Chapter Fifteen

The Broken Ones

Subaru's mind was practically being torn from all the burning questions within him, but the exhaustion he felt from the previous night, and likely partially from being a Human battery for Beatrice, left him unable to simply run after the master of the household like he truly wanted to.

"Ram.. Something's wrong with this, right?" He looked into the maid's eyes firmly. "I mean.. Did Beako… say Mother?"

The pink-haired girl's look softened, but only a bit, as she looked down towards Beatrice, the spirit girl still remaining on her knees staring down at the stone steps.

"Come on, answer me! What the hell is going on–"

"I don't know!"

Subaru was taken a bit aback by Ram's outburst, watching as she grit her teeth, a terrified look in her eyes. She released his arm and turned to storm up the steps. When he reached out to grab her arm in turn, she held at hand out at him, making him stop and flinch.. But nothing happened. Whether it was due to her really being out of magic or not, he couldn't be sure, but there was real pain within her scarlet eyes.

"Ram… I…" Subaru clenched his fists, trying to steady his breathing and collect his thoughts. "I need to go to the village, but.. What about you?"

The girl turned her back to him again, clenching at the ripped hem of her skirt. A light sparkle could be seen on her cheek, and Subaru realized that it was a tear.

"Subaru, please.. Go to your party," Ram spoke softly. "You have been dismissed."

With that, she continued up the steps to follow her Master. Subaru watched her go, opening his mouth and closing it twice, unsure what to say.

"..You used my name correctly," he muttered. Then, a whimper made him turn to look down towards Beatrice. "Beako? H-Hey–!"

The girl suddenly fell over, and he stumbled to catch her, pulling her in close to his chest and gazing down at her. Her blue eyes stared skyward, and her lips moved lightly, as if she were trying to whisper something.

"Come on, get a grip," Subaru told her, "Whatever just happened.. You've gotta pull through, alright? I'll figure this all out, I promise!"

Whether his words truly reached her or not, Subaru couldn't tell. He picked her up in his arms and carried her towards the carriage that Roswaal and Emilia had arrived in, the older man just settling in the seat once again.

"Hey old man! Can we get a ride to the village?"

The man raised an eyebrow at Subaru, who had absconded with any sense of politeness in his haste. Realizing his mistake, Subaru quickly did his best bow he could with his arms full, lowering his head as much as he could.

"I mean– S-Sir, if you could give us a ride into the village, I would be eternally grateful to you and your house," Subaru exclaimed, just saying whatever he thought might work well.

With a sigh, the older man shook his head and pat the front seat beside himself.

"The insides of the coach are off limits, but if you wish to ride up here, I was making my way back there anyways–"

Subaru didn't object, hopping up, careful with Beatrice in his arms. He got her to sit up a bit against himself, and he nodded to the man.

"All good to go!"

The man, looking a bit puzzled, looked towards the mansion, then shrugged, clearly not worried that this may go against his employer's wishes as he got the Earth Dragons to start moving.

Subaru glanced towards the wreckage of the Mathers Mansion, hoping that Ram and Rem would be alright. Whatever was happening… It all felt off.

Maybe Monocle and Li have something, he thought. I'm not exactly the brains here after all.

The ride into Arlam Village felt painfully long, even though it wasn't very long at all. Once they neared it, Subaru watched in horror as smoke could be seen rising from multiple places, and by the time they came to a stop, he was hopping down eagerly.

"Meili! Joshua? I can't believe I'm saying this– Otto?!"

Calling out to them, Subaru gazed at the several houses that were collapsed inwards. People were standing about, comforting each other, and staying away from bodies that were littered around. Upon closer investigation, Subaru was surprised to find that they were the bodies of creatures, not of cultists or people.

As Subaru passed a group of children being consoled by an elder, he heard the man say something that piqued his interest a bit:

"There there, I told you the Lord would not let anything happen to us."

Subaru came to a stop as he saw some sort of doglike beasts impaled into the side of a water well, a large chunk of ice jutting out from its side, glistening and puddling beneath him as it seems to have been melting for a while.

