Chapter 5: The Death of Innocence
It is often held that cats are prone to sleeping long and often, otherwise there would be no such thing as a catnap. While to call Puck a cat was in every meaning imaginable a stretch, the sentiment was very much shared. So when Puck popped in on Emilia and Subaru it was to his great surprise to find the two asleep.
Nevertheless even with the sun high in the sky announcing that noon had arrived, both were still soundly asleep. Even more unusual was the position Puck had caught them in. Emilia had fallen asleep sitting up with Subaru resting his head on Emilia's lap. Were it not for Emilia's puffy red eyelids and the fact that the two were mere children, Puck might have considered ending the Natsuki lineage.
Something had clearly happened while he had been gone. Everything always happened while he was gone. Still he had been able to lay a false trail for Melaquera, and the spirit had taken the bait. Melaquera was now off to explore a winter wonderland freshly formed in the Augria Sanddunes.
As much as Puck would like to hide Emilia and her power away forever, fate was not so kind as to allow him to do so. The only option left was to buy as much time as possible. Even if hiding had been possible, Subaru had been right: that would not be the right way to bring Emilia happiness. As much as it hurt his pride for his over four hundred years of life experience to be trumped by an eleven year old brat, if it would make Lia happy, then Puck would swallow his pride.
In spite of Puck's desire to let the two of them sleep the day away, a time limit, unbeknownst to the pair in question, had been set. His decision to wake the two of them had absolutely nothing to do with a desire to see Emilia's adorable pout, nor with a desire to one up the snot-nosed brat who had talked down to him a couple days ago-absolutely none at all. Puck formed a good sized chunk of ice over both of their heads and allowed a few drops of freshly thawed water to drip on their faces.
Puck smirked at a job well done, in no way was it satisfaction, as Subaru awoke with startled scream as he jumped to his feet and Emilia shot ram-rod straight with a breathless squeak. Mere moments later both of Puck's victims turned their glares upon him.
"Good morning! Glad to see you both up and ready to go!" Puck's enthusiasm was not well received. Subaru returned a death glare as an answer and Emilia pouted, the slightest hint of a fiendish glint taking residence in her eyes.
Well I was going to start teaching you two magic, but if you're going to be like that…" Puck trailed off.
Subaru's eyes widened in excitement, his mind filled with ideas of unleashing fire storms and death lasers. Subaru was caught on Puck's hook. Emilia, however, was intent on seeking some sort of revenge; perhaps she might stomp, gently stomp, on Puck's tail or ignore him for a few minutes. However, turning to see Subaru next to her, literally vibrating in excitement, took the wind out of her sails.
"Fine Puck. But next time it's war." Emilia gently nodded to herself, assured that her threat would be sufficiently convincing to make Puck reflect on his actions.
"I'll hold you to that Lia," Puck gave her a challenging grin. "Anyways come outside when you finish getting ready."
Subaru made record time in eating his breakfast and getting dressed, and Emilia couldn't help but giggle with fondness as Subaru practically bounced off the walls. Though more reserved and sedate, Emilia couldn't deny a certain amount of excitement. This was her chance to become just a little bit more like mom, and her chance to make herself safe to be around. If she was going to be selfish enough to keep Subaru by her side, then she was going to have to work just as hard to keep him safe. She also had a village of elves waiting on her to come undo her mistake, she couldn't leave them waiting longer than necessary.
Before long the two found themselves outside standing before an energetic Puck. Puck tried his best to channel his inner teacher, but his attempts to appear wise and firm crumbled in his trademark goofiness.
"Since we've got Subaru here let's start from the basics. Magic users draw mana from within using their gate. Your ability to do so is affected by the strength and quality of your gate. It's also extremely important not to abuse your gate and damage it. So our first goal once we get to past the lesson will be to practice drawing mana from your gate, or in Emilia's case to learn to control it. Furthermore, the range of magic you can do is limited by your affinity. Lia, for example, is particularly attuned to fire magic."
"But I saw her doing ice magic, wouldn't that be water based instead?" Subaru's face scrunched up in confusion.
"Hmm...I can see why you might think that, but no. Fire magic involves the manipulation of temperatures, which is how Lia makes ice, she drops the temperature and condenses the water around us into ice."
