14 (part 4)
[The last cult member had also fallen at the same time for the knights managed to take care of the rest of the cult.
Emilia looked around as all the villagers stared at her with amazed and somewhat distrustful looks.
"So didn't I tell you?" Felix smirked knowingly at the boy as Subaru looked on in amazement.
"We've now eliminated all the fingers. Victory is ours." Julius smiled with joy as he joined the group.
Subaru looked at Emilia with in shock.
"It's finally over… "
Emilia started to shed tears suddenly as she noticed the entire village had surrounded her.
She slowly wiped them away while Subaru was looking at her in reluctance and guilt.
* SLAAAP!*
"Go see her." Felix winked and slapped him on the back while Julius nodded urgently at him with a small smile.]
"The villagers look ready to trust you now." Frederica whispered softly toward the emotional half-elf.
Emilia looked a bit unsure as she didn't think anyone that had been tormented so much because of her would truly give her a chance.
"Even Subaru-kyun looks amazed at you. You saved the day, Emilia-sama!" Felix said humbly. Happy that he won't have to see anymore blood or madness from these fingers again.
"You took care of the last monster! Our village is free!" Petra tried to sound out energetically but it came out as a whimper.
She was happy that the last cultist was killed…. But her town was still burned down… and half of her people were murdered…
and….
Julius, and Wilhelm kept their eyes on the screen with confusion and bewilderment.
"So if the sloth has been taking down… How will Subaru…"
Otto's eyes widened.
"How will he die then?" Anastasia continued the thought as she looked on with an emotionless and critical look.
Everyone's eyes widened in shock as they were reminded why this was being shown to them in the first place.
["R-Right…" Subaru turned to Emilia and slowly took a step closer to her.
Then he stopped…. And then Ia suddenly came off of him and flew away, making Julius look at him with surprise.]
"What?! Why did she leave him?" Felix called out as he turned to Julius.
The knight's eyes widened as he finally understood something that happened in his own timeline. Something Subaru did with Sloth that greatly confused him.
"He's a spirit!" Julius shouted as his theory proved to be correct.
"What?" Emilia asked with her eyes blown out in worry and fear. If the elegant knight looked this angry and distraught then something truly wrong must be happening to Subaru.
"Beatrice-san… that's quite the face you're making…" Roswaal, who had been watching silently this whole time with an unreadable smile, had preserved to speak to himself alone as he kept his eyes on the blonde girl at the front. "You and I knew that this is how it was always going to end for Geuse…"
Roswaal's smile turned to a frown as his head fell into his hand. "Better Subaru than us… To be the one who ends up battling for Geuse's freedom."
Beatrice couldn't hear him due to the distance, nor did she have the ability to do so.
[Subaru grunted with wide eyes suddenly not being able to move his body.
"Uh….UGHK!...UGH!"
"Subaru-kyun?" Felix asked as the nasty-eyed boy grunted and hiccuped in pain while his body shook in place.
Slowly, he regained some semblance of control over his nerves. He used that to turn tail and run away from the entire group of survivors.
I have to get away…
He ran as deep into the woods as he could.
Holding his head and sweating in pain, he ran.
From Emilia… From everyone…
"Ah! Ghk!" Subaru tripped and fell somewhere in the forest, grunting in pain as he fell.]
"What's happening to Cap'n?!" Garfiel wanted nothing but to jump in and help his brother from whatever pain he's in.
But all he could do was watch like the rest of the cast with fearful and confused expressions.
["Subaru-kyun, where are you going?" Felix and Julius looked on with bewildered expression as the boy withered on the ground before them.
"Stay away! I'm…"
"Subaru…"
The boy slowly got up while struggling from something.]
"What's wrong with Subaru?! Why is he trying to run away?" Rem asked, her heart dropping heavily as the entire scene spelled something dark was coming.
["Julius, stay away from-"
And Subaru fell silent…
"You're too late." He suddenly spoke again...this time not struggling or sounding in pain… calm… and gleeful.]
Expressions of shock dropped on the theater's cast.
"No…. No!" Beatrice screamed as she recognized the way of speaking immediately.
"Shit!" Heinkel spat out while punching the chair in front of him as hard as he could as he realized what happened. "I fuckin' knew it… That scornful cheat!"
"What?! What is happenin'?!" Garfiel asked with his emerald eyes as feral as they come. Not understanding a thing happening on screen.
Crusch just looked down her heart heavy.
["Huh?" Felix sounded in confusion while Julius looked at the scene with despaired eyes.
"The moment Ia was flung from his body, I had a bad feeling… " Julius looked troubled and upset as he spoke.
"What do you mean?"
"That… isn't Subaru."
