In some of the chapters I begin using names of towns, cities, and countries of the Re:Zero universe, so here's a Reddit link to the map I use (just type in reddit dot com slash before this, FF deletes links):

r/Re_Zero/comments/f9v2nb/media_rezero_world_map/

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

"Would you be so kind as to open the seal?" The expression on the woman's face, that youthful apathetic face, as if carved of exquisite marble, did not waver even for a second as she performed the simple movement of the wrist that… that…

THAT-

Everything was blurry for little Emilia, something warm on her face as the hand she held onto for dear life began to grow cold. "A- ah-"

"After all, the one you made the promise to has unfortunately passed away." The woman's voice was even, too even. "So, would you kindly break the seal?" She rubbed her hands, the blood on them turning to dust and disappearing.

"Break… the seal..?" Little Emilia felt numb as she turned her head as if each of her spine's backbones was filled with sand.

"Yes." The woman nodded, her look completely unperturbed, "After all, you are not-"

"Y-you-!" Emilia let out a scream, letting go of her mother's dying hand and releasing all her rage into the one point, the one concentrated space.

KILL YOU!

A whirlwind of ice shards roared towards the woman, turning red as they burst straight through her, nothing being left of her body.

A pause.

"While I do understand that you are angry-" Her voice came from behind Emilia, the little girl creating an icicle underneath the murderer and impaling the woman.

"Please do reconsi-" More ice, more blood.

"Die! Die! DIE! DIE!"

Again, and again, over and over. The cold gathered up around her; it gathered and-

"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!"

"Please be careful; you have a fragile human mind if you-" The woman was again cut short, this time by the blunt force of a block of ice.

"D-" The world began to go dark, little Emilia losing strength to scream but not the strength to continue to kill that disgusting woman.

The wind rose, the falling snow whistling in the new hurricane. "If you do not take care, you may break it." The woman did not stay down, coming into existence from the periphery, simply continuing her warnings.

It took the girl all of her remaining strength to begin shouting again as she began to lose control over her ability. "Die! Die! Die! Die!"

Something cold started to crawl up her body, ice beginning to encase the child as she threw everything she had at the hated murderer. The freeze began to spread like a disease and if one were to fly far above this tragedy, it would seem that the land itself collapsed into a broken piece of glass, the expansion of ice causing the earth to collapse in on itself, the freeze seeping into the ground itself.

Pandora, the Archbishop of Vainglory, observed calmly at the huge ice shard sticking out of the ground, still expanding outwards as the child in the middle of it could not stop expelling her ice magic, the blizzard only intensifying as the freeze set in.

Her eyes then moved to the corpse of the child's mother, slowly disappearing under a layer of snow. Well, the child did say she promised to her, so if there's no mother, what must be the problem?

Pandora shook her head. Nothing logical, just a child being a child. For all of her efforts, she would have to withdraw for now.

As her mind's eye focused on the place where she actually was going to be now, ready to rewrite herself into the new space, her concentration was taken away by a slow cracking noise.

Blinking, the Archbishop peered down as the Earth under her moved, the ice pushing up against the ground.

CRACK

Rewriting herself a couple of feet away, Pandora observed the tendrils of ice emerge from the earth, stretching towards the crackling grey of the snowy sky.

"Is she not tired yet?" She mused, looking back at the huge crystal that was now central to the growing shard, the half-elf child having long disappeared into the murky dark depths of the glacial structure.

The ground around her continued to crack and bellow under the pressure of more shards, now stretching further and further up.

A sudden shiver ran down the Archbishop's spine. Why wasn't the process stopping? The girl was very young; she shouldn't have this much mana, had she miscalculated?

This was out of the picture. THIS WAS WRONG! Pandora's expression did not change as she uttered. "The child could not be in the ice crystal. She is now in my reach." With these words, she stretched her arms forward, awaiting to receive the girl, expecting the universe to, as always, follow her instruction.

Nothing occurred. Pandora blinked. "The child could not be in the ice crystal. She is now in my arms." Nothing, again.

The Archbishop could not fathom what was going on. "The child could no-!"

A sudden howl erupted from the cracks in the ground, a shrieking roar that caused the land to seize up and screech like a dying man stabbed in the heart, every bone in the Archbishop shaking with the noise. The ground shifted under her, yet again.

Too much, she stayed too much; she needed to regroup, to reconsider. She had to rewrite herself out of this. 'I could never be here. I-'

The earth opened up underneath her, the ephemeral powers that had for so long allowed her to deny the world's rules leaving her, the Archbishop tumbling into the dark depths.

As the light disappeared far above her, as the abyss swallowed her forever, Pandora had one last panicked thought that maybe she had, for once, overestimated her abilities.

"Oi, Grandpa, how much for these ones?" Subaru placed down a pack of self-heating hot pots on the convenience counter, giving a half-hearted smile to the grey man at the counter.

"Don't it say on the packages?" The old man lifted his eyes from the newspaper grumpily.

