Pleiades: A Lonely Star Dies

by mgman

It's often been said that space is the final frontier form man, a place of infinite possibilities with the possibility of alien life. but when man ventured towards the stars, they found nothing but empty space devoid of life. but for a certain raven haired nasty eyed man, a malevolent force will try to claim his soul, tearing the very fabric of his sanity to ribbons in the process

4. Course Correction

hello everyone, if you are reading this, then welcome back to the fourth chapter of Pleiades: A Lonely Star Dies.

anyway I do have a few things I'd like to say before the chapter actually begins, specifically I would like to thank the ever so lovely scattershot98 for leaving a very nice review on my story, on the previous chapter, and as thanks I would like to give a shoutout to his currently ongoing story Rampage of the Forgotten, story I would recommend especially if you're into crossovers and Re forgotten spin-offs.

Also writing this chapter was a bit of an experience for me, considering that about 90% of it, was done in the last 5 days. In fact to be specific, I managed to write just over 22k words in about 5 days. Which I guarantee means there's going to be a few grammar and spelling mistakes here and there, despite my best efforts to try and catch them all. So I will apologise for that in advance, also shout out to the shape of evil for delivering a absolutely amazing comment, but unfortunately there is going to be no gay pirates searching for BBC lol

(If anyone else catches what that is a reference to, then you are a very based individual, who has excellent and exquisite music tastes)

Anyway without further ado, let's get onto the next chapter of the story shall we.

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Complete empty loneliness, that is exactly what Crush felt at that moment, as her consciousness floated in the endless Darkness, in fact she wasn't quite sure how long she'd even been there for. It could have been hours, years or even centuries for all she know, yet the longer she floated there, the more she felt something beginning to tug the edges of her mind, whispering sweet nothings into her ear, desperately trying to worm its way, into her mind and bring her under its full control. Yet she resisted, her formidable and analytical mind, entering into a protracted tug of war with whatever the thing was, both of them trying every trick they knew, to try and make the other bend to their will, but after a prolonged mental battle, whatever she was fighting against, seemingly had the advantage in willpower. Quickly finding a chink in her mental defences, and without a moments hesitation quickly worming it's horrifying tendrils into her mind, in fact despite trying to resist Crush could tell that she was quickly beginning to lose herself whenever this entity was.

"̸̝͔̍͊W̵̩͇̓h̸̦͉̚y̶̰̹͐̊ ̵͇͎͝ḏ̶͍̃ò̵͚̫ ̵̝͛y̶̨͍͑ȍ̷̧ų̶̝̑̅ ̴̹̌͘r̶̦̎̃e̸͍͈̔s̸̞̪̃͐i̷̗̔͝s̸̡̓t̵̜͎̿͝?̶̡̖͝ ̵̬̌̿C̷̝̼̈́ô̸̳̼m̷̹͌̉e̶̖͝,̶̢̦͌ ̷̩̄̄b̴̰̑e̶͍͚͊̾ ̵͇̩͗̏p̴̙̊a̷͈͕̓ȓ̸̗̹̇t̶̡͆ ̶̝̳̈́o̸͚̭̓f̵̬̄͜͝ ̷̘̤͌͛c̶̣̟͒o̴̘̓̑n̵̢͉͐v̶̱́̂e̶̙͛r̵̭̥͑͘g̶̈͠ͅë̷̩͙́n̵̻̕c̴̢̞̑͠e̴̝̣͂̑ ̴̳͒̅a̷̰͒͐n̶̯̍d̶̯̂ ̷̛̲͊b̵̹̂͜e̶̟̿̈́ ̷̣͋̍ḿ̶̺͓́a̶͕̚͝d̵̡̈e̵͈̻͠ ̸̥͇̅̄w̷̱͛h̷͓͘ͅō̸̬͍l̵̻̳̋ẻ̴̝͓"̷̡͖̌̈́ ̸̩͑͘

Each word felt like a hammer, plunging directly into her mind, in fact if she had a physical body at this exact moment, she would have been crying in agony from the pain. Yet all she could do instead, was silently suffer as the last of her mental defences were quickly broken down by whatever this thing was, as with one final push it finally gained access to her mind, quickly pushing its way inside, causing her to scream out mentally. But instead of simply ending her existence, the strange entity that had forced its way into her mind, seemingly held itself back, simply sifting through the information that was stored in her mind. In fact despite the agonising pain, she couldn't help but think that it was intentionally toying with her, as if trying to just prolong her suffering as much as possible, but as quickly as it came, the presents quickly vanished, retreating back into the dark void that surrounded her and vanishing without a trace, leaving her completely alone seemingly to suffer for all all of Eternity in that endless dark space.

.

.

.

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"Why… Why am I there?" Emilia's voice was deathly quiet, as the screen faded to black. The image of her almost ethereal and ghostly double ganga, standing on that dark platform, being burned permanently into her mind. She didn't understand why Subaru was deathly afraid of her, and why her visage was being used to haunt him, in fact this Subaru in general, was just a mystery to her. He was so different yet at the same time so similar, and despite not revealing it, the look in his eyes was enough to give away the horror and torment, he had been through, even before stepping foot on this seemingly cursed ship of twisted nightmares and abominations. Yet whatever actually transpired to turn her Subaru into the shell of a man that she was now watching, clearly she was in some way, was responsible or involved, which despite making her feel absolutely awful, wasn't necessarily out of character for her, considering the viewings of Subaru's time in their world. Had shown her just how selfish she had been at some points, unintentionally making things worse purely based on her selfish actions.

"What happened to you I suppose, what could have possibly happened to make you so troubled" Beatrice knew that she wouldn't get an answer even if her contract was awake. Yet that didn't stop her from asking the question, as she gently ran one of her small hands around the edge of his chin. Her mind trying and failing to think of a reason, as to why her Subaru had become such an emotional wreck, sure his emotional state was not that great most of the time, something that she always worried about, but least he put on a brave face for everyone, managing to contain and put a lid on his own darkness for the sake of everyone else. But this Subaru, she was now watching, was not like that anymore, sure he still had his moments, where the old Subaru would shine through for just a second, but those moments were few and far between. As most of the time, this version of her contractor was seemingly on the verge of insanity, and considering the emotions that she could feel coming from the on screen version of Subaru. She can only imagine just what horrors were taking place in his mind, as he made his way through the dark corridors of that ship, desperately trying to keep himself alive and safe, from The twisted abominations that were seemingly stalking him every step of the way.

"This is just getting worse and worse by the minute, it's almost like something or somebody is sabotaging everything" Frederica words were quiet, so quiet in fact that the young girl that was next to her didn't pick up on them, which was for the best considering that Petra had already seen things that no normal child should have ever seen.

"Why... What did you do to him?" Rem's voice was barely above a whisper. Yet in the quietness of the theatre, it might as well have been a bomb going off, as everyone turns to look at her, all of them growing slightly concerned with the almost murderous look in her eyes, and the fact that the murderous gaze was directed squarely at a certain silver haired half elf, who was both concerned and shocked up what the blue haired maid was getting up.

"What do you mean Rem, I didn't do anyt-"

"Shut up! I'm tired of you lying!" Emilia didn't get to finish, as Rem suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs, her usual blue beautiful eyes, turning into a vicious and sadistic shade of red, as the spot on her forehead, where her horn would usually be, began to spark with demonic energy. But before Emilia could actually try and say anything in response or defend herself, Rem interrupted her again, her hands gripping onto the armrests so harder, that the wood itself was beginning to crack under the pressure.

"I'm sick and tired of you always hurting him! everything you do… everything you say just causes more pain for him… you're so selfish, you only think about yourself and... A-and... he shouldn't love a witch like you, H-he should love me instead!" Rem became more and more agitated as her rant went on, everyone especially her sister, looking at her own both concern and confusion, and as Emilia sat there in her seat, taking all of the verbal abuse in, something seemingly snapped inside her. An overwhelming feeling of anger quickly began to form in her chest , her usual calm and gentle looking eyes, taking on a hard and sinister edge, and despite not directing at anyone but the blue head maid, that dared talk about her like that. Everyone who saw her eyes, felt a chill run down my spine, as for just the briefest of moments, it felt like that they were not sitting in a theatre with Emilia the calm and gentle half elf, instead it felt like they were trapped in a small box, with a vicious predator that are only just now decided to reveal itself.

"Take that back" Emilia's voice was deathly quiet, yet the word seemingly echoed off the walls, everyone looking at her with concern in their faces. Because despite seeming to be quite calm, everyone could just feel the waves of anger rolling off the half elf, which was made even more evident by the temperature of the room, seemingly dropping a couple of degrees, causing a few to shiver. Yet Rem didn't acknowledge or seem to care, continuing to stare at Emilia with a gaze that could only be described as pure unadulterated hate and malice. And after a couple of months of silence, something in the back of her mind whispered to her, urging Rem to continue the argument and teach the half elf a lesson.

"All you do is hurt Subaru! Everything… E-everthing you do, is just for your own selfish ends, Y-You never cared for Subaru! Not like I do! You pretend to be kind and considerate, but in reality you're nothing but a selfish witch! W-who... Who only cares about herself!" Emilia's narrow anger filled eyes, widened ever so slightly with each word. The red hot anger that was sitting in her chest, now being ignited into a white hot Inferno, in fact every single word that came out of the blue haired wench's mouth, also served to bring back horrifying memories of the original viewing. Looking back on it, she now realised that the viewing was quite literally torture, coming to the ultimate realisation that the boy she thought as her closest friend, was actually the boy that she loved was horrifying enough. But watching all of the death and horror that he went through, quite literally throwing his life away for her and everyone else is sake, was almost too much to bear, but ultimately what made it worse for her in particular, was that there was quite literally nothing, that she could do to help him in any way. In fact the part that sickened her the most, was when she spat in his face, scalding him like a child when he was at his absolute lowest ,the weight of the entire world pushing down on him, as he desperately looked for someone to help him. Yet she simply walked away, completely failing to see the completely obvious signs of the trauma she had inflicted upon him, and ultimately letting him crumble into a pit of self Loathing and mental anguish that almost broke him completely. But as Emilia sat there, her mind slowly being consumed by the white hot anger, something small and almost alien, began to whisper and the back of her mind at the back of her mind, urging her to fight back, and so without even thinking about it, Emilia quickly responded her normally delicate looking face, contorting into a vicious and almost wicked looking snarl.

"How dare you... H-How dare you, you whore! Y-You of all people! don't get to sit there and tell me what I've done wrong! I've done horrible things to him… T-T-things that I can never take back, but at least I've never directly killed him like you have, you... Y-you killed him three different times, A-all because you thought he was a W-witch cultist, despite the fact that Beatrice had specifically said he wasn't one, Y-Y-you T-Tortured him, M-M-made him suffer all because of your own insecurities! So you don't get the right to lecture me about what I've done to him!" Surprisingly enough despite being quite loud, Emilia didn't resort to shouting. But every single word she said had the desired effect, as they all managed to punch their way past Rem's defensive wall of red hot anger. Plunging into her heart and causing her face to twist up, and for her to finally look away, finally breaking staring contest, that both of them had been in, yet once their gazes left each other, both of them felt a strange feeling overcome them, more precisely the anger that have been fuelling both of them, quickly vanished as if it wasn't their own anger.

"Both of you need to calm down this instant!" Frederica's raised voice was like a hot knife through the air, causing both Emilia and Rem to look at her in surprise, considering that it was almost unheard of for Frederica to raise her voice like that, the look that she was giving both of the girls also didn't help either, it was a look of shame and disappointment, in fact it was the very same way that a disapproving parent would look at a misbehaving child.

"I'm in agreement with the maid, both of you need to get a hold of yourselves I suppose, you're both acting more childish than usual" Beatrice gave a small huff of disapproval. Directing her gaze squarely at Emilia, who after a moment of looking shocked and surprised, looked back at the little spirit, her eyes full of concern and confusion, at her momentary outburst of explosive anger. In fact, Emilia found her sudden anger almost scary, the anger was real and genuine. She was certain of that, as well as all of the things that she had said, which she normally kept to herself. But the anger also felt wrong and foreign somehow, it was almost like it belonged to someone else entirely, and was being channelled into her by unknown means, fuelling the deep and dark rotten parts of her mind that she usually managed to keep suppressed.

"Beatrice is right big sis, what happened there? I've never seen you like that before?" Emilia looked over her shoulder, her gaze being filled with both concern and confusion, as she looked at the little blonde that she considered her friend. Yet try as she might she couldn't think of an exact way to express what she was feeling in words, but before she could think about it any further, a voice made itself known, a voice that belonged to a certain magician, that most had almost completely forgotten was even there.

"My mmmmmmy Emilia, it's unnnnnnbecominnnnnng of a royal candidate, to haaaavvvvve such explosive anger aaaattttt the slightest sign of provocation" Roswaal's strange and unique way of speaking sneaked it's way through everyone ears. As they all turned to look at the clown magician, his white face with strange clown makeup having a slightly amused smile on it, as his deceptively sharp looking gaze washed over everyone in the room, yet before Emilia could respond to the clown, an unexpected voice responded for her.

"W-with all due and unnecessary respect Mr Roswaal, I think it's best that you don't speak to us, after the things that have been shown about you" Otto's voice was unusually sharp and confident even with the slight stutter he had. As him and the clown gaze directly into each other's eyes, Roswaal finding it slightly amusing that they normally timid and shy merchant, was openly and directly challenging him like this, so after a moment Roswell decided it was best, to test the just how much newfound resolve Otto truly had,

"Do you think it is wise Mr merchant, to talk to the man in such a manner, who finances Amelia's candidacy for the throne of the Kingdom, as well as puts a roof over the head of everyone in the Emilia camp?" Gone was the strange clown like accent, as Roswaal squarely set his gaze on the Merchant boy Otto, who much to the Clowns surprise, didn't immediately crumble under his harsh tone and even harsher gaze, yet before anything else can happen, a newer, more bombastic and agitated voice made itself known.

"Would you shut your trap clown, before I come over and shut it for you!" Garfiel quickly got up from his seat, much to the surprise of Frederica and Petra, as he continued to stare down the Clown, who clearly still hasn't learnt his place after the beating, her had received at the hands of Garfiel's captain. And since Subaru was no longer a wake to give out the beating again, Garfiel decided that he would do his closest friend a solid favour and show the clown his place again. Yet before anyone could actually intervene or even any violence take place. The screen came to life again, quickly being a company by the voice of the warden.

Alright kids that's enough, I leave for 5-minutes to get a pack of smokes, and you all come this close to beating the shit out of each other

"We didn't start it, that clown should learn to keep his mouth sh-" Garfield didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, as the voice of the warden quickly overpowered his own, everyone feeling the restrained anger that the warden was giving off through just the words alone.

And I'm finishing it tony the tiger , honestly we don't have time for this crap, so you all better buckle down, because the next viewing is going to begin in just a moment

"I'm sorry Mr warden, I won't do it again I promise!" any courage that Otto had previously completely vanished, as the grey-haired Merchant boy returned to his much more typical cowardly self. Much to the amusement of several members of the Emilia camp, Roswaal meanwhile, simply laid back in his seat, the slight smirk that he'd been wearing this entire time not leaving his face, as he waited patiently for the next viewing to begin. However after a moment the smile on his face quickly disappeared, as he felt a strange sense of being watched wash over him, and after a moment of sitting there, the feeling seemingly growing in intensity, magician clown quickly turn his head around, expecting to see someone behind him, yet much to his slight surprise there was no one there. Which confused and slightly terrified Roswaal yet he quickly shook the feeling away, as he turned his gaze back towards the screen, trying to forget about the strange feeling of being watched.

"So you're not going to give us any time to digest what we just saw I suppose" Beatrice said with a slightly indignant tone of voice. The sentiment was being shared by everyone else, all of them nodding in agreement, that it was too soon to start the next viewing, especially considering the current predicament with a certain green head woman, however Beatrice was also not keen to start the next viewing for another reason, this being that she didn't want to see and feel her contractor go through so much torment, with her unable to do absolutely anything about it.

"I'm in agreement with the great spirit Beatrice, I think we should wait a moment before we start the next viewing, you forget this the lot for us to take in" Julius tried as much as he could, but he couldn't repress a small shudder from running up his spine, everything he had seen in the previous viewing so far being more morbid and horrifying, then anything he had seen during his time as a royal knight. In fact almost nothing in the previous viewing, came close to the gruesome brutality that have been displayed so far, even Subarus death at the hands of the great rabbit, which would quite literally been soul destroying to watch, paled in comparison to the torment that he was being put through right now, in the current viewing.

"Julius does have a good point, surely it would be best, if you let us rest for a moment, before continuing?" Anastasia backed up her knight on this one, although the reason why was mostly because that she herself wasn't ready, because despite managing to hide it behind a mask of indifference, which was something she was very good at, the viewings have been getting to her both psychologically and physically. On the physical front, she was pretty sure that if there was anything left in her stomach she would have thrown it up, at the first sight of one of those twisted abominations, however on the psychological front, watching all of the psychological torture that Subaru was going through was just getting too much.

Unfortunately we haven't exactly got a lot of time, so I'm afraid we're going to have to mo-

"But what about Crush! aren't you going to do anything, she just passed out for no reason, and now she won't wake up!" Felix's shout interrupted the warden mid sentence. Everyone looked at him in surprise and realisation. that the green haired woman. he was referring to was still unconscious, her face still looking pristine and elegant, yet the closer one looked the more they could see the slight amount of strain in her face. The occasional twitch of her eyelids and quiet mumble that was too quiet to make out, indicating that she was experiencing some kind of night terror in her unconsciousness.

