Best Girl

I'm obsessed with drawing her with the kitty face UWWBHWWHWVWGW (≧∇≦)b(≧∇≦)b

Chainsaw Man Volume 18 Cover

when I was 14 I worked in a grocery store and one day I got to bag Stephen King’s groceries and of course, being the little horror fiction nerd I am I was completely starstruck

I think he thought I was gonna ask for an autograph because I was not even lowkey staring I was full on moon-faced and bouncing and he kept looking over at me hesitantly like aw jeez kid fuck off

anyways I finally managed to squeak out that I was a huge fan and asked for advice on writing, “how do I write as well as you do?” in my horrible thick German accent and broken ass English and he gave me the best writing advice I have ever received

“shit kid, stop worrying about how other people do it and just write your story”

14 years later my wife and I nearly hit him with our car because he was jaywalking

Kill

Been working on this one for a while! :D

Reaction Ficlet: The Cave

____

“Why are you pretending to be a madman?”

Ferris snorted.

Everyone abruptly turned to look at him.

“That’s such bullshit,” he muttered, in answer to their unspoken question. “He’s nyot faking this. Petelgeuse is full of shit.”

“…How can you be so certain?” Julius asked tentatively. In the corner of the room, Subaru flinched. Julius hastily moved to clarify: “I’m not taking the word of a Sin Archbishop over yours, Ferris,” he said. “And even if it had been the case that he was correct—“ His eyes flickered to Subaru, trying desperately to convey his intentions through his hunched back. “— I wouldn’t be able to fault Subaru for trying everything he could to get back to his loved ones after — that — even if the method DID end up being somewhat cowardly. …But what made you come to that conclusion?”

“Because,” Ferris said stonily. “If Subaru-kyun had wanted to fake something like this, he would have had to fool a woman with the ability to read people’s intentions —“ Crusch blinked. “— the psychopathic stalker who had been making careful nyote of his every movement for the past month —“ Rem flinched. “— and also me, the greatest healer in Lugunyica. Even one of those things would have been difficult, but all of them at once? Far better liars than Subaru wouldn’t have been capable of it.”

“Your madness is too lucid,” Petelgeuse was saying. “The crafty, deliberate way you seek sympathy and beg for love, it is quite rude to those who are actually insane.”

Wilhelm growled, looking very much as though he would like to leap through the screen and tear the Archbishop’s head clean off his shoulders for that comment.

Ram stared at the screen, a look of silent agony on her face as the horrifically tragic implications of those words sunk in to her being. Was he really that desperate for uncomplicated affection, that he might go this far to get it?

“He would’ve been desperate enough to try it,” Tivey said quietly. Nothing about his tone was accusatory: his eyes were full of sympathy. “I wouldn’t put it past anyone to give it a shot in a situation that dire, and sometimes people can surprise you.”

“Nya think I’ve nyever had to deal with a patient lying about being sicker than they were?” Ferris shot back, keeping his voice quiet even despite his clear agitation. “It is nyot difficult to tell true from false — and it DEFINYITLY would nyot be hard to do so if I were examinying him so closely, or if he had been attempting to falsely mimic something that complicated, OR if it were immediately following such an emotionyally traumatizing experience on his end, let alone all three at once.” Ferris leered at the screen, his tail lashing. “That Sin Archbishop is projecting. Subaru wasn’t faking anything.”

Tivey didn’t look convinced. “But—”

“Subaru,” Ferris interrupted, letting his tone rise to a normal level of loudness as he called out to the boy in the cage. Subaru flinched. “Were nyew faking it?”

Everyone in the room erupted into yells as his question met their ears.

“Oi!” Garfiel shouted, eyes widening. “What’re you asking here??”

“Indeed, I suppose!” Beatrice agreed, visibly enraged by the accusation.

“Over the line!” Ricardo roared, eyes widening.

“Why would you ask him that?!” Tivey cried, having kept even his own assertions at Subaru’s likely guilt quiet enough for the boy not to hear any of it.

“Ferris!” Wilhelm snapped.

“I…” Subaru stared back at him, eyes wide and guilty.

