GUYS GUYS GUYS MY WIFE AND I ARE HAVING A BABY GIRL!
So, uh, I haven't been thinking about fanfiction as much. I've procrastinated editing this chapter for months. It totally has everything to do with the pregnancy and not my own laziness. Yeah.
Shoutout to Imtheperson for beta reading this chapter. You've been a huge help.
Now, time to be a bit sentimental. I started this story by dedicating it to my fiancée. After over a year of writing, my author's notes changed "fiancée" to "wife."
Now, I would like to dedicate this story to my wife and daughter.
This chapter's title truly fits.
Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me throughout this story. I hope you'll stay until the end.
A Happy Ending
When Subaru opened his eyes, he found that he was not in the Witch's Tomb nor the Castle of Dreams, but a warm, soft bed.
He wasn't sure how he got there, wrapped in satin and silk, but he figured that it'd come back to him soon enough.
At that moment, all he could think about was the beautiful woman sleeping on his chest.
He gave a silly smile and brushed back Emilia's silver hair, tracing the tips of her ears as he did so. It felt like forever since he'd seen her. He had so much to say to her, and he was sure that he had already said some of it when he had stumbled out of the Trial, proclaiming his success, but, for the life of him, he couldn't remember anything after leaving the Castle of Dreams.
Perhaps he had gotten drunk? No, he couldn't get drunk anymore. Dragonskin would prevent that. Well, probably. He hadn't actually tried it yet.
Emilia shifted in her sleep, giving a cute sigh at his touch. Her eyelids slowly fluttered open.
"F've more min," she mumbled before her eyes slowly closed once more.
Normally, Subaru would cheekily say that there was no time to sleep, because today was a new day, and there were places to go and people to see and Beakos to hug. For now, however, he was content to enjoy the moment.
He felt oddly calm, despite his recent ordeal. In a way, the First Trial had been like a long therapy session, though, in this case, there was a lot more death and destruction. It was basically all a dream, the therapist was a sociopath, and…
…
Well, that analogy fell apart fast.
Then again, he felt a bit better about himself. He wasn't sure if that was ironic or not, but it certainly helped him keep his breathing even.
Time passed, and Emilia woke up naturally. She gave him a tired yet affectionate smile. "Hi," she breathed.
"Hi back," he said, wrapping an arm around her. "Sleep well?"
She hummed in agreement and pulled herself even closer to him, looking up at him with a lazy smile. "I had the best pillow in the world."
He blushed against his will. "That's not fair… It should be illegal to be this cute."
She giggled as she tapped her fingers on his chest to a rhythm he couldn't follow. "If there were laws against that, you would have been arrested on sight."
"Do you think I'm a mirror or something?!"
"No, you're my Subaru," she responded, completely serious. She took some time to formulate her next sentence. "You're like… a big, soft teddy bear."
"I'm… a stuffed animal?"
"Mhm. You're very cuddly."
As if she were trying to prove her point, she yawned, closed her eyes, and promptly fell back asleep.
"Well, okay then," he muttered, but his tone was filled with nothing but fondness. She sure was candid when she was sleepy.
As much as he'd like to simply lay there all day with her, he knew that there was too much to do. Life didn't stop just because he needed a break.
The first thing that he wanted to know was what had happened after the Trial. He doubted that it was overly dramatic, but he preferred to have all of his memories intact; thank you very much. He probably just stumbled out of the Tomb and bonked his head on a pillar, knocking himself out. Knowing Emilia, she probably carried him bridal style back to a tent, and—
"… Wait a moment."
Subaru knew what the houses and tents of the Sanctuary looked like.
They didn't look like this at all.
For the first time that morning, he took in his surroundings. Everything was familiar—painfully so. He knew every nook and cranny of this room. He knew the walls, the furniture, and even how many paces it took to get to the bathroom.
This was not in the Sanctuary.
Subaru Natsuki was in the Pleiades Watchtower.
He shot up in bed, startling Emilia. She sat up and placed her hand over her chest, breathing heavily. "Subaru?"
"How the hell did we get here?!"
He tried to keep his voice even, but he couldn't. His body had shifted into full-panic mode.
Waking up where you didn't go to sleep was freaky.
Waking up halfway across the country with no idea how you got there was downright terrifying.
"What do you mean?" she asked softly, her amethyst eyes gazing at him with concern. "We're home."
His expression shifted into one of pure confusion. "What? But… you… the Tower… Satella… the mansion—what do you mean, 'we're home'?"
Her eyes widened, as her face flew through confusion, denial, and confusion once more.
"Subaru," she said gently, her lips wavering, "what is the last thing that you remember?"
His breath caught in his throat. He didn't like where this was going.
