If there is one thing Subaru is well and familiar with, it's fear. How it gets his heart pumping rapidly, and sharpens all his senses. But sometimes he's far too focused on the pounding of his heart to notice the small bits of gravel and dirt pressing into his bare heels as he tries to throttle more strength into his burning legs. Cold night air screams by his ears whipping at his hair and stinging his cheeks. Petra's hand is clenched tightly in his left as they run, desperately trying to put distance between them and the cultists chasing after them.

The quiet forest they're running through is cast in nothing but shadows, the light of the moon isn't enough, but for a brief moment, everything is illuminated by a bright red light casting everything in an ominous red glow. Crackling energy resounds behind them while a fireball shoots right by the side of Subaru's face. Red static crackling right next to his eye as heat presses against his cheek briefly, making the hairs on his neck stand. Smoke rises from the scorch marks on the ground.

"Get back here you little-!" their deep voices shout through the forest as their heavy footfalls ring like a gong. They had done everything they could have done. Did acts that would bog down their consciousness, and it still wasn't enough. Memories floating to the surface as he tries to shove them down and refocus his concentration.

Petra stands at the doorway of his room, tears gathering in her eyes as she forcibly removes herself from the cultist that held her. Subaru takes him in first, studying how he rubs the back of his neck and looks away from the scene instead of the stone face that takes up most of the faces he sees. A gold ring glinting on his ring finger, as he steps into the room closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

"There's another door." She whispers quietly, words buried beneath her purposeful loud sobs as she clutches the front of his quickly turning damp shirt.

"You did well," he whispers, keeping his eyes glued on the man in the room with them. He studies him, learning how the gears twist in his head.

"Damn it! Why don't you just throw more!"

"If I burn down the forest we'll be even more screwed!"

Subaru throws his head back for what would be the 17th time, as his heart leaps into his throat. Shit. The cultists are rapidly closing the distance that had once stretched between them, their longer legs covering more distance. One of them has their right hand outstretched with a bright red light gathering in his palm.

He grabs Petra's arm and throws the both of them towards the ground, the rough gravel scratching against his arms. Leaving torn skin, and dribbles of blood in its wake. Sharp sparks of pain shooting through his elbows.

But none of those sensations compare to the overwhelming drumming of his heart that picks up speed when another ball of light flies by them. A loud hissing sound erupts from the ground, a dark black scorch mark now marring the dirt. Just inches away from where he had been. Both of them scramble back to their feet just barely glancing behind them. Terror fills their blood at the increasingly shrinking distance between them and their captors. Subaru notes that only 40 feet are standing between them. They can't afford to let that distance shrink any more than it already has.

He needs to think! Eyes rapidly scanning the forest desperately searching for a possible solution.

But there's nothing.

With his own breath coming up short and his whole body burning he can't help but think the odds are stacked far too high this time. Even if they had gotten out of the building through a combined force of ingenuity and luck, Subaru knew it would have been too far-fetched to even assume they could shake off the cultists.

A stupid plan that had bid too much on luck and timing.

With trembling hands, Subaru crouches in front of the door to his room the silver fork wavering in his hands as he sticks it into the keyhole. Carefully twisting the prong as the soft clicks of the gears being turned echoes like it's being blasted through a speaker. Every fiber of his being tensing expecting the knob to turn and slam open, and to crush him against the wall.

It's like watching an old horror film play out in front of your eyes, the people on screen moving silently towards their impending doom as you scream out at them. Desperate to change the ending but knowing full well there was nothing you could do. They could run as fast, and as far as they could but if they couldn't shake these cultists it would be over. Another heaving breath tears it's a way through his body as he closes his eyes wondering what Father or Petelgeuse would do when he was eventually caught. What would they do to Petra?

When he steps out from the room with the blood roaring in his ears and screaming in his veins he bides his time hanging around the corners. Each rapid pulse that his body makes has him, waiting with bated breath for someone to turn that corner and find him.

Even with all the puzzle pieces gathered it's not yet complete. Everything they had done would still not be enough.

He crouches in front of Petra's room, the wooden doors looming over him imposingly. Through sheer force of will and the heavy amounts of fear, he gets the brass knob to twist freely. Throwing open the doors. Petra is cowering on the bed with a key clutched in her hands. She scrambles out of bed, reaching out with her hands as he takes them in his.

A small reassurance in those moments.

"Let's go." The only sign he gets from her that she had heard is the tight squeeze that she gives.

A gravel road snags his attention. It's dark only kept alight by the moon above them. He makes a quick decision. It would be an incredibly risky move, a maneuver that would be banking on his quickly waning strength.

