denser than Old Man Wil’s skull, nya.

“Ferris is talking about nyour first attack on Sloth at the village. The message for Emilia-sama was erased, we didn’t realize that there were spies among the villagers, and they had activated the fire mana stones that killed several of us. But we still won despite the losses, nya

“But as soon as Sloth took over nyour body, nyour first idea was to run away into the forest. So answer Ferris, won’t you? What was the plan there, nya? Or rather, did nyou want to survive it? Because Ferris would believe it if nyou wanted to throw nyourself to the Wolgrams like before.”

“I… I didn’t want him…Petelguese to be anywhere near Emilia.”

“And nyou thought heading into the forest would keep her safe, nya? An earth spirit who possessed his followers as he devastated the village, pulled multiple tricks to nearly kill Old Man Wil, nya? What would have happened if Julius and Ferris didn’t go after nyou? Would nyou have made it in time to die before Sloth could overpower nyou? Lying wasn’t something he would be incapable of doing, so couldn’t he have walked back to us and killed us while our guards were down?”

“I-I-I…” Subaru didn’t know what to say to that. Yes, that was possibly the dumbest move to do. If Petelguese hadn’t died with him, who would be there for Rem? “I understand that! Doing everything on my own was a mistake, I know! I’ll ask for hel—”

“Wrong point, nya!” Felix snapped. “Ferris is reminding nyou of that time because of that, nya!”

“What? Then what are you trying to say? Enough of the runaround!” 

“Does Ferris really need to remind nyou what nyou did wrong? We were just discussing it earlier, nya!”

Felix was becoming irate. Subaru realized that he stepped on a landmine, but he didn’t understand why. If it wasn’t using Return By Death as a crutch or deciding everything on his own, what was it?

Apparently, Felix’s faith that he would get his point had run out, deciding to just say it outright. “Nyou still hold nyour life as if it was worth nothing!”

Subaru scowled. “What? No, I’m not! What the hell gave you that idea? That’s dangerous to assume, you know!”

“Why didn’t nyou try to use your taboo to kill Sloth, huh?” Felix questioned before his angry face turned into a mocking one. “If cursing nyou to live no matter what didn’t clue nyou in that the Witch prefers nyou, Ferris could only call Subaru even worse than hopeless!”

Crusch looked at her knight and placed a hand to his shoulder, like he had for her, and tried to soothe him. It wasn’t that she was reproaching him and his point. This was a matter that deeply resonated with Ferris that she felt she should leave the talking to him. She only wanted him to calm down so that he could say everything he wanted to say clearly.

“Ferris will never buy it! That killing Subaru was the only way to kill Sloth, nya!” Felix shook his head in denial of such a thought. “If nyour life was at stake, why didn’t nyou keep fighting?”

“I-I was getting possessed! I couldn’t control myself! It took everything I had to get away from everyone so that they wouldn’t get killed! How was I supposed to know that I could’ve used that to kill him?” Subaru felt like Felix was unfair to ask that of him. After all, the last time he had tried to say everything that piled up in his heart, he killed Emilia. He crushed her heart. It may have been Satella or Envy, but it was him who caused it. That was what he believed. “After what happened last time… What do you expect from me?!”

“A plan never survives first contact, nya. But when it comes down to it, nyou must fight to survive with everything nyou had! Use nyour hands, rocks on the ground, or even the blood pooling there, nya! It’s when we’re desperate that we realize our will to live. But nyou? Is nyour aversion to death so extreme that nyou’d let it take nyou just so that nyou wouldn’t bear that guilt?”

“So, what? I shouldn’t use it all if my friends die? Do you even understand what you’re asking from me? That’s the same as killing them, you know! If I could stop it, I should!”

“Nyour view on death is as twisted as ever! Speaking the same insane dribble like that Witch of Wrath!”

“Minerva and I are nothing alike!”

“Oh, really? Nya, Ferris doesn’t believe nyou. After all, if Subaru could have helped it, he’d break his gate over and over just to save everyone in front of him. Nyou already made it beyond repair, why not lose an arm or a leg, nya? Ah, but scraping away at Subaru’s od feels more in line with his tragic hero sensibilities, nya.”

Subaru couldn’t help but feel hurt by that accusation. Comparing him to Minerva, who would not discriminate on who she would heal, made him feel like Felix was just demeaning him in some way.

“Declaring to save everyone in front of you, even if it means that nyou’ll break nyourselves doing it, disregarding the value of nyour lives… To Ferris, Subaru and the Witch of Wrath are one and the same in heart.”

“That’s just too twisted, isn’t it? If I get hurt, I can’t heal it back up. Meanwhile, Minerva can just heal herself and keep going. We’re not the same at all! I may be a switch, but that doesn’t mean I’m a glutton for punishment, fur ball!”

“Nya? But it’s fine if nyou’d just die, right? Nyou could just give up at the earliest inconvenience and keep going. That witch could just heal herself like Subaru said. It’s fine if it’s just temporary, right?

“Because dying is not giving up to nyou. It’s just trying again with more earnestness, nya? Even if Subura says he’ll fight for this life, when the corpses keep piling up, you’ll give up.” Felix rebuked Subaru’s denial. Refusing to allow him to stay so blind, he continued. “Subaru, do you want to live?”

Subaru didn’t understand why Felix asked that question. Having tasted death in so many flavors, he naturally understood the fear that came with the warmth of his body escaping and leaving it cold. Back then, he never wanted anyone to experience death. Only him if he could help it. But that arrogance fell away once he finally admitted it to himself: dying was too scary.

“What kind of question is that, cat? Of course I don’t want to die!”

“For anyone else, Ferris would have taken that as an affirmative answer. But nyou, Subaru? Ferris can’t help but hear him evade the question. Did Subaru want to live that time?”

At least in this instance, Subaru understood what Felix meant. “I didn’t want Julius to kill me! I wanted to go up to Emilia and apologize. I wanted to say what I really meant by giving her special treatment. But… But…!”

“But Subaru didn’t want to live with the fact he failed? That some kids were going to survive only to realize their mother or father died because Subaru missed a detail? Tell Ferris honestly, nya. Did Subaru let himself die so that he could use that as an excuse? That it couldn’t be helped… That Subaru did all he could and was still going to die…” 

Felix stared into Subaru’s eyes with eyes full of utter contempt. “If the shadow of death was right behind Subaru, would he let it happen just so that he could excuse himself for dying and reviving back in time?”

Subaru broke out in a cold sweat. “I didn’t ask to die…!”

“But did Subaru hope for an excuse, to ease his guilty conscience, nya?”

“Dying is too painful! To ask for that again and again… You’d just be fucked in the head!”

“Answer Ferris, damn it!” Felix roared out an order, as if he was commanding a lower rank soldier. “Does Subaru want to live!”

“I… I still need to find it… The reason…” Subaru gave a different answer.

“So Subaru would rather die than honor everyone who died for and because of him, nya?”

“That not fucking it!” Subaru roared. “I could've lived with failing! I’m already used to being nothing but a failure! But if Return By Death could change fate, then even a fuck up like me could do something good! And in no way in hell was it fucking easy, Felix!

