Chapter Text
In Lugnica, the capital was more alive than ever while in the royal palace, a celebration was being held. The reason? The new queen has been chosen, the half-elf emilia.
At the party, everyone was having fun:
Garfield was sharing a story (with only Mimi, Tivey and Hetaro as the audience) about a fight in Vollachia;
Otto was drinking at a table with Riccardo and Wilhelm, while Fedrerica was sitting next to him and holding his hand;
Rosewaal was entertaining some guest showing some magic while Ram was admiring him;
The queen was talking with some guests while Rem and Petra were standing closely, playing with Spica and the great spirit Beatrice stood alone on a balcony, watching the city below with a concerned gaze.
Although the party was going great, everyone noticed that something, or rather someone, was missing: the knight of the queen, hero of Priestella and Vollachia, slayer of sloth, greed, the white whale and the great rabbit, where was he?
Where was … Natsuki Subaru?
The hero in question was walking in the almost desert streets of the capital, alone.
He wasn’t at the party, neither he wanted to be. Minutes after the celebration started he left, Beatrice asked where he was going to which he responded saying he needed some air.
‘Then I'll come with you, I suppose’ Beatrice said without a second thought.
‘Beako… you don’t need to, I'll be gone only for an hour or so. You can stay here and have fun.’ Subaru said while waving his hand.
‘But you could be assaulted by some thugs! You are stronger than before but they could out number you, I suppose. As your contractor spirit, it’s my job to stay with you, in fact.’ said Beatrice with a worried and determined tone.
‘Beako…’ Subaru hugged the spirit. ‘Thank you for worrying about me, but now I want to stay alone for a while. How about this: I'll stay close to the buildings near the palace and as soon as I'm in danger, I'll call your help using the contract. Deal?’
Beatrice thought for a moment, she didn’t like the idea of his contractor alone, but if he needed space, then she would give him space.
‘Fine, but you better respect those terms, I suppose’ Beatrice said, puffing her cheeks.
‘My Beako is the best!’ Subaru took Beatrice and began to spin her around.
Back to the present, Subaru entered an alley and started climbing a building, reaching the roof.
The view from there was beautiful, with the moonlight reflected on the water of the river below (I don't remember if there is a river near the palace but for the sake of plot there is).
Subaru got closer to the edge of the roof… and set down.
‘So, what now?’ he thought.
Emilia was queen but she hasn’t given him an answer yet; every time he asked, the answer was still the same ‘I still don’t understand. This feeling is confusing, please Subaru, wait a little longer’. Three. Years. He has been waiting for three fucking years. He had embarrassed himself, fought, bled, died, and she still hasn't understood her own feelings after all they have been through.
‘Honestly, at this point i’m even mad, i’m just pissed off’
Rem, his second flame, was with another man.
After reawakening in the tower without her memory, all their sweet moments and love for him were erased; due to the witch miasma, she didn’t trust him and constantly accused him of being a member if the witch cult. It didn’t matter what he tried to at least get them to be friends again, she rejected him, insulted him and crushed his heart… so he stopped trying.
‘One year of life and death situations should have at least got us to trust each other, instead it didn’t change shit, if anything, it probably got worse. I can’t even imagine the old Rem anymore; when I try to see the old sweet girl in love with me, I only see a frenzy beast driven by hate that crush me everytime she can, just like in my first loops at the mansion.’
Ram, the girl he considered an older sister to have friendly bickering, was using him like a punching bag.
The realization that Rosewall would not love her in any way pissed off the oni so much that she decided to abuse the knight to release the anger, either with insults filled with disgust about his sad look, or with punches and blows that would leave bruises for weeks or in the worst case break a rib.
‘Tch, she sees that I'm just like her, with a broken heart, and apparently it pissed her off. She is the reason the relationship between me and Rem is garbage but apparently it’s my fault for being a “good for nothing” while she can’t even clean on her own, not to mention how she needs daily mana transfusions from Rosewaal to litterally live because of her missing horn’
Otto and Garfield, his two brothers, were both in a relationship.
Garfield moved on from his crush on Ram and gave Mimi a chance, which apparently turned out good; Otto got together with Frederica a couple of months before the ending of the royal selection, but they decided to wait and reveal it a week ago.
Subaru was happy that they both found their love, but also sad.
‘I’m happy for them, but I wish they wouldn’t have left me behind. Every time I try to get an outing between bros, they always refuse and say they are busy with either work or their partners. Guess that’s dating life’
And with Rosewaal, Emilia's benefactor and court mage of the capital, things were tense.
