Subaru opened his eyes to find himself in Roswaal's mansion.
This time, the first thing he saw wasn't the dull gray of cold stone floors—but the elegant, shimmering chandelier above. Crystal and gold glistened together as sunlight refracted through the panes, scattering gentle warmth across the room. Light spilled softly across the ceiling, blurring the line between reality and dream. But no… this wasn't a dream. It was real. A reality that burned, ached, and remembered. The scent of antiseptic clung to the air, mingled with the faint aroma of old wood and lavender oil. This place was meant for healing, and yet, the memories it stirred in him were anything but gentle.
He tried to sit up, but the pain rooted deep in his body forced him back down. It wasn't just pain—it was as if every inch of his being had been carved and stitched back together. His muscles felt shredded, his bones like shattered glass. He glanced at his body—and winced. His left shoulder was completely wrapped in bandages, so tight he could almost feel the wound beneath threatening to reopen. A thin cut ran under his left eye… but beyond that, his body was a map of Elsa's souvenirs. Deep. Silent. Bloody. Like an artist had used him as a canvas and left only pain behind.
"Well… better than being dead," he thought, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. He was alive. That counted as a win, right? Even if it felt like a hollow one. Even if every breath reminded him of how close he'd come to being erased.
The room was familiar. One of the chambers he'd woken in after first meeting Emilia. The wallpaper, a faded pastel blue, the wooden dresser with brass handles, the velvet curtains gently swaying with the breeze—all of it was the same. Memories… bittersweet, yet warm. Strong enough to make a man smile, even after death.
Gritting his teeth, he tried gathering mana in his veins, hoping to dull the pain. A soft glow lit up beneath his skin. Just a flicker of energy—but it was enough to make him feel less powerless. But he'd miscalculated. The wound on his left shoulder flared in protest, as if sneering, "Don't forget me." Subaru held his breath, fingers digging into the bandages. A scream clawed up his throat—but he swallowed it. This pain… this terrible, familiar pain—it proved he was still alive. And strangely, that alone was a comfort. A cruel kind of comfort.
The door creaked open. A graceful woman stepped inside, her short blue hair veiling one eye. Her movements were precise, elegant, almost too controlled. Her silence, her poise—for just a moment, it hushed the agony in the room.
Rem.
Subaru's gaze locked onto her. His chest tightened. His breath hitched. He'd seen her. Countless times. In death. In the Whale's darkness… in the Archbishop's madness… in Puck's frozen apocalypse… With each loop, he'd lost something. But losing her—that had carved the deepest scars. She wasn't just another face in his journey. She was a constant in the chaos. A guardian. A punishment. A miracle.
"Rem..." The name slipped from Subaru's lips like a breath. Soft. Almost reverent.
Memories flooded his vision like scenes from a film. There had been times she killed him. Cruel, painful times... and yet, here she stood before him now. Alive. Breathing. That reality alone filled a hollow space inside him. He had missed her—so, so much. It was strange how pain could live side by side with longing.
Rem's voice pulled him back to the present.
"Subaru-sama... your wounds..."
Her voice was quiet, unreadable. Subaru blinked, struggling to ground himself in the here and now. He forced his voice steady, though it came out hoarse with exhaustion.
"Ah, hello. Mind telling me where I am?"
Rem retrieved fresh bandages from a drawer as she answered.
"You are in the mansion of Lord Roswaal, ruler of these lands. Lady Emilia requested you be brought here."
Emilia... Her name sparked warmth in his chest. A flicker of light amid the murk of his pain. She had saved him again. Like a miracle.
"Thank you for your help. I'm Natsuki Subaru. May I ask your name?" He kept his tone deliberately gentle, trying to disarm the tension.
"You may call me Rem."
Her expression didn't change. Cold. Stern. Not cruel—just cautious. Subaru knew that look all too well. Even unspoken, the scent clinging to him—the stench of the Witch—weighed heavily between them. Rem sensed it. That cursed miasma shaped her every thought about him. It wasn't personal, not yet. But it was dangerous. He chose his words carefully. In this world, first impressions could be deadly.
Rem said nothing more as she began changing his bandages. Her hands were deft, methodical, as if she'd done this a thousand times. But every touch sent agony searing through him. His nerves screamed, his vision blurred.
The wound ran deep—so deep each press of the gauze might as well have been another dagger. Fresh blood bloomed across the clean wrappings. Subaru didn't complain. He swallowed hard. He'd learned to endure. Not because he was strong, but because he had no other choice.