“Dying is the worst thing imaginable! Everyone forgetting all the times we shared was hell! I finally won against Petelguese, I finally saw Emilia again! I did all I could! But he ripped it all away from me!” Subaru shouted, angery and hurt by the accusation that Felt kept insisting of. If they saw it all, they should know how terrified he was… How heartbroken he was… “If I could, I would have lived on knowing I failed them… If I had at least saved a single person, then… I could… I could…”

“Subaru really means, ‘as long as I saved everyone at the manor,’ right? Ferris will never fault that kind of thinking, nya. However… At that time, everyone was already safe. The only one left to save was Subaru, but he didn’t follow through, nya.” Felix shook his head in condemnation. “Subaru loves this kind of scenario, doesn’t he, nya? To save everyone, he must die! If he take Sloth down with him, his life would have some kind of meaning, nya? Some kind of purpose, a specialness to it!

“That is the problem with Subaru: he cannot decide between being a hero or a martyer! Always taking the plans where he’ll be in harm’s way just so that he affirm to himself he’s contributing, that he’s doing his part!” Felix scoffed, the absurdity of this all making his stomach wretch in utter loathing. “But it’s really because you’re getting drunk on the praise, nya. Ending it all with an ideal victory, pushing past the times he lost and indulging himself with the danger. Is it addictive, Subaru? To fight and fail, pushing back all the consequences and the implications nyour actions have with self-loathing and self-pity… Did Subaru never put in any thought what Ferris felt like as he watched himself use his healing to help nyou die? When there was still a chance, a hope, of saving nyou?

“One last time, did Subaru Natsuki give up on saving himself back then! Did he let himself die just so he won’t live with the guilt that some of the villagers died!”

Subaru froze. He… He never considered what happened that day to look like that… Did Felix always feel that way or did it take root when he kept throwing away his life at Sanctuary? He…never felt this before. The feeling of his actions catching up to him when they were erased from time itself…

“Felix, I’m sorry. I… I didn’t think of that as an option, to save myself. I…” Subaru closed his eyes, pausing and deciding to give Felix the answer he was looking for. “I wanted to live…”

For some reason, saying that felt like he was trying to swallow needles.

“I want to live. I…” Don’t want to die… “want to be with everyone, to not forget or to…lose. That’s why I was trying so hard this past year, training myself so that I could make it out fine. I’m making the effort to just…live without Return By Death.”

Subaru gazed into Felix’s eyes, trying to convey his sincerity. “I’m sorry I gave so much reason to doubt that. I promise that I won’t go back to that point.”

Felix didn’t say a word. He just stared, stared, and stared. And then, he released a long, tired sigh. He held his face in his hands, letting out a frustrated sob. 

“If it’s a promise to someone else, Subaru might keep it. But that’s a promise for Subaru’s own good… How is Ferris supposed to trust that?”

Oh…

“I’m more than that…”

“Subaru is defined by that…” Felix seemed tired, having said everything he wanted to say. Nursing his head from the impending headache, he turned to Crusch. “Crusch-sama…”

“It’s fine.” She nodded in understanding. “Rest well, Ferris.”

At that, Felix left the room without another word, nodding to Crusch and Wilhelm in gratitude and apology.

“Fuck this.” Felt said, thoroughly pissed from their talk. “Reinhard, get yer ass moving.”

Reinhard bowed in compliance, walking alongside with his lady to leave the room. Right before he did, Reinhard turned around to depart some final words.

“Emilia-sama, Subaru.” He called out, grabbing their attention from the ground by their feet. “No matter what, I want to protect this kingdom. So… If need be, I will give my everything.”

Speaking those ominous words, Reinhard left. This was not all he wanted to say, but he thought he should make his stance clear.

If Satella, the Witch of Envy, were to be released in some manner to be “saved” in Subaru’s words, Reinhard would not hesitate to use his full power to stop her. After all, despite everything he witnessed in Subaru’s eyes, he would never consider saving her at the risk of the world.

Was Theresia not a coward? The words of a demon rang in his head…

He was a Hero. And a Hero was what he would always choose to be. For the sake of honoring what a True Sword Saint is meant to be for the people of Lugunica. To atone for what he had done.

Thus, the Sword Saint must never lose.

Wilhelm watched his estranged grandson leave the room, feeling a complicated mix of regret and nostalgia.

Now that he saw it, Reinhard and Theresia… They were both loved by the world to play the role much too heavy for their shoulders.

He won’t deny that he didn’t feel ashamed from how he accused his grandson of killing Theresia. He won’t deny that gave in when his son denied his approach toward Reinhard. But at the very least… 

It has to be me. I have to do it… The words of his son echoed in his thoughts before he shook his head, banishing those thoughts to the back of his heart.

Yes, the Sword Demon must defeat the Sword Saint to bring them back down to the earth once again. That was the vow he swore to himself and the grandson he had spurned so long ago. Perhaps then they all could move on.

“Apologies.” Crusch said dully, merely saying the word out of some kind of formality. “It appears we’re much too wound up, Subaru. We shall talk about this later, Emilia.”

With a jerk of her head, she gestured for Wilhelm to follow. The mood to continue the discussion dissipated from the outcome of Felix and Subaru’s argument. 

A part of felt that she didn’t want to conclude their talk this way, but realizing the heatedness of the two knights, Crusch thought any further attempt would just grind away at themselves until they started to yell incoherently at each other and forgo any intent to convince the other.

Yet before they left, like Reinhard had done so, Crusch stopped and left her final words free. “Natsuki Subaru, Emilia of Elior Forest… Perhaps a part of yourselves considers our words as pure antagonism, but we simply do not want the two of you to stray from the noble path. Because if you both continue along this road unheeding of the rot growing within your camp… I am afraid I may not hold our promise of considering each other friends even if we stand against each other. It’s just too cruel to accept… What you’re doing to yourselves…”

And with that…Crusch leaves the two sinful and virtuous souls to silence and their shared presence.

(AN: Updates might be monthly. I suck at writing.)

Chapter Text

In the beginning, Subaru did not utilize Return By Death intentionally. He had only done so when his choices led to a Dead End. If anything, it was less him using the Authority and more Satella; Subaru could only force her hand, and had once feared he would stay dead, running out of extra lives.

After his argument with Emilia at the capital, he was more focused on her needing him than the fact was in genuine danger, receiving the most cruel reality check he ever had then; desiring a scenario where he could save Emilia and smooth out the wrinkles of their relationship. As wished, Subaru found a village massacred, given more than he could chew.

He was inconsiderate, expecting others to understand his wants or struggles, demanding they put his wants before theirs. The world was always about common interests, give and take, and he had done no one any favors. 

“Emilia-tan?” Subaru called for the silver-haired half elf.

“Yes, Subaru?” Emilia responded, looking to the ground in frustration.

“That, uh…could have gone better.” Subaru sighed, “No, sorry. That wasn’t what I wanted to ask. How have you been doing? I haven’t seen Emilia-tan so vocal in a long while…”

“How am I doing?” She asked gloomily.

“I mean, I don’t mind you running on passion! I find that really inspiring, but…”

Emilia and Subaru sat in the theatre alone. The seats were made of sleek, black leather. Perfect for two love birds to relax, eat some popcorn, and watch a romantic movie together. Well, stars in their case. The screen didn’t change another time, still showing the iconic line and a star that looked as though it was traveling throughout the cosmos.

“Hey…” Subaru asked again. “How have you been holding up, Emilia?”

“Everything I thought I could take pride in myself for… I realized I hadn’t changed at all.” Emilia then asked pessimistically, “Do you think we could win the royal selection, Subaru?” 

Subaru asked, “What do you mean?” 

“I felt like a child digging her heels. I couldn’t think of anything to say besides, ‘What I say, goes!’ 

