CHAPTER 35: THE GIRL'S GOSPEL
The room teems with the choking scent of old books. Stepping through the doorway with jaw dropped speechless, Subaru puts together his sight and smell to realise a second too slow that he has tread upon the floor of a different room than he desired.
Subaru: “Forbidden Archive!?”
He's reached the place he couldn't find while searching around the mansion. The undesired timing and unforeseen opportunity creates a vacuum in Subaru's heart, robbing him of the time until the door slams shut behind him.
Subaru: “—!”
A sucking force drags Subaru's body into the archive. The door thunders shut, the resulting breeze tickling Subaru's nape. He glances back at the violent sound, realises that the hallway and room are now separated, and comprehends. Comprehends what it means that the Forbidden Archive opened here, and then shut its door.
Subaru: “Ou-ohpen!!”
He reaches for the doorknob, notices that his right arm is already mangled past being an arm, but nevertheless somehow reaches out. His fingers slip with blood as he wrenches on the doorknob, but the rotated knob does not convey to the door his desire to open it. All that happens is Subaru turns it fruitlessly, vigorously, welling up with panic.
???: “—It's useless no matter how much you struggle to leave, in fact.”
A voice comes flying at Subaru from behind him as he scuffles frantically with the gateway. He jolts around, leaning his back against the door—to discover a girl in the back of the archive, her indifferent expression aimed at him. Cream hair with long curls, an extravagant dress. Small body, her face adorable but peevish. Exactly the same girl Subaru knows.
Subaru: “Beatrice...”
Beatrice: “You're in quite the awful state, I suppose. You'll dirty the floor of the archive, so don't move around too much...”
Subaru: “Right nhow! Open the dhoor! Lhet me outsihde!!”
Yelling, Subaru ignores everything Beatrice is saying as she calmly gazes over his wounds. Not hearing the command to not splatter blood everywhere, he swings his yet-bleeding arm miserably.
Subaru: “Why, why do you show up nhow!? Why! Why is iht nhow!? Lhet me back! Huhrry! Nhow! Ihmmedhiately!!”
Beatrice: “...What will happen if you do return, I suppose. Betty has not an idea what you could possibly do, returning with those unseemly wounds, in fact.”
Subaru: “I khnow best, thaht I cahn't do ahnythinhg! Buht, buht!!”
It's not that he wants to go back and face Elsa. He would enter the room he was supposed to be standing in, be at the sleeping girl's side, and—.
Subaru: “If I ehnterhed the ahrchivhe, and GATE CROSSING ahctivhated... that murderer's, the room...”
If that happened, the madwoman would probably be tilting her head at Subaru's absconded self. But before searching around the mansion for a disappeared Subaru, she should have discovered the girl sleeping inside the room. How would that indiscriminate killer react to her, defenceless in sleep? It didn't even necessitate consideration.
Subaru: “Soh!”
Beatrice: “You're too late, in fact.”
Mutters Beatrice with pained clarity. She looks down and shakes her head, Subaru going rigid. His brain ruminates over her words, his thoughts freezing.
—What did this girl just say?
Subaru: “Late... what do yhou... mhean?”
Beatrice: “The reason you believe you want to return to that room, as of now, is gone, I suppose.”
Subaru's throat catches, his eyes open to their limit, and before he can realise it he collapses to his knees. His shoulders slump, his head lowers, a terrible ringing echoes through his skull. Pain, pain, the forgotten pain is resummoned, noise invading Subaru's consciousness. It would be fine for that cacophony to drown, drive away everything, and just disappear, Subaru thinks. He didn't want to comprehend anything. He didn't want to realise anything. But,
Beatrice: “Show me your wounds, I suppose. They're atrocious and I can't bear to look at them, in fact.”
Having approached him, Beatrice bends down and looks at the injuries across a squatting Subaru's right arm, left flank and right shoulder with her faced twisted in reproach. A dim light covers her hand, which first contacts the most serious damage, his right arm. —Something like an itch runs through his until-then entirely blazing arm, his muscles beginning to mend. The bleeding stops, the open wound answers corresponding to the light as a membrane pulls over its surface, his cells spurred to encourage recovery. But,
Beatrice: “It'll take time for it to return to its original width, and your missing fingers aren't coming back, I suppose. ...Now your hip, and shoulder, too.”