That girl… Subaru remembered the immense amount of ice in the warehouse, when the half-elf Emilia had been forced to do something drastic to save herself from Elsa's attack. That all seemed like a lifetime ago, back when Subaru had only just arrived, but he remembered that much clear enough. Is that.. Really her?

Those black eyes… They were wrong. Subaru's chest felt a pang of despair as he thought about it, and it was only then that he noticed a slight bit of purplish haze obscuring his vision.

"Save..me.."

The wisps of darkness were dispelled, and the light whisper vanished on the wind, just as a cry reached his ears.

"Subaru!"

Turning, Subaru stared wide-eyed at Meili, the girl rushing his way from a nearby wrecked home. He smiled, and was a bit surprised when the girl ran into him and hugged him, making him lift Beatrice a bit more into the air.

"H-Hey, hold on, I'm kinda struggling already," he said, though he knew he would have hugged the girl in return if he could. "Where's–"

The next thing Subaru noticed was Otto looking defeated as he rounded the corner, then, thankfully, Joshua was also in-tow, holding the reign connected to an Earth Dragon, who seemed to be unwilling to enter the village.

"Ah, there you are," Joshua said, struggling a bit with the reign. "The dragons fled during the attack.. We hardly got this one back, finally."

"I'm just glad to see you two are safe. It, uh… Well… It wasn't easy over at the mansion, I tell ya'," Subaru said with a sad smile. Then he looked to Otto, who looked like he wanted to cry when Subaru didn't seem to care about his safety. "Otto, what about our carriage?"

Otto sniffled. "I-Is that all I'm good for?"

"..Yes."

Letting out a cry of anguish, Otto waved a hand towards the nearby tree-line. Sure enough, Subaru could make out the form of the carriage hiding behind some brush that had been placed over it.

"Nice! Though.. I don't think we can leave anytime soon," Subaru said, shaking his head.

"Leave? What about–"

"Something's wrong over at the mansion, like, seriously wrong," Subaru interrupted Meili, looking down at Beatrice, who still looked like she was in a daze. "I honestly woulda said that running away is for the best, but…"

Meili looked up at Beatrice, then at Subaru, raising an eyebrow.

"Dumbaru… You aren't really the one who likes to run away." The young girl let out a huff. "What do we need to do?"

Joshua had come closer, the Earth Dragon frantically looking around while he struggled to hold it still. Otto came over to pat its side and try and calm it.

"Hm…" Subaru looked around the village, seeing that there didn't seem to be any visible casualties besides the cultists. "Can you guys tell me what happened here, first?"

"Well… Just as you predicted," Joshua began, "The cult did, indeed, attack.. But what was more pressing were the demon beasts that arrived, despite the protections set in place.)

Meili pointed towards a part of the forest. "Over there.. One of the barrier's seals were broken, and that let the beasts in. The cultists hardly had to bother attacking the people here..."

"Damn.. So somebody on the inside sabotaged it?"

"Well, perhaps, although…" Joshua trailed off a bit, looking troubled. Subaru raised an eyebrow.

"Dramatic pause..?"

Joshua sighed. "Lord Mathers and Lady Emilia both arrived last night and helped fight them off, as well as fixing the barrier."

"Huh?! They were already here the entire time?!"

Subaru's outburst caused many of the villagers to look their way, but he felt like he'd been putting up with the craziness of the past day for too long.

"Yeah.. That Roswaal guy is really weird," Meili commented. "And the half-elf.. Um.. I.. don't think she's normal, either.""

Subaru looked down at the girl. "You think so too?"

She nodded. "It's just a hunch… I knew a little about my sister's mission back in the city, and it didn't describe that girl as being so empty. More like she was really.. aloof?"

"The pair arrived sometime last night, and promised to look over the village. When the attack began, they took out some of the cultists, and then left," Joshua continued to explain. "We figured they would have gone to the mansion to assist in the fight there."

They sure as hell weren't, Subaru thought bitterly, shaking his head and wondering just what the hell the two were thinking, not coming to help them.