“Out of the five of us, who would really be the better fit for the throne? Anastasia has her own merchant company. Felt has a following among the common class. Priscilla made the lands under her name prosper. Crusch has actual experience running her duchy. And then there’s me, a silver-haired half-elf over a hundred years old with none of the experience or wisdom that one would expect.”

“To be fair, I don’t think Anastasia and Crusch have done much for the last year. The Great Rabbit was our achievement alone!” Subaru tried to comfort her.

She said dully, “To be fair, Crusch’s memories were eaten.”

Subaru grimaced; he should have just mentioned Anastasia. He had forgotten about that part when he just talked to her, right as rain. “W-Well, we still got rid of the Great Rabbit by ourselves. And you freed everyone in Sanctuary! Don’t sell yourself short, Emilia-tan.”

“I’m not,” Emilia rebuffed. “For once, I’m seeing myself clearly.”

“Seriously, everyone is so harsh on themselves,” Subaru huffed. “What brought this on?”

Emilia rolled her jaw, rifling through her head for the right words. She spent so much time thinking of what she should say to him, but the silver-haired girl felt like she was trying to see through fog.

“I…” Emilia hesitated. “I haven’t done much.”

Subaru blinked. “What do you mean?”

Emilia held her hand against her forehead. “Since I met you, I’m always being helped; I have not returned that goodwill in kind.”

“Bzzt! That’s not true,” he said, crossing arms against each other. “You helped me plenty of times before. I wouldn’t have made this far without you, Emilia-tan!”

At that, Emilia shook her head. “Every time I look back, I see what I could have done differently. I could have pleaded with the Arlem villagers more earnestly instead of just upkeeping the Witchfiend-repelling mana stones and leaving.”

“You didn’t know if Petelguese was going to bring Witchfiends or not, and you still tried to protect them despite how much meeting them made you nervous. You couldn’t have known.”

Emilia closed her eyes. “But I could have guessed the Witch Cult would attack once my running was announced. Instead, I believed there wouldn’t be any trouble. As if the royal selection whisked me away from their reach.”

“Well, yeah… Heavy is the crown, and all that. But I don’t think you could have done much with Roswaal not helping you in earnest, you see?”

“Subaru, let’s face it. I’m not a leader! If anything, the camp’s leaders are you, Roswaal, and Otto. Ram has more credibility than I do since she helps Roswaal with his noble affairs.” Emilia turned to him. “I can rely on others; but at a certain point, I’m not helping at all.”

Subaru took a moment to think, searching through his head for something that could stop Emilia’s doubt-riddled words, and then he found it.

“Remember when I started working as a butler?” He asked, making Emilia grimace. 

At his question, she felt like she could guess what he would say, having spent closer attention on his mannerisms during the viewing. However, Emilia didn’t interrupt him. It was better for the words to be said.

Similarly, Subaru could intuit Emilia was guessing what he was going to say before he did. So, like almost always, he subverted expectations: “I was a nervous wreck. Working myself ragged, trying to prove I’m reliable, wanting to take care of it all… I was just so desperate. I focused so much on the first step I never realized that no matter how much I strove to play the part to perfection, it won’t yield the result if I just…force it. So, let’s take a break.

“How long have you been burnt out, Emilia-tan? I know I probably don’t have the legs for it. So instead of a lap pillow, how about I lend you a shoulder?” Subaru said, moving his shoulder up and down for Emilia to lay her head on.

Now that he thought it, he was kind of smooth there! Yes, eight out of ten!

“I… I appreciate the thought, Subaru.” Emilia said, taken aback by his decision to empathize with her instead of trying to build her back up. But she didn’t dislike it. Giving a small smile, Emilia said: “It’s been a stressful few days here. Or at least, I think it has. I haven’t been able to sleep since…the manor.”

Her smile dimmed at the end, and so did Subaru’s rare moment of kudos to himself. “Well, tell me what you’re thinking. I’ll do my best to help, but…”

“It’s better to lighten the burden even if you can’t?” She echoed his words from before.

He chuckled. “Yeah, better than nothing, and a good cry might do wonders.”

Emilia covered her mouth, a tired giggle loose on her lips. “If only I could be half of what you think of me…”

Before Subaru could respond, she cleared her throat. “I keep seeing moments where I could have done better. Some weren’t even that large. A change in attitude, a coincidence of thought… Maybe it wouldn’t have meant much, but the little things could mean so much.

“I… No, that’s not what I only wanted to say… I…" Emilia words drifted off, anxiousness eating away at her stomach. "I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Subaru.”

“Hey, aren’t you underestimating my thick skin, Emilia-tan? If I can shrug off even Nee-sama’s most scathing quips, I think I can handle what you’ll throw at me! Come on! Come on!” Subaru waved his hands with whimsy.

Emilia hesitated, looking into Subaru’s eyes for something. She could only hope things would end well. “I’m not the one who saved you, Subaru.”

He froze. Ah, so it was that. After seeing him die so many times, did Emilia blame herself for that? When he proclaimed he would do whatever it took to keep her safe, she was there watching it all. “I… Most of the time, I couldn’t be saved, or I just didn’t want to ask for help. Don’t beat yourself up about it. I was being an idi—”

“I didn't save you,” she said, cutting Subaru off from his attempt to hoard the blame entirely. Even now, Emilia hated how much he tried to lift others up by putting himself down first.

“I thought about this for a while.” Emilia folded her hands in her lap. “It hadn’t left my head… Ever since I realized how we overcame it all… When I realized what you meant when you said I saved you… I talked about it with everyone, arguing with them, listening to them, and I think I realized my own answers. I'm just really scared they’ll hurt.

“They’re me, but I’m not them. No matter what, just because I peaked from the outside like a nosey neighbor doesn’t mean I’m suddenly all of them. I don’t know their thoughts, their feelings, and I don’t remember . Saying that I have been saving you?” Emilia braced herself. “That’s not true at all.”

“I… Wow, that caught me by surprise, Emilia-tan.” He said, still caught off guard.

“Why? Even if I do something good, it doesn’t mean much if it’s not actually me.”

“W-Well, because they’re still you.”

Emilia nodded, “But that’s just who I can be, not who I am now. Or could’ve… Oh, Ram and Beatrice tried to explain how it works, but talking about it is a grammatical headache!”

 “Ha-ha! Y-Yeah, I guess it can be, huh.” Subaru forced out a laugh, he didn’t know why. Judging by the sudden shift in Emilia’s expression, she could tell it wasn’t so genuine. 

“Subaru?” Her face frowned in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing’s wrong!” Subaru lied before weaving a truth in as well, “Just not used to being able to talk about this kind of stuff.”

Emilia hummed skeptically. “I’ve just been talking about myself all this time. We didn’t have enough time to ask about you when you woke up.”

Shit. Abort! Deflect! 

"Well, I really wanted to talk with Rem and all. Selfish as it was, but I don't know exactly when I wouldn't see her again." He bowed his head, "I'm sorry. It was just really important for me to see her, talk to her."

Emilia blinked, caught off guard, before a look of understanding flickered in. "Ah, that's right... It had been close to an hour since the showing of your knighting ceremony and Echidna's..."

"Echidna," he echoed. While he was thankful for Emilia introducing another topic, it wasn't one he liked to speculate. That woman played him, no contest. It made him doubt if anything she did had any semblance of care, regardless of her saying she was quite taken with him. "Yeah, we'll have to do something about that? I mean, she shouldn't be much of a threat only a year later, right?"

