"The Horned Witch?" Debra said uncomfortably as she refilled Subaru's wineglass. "That's just an old legend."
"Tell us about it," Subaru coaxed. "We've never heard of it in the north."
Debra hesitated. "I really shouldn't talk about that," She hedged. "The Patricians and plebeians get awfully upset if they hear us talking about her…"
"Don't worry," Felt said in a friendly voice, "We won't tell."
"Miss Felt, please! I can't afford to lose this job!" Debra openly begged. "My family's crops are all dead! My earnings are the only chance that we have to eat this winter! If the boss gets angry at me…"
Garfiel looked aghast at her situation, and Felt looked angry.
Subaru frowned. "How much do you get paid here?"
Debra looked at Subaru in confusion. "I make a good living here. Two coppers every day. Much more than the rest of my family does."
Garfiel whistled. "You call that a good living? " He demanded.
Felt grumbled something under her breath, looking disgruntled.
Debra looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"So, you make a gold coin every fifty days?" Subaru asked.
Debra thought it over. It took rather a long time. "Yes, my lord. About that. I'm one of the few people in my village who's still working. If I lose this job-"
Subaru calmly poured twenty gold coins into Debra 's hand. The maid's face was a mask of shock.
"There," Subaru said. "That's almost three years of wages. Just in case your employer finds out that you told us information that he doesn't like. Good enough?"
Debra swallowed hard as she stared at the pile of coins in her hands. Subaru waited patiently for her to sort out her own feelings on his offer.
Subaru glanced at Felt and saw her staring back at him, her expression almost melancholy.
I think we 're both remembering that night at Rom's bar. I poured a handful of gold coins into Felt's hands, and I changed her life forever.
That feels like a lifetime ago …
Debra 's face was a mix of greed and fear. She was holding enough money to get her entire village through the winter in comfort, but it was also a sign that she was being drawn into a different world, a world of wealth and power where the lives of peasants were inherently disposable. She took several moments to balance the risks and rewards.
Debra finally turned to Subaru. "What do you want to know?" She asked in a small voice, stowing the coins away in her dress.
"What's really going on around here?" Subaru asked. "What's this rebellion about?"
Debra swallowed hard. "The drought."
"People are rebelling because of a drought?" Garfiel asked in confusion.
Debra nodded. "The dry season has always been hard in the Westfold. But the rainy season came this year, and there was no rain. The fields just grew more and more parched, and finally, all of our wells dried up. Our crops withered, and our animals died. Now, we have barely any food left."
"And that's why the people rebelled?" Felt asked slowly.
"Yes. Almost half the folk around these parts have packed up and fled the area to join the rebels," Debra whispered.
"Really?" Subaru asked in surprise. "Half?"
"The only people left in my village are the old and sick. My brothers all went to the Jungle to join the Horned Witch's army. I stayed behind to take care of my parents. They're too old to travel. All of our crops are dead, but by law, we can't leave the village and search for other places to live without our overseer's permission. They won't give it. They want us to sit here and quietly starve. People are joining the Horned Witch because they feel like they have no other choice."
"I thought that the Horned Witch was just a myth," Subaru said sharply, taking a glance at Garfiel.
The demi-human looked profoundly skeptical of Debra 's story but didn't say anything.
"Oh no! The Horned Witch is very real!" Debra assured him. "We've known about her for centuries. About fifty years ago, she started emerging from the jungle more regularly, helping the kholops with gifts of food and medicine."
Fifty years ago? …So, right after the Demi-Human War ended. Sphinx must have fled down here and hidden in the jungle, adopting the character of the Horned Witch for her own purposes. She took the role of the kholops' mythical protector to try and influence them to support her.
Felt studied the maid 's expression. "Sounds like a nice lady," She said cautiously.
Debra hesitated. "I wouldn't say 'nice' exactly," She admitted in a whisper, "But she has kept us from starving. So when she announced a crusade against the tyrant Emperor and the cruel Senate, we listened. The Horned Witch claimed that Emperor Vincent was a false ruler. She said that his nephew Octavian is the rightful Emperor. "
"Do they really think they can defeat the Vollachian army?" Garfiel murmured in disbelief.
"The Horned Witch is calling legions of fallen heroes back from the grave to fight again! I saw them once!"
"What about the rumors of the rebels destroying villages to gather fresh corpses?" Subaru asked.
Debra nodded. "We've heard the rumors. Nobody believes them. I know people who have seen the Imperial Army burning villages that they regard as disloyal and then blaming it on the rebels."
Subaru made a face and sighed, shaking his head. It 's not exactly confirmation, but I don't doubt her. Sounds like Felt is right. Both sides in this war do suck. Sphinx at least seems to be trying to be an improvement over the Empire, but I don't know if that's her long-term plan or just a concession to politics.
"So it sounds like the kholops are favoring the rebels?" Subaru asked.
"Well… the rebels have been pretty kind to us," Debra said awkwardly. "But then again, it'd be hard to be crueler than the Imperial army usually is. I've listened in when the travelers at the inn told stories of other regions. I know the kholops in the west are solidly behind the rebels, but I've heard conflicting stories about the kholops in other provinces. They're not starving, so they may be more loyal to the Emperor."
Felt studied Debra. "How large an army does the Witch have?" She asked.
"I don't know," Debra said uncertainly. "I've only seen them once. But I've heard that their numbers keep growing. I've even heard rumors of draugr emerging from the jungle."
