Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu - Volume 4 - Chapter 75

CHAPTER 75: THEY 

Unwittingly stumbling back at the shock, Subaru's eyes open wide as he sees the blonde girl glaring at him. Her azure eyes brimming with incredible fury, a witch with crimson colouring her beautiful face—it's Minerva. 

Bringing her sharp gaze off the paralysed Subaru, Minerva redirects to look at Echidna, standing opposite Subaru and entirely composed. 

Minerva: “Repeating myself, but I'm putting a stop to this. I'm not acknowledging this contract.” 

Echidna: “...Hrm. This'd best be called a development outside what I anticipated.” 

Too intimate for enmity, too bloodthirsty for anger. That emotional gaze concentrates wholeheartedly onto Echidna as Minerva crosses her arms inside the crater she made, hoisting up her abundant chest, biting her lip. 

Echidna: “A witch's contract—you should be capable of understanding what significance these hold. That you've regardless interrupted us means... not possibly, you also want to tie a contract with him? Then here I suppose we'd be having a case of jealousy.” 

Minerva: “Can't you at least tell that my anger is not for such a peaceful reason? I'm furious. I'm incensed. I'm vehement with boiling rage.” 

The redness to Minerva's face intensifies as she replies to Echidna. Her peaking emotions turn into a teardrop at the corner of her eye, giving an innocent, childlike kind of obstinacy to her features. Her young face is terribly mismatched to her voluptuous body—and her very presence is something Subaru inevitably must accept, although with a great jumble of surprise. 

Subaru: “Why're you here?” 

Minerva: “What. Are you saying I'm not allowed to be?” 

Subaru: “Well no. I'm not, but... I mean, Echidna's right there.” 

Says Subaru as he points at Echidna, Minerva puffing out her cheeks in displeasure. She tilts her head as if not understanding the problem here at all, but Echidna seems to catch on, giving a light clap of her hands as she nods. 

Echidna: “Ah, I see what you're having a problem with. —You must be mystified as to how another witch has manifested, even though I'm present and standing right here.” 

Subaru: “Th-that's it. I mean, every time I've met a witch up to now it's been one-on-one... like it was guaranteed they were appearing swapping out in your place. Didn't you...” 

Minerva: “She never said we can't be out together, I bet. That kind of mean pointless trick is just how this nasty witch does things.” 

Minerva angrily squares her shoulders as she easily destroys Subaru's objections. Subaru mutters a 'no way' to himself as he looks at Echidna. But Echidna gives no particular signs of refuting it. 

Echidna: “I'd like you to not misunderstand, though. That I didn't call any other witches here is because it's a big responsibility and a big risk for me. Depending on the circumstances, it's possible another witch will steal predominance over this place, and even if they don't it takes some considerable effort to recreate powerful beings such as them.” 

Subaru: “And so then... but, no, you...” 

Echidna: “I have never told a single lie. That alone, I will assert.”8 

Echidna's sharp statement slices through Subaru's stuttering words. She's right. Looking back through his memories, Echidna has never made any statement about this present phenomenon which could be deemable as a lie. Subaru had just assumed that had been it. So speaking in extremes, Echidna technically had not deceived Subaru at all, but. 

Echidna: “I didn't really want you to know that the other witches could manifest all over the place, and have them take you from me.” 

Subaru: “Wh, aeh?” 

Echidna: “You are truly the first guest in a long time for me. I haven't had conversations that thrilled me as much as ours so commonly whether before or after my death. Are you going to curse me, say that my desire to hog you is miserable?” 

Subaru: “—” 

Echidna: “I know I'm repeating this again and again, but I think of you fondly. And so I wanted to avoid it that, by the others having more allure, or by being a more cooperative witch, your interest would shift away from me and toward them. —I don't mind if you laugh.” 

It's a horrific, hideous desire to monopolize—is how Echidna is explaining the details behind her secrecy. Listening to Echinda's somewhat-excuse, with her fixation aimed right at him, he wonders: what about me that warrants this fixation? 

The WITCH OF ENVY is the same case. Why was Echidna, too, with Subaru so— 

With this line in mind, if Echidna has ever told anything construable as an outright lie in these summaries, assume  it's because I bungled the nuance of what she was saying or otherwise didn't catch a double meaning. The same  applies to Lewes and Garfiel. 

Minerva: “You are just getting wheedled in so easily.” 

Subaru: “—Dhah!?” 

A soft fist bumps the back of Subaru's head just as he goes to consider it. He puts his hand to his head and turns around, to find Minerva behind him. She takes the hand he's pressing down on his head with, and with a flowing motion twists his arm to wrest him down to the ground. 

Subaru: “A, auh! Wai, this hurts this hurts this hurts... or not?” 

