What even is life anymore? What was it to begin with? Someone will tell you that it's the opposite of dying. And that you only live once. But when death is a regular day for you, can you even call that living?
Having memories forced into your brain is.. Rather painful. Not as bad as being stabbed, mind you. But it has been the source of quite a migraine.
Being left in a cave for hours, whilst your only companion slowly crawls towards you after having their limbs twisted to the point of snapping any bones, or muscle, or whatever lies inside. He was a knight, not an anatomist.
Being forced to live through another person's exact thoughts though… that was confusing. A new experience, sure. But no he wasn't quite sure which part of him was Reinhard and which part was Subaru.
And he wasn't quite sure which part of him, was the real him. At first he thought he was definitely Reinhard. But now he's not quite sure. When he looks at Julius, he has the urge to punch him square in the face.
But that isn't something Reinhard would do, and that is what confuses him. Another thing about switching bodies is that everything is very different. For example, he zoned out a lot more in Subaru's body.
He only really snapped out of his daze when something heavy hit the floor in front of him.
His eyes shot towards it, seeing a now-headless white cloak. His mouth hung open, and he felt the urge to throw up.
What is this what is this what is th-.. Where's Rem-I need Rem-I need Rem-Rem-Rem-REM
Subaru grinned as he held a white coak by his neck with ease. Lifting him into the air, he aimed him down the corridor. "Now's let us see just how strong these arms are!"
He jerked his arm and shoulder backwards, then quickly pushed them forward, letting go of the white cloak at the end of his swing.
It resulted in the poor man being sent through the endless hallway at Mach 5. So fast that Subaru was almost certain his clothes were this close to catching fire. He could smell smoke.
Subaru grinned, being in the Sword Saint's body was one of the coolest experiences of his life. He couldn't help but feel sorry for Reinhard though, being trapped in his body must kinda suck.
They'd switch back soon enough, though, so it was fine. Speaking of Reinhard, he appeared to be completely out of it. Oops. That was definitely Subaru's fault.
Not much I can do about it now. Subaru punched another white cloak and resisted the urge to cackle maniacally.
"Subaru!" shouted a voice, and Subaru turned to see Julius. Woah, why's his mouth all bloody?
"Hey, Julius!" Subaru shouted back, punching yet another white cloak in the face and then doing a backflip just because he could. Then he struck a pose and shot finger guns in Julius' general direction.
"Focus," Julius snapped. They had good timing, and it was clear that they were going to win the fight now that Subaru in Reinhard's body, Felis in Julius' body, and Wilhelm showed up. Still, we need to deal with whatever's going on with Reinhard as soon as possible.
One of the cultists was moving faster than the others, so Subaru followed Julius' instructions and focused on that one. Man, I wouldn't be able to see this guy if I weren't in Reinhard's body! Luckily Subaru was in Reinhard's body, so with one well-placed kick he punted the guy through the wall.
Then he turned and looked for his next target.
There…were none. Huh.
Subaru had torn though quite a few, and Wilhelm and Felis had dealt with the rest. Wilhelm was holding one at swordpoint and appeared to be interrogating him.
Subaru turned to look at Reinhard, who was trembling on the floor. I should probably go check on him first.
Julius stopped Subaru before he could kneel down to talk to Reinhard. "What happened to him?" Julius asked, terse.
Subaru shifted awkwardly. "Body swap stuff?" he tried.
"Felis and I haven't experienced anything of the sort," Julius said, severe.
Subaru chuckled nervously. "Don't worry about it." He looks down at his hands, covered in blood. His grin suddenly fell from his face as if what he did only just caught up to him.
Rein-baru shivered, the blood from around him seemed to trigger some PTSD that he wasn't entirely sure he had.
Subaru sighed, after having used his Divine Protection of Empathy, he realised his best course of action would be to use the Divine Protection of Getting The Hell Out Here
Sadly, such a divine protection didn't exist. And considering they had to make a 50 foot hole in the ground just to get inside, Subaru doubted they could take the same route.
Of course, Subaru could just jump up, due to him having the Divine Protection of Super Jumps, but the others didn't. And he'd rather everyone stay together than leave one person to fend for themselves on two occasions.
He sighed, and scrolled through his extensive list of Divine Protections, looking for one to help him out.
Meanwhile, the other four had regrouped. Wilhelm knelt down in front of Reinhard, a pool of vomit surrounding him like a moat.
He put his hand on his shoulder, trying to get Reinhard to look at him. It worked, as Reinhard's eyes snapped towards him. He could see the fear in his eyes as he stared into them.
—Is he afraid of me? Wilhelm withdrew his hand. "Reinhard?" he tried.
Felis cleared his throat. "Perhaps someone else should do this," he said pointedly. Reinhard didn't react to his voice.
Because you have no right to comfort him. Wilhelm stood up and backed away. His heart panged at the sight of Reinhard, curled up and helpless. He wanted to reach out and help him.
It occurred to him suddenly that he might only be feeling this was because Reinhard was in Subaru's body—because he was conflating the two, and so could be sympathetic.
