"As I explained beforehand, we'll be evacuating the villagers while luring Garfiel out. Natsuki-san did say that stalling for time would be fine, but I was thinking of being a bit more greedy than that… Would you be willing to cooperate?"
Before departing with two decoy dragon carriages after parting ways with Subaru, Otto and
Ram leaned against a wall with her arms folded, eyes closed in silence, paying little heed to Otto's somewhat lacking-in-confidence proposal. With the clock ticking down toward the start of their operation, Otto grew impatient under her continued silence.
"Um, I'm sorry… but honestly, we don't really have much time."
"A man without patience gets no respect. I've told you before, but my conditions haven't changed."
Ram opened one eye and sharply cut down Otto's pleading gaze.
The "before" she referred to was three days prior to this moment. Otto had first approached Ram with a proposal to work together on the night Subaru had challenged Roswaal to a bet.
When Subaru arrived, Roswaal had asked Ram to leave the room so the two of them could speak privately.
It was then that Otto — who had been coordinating with Subaru — made contact with Ram once she stepped outside. His prediction had proven correct: if matters grew serious enough to involve the Gospel, Roswaal would distance himself from Ram, leaving her free for a window of time.
To be blunt, three days ago, Otto and Ram had virtually no connection. They had spoken fewer times than could be counted on one hand, and Ram had no interest in any man besides Roswaal unless something truly extraordinary compelled her. The only people she exchanged words with in this "
Which meant Otto first had to endure Ram looking at him the way one might regard a pebble on the side of the road, and build some semblance of rapport from there.
"Good evening, um… Ram. Nice night, isn't it?"
"……"
"Hullo?"
"…Oh, so it's you. That fellow who trails along behind Barusu, looking utterly lost. Without Barusu around, you're so thoroughly unremarkable I couldn't tell what species you even were."
"Worse than a human!? That impression truly stings. I mean, I understand being treated like Natsuki-san's accessory, in a way…"
"A man who's content being someone else's accessory has no worth. Disappear."
"That's vicious!?"
Ram's impenetrable attitude left Otto, who was seeking friendly contact, tattered and frayed in record time.
She showed not a shred of interest in him, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed.
"Um, would you mind if we talked?"
"Whether I remember or not is beside the point — shouldn't you introduce yourself before starting a conversation? Whether I remember or not."
"Why did you emphasize the remembering part twice, I wonder… Sigh. My name is
"That depends on whether what you have to say is interesting."
Even as Otto introduced himself without much confidence, Ram refused to yield the initiative. She would listen — but the moment the topic proved unworthy, she would cut it short without hesitation. Otto steeled himself against his negotiation partner's unexpected approach.
"It has to do with what Natsuki-san is currently discussing with the Margrave… but Ram. Would you consider working with Natsuki-san and me to free the 'Sanctuary' from the barrier?"
"That's absurd. Ram's wish is the fulfillment of Lord Roswaal's great ambition. To respect Lord Roswaal's will means that releasing the 'Sanctuary' by that method would be utterly meaningless."
"But that's only if everything proceeds according to the Margrave's expectations… isn't it? Ram, aren't you already aware that events have diverged from that path?"
"……"
It was Otto who had suggested, at the end of their deliberations, bringing Ram into the fold.
Subaru had been reluctant right up to the end, but from what Otto had gathered, this was a gamble with more than enough odds in their favor.
Ram opened her shut eyes and fixed Otto with her emotionless, pale-crimson gaze. She unwound her folded arms, and her right fingertips — hanging at her side — grazed what must have been the staff sheathed beneath her short skirt.
Depending on how he chose his words, he might触ら触らng the reverse scale, and her wrath would be cloaked in blades of wind.
Otto swallowed, licked his lips, and smiled with the same boldness he brought to haggling in a deal.
The tension drained from his body, and his rapid heartbeat settled into a pleasantly brisk rhythm.
Now, then — time for the same old "haggling."
"The flow that deviates from the Margrave's design — within it, for the first time, Ram's true desire becomes achievable. I believe Natsuki-san and I can help bring that about."
Seeing Ram's trembling fingertips drift away from her staff, Otto decided his sales pitch hadn't been thrown away after all.
After hearing Otto's proposal and learning the details of the plan, Ram laid out several conditions.
To be honest, revealing the full picture to Ram was an enormous gamble for Otto and the others as well. If they misread the wavering in Ram's heart, everything would be exposed to Roswaal. But the value of winning Ram over was worth the risk.