"I was with Dona," he managed to say.
"Dona… You mean Echidna?!"
"Y-Yeah."
"Your most recent memory is of seeing Echidna."
"Yes," he said again, this time a bit more heatedly. His vision began to blur, as his eyes burned. "You saw me off! You knew I was going to see her!"
Her lips parted, as she held back tears of her own. She shook her head slowly. The pit of his stomach turned to stone.
"Subaru… all of that was years ago."
His first thought—once he collected himself—was that this was his Second Trial.
Okay, well, sure, he couldn't recall a voice talking about an unthinkable present, and he was actually living this—quite unlike the out-of-body experience that he had gone through before. Wouldn't he see the consequences of his deaths? Or would he not see that, as he now knew that those were fake? Was this like his First Trial in his last life, where he lived it?
He grimaced as he looked upon Emilia, who was barely holding back tears. The Second Trial was supposed to show him what would have happened if he had made a different choice, but what was the moment of divergence? Hell, was there even one? This was the future, right? Did he forget only the Second Trial, and he was on the next one? Perhaps he just didn't understand the Second Trial, and this was completely normal.
Well, that, or he was just making excuses and he truly had lost his memory. Could it be Gluttony's fault? No, that had happened to him before, and that had wiped all of his memories of Lugunica.
If this was the Second Trial, he would likely be able to pass it by discovering the point of divergence and accepting the path that he had chosen. If this was reality, then he needed to adjust, fast. The Royal Selection was—
… Over. The Royal Selection had ended years ago.
They weren't in a castle. Emilia hadn't gotten the dragon blood so she couldn't save the elves in Elior Forest.
He opened his mouth to ask who won, but he didn't want to risk it. What if this was reality, and Emilia has some terrible trauma on top of her inevitable guilt? Sure, he knew that she was strong, and she was obviously able to handle it, but now was not the time to prod her for answers. She was in enough pain.
He held both of her hands in his, meeting her gaze. "I will get my memories back," he said sincerely. "Just give me time."
She dipped her head. "We have all the time in the world," she said softly. "I will be waiting, my love."
Smiling a bit, he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead. She slowly returned his smile, though it was weighed down by their precarious situation.
"I'll fix this," he reassured her, giving a cheeky grin. "When it comes to memory shenanigans, this ain't my first rodeo."
She furrowed her brow. "It's ironic how I can't seem to remember us dealing with that…"
"It involved shapeshifting triplets that licked names off their hands."
Instead of responding, she placed the back of her hand on his forehead, murmuring about heat stroke. He laughed and gently pushed her hand away.
"I feel great," he said. "Better than I have in a long time. I just gotta figure out what's going on."
"… Okay. I trust you."
Those weren't empty words, either. He saw it in her expression, and he felt it in the way that she embraced him. She wasn't ecstatic or anything, but her mood was rapidly lightening.
She believed in him. Who was he to crush her expectations?
He left her side, entering the hallway and closing the door behind him. To most, this would be a daunting task, but Subaru was a time-traveling, reincarnating, genre-savvy Spirit Knight. Recovering from amnesia—if that was indeed afflicting him—would be a piece of cake. He just needed to go to all the places that he had forgotten.
He stared intensely at the walls of the Tower.
Nothing happened.
How anticlimactic.
It was probably because he already remembered it. That posed quite a problem. If he knew these places, would they still be able to jog his memory? What if the place that he needed to go to was one that he had forgotten? What if all of this was bullshit and he had watched too much anime?
He put his hands on his hips, gazing resolutely at the wall. He wouldn't let any of that deter him. He'd regain his memories, or he would go back to the real world—whichever one came first.
He arbitrarily walked to the left. He didn't have to worry about the Watchtower Trials; there was no way that Emilia would choose to live here if Reid's spirit was still around. Volcanica wouldn't harm anyone that was already inside the Tower. Shaula would be…
Holy shit.
Shaula might be here!
He sped up, looking around wildly. Damn it, why was her room so far from his?!
Lost in thought, he crashed into someone, falling backward onto the floor. The other person stood there, completely unaffected.
She put a hand to her mouth and gasped. "Master! Are you okay?!"
Subaru blinked blearily up at the stranger. She had chestnut brown hair and forest-green eyes with red dots around her pupils. She looked quite a bit like Shaula—almost identical, come to think of it. Did he give her a sister? Was he capable of that again?
"Um, hi," he said. "Sorry, but I, ah, bumped my head just now, so I kind of don't know who you are?"
He flinched at his own coarseness. Way to go, Subaru. He'd surely make his parents proud with those fantastic social skills.
The woman pouted. "Master isn't very funny, nope! Everyone knows that Shaula is Shaula!"
