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Subaru Natsuki understood that the mansion could be full of people and yet feel lonelier than any empty street.
He understood it when the main door closed after Link. He understood it upon seeing his friend's figure walking away down the path with a straight back, a bag of coins hidden under his jacket, and a coldness so well placed on top that, from afar, he almost looked like a whole person. Subaru didn't follow him. He didn't call him. He didn't run after him to tell him not to be an idiot, not to leave him there, that the mansion still had too many rooms, too many secrets, and too many people capable of killing them with clean hands. He did none of that because Link had already said his ugly truth, the one that sounded cruel only because it had no adornments: he needed to leave before breaking while looking at Rem serving soup as if in another line she hadn't held a chain while Subaru screamed.
Subaru stayed in the vestibule until Link's silhouette disappeared beyond the path.
Only then did he feel the real weight of staying.
Emilia was still nearby, worried, with Puck on her shoulder and her hands gathered against her chest as if she didn't know whether to approach or give space. Ram remained with that impeccable posture of hers, upright enough to seem indifferent even though Subaru no longer trusted any indifference inside that house. Rem held the empty tray of provisions she had given to Link and looked toward the closed door with a calm that would have been perfect if Subaru hadn't remembered another version of her, another night, another voice asking him about the Witch's Cult while the blood flowed through his body again just so the pain could continue.
—Subaru —said Emilia softly.
He almost stepped back.
It wasn't her fault. That was the worst. Emilia hadn't done anything. Emilia had healed his wounds, had smiled when he didn't deserve it, had kept worrying even after he told her not to have anything to do with him. But that phrase, that cruel request he had thrown at her to push her away, hadn't been born only from fear of hurting her with words. It had been born from something worse. Something he still felt like black fingers around his heart.
Hours earlier, when he had woken up and Emilia had sat beside his bed, Subaru had almost said it. Not a joke. Not an evasion. Not one of those ridiculous phrases with which he tried to turn horror into spectacle. He had opened his mouth to entrust her with the truth: that he had died, that he had returned, that he was trapped in a repetition where everyone forgot except him, that Rem had killed him, that Ram had used wind, that Link also remembered and also fell with him even though neither understood why. The idea had come with a hope so desperate it almost seemed relief. Emilia was his light. If anyone could listen without mocking, without condemning, without turning him into an enemy, it had to be her.
Then the world stopped.
It wasn't a metaphor. The sound disappeared first, torn from the room with terrifying cleanliness. He didn't hear his own breathing or Emilia's. He didn't hear the bed fabric or Puck's brushing against the silver hair. Then the movement stretched, time tightened like a rope that wouldn't break, and before his eyes appeared a black shadow, an impossible mass that took the form of a hand and crossed the space until sinking into his chest. Subaru couldn't move. He couldn't scream. He couldn't beg. The black fingers searched inside him as if his heart were something foreign that someone had the right to squeeze, and when they did, the pain didn't resemble any wound he had suffered. It wasn't open flesh or broken bone. It was his entire existence being squeezed from the center.
When the world moved again, Emilia was still there, without having noticed anything, looking at him with the same concern as before.
And Subaru understood.
He couldn't say it.
He couldn't share it.
He couldn't be saved that way.
So he had done the only thing his fear could find: he pushed her away. He told her not to have anything to do with him. He hurt her because it was easier to bear her wounded face than to feel that black hand searching for his heart again.
Now, standing in the vestibule after Link's departure, Emilia pronounced his name again, and Subaru felt the entire room trying to push him toward her. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to fall to his knees and explain that it wasn't rejection, that it was terror, that every good word from her opened a deeper crack. He wanted to tell her that Link had left because both of them were broken and that he, Subaru, had stayed not because he was strong, but because he didn't know how to flee without condemning everyone else.
He said none of that.
—I'm tired —he replied.
It was a poor lie, but not completely false.
Emilia lowered her gaze for an instant.
—Then rest. But please, eat something later. And if you need to talk… even if it's little, even if it's not about what hurts you, you can call me.
Subaru felt a bitter laugh rising in his throat. If he called her, what would he tell her? That his deaths kept lining up behind his eyelids every time he closed his eyes? That Rem's face made him tremble? That he had seen Link turn into a monster, regenerate horns, fall dead without a visible wound and walk again as if dignity could sew the body better than any magic? That he didn't know if the smell everyone noticed on him was guilt, curse, or an invisible mark placed by a fate that amused itself by tearing everything from him?
