-White Whale Battlefield-
The White Whale was one of the three great demon beasts that roamed the world. For centuries it had terrorized the entire continent. It would destroy merchants, armies, and even entire cities. No matter who faced the beast, no one could slay it. That was how it had been all this time. People simply had to avoid ever encountering it, lest they get gobbled up like an appetizer.
That was until today. Subaru Natsuki, alongside Rem, Crusche, Wilhelm, and hundreds of other people, engaged in one long, intense battle with the White Whale. Prior to the battle, Crusche and the others were amazed that Subaru knew so much about the White Whale and where it would appear. They assumed he was just simply extremely lucky or that his metia told him where it would appear. Of course, they didn't know to what extent Subaru had suffered to gather this information.
It was long, grueling, and a number of lives were lost. Despite all of these unfortunate occurings, the White Whale was ultimately defeated, and now everyone is working around the clock to tend to the wounded.
Subaru, alongside Felix, manage to locate Rem in the middle of the battlefield near some wagons. She is quite bruised and her maid dress is pretty filthy. Thankfully, she doesn't appear to be harmed any further than the bruises. She is very tired though.
"I'm so thankful you're alright Rem." Subaru says to her with a sweet smile on his face. "You were amazing out there."
"S-Subaru-kun…?" She whispers as she barely manages to keep her eyelids from shutting on her blue eyes.
"Take it easy, Felix-san is here to help heal you." He reassures her. Sitting down cross-legged beside her, he lifts up her head and sets it down on his legs so that she can be in a more comfortable position. She internally thanks him and takes a moment to appreciate the feeling of his stiff but equally soft legs under her head.
Rem turns her head slowly and sees Felix right beside her.
"Subaru-kyun is right! You're exhausted and need to rest up."
She doesn't resist and the next few minutes are filled with silence as Felix puts his hands over each bruise and heals them. Injuries this minor are no sweat for him.
As a side-effect of the healing, Rem feels some strength return to her body. It is at this moment that she finally sits up and takes in her surroundings properly.
"We…we really did it. We beat the White Whale, right Subaru-kun?" She looks to him, practically begging for confirmation. The last few hours have been greatly stressful for both of them.
He again shows a rare but very real warm smile to her, "Yes. We beat the White Whale. You were amazing out there, as well as everyone else."
Upon hearing this, she suddenly turns around and embraces him in a tight hug, afraid that if she'd let go she'd lose him. She starts to cry a little.
"Thank goodness. Oh thank goodness! If you got really hurt out there, I don't know what I would've-"
Subaru puts a finger to her mouth to silence her, "But I didn't get hurt, and neither did you, at least, anything serious that is. But even if we didn't have it that bad, many soldiers had it way worse. Some brave soldiers even died out there! I…I couldn't save them all!" He cries in distress.
This only causes Rem to grip him tighter, "It's not your fault! You did the absolute best you could for everyone. If it wasn't for your amazing planning and direction, so many more lives would've been lost. So please don't blame yourself. You're my hero after all!"
"She's right Subaru-kyun. Have a little more faith in yourself. You saved a lot of lives out there whether you realize it or not."
"...I see. Thank you both."
Rem lets go of Subaru and sits on her knees in front of him. She switches to a serious look, "How's everyone doing now?"
"Crusch-san and Wilhelm-san are good. Ricardo-kun is thankfully alright even after what…" he shivers upon recalling the beast nearly devouring him, "what happened. The healers have been tending to the wounded while everyone else is resting."
She smiles again, "That's good. I'm glad." Suddenly, she collapses into his arms.
"Rem!"
A moment later she slowly opens her eyes, "S-Sorry. I…I used a lot of mana out there and I'm still feeling really tired."
"Don't be sorry, you did great. I'm sorry for pushing you to your limit. I wish I could've done more."
She slowly shakes her head, "I should be the one saying that. I'd do anything for you Subaru-kun."
"I gotta go tyend to the others." Felix announces to the other two. "Rem-san, I suggest you return with Crusch-sama and the others. You need to rest as much as possible." With that, he leaves the two alone.
"But…it's not completely over yet, right? Don't we still have our main mission to accomplish?" Rem asks him.