"You're not Shaula," he said bluntly. "Shaula refuses to wear clothes."
The woman claiming to be Shaula looked down at her attire—simple trousers and a comfortable-looking, brown shirt. It was a far contrast to the bikini that Shaula refused to change out of.
"It's all because Master's a big meanie," she grumbled. "'You can't wear that,' he said. 'It's a sexist design,' he said. 'I'm a giant dumb-dumb,' he said."
"Pretty sure I didn't say that last one!"
"Well, we were all thinking it, yup!"
He huffed. Then, he processed all of her words. "Are you really Shaula?"
She puffed out her chest with pride. "The one and only, yup!"
Without warning, he shot up and tackled her in a hug, which she graciously accepted. She giggled at the sudden display of affection.
He buried his face into her shoulder, letting the tears flow out freely. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."
"Master better be sorry for taking away my sexy outfit," she said, poking his cheek.
"That's not—" He stopped himself, remembering how her denial was as strong as her Hell's Snipe. As much as he wanted to apologize again, he instead just hugged her tighter. She was warm, almost unbearably so—a stark contrast to the frigid isolation of his First Trial. Not even the Book of Wisdom could emulate something so real, right?
He needed to get to the bottom of this.
With great effort, he detached himself from Shaula, wondering how to go about questioning her without revealing his apparent amnesia. Sure, she'd be fine, either by forgetting about it a moment later or dismissing it all as a mean-spirited prank, but he didn't want to make her sad, even for a moment—not after everything that he'd already put her through.
After careful consideration, he said, "Hey, Shaula?"
"Mhm?"
"What's your favorite thing to have happened in the last…say, five years?"
She lit up. "Seeing Master, yup!"
He wasn't surprised. "Like, seeing me for the first time in a long time, or…"
"Every moment away from Master is 'a long time'!"
He had almost forgotten how difficult it was to get a straight answer out of her. Resolving to be as direct as possible, he said, "Was I gone for hundreds of years and only came back recently?"
She nodded sagely. "When you leave, it's like you're ditching me for hundreds of years, yup! Poor Shaula is so lonely when Master's not around…"
He felt bad for her, he really did, but he also needed answers. "I meant literally hundreds of years. Was I ever gone for that long?"
She put a finger on her chin and adopted a thoughtful expression. "Maybe?"
"Wh-What do you mean, 'maybe'?"
She shrugged. "I'm not very good at telling time, nope."
"Okay, sure, but this is hundreds of years."
She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. "It feels like you've been asking questions for a hundred gazillion years, yup!"
Eh, it was worth a shot.
As much as it hurt him, he said goodbye and walked away, justifying it with the fact that if this was all real, he'd see her soon, and if this wasn't…
Well, he'd be rushing to the Tower, anyway. She'd been waiting for four hundred years; what were a few more months?
He stopped walking, realizing just how cruel that thought was. He turned on his heel, jogged back to Shaula, gave her a quick hug, then continued on his aimless path. He probably looked crazy, but if anyone were to accept his antics as completely normal, it was Shaula. Well, her and everyone else from the Emilia Camp, but that was because they were just used to his bullshit.
He frowned as he thought of the Emilia Camp. He knew that Crusch's death had been all but pinned on Emilia, but he had hoped to turn that around. It seemed that he had failed.
… Was it selfish of him to suddenly want this to be a Trial?
Subaru was a greedy man. He didn't want Shaula to be alone, but he wanted to help Emilia achieve her goals while also saving Satella.
'Satella…'
Where was she in all of this? Come to think of it, he hadn't seen a hairpin on Emilia, so was that actually Satella? Did Emilia win the Royal Selection and was living in the castle? Why wasn't he there? Did she hate him? Was he driven off by a rioting public because of Satella's presence? Was that even Satella in his bed or Emilia? How the fuck could he not tell them apart without a fucking hairpin?
The mere concept of Emilia hating him made his stomach twist. It hurt just as much to think that he had failed to save Satella.
'This better be a fucking Trial.'
Then again, everything could be fine. He had no idea what was happening, so he was supposed to be searching for answers, not jumping to conclusions.
He leaned against a nondescript door, rubbing his temple. He felt a lot less enthusiastic than when he had started out, but surely, there was nowhere to go but up. He opened the aforementioned door, finding himself in the Taygeta Library, except… it wasn't? There were no Books of the Dead—just an assortment of normal books. Perhaps he had gotten rid of them due to the danger that they possessed.
He smiled as he saw a familiar face. Beatrice was sitting on a couch, engrossed in a novel. She didn't seem to notice him coming in.
It felt like so long since he had seen her. It was nice to know that in this timeline—this Trial, he stubbornly reminded himself—he hadn't abandoned her again. He felt a bit vindicated.