—Yes —said Subaru—. I'll call you if I need something.
Emilia knew he was lying.
Puck did too.
But neither forced him.
Ram accompanied him back to the guest room with a courtesy that was harder to bear than mockery. Rem walked behind, a few steps apart, carrying a pitcher of water and clean cloths. Subaru noticed her presence without looking at her. It was like knowing there's a knife on the table even if it's wrapped in cloth. Every time Rem breathed, the memory of the chain sounded somewhere in his head. Every time her skirt brushed the floor, Subaru remembered leaves, mud, blows, and healing. Every time she said "Subaru-sama," the "sama" seemed like an involuntary cruelty, an impeccable way of reminding him that this Rem knew nothing and that precisely because of that he couldn't demand anything from her.
When they reached the room, Ram made the instructions clear: he should rest, not leave the room without notifying, and allow his condition to be checked if it worsened. Subaru nodded to everything like a puppet with loose strings. Rem placed the water on the table, bowed, and asked if he needed anything else.
Subaru looked at the water.
Not at her.
—No.
—Understood.
The door closed.
The room fell silent.
Subaru sat on the bed and looked at the place where Link had slept on the sofa during other awakenings. This time it was empty. That absence provoked a dull, unfair, and miserable anger in him. Link had the right to leave. Subaru knew it. He had the right not to be able to look at Rem. He had the right to collect money, raise his head, and leave before the mansion tore something from him that not even his cells could regenerate. Knowing it didn't stop Subaru from wanting to hate him a little for leaving him there. He didn't hate him. He couldn't. But the gap remained, occupying the sofa like a third invisible body.
—Fine —murmured Subaru, with a voice he barely recognized as his own—. Then I survive alone for a while.
It didn't sound convincing.
Not even to him.
Beatrice's first visit came when the sun had already changed angle and the food on the tray had completely cooled.
Subaru hadn't touched anything. Ram and Rem had brought a light meal, prepared for someone who had just woken up altered, and left it with the same neatness with which they would have placed flowers on a grave. Subaru had looked at it for long minutes, smelling the broth, the bread, the soft herbs. There was nothing strange at first glance. He couldn't smell poison. He didn't know if that world used poisons, curses, magic, or some mixture of the three. Rem might have prepared it with sincere care. Rem might have prepared it with the intention of killing him. Both possibilities fit in the same tray, and that made him unable to lift the spoon.
When the door opened without fully obeying the normal rules of a door, Subaru wasn't even surprised.
—How long are you going to keep looking at soup as if it were going to confess a secret to you, I wonder.
Beatrice stood at the threshold with her book hugged to her chest and a very worked expression of disgust. Subaru looked at her from the bed, too exhausted to pretend energy.
—Give it time. In this mansion everything ends up confessing something horrible.
Beatrice narrowed her eyes.
—What a miserable face. Puckie and that girl insisted that Betty come to check if I had done something to you when you woke up. What a rude accusation, considering that if Betty wanted to do something to you, there would be no doubts.
—I feel reassured by the clarity of your threats.
—It wasn't to reassure you.
Beatrice entered without asking permission. Subaru observed her small steps on the carpet, the way she seemed to own the room even though she officially didn't. In other loops, she had been an annoying presence, a venomous girl with enough power to make the body feel like an empty rag. Now she was something else. Not a friend. Not an ally. But yes, a person who, at some point, had tried to understand a little of the rot that surrounded him. And in the previous line, although she didn't remember it, she had seen Link die.
Subaru wondered if, in some impossible part of her, there remained a discomfort without a name.
—What do you want? —he asked.
Beatrice frowned.
—I came because they asked me. Besides, you were acting in such a pathetic way that even the mansion seemed less dignified for having you inside.
—How considerate.
—Don't confuse insult with consideration.
She approached enough to examine him. Subaru tensed when she raised a hand, but Beatrice didn't touch him at first. She sniffed the air so lightly that anyone would have thought she was just breathing. Then her expression became harder.
—It's thick.
Subaru remained still.
—What thing?
—The essence that surrounds you. It's not just your silly face that's ruined, I suppose. That thing you carry on you is unpleasant.
Subaru felt his pulse quicken.
Rem had said something similar. Link had noticed it without knowing how to name it. Beatrice said it now like someone identifying a stain on a clear page.
—A smell?
—The Witch's essence. If your nose doesn't notice it, perhaps your entire body is more broken than it seems.
Subaru opened his lips.
