10 (part 4)

[In an instant… the members sent three sharp blades flying straight towards her face. Rem was quick enough to kick a broken wheel with the tip of her ballerina shoe making it flip mid-air, blocking nearly all of the blades by it.

Before gravity could be remembered, Rem spun around and sent the paused wheel flying into a cultist's face with a strong kick. The other members didn't have time to process before Rem's mace butchered another in the next instant.

One tried to jump away from the fight but Rem jumped right on top of him and crash landed her shoe heel into his head.

As she stepped away from him, another cultist managed to stab her shoulder with a blade from the back.

"... Ghk!"

Rem wheezed as her arm began bleeding. "Witch cultists!"

A member shot a fire ball straight towards her. "Huma!" Rem extended her hand and formed a shield of water in front of her. The flames still managed to reach and ashen the skin on her arm, but Rem was still standing.

She glared once a member began running away from the battle field… Carrying Subaru.

"Subaru-kun!"

Rem moved to save the boy as the figure ran off with him, but many cultists blocked her path.

"You bastards… You stole my sister's horn and stole my reason to live, but that wasn't enough? Now you have come here and steal my reason to die, too?!"

Rem's screams overturned the sounds of bodies and blood splatter her mace was causing as she tore through the group of cultist men.

Many of them prepped their blades and fire magic to start their battle with the enraged Oni.

The window cuts to black.]

"You are amazing Rem-sama." Otto bows his head to the maid in respect. Crusch and Wilhelm give nods of respect to the girl's battle prowess yet held apprehensive glares towards the screen as to what will happen to Subaru.

"What will happen to Barusu now?" Ram seethes in her master's arms. Remembering every single injury her sister had acquired by the cultists and swearing to eradicate them tenfold.

"They are taking Natsuki to their scum leader." Julius spits in a way that was neither gentle nor mannerly. Yet the knight's look of disgust and anger never ceased.

"They are taking him to Sloth… Beatrice." Roswaal's voice was deep and cold at the same time, Ram knew he was hiding a lot of emotions behind it just by those two aspects.

The drill-haired girl froze in place, her head shot up to glue her eyes on the screen.

[Darkness…

Subaru's eyes couldn't see anything but a deep void. He blinked in a turtle-like manner.

When his vision cleared, the window opened on the sight Subaru had been met with upon opening his eyes again.

A face cloaked in shadow with wide dilated eyes and pupils shrunk to the point of being a display for insanity. The green lips appeared sour and dry to an absolute gross degree.

But the full expression was still shadowed. The horror behind this face that was leaning so close to Subaru's own was not fully realized because of the darkness of the cave.]

"What is that?!" Al's shout of disgust summarized everyone in the theater's reaction to the man's face.

"That's the Archbishop of Sloth," Anastasia's knight answers with a tone deep with hatred, remembering the monster's face well.

Felix and Reinhard glanced from Julius to the screen with shock coloring their faces as they knew Julius would know better than anyone how that terrorist looks like.

"That's the leader of those cultists?" Ram spits on the carpet as her furious gaze fell on the disgusting abomination of a man.

Meanwhile, her master's hands began to tremble in a manner that forced Ram to look up at Roswaal.

"..."

["I see… this is certainly interesting." Subaru stared back at the insane looking person before him with no expression visible.

"You wouldn't happen to be pride, would you?" The tone this creature before him took was beyond greasy. It was a discordant voice which failed to resemble a calm soothing one.

The imagery of the man's form under the shadows was not doing him any favors to appear approachable. Subaru didn't know if the man was aiming to be.

That idea was further pressed into Subaru when the corpse-like hand of the green man slowly raised upwards to his mouth. Subaru watched a finger on that hand get bitten. The man was biting on his own hand so hard it had streams of crimson on it.

Only after a few more moments did Subaru realize that the weird abomination of a person went ublinking for the entire time since they met. Never blinking, never removing his finger from the grip of his teeth, the man's eyes stayed still looking into Subaru's on from his distance in the darkened cavern.]

"What does he mean by 'pride'?" Anastasia asked the most knowledgeable person in the room, but Beatrice remained frozen in both expression and movement.

"I'm guessing he'd be meaning the Archbishop of Pride, Hoshin-sama." Wilhelm answers diligently, making some eyes go wide.

Priscilla didn't notice that her own knight went rigid for a moment as she spoke to the crowd below.

"That is an irrelevant point to waste our time dwelling upon!" Priscilla snarks from above, urging them to let the screen continue showing what needs to be shown.

"Is it? Because from what we've seen, Natsuki-kun is stuck in a world that isn't his own, with a power that isn't in his control." Anastasia challenges Priscilla hotly.

"The Witch's power." Crusch bravely points out, sending some shudders down the backs of those who believed in the fairy tale.

"You mustn't mean that Barusu has the chance to become an Archbishop, do you?" Ram questions the two candidates in the front row with a glare.

Anastasia and Crusch look away from the maid.

"It could be possible…" Tivey comments unhelpfully from the back.

"I say we continue watching before one of us ends up blowing this out of proportion." Otto advised as soon as he noticed Priscilla's fire magic swirling around her again.

"Oi, Warden guy! Stop the magic in this room will ya?!" Garfiel screamed to the screen but all he received was silence.

But Priscilla's magic was extinguished suddenly. Much to the Baroness' displeasure.

["I guess you're not going to answer me!"

Subaru's eyes were wide on the man. No response was given.

The dark entity moved away from Subaru and held his hands behind his straightened back. "Ah, right! I haven't introduced myself yet." The walking depiction of a demented horror proclaimed pleasantly as if he was brought on with good manners in mind.

He trotted towards the group of kneeling robed men and women, stopping just in front of the group and turning towards Subaru.

