"Emilia, can we speak in private about something?"
Crusch had been waiting for an opportunity to speak with Emilia ever since they'd arrived at the Astrea Manor. Of course, Reinhard being Reinhard, he offered up his home as a place for all of them to stay for the night. To Emilia, despite his continuing hesitance to answer questions, this signaled a genuine and authentic interaction with them.
Crusch wasn't fooled by this act, however. As much as she respected and trusted Reinhard, she could tell when someone is talking around her divine protection. It's not like she never tried to find ways to fool it herself. Add in the peculiar absence of Felt and the rest of the maid staff, and it starts looking like their whole arrival was planned.
'The merchant working with Emilia seems to think so too. . .'
It only acted as an unfortunate coincidence that Wilhelm had come along with her. The last thing that old man needed was another reason to doubt his relationship with his family. With this in mind, Crusch wanted to voice her concerns to Emilia in private.
"Oh, w-what do you want to speak about?"
Emilia hadn't done a good job at masking her depressed state. She'd thought that the wide-scale search would turn up at least one viable lead, but instead, all she'd done was affirm how terrible a leader she was.
"Emilia. . . this may come across more blunt than I intend, but I believe Reinhard is lying to us."
Emilias eyes widened for a moment, but she quickly calmed down her emotions and clasped her hands together.
"Crusch, do you understand how serious that claim is? Why didn't you say anything during our interrogation?"
Crusch paused for a moment and quickly scanned their surroundings for potential eavesdroppers.
"My Divine Protection didn't go off. . ."
Emilia opened her mouth to speak, clearly confused at what Crusch was trying to say, but Crusch raised her hand to signal she wasn't done speaking.
"But he didn't answer a single one of our questions."
Emilia didn't understand. Even a hint of dishonesty should be detectable with Crusch's divine protection. Reinhard had answered their questions before, and clearly he felt guilty for everything that had been done to Subaru, so he didn't want to answer more of them.
"He did answer them! If S-Subaru is. . .alive, he isn't here!"
Crusch shook her head and tried to shush Emilia's voice down. If they drew attention to themselves, her plan to uncover Reinhard's secret would be ruined.
"Emilia, surely you noticed how much he qualified all of his statements? There wasn't a single definitive statement from him about anything! It was all 'maybe', 'possibly', or 'as far as he was aware'. Doesn't that strike you as weird?"
Emilia was still hesitant to go along with Crusch's line of reasoning. Reinhard was one of the few people who didn't condemn Subaru during the incident in Priestella. He was someone who was slow to judgement and a loyal friend. Sentencing Reinhard off an 'intuition' would only be a repeat of Subaru.
"Crusch, stop with this! It doesn't matter if Reinhard's answers were weird, he wouldn't lie to us!"
Crusch could see the gears turning in Emilia's head. She knew she wasn't dumb. This had clearly been something she'd noticed when they had arrived at the manor.
"What's more, we haven't made any contact with any of the maidstaff or Felt Camp. Instead, we have Reinhard waiting on us hand and foot! It's almost like he doesn't want us to. . ."
"Crusch, Reinhard has no reason to lie. I don't want to pursue this any further. You've already shown how 'effective' you can be at finding the truth."
Emilia was disgusted. Clearly, they hadn't learned their lesson after their first avoidable tragedy.
But even more so, she was disgusted with herself. Because, despite berating Crusch for her supposed 'wrathfulness', Emilia couldn't get herself to believe that Reinhard was on her side. Her reasons for distrusting Reinhard were well founded. So why did she feel the need to silence Crusch?
Perhaps Emilia was simply taking out her pent-up rage onto her. All the suffering she had undergone alone had isolated her from the remaining perpetrators of this crime. She had spent so long reflecting on her role in Subaru's death that she'd neglected to confront her feelings about the others. The pain of losing him again was not something she was prepared to face. At a glance, it's obvious why she said that. Now was simply her perfect chance to hurt Crusch in the same way that Crusch had hurt her.
'B-But. . .'