The word Witch entered the room as if someone had dropped a black stone into a bowl of water. Subaru remembered the children's book, the vague stories, the name of the Witch of Envy as something everyone avoided touching with their tongue. He remembered Rem asking him if he belonged to the Witch's Cult, the eyes full of hatred, the voice trembling with a rage that hadn't been born that night, but much earlier. He remembered that Link didn't know what that smell was. He remembered that he didn't either.
—I don't… I have nothing to do with that.
—That doesn't matter to the smell.
—What a useless answer.
—The world is full of useless answers. This one at least is precise.
Beatrice turned toward the door, as if she had already finished her task. Subaru felt that something was slipping away from him. If he let her go, he would be alone again with the cold tray, with the empty sofa, and with a mansion full of people who could look at him as an enemy for a reason he didn't control. He sat up abruptly.
—Wait.
Beatrice stopped without turning.
—What?
Subaru swallowed. His pride was too tired to protest. His fear, on the other hand, was still alive. He had learned to speak clearly when the alternative was to die.
—You feel bad about what you did to me that time in the library, right?
Beatrice turned with a pure expression of offense.
—What an absurd accusation.
—I'll tell Puck.
The blow was dirty, childish, and effective.
Beatrice opened her eyes a little wider. Then she wrinkled her nose, as if Subaru had put something unpleasant on the carpet.
—What a vile human.
—I'm negotiating with limited resources.
—You're blackmailing a lady.
—I'm asking for help from a lady who pretends too well that she doesn't care.
Beatrice's gaze sharpened. For a second, Subaru thought he had gone too far. Then she clicked her tongue.
—What do you want?
Subaru felt that the question was a plank under his feet in the middle of black water. It wasn't salvation. Not yet. But it was something.
—Protect me.
Beatrice looked at him in silence.
—Until the dawn of the fifth day —Subaru added—. Only until then. You don't have to explain anything to me, you don't have to believe me, you don't have to want to do it. Just… keep the others away from me. If something tries to attack me, stop it. If someone tries to enter, prevent it. I don't want to cause problems in the mansion. I just want to reach the dawn alive.
Beatrice didn't respond immediately.
Her gaze passed over Subaru, over the untouched tray, over the hands he kept clenched on the blanket, over the way his throat moved when swallowing fear. She could mock him, yes. She could call him a coward, a pathetic human, an idiot full of disgusting essence. But Subaru felt that Beatrice understood one thing: he wasn't asking for protection out of comfort. He was asking for a wall because he no longer trusted his own ability to stay whole.
—A rather vague request —she said at last—. And rather shameless.
—I don't have better arguments.
—That is evident.
—Will you do it?
Beatrice sighed as if she had just accepted carrying a very smelly rock.
—Extend your hand.
Subaru obeyed before she could change her mind. Beatrice took his fingers with her small hand. The contact was warm, firm, strangely serious. The image didn't fit with her venomous tongue. For a moment, Subaru remembered another warmth, one that had reached him in dreams, two hands holding his while he sank into nightmares. The sensation was different and similar at the same time, and that made his chest hurt.
—By the name of Beatrice, the pact is formed —she said.
There was no explosion. There was no circle of light. There was no fanfare. Only a tenuous certainty, as if a thin line had been drawn around Subaru.
His throat closed.
—Thank you.
—Don't cry.
—I'm not crying.
—You're going to.
—I'm emotionally hydrated.
—What a disgusting phrase.
Subaru let out a brief laugh. It was small, broken, but it was the first one that didn't come out completely dead since the awakening. Beatrice released his hand immediately, perhaps because human gratitude was an unpleasant thing that could stick to the fingers.
From that moment, the days stopped having a normal shape.
Subaru didn't work. He didn't walk through the gardens. He didn't learn to cut vegetables, nor to clean floors, nor to fold sheets, nor to endure Ram's insults as part of a strangely warm routine. He didn't go to the village. He didn't play with the children. He didn't meet the puppy. He didn't get a bite on the hand. He didn't share tasks with Link, because Link was somewhere outside the mansion with a bag of coins, too many questions, and a wound that wasn't visible on the skin. Subaru remained in his room as if the room were a raft in the middle of a sea full of hands.
Ram and Rem continued doing their work.
That destroyed him more than he wanted to admit.