“Subaru, you don’t have to answer that,” Crusch said quickly. “I’m sorry my knight asked you something so insensitive. I’ll reprimand him for it later, please just — try to relax.”

If anything, this only made him look even guiltier, prompting him to break eye contact and stare at the bottom of his cage, hugging his knees. “I might’ve been,” he admitted. “I don’t remember much about— about that loop.”

Anastasia — one of the only ones to not have reacted to the healer’s outrageous proposal — hissed softly.

“And there nya have it!” Ferris said, voice dripping with false cheer. “Nya can’t fake something that elaborate on accident. This was all real.”

“It seems she has arrived,” Petelgeuse said, in his sing-song voice.

As if to answer him, another called out from the shadows:

“—I’ve found you.”

Rem leapt forward, morning star in hand, and the fight began.

“So she did find him, then,” Julius said softly.

“Maybe he’ll escape…?” Mimi asked hopefully.

“It won’t make a difference,” Ferris said dully. “He’s dead either way. We all knyow that much.”

“You are a band of fools to enter the domain of Master Roswaal, Lord of the Mathers Territory and commit illegal acts,” Rem was saying. “With my master absent, I, Rem, sentence you to death in his place.”

“As tattered as you appear? You should not make promises you cannot keep. To begin with…” Petelgeuse grabbed Subaru by the hair, mocking her with his manhandling of his limp body. “You have come only to take this young man away from here, so enough with your convenient excuses.”

“…ch him.”

“Eh? What was that?”

“I said, DON’T TOUCH HIM!” Rem roared, launching herself forward in earnest.

“Awfully bold of him to mock an oni with the object of her affection,” Ricardo muttered darkly.

“Please get him out of there,” Otto whimpered, staring at the oh-so-familiar cave in which his friend was trapped. “Please don’t — I know he’s going to die, but please don’t let him die THERE.”

“It is deeply regrettable,” Petelgeuse lamented. “A devotee of love to an extend such as thee… Why are your eyes firmly locked on one such as this? An effete, ignorant, disgraceful, shameless sight such as this… Truly the product of sloth!”

“What do you know about Subaru?!”

“Disgusting,” Ram growled. There was only one word for this display, after all. Take your eyes off my precious sister! she wanted to shout. But it would be useless and pathetic to shout at a memory, so she bit it back.

“Please tell me Natsuki-san didn’t internalize an insult from an Archbishop of Sin,” Otto muttered, already dreading the answer.

— Knowing what he did about the man’s self-esteem, the answer was undoubtedly “Yes.”

“He isn’t finished!” Rem shouted. “I am here. I have not forgotten Subaru’s words. I will take him by the hand and lead him away. So long as I am here, he is not finished!”

“I…” Wilhelm pressed his lips together. “…am not sure how to feel about this situation.”

“Don’t get between Subaru and me!”

“Neither am I,” Crusch muttered.

“I think it would be sweet,” Ferris said casually. “If she wasn’t also his murderer.”

Julius looked at him, concerned.

“Do not speak such words so cheaply!” Rem spat. “I already have my salvation! After that night when I should have lost it all, there is no greater than what I had that morning! That is why!”

“Ah,” Rem whispered in the present moment, having realized something important. Her eyes flitted towards Subaru, curled tightly into a ball as he sat in his cage. “So that’s how it is…”

Petelgeuse lavishes rambling praises over the oni girl as she fought. He cawed, and cried, and celebrated as she rushed forward desperately to save the boy chained to the wall—

For just one moment, she caught his eye. Time slowed down. Love filled her gaze, and she opened her mouth to call out.

—and then, all at once, her body collapsed in on itself.

Everyone in the audience fell dead silent, struck dumb with shock and horror at the image in front of them.

Rem’s eyes widened, a horrified choking noise escaping her throat.

“The Authority of Sloth,” Petelgeuse whispered dramatically. “Unseen Hands.”

Julius covered his mouth with his hand, pupils having shrunk to pinpoint dots.

“You are not permitted to run from this,” the Archbishop whispered. He extended his hand forward, guiding Subaru’s eyes. “Look. Go ahead, look. Look, please. This girl is dead. She died for love. She fought while injured, struggled against her fears as she stepped forward, and died with her desires unfulfilled. Look, please. Look at her burns. This is the result of your actions.”

