No body, only mind. No light, only dark. Once again, the travelling boy had found himself in the shadowy place just beyond his own consciousness.
"'Sigh'. Well this sucks. I literally can't even sigh. I had to think the word sigh instead of actually doing it."
The darkness rippled and molded itself into a humanoid shape. It took form and substance, appearing as a familiar robe-clad man with sickly green skin.
"Ahhhhhh, such diligence~"
"Bete-san…"
The Sin Archbishop of Sloth stood with his hands behind his back, his sights confidently facing forward. Had Subaru had eyes, he would have locked his own with Petelgeuse's, a strange satisfaction filling the latter's nearing what Subaru could only presume was respect.
"You, who failed to follow love, failed to appeal to love, failed to bask in tHE GREATNESS OF HER LOVE!"
The madman's rambles expressed themselves in the movement of his body. Every word was accompanied by some strange, over-the-top gesture. But Subaru recognized them all.
"It really has been too long. Now that I'm expecting it, it's more nostalgic than annoying. Especially since Regulus isn't here this time. Hate that guy."
"You have finally, finally, finally, fiNALLY FINALLY FINALLY FOUND HER LOVE… DESU!"
"'Sigh'. Scratch that. Your annoying shouting is overshadowing any fondness I have for you, Bete."
Subaru felt the urge to respond to him, one madman to another. He, for the first time in this odd dream world, willed himself to have physical form instead of allowing himself to remain a disembodied consciousness.
"Wow… This is weird to say the least. The feeling of my head coming into existence is quite strange and somehow not uncomfortable."
The robe-clad man's normally bulging, reddened eyes - that often threatened to pop right out of their sockets - sharply narrowed at a spot in the darkness. His eyelids snapping nearly shut with the power of his squinting, Petelgeuse saw an irregularity before him; something that, much like he just had, was beginning to assert itself within the darkness. An unnaturally large smile growing on his face, he hurried over to said anomaly with a rather comical run, placing his ear to what was coming to be and raising his hand to listen in closely.
"...ound her love? what do you mean, Bete-san?" the slowly manifesting head croaked out, the soft voice clear in the silence of the void.
Petelgeuse's eyes watered as he spun himself back to where he was standing earlier, snapping himself into a posture that was unnaturally straight. He contorted his body in various ways along to the rhythm of his following reply.
"It honors me so so sosososososososososo MUCH to be referred to as such by someone so DILIGENT, so LOVED, and now sO LOVING… DESU."
Subaru's consciousness began to falter as his physical form started to fade. He was beginning to feel sleepy.
"quickly. explain, Bete-san. I am…"
Pride was interrupted by Sloth with an understanding smile and the tone of a mother speaking to their exhausted child after a long day at school, "I understand, I understand, I understand, you, who are newly diligent, you will not, can not be so at all times. I understand and leave you with my parting remark…"
He gave an exaggerated, rigid bow that would break the bones of a normal person, saying, "I, Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti, Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult, representing Sloth,"
He raised his form to face the vanishing head of Subaru.
"Welcome you to our ranks,"
His mouth contorted into a mad smile as Subaru was finally being ripped away from the shadowy place.
"Pride."
Subaru's eyes fluttered open slowly, the surrounding light too intense to take in all at once. He squinted, halting the opening of his eyes abruptly, the sudden change from shadow and darkness to blinding light too much to handle.
"But I didn't even have eyes there… why do they need to adjust?"
He felt a soft comfort under his head that was superior to a normal pillow but inferior to his Emilia-tan's thighs, both by wide margins. He looked straight up to see the face of his contracted spirit trying her best to not blush. It was not working. He loved it.
"Beako…?" he mumbled, still slightly dazed.
She looked down at the mention of her name, her feelings of relief quickly becoming ridden with embarrassment once turned his head slightly to notice that he was, in fact, sleeping on the little girl's lap. Before he could form an adequate teasing remark, she spoke, "B-betty is not doing this because she wants to, I suppose. Betty is merely fulfilling her contractor's wishes, in fact. Betty's Subaru kept repeating the words 'lap pillow', among other things, in his sleep, I suppose."
The tracksuit-clad man raised his body off of hers, his whole body aching as he brought himself to a sitting position. He numbly raised his arms, rubbing his eyes before turning to Beatrice, who was clearly trying her best to not meet his gaze. Suppressing his urge to tease her in that moment and ignoring the lingering soreness of his muscles, he reached his hand out to her and patted her on the head.
