Chapter Text
Shaula let go of Subaru’s wrists and tried to step back, but her knees buckled.
Subaru caught her under the left elbow and put his other arm around her back, going down on one knee as he took her weight. She ended up leaning against him with her boot on his foot.
“Ow. Wait. Foot.”
She moved her boot off his toes. “Master-sama, if you wanted a hug, you could’ve said.”
“You fell on me! Give me a second.”
Her attempt to laugh ended in a gasp, and she caught his right wrist in her left hand again while he steadied her. White steam rose from her skin and blew across the balcony. He could feel her getting hotter even through her cloak, and the hand he had under her elbow was starting to burn.
She’d said somebody had broken a rule, though she hadn’t told him who or how much time she had left. Each of her pupils had already split into three red points. When she looked up at him, he tried to keep his face still so she wouldn’t see how much that frightened him.
He had promised to order her to kill herself if she told him the fifth rule, and she was waiting for him to keep that promise. Before he’d even started questioning her, though, he had checked the drop from the balcony. He’d meant to get what he needed and jump before she could stop him.
The railing was within reach behind him, so he only needed her to let go. Once he was back in the library with Beatrice, Meili and Echidna, he could tell them what he’d learned and ask them to help him work out the rest. He tried to picture that conversation whenever he started thinking about the fall.
“Can you stand?”
“Can you?”
As he pushed against the floor with his other foot, Shaula straightened and pulled him up so easily that he nearly stumbled into her again.
“Okay, you’re still a lot stronger than me. Can you ease up on the wrist?”
Shaula looked down at their hands without letting go, and he loosened his own hold on her elbow. When she’d clung to his arm in the library, pressing it against her breasts, he’d complained loudly enough for everyone to hear. A little later he’d been asking whether she’d noticed any difference in him since he’d lost his memories. She hadn’t understood why he was asking, but when he’d called himself an idiot for it, she’d got angry and told him to stop saying things like that about himself.
“You’re shaking,” she said.
“I know. Just give me a moment.”
Sweat was running down her face as she breathed through her teeth. He waited for her to look at him again before asking, “What’s the fifth rule?”
“You can destroy the trials,” she said, pausing for breath. “That isn’t forbidden.”
Did that include the people conducting them? There had to be something keeping Reid here, and perhaps they could destroy it without making Julius fight him. Subaru started trying to work out how he would explain this to Beatrice, but Shaula was still waiting for an answer of her own.
“I’ve told you. Now say it, Master-sama.”
Since she was standing on her own, Subaru took his left arm from around her and began pulling his right hand free. He was turning toward the railing when she caught his sleeve with her other hand.
“Master-sama?”
He stopped as she looked past him at the drop. “Don’t go that way,” she said, pulling him toward her.
“Shaula, I—”
“There’s nothing to stand on!”
He tried once more to free his wrist, then flinched as pain shot up his arm. She loosened her fingers a little, but tightened them again when he moved toward the railing.
“You were going to jump,” she said.
He’d meant to apologize as he went over, when he would already be too far away for her to catch him. Now she was waiting for an explanation, and while he tried to think of one, a crash came from inside the tower.
Ram was still fighting in there with Emilia and Beatrice, while Julius was upstairs facing Reid. They were all buying him time to question Shaula, and he had already used more of it than he’d intended.
“I’m going to get everyone out of this,” he said.
“By jumping off?” Shaula looked at the railing again, then back at him. “You don’t want me to touch you? Is that it? I’ll let you go inside. Just go inside, Master-sama.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then say what you promised!”
Subaru stopped pulling at her hand. “I wasn’t going to say it,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”
“But I told you.”
“I know.”
“I told you the rule.”
“I’m not asking you for anything else,” he said, trying to turn his hand over in hers so he could take hold of it. Her fingers wouldn’t give him room.
“Then go!” She pulled him sideways, away from the railing. “Let the little one protect you. Master-sama, please, you have to move.”
He stumbled after her toward the opening in the tower wall. She kept herself between him and the railing, pulling him back whenever he tried to go around her, until he gave up and let her lead him toward the passage. There must be somewhere else he could jump from. If he could get out of her sight, he might be able to reach it before she changed.
Her grip tightened until he cried out, and Shaula immediately let go of his sleeve. Her left hand stayed clamped around his wrist. She tried to prise it loose with her right, muttering, “Come on. I’m trying to let you go, you stupid—”
When her fingers finally opened, he snatched his arm back and pulled up his cuff to look at the red marks she’d left around his wrist. Shaula pressed her hands against her stomach as she watched him rub it. “Master… Master-sama, I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t.”