"If Father finds out they got away-!" The voice starts getting louder with each word, "Damn it!"

His feet skid across the gravel before slapping his feet back against it in a burst of speed.

Light.

He sees light.

There's still hope.

He runs towards the lights in the distance with his depleted strength as he eventually finds himself running towards a fenced-in mansion.

They barrel straight for the fence. As they get closer Subaru realizes the enormity of the property that they're technically trespassing on.

Even with all the electricity that crackles through his body, he could read the confusion radiating off her like a beacon.

"I"m going to-" sharp cold pangs jabs in his lungs as he sucks in the cold night air, "-get you over!"

"What?!" her eyes blow wide as he lets go of her arm. Subaru hoists Petra up by her pits motioning for her to stick her feet in the holes before feeling his muscles burn as he coils them. With a massive effort, he shoves her up over the fence, watching her hands tremble as she pulls herself over the rest of the way and drops down. A loud cry escapes her lips as she crashes unceremoniously onto the ground. Subaru dares to look back again, his heart fluttering just a tiny bit at the realization that they haven't ditched the cultists yet.

There's still a chance.

Subaru starts jabbing his bare feet into the fence as he clambers up to get over. He almost jumps back and let's go from the sting that catches him off guard. But he only tightens his grip and climbs faster. Hyper-aware of the thundering footsteps echoing behind him and the small girl who's staring at him. Watching with bated breath. Her worry pressing itself against him as she watches with wide eyes pleading for something. A silent but desperate wish for him to make it over.

"FUCK! Father's is gonna have us! Especially after dealing with-"

Petra clambers off the ground quickly but her eyes are still locked onto his face, her fingers wrapped tightly around the hem of her dress. Knuckles turning white from how tightly she was holding it.

"Why didn't you just use your damn magic?! We wouldn't be in this mess if-"

Subaru is just barely over the top of the fence as red light starts filtering in from behind him.

"You know magic would just bring someone, and if someone found the base it would be even worse!"

"If we don't bring them back what do you think is gonna happen?!"

Subaru jumps down from the top crashing into the ground. He looks up with wide eyes at Petra who is staring down at him, her mouth frozen as she reaches out and grabs his hand. She pulls him up her eyes turning watery whether from relief or the stress of the situation, he doesn't know.

"FUCK, COME ON!" heavy footfalls reverberate down the road as two figures come into view, blocking out some light.

Only instinct saves them from the next attack as his gut wrenches telling him to move! He pulls Petra towards himself and dives for the ground watching from the corner of his eye, the twisting smoke that rises from the giant hole in the fence.

"DAMN IT!" Their frustrated faces lit only by the dim red light that flickers off slowly. Even when they're wearing masks he could practically see their faces contort in anger and frustration.

To Subaru's absolute horror the one who had stalked forward has his body start expanding in size, the crunching of bone burns itself into his mind as he watches the body change. The man's face contorts and stretches into something vaguely dog-like. Cold water floods his systems keeping him locked in place, unable to move his legs while watching the gruesome transformation from man to monster.

Bits of cloth fly about as the outfit tears off, while blood starts sliding down it's growing fur coat. All of its muscles visibly ripple as it coughs something up. A pulsing beating something splatters out onto the ground from its mouth. Blood staining the ground and dribbling down from it's lower jaw, as it shakes its head and opens its wild frenzied eyes. An unnatural glow radiating from them as it peels its lips back into a savage growl.

"GRRAAAGGH!" The low tones of the guttural sound pass right through his body like a physical force. It has him being pushed back just from the sound waves emitted.

It's just like in The Mountain, a hulking beast before him ready to squash him like the pest he was.

"We need to go," she whispers it quietly but Subaru hears it loud and clear. Her voice is a clap of thunder against the guttural growling and cracking earth.

They both turn rapidly and run. Feet pounding on the ground with renewed vigor, adrenaline pumping through their bodies giving them a boost of panicked strength. Every shard of glass that tears through his insides is suppressed by the hulking beast that causes earthquakes with each slam of its paws. They both almost fall over on multiple occasions due to the trembling ground.

"Come on, they're just kids! I can't believe you're being outrun by fucking children of all things?!"

The only warning Subaru gets is when Petra's reddish-brown hair is highlighted in crimson before the smell of burned flesh fills his nose, and acid is splashed across his back. Vision shaking, everything rattling around him dancing with the black spots in his eyes. Every breath that passes through him is a stab to the gut, the air hooks through his nerves and ignites everything it touches. Stumbling forward as his feet clumsily crash into each other as he releases Petra's hand. Her head turning around the moment they disconnect.