Subaru: “...What're, yhou doinhg.”
An emotionless voice slips from Subaru's mouth. Focused on healing his wounds, Beatrice furrows her brows as she presents her palms to him.
Beatrice: “It's reluctantly, but there's no choice so I'm healing your wounds, in fact. Betty is the only one in this mansion who can heal wounds of this calibre, I suppose. You best be grateful, in fact.”
Subaru: “Healhing... the wouhnds? What, for?”
Beatrice: “These wounds would be life-threatening if left alone, I suppose. I don't particularly care whether you're to live or die, but I'd rather you not die here, in fact.”
One eye closed, perhaps judging Subaru's words as delirium coming from his injury, Beatrice gives that curt reply and readies to go back to healing. But,
Beatrice: “Ah,”
Feeling the waves of healing burying his wounds, Subaru swings his injured arm, prompting a surprised little noise from Beatrice. He overexerts his trembling knees and tumbles onto his side, dirtying the floor of the Forbidden Archive as he takes distance from her. He shoots the girl a gruesome glare.
His actions dislodge the flechette in his hip, which clatters to the ground. There comes the sound of unplugged fluid. Blood pours out from the wound, down his thigh, washing the floor in a river. Beatrice's breath catches as she watches. Subaru bares his teeth.
Subaru: “I don't neehd healing! If my living or dying's uhnrelahted to you... then why are you tryinhg to help me!?”
Beatrice: “Because... you're unseemly and, I can't bear to look...”
Subaru: “Why... why me!? If you're goihng to act intenhding to help someohne, why didhn't you help Petra, help Frederica!? If we had your powher, we woulhdn't need to fight just run awhay... there's heaps of ways we could've takhen!”
With GATE CROSSING, they should've been able to evade even the persistent Elsa. There was no power so specialised for escape if utilized. The faltering Petra, blockading Frederica, and sleeping Rem all—!
Subaru: “They should've been saved! The places my weahkness and stupihdity... meant I wasn't vighilant are the places you wouhld've had been... so then, why...”
Beatrice: “Why does Betty... There is no reason for Betty to help these three you speak of, I suppose. It's not my business. That was not any of my business, in fact.”
Subaru: “Then! There shoulhdn't be any fuckihng reasohn for you to help me!”
Subaru strikes the floor with his healing right arm.
Subaru: “Why dhid you help me!? Why dhid you save me!? Just whimsy? Then why am onhly I diffherent from the other three! Rem's such a good girl, Frederica has somhething she wanhts to do... Petra was still so small... all of them, morhe than me! Had reasons to live... with far morhe merit!”
Beatrice: “Merit? Reasons? Why must Betty respect such appended self-satisfaction, I suppose. Your conceit is exorbitant in fact, human!”
Subaru: “Well then hell's goinhg on with your inhconhsistency!? I wenht ahround searching that much and you don't show yourselhf, and then you fuckinhg show up so eahsily only when things're dhangerous! If you can't see mehrit in me or in them...you should've just stahyed holed up alone in this room!!”
Why did she reveal herself after everything was already too late? She could've hidden herself so absolutely that Elsa wouldn't even realise she was there, but if Elsa guesses on what happened to Subaru, Beatrice's existence might be revealed. If that happens, even Beatrice's future might be one of butchery before those blades. Why did she invite a half-dead Subaru in, even to the point of risking notable danger? Why did she think to save a Subaru who had given up on living, and desired death?
Subaru: “Whimsy or whatever ehlse is fine... if there's an uhrge to save me in you... if you have evhen a shred of inhtenhtion left to help me... please, rhight now, kill me.”
Beatrice: “What... are you saying, I suppose...”
Subaru: “Kill! Me! Now! Before ehverything gets overwrhitten, before this miscarrhied present becomes defihnite! Kill me! Kill! Khihhll!”
