Re: Zero x Sniper Chapter 11: A Nice Chat, a re:zero fanfic

After leaving Emilia's room, Burchard finds himself being escorted by Rem through the manor to the dining room. As they walk, he notices something strange, for some reason rems whole aura seems to have changed and he honestly couldn't quite put his finger on it but while he was trying to figure this out, he hears her ask in a weirdly warm tone, "may I ask you a question?"

Thrown off by this, all Burchard was able to reply with was, "uh? Sure."

After a brief pause, she asks, "it is apparent from the way you dress and act that you are not from here, may I ask where you are from?"

Still a bit thrown off, he continues to look at the back of her head while thinking, "I don't think there's any reason to be suspicious of her…. But still, I'm not sure how best to explain it to them so I should be vague."

He replies, "I'm from a place called Canada."

Seemingly intrigued by the response, she says, "oh? I have never heard of that place. Where might that be?"

Predicting her question he simply replies, "its very far from here, I'm honestly not surprised you haven't heard of it. not many people around here have."

After a brief pause she responds, "well that would make sense, though something that has not made sense to me was the manner in which you ended up on my masters front lawn."

Burchard chuckles guiltily in response then says, "yeah, and again it was an accident and also sorry about the dent in the front lawn."

To his surprise, she laughs a little in response then says, "it is all right, there was not much damage to be fixed, though I am curious about how you ended up falling from the sky?"

After thinking about it for a moment, he replies, "I honestly don't know, I feel like it will be no surprise to you that I wasn't supposed to land on your front lawn."

She responds, "I had a feeling that was the case. We have had intruders before but none of them had ever made such an obvious entrance."

As they continue walking, he notices something odd and thinks to himself while walking up a set of stairs, "that's strange. I remember the dining hall being on the main floor?"

Chalking it up to him just not remembering correctly, he continues to follow Rem as she says, "also I wanted to apologize on behalf of my sister, I am not sure why she was so eager to attack you and for that I am sorry."

He chuckles in response and sheepishly scratches the back of his helmet while saying, "it's all good, in all honesty I think we've gotten surprisingly close since I got here."

Surprised by the comment, she responds, "oh? because from what she has said, she despises you quite a bit."

Not exactly surprised by the comment he says without thinking, "yeah im not surprised, especially after I made her serve me coffee."

This comment causes Rem to stop in her tracks, Burchard stops and looks at her with confusion but before he could ask, she slowly turns around to look at him and he becomes even more confused when he sees the look of suspicion that crossed her face as she asked, "she never did that?"

Realizing what he just said and starting to panic he thinks, "shit shit shit shit, that's right. That happened in the first life so she wouldn't know about it. Damn it I need get out of this."

She continues to stare at him with suspicion while he innocently smiles back while saying, "sorry about that, when I got knocked out, some of my memories got scrambled together so your right, that didn't actually happen."

To his relief, Rems expression seems to soften as she softly smiles at him while saying, "its alright."

She starts walking again with him sighing in relief and follows as she continues, "though I must say that would be a strange sight to see since I handle such tasks."

While grinning to himself he thinks, "yeah, I know."

As they continue to walk and Rem continues to ask questions, something just didn't feel right but he couldn't put his finger on it until she asks, "speaking of family, can you tell me about yours?"

Caught of guard by the question, he looks at her suspiciously while asking, "why do you ask?"

Unfazed she replies, "I am simply making conversation."

Finally realizing what was actually happening, Burchard finds himself stopping in front of an upstairs window decorated with a few chairs and side table. Sensing this, Rem stops and looks back only to see him standing there with a strangely sad expression while rubbing his temples. Confused by the sudden change in his attitude she asks, "is something the matter?"

Hearing this causes him to look over at her with his expression unchanged while he says, "you can drop the act."

Even more confused by the statement, she asks, "what do you mean?"

Undeterred he responds, "this whole kind girl act. you know, pretending to be my friend."

Still confused but now feeling a bit insulted, she stands her ground while saying, "this is not an act. I am genuinely being kind to you and it is very upsetting for you to say such a thing."

Realizing that he was in the wrong here, he does the right thing and drops his head while saying, "I'm sorry."

The annoyance she was feeling slowly fades away as she continues to look at the top of his helmet and after sighing says, "it is alright, you do not know me therefore you have reason not to trust me."

As he looks up and with a feeling of curiosity starting to sink in, she asks, "may I ask why you think I am acting?"

Feeling that she deserved an explanation, he replies, "well I haven't exactly been treated well by the other residents of this place, especially your sister so I was suspicious when you acted nice towards me."

Hearing this causes her to sigh disheartedly then with a look of sorrow responds, "I am terribly sorry to hear that. Especially to hear that my dear sister would treat you in such a way. I will have to talk to her about this at a later time and get her to apologize."