Only once the image was realized far away from him, Subaru realized what was in front of him.

A cult. And the leader was standing before him, eyes burning with the glee and cruelty it takes one to become a monster who burns children alive before their parents.

With his dilated haunting pupils shining red inside of the cave, the monster bowed his head theatrically to the chained nasty-eyed prisoner.

"I am a Sin Archbishop of the Witch's Cult, representing Sloth,"

His head rose to show the face of the walking corpse, no shadow or darkness covered him as he strode towards Subaru.

"Betelgeuse Romanee-Conti! TES!"]

"Disgusting!" No one else could've said it better than Petra. The girl surprised everyone by spitting on the floor at the mention of his name and glaring with no small amount of hate towards the screen's frozen image of the madman. "You monster! I HOPE SUBARU KILLS YOU AND NEVER LOOKS BACK!" Petra screamed in outrage, no longer sobbing. Just broken.

"Even if her innocence died. I find myself impressed with the little one's strength." Priscilla comments offhandedly with a nod of approval aimed at the little one.

"Guese..." Beatrice choked out a sob, holding both palms to her mouth to keep her from screaming in anguish.

"Don't worry, Beatrice-sama." Crusch comforted the little girl. "Natsuki Subaru will surely not fail to this monster."

The spirit shook her head away from the Duchess' comforting pat. She opened her eyes wearily to stare at the frozen image of someone she valued dearly. "Guese… How did it turn out like this, I suppose?"

"Roswaal-sama?" Ram called out to the trembling man with a look of urgency. "What is wrong?"

The lord did not give his worried maid an eccentric answer or a sarcastic response, only reserving to shake his head and cover his face with a shaking hand. "I don't want you to look at me right now, Ram. Please."

The maid immediately backed off so she could let her master be. For some reason she could sense a near murderous intent floating around him right as he saw the look of the Archbishop.

"This is odd…" Ram mumbles, looking from her master to the screen with curiosity.

"Emilia-sama, why are you crying?" A voice asked from the half-elf's side. Otto was whispering to her with a worried glance.

The silver-haired girl slowly turned to face the merchant. Otto wanted to leap back as soon as those haunting dark amethysts stared him down.

"I'm… worried for Subaru, Otto-kun." Emilia speaks emotionlessly, coldly, as if the world she knew had changed in a way she would never be able to cope with.

"... Are you sure?" Otto asks, feeling like something more might have been happening with the girl.

"Yes. I'm sure. Please leave me be." Emilia speaks melancholy as if she wasn't even focused on him at all.

The merchant was patted on the shoulder by Garfiel who looked at Emilia with a glance of sympathy and encouragement.

"Don' worry Princess! Cap'n will finally get back his manliness and beat this fuckin' heartless pathetic monster!" The tiger proclaimed bombastically.

Emilia's head moved in small nods but she stayed silent. Garfiel nodded his head with pride, satisfied by the girl's reaction.

Otto's gaze lingered on Emilia for a bit longer as he felt the frozen half-elf was still hiding something. But he realized it wasn't any of his business so he let it go and looked at the screen as it began playing again.

Before the next scene played, Emilia's lips moved to whisper.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you… Father Guese."

[The horror enained, his eyes wide, pupils becoming dots on a white background, flesh rotten and green, a smile so wide and so manic it disturbed the viewer with how unhuman it seemed.

The man had insanity screaming from every fiber of his existence.

Subaru was shown with the utmost shocked expression.

Betelguese smiled wide as the boy before him began moaning and whimpering towards nothing and no one. The entity enjoyed Subaru's empty stare that he aimed towards nothing in particular inside of this creepy cave.

"Ah, how comical… What a very, very, very, very, very entertaining sight! Truly, truly, truly! My brain trembles…"

Betelguese's words weren't the crux of his sadistic glee in the boy's pretend insanity. It was the man's manic poses that failed to provide a hint of natural flare and years of pretend posing for no particular reason whatsoever. This man had repeated dances over a child's pain for what could possibly be a hundredth time.

It was a disturbing flare he brought. Not at all classy or royal as his poses wished him to be.

He stopped the dramatics for a moment, no longer posing in front of the weeping Subaru. He stood straight all of the sudden, with a straight back and hands folded behind him.

"Now, what has brought him here?"

To answer the Archbishop, a member moved closer from behind the bowing lines.

Listening to the member's close whisper, Betelgues' expression went curious.

"Dragon… Carriage."

The horrific depiction of humanity suddenly stepped back with his body shaking in an intensity not understood. "A dragon-drawn carriage! Ah, aren't ground dragons great? They obey diligently, work diligently, and play their roles as species diligently! They're just fantastic!"

Before the riled up Archbishop could go more into his passionate excited rant, the member beside him moved closer to his ear once more.

"Killed?" Betelgues was found whispering in a startled tone.

"Of course!" As if changing course on a passionate rant like that was par for the course, the man nodded his head and folded his arms back behind him, "Of course! Your diligence brought the ground dragon, diligence itself, to the ground! Ah, my brain trembles, trembles, trembles!"

Betelguese pulled on his green bowl-shaped hair with no reason to not scream in massive amounts of pain.

And the screams of the bishop stopped as soon as they came. It was as if he was playing a charadse with himself and his peers, waiting to show another act of his mind circus with every mood swing at a moment's notice.

"But a dead ground dragon is the very definition of sloth. Clean the place instantly. With the day of the Ordeal upon us, we mustn't allow our existence to be discovered."]

"That's the attempt to summon back the Witch by using Emilia's body as a vessel, correct?" Emilia looked towards Crusch with horror coloring her face as reaction to the new information.

"Ya never knew?" Anastasia questions the half-elf with surprise. "That's why the Sloth faction was there. It was Natsuki-kun's explanation to me and Crusch-san."

