The sun was barely rising over the Mathers estate, stretching its first pale rays across the cold stones of the mansion. On one of the balconies overlooking the still-misty gardens, Kurisu stood motionless, an enigmatic and satisfied smile floating on his lips. He closed his eyes, savoring the morning breeze with an almost divine serenity, draped in the natural arrogance of the one whose body he occupied.
« Ahh, finally... we don't need one more death... normally. I've already done everything so that he is resolved to save them without hating them for it. Between the clue about the curse and my little heroic intervention yesterday, I've done the heavy lifting for him. Pff, I really am too lenient with him... »
He let out a muffled little laugh. He knew that in a few seconds, in a room not far from there, the gears of fate were going to click into place for what was to be the final loop of this arc. He remained there, like a privileged spectator watching his actors take their places before the curtain call.
Inside the mansion, the muffled silence of dawn was abruptly shattered.
Subaru: « AAAHHH! »
The boy woke up with a start, his body lunging forward as if he were trying to escape an invisible and deadly impact. His hands frantically sought his right leg, expecting to plunge into a pool of warm blood and find only a mutilated stump.
But his trembling fingers met only the soft fabric of his pajamas and intact flesh. His breathing was nothing but an erratic whistle, and a cold sweat flooded his feverish forehead. The phantom pain of the amputation still radiated in his nerves.
Ram: « What a pitiful awakening, dear guest, did you see your own abominable face in a dream? »
Rem: « Dear guest, is everything alright? It would seem you had a restless nightmare... »
Hearing that voice — that same voice he had heard a few minutes earlier, cold, metallic, and devoid of all pity —, Subaru felt his blood freeze in his veins. Lifting his eyes toward Rem, standing near the bed with her impeccable uniform and her soft expression, a spasm of pure terror ran down his spine.
For a fraction of a second, reality wavered. He did not see the devoted servant, but the hysterical demon, eyes bloodshot, brandishing a devastating flail ready to crush his skull.
Nausea rose in his throat. He jerked back against the headboard, nearly falling over, short of breath.
Subaru (in thought): « Calm down... Breathe, damn it... It's not her. Well, yes, it is her, but... she hasn't done it yet. Kurisu said it was my damn scent... and his, that was driving her crazy. She's just terrified... like me. »
He closed his eyes for a second, forcing his fear-atrophied muscles to relax, although his hands still shook uncontrollably on the sheets. He reopened his eyes and fixed them on Rem. Not with the blind hatred of a victim, but with a profound sadness and renewed determination.
He now knew that she was not the true culprit of his past suffering; she was only a soul broken by her own traumas, a time bomb that Kurisu's toxic and crushing influence threatened to detonate.
Subaru: « Sorry... I just... I had a dream that was a bit too realistic. »
he said in a raspy voice, forcing himself to draw a reassuring smile.
He decided to play his best card: sincerity and hard work. He strove to be irreproachable, ignoring the dull, psychological pain that sometimes throbbed in his leg, and carefully avoiding Kurisu's gaze, which he sensed was fixed upon him, lurking somewhere in the shadows of the mansion.
Thus, the long-awaited moment arrived. Subaru found himself alone with Emilia in the outdoor gardens. The half-elf was observing a flowerbed, her delicate profile bathed in the soft and reassuring light of the morning.
It was the moment of calm before the storm. Subaru felt the weight of his secret crushing his chest, a load heavier than any steel chain.
« Kurisu's clue.... »
"Try to talk about your power, something interesting will happen".
« This is madness. I've already almost gone crazy on my own. But... if I tell her, maybe she'll believe me? Maybe she can help me? That guy... that monster, he wouldn't have told me that just to kill me, would he? He wants a show. If I confide in her, it will change the scenario... I don't want to carry this alone anymore. »
Anguish knotted his stomach, but his desperate desire to share his burden outweighed caution. He took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on Emilia's back. His hands clenched until his knuckles turned white.
Subaru: « Emilia... I have something important to tell you. Really important. »
The young woman turned around, surprised by the tone of absolute and solemn gravity that Subaru wore. Puck, who had materialized shortly before, continued to float near her shoulder with a suddenly intrigued expression, his small whiskers twitching in the air.
Emilia: « Of course Subaru, what is it? You look so serious all of a sudden, you almost scare me. »
Puck: « Hmm, I feel a strange tension in you, Subaru… it must be very important… »
Subaru grit his teeth. His heart hammered against his ribs. He was going to do it. He was going to break the ultimate taboo.
Subaru: « Emilia... listen to me carefully. The truth is, I can return by... »
He didn't have time to finish his sentence.
Suddenly, the world plunged into an absolute nightmare. The vibrant colors of the garden violently inverted, turning to a cindery gray and an abyssal black. The wind stopped dead. The birdsong was swallowed by the void.
Time itself had just frozen in an absolute stasis, of a terrifying density, infinitely heavier and more oppressive than the small temporal manipulation caused by Kurisu in the previous loop.
On his balcony, Kurisu was taken aback. He tried to raise his hand to adjust a lock of his white hair, but his arm remained blocked, frozen in space by a force of crushing magnitude that totally transcended his own will.
« What... ? My body refuses to move? Frozen by a simple anomaly? Kekeke! So he really did it... This fool dared to defy the forbidden. But… this sensation... »
A sting of sincere annoyance, a wounded pride typical of the former Archbishop of Greed, scratched at his ego.
« That cursed Witch of Envy... Even being outside of her miserable scenario, I am still subject to her fundamental laws? Tch... Too bad. I can't even move an eyelash to applaud. But... what a fascinating spectacle. »
He swallowed his frustration, a prisoner of his own immobile body, and contented himself with observing with morbid fascination the aura of unholy darkness that was materializing in the garden below.
On Subaru's side, the experience was nothing like a spectacle. It was damnation.
The air became icy, saturated with a suffocating smell of miasma. Shadow hands, invisible to anyone else, emerged from the torn folds of reality. They swarmed, slimy and cold.
One of them wrapped around his neck, choking him like a steel vise, while a larger hand, of a cadaverous coldness, literally passed through his flesh to sink slowly into his chest.
Subaru: « Arr... rghh... ! »
He couldn't scream. The sound was stillborn, imprisoned in his crushed throat. He felt the shadow fingers close around his heart. Then, a pressure of unheard-of violence. The hand squeezed. Every beat of his heart muscle became an absolute agony, a crash of crushed flesh that only he could feel and hear.
It was a divine presence, infinitely jealous and terrifying, whispering directly to his soul. It was a clear warning: "Mine. You are mine. Do not speak. " One more step in his confession, and his very existence would be dislocated.
Then, as abruptly as it had frozen, the world resumed its course. The colors exploded again, the wind blew, warm and indifferent.
Subaru collapsed heavily onto the lawn, panting frantically like a drowning man just pulled from the abyss. His trembling hand was pressed against his heart, his eyes widened by tears of pure pain. Emilia, horrified by this sudden and violent malaise, rushed toward him, kneeling in the grass.
Emilia: « Subaru! Are you alright?! What's happening to you, by the Spirit?! You wanted to tell me something and suddenly you collapsed! »
Puck, however, did not approach. He floated back, his eyes, usually so round and mischievous, now narrowed, staring at Subaru with icy suspicion. His superior spirit senses were screaming.
He had felt it… the moment before, the rancid smell of the Witch had exploded around the boy, so dense it made him nauseous. But the spirit decided to say nothing, preferring to observe this dangerous anomaly before acting.
Subaru, vision still blurred and body shaken by tremors, raised a weak hand to stop Emilia. He couldn't meet her amethyst gaze without seeing the gaping darkness and feeling the terror of the shadow hand that hovered invisibly over him.
Subaru: « It's okay... Emilia... sorry. Don't worry... I just had... a violent stomach cramp... A flash of pain, it... it happens sometimes... »
he lied, his voice wavering.
He stood up painfully, leaning on his knees, shamefully looking away. Inside him, the visceral fear suddenly gave way to an incandescent hatred for Kurisu.
Subaru (in thought): « That cursed demon... Is that his damn clue?! Trying to get me killed by that thing in the shadows?! Damn it... He knew. He knew all along. So I can't tell anyone about this power... No one, except that mocking abomination who couldn't care less about my suffering. »
On his balcony, Kurisu, now freed from the grip of the stasis, let himself fall back and doubled over. His mocking and sadistic bursts of laughter echoed against the stone walls of the mansion, although Subaru was too far away to hear them.
