Subaru stood there in stunned silence. "What the hell?" He whispered. "Why would the door send me all the way back here?! The Book can't be in the Elior Forest… can it?"
Subaru thought for a moment and then shook his head. "And even if it is, how the hell am I going to get back to the island? I don't have a balloon or Patrasche!"
Subaru looked at the frozen statues all around him, struggling not to freak out. "How long would it take me to walk back to Girali," He muttered. "Not to mention that means walking across most of a kingdom that's actively trying to hunt me down and kill me! And what if Emilia comes looking for me…"
He reached to his side and then recoiled in shock. "Shit! I don't even have any money! Virgil said that this was a 'ritual.' I didn't really expect the door to send me completely across the goddamn world!"
Subaru frowned and looked more closely at the frozen statues. They were all clean and polished to a mirror shine.
"It snows in the forest almost every day," Subaru said slowly. "But there's no snow on these statues even though we've been gone for weeks. That means-"
Subaru saw a flash of green out of the corner of his eye. He spun around and saw a shining green 'blade' of light flying through the air at high speed.
Wind magic?! Subaru thought in shock. He triggered Indomitable.
Nothing happened.
There was no reassuring tingle at all.
Subaru was stupefied and barely managed to throw himself backward and dodge the flying blade. It smashed into the snowy hilltop like a missile and kicked up a huge shower of snow that hung in the air like mist.
Subaru regained his feet and stayed low, trying to hide from his attacker.
I need to come up with a plan.
Subaru triggered Reason and Judgment .
Nothing happened.
Subaru could only crouch there, his mouth gaping in horror.
Another pair of emerald blades came flashing through the snowy air.
Subaru started to jump up and run but then his eyes narrowed.
He gathered up every ounce of courage he had and then crouched back down and held his position. The blades both smashed into the snowy hillside, not very far away but not very close to him either.
Whoever is shooting at me doesn 't see me because of all the snow that they kicked up with their last shot. They're shooting blind, trying to force me to move, Subaru realized.
Subaru scowled. Unfortunately, I think that I need to oblige them. If they keep throwing wind blades around like this, they might damage Emilia 's family.
I guess in a way, I 'm actually lucky. Wind is probably the element least likely to crack or chip the frozen statues but it's not like wind can 't damage them.
I need to lead whoever this is away from here.
Subaru held his ground until the next pair of blades slammed into the hillside, kicking up a great cloud of snow. Then Subaru dashed off down the other side of the hill at top speed, racing for the protection of the forest trees.
No idea where I 'm running to right now, Subaru thought ruefully. But this guy picked the direction for me. I need to keep the hill between us to give me some cover until I get into the trees!
Oh shit, wait a minute. Whoever this is was shooting blind at me. Will they even realize that I left the hilltop?
An emerald blade slammed into the snow a few feet to his left.
Guess I don 't need to worry about that particular problem!
Subaru cursed and put on a burst of speed. He zig-zagged through the snow and the next two blades barely missed him as he made it into the protection of the trees.
My lungs feel like they 're going to explode! Subaru put his back to a huge tree trunk as he stood there, panting for breath. There were no more blades fired.
Subaru slowly caught his breath and listened carefully to the silent forest.
This isn 't really much of a hiding place, Subaru rued. I left clear footprints leading right here. So whoever 's hunting me knows that this is right where to find me.
Who are they and why are they after me? Could it be Roswaal? Maybe he somehow remembered that this was Emilia 's home and he came looking for us?
Subaru thought hard for a moment, looking around to see what options he had for evading the hunter.
There were damn few.
I need to get out of here without leaving tracks, no easy feat in the deep snow. If I was in a denser part of the forest, I might try to get away by climbing through the trees but the forest near the field is only sparsely populated by trees. These trees are all youngsters compared to the rest of the forest but by normal tree standards, these are pretty big and old. And that means that most of their branches are way too high to reach or climb!
Subaru made a face. Well, we do have a few lower branches on this tree as luck would have it. So I guess escaping into the branches is possible at least.
Should I try this stunt? It 's a pretty obvious trick and if it doesn't work, I'll make a great target since I'll be huddled twenty feet in the air, desperately hanging on for dear life.
Well. What other options do I have?
Concluding this was the only approach that granted him even the slimmest possibility of escape, Subaru pulled himself up into the tree.
This is a terrible idea. These branches can barely hold my weight! He thought, putting his foot on a small green limb that simply gave way beneath him.
Subaru made a desperate grab for the next branch and managed to hold on. The branch under his foot hadn 't broken so much as just pliably bent until it pointed straight down. Subaru forced his foot onto the closest part of the branch to the trunk, hoping that it could give him just a tiny bit of support.
If I don 't move fast I'm going all the way down again! Subaru leaped up just as the branch began to tear free of the trunk and kept climbing higher, into thicker more robust branches. Finally, he reached the base of the tree 's crown a good forty feet overhead. He kept climbing until he found a large branch that was virtually entwined with another large branch from another tree.
OK, what 's next? Even if I can't escape through the trees, I need a better hiding space than just hoping that when whoever-it-is tracks me to the tree, they just don't happen to look up.
So I 'll cross this branch into the next tree and hide there. Not a great hiding place either but making them have to turn around and then look up before they find me is a better hiding place than just hoping that they don 't look up.
Subaru crawled across the branches which wobbled alarmingly as he made his way from one tree to its neighbor.
Don 't look down , Subaru admonished himself.
Subaru finished creeping into the next tree and he took a moment to consider his situation and to steady his racing heartbeat.
Alright, is there anything else I can do to make this hiding place better?
God, I miss Reason and Judgment! I 'm so used to being able to do all of my planning in stopped time that I'm rusty at thinking fast!
Hang on. What the hell happened to my powers, anyway? Why can 't I access them? If that door was created by the Authority of Greed does that mean my own Authority can't pass through it? Is that what Virgil was trying to warn me about? Could I have left my Authority on the island?
Subaru 's heart stopped.
Oh my God. Without my Authority, I am completely and utterly helpless! There 's no way that I could even make it back to Kararagi with no money and no magic!
And even if I did, would my power be waiting for me there? Or has it already gone off to find somebody else to serve?
Subaru shook off the poisonous thoughts.
Knock it off! Look, you don 't have your power right now! The whys can be worked out later.
