A life of crime is... difficult to break out of.
Old habits die hard after all.
The rain trickles down his face as Subaru shakes the bag of coins in his hand. The bag disappears into his jacket pocket and the busied man vanishes into a building. The man had been too busy; too hurried to notice anything. Even when Subaru had knocked him down by 'accident' and had subtly slipped his fingers into his pocket. The man hadn't even blinked. Absorbed in whatever he was holding while he tucked his umbrella handle under his chin and had crouched down to start picking up his things before accepting the folders Subaru had picked with a curt nod and scurrying away.
It's odd how easily some things fly under the radar for people. That might be due to how miserable the day is. Subaru doesn't blame them for wanting to get out of the rain as quickly as possible but even that thought doesn't soothe the tightness to his face (he was good at this but he doesn't want to be like them).
Subaru tugs his hood on and ducks his head down and starts walking. His worn shoes squelch against the soaked gravel as he wades through the bustle of faceless people. The darkened sky rumbles with the promise of something heavy as his joints give a low ache.
He can finally buy the medicine for Petra now that he has scrounged up money. The amount of weight that's lifted from his shoulders is incomparable to anything else, he's no longer as tense as before. The quiet thought that he could finally get back to Petra keeps the tension in his muscles from piling too high. His mind swarming with relief that he hasn't failed her yet.
He promised Petra he'd come back soon, he better keep it.
Subaru pulls open the door of the drug store making a blatant effort to ignore his reflection in the glass windows. The woman at the counter doesn't seem to notice as he steps through and pulls down the mask from his face to take an unobstructed breath for the first time in what feels like weeks.
He has enough cash to afford basic fever medication at least. The clerk gives him an odd look but shrugs it off and gives him the medicine before resuming whatever activity she had been doing. Subaru hands over the coins and leaves as soon as possible. Nervous energy burning under his skin, eager to get back to where they're staying.
When he pushes open the door he's met with cold bitter air and the white noise of the village. Droplets of rain crash down against his already soaked jacket and dampen his hair. Shivers wrack through his body as he steps out into the street with his sneakers squelching against the wet soil. The wind buffets against the frozen skin of his face as he blends into the scene again.
The world turns, and Subaru pushes onward (past the tingling under his skin, past the building migraine, past the thought-)
I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.
By the time Subaru makes it back to the abandoned shack his clothes are clinging uncomfortably to his skin.
His hair hanging limply in his face as he starts walking towards the back. A pile of debris that carefully hid their sleeping area walls most of the entrance off from the back.
When he finally gets behind the wall the sight of Petra almost makes him fall to his knees.
She's gotten worse.
Her greasy hair clings to her sweaty skin, and her face is all but flushed a bright cherry red now. The rapid shivering of her body is hard enough to make her teeth rattle so loudly Subaru could hear it nearly 5 feet away from her. She clings tightly to the tarps wrapped around her like a security blanket.
"Crap." He curses and scrambles to her side, ignoring the way small puddles seem to be forming under him. The damp hand on her forehead burns and as much as Subaru regrets it, he has to pull her out of the tarps. "Petra I'm going to need you to get out of the tarps, you're burning-!"
The girl blinked blearily at him, her eyes glazed over with sickness. She doesn't say anything and just stares at him, or rather through him.
Subaru winces and starts peeling the tarps away from her shivering body. Petra gives a weak protest. Wrapping her too-thin fingers around the edges of the tarp in a poor attempt to keep them and shelter what little warmth she could feel. The chattering of her teeth gets louder which only makes Subaru feel more guilty as he carefully pries her fingers from the tarp and tosses it off her.
"Sorry." He ignores how his voice cracks. Squeezing his own eyes shut for a moment to gather his bearings.
The medicine he needs to give her the medicine.
His jacket sticks to him as he pulls out the fever medication and opens it as quickly as possible.
