Volu 4, Chapter 124: LISTEN UP, STUPID
—Howmany tis has he co to this room to see her?
The first ti they t, Subaru easily foiled the girl's illusory looping hallway and entered the Forbidden Archive.
Their first impressions of each other were mutually horrid.
Beatrice preford a mana drain one soone still midway through convalescence, and promptly downed Subaru. Afterwards she had to put up with his endless revenge-inspired ddling.
They would insult each other every ti they t, but despite that got along ridiculously well, and Subaru found himself stopping by the supposedly-veiled Forbidden Archive.
Subaru and Beatrice had had many yelling matches, spit flying everywhere, over these almost-two- months that Subaru has been in the mansion, just one immature exchange after another.
Those exchanges changed after the Royal Selection properly began and Subaru returned from the Capital.
Beatrice was rejecting him. With knowledge gained in SANCTUARY, where she was absent, Subaru learned her history and fate, and accordingly understood so reasons for her stubbornness.
Then he prattled as if he knew anything, trying to understand her solitude—and Beatrice, long bereft of tears after these four hundred years, wailed her lants.
There was nothing he could've said to the exhausted girl after that. Imdiate circumstances led Beatrice to lose her life, and Subaru saw that final expression on her face as she protected him.
That expression seared itself into his mory. Running off his emotions, Subaru returned here. —So that this ti, no matter what it took, he'd get her out of this place.
Beatrice: “Taking out of here...?”
Is Beatrice's bewildered response to Subaru's grand opening statent. She hugs the gospel tighter, drawing her knees to her chest as she sits atop the stepladder.
Beatrice: “Unwanted ddling, I suppose. Nobody asked for you to do that, in fact.”
Subaru: “This isn't about anyone asking or not asking . I'm taking you out of here. Decisively.”
Beatrice: “Just scram and have that foolish girl comfort you on her lap, I suppose.”
Subaru: “You little... this's war! You say sothing like that and it's war!”
Beatrice brings up a topic back from when Subaru was overloaded in this mansion, and he strains his voice to distract from his internal sha.
Beatrice snorts at him and glances away.
Subaru: “Anyway, this isn't the ti to be mucking around like this. We have basically no room to postpone anything. Have you grasped what's going on outside?”
Beatrice: “...I do know that so uninvited guests have co to the mansion, in fact. After the big and little maid did sothing or other, two preposterous people started going on a rampage, I suppose.”
Subaru: “Though, one of those preposterous people's a helper who I brought along. I don't think he'll lose, martially speaking, but unfortunately I get this feeling the difference in their resolve'll determine the win. And so I can't accommodate too much of your solemnity here.”
Beatrice: “Then you're evacuating the mansion's residents while your assistant buys ti ...is your sche, in fact. Are you trusting in your ally or aren't you with this sloppy strategy, I suppose?”
Subaru: “The strategy's like this 'cause I know he's way too kind.”
The restorative effects of Garfiel's EARTHSOUL BLESSING an that his current condition is 80~90% of his maximum. When adding on his lack of hesitation for battle, he's quite a considerable fighting force. But Subaru doubts that he has sufficient resolve to kill his opponent, which will keep him from putting in his all, which is a bit of a minus.
anwhile Elsa is in perfect condition. Subaru judges her strange, unexplainable combat strength as a good match for Garfiel at his best. Her tendency to enjoy herself during her battles is sothing of a minus for her combat-wise, but she has that inexplicable immorality. Elsa's statents give no suggestion that killing her indefinite tis will make her stay dead either. Subaru's tentative estimations dictate that Elsa has the slight advantage.
Subaru: “But if the strategy's working, Frederica should collect Rem while Garfiel's suppressing Elsa. Petra t up with Otto, so now there's only one essential evacuee left before we can save everybody.”
Beatrice: “Essential evacuees... you an to say that Betty is the last, in fact.”
Subaru: “Yeah, I do.”
Subaru had instructed Petra go et up with Otto, who has guided the villagers in Arlam to safety, and retreat after helping with a few gambits in the mansion.
