10 (part 3)

["You seem busy all the time, too." Subaru said, wanting to fill the air with conversation.

"My family is currently gathering people and objects in response to a certain occurrence. Plus, since word of the royal selection spread, I've received proposals every day. I'm sure the other candidates have, as well."

Subaru did a spit take, "P-Proposals? You mean, as in marriage?! Oh yeah… I guess they're all single…"

At once, the green-haired matriarch leans with a look of interest in her eye, "Does that bother you?"

He looks away with an uneasy face.

"Not really… It's just… Oh, right! Wilhelm-san said he had a beautiful wife."

Her eyes turn serious for a moment, "Are you aware that Wilhelm serves me?"

"Huh? Why?" Subaru asked in confusion.

"Naaaaaa!"

All of a sudden, the pair turn towards the shriek of misery emitting from inside the office doors. A catboy in a blue dress burst out of the doorway and ran to the balcony in panic.

"What are nya doing here, Subaru-kyun?" Felix yelled, staring at the two with a blasphemous face. "And Crusch-sama! WHy are you dressed so vulnerably?!"

"Is it strange? It's no different from what I wear when I dine with you." The duchess speaks in a calm and collected manner, unlike the demi who held his ears in frustration.

"That's exactly the problem! Men are nyothing but wolves!" He proclaimed, pouting.

"You're a man too." Subaru pointed out, looking offended.

"That's enough joking, Ferris. All who were present at the royal selection know whom Subaru loves." Crusch says with a shake, easing Felix into a smirk.

"Yeah, I heard they had a fight though~"

"...Ghk!"

Felix smiles towards Subaru as the black-haired guest turns his scowl to the floor.]

"I-I apologize for bringing that up! Ferris only wanted to make him accept things as they were by jyoking around!" The healer began apologizing profusely as soon as he noticed Crusch and Emilia flinching.

"It's alright…" Emilia mutters unconvinced.

Felix sighed with relief as soon as he was off the hook once more. He looked at the screen with a small frown that naturally came with his face of confusion. "Nyow that I think about it… I dyon't remember this happening…" he looked to Wilhelm and then to Crusch with his expression growing more fearful by the second.

["I swear, Subaru-kuyn, you're so easy to read."

"Don't cast your gaze down, Natsuki Subaru." A firm statement from the Duchess pulled Subaru out of his agitated stubber.

"Huh?"

"When your eyes are clouded, your soul darkens. That means your future is closed to you, and you lose sight of your reasons to live. When you do what you know is right, what can you do by looking downward? Lift your head and reach out your hands. I do not want to regard you as an insignificant enemy."

Subaru just stares at her with silence.

"If Crusch-sama says so, you have nyo choice." Before he could know what was happening, Subaru turned to find Felix standing over him with his eyes centered at the center of his own.

"The point is, Subaru-kyun, you need to hurry and make up with Emilia-sama. Think about what you can do to accomplish that, and do it."]

"You really were trying to help Subaru-kun." Rem whispers to herself about Felix.

"Thank you for helping him like that, Crusch-sama. I'm glad he's become friends with someone like you." Emilia gives the candidate beside her a bright smile, one that Crusch did not expect.

"... You're welcome, Emilia-sama." Crusch gives a confident grin of her own.

"She probably wanted to know more about the boy that dared to declare himself a knight without care of the royal court." Tivey whispers to his sister suspiciously.

"Hmmm, Crusch-sama was always known for her keen eye for deta~~il." Roswaal replies to the boy's theory without invitation, which creeps the boy out again.

"Who talked to you, clown?!" Mimi hugged her brother while pulling her tongue out at Roswaal.

The magic lord held his hands up in defense. "I'm loooonely!"

"I do not care!" Mimi bravely glares right back at him, making Roswaal hold his head down in a sad way.

[What can I do…

Subaru stares away from Felix, his glance falls at the small flame of a single candle on the table before him.

The moments of his past deaths could be seen flashing before him.

"There is something I can do."

The pair of master and servant stared at Subaru with bewilderment. The black-haired retainer let out a smirk of confidence as he exclaimed to them.

"Something only I can do. Yeah, that's right… You don't even have to tell me."

Crusch stared with uncertainty.

"The wind is picking up. Looks like the weather will be rough again tomorrow."]

"What the hell?!" Otto shouts, angry and serious. "What was that just now?! Don't tell he meant–"

"We won't know if he was in the right mind anyways, sit down, Otto." Ram suddenly takes charge to calm the situation from the horrific implication but it was all useless.

"He's trying to justify using that power… because of me?" Emilia held her hands on her mouth as it dawned on her just why her knight became so complicit with so many dangers past this point of the viewing. All to protect her or get back to her.

"... These were because of my words, Emilia-sama." Crusch tried to intervene, having a look of shame knowing what her words encouraged within the young man. "He's not in the right headspace, it was my fault."

"Emilia-sama…" Rem tries her best but she couldn't form anything to make this better for the half-elf. Even though she may have had a disagreement with Emilia… this type of thinking from Subaru was so vile it disgusted her.

"Is it really that bad for him to think like that?" Al's words interrupted whatever outrage the rest of the crowd had for Subaru's way of thinking.

"Are ya even human?!" Felt retorts to his question with a furious look along with the rest.

"Betty's contractor doesn't know when to give up on sacrificing himself, I suppose…" The small blonde in Subaru's lap shook her head and accepted the reality of what was happening with elegance.

"I suggest everyone pipe down from their groveling and accept this as it is." Priscilla's voice fills the auditorium and compels silence from the crowd. "Hmph," she snorted and enjoyed the power her opinion held over them. "Your drabbles of guilt have annoyed me since this one started," she points to the placate screen. "Commoners can't understand from the first time, so I'll be happy to repeat for your miniscule brains like the gracious god that I am."

Priscilla was placed under gazes of fire and hate from everyone but they all gave her their silence and ears even though they despised her for her words.

They knew who ruled them.

"Get your feelings out of the way and watch knowing that he's dead by the end," her voice was piercing to the ear as she commanded everyone that cared about Subaru to cut their hearts in pieces. Or she might as well have done that.

"She's right…" Petra surprised everyone, even Priscilla when she spoke out. "Priscilla-sama is saying what we all need to hear."

"Petra-chan… Are you–" the little girl forced Frederica's hand off her shoulder. She glared down at the front row with fire in her blue eyes.

"Subaru will die." Petra's lips trembled. "He's dealing with a lot on his own right now." Emilia and Beatrice show different expressions of shame and anger while Petra keeps talking. "Please let's just watch without blaming him for the way he deals with this problem!"

"That's a smart way to depict what Barielle-sama is saying," Roswaal muses loudly, "Well done, Petra-chaaan."

As Roswaal gave his little maid small claps of approval, the crowds below settled on what Petra was saying.

"I knew that little one was more interesting than her adorable face showed." Priscilla cheers to herself, finding it adequate to praise the village girl for her mature attitude.

Beatrice holds eye contact with Roswaal for a moment, realizing that he's been giving out no reactions this entire time to what was happening.

"It seems he knows everything already… or could it be that this was unplanned for him?" The spirit could only question with heavy scrutiny as the screen flashed to life.

[Scene changes back to the garden again.

*CLANK!* *CLANK!* *CLANK!*

Subaru is shown falling in the air from Wilhelm's strong swipes but this time he back rolls and on his feet.

"Shall we stop for now?" The old man asks.

"Don't be silly! You've seen how far I've come in taking blows!" Subaru brightly swipes the air in front of him.

"Your attitude seems quite different this morning." Wilhelm inquired.

"Crusch-san gave me some good advice last night." Subaru smirks while thinking in his head.

If I just get a chance, I can make any problem go away!

"Then, let us call it a day."

"Huh?" Subaru exclaims in confusion. Wilhelm lowers his sword and lets his stance go.

"Well, I thought it seemed meaningless to teach one who has abandoned the option to get stronger or how to use a sword that makes him stronger."

"What do you…" Subaru wished to continue his question for the butler, but frantic footfalls stopped him as Rem charged closer.

"Subaru-kun! We must discuss something important." She said seriously.]

"So I was right?" Felix looks on in horror at what was happening. "Is he really relying more on his ability to solve his issues from nyow on?"

Emilia covers both her ears in a way not to hear the implication of what Subaru decided to hang on to as a solution.

"It seems that I could already tell that Subaru-dono chose another path for redemption… I won't say it's a better one." Wilhelm shakes his head in disappointment.

[Scene changes to Subaru and Rem being escorted inside of Crusch's office.

"Has Rem told you what's going on?" Crusch asks, sitting down in her desk chair with Felix standing beside her.

Subaru took the seat opposing her with Rem standing parallel to Felix.

"What I felt was… Something like a presence though the sense I share with my sister. My sister could have used her clairvoyance to get a clearer picture, but I…" Rem couldn't continue her words, seemingly unable to recall.