But such a view was solipsistic. She knew that Subaru wouldn't have ended up in their care if she hadn't sent him there. If she hadn't labeled him an Archbishop. But after months of blaming herself, she had grown numb to it. The only way she could rekindle her passion to get justice for Subaru was to begin attacking the others. With no leads and no way of knowing if the Subaru was alive, Emilia felt more hopeless than she had ever felt before.
"F-Forgive me Emilia, but I. . I can't live with myself if I don't see this through."
Crusch turned away from Emilia, clearly hurt by her last statement. It hadn't been something she had been directly involved with, but regardless, her knight was her responsibility. As much as she cared for Emilia's forgiveness, there was one person she wanted to apologize to even more. Crusch knew her desire was selfish, but receiving justice from Subaru took priority over Emilia's feelings. Still though, her words had cut deep. . .
"Crusch. . . I'm sorry, that was uncalled f-. . ."
"No Emilia, you are right. I-I don't deserve to speak after what I've done."
Crusch simply left Emilia's room without saying a word. Crusch had known their friendship was gone the moment their memories returned. Emilia had simply confirmed what she had known to be true for the last several months. After what she'd done, she didn't deserve friendship from anyone, most of all Emilia.
Emilia simply remained frozen in place. The hurt was clearly visible on Crusch's face from her previous comment. She had definitely overstepped her bounds. Wasn't she just as responsible for what happened? Where did she get off being so judgmental towards Crusch?
"Oh, Emilia-sama! My apologies, I sensed a large amount of negative emotions coming from your room and I wanted to check up on you."
While Emilia had stood in pensive thought reflecting on her cruel jab at Crusch, Reinhard had rushed over to get a read on the situation himself.
'It's only natural, right? He probably ran into Crusch somewhere in the hallway. . .'
But the seed of doubt had already been planted inside Emilia's mind.
"U-Um. . .Reinhard?"
Reinhard tried his best to hide any feelings of nervousness or guilt from showing on his face, but Emilia could see the split second change that happened in his mind.
"Y-Yes Emilia-sama?"
"I know this may seem odd. . . but we haven't seen any of your staff since we arrived here. Does your mansion not have a maidstaff?"
Reinhard's expression remained the same, but the inner turmoil was threatening to spill out with his answer.
"U-Uh w-we do have one, b-but I wanted to assure your quality of stay myself!"
He hadn't been prepared for Emilia to catch onto these small details. He had hoped to let her down nicely and without the need for a full-on interrogation of his staff. However, this was starting to look unavoidable at this point. At worst, he may even be forced to send them away from the manor early. But that would only raise their suspicions of him more.
"Reinhard. . . please. . ."
The pause filled the room with a heavy air.
"T-tell me that I can trust you. . .?"
Reinhard swallowed hard and took an even longer pause before answering her question. What he was about to do would go against his knightly code. Not to mention the values he was instilled by his parents. But it was the only thing he could do to protect his lady and staff.
". . .o-of cour-. ."
"Felt-chan isn't here, is she?"
Reinhard was stopped in his tracks. Emilia stared at him expectantly, but he knew that anything he said wouldn't be enough.
Reinhard silently turned around, closing the door behind him.
"I-I can't believe it! This is. . .surreal. . ."
Subaru had heard the story multiple times from different sources, but this is the first time he'd ever been faced with concrete evidence of what happened to him.
"Didn't believe me did'ya? I really thought ya di-. ."
"Old man Rom! Please give Big Bro a moment to himself!"
They had only been staying at Rom's loothouse for a couple days, but Rom was still making comments about how shocked he was that Subaru had survived. Adding in the fact that Subaru had no memory of the past 2 years, these interactions only seemed to hammer home exactly what he had been trying to ignore. Natsuki Subaru had already lived and died once in this world (as far as everyone except him was aware).
At his core, Subaru wanted to make peace with this fact, but he was unsure how to go about it. When Rom told him that he'd regularly visit his grave, Subaru, perhaps out of morbid curiosity, had asked him to take everyone there.