Right now, you need to make sure that you survive whoever-it-is that 's hunting you! Stay focused! Is there anything else that you can do to make yourself harder to find?
…Well, I guess these branches up here are pretty dense. If I'm careful, I bet I could make my way to the other side of the tree. That would actually be a really good hiding place.
No matter what they did while studying the tree that I climbed, they wouldn 't be able to see me as long as I stayed 'undercover.' If I do this right, I might even be able to watch them while they couldn't see me!
Subaru slowly began to work his way around the tree. He hid most of his body from the direction his pursuer must be coming from while still being able to keep half an eye on the area.
Come to think of it, what 's taking them so long to get here? I left tracks in virgin snow! A baby could follow those tracks!
He tried to breathe shallowly while he listened. A minute later, he heard the faint sounds of footsteps in the snow.
Subaru peered through the hazy air. I know that the forest can get foggy sometimes but it 's damn inconvenient right now. I can barely see the other tree through the mist at this range!
Subaru watched closely as a figure slowly appeared out of the fog. They were wearing a gray hooded robe that blended in perfectly with the foggy forest and they were clearly following Subaru 's footprints.
Subaru 's jaw dropped. Could that be … Korë? What the hell is she still doing here? And why is she trying to kill me?! I thought that she wanted to work with me.
Subaru frowned. Or … was this all a trick the whole time? What if Korë really didn 't want me to cure Emilia? If the Book could cure Emilia and the Book actually was in the forest for some strange, unspecified reason then she 'd want to get me as far away from it as possible!
A small voice in Subaru 's mind interjected. Then why would she tell you about the Book in the first place? You 'd never heard of the Book before, much less had any idea that it could help Emilia until Kor ë told you. So if she didn 't want you to get it, why even bring it up? Your theory is full of holes.
Subaru squinted at his pursuer for a moment and then rejected his own theory. No. It 's not Korë. She'd be using shadows to conceal herself if it were.
But maybe it 's her enemy? The one that she fought in the forest?
The hooded figure was carefully studying Subaru 's tracks in the snow but they seemed confused. They quickly looked up into the tree overhead but they didn't find anything and so they returned to studying the tracks that seemed to lead nowhere. The figure looked frustrated and it was clear they didn't know what to do next.
You lost me, alright? I vanished. So it 's time for you to get lost. Go away. Look for me somewhere else.
…Actually, even if they do leave, that probably won't solve my problems.
I don 't have Emilia here with me and I barely know the forest. I think that I can find my way to the village from here but that's about it.
If the guy in the hood leaves here and I try to slip away, I have no idea what the odds are of me bumping into him again on my way out of the forest! The village is one of the only places of note in the forest so it would make perfect sense for them to head over there and check if I went that way. And I don 't dare just start walking in some direction at random. I'd probably freeze to death during the night before I ever found the forest's edge.
One way or the other, even if this guy leaves, he has good odds of finding my footprints in the snow and coming after me again. If he picks his shot carefully this time and waits until I 'm distracted, I'd never even see it coming! It'd be sliced in half and dead before I ever figured out what was going on!
Subaru shook his head. OK. That tells me one thing: I can 't just try to slip away.
I need to deal with this guy, right now. Talk things out if I can, kill him if I have to.
…I'm actually pondering premeditated murder… Maybe I'm glad that Emilia isn't here right now.
Anyway, whoever this is, whyever they 're doing this, I need to make them stop. Just one of those wind blades will slice me to ribbons.
The problem is, I don 't have Indomitable right now. I don't even have Reason and Judgment!
Fuck me. Now I really am helpless.
Emilia might be thrilled that I 've finally been separated from my Authority but at the moment, I'm not as enthused. I could get killed by any asshole with a knife! Much less that mage down there that's hunting me.
Subaru sighed.
Alright. There 's nothing else to do. I need to get up close to them to have any kind of chance. They can attack at range and I can't. I just wish that I had some kind of weapon…
Subaru frowned and grabbed a slender tree branch, twisting it back and forth and finally breaking it off the main limb with a muted crack . The broken piece was thin and sharp.
Well … from behind, it might kind of feel like a knife, right?
Subaru chuckled, already picturing Emilia 's face when she found out that he'd tried such an outrageous stunt.
I sure hope that I get a chance to tell her about this. Subaru took a deep breath. OK, here we go.
Subaru looked down at the hunter who was pacing around the area in confusion.
This guy is no mental giant, Subaru mused. By now he should be trying something else, anything else.
Even if they don 't guess that I climbed up into the tree, following my tracks through the snow for the tenth time isn't likely to get them very far.
Subaru silently climbed down the tree. He crept out into a long branch that creaked ominously under his weight.
Just give me another minute! Subaru thought desperately. And I 'll be out of your branches!
Subaru saw the figure almost directly below him.
That jump has got to be fifteen feet. This is going to hurt and I need to get right up behind them instantly or I 'm dead.
Subaru took a deep breath and jumped.
He landed heavily behind the hooded figure with an impact that numbed his legs.
The figure jumped but before they could spin around, Subaru wrapped his arm around their neck and had the 'sharp' branch pressed firmly into the back of their ribs. "Don't make a move," Subaru hissed. "I don't know what kind of magic you have but I'm damn sure that you can't call conjure it up faster than I can plunge this steel knife into your heart! "
The figure slowly raised their hands over their head.
"Alright," Subaru growled, feeling pretty silly with a wooden stick in his hands. "Who are you and what are you doing in the forest- Whoah!"
Subaru found himself falling backward into the snow.
The hooded figure had wound its foot behind Subaru 's ankle and jerked hard. Subaru's feet were pulled out from under him and he landed on his back in the snow, barely clinging to his 'knife.'
The figure dove at Subaru, wrestling with him for the 'knife.'
Subaru fought back with all his strength but the hunter was far stronger than him and the 'knife' was nearly ripped from his hands until the hooded figure suddenly stopped struggling.
Subaru blinked in surprise. He looked up and realized that he was staring into beautiful amethyst eyes.
"Subaru?" They whispered, their hood falling down and letting out a mane of silver hair.
Subaru stared. "Emilia?" He gasped.
A thousand different emotions flew across Emilia 's face. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. She seemed to be struggling to even remember how to speak.