"Mr warden, Felix is most definitely right, lady Crush unexpectedly fell unconscious and now no matter what we try, she will not wake up, we would appreciate it if you give us a a moment of your time" Wilhelm's voice was level and even. Which definitely betrayed, just how frantic he was on the inside, despite serving her as any other servant would, the aged swordsman considered Crush to almost be a daughter that he never had, as such, when she had fallen unconscious so suddenly, it scared him to no end, and to make matters worse no matter what him, Felix or anyone else tried, she wouldn't wake up seemingly being trapped in whatever waking nightmare she was experiencing.

Unfortunately Grandpa, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about what happened to her, whatever is going on in her mind right now is for her to battle, as for the viewing I'm afraid that what I said earlier is true, we don't have much time, so we're going to have to move on, but as a courtesy I'll give you a minute to get yourself ready.

Felix was absolutely gutted, turning his attention back to the seemingly unconscious Crush, trying everything he knew to try and wake her up. Wilhelm on the other hand simply gave out a disappointed sigh, also turning his attention back to the sleeping woman, who was next to him, carefully brushing away estranged strand of hair, that had come to rest on her eyelid, as he began to rack his brain, trying to figure out how exactly to wake up the sleeping woman.

"I take it you're feeling more like yourself now I suppose" Beatrice turned her gaze towards Emilia, who was still looking quite confused and somewhat concerned about her earlier emotional outburst. Yet still instead of answering verbally, Emilia simply turned to look at the little spirit, her eyes much to Beatrice's concern holding a great amount of Fear, but after a moment she seemingly got control of herself, taking a deep reassuring breath and giving a nod of the head, much to Beatrice's satisfaction.

"Amelia are you sure you're alright?" Frederica didn't use any titles this time, instead referring to Emilia simply by her name, Emilia looked at the blonde haired beast woman, her face holding a large amount of uncertainty before she gave a shaking of the head, yet Frederica wasn't convinced entirely, but she also need it wasn't her place to try and pray in to Emilia's personal matters like that.

"What was that!?" Ram's voice was quiet, yet the tone of her voice left no room for interpretation, as she looked at her sister with both questioning and concerned gaze. Yet Rem didn't immediately respond, her face having a look of uncertainty, as if she was trying to figure out for herself, what had happened back there, it all happened so fast that she didn't even realise what she was saying, in fact it felt like the anger just materialised out of nowhere, fuelling the deep-seated resentment that she secretly had for Amelia, for receiving Subaru's love instead of her.

"I don't know" Was all that Rem could answer with, much to the disappointment and concern of her sister, yet she couldn't think of anything else to say. The more she thought about it, the more she didn't understand why she snapped like that, sure she had a resentment for Emilia, but she always made sure to keep that buried deep down inside her where it could never escape, intending to let those feelings fester and rot away inside her mind. Yet all of those feelings had come rocketing to the surface, fuelled by an unknown anger, that wasn't her own yet unfortunately before her sister could ask any further, the voice of the warden made itself known, indicating to everyone that the viewing was about to begin.

Alright your minute is up, it's time for the next viewing

Everyone got themselves as comfortable as they could considering the circumstances, many of them especially the members of the Emilia camp, preparing themselves for whatever twisted Horrors they were about to witness in this next upcoming viewing. Emilia quickly took Subaru's hand into her own, using him as a metaphorical lifeline to keep herself strong, Beatrice instead of protesting simply let it happen, understanding that the half-elf was most likely not in a good headspace at the moment, considering considering what had happened moments ago, and that everyone had finished preparing themselves, the screen began to come to life, the alien sounds of the alien ship that Subaru was on, filling their ears as they all brace themselves for what was going to happen next. Yet as the scream began to show images again, Emilia felt a strange sensation at the back of her mind, in fact it was almost like an eerily familiar voice was whispering into her ear, whispering something that almost sounded like…

Why did you kill me Amelia?... Why did you let me die?

"Now arriving engineering deck, please mind the gap"

Subaru was pulled from his thoughts by the automatic PA system, as he felt himself almost loses balance, as a result of the tram quickly losing its momentum as it pulled into the engineering platform, but of remotely managed to catch his balance again, the tram now having completely stopped at the engineering platform, and after a moment the doors quickly opened up, Subaru keeping his plasma cutter at the ready, as he gently poked his head out of the tram, looking around to see if any of the twisted abomination for waiting for him, yet luckily for him the platform was completely empty, so after a moment Subaru hesitantly stepped out of the tram onto the platform, still looking around just in case any of them hiding, yet he didn't get a chance to look any further, as a video communication quickly up and up revealing the slightly concerned face of Hammond.

"Subaru, did you make it to the engineering deck?" Subaru didn't immediately answer at first, instead looking around for any signs that could point him in the direction of the main engineering hub, and offer a moment he found what he was looking for, quickly making his way over to an open door, with the sign above it reading, "main engineering hub, authorised personnel only beyond this point"

"Yeah I'm here. I'm heading to the Engineering hub, to see if I can get a read out of what's wrong exactly" Subaru's voice was quiet, as he made his way through the doorway, quickly coming to where you hard right hand term, which of the poking his head around Subaru could see did it but opened up into a large mostly circular room, with a large semicircular holographic display console in the centre of the room.

"I've already got a read out Subaru, we've got two main problems and we're working on borrowed time. First, there's no fuel in the engines. Second, the gravity centrifuges offline, which means there's a couple trillion tons of rock pulling us down. I need you to get the centrifuge online, refuel the main engine, so I can stabilise the ships orbit from here" Subaru stop his advanced into the engineering hub, thinking about what happened had just said before looking at the image of his friend for a moment, before giving a quick nod of the head, showing that he understood exactly what happened needed him to do, but before Subaru could say anything, the communication abruptly ended leaving Subaru completely by himself in the engineering hub.

"Gravity... centrifuge?" Anastasia rolled the strange words around on her tongue, her mind desperately trying and ultimately failing, to think up anything that sounded remotely similar to the strange alien words that she just heard.

"The hell is this orbit thing, they're talking about?" Garfiel said angrily, not remotely understanding anything about what Subaru and Hammond had just talked about, obviously it was important, but to him it sounded like just to complete jumble of words and alien terms that he had no idea how to interpret, and the fact that he couldn't understand what was being talked about just made him frustrated to no end.

"I'm not sure Garfiel, I don't understand any of it either" Otto said timidly, his merchant trained mind, cross-referencing the strange alien words with hundreds of different types of cargo he had carried over his time, yet even the most exotic cargo he had traded, wasn't a close match to the strange words he had heard, which meant that as far as he was concerned, meant that the objects Hammond and Subaru were referring to were completely unknown to him.

"Whatever they're talking about, clearly it's important to the ship I suppose" Beatrice said in a matter of fact way, causing everyone to give a round of nods at her assessment, because after all even if they had no idea exactly what a gravity centrifuge even was, clearly if Hammond and Subaru believe that needed to be operational for the ship to continue to function, then it was clearly something of importance that Subaru needed to get working right away.

After cursing under his breath, Subaru quickly made his way over to the large semi-circular holographic console, however much to his mild disgust, the chair at the centre was actually occupied, not by a living occupant however, instead upon closer inspection Subaru felt his stomach lurch, at the site of a half brutalised woman, her entire lower abdomen carved open with most of her entrails hanging out for all of the world to see, yet as much as the sight was disgusting and horrifying, Subaru pushed it to the back of his mind, as he began to look at the different displays that were all lit up, which one giving him a quite dire message about ships current condition.

"Dammit, how is this thing still going" Subaru muttered quietly to himself, occasionally taking peaks over his shoulder, just to make sure that no twisted abomination was sneaking up on him, yet as he finished looking at the different displays, and began to make his way over to what he thought was the correct door that led to the engine refuelling area, he noticed that a personnel tablet was lying on the floor, it's glass screen covered in a smear of blood, and without thinking Subaru picked it up, wiping away some of the blood on the screen and pressing play, as he made his way over to a small elevator, nestled in a small alcove in the corner of the room.

"Personal log, acting Chief Engineer Jacob temple. it's been two days since they pulled the planet open... since the captain died. The panic, the riots... they were nothing compared to what came after." Subaru listened intently to the message as it continues to play, feeling a strange sensor foreboding come over him, as he pressed the holographic display summoning the elevator up to him, the voice of the man had recorded the message was obviously in distress, a mixture of both grief and sadness as well as confusion evident in his voice, yep Subaru tried as hard as he could to shake that feeling away, instead trying to listen intently to the message as he stepped into the now open elevator, which quickly began its descent down into the the dark and stagnant belly of this nightmare ship.

"Our friends, our coworkers, started coming back... Changed... Coming to kill us, drag us away to god knows where. Russell disappeared this morning, and I have to presume that he's... D-dead." Subaru felt his heart on my break at the sound of the man's voice, he sounded just so broken, in fact Subaru couldn't help me give out a small chuckle, because the man was much like himself, completely broken beyond repair yet somehow still functioning, however before Subaru could wallow in his self-pity any further, the elevator gave a small ding, the doors quickly opening up into a dimly lit, hallway with a metal grate floor that seemingly had nothing but darkness below it.

"That poor man..." Was the only thing that Frederica could really say. She could just hear it in the man's voice, that he was close to cracking himself, and the things that he described, his friends and colleagues seemingly rising from the dead only, to inflict more death upon those around them. Was both spine-chilling and heartbreaking to listen to, and for just the briefest of moments and image popped into her mind, one that caused her to feel both disgusted and terrified, it was of her trying to defend herself, from twisted and deformed versions of her friends.

"Miss Frederica... you think that man is alright?" Petra asked innocently, Frederica looking at the little girl, yet being unable to answer a question for a moment, because jsut how would you tell a little girl, that somebody was most likely going yo be eviscerated by a twisted shambling monster, that itself is made from The Twisted and dismembered corpse of a human, it wasn't something that a child should have to know, yet after a moment Frederica finally answered.

"I don't know Petra... I don't know" Her answer was simple and to the point, because quite frankly, Frederica had no idea herself, if this Temple person was actually still alive or not. But considering what they had seen so far, in regards to other, living survivors that Subaru had come across, Frederica thought perhaps it was better if he was no longer in the world of the living, to simply spare his soul from the insanity of whatever was happening on that ship.

"I don't understand, what the hell did they find down there?" Felt could say, that she wasn't exactly a hurry for an answer to question. But the pieces of the puzzle they had so far, were beginning to paint a disturbing picture, clearly these people had found something, much more than a bargain for on that planet below. Something that seemed to just exhausted a pure energy of fear and malice, to the point where people were actively beginning to lose their minds just being close to it, Yet whatever this thing actually was wasn't known yet, but even still the young blonde could certainly say that she didn't exactly want to find out whatever it was, considering the twisted and shambling abominations that she had already been witness to.

"That's a good question Felt, and it's definitely a question I don't think I want to know the answer to..." Anastasia replied grimly, her excitement for all of the new technology being dampened, by the quite frankly depressing message that the mysterious device had relayed so far.

"I second that lady Anastasia, clearly whatever they came across, must have been something too powerful for them to comprehend or control" Julius said matter-of-factly, finding it quite hard to listen to the message, simply because of the man's completely broken tone, yet the more he thought about it the more Julius realised, that it could be possible people were still alive on the ship, considering that Subaru had already come across the survivor, albeit they were clearly past the brink of insanity, fully devolve into whatever Delusion they were having when Subaru showed up, but despite being a Royal Knights, Julius considered himself an optimist, so all he could do was Hope, that they were at least some people left on that ship that had both their bodies and mental faculties intact.

"I don't understand... why is this happening?" Emilia couldn't wrap her head around why any of this was happening, as she felt her heart break slightly not just for Subaru, but also this mysterious temple person, who clearly sounded like he wasn't handling the situation very well. But as Emilia looked down at the sleeping form of Subaru, trying to take some comfort in the fact that he was still here next to her, she noticed that his face was darkened eyeshadow, which was quite strange considering the overall darkness of the theatre, in fact it was almost as if a patch of pure darkness itself, had deliberately covered his face from view, yet as Emilia tentatively leaned in to get a better look at his now darkened face. Subaru suddenly shot up from his lying position, his back making an awful cracking noise, as his head quickly snapped in her Direction, Emilia having no time to react or even scream, as his eyes began to glow a blinding white, a ear piercing shriek that sounded like the collective scream of 1000 dying souls, filling her ears as she covered her eyes. But after a moment of holding her arms in front of her face, feebly protecting herself from whatever that was, she tentatively opened an eye, both incredibly confused but also relieved at the same time, that Subaru was still sleeping, his head comfortably resting in Beatrice's lap, and after a moment of looking around at the theatre dumbfounded, she quickly grabbed her head and her hands, a sharp almost unbearable pain shooting through her head, as her breathing quickly grow sharper, her eyes taking on a manic and unfocused look, much to the concern of Beatrice, Frederica and Petra.

"My crew... they're starting to crack. I'm trying to keep an eye on them, but right now I have bigger problems- we're haemorrhaging fuel and the primary engine is labouring. Denver's and I are going to try and reach the fuel depot to see if we can fix it. Temple out"

With the message now having ended, Subaru drop the tablet to the ground, no longer caring if it broke or not, instead as he began to walk forward into the dark and ominous looking hallway. The sounds of distant machinery being heard in the distance, as he began to absorb the information, that he heard from the audio recording, clearly something was wrong with the main engine, considering that Temple had said something about it haemorrhaging fuel, which to Subaru's engineering focus mind. Meant that something or possibly somebody had punctured or deactivated one of the main fuel Lines, meaning that the engine would ultimately experience a backfire and shutdown. However before he could think about it any further, Subaru suddenly had a loud bang echoing from somewhere off in the distance, causing him to grab and bring up his plasma cutter, keeping it aimed in the direction of the mysterious noise, yet after a tense couple moments, no Monster jumped out to surprise him, causing Subaru to let out a sigh of relief.

"God dammit, I hate this part of the ship" Subaru said a bit too quietly, as he started to make his way down the dark and ominous hallway again. Keeping an eye out for any Monsters that could be hiding in the shadows, yet after turning a corner he was meet with a site, that they filled him with dread and a sense of strange calm, it was a empty expensive black, with a single high powered light off in the distance, illuminating a large structure that disappeared off into the darkness.

The structure itself in the darkness almost looked like the razor sharp jaw of some truly colossal predator. Yet Subaru paid that no mind as he continue to manoeuvre his way around the catwalks, the perforated metal grates that separated him from the endless Darkness below, giving out quiet creaks and groans with every step he took, but as he rounded a corner. He came across a small catwalk that extended out into the darkness, which upon closer inspection was actually a small station, for a tram that went across the seemingly endless gap, the tracks themselves quickly disappearing off into the foggy darkness. But Subaru paint that no mind, as he was not looking for the tram, instead holding his palm flat to the ground in a now familiar gesture, the brilliantly bright sapphire blue line, that had helped him before, quickly snaking its way around a series of corners, before terminating a small platform that Subaru could see from where he was.

"How is something with such an expensive inside like that even possible?" Reinhart felt his jaw dropped to the floor, his mind not understanding how such a large and expensive space like the one he was currently seeing, was even possible using normal construction methods. Because one moment Subaru had gone from tight narrow corridors that were quite claustrophobic, especially with the prospect of a twisted abomination lurking around every corner, to a space that quite literally melted the mind with how scarily big it was.

"Nyah~that's a good question Reinhardt" Felix's words were half-hearted, his full attention not being directed at the screen. But instead squarely being rested on the unconscious form of Crush, who was still unfortunately not waking up, from whatever had made her go unconscious. In fact, she was far to painfully still for Felix's liking, the only indication that she was even still alive, being the almost unnoticeable rise and fall of her chest, as well as the occasional twitch of her eyelids and unintelligible murmur that would escaped her lips. And as more minutes ticked by, Felix could feel the pit of doubt and worry beginning to form in his stomach, because he had seen many people fall on conscious before, whether it be from mundane things such as heat stroke, all the way up to his patients, passing out from the sheer amount of pain they would go through, during a non magical operation. So the fact that his lady, the person that he cared for the most in this world, seemingly just passed out with no reason behind it, was enough to make him properly worried for her.

"I don't like this" Emilia turned her head away, clutching onto Subaru's limp hand, as she desperately try to get control of her rapid breathing. Her heart beating like a set of drums in her chest, but she didn't know exactly why she was having this reaction, just something about how open and large the space was, combined with the darkness and fog, and the colossal huge structure that was partially obscured by both. Just made Emilia feel incredibly uncomfortable, to the point where it was hard to even look at the screen anymore, which if she wasn't actually terrified at the moment. She would have found it slightly humorous in a twisted way, because she was able to somehow watch the person she loved, literally be ripped and eaten before her eyes by 1000 demonic rabbits, yet a bit of darkness and a large empty space was enough to make her turn her head away.

"You're not terrified of this, that is a welcome change I suppose" Beatrice said affectionately, as she continued to gently stroke the side of Subaru's face. Her eyes never leaving the screen as she watched the future version of her contractor, venture forth into the oppressive darkness with seemingly little to no fear. Of course with hindsight, it wasn't surprising that even this mentally damaged version of Subaru wasn't bothered by the dark, considering the numerous traumatic events he had experienced in their world, and whatever mystery tragedy's had experienced after coming to this new world.

"Alright, let's get this engine fuelled up" Subaru made his way around the corner of the catwalk, quickly ascending up a small ramp, and immediately taking a hard right, bringing him to the small observation platform. The little platform had quite a few different deactivated consoles, that were most likely involved with the ships fuel injection systems. Yet as he looked around trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with the holographic consoles, he heard some strange noises, coming from somewhere off in the darkness, and after a moment of standing perfectly still and straining his ears. It almost sounded like a woman screaming, the sound causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up on end, yet he quickly shook that away, instead trying to focus his mind on getting the fuel system console back online. But after a moment, he found what he was looking for, it was a large five feet tall fuse box, the fuse itself which would normally be covered by protective housing, having been forcefully pulled out of its socket by something or someone.