"But there isn't enough water in the air to do that. We have machines that take water out of the air called dehumidifiers in my world. The one in my house can run all day and barely have any water in it." Subaru's otherworldly experience and education brought an obvious question to mind.
Puck's face scrunched in confusion as he began to try and make ice using only fire magic. With much straining he was able to produce about a cup full of ice.
"Huh, I've always used just a bit of water magic to help gather the water so I never thought about it, but now I'm curious about just how Lia is doing it. Why don't you try summoning just a bit of ice Lia." Puck turned his curious eyes towards Emilia.
Emilia outstretched her hand, and opened it wide to expose her palm. As she did so a small spike of ice began to form in front of her hand. Puck scrutinized her intensely as she did so.
"Ok. That's good Lia." Emilia let the icicle fade and lowered her hand in response.
"Lia is unconsciously using some spirit arts to use the water mana in the air to help gather the water. Similar to how she does to heal people."
"So what's the difference between magic and the spirit arts?" Subaru's face was so confused Emilia could almost imagine a question mark floating above his head.
"At a basic level it's whether the mana you use is from within yourself or from the outside world. Spirit arts users also contract with spirits for their help. At some point I'd like to show you two how to contract some lesser spirits, but that'll have to wait for a bit." Puck's face looked quite conflicted, a brief hint of resignation in his face at pushing off the topic of contracting spirits.
"Anyways the main affinities are fire, earth, water, and wind. Would you like to find out yours, Subaru?" The eager look in Subaru's eyes was all the answer Puck needed.
Subaru was practically bouncing on his feet waiting for an answer. Emilia couldn't help but giggle at Subaru's enthusiasm.
"All right. Done. And your affinity isssss shadow (yin)." Puck delivered, dragging out the answer as much as possible to taunt Subaru.
"Wow, I think shadow is suuuper rare, Subaru," Emilia chimed in.
"So what does that mean? Do I have some super awesome, rare power or something?"
Puck was eager to rain on Subaru's cautious optimism, "Shadow magic is mostly used for debuffs-" Puck took a long pause savoring Subaru's disappointed face, "is what must people would tell you."
A nostalgic look crossed Puck's face before he continued. "A certain someone I know would be very upset if I left you with the impression that was all there was to it. Time manipulation, space manipulation, dimensional transportation, and even some offensive magic are all possible."
Puck had not expected the news to bolster Subaru's mood all that much, but between the various stories he'd seen in TV and mangas and Subaru's outstanding imagination his impression of the possibilities of such magic were overwhelmingly positive. Subaru's face twisted into a scheming expression imagining all the crazy things he would do as fledgling master of space and time!
"For some reason the face you're making is making me suuuper nervous Subaru," Emilia half teased.
"What I've just got a bunch of ideas in mind. There's nothing wrong with that!" Subaru blew up in mock outrage.
"That's why I'm worried. Remember when we tried your 'skiing' idea out? You crashed into a tree sooooo hard it took an hour for you to wake up. It's my job to keep you from doing silly things and hurting yourself." Emilia tried to put on the air of a stern older sister, but the fond smile that unwittingly crossed her face betrayed her. Afterall, they had figured out the "skiing" thing in the end and had had a great time, even if Subaru's crash had scared her senseless.
"So does this mean doomsday portals, black holes, teleportation, and dimensional decapitation of mabeasts are off limits?"
Subaru's joking pleading was shot down, "I don't know what most of that is, but I'm pretty sure all of it sounds like a reeeally bad idea." Although Emilia had her hands on her hips like a mother scolding her child, her eyes had a joyous, mischievous glint.
"Before we get in to any of that we need to teach you how to draw mana from your gate. Considering your circumstances, we need to be careful. Your gate might be a bit...stiff since it hasn't been used." Puck eagerly diverted the topic away from such advanced magic. Although Emilia would offer token rebukes she might very well cave in in the end, she was just a kid despite her unwillingness to admit her desire to go along with Subaru's games.
"So how do I go about doing that?" Subaru was chomping at the bit to do magic, even if he had to start with the boring parts.
"I'll help draw some mana through your gate and help you cast a spell to get a feel for it. Normally, I'd do something like shamack since it can't injure anyone, but in your case starting with something a bit more focused like minya might be a better idea."
"Minya?" Subaru tried to make semse of the spell names.