Wilhelm roared, breaking the silence that had just a moment before taken over the room so thoroughly. “Don’t even suggest such a thing!” he howled, momentarily forgetting that he was watching a memory. “What a vile thing to say to a victim of your own sin!”

“It was by my hand!” Petelgeuse crowed. “It was by my fingers! It was by my flesh! But it was you, you, you, you, you, you who, who, who…killed her, yes!”

“Subaru,” Otto said desperately, turning around to face the recipient of those horrible words. “Subaru, please tell me you didn’t listen to that!”

The present Subaru was shaking, having tucked himself away so thoroughly that even his ears were no longer visible.

High above them, Rem’s body danced like a puppet on strings. There was a horrible tearing sound as her muscles ripped. “Owww,” Petelgeuse mocked in a high-pitched voice. “Ow it hurts, it huurts, the pain, the paain, save me, saave me…ah, Subaru?”

“He’s dead now!” Julius suddenly shouted, eyes fixed desperately on Subaru’s shaking body. “Subaru, he’s dead! You killed him! You took care of it, he’s gone!”

“That’s enough!” Anastasia’s yell wasn’t aimed at Petelgeuse, or the other audience members, or Subaru in his cage. “That’s enough! We get it, we understand! Now stop it, let him go — you’re hurting him!”

“Subaru!” Beatrice cried, banging her fists against the glass. “Subaru!”

Inside the cage, Subaru was having what looked like a seizure. He was shaking violently all over, his mouth was starting to foam slightly, his fingernails were digging long, bloody trenches in his arms — and he wasn’t responding to anyone’s screams as they desperately attempted to snap him out of it, his eyes glazed and his mind trapped somewhere dark and cold and full of the cruel laughter of a violent madman.

Ram felt as though she was ready to pass out. Her little sister’s mutilation and desecration, her little brother’s cruel memories, the fact that she had been nowhere near EITHER OF THEM—

“N-Nee-sama?”

Ram jerked.

Her dear little sister was staring at her, alive and well, eyes full of worry. Ram croaked something intelligible, and then jumped forward to hug her tight and bury her face in her shoulder.

The Subaru onscreen had no such luxury.

“PEETEELGEEEUUUSE!” he screamed, lunging forward to bite the Archbishop’s throat. The madman jumped back, evading his attack and letting him smash his head into the rock floor — laughing at the sight. “I’ll kill you, I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! DIE! DIE! DIE, DAMN IT—”

Even knowing good and well that such a promise had long since come to fruition, Wilhelm roared in agreement. That show of pure, unbridled rage was at once comforting and agonizing in its familiarity: comforting in that it was something the old man could understand, and agonizing in that he understood too well just how much it hurt.

—Maybe if Subaru heard his show of support, it would soothe him out of that frightened, miserable state, seizing and whimpering on the floor of his cage.

The Subaru onscreen raged and screamed and cried, but Petelgeuse merely turned away from him, as though he was hardly there at all. They would continue with the plan, he announced. Regardless of this setback, they would go forth.

He turned to the wailing, enraged, frenzied boy only at the end of his little ceremony, nothing but mild interest in his eyes for the victim of his awful crime. “If you accept the Gospel into your heart,” the Archbishop declared as he left. “Then I know you shall be saved.”

Wilhelm slammed his fist into the armrest of his seat. It splintered under the force of the blow.

—Or he would have left, except that he stopped to admire his second victim before he was gone.

“You, too, are a devotee of love,” he praised. Her lifeless body dropped to the ground with a clattering sound. “You died for love, defying your destiny with all your might. However, you lie ruined and unfulfilled, having lost the object of your love, unable to fulfill your desire with emptiness hovering all around you…because you were slothful!”

And then Subaru was alone, with nothing but the dead body of a dear friend to keep him company in the dark.

“What an awful way to treat the dead,” Crusch muttered, disgust in her eyes. Disgust for this barbarity, for this senseless violence, for this injustice disguised shoddily as the hand of fate — the Soldier King Candidate condemned it all from the bottom of her heart.