The Earth Dragon began to calm a bit, and Otto took the reins, letting Joshua dust himself off and approach Subaru, looking across Beatrice before looking him in the eye.

"Subaru, I must ask, from both my responsibility to preserving our lady's honor, as well as a natural honor towards the fellow Royal Candidates… What do you wish to do?"

"Eh? You're.. Really asking me?" Subaru grinned, and Joshua glared at him.

"As an equal member of the Hoshin camp– I must say that I do believe, if something is amiss, it may need investigating posthaste," Joshua said. "After all, the ceremony marking the beginning of the Royal Selection was not long ago, and Lady Emilia was one of those meant ot attend."

Subaru's eyes widened. "Right… Anastasia– Er, Lady Hoshin was there.. Do you think everything's alright?"

"That is what I'm getting at, frankly. We have a choice here. Do we uphold our worry for the Lady and leave right now, or do we do what we must here?"

It was too much, truly. Subaru felt incredibly out of his depth. If somebody like Julius or the Captain were here… Surely they would have a way easier time deciding, but as it was, there was no clear answer, especially not with a broken spirit in his arms.

"Joshua… Is there any way you can tell what's wrong with Beako?"

The boy blinked and looked away, rubbing the back of his head, seemingly unsure.

"That is… more becoming of Sir Julius, but I do know a little about spirits–"

"Great, here, I need you to do your work," Subaru said, pushing Beatrice towards him. The boy was frantic as he took her from Subaru. "Something happened with Emilia. She said something about relieving her of her duty and.. Beako hasn't recovered from it."

Julius' eyes narrowed a bit. "...A broken contract?"

"Huh?"

"It is very likely that a contract of some sort was broken. That can have lasting ramifications on a spirit, especially one that is seemingly as powerful as Miss Beatrice," Joshua commented. "It's a miracle that she is still in-tact, honestly, but perhaps the stories the maids spoke of her were true after all."

"Maybe she's hanging on because of the contract she has with me?" Subaru looked down at his hand, remembering his foolish mistake. "I kinda.. Did it on accident."

"..Of course you did." Joshua shook his head. "That may be possible, but I doubt that it holds any weight against whatever contract she had previously, if it was with someone powerful like the Lord or Lady."

"Subaru, are you going back there again?" Meili tugged at his suit jacket, looking up at him worriedly. "I'm going too!"

"You've gotta keep things safe here, right?" Subaru smiled and put a hand on the girl's head, only for her to suddenly bite his hand. "Ow–! What the–"

"Every time you say stuff like that, you just end up getting into more danger," she yelled, glaring up at him. "This time, I'm gonna be there to stop you from doing stupid stuff."

"Besides," Joshua chimed in, "You seem absolutely exhausted."

Subaru for sure felt like he could collapse at any moment, but he brushed it off with the wave of a hand.

"Nah, trust me, I got this," he said, stretching his arms and taking a few steps away, hiding the fact that his entire body ached and his bones felt brittle. "There's a reason I'm the stupid one that rushes into danger, it's because I always make it back ay-okay. Ahahaha–!"

At that moment, Joshua and Meili shared a look. He nodded to her, and the young girl sighed, something they had discussed earlier coming back up.

All it took was a hit in a particular part of the neck for Meili to make Subaru fall forward onto the ground. It wasn't exactly supposed to knock people out in one go, but the exhausted boy seemed to fall unconscious as soon as his face slammed into the grass.

"A little rough, but he would do something insane otherwise," Joshua said.

"Yeah…" Meili dragged Subaru up a bit to lean him against a nearby tree. She stared at him for a moment, then pat his head a bit, in a similar manner that he would do for her. "This time… I'll do the stupid stuff."

..And with a nod towards the others, Meili Portroute took off towards Mathers Mansion.

Roswaal L Mathers sat in a lavish chair off to the side of the chamber with another, much larger and even more resplendent chair at the center beside him, housing the half-elf girl in the purple dress.