"Ah it might be easier to show you, than to tell you. Visualization is important with magic." Puck turned towards a mound of snow in the distance.
A small spear of darkness formed and launched forwards and pierced through the snow. The spear vanished soon after, but the hole carved into the snow remained.
"That," Puck turned towards Subaru's stunned face, "is minya."
"And I'm going to learn how to do that today!?" Subaru couldn't hide his shock, he had expected long hours of meditation or some other sort of tedious drill.
"Well you're going to start learning it," Puck put a strong emphasis on start. "It'll probably take you a few days to do it in any useful way. But most importantly, you ready to give it a try?"
Seeing an excited nod from Subaru, Puck floated up behind him and placed a paw on his shoulder. Puck found Subaru's gate and began to try to pull mana through it. Although there was a fair bit of resistance Puck was able to successfully get mana to flow.
"Alright put your hand out and try to shape the magic," Puck instructed.
Feeling a bizarre yet empowering sensation rushing through his body, Subaru went to work. He could feel his gate and the mana flowing forth. Despite the novelty of the experience, the sensation was oddly familiar; Subaru had no doubts that next time he would be able to call it forth himself. Feeling Subaru begin to manipulate his mana on his own Puck began to take a back seat and observe.
Ensorcelled by the heady sensation of casting a spell, Subaru couldn't help but ponder: why settle for a simple spear or arrow? Now a flaming sword of shadows, that sounded much more awesome to Subaru. And so he imagined, daydreaming having always been one of Subaru's strongest abilities, and before his eyes his mana began to crystallize into black greatsword wrapped in shadowy flames. As he did so the flow of his mana began to stutter, halting and rushing forth without any regulation. What had felt like a well adjusted control knob now felt like a rusted lever with only an on and off setting.
Puck's eyes widened slightly. "Uh oh," Puck uttered under his breath as he worked to gently stop the flow of mana through Subaru's gate.
The sword Subaru had formed was distorting and rapidly fluctuating in size. With Puck's timely intervention it slowly fizzled away harmlessly.
"Well that was a pretty good attempt before your gate went out of control. Since it hasn't had any use I kinda expected it might go like this." Puck looked rather pleased despite the failure.
"You've actually got a pretty decent bit of power in you and very good visualization and shaping of mana after it leaves your gate. Once we train up your gate you should do pretty well." Subaru's face was alight at the praise.
"You mean I can be a really amazing mage?" Subaru's excitement was tinged by disbelief.
"Whether you become amazing or not is going to be up to you. You're never going to be a powerhouse like Lia, but if you can learn to make good use of the power you do have, you could probably be pretty impressive. Your ability to envision and shape your magic would make many mages quite envious."
"So just how strong is Emilia?" Subaru asked.
"Lia will likely grow to be one of the most powerful mages and spirit art users in the world," Puck answered with unfettered pride.
Emilia had her head downturned in embarrassment. Subaru and Puck paid little notice of her discomfort with her power.
"So if I'm a 1 power-wise, then where would Emilia fall?" Subaru couldn't resist asking.
"Hmm...maybe a 5 or 6?" Puck pondered.
"Wouldn't that make me really weak then!?" A hint of disappointment colored Subaru's question.
"It's not so much that you're weak, as Lia's just that amazing." Puck half comforted, half bragged.
Subaru nodded in agreement, "You don't have to tell me that."
A red blush had overtaken Emilia's face and was now running up all the way to the pointed tips of her ears. Her appearance was not unlike a kettle about to go off.
"Would the two of you stop being idiots, already!?" At long last Emilia's embarrassment had boiled over.
"Come on Lia don't be so insincere about it," Puck teased, a glint in his eyes.
Emilia merely crossed her arms as she let out a huff. She turned her head away from the two as her cheeks puffed out in a pout.
"Well anyways it looks like today will be the same exercise for the two of you. You'll both be practicing controlling how much mana you put into a spell and stopping it on command. Subaru I want you to keep trying minya, though please hold off on the fancy shapes for the rest of today. Lia practice controlling how much power you put into huma." Puck's instructions given the two set to work.
A couple hours had passed before Puck called the lesson to a close, "All right that's enough for today you two."
