Chapter Text
Subaru Natsuki is an extremely ordinary boy. Raised middle class in an extremely normal family, there’s nothing about him that sticks out, aside from his sharp, menacing looking eyes, which right now, are rimmed with shadows as he flips through a cheap convenience store manga.
“So this is where they suck you in,” Subaru says to himself. He shuts the manga collection and puts it back on the shelf. It’s not interesting enough to invest his limited allowance in.
Outside the window, free from the harsh electric yellow lights, a young couple walks arm in arm under the peace of night, smiling and laughing with each other. Young romance, an experience a world away from Subaru’s, isolated as he is. But hold on, looking closer, are they both men? Whatever, he doesn’t care.
Wandering over to the aisle he eyes the collection of snacks. Chips and cup noodles. He leans over, inspecting the flavours. After a moment of thought, he grabs two. Pork bone and soy sauce flavoured cup ramen. Corn soup flavour chips. Cheap, tasty, and nutritionally void.
He goes up to the cashier. It costs 363 yen. Subaru takes out his wallet, forking up the required cash. A coin unlike the others catches his eye.
“A grooved ten yen coin, huh?”
Rare, but not exactly exciting. He puts it away and grabs his bag of snacks. The plastic crinkles as he walks, swinging and hitting his thigh as he steps out of the store. Cool, fresh air hits his face. A bonafide night owl, he’s not uncomfortable at all walking around the suburbs at night. The bright neon of the store lights up the pavement. His eyes begin to burn, irritated from too many hours staying up gaming.
“Guess that’s what I get,” he mutters to himself. Fatigue creeping up, yawning, he rubs his eyes.
And everything goes black.
Waking up has always been strange to him. As someone who can never remember the exact moment of falling asleep, returning to wakefulness carries with it inherent disorientation, hours passed in instants. Its always been a little surreal in a way that he preferred not to think about.
Stirring, Subaru rolls to his side, his mattress hard and uncomfortable. Light shines beyond his eyelids. Reaching up, he covers his face with his hand. Just five more minutes. He doesn’t need to get up early anymore.
“–Subaru! Hey, Subaru. Are you okay?”
Subaru opens his eyes. Directly in front of him is the most gorgeous girl he’s ever seen. “Ngh, whoa?!”
Startled by the beautiful face appearing not a foot away from his own, Subaru rolls. The hard ground under his shoulders vanishes, and he tumbles with a yelp. He lands on his shoulder, jarring it.
“Wah! Are you all right, Subaru?! Why did you suddenly roll?!” The girl says, darting to his side.
Despite his disorientation, that bell-like voice compels him to answer. “Its not like I wanted to go for a roll…” his sentence trails off into nothing as the confusing circumstances begin to register.
Rubbing at his tender limb, Subaru sits up and looks around. He’s inside of a room full of green. Vines, everywhere, twist across the walls and ceiling. They’re thick enough to pass for the boundaries of the room themselves. To his side is a long stone pedestal, bed shaped, like the resting place of Sleeping Beauty, or a catafalque, whereupon you rest a coffin. Apparently, Subaru had rolled off of that slap and onto a pile of leaves.
“Mm, it looks like you didn’t hit your head too hard. Thank goodness. But we were really worried, so please don’t scare us like that,” the girl says.
“Emilia, he won’t reflect on his actions properly if you say it like that. If you aren’t stricter, he won’t understand how worried we were,” another girl's voice, younger than the first, replies.
“Right. See, even Beatrice is saying that. She was a mess when we followed Otto’s calls and found you collapsed on the ground. Otto was beside himself too.” The first girl.
“Couldn’t you say a little less, I wonder?” The second.
“I’d like to object to that as well!” A male voice, higher pitched and shrill with indignation, adds.
With great calm, Subaru analyses the situation he’s in. First, the speakers.
The first one is the most gorgeous woman he’s ever seen. Shining silver hair flows gracefully from her head to below her waist, weaved perfectly into a long braid. A snow white cloak covers her shoulders and chest. Below, a tight purple bodysuit accentuates her natural elegance. Amethyst eyes more beautiful than the Hope Diamond glimmer with shimmering emotions. And she’s looking at Subaru.