He skims over the instructions (thank god), for children ages 6-8, fill up to the line in the cap, and take every 6-8 hours. A quick glance in the cap shows that there is indeed a blue line marked inside the cap and Subaru is instantly relieved that he won't need to steal a cup or a spoon from the bakery to get the correct measurements.
"Petra you need to drink this okay? It'll make you feel better-" He nudges the cap towards her cracked lips. At first, Petra doesn't move outside of the rapid shivering. "-Petra please, come on." She doesn't even bother opening her eyes until he lightly shakes her shoulder. Through the strands of her hair, she seems to be fixated on something but Subaru's not sure what it is. It should concern him but at the moment he's too distracted to get her to take the medication.
He pushes the cap to her lips again and this time she finally opens them. Subaru tilts the cap so she can finally drink the syrup; though it takes a while for her to down the entire contents of the cap it has Subaru sighing in relief regardless.
Immediately all his muscles seem to go lax as he just kneels there watching Petra shiver again and screw her eyes shut like her eyes hurt from how bright everything is.
He presses a wet hand against her forehead again hoping that maybe she's cooled off enough to use the tarp again... But she hasn't- if anything she's only gotten warmer.
Subaru turns away and folds the tarps neatly before capping the syrup bottle and placing it next to where he sleeps. He slumps against the wall of the shack. His exhaustion pulling away at his eyelids and his muscles feel like they weigh ten tons.
But he can't rest yet, his clothes are still damp and gross. The jacket peels off about as grossly as Subaru expected it to- the wet cloth gave off squishing noises as he tossed it off of him and let it drop against the ground. Subaru pulled away to move to a drier spot after he had created a puddle under him.
He tries really hard not to look knowing full well what he sees may terrify him. His bicep still throbs after all like it's changing and twisting into something that's not him. Hidden away just under the sleeve of his t-shirt is the evidence that his body is no longer his (has it ever been?). He knows for a fact that the skin there isn't human anymore (he hadn't looked, too terrified of the confirmation; but somewhere deep down in the darkest pits of his mind he knows, he knows.).
But try as he might the glittering dark jewels of his scars is too much to resist. The scars litter his forearms like malformed jewels. Maybe he could have convinced himself that they never existed, the evidence of him belonging to someone else. But the scars are endless.
Endless in the way an ocean seems to stretch on forever, endless in the way they twist and knot like valleys and mountains.
Almost unwittingly he reaches out with his thumb and traces them. His thumb runs over the ones that criss-cross over each other. The pad of his thumb is rough from years of hard labor and it feels wrong against his own skin like the thumb isn't his (but it is).
It's someone else's.
There's a finger running down his bare arm. The smoothness of the gloves they wore rubs him the wrong way and makes him antsy knowing what they're doing. Taking measurements and drawing on his skin with a marker to make sure they make the correct cuts for whatever it is that they do.
Subaru never doubted why the "doctors" did what they did (he's always too busy screaming for that).
Even when they took a knife to his arm and cut the flesh clean open and fit multiple needles into the cut. He hadn't doubted it, why did they need to cut into him to fit needles? Why didn't they just put the needle through to puncture skin? But the thoughts never went farther than that before the real pain began and he could nothing but scream and beg with ugly open sobs.
The needle must have been coated in something because the moment it went in on his exposed flesh he started thrashing against the leather restraints. The leather rubbed against his skin and burned, but that was just another drop in the bucket. Even if he could feel he had ripped away his own skin thrashing and blood was dribbling at the open wounds he had caused he hadn't noticed. His voice turned hoarse eventually; it always did. It always turned before his head hit the metal table and he could feel his eyes going glassy. Only the putrid scent of his vomit kept him awake those times.
The way they dug their blades deep into his innards and cut through his intestines to fit something else- something-something that wasn't him.
Each time those scalpels went in he could feel them, he could feel them put a nail on top of his rib cage and hammer it to gain more access to his torso. It happened every time he made a recovery and no matter how much he begged for them to stop they kept doing it. Eventually, they started electrocuting him; the electricity jolting through his body as they tried to keep him still because all his damn writhing made them cut wrong.