The silence between them was heavy. Not hostile, but not warm either. Just… waiting. Subaru wanted to say something—to bridge the gap—but words felt brittle in his mouth. So he endured.
When she finished, Rem gave a slight bow and left, heavy silence trailing behind her.
Subaru felt his eyelids grow leaden. Blood loss and exhaustion dragged him under, pulling him toward darkness. But it was a peaceful darkness, for once. Not the kind that ended in screaming.
"Beako's probably hiding behind some books," he mused. That strange, small girl—her presence always steadied him. Like a lighthouse in the fog. Even when she was angry, even when she pushed him away—she was still there. Reliable. Predictable.
He made a silent vow to seek her out soon. Maybe he'd missed her a little too.
He closed his eyes. As sleep took him, he dreamed of waking to less pain. Of waking to kindness. Of waking to a world where he didn't always have to start over from zero.
A few hours later, while Subaru still lay in deep, fevered slumber, the heavy wooden door to his room creaked open. Three figures entered—Roswaal, Beatrice, and Puck—their footsteps muffled by the thick rug beneath them. The room was dim, lit only by the fading glow of enchanted lanterns. Shadows flickered against the walls, dancing to the rhythm of the soft, uneven breaths of the boy in the bed.
Puck floated closer, his usual mischievous sparkle absent. Instead, his face bore a rare, grave urgency. The little spirit's fur bristled, his tail flicking nervously in the charged air.
"Beatrice, I have a bad feeling about this. I need you to examine this Subaru fellow's body. Please," he implored, voice tight with concern.
Roswaal, ever the provocateur, tilted his head with a silky, mocking lilt. His smile was as sharp as a blade, eyes gleaming with curiosity.
"My, my~ What could possibly rattle the great spirit Puck so~? Surely the boy's plight is no grave matter for one such as you~?"
Puck exhaled sharply, the tension in the room thickening. His usual playfulness was nowhere to be found.
"Subaru reeks of the Witch's miasma. The scent is suffocating, stronger than anything I've sensed in centuries. He might be a member of the Witch Cult—possibly even an Archbishop. But even I can't discern the truth as well as you can, Beatrice. Please." His voice cracked slightly at the last word.
Beatrice frowned, her expression hardening. She stared at Subaru, her golden eyes narrowing in deep contemplation. A long silence stretched, every second hanging heavy in the air, punctuated only by the rhythmic ticking of a distant clock.
"Betty's Bubby is right, I suppose," she murmured at last, her voice barely above a whisper. "This human is saturated with the Witch's scent. Betty will investigate."
With deliberate precision, Beatrice stepped closer and placed her small hand over Subaru's heart. His eyes remained closed, his breathing shallow, but his pulse—his pulse spoke volumes. Magic gathered at Beatrice's fingertips, a faint glow suffusing her palm. Her expression grew more solemn with every passing moment.
Minutes passed in tense silence. The air grew thick with anticipation. Then Beatrice's voice cut through the quiet, sharp as a blade. "This human… cannot be a Witch Cultist or an Archbishop, in fact."
Roswaal's painted smile twitched, curiosity gleaming in his mismatched eyes.
"Then what is he, I wonder~?"
Beatrice stepped toward Puck, her expression unreadable, as if weighing knowledge too dangerous to share.
"He is merely cursed, I suppose. A curse Betty cannot fully comprehend—one that harms only himself. It coils around his soul, a binding unlike any I have seen. It is old... ancient even, older than this era's curses."
Puck's fur bristled further, his tail swishing anxiously.
"Can a mere curse emit this much miasma, Betty? This scent... it's unnatural. It feels alive. Malevolent."
Beatrice was already moving toward the door, her steps brisk, her face a mask of disdain.
"Betty does not know the details, in fact. Only this: there is no need for concern. The curse will devour him one day. Until then, he should stay away from Betty. He smells… quite foul. Unbearably so."
Her words fell like a guillotine—cold, final, leaving no room for argument.
The door slammed shut behind her with a resonant thud, leaving the room cloaked in stunned silence. Moments later, a streak of light—Puck's true form—zipped after her.
"Betty, wait!" he called, his voice frayed with unease, torn between staying and following.
Now alone, Roswaal remained by Subaru's bedside. His mismatched eyes glinted in the dim light, the smile on his painted lips fading.
"How~ intriguing," he murmured.
Roswaal's all-too-familiar, irritating smile vanished entirely. Behind his theatrical mask, his true thoughts remained inscrutable—but one thing was clear: something had deviated from his carefully laid calculations.
