CHAPTER 85: USING WORDS, USING FEELINGS, USING FISTS
Subaru: “—Wha?”
Unable for a moment to comprehend what he has just been told, Subaru voices a noise of astonishment. His eyes widen, his mouth gapes open. Emilia gazes at him as she puts her thoughts to form.
Emilia: “It makes me so happy that you think like that about me, that you're saying this for me, taking action for me. It's so, so trustworthy, and I rely on you so, so much. ...But this thing where you're trying to find an escape route is a No.”
Subaru: “N-No... about this, one-way coercion!?”
Emilia: “I'm who decided to challenge. There's somewhere I need to go, a gate I need to go through to get there, and right now I need to work my hardest to travel that. I don't want to make any excuses.”
Subaru is stricken, faced with an Emilia whose eyes host determination and lips are pursed firm. Her resolute face abounds with strong-willed brilliance. This was not the visage of a weak girl, who could not walk her path without Subaru's hand pull her along. Why, and how come? With his heart buried in questions, Subaru shakes his head.
Subaru: “I think your resolve's amazing, Emilia. But your compatibility for this TRIAL's awful. Going into a fight with no plan when chances of winning are... slim, isn't what I'd call noble.”
Emilia: “...Chances of winning really do feel slim.”
Emilia smiles wryly at Subaru as he fails to under-represent the situation at all. That her eyebrows droop slightly is because she accepts Subaru's opinion with absolute sincerity. Subaru feels himself a horribly deficient human being, unable to immediately elect for words of support.
Subaru: “What about at least waiting until I can find some hints? If I could just get the time, I can... I will make more preferable conditions for you. And that'd get you so much more relaxed, and...”
Emilia: “No, you can't, Subaru. I just somehow know. —There's no sideroads or shortcuts for the TRIAL in that tomb.”
Subaru falls silent.
Emilia: “It's strange though. I just know it. Even if we take time, unless I'm steadily ready and prepared to challenge, the results will always be the same. I know that.”
Subaru: “Au...”
No words to refute her are coming. While he doesn't know the exact details of the TRIAL, Subaru does agree with Emilia about these rules she has perceived. Repeated challenges of the TRIAL will not soften or intensify its contents or nature. The same conditions and same subjects will welcome the challengers. The TRIAL would go without any change to its properties, producing different results only according to the heart of the challenger— as was likely to Echidna's taste.
Emilia: “Say, Subaru. —Why are you trying to help me?” Subaru: “—” This query was one which had also held incredible significance the last time it was asked.
How much time had Subaru spent in desperation to report to her the answer? How much hardship had he overcome to communicate it to Emilia? And so he can answer her clearly, without any hesitation.
Subaru: “I want to help you because I like you. —Because I love all of you.” Emilia: “—Mm. Yeah, I know. You love me, Subaru.” Subaru: “—” Emilia: “It makes me sooo happy you feel that way. You're sooo trustworthy. I'm relying on you sooo much. Just by having you watching me like this, I know I can try sooo hard.”
Hand to her chest, her cheeks reddening slightly, Emilia closes her eyes. She continues, her words packed with incredible emotion. Emilia: “And so,” Emilia: “Don't get stuck thinking that you have to do something. I can do my best just by having you watching me. If you want to do something, if you'll follow with my conceits, then I want you by my side. I want you to support me.”
Subaru: “Emilia...” Emilia: “If there's a hand to support my back when I'm faltering, I know I can stand back up. I want you to be there for me when I'm wavering, Subaru.”
Subaru: “—” Emilia: “For trying to always walk ahead of me, move away the stones so I don't trip, smooth out the path, cut back the weeds, and guide me by the hand, thank you. But if it's that you're always doing things for me, I know I'm going to impose entirely on you. Because my core nature's slapdash.” Subaru: “Who says, sl... ap,” Subaru attempts his usual line, but the words won't come.
He cannot restrain the emotions swelling in his chest. This indescribable, nigh-incomprehensible feeling was what, exactly? To keep from losing it as it strongly asserts its existence, Subaru grits his teeth as he continues facing Emilia.
Emilia: “I've imposed, imposed, entirely imposed... and so this time I want to try things without doing that. It does unease me that with every failure, I'm making you and everyone worry, but... I'll do things so that doesn't happen, so I can finish it even a day earlier.”