Subaru collapsed to the ground breathless the exhaustion of having used so much magic rolling over him. Emilia meanwhile simply loosened her focused expression, not a single sign of exertion to be seen. While for Subaru this had very much been a conditioning exercise, for Emilia it had been an exercise in control. For Emilia the toll had been almost entirely mental. What had been a figurative marathon for Subaru was closer to spending a few hours working on a jigsaw puzzle for Emilia. It was as Subaru glanced over at Emilia that he understood what Puck had been trying to tell him earlier. He would never be able to match her endurance nor would he be able to match the power behind her spells.
"Good job you two, especially you Subaru. You're already casting a passable Minya.". Puck couldn't help but praise his rapid progress.
"All ready!? That's great Subaru!" Emilia who had been too absorbed in her own work to notice her surroundings was astonished to hear that. It was rather rare for someone to learn to cast their first spell in a single day.
Subaru still a bit winded gave her a thumbs up and a cheeky grin. The pride on her face gave way to confusion.
"Puck, why is Subaru so worn out?" The innocent bewilderment was almost biting to Subaru's pride.
"Lia most people don't have anywhere near your amount of mana. Most first time magic users in Subaru's shoes would have passed out an hour or so ago." Puck tried to explain the depths of the very power he had once hoped to keep Emilia unaware of.
"Oh," Emilia whispered. This disparity was yet another reminder of how she set apart she was from everyone else.
"Anyways I have something that I need to do, so let's call things here. I'll be pretty far away so I won't be able to get here right away if you call for help. Please try and stay safe while I'm gone. Also Lia, make sure Subaru lets his gate heal for a couple days, absolutely no magic outside of emergencies."
Emilia nodded at her instructions, her eyes dead serious. As she cast a protective gaze his way, Subaru felt a phantom pain in his ears, Emilia had a tendency to pinch his ears when he was "misbehaving". Before they could get any more words in, Puck proceeded to vanish while pretending to strangle himself.
Unexpectedly having the rest of their day free, Subaru and Emilia were left with the conundrum of figuring out what to do. Subaru did not feel up to anything particularly strenuous with his leg still healing and the fatigue from his magic practice, but he also didn't particularly feel like leaving Emilia to her thoughts back at the house.
"Subaru didn't you say we should make "snowmen" some time?" Surprisingly Emilia was the one to propose an excuse to stay outside.
"Sure, not sure how much help I'll be today. Let me grab a couple things before we go." Subaru lightly walked off towards the house to grab a scarf and hat.
Before long they were off, at an admittedly slow pace. Tired and on a gimped leg, Subaru hobbled onwards. Emilia kept casting concerned glimpses towards him.
"I'm fine, honestly. I'm not in any more pain than I would be sitting around at home." Subaru reassured, and for the most part it was the truth. Subaru was the type of person who could not sit still and was constantly fidgeting his leg in painful ways, so taking a careful walk honestly wasn't that much worse.
"If you're sure. If it gets too bad I could always carry you." Emilia's tone was colored with genuine worry, in many ways that made it all the worse for Subaru.
"Stop! Stop! I already know that you're the main heroine for this story, but at least let me be the trusty sidekick rather than the damsel in distress!" Subaru cried out in indignity.
"How would you be the damsel when you're a boy?" Emilia's eyebrows were wrinkled in confusion as she tried to parse the meaning of Subaru's odd complaints.
"That's the problem!" Subaru grumped back in response.
"Honestly you can be so sheep-headed sometimes, Subaru." Emilia's face was colored with fond exasperation.
"Sheep-headed? Is that even a word?" Subaru's face scrunched in thought.
"Of course it is!" Emilia's voice rose just a bit in defense.
"Even if it is, I'm pretty sure that no one says that anymore," Subaru couldn't resist taking the shot.
"Sure they do!" Emilia took the bait.
"Really, then when's the last time you heard it?" Subaru challenged.
"Well...Uh...Ok I can't remember, but I'm sure I've heard it plenty." Shortly after they both broke out into light laughter.
"So what is a snowman? All you told me is that we need a relatively flat place and a lot of snow." Subaru's face went a bit sheepish at Emilia's question.
"It's a bit silly you just stack a bunch of big snow balls together and use sticks, buttons and stuff to make arms and a face. It never really snowed enough where I grew up to do all this stuff…" Subaru trailed off a bit a slight blush in his cheeks.