The trays arrived on time. The water was changed. The room was ventilated when he accepted that they open the window. The sheets were checked. The cloths were replaced. Rem spoke with impeccable courtesy, asked about his condition, left the food, and withdrew when Subaru responded with nothing more than monosyllables. Ram was less gentle, of course. Ram could enter, look at the untouched tray, and say that even a dying guest should have more practical sense than a decorative plant. Subaru would have responded in another life. He would have raised a finger, would have defended his dignity with some nonsense, would have provoked Ram to call him Barusu with that disdain that had become almost a home.
He couldn't.
Every time Ram said something, Subaru heard behind it a lament that hadn't occurred in that loop yet. Every time Rem left the food, Subaru saw her hands closing around a chain. The mind knew that they didn't remember. The body didn't accept that nuance.
He didn't eat.
Not at first.
The first day's tray returned almost intact. The second day's too. Subaru drank water because the body didn't accept dying of thirst so quickly, but his stomach closed at any soup, bread, or fruit. Beatrice called him an idiot in many different ways. Some were creative. Others, not so much. Subaru gave her little new material because he barely spoke. The archive girl appeared from time to time through doors that shouldn't lead to her library, checked the state of the pact, complained about his lack of survival instinct, and disappeared again with the same brusqueness. Her presence was irritating. It was also one of the few things that prevented Subaru from feeling that the room was shrinking around him.
Emilia visited him.
The first time, Subaru wanted to pretend he was sleeping, but she called him with such softness that pretending became cowardice even for his new standards. She entered with a tray she hadn't prepared herself, but carried as if the simple act of carrying it could transmit part of her concern. She sat beside the bed, looked at the untouched food from the previous day, and frowned.
—Subaru, this is not okay.
—There are many things that are not okay. At least this one has pretty tableware.
—Don't joke to dodge.
—It's my main technique. If I lose it, I only have my face left.
—Then eat.
Subaru looked at the soup with distrust.
—My stomach doesn't want to cooperate.
—Your stomach can't make all the decisions.
—It's an organ with strong convictions.
Emilia took the spoon.
Subaru looked at her without understanding.
—Emilia-tan, what are you doing?
—You said your stomach doesn't cooperate. Then I'll help.
—That doesn't answer in a way that reduces my alarm.
—Say ah.
Subaru froze.
In another moment, he would have asked for that as a joke, as an idiot teenager's fantasy, as an absurdly dreamed romantic scene. But Emilia doing it seriously, without convenient blushing, without exaggeration, without fully understanding the emotional weight Subaru would have put on that gesture, left him defenseless. She held the spoon with an almost cruel naturalness, not because she wanted to make him suffer, but because for her feeding someone sick was a basic form of care. Subaru opened his mouth because he didn't have the strength to refuse.
The soup entered warm.
It didn't taste like poison.
It tasted like something intended not to harm an empty stomach. Soft. Measured. Probably prepared by Rem with Ram's instruction not to overload it. Emilia said so afterward, as if it were proof of evident kindness.
—Ram said they had to be careful because you've gone a long time without eating well. Rem prepared something soft.
The next spoonful almost didn't enter.
Subaru swallowed because Emilia was looking at him and because, if he refused, her concern would become deeper. But every spoonful was a betrayal of his fears. Every soft flavor said that maybe Rem didn't want to poison him. Every gesture from Emilia said that the mansion still had good things. Every good thing hurt because Subaru couldn't distinguish if it was real, if it was a useful lie, or if it was just a memory condemned to disappear at the next failure.
When he finished, Emilia smiled.
—Good. What do you say after eating?
Subaru lowered his gaze.
—Thank you for the food.
—That's better.
Emilia's smile made him want to cry.
He didn't do it in front of her. He had already lost too many dignities.
Before leaving, Subaru asked her to lock his door at night and not to let anyone in. Emilia was first surprised. Puck, from her shoulder, understood better the emotional tone behind the phrase and joked in his way about suspicious dark-haired men. Subaru responded with something by reflex, but couldn't sustain the joke for long. In the end, Puck promised to take care of Emilia with that lightness that only someone who was monstrously powerful and adorable at the same time could have. Emilia complained about being treated as if she weren't present. Subaru almost smiled. Almost.
When he was left alone, sleep attacked him like a patient enemy.
He had tried to resist it. He had scratched his hands, bitten his lip, repeated to himself that sleeping was lowering his guard. But the body had limits, and his had been forced to die too many times. The warm food, the closed room, Beatrice's pact, and the absence of Link speaking from the sofa left Subaru without a strong enough excuse to stay awake. He sank into the bed with fear, aware that dreams were not rest for someone who remembered his own death.
He dreamed of intestines on wood.
