Ram: "Apologies for this when you're motivated, Emilia-sama, but Garf is entering the tomb first."
That is Ram's first line after finishing her chat and returning to the group with Garfiel. Subaru's eyes widen. Emilia and Otto are also plainly surprised.
Subaru: "Garfiel's doing the TRIAL... seriously?"
Ram: "Most seriously of seriously. Yes, Garf?"
Ram nods and glances up to Garfiel, who stands beside her.
Their height difference is not that great, but regardless Garfiel is slightly taller than Ram. He sticks his fingers in his bangs, matted with dry blood, and averts his gaze so as to not engage in the conversation.
Ram grabs that unengaged ear of his and yanks it.
Ram: "Are you listening, Garf? What nerve you must have, ignoring us."
Garfiel: "Auahg! Adduhd!? Oi, Ram!? My amazin' ear's barely hangin' onter my head right now! 'S seconds from coming off... 's bleedin'!"
Ram: "It seems that introspection you had after that beatdown from us isn't functioning. I'll mention now that our side still has Emilia-sama left, who hasn't exhausted her stamina in the slightest. You do recognize what will happen if you rebel?"
Emilia: "I-I... wasn't thinking to do anything violent..."
Everyone is drowning in wounds and sitting at the peak of exhaustion—except for Emilia, who had not participated in the fight and remains in top condition.
They had just ended a battle where the whole point was to not get Emilia involved, and still Ram is instantly using her to start making threats. Terrifying backbone.
Garfiel: "Yeah, I get it. We start fightin' again here and my amazin' self ain't gonna win. EARTHSOUL BLESSING's given me a lotter my strength back... but it ain't enough fer a fight."
Subaru: "That's a relief to hear. I'd seriously rather not get into any more fistfights with you. Thought I was gonna die. You're sitting second or third in this month's rankings."
Otto: "Natsuki-san, just how many butcheries have you squeaked through? It's scary."
Subaru recollects on his fistfight with Garfiel and shivers. Otto envisions the grisliness of the scene and shivers.
This ranked in second or third place for his experiences in almost dying—but considering that he has also actually died, perhaps the peril he faced here was not really so hazardous.
Garfiel: "...How'm I th'second or third?"
Subaru: "Well that's where you are. Second or third." something something We take this outside and more's gonna happen.
Garfiel: "Ha! Yer smooth talk ain't gonna hook me. 'S a DERDERDE LURKS IN THE SHADOWS OF
QUICK RICHES."
Garfiel snorts away Subaru's challenge, and traces his fingers over his forehead scar.
His sharp gold eyes then gaze at the sight behind Subaru and the others—at the tomb, looming.
Garfiel: "Wheedlin', n' actual force... still can't believe yer used both. Now's t'try seeing things with yer view, n' decide."
Emilia: "What are you deciding?"
Emilia quietly asks Garfiel.
He looks at her. She looks back at him straight-on.
This might be the first time that they have ever faced each other in earnest.
Emilia is recipient to Garfiel's horrifically violent gaze. But even so, her amethyst eyes do not waver in the least.
Perhaps seeing something in the eyes of the other, both of them smile.
Garfiel clicks his fangs, while Emilia's fingers reach for her chest, before she seems to remember something and stops.
Seeing that, Garfiel reaches for his left shoulder.
Garfiel: "Ngh, hah...!"
The blue crystal jutting from his shoulder comes out with a splorch.
He does begin bleeding, but he forces the flow to stop by tightening his muscles. Emilia's eyes widen at it as he tosses the removed crystal to her.
Emilia: "Ah, oh..."
Garfiel: "Jus'take it. 'S probably right fer you t'be th'one holdin' onter this thing."
Emilia promptly catches the crystal, looking at it while Garfiel speaks bluntly.
She accepts Garfiel's statements while the brilliance of the crystal in her hands leads her to gulp. The jewel glows dimly, strobing, almost seeming overjoyed that Emilia has caught it.
Subaru crosses his arms as he watches on from aside. Still the same even though he can't speak, he thinks.
Emilia: "Thank you, Garfiel."
Garfiel: "My view is I just chucked away somethin' annoyin' fer me s'all. No reason fer yer t'thank me."
Garfiel looks up at the sky with no particular intention.
Tangerine hues creep across the panoramic, soon to welcome night. Before long, the TRIAL will be ready to start.
Garfiel: "—I'm gonna be checking. Whether I'm who's wrong, or you're who's wrong."
Garfiel's shoulders slice the wind as he turns around.
His path leads him toward the tomb—the nightmarish place which had carved abhorrent memories into him in childhood.
After all this time, what will he see there now?
Subaru: "Hey, Garfiel."
A call from behind stops the supposedly-determined Garfiel.
He clicks his tongue and glances behind him, to find that Subaru is who halted him, his hand raised.
Garfiel: "What?"
Subaru: "I mean, not trying to rain on your parade or anything. But seeing as there's still an ounce of time before the TRIAL starts..."