Kurisu: « Kekekeke! Ohh, Subaru... Did you really think I was going to do everything to help you without having a little fun at your expense? Naive. Magnificently naive. But hey, thank me for pushing you, because now you know your absolute limits. You know that you are locked alone in your own hell... Well, alone with me. »
He slowly straightened up, smoothing the front of his jacket with an elegant gesture and wiping a small tear of laughter from the corner of his eye. His gaze lost its gaiety to become cold, calculating, and deeply analytical.
Kurisu: « Well, I'm waiting for you for the final verse, Subaru-kun. And I advise you not to dawdle... because with the little act you just put on... with that delicious Witch's scent that has soaked into you because of your attempted confession... a certain blue-haired servant won't be long at all before she wants your skin. The game is finally getting exciting. Kekeke... »
....
Thus, the day began with the now-routine interview. Subaru and Emilia were called by the twins to meet Roswaal. Everything else went as planned: Subaru enthusiastically asked to be hired as a butler, flashing his best smile to win the twins' favor.
On the surface, it seemed to work. But internally, Subaru noticed a chilling detail: Rem was even more tense than in the previous loops.
Her blue eyes stared at him with a sharp, almost predatory suspicion. Subaru, now aware of the razor's edge he was walking on, showed himself much more attentive to their slightest movements.
A few days passed in this way, in a falsely peaceful routine. Subaru had tried as best he could to find answers on his own about the curse and that cursed scent, but he was at a total impasse. He had no concrete information.
He knew that going to the village without knowing how to flush out the assassin would only waste his time, precious time that risked pushing Rem over the edge and inciting her to kill him in his sleep like the first time.
Knowing that Kurisu's invisible gaze was likely spying on him, he decided to turn to the only reliable source of knowledge in the mansion: Beatrice.
One evening, he slipped into the Forbidden Library to ask her questions about curses and the Witch's scent, hoping to lighten the atmosphere with his usual teasing.
Subaru: « Yo, Beako! Does the cutest spirit in the mansion have a little time for her favorite guest? »
But the atmosphere in the room was heavy, almost suffocating. Extremely strangely, Beatrice did not react to his provocations. She did not sigh, did not get angry, and did not try to chase him away with her magic. On the contrary, she was sitting on her step-stool, clutching her book to her chest, eyes evasive and shoulders slightly tensed. She seemed... terrified.
Béatrice: « A curse is a complex ritual... The one who applies it must establish direct physical contact with their target... »
she said in a monotone voice, unusually soft and hurried.
She answered all his questions in a clinical manner, without ever meeting his gaze, as if she feared that looking at him too long would draw the attention of a monstrosity lurking in the shadows.
she remembered Kurisu. She remembered the crushing aura of that demon who had traumatized her in the other loop.
Béatrice: « I have answered your questions, in fact. Now, leave. Do not return if it is not necessary. »
Troubled by this abnormal docility, Subaru decided to leave her alone, his mind boiling with the vital information he had just gathered: physical contact.
The next morning, he took his courage in both hands. Using the excuse of needing to buy spices and missing utensils, he insisted on visiting the village. Rem had planned to go there that day anyway.
Although the blue-haired servant was extremely reluctant to take Subaru there, Ram's pragmatic intervention finally convinced her. They all headed toward the village of Irlam.
Subaru: « Come on everyone, arms up and say VICTORY!!!! »
Villageois: « VICTORY!!! »
The excitement and joy were palpable in the village square. The morning gymnastics session improvised by Subaru breathed new energy into the inhabitants. Laughter and congratulations burst forth, from the youngest to the oldest, all wearing wide smiles.
In appearance, Subaru was the perfect entertainer, livening up the crowd as he had committed to do. But behind his big smile, his eyes frantically swept the crowd.
« It takes physical contact. Which of them is the shaman? »
He forced his joy, high-fiving everyone to check if he felt anything abnormal, thanks to Beatrice's information.
Suddenly, he felt a gentle tug on his coat. He looked down and saw the little girl with blue hair and emerald green eyes, Meili. She pointed out a small brown puppy to him, the same one that had been hanging around her in the previous loops.
Subaru: « Oh, hi there little guy. If you'll excuse me... »
Subaru crouched down and began to stroke the puppy's small paw and the underside of its jaw, wearing an affectionate smile under the mocking gaze of the other children.
Subaru: « Hehe. This is the sensation I've been looking forward to! Great! For a stray dog, your coat is super! Hey, you have a bald patch on the top of your head... Is that a scar? What did you fall into... »
He touched the scar. The puppy suddenly growled and closed its sharp fangs on the boy's hand.
Subaru: « Ouch! »
Subaru jumped back, clutching his throbbing hand. The impact was like an electric shock in his brain. His eyes widened in internal terror.
« This thing bit me exactly like before... it's too precise to be a coincidence »
Subaru: « You... you bit me in exactly the same place... Are you a time traveler or something? »
he blurted out, forcing a nervous laugh while the children around him mocked his clumsiness.
But on the other side of the village, in his mansion, a familiar face observed the scene with a carnivorous smile.
Kurisu: « Well, looks like you're finally making progress. You found the trigger. That's good, my little Subaru... I just hope the rest of your journey is more entertaining this time. Kekeke... »
At the same moment, Subaru felt a cold sweat run down his spine. It was as if two invisible eyes were planting themselves directly into the back of his neck.
He immediately thought of Kurisu. Goosebumps covered his arms, but he decided to ignore it. He couldn't let himself be paralyzed now.
Rem: « Subaru-kun, we have finished the shopping. Big sister is waiting for us, it is time to go back. »
Subaru: « I'm coming, Rem! See you next time, everyone! »
After brief goodbyes to the children, they headed back to the mansion. But upon their arrival in the inner courtyard, an unexpected vision stopped them short: Roswaal, dressed in his most monotonous evening wear, was preparing to leave.
« What? Roswaal leaving now? In the evening? He never did that in the other loops! Did... did my actions change things this much... »
This anomaly chilled his blood, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. After quickly putting away the groceries, he ran breathlessly to the Forbidden Library. He threw open the door, startling Beatrice.
Subaru: « Beako! Tell me... am I cursed?! »
To the great surprise of the spirit, who examined him with a piercing gaze, it was indeed the case.
Béatrice: « ... Yes. A curse has been placed on you very recently, in fact. »
Subaru: « Take it off! Please, you have to take it off! »
Béatrice: « I have no obligation to do such a thing. Your life or death are no concern of mine, human. »
she retorted, briefly resuming her haughty tone to mask her unease.
Subaru clenched his fists, knowing exactly which button to press.
Subaru: « If I die tonight, Emilia will be devastated. You know how quickly she gets attached. And if Emilia cries, Puck will be sad. Do you really want to make your dear big brother unhappy, Beako? »
The argument hit home. Beatrice pursed her lips, visibly annoyed by this crude manipulation, but she gave in. She placed her small hand on Subaru's arm and murmured an incantation. A thick black smoke, stinking and sticky, escaped from the dog bite before dissipating.
Subaru no longer had any doubt.
« The dog is indeed the shaman. But… he was surrounded by all the children of the village… Shit! They're all in danger! »
He dashed down the stairs two at a time and ran into Rem and Ram in the main hall. Panting, he explained the situation to them at high speed: the bite, the curse lifted by Beatrice, the suspicious dog.
Rem: « It is... very hard to believe, Subaru-kun. »
said Rem, her voice dropping an octave, heavy with suspicion. Barely back from the village, an attack would happen there, and by some coincidence, he was the only one who knew exactly where the danger came from? This was far too suspicious for Rem.
Her hand slipped discreetly toward the fold of her skirt, where her weapon rested. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. But Subaru, desperate, did not let himself be discouraged.
Subaru: « I don't care what you think of me, Rem! The children of this village are going to die if we don't do something! Do you really want to have their blood on your hands because you were too paranoid?! »
This cry from the heart shook Ram. The older sister, more pragmatic, placed a soothing hand on Rem's shoulder.
Ram: « Rem. Accompany him and verify his claims. If he lies or if he attempts anything suspicious, you have permission to eliminate him. I will remain here to protect the home of Master Roswaal and Lady Emilia in case of a coordinated attack. »
Rem, although her eyes betrayed her deep disagreement and her distrust of Subaru, bowed respectfully. They burst out of the mansion.
