Chapter 2: Explanations

Roswaal L. Mathers did not expect that he would be grateful that he woke up early today of all days. He was a busy man with a hectic schedule that demanded he sacrifices all possible chances of good rest and relaxation.

That's why he was so grateful that his small, direly needed sleeping time was cut short by some unknown force today.

He was oh so fanatically grateful for waking up to see what had happened in the mansion on this day!

"… Snort …!"

"…"

"…"

"...Tehehehe…"

"…"

"…"

"…. Hahahahahahahahahah!"

"Glad you find this all amusing, I suppose." A grumbling voice spoke as Roswaal fell out of his desk chair and on the floor while holding his stomach as he spouted laughter unbecoming of a man of his status.

But Od, Roswaal did not care! This… This was beautiful to him. And he was ready to cherish it. By the Od, he shall cherish this!

As the clown-dressed lord continued to laugh his heart out on the floor of his study quarters, the numbered cast sitting before his large desk gave their reactions to the situation at hand.

"This is not a good way to start a Saturday. Why couldn't you guys council anyone of us before going through with such a stupid plan?!" A gray-haired, clearly hungover boy, grumbled in distaste towards the culprits to his headache and misery with a broken glare as his blurry eyes could not focus. Beside him, a ruffly dressed sharp-toothed blonde boy sat with his arms crossed and his face looking down at the ground with an unreadable expression on his scarred face.

"Garfiel…" A tall blonde woman in a maid's uniform softly gestured to the boy as he continued to glare at the floor with no intend to look back up. "You need to be strong for him, Garfiel." Frederica soothed while rubbing her little brother's back.

"Hngh…" The boy grumbled under his breath and slowly looked up towards the most disturbing sight he had to ever witness in his life.

He couldn't… Frederica sighed as Garfiel slowly lowered his head and continued to glare at the ground beneath his feet.

"You're making this out to be bigger than it is, Garf. It's just Barusu." A frigid voice spoke from the other side of the room, where a pink-haired maid with a monotone expression stood while looking over the entire room.

"It's not… It's not my Cap'n…" The blonde boy grumbled again and continued to glare at the floor.

"Whatever it is, we need to give it the attention it deserves but not too much, or else it may end up as twisted as Barus-"

"He's not an it, Infact!"

As Ram, the ever-diligent (Lazyass) maid of the Mathers estate, continued to speak about the anomaly in the room with a calm and collected manner, an outraged Beatrice shouted at her while holding a furious expression capable of melting ice.

"HE is my contractor, I suppose. You must learn to respect and care for him just as if he was his older self, maid." As the blonde twin-tailed girl spat out venomously with a protective gaze falling on the standing maid.

Ram, knowing full well that she was out of her league arguing with a great spirit, decided to back down and bow her head with an emotionless expression. "I'm deeply remorseful with what I said and accept your forgiveness, dear Beatrice-sama."

"I didn't give you such a thing yet, I suppose!"

"Ha!"

Roswaal only wheezed harder on his floor as Beatrice flailed her hands in anger and shouted at the ever-teasing Ram.

In the midst of all of this, a royal silver-haired lady was sitting down on a comfy office couch with her mind completely detached from the misfit havoc her camp members were sitting around her. No. Emilia's head was elsewhere entirely, situated on something much more important and attention-requiring.

Emilia was focused on the young boy she had sat on her lap.

"Want some more treats, Subaru?"

"I'm not a kid! Let me get my own treats, scary Emilia~!"

"Tck, tck, tck… If you don't stop your attitude, I won't give you any treats for a week."

"A-A week?! I'm sorry! I'll be good!"

"Hmmmmm, nope! You aren't a good boy, so no treats for a week."

"Noooooo!"

Non in the room paid attention to the two as if both of them were in another world by themselves.

The source of all of this commotion was non-other than the snot-nosed little 8-year-old boy sitting on top of Emilia's lap with her arms wrapped around his small form with a warm smile covering her face.

The sharp-eyed black-haired youth had been trapped in Emilia's grip ever since she noticed who the kid was.

"I never knew Subaru was so adorable when he was a child!" Emilia cooed warmly while hugging the boy tightly in her grasp.

"I'm not adorable, lady! And I want to go home! This place is filled with weird people and you're a crazy person who doesn't like sweet treats!" The sharp-eyed boy angrily growled while trying to escape and struggle out of the older girl's grip. It didn't help that Emilia was torturing him with the tray of sweetie treats set infront of him, or infront of them since she's insisting he stay placed on her lap. And even worse, she insists on feeding the boy herself. Her beautiful face was stuck on either an amused smirk or a smug smile as she terrifically enjoyed having Subaru's younger self with her. She's never done so much teasing in her life! The reactions this little boy was giving her were absolutely delicious, and Emilia was enjoying all of it!