He had obscured himself with some concealing robes (not magic, but good enough to ease his concerns of recognition) and traveled to visit his grave alongside Felt and Rom. Sadly, Kadomon had to leave him after they had dropped him off with Rom, but he had promised to come over and periodically check up on them until the search for Subaru ended. Of course, he wouldn't be able to operate his stand during this time on the off-chance Emilia came back to see him, but they managed to work out an agreement. Kadomon would pick up food, clothes, and any other necessary items to give to Subaru while he stayed with old man Rom and in return, he'd be paid a respectful sum by the Felt Camp for his assistance. This way, everyone could walk away happy. Not to mention, it would allow Kadomon to finally figure out what the hell happened to his favorite customer!
For Subaru, this meant that he wouldn't be able to leave his new home very much. Aside from his interactions with Rom, Felt, and occasionally Kadomon, he'd be trapped inside all day with nothing to do but think.
'At least at the Astrea Manor I had a lot of space and people to talk to.'
"Oi! What's wrong with ya boy? Ya gonna keep staring off into the distance?"
Rom rudely interrupted Subaru's reminiscing before he had the chance to think himself into a more depressed state.
"Look at that! That's your grave isn't it? I saw them put your body underground! So how are ya standing here!?"
Rom gestured towards Subaru's capstone in confusion. Subaru didn't have an explanation he could give him. For all he knew, this grave could be anyone's.
"Rom, are you sure this is my grave? I don't see a name on this thing."
"Of course they didn't put your name on there! Did'ya really think they'd let people visit your grave and see your body?! It covered with lacerations and burns. Ya looked like you'd been mutil-. . ."
Felt punched him in the leg to signal him to stop speaking. Subaru noticed this and decided to change the subject.
"The dirt here looks undisturbed. So could this mean my body is still six feet under?"
Rom hadn't considered this possibility, but upon a quick examination of Subaru, it made sense.
"I hadn't seen ya very much since our first meeting, but you do look younger than ya did in the casket."
Subaru put his hand to his chin. The idea of there being two "Natsuki Subaru"s was not something he'd ever entertained. As far as he was concerned, the world didn't even need one, much less two.
"Ow! Felt, what the hell was that for?!"
"Nothing. The look on your face just now annoyed me!"
Subaru rubbed his arm and turned back towards his grave. He slowly walked up and put his hand to the capstone.
"Big Bro! Ya find anything?"
"No, noth-. ."
Subaru's hand gravitated towards his chest.
'Wait. . .what is this?!'
"GAHHGH?"
Before he knew it, Subaru fell to his knees, gripping his shirt and panting like a tired dog.
"Subaru? What just happened?!"
Rom rushed over and put his arm onto Subaru's shoulder, propping him up and leaning him against the capstone.
"Big Bro?!"
Felt used her divine protection to speed over and put her arms around Subaru's side. In the confusion, she'd trampled over some flowers left by his grave an unknown amount of time ago.
"W-What. . .*hahhh*. . .was that?" *hahh*
Subaru had absolutely no idea what just entered his body, but it felt vile. Almost like several other people had just slithered their way into his soul.
'People? No. . . whatever that was, I can still feel it in there.'
"Bro, why the hell does weird stuff like this keep happening to you?!"
"Believe me, I would gladly pass this weird affiliation to someone else if I could! Seriously, being Isekai'd must've fried some of the synapses in my brain!"
Felt and Rom just looked at him like he was an alien. Such was the price of using a 'Subaruism' in front of people with no experiences of the modern world.
"Ah! Forget that, let's just head back before we end up doing something really crazy like digging up my grave."
Once again, Felt and Rom looked at him like he was some sort of madman. They probably never considered actually digging up Subaru's grave when they came to visit today, but just to be on the safe side, he picked himself up and started marching out of the cemetery before they had a chance to object.
"Wait a minute Bro! You're gonna explain what the hell just happened to y-. . ."
"Boy, what's gotten into ya? Tell us what the heck ju-. . ."
"Sorry! Can't hear you both! Better hurry up and follow me before I leave you both behind!"