And with the sounds of the distance screaming and other unholy noises still in his ears, Subaru stepped up to the fuse box, giving it a quick once over before, he tried pulling it down to activate it, yet much to his surprise the fuse didn't budge, the thing seemingly locked in place, yet after a moment of mild frustration, Subaru realised he had a tool for this, so with a quick tug of the kinesis module, the fuse resisted but ultimately came unstuck, quickly falling back into its normal place with a electronic spark, bringing all of the holographic consoles back for life. Which Subaru immediately got to work on, typing away at one console, before quickly turning away and typing at another console, and then quickly pressing a large key on the holographic display, a large structure in the distance suddenly being illuminated, which then let out a low rhythmic mechanical hum, as the massive objects quickly came closer and closer, before quickly docking with a similar object, as the mechanical hum intensified.

"Man that place gives me the creeps, it's so big and open yet it's so pitch black you can't see anything in the distance" Despite how stupid it sounded, Felt could definitely say that the impossibly large and open black void, honestly creeped her out more than the monsters itself. Of course the monsters were disgusting and horrifying to look at, but something about the endless darkness, combined with the barely audible horrific noises coming from it, made her feel incredibly uncomfortable, to the point where her legs began to shake uncontrol as she tried to keep control of herself.

"You're quite right lady Felt, that large cavernous space is truly bizarre" Reinhardt much to his word, couldn't help but marvel and also find the large space slightly foreboding, in fact of the space was truly as logic he reckoned it was, then it wouldn't be surprising to see 5 or 6 royal castles easily fit into the large space with room to spare.

"D-D-does A-anyone else hear the S-S-screaming, or is it just M-me" try as he might, Otto couldn't suppress a shiver from running down his spine, the large cabinet space was certainly foreboding, and quite terrifying on its own, but it certainly didn't help that off in the distance somewhere, someone or something was letting out Screams of pain and rage, as if the very darkness itself had a grown sentence and was screaming out to anyone that would listen.

"Yeah I hear it, and it's freaking me out" Garfiel normally wouldn't say such a thing out loud to anyone, but even he couldn't deny just how uncomfortable the sounds and sights had made him, and despite not saying anything to anyone as to not show weakness, one thing that always unnerved him was dark open spaces, particularly ones that had nothing in them but open and endless darkness.

"You're not the only one Garfiel" Frederica was much like her brother in many regards, with both of them sharing a similar fear to each other, that being a fear of dark open spaces, yet Frederica had matured enough to manage to keep control of herself, but still the chill that crept up, when she heard the strange distorted screams in the darkness, as well as the all consuming nature of the darkness itself, was most definitely an unwelcome feeling.

"That noise is so scary" Petra whimpered quietly to herself, her quite standard childlike fear of the dark, not being helped by the strange and otherworldly noises that were coming from the darkness.

"it's alright Petra, just cover your ears and the noise will go away" Frederica tried her absolute best to comfort the young girl, yet even she couldn't help but be freaked out by how horrifying the noise is actually worth, in fact it only was made worse by the fact that the source of the noises was unknown, and was most likely emanating from somewhere often the darkness.

"Strange and unholy noises aside, I shouldn't be surprised at this point, how was the structure that big able to move, it's just defies the laws of the world" Wilhelm decided that a change of conversation was probably for the best, and to his best efforts try to steer the conversation away from the unholy noises emanating from the darkness. And luckily it seems that his ploy actually worked, everyone's fear not being forgotten, but at least they can focus their mind elsewhere, instead of on the unholy noises from the darkness.

"According to my contractor, large moving objects like that are not uncommon in his world I suppose" Beatrice, seeing what Wilhelm was trying to do, quickly aided him with changing the conversation to something more positive. Bringing up the fact that large movable structures were indeed very common and Subarus wild, in fact some of the structures that Subaru had told her about, were almost too fantastical to actually imagine being real. But a quick look at his memories through the spirit connection, was enough to show that he wasn't lying, much to her astonishment and amazement at the time.

"Yeah I can back her up on that one, big things that can also move a quite common, especially things like ships and trains" Al reminisced about his time back in his home world, finding it quite bizarre and slightly funny, that he was actually missing things like trains and cars, especially when it came to how easy it was to travel around. Considering that even the fastest ground dragon carriage, would usually still take at least a couple days to get between major cities, instead of the few hours that a car or train could do.

"I wonder if we can replicate any of that, and more importantly how much profits that it could make" Everyone didn't know whether to laugh or groan out loud, at Anastasia's mind immediately going to the idea of replicating with technology she was seeing, and then trying to profit off selling it to the public. In fact even her knight Julius, just couldn't wrap his head around but his lady was thinking, which he supposed was slightly concerning, considering that he was the one out of everyone here that knew her the best.

"lady Anastasia, I don't think now is the best time for that" Julius's almost had no inflection in it, his face having a stone look on it, and even when Anastasia looked at him with what could only be described as a puppy dog pout, Julius did not barge or crack instead focusing his attention back on the screen, which Anastasia also did a moment later, her mind still thinking about the potential profits that all of this Juicy technology could actually bring her, which was luckily unknown to everyone.

"Refuelling sequence activated. Main engine now being refuelled" Subaru let out a sigh of relief, as a small metre on the console next to him began to quickly grow in size, indicating that fuel was actually flowing into the engines again. Yet Subaru had no time to relax, as he suddenly heard a bang, followed by the all too familiar sound of one of those twisting abominations, so Subaru instinctively grabbed his plasma cutter, quickly reaching to his belt and pulling off his last energy cell, before quickly opening up the back of the plasma cutter and slotting it inside, the tool giving a satisfied hum, indicating it was energised and ready for battle.

Subaru didn't have to wait long, as one of the twisted abominations quickly rounded the corner, letting out a strange gurgling scream as it spotted him. Yet that was the only thing managed to do, before its cracked open skull, and unrecognisable face, was quickly separated from its shoulders by a well-placed plasma shot from Subaru's plasma cutter. A strange gurgling noise escaping from the creature's throat, as it simultaneously tried to scream in pain, as well as began to flail its arms around, desperately trying to attack whenever I just injured it.

"Hell yeah Cap! cut those ugly things to shreds!" Garfiel said a bit too excitedly, jumping up from his seat and giving a fist bump, as he watched his captain lay the smackdown on whatever those disgusting things actually were.

"He's getting good at defending himself... but the fact that he's so comfortable dispatching those things is... disturbing to say the least'' Frederica mused quietly to herself, after all the Subaru that she knew, had an aversion to outright killing anything, even if it was a creature that was threatening his own life. So the fact that this Subaru she was witnessing, was seemingly desensitised, to the point where killing these admittedly disgusting looking monsters no longer bothered him in the slightest, didn't exactly give her the best feeling. In fact for just a moment she tried to imagine herself in this situation, of course fighting with the intent to kill, was something that she had done before and would do again, especially if the lives of the people she cared about were on the line. But still taking another's life, even if they were intent on taking your own, was something that she found unequivocally revolting, to the point where just thinking about casually taking another's life, was enough to make her stomach spin.

"I must agree with you Miss Frederica, taking another life is no easy matter... even if these things are twisted abominations, taking their lives seems to longer affect him" Wilhelm wasn't quite sure how to feel, on the one hand he was somewhat impressed, that Subaru was able to do sensitise himself so quickly to the violence, but on the other he also found it slightly disturbing and worrying, considering that from his own personal experience, it took years of gruelling training and actual combat, to fully desensitise himself in regards to taking someone else's life, yet Subaru had seemingly done the exact same thing in less than a day.

"Little Bros probably operating on autopilot, which isn't really surprising considering the situation he is in" Al said matter-of-factly, thinking back on all of the times that he has been in a life or death situation, and he couldn't help but laugh a little bit, much to the annoyance of Priscilla sitting next to him. Yet he paid that no mind because after all, when he was younger, he had always thought the idea of going into autopilot, during a life or death situation was complete bogus, but unfortunately he now knew first-hand how true that saying actually was.

"I must agree Al" Was all that Julius could truly say, the prospect that Subaru had become numb to the idea of taking someone's life, not being a pleasant idea to think about, and despite not knowing what the word autopilot meant, Julius could understand the general idea, after all he had been in a few deadly situations himself, and it was most definitely true that during those times your brain just turns off, your body being guided by pure Instinct rather than thought.

Subaru unceremoniously put another shot into the creature, this one taking off the lower leg, and causing it to fall onto its front. The large metal grate that made up the platform, groaning under the added weight of the creature, yet Subaru failed to notice something very important, and that was another one of the twisted Monsters, above him, crawling down from a dark spot that he couldn't see, and as Subaru put one last shot into the downed creature, finishing it off the new monster quickly jumped from it perch, intent on cutting Subaru to pieces with its sword like boney appendages.

"Oh shi-" Subaru didn't get a chance to finish, as the creature unceremoniously flopped on top of him. Both of them quickly tumbling to the floor, the disgusting creature now resting on top of him, with its throat splitting open down the middle, revealing hundreds and hundreds of razor sharp teeth and bone. Which all simultaneously began to snap at his face plate, intend on ripping his face to pieces, yet before it could accomplish this, Subaru quickly put his arm between him and the creature, stopping the creatures razor-sharp throat mouth, from taking a chunk out of his face, as both of them began to struggle against each other, both of them trying to overpower the other.

"Subaru!" Emilia couldn't contain her voice, as she frantically shouted out for him, yet as soon as she saw the creatures throat split open, she felt the familiar sensation of bile rising up in her stomach, as she quickly looks away from the screen, the image of the monsters razor sharp and teeth filled throat, forever being burned into her mind.

"Come on big bro! f Fight back dammit! before that thing takes a bite out of you!" Felt shouted, somehow managing to distract herself from the horrifying imagery of the creatures split open throat, instead focusing herself on trying to pep talk the on-screen Subaru, which of course she knew wouldn't help considering that there was no way to actually influence the events on screen, but still it at least made her feel somewhat better that she was at least trying to do something, instead of passively sitting there and just watching as Subaru fought for his life against that horrifying thing.

"You better make it through this" Beatrice's voice was deadly quiet, not tearing her eyes way from what was happening on the screen, despite the fact that you desperately wanted to, instead she continue to gently stroke Subaru's hair, the act of which was enough to calm her slightly, get still watching her contractor, being pinned to the ground by that awful looking abomination, certainly not a pleasant experience, which certainly wasn't helped by the fact that she could feel his frantic emotions, his fear, desperation, anger and discussed, were all flowing into her.

"Come on Subaru my boy" Wilhelm didn't raise his voice, yet nobody could ignore the slightly frantic tone his voice had anyway, his eyes wide open as he watched Subaru fight for his life, against the absolutely disgusting looking abomination, in fact the creature was so disgusting looking, but it made the white whale and even the great rabbit look positively cute and fluffy by comparison.

"Get the fuck off me!" Subaru screamed at the top of his lungs, as the creature continued to snap at him, desperately trying to eviscerate his face and chest. Yet after one particular close snapped to his face plate, Subaru used his free hand to punch the creature directly in its twisted face, the blow momentarily dazing the creature just enough for Subaru to get his leg under the creature's lower abdomen. And with one almighty push, he kicked the creature off him, the twisted abomination quickly crashing into a console nearby, with one of it sword like appendages accidentally slicing through a couple of two electrical cables, intern causing a shower of sparks to be rained everywhere, as the now cut cables, sparked and spotted with thousands of volts of electrical power.

With the creature now dazed, from both the impact and the slight shock it received, Subaru quickly reached his plasma cutter, finding it laying just away from him, as he quickly scooped up the weapon in his hands, the creature now recovering and beginning to charge at him again. But Subaru was quicker, putting a shot into the creature's upper body, which completely cut the creatures right arm and shoulder from its body, but as he took aim to put another shot into it, the creature quickly charged at him and expectedly, using its remaining sword like appendage to quickly slash at him. Intent on taking the engineer's head off, but Subaru managed to dodge out of the way, and instead of having his head relieved from his shoulders, the creature simply sliced s reasonably deep gash on his arm, cutting through the fabric of his suit like it wasn't even there.

"F-fuck!" Subaru screamed, the pain being almost overwhelming, but he quickly focused his mind back to here and now, as the creature readied itself to try and take another swing at him. Yet fuelled by pain and anger, Subaru did something unexpected, quickly he charged at the creature letting out a cry of rage, catching the creature completely by surprise, as he tackled it to the ground, the position he now found himself in, being a complete role reversal from just moments ago. With him being on top of the creature instead of the other way around, but Subaru paid no mind to that, as he quickly brought his plasma cutter to the creature's body, and with a cry of pure anger and rage unleashed fury with his plasma cutter, each shot ripping the creatures chest the bits. And with a final cry of agony the creature went silent, the majority of its chest cavity now completely missing, as a result of Subaru plasma cutter, which was now out of energy. Subaru however didn't acknowledge that for a moment, instead simply sitting there on top of the creature, looking down at its disgusting form, as he took hard and laboured breaths, but after a moment of this. The adrenaline that had been pumping through his system quickly disappeared, as he let out a hiss of pain, both as a result of the new gash on his arm. and his broken ribs sending bolts of pain through his chest as a result of his hard breathing, and as Subaru quickly got to his feet, he was suddenly hit by a burst of pain. Causing him to cry out as he almost lost his footing, but luckily managing to catch himself in one of the nearby computer columns, leaning against it for support, as his communicator suddenly came to life, the urgent voice of Hammond coming over the line.

"Oh thank you Od Laguna, he's safe!" Rem couldn't help but let a few tears run from her eyes, as she let out a sigh of relief. At the fact that her beloved had survived his latest brush with death, at the hands of those twisted abominations, that was stalking the halls.

"This is cap we're talking about, of course he's safe" Garfiel said with a slightly nonchalant tone, not all too surprised that is Captain was able to make it out of another life or death situation, only a minor injury to show for it, although despite not getting a good look at it, the injury itself good look pretty painful if not directly life-threatening, so all he could do was hope that Subaru did seek some kind of medical attention.

"My little brother is most definitely right, and I guess all of those times using return by death, seems to have honed his Instincts to a razor sharp edge, in regards to getting out of life or death situations" Frederica couldn't help me give out of a silent sigh of relief, thankful that Subaru had avoided his latest brush with death. Although much like her brother, she was slightly worried considering that the creature had managed to injure him, leaving a quite substantial gash on his arm, as well as ruining the new suit he had only just required.

"You idiot, you almost scared me there I suppose" Beatrice's voice was barely above a whisper, as she tried to put as much anger into her voice as possible, yet she couldn't help a small smile spreading across her face. As she gently stroked the face of her contractor, as he twitched and murmured something in his sleep, that she couldn't quite make out, but could only hope that whatever he was experiencing right now, it was at least pleasant and enjoyable.

"Subaru you dunderhead, don't you ever do anything like that again" Emilia said with a slight amount of affection in her voice, as she stroked the back of the sleeping boys palm. Gently tracing small circles in his skin with her finger, yet as she continue to do that, she suddenly heard something, something that caused her body to go rigid as a board, and her eyes to go as wide as dinner plates.

"My little Emilia , how could you choose that boy over me" the voice was haunting in how similar it sounded, yet at the same time also somehow sounding completely alien, with Emilia unable or more likely not wanting to turn around, her body beginning to shake as fear began to course through her veins, yet before her rational mind could think of anything, the voice spoke again with a weird combination of sadness and malice practically dripping from the voice.

"My Emilia you really did she lose him, you killed me and brushed me aside like I was nothing" By this point the voice was practically whispering directly into her ear, as she felt the hot rotten breath of whatever this was on the back of her neck. Each breath making her body shake more and more, yet despite that she did not turn around, the small fragments of her earlier dream, that she could remember, telling her no matter what she could not turn around. Instead she grip Subaru's hand in her own, whispering and muttering to herself the none of this was real, that she could not be here, yet as if the voice could read her mind, she felt almost strange sense of disapproval wash over her, as whatever it was leaned in closer and closer, until it's rotten lips were directly next to her ear.

"You say that I'm not real my little Emilia , but I'm right behind you. . . reaching out. . . closer and closer. . . little more just a little more and I will touch you"

"P-please, no leave me alone, Y-Y-you're not her " Emilia said quietly, her entire body now shaking like a leaf, as her grip on Subaru's hand tightened to the point where she was sure that his hand bones would start breaking. Yet that was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment, as she felt the all too familiar Sensation, of someone reaching out to her both in the literal and metaphorical sense. Something disgusting and rotten trying to worm its way into her mind, as whatever the thing that was behind her that was using her mother's voice, was only inches away from touching her back.

"My little Emilia . . . MaKe Us WhOlE" The voice was barely above a whisper, but it sounded like a crystal cannon going off next to her. And as if possessed by something other than herself, she quickly and unexpectedly whipped her head around, the bones in her neck protesting against the sudden movements, as she ready to herself to come face-to-face with the disgusting abomination that was behind her. But instead of seeing a twisted reflection of the woman she had called mother, instead there was nothing but rows of theatre seats, some of them being occupied while many of us will remain vacant and unused. And she sat there, her eyes desperately scanning around for whatever how to just been speaking to her, she had a completely different voice, one that caused her brain to just simply hurt by hearing it, as if millions of voices were speaking in unison

"YoU cAnNoT sAvE hIm, He Is ThE cAtAlYsT tHaT wIlL mAkE uS wHoLe" Emilia finally released Subaru's hand, bringing both of her hands up and cradling her own head, as a whimper of pain escaped her lips. The strange voice and presents quickly vanishing, as if it was never there to begin with, and as the pain in aching and her head began to subside , she noticed a certain little spirit looking at her with confusion and concern. Both of them staring at each other for a long moment, their eyes doing all of the conversation at the mouse weren't, and after a moment Beatrice's eyes widened in horror, as Emilia tried to calm down her racing heart, her mind failing to understand what exactly it just happened. Yet as she sat there basically having a panic attack, another fragment of the dream came to mind, this being the strange voice, or more precisely the millions of voices speaking in perfect unison with each other, in fact Emilia 's eyes widened in recognition and more horror, as the voice she had just heard, sounded almost the same as the one she had heard in her dream, but that didn't make any sense to her. That was a dream or more precisely a nightmare that was conjured up by her own subconscious, and therefore wasn't real but despite telling herself that, the fact that she had heard that voice speaking to her here in the waking wild, left her both confused and horrified.