And when they shoved him back into his cage with the only thing keeping his insides from spilling were thin black threads; he wondered.
Wondered what it would feel like to die there on the table with the floodlights pouring over him, and their emotionless faces towering over him. Would he die as painfully as the others, with their bones breaking and shifting as they were turned right there on the table? Or would he pass away by rotting in his tiny cage; his flesh crumbling off his bone in red, wet clumps like so many of his neighbors.
They kept going. They always kept going. Never stopping.
The only ones who stopped in this place were the ones trapped in cages.
He wondered why he didn't stop too.
(They cut him up with tiny metal blades and left scars bigger than the length of his lifetime.)
He blinks away his heart in his throat as he jerks his head up and scrambles backward only for his back to hit something hard. Subaru gasps for air, his fingers curling in on themselves as he struggles to fight back the blackness that crowded his suddenly blurry vision.
The walls are drab and brown, stained with mold but that's not right it's supposed to be dark stone. There's dark light coming in from the roof but it's not floodlights. They're too soft to be lights inside The Mountain. The bars of his cage are missing, the stench of rot is gone, replaced by the scent of rain (when was the last time he had smelled the air after it had rained?).
What? Where was he-
"S-Subaru?" He snaps his head towards the voice. The blurriness in his eyes doesn't go away despite all the blinking. "I-I heard noises...Is-is someone coming?!" The last part falls off in a whisper, laced with terror and followed by the sound of shuffling like someone was trying to stand up but failing.
Petra. Witch Cult. Shack. Right.
"No- I was just having a bad dream that's all." When he's finally gotten his eyes to focus he realizes he must have fallen asleep at some point. Had he been dreaming or having a flashback? "Sorry, did I wake you up?" He winces internally damn him.
He tries to pretend that the life they lead isn't hurting Petra in the long term, that living in constant fear isn't as bad as it is. But Subaru still hasn't found a way for him to leave the village safely without being tracked, let alone figure out a way for Petra to live a better life. Guilt and panic churn inside of him, an awful combination really.
He lets out a long breath as he tilts his head up to stare at the ruined roof. The only light that peers through is the one from holes in the roof. Even with the sparse lighting everything suddenly seems too eerie to him now. At least Petra is coherent so the medication must have worked. They'll still need an extra day for her to rest and recover before they keep moving. Even if the Witch Cult activity had dropped he's not willing to stay here until they're out of this domain. Shit had he restocked on food-
Petra hasn't spoken for a long while and it takes him a moment to realize why.
Her gaze is fixed on his arms. He had forgotten he had taken off his jacket to let it dry and now everything is out in the open. Everything in his body turns to ice as a sudden chill invades him. Everything is out in the open now, and it's a can of worms he is not ready for.
"I'm sorry-" and suddenly Petra's voice is cracking again, and he can hear the steady plip plop of tears hitting the floor. Subaru is alarmed, of course, but he's even more alarmed when Petra grabs a hold of his arm and looks closer. Tears are still blurring her eyes but she doesn't make any more noises. "Somebody hurt you too- and- and- I'm sorry I-I-" Her voice trembles and the grip on his arm is suddenly tight. His arm looks hideous next to her small porcelain hands. Ugly and gnarled like twisted wood. The skin stretched taut in all the wrong places, the discoloration so wide and varied it was impossible to tell what his original skin tone may have been.
"No, no it's okay- It's fine okay Petra? I'm fine they don't hurt anymore-"
"You're like me." The tears are still flowing, but the way she says it is like they're both walking on tightropes.
And Subaru sees it now.
She's hurting. She's been hurting. Ever since he took her away, ever since the day they started running and the days where Subaru can't get them enough to eat she's been hurting. The feeling of her hand on his arm is different. It is so very, very different. It's not the feeling of his own calloused hands tracing back a memory he can't resist, but it's not the feeling of a clinical hand making the correct marks either.
She aches in the same places he does (deep in the trenches of the darkness of their hearts).