By the time they arrived at the village, night had almost fallen. The scene was chaotic. Subaru and Rem ran through the dirt alleys, observing the villagers scurrying frantically, torches in hand, screaming names into the growing darkness.
Rem: « Has something happened? »
she asked, grabbing the arm of a young man who was running everywhere, looking panicked.
Young homme: « Yes! Several children from the village have disappeared! All the adults fit to walk are searching for them in the woods! »
« Am I too late?! » thought Subaru.
He frowned, his mind racing, thinking back to the last place he had seen the children playing with that damn dog. The edge of the forest. The fence!
Subaru: « Over there! »
Rem: « Subaru-kun?! »
Rem and the young villager ran after Subaru who was charging breathlessly toward the fence marking the border of the village. Arriving on site, Rem scanned the darkness between the trunks and immediately noticed an alarming detail. She pointed to a green stone, embedded in an old tree, which remained desperately dull.
Rem: « The barrier is broken. The crystal no longer glows. »
Subaru: « What happens when the barrier is broken? »
he asked, a horrible premonition knotting his stomach.
Rem: « Demon beasts can cross the border and attack our territory. »
Subaru: « Demon beasts? What are those? »
Rem looked at him with analytical coldness before answering, testing his knowledge.
Rem: « They are abominations created 400 years ago by the Witch of Envy. They are the natural enemies of humanity, endowed with magical powers and an insatiable hunger. »
Subaru: « You... you mean there are tons of other dogs like the one from earlier in there?! »
Looking down, Subaru noticed a tangle of small footprints in the fresh mud, heading straight into the menacing darkness of the forest.
Subaru: « The children are in there! »
he cried, turning to the young man.
Subaru: « Go back to the village, warn everyone! »
The young man nodded fervently before dashing toward the central square. Subaru turned to the forest and took a step forward.
Rem: « Subaru-kun, what are you doing? This is madness. »
Rem's voice was hard, her hand firmly gripping her invisible weapon.
Subaru: « If the children are in there, they risk having their mana drained by the curse and dying in excruciating pain. I can't let that happen, Rem. If they die, it'll be my fault! I'm going. »
Rem hesitated. The idea of going deep into the dark woods alone with a man who reeked of the Witch was a huge tactical risk. Her suspicions were screaming in her head.
But her duty of protection toward the estate, and the purity of the village children, took over. She slowly nodded her head.
The two plunged into the oppressive darkness of the forest, Subaru in front, and Rem right behind him, ready to smash his skull at the slightest gesture that betrayed treason.
Meanwhile, sitting atop the highest branch of a gigantic tree overlooking the canopy, Kurisu stretched at length, cracking the knuckles of Regulus's body. His eyes shone with a glow of pure excitement in the night.
Kurisu: « Ahh... finally the long-awaited moment. The wait was beginning to become mortally boring. I'll finally be able to have some fun and test the limits of this little theater. »
He tilted his head to the side, an authentically curious smile stretching his lips.
Kurisu: « Hm… I wonder if, with the small modifications I've made to the general atmosphere, there will be any major divergences from the original work... Roswaal's departure, Rem's instability... Will we be treated to totally unprecedented events tonight? Surprise me, Subaru. Kekeke! »
His laughter was lost in the cold wind, while the fierce struggle for survival began in the depths of the forest.
...
The darkness of the forest seemed to thicken with every step, transforming the massive trunks into immense clawed silhouettes ready to close in on them. The air was heavy, saturated with humidity and the smell of overturned earth. Subaru moved forward with difficulty, stumbling over protruding roots, his breath short and loud.
At his side, Rem walked in absolute silence, her light steps making no sound on the carpet of dead leaves. Although he was totally focused on the desperate search for the children, anguish knotting his stomach, Subaru did not notice the radical change occurring in his companion's expression.
Rem's face was no longer that of the devoted and polite servant of the mansion. Her features had frozen into a mask of contempt and contained fury, her blue eyes staring at the back of Subaru's neck with a murderous and icy determination.
When they finally emerged into a wide clearing, the faint moonlight pierced the canopy, revealing small prostrate and trembling forms in the center of the open space.
Subaru: « They are here! Oh thank God, they are still alive! »
Driven by a pure relief that made him forget all caution, Subaru rushed toward them in the open. It was then that an electric shiver, an unbearable and frozen pressure, brutally ran down the back of his neck, as if death itself had just breathed onto his skin.
« What is... » thought Subaru, his eyes widening.
Without thinking, moved by a pure animal survival reflex born of his previous deaths, his legs gave way and he stumbled violently forward. At the same instant, a shrill whistle tore through the night air.
Rem's heavy morningstar, an enormous steel sphere bristling with sharp spikes, slicing through space at a frantic speed, passed only a few millimeters from his skull. The wind of the projectile ruffled his hair just before the weapon struck a massive tree trunk behind him, pulverizing it in a deafening crash of broken wood.
Subaru: « Rem?! What has gotten into you?! What was that, you almost killed me! »
He turned around, crawling miserably in the mud, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, his lungs on fire. He raised his head to see Rem jerk the bloodied chain of her flail back. Her gaze was darker and emptier than the surrounding night.
Rem: « Shut up, miserable follower of the Witch. Your little act has lasted long enough. »
Subaru: « A follower? What the hell are you talking about?! I'm Subaru, your butler! We're here to save the children! »
Rem: « Do you really think I am blind? That Nee-sama and I are stupid? »
The young girl's voice was sharp as a blade, devoid of the slightest human emotion.
Rem: « Since your entry into the mansion, that foul scent of the Witch clinging to you has never ceased to grow. You searched every corner of the residence, spying on our every move under the guise of learning your job. And as if by some happy coincidence, you insist heavily on coming to the village today, and barely back, an attack occurs of which you are miraculously the only one informed. »
Then her eyes, bloodshot with hatred, met Subaru's as she said:
Rem: « Worse still... you knew exactly where these children were in this immense forest without even having to search. Who do you take me for? You are the accomplice who lured them here to isolate and separate us. Your sentence is death. »
Without giving him another second to breathe, she swung her morningstar and brought it down again. Subaru dove to the side, half-screaming, dirt and mud flying into shards under the devastating impact that dug a crater where he had been a fraction of a second earlier.
He had no martial technique, no magic to defend himself. Only the insolent and pathetic luck of a man who categorically refused to die once more. He crawled, narrowly dodging, the chain whistling in his ears and occasionally grazing his cheek or shoulder.
Subaru: « Stop! I swear I have nothing to do with this! I don't control this damn smell! »
But Rem was totally deaf to his pleas, her mind locked onto her duty as executioner. As she raised her weapon, ready to crush his chest and deliver the killing blow at point-blank range, a sinister rustling rose all around them.
Fierce, guttural, and drooling growls erupted from the bushes. One by one, dozens of pairs of red eyes lit up in the darkness. The Mabeasts, those demonic dogs with sharp fangs and peeled skin, had completely surrounded the clearing.
Rem: « So, is this what you were waiting for? For your pitiful pets to come finish the job for you? »
Although she still suspected him of being the master of this pack, Rem could not ignore her sacred duty of protection. She pivoted, placing her body between the beasts and the cowering children.
She spun her flail at a dizzying speed, beginning to massacre the first waves of dogs with unheard-of violence, crushing bones and making black blood rain onto the grass.
But the chaos was total. The numbers were against her.
In a tiny moment of inattention as she was pulling her morningstar from a shattered skull, a Mabeast much more massive than the others, resembling a deformed wolf, sprang from the thicket and struck her head-on. The shock was terrible.
Rem was thrown violently across the clearing, rolling heavily on the ground, stunned for a short moment.
Subaru: « REM! » shouted Subaru, still on the ground.
The beasts immediately saw the opportunity. The pack split: one part bounded to finish off Rem on the ground, while another rushed directly toward the terrified children who were screaming in fear.
Subaru saw the scene in slow motion. His body hurt excruciatingly, his breath was short. He knew perfectly well that he had no chance of beating these monsters with his bare hands.
If he fled, he might survive. But the smiling faces of the village kids flashed before him. He grit his teeth. He chose the children.