"No…" Emilia said in a trembling voice. "I didn't know that."

"I assume I was correct then?" Crusch receives nods from Anastasia and Julius.

"Disgusting scum." Ram spat in anger as she was reminded of the village massacres once again.

[The leader gave out the order and turned his entire body in the manner of a horrific corpse that was expected of him by now. He trotted towards the unmoving hooded cultist and leaned towards their mouth.

"And what of his friend?" Betelguese asks, an expression of expectation on his face as he leans in.

"Unknown…"

The Archbishop nodded his head slowly.

"It is unknown if the girl is alive or dead?" He turned to the cultist with a natural expressionless look, "Unknow if she's alive or dead, eh?"

He slowly leaned closer to the member's face to whisper in a darkened tone that didn't resemble his calm expression.

"You are truly slothful."

The cultist was instantly pummeled into the cave's ground, shattering the rocks beneath him and splattering their blood everywhere. Betelguese's hand moved away from the member so he could place it on his head and scream like a lunatic.

"With the Ordeal before us, you let a potential problem remain!"

He punched and slammed the hooded person for the cultist until the blood seeped all around the floor.

"Ah, this is sloth… Sloth, sloth, sloth, sloth!"]

"Stop using his voice, I suppose." Beatrice mutters to herself, unable to take the cruelty from someone that looked and sounded like her old friend.

"He just kills his own men like that?" Mimi questions from the back, disturbed to no end.

"What do you expect, nayn? This man is the same ugly persyon that possess his followers like puppets." Felix reminds the girl of what Subaru explained during their preparation before the expedition for Sloth was completed.

"No loyalty." Julius waves a hand through his hair in frustration.

"Don't get agitated now," the redhead mutters to his friend. "We both couldn't save Subaru."

Julius ends up going silent.

[Betelguese dropped to his knees and screamed at the top of his lungs. "Please forgive us the sloth that has led us to betray your goodwill! Love! We must repay love with love!"

Tears began flowing down his morbid eyes. The madman looked upwards towards nothing but the cave's rocks while in his kneeling position. The cultists and ranks of followers kneeling behind him looked toward each other.

"Bring the girl here. If she lives, kill her. If not, bring me her head! Love! We must repay love with love!" The Archbishop ordered his followers, still in the same kneeling posture.

All of the members behind the madman disappeared in an instant, minus the bleeding corpse on the floor. They phased out of existence by sinking into the floor and walls of the cavern.]

"He must be talking about my sister!" Ram shouts with rage.

"I must protect him!" Rem says as her eyes light up with hope and anger towards the man on the screen.

"Will Rem make it to Natsuki-san? These catacombs are very complex," the merchant nervously asked anyone who would answer him only to receive a look from the tiger beside him.

"Eh? How do ya know about the cave Cap'n's stuck in right now?" Garfiel questions in confusion.

Otto rubs the back of his neck with a sheepish tired smile, "I kind of got captured by the cult and brought there as a hostage until Ricardo-san saved me."

Garfiel's mouth goes thin-lipped and his eyes show a hint of respect and admiration.

"What's with the look?!" Otto asks, thoroughly off put by the strange emotion in Garfiel's gaze.

"Nothin'. Ye're a cool guy, Otto-bro."

"Thanks?" Otto shakes his head and watches again but with an uneasy smile.

[The deranged madman settled his dead eyed gaze on the boy shackled to the wall.

"Now…" Betelgues slowly turned to Subaru with a smile as wide as his gross cheeks could allow. "Now, now, now, now…"

A green hand gripped Subaru's locks and pulled him up so he could face the madman's gaze.

"You will look into my eyes."

Subaru's reply didn't come. His stare aimed towards nothing. He didn't even acknowledge the frightening corpse-like human holding his hair up.

"Answer me. Answer me carefully. Why does such dense love hang so abundantly upon your person?" The Archbishop's question was spoken in an uncharacteristically light tone, as if he was more curious than over excited like he used to speak.

Before another minute passed, Subaru was faced with another green arm holding a black book, taken from the madman's pocket.

"Do you not own a copy of the Gospel?" He asks the boy before him, some form of excitement present in the man's tone.

Subaru's answer was a complete blank stare that delivered not an ounce of attention to the man holding the book.

"It saddens me to be ignored! I'm treating you so kindly, and yet, and yet, and yet, and yet, and yet, yet, yet, yet, yet!" The archbishop let go of Subaru and screamed in frustration.

He then changed his pose and leaned closer to the boy. "In that case, I will change the order of my questions."

Subaru found his chin being raised by Betelguese's disgusting finger, his dead pupils met with the man's own.

Another empty stare faced with one of anticipation and morbid never ending glee.

"Let me ask this… " Before Betegues could continue, he found it right to pause and place a trail of slobber all over Subaru's right cheek and even on his eyeball with his tongue.]

"Ewe!" Petra looks away while some flinch in disgust at the scene.

"This is some kind of torture?" Felt questions with her tongue out.

"No." Reinhard shakes his head for his lady.

"The terrorist wants Natsuki Subaru's cooperation, sincerely." Crusch answers what the Sword Saint was about to say, her ambers piercing the screen as if it was leaking information she must not lose a drop of.

"This entire thing is beyond interestin'." Anastasia muses with her own look of interest to the interaction between the man and the boy.

"Stop bringing love into it…" Emilia whispers to herself, voice beyond inaudible so no one could hear her heart breaking. "Stop it… Stop tainting Guese's love and loyalty like this!"

[Subaru never blinked, stuck on that empty stare focused on nothing.

"Why do you…" Betelguese questioned without a moment's hesitation for what he'd just done, "Why do you pretend that your mind has broken?"]