'That was really weird, but there's no way I'll be able to explain what just happened to me. I'm not even sure myself. All I do know is that staying around there isn't good for my health!'
"Reinhard, we apologise for imposing on you so much, but we'll need somewhere to stay for the next couple of weeks until transports start back up."
Otto was still feeling nervous about indirectly threatening the Sword Saint, but luckily, he was aware of Reinhard's overly passive and submissive personality. As long as he framed the situation as one of necessity, Reinhard would be forced to accept whatever demands they make of him.
Of course, he knew that he was resorting to scummy tactics. But in the last couple of days, it had been made abundantly clear that Reinhard was hiding something from all of them. It was particularly surprising to him when Emilia herself had asked him for help in coercing the truth out of Reinhard. Even she had become privy to the odd situation in the Astrea Manor.
Thus, with some quick assistance from the rest of the Emilia Camp, a plan was hatched.
The Crusch Camp had been left out of these schemes. Wilhelm had been too ashamed to speak to his grandson since the moment he returned to his home and Crusch hadn't spoken to Emilia since their conversation two nights ago.
The scheme was simple. If they couldn't get Reinhard to spill the beans, they could at least wait him out. The longer they remained in the Manor, the more likely Reinhard makes a mistake. Not to mention the nonexistent maidstaff and occupants. The entire Felt Camp, aside from Reinhard, had vanished by the time they had all arrived in the Capital. If Reinhard proved too difficult to question, they could always corner one of them once they returned home.
"Y-You are unable to secure transportation back to the Miload Estate?"
Reinhard was surprised, but still anticipated that something like this might happen. He lamented the idea of hiding his staff and camp away for an indefinite period of time, but if he didn't comply, he'd be dooming Subaru. Everyone aside from Felt could be reasonably absent during this time.
"Our apologies Reinhard, but all transports to outside the Capital have been temporarily stopped."
Otto was aware of Reinhard's divine protection. Emilia had told him about it when they crafted their scheme. Luckily, he wasn't lying about the stoppage of all transportation outside the capital. What he neglected to mention was that it was his fault.
He had used his connections with the local merchant scene to temporarily stop all movement in and out of the capital. This wasn't an easy feat, mind you. It required a massive bribe from Roswaal and some of the nobles backing Emilia. However, Subaru, even if only viewed as an asset, was easily worth this level of sacrifice.
"I-I see. Feel free stay as long as necessary."
His words might have indicated agreement.
'And not a second longer.'
But the expression on his face signaled his real feelings.
Otto thanked Reinhard and headed back to tell the others the good news. He wasn't an idiot. He had functionally just declared war on Reinhard. This wouldn't be an easy task by any means, but for Subaru, he was prepared to go to war with the entire world.
'Game on Reinhard.'
"This is seriously too close for comfort!"
By the third night, it had become clear to both Felt and Rom that the previous 'Bat raid' would be happening every evening. At first, they'd been unprepared, but luckily, old man Rom was able to hold off the Mabeasts himself until they dispersed into the sky. But now, despite their dwindling numbers, they had come back for more.
"These things have been after me every night! Can't they just give up already?! Aside from that assassin, I've never seen such determination to kill someone before! Did I diss their favorite anime or something?"
Subaru, barricaded into the Loothouse with Felt, proclaimed his despair for everyone to hear. He had a good relationship with Rom before he lost his memories, but no matter how you looked at it, being forced to leave a mansion to go live with an unknown brute in the slums was a clear downgrade. Now he had to add on the stress of potentially being murdered while he slept by literal hellspawn bats!
"I'd tell them that I don't taste good, but from experience, I know that won't stop them. They'd just tear out my tongue before I could even voice my concerns."
Felt stared at him incredulously before calming herself down and turning to face Rom. The stress of constantly being under attack wasn't something a person could hide. Anyone, even Subaru, would express their fears in situations like that. Over the past three days, Subaru had been describing morbid scenarios more than he'd ever done before. This was probably his way of coping with the stress.
'But still. . .when he says it, his tone makes me think it actually happened to him. . .'