While entirely raining on Garfiel's parade, Subaru scratches his head.
It looks like he's having difficulty saying something. Garfiel clicks his fangs to urge Subaru on. Subaru sighs.
Subaru: "Please at least get dressed. You're in only a loincloth that's ready to fall off any second, there's a line for tawdry here and you've crossed it."
Barbarian style with the breeze tickling his privates.
A vein pulses on Garfiel head. Ram gives an astonished sigh.
Ram: "What a tawdry episode."
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
—After getting dressed and entering the tomb, Garfiel senses that meets the TRIAL's conditions.
The air hangs damp within the stone structure. A chilly breeze blows past, carrying the scent of dust, making Garfiel grimace. His nose is far too effective, and the stench from the enclosed chamber is an assault to his senses.
Garfiel: "Don't wanna be stayin' 'round here too long."
His mutter echoes down the corridor. Nothing replies.
He feels firm ground beneath his feet, firm ground beneath his feet, as he intrudes deeper and deeper into the tomb.
Garfiel recognizes that his pulse has accelerated without his notice.
He challenges the TRIAL, and he will see the consequence. He was ready for that. But still he cannot be calm, because the memory for Garfiel is one which evokes intense and irremovable dread.
Experiencing it again will make something change, his heart insists.
What on earth about Garfiel would change from witnessing that debacle again? He had never even forgotten it for an instant in the first place.
The vivid memory has burned into his brain far too vividly.
What would seeing it again do except reinforce that memory further?
Garfiel: "...P'thetic. I'm here b'cause that's what I wanna check."
Garfiel mocks himself as he lines up screeds of tenable logic, insistent to flee.
It's a girlishness where he can agree with Ram's scolding and derision of him. He had never wanted to know or realise that he was such a coward of a man.
—But if he is the kind of man who submits to frailty and girlishness, what is going to do?
Garfiel: "—"
His feet stop atop the stone-paved path. He focuses his attention on the ground below him. A warm wave of power courses up from his soles, the gift of the earth to Garfiel and his
EARTHSOUL BLESSING.
His may have been wounded, brutalized, and exhausted, but merely contacting the ground is enough to restore Garfiel's body, his strength compounding.
Nevermind how he was in the instants after being beaten. Now that he's had a short rest, he's at 40% of his top capacity. He should be capable of destroying the tomb if he wanted to.
And Subaru and Ram and the others would not be able to stop Garfiel's destruction. It would utterly eliminate the point of their strenuous efforts spent defeating Garfiel. He could eliminate the point, right now.
Were they so stupid that they hadn't considered that?
Garfiel: "Fuckin' shitheads."
Of course they had.
Emilia was probably ignorant to the concept of 'doubting people', and Otto was probably missing a few important screws, but nevermind them. Calculating Subaru and that Ram would surely not overlook the possibility.
They're thinking that even if Garfiel regains his strength, he will not destroy the tomb.
Did they think him too cowardly to, or did they just trust him?
Garfiel cannot tell which it is.
Would this solution come after he defeats the TRIAL too?
Garfiel: "...Stupid."
With that, Garfiel resumes walking.
Thinking about complicated stuff is not his speciality. His poorness at using his head remains the same both in his daily life and during battle. He regardless frantically works his brain because someone long ago told him to.
Ram: < Think more while you're fighting, Garf. It'd make me happy if you did. >
Garfiel: "—eh,"
He remembers who told him to think while living.
Which was why he had so earnestly, with such asinine sincerity, remained to fixated to the idea.
The exact person who had told Garfiel to think while fighting had wound up informing him that he was better at fighting when not thinking. Crossing the line for absurdity.
Garfiel: "This's damn bullshit, oi... huh?"
A smile wells up inside him.
Just when he attempts to stifle the smile dead, Garfiel spots the corridor's end.
A rectangular space welcomes him. The TRIAL room.
Pale ghostly lights phase the chamber in from darkness. Garfiel steps inside, his stress somewhat calmed, and he looks at the stone door at the back of the room.
This door will open after the three TRIALS are cleared. Though since he has never seen it open before, he does not know if that is the truth. Nothing gives any indication of what is inside, either.
If he remains here standing still and waiting, the TRIAL should start.
Garfiel: "—Eh?"
Garfiel crosses his arms, bored as he glances around the chamber, when his brows rise. Into Garfiel's nocturnal vision there slinks an oddness about the room.
He strains his eyes in attempt to confirm exactly what it is, and—
< —First face your past. >
A voice.
Instantaneously, his vision wavers, his consciousness blurring.
The past, was here.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
???: "I didn't think at all that you'd be coming here again. —It makes me feel very happy."
Once his consciousness reaches sobriety, Garfiel realises that he is standing in a forest.
He turns his head, to see the sight of a familiar woods—but compared to the scenery that Garfiel knows, these woodlands are somewhat YOUNGER. It's only a few years of difference, but being that it's a place he interacts with daily, Garfiel can easily notice the discrepancy.
