I do not own Oregairu or Re:Zero

The prison wasn't dark or damp like a typical isekai fantasy setting but surprisingly well maintained. He was also thankful for the solitary cells. To think that even his first prison experience was not as he expected.

Felt was in a nearby cell but they could not talk properly because of the guards. That did not stop her from asking why he risked himself for her.

"It wasn't about you."

He said in a subdued voice.

"I just couldn't stomach the idea of a person being sacrificed and made an example of in the foundation of this country's next governance. If it happened now, it would become a practice for the future. Besides I am used to being the guy at the bottom. I won't just give up that spot to someone else."

Then he asked her something that had been bothering him for sometime.

"Why did you try to escape with me? As far as I can tell as you should have met me only today. Surely the environment of slums does not teach you to have that much attachment to a stranger?"

She stayed quiet for a while to consider whether to answer or not before saying.

"I had a, not exactly a memory but rather, a feeling that I had seen you before. It was much stronger at that moment that I suddenly pictured jumping and you holding onto me. It was impulsive but that's just how I am. I wanted to relive that feeling, see if it was possible to jump while carrying someone as I had never done that before."

Deja Vu.

Hachiman immediately understood that while only he carried the complete memories of other loops, there may be others who carry partial memories or just feelings of what happened. It was a phenomena quite well explored in time-travel stories.

So if he observed someone in a loop and then after several loops, theoretically they should have unchanged response to the same stimulus but in reality it won't be. And it won't just be because of errors in his own actions. They will feel weak vestiges of their experiences even if they themselves don't understand what they are feeling.

If someone had been stabbed a hundred times, they might develop an irrational fear of knives that they did not have before even without the memory of it as if it became imprinted on their spinal nerves. The stronger the stimulation, the easier it is to remember and harder to forget.

Whether this phenomena of Deja Vu was decided by strength of the individual or proximity to him was something he could not confirm at this point but he would bet on the latter given that he was the reason that time was looping in the first place.

Surprisingly he was visited by three supremely attractive women at night, causing the phrase conjugal visit to enter in his mind that he hastily dismissed. One was of course Emilia, the other two were a violet haired lady named Anastasia Hoshin and a blond haired lady named Priscilla Barielle. They had both come to see the criminal who had apparently targeted a royal candidate like themselves.

Priscilla was what you would get if you added Miura and Sagami's bitchiness and multiplied it by a million. She genuinely believed that the world only existed for her sake. From his experience so far, he couldn't even deny her claims if there was some fate thing like that going on.

Having said that, Miura also had many positive qualities like being loving and motherly towards those close to her, to the point of almost being possessive. He wondered if Priscilla's relationship with the armored knight Al was really as lopsidedly abusive as it seemed or if she cared about him like Miura did for her followers.

Regardless, even if there was a good person in there, he had no intention of digging into it. He wanted to stay as far away from her as possible as she would be too much effort for a side quest. Just her presence was killing his brain-cells faster than it killed her husbands. She said that she had come to find anything interesting but both himself and Felt were boring idiots.

Anastasia was cute with a Russian dress up and had some similarities to Isshiki, in the sense that she wanted everything she laid her eyes on. She said she was a greedy merchant who had gained it all with her own efforts and now wanted to have a country under her. Even if she succeeded, he doubted her ambitions would end there.

He could tell that winning her over would be easy by just revealing some other-world inventions to her, though he doubted he could make them from ground up given how much he sucked at math and Sciences. There was one thing she told him that really caught his interest though.

It seemed that this world was surrounded by a great waterfall that no one had explored. This gave him another avenue to explore for jumping worlds aside from space based dimensional magic.

Anastasia's camp was literally a kennel for cats. Child like cat demi-humans were running around making a mess of the food they ate and teasing him for no reason. Even as a cat person, he found it distracting given how lazy and quiet his Kamakura was. It perfectly balanced out her overly serious knight who seemed to have a stick up his ass.

He was also tempted to join her if it allowed him finance and transportation to get to the waterfall. Even though her Kansai dialect did irritate his proud Japanese literary sensibilities. Why were there multiple Japanese dialects anyway? It strengthened his theory that multiple Japanese people had come to this world at different times.

What stopped him was his experience that told him that if he helped her even once, she would stick to him like glue till the end of time and constantly make him take responsibility.

Emilia's visit was the most important one though.

So far he had thought that the insignia with the dragon gem and the whole royal selection was to choose and heir to the current ruler. Maybe they could not have children? How wrong he was!

He didn't know that there was no current ruler in this palace and that the entire royal family had secretly perished just recently. There was no way this was not plotted. His priority was finding a way back, instability in this country would get in the way of that and the whole murder mystery will at most be a side-quest.

That was the reason why he hid Felt, not just save her life but to also delay the chaos. They were free to kill each other once he had achieved his objective. But if there was already an empty throne, then his decision was wrong and the chaos had already started.

"I'm sorry! Because of me you got involved in all of this."

Emilia was seriously apologetic which was good for his plans.

"Don't be. I don't blame you or even that Karsten woman given how serious this situation is and how suspicious I am."

"But why did that girl try to run with you?"

"..."

"Why did you protect her? Didn't you meet her just then for the first time?"

Emilia said with a pout. It was good that she had it in her to have at least that much suspicion.

From everything he had seen from her so far though, she would have likely done the same thing, only with much less efficiency. She put half her efforts into helping others, and the other half into hiding that kindness. He had no answer for her so decided to distract her with his own question.

"Can you guess who sent that assassin?"

"The witch's cult."

Instant answer. And with hatred that chilled him to his bones.

"The witch's cult? People actually worship her? No. Given her strength, its natural huh."

"Nothing about them is natural. They are a bunch of crazy monsters who don't just kill innocents, they enjoy it and make spectacles out of it."

This was the first time he felt such negative emotions from her. But it made the possibility much less likely. Elsa was way too proficient and low profile to be a mad cultist. It did not look like she had any intentions of hanging their corpses as spectacle. It was also concerning how Emilia didn't even consider other possibilities like rival candidates.

"We'll just deal with it as it comes then. There is something else that has been bothering me. Do you truly want to be the ruler?"

She turned pale, which was really something considering the regular complexion of her skin. Looked like he hit the nail on its head.

"Why? Why would you ask that?"

"No, its just that I do not sense any such desire from you. You seem like someone who likes peace and quiet rather than responsibilities, a bit like myself actually. I thought I was reading the situation wrong but meeting the other candidates and contrasting them has made me even more certain."

Emilia pondered for a bit before giving a guarded answer.

"This is something I need to do. I cannot tell you the reason why but becoming a ruler is important for achieving my dream. I know its selfish but its the only way."

Although she said that, she did not seem confident. It felt to him like she herself didn't know what becoming ruler had to do with her dream, a singular dream rather than dreams of riches and such. At this point, he was certain that she was being manipulated. Was it some kind of hostage situation?

"What about you though! I will clarify everything tomorrow and you will be free."

"Don't be stupid, that would be a big stumbling block to your ambition."

He scolded her before she could do something reckless.

"No. I only need one favor from you ..."

The next morning, he was presented along with Felt in front of the palace. There was a vast crowd of not only hundreds of white knights but also thousands of citizens of the capital.

Crush Karsten had really gone all out for the spectacle part. She seemed to be the main official of the trial. Even some important old men with wise looking faces and weird eyebrows were present.

While it was mostly as expected, there were still surprises. The surprise was in the form of Felix dressed in white. This meant that either knights allowed hot cat girls to join them, or Felix was male. Surprisingly it bothered him very little when he compared him to Totsuka.

"Heh, suck it fantasy world. Our trap is better than yours."