A small but hearty smile rises on Emilia's face.
Emilia: “Please be at my side, watching over my efforts, as I work my best. —That is my wish for you, Subaru.”
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Subaru: “—hk!!”
He slices the wind. With his legs still in haste, his heart still in animation. He soars as he dashes over sloped land with its poor footholds, branches cutting grazes across his cheeks, tripping countless times yet nevertheless running so long as he breathes.
Subaru: “—!!”
Yelling a mute yell, practically demanding his throat to burst, staring up at the night sky through the gaps in the thick foliage, gazing at the glittering moon and glimmering stars, Subaru screams. —He wished this way to spew out his foolish foolishness, turn everything in him to empty.
—Seared into his memories is Emilia's closing smile, and the strong determination in her eyes.
That smile, her resolve, and Subaru's misunderstanding. He finally understood that the impulse swelling hot from inside him, nigh scorching his heart, was a combination of the three. Because he realised the identity of the impulse, unable to stay another second, Subaru launched impulsively into the forest immediately after parting with Emilia to run around the woods like an animal.
Not permitting he stand still, not even allowing him to escape into sleep, combustive emotion flares in him every time he remembers Emilia—the emotion being what humans called SHAME. Shame dominates all of Subaru, permitting him to stop not at all.
Subaru: “I... I...!”
Overwhelming idiot. Truly, entirely, so foolish it's hopeless, unsalvagable. When Roswaal had disparaged Emilia by calling her a thing, Subaru had flown into a rage. He bared his teeth, yelling that he would not allow any insults or disdain of her. Then he immediately met Emilia, revealed all his desires to act for her, was rejected, and first realised.
—The one who put the least faith in Emilia's resolve, determination, and strength, was Subaru.
I have to protect her. I don't want her to feel sadness or pain.
With those thoughts in mind, Subaru had ruminated on distancing Emilia from hardship. Substituting for her and taking the TRIAL, if he couldn't then searching for a byroad which presented no necessity to take the TRIAL, and if even that seemed risky—worst case, if he could just do something about the cause of the time limit on evacuating SANCTUARY which was the Sizeable Hare...—he had agonized entirely over methods to settle everything without Emilia facing the TRIAL.
Despite being that, through all the time that Subaru's complacent and protective wants led him to devise plans to safeguard her, Emilia had during the night in solitude steeled her determination and resolve, and decided to face the TRIAL without running. Despite being that she was wishing for Subaru to support her in that resolve.
It was no other than Natsuki Subaru who most disparaged the girl called Emilia.
Subaru: “—!”
The instant he realised it, an unbearable feeling of shame clobbered Subaru about the head. Giving Emilia a rather unconvincing reply as she sought for his response, Subaru gave the worried girl a light wave as he left the scene, practically fleeing. His legs ran him into the forest, and here he was.
Subaru's complacency had wounded Emilia like this before, in the Capital. Paying no mind to Emilia's considerations or resolve, getting arrogant about the authority he had just acquired, unable to communicate the truth behind his selfish behaviours to her, all of it spawned a definitive departure between himself and Emilia. It was because that happened, because he established his feelings for her, and established how to convey them to her, that Subaru could be where he was now.
—And still, Subaru was again incorrect.
Being wounded in Emilia's place, substituting for Emilia during hardship, crafting a road for Emilia's sake. While his current methods lacked any bragging to Emilia or showing off to others, and may appear something of an advancement from before—in reality, the nature of it hadn't changed at all.
He'd just gotten better at hiding his wounds. He'd just muted the arrogance he had in speaking proudly of his injuries. Nothing had changed about him screaming that he was correct while imposing his egocentricities on Emilia.
Subaru: “I... I... gha,”
Out of breath and panting, the running Subaru raises his head for a thick branch to strike him in the forehead. Bending backwards in pain, the footing beneath him crumbles as he grips at open space.
Falling to his side, tumbling down the dirty and leaf-covered ground, Subaru comes to lie spread on the earth.
His back lying on the cold ground, Subaru breathes ragged breaths as he gazes at the sky above. Between gaps in the trees, the night peeks through. In this world void of streetlamps and amid the prickling, clear air, the stars gleam with brilliance. While the full expanse of the glittering night sky looks down at him, with these unfamiliar constellations surrounding him, Subaru dissolves steadily into a vortex of his own smallness, his anxiety for the unclear future, his tangible dread, and his dishevelled emotions.