He hesitates to respond, "Yeah…but what Felix-san said is right. You're not in a condition to keep fighting. You need to rest."
"I know that, but you're going to deal with that witch cult right? I can't let you go on your own." Her hands reflexively clench at mentioning the cult. Her voice takes on a more irritated tone as well.
"It's alright. Some of Crusch-san's and even Anastasia-san's people are going to assist in the destruction of the cult. There's no need to worry."
"Still, I…I want to help you Subaru-kun! I only need a few hours of rest. Please, take me with you."
"Rem…" If Subaru is being completely honest with himself, he doesn't want to separate from her anymore than she does from him. Of course, he wants to keep her safe, especially in her current condition. At the same time, he doesn't want to deny her of her feelings, or his either for that matter.
"Alright, I'll let you come with me, on one condition." He says.
"What is it?" She looks at him with interest and anticipation.
"Please do not overwork yourself. You're going to get those few hours of rest at the very least, hopefully more. Once you do, we can move onto actually defeating the witch's cult, alright?"
She nods affirmingly, "Yes. I'd love nothing more than to take down those bastards that are part of the cult that destroyed my and sister's village. I'll never forgive them. They'll pay for what they did!"
He smiles at her, "Yes." Memories of his previous loops enter his mind. Particularly the ones where the cult killed his precious Rem. He mumbles under his breath, "Yes, they'll pay for what they did to you."
"Hm?" She gives him another curious look.
"Oh nothing." Getting up, he helps her to her feet. "Let's regroup with the others and plan to head off! There's no time to waste."
"Yes! Let's do this Subaru-kun!" She follows him to the rest of the group.
Subaru has no idea that this one decision, this one choice to let Rem travel with him, would change the course of history forever. This choice would save Rem from a fate possibly worse than death.
The two meet up with Ricardo who is with the group that is planning helping Subaru defeat the witch cult.
"So this is the team eh?" Subaru comments as he looks at his allies. It appears half of them are from the Crusch camp while the other half is from the Anastasia camp.
Ricardo laughs, "'tis only some of them! Half of our mercenary folks should be arriving any moment now."
"Wait, half of your mercenary team?!"
"Yep! Look, here they come now!"
The demi-human wolf points to the arriving mercenaries from the Anastasia camp. They all appear to be riding white wolves, except for one in the front, who's riding a blue earth dragon.
"Who's leading them?" Rem asks. She is grateful to have more allies on their side to deal with the accursed witch cult.
"My younger brother, Tivey!" Mimi says.
"You have another younger brother?" Subaru asks, unaware of just how many siblings Mimi has. Her other younger brother Hetaro fought in the whale battle and is already taking a rest in one of the wagons. "I wonder if he's like you or Hetaro-chan."
Subaru looks at the mercenaries and upon seeing a particular purple-haired man amongst the group, he furrows his brows.
Rem notices his change in expression and looks at the mercenaries as well to see if she can see the same thing he sees. She indeed does see the purple-haired man and immediately recognizes him.
Julius-san? If I remember right Subaru-kun has a grudge with the guy. I remember him telling me that Julius-san utterly humiliated him back at the royal selection during a sparring match.
A few minutes later they arrive and everyone greets one another, although Subaru's greeting to Julius is obviously quite forced. Thankfully, Subaru is mature enough to know that Julius is quite strong and that his assistance in the defeat of the witch cult would be quite helpful. For some reason Julius seems insistent on referring to himself as a wandering traveler and not as a knight. Additionally, he wants to be referred to as Juli and not Julius, which annoys Subaru to no end.
Everyone takes a seat in the grass in order to discuss plans for taking out the witch's cult.
"Are you sure your information on the witch's cult is even accurate? After all, we only came here to subjugate the White Whale." Tivey expresses doubt to Subaru about the whole operation.
Mimi gives him a light wack with her wooden staff. He rubs his head to soothe the pain and yells, "What was that for?!"
"If you can't believe him, then believe me! The witch's cult is out there and preparing to attack."
"I'd like it if you believed me though." Subaru groans.
"My opinion may not matter much, but I fully believe in Subaru-kun and in the information he has to share. His information about the White Whale was accurate, wasn't it?" Rem says.