Emilia bit her lip, pensive. "I don't know, Subaru. Echidna may not be at her best, but it was always her smarts I was intimidated by. And even though Roswaal said he didn't consider her and his Echidna the same... Do you think he'd plan something? What if she's important for him to get back? Did the Tome of Wisdom never mention the Echidna in the Dream Castle, or was he lying about it?"

It was times like these Emilia had no other choice but to admit defeat when someone else goes behind her back. After seeing Ram's angry expression and Roswaal's mean-spirited smirk toward Otto, she didn't need to know who it was that kept a part of Roswaal's Tome of Wisdom. And thinking on the reason why for a few moments led to Emilia remembering that a book's page could always be turned back to read what was before. Even if it was a metia of some kind that foretold the future, it still had the functionalities of a book.

In all likelihood, Otto never forgave Roswaal. In hindsight, she should have expected that after what he tried to do to them. What kind of person would just forgive and forget such a horrible thing? Emilia, of course, knew the answer: Subaru and her would.

Once again, her thoughtlessness burdened the others. She... She...! Why did she think betraying Roswaal would fix anything? Now, Echidna... Omega had been watching them the entire time. 

How did she do it? From where was she doing it? 

"Shoot," he mumbled, unheard as Emilia trapped herself in her own thoughts. It may have worked too well. He waved his hand in front of her face, hoping her eyes would register the sudden movements. "Earth to Emilia? Oh, wait! Lugunica to Emilia! Hello? Hello? Hello?"

"Eh?" She blinked, startled by how close his hand was. "O-oh, sorry. I... I did it again..."

"It's fine," he assured her. "Just...talk to me. Okay?"

Her apologetic face froze. "Talk," she mumbled. Narrowing her eyes, the gears in her mind turned as she rounded to Subaru with an accusatory frown. "You were trying to distract me, weren't you?"

"Well, I didn't mean to..." He mumbled, scratching his head, sheepish. “Look, I didn’t want to turn your venting session into mine, you know? What kind of guy did that? Besides, it looked like something’s eating at you, Emilia-tan. I mean, you had been awake for days without rest, right?”

Was it any wonder he felt Emilia needed this more than he did? After all, he didn't feel like going into another personal talk about him. He was starting to feel the mental fatigue and he was only here for a couple of hours or so.

Emilia didn't think Subaru evaded mean-spiritedly; but regardless of what he believed, she pressed on. “Oh, I wouldn’t think of you like that at all, Subaru! It had been a very long time since we did something like this. Why wouldn’t I make time to hear your troubles, too? All you need to do is ask.”

“Ah, like another lap pillow?” Subaru feigned shyness, “So forward! Is Emilia finally seeing my knightly charm?”

Emilia’s face shifted again, from seriousness to skittishness. 

“Eh?” Subaru dropped the act immediately and looked at Emilia more closely.

It had been a year since Subaru confessed to Emilia properly, he would kiss her for the first time several days later. He told her he would wait for her to understand what falling in love meant, hoping she would choose him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want an answer. It just became complicated with Rem to consider. 

Loving two girls at the same time was scummy of him, Subaru understood better than anyone; but he couldn’t help who his heart beat for. Emilia had saved him in body and mind, being a constant source of comfort throughout his loops. Rem had thrown herself into the fire, trying to save him, pushing her body to the limit and beyond them. How could he not fall in love with such an earnest, selfless confession? 

Subaru didn’t know what Emilia’s nervousness meant, but if today was any indicator, it would either be bitter or bittersweet.

“Subaru, I have a question I’d like to ask, if you please.”

“Oh~! How polite,” he said playfully. Clearing up the heavy atmosphere with his foolishness was an act of reassurance for Emilia from him. “Go on, ask! And I might have an answer!”

“Do you…” She trailed off. “Do you rely on me because you trust me or because you depend on me?”

“What?” He didn’t understand the question, the words he comprehended individually didn’t make sense put together for some reason. Was there some nuance he was missing?

“No, what I meant was… I…” Emilia stammered, trying to put her thoughts into words. Feeling like she kept twisting her thoughts into knots, she just asked frankly: “Why did you not trust us?”

Okay, that part he could understand. She was talking about how he acted during Sanctuary, running around depending on all the wrong people and rushing to make sure everyone was safe. 

Subaru spoke truthfully, “I didn’t want to lose anyone, but that happened anyway…”

He remembered after his talk with Roswaal, discovering that he was the one putting the hit on manor, using his Tome of Wisdom to clue himself close to the truth of Return By Death, running into Emilia. He felt cornered, realizing the people he put his trust in were the ones responsible in the first place, but it was seeing Emilia safe and sound he swore he would take the trials in Emilia’s place, not wanting her to fail and hurt her fragile heart again.

Instead, she turned him down, wanting to overcome the trials herself. Her desire to face her past forced him to realize something: perhaps it was him who didn’t understand others’ emotions, not Echidna—not entirely. Ashamed of being the first to lose faith in her, he ran away. Trying to think of an answer to his predicament without involving anyone else despite promising to consider himself among those he wished to save, he quickly abandoned it in favor of the stability of being able to return back to after he completed the first trial.

It was easier; he put himself to use and the others won’t disappear like Rem had. If he just did it himself, no one else would be in harm’s way. If he could be of use, Subaru could allow himself to be with them. 

Yet they were always going to be under crosshairs no matter how hard he tried. He was too scared to admit he couldn’t save everyone there, too scared to accept he was still not the Natsuki Subaru Rem had seen.

“I couldn’t tell anybody about it—she wouldn’t let me. But above all else, I didn’t want to lose anyone; never again. If I could just see what was going on myself, I thought I could find a way for us to get out of it alive.”

“Thinking that way… You wanted to emulate Wilhelm, didn’t you? To be strong right now, facing it all with an immovable heart…” Emilia said, echoing his thoughts back then. “In doing so, you never asked any of us for help, deciding for us we wouldn’t believe you or be of any help despite having no strength to bear it all in the first place.”

The words dug into his heart, not because they were cruel, but because they were spot on. He hated this, feeling like he was see-through like glass. Yet this was going to be an on-going occurrence, seeing how everyone saw what he did, heard everything he said and thought. Just like Felix, just like Rem. 

“Yeah. I always wondered whether anything I said would trigger the taboo I just…stopped trying to explain myself, doing whatever I thought was necessary.” Subaru thought back to when he pinned Garfiel down with the Ryuzu clones—no, the clones of his grandmother. He thought back to how he used those clones as self-destructing distractions just so that he could die in Emilia’s arms and not by the Great Rabbit, disregarding it all because he thought he could make up for that disgrace by dying again and starting over. If he was going to die anyway, didn't he have the right to at least die how he wanted?

“I crossed the line, imposed myself on others. I just thought I could return again and again to make sure no one was lost. I thought because I could remember it all, it was my duty—my obligation—to keep trying no matter how many times it took. But all I wanted was all of you safe and sound, away from it all.”

Emilia didn’t say anything at first, collecting her thoughts, deliberating on what she should say. She asked, “If something like that happened again, would you ask me for help?”

Subaru didn't answer, holding his tongue from giving her the response he would have said: of course not.

“Subaru…” she muttered, disappointment present in her voice. “Hah… I knew it…”

The boy averted his gaze. “Knew what?”

“You didn’t depend on us because you wanted to. It’s because you had no other choice. Even after a year, Subaru would rather keep me away from danger and take it all alone if he could.” 

“I—! I’m not that person anymore! That’s not—!” He stammered.

Cutting him off, Emilia asked with a stern face: “Would you leave Beatrice by my side, making sure I’m safe while you’re gone?” 