"So I guess you picked up a nyasty sort of synesthesia from her, huh?" Subaru asks, alerted.

"We don't know the details, either. But it came from the Mathers domain, which you know as Margrave Roswaal's territory. It seems some troubling movement was seen in the vicinity of his mansion. Parts of the domain are already on high alert."

Subaru and Rem stared at Crusch with disturbed expressions.]

"What's this emergency?" Garfiel asks his friend as they both look at the horrified expressions on Emilia and Rem's faces with alertness.

"This timeline has not happened to me," Crusch gestured to the screen with a finger, "therefore I do not know what may be causing this disturbance… I do have an idea though."

"It's Sloth." Julius said with something akin to a growl.

"The Archbishop? You mean to tell me Big Bro is gonna fight 'em on his own?" Felt found herself deliriously wide-eyed and frightened.

"Rem will be with him too…" Emilia whispers while raising her head with a mortified face. "She will die too… Subaru's going to die because he's coming back for me!"

Ram blanched and glanced at her silent saddened twin. Unable to do anything but look at her dear sister with no words coming out.

Al pats her shoulder to keep her calm, giving her the silence she needs to prepare for what is to come.

"It starts," the eccentric man from above oversees this anger and confusion over Crusch's announcement with an expression of guilt. "How will you be handling this one, Subaru-kun?" Roswaal asks without an accent, voice low.

["Troubling movement?" He asked in a hurried panic.

"We did foresee this situation, from the moment the margrave declared his intention to back Emilia a half-elf."

"You mean there's trouble going on because of that prejudice?" Subaru looked at the Duchess with worry.

"That is likely a correct summation."

He grits his teeth and glances down.

The moment I leave her side, this happens?

Everyone around her is an enemy.

The only one who can take her side…

Subaru slowly smirks a manic obsessive smirk…

Is me.

"Well then… We have to go and help, right?"

Subaru stands up making Rem stumble in worry.]

"No no no!" Emilia's worst nightmare played right in front of her with no one to blame but herself for leaving Subaru behind and allowing him to fall into such a line of thinking.

"I'm guessing from your reactions to this, that it's already decided what his fate would be, Rem?"

The stern sounding Ram was met with a flinch from her sister.

"Aw… It is true then." Al shakes his head at the silent reaction Rem had given everyone who heard Ram's question.

"Why didn't ya speak about tis not being a real loop?!" Garfiel asked, looking agonized after his realization.

"I would… But I was cherishing what little memories I had with Subaru during this loop after the last point I remember happening." Rem turns her head away from Garfiel and looks to the floor.

"What point do ya remember then?" Anastasia asks her, glancing silently at the Duchess beside her.

"... The marketplace? It may have been after that point but the window didn't seem keen on sharing much of Rem's time with Subaru-kun."

"Holy– It really is that apple man's save point again!" Ricardo pulls on his ear in surprise. The twins gape in realization that they might be right.

"Ya knew somethin' about this, ain't ya." Anastasia fully turns to Crusch with a look of solidness.

Seeing her being unwavering, Crusch gives the candidate beside her what she wants with a nod.

"Why didn't ya tell us?"

Crusch turned to the screen with a whimsical expression. "I wanted to enjoy my time with him as well."

"Hm." Anastasia purses her lips and shakes her head. "Ya need to be more honest with yerself, Crusch-san. Honestly."

["Y-You mustn't, Subaru-kun. You have to obey Emilia-sama's orders. She told you to focus on healing… and I agree!"

Rem held his sleeve with a worried look as he walked to the door.

"Healing must take priority now."

Without acknowledging her words, Subaru turned to the maid with an expression of focus on his face, "Rem, we're the only ones who can take Emilia's side!"

Seeing his mind being set, the maid looked down with a worried expression.

"You heard that, Crusch-san?" Not dwelling on Rem's face, Subaru turned towards the observing Duchess behind him. "We're going back to the mansion, back to where Emilia is. Until it's taken care of, my healing will-"

"Natsuki Subaru." Crusch interrupts him, firmly calling his name.

He gazes at her, stupefied and not talking.

"If you leave here, that will make you my enemy. Allow me to correct one idea you have. I have only allowed you to stay here as a guest and receive treatment because I am contracted to do so."

Subaru blinks. "Contracted?"

"Emilia and I formed a contract regarding your treatment. However, if you abandon that contract yourself, I am not obligated to continue protecting you. The moment you leave this household, Emilia and I will not hesitate to become enemies." As if she was reprimanding him, Crusch's voice didn't have anything but seriousness to offer the boy.

By this point, Subaru's sharp eyes turn to glare the noble woman down. "I was wrong about you. I thought, just maybe you and I could get along. Yeah, of course. That was just a little joke over drinks, right? I was stupid to take you seriously when you told me an enemy, to do what I could. You don't want me to leave because getting Emilia out of trouble will be bad for you, right?"

Despite the accusation, Crusch's face remained calmly staring Subaru down. It was the healer's squeaky soft voice that replied to the intense aggravation of the atmosphere because of Subaru's words.]

"H-How did he come to such a conclusion?!" Otto sounded amazed and horrified at the same time.

Felix refused to say his piece after all the times he's been hounded over the head for doing so, but he couldn't contain the glare of anger at Subaru on screen.

"He's not under the right mindset…" Wilhelm nods along with Reinhard's timid words.

"Nor was this lass any better at describing things to him without making it sound like a fight was coming." Felt points at Crusch while the Duchess was dealing with her own conversation.

"Emilia-sama, I apologize for not being able to keep him there with me. It seems that my hotheaded desire to draw lines forced an ultimatum." Crusch gave the half-elf a sincere nod of regret.

"..." The half-elf simply gave a shake of the head, unable to believe how escalated the situation had become just because she wasn't there.

["I think nya have it all wrong."

"Ferris, enough." The Duchess ordered, keeping her eyes on the black-haired young man before her.]

Felix looked on with hope in his eyes that this him might be able to help make Subaru see things in a better way than what his lady phrased.

["No, I'll say it. The mistake he's making is a bit too grave." Felix shook his head and glared towards Subaru, "even if you leave, nothing will change. You'd be wasting your time. After making a fool of yourself at the castle and being clobbered by Julius, nya still don't realize that? You'll be much better off staying here to finish your treatment."

After Felix's blunt words, the glare on Subaru's face turned into an intense stare of hatred aimed for the demihuman's soul. This carried on for a few more ticks of the clock before Subaru turned around.

"I've decided. I'm going back to Emilia. Thanks for taking care of me though it wasn't for long." Once he opened the door, his foot stopped its descent as Felix outraged from behind his lady's desk.

"Is it nyot true that a good man knows how to take a warning?"

Subaru didn't look back but offered his parting thoughts as a reply. "It's thanks to your warning that I've made up my mind. Thanks."

With that he left, Rem following close behind.]

Felix shook his head and his face into his palms. He could feel a soft pat on the back from Wilhelm but it meant nothing as his failure sunk him into a sea of shame.

"It's amazing how this is escalating so fast, holy shit!" Al comments bombastically, making others nod along.

"I couldn't convince Subaru-kun to stay after all." Rem whispered agonizingly to herself.

[Scene changes to Rem patting a pink ground-dragon that had a carriage latched on to it.

"Rem, how long until we reach the mansion?"

The maid looked up to find Subaru and Wilhelm standing beside the carriage.

"About two and a half days, I think."

"Over two days! it took less than half a day to get here!"

"We can't go that way. There's a fog over the road, so we need to take a detour."

Subaru blinks for a moment, "Who cares about fog?!"

"The fog is created by White Whale. Should we encounter it, we won't survive." Rem speaks in a matter of fact tone.

Subaru grits his teeth and gets inside of the cart, without bidding the old man beside him a goodbye.

Wilhelm remained standing still, his eyes narrowed on the distance since the Whale had been mentioned.

Rem bowed to the butler with respect. "Thank you for lending us your dragon-drawn carriage. I offer you my gratitude in my master's stead for the favor you've shown us until today."

"Not at all. Please take care." The old man shakes his head and gives the maid a small wave.]

"It seems that he won't be encountering the White Whale in this loop?" Otto questions, hoping someone would answer.

"We don't know…" Julius shakes his head, glancing towards the Duchess in the same row as him.

"I haven't the faintest idea," she ends up shaking her head. "I do not know what Natsuki Subaru might face. Should Rem continue to lead them to the mansion, I'm sure she will be able to avoid the Lifus path altogether."

"Betty hopes that's what's supposed to happen, in fact." Beatrice sniveled.

[Scene changes to night time, the carriage was driven by Rem towards a small inn situated on the road.

With tired eyes, Subaru looks up at the location they've stopped in. "Why did we stop? We have to hurry!"

"I'm sorry, Subaru-kun. The ground dragon can't go any farther." Rem turns to him apologetically as the pink dragon is shown huffing bugging with foam coming out of his mouth.