Subaru has spent ti reaching the Archive, and she should have finished her departure by now.
Subaru: “And so I'm getting you out of here. If you don't wanna run while holding my hand, then I'll piggyback you or cradle you or do whatever to you, so just behave and co over here and...”
Beatrice: “Don't make repeat myself, I suppose. I don't need your help, in fact.”
Subaru steps closer and offers Beatrice his hand, but she speaks low to reject him. He cos to a stop in front of her as she turns her head in indication of the room.
Beatrice: “Hear , I suppose? An isolated space, of power worthy of Betty, separated from the cloisters of ti. This is Beatrice's Forbidden Archive, in fact. Regardless of whatever threatens the outside, that threat will never reach Betty's Archive. Your fears are needless, in fact.”
Subaru: “Nope, they're needed. Your Archive's randomness does an it's strongly advantageous when it cos to fleeing, true... but, it has a fatal flaw. And the enemy knows what it is.”
Beatrice: “A fatal, flaw?”
Beatrice furrows her brows, indeed unable to let the comnt pass. But Subaru just responds to her harsh gaze with a nod, and gestures to the door behind him.
Subaru: “Your power which randomly connects to so door in the mansion is strong. But... it only works on the mansion's CLOSED DOORS. So if you leave the mansion's doors open, you're certain to reach the Archive eventually, since you'll be losing doors until only the Archive's is left.”
Beatrice: “—hk”
Subaru: “It's such a stupid thing. I bet you didn't notice it either. I was wondering why I hadn't realised it until practically I witnessed it myself.”
Subaru rembers when Elsa, having noticed the loophole in GATE CROSSING, found the Archive. If Garfiel wasn't around to impede her, Elsa would unmistakably co here while using that exact sa thod. And likely take Beatrice's life.
Subaru: “Though of course, it's not like I'm underestimating you, or saying that her showing up here ans you're going down easy. It's just that her strangeness is so of the extrest I've ever experienced. If we can do this without facing her, there's nothing better.”
If they can defeat Elsa then he would like to do that, but it's not an essential requirent for clearing this loop series. If Roswaal is the one hiring her, then so long as Subaru crosses the ti limit for the issues in SANCTUARY, Roswaal should stop having any reason to keep hiring Elsa. The whole insignia affair in the Capital proves that this would make Elsa withdraw.
Either way, right now they need to survive through the attack on the mansion and—
Subaru: “Beatrice. This place isn't safe. If you're not here, she won't disturb the library. So just for now...”
Beatrice: “Why does that woman know how to break Betty's GATE CROSSING, I suppose?”
Subaru: “—”
Subaru spits out the suitable bargaining chips to convince Beatrice to leave.
But Beatrice, perhaps listening to Subaru's statents or perhaps not, whispers a whisper differing from what Subaru's looking for.
Subaru shuts his mouth. Beatrice remains upon the stepladder.
Beatrice: “It's inconceivable that she would abruptly conceive of how to break Betty's GATE
CROSSING on her first encounter with it, in fact. Whoever taught her those thods knows , I suppose.”
Subaru: “Beatrice. This isn't the ti for that conversa—”
Beatrice: “—It's Roswaal, in fact.”
Subaru can't divert her.
Her swift thinking makes Subaru swallow his breath.
Seeing his reaction, Beatrice understands everything. Roswaal hired Elsa, and his goal is to kill Beatrice. Which ans—
Beatrice: “It is written in Roswaal's gospel that I be killed, I suppose.”
Giving no heed to either Subaru's affirmations or denials, Beatrice sighs.
It's unlikely that the relief Subaru perceives in that sigh is just his imagination. Unable to overlook the comnt, Subaru puts pressure on Beatrice.
Subaru: “Want to tell what that sigh was? And why the hell you look like you're agreeing!?”
Beatrice: “It's what it looks like, I'm agreeing, in fact. If Roswaal's gospel has ordered him to do this, then that ans my fate is decided, I suppose.”
Subaru: “Fuck is that... Roswaal's book is Roswaal's book, and your book is your book! Your book really says to go get killed by Roswaal, does it!?”