"Draugr?" Subaru asked.
"That's some kind of swamp monster, right?" Garfiel asked.
Debra nodded. "According to the stories," She said, "If the witch catches a person in the jungle, she buries them alive until they petrify. Then she digs them up and reanimates them into her eternal guardians: monsters made of unbreakable stone. The Horned Witch has amassed a huge army to challenge the Emperor. Her army has undead monsters as well as disgruntled soldiers and peasants from the Westfold. The rebels and the Imperial Legions are clashing somewhere off to the east but Emperor Vincent appears to be losing ground. No living soldiers can long stand up against those who can't die."
Subaru mulled the information over. "Do you know anything about the Emperor? What is he doing in all this?"
"Trying to defend his throne, I think," Debra said helplessly. "I overheard my boss talking about the Emperor once. Apparently, the Emperor went before the Senate with a proposal for relief for the Westfold, but the Senators unanimously voted it down."
"Nice guys," Felt grumbled.
"Isn't anyone doing anything about this?" Garfiel demanded. "The drought? The way the land is dying?"
"Change the weather?" Debra asked helplessly.
"No! Dig a canal or something! I know that the Tigracy River hasn't dried up! Couldn't the Imperial Army dig a channel across the Westfold?" Garfiel said.
Debra thought back. "Now that I think about it, I remember hearing a rumor that Proconsul Xerces asked for permission to do that, but the Senate refused him."
"Why?"
"They were worried that the diverted water might adversely affect the farms in the Southreach or some such," Debra explained.
Garfiel shook his head in disgust.
Subaru nodded. "Thank you, Debra," He looked at his friends to check that no one had any more questions. "We appreciate you answering our questions, and you can rest assured that we heard nothing from you."
Debra nodded fervently and slipped out the door.
"Garf, what's a draugr?" Felt asked.
"Some kind of legendary swamp monster, I think," Garfiel reflected. "They're supposed to be unstoppable juggernauts, monsters that live in the Vollachian jungles and swamps."
"Undead?" Subaru asked.
"Yeah. Debra's story was pretty much the same as the ones I'd read. They were men buried alive by the Horned Witch until they turned to solid stone. Then they're reanimated and forced to serve her."
"What do they look like?" Emilia asked.
"The stories described them as stone-skinned people. Sometimes as stone skeletons. But they're usually wrapped in so much mud and dirt from being buried in the swamp for centuries that you'd never be able to tell. The big threat about the draugr is that they're supposed to be invincible. Nothing hurts them."
"I don't like the sound of that," Felt muttered.
Subaru looked at his friends. "Look. It's getting late. Why don't we just get to bed? We can sort out this stuff tomorrow."
Subaru readied for bed, but he couldn 't fail to notice Emilia's grave expression as she sat on the bed.
For a while, Subaru wondered if he could escape the argument tonight and save it for tomorrow, but-
"Subaru," Emilia said.
Subaru checked a sigh. "Yes, Mili?" He asked as he sat down on the bed beside her.
Emilia considered her words very carefully. "Subaru. I'm worried about how much you're using the Authority's power. I'm worried that it could start to change you."
This time, Subaru couldn 't suppress his sigh. "Mili, you keep saying that, but to be completely honest, I don 't see it. I'm not seeing any sign that the magic is changing or corrupting me."
"I do," Emilia said at once.
Subaru 's eyes widened.
Emilia sighed. "I do, but maybe not the way you 're thinking," She amended.
Subaru was shocked. "What do you mean?"
Emilia thought for a moment. "Subaru. Do you remember the night when Arlem village was attacked?"
Subaru nodded. "Sure. The Gusteko soldiers tried to kill everyone, and I saved them. Then we spent the night in the same room for the first time."
Emilia pursed her lips. "Do you remember how upset you were?"
Subaru looked annoyed. "Mili! I'd never done anything like that before! You can 't blame me for being freaked out!"
"Subaru! I'm not blaming you! In fact, I think that it's a good thing if you get upset after being forced to kill someone. It's a sign that you appreciate the gravity of the situation and what you had to do. What I'm saying is that I remember how upset you were at Arlem and after you killed the slavers in Lagunica. And after you b… after the incident in the Valley of Winds," She said awkwardly.
Subaru looked briefly pained. "Alright. So what?"
"Well… when was the last time?"
"The last time what?"
"The last time that killing someone really upset you. You didn't seem bothered by killing the Gusteko princes. In fact, until Anri told you how much trouble you'd caused her, you seemed… you seemed to feel kind of proud of what you'd done," She said awkwardly.
Subaru was visibly affronted. "Mili! They were trying to kill us!"
"I know that, Subaru," She said patiently. "And we need to protect ourselves from those who want to kill us. But… when I was carried out of the room, the princes were chained up and helpless while you were confronting Gilbert and his soldiers."
Subaru 's expression grew uncomfortable.
"How did the princes die, Subaru?" Emilia asked with a miserable expression. "Did they die by accident during the fight with Gilbert? Did you talk to them afterward and decide that killing them was the only way to keep us safe? Or… did you lose your temper, and somehow it just happened?" She finished in a small voice.
Subaru searched for something to say, but nothing came to him.
Emilia sighed and wrapped her arms around her chest as if she were cold. "Then there was Girali. I heard that you… killed people while we were down in the tunnels," She whispered.