He scowled deeply at the ground.]

"What's wrong, bro-Otto?" Garfiel asked Otto with care.

"Something's on your mind?" Frederica quickly asked from where she was sitting, taking note of the startled look on the merchant's face.

"Y-Yeah…" Otto coughs into a fist and tries to not show any more aghastness. "It's just that… I know this inn. I have visited there regularly since it's the only one on this road to the capital."

"You mean you might meet with Subaru-sama in this loop?" Frederica asks.

Otto shrugs with an unreadable expression, "I do not know. But it's a thought that scares me for some reason."

[Scene changes to a bedroom inside of the inn.

"I can't sleep…" The black-haired youth was sitting on his bed with the same scowl on his face aiming for the room's ceiling.

"Subaru-kun, are you awake?"

He sat up and looked at the room's door, hearing Rem's voice from behind. "Yeah."

She enters the room. Subaru turns the lamp beside him on.]

"What's happening here?" Al whispers teasingly and receives a blow from Ram.

"... I wish I was there." Rem whispered with need.

[The maid looked at him with a nervous glance. "I can't sleep, so I hoped we could talk."

"Oh… You, too? Can't help that I guess."

Glancing at her, Subaru noticed her soft expression and the small frown.

"You're really worried about the mansion after what you felt through your shared sense, right?"

Rem closed her eyes. "It'll be fine. We're not the sort of lovable little kids that get out feelings hurt so easily. We'll get right back there, and I'll fix things." He tried to encourage her by smiling but the maid only looked more disheartened.

"Yes. I've put all my faith in you, Subaru-kun."

While her sad look was obvious, the small and weak smile she held while looking at him forced a blush to bloom across his cheeks. He had to hide his face by turning away.]

"This is such an adorable scene!" Frederica gushes in disbelief that Rem was the one in the window before her. The Rem she knew was reclusive and emotionless.

"That smile really does suit you, Rem." Crusch gives the maid an open grin.

Rem blushes a deep hue of red and looks at the screen in jealousy.

"Rem reeeally likes Subaru, huh." Emilia muttered to herself, seeing this moment between the two and feeling left out and abandoned all the same. Just like always.

"That commoner is lying to himself now?" Priscilla clicks her tongue from atop the rows of seats. "This won't do."

[His surprise showed once Rem had planted herself on his back, resting her head and both her hands on his neck and shoulders.

"R-Rem-san, um… Why are you holding on to me?" Subaru stuttered due to the intimate position.

"Because I want to." Rem's answer was soft, but Subaru could feel something else within him stir as her palms grew illuminescent in the dimly candle-lit room.

"I… I know this feeling…"

"I'm healing your gate, just like Felix-sama did, Subaru-kun."

"O-Oh, healing! You're healing me… Of course you are." He chuckles nervously. After sometime, his expression grows defeated in the silence.

"Because you want to, huh?" He whispers, looking down. "She'll probably be angry with me at first, won't she?"

The blue-haired girl had become heavy on his back as she nuzzled the back of his ear with love. "If you take the time to properly face her and communicate how you feel with words, I'm sure she'll understand. You are a wonderful person, after all."

Her whispers of encouragement seemed to confuse the boy as his eyes became duller. "I am? Yeah… I am, right?" Subaru's head begins to fall, his features become droopy, "Emilia is hopeless without me. Because I… care about her… so much…" His whispers slowly become quieter as he loses energy and falls unconscious in Rem's grasp.

"So save just a tiny bit of that for me, too." Rem's own whisper was unheard as she held the boy's back. Rustling his hair between her fingers, the maid appeared saddened instead of happy for her position with the black-haired retailer.

"Don't go anywhere, okay, Subaru-kun?"]

"Ferris-sama."

"Y-Yes, Emilia-sama?" The healer perked in the darkness, confusion painting him for being so suddenly called upon by Emilia.

"What happened there? What kind of magic did Rem use on Subaru?" Emilia was unreadable in the dark, both in tone and expression.

"Ah… She forced Subaru-kyun to fall asleep while healing his gate. It's an easy technique."

"Why did you do it here, Rem?" Emilia left the healer confused as she focused her attention on Rem. Still unreadable to everyone in the room.

"I…" Rem didn't have an answer.

"He was talking about me. About what he thought I was going to feel about him. What he spoke about was…" Emilia's voice filled up with something akin to sadness and disappointment.

"... Let's see what Rem has done here, Emilia-sama." Ram was the one that dared to intervene. Even under Beatrice's threat.

[Scene change to the same room of the inn.

Subaru woke up to an empty room and a bright ray of light coming from the window. The morning sun.

"Rem, wake up! We oversle-"

He quickly ran from his room to the next to his own, a call for the occupant it reserved on his tongue.

Rem was not in the room. Neither was there a sign of the room being inhabited for the past hours of time.]

"Figured." Julius scoffs with an unimpressed look.

"She left him alone in the inn? Wouldn't this be redundant since she has to take him with her?" Felt raised an eyebrow, confused about this part of the story.

"She isn't tasked to bring Subaru back, Felt-sama. That is the thing." Reinhard interjects calmly like a teacher. "She knows that an emergency is happening in the Mathers domain because of her sister's ability. That's what Rem-chan is focused on."

"She probably left Natsuki-san to keep him stuck in the inn while she took care of the emergency…" Otto looks at Garfiel with a weary stare. "Knowing what that emergency is…"

"It's the Sloth Archbishop." Garfiel nods his head, a seriousness overcoming him suddenly.

"Subaru will probably die at his hands first then." It was Petra that spoke with a voice so cold Frederica had to pat the girl's back out of pity. "And my village could be… " Petra trailed off, not sure what to name the things Sloth would do to her people and Subaru.

Julius kept his lips sealed once an impatient Anastasia stared him down for information.

[Scene change,

"Well, now! Good morni-" The receptionist's smile fell as soon as the frantic black-haired boy slammed both palms on the desk.

"Where's the blue-haired girl who was here with me?!" Subaru asks, loud and out of breath. He ran all the way down the stairs.

"Th-The lady you were with, uh…"

As the man was trying to think, Subaru grabbed on his collar. "I can't hear you."

"I was saying that she left during the night! Here are your things…" The man stuttered, giving the furious kid holding him a backpack with a parchment visible in one of its pockets.

Subaru ignored the bag for a moment and immediately unfolded the parchment to read it. His fingers clenched the paper tightly and it almost tore in his grip. His hand slammed on the desk, startling the man even more.

"What the hell? What are you thinking, Rem? I thought you would understand me…"]

"..." Rem looked like she would rather be crushed to death than to have heard those words from Subaru.

[He ran out of the inn with the bag on his back. Rem's voice recited the letter's contents while the screen played scenes of Subaru negotiating with several merchants and carriage drivers around the inn.

" Dear, Subaru-kun…

When you read this letter, I'm sure you will be very angry with me. I won't ask you to forgive me for leaving you behind to go to the mansion. But please understand. "

After spending a few moments trying to negotiate with the seventh merchant, the man shook his head to finalize his answer. "That one over there might agree to your offer." Subaru looked where the man pointed and noticed a bar.

" It would be very dangerous to bring you to the mansion right now. "

Once inside of the bar, Subaru found a young man in green robes, slumped over the bar table sleeping on his cheek. Seeing this, he dropped the sack of coins right beside the boy's head, waking him up by the sound of the metal jingles of the coins.

The sleeper looked up at Subaru with red-eyed tired confusion.

"Are you the one called Otto?" Subaru questions the drooling merchant who just looked confused.]

"This is his first meeting with me." Otto mutters, glued just like the rest of the cast to the desperate effort Subaru was putting in. "Falling asleep, drunk. In a bar."

Garfiel chuckled and slapped the merchant on the back.

[" So please wait here for me to return. "

Rem's voice played over the two as they headed out of the bar.

"I'll accept your payment, but I think this is very reckless, Natsuki-san!" A nervous Otto warns but gets ignored by Subaru as he enters the small cart.

The sun begins setting over Subaru. He was in the moving dragon carriage with Otto at the helm. The letter remained clenched in his palm.

"So you think I'm a useless good-for-nothing, too, Rem?" Subaru says with anguish in his voice.

"I think I've been introduced to someone who could be real trouble." Otto's nervous mutters went unheard from the front of the carriage.

"Okay, fine. If you won't trust me, then why should I depend on you?" Subaru's grip on the letter and growls to himself made the merchant assume that his words will not be heard no matter what volume he spoke.

He sighed exasperatedly at his luck.]

"That other me is going to be in for the ride of his life."

Anastasia raises a brow at Otto as he sighed casually. "Ain't ya afraid that otha' you may die with Natsuki-kun?"

Otto opened one of his eyes to Anastasia. "Course I'm scared. Just not enough to forget that I'm the one that made it through the loops to stand by Natsuki-san's side."

The merchant queen gave him a surprised nod of respect.

