Chapter Text
An oppressive, unnatural silence weighed heavily upon the theater.
The viewing of the Fifth Arc had concluded. Although certain triumphs brought a flicker of solace, they were severely overshadowed by grim consequences, leaving the audience trapped in a state of volatile, mixed emotions.
Within the Emilia Camp, the atmosphere was laced with a fragile relief. Subaru Natsuki, alongside Reinhard, had successfully rescued Emilia and liberated the wives of regulus, ultimately bringing an end to the Archbishop of Greed.
"Subaru did so much for me again..." Emilia murmured, her violet eyes trembling as she looked at his motionless form beside her. She tightly clasped her hands over her chest. "He fought until he couldn't move, all to keep his promise. I have to be stronger."
"Do not burden your heart unnecessarily,” Beatrice stated, her voice tight as she held Subaru’s limp, cold hand, refusing to let go. "The Betty’s contractor simply did what he always does—defying the impossible, in fact.”
In stark contrast, the Crusch Camp was enveloped in a mausoleum-like gloom. The duchess’s current state—stripped of her memories and thoroughly corrupted by the black blood of the despicable Archbishop of Lust, Capella Lugnica—left them paralyzed with grief. Wilhelm van Astrea stared at the floor, his aged hands trembling violently. Witnessing his beloved Theresia’s corpse desecrated and weaponized had shattered something deep within him, a pain exacerbated by the bitter confrontation with his son and grandson, alongside the ghosts of his youth.
"To see her memory dragged through the mud... and my own flesh and blood fractured beyond repair," Wilhelm whispered, his voice cracking with an old man's despair. "Have I truly learned nothing from the past?"
Beside him, Felix Argyle was spiraling into a profound, suffocating frustration. The sight of his lady suffering from yet another uncurable affliction tore at his sanity, pushing him to the brink of discarding his own pride.
"Why?! Why can't I fix this?!" Felix clawed at his own arms, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
The Priscilla Camp maintained a relatively stable, albeit tense, composure. Schult wept tears of pure adoration and relief, celebrating his mistress's flawless victory over the wretched Sirius. Al shifted uncomfortably, his hidden gaze lingering on his lord, somewhat eased by her survival but eternally wary of the underlying currents.
Priscilla Barielle hid her expression behind her ornate fan, her classic, arrogant smirk firmly in place, though her eyes remained sharp and analytical. Near them, Heinkel van Astrea sat completely demoralized, a broken shell of a man after witnessing his mother being slain for a second time, his mind unable to process the grief.
"A predictable outcome," Priscilla declared, her voice dripping with aristocratic disdain. "A clown who knows nothing of her own place deserves nothing less than to be burned to ashes by my radiance. Victory is the only natural state in my presence."
Meanwhile, the Anastasia Camp was drowning in a toxic miasma of resentment. The final revelation—the absolute erasure of Julius Juukulius’s name from the world's memory—gnawed at their hearts. The loss of Joshua to the insatiable hunger of Gluttony left a sickeningly bitter taste in their mouths.
"My name... gone from the lips of those I love," Julius muttered, staring at his trembling hands, feeling like a ghost anchoring itself to reality. "And Joshua... I couldn't protect him."
Anastasia Hoshin remained silent, her fur scarf clutched tightly around her neck, her eyes narrowed as a cold, calculating fury burned within her.
Lastly, the Felt Camp experienced a rare moment of alignment, though not without friction. Reinhard van Astrea offered a faint, melancholy smile, relieved to have finally been of assistance to Subaru, only to receive a harsh reprimand from his lady.
"Reinhard!" Felt yelled, kicking the back of his chair. "Stop saying you're glad to 'finally be useful'!"
"My apologies, Lady Felt," Reinhard replied softly, his lowered eyes carrying a heavy, chronic exhaustion.
Before anyone could continue their rejoicings or lamentations, the Warden’s voice reverberated through the grand hall. However, the entity's tone was notably detached, devoid of its usual theatrical amusement.
"Alright, settle down and pay attention. For the next viewing, we will be taking a direct leap forward. You are about to witness Arc 13."
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The silence that followed the Warden's decree lasted for a mere heartbeat before the theater erupted into a chaotic storm of confusion and fierce protests. The faces of Anastasia, Emilia, and everyone shifted from stunned disbelief to sheer indignation within an instant. How could this entity expect them to comprehend the gravity of future events while completely omitting vast chapters of their own history?
"Hold on a minute" Anastasia barked, stepping forward with a sharp scowl, her typical mercantile composure fracturing. "Arc 13?! That is an absurd, completely reckless leap! What happens to everything in between? You can't just throw us blindly into the dark during such an advanced timeline!"
"My lady is right!" Julius added, his voice carrying the authority of a Royal Knight despite his internal turmoil. "To skip such an immense span of time is to strip us of context, strategy, and understanding. It is a dishonor to the trials we have yet to face!"
Several others nodded in vehement agreement, rallying behind the complaint. But the Warden merely exhaled a long, heavy sigh, shrugging its shoulders with a mixture of apathy and cold resignation.
"Save your breath and your shouting; this wasn't my call. Even an existence like myself answers to higher authorities, you know? The upper echelons strictly commanded me to enforce this transition. I have no voice, no vote, and no say in the matter. We are bypassing the intermediate arcs because they willed it so. If it were up to me, believe me, I would have thoroughly enjoyed watching your expressions distort through every single miserable event in between."
Realizing that no amount of emotional protestation would alter the screen's predetermined destiny, Anastasia’s analytical mind immediately shifted gears. If she could not prevent the leap, she would extract every single shred of leverage available to cushion the impact.