Subaru looked at her, his expression stricken.
Emilia looked him squarely in the face. "I don't know exactly what happened, Subaru. And I know that you and Felt have been working very hard to keep it that way," she said, her voice a mix of worry, anger, and hurt . "But I'm not as stupid as you sometimes seem to think I am. I know that you did something in Girali and… It was probably something very bad," She finished reluctantly.
Subaru hesitated, wondering what to say and how to say it. Suddenly, the words burst out of him. "Mili! I was killing slavers ! You know what was going on in Girali! How can you sit there and act like those people didn 't deserve to die?!"
"I'm not saying they didn't deserve it, Subaru!" Emilia shot back. "But that's the whole problem!"
"What's the problem?"
Emilia sighed and shook her head. "Subaru, I worry that killing is becoming… too easy for you. I think that it's starting to feel like a logical way to solve a problem. And that worries me. You have a good heart. You're a kind and caring person. And I don't want you to lose that about yourself. But I think you're starting to treat other people's lives carelessly. Like tonight. You killed those bandits."
Subaru rolled his eyes. "Mili!"
"You killed them!" Emilia pressed on. "They were already retreating, Subaru! There was no need to kill them, and you killing them didn't even accomplish anything!"
"They said they'd come back for the village again!" He protested.
"But how did what you did change that?" Emilia countered. "Did you really kill those men because you thought it made the village safer, or… did you kill them because they talked back to you?" She asked reluctantly. "Or what about the night of the banquet? You threatened to inflict a drought on a whole region if they didn't speak more respectfully to us. Ever since we left Gusteko, I'm worried that killing has just gotten too easy for you. And the thought of what could have happened in Girali… makes me even more nervous."
Subaru flushed. "Mili! You weren't there! I… I just did what I had to do…" He said simply.
Emilia looked Subaru squarely in the eye. "Subaru. Can you… honestly, tell me that you killed those people because you had no other choice? "
Subaru felt his face burning. "Mili! You weren't there!" He argued, getting up off the bed.
"I wasn't there. I don't know what really happened," Emilia said sharply, standing up. "So why don't you tell me exactly what happened, and then I'll know."
Subaru stared at her, his mouth moving without saying anything. Subaru knew that by his silence, he was declaring louder than words that he 'd done something awful and that, indeed, he was ashamed of it, but he couldn 't think of what to say or do.
The worry lines on Emilia 's face deepened. "Subaru, are you really not going to tell me?" She whispered, sounding deeply hurt.
Subaru hesitated and then shook his head. "Mili, it's not important," He said brusquely.
"If it's not important, then why won't you tell me?" She shot back.
"Mili! I… OK. Look, maybe I… made some mistakes. But they were all bad people! They deserved to die!"
"What?!"
Subaru sighed. "Mili, these weren't sneak thieves or petty bandits. They were slave owners! They threatened to kill you and Felt and Garf!"
"Subaru! Sonas did that!"
"And all these people just stood by and let him! As far as I'm concerned, that makes them just as guilty as he was!"
"Subaru," Emilia whispered, sounding aghast. "Will you listen to yourself? What gives you the right to wander the world, handing out death and judgment?"
"Mili! That's what this world is! Powerful people using their power! It's always been that way! Whether the power is in the hands of a witch or a king, or just some local bully who happens to be good with a sword. The only difference is that this time, we have the power, and we can control how it's used."
"Well, so far, it seems like we're not doing such a great job," Emilia snapped.
"Mili! I know what I'm doing! Will you just trust me on this?"
"I'm trying to trust you, Subaru!" Emilia sounded on the verge of tears. "I am trying so very hard to trust you! But you're making it extremely difficult for me because you're not giving me a reason to! You're not even listening to me! You're just shutting me out!"
"Mili!" Subaru shouted. "I-" Subaru took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "I'm… I'm going to go take a quick walk and cool down. We'll talk about this later."
Emilia didn 't say anything. She just stood there watching him slip out of the room, her face deeply hurt.
Subaru closed the door behind him with a sigh, leaning his forehead against the door.
"Wow. You sure handled that well."
Subaru looked up and saw Felt leaning against the balcony railing with a tired expression on her face.
Subaru gave her a foul look. "What? Were you eavesdropping? Pressing your ear against the door to listen in?" He asked in a withering tone.
Felt gave a bitter laugh. "Oh, boss, you give yourself way too much credit, " She said flatly. "I didn't need to listen at the door. I heard you quite clearly. In fact, everyone in the inn probably did."
Subaru flushed and grumbled something under his breath. "I'm going to go take a walk," He said shortly, heading for the stairs.
"So, that's your solution?" Felt called after him. "Walk away and hope that by the time you come back, the problem is solved?"
Subaru stopped in his tracks. He took a deep, steadying breath. "Felt. This isn 't your business, " He said, struggling to keep from growling at her.
"Really?" Felt asked caustically. "Because it kind of feels like it's my business, you know? At this point, Subaru, I've followed you halfway around the goddamn world. I've lied for you, I've kept your secrets, and I've turned my whole life upside down to try to help you."
Subaru pursed his lips. He took a deep breath, and he let it out slowly. "That is all true," He said more calmly. "And I'm very grateful. But what 's going on between me and Emilia is our business."