The exhaustion hits him. He cannot stay conscious. It had been a tumultuous time. Not only is it the fatigue amassed in his body, but the accumulated mental fatigue that drags Subaru into darkness.
RETURN BY DEATH. Witches' tea party. Roswaal's motives. His arrogant person, and Emilia with the resolve to stand by herself. Amidst these thoughts, the answer to what Subaru must do is—
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???: “Well ain't you just in enviable straits.”
The first thing Subaru perceives as he wakes up is the coldness on his skin, and this voice directed at him. His eyelids tremble under the chilly sunlight, Subaru scrunches his face as his eyes open. He winds up looking directly at the sun peeking in through the trees, his eyes teary as he attempts to upright himself.
Subaru: “Ghhe, eu, ow...”
His stiff joints clicking, Subaru groans in pain. The coldness of the ground and air had accordingly stiffened his body as he lay on the hard earth, and every action to unwind his joints comes alongside a dull pain.
???: “Got no damn clue what th'point of it was, but sleepin' in a place which ain't gotta roof ain't somethin' I recommend. 'S a WITH GAURAN IN THE ROOF AND FLOOR, WHAT YOU HAVE IS LIVEABLE.”
Subaru: “Gauran are... no, nevermind that...”
Shaking his head, Subaru looks up to the owner of the rowdy voice—Garfiel, who clicks his fangs as he looks down at the squatting Subaru. His consciousness sobers into wakefulness at that same instant as Subaru remembers just what situation he's in.
Subaru: “Ri, ght... last night, I fell dead asleep like that...”
Garfiel: “So I go cyclin' round th'place fer my daily routine, smell yer stink comin' from th'forest 'n wonder what's goin' on. And then yer fuckin' spread out on the ground, had me goddamn wonderin' 'f some hasty guy'd gone 'n killed yer overnight.”
Subaru: “If the most likely candidate you didn't do it, no one would've. ...What time is it?” Putting his hand to his chin, Subaru shakes his heavy head. Garfiel gives a breathy snort. Garfiel: “Ain't gotta be all hurried, 's still before breakfast. Only ones gonna be 'wake'r th'earlybird gamps n' grans n' my amazin' self.”
Subaru: “Then there's been no fuss about me not coming back. ...Gonna be a pain if I don't get back to the cathedral before then... or no, right now actually...” Should Subaru not have returned overnight, then suspicion could fall on Otto who returned earlier.
And even if that in particular didn't become a problem, Subaru would prefer to avoid any anxiety spreading among the Arlam evacuees. Causing disharmony due to his own carelessness, despite the mountain of problems already there, was the worst of verboten acts.
Garfiel: “...Yer expression's changed from last night again.” Subaru: “Hm?” Clinging to a nearby tree to get himself standing up, Subaru rotates his neck when Garfiel addresses him. Subaru glances back to find him scratching rigorously at his blond hair.
Garfiel: “Not like yesterday where y'couldn't tell f' yer got calm t'yer'r not, right now yer like... face looks like yer fuckin' refreshed.” Subaru: “—” Garfiel: “Shit, that ain't quite it. Can't fuckin' say it right... oi, fuck're you laughin' at?” Subaru: “Khah, hahahh...” Subaru puts his hands to his cheeks. Feeling that his mouth is slightly slack, a trembling laugh spews out from the back of the throat. The low, once-strangled noise grows gradually louder. Subaru: “Hah hahaha! I'm refreshed! Really, that's what I look like?” Garfiel: “Well y'do! Hell's so funny...” Subaru: “It's the opposite, Garfiel. Completely, entirely, the opposite.” Garfiel: “Eh?”
Suppressing the urge to laugh, Subaru jabs his finger toward Garfiel.
Subaru: “I'm not damn refreshed at all. My insides are creaking and cracking and honestly, right now I could burst apart any second. I was denied everything I wanted to attempt, everything I strained myself for backfired... I seriously don't know what to do.”
Garfiel: “—”
Subaru: “I figured out I'm really in a deadlock, and it actually makes me just laugh. If everything I tried doing something about was useless... it's from the start again, then.”