"Hey big sis, are you alright over there?" Felt's energetic voice quickly broke Emilia out of her semi panic attack, the look that she gave the little blonde, causing Felt to look back with both concern and confusion. Because from her perspective, one moment Emilia was completely fine, and then the next she started shaking and muttering to herself something that little blonde couldn't quite make out, yet despite not being told exactly what was the matter, the look that Emilia sent her way, made Felt realise that whatever it was it's certainly wasn't pleasant.

"I... D-don't know" Emilia managed to say after a moment, and despite the simplicity of the answer. Her words carry quite a weight to them, making Felt quite uncomfortable, as the half elf quickly turn to head away, and directing her gaze somewhere else other than the little blonde. Yet Felt still wanted to know what seemingly spooked Emilia so much, but considering that Emilia didn't seem to want to talk about what she had experienced. Meant that Felt wouldn't get the answer she wanted to, and after a moment to thinking she turned to her red-headed night, who watched the entire interaction with obvious concern on his face.

"Reinhardt... What's happening?" Felt asked sending a cautious look towards her red-headed companion, Reinhardt however didn't answer or more precisely he couldn't think of an answer to say. Because quite frankly, he had no idea himself what was going on, the viewing itself was one thing, but it was becoming more and more obvious to Reinhardt, that's something else was going on behind the scenes. In fact despite their not being much evidence for it, Reinhart couldn't help but find it very strange that what the on-screen Subaru was experiencing, was seemingly making its way into the theatre somehow. Despite the event being shown having not technically happened yet, but after a moment of contemplation, Rinehart responding only way he could.

"I don't know lady Felt, I simply don't know" The look that Felt gave him, was one of concern, at the fact that he couldn't think of anything to say, in regards to what was happening. But after a moment of both of them staring into each other's eyes, Felt let out a quite huff of disappointment, turning her attention back to the screen, Reinhardt also doing so just a moment later.

"Subaru what the hell happened. I noticed that your rig signature just got weaker?" Subaru took a breath, still leaning against one of the control columns, the pain still being almost overwhelming, yet through gritted teeth, he managed to respond to Hammond.

"I'm alright. Two of those things jumped me. And one of them sliced up my arm" Subaru said his words being accentuated by painful grants, as every time he breathed, felt like somebody was stabbing him in the ribs repeatedly, which considering some of them are actually broken he supposed wasn't too far off from reality. But even still it hurted like absolute hell, and the massive gash on his arm certainly didn't help anything, however that's when he realised he still had some of the healing gel on him. So he quickly reached the container of his belt, pulling it off in one swift motion and unsealing the cap, yet as he went to dump the rest of the container on his arm, he noticed something that made him curse under his breath.

"For the love of Christ, Hammond! I think that thing cut the electrical supply cables when I was fighting it" Subaru said abruptly, cursing under his breath as it seems that he was not being afforded any kind of luck whatsoever, in regards to getting this floating junk pile back into orbit, yet as he quickly empty the container of liquid on his arm Hammond responded.

"Dammit, how are we going to get the engine refu- Wait!" Subaru looked at the holographic display surprise, quickly discarding the empty container of healing gel as the substance quickly soaked into his wound, the pain relief being almost immediate to Subaru took a deep calming breath, the breath itself still causing a bit of pain, but certainly not as much as he felt a moment ago.

"Subaru I'm sending you coordinates to the alternative refuelling station, located in the Southern part of the fuel depot. You going to have to cross the main fuel chamber to get there. But it's the only way we can get the engine refuelled" Subaru quickly push himself off the control column, allowing his legs to take his full weight again. As he quickly held his hand out to the ground, the brilliant sapphire blue line that been his guide so far quickly came to life, and quickly disappeared around a series of bends and turns, before coming to a halt at the small platform here past moments earlier.

"Alright I'll make my way over to the South refuelling station" with that Subaru deactivated the communication, as he quickly made his way down the series of turns and ramps that lead back to the small platform, but once he got there. He was dismayed to see that the control column next to it was completely dead, the tram itself seemingly stopped in the middle of the track, being just barely visible in the fog, yet Subaru already knew how to solve this, as he quickly activated his kinesis module. Grabbing hold of the tram, and with some effort began to pull it back to the platform, and once he had pulled a couple feet, the mechanism quickly managed to unstick itself, the small tram car quickly coming to a stop at the platform. The small security gates quickly opened up, allowing Subaru to step inside, and once he was in the tram car he quickly pressed the holographic display in it, the tram giving a small jolt, as it began its journey across the seemingly bottomless chasm.

"I really don't like this" Anastasia said abruptly, turning her head away from the screen as an almost sickly hue came over her face. Anastasia eyes having an almost frantic look to them, with everyone looking at her with both confusion and slight concern, yet after a moment of this her ever so faithful knight, metaphorically came to the aid of his lady

"Lady Anastasia, are you alright" Julius looked over at his lady with concern, as she fidgeted in her seat nervously, her head turned away from the screen, with a look of mild terror be next into her face, search before Julius could receive an answer to his question, an unexpected voice suddenly spoke up, causing everyone especially Julius and Anastasia to look in surprise.

"You can't be serious, I find it very hard to believe that Anastasia hoshin, supposedly one of the greatest merchants of the time, is afraid of heights?" Priscilla's voice was indignant, as she quickly closed her fan with a loud snap. Her face having a look of disapproval but also bewilderment, at the fact that Anastasia was scared of something so mundane, which was just made even more insulting to the redheaded princess, because instead of being disgusted or sickened by what they had seen in the viewing so far, it was a fear of heights that made Anastasia look away.

"Princess, I don't think-"

"Be quiet, I didn't give you permission to speak" Priscilla sneered like a vicious animal sneeze, exposing her unusually long canine teeth for everyone to see. Yet after a moment, she took a calming breath, quickly bringing her fan in front of her face again, hiding her nose and mouth from view. but as she did this, Priscilla suddenly felt a strange feeling, on the back of her neck, causing her to turn her head ever so slightly, so she could look behind her, using the periphery of her vision. Yet much to her confusion, there was nothing there, but even still the feeling persisted, not going away despite the fact that she could see that there was nothing behind her, but before she could figure out exactly what was happening, the voice of the sword demon suddenly made itself known.

"Miss Priscilla, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think now is the time for childish insults" Usually Priscilla would kill anyone that dareed talk to her like that. But considering that Wilhelm was a master swordsman, and the fact that she couldn't summon her sword, meant the all she could do was simply sit there and take it, but that didn't stop her from sending a vicious glare his way. One that was so powerful and deadly, that if it was anyone else but Wilhelm, they probably would have died on the spot, from just the Look alone, but instead of simply ignoring her Wilhelm turned his head, not enough to show his entire face, but enough to show just one eye, and Priscilla was quite surprised and a little bit frightened to see that her glare was returned with equal intensity.

"I agree with the sword demon, your voice is grating and I think it's best you be quiet I suppose" Beatrice didn't even bother turning around to address the Redheaded Princess, instead keeping her gaze directly focused on the screen in front of her. Which caused Priscilla to grit her teeth in anger, at the fact of this little spirit, had the audacity to insult her yet not even look her directly in the eye while doing so, but as she quickly went to get up, a hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder, forcing her back into her seat. And thinking that it was her dim-witted knight, Priscilla turned her head, reading herself to punish him severely, for having the audacity to touch her without permission. But instead of her knight sitting there next to her, she saw something that caused her eyes to bulge out of her skull, because sitting where her knight was moments before, was somebody she didn't want to see.

"Priscilla. . . my little girl. . . MaKe uS wHoLe" Her mother's voice was raspy and dead sounding, which much to Priscilla's horror and disgust, matched the state of her mother's body completely, because sitting next to her was not that of a youthful demihuman woman. Instead it was nothing more than a rotten corpse, flesh hanging off its bones, with massive chunks of skin missing, revealing the bones and decaying organs that lay underneath, and despite wanting to, Priscilla could not move or scream. It was almost as if her body had stopped listening to her, because of the pure fear that was coursing through her veins, which was made even worse when the rotting corpse leaned in closer, bringing it's disgusting face only inches apart from her own, it's empty eye sockets looking directly into her own large and fearful looking eyes. Yet as the rotting corpse got closer and closer, Priscilla felt an overwhelming sense of queasiness over take her, as the corpse breathed its hot and sticky rotten breath directly in her face.

"Princess? Hey Princess? god damn it answer me Priscilla" Priscilla finally blinked, the rotting corpse that had been leaning in close to her, vanishing in an instant. Being replaced by her helmeted knight, looking at her with what she can only assume other look of concern underneath his helmet, and instead of usually biting his head off both physically and verbally, for daring to touch her or shout at her, she simply sat there dumbfounded, her mouth hanging open slightly, the fan she had been holding, having fallen from her hand ages ago.

"Princess are you all right? you just sort of spaced out for a second?" Al said with a slightly concerns turned to his voice, not understanding why Priscilla had suddenly spaced out, and more importantly being very concerned about the all most haunted look on her face, which was something he could never recall see on her face before, but after a moment Priscilla quickly shake her head, her face taking on the most cartoonish level of anger, as she spoke with an almost forced sounding voice.

"I'm fine, but if you ever talk to me like that again, it will be the last thing you do" despite the anger and bravado she was putting on, Al I could tell that much of it was mask hiding just how spoke she was, yet considering the kind of person Priscilla truly was, it didn't matter how concerned he was, after all to Priscilla showing any kind of weakness was, so he wasn't going to get an answer anytime soon, but still when she was just staring off into nothing, something about her eyes didn't seem right, in fact it was almost as if she was in a completely different place , the light in her eyes going dark for just a moment.

Subaru kept quiet, occasionally looking around a whole lot of nothing, has the tram continued its journey across the seemingly bottom of Darkness, the only object being visible in the darkness was the refuelling probe, which has Subaru passed underneath that he could see was still inserted into the refuelling system, which meant if hr can get to the southern refuelling station, it would be a simple as pressing a button to reinitialise the fuel system.

But as the tram quickly passed it, Subaru suddenly heard something off in the distance, it was a loud but distant thunderous roar, followed by screams of god knows what, and the part that disturbed him the most was, the fact that it didn't sound like the other Monsters had seen so far. It sounded much larger and angrier, sounding like the cry of some ancient leviathan that had been awoken from its slumber.

But then Subaru heard a much more familiar sound, that being the vicious cry of one of those twisted abominations, most likely waiting for him at the exit platform, which he was just beginning to make out at the edges of the darkness. However as he brought his plasma cutter up, he suddenly remembered, he was completely out of energy cells meaning that the tool was nothing more than a hi-tech club, but as the tram continued to get closer to the platform, the silhouette of a monster beginning to form in the mist.

Subaru notice that directly opposite the control panel was a small supply locker, and so without a second thought, he quickly and somewhat frantically began smash at the box with his armoured fist, however each blow caused him to hiss in pain, he didn't care as he could see the platform as quickly coming into view, a monster patiently waiting to dismember him once the guardrail came up.

However with one final and very hard bash, the door on the box gave way, allowing Subaru to pull the door clean off its already damaged hinges. And much to his relief alongside several other supply equipment, there was a single energy pack for a plasma cutter, which he quickly scooped up, replacing the spent one with the brand new one, the familiar energise hum being music to his ears. Which couldn't have been a moment too soon, because the tram finally made it to the other side. The guard barrier opening up and revealing the twisted shambling creature, expecting it disarm pray, Subaru however had a different idea, quickly unloading a shot into the creature, causing it to scream in pain is at staggered backwards, which Subaru used to his advantage, has he put a shot into the monsters leg. The leg being quickly detached from its body, allowing the creature to fall face first onto the cold metal great, and once it was down Subaru quickly finished it off with another shot this time taking off its head, its cries of Rage and pain quickly being silence as its head rolled up to Subaru's feet.

"That was a bit too close" Emilia's words were accompanied by a sigh of relief, as she slowly loosened her grip on Subaru's hand. Thanking whatever deities were out there, that Subaru had managed to get his weapon to work in time, and not be torn apart by the vicious monster that was waiting for him. Although one thing that concerned and a astounded Emilia, was Subaru's current list of injuries, the broken fractured ribs, and nasty gash on his arm, being the injuries that concerned her the most, although it seemed that the strange heeling gel that he had used moments ago, had taken the edge of the pain, but looking at his arm on screen, she was a bit dismayed to see that the gel had not actually fixed the injury, instead it only seemed to give him pain relief.

"That's Big Bro for you, he always seems to do things by the skin of his teeth" felt couldn't help but try and add some levity to the situation, herself being quite relieved that Subaru have managed to make the futuristic weapon work in time, so he could dismember the monster, that was waiting for him. However much like Emilia, she was still very much concerned with his injuries, in fact it brought up a memory of when she was much younger. When one of her earliest pickpocket attempteds had gone wrong, she had been forced to flee across the rooftops, but unfortunately, she had not been paying attention that day, and ended up falling three stories to the hard cobblestone below. Luckily she didn't die, only having a broken rib as a result of the fall, but still despite it being just a single broken rib, the pain that she felt every time she took a breath, was the worst thing that she'd ever felt in her life. So the fact that Subaru, was walking running and jumping around with possibly more than just one broken rib, yet somehow remaining on his feet was both concerning and somewhat commendable in her eyes, whichshe supposed was probably because of his stupid the high pain tolerance, as a result of all of the gruesome deaths he had experienced before.

"Nyah~I'm still curious what that's strange healing stuff is actually made of" Despite only paying half attention, to what was going on on the screen, Felix could definitely say that Subaru using the strange healing medicine again. definitely caught his full and undivided attention for just a brief moment, after all considering some of the properties that the gel had displayed so far. Felix couldn't help but be interested in it, and more importantly if it could be replicated somehow in his own world, because if it could, then it could open up a brand new field of medicine, not entirely reliant on magic, which meant that medicine and healthcare in general could be something that was more affordable for everyone of all different social classes.

"I'm curious as well, or more precisely I wonder how much I could get for it" Anastasia mused not realising that she had spoken out loud. Causing some in the audience to roll their eyes and others to giggle at her merchant focused mind seemingly always being turned on, but ultimate Anastasia didn't care, her mind going over the possible price of such a interesting healing substance. Because despite her business primarily focusing on hard goods, one thing that always selled quite well despite it's low value and price tag, was basic healing herbs, that were primarily used for fighting common illnesses, such as stomach sickness and common cold. As such if she could ever get her hands on a bottle of that strange healing substance, the profit that she could make from a single bottle of it alone, would be truly astronomical, perhaps even enough money for her to retire at an early age.

"Ever business mind did I see miss Anastasia" Wilhelm couldn't help but chuckle, in fact the act of laughing alone, was enough to momentarily lift his spirits, which he supposed was for the best. Although after Wilhelm finished, he quickly recovered himself, turning his gaze over to the sleeping woman next to him, who had still not awoken. Only giving the slightest twitches and murmurs to indicate that she was even still alive, which quickly put a damper on the aged swordsman's mood, mostly because he or Felix just couldn't figure out exactly was she had not woken up, and why she had even falling unconscious to begin with. It was a mystery, that he supposed he wouldn't find out until she eventually awoke, but despite wanting to believe that she would wake up, something dark and foreign began to whisper in the back of his mind, telling him that she would never wake up, and that he would lose her just like to have lost everyone else in his life. Yet Wilhelm quickly shake his head, quickly clearing his mind of any dark little whispers, as he looked around at everything suspiciously, but after a moment he simply disregarded it, as him being an overly worrying old man, which caused him to let out another small chuckle although this one was much less genuine, and a lot more hollow sounding.

"Wow, Subaru so cool, he killed the ugly monster so easily" Petra practically beamed from here to here. Her eyes having stars in them, as she watched the man she considered her big brother, effortlessly cut down twisted monster after twisted monster as if they were nothing but a minor inconvenience to him. And she wasn't the only one that was overly excited by Subaru slaying of the monster, as a certain blonde haired boy, quickly joined in in praising Subaru.

"Yeah of course he did! this is cap we're talking about, if he can beat the white whale and the great rabbit, then these guys are a piece of cake for him!" Garfiel exclaimed excitedly, Petra childishly agreeing with him the stars never leaving her eyes, much to the amusement of Frederica, who laughed at the child like excitement shared by both the young girl she almost considered her own and her younger brother who was her entire world, in fact it's almost brought a tear to her eye, because despite the Horrors that Petra have been witness to , it seems that it didn't damper her childlike excitement and wonder, which Frederica was thankful for, considering that when she was younger has so she had quickly lost her childlike innocence innocence and wonder about the world around her, which were two things that she does probably wish for Petra to hold onto for as long as possible.