'Take that, Echidna!'
He tip-toed around the room, coming up behind Beatrice. He reached down—
"If you wanted to hug Betty, you don't need to be surreptitious, I suppose."
His smile widened, as he pretended not to hear her. "Sneak attack!" he said, picking her up and spinning her around, laughing at her protesting squeals before bringing her to his chest. "I missed you so much!"
"It's been less than twelve hours, I suppose," she said drily, but she hugged him back, nonetheless. "Did you need something from Betty, I wonder?"
"What, can't I visit my precious Beako?"
"You can, but Betty was reading, in fact," she said, exasperated.
"Don't care. Beako hugs are better than books."
She squirmed out of his grip, grumbling about how she was at a really good part, in fact. Subaru grinned at the expected behavior.
Suddenly, his good mood evaporated, as he remembered what he had to ask her.
He shuffled his feet and looked at the floor. "By the way, I was wondering—"
He was saved from that line of questioning by the door slamming open, revealing a smiling face. Subaru jolted when he recognized her. Despite being told that years had passed, he hadn't really considered that people would… well, age, especially when he had only seen Emilia, Beatrice, and Shaula.
But Meili—he knew that she would grow up eventually.
Though, whether he was ready to see it or not was another story.
"Beatrice, you gotta come over here," a fourteen-year-old Meili said, her olive-green eyes sparkling.
Beatrice sighed. "Betty will not be reading any more today, will she?"
"Not until I show you this," Meili chirped. "There's a new mabeast outside—this one flies!"
"Lots of mabeasts fly, in fact," Beatrice deadpanned.
"Yeah, but this one is reeaally big!" Without warning, she dove forward, grabbed Beatrice's hand, and pulled the smaller girl off the couch. "Come on! Before it gets away!"
"Betty can walk on her own, in fact!"
Meili ignored Beatrice, as she passed by Subaru. She turned around, evidently not noticing him before. "Oh, hey, dad," she said, smiling. "Wanna come along?"
Needless to say, Subaru had never been more baffled in his life.
"Uh, s-sure?"
Her smile widened. She turned around and jogged away, her braided, purple hair bobbing behind her, while Beatrice struggled to catch up. Bemused, Subaru realized that the braid was the kind that he used to put in Emilia's hair after Puck left, and not the kind that Elsa had taught Meili.
He stood there for a minute before whispering the words that summed up basically everything so far.
"What the fuck just happened?'
He was happy, of course. After getting to know Meili in the last timeline, he had been planning to ask her if she would want to be adopted, but to have her casually call him "dad" was, well…
It was amazing.
Surely, if Meili of all people was so carefree and happy, things couldn't have gone so wrong.
With renewed vigor, he followed Beatrice and Meili through the familiar halls, oddly excited to see a new mabeast.
"I take it back, I take it back, I take it back!"
He was not excited to see a new mabeast.
It was a dozen feet long and half as wide with the eyes of a fly, the body of a cockroach, and the wings of a bat. Its red, glowing eyes peered out at Subaru through each of its lenses, gleaming with hunger. Its shiny, pitch-black exoskeleton pulsated every two seconds, revealing gray, sinewy, sweaty flesh. The flapping of its massive, leathery wings created tempestuous winds, nearly knocking Subaru off-balance.
"Get it away from meee!"
Through the thunderous winds, Subaru heard Meili giggle. Instantly, the mabeast retreated, flying back to Meili. "Good girl, Chimy," she said, rubbing its side as it laid flat on the ground in front of her, resting on its belly.
"You gave a chimera a cute nickname?!"
She shrugged. "Cute things get cute nicknames."
Subaru could have sworn that the mabeast wagged a tail-like structure at that comment.
Beatrice, who had looked positively bored this whole time, rolled her eyes. "Betty is cute, so she is Betty, I suppose. That thing is disgusting, so it is only a mabeast, in fact."
Meili pouted. "This adorable 'thing' has feelings, you know," she said, spreading her arms and pressing them against the mabeasts side, cooing as she attempted to cuddle it. "You're a sensitive cutie, aren't you, Chimy?"
The chimera roared—a distorted, almost synthetic cacophony that threatened to disintegrate Subaru's eardrums.
"Chimy says 'yes'."
Ignoring Subaru's sputtering protests about how she's suddenly able to "speak mabeast," Meili reached up, standing on the tips of her toes, and felt around the top of the chimera's head. Her eyes brightened. A sickening snap echoed through the arid desert, making Subaru flinch. Beatrice acted like this happened every other day.
"The bag, I wonder?"