“I’m supposed to be your knight! Is this not a part of the job description?” Subaru argued. Leaving Emilia to Beatrice's protection would always be the right choice if he needed to break away from the rest. 

“Yes, you are a Spirit Knight! Why would you leave yourself so vulnerable? I’m still not some princess waiting for you! I’m not made of glass, no matter what you think!” Emilia refuted.

"I don't think of you like glass! Don't put words in my mouth!" Subaru shot back, agitated. “And if you’re so strong, why do you always drop faster than flies!” 

Emilia narrowed her eyes. “You’re putting a lot of faith in your training while disregarding mine! I didn’t want you by my side just to leave for reckless heroics! And Beatrice wouldn't allow you go off on your own.”

“This and that are entirely different things!” Subaru exclaimed, crossing his arms stubbornly. "If I can't do my part, what's the point of me being here?"

This time, Subaru won’t need to rely on Return By Death, perfectly capable of defending himself with his Guiltywhip. The weapon was made from the remains of a Witchfiend considered an apex assassin in the wild. Subaru himself may not be strong, but at least the weapon he was armed with could harm those above his level a fair amount, right? 

If he couldn’t even use his whip to support his parkour skills or force open gashes through focused blunt force trauma, what was the point of training at all? After all his talk in front of Felix about how he was trying to live without Return By Death, what did it mean if he couldn’t do the smallest thing and just survive. 

For once, couldn’t he survive until the very end? Is it too much to ask of himself?

Because if he could just live somehow, maybe he could finally see himself as a true hero instead of some cheating brat. If he could somehow make it out unscathed, he could finally see the answer. If he won on his own for once, it could mean that Emilia didn’t make a mistake in knighting him, that he earned this position like everyone else.

“Why are we even talking about this?” Subaru deflected, “Shouldn’t we be talking about how to solve the information leak problem?”

“I don’t think it’s something just the two of us will be able to fix,” she said dully.

“Right, so let’s meet up with everyone,” Subaru agreed, rising from his chair to leave to rejoin his friends and more importantly exit this conversation. 

“Hold on, we’re not done talking.” Emilia grabbed his arm, holding him in place briefly. Her inhuman strength absent, the theatre removing all of the benefits of having mana as a factor in their biology. Now Emilia would need to exert herself to hold Subaru down if he tried to shake her off.

Emilia stood up, facing her knight with an accusatory frown. “This is just like you. You didn’t mind taking our time if it meant cheering me up, but now that I’m trying to ask how you’re feeling, you’re trying to leave!”

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t be so eager to leave if you just drop it!” He said, ripping his arm from her grasp to fold it across his chest with the other one. “What’s with the third degree from everyone? Don't you know it's insensitive to poke at private stuff? Read the room!”

“Read what? You’re just annoyed I saw through your manly act before you could even try!” Emilia clashed against his remark, "What's the point of marching off and leaving everyone behind when the safest place we could be is by each others' side, struggling through this together?"

The words hit true, striking Subaru in his heart and bruising his pride. Subaru doubled down, "Oh that's rich! Coming from the girl who put us in this mess in the first place. What were you thinking, selling out our main supporter in the royal selection? Is that what it was? Did you lose confidence now of all times?"

"We forgave him! He planned for everything, put everyone in danger, all so he could make you into some sage? Who does that?!" She exclaimed. 

"Don't you dare think I forgot what he did! I'm not going around saying he's my best friend, but we needed him! Emilia, what on earth made you do that?"

"You were eaten alive, Subaru! How do you expect me to remain calm after watching you die that gruesomely? I... I... That was the limit, I couldn't take it anymore! I just thought if that was the price of trying at all, I shouldn't at all." Emilia confessed, holding her shaking shoulders. "I know I shouldn't have decided for everyone. I know I crossed the line, and I'm going to do my best to make up for it."

Subaru grinded his teeth, feeling shame crawl up his back as he watched how sincere Emilia was. He didn't want to talk about himself, fine. Then why didn't he just walk away in a huff? Calling her out just so he wouldn't answer was scummy for him. 

If it were in any other instance, Subaru would have been elated from how much Emilia was worrying about him. Yet why did she have to react so strongly? 

Why did Rem have to react that way, too? 

It made him uncomfortable. He felt like he was naked, having everyone around him know so much about him while he didn't. The looks he feared that were full of suspicion now felt like they had something else: 

Subaru asked, "What even changed your mind?"

"I heard what you were thinking when we talked after the first trial... I realized I made the same mistake you made back in the capital. I didn't plan ahead at all, wanting nothing else but Roswaal out of our lives." Emilia sighed defeatedly, "I thought I could put it off, like what I had done was just a bad joke or dream, but the more I stood silent, the more anxious I felt as we got to the end. And now, Crusch and Felt lost respect in me now... I wouldn't be surprised if our friends were the same." If they weren't before...

"I... When you got back up again and challenged Roswaal, I felt like I could go back. That I could change my mind and really give it my all instead of giving once I realized how much of a burden I am to everyone..." Emilia said meaningfully, "You inspired me to try again."

To Emilia, their argument inside the tomb was something she needed to be reminded of again. To Emilia, hearing Subaru call out their names, asking what right did anyone have for them start from zero once more. She won't get it right, but Emilia wanted to hold onto the belief that so long as she drew breath and her heart still beat, she could change for the better. 

For Emilia, it was the belief that the hope to be a better person would always be there so long as she stood herself upright.

But for Subaru, hearing he helped her, he couldn't accept it. Why did it have to be when he flailed around like a headless chicken that gave her the courage to stand back up? Was this a fucking joke?

If Subaru was going to inspire her, why couldn't it be when he was actually doing something useful, something heroic? It really was too much to ask for Emilia to not see his weak side. Some knight he was.

He averted his gaze from hers, the crackling within his chest flaring up as his insecurity rose. His thoughts suddenly becoming an echo chamber of self-reproach.

"Subaru?" Emilia called for him, but he didn't answer. He was already lost in his head. To him, there was no other moment after her first attempt in the Witch's Trials he believed there to be was when he was knocked on his ass by Otto. 

"I didn't help you," Subaru scoff. "'Inspired'? By what, getting my ass handed to me?"

Emilia's eyes widened before narrowing, a scowl forming. "Why are you only focusing on that part?"

Subaru chose silence. He knew he slipped up, but it wasn't like he said anything wrong.

"Subaru, what do you mean by that?"

He massaged the bridge of his nose, a headache beginning to form.

"Subaru---" 

"It's nothing, drop it." He said, obstinate. Knowing he was too tired of this day already, he started to walk toward the exit. "Let's just go already."

Emilia rebuked heatedly, “Is me saying ‘I love you’ the only way for you to rely on me?!”

Yet it was those words that made him turn back swiftly, Subaru was shocked by what she had said. If her words before were arrows hitting their mark, this felt like a genuine bullet.

As if to trap those words in her heart, Emilia hurriedly clasped her hands over her mouth. Yet the words were spoken, her frustration let loose for a moment. 

Neither said anything, both equally stunned by what she had said. Until Emilia began to speak. “I… I started to think that was the only way for you to depend on me and mean it. I…”

Emilia held her hands against her head, feeling like she hadn’t done anything right lately. But this time, this feeling… The experience she was ruminating and practicing in her head for when Subaru finally woke up. If she was going to fail anyway, she might as well try.

“Do you have any idea how it felt for me to watch you die in ways I could have stopped? The one time I did something in the manor that I felt proud of was when I gave you a lap pillow and you cried. I didn’t care if you looked unsightly. I just cared that you weren’t pushing yourself anymore. I vouched for you to Rem when she found us. Just a little thing that meant so much.

