"M-mister Subaru..? A-are you going to cry? I think y-you shouldn't." Carmilla continued nervously, sitting back at the young man's stare.
"No, I do not think I will." It was strange to speak as if he heard his own voice out of a speaker inside his head, as if someone stuffed cotton in his ears. "That moment has passed…"
Carmilla lit up slightly, "Th-that's good! That's very nice; I-I was worried y-you would scare me again. Could you promise not to stare like that as well?"
"I do not know how to stare differently…" His mind was far away, his mouth simply chewing out the first responses that came through the fog.
"Well, y-you should learn! It w-would be very, very nice for me." Carmilla buried her face into her scarf, "After all, i-it's not nice to scare people, so y-you should really work on that."
Something itched in his brain, a small ball of needles, an active thought burrowing through the thickest fog.
"A-also, it would be n-nice if y-you could apologise for how y-you acted." The Witch gave the young man a pitiful look, "After all, i-it's your fault that y-you have such a weak h-heart; Carmilla said so."
"And y-you should also be much more careful a-around me; I-I really don't like when people carry w-weapons. Unless they're protecting me. W-would y-you protect me?" Carmilla pronounced as if she was unassuming.
The thought was formulating itself, tearing through to his mouth. "No, I do not think I will protect you."
"Then maybe y-you can give me that thing of y-yours?" The witch would extend her hand, her delicate hand reaching for the steel weapon in his overcoat, "I-it makes me upset, pretty pleas-"
The thought formed, his mouth finally formulating one phrase, "Do you ever shut the fuck up?"
The Witch recoiled, "H-huh?"
"Me, me, me." He could feel the irritation build and build, reinvigorating him, "I HEARD you, but do you require to buzz in my ears about how YOU'RE uncomfortable and how YOU'RE hurt and how YOU'RE all tender and defenceless? I do not give a single shit for a Witch, OR HOW YOU FEEL, ALRIGHT!?"
"Y-you…" Carmilla would stand up, barely masking her own anger with hurt, "Y-you're a terrible person! You're r-rude and obtuse, and y-you can't-"
Subaru would also stand up, the push-back only making him feel ramped up as if life was being breathed back into him, "And you are a Witch; does it take a mere mortal fool like me to constantly make accommodations in a dreamscape YOU control?"
It was nice to boil over; he would even call it therapeutic; the heaviness in his chest subsided, the unpleasant thoughts gave way, and his gut burst into flame. "Learn some self-reliance and come talk to me when you can hold a conversation! At least Echidna knows how to listen!" Taking out his flintlock, he smashed the barrel against the table, causing Carmilla to jump, the nervous motion he elicited feeling gratifying like never before.
"I-I don't- Y-you're-" It was hard to tell what caused Carmilla's speechlessness; it was clear that her fear and shyness were barely covering the unbearable rage. "I-if m-m-my companions were here y-you would p-p-p-p-pa-pa-" The Witch continued to stutter, trying to push the words out.
"Oh yes?" Subaru leaned over the table, "Well, I do not see anyone here besides us. So either sit down and shut up or leave me to what just happened… DID YOU HEAR ME!?"
Carmilla would jump to her feet, her hands grasping her scarf tightly as she sprinted away, covering her eyes. It was hard to tell whether she was sobbing, whining or simply unable to form sentences from indignation, but Subaru felt a grim satisfaction. If he marches through Hell, the least that should be expected is for him not to have to be considerate of the demons circling over his head.
Sitting down and stuffing his flintlock back into his jacket's internal pocket, the young man would put his head into his hands, swearing under his breath. While the rage had a numbing effect at first, now he was both disturbed AND burnt out on his fury.
"Couldn't she just let me see the next challenge?"
His exasperated wondering was disturbed by heavy clanking, getting louder as it got closer and closer to the table. Lifting his head, Subaru was faced with a new monstrosity, what seemed to look like an intricate coffin standing upright, its purple-and-black shell glimmering like bug chitin.
"Yes, hello; how may I help you?" It was hard to get surprised and angry at this point; Subaru simply wanted to get through things as quickly as possible, "So, what are you, another witch? Some artefact created by one of the witches?"
A set of legs and pincers would appear from the bottom of the coffin, it rising and walking up closer to the table where Subaru was sitting, settling down into the grass again.
"Oh, yes, and you walk, wonderful." Taking out his flintlock, he placed it on the table and crossed his fingers, "So? I die horribly at this point? You show me some terror? Ruin my life further?"