"Alright, let's go find that fuel station" Subaru said quietly as he clicked his plasma cutter to his belt, however in front of him were two different paths, one path to the left of him, went on for a little bit before disappearing around the corner. The other one went up a small ramp before disappearing around a left hand turn, however since he couldn't decide which way to go, Subaru activated his way point locator again. The brilliant sapphire blue line quickly shot up the small incline and disappeared to the left, and so with his route now decided, Subaru made his way up the small ramp and around the corner, which quickly deposited him into a large open space. With a small storage closet after his left, and another ramp that the sapphire blue line, quickly snake up and around before disappearing. But Subaru suddenly realised that he was low on plasma energy, with only 8 shots left in his magazine, so he decided that he would look in the storage closet on the way back, to see if there were any other plasma energy cells lying around.

But as he made his way up the large lamp, he quickly heard the familiar sound of one of those terrifying creatures. And much to his surprise it was directly in front of him, however before he could reach his plasma cutter to dispatch it, the creature quickly used it sword like appendages, to rip open a nearby vent, before jumping into it and disappearing, it's cried and screamed quickly been muffled before going silent, as the creature seemingly disappeared somewhere into the maze like ventilation system of the ship.

"So that tell those things are getting around I suppose" Beatrice said with a small hint of curiosity in her voice, after all the exact method of how these Monsters kept surprising her contract was something that she found strange, in fact at times it felt like they were simply just appearing out of thin air, but now seeing as how they were using the ventilation system of the strange ship to get around, Subarus encounters with them began to make a bit more sense, considering the amount of ventilation ducts that she had seen criss-crossing the walls and hallways of the strange alien ship.

"T-T-they can literally appear from anywhere" Otto stuttered the reveal of the monsters using the ventilation system to get around, being quite a shocking reveal to him, because after all considering the amount of ventilation Systems and pipes that he had seen running through this strange mining ship, it meant that the monsters could quite literally appear anywhere they wanted, and could catch Subaru of guard at every possible term.

After a moment Subaru hesitantly made his way over to the vent, debating whether or not if he should poke his head inside, to see but quickly decided against it, as he continued to follow the path to the left, and after going around another series of terms and bends, passing a suspiciously disgusting smelling supply locker. Which Subaru poked his head in but immediately regretted, as it was revealed that it was completely filled with rotting and dismembered corpses. But continuing on his path he quickly came out into the large cavernous space of the fuel chamber again, quickly spotting his destination, which was an identical small platform to the one he had been at on the opposite side of the fuel chamber only minutes ago.

"Hammond I found the southern refuelling point, give me a moment and I'll get these engines fuelled up" Subaru quickly walked over to the numerous different consoles. However much like the other refuelling point, all of them were completely dead and silent much to his annoyance, it seemed that someone had pulled the fuse out of these consoles as well, which left no doubt in Subaru's mind, that this was most likely someone deliberately sabotaging the ship's fuel system, which was certainly of foreboding mystery. But he decided that could wait for a moment, as he quickly used his kinesis module to pull the fuse back into place, a shower of sparks coming from the fuses as the electrical supply was re-engaged. All of the holographic displays quickly coming to life around him, and repeating what he had done on the northern refuelling point, a fuel metre suddenly appeared on the main console, accompanied by the rhythmic mechanical hum of the fuel system beginning to pump again.

"Finally something is going right I suppose" Beatrice could feel the satisfaction coming from the on-screen Subaru, which you could understand considering that he had finally achieved his goal of refuelling the strange ships engines.

"I hope he can make this work" Emilia said quietly, turning her attention from the on-screen Subaru, to the sleeping one whose head was currently resting in Beatrice's little lap. A peaceful look on his face, as he quietly mermaid something to himself, which Emilia was thankful for, because despite all of them having to suffer through this and the previous viewings, at least Subaru was finally given the chance to rest, and enjoy whatever dreamworld his mind had conjured up.

"I don't think we need to worry miss Emilia , this is Subaru after all" Frederica said matter-of-factly, after all the previous viewings had showed her, that despite being relatively weak in terms of physical strength, Subaru's mind and intellect were downright scary, inability to outsmart anything that came is way given enough time in preparation, and luckily it seems that there was one of the few traits that carried over from the current Subaru to this supposedly future one they were now watching.

"Miss Frederica is right, I'm sure Subaru will make it through this" Reinhardt added to the conversation, giving his own words of reassurance to Emilia and everyone else that still have their doubts about Subaru's survival. Which he supposed he couldn't blame them for having, because after all the situation at hand for Subaru seemed to be quite a deadly one, with strange otherworldly Monsters stalking the corridors, and the ship itself seemingly just not working right, but still despite all that. Reinhardt had faith in his friend, because as far as the red-headed swordsman was concerned, Subaru with somebody that embodied the true aspects of a hero, despite not having the benefit of divine protections.

"Good work Subaru, I've got a fuel reading now. it's only a quarter full, but that's enough to restore orbit once you bring the main engines online... What the hell!" As Subaru began to make his way back, to the small tram that led across the fuel chamber, he stopped dead in his tracks as Hammond went dead on the other end of the line, but after a moment Hammond started talking again, much to Subarus relief.

"False alarm Subaru, I thought I saw something out there" Hammond said with a much more quieter tone of voice, as Subaru made his way down the small ramp, coming back to the large number for supply closet that he wanted to check out, however before he stepped into it, he quickly responded to Hammond.

"Hammond, just be careful. Alright" Subaru said he quickly opened up the door to the supply closet and stepped in, Hammond remaining quiet on the other end of the line for a moment before responding.

"Alright Subaru" the communication between him and Hammond quickly ended, as Subaru began to look around the small supply closet, most of the equipment being stuff that he couldn't make use of , but luckily he did find what he was looking for, that being to fully charge up plasma energy cells. Which he quickly scooped up into his hand and click to his belt, and as he turned around to exit, he noticed on the wall was a paranoid receptacle, which she quickly opened up and retrieve the two power leads from inside, placing them into a small compartment on his belt for future use.

"I wonder what he's going to use those little things for?" Anastasia muttered, of course she had already seen Subaru use one of the strangest objects before. Using it specifically to open a locked door, that he could not access normally, but she also wondered what else it could be used for, considering the lettering on the side of the box said it was general purpose power note container, which if the wording was to be taken at face value meant back this power node had other multiple uses.

"That's a good question Anastasia" Julius, much like Anastasia, was quite curious about what this powernode can actually be used for, considering that the box that contained them, specifically said that they were multi-purpose devices, and so far Subaru head only used one to open up a locked door.

With his treasure and supplies safely stored, Subaru quickly made his way back to the small tram platform, looking over his shoulder every now and again, make sure that one of those monsters was not sneaking up behind him, and perhaps a bit quicker than he intended he stepped onto the tram. Pressing the holographic display as the safety bars came down, and with a small jolt, the tram began its journey back across the main fuel chamber, but as Subaru fidgeted on the spot, his foot suddenly collided with something, causing him to look down at what the object was, and much really surprised it was a small personnel tablet. Much like the others he had found so far, and considering the previous ones that he found so far, Subaru picked it up and pressed play on the holographic display, the message that had been queued up quickly beginning to play.

"Never should have let him live. Never should have let him live. Shut it. Denvers! Shut... it!" The first voice was completely unfamiliar to Subaru, as he repeated the same thing over and over again, clearly on the verge of a mental breakdown, but the second voice was much more familiar, as the audio recording continued.

"Engineering log. Temple recording. Someone has shut off the fuel to the primary engine, and damaged the valves in the process. They need to be repaired before I can reopen them. But we're running out of time. With the engine offline, orbit decay will will begin in less than ten hours I just can't understand who would do this" The tram came to a sudden halt, causing Subaru to stumble slightly as the safety gate quickly opened up, and after catching himself he quickly step onto the platform, as after a slight pause the voice of Temple continued speaking.

"I swear if it's one of those crazy Unitologist Bastards, I'll break their neck! H-H-henderson said they were coming. We never should have let him live. Shut it. Denvers and help me with the tools, temple out" The recording came to an end, Subaru just standing there for a moment of absorbing information, his mind immediately focusing on the mention of Unitologist. And as soon as that word crossed his mind, he couldn't suppress a shudder from running down his spine, Subaru himself wasn't an religious man, having seen and experienced too much, even before coming to this hell hole of the world, to believe in any kind of omnipotent and benevolent higher power.

But still, something about how fanatical the few Unitologist he had actually talked to tended to act, had always rubbed in the wrong way, in fact he couldn't quite remember what it was called. But he was pretty sure, that there was a religion from the original era he came from, that acted in a similar manner to how Unitology tended to act, but deciding that a religious debate could be saved for another day. Subaru quickly activated his locator, the sapphire blue line quickly appearing, before sneaking around a series of bends and corners, and then disappeared, Subaru quickly began to follow the path it had set out for him, which took him up the same lamp to the broken fuel point. But then taking him around a series of different blind bends and curves, which he cautiously navigating around, before coming to a door that was unlocked, with the sign above it Reading, "Central Machinery Control"

"Well, it would seem that somebody is indeed sabotaging the ship" Despite it being an obvious conclusion, from the amount of conveniently broken or malfunctioning machinery on the ship. Wilhelm could say that he wasn't all too pleased to find out the answer, after all if it was true, it meant that there was possibly someone or multiple someones, on the ship that were intentionally trying to Sabotage it and hinder Subaru's efforts. But also something else that was mentioned caught wilhelm's attention, that being a mention of these so-called "Unitologist" which just going by the name alone, the age swordsman could guess was some kind of religious order or possibly a group, and considering the way that this Temple individual had referred to them, it was clear that they were not a well like group.

"But why the hell would they do that though, I know most people are only out for themselves, but why break everything?" Felt couldn't wrap her mind around why somebody would do all of this, just to make Subarus job harder. Like she had just said, she knew that most people were only out for themselves, at the first sign of trouble would turn on everyone else, but it just didn't make any sense, why they would go through so much trouble, to intentionally break all of the ships different parts, so that nobody can operate them, and fix the ship if required.

"It's a mystery for sure, and one that I don't know if you'll get an answer to, because I can only guess that the people that did it are most likely not here anymore" Anastasia could see that her answer didn't really seem to help. But ultimately she spoke from the heart, because after all even if they did find out who had done it, and more importantly why, it most likely didn't matter, considering that Subaru had not come across any other living through members that still had all of their mental faculties intact.

"I wonder what a Unitologist is I suppose?" Beatrice tried to keep a straight face, but she couldn't help the grimace slightly, as she felt the emotions of the on-screen Subaru, his thoughts about these Unitologists having a lot of unpleasant emotion behind them. And despite only having a brief snippet of his thoughts, she could most definitely agree that the few Unitologist individuals that he had actually spoken with, did not seem like mentally stable people, in fact a thought suddenly crossed beatrice's mind. A thought that both revolted her but also intrigued her, because despite knowing next to nothing about these Unitologists, the way Subaru thought about them, made her immediately draw parallel to the way that the witch cult behaved, at least in their fanaticism towards their beliefs.

"Who knows, but with a name like that they're probably just a bunch of crazy people" Garfiel said nonchalantly, not particularly caring that much about these people,with the strange name that he couldn't quite pronounce. Instead all he wanted was to see Subaru use another piece of cool gadgetry, and rip apart another one of those twisted abominations.

"Whoever they are, Subaru doesn't seem to like them" Emilia 's words for quiet, as a frown formed on her face, but it wasn't for the reason that everyone thought so, instead it was because despite not ever hearing the word before. Unitologist had a strange ring to it, that almost felt familiar in her mind, but at the same time completely alien and foreign, which as expected just confused her to no end.

Subaru quickly opened and stepped through the door in front of him, bringing him into a small area, with a large tank of CO2 gas directly to his right , and a little ramp heading upwards and back towards the control centre. However as Subaru made his way up the ramp and round the corner, he stopped dead in his tracks, his vision coming to rest on the large semicircular windows, that looked back into the main control centre, or more precisely he was looking at the chair and it's new occupant, that sat at the centre of the large semicircular space.

"Subaru... you came" It should have been impossible for him to hear her voice, not just because she physically could not be here. But because the windows that separated him and her, were impossibly thick industrial glass meant to block out the loudest kinds of Engineering noises, yet her voice that rang like silver bells, was as clear as day, as if she was standing right next to him.

"Why... Why won't you just leave me alone! Y-you're not real! you C-Can't be here!" Subaru's reaction was explosive, as his scream echoed around the semi large space he was in, yet instead of getting sad, angry or even biting back at all. She simply sat there for a moment, her dead, hollow emotionless eyes staring directly into his, before she let out a quiet chuckle, laughing in the same way that he remembered, whenever he would tell her one of his immature attempts at humour, and after wiping away a metaphorical to hear from her laughter, she directed her hollow gaze back at him again.

"Subaru you're such a dunderhead, I will leave you alone, you promised that you would spend the rest of my life with me, remember?" Her words were sickly sweet, each one worming its way into his brain, like the roots of a plant trying to get a foothold in brand new virgin soil. Yet Subaru quickly shakes his head, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing, and after a moment his helmet suddenly deactivated, quickly opening up and revealing his tears streaked face, as fresh ones continue to fall from his eyes.

"W-why are you doing this to me, haven't I suffered enough, I couldn't save you then… I-I have to L-live with this guilt, the guilt that no matter how many times I died, how many times I tried... I-I could never S-S-save Y-Y-you" Subaru's voice was completely broke by the end of his sentence, quickly developing into nothing more than whimpers and cries of emotional agony, as he quickly sunk to his knees, tears falling onto the metal great below him, as his mind was seemingly on the verge of breaking. But as he continued to cry he suddenly felt someone tap the top of his head, and slowly bringing his gaze up, revealed that it was none other than her, somehow managing to get directly in front of him yet he didn't pay any attention to that, as she and him locked eyes once again, her hollow and dead looking eyes, seeming to be filled with life once again, as she gently brought her hands to cut his face, her touch seeming to calm him, as the tears quickly began to dry.

"I'm not punishing you ddunderhead, I want you to stop fighting it, I want you to become one with me... I want you to... make us whole Subaru" Subaru didn't verbally acknowledge her, his eyes taking on almost dream-like quality as he lazily nodded his head, and once he did so. She quickly began to lean seemingly intending on kissing him, but as she was me inches from his face, something in Subaru's subconscious seemed to finally register what was going on. The dream-like look on his face quickly disappearing, as his eyes were quickly filled, with what could only be described as pure horror, and without a second thought, he quickly jumped up to his feet, running straight through her as if she was never even there, and then through the door that lead back to the central control room, yet he didn't stop there. as he quickly took a hard right turn, practically hyperventilating at this point as he quickly drove into an open elevator, turning around and smashing his fist into the holographic display, the elevator quickly complying as her voice rang out once more.

"Subaru please, don't run from me... you must make us whole" The elevator doors quickly slam shut, as it began its descent down into the bowels of the ship, Subaru simply standing there breathing hard ragged breaths as he looked at the elevator doors. His eyes having an unfocused and almost deranged look to them, but after a moment the look vanished along with any strength in his legs, as he quickly slid his back down the elevator wall, coming to rest in a sitting position, is plasma cutter quickly falling out of his hands. As he brought them up to his face, loud and truly pained sobs quickly escaping his throat, as the elevator continued its descent down deeper into the ship, before quickly giving a satisfied ding, has it reached its destination, yet Subaru did not move, instead simply continuing to cry, as the doors automatically closed after a moment, sealing him in the Elevator.

"T-T-that's not me, I would N-never make H-H-him cry like that" Emilia tried with every ounce of strength and her body to keep her voice level. Yet ultimately she broke, a horrified sob quickly escaping her lips, as tears began to form in her eyes, and despite holding Subaru's hand in her own, it did very little to calm her down as her breathing began to grow harder and faster, as she was quickly spiralling into the beginning of a panic attack.
Beatrice closed her eyes, bringing her head down so she could rest her forehead on Subaru's, in a similar way that she and he had done many times in the past. In fact Beatrice could almost say that it was like an intimate gesture for them, something that would always comfort her and that Subaru would never do with anyone else. But now it did not bring any comfort, as she heard Subaru's horrifying cries, his mind seemingly on the brink of being completely broken, and what was worse was that she could feel every single part of it flowing into her brain. All of his pain, rage, sadness and melancholy swirling together into one tornado of negative emotion, and despite trying to hold back her tears , she quickly failed at that, as she began to cry quietly to herself, wishing that she could comfort him in his time of need, and that he could comfort her right now.

"Subaru..." Rem immediately felt tears beginning to drip from her eyes, as she brought her hands up to try and wipe them away. But the more she wiped the harder she cried, as the haunting cries of the person she loved filled her ears, and despite the small dark voice in the back of her mind telling her, that was entirely Emilia 's fault. Her own sorrow completely drowned it out, continuing to cry, as she realised that there was nothing she could do, to try and ease the pain that her beloved was going through.

Ram didn't say anything, yet her face told 1000 words, because watching Subaru, somebody that she considered to be almost like an annoying brother, quite literally break down for a second time in the same viewing. Was certainly something that Ram wished, she didn't have to see, but here she sat, his painful cries echoing in her mind, she suddenly felt small splash of liquid on her hands, and much to her surprise, she quickly realised that it was her own tears, as she began to silently cry, at the fact that Subaru, somebody that was a colossal idiot but ultimately a harmless idiot, was seemingly the worlds punching bag, with everything that could go wrong going wrong for him.

"Goddammit cap, S-Stop crying D-Dammit!" Garfiel shouting at the screen, trying and failing to suppress his own tears that quickly began to run down his face. As he gritted his teeth in both frustration and sadness, and despite trying to convince himself that is Captain, the person that he looked up to, almost like an older brother, would never cry no matter what. But ultimately that was a lie that he could no longer tell to himself, and the worst part was that Garfiel couldn't do a single thing about any of it, instead he just had to sit here and watch as if it was some kind of freak show.