It's familiar, a call back to a time he can't remember. When was the last time someone had touched him like this? Her grip may be tight but it's because she's scared, absolutely terrified of the idea he may just turn into mist right before her. Not because she wants to hurt him, but she wants to keep him. And that thought right there makes everything else come to a standstill because he can't remember a time when somebody had just held him like that.
Like they wanted to keep him- like he wasn't just some luggage to be disposed of or some kind of tool used for frustration to be taken out on. He craves it. Craves the warmth from her body and how it doesn't hurt him. And she's hurting too, she wants it just as much as he does that delicate touch that neither of them has had much of.
That nobody could spare them. She whispers. "They hurt me too, and I never wanted another person to hurt like me but-" she hiccups again and her eyes blur over with tears "I-I wish I could stop it. Stop people from hurting other people. It's-it's unfair! You've been nothing but nice to me even-even-" she hiccups again and Subaru pulls her closer tucking her head under his chin "-even after I told you I-I was an m-monster. It's unfair... that-that you- the world could hurt you too!"
And she cries. Loud wails pierce through the constant sound of rain. So full of emotions Subaru doesn't know what to feel.
She's still feverish, he can feel the heat radiate from her forehead but she's coherent and maybe a little delirious. But that's okay. They have a lot of conversations like this, laden with emotions that never got to see the light of day. Neither of them really knows how to talk due to their lack of experience. But they share a language that Subaru thinks nobody else can understand.
Subaru learned to read the little crease at the edge of her lips when she frowns, or the tightness of her eyebrows, and the death grip on his arm.
She understands the quiet pain that aches deep inside his chest, even if she can't quite word it. Petra knows he understands her because she clings all that much tighter like she's the one trying to comfort him and not the other way around (and maybe it is her trying to comfort him and not the other way around).
It's her own way of offering him help for the deep emotional scars the physical ones leave behind. And if she holds on just a little bit tighter that makes him think it'll bruise over by morning he doesn't say.
They have a lot of nights like these. Where they're clinging to each other and hoping to see the light of day together again. There's something about the nighttime that makes these moments all the more precious.
Drops of time worth keeping, and memories Subaru would fight tooth and nail to keep. (The memory of arms wrapped around his, the memory of the soft warmth she radiates, the comfort of a touch that didn't hurt.)
"You're like me."
I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.
"Roswaal-sama?"
The man groans, rubbing his temples between his fingers. No amount of tea or alcohol he downed today made the pounding migraine go away and he's completely swamped in paperwork too. Considering the royal selection now becoming more imminent.
"What is it, Ram?" Roswaal wonders if there's some god out there who might listen to his prayer and give him a break from the shit storm that's been going on lately.
"You may want to look at the new pieces of evidence Rem found." Maybe some god is listening. But then again maybe not because if they were Ram wouldn't be wearing that face that tells him whatever it is probably isn't good.
"Evidence retrieved from the cultists?" The demon only grimaces at his response, her pink eyes uncharacteristically dark in the artificial lights of the office. "Alright, alright I'll be on my way just give me a second and let me finish this up."
Whatever it was that had Ram in that kind of mood can't be any good.
So he makes quick work of his remaining paperwork, scrawling out his signature in chicken scratch before pushing himself off the desk with a heave. His bones give a pop as he stretches his muscles loose.
God, he really was getting old, wasn't he?
He makes his way out of the office with little fanfare and pulls open the door, heading towards the study. When he arrives, Ram is standing there flipping through a packet with Rem standing near a flower pot watching the room with her azure eyes. The pink maid swivels towards him and her pink eyes peer into him. She nods at him and hands him the packet she had been reading before turning to leave to return to her duties.
The door shuts behind them.
Roswaal gives the blue-haired maid a curt nod of acknowledgment, "Good evening Roswaal-sama." She only receives a noncommittal grunt from the man as she shuffles herself back to standing on her feet.
"Do you remember the cultist we brought in for interrogation around a week ago?" As direct as ever, and straight to the point.