And the screen zoomed on the back of his head as the body of Subaru began to turn and face the two knights.]
"Why…?" Otto asked in a whisper as he watched with a haunted look. "Why is it always like this?"
["That's right." Speaking in Subaru's voice, the person told calmly and joyfully with Subaru's eyes looking dead and soulless.
"I am a Sin Archbishop of the Witch's Cult, representing Sloth… Betelgeuse Romanee-Conti…..TES!"
And then Subaru's neck was broken side ways with the same Petelgeuse expression from every finger, this time, Subaru's face was the cast.]
Petra started screaming… as loud as she could she started screaming in horror.
"No!"
"Subaru!"
"CAPPPPPPTAAAAIIIINNNN!"
Everyone in Emilia's camp looked at the scene in disbelief. Horror and despair filled their faces as they understood what will kill their most precious member.
"No… Please don't let this be it… H-He still haven't talked to me yet!" Emilia gasped as her sobs overwhelmed her speech. He was so close! So close to talking things out with her and tell her how much he suffered for her! She was going to comfort him and have him lay on her lap. She was going to protect and cherish him so that she won't sit along in the mansion once again.
But now he must die by having a… a… a madman take over his soul!.
[Petelgeuse began laughing and dancing in Subaru's body using Subaru's voice as he tested out the new toy.
"Fantastic! What a fantastic body this is! It's been decades since I had a body that fit me so well!" Petelgeuse shouted in Subaru's voice as he danced and tested his limps out.]
Subaru's friends and allies had mostly been reduced to crying silent on lookers. Just watching with horrified faces with tears freely flowing down.
Ricardo and Wilhelm reserved themselves to lowering their heads down with angry expressions as each man held their chair handles as tight as they could.
The twins cried their eyes out as they watched with disbelieving expressions as well.
[Unable to hold his anger anymore, Julius unsheathed his sword and pointed the tip at the side of Subaru/Petelgeuse's face with a furious expression.
"Get out of that body right now!"
The Archbishop only smiled softly.
"Madman?"
He slowly turned his head towards Julius, not caring for how he grazed Subaru's cheek against Julius's bald, deeply scaring it.
"That's right. I am driven mad with love!"
Julius gritted his teeth and moved the sword away.
"Generous love, respectful love, pure love, tender love, familial love, erotic love, friendly love! Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!Love!"
The mad Subaru screamed and repeatedly over and over as if a broken record.
"LOOOOOOOVVVVEEEEE!"
He fell on the muddy floor of the forest while gasping for breath.]
Emilia and Rem were slack-jawed as they watched the man further tainting Subaru's body by his robust poses and mad ramblings.
This wasn't their Subaru.
"Someone…. Please save him… save big bro!" Felt shouted from the bottom of her heart while crying tears of anguish for her dear brother.
Otto and Garf were just slack jawed at this turn of events, unable to think of anything to say or do as they watched their brother suffering one more time without being able to help him.
Priscilla and Anastasia simply held the positions of silence and spectating as they watched the scene with no emotions present on their faces.
Except for a narrowly small glare of sadness and anguish from the merchant's clear eyes.
And the gritted teeth of Priscilla, hidden behind her beloved fan as she watched with her scarlet eyes burning in rage.
["Subaru! Wake up!" Julius shouted in plea while watching the disturbing scene happen with a pained expression like Felix.
"It's no use. This body is already under my subconscious control." Petelgeuse smirked evilly through Subaru's face.
"Realize what you're about to do, Subaru! Remember what you came back here to do!" Julius urged and pleaded loudly for some kind of hope that the boy was still inside of his own mind and bale to take back control.
"What?" Petelgeuse suddenly asked as he started shaking in Subaru's body.
"Don't 'what' me, you moron!" Suddenly, Subaru's voice shouted unexpectedly with a different familiar tone.
"I am Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti! This body has already become my finger!"
"Shut up! I'm Natsuki Subaru!"]
"He—He can fight it, I suppose?!" Beatrice shouted with hope returning in her bright blue eyes. Holding her contractor as close as her little arms could as she sniffled in his jacket.
Emilia and Crusch looked at the screen with hope in their eyes, holding their breathes.
[Julius and Felix watched with heartbroken expression as Subaru's body twitched and formed unnatural poses while holding his head.
As the boy shouted different contradicting sentences toward himself.
As the boy fought for control of his own body with Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti.
And then Stay Alive played
Quickly, Subaru ran toward the knight and held his shoulders in despair.
"Kill me, Julius."]
"No!" Rem shouted in anger and horror.
Everyone around her started shouting.
"Subaru-dono… you can't give up the fight!" Wilhelm growled out while reprimanding himself in his head for being taken out of the fight so quickly.