"Except that it's not just between you and Emilia," Felt reminded him. "This isn't just about your love life or your girlfriend getting worried about you. We're all worried, Subaru! Even Garfiel, who's pretty sure you could walk on water if you'd just give it a try, is starting to wonder if you're relying on your power too much."
Subaru tried to sputter a response and then shook his head. "OK. I don't think I want to hear any more about this tonight," He grumbled, walking away.
"Of course you don't," Felt snorted. "You don't like criticism. You never have. We should all listen to you, and if we disagree, we should still trust you to decide what's best. You should always make the final decisions."
Subaru started, and he spun to stare at Felt in shock. She leaned back against the balcony railing, her arms folded across her chest and her expression deeply disappointed.
"What are you talking? I've always let everyone criticize me! I welcome people to tell me if they think I'm making a mistake! I've ever reached out to people that I thought were enemies if I thought it was the best way to avoid trouble!"
"Yeah. That's all true," Felt agreed at once. "But you still don't react well to people questioning you."
"Well, excuse me!"
"Do you even realize what you just did?" Felt grated. "You're pushing away Emilia. The woman that you love, remember? The girl that you loved enough to go on the run with? The girl you loved enough to fight your friends and a whole goddamn kingdom to keep safe? The person whose loss threatened to drive you insane and to turn you into an unrepentant monster?"
Subaru glared at her, silently daring her to keep talking.
Felt didn 't seem remotely intimidated. " That 's the person who you just pushed away. She was scared. She was worried. She was worried about you and you just ignored her. You told her to get over it and stop bothering you about it. That doesn 't sound too much like the Subaru that I know. "
That shot hit hard. Subaru fumed. "Well, maybe you didn't know that guy as well as you think," He scoffed, walking away.
"Yeah?! Well, if you see him out there, would you mind giving him a message for me?" Felt yelled after him. "Tell him that he had better pull his head out of his ass before he loses everybody who cares about him!"
Subaru walked away quickly, leaving Felt standing behind him, shaking her head in deep disappointment.
Subaru walked in the dark fields outside the inn, thinking.
They 're overreacting, Subaru thought to himself. I haven 't changed that much since I got the Authority…
I mean … those two I killed tonight… so what? They're bandits. I doubt that any of the kholops are weeping for them. They were savages, and they stole and killed for a living. They spent their lives abusing people because they were more powerful. Then they ran into me, and suddenly, they weren't so powerful anymore. They lived by the sword, and they died by the sword.
A soft voice whispered to Subaru from deep in his mind, But … that's the real problem, isn't it? The bandits were leaving. They were no threat to me.
What I did wasn 't self-defense. It was judgment. It was an execution. I measured the value of those lives and found them worth nothing. So I killed them.
And … while a good argument could be made that those men deserved death, I didn't really think about it that much, did I? I didn't consider any other options or balance the pros and cons. I killed them as if I was swatting flies. But this time, I didn't even have the excuse of being overwhelmed by the Authority before I did it.
Subaru swallowed hard.
Maybe Mili 's right. Maybe… maybe I am starting to change.
How many people have I killed since I first came to this world? At one point, I had an exact count. I could even remember all of their faces. I saw them over and over again in my nightmares.
Now it 's… fuzzy. I can't remember them all. I can't remember them all because there's been so many.
You 're just getting stronger, Part of Subaru argued. Becoming tougher. You no longer flinch from doing what 's necessary.
Maybe. Or maybe … Maybe Emilia has a point.
When did I stop caring about the people I killed? In Arlem, I spared everyone that I could. I only killed the soldiers who forced me to. And those soldiers were all terrible people about to commit a war crime.
When we were roaming around Lagunica with the spirits, I let Captain Falric live when he found us. I knew that he 'd tell Crusch exactly where we were and that she would send an army after us. I knew that sparing Falric was a terrible strategic choice. But I let him live anyway.
Why? Because he didn 't deserve to die. I let him live because Falric was a good man, and he didn't deserve to die.
If I was in that same situation again … would I still let Falric live? Or would I decide that it was an unacceptable risk? Would I decide that the fact that Falric was a good man who didn't deserve to die was sad, but it was ultimately irrelevant to my decision? Just a sentimental fact that would distract me from making the 'correct' choice?
Subaru sighed and leaned back against a tree, his expression miserable. When was the last time? He thought to himself. When was the last time that killing someone would have been beneficial to me, but I decided not to do it because it would have been wrong? When did I last let morality trump practical concerns? When did I last even hesitate to resort to deadly force?
It 's not like all my enemies exactly give me a choice. And it's not like negotiating with the Archbishops is ever an option…
The last time that I remember refraining from killing was when we rescued those two dumb kids, Celene and Geoffrey. I scared those bandits away instead of killing them. But then again, I didn 't want to kill them. I didn 't even want to get involved in that mess in the first place. I only acted to back up Emilia after she jumped into the fight.
We saw the kids get captured. They were going to sell them both into slavery. They were going to rape that girl. We both saw it. And what did I do?
I told Emilia that it wasn 't our problem, and I walked away. I openly didn't care that two innocent people were going to suffer not twenty feet away from us.
I only got involved because Emilia forced the issue.
At the time, I justified my decision by claiming that we were trying to stay out of sight and that intervening would have been risky, but there were simple solutions to that problem. We could have made masks or bandannas to disguise who we were. Emilia could have used her magic from the shadows and driven them off. I probably could have used Indomitable to pelt the bandits with stones without revealing myself until they ran away.