"Oh so this is some game that a lot of kids played in your world?" Emilia cast a knowing glance towards Subaru.
"Yeah. And I'd kind of always wanted to do it at least once when I was younger so…" Subaru trailed off describing a sentiment that had often struck Emilia: the desire to share in the experiences that other people enjoyed.
Before long between their idle chatter Subaru had limped himself to the clearing they often played, far away from the frozen elves to avoid accidentally damaging any of them. But today they were not alone in the clearing.
They arrived to six men with an appearance befitting either mercenaries or bandits on alert seemingly looking for something. They were armed with a mixture of crossbows and shortswords. The one who appeared to be the leader among them had thick brown sideburns that lead into a thick neckbeard. The assortment of facial hair gave off an appearance not unlike a lion's mane. His companions were fairly nondescript, unkempt, and to Emilia's impression bearing a horribly unsettling look in their eyes.
Behind them was a carriage with several cages, drawn by a pair of ground dragons. Inside one of the cages was a cat-eared girl that appeared to be in her late teens. What would have been a rather pretty face was battered and bruised, her vividly green slit eyes blank seemingly unseeing of the world around her. Long, disheveled midnight black hair draped her hunched figure like a ratty and frizzy blanket, unable to conceal rips in her clothes. Subaru and Emilia were not given much time to worry about the caged girl's fate before the men before them took note of their appearance.
"Ah, speak of the devil and she will appear. Exactly where the villagers told me she'd last been seen too." A sadistic glee twisted the vagabond's face.
Subaru prepared to yell in outrage at how the man addressed Emilia, but a firm hand on his shoulder and an exchanged glance with uncharacteristically frosty amethyst eyes just barely stayed his temper.
As his rage faded, what welled up in its place was fear. Emilia was strong, unbelievably so, but would she be okay against 6 armed men? He could barely walk, no matter how he looked at he was a liability. A useless waste of space, like always. Even the hope that perhaps minya could turn things around vanished quickly, afterall he was magically exhausted and somehow he knew that he could at best fire one more useful spell.
"Are you looking for me?" Emilia covered up her distress in a cold, composed facade. Whether the bandits bought it or not was one thing, but Subaru could tell she was bothered by the slightest tells of her fidgeting.
"Looking for ya!? I've been paid to get rid of ya from this forest. They even paid in advance with that beauty over there. We'll be needin' you and that brat of yours considering that my men couldn't keep their hands off the merchandise last night."
Emilia hadn't quite pieced together the situation, but Subaru had. Someone had put a hit out on him and Emilia, and they'd sold the girl in the cage into slavery to get the job done. Even worse it appeared that the mercenaries were very much interested in enslaving both Subaru and Emilia. The only question remaining: how did they know to look here? Had they ever met someone here? As he racked his head a group of people did come to mind, and he couldn't help uttering it under his breath.
"This is where we saved that family…"
Left unspoken was that this is where Emilia had almost lost control of her powers and narrowly avoided harming said family.
"At least this time it's for something I did," Emilia's voice was whisper-quiet, but Subaru could tell that she had reached the same conclusion.
As he met her eyes, rather than guilt or resignation, he saw an icy resolve. Subaru still know many of the details of her recovered memories, but Emilia as she stood now was unyielding. That the source of such strength was because Subaru was with her would remain Emilia's little secret. So many precious people and memories had been taken away from her, she had no intention to let a single one more be robbed from her. Borrowing a bit of her courage, Subaru stilled his trembling legs and finally managed to get what he needed to say out.
"They're slavers Emilia. We need to get away, and if possible we need to get her out too." Subaru's voice had the slightest tremble in it.
Emilia had no idea what a slaver was, but anything that led to someone being kept battered in a cage was clearly a bad thing. The severity of Subaru's tone hardened her resolve. She had been considering carrying Subaru to safety, but if Subaru as terrified as he was couldn't help worrying about the girl in the cage then there was no way she could choose to abandon them.
"All right. I'll fight the six of them. You take the chance and use minya to open the cage and get her away from here." Emilia's tone was unwavering.
"Will you be okay?"
"I will. Just believe in me." Emilia's request was answered, Subaru gave her his full trust with a nod.