The sight of Subaru being chained and left to die in that cave made Otto want to be sick. In another life, that…

That…

“So he starves this time, then?” Ferris asked tonelessly.

Otto didn’t know how to answer that. Everyone knew what was going to answer next, after all. There was only one way this could end.

“Kill you…kill you…kill you…”

He was going to be sick.

Subaru was thumping his head into the rock, exhausted and bloodied and bruises from his efforts, and all for naught: he was still trapped and sealed in his fate. And the worst part was that he didn’t even care. “Kill you…” he whispered, eyes unfocused and blurred with rage. “Kill you…I’ll kill you…”

Wilhelm stared, a very uncomfortable feeling settling in his gut.

…Perhaps he would have felt less uncomfortable, if the present Subaru was not shivering and softly crying out in his cage. If he had been able to look upon this moment with righteous vindication. If, today, he had been fully satiated with how things turned out.

But there was something that had been lost forever in that dark place, wasn’t there?

— Had Wilhelm, too, lost something of himself that was truly irreplaceable, in that dark moment when news of his wife first reached his ears?

Julius stared at this horrible scene and thought back to the moment where Subaru had entrusted him with the death of what had been his greatest enemy. A sense of guilt settled strangely in his stomach. Had he stolen Subaru’s chance at closure, back then? What right had he to steal a moment so important?

It was your rightful duty, his mind whispered. Subaru asked you to save him and his loved ones, and that is what you did.

— The vain hope slipped through Julius’ mind, then, that the boy’s nightmares of today ended with him stepping in to whisk him to safety, once and for all.

“…Why wasn’t I there…?” Reinhard whispered.

“Petelgeuse!” Subaru cried, overwhelmed with hate and rage and grief, in a cave where nobody could hear him scream. “Petelgeuse! Petelgeuse! Petelgeuse!”

Otto would have died in that cave, once upon a time. Perhaps he had, even. Had this Subaru just taken his place?

Ram gripped her sister tight.

Garfiel gripped his own knees, wanting nothing more than to launch himself forward and free his friend from that disgusting place. But this was a memory, and he could do nothing but watch.

Beatrice wasn’t even watching anymore, too busy calling out to the seizing boy who couldn’t give her a response.

And Emilia—

There was a noise. A subtle movement. Subaru raised his head to look, his eyes fixing on a truly gruesome, miraculous, horrific sight.

“No fucking way,” Garfiel gasped.

“Rem,” Subaru whimpered. Then, louder. “Rem, REM—”

He broke off, using his teeth to grab the collar of her shirt and drag her the rest of the way forward. For somehow, Rem had survived her brutal treatment at the hands of the Sin Archbishop — and even with all her limbs mangled and broken like those of a doll, had managed to crawl towards him in the dark of the cave.

“Oni strength is nothing to sneeze at,” Wilhelm muttered to himself.

Julius could only stare in awestruck, speechless horror.

Rem coughed out blood, spilling all over the manacles.

“Rem—!” Subaru whimpered, but Rem was too focused.

Too focused on — something — to respond.

“Hu…” she whispered. “…ma…”

At once, the blood that Rem had coughed up froze within the manacles. At once, the manacles broke apart, bursting from the inside.

Ricardo whistled lowly. “Smart,” he commented.

“Rem…wait,” Subaru begged. “Rem, wait, do…”

“Live…” Rem whispered. “I…lo…”

And then she was dead in his arms.

Ferris exhaled slowly through his teeth.

The wails of grief echoed from the metia and throughout the theater: long, high-pitched, punctuated by heaving gulps for air, and utterly heartbreaking.

Slowly, as she listened to someone mourn this loss so completely in her stead, Ram began to loosen her hold over her beloved sister. Slowly, she sat up again.

Rem squeezed her hands comfortingly. Ram took a deep breath, and then let go.

The sun was bright as the pair exited the cave. One of them was walking. The other rested limp in her arms, never to wake up again — not in this life.

Subaru smiled, eyes dull and faded. “Let’s go, Rem.”

Ram swallowed.

Eventually, somehow, the boy arrived back at the Mathers Estate. He was too late. The village had already burned to a crisp.