Meanwhile, Rem was downright clenching her skirt so as to not sob at Subaru's words.

"I would never think like that about you!" She muttered in frustration towards the back of Subaru's head.

[Scene changes to a mansion gate with an oncoming shadow that appeared to collide with it.

The window cuts to black for a second more only to return to Otto and Subaru driving the dragon carriage through the din of the night. The black-haired youth was sleeping soundly in the cart behind Otto.]

"What… the heck was that?!" Tivey asks after that mansion scene was cut so suddenly he barely even blinked.

"... It was too quick for me to see bro." Al shrugs while Felt gave the screen a squinting glare. "Somethin' happened? What was it?"

"It was Sloth, no doubt." Julius growls with his arms crossed. Everyone looked at the screen as soon as he said that.

Emilia and Crusch tightened their holds on Subaru's hands. Both girls vying to comfort themselves by feeling his warmth through their hands should the situation escalate.

[The cart stops suddenly, halting Subaru awake once he slammed into the wooden walls.

"I'm sorry, but can we please turn back now?" An apologetic Otto looks back and begs.

"What?! After coming this far?" Subaru asks in bewilderment.

Otto nods his head and points at the dragon growling at the front of the cart. "My ground dragon is frightened. It knows by instinct that this place is too dangerous to approach."]

"They are definitely theeeere…" Roswaal nods his head, not giving anyone the chance to hear his mumbling.

"That boy is a coward." Priscilla mocks Otto with dislike for how he brought the pacing of the scene to a halt just to run.

"Screw ya!" Garfiel hotly retorts the flaming princess.

"My dragon never misses these things… If it's saying things are too dangerous then It's the truth." Otto shakes his head as alarms begin to settle within the characters and their minds.

["Where are we now?" Subaru questions, looking right into the endless road with trees on each side ahead.

"We're already in the Mathers domain, near a village called Arlam." Otto answers, holding a map.

"Got it!" Subaru jumps out of the carriage, leaving his bag behind.]

"Petra… You are trembling?" Frederica looks at the little maid with worry.

"Close your eyes if you can, Frederica-senpai." Petra pleaded as she hunched herself into a ball at the mention of her village.

"It's okay, Petra." Frederica smiles. "Things won't end too badly."

"You wouldn't be saying that after what I've been told." Petra whispered to her mentor, remembering her conversation with the Warden before all of this and the implications on her people.

["Natsuki-san, you can't go out there! Let's turn back!" Otto pleaded at the nasty-eyed boy.

Subaru only smiled at him. "This is far enough, Otto. You can take the money and all my stuff."

"I couldn't possibly! Please rethink this!"

But Otto's plea was ignored. Subaru sprinted into the dark.

"Natsuki-san!"

Scene changes back to Subaru running across the darkened roads, alone.]

"He really let me go? Just like that?!" Otto shouted in despair, unbelieving to the fact that he just disappeared out of the plot for no reason. "I cannot believe I offered no help to him whatsoever. Just drove him to his own death!"

[Images of the royal guards played within his mind.

He continued to run.

Julius' face came and went through a flashback.

He continued to run.

The councilmen stood above him like disappointed gods.

He ran through the darkness.

The candidates scorned him from behind.

He ran again.

The knights laughed at him.

He did not stumble.

The magicians spat his way.

His legs did not give out.

Not once did he think of Emilia in his sprint. She wasn't a source of evil or hatred for him.]

"That is so wonderfully pathetic, I'm almost impressed with this piglin. Truly." Priscilla hums casually, giving great interest in the way Subaru's mindset was shaped before her.

"He… uh. He's blaming everyone but himself." Felt realized what nearly everyone had with a disappointed look covering her face.

Petra gave Subaru a glance of pity, not liking how everyone seemed to be faulting him. She knew she had a child's mind, but this was clearly not Subaru's fault.

He was a kid too.

Crusch and Emilia both held each of his hands in theirs. Each woman found comfort in touching the boy and giving him squeezes of affection after what they were seeing him go through.

"It's unsightly." Julius spat but kept his frown of discomposure so as to not show pity on Subaru. He wouldn't like it if Julius did that.

"Do not blame yourself, Rem." Roswaal spoke loudly so she could hear. The maid forced her head down to not show the tears in her eyes.

"He's thinking like this because I left him." Rem sniffles, trying to keep the droplets from falling by containing herself.

"I left him as well." Emilia forced out from the front, giving Rem a sideways look to show her own set of tear droplets.

[Jumbled his visions may seem, Subaru continued to run without cause for stopping.

Until suddenly, his head was raised up.

He halted all movement, dusting a cloud of dirt under his shoes at his sudden stop.

"It's too quiet…" he breathed loudly but his voice was aimed to whisper.

Looking around, he could only see deep lanes of trees and rocks on each side of the wide dirt road.

He didn't encounter anything by staring at the woods so he turned to the direction of his destination and bolted to continue running, only to find a strange man in a black hood standing inches away from him.

Subaru blinks at the man, neither surprised nor afraid.]

"Witch Cultists!" Rem rages with her eyes bearing fury.

Emilia and Beatrice held on to their Subaru for dear life, not believing that he's been with a cultist before on his own without any protection.

"Will he die?" Anastasia questions solemnly, fearing for the boy.

"We need to watch! Stop talking!" Crusch quickly ordered the whole group of chatters from the twins above to Otto and Garfiel that were just as furious and afraid.

[His expression fully changes once a group of hooded men circle him out of nowhere. They dressed the same exact way and were staring at him as if they were statues.

To his shock, the entire group of cultists bowed deeply toward him.

Before vanishing without a sound.

"What was that?" he asked, disturbed and scared out of his mind.]

"...What was that?" Julius all but gasped as it only took an instant for the entire scene to play out and he was still not able to get over his thought that Subaru would die.

"Did they… just bow to him and leave?" Felt asks Reinhard, hoping he would have an explanation.

"... I think they sensed his witch's scent and decided to give him proper respect as either a member or a soon to be one? The witch cult only recruits people cursed by her smell or forces people to cover themselves in her miasma." Reinhard recited his theories and studied facts about the cult. He held a small frown on his face once he realized how this sounded.

"Relax, Reinhard," the redhead was surprised to have his grandfather call out to him. "No one thought you accused Natsuki-dono of being in the cult."

"Ah," Reinhard's eyes lowered in disappointment. "Yes… Thank you grandfather."

"That was so scary!" Petra shouts, holding on to Frederica. Emilia breaths in and out while nodding to the village girl's moan.

"Tis but a little appetizer for what is to come after him." Priscilla notes with a weary expression on her beautiful face. Roswaal would almost say she was worried about Subaru's will being.

The clown stopped observing the crowd for a second and looked at the visible blonde drills of hair. "Subaru-kun will clear out these fools. What will you do once you've seen Guese's new form?"

Beatrice herself looked to be in absolute misery rather than curiosity like Roswaal.

"Even against the Witch's Cult, he has abilities that can be used." Anastasia barely lets out a whisper, too intraced by what just happened.

"This might just be my greatest failure, now envisioned." Crusch put a palm on her lips to hide her trembling snarl. Her ambers raged with the fire of discontent and hatred.

"It wasn't your fault, Crusch-sama." Rem spoke with an angry tone. "It's mine for leaving him like that! What was she doing?!" The maid spoke about her other self as if she was a different person than her.

"A mere excuse for you not to blame yourself. That boy is always going to be left behind no matter the leash one has on him." Priscilla spat out in mock disgust, absolutely unable to contain herself after the display of the Witch Cult bowing to Emilia's dog.

"Commoner didn't even show a hint of disturbance." Priscilla clicked her teeth, glaring at Subaru's on screen face that was frozen in time. "His madness is disappointing."

[Taking a few more minutes to collect himself, Subaru's frown deepened at the disruption of his run. He continued nonetheless.

His hands shook as he ran.

He started to remember each and every instance of disrespect.

Felix called him weak.

Julius had beaten him and called him unworthy.

Reinhard had called his humiliation as something that should be forgiven.

Crusch had ordered him to stay put because she thought he was weak.

Rem had left him because she thought he was weak.

He ran with a glare on his face that spelled the hatred in his heart.

"Damn!" he cursed.]

"Shouldn't he be worried about his friends rather than this stuff?" Mimi asks a reasonable question that offsets many of the guilty expressions in the theater.

"Natsuki isn't willing to get out of this head space." Julius says casually. "He's been left alone with no one to tell him any different way of handling this shame within his heart."

"So leaving him was the worst thing to do, huh?" Emilia's head lowered.

"Indeed it was." Julius didn't spare any sympathy for the royal candidate. Or he hid any that existed in his heart to tell her the harsh reality.

"Barusu's attitude was heavily reliant on Emilia-sama. He shouldn't be near her at all if he wants to fix such a mental obsession." Ram said while patting her sister's back slowly.

"... That is what Puck said." Emilia's whisper was caught by the Duchess sitting opposite to her side.