Subaru: « I won't let you... Don't touch them, you filthy bastards! »
He threw himself toward the children mid-stride, pinning them to the ground and covering them entirely with his own body. He closed his eyes, contracted all his muscles while waiting for the impact. He didn't have to wait long. The powerful jaws closed on him. The fangs sank deep into his shoulders, into his calves, tearing his flesh and his uniform.
Subaru screamed until his vocal cords tore, an excruciating, burning, and unbearable pain consuming him alive. Blood spurted, warm and sticky, but he tightened his grip on the little ones, refusing to move a single millimeter, acting as a human shield of flesh and bone while the dogs began to shred him alive.
Suddenly, a shrill, almost inhuman cry made the leaves of the trees tremble. Rem had stood up, but she was no longer quite herself. The skin of her face was marbled with protruding veins and, slicing through the night air with its immaculate glow, a long white horn sprang from the center of her forehead.
« Blood... I must purge this forest of all this blood... » thought Rem in a scarlet haze.
In Oni form, the servant had transformed into a storm of pure and blind destruction. She lost all sense of tactics or defense, throwing herself into the fray and massacring everything in her path. Her flail traced immense arcs of death, crushing several beasts in a single blow.
But in her bloodthirsty trance, her peripheral vision was nothing but a red smear. She could barely distinguish allies from enemies anymore. In her fury, her heavy morningstar grazed Subaru several times, the wind from the weapon nearly crushing him and the children he was protecting with the energy of despair.
Subaru felt his strength leaving him. His vision blurred, the edges of his field of vision turning black. His body was nothing but a brazier of suffering. It was then that he saw, through his eyelashes matted with sweat and blood, a group of four Mabeasts creeping silently into Rem's blind spot.
The young Oni had just launched a devastating attack forward, leaving her back totally exposed for a fatal fraction of a second. The beasts braced themselves to jump directly at her throat.
Subaru: « Rem! Look out! »
His voice was nothing but a raspy gurgle. He had no strength left, but pure adrenaline ignited his nerves one last time. Subaru let go of the children, braced himself on his tattered legs, and propelled himself forward in a cry of pure distress.
He ran with a heavy and disjointed stride, miraculously passing under the chaotic return of Rem's chain. He struck her with his shoulder, pushing her violently aside just as the beasts closed their jaws.
The fangs intended for the servant's neck sank deep into Subaru's chest and arms. The kinetic shock dragged him heavily to the ground, spitting a spray of blood, buried under the weight of the monsters.
The dull thud of Subaru's body crashing against the earth broke Rem's murderous trance clean. Her horn pulsed one last time before receding into her forehead. She brutally regained her senses, panting, her eyes wide with shock.
Before her, the man she was hunting, the one she wanted to execute without mercy a few minutes earlier, lay on the ground. His body was nothing but a bloody ruin, his gaze slowly fading as he painfully turned his head to make sure she was safe and sound before collapsing, unconscious.
« No... it's not possible... » thought Rem, her breath hitched, the flail nearly slipping from her hands.
She no longer understood anything. All her logical reasoning was shattered. Why would the leader of the beasts sacrifice himself like this?
Rem: « Why... Why did you do that? » she whispered, her voice trembling.
Before she could take a step toward him, the air in the clearing suddenly became unbreathable. A crushing atmospheric pressure fell upon the area, so heavy that Rem felt as if her knees were going to give way.
A nauseating odor, totally artificial and putrid, far more terrifying than the usual miasmas of the Witch, filled the space, freezing the blood in her veins.
Suddenly, without any incantation, a violent, localized gust of wind, precise and sharp as glass, swept away the three Mabeasts that were finishing Subaru off. Their necks broke with a dry and sickening crack, their bodies tossed away like mere ragdolls. The demonstration of brute force, without the slightest apparent movement, instantly terrified the rest of the pack, which fled whimpering into the depths of the woods.
From the veil of shadow left by the trees, a young man stepped out with an exasperatingly slow pace. His hands were nonchalantly buried in his pockets, and his face wore an amused, almost boyish smile.
Kurisu: « Well, well... What a fascinating spectacle, isn't it? Kekeke... »
Rem's entire body tensed to the extreme. Her survival instinct was screaming. She firmly gripped the chain of her weapon, her hands shaking in the face of this abomination whose simple presence distorted reality around it.
Rem: « Who... who are you? Are you the source of this attack? Are you his accomplice, come to save your cursed follower at the last moment?! »
Kurisu stopped a few paces from her. He tilted his head slightly, looked her up and down, then burst into a loud, clear, and sincere laugh—a laugh that rang terribly false in this charnel house.
Kurisu: « Ahhhh, Rem... You really are a lost cause, aren't you? »
Rem: « What are you talking about, scum?! »
Kurisu's gaze turned colder, piercing through her armor of certainties.
Kurisu: « I'm talking about your pitiful blindness. Look down, poor servant acting out of pure primal instinct. Do you see nothing? »
He made a slight movement of his chin toward the center of the clearing. Rem, refusing at first to take her eyes off this stranger, finally cast a sidelong glance toward the children. She froze.
Despite the chaos, despite her crisis of destructive madness and the packs of mabeasts, the village kids didn't have a single scratch. They were unconscious, covered in blood, but it wasn't theirs.
Kurisu: « They have nothing. Not a single bite. With all these monsters around, how does your little demon brain explain this miracle, when you weren't even capable of covering them? »
Rem swallowed hard. The evidence was beginning to pierce the wall of her hatred, but she still refused to accept it.
Kurisu: « You should be observing your precious "culprit" instead of pointing your finger at me. Look closely at Subaru. »
Kurisu's tone became cruelly sarcastic. Rem's eyes slid toward the shredded body of the boy in the tracksuit.
Kurisu: « His body is an absolute ruin. He literally served as a human shield to protect these kids while you, the great protector, were happily trying to smash his skull in. And he's the one who threw himself under the fangs again to save your life when you were playing the blind warrior and leaving your back exposed. »
The words sank into Rem's mind like white-hot needles. She staggered, the reality of her actions suddenly hitting her with the violence of a meteor. She looked at her hands, then at Subaru's blood soaking into the dark earth.
« I... I almost killed the one who saved us all... » she thought, her breath short, feeling the tears of realization bead at the corners of her eyes.
Kurisu: « Pff... And to think you wanted to kill him thinking you were in the right. You really are pathetic. »
Her voice broken by the shock, Rem raised eyes filled with confusion toward the strange young man.
Rem: « Who... who... are... »
Kurisu simply shrugged, the smile stretching his lips again.
Kurisu: « Oh, if I were you, I wouldn't waste my time with questions that are beyond you. »
He began to back away slowly, the darkness of the forest appearing to wrap around his ankles to absorb him.
Kurisu: « If you don't get them out of here in the next few minutes, they will all die drained of their blood. The children... and your pathetic little protector. The clock is ticking, Rem. Tick-tock… Kekekeke! »
With that final mocking laugh, Kurisu took another step back and faded completely into the darkness, as if he had never existed, leaving Rem absolutely alone in the middle of the disaster. The oppressive silence of the forest fell heavily back onto her shoulders, crushing her under the monumental weight of her error and the vital urgency of saving the man she had just wrongly condemned.
.....
The sun had just pierced the horizon, flooding the Irlam valley with a golden light as magnificent as it was deceptive. On the balcony of the largest house in the village, Kurisu stood motionless, a light breeze making his clothes quiver. An indecipherable smile, almost carnivorous, stretched his lips.
He slowly sipped his tea, the warmth of the steaming cup contrasting pleasantly with the biting freshness of the morning. His amber gaze, frighteningly calm, swept across the landscape slowly awakening below.
Kurisu: « Ahh, well, that night was truly fun, wasn't it… kekeke… Even if some things have changed to my great pleasure, everything seems to be gently falling back into place. »
His gaze suddenly became sharper, like that of a predator staring at its prey, and settled on one of the cramped little houses where Subaru was currently resting.
Kurisu: « He should be waking up shortly… and running straight toward that little Rem lost in the forest. »
A muffled little laugh, tinged with impatient cruelty and absolute condescension, escaped his throat.
Kurisu: « I'm waiting to see the final act. Don't be too long, Subaru, I have a holy horror of boredom. »
A few minutes later, inside the modest dwelling pointed out by Kurisu, the heavy silence was brutally torn apart.