This is the past.
And he is in a dream, challenging the TRIAL.
After smoothly accepting these facts, Garfiel checks to see how he is.
His limbs are there. Everything from his neck up, eyes and nose and ears and etcetra exist without issue. He opens his mouth and bites down hard, for his fangs to click like unsheathed blades.
He's fine, no problems. Actually it feels like the injuries he sustained before entering the tomb have been healed.
???: "Your injuries from reality aren't carrying over because this place only hauls in your mind. If you suffered a wound serious enough to influence your mind, then it wouldn't heal even in the dream. This one's already been verified, so for example if someone who was missing an arm in reality was invited to this world, their missing arm wouldn't heal and..."
Garfiel: "Shut it with yer long-winded blabberin'. Can't yer tell 'm ignorin' yer?"
???: "Indeed I can. But even so I just have to speak with you. I'd sorta like it if you could respect these feelings of delight I have for our prolonged reunion."
Wanna try it? Says the doll-like smile of the girl standing opposite Garfiel.
From top to bottom a black funeral dress-esque vestment garbs her, her hair and skin pure white. Her smile was alluring enough to enchant any man, but facing her was enough to tell that it was utterly empty.
This visage was another thing which had not changed an inch from what he remembered.
Garfiel: "My amazin' self's grown up, but you ain't changed a bit."
Girl: "Because I am very unfortunately deceased. Dead, with only my soul stuck in the world. No matter how the time passes, I can't walk the same trail as the living. This is a pretty sentimental topic, isn't it? It's not really like you."
Garfiel: "'Like me', now there's words only people who know me real well got any business sayin'. Our meetin' happened ages ago n' we only did it once. Ain't that we talked 'bout anythin' important either."
Girl: "Perhaps that's exactly how I look to you. But I have to wonder if that'd have any bearing on whether the time I've spent looking at you has been equivalently equal."
Garfiel: "—Tch."
He knows that he can't outfox her in conversation.
While withstanding the urge to click his tongue, Garfiel glares at the witch standing there with not a speck of ill will on her face—Echidna.
Perhaps acting as an inspector for the TRIAL, Echidna had accompanied Garfiel like this the last time he saw the past, as well. Not out of any human concern for him as the TRIAL brutalized his heart, but to make sure that he did not miss a single one the events unfolding, out of a gross kind of curiosity.
Losing will to speak with her any further, Garfiel looks at the forest.
If this production which was the past has already started, then the arrival of the actors is only a matter of time.
Garfiel has not the slightest intention to delight this witch who mere conversation can delight.
Echidna: "So cold."
Echidna accepts even this attitude of Garfiel as something pleasant as she stands beside him and strokes her white hair.
During this juncture, where he's watching her from aside, the change happens.
Garfiel: "—"
Faced with a scene he supposedly knew was coming, Garfiel swallows his breath.
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The edge of the forest—also said, the dividing line for the barrier which delineates SANCTUARY's inside and outside.
Just being around the barrier is enough for those trapped within it to come near to unconsciousness, and undergo the unpleasant feeling of their being being thrown into disarray.
In the environs of this boundary line there appear four silhouettes.
One is Lewes with her long pink hair, her appearance identical to what it is in present reality. Another is a girl of perhaps ten years with beautiful, silky blonde hair—Frederica.
And standing opposite to Lewes and Frederica is a woman, her blonde hair tied in a ponytail, her face gentle.
In her hands she cradles an infant. A blond child, with nasty-looking eyes.
Garfiel: "ah... M-mom..."
The instant he sights the woman and recognizes who she is holding, a feeble sound escapes his lips. But his call for his mother does not reach any of the four.
—Naturally. Nobody can interfere with the past.
Echidna: "Even supposing that you reach out, you won't touch her. Nothing you say will make her smile back. I know it sounds ridiculous coming from me, but I sympathize with how you're being forced to watch something cruel."
The witch's sentiments, which make him want to shout Don't you goddamn talk!
But the eyes of the witch as she watches Garfiel, his face twisted in anguish, host no malice. This scene is not something that the witch prepared with malicious intentions.
How would the challenger's regrets manifest, how would the challenger face them—and what would be the outcome of it? That alone was what this natural disaster sought.
Garfiel: "—"
Garfiel trembles. The four are having a conversation.
Their statements, their words, the tone of their voices, none of it is reaching Garfiel.
They are opening their mouths, making sound.
But when it travels through the air and vibrates against Garfiel's eardrums, no definite meaning arises from it.
Anguish arises on Lewes' face. Frederica bites her lip in an attempt to keep herself from crying. Their mother looks worried, while Garfiel in her arms smiles happily.
No sound accompanies this painful scene because this is Garfiel's memory.
Young Garfiel did not store the content of this conversation in his memory. And so the words they speak do not reach present Garfiel.
But this memory is one that tugs at him dimly, shallowly.