"The Great Spirit… Hm." Crusch shook her head at Emilia. "I don't know who else I should be disappointed in, you or Natsuki."

Emilia put her face in her palms to hide herself, unwilling to hear Crusch's words.

[Scene change.

His run continued until the dawn came. He stopped in the middle of the dirt road, breathing heavily into his overworked lungs.

At the end of the road, his eyes stared, noticing a trail of black smoke rising to the blue morning sky.

"I'm back…"]

"... Rijanold-san doesn't open his bakery until the afternoon hours. Not at dawn." Petra points out immediately, hyper focused now that Subaru's reached her village.

Her heart was beating so fast. It was popping out of her chest even.

"Petra, breathe in and out. It will be fine." Frederica whispers soothingly into the little girl's ear. Giving her a hug.

[Scene changes to Subaru looking around the empty village. His head turned, watching for any sign of life. The village was vacant. No one.]

"This is weird," the twin with the monocle voices from above. "This place was quite populated when our forces arrived there in our timeline."

Petra hugged Frederica tighter, ignoring Tivey.

[He knocked on a door and waited for an answer. None came.

He opened it, peeking inside to a dark room. Only the sunlight dimmed its blackness.

Subaru's eyes rose, noticing a couple sitting oddly in their chairs.

He shrugged the sight off and moved to the next house.]

"What is…" Beatrice was left blinking rapidly. "What's with the sudden weirdness, I suppose?!"

"Why were they sitting like that? Isn't that Mosmuna-san's and Chikari-san's house?" Petra began breathing heavily against Frederica's arm. The little girl noted down where Subaru was walking and noticed every off putting detail that her home possessed in this scene.

[For some reason, this one was much harder to open…]

"This is wrong." Julius comments, squinting his eyes and sitting up in his chair.

"I think evah since this started we knew things would end up goin' wron', Julius-kun." Anastasia muses with a hardened look.

"Yes… But these people are still very dear to him." The knight held his head down in shame, unable to stop himself from remembering the way Subaru bowed his head to the dirt just to convince the poor village folk to trust him.

"..." Anastasia bit her lip and steeled her eyes to the screen.

[Trying his best to connect the door with his shoulder, Subaru managed to push through the hidden weight keeping the door closed. A sludge sound was heard as Subaru pushed the door open.

The darkness before him wasn't what he focused on. He looked at whatever was keeping the door closed and his eyes widened with untold emotion.

He slowly turned around from whatever it was, not being shown to the camera as he stepped out of the quiet household.]

"Why can't we see what he's seeing?" Felix asks, unable to stop the worming feeling of dread from crawling up his back.

"It's being told through Subaru's faaaaace." Roswaal replies timidly, biting his lip.

"Natsuki Subaru's expression is finally changing, that means he's slowly registering something." Crusch analyzed in an agitated manner. Her gaze stuck to the window like glue, unable to look away or blink for a moment.

[Slowly and meekly, he stepped away from all of the houses. His stunned expression remained the same.

Red pain littered a few walls for the houses of the village center. His passive walk towards the court floor of the market place was made slowly as he passed by impaled red blades.

Subaru's expression grew more disturbed with each step. His pupils were shaking intensely but never moved to scan the scene around him.]

"Is that…" Emilia's eyes widened in horror as her breathing grew frantic.

"No… " Petra choked on her words and sobbed. Her eyes remained wide open, registering everything and knowing what the window wasn't showing her.

Rem looked at her sister for the first time in a while, showing her older twin how scared she was with a single glance. Ram nodded her head and hugged her sister without hesitation, giving no room for words between them.

"Oh no…" Ricardo found himself incredibly saddened and disheartened. "These people were so nice and wholesome 's well," the dogman shook his head and steeled his expression to one of anger.

"Betty should be here, I suppose." Beatrice speaks with anguish in her tone.

[When he stopped his shaken walk, the window finally moved away from his expression to lay bare the sight he was witnessing.

A grutesic pile of charred corpses lay in a sickening orderly way, as if the person who did this massacre had some class about them or experience of killing such a massive group of villagers.

Toxic in smell and cruel in sight, Subaru's shock began to wear down and his feet began backing away. He failed to notice another corpse by his legs and tripped on the dead man.

The nasty-eyed boy isn't shown yelping in pain or focusing on his body at all… His eyes only blinked to register the man's dead face by his leg. Subaru tried to get up from above the man's corpse, touching something slimy in the process.

He takes a moment to stare towards his palm.

Who knew such a steep dirty courtyard could contain such a fresh amount of spilled blood?

Theme: Theater D by Myth&Roid

Blood.

Trembling like a leaf, his eyes turned wide in horror rather than his usual shocked look. He gasps for breath, looking around, trying to find a single area where this tragedy hadn't reached but alas, the village courtyard had corpses and dead faces all over it.

He begins to breathe really heavily, trying to think back on the houses he's been to.

The couple in the house weren't eating dinner, they were dead. Sliced necks and bleeding all over their food table.

There was a woman's body laying on the door in the second house. She had her guts ripped from her open stomach.

"...Hhhhhhhhhh-"

His body shakenly moved. On its own and without command from him. Turning slowly, forcing his eyes open to the sight of the bodies around him.

Sliced, cut, beheaded, stabbed, burned, mutilated, broken, dismantled…

Subaru's pupils shrunk until they resembled dots on a white background.]

Frederica quickly closes Petra's eyes from seeing anymore. Her tears and horror were eclipsed by the heartbreaking sobs she could not help but let out.

"NONONO! WHO WOULD DO THIS?! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER… AHHHHHHH!" The little girl's voice became distorted as she cried her heart out in Frederica's grasp. Petra's screaming served the whole theater and beyond, telling everyone that she lost innocence for good.

"Poor girl." Al steers his helmet away so as to not look at the girl while she was breaking apart.

Aggravated by Petra's screams in the background, Julius' guilt and sorrow for the village made him want to throw up the tea he drank. The elegant knight didn't contain his glare, fully showing his emotions for the viewing.

"Nevah seen ya this mad before," the western girl emotionlessly comments from beside him.

Julius looks at his lady and realizes that Anastasia had hid her mouth behind the blue scarf on her neck. He took one look at her eyes thinking they would match his lady's nonchalant tone.

Anastasia had the coldest glare anyone in the room could muster for the screen.

"Holy hell…" Garfiel gulps, leaning back with a hung jaw at the sight. "C-Cap'n… Cap'n will save 'em. Cap'n won't let them die like that! He will save 'em. He's the best superhero there is!"

Otto held his head down with silence being his answer for how he would grieve this massacre. He patted the mumbling Garfiel on the back and slid closer so he couldcan give the blonde traumatized boy a one-armed hug.

Otto sobs once Garfiel lungs and hugs him with both arms.

"He… He's done this… I've heard reports of his activities… But to go this far…" even though Beatrice was an old spirit. This sight was disturbing enough to make her mumble and cower at the sheer morbidity.

Crusch remained silent and emotionless like Anastasia. Forcing her hat down to her lap so she could look at something other than bodies on the screen. Her fingers gave no inclination of breaking their tight hold over Subaru's. "You must have gone through hell itself to stop this from happening, huh, Natsuki Subaru."

The Duchess gave a small nod of admiration and respect.

Beside her, the leader of the boy's camp could only stare with her beautiful amethyst eyes wide open and dry. Emilia's horrified sobs were drowned by Petra's terrifying cries of anguish. The half-elf didn't know whether she should go up and hug the little girl behind her in the theater or hug Subaru tighter than she was holding his hand at the moment. The feeling of his warmth provided her with the most uncomfortable reminder since these viewings started.

"He's lived this on his own…" Emilia gasps to herself. Her palm quickly covered her mouth as she registered how alone Subaru truly was in this scene.

Emilia's feelings couldn't be more accurately expressed than the words spoken by the maid sitting directly behind Subaru.

"The villagers' death will always be there in his heart. He won't ever stop thinking he is alone in this world."

"Don't blame yourself for this, sister." Ram holds Rem's head in her hug and makes sure she stays looking away from the screen. "This is nobody's fault. You only wanted to save Barusu."

"But I couldn't protect the people of Roswaal-sama's domain. Those children and kind old man…" Rem sniffled and shed the tears that were threatening to spell for the past few minutes.

"What happened to you and to Emilia-sama?" Rem's question was asked in desperation but it caused a much wider panic for both Emilia and Ram at the same time.

"Cease." Priscilla remarks in fury. "Mineself orders you to cease this viewing at once!" The Baroness found no answer from the Warden. She was left to dry in her fury and disgust at the sight of the corpses. "That pig isn't coming out of this undamaged."

"Ya think?!" Felt turns with tearful yet still angry eyes to the Baroness. "Everyone here knows that he won't get better after seeing this! Why don't ya stop talking about the obvious like you know everything, damn you–" Reinhard grips Felt by the wrist again. His expression was that of a man in anguish as he spoke through gritted teeth.