Subaru stared at her in exasperation. "Emilia-"
"Subaru!" Emilia cried out, throwing herself into his arms and crying.
"Mili! What the hell?!" Subaru asked in disbelief.
Emilia buried her face in his chest and cried.
She didn 't say anything, she just sat there and wept, the tears and sobs continuing to pour out of her as if some great dam in her heart had suddenly been breached.
Subaru let her cry for a few moments but then his irritation got the best of him.
"Mili," Subaru said in aggravation, lifting her chin up and making her look at him. "What are you doing here?! I thought that you said you'd give me a day before you came in here after me! Why would you follow me so fast? We agreed that you should hang back in case I got into trouble!"
Emilia just stared at him in confusion.
"And why the hell were you attacking me?" He demanded.
Emilia flinched. "I… I thought that you were threatening the villagers," She said in a small voice.
"Why didn't you just assume that it was me?" Subaru scoffed. "You knew that I got here right before you did."
"Got here?"
"Through the doorway to find the Book!" Subaru said in exasperation.
"The doorway," Emilia's eyes widened in shock. She stared at Subaru in disbelief and bit her lip. "You mean… you went through the door and emerged in the forest just now?" She asked carefully.
Subaru frowned.
Emilia seems awfully freaked out.
"Fifteen or twenty minutes ago, I guess," Subaru said in confusion. "Why did you follow me so quickly? Were you really that worried about Virgil's warning?"
Although honestly, considering the fact that my Authority has gone MIA, maybe I should just be grateful.
At least Emilia has her own magic so the two of us combined are significantly harder to kill.
Wow. Isn 't that a happy thought?
Emilia hesitated. "Subaru," She said slowly. "I… I didn 't pass through the door. "
"What do you mean?"
Emilia gingerly stretched out her hand to Subaru as if he were a wild animal that she was afraid of startling.
"Subaru," She said. "This… may be difficult for you to accept but… you went through that door and vanished ten years ago."
Subaru stared at her, waiting for the punchline but Emilia just looked back awkwardly.
"Mili," Subaru whispered. "What are you talking about?"
Emilia bit her lip. "You've been missing for ten years, Subaru," She repeated gently.
Subaru could only stare at her.
"I didn't come through the door, Subaru. I couldn't. When you'd only been gone for a few minutes… well, the doorway was destroyed."
"Destroyed?!"
Emilia nodded solemnly. "I don't know what happened but… somehow the demon that was trying to destroy the Book broke free. Virgil said that it must have somehow used your Authority to shatter its chains and then… Sycorax appeared in the doorway."
"Sycorax?" Subaru echoed. "Is that the demon's name?"
Emilia nodded. "It was… it was like a great misty shadow wrapped around a hooded figure. The door exploded and Sycorax started to destroy the library. Its mist was just… dissolving everything there. Books, carpets, bookcases, walls, Sycorax's creeping mist touched them and they just seemed to… fall into a great, bottomless pit. They all vanished as if they had never been there at all.
"The demon kept surging forward. I tried to reach the door and to find you but the demon had already consumed it and Virgil forced me to run away. Sycorax kept coming, eating the mansion and starting to devour the island. The balloon was no use. We had to jump."
"Jump?!" Subaru gasped. "How did you survive?!"
"Virgil's magic saved us. It lowered us gently to the ground. The demon kept devouring the island as well as the magic that held it up and the island began to fall.
"Virgil told me to run and try to find you while he held the demon off. But he was no match for Sycorax, Subaru. I hadn't even run a hundred feet before it devoured him whole."
Subaru winced. I never liked that little fop but … it sounds like the last thing he ever did was to try and save Emilia's life…
"I think that the only reason that I escaped at all," Emilia continued listlessly, "Is that the demon just wasn't interested in me. Rather than chase me, it started to devour the Kararagi badlands. Its mist sank into the earth and it just… ate it. It devoured the land until there was nothing but a misty hole that looked bottomless. The island was falling out of the sky and it landed on Girali, obliterating it. And whatever the island didn't crush, the demon ate."
"Felt?!" Subaru gasped. "Garfiel?!"
Emilia stared at him for a long moment and then helplessly shrugged. "I know that they escaped Girali but I have no idea where they went after that. Or even if they're still alive."
"Oh my god," Subaru whispered, covering his eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Subaru," She said.
Subaru took deep breaths, trying to focus.
This can 't be real. It's impossible. This is a bad dream. It has to be a bad dream!
Subaru 's mind felt like an engine that was stripping its gears. He forced his mind to analyze the situation, desperately trying to keep control and not fall to pieces.
"Mili," Subaru said slowly. "How did you make it all the way back here?"
Emilia smiled sadly. "I walked, Subaru," She said simply. "It's been ten years . I had no idea where to look for you. I couldn 't just dash off in a panic and search everywhere. I decided that my best chance would be to go someplace where you'd be very likely to come looking for me . Within a few weeks of your absence, the demon was devouring whole miles of Kararagi every day and the entire world was preparing to go to war against it. It must have been much like the old battles against the Witch of Envy …
"Felt and Garfiel, Otto and the Ryuzus, and the other survivors were preparing to fight the demon but I was no use to them. Most of them weren't even certain that I hadn't actually killed you and unleashed this evil spirit deliberately," She said in a numb voice. "I told Otto and the Ryuzus where I had gone in case they ever bumped into you and then I… returned to the forest. I waited for years for you to come home, Subaru but… I finally gave up," She said in a small voice. "For the past few years, I've just been waiting for the end."
Subaru wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
They clung to each other for a long time.
Subaru took a ragged breath. "Mili. If the library was destroyed then… does that mean the Book-"
"I'm afraid so, Subaru," Emilia whispered. "The Book is lost to us. But… at least we're together again… at the end of all things…"
Subaru frowned and pulled back so that he could look Emilia in the face. "What do you mean 'the end?'"
Emilia sighed. "The… This world is ending, Subaru," She said simply. "The demon is devouring it, one bite at a time. By now, it's eaten whole kingdoms. Lagunica is all that's left and even that is full of enormous pits and craters. We only have a few weeks left at most before the demon finally consumes the whole world. "
Subaru gaped. "Mili," He whispered. "What do you mean 'consumes the world?'"