As he mutters without strength, Subaru's shoulders droop. If he was mistaken about everything from the very start, then every single he thought he has had since is faulty. It's the sense of having a time limit steadily creeping in, but belatedly realising that his fundamental equations are entirely wrong. What's another towel-thrower is that he can only consider these problems as ones he won't be taught the solution for.
Garfiel scrunches his nose in hesitation as he deliberates on what to tell the dejected Subaru. Being that Subaru understands that questioning Garfiel will earn him no precise answers, all this amounts to is senseless resentment. An awkward silence descends upon the two of them—and.
???: “—Should we have me tell you what to do?”
Subaru: “—!”
Subaru hurriedly looks up toward the voice raining down from above. Garfiel's manner as he too glances in that direction suggests no surprise, probably because he had already sensed this coming.
Weaving through the gaps in the trees as they approach is,
Subaru: “...Otto?”
Otto: “Yes, hello, good morning to you. You're correct, it's me.”
With a twig snapping underfoot, Otto wears a somewhat counterfeit smile as he walks over. While his sudden appearance flusters Subaru, Garfiel just clicks his tongue.
Garfiel: “'Sayin, my amazin' self only found him a second ago too. Ain't that I forgot 'bout you as we went on havin' our chat.”
Otto: “I wasn't suspecting you for anything like that. Just so long as Natsuki-san's been found in no critical condition. —And beside all that, could I request something?”
Garfiel: “...Spit it out.”
Otto: “I was wondering if I could be alone with Natsuki-san for a minute. There's something I'd like to discuss with him.” Subaru goes without being able to digest this situation as Otto and Garfiel have their talk, their expressions somewhat pretentious. Garfiel grinds his teeth at Otto's request, glancing over at Subaru. Garfiel: “Just don't pull anythin' funny.” With that, Garfiel leaves the scene.
He treads on the grass, exiting the forest as he returns for SANCTUARY. Watching him off as he remains left behind, Subaru wets his dry lips with his tongue.
Subaru: “Some, time where I didn't notice it, looks like conversation's started working on Garfiel.” Otto: “It's because I've been doing more than nothing during the time you were having your kerfuffle, Natsuki-san. Some deepening of relations between the people from here and the evacuees... well, none of that really matters right now.”
Answering sincerely to Subaru's question, Otto cuts off the conversation with a flick of his hand, his stare landing on Subaru. Or no, that was far too intense a gaze to be a stare. That was the intensity more belonging to a glare.
Subaru: “Well, what...” Discomforted by the gaze, Subaru muddies his words as he speaks weakly. Otto gives a small sigh. Otto: “Although vaguely, I did hear the situation. It sounds like you've been very cornered, Natsuki¬ san, by many things.” Subaru: “—” Otto: “I've been kept out of the loop, though, so naturally I don't know the particulars. But surely you're at your limit? At least to the point where I'm hearing blubbering about what to do.” Subaru: “Well, what do I do? ...You said you had an idea.” Listening to the somewhat unsparing Otto, Subaru alludes to his first statement from when he cut into the conversation. Otto had indeed cut into the silence between Subaru and Garfiel with such a remark. What did those words truly mean?
Subaru: “You're saying you know what to...” Otto: “Yes, I do know. It's all very simple.” Subaru: “Simple...” Otto: “Do you want to know it?”
This manner of speech is an annoying one. He'd agonized over his troubles extensively, and was in hardly any presentable state. Otto's speaking was nothing other than something to irritate such a listener.
Subaru: “I-it's goddamn obvious that I do! Stop pissing around! If there's something you know, then just...” Otto: “Well then, you must prepare.” Subaru: “P-prepare?”
Otto: “Yes. First take a long, deep breath...” Presenting his hands out to Subaru, Otto couples his statements with instructive gestures showing him to breathe deeply. Although not really understanding the significance, Subaru obeys the instructions as he composes his breathing, closes his eyes, lets his lungs inflate—
Subaru: “—!?” That instant, a sharp whack strikes across Subaru's face, sending him toppling down to the ground. He fails to catch himself as he tumbles, face to the dirt as he disorients. He shakes his head, looks around the area while confused as to what happened, catches the sight of Otto with his fist raised, and realises that he's been punched. Subaru swallows his breath. Fist clenched and reddening, Otto speaks. Otto: “Do not dare wear pretensions when among friends, Natsuki Subaru.”
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