"Yes, please," said Meili. Beatrice vanished, appearing a moment later with a suitcase-sized, leather bag, which bulged out in a plethora of places. Meili backed away from the chimera, holding its severed horn in her hand. She placed it in the bag, put her hands on her hips, and sent the chimera off with a grin. It roared, shot up into the air with the speed of a jet, and disappeared into the horizon.
"Another crisis averted, I suppose," Beatrice drawled.
Meili beamed. "Now, Chimy won't hurt anyone, and we can visit her whenever we want."
"Betty has no interest in visiting one of Daphne's monstrosities, in fact."
Meili poked Beatrice's puffed-up cheeks, eliciting an indignant squeal. "Daphne's creations are all adorable."
"They eat people, in fact!"
"They just need a little love!"
Subaru almost blurted out, "You know about Daphne?" but he restrained himself. He had told Beatrice and Emilia pretty early on, so it was only natural that he would have told Meili eventually, too.
He interrupted the bickering duo. "Any other eldritch—er, harmless, cute animals to deal with? Or should we go back inside before Sand Time hits?"
Beatrice looked off into the distance, gauging how much miasma was in the air. "We have five minutes before it starts, I suppose," she said evasively.
"If that were true, even I'd feel it," Subaru pointed out. "It's just a gut feeling, but I'd say we have… what, an hour?"
Meili crossed her arms and half-heartedly glared at Beatrice. "You just want to read," she accused.
"There's nothing wrong with that, I suppose!"
"It's ditching us!"
"You can read next to Betty, in fact!"
"But that's not spending quality time together! That's sitting in the same room, making no noise and pretending the other person doesn't exist!"
Beatrice put on an exaggerated, wistful smile. "Ah, the perfect morning, I suppose."
Subaru knew that he should probably intervene with something like, "All right, all right, that's enough fighting" and offer a compromise, but he was too bewildered by the carefree nature of their bickering. Beatrice was acting like her normal, introverted self, yes, but there were no hints of the loneliness that had plagued her for four hundred years—her frown wasn't as deep, her tone wasn't as biting, and her protests against socializing were much weaker.
As for Meili, Subaru had never seen her so… open. Five years was a long time, but was it really enough to overturn all the abuse that she had suffered at the hands of Capella? All of Elsa's conditioning?
'It doesn't make sense,' he thought, but seeing how her face lit up when Beatrice finally agreed to spend more time with them… Subaru couldn't bring himself to ruin such a perfect moment.
He let himself get dragged around the desert, encountering a variety of nightmarish beasts, some familiar and some not. While on the run from an "adorable" and "harmless" sandworm, he noticed something strange yet uplifting.
The entrance to Satella's shrine was gone.
He doubled back and checked. The overwhelming stench of miasma, normally so powerful that those not sensitive to it would still be affected, was completely gone.
Satella was free.
It logically followed that Envy had been eradicated since the world hadn't been swallowed by the shadows.
He collapsed backward onto the warm, soft sand, letting out a breathless laugh. A canine mabeast jumped over him, but he barely noticed it.
They had won.
As a reflex, his thoughts spiraled down to the typical "I don't deserve a happy ending," but that was selfish, wasn't it? He was trying to give everyone else their happy ending, and that happened to coincide with his. What, was he going to save everyone and then kill himself? If he did that, he would have learned nothing.
And… as crazy as it sounded, he knew that abandoning them would be taking away their happy ending.
As easy as it was to sit there and try to feel miserable, it just wasn't productive. He jumped to his feet, placed his fists on his hips, and gave a blinding grin.
"I'm ready for another mabeast! Bring it on!"
Yeah, it sucked to run from a horde of Lovecraftian beasts, but hearing Beatrice and Meili laugh like that made it all worth it.
Sometime later, Subaru got out of the bath after painstakingly scrubbing off literal blood, sweat, and tears. Surprisingly, the blood wasn't his; one of the mabeasts had eyes that would engorge and explode in a shower of blood and pus before regrowing once more.
"What the fuck, Daph," he muttered for what must have been the seventh time that day. Yes, there was a chance that the mabeast had sprung into existence as a result of Daphne's lingering miasma, but that weird eye thing just seemed intentional. "One thing's for sure: you and Meili would have gotten along great."
Actually, that just sounded like a nightmare. Subaru could imagine Meili babbling about all the things that she found cute in a mabeast, and Daphne would happily create it, resulting in a veritable army of unthinkable monstrosities that would quickly overtake the country. It was probably for the best that they would never meet, even though the reason why was unfathomably painful.
Subaru frowned, but he did his best not to linger on it. Instead, he thought about how Daphne would be happy that today had left him feeling so fulfilled—so full.
He frowned again, this time for a different reason. He felt like he was forgetting something. Well, yes, he was forgetting around five fucking years of his life, but there was another thing, wasn't there?