Snow had started to fall.

“Petelgeuse…” Subaru hissed.

“The snow…” Otto faltered.

Subaru had frozen to death in that last loop, they all remembered that. But Roswaal had been gone, so he couldn’t have caused it — and none of the Witch Cult had any sort of fire magic that could do the same.

So who — or what — had been responsible for it?

There were bodies. Old man, young woman, the man who gave him a sword, the lady who had flirted with him that first day — none had been spared. Each body found was more gruesome than the last.

“Petelgeuse…” Subaru snarled.

If Subaru were to lose sight of his rage, he would lose his mind. This was a situation that Wilhelm knew intimately — but he had never seen it from quite this angle before, and he was slowly realizing just how badly it unsettled him.

That rage, that anguish, that loss… Far from being embridled with righteous fury on the boy’s behalf, Wilhelm found himself wishing more than anything for Subaru to never have experienced any of it.

This was nothing but pain. There was no honor here.

Ram was dead, in front of the shed that everyone knew held the corpses of the village children. The bodies of no less than five Witch Cultists surrounded her. She hadn’t gone down without a fight.

Subaru fell to his knees in front of the manner proper, the snow picking up in a proper storm. His voice rose above it in a wail. “PETELGEUSE!”

The roof of the manor cracked, and broke, and the large head of a monster burst out of it all at once.

Julius’ eyes widened. “That—”

“But we all knyew that was coming,” Ferris muttered.

“SLEEP.”

—said the Beast of the End.

“ALONG WITH MY DAUGHTER.”

Subaru’s body had frozen solid. A gust of wind blew his head off his shoulders, and — finally — this loop of nightmares came to a close.

Emilia stared at the screen, uncomprehending. She had not said a single word since Petelgeuse had first shown himself in the cave. Her face was blank, her eyes glazed and dull.

Ram sat next to her, wordlessly placing her hand over that of her dear friend. Emilia twitched slightly, and then — gingerly — took her up on the offer, squeezing once. Neither woman said a word, wrapped in their own little bubble of silence.

On the other side of the room, Beatrice was sobbing, desperately trying to call out to her contractor curled up tight in his cage. More people were joining her, unable to bear the sight of Subaru melting down for even a moment longer. Ricardo was trying to tease him (“Kinda embarrasin’ ta see yerself cryin’ like a baby, right? Don’t worry, we won’t tell Emilia—”). Julius was trying to talk him up (“Subaru, it’s over, remember? He’s gone. He’s dead. You won, and everyone got out safe!”). Garfiel was trying to break the glass (“WHY. WON’T. THIS. BREAK—”)

But then, in the midst of everything—

“Subaru-kun.”

Everyone’s heads whipped around at the sound of a name being called.

Rem was smiling gently, standing by the far side of the glass cage. How had none of them noticed her getting close. “Subaru-kun,” she called out, with the exact same inflection she had watched the version of herself on the screen voice time and again. “Subaru-kun.”

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Garfiel growled. “What are you doing?! Get away from him, you psychopath!”

“Leave him be, I suppose!” Beatrice snapped, still pressed against the glass herself. “You are the last person who should ever be allowed near him again, in fact!”

“Using a nickname like that — after everything you’ve done?” Wilhelm stood up, ready to pull her away by force. “Will you never be satisfied?” he hissed. “What more will you do to that boy?”

“That’s not fair!” It was Otto who objected, leaping forward to shield the woman from the other audience members. “Rem saved his life,” he snapped, still shaking from head to toe. “She did the best she could. If you want to blame anyone for that cruelty, then blame the Archbishop that — that forced the two of them into such a horrible situation!”

“She may have helped him once, but that doesn’t matter right now!” Julius said, striding forward with the intent to remove her by any means necessary. “Subaru shouldn’t be anywhere near her and all of you know that. Rem, I must insist that you back away!”

More voices joined the fray, each louder than the last as each one — in their confusion and terror and anguish — tried to do what they thought was right. But before a fight could well and truly break out—

“Rem…?”

Everyone froze.

Subaru was uncurling slightly. His gaze was shaky, unfocused, as if nothing else in the world existed, but then it darted over to the source of that nickname that had called out to him again and again and seemed to bring exactly one thing into focus.