The scene has been reproduced, the performance playing on as if to rile him up.
Echidna: "I wonder what they could be saying. Can you figure anything?"
Garfiel: "Stop talkin' t'me. —Yer just gonna give some stupid answer anyway."
Considering what happens after this, he can figure what they're saying.
His mother is attempting to leave for the outside world, while Lewes and Frederica are trying to convince her to stay. Young Garfiel is unable to participate in the conversation, merely being held by his mom and basking in that joy.
Garfiel: "—Ghhah!"
An unbearable urge strikes Garfiel, leading him to step forth.
Echidna's brows rise as Garfiel lumbers over to the four. He stands right beside them, but none notice him. He gazes at his sister, shorter than him, Lewes, unchanged, and himself and his mother, all from straight-on.
Cradled by his mother, young Garfiel smiles guilelessly.
It pisses him off. This guy doesn't know what's coming next, he's not even qualified to participate in the conversation to convince his mother to stay, just sitting there smiling.
How to quantify the regret and despair that came of the fact that he merely sat there, smiling?
Garfiel: "Augh! Ghhah! Aaaaaagghghhh!!"
He swings his arm up, his claws ripping through the air.
He wanted to stab his claws into the infant's happy face and overwrite it with despair. He wanted to make him know how imbecilic his decision was.
But his claws pass through the infant's face, and even through the arms of his mother as she cradles him.
He could stomp the ground and use his blessing to try and send them flying, but nothing would result. The swings of his arms grow larger, the phantom of his mother getting wrapped up in the destruction, but no change occurring at all.
Garfiel: "Why! Am I! Being shown this shit!!"
He swings his arm up fruitlessly. Strikes the ground.
But the destruction does not transmit to the world of memory, which remains sternly as is.
Unable to vent his anger or make the past disappear, his voice shaking, Garfiel turns around and bares his fangs at the witch.
Garfiel: "It's the same! It ain't changed at all! Nothing's changing 'bout how mom didn't stay, or 'bout what happened to her after! You satisfied now, eh!?"
Echidna: "You're free to messily throw attacks around however you want, but don't you think it's slightly extraordinarily selfish to blame me for this? It's definitely not a mistake that the past is unfurling because of things I intended... but you're the one who, knowing what this place was, came back here. If you were anticipating for something to change, then the one you should lambaste for its failure to change isn't me. It's you."
Garfiel: "Me?"
Echidna: "Entirely. This place hasn't changed because you haven't changed. You can't accept the past in a different manner from before because you can't accept change in yourself. If you accept yourself to change, or elect not to change, then you'll be capable of overcoming the TRIAL. And actually, there was a boy who elected for change who did overcome his past."
Garfiel cannot manage a single word in response as Echidna tells him of a previous victor.
It's easy for him to disregard it as just Echidna bullshitting. But if it's not her bullshitting, then—the moment he thinks it, Garfiel knows fear.
Someone has overcome their past before.
SANCTUARY has not been freed. This person who overcame their past did not manage to conquer the following TRIALS. But even still, presuming that they overcame their past—
Garfiel: "N-No... yer can't trick me! Yer need t'have demihuman blood t'be qualified t'challenge the TRIAL! It ain't possible that anyone thinner than a half-blood who ain't me or sis's come to SANCTUARY before! Meanin'! Anyone qualified's still in SANCTUARY! And this guy who took the TRIAL here and beat their past don't..."
exist. Garfiel hesitates on the final word of his assertion.
The witch's provocations tug at him, and just when he comes close to doubting his own thoughts, the facts to refute her come flying at him. But is he truly correct?
The witch smiles somewhat happily.
This was not her welcoming the destruction of her lies, nor her welcoming Garfiel's debate. This expression was one of waiting, for something that would more intensely tickle her curiosity.
Echidna: "This guy who beat it doesn't what?"
From the bare-faced tone of her question and from her attitude, Garfiel senses it.
Echidna is looking for something. Waiting to see whether, from the information that Garfiel himself has presented, he will or will not reach the solution.
And Garfiel realises.
Just who the witch, who Echidna, is talking about.
Garfiel: "No goddamn way..."
Garfiel was talking about the requirement to challenge the tomb.
But an exception existed.
The witch had not directly stated this, and this was entirely Garfiel's speculation.
But most likely, being an APOSTLE TO THE WITCH OF GREED simultaneously qualified someone to challenge the TRIAL.
Garfiel knows only one person to whom this applies.
And hadn't he already told Garfiel before?
—I've taken the TRIAL, and seen my past.
Garfiel: "But, he said he couldn't overcome th'past, he said himself he couldn't overcome the TRIAL..."
Echidna: "You don't think that saying those things would avoid unneeded conflict? Or that unwanted things would happen if people knew that he overcame the TRIAL, maybe?"
Garfiel: "Shut it, I ain't talkin' t'you. Don't butt in!"
Echidna's words lead Garfiel's brain to strobe, his thoughts in turmoil.