Subaru woke up with a start, his chest propelling backward to strike the headboard violently in a reflex of pure panic. His eyes widened into the void, his chest heaving at a terrifying rate, as if the dripping jaws of the demonic beasts were still crushing his bones.
Panting, he looked down and his hands began to frantically feel his chest, his arms, his legs, inspecting every inch of his skin.
He was in one piece. His flesh was perfectly smooth, closed up, leaving only a few visible scars. Yet, the psychological horror remained. Under the pads of his fingers, his nerves still screamed with phantom pain.
Total incomprehension mingled with residual terror: he was physically healed, but his soul remained deeply marked by the nauseating chaos of the day before and the pitiless face of Rem transfigured into an Oni.
His gaze shifting, he finally noticed Emilia, sitting very close to him on a wooden chair. Her head rested heavily on the edge of the mattress, her long silver hair masking a pale face. She was at the end of her strength, totally drained by a magical effort that had bordered on mortal exhaustion.
Puck then appeared in a faint glow, looking grave, silently confirming the young man's fears. Without a word being spoken so as not to wake the half-elf, the spirit made him understand the extent of Emilia's sacrifice, as well as the role of Rem, who had brought him back in tatters before vanishing.
The relief of knowing the children were out of danger, thanks to the intervention of Puck and Beatrice, allowed Subaru to regain his senses, though his heart remained heavy with guilt.
Unable to bring himself to remain inactive, Subaru stood up painfully, his muscles protesting under the weight of traumatic fatigue, and discreetly left the room. Walking through the village to see with his own eyes the safety of the inhabitants, he ran into Ram.
To his great surprise, the servant stopped to offer him sincere thanks on behalf of the estate, a rarity that left him petrified. But the moment of grace was short-lived: feeling that she was revealing too much, she immediately resumed her usual barbs, calling him an incompetent butler, while reassuring him that she had watched over the barrier all night.
This confirmation offered him a short respite, quickly swept away by his meeting with Beatrice at the turn of an alley. The little librarian seemed drained of all emotion, her gaze lost in unreachable depths.
Without the slightest preamble or mockery, she announced his death sentence: the curse had not disappeared and he had only half a day left to live. Faced with this sentence, Subaru surprised the spirit with his Olympian calm.
He quickly understood the implacable logic of the situation when Beatrice explained his only small chance of surviving: if the original spellcaster died, the curses would die with him. The idea of returning to the forest first felt like a cold shower, a suicide mission he was ready to decline out of sheer exhaustion.
It was then that the echo of a promise came back to his memory.
« I swear it to you… I will save you. »
Rem's broken voice, swearing to save him as he sank into unconsciousness. Subaru abruptly pressed Beatrice with questions, demanding to know where the young servant was. The little girl remained silent for a moment, avoiding his gaze.
This heavy silence was response enough. The realization hit him full force: Rem had gone into the forest. Crushed by the guilt of having tortured the one who had just protected her, she had gone to kill all the beasts herself to atone for her sins.
Subaru didn't think anymore. The absolute urgency of saving her swept away his own fears. As he pivoted on his heels to dash toward the woods, armed with a simple iron sword offered by the villagers, Ram blocked his path. Her usual mask of indifference had cracked, letting a devouring anguish show through.
There was no debate between them. Refusing to let her twin be devoured by her own madness, Ram joined him, her magic wand firmly gripped. With a heavy but determined step, the duo crossed the protective barrier and entered the suffocating shadow of the trees.
Far above them, perched on the balcony of his mansion, Kurisu stretched out his full length, feigning exhaustion while an immense carnivorous smile split his face. He felt the tension rising, the air vibrating under the weight of the events clicking into gear.
Kurisu: « Ahh, finally... the intermission was much too long. »
His amber eyes began to shine with a glow of pure, almost maniacal excitement, as he stared at the two silhouettes disappearing into the woods.
Kurisu: « We can officially begin the final act of this tragedy. And this time... let's see if our dear little Subaru will be capable of surviving the true master beast of these woods without anyone coming to hold his hand, kekeke! »
His sinister and resonating laughter was lost in the morning wind, marking the rise of the curtain on the ultimate battle of the forest.
....
The darkness of the forest seemed alive, closing in on the trio like a gigantic vegetable jaw. Under the oppressive canopy, their progression was no longer an escape, but a true ordeal. Subaru, ignoring the throbbing and blinding pain of his dislocated shoulder, led the way while panting, followed closely by a Ram whose short breath betrayed her magical exhaustion.
Very quickly, the morbid silence of the woods was broken by the guttural growls of the Ulgarms. The first waves of demonic beasts fell upon them with a predictable savagery, springing from the bushes with all claws out.
But something was wrong. Far from thinning out, the pack seemed to be multiplying. For every beast struck down by Ram's desperate wind blades, three others took its place. It was a swarming tide, a sea of dark fur and scarlet eyes that threatened to swallow them at every second. They were overwhelmed, their movements slowed by fatigue, the air saturated with the smell of overturned earth and acidic drool.
Perched far above this chaos, on the main branch of a century-old tree, Kurisu frowned slightly. His amber eyes, capable of piercing the darkness, scanned the scene with growing incomprehension. This was not planned. In his memory of the original scenario, the pack was not supposed to be this dense at this precise stage. At this rate, Subaru and Ram would end up shredded long before catching a glimpse of Rem's shadow.
« Wait… why are so many beasts appearing suddenly? » Kurisu thought, his mind racing. « Unless… »
He slowly raised his head toward the dark immensity of the night sky, his gaze seeking an invisible presence beyond the clouds.
Kurisu: « Uhh… Author-san… Have you changed something? Or… is this a reaction to my presence? » he whispered, his voice lost in the cold wind.
For long seconds, there was only the distant howling of wolves. Not a word, not a sign. Then, the air in front of him seemed to distort. A simple sheet of paper, of an immaculate whiteness clashing with the surrounding darkness, materialized its fall out of nothingness, fluttering gently until it landed on the bark next to his hand. Kurisu caught it, narrowing his eyes. On it, traced with what looked like oily ink, there was only one thing:
:)
A simple smile. Asymmetrical. Disturbing. It radiated no warmth, only the silent and crushing promise of a divine whim. The sheet consumed itself instantly in a flash of cold light, leaving behind only a fine ash.
For the first time since his arrival in this world, Kurisu was sincerely surprised. This was not a simple technical nuisance; it was a declaration. The original "Game Master" was modifying the rules of the board mid-game. The Author was having fun, testing the limits of his own guest. And against all expectations, far from annoying him, this realization made Kurisu shiver with a maniacal excitement. A predatory smile, a distorted echo of the one he had just seen on the paper, split his face.
Kurisu: « Ahhh, Author-san… You really want to test me? Well, let's see which of us will have the last word, kekeke… »
Stretching his fingers with the grace of a conductor, he let his Authority deploy silently. In the shadow of the canopy, tiny spheres of hyper-compressed air, appearing frozen in time, formed. There was no flash of light, no spectacular sound. Simply death, distributed with surgical precision.
Below, as a massive Ulgarm leaped to tear out Subaru's throat, its skull suddenly imploded in mid-air with a sickening crack, as if crushed by an invisible hammer. The dislocated corpse crashed heavily at the young man's feet. A little further away, three beasts ready to pounce on Ram's blind spot were brutally pinned to the ground, their spines snapped clean by a phantom pressure.
Subaru's eyes widened, totally disoriented by these bloody and inexplicable deaths, but survival instinct took over. This invisible hand clearing the path justified only one thing: running.
Yet, the tide resumed even stronger. Understanding that passive flight was futile and that they would never reach Rem this way, Subaru made a radical decision. Gritting his teeth, he deliberately broke the taboo. He thought of death, of returning back, and let the cursed words brush against his mind. Instantly, the unbearable scent of the Witch exploded around him like a toxic gas.
The effect was immediate and terrifying: the entire forest seemed to scream in unison. Hundreds of scarlet eyes lit up simultaneously in the thickets. Forgetting Ram, all the hatred of the forest now converged on him alone.
The hunt became a desperate flight. Charging Ram onto his functional shoulder, Subaru sprinted through the brambles, his heart hammering against his ribs to the point of breaking. The pack was on his heels, death breathing down his neck, until a chasm loomed before them. Without the slightest hesitation, in a suicidal surge, Subaru plunged into the void, narrowly escaping the jaws that closed on empty air.