Jabbing out his finger, Subaru glares at the gospel in Beatrice's arms.
If nothing has changed from the previous loops, then for four hundred years, that book has written just blank white paper.
Beatrice's expression turns gloomy and she opens to a page of the gospel. She spreads the book open and presents it so that Subaru can see it—showing a book of only empty pages.
Beatrice: “Nothing is written, in fact. Identical as ever, only blank pages, I suppose.”
Subaru: “Then there's no reason for you to get killed like Roswaal's book says! It's sa as ever, you're who decides what you do!”
Beatrice: “...The sa as ever, I'm the one deciding?”
Subaru: “Yes! Nothing being written ans you must've faced choices during all this ti. Small things to big things, you're the one who decided every path you took! So there's no reason for you to dance along to soone else's choices this ti, eith—”
Beatrice: “What in my life have I ever decided?”
The doleful question crushes Subaru's montum.
Beatrice tilts her head as she gazes at Subaru, her eyes lancholy. She flips through the blank pages
Beatrice: “All the ti Betty spent in Roswaal's mansion, protecting the Archive that Mother entrusted to her, endlessly, endlessly... when during that did I ever have ti belonging to myself? When did Betty, having lived empty centuries without writ, ever leave her footsteps anywhere in the world? What did Beatrice ever do, and who is she?”
Subaru: “Bea, trice...”
Beatrice: “Betty's life, Betty's four hundred years, are as blank as this gospel, in fact. A void, in fact. What I chose by myself, what I gained by myself, what can attest of myself... all non-existent.”
Beatrice claps the gospel shut and sets it on her lap. She strokes its naless cover as she quietly speaks,
Beatrice: “I'm identical to an empty book. Losing here simply ans losing a blank, letterless text. Never anything to anybody, rely a book shoved in a bookcase—it'd be laudable for it to be gone, in fact.”
Subaru: “What if there's people who don't want that blank book gone?”
Beatrice feels to be verging on abandoning her four centuries and her future. Subaru manages to get words out in an attempt to connect to her heart.
Subaru has not yet found his reply to Beatrice's tearful scream from back then.
But even so, should he fail to speak here, she will give up on herself.
Subaru: “You called it nothing, a void. But there assuredly is a book wedged inside that bookcase. There are people who know that book exists. And maybe there's people who'll want to pick up that book soday, you think they'd stand the thing going off and destroying itself?”
Beatrice: “The book has neither na nor author, I suppose. Supposing for argunt that this benevolent soone exists, opening that book and seeing the inside would only disappoint them, in fact. The blank book doesn't want to watch the disappointnt unfurl across that person's face either, I suppose.”
Subaru: “Then! Then what is that book doing in that place!”
Beatrice: “—”
Beatrice gazes emotionlessly at Subaru.
It feels like a retort, saying this whole dialogue lacks any apparent aning. Subaru raises his head regardless, continuously reaching out to Beatrice's distant heart.
Subaru: “If soone who picks it up's just going to be disappointed... then for what sake is that book there? Wasn't the book made because it had aning?”
Beatrice: “...The book's author crafted that book for the sake of a person, in fact. The book is made to appear empty to everyone except for that SOONE, I suppose. If we assu there's to be aning, then the very instant the book reaches the SOONE comprises the aning of that book's creation.”
Subaru: “And so then—”
Beatrice: “The book mustn't be disposed of until it reaches the SOONE, you're saying, I suppose.”
Subaru swallows his breath.
He notices an instant before can voice it what a cruel breed of hope he is arguing for. Beatrice sees Subaru's expression, and a horribly pained smile arises on her face.
Beatrice: “Exactly. If Betty truly were just a book... then she'd be happy to wait for that day, in fact.”
Beatrice would have waited there for that day when the SOONE's fingers flipped through her pages.
If she were a book.
—But Beatrice isn't a book. She's a little girl, shivering from prolonged isolation.
Beatrice: “If I were a soulless, mindless book... then I could have faultlessly believed in Mother's instructions forever. I could have been Mother's lovely Beatrice forever, I suppose.”