"Oh?" Priscilla's wrathful snarl dropped to a gaze of shock immediately. "Does he read the boy's actions so easily? Interesting. Mineself was sure an abomination such as this wouldn't be able to tell its tail from the tongue."

"Pretend?" Rem whispers, unable to understand.

"Not pretend." Anastasia shakes her head.

"More likely, unable to see any other way to react to his situation…" Crusch adds to the merchant queen's statement.

"So he was just sitting there to gain sympathy and pity?" Tivey questions curiously feeling a bit disappointed.

Until a small juice box was sent flying into his stomach by one furious Petra.

"Damn, nice throw!" Mimi gave the maid a thumbs up as her brother rubbed his stomach with annoyance, painting his face.

"Didn't hurt as much as your wand."

"I firmly believe that Betty's contractor isn't acting," Beatrice speaks in a low, almost dead voice.

"Cap'n just needs t' find a way back up! He won't stay pathetic for that much longer!" Garfiel proclaimed with a raised fist and a hungry growl.

[Silence reigned across the cavern. Nothing could be heard from either the madman or the broken youth before him.

Subaru's eyes did give an answer however. They changed emotion on a scale that pleased the Archbishop who was vying for the boys' attention since the start.

"No, no, no, no. I truly have my doubts. Why, for what reason, for what purpose, do you act crazed?"

The boy began to whimper softly. It was a crazed possibility. He was a deer caught in headlights.

Betelguese continued his deconstruction, "Your insanity is far too sane. To behave so cleverly and quietly as if seeking sympathy… It is an insult to true madness."

The madman's confusion replaced his genuine glee at Subaru's desperate whimpering.

"You are a poorly acted madman. If you really meant it, you would pay no heed to the gazes of others."

Slowly trembling, Subaru's mouth erupted into jarred hollows of despair while clutching his head by his shackled hands. He rocked back and forth, uncaring for the Archbishop's grandstanding pose as Subaru's insanity was called into question.

"Ahhh… Ahhh… Ahhhhh…. Aahhhhhh!"

"Ah, how comical! How comical!" The revolting man laughs while Subaru's terrified shrieks fill the air.

"Ahhh! Ahhhh!"

Before he could cry even more, Subaru found himself unable to rock his head into his knees anymore as he was hoisted up by the collar of his shirt to face Betelguese.

"I pity you! I pity your wretched, ugly, lowly, diminutive, sinful being, from the bottom of my heart! Despite all that, you are so loved!" The bowl-haired monster screamed towards the cave's ceiling while holding Subaru in the air.

In a moment of what seemed as frustration from the Bishop, Subaru's head was slammed into the cave's wall. His chains jiggled loudly across the dark space.

"You'd rather waste away in stagnation than repay the goodwill shown to you?" The man questioned Subaru, moving away from the catatonic nasty-eyed being.

Subaru's head splats against the ground as his body falls from its position.

"You are truly slothful."

The atrocious horror of human misery stared Subaru in the eye, receiving nothing but a blank stare back. Subaru's wide eyes resembled those of the madman currently holding him by the hair; dots on a white background.

Even when his forehead bled a trail of dark crimson down his eye, Subaru gave no inclination to protect his eye by closing it, tainting the white background red.]

"Stop it…" Emilia couldn't take it any longer and started muttering with her hands on her mouth. "Please stop it, Guese… Please don't do this to Subaru. He's a good boy… Please…"

"Guese…" Unable to hear Emilia's mumbles accurately, Beatrice focused herself on begging inside of her head for something she knew would never happen. "How many years did you spend in this state? How long were you suffering in there before Subaru came along, I suppose?"

"How could you say that?" Roswaal all but growls from behind his palm. "Madness is a thing you shouldn't be acquainted with, Guese."

"Please… Come on Rem-senpai." Petra begged just like the rest, mortified at the torture Subaru was going through.

"Petra, I don't think you should be watching anymor–" Frederica was dutifully interrupted by the furious red-eyed village girl.

"It's too late now! I made my choice and I'll stay here to watch this monster get slaughtered for what he's done to my family!" Petra's firm statement blew the older maid's response out of her mouth as she stood their slack-jawed.

"Please…" Rem begs, uncaring to all that was happening around her. "Please let me save him!"

["Oh?" The bowl-headed man muttered in surprise, turning around towards the depth of the cavern.

A loud cracking noise could be heard echoing across the cave.

*CLANK! *

More echoes of a loud destructive force entering the cavern could be heard.

Before he could react, the horrific entity was faced with the body of a follower he'd just sent out.

Many members rose out of the earth to protect and huddle around the Archbishop who was simply confused more than alarmed.

"I found you!" A low growl of rage seethed across the cavern as Rem entered with stamping feet. Her horn glowed the darkness away, and showed the green face of the ugly man in full view to her disgust.

"Subaru-kun!" She glanced in worry at the silenced boy.]

"She reached him!" Otto held a bright smile of awe as Garfiel, the twins and a tear-stained Petra hollered 'YES's at the same time.

"The atmosphere is turning brighter now." Anastasia rubs her scarf while looking weary.

"I hope she can at least make it less painful for him," the Duchess beside the merchant queen spoke unsympathetically.

"He's going to die… By this monster's hands…" Emilia surprised both candidates as she interjects over everyone's cheers, killing the mood.

"Sister…" Ram whispered with panic settling in.

["HAHAHAHA! How fantastic this is! A girl, a lone girl, is so badly injured, yet she presses on!" Rem's glare was cutting as she stared the lunatic Archbishop down.

"Enough of your nonsense, witch cultist! You are fools to carry out your insubordinate acts in Roswaal-sama's domain without his permission. In my absent master's stead, I, Rem, will bring the death penalty upon you!" Rem proclaimed in pride and confidence, not showing a slight hint of pain or hesitation.]

