Chapter Text
There is no contract with Beatrice.
It would be hypocritical to grieve over it when all this time he hadn’t even felt its existence. After a month in prison, when no one came for Subaru, and the toxic mana of his own gate plunged him into feverish delirium, he decided that the contract must have simply vanished along with his name. He didn’t want to wound himself further by thinking that Beako had abandoned him.
Now that it is truly gone, Subaru knows better. It’s like not appreciating your healthy teeth while you have them. Complaining that they hurt when you eat something cold—and only later, when an especially spiteful warden rips them out with pliers for your whining, crying, not even daring to touch the aching, bleeding socket with your tongue.
A torn contract feels exactly like that—a bleeding socket. The pain isn’t physical; in some ways it resembles the moments when Satella squeezes his heart, but it isn’t as sharp—more of a dull ache. Like hunger, or a migraine, or wrists after hanging in chains and then being freed. Like the corners of your mouth burning if a gag stays in too long.
Something unpleasant like that.
So there is no intrigue left in this matter. The contract, once and for all, is gone. Rejoice. Now when you say, “I’m not your contractor,” it will no longer be a filthy lie.
Beako must have…
Beako.
Where is she?
Look around slowly. Don’t panic. There’s Julius. There are the remains of the campfire. There’s your leash, fastened to the stone again; there’s the dragon carriage with its windows curtained. Earth, grass, branches and pinecones, the impenetrable forest where you sat yesterday and talked animatedly, where you collapsed before her in hysterics—but she herself is nowhere to be seen.
Look again, carefully. She couldn’t be hiding behind a bush? Curling up against you in your sleep like she sometimes did back home, before Gluttony, before Priestella? M-maybe she went to the toilet?..
[Spirits don’t go—]
I know that, damn it, I KNOW!
You shouldn’t have fallen asleep, idiot.
Stupidity. Utter idiocy—he decided to let things be and take a nap. Great, well done, ten stars! Did he think he was safe?
(What if she died?!)
Yes, Subaru. What if she died?
For heaven’s sake, you don’t even know how you ended up here. Did Julius carry your sleeping body instead of cutting off your head? How much did Beako tell him?..
You convinced her yesterday, didn’t you? She promised she wouldn’t leave. You would have felt it if she had died.
(We didn’t feel the contract either.)
That’s right, Subaru. Face the truth. You’re wasting time darting your eyes around in the hope that if you just look a little longer, Beatrice will what—jump out of a bush?
Look at your hands. Do you really need to be reminded how your hopes always turn out?
While it’s not too late, you have a perfectly ready solution to undo even the worst outcome.
Subaru climbs fully out of the sleeping bag, noting in the corner of his mind how carefully Julius had tucked him in—and cautiously, trying not to rattle the chains, feels for the knife in his boot. He glances quickly around to make sure Julius is still asleep.
It’s still too early for anyone else to wake and interfere, so… your conversation last night will probably be lost. Maybe in a new attempt you’ll do everything better and truly manage to tell Beatrice the truth. Maybe in a new attempt you’ll find a way to speak with her without running from Julius. Maybe—
“…Good morning, Subaru.”
Danger. Danger. DANGER.
Without making a sound, heart pounding in his throat, Subaru leaps out of his bag, pressing his palms to his chest when someone touches him.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Emilia whispers in apology.
She’s right in front of him, looking very guilty. Subaru is stunned that he didn’t notice her approach.
“I was waving to you from afar, but you looked so distant, so I… I’m really sorry. You don’t like being touched, do you?”
Subaru instantly regrets reacting that way. Her brief touch had been warm and gentle, like a recent dream he hadn’t wanted to wake from. Emilia’s hands would never hurt him, so maybe for a little while longer, just a tiny bit more, he could feel something soft and comforting…
“N-no, I do!” He grabs her hands—divinely warm—so she won’t think it’s about her. “I was just lost in thought, that’s not it, um—!”
He cuts himself off, realizing what he’s just done, and immediately releases Emilia’s hands as if they’ve turned from warm to scalding.
“Ahem! I mean, there’s nothing to apologize for, Emilia-tan. I just didn’t expect it.”
Emilia doesn’t look away, staring at her palms, and Subaru suddenly wants to kill himself far more than he did three minutes ago.
“So cold…”
“What?”
At his confused question, to his utter horror, Emilia takes his hands again.
“Your hands are so Icy!” she gasps. “They were like this yesterday too. Is it because you guys slept outside?”