The truth was, I just didn 't care what happened to those kids that they'd captured.
What the hell … Innocent people were about to be enslaved and violated right in front of me, and I just didn't care.
I never would have felt that way when I first came to this world. When I first came here, I was still one of the nobodies. I was one of the ignored rejects whose suffering nobody cared about.
…In my fantasies, I always told myself that if I ever had real power, I wouldn't forget what it felt like to be small and helpless. At the time, it seemed like an easy promise to keep.
Even if I were the big hero with all the power I wanted, the beautiful princess at my side, and the people all cheering my name, I 'd still remember to watch out for the folks who had no one to watch out for them.
Now look at me. I 've let myself get so wrapped up in my own problems that I just don't want to bother with anyone else's.
…Maybe Emilia was right.
I 'd always sort of dismissed Emilia's concerns about the Authority. I mean, it wasn't like I'd just wake up some morning and decide to turn evil. And I'd argue the Authority isn't making me more violently or any more cruel than I was before.
But maybe … maybe the problem is less the Authority than it is me. Maybe I'd always have been willing to act like this if I thought I could get away with it.
And Emilia … now that I actually stop to think about it, she has a different perspective on all this because of what happened to her in the forest. She's not just worried that the power could turn me evil. She's worried that maybe the power could just make me… careless, I guess? That I'd become powerful enough to ruin people's lives, even accidentally.
Emilia accidentally cursed the forest. And she never forgave herself for that.
The people I 've killed are becoming like a statistic to me. When I first came to this world, the things that I did in Girali would have left me an emotional cripple. I would have fallen to pieces and needed Emilia or someone else to pull me back together.
All that blood. All that death.
…All that pain. Girali was different than anything I'd ever done before. I didn't just kill them. I hurt those people. I deliberately made them suffer. I wanted them to hurt as much as possible, so I burned them alive.
It was sick and twisted. Killing them for being slave owners would have been one thing. Maybe it wouldn 't have been admirable, but it would have at least been understandable. But… burning them alive, wanting them to suffer as much as possible? That isn't something that there's any way to excuse.
I 've been under so much pressure for so long. I've been feeling so weak and helpless ever since the Sanctuary. Like we were hanging onto our lives by our fingernails. Now that I have the talisman, I think that maybe I just… over-corrected in the other direction.
Little as I like to think about it, Felt probably had a point too.
Emilia loves me, but she 's genuinely worried about me. And she can only look the other way for so long before she decides that I'm going down a road she can't follow.
And then, she 'd leave me.
I can 't handle that. I know for a fact that I couldn't handle losing Emilia. Being abandoned again. It would kill me.
It almost killed me the last time …
Late one afternoon, a not-yet-fifteen-year-old Subaru stepped off the bus into the busy heart of town. He 'd never been this far from home without his parents.
His parents had no idea where he was. He 'd told them that he was going out to have fun with his virtually nonexistent group of friends. But instead, he'd come downtown. He needed to find her .
I haven 't seen Anise in weeks. She hasn't been to any of our usual hangout spots. What if something happened to her?
A mean voice deep inside of him answered back. What happened to her was that she got bored with you. She found something better to do, someone better to be with, and she 's putting you out of her mind as fast as possible.
She 's doing exactly what Koushiro did to you. He moved away, and now he can make a fresh start of his life without you in it. She did the same thing. She got fed up with your endless neediness and your desperation for affection, and she left.
Subaru swallowed hard and fought not to give the idea any credence.
Anise wouldn 't abandon me like that, Subaru tried to reassure himself. Ever since she talked me off the bridge that night, she promised that we 'd be friends forever. She knows how much that promise meant to me. Especially after Koushiro vanished without a word.
She was the one who helped hold me together when Koushiro left, and my parents couldn 't figure out how to help me. She knows how badly that experience affected me. How much it hurt when Koushiro left without a word. Even if she had to leave, she wouldn't go without saying goodbye.
She promised.
With every thought, Subaru felt more and more pathetic as he approached the enormous apartment building where Anise told him she 'd been staying. She'd asked him to stay away from here because she didn't want her family to know that they were dating. She said that her father wouldn't approve.
Anise loves me. She pulled me off the ledge. When my parents told me to get out of the house and said that I wasn 't their son, Anise found me on the bridge. She convinced me not to jump. She promised she'd stay with me.
Subaru remembered that night when he 'd been standing on the narrow ledge at least a hundred feet above the cold black water below. He'd climbed over the safety railing, ignoring all the warning signs. He had a special hatred for the sign that said: 'Think of your friends and family! You have so much to live for!"
Subaru ignored the other signs, but he 'd torn that insulting sign off the railing and thrown it off the bridge. The sign vanished into the dark water far below.
Subaru took a deep breath. I wonder if it will hurt when I hit the water, Subaru thought, trying to summon up all of his courage. Death didn 't seem like a terrible threat, just a welcome release from the pressure and the demands of his life. Demands and pressure that he knew he could no longer endure. But the idea of pain frightened him.
Falling into the water from this distance … It will probably be like hitting cement. Will there be time for any pain, or will I just… shatter?
I don 't want pain. I don't want any more pain.
But I can push through the pain. I can push through it one last time, and then there 'll be no more pain forever.
"I don't know what the problem is," A girl's voice said calmly. "But I think that there's probably a better solution."