Emilia thought for a moment. "Sycorax devours and consumes. That appears to be its nature. There's nothing left of the four kingdoms except… fragments. The demon has eaten huge… holes in the land. Empty chasms, miles across that are full of mist and darkness and that seem to have no bottom."
Subaru could only stare at her. He felt as if he was in free fall himself.
"What about Reinhard?!" He mumbled, desperately trying to right himself. "Or Roswaal and the twins?"
Emilia nodded. "I saw them about seven years ago. The world was crumbling around us. The nations had effectively ceased to exist by then and the survivors were desperate. Everyone who could still fight gathered together for a final stand near Priestella. I heard about the plan and I went to try and help. That's where I saw them."
Subaru hesitated. "Did they… attack you?"
Emilia stared at him for a moment and then sighed. "No. They had bigger concerns and everyone knew it. They didn't attack me but they didn't want me there. They demanded that I leave so to avoid causing more strife, I… I left."
Subaru bit his lip. "What happened at the battle?"
Emilia closed her eyes. "I watched from a distance. It was a disaster," She whispered. "I knew that the fight would be desperate but… the demon came at them like a great wave of darkness and it just… ate them whole, like the tide devouring a sandcastle. Only a few people made it out."
"A few?" Subaru said hopefully.
Emilia nodded. "Some escaped. I… I don't know who. I decided that it was too dangerous to try and make contact with the others again. Not to mention pointless. The survivors all scattered, hiding in distant places across the world. Waiting. The estimate was that we only had about seven years left before the world was consumed entirely. Our time is almost up. If they were right, we have a week or two left at most. This month there have been frightening tremors from the earth and they get worse every day…"
Subaru opened his mouth to ask what had happened to everyone but then he closed it again.
I don 't think I could handle that information right now…
Emilia gave him a sad smile. "I'm glad that we're together again, Subaru. Even if it's not for very long."
Subaru closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "No."
Emilia blinked. "What?"
"No, I won't believe that there's nothing that we can do about this nightmare," Subaru muttered, thinking hard. "Maybe if we can find the Book…"
Emilia shook her head. "Subaru, the entire library was devoured by Sycorax. I saw it. All that we found from the library was four scraps of paper that Ryuzu Alpha told us came from the Book."
"What did you do with them?" Subaru asked.
"We kept them when we split up," Emilia murmured. "I took one and so did Felt. Garfiel had one but I heard that he gave it to Beatrice before the last fight when he…" She trailed off. Emilia took a deep breath. "And I know that Alpha had one. As far as we could tell, that's all that was left of the Book after the demon devoured it," She finished.
Subaru made a face. "The door must have sent me here for a reason," He argued, uncertain of whom he was trying to convince. "Maybe if we can collect those four pages-"
"Virgil said that you shouldn't have entered the doorway with an Authority. Maybe that threw the magic off," Emilia suggested.
Subaru took a deep breath and got to his feet. "No. I can't… I can't accept this. Not yet. I have to at least… try to fix this. I have to believe that I can still find the Book and make it back. Maybe if I can find the pieces of the Book, I really can find my way back to ten years ago and make it so that all of this never happened. "
Emilia just shook her head sadly. "Subaru," She said slowly. "I love your…" She hesitated and then sighed. "Subaru, we only have a few days left to… live. Do you really want to go racing across what's left of the continent in a desperate search for something that might not even exist?"
"What else is there to do but try?" Subaru argued.
"Well…" Emilia hesitated. "We could just… be here. Together. And enjoy the time that we have left."
"Mili, I think that doing anything is better than just sitting down and waiting to die," Subaru said seriously.
Emilia looked annoyed. "Fine, Subaru," She said in a clipped tone. "We'll go searching for the pages of the Book just as soon as you decide where you want to go looking for them! "
Subaru winced. He looked more closely at Emilia. Emilia 's face was no less beautiful but it was much more haggard. Her expression seemed graven with worry and stress.
Subaru hesitated. "Mili," Subaru said slowly. "Why don't we go back to the village for now? Then we can figure out what to do from there."
Emilia sighed and gave a curt nod.
The pair walked through the foggy woods in silence. Subaru led the way while Emilia hid under her hood, her arms wrapped around her herself, looking solitary and forlorn.
I should have been more sensitive. Emilia has had a horrible time of it.
The past ten years must have been brutal on her … All alone.
She had no Puck and no me.
Shit. From her point of view, I abandoned her ten years ago. No wonder she 's not very happy with me…
"Why is the forest so foggy?" Subaru asked, mostly to break the silence.
Emilia sighed. "The demon came through the forest a while ago. It leaves this dense mist in its passing. It didn't eat the whole forest but it took some big bites out of it."
"Huh?"
"Sometimes Sycorax… doesn't eat the whole area. Sometimes it can gobble up a whole region and leave nothing behind but a misty hole in the ground," Emilia explained. "Other times, it just comes through a place and takes a few choice bites. The demon seems to enjoy emptying the places where people actually lived. I feel like maybe it wants… witnesses to its final Apocalypse and it's not trying to kill the survivors just yet. It might eat everything inside the houses and leave a misty void behind but not eat the houses themselves."
Subaru frowned and mulled that over, trying to follow what she was saying.
"And it came through the forest?" He asked finally.
Emilia nodded. "It devoured most of the northern and western parts of the forest whole. You're lucky that you didn't emerge in those areas. The ground underfoot isn't safe anymore. The areas that the demon ate have grown thin and you can fall through the world and just… keep falling forever. Or until Sycorax's magic eats away at you."
Subaru shuddered as they entered the town. "What was the demon doing here?" He asked. "It wasn't looking for you, was it?"
The elven hamlet was shrouded in the same thick mist that blanketed the forest. Subaru could only see a few yards in any direction. But he saw that lots of the trees in the area had been knocked down and many of the houses had been smashed.
Emilia was silent for a long time and then she stopped walking. "Not exactly. I think that it came here looking for Puck," She whispered.
"Huh? Puck came back here?"
Emilia sighed. "When the Book was destroyed, suddenly everyone remembered who I was."
"Huh?! How does that make any sense?"
Emilia just shook her head. "I don't know and I wasn't inclined to question it. But suddenly, everyone remembered me. Although nobody but Puck even cared who I really was anymore. Puck came back to the forest to find me. But then Sycorax came…"
"What did it want with Puck?" Subaru asked.