"Huma," with her softly chanted incantation an ice projectile rammed into the snow right before where the mercenaries were standing. Knocked off balance and vision obscured by a spray of snow launched by the impact, they stumbled as Emilia launched forward in a dash.
Seeing his chance Subaru broke out into the closest thing to a run his gimped leg was capable of. Despite his frantic, frenzied hobbling Subaru's pace was excruciatingly slow. A set of panicked cries in the distance drew his attention to Emilia's fight.
Emilia had closed in at startling speed. Two of the men fired off crossbow bolts as they fought to regain their footing. Despite the short distance, Emilia snatched them out of the air effortlessly. A few carefully measured strikes later and the two crossbow wielders were knocked to the ground.
The remaining four brandished their shortswords and went in with strikes aimed at Emilia's limbs, but the strikes were blocked by an ice wall formed with an incantationless sweep of Emilia's left hand. She promptly struck out with her right and downed yet another thug.
Two of the three men were momentarily frozen in shock at the sight of a small girl "mercilessly" beating down 3 grown men. The leader, however, was not so easily cowed. He engaged Emilia with vicious sword strikes. His lacking technique and thoughtless furiosity made each swing broad and well telegraphed. Emilia effortlessly weaved through the strikes with an astounding economy of motion. Once sufficiently within the swordsman's guard, a swift chop to the neck brought him down.
Right as Emilia turned to face the remaining two mercenaries Subaru had finally reached the cage. Grimacing in pain, Subaru shook himself out of it. The sooner he finished the sooner he and Emilia could get out of this situation. Although considering four of the six were already down, perhaps he was worried about nothing. Emilia could be seriously scary sometimes.
"Oi, I'm going to break you out. Get ready to run away with me." Subaru called out to the girl in the cage.
He received no verbal response. All Subaru received as an answer was a surprised widening of her eyes.
"Minya," with a small arrow of darkness the lock on the cage was cut off and the door was now open.
As Subaru set her free rather than the relief or continued indifference Subaru had expected, the girl's face was colored by utter panic. Before Subaru could utter a word, he was roughly yanked back by his arm and a sword put to his throat.
"You. Witch over there, one more move and I kill this brat!" With that shout Emilia was brought to a halt.
"Subaru!"
They had made a fatal mistake, they had assumed that the six men they had seen were all the opposition they were facing, but the total had been seven. There was a seventh man keeping guard over the carriage.
The leader of the group pulled himself back up to his feet, laughing raucously as he righted himself, "The information from our client was perfect!"
"He knew where you'd be, and that the brat that follows the witch around would try n' play hero. He was even right that taking the brat hostage would take care of you."
It had been a setup the whole time. This group had been hired to deal with Emilia because of her power, obviously they'd never been expecting to beat her in combat. They'd been banking on the fact that Subaru would try and rescue the girl in the cage, just like he'd tried to move the family away from the mabeast. When she'd lost control, they'd seen that she hadn't hurt Subaru. They'd even seen him hold her hand as they left the village that one day. From those two observations this plan had been born.
Emilia clenched her hands in genuine anger for the first time in a long time. To hurt Subaru to get at her, once again the people close to her were getting hurt because of her. The scene overlapped with Fortuna being murdered on Pandora's order just so she would open the seal.
Before Emilia could take any action, "Not one move," the vagabond next to her ordered. "If you do anything at all, the kid's head is coming off."
Tears in her eyes, Emilia stood still, trembling. Her mind was racing, but try as she might she couldn't figure out what to do.
"Now that's a better face for a freak like you. Us humans won the war, so it's our right to do as we please with you creatures." The leader's face was twisted in sadistic glee as he basked in his triumph.
"You and that brat still have a bit too much fight in your eyes for my taste," his pondering seemed to spark an idea. "Hey, one of you two get over there and rough the kid up. Make sure someone keeps a sword on him at all times. I'd like to keep the witch in good condition, but the boy isn't worth that much."
Having received his orders one of the two mercenaries, who had just moments before cowered before Emilia's overwhelming might, began walking towards Subaru. Subaru couldn't bring himself to do anything but tremble in fear. If he moved, he might die. If he screamed, he might die. As the mercenary finally reached where Subaru was, he drove a vicious kick into Subaru's gut that doubled him over as he expelled a breathless gasp. Subaru collapsed so quickly that he was almost killed by the sword at his throat. Despite the sword being pulled from his throat a shallow cut was made.