Said master was currently busy not breaking apart in his place as the grip his palm had over his face began tightening to the degree his makeup began smudging. "Teacher's gospel would've guided me to a better path for all of them anyways. She wouldn't let something like this stand. Not to Guese…" He knew he was lying to himself. He knew that his damn book never intended to keep anyone's happiness except his master's.

Roswaal's guilt grew ten-fold at this moment just because he watched the sight of someone he respected as a friend mock and torture his dearest camp members.

["In your battered state? You only came here to retrieve this boy. You should stop saying things that only sound attractive." Betelguese taunted the maid as he toyed with Subaru's bleeding face.

"Don't touch him." Rem growled.

"Eh? What was that?" Betelguese yelled while holding a hand on his ear from across the cave.

"Don't you touch him!" Rem's scream was accompanied with a flying mace that traveled across the cavern and echo to hit the cultists around her.

Swiftly, the maid began working on slaughtering every member of the cult surrounding Subaru.

"That shout was great!" Betelguese was reserved to watching the show of his followers getting massacred with an uncaring grin. "Why does a believer in love such as yourself adhere to someone like him?" He points at the downed broken boy.

"You know nothing about Subaru-kun! El huma!" Rem shouted and tore through the members from left to right, even sending the blood in her veins to use as weapons with her water magic.]

"Disgusting." Crusch spat out, unable to take the fact that this disgusting man asked Rem the same kind of question she did in this loop, only he did it to break the maid, not understand her.

[The bowl-haired monster seemingly trembled in pleasure while watching the maid fight, "Fantastic! That was fantastic!" he went as far as to bite his own flesh off of his green finger from the excitement.

Rem was shown letting out a scream as she was stabbed in the shoulder by a cultist's blade.

Subaru's bloody pupil opened slowly upon the scream. His gaze turned upwards, towards the battle of the raging Oni and the monsters around her.

The injured and beaten blue-haired maid.

"Rem…" He whispered softly as he began retaining focus on his mind.]

"COME ON, CAP'N!" Garfiel screams bloody, unable to take the weakness Subaru was displaying and wishing he would save her.

"Sister…" Ram held on to Rem's body from behind while the blue-haired girl held on to Subaru's form.

"I'm really useless. Rem is useless." She kept repeating as she watched herself losing blood and falling.

[As she fell, the girl smiled towards him with a few words on her lips.

"My brain trembles," the whisper of the Archbishop was the only noise throughout the darkened world as Subaru watched Rem's body fall towards the dirt in slow motion.

But just then, before her body could touch the earth, Rem was held up in the air by an invisible force that caught her limbs.

And in an act of brutal inhumanity, every one of her limbs were bent.]

"ARRRRGGHHHHHH!" Garfiel's titan roar forced a rumble throughout the theater as he tore apart his armrest in rage.

"N-No!" Petra's blood-red eyes shed some newly forming tears at the brutal sight, forming new sobs and chokes that the little girl's heart couldn't handle.

"You have done enough, Rem." Reinhard gave her his respect with a nod towards the screen. "You're a hero."

"I failed… I failed…" Rem kept repeating even with Ram trying to sooth her sister's mumbling. The pink-haired maid was barely keeping herself afloat and stable. She barely even looked at the screen as her sister's mutilated corpse was shown on the screen.

[Subaru's eyes widened, silenced by the sight and unable to understand what was happening.

Rem became a doll with invisible strings. Held in the air by whatever cruel god who chose to bend and malform her body for all in the cave to see.

Blood ran down her legs.

"Authority of Sloth… Unseen Hand." Betelguese whispered as he pointed at Rem's hanging body with a sickening green finger.

Subaru's body trembled in place. The sight before him finally registering.]

"H-He… " Emilia's eyes went as wide as sources as her face morfid to one of complete torment. "Guese… He's doing that to Rem on purpose… To hurt Subaru?!"

Beatrice and Roswaal watched the decaying image of their friend burn in both their minds as the monster in green replaced the kind priest who once gave them light.

["Look. You must look. That is the result of your actions. By doing nothing, you practiced sloth. And because of that, the girl is dead! You killed her! How awful! How awful!" Betelguese mocked and reprimanded Subaru from above. The sickening glee in his voice wasn't unheard.

"You…" Betelguese's voice cracked with great pleasure and inability to contain his happiness, "With my arm, with my fingers… You… You… You… YOU… YOU… YOU… "

The Archbishop gazed his tear filled eyes upon Subaru as he delivered, "YOU… killed her."]

"Monster…" Anastasia spat, finally showing an emotion against the creature on screen.

Priscilla and Felt nod together in agreement for the first time in the theater's history. Both equally glaring at the man with hate equal in their ruby colored eyes.

Crusch gave her own reaction by squeezing Subaru's hand tighter. "Come on. Do something, Subaru," she urged him whisperingly, glued to the screen.

["...op it.." Subaru's voice cracked for the first time.

The invisible force that had been holding on to Rem's body for so long began moving again.

Turning and twisting the girl's hands and legs in bone crunching and skin curtailing circles.

"It hurts, it hurts!" Betelguese mocks in fake horror as he controls the hands on Rem's form. The blue-haired corpse couldn't move against the invisible power as Rem's head was forced into an unnatural position that dispelled blood.]

"Stop it! Please stop it!" Ram begged while holding Rem tighter.

Rem held onto Subaru with a look of fear on her, unable to resist the temptation to watch herself get mutilated. "This could've been my end?"

"DON'T SAY THAT!" Ram screams in anguish.

["Help me! Help me!" He continues to mock, toying with Rem's body and mutilating her corpse with no regard.

But when he held the body in the air for one final time, showcasing the grim masterpiece of his disrespect of the dead, Betelguese yelled out one final time.