If she were an entity like a doll, lacking a heart and comprised only of ornantation, she would have never deliberated.
If she were an entity like a book, unshaken by the constant passing of ti, she would have never lanted.
Beatrice was not that thing.
Beatrice: “But I have a heart. Should ti pass I do think about things, at least enough to lose faith in what I believed in, in fact. I agonize and deliberate, I suppose. There were countless nights where I scrambled to salvage my mories, because I'd forgotten what Mother's face, what her smile looked like!”
Subaru: “—”
Beatrice: “There were tis I couldn't bear being alone, and I yearned to touch soone! But everyone leaves behind! They'll say whatever they'll say, state it's for the sake of sothing more important than , assert their rationale, and desert ! Mother did! Roswaal did! —Even Lewes did!!”
Beatrice shouts, her face scrunched up and near to tears.
Hearing the na Lewes makes Subaru rember what he heard in SANCTUARY about Beatrice's past. And the root of all the present Leweses, Lewes yer.
She and Beatrice had only known each other for a fleeting instant, but their story still told of a definite bond. —Still left a persistent scar on Beatrice's heart.
Beatrice: “—Just, enough, in fact.”
Beatrice loses her montum. The tone of her voice plumts.
Her expression, twisted with emotion, returns to its usual apathy as she hugs the book on her lap close.
Beatrice: “Betty's gospel will not outline Betty's future. ...I've known it for a very long ti, in fact. Even Mother forsook Betty's fate far and long ago.”
The lack of writ about the future ans that the gospel's owner has fallen into a dead end. While judging off Subaru's possession of Betelgeux's gospel, that was how Beatrice appraised books with frozen writ. Appraised that the sa thing was happening to herself.
Beatrice: “If Betty's fate has been outlined in Roswaal's gospel... how sardonic, I suppose. But that does ease , in fact. It's inconceivable that Roswaal would take half-asures, I suppose.”
Subaru: “An old friend of yours might kill you... how is that relaxing?”
Beatrice: “It's obvious, in fact.”
Beatrice nods.
A fleeting, affectionate smile arises on her face.
Beatrice: “If Roswaal's gospel has written about ... then it ans that Mother has certainly not forgotten about , I suppose.”
—Warped.
Beatrice's smiling visage makes Subaru notice that he is seconds from drowning beneath an emotional torrent.
It's warped. Beatrice's visage as she rejoices in her contact with her mother's love is so warped it's unbearable. Subaru could stand that this thing, that this happening, was a mother's love—as fucking if.
Beatrice: “...What are you thinking to do, in fact?”
Subaru bites his lip and endures the sensations welling up in him as he steps forward.
Caution cloaks Beatrice's expression as she perceives the alarming vibe emanating from Subaru.
Subaru: “—”
Beatrice: “I asked you a question, I suppose. What are you thinking to do, in fact? If you try anything, I'll show no rcy, I suppose. I've already accepted my fate, in fact.”
Subaru: “Accepted goddamn what. So you're no different from Roswaal. No, he's at least self aware, you're multitudes more awful. Utterly hopeless, let it get fucking worse.”
Anger surges from inside him.
It's an emotion that Subaru has constantly combated since all these events in SANCTUARY.
Anger at himself while challenging the TRIAL, anger at the witches for toying with him, anger at Garfiel for underestimating himself out of childish stubbornness, anger at Roswaal for obeying the writ to try and affirm the fragility of feelings, anger at Emilia for not believing in herself or Subaru's love—
—and now anger at Beatrice, and everyone who cornered her into this.
Subaru: “You're stupid. Say whatever about your fate, say whatever about your Mother's orders, anyone looking from aside's gonna think it's sad. You have a heart? You can't be a book? Of course you goddamn can't, stupid. Did staying holed in this moldy room make you incapable of recognizing that?”
Beatrice: “Stu...!”
Beatrice's eyes shoot open, and after a look of surprise—indignation.
She gets to her feet on the stepladder, her skirt swaying as she points at Subaru.