Ram established her conditions for cooperation, and Otto accepted — satisfied that none of them were unreasonable.
He did not, however, share the specifics of those conditions with Subaru. He needed to maximize Ram's cooperation, and then act on that basis in secret from Natsuki.
If he told Subaru, the man would stop him. And if Subaru let emotion lead him to hold Otto back, it could narrow the odds of success for the overall plan.
"What a disagreeable disposition. I don't know what your line of work is, but you're certainly not suited for trade."
"You absolutely do remember that I'm a traveling merchant, don't you!?"
Ram snorted at Otto's private resolve, and a mournful cry echoed across the sky of the Sanctuary.
※※※ — Otto found it strange that his body wasn't trembling before the beast's overwhelming aura of intimidation.
The monstrous figure before him was a creature of fearsome proportions, its full length easily exceeding four meters.
Twisted, razor-sharp fangs jutted from its colossal maw like swords. Its claws traced vicious curves reminiscent of the scythe Death uses to reap the living. Every strand of golden fur covering its body was thick as wire, so dense that a blade of mediocre sharpness would get tangled rather than cut through.
Only the golden gleam of its eyes — the same luster as before the transformation — retained any trace of its former face. The sheer lack of common ground with the being from mere moments ago left Otto on the verge of losing his grip on reality.
There stood Garfiel, having shed his human form to reveal the shape of a savage tiger.
The guttural, rank breath leaking from its throat mingled with growls, and Otto could feel the bone-chilling pressure radiating outward to the very edges of the forest.
"……"
He consciously shaped a smile onto his face, hoping to crack a joke and ease the tension.
But his throat was frozen solid, incapable of producing a sound, and even the cheeks that were supposed to be smiling had gone rigid, defying his will.
Then — belatedly — Otto realized why his body wasn't trembling.
It wasn't that he couldn't feel fear. It was that his body, faced with the absolute presence of "death," had preemptively abandoned the functions needed to survive.
Trembling in fear was the body's defense mechanism — the survival instinct stoked to keep the soul alive, a rallying cry from flesh to spirit, urging it not to give up.
When placed in a situation so hopeless that such a response would be pointless, the body not trembling was, in fact, the logical outcome.
He'd heard the stories. So he'd imagined it.
Garfiel was a half-breed of beastkin and human, and Otto had been told he possessed the ability to transform. But reality shattered his shallow imagination, manifesting something beyond mortal comprehension and devouring his mind whole.
And here he'd been, saying things like "Stalling is fine, but it wouldn't matter if we took him down, right?" in front of this being. Of course it mattered. How could it not?
And yet— "Garf has transformed. That means all the conditions have been met."
The petite girl standing beside him spoke in a voice entirely unchanged before that overwhelming presence.
Otto couldn't even form a question. Still, his neck turned toward her in a stiff, mechanical motion, and he managed to look at Ram.
Ram's lips curved ever so slightly — the first time she had shown Otto anything resembling a smile.
"Garf made his judgment clearly wrong. —This battle is ours, Ram's to win."
"……"
Seriously? Otto thought, forgetting all pretense of formality.
※※※ — The conditions Ram had laid out for Otto — the price of her cooperation — numbered roughly three.
"First: that Lord Roswaal maintains, in some form, the will to keep living in this world, even when events deviate from his expectations… from what the Gospel foretells."
This was made possible by Subaru's bet with Roswaal.
Once on the verge of throwing everything away, Roswaal had once again donned his war paint and resolved to challenge the world anew, his eyes blazing with vitality.
"Second, separate from that: that Lady
This condition was entirely entrusted to Emilia herself and to Subaru, who cared for her. But at the very least, Ram had accepted it as fulfilled since they had listened to the whole arrangement.
When Otto had heard that Emilia had disappeared, he had been certain everything was over. Ram, however, did not seem to share that view. He hadn't pressed for details, afraid that a deeper inquiry might change her mind.
"And— "If the first two are achieved, Ram is willing to lend her support. …The plan that requires secrecy from Barusu will need a few more specific conditions, but—"
"If you could share those, I might be able to see a thread of approach for myself."
"If Ram is going to join the fight against Garf, we need to widen the odds of winning even slightly first. Seal his sense of smell. Deal enough damage to strip away his composure. I won't intervene until a critical moment, so reach that point on your own. If you're going to come to me with a plan this elaborate, you must have at least one trump card?"