The wind blew her hair across her mouth, and she tried to blow it away without taking her hands from her stomach. Subaru reached up with his left hand and brushed it aside for her. He was about to draw back when she leaned her cheek against his palm, bringing her face so close that he could have kissed her. He found himself looking at her mouth and stayed there until she said his name.
“Master-sama.” She tried to lift her hand to his, but her fingers jerked, and she pulled them against her chest as she bent over coughing. The steam rising from her skin had turned red.
He took his hand away and turned toward the opening. His shoes slipped on the sand scattered over the stone, but he caught himself and hurried on, listening for her behind him. When he looked back, she was trying to follow on a foot that wouldn’t lift properly. She fell to her knees, and he went back for her.
“No!” She caught the front of his jacket as he reached for her elbow. He bent toward her, expecting to have to lift her again, and her forehead knocked his chin hard enough for his teeth to cut into his lip.
“Run, Master-sama!” she shouted, and threw him through the opening.
△▼△▼△▼△
He hit the passage floor on his right shoulder and rolled onto his back, unable to breathe. He tried to get up before he’d recovered from the fall, but his arm gave way beneath him.
Shaula screamed outside, and when he turned his head he saw her reaching toward him through the red steam. He reached back with his left hand, then recoiled as her fingers thickened and bent apart. Black shell spread over them while he dragged himself backward, scraping his nails against the stone.
Her mouth was still open above the growing pincer, but he couldn’t make out what she was trying to say. Then her body began to swell, and the shell spread over her neck and face until he could no longer see her. The scorpion filled the balcony, lowering itself toward the opening with its legs scraping over the stone as it raised its tail.
Subaru pushed himself toward the wall with his left hand, trying to keep his right arm still. Every movement hurt his shoulder, and by the time he reached the wall he was retching. He leaned against it until he could get his feet under him.
The passage behind him led back to Emilia and the others. If the scorpion followed him that way, it would come straight at them while they were fighting Gluttony. With his good hand against the wall, he edged toward the opening instead, hoping he could get past it onto the balcony without coming into reach of its pincers.
“Shaula!”
Even now he could feel her there through Cor Leonis, just as he had when he’d first realized who the scorpion was. He called her name again as he moved along the wall, but the tail followed him without hesitating. When his knee gave way, he fell against his injured arm and couldn’t get up again.
White light gathered at the tip of its tail, and he raised his good arm over his head.
△▼△▼△▼△
Subaru struck his shoulder against a bookshelf and found himself sitting on the library floor with both hands over his head. Someone touched his wrist, and he jerked away so hard that he hit the shelf again.
“Subaru! Stop that!”
Beatrice was kneeling in front of him with a book in her lap. As he lowered his hands, he saw Meili standing beyond her and Echidna coming around the end of the shelf. He moved his right arm carefully, expecting it to hurt, but there was only a dull ache where he’d knocked it against the books.
“You know Betty, don’t you?” Beatrice reached up again, and this time he let her touch his cheek.
“Yeah. Beatrice. I’m here.”
“Then look at Betty when she is speaking, I suppose.”
“Sorry,” he said, looking up at her. “There was something in the book.”
“We rather gathered that,” Echidna said. “Can you tell us what happened?”
He looked down at the book in Beatrice’s lap. He’d gone into it hoping to find something they could use against Reid and met Louis Arneb instead. As far as the others knew, he had only just come back from that, and he needed to tell them what was happening in the tower.
He touched his lip, feeling for the cut his teeth had left, and found that it was gone too. Shaula would still be outside fending off Witch Beasts. He wanted to get up and go to her, but Echidna was standing beside Beatrice, waiting for an answer.
“Natsuki?”
“Gluttony’s in the tower,” he said, lowering his hand. “We need to move. I’ll explain on the way.”
He waited for Beatrice to put the book down, then got up with her and started explaining as they walked. Meili began asking questions before they reached the end of the aisle, and he got so far ahead of himself in trying to answer them that Echidna had to ask who he was talking about. He started again, telling them who was fighting and where they needed to go, until he came to the scorpion and Beatrice stopped walking.
“Are you certain it was Shaula, in fact?”
“I’m sure, and she can’t stop it,” he said. “It happens when somebody breaks a rule. She can warn us before she changes, so if she tells you something’s wrong, listen to her.”
“And what are we meant to do when she can’t?” Meili asked.
“Keep clear of the tail. Don’t assume she’s finished after one shot. Beatrice, there’s something else. The trials can be destroyed.”