Subaru knew that he couldn’t be fully trusted, he proved time and time again that he is ready to do everything if it meant reviving Echidna, the witch of greed, and he never showed any sign of remorse for his crimes. Subaru knew that one day he would have to stop him but since both worked with the goal of making Emilia queen he couldn’t stop him yet. But now that Emilia conquered the throne, the status quo was broken, meaning that both could simply betray each other at any moment, and Rosewaal was in advantage: his noble name, strong magic and lack of proofs made him untouchable while Subaru had nothing but failed loops that only he saw. The only reason Rosewaal Hasn’t got rid of him yet was because he was his most valuable “pawn” in his plan.
‘I’m at that bastard mercy, I’m a trapped prey that is watching the predator slowly getting closer and closer. I feel his eyes on me every moment, like he’s just waiting for me to break or slowly guiding me to a trap’
Subaru started to shake, feeling cold and instinctively got his hands in his pockets to warm them until he felt a cold touch of a solid object. The feeling calmed Subaru as he remembered the reason for this outing.
He took the objects out his pockets revealing two bracelets made of a silver chain and with a little crystal on top, one of the cristal was black while the other was brown.
“Happy wedding anniversary, mom…dad. I hope you’ll like my gift” Thanks to math, astronomy and geology he managed to make a calendar similar to the one in his world, and according to calculation, today was Naoko and Kenichi's wedding anniversary.
“At first I thought of making the crystals pink and blue, a classic…’sob” a small tear fell on Subaru's cheek “but honestly ‘sob’ that would be banal ‘sob’ so I made them of the colors of your eyes…’SOB’”
At that moment, Subaru broke down into a crying mess. The knight of the queen, the hero…now was just a kid missing his parents.
“I thought that I could be happy here ‘sniff’ that I would have achieved my happy ending, that i only needed to not give up and try again ‘sob’ but what have i obtained?! Emilia ignores me, Rem hates me, Ram abuses me and that bastard of Rosewaal has me in his palm. Was everything I did till this point…just a waste of time? Was everything…in vain? Now I have nothing to think, to do. I’ve managed to ignore this feeling due to all the shit that has happened to me, but now I can't hide it anymore ‘sniff’ I miss you… I miss you so much.”
He regretted everything, being a burden to them, not thinking about them when he first arrived in this hell of a world, not managing to say a real goodbye when he left the house not knowing he would have never returned.
That night, just for that night, Natsuki Subaru would not be a knight, a hero or a monster slayer.
That night, on that roof, alone, Natsuki Subaru would be Natsuki Subaru, the man who misses his parents.
‘TUNK!!!!!!!!!’
A loud, hard noise of something smashing on a stone ground made Subaru open his eyes in pure shock and turning around, what he saw sent shivers down his spine.
In front of him stood a slim, tall humanoid figure, but that figure had nothing of human:
its body was covered in a solid black bone armor with sharp razor claws as fingers, its back was covered in bone white spikes and at the center of its chest, a whole that passed the entire body was clearly visible, on the waist it had a reptilian tail with a sharp edge and its face was covered by a pale grey mask with sharp shark teeth and red, raging eyes; And for last, on its head there were two point forward horns and long pale gray hair that reached its waist.
In short, the figure in front of him looked like a demon straight out of hell.
“GRRR” the monster let out an animalistic growl before dashing towards Subaru, who fortunately managed to dodge at the last second, making the monster hit the edge of the roof.
Rolling far, Subaru quickly put the jewels in his pockets before taking a cautious stance, so as to be sure of dodging any following attack.
“What the hell is this thing?! A mabeast, a demon or something similar? It moved with so much speed I barely dodge” Subaru fainted while looking at his side, noticing that the thing cut some fabric off his hoodie.
“I have to run! To call someon- BEAKO!, I have to use the-”Before he could activate the contract, the head of the monster snapped to the side where Subaru was and pointing its horns towards him, a pale purple light started forming on them, taking the form of a circle.
“RHAAAAAAA!!!” the monster roared and realised the light, which turned into a circular vertical blade that flew towards the knight .
Again Subaru jumped to the side to dodge the attack but unfortunately the blast was too fast and ended up cutting off Subaru's left hand in a clean strike.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH” Subaru screamed as he fell on the ground due to the pain of the wound; Using every bit of strength he had, he ignored the pain and focused on calling Beatrice with the contract. ‘Beako…help, please, help me…’
At the palace, the great spirit was still watching the city below.
‘What is he doing, I wonder? He tried to hide it but he was clearly sad. Did he just wanted to let out everything alone? No, he had broken down in front of me many times, I'm the only one that he allowed to see him in that state. There is something else, i suppose’
“What are you doing here alone, Beako?” a feminine voice called the great spirit, who turned around to see the source.