Overwhelming with fluster, he breaks his gaze towards the second speaker. At the woman’s side is a young girl not five feet tall who couldn’t be older than ten. Clad in an ornate red dress and a tiny crown, she gives off major tsundere vibes. Shockingly, instead of normal black pupils, what’s nestled within her sky blue irises are pink butterflies. It’s almost enough to take Subaru's eyes off her drill style hairdo. That’s not easy to manage!
The third is a young man. On first glance, he’s absolutely the most ordinary looking of the three, if you discount the gray hair which comes down to just below his chin - maybe he’s related to the silver-haired girl? - and his medieval style cloak, deep green and tied at the front by a red bow, and his equally green hat. Seated upon another stone pedestal, his soft features give the impression of someone who fades into the background.
What doesn’t go unnoticed, however, are the two sets of wooden crutches leaned against the slab, placed for easy access. The reason for this is clear. Wrapped around the man’s lower legs are layers and layers of bandages, going from knee to foot. Whatever happened to this man must’ve been nasty. Subaru feels for him. He broke his own leg in sixth grade and that had been bad enough, hobbling around on crutches. He couldn’t imagine messing up both of his legs.
Noticing his prolonged gaze, the injured man frowns slightly. The crunch of leaves under foot rips his attention away. Subaru looks away, and when he does, he damn near falls over again.
It’s a gigantic black lizard. A bipedal, feathery, gigantic black lizard, with a saddle on its back.
Holy crap, that’s an entire dinosaur!
Subaru is struck still by awe, and the functioning monkey brain in the back of his skull that tell him, ‘hey, you’ve seen how Jurassic Park went, maybe you should get get away before you’re eaten?’ Unfortunately for his survival instincts, the former wins out. Star struck, he stands in place as the dino leans its angular head towards him, crooning deep in its throat. With the utmost tenderness it nuzzles its leather clad head into his neck. The edges of the scales poking into his skin when it retreats.
It’s so friendly, Subaru marvels, reaching up to pet the tip of its head. The dino lets out another pleased little noise. It almost reminds of the cats he played with on the patio. As he feels the smooth scales under his fingertips, he reflects on the situation so far.
Strange people dressed in centuries out of date fashion, unnatural hair and eye colours, a bizarre plant room, and a friendly black dinosaur. It all comes together.
“I get it now,” Subaru says calmly. He lowers his hand, putting the two of them on his hips.
“Subaru?” The two girls say in synch. The dinosaur looks at him. Somehow, it seems inquisitive. The gray haired man on the other slab narrows his eyes at him, soft features growing tense in anticipation.
Energy swells up within Subaru’s chest. More and more, the pressure increases, until he can do nothing but explode. Subaru raises his head to the heavens and screams.
“I’ve been summoned across the universe to another world!!”
“Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Subaru Natsuki!” Subaru strikes a pose. One hand on his hip, the other pointed skywards. “An ignorant and foolish wanderer! A indestructible ignoramus! Despite that, I hope we get along swimmingly!”
“Umm… we already knew that..?” The silver-haired girl says.
“It’s far too late for that sort of introduction now,” the young girl tells him dryly.
“Honestly, telling such a joke at a time like this, do you ever stop?” The gray-haired man quips from where he sits.
“Huh?”
Subaru feels like he missed a step on a flight of stairs, that same off footed, unbalanced feeling. For this type of scenario, isn’t the current scene kind of off? Aren’t they supposed to start with an explanation for his summoning, not act like… they already know him?
“What’s with that look, I suppose?” The younger girl asks.
This is going to be terribly, horribly awkward, but he’s gonna have to say it. Scratching his head, Subaru opens his mouth. “I don’t know how to say this… but have we met before?
The gazes, triplets in their bafflement, lock on to him. Subaru sweats under the combined pressure. After a moment of supreme awkwardness worse than anything he’s experienced in middle school, somehow, the gray-haired man speaks.
“Natsuki-san, you cannot be serious,” he says dryly, raising an eyebrow.
“Unfortunately, I am,” Subaru tells him. “If we’ve met, I don’t remember!”