It is correct to acknowledge that he—Natsuki Subaru—had challenged the TRIAL. He knew that the TRIAL meant facing the past before Garfiel could mention anything.
Garfiel recollects on Subaru back when he said he failed to overcome it. Garfiel had been so shocked to learned that Subaru was qualified that he inadvertently ended the conversation before asking what he really ought to have, but—
Garfiel: "—hk"
Subaru's expression back then was not the face of a man battered by his unconquerable past. He did look frustrated about a failure to achieve something, but it was not the look of a man harbouring a personal problem. That look was one which, reflected on the water's face as he went to bathe, Garfiel got to witness every day.
Subaru's bearing as he attacked Garfiel did not carry the visage, nor the voice, nor the assertions of a man suffering prolonged hangups with his past.
Garfiel: "He... overcame, his past? You can overcome your past?"
Echidna: "Just for hypothesis, supposing that something where he gave you some kind of pompous lecture happened, wouldn't it make sense that he preached because some basis made him capable of it?"
Garfiel's hazy mind thinks back on his exchange of fists with Subaru.
Subaru and Garfiel had both been hitting their limits for staying conscious. He could not remember the entirety of what Subaru yelled back then. No, he mustn't give up. He must here, right now, remember those words and question himself.
What was he told? What was yelled at him?
His past, his stagnation, his immobility, his barrier, his SANCTUARY, his family.
What happens to the hopeless, to those who have stopped moving?
If you want to start something, then you are free to start anything.
???: "—Then you are going to leave regardless of anything?"
A familiar voice strikes Garfiel's ear.
But this is a voice which should not be audible.
Because this was not the voice of someone who could interfere with Garfiel here, and not the voice of someone Garfiel could interfere with here.
???: "Yes, I am leaving. I know I'll be causing problems for you, Lewes-sama."
???: "Yer don't hafter worry about that. The problem's how the kids're gonner feel."
The voice are the familiar ones of his family, and the unfamiliar ones of his family.
The sounds match to the movements of Lewes and her sour expression, and the movements of his mother who faces her.
For the first time in his life, Garfiel hears his mother's voice.
Garfiel: "—"
He swallows his breath as the scene robs his attention.
His mother gazes down lovingly at the Garfiel in her arms, rocking him gently. Frederica grasps the hem of their mother's skirt as she looks up at her, and strains out her voice.
Frederica: "M-Mother... I-I... I..."
Mother: "I'm sorry, Rica. I know how it's going to worry you."6
Frederica: "That's okay. I will be fine. But, poor Garf..."
Mother: "Should I take him with me? But your mommy is a bumbler. I'm sure he'd go through bad experiences. Rica, you're my girl but you're so dependable, please look after him."
Frederica, although sad, gives her goodbyes to their mother.
Garfiel hadn't known that his sister agreed with their mother's departure from SANCTUARY. Lewes, as she holds Frederica's trembling shoulders, also looks to respect their mother's decision.
Mother: "Gar, your mommy will be coming back."
Their mother lifts Garfiel up.
Ignorant to his mother's determination, he smiles cheerfully. She holds him close. Kisses his forehead.
6Her nickname for Frederica is フー (fuu) from フレデリカ. It doesn't work in English.
In the exact same spot that Garfiel now has a scar.
Mother: "I'll be coming back with your daddy. Until then, wait for me."
Garfiel: "—hk!"
Her eyes abound in affection, her voice abounds in compassion.
To keep from losing the unforgettable memory, again and again, his mother kisses him.
Eventually, she hands young Garfiel to Lewes.
Lewes cradles Garfiel firmly as she and his mother share a nod. His mother then hugs Frederica, and showers her beloved daughter's forehead in a rain of kisses too.
Garfiel: "—Haa, auh. Aauh, aaagh.... aaaaaaagh..."
While witnessing this, Garfiel has at some unknown juncture fallen to his knees. What in the world is he watching?
He doesn't know this. He's never seen this before.
This was supposed to be the memory from when he was young, when he knew nothing, when he challenged the TRIAL, where he saw something more hopeless, more garnished in crushing despair.
And even though he remembered it, even though he remembered that vivid feeling of being abandoned in that memory, he had believed the memory a precious one and cultivated his obstinance.
All the empty threats, all across his days up until now, which he made to hide his sorrow and misery —peel away, crumble away, as something entirely different overwrites them.
What was this? This memory?
Hadn't his mother abandoned him and his sister, leaving them in search of her own happiness? Hadn't she expelled these nuisances from her life and determined to walk her own path?
It's utterly reversed.
His mother deserted himself and Frederica and left. Explaining why Garfiel had been capable of so securely creating the person who was GARFIEL TINZEL.
The second Garfiel realises that it's all the illegitimate result of misdirected ideas, his secure barricade morphs into a brittle dirt wall, his world collapsing beneath him.
Garfiel cannot even stand any more as his family's goodbyes reach their end.