Beatrice: “You! Who do you think you are referring to with that comnt, I suppose! I'm stupid, I'm stupid? How do you dare say this, in fact... and especially by you! What do you think you could possibly know about Betty, I suppose!”
Subaru: “I know you're stupid, and you don't realise you're stupid, so I'd say I know you better than you do! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stuuuupid!!”
Beatrice: “Y-y-you...!!'
Subaru flips the bird as he curses, turning Beatrice's face crimson and blocking off her words. Her rage is too incredible for her to co up with any retort.
Barging into openings like that happens to be Subaru's forte.
Subaru: “A four-hundred year void? Drop the affectations! You hugged your knees crying for four hundred years is what you did! You had all that ti to think, why the hell are you clinging to this single answer forever! The book's not telling you anything so you think that ans I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING? Are you stupid!?”
Beatrice: “O-of course I thought about things, in fact! As I plainly would, I suppose! Can you conceive how many things I tested to see if the gospel's writ would change! But no matter what I did, no matter how I waited, it didn't! So!”
Subaru: “That's what I'm saying is stupid! The book's got nothing in it so you work to try and make letters appear, the hell is this, invisible ink on a New Year's card? No one does that any more! If none of that was working, start thinking of other possibilities!”
Beatrice: “O-other, possibilities...”
Subaru: “Straight-out. The possibility your mom's book was wrong.”
Beatrice falls utterly speechless.
But she imdiately snaps at him, determining his reply as moronic.
Beatrice: “You hold your tongue, in fact! Mother would never pull such an idiotic stunt, I suppose! You... you could not possibly comprehend Mother's vast thoughts, in fact!”
Subaru: “Nope, don't know'em at all, stupid. Like I care anything about what your mom thinks. What we're talking about is you. And you said it, didn't you. You said that she'd never pull sothing that idiotic. Really? Can you assert it? You've never doubted your mother even once?”
Beatrice: “What, are...”
Subaru: “Four hundred years! Gone with a self-writing book sitting absolutely blank! The person you're waiting for never ca either! You spent all of that ti alone, had so much room to think it's ridiculous, and you never thought of it even once? You seriously never thought that this was strange!?”
Four centuries spent believing in soone.
Perhaps it sounds like a sterling way of being. But in truth it is crooked. Especially when spent only ever thinking about the person, and only ever about their words.
Especially when you're Beatrice, who does not think her wish will co true, and has nigh given up.
Beatrice: “I-it is inconceivable that Mother would bring about anything incorrect, I suppose! O-of course she wouldn't, in fact. She is Mother, I suppose! Do you think it possible to doubt the words of your own mother!?”
Subaru: “Of course I do! I think the stuff my mom says is overwhelmingly lacking in credibility! That ti when she misheard news that 'a satellite fell into the atmosphere' as 'a satellite fell into Aichi prefecture' and I went zooming out with the big scoop without verifying it is when I stopped trusting her! That was in third year primary!”
He would never forget the day that he sincerely accepted that, spread the rumour, and turned into a schoolyard laughingstock.
Subaru never trusted anything his parents said ever again. And he had already deed his father's statents as unreliable prior to that.
Subaru: “Four hundred years, and you never doubted her for even a second!? I'm not even twenty years old, and I'd run out of fingers before I could count the number of fistfights I've had with my dad. And that's with twenty years. You had twenty tis that, and you never felt that way even once, huh?”
Beatrice: “You... what are you wishing to make say, I suppose!? I utterly cannot discern it, in fact! Your aims, the point of your remarks, are utterly arcane to Betty! Arcane!”
Subaru: “Then I'll say it loud and clear! So that your stupid self and your stupid mother can hear it!”
Beatrice is about ready to clutch her head in frustration when Subaru approaches, and takes her hands.
Beatrice looks up. Subaru draws his face close, into breathing range, and asserts to the teary girl:
Subaru: “Stop getting thrown around by a blank book and a four-hundred-year-old promise. —Be the one who chooses what you want to do, Beatrice.”