"Well, I suppose… to some extent."
"Yes, naturally. Bearing that in mind, here is the final condition."
"Yes."
"Force Garf into his beast form. —That is the final condition for victory."
※※※ "You shut down his sense of smell, correct?"
"…………"
"How pathetic."
"Guh!"
Otto flinched under Ram's merciless elbow strike to his side, unable to even string words together. Gasping through the sharp pain in his ribs, he finally remembered how to breathe.
"Ah—I thought—I thought I was going to die just from the pressure alone…!"
"You're still a better shield than nothing, even if you're thin and soft. Steady yourself. You did shut down his sense of smell?"
"I'll overlook the insulting remark, but yes, it's done. The pollen of the makoil flower is an incredibly potent animal repellent. Even a human would lose consciousness from a close-range whiff."
"Which means it's even more effective against Garf, whose sense of smell is several times sharper. That neutralizes one of the advantages of his transformation. The rest is time, and the damage dealt before the transformation… both are proceeding as expected."
Ram exhaled lightly, rose briefly onto her toes, then lowered her heels, repeating the simple foot exercise a few times.
Otto furrowed his brows at her odd behavior and tilted his head.
"Uh… Ram? What are you doing?"
"Warm-up exercises. Loosening up before we begin. Annoying as it is, Barusu's right — it's efficient."
"No, that's not what I meant… What exactly are you warming up for?"
"Simple."
With Otto still shaking visibly in his voice, Ram finished her vertical exercises and closed her eyes. Then she opened them, and took a step forward — with an easy, casual gait, as though she were heading out for a stroll — closing the distance to the giant beast before her.
"Wait—?!"
"Be quiet."
Otto gaped at her audacity. But Ram ignored his voice and, without slackening her pace, walked straight toward the tiger.
The beast — crouched low, glaring down at its prey — froze for an instant at this small figure's advance, as though caught off guard. Then it judged the action an insult.
Fury blazing in its golden eyes, it raised a forelimb thicker than Ram's torso and swung — a sweeping strike, claws extended. A single claw, each as long as the girl's slender arm, carried enough force to reduce her limbs to pulp with a mere graze.
The wind shrieked as the scythe-shaped claws of death reached to tear Ram's life from this world by brute force.
—Just before they connected, "You're slow, Garf. —Who do you think you're dealing with?"
Ram ducked beneath the massive limb, letting it pass over her head, and spoke to the tiger with something almost like pity.
Its full-force strike hitting nothing but air, the beast's body lurched, and Ram had already slipped inside its guard. Bending her knees, she then extended upward like a spring, driving her cocked fist up— "Has there ever been a single time you won against Ram in a brawl?"
"——!!"
The fist buried itself in the beast's torso, launching several hundred kilograms of animal straight upward from below.
The force of the blow buckled its body, and a pained groan escaped its slackened jaws. The shockwave split the forest, and Otto heard the crack of detonating air against his eardrums.
"Im… possible."
A girl who didn't reach even to its shoulder had just punched the towering beast hard enough that he had to look up at it. Without pausing, Ram kept one fist pressed against the tiger's torso and hammered the other hand into it as well.
Alternating blows rained down on the massive frame. The beast staggered back, screaming. It bared its fangs and swung its enormous jaws at Ram, but she flipped nimbly, planting a foot on the tiger's snout and driving its face into the ground with her leg strength.
Sparks of earth flew, the beast's roar cut short as it thrashed, flailing its limbs to crush the girl who toyed with it — but Ram's body moved like a leaf dancing in the wind, dodging the creature's movements with contemptuous ease and driving sharp strikes, one after another, into the sparse-furred spots on its body.
A heel to the throat. A spearhand to the ribs. A fist punched through the top of its foot, a kick smashed into its exposed face.
The spectacle of this girl toppling a colossal beast through sheer close-quarters combat power seized Otto's heart with the unreality of a picture-book illustration.
What was he looking at right now?
When he had seen Garfiel shed his human shape, Otto's body had tasted a despair so profound it nearly gave up on living. And yet, what was this before him?
With every swing of her fists, the beast's body bounced from the impact. The creature whose roar alone could kill — whose enormous frame could only flail uselessly without landing a single blow on the girl.
Its thrashing limbs mowed down trees at random, gouged the earth, and violently reshaped the forest — but Ram paid no mind to the ever-shifting terrain beneath her feet.
