Subaru opened his eyes to see the interior of his newly messy room once more, subconsciously noting the untouched articles of clothing draped about the place along with an entire white bedsheet sprawled onto the ground. Despite their very glaringly disturbing nature to any even mildly cleanly person, none of these things were particularly noticed by him. His entire attention was consumed by the sight of Beatrice crumpling down to the floor, sobbing.
He - a man who had lived for centuries and destroyed both the world's greatest evils and greatest goods - was panicking as he desperately searched for a way to help the little girl before him and patch together her shattered heart.
"What do I do? What do I say to her?" he thought, scrambling onto one knee and bringing himself to her level.
"Betty is a failure, I suppose. Betty is a disappointment, in fact. Even Mother has said so now, I suppose," Beatrice said, holding her head in her hands and gripping it even tighter than she had when Subaru first saw her.
"Beako that's…" he started, unsure where to even begin.
She snapped her head up and glared at him, interrupting him with shouts she forced through her tears, "Don't you dare say that's not true, I suppose! Don't you dare lie to Betty, in fact!"
He was at a loss for words. With the girl staring at him with all of her fury, he could only think one thing as he saw her already weak will to live begin to crumble away, "What could I even do in this situation? I'm a sin archbishop, not a fucking guidance counselor."
Her next words were quiet and broken, said just as much to herself as to the man before her. Her gaze softened in a cruel, desperate, and pleading way as she asked, "C-can you kill me, I suppose?"
He looked down at her with a shocked, confused expression. A part of his mind immediately considered the request and devised a method of doing so but another part, a part used here several times but almost never in his old timeline, rejected the offer immediately.
Beatrice continued after a moment of tense silence, grabbing ahold of his tracksuit jacket as she said, "Betty can not kill herself no matter how hard she tries, in fact. So please, kill me."
At this point, Subaru had heard enemies beg for death. He had tortured and maimed people without a will to live just to see how to get a reaction out of them. But not once has he truly pulled someone out from under that hopelessness. "Not even Blue. Not even... myself."
"I-" he started before quickly stopping. He had no words to give her, nothing he knew or learned in his entire time in this world could help him save her. And, with every passing moment, the lingering possibility of granting her wish of death grew and grew in his mind.
"Please… You understand, I suppose," she said, looking at him with desperate and pleading eyes, "You're the only one… who understands Betty's pain, in fact. What it means to lose everything, I suppose," she continued, a twisted hope filling the spirit as she finished, "So, please…"
At the end of his rope, he had nothing he could say. His trained strategist's mind was built to kill as efficiently as possible, not to save. To destroy, not to repair. So he instinctively reached for something different, something foreign. He reached for the foolish, greedy words of his other self that had clung to his heart like a hopeful parasite.
"Beako…" he said, his voice shaking yet determined as he began his response, "'Even if the flames of regret don't seem like they're vanishing right now, if you keep pouring them out maybe they'll vanish someday.'"
Her desperate eyes shifted in tone. The desire for death mixed with something new: the need for salvation. No, that need was always there. It was merely hidden under years of despair.
"'I'm so glad that you're alive. So, I'll always look forward to the day where you'll once again get sulky in front of me.'"
He kneeled down and stared deep into her eyes as he felt the spirit of those words flood through him. A determination shared between timelines. Between Natsuki Subarus.
"Even if it was just for a day, an hour, or even a minute, I saw a glimpse of that, Beako. I saw the you that Natsuki Subaru desperately wanted to save. And…"
He steeled his heart and put confidence in his voice as he declared, "That hope he held lives in me now."
She narrowed her eyes at him, preparing to reject his hope as she had done many times before, but he continued, "Beako, if I didn't meet you today I don't know how I would've kept going. I'm a weak, powerless, spiteful man who burned down everything good in the world just to have a single second of grace. I've killed thousands upon thousands just to save a single life that neither wanted nor needed saving. My soul has become encumbered by a mountain of regrets and, even now, I feel like I should just let them crush me to dust. Beako, I'm literally insane and today... I feel like the world has gone just as crazy as I have. To make me feel regret after all that? This really is a bizarro world."
"Why are you… saying this, in fact?" she asked, overwhelmed by his sudden speech yet feeling the weight of his words.
Subaru gave her a soft smile in response. It was one that understood her pain, their pain. It was one that shouldered responsibility and regret alike but, even if barely, it stayed together.
"Because I'm cashing in that favor you promised me, Beako. I need your help to stand. I need your voice to look forward. I need your hands to keep me together. What you did for me today, I need you to do everyday."
He held out his own hand to her as he begged her from the bottom of his heart, "So, please, Choose me."