Subaru snapped his head around. Sitting calmly on the safety rail was a girl he 'd never seen before. She was a foreign girl with pale blond hair and blue eyes. She dressed strangely, wearing what looked like a hooded sweatshirt over a thin blue sundress and sandals. She also wore a backward-facing baseball cap. She was barely a teenager, but she seemed small, even for her age. She was very pretty.
"Who are you?" Subaru demanded. "Stay away from me!"
"I am not moving," The girl said quickly. She spoke the language well enough but with a certain stiffness and an odd choice of phrasing that proved she wasn't entirely familiar with it. She seemed calm and composed, but Subaru sensed from the way that her eyes tightened that she wasn't as relaxed as she seemed. "I just want to speak."
So, they 'd talked. The pair sat on the bridge, their legs dangling over the dark abyss, and they talked.
They talked for several hours. The girl wouldn 't leave no matter how much Subaru ordered her to. Finally, Subaru just broke down and told her about his life. How miserable and overworked he was, how his entire family seemed to be falling apart, and how, no matter what he did, he couldn't help his parents get past the pain of their miscarriage and all of the other children that they'd never have.
Subaru wasn 't really sure how much of his story the girl understood. He knew that her vocabulary in Japanese was limited. Frankly, he didn't care how much she actually understood. He was just desperate for someone to listen to him for a change.
With Koushiro having been in the hospital for the past two weeks with a broken leg, Subaru had been left with no one at all to talk to. He couldn 't speak about his troubles with the other kids at school, even the ones who called themselves his friends. He knew that as soon as he revealed how miserable and desperate he really felt, they'd all vanish as if they feared that his desperation was in some way contagious.
He didn 't dare speak to his parents on the subject. They were already in so much pain that he spent his days at home walking on eggshells, desperately trying not to say or do anything to upset their delicate equilibrium.
"You can call me Anise," The girl had said in labored Japanese. She could converse in the language easily enough, but some concepts seemed to give her difficulty. "I'm from away. I'm staying here on my father's business."
A little awkward, but the meaning seemed clear enough. Subaru asked her if she spoke English, which he had a small grasp of, and Anise had readily switched over to English, only to reveal that he couldn 't speak English well enough to converse with her in that language.
Anise soon revealed that she could speak many languages with at least reasonable facility and that she 'd spent too much of her life moving from place to place to have a clearly defined 'homeland.' Anise was evasive about her father's business, but she hinted that their coming here hadn't been entirely voluntary in a way that asked him not to inquire further.
Subaru quickly concluded that Anise 's father was probably involved in something shady, but at the moment, he couldn't have cared less.
Subaru sighed. "It's just… I'm so lonely . The only friend that I have is Koushiro. Without him, I 'm all alone at school because my classmates aren't my friends . They 're just my audience. They come to me to be entertained. And I'm all alone at home because my parents are still reeling from the miscarriage, and now they've both crept off into separate corners to heal."
"You're not alone. I'm here," Anise had told him, taking his hand.
That had actually touched Subaru, but he didn 't let it show.
For a moment, he almost wanted to hurt Anise. To make her understand the kind of pain and despair that he lived with. He wanted someone to know how much pain he was in. To acknowledge the fact that Subaru Natsuki, the failure of all failures, was suffering .
Subaru pushed the thoughts down. "That's great and all, but how long are you going to be here?"
"Long," She answered.
I have no idea if that means she 'll be here for a while or if she just didn't understand the question.
"You will show me around, yes?" Anise pressed.
"There's not much to see or do around here," Subaru said. Then he sighed. "But sure. If you want."
A siren wailed as a police car pulled up behind them on the bridge, and two men in uniform climbed out.
"Are we being in trouble?" Anise asked.
Subaru sighed. "Probably."
The police gingerly asked the pair to come back over the railing, and Subaru complied with a sigh. This had clearly surprised the officers, who seemed to have expected more resistance.
Any hopes Subaru had of the police not guessing what Subaru had been doing were quickly squelched. Rather than yell at him, the officers were kind and sympathetic, offering to be a sympathetic ear for him. The officers quickly separated the pair and gently questioned them. Subaru was worried about Anise but she clearly had no trouble convincing them that she 'd been there to try to save him because the officer swiftly dismissed her.
When the police asked for his story, Subaru instinctively lied to protect his family.
Rather than admit to the horrible fight that they 'd had over dinner and how he'd run away from home, Subaru spun a tale of how worried he was about his upcoming finals and how he hadn't felt like he could handle the pressure anymore.
The officer nodded sagely as if he 'd heard this story a thousand times before. He recounted similar tales from his own life and encouraged Subaru to cut himself some slack.
It wasn 't necessarily a bad pep talk, but Subaru was still less than impressed. Regardless, he thanked the officer for taking the time to let him talk about these things with someone.
That all being settled, the officers quickly smoothed the whole incident under the rug, not wanting the scandal of possible mental illness to taint an otherwise fine young man and his respectable family.
They drove him directly home. Neither officer seemed all that concerned about how or if Anise got home. Subaru thought that was moderately tacky, but Anise seemed to take it in stride, and she waved to Subaru as they drove away.
Returning home, his parents had fallen all over themselves, crying in relief now that Subaru was back.