Minerva: “When I directly touch something living, no matter what action I take it turns into something restorative. I could punch with all my strength and it'll close wounds, I could wrestle someone while trying to wrench their limbs off and it'll cure their chronic diseases, and if I keep someone held in a lock their shoulder aches will disappear!” 

Subaru: “A-and so that's why the aching over my body's... not.” 

While his body savours the incredible merit of the Witch of Wrath, Subaru frantically twists his neck to look at Minerva as she locks him in a hold. Regardless of the fact that she's twisted him around in a way which should invite pain and jarring to his bones, he feels no ache but in fact a pleasant warmth spreading through his body, and consequently an incredible awriness. A mysterious authority which turns all acts preformed on a human body into something positive, and the witch exercising it. Certainly Subaru's had no negative impression of Minerva up to now, but... 

Subaru: “What the hell're you trying to do here...” 

Minerva: “I don't do this, and it looks like you're gonna get happily cajoled into contracting with Echidna. Your quick decisions and airhead attitude're really making me mad!” 

Echidna: “Cajole, makes it sound bad. I'm sure I did explain the benefits of what a contract with me would be, and devise to put us on even grounds of mutual understanding...” 

Minerva: “It's that attitude where you act like you totally followed through with your responsibility to explain here that's getting me. You did explain all about the benefits. You did... but, when it comes to the inconvenient stuff the contract'd cause, you didn't say a thing!” 

Leaving herself to her rage, Minerva swings her leg down. Where her heel lands is Subaru's behind, and he gets to experience the incomprehensible phenomenon of feeling a heel driving into his rear, as the force transmitted through his bottom bores an indentation into the ground. Feeling some sense that the strike to his ass has improved his bowel functioning, Subaru realises the significance of what Minerva is saying, and is stunned. 

—His conversation with Echidna had not touched on the detriments of the contract at all. And now he  understands the carelessness of his own self who had not even noticed the fact. 

Subaru: “No, but... saying detriments... something, that kind of serious...” 

Minerva: “Wouldn't come up, is what you think? You're sure taking contracts lightly. Even though the contractor is a witch—and the one who of the seven sin witches tied the most contracts, had contact with the most people, who meddled the most in history, the WITCH OF GREED.” 

Echidna: “All those laurels are laurels of my life... though it's true that not every one of them was what you'd call honourable. It's true that forming a contract with me did not necessarily save absolutely all of them.” 

Minerva comes through with that fact Subaru was ignorant to. Echidna follows on from her, entirely stressing her absence of ill intentions toward Subaru. Stuck between these two as they assert their stances, the turmoil in Subaru's head peaks. 

He didn't know which one to trust. 

Ever since Subaru got involved with the Trial in this tomb, his multiple meetings and times spent deliberating over his worries together with Echidna have led him to consider her a kind of comrade in arms. And so when Echidna proposed to tie an organized collaboration in the form of this contract, Subaru had even felt a sense of security. 

On the other hand, his time spent interacting and speaking with Minerva, compared to Echidna, is sparse. But whenever Subaru was in danger she would swoop in with her mighty arms to heal him, and without even demanding a 'thank you' zoom past like a typhoon, a merciful character. Minerva had no reason to be deceiving Subaru, and if the matter was actually great enough that she would purposefully manifest to interject, there is probably more time to be spent mulling the whole thing over. 

Or no, actually, rather than deliberating like this, what he should do was ask this question: 

Subaru: “Echidna. If we form the contract, you'll need compensation.” 

Echidna: “...Yup, you're right. Contracts do need those. Like how I am offering my knowledge in response to your demand, you need to present compensation in response to my demand.” 

Subaru: “Course. Yeah. —So, what're you demanding from me? If I contract you, what is it I need to offer you?” 

For getting Echidna's help when stuck in a hopeless situation, what was it he needed to pay? Echidna's cheeks loosen into a smile. 

Echidna: “It's nothing worth being wary over. What I'm demanding from you isn't anything so complex. Actually, for how I'm not trying to take anything precious physical or non-physical as compensation, you could even call this evenhanded.” 

Subaru: “—Say, your, demand.” 

Echidna: “It's very simple. —What you feel, what you create, what you know, what you do, what you think, what you retrospect, what fruits called UNKNOWNS your presence incurs, I want to savour always.” Says Echidna, her cheeks red and expression that of a young maiden with a crush. 

Fruits called UNKNOWNS—Subaru furrows his brows at the poetic phrasing. 

Subaru: “Hell's that. You mean, pull out my emotions and memories and recollections, and hand them over? If so then...” Echidna: “Didn't I say? It's nothing so risky. I just want to witness the sights you see, the melodies you hear,  the story you weave, all from a special box seat. All I want is to perceive this. I want to be in a position to  know the UNKNOWNS you create. By that and just merely that alone, I can be fulfilled.” To dispel Subaru's concerns, Echidna plainly defines her demand. She just wants to watch Subaru walk his path. See the same thing he sees. To know what he feels, what he knows, the results of his actions. Thirst for knowledge incarnate, the Witch titled GREED, wanted merely that. 