"Yes, I do. I'm guessing this has something to do with that at least."
"Over the past week, I've been compiling everything I could about the Witch Cult and their activities over the past couple of weeks to see if we could figure out their objective when the cultists trespassed on the property. Most of the beginning is mostly information you already know. How they broke onto the property, the pieces of paper found on the deceased cultist, et cetera. Please flip to page 9." Roswaal does as Rem instructs. At first, he just skims through the paragraphs but he stops and starts backtracking when he sees the words: From Subject SV-01 and a classified subject donated from "Father" concerning the Reselection Project.
"Human tissue." His mouth goes dry and now he understands why Ram had looked so upset.
"This project used to belong solely to one part of the Sloth sect or that's what I've been told. Either way during the interrogation we found that there's been more activity from them. They had a transport vehicle come in just a couple weeks back before all of this started."
"The Witch Cult is beginning to mobilize." Roswaal presses his lips into a thin line; it's nothing he hasn't already suspected but this is absolute proof. There's no way to refute this now. He's going to need to submit this to the royal guard and get them working on taking this down. Chills run down his spine the more he lets his mind wander about the possibilities of what they were planning. And what the hell was this "Reselection Project" from before about?
Maybe it's time for a different subject, "Is this... SV-01 identified in the file?" The file is at least 25 pages thick. He wonders how much trouble Rem must have run into to get his much information.
"Page 11. The code-name was also mentioned during the interrogation." Rem bows as she starts moving towards the door, "I need to head back to my chores. Let me know if you find anything interesting." and just as quickly and efficiently as Rem had come she was gone.
By the time he drinks another cup of tea, he's finished reading through the first couple of pages. It's mostly a bunch of stuff about the context of the case and the primary identification of the subjects that he's already read. He flips to the next page to see a worn piece of paper, marked that it was confiscated from the cultist.
o o o
Patient: SV-01 (Formerly Natsuki Subaru)
Status: Human Male, Alive, Reciprocating to additions fairly well.
Date of Birth: ? (Age to be between 15-20)
Subject: Witch Factor 1 Compatibility
Overseer: Dr. Rolfe
Patient Summary:
SV-01 shows extreme compatibility to accept additions with little to no rejection. Rejection symptoms include; vomiting, passing out frequently during the operations. Further observations during resting periods show other symptoms may include: migraines, pain in the torso and stomach area. The patient is unwilling to collaborate during questioning and may need loyalty reconfiguring if the patient is admitted into the Reselection Project.
Rejection percentage of additions currently stands at 45% and is quickly being lowered at a 7% rate with each successive operation. Estimated time until completion 2 months for pure biology adjustments, no estimation is given for loyalty reconfiguring waiting for input to give an estimate.
Recent Adjustments:
No anesthesia or numbing agent was given during the performance of this observation.
More test adjustments had been given to the patient to check if the rejection percentage had gone down. See metia for the precise recollection of the exact procedure.
Once the patient was put onto the surgery table 4 incisions had been made across each bicep and the injection needles were set up. Surgeons were ready to observe the reaction of the body to the additions. Lead Surgeon Dr. Clarke made the median sternotomy before proceeding to open up the rib cage. Observations are listed below:
-Extreme stress response.
-Vomiting.
-Screaming.
-Heart Palpitations.
-Blood color had turned black near the left chambers of the heart.
-Blood color near the left arm had turned black following the response from the heart.
-Additions were received and then rejected as the body bled out the infected blood through the surgical incisions.
Conclusion:
The patient will need bodily conditioning and repeated surgeries to fully absorb the additions even with a lowered rejection percentage. Highly suggested that SV-01 will not participate in any Mana Collection procedures similar to MS-07 and (formerly) MS-02.
Overseer Report:
Highly recommend admittance to the Reselection Project. Compatibility with the intended Head 1 biology is extremely high with a 68% chance of completely absorbing the Witch Factor and adapting. Has a high chance of surviving the Witch Factor than other patients admitted. Estimation of 37% for survival.