Spitting, horking blood, Subaru claws at the floor as he shrieks his appeal. Before his reason to live was entirely lost, before his prolonged inactivity invited an unrecoverable future.
I want this hopeless useless powerless brainless mass be made ended, he shrieks.
But Beatrice doesn't accept this shriek, this appeal from his soul. She shakes her head, displeasure and confusion rising on her expression.
Beatrice: “I don't understand. I don't understand, in fact. I don't understand this human you are, I suppose. How are... how do you say this now, when you have life, in fact?”
Subaru: “Savhing just life isn't acthually saving! Having lifhe right now is agony to me! It shoulhdn't be there, I shoulhdn't be here... If you're sayihng you're not going to save me...”
Without any relying on others, here by his own hands would this wretched hour—
Seeing Subaru's breath catch with resolve, Beatrice voices a thin 'auh,'. Subaru sticks his tongue out of his mouth without hesitation.
He chomps down best he can, going to bite it off, enacting a deed of suicide.
Pain. Pain in a completely different dimension from that of his arm, hip and shoulder. No matter how many times he savours it, developing resistance to pain would surely be impossible. All wounds borne from any place, all pain birthing from anywhere, were things different, things new, things agonising, things bitter, not things to come used to.
His mouth overflowing with blood, Subaru's eyes peel wide as he collapses on the spot. His vision revolves in circles, his limbs shudder as they begin to convulse. Pain, and halted breathing. His throat clogs with his shredded tongue as he descends into suffocation.
Beatrice: “—you doing!”
Not the type of injury to bring an instant death. Sharp and dull pains spear intermittently through
Subaru's brain, his limbs tremble ceaseless, tears of blood reach his cheeks. His half-severed tongue dangles caught on his lip, testament to the insufficiency of his 'best he can'.
This is the third time Subaru has chosen suicide in this parallel world. The first time was during the loops in the mansion, a suicide made with resolve to repair something irreparable. The second time was at the end of the loops in the Capital when he learned Rem's existence was gone, a suicide done in a stupor. Stabbed a knife through his throat, but nothing changed.
And now his third suicide—he had no guarantee to return, but to continue living spending time here was impossible for Subaru. Too heavy. Not happening. So, even if staking a handful of potentials, to retrieve what he had lost he would—
???: “...no. Don't, leave me behind...”
A trembling voice calls to Subaru from a world growing distant. The voice grows further, further away, disappearing—
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
—The first thing to assault Subaru's nostrils when he wakes is the smell of dust.
Subaru: “Uu?”
Waiting for his consciousness to sober, Subaru shakes his head with his eyes still closed, understanding that he is awake. He's lying on his side on a floor. With his body savouring the cool touch of the ground, Subaru dimly considers the fact that his restart point was inside the tomb.
Uprighting himself, he opens his eyes and looks about the dimly-lit space. His vision's still unfocused and blurry with some tears after just waking up, unable to make out what he's seeking. But, he feels relief that it appears he managed to again RETURN BY DEATH. If the place he came back to is inside the tomb, then his restart point hasn't changed.
Chronologically speaking, this is just after Subaru returned from overcoming the first TRIAL. Emilia should be collapsed at his side, and should be starting from just before waking her up.
Subaru: “Head, hurts...”
Rubbing between his brows, Subaru gives a light shake of his head as he forces his brain to organise the situation. He already had countless things he had to think about, and the events of that previous loop had only increased that number. He can't come up with even a single proper means for a solution of what to do. Feels like the light he was supposed have seen was a bugzapper, inviting him into a new trap. Like right after taking a detour around a pitfall of despair, he fell into a different pitfall.
Subaru makes a reference to some japanese crane game and its bonus rounds about how malicious this is.
In the sense of lethality, his metaphor isn't incorrect. TRIAL in SANCTUARY. Relationship with Garfiel. Mansion attack. The mystery of his missing leeway time, and desire for revenge against Elsa—that establishing a method to save Rem and the others. His head could boil over with the incessantly-piling problems, but being giving a chance to deliberate over what to do about them in itself was already a grace. Otherwise this just might be where it ends, was a resignedness present in his mind in these conditions.