"Would you stop crushing my contractor, I suppose?! He's not some doll!" Beatrice shouted and started pulling the boy away from the older half-elf's arms.

But to her shock, Emilia suddenly glared and hugged Subaru tighter while snarling at Beatrice with her amethyst eyes filled with chilling coldness.

"Would you stop it already?! I'm not a small kid you can just toss around! I want to go home!" The adorable youth shouted while kicking his legs to get out of Emilia's strong grip.

"Hm, maybe we could send Subaru-sama to his hometown for a few weeks until his condition is fixed?" Frederica suddenly spoke up from the side as she looked at the boy being pulled between the two girls with pity.

"What?!" Emilia gasped with her eyes wide in horror as her grip tightened on the small boy. "No! Why would we send him away to people that don't know how to treat him? He should be here with all of us, his friends!" The half-elf argued while squeezing the life out of the truly frustrated boy. As if she was a protective mother holding a little cup from dangerous beasts.

Beatrice face-palmed in frustration, "I guess there is no helping it, I suppose. You're too dumb to realize…"

"Realize what?" Emilia asked innocently as Beatrice grumbled with an unimpressed stare.

The blonde girl had her arms crossed as she stared Emilia in the eyes. "Realize that you're SMOTHERING HIM TO DEATH I SUPPOSE!"

At Beatrice's shout, Emilia quickly looked down to find the boy had been hugged so tightly his face was turning red from the pressure she placed on him, "Oh no! I'm so sorry, Subaru!"

Seeing the adorable boy give an expression of pain, the silver-haired girl quickly threw him on the ground and out of her grip.

"You threw him down, I suppose?! What kind of friend are you, infact?!" Beatrice shouted her outrage once more as she was about to jump up and give this silver-haired girl a slap or two for treating her small contractor like a doll to be thrown around.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt little Subaru! I just wanted to… " Emilia's words died in her mouth as she held her hand to her jewel with her expression displaying guilt and fear for the boy's well-being.

How could she be so cruel towards the boy? He was turned into a child with all of his memories lost… He doesn't have a clue where he is or who any of them were, much to their heartbreak.

As Emilia was thinking of how confused and lost this adorable boy must be feeling while she was only treating him like a doll to be toyed with! She was being so mean!

The remorseful silver-haired girl quickly looked down at the boy she had just thrown on the ground cruelly.

"I'm so, sooooo sorry, Little Subar-" "SPLASH!" "WHA…?!"

Roswaal carried on laughing from the bottom of his heart as he watched the daring event playing before him, Beatrice crossed her arms with a triumphant smirk aimed at the now drenched Emilia.

Otto, Garfiel, and Frederica all looked at the scene with slack jaws and wide eyes.

Garfiel was staring at the scene with stars in his eyes…

Ram was holding a notebook and recording some slight details with a forlorn expression as she gazed repeatedly between the scene in the room and her notebook.

Emilia simply stayed silent and with a bamboozled expression on her wet face as her hair and clothing were all drenched and sticky from the liquids covering her.

Before the completely astounded Emilia, stood a deadpanned looking Subaru that was holding two glasses that were filled with beverages before he decided to touch his inner artist and use Emilia as his canvass. The small black-haired boy looked like he didn't take too kindly to being Emilia's stuffed bear for the last few hours and then being thrown like discarded laundry on the ground. So he took the nearest cups of juice and water and decided to deliver a batch of cold wet revenge right in Emilia's face.

Between the deafening silence of the onlookers, minus the laughing Roswaal, Subaru and Emilia stared at one another with varied expressions of disbelief and deadpan.

"Why…?" Emilia asked weakly, her expression cold and startled.

The boy only narrowed his eyes at the older lady infront of him, "You looked red in the face so I decided to help." Subaru slowly stepped forward and met Emilia's eyes with his own as a sly smirk found its way on the young boy's face as he stared at the woman that had tormented him, now dripping with his beverage.

"Am I good now?"

Emilia's eye twitched as the boy whispered in her ear. Nothing in the world mattered as she felt cold-blooded anger rushing through her.

Knowing the laws of being a prick, the 8 year-old Subaru let his short legs do the work they'd been robbed from after being carried by Emilia for so long and ran away with speed.

Everyone slowly turned to Emilia as she remained in place with a stone-faced look on her face.

Slowly, the royal drenched lady softly placed her cookie tray on the table and stood up with her lips in a thin line.

"E-Emilia-sama?" Otto, now sober and scared to his wits as the room was suddenly covered in a thick layer of ice, the silver-haired girl was silent as she turned towards the door and began walking away, her ice freezing all in the room as her boot falls sounded throughout the silence as she stepped out of the room.

What completely scared the room's occupants, was the single sound of a crack coming from Emilia's knuckles as she rubbed them while looking out the hallway.

Emilia was pissed.