Beatrice: “—”
Subaru: “It's four hundred years. Plenty long enough for at least one rebellious phase to hit.”
Beatrice has admirably been trying to obey her parent's instructions.
Her stubborn volition to keep that promise has spawned her solitude and a tispan of emptiness.
Her mother, Echidna, seems to find even that ti spent in agony as sothing sweet, but from Subaru's perspective it's profane immorality.
She's forgotten how to cry and the feeling of wanting to cry, the fuck about this is 'sterling way of being'. Don't make him puke.
With her hands still in Subaru's grip and atop the stepladder, Beatrice looks away from Subaru.
Her height as she sits on the top step is practically equal with Subaru's eye level. She eventually tilts her head down, lets her lips move,
Beatrice: “Th, en... this is, what you're attempting to say, I suppose. Betty, disobey Mother's orders.”
Subaru says nothing.
Beatrice: “Abandon everything you believed in over these centuries and be free... that is what you are so easily saying to , I suppose.”
Her shaking voice gradually regains its composure.
It begins to fill with sothing that is not shock, and Subaru feels his hair standing on end. Ever since coming to this world, this sensation alone is one he has undeniably honed.
That being, the sensation of a direly hazardous entity.
Beatrice: “—Demanding that I, Beatrice! Violate a contract! Speaking as if you know anything!”
Subaru: “—Aguh!?”
As if stricken by a galeforce, Subaru goes flying backwards.
His back strikes the archive floor, still encircled by a wind which slams him into the wall. His breathing stalls. His bones creak all across his body and his vision strobes as he raises his head.
Beatrice remains atop the stepladder, but her expression is one of fury as she looks down at Subaru.
Beatrice: “Contracts are absolute! Absolute, in fact! And especially so for contracts made between a spirit and a witch. You demand that it be annulled unilaterally, and by the spirit? You understand nothing, I suppose! Such a thing would never be forgiven! Not anyone! Not anything! And not even I myself would permit it, in fact!”
Subaru: “—From soone searching for backdoors in that contract and thinking if they can't violate it better try and get killed, that's rich.”
Beatrice: “—!”
Subaru sighs to force the pain out of him as he sluggishly uprights himself.
Beatrice's rage is not faltering, and her adorable expression remains thick with malice. Subaru raises his head and laughs venomously.
Subaru: “You're an incoherent ss, Beatrice. You haven't realised how inconsistent you're being? Of course you've realised it, haven't you. You're a smart person.”
Beatrice: “Be silent, I suppose.”
Subaru: “No, I won't. Annul the contract? Sounds perfect. When you hate keeping the promise so much that you literally want to die, just stop. No one'll fault you.”
Beatrice: “I will fault ! Why is it you don't understand that, in fact!? Contracts are absolute, and keeping them is...”
Subaru: “Why don't you understand it? If keeping the contract kills you, you need to violate the contract and live. Is it really so strange that I'm opting for this?”
Subaru easily discards these contracts Beatrice is so fixated on. Beatrice has no words. Subaru might presently look like an incomprehensible, monstrous creature to her.
Subaru finds it far more mystifying that he's being recipient to that opinion.
Keeping promises is important, of course.
Emilia has criticized him multiple tis for breaking promises, and he has gone through multiple painful experience because he broke them. And so even Subaru knows that keeping promises is very important.
Even so, he feels no hesitation about making Beatrice violate her contract.
And his reasoning for it is exactly what he just told her.
If anyone demands that Beatrice keep the promise and die, Subaru's flipping the guy the bird and telling him this: He will make her violate the contract, and make sure Beatrice lives.
It's not even sothing to think twice about.
Beatrice: “Th-that is unrelenting, incorrigibly insidious of you, in fact...”
Subaru: “I know it's unrelenting, and I am sorry for saying it. But it's important so I'm not surrendering this.”
Subaru's stance was decided from the very beginning. From the very beginning, the whole issue depended on Beatrice's feelings.
Beatrice cannot hide her panic and confusion at Subaru's disparagent of contracts. And of course she can't. Contracts are that important a thing for spirits.