The shell of the coffin would crack slightly, opening with a metal grunt, revealing a grey-haired girl locked in chains, her eyes covered with a blindfold, a string of drool leaking from one side of her mouth. Licking her lips to clear them of drool, the girl would answer, "And why would Daphne do that?"
"I do not know. It seems to be a commonality as of recently. Whenever something strange, new or unexplainable appears before me, it tends to make my situation worse in an unfixable way." His eyes glided over the coffin. Looking at it now, what seemed to be mechanical was actually biological; upon closer inspection, the internal parts of the coffin looked more like fleshy insides than cushions, "Now let me make an assumption, you are a Witch."
"Chid-chid asked me really nice to see you, so please don't drag this out." The girl responded drowsily, "I am Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony." Sniffing the air, the Witch would scrunch up her face, "You smell delicious, but…" The coffin would take a couple steps back.
"All that metal and sulfur and bitter and saccharine." As Daphne continued, Subaru could swear he saw a hint of nausea on the Witch's face. "You're so… unappetising."
"I will take that as a good thing… for me." Subaru crossed one leg over the other. "Considering the beast's voraciousness and your own, uh, biomechanical transport, I suppose you are the creator of the Ousagi?" Subaru sat back, though he kept his hand next to his flintlock, fiddling with a musket ball with his other hand. He didn't know where he got this small piece of ammunition; his brain must have simply thought it up as a comfort.
The coffin began to shake excitedly, "And the whale and the big snake-y, yes, yes."
"Why, then?" Subaru stopped fiddling with the musket ball. There must have been a rational explanation for this. The Witches were powerful beings, but up to now, most of them were talkative, and if they were, it would be good to find something out by stroking their ego. He couldn't care less for the "why" but sure wanted the "how". "Why create such a beast? Had the people slighted you?"
"Beast?" The witch pronounced in monotone confusion.
"Yes, all I have seen up to now is only destruction or rumours of it. Be it the Whale or the Rabbit. After all, if one creates a weapon, he wants to point it at someone, no?" The young man reasoned, drumming his fingers against the flintlock's grip.
"The bunny can grow infinitely… and the whale is very big…" The witch suddenly started salivating, the dribble of drool turning into a small waterfall, "It could feed a lot."
"Feed a lot…" Subaru repeated in a stunned manner, "So you created an animal which is so big that if it's slaughtered, only a fraction of its meat can be preserved before it rots, and an animal with unlimited mitosis but which shares a mind with each of its units… and then you proceeded to arm them with abilities to wipe cities off the face of the planet… To feed the population…"
The young man frowned and opened his mouth, trying to formulate his next words very carefully, "Either you are lying, acted in bad faith… or pardon me, but you are mentally deficient."
Daphne continued to drool, though the coffin began to vibrate with pressure, "It's selfish to consider eating others without considering being eaten yoursel-"
"Right, whew, so you ARE just arguing in bad faith." Subaru interrupted, mockingly imitating relief, "I was scared you were about to start making sense."
The coffin began to move around as if the stress was beginning to make it hard to stay in a single spot, Daphne gritting her teeth absentmindedly, less angry and more hungry, "Do not take hunger so simply-"
"I am not. There is a reason farming exists." The young man would flick the musket ball with his thumb and catch it, placing it in front of his eye's pupil as he stared at Daphne, "Humans feed animals, take care of them, and then slaughter them. Exchange, so to speak. One sacrifices one's own food to have his food later. There was nothing stopping you from making them interactable with the local populace; you simply did not care to."
The young man would stand up, his hands in his pockets, facing down Daphne. He was shorter than the coffin but didn't strain himself. "So which one is it? Incompetence, carelessness or a lie?"
The witch's coffin stopped vibrating, Daphne pausing before answering, "None…" The covers on her eyes loosened, beginning to slip, "It was hunger."
Her eyes were of a colour Subaru could not describe. Maybe he would have even tried to make it out, give it a definition in his mind, but he was stopped by the barrel of his flintlock slamming into his mouth.
Shaking the mist out of his mind, Subaru stared at his own hands, a frozen battle. His left hand was in his mouth, his teeth biting deep into the muscle, still holding on like a starving bulldog. His right, meanwhile, was holding onto the flintlock, the barrel stuck between his teeth, keeping his jaws from clamping down on his left hand, his finger almost having pushed the trigger.
"How peculiar." Daphne's blindfolds were back on, and now her emotionlessness was changed for genuine curiosity, "To have integrated your own will into your own reflexes, so much so that it fights your own hunger. Chid-chid was right, your heart is weak to Carmilla, but your primordial instincts are clamped by an iron fist."