It was below that they found her. Rem, totally consumed by her Oni form, was nothing but a storm of blind destruction. A single, incandescent horn glowed on her forehead. Her morningstar plowed the ground, smashing stone and crushing the flesh of monsters in a whirlwind of blood and bluish flashes. She no longer recognized anyone, her eyes drowned in a primitive rage.
When Subaru approached, she threw herself at him with the same fury. It took dodges bordering on the miraculous, a desperate reading of her movements, and Ram's sharp cry to guide his blade. With a precise strike, Subaru brought the flat of his iron sword down on the glowing horn.
The impact produced a crystalline sound. Silence fell brutally upon the clearing. The horn went out, and with it, the young girl's murderous madness. Rem collapsed, her knees hitting the ground hard. The scarlet mist leaving her mind was replaced by a tidal wave of guilt.
Hidden behind a vast rocky outcropping, the servant's convulsive sobs echoed. Subaru, struggling against exhaustion and pain, placed a trembling hand on her head to reassure her, whispering soothing words to drive away her demons.
But the respite of this reunion was very short-lived.
At the top of the rocky overhang that dominated their hiding place, a small silhouette emerged. The puppy from the village. Its red eyes shone with demonic malice, and behind it, crawling out of the shadows, the entire pack deployed. More massive, more enraged than ever. The true shaman had found them. They were cornered. Time seemed to freeze, the tension becoming palpable, crushing. It was here, facing the wall of death, that Subaru made his decision.
Subaru: « Go now! I'll hold them back! »
Rem: « No! Subaru-kun, you can't... not again because of me! I won't leave you! » she stammered, her voice broken, trying to stand up despite her legs giving way under the weight of magical fatigue. Tears traced clear paths on her face matted with blood and dirt.
Ram: « Rem, look at us. We are in a pitiful state. If we stay, we will only get in his way and all three of us will die. » The elder sister's voice was hard, icy with pragmatism, but her knuckles turned white from nervously gripping her wand.
Subaru: « Listen to your sister, Rem! I don't plan on dying here, I swear it to you. But go get help at the village, I won't hold out forever! » He punctuated his sentence with a wide, mocking smile. A mask of senseless bravery, forged entirely to conceal the irrepressible trembling of his hands and the terror crushing his insides.
Rem raised her eyes to him. Her gaze was no longer veiled by the Oni's madness, but by a deep, heart-wrenching admiration. Understanding the atrocious and magnificent logic of this sacrifice, she finally nodded slowly, swallowing a sob.
Subaru: « Fine, I'd better get going. Take care of Rem, Nee-sama! »
Without waiting for any response, without giving his own survival instinct time to paralyze him, he pivoted on his heels and dashed into the open. He screamed at the top of his lungs, insulting the puppy and waving his sword to draw all the hatred of the ocean of monsters onto his single, pathetic person.
Ram: « I will pray for our safe reunion, Barusu. »
Without a look back, obeying her duty as an older sister above all else, Ram firmly hoisted Rem onto her back. She drew from her very last reserves of mana to dash in the opposite direction, disappearing into the thick darkness of the bushes.
Subaru was now running until his breath failed. His right arm dangled uselessly, while his breath burned his lungs. In front of him, the puppy taunted him, its lips pulled back over sharp fangs, biding its time. Behind him, the herd trampled the ground in a thunderous crash, tearing up the earth with every stride. There was no more invisible magic, no more allies. He was alone. Finally.
Perched on his main branch, dominating the arena like a cruel god in a theater, Kurisu let out a crystalline laugh. He looked one last time toward the starry sky, his smile widening until it became almost painful.
Kurisu: « Ahh, finally... the boss fight begins... Sorry Author-san, but I think I've won this round. »
His amber gaze lowered, fixing with predatory acuity on the tiny silhouette of Subaru, surrounded by monsters.
Kurisu: « Do your best, Subaru... Maybe you'll manage to win by your own means this time? Kekeke... »
He sat comfortably on the bark, crossing his legs, not blinking so as not to lose a single fraction of a second of the coming show.
Kurisu: « I'm not going to miss a single bit of it. Show me what a human who has nothing left to lose is capable of. »
The cold night wind blew through the canopy. The final confrontation finally loomed on the horizon, bathed in the bloody and silent shadow of the forest.
...
Subaru had run until he spat blood, his lungs burning with every breath. In his frantic race to buy time and keep death away from Rem and Ram, he finally emerged into a familiar area: the vast clearing where he had faced Rem a few hours earlier. The ground was still ravaged, overturned by the impacts of the morningstar.
Behind him, a sinister rustling stirred the bushes. The little puppy emerged from the shadows, advancing with a slow, almost royal step. Subaru turned around, short of breath, and planted his feet in the dirt. Despite the searing pain in his dislocated shoulder, he flashed a small, mocking smile, defying the creature.
Subaru: « I'd love to settle your score, little dog… »
But as if the world itself intended to mock his hollow bravery, the puppy stopped dead. Its muscles throbbed obscenely. With a sickening crack of bones, the beast grew, swelled, its fur bristling like steel needles. In a few seconds, the puny animal had metamorphosed into a titanic Wolgarm, the true "Boss" of this forest. It towered over Subaru with all its height, its lips pulled back in a hideous and mocking smile.
Subaru felt his blood turn to ice. He understood instantly that he was trapped, but the survival instinct, nourished by despair, took over.
Subaru: « Damn… Come on then, you filthy mutt! »
He raised his iron sword with a trembling hand and lunged toward the monster. The Wolgarm, with a speed terrifying for its size, brought down a massive paw to crush him. Subaru closed his eyes, expecting to be crushed, but the impact never occurred.
The beast's paw seemed to strike an invisible wall in the air, diverting its attack by a fraction of a millimeter. Subaru had no time to wonder about this miracle: he slipped under the monster's guard, the blade of his sword slashing deeply into the tendons of the front paw.
The beast screamed in pain. In a lightning-fast reflex, it pivoted and swept the air, striking Subaru head-on. The young man was projected like a ragdoll. By reflex, he had raised his weapon to block the shock, but the metal gave way. The sword snapped clean in two in a burst of sparks.
He rolled violently across the ground, spitting a stream of blood, his shattered body screaming in agony. He painfully rose to his knees, staring at the iron stump he was still holding.
Subaru: « Shit… I guess I have no choice left. I hope my Gate holds up… »
He moved back into a combat stance, his gaze burning with suicidal resolve. He charged the beast. Only a few meters from the monster preparing to devour him, Subaru screamed with all his might.
Subaru: « SHAMAK! »
Inside his body, he felt something crack violently, a dull and cold pain, as if a dam had just given way in his vitals. Instantly, the clearing was swallowed by a cloud of black smoke, dense and impenetrable, blinding the beast. Subaru used this ultimate window of opportunity. He leaped blindly, grabbed onto the monster's fur, and drove the remainder of his broken blade directly into its neck.
The Wolgarm let out a blood-curdling scream. It began to spin around, rearing up frantically to get rid of the parasite. Subaru held his grip until his fingers were raw, but the centrifugal force got the better of him. The blade slipped from the wound, and Subaru was once again thrown into the dust.
Subaru: « Damn… This dog is tough… » he whispered, unable to get back up.
As the black smoke of the Shamak dissipated, the colossal silhouette of the Boss appeared above him. The monster raised its intact paw, ready to crush him for good. But at the fraction of a second the blow was about to fall, an imperceptible whistle sliced through the air.
The Wolgarm's paw was torn off. Cut clean, as if by the blade of a divine guillotine. The monster collapsed backward in a geyser of black blood.
Subaru, although totally overwhelmed by what had just happened, refused to let his chance pass. Drawing from his last drops of adrenaline, he rushed at the beast on the ground, grabbed its skull, and drove his broken blade in up to the hilt. The monster let out a final cry of agony, of such power that a shockwave pushed Subaru back several meters.
Then… nothing more. The colossus slumped, definitively dead.
Subaru fell to his knees in the sticky grass. Tears began to flow down his cheeks matted with sweat, mud, and blood. His entire body trembled with pain, covered in lesions, but he was breathing.
Subaru: « Damn… YES! I did it… I did it… I changed destiny… Finally… »
But his tears of joy froze almost immediately. A dull rumble made the ground of the clearing shake. From the depths of the forest, a swarming tide emerged. An entire army of Ulgarms, attracted by the smell of blood and the miasma of the Witch, now surrounded the area. Hundreds of beasts ready to pounce.