Subaru: “You're, not lying right?” 

Echidna: “Lying about contracts'd be absurd. While also for the sake of being myself, I pledge that I will never do anything to betray those words. I'd stake my life on it.” Concludes Echidna with her hand to her chest, the joke being 'Though, I'm already dead.' 

Subaru senses no lies from her words or behaviour. Or perhaps he just wanted to believe that. Subaru: “Minerva. This's what Echidna's telling me. And so what I'm doing is...” ???: “I-it's, all... true, but th... that doesn't, mean sh-she's... she's told you, everything.” Subaru attempts to demand Minerva release him from the hold, when somebody new on the scene addresses  him. This voice was one he had heard just a few quarter-hours ago—and spoken in a diction Subaru felt absolutely nothing positive for. 

Subaru: “Camilla... the WITCH OF LUST!” Camilla: “Do... d-don't, look at me with... with those scary, eyes. I, I'm not... not even, doing any... thing... you're, a-awful...” 

Subaru: “The nasty eyes're inborn. I'm not making any specially harsh expression or anything.” 

Subaru held grappled to the ground, with Echidna standing opposite him. Minerva behind him means the three form a straight line, with a pink-haired girl sitting in the meadow a short distance away—Camilla. She timidly hides her face away from Subaru's gaze, sporadically glancing over. The attitude's annoying as always, but by consciously averting his attention from her, Subaru manages to avoid CAPTIVATION TO THE POINT IT'S LIFE THREATENING. 

Subaru: “But anyway, what were you talking bout? I'm not gonna complain this late about witches showing up, but if something's...” 

Camilla: “E-Echidna-chan is... hiding, lots and lots... of, things. S-she isn't, lying but... she's hiding, lots... of things...” 

Subaru: “Hiding things?” 

Thinking over Camilla's words, Subaru imploringly looks to Echidna. Echidna closes an eye as she looks over at the suddenly-present Camilla. 

Echidna: “Suddenly show up, and here you immediately come with the aspersions. Or more actually, how is it that he's stirred up your attentions? You're not like Minerva, you shouldn't have any reason to back him. You're supposed to have disliked him.” 

Camilla: “A, r-rea... reason, like... Minerva-chan? No I, do... don't have any... proper, one. But, Echidna-chan, you... you, tricked... me, didn't you?” 

Camilla looks down as she responds to Echidna's accurate statements, speaking in frail and stuttering voice. However, contrary to her diction, the actual words she is saying carry no weakness or compromise at all. Camilla putters her fidgety gaze around, setting her glance multiple times on Echidna. 

Camilla: “I-I, don't... like him, but, I... I'm not on your... side when you, tricked.... m-me Echidna-chan, ei... either. People who, t-trick me, hate... me, d-do mean, things to me... I WILL NEVER FORGIVE.” 

—That last statement alone is spoken with incredible clarity. So much that Subaru needs some time before he can recognize that it came from the mouth of this girl beside him. That was the extent that that single phrase diverted from Camilla's atmosphere up until now. 

Camilla: “—” 

Wordlessly, but assuredly without ever looking away, Camilla stares at Echidna. In her eyes there churns a near indescribable whirlpool of emotions—something dark and grudgelike, entirely unforgiving of any bastard who would aim at her something resembling hostility. Apex of narcissism—are the words that skim through Subaru's brain. 

Echidna: “While it may've been a necessary measure, it seems acting in a way contrary to Camilla's desires was a mistake. Make an enemy of you, and there's no bigger nuisance out there.” 

Camilla: “E-everyone is, on my... side so, ha-having me... hate you, is, really... awful. Y-you can apol... apologize, but, I won't.... forgive you.” 

Camilla's personality is introverted and timid enough that she cannot even communicate with others sufficiently—but that has nothing to do with the intensity of her rebellion toward hostility. 

Subaru: “What've you all... what have you all been talking about!?” 

And, butting in to the witches and their tense situation, Subaru finally speaks up. Feeling the attention of the three witches focusing on him, Subaru frantically turns his neck as he, 

Subaru: “This's enough of you all talking while leaving me out! I'm the one who's choosing here! Say it in a way I can understand! Echidna, what're you hiding!? You two, what is it you know that's making you try to stop me!?” 

Minerva: “Even saying that you're in a mentally frail position, stopping all thinking and immediately going to grasp an offered hand is totally naive... and what guided him into doing that was all of your so careful planning!” 

Echidna: “A wound to my respectability. That sounds liable to make him misunderstand things. If we tie the contract, with my assistance I will lead him to, no matter what, reach the optimum destination that he desires. To know of the things he sees, sounds he hears, information he learns over this process is my demand. Not a single one of the things I am saying is fallacious.” 