He had spent the rest of the day with Beatrice, Meili, and Shaula, who had joined them after their misadventures with mabeasts. Had he gotten so caught up in just how nice it was to be around them, he forgot something important?
… Ah, yes. The possibility that it was the Second Trial.
The more that he had thought about it, the more it didn't fit. As such, throughout the day, it had just… slipped his mind. Unless he learned more, he'd act on the assumption that this was real and that he just had amnesia.
He once again revisited the idea that this was all Gluttony's fault. After all, they were in the Tower, and that's where he had first encountered Louis. Sure, the memory loss didn't match what had happened to him last time, but she had also described him as an exception to her Authority, so maybe it happening a second time made him forget even less?
He thought of the Taygeta Library and how there weren't any Books of the Dead. That implied that the man-made entrance to the Od Laguna wasn't accessible, meaning that he and Louis wouldn't have met again. Or maybe they had, and he removed the Books of the Dead to prevent everyone else from finding his own Books, meaning that his amnesia was simply… delayed?
What if the Books being missing were part of Gluttony's Authority, similar to how Rem's possessions had disappeared when her name was eaten? But that didn't make sense because Subaru's name couldn't be eaten, and, even if it could, he doubted that the Authority of Gluttony would wipe away what he had done in his past life, too. After all, if it were able to do that, it would also erase countless deaths.
Screw the Butterfly Effect, there was no way to keep track of all the changes it would make. Even attempting to do that for a single person was enough to give him a headache.
"Maybe that's why Pandora's insane," he grumbled, realizing that she did that on a regular basis with millions of people. "That'd break anyone's mind."
Come to think of it, was Pandora doing this? Did she take his memory?
He shook his head. It's not that she wouldn't; he just couldn't think of a reason as to why she would do it in this specific circumstance. Sure, it kind of fit her whole "payoff" philosophy, but she usually wanted him to be acutely aware of both the suffering and the payoff. Here, he had no idea of what he had forgotten, so his main source of frustration was caused by confusion instead of actual sadness. If anything, being placed in such a familiar yet carefree environment just for it to be ripped away from him seemed like it'd be detrimental to her plans, whatever they were—it was obvious by now that it was more than just a simple "love me."
Of course, all of his reasoning hinged on the idea that Pandora wasn't batshit crazy, so he was back to square one.
He finished getting dressed and headed to his room, making a couple of quick detours. Earlier that morning, he had told himself that Emilia wouldn't want to settle down in a place that put her loved ones at risk—he had to stop himself from giggling like a schoolgirl when he thought about how he was counted among those people—so naturally, Reid's spirit would be gone.
And he was.
The grand staircase that led to the second floor, Electra, was missing. In its place was a smaller staircase, only a tenth of the size and matching all the others in design. Making his way up, he confirmed that there was no trace of an arena nor of any kind of Trial having ever been present.
It was simply a room.
For some strange reason, Subaru was disappointed. Perhaps there was a small part of him, even more irrational and idiotic than the rest, that kind of missed that red-haired bastard.
"How'd we get rid of him, anyway? Maybe we had Reinhard nuke him? Nah, the building's still standing. There aren't even any marks on the wall. Then again, he could have just asked the Od Laguna for a 'Divine Protection of Building Restoration.'"
Subaru amused himself with thoughts of Reinhard in a construction outfit, hard hat and all, holding up a bulldozer with one hand and juggling six entire wrecking balls in the other, humbly saying that he was going to use his Divine Protection of Carrying Demolition Vehicles. He'd then consult an architect on how to make a new building after destroying it because, of course, he doesn't have the Divine Protection of Architectural Knowledge! That would be absurd!
His soft chuckles were interrupted by a loud crash. He stiffened, keeping himself as alert as possible, as he tried to ascertain where the sound had come from.
"Left! Or was it—"
Another crash, this one accompanied by a miniature earthquake. Definitely the left.
He darted through the halls, hoping that no one was in there. Sure, Beatrice could take care of herself, Shaula could tank a falling skyscraper, Emilia could conjure a shield, and Meili always found her way out of crazy situations, but Subaru still needed to check, if only for his own peace of mind. What if Beatrice was caught by surprise and she didn't teleport out in time?
He grasped the edge of his cloak—since when did he wear a cloak instead of his tracksuit or knight's uniform?—determining that he'd be able to tear off some fabric easily enough. It wasn't water magic or anything, but it was the best that he could do with a broken gate.