A brief pause. Triple the stares. Incredulity gives way to shock.
“Huh?!” They exclaim in chorus.
“So I’ve been here for over a year, huh?” Subaru says. The news is hard to swallow, almost unbelievable, but in the face of this evidence, he sees no other path than to accept it as truth.
Subaru looks down at his hand and cringes. It’s a sickly shade of red-brown, with black veins running under his skin. More than disgusting, which it is, it’s living proof. He had not had a hand like this leaving the convenience store. Furthermore, when he pulls up his other sleeve, his healthy arm is pocketed with white scars, the sign of fierce battles.
Man, he’s gone on isekai adventures and he can’t even remember them?! That is so unfair! What’s the point of fighting if you don’t remember the glory of it!
“You truly don’t remember anything, do you?” The young man sighs.
“Nothing? Not what happened at the manor, or Pristella… or me?” The little girl, walking towards him with air-light steps, asks, a waver in her voice.
“…yeah,” Subaru admits.
The little girl widens, gleaming with sorrow. Damn, he feels like a scumbag, making a child’s eyes waver as if on the verge of tears. Her fingers twitch at her side, aborted attempts to reach out.
The other two are faring better in the wake of this earth-shattering news. The silver haired beauty fiddles with her braid, eyes downcast. While the young man bore a strange, stricken expression, as if internally lambasting this absurd situation. Subaru feels him. His head is reeling too, and by the way-
“How did I lose my memories anyways?” Subaru asks. Even in a fantasy world, that isn’t normal, he thinks. They aren’t acting like this is a common occurrence.
The silver-haired girl puts a finger against her lips. “Umm… I’m not sure. Otto, you were there with him, right? Do you have any idea?”
The two girls look to the gray haired man, so Subaru does too. His gaze has grown thoughtful, lips pursed in frustration.
“Unfortunately, I’m not certain myself. Natsuki-san had brought me to the Taygeta Archive last night to search for Reid Astrea’s book, in order to find a way past him. We had found it quickly, astonishingly enough. Natsuki-san read it, then collapsed. You know the story from there on,” he says.
Truth be told, Subaru only followed a fragment of that explanation, but he thinks he got the gist. Evil book stole his memories. Also he had gone to this guy first to help him search through the magic book library. It’s a little surprising. They don’t seem to be close, based on the formal manner in which he refers to Subaru. Maybe it’s because he’s smart? He might that kind of character type.
“Well, if it’s anything like the movies, it’ll just resolve itself in no time! So I wouldn’t worry too much,” Subaru declares.
“Sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” the silver-haired girl says with a confused and sad smile. Even her perplexed face is cute. The gray-haired man is none so neutral.
“If you believe that your memory loss will vanish without cause, then I don’t believe that you’re correct, Natsuki-san. Frankly, it’s a ridiculous assumption,” he says, knocking down Subaru’s baseless assumptions like a cat knocking a glass off a table.
Subaru’s bravado comes crashing down like a jenga tower. Yeah, he kinda knew that. Still, that would be so much more convenient if that were the case. Is it bad for him to wish for an easy answer?
“Yeah, you’re right. Honestly, I don’t have the slightest clue where to even start. Really, I could use some help right about now,” he confesses.
Suddenly, the silver-haired girl slaps her cheeks. She leaves behind red imprints. “Alright! I’m done moping. I can’t burden you like that when you're wrestling with all this.”
“Come on Beatrice, you too!” She turns to the smaller girl. “I know how sad this must feel to you, but we need to think about who has it worse right now.”
“Argh! As per usual, you are such a bothersome contractor I suppose! You better not do this again, or Betty’s patience will thin!” the little girl (Betty?), declares, her attitude switching on a dime. “But since you asked for help this time, Betty will overlook it.”
“That’s right. You may not remember it, but we are your good friends. You can count on us,” the man says, smiling at him.
“Otto is right. Just leave it to us!” The silver-haired woman declares, putting a fist against her chest in a declaration of determination.