"I'm not sure," Emilia admitted. "But I had never seen the demon so angry as when it was fighting Puck. Somehow the fight was… personal. Throughout the fight, Sycorax never stopped insulting and cursing Puck. And it never stopped telling Puck about all the horrible things that it was going to do me after it killed him…"
"What happened?" Subaru asked.
"Daddy died protecting me, Subaru," She whispered.
"Oh, my God. Puck," Subaru whispered.
Emilia continued, "Then the demon x swept through the village after fighting Puck. Luckily, it didn't eat it."
Subaru digested that. "And the demon ate the forest?"
She nodded. "Most of the forest is just… gone. Luckily, the demon hasn't eaten the parts around here. At least not yet."
Subaru digested that. "So… the demon came through here and ate… parts of the forest?"
Emilia shrugged. "It ate a few other places and things near here. I'm not sure if there was any rhyme or reason to what it chose to eat."
"But why? I mean, why just eat parts of it? Why wouldn't the demon just eat everything?"
Emilia shrugged. "During the briefing before the last battle, one of the mages said that they suspected Sycorax can't eat that fast. They said that it probably needs to 'digest' in between meals."
"OK. But then, why not come back and finish eating the forest later?" Subaru asked.
Emilia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't know, Subaru!" She suddenly shouted. "Alright?! I. Don't. Know! I don't understand how the demon works and I don't know what it is. I just know that I've spent the last ten years all alone in the forest trying to hide from it while the entire world went to hell and while you …" She broke off her words and shook her head violently.
Subaru slowly approached Emilia who had deliberately turned her head away from him and was staring at the ground with tears in her eyes.
"Mili, I'm sorry," Subaru said slowly, wrapping his arms around Emilia.
She didn 't soften her ridged posture. It was like putting his arms around a stone statue.
Emilia took a ragged breath. "Subaru. Why did you have to go and leav…"
"I didn't mean to," Subaru said lamely.
Emilia took a deep breath. "I know, Subaru. I know," She almost whimpered. "It's not your fault…"
Maybe it 's not but it sure as hell feels like it is, Subaru thought mournfully. And I don 't think that Emilia really believes that it's not my fault either.
After being abandoned for so long … well, I think that maybe blaming me for the wreck that her life had become was starting to feel… reassuring to her.
Now that I 'm back, Emilia is remembering that she loves me but she still has all this anger and rage to deal with…
"Subaru," Emilia murmured. "Let's just… let's just keep going…"
Subaru nodded and they both continued down the road through the village.
"Did Sycorax eat all of the cottages?" He asked.
Emilia shook her head. "No…" She replied.
"He didn't eat yours, did he?" Subaru asked in sudden concern.
Emilia didn 't answer right away. "Not exactly. It did something worse to it. It… filled it with some kind of… elemental chaos that spills out every time that someone opens the door."
"Huh?"
"It's… hard to explain," Emilia said.
"Why did it single out your cottage?"
"Because that's where I kept my page of the Book, Subaru. I'm sure that Sycorax still wants them. It stole my page…"
Subaru 's heart stopped.
If the demon has already gathered one of the pages, is it even still possible to reassemble the pieces of the Book?
No. No, I can 't think like that. I can't let this nightmare play out! I need to find the Book and find my way back!
But I don 't know where the demon is or where it hid its page of the Book…
Knock it off. One step at a time, here. First, I need to find the other three pages. Then the demon will come to me .
But there 's no way that I can fight Sycorax. Especially without any of my powers.
Subaru sighed. "What about… Anri's cottage?" Subaru asked, mostly just to fill the silence. "Was that cottage eaten?"
"I don't think so."
"You don't think so?" Subaru asked incredulously.
"I never checked, OK?!" Emilia suddenly shouted. "I've had other things on my mind!"
Subaru flinched.
Emilia saw this and her expression grew ashamed. "I'm sorry, Subaru," She whispered contritely. "I'm… I've just been alone for so long…"
Subaru nodded. "I understand."
"So if the village is ruined like this, where have you been living?" He asked.
"I found a cave to live in, a little way out of town," She muttered.
Emilia doesn 't sound like she wants to talk about that.
They resumed walking through the village. "Do you know what happened to Anri and her brother?"
"No idea," She admitted.
The mist seemed to clear a bit as they approached Emilia 's cottage. It looked just like he remembered, and so did the cottage that Anri had stayed in.
"Mili, how's the food situation?" He asked.
Emilia gave him a faint smirk. "We have plenty of food, Subaru. I've been raiding food preserves from the surrounding villages ever since the battle."
Subaru frowned. "Don't the villagers need them?"
"What villagers?" She asked in a brittle voice. "Everyone who survived the last battle fled and tried to find someplace to hide. I don't know where anyone went but Rixum and Iruk are empty. Even Ganaks is deserted as far as I could tell. Everyone is gone."
Subaru 's eyes widened, imaging the bustling metropolis of Ganaks now as a ghost town.
"All those people have to be somewhere!" Subaru said.
"Most people are trying to hide out in the country," Emilia said. "I know that the capitol has become an armed camp, trying to resist the demon. The people of Arlem all went back to the Sanctuary and the Ryuzus managed to reactivate the barrier, hoping that it would hold Sycorax back. I believe that Beatrice went back to the mansion."
"Beatrice is alive?!" Subaru asked, a wild hope springing up in his heart.
Emilia nodded. "The last that I heard," She admitted.
"And Beatrice has a page of the Book?" Subaru asked.
Emilia sighed. "Again, yes, the last that I heard. But Subaru, what's the point in collecting the pages of the Book if Sycorax has already stolen one? We can't complete the set!"
"But if we have the others, the demon will have to come to me," Subaru said.
Emilia gave him an incredulous stare. "If you really want to die that badly, Subaru, I'm sure that there are easier ways to kill yourself than getting the demon's personal attention!"
Subaru sighed and gave a helpless shrug. "Well, I want to try something ! " He said, walking up to the cottage and reaching for the door.
Emilia immediately pushed him back. "Subaru, don't!" Emilia shouted.
Subaru flinched back. "What?!"
Emilia glared at him. "Didn't you hear me when I warned you that Sycorax filled that cottage with black magic?! It 's a deathtrap set for anyone that comes looking for the pages! The last time I opened that door, the magic nearly swallowed the whole forest! I barely got it closed again!"