"You're adorable, Beako. And you're the only person I'll ever let give me a lap pillow besides my beloved Emilia-tan. I love you."
She seemed embarrassed yet satisfied by the praise and relaxed herself slightly at his touch. Subaru began to look around to note his surroundings.
"So where are we? What time is it?" he asked, still readjusting to reality.
"Has Emilia-tan…"
"EMILIA!" he screamed, suddenly remembering his need to watch over her.
His body filled with adrenaline as he jumped up and onto his feet. Before he could turn and run to the door, Beatrice's stern voice interrupted him, "She's not yet awake, I suppose. I have yet to feel Bubby's presence, in fact."
He calmed himself as he processed her words, slowly nodding.
"That silly girl is really the first thing on your mind even after all that happened? Betty's contractor needs to reorder his priorities, I suppose."
He directed a satisfied smirk at her, crossing his arms, saying, "I'll have you know that I have my priorities in working order."
He began gesturing with his hands, "It goes: Emilia-tan, Beako, gathering information, and then destroying and torturing my enemies."
She merely sighed at him and shook her head gently, thinking, "Hopeless, I suppose."
"So what happened while I was knocked out? I remember talking to Petra and then…" he trailed off, beginning to silently recall the events of the dinner. His expression went from a smirk to a frown to a soft smile to a look of pure rage, and then back to a satisfied smirk.
"New order of priorities: Emilia-tan, Beako, killing that infuriating tiger boy, gathering information, and then destroying and torturing my other enemies."
Sighing, Beatrice replied emotionlessly, already tired of the trouble her contractor was bound to land then in, "The first two are fulfilled to satisfaction while the third is impossible at the moment, I suppose. The one they call 'Garfiel' is under the direct care of that disrespectful pink maid, in fact."
"Note to self: add manipulating/killing Ram and Roswaal to the list where appropriate." he thought, processing the new information she had just presented him with.
"I wouldn't say 'to satisfaction'..." he started, visibly anxious about his beloved's safety.
"...but I guess there's nothing more I can do for Emilia-tan at this point," he finished, frustrated at his present uselessness.
He placed a hand on his chin and thought aloud for a moment, "How long has it been since dinner? And how much longer until we can see Emilia?"
Beatrice stood from her spot on the floor and lightly brushed her legs. She replied without needing to look at him, "It has been no more than twenty minutes, I suppose. Bubby will likely take approximately an hour to appear, in fact."
"So I've got some time to kill… what else was there that I've been meaning to do but wasn't high enough priority to bother with before?"
After a silent moment of contemplation, he realized what he wanted to do this evening. He turned to meet Beatrice's gaze, saying, "Beako, do you know where we can find Meili? She's this little assassin girl that is imprisoned somewhere in the mansion."
Without question, Beatrice closed her eyes for a moment and muttered something under her breath. She opened them again and said, "This mansion is an exact copy of the previous one with a single exception, I suppose."
"And that would be?"
"There is a structure underneath it."
At these words, his lips contorted into a manic and rather mad smile, his nasty eyes widening as he thought, "I hope it's a dungeon. I really really hope it's a dungeon."
His head hurt, like a lot. Which was surprising because even after his daily sparring sessions with the Sword Saint himself, his head never hurt this much.
"Garf. You're finally awake. I thought you were going to spend the rest of your days being a useless bed-ridden weight on Roswaal-sama's finances after what happened to you," a voice said, filled with its usual venom.
Garfiel instantly recognized it. It was loaded with concern that was masked by an incredible amount of feigned hostility. And only the voice of the one he cared for in that way fit that description. He turned to face her.
"Ram…" he said, his voice hoarse and its volume as loud as a whisper.
She was sitting in a chair at the nearby desk, doing some paperwork. She had paused it to look over at her awakening companion.
"If you're good enough to speak, you're good enough to get up and out of my bed and off to your own," she said before turning her head back to the desk, continuing to fill out the paperwork.
"Yer… bed?" he muttered, confused.
Garfiel looked down at the sheets and felt a sense of embarrassment, thinking, "Did we…?"
Having predicted his reaction, Ram spoke without either stopping her work or looking up at him, "Search your memories for an explanation. You lost a fight that Ram told you not to engage in. Daily. For the past two years. You really are useless, Garf."