If admitted: the final procedure should be done with anesthesia or a numbing agent. The patient has a record of moving frequently and ruining surgical incisions.
End Report, waiting for debriefing.
o o o
Roswaal freezes at the mention of the "Reselection Project." He had no idea what it was. Now he realizes that it was important and a massive project that had been in motion for months.
Mana collection? Shit, they're harvesting mana? He skims through the report again but it proves fruitless. There's nothing else. Just the project name, not what they do or what they're planning to do with the excess mana. He flips to the next page dropping his chin against his hand and promises himself he was going to at least finish reading the packet by the end of tonight at least. There could be more stuff he could glean, this is probably the most information he's gotten about the Witch Cult in months.
As he's reading the report for what might be the third time he notices, "See metia for the precise recollection of the exact procedure." Maybe he'd be able to glean some information from the metia. He might finally be able to know what Natsuki Subaru looks like.
The moment he finds the metia and the images the report was referring to, he regrets it. They're pictures of the operation, gruesome, grotesque pictures. Natsuki Subaru strapped to the table frozen in an awful moment of time, jaws unhinged in a silent scream. Blood dripping off their wrists and ankles as their spine arched forward.
No anesthesia, no numbing agent. He wants to throw up.
But he doesn't. Because he's a professional. A total professional. He skims the pictures never really looking too much into detail lest he risks tossing out his lunch.
At the end of the photos, he freezes. There's a face staring back at him, the face is gaunt, almost as emaciated as a corpse and that has him wincing in sympathy for them. The color of their skin looks a sickly green as if they were resting on their deathbed. The dark black hair looks dirty and greased to hell and back. The brown eyes staring back into him.
Even though he looks horrendous, he's finally got a face that he can find and hopefully keep out of the hands of the Witch Cult.
Ram walks in with a cup of tea along with some other confectioneries. "Ram can you do me a favor and sketch this person?" he drops his fingers against the desk as he releases them from the metia.
"Please."
After the initial shock of the grotesque image, Ram began to sketch the image of the enigma.
"Are you doing alright Roswaal-sama?" He gives a grim nod more or less.
"I think I found out what's actually happening to this kid. They're trying to replace the Sin Archbishop of Pride." Ram freezes and her pink eyes almost blow comically wide. But there's nothing funny about it. "I'll tell you more about it later once I've... finished up here. Make sure you gather everyone in the hall, Beatrice and Emilia included. It's time for everyone to know the severity of the situation at hand."
"Alright. Make sure you don't work yourself too hard Roswaal-sama." Ram leaves the study and Roswaal returns to his desk. He runs his hands through his hair again grimacing at how oily it is, he'll need a bath when he finished. But for now, he needs to do this.
A single key component in the Reselection Project as well as taking care of a child much younger than him. As far as he knows, Natsuki Subaru is still out of the grasp of the Witch Cult. He drops his forehead against his hand and rubs at his temples again and wonders about how many things would go wrong if they couldn't find this kid.
He eyes the metia again before looking away.
A child. It had been a child on that table. He's going to be sick.
Damn the Witch Cult, damn them to hell and back for ruining his maids' life, damn them for ruining the lives of children.
Fucking children. He doesn't look at the metia but he spies it out of the corner of his eyes. The agony that physically radiates from the still image, the sickening look of a child torn open under the hands of these people.
How many? How many had the Witch Cult stolen from the beds and done this to?
He tastes nothing but death on his tongue as he imagines the look on Emilia's face when he tells her about this.
I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.
Petra cries a lot.
She cries over all the small things, and the big things but Subaru doesn't seem to mind. He just gives her a wobbly kind of smile and wipes the tears away and tells her it's okay. It's okay to cry the loud, ugly sobs that Father always punished her for. It's okay if she wants to cry over the small things and every gesture of kindness Subaru gives her.