“And then you would go into the forest for the children, asking for me to just sit and wait until it was all over. You came back so mangled… I-I…!” Emilia tried to steady her breathing. “If I had come with you and Rem, neither of you would be so hurt! Even if healing magic was not my forte and Puck was asleep, I still had other spirits to depend on!

“When the Witch Cult attacked, I couldn’t protect anyone. I spoke to everyone in the capital that I wanted a chance, yet I failed at the outset. I asked you not to use your gate, and now it’s broken—forever! Did you want me to congratulate you if you somehow won against Julius? If anything, I’d prefer it if you just lost the duel without using it. At least then, you wouldn’t have broken it in Sanctuary!”

“Okay, yeah! The fight with Julius was for my own satisfaction. But that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you!” He tried to assure her.

“Because you love me, right?” Emilia closed her with a resigned expression. “I don’t understand how you can still say that with an honest face.”

“How could I not? Out of anyone I’ve ever met, you were the kindest one to me. You healed my wounds and took me to the manor, where I was able to get a stable job.” At Emilia’s lull in the conversation, Subaru leapt in. “ I met Rem, Ram, and Beako there. We had so much fun together. The snow festival, me bathing in a bath full of mayo! Um…”

Subaru tried to think of more happy memories from over a year ago until he found it, displayed on the screen stars shining through a black background. The day before what would be a special day. “Oh, remember the night before our date? The night sky was so beautiful!”

Emilia’s face darkened in sadness. “The night we looked at the stars together… Do you mean the first time where it was the two of us or with everyone else after the festival?”

Subaru didn’t answer, realizing the error in his hastiness.

“I may know what you’re trying to say, but I never lived that first time,” Emilia said, sorry. “I didn’t save you.  That moment we shared, I was not there…” 

This was an issue she wanted to bring up. An issue in their relationship that couldn’t be left alone.

“I thought about it, your confession, our kiss. I wanted to wait and see if I could return those feelings. I wanted to give you an answer that wouldn’t hurt you after everything you did for me. Then I realized you just might lose more of these precious moments together, but you’re going to love us more because of them.

“That’s not right. It’s cruel! How can you do that?!” She exclaimed, looking deep into Subaru’s eyes for an answer. “How can you live like this?”

And it was the one he would always say, because it came from the core of his heart. “Because I love everyone. The little things we shared, bonded over, having fun without a worry in the world. Smiling all care-free, playing around and enjoying the others’ company. That’s why I couldn’t sit back and let it all go…

“You saved me when you didn’t have to, when there was other stuff you had to worry about. But Emilia-tan still took some time to look after a reckless, immature kid like me without asking for anything in return. Using shallow selfishness to hide how selfless you were being because of how people looked at you.

“Tried to shake me off with the fake name,” Subaru chuckled meaningfully.

This was the first time he could express in detail how much those times meant to him, lost in the sands of oblivion.

“Mhm, that's just who you are. Emilia-tan doesn’t want to drag others into her problems.” Subaru continued, “I saw another side of you I never knew about. I saw how kind you were, how thoughtful you were in every instance. I fell deeper in love with the soul of every friend I made.”

“But that is still not me…” She murmured.

“Yeah, but I still think—”

“No, that is not me!” Emilia shouted. “You don’t get it! Any memory you could associate to me will always be a reminder that I died! The Emilia you had a fight with died in the secret passageway; she bled out! This is the reality of living with you!”

The way Emilia sounded so cynical, so defeated, hurt for Subaru to hear.

“The Emilia who saved you in the alleyway died! I’m not her. I found the loot house in the slums my way, knowing nothing about you! The Emilia who watched the stars with you is gone. The Emilia who helped you study, gone. The Emilia who comforted you when you cried is gone. There’s just me, and I’ll probably be gone, too!”

Subaru mumbled, “What the hell are you saying?"

 “Who I am, who I was… It becomes muddled when you go back. Do you actually believe you won’t use your Authority? Even if it means to die and lose the time we shared, I know you won’t accept letting them stay dead. And I can’t forbid you not to use; that may be the same as killing them yourself; I can’t force that on you. I don’t think I can bear the guilt if I know there is a way to get them back, but doing so will mean I lose you, too!

“Everything I felt—everything I said—was lost into the wind. To everyone except you…and her. If it’s going to be like that, maybe the last thing I can hold onto that will have meaning before I’m reset is finding the smallest clue for you to take with you. So the Emilia you’ll be with won’t fail like I will.”

Subaru couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away. Her words sparked an ember of recollection in his mind.

When he had been beaten over and over again by Roswaal, demanding him to redo the run again, Subaru remembered trying to have the margrave move to evacuate the people. Just before he pointed out Subaru's attitude to the death of Garfiel and Ram; indignant, outraged, yet knowing that the save point had not moved to cement their fate. He had woken up inside the Witch’s Tomb enough times to feel safe to make that call.

Roswaal made no move to save them, saying the world where he could not fulfill his wish would soon end, letting himself be torn apart by the Great Rabbit with inhuman calm.

What did Subaru think was going to happen? That everyone would accept Return By Death as a necessity or a failsafe? He was too foolish, not realizing the horror that came with the knowledge he had reversed time again and again with none of them the wiser. After all, they were the ones in the “good” timeline; and everyone who lost the coin flip between being “real” or “imaginary” didn’t matter anymore.

“Y-You didn’t fail.” Subaru was the failure. “You t-tried to…”

“I could have helped so many times, but I never knew what was going on.”

That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.

It was his fault for not relying on others. 

Did Echidna plan for this? Did she explain how Return By Death worked so specifically that he wouldn’t notice the implications that came with reversing time, focusing only on the horror that came with creating a new world instead? 

The latter was him leaving everyone behind to fend for themselves, but the former was starting to sound like he was resetting a chess match with people as the pieces. 

He apologized. It was the only thing he could think of doing. “I’m sorry…” 

“You can’t help it; it's just the way the Witch forced you.” She said somberly, “This is just how our lives are now…”

Why did she always blame Satella for what was his fault? If he had just been smarter, stronger, faster! Been just a bit less self-centered, could he have… 

“Even if your memories are different…I still think that you would always be you, helping whoever you could without asking for anything in return.”

“By that logic, every horrible thing we did was us as well,” Emilia said gravely. “Subaru cannot ignore the bad times for the good times.”

“So what? I’m supposed to hold everything over you all? That’s not fair. It never happened in the first place.” He said, recalling his talk with Rem about the same thing.

“That’s only right on a technicality,” Emilia said. “It never happened for anyone except you, Subaru. The essence of who we were never changed, only the circumstance. If that thing enforced the taboo even after this, we could never know what you’ve been through. What you'll put yourself through if we ever met our end... 

“Yet Subaru will still love us, saying we saved him or helped him without us ever knowing why. Holding onto those moments while we meander about, thinking our bond is one-sided. Does that sound familiar?”

It did. He hated that it did. The feeling of when someone he had no recollection of ever growing close to, of never having the memory and only the emotion of building their relationship with, spoke with such certainty that it was unnerving. Logically, he knew he should be terrified. Emotionally, he was infatuated and curious.

“Satella…” he answered.

“Don’t—!” Emilia caught herself, remembering the Witch couldn't crush her heart hear. “Yes, her…”

Why wouldn’t she say her name? She wasn’t a thing. He knew she was terrifying, but was no excuse to dehumanize her like—!