He thought back to the events of his day. It was largely normal and uneventful. Sparring, training, eating… and then he remembered the events of the dinner. He filled with a mix of shame, rage, and a desire, or rather a need, for revenge.
Jumping out of bed, Garfiel muttered to himself as he marched towards the door, "Lucky bastard got a cheap shot. My amazin' self'll show him what it means to-"
Ram, still doing paperwork, thrust her spare arm, wand in hand, backwards at him, saying, "Roswaal-sama ordered that you were to not engage Baru- Subaru-sama... and Ram agrees. It took the cooperation of my beautiful self and his contracted spirit to restrain him. If you were to pursue him alone while he has his spirit's support, you will most certainly get yourself killed."
"HA! Ya think he could kill my amazin' self?" he shot back, a confident smirk growing on his face.
At this, she snapped her head towards him, her other arm still writing line after line upon the document, "He was a moment away from doing so before our timely intervention. You should be on your hands and knees thanking Ram with all your heart for saving your life."
The seriousness of her declaration taking him by surprise, Garfiel suddenly stopped what he was doing, his smirk vanishing. For the briefest of moments, the pair's gazes locked and the room fell silent, the only noise piercing the tension being the sound of their breathing. His cyan eyes were now uncertain and weak when faced with Ram's determined crimson ones, his once steady breaths slowly becoming uneven and erratic. With the oni maid's eyes filling the whole of his attention, Ram unceremoniously turned back to her paperwork. Her wand hand still pointed at him but the effect of her glare lingering in the demihuman's mind was what truly kept him as still as a statue.
Held in place by the gravity of Ram's words and behavior, Garfiel carefully considered what he remembered and what he had been told, becoming deeply lost in thought. The strength Subaru used against him had felt unnatural to say the least, and the demihuman instinctively knew the nasty eyed boy's rage against Garfiel was also out of character. In fact, now that he gave it some serious thinking, he came to realise that it was not only Subaru that was acting strangely. Both that creepy bastard Roswaal and the Sword Saint too fell off somehow, as if something had changed right under Garfiel's nose. And he didn't like that. He didn't like that one bit.
As he was about to start drawing some conclusions, his teeth gritting at the unpleasant thoughts, the oni finished her paperwork and stood up from her chair, giving her full attention to the tiger boy.
"Surely, even with your meager intelligence, you've realized by now that what happened today was not a normal occurrence," she said, leveling her sights onto his once again. But this time, Garfiel did not falter. He looked into her eyes and nodded, a shaky determination filling the demihuman.
"Many of the mansion's occupants have been acting strangely since yesterday afternoon: Roswaal-sama seems less confident and more anxious than ever, Reinhard-sama somehow did not even register a fight was going on around him at dinner, Beatrice-sama is out of the library and by Barusu's side, and Barusu is, well, like a completely different person," she stated, her almost bored, conversational tone contrasting heavily with the gravity of what she had said.
For a short time, Ram allowed her words to sink into Garfiel's head before she continued, her wand hand now lowered and brought to her side, "Roswaal-sama asked him a question when he arrived for dinner yesterday. He asked, 'Could it be that you are not truly Natsuki Subaru?'"
Garfiel's eyes widened at this revelation, the shock clear on his face, his tough brooding persona long since abandoned. Noting this, Ram crossed her arms, her eyes still locked with his, and said, "Ram does not know the truth of this situation and even Roswaal-sama is acting strange."
She regarded him with an unexpected intensity, as if only now taking this conversation seriously. Garfiel could almost feel her analytical glare read him like a book as she continued, "Garf, your simple minded nature is the only one beside my own elegant nature that has remained entirely unchanged."
Realizing where she was getting at, Garfiel asked the question he now assumed Ram had set up this entire conversation for, "Ya want t' work t'gether t' figure out what's goin' on?"
In response, Ram spouted her trademark 'ha', turning her head slightly in the process, before returning her gaze to his and saying, "Yet again, you think too highly of yourself, Garf. Ram simply wants you to serve as her pawn in this game against an unknown opponent. Perhaps you'll finally be a useful shield for once."
Garfiel sighed and nodded at her, wishing she could just be honestly nice for once. He was no idiot but he trusted Ram's instincts. He'd go along with what she said, for now.
"My amazin' self will do as ya say as long as I get t' tear em limb from limb," he declared, his rage and shock having transformed themselves into determination. Garfiel smiled, for he had finally found something to guard against: a threat to which he would act as a shield once more.