Minerva launches her words at the roaring Subaru with her voice shaking in rage. Echidna's composure remains entirely in place. Feeling the coolness laced through Echidna's voice, Subaru also begins feeling something awry. Having transcended his up-until-now state of near delirium, he very deliberately scrutinizes over Echidna's words. Over her attitude, and over why the two witches are stopping him. Was there something off? She wasn't saying anything off. The other two witches had acknowledged she wasn't lying. Then, where was the problem? 

Echidna: “I will repeat it, Natsuki Subaru. Should you choose me, contract with me—I will, without fail, lead you to the place you desire.” 

???: “—'Ultimately', is the disclaimer word guaranteed to come attached to this promise—haa.” 

Echidna makes her statement with her hand outstretched to Subaru, when a listless voice speaks. He looks, to find a monster of magenta hair seated opposite Camilla—on the ground, buried in her long, long hair, the WITCH OF SLOTH has appeared. The multiplying in witches doesn't surprise Subaru any more. What Subaru does pick up is, 

Subaru: “Ultimately?” 

Sekhmet: “I'm sure Echidna—huu—is guaranteed to fulfil the contract—haa—But, so long as she upholds entirely the reality that—huu—she did fulfil the contract—haa—she'll likely do whatever during the process to get there.” 

Subaru: “Do, whatev...” Linking together Sekhmet's words to the previous awriness he felt, one single hypothesis comes to Subaru's  mind. But that hypothesis is one overwhelmingly hard to accept, and as Subaru's face stiffens in shock, he looks at Echidna and her closed eyes—and speaks. Subaru: “Echidna, if I contract you... without fail, you will take me to the optimum future, you said.” Echidna: “Yes, I did say that. And it's true. Without any doubt, I will carry out that contract to the end. With  my knowledge and your attribute, we will assuredly be able to achieve it.” Right, exactly, that was entirely the way of a completable contract. 

Echidna's words present no lie. Should Subaru collaborate with her, they will be capable of unfailingly saving everything, and arriving to the future. However, Subaru: “Will your cooperating in getting me to the optimum future—use the optimum path?” Echidna: “—” Subaru: “For me to reach my desired destination, will you truly, help me the best you can?” Echidna: “—” Subaru: “Why're you saying nothing. Answer me, Echidna—no—WITCH OF GREED!” Raising his head, Subaru screams his throat hoarse. 

While still held against the ground, and still stuck in a lock. But Subaru pays that fact no care as he  wholeheartedly, undividedly, glares at Echidna. Faced with that sharp gaze, Echidna slips a small sigh. Echidna: “—If it is to reach the optimum future, sacrifices along the way are permissible. Would this not have been what you resolved, Natsuki Subaru?” 

Subaru: “—hk” 

Echidna gives neither a directly positive nor negative response to Subaru's question. But, Subaru senses. That Echidna's words were assuredly not any that would dispel his doubts. 

Far from it, and as if to help him understand her thoughts, she spreads her arms wide. 

Echidna: 