Having witnessed the relationship between a spirit and a spiritualist, Subaru knows they are firm, weighty, utterly unshakable things.
He knows, and he's saying it:
You are more important than it.
Beatrice: “I-if, you... were THEY...”
Subaru's response to contracts is overwhelmingly overwhelming. Frailty creeps onto Beatrice's expression, which borders on breakdown.
Her lips speak of the insubstantial soone that Beatrice has waited for over these four centuries.
The fictional entity that Echidna cruelly invented so that she could know WHO BEATRICE WOULD
CHOOSE.
Beatrice wants to be saved.
The way that Subaru's words shake her heart and bring her to tears proves it better than anything.
Beatrice: “Will...”
Beatrice's teary eyes focus on Subaru.
Her lips tremble, and, practically clinging,
Beatrice: “...you be Betty's THEY?”
This question could be the full stop on what has gone on for four centuries.
And might be exactly what Echidna ordered her, making it what the witch wants to hear.
Who would Beatrice determine as being this insubstantial THEY?
The witch used her daughter to satisfy her own curiosity, letting her spend four hundred years in solitude.
The payoff for all that ti rested in that question.
Beatrice swallows her breath. Subaru looks her in the eye, and declares:
Subaru: “Are you stupid? —Of course I wouldn't be this weird mysterious THEY of yours.”
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
After the ferocious shockwave gusts through the Archive, Beatrice takes the books thrown about by the wind and returns them to their bookcases.
While they did fall to the floor, none of the books look to have separated from their bindings, fortunately.
Beatrice reflects remorsefully on her use of force while inside the Archive, relieved that only very minor damages occurred.
They are her comrades, who passed four hundred years of solitude alongside her.
Beatrice had not been lying about her wish to be a book. She had fantasized many tis about being like these texts, sothing which could wait for such a long ti without it rocking her heart at all. She now thought it hope born from a stupid idea.
Beatrice: “Conceivably, it is laughable, I suppose.”
This is the wretchedness into which she has been cornered.
She mocks herself for it. But inside her small chest, self-deprication falls subordinate to wrath.
Beatrice: “That guy... that guy... truly, what is wrong with him, I suppose!”
Just thinking about him aggravates her, brings her close to stomping the ground.
She'd like to vent these pent-up emotions on sothing, but everything in this place which her Mother instructed her to protect is precious.
Unable to find anything to take her tantrum out on, all Beatrice can do is wait for her bloated emotions to wither.
She returns the final book to its shelf and sighs as she smooths out her appearance. Then she seats herself back on the stepladder, reaches to cradle the black to—and stops.
A blank book. Just throw the thing away! He had said so easily, so many tis.
Then at the vital mont, he rejected the option which would have allowed Beatrice to discard the thing. Absolutely, entirely, so incomprehensible it infuriates her.
Beatrice: “I'm exhausted, in fact...”
But her fury will not last forever.
Beatrice stops puffing out her cheeks, takes that book she had hesitated to hold, and puts it to her heart.
Ultimately, to the end of the end, leaning on this thing is the only way to protect her mind.
Just as Roswaal's gospel has writ, Beatrice's end will arrive soon.
What emotion should she feel as she waits for it to co?
It's finally ending. Wouldn't that be a good enough sentint?
It's the one she's supposed to be feeling, but now that it's actually happening, she's lost.
—You are stupid. For so reason those words remain, sitting heavily in her heart.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Blown away by the shockwave, Subaru tumbles down the corridor until he slams back-first into a wall. His side strikes directly against a column, leading him to shriek and writhe.
Subaru: “Ghhah! Hhgahghh... I-impossible! Halfway through the conversation, and that idiot just...!”
The door in front of him slams shut. Subaru reaches out for the door, his expression hateful, but naturally the sight he sees after cracking the thing open is not the Forbidden Archive—rely a guest room.
GATE CROSSING has activated, and Subaru has been expelled from the Archive.
Subaru: “I pissed her off so much she threw out... fuck, ssed up with my word choice!”
What he was trying to say wasn't incorrect, but there was contradiction between how he was telling it and showing it.