Emilia, the new queen, was standing there on the balcony, with eyes full of happiness and joy from winning the royal selection.
The great spirit wanted to click her tongue, but managed to suppress the act ‘The last thing I needed was to see her. First my contractor leave alone to Od knows where and now I have to interact with this damn brat’. Beatrice has grown to dislike Emilia, she saw the sad face that his contractor made every time he asked the half-elf about her feelings, just for her to evade the question with the same phrase every time; this bothered the great spirit since her contractor had moved sky and earth to help the girl.
“Just watching the view.” Beatrice said without any emotion.
“But why alone, shouldn't you be with Subaru? After all, you are always attached to him like a kid during these types of events.” The queen laughed softly at the memory “Did he have to use the bathroom? I haven’t seen him in a while now that I think about it.” Emila remarked, putting two fingers on his chin while deep thinking.
The great spirit’s teeth tightened so much they almost cracked at the stupidity and naiveness of the queen, HER KNIGHT left the party as soon as it started and she. Didn’t. Even. Notice. It.
“Just what did my contractor see in you, you’re nothing more than a spoiled child that can do nothing on her own” Beatrice murmured angrily, another missed step, even of the lightest thing and she would have exploded.
“Mh? Did you say something Beako? Sorry I didn’t hear you.” Emilia asked, too busy in her thoughts to hear the spirit.
“FIRST OF ALL, Don’t call me Beako! Only Subaru can do that!” The great spirit finally exploded, slamming her hands on the reeling of the balcony and startling the queen.
“SECOND, I just asked what my contractor saw in you!! Because you are nothing more than a sp-Ah?!” The yelling of the spirit stopped when she sensed through the contract her contractor calling for help.
“HE IS BEING ATTACKED!” without wasting a second, the spirit started casting a spell to fly while her body began to glow.
“H-HOLD on Beako! What’s happening?!” Emilia asked in confusion, first the spirit was yelling at her and then she suddenly stopped and now she was panicking and prepared to fly.
“Betty’s Subaru is in danger! I have to go help him!” Beatrice finished charging the spell and immediately jumped in the sky towards the city below.
“Princess, what’s happening?” Emilia turned around toward the sudden voice and found Garfield, Julius, Mimi and Otto staring at her with confused and worried expressions.
“Beatrice just said that Subaru is in danger! Has anyone seen him?!” Emilia answered, still confused but also worried about her knight.
“WHAT?! The cap’n is in danger?! We need to find him, fast!” Garfield, without any hesitation, jumped from the balcony, following Beatrice on the ground.
“GARF, wait!” Otto tried to stop him or call him back, but the tiger boy was already far away by the time they realized he moved.
On Subaru's side, things were going horribly.
The monster had freed himself and was attacking him like a beast, constantly agitating its claws with enough force that one singular hit would have torn apart the man like a cloth doll.
The knight on the other hand, was doing his best to ignore the pain of his missing hand while dodging as much as he could until the monster changed tactics and hit Subaru’s side with its arm, sending the man flying to the side like a ragdoll.
The monster followed him and raised its claw to impale him in the ground but before he could attack, Subaru quickly grabbed a brick on the floor and throwed it at its face, giving him an extra instant to roll to the side but by doing so, Subaru felt a sharp pain from the side where the monster punched him.
“Damn it, it probably broke some of my ribs-!!” Before he could finish his thought, the monster dashed again towards him and bit his collar bone with so much force that the bones sounded instants away from breaking.
“AH, Let me go!!” Subaru tried to free himself, punching the thing on the head and also kicked it, but the monster didn’t even flinch, instead, it attacked, opening a deep wound on Subaru's side.
The pain from the injuries and the massive blood loss made Subaru's mind start spinning, his strength was fading away and his eyes were becoming heavy.
‘I'm gonna die here…maybe if I'm lucky this will be my last time; and I will finally die forever, no more pain, no more trauma, no more suffering…’
His entire life passed in front of his eyes, his first hellish day at the capital, the terrifying loops at the mansion, the time he embarrassed himself at the start of the royal selection and Julius beat him to a pulp, the white whale, the great rabbit, Pristella, the watchtower, Vollachia; all the moment he suffered and died, just to overcome those challenges and die again in worst ways.
