"Sigh. When have you ever been a normal lady?" Subaru said, casually addressing the assassin that had suddenly appeared before him.

This reaction caused Elsa to pause for a moment. She looked deep into his hazel eyes, past the madness that she mistook for the depression that usually filled them. "He's different," she thought, a wide smile coming to her face.

"Maybe I could show you how much of a lady I am~" she said, her gaze hungry and intense. But this didn't bother him whatsoever.

"Nope. I prefer my entrails right where they are thank you very much. I already have broken ribs, I don't also need torn muscles," he replied, beginning to grow annoyed at her unspoken antics. However, his apathy only made her want him more... and he noticed.

"Oh, but you're so much more of a man than when I last saw you," she said, approaching him with a blush on her face.

"You make me want to feel your warmth right here and now," she whispered, close enough for him to feel her breath on his skin.

And then, without even a second's hesitation, he casually flicked the infamous and incredibly deadly assassin that could kill him in a second's forehead.

"Stop that Elsa. I only have eyes for one. I find you repulsive. You should know that," he said, leveling a stern glare her way.

He brought his arm back to his side and asked, "And what do you mean by 'more of a man'?"

"You were always cowering in fear of me. Even after two years of partnership, I could smell your fear despite how much you concealed it. But now…"

She licked her lips and continued, saying, "You're not even a little afraid. I want to see how that confidence reflects in your bowels."

The answer was about what Subaru expected so he remained unfazed, continuing the morbid conversation as casually as a discussion about the weather, "Alright, alright. One day, if I'm in the mood, I might let you disembowel me. So give me your damn report already."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, employer-san~" she thought before replying, "Again, Gluttony was not at the location you indicated. However… I did set free all the cultists that were there."

At this information, Subaru closed his eyes and brought a hand to his chin, pretending to stroke an evil goatee, and thought to himself, "Are you an idiot Natsuki Subaru? Obviously someone's intentionally giving you hints at locations where they left a bunch of fodder cultists to keep you distracted. If I had to guess, I'd say it's either Bete or Capella."

Still thinking and without meeting her eyes, Subaru asked, "Elsa, how many of the archbishops have I killed?"

She looked slightly confused by the question but answered anyway, "You killed Sloth two years ago around when you slew both the White Whale and the Great Rabbit."

"Two years ago, huh? So we're one year ahead in this timeline, assuming that the other me killed Bete around the same time I did to save Emilia. It does line up with that Whale appearance... Although, I can't begin to fathom why he'd kill two of the three Great Mabeasts. Without the Whale, Karsten would stay in the race and Blue would remain her knight."

"Any others?" he asked, prompting her to continue her list, "And about a year ago, the Witch Cult raided Priestella. You lead the defense of the city, killing Greed and capturing Wrath. Lust managed to escape."

Subaru sighed to himself at this news, filled with a mix of relief and annoyance, opening his eyes and staring at the floor as he thought, "Well it's good news that I don't need to convince all of Regulus's wives again. And it's great to hear that I can easily take care of Sirius as well. But Capella and the Gluttonies are going to be annoying to deal with. Really, other me, you gotta pick up the slack."

"I guess I'll take what I can get," he muttered to himself before raising his voice and gaze alike while addressing the assassin again, "Elsa, did any of the defeated archbishops' gospels survive?"

She tilted her head as if in thought, "I believe that you have Sloth's gospel while Greed's was destroyed and Wrath's is in the custody of the Royal Knights."

"I guess it's better than nothing."

"Alright. One last question," he said, fixing his eyes on hers.

"Of course, employer-san~" she said, ecstatic at the look in his eyes, before thinking, "I have a feeling he's going to be so much more fun from now on~."

"Is Meili alive? If so, I will need her services at some point in the future. Potentially in the near future," he bluntly asked, aware but unafraid of the possible consequences of such an inquiry.

She gave him a calculated look before stating, "Employer-san… you do realize you've been holding her prisoner in this mansion for the past two years, correct?"

She began to reach to her side to grab her kukri blade.

"Oh that's not good at all," he thought, mildly annoyed at the prospect of having to sit through yet another awkward dinner.

"I must confirm something," she said, her tone cold and intense.

"Okay, so either I'm dead or I gave her an effective security question in the case that someone attempted to impersonate me. Here's hoping I can answer."

She cleared her throat as she sang aloud, in heavily accented English, "We're no strangers to love~"

Subaru immediately sang back, in substantially better English, "You know the rules and so do I~"

They went back and forth singing the lyrics to each other for the duration of the whole song, briefly filling the eerily quiet halls with the sound of music.

After the performance finished, he thought to himself, a mix of a frown and a smirk on his face, "How much did I fucking pay her to learn the entirety of Never Gonna Give You Up? Actually, better question, how the fuck am I supposed to get back at my alternate self for fucking Rick Rolling me across timelines?!"

The intensity in her tone returning to its usual levels, Elsa spoke plainly to the man before her, "Well, no one else in the world is capable of composing and singing such a strange melody but you employer-san. I will take my leave then."

Elsa vanished into the shadows of the night, her eyes lingering on his form, while Subaru continued his walk through the hallway as if nothing had happened. He most certainly did not have a song stuck in his head. That would be crazy. The Sin Archbishop of Pride does not get songs stuck in his head.


Some time later, Subaru came across a door slightly ajar a bit further down the hall. Curious, he entered. Inside, he saw a clean but largely unused room. The only things differentiating it from the other identical ones throughout the mansion were the chair beside the bed and the bed's occupant.