Subaru: “Hurts to have to feign ignorance with Emilia again, but...”
Subaru recognizes that his hazy vision is clearing. Snorting at the lingering smell of the place, he first figures to look for Emilia. Thinking that far, he puts his right hand to his brow like a visor, when he finally notices it.
—His right hand is missing three fingers.
Subaru: “Wha—!? Aa!?”
Seeing wounds that shouldn't be there, scars which shouldn't have carried over, Subaru's throat whines in shock. The reality that he had been witnessing a world rather too convenient for him slaps him as his trembling pupils bring the world into focus.
Cold floor, stone walls. Lingering smell of mould. The tomb that Subaru had desired. But before Subaru in reality are rows of packed bookshelves, inside a room suffused in the characteristic smell borne of leather and paper.
Subaru: “The Forbidden Archive... wh, y...”
Subaru cannot comprehend that his flesh is still in a location he was supposed to have bid farewell. Thinking of the worst, Subaru first checks over his own body. The worst possibility—that the world may have been fixed to repeat from the point he stepped into the Forbidden Archive.
Unable to hide his shivering, Subaru stares at his right arm contacting his face. Three fingers gone, arm missing about a third of its width compared to his left. But the wound is healed, strange swellings of flesh and discolouration telling him that his body is midway through regeneration. His flechetted hip and shoulder don't show any conspicuous external injury either, and the sensation of flesh being pulled taught and the occasional unpleasant twinging remain only residually. He's at least not in the instant directly after stepping into the Archive. That leaves only one possibility.
???: “—Finally awake, I suppose.”
It's the voice Subaru least wants to hear. Spoken in a nonchalant tone, intonation as if bored of the world, but nevertheless unable to erase its concern, a soprano desiring connection.
Still seated on the floor, Subaru turns his head. Filled with a wish he can't discard, he desires to see an illusion of a silver-haired girl behind him. What he sees instead is a girl in a dress sitting on a wooden stepladder. Right there is Beatrice, holding a book in her hands as she looks down at Subaru.
A sigh uncorks itself from his mouth. Beatrice slams the book shut and slowly descends the stepladder.
Beatrice: “Your stupid actions have truly caused me trouble, in fact. I healed your arm wounds, shoulder, hip, tongue, all of them together, I suppose. Should be no malcontent, in fact.”
Subaru goes silent. Beatrice: “Nothing to say about having your life salvaged, I suppose. Well, if this taught you your lesson, then don't you do stupid things anymore...”
Subaru: “You... do you understand, what you've done?” Beatrice: “Ha?” Beatrice approaches a silenced Subaru as she speaks. Subaru answers back, his tone suppressed of emotion, and the moment her face scrunches up—
—Subaru stands and grips Beatrice's dress in his left hand. Her mouth opens in surprise as he yanks her close, bringing her face to his. Subaru: “Who the hell asked for you to save them!!” Beatrice: “—a,” Subaru: “Do you understand what you've done!? Because of you, everything's ruined! Everything, everything, everything I was meant to be able to do something about is on a fresh slate because of you! Why didn't you just let me die!? I survived, and then what... and then fucking what! Then what!?”
By being lenient with his life, Subaru should have procured the right for a do-over. But because of this girl's interference, that wish was not granted. All that remained in Subaru's hands was an indescribable sense of loss, and unending anger toward Beatrice.
Subaru: “Save me on whim, heal my wounds... are you all satisfied now? You want my gratitude!? Well, thank you! Your brilliance has saved my life! Even if it means everything except life, that every single thing is lost, you have saved only my life!”
Beatrice: “B-Betty was only... only...” Subaru: “Too late, I've got endless gratitude to voice! Now, like always, you just sit there with that nice nonchalant expression of yours and come look down on me as if that's all normal. You're good at that, right? You enjoy that, right? Looking down sneering at these lowly humans, that is——au,” Packed to the limit with hate, cheeks twisted in an ugly grin, Subaru pours insults upon Beatrice.