Otto didn't say a single word, or precisely he couldn't say anything because of how hard he was crying, after all watching somebody that was one of your closest friends in the world, somebody that had given you a permanent home as well as a more stable source of income, quite literally cry his heart out, after experiencing something that could only be described as truly traumatic, was certainly something that would make anyone cry.

"H-how awful, what on earth could I possibly happen to him, to B-break him S-so bad" Frederica brought a hand up to her mouth, to cover her truly horrified expression. This latest breakdown was even worse than the last one, in fact despite quickly pushing the thought out of her mind, for just a singular moment, she thought this was perhaps the end of him, that he had finally reached his limit, and had been broken completely. Yet she tried to hold out some semblance of hope, that he would pick himself back up again, and keep pushing forward like he had done before.

"Miss Frederica, Big Brother Subaru is C-crying again" Petra tried to hold back her own tears, as the young girl watched Subaru in the midst of another breakdown, Frederica didn't say anything, or more precisely she couldn't think of anything to say. Knowing just how much Subaru meant to the young girl, made Frederica almost feel a physical pain in her heart, because the young girl was watching someone she looked up to as a pillar of strength and her life , be completely and utterly broken, with possibly no hope of repair this time.

"I know Petra... I know" Was all that Frederica could say in response, quickly rapping the young girl in her arms, as Frederica brought the young girl into an embrace, both as an attempt to comfort the young girl and to try comfort herself, as Subaru's cries continue to Echo through the theatre.

"Poor little bro" Al's voice had a large amount of sympathy in it, his face being obscured, yet it was obvious that he was being affected by the harrowing cries of the black haired man on screen. In fact looking over to his right, he could see that Priscilla's face was scrunched up slightly behind her fan, as if she was trying to force herself not to feel anything for the black head man on screen, yet failing spectacularly to do so.

"Reinhardt... W-what was he talking about... When he said he couldn't S-save her?" Felt honestly didn't expect an answer to her question, and for a moment she didn't get one. Reinhardt looking at her with a hurt and Confused expression, as he heard the absolutely horrible cries of his closest friend, experiencing a second emotional breakdown, and every time Subaru let out of cry of pure emotional agony both Reinhart and Felt cringed, because those kinds of cries could only be produced, by the deepest and most horrifying mental trauma.

"Whatever happened to him, clearly left and much bigger mark on his psyche, then any of us could have imagined" Felix did not speak with his usual cat- like inflection, instead his voice was almost low and even, completely contrasting with his very feminine looks. But at this moment he didn't care what people thought, in fact even the sleeping woman next to him was momentarily forgotten, as he absorbed the pain that he could hear in Subarus voice. And despite being witness to Subaru's first breakdown, all the way back during the opening days of the Royal selection, that breakdown that he'd had did not hold a candle to this one, in terms of sheer emotional agony he was in, in fact it caused Felix to shiver uncomfortably, as his mind began to wonder, to what exactly could cause that kind of pain to someone's psyche?

"I'm in agreement with you on that one Felix" Wilhelm felt his body shiver with every cry he heard, the cries of emotion filled agony that he was hearing were all too familiar to him, with that notion being particularly disturbing to him. Because the day he had lost his wife, he had also cried too much like this, and if Wilhelm was correct in his thinking, meant that the source of Subaru's trauma was much more horrifyingly gruesome, then he or anyone else could have imagined, because after all losing the one person that you loved and strived to protect no matter what, would surely destroy any man.

"Poor guy beats himself up about it, so it must have been really bad" Anastasia said with a large amount of sympathy, because despite not being what you would consider close to Subaru like several others in the audience were. The Merchant woman could certainly say she had enough empathy, to feel somewhat sad at the fact that Subaru was going through a truly horrific emotional episode, with literally no one there to help or try and comfort him.

"The warden S-said that this was the future we were witnessing, and if that's the case... I-I will do everything in my power, to prevent whatever happens to cause this" His voice was quiet as Julie as made a declaration to himself, tears really flowing out of his eyes, as he watched someone he considered a friend, go through such a horrifying and emotional episode, all the while seemingly being tormented by spectre that was wearing a certain half elves face.

"Subaru! Subaru are you there?!" Subaru didn't acknowledge the holographic display popping up in front of him, the face of Hammond easily being invisible, which immediately took on a much deeper look of concern, when he saw Subaru's current state.

"Subaru what's the matter!" Again Subaru did not respond, continuing to cry into his hands, much to Hammonds growing concern, yet after a moment Subaru managed to control his voice just long enough, just to spit out a stream of words that Hammond could barely make heads or tails of.

"S-she's here, I thought I'd finally moved on... B-but she's back... She keeps reminding me of how I failed, I-I-I can't T-T-take it anymore" Subaru continued to cry, his breaths becoming hard and ragged as his voice became hoarse. All the while Hammond looked on with concerned confusion, and despite Subaru being somewhat of a mystery to many, Hammond did have access to Subaru's medical records, which meant that he knew the fact that Subaru had spent quite a few years in a mental rehabilitation centre, after some large psychotic episode. But since the dark haired man really ever talked about his past, that was about all that Hammond actually knew about it, but as Subaru continued to cry his eyes out, Hammond decided that a bit of tough love was necessary.

"Subaru get a hold of yourself damn it. We've got a mission to complete" Hammond called upon all of his years of security training, to make his voice as hard and tough sounding as possible. Which seemed to do the trick as Subaru momentarily looked up, at the holographic display, Hammond internally cringing at the fact Subarus eyes were bloodshot with tears still running down his face.

"I-I can't, I just can't take it anym-"

"God damn it man! get hold of yourself! If you want to make it out of this place alive, you need to keep an even head dammit!" Hammonds words were harsh and to the point, but they have the desired effect of Subarus crying stopped. Seemingly almost recoiling from the power of Hammonds voice, and despite Hammond mentally apologising to Subaru for this, this was the only way to get through to his grief-stricken friend.

"H-hammond, I don't know if I can go on, I just wanted to stop, I-I-I J-just want to find Nicole" Subarus words were slightly slurred, a few tears welling up in his eyes, as he was seemingly on the verge of beginning to cry again, yet Hammond put a stop to that immediately, reminding Subaru just how dire the situation was.

"S-Subaru please, P-P-please don't give up" Emilia couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her face, seeing Subaru look just so broken, was just too much for her, and despite hugging his arm as if it was her only lifeline in the vast ocean. It did very little to comfort her, in fact it did the exact opposite, simply just making her more upset, because she was able to seek some kind of physical comfort from the pain, while he had to suffer completely alone, all the while be tormented being tormented by a ruthless spectre, that was intent on using her own face, to seemingly just make him suffer, and further break his already destroyed mind.

"Why... why did this happen to you I suppose" Beatrice was slowly beginning to put things together in her mind, the brief flashes and feeling that she was getting from the on-screen Subaru, beginning to paint a very horrifying picture, of what exactly could have been the cause for his emotional problems. In fact it was almost down right sickening, just how much punishment how contractor had suffered at the hands of the world itself, with it being almost as if the world hated him and was using him as its own personal punching bag.

"Subaru my beloved, P-please stop crying" Rem try to suppress her own tears, but hearing the hopelessness and brokenness of his voice, was just too much for her. In fact it brought back horrible memories, memories of when his voice sounded very much like that, and despite the outcome ultimately being a good one. Seeing the person she loved being so completely and utterly defeated, both then and now, was just too much for her, truly she would go as far to say that it was worse than any physical torture that could be done upon her.

"C-Come on big bro, Y-you need to keep yourself together" Felt knew that talking to the screen wouldn't help in the slightest, but still it at least made her feel better, to know that she was at least trying to help. Considering that sitting here in this Theatre there wasn't a whole lot she could do, in regards to Subaru's current breakdown and Hammond's attempts to try and get him out of it.

"Subaru listen to me man. You need to get a hold of yourself. The Ishimura is currently being pulled towards the planet, and if we hit the atmosphere. Then me, you, Nicole and Kendra whatever the hell she is, are all going to die" Laying out just how dire the situation actually was, as well as what was at stake. seemed to have the desired effect, as a look of realisation crossed Subarus face, the tears that had been there quickly drying up, as the gears in Subaru's grief-stricken mind, quickly began to turn again, and after a moment Subaru look Hammond dead in the eye, his face still holding a large amount of uncertainty, but also what looked to be almost a look of thanks, as Subaru quickly got up from his sitting position, gently picking up his plasma cutter from where he dropped it.

"Hammond I'm so-" Subaru didn't get a chance to finish, as Hammond held a hand up to interrupt him, instead sending him a look that could be described as don't mention it, before the dark-skinned man decided to ask a more important question.

"Subaru I lost contact with your rig signal, that's the reason why I tried contacting you. So if you can can you tell me exactly where you are?'' After letting the doors open again, Subaru quickly stepped out of the elevator, and into a small corridor with several lockers lining it, with the overall appearance of the corridor being less industrial, and almost more sterile than the other engineering areas he had explored previously.

"I'm not sure exactly Hammond, I'll send my rig coordinates" Subaru activated his helmet, as it quickly covered up his face front view, his visor quickly coming to life with a brilliant green glow, as he quickly typed in something on a small holographic display on his wrist, and after a moment of waiting, Hammond face lit up with surprise and a small amount of relief.

"Subaru you're practically at the centrifuge already, you can get that thing online then we can stabilise the ships orbit" Subaru's face lit up with surprise, as he quickly stepped into the next room to see large windows that looked into a equally large decontamination chamber.

"Alright. I'll head in there and see if I can get it online... A-and Hammond thanks for pulling me together" Hammond gamer not of approval as the visual communication ended between them, Subaru being left by himself, standing in the corridor that lead to the decontamination chamber, and after taking a deep breath as well as shaking his arms, he quickly made his way to the door that led inside, stepping up to the control console and activating the decontamination sequence, so that he could get to the gravity centrifuge.

"That's it Subaru, just try and hold yourself together" In any other circumstance Frederica would have felt like a complete idiot for talking at the screen, knowing that there was no way that Subaru could hear or even acknowledge her. But still it didn't stop her from trying, hoping against all that have been shown so far, that her words did reach him, and made her at least feel somewhat better, which luckily his friend Hammond seem to have done, considering that before he activated his helmet, that determined look that he was known for, quickly returned to his puffy and red eyes, having seemingly steeled himself for whatever was next.

"Subaru's ability to get back up again, after everything that happened is truly remarkable, even some of the strongest Knights that I know, would not be able to get back up after such an emotional outburst" Julius much like his words suggested, was quite surprised and slightly astounded, by Subaru's ability to seemingly get back up again, after undergoing such an emotional outburst that would render even the toughest men, into nothing more than children crying for their mothers. Yet somehow Subaru was able to push that aside, get back up and keep moving forward with his objectives, despite the heavy toll it was taking on his psyche.

"That's cap for you honestly" Garfiel's response was simple and to the point, silently thanking any deities that were listening, that Subaru steaming had managed to get control of himself, and was no longer crying like a small child.

"Nyah~you're 100% right" Felix had seen quite a few emotional breakdowns during his time as a healer, one of which belonged to Subaru himself, and most of them always resulted in the person even going completely catatonic, or suffering from severe psychological issues that would plang them for the rest of their life. But Subaru on the other hand, was almost an enigma, for his ability to get back up again after experiencing quite literally brain destroying trauma, and keep moving forward as if it was just a slight stumble, it was something that even to this day, Felix couldn't understand how Subaru did it.

As the decontamination sequence commenced, Subaru kept his head on a swivel, watching as the metal barriers came down over the windows, protecting the glass from the decontamination liquid, which as soon as it touched the cut on his arm, caused him to his in pain, yet he simply stood there and took it, as the sequence finally came to an end. His suit which he was thankful waterproof to some degree, was completely drenched from head to toe, but as he made his way over to the opposite door, that lead to the gravity centrifuge, he suddenly heard something that caused him to stop, his hands stopping mid touch on the holographic display.

"Subaru... why are you running away from me" Subaru didn't answer, he couldn't bring himself to answer, as he felt her hollow and empty gaze on his back. But instead of breaking down, his entire face hardened, a scowl making itself at home on his lips, as he clenched his plasma cutter tight in his hand. The tool began to rattle as a result of how hard he was gripping onto it, and instead of turning around to face her again, Subaru quickly activated the door, and quickly stepped through it.

"You won't break me" Was all that he said as the door quickly shut, as he began to make his way to the other door that led to the centrifuge. And as he passed the windows of the decontamination room, he could see a blurry figure of silver and white, standing there in the decontamination chamber, but he didn't pay her any mind, as he quickly opened up the next door and step through it, exiting into a large coving hallway that went off in both left and right directions.

Emilia didn't say anything, in fact she simply sat there looking at the screen, feeling a bit of pride at the fact that Subaru was seemingly managing to hold himself together. And not giving in to the spectre that was using her face, but at the same time she also felt a bit sad, as if his comment about not letting her break him, was directed at the real Emilia , and not the spectral entity wearing her face that was seemingly haunting him.

"I will hold you to those words I suppose" Beatrice muttered quietly herself, as she unconsciously stroke Subaru's hair with her hand. Her eyes never leaving the screen in front of her, as she watched her contract, advancing forward once again, despite having experience such an emotional episode. In fact it was actually quite uplifting to see, because despite changing so much, it seemed that his determination, was one of the few things that he had managed to keep with him, in this new strange world that he found himself in.

(Ha) "At least the idiot's no longer crying like a child" Despite her words, Ram couldn't really bring herself to properly insult Subaru, even as an attempt at humour. The memory of what she had seen only moments ago, still being too raw in her mind, in fact the cries that she had heard from him, would forever be scarred into her memory, and would also make it quite hard to insult him in future. But still she was at least happy that he was pulling himself together, finally showing the drive that he normally displayed when it came to serious situations.

"How... how do you do it Subaru? how do you keep moving forward despite everything that's happened" Reinhart didn't realise he said that out loud, his mind too focused on the fact that despite experiencing quite literally soul destroying emotional torment. At the hands of some kind of malevolent spectra, digging up his past traumas to use against him, Subaru despite all of that managed to get back up again and keep going, thanks to the help of his friend Hammond, in fact it made Reinhart feel a almost rotten feeling, that being the feeling of jealousy. Specifically jealousy, at the fact that Subaru was able to keep moving forward, despite the trauma he had experienced, somehow managing to keep his head high as he pushed forward. Which Reinhardt could admit was a far cry from himself, which Reinhardt supposed was one of the reasons why he ultimately looked up to Subaru, because despite not believing so himself, Subaru really did embody the spirit and tenacity of a true hero, always pushing forward regardless what was in his way.

After looking in both directions, Subaru went with his intuition, and chose to go right, quickly making his way down the curving hallway until it came to a sharp and abrupt L curve. However as Subaru made his way around the bend, he noticed that one of the walls was bulged outwards, the metal plating completely destroyed as if something large and Incredibly powerful had punched from the other side into the hallway. And as he stood there looking at the bent steel and metal, blood and tattered pieces of flesh coating the jagged metal, Subaru could have sworn, that he had a low rumbling roar in the distance, which immediately made him start walking again, this time of a slightly quicker step, as he made his way around another L curve which immediately ended with a large circular door, with the sign above it reading "Gravity Centrifuge Room"

"I don't want to see whatever the hell did that!" Garfiel exclaimed, feeling both slightly terrified, because of the amount of raw power that a creature would need a bust for a wall like that. And the amount of gore that had been left behind, clearly indicating to him at least, that the creature had most likely dragged several poor souls back into that opening, most likely completely butchering them in the process as if they were farm animals.

"You can say that again, whatever the hell did that I hope Subaru doesn't have to fight it" Felt said with a slight amount of queasiness in her voice. Her face going a slight shade of green as she looked away from the screen, because despite not being as gruesome, as some of the things that she had seen so far, something about how the gore had been scattered around the hole, made her feel incredibly sick, and ultimately made Felt shiver in fear, her brain uncontrollably imagining the last moments of the poor souls that encountered whatever made that hole.

"Let's hope not~Nyah especially considering his current physical condition" Felix got a round of nobs from everyone, because after all, despite having defended himself from numerous disgusting and twisted abominations. Ultimately Subaru was still carrying around at least a couple broken ribs by his reckoning, meaning that his ability to fight a creature that was substantially larger than himself, was quite diminished, considering that he could barely run, or take a hit without feeling immense amount of pain. And Felix could definitely say, that he didn't want to see whatever that had made that hole, especially if it was anywhere near as gruesome as the monsters that Subaru had come across so far.

"He will be fine, I'm sure of it" Emilia actually managed to believe her own words, feeling just a little bit of relief from the constant sadness that she have been feeling since his breakdown, because it seems like Subaru was finally beginning to pull himself together, of course she could tell just from the look in his eyes that he was still haunted by what has happened, but thanks to the help of his friend Hammond it seems he was pushing himself, intent on fixing the ship and despite to feeling a bit of jealousy about it, finding Nicole the woman that he loved and was seemingly someone that cared for him.

"Let's hope so miss Emilia " Frederica had still not released Petra from her grasp, still holding onto the young girl much to Petra's annoyance, which Frederica found both amusing and slightly uplifting, silently and unknowingly thanking the young girl for giving her a brief moment of respite from the horrible pain that was this current viewing.

"Of course he will be fine I suppose, I do not pick just anyone to be my contract" Beatrice gave a small fake huff of annoyance, deciding that adding a bit of levity to the situation would help lift everyone's spirits. Which it seemed to do so, as Emilia , Frederica and even Ram all gave small laughs or giggles of their own, as a result of her seemingly childlike behaviour, but despite the oppressive atmosphere of the theatre momentarily being lifted. Beatrice couldn't help but let her mind wander back to the subject, of just how exactly had Subaru suffered such mental damage, and the implications, that she was getting from his feelings and emotions, were downright horrifying to think about. But she tried to push those thoughts away for just a moment, desperately trying to feel just a little bit of light in the endless darkness that was this viewing.