Wilhelm reeled. Am I really that unable to be sympathetic to my own grandchild? He raised one hand to his forehead. "I'm going to check the hideout further," Wilhelm announced.
Felis cast him a distracted glance. "Stay safe," he said. He turned back to Reinhard. "Subaru," he said, still facing Reinhard, "what happened?"
"Why are you assuming this is my fault?" Subaru still minced over Reinhard. Ew, that's basically my vomit. Oh wait, I'm used to seeing my own vomit.
"We're not having these problems," Felis pointed out.
Subaru frowned at him and resisted his normal urge to banter at Julius' face. "Fine," he said. "Move over."
He crouched down in front of Reinhard. "Reinhard," he said.
"Reinhard?" Reinhard repeated.
"Oh, I didn't think this whole having the other person's face thing through," Subaru realised.
Felis hissed and it sounded unnatural with Julius' voice. "Move over," he commanded tersely, shoving at Subaru's arm. Subaru made use of his Divine Protection of Not Getting Weird Stuff on his clothes this time and just walked through the vomit.
"Reinhard, look at me," Felis commanded. "Who are you?"
"I'm Reinhard," Reinhard said slowly. He blinked. Things were slowly coming back into focus. The pungent smell of vomit was stabbing into his nose, into his mind. "Why do you keep asking me this?"
"What do you remember?" Felis asked. His hair fell in his face and he moved it out of the way agitatedly.
Reinhard blinked again. "Ah," he said, his gaze falling on Subaru. The dissolution of his identity was lapping at his consciousness again, great waves of confusion and fuzz and disorientation and fear, rocking him back and forth.
Felis leaned back. Reinhard had started to drift away again. We need to switch our bodies back.
Julius cleared his throat. "I know it may be presumptuous of me to ask this," he started, "but have you discovered a way to switch our bodies back?"
Felix's face lit up, a grin meeting his eyes shone through any despair that may reside in their minds. "Yes, I have, in fact!"
Subaru smiled, sighing in relief. "Oh thank god." Although he was slightly disappointed at not being able to stay in Reinhard's body just a few seconds more, he did miss his old body. A lot less muscle to carry, a lot easier to move.
"Well, what is this way?" Julius asked, raising a brow.
Felix cleared his throat and stood straight, as if giving a speech to the masses. "Well. Since Subaru made it clear to me that memories are a reaction of electrical currents in brain cells, they are in fact an entity. Which means! Drum roll please," He started patting his legs to create clapping noises, using the Subaruism that he had been taught.
"Yang magic is perfectly capable of duplicating memories, and then just deleting the original ones. Meaning we didn't actually swap or anything, it's just that our memories and consciousness think we did!"
Julius and Subaru went deadly quiet, the latter's smile dropping. A long and awkward pursued it.
"Well… I'm having an existential crisis." Subaru scratched his chin.
Julius ignored him and spoke up. "So, we need to swap our memories.. What, again?"
Felix nodded, rubbing the stubble that started to grow on his face. "I'm sure a certain very talented Yin magician could find some way to reverse a Yang spell. Because I don't really know any Yang spirits."
Subaru nodded. "I guess Beako would be the best one to ask."
Julius stared at the two as if they just rolled in from Stupidtown. "Felix. You do realise, you're currently contracted with my spirits, right?"
"Yeah, what of it?" He was sure that if he was in cat form, his tail would stand tall whilst his ears fold over.
"What exactly are my spirit's affinities, Felix?" Julius rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Uhh. Fire, Earth, Wind, Water, Yin and Ya-... Oh!" Felix grinned.
Subaru chuckled, rolling his eyes. "That is true, but I do fear that the spirit may be too weak for it." He bit his lip.
Julius nodded in agreement. "I guess we should see Great Spirit Beatrice, she may be able boost his power, or something of the sorts."
Subaru nodded, glancing sideways at Reinhard, who was still laying against the wall. He pointed his finger upwards. "TO THE LIBRARY!"
And using the Divine Protection of Time Skips, the crew got out the lair, Wilhelm and Reinhard in tow, and entered the library.
"Betty hasn't yet discovered the solution to your problem, I suppose," Beatrice announced, not looking up from her book.
"No worries, Beako!" Subaru bounded over to her, grinning. "We've got you a roadmap, and you just need to follow it!"
Beatrice looked up, accurately directing Subaru's metaphor. "You've already found a solution, in fact?" Her relief was clear, as much as she tried to hide it. "That was quick, I suppose."
"Time crunches'll do that to ya," Subaru dismissed. "I'll let Felis explain."
Felis nodded and Subaru stealthily activated the Divine Protection of Skipping Over the Exposition.
"—so all you need to do is copy our current memories, then delete them from our non-original and insert them into our original bodies," Felis concluded.
Beatrice nodded slowly. She was fairly certain she understood that. She resisted the urge to request a diagram and instead raised her hand. "Anything you want to do before I swap you back, I suppose?"