"Nah, heh, sorry, I didn't see any price tag." The young man scratched the back of his head awkwardly, giving an awkward chuckle.

Sighing, the old man would put away his newspaper and stand up with a groan, Subaru picking up some mutters about the 'lazy youth', but nonetheless scanning the barcode, the screen showing the price.

"There ya go, and that comes to-" A click of the keyboard, tripling the price for the three hot pots in the package. "-there." The grandfather leaned forward, "So, you taking?"

"Ah, yeah, gimme a moment, I just gotta check-" Subaru would fish out the purse out of his tracksuit, beginning to count the coins hurriedly.

The old man would grumble something about the 'careless kids' and look off, out of the convenience store window, into the foggy night. A pause. "Bah… Gonna be terrible weather soon…."

Finally finding the right set of coins, Subaru placed it on the counter, giving the old man a slightly unsure glance. "Sure about that, Grandpa? Not in the forecast last I heard."

"Bah, you youth and your electronics. I feel it in my bones." The old man's wrinkled hand would grab the coins. "Gonna be real bad weather, real bad. A storm, prolly." He'd take the hot pots, looking under the counter. "Want a bag with that?"

"Sure, thanks," Subaru responded politely, but sometimes old people really did go off too much. Receiving the bag, he nodded. "Thanks for the advice."

"Bah," The old man picked up his newspaper again, "Stay safe out there, thanks for the business."

Walking outside, Subaru stared up at the night sky and breathed out, the vapour disappearing into the dark. A cold front, probably, it was strange for Gifu to be this chilly so early in the autumn.

"Heh, look at me, don't even have anything better to think of than the weather." The young man gave a short, bitter laugh at his NEETdom. Going out this late, his parents were probably a little worried; then again, he went for these walks quite a lot of the time.

Yawning, he took his first step forward-

It was like dropping into a bog; now you're there, now, you aren't. The dark swallowed him whole. There was no bag, no tracksuit, no old man muttering to himself, no parents at home, no failed school, no fake friends.

He tried to raise his hand, only to understand that he had no hand, then came to a realization that there was no him either. It baffled him so much that he forgot to ask himself of his own non-existence.

"I finally found you, my poor, poor knight…."

Something ran its fingers through his hair, his cracked, glass hair, his mind's craven needs flowing lazily between these dark fingers.

"I found you, my love…."

His senses relaxed the remnants of his being beginning to dissipate into the dark.

"Oh, how I would wish for you to stay by my side… my lonely, lonely knight… How I wish to hold you like this, truly hold you…."

Yes, yes, now he wanted that as well, to be held, made true, to-

"But our time must be short…."

The darkened hand reached beneath his mind, flicking away his skittish courage and the perverted self-sacrifice that crawled through him, gnawing at the leftovers of the gaseous soul, rotting through what could be.

"It is so beautiful, your heart…." He could hear a rhythming beat in her hand, "It is so lively, so full of emotion, I wish I could leave it to you, but I cannot let it occur…."

Take my heart, take it all, just hold me more, MAKE ME REAL.

"This world, it is wrong. Even where I must not exist, I continue to suffer." Something clicked in her hand, a small green light staring back at him. "This will let me touch you when you wander away from your goals…."

TICK TICK TICK TICK-

The ticking disappeared, a sickening wet expulsion of his being swallowing the mechanism, further in and in.

"But you shall see it right, my dear knight… You shall walk these foreign lands, and you will find me…"

I will, I really will, I WILL.

"So please," He felt something touch his lips, his lips, a body, a brain, a life, a- "Please… kill… me…"

Subaru's first sense that reawakened was spatial awareness, which dictated to him that he was flying, the feeling of terrifying lightness that reaches into one's stomach in such moments making itself very pronounced. Next was sound, a small whoosh one feels as they fall off a ladder. A slight bit of vision as he re-opened his eyes only to be met by the rapidly approaching-

CRSHHHHHHHHHH

Something solid yet brittle hissed underneath him, as the small pieces of whatever it was parted ways, the landing softened. Next came the pain from his limbs inward. His bruised arms and legs, his beaten shoulders, his ringing head.

A breath.

…

A breath!

…

A BREATH!

Staring at the world with unseeing eyes, he opened his mouth, unable to form that command, to put it into action, the body that returned to him not the same as before. His chest burnt with something, a stiff sensation, combined with a stillness, complete and utter.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

CLICK

TICK TICK TICK

It was as if he was completely revitalized, the air flowing into him, the adolescent not daring to inhale too fast, a prisoner dying of thirst too scared that the full flask in his hands would bring him closer to death's door than rescue him from it.

His chest felt wrong; it felt wrong…

Subaru's hand trailed under his shirt reflexively, trailing it across his left-

TICK TICK TICK TICK

The beats of his heart now counted off the seconds, the drums replaced by something impossible.

"Wh-wha-"

TICK TICK TICK…