But, at the end, hidden deep in his sea of suffering, some memories made their way to the surface:
some times were he went to the Karsten mansion and had pleasant meetings with Crusch while she was still under the effect of the cursed dragon blood;
the sleepless nights where he sneaked in Meili’s room to pat Shaula, the apprentice of the sage turned into a scorpion, just to feel less lonely;
all the times Beako healed him after he scratched his arms till they bled, without hesitation;
a conversation when Priscilla sacrificed herself where she told him not to change fate, to which he responded “Then it’s ok if one of my selfish desires is to see you live?” before jumping off the castel walls and managed to save her on the following try;
And last, a conversation where he made a promise that he intended to keep this time.
Subaru stood in front of Satella, the witch of envy, without fear, without hate, but with a look of pure determination.
“I know you wanted me to kill you, but I won't do it” The knight announced
“What? Why?” Satella asked in surprise.
“It’s simple: I want to save you. I don’t care you are considered a monster by everyone, i saw your past, I saw the witch factor create your other personality, i saw envy devouring most of the world; I will stop envy, break the seal and save you Satella, that’s a promise”
The witch just stared at the boy in pure disbelief, until she let out a dry laugh
“You are really a foolish person, you know my beloved? Well, then I'll just wait.”
“I promise, I’ll save you” Subaru smiled before the shadow garden began to disappear.
“I … I can’t” Subaru murmured before accumulating all his remaining strength.
“I can’t die…” inside Subaru, a black mass slowly took the form of a shadow hand.
“I CAN’T DIE YET!!!!!!!” Subaru shouted before grabbing the neck of the monster with his remaining hand and invisible providence and squeeze with all the strength he had left.
The monster roared at the sudden strength of the man and in response, it put more force in the bite and started scratching the knight in an attempt to make him lose the grip.
Both fighters were now blocked in a war of attrition, and the first to let go, would have died.
When the strength of Subaru’s grip grew stronger, the monster countered by biting with more strength. Both were locked in a deadly stalemate with their life as the price. Until…
‘Crack, crack…’ some cracks started to form on the monster’s armor on the neck.
‘Crack,crack…’ but at the same time, the sounds of bones breaking and flesh tearing were coming from Subaru's shoulder.
Both contestants were in pain, but they continued, driven by determination and survival instinct.
For every time the cracks on the monster neck grew larger, more pressure was being applied on Subaru's collarbone; Every time one applied more strength, the other quickly countered by applying more.
A man that was trying to break the neck of a monster, and a monster that was trying to rip off a man’s collarbone, and at the end…
‘CRACK!!!!…’
A singular, loud cracking sound, followed by an intense and absolute silence, ended the battle.
All the roars, growls, screams and fighting sounds, stopped completely by that singular sound. And said sound came from:
The monster’s neck was completely crushed; the bone armor protecting it was in pieces and blood was dripping from the monster’s mouth and eyes.
Slowly, its strength began to fade and the body started collapsing.
At that moment, Subaru managed to finally breathe a sigh of relief but unfortunately the adrenaline in his body began to leave, making his body unable to move from the pain and removing the monster’s mouth that was still attached to him and making both fall off the roof in the river below.
As both were dragged away by the river’s current, Subaru managed to see only the moon above, before falling deeper underwater.
‘Heh, at least I know a way to kill it, I'll get him on the next loop’ Subaru thought before succumbing to the fatigue and closed his eyes, believing that he would have died there, either from blood loss or drowning.
The knight opened his eyes, and felt that all the pressure of the water, the pain, the fatigue, were gone; his body was completely fine and his left hand was attached to him again.
Looking around, Subaru only saw a sea of shadows that seemed to extend infinitely in all directions and a dark silhouette of a woman in front of him.
Subaru has awakened in the shadow garden.
“Huh, looks like a die, anyway good evening Satella, how are you?” Subaru greeted the witch of envy; at first she creeped him out every time she appeared in his dreams, until he gathered some courage and approached her, and it turned out that she wasn’t so scary (if you ignore envy that would appear from time to time).
The darkness that surrounded the silhouette began to fade, revealing a woman in a black dress and orange details with long silver hair and amethyst eyes that were looking at him with… a worried gaze?
“My beloved, s-something is wrong.” The witch warned.
“What? What do you mean “something is wrong”? Didn’t I get here because I died fighting against that thing?” The knight asked confusedly, normally he would be summoned in the shadow garden only in dream or when he died, and looking at his situation, he was pretty sure he died.
“No, I summoned you here, because whatever that thing was, it-Ahhhh!!” Satella fell on her knees while all around the two, the shadow garden seemed to explode in a frenzy, with shadows starting to distort while others gained a very bright violet color.
The knight looked in surprise as the place was thrown into chaos, but quickly regained consciousness and approached the witch, kneeling at her height and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Satella, what is going on?! What is happening to the garden?!” Subaru asked in a worried and panicking tone, normally it should have been impossible for anything to affect the shadow garden as the place was… in his…consciousness.