"If there truly is no alternative, then you owe us data," Anastasia insisted, her eyes narrowing into cold, calculating slits. "What triggered this sudden change in the timeline's priority? What becomes of our respective factions during this massive gap of time?"
The Warden smiled faintly from the shadows, fully anticipating the merchant's tactical pivot.
"A commendable effort, Anastasia. You truly possess the unyielding spirit of a greedy fox. However, rules are absolute. I will address your inquiries, but under one strict condition: I will only grant one question per person. And before you all start shouting your demands, let it be known that such a Q&A session will happen much later. Currently, I am forbidden from disclosing those specifics, so hoard your doubts until the proper time arrives."
The air grew suffocatingly dense. The audience traded looks of profound distrust and simmering frustration, struggling to assimilate the rigid, unyielding parameters of their situation. Seeing them hovering on the edge of despair, the Warden decided to drop the solitary fragment of information it was authorized to unveil.
"To ensure you don't enter this viewing completely blind, there is one mandatory piece of context you must grasp: Reinhard van Astrea has been sealed within the Prison Realm—the Gokumonkyo."
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The sentence fell upon the room like a catastrophic anvil of lead. The shock was instantaneous, absolute, and paralyzing. For several seconds, the conceptual fabric of their reality seemed to stutter; the mere notion that the Sword Saint—the undisputed, walking force of nature that guaranteed the kingdom’s survival—had been neutralized felt like a sick, twisted jest.
"What...?! That's impossible!" Felt screamed, completely losing her aristocratic facade as she gripped her hair in sheer panic. "Reinhard?! Sealed?! Don't give me that garbage! There isn't a single thing in this world that can touch him!"
"The Sword Saint... bested?" Wilhelm’s voice dropped to a hollow whisper, his face turning entirely pale as he stared at the screen.
"Explain yourself, Warden!" Julius demanded, stepping closer to the stage, his hand instinctively reaching for a sword that wasn't there. "What manner of foul sorcery could possibly bind the strongest knight in existence?!"
The theater dissolved into an unruly cacophony of incredulous denials, desperate questions, and demands for logical explanations. To them, Reinhard was not just a man; he was an immutable law of physics. To remove him was to collapse the ceiling of the world.
The Warden waited with agonizing patience for the uproar to die down to a manageable simmer before continuing, though its subsequent words only deepened the abyss of mystery.
"The Gokumonkyo is an ancient artifact of catastrophic proportions," the Warden explained, its voice carrying an eerie resonance. "It was forged in a distant era through the unprecedented collaboration of three legendary figures: the Witch of Greed, Echidna; the revered merchant pioneer, Alec Hoshin; and the Sage, Flugel."
A collective gasp rippled through the theater's ranks. Learning that the founding father of Kararagi’s economic ideology, Alec Hoshin, had worked hand-in-hand with the Witch of Greed was a revelation that completely unhinged Anastasia’s worldview.
"Hoshin... and a Witch?" Anastasia murmured, her voice trembling slightly as her hands gripped her fur scarf. "The foundation of our history... built on such a terrifying alliance?"
Julius attempted to press forward, his eyes burning with a desperate need to dissect the artifact's mechanics, but the Warden cut him off instantly, utilizing a tone that dripped with a false, sickeningly sweet affection.
Beatrice and Roswaal L. Mathers froze, a collective shock rippling through them. Neither had any prior knowledge concerning this specific creation of their respective mother and teacher. They exchanged a swift, sharp glance across the room, each silently hoping the other possessed some hidden insight, only to instantly realize they were both left completely in the dark.
"Mother... never spoke a word of this to me, in fact," Beatrice whispered, her expression filled with a profound, unsettling confusion. "To seal the Witch of Envy... and now Reinhard..."
"My, my... it seems our esteeeemed teacher kept quite a few secrets close to her chest, didn't she, Beatrice?" Roswaal remarked, his voice devoid of its usual theatrical cadence, replaced by a cold, calculating gravity. "An artifact capable of rendering the Sword Saint obsolete... how utterly terrifying."
"There, there, my dear, precious, and utterly dramatic spectators, do hush for a moment. Do not let your blood pressure rise so fiercely."
The mockingly endearing title grated heavily against their nerves, causing more than one warrior to grind their teeth in silent fury, but it achieved its objective of enforcing silence.
"The only truth you truly need to comprehend regarding that object is its absolute, unscalable magnitude. The Gokumonkyo served as the primary blueprint, the very foundation, for the seal that currently keeps Satella, the Witch of Envy, imprisoned. In theory, provided it is granted the necessary preparation time and conditions, that artifact possesses the conceptual authority to seal absolutely anything and anyone. Even an existence as absurdly untouchable as Reinhard van Astrea."
The staggering implications of that revelation rapidly settled into the minds of the royal candidates and knights.
Without Reinhard van Astrea on the grand chessboard, the geopolitical balance of the entire world did not just shift—it utterly shattered. The variables of global threat multiplied exponentially; the Kingdom of Lugnica had just lost its ultimate deterrent against annihilation.
Who could have possibly orchestrated a strategy of this magnitude? What terrifying, unfathomable entities were they about to face in this dark, uncharted future now that the golden safety net of the Sword Saint was gone?
The minds of everyone present raced at breakneck speeds, constructing apocalyptic scenarios and desperate countermeasures. However, the Warden granted them no luxury to wallow in their mounting panic or debate the collapse of their world.
"Very well, you possess the mandatory foundation, and your minds have spun their wheels sufficiently for now," the Warden concluded.
Slowly, the ambient lights of the theater began to dim into absolute darkness, leaving only the ominous, blinding luminescence of the massive screen before them.
"Brace yourselves. It is time to witness the opening chapter of this desperate, unwritten arc."