"Felt-sama. She is trying her best to help Subaru."

Felt shakes her head in denial. "Stop being an idiot. I'll sit down and leave her be."

"Thank you, Felt-sama." Reinhard nods in approval while Felt moves in to hug him. He pats her head and glances upwards to where his grandfather was sitting with worry.

"There, Ferris." Wilhelm comments softly, ruffling the boy's cat ears yet reserving his stone-like face.

The healer sobbed into his blazer, unable to take the sight of the dead innocents.

["Rem… What happened to Rem?"

His only vocal reaction to all of this. His world stopped at a moment's realization.

Her letter was clenched by his blood covered palm.

Subaru walked with grace and tranquility.

"Rem… Rem… Rem… Rem…">

Ram's gaze turned blurry. Her grip on Rem tightened as the blue-haired girl shook in her grasp.

"It's okay sister. I'm going to protect you. Barusu is going to save you." Ram soothed into her sister's ear.

[Walked without rushing.

"Rem… Rem… Rem… Rem…"

Rem's face smiled at him from a distance. As if it was a memory.

A memory where she laughed with him.

"Rem…"

He walked through the L. Mathers mansion's gate. His legs trembled once he had set foot on the front garden's pathway.]

"This is cruel." Crusch comments with a glare of steel aimed for whomever forced Subaru to be in such a position. "If only I didn't let him leave the way he did," the Duchess curses inwardly at herself's impulsivity.

[The wave of panic and fear didn't stay within his legs for long as the tremble and shiver traveled through his form.

Upon seeing the familiar mace laying on the cracked pavement of the pathway, he shuddered a breath.

The letter dropped from his palm upon the grass.]

"No…" Ram sucked in a breath and let her sister jump out of her grasp.

Emilia and Beatrice watched with horrified faces at what Subaru witnessed on his own.

[" Please wait for me to return, when all of this is taken care of, I'll come back for you. "

With a ghostly expression, filled with despair and disbelief, he walked down the pathway. Strode across the grass on the side.

" Please take care of yourself. "

He saw flashes of her smile playing as his legs stopped.

" And please… I beg you to wait for my return. "

A moment inside of the mansion, a sliver of hope in her eyes at the Inn's hallway, the overbearing smile in the Karsten household, even her glances in the capital's market place, She was always there.

She was smiling.

" Please, Subaru-kun. "

His face staggered to show any other expression. The sight before him was enough to pale his skin whole.

" From your… Rem. "

Subaru could only gasp in horror, tears falling.

The camera spanned across the garden's grass patch where Subaru was kneeling, the dress on the corpse was completely torn in multiple areas, no longer resembling a maid outfit. The gore was visible from the multiple gushing wounds across her stomach as well as her forcibly bent limbs.

Worse was, her smile was no longer seen for Subaru.

The blade was stabbed into her skull and the dirt below her face.

Rem was dead, and all Subaru could do is watch her defiled corpse on the grass.

Title card:

The Sickness Called Despair]

After Petra's sobs had fallen into silence, it was Rem's turn to fill the room with the sounds of anguish. Ram did not give any indication that she was more distraught than her sister except the running stream of tears on her cheeks and the inflamed expression she bore.

"To whoever did this. If Barusu hadn't yet gotten to you, I swear on my life I will!" Ram's proclamation was one of grief and sorrow. Promising to avenge her sister no matter the loop.

[All around the garden, the window zoomed out of the frame over Rem and Subaru, following Subaru's haunted washed gaze panning across and around from the blue-haired corpse.

Men wearing hoods littered the front space of the mansion. The yard, pathway, porches, and even field had corpses of cloaked figures that were quite obviously bleeding proportions of blood.]

"Damn Cult!" Garfiel suffered a small sob that he didn't mean to let go of. The blonde tiger was barely holding in his sorrow and rage. Otto held him tighter from the side, keeping his brother stable as they watched what Subaru had gone through all alone.

"I'm sorry." Emilia whispers inaudibly, holding her ears from both sides and letting Subaru's hand go.

"I'm so sorry."

[The screen quickly turned on Subaru's distorted emotional expression as he slowly turned his gaze from the garden around Rem to the shed with burn marks and blade cut into the wooden walls.

He moved. Walked with a tremble. Pushed the door to the shed and gazed inside.

"...Uh… Uhu…"

Subaru's face twisted into one of pure agony as he saw a pile of dead bodies in the middle of the shed, blades stabbed into them.

For one second, it was revealed to the screen what Subaru identified.

The village children's corpses were mutilated and placed neatly in the shed as if the sick and twisted work of art was a prized ungodly possession to be hidden from the world.

"Uh… Uh… Uh… Gaaaurrrr!"]

"Oh my…" Al couldn't but look away with his hand holding the side of his helmet. The grown man was no better at hiding away from the disgusting side than the rest of the adults in the room.

Petra only held on to Frederica, unable to look anymore and invisible to the whole world after what she's seen. The older maid kept her grasp on the little child tighter than ever before, not allowing her to move her head until the scene was over. Petra could feel Frederica violently shaking as if the older woman was holding in all of her sobs and shouts of outrage. The little girl wished she had that kind of discipline.

"BASTARDS! I'MMA KILL THESE FUCKIN' MONSTEEEEEEERS!" Garfiel's beastly roar condemned the theater with a rumble in everyone's heads from how strong the boy's anger was.

Emilia couldn't look at the bodies of the children anymore than for a second so she moved to hug both Subaru and Beatrice without a care if the little girl likes her right now or not.

Beatrice herself accepted Emilia's hug with no objections.

"That is not going to be easy for you to overcome, Natsuki." Crusch mutters in a tired voice. Her expression was worn out as her steeled nerves could only take so much shock before she wore herself out. "How did you move on from this, Subaru?"

"I doubt he will be able to get over this right away… Not to mention his already broken mentality since the castle fight…" Anastasia comments behind her scarf, equally as steeled and invested in Subaru's mental state as Crusch was.

"That fight…it cost this in the end," the knight beside Anastasia growls. He bared his teeth and gave a shaky snarl at the screen, the enclosed fist he slammed still in place on the armrest, trembling.

Anastasia gave her knight silence.

"Not even in Vollachia is this a sight that is acceptable." Priscilla overcomes her fury to speak her mind, her gaze befell the faces of the children as she memorized them one by one. "I swear that these maids won't get to you before I," the baroness growled with hatred rooted to the core of her voice.

Roswaal glanced at her with a mere cold look.

"... You best get in line."

[Subaru couldn't handle the sight any longer and did the appropriate thing to do. Dropping on his knees and blurching his stomach's contents.

"No…"

He whispered in anguish.

"No, no, no!"

If I just get a chance, I can make any problem disappear!

His mind cried in anger, but his voice was one of pain and defeat once he sobbed. "This is wrong. This isn't what I wanted…"

Gasping and wheezing, he looked up with tears in his eyes.

"Somebody… Somebody…"]

"Please… Make this all disappear." Felix begged with his head in Wilhelm's chest. "I'm sorry for all I said… Please use that power to save them all. Please!"

Felix begged brokenly, no sense to his apologies nor pleas. Wilhelm held the boy down to stabilize him from the panic attack he was having.

"Just breathe." The old man urges while rubbing the boy's back.

"I can't believe he's still going through with this!" Felt glanced at her knight with surprise.

Reinhard glared at the screen with guilt filling his gaze. "I should've come to him a second time. I should've listened to you when you told me to go to him even after my first apology failed!"

Felt kept her lips pursed and shook her head.

[He walked inside of the mansion, the screen cutting to show his hunched shoulders from the back as he entered.

Checking every room and hall, he couldn't find anyone. Ketchin, staircase, dining room… No one.

It was until he checked yet another door that things went into a different direction.

Subaru's eyes could only gaze with horror towards what fell at his feet.

"Ram…"

His whisper could barely be heard from the corpse below him. The pink-haired maid was bleeding from the mouth, lifeless.

Before he could dwell any longer over her body, Subaru was already staring at the little girl in Ram's lifeless arms.

"Petra…" Subaru choked on his own spit when he noticed the ginger hair of the little girl.

His scream was more damaging to his throat, not that it wasn't warranted after he was met face to face with the two crushed eye sockets of the bleeding dead village girl.

"AAAAAHHHHH!"]

"Rem, Rem… Please calm down," the pink-haired girl shook the memory of her own corpse from her mind and kept her sister in a tight hold. "I know Barusu will avenge us, just please–"

"I'll kill this Cult one by one!" Rem screamed into her sister's arm, her rage vibrating through Ram's synchtia.

Frederica could barely give a reaction to her pupil's corpse. She only held tight to the mess that became Petra Lyte with shaken arms.

["No…" He trembled and sobbed, staring in horror at the bodies. "It's not my fault!" He desperately claimed to the world with no evidence.