By villainous logic, he should briskly pull free from her grasp, but Emilia’s palms feel softer and warmer with every second she holds him. Like holding a hot mug after coming in from the cold, and not wanting to let go at all.
“S-side effect of mana deficiency,” along with aching bones, occasional dizziness, and generally feeling awful—but Subaru will stoically keep silent about that, since nothing can be done anyway.
He turns his head away so he won’t have to meet her worried gaze, hoping he isn’t blushing, and idly decides to look at how Julius…
…is not sleeping.
Subaru jerks away from Emilia so sharply that the shackles bite into his wrists, making him hiss and cough in pain.
“I’m sorry for waking you like that, Julius,” Emilia bows her head apologetically.
“It’s quite all right, I’m used to rising early. Good morning, Lady Emilia.”
How politely he avoided answering “yes, you woke me.” And in any case, Subaru wasn’t going to wish him good morning either. No need…
For some reason it’s even more unpleasant to endure his gaze today than yesterday. Is it because he looks so displeased from lack of sleep?
“I’m more surprised that you’re not sleeping.”
And if you think about it, that’s an excellent question. Emilia-tan is quite the morning sluggard. Why is she here so early?
“Ehehe… To be honest, I can’t sleep at all.”
Don’t tell me she hasn’t gone to bed yet?! So that’s where those dark circles under her eyes came from! You need proper sleep for smooth skin and soft hair! Who’s keeping you awake, Emilia-tan?!
“Actually, that’s why I came… Julius, I need to borrow Subaru from you for a little while, is that okay?”
…Huh?!
Subaru feels strange about the fact that he’s being passed between people like a volleyball, but in Emilia’s case he’s almost glad to let her lead him somewhere. “Somewhere,” as agreed, must remain within Julius’s line of sight, but at a considerable distance. Because Emilia needs to discuss something with Subaru in private—and that is far more frightening. It can hardly be about anyone but Beatrice.
Subaru is on the verge of throwing everything aside and immediately asking where she is and what happened to her and panicking, panicking, panicking, but—
[She’s fine.]
No matter how he strains his brain, Subaru cannot understand what data his subconscious used to reach that conclusion. By all appearances, it’s lying just to make him feel better, but to ask directly, to search for reasons why everything might only be bad…
He can’t solve anything with panic right now anyway, so can’t he lie to himself a little longer that everything is fine? At least while Emilia smiles so encouragingly, glancing back at him now and then.
You just don’t want to die.
As if anyone does.
(I do!)
You only get good things through suffering, so grit your teeth and endure this sweet life. In it, his head aches, his soul bleeds, and he feels slightly nauseous, which makes Subaru recall with regret the previous evening, when he vomited the first food he’d had in three days.
A person can live without food for quite a while, but it’s hardly pleasant. Subaru is used to it, of course, but it’s still irritating: if he’d known yesterday that Julius would take his escape so calmly, he wouldn’t have run so enthusiastically.
(We need to commit suicide so we don’t die of hunger!)
Are you smeared with honey or what?! In any case, it’s not as if he could kill himself in Emilia’s presence!
[All that matters is the will.]
…Maybe he could use Invisible Providence and crush his own heart?
He’s never tried before. It would probably hurt far more than when Satella grabs it. The attempt to imagine what it would be like—squeezing it until it stops beating—makes Subaru shudder uncontrollably.
(Good things only come through suffering! Come on, let me try!)
Stop it.
Emilia comes to a halt. They’ve reached the very edge of the camp, where a rocky outcrop rises slightly above the clearing. Glancing back, Subaru sees Julius’s white silhouette in the distance, already practicing some forms with his sword.
Subaru would give a lot to be able to move like that too. In prison, he trained out of boredom when his condition allowed it, but with a lack of calories something like that only made him fall ill and die faster, so he had to give that up as well.
Emilia sits on the rock, and Subaru, already boiling with the desire to scold her for it, suddenly feels a sharp pang of regret for his sports jacket. Its orange accents lost beneath brownish-red stains, reeking and torn, it had been taken from him and burned before his eyes. That loss had hurt far more than fractures and cuts.
The sound of Emilia patting the stone beside her, inviting him to sit, pulls him from the sad memories.
Subaru shakes his head and, frowning, removes his cloak. It isn’t very graceful, given his bound hands.
“Stand up for a second, Emilia-tan.”
Emilia blinks a couple of times in confusion but obediently stands, and Subaru spreads the cloak where she had been sitting. He plants himself down.