“This attribute you have, RETURN BY DEATH, is an incredible authority. In the truest of meanings you cannot comprehend its utility. Not permitting the ends contrary to your desires, conducting countless redos, reaching for the future countless times—for a researcher, this is near the ultimate ideal. I mean, wouldn't it be? The result of any event will fundamentally, once a single result has been reached, remain put. If you are still midway through the process of reaching a result, you can make varied hypotheses as to what the result will be. If using this approach, or otherwise if using these conditions, varied hypotheses and varied investigations are possible. But, if you are to experiment with the purpose of producing a result, then the results, testable hypotheses, and investigations will inevitably subsume into a single aggregate. Recreating completely, and I mean completely identical conditions is impossible. No matter what conditions you arrange, you cannot recreate the exact same conditions as you previously did. If you tried different methods back then, what result would you now procure? That question is one us researchers will never attain the answer for, nothing more than a dream existing in the forward path of what is ideal. For me and my MEMORIES OF THE WORLD, I indeed have means to KNOW the answer, I certainly do. Do, but I don't consider using that method, utilizing that method, as anything good. It's that I want TO KNOW, not TO HAVE KNOWN. The thing creates this terrible contradiction, for me you could call it abominable. But I'm getting off topic here so returning back to the point... right, we researches have to accept results as being entirely singular, and for us who possess only one means of observation, your existence, your authority, is something we desperately crave. You can run DIFFERING INVESTIGATIONS under IDENTICAL CONDITIONS, you can see SEPARATE RESULTS differing from the FUNDAMENTAL RESULT. That is the ultimate authority—how could you not want it? With this power right in front of you, how could you not test everything? Though of course, I have no intention to force you to do that. It is entirely that, for you achieving your own purposes, you will utilise RETURN BY DEATH a lot. And I will also devote my best so that we reach the future you desire. During that process, I would like to get your extensive contribution to sating my curiosity. When that is all I'm asking I'm sure there's no punishment to be invoked. You will get to witness answers. I will get to sate my curiosity. Our mutual interests coincide. Since I don't know the answers either, there of course could be no instance where I purposefully lead you down an incorrect path, and you consequently meet a gruesome demise. I don't initially know the correct answer when faced with a problem, and in that sense I am entirely the same as you. In the sense of us puzzling over the same problems, struggling on, attempting to reach an answer together, I am sure you should call us unmistakably comrades. I can state that firmly and not with the slightest of embarrassment. I think very fondly of you, in the sense that you give me more methods for preforming investigation, and so I pledge that I would never do anything that would be improper consideration of you. But of course, I'm sure we will naturally encounter problems where even with my assistance, easy surmountation of the problem will be impossible. While I may be able to assist you as a font of knowledge, that doesn't mean I can at all interfere with reality. Should we face a physical obstacle blocking your path, that sort of problem where force is necessary, I will not be able to help you. Times upon times, potentially even hundreds or thousands of times, your mind and body may be broken. But even should that hypothetically happen, I would sincerely wish to preform your mental care. That that desire is without any intermingling from my researcher's interest to not part with something useful is not something I can assert. But that said, it is entirely truth that I think of you and your existence fondly, and that I want to aid you. I don't want you to think badly of me. And I know I'm repeating myself, but I can say with pride that I am a presence useful for achieving your goals. Yes, just as I am considering in a sense to utilize you for the purpose of sating my greed called curiosity, you can likewise utilize me for your goal of REACHING THE OPTIMUM FUTURE. To be that kind of overly convenient girl you can take advantage of, for me, is entire satisfaction. If doing so will motivate you, then I will gladly submit my being to you. Although the question of whether you're interested in this deceased and impoverished body would have to be be another topic. Oop, saying that might've been a foul against your loves. Your loves—the silver half-elf, and the blue-haired oni girl. The girls you will save no matter what, who you will stringently protect, having from your heart pledged to do so and through your actions exhibited that volition. Putting my thoughts on the state of your heart and the way it harbours such strong emotion for two girls aside as something I will not state here, I will assert that the height of the walls you must scale will be beyond imagination. How many unmanagable obstacles do you have lined up before you in present reality just that you know of? Your resolve to try and surmount these problems by yourself is honourable, and incredibly tragic. I want to be your aid on this path, with my hopes to be that aid not being anything fabricated in the least. You should definitely utilize these desires of mine. You need to take everything you can possibly have, use everything that you can possibly utilize, and by doing entirely that save the people with which you have bonds. That is the firm conviction you yourself had pledged, which you have fully understood as being a necessary and painful path. And so I will question you, I will repeat with you, I will have feelings for you. The path you walk by throwing away your life is something that ironically only just got certified in the form of the second TRIAL. With how you could almost mistake that TRIAL as having been there to make you comprehend what it is this path you have walked, you could perhaps even think the thing necessary. Of course the reality is it wasn't necessary, and it was the kind of experience which damaged your mind. But if it's between a state of not knowing and a state of yes knowing, no matter how grievous a truth it is, I'd consider the latter more valuable. Up until now, and also from now own, you will need you present your life as compensation for RETURN BY DEATH, and in doing so wrest in the future. That there are perhaps people who've been sacrificed for this purpose, and that these worlds in this fashion PERHAPS MIGHT EXIST was something necessary for you to have put in mind. Someday, you'll cease to feel any emotion when it comes to paying with your life, your human emotions will wane, you'll cease to be rattled by the DEATHS of those precious to you, you'll submerge into a life of impassive, indifferent inertia, and even should you reach the optimum future, you will be reaching it as an impaired version of yourself—for the sake of avoiding this kind of future, where the only thing that remains is a feeling of vain, it was necessary. No, there is not a single worthless thing in the world, everything is a necessary route taken, a needed piece to the puzzle. The TRIAL was necessary for you to comprehend that. If you require a tenable rationalization and pretext as to why you have hit a standstill, then adopt this stance. And I will validate that stance of yours. If my words can give you the strength you need to continue forward, then my words will I give to you. Whether they be comforts, tough motivators, whispers of love, provokers of loathing, if they will give you assistance then without any hesitation will I exercise them for you. And although you might detest it, you unconditionally need the assistance of someone like me on your path forward. If you're to proceed along a road of unavoidable pain and solitude, you absolutely need someone to walk alongside you without ever taking their eyes from the path. And if the person we're talking about to fill that role is me, not anyone else, but me, then I can walk that road alongside you without any problem at all. I will repeat it, I will restate it, I will convey it countless times until it reaches you. —You must need me. And I absolutely need you. Your presence is essential. My curiosity simply cannot be fulfilled without you. You are the only being which can sate me. You, you will surely grant me the quenching of my unquenchable GREED. Your presence is already indispensable for me as I dwell in this closed world. If you should wish to be somebody's hope, to execute your power to clear the world open, could my piteous self perhaps not partake in your leftovers? If you could concentrate any of that great kindness unto me, then I'd hesitate not a  second to devote to you my being, my knowledge, my soul. I'm begging you. I want you to trust me. That I hadn't attempted to communicate you my true motives was assuredly no attempt to deceive you, nor any attempt to hide it from you. It was just a matter of choosing the right time. If here, at this instant I appealed with a fragment of my true intention, you surely would've left me. That would be an unbearable loss for me. And of course for you also, in the sense of distancing yourself from the future you seek, it undoubtedly should be regarded as a definite loss as well. Someday, being that you have your attribute of RETURN BY DEATH, you will surely reach the future you seek. But, it's obviously best that the compensation you pay in reaching that future be little. If it's me, when it's me, a greater sparsity is possible in that compensation. Everything goes so long as ultimately you reach the desired future—and such kind of inhuman thinking, ignoring the small goals for the large ones, is what I'd prefer you not mistake this for. Being caught by a temptation, and so desiring to view the outcome of some certain situation, I may notice something necessary for reaching the optimum track but not mention it—is the kind of action I absolutely would not do, is not how great a check I have on my cravings to be able to plainly assert. I will acknowledge that. But, I will not deceive you. If hypothetically we assume that I do dip my hands into some trust-betraying deed like that, I would under no circumstances do anything to keep it hidden from you. I would absolutely reveal it to you. And I would devote everything I have to you to make up for that damaged trust. No matter what happens, I will assuredly send you off to your desired optimum future. Absolutely, unconditionally. And so having rationalized this clearly as a necessary measure, won't you choose me? Once the contract is made, I will follow along exactly exactly as your desires and demands there state. After that comes the conversation of just how much you can devote yourself to your wish, your wanted wish, your desired wish. My resolve is just as I stated. Now is to hear what is your resolve. I want you to prove to me that you, having formed a contract with me and acquired my collaboration, have the mettle to without fail reach the future. Once you accomplish so then for the first time, you may boast that you bested the second TRIAL. And from there proceed to the third TRIAL, overcome it, and complete the liberation of SANCTUARY. When you consider the calamity to befall your loves and those precious to you, this is indeed exactly a TRIAL you must surmount. I want you to show me that you have the strength, the resolve to overcome it. And from there you will plunder me, utilize my knowledge, and procure what lies ahead. What I desire of you, demand of you, and can offer you in return is there at a full stop. I sincerely, honestly, willed here to reveal you everything. And so now with everything stated what is it you will decide? —That answer is what I'd like you to tell me. For the sake of sating a fragment of my curiosity too, of course.” 