His eyes verted upwards to the room the two bodies were guarding. As if they were maniquenes that were hiding the bloody trail inside of the lavish room.

"It's not my fault."]

"He's blaming himself?" Crusch mumbles as her expression breaks into one of bafflement.

"There ain't no one else fer 'em to blame out here." Anastasia gestures by waving her hand at the screen.

Emilia looked to her boots for comfort as she closed her ears off yet again.

"And yet he keeps walking forward?" Priscilla notes this detail through her fury. She noted down every possible opportunity the boy would have reacted to his present situation with dignity and pride, things she would want him to do rather than have him give his weakness the wheel.

But she now realized that noting down what he should've done may have been the worst way to look at this as possible.

"Why doesn't he just run away? Don't tell me the leash is this strong!" Priscilla's judgemental gaze broke into one of surprise.

[Subaru moved through the room, broken furniture and a trail of crimson that he followed. He was able to locate a white flower pin covered in blood, sitting on the floor as if it was a reminder, waiting for him near the end of his path.

"Emi…lia…" He wouldn't seem to have the ability of uttering the owner's name.

The shiver running up his spine forced him to pull his arms around himself. Turning his head, Subaru discovered one of the bookshelves of the room had a passageway behind it and it had been opened prior.

Subaru walked into the freezing interior. The passageway's walls were made out of a luminescent blue rock, making the tunnel a lot prettier than the freezing atmosphere deserves.

He walked through it until he was at the very end of the hidden tunnel, where a metal door stood before him.

His hand slowly moved to touch the handle to the door. He softly placed his fingers upon the lashing steel of the knob.

*CHINK! *

"Ow!" Subaru screamed, pulling his arm back and gasping in pain. "Huh?"

He looked down to assess the damage quickly. Only to find his fingers were broken off from his hand and stuck to the icy metal of the door handle.

"Aaah!" He stepped back in horror, his eyes too focused on his loss of limbs to see that he'd been falling on the ground ever since he moved his legs.

*CHINK! *

A greater sound of ice breaking was heard through the tunnel. When Subaru looked down, he was met with his foot frozen solid in a sheet of white ice.

And it was broken, detached from his body.

Oddly this time, Subaru didn't feel the pain or show reaction to it. His skin turned a sickening blue color as the ice spread over him. When he slowly looked up, he was met with more hooded cultists that were standing in the same tunnel as him, frozen, immobile and statue-like. Dead.

As the cold intensified, Subaru also froze with an expression of pure terror on his face as he started to break apart.

"You're too late." A deep invasive voice spoke through the narrow hallway.

Subaru gave the door one last pleading expression, before his face was split into shattered pieces.

*CHINK! *

Darkness…

Natsuki Subaru died.]

"Puck…" Emilia finally couldn't hold her stomach any longer as she realized who's voice that was and just what type of magic her knight had died to.

"His death was freezing solid and breaking apart? Can the wyorld be anymore cruel to him after all that?!" Felix found himself enraged at the unfairness of that death. The horrific implications of what Subaru must've felt as every cell in his body died from hypothermia was too much to keep him from staying silent.

"What the hell is with ya, catboy?" A tired, broken Garfiel sounds his question hoarsely while glancing at Felix. "Were ya not against my Cap'n this whole time? What changed?"

"... I was wrong to think that way… I was so wrong…" Felix shook his head and looked down in shame. "After all that? I'm not sure I deserve to even be in the same room."

Garfiel nods, believing Felix's scenrity.

[A faint voice. A blurry image.

"Hey!"

Subaru suddenly opened his eyes and found himself staring face to face with an ever familiar salesman in the marketplace of the capital.

"You listening?" The man spat again this time in begrudging worry for the boy's expression.

"Huh?" was the only answer Subaru could give as he blinked.

"Don't huh me. What's with you? You suddenly spaced out." The apple man couldn't help but look at Subaru up and down.

"Oh…"

The boy looked at his hand all of a sudden, his face was that of a disturbed child.

"Subaru-kun?" A gentle feminem call from his side forced Subaru to quickly turn and meet the speaker.

*Bump! *

"Subaru-kun!"

"Hey!"

Both Rem and the salesman cried in equal confusion and worry once Subaru fell to his knees.

Running up toward him, Rem seized the boy up and down trying to understand what was going on with him. "What's wrong? Do you feel ill?"

He only stared back at her with a dumbfounded look. Rem looked uneasy at this.

"Subaru-kun?"

Rem couldn't understand what was happening to her friend so she stepped closer, trying to get a good look at him because his expression gave nothing off that she could understand.

She was taken aback when the arms that were dropped like noodles to the street floor suddenly wrapped around her waist and pulled her body to press upon Subaru's kneeling form.

"W-Wait, Subaru-kun… What's wrong?!" Rem blushed deeply while holding the basket of apples above her head so as to not drop it.

"Not in front of my shop." The salesman seemed exasperated at the pair.

"Calm down…" Rem told the apple man with a quick glance, but then she returned her gaze to the giggling boy below her, hugging her waist and completely creeping out passerbys.

"Subaru-kun?"

His widened pupils only showed her broken tears, offsetting the laughter he's emitting.]

Everyone gave varied reactions to the way Subaru was sent back yet again to a different check point within his life.

"It was the salesman guy again?! Are you kidding me?!" Mimi shouts in anger and disbelief.

"It's safe to say we should keep this guy from meeting with the Boss man over there." Tivey nods his head in depression.

"... What's going to happen to him now?" Crusch found herself muttering without control, feeling confused.

"This is a jarring experience… It's too much of a change to be placed right there after such tragedies happen to you." Anastasia ruffles with her scarf in discontent and interest.

"Yes." Otto said in equal disbelief. "How will Natsuki-san just ignore all of that? Like he did when he was killed at the mansion?"

"I don't think so." Reinhard replies to the Emilia camp's Minister of Interior. "Subaru is no longer stable enough. His whole world view about this being a game has changed."

"He's seen other people die. People he couldn't save this time." Felt whispers hoarsely. Understanding her knight immediately.

"He might even be dealing with the consequences of his fight with Emilia-sama still." Otto adds with a daunting expression of horror.

"It seems the pig has come full circle and will need to be pushed out of his own mentally defunct way of life." Priscilla nods her head in understanding, finally seeing what she needed from Reinhard and Otto's conversation.

"It isn't the leash the worthless half-wit has around his neck, it's been his rotten need for validation and attachment. A much more understandable deficiency in a man who's lived an easy life alone."

"You sound like ya wanna knock him down from such a faulty way of thinking, princess."

Priscilla gave Al nothing but a hiss as he returned to sit right next to her.

"Did the maid finally allow you to come to me? I hope her dressing shoes were thoroughly kissed by your animal lips." She snides, glaring away from him.

"Awe come on! Don't be so mean. I just wanted to make some friends." Al got comfortable beside his master. "Besides, you know I have no one to lead me but you."

"Hmph. That's what worthless dogs bark when they whore themselves out." Priscilla comments snarkily, not the least bit affected by the man's words.

Al shrugs and looks on as Roswaal takes his place in the second row, beside Ram and Rem.

"That man is hella fucking creepy… But he has a heart at least." Al watches keenly as Roswaal wraps both maid sisters in a tight hug.

"It ain't everyday you see a lord comforting his servants."

[Scene change.

Rem, Felix, and Crusch were standing over a catatonic Subaru inside of the mansion's room. His expression was that of a broken man, his pupils shaking widely and an incoherent string of words coming out of his mouth.

"I'm pretty sure there's nyothing we can do. His wounds are one thing, but there's nyo helping his mental state." Felix spoke in a tone of both confusion and frustration as he looked at Subaru with disgust.

"Do you know how this happened?" Crusch's question didn't deter the Duchess from moving her eyes off the insane nasty-eyed youth sitting on her guestroom's bed.

"No. I've checked every inch of him, but…" Felix's voice hushed down, unable to meet his lady's gaze.

"What are the odds of it being a curse?" Rem pointedly asks.

"There's nyo indication of any interference using mana." Felix shakes his head.

Crusch looked troubled at this. She turns to the maid and speaks in a gentle tone. "If Ferris is unable to help, no one in this household can heal him. I'm sorry."

"Oh, no. I can't thank you enough for your generous concern." Rem gave the shamed Duchess a smile and bowed deeply to the royal lady.

But her expression displayed a heavy kind of worry, almost fear.

He's right. There's no mana interference.

But…

The Witch's miasma…

Rem's face contorted a hateful kind of glare upon Subaru's form. She could almost see the black outline of the foul stench surrounding him.]

"What's going to happen now…" Emilia sniffles, thankful for the Warden's abilities to make her vomit disappear with the smell from the carpets. "Do you know what you will do here, Rem?"

"You already know that this isn't a true loop, Emilia-sama?" Rem asks hoarsely, perking up from the one armed hug Roswaal had on her.