With heavy, deliberate steps, he approached Subaru's unconscious form. His gaze bore into the boy as if attempting to peel back the layers of his very existence.
Subaru's breathing was even, his expression unnervingly peaceful, but Roswaal's stare held more than curiosity—it brimmed with suspicion, calculation, and a trace of something else: fear.
"According to the Gospel's prophecy... you weren't supposed to be like this," he murmured, voice dripping with theatrical melancholy. "Who stands behind you, Natsuki Subaru~? What hand guides your thread through the loom of fate?"
His jeweled fingers trembled slightly as he retrieved the ancient, yellowed Gospel from his inner pocket—the very one Echidna, the Witch of Greed, had bestowed upon him with such delight. He caressed the brittle cover for a moment before flipping through its cryptic pages.
As he read, the room seemed to grow colder. The more he compared the Gospel's words to the reality before him, the wider the discrepancies became. Events unrecorded, outcomes unpredicted. No matter how intently he studied the text, the answers eluded him.
He lingered on passages detailing Subaru's early days in this world, threads that had once matched perfectly. But now, those threads frayed and split, branching into uncharted paths. The more he traced them, the more tangled they became.
"For centuries... I have believed myself the weaver of destiny's threads," he whispered. "But now... some unseen hand unravels my tapestry."
His eyes darkened as he traced a trembling finger over a passage that should have foretold Subaru's death. Instead, the boy lived, stubbornly defying the script.
"...Things that shouldn't be happening are happening," he mused, his voice low and bitter. "A crack in the grand design—a flaw I did not foresee. And you... you are the epicenter of this disturbance."
Finally, he exhaled dramatically, his smile returning—but now it was colder, sharper.
"No matter~! Whatever you are, whoever aids you... you shall become the most wonderful, indispensable pawn in my grand design, Natsuki Subaru~"
His words flowed like poisoned honey, though his gaze remained glacial. With exaggerated grace, he extended a hand over Subaru's body, casting a healing spell. Magic shimmered from his fingertips, the gentle glow seeping into Subaru's battered form. Some tension left the boy's sleeping features.
Yet even as he healed, Roswaal leaned in closer, voice now a whisper only the walls could hear.
"You will dance for me, boy. Again and again, across loops and lives, until I carve my perfect future from your pain. Let us see how many times you can defy the inevitable~."
With a final, calculating glance, Roswaal swept from the room, his mind already spinning with new possibilities, recalculating futures that had once seemed immutable.
Yet in that moment, something stirred unnoticed. Subaru's shadow trembled—then moved, subtly, like a heartbeat beneath the surface.
The darkness rippled faintly, alive and watching, as Flugel, who had been silently observing all three visitors for nearly an hour, allowed his presence to slip from behind the veil. No wind stirred, yet the room grew colder.
"A pawn, Roswaal~?" The voice that slithered through the space was steeped in icy mockery, a melody of malice. "How delightful~ I do so want to see you try. Tell me... are you truly clever enough to outplay me~?"
The whisper lingered like frostbite on the edge of a blade, sharp and lingering, before dissolving into the hush of the room. A cold chuckle followed, barely audible—a sound like ice cracking underfoot. Subaru's shadow stilled once more, the tremor fading as if nothing had happened. The darkness within him retreated like a breath drawn back into lungs that had never belonged to him.
And so...
Hours later, Subaru awoke—refreshed, unaware, and perfectly placed between two unseen giants playing a game with lives.
His wounds had nearly healed. The scars of combat were fading, but not forgotten. His body was free from the torment of the past few days—but weariness clung to him like smoke after fire, stubborn and suffocating.
"Guess Roswaal... is good for something after all," he murmured, voice dry. A bitter joke for an empty room.
He stared at the ceiling. It was ornate, familiar, but somehow distant. His breaths were slow, deliberate, each one a reassurance that he still existed in this fragile present.
...He was alive. For now.
Sunlight crept in, slow and golden, stretching like gentle fingers across the wooden floorboards. The faint scent of old wood and healing herbs lingered in the room.
Then he saw her.
Emilia.
She was asleep beside him, silver hair catching the morning light, face turned gently toward his. Her lashes fluttered slightly, a rare moment of true peace written across her features. She must have stayed up with him. Her body, curled slightly, suggested she hadn't planned to fall asleep—only that she had lost the fight against exhaustion.
For a time, Subaru watched her. The chaos in his mind dulled. His heart softened. Then it grew heavy. So, so heavy.