—Says Echidna, smiling sweetly. 

Her snow-white hair sways and her cheeks redden slightly in fervour as she peers up at Subaru, waiting for his answer. Her eyelashes tremble with trepidation for his reaction, the fingers anxiously held to her chest fidgeting about. Her lips make many attempts to say something, but she hesitates, and the action ends merely with a wettening by her tongue. 

Subaru looks up. He meets eyes with Minerva, restraining him. Having locked gazes with Subaru, Minerva gives a small sigh as she finally releases Subaru's arm. His shoulder escapes from the restraints, freed, as Subaru rolls his arms and stands up. Just as Minerva said, the aching in his shoulders is gone. In fact, he even senses keenly that his somewhat taut hips and other places have been purged of their fatigue. The authority of the WITCH OF WRATH truly was healing to be feared. 

Subaru: “—” 

Rotating all of his body about, Subaru confirms his bodily sensation as he puts his thoughts in order. About what he had only just heard, no hiding anything at all, Echidna's truest of true intentions. Subaru: “Echidna.” Echidna: “Yes?” Subaru: “You're... going to use me?” He is going to be used. That was the term Echidna had repeated, again and again, throughout what  she just said. Hearing that, Echidna nods without hesitation. Echidna: “I am. And you can use me too. The contract would be something of a precaution, to  ensure neither of us stray from that principle. If you're going to criticise me for attempting to use anything I could to keep you, I will resignedly accept it.” Subaru: “I didn't consider anything, 's actually not the case. I at least understand that, said in  extremes, this's just what you get with pro-con interest-sake relationships. That you'd help me 100% off your goodwill... though I hoped for it, I was at least prepared to the accept the reality that you wouldn't. But.” 

Standing before Echidna, Subaru buries his face in his hands, facing upwards. Subaru: “It just, wasn't there...” Echidna: “It, being?” Subaru: “Every single one of your actions up to now, looks faded to me. Everything of your friendly  interactions with me, which started me trusting that maybe you weren't a bad guy after all... all of it,  is faded.” Everything from their first meeting to this very moment thuds to a collapse, crumbling. Their first tea party, the scene during the Trial, interrupted by reality, when he countless times he clung to her wisdom, her words. When he thought he could not regret forming a contract with her. —Everything from that time heartlessly laughs its ridicule at the foolishness of Natsuki Subaru. 