He turned a sharp corner, nearly bumping into Emilia—he'd be mentally referring to her as that for a bit until he was able to interact with her a bit more. It was shitty of him, sure, but when two women were one-hundred-percent identical and acted similarly and were kind of sort of the same person, he'd need more than thirty seconds of interaction before being able to definitively say who was who. It didn't help that she still didn't have a hairpin, and she was wearing a silver dress, not a white nor black one.
'Focus, Subaru! There are more important things to deal with!'
He opened his mouth to speak, but Emilia beat him to it. "Good afternoon, Subaru," she said with a soft smile. "Have any of your memories come back?"
The casual way that she said that astounded Subaru. Her faith in him was truly unshakeable.
He didn't have time to think about it any further, as he heard another crash. "We need to go; someone could be hurt!"
She gave him a wry smile. "Not many memories yet, it seems. Don't worry; I'll handle it later." With that, she walked off in the opposite direction. A few seconds later, she looked over her shoulder at him. "Are you coming? This will be good for you."
He gaped at her and awkwardly pointed towards where the sound had come from. "But, the crash, and, um…"
"You'll remember soon enough," she said stubbornly.
She turned around again. Subaru understood the implicit instruction to follow. "You don't seem very concerned," he noted.
"As I said, no one is getting hurt."
"That's not what I meant," he said, quickening his pace to catch up to her. "This whole amnesia thing. You're so… calm about it all. Not that I'm worried! Gimme a day or two, and I'll be right as rain!"
"No one says 'right as rain' anymore," she said with a victorious grin. She forced it down, putting on a serious expression to convey her sincerity. "You and I have been through so much, Subaru. We've always come out on top. This will be no different."
A lump formed in Subaru's throat. He didn't know how to respond. For some reason, it felt like it had been months since he'd heard encouragement like that. Why, it must have been…
… He didn't know.
He hid a grimace. He thought that he had amnesia up to a certain point, but he didn't know where he had left off. Something with Echidna?
He supposed that it made sense that he didn't remember… well, what he didn't remember.
But he didn't let that get him down. If he had experienced it with her, it was worth remembering.
She saw the conviction in his eyes, as her smile widened. "That's what I thought. Now, come—we need to wake Caelum from his nap."
"Yeah, we… wait, what?"
She giggled and danced away. Subaru pushed his unhinged jaw closed with the back of his hand and followed behind her.
"When you say 'Caelum,' is that—"
"You'll see," Emilia sang with a skip in her step. "But don't get too excited. I gave you the day off, so you have a looot of hours stacked up."
"Are you my manager now?!"
She giggled again. He had never seen her so happy and carefree. Just as he had wondered with Meili a few hours ago, Subaru realized that things might have turned out well. After all, if Emilia had failed to save the elves, she wouldn't be so happy. If they had failed to save Satella, Emilia would be ridden with guilt until she told him.
But no. None of that was happening. Instead, she was talking about "Caelum."
Subaru didn't need to think too hard to figure out who that was.
Emilia opened the door, pressing a finger to her lips as she did so, signaling Subaru to be quiet. He didn't think that he'd be capable of saying anything coherent, anyway.
He felt his legs move underneath him, following Emilia on their own accords. Sweet sounds passed through one ear and out the other, as Emilia spoke softly to "Caelum."
Caelum. The stars. The heavens.
Eventually, she confirmed what was not even a suspicion anymore. Caelum was a baby boy.
Their baby boy.
She held out a sleepy infant with a small tuft of dark hair and slightly pointed ears. Emilia giggled at Subaru. "You always do that," she said fondly.
"Do what?" he asked absently, not taking his eyes off Caelum.
Handing him their child, Emilia said, "You're making that face. Without any words, you're telling me that I just gave you the greatest gift."
"Because this is the best day of my life," he said, instinctively rocking the baby in his arms.
"Mhm. I never get tired of that line."
He looked up at Emilia, his stare piercing her soul. "I don't care what happened these last few years," he said fervently. "If this is the result, it couldn't have been anything but perfect."
Emilia came forward and cupped his cheek, careful not to come too close while he was holding Caelum. "We are here because of you, Subaru. You saved my life. You showed me light in the darkness and held my hand when our world was a living nightmare."
Subaru's eyes widened at her choice of words. Something clicked in his mind, and he realized why he had so much trouble identifying her.
This was Emilia and Satella.
Somehow, they had merged. Their identity crises had been resolved, the Witch of Envy had been defeated, and throughout it all, Subaru had survived.
A smile threatened to tear his face in two. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"
She matched his smile. "After all these years, I have yet to grow tired of it."
As the days passed, Subaru learned to relax more. His amnesia concerned him less and less. Emilia didn't seem to mind much, either.
"You're still my Subaru," she would say.
He would want to respond with the same kind of statement, but what name should he use? Emilia? Satella? Either? What about the nicknames "Emma" and "Ella"?