“The tower can hardly—”
“The trials. That’s the fifth rule. The tower’s different.”
She stared at him a moment longer, then pulled on his hand to get him moving again.
They found Julius at the stairs, where Subaru stopped him long enough to warn him about Reid and Roy. Meili hurried toward the balcony while Subaru went with Beatrice to find Emilia and Ram. He stayed until Beatrice had joined the fight and Echidna had taken charge of getting Patrasche and the sleeping Rem to the library, then set off after Meili.
On the way he caught himself rubbing his wrist, though there were no marks on it anymore. He dropped his hand and ran the rest of the way, taking the last corner too fast and striking his shoulder against the wall. For a moment he stood there waiting for the pain to get worse, then pushed away from the wall and ducked through the opening.
Shaula was standing on the railing with a row of white lights flashing in front of her. He heard the volley crack out over the sand, and she looked back before the last of it had faded. “Master-sama! Did you come to watch? I was just getting started!”
Farther along the balcony, Meili had both hands on the stone and was shouting down at something Subaru couldn’t see. She glanced from him to Shaula, then turned back toward the sand when he nodded to her.
“You’re staring, Master-sama,” Shaula said as she hopped down from the railing and spread her arms. “Well? I’m right here!”
He went to her and put his arms around her, and for a moment she stood still while he held her. Then she said, “Oh,” very quietly, and hugged him back so hard he almost lost his footing.
He closed his eyes against her shoulder and kept his hand flat on her back. She wasn’t burning anymore, and he could hold her without worrying that it would hurt.
“You should’ve come earlier, Master-sama,” she said. “You can do this whenever you want, you know. You don’t even have to ask!”
“Shaula, I need to breathe.”
“Oh! Sorry.”
She loosened her arms enough for him to breathe without quite letting go, and when he began to laugh she leaned back to look at him.
“Just this once…” he muttered, then leaned in and kissed her cheek. He pulled back a little, suddenly embarrassed, while Shaula stood quietly with her arms still around him.
“Master-sama?”
“Yeah. That was on purpose.”
“Do it again.”
“Huh?”
She turned her face and offered him the other cheek. He was still standing there with his mouth open when Meili shouted from the railing.
Shaula glanced over her shoulder. “Bad timing! I was just—”
Meili shouted again, and Shaula let go of him, giving him just enough time to step aside before white circles spread through the air in front of her. He couldn’t hear Meili over the next volley. Shaula went to the railing to check below, then waved to her before turning back to him.
“Did something happen in there?”
“Yeah. I need to get back,” he said, looking toward the opening as the sound of fighting carried out to them.
Her smile faltered. “Already?”
“Meili needs you here.”
“She can wait a little. I’ve waited—”
“I know.”
She gave him a doubtful look, and he remembered that she hadn’t told him yet. Before she changed, she’d counted out the time they’d had together: four days since they arrived, two of them spent unconscious. He couldn’t even remember all of those four days. His memories of Japan were still clear, but everything in this world before he’d woken in the tower was missing.
Shaula started to turn back to the railing, and he held out his hand. “Wait. When we leave, I want you with us.”
She took his hand and stepped toward him again. “With you? But you can’t leave yet. The trials—”
“I know about the trials. I’m working on it. I mean after.”
“After?”
“After we get out, let’s go somewhere together. I don’t know where yet. I haven’t exactly seen much of this world.”
“Is that a date?”
“Well, yeah. If you want to.”
“I want to! I’ve been saying that since you got here!”
She squeezed his hand, and he smiled back at her without letting go. “I don’t remember being your master,” he told her. “That’s still true, Shaula.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I’m serious. I don’t want you thinking I’ve remembered something because of this.”
“I heard you.” She leaned forward to catch his eye. “But you just asked me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Then don’t take it back!”
“I’m not taking it back.”
Another shout from Meili made Shaula turn her head. Something was rising out of the mass of Witch Beasts climbing toward the tower, and Subaru stepped back to give her room, keeping hold of her hand long enough to say, “Tell Meili the moment you feel anything changing. Don’t wait for it to get worse.”
When Shaula looked back at him, he added, “Please.” She paused, then squeezed his hand once more. “Master-sama had better listen when I do.”
She let go and ran to Meili, climbing onto the railing again with her cloak lifting in the wind. Meili started complaining about where she’d put her feet, and Shaula answered without looking down. Subaru stayed long enough to hear the beginning of the argument before he made himself back through the opening and turn toward the fighting. He was almost at the bend when the next volley sounded behind him.