Before his mother could stutter out an explanation of what had happened that night, the officer had cut her off. He quickly explained what Subaru had told him, almost as if he knew that it was a lie, and he wanted to be sure that Subaru 's mother knew what her story should be. The officer finished by telling everyone that there would be no paperwork for the incident and that no one needed to know how close Subaru had come to killing himself.
With that, the officers climbed back into their car and left. The incident apparently closed.
After this, Subaru and Anise became very close. She never invited him over, emphasizing that her father wouldn 't approve of them being together. This occasionally made him wonder how her father would have reacted if he ever had found out they were dating but at least she didn't appear to be afraid of her father.
Anise had impacted Subaru 's social group like a clap of thunder. Everyone had simply stared at her when she walked into the room, many of his classmates remarking out loud on what would surely one day grow to be an extraordinary beauty. They all looked shocked when Anise thanked them for their kind words in fluent Japanese.
Beyond that, Anise was cheerful and good-natured, and she clearly came from wealth as she often spent money lavishly on virtual strangers without any evident concern. Most of the boys in his group, and even some several years older than Subaru, had attempted to ask her out, but she had always declined courteously, indicating that she was currently attached to Subaru.
All of Subaru 's classmates were unified in one conclusion: Anise was far too good for a loser like him.
"Why are you with me?" Subaru had asked once.
"I like you," Anise said as if this was the simplest thing in the world.
"Yeah, but… why?" Subaru asked awkwardly. "I'm not smart or good-looking or even all that much fun to be around."
Anise had thought about it for a time. Putting her feelings into words appeared to stretch her command of the language to its limit. "You work hard," She'd labored to explain. "I like people who try hard. Even if they fail a lot. Cause they're good people. Easy to be good when you always win. Nothing great in that. Subaru, you work hard to love people. And I want to be with someone who will love me very much."
Subaru had flushed at Anise 's matter-of-fact compliment.
Anise had been with Subaru when he 'd found out that Koushiro had moved away without a word. She'd been the first to comfort him.
Subaru 's parents had become extremely evasive when this event happened. He'd asked them to help him try to get in touch with Koushiro again, but they had refused without any explanation, and they advised him to simply move on with his life.
After this, Anise 's presence in their house became a daily event. Subaru wasn't sure why his parents seemed to dislike Anise so much, but they never warmed up to her, no matter how charming she tried to be.
Then, just as summer was wrapping up, she disappeared.
Subaru had sneaked down to the apartment complex where Anise had been staying. There was always a security guard keeping watch on the door, but Subaru was determined to get inside.
He waited there, just out of sight, for close to an hour until a woman and her children walked into the building, and Subaru fell into step behind them, pretending to be one of her children or a family friend. He acted for all the world like he belonged inside and he trusted that nobody would look at him twice.
The security guard didn 't even blink when Subaru walked by.
He 'd followed the woman into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. He knew from television that he'd need a special key to send the elevator to the penthouse, but he gambled that the city's building codes would require that there also be at least one set of stairs leading to the penthouse and that these might not be locked.
As it turned out, he was right. There was no lock, not even a door on the stairs leading to the top level. It seemed that the building management never even considered that someone who 'd gotten past security would try to reach the top floor without permission.
Subaru raced up the stairs and past the elevators on the top floor. A glass door led into the penthouse apartment.
Subaru started to knock on the door, and then his hand fell.
Through the glass, he could see that the kitchen was completely bare.
Not a morsel of food or silverware could be seen. There was nothing but a table and chairs precisely organized in lifeless positions.
There was no sign of someone who expected to be back.
Subaru stumbled back down to the lobby on numb and wobbly legs.
With a haunted expression, he went to the concierge, a young man sitting behind a desk who was playing games on his phone.
"Excuse me," Subaru muttered. "But the penthouse. Are the people who lived there… are they coming back?"
The concierge gave Subaru a puzzled look. "I wouldn't know. They didn't leave a deposit or anything to reserve the space, so they're not coming back any time soon, and… Wait. I shouldn't have told you that," The young man said, wincing.
"Hang on," He said, looking more closely at Subaru. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"
Subaru didn 't reply. He just marched straight out of the building. He stared straight ahead, his expression hollow. Subaru noticed the security guard was watching him as he passed, but Subaru was utterly indifferent to anything that the security guard might say or do.
Abandoned. Again. First Koushiro. Then Anise.
Everyone abandons me. No one would ever choose to be with me if they didn 't have to.
When Subaru went home that night, he abandoned himself.
All the extreme effort that he was putting into everything vanished overnight. He couldn 't work that hard anymore. He couldn't even be bothered to put in a normal amount of effort.
He stopped talking to people at school. People kept coming up to him, looking to be entertained, but Subaru had no interest in them or any desire to explain himself, so they quickly stopped asking.
There was an important standardized test the following week, but when the teacher came to collect the papers, he discovered that Subaru hadn 't even bothered to write his name.
Subaru was sent to speak to the headmaster because of this. The wrinkly old man had read Subaru the riot act, yelling about how he 'd humiliated his family and was throwing away his future. The headmaster went into story after story about all the bad ends that came to his students who had decided that things were too hard and just 'given up' over the years.
Subaru didn 't say a word. He listened patiently, his expression blank. The headmaster got steadily angrier and started making threats: detention, suspension, expulsion but no matter how high the threats escalated, Subaru never reacted. He just sat there, staring blankly at the angry old man.