His mother, reluctant to part, touches Frederica and Garfiel one last time, and entrusts everything to Lewes as she takes her bag and turns to exit the woods.
She stops many times along her path. Glances back, at Frederica who is waving. Sees how Lewes is holding Garfiel's hand, making him wave his goodbye to his mother, and she waves back.
She collects herself and again begins to walk. Stops. Glances back, waves. Over and over, over and over and over and over, as his mom exits the forest—
Garfiel: "—Wha!?"
Just when he moves to stand up and follow her, his vision warps.
The world is losing its edges, and not entirely because of the teardrops swamping Garfiel's eyes. It's happening for a more clear-cut reason.
The edges of his vision are swarmed in white light, and the forest is disappearing.
Like the end of the world. The unanticipated finale leads Garfiel to turn toward the witch behind him, and yell.
Garfiel: "Why! Why is it ending here! It ain't reached the fundamental..."
Echidna: "No, it's over. There's no need to see anything further. It's not me who determined the dream as finished, but you. Congratulations, Garfiel. You've rewritten your past."
Garfiel: "What're you...!? Stop fucking with me! Th'part my amazin' self most has t'do something about 's after this!"
Echidna: "There's no need to see what comes next, and even supposing that you've envisioned some idea of what does happen next, interfering with it is out of your scope."
Garfiel: "Auh—"
You can't change the past, the witch is saying.
Garfiel's reddened face pales as he falls, partway to standing up, back to his knees.
He knows how his mother truly felt. And now this.
The fate of his mother, having left this place, would not change?
His mother left SANCTUARY for Garfiel and Frederica's sake in search of his father. But immediately after its founding that journey was crushed, alongside his mother.
—Didn't this just escalate an already hopeless memory into something even more dismal?
Didn't a memory of despair piled upon despair just switch into one of hope crushed by hopelessness? What about himself was he supposed to change, with this?
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Frederica: "Mother loved both you and I, Garf."
Garfiel springs his head up.
Looking down at him as he kneels is his sister, still young. She is looking at him. A supposedly blind past, incapable of interaction, is interacting with him.
Frederica: "Our Mother left SANCTUARY for the sake of our family. Does that dissatisfy you?"
Garfiel: "Don't, fuck with me! So fuckin' what that we were loved! D-don't, shove u-undue memories onto me. I...!"
Frederica: "How much easier it was to be unloved."
Says young Frederica, somewhat mocking toward Garfiel.
Their height difference is literally that of a child and an adult. But Frederica pays not the slightest care to his height, talking from straight-on and with an expression suggesting that he is such a handful of a little brother.
Frederica: "Allowance to believe that your love is unreciprocated gives you capability to justify yourself."
Garfiel: "No!"
Frederica: "You love her, and she loves you... should you have discovered this, you would no longer be capable of justifying your neglect to soar outside, your remaining holed in SANCTUARY."
Garfiel: "No! No, no! And when yer don't even fuckin' know anythin'... what do you think happened t'mom!"
Frederica: "—Surely I would know."
Garfiel leaves himself to his anger as he roars, when a shock hits him like a slap to the face. Frederica's expression vanishes. She looks at Garfiel, seeming to endure some emotion.
—What did she just say?
Frederica: "Surely I would know. Even should we suppose that after Mother left SANCTUARY she perhaps faced instantaneous misfortune... surely that information would have reached me."
Garfiel: "N'so... so what!?"
Frederica: "And surely you understand that this information could not have reached you. You are no longer a juvenile, Garf."
Frederica knew what happened to their mother.
And even Garfiel understands why she had been unable to tell young Garfiel that.
Who on earth could inform a young boy that his mother had met a cruel demise?
If he had not peeped on the TRIAL in this tomb, Garfiel never would have known. That he did know was because he had trampled over many considerations and kindnesses which had been trying not to let him find out.
Frederica: "In truth, you did remember that Mother loved you."
Garfiel: "..."
Frederica: "You yourself wounded the spot where Mother had kissed you, where she had last touched you, in an attempt to pretend that it had not happened."
His fingers touch his forehead scar.
This wound had not existed on his brow when he was young.
He sustained this injury immediately after he challenged the TRIAL. In a state of pandemonium, Garfiel bashed his head open on the walls, on the floor, harming himself so greatly that he suffered a permanent wound.
This scar was his injury from back then. And the truth behind this scar was, surely, what Frederica had just said.
Frederica: "It's ending now."
Frederica whispers.
Before he can realise it, the world has already lost almost all of its shape.
The forest is gone, as are his departing mother and Lewes. Not even the onlooker witch is anywhere in sight, the world remaining with only the siblings Frederica and Garfiel.
Frederica: "Even should you use wounds to conceal it, you cannot erase your past. Nor can you erase the fact that you were loved."
Garfiel: "What'm I... meant to do?"
Garfiel feebly asks Frederica.