As Subaru collapsed into a tripod position, another kick snuck in underneath him and struck again. A couple of dry heaves wracked Subaru's body before he vomited on the snow.
Emilia unconsciously turned her head away from the sight, before her head was viciously yanked upwards by her silver hair. Her face was pointed towards Subaru as he was beat brutally.
"Enough of that. Go get the whip from the carriage." With the order given the other mercenary near Emilia went off to go procure said item.
While the whip was being brought the other mercenary got a few more strikes in before backing off. The reprieve lasted mere seconds before a deafening crack rang out. A heart-rending cry followed and Emilia barely held back the urge to vomit.
The whip cracked again. Subaru cried out in agony again. This cycle repeated itself ten times, each time feeling like a knife being driven into Emilia's heart. Subaru's voice had been driven raw and what were once wails of agony, were now screetchy, agonized rasps.
"Please stop! Please!" Emilia begged at the top of her lungs.
The flagellation, of course, did not stop. The vicious strikes had ripped through Subaru's coat and exposed bloody torn flesh.
"If you want this to stop," a gleeful voice rasped in Emilia's ears, "you'll be a good girl and get in the cage."
A silent nod later and Emilia let herself be led to the cages by harsh tugs on her hair. Seeing the movement, Subaru was granted a reprieve. Subaru managed to lift his head and with tear blotted vision, noticed Emilia acquiescing to the slavers' demands.
"No, Emilia don't," Subaru managed to squeak out from his mangled vocal cords.
"The fuck is with this kid," and with a mixture of shock and disgust the mercenary who had been whipping Subari kicked him in the right side of his chest with enough force that Subaru landed on his back, having flipped around in the air. The pain shooting from his whipped back tore another scream from his throat.
"Seriously, he's so scared he pissed himself, his back is ripped to pieces and he's still got all that fight in his eyes." The only answer that Subaru could give was an agonized cough that brought up blood.
It was that sight that froze Emilia in her tracks. Even as she was cooperating, they were still hurting Subaru. At this rate they might kill him. He might even be dying, Emilia was pretty sure that coughing up blood was not a good sign.
Mind made up, Emilia went into action. She fired off a huma after thrusting forth her hand, with but a second's hesitation. But that one second was of crucial importance. Shocked by Emilia's sudden hostility the swordsman holding Subaru hostage slit his throat. Eyes wide, Subaru desperately pressed his hands to his throat as blood poured out unrelentingly.
Gripped by panic Emilia turned and punched the assailant yanking her by her hair with such force that his jaw was shattered. The fragments were launched as shrapnel ripping holes in the other side of his face as they were flew into the snow-covered forest. Had Emilia taken a second to look back she would have noticed that the destruction had spread upwards from the point of impact. The shattering had extended all the way up to the orbit of the slaver's right eye, ejecting it from his skull and leaving to dangle about by the very nerves connecting it to the brain.
Emilia, however, did not waste a single second looking back and rushed at near untraceable speeds to Subaru's side. With a wave of her hand a barrage of icicles impaled Subaru's assailants, ripping holes through them and shredding their bodies such that their forms could no longer be distinguished amidst the bloody, red pulp they had become. Subaru and Emilia were both drenched in blood scattered about by Emilia's carnage.
Grasping desperately on to Subaru, Emilia frantically tried to heal the gash on his neck. Panicked as she was, she didn't have the focus to call on the water mana surrounding her to properly heal Subaru. And even if she had, it would have been too late.
"Sorry...not your fault." Subaru's hoarse voice weakly called out to Emilia.
"Don't. You'll be fine, I'll fix it." The desperation in Emilia's voice made what she meant to be reassurance sound more like powerless pleading.
Subaru grew cold in Emilia's arms, as once again someone dear to her bled out before her eyes. Earth shattering sobs shook Emilia's body as she rocked back and forth hopelessly cradling Subaru's body.
In short order the rise and fall of Subaru's chest stopped. Natsuki Subaru had died.