After screaming for more than an hour, the headmaster was forced to stop and catch his breath. He looked down at Subaru, who hadn 't said a word the entire time that he'd been there. Nor at any point had Subaru changed his expression.
The headmaster stared at Subaru, and the old man 's expression suddenly shifted to worry, perhaps even fear.
He 's worried now, Subaru thought in a dead voice. Whatever 's wrong with me, he knows it's worse than anything he knows how to deal with. This man lives his life according to very precise and exacting rules. He's fenced himself into a box and made himself the absolute master of that territory. But that means that he sees anything new and unfamiliar as a threat to him.
Subaru was dismissed curtly. Subaru stood up and walked out the door without a word or a backward glance.
Subaru 's home life similarly went downhill.
My parents were so happy when Anise left, he remembered. They didn 't even bother trying to hide it. They were thrilled to get rid of Anise and acted like this was some exciting new chapter for our family. Things were finally going to get back to normal.
They were right. Things were going to be normal now. I didn 't have the strength to be anything more than normal.
I didn 't even want to try anymore.
Over the coming months, Subaru 's grades cratered, and he was quickly assigned to summer remedial classes.
He didn 't bother to attend.
By the time his parents noticed that anything was wrong, Subaru had gone from an above-average student to a delinquent.
His parents reacted desperately. They punished him. Subaru soberly accepted it.
They tried to encourage him or to bribe him into trying harder. Subaru didn 't have any more wants that they could satisfy.
They started taking the time to bring him to school personally and making sure that he went. Subaru went along with this. Refusing or fighting back would have taken an awful lot of effort that Subaru didn 't feel like spending.
After arriving at school, Subaru spent the whole day staring out the window, indifferent to what the students or the faculty said to him.
By now, everyone at school knew Subaru as a broken individual. Subaru was aware that there were all kinds of rumors going around school to explain just what made the high-strung jokester finally snap.
One group of underclassmen told everyone that they 'd heard that Subaru had been sexually assaulted during gym class and that the school district had hushed it up.
Others said that Subaru had started using serious drugs, and by the time he quit, they had permanently damaged his own brain.
Some people claimed that his parents had abandoned him after adopting a new child and that now he lived on the streets.
Subaru didn 't care. He couldn't be bothered to explain or correct their misconceptions.
After more than a year of this, Subaru realized he had given up even further. When school ended one day, Subaru couldn 't be bothered to go home. He just kept sitting there in his chair, staring out the window. The students on cleanup duty had noticed him, but they did their best to ignore him.
More and more often, people seemed to be acting as if they were actually afraid of him. As if whatever had destroyed Subaru was contagious and if they weren 't careful, they might catch it.
That evening, Subaru was reported missing. Police called the faculty and students, but no one had any idea where he could have gone. It wasn 't until the next morning that the teacher came into class and saw Subaru still sitting there.
He hadn 't moved. He hadn't slept. He hadn't eaten in eighteen hours.
And he didn 't care.
The police came to question Subaru, who was barely responsive. Then they took him home.
The police were extremely angry when they spoke to Subaru 's parents. They made no secret of the fact that they felt they had wasted valuable time searching for the boy and that it shouldn't be a matter of police concern if the Natsuki boy was now 'broken.'
The police suggested that his parents keep Subaru home for a few days, and so that 's just what they did.
Subaru sat in his bedroom alone.
His parents didn 't come in. Maybe they were angry. Maybe they just didn't care.
Maybe they were terrified that they 'd say the wrong thing, so they didn't dare say anything. But either way, they left him alone.
Subaru 's mother left food outside his door a few times a day, or else he would have surely starved.
The TV stayed off. No books were read, no games were played.
Subaru just sat there, month after month, as if waiting for something.
Why did Anise stop me that night? He remembered wondering. It would have been better if we 'd never met. I'd be free. I'd be at peace.
I could still walk out to that bridge some night … But strangely, I don't even care enough to do that anymore…
In the dark field, Subaru let out a deep breath. The old wounds in his heart were breaking open again even after all this time.
All gone. Koushiro 's gone, probably murdered. And Anise is gone. She didn't even bother to say goodbye.
Maybe she didn 't have a chance to. Maybe whatever crimes or shady stuff that her father was involved in caught up to them, and they had to disappear again.
It 's nice to think that anyway. Nice to think that she didn't want to leave me that way, but she just had to.
….
Is Emilia right about the Authority corrupting me?
I don 't know. And maybe I don't even care.
If Emilia came out here tonight and asked me to choose between her and the Authority, I 'd pick her without a second thought.
I 've always worried that without the Authority, Emilia would have never seen anything of value in me in the first place…
But if Emilia wants me to use my powers less, maybe I don 't even care if it's for a good or bad reason.
I just want her to stay with me forever. I want us to find the spirits and then go someplace far away and quiet where we can disappear.
I 'd never need the Authority again.
Huh. It sounds so simple when I put it that way.
In the morning, I 'll apologize to everyone for how I've been acting since Girali. And with luck, maybe we can just put it all behind us.
Sensing that it was already quite late, Subaru went back into the inn and climbed the darkened stairs to the room he shared with Emilia.
Emilia was already fast asleep.
He quickly undressed and lay down beside her. Even asleep, her body snuggled into his embrace.
Subaru held her closely until he drifted off.
His last thoughts before sleep claimed him were: Please, don 't leave me.