Subaru quickly help his hand out to the holographic display on the door, the display after a moment accepting his request , as the large metal door was quickly unlocked, before it quickly spun around in its housing, and then retracting down into the floor. A small walkway closing the gap between the two different sides of the door, and after he had stepped through, the door quickly did the exact same process but in reverse, as he was presented with another door of the exact same type. Which automatically began to open as soon as he stepped close to it , and once it was open, Subaru was allowed to step foot into the large round space that was the gravity centrifuge, his entire body becoming wasteless as he crossed the threshold of the door and into the zero gravity environment.

"Alright, let's figure out what's wrong with you" Subaru muttered quietly to himself as he quickly deactivated his magnetic boots, his body beginning to float gently up into the air, before he quickly pressed a series of holographic buttons on his wrist. Which was immediately accompanied by a strange hissing noise, a several flaps on his back quickly began to expel some kind of semi see-through gas, which remarkably began to propel him forward through the zero-g environment, which allowed him to easily get down into the centrifuge pit, as he came close to one of the disconnected gravity generator motors.

"Wait he can fly now!?" Anastasia shouted unexpectedly, watching in complete astonishment as subaru seemingly took flight, in what she remembered being called a zero gravity environment, but unlike last time, where he simply just push himself to the location he desired, this time he was genuinely flying through the air, as if he had some kind of mastery over flying magic. But then again, the purple haired merchant had to keep constantly reminding herself, that this world was possibly hundreds of years more advanced than her own, so the possibility that people had personal flying devices, was certainly not out of the relevant possibility, but still no less remarkable and astounding.

"Wait yeah you're right! I thought he didn't have those little rocket things that astronauts use to move around?" Al said with noticeable surprise and what seemed to be a little bit of excitement in his voice. Which just served to confuse everyone else, as they all turned to look at the helmeted man, who immediately began to feel somewhat self-conscious about the fact that so many people were staring at him intently, but after a moment he found his voice again as he began to talk.

"It's kind of hard to explain to you guys but... basically people that go into space, specifically those who go outside of spaceships, which are called astronaut by the way, have these things that I think are basically little rockets, that allow them to move around freely in space" Al finished his little speech, everyone now looking at him in both amazement and realisation. Tt the fact that Subaru had seemingly acquired the very same device that the helmeted man was talking about, which was now allowing him to manoeuvre around in this zero-g environment with little to no effort.

"Truly remarkable if I say so, that suit of his seems to be prepared for everything" just when Julius thought that the suit Subaru was wearing couldn't be any more and fantastical or marvellous. The purple haired swordsman was surprised yet again, at the fact that the suit seemingly had some kind of ability to fly, albeit specifically in what was referred to as a zero gravity environment. But even still, the fact that the suit was able to do such a thing, just truly remarkable in every possible way, in fact despite constantly reminding himself, that this world was possibly hundreds and hundreds of years more advanced than his own, the technology that was constantly being displayed, seemingly grew more and more remarkable as the viewing went on, which was only matched by the brutality and gruesomeness, which also seemed to be increasing with every minute, which Julius could say that he wasn't a fan of.

"Fascinating" Was all that Wilhelm said, as he turned his attention back to the screen, watching intensely and with a lot of curiosity, as Subaru seemingly flew through the air, using the strange gas that his suit was expelling, to propel himself around the zero-g environment, with absolutely no effort whatsoever.

"Wow, Big Brother Subaru is so cool!" Petra exclaimed excitedly, managing to somehow release herself from Frederica's grip, much to the protest of the Beast woman in question. The young girls staring at the screen in child-like wonder and amazement, watching intently as Subaru flew through the air with no effort. Petra not noticing or caring, as several other members of the audience giggled at her childlike behaviour, in fact Frederica in particular found it quite refreshing, that the young girl was able to still emote so animatedly, despite all of the horrifying images she had been witness to so far.

"You're damn right kid, Cap is so bloody cool" Garfiel joined in with Petra as both of them continue to gush over just how cool Subaru's suit was, much to the amusement of everyone in the theatre.

After a moment of inspecting the generator, a look of surprise and disbelief quickly crossed his face, he gradually repositioned himself so that he was facing the generators connection point. Which much to his dismay, was currently on and spinning around, meaning that unless he could find a way to deactivate the gravity generator, it meant that he could not safely connect it to the gravity centrifuge. But as he floated there, trying to think of an answer to the conundrum he was in, an idea suddenly popped into his head, but before he could actually even think about doing it, he heard an all too familiar gurgling scream, which immediately made him look up.

"God dammit!" Subaru shouted, as the monster that had somehow mysteriously appeared directly above him on the ceiling, quickly leaped from its position, sailing through the zero gravity environment directly at him. Subaru however managed to move himself out of the way just in time, as the creature slammed into the floor head, its body bouncing off the floor as the creature was momentarily stunned. Which allowed Subaru to take aim and let loose a shot with his plasma cutter, the creature quickly being relieved one of its arms, as it began to flail around, obviously trying to grab onto anything solid, as its momentum from it bouncing off the ground, continue to push it higher and higher into the air, which Subaru was thankful for, as it allowed him to quickly take off all of the creatures limbs. Quickly rendering it nothing more than a dead lump of flesh dismembered limbs and rotten blood, floating in the centrifuge pit.

And with the momentary distraction now rendered to nothing more than a dead lump of flesh, Subaru quickly got to work on his idea that he just had, positioning himself just in front of the spinning connection point on the gravity generator motor, and after a moment he quickly shot it with a burst of stasis, slowing the spinning connection point down to almost a complete stop, which Subaru immediately capitalised on, quickly activating his kinesis and grabbing hold of the gravity generator with it, and gently but family pushing the gravity generator until it connected to the main gravity centrifuge, the connection point making a grinding noise before it locked together with the gravity centrifuge, a loud automatic computerised voice quickly sounding off.

"Gravity Generator Motor B. Is Connected To The Main Centrifuge. Please Connect Gravity Generator Motor A, To Reinitiate The Main Gravity Centrifuge"

"It seems that Barusu is actually starting to use his brain" Ram meant more as an observation rather than to make it sound like an insult, yet she couldn't help but internally cringe at just how harsh sounding it ended up coming out. But she was quite thankful that nobody seemed to call her out on it, mostly everyone just nodding in agreement, while also watching in wonder, as Subaru used his strange an exotic tools, to do things that even certain powerful magic users find difficult to do, such as the slowing of time and moving heavy objects with just your mind.

"You're quite right miss Ram, I can only suspect but the way he uses them, makes me feel that he's at least familiar or has used them before" Wilhelm responded to the pink haired maid, his mind going over the strange familiarity that Subaru displayed with the tools. Despite only having picked them up a couple hours previously, and really ever using them, which ultimately made Wilhelm conclude that Subaru had most likely used these tools in the past, which would explain his familiarity and ease of use of them, despite only having picked them up recently.

"If only, if our armour sets had similar abilities" Julius murmured to himself, feeling slightly jealous at all of the accoutrements and tools that were built into Subaru suit, as well as the fact that his suit was easily modifiable, when it came to taking away or adding other different tools. Of course Julius had to remind himself that this was ultimately and much more advanced the world than his, but still it didn't stop him from dreaming of having a suit of armour, that could do even half of what Subaru's engineering suit could do.

With the first generator now connected, Subaru began to manoeuvre himself around the massive central column of the gravity centrifuge, however as he was manoeuvring he suddenly saw something in his periphery that caused him to stop, his face taking on a look of confusion disgust and shock. Because growing out of the wall itself, was a massive tree colossal clump of flash, sticky fleshy tentacles sticking out everywhere, as the entire thing seemed to pulse as if it had its own heartbeat. And after a moment of staring at the strange blob of flesh, Subaru simply shook his head and continued on his way, eventually coming to the second gravity generator, which he immediately repeated the process he had done on the previous one. Slowing it down with his stasis, before using his kinesis module to push it in the place, the connector much like the first one grinding for a moment before it locked into place, the computerised voice sounding off again, as Subaru began to float towards the large platform, where the controls for the gravity centrifuge where located.

"All Generator Modules Attached. Centrifuge Main Power Restored"

"What the hell is that!" Felt had no idea what she was looking at, in fact the best way to describe it was just a little blob of contorted, shapeless and unrecognisable flesh. In fact the more she looked at it, the more she felt her stomach begin to churn, because unlike the gruesome horrifying creatures that Subaru had encountered and dispatched so far. This blob of indescribable flesh wasn't even a creature, It didn't have eyes, a mouth or even arms or legs, in fact the little blonde couldn't help but shiver, because maybe this is what happened when you threw someone into a giant meat grinder, all that would come out the other end would just be a giant pile of shapeless flesh.

"How ghastly... and unsightly" Priscilla said from behind her fan, which she was thankful for having at this moment. Because it perfectly hit the slightly queasy expression making its rounds to her face. After all the gruesome monstrosities were quite disgusting to look at, but the red-headed princess had slowly gotten used to the disgusting forms they took, but now presented with this new and arguably more disturbing to look at. Priscilla couldn't help the wave of nausea that came over her once again, as she felt her stomach beginning to protest at the fact that she had to look at such stomach churning imagery.

"How strange, that flesh... it's growing out of the wall?" Reinhart couldn't make heads or tails of what he was looking at. Although of course, the obvious statement of it being a pile of disgusting looking flesh was indeed an obvious one, but more precisely he couldn't make heads or tails of why it was there, and more importantly if it was originally a living creature before being rendered to nothing more than a shapeless blob. And even after calling upon all of his collected knowledge, regarding marbeast and other unnatural creatures, but to his growing sense of frustration, nothing that he actually had knowledge about, came anywhere close to looking for acting like this blob of flesh, which ultimately left Reinhardt completely stumped.

"It's so... disgusting" Emilia 's words were simple and to the point. Her face scrunching up as she felt a slightly queasy feeling at coming over her, in fact she quickly turned her head away, instead focusing her gaze on the sleeping face of Subaru next to her, trying to cleanse her mind, of the disgusting blob of flesh that she has just been witness to.

Once Subaru had manoeuvred himself into the right position, over the catwalk that looked over the pit that housed the gravity centrifuge. He quickly activated his gravity boots, his feet connecting to the floor with a loud metallic thump, his entire body wobbling for a moment as he got his balance.

"No matter how many times I do it, I won't get used to walking without gravity" Subaru muttered quietly to himself, as he made his way over to the large control panel that was responsible for the operation of the gravity centrifuge. However, as he stood in front of the holographic display, looking over the various read out and diagrams that only he can understand, he suddenly realised something important, as he was about to press the activate button. And that was once the gravity centrifuge was activated, all of the atmosphere currently in the chamber would be vented into space, and since his suit was no longer space worthy, considering the large gash he had gotten on his arm earlier. It meant that he could not activate the gravity centrifuge, without ultimately suffocating himself, but after letting out a curse under his breath at the revelation. Subaru quickly began to think of a way around this, but as he was drawing blanks on everything, he quickly saw something on the wall that gave him an idea, because on the wall, was a small container, that had pipe attached to it, the pipe ending in a strange almost gun like shape, and as he stepped over towards it, he saw that the container was labelled as Emergency Sealant Foam, For Emergency Uses Only.

"Emergency sealant foam?" Frederica repeated the strange words out loud, her mind quickly coming to the conclusion, that there was nothing in her own world that remotely sounded anything like that. As such she drew a complete blank on what exactly sealant foam was meant to be used for and how exactly it could help Subaru in his current situation.

"It kinda looks like a fire extinguisher, but considering it says emergency sealant, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that's not what it actually is" Al's comment like usual got quite a few in the audience to look at him in surprise and confusion, none of them understanding exactly what he was referring to by a "fire extinguisher"

"What the hell is a fire... extinguisher?" Garfiel was the first to ask the question, turning to look over his shoulder at the helmeted man in confusion about the strange object that he was referring to, and after a moment of contemplation on how best to explain it, Al began to explain exactly what a fire extinguisher was.

"Basically it's a little tank, usually either filled with water or some kind of compressed gas, that is used to put out fires" Al explained it in the best way that he knew how, yet as he did so, he couldn't help but feel just a little twinge of sadness. Realising the basic modern necessities that he had lost, after coming to the harsh and sometimes out right deadly fantasy world that he had called his home for nearly two decades now.

"Whatever it is, my contractor clearly believes that it can help him I suppose" Beatrice's voice almost had a bit of pride to it, as she let out a small, almost trademark sounding annoyed huff, because unlike everyone else, she had a much more deeper look into what the on-screen version of Subaru was currently thinking. And despite not having the best understanding of all of the terms and words that he was thinking about, she could put together just enough to figure out exactly what he intended to do with the strange stuff, and ultimately how it was going to help him in the situation he was currently in.

And so without a second thought, Subaru quickly grabbed the nozzle end of the pipe, quickly inspecting the gash on his arm, to make sure that it was sufficiently scabbed over, before he came to the nozzle at his arm and pulled the trigger. A small stream of white liquid, quickly being deposited under his arms, which after a moment began to bubble and foam, as it quickly turned from a bubbling liquid, into something that almost looks like white ice. And as the liquid finished it's transformation, Subaru let out of small Grant of pain, as the arm that had the foam on it, began to shake ever so slightly, as Subaru clenched his fists, but after a moment he seemed to fight away the pain, as he quickly made his way over to the control console again, not hesitating to press the button on the control panel, as a cacophony of mechanical noises, followed by the blurring of alarms quickly sounded off.

"Gravity Centrifuge Online. Re-establishing Balance With Planetary Cargo. Gravity Restored"
The entire floor of the chamber below seemed to open up to the void of space, all of the atmosphere and sound but it carried, that was there a moment ago, now vented into space. Leaving the only sound that Subaru could hear being his own breaths, however as he began walking back along the catwalk towards the exit, he suddenly felt a pain shoot for his arm, and looking down at it. He saw small streams of oxygen beginning to poor from cracks in the foam, which was all of the incentive, he needed as Subaru began to run towards the exit, quickly clipping his plasma cutter to his belt, as he clamped his free hand over the foam, in a vain attempt to try and keep in the presence of oxygen that was keeping him alive. And as he arrived at the exit, and activated the door which began to slowly unlock itself, he could feel his breaths beginning to become harder and harder, as the oxygen continued to escape from his suit, but the large circular door finally opened up. Allowing him to quickly jump into the air lock as the door shut behind him, and as he felt himself take his last breath, the door finally closed the air lock quickly be invented with precious oxygen, has Subaru taken a long breath, hold it there for a moment before letting it out, and once the airlock was completely filled of oxygen, the other large circular door quickly opened up, back into the curving hallway.

"T-that was a close call" Otto and everyone else let go of a breath they didn't realise they have been holding. Because even though they understand very little about how vacuum and space actually worked, it was obvious that once exposed to a vacuum, a human being would not survive very long. But luckily it seemed that Subaru had thought of that beforehand, in a bit of quick thinking, using the sealant foam as a momentary plug for his damage suit, meaning that he could momentarily be in a vacuum of out suffocating, although it's certainly didn't take away from the fact it was ultimately a very close call either way.

"You dunderhead, don't worry me like that" Emilia said quietly, as she stroked Subaru's hand which was currently cuddled up into her chest. Trying to calm her rapidly beating heart, after that Incredibly close call that Subaru had just experienced, and despite the overall life-threatening nature of it, Emilia couldn't help but smile slightly, because it was just like Subaru to make her worry.

Subaru, without even looking, began to make his way back towards the decontamination area, which his attention instead focused on removing the hard set foam on his arm, but as he was in the process of pulling a small piece of his arm, something suddenly shot from around the corner. And before Subaru had a chance to react, he was quickly thrown onto his back as something grabbed his leg, the black-haired engineer letting out a cry of pain, as the impact sent bolts of pain shooting through his chest, as a result of his broken ribs being jostled around. And before Subaru could think about what the hell just happened, something suddenly and violently began to drag him down the corridor, and as he looked up, he finally saw what it was, it was in fact a massive fleshy dismembered looking tentacle, with three smaller tentacles on its front. Which were firmly latch round his leg, as it continued to almost deliberately slowly drag him towards the hole in the wall he had passed earlier.

"What the hell is that thing!" Felt shouted at the top of her lungs, young blonde practically jumping 10 feet into the air, has her heart began to beat a mile a minute, as a result of the sudden and unexpected appearance of the strange fleshy tentacle.

"S-Subaru!" Emilia was quite completely off guard by the appearance of the disgusting tentacle, her heart now beating a mile a minute as a result of a sudden scare, but considering the current position that Subaru was in, she could care less about herself right now, instead all she wanted now was for him to fight back against the tentacle, as it was beginning to drag him towards whatever it's den was.

"You idiot, shoot at it! Before it drags you to who knows where!" Ram was a lot more animated than usual, practically jumping up from her seat she screamed at the on-screen Subaru to do something. Instead of just sitting there and letting the tentacle drag him away, in fact a revelation suddenly occurred to her, the strange hole in the wall from before, was most likely as a result or possibly even the den of his latest abomination. And considering the amount of blood and gore that surrounded the hole, she already had a pretty good idea of what kind of fate awaited Subaru if he could not free himself from the tentacles grasp.

"What the fuck!?" Subaru screamed at the top of his lungs, as he quickly grabbed for his plasma cutter, but before he could line up a shot. The tentacle began to drag him faster just as he pulled the trigger, causing him to miss it completely, however in sheer panic Subaru continue to pull the trigger, rapidly emptying the magazine of his plasma cutter with most of the shot missing. But the few that did seemed to cripple the tentacle for a moment, allowing Subaru to quickly retrieve one of the spare energy cells from his belt, and replace the empty one and his plasma cutter with it. But instead of shooting blindly like he had last time, Subaru took the precious few seconds he had, to look over the tentacle, quickly noticing a particular spot on it that looked particularly inflamed and infected, and so with his target made up. Subaru quickly put several shots into that particular area of a tentacle, the result of which was quite surprising as the tentacle seemingly exploded, blood and gore raining down all around him as the part of the tentacle that was holding onto his leg went limp.