Subaru was struck with horror. He had no more mana, a cracked Gate, no weapon, no strength. This was the end. Yet, a small resigned smile, almost peaceful, stretched his lips.
Subaru: « At least… I accomplished something… »
The beasts all leaped at the same time, forming a dome of fangs and claws ready to swallow him. But before a single one could reach him, an amused voice resonated, descending directly from the heavens.
Kurisu: « Authority of Greed… »
Perched high above the ground, almost floating, Kurisu watched the scene with a radiant smile. His hands began to wave in the air, starting a macabre dance of frightening fluidity and symmetry.
Kurisu: « Sendan no Kumomō! » (Spiderweb of a Thousand Slashes)
A gigantic web, resembling spider threads woven from frozen air and invisible light, sliced through space with the violence of a divine punishment. The net of energy fell heavily upon the clearing. The sound was indescribable: a chorus of thousands of blades slicing through flesh in a millisecond. Absolutely all the beasts were cut up, dislocated into tiny pieces in an explosion of blood that repainted the forest red.
Only a millimetric space, a perfect circle around Subaru, had been spared.
Subaru, prostrate in the middle of this rain of hemoglobin, was plunged into total incomprehension. Kurisu descended gracefully from the air, his white boots landing lightly in the pool of blood covering the ground. He let out a small, satisfied laugh.
Kurisu: « Kekeke… I've always wanted to shout a cool technique name like that, it's quite a release. »
His amber gaze settled on Subaru, half-dead, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
Kurisu: « Oh, that's right, you're here. Bravo, Subaru… You managed to defeat the final boss, by your own means… well… almost… pff… »
He struggled to stifle a mocking laugh, gesturing with his chin toward the mountain of corpses surrounding them. Subaru remained mute for long seconds, his brain short-circuited by the absurdity and terror of the situation. His eyes rolled back.
Subaru: « You damn… monster… » he whispered in a final breath before sinking into unconsciousness.
Kurisu watched him collapse, his eyes shining with a mischievous light.
Kurisu: « Oh, Subaru… Yes, I am a monster. But I promise you that I am surely not the worst you will encounter in this world, kekeke… »
.....
Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, twilight bathed the village of Arlam in its final golden glows. The houses were lengthened by orange shadows, and the wind made the leaves, still warm from the sun, shiver.
Rem and Ram burst into the clearing, breathless, covered in dust and dried blood. Their gaze immediately fell upon Beatrice, standing motionless near a house, and on Emilia, still seated and just waking up with half-closed eyes, Puck floating beside her with a protective aura.
The two servants, panicked, rushed forward to explain the situation, their voices trembling and hurried: Subaru's desperate sacrifice, the horde of Ulgarms, and the urgency of his survival.
In the shadow of an alleyway, Roswaal L. Mathers watched. His Gospel hidden in his coat, his eyes shimmered with a calculating light. The hour of his dramatic intervention was approaching… He was preparing to step out to announce that he would save his pitiful butler, faithful to the scenario of his book.
But before he could take a single step, a heavy sound was heard at the edge of the forest. Calm, measured, almost unreal footsteps.
A few seconds later, a man of strangely normal appearance appeared. Dressed entirely in white, from his immaculate hair down to his boots, contrasting violently with the filth of the woods.
But it was not just his presence that captured everyone's attention: he was carrying Subaru—unconscious and bloody—with an unexpected delicacy, as one would hold a sleeping princess.
Kurisu: « Hi… I see everyone is gathered, huh… »
The wind seemed to freeze. Rem stiffened like a bow, her sense of smell struck by the acrid and suffocating scent of the Witch emanating from Kurisu. Her fists clenched to the point of bleeding.
Ram, reacting to her sister's hostility, raised her wand, ready to unleash her magic.
Emilia, completely lost, scrutinized the stranger. Puck positioned himself in front of her, his fur standing on end, viscerally sensing the absolute danger represented by this unknown man.
But Beatrice… Beatrice was paralyzed.
Her usually proud eyes widened in terror. She had recognized him. Him.
This same intruder who had violated the sanctuary of her Forbidden Library, against whom her most lethal magics had shattered like glass, and who had done nothing but pat her head as one would a common pet before disappearing. The anomaly made flesh.
She remained frozen, unable to move a single finger.
( AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't know if I've already said this, but I slightly modified the story so that Beatrice, inside her library, is not affected by RBD since she's in another dimension. That's why she remembers Kurisu.
So before anyone calls it an inconsistency, I wanted to clarify it right away. And I'll say it again—there will be other moments like this where I make choices that not everyone will like, and I'll change certain aspects of the story.
As long as it doesn't affect a major part of the narrative, try not to overthink it too much. )
A leaden silence fell over the group. It was Rem who broke the muteness, her voice vibrating with rage and worry:
Rem: « You are… What have you done to Subaru-kun?! »
Kurisu let out a theatrical sigh, advancing with disconcerting nonchalance, his boots barely touching the ground.
Ram: « If you take one more step… I will attack you! »
Her tone was firm, but her hand trembled slightly, revealing the anguish behind her bravery.
Kurisu sketched a small, mocking grin at the assertion of this hornless Oni. With a single hand, he seized Subaru by the collar and shook him carelessly like a common sack of potatoes. Everyone's lips tightened.
Kurisu: « Rem, Rem, Rem… I already told you not to rely solely on your sense of smell, didn't I? That is exactly what could have cost him his life. »
With a fluid motion, he threw Subaru toward them. Rem slid onto her knees and caught him just in time.
Rem: « Subaru-kun! » She feverishly inspected his wounds, tears in her eyes, trembling but determined.
Kurisu turned his amber gaze toward the rest of the group. Roswaal, in the shadows, froze for an instant, his eyes following every movement, while Kurisu cast a brief sidelong glance at him, as if to signal: "I see you."
Kurisu: « Pff… Look at your funeral faces. If you want to know, I am the one who saved Subaru from certain death. You should be on your knees thanking me. »
Puck, indomitable and ignoring the provocation, made a dozen gigantic, sharpened ice spikes appear around him, looking ready to kill.
Puck: « And how are we supposed to believe you, with an aura so foul?! »
Emilia, panicked, tried to hold back her spirit:
Emilia: « No, Puck, wait! Maybe he's telling the truth… He brought him back… »
But before the feline spirit could retort, Kurisu simply raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
A sharp sound echoed, and instantly, all of Puck's ice spikes shattered into diamond dust, reduced to nothing by mere air pressure.
Kurisu: « Ahh, Puck… Always so impulsive. You should ask our little Beako if you have even the slightest chance against me… »
The Great Spirit of Fire froze. He slowly turned his head toward the little girl in the pink dress.
Puck: « Betty…? » he asked, seeing the terror paralyzing his spiritual sister.
Beatrice: « It is… useless, I suppose… » she whispered, her voice wavering.
Beatrice: « Nothing can affect him… »
Puck, shocked, realized he was facing an insurmountable wall. What could this being possibly be to terrify the guardian of the Library to such an extent?
Kurisu stepped forward, crossing their line of defense without any of them daring to move a muscle, until he was just a few centimeters away from Emilia.
Puck wanted to interpose himself, driven by instinct, but a cry stopped him dead.
Beatrice: « Bubby, stop! »
Kurisu totally ignored the spirit and looked the half-elf up and down for a few seconds.
Kurisu: « Emilia, huh… »
Emilia: « Uh… yes… Who are you? » she stammered, instinctively taking a step back.
Kurisu remained pensive for a brief moment, a mysterious veil passing through his eyes.
Kurisu: « Ah, yes… You don't recognize this face… not yet. »
He raised his hand and placed it gently on the young girl's shoulder, freezing her blood with terror, before adding in a calm voice:
Kurisu: « Take care of Subaru. He needs it greatly. »
Emilia, totally lost in the face of this man of overwhelming power who spoke to her like an old acquaintance, could only nod mechanically.
Puck boiled with rage at seeing this stranger touch his daughter, but Beatrice's warning kept him pinned in place.
Kurisu then turned away and approached the little librarian. Seeing him advance, Beatrice tensed, closing her eyes in anticipation of the blow that would annihilate her.
But Kurisu's hand landed gently on her head. He affectionately ruffled her golden curls, leaving everyone in a state of total incomprehension.