Garfiel: "If mom's end isn't changing, then that means th'outside's still scary for me. Going out there, and Nanna and everyone else having to go out there, scares me."
Frederica: "You must ask this small elder sister of yours before you can figure any answer?"
Garfiel: "I know it's p'thetic! But yer th'only one I can ask. C'mon, tell me... Sis, why did you..."
Frederica: "What is it that you wish to do, Garf?"
Interrupting him, Frederica tilts her head.
Garfiel's sentence jams. What he wants to do? That's not what they're talking about. It's what should he do, what does he need to do. That's what he's asking.
Frederica: "What is it that you wish to do, Garf?"
Looking somewhat exasperated, Frederica repeats the question.
Garfiel swallows his breath.
Garfiel: "I want t'do, what people're looking for."
Frederica: "What which people are looking for?"
Garfiel: "I wanna do what... what the people who need me are looking for from me."
Frederica: "Why is it that you feel this way?"
Garfiel: "Because... they're what made me remember."
Remember what? Frederica doesn't ask.
But, those eyes, the same gold as his, do ask the question.
Garfiel: "—That my mother loved me."
—The world of the dream shatters to dust, the past vanishing into the beyond.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Subaru sees Garfiel's expression as one of having undergone exorcism.
Subaru had spent approximately an hour fidgeting outside the tomb with his arms crossed, waiting. The group been anxious, never looking or speaking to each other, as they simply waited in silence for whatever would happen.
Subaru: "So what're all our plans if reneges on his promise and destroys the tomb?"
...Is a joke that Subaru told in an attempt to ease the mood, only for Otto to say something incredibly inconsiderate to the situation and eat a dropkick from Ram, but generally speaking it was all very quiet.
Lewes: "...Lil' Gar."
Lewes has reconvened with them, her expression anxious and hands linked as she restlessly looks at the tomb.
This present Lewes should be Theta, but regardless of which Lewes it is, they would all care about Garfiel dearly.
There's the whole affair where they ganged up in a group of 5 to beat up Garfiel, and also that whole affair where Garfiel had a complete change of heart and entered the tomb. Both of these events must have given Lewes more than a little shock to the heart.
Emilia looks at the tomb in suspense as she stands beside Subaru.
While naturally she must be curious about Garfiel's attempt too, once Garfiel exits the tomb, it's her turn to go inside.
The argument inside the tomb, and the fight between Subaru and Garfiel afterwards.
Subaru cannot tell what kind of change those events have had to her mental state. But her anxious expression is deeply steeped in concern for Garfiel, with not an ounce of reluctance toward her own TRIAL. This is ideally not a bad omen.
Otto: "—Ah!"
Subaru thinks his thoughts, when suddenly Otto points at the tomb and speaks.
He's saying something situation-dumb again, thinks Subaru as he grimaces, Ram clicking her knuckles. But this time it rather seems their conclusions are hasty ones.
Lewes: "Lil' Gar!"
Lewes stands up and dashes for the tomb.
Following her gaze, Subaru realises that a silhouette has appeared at the tomb's entrance.
Short blond hair, scar on brow. A sharp gaze, canines bladelike and pearly.
With a small frame and slouched posture, but emitting a dreadful and imposing aura.
Garfiel Tinzel.
Otto: "See, it's exactly what I said it'd—hyeek!"
Recipient to a jab from Ram's knee, Otto goes tumbling across the grass.
But without anyone raising the topic of Otto's suffering, they instead run over to Garfiel. Subaru bounds up the stone stairway to reach him. Lewes has already arrived and stands before Garfiel, hemming and hawing over what to say.
Lewes: "L-Lil' Gar. Erm, I..."
Garfiel: "Don't go making a face which don't look like yer. 'M sorry fer worryin' you."
Lewes: "Lil' Gar."
With that blunt statement, Garfiel puts his hand on small Lewes's head.
Patting his grandmother's head—is incredibly indecent, but given their heights, it's natural for these two. And seeing as Lewes isn't complaining about it, to point it out would be the epitome of tasteless.
Ram: "How did it go, Garf?"
Ram clears the stairs following Lewes and Subaru, and calls out to Garfiel.
It was Ram who gave Garfiel the direct impetus to challenge the TRIAL. Aware of the background circumstances, a rare-in-Subaru's-presence shade of worry peeks through in her expression. Garfiel hums in thought.
Garfiel: "Can't yer see with yer eyes th'results? Gotta say I expected somethin' more."
Subaru: "For some reason that sounded like a middle schooler bragging about shoplifting, but if this's what you're saying... you did it?"
Garfiel: "—Lined off an era for myself, m'thinkin'."
Garfiel gives a deep sigh out his nose.
Everyone comprehends him instantly, but it's a different sentiment which rises to fore.
Garfiel has overcome the TRIAL, and reached a conclusion about his past.
This means a step has been taken toward SANCTUARY's liberation, and proves that the TRIAL is not unreasonable or impossible.