Just this once, Rem told herself.

The Oni girl pulled away from the others easily, slowly kneeling on the other side of the glass. “Subaru-kun,” she called out again, in that same light, warm, cheerful voice she had not invoked even once since she had awoken in that horrible theater. “Everything’s alright now, Subaru-kun. I’m right here.”

“Rem,” he said hoarsely, as if nothing else in the world made a lick of sense, crawling forward on his hands and knees like a dog. “Rem.”

Rem didn’t move. “Yes.”

Two hands, and then a forehead pressing against the glass. Subaru’s eyes widened again in distress, a keening noise escaping him as he realized once again that he could not get out — not even to reach his — his —

“R-Rem!” he cried.

“I’m here,” Rem murmured, resting her hands against the clear surface, palm-to-palm, as if she were reaching out to hold his hands. Her forehead followed, bumping gently against the spot where Subaru’s was pressing hard enough to bruise. Soft blue eyes met a set of brown on the verge of madness, and crinkled gently at the sight. “Your Rem is right here, alright?”

Subaru couldn’t reach her. Rem couldn’t hug him. But she was there, and she was smiling gently at him from the other side of the glass, and that was enough. Tears welled up in his eyes and he finally started to cry.

“…I can’t even make fun of him for this,” Ferris said quietly, watching the exchange. “This is just—” He cut himself off.

Rem, his murderer. Rem, his torturer. Rem, his savior. Rem, the girl who loves him more than anything in the world. Rem, who died in his arms with a smile on her face. Rem, the one he cries out for in his darkest moments. Rem, his very best friend.

“…Disgusting,” Wilhelm muttered.

Honestly I tried to get into Dora the explora but like media is supposed to be escapism for me and she keeps like asking me like wheres this wheres that and tbh its actually really stressful. Im not dealing with that

THANK YOU KING!!! 👑

same mike same

(ignore his hat i drew this for a twitter mutual)

Great news everyone. There was a kitten wandering in the drive thru at work and my inner warrior cats kid tried to be a hero and capture him.

I have now suffered multiple puncture wounds and have to go to the emergency room.

There is, uh, one particular scene I’ve been working on. From the reaction fic…

Reaction Ficlet: Rem

____

“…You’re kidding, right, Rem?”

Everyone in the theater seemed to freeze in place.

Emilia was the first to break the silence that had formed over them all like a sheet of ice. “…What?”

“If you do not resist, I can grant you a quick end.”

“No,” Otto said, shaking his head. “No, no. This has to be some sort of mistake. Suba— Natsuki-san LOVES Rem. He’s been trying to— for months— she can’t have—”

“It’s just a misunderstanding,” Emilia agreed. “They can clear it up, and then — I guess Subaru…meets his end in this loop in some other way. But it can’t be Rem.”

“So you decided this all on your own?” Subaru was asking nervously. “Roswaal didn’t order you?”

“I will eliminate all those who oppose Roswaal-sama’s wishes. You are merely one.”

“Man,” Subaru joked, backing away slightly. “Can’t he train his lapdogs not to bite at people just passing thro— AUGH?!”

Rem had struck him with the chain of her Morning Star.

Emilia gasped. “Rem!” she snapped. “Why would you—“

“I—“ Rem was at a loss for words.

“That was deserved.” It was Ram who stepped in. “In her eyes,” the older sister said, “a strange man had just insulted her liege lord to her face, after demonstrating himself to be a threat. Smacking him once for the offense — that was warranted, Emilia-sama. …It’s not like she hit him very hard, in the first place.”

Emilia bit her lip, but — however uneasily — conceded.

Crusch blocked Wilhelm before he could finish getting up, his eyes already growing hard at the sight of that one vicious blow. “Wait,” she ordered in a low voice. “Let’s…Let’s see how they handle this.”

“…Understood, Crusch-sama.”

“That’s how little you trusted me?”

“Yes.”

Onscreen, Subaru’s eyes watered.

“Rem,” Emilia pleaded.