[Subaru begged while struggling for control.
"Use your sword…" Subaru gasped in pain and pleaded of the knight.]
"No…." A purple-haired young man whispered while holding his head in his hands to hide his tears. Withering and trembling from the horror of the scene before him.
"I wanted to hear what you wanted to say. I wanted to have you as my friend. Why did it come to this?" The youngman spoke with a tone filled with pain and despair.
He couldn't believe it.
"I don't want to be the who kills him." Julius chocked a bit as he held his arm infront of his face. Hiding his shame and his weakness.
Thinking of all the reasons he failed in this loop. How much he could've helped if he wasn't so useless and careless. He was never someone to lament on futile things like destiny but this failure must have been shown to him as a sign of what he truly was.
He was a failure that killed his own friend.
["What are you saying, Subaru?!" Julius asked in outrage and pure rejection of the idea.
"If you don't stop me now, we can't win." Subaru gurgled in pain and gave a pain-filled smile towards his friend.
"Before that happens… " Subaru slowly stepped back as the sun began to fall.
"No, Subaru! I can't do that!" Julius shouted emotionally. "You told me, 'It can wait.' Wasn't there something you meant to say to me?!" Julius pleaded and tried to convince the boy, but Subaru only smiled at him while holding himself in pain.
"Sorry… It looks like I won't get the chance."]
Reinhard watched with a frozen expression.
The sword saint was in shock with no emotion showing as he stared at the screen… except for two tear tracks flowing down his cheeks.
He had to watch his own friend killing someone he wanted to have as one.
All because he wasn't there to help the struggling Subaru and free him from this pain.
But the one that couldn't even begin to form words…
Was a lone catboy sitting rigid in the middle of the theater.
[Subaru looked at the healer who's been silent this whole time. "Felis!"]
The healer's eyes widened.
[The healer's eyes widened.
Subaru's eyes lost their shine as he smiled pleadingly.
"Please."
The healer softly teared up and gritted his teeth.
Slowly stepping towards the boy, Felix placed his hand on the face of the person he wanted to call a friend.
"You can resent me for this, Subaru-kun." He forced his mana lock on Subaru's blood. "I'll too." Felix cried as he whispered softly.
"AAAAAHHHHHGGRRRRRRAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
As Subaru's nerves were fried and his blood turned boiling liquid from Felix's mana, Julius could only watch with an outraged expression as the paralyzed boy fell on the ground with his back against a fallen trunk, screaming in agony and bloody pain as he was burned from the inside out.]
"FERRIS!" Crusch quickly let go of the boy's hand and jumped over the row to hold the boy tightly.
The small whimpering healer struggled to breath as sobs of agony came out of his mouth in constant silence. Repeating the same cries of pain over and over as he saw himself place the man he respected most in one of the most painful torture he had created.
Crying and sobbing into his lady's chest, Felix couldn't breath as Subaru's screams filled the theater.
["Felis!" Julius shouted furiously.
"No one else can do it, can they?" Felix turned with tears falling as he glared at the knight. "This is what Subaru-kyun wants!"
"But still…"
"Do you think I did that because I wanted to? To use the power meant for Crusch-sama, the power I swore to our leader, for this?!"
As the two shouted at one another, a third voice intervened.
"Ah, it can't be, it can't be… "
Both looked back in shock, Subaru's paralyzed, slumped body now began twitching and manically shaking as he spoke in a disturbing deep tone… his eyes wide and expression completely mad.
"Just when I'd found such a perfect vessel… just when the completion of the Ordeal was at hand…"
A blade was tipped at Betelgeuse's neck as Julius glared down at what used to be Subaru Natsuki.
"It was my lack of virtue that forced this undesirable decision on you and Fleis." Julius spoke with a voice filled with pain and eyes that had no light in them.
"I'm sure I'll be punished for it one day."
Julius raised his blade in the sky as Petelgeuse struggled in Subaru's fried body.
"I will never die…" He uttered in pain as The Greatest Knight swung his sword backwards.
And then… Julius sent the sword slashing toward Subaru's neck.
The screen showed Emilia suddenly looking back at the direction of the forest. Worried.
Subaru Natsuki failed once again.
He died.
Killed by Julius-Juukulius' blade.
Darkness…
Title card:
Nefarious Sloth
Ending theme: Stay Alive.]
Otto and Garfiel looked at the screen with aghast faces and disbelieving expressions. The thought of their brother's suffering reaching such levels completely surprised and horrified both of them.
Silently, Felt held onto Reinhard tightly while Petra did the same to the shocked horrified older maid beside her.
The twins just kept their eyes closed and cried their hearts out into Ricardo's chest.