"Oi! They dispersed!"
Rom called out to the two barricaded kids in the loothouse. It looked like, just like the previous two nights, he'd successfully driven the Mabeasts away.
"A-Are you sure?! I really don't want to wake up to one of those things munching on my brain!"
Subaru had already been having nightmares of his previous experience with those monsters. The last thing he wanted was to wake up from one of those dreams and immediately have it become real.
"Why ya gotta be so morbid, boy? I'm sure they're all gone! Ya can sleep soundly here!"
Subaru breathed a sigh of relief and put his arm around Felt.
"Hey. . .Big Bro, I've noticed something about you recently. . ."
Subaru perked up and pulled his arm away from Felt. The relief he felt from seeing those beasts driven off had caused him to be a little too handsy.
"U-Uh. . .W-what is it Felt?"
She stared at him for a moment, seemingly afraid to voice whatever it was she was thinking about him.
"You look scared."
Subaru tilted his head, confused at what Felt was trying to get at with her statement.
"Of course I'm scared! I was just nearly dismembered by a pack of flying monsters!"
Felt frowned at his characterization. This was part of what she'd detected from him recently.
"When we were staying at the manor. . .you never said stuff like that."
Subaru's smile started to drop, but he quickly forced it back up so that Felt wouldn't have to see the pitiful face he was about to make.
"Felt, I'll admit I'm feeling a little bit under the weather, but you really don't have to worry about me!"
She didn't seem to be fazed by Subaru's halfhearted affirmation.
"Your eyes. You have dark shadows beneath your eyes."
Subaru was thrown off by this straightforward declaration by Felt. He hadn't been getting as much sleep as he used to, but there was no way he'd be able to explain to her the reason why.
"My eyes? Felt, while I agree my eyes may be different, they are a staple of the Natsuki household! I can't control if my eyes are creepy!"
He smirked at Felt with a cheeky grin. This was something he was used to dealing with when he was a child. While he would agree with people that his eyes were somewhat creepy, he wouldn't let such an attack go unanswered. After all, they were his mother's eyes too!
"N-No! Your eyes have always been creepy Big Bro! It's just that recently they've been. . ."
"Been what?"
Felt was sick of this back and forth. Clearly Subaru had no intentions of answering her seriously.
"You know what, just forget it. If you want to play dumb then I'm not going to try and force an answer out of you!"
Subaru silently sighed a sigh of relief. He really did care for Felt and Reinhard and he could tell this whole ordeal had been just as hard on them as it had been for him. If he could help relieve some of their burden by keeping quiet, he would do just that.
Rom opened the front door of the loothouse and rested his large club on his shoulder.
"Felt-chan, I'm really glad that ya wanna stay with Subaru and I, but shouldn't ya go and inform Reinhard about what's been happening since you arrived?"
"Old man Rom, I'm not sure if Big Sis and the others are still there. If I walk over there now, I could jeopardize everything we've worked for!"
Rom scratched his head with his free hand and slowly placed his club back on the wall.
"To tell ya the truth Felt-chan, it's getting more and more difficult for me to fight serious battles! Even if their numbers are decreasing, I can't guarantee Subaru's safety if I have to fight every night. Please, can ya go and tell Reinhard of our situation?"
Felt didn't seem to like the idea of leaving Subaru all alone, but with Rom's grim assessment, it was looking like the only plausible course of action.
"I'll leave tomorrow morning. But I'll be back to check on Big Bro the next day!"
As the sun began to rise, a lone man came upon an unmarked grave in a secluded cemetery.
For most people, this would be a place of remembrance and honoring their fallen loved ones. They would come here out of compassion. It would allow someone to reflect on the most precious moments shared between themselves and another person before their story ended. For this man, this place was the opposite.
He came here out of duty, not love. He certainly hadn't shown any of those feelings towards the man buried here. Instead of remembering the happy times between them, he could only think about the worst. They were all his fault.
"I-I. . ."
The man saw the flowers that he'd placed here had been trampled.