The ghastly behaviour is to bury the objection, disappointment, and loss filling his heart. But he abruptly aborts it. Beatrice: “—hk,” Subaru: “Ah...”
Aborts it, because he sees the fat tears spilling from the eyes of the girl directly before him.
The blood rushed to his head retreats the instant he sights them. The repulsive spite thick in what he just said is terrifying and becomes unbearable. His slack fingers release Beatrice's body from the hatred. She backs off as if pushed, her back smacks against a bookshelf, she falls to her knees.
A furious nausea wells up in him. Becoming conscious of his words, he himself cannot bear the ugliness of what he just said. Repulsive. Crooked. What to call it except lashing out? From the perspective of a Beatrice ignorant of RETURN BY DEATH, all she did was heal a dying Subaru's wounds. Of course a lifesaver deserved gratitude—there should not be any reason she be insulted. Subaru understood this logically. But his emotions were not accepting it. Tossed around by those extremes of mentality squabbling inside him, he raises his head, needing to say something to the collapsed Beatrice.
Subaru: “No, I... S-sorry. I didn't mean to say... It isn't your fault at...”
If there is anyone at fault here, it is undoubtedly Subaru. He knew what would happen, yet he still tread unwary into a tiger's den and stepped on the tail. Those around him are who received the payback, and with him boasting that he alone lacked reason for reproach, he had been crossing the line for pride.
Emotionally, he did possess a feeling to verbally condemn this uninformed girl. He did possess emotions he couldn't swallow down about how she had hidden from him, only to appear in that instant. But that was no aquittal for him to yell criticisms at her.
Subaru: “I'm sorry. Thank you, for healing my wounds. But, now I...”
He would at least have to disappear from before her, and choose elsewhere to commit suicide. Subaru had no reason for this world to continue. Too many losses. Subaru was not strong enough to live in a world where he had lost things he must not lose. Thus Subaru reports to Beatrice succinct words of gratitude, and averts his gaze in preparation to leave the Forbidden Archive—
—When he notices the black tome at the fallen Beatrice's side.
Plain binding. Thick structure. Large as a dictionary, blatantly heavy enough to be awkward to carry around. Subaru can't tear his eyes away from the familiar thing. Why, now, was that here?
Subaru: “The GOSPEL's in the carriage... it being in the archive shouldn't...”
The Witch Cult gospel that Betelgeuse owned had been collected by Subaru as gains of war and was now in his possession. But that didn't mean treating it like a book of the Archive, and rather simply meant some extremely cautious safekeeping of the thing, so it should not be in this place. Shaking his head at the incomprehensible situation, Subaru reaches for the fallen gospel. To check its insides, and negate this unease he felt. But,
Beatrice: “—No!”
The gospel is snatched away before Subaru can touch it. Subaru looks to find Beatrice, breathing ragged, holding the gospel to her chest with both hands as she distances herself from Subaru. Her throat still stiff from her sobbing, she looks down at the gospel, and gives a relieved exhale as she strokes the cover. That loving gesture stirs up a bad premonition in Subaru like no other.
Subaru: “Why're you treating that thing like it's so important?” Beatrice says nothing. Subaru: “That's the book the Witch Cult have... isn't it? It isn't it? It looks crazy similar, but it's different, right? Since the appearance's so close and it could cause misunderstandings, you only took that distance on purpose, so I wouldn't think it was—right? Right, I mean it's my nature to jump to conclusions, my presumptions're intense, I'm mean and rude my eyes're nasty my personality’s crooked too...”