"Oh," Subaru stepped back from the cottage door.
He stared at the cottage with a bittersweet expression. "We had some good memories here," He mused.
Emilia sighed.
"Do you know where Felt is?" Subaru asked.
Emilia shrugged. "I don't know. If she survived the last battle, she probably headed back to the capitol."
Subaru sighed. "So the capitol, the manor, and the Sanctuary. Which one is closest?"
"Subaru…" She muttered.
"I'm sorry, Emilia. I'm sorry for so many things," He said seriously. "But I… I have to at least try to fix this. This whole mess is all my fault. I can't just… I can't give up yet."
Emilia gave him a pointed look. "What are you really trying to do, Subaru? Are you trying to save the world or are you just trying to assuage your own guilt?"
That shot hit hard and Subaru flinched. "I don't know," He admitted. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do just want to make myself feel better before the end."
Emilia sighed. "Subaru, you can't blame yourself for all of this…"
"I don't know about that, Mili," He shook his head. "But if I'm going to live with myself for whatever little time that we've got left… I need to know that I at least made a sincere effort to try to make things right. And that means I need to try to reassemble the pages…"
"If you do gather the pages, the demon will come," Emilia said ominously.
"And that means that we'll have a chance to take the page it stole back from it!"
Emilia stared at him in horror. "Subaru, you're not that powerful! Look at what the demon did to Puck! Even Reinhard couldn 't defeat it!"
Subaru sighed. "I… I'm sorry, Emilia," he whispered. "I have to do this. I have to at least try to find my way back to my own time. I 'll understand if you don't want to come on this fool's errand with me. I… I literally ruined your life and everybody else's too. Maybe being all alone on a lunatic quest at the end of days is exactly what I deserve…"
Emilia stared at him for a long time and finally, she sighed. "The capitol is closest to us. We should start there," She muttered, walking toward the edge of the village.
Subaru suddenly couldn 't stop smiling. "I'm glad that you're coming, Mili. But I know that this is going to be a really long trip since we don't have Patrasche anymore," He said.
Emilia gave him a somber look. "It won't be as long as you think," She said. "The land is collapsing together."
"What do you mean?"
Emilia shook her head. "It'll be easier to show you than to tell you."
Subaru frowned. "Is there anywhere we can gather supplies before we leave?" Subaru asked.
Emilia gave him a rueful smile. "We won't need supplies for this trip, Subaru. Trust me."
The pair walked out of the village.
Emilia didn 't say much as she led him through the forest and after a few desultory overtures, Subaru stopped trying to force the matter.
Emilia is exhausted , Subaru thought. She 's been fighting to survive in a dying world without anyone to help her or even anyone who would care if she succeeded.
Subaru frowned. He saw the trees thinning in the distance.
"Mili," He muttered. "What's happened to the trees? The forest entrance should be miles away!"
Emilia gave a rueful chuckle. "I told you, Subaru," She murmured. "The lands are collapsing together."
Subaru looked at her in confusion as they emerged from the wood.
Subaru scanned the horizon and his jaw dropped.
The Lagunican capitol was clearly visible in the distance, only a few miles away.
That 's impossible! The capitol is days away on a riding dragon! You can't walk there in a few hours!
Ganaks was visible off to the northeast and the town of Rixum had so little space between it and the previously distant city of Ganaks that it could have been a suburb. The sky overhead was cloudy but it was also cracked . Great fissures of electric blue stretched from horizon to horizon as if the sky was being displayed on a flat-screen television that someone had taken a hammer to. The fissures in the heavens burned sullenly with electric blue fire.
Subaru stared at Emilia in shock.
Emilia started to laugh. "I've almost never seen you look that confused, Subaru. "
"Mili, what happened?" Subaru gasped.
Emilia frowned and thought it over carefully. "Roswaal explained it before the last battle but I didn't really understand," She admitted. "He said that as the demon ate the world, the world became smaller, and places of 'import' as he put it, would start to draw together as the empty space between them vanished."
Subaru stared at her incredulously.
Emilia sighed. "I don't know, Subaru. Maybe Beatrice can explain it."
Subaru swallowed. "Alright," He said in a shaken voice. "So if the capital is over there then Arlem and the manor would be… in that direction?" He asked pointing to the west.
Emilia shook her head. "It's dangerous to leave the roads, Subaru. You might find yourself in an area that the demon has already eaten. A portion of the land that isn't really there anymore."
Subaru hesitated. "What happens then?"
Emilia paused and tried to organize her thoughts. "Imagine walking through a muddy field," Emilia said as she started walking toward the capitol. Subaru followed. "The mud is soft and sucks at your shoes."
"Alright."
"Then you get deeper into the field and the mud gets even softer and you start to sink deeper," Emilia continued. "That's kind of what it feels like except if you go deep enough you find that the ground won't hold you up at all anymore and you just… fall through the world…"
Subaru gaped at her.
Emilia gave him a sad smile. "Lots of things have changed since you left, Subaru. And none of them are good."
It took only a few hours for Subaru and Emilia to reach the capitol but up close, Subaru struggled to recognize it. The enormous metropolis was in ruins. The tall walls surrounding the city were cracked and broken and the buildings were crumbling as if they had experienced some terrible natural disaster.
Guards stood at the entrance, questioning the few people who came and went. The guard uniforms were familiar but most of the travelers were disheveled or even dressed in rags.
"Alright," Subaru muttered. "At least we know that we're not the last people in the world."
"Subaru," Emilia said. "I need to stay here."
"Huh?"
Emilia pointed at a pair of strange glowing braziers just outside of the gate. They burned with a strange, pinkish light.
"Those are demi-human detectors," Emilia said. "Heikel uses them to filter people out from the city so that they don't have to 'waste resources on non-humans.'"
"Heikel?!" Subaru said.
Emilia nodded. "He's the only Lagunican official of any real rank left so he runs the city like a police state. Everyone else either died during the last battle, which Heikel didn't bother to show up for, or they disappeared out into the country looking for a place to hide. There's no one left in the capitol to hold Heikel's leash, Subaru. If he finds you…" She trailed off.
Subaru nodded. "Yeah, that probably wouldn't be fun…"
"The guards should let you in without question as long as I'm not with you," Emilia continued. "You can try to find Felt."
