Chapter 8:

Subaru's eyes shot open. Phantom pain coursed through his body for a moment. He gasped for air, sweat dripping down his face. Tears welled up in his eyes. He sat up and leaned against the wall, hugging himself.

Terror and disgust still coursed through his body from death, but the betrayal hurt the most. "Why… Youra?"

Why? He had helped Subaru so much against Hans, only to send someone to kill him now?

Subaru's heart was also pained with the fact that Clement had died. If only Subaru knew sooner that the archer was also there, then he wouldn't have had to suffer.

Subaru stared down at one of his hands. He suddenly swung it to the side and hit the wall with a bang.

"Fuck, Youra…"

Subaru pushed the betrayal in his heart down, once again just bottling it up, and replaced it with determination.

He calmed his racing heart and began planning again. He didn't know if it was possible to talk Youra out of this or not. Besides, he didn't know where Youra lived. He concluded that he couldn't try to stop Youra, at least not right now in this loop. He would have to fight his way out of this. If that was the case, then he should temporarily contract with Ceres right away, come back home and get Clement to bring him to Amai, and pay for lessons again. Then he would have to get to training combat spells right away. It had taken them way too long to cast spells during the fight against Zei last time.

Subaru nodded and stood up. He quickly got changed into his normal clothes and left his room. He walked past the living room, swallowing down his guilt and pain when his eyes landed on Clement, reading a book. Subaru sucked in some air and said, "I'm going to take a walk quickly. See you later."

"Ah, okay. Be back before we have to work." Clement waved goodbye as Subaru wordlessly left the house. When he was outside, Subaru broke into a run and ran back to the park where he had met Ceres these past loops.

He ignored the mixture of pain within himself and focused on running.

After a few minutes of running, he made it to the park. he slowed down and walked towards where Ceres usually hung out. His eyes scanned the area for the minor spirit.

He sighed after a little while of searching. These last two times she had approached him, so Subaru didn't exactly know where to find her.

A moment later someone called out, "Oh, hey!"

Subaru stopped looking and turned his head towards the voice.

A man wearing a dark robe with dark purple hair walked up to him. His blue eyes were friendly. He continued talking, "I doubt you remember me, but I'm the mage that healed you and those with you about a month ago. It was after you guys fought Hans."

"A-ah. Mhm." Subaru gave a quick bow. "Thank you."

The man nodded, "It was nothing. I'm glad to see you're alright."

Subaru slowly nodded. "Yeah. Uhm, hey, what's your name?"

"Lain."

"Lain. Do you know where… Youra lives? He was the swordsman who was with us during that fight."

Lain nodded. "Yeah. I went to his place a few times to check up on Selena and make sure her wounds were still fine."

Subaru swallowed hard. "Could you show me where it is?"

Lain nodded. "I'd be happy to." He smiled. "Follow me."

The man began walking with Subaru close behind. Lain was cheerfully talking most of the way.

Anxiety was building up within Subaru as they walked. He clenched his hands into fists and readied himself.

He tried to think over what he would say to Youra as they walked, nodding occasionally and saying "Uh-huh." to seem interested in what Lain was saying.

The two walked for a while, passing through loud marketplaces and quiet residential areas.

After maybe ten minutes they had roughly walked across most of the city. They were in a sort of slums, with shoddy buildings lining the streets, which were mainly made of dirt, which had a decent amount of snow and slush covering it, and some stone sections.

Lain said, "It's just around here." Subaru took a deep breath and nodded, his eyes scanning their surroundings. He was worried about Zei seeing him and going in for the kill.

Subaru went to grab the temporary contract between Ceres and him to tell her to gather mana together but froze for a moment when nothing was there. He sighed and shook his head, telling himself that he'd go and contract with her after this.

It was then that he heard quiet footsteps quickly approaching him from behind. Subaru's heart rate climbed as he turned his head and glanced at whoever it was.

A woman with long black hair and purple eyes was running towards him, a hate-filled expression on her face and a hunting knife clenched in her hands. A bow was strapped onto her back with a quiver of arrows next to it.

Time seemed to slow for Subaru. His mind raced as he processed everything. She was probably a second away from stabbing him, far too short of a time for Subaru to get away uninjured. Terror filled him, freezing him in place. He braced himself for the upcoming pain.