He dreamed of ice.
He dreamed of a chain hitting flesh.
He dreamed of Rem asking him about a cult he didn't know.
He dreamed of Ram crying even though he still didn't know why.
He dreamed of Link falling to the floor without a visible wound, with his hand extended toward him.
Then, in the middle of everything, he felt warmth in his hands.
It wasn't fire. It wasn't the black pressure of punishment. It wasn't magic tearing something from him. It was a soft, real or almost real contact, enveloping his fingers. Someone was holding his hands. He couldn't open his eyes inside the dream. He couldn't ask. But the sensation remained there, a double warmth, one on each side, as if two presences had decided that, even if he didn't eat, didn't speak, and didn't look at them, they didn't want to let him fall completely into the nightmare.
Subaru slept a little better.
Upon waking, he didn't know if it had been real.
Beatrice kicked him out of bed on the fourth day.
Not with enough force to break anything, but with all the bad manners that fit in a small body.
—How long are you going to keep sleeping, I wonder.
Subaru fell to the floor with an undignified noise, hit his shoulder, and took several seconds to remember where he was. When he raised his gaze, Beatrice was standing with one leg still raised, as if her entrance needed to preserve the evidence of the crime.
—You know? There are less violent alarm clocks.
—Alarm clocks don't have to endure your face.
—That was unnecessary.
—It was precise.
Subaru stood up with difficulty. His hand hurt from having scratched himself in dreams, but it was bandaged. He didn't remember who had done it. He didn't want to think about that. The room wasn't exactly his. Or maybe it was, but connected by the Door Crossing to Beatrice's domain. At this point, the mansion's doors had stopped being architecture and had become opinions.
—What time is it?
—The agreed time is approaching. The night of the fourth day will end soon. If you were waiting to die with dignity, you're late.
Subaru felt his heart skip a beat.
The fourth day.
The night of the fourth day.
The border he had never managed to cross.
His skin prickled. Beatrice moved around the room with annoyance, checking something Subaru couldn't see. The pact was still there, invisible but firm, like a thread around his body. During those days, Subaru had gone from absolute desperation to a kind of empty waiting. Not hope. Not yet. Just the idea that maybe, if he stayed locked up, if he didn't provoke anyone, if he let Beatrice carry the danger for him, he could reach the dawn. It was a cowardly way to survive. He knew it. But after Rem, after the chain, after the cut in the throat, cowardice seemed almost a legitimate tool.
Then Beatrice stopped.
Her expression changed.
Not much. Enough.
—Puckie is calling.
Subaru went rigid.
—What?
—Something happened. Don't make that face. I don't know what.
—Then don't go.
—Don't give me orders.
—We have a pact!
—And the pact doesn't say I have to explain every movement to you. You can stay locked up here if you want, I suppose. It would be quite in line with your behavior these days.
Beatrice opened a door.
Subaru felt his stomach drop to the floor.
He could stay. That was the safe option. Wait behind an impossible door, under Beatrice's protection, until the morning was completely confirmed. He could not look. He could not know. He could be the kind of person who lives because he doesn't look out the window when someone screams outside.
But something in him, a small and mistreated part that hadn't died completely, refused.
—To hell with this.
He opened the door and went out after her.
The morning light hit his face.
Subaru remained still in the hallway.
For a second, everything else disappeared. The air was fresh. The garden on the other side of the window was starting to light up. The sun was there, real, golden, impossible. It wasn't night. There was no chain. There was no blow. There was no mortal sleep. The fourth night had ended. Subaru had reached the fifth day.
He leaned against the wall.
Then he let himself slide until he was sitting on the floor.
A dry laugh started in his chest. He couldn't stop it. It wasn't complete joy, because Subaru no longer remembered how something like that felt without poison around it. It was disbelief, exhaustion, relief, and madness mixed together. He had survived. He, the coward locked up, the idiot who couldn't say the truth, the boy who had pushed Emilia away, the guest who didn't eat and didn't look at the maids, had survived the night that had killed him again and again.
—I did it… —he murmured, and the phrase seemed so absurd that he laughed again—. I passed the night. I reached the fifth day.
For an instant, a different door opened in his mind. If he had survived, then perhaps Emilia had too. If Emilia was alive, there could still be something. Not a victory, not yet, but yes, a possibility. He could apologize. He could rebuild a minimal part. He could ask her if she still wanted to go to the village. He could look for Link, tell him that at least one of them had crossed the border, tell him that he hadn't died, that maybe the separation had served for something, that maybe not everything was a closed trap.