Though much of the place had been burnt and crumbled, the two seemed to not mind in the slightest as they sat and made light conversation– Until the decrepit door opened, and the twin maids entered and bowed.

"Ah… Rem, Ram. I have missed you both quite a bit," Roswaal said with a smile, and joked, "I see you touched the place up while I was gone."

Rising back to a standing position, Rem gazed stoically at their master, while Ram's eyes were averted towards the floor. Both had put on fresh uniforms in the meantime, but the battle scars of the encounters the night before were still quite obvious across their bodies.

"Apologies, Master," Rem stated, bowing her head. "We could only do so much against the invaders…"

A silence persisted after her words, and the girl peered over towards Ram, expecting her to chime in as well as she always would. However, she stayed worryingly silent.

Roswaal gazed at Ram, his smile fading ever so slightly as he noticed how she refused to even look their way.

"It was a valiant effort, but the cult is a tricky foe," Emilia spoke, making Ram tense up. "It is good that we came when we did. The Royal Selection ceremony lasted a bit too long for our taste."

She turned to smile at Roswaal, who nodded in agreement.

"Yes… It was terribly drab and depressing. I mean, what on earth has happened to the Sword Saint hmmm?" He shook his head and held his hands up helplessly. "The Astrea family must be in turmoil–"

"Please, stop…"

Ram's words cut through Roswaal's theatrics, and the three others in the room gazed at her with a bit of surprise.

Lifting her head, the girl's red eyes were glistening with tears that were threatening to form, and her hands were clutching tightly at her outfit. She then lifted a shaky finger towards Emilia.

"You.. It's always been about you, hasn't it?"

"Ram…" Rem moved a bit closer and touched her sister's arm, but the girl pulled away, starting to glare at the two ahead of them.

"You witch," Ram growled. "All this time, I.. I thought that I knew what would happen, what Roswaal was scheming. But I never could have guessed.."

The maid's pointed finger curled into a fist, and her gaze turned to an intense glare, a green glow beginning to emanate around her hand.

"Echidna…"

Those words caused a powerful silence to wash over the room. The smile upon Roswaal's face had fallen completely, and he moved to stand, only for the silver-haired girl to raise a hand to stop him.

"I understand that you feel tense about this all, but I assure you," she began, a wicked, toothy smile crossing her face. "Everything is as it was supposed to be, as it was ordained."

Ram couldn't take it any longer. Everything she'd been working towards, everything she believed, every doubt she'd had about their Master… It was all pointless now. As her hand began to glow with more and more magic, Ram focusing all of her mana into it, Roswaal's smirk returned, throwing her off.

"Is that so wiiiise?~" The man chuckled. "You are already low as it is, my hornless demon. Please do not act like you will accomplish anything here, it's only bringing down the mood."

Suddenly, Rem moved in front of her sister, facing her with her arms outstretched. Ram's expression turned to turmoil.

"Rem… Please move out of the way," she said softly.

Rem shook her head. "No… Whatever is going on, we must believe in our Master. You've always said this, right?"

"I…I…"

Unbeknownst to those within the chamber, Meili was settled into the shadows of a hole in the wall, not daring to move or even breathe during the tense scene unfolding before her.

Echidna…? A witch? She thought, wondering if now was the time to slip away, but knowing that the more info they could gather, the better. Otherwise, Subaru might not accept it and rush into danger anyways!

The girl once known to be Emilia clapped her hands gently together and smiled.

"It is just as you said, Roswaal, the fiery oni is quite adorable," she stated. "Especially when it comes to her crush on you."

"Echidna…!" Ram moved to go past Rem, but the blue-haired maid grabbed hold of her arms to stop her. "I'll kill you! You shouldn't exist here! You–"

"That is quite enough," Roswaal stated, a bit of an edge to his usual playful tone. "Ram… Did you reaaaally think that this charade of ours could go on forever? These back-and-forth antics?" He waved a hand dismissively. "I dare think that you were so confident in your quest for revenge, you left your poor sister out of the loop, didn't you?"

Rem looked back over her shoulder, confused, then looked to her sister.

"Ram..?"