He had to protect her. From everything. From the world, from destiny, from himself.
He moved slowly, carefully. Slipping from bed, he caught her without waking her. He laid her where he had just been, tucking the blankets around her like armor. A featherlight kiss to her forehead followed, a silent promise whispered without breath.
He turned away before his emotions could anchor him again.
The door clicked shut behind him, a sound that felt strangely final. His limbs ached, muscles stiff from stillness, but his mind—it felt clearer. Sharper. Haunted, but focused.
"A walk... might do me good," he muttered, stepping forward.
The rear garden of the mansion opened before him like a painting, cloaked in autumn's deep breath. Trees cloaked in fire-colored leaves swayed gently. The air carried a sharp crispness, biting yet invigorating. The world seemed... paused, held in a quiet moment.
And for a while, he let it hold him.
Then, in an instant, that calm was shattered. A tremor in the air. A shift in presence.
Subaru barely had time to react. Instinct screamed. His body responded.
He lunged sideways.
CRACK!
The tree he'd just been admiring detonated into a thousand wooden fragments. Bark, leaves, and splinters filled the air.
"A morningstar... Rem's weapon—"
A jolt of terror lanced through him. Cold and sharp. Every nerve fired at once.
Run.
But He didn't. Blades formed in his hands. Mana surged, raw and violent, through his veins. His stance shifted. He scanned the garden.
There. Rem.
Her form was a blur of motion. Her horn glowed with ethereal fury. Her smile—a crescent moon, drenched in bloodlust.
The chain in her hands shrieked through the air, aiming to end him.
[Mana Blade – Active]
Subaru met her. Steel clashed with steel in a blast of violent light. The garden trembled.
They were thrown apart.
Rem's morningstar tore into the wall of the mansion, embedding with brutal force. Subaru's blades disintegrated, mana-stained fragments raining around him.
Smoke. Silence. Shock.
Subaru staggered. "Ah... now I'm in real trouble," he said aloud. Half-sarcasm, half-resignation. Within seconds, the garden was no longer empty.
Emilia burst out of the doorway, hair fluttering like silver ribbons. Puck shimmered into existence beside her. Ram appeared, her expression frozen. Beatrice floated in with narrowed eyes. Roswaal leaned in the doorway, half-lidded eyes betraying a flicker of amusement.
Time itself held its breath.
Ram moved first. Her eyes locked on Rem's horn, her hands clenched. She strode forward with the weight of a coming storm.
Emilia ran to Subaru, frantic. "Subaru?! Are you hurt? Gods, are you bleeding? Did she—? Let me see! I need to—"
He raised a hand gently to calm her. Puck remained silent, his tail flicking once as his sharp eyes tracked every motion.
Beatrice crossed her arms, her voice barely a whisper: "So... it begins, I suppose, I do."
Roswaal, as always, watched like a playwright relishing the first act.
Then came the blade: Ram's voice. "Subaru-sama. Care to explain why you're exchanging blows with my sister?"
Subaru turned toward her, lips drawn in a thin line. There was no anger. Only weariness. "Maybe you can ask your dear sister... why she tried to take my head off."
A long silence.
Emilia hovered protectively by his side. Her eyes moved from the splintered tree, to the crater in the wall, then back to his ruined blades.
"Subaru... what's going on?"
He shook his head. "I don't know yet. But something's changed."
Then, almost as an afterthought, with a smile both deflective and disarming:
"Oh no, Tella-tan. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm as fit as a fiddle."
He wasn't. Not really. Not inside. But for her sake, he'd pretend a little longer.
Emilia realized, with a faint flutter in her chest, that she had never even told Subaru her name.
The realization struck her with a strange, aching weight, as if she'd overlooked something essential in the whirlwind of chaos they'd endured. Now, with the world momentarily still, that omission echoed inside her. Her breath caught as another quiet question arose—why had she woken up in Subaru's bed? The thought wasn't accusatory, but tinged with a soft bewilderment. She looked at him, then away, then back again, searching for something familiar in his expression.
There was a tension between them—fragile, unspoken, yet palpable as static before a storm.
Her violet eyes traced the contours of his face—bruised by exhaustion, ghostly pale, but softened by sleep. There was something vulnerable there, something that pulled at her heart. His lips parted slightly, as if to speak, but no sound came.
He only nodded.
The gesture was simple, but it carried the weight of a hundred unsaid things. Emilia felt a pang of frustration—at herself, at the silence. When they were finally alone again, she knew this quiet wouldn't hold. It would crack. It had to.