“You guys…”
To be regarded with such kindness from people outside of his parents, is not something Subaru is used to. Friends? Such a thing he hasn’t known since elementary school. And here they are
The three, four is you count the dinosaur, which Subaru is tempted to do. There’s definitely intelligence in its eyes. Bear down at him, wearing kind intentions on their sleeves. What kind of adventure had he gone through to gain their loyalty? It’s almost too much to believe.
Taking in a deep breath, Subaru bows and introduces himself. “My name is Subaru Natsuki. I don’t know what’s going on here, but it seems that I’m your friend. And… uh, what’s your names?”
“I’m Emilia. Just Emilia,” says the silver haired girl, Emilia.
“And I am the Great Spirit Beatrice, your contracted spirit,” the small girl, Beatrice.
That leaves the last person in the room. He turns to the gray-haired man, who puts his hat to his chest and gives a polite little introductory bow. “My name is Otto Suwen. I am your friend.”
“I don’t know what kind of abhorrent joke this is, Barusu, but it isn’t funny,” a pink-haired girl - Ram, he thinks? Recalling the overview that the others gave him before stepping into this room - says with a glare that could curdle milk.
“What is that nickname? It sounds like a blinding curse,” Subaru remarks.
The girl's glare deepened, sending a shiver down his spine. Crap, no more funny comments!
“I’m sorry to say, but this is not a joke. I really don’t remember anything. Apparently it’s because of an evil book?” Subaru explains.
“Betty’s Subaru read Reid Astrea’s book with Otto and collapsed, I suppose. He was like this when he woke up,” Beatrice says.
“And you didn’t stop him?” Ram’s glare turns to Otto. He raises his hands pleasingly, quaking in his seat under the overwhelming weight of her ire. Having wobbled laboriously to this room on crutches, here’s no way for him to escape.
“You know that I cannot stop Natsuki-san at the best of times,” Otto sighs.
“Hmph, so you admit your weaknesses,” Ram says.
“I feel like I’m being judged a little too harshly here!”
While the two bickers, Subaru’s gaze drifts. At the table is a noble looking, purple-haired man with his hand clamped over his mouth. His posture is rigid enough that any bend looked like it would break him in two. The sense of overbearing strife radiating from him is concerning to say the least, even Subaru hesitates to bring it up.
“Is he okay?” Subaru asks, regarding the purple-haired man (Julio? Julius?)
“It’s best that you give him time to compose himself,” the woman with pale purple hair whose name he can’t recall at all says. She strokes a white scarf draped over her shoulders.
If she says so.
“Maaaaster!” A brown-haired woman with scarce clothing aside from a black cloak cries as she throws herself bodily at him. Clutching his arm hard enough to hurt, she wails into the heavens. “That man! To think that he’s so horrible that he could make my master lose his memories again?! Wait! Could it be that it was his fault the first time too?!”
Bombarded by this energetic rant
Heedless of his disorientation, the woman straightens up and points to the sky in a rather cringeworthy pose.
“I’m Shaula! Master’s number one student and guardian of this tower!” She declares.
“Wait, Master?!” He hasn’t heard anything about this yet. “Also, is this not the first time I’ve lost my memories?!”
“I’ll tell you about that later,” Otto pipes in hurriedly.
“Oookay,” Subaru responds, troubled to the nth degree. Is memory loss a common thing in this world? Just how much is he forgetting?!
His gaze strays to a girl with light purple hair and green eyes, a sister to the other two, maybe? Their hair is similar.
“I’m Meili. I hope you haven’t forgotten how to sew along with your memories~” Meili says, drawing out the last sound in her sentence. A cute little sister character, it seems.
“I probably have kept that.” Subaru did learn how to sew before being isekaid, so that’s a good guess. Then, next in row, is the woman whose name he couldn’t pick out.
“You may refer to me as Anastasia for now,” the woman with pale purple hair tells him. She speaks in a kansai dialect that sounds the slightest bit off to his ears.
Right, so that’s the whole group, aside from the comatose blue-haired girl in the green room. Subaru Natsuki’s friends and companions, apparently.
Suddenly, Ram stands up. The chair scraped against the stone floor unpleasantly. Her single visible crimson eye oscillates from Subaru, to Otto, who sat by his side and then to him again.