Now he pats the spot beside him.
“If you sit on something cold, something will fall off,” he says gravely when Emilia only looks silently at his hand.
At first her embarrassment amuses him a little, but the longer she remains silent, the more uneasy he becomes.
You’re a cultist.
…And she’s a “witch.” Subaru can no longer excuse himself with ignorance regarding silver hair and violet eyes.
“Thank you,” she blurts, and sits down abruptly.
Without showing her likely discomfort at all. Face the truth, Subaru: what girl in the world would enjoy the attention of a fanatic?
“What did you want to talk about, Emilia-tan?” This time he tries to sound cold and indifferent.
It’s unpleasant. Even more unpleasant is how easy it is.
“Oh, right!” Emilia nods.
And Subaru certainly didn’t know what to expect from this strange date, but definitely not that she would place a warm flask in his hand.
“I froze some broth yesterday. It’s probably not as tasty anymore, but… could you please eat?”
Subaru doesn’t react at all. He only enjoys how the flask warms his fingers.
“The lesser spirits warmed it up for me, but it might have cooled down already, so we can—”
“Why did you do that?” Subaru interrupts more sharply than he intended.
He knows Emilia is kind. The kindest, gentlest girl in the world, but still!..
“Beatrice asked me to make sure you ate,” Emilia answers without batting an eye, and Subaru completely loses his grasp on reality.
[I told you. She’s fine.]
That means…
(So we don’t have to die?..)
Emilia wouldn’t speak so lightly if something had happened to Beako—so she’s fine, and there’s no need to rewind time. A weight lifts from his shoulders.
What charming self-deception.
So then…
She abandoned you.
There it is—your true nature, selfish and disgusting.
It was easier for you to think about how to kill yourself than to learn that Beako herself tore apart that crippling contract. Deep down, didn’t you like that she would rather die than live without that burden? Wasn’t it gratifying to see how she needed you? To see the shadows under Emilia’s eyes?
All of it—because they worry about you. As if you meant so much that even empty space means something.
Thinking about killing yourself while standing behind Emilia. “I want my name back!”—and so passionately lying word after word, supposedly to save yourself.
What is there to save, Subaru? You’re rotten to the core.
“Well, to be completely honest, she asked me to wake her as soon as you woke up so she could do it herself, but she was so exhausted yesterday, so… Please don’t tell her I deceived her like that, okay?”
…
“How devious of you, Emilia-tan,” Subaru tries to smirk, but it comes out rather pitiful.
“She said you were vomiting yesterday, and vomiting…”
“It wasn’t that much!”
“…And it was very, very bad,” Emilia finishes, stretching out “very” far too long.
Subaru opens the flask, but the smell of potatoes, despite his earlier regret over the lost food, does nothing for his appetite. The memory of being turned inside out while panicking for his life doesn’t help either.
“I think I don’t like soup,” Subaru swallows when nausea rises again to his throat.
“What do you like?”
What an… unexpected question, and Emilia asks it without any ulterior motive.
“Mayonnaise,” Subaru answers instantly, and immediately feels foolish.
What mayonnaise on the road, idiot?
…
What did it taste like?
…
Fatty. Slightly sour.
Yeah. It would be nice to try some.
His eyes begin to sting.
“I’m sorry, Subaru, but you can’t have that yet.”
…He can’t have anything good. He might as well accept that.
“Your stomach is weak right now, so you need to eat soup,” Emilia explains in a lecturing tone, as if to a small child.
It’s still silly, but somehow pleasant.
“If you eat properly, later you’ll be allowed mayonnaise.”
…Really?
Yes, idiot. That’s how fasting works. If you eat something heavy now, you’ll just throw up again.
…So mayonnaise later.
Yes, yes. Lots of mayonnaise. A whole bathtub.
…When he still had a name, Rem once made him a mayonnaise bath…
Could someone summon Invisible Providence and strangle us? I’m sick of this.
(I can!)
Shut up, I was joking. And stop whining already—drink the damn soup.
No matter how he feels, he has no choice if he wants to keep living for this whole self-hatred party.
Not that he has a choice about not continuing to live. Not that he has a choice about anything.
The soup tastes the same—salty and potato-like, a little thicker than yesterday. With two successive gulps, cozy warmth spreads down his throat and into his stomach, this time not even provoking a cough.
It’s too much. Subaru pulls away from the flask with unexpected reluctance, licking his lips.