Emilia nods with a firm glare. "Subaru wasn't like that when he came to us. And I think everyone in the room remembers what he did to save Petra-chan's village."

Frederica nods her head and rubs the shivering village girl's shoulder for comfort. "That's right, Subaru-sama saved them all in the end."

"Barusu will probably be taken back to the mansion by Rem." Ram answers coldly, unable to remove herself from her master's silent plea for forgiveness.

"I'd presume this is where Subaru-kun finally gets a new target for his obsession other than Emilia-samaaaaa." Roswaal said with a voice dead from all emotion or enthusiasm.

"What do ya mean by that?" Felt glanced at the clown with a raised brow.

"... Just watch." Roswaal shakes his head and remains thin-lipped.

[Scene changes to the outside of the Karsten mansion, where Rem and a tired Subaru remained heads down. Bowing towards the Duchess and the healer seeing them off at the gates.

"Thank you for everything. I thank you in my master's stead for your kindness during our stay." Rem gratefully thanked Crusch.

"Give Emilia this message, as well. 'Let us compete in a manner that will bring neither of us shame." The green-haired matriarch gave the maid a similar bow of respect.

Rem nods her head and moves her gaze on to the healer beside the Duchess.

"Hey… I get why you're going back to the mansion, but can anyone there heal him?" Felix asks reluctantly.

"He utters our names just occasionally. My name, my sister's name… and Emilia-sama's if he sees her, maybe his condition will change." Rem looks at the boy standing beside her.

Subaru remained motionless and haunted beside Rem. Not at all able to register what was spoken about him or around him. Just an empty stare towards nothing and everything.]

"He's in really bad shape." Ricardo comments, looking with sympathy at the boy.

"I think he's become damaged in the head after that? Maybe the ice turned a part of his brain dead or something and his ability wasn't able t' shake it off?" Tivey ignored his sister hitting him once more as he theorized.

"Big Brother was already well enough to kick all of them bad fellas in the butt! Stop trying to make him look stupid!"

"I'm not trying to do that, Mimi! I'm trying to be a good tactician!"

"There is no need for tactics here!" Mimi yells while hitting him with her wand.

"Settle down the two of ya!" Anastasia orders from the front row, freezing the two kids.

"Yes, ma'am." "Sorry, ma'am!"

[Crusch looked uncomfortable for a second. "I realize this is tasteless, but I must ask. How can you give so much of yourself for Natsuki Subaru? Your relationship with him is not that of master and servant, like Ferris and mine. But I hesitate to conclude that your behavior and the glances you cast are those a woman gives a man."

Meeting the royal's honest words with a brave look, Rem showed her passion with one look. Making Crusch backtrack her statement.

"I am sorry. Forget I said-"

"No, it's not that. It's just… How can I put it? Well… I suppose it's because Subaru-kun is special." Rem gave a confident grin, taking Crusch and Felix aback.

"Um… Forgive me. I was stunned speechless for a moment. Natsuki Subaru is a lucky man." The Duchess smiled warmly at the maid.

"That's for sure. If he ever recovers, I'll have to tease him to the max!" Felix wiggled his fingers mischievously.

Rem chuckled a bit.

"Be well."

"Good luck!"

Rem bowed and took Subaru's hand to lead him to the carriage.]

"I hate this…" Emilia whispers, earning the attention of every girl around her in the first and second rows. "I should've been there with him. He wouldn't have ended up like that and neither would Rem and Crusch end up in such a conversation if I was there."

"What's so bad about their convo though?" Anastasia says in her normal western way, ruffling her scarf while eyeing Emilia curiously.

"Nothing… Just that I hated how Rem's feelings were doubted." Emilia shakes her head and looks at her boots again.

"Ah," Crusch gives Emilia a look of understanding, "Do excuse my wording in that loop. I think I may have asked Rem the question in my timeline as well."

"Really?" Emilia asks only to be interrupted by Anastasia who asks, "When?!" with a look of interest.

"Before we both lost our memories to gluttony, though Crusch-sama's case was less severe than mine, fortunately." Rem answers this, finally stepping out of Roswaal's arms and shifting closer to wrap her arms around Subaru's sleeping shoulders.

"... And the reply was the same?" Emilia prodded with surprise.

Crusch and Rem smile toward one another and nod their heads. "Something like that, yes."

"So… Why would you question Rem's feelings in the first place then?" Emilia's eyes shift downward once more, unable to look the Duchess in the eye because of such an embarrassing question.

"Ah, that's because I suffer from the same problem as you do, Emilia-sama." Crusch tells with a sad smile.

"Hmm?"

"I cannot tell what love is when it's in front of me."

"..."

Emilia stared at Crusch with the look of a bewildered child while the noblewoman held a smirk of sheepishness uncharacteristic of Crusch Karsten.

"Hopefully you'll find someone, Crusch-sama." Rem speaks through the cracks of her throat to be compassionate with the iron lady that opened her heart to them.

"Thank you. I would rather love to have this by my side as I reach my goal." No one but Beatrice noticed the extra squeeze Crusch's gloved fingers were giving Subaru's hand

[After a long trip on the road, Rem had stopped the dragon carriage to camp out the night. She gazed upon the fire in thought. Her hand gently rubbed the dragon's scales as it slept directly beside her.

"I know I mustn't let my personal feelings interfere, but… I felt a little bit happy to have you to myself at Crusch-sama's house. I can't do that at the mansion. Even though I knew something was troubling you… I'm sorry. Even though I heard that you had quarreled with Emilia-sama… I'm sorry." The maid was rambling in a soft voice. Her smile was warm and her gaze was deepened on the smoldering flame. She was lost in her own world.

"I know you'll be alright, Subaru-kun. Because you're always… Demonically inspired. And you're a remarkable person." The maid's heartfelt passion and belief was not heard by the boy sleeping across the carriage seats.]

Rem put her head down, hiding her blush from everyone at such a personal moment being exposed when she herself didn't remember having it. "Seriously… this ability of yours is cruel, Subaru," the girl squeals in embarrassment.

"You really have your heart out," chuckled Ricardo along with Al.

"I suppose my sister's taste could be better." Ram jests lightly, enjoying the warmth from her master's arms. She did retract her statement after a thorough glare from Beatrice though.

[Scene changes to the morning sun shining over the now moving carriage.

Rem was leading the dragon through the endless line of dirt roads with a thick forest on each side.

The maid's expression showed a frown of contempt for a moment. "It's too quiet."

She glances around suspiciously, scanning every bush and tree around her.]

"Oh no!" Frederica exclaims in horror. "Rem stopped the same way Subaru-sama…"

"'It's too quiet'..." Otto widens his eyes as he realizes what Frederica was talking about. "Natsuki-san uttered that same phrase on the road when–"

"Witch Cultists!" Rem growls menacingly while holding tightly to Subaru's chest from behind.

[Until suddenly, the Oni girl's breathing was hitched as a force of some kind slammed into her.

Rem gasps in pain and shock, clutching her chest and panicking in her head.

That was sister! I have to get back quickly!

Before she could command the lizard beast in front of her to move faster, the beautiful green dragon was beheaded. The mighty head of the beast flew in the air for longer than its body had taken to fall to the dirt road. Having the corpse of the beast fall and become still in front of the steel moving wheels of the oncoming carriage forced an event of motion to take place.

The entire cart tumbled and did a roundabout over the decapitated beast.

Subaru was shown falling out of the cart and rolling a few times on the dirt trail before laying motionless.

Slowly, he regained his strength, Subaru raised his head to look up… Only to find hooded men standing around him with unsheathed blades in their hands.]

"NO!" Felt shouts in horror as the pacing picked up and Subaru was placed yet again under danger.

Emilia the others held the same shocked looks grated with suspense.

[One of the hooded men stepped closer to Subaru and attempted to touch him.

Subaru's broken state forced him to look on with a haunted look and emit forced gasps of pain instead of doing anything else that may help him in this situation.]

"Come on!" Rem urged and pleaded her other self would do something. "Please help him!"

"She knows it's useless to hope for that, right? I mean it's all but confirmed this is a failed life and he's gonna die–"

"I said shut up, Tivey!" The boy rolled out of his chair as his sister rightfully tried to attack him again.

[But as the man's gloved hand came closer to connect with his forehead, a flying ball with spikes crashed into the member's head, cutting it clean off.

The mace was pulled back by the chain and flew into the waiting hand of an outraged looking Rem, glaring hatefully at the cultists as she towered over them from atop the broken carriage.

"Don't touch Subaru-kun!" She growled as her horn glowed atop her forehead.]

"That's what an awesome hero looks like!" Garfiel cheers brightfully for the first time in a while, happy that Rem was there to help Subaru.

Beatrice gives the maid on the screen a grateful look but still held worry in her heart for how her contractor will end up dying.

"Please let Rem be able to get him to me." Emilia didn't know why she wished this, but she knew that having him die without seeing her again would be soul crushing to Subaru.