"Guessing she's probably still in the slums," He muttered. "I'll take a look around. Stay here and keep out of sight. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Subaru walked down to the gate, doing his best to look exhausted and disheveled.
It wasn 't very difficult.
"Halt! Who goes there?" A guard demanded.
Subaru hid a frown. This guard managed to make a standard question sound like a threat. "My name is Lucas," Subaru sighed. "I'm looking for someplace to hide."
The guards looked at him cautiously but made no response as he approached.
They watched the braziers carefully as Subaru passed between them. When there was no reaction, the guards appeared satisfied.
"Alright, move along," The guard muttered. "Stay out of trouble!"
"Yes, sir," Subaru said, moving quickly along.
Subaru made his way down into the slums. Strangely, the damage to the city was less apparent down there. It wasn 't that the slums were less affected but the destruction to the city was less obvious in a place where the buildings were already run down and crumbling.
Subaru saw a few people in the slums but they quickly slipped away before he could get close to them. It felt like most of the city was in hiding.
Subaru walked up to Rom 's bar.
Seems like a reasonable place to start my search, I guess.
The bar was even more run down than he remembered. The door hung limply off one of its rusty hinges, seemingly ready to fall down any day now.
Subaru awkwardly knocked on the hanging door.
"Go away!" Felt shouted in a slurred voice. "Whatever you want, I'm not interested! This is my grave. Find your own!"
"Felt," Subaru whispered and without thinking about it, he pushed through the door and entered.
Felt was sitting at the bar, drinking. "Fuck!" She slurred, slowly turning around. "I told you-" She trailed off, staring at Subaru.
Felt looked old. Her blond hair was streaked with gray and her face was lined as if she had aged decades in the intervening years.
Felt just shook her head and started to chuckle. "Subaru Natsuki," She murmured. "Somehow, I always knew that someday you'd walk back in through my door…"
"Hi, Felt," Subaru said weakly.
Felt drained her drink. "I knew it," She said. "Somehow, you managed to once again cause a world-shattering mess and then just vanish and leave the rest of us to deal with it, " She said caustically.
Subaru flinched. "I'm… sorry, Felt."
"Oh! Oh, you're sorry," Felt sneered. "Well, what are we even talking about then? You're sorry that you ended the world. Gramps is dead, Garf is dead, Red is…" She hesitated and her face spasmed with pain before she put the mocking smile back on her face, "But, hey! You're sorry! So, let's forget the whole thing! Come on, in! Want a drink?" She spat.
Subaru closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Felt, I-"
"Where the hell have you been for all of these years anyway?" Felt demanded. "You know, the whole time that the demon was tearing the entire world apart, we were tearing apart the world looking for you! We had this crazy idea, I don't know where we came up with it, that maybe if we could find you, you could actually do something useful for a change instead of just making everything worse like you usually do!"
Subaru hesitated.
"What the hell are you doing here, anyway? Are you here to drag me off on another whirlwind adventure that will change the world?" She asked in a mock bright tone. "Heads up, Subaru! You've changed the world plenty! The Witch of Envy wasn't able to change this world as much as you have! The only sad part is that the world will end before your legacy as the greatest witch of all time can be cemented!"
Subaru flinched, every insult hit him like blows.
Felt coughed. "I can't believe how stupid I was to believe in all of your bull, Subaru," Felt said, her contempt somehow worse for being so completely matter-of-fact. "I'd heard all the sweet words from the nobles before but when you said them, I swallowed them whole! And just like every other noble, you used me and then you dropped me like last week 's trash."
"That's not true!" Subaru shouted.
"No? Let me give you a quick refresher, Subaru," Felt snapped. "When we met, you needed me to lie to the Sages' Council to keep your little elf-slut in the royal selection. So you made me risk my neck for you. Please, please try to tell me that you didn't know what the penalty would have been for me if the Sages' Council decided that I was lying to them under oath!" She demanded.
Subaru hesitated.
"And then we ran all around the kingdom for a few months so that you could reach the throne. You sent me off with your little elf-slut to the Sanctuary and I had to nurse and burp her for weeks until you finally found the time to come over to check on us. Then when she cursed me and almost fucking killed me, you couldn't have cared less!"
"I did care!" Subaru protested.
"Fuck off, Subaru! You were entirely fixated on helping Emilia. She was the only person that you ever really cared about! Nice work when you and the spirits took off on us by the way," She said sarcastically. "You really tried to sell me on the idea that your taking Emilia away was going to help us escape the Witch Cult but the truth is, you were just desperately trying to save her neck and you would have happily used all of us as bait as long as it let Emilia get away!"
Subaru flinched.
Felt snorted. "Oh, and let's not forget how I got enslaved trying to help you!" Felt laughed, pouring herself another drink. "You promised to rescue us and then you disappeared! Garf and I needed to dig our way out of the rubble of Girali and then make our way out of the wasteland on foot! We almost died of thirst in the goddamn desert because of you! Not to mention all the hungry mabeasts! But hey, shit happens, am I right?!"
"Felt, I…" Subaru trailed off. He seemed to collapse in on himself and then gave her a helpless shrug. "What do you want me to say?" He sighed.
"Say?! Oh, we're well past that, Subaru!" Felt laughed. "But let's get down to business. What have you come here to try and talk me into doing for you now? We both know that the only reason that you would ever come back here is because you think that I can do something for you. Right?"
Subaru hesitated.
"Come on, Subaru," She taunted. "Try it! Just try to tell me that the reason you came back here was because you missed me and that wanted to make it all up to me!"
Subaru closed his eyes and sighed. "I came here because I need the page that you found," He said in a small voice. "I'm hoping that if I can bring all the pages together, I can find my way back to the past and prevent all this stuff from ever happening."
Felt stared at him for a long time and then she started to laugh out loud. "You heard him, ladies and gentlemen," She said to no one, "Subaru Natsuki is back on another lunatic quest to save the world! Now, most people would say that at this point, there 's no possible way that he could make things any worse for everybody but I have faith in you, Subaru, and I know that you will find a way! " She burst out laughing again.
Subaru bowed his head in shame.
Felt slowly got a grip on her laughter. She stared at him as if he was a disgusting cockroach crawling on her food. "You know what," She spat at him, "Fuck it!" She rummaged through a shelf below the bar and she pulled out a slip of paper. "You want it? Take it."