"Subaru-kun!"]

Emilia and all those in the theater looked completely crushed at that last phrase.

"The cruelty!" Wilhelm spits on the ground and shows a glare amicable of the Sword Demon's hate towards the Archbishop.

[The boy's sanity finally broke apart.

"BEEEEEEEETEEEEELLLGEEEEUUUUUSEEEEEEE!"

Natsuki Subaru's voice held no shortage of hatred and disdain as much as passion and determination.

And it was all pointed towards the madman who wanted attention the most.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

The boy's eyes burned with tears of agony and hatred.

Aimed towards the smiling monster.

Subaru's limbs moved finally, he ran towards the Archbishop, yet the chains on the walls shackled him to one spot. The one spot he couldn't stop falling into.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

"Ah, I finally got you to call me by name. I'm deeply touched!" The green monster gave no thought to the body in the air anymore. His attention was pulled to the youth he'd just broken.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! Die! Die, damn it!" Subaru raged and screamed like an animal. His rage was clear within his terrifying gaze even through his streaming tears. The cuffs around his wrists began to dig into his flesh until the point where he was bleeding.

Betelguese simply remained orderly, meeting the storm of fury and hate from the boy with expectancy and boredom.

The Archbishop shook his head and looked at the dead bodies that had been left upon Rem's wake.

"This place is quite the mess now, so I'll just leave it! All right, men! You will resume your duties. Rendezvous with other fingers. The Ordeal will proceed on the scheduled day."

As the cultists disappeared, Betelguese looked at the raging Subaru as he screamed and ran through the chains wildly.

"Now, as for your position in all this…"

"Bastard! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

"I honestly have no idea what it is, so I shall judge you as our lord sees fit."

"Damn you! Damn you!"

"I'll leave you bound here. Should the Gospel happen to find its way to you, I'm sure you will be saved."

"Damn you!"

Betelguese laughed at the furious look on Subaru's face and walked away from him. He stopped for a moment to acknowledge the violated corpse of the maid.

"Oh. Ah, you are also a believer in love. Yes, you sacrificed yourself for love, defying your own fate. But you fell before your feelings reached him, and your love had nowhere to go."

Rem's body was suddenly dropped at the monster's feet. He regarded it with a smirk of sick pleasure.

"You are truly slothful!" He laughed out loud as the boy screamed in pure unfiltered rage.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

"Hahahahahaha!" As the sickening laughter of the corpse-like monster filled the cave, Subaru met him with a primal scream of despair and agony.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"]

Roswaal lowers his hand down, showing his besmirched face to the world as a sign of shame.

Everyone looked on with faces stuck between shock and complete disbelief.

"Anger is his answer then?" Priscilla notes down, her eyes holding the same amount of surprise at Subaru's rage as Emilia, Rem, or even Crusch.

Emilia looked on at his scream with a heartache and pure sympathy, yet her face showed the shock with just how angry her knight was. She bit her lip from the fear.

Crusch held the hand beside her until her gloved fingers felt like they mushed with his soft palm, the Duchess withheld any look of judgment of the boy. "I'm willing to understand your pain… But this should not be who you are, Subaru."

"It's really not a good look on 'em. This isn't one I like at all." Anastasia agrees for Crusch's disappointment and opts to look away from the screen just like her knight had out of respect for Subaru.

"Subaru wouldn't want us to remember him in this state of wrath." Reinhard spoke softly as he covered Felt's shoulder with a sideways hug.

"Of course he wouldn't, don't be stupid." Felt didn't give anyone a chance to see her eyes behind the lowered bangs of hair.

"Petra-chan… You shouldn't look at any of this… You shouldn't have watched any of it." Frederica shook the horror off and glared at her little companion, only to be met with a cold look from the little girl.

"Please don't." Petra speaks dryly, "I won't miss a single second of this. This won't be something that Subaru will deal with on his own. I won't judge or blame him for showing an ugly side! He deserves to show it, he needs to scream like that and more!"

"... That is wrong…" Frederica looked at the little girl like she was staring at a foreigner in the middle of her room.

"... Being wrong seems right. Especially with that monster!" Petra spat and looked away from her mentor. Frederica couldn't do anything but gape at her.

[Darkness.

The screen lights up again. Opening in the same dark cave once more. Subaru was shown sitting with his forehead to the floor. He repeatedly slammed his head against the solid surface. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you." He whispered repeatedly with no purpose.

His chained arms were bleeding so much from how much he kept forcing them through the cuffs.

Before a moment, he was a mumbling tired mess that soggly tried to get out of his cuffs, but in another moment, he focused on sounds.

The sounds of something soft sliding towards him.

His darkened hopeless eyes widened with light returning into them as he saw the source of these sounds.

"Rem?" He coughed.]

"What?!" Ram shouts as everyone around her gasps in disbelief.

"No way!" Felt screams with her jaw hung.

"Holy shit" Al sounds.

Rem looks on with a hopeful shine in her eyes, feeling her heartbeat slow down in relief.

[A miracle had been commenced before him. The girl that should by all accounts be dead from the stab wounds and the burns, not to mention the mutilated limbs and her broken neck… The Oni slid across the floor of the caves towards him.

"Rem!" Subaru called out as he watched her body inching closer and closer.

"Rem… Rem… Rem… Rem!" He went on repeating, hoping for an answer that might reassure him of the girl's ability to survive all of this.

Once she had quietly wormed her way underneath him, Subaru clenched his teeth around a part of her uniform and pulled her up until the maid was in his lap.

He hugged the girl tight as he managed so.

"Rem… Hey, Rem!" he gasped in desperation.

The bloody lips parted, revealing magical gestures of life.

"Hu… ma…"

Subaru's eyes widened at the whisper.