Subaru: “Was this your intention all along?” Echidna: “I don't really understand what you have a problem with. If it means that ultimately you'll  reach the optimum, you'll rationalize the path you used to get there—didn't you decide this? You yourself validated that thought, and I'm sure I pushed you along saying that was okay...” Subaru: “And for me to rationalize like that... not that I have but, you're saying that inducing me to  go along that trend... was entirely according to your plan, then?” Echidna: “I'd prefer you not misunderstand. That conclusion is entirely one that you had produced  yourself. All I did was give your conclusion just a tiny, slight prodding. That you're desiring for the responsibility behind your own words and conclusion to lie in someone else is indeed not impressive. Not impressive, and I'm not so simple as to bear it for you.” 

Protests Echidna, her expression pouting and sulky. The childishness she's expressing here, or more rather how out-of-place it is, makes the awriness Subaru has been feeling compound further. What to call it—a misfit in degree of emotion. 

The way Echidna expresses emotion is not incorrect. She's indignant when she is doubted, she smiles when there's something to be happy about, grief slips through in her face in response to sad things. That is all correct, and not mistaken. But still, this awriness, and the distrust it produces. The solution— 

Subaru: “All your behaviour feels synthetic, it is superficial.” 

Echidna: “—” 

Subaru: “When you're joyed, even when you're angry, the way you express emotion is childish and shallow. I mean right now, far from being enraged all you did was pout. Broad-minded, or whatever isn't the problem here. That behaviour... all your behaviour's been weird. I just thought you were brash and easily accepted, easy to get along with, but...” 

Echidna: “—” 

Subaru: “You're actually not. You—You are someone who can't understand others' emotions.” 

Recollect back on all of Echidna's behaviour thus far, and everything tones in sepia. Every attitude of hers that he had found appealing was a boon of her shallow emotional expression —wind up perceiving it as such, and all of their interactions fade of colour. 

And although showered in these unsparing words, Echidna's expression remains unchanged from that previous pout. As if she knew no way to express any greater discomfort. 

Subaru: “You're allowed to be angry here.” 

Echidna: “...I see. So here I should raise my voice, and shower you with curses. Understood, that was useful. Supposing another chance comes, let's see I do that.” 

Echidna's expression vanishes. Expressionless—something Subaru had never seen of the Echidna he knew, the first-time-seen visage of the WITCH OF GREED. 

Echidna: “Want to sit? I'd like us to iron out the details about the contract.” 

Subaru: “...In this situation, do you think I'll still readily consider a contract with you?” 

Echidna: “No way, you're rejecting me over a little disagreement in opinion? What on earth is the meaning in doing that? Having your emotions temporarily overwhelm you, and so failing to take the  correct choice can't be called wise. I recommend looking at reality, and electing for rational thought.”9 

At Echidna's words dead of emotion, Subaru closes his eyes and holds his breath. What Echidna's saying is correct. Subaru is the one losing his temper—would be irrefutable if said. It made logical sense. She was not lying. All Echidna did was hide her true intentions from Subaru. All she did was keep silent on mentioning the benefits she acquired from the course of Subaru's ventures. Should they tie the contract, most likely, Subaru would reach the correct path. Echidna's lack of frugality in providing this cooperation would also be unmistakable truth. 

Subaru: “There's one thing I wanted you ask you when I next saw you.” 

Echidna: “—Hrm, now what could it be?” 

Subaru: “Once I hear this question's answer, I'll know if I can choose.” 

Echidna waits to hear Subaru's question. This was a question Subaru was bringing up as a touchstone. A question to which Subaru yet saw not a single scrap of the answer for, which Echidna certainly had some relation to. 

Subaru: “—You know about Beatrice, Echidna.” 

Echidna: “...Yes, I do. Since I was deeply involved over the process of her creation. Did something happen with her?” 

Echidna replies without ill will. Her answer lacks any hidden implication, and comes loaded with questions. Subaru closes his eyes, envisions the young pigtailed girl. 

The last Subaru had seen of her, she had been stabbed from behind, disappearing. Her long, long time spent in isolation and the darkness it had spawned—his collision with this just prior her disappearance had remained constant and heavy in his heart. Pushing Subaru aside, protecting him from the blades, the expression on her face in that final instant —that was still burned inescapably into his memory. And so, 

Subaru: “Beatrice has, because of the contract, always been waiting for THEY. Are you who tied that contract? Are you who bound her to the mansion?” 

Echidna: “I don't remember specifying a location, but... the one who arranged for her to guard the Forbidden Archive and wait until their coming was indeed me.” 

Subaru: “Then, who is THEY? What can I do to free her?” 