Kurisu: « Ahh, Beako… Don't be afraid of me. I'm nice. Very nice, even… I just like to tease people from time to time. »
He stepped away a few paces, turning one last time toward the stunned group. In the shadows, Roswaal's presence had not escaped his sharpened senses.
Kurisu: « From now on, I'll be around a bit more. The clown… or rather Roswaal, already knows, anyway. »
At those words, Ram tensed violently.
Ram: « Roswaal-sama… knows? » she whispered, shaken in her deepest certainties.
Kurisu offered her one last carnivorous smile.
Kurisu: « We'll meet again another time, kekeke… »
And without the slightest sound of a footstep, without displacing a single particle of air, he vanished purely and simply from their field of vision, leaving the inhabitants of the Mathers Mansion alone with the absolute incomprehension of the anomaly they had just encountered.
....
The Mathers Mansion was bathed in a heavy silence, of a density almost suffocating. In one of the guest rooms, Subaru finally rested, plunged into a deep sleep, his bruised body wrapped in immaculate bandages. At his side, refusing to take her eyes off him for even a fraction of a second, Rem kept watch, silent, her heart still clenched by a mix of visceral anguish and crushing guilt.
Elsewhere in the vast residence, the atmosphere was just as ghostly. Emilia, Ram, and Beatrice went about their tasks like broken automatons, their minds bogged down in recent events. Puck, silent, had retreated into his crystal.
No one had yet truly digested the encounter. This "anomaly" dressed in white had left in his wake an aura of terror so absolute, so organically incomprehensible, that the air of the mansion seemed to still vibrate, corrupted by his simple past presence.
Far from this muted agitation, confined in the gloom of his barricaded office, Roswaal L. Mathers was alone.
Seated behind his heavy oak desk, the Lord of the mansion was no longer smiling. His heterochromatic eyes, usually so sparkling with calculated malice, were wide open, scanning pages with desperate frenzy.
Between his trembling hands lay the Gospel. The Tome of Wisdom. For four hundred years, this black grimoire had been his compass, his god, his absolute scenario.
But tonight, the pages seemed mute, almost mocking. Roswaal turned and returned the sheets with a haste that betrayed his burgeoning panic. He searched for an explanation, a line, a word.
He tried to rationalize the impossible. The text was deviating. Certainties were crumbling like dry sand. The perfect script he followed to the letter had just been violently trampled by a man whose very nature he did not even know.
The Gospel had predicted nothing. Not the slightest allusion to this entity, not a spot of ink to announce this overwhelming power. For the first time in centuries, Roswaal was flying blind. A total lack of understanding knotted his throat, stifling his rationality.
Suddenly, a voice echoed in the room. Amused, almost compassionate, and charged with an insidious cruelty.
Kurisu: « It's hard to swallow, isn't it? »
Roswaal pivoted abruptly toward the large window, his hand raised, mana boiling in his veins, ready to unleash a hell of fire and ice. But...
Nothing. The heavy curtains were perfectly still.
Kurisu: « When the score suddenly changes... and the musician realizes he's been playing out of tune since the very first act. »
The voice resonated unnaturally. It didn't bounce off the walls; it seemed to bloom directly inside the mage's skull.
Roswaal turned his head toward his desk, teeth clenched until the enamel threatened to crack, scanning every corner of the room with his hyper-acute senses.
Still no one. Not an ounce of detectable mana. Not the slightest movement of air. He was the most powerful mage in the kingdom of Lugunica, but he suddenly felt as vulnerable and derisory as a child lost in the woods.
It was at that precise moment that a presence materialized behind him.
An aura so dense, so inexplicably overwhelming, that it made the powerful sorcerer's shoulders sag. The temperature dropped brutally. On the floor, the shadow cast by the moon seemed to distort, stretching toward Roswaal in defiance of all physical laws.
Kurisu stood right behind the high back of his armchair. He leaned in slowly, almost brushing against the mage's makeup-streaked cheek, and whispered with the sweetness of a slow poison.
Kurisu: « Tell me... did your precious little notebook... whisper to you that I would come to disrupt your beautiful game board? »
Roswaal froze. The silence in the room became total, deafening, broken only by the frantic beating of his own heart. Kurisu slowly circled the armchair and came to lean nonchalantly against the edge of the oak desk, dominating the mage with all his immaculate presence.
An unreadable smile stretched his lips. Slowly, he reached out a white-gloved hand and placed his index finger on the black cover of the Gospel.
Under his touch, the book's faint magical pulse died instantly, as if dead from fear.
Roswaal: « I doooo noooot seeeee whaaaaat youuuu are taaaaalking aboooout, my deaaaaar gueeeeest. »
The sentence was sing-song, as usual. The typical intonation of the eccentric clown. But the tone rang hollow. Desperately fake. Kurisu let out a small crystalline laugh, withdrawing his finger from the book to shake his head with undisguised pity.
Kurisu: « Stop. It's pathetic. Maintain that mask if it helps you breathe, clown. But we both know you're sweating with anguish under that white powder. »
Roswaal's frozen smile flickered. For a fraction of a second. Less than a blink of an eye. But Kurisu's amber eyes caught that flaw with delight.
Kurisu: « You persist in scanning empty pages. Why continue reading a script when the leading actor has already decided to improvise? Your little variable has just escaped you. »
He leaned forward, closing the space between them, his gaze plunging so deep into Roswaal's soul that it seemed to scrape the walls.
Kurisu: « Four hundred years. Four centuries of petty manipulations, arranged massacres, feverish waiting... for this? For your house of cards to collapse at the first breath of a wind you can't even conceptualize. It's tragic. Especially when one knows for whom you are crawling in the mud. »
Roswaal did not move, but a violent internal contradiction took hold of his body. His hands, placed flat on the desk, had a nervous twitch that he could not repress. The tips of his fingers turned white under the pressure. He wanted to open his mouth to deny, to strike back, but Kurisu did not give him the time.
Kurisu: « Your so dear Witch of Greed surely hoped for better. Echidna deserved a pawn capable of seeing beyond the fog, not an old man terrified by an erasure on his parchment. All this time, all this devotion... for nothing. »
The name struck like a guillotine blade.
Roswaal's breath caught. His pupils trembled, dilating to the extreme in primal horror. For exactly half a second, the jester's unshakable illusion shattered.
Roswaal's fingers closed on the Gospel with such frantic violence that the leather binding cracked lugubriously in the silence. His voice, usually so theatrical and controlled, burst out in a raspy, deep breath, totally stripped of its sing-song intonation.
Roswaal: « How... how dare you speak her name?! »
Kurisu stood up slowly, savoring this psychological crack like the finest nectar. He did not answer. To explain would have been to lower himself.
He simply turned on his heels, gliding toward the door without his steps making the slightest sound on the floor, before stopping to cast one last amused look over his shoulder.
Kurisu: « Keep that name in mind, Roswaal. Kozuwa Kurisu. And don't see me as some cliché god or absolute master… No… Just consider me a spectator who found your little play so dreadfully predictable that he decided to step onto the stage. »
His laugh, of an almost childlike but deeply terrifying lightness, echoed one last time, bouncing off the walls.
Kurisu: « Try not to break your remaining toys too much, kekeke... »
And in a blink of an eye, like a soap bubble bursting in the void, he disappeared. Purely and simply. Leaving behind nothing but a stifling absence and the biting cold of the night.
Roswaal remained alone in the icy gloom of his office.
He did not move for long, interminable minutes. Silence had once again become the sole master of the place, but inside the mage, all was smoking ruins. Slowly, he lowered his gaze toward his own hands.
They were still trembling. He, Roswaal L. Mathers, the ultimate manipulator, the man who believed himself above time and destiny, had just suffered the greatest trauma of his four centuries of existence.
The realization fell upon him with the weight of a mountain. He was no longer the puppeteer moving the master pieces in the shadows. The chessboard had just been overturned by a player who refused to follow the rules.
He looked down at his Gospel, this once divine book he still clutched against him, and realized with unspeakable terror that he was now nothing more than a simple puppet whose strings had just been cut.
But worse than the loss of his own control, a poisoned, unthinkable doubt had just sprouted in his ravaged mind. Gripping the desk so as not to collapse, Roswaal stared into the void, a blasphemous question burning on his lips:
And if... even She... Had not seen this anomaly coming?