The blood that had seeped from his grazed wrists was suddenly infused with mana. The water magic used his blood to break the cuffs around his hands.

Rem had freed him.

"Rem, you…" He looked down at her, eyes saddened and amazed.

"L… ive." She whispers pleadingly, looking at him with nothing but love and appreciation.

"Rem… Wait! Don't…"

Subaru held her tighter, wiping her blood from her face.

Rem slowly held his hand and looked at him with a gaze filled with warmth. "Live… Love… you..."

Her hand dropped.

"Rem…" Subaru hugged her and cried his heart out in the cave.]

"You saved him… You at least saved him, sister." Ram gives her sister yet another tight hug that eclipsed the grief in her tone towards Rem's death.

"I…" Rem tries to utter something but her sobs replaced whatever words that were about to come out of her mouth.

The rest watched with tired and anguished frowns.

[The screen changes on the front of the cave, a hole in a mountain's wall.

Subaru is shown coming out of the tunnel, Rem's corpse sitting in his arms bridal style.

"Let's go Rem…" He smiled at the maid in his arms, looking over the horizon at the setting sun.

He walked through the road and the forest until it was night time. He strode against the tumultuous terrain with Rem in his arms. His hair style was now reserved to a messy more natural style that made some locks flow down his forehead and into his eyes.]

"I like his hair this way…" Felt tried to comment but all the emotion was drained from her voice.

"I agree," as odd as it was, Priscilla was amongst the people who voiced their agreement in an equally quiet, mournful atmosphere that the theater now possessed.

[But he strode forward.

He walked through the village, passing all of the stabbed and tortured corpses of the village folk. Walking through the cold of a sudden snowfall.

"Betelgeuse…"

Subaru passed the piles of burned corpses of the Arlam people, one name remained on his tongue.

"Betelgeuse…"

The snow storm thickened but he braved through and managed to reach the gate to the front garden of the estate where white snow covered the entire land.

Subaru stopped and looked to the side. He found a shed beside the gates of the garden.

Ram's dead body was leaning against the wall with many blades stabbing into her. She was surrounded by dead cultists that were cut by her air blades.

Tears ran down his freezing cheeks at the sight of the pink-haired Oni. With hatred, Subaru growled in anguish at the sight, "Betelguese…"

Dropping on his knees before the snow filled mountain that was the Roswaal mansion, Subaru held on to Rem for warmth as the snow storm raged above him.

"Betelgeuse!" He sobbed in agony as the storm intensified.]

"This is a dead end…" Julius says with an anguished gaze down towards his knees.

"He went through all of that to make his plan," the healer behind Julius spoke in a tone filled with guilt and shame. "The things he went through in this one viewing alone… How did I ever doubt someone like him, nayn?"

As Felix began to shed tears of shame, Wilhelm gave the healer a supporting pat on the back and a shake of the head.

"This man's cruelty had nothing on Subaru-dono's will to fight, Ferris."

Reinhard gave his grandfather's words a small nod.

"H-How…" Emilia used her tired, broken voice to sound, "how will Subaru die then?"

The half-elf looked on in distraught and disbelief as the screen began playing the final melody.

[*CRAAAACKKKKKKK *

Before the snowstorm could cover him, Subaru's frozen neck sluggishly moved forward to stare at the mansion's front gate.

A giant head had sprouted out of the ceiling of the great estate.

The monster with cold, empty, yellow shining eyes turned its neck to tilt its head as some sort of parallel to Subaru's own turn.

The beast's eyes fell on Subaru across the thick snowstorm and tundra that had spawned around the Roswaal lands.

"Sleep…" the same voice that had killed Subaru in the last loop spoke toward him.

"Sleep. Along with my daughter."

Subaru couldn't say anything. As his entire form was frozen solid. And as the wind picked up.

The boy's head rolled off of his body with no weight or pushback.

And his kneeling corpse remained a frozen statue, holding a dead girl's body.

His face would remain discarded into the dirt, buried underneath the layers of falling snow.

A frozen land. An ice turned world.

That's how Subaru Natsuki died.]

"What…" Emilia couldn't but feel the stares of everyone in the theater to the back of her head, but the half-elf was too busy registering Subaru's cruel death herself.

"Puck… Puck killed Subaru… Puck…" Emilia held her head in her hands and began sobbing like a maiden with a broken heart, unable to believe her father would do such a thing.

Crusch looked over at Anastasia with a knowing look.

"This spirit is a problem." Priscilla voiced the exact same thought the two candidates in the front were discussing silently without words. She clicked her tongue and memorized Subaru's face once he was frozen by the beast's storm.

"Mineself's will fix that for you." Priscilla sighs to herself. "Just prove yourself worthy of all of this attention."

Al looks over to his master in distress. Unable to understand what she was saying.

"Bubby… So your contract really is that cruel…" Beatrice muttered with a look of hurt, thinking about her brother. "This must've been painful for both you and Subaru… I wish I could've done more, in fact."

[Eulogy for Rem.

Darkness.

Faint noises, blurry images, purple glow.

"Hey!"

Subaru's eyes opened suddenly. His body looked sweaty and his expression was spooked.

Back at the capital again. Before the Apple salesman, again.

He had Returned by Death… again.

"You listening?" The man questions with an angry face.

"Huh?" Subaru's expression displayed merely a frozen shock.

"Don't huh me. What's wrong with you? You suddenly spaced out."

"Oh…"

"Subaru-kun?"

At the sudden intruder's voice, Subaru's eyes went wider than they were. He immediately turned towards the speaker.

"Rem…" he whispers.

"Yes? What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Rem…"

The maid was blushing now as she stared at her hero's face.

"Y-Yes?"

"Rem…"

"Yes."