It’s tasty. Better save it for later in case he throws up again soon.
“Is it good?” Emilia asks shyly.
As if she’d cooked it herself! Subaru would have been flattered, of course, but the taste would certainly have suffered!
“It’s fine,” he mutters and turns away so he won’t see the wonderful sparkles in her eyes.
So he won’t wistfully remember how enthusiastically she used to offer him her cooking attempts, often burnt and oversalted.
“Ram is very good at it,” Emilia continues more enthusiastically despite his unfriendly tone. “She said you helped her.”
“She said that exactly?” Forgive his disbelief, but it’s hard to imagine Ram speaking well of him.
Emilia falls silent for a moment. Subaru, taking a deep breath, looks at her again and sees her thoughtfully tapping a finger against her chin.
“Mmm… Well, she said you ‘loitered around and sniffed at things’…”
“That’s a completely different meaning!”
“And tried to worm your way into her trust…”
“Kh—!”
His startled exclamation turns into a full cough, and he bends over, turning away and covering himself with his elbow so he won’t spread his germs and all that disgusting stuff near Emilia.
The spasms shaking his body are so strong that only as the coughing subsides does Subaru realize that Emilia’s hand is stroking between his shoulder blades. The chill of her healing magic, usually pleasant, now feels like frosty cold, draining from him all the warmth he had just felt—but gradually it becomes better.
“Your lungs feel strange,” Emilia says with concern in her voice, still stroking his back even without magic. “I can’t heal this.”
“Kh… I’ll survive,” Subaru mutters, spitting a disgusting lump of phlegm onto the ground, and washes it down with another gulp of soup. The delicious warmth eases things a little.
Aside from a few brief colds, Subaru has never truly been ill in this world. It seemed impossible, considering that prison healers often patched him up after certain interrogations, but for full treatment of infectious diseases, apparently their skills were insufficient.
The first few times, it was frightening to die like that, in feverish delirium. There’s no point in rewinding time after you’re already sick, so what can you do except fade away inevitably?
Later, it turned out that if you just irritated your wardens more, you’d end up in the infirmary more often. Maybe they wouldn’t cure you completely, but they’d feed you properly and heal what they could. Subaru also sought the healers in the hope of contacting Ferris through them, but no matter how many times he was there, it never worked: the Blue, as Subaru had gathered from stray rumors, had completely stopped appearing in public, caring for his lady.
Another reason Subaru deserves all this. If he’d killed himself in Priestella, maybe Crusch wouldn’t have been cursed.
“You went through a lot, didn’t you?”
Under Emilia’s hands, gradually, even his heart stops pounding so wildly. Funny—Subaru hadn’t even noticed how furiously it had been beating.
“Yeah.”
He didn’t mean to, but the quiet affirmation slips from his lips before he can think it through.
He would probably like to complain to her. About how bad and painful it was, lonely and cold, unbearably hard and endlessly terrifying. Emilia would listen.
And her hands are warm and her voice gentle, and strangely, the painful memories that only yesterday could have buried him beneath layers of panic no longer surface, as if they happened infinitely long ago and will never repeat, remaining in his mind no more than a scar. A melancholy where once there was sincere terror.
Or maybe he already cried it all out yesterday on Beako’s shoulder. He had gone to comfort her—what a useless contractor.
Beatrice will have something to scold him for when he becomes one again.
“Huh?!”
He doesn’t manage, like some hero in a cool anime, to resolutely gaze at his clenched fist against the reddening horizon. Because Emilia suddenly tugs him by the elbow and drops him onto her lap with an effortless motion. No, really, he probably needs to eat more, because this is just too embarrassing!..
“Emilia-tan,” Subaru swallows, looking up at her shyly smiling face, “what are you doing?”
“I heard that when someone feels bad, they should lie on someone’s lap to regain their strength!”
Subaru can only blink in shock.
“And where did you hear that?!”
“Oh, that was…”
Emilia suddenly trails off, thinking. Her cute smile slowly slips from her face, and Subaru immediately feels guilty for awakening some sad thought with his question.
“…You know, I can’t remember where I know that from at all.”
Subaru squeezes his eyes shut.
Cultists don’t cry.
“Maybe that was Lost One too?..”
…Lost One?
“W-who?” Subaru abruptly stops feeling sad and opens his eyes wide when she says that word.
“Lost One,” Emilia repeats enthusiastically. “It’s someone from our camp whom we lost to Gluttony.”