They could win. They could win like this.
Otto felt foolish for having doubted Ram's words before entering the fight.
Her declaration that she would deliberately provoke Garfiel into transforming now rang with absolute credibility.
The beastman's transformed presence was overwhelming, but that destructive power was the sort that shone brightest in one-versus-many scenarios. Naturally, the sheer mass difference was a weapon in itself, and ordinarily, even matched one-on-one, no opponent could hope to keep up.
But when the one facing it was a being whose combat power transcended the realm of humanity, the calculus changed entirely.
The thick, fleshy body became a massive target. The limbs that could topple great trees became vulnerabilities riddled with openings. The overwhelming strength that trampled everything in its path produced a clumsy heaviness that handicapped both offense and defense.
If one analyzed the situation calmly, this was apparent.
But it was only possible to arrive at this neat conclusion because the prerequisite — "an overwhelming individual" — existed on their side.
Against the transformed Garfiel, they had the most effective counter-card imaginable — the rarest asset imaginable — and having brought it into their own camp was Otto's greatest contribution to this battle.
"I can… I can do this! With this, Garfiel…!"
Clenching his fists, Otto cheered at the sight of a path to victory.
As if to confirm his hope, Ram's fist hammered sideways through the tiger's face, sending the massive body cartwheeling across the ground in a dramatic explosion of dirt and dust.
And then— "—Guu."
A groan she couldn't hold back escaped her lips, and Ram's body swayed as blood streamed from her forehead.
※※※ Feeling her vision paint itself red with blood, Ram fought to keep her body from collapsing with a desperate effort in her footing.
A sharp pain lanced through her — the area just above her forehead, the center of her head. A faint white scar lingered there, and the agony radiating from it made Ram click her tongue in irritation.
Behind her, Otto's voice cracked into a scream. Annoying.
That the situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse — Ram herself understood that better than anyone. Garfiel's attack hadn't even landed. That wild, reckless swing, wide open as it was — it would have been harder to hit than to miss. The screaming was getting on her nerves. She wanted to smack him.
"—Hah."
She exhaled sharply and kicked off the ground with her faltering legs.
An instant later, the tiger's claw tore through the spot where her feet had been. Chunks of earth erupted upward, and Ram danced through the shower of mud and debris, scattering droplets of blood as she evaded.
She was working under an imposed time limit, but her body was still barely functional. She kicked upward at the tiger's exposed jaw from below, then followed up with the other foot on its pained face. The momentum of the kick spun her backward, and her body's posture broke the instant she landed.
"——"
"——!!"
A hair's breadth. The claw grazed Ram's hair, shearing off a lock. Pink strands scattered through the air.
That dodge had been pure chance. If her foot hadn't slipped, her head would have burst like a ripe fruit — there was no doubt.
Tasting death's proximity, feeling an indescribable chill race up her spine, Ram bared her red lips in a small snarl.
The exhilaration of battle. The scar on her forehead throbbed, sending a sensation caught between itching and pain through her entire body.
The broken horn. The mark of an Oni. To unleash the full potential of Ram's body, that organ was essential — it drew mana from the surrounding area in limitless quantities. Having lost her horn, Ram's flesh could barely perform a tenth of its true capacity.
She had known full well that pushing her body this hard would invite immediate backlash.
And yet she had believed that, given the right conditions and kept to a short-range brawl, she wouldn't lose.
"You've gotten stronger, Garf."
Ram murmured, and in her voice was a raw, unguarded emotion she seldom let others see.
It was the same kind of feeling she had once shown toward family members now erased from her memory — something neither Otto nor even Subaru glimpsed more than rarely.
A gentle smile lingered on her face as her fist crashed mercilessly into the tiger's snout.
The sensation of solid hide rebounding against her fist. Without the hardening effect, the impact slammed directly back, and she felt the bones in her hand shatter. A pleasant sensation. She was fighting. She was alive. The thrill of nearly killing or being killed. An overwhelming bliss flooded her body. More. She wanted more. There was more ahead. There were further dimensions to reach.
Her right hand had crumbled, unable to even form a fist. The tiger, its snout crushed, roared. A blast of wind from its breath struck her face-on, and she split the gale with a left knife-hand, ripping into the thin skin of its neck. Blood sprayed, and she tore the grasped flesh away, sending a fountain of crimson into the air. Splatters rained across her pale cheeks, and she licked them away — the sweet, metallic taste bringing an intoxicating rush.