The Witch licked her lips, and Subaru felt something reconnect in his brain, letting his teeth release his hand and gun barrel, spitting out some of the blood from his bitten appendage.
"I hate you, Subarun. You place your own values above your own survival and your own instincts." The coffin circled Subaru, the young man still reeling from the assault he committed on himself, "You are less than human, a machine. No, you are disqualified from humanity." The coffin stopped, Daphne leaning in, gritting her teeth hungrily, "But that makes you so much more appetising, even with your smells."
Subaru snickered, spitting out blood again, a chipped tooth from shoving his gun down his throat, "You didn't answer my question. Failure or dishonesty?"
Daphne leaned back into her coffin, "A machine like you can never understand." A flash of light. The Witch was gone.
"Right. Yeah. A 'you would not get it' response." Subaru would be angry if not for how absurd the whole situation was. "Alright, who's nex-?"
"First!"
Turning around at the sudden exclamation, Subaru's face would be met with a fist, throwing him back a couple of meters and leaving him sprawled on the ground.
"To strike all that defies reason in the world!"
"Huh?" Subaru tried to sit up, only to be met with a kick to the head.
"Second! Who cares about committing every heinous evildoing!?"
Somebody sat on his torso, slamming him in the face several times, the young man trying to break free. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?"
"Third! Whether it's ugly or beautiful, if you're here in this fleeting world, don't expect to make it out unscathed!"
The figure lifted its fists.
"WHAT THE FU-!?"
The woman and Subaru sat at the table, the Witch wiping her eyes.
"Are you still crying?"
"I'M NOT CRYING; I'M JUST ANGRY!"
"Uh-huh."
Awkward silence.
"Thanks for… the therapeutic experience… Though I must say, that is quite an introduction."
The Witch continued wiping her eyes, "I'm so angry at her! Daphne knows not to show her eyes! It's dangerous! Dumb Daphne! Dumb Daphne!" The Witch was about to burst to her feet, but looking at the stunned Subaru would hold her rage back a little bit and sit down.
"Thank you." It was strange; this one was probably the most considerate of them all. After beating him up, a painless experience; the cuts on his hands were gone, and even his chipped tooth was back in its place. Now she even let him have a little sit down to consider what just happened.
"So… Witch of… Envy? Pride? Acedia?"
"Wrath! It's Wrath!" The woman would burst to her feet, for real this time, and turn to point at Subaru, "I am Minerva, the Witch of Wrath! You better remember me if you know what's good for you, but forget it because knowing me is dangerous! I'M REAL DANGEROUS!"
"So which one?"
"Dangerous! That's the one!"
"Uh-huh." With each passing second of his conversation with the woman, Subaru felt his IQ drop exponentially. "I, uh…" It was really hard to do a read on her. Scratch that; he was unsure what was going inside that head.
"You best be… YOU BEST BE-!" Minerva was clearly trying to come up with a threat, "YOU BEST BE CAREFUL 'CAUSE I'LL HEAL YOU A HUGE LOT IF YOU AREN'T, GOT IT!?"
'I think it shall be best to treat this situation like a bear encounter.' Getting out of his seat, Subaru would raise his hands, beginning to back away, 'Back away from the thing and make yourself look big.'
"Now, now, I think you've had your fun." Subaru's back would stop against something soft. Turning around, he recognised the Witch of Greed, Echidna, grinning with an expression of a cat which caught a really fat mouse.
"Cannot call this fun, honestly." Subaru was not surprised at the feeling of fog in his mind as he found himself sitting at the table, a cup of the """tea""" in his hand, with no memory of returning to the chair.
"Neither are my compatriots." Echidna would hum, tapping her nose, "You have made a uniquely rotten first impression on them."
"Are you sure it is not the other way around?" Subaru tossed the cup over his shoulder, finding his weapon again back in his pocket.
"Mmm, well, you know how it is. The weak kowtow to the strong; you're uniquely experienced in this field, are you not?" Echidna would take out a second cup from somewhere under the table, placing it down in front of Subaru.
"Not with atrocity committers, I am not. And I am not particularly interested in gaining experience in the field." Subaru thought back to the Witches, "So it is you, Carmilla, Daphne and Minerva. Where are the other three? I thought there were Seven canonical sins."
"Funny of you to mention Seven after guessing Acedia as one." Echidna wagged her finger.
"Do not dodge the question."