“Ram is going to fetch some water,” Ram says. She spins on her heel, observing no further courtesies, and marches down the hall.
He watches her go, on her own, shifting in his seat. It’s suddenly less comfortable. Is it him, or is her fist, hanging low by her thigh, trembling just the slightest bit?
What kind of relationship did they have, before all this?
Julius stands up after her. Without a word, he exits the room as well. Nobody says a word to stop him. Anastasia twitches, as if meaning to stand up, but she too stays seated, a look of uncertainty on her face, like she too didn’t know him too well.
Helpless, there’s nothing he can do or say. Subaru is a fish out of water here. He doesn’t know what to do, so he does nothing. Just like Anastasia.
There’s an awkward silence which stretches out painfully.
“So, uh, do you come here often?” Subaru says, breaking the silence with all the grace of a car with his namesake being driven into a wall. It’s an especially dumb line to use in these circumstances, but it was getting unbearable.
“Not really. We’re the only ones to have reached this watch tower in four hundred years,” Anastasia says.
“Four hundred years..? Damn, that’s impressive.” And they brought along a comatose girl and a man who could barely walk.
Just what was Subaru’s role in this? Did he contribute? Was he useless, or integral? How did the people here think of him?
“It was rather dangerous. I’m reaaally glad we all made it through,” Emilia says. “Subaru, you helped out a lot. I don’t think we could have made it without you.”
“Er, is that so?” Subaru scratches his cheek, averting his eyes. Hearing praise from a beautiful woman makes him feel things. Normally, he’d be over the moon, but not being able to remember how he helped leaves him feeling awkward. He may as well be being praised for something someone else did.
“That’s giving him too much credit. Barusu simply has good timing,” Ram’s voice echoes. He swivels his head to see her returning with a bucket of water in an unsealing hand.
“Don’t tease him too much, Ram. Subaru doesn’t have his memories, so he doesn’t know that you’re verrrry good friends,” Emilia gently chides.
“Hmph. As you wish, Lady Emilia. However, do not blame me when he gets an even bigger head.”
“My head is about the proper size for my body, you know?” Subaru complains.
“My apologies for my poor conduct. I am ready now.” The purple-haired man steps into the room, this time his back straight, and an expression clear of suffering. He looks all the more like a proper noble as he faces Subaru.
“My name is Julius Juukulius. I am a Royal Knight of Lugunica,” Julius says, giving a polite nod. Honestly, the formality is a bit overwhelming.
“Nice to meet you… a second time, I guess.” Subaru scratches his head. Something about this guy grinds his gears.
“Now that we’re all settled, what are we going to do about Natsuki-kun’s memories?” Anastasia asks.
“Indeed, we cannot allow Barusu to remain even more useless than he usually is,” Ram says.
“Hey!” Subaru exclaims, feeling the sting of the insult. What did he do to deserve that?! He knows he’s not the greatest, but c’mon!
Heedless of his outcry, the other keeps talking.
“Reid Astrea’s book… we need to find it, and prevent anyone else from reading it. Otto, do you know the location?” Julius asks.
“Yes, it should still be on the floor of the library, closed,” Otto responds.
“Maybe Beatrice can learn something about the book?” Emilia suggests.
“You’re not suggesting I read it, I suppose!” Beatrice exclaims.
“Ah, no. I thought that Beatrice is so knowledgeable, she might be able to tell what’s different about it, because the other books dont steal memories. Maybe we can find a way to retrieve them,” Emilia walks back her statement.
Placated, Beatrice stops pouting. “That’s as good an idea as any, I suppose.”
To the side, Subaru remains separate from the conversion. Despite being the center of this chaos, he lacks any knowledge of the situation. Thus, any input that he would have is useless.
Quietly, he lets the conversation wash over his head watching the people around them, their mannerisms, how they speak. These people know him, but he doesn’t know them.
“Betty doesn’t know much about the Books of the Dead, I suppose. But it’s possible that there’s a false book among them,” Beatrice says.
“Ms. Shaula~?” Meili looks towards said woman. Who blinks cluelessly.
“Hm? You’re asking me? I don’t know anything!” Shaula declares proudly.
“Useless,” Meili says savagely.