Noting these things, he thought to himself, "This room is too clean and orderly to be someone's living quarters. That chair also seems like it hasn't been moved in ages. This girl's been here for awhile."

He closed the door behind himself and moved to sit in the chair. He looked up to see a girl dressed in a blue nightgown. She had matching azure hair and appeared to be in a rather deep sleep. She was quite pretty and, besides her larger breasts and different color scheme, was a mirror image of the pink maid he had seen earlier at Roswaal's side. "Comatose chicks aren't my type though."

"She's clearly alive but she is not breathing nor does she have a heartbeat," he noted aloud.

"I've only heard descriptions of this condition before but I never got to see it up close. I killed the Gluttonies before I really had the chance to."

"So she's a Sleeping Beauty, then. And an important one at that," he concluded, staring down at - and totally not ogling - the rather pretty girl before a frown came to his face and he thought, "Wait, is this the girl Emilia was talking about earlier? Natsuki Subaru, how the hell did you fall in love with a fucking potato? And worse, you managed to make Emilia jealous of said potato."

"I swear if I ever meet you, other me, I'm going to beat the shit out of you for getting Emilia to cut her hair because you loved a damn vegetable too much," he declared, definitely not still salty over the Rick Roll.

Subaru got up out of the chair to exit the room. As he opened the door and stepped back out into the hall, he saw another familiar face standing before him.

The pink haired maid, slightly surprised to see him, quickly remarked, bowing slightly, "Ah, Subaru-sama. I apologize for disturbing your time with Rem. I can return another time."

Deeping her bow for a moment, she then brought herself up fully and began to turn to leave when Subaru quickly stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder and saying, "Hey, it's alright. I just finished up. Go take your turn. You're her sister after all."

Moderately surprised at the action, she glanced down at his hand for a moment before meeting his eyes again and replying in a neutral tone, "As you wish, Subaru-sama."

She bowed again and entered the room, closing the door behind her.

"I wonder what her name is."


Finally arriving back where he started earlier that afternoon, Subaru entered his room and breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door.

"Thank God there's no more fucking surprises today. What has my life become? Can't a man be a mass murdering lunatic in peace?" he grumbled to himself, walking further into the room.

On his way, he stripped himself of his incredibly tacky and mildly uncomfortable noble's clothes and plopped himself down on the formerly unused bed. He stared at the ceiling as he thought aloud, "There's one big question I've been avoiding this whole time. Well, besides the Emilia situation. And that's: Why am I here? Like, who brought me to this weird bizarro timeline and why? I originally thought it could be Reinhard but he seems to have been affected by the switcheroo along with everyone else."

He heaved a tired sigh and turned to lay on his side, "It's not the archbishops, it's not the Dragon, it's not the Sword Saint, and it's probably not the Sage."

He focused his attention on the black crystal beside him, "The Witch of Envy, then."

He closed his eyes, muttering, "That would explain the easy interference with Return by Death. I always thought it was her Authority."

Rubbing them lightly, he continued, "And those two cryptic dreams I had - the one before I got here and the one I had during that angelic lap pillow session - starred her as well."

Even with his substantial nap, he felt a strong sense of fatigue after a long day of burning down the capital, having a child die in his arms, being killed by his beloved, getting isekai'd for the second time, being incredibly confused while dying several more times, and grappling with his new situation and emotional state. And, on top of all that, his ribs were still broken.

"Fuck. I forgot to get myself healed. Well, what harm can a few broken bones even do?"

He fell onto his back and spread his arms out to either side on the massive bed, just so happening to grab the black crystal with this motion.

After a moment, he opened his eyes to find himself standing in the grassy, hilly plain of Echidna's Castle of Dreams, completely naked.

He looked up, still tired, to see the Witch of Greed sitting in her chair with her head turned away from him. Annoyed, he called out to her, "Oi! Witch! Why're you not looking at me?"

Still turned away, she responded with as loud a voice she could muster without yelling, "Certainly even you understand that seeing a man in the state of undress you are in would have an effect on my maidenly heart."

Subaru rubbed his eyes, smirked, walked up to the table hidden under the parasol, and sat in the chair opposite of Echidna, who had covered her eyes with her hands. She was visibly blushing, hard.

"I don't buy for a second that this affects you at all. If you really shared his every sensation, and if he's anything at all like me, then you'd be very used to not only a naked Natuski Subaru but also a naked Natsuki Subaru's junk," he declared, confident and not even a little flustered.

She peeked out through the gaps between her fingers and responded, "I'll have you know that my contractor always took the pendant off whenever he needed to conduct his… activities."

The smirk remained on his face, "I'm still not buying it. You can see everything we did even without our touching of the crystal."

She sighed and her blush largely faded as she lowered her hands and turned her head to look at him. Her usual smile was plastered onto her face as she spoke to him calmly, still ever-so-slightly red, "You're no fun. And even if you're mostly right, I am not lying when I say that your state of undress is making me feel things I haven't felt in centuries."

"Like the urge to tease someone while they're naked?" he shot back, smirking.

"I'm not going to believe you're human for a second, Witch."

"Interpret it however you'd like," she replied, taking a sip of her tea and waiting for Subaru to continue the dialogue.

After a moment, his smirk faded and he spoke again, his voice stern, "I ask you again. Echidna, the Witch of Greed, I demand that you tell me immediately how I can break our contract, that I have no memory of forging with you."


Author's Note: I am not sorry for the Rick Roll.