Subaru: "Alright then. You keep riding off that momentum and go for the other TRIALS too, and..."
Garfiel: "Piss off. Only TRIAL my amazin' self's takin's this one. It ain't my thing t'be doin' th'others. Yeah?"
Emilia: "Yes, you're right. The rest of this is my job. Can't have it be taken away."
Garfiel glares at Emilia, who accepts the gaze from straight on.
Garfiel: "Witch's got her usual asshole thing goin' on. Make sure t'watch out."
Emilia: "Huh? You're giving me advice? Thank you. I'll remember it well."
It's Garfiel's breed of encouragement, and sardonicism. Emilia accepts his encouragement while beautifully ignoring the sardonicism.
Garfiel looks utterly thrown. Seeing that expression makes Subaru's cheeks relax into a smile—and this time, Garfiel's gaze lands in Subaru.
Subaru's brows shoot up as Garfiel scratches his cheek.
Garfiel: "Uh, I need to, right... yeah."
Subaru: "What's up? Skittishness's out of character for you. You're an archetype which just kills those hesitant or broody patterns, we'll do tribal play instead."
Garfiel: "I ain't got any idea what th'damn hell yer sayin', but I can tell yer makin' fun of me, oi. Yer gettin' yer teeth beat in... aeh, er, no nevermind."
He swings up his arm, only to lower it without doing anything.
Garfiel's suspicious, or really not-exactly-getting-to-the-point behaviour makes Subaru tilt his head. When a smile arises on Ram's face, as if she understands everything.
Ram: "Garf."
With that, she pokes Garfiel in the hip.
Garfiel sighs, shaking his head resignedly.
Garfiel: "It's probably 'cause of you that I passed the TRIAL. Thank you."
Subaru: "...Did you just thank me?"
Garfiel: "I ain't sayin' it again. But, I got t'remember somethin' I wanted t'remember. So goin' in there was... beneficial. Fuck!"
Perhaps with his embarrassment peaking over his time spent talking, Garfiel's face reddens in agitation as he jabs his finger at the wide-eyed Subaru.
Garfiel: "Listen! My amazin' self did lose, n' my TRIAL did change. But! Yer ain't gonna see me accept every word'v everythin' yer said as correct n' raise th'white flag n' surrender! Yer talked fuckin' big, sayin' yer'll change this SANCTUARY! F'that change hurts or pains th'folks inside, yer not gonna be gettin' any mercy!"
Subaru: "U-uhh... r-right, as reasonable..."
Garfiel speaks overwhelmingly menacingly, Subaru overawed but nevertheless managing to get words out.
Subaru could give Garfiel no absolute assurances. But he could promise that he would be doing his best to make things good. That much was definite—and just as he goes to say so,
Garfiel: "So I'm gonner be watchin' yer from right up close t'see whether yer wind up just bein' some all-talk bastard'r not. —You better pull it off, CAPTAIN!"
Subaru: "—"
Garfiel vigorously slaps Subaru's shoulders, gaze fixed on him, and makes that incredible statement. His unexpected form of address and his attitude stun Subaru so much that he's slow to react.
During that delay, Garfiel immediately passes by Subaru and descends to the bottom of the stairway with Lewes. Almost as if he's scared that someone will see his face.
Emilia: "Garfiel, your face is sooo red."
Perhaps catching a glimpse of his face before he can pass by, Emilia speaks while trying to hold back a smile.
Which means that no Subaru's ears were not tricking him.
Subaru: "Captain... I'm not the one heading this group, that's Emilia."
Emilia: "But it was your group which beat Garfiel, Subaru. He accepted what came out of a man-to- man conflict, which means his Captain is you. Isn't it great, Captain?"
Emilia smiles without any ill will, Subaru lost on how to respond.
Ram jabs the troubled Subaru in the side.
Ram: "Accept it."
She shrugs.
Ram: "He isn't sure what he should be doing when he gets emotional either. Let him do what he wants."
Subaru: "But still. I am utterly weak to it, but it's..."
Ram: "Leaving aside strength in a fight, you're the older party, Barusu, so at least give him that much leniency. Garf is a child despite how he appears. Doesn't it feel as if you've got a younger brother now?"
Subaru: "No hold on."
Ram: "What?"
Subaru: "Can you go over that?"
Ram: "Over what?"
Subaru: "Garfiel's younger than me?"
Ram: "Ah,"
Ram gives a comprehending nod.
Ram: "You didn't know? Garf is younger than you, Barusu."
Subaru: "How young."
Ram: "I believe he's fourteen this year."
Subaru: "Fourteen!? Fourteen... you're a chuuni!?"
The entirely unanticipated news makes Subaru's voice crack in surprise.
Suddenly he can agree with being called CAPTAIN, and with Garfiel's overly childish stubbornness. Subaru: "A middle schooler in the peak of his rebellious age... right there's a nightmare to tame..." Mutters Subaru, his voice even more exhausted than after their fistfight.