“Uwaaah!”
“So, are we agreeing to head to the Taygeta Archives?” Anastasia asks. A series of nods and agreements follows. It seems that they’re settled. All but one, that is.
Otto raises his hand. “I’ll pass. I’ve had enough of that book for a lifetime. Also, my legs are killing me.”
Subaru begins to get up. Emilia is by his side in a moment, smiling with regret as she puts her hand on his shoulder. “Um, I’m sorry, but I think you should stay here with Otto-kun, Subaru,” she says.
“Betty agrees. Subaru should not get anywhere close to the Taygeta Archives. He would just get in trouble again, I suppose.”
“What am I, an ill trained dog?” Subaru mutters to himself, but he sits down regardless.
“Good boy. Please wait until we’re back, alright?” Emilia says. Subaru flushes red at the praise.
“Alright!” He exclaims, saluting. “I promise that I won’t go to the archives!”
Somehow, that makes Emilia seem ever more uncertain. She turns to Otto. “…Otto-kun?”
“I’ll make sure he won’t follow you,” Otto promises. Subaru slumps.
Do they really have that little faith in him? What did past Subaru do?!
In a group, the others leave the room. As one of the two people remaining, Subaru shifts in his seat to face Otto.
“Hey, why are you here if you’re so injured?” Subaru asks, callously. Realizing that he’s been rude as hell, he hurries on with his explanation for his question. “This is some big, dangerous mission, isn’t it? So how come?
Fortunately, either Otto has thick skin, or he didn’t expect any tact from Subaru, possibly both, as he answers him plainly.
“Originally, I was set to be left behind, but, uh,” Otto pauses, eyes flitting to the wall. “As I was part of the force protecting the city, I should have been first in line for treatment. But I didn’t say anything. I got caught”
Otto gazes into the distance blankly. “The healers had not been very happy with me.”
“Ah… so you came along to avoid the scary doctors,” Subaru says, nodding wisely.
“Not quite. While it would take more than a few sessions to heal injuries such as mine, I didn’t want to take up resources better suited for helping others,” Otto explains.
“Huh, noble of you.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I simply don’t like excessive attention.”
“Still. I don’t think I could have coped with the pain if I could have gotten healed.”
Subaru is not good with pain. Back in elementary school, he had snapped his ankle during an ill considered show off attempt. He learned the hard way that Tarzan is not realistic. Sure to say, Subaru had cried into his mom’s arms a lot. He would have jumped through hoops to get healed.
“Aside from that… I suppose I could say that I don’t like my friends going off and doing dangerous things on their own. You’re especially bad for that, Natsuki-san.”
“I am, huh?” Subaru looks to the ceiling.
Talking to Otto felt natural in a way that talking to others didn’t. Emilia is so gorgeous that he can’t believe they had been friends. Beatrice and Ram are tsundere as hell. While the others were polite but distant. Except Shaula. She makes him uncomfortable with how strongly she comes on. Otto feels normal compared to them, like he’s falling into a well worn groove. He can see why they were friends before.
“How are you holding up?” Otto asks.
“I’m fine, I guess. It’s really weird. A year has passed, but to me, I just stepped out of a convenience store and into another world. It’s too much to say that I’ve already adjusted.”
Truthfully, Subaru feels a little bad, but not for himself. In the state he is in, whatever skills he’s managed to accrue to bring himself out of his shut-in mentally have vanished, rendering him the ineffectual and needy Subaru who cannot meet expectations.
Otto hums and nods. “I didn't expect you to, but what do you mean, you stepped out of a convenience store and into another world?”
“Did I not tell you? Well, I’m not exactly from this place. In fact, you could say that I’m from another world entirely. One without magic and dragons, and weird hair colours.”
“Hold on a moment, are you saying that you’re from beyond the Great Waterfall?”
“What’s the Great Waterfall?”
“The edge of our world,” Otto says, giving Subaru a long look.
“Then pretty much, yeah,” Subaru responds.
Otto stares at him, blue eyes wide enough to leave a ring of white around them. “I thought you had been joking,” is all Otto says.
“You think I’d mess with you like that–? Yeah, actually. You seem easy to mess with,” Subaru concludes.