"True…" Tivey admits.
"I don't like to recall it, but I've had a run-in with the witch's cult once. That's how I figured out about their plans, or at least a small part of it." Subaru says.
"Didn't you look into it as well, Old Man Wil?" Felix asks.
He responds, "It's not definite evidence, but the activities between the cult and the White Whale definitely coincided in some places."
Subaru explains the plan, "The plan is simple. We are going to head for the Mather's domain, as the cult is hiding in the forest there. There we will crush them before they can read our movements.
"What about the villagers? How will they be protected?" One soldier asks.
"I asked Anastasia-san and Russell-san to talk to some merchants along the highway. In exchange for Margrave Mathers to purchase their cargo, they will escort the villagers and the Roswaal mansion residents to a safe place. Finally, a messenger from Crusch-san's household is headed towards the mansion right now to deliver a handwritten letter explaining everything that has happened here and what our plans are."
"I was the one who wrote the letter and arranged for the messenger to be sent there. If Emilia-sama, Roswaal-sama, my Nee-sama Ram, and the others are not notified about what is happening, there will likely be chaos and unrest." Rem explains.
I hope Nee-sama and the others are alright. She thinks. Even though they appear to have a great advantage over the witch cult, she knows very well that they are quite powerful. She is terrified at the thought of them getting their hands on her beloved sister and her friends. They already took Ram's horn and destroyed their village, they didn't need to take anything else away from her.
"Looks like everything is prepared then!" Ricardo says enthusiastically. Even after what happened to him during the whale battle, he is already ready and raring to leap into battle once again.
"I don't believe we've ever enjoyed such an advantage over the witch's cult." Wilhelm comments.
"Well, with Julius-san and his men, we won't have to worry about being out-numbered." Subaru says.
Julius raises a hand, "My name is Juli, please take care to use it properly."
"Shut it! That'll just cause complications down the road." Subaru says with irritation.
Subaru gets up and looks at everyone with determination, "I appreciate everyone for being willing to assist me and Rem with taking on the witch's cult. I know the battle with the White Whale was tough. I thought I'd die!"
Actually, I'm beyond shocked I didn't die! Getting everything prepared took a few loops on their own. To think we managed to take down the White Whale in one go, that's incredible. He muses.
Continuing, "Many soldiers got wounded. Some…didn't even make it." He looks towards a row of swords lying on the ground near a soldier that were once used, but their owners do not live anymore. "Others vanished, never to return. So, with that in mind, let's win this fight with no losses!" He pumps a fist into the air.
The crowd cheers, feeling extremely motivated to take on the dreaded witch's cult.
With that, the discussions end. Everyone makes their final preparations to leave. Crusch and her army take the opportunity to say one last goodbye to Subaru and his team, they wish each other to stay safe.
Usually Rem would be the one who drives Patrasche, the earth dragon who took a great liking to Subaru a little while before the White Whale battle. However, Subaru insisted on being the one to drive her instead in order to allow Rem to rest. She doesn't resist and instead opts to sit behind Subaru on Patrasche, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"Subaru-kun?" Rem says right before they take off on the long dirt road ahead.
"Yes Rem?"
"I think you should try to become friends with Julius-san. I know you two have had some rough moments but I don't think he's a bad person."
He grits his teeth for a moment before noticing Rem's neutral, if not saddened face. He sighs, "I'll…think about it. He is helping us after all when he probably doesn't have to."
She smiles, "I love that positive thinking of yours."
Giving only a smile in return, Subaru turns to face the road ahead of him, intent on taking down the witch cult that has harmed his dearest friends. And he's doing this with Rem by his side.
-Author's Corner-
Hi there! I'm trying my hand at a Re:Zero story. This story explores what could've happened if Rem ended up traveling with Subaru and ultimately avoided being devoured by Lye. By traveling with him, there will be many things she'll learn about both Subaru and the people around her.
I should note that I've only seen the anime so far. I have not read any of the light or web novels and thus I'm not super knowledgeable on anything that occurs in arc 5 or later. For now, this story will go through only arc 4, which is basically the entire second season of the anime. I'll probably read the novels someday.
I think that's all I want to say for now. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!