“—I don’t wanna hear it! Take this!” Subaru whipped out his phone, flashing Rem with several flashes of bright lights in quick succession. When she flinched backwards, momentarily stunned, Subaru took the opportunity to bowl past her and start running.

“He didn’t use the knife??” Otto pointed out, bewildered.

“Of course he didn’t,” Beatrice said. Her voice sounded odd. “He loves her.”

Subaru didn’t get far before he — tripped over something, and suddenly fell on his face. “Oomph!”

And then when he looked down, his leg had been sliced clean off. He screamed.

“Subaru!” Beatrice cried out. Her eyes were not on the screen, but on the boy in the cage. The boy who was currently curling into a ball to cover his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. The spirit lifted up her skirts, rushing over to sit by his side, pressing her hand into the glass. “Subaru, I’m here! Betty’s here, okay?” The glass was in the way. She couldn’t reach him. “Subaru!”

“Mana of water, heal this body.”

“O-Oh!” Emilia said. She was relaxing slightly. “Maybe— Maybe you can talk now? It’ll be fine.”

Wilhelm was rigid, clenching his knees until his knuckles turned white. Julius’ face had grown pale. Ricardo’s eyes were growing wide. Felt raised her hands to her mouth in horror. All those who had seen true viciousness — through time as a knight, a mercenary, or otherwise — slowly started to understand what was going to happen next.

“She didn’t…” Ferris whispered, face ashen.

“Rem,” Subaru said hopefully. “You’re…?”

“I will not be able to ask you anything if I let you die so easily.”

Emilia’s smile faded. “…Huh?”

“I ask you, are you working with one of Lady Emilia’s rival claimants to the throne?”

“…My heart belongs to Emilia.”

Rem swung down her chain.

It wasn’t quick.

It took a few seconds for many in the theater to realize what exactly it was that they were watching. But they all pieced it together, in the end — and even after they understood the situation, it continued before their eyes. Slowly, everyone turned to stare at Rem, horror and disbelief etched so deeply into all of their faces that the feelings may as well have been engraved into them from the start.

“He loves you,” Emilia choked out. “Su— Rem, Subaru LOVES you. How could you…?”

The amnesiac Rem, who could not remember even the final timeline of events, stared helplessly back. The despair of the others was multiplied tenfold in her pale blue eyes.

Emilia wasn’t having it. Horror and betrayal gave way to a surge of rage. “Answer me!” she demanded. “Don’t just sit there — tell me! How could you do this to him? How could you hurt him like this? How could you make him cry—“

A squeal echoed over Emilia’s words as the Rem onscreen landed a particularly vicious strike against Subaru’s back.

“—why??” Emilia sobbed.

“I don’t know!” Rem said desperately. “I don’t know — that’s not me! I never — why would I ever do something like this?! I didn’t! I wouldn’t!”

“You did,” Crusch said. Her voice was cold and sharp like steel, with the sort of anger that could be mistaken for calmness if one wasn’t paying attention. The other camps were keeping quiet, watching the Emilia Camp with stares that slowly turned to ice as they waited to see if they would handle their own, but something about Rem’s refusal had apparently crossed a line. “A version of you — did.”

“Captain hasn’t stopped trying to wake you up since you fell asleep,” Garfiel growled, a dangerous undercurrent to his voice the likes of which none of them had heard since the Sanctuary Incident. “He’s been so worried about you. He cares for you so much, and— you—“

Otto pressed his lips together and said nothing. Nobody could tell what he was thinking.

“I don’t remember—“

“Rem.”

It was Ram who spoke up, with the sort of coldness that made her usual scathing comments look sweet and gentle by comparison. Rem turned to face her, eyes wide and lips parted.

“—I love you,” Ram interrupted, before she could say anything more to defend herself. “Because you are my sister. But it is because I love you that I cannot allow you to back away from this. This is not a sin that gets erased by your lack of knowledge. Even if you do not remember this…” She took a shaky breath. “Subaru does.”

Rem swallowed.

“…Nee-sama,” a quiet, shaky voice interrupted. “You shouldn’t talk like that to your sister.”

Ram froze.

Subaru was watching their argument from his cage, a smile on his face that clearly was supposed to be casual and lighthearted, despite how badly he was trembling and how it clashed with the tears beading at the corners of his eyes.