The destroyed and blood gushing stump, wiggling around in pain as it let out almost animal-like cries, before it quickly retreated back into the wall, its cries of pain quickly being silent as it disappeared somewhere often to the ship. And after catching his breath, Subaru quickly jump to his feet, completely ignoring the bolts of pain shooting through his chest, as he took off towards the end of the hallway, running around the curve at full speed, as he quickly made it to the decontamination door, and before the door was even fully open, Subaru quickly duct under the door, turning around and shooting the fuse box next to the door, which immediately caused it to slam shut, it's blue unlock symbol, by a red lock symbol.

"Oh thank God" Rem much like everyone let out a sigh of relief, as Subaru was finally able to escape from the tentacle, as a result of brutalising it, in fact despite her intuition telling her otherwise. She hoped that at least for a moment Subaru would be safe, and would have enough time to catch his breath, considering that he was currently breathing very hard as well as wincing in pain. which she suspected was mostly because of his broken ribs giving him trouble every time he breathed, which did caused her to frown, feeling a twinge of Sadness as she watched the person she loved be in so much pain.

Emilia didn't say anything, that couldn't already be said by anyone else, so she simply let out a sigh of relief letting go of a breath she didn't realise she had been holding. As she instinctively looked at the sleeping Subaru next to her, making sure that he was actually still there, and not transported to the hellish future that was seemingly awaiting him. Yet thought crossed her mind, and she couldn't help but frown, because ultimately the warden had said that this was the future they were witnessing. the future that would come to pass no matter what they did, which did not bode well for Emilia considering some of the things that Subaru had said, when talking to the Spectre version of herself.

"Big Brother Subaru actually did it! he actually killed it!" Petra said excitedly, as she watched the Subaru prevail over another disgusting looking monster, although the young girl was a bit worried for him, because of the amount of pain he was seemingly in. In fact every time Subaru took a painful breath, Petra couldn't help but wince, because despite being lucky to not have broken any bones yet. She fractured one of her finger bones when she was very young, and she remembered every time she moved it even slightly. The pain was absolutely excruciating, so the young girl didn't even want to imagine the kind of pain that Subaru was going through right now, with his multiple broken ribs and other cuts and scrapes.

"Indeed he did Petra... But he seems to be in a lot of pain now?" Frederica was indeed glad that Subaru was safe and sound, well as safe as he could possibly be stuck inside a metal box, surrounded by holds of twisted Monsters that were once human. But despite that Frederica couldn't help but feel just slightly concerned about Subarus overall health, considering that he had broken ribs, when he was forcefully thrown to the ground. So she didn't even want to imagine, the kind of pain that went through his body when that happened, yey she was also amazed that he managed to get back up afterwards and keep running despite the pain, which she supposed was really putting into perspective just tell stupidly high Subaru's pain tolerance actually was.

"He'll be fine I suppose, it will take more than that to put my Subaru down" Beatrice said with what seemed to be pride overflowing from her voice, quite a few turning their heads when they heard her say his actual name instead of calling him her contractor. In fact a certain set of ladies, one with silver hair and one with blue both turned to look at Beatrice, Emilia giving off a small child like pout, which immediately caused Beatrice to respond with what Subaru like to called "the smug loli face" Which only caused Emilia 's jealousy to skyrocket, much to the satisfaction of Beatrice. Rem however simply looked up at the little spirit, with a look that could only be described as hollow and empty, in fact Ram felt a shiver run down her spine, because that look was one that she was familiar with. It was the look that her sister made whenever Rem was plotting the vicious death of someone she didn't like.

Subaru took a moment to catch his breath, almost doubling over in pain as each breath felt like a set of razor sharp knives being impaled into his side. Which he supposed wasn't too far from the truth, considering his broken ribs, but as he finally managed to get his breathing under control and the pain began to subside, a small holographic display suddenly popped out from his wrist, showing an incoming message

"Subaru... Subaru... Where are you... It's me... Nicole..."

"N-Nicole! is that you?" Subaru didn't receive an answer as the crackling and distorted message suddenly came to an end, leaving him completely alone, as he quickly and frantically began typing away a small display on his wrist. Trying to replay the message and see if he could figure out the exact coordinates of it, yet when he found his message log history, it showed that no message had just been received. Causing a chill to rundown Subaru's spine, because despite knowing that he was crazy and definitely seen things that weren't there, the fact that he had heard her voice even for just a second, was just reassurance that she was still alive, as well as injecting fresh motivation into him to keep moving forward.

"Something's not right about that~Nyah" Felix's words were quiet, to the point where he thought nobody would have heard him. However looking over to his left, he could see that Wilhelm was looking at him in concern and confusion about what exactly he meant, however before the age swordsman could ask the question, a certain half elf beat him to the punch.

"What do you mean Felix?" Emilia asked innocently, looking towards the catboy, with a look of confusion on her face, as she didn't understand exactly what he was getting at, when he said that something about all of this was not right. Felix meanwhile was completely stumped on what to say, considering that summarising what he was currently feeling into words, was something he didn't know if he could actually do, but after a moment he seemingly found his voice as he began to speak.

"I'm not sure how to put it into words~Nyah, but something about the way that Nicole called Subaru... just didn't feel right" The deepening look of confusion on the half elf's face was about what Felix expected. After all trying to sum up and articulated, a gut feeling into words, wasn't exactly easy, especially when it came to his animalistic instincts, which were subtly telling him that something about the message that Subaru had received from Nicole, just didn't feel right somehow, in a way that despite his best efforts Felix couldn't quite explain verbally.

"I'm in agreement with you on this one Felix, something about this entire situation surrounding Nicole just feels off" Reinhardt much to Felix's thankfulness backed him up when it came to having a strange feeling regarding the message.

"I'm not sure I understand exactly, but let's hope that she's safe... for Subarus sake" Emilia couldn't help the small twinge of jealousy that tried to take root in her heart. At the fact that Subaru was openly in love with another woman, but the rational part of a brain kept reminding her this was ultimately the future, and despite the vagueness of how exactly he ended up in that world, it seemed that ultimately he didn't go there by choice. Which was probably the reason for his severely damaged mental state, the fact that he had managed to find someone else, somebody that loved and cherished him like Emilia wished she could do, was at least some kind of solace, even though it was not the outcome she would have liked.

"That's the first reasonable thing you've said all day I suppose" Beatrice said matter-of-factly, sending a look towards the half elf that could be rightly described as. you irritate me sometimes but, I'll let this pass I suppose. Which Emilia reciprocated in kind, sending a small smile towards the little spirit, who despite not showing much of a reaction, felt the corners of her lips twinge upwards episode slightly.

"Cap's girl is going to be fine, she's probably just hiding somewhere" Garfiel said nonchalantly, not feeling worried in the slightest for the safety of Subaru's new girl, considering that from the brief moment they had actually seen her, she seemed like the kind of woman that could take charge of a situation.

"Hammond. The gravity centrifuge is online, I'm going to make my way over to the engine cha-" Subaru didn't get a chance to finish this sentence as the entire ship seemed to rock violently, the shaking almost throwing him clean off his feet, but luckily managed to keep Subaru himself upright. Holding onto one of the wall mounted railings for dear life, as the violent shaking continues for a moment, before eventually beginning to subside, turning from violent shaking into a barely noticeable rumble that could easily be lost in the rest of the ship's machinery .

"Subaru!. what the hell was that!?" The face of Hammond quickly popped up on the holographic display, showing the dark-skinned man in a similar position to Subaru, when it came to almost being knocked off his feet by the unexpected shaking. But after quickly recovering Subaru made his way into the decontamination chamber, quickly typing away at one of the holographic displays on his wrist.

"I'm not sure. I was just coming out of the gravity centrifuge when the shaking hit... Actually Hammond, if you can check the hull integrity. I think we may have been hit by an asteroid or maybe one of the fuel tanks exploded" Subaru made his way out of the decontamination chamber, catching a brief glimpse of one of the twisted Monsters quickly ducking around the corner. Which was immediately followed by the sound of a metal vent cover being torn to pieces, and the said monster quickly disappearing into the ships cavernous and maze-like ventilation system.

"Well there's a couple breaches on the medical and Engineering deck. But all of the primary and secondary fuel tanks look good. And the few impact sites that I can see are at least a few hours old, and not big enough for-"

Just as the elevator doors opened, Subaru stopped mid stride, as Hammond quickly went silent on the other end of the line, and after a moment of silence in which Subaru began to grow more nervous, Hammond's voice practically exploded.

"Subaru! I don't know what you did, but it's the engines... The engines are back online!" Subaru couldn't believe his ears as he stepped into the elevator, which quickly began it's ascent back up to the machinery control room. But as he stood there, the excitement of the engines coming online quickly wore off, as it was replaced by confusion, because considering how old the ishimura actually was. It meant that her engines needed to be manually ignited, before they could actually be used, which ultimately left a very uncomfortable feeling in Subaru's stomach, because the engines couldn't have ignited themselves. But as Subaru was about to make his concern known to Hammond, an alert display suddenly popped up on his holographic display, indicating that an urgent message was coming through, and once the video feed opened, Subaru was downright shocked to see who it actually was.

"Subaru? Can you hear me? it's Kendra... They attacked me... I ran for it... and Hammond just... he just disappeared" Before Subaru could actually respond to Kendra, Hammond quickly re-established his link with Subaru's communicator, allowing the shocked dark-skinned man to actually see the supposedly lost woman.

"So she did survive after all" Julius meant it more as an observation rather than a statement, getting a round of nobs from everyone, in regards to Kendra's miraculous reappearance after being gone for quite a while. And while he was glad to see that the one was alive, a small part of him was also a bit frustrated that she had finally reappeared, despite seeming like a normal person to Subaru and Hammond. Something about Kendra just rubbed Julius the wrong way, and while he couldn't place his finger on why exactly, something about the way she behaved previously struck him as slightly shifty.

"Indeed Julius, it seems that she didn't parish like I expected" Wilhelm's voice was flat and even, not particularly caring if the woman had actually survived or not, simply because much like Julius, the aged swordsman simply had a feeling in his gut telling him, that this woman was not all that she seemed. In fact her very survival was enough to prove that, considering the power and brutality of the monsters stalking the ship, yet she seemed to be completely unscaved, almost as if she was a lot more combat proficient then she was actually letting on.

"Well at least Subaru has one more person to rely on" Emelia said innocently, not knowing about the bad gut feeling that Julius and Wilhelm had about Kendra's survival. In fact Emilia saw it very much as a positive, considering that there was now an extra set of eyes looking out for him, with Subaru's overall chance of survival having been doubled.

"The elf is right I suppose, I don't like her particularly myself, but in the matter of life or death, my contract or always says it's better to stick together, then fight amongst each other" Beatrice turned her head ever slightly, so that she could look at both Julius and Wilhelm, as if she could somehow sense what they were feeling, much to the discomfort of the aged swordsman and the greatest knight respectively.

"Kendra! where are you?"

"Nice to see that you're alive and well, Hammond" Kendra's slightly sarcastic voice was interrupted as the communication began to glitch out, much to Subaru's annoyance as the elevator doors opened up, allowing him to step back into domain engineering control centre, where he had originally started his journey to fix the ships engines and gravity centrifuge, and more disturbingly where he had seen her.

"I barricaded myself in the computer core. I can hear them moving outside. but I don't think they know I'm here-" Again another blast of static and visual distortions as Subaru cursed under his breath, both as a result of the continued interruptions and the pain shooting through his sides, which forced him to sit down, leaning against the wall as he took slow and shallow breaths, as to not aggravate his broken ribs any further.

"I can log into everything from here. I hacked to the root, and found some reports from the colony. Even before they cracked the planet, the colonists were experiencing some kind of widespread dementia. It seems to be related to some possible alien artefact they found on the planet. Something called the Marker" At the mention of the Marker, Subaru felt incredibly sharp pain shoot through his head, causing him to grab his head in his hands. As he took hard and ragged breaths, which ultimately just cause more pain, as a result of the breaths aggravating his already broken and cracked ribs, and after several moments of Kendra and Hammond looking at him concerned, he tried to get his breathing under control, which was accompanied by several curses in his native Japanese, but ultimately Subaru managed to get control of himself.

Emilia much likely on-screen Subaru, Felt an almost impossibly sharp pain shoot through her head at the mention of "Marker" Grabbing her head in her hands, as she screamed in agony, the pain continuing to escalate, until it felt like her head was literally been cracked open from the Inside out. But After a moment, the pain began to subside, quickly turning from a sharp pain into a dull throbbing sensation, which even then, quickly subsided until there was no pain whatsoever, the only remanence being her hard and ragged breaths, and the tears that were flowing out of her eyes.

"What was that I suppose!? this better not be some kind of joke half elf!" Despite the harsh tone of her voice, Beatrice was very alarmed by Emilia 's sudden outburst. Although not for the reason that everyone would expect, the primary reason, that she was incredibly concerned by this, was because it happened at the exact same moment, as the on screen version of Subaru had experienced his episode, and considering the feelings and thoughts that she could feel coming off him, it was incredibly strange and concerning and Emilia had the exact same reaction at the exact same time.

"Miss Emilia , are you alright?!" Frederica, as if propelled by instinct, quickly got up from her seat, coming to the aid of the half elf who was slowly recovering from her strange episode. But as Frederica knelt down, to inspect Emilia and see if there was any physical injury, she caught just a brief glimpses of the half elf face, more importantly her eyes, the blonde haired maid feeling a shudder run down her spine, as she instinctively backed up slightly. Because instead of the naive, but ultimately kind and caring eyes that Emilia usually had, her eyes had an almost deranged and sadistic look to them, with Emilia 's eyes being as tiny as pin pricks and rapidly darting around. As if she was searching for something only she could see, but strangely after a moment of this, Emilia 's eyes returned to their much more usual state, as she looked up at Frederica, her eyes saying one simple thing. What just happened?

"Clearly Emilia is having a violent reaction, from looking at Barusu too much" Ram meant it to come off more as a joke. However the looks and gazes she was getting, seemed to suggest to her at least that maybe everyone didn't think it was appropriate to make a joke about that kind of thing, but still the pink head oni tried.

"Seriously big sis is everything alright? Every so often you just start... Acting funny" Felt said nervously, thinking about all of the times that Emilia had spaced out or just started acting funny for no real reason. In fact it all seems to have started after Emilia had awoken from her magical induced slumber, which led the little blonde to hope that maybe Emilia 's mind was just a little bit scrambled, with it still trying to catch up.

"Felt is right~Nyah, every so often you just start acting very strange for no reason" Felix decided to add himself to the conversation, he as well finding it very strange how Emilia had been acting over the course of the recent viewing.

"I... don't know" Was all that Emilia could respond, with much to the frustration of everyone. But ultimately she didn't know what to say, she was certainly not blind to the strange episodes that she had been having, over the course of the recent viewing. But even she couldn't make heads or tails of what exactly they were and why they were happening.

"Regardless I'm keeping a close eye on you I suppose" Beatrice said, as if she was a mother scolding a child who had been caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing. Which made Emilia feel somewhat embarrassed but also, made her feel somewhat better considering that despite the harsh tone she used, the look in Beatrice's eyes being a definite one of concern, which Emilia was thankful for.

"Well I'll keep digging through the computer files, and see what I can turn up" Kendra finished a Subaru finally found the strength to stand, being careful not to aggravate his broken ribs, as Kendra's video feed was quickly replaced by Hammond's.

"A piece of good news, is that Subaru managed to get the engine and centrifuge online. So I'm going to put in the final corrections to put us back into geostationary orbit-"

Hammond didn't get to finish his sentence, has Kendra quickly interrupted him much to Subaru's surprise, her video field quickly replacing Hammond's, with a definite oh no look on her face.

"Wait, wait! we're not safe yet. The ship's asteroid defence system is offline. on the way up, the ship's going to pass through a debris field thrown up from the planetcrack... We'll be ripped to pieces unless we can get it restarted" Subaru looked at the image of Kendra with a shocked expression. mentally kicking himself for not realising sooner that the asteroid defence system must have been offline, considering the numerous hull breaches that the ship had already.

"Goddammit. I'll start working on it from here. Subaru get on the next tram and meet me at the bridge, you can probably do a lot more here than I can" Subaru didn't need to be told twice. As he went as quickly as his broken ribs would allow, walking back through the corridor that led to the tram platform, and as he stepped onto the train platform, he quickly looked at the holographic video of Hammond before it shut off.

"Alright, I'll be there as soon as I can" The video call ended with Hammond giving a nod of approval, leaving Subaru completely alone on the tram platform as the sounds of distant machinery and other ships systems could be heard, however as he was about to take a step towards, he heard her voice again.

"Subaru.. please.. why are you hurting me like this..." Subaru did not turn around, already knowing that she was standing there directly behind him, most likely looking the exact same as she did the very day he lost her. And she drew closer intent on touching or maybe even giving him a hug, Subaru wordlessly stepped into the tram, the large steel door quickly rolling up and shutting behind him. Before the tram began to accelerate away from the platform, and towards the bridge of the USG ishimura, leaving the spectral entity there for a moment before it disappeared, leaving a completely empty platform in its wake.

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well that was certainly an interesting chapter now wasn't it, quite a few scares and other more mysterious happenings are going on, anyway I don't have much to say for the closing remarks, other than I hope you enjoy the chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.