With her right hand destroyed, she wrapped her arm around the beast's neck. The neck was far thicker than her entire torso — far too much for a single arm to encircle. She leaped, clung, used her legs to squeeze the beast's artery, dodged the claws reaching to tear her off, and with her full weight bent one of its fingers backward. The scream was gratifying — it felt like coming home.
"Buh, hah, I'm—" she panted.
Even as she continued this exhilarating dance, her head was growing maddeningly foggy. The bleeding from her forehead showed no sign of stopping, and eventually blood began to pour from her nose and mouth as well.
Her body was breaking down from the exertion beyond its limits. Without the mana reinforcement that a horn could provide, Ram's nerves could not keep pace with the demands she was placing on her body.
Her body, still moving at ferocious speed, continued to dodge Garfiel's claws. Not a single blow grazed her — an overwhelming display of combat power. But the hand of deterioration was steadily reaching for its end. Her body would fail before the claws and fangs ever reached her.
"…Ugh."
She inhaled deeply, exhaled deeply — and then everything surged up from her mouth in a torrent.
Clots of blood struck the ground with a wet sound. The moment they were expelled, all the strength left her body, as though the blood had been her vitality itself.
Her shoulders dropped. Her knees buckled. The beast seized that instant — this time it would not let the opening pass. Its battered, ragged form bared its fangs and brought its arm crashing down upon Ram's slender body.
But then— "Waaaaah! Doona!!"
A chant, voice cracking upward, erupted as a wall of earth surged from the ground like a spear.
It interposed itself between the beast's descending arm and Ram's body, absorbing the impact for just a fraction of an instant before being obliterated into fine powder.
In that fleeting moment, however, Ram's body was wrenched by the violent motion, and then flung hard backward.
—On a battlefield, being hurled through the air by someone else like this felt like it had happened before.
Ram drifted through the air, staring dazedly at the sky — an oddly detached thought in such a moment. Then her back struck the ground, driving the air from her lungs, and she reflexively raised her head to assess the situation.
Standing where Ram had been, having thrown himself between them, was Otto — the very same Otto who should have been cowering and trembling. He had apparently leaped in when he noticed Ram's condition deteriorating, judging the situation dire.
Not that he could do anything about it, of course— "——!!"
The beast, enraged that this insignificant creature had inserted itself between it and Ram, unleashed a roar that shook the forest, threatening the trembling young man. If he froze, he would become fodder for its fangs — that much was certain. The moment demanded immediate action. Whatever Otto was thinking, he formed a fist, planted his feet, and— "——!!"
—released a roar identical to the beast's own from his slender throat.
The power of the "Blessing of Words" — the ability he had heard about beforehand. He had boasted that it allowed dialogue not only with earth dragons and small animals, but even with insects, so long as the creature possessed intelligence. And against Garfiel, who had lost his reason and become a mindless beast, it had somehow made communication possible.
What the beast's roar had meant to Otto, he couldn't say.
What Otto's roaring reply had stirred in Garfiel, he couldn't say.
But the clash of roars had created a brief pause before claws and fangs were deployed.
That interval was long enough for Ram to realize Otto's true intention in throwing her.
"——!!"
"—Ugh! Ahh! My voice is done…!"
Literally spitting blood, Otto clutched his throat and coughed.
The confrontation ended with that, and the beast raised its arm to sweep Otto away. Facing it, Otto held both hands before him and shouted with a reckless, nothing-left-to-lose expression: "Eldona!!"
A thick wall of earth deployed in front of Otto, and before he could see whether it held, he was hurled backward. The beast's arm smashed through the wall, sending up a cloud of dust, and reached for Otto's retreating body — direct impact. The thin man flew backward like a dry twig kicked by an adult, crashing nonstop through dense brush.
Whether he survived or died was entirely up to Otto's durability.
Ram did not spare any thought for the outcome of his decision and action. She judged that not dwelling on it was the best way to honor what Otto had done.
"Garf. —I was right. Transforming was your mistake."
She addressed the beast, which had swatted Otto aside and now turned toward her, readying itself for the killing blow.
Leaning against a tree, freed from the blood-drunk euphoria, Ram was gradually regaining her composure. She gripped her staff in her still-functional left hand and pointed its tip at Garfiel.
Mana — mutated.
"If any scrap of judgment remained in you, Garf, you would have dodged what comes next. You wouldn't have let the Ram of just now pass you by."