And she was looking for the black-haired boy that had dared to do this to her.

"I won't let her do this to my Cap'n!" The first to act was the previously frozen Garfiel as he quickly broke the ice and jumped out of his seat with his teeth growled in an animal-like pose.

"What are you doing?! You will get hurt if you received Emilia-sama's wrath!" Frederica shouted as her worry increased for her brother.

Garfiel only smirked and pointed at the doorway with excitement, "Cap'n's always been about guts and honor! Even when he turned to a lil' kid he's a tough guy who doesn't take shit from anyone, even the princess!" The blonde boy gushed with an amazed expression while jumping on the ice-covered ground. "I'm gonna help muh Cap'n!" Garf shouted as he jumped out of the doorway and into the iceland Emilia created as she continued looking for the culprit for her wet clothes with a vengeful expression on her face.

"G-Garf-san wait!" Otto shouted as he completely sobered up from the cruel cold and the scary glare Emilia shot Subaru before she walked out after him, he would be guilty if the young Subaru was turned into an ice statue by the overpowered angry princess, so he ran right after his blonde brother to make sure they don't make any more mistakes towards Emilia.

"I gotta go help them, Ram-san, please go find Petra-chan and see if she's alright. And we need to cover Rem-san from the ice before Emilia-sama gets to her sleeping quarters."

The pink-haired maid nodded her head to Frederica and placed her notebook down on the desk, "Barusu, will be a handful to fix since his younger years obviously contain most of his immaturity… But we shall be diligent in fixing those mistakes and raising him better so that the Barusu from the future doesn't dirty our existence once more."

Frederica sweated as Ram said those words with a determined expression while bowing her head to their lord before she quickly walked out to cover her sleeping sister's body from the incoming ice storms of fury.

Before the older maid could follow her, another being broke out of the ice, as darkness and mana flared around them making them seem menacing and angry, their twin-tails flayed around as the power around them accumulated.

"Just who do you think you are? Going around threatening Betty's contractor while he's vulnerable and lost, I suppose! Betty's been waiting to teach that brat a lesson ever since she came here, infact!"

Frederica could only stay glued to the wall as the floating spirit girl snarled and instantly shoot out of the room and into the hallway with dazzling lights floating around her.

The older maid breathed heavily while holding her heart as it tried to escape her chest by beating into it as hard as it could.

How could this happen? What brought such destruction on?

But the maid knew it wasn't anybody's fault. Beatrice had explained to all of them why Subaru ended up the way he is now this morning after Emilia called for an emergency meeting in Roswaal's office, holding a small protesting Subaru tightly in her arms.

Beatrice and Subaru wanted to find a permanent solution to his gate problem, Subaru decided to come up with one of his many ideas that spelled out how out of this world he truly was.

A spell that turned his body back to an older version of itself.

"Imagine this, I suppose. If your hand had a scar on it because of a fight you had last night, we would cast the spell on your hand so that it goes back to its older version of yesterday before you fought, therefore, no scar."

They wanted to turn Subaru's body back to an older version where he still had his complete gate, so before the time when he first used magic 1 year ago. He was ready to accept losing all of the muscle and hard-earned scars on him for a better chance at magic.

The only hiccup is that this was a costume spell so Beatrice and Subaru had no idea what they were doing… resulting in Subaru's condition of being turned into an 8 year-old once again with no other future memories staying in his head.

Beatrice had explained nothing to him because he was knocked out after being turned into a kid, she quickly left to tell Roswaal of this and get his help to turn her contractor back into his original form. But Emilia had decided to smash the wall to the room and snatch the confused child in her grip with a bright smile.

And so the group spent hours debating what they should do inside of Roswaal's office to no avail. Roswaal had given his experienced opinion and called this a 'mistake of magical acceptance.' which meant they had to accept this as an error of magical deficiency and wait out for the magic to decide whether Subaru's condition gets fixed or not.

He said it may either fizzle out and let the boy come back in full after 2 weeks or it can be permanent and they would be stuck with a child for a knight that had no bonds to them at all.

Frederica sighed.

"What a nasty situation indeed." The maid sighed once more.

Her only response was the sounds of choked-out laughter coming from the clownish man beside her.

"Hehehe… Hahahahahaha… HAAAAHEEEEHAAAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Roswaal L. Mathers, was so fucking glad he woke up today.

Will Subaru escape?

Will Emilia catch him and spank him over her knee for being a rude cunt?

Will Garfiel ever be as cool as little Baru?

Will Petra save the de-aged Subaru?

Will Rem wake up?

Who the fuck is a Rem?

Will Ram finally be the stern mom she was meant to be and help raise Subaru into an ideal young man?

Join us in chapter 3.

Hey all.

I just wanted to place a note here explaining that this story shouldn't be taken seriously since I write it only when I need a bit of a break from doing all my other projects.

Thank you all for reading!