“AHH!!”Before the man had any more time to think about it, however, a sharp pain in his chest suddenly appeared, making him fall on the ground in agonizing pain.
Unnoticed by the knight, some shadows behind him started to deform and piled up, before taking the shape of a humanoid figure, who then began to approach the knight still unaware of it due to his pain. As it got closer and closer, more traits began to appear as the shadows on it began to fade, revealing sharp razor claws, a reptilian tail and two point-forward horns on its head.
However, before the figure could get closer enough to touch Subaru, the shadows began to fade as some voices started echoing through the place.
“Nat….-.an!”
“Ca…n!”
“Suba..-.iun!”
Subaru slowly opened his eyes, and immediately noticed a ceiling unfamiliar to him; he also felt great pain all over his body and some bandages wrapped around his wounds.
“I don’t recognize this ce-”
“SUBARU/CAPT’N!!!” Before he could even finish his sentence however, the man was ambushed by Beatrice and Garfield, who hugged him with tears in their eyes
“Ah, please, my ribs…” the knight stammered out as he felt agonizing pain due to the strength the spirit and the tiger boy were hugging him.
The two in question immediately moved to the side with sorry looks.
Subaru looked around and at his side, he spotted Otto, who was watching him with a relieved gaze through some tears, and Felix Argyle, also known as ‘blue’, the best healer in Lugnica, who also looked happy that he awaked
“Nyah, thank Od you awake, I thought the worst for a moment” The healer let out a sigh of relief while relaxing his shoulders.
“Felix? Beako?. Guys, what happened?” Subaru asked while trying to sit, which turned out difficult due to the injuries; luckily Felix and Garfield immediately helped him, getting him to lean his back against the bedframe “the last thing i remember is that i fell in the river, with that monster still attached to my shoulder” he put his hands on his head, trying to remember and soon noticing that his left hand was back in place.
Felix immediately responded “nyah these three barged in the mansion with you on the brink of death, I immediately started to heal you, closing the wounds and also reattaching your hand. When your conditions were stable, we brought you to one of the empty rooms, then we waited nyah.”
“However, you were taking more time than expected to wake up and we started to think the worse” Added Otto, wiping away his tears.
“Well, that makes sense, but how did you reattached my hand ?;don’t get me wrong I'm grateful for your help but I remembered your ability was to heal and close wounds, not regenerate limbs. Also where are we?” Subaru asked while moving his left hand, making sure it could do all the movements.
“I found yer hand in a net close to your body, so i took it thinking the healer could patch it back” Garfield answered Subaru's question.
“And to answer your second question, we are in the karsten mansion in the capital” Otto answered the second one.
“Enough cheap chat! Subaru, what happened to you to be left in that state?! Who did this to Betty’s contractor?!” Beatrice demanded in an angry tone, she would make sure that whoever did it would regret ever being born.
“Well it’s a long story… let’s see” Subaru said before telling everyone the events of that violent night, how the monster attacked him and fatally wounded him, before he broke its neck and how both fell in the river and he lost his senses.
“Wait, Beako, were all my things still with me when you found me?” Subaru asked in a worried tone, the possibility of losing ‘them’ was very high after all.
“W-well all your things are at the table there. Or at least everything you had with you, I suppose” Beatrice said while pointing at a table near the window.
Looking at the table, Subaru saw his clothes, a little bag of money he always carried around and most importantly, the two jewels made for the wedding anniversary of his parents.
‘Thank god i didn’t lose them’ He thought while letting out a sigh of relief.
“Anyway that’s what happened, by the way did you know what that monster was? I never saw a mabeast like that.” Subaru then asked but when he looked back at them, he noticed them looking at him with confused faces.
“Natsuki-san” Otto finally spoke, breaking the silence. “I don’t know how to say it, but… there wasn’t another corpse in the river. We only found you” he said while looking at his black-haired friend, who was watching him with a surprised and confused face.
“What?” the knight muttered out. How was it possible that they didn’t find the creature, after all it was still attached to his neck when he lost consciousness.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Subaru thought, first a monster never seen before attacked him, then the shadow garden went into chaos, and now his friends didn’t see the corpse of the monster.
Something was going on, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
-CONTINUE-
So, to answer some question you might have:
Yes, Subaru was attacked by a hollow and yes, that hollow is basically white with the only differences being:
-the mask and hair color is gray;
-it has spikes on its back and a tail;
-it has normal arms instead of those, kind of mantis arms white had;
-the hollow hole is not covered.