"……"
At Ram's words, the beast wrinkled its snout warily.
But the tiger could do nothing further. It didn't know what was coming.
In the eyes of a beast that had lost its reason, the meaning of Ram's figure — "standing within a column of white light" — was incomprehensible.
The beast, having rampaged through earth and trees and forest in the process of transforming and attacking Ram, was treated by the forest's residents as a brute who never learned —.
"Ram won't make the kind of blunder that man did."
"——!"
Sensing something, the beast lowered its posture and charged at Ram.
Too slow.
"—Alfihr."
The mana, concentrated from the forest residents' collective fury, settled upon the tip of Ram's staff, and light erupted.
—And with that, the battle for the Sanctuary's forest came to an end.
※※※ Subaru thought he heard a beast's roar and stopped in his tracks, turning back.
"No… surely not."
His simple assessment: whatever the case, this was far too early.
It had only been about twenty minutes since he'd parted ways with Otto, entrusting him with the stalling job. It was questionable whether Otto's dragon carriage had even departed yet — there was no way the situation could have progressed that far.
He concluded it was an auditory hallucination born of anxiety — but that conclusion was itself more frightening, because it revealed just how deeply, unconsciously, he was fretting over this situation.
"Trust him, trust him. Otto said he'd play it strictly for time. If Garfiel catches him, I told him to reveal the plan immediately… And the people of
The chain of events that would lead Garfiel to attack the villagers — and by extension, Subaru trying to escape — was, by Subaru's guess, the conversation about Ryuzu's clone. Garfiel didn't want word of the clone getting out.
Whether Subaru could convince Garfiel of that was a gamble, but there was a mysterious trust that sincerity might get through. Garfiel didn't seem like the type who enjoyed overthinking things — perhaps the idea was to give him decision-making material simple enough that he didn't have to think too hard.
"According to Otto, he'd secured Ram's cooperation. In the worst case, unless things were truly desperate, Garfiel wouldn't raise a hand against Ram…"
If there was a lingering concern, it was the possibility of Ram deliberately provoking Garfiel beyond what was necessary. The two of them went way back and shared certain past feelings that Subaru's own perspective had never fully reached. If that became a flashpoint, unexpected developments could follow.
But Ram had agreed to this plan in order to forge a path for Roswaal — to live on in a world that deviated from the Gospel's predictions. At least, that was how Subaru interpreted it. And to achieve that, cooperation with Subaru and the others was indispensable.
Even if she had reservations about Otto being the one in charge, she would surely follow through.
"I'm counting on you, big sister. No matter how unreliable Otto might be, at least listen to what he has to say."
He pressed his palms together and offered every ounce of prayer he could for their safety.
He didn't realize that, in places unknown to him, the two of them had made decisions bold enough to hurl themselves across the edge of death. Having finished his prayer, he— "All right. Time for us to play our part."
He puffed out his cheeks to psych himself up, shook his head, and stepped forward with purpose.
The instant he crossed through the gaping entrance, a sensation of weightlessness — as though falling through the sky — and a nauseating feeling of his organs floating upward washed over Subaru's entire body.
"Ugh…"
He clamped a hand over his mouth, forced down the rising nausea, and pressed onward.
The weightlessness wouldn't leave. Each step ground his insides in stages, turning them upside down. His blood seemed to flow in reverse, his eyeballs felt licked raw by the air — an overwhelming wave of discomfort.
Enduring the sensation that the world itself was rejecting
"Don't be so cold… It hurts, you know. Even I have feelings…"
He had emptied his stomach in advance, anticipating this. Even so, the churning nausea demanded he retch, forcing stomach acid to the corners of his mouth.
He crushed the impulse, forced his eyes open, and fought his way through the darkness with desperate, crawling steps.
And then— "Ah, thank goodness. —I finally found you."
After what felt like an eternity, having traversed a distance that was surely only short, Subaru let his shoulders sag with relief.
Before him, a girl sat huddled against the aged wall of the corridor, knees drawn to her chest, her body and clothes smeared with mud and dust. She looked up at him with a vacant, dazed expression.
"Suba…ru…?"
He found satisfaction in the fact that, haltingly though it was, she had called his name.
Then Subaru sat down beside the girl who was sitting on the ground — and— "Then— shall we talk, Emilia-tan?"
With the same opening he had once faced from the other side — when he himself had been unable to admit his own mistakes — Subaru took the initiative this time around.