Subaru quickly came over and took the page from Felt.
At first glance, the page looked gray and dingy but after examining it, Subaru realized that the paper was absolutely covered in strange symbols that were so small that they were barely visible to the human eye. Subaru didn 't recognize the symbols but he noticed that on one side of the page, the scarce white-space was organized in such a way as to give the impression of a huge 'square' symbol.
"You've kept this all this these years?" Subaru murmured.
Felt snorted and turned her back on him, taking another drink. "Maybe I just knew that you'd stumble back into my life sooner or later," Felt grumbled. "Take the page and my best wishes. If you can make use of either, then bully for you," She spat.
There was a rumble.
Subaru looked off into a corner of the bar and saw that the floorboards were swelling and buckling up as if something underneath was pressing against them.
Felt got to her feet. "Oh, shit!" She whispered.
The floorboards suddenly split apart and a tall, skeletally thin figure appeared, clawing its way up from under the floor. It wore a long black hooded robe and its face was concealed in shadows. Only its hands were visible and these were pitch-black, the fingers far too thin to be human with long, sharp claws.
"It's the demon!" Felt screamed. "Run!"
Felt took off for the door, nearly crashing into Subaru as she passed him.
The demon towered over the bar. For a moment, Subaru couldn 't move.
The wraith reached out for the paper that Subaru held and he leaped back.
Below the demon 's feet, the tavern was disappearing into the mist, as a strange, black fog flowed out from beneath the demon's robe.
The mist flowed across the floor. As it did, the floor seemed to disappear. Bar stools weren 't just engulfed by the mist, they fell into it as if the ground underneath them had simply vanished or been devoured by the mist.
Subaru bolted for the door, pausing only long enough to grab a freestanding cabinet and knock it over to block the demon 's path.
Subaru then fled the tavern, emerging out into the courtyard outside.
The fallen obstacle barely slowed the demon, it scuttled forward like a spider, clambering over the closet on its hands and knees as the annihilating mist came with it.
The slum-dwellers watched in horror as the bar was engulfed by mist. The mist spilled out around the bar and the dilapidated building sank into the mist as if it was falling into a sinkhole.
The locals all fled screaming but they had to fight and struggle for each step as if some great force was pulling them back toward Sycorax.
Felt was struggling to run after all the liquor that she 'd drunk. She stumbled and nearly fell but Subaru picked her up and flung her over his shoulder as he fled.
Subaru followed the slum-dwellers up out of the slums and the black mist surged after them like a great wave.
Subaru and Felt reached a busy intersection where it appeared that the alarm had already been sounded because they found an entire legion of guards standing in wait.
Subaru raced toward them and the illusion of safety but then he tripped and fell. Subaru was barely able to twist his body to cushion the fall for Felt.
Felt and Subaru clung together as the demon approached and then it came to a halt. It stood there, shrouded in mist and seemingly considering the many guards.
Then it vanished.
Subaru blinked. Huh? This thing is destroying the whole world and it doesn 't feel like fighting a few dozen men with swords?
"What's going on down here?" A familiar voice shouted.
"Shit," Subaru hissed, pulling up his hood as Felt immediately did the same.
Subaru took a guarded look behind him where Heikel had just walked onto the scene.
The years hadn 't been good to Heikel. His eyes had grown yellow and sallow from too much drinking and his red hair had thinned.
A guard saluted. "The demon Sycorax appeared and attacked the slum, Sir! We managed to drive it off!"
That 's a generous interpretation…
"The demon was here?!" Heikel demanded, his voice shrill. "Fuck! What the hell brought it all the way back here?!"
"Not sure, sir. We already drove out all the demi-humans," Another guard said. "We told the locals that the demon only came here because it was hunting for them. But if we don't have a way to explain what the demon came back here for, the people might panic."
Subaru kept his head down, hoping that Heikel wouldn 't recognize him.
Heikel grumbled something under his breath. The guard captain thought about it for a while.
"Take them," He said indifferently. "We'll just say that they summoned it."
Subaru felt himself jerked off the ground and his arms held tightly behind him and manacled together. The same thing happened to Felt.
What the hell?! He 's arresting us at random?!
Subaru and Felt didn 't make a peep, scared that Heikel would recognize their voices and investigate further.
"How long do we hold them for?" The guard asked.
Heikel shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Get an inquisitor down here from Torgon Tower to 'interrogate' them. We can announce to the people that we already captured the conspirators. Once they're broken, we can just leave them in a cell and forget about them."
"Yes, Sir," The guard saluted. Heikel walked off as the guards dragged Subaru and Felt away.
"Hey!" Felt hissed. "You feel like maybe doing something about all this?"
Subaru winced. "My magic is sealed," He whispered.
"Oh, perfect," Felt sighed.
Subaru and Felt were brought to the city prison and quickly separated.
Subaru was all but thrown into a filthy cell that he couldn 't even properly stand up in. Subaru couldn't tell if it had a dirt floor or if the floor was just that dirty.
The area felt more like a re-purposed aqueduct or sewer than anything deliberately designed as a prison. A shallow pool of fetid, stagnant water ran down the length of the entire hallway.
There were no torches or lamps. Subaru could only see by the moonlight coming in from a small window the size of a notebook that was located on the wall near the ceiling.
As if to add insult to injury, the tiny window that no one could have possibly fit through still had bars over it.
The cell didn 't even have a stool or a bench, just some old rotting straw scattered across the dirt. There was also a bucket that looked to be half rotten and that Subaru took for granted was now his toilet.
Judging by the smell of the area, these buckets weren 't emptied with any sort of regularity.
Subaru looked out the bars of his cell with a sick expression.
Or is emptying the bucket something that we do ourselves? He thought, regarding with new disgust the long, smelly puddle that stretched down the hallway.
Subaru took a deep breath. Alright. So, my first day in this post-apocalyptic world went pretty badly. Sycorax already found me. I managed to locate one page but now Felt and I are in prison and Felt despises me. Worse, now I need to worry about Emilia getting worried about me and staging some kind of rescue!
And worst of all, I 'm stuck in prison and waiting for eminent torture. I have no magic, I have no weapons, and I have no money.
So … what the hell do I do now?