The pink-haired girl gazed into her sister's eyes, unsure what to say. After all, everything she'd known had just crumbled before her very eyes, would telling her everything now really change anything?

"I.. I've always known, that Roswaal was the one who–"

CRUNCH!

Meili's eyes widened as she watched the scene. Before any of them knew it, Roswaal L Mathers was behind Rem, his hand moving in a blur, spearing right through the girl's back and then forward more into Ram's.

Both maids gasped, wide-eyed, confused, only Ram seeing what loomed behind her sister.

"A tragic tale," Roswaal said softly. "Being born to merely die. I held pity for that, once upon a time~"

He pulled his arm back in a flourish, blood splattering across the ground. The light in Rem's eyes dimmed, and the girl fell over to the side, unmoving, while Ram took two steps back, clutching at her bloodied chest. While Roswaal had stabbed his hand into her, she wasn't instantly rendered incapacitated like her sister, and could only stare down in horror at Rem's lifeless body at her feet.

"Fate has begun to spin in a new direction, and that unfortunately means your use is up," he continued, turning to look back at the silver-haired girl, smiling. "Thanks to that boy's actions. Right, my beloved teacher?"

Echidna nodded, and then, to Meili's horror, turned her head to look directly at where the girl was hiding.

"Yes, we must thank him in person sometime," she spoke with a chuckle. "He seems like a properly greedy soul, after all."

Meili slipped away in an instant, using all of the training she could muster up to quickly make her way through the destroyed mansion towards the front entrance. Once she reached the wreckage of the front door, she saw the shadow of something for just a moment, and jumped to the side to avoid it as it CRASHED into the wall, obliterating it.

Letting out a yell of surprise, Meili scrambled up and pulled a dagger into her hand, the dust of the wreckage clearing out after a moment to reveal somebody standing there, pulling their fist from the wall.

He was a slender but well-built guy, wearing an open shirt and fur-laden pants, his blonde hair spiked upwards. Upon his face was a mask of iron, which only had small slits for eye holes and a slot that showed the incredibly sharp teeth he barred towards Meili.

"Where do you think you're going, rat..?"

His words came out unnaturally, and as he clenched his fist and leaped forward to strike again, Meili made a tactical retreat, hopping towards the nearest shattered window and busting through it, ignoring the pain of doing so and rolling along the ground outside before breaking into a run.

A roar signified imminent death from behind, but Meili didn't care– She ran, and ran, knowing that if she was caught, it would all be over.

Since the girl never looked back, she never saw that her pursuer had stopped at the top of the steps to the mansion, his arms hanging loosely to either side. A hand touched his shoulder, and he peered over to see Echidna standing there, watching Meili run off.

"Thank you, Garfiel," she spoke softly. "There is another task that needs to be seen to."

Looking back past the woman, Garfiel watched as Roswaal approached him with the dying Ram in his arms, blood trickling down to the stone below. Beneath the mask, Garfiel's face twitched slightly, but he stared at the body of the girl without feeling.

"The stage is nearly set," Roswaal said giddily. "I can haaaardly wait!~"

Subaru awoke in a fit of anger, parading around the village looking for Meili, not taking any crap from anybody that tried to calm him down.

"Damn it… I'm going to the– Gah!"

He yelled out in surprise when Meili sprinted out of the tree-line and slammed right into him, sending him back onto his ass hard. Her arms wrapped around him, and he could feel that the girl was shivering intensely.

"Li? Hey!" He wrapped his arms around the girl comfortingly. Joshua approached, eyes wide.

"So things are as bad as we feared?"

Meili nodded against Subaru's chest, taking a few moments before pulling away a bit, her olive eyes showing intense worry.

"I-I.. Think we need to leave," she said, breathing heavily from her earlier running. "It's.. Not her, not anymore!"

"What? What do you mean?"

Due to the girl's insistence, the group began to get the carriage and their remaining Earth Dragon ready, while she explained all that she had seen and heard.

"...I think we need to tell anyone we can," she concluded. "J-Just being around them.. It felt bad."