—Subaru.
Emilia's voice cut through his laughter.
He raised his gaze.
She was at the end of the hallway. Her silver hair fell over her shoulders, but there was no calm in her face. It wasn't the Emilia who came to feed him soup. It wasn't the Emilia who pretended indignation when Puck made jokes. It was the Emilia from the Loot House, the one who had run toward danger, the one who understood that something serious was happening before having all the pieces.
—Emilia… —said Subaru, still half-trapped in relief—. I… I did it. I reached today. I…
She approached quickly and took his hand.
Not with tenderness.
With urgency.
—Come with me.
—What happened?
Emilia didn't respond immediately.
That was enough for the relief to rot.
Subaru stood up as best he could. His legs felt weak from the days of confinement and lack of food, but Emilia pulled him with a firmness that admitted no negotiation. They ran down the hallway. Or maybe they walked fast; Subaru wasn't sure. His body was still slow, his mind slower still. Beatrice went ahead or behind, it didn't matter. Puck was on Emilia's shoulder, completely silent. That silence was what scared him the most.
Then he heard the scream.
It wasn't a scream of attack. It wasn't an alarm. It wasn't someone calling for help.
It was a lament.
Subaru felt it in his bones before understanding it. A high, broken voice, dragged down the hallway as if someone were trying to tear their heart out with their hands. Every note was full of a loss so absolute that Subaru's body knew, before his mind, that the fifth day was not a victory. He had crossed the night, yes. But the world hadn't promised that death would stay still.
They reached the servants' wing.
Roswaal was there, serious in a way Subaru hadn't seen before. Beatrice remained near the wall, with her book pressed against her chest and an expression difficult to read. Puck said nothing. Emilia released Subaru's hand in front of an open door.
—Inside —said Roswaal.
Subaru didn't want to enter.
He entered.
The room was clean, ordered, too simple. A bed, few pieces of furniture, everything placed with the precision of someone who didn't waste space or gestures. In another life, Subaru would have thought that the room reflected Rem: functional, silent, impeccable. Now he couldn't think that without feeling that something inside him folded.
Ram was beside the bed.
Crying.
Not like a person who wants to be seen. Not like someone seeking comfort. She cried as if her body had lost the ability to contain the sound of a half torn away. Her pink hair was disheveled, her shoulders trembled, her hands clutched the sheet and the motionless figure that lay on the bed.
Rem.
Subaru stopped breathing.
The blue-haired girl was lying with an impossible calm, dressed in resting clothes, her skin pale, her eyes closed. There was no chain. There was no Morning Star. There was no blood covering her hands. There was no expression of hatred. There were no questions about cults or witches. Just Rem, still, fragile in a way Subaru had never been able to associate with her, as if all the duty, all the strength, and all the precision had withdrawn from her body during the night without leaving noise.
—No… —murmured Subaru.
No one heard him, or no one wanted to respond.
He took a step toward the bed.
Ram raised her head.
The look she gave him stopped Subaru like a wall.
—Don't touch her.
Ram's voice was shattered, but not weak. There was hatred inside. Pain. Suspicion. Everything mixed in a single line that Subaru had no right to cross.
He lowered the hand he didn't even remember having raised.
Roswaal spoke from behind, with a strange gravity under his elongated tone.
—Apparently, the cause was weakening. Her vigor was stolen while she slept, the beats faded little by little. It seems more like a curse than ordinary magic.
Curse.
The word hit Subaru with more force than any chain.
Curse.
The first death in the mansion. The second. The tiredness, the blood cooling, the feeling of being emptied from within. The puppy's bite. The village. The children. The broken hypothesis. Subaru had survived because he hid behind Beatrice. He had escaped the death of the fourth day. And then death, as if it simply needed another body to settle on, had found Rem.
—No… —he repeated, but this time the word carried another form of horror—. It can't be.
Ram pressed Rem's body against herself.
Subaru saw her tears fall on her sister's blue hair.
And suddenly he remembered the warmth in his hands during the dream.
Two hands.
Two presences.
Ram and Rem.
They had been there. Before everything. Before he avoided them. Before the hatred of another line convinced him not to touch the food. Before he reduced the two to threat and shadow. They had seen him suffer asleep and, without knowing anything about his deaths or his loops or his terror, had held his hands to calm him.
The fourth loop hadn't given him a victory.
It had given him a worse answer.
Subaru had reached the fifth day.
Rem had not.