Subaru shook his head, pushing away useless thoughts. Despite being so far away from her, why did he still feel like this?

“I’m not like her…” Subaru said.

“If you keep making memories no one remembers, maybe you will.” Emilia said, "Not exactly, but enough to distort your point of view."

“Spit it out,” Subaru said. “You’ve got a point to this, Emilia? Otherwise, I don’t think a philosophical debate is going to be particularly helpful here.”

“When you said that you would give me time to understand what falling in love was… What would you do if it wasn’t you? A different boy or even a girl…” Emilia trailed off, studying Subaru’s reaction to that. 

And as expected, he looked like a part of himself died just from the possibility. He would rather fucking die than let some pretty boy or girl steal Emilia from him!

“I know you’re the jealous sort, Subaru. I know, despite your saying so I can fall in love with anyone, you want it to be you.”

“I think anyone who confessed to their crush would want it to be accepted,” he said with an awkward smile. His quipping was not at its best right now, but he thought he should still try so he didn’t seem like some crazy stalker. Now, he just needed his phone back and maybe dye his hair pink, or would keeping it black be better? 

“Rem didn’t,” she reminded.

“Yeah,” he winced. “She didn’t.”

Emilia couldn’t help but muse over Rem. Both of them were victims of the Witch Cult, their parents taken from them, knowing the end of their home was nigh. Emilia still had the dim hope she could save them from the prison she cursed them in, but Rem’s loss held no such hope.

 Emilia could be spirited, but she could never hold a candle to the Oni’s passion. To be able to torture someone with such certainty she was right yet capable of defying death despite being so mangled for the same boy she was suspicious of. In spite of how obsessive Rem could be, it still remained a beacon of hope for Subaru compared to that Witch.

“This is not healthy, Subaru.” Emilia said.

“You think I wanted it this way?” He clutched onto his hair, stressed out. Subaru never wanted his love to be like a curse. He didn't want to resemble Echidna or Satella in anyway, especially in the way they use their relationships. “I just… We were doing fine without any of this!” 

“No,” Emilia denied. “We didn’t see what was going on within. Subaru, you were eaten alive! How could you possibly say we’re doing fine after that!”

“Hanging out with my friends, talking with the girl I like, playing around with Beako, visiting Rem—these are the things that keep me grounded! All of that! Just enjoying a day lazing around sounds wonderful…because I’m with the people I call my family. It was the little things that meant so damn much to me!"

Click, click, click —!

Subaru clutched the sleeve of his tracksuit, his knuckles turning white as he heard the chattering of teeth within his mind. Subaru searched within his soul for the tether between him and Beatrice to no avail.

“Families are supposed to support each other, aren’t they?” Emilia countered. “It’s not enough to just be present. We’re supposed to talk to each other. Whether it’s nonsense or doubts, we share it with each other!

“I’ve seen your ugliness, your pridefulness, your selfishness, so why can’t you be honest with me? Even if I can never know what you’re going through exactly, isn’t it at least worth a try? Make up a story, raise a complaint, or just think out loud—none of us will lambaste you! Do you think so little of us we would wave off your feelings if you're allowing yourself to be vulnerable?”

“Who says lambaste anymore?” He quipped, trying anything to escape this heavy air.

“I’m serious!” Emilia said, “Being stoic about your troubles is annoying when all of us are trying to return the favor! You go on about the things we’ve given you, refusing to take anything from us or even ask!”

“I’m not so mercenary about this kind of stuff!” Subaru explained, knowing full well that Emilia was skewing him a bit. If anything, wasn’t he leeching off their kindness?

Emilia huffed, feeling so frustrated she could cry. She almost wanted to. Then she remembered something: “Do you know what made me or any other Emilia you met so happy?”

“What?” Subaru asked, bemused.

“Just you seeing us for who we are, Emilia and just Emilia.” She answered, “It was the smallest thing that anyone could have said; but it was like Rem said, hearing the words from the person we wanted to hear it from the most was what made it so impactful. Even if we talked about nothing, it was something precious to us.

“I cheered when you fought the Wolgram leader by yourself, even if I knew Roswaal would save you moments later, I couldn’t help but be swept in the mood of a boy trying to save two sisters from a ferocious beast.

“I was proud when you faced the White Whale. Organizing the alliance, planning for the Great Witchfiend’s arrival, and never giving up when plans started to fall apart. And do you know how you did all that?”

Subaru was caught off guard. He knew Emilia had talked him up with Frederica and Otto when he went to see Beatrice before they headed to Sanctuary. Yet why was this time different?

“How?” Subaru asked. No longer being so bullheaded with his impact on others.

“By just being yourself.” Emilia answered, staring into his dark eyes with a small, hopeful smile. “It wasn’t something as grand as raising a banner to slay a beast, nor was it something as noble as refuting the cruelty of the world. It was something as simple and common as not wanting to lose heart, no matter how painful life could be, because we’re not alone.

“Beside us are people we have come to cherish, who care for us in turn. Helping each other make the eyes we see the world through just a bit brighter. We don’t even need to save the world to do that.” Emilia looked to her hands, as if she found something she was looking for. “Just be kind to each other, and believe in one another. That alone could be the push someone needed to run.”

The boy didn’t respond, not immediately. So surprised by the silver-hair girl’s words, he was left speechless. Right then and there, Subaru heard the words he didn’t know he wanted to hear the most. Their intent was not to have him put up the mantle he expected himself to carry but to have him look around, seeing the people who stood by him not because of any service he could give them; they simply wanted to help him because they were friends. It wasn’t a promise to take his burdens nor permission for him to shoulder theirs—it was the simple act of returning each others' kindness.

Subaru confessed, “I didn’t want to show you my ugly side. Even when I was spouting insensitive nonsense about you being like a damsel in distress, I just wanted to know for sure I wasn’t the only one who cared. If I could be of any use, I’d welcome it… But sometimes, that was all I cared about.

“I’m an insecure, obnoxious kid playing the hero because I thought it was my role—my way of repaying everyone. I still can’t get rid of the feeling I’m nothing without Return By Death. I didn’t save you heroically. I made deals and compromises just to get here, and I failed so many times. The hero I wanted to be feels so far away.” Subaru said gloomily.

“Maybe being the hero who saves everyone is too far to reach now, but being the person who can lift others up isn’t that far off.” Emilia smiled, “As long as you don’t mind your friends to do the same for you as well. After all, if it has to be between one or the other, why not first ask for help?”

Subaru laughed, wiping a tear from his eye. “Maybe. I’d have to work on my social links, huh. Too much guts, not enough charm.”

Emilia raised her brow. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” He smiled.

She pouted with all the class of a well-respecting noble lady. “Jeeze! Subaru!”

“Ah~! Kawaii~!” Subaru laughed, wiping bittersweet tears from his eyes. 

Yeah, just like mom said. He could cry all he liked. Whether he was sad or having the time of his life, so long as he could still smile in spite of everything that happened, he didn’t think the end of the line would be that bad. 

Feeling better, his emotions no longer reaching a crescendo, Subaru looked to Emilia and smiled. She returned the feeling with one of her own, looking like a burden was lifted from her shoulders.

Maybe he was still going with the tide, but Subaru felt that if he wanted to change into the person Emilia, Rem, Beatrice—everyone—could be proud of, he needed to ask this question.

“Emilia,” he called. Subaru’s voice was firm yet wavering at the same time. As if a coward who had run all his life finally found the one thing he could not leave behind, the nasty-eyed boy breathed in to calm his nervous heartbeat.