The group—with the exception of Reinhard, who was staring confusedly at Beatrice, and Wilhelm, who was staring confusedly at Reinhard—exchanged glances and then shook their heads.
Beatrice nodded. "Right," she said, and then everything went dark.
Reinhard opened his eyes.
There was a smoothness over his emotions, now, and a distance to his thoughts—a familiar kind. It felt just a little off, but still it was an improvement. He was Reinhard, now, and there was no confusion there.
"Reinhard," said a familiar voice, and he sat up.
"Hello, Subaru," Reinhard greeted. He looked around the library. Julius and Felis were standing and talking quietly in the corner, and Wilhelm was hovering by the door.
"Our switchback took a bit longer," Subaru said, following Reinhard's gaze. He cleared his throat. "For, you know, reasons."
"Betty doesn't know," Beatrice grumbled from her spot by Subaru's knee. She was holding his hand and looking at Reinhard speculatively.
"Reasons," Reinhard echoed. Those foreign memories edged their way back into his mind, shifting his thought process oh-so-slightly sidewise. Subaru's memories. They didn't make sense, yet Reinhard knew without a doubt that they were Subaru's memories.
What had Subaru said right before Reinhard was taken?
"Subaru," Reinhard said purposefully, "I believe there is something we must discuss."
Subaru nodded. He stood up and squeezed Beatrice's hand. "Yeah."
"What exactly is this Retur-" Reinhard started to speak, but time froze. A familiar sensation - or lack thereof- overcame him.
A black hand with purple outlines appeared from a crack in spacetime, snaking itself towards his heart. He knew this situation all too well, and he braced himself for an overwhelming pain.
Yet it never came. Although he couldn't close his eyes, he did the equivalent of opening his eyes - time being frozen and all - to test the waters.
It was then that he had noticed he wasn't in the same spot, the hand was a few feet in front of him and had stopped in the air. Looking around by just moving his eyes, he discerned that he had in fact moved a short distance backwards.
DId my Divine Protections activate? Did I just dodge without intending to?
The hand in front of him balled into a fist, as if crushing something. It occurred to him that the hand had no form of vision or quite possibly sensation. Maybe it just knows the location when it appears, but has no way of navigating afterwards?
The hand retracted back into the white glowing crack that appeared beforehand, when time first froze. Once gone, the crack disappeared and time resumed.
A massive crack of wind split the eardrums of everyone in the room, moving at an unmeasurable speed can do that. The disturbance of the air was so strong that the doors of the library were knocked off its hinges.
The friction of his movements created heat, a lot of it too. In fact, it was so hot, that in Reinhard's perception of time -witnessing speed at one millionth of a second - it only looked like a lightstone turning on.
It quickly developed into something worse, far worse. When an element gets simply too hot, it turns into plasma. Such plasma reacts negatively with the atmosphere and explodes.
Subaru, Julius, Beatrice, WIlhelm and Felix didn't even perceive it, as it happened far too fast for the human brain to fathom. But the capital of Lugunica, and its surrounding twelve miles, was completely wiped off the map.
And that was why Subaru jumped forward as soon as he felt himself again. He'd looped, that much was sure, the moment Reinhard had opened his mouth Subaru knew that the timeline was doomed.
Time appeared to be right before Reinhard said those fateful words, he's been getting really lucky with these save points isn't he? Maybe Satella has been watching, and wanted them to swap back as soon as he could.
Reinhard was speechless, what exactly did he just witness? A white light had consumed the entire room within the matter of microseconds. What caused that hand to appear?
He reflected on the last time he had said it, the hand appearing. He was in Subaru's body, right after saying… Ohhhh, right.
"Whatever you do, do NOT say the words Return by Death!"
Reinhard looked down at Subaru, who's eyes seemed to plead him to stay quiet. Reinhard nodded, taking Subaru's hand off his mouth. "I apologise, I had forgotten about that."
Subaru's eyes widened, but then he sighed in relief. "So you do remember, that's a good thing."
Everyone else in the room looked at the duo in bewilderment, but Beatrice felt a fraction of her contractor's emotions due to their contract. She didn't know what was happening, but she felt happy and relieved.
"I do believe we should discuss this somewhere private, Subaru." Reinhard suggests, placing his hand on his hips.
Subaru lets his arms fall to his sides, nodding silently. "I do believe that would be best." He said, mocking Reinhard's posh and noble accent.
"Well, that was in fact a peculiar adventure." Wilhelm spoke up. "Julius, do try to take care of Felix's body."
Julius chuckled, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "Yes, I suppose that would be best."
"Hopefully this won't happen again. It was weird, having our Souls Swapped." Felix sighed tiredly.
"Yeah, honestly it sounds like something out of a book." Subaru reasoned, scratching his chin.
Beatrice sighed, looking towards you, the reader. "How hopeless these people are, I suppose. Please leave kudos and a comment below, Turacoverdin and LittleRunningDemon worked hard on this, in fact."
Reinhard looked at her. "What did you just say, Lady Beatrice?"
"Nothing, I suppose."