Or so Subaru and Emilia thought, a bizarre sensation later and Subaru found himself coughing up blood again. Subaru's defiant eyes were now clouded with bewilderment
Emilia, her head fuzzy, slowly outstretched her hand in confused bewilderment as she took her bearings. Subaru was alive? Shaking off the shock of reliving the moment over, Emilia began to prepare to cast magic and once again Subaru's throat was slit in a panicked response. All of this happening so quickly Emilia couldn't help but feel even more dazed.
Emilia fell to her knees. Just what was happening? That question and her inability to save Subaru brought her to hysteric tears. Subaru was dying again because of her.
Forcing herself to her legs, Emilia prepared to make another attempt at healing Subaru. As she made her first step, a bizarre sensation overcame her again. Subaru had died once more.
Once more she bore witness to the sight of Subaru coughing up blood. This time Emilia didn't move a finger. Her grief stricken eyes hardened with icy willpower. Glacial fury coursing through her veins, Emilia willingly called upon a magic that had long terrified her. As Emilia blinked her eyes the only images greeting her in the darkness were the images of Pandora smiling beatifically as her mom died and Subaru's throat being slit again.
In a voice so soft it might be confused as a turn of the wind Emilia uttered, "Die."
At her mind's urging an ice flower bloomed bountifully in the three mercenaries nearest Subaru. In a profusion of icy flower petals their bodies were ripped asunder and a crimson shower incarnadined Subaru and the snow around him.
Once more like a frozen goddess of death she ordained, "Die."
An ice sword forming in her hand she spun rapidly, and with a horizontal swipe cleanly bisected the man restraining her by her hair. A spray of blood stained patches of her silver hair and left drops running down her porcelain face. As he died her victim would swear that her once soft eyes were now piercing through straight to his soul as she reaped it.
On high alert she carefully made her way over to Subaru, she refused to let a single missed mercenary so much as disturb a single hair on his head. Subaru had died twice because of her mistakes; there would not be a third time.
As she gazed down at Subaru's wounded form her glacial eyes melted. Subaru's eyes were glassy, but as she came in to view his trembling slowed. Kneeling down she gently picked Subaru up cradling him to her with the utmost tenderness.
With the little freedom of motion left in his body he pressed his head into her shoulder and cried his heart out. There were no words, no pleas, he simply cried. She wanted to offer some words of comfort, but she couldn't get a single one out. Both arms occupied she couldn't even hold his hand or stroke his hair. Tears pouring down her cheeks she gave him a gentle squeeze, the only reassurance she could bring forth at the moment.
Taking notice of the cat-eared girl trembling nearby she offered the most sympathetic expression she could. Sadly her efforts merely blunted the impact of the frightening visage she had become.
"If you need a place to stay tonight, you can follow me," Emilia managed to squeeze out between sobs.
Wordlessly the girl followed as Emilia carefully hauled Subaru home. The rages of her unleashed magic leaving a raging blizzard in her wake. The people that she had knocked out early in the fight would be buried in snow and freeze to death. Such thoughts were far from Emilia's mind, however. Most important was that Subaru was in her arms, alive. His breathing was steady. He would be okay. That was all that mattered.
Afterword
Sorry about the delay this was a monster of a chapter to write, with real life being a thing at the same time. I'm releasing this content a bit raw and fresh off the presses so I hope that there aren't too many typos. I still feel that this scene feels a bit rushed, but I feel it's better to get it out and get feedback than to take the few days distance it would take to get that perspective. Perhaps I ought to look in to getting a beta reader.
This scene has shifted quite a bit from what I originally envisioned as I ironed out the story. Initially I had planned to save the first return by death for another moment. The original plan was for one of the people left alive to get a sneak shot in on Emilia that Subaru would intercept and almost die from after infection set in with the proceedings being more or less similar to hyouketsu no kizuna. Thinking about the changes in the timeline and where I wanted to go thematically led to this scene.
Surprisingly the worst part to write was actually Puck's magic instruction at least in time consumption wise. I'm drawing some inspiration from the latest WN chapters as far as how I want to develop Subaru and Emilia, particularly in the possibilities being able to use magic and spiritual arts together opens up. Subaru can't become a powerhouse in the sense that it carries in the rezero world, but that doesn't mean he can't become accomplished and develop impactful abilities.
The aftermath of this event will also be where the story must confront the reality of Subaru and Emilia's current level of maturity, we now reach the turning point for Emilia's first heroine transformation, and the beginning of a major growth point for both characters.