Subaru’s heart skips a beat.
“Actually, I called you because I wanted to say thank you,” Emilia adds, and her smile, though fragile, returns.
“Thank you?” Subaru repeats blankly, still trying to process her previous words. “For what?”
“For talking to Beatrice.”
Subaru completely stops understanding anything at all. He just cried uselessly, didn’t he?!..
“I don’t know what you said to her, but I haven’t seen her that lively in a long time,” Emilia’s smile becomes clearer as the sun rises and golden rays touch her face. “And she… offered me a contract. Herself! I still can’t believe it.”
A contract with Emilia?..
The bleeding socket reminds him of itself with a sudden stab of pain, but only for a moment.
If it’s with Emilia, then…
“Treat her well.”
She’ll make sure Beako is healthy and happy. To her—and only to her—Subaru could entrust Beatrice with an unclouded heart.
Emilia suddenly giggles.
“You know, she told me the same thing about you.”
Huh, what?
Subaru feels like a complete idiot, asking yet another question, but Emilia keeps saying more and more unbelievable things, so can he really be blamed!
“She was unwell for a very long time. She said she would rather die than break her contract,” Emilia isn’t embarrassed by his questions in the slightest. “She was dying from lack of mana, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
She falls silent for a moment. Subaru is sure it’s hard for her to talk about it.
Aren’t you glad? To hear how miserable they were without such important you?
…But that sorrow only proves how strong their bond is, doesn’t it?
So how can he not be glad that what they built could not be destroyed even by that disgusting Authority?
“You gave her a reason to keep fighting,” Emilia says, looking straight into his eyes—so beautiful in their burning determination. “And for that, I thank you.”
Subaru can’t find anything to answer, captivated by those violet lakes, by the warmth of her lap beneath his head, and the bubbling feeling in his heart.
“And she li-i-iked you very much,” Emilia adds happily, squeezing her eyes shut.
“That can’t be true!” That, at least, sounds so unbelievable that Subaru jumps up from the life-giving pillow before his brain completely melts.
“She feels very guilty about threatening you,” Emilia continues relentlessly. “So… I know this is a bold request, but please, could you give her another chance?”
Subaru wants to shout that it’s impossible for Beatrice to need any chances from him, but Emilia looks at him with such sincere pleading that he can’t force himself to say anything other than:
“Well… okay?”
“Ah, thank you!” Emilia beams so brightly that Subaru regrets his answer, at real risk of having a heart attack.
No. That was just a small cardiac flutter. The real infarction approaches when Emilia, folding her hands, immediately asks:
“A… Could I make one more request?”
Subaru squeezes his eyes shut, grabbing his hair and hopelessly threading his fingers through it.
“Mmm… I… I’ll think about it?”
You’re an evil cultist. A cultist. Evil!
Arch-evil Archbishop!
“Could you tell me about the Lost One too?”
Subaru freezes.
“I mean, I’m not asking for his name, but… what is he like? If it won’t make you feel bad, of course! I just can’t imagine why he joined me. D-did we get along? For some reason I feel like we did. How could that happen, when I’m like this…”
Subaru clears his throat.
“Oh, sorry! I meant, please tell me whatever you can.”
He stays silent for a while, thinking about what he would like to tell her. What he would like her to remember after her memories return. Something good, so she won’t think badly of him…
“He’s crazy about you.”
Emilia blinks.
“…What?”
A small smile appears on Subaru’s face without him noticing.
“He’s madly in love with you,” the words, for once, come to his tongue by themselves—without the urge to cry, without strain, coughs, or hoarseness—clear and light. “He would kiss the ground you walk on. He thinks you’re the most incredible girl in the world. He dreams of marrying you.”
“Th-that can’t be true!” Emilia jumps up from the rock, her blush blazing. “How could anyone love a half-elf?!”
Subaru’s smile widens.
“You two kissed.”
Her ears and face glow charming pink against her silver hair. She very much wants to say something, perhaps even accuse Subaru of lying, but finds no words and only covers her face with her hands.
“Mmm, he wouldn’t be happy that you let strange guys lie on your lap. He’d want you to sleep more and not sit on cold stones,” he lists mercilessly, crossing one leg over the other while Emilia slides down into a crouch. “And not throw peppers out of your plate.”
At the last item, Emilia manages a muffled protest:
“But they’re so nasty…”
Yeah. Subaru will probably have to eat them too before he’s allowed mayonnaise.
It will probably happen soon.