Beatrice says nothing. Subaru: “Hey—please, deny it.” Beatrice slips a small sigh, and presents the book forward so Subaru can see it. Beatrice: “It is exactly what you imagine, in fact. ...It's a gospel. The same as the witch cultists you speak of own, the guide to happiness. The foundations for living. The only single truth, I suppose.” Subaru: “Wh-why... do you have that? Somewhere sells them? T-telling the future or whatever is super way too cheat item. A walkthrough for real life crazy breaks the game balance. ...So, come on.” Beatrice: “...Betty is not instructed to answer your question, I suppose.” Subaru asks with his voice trembling, Beatrice gives her cruel report as she flips smoothly through the pages. Subaru feels his tongue going numb, her gaze aimed down at the book's contents. Subaru: “You don't do anything if it's not what the book says?” Beatrice: “That question is not written in the book, in fact.” Subaru: “What about you healing my wounds? And sheltering me in the Forbidden Archive when I was going to be killed?” Beatrice: “Those questions are not written in the book, I suppose.” Subaru: “What about right now, how you're talking with me? And, saving me when I tried to die?” Beatrice: “—Not my business.” Still gazing down at the book, Beatrice's replies are emotionless. A terror so strong as to most send his lungs into convulsions, and a vertigo so intense as to most make him forget how to breathe assault him as he raises his voice. Subaru: “So you can't do goddamn anything if it's not what the book says!?” Beatrice: “...I can't, I suppose. I can't, in fact. Any and all is in accordance with the gospel's guide.
The meaning of Betty's life is to do so, and for that purpose alone does Betty exist, in fact.”
Subaru: “Then.. you saved me like this because the book told you to!? And when you saved me when I was near-death in the forest of witchbeasts! And when you tried to save me when my heart was worn! And the time we spent pissing around, yelling at each other, enjoying ourselves like idiots... for all of it, your own will was nowhere in it... that's what you're going to say!?”
Beatrice: “I told you... that's exactly what I am saying, I suppose!!”
Yells Beatrice, her face red with anger. She steps forward, glares at Subaru.
Beatrice: “Everything Betty has done, has seen, has said, all of it had been written, I suppose. You... you, would never move Betty's heart, in fact. Put your conceit down and to rest, I suppose, human.”
Subaru goes silent.
Beatrice: “Betty will accomplish what was desired of her and fulfil the meaning of her being alive, in fact. I spend my life, my time, anything for that purpose—which for alone am I here, I suppose. ...And will I stand having that denied, by you, in fact!!”
Subaru: “Bea...”
Subaru tries to call out to her, but a pressure emitted from before him interrupts. Pushed back by as if by wind, Subaru notices that his body can't resist it and he's being pushed towards the door. — This continues, and he'll be flung outside.
Subaru: “Sto—Beatrice!”
Beatrice: “Betty's everything is for Mother! The bond between Betty and Mother alone is Betty's everything! I couldn't care about you less... couldn't care less...”
Subaru goes silent.
Beatrice: “Couldn't care less. Hate you. I hate you. —I hate you!”
Shaking her head, hiding her face overflowing with tears, her scream sends Subaru's body flying. Door's open. The room is trying to drive Subaru out of the Archive. Subaru's right hand catches on the doorframe. But he's three fingers short. He can just barely support his body on his index finger alone, but it only gives him a few seconds of time. Raising his head, Subaru goes to call to the crying girl—
Subaru: “Beatri—!”
Beatrice: “...ather,”5
Drowned out by her quiet voice, Subaru's words do not reach Beatrice. Wind blows. He is drowned out. Space twists, and Subaru's body is flung from a place that should be to a place that should not.
5 Line is '・・・ ぅさま’(...u-sama). Riding entirely off 2ch speculation on this one. She could technically be saying anyone whose name ends in a 'u' and Beatrice would respect enough to put a -sama on. As an asideフルーゲル/Flugel also ends in a u and Beatrice is confirmed to know Shaula as of A4-C3. Yeak you can just ignore this comment.
The door slams shut. The wind stops as silence falls upon the Forbidden Archive. What remains there is a single girl. Her face still one of having held back sobs, she walks with a slow gait deeper into the room—tottering to sit upon the stepladder. Hugging her knees, her trembling fingers open the gospel. And,
Beatrice: “Why... for Betty, is nothing...”
Met with a wordless stark-blank page, her sobbing alone echoes through the silent room.
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