They needed to talk. They both knew it.
(This conversation wasn't over. It had merely retreated.)
Then, without warning, the fragile moment shattered.
Rem stepped forward, eyes blazing with something dangerously close to panic. Her voice trembled, but not from fear. It was conviction. Absolute. Piercing. "Onee-sama! You smell it too—that stench! He's a Witch Cultist!"
The accusation detonated in the garden. The wind seemed to choke, birds fell silent, and the vibrant colors of the morning dulled to grey. Even the sunlight dimmed beneath the weight of her words.
Roswaal's voice broke the silence like a sour melody, smooth and theatrical: "Now now, Rem~ Subaru-kun isn't a cultist. Merely... cursed."
Emilia spun to face him, her expression hardening. "Cursed?" she repeated, each syllable cold and cutting. "Explain. Now."
Roswaal, never one to waste a performance, gave a slow, sweeping bow. When he rose, his painted smile was colder than the frost that sometimes coated his words.
"Your beloved savior carries a curse, Emilia-sama. A burden most dreadful. One that may one day... unravel him entirely."
The air turned to lead.
For a suspended moment, they all froze. Emilia's breath stilled. Rem's posture stiffened. Subaru—he just stood there, the accusation ringing in his skull. The garden, once warm and quiet, felt like a stage beneath a collapsing sky.
Rem faltered. Her fingers trembled as they clutched at her skirt. She bowed her head ever so slightly, uncertainty seeping into her rigid frame. "Perhaps... I was wrong..."
It wasn't an apology. Not yet. But it was the first tremor in the wall she had built around her beliefs. Her gaze slid toward Subaru, not with trust, but with doubt that could one day become understanding.
Emilia let out a shaky breath. Her heart thudded like a war drum. Guilt pooled in her eyes.
His suffering... somehow it always circles back to me.
Subaru didn't move.
The words around him blurred into noise. Their voices—Rem's fury, Emilia's shock, Roswaal's coldness—they all melted into a distant hum. One thought beat like a war drum in his head:
"Will this power make me stronger... or break me apart piece by piece?"
The fear didn't scream anymore. It whispered. Whispered in the dark corners of his mind, coiled beneath his ribs. Heavy. Inescapable.
Then Roswaal spoke again, his voice now silk hiding razors: "A curse that will lead to his death."
Rem's grip tightened until her knuckles turned bone-white. Her lips parted, then pressed shut again. Her thoughts were unreadable—but she was clearly thinking.
Is he dangerous? Or is he something I don't understand yet?
Emilia stepped forward, her voice laced with desperation.
"Beatrice... is this true?" Beatrice didn't flinch. She crossed her arms, her expression as cold as her tone:
"There exists a corrupted flow within his body, I suppose. Its nature is persistent, its origin unknown. But each use makes it stronger... or worse. If not a curse, then what else?"
Subaru looked up, meeting her eyes.
But there was no sympathy in Beatrice's gaze. Only calculation. He was a riddle to her. A puzzle piece stuck in the wrong box.
He had known, of course. Known that death was always around him. But never had he realized that this—his return, his curse—was the reaper.
(Later. He would ask Flugel. There had to be an answer.)
Roswaal's smile widened with something almost like pity.
"It's not fatal yet~ But risk grows with ignorance. And Subaru-kuuuuun... is still very ignorant."
Subaru stared at the floor. His shoulders sagged beneath invisible weight. They were all looking at him now—Emilia, Rem, Beatrice, Roswaal. Not one gaze held warmth. They measured him. Judged him. Tried to make sense of him.
And in that moment, the truth carved itself into him:
He was alone. Truly, deeply alone in this world. He stood.
Didn't speak.
No one stopped him as he turned and walked toward the door. Not a whisper followed. No footsteps tried to catch up.
The garden outside looked the same—but felt hollow.
The flowers drooped as if mourning. The sky was too blue, almost mocking. His boots echoed sharply against stone until even the silence abandoned him.
He walked until he reached the far edge of the garden. His hands clenched at his sides. His throat burned.
He tilted his head back, staring at the sky through eyes heavy with everything he couldn't say.
"What am I even doing here...?"
No voice answered. Only the wind. Only the cold. Only the quiet.
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I want to leave a small question at the end of the chapter:
Would you like me to softly introduce a harem theme in the upcoming chapters?
Of course, it would be handled carefully without disrupting the main emotions or character development —keeping everything natural and meaningful.
Please don't hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments!
Your feedback can make this story even more special!
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