“I don’t think I ought to be grateful that that aspect of your personality has stayed intact,” Otto sighs.
Subaru laughs. At least there’s that. For the skill of annoying people, there’s Subaru Natsuki.
“What do I do with this new information?” Otto mutters to himself. He looks up to the ceiling, apparently in shock that past Subaru had been telling the truth all along.
There’s really nothing more Subaru can say to that, and Otto doesn’t offer anything either. They sit there for a long minute, Subaru’s legs growing stiff. As fun as it’s been, he’s been sitting here for a while. Subaru stands, stretching his legs. That’s better, but quite enough. He’s itching to see more of this place.
“I’m going to go find the bathroom,” Subaru says.
Otto nods, then his eyes narrow in suspicion. “You’re not saying that’s you can ditch me and go to the archive, are you?”
“I’m not!” Subaru swears. “Why would I want to go there anyways?
He stares for a long moment, but he backs down. “Don’t make me come after you,” Otto huffs.
“I won’t,” Subaru says. “See you later.”
And that he will. He’s not going back to the archive. Even Subaru is not that dumb. Better to leave the more competent people to figure things out. That said, he’s not being entirely honest. For while he is planning on going to the bathroom…
“Fire ball!” Subaru shouts, extending his arm. Not even a puff of smoke spills out. “No luck with that one either, huh?”
He has spent the last fifteen minutes, alone in the halls striking every pose he knew of, shouting spell names, trying to get something to work. Alas, he failed to produce even a drop of magic. Guess he lost his skill points along with his memory. What a bummer.
Sighing, Subaru tilts his head up to the ceiling.
This place is a little ominous. The tall, brown stone walls gave off a prison-like atmosphere. Maybe it’s the memory loss, but it makes him feel a bit like a convict. It’s not as stuffy as he would have thought, though, considering the lack of windows. Maybe there’s a hidden air conditioning secret? Anything possible in a magic tower.
It’s been about fifteen minutes. His free time before Otto begins hobbling around to find him is getting short. Subaru has to go back soon, but one more thing. He wants to check out what’s past this doorway.
What it turns out to be is a massive, cylindrical room, at least a hundred feet in diameter. Subaru walks in. It’s empty, mostly. There’s no furniture, no real rooms. What there is, however, is a massive staircase. Going down and down, it runs along the perimeter of the inner walls, ending in a floor that he can only see if he squints. It’s easily a hundred meters to the next floor down. He’s glad he doesn’t remember climbing those stairs. It must have sucked, especially with the lack of rails. Perhaps it’s the modern Japanese culture in him, but it doesn’t seem safe.
“Man, this is some drop!” Subaru says, peeking out from the top of the stairs. He hadn’t known what to expect, but this is bigger than anything he had known. Even the recently built Tokyo Skytree might be shorter than this. “Otherworldly engineering is really something! I wonder if magicians made this?”
It’s hard to imagine a medieval style world making a place like this without the use of magic–
Hands shove at the small of his back. Taken by surprise, there’s no way for him to brace himself. Subaru topples over the ledge.
It takes him precious seconds to understand what just happened. He’s been pushed, and now he’s falling. Wind whips are his face and clothes, stinging his eyes. Subaru is in free fall.
His stunned disbelief makes way for a sharp terror as reality hits him. He’s falling. He’s falling fast and with no way to stop himself. Flailing, he takes out the whip at his waist and clumsily cracks it. It slips out of his hands, the tip not getting anywhere close to grabbing on to anything. He’s helpless.
“No,” Subaru says. “No, no, no.”
“No. No. No. No no no no nonononono. No! Please god!” He howled and wailed, synapses firing at Mach speed, alighting his brain in a firestorm of terror. This can’t be happening. He can’t die like this.
Any time. Anytime now someone will pop up out of thin air, having heard his screams, and with magic they will snatch him from the air, rescuing him from his grisly demise. That is what happens in these shows. It has to happen.
The ground is getting closer.
They will come. They will come. They will come.
It gets closer.
Any ti–
——
“–Subaru! Hey, Subaru. Are you okay?”
Subaru wakes.