"Weeeell, you meeting the other three WOULD be entertaining, with Typhon's penchant for judgment and Sekhmet's lack of interest in just about anything and Satella's…" Echidna paused, her eyes suddenly going glassy, "That one would probably be best kept for last, now, wouldn't it?"
"What?" Subaru sat forward, "Satella? The big bad Witch everyone is talking about? What about her? You all seem like trouble anyways, so what difference does that ma-?"
"That really won't be important if you freeze to death." Echidna gave a saccharine smile, standing from her seat and patting Subaru on the shoulder, "Now, would it? So, be a dear and go find yourself a warmer place before someone has to drag your crystalized shards out of my tomb."
Expecting what would happen next, Subaru uttered one last angry retort as he tumbled out of the chair at Echidna's push into the void, "You still did not answer my question!"
"Gnhhhhhhhhhh…" While audibly groaning with each step did not actually give any physical relief, it certainly gave him a mental one. His frozen feet felt swollen in his shoes; they probably were, so each step came with the stabbing of hundreds of blades into his soles.
Not having to carry Reinhard was also a relief, but a physical one, not a mental one. No matter how much he reassured himself that the Knight was probably still dreaming of his failures without a single thing being able to hurt him, that did not really ease his mind.
Hiding his swollen hands under his armpits didn't change much; his whole body hadn't had much to warm itself, let alone enough to warm his frostbitten hands.
"One, two. One, two." Subaru growled, his head down, watching his legs move him as if they weren't his own. "One, two."
What was happening to Emilia? What would he do if Reinhard did not wake up? What about the Ousagi? How was he going to bury Felt and Petra and… How was he…
Shaking his head, Subaru took another step. No, this wasn't the time to think about that. What was happening was like a dam, he could throw things over it, and they wouldn't reach him, his mind preoccupied with survival and protection, moving to the next goal. But dams break, and he didn't want to know how he would respond when it broke.
"Warmth… just gotta find… warmth…" Wandering deeper into the tomb had increased the insulation; the air was still cold, but now it felt like an autumn night rather than the peak of Everest.
A small ray of light hit his shoe, a small blueish hue. Raising his eyes, Subaru saw a small crack in the door at the end of the tunnel. 'The centre of the tomb…' He was here, finally here.
Stepping away from the wall he put his weight on, Subaru nearly lost his balance but fell against the heavy stone door, using his disorientation to his advantage as the door gave way. The blue light washed up against him; the closed room was much warmer than the rest of the tomb. Subaru stumbled and fell to his knees as he no longer had any support to stand against.
"Is this…" The words caught in his throat as he noticed what stood in the centre of the room, the source of the light. A coffin. Not like Daphne's, no, an actual one, its crystal walls completely transparent. "Right… Echidna…" Hooking his hands around the door, Subaru would put his whole body into pushing the door closed. If anything, he needed all the warmth he could get.
While it probably would have been nice to sit down and fall asleep, his curiosity got the better of him. "So what will I see now?" He couldn't walk to see it, only crawl, "The same unemotional image?" With another push, his fingers were now touching the table, "Or maybe some old hag? She could just be using her old image in that dream, right? That would suit her ego, heh."
Finally getting his fingers on the coffin's smooth surface, Subaru pulled himself up, "Who are you really?"
It wasn't a hag or a copy. The body that lay in front of him was clearly Echidna's, but age had slightly roughened her features, her nose slightly sharper, her skin slightly less smooth and her dress more worn, though she did not look any older than her late twenties. But that was not what shocked him. It was the expression.
He would not have noticed the difference if he was not so used to trying to unhook people's personalities to read what was inside. The expression lacked that same burning pride that he noted in the Echidna of the dreamscape. No, there was a deep sorrow within the serenely closed eyes, along with a soft empathy within the curve of the lips. It was barely noticeable; blink, and it's gone, but he could tell. And it angered him.
For a moment, for just a moment. "No fair." Subaru slid down into a sitting position, his back against the coffin's pedestal. His hands went up to his face. He couldn't admit it, no way he could; to admit it would make him puke.
Echidna was right, and Carmilla had proven she was. He really did have a weak heart. In that second, when he saw that expression, he felt his heartbeat, as he did when he saw Fujino… Ugh… and as he did when he saw Emilia. His heart was really his weak spot.