”Yes, Subaru?” She answered.

“I love you,” he confessed. “Will you fall in love with me with marriage in mind?”

Emilia’s eyes widened, amethysts freezing in light. Focusing back on the present, she made a most thankful smile, eyes closed. “Subaru, hearing that from you makes me the happiest in the world. I’m still in disbelief that I could be loved that way. But…”

The silver-haired girl opened her eyes once more, facing the dark-haired boy without shifting her gaze. “I can’t accept those feelings.”

Subaru felt a hollow ache in his chest, but he didn’t give in. He knew this could be the outcome when he asked her once again a year after his first confession, after seeing what he said and done. A year of waiting would leave anyone with a sense of anxiety whether the person they liked reciprocated, but Emilia had always been a sometimes frustrating exception. After all, she accepted his kiss because she believed that was how babies were made. Believing he wanted to raise a family with her cemented the idea he truly was in love with her as embarrassing as it was to find out later.

“If I was pressed for an answer before, I think I would have said I wanted you to be the one I fell in love with if I could choose. It would have been cruel to fall in love with anyone else in spite of everything you had gone through for me. Maybe I chose you because it was the safest answer. Hah… Was that not cruel in its own way? I see now I still didn’t understand what love was. 

“That’s why, I can’t accept it. You don’t deserve that, and I can’t force myself to feel and understand what you’re feeling. Even after watching you, I don’t think what I’m feeling is the love you want,” Emilia said.

Maybe it was selfish and indecisive of her, wanting to understand the many forms of love there were, trying to find out if that’s the feeling he wanted her to feel for him. At least that way, maybe all of his pain was worth it.

But that kind of thinking rubbed her the wrong way. It felt like she owed it to Subaru to love him in turn, like she was the reward. She knew it would be wrong of her to assume Subaru felt that way, but realizing through the screen’s viewings how codependent their relationship was, Emilia felt like it could only spell disaster if she said yes without meaning it or understanding the nuances to it.

“Who we are now… I don’t think we’ll be a good match, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find love for yourself. After all, I’m not your entire world, and you're not mine.” Emilia said, hoping that despite her rejection of his confession, Subaru would not despair over it. Emilia recognized Subaru’s habit to go all in or nothing in instances.  “Ah, Subaru! If you ever fall in love with someone else, I don’t mind if you choose them. So long as you’re happy, I’ll be happy.”

Just because she didn’t love Subaru in the way he wanted her to did not mean he should wait a long time for her to. If she did come to love him while he was unspoken for, that would be okay. But if not, Subaru should put his own happiness first.

“That’s a very Emilia-tan response,” Subaru sighed. If Emilia felt the same way, she wouldn’t be so lax when it comes to competition. He knew he wouldn’t. Hell, Rem had an odd stare down with Patrasche. But Subaru supposed he couldn’t expect the same from Emilia as she didn’t have a single jealous bone in her body.

At least now, the reason for this rejection was not something wrong with him specifically, but because of how their friendship's foundation was really formed. That was okay, since he could always go back to the starting line. If that could be applied to wanting to change, why couldn't it work with wanting to change a relationship.

“I don’t understand what you mean, but I’ll apologize just in case.” She bowed, “I’m sorry.”

“Kh! The classic bow of polite refusal! The gesture demonstrates no ill-will to the guy confessing to the girl, accepting their words with grace and pity!” Subaru wiggled around in embarrassment, doing so half in jest and half in irony due to how close his commentary hit the mark. “However, that doesn’t mean I’ll give up! The timing of a new might be bad, but doesn’t mean it’s impossible! Bring it on, oh inevitable fate!”

“Eh? Is the future of my love life bleak enough for you to challenge for?! I don’t think now is the right time for such a dramatic vow!” Emilia said, feeling flustered.

“Ha, ha! Perhaps so! But I have faith I can win you over with my dependable, feel good energy!” Subaru said, diving further into the role of a fool. 

“Eh…” Emilia then shifted to a dull tone, a smirk borderline forming on her face. “Mm, I suppose those charms did win Rem over.”

He froze, the name of the first girl who ever told him she loved him reminded Subaru of her precarious situation in their love life. “Um… Emilia-tan,” Subaru shyly called out, pressing his index fingers together like a child asking for a treat. “Do you think… Um… Rem could—”

“Although I’d feel really bad about this,” she said, interrupting Subaru’s request. “If I ever got married, I think I’d prefer it to be just between me and my groom. On that, you’re being a bit too greedy, huh?”

“I apologize!” He bowed, thinking whether he should prostrate himself for maximum repentance. “But, um, I still have to try, you know? For all Rem did for me.”

“I understand,” Emilia nodded. “Rem is a really good girl once she doesn’t keep you at arm’s length.”

He nodded, a little smugness in his tone. “Mm, Mm! The transition from kuudere to deredere is most splendid!”

“That sounded really gross for some reason,” Emilia said while taking a step backward.

“Oi! Emilia-tan is feeling real sassy all of a sudden! In fact, I can’t remember how long it's been since the audience saw her! Well, not like I mind though.” As much as he liked Rem’s doting on him, he did like it when Rem poked fun at him a little. Emilia as well; it just hit his M tendencies when he wasn’t on the offensive with his S tactics.

“Gross,” she repeated, taking another step back. This time a bit larger.

“Did you really have to say it twice?!” He cried despite feeling like asking for Emilia to say it again. At that point, it would be a step too far.

“Sorry!” Emilia giggled. “Friends give each other a hard time, right? That’s what you do with everyone, especially Otto!”

“Ack! Karma…!” Subaru clutched his heart. “Oh Buddha! I swear I won’t rib Otto again…for the rest of the hour.”

Emilia covered her mouth, stifling her laugh yet accidentally made her snort. 

“Eh~,” Subaru said, smelling blood in the water. “How improper~!”

Emilia pouted, her face turning redder than an apple—appa. “Let’s just go and rejoin everybody!”

“Ah, you got shy~!” He teased her.

“Hmph!” Emilia sharply turned her head, feeling the coy smile in his tone. 

Even if their relationship took a step back, she couldn’t help but feel hopeful that they would bicker more often.

From stories, Emilia would see the couple get together in a dramatic fashion, but a story she had heard Beatrice once mention in their down time had a boy and a girl become closer as they tried to win the attention of the people they respectively fell for. She found it sweet, two friends becoming closer and closer until they fell in love with the other instead.

In the back of Emilia’s mind as she walked out of the theatre room, ignoring Subaru’s mischief, she wondered if Fortuna and Guese were like that: two people who became acquainted with each other for so long that the connection they shared was strong.

Adding an addendum to wanting to choose who her heart beat for, Emilia hoped they would be the best of friends first as well.

This section had a planned scene, but I just couldn't push through writer's block for this idea I had. If you read the notes of this double upload of Chapter 5 and 6, you would get the context. Heads up, it's word vomit. 

Anyway, I mentioned songs giving me ideas on what to put in, so the hyperlinks lead to different songs that helped me make this chapter. So, here's three links that helped. They probably don't connect completely, I just took in ideas from them. No Stars, Answer, Answer Ver. 2. The latter two were what clicked in for me on why I focused on Subaru's Answer. I guess I subconsciously referenced it, but I don't know. Oh, the anime references are just there... Don't ask why I put them in; I can't remember either.

And with that, this chapter is officially done. Up next, the reactions for the business upstart Limbus Company~~~! Fucking finally!

Edit: Like I said before, I'll try to finish before August is over. Sorry.