Through her 400 years of solitude, Beatrice had constantly been waiting for SOMEONE. Not even Beatrice herself knew who that SOMEONE was. Neither did Subaru have any clue. But if he asked for the answer from Echidna herself, who had arranged this appointment with that 

9 Echidna's pronoun reverts from 'boku' to her usual 'watashi'. 

SOMEONE— Echidna: “Now, I really wonder who?” Subaru: “—Wh, ah?” Echidna: “No, I'm not even joking or anything, I truly, sincerely wonder. Who do you think the 

THEY Beatrice is waiting for is?” 

Asks Echidna, as if she has been presented with a question she does not know the answer to. Stunned, Subaru shakes his head. Subaru: “Even you don't know who it is Beatrice is waiting for?” Echidna: “Nope, I don't. I do not know who the THEY Beatrice is waiting for is.” Subaru: “Wh, y? But, you're the one who told Beatrice to wait in the Forbidden Archive, aren't you? 

If you don't know... no way.” Echidna, who instructed Beatrice to wait in the Forbidden Archive, was someone separate from who  imposed the time limit that she wait until THEY's visit. If so, the one who would know the solution would again be somewhere else— Echidna: “Wrong, you're mistaken.” Subaru: “—” Echidna: “The one who instructed Beatrice to wait for THEY was me. There's no mistake in that. 

Where you are mistaken is in a more fundamental area.” Subaru: “Fundamental?” Echidna: “Now just why in the world did I tie that contract with Beatrice? That is where you're  misunderstanding. I had Beatrice guard over the Forbidden Archive so that she could give its  contents over to THEY, would be what you're thinking, right?” Subaru doesn't see what she's getting at. It's just a natural thought. Giving instructions to hand something over to someone. 

But, at Subaru and his entirely ordinary thoughts, Echidna shakes her head. 

Echidna: “That wasn't my instruction to Beatrice. I tied her to contract, making her wait for THEY... while waiting for the result of just who she would choose as THEY.” Subaru: “—” —. 

——. ——————. ————————————what? Echidna: “You see, she was created for a specific purpose. But necessity came up for her to stay  alive in a fashion differing from her original objective... and for that sake she was distanced from here, where she then needed to be given a goal. It's in the sense of giving that hollow, empty girl a purpose for living, but yes it's necessary. And so I tied a contract with her.” 

Subaru: “—Th, at.” Echidna: “Preservation of the Forbidden Archive, and its complete transference to the eventually-coming THEY. There's no limitations. Although, that's because they're conditions with no correct  solution. She stays alive just as planned, and I can look into the solutions for other research. Don't you find it very logical?” Subaru: “—” Echidna: “Naturally, going four hundred years without choosing anyone is yet another result. As is  her not easily choosing THEY from any of those she met through her days. Potentially even her deliberating over whether to violate the contract, and desiring her own DEATH, is yet another result.” Subaru: “What, do you think of that?” 

Echidna: “—? I think it's wonderful.” Says Echidna, tilting her head, as if she had just been asked a question with an incredibly obvious answer. Echidna's answer, her attitude, and the expression of the girl arisen in Subaru's mind, lead him to the solution. 

Got it. Decided. Clearly understood. —His miscomprehension about just who, here, he was dealing with, is rectified. Subaru: “Echidna... you are a witch.” Echidna: “—” Subaru: “An indecipherable, unfathomable aberration.” 

Echidna: “—” He communicates it. The answer, he had in his heart. He pulls back his arm, and as to who he would reach out to, this time he truly decided. 

Subaru: “I... I can't take your hand. I've already decided whose hand it is I'm taking.” 

Echidna: “—” 

Subaru: “Done without malice, done without ill will, there is a girl whose four hundred years your binding words pilfered. —Decided. I am taking that girl's hand. I can't go with you.” He announces their farewell. 

He shakes away the hand of the one he had once thought to walk alongside him. 

Subaru raises his head. Looks forward. Beneath his eyelids, the final expression from that girl arises. —Face twisted in fear of disappearing and dying, near crying, but nevertheless with relief in her  eyes that Subaru had been protected. To take the hand of the girl who mourned for his DEATH is what Subaru decides. Echidna: “—” Echidna's eyes narrow. 

A look of cogitation flashes through her eyes, her intent being to fling some sort of words at Subaru's decision. But, before she can, the change occurs. Minerva: “—She's here.” Camilla: “Oh, no, I... I've... got noth... nothing to do, with this... any more.” 

Sekhmet: “At a troublesome spot, a troublesome person, is here to cause some trouble—haa.” The three witches all give their respective reactions. And, overwhelming pressure from behind him. Echidna's eyes, seeing what is behind Subaru, lightly snap open. Following her surprise, Subaru turns around, and sees it. 

???: “—” With pitch-black darkness cloaking everything from the neck up, there stood the WITCH OF ENVY.