With that, she turns around and continues to walk down the hall while saying, "for now we should go to the dining hall or else we'll be late."

As she walks, she doesn't hear his footsteps behind her but instead hears him saying, "there's actually another reason I thought you were acting."

Caught off guard by his statement, she stops and slowly looks back at him while asking, "oh? And what might that be?"

He innocently smiles back at her while replying, "well it has to do with something I was trained to spot."

Now intrigued she asks, "what would that be?"

He continues to smile while replying, "well it has to do with a story I heard from many years ago."

Hearing this causes rems eyes to lighten up while taking a step towards him and asks, "I love stories! Can you tell me it?"

He chuckles a bit at her response then replies, "alright, we'll this story takes place many years ago during a large war. See when the bad guys captured one of the good guys. they would interrogate them, usually using torture and things like that. However there was one interrogator that didn't do this. In fact he was one of the best so they knew his way of doing it was effective. See he'd pretend to be the prisoners friend, he'd take them on walks and treat them with kindness. By doing this, the prisoner felt they could trust them and in doing so, would inadvertently give away information."

As he tells his story, rems enthusiasm slowly leaves her as he continues, "that's part of the reason I was suspicious of you."

She stands there quietly as his smile leaves him and he starts to glare at her while saying, "so I'll ask you again. Lose the act."

Rem stands there for a moment while simply looking back at him while showing little emotion until finally sighing in defeat then says, "your more perceptive than I gave you credit for."

He starts to grin again while responding, "it helps that I've spent my whole life surrounded by people that pretend to be nice only for them to show their true colours when no one's looking."

She continues to look at him with mild annoyance while saying, "well this is a new situation for me, and I am honestly not sure where to go from here."

Burchard continues grin while removing the rifle from his back and saying, "well there's only one thing I can think of."

Seeing a threat, Rem slowly reaches behind her back and readies herself to attack but to her confusion, she sees him lean his rifle against the walk then takes a seat on one of the chairs. Confused by his actions but still on edge, she continues to hold her hand behind her back while asking, "what exactly are you doing?"

While getting comfy in his seat, he looks up at her while replying, "you want answers, right?"

She nods which causes him to respond, "well I got a few questions of my own so I have an offer for you."

Now intrigued by this new turn of events, Rem slowly pulls her hand from her back while asking, "and what might that be?"

Seeing her interest, he starts to grin while replying, "here's the deal, you ask me a question then I get to ask you a question. Sound fair?"

She ponders this deal for a moment but realizing that this was the most direct way to get the answers she needed, she nods while replying, "it does, you have a deal."

He smiles while motioning to the chair next to him while saying, "alright then, take a seat."

She takes her seat while he asks, "so should you go first or should I?"

She responds, "I have been the only one asking questions so far, therefore you should be able to ask at least one question."

He grins back at her while responding, "oh I didn't realize you were so kind?"

She faintly smiles back at him while replying, "if it was not obvious already, I am full of surprises. Now what is your question?"

Burchard pauses to think about what was best to ask while scratching his head and thinking, "hmm, I don't know how many opportunities like this so I should choose carefully, I also don't wanna make her suspicious, so I'll have to be careful."

After a brief pause, a question comes to mind as he asks, "you know my employer right?"

She nods to which he grins while asking, "well to tell you the truth, since he's hired me, somethings felt off about him and I'm not sure why plus I haven't been able to find to much information on him, what have you learned about him?"

After thinking for a moment, she replies, "I'm afraid to say I do not know much. He had been asleep since arriving a few days ago and just woke up this morning, though from what miss Emilia has divulged about meeting him, he seemed to be surprisingly prepared when fighting the bowel hunter."

Hearing this peaks his interest as he thinks to himself, "he was prepared? He was also caught off guard when the maids showed up to his room this morning, they seemed to show up sooner than he expected."

His train of thought gets interrupted when she asks, "is it my turn to ask a question now?"

He simply nods to which she points at his rifle still leaning next to him while asking, "what exactly is that weapon?"

He looks over and taps it while asking, "this old thing?"

She nods which causes him to pick it up and hold it to her while continuing, "this is my service rifle, it's called a sniper rifle, more specifically a C-14 Timberwolf."

She listens intently as he taps it while continuing, "it's taken a lot of practice but I can, depending on external factors, reliability hit a dinner plate from a thousand yards away with this thing."

She studies the rifle with intrigue while asking, "that does sound fascinating. Would you be able to show me how it works?"

To her surprise, he starts to judgingly look at her while responding, "excuse me? But that sounds like two questions."

Realizing she was caught, Rem sighs disheartedly then responds, "it appears you are correct, what is your question?"

Another thought comes to mind as he looks at her while asking, "who tried to attack me this morning?"

To his confusion, she looks back at him surprised while asking, "you were attacked?"