It's okay, really. He doesn't mind but every time he says that it only makes her cry harder. Despite him telling her it's okay- she thinks it's not okay. It's not okay for her to cry so much because what if he finally gets annoyed? What if the next time she cries he'll tell her to stop like Father did? What if he'll scream and shout that she doesn't have any reason to cry? She doesn't want him to be mad at her like Father was all the time because she could never do anything right, and was always selfishly thinking about herself.
So she tries to stop. She really does- but it's hard.
It's so hard when she sees him without his jacket for the first time.
The shack had been dark at the time and her body was burning up. But she was worried, her mind twisting itself into circles because Subaru wasn't next to her like he was supposed to be and she really needed to know where he was if only because she wanted to know he was still there. Petra had pushed herself up on shaking arms, eyes shut as she tried to concentrate on this one task. When she had finally managed to push herself up and turn around to look she saw them. For the first time, she had seen them. They were angry marks like someone had taken a knife and slashed it across his skin because they wanted to hurt him. There were so many of them too. Each scar was at least ten times the size of the ones she had!
How much did they hurt? How much pain did he go through to earn each one? And she can't help it when her throat goes dry. She tries to stifle it- to stop! Crying doesn't do any good! But when he pulls her in towards him with his steady warmth surrounding her on all sides it all comes tumbling down. All the tears falling from her eyes and soaking into her hands as she tries to push them back. She's only reminded of how cruel the world is when he keeps her warm and safe.
It's cruel and bitter because it took Subaru between its teeth and spat him out like a piece of trash. It treated him like he wasn't the nicest person Petra has ever met, like he wasn't the sun of Petra's world, as if he didn't light the dark hallway of her life.
Encompassed in his steady arms she's only reminded of how much Subaru has given her; the look of the village painted in gold, the taste of a fresh loaf of bread still warm from the oven, the smell of the air right after it rains, the bright blue sky she's only ever seen through the window of her cramped room. He's given her so much even though he never needed to. Even though Petra would have fought for him regardless. He didn't need to go through all that extra effort to show her the side of the world she would never have gotten to see without him.
Subaru had wanted her to see how beautiful life could be.
He hadn't wanted her to be angry at it no matter how deserved it was.
Everything about the world hurts.
The world had hurt him. This person who picked her up and told her it was okay, this person who refused to let her go alone, this person who wiped away her tears and said he didn't mind.
It hurts her.
Seeing him dig his nails so hard until he bled, skin as cold as the wind, shaking so badly Petra doubted he could stand.
It makes her want to scream and slam her fist into the ground- to beat everything back with her own two fists.
But she can't do that. No matter how much she wishes she could, she can't and that's what makes her chest hurt. There's nothing she can do to help him. She's not strong enough to help him like he helps her. The thought tears away at her, it eats her alive and makes her chest feel like ice.
So she cries, and cries, and cries because that's all she can do. She can only mourn for the tired look in his eyes, the sickly shade of his skin, and the pale rivers running through the skin of his arms.
Petra holds on tight and tells herself to never let go because if she lets go she's scared he'll crumble under the darkness that seems to follow him like his shadow.
"You're like me." She prays that he understands what she means when she grips his arm tightly between her hands, and when she whispers the words to herself like a broken record.
I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.
It's never good news when Roswaal summons everyone in the mansion.
The only time Emilia can remember everyone summoned together was when an older maid that worked for Roswaal had passed away. But now, Beatrice, Puck, Ram, Rem, and Roswaal were all present to find out the reason for their summoning.
"Are you okay Lia?"
"Just a little nervous Puck." She thumbs her dress with anticipation at what's to come.
"I hope this goes quickly, it's almost time for me to retire." As Puck yawns, Emilia looks outside at the ferocity of the rain. She can't even see the forest from here. She would hate to be outside right now.
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I hate doing this but this is a matter of utmost importance." She can hear Beatrice grumbling over how Roswaal is wasting her time but she keeps quiet, intrigued with the information that Roswaal has.