It came shortly after. The woman lunged forward and stabbed the knife into his back. Pain exploded from the stab as a scream escaped Subaru's lips. He tried to get away from her but stumbled over his feet and fell down, hitting the hard ground with a thud as his head smashed against it. He writhed in pain, his vision going blurry. He heard sounds of a fight nearby. Clashes and clangs. Subaru clenched his jaw, his teeth biting through his lips.

He reached out an arm and began dragging himself across the hard ground. His head was pounding and it was hard to think. He made it to a nearby wall and managed to flip over so he was lying on his back. He carefully moved into a sitting position against the wall. Blood was soaking into the back of his tracksuit and a trail of blood showed where he had crawled. A groan escaped his lips.

Meanwhile, Lain and the woman had begun fighting. Lain was using various water spells, and the woman had taken out her bow. She seemed to be trying to make the distance between herself and Lain so she could have time to get a shot off.

Lain, who was keeping the distance between himself and the woman equal even as she backed away, said, "El Huma." Forming many sharp spears of ice and shooting them at the woman. A moment later he said, "Ul Huma," Several large pillars of ice sprouted out of the ground behind the woman, trapping her between the newly formed wall and the spears.

She quickly realized her situation and darted off to the side, towards a building. She jumped onto a window frame and climbed up the wall easily, using any bumps or other blemishes as holds.

Lain ran over to Subaru as she climbed up the wall, shooting a few spears over towards the woman. He made a wall of ice around the Subaru and him with Ul Huma again. He knelt down next to Subaru and asked, "I'll heal you, please show me your wound."

Subaru slowly nodded, still feeling sluggish from when his head hit the ground. He lifted up his shirt and twisted his body to show his back to Lain. Shortly after a blue glow came from Lain's hands as he began healing Subaru. The pain was washed away as Subaru sighed, the fogginess in his head clearing up as the pain left.

Subaru took another breath and said, "Thank you…"

Now that the pain had left Subaru realized that Lain's carefree and cheerful attitude from earlier was completely gone, replaced with pure seriousness.

Lain nodded. "You're welcome."

Lain looked at the pillars of ice around them that formed a wall, "Do you know that woman?"

Subaru sighed, "I… think she was an archer that was shooting at Hans during that fight a month ago… I don't know why she'd attack me, though."

With this Subaru had been able to confirm that the person who killed Clement last loop was definitely the same archer.

Subaru slowly stood up.

"She's probably still nearby, watching our exits."

There were three ways out of the wall of ice Lain had formed. There were two openings between the ice and the building behind them on either side of the two. There was also a window that they could break on the wall behind them and get away through the building they were pinned against.

Lain nodded, "Yeah."

Subaru glanced at Lain, who was staring out of one of the gaps between the ice pillars.

Lain took a breath, "Well, I'm going to go back out there, stay put here while I fight."

"Eh? No, let's just run away. She's pretty strong, it's probably safer to just leave."

"I can't just leave and let her get away. She might hurt more people."

The surrounding air got colder as Lain gathered mana from the atmosphere. He said, "Youra's house is just down this street, turn left when as soon as you can, it's a small single-story house."

Subaru stayed quiet. He could tell that Lain probably wouldn't listen to reason. "A-Alright…" Lain placed his hand on the window, frost quickly covered it. A moment later it shattered, leaving no glass leftover in the frame. Lain took a look at Subaru and said, "Goodbye, Subaru." Before running out through one of the gaps and into the street.

Subaru took a deep breath and lifted himself into the window frame. He squeezed through it and slunk through the luckily empty house, trying to ignore Lain's incantations behind him.

He reached the front door and opened it. Subaru quickly glanced around the empty street before heading down it, in the same direction Lain had pointed him in. He reached the first left turn and took it, ending up on another street. He ran down it, stopping before a small one-story house surrounded by two-story houses.

He took a deep breath and walked up to the door.

A pulse of betrayal bubbled up in his heart as he thought of seeing Youra again.

He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

His heart raced as he waited for a response.

Subaru froze as the handle turned.

A yellow-haired man opened the door.