“Subaru—“ Beatrice pleaded, her hands on the glass as she tried desperately to quiet him. “Subaru, you don’t have to—“

“Rem was— Rem was right,” Subaru said. “I was suspicious. I snuck around the estate without telling anyone what I was doing. I stole a knife, and spied on everyone from the woods nearby. She was right to—“

His onscreen counterpart cried out, voice raw and breaking from the constant stress. “Mana of water,” Rem’s voice repeated. “Heal this body.”

Subaru swallowed, shaking even worse than before. “…to be suspicious.”

Rem made a strangled, horrified sort of noise.

Nobody else spoke for a long, long moment, the air permeated only by the sounds of angry demons, and chains, and cries of pain.

“—Are you a member of the Witch Cult?”

“Oh,” Garfiel gasped, looking as though he had realized something. “That’s what it is.”

“What?” Julius prodded. His voice was unusually curt, as if he was biting something back with all his might. His eyes were hard.

“C-Captain has the Witch’s scent on him,” Garfiel explained nervously. His eyes were darting from side to side. Had he—? No, no, he couldn’t have. Subaru never would have welcomed him with open arms if he — if he did. …Right? “We dunno why, but…it’s not hard to mistake him for a Witch Cultist on that alone.”

Julius didn’t respond to that at all. He turned away, going back to watching the interrogation on the screen.

“Still denying it?” Rem growled. “It is plain to see that you are involved with the witch. Her stench is all over you!” The Subaru onscreen looked at her in shock, the look of an awful realization dawning across his face. “Even if Sister or no one else notices, I can smell it on you! The leftover stench of that monster makes me want to spit in disgust!”

Garfiel didn’t look very happy at being proven right.

“I was anxious and angry when I saw you speaking with Nee-sama. You, someone involved with the one who put Nee-sama through so much, weaseling into our precious home… I have been watching you since Roswaal-sama welcomed you…but the entire time, it hurt to watch you. I could not bear it. Even if I knew that the whole time Nee-sama was taking care of you, she was just pretending to be friendly!”

“How could you say something so cruel to him?” Emilia demanded, tears in her eyes. Rem stared back at her, mute. “How COULD you? SUBARU LOVES YOU!!”

None of the other camps said a word. The looks in their eyes were enough of a condemnation.

The Rem onscreen wavered suddenly as she finally looked Subaru full in the face — only to see that he had, at some point, started to cry.

“—What the Hell…?”

“I knew it was…” he choked out. “…something like that.”

Beatrice sucked in a breath. “Subaru—“

“So that’s what it was… I knew there was some reason, behind all the kindness. But…I was too afraid to ask…”

“No,” Ram said, an oddly desperate tone in her voice that nobody had ever heard before. “No, no, Subaru, that’s not—“

“I finally learned how to peel veggies without cutting my hand,” he whimpered. “I learned how to do laundry right. Didn’t finish learning how to clean the place, but… Reading…it’s just the simple stuff, but I can do that now. I studied like I promised. I read the picture book. It’s all thanks to you two…”

Emilia sobbed into her hands.

“What are you…talking about?” The Rem onscreen looked creeped out. Uncertain.

“I’m talking about what you two have done for me…”

“I recall no such thing.”

“—Why don’t you remember?!”

Everyone in the audience flinched. The Rem onscreen flinched, too.

“What’d I do wrong?” Subaru cried. “What’s wrong with me? Why do you girls hate me that much…?” He sniffled. “Even…that promise…I always…”

“—I—“

“I always lo—“

Subaru was cut off. Some invisible force had slashed clean through his throat, cutting him off by force. His voice gurgled incoherently, bubbles rising from his mangled throat as he tried to continue his desperate plea, staring at Rem like a begging dog. Rem stared back at him, at his mangled throat.

“Who was…?” Garfiel asked meekly, but it wasn’t hard to guess.

“My sister is too kind.”

Ram made the sort of noise that nobody would have expected to come from her throat in a million years.

That was the only noise that could be heard throughout the entire auditorium, which was otherwise so quiet one would have thought that the air itself was refusing to breathe.