"I don't wish to keep you here long but what I am about to tell you may change our lives. Over the past week, the maids and I have been conducting an investigation based on the trespassing of two witch cultists. Rem found them trying to break into the shed in the front. Based on the evidence retrieved both from the cultists' belongings as well as Rem's interrogation we have determined four things about the Witch Cult, more specifically, the Sloth sect of the Witch Cult."
This can't be good.
"First, the Witch Cult has been kidnapping children and adults to work as slaves in their midst. This can range from the excavating minerals illegally to working as amusement for the cultists. This brings me to my second point. One of the main jobs given to their "slaves" is as a mana source. By injecting them with different substances with the combination of some unknown magic, they can extract mana from them and store it for later. These victims are treated inhumanely, thrown in cages, given minimal food, and undergo excruciating pain to allow their bodies to accept the injections the cultists give them. If this doesn't work however, their bodies begin to rot at an accelerated rate and they die. At this time we don't know what they're planning to use this mana for but we have an assumption for where some of it is going."
Emilia thinks she's going to be sick. Children? She knew the Witch Cult was savage but not to this extent. She looks around the room and sees Beatrice, a spirit who has seen much in her lifetime, visibly disgusted by this information. Emilia steels her resolve as Roswaal begins to talk again.
"Regarding those cultists found trespassing on the mansion's grounds it has been determined that they were trying to capture two children that had escaped. One is an 8-year-old girl named Petra, a child kidnapped at the age of 3 to be used as a "toy" for a sadistic finger of the Witch Cult that the lesser cultists call "father". Our findings show that she was cut and severely punished for minimal actions while in captivity. The other child is named Natsuki Subaru, also named SV-01. He was kidnapped around 10 years ago in the capital and is between the ages of 15-20. These two children are currently on the run and we don't have any idea where they could be residing."
A loud crack of thunder echoes through the hall of the mansion.
"Well, are we going to do anything about it!?" Emilia is outraged. These monsters have taken children under the age of ten and brutally punished them for menial reasons. They didn't deserve any of this. As a candidate for the next king, she should be looking out for all of her citizens even those in the direst positions.
"I understand you're angry Emilia but please calm down and let me finish what I'm going to say."
She quiets down as she begins to regain some of her composure.
"My last point is probably the most important piece of information I am going to say. It has been determined that Natsuki Subaru, the boy on the run, has been selected by the Witch Cult to be the next Sin Archbishop of Pride."
The hall goes deathly quiet. The only sound able to be heard is the pitter-patter of rain outside the mansion.
"This does not mean he wants to be the next Archbishop, however. In our findings, it's been stated that Natsuki Subaru needs to undergo "loyalty reconfiguring" so we believe that there is still time to hopefully save him from the Witch Cult. We plan to distribute this poster with his face on it to hopefully find him."
"That'll draw the attention of the Witch Cult to us, I suppose." After Beatrice's initial shock about the information she seems to have returned to her normal self.
"For whatever reason, the Witch Cult has made it very obvious that they wish to remain unseen during this time. We're planning to use this to our advantage by hopefully finding the two children before they're abducted again. With the children, we will have hopefully stopped the creation of a new Sin Archbishop, as well as found more information on the location on where the Witch Cult resides. I hope you all will help in trying to find these kids."
"Anything to help you Roswaal-sama." Rem bows to Roswaal, her blue hair seemingly shining under the lights in the mansion.
"If you do wish to help there are a couple of things that you should know about these kids. First, they're probably afraid and distrust adults and other authority figures. Most of their lives they have been beaten and hurt by those in authority and they consider those in power as threats to their well-being. Try to do anything that you can to help them be at ease. They've also been through a lot together so if you find them, do not separate them. They probably have an emotional reliance on each other and need that support. That is all."
Emilia looks at the rain outside and can't help but imagine that two kids are running for their lives to try to save themselves from people that have done horrible things to them.
"Lia, it's going to be okay. There's no use worrying about it now. Just get ready to do your best tomorrow."
Puck's right. All she can do is wait and try her best tomorrow.
It's time to save these kids from a life of horror.
The purpose of this life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.