He nods while continuing, "yeah, before you found me in Subaru's room, I was climbing down a rope when suddenly I started getting pulled back up, luckily I was close enough to his window to smash through as you saw."

She continues to look at her surprised then puts a hand to her chin to think while saying, "that is strange."

Seemingly thinking of something, she says, "lord raswall did want to test your skill, perhaps it was related to that. I will ask him about this at my earliest convenience."

He thinks about the response for a moment but not sensing any deception, he decides to believe her while saying, "okay, well whoever it was was definitely a tough bastard."

Surprised by what he said, Rem looks at him with a raised eyebrow while asking, "oh? And why do you say that?"

He replies, "I set up a trap before I scaled the building which should have disoriented them enough to let me make a clean get away but they didn't seem to be effected at all."

Rem continued to look at him surprised while saying, "whoever it was must be quite tough then."

Her expression turns more neutral as she asks, "now that I have answered your question, can you please show me how your weapon works?"

Burchard smiles back at her while replying, "well since you asked so nicely."

After a few minutes of preparation, Burchard now kneels down in front of the open window and has the bipod of his rifle, out and resting on the windowsill. He rests his shoulder on the butt of his rifle and looks over at Rem, who is standing next to him and looking out the window, while asking, "so…. What do you want me to hit?"

She scans the yard and after a moment spots something hanging over the fence and replies, "that unkept tree branch has grown onto the yard. Can you please cut it down for me."

He grins as he looks through his scope while responding, "happily. You should probably cover your ears."

As she complies, he takes aim and as he had done hundreds of times before, he takes a deep breath and focuses on his target but something was different. As he concentrated, he saw birds flying by slow to almost a crawl, but it wasn't just them, even the leaves that were falling from the trees seemed to slow, almost as if time itself slowed down. He didn't know what was going on but suddenly he recognizes this while thinking to himself, "why does this feel like a video game?"

Realizing that he couldn't hold his breath much longer, he takes aim at the branch.

"BANG!!!"

With the pull of a trigger, the rifle fires and causes a crack to rings out throughout the halls of the manner. As he lose focuses and starts to breath once more and to his surprise, time seems to flow normally though he wasn't able to think about what was happening when he hears Rem say in a disappointed tone, "it appears you miss."

He looks over and sees her looking back at him with a raised eyebrow though he seems unfazed and instead starts to chuckle to her confusion but before she could ask, he responds, "I forgot to mention that the first round is usually used to zero in the rifle."

She watches him with intrigue as he reaches up and turns the nobs on his scope. After seemingly getting everything just right, he cycles the bolt then takes aim once more while saying, "cover your ears."

She does as he says while he concentrates and holds his breath. Like the last time, time seemed to slow to a crawl as he puts his cross hairs on the tree branch.

"BANG!!!"

He fires and like the last time, a loud cracking sound echoes through the halls of the manner but this time, the tree branch cuts clean in half and falls to the ground. He loses his concentration and starts to breath which like the last time causes time to flow normally. Intrigued by this strange ability, he thinks, "this is weird but should be useful. Ill have to find information on this later."

he then looks over at Rem who stood there visibly shocked while staring at the tree branch laying motionless on the ground. He starts to grin at her while asking, "so…. Impressed?"

She continued to stand there silently until finally she seems to compose herself then looks over at him while replying, "I must say you are correct; I've never seen anything quite like this."

He continues to grin while folding up his rifles bipod and says, "glad to hear."

After resting his rifle next to and taking his seat, he looks over at her while asking, "now for my next question…."

"So this is where all the noise was coming from?"

As if on command, Burchard sighs disheartedly then looks down the hall only to see the reason for his constant annoyance walking towards them while saying, "why hello there."

The pink haired maid Ram comes to a stop in front of them and starts to look at him with disgust while saying, "why am I not surprised that you're the reason for my sisters tardiness."

She wasn't exactly surprised to see him grinning back at her but before he could say anything, Rem steps forward and bows elegantly to her while saying, "my apologies sister, I was tasked with taking him to breakfast yet diverted him here to have a chat. Please forgive me."

Both Ram and Burchard were equally as shocked at Rems demeanor to the point that Ram seemed unsure of what to do until she responds, "I understand."

Caught off guard by her passive attitude, Burchard stares at her blankly while she turns around and starts walking down the hall while continuing, "now we should be going, it would be a shame if you were later than you already are."

Rem looks over at Burchard who seems to still be confused while saying, "we should follow."

He was able to shake off his confusion and looks over at her while slinging his rifle over his shoulder and saying, "guess we can't finish our chat."

As they start to walk, Rem responds, "do not worry, it seems that we both still have many questions for each other. If we have time, we shall talk again."

He looks over at her with a smirk while asking, "sounds like a plan."