Subaru touched her shoulder and gazed into her eyes with a look of unknown emotion. Making the maid blush. "I…"

"Look… I hate to interrupt when you're just getting heated up, but I can't run my business with you two flirting there!" The man shooed them away.

"Subaru-kun, can I ask something?"

"What is it?"

"Well, I may be mistaken. It's just that well… The unpleasant smell on you seems to have grown stronger."

Subaru's smile turned sour, "Unpleasant smell, huh? Well, if you're worried, just keep hold of my hand."

"Huh?" Rem looked confused as Subaru held her hand.

"This feels a lot safer, right?" He gave her a smile.

The maid seemed to be filled with happiness, "Yes."

As Rem trotted beside him with a happy smile…

Subaru's face turned into one of vengeful hatred.

His eyes glowed with a red hue…

Title card:

The Outside of Madness

Episode 8 Director's Cut. End.]

"He's looking mighty scary there." Anastasia gives a frown to show what she thought about his look.

"I don't like this either. It doesn't seem like he will be taking the right route either." Crusch grumbles in discontent while rubbing Subaru's hand and kneading where she squeezed a bit too much.

"E-Emilia-sama?" Otto tries to touch the half-elf but Emilia only stands up as soon as the screen shuts off.

"I'm going to my room." Before anyone could say anything, for the second time, Emilia dashed through the hallway of doors towards her sanctuary.

Rem followed soon after, not drying her tears.

Left in the dust and brought to complete depression on all fronts, everyone's souls seemed hollow and self-loathing after that entire viewing.

Petra decided to be the third person to go to her room alone. Uncaring for whatever the rest have to say about the conclusion of this vision.

[P-Please go and take a rest everyone. You can all contemplate and lament about what you've seen during the rest of today. You have all the time in the world so make sure you treat yourselves well.]

The Warden tried to sound kind but he only ended up being ominous to the rest of the cast as he began stuttering midway through his announcement.

"I don't feel like he's doing okay." Tivey notes to himself, not wanting his sister to break his head for saying another thought that wasn't needed. But the boy's curiosity took the better of him.

The Warden was fascinating to Tivey. An entity that can restrain everyone's magic and teleport anyone it wished into this theater place.

It was absolutely astounding for someone as curious and enlightened as Tivey that such a place and power exist in his world.

As he gazed at the decorated ceilings of the theater, Tivey missed out on the rest of the cast leaving the theater.

He dropped his eyes and sighed to himself, feeling lonely again.

"Why are ya looking lonely, brobro?" Mimi tiredly slaps his head without power.

"Eh?! Mimi! Don't spook me like that!"

"...I didn't mean too… I was waiting for you to stop looking at the ceiling again." She utters with sadness in her tone.

"Sorry, Mimi. I was observing the room again." Tivey sighs and sits beside his little sister.

"... I'm sorry I hit you all those times."

The demi-human boy blinked in surprise at the sudden apology from his sister. "Mimi… What's going on? Why are you so sad all of a sudden?"

"Because…" Mimi bites her lip and struggles to speak for a moment. "Because I imagined that you were in place of Big Brother!"

"Hm?" Tivey blinks again.

"I slept like you told me before this loopy thingie started," she points at the screen. "And when I did… I had a dream that you were the one who had Big Brother's power…"

He opens his mouth with a raised finger. "You mean Return By Dea–"

"You died, Tivey." Mimi looks at her brother with tears falling down her cheek.

"I see." He mutters grimmly. "That's why you've been so agitated with me trying to learn more about this?"

"What if… You end up finding something out… Something that will displease the Warden… Maybe he will curse you with that ability too! I DON'T WANT YOU TO SUFFER WHAT BIG BROTHER'S SUFFERING!"

"Hey hey!" The boy holds his sister in a hug of panic. "Please don't cry, Mimi."

"Promise me you'll always be here with me! Don't leave me like Hetaro did!"

The boy chuckles and pats his sister on the head. "I promise you I won't ever leave you. And just like you and I both know, Hetaro is doing his best to catch up to us. We will be together forever."

"All three of us?" Mimi sniffles with hope.

"All of us and the boss man, Mimi. We must be strong."

"Yay!" Mimi giggles through her tears, tightening the hug around her nerdy twin.

"I'm dying for real right now!" Tivey says in an intoxicated voice.

Realizing she was crushing her brother with her hug, the girl moved away with a smile. "Sorry!"

"You must learn when to hold back!" Tivey condescends with a glare as he catches his breath.

"I said I was sorry!" Mimi stretches her tongue out.

Tivey oddly laughs at his sister.

"What's so funny?"

"Hahahaha– Nothing! Nothing… It's just…" Tivey smiles pleasantly. "I know for a fact that this Warden guy has nothing on my dear old sister."

Mimi pumps her chest with pride. "'Course! He's a big bully idiot! Mimi is a majestic wind lord!"

As the two twins enjoyed the jokes they were able to roleplay together, a loud voice cracked through the screen.

One that was not pleased.

[Who the f- Boy. Boy. I will kick both your asses and then some!]

"What?!" Tivey and his sister looked up with fear in their eyes as the soothing voice of the warden filled the room once again.

"Was it aimed at us?" Mimi asks while Tivey shrugs, unsure.

[Okay. You lot did this to yourselves. You want your master?! Have at it!]

"Bro?!" Mimi shouts in fear as she watches the spectacle.

Two luminous orbs of light spawned in the air above the chairs of the theater. The twins watched as the orbs lowered like feathers hovering in the air until they reached two seats in the middle row.

"Mimi," he calmly speaks to her while staring into the two balls of light with fascination. "Go grab the others. Quickly!"

"Wh-Why?! What's happening?!" she asks her brother, scared.

Tivey smirks and propers his monocle. "We may have two new guests to watch with us next time…"