"Could it really be? Echidna…" Joshua held a hand to his chin in thought. "Surely not… The witches are all deceased, as far as the world knows."

"Ram and Rem… There's no way they're dead," Subaru said, voice shaky. "Is there any way that-"

Subaru stopped, seeing the downcast look on Meili's face. He wanted answers, and he wanted to know everyone was alright, but Meili was just a kid in the end.. It was too much to put on her.

"I-I couldn't tell, exactly," she said meekly. "Someone else was there, and he chased me off.."

"It's alright, you did good," he assured her, patting her head and offering as much of a smile as he could do.

Subaru tried to rack his head around it all. The half-elf girl, Emilia, suddenly returned, but was now inhabited by the spirit of the witch named Echidna? Roswaal doing away with his servants so easily seemed insane, but the man didn't exactly look sane to begin with.

Dammit… I should've been there, Subaru thought angrily. He had seen it first-hand, the fading devotion of Ram towards their Master, but nobody could have predicted what he would bring with him to the mansion. And what was that about fate changing?

Subaru gulped, thinking about how he had appeared in this world. Was it because of his actions, because of him changing the future, that these schemes could come true? If so, did that mean that this witch Echidna had that sort of ability, to tell the future– And what did she know about him in that case?

Remembering the strange book that Beatrice always read so desperately, despite its blank pages, ideas began to form in Subaru's addled mind… But he was swamped by the possibilities, and he returned to reality when he heard Beatrice speak weakly, rushing to the carriage where they had gently laid her down across one of the seats.

"Beako! Hey, are you–"

His eyes widened. The girl had a faint glow to herself, and the colorful vibrance she usually held in the clothes she wore had faded to a dull gray. Even her eyes and hair… It had all lost much of its hue. He recalled something from Julius about how spirits could manipulate their form, and figured that every part of Beatrice, even her clothes, were the same, especially looking at her now.

"Are… you… that… person?"

Her words were faint and barely audible as Subaru took her hand, wincing at how cold it felt. He didn't feel the usual pull of mana from himself, meaning that she wasn't taking any from him at that moment.

"It's me, Subaru. We're gonna help you. There's this spirit jerk that can probably figure something out for you," he insisted, squeezing her hand a bit. "For now just… Take everything you need, alright? We've got a long road ahead, and–"

There was a loud crash, and the villagers began to panic. Subaru almost didn't even dare to look back, but he saw a horrified expression on Meili's face as she rushed up to the carriage.

"Gotta go, now!"

The girl hobbled inside, while Joshua and Otto took to the front seat of the carriage.

"Come on girl, you can do it," Otto said, as he gripped the reins tightly and began to get the Earth Dragon to move. The carriage moved painfully slow for a few moments, before picking up to a decent pace, although it was clear they wouldn't be making very good time.

Subaru grabbed the carriage door and closed it a bit, still peering out as they took off. Not far off, a small crater had formed, with dust and smoke rising from it. From the cloud of dust, a person emerged carrying someone in their arms.

"Ram…?"

He watched the blonde-haired man stop in his tracks, the villagers all gathering around to stare at the lifeless maid in his arms.

Then the blonde threw his head back and yelled in agony.

"They killed them…! Anastasia Hoshin.. Murderers…! Witch Followers–!"

The man's frantic yelling could be heard even during their escape, and Subaru felt his blood run cold.

No matter what happened now.. He knew that coming to this Mansion at all was a trap all along. Orchestrated by the dastardly Roswaal L Mathers and the potentially future-seeing witch of Greed.

And of course, they'd fallen right into it.

To Be Continued

Next Chapter: Chaos Theory (End of Arc 3)

A/N: Yep, crazy stuff is a'brewin. Kinda why it was difficult to write more all this time, but, well, I'm through it at least!

There's another major Re:Zero character who will be joining the main cast soon (TM), so definitely look forward to that as well- She's one of my favorites!~

There might be an EX chapter before the next chapter, or it may be after, who knows! I like having them to fill out some missing details/explain some things for sure, so one will come either way.