The vague feeling of a rift stretching between them gives him a sense of déjà vu.

Subaru slides the key through the keyhole, the small metal nearly dropping to the ground as the metal door pulls itself open. Hissing out cold air when he moves to grab Petra's hand again. But his fingers only grasp air. Fearing for the worse he snaps his head back, eyes blown wide, feeling his muscles tense as they prepare for a looming threat.

But it's not a threat that shakes him to his core. It's her form the way her shoulders were hunched, and the white of her knuckles as she grips her dress tightly in her fingers. The unsure tremble of her lips as they press into a firm line like she's polished her resolve.

"Petra?" Panic surges through his body as he makes a move to take her hand again but she steps back and avoids him. "We need to go, there are people-"

"HOW DID THEY GET OUT OF THEIR ROOMS!"

Usually, when she speaks it's always barely above a whisper, a small feather floating across the wind carried away under the storm that had been her life.

But here her voice is none of those things, "Are we bad people?" It's loud but shaky like a crumbling building collapsing in on itself. The foundation breaking apart under all the weight it had to carry.

"Are we bad people?! For..."

His reflection is always so clear when he looks back at her eyes. The crisp detail of his gaunt face, the dark black hair that shines back with such clarity. But that's not what has his attention. It's the absence of life in there that has him staring with an open mouth feeling like a fish out of water. His mind-twisting itself in knots as anguish digs a hole through his heart.

"We used people just...just like-" Her voice cracks just a little bit. Long shadows dancing in the hallway behind them. Indicating that the cultists are getting closer. But the only thing he's truly terrified of is the thousands upon thousands of cracks that make up her body. Fracture lines that cross against each other to form an impossibly complicated web, teetering on the edge of total collapse.

Briefly, he wonders what she sees when she looks at him. Does she see a helpless victim like her? A person who was nothing more but skin and bones... Or does she see a monster? A person no better than her captors? Had she ever thought she traded one sin for another?

"I wish we didn't have to." The words grate past his mouth, scratching against his throat unwillingly. Even though she nods and takes his still offered hand it feels like he had said the wrong thing. Like some sort of incomprehensible abyss shuddered open between them, and Subaru had failed somehow to bridge the gap.

She doesn't look up after that, keeping her head trained to the ground. He wishes he could see her again to know what she sees in him. What keeps her going and lets her trust a monster like him?

"RRAAAGGH!" It rumbles through the open field, the deep pitches of the roar causing tremors to shake through their bodies.

Her face is a gentle caress from the wind, a small soothing breeze that brushes past you on a burning summer day. No fear, no disgust, or apprehension fill her eyes. She doesn't see a monster in those foggy cyan hues that are blurred out by her tears.

"Please!" The wobble of her lips as she realizes he had let go of her hand and that his body is rushing towards the ground. Her eyes are an open wound bleeding the things that make up her heart as she locks eyes with him. Burning into his soul hoping for him to understand the magnitude of her desperation.

Everything about her is screaming something, cutting through the chaos of the situation. She tells a story not with her words, but with her body. In every twitch of the muscle. Straining her thin legs as she makes them stop. Words are wrapped around her shoulders as she reaches back and snags his hand in hers. A fiery storm that encompasses her body as she refuses to let go, desperately pulling him back to his feet trying to right his disorientation.

When she looks at him now it's not with that same pleading expression she held when they first met. It's not the look of hesitant awe and withheld compassion on other occasions.

It's one filled with life, bursting to the seams with emotions. Raw determination takes up most of the stage but there are flickers of fear and anticipation dancing at the edge. Admiration lining the edges and desperation pooling at the bottom. Subaru reads her like an open book. It's not a monster she sees, not a purposeless puppet adrift in a vast ocean, and not a person drowning under the weight of his own sins.

She looks at him like she's asking for him to push forward and stay with her.

"Okay." His voice is breathy as he sucks in another mouthful of air, focusing on the stones that press into the skin of his feet. They make a sharp turn towards the side of the mansion. Ignoring the earthquakes and the orchestra of noise playing behind them.

The wind whips by his face while bright lights flicker ahead. They're about to turn the corner and hopefully out onto a field filled with guards, knights, anyone. Worry grips his heart in its icy claws, but he's not sure if it's from the fact they might be killed or that they'll still have to keep running with more obstacles standing in their way.

As they turn the corner, he just sees an open field with more trees, shrubs, and bushes. Shit.

"Let's go." His voice is scratchy, the words tearing at his throat as he starts drawing in large gulps of air. Exhaustion finally taking hold now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off. His back starts burning and demanding his attention by shooting sharp sparks of lightning through his nerves. While the lower half of his shirt feels wet clinging to his skin with a sticky substance.