He wanted to ask her about that, but the timing never seemed right. For now, he ended up mentally flip-flopping between "Emilia" and "Satella," though he tended to stray towards "Emilia" due to saying it a lot more in this life.
For all he knew, they had done the Fusion Dance, and they combined their names to be "Satellia" or "Emella". He wasn't sure how to feel about that.
Now, Meili, Beatrice, and Shaula had their minor squabbles, but they all got along well enough. Beatrice would confidently proclaim herself to be the favorite, which Shaula would quickly protest. Meili sat there humming, looking around as if she didn't notice, but it was clear that she was thinking, "I already know that I'm the favorite."
Subaru would laugh and tell them that his favorite was Patrasche, much to their confusion and consternation.
He would then turn around and smile sadly, wondering how well Daphne would have gotten along with Beatrice and Meili.
Despite his amnesia not being a point of contention, Subaru still asked Emilia some pointed questions, trying to figure out the current state of the world.
The elves were living peacefully in a distinctly non-icy Elior Forest. Geuse was assisting in humanitarian efforts throughout the poorer areas of Lugunica. Felt was queen.
He decided not to pry about Pandora. It seemed that all of his suspicions were wrong, and she had simply decided to leave them alone.
He rolled his eyes at his wandering mind. There he was, going on and on about the geopolitical state of Lugunica and evaluating the threat levels of cosmic entities that he may or may not have known in yet another past life. The thing is, there was a challenge right in front of him that was just as, if not more impossible than facing down a Witch.
Feeding a goddamn baby.
Subaru steepled his fingers in front of his face. He rested his elbows on top of the pseudo-table of Caelum's high chair, adopting a stern expression.
"Let's try this again," he said evenly.
Caelum stared blankly at Subaru. His little mouth hung open, as his eyes drifted around the room.
Subaru's face lit up. "Gotcha!"
He quickly maneuvered the miniature spoon towards Caelum's mouth, but that was quickly shut.
'Damn it,' Subaru thought. Emilia would kill him if he swore out loud in front of a baby.
He tried everything, including planes, trains, and automobiles, but Caelum just wouldn't eat.
"It's because it's veggie-flavored, isn't it?" Subaru asked.
"Gaa!"
"Yeah, yeah. We should have stuck with fruit."
"Mmmawagaaa!"
"I can't tell if you're crying or babbling…"
Caelum gave the brightest smile and screeched as loud as he could, bouncing in his chair.
Despite Subaru's apparent inability to feed his own son, he smiled. This was what he had been fighting for.
By the time that Emilia came to check on him, Subaru had managed to score a few bites.
"He's doing it!" Subaru said, still smiling widely. "He's actually eating this shi—silly, smell food!"
Emilia patted his arm comfortingly. "Here, let me try."
He let Emilia sit on his chair. With one gentle scoop of her arm, she fed Caelum an entire spoonful of vegetable paste.
Subaru gaped at her. "H-How did you—?"
"Elf magic," Emilia said evenly, already on her next bite. "There's a whole branch dedicated to nursing."
"Wait, really?"
"No. I have no idea how I do it."
She finished feeding Caelum and put him down for a nap, sneaking out with Subaru as quietly as possible. Once they were back in their room, she asked, "Ready to do that again in a few hours?"
Subaru rolled his eyes. "Sleeping is a myth. Got it."
Emilia gave a tinkling laugh and gently pulled him down to the bed. She kissed him softly, reminding him that this was everything that he had ever wanted. This was the life that he had dreamed of.
He no longer cared for recognition and formal titles. He had already received those, and he was tired of it.
The titles that he had now were simple, familial roles. He simply lived his life with the people he loved.
It was perfect.
He held his wife close, deepening this kiss. They moved through the motions that felt oh-so-familiar, even though he only remembered doing it twice.
He pulled back and leaned his forehead on hers. "I love you, Emilia," he whispered. "Thank you… for everything."
He closed his eyes and kissed her soft lips again, though she didn't kiss him back. Frowning, he retreated, a questioning look in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" he asked, a tight knot forming in the pit of his stomach. Had he said the wrong name? Damn, he still hadn't cleared that one up with her, had he?
Except that wasn't the problem.
She was calm when discussing his missing memories, but this was the most distraught that he had seen her since waking up in the Tower.
Tears formed in the corners of her amethyst eyes. She kept her arms wrapped tightly around him, as if afraid that this was the last time that she would be allowed to do that—as if she were about to lose him forever.
"Subaru…"
The tears began to fall, as her fragile heart shattered before his eyes. At the same time, Subaru felt his world crashing down on him, albeit for a very different reason.
"… Who is Emilia?"