The dogman beast simply held his head low in respect for the boy and patted the heads of the twins.
Wilhelm turned his head away and closed his eyes as his fists trembled in rage at the entire unfair situation.
"I shouldn't have let him go alone." Rem repeated once again. Holding her head and crying into her knees, she whispered once again.
Beatrice held on to the boy with a stunned frozen look on her face. Unable to believe how much cruelty her contractor went through in his life since coming to this world. The very thought of his scream breaking her.
Anastasia held her scarf tightly and sniffed silently into it as her rage filled eyes spilled the tears deserved of the situation.
Ram simply stayed silent. She slowly got up from her seat with an unreadable expression and moved over towards her curled up sister.
Softly, the pink-haired maid held a soft expression of guilt and sadness as she towered over her broken guilt-ridden sister.
Ram softly knelt down and hugged Rem. Both girls shed tears for what they witnessed.
Crusch closed her eyes and softly held her knight as he broke down into soft yet still incoherent sobs. Letting a few tears of her own flow down her cheeks and Felix's hair as she reminded herself of the haunting thought of Subaru's scream. A boy that had suffered so much and gained to little. A boy she could confidently say she loved and cared for. Someone that had just been killed before her… again.
"Is this what it means to be a hero, bro?" Al whispered from within his helmet. His tears not being shown to anyone. His voice gave the same offish uncaring tone but this time… a little hardened.
"I'm lucky I'm not like you then." The helmeted man whispered as he nodded his steel covered head. His anger for what Subaru chose to be flaring off and covering him in that same murderous aura once again.
If this pain is what it means to be a damn hero, then he was lucky not to be.
His lady simply watched the screen with no emotion showing except for a single thought on her mind.
"Hmmm… He seems to have started giving his life lightly. This was just a test run." Priscilla mused softly while fanning herself. Her critical eyes burned through the screen as she was lost in thought about how quickly it was for Subaru to accept his death.
It has started. He's becoming programmed to think that his death is the only way to fix things.
The very thought disgusted the lady as she watched from the back of the theater with a regal emotionless look.
"I ain't going anywhere close to be like that, kid." Heinkel's tone was one finalized by his gradually selfish tone, making Schult frown through his silent tears from the side.
"I ain't gonna be a hero who dies like that." Heinkel glared at the ground, not allowing the boy to touch him after what they had witnessed.
She hugged him tighter. She hugged him tighter and tighter. As tight as she could.
Selfish, pitiful and abhorrent.
She hugged the sleeping boy as tight as she could.
Emilia cried and sobbed her agony into his warm chest while holding on to him as if he would be taken away from her.
Breaking promises was bad… But she didn't want this to happen to anyone. This pain. This misery.
It was all too much for the half-elf.
Unable to speak or talk, Emilia just sobbed her pain and confusion away into his chest.
She couldn't believe her knight went through so much torture and suffering on his own.
He slept every night with all of these memories.
He was alone all this time. And she was daydreaming beside him about a future that would never come.
Because he would die over and over to make it come.
It was all her fault that he had to go through this. She was the one that forced this fate upon him. Death. Pain. Torture by most of his friends.
Emilia could only hold onto him and cry her eyes out because she knew that he won't be hers once he wakes up again.
She wouldn't be able to hold him like this again.
"Hmmm.. that's disgusting." Roswaal muttered softly as he shook his head at the ability of possession Sloth used to hold the boy's soul and bury it. It had no flare at all. Unlike his.
"What a defective ability." The clown snorted in amusement.
Then…
A purple-haired youngman kept his palm over his face and silently wept his tears and cried out. Shaking in place because of his guilt and pain.
Doing nothing but sit there and hide himself as he broke for the first time since his childhood.
For the first time… Julius lost his pride as a knight and wept for the death of a friend.
Someone killed by his own blade.
The scene ended in the quiet darkened theater.
No one said anything.
Only weeping and sobbing could be heard from various factions.
[It won't be long.]
A voice sounded out, breaking the silence from all in the theater.
"He returns." Priscilla scoffed from above them all as she looks up at the ceiling.
Petra also gives the roof a questioning look, wondering what had happened to the owner of the voice after so long with nothing from him to say.
[You won't have to suffer for long.
For the next one is the last.
In this Arc.]
Not a single one of them reacted.
"If this was just one Arc…" Otto choked on his sobs as he revealed the same feeling of the entire room around him.
"What in the Od's name will we see in the next one?" He asked before sobbing uncontrollably
[Let's give you all some time to rest.]
And the screen dimmed.
The room fell to darkness.
The crowed stayed silent.
[Episode 13... Arc 3's Finale….
Season 1's End… To be continued…]