It takes a bit of nudging and careful pushing to get Petra out of her state of shock, but when she does they both hurry away. They're constantly looking behind them, expecting the hulking beast to charge forward and snatch them up in its huge slobbering jaws.

It's difficult trying to withhold the gasps of pain that threaten to spill out of his mouth as he guides Petra through the field. His stomach recoils and tries retching up what he had for dinner, but he ends up throwing up nothing.

In a last-ditch effort, Subaru takes them into a shed and locks it, ushering Petra towards the back next to some gardening tools.

The lock rattles multiple times, and the metal clinks against each other as it holds firm. A hissing sound follows soon after with the smell of smoke.

"El Huma!"

A woman's voice?

"DAMN IT!" He roars and the door shakes violently once, the shed wall seemingly pierced with ice shards before they vanish. A scream cuts through the air and the smell of rotten flesh pollutes the air. Subaru keeps his gaze locked on the door pulling back each time it quivers.

"We should go-!" Subaru gets cut off by more ice shards piercing the shed walls. Petra's cyan eyes turn a bright shade of blue as they turn to look at his face before darting everywhere. Worry and fear are imprinted in her face on her furrowed eyebrows and her open mouth as she bites the inside of her cheeks. Her knuckles turning white as she pulls on the front of his shirt, her small body shaking.

"Witch cultists! How dare you come to the domain of Roswaal L. Mathers! I will show you the wrath of the pain you've inflicted on me and my sister!" The world freezes, the shed illuminated by the moon. Fire crackling on the other side of the door seems to rise in volume for a brief moment. The tension looms over them like a massive building threatening to collapse.

CRASH!

A morning star crashes through the building, and all hell breaks loose after that. Multiple crashing sounds of objects being thrown muffle the sound of breaking glass that erupts from windows of the shed.

Subaru breaks through the only window left intact and makes a break for the fence once more.

Subaru hoists Petra over the fence as he clambers after her. As they fall into the forest once again, they look back and see the cultists being occupied by a crazed blue-haired maid with a pink horn on her head.

"We need to go." When their eyes meet again there's still fear lingering in her eyes, a haunting shadow that drapes across her face, but it's nothing compared to the determined fire flickering in her eyes.

Freedom, in any case, is only possible by constantly struggling for it.

"Roswaal-sama?" He squares his shoulders and squints his eyes against another cold night wind that turns his cheeks into ice.

"What do we have Ram?" his eyes take in his maid's unusually ruffled appearance. Her hair sticking out in all the wrong directions. But he opts not to poke at his maid's lack of a professional appearance this time around and surveys the area instead.

The front of the shed was completely trashed, broken glass and pieces of wood litter the field while tools were tossed to their sides, and multiple scorch marks cover the ground. A faint smell of burned flesh and charred wood tingles his scrunched up nose. One corpse was present at the side of the shed, a cultist that resembled a beast.

"Rem said the cultists were looking for someone, and that they tried to break into the shed. Rem killed that cultist and knocked out the other one. She plans to interrogate him when he wakes up. However, the person or people they were looking for haven't been found."

"Anything else?" he hums while sliding on a pair of gloves. Going over a mental checklist of what he has to do.

"The shed that the cultists tried to open had somebody in it." Roswaal turns to face his partner one brow raised in skepticism. Glowing pink eyes peer back at him, hair flowing in the wind.

"And?" He presses, following his maid to the inside of the shed.

The inside of the shed was an absolute mess. Small bits of blood stain the floor, while bits of black flecks pepper the wooden boards. There are no scorch marks here, however. The only sign of something that had been burned was the half-melted knob on the broken door.

There are a couple of gardening tools scattered around the floor with some fertilizer strewn about as well. But none of those really snag his attention like the dark velvet stain on the wall. Blood sluggishly drips down while dark flecks are scattered around on the wall and floor. The rotting smell of burned flesh intermingling with blood lingers in the air.

His heart chills at the sight, wondering if it had been a child that had been injured this badly.

"The blood still looks fresh, have you had the area searched?"

"Yes, we're still searching but we haven't found anybody that seems to be injured this badly." his heart does a little dip at the last part.

A brief pause ensues as Roswaal eventually breaks the silence.

"Continue the investigation tomorrow."

Roswaal slides the gloves off and shoves them into his pocket.

"This doesn't bode well"

A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire, or preserve his freedom.

Hey guys!

I don't know why but this chapter felt like it fell flat and it's a lot shorter than the others :(

But we're about to go into the feels part of the story which I'm v excited for

Hopefully see you guys next week

Until then!