"I cannot have any. This place has no mercy for weaknesses of any kind…" Was he reasoning with himself? Sure he was. But he wasn't wrong. Had he been sure of his emotions, had he been sure of stamping them out at the right moment, his heart wouldn't have shaken when he saw the takedown of Emilia at the Royal Selection. And then…
"And then I would have been able to correct things." Ultimately, he tried to make himself out as a wall people could put their weight against, the grey eminence, the power carrier. But he did not have the all-rounded defence he needed for it. But there was something else-
'Chid-chid was right, your heart is weak to Carmilla, but your primordial instincts are clamped by an iron fist.' Daphne may have been a witch, but this phrase certainly cleared something up. He could still become a wall, a marching engine, an unstoppable force. Love is an instinct, and so he would take control; he would always take control.
"I cut down my heart. With it in my hand, I am in control, and if I am in control," He felt that familiar breeze, the green sunlit field with the table and tea-set, he was going back, "I can step over anyone."
"My, my, checking out the goods, were you?" While Echidna was trying to throw him off-balance, Subaru still noted the hand raising to her bosom and her cheeks bursting into a small blush.
"No, curiosity simply got the better of me." In a weird twist, returning here was a comfort; maybe the Sun was fake, and the green grass felt like a very realistic astroturf, but even with Echidna around, he felt a bit calmer. It was much easier to just verbally duel with a Witch rather than struggle for survival. "I will be honest, but I do not wish to continue talking until you let me see the last trial."
"Hmmm, how about you guess what it will show-?"
"Considering the themes, my future. Get on with it." Subaru interrupted.
"Smart boy…" The words were probably meant to sound ingratiating, but Subaru felt his nerves spike with a frustrated hiss. "And what do you think it will show you?"
"None of your business. Get. On. With it." Subaru sat back into the chair, ready to be thrown back into the void.
"Ungrateful. You COULD humour me just a little bit." Echidna puffed her cheeks, though Subaru could feel the sting of metal behind her eyes, actual frustration showing through. Instead of pushing him, Echidna slapped the table, the ground giving out under Subaru.
"Au revoir, whatever that means."
He was holding a flintlock, the wood and metal in his hand warm, be it from being fired or the blood splashing onto his hands from the unidentifiable corpse against the rocky wall of the mountain.
He was marching on a crimson carpet, many eyes in gold and white staring at him as a red shine burst out of the small object in his hand, many voices following him, a cape of shouts and cheers.
He was knee-deep in muck, his shirt torn, his hands stretched out as if on a cross, covering the crowd behind him as terrified eyes stared at him ahead, incomprehensible shouts echoing from everywhere, even his own mouth.
He was starving, as were all those around him, his shoes torn, his hands bleeding, the march continuing as they moved towards the dream city, the mumbles of mutiny around him only getting louder as they continued on.
He was tumbling out of a broken window, holding onto someone, their breathing still soft and asleep as his shoulders met the ground painfully.
His foot stepped upon the step of his new castle as the black and red monstrosity howled and whistled, its blades raised, its eyes bloodshot.
He watched the lights of the land go out, never to reignite, to disappear in this material world.
He-
The wind howled through his hair. The Priestella sea was unkind during these months, and with the Guard and Militia still exhausted from the wretched Capital battles, it was torturous to fight in these conditions.
And yet, they persevered; they always did. One thing Subaru thanked the many previous monarchs of this forsaken world was the Tigracy bridge. Having a land route for supplies and men in the battle for the trade hub was crucial, and with Volachia's desperate supply-by-sea under Revolutionary cannon fire, they were making progress. Though that smoke from the tops of the towers worried him.
"Trouble, Boss." It was his old friend. Well, not a friend, but he was a good useful man. He just couldn't place his finger…
Not lifting his eyes from the cityscape on the horizon, Subaru scanned the letter.
"They say it's best to evacuate 'he whole city. Maybe even this 'ere bridge."
"And lose Priestella?" Subaru closed his hand into a fist, scrunching up the letter and feeling his nails cut into the palm of his hand. "We can still eliminate them beforehand. We can still win this."
"An' what if we can't?" The question wasn't aggressive, genuinely questioning.
"Then we take the damn city with us if we have to." Subaru continued to stare at the towers, the smoke rising into the blue-greyness of the frozen sky, "We have come so far; we can still salvage this."
The voice paused, wary, "I dunno… me gut's churning…"
"Mmmm… So much suffering ahead of you." Echidna's voice had that unpleasant quality of waking him, but less like a soft push and more like a face full of freezing wind. "Sure makes you wonder, doesn't it?"
"Where…" Subaru tried to formulate his words, trying to stay coherent. His jaw didn't listen to him, but the young man overcame his body's weakness:
"WHERE IS MY PREVIOUS HOME? WHY IS IT NOT IN MY FUTURE?"