Resulting in Subaru being thrown out of the Archive, and distanced from success.
Subaru: “Anyway, can't stay here. Have to find Beako through another door and...!”
???: “N-Natsuki-san?”
Subaru turns around, thinking to conquer the doors via utterly random selection, when a voice addresses him. The familiarity of it, and the fact it's calling him lead him Subaru to stumble and for his eyes to shoot open.
His gaze lands on Otto, peeking out from a neighbouring room, when he's supposed to be sowhere else. And peeking out from under Otto is Petra, also peering at Subaru.
Subaru: “Y-you guys? Why're you still in the mansion? I thought I told you that just one wing's fine and to run away after opening the doors?”
Otto: “Unfortunately, the situation outside has changed rather dramatically...”
Otto shakes his head, his face pale as Subaru approaches
It's inconceivable that Otto would be joking in this situation. Otto has aborted his escape, and there must be sothing happening which warrants that.
Subaru: “What happened? Short version please.”
Otto: “Witchbeasts did. Hordes of witchbeasts are encircling the mansion, and we cannot move.”
Subaru: “Witchbeasts!?”
Subaru's eyes shoot open wide at the unexpected word and he looks to Petra for confirmation. She nods several tis in response.
Petra: “Erm, there's lots of witchbeasts which aren't the dogs... like snakes with two heads, or like possums, lots of them.”
Subaru: “Do these guys live in the nearby forest?”
Petra: “They do, but.... the barrier should be keeping them out.”
Subaru: “This barrier again...”
During the previous witchbeast debacle, they confird that the barrier between Arlam Village and the woods surrounding the mansion had been repaired. Afterwards they put top priority on looking out for weaknesses in the barrier, so it's inconceivable that a mistake could've happened after such a short tifra.
And most importantly, the beasts are surrounding the mansion for so reason.
Subaru: “It's like with those mutts, so weird volition is operating on them...? What about Arlam's people? Are they okay?”
Otto: “I couldn't locate any witchbeasts when I instructed them to evacuate, and since they've used the carriages from the Duchess to flee, they should be safe. Patrasche-chan is guiding them too.”
Subaru: “Okay. That's a relief.”
It's more trustworthy that the clever dragon be tasked with escorting them than so random guy. While praying for Patrasche to pull it off, Subaru grits his teeth. The situation is unfolding down a track unknown to him yet again.
This witchbeast attack has never happened before.
Naturally, considering the timing, it has to be related to Elsa's attack.
Subaru: “What about Frederica and Rem?”
Petra: “We haven't run into Big Sis Frederica or Rem-san... Erm, I-I don't really think they can break through them and get away.”
Subaru: “Which ans they're also still in the mansion. We'll be thankful the beasts're still staying outside, but how much can Garfiel do?”
Subaru strokes Petra's head, praising her strong heart for remaining composed during this extre situation. If it were Subaru when he was her age, it wouldn't be weird for him to piss himself crying. But circumstances prohibit them from staying here.
Subaru: “Where are we right now? Which wing of the mansion?”
Otto: “The eastern. Garfiel should still be battling in the western wing, so I'd suggest avoiding that area to circumvent damages...”
Subaru: “And so the possible escape routes are...”
Of course Subaru needs to collect Beatrice, but it's also indispensable that Otto and Petra escape. Subaru descends into thought, thinking to scrutinize his ntal map of the mansion for any possible escape routes. However, a voice drowns out Subaru's contemplations:
???: “—Oh my? You were all gathered here, waiting for ?”
A petrifying feeling, like a blade stroked against the back of their necks, leads all of them to freeze rigid.
Subaru promptly pulls Petra's arm and hugs her close as he timidly glances behind him.
Further down the hallway, lit with bars of moonlight, out peal soone's approaching footsteps. Their shape soon enters recognizably into the light,
Subaru: “What the hell is Garfiel doing!?”
???: “I'll unveil pretty guts from all three of you—”
Kicking off the floor before the shrieking Subaru, the Guthunter's black shadow darts as she bounds near.
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