Tears filled her eyes as she processed his pleading words but he gave her not even a second to think of a response as he continued, "Choose me over death, Beako. Choose me over your Mother. Choose me over That Person."
A fire blazed in his eyes. It was not the evil flames of a burning capital but the determined flames of a man in need, the flames of a burning Forbidden Library.
"Choose me over your past and help me clear a path to our future!"
"That's not…"
"I need you… so, please, Choose Me."
"That's not fair, to ask me like that, in fact."
He gave a small chuck, saying, "Too bad, I play dirty."
She took his hand and wrapped her arms around him. She sobbed her desperate tears. They were tears of long lost friends, of a lost family, of centuries of isolation, of a broken promise, of a betrayed creator, and, most of all, of a new hope.
"Subaru!"
"Beako…"
"Subaru! Subaru!"
"That's my name."
"Subaru!"
"We're gonna kill so many people together."
"You really are hopeless,"
Hidden in his shoulder, she gave a smile. She gave the first genuine smile in so, so long.
"Betty's Subaru…"
She wept, she smiled, and she fell asleep in her new contractor's arms with real hope in her heart.
"I never would have thought anyone could keep my madness from overtaking me, could get me to try finding a solution that didn't involve murder," he muttered to himself, softly gazing at her unconsious form.
He thought back to his times with Meili and his day with Plum. He gave a tired laugh as he continued, "I guess lolis are the key to restoring your humanity, huh? Well, part of your humanity. I still can't shake this need to torture Reinhard and the archbishops."
Some time later, Natsuki Subaru stood alone in his now clean room. He had fixed up the sheets on the bed, tucked Beatrice in as she napped, and the floor was no longer littered with equally wrinkled and luxurious clothes.
Despite the cleanly appearance, Subaru had just sorta shoved the two pairs of clothes and slightly smelly futon into the dresser, likely wrinkling or even damaging all the other clothes stored there, while the sheets covering Beatrice were both upside down and the wrong way around.
"No one will notice. My handiwork was excellent," he thought, pointedly ignoring the bulging dresser door.
"So I guess I can go find Emilia now-" he mused, contemplating what to do next, before hearing a knock and a voice like silver bells ringing, "Subaru! You missed breakfast and lunch! I'm reeeally worried! Are you okay?"
"Speak of the devil. Well, I guess in this case, speak of the angel," he thought before clearing his throat and responding, "Come on in, Emilia! I'm just fine."
At his call, she entered the room and gave him a confused look, "Subaru? You're wearing your old clothes again? I thought you said they were no good?"
A nervous sweat started to develop on him. He forced on a smile and replied, "Ah, really? Well, I guess I changed my mind."
As Subaru spoke, turning to see the spirit girl lying in his bed, Emilia asked, "Beatrice? Why is she here?"
Faced with the spirit girl's similar yet still very foreign problems, Subaru had managed to stay strong. He managed to hold her and himself together through the strange circumstance. But now, faced with the one person he both cares for and fears the most in the world questioning him, he was beginning to falter. He gradually lost strength in his voice as he explained, "Ah, that. Well, you see... it's a long story…"
The half-elf turned her eyes back to the tracksuit-clad man. She walked closer to him, raised a finger in admonition, and narrowed her eyes, saying, "No~ way~. You promised not to hide things from me, Subaru. You're reeeally no good at that sort of insipid behavior."
He reflexively scratched the back of his head and gave a nervous chuckle, "No one says "insipid" anymore Emilia…"
He immediately tensed up and silently cursed himself for the mistake. At the use of her plain name, Emilia lowered her hand and further narrowed her eyes at Subaru. It was a look of confusion and concern reinforced with determination. She dropped all pretenses and cut straight to the heart of the problem, "You know Subaru, ever since yesterday you've been acting reeeally strange. What's wrong?"
His body broke out into a cold sweat. His breathing became heavier and he was incredibly on edge. He even thought the room temperature was lowering. "This is not going well."
"E- it's nothing, really. Shouldn't we be going off to lunch now?" he suggested, making one last attempt at avoiding this sensitive subject.
The room became noticeably colder at his words. Her eyes filled with tinges of betrayal as she replied, "Subaru… are you breaking your promise? I thought I could trust you…"
"Fuck this is not good. There's no good option here. Distrust means death. Lying builds distrust. Deflecting builds distrust. And the truth? Well it's a longshot but…"
"Emilia… what if you won't like what I have to say?" he said, cautious with every word he uttered.
A tinge of relief and hope entered her as she relaxed slightly. Emilia gave him a rather lighthearted response, "I'm sure it'll all work out. You're my Subaru and you promised to keep me safe!"
"Well… here goes nothing."
"The thing is… I'm not your Subaru…"
"Eh?"