Perhaps others may have felt some form of righteous fury. It was certainly an affront to the dead person receiving those gifts. But this man, couldn't bring himself to feel anything. If he was a good enough man to judge someone over a small mistake like this, maybe he could've felt anger.
Instead, he only reminded himself of how much he had fallen. At one point in his life, he was a virtuous person. He was a paragon of justice and respected knight of the kingdom.
Now he was nothing more than a mercenary. The low-level scum he'd detested in his youth. A man who chooses not to pledge his sword to righteous causes, but to the whims of powerful and rich degenerates with fantasies of power.
But it was all he could do. That was the only way for a man like him to survive.
"I-I. .suppose any flowers I left here could be considered a mocking gesture, wouldn't you agree?"
As the words left his mouth, he hoped to hear one of the snide one-liners that typically found themselves in their conversations. He hoped to hear anything except that dreadful silence.
Too bad for him. The silence was his fault. He'd created it.
"T-The very least I can do is plant more. . ."
He looked around the general area, only to find it devoid of any form of life, much less something vibrant like flowers. It was quite the fitting aesthetic for a cemetery.
"Say, Subaru. . . Do you like flowers?"
The wind picked up and quietly whistled into his ears.
That was enough of an answer for him.
He picked up his tattered cloak and summoned one of his contracted spirits to appear next to him. Even though he hadn't said anything, his intentions were clear. The man needed another presence to brighten up this dark and dreary place. He couldn't stomach being alone here anymore.
As the man silently walked off, he decided he would buy new flowers to plant here the next time he visited. He wasn't sure which type yet, but the color orange seemed like an apt choice.
The wind howled at his departure.
Julius Juukulius could only grit his teeth as he felt tears start streaming down his cheeks.
Authors Note
Hey guys! Once again, its been a long while since I updated a fic! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and didn't forget what was going on in the story since it took me so long to update. Please, as always, tell me if you think any characters are OOC or could be improved upon in future dialogue. I'm especially desperate to have each character address Subaru by a different name (like Tappei does) so it is clear who is talking at any given point. If there is a name people use in canon, I'm preferential towards that, but its especially difficult to scan the entire web novel for interactions between obscure characters to find these sorts of details. EX: I think Emilia refers to Felt as 'Felt-chan' but I'm not sure? I do think this chapter was a bit bland in its writing, but I also think that I've improved as a writer since I started this fic so I hope you all enjoyed this! To people who are annoyed with how long its taking for everyone to reunite, I don't want to spoil, but I'm taking things at my own pace. It will happen! I promise! The next chapter is going to be wild, so I hope everyone who has been keeping track of plot threads can sort of anticipate what is going to happen. I will say that, in like chapter 5, someone made an insane prediction for a scene I had already planned out and I wanted to tell them right away that they guessed right. Sadly, they commented as a guest, so I couldn't. But its coming up soon! I'll work on this fic again soon, but The Secret has been receiving a lot of attention and I feel the urge to update that fic like a hundred times a day, so that will be my next (maybe 2) updates.
I am glad that everyone is finally coming to terms with the fact that this Subaru (technically) isn't their original Subaru. He's just a resummoned Arc 1 Subaru. The consequences of their actions haven't simply just 'erased' themselves, and this will be something everyone will have to face eventually.
I didn't really have any interactions with Rem, Ram, Meili, or Wilhelm in this chapter, but don't worry, they'll come into play in the next few chapters.
Finally, with Felt deciding to return to the Astrea Manor, that might seem like sort of an asspull, but to be honest, it feels like something that someone would do in that situation. I mean, there's no way Felt can just remain missing for weeks on end and not have that get noticed by everyone else.
Also, for all the people missing from the Felt Camp throughout this fic, I don't want to spoil everything that is going on with them, so all I'm going to say is one word: Vollachia.
It's kind of a blessing in disguise I've been so slow to write these chapters because Tappei has been dropping bombshells every chapter in Arc 7 so far. Will